#i am mostly just wasting time and have 0 real interest in playing this game seriously

[yuri-is-online]

oh shit this game has blue trey clover? respect

[asterekmess]

S3A - E2

Here we go, Episode 2 of the rewatch. Honestly, even if you guys really don’t care about these, I’m gonna write them anyway, cus I need to get my FEELINGS out.

Anyway. Read More as a symbol of my love.

Thoughts:

Your pen is dry, honey. Try a sharpie.

So Stiles has literally known Heather since he was born? Nursery school is from 0 months to 5 years old, apparently. And Scott doesn’t know who she is? How does that even happen? It’s not like Stiles hasn’t seen her in ages, she recognizes him Instantly from across the room and he recognizes her back. So, Scott just never met her or asked about her or anything? Stiles never told him?

If anyone was curious, apparently Heather’s friend is named Danielle (according to Amazon Prime’s “X-Ray” thingy). She’s the same girl from Lydia’s birthday party, I think. The one who woke Stiles up? OHmygod that would be so fucking interesting. If he invited her and Heather to Lydia’s party. Maybe Heather couldn’t go, but Danielle showed up.

Awww, was Heather Stiles’ first kiss? Did they play winery as kids? Hide and seek? did they break a stupidly expensive bottle of wine?

I have personal issues with Stiles supposed canon age. I refuse to believe he’s not 17 and a year older than the others, because of repeating a grade when he was really young. I just refuse to believe otherwise. XP

PLS STOP making fun of girls asking for guys’ consent. This show would be awesome for like ten whole seconds if they stopped RUINING the girl’s asking for consent by having the guys laugh at them or treat it like a joke.

Allison, Scott’s not gonna have a single fucking clue what you’re talking about when only you hold out your arm to show the bruise.

Also. I believe in Big Dick Stiles Stilinski, bc he’s too smart not to know that wearing too big a condom is like the worst possible idea and can render it basically useless, and he wouldn’t have grabbed one (which we see he did in the next episode or something) if it wouldn’t fit. Therefore. XXL for our boy. XP

Hold up. So no one heard Heather screaming? Was she hallucinating the wine bottles breaking? Maybe it was an illusion, cus there’s no mess when Stiles gets down there? But still, the screaming is real. Scott should’ve heard screams like that even from outside the building.

Also, I feel p fucking bad for Stiles. As far as he knows, she bailed on him. What if he thought it was a prank or a joke or something? Or, even worse actually, since he’s known her for so long and she left her shoes down there, I bet he’d be worried instantly.

*snort* I looked up Derek’s loft set for research. They had to do so much editing to make it look grudgy and out of the way. This building is in the middle of town and it’s Massive and Gleaming. It’s a place where you can rent office suites. XD

I love everything about Isaac’s little venting session over getting Peter’s help, except the part where where he mentions Scott. Fuck scott. (whoops, now I need the tag. Like you didn’t see that coming?)

I find it hilarious that Peter’s intro is Rock Music. Also. “Fair enough.” I do love this man. (took me a while though.) Like, he’s honestly pretty simple to understand most of the time. He just wants people to be honest to him, say what they wanna say to his face.

Look at Peter, giving us one of the very few hints at werewolf history. Presumably, the ability was meant to be used to share memories with pack, locations of dens or images or even scents of other packs. And though mostly Alphas do it, clearly not just Alphas do it. This is fucking Interesting, I want MORE.

Aannnd, we discover that Scott’s been lying to Allison this whole time and letting her think that Derek just randomly attacked her mother. Love it. Also, I’m still not over Allison’s behavior in the last season? Waiting on an apology, hun, and it better be good.

OH. OH NOW You can sense the werewolves, Scott? SERIOUSLY?

Why do they make every single scene with Finstock have something to do with Stiles’ sex life? Like....it’s awkward. Stop. Also, can you imagine Stiles getting a rep around school for having a big dick bc of this? Is that something that actually happens in high schools? I had no friends, I would not know.

“No play.” The first time Scott decides that neutrality is better than actually doing something useful. I’m salty. *nods* yup. I am. I know what this scene does later on, and I hate it.

Also, can I just say that I literally hate that EVERY SINGLE time Stiles is having a good time, they make it Horrible? Stiles makes a lil joke about Derek being a Sourwolf? Derek gets claws through his lungs and spits blood. Stiles gets to play on the team?  Across town Erica and Boyd are being tortured. Stiles is about to have sex? The girl he’s supposed to have sex with is being traumatized downstairs. Stiles is about to play a stupid fucking game in class? He gets taken in for questioning because his friend since birth has been kidnapped. They literally refuse to ever let Stiles be happy without making him look like an idiot or an asshole for having a single good emotion. It makes me so MAD. You can literally measure the show! If Stiles is actually smiling, then someone’s about to die.

OH MY GOD. Really? Another moment we didn’t get to see? “Derek says it’s easier to turn teenagers” WHEN DID HE SAY THAT? I‘M SO CURIOUS. Also how does Stiles know what Peter and Derek tried to do to get Isaac’s memories back? Are they reporting to Stiles? Letting him know what’s up? STILES IS HALE PACK I WILL FIGHT YOU.

I’m getting really sick of Deaton somehow knowing more about werewolves than the two born werewolves. Like, it’s really fucking annoying? They know their own species, or at least they should? It was the same with Chris helping out on the hunt. He doesn’t know werewolves better than they know themselves and I’m fucking tired of it. Let Peter and Derek have their own fucking history and knowledge about their own fucking species.

*snort* i paused at just the right time and the water effect made Derek and scott’s foreheads Really big. XD

I enjoy Stiles getting distracted now that his job is done. I feel that in my soul. The only difference between us is that he has the confidence to just Grab the shit he wants to play with, and I never did so I just zone out staring at it.

I’m not stupid. I see them suddenly throwing in the work ‘risky’ everywhere. But I still appreciate Derek reminding Isaac that he doesn’t have to do the ice tub thing.

More reflections...what’s with the reflections in this season so far?

Also, is this how people sound when they’re hypnotized. I’m on Stiles’ side actually, giving this the side-eye with Isaac’s constant “They’re here” thing. It seems really weird and overdone.

God, this scene is such fucking bullshit. Derek would never put Isaac in danger like that. Isaac’s the only Beta he’s got at the moment. He wouldn’t do that and it’s fucking Stupid to make him be so vicious and scare the shit out of Isaac. I fucking hate it.

I think it’s sweet that Isaac looks to Stiles for answers when everyone’s acting weird.

Ten hours of research, and Stiles has a little pinboard on the floor, the prototype for his big one Awwwwww.

Papa Stilinski comes through ONce Again!

If they’re supposed to meet at 5 and get to work at dark. Why is it dark when they get to Dereks??? WORK WITH ME HERE.

WHY would they patch the wall (Which is stone, so wtf did they patch it with? Concrete?) if they closed the bank down right after the robbery???

IT”S THE SCENE *heavy breathing* “Big bad wolf, yeahhh, lookatdat” Peter looks SO DONE “I’ve been dealing with this for months, make it stop”

aaaand again. “Risk” Since when does Peter care about risk? I never understood this scene. We have evidence that Peter cares about family, and according to werewolves, pack is family. He flipped shit to find Derek when Derek was missing. This is exactly the kind of thing he would do. I just...I don’t get it. Don’t like it, either.

“Yeah, if you want me to come” “NOT you” I love this scene, because it shows not just that Stiles is fucking raring to go and help, but that he didn’t offer before only because he thought Derek wouldn’t let him. We know Derek doesn’t think Stiles is useless. He put Stiles in charge of researching this entire bank. Which means it’s not that he doesn’t think Stiles could help, it’s that he doesn’t want Stiles to get hurt. And apparently Stiles knows that Derek feels that way, and knows Derek is vehement enough about it that he didn’t even bother bringing it up in the first place. That’s some serious trust and understanding, and even respect right there that Stiles is showing. Understanding what Derek would feel before he did it, trusting that Derek knew better about what was too dangerous for Stiles to involve himself in, and respecting him enough not to bug him about it anyway.

personal preference, I hate how much time is wasted just showing people walk down halls with weird lighting effects, or showing Allison trip over debris and pull her coat closed. Like...it’s really not needed?

Sup, Morrell? 20 seconds to get hidden? Is that 20 sec before the alphas get in hearing range or 20 sec before they actually get there? And how did the Alphas know that Derek was coming tonight? As far as they knew they took Isaac’s memory away and killed Braeden.

KALI WEAR SOM EFUCKING SHOES YOU NASSTY.

Smart girl with the bleach. I mean, I don’t know why the sudden scent of bleach didn’t tick kali off, but sure, whatever works.

I’m not even kidding. When I saw this scene for the first time I fucking burst into tears. Just that little glimpse of Erica and I was a mess

I really love Stiles and Peter chatting though. Like, Stiles gives no fucks, and Peter sounds just so used to it. Also, Derek’s couch looks sooooo comfy. I wanna sit on it. And Peter halfway through calling Stiles annoying is just like “Shit. He’s right. Again.” and there’s no physical distance. Peter once dragged Stiles around by his neck all night and nearly killed Lydia. But Stiles has no qualms about walking right up into his space and helping him out. PLUS, when Peter realizes Stiles is right, there’s no insults. Not even frustrated ones. When STiles describes the walls of the loft, Peter doesn’t say, “No, you idiot, the bank vault.” or make a quip. He’s immediately looking to Stiles for the information and trusting that he has it and will know where it is.

Then we have Scott just...whatever the fuck he’s saying. I don’t wanna hear it.

Okay, that is way more space behind Derek and Scott than Stiles said. And how is the moonlight even getting in? They had to shimmy through a shaft in the walls, there’s no windows in the walls. AND HOW THE FUCK would the ALpHA PACK KNOW THEY EVen KNOW WHERE THE BANK IS???

Derek should be able to hear the phone call. Just. Yes. That’s how that works. Also, Peter, now is not the time for gladiator analogies.

And the tears are back. All it takes is one fucking word. “Cora?”

IT DOESN”T MAKE SENSE. HOW WOULD THE ALPHAS KNOW??? If Marin hired Braeden and told her to get a message to Derek about the bank they were being kept at, then that means that it was all this really dumb double-double cross. Her making it look like she double-crossed the Alphas by telling Braeden to give up their location, but actually doing for the Alphas to trap Derek and Scott. What the absolute fuck?

FINALLY Someone holds Scott accountable. THANK you Derek.

Also, hello Lydia, I’m so sorry honey but you’re about to enter a whole new nightmare.

Final thoughts: I’m very long winded, and very frustrated and very fucking sad. I am just so goddamn sad and the next episode’s gonna make me feel even worse so I’m taking a break.

[mannatea]

So here’s what I learned in making my very first video essay.

I’m a dumbass. I mean, why did I have to pick a movie that like, three people have even seen, and 95% of the audience hated anyway?

To be clear, I also don’t like this film, but being one of ~those~ people I feel the need to dissect it until I find all the repulsive undertones and therefore feel Justified in my dislike. (Most of the critique against this movie is like, “ummm excuse me but...Oscar is Too Woman” and I disagree with that.)

Speaking of me being a dumbass, I can admit I’m still at a loss when it comes to...the process of writing an essay for an Internet audience on a platform I don’t actively participate on. Maybe my approach should be more like an academic essay, where I write with the idea that the person reading my work already knows the source material? (But there I am, watching video essays about stuff I’m interested in but may not be that familiar with, so...idk.) 

I think the biggest issue with my script (besides the fact that it’s 17,000 words long) is that I assume the audience has familiarity with The Rose of Versailles but not necessarily with Lady Oscar. In my defense most people who have seen/read and enjoyed The Rose of Versailles have NOT seen Lady Oscar, but... I probably over-explain.  

I have an entire section dedicated to What’s Good Actually, but it wasn’t enough to make a whole essay of, so it’s framed in light of, “the issues I’ve been talking about are especially frustrating because you can see the potential in these scenes/moments.” Is this bad writing? IIIIIII don’t know. Maybe?

Davinci Resolve is Annoying. It only crashed when I kept bumping my gaming buttons on my mouse, but my god I ripped a bunch of anime episodes to use and it only recognized like, a handful of them...even though they were all...exactly the same file type...and from the same disc...UGH.

Making video essays is extremely time consuming at this length/scope. My “thesis” if you can call it that is: “Why Chess Piece Characters Suck” (basically) and not only do I beat this comparison to within an inch of its life, I also did not realize how BROAD that topic actually was. Even then, I focused mostly on just two characters (with a few special mentions) and I still had a ridiculously long script.

It also took a lot of my time. Writing the script, ripping the DVDs I needed, dealing with a full hard drive, collecting clips and images, recording the audio TWICE, editing, Photoshop work on images/essaycards/etc, more editing, and moving stuff one frame at a time took me literal days of my life. Like, over 100 hours total. Writing the script alone took me at least 24 hours.

I think the worst and most embarrassing part of all of this is that I put SO much work into something that only a few people will ever see, and I’m convinced that it looks like a teenager made it...lol. I mean, we all have to start somewhere but starting at the beginning gets harder the older I get.

I am so tired of hearing my own voice.

I kept finding issues in the audio that I didn’t like but I don’t have the time or energy to keep recording it over and over again. 

I know it’s not normal to run out of breath after reading a paragraph aloud, but I can’t help it and I don’t own an inhaler, so...I just had to Deal. I feel like everyone will be able to tell I was winded the entire time, though.

