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sadghoststudios · 5 months

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STATE OF PLAY 12/23: a little news and updates roundup!

Howdy all! Squeaking in just before the new year, I thought now's as good a time as ever for a little roundup of anything you might have missed, and what we're currently working on! Aiming to do these quarterly from now on 🫡✨

If you wanna keep up with posts like this from us without relying on social media, you can also sub to our newsletter! Promise not to annoy you. Good emails only.

Recap and news under the cut!

2023 Roundup

DemiDato

We had two releases this year, but DemiDato was the big one! For those that don't know, this game spent a long 5+ years in and out of development hell, so it was a big relief to finally put everyone's hard work out into the world back in March.

We were also lucky enough to feature DD in the Queer Games & Queer Halloween bundles this year, so even if you haven't had a chance to grab the game outright, check your itch library - you might already own it!

As for the future of our monsters, a 1.1 update is still on the cards! The bulk of it is already complete - there's some script tidying and quality of life improvements already in the WIP build, as well as a fancy schmancy CG Gallery (which you can see a little preview of in the devlog I wrote).

1.1 development has admittedly stalled a little, as I really want to implement some animated video transitions plus an animated intro and trailer into its final build, but it's been hard to find the time to teach myself a whole new skillset while also being in preproduction for our new title (more on that in a bit!). In my head for all the years of development, the game has always had a really cheesy reality show intro with horribl(y good) graphics, just like the real life shows that inspired it. So even if the feature didn't make it to 1.0, I still really want it to happen eventually. (Plus, when we do eventually rerelease on Steam, a trailer is very important for the store page! That means it counts as futureproofing, right...?)

If you want to hear some more about what the release was like, my dear friend Kaiju of Digital Diversity interviewed me right after the game came out! You can read the interview on Digital Diversity over here.

GrandNya

Our second game of the year was a short little nugget written for 2023's Josei Jam, and devved almost solo by timepatches (hi! that's me!)

It'd been a long time since I managed to get anything off the ground in a jam setting, and I still find it a little intimidating (it's really difficult for me to get new ideas & iterate on them fast enough to meet the start deadline and recruit others), so solo dev it was! My art is hardly intricate but it gets the story across, and I'm proud of the VN as a whole - whatever you think of 'wholesome games' as a movement, it's hard to deny that we all need a cosy space now and then, and that’s the kind of story I like to tell most. And it's not like GrandNya is all sunshine, either, which you'll know if you got to the end!

I also managed to apply to Hand-Eye Society's Super FESTival with GrandNya, and was somehow accepted, which I'm still pinching myself about! What a stellar lineup of games to share a page with.

Fest aside, it was a pretty quiet release all things considered, so don't worry if you missed it! Your grandmas are still there on our itch page anytime, to give you a lil’ pocket of safe queer story to live in whenever you need it.

Intoxicated

Now for something completely different!! Despite some prior medical commitments around the jam date (which then got moved, typical), I was VERY stoked to be able to hop on the team for Kristi HusbandoGoddess' Yuri Jam game, Intoxicated!

It was an absolute blast. Turtles were drawn in the group chat for reasons I can no longer remember. It singlehandedly made me decide that I want to do more jam work on others' teams, because I forgot how fun it can be working toward a common goal in a more relaxed environment!

And the game turned out incredible. Check it out if you support women's wrongs! ♡

Plans for 2024

[Codename BAT 🦇] (the big otome/amare game)

Oh yeah. It's big.

I won't spill too much just yet, but just know that I've had this idea as a vague plot bunny in the back of my mind for years. Then, as my dear friend Charlie and I were on VC beta testing a late DemiDato build, it came up and they were so excited about the idea that I couldn't help but start seriously thinking about how to make it.

Well. That was in March. After I took a break and worked on GrandNya, I've been working ever since on building out the world (it's set in the same universe as the rest of our library, but deals a bit more with the actual ramifications of it all, so I had to set some things in stone I haven't before). More recently I've been building out the most coherent, easy-to-follow outline I can (not my strong point, and bless my beta readers for their support while I complain about it).

Very soon I should be able to start writing! Terrifying! I can't wait. Once I'm a fair way into the script writing you'll get to hear about exactly what I'm cooking, and I think... you'll like where we're going.

[Other Redacted Thing]

Not my project so I won't spoil exactly what it is, but I get to do some UI work for an upcoming jam project and I am SO excited! I get to work with some very familiar faces again! You'll know what it is as soon as I'm allowed to tell you 👀

What I will say is that it shares a coincidental similarity with my long project...

That's it!! ✨

Thank you for reading all my waffle (being long winded is my special talent), and for sticking with us through the inevitable periods of radio silence! We're still just little fish in a very big pond, but every time someone plays something I made and feels some type of way, I remember what the point of all this is.

It makes me very happy to be able to share stories with y'all. Here's to more in 2024!

♡ Madi Wander (@timepatches)

#indie game #visual novel #interactive fiction #sgsroundup #sgsnews #thanks to those who stuck with us thru this + past years! onward and upward for 2024 :)

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 2 months

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What are some of your favorite games of all time?