I re-recorded French pronunciations probably 30 or more times and I simply cannot make those sounds correctly. Linguistics 101: how do you make a sound that requires pressing your tongue to your teeth if you don’t have teeth? Well, usually I come up with some other clever way to do it, but it depends on the sound that comes afterward, and with so many French words I just can’t figure out something that flows naturally.

My tendinitis was aggravated by all the mouse-clicking like man my hands are stiff.

Despite all my complaints and woes, like...I don’t know. It was a waste of time I guess, but it’s not as if I wouldn’t have wasted those hours in some slightly different way anyway, either by writing fanfiction or by playing video games.

But seriously why did I pick a topic and a film that nobody cares about? I’ll get my 3 views and be grateful, but I’m starting to wonder if I did it on purpose to sabotage myself.

Seriously I have seen one real essay about this film (an academic one, no less) and ZERO (0) video essays about it. ZERO. Nobody will look for this. BUT HEY, ya can’t fail when your audience consists of 3 people who have no expectations at all. :)

[tarhalindur]

Running through the solution space for Watadamashi-hen

With Watadamashi-hen in the books and the obvious and traditional remaining question of “whodunnit?” in everyone’s heads, methinks it would be useful to see if there’s anything we can lock down for sure as constraints on possible solutions.  (Or, seeing as we’re in Gou’s version of the question arc that focuses the most on the local yakuza clan, perhaps a (forum) Mafia phrasing would be more appropriate: who is still in the PoE/Process of Elimination, and who is out of it?)

Here’s what I’ve got, under the cut:

- I do not believe we have quite enough information to say anything definitive about which sister Sonozaki is which during this arc. There’s two big questions here, and both are mostly related to the backstory: did the tattoo incident happen in the backstory as usual, and why is information about Satoshi so scarce this time around?  And both of those in turn boil down to a single issue: the level 0 answer for Watadamashi-hen (or perhaps more accurately level 3 -> level 0) is that Shion is responsible for at least some of the deaths as usual, but if that’s actually Shion during episode 8 then her behavior towards Keiichi here (especially the confession in the last episode) is hard to square with her devotion to Satoshi’s memory in OG. So the obvious questions: 1) did something happen in the backstory to switch which twin has the personality traits likely to drive L5, and 2) is there an easy explanation for why a Shion-born-Mion wouldn’t be as attached to Satoshi this time around?

The one thing I do suspect is that we only see one of the twins in Gou episode 5.  (The question is which - present!Shion impersonating her sister for the game tournament, or present!Mion impersonating her sister for the rest of the episode?   Leaning the former, but that’s not guaranteed.)

(Note: One of the theories going around is that the ending credits spoil which twin(s) are present in which episode of this arc.  I believe this is possible but doesn’t actually tell us much even if so?  The only conclusion that would give me that I wouldn‘t have arrived at anyways is that only one sister Sonozaki shows up during Episode 8 - that would rule out worlds where one of Mion/Shion is attending school at the start of the episode and then dies no later than Keiichi meeting kimono!Mion.  Other than that, as I just noted I’m leaning towards only one twin being present in episode 5 anyways, and everything else including which twin is in 5 is potentially drowned in “yes, I told you it was Mion, but did I mean Mion now or Mion by birth?” unless the tattoo incident never happened and Mion was born Mion... and in that case Mion is the prohibitive favorite for being a culprit anyways because the reasons Mion never goes L5 in OG would now apply to Shion instead, so once again it would just be confirming things I would have already suspected!)

- For each of Oryou, Kiichirou, and {Shion, Mion}, at some point, somebody had access to both their dead bodies and the Sonozaki disposal well.

This is more restrictive than it looks.  There’s really only four groups of people with even potential access to the well: a member of the Sonozaki family, another member of the Club (who could get Mion’s help, wittingly [ala Tsumihoroboshi-hen] or otherwise [Tatarigoroshi-hen]), the Yamainu (courtesy of their raiding the residence), or the police.  Of those, the only people who don’t have severe issues wrt opportunity for both the Oryou and Kiichirou murders are the Sonozakis and Rika (who might have been able to use her position as last surviving member of the third gosanke to set up a suitable opportunity to kill both of them if she went L5 or a Bern personality came out to play), and IIRC the sisters Sonozaki are the only Sonozakis with screen time while alive this arc.

The most likely permutation here is that the obvious inference from OG holds: one or both of the twins are responsible for all three of those deaths in some combination.  Looking it over... I think the second most likely possibility may actually be that the Mion who was at school during episode 8 was telling the actual truth about Rika? (#FeelTheBern)

- Whoever killed kimono!Shmion and Satoko had access to firearms, given both the death pose and the reported gunshot.

This is actually quite the restriction on possible culprits, as AFAICT there are only three groups in Hinamizawa with even potential access to firearms: the Sonozakis, the Yamainu (technically there’s also other Tokyo groups like the Banken, but only the Yamainu show up on screen this arc), and possibly the police.  (Caveat: if kimono!Mion’s gun is real, then it is possible that the culprit here successfully wrested the gun away from her and then shot her with it.)  (I wonder: is there any clear indication in the original Japanese about whether the officers who heard the gunshot heard only one shot or more than one?  I know Japanese often lacks formal singular/plural distinctions, so quite possibly not.)  I am heavily inclined to suspect the Yamainu here - I do not trust Keiichi’s viewpoint wrt Mion’s “revolver”, especially with the mismatch with the gun seen by the dead bodies, and if the shot of Shmion’s and Satoko’s body is to be believed the position of the nominal murder weapon looks really off for a murder-suicide.  (Also, they’re still on the short list of people with obvious motive to kill Satoko - if the clinic is once again “renovating” and that’s a cover for shutting down, they could be cleaning up loose ends.)

(Note: The apparent scratches on the neck of kimono!Mion’s dead body are quite interesting, because we get a clear view of that side of her neck during the confession scene and at that point there is *no sign* of said scratches!  Now, it’s possible Keiichi was hallucinating the lack of scratches, but that’s rather atypical for late-stage HS hallucinations; otherwise, those scratches must have been infliced during the events leading up to kimono!Mion’s death.)

- Whoever killed Rika was either making a delayed statement and/or did not have immediate access to either the Sonozaki disposal well or the Yamainu’s resources.

This one is pretty simple.  The school septic tank is a pretty shitty place to hide Rika’s body (pun intended after the fact) - after all, only {Mion/Shion} calling Keiichi away at the last moment prevents him from finding the body within at most a few hours of Rika being reported missing![1]  It’s certainly inferior to either the well (where the police only ever get to look in scenarios where Mion, Shion, and Oryou all die; Teppei’s body is quite secure there every time its gets moved to the well in OG arcs) or where the Yamainu would hide the body (people killed in the GHD coverup as opposed to the main event stay missing - both police officers shot on the road and villagers trying to escape into the hills).  Now, it’s possible that just like in certain OG arcs the reason Rika’s body is in such a findable place is because someone is making a statement and never intended for the body to remain hidden forever, especially if they wanted the body to stay hidden just long enough to get clear first - AIUI finding a miko’s body in a tank full of human waste would be a bit of a statement given Shinto ritual cleanliness, even/especially given certain features of local Hinamizawa practice (IIRC you could find some vaguely Western analogues in some of the ways Orthodox priests were executed during the Russian Civil War).  (This probably applies at the meta level regardless, especially given that Gou translates as karma.)  If it’s not a statement, however, then the only reason to put Rika’s body there instead of a more secure location is because the better locations weren’t an option (which, in turn, could be either because there wasn’t time/opportunity to move the body to one of the better locations or because the killer just didn’t have access to such locations).

[1] - I’m not sure how incriminating that is for whichever of {Mion/Shion} was at school at the time.  Coincidence is a very really possibility there, absolutely no reason to think it can’t be when that kind of thing is de riguer for detective story red herrings.

Piecing it together, here’s what I’ve got:

Culprit 1: Responsible for the deaths of Oryou Sonozaki and Kiichirou Kimiyoshi.  Likely candidates: birth!Mion, then Rika and birth!Shion in some order (the last probably gates around Oryou crossing one of birth!Shion’s red lines, although something involving fallout from no tattoo incident is also possible).  Corner case candidates: the Yamainu, a different club member, the police.

Culprit 2: Responsible for the death of the “Shion” found in the well.  Can be the same as Culprit 1.  Probably the other Sonozaki twin, assuming that the lack of apparent marks on the body holds and noting that self-defense is a possible motive (or technically suicide + someone else disposing of the body).  Corner case candidates are once again the Yamainu and the police (but why throw “Shion’s” body into the well but not “Mion’s”?),

Culprit 3: Responsible for the death of Rika Furude (or at least for moving her body to the septic tank - I suppose it’s technically possible that Rika left the stage on her own ala Meakashi-hen).  Likely candidates: Satoko, birth!Mion (iff the septic tank was a temporary solution until she could safely move the body to the well), Miyo Takano/Jirou Tomitake (iff one or both is still in town after all, assumes Takano no longer has Yamainu support).  Notable corner cases: Rena, birth!Shion (self-defense? plus birth!Mion caveat).  Other corner cases: Keiichi (iff unreliable narrator manifests as him killing Rika offscreen, which is unlikely but possible), someone else around school (Chie-sensei after Rika insulted curry?), the police.  Probably not the Yamainu; they might have motive but I find it hard to believe they’d leave Rika’s body where it was.

Culprit 4: Responsible for the death of Satoko Hojo.  Not necssarily also Culprit 5, depending on exact events (the notable world here is “kimono!Mion kills Satoko and is then killed by the Yamainu in turn”).  Likely candidates: kimono!Mion and the Yamainu, in some order (kimono!Mion has self-defense as a possible motive given those scratches).  Less likely: Satoko herself (suicide).  Corner cases: the police, Rena (if she somehow dodged the security cams or Keiichi was hallucinating those), Takano/Tomitake (likewise).  Alibi’d: Rika (dead), Keiichi (in the cell).

Culprit 5: Responsible for the death of kimono!Mion.  Likely candidates: the Yamainu, followed closely by kimono!Mion (suicide) and Satoko in some order.  Corner cases: the police, Rena, Takano/Tomitake.   Alibi’d: Rika (dead), Keiichi (in the cell).

[dumb-american]

The Rebuild of Final Fantasy VII: Your Expectations Will (Not) Be Met

I apologize for the stupid title and I promise I’m going to talk about the Final Fantasy VII Remake, but I have to get this out of the way first. Sometime in the mid 2000s, acclaimed artist and director Hideaki Anno announced that he was going to remake his beloved anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion the way it should have been the first time, free from technical and budgetary restraints. Evangelion had a notoriously strange ending when the original anime aired, consisting of character talking over still images, abstract art, and simple animations. It was highly polarizing and controversial. Anno, for his part, received death threats and the headquarters of the studio that produced the anime was vandalized. Soon after the initial uproar Anno would direct The End of Evangelion, a retelling of the final two episodes of the anime, and that seemed to mostly satisfy the fanbase. Looking back now, The End of Evangelion wasn’t “fixing” something that was “broken,” no, it was a premonition: a vision of things to come. Why remake the ending when you can just remake the whole damn thing?

The mid 2000s also saw the birth of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII: a sub-series of projects expanding the universe and world of the video game that had “quite possibly the greatest game ever made” proudly printed on the back of its CD case. The Compilation consisted of three games, all on different platforms, and a film. First was Advent Children, a sequel to Final Fantasy VII, where three dudes that look like discarded Sephiroth concept art all have anime fights with our beloved protagonists, culminating in a ridiculous gravity defying sword fight between Cloud and Sephiroth. Before Crisis and Crisis Core are prequels that expand the story of the Turks and Zack Fair, respectively. Then there’s Dirge of Cerberus, an action shooter staring secret party member and former Turk Vincent. Were these projects good? I’d say they were largely forgettable. Crisis Core stood out as the obvious best of the bunch and I think may be worth revisiting.

As a business model, the practice pioneered by the Compilation would continue on and eventually brings us FFXIII (and sequels), FF Versus XIII (which would later become FFXV), and FF Agito XIII (which would later become FF Type-0). If that’s all incredibly confusing to you, I’m sorry, I promise I will begin talking about the Final Fantasy VII Remake soon. Suffice it to say, both Final Fantasy VII and Neon Genesis Evangelion have a certain gravity. They punch above their weight. They are both regarded as absolute classics, flaws and all. And yet, in both cases, the people responsible for their creation decided that their first at bat wasn’t good enough and it was time to recreate them as they were meant to be all along. I think this way of thinking about art is flawed, limitations are as much a part of the creative process as vision and intent. Yet, we find ourselves in a world with a remake of Final Fantasy VII, so I guess we should talk about it.

From this point forward, there’s going to be major spoilers for every Final Fantasy VII related media. So, be warned.

So, is the Final Fantasy VII Remake any good? To me, that’s the least interesting question, but we can get into it. FFVIIR is audacious, that’s for sure. Where Anno condenses and remixes a 26 episode anime series into four feature length films, the FFVIIR team expands an around 5 hour prologue chapter into a 30+ hour entire game. Naturally, there will be some growing pains. The worst example of this is the sewers. The game forces you to slog through an awful sewer level twice, fighting the same boss each time. This expanded sewer level is based on a part of the original game that was only two screens and was never revisited.

Besides the walk from point A to point B, watch a cutscene, fight a boss, repeat that you’d expect from a JRPG, there’s also three chapters where the player can explore and do sidequests. The sidequests are mostly filler, but a select few do accomplish the goal of fleshing out some of the minor characters. You spend way more time with the Avalanche crew, for example. Out of them, only Jesse has something approaching a complete personality or character arc that matters. The main playable cast is practically unchanged which was a bit surprising to me. I figured Square-Enix would tone down Barret’s characterization as Mr. T with a gun for an arm, but they decided, maybe correctly, that Barret is an immutable part of the Final Fantasy VII experience. Also, it’s practically unforgivable that Red XIII was not playable in the remake considering how much time you spend with him. I don’t understand that decision in the slightest.

The game’s general systems and mechanics, materia, combat, weapon upgrades, etc. are all engaging and fun and not much else really needs to be said about it. I found it to be great blend of action/strategy. Materia really was the peak of JPRG creativity in the original FFVII and its recreation here is just as good. The novelty of seeing weird monsters like the Hell House and the “Swordipede” (called the Corvette in the original) make appearances as full on boss fights with mechanics is just weaponized nostalgia. In general, the remake has far more hits than misses, but those misses, like the sewers and some of the tedious sidequests, are big misses. It is a flawed game, but a good one. If I were to pick a favorite part of the game, I’d have to pick updated Train Graveyard section which takes lore from the original game and creates a mini-storyline out of it.

If that was all, however, then honestly writing about Final Fantasy VII Remake wouldn’t be worth my time or yours. The game’s ambition goes way further than just reimagining Midgar as a living, real city. There’s a joke in the JRPG community about the genre that goes something like this: at the start of the game, you kill rats in the sewer and by the end you’re killing God. Well, when all is said and done, the Final Fantasy VII Remake essentially does just that. Narratively, the entire final act of the game is a gigantic mess, but if you know anything about me then you know I’d much rather a work of fiction blast off into orbit and get a little wild than be safe and boring.

In the original games, the Lifestream is a physical substance that contains spirits and memories of every living being. Hence, when a person dies, they “return to the planet”. It flows beneath the surface of the planet like blood flows in a living person’s veins and can gather to heal “wounds” in the planet. In the original game, the antagonist, Sephiroth, seeks to deeply wound the planet with Meteor and then collect all the “spirit energy” the planet musters to heal the wound. The remake builds on this concept by introducing shadowy, hooded beings called Whispers. The Whispers are a physical manifestation of the concept of destiny and they can be found when someone seeks to change their fate, correcting course to the pre-destined outcome. Whispers appear at multiple points throughout the game’s storyline both impeding and aiding the party. The ending focuses heavily on them and the idea that fate and destiny can be changed. We receive visions throughout the game which some will recognize as major story beats and images from the original game. After dealing with Shinra and rescuing Aerith, the game immediately switches over to this battle against destiny and fate that you’re either going to love or hate. The transition is abrupt and jarring. While Cloud has shown flashes of supernatural physical abilities throughout the game, suddenly he has gone full Advent Children mode and is flying around cleaving 15 ton sections of steel in half with his sword. The party previously took on giant mutated monsters, elite soldiers, and horrific science experiments, but now the gloves are off and they’re squaring up against an impossibly huge manifestation of the Planet’s will. Keep in mind, in the narrative of the original FFVII, the Midgar section was rougly 10%, if that, of the game’s full storyline. This is, frankly, insane, but I’d be lying if I didn’t love it.

The Final Fantasy VII Remake, with its goofy JRPG concluding chapter, is forcing the player to participate in the original game’s un-making. We see premonitions of an orb of materia falling to the ground, we see an older Red XIII gallop across the plains, we see a SOLDIER with black hair and Cloud’s Buster Sword make his final stand, we see Cloud waist deep in water holding something or someone. We all know what these images represent, they’ve been part of imaginations for decades. But the Final Fantasy VII Remake allows us (or forces us, depending on perspective, I guess) to kill fate, kill God, and set aside all we thought we knew about how the game would play out post-Midgar. The most obvious effect of our actions is the reveal that Zack survived his final stand against Shinra and instead of leaving Cloud his sword and legacy, helped him get to Midgar safely. I have my doubts and my worries about the future of this series. I’m not sure when the next part of the game will be released or what form it will come in, but I can’t believe I’m as excited as I am to see it.

Of course, part of me wishes they’d just left well enough alone. Remakes are generally complete wastes of time and effort. Not all, but most. Maybe I’m, to borrow a term from pro wrestling lingo, a complete mark here and I just love JRPGs and Final Fantasy VII so much that I’ll countenance close to anything bearing its name. I’ve tried my best to be as critical and fair as possible to the game and I hope that if you’re on the fence and reading this I’ve maybe helped you decide if it’s for you or not. I think the Final Fantasy VII Remake is worth your time if you’re looking for a good, meaty JRPG. It’s not perfect and it’s final act is insane, but that just makes me love it more.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like for Zack, Cloud, and Aerith to face Sephiroth in the Planet’s core? I know 15 year old me did. And he may get his wish.

[theboardwalkbody]

That’s me (in my nursing cap because it’s my most recent photo and capping ceremony was cancelled so I took pics in my house to send to nursing school buddies instead): Amanda - meme - Manda 28 NJ Tired AF And bored so I am answering this Ask Meme I found by @myautisticjournal​

What music have you discovered or listened to lately?

I’ve been listening to my Recently Added playlist on iTunes. Only “recently added” has been adjusted to include the last 28 months. lol But I did discover Blinding Lights by The Weeknd and that song’s been making me happy. Hurricane (Reimagined) by I Prevail has hit me in the Depress and next week The Used’s new album comes out so I’m waiting for that.

Have you made any new playlists since quarantine times? If they’re on Spotify, maybe drop a link?

I haven’t made any Quarantine Playlists because ALL my music is about being isolated and depressed anyway that like... what’s the difference? 

Make a three-song-minimum playlist of songs that make you happy!

Blinding Lights // The Weeknd (also makes me think of Data because I discovered it around the same time I started watching TNG so now they Go Together) Paradise Lost // The Used Dance Monkey // Tones and I

What’s your go-to show that you like to binge watch? Why do you like that show?

Currently its Star Trek TNG - because Data And One Day at a Time because that shit hits real. 

Are there any shows that you‘ve been planning to start watching? Why do they interest you?

It was just Star Trek and I did start watching. Interested because I wanted originally to watch ST Picard because Harry Treadaway but having never seen any ST before it didnt make sense (obvs) so I went back and started watching TNG. I didn’t want to start with the original series because honestly my attention span is garbage and I just was always curious about Data and so I started with him.

What movie(s) always comforts you?

Twister, Forrest Gump, The Lion King (1994). I’m currently wearing Lion King pjs lol. Pirate Radio is a relaxing feel good movie, too. 

Are you an arts-and-crafts person? If so, what types of art/craft do you enjoy?

I try SO HARD to be lol. So far during quarantine I’ve tried crochet, I’ve tried making string bracelets as if it was 2005 and I was in 8th grade again but I forgot how to make them and my brain refuses to re-learn its too full of music, nursing school, and data now. I tried coloring and lost patience. I have been working on a Quarantine Photo-Journal. Every day I post a tiny update and a few pictures (mostly memes since i cant leave the house and several Data photos lolololol) but my printer isn’t working right all of a sudden so I can’t print out any new pictures which I guess that one project I was really enjoying is out the window.

Do you have any planned projects to work on during self-isolation? If you’ve started any and you’re willing, share a photo of what you’re working on!

Here’s a pic of page like 3 or something lol

If you had to recommend an art or craft for people to get into, what would you recommend and why?

Man. Just do what makes you happy. I saw someone on TikTok making GIANT ass Worms on Strings and honestly. Pure genius. 

What are your favorite YouTube channels? Why do you like them?

Achievement Hunter. Rooster Teeth. Markiplier. They make the funny. Various ASMR channels. They make the sleep.

What is the weirdest YouTube video you’ve ever watched?

Conspiracy Theory videos probably. I don’t really know. 

Recommend a book or book series to read!

Across the Universe trilogy by Beth Revis read it and fangirl with me I am so alone.

Are there any books that you’ve read multiple times? If you could re-read a book that you loved as if it were the very first time, what book would you choose?

The Islander by Cynthia Rylant. I don’t know why but the first time I read it it just transported me into the middle of it and it was amazing (I was like 11) and it was so mysterious and everything. I’d like to read that one like the first time. Also Living Hell by Catherine Jinks did a similar thing 

What’s your favorite book genre? Why do you enjoy it?

Science Fiction. Because I like science. and Fiction and space and robots and things. 

If you were to write a fanfiction about your own life, how would it go?

LOL The tags would be like : #depression #anxiety #ptsd #childhood abuse #adulthood abuse #i miss having sex but at least i dont wanna die #except i still do #twsuicideideation #badluck #dontread lol

What’s the best fanfiction that you’ve ever read (or the top three if you can’t choose just one )? What about it made an impression on you?

My brain hurts too much to pick a top three but I will say I am currently reading May I by @ladyfogg​ and it’s been giving me the squishy feels and I am loving it and ya’ll should read it. Her OC is relatable and also inspiring and I think at this point I don’t need to mention Data anymore. (But I did). 

Do you listen to podcasts? What kind of podcasts do you listen to?

Off Topic podcast and used to listen to RT podcast when Burnie was still on. IDK what kind of podcast that is other than ‘usually wild’ 

If you could make your own podcast, what would it be about and who would you invite to make a guest appearance?

It would be about anything and everything. I’d invite anyone for an appearance lol

Are you addicted to Animal Crossing: New Horizons? If yes, what’s your favorite thing about it so far?

Yes. My favorite thing has to be CUBE. CUBE I LOVE CUBE. I WOULD DIE FOR CUBE.

If you had to recommend ONE video game, what would it be and why?

Cube. I mean, Animal Crossing. 

Have you tried any new recipes lately? If yes (and if they were good), share it with the class! I’m sure everyone is as bored with the same old foods as I am by this point.

I am too lazy to cook even when I want to so I always end up getting take out or delivery. 

What is your favorite website to waste time on? (Is it, perhaps, tumblr?)

Tumbebells. (Tumblr yes)

How are you finding ways to stay connected with your friends and family? From video calling to playing online games, what would you say has worked the best for you?

Nothing. I’m sitting here wallowing in deep loneliness and it’s killing me. It’s just my grandma and my cat and that’s why I can’t go out or work (I am a Patient Care Associate and I know the hospitals could use help but my grandma is 83 years old and it’s too high of a risk for her for me to be working in a hospital and coming home from there). 

If you have pets, first of all share some photos! Second, how have you been spending your time with them?

LOLA. L-O-L-A LOLA. LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LOLA She doesn’t leave me alone. Her new trick has been LAUNCHING her 7lb body on to my back while I’m standing and pretending she’s my goddamn backpack. And earlier today she decided to pull the socks out of my sock drawer. Because she loves me. 

Share your general quarantine experience so far. How are you handling it?

Bad. I often forget to take my meds, we’ve been on “spring break” from nursing school this week so I have 0 sense of time and no routine and I’ve sometimes been going to bed at 4am, sometimes 4pm, sleeping until like 9-11 regardless and I spend 95% of the day in bed. I can’t be bothered to change, sometimes can’t be bothered to really eat, and I care 0% about showering and Doing Anything. lol 

I mean it’s been great guys. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba I’m lovin’ it!

I did somehow loose 2lbs without trying tho. That’s a total of 7.8lbs lost since March. Only 125 more to go BUT THE GYM IS CLOSED AND IT HAS BEEN COLD AND RAINING.

I’ll shut up.

I tag @lyrslair​, @ladyfogg​ @datalaur​ and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it even tho its really long and I fucked up the layout so instead of 25 questions they’re ALL NUMBER 1. lol 

[amysubmits]

Hi :) I am going to tell my guy that I want more spanking, we have it a little bit, sometimes. But I want to ask if we can incorporate it more into our sex life as well as possibly as DD. I’m having trouble with the wording though.. How did you approach the subject with CD? Do you have any tips on how to say something like that without feeling like an idiot? 🙈

Hi!

AAAAAAAAAAH just reading this took me back to all those feelings I had when trying to tell CD. My belly feels funny. 

With you already doing some fun spanking, asking for it more often is rather likely to be a yes I would guess. If you decide to ask for this but not to ask for domestic discipline yet, then maybe consider that instead of just asking for ‘more’ maybe consider admitting how big of an element it is in your sexuality. I think if I would have been able to tell CD that spanking was my primary fetish, or that I liked spanking because I liked feeling like he was in control, he would have started to understand so much more about me than he did based on me simply asking for spanking. 