This is a great question, more questions about video games, less questions where people make up things I never said and demand I defend those positions, XD

Anyway, here's a short list:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker. The best isometric RPG ever made, in my opinion.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. The best version of one of the best games ever made.

Mass Effect Trilogy. Yeah the third one shit the bed in a lot of ways, but I still enjoy the series as a whole. Playing a game series where your choices carried over from one game to the next was groundbreaking in the 2000s, and I always enjoyed my time with these games. Especially rereleased in the legendary edition.

Resident Evil 2, Original and Remake. My favorite Resident Evil game of all time. Great game, great story, great characters.

Resident Evil 4, original and remake. Second favorite Resident Evil game. Also, my husband's favorite game ever. I love seeing him get excited over it, XD

Suikoden 2. Great gameplay, great story, best game in the series.

Tales of Zesteria. Mikleo my beloved!

Jaws (NES). Yes, it's bad. Yes, it's short. No, I don't care. This was one of the first games I ever owned, and me and my dad used to play it together when I was very little. I have a lot of fond memories of trying to figure out how to beat the game with him. I still remember how excited we were when we started to figure out the gameplay loop for the very first time.

Mortal Kombat 2. The game that introduced me to the series, and still one of my old favorites. I still play and love MK to this day because of it.

Kingdom Hearts, whole series. I can't really pick one game, because they're all both really, really good and really, really bad, XD. But I love the story and the characters, and I've enjoyed each of them in different ways. But if I had to pick just one, I'd probably pick 2.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. Still the best Star Wars game ever made. Still one of the best western RPGs ever made. The plot twist is still one of my favorite moments in video game history.

Max Payne 2. Ugh, so good. Great storytelling, fun gameplay. Took everything great about Max Payne 1 and did it better. RIP James McCaffrey.

MegaMan Battle Network, whole series. Probably the best reimagining of a classic IP I've ever seen, from the old days when "reimagined" didn't mean "vandalized". I was several years older than him when the first game came out, but in a lot of ways I grew up with Lan and his friends, and these games will always have a special place in my heart.

Jade Empire. Another great BioWare western RPG. Great setting, good story, unique characters, and really good and unique-for-the-time combat.

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters. I don't even know why I like this game so much, but I do, lol. They should have given the male PC a romance ending with Gig, though >_<

Pokemon Red and Blue. Pure nostalgia entry, but even though there are a lot of boring Gen 1 haters, to be a 10 year old kid when the original US Pokemon craze was at its peak was something special, and the games and the Pokemon will always be cherished in this house. Gen 1 supremacy, noobs!

Batman Arkham Asylum. You have no idea what it was like growing up a Batman fan and a video game fan in the years before Arkham Asylum. Every Batman game was terrible. It was a running joke how no one could do a good Batman game. Hell, half the word of mouth for AA was "did you hear someone's trying to make a good Batman game?" That they got many of the incredible voices from Batman the Animated Series back was even better. RIP Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin. (And fuck Mark Hamill)

Legacy of Kain, whole series. Aside from Metal Gear Solid, this series is the definitive master class on video game storytelling and voice acting. I love the plot, I love the characters, I love everything. I hate how the ball was dropped so hard after Defiance, because that game set up an amazing follow up that just...never happened. It was such a sad fall from grace, because in the early 2000s this was the AAA game series. Everyone loved it. Everyone was desperate for the next game. And then it just kind of fizzled out after a few missteps and developer woes. And it died a quiet death in a proto-live service multiplayer game that no one wanted and even fewer people played. And while the tragedy is appropriate to the Gothic setting, I'm still hoping against hope for a faithful remake of the first games that spurs the original developers to finally finish the series the way it always deserved.

Honorable Mention: Final Fantasy 8. Gonna be honest here, 70% of my love for this game comes from fanfiction, lol. I played the game when I was a kid, and didn't really like it. It was weird and looked bad (I played it long after I'd gotten used to the "modern" graphics of the PS2 generation) and even with a Codebreaker and cheats the final boss was super frustrating. But there's some really great FF8 fanfic out there. Stuff I reread every few years. And it's given me a phantom nostalgia for the game.

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300iqprower · 1 year

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Having now played fallout 4, presumably due to some sort of masochistic streak, I think it's really funny that Bethesda got so salty about New Vegas that they went out of their way to fuck up literally every single thing that made New Vegas so good, and double down on every single thing that made Fallout 3 badly designed.

You can literally go over this with a checklist and systematically track every instance of bad design and how it's reflective of how much Bethesda has no idea how to make open world games OR role playing games, let alone both at once.

I'm now convinced the only reason this game is popular is because they refuse to rerelease Fallout 3 or NV.

#which still seems weird cause usually these companies still care more about easy money than anything else #and a rerelease of those two seems like a slam dunk payday #video games #Me: well I have only so much free time with finals lets make it count #also me: Let's play the thing you know is the shittiest fallout game

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minuy600 · 9 months

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Review 78-01: Space Invaders (Arcade)

So this might be the biggest video game release ever after Pong. The first game on my list by a company that isn't Atari, too. Taito joins the fray and quite possibly completely embarrasses all other games that have come before it.