Like you’ve done, I started out by telling CD that I liked spanking. His reaction to that was mostly excitement. If I’m being really honest, I think it was his first clue that perhaps I wasn’t 100% vanilla sexually and that was what excited him more so than the spanking itself. But, all I said was I liked spanking, so he assumed I wanted him to smack my ass during sex which is not my jam. When I realized that just a few slaps on the ass during sex didn’t excite me - that I didn’t “really”  like spanking. That I just liked the idea or fantasy of it. Which in the end, did not end up being true - but I believed that for a long time. So, that kept me from bringing up spanking again for a long time. At some point, I recognized that when fantasizing about spanking it was never about being spanked during sex. In my head, the fantasies were always being spanked ‘for real’. I still didn’t know what domestic discipline was, so I think at some point I tried explaining to CD that the reason the ‘during sex’ swats weren’t working for me was how they didn’t feel ‘real’. He suggested role play to make it seem ‘real’ and we tried it once but I was way too shy and awkward and..yeah. No. Not for me. So then we were both thinking that I just liked the idea of spanking and not the reality of it. So we were just stuck for a long time. As in, literally a few years of 0 progress. 😂 In the end, what I learned was that if he just playfully swats my ass during sex, I don’t feel particularly dominated. Of course, this is not true for everyone, it’s just me. For me, if he is just swatting my ass during sex to turn me on, well it just doesn’t feel like he is ‘in charge’ really and I need it to feel like he’s got consensual, but serious, not playful, control over me for it to make me feel submissive. 

Unfortunately, I don’t remember any real specifics on that first DD conversation, but I can share the gist of it. We wound up having a few talks about DD within a few months span so I may be confusing what we talked about, when. So if this slightly contradicts old blog posts I promise I’m not trying to lie in either post I just am too old to remember all the details perfectly. 😂

It was about 4 years ago. I know that I admitted to him that I had found forums for domestic discipline and that it felt ‘right’ to me. I may have tried to explain how I thought it may be the answer to getting spanking to be real and therefore work for me instead of feeling fake. Understandably, he was really confused. He thought that on one hand, I was asking him to be my disciplinarian “for real” (I was!). Yet because I had brought it up in connection to how our past erotic spanking and attempts at role-play had failed - he thought this was just a really complicated way to roleplay without it feeling like role play. He is really not into the idea of bratting, in the sense of breaking rules on purpose to get punished. To the point where even from this very first conversation he explained that he had zero interest in creating rules that would be set up just for me to break. He explained that he wasn’t opposed to the idea of truly disciplining me, but that it was going to be taken seriously if we did this. I tried explaining to him that I thought that was my goal, too. I didn’t want to create rules just to break them, either. I wanted to please him. He explained how he worried that it just wouldn’t work out that way - he thought knowing I could get spanked for breaking the rules would encourage me to break the rules because I like the idea of spanking. He asked me what types of rules I thought might work. I threw out two that I had seen over and over on DD forums - a spending limit/budget, and a rule about not lying to him. This was my biggest mistake in the whole conversation, I think. The reason being that I’ve never had a problem with overspending or lying. So in his mind, me suggesting this rules made him think that I really was just looking for rules to break, and he already had that suspicion, so it just confirmed it in his mind. He had NO interest in me lying to him or wasting money (of course!) so he refused those rules and asked for others. I wasn’t able to think of any and neither was he so we just left the conversation there. I kind of felt like the conversation was both a win and a loss. My biggest fear going into the conversation was that he would be judgemental and feel like I was a freak for wanting rules and punishments. He seemed generally open to it, which was a big relief and felt like a win. On the other hand, I felt like he was almost open to DD in general, but not really with me, because of my spanking fetish. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to convince him that I would take DD seriously, but I strongly believed I would. Seems how he did not reject the idea, we would talk about it here and there from then on. Maybe 3 other conversations in 6 months following that first one? 

I know we talked at some point about how we both recognized that I was always eager to please him. I explained how women in the domestic discipline forums explained that being taken in hand for punishment felt bad because it displeased their HoH (aka Dom) and how I thought displeasing him would make me feel guilty enough to ‘ruin’ the excitement of spanking for me. We also talked about how my pain tolerance was low, so I thought he could pretty easily spank me too hard for it to be enjoyable. We continued to circle around the “problem” of not knowing what rules would work for me because all the ones I saw on DD forums were for things i did not do - lying, wasting money, speeding, getting poor grades, being late to work, and so on. Just for the record, during this time, he seriously, I swear, said “You are too good already. You don’t need any rules.” I like to remind him of that now.  😇

But seriously, what he meant was - I wasn’t doing anything that was obviously damaging to myself or our relationship. He did not think I was ‘bad’. So about six months passed, and then we started DD, suddenly - at his request, because he realized I could have a rule to improve myself, even if wasn’t exactly ‘bad’.  I lost my debit card one day, which was something I did often. We found the card in one of my pants pockets in the hamper. Again, a common experience because I forget that I left a card in my pants and just take them off. So he just came to me and said that was going to be a rule - that I had to return my debit card and ID to my wallet as soon as I was done using them. If I lost my cards or if I left them in a coat or jeans pocket I would be punished. 

Honestly, some part of my brain kind of yelled ‘That’s so weird! That isn’t a DD rule..’ but I was so excited that he was on board with starting DD that I couldn’t care too much. In hindsight, I’m so glad I just went with it. I feel like it’s important to let him lead in the ways that he feels called to, not just to push him to lead in the way that I envision. 

After giving me that new rule, he made it clear that we were trying DD. He was not saying we were definitely going to do this longterm. He was still worried that I would break the rules on purpose to get spanked, and I knew that he would call it quits if he felt like it was just a game. I remember being in the store together, and him watching me carefully put my cards back into my wallet as soon as the cashier gave them to me and him having this satisfied expression on his face. I could tell he really enjoyed seeing me work on correcting a bad habit, to be good, to please him. Of course, eventually I forgot and was punished for that rule but it took long enough that he had already seen that I was clearing putting effort into correcting the bad habit so that largely helped erase the fears of DD being a game. 

Whew. So I guess, my advice is to try to explain your motives as clearly as you can. If you want DD to be a way to truly correct your behavior and not something you do for kinky fun, make sure he understands that. Perhaps have some blog posts printed or send him links so he can read some examples of how it works for other couples. But, keep in mind that he is his own person and you want him to be his own type of Dominant so while it’s okay (and good!) to let him know what you like, make sure you aren’t expecting him to be some character you’ve read in a book or some other Dominant you’ve read about online. In my opinion, it’s actually a good thing if he refuses to do some of the things you like because it means he’s standing up for being himself and not letting himself be pushed into your exact idea of a Dominant. You don’t really want him to turn into someone else, you want to find a way to blend DD into the relationship you already have, so that you maintain your personalities and the connection you’ve already had, and just blend DD into that. I know sometimes that’s a problem early on in D/s or DD, is the person who did not bring up the idea feels like they are being pushed to be something they aren’t. So try to make it clear to him that you feel like he is dominant already (give examples of how you see natural dominance/leadership in him or in your relationship already if possible), and that you just want to help that blossom, but that you like who is already is and you aren’t trying to really change him. 

Also, try not to sweat over getting a specific ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a single conversation, necessarily. It’s okay if he has questions and concerns and needs time to process and read and learn. It took CD about six months to come around on it, which I thought was a bad sign during that six months, but of course, I don’t feel that way now. You’ve read about DD so it doesn’t seem like a brand-new concept to you, but it will to him - so if he needs time to read and process and understand, that isn’t necessarily a sign that it’s not for him. It’s also not necessarily a bad sign if he says yes to some of your ideas and no to others, as long as the ‘no’s are to things that you dont’ find truly essential to your idea of DD. It’s a very good thing to negotiate and find a style that is meaningful to both of you. 

I don’t remember a whole lot of the specifics of what I said, unfortunately. But I do know that my communication was imperfect in multiple ways, which is part of why we had to have a few conversations to work out details (like the rule problem). So I think that goes to show that even if your wording is imperfect, or there is some miscommunication, you can have additional conversations in the future to help clarify and find solutions to problems or concerns together. I don’t think the perfecting wording could make someone who isn’t cut out for DD like it, and bad wording won’t prevent it from happening if it’s right for you both. I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to sweat every word. :) 

Another common thing I hear in general is discomfort and/or worry on the D side that they are being asked to be ‘mean’ or aggressive. If you use words like Dominance when talking to him, I would recommend explaining that you aren’t looking for a sadist from a porno - especially if you are talking about this as a full-time “lifestyle”. Many will worry that they are expected to be an asshole all the time if you want a full-time Dom. Assuming that he doesn’t enjoy being an asshole, that may concern him so try to explain what kind of dominance you like and how he fits into that vision of dominance already, as he naturally is. 

Some blog posts of mine that you may find helpful:

Leading His Way

Not A Game

Beyond Punishment

Hearing Her Cry (This is Cd’s)

Night And Day

Erotica & Consent (or my vision of DD before I lived it)

Also our first podcast episode covers the beginning of us dating through when we started these blogs so about a year or two into DD. So it covers how we started DD. 

https://soundcloud.com/overtheknee/how-we-got-here.

Also this tag on my blog is for blog posts from anyone I’ve reblogged that I think may interest people who are working to transition from “vanilla” to D/s (at least in the sense of not intentionally/purposefully having D/s) to intentional D/s . 

http://amysubmits.tumblr.com/tagged/vanilla-to-d%2Fs

Good luck! I’d love it if you’d update me on how it goes.  😊

[thenichibro]

Summer 2017 Anime First Impressions

Well here we are again, four weeks into the season before I finally get around to catching up on the twenty shows I’m keeping track of. Not like anyone reads these anyway. Regarding this season, we can say one thing: at least it isn’t last season. Thus far there’s been nothing super stand out, with a lot of middle-of-the-road shows and a few ones slightly better. Much preferable to the shit show 16 weeks ago. As usual, here’s what I’m watching, with MAL links and original shows marked:

Tsurezure Children (MAL) Starting off, we have a webcomic turned serialized manga turned anime, and for good reason. Tsurezure is a 4-koma romcom focusing on way too many couples in bite-sized happy romance stories. Defined by reaction faces, exclamation points, and yet a surprising amount of exposition, it's a quirky comedy I glad I started reading. One of the main downsides of Tsurezure is that although it has overarching themes, minute-to-minute enjoyment is very much based on the current couple. Personally, I love the Class Prez/Deliquent, Chiaki/Kana, and anything with the Love Master. The problem, then, is that once you find the few you really like, it's kind of a shame you only get so much time with them. A simple art style that matches the manga belies an infectious humor that Toshiya has mastered. This is one short show I wish was longer. Watch this.

Aho Girl (MAL) Continuing the notable increase in half-length shows, we have this half-witted one. Aho Girl, lit. "Clueless Girl," follows Yoshiko, an idiot, and her friends(?), mostly childhood friend Akuru, trying to deal with her idiocy. A suitably odd OP, both in sound and visuals (or relative lack thereof), leads into Yoshiko's introduction through getting a 0 on all her tests. I guess that confirms the title, now doesn't it? Tsukkomis, wild attitude swings, and bananas are the name of this show's game. One thing I love right off the bat is just how blatantly annoyed Akuru gets with Yoshiko's antics. It's not hard to see the "he's supporting her because he does feel something," but that being shelved in favor of faces of disgust is just funny on a very essential level. This show knows exactly what it is, a dumb comedy about a girl being dumb. And yet it's dumb fun all the same.

Isekai Shoukudou (MAL) A somewhat restrained take on the well-worn isekai genre, Shoukudou involves Nekoya, a resataurant that serves fantasy creatures once each week, connecting to "the other world" through the restaurant's front door. Right off the bat, the upbeat OP is coupled with some fantastic visuals. I missed having a food porn show last season, but Shoukudou brings it back in force. Further, throughout each episode the background music keeps pace with events and is a very nice touch to the cool tones of this show. Indeed, this show absolutely exudes cool. The smooth tunes while the last few customers (albeit they being beastmen, wizards, and the like) finishing their orders, Aletta and the Master cleaning tables into the night, it's just so nice. Aletta is the new hire, a demon girl homeless in "the other world" who finds the door to Nekoya by happenstance and promptly gets a job and a new outlook on life. She's real cute. Shoukudou has plenty of the "customer narrates the intricacies of how good the food is" every time a new customer comes in, but it's great all the same. If this show is a slow introduction of new characters to Nekoya for the rest of the run time, I will be more than satisfied. AOTS contender right here. Satisfied with an isekai? What is this season coming to?

Koi to Uso (MAL) Marraige is arranged genetically for happiness at 16, and other love is forbidden. As if there was a premise that lent itself more to a high school romance-drama. I have to say, I am in absolute disbelief that Koi to Uso isn't penned/drawn by the same creator as Scum's Wish. The artstyle and really the whole tone, albeit Koi to Uso being a bit more restrained, I immediately thought it was the same author. Wild. Anyway, we're dropped into a modern Romeo and Juliet, Nejima and Takasaki confess, to each other, just as the government - the external circumstances - are pulling them apart. It's not a new path forward, but I think the latter half of the first episode conveyed the emotions pretty well. The beautiful artstyle helps, and with shaking hands, red cheeks, and streaming tears the ending scene got me into it, despite the expected outcome. ...Is what I was thinking as Nejima fucking fell on top of Ririna (his assigned wife) in the second episode. Why. Why do that? Why have that 6 seconds into the show? At least the girls are cute - Takasaki in a hoodie, shorts and thighhighs was just incredible, but Ririna with her curious eyes and attitude beyond her height, hoo boy - guess I'm rooting for the underdog now. Time to suffer. With Ririna's schemes, Koi to Uso is perfecting anxiety - having something so treasured so close, being trapped by things out of your control, being trapped by things inside yourself - so much anxiety. This show can't go anywhere except emotional turmoil, but if it's already getting emotional responses out of me, I'm going to stay interested. Especially after episode three's ending.

Netsuzou TRap (MAL) Yet another shorter-than-normal show, we have NTR. Yes, that NTR. The "fuck over the caring guy and get off on cheating behind his back" kind of NTR. Just now with lesbians. Even moreso, I dislike Hotaru's archetype so much it just makes me feel bad for Yuma. If you're into that, watch this. If you're not, don't. I don't know why I did. There are better fetishes.

Clione no Akari (MAL) The fourth and last of the short shows, Clione no Akari begins with Takashi and Kyoko trying to help Minori, who is getting bullied. Its muted art style matches this tired premise. I know it's only nine minutes, but the first episode still felt like it dragged on for some reason. Moreover, both Takashi and Kyoko reflect on their weakness and that they want to stand up to the class for Minori, but then in the second episode all of that possible growth just gets passed over. They call out to her after she almost gets splashed by a car, and then Takashi says "After that, Kyoko and I grew so focus on how we could solve Minori's current situation, it was as if it were happening to us." So after they complain about their weak personalities, instead of forcing them to change, they simply get a way to help Minori while not directly standing up to the class. It seems like if it affected them that much you'd see a bit more exposition rather than nothing to "And then, we became super close to her" over the span of fifteen minutes. It might seem like I'm asking for a lot from a 9-minute show, but that's exactly the point - if a show aims to be an engaging drama about making friends and standing up for one another, it needs to have more substance packed into its short timespan, and Clione no Akari does not.

Hajimete no Gal (MAL) And the award for "highest percentage of animation budget used exclusively for cameltoe" goes to... First, make sure you eschew the HorribleSubs release on this one, because the censoring is bad. Not Terra Formars bad, not Shinmai Maou no Testament bad, but it's not great. Now then, this is a very simple decision: you watch for the fanservice, or you don't watch at all. I'm serious when I say the animation goes to Yukana, and to a lesser extent the other girls, because the male characters (even the MC) and everything else looks downright bad. The fanservice, however, is pretty damn nice. Junichi's delusions lead into some steamy scenes that are top tier gyaru action. Other than that, the OP/ED are generic, the other girls are lackluster, and the "comedy" is unfunny. Just skip through the dialogue until you get Yukana being cute, and this'll be somewhat enjoyable.

Gamers! (MAL) A nothing main character spoken to by the cutest girl in school because she's interested in video games and especially his passion for them, despite never talking prior. Wew. Karen, said cutest girl, is attempting to bring back the school's gaming club, where real gamers play games with their gaming friends. These are serious gamers, so serious about their gaming that they forget everything else except the game, like the true gamers they are. Episode one has fantastic lines like "I've been looking for new members who are undeniably true gamers" and "Why did you guys become gamers?," like it's something you have to awaken to. And yet even in spite of this, the glorification of gaming is still going hand-in-hand with the conceptualization of "gamers" as outside normal people. Karen hasn't told anyone about her gaming passion even though she's so popular (and it's foreshadowed she'll lost her widespread respect), and Amano gets the description "Games are his friends." Every character is just entranced with Amano's gaming spirit that they can't help but want to game with him. And just like a good MC, Amano is humble and pessimistic about his own gaming passion, but stands up for the game club and the gamers that make it up. This show feels like an E3 PR rep's ideal anime. The game references themselves aren't half bad, but that's certainly not saving this waste of my time. Guess I'm just not a true gamer.

Made in Abyss (MAL) I was originally off-put by the character designs, but I am glad I finally decided to watch it. A city sits on a massive hole - The Abyss - full of ancient ruins - and our main characters are delvers into the giant void. Importantly, Made in Abyss lets us know right off the bat that it will not be all idyllic landscapes - a close call with a dangerous monster now foreshadows so much better than suddenly changing the show's tone halfway through. Background music and art style both benefit this show greatly - the music rising and falling with he action while the art easily conveys the current state of the landscape - overgrown yet hiding secrets. Riko is a energetic girl at an orphanage guild, known for swiping Relics she finds and generally causing trouble. In the tussle with the monster, she is saved by a robot boy, Reg and promptly takes him back to experiment. Just the first episode sets up tone, characters, and the mystery of the Abyss with precision. The choice of children as main characters is an interesting one, but I almost didn't think twice because the rest of the people in Made in Abyss didn't think anything of it, either. Starting with a premise that has such a clear objective, like the Abyss' bottom, also relatively anchors the show against wild plot swings, which gives me more confidence in the story going forward. All these things combined are making for quite an enjoyable experience, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Ballroom e Youkoso (MAL) Tatara is our typical despondent teen protag, who through a chance encounter is roped into trying ballroom dancing, and in it sees an opportunity to find himself. I picked this up solely on its premise, because I've never seen an anime about ballroom dancing before. It just seems so far from the typical slate that it caught my eye. This show's unique animation style, credit to Production I.G., has its ups and downs. For the most part, the show looks clean, the lines look great, and the motion is good. On the other hand, the actual dance scenes seem to lose a bit, in favor of dramatic freeze frames or showing the top halves of people rather than their legs moving or other intricate motion. I'm certainly not going to yell at the animators, for a show in which Tatara is won over by simply watching a ballroom dancing DVD, to get the viewers interested the motion, the visceral movements of the dance need to be shown, and more often than not they aren't. Oh, and the necks. Why is everyone's neck so long? Apart from Tatara, behind Sengoku's bombast lies a calculated, seriously powerful personality that is the perfect motivator for Tatara. And I don't know about you guys, but Shizuku is cuter in her practice/casual clothes than in a ballroom dress. Just my taste. Anyway, alongside the stalls in animation, I can't honestly say I like Tatara's VA. To me it just gives off the trying-too-hard-to-be-a-teen vibe too much for me to not notice it every time he speaks. While still enjoyable, these two faults are noticeable the entire time you watch the show. However, if you are interested in the premise, and don't mind animation quirks, then by all means, Welcome to the Ballroom.

[ORIG] Princess Principal (MAL) Alt history, 20th century steampunk London, and spies but also superpowers and made-up minerals, this is Princess Principal. Smooth jazz while a loli-ninja wearing a mushroom hat cuts up 20th century cars? Sure, why not? Cavorite, the aforementioned made-up mineral, allows for temporary control of gravity, allowing the girls to make their first daring escape with a VIP. Also, the girls are spying between the Commonwealth, or the West, and the Empire, or the East. Also the Princess herself is a spy. It's certainly a lot to take in immediately, but this show seems to revel in the craziness - echoing the fast-paced, spontaneous action of the spies themselves. Our main girl Ange lies to get through life, and is soft spoken and terse. The others in her immediate crew range from the authoritative onee-san to the cheerful loli. I personally feel like they could have made a perfectly enjoyable spy thriller with just alternate history and no supernatural element Take Joker Game from a few seasons ago - that even went so far as to be historically accurate in its place names and such, and aside from some same-facing was a wonderfully engaging show. While I do feel the personalities more in these femme fatales, I just don't see the "thriller" part as holding up as much. It's really not bad - I just feel my main gripe here is the overpresence of themes that don't need to be there. Still worth a watch if you don't mind it.

Centaur no Nayami (MAL) Having watched both MonMusu and Demi-chan and consequently becoming an Expert™ on monster girl shows, Centaur no Nayami is most certainly more of the former. I'll say at the very least that guys in school also being monsters is a welcome change, rather than including a harem. Hime, the titular centaur, acts just like her name. Nozomi is our sharp-tongued, tomboyish tsundere, while Kyouko (my favorite) is a terse, blonde tsukkomi. We get a surprising amount of world-building right out of the gate - the world is as it is thanks to a different evolution path, and to avoid the discrimination of the past, "equality" is aggressively and strictly enforced. The seemingly dark background behind the otherwise peppy slice-of-life is definitely off-putting, and seems immediately at odds with the tone. If while walking around town the girls maybe glimpsed an abuse or something similar, the aggressive equality mantra might seem like an understandable government reaction. Seeing nothing of the sort while hearing Kyoko not want to ride Hime because that's discrimination and she might get sent to a "correction facility" is more than a bit unsettling. Production-wise, the show looks and sounds great. Quirky music for quirky circumstances, and the motion of all the characters' different bodies is conveyed convincingly. The A/B Parts splitting the episode is something I haven't seen in quite a while, but I think it lends itself well to the SoL part of the show. Overall, this is a surprisingly endearing slice of life with a higher-than-normal amount of kissing, and I just wish they'd lay off the dramatic background. Worth a watch if you're into monster girls or slice of life more generally.

[ORIG] Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (MAL) Last but not least, we have Action Heroine - Heroines (as in those live-acted hero shows) are now super-popular, and the show follows one town that is way behind the curve on popular heroines. Immediately, I like the art. It seems like not too much more than "generic anime-style," but Diomedia has a way of doing soft lines and expressive faces that just looks great. Now I don't pretend to like hero/heroine-type premises, but even I can see this show's got remarkable heart. Spurred by her sister wanting to see Kamidaio, the current most famous heroine, Mikan, an earnest, caring sister teams up with Akagi, an energetic Kamidaio-super fan to put on a small-scale show, and the rest is history. Their first performance is carried singlehandedly by the effort the two girls put into making Mikan's sister's dream come true. Action Heroine gives off the feel of an idol show (he says, having not seen LoveLive nor Idolm@ster), with a diverse cast of girls all trying to be the best for their fans. While I don't think this show is exactly going to enjoy LoveLive levels of success, as I've said - you can see the heart it has. Some individual moments were also very strange - like a flashback where one girl loses a tennis match because a bug flew in her face, and another girl talks to her imagined anthropomorphizations of model trains. If you're into the nostalgia of hero/heroine shows, this plays right into that. Otherwise, it's a show you can pretty easily avoid.

[benefits1986]

Year 7: Final Year Na Ba Talaga?

Today, I was greeted by the watch mom gifted me with before she passed on 7 years ago. Nakakatakot. Pota. Pero it made me smile inside out. Well, after shaking my head, that is. Tomorrow is her birthday in heaven and nagpapaganaps na naman siya in her own way and style. I guess it’s one of the reasons why I hate to love and love to hate my home in Manila. It is filled with too many memories of my life’s most defining chapter.  Funny how mom never fails to let me know that while I seem to be so crappy with how I deal with my life after she passed on, she reassures me that no matter what, it’s toward the right direction. Ako lang ‘tong takot sumabak at pabebe in a way na I’d rather keep my comfort zone than to be the palovean wander and wonder girl that I am all these years. By wonder pala, I mean, laging out there for adventure and always has a hefty dose of curiosity.  The past months have been particularly interesting, the most interesting parts of my life, no matter how sedated and boring and “downgrade-worthy” they appear. The past months have been spent in Palawan then back to Manila mostly with my dogs as I prune my seven years of being stuck in a really, really bad cycle of denying myself of the bucket list that I try to postpone just because I’ve already been on a track where I’ve done more than I can inspite failing many, many times miserably.  For someone who’s strategic and really, really aware of compartmentalizing my emotions to the point of concealing them very, very cleverly and artistically, admitting that I need to take a huge step back is extremely death-defying. Notice that I use the word death-defying because for such a long time, I have denied vulnerability in order to survive a life without purpose --that is a life without my mom.  Looking back, all the doors that opened no matter how promising did not make sense. I thought back then that I do not deserve them. I thought that I am not worthy mainly because I dream dreams that have turned to realities when I lost my mom. I took so much of me even when there’s not much left of me without anyone else knowing how fucked up I am because, hey, ego over heartbreaks, right? Back then, I severely punished myself because I felt alone and cheated. Even when people tell me that I am doing a decent job or even a good one, I felt so small and so insignificant. It is because of this immense blow that I found myself OD-ing on work. Yes, work that I am kind of decent with but something that I vehemently disapprove of. I figured that every time I spent away from my family is a step toward proving something to myself --a world where my mom’s memories cease to exist, or so I thought. 

Every deadline, every goal met, every KPI delivered felt addictive. And so, it progressed to higher dosages as I found myself more unhappy, more unstable and heck, even more miserable, after the high wears off. It’s for this reason that I seem to be a weirdo when I say I hate my world and most especially my work but I keep showing up never mind the fuck ups I cause along with the chaos that is part of my strategic and creative process. Hah. So much for shit, yes? And then it progressed even more. I wanted to turn back time because I felt my mom betrayed me, hence I moved to a bigger organization in the hopes of getting into an even bigger world I denied myself of before graduation --a world where I know is tough and will eventually corrupt me, but, hell, yeah, a world that I’ve been dreaming of just because I felt that I can finally prove to my mom of all people that I’ve made it big without her help, without her approval, and without her, at all. Twisted to the core, but back then, I don’t give a shit. Really. And being the go-getter girl that I am, I managed to wiggle my way to the bigger world where I finally got face to face with even bigger matters that made the already problematic plot even thicker. The OD on work topped with a brimming social calendar and the thirst to get to the even bigger world got the best of me. I don’t even know if it’s considered the best of me when I am an autopilot mode each day because the high no longer mattered, literally and figuratively. I somehow managed to theorize that it may be because I am getting old and that YOLO is no longer part of my vocab nor my mantra. Wrong. I was beginning to see the perils of OD-ing on things that do not make me breathe and live anymore. That’s when I started thinking more and more and more and more about killing myself without anyone knowing it. Hah. That’s how fucked up I was. My reason was not that nobody loved me nor valued me. I simply wanted things to end because it’s no longer worth wasting time on. I felt that my breaths are not mine. I felt that I am taking up too much space in this already densely populated planet. And most of all, I’d like to take my chances if there’s indeed a world after this world. In short, I missed my mom and I wanted to be with her. Simple as that. No fancy shmancy shit that involves family or friends who did not look after me or watched over me. No lack of love life or dating or flirting. No loneliness. No shadows of the past. Just plain old “thank-u-next” life kind of vibe. And so, one fine day, I met a car accident, my first to be specific. And, guess what? It was a total car wreck. 