Now the question is, will it be the first game to achieve my Gold Award of a 9/10 or even a 10? Let's see.

Do note, I played both the black and white version and the slightly later color rerelease which added an extra digit to the score, using the Space Invaders Invincible Collection. I'm not sure when the latter released and if it changed anything else, but I honestly doubt it did. I

Graphics (4/5)

So besides the Pong paddle, which you can hardly call one, this is most likely the first ever arcade game to recognisable characters! The Invaders are pretty cute and still used as a symbol for 'video games' 45 years later.

It also introduces a new type of attract screen. Whereas previously, you would just get silent gameplay done by an AI or prerecorded footage (I think?), this time, you get the score table laid out *before* it moves over to that. It's a relatively small addition, though it would become a very very common sight pretty quickly after this game released.

Black and white (with some green if you use an overlay) as it is, it's not the most stunning game to look at, in fact you could consider the small 8-bit sprites a minor downgrade to Atari's 1977 output, which seemed to use larger graphics with less chunky pixels. Still, it took- give or- take half a decade for the visuals to be replicated correctly on SG-1000. I think it did it's job.

The colored version makes it so that you can more easily tell what is a danger and what is not, as well as a red flash across the whole screen when you die. It's obviously the more definitive way to play, though it hardly ends up mattering what version you choose or enounter in the arcade.

Sound (4/5)

This game has ingenious sound design. Pretty minimal, but inventive in the right places. It's the first game to have background music while you play, unlike Star Ship's random noises which were cute but not really composed, so to say.

This one's got spunk by having a 4-note descending loop. That doesn't sound like much, BUT it gradually speeds up as you vanquish more Invaders, increasing the stress factor to the player. It worked on me when I was younger, so that's solid. Even if it's effect became less over time, the idea is something I have always enjoyed (and feared) in video games.

Otherwise, the sound effects are pretty good too. I like the spacey noises of the UFO in particular, they're fun. Overall, a neat package.

Gameplay (4.5/5)

Take the tired old shooting genre and flip it on it's head, bam, it's Space Invaders. Instead of shooting another player or shooting stuff within a specific time limit, you now get all the time in the world to shoot down the 55 titular Invaders in spaaace. At least, untill they hit the bottom of the screen, cuz then you're instantly dead.

You also have those barricades which, by expert players, actually get seen as more of a hindrance than a help. The reason for that is the Nagoya Attack is one the first ever examples of an exploit! Open a gap between multiple columns of aliens, let them go to the row before the instant game over one, and they won't be able to hurt you at all. You still need quick reflexes to get the final ones though, and that I simply don't have.

I could go on all day about this, point is, it's much deeper than anything that came before it and is more than likely the oldest game on my list that younger people actually do still play legitemately, without any nostalgic or curiousity reason attached to it. It's THAT good.

The is one small con to this all, and that is that the Invaders' shots feel a bit too random and could end up screwing over your rounds due to a cheap shot you could not take down in time. However, I call this an opinion and not a fact- there is a solid chance this is due to my own bad gameplay.

Longevity (4.5/5)

The first game to have a strategy guide? Check. The first game that gradually gets more difficult as you complete stages? Check. The first game to cause a huge uproar in Japan because of how everyone wanted to play it? Check check.

The 9990 point limit may SEEM a bit skint now, and the color version improves it to 99990, so sure, it's not endless. Have you ever tried reaching it though? The best I can do is slightly over 4k, and that took me several weeks without save states. Unless you're a gaming god or have huge preseverance, which hey, adds to the replay value, you're not gonna be done exploring strategies for top scores in a hurry.

The difficulty does peak at about 6 or 7 levels in, so much like the other soon-to-be all time classics from the late 70s and early 80s, you do run into repetition eventually. Again, they throw everything at you to ensure you'll never actually make it.

Overall

It was inevitable. This game does so much so right. This being a big leap forward for the gaming industry has been talked about endlessly, for me to rehash that history lesson is quite unneccessary. Taito really could not have 'landed' any better.

Even NOW, you can probably still find it laying around in Japan and North America. Even now, you can pick it up and have a blast. Even now, you would not realise the game is older than Pac-Man and Donkey Kong at first. It's addictive as heck too! I tend to accidentally play for hours at a time.

Yes, this is 100% a deserved first Gold Award. Long may it continue.

Update: Due to the way my reviews work as of 28 August, the score may seem like a downgrade, but I will consider anything that shows a happy Sona (so an 8.5 or above) to still be a Gold Award. Likewise, Silver Awards and Bronze Awards have their treshold moved half a point down as well.

#retro gaming #minuy600 #taito #review #sona #1978 #space invaders #arcade #minuy's must haves

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measuringbliss · 1 year

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love seeing you blitz through my madman ramblings. how are you doing? tell me more about those medias you rbed saying they were essential to experience? they sounded like games, what's neo twewy. how's the weather? it is presently unusually cold here and since I'm cold blooded it's got me very sleepy. have a lovely day and happy early new year! speaking of, do you have any resolutions if you do that sort of thing? okay bye!

okay wait too much stuff happening i (luv you)

I'm doing really well since I'm getting back home after having spent three days doing fun activities and eating good food with my dad and some of my family, so it was very entertaining and full of surprises. so I'm good but I've been dying to replay TWEWY and NEO TWEWY and I couldn't even listen to the soundtrack during this weekend so i'm slightly frustrated.