Though the car may look decent enough, thing is it’s matic, hence, the car insurance company declared that I’d rather be given a full damage claim rather than fix it. Imagine. My first ever car accident was a total car wreck. How awesome is that, ain’t it? I can never forget that day where I chose to OD once more on work. Hah. This bitch ain’t giving up back in those days. Showed up to work at 11:30 am and ended my day at around 5 am. Had decent performance that day because I was able to swing a bigwig meeting with the board of directors and our CEO and our seniors PLUS handled a trending event with co-workers while drinking and doing shamncy live social media reportage. Little did I know though that this particular OD will cause me to lose control that I thought I had all these years. You see my adrenaline is on its A-game all my life even when I lost my mom. I remember asking Manila Memorial and Trinity in the calmest and collected style if they offer 0% on credit card payments for their services. Also, I slept like a baby an hour after mom died. See? Adrenaline A-game, bitches! 

However, because I was on OD with something that kills me without me knowing it, I felt my ground shake that very early morning after my car wreck. I felt my body shut down as I quivered and felt cold sweat. Another first. I felt the pain of the whiplash I was not aware of, hence, I was shook thinking I might have unknowingly gotten a fracture. And oh, after drinking and smoking like a crazy AF kid, I discovered I had a lump on my forehead and that lump was quite big and throbbing. All these while I succumb to hailing a cab because Grab drivers think my location is out of their bounds. I cried in the cab and thank you, universe, for the driver whose face I can no longer remember. He simply assured me that everything will be okay and that I just needed to rest and calm down. He even shared that car accidents ought to be traumatic and that eventually, I’d be back on the road because I should not be intimidated by these normal occurrences. At that moment, I felt like he was Rafiki in The Lion King and that The Circle of Life is playing in the background. And I was this fucked up young Simba gone adult. 

Things seemed to be back to regular programming, inside I began to see I was rotting. I began to question why I’ve been living in a material world that I totally believe to be immaterial. I began to feel the pull all the emotional shutdowns are causing my physical stance. I began getting sick to the point that the heartburns would not allow me to get up from my bed. Flashbacks of the car wreck became random thoughts even when I try my best to go back to OD-ing with work again. And then, a glorious system failure happen. I missed deadlines. I learned the realities of this world -the small, the big and the bigger worlds. I began to see that this world that feeds me is the same world that would kill me before I know it. And that now that I finally know that this world is killing me, I am pretty much veering toward shutting it down for my sanity. Problem is I don’t want to. Problem is I choose not to know how to. Problem is I already built a life that I can’t sustain without this world. Problem is I keep making excuses because, heck, yeah. I am that strategic girl, right?  And so, I came back to a place where my dreams turned nightmares began. I somehow convinced myself that my dreams in this bubble were dreams that not only belonged to me, but were part of a grander purpose, something bigger than who I am and who I thought I am. So, after trying it out with all that I can, the OD-ing were no longer enough. I found myself in a very, very dark place that is ultimately hollow. Imagine. Dark and hollow in one go. Shit gets more and more real. I thought that if I have a dream with a dream team, things would be better and that eventually, I’d be back to regular programming. But, dreams turned realities are usually more messed up because they go beyond deadlines. They fuck up with your lifelines, big time. 

Months later, the OD-ing pulled me to a place where there is absolutely nothing except me, myself and I. Again, nobody knows this back then because I am that strategic and creative critter. Physical tolls kick in harder. The emotional turmoil escalated all the more. The self-inflicted shit fest came in handier. The deadlines kept piling up and honestly, that was the first time that I did not care at all. I thought that I was selfish, but in retrospect, that was me crying out for help not from others, but from me --the me that is still somehow breathing under all the shit pile that is above and beyond me. Of course, I was trying to solve these because I need to be fed by the world I chose to be part of, but, I failed more than ever. I had some A-game wins but the wins were at the expense of my sanity. And again, this is the first time that I am totally experience shutdowns both in the physical and the mental spheres, and I am not kidding when I say that these shutdowns make me feel more than nothing. It’s so difficult to explain, so let’s save that for another entry, shall we?  And so, I decided to make a full stop amidst everything. I just woke up one day and told myself that it’s time that I allow myself to look after myself. I just realized that I ought to be wasting my time beautifully. And that beautifully meant I am the only one to define it. For the first time in my life, I was able to let the voices inside me have a decent conversation with any trace of OD-ing on anything.  Today, I am still learning. I am still afraid. I am still figuring things out.  Today, I can say that I am back on track even if it seems like I am still lost. I can say that I finally managed to live my truths even when it seems that the world I was once in look down on me, and yes, I don’t give a shit. After all, I am still the strategic and creative girl, but now, I am also a work in progress in the name of things that make me more of the me I always dreamt of without having to run away from my mother’s memories. I am a work in progress who’s on her way to live with intent as I make more sense of how to die beautifully in my eye. Of course, I still want my mother’s approval, but now, I realized that I don’t need it. Sweet, right? 

[mtgsharzad]

GRN Prerelease Notes

WeIt’s been a while since I’ve gone to a prerelease. I think since...BFZ? But with the free Arena sealed voucher and the return to return to Ravnica, Magic’s greatest setting, I schlepped my way to the game store (after swallowing two edibles).  It’s a different store than the one I used to prerelease at. A narrow room is filled with one line of tables and barely enough space on either side of them to walk past. The counter stretches...6 metres? It’s a game store, like many and unlike many others. I showed up 3 minutes late and all the non-Izzet prerelease packs have been taken. Not much of a choice, izzet? God, kill me. I get a promo Firemind’s Insight and a really conflicted Sealed pool. I have three Selesnya rares, a Steam Vents, an Assassin’s Trophy (which I’m going to trade away) and the new 1R growing elemental guy.  I have, like, no playable creatures, and end up reaching for two copies of Muse Drake just to be able to play more than 8 battle dumplings. I built into a grixis fliers/midrange deck, mostly anchored around my copious removal and my UUBB guy.  I always forget how long we’re allowed for deckbuilding at these events. I’m usually a quick deckbuilder, but the drugs kick in and I find myself looking at the same 25 possible includes for a straight 15 minutes. I cut my second copy of the 1UB enchantment and grab basics, and proceed to have a really pleasant conversation with the guy diagonal from me about Legacy Pox. What a beautiful deck! He confessed to running the 1-of granddaddy Pox, as well as 4 Sinkhole, 4 Wasteland, 4 Smallpox, etc. Gotta love a man who plays the 1-of. He said he plays Percy as a finisher though, instead of the Nether Shadow recursion/beats strat - “make a percy, swing three times, you’re dead”, he explains. Sounds interesting! Round one. I’m up against a friendly Asian guy in his late 20s. He’s on BUG, and we have a good back-and-forth, but I take the series 2-1. Nothing really memorable or exceptional here; just some good old fashioned Sealed gameplay. I take game 3 with a reasonably-thrilling combo kill out of nohwere with Wee Dragonauts buffs and 6 points of burn going dome. Really great games, I say, and he agrees. I report the match win to the store owner, who I think gives me a little wink of approval. Who is this strange newcomer, who can win her first game? I imagine he’s saying. She must be a powerful sorceress. Round two. I deckbuilt across from this guy, so I know that he’s on Naya and has a foil Trostani (jealous). He had a bye R1, so I’m nervous, but I pretend I didn’t know this when he explains it to me. “So, you feeling good, then?” I ask, and he replies with something that’s music to my ears: He’s a total scrub! He has no idea how to play Magic, and is “usually the worst guy in the room”. I’m about 5% wary of some kind of hustle, but I don’t think I’m being hustled; this guy is earnest about how bad he is at Magic, so let’s just have some fun games! In game 1, I keep a risky hand with UR mana and two B spells. I never find a Swamp, and Sammy Scrub over here just develops a board and beats me down.  The whole time, he’s table talking nervously about how this is the best it ever goes for him, and this is probably the best he’ll do all day. A turn before I’d die, I say gg and flop the hand, which now has 4 B spells and still no B mana.  ”That explains a lot”, he says. In game 2, I take a dicy mull to 4 looking for lands. I’m sitting on Swamp, new Rupture Spire, Dinrova Horror, Goblin Cratermaker, which is at least an all-stars version of my shitty, shitty deck. I manage to do some nice stack trickery with Cratermaker that fizzles one of his Auras. After clarifying the difference between Auras and Equipment, I take game 2 easily. 

This seems like an apt point to take a moment to take a personal stand: I hate the way he taps his mana. He keeps all his lands in a single pile, behind his library (and therefore more or less underneath his arm from my viewpoint). This game, he did this thing where he’d hold up 3 mana for like 4 turns, and I’d have to keep clarifying that he had mana up, with him even doing things like casting a Worldsoul Colossus with X=2 so he could hold up mana (I Dead Weighted it. 😭Brutal😭). Turns out he was holding onto a Plummet effect; when I slammed the Dinrova Horror, he said “oh, that has flying, right?” and tried to kill it. Damn, sorry dude, but it also has Hexproof... Anyway. The experience of playing against multiple people with really incoherent mana presentation made me resolve to be even better about my own land display. It’s something Magic Arena couldn’t possibly have reminded me about; the messiness and personal flair that goes into the way each player taps, plays, and manipulates their cards, all outside of the game itself.  Game 3 also comes down to some board stall where I blunted his early assault and stabilized with Wee Dragonauts. Once I hit 6 mana I did the 4UR split card spell to search for an instant (the jumpstart draw 2) and a sorcery (the 3bb murder surveil 2). That was my endgame value chain, and he just couldn’t beat it. I played really forgivingly and walked him through my understandings of several combats in a way that I think made him a more equitable opponent to me, and so for that reason I think we had some really captivating fun games. I really liked this guy, and I hope he did well after we fought. We go to turns, so my idea to buy pizza before R3 is tragically dashed on the rocks. I still haven’t eaten (always take pills on an empty stomach, kids), and I’m starting to feel it.

 My opponent this round is a happy looking fat kid, who the entrenched player cracking a box to my left apparently mentored in Magic’s rules. The moment we square up I realize he’s a “Real Opponent” in a way the round 2 guy simply wasn’t; he does the pro player card shuffling tic, announces every trigger, and his cards make the loud SLICK SLICK SLACK of a player who knows exactly which card he’s putting where, and who intends to waste no time doing so.

We both mull to 6. “Ooh, hope you didn’t keep a fast one, or I might need to go to 5″, I tease. He tells me he kept a fast one, I stay on 6, and true to his word, he grizzly bears me into the dust by turn 6. Brutal! I mire in self-abnegation. You IDIOT, I think. He said it was a fast one, I castigate. Oops! This is not the mindset of a champion. I reset quickly for game two. At this point we’re comfortable enough in the dance, two mature players (one a child) with cleanly-laid-out mana and creatures and full understanding of the Stack, and we’re bullshitting and talking Modern while we play. It’s a joyous experience, the best time I’ve had playing paper Magic recently. I take game 2 pretty cleanly when he’s stuck on two lands, and the land clump he hits on turn 5 is too little too late, even though he slams a locket as soon as he can play it. I misplay a little by forgetting some of his announced triggers during combat, and get a 1-for-1 on my Dinrova Horror instead of the 2-for-1 I’d planned on. Oops! I win handily, though.  In game 3 I kept a risky 6 - 5 lands and a two-drop. I draw more lands and just can’t spend gas fast enough to keep up, and he curves me into the dust with his efficient little battle dumplings. RIP, really great games. The thrill of combat and the hot copper taste of blood (I think I bit my cheek accidentally?) fill my veins.  In the pizza meta selection subgame, I walk in the door thinking Potato, but audibled to Feta and Sundried Tomatoes because I heard Boros had good chances against the field. 

I walk back down the street to the LGS. The pizza did what it needed to and has loosened the feelings of self-doubt that come with your first tournament loss of the day. I am a champion. I am a queen. I’m beautiful. I visualize myself going 3-1.  My opponent for the fourth and final round is another teen, but he’s way worse than the cute friendly pro-to-be. He’s really soft-spoken, which wouldn’t be a problem but Putative Pro is the other match on this table and he and I are still occasionally shooting the shit, much to Surly Kid’s annoyance. Sorry, dog! I would normally use your turns to plan strategy or whatever, but he takes such ponderous long turns I feel like I have no choice. He’s moaning that he’s had to mull to 5 5 times already. My heart goes out to the kid, but maybe he should learn to trust in the heart of the cards!~ He’s built a pretty solid GWr aggro deck, lots of lifegain and Mentor effects. Exactly the kind of deck I’m not built to answer! But it turns out that spot removal works okay against mentor if you can keep them from having two guys attack on any given turn. I bleed out before I can stabilize game 1, though.  Game 2 I barely remember also, but I think I had a solid early curve and managed to discard his 1 answer in-hand. Hard to complain about that!

Game 3. Game 3 is scary. We both mull to 5 and have shaky starts. He hits me with early pressure and takes me down to like 5 real early, while I’ve managed to chip him down to like 16. FIVE TURNS, comes the booming announcement. Oh shit, I think. I have to take this. A 3-1 finish is so close, I can taste it. I end up stacking Wee Dragonauts and Electrostatic Wall triggers to find exact lethal on my last of the 5 extra turns. It’s incredibly, viscerally, beautifully satisfying. I feel electric, triumphant, and exultatory. This is my apotheosis. 

I win...three packs! Oops. The kid who beat me in R3 came first (satisfying to only lose to the winner), but because of the byes, someone has a 3-0-1 record, and they get the 6 packs due to second. Still, it’s a delight to place. TRADES:  traded away my Assassin’s Trophy for a K Command, new Niv, some cube cards / foils and some pocket change. 

[cynthiamwashington]

My Family’s Primal Living Achievements Empowered Me

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

I’ve always had an interest in health. I entered college to become a nurse, but switched majors after marrying young and starting a family, ending up with a degree in education with an emphasis in health. My first love is my family, and it’s because of my responsibility for their well-being that healthy living continues to be a growing passion in my life.

In my twenties, breastfeeding babies and chasing toddlers kept me fit and thin, and I exercised when it fit my busy schedule. Low fat, high carb foods were the staples of our “healthy” diet, and I was just trying to figure out my way around the kitchen.

My cooking did evolve, and I continued to keep up with current health fads. But when my homeschooled sons hit elementary school and our grocery budget began to take a hit, I knew there had to be a better way to fill up their growing bellies. I devoted my time to research, and came to the conclusion that whole food was the way God intended us to eat.

Still mindful of the food pyramid, I began grinding wheat to make bread, and replaced all the “fake” foods in my home with homemade, healthier versions. I started a garden and slowly began sourcing raw milk for cream, yogurt and cheese, grass fed beef, pastured pork, chicken, and eggs. It worked. We were getting fuller, our budget was stretching, and I was developing a passion for cooking.

My thirties brought a little more freedom as my sons were getting older, so exercise became easier to fit into my homeschooling schedule. Though I was never overweight, my vanity would always have me desiring to be a bit leaner. I could never manage to drop those few extra aging pounds, despite my exercise habits. I rode my bike a hilly thirty miles a day (1.5 hours), six days a week. Though I experienced many benefits from biking, I was still unhappy with my body composition. Noting that runners tended to be thin—especially in their legs—I decided to reap this benefit and started spending more time with my husband by joining him in running. I routinely ran seven to eight miles a day, six days a week, always maintaining a chronic 7:15-7:30 pace.

I had been experiencing migraine headaches since the birth of my third son. I had a melanoma removed from my foot in my late thirties. Around the age of forty, I began to experience more negative changes in my body. I was gaining weight, always tired, and I was experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder. I just felt “off.” I didn’t have time for more exercise, and eating less would’ve been absurd. I was beginning to believe that I, too, would fall prey to being fat over forty, and all the other ailments of aging. I had never been on a diet in my life, and since we were eating whole foods, I didn’t see a need for change.

After attending a conference and listening to a health and fitness speaker, my husband gave up grains in an effort to lose the forty pounds he had gained, despite consistent exercise and my homemade cooking. He lost most of his weight and was feeling great. I was beginning to wonder if this might be part of my issues.

One night in March, while enjoying a meal with friends, someone suggested The Primal Blueprint, and it became, for me, one of those books that forever changes your life. Mark’s set of simple instructions was truth for my soul! It was the final piece of the health puzzle I had laboriously been working towards.

Within a week of implementing the tweaks to my diet, which included eliminating grains, eating more fat, and an overhaul of my exercise, I saw drastic improvements in my body composition and fitness level.

Now, I jog when I feel like it, but mostly take lots of walks with my husband, and sometimes with a weighted vest. I do weekly sprint sessions in my backyard, and a daily sprint to my mailbox and compost pile. I consistently lift heavy things—PEMs, haul firewood, or even a bit of “CrossFit” at home to mix it up a bit. I truly enjoy my exercise since it’s so easy to fit in anytime, anywhere.

Learning more about the importance of vitamin D for overall health and protection from cancers has freed me to enjoy the sunlight. Living in Nebraska means dark winters and minimal sunlight, so I supplement with vitamin D, and my SAD has improved tremendously.

My headaches are completely gone, and I’ve seen improvements in my skin, energy levels, and cravings. I can’t remember the last time I had to unbutton my pants after a meal! While I am perfectly content with my body composition, it’s funny; I hardly think about it anymore. My sons have experienced the benefits of reduced acne and mood swings, the need to “carb up” before or after ball games, and improved strength. I can’t even name a “family doctor” for any of us when asked—we just don’t need one.

Redeeming my time has been one of the greatest benefits of primal living. I’m learning to rest and play—as a type A “doer,” this is hard for me. We’ve been enjoying weekly backyard volleyball and Ultimate Frisbee games with our sons and friends, and I am spending time enjoying coffee on our front porch.

While Primal living is not a religion, it compliments my Christianity by allowing me to treat my body as a temple, nourishing it with the perfect menu God has given us to eat. It has taught me to carefully source and appreciate the food we eat, with no waste. It keeps my body “strong for my tasks” and it promotes Biblical values of community, rest, and play. It is a reminder that “everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being successful at a given ‘task,’ it’s that you have to give “IT” its due time. And it starts with a plan. Having a plan gives purpose, and purpose empowers. Over the years, it has been my mission to inspire other women to flourish in their own lives by taking responsibility for what God has placed right in front of them—their jobs, parenting, relationships, and even laundry. Health is no different. Primal living offers simple, effective, and efficient principles for sustainable health that anyone can implement, and I naturally began to spread this message with the same passion.

When The Primal Health Expert Certification became available, I immediately enrolled. My busy life homeschooling high school boys, their sports, and serving as a media/communications director for our church and basketball team took a lot of my energy, so I went through the coursework slowly, at my own pace. During that time the course was changed to the Primal Health Coach Institute Certification, an idea that I, at first, dismissed due to the busyness of my life.

But God had a different path for me, showing me those I could share my new wealth of information with: a group of moms implementing PEMs; a couple successfully completing the 21-Day Transformation; my son’s friend—eating and exercising with us, and losing 30 lbs to improve his basketball game; a dear friend with fibromyalgia; and my sister, who has PCOS and pre-diabetic symptoms.

Last year my youngest son graduated high school, and I graduated as a Primal Health Coach! It is the perfect time to start a new chapter in my life, so with the encouragement of my husband and sons, I opened my own coaching business, Primally Empowered. I followed the business model suggested by the PHCI program and built a website, registered on the Primal Health Coach Institute website, and implemented the forms and suggested coaching program. I began blogging, which is my least favorite part, but I’m finding a pattern of topic interests my clients prefer.

I’ve had the opportunity to coach over 10 people in the last year! I’ve been contacted via word of mouth, the PHCI website list, and just from talking with individuals I run into. I’m currently coaching a woman who intends to go on and become a Primal Health Coach.

I am finding my niche is people/couples in my age range who are realizing their weight and health are keeping them from the life they really want, and desire to live the rest of their lives well. It is so empowering and fulfilling to see people truly change their lives!

I’m not searching for a full time job, but I recently came across the opportunity to work for a functional medicine doctor who will be opening her own clinic and is swamped with ill patients. We will see where this journey takes me!

Though I discovered the Primal Blueprint only five years ago, my life has paralleled primal living in many ways. The Primal Health Coach Institute program has empowered me with the knowledge and the confidence to merge these two paths to help individuals address their health challenges by engaging them one-to-one as a personal coach.

– Monica Lambert

Monica’s listing in the Primal Health Coach Institute Directory

Website: primallyempowered.com

(function($) { $("#dfXaOkz").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfXaOkz" ); })( jQuery );

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

ga('send', { hitType: 'event', eventCategory: 'Ad Impression', eventAction: '65477' });

The post My Family’s Primal Living Achievements Empowered Me appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Article source here:Marks’s Daily Apple

[bixeapage]

A Collection Of New Vinyl For The Audiophile – March, 2018

I’d had Steve Earle’s latest, So You Wannabe An Outlaw, sitting around the apartment for some weeks without so much as removing the cellophane wrapper.

Steve Earle and the Dukes

So You Wannabe An Outlaw

Warner Bros.

Performance:

Sound:

I’m not sure why I was so lackadaisical about the whole enterprise. I’d seen Earle perform an acoustic in-store show in support of the work a few months back, and I loved it. Ironically, and despite the crappy current climate, Earle keeps his political opinions off the Outlaw record. This is strictly a fun one. Maybe the most fun I’ve had listening to Steve Earle since El Corazón. Let that one sink in for a second…

Secrets Sponsor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1438634291880-0’); });

And the fun starts before the record even plays. The gatefold cover has a nice matte finish with some cool illustrations and printed lyrics. Even better, the center stickers on the records themselves reproduce the old Warner Bros. green(-ish) labels from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Not sure if they’re bringing those back in general or if Earle used them to represent the retro nature of the album itself. This is Earle’s ode to Outlaw Country (and Waylon, specifically), in case the title didn’t tip you off. To that end, he starts the party with a duet featuring himself and Willie on vocals. And Willie actually shows up. He sings in a lower register than I’m accustomed to hearing from him, and you almost wouldn’t recognize him at first. But you can’t keep Ol’ Willie hid for long. “News From Colorado” is a heartstring player in the tradition of so many badass Steve Earle ballads before. “Fixin’ To Die” is not the old Bukka White song made “popular” by Dylan and Col. Bruce Hampton; it’s a snarling rocker with thunderous drumming and dangerous fiddling. Makes “Taneytown” seem like “Fort Worth Blues.” There are traditional Country cry-in-your-beer numbers like “You Broke My Heart,” and four of the five numbers on the fourth side are Outlaw Country covers by the likes of Billy Joe Shaver, Willie (twice), and a take on Waylon’s classic “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.” If you can’t have a good time in this saloon, I reckon you should hitch up your pony to a post on the right, and head off to bed. You can cook a campfire breakfast for the rest of us that didn’t.

Perhaps I was reticent to unwrap these records because I assumed they were pressed in Nashville like many of Earle’s previous titles. But they weren’t. They were pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands, and they’re pretty great for a pedestrian release. I noticed that Earle’s old label, New West Records, has moved on from Nashville, and begun pressing records at MTO in France. I’ve had good luck with Jack White’s Detroit pressing plant too, so maybe things are looking up for the general quality of vinyl releases. Thank Goodness. These Outlaw records sound great with plenty of detail in the pretty numbers and loads of grit in the rockers. If you’re an Earle/Outlaw fan, your ship has come in. Or your pony. Just get it.

The Beastie Boys

The In Sound From Way Out!

Grand Royal/Capitol Records

Performance:

Sound:

I’m so thrilled that I didn’t plunk down the exorbitant amount of money that people are asking for an original copy of the Beastie Boys’ The In Sound From Way Out! (The exclamation point is part of the title, and was not used by the author for emphasis.) I didn’t realize that the tunes were compiled mostly from Check Your Head and Ill Communication when I was shopping for it. I’d had those records all along and would have been really angry with myself if I’d paid $100 plus for tunes that were simply re-presented in a different format. The Beasties did some cool stuff with their first-run vinyl releases to differentiate them from later pressings. This one had a slightly altered color scheme, for instance. And it may have had an alternate song running order too. Anyway, Capitol Records reissued In Sound late last year and charged a reasonable price for it, so those concerns have gone the way of coal. (Maybe not the best example given who’s running the show in the USA right now, but you get the idea.) This one’s a (natural) gas, gang. Now’s the time.

There are actually some minor differences between a couple of the songs on In Sound and their counterparts on the earlier releases. Shortened intros and alternate mixes, that kind of thing. “Namasté” and “Lighten Up” had the original vocals removed to accommodate the instrumental format. Still not worth paying ludicrous prices for an original unless you have money falling out of your ears or are truly the world’s biggest Beastie Fan. I mean, people are still asking as much as $550 for the first edition yellow vinyl version. Doesn’t mean they’re going to get it, but still. Let’s get to the meat of the matter though, shall we: this compilation is twenty tons of fun. Much of that is due to Money Mark’s keyboard wizardry. “Wizardry” might paint an inaccurate picture. There are no virtuoso performances on this record. The virtuosity is involved with the players’ impeccable taste. All groove, no solos. Lots of textures and interesting sounds. These tunes were almost certainly mastered from digital sources. In fact, I can’t imagine that there was a ton of analog processing outside of the band’s equipment when they were recording the songs in the first place. But the sonics are really good. The overall sound is well balanced with punchy bass and smooth highs. Maybe not the three-dimensional sound you’ll find, but certainly, an overall passing grade for a reissue that was not as well loved as an audiophile might like. I have all eight official Beastie studio releases on vinyl, and most, if not all, are reissues. I’m mostly fine with it, although I’d enjoy having an original License To Ill for sentimental reasons. This compilation is not included in that list because it’s… a compilation. But it plays really nicely with The Mix-Up, which is a record of original instrumentals that the band released in 2007. I caught that tour, and it was the only time I’d ever see the Beasties play live. They were phenomenal because that’s what they were. Creativity and cool for days upon days. If you’ve never given their grooves a chance, these instrumentals might surprise you. For fans of Jackie Mitoo more so than James Brown. Highly recommended.