Okay so essential media.

I was going to suggest Hannibal but its appeal is very niche and the content can make people uncomfortable and I wouldn't say it changed my life.

What changed my life though is Chuck (2007-2012)

Romcom drama spy action pastiche series Chuck is about a nerd getting every secret from the government transferred to his brain, to the US government's dismay. They send a hot blonde and a grumbling Republican to make sure Chuck (the title character) doesn't get himself killed by other spies interested in the US's secrets.

Throw in a forbidden romance (agents shouldn't date, but Chuck and his partner Sarah aren't indifferent to each other), (b)romances (nothing textual but Matt Bomer sure gave a lot of yearning glances at our protagonist...), twists, treasons, awful-but-actually-great musical covers, and a lot of cameos and you've got basically a sibling series to Community, in that both shows had similar nerd audiences and had fan campaigns to renew them.

It aired at a point where I needed reprieve from everything else and it was perfect–it made me laugh and gasp, and it has a killer soundtrack. Also? Women? Beautiful.

TWEWY & NEO TWEWY (2007 & 2021)

In The World Ends With You, antisocial Neku is forced to participate in a deadly game in an alternate Shibuya where cooperation is key amidst strange fashion choices (that give you better stats), good food (ditto) and colorful badges/pins (a few hundreds to collect and make evolve, used to attack enemies).

The soundtrack is a mix of J-Pop, electronic music, rap, hip-hop and overall denotes a strong sense of identity. The visuals are incredibly stylish and the gameplay is both confusing and enthralling. Why is Neku playing this game? Who is the mastermind and what is their plan? The message is basic, but the storyline is captivating.

The original version came out on DS and made full use of its capabilities; battles took place on both screens, you used the touch screen to control Neku and buttons to control his partner on the top screen–at the same time and in synchronicity. It got rereleased on smartphones, and more recently on Switch, with updated graphics, music (the game going from ~40 tracks to about ~150) and gameplay (going from two screens to a single one) as well as a new chapter setting up the sequel, NEO: The World Ends With You.

While I applauded the original game for its creativity, smart script and ideas and audacious gameplay, it wasn't quite a perfect game for me. It all changed with Neo, which brings a new set of protagonists, a new gameplay (this time, one button is assigned to each character who each control a single badge), a new music style (more rock and metal, I listened to the album again and again and again and it helped me a lot with coping with shitty stuff happening last year), a similar artstyle but 3D this time and a MUCH longer script. NEO TWEWY is about double the original's length in spite of its similar structure notably thanks to its script style–however it's still very well written and thus, is not annoying to follow.

TWEWY is available on DS, smartphones and Switch. I recommend playing it before NEO TWEWY as plot points are continued and some characters come back. There's also an anime that compresses the story. If you go that way, make sure to check out Another Day, the chapter exclusive to the Switch version.

NEO TWEWY is available on Switch (that's the version I played), PS4, EGS and Steam.

SENSE8 (sometime this last decade)

Do I really need to introduce this show? Eight people from all around the world are psychically linked. Why? And what is this mysterious organization stalking them?

Helmed by Matrix creators Lilly and Lana Wachowski, this show was the first time I saw a trans characters. It's hot, it's funny, it's sad, it's sci-fi, it's a thriller, it's a lot of things (you might notice I love me some variety) and it's queer as fuck. Got canceled during Pride Month but got rescued (through a 2 hours long movie), and once again, everything I mentioned here has been cancelled or otherwise didn't receive the appreciation it deserved–multiple times.

Chuck's first season got hit by the Writer's Strike, then from the second season on it risked cancelation every season, sometimes multiple times (which is why both S3 and 4 seem a bit disjointed). TWEWY was a hidden gem only niche enthusiasts knew about, and NEO TWEWY's wider release wasn't any different. All three of these franchises have seen deep love from people who stumbled upon them.

Ahem.

The weather was surprisingly fine! I heard that in the US a lot of people got hit with blizzard and that kind of stuff, well here it's been warmer than usual. Didn't have to wear gloves or scarves, and it was sunny too! Definitely a pleasure to be outside.

I hope things get better for you!

I don't have any resolution because I tend not to fulfill them lmao. How about you?

Happy new year! 💛💛💛💛💛

#Asks #Chuck nbc #Twewy

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transgirl-gaming-thoughts · 2 years

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I feel like the DS family really missed out on the potential for home console ports. The 3DS got Virtual Console which is great, but especially the DS missed out on the possibilities of the four face buttons and the touch screen.

The first thing that comes to mind is Duck Hunt, which has only ever been released on the NES with the Zapper, and an arcade game. A DS port that enhanced the whole game and used the touch pad to shoot would have been great, or even a 3D Classics version for the 3DS with the same idea! I've only played Duck Hunt once at the National Videogame Museum because they had it set up as a kiosk, but I would love a way to play it myself without having to get a NES, Zapper, Duck Hunt cartridge, and a CRT monitor.

The 3DS gets crap for not having SNES Virtual Console, and making it exclusive to the "New" 3DS. Nintendo really tried to market the Gameboy Advance as a portable Super Nintendo... but then they only gave it 2 FACE BUTTONS? Lots of SNES ports didn't translate very well going from 4 to 2 buttons, and they also felt the need to add the voices from N64 games... which was annoying. For as hard as Nintendo pushed the "GBA = SNES" idea, they all but abandoned that thought when the DS came out and actually had 4 face buttons. We got a sequel to Yoshi's Island, a Chrono Trigger remake, Dragon Quest V and VI remakes, Final Fantasy III remake, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra... and that's that. Yeah, lot's of major series got DS remakes, but what about the poor GBA ports? Where's our 1:1 Super Mario World? Link to the Past? What about popular titles that didn't get rerelease, like Super Punch-Out, or Earthbound, or F-Zero, or even Super Mario All-Stars???

I think there's a lot of missed potential for not only rerelease sales, but enhanced games with the new resolution and duel screens. Earthbound could've shown your map on the bottom screen. Punch-Out could've shown you your combos like a Street Fighter manual. Link to the Past could've had an easy-access inventory for quick item switching.

The DS had a few so-so N64 remakes/rereleases, but the 3DS only had Ocarina of Time 3D and Majora's Mask 3D. Yes, the handheld that could fully render 3D and had controls similar to the N64 had only two N64 remakes and they were both Zelda. Hey, I love Zelda has much as the next gamer, but I would've loved to see the original Mario Party come over, or an actually good GoldenEye port, or a Paper Mario 64 portable remake!

All in all, I love these consoles, but there was so much missed potential. SNES emulation on DS is abysmal, so having dedicated ports would be a dream come true. The 3DS has homebrew SNES injects that work perfectly, and the "New" 3DS got the official SNES Virtual Console. I just wish Nintendo had taken advantage of these platforms for all they're worth.

#video games #gaming #nintendo #assorted gaming thoughts #retro #retro gaming #nintendo ds #ds #3ds #new 3ds #super nintendo #snes #n64 #gameboy advance

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yessadirichards · 4 months

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Billy Idol talks upcoming pre-Super Bowl show, recent Hoover Dam performance, working on a new album

LOS ANGELES

Billy Idol normally takes advantage of riding his motorcycle on the open road knowing there’s hardly any traffic because millions are usually glued to watching the Super Bowl.

But this year, Idol’s bike won’t be leaving his garage on game day. Instead, the legendary British rocker will be strolling on stage to headline a pre-game concert in Las Vegas ahead of the big game on Feb. 11 just outside Allegiant Stadium, where the NFL’s two best teams face off.

Idol, 68, is expected to perform some of his biggest hits including “Dancing with Myself” “Mony Mony” and “Rebel Yell” during a 35-minute set on two different stages at On Location's Club 67 and Touchdown Club in front of nearly 9,000 anticipated guests. It’s the second time the singer has taken part in a pre-Super Bowl show after he rocked out with Miley Cyrus three years ago outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

In a recent interview, Idol exclusively chatted with The Associated Press about his Super Bowl halftime aspirations, the inspiration behind his Hoover Dam show, if he would ever consider doing Broadway and looking to soon release his first studio album in a decade.

Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: What will be your mentality heading into your show hours before the Super Bowl?

IDOL: It’s about adding excitement to the event. You’re pumping people up. That’s a fun feeling. You can tell the people are excited, what’s going to happen and you’re entertaining them in those moments before it really happens.

AP: Would you ever want to perform during Super Bowl halftime?

IDOL: That would be incredible. But I don’t know. It would be fantastic, but I cannot imagine me being asked to do it. It would be great. I’d love to do it. It would be amazing if it involved some other artists or a combination of people. That would be great. It would be one of the craziest things in the world to play. Everybody in the country watches it. Playing the pregame for me is good. Pumping people up before it and getting them ready is kind of a fun thought.

AP: You celebrated the 40th anniversary of your album “Rebel Yell” and had a five-night residency in Las Vegas last year. How does it feel to have your music still resonating today?

IDOL: When we were starting out, I couldn’t have imagined the effect of (our) music. We were living one day at a time. The songs were for that time period. They were just for that moment. You weren’t thinking about any long-term effects. You’re just thinking right now. But the songs have legs. It’s like “Wow, people have really embraced this crazy idea I had years ago.” They’re still enjoying it, and I am too. Who would have thought that 40 years later? I’m still pinching myself.

AP: You released a couple EPs and recently rereleased “Rebel Yell.” Will you drop any new music soon?

IDOL: We have a new album coming out in October this year. We’re still carrying on and enlarging what my music is about. I enjoy doing it. Me and (guitarist) Steve (Stevens) are still finding ways to excite ourselves. We’re not out there going through the motions. We’re actually out there taking prisoners. That’s how we feel.

AP: How far along are you in the process?

IDOL: We’ve got most of it recorded with just some finishing touches. We’re doing a cover. We’re thinking about videos and all the promotional things that go along with it. There’s a lot of stuff we’re going to be thinking about this year. But. .... playing at the Super Bowl, that’s pretty fantastic.

AP: You have a built-in fanbase. With your new album, have you taken a different approach musically with your upcoming project compared to past works?

IDOL: Not really. We’re bouncing off our last album “Kings & Queens of the Underground.” We did that in England and had strings on it. With this, we tried to make a lot more of an up-tempo album. There are nine songs and six of them are up-tempo. Three of them are kind of slower. It’s more of a youthful sounding record. I think it’ll allow our audience to have a lot of fun.

AP: What inspired you to perform at Hoover Dam?

IDOL: It was something like I would see in movies when I was a child. There was an Alfred Hitchcock movie (“Saboteur”) that referenced Hoover Dam. There was another film “711 Ocean Drive” that ended on the Hoover Dam. You know, it had a shootout. For someone like me, growing up in England, I saw this iconic place in movies then I got to play in front of it. Hoover Dam was right behind me with my logo on it, which was insane.

AP: Are there any other locations like Hoover Dam where you would like to perform?

IDOL: Mount Rushmore. I couldn’t have ever imagined Hoover Dam, so now the world is my oyster. There’s the incredible Crazy Horse statue that’s carved out in the Black Hills. We can play anywhere. Nothing can stop us.

AP: Have you ever thought about doing Broadway?

IDOL: Of course, we have. We haven’t quite worked out our direction. We’ve had several different ideas we’ve sort of fielded. Nothing has come to fruition yet. As you can see, they’re doing Prince’s “Purple Rain” on Broadway, so it’s not out of the question that we would do one. It’s just been sort of trying to work out how to do it. That’s what’s fun about having a catalog. It does resonate with a lot of people and there are possibilities like that in the future.

#yessadirichards

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apple-pecan · 8 months

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Bowser's Fury (2021)

bowser has been doom scrolling on twitter for a bit too long and became a giant, vicious, bloodthirsty beast (as tends to happen) and mario and bowser jr must put aside their differences to delete his account.

the first truly open world mario game, bowser's fury was a bonus game included with the rerelease of 3D World on the switch and you can reach the ending in a couple hours. wish i could say it joins the ranks of galaxy and odyssey or even the game it's bundled with, but it kinda doesn't.

you're hoping around in a mario world as usual, everything's nice, music's pleasant and then the rain sets in and bowser comes out to fucking KILL you!!! it's a neat idea but there's a few problems, mainly how it just kinda happens; there's no meter or anything to show when he's gonna strike(like say, the clock in majora's mask), rain starts pouring and that's your cue to just stop whatever you're doing and get the fuck out if you don't wanna die.

there's also a really annoying gimmick called fury blocks: basically they're blocks that can only be broken by bowser's fire beam, and there is a cat shine (the game's equivalent to stars/shine sprites/moons/whatever) in them for most of the worlds. so when the fury event starts, you either have to make a mad dash to the blocks so bowser can break them for you before the event ends, or just go to the blocks, and take out your phone or something as you wait for it to start. annoying. but what's even more annoying is that fast travel isn't unlocked until you beat the game. ODYSSEY EVEN HAD IT. WHY DID YOU DO THIS. WHY

that said, the music is nice, plessie is in it so that's good, the cat npcs are cute and i loved the final boss. this was mostly just nintendo tossing ideas around for a future mario game, and making us be the judge if any of them will stick or not. it's not the best 3D mario, but it really is more of a bonus mode you can play once you finish 3D World (fantastic game by the way) so I can't be too hard on it. nintendo didn't HAVE to include this, but they did, so hey. now when's odyssey 2????!!!!!!

3/5

NOTE: mario has joined the extremely specific list of platformers that blatantly reference dragon ball z, but sorry nintendo, sonic 2 beat you to the punch by 29 years. judging by all the slowdown in this game it proves it doesn't even have blast processing either. genesis does what nintendon't :3

#apple's media review #apple's media: games

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rourhksapocolypse · 1 year

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Alright, I didn't sleep overnight but I don't care because I feel like saying this.

Nintendo put older games and an emulator for those games onto the Nintendo eShop for free.

But there's a catch, of course.

First, you need a subscription to their Internet multiplayer service, with extension pack for the full deal. Second, the available titles for each emulator isn't huge - I probably had a bigger collection of GBA games than you get out of the free stuff, and mom and dad didn't really shell out for games of any stripe. Not really - unless Dad was spending on himself anyway.

Third: they're old games.

This does not make them not classics or not good stories.

It makes them have limited options, especially compared to what's available today, or even just five-ten years after they first came out, partly, well, mostly, because of technological limitations and available inspiration for story and gameplay mechanics.

Example: Link's Awakening.

'93, it's on the NES or SNES, and it's kinda cool to people then. In '98, it's on the handheld Gameboy Color, and they specifically add in a dungeon based on color. But the artwork in both is notably two dimensional with large blocks.

In the 2020's, it's fully 3D, individually animated models, shadows, complicated effort on the text boxes and detail work in the art and music everywhere.

Despite being a blatant rip/rerelease of their own game, the latter is the clear superior.

Another example, if less connected: MegaMan.

MegaMan Classic has very little going on the in first few games, but are admittedly fairly difficult and absolutely unforgiving in some ways. Particularly boss fights and platforming over death pits.

MegaMan X, Z, and ZX, on the other hand, have detailed worlds, and a lot going on in art, world, and music, mostly retaining that difficulty but with simple options and forgiveness to temper that difficulty.

But connected counterpoint:

Shining Force.

You have no idea what that is, unless you're older than me or grew up with more money in your life/your friend's life.

Or you're like me, and you had a Dreamcast and an anthology of Sega games.

Shining Force is the Final Fantasy squad strategy game before Final Fantasy Tactics, XCOM, or any other. As far as I know, anyway.

Every soldier is unique, every person can be taught new things, leveled up, armed individually, and have their own part in the story. The artwork is amazing, the music is great, and you probably would have done difficulty comparing it to, say, Golden Axe and Street Fighter 2, contemporary games on the Sega Genesis and visibly arcade games.

From what I remember of the story, it's written incredibly well, no matter how childish it may seem at first, realistic for a group trying to prevent a genocidal doomsday cult from achieving their goals, and a decent, not overpowering challenge, with hidden, useful options everywhere, even mid combat! (There's a Monk, whose name I forget, which you pick up during the second battle, or not at all, and despite not picking up a weapon he does pretty decent damage)

#life rambles

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yostresswritinggirl · 3 years

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Tales of The Ghost Writer

“You met Xingqiu at Wanwen Bookhouse when delivering a batch of your newly-published book. But as a ghost writer, no one knew it was you that authored such books. Safe to say it was cute watching the noble bookworm fanboy about you in front of you.”

Pairings -> Xingqiu x Author!Reader

Word Count -> 3518

Theme -> Long Fic, Fluff

Series -> #Bonafide specials (100 followers event)

Warnings -> Xingqiu's name might be mispelled at times, also he rambles a lot

Entry Log # 645:

I’ve once again delivered the new batch of books to Wanwen Bookhouse today at 4PM, 30 new books in collection to be sold. That would add up to a total of 420 published books for Legend of the Lone Sword. Despite its old circulation, collectors and avid bookworms still seek out the volumes. In a spur of the moment thought, the 4th volume was finally rereleased for more readers to get a chance to read them. While on my rounds, I’ve met a particularly peculiar fan.

“4th volume?” You nod as you set down the stack of books on the counter where Jifang stood behind with a welcoming smile. “Thank you, everyone has been asking about it for a while now. I don’t understand how people keep missing out on the last volume like so.” There was an exchange of giggles between you continued your idle chatter, busying yourself with recounting the stack to make sure the order placed was exact. Yep, 30.

You picked one up from the top pile as Jifang enters the bookhouse to gather the payment. It wasn't that much of a feat to carry a pile of 30 books when it's only this thick, you thought as you opened the book in the middle and... buried your nose in it, literally. Archons, the scent of freshly printed books had always been such a stress reliever of a kind. The imprints were still fresh as you run your thumb over the pristine white page of page 75, the gravings of the letter bumping it in such an intricate and endearing manner. You suppose it should be prime time you get a copy of your own-

"Ah, the glorious scent fresh books offer are quite irresistible to everyone," your head whipped to the side in a hurry at the embarrassing display. Yet your new company only offered a light-hearted laugh, floaty and flowing swiftly past his lips. You find it enjoyable to listen to. "Fret not, I don't judge such honest guilty pleasure."

His smile was soft and respectful as you return it, watching his hand (wrists largely ruffled) pick up the next book on the pile, his interest shining the more he recognizes the the piece of literature. Such expensive clothing and poise, you thought as you continued to inspect. "I knew Wanwen had a schedule of new releases today, but I was not informed it would be the 4th volume of the Legend of the Lone Sword!"

"A fan?" You mused as you placed back the copy you took, leaning against the counter as you watched him quickly scan the lines of the book. He was intensely staring at every word with such a calculating gaze, that sometimes break when he reads how the character would sometimes reach an impasse, or when a new discovery reaches its peak. His ardent gaze was enough of an answer. When he took a break from reading to pass you his attention, you hadn't realize how red your cheeks had been out of embarrassment. "I've always wanted to get my hands on my own copy of the 4th, yet everytime all bookhouses in Liyue keep running out of stock. Is delivery normally this scarce?" He'd gestured at the not so looming pile.

You nod in response with a forgoing giggle. "Publishing could be running into some... shortness of funds?" Subtle, yet he hums in disappointment at the thought. His little pout, adorable, as he buries his face in the book again. I would gladly fund such glorious writing, you thought you heard past the leather back before the ornate doors past the counter finally opened again.

"Ah sorry it took so long, I couldn't find the exact pouch for the- hey! You again, you've read and been scolded dozens of times already," the woman angrily gestures to the notice board by the table, "Pay first, read later!"

You snorted, thankfully masked by the sudden cry of the caught culprit as he was smacked (hopefully gently) on the head by the owner, forcing him to put back the book to the pile. "Hnghh, but Lady Jifang! You didn't scold her, she was indulging herself with the book just the same," you breathed a fake gasp of astounded betrayal, before you three had laughed in chorus.

The oldest of your trio scoffed in amusement as she placed the bag of Mora unto your waiting hand. "What, her? Why would I scold her, she probably knows every word like the back of her ha-" her rambling was then cut off by a loud smack on her bottom, a book expertly finding its way back to your hand with a perfectly cut smile. Her yelp was not unnoticed by the male as he laughs at the display.

"Let him be, he's really been patiently waiting for the release!" Jifang scoffs at the word patiently as you came to the defense of blunette. You were never really aware of the norm in Wanwen, as you usually come by at a time where you would have been alone. This was a first.

"Quite so! Just the start of the volume had me hooked, setting for the peak of the story climax! The synopsis itself already hinted of another inclusion of a new element into the story I had not expected from this style of a book, surely such a writer would not tread such parallel territory without being an expert teller-" Jifang watched in amusement as her gaze lands on you at the start of the bookworm's rambling, watching the redness touch the tip of your ear with an abashed smile shyly gracing your lips. Behind it she can see the mirth and amusement, something she outwardly shows with her own expression.

"Wow," was the Liyuean woman's only response once the speaker has finished his lengthy speech. His dorkiness stands with pride at his examination.

You cleared your throat before you could mutter your initial words, finally realizing the time. "That was... quite marvelous of an analysis. A-Anywaysss, thank you for your partnership, I hope the books are all sold by tomorrow!"

And with that you swiftly made your exit, wanting to find a place to scream the embarrassment out. Or maybe squeal, just to be subtle.

Entry Log # 15:

As a distant relative to the Guhua clan, the (L/N) clan was not exactly known to be tied closely to the prestigious clan known for their expert martial. However, despite the impure connection, they carry with them still the honor of learning the arts to a meticulous detail.

Your family was one of the living practitioners of the Guhua Arts, twice removed, yet your spotlight was not that obvious as the name would carry. Your father wish to carry a new kind of prestige without relying on the powerful namesake and he had been adamant since birth to grind every teaching and form of the art into his immediate family.

"Misogyny nor feminism will not save you from battle, only your own strength." Something along those lines, was what he said.

Your eldest brother was his main point of reference when scolding you on not taking your lessons properly. A slacker he is, now he lacks not only a means of security but also financial stability, that's what you end up to if you don't treasure the arts of our family. You have no idea how martial arts brings you monetary security, but you can't really state to your own father that his logic was a bit skewed.

Daily during morning and the first touch of evening, you had resigned yourself into training under your father's supervision. As the eldest daughter of the house, you carry with you still a responsibility to be strong. No fraility was accepted, and your mother always argues about your father's ever so masculine lifestyle being imposed on you, a lady that should be taught other customs for means of living.

Yet after every session, at the end of the day under the caress of the lamp by your study table, your hands move with precision and calmness he would have scoffed at in the dojo. The beauty of words and their power to create new worlds effortlessly had drawn you in too easily, ever since you were young you had a knack for the books your mother reads to herself or to you.

Entry Log # 651:

The next time you'd met the Wanwen Bookworm (nickname you gave) was a rare moment when he'd finally looked at you more than the book in his hand. It seemed your little interaction from the bookhouse was attention-grabbing enough to make him seek out your person with a bunch of questions and wonder.

You gulped, patting down your blue skirt before accompanying him. The way he rambles was too dangerous, it was drawing something within you to also do the same, and you feared you may let out something you shouldn't. But a fellow 'reader' is good company, and with the little interactions you had with the same age group with the same interest makes this moment something you can't pass.

"Carrier to the Yae Publishing House?" You nodded calculatedly, after confirming you've said just the right information. "Quite intriguing, especially with such young age to be working in line with the greatest press house in Teyvat." Ohhh, he's surely smart despite the first impression of goofiness.

You giggled as politely as you can remember you should upon the scarce teachings of your mother. "I've always liked literature so I couldn't uhm let the opportunity pass, even if it's insignificant like that." Good, good, piling up the lies. You're grateful you haven't made some contract of friendship and happen upon the wrath of your nation's God. Or Qixing.

"Surely, you must have been in the presence of some of the wordsmiths during your rendezvous! So tell me," there was a dangerous glint in his eyes and you knew exactly what he's gonna ask, "Have you met the legendary Bob Ong?"

Oh goodness, you felt him caress and pat your back as you tried your best to breathe after the sudden choking on nothing, he was so spot on that you were horrified even if you had an inkling of what he was gonna inquire. "I uhm I don't really know what I'm allowed to say." In the inside you were goddamn screaming.

"You don't have to tell me anything about him, really! It's his mystery that makes his character just the most intriguing." You gulped down hard, this time without choking out of nothing. "I don't really know much about who he is since he's, you