Beck

Colors

Capitol Records

Performance:

Sound:

Beck released a new one late last year, but it doesn’t seem like there was much fanfare, really. And that may be by design. His fans are a ravenous lot, and they likely aren’t swayed by his albums’ ad campaigns. They’ll probably come along for the ride no matter what so why waste money on promotion. I count myself among their ranks, but I’m not completely onboard with this one. I’m not even sure that I’m standing on the right dock. This boat seems to have floated right on by me. Sometimes they do.

Colors is Beck’s 13th studio album. He had been playing a couple of these songs live (“Dreams” and “Wow”) for a good long while before the record was released. He worked on the album over the course of about four years in between tours and whatever else he does to stay alive. And I just can’t help but wonder where all the effort was focused. Colors is a record by Fun Beck. Maudlin Beck presumably enjoyed the massive success of his most recent downer album (Morning Phase), but Fun Beck will always sell out tours, and I am of the personal opinion that most of us would prefer to hang with this version of the man. But he ain’t fun enough on Colors. “I’m So Free” involves Beck’s usual incongruous raps over heavy, fuzzed-out guitar chords, but with a new wrinkle. He’s not quite on the speedy level of Big Boi, but I’ve never heard Beck rap faster. And he does so with zero affectations. He sounds bored, while essentially talking quickly in words that rhyme. “Dear Life” uses a cool Beatles-esque piano, and some Nels Cline inspired guitar work, and is one of the more engaging listens on Colors. There’s some immediacy that’s absent in this recording though, and that’s shown up quite plainly during the a-cappella vocals that close this tune out. Sounds like something that could be mind expanding given the MoFi treatment, for example, but there’s just not much “punch” in these grooves to speak of. “No Distraction” employs some cheap ‘80s tricks and plastic melodies, and it may be the most pedestrian song I’ve ever heard from Beck.

Secrets Sponsor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1438634291880-1’); });

Basically, it just seems like Colors never quite takes off. It’s hard to imagine Fun Beck fans reaching for Colors instead of Odelay, or Guero, or even Modern Times, which is kind of a hybrid between Fun Beck and Maudlin Beck’s best work. I was prepared to rant about the high quality of the pressing, at least, but mine gets a little noisy as side two advances. Nothing crazy. There are more deluxe versions of Colors, but I don’t think the content warrants the extra expenditure. Beck didn’t embarrass himself here, but I’d have envisioned something way more layered and rich after dude spent nearly half a decade in the studio working on Colors. Diehard fans may disagree, but I likely won’t keep this one. Until next time…

Drivin’ n’ Cryin’

Mystery Road

Island Records

Performance:

Sound:

Kevn Kinney anticipated the “Ameriacana” movement by years. When I think of Americana, I think of music played on real instruments, by real people, and produced in a less shiny, less sterile way than what Hot New Country fans may prefer, for instance. Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ married Punk and Country aesthetics early in the game before focusing more intently on the Rock side of things for their scant radio tunes. Mystery Road, the band’s third studio release, rocks plenty with some tasty fiddles and pedal steel work to carry the work home. The original was released in 1989. A recent double-album set reissues the album alongside a set of demos recorded by Peter Buck in 1988. It all takes me back…

…to an era when the older kids (or kids with older siblings) were listening to some whiny guy sing that I couldn’t quite understand. It didn’t take me long though. Luckily, I was in the process of discovering Bob Dylan around this time, so nasal was soon to be cool. Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ were making their way in Atlanta without the benefit of much radio play. At the time, I had them lumped in with all the other Athens bands that I was trying to get a handle on while still under the radio’s formulaic influence. “Honeysuckle Blue” cleared things up for me bigly. I’d have no way of knowing how popular that song was outside of the area that I lived in (unless I asked the internet, maybe), but it was a full-on anthem in my neck of the woods. Still is. I get juiced every time I hear it. Every time. The crunchy tones and the iconic guitar lick make sure of it. “Straight to Hell” is on here too, but I never got as much out of that one. You can still walk into a bar in Georgia, and if the band is playing covers, they’re apt to play either or both songs, perhaps more than once in the same evening. The rest of the album is fleshed out by a group of songs that would anticipate the heavier leanings on later records like Fly Me Courageous. By the time I saw Widespread Panic open for Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ in Atlanta, you’d have thought that Led Zeppelin was headlining. The drums were loud, the hair was big. I left early, but caught the band a few more times after their heyday, and I was much better off for having done so. The demos in this set are fun to have. They’re about what you’d expect: slightly less shiny versions of the tunes that would make it onto the final version (except for the album’s title track, which is on the demos set but not the final album), and a couple that would make it into Kinney’s later oeuvre. They’re gloriously rough. The tempos increase when things get hot, which would have to be smoothed out for the Big Release. Things never got as big as they should have for D n’ C, but that just serves to make them feel like even more of a hidden keepsake.

These records are both well pressed. There are some fun essays in the gatefold, and Kevn Kinney’s grandma’s painting was restored to its original sheen for this cover (after having been bastardized by the record label in ’89). This one’s for rockers more so than audiophiles. There is mud. And blood. I love it.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Live In 1960

Org Music

Performance:

Sound:

Sister Rosetta Tharpe. My goodness, there’s no way to overstate the awesomeness of this lady’s work. I mean, damn. She was one of the first artists to employ distortion of her electric guitar. She influenced Little Richard, and Little Richard influenced everyone. She was a rocker who would not play secular music, but she’d play Gospel in a barroom or a club. She was recently tagged for admittance into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for people who care about that kind of thing. I have an original copy of her Gospel Train album, which is one of the jewels in my collection (although I wish it were in mono). Fantastic. Org Music recently released their take on Rosetta’s Live In 1960. I was stoked. Then, I was not.

First off, these recordings give the listener a very real feel for how emotional and intense Tharpe’s singing could be. She held nothing back. She wasn’t a wailer on par with the more full-throated Gospel singers of yore, but her voice had power and she was totally fearless. Not self-conscious in the least. You can hear her get the Spirit when she extends syllables past the point of breaking (“train” equals “tray-yea-yea-yea-yea-yain”). Sometimes, she cracks herself up. Sometimes, she’s gotta stop and preach. There’s enough personality and life in her vocals for an entire Gospel choir. And her guitar work was percussive and heavy-hitting, an obvious pre-cursor to some of the more refined electric guitar work that the Chicago Blues players would unveil later. Here’s the problem: very little of that guitar work can be discerned on Live In 1960. This is an issue with the original recording, not with anything that the folks at Org Music did. But why in the hell would they choose to release this title in lieu of a “better” one. She takes a quick solo during “Didn’t It Rain” that you can hear most of. Or some of. Because she’s not singing over it. If she’s singing, you can’t hear the guitar. That’s the deal. And it’s just her! There may be a drummer playing quietly on some songs, but the quality of the recording is so bunk that I’m not sure. It could be her foot stomping on the stage.

And that’s about all there is to say about Live In 1960. The pressing is fine, but who cares? There are no download codes or liners. Just a poorly recorded live performance by one of the greatest talents in the history of recorded American music. The cover has a cool photo of Sister Rosetta and her Les Paul. That’s the best part about it. To say that this is not audiophile material would be a grotesque understatement. I don’t know why this record was made unless it was to capitalize on Tharpe’s Hall of Fame induction. I wish they’d chosen a different title. The end.

The post A Collection Of New Vinyl For The Audiophile – March, 2018 appeared first on HomeTheaterHifi.com.

A Collection Of New Vinyl For The Audiophile – March, 2018 syndicated from http://onetwothreemovies.blogspot.com/

[worldofvisual]

Stein’s;Gate 0

Time to do one of these again, this time for the daring sequel, Stein's;Gate 0! A VN I was glad to see have an official english release swiftly announced, and one I even came across on physical store shelves, much to my pleasant surprise.

First, a warning: Don't be mislead by the title – S;G0 is not a prequel. To enjoy this story, and not spoil the original Stein's;Gate entirely, you need to have played the original first. While I will not entirely spoil the S;G0 story here, it is probably a good idea to stay clear if you are yet to experience Stein's Gate, either in game or anime format. Go ahead and do it – it's worth it!

For those who want to enter S;G0 as blindly as possible, but just want to know whether it's worth giving it a try, I'll say this for starters: if you loved the characters and atmosphere of the original, then this is definitely worth it. There are things S;G0 do really well, and things that made me wonder if it would have been better to leave well enough alone, but in my opinion the good moments outweigh the bad, and make it worth a shot.

And now to the nitty-gritty.

This VN begins the very moment one of the original Stein's Gate routes end, showing us how that particular timeline progresses, leading into the events that puts Okabe Rintaro on the path to save the world and his friends. This means that in contrast to it's predecessor, this game skips the long start and build-up entirely. We already know who we are dealing with, what has happened, and how serious the situation is, and with that the story wastes no time getting to where it needs to be.

Stein's Gate 0 has 6 endings, one of which only unlocks once you have seen a particular other ending. Like in S;G the choices to enter these routes are not done in traditional VN manner where you pick between conversations or actions on the screen, but through interactions with your phone. There are only 2-3 places in the game where these choices matter, mainly in whether you choose to pick up your phone or not, but these are effectively and seamlessly used to bring the reader into vastly different routes and perspectives on what goes on. Inbetween those major choices you will still receive messages from Okabe's friends that you can choose to ignore or respond to in different ways, choices that have no real consequence, but let you interact with everyone in sweet and funny ways.

The game's many routes and timelines tend to converge around two important plot points that effect everything. One is the whole deal with the timemachine concept: the paper Kurisu wrote to prove such a thing was possible, as well as the knowledge the protagonists have of how to practically create one. In my opinion, this was definitely the stronger one, showing how dismantling the Phonewave isn't necessarily the end-all of their troubles, but also the struggle of how Okabe has to protect what he knows, all on his own.

The other plot point is centered around the research that Kurisu was originally working on in America, which gave her the ability to create the Phonewave in the first place: the science of memory data, and how to possibly upload and work with such. This results in the creation of Amadeus, an AI that makes use of the memories of a real person to behave and speak as close to a real human as possible. This plot point is what brings in a lot of the new characters into the story, such as Amadeus "Kurisu" herself, Kurisu's old friend Maho, and the mysterious girl known as Kagari. While Kurisu's memories in Amadeus only go as far as to the point where she left America for Japan, the clues buried in there also end up having a major impact on the world lines.

Sounds and visuals are still strong as well. The music is great, bringing both new and old to the table, and the voice acting is stellar. It's games like these that make me sad when I return to other VNs with unvoiced protagonists, as it adds so much more character.

Most of the character art is new, though it works well. There are times where the old character art makes a reappearance, mostly when Okabe remembers the past. One thing I loved was a brief but impactful return to the old timeline, where old sprites and artstyle return, giving you a vivid impression of being "back". I found this very effective, though later on this is sadly diminished when, in some routes, the story continues into summer and brings the rest of the old character sprites back with their summer wear. I found the use of the old art to bring back the feeling of where you came from incredibly effective, and would have loved if they had kept using it that way only.

As for the story itself, these are definitely among it's strengths:

Character writing. The game does a great job at portraying its characters as people who feel real, with emotions and interactions that are meaningful and go beyond being the stereotypes that vns often resort to. The center of this story is definitely Okabe himself, and the journey he makes after having been turned into a broken mess by the events that have come before. There are moments that pitch him and the others against each other in ways that keep you on the edge of your seat, or even form a tear on their behalf, as well as funny/sweet situations you never knew you wished you could see them in. One difference in S;G0 is that the game sometimes switches viewpoints, letting us see events happen through the eyes of its other characters. This especially gives an occasional interesting outside view of Okabe himself.

The timemachine plot. In my opinion, this is the stronger of the two plot points in the game, continuing the threads of what we already know might happen after S;G ended.

Weaknesses:

The memory data plot. While this definitely adds some interesting points to the story, and my general enjoyment of the concept of Amadeus "Kurisu" and her interactions/effects on Okabe, it also added a whole other of unnecessary problems, mainly the complications and additions to the things foreshadowed in S;G in ways that felt like cheap excuses to add new mysteries. In major part, the character known as Kagari.

Kagari appears as a young girl/grown woman with an uncanny resemblance to Kurisu, another time traveller who can go from being an ally to an antagonist depending on what timeline you end up on.  Not only did I never manage to really care for this character, but her unexplained likeness to Kurisu felt like a cheap excuse to elicit emotion, and make you feel there was something more to it that never got resolved in any way you'd think it would. There is one point where her lost memories brings Okabe into a moral dilemma that in itself is very interesting, but in the end feels like something he would never even do in the first place, and therefore doesn't manage to be entirely convincing.

In general, I would still say the good outweighs the bad, and I am glad I got to experience many of the moments in Steins;Gate 0. If you are a fan of the original, then you should definitely give it a shot just for those moments alone.

I have a general tendency with unplanned sequels like these, to feel like I need to keep them and the original apart in my mind to fully enjoy both. There are bits that work really well together, and bits I prefer to see as interesting "what ifs". Stein's Gate itself still stands perfectly fine on its own, telling you everything you need to know, without needing the extra complications and additions to its resolution that S;G0 somehow needed to bring up.

In the end all I can say is that I have now run out of Stein's Gate things to read, and that makes me sad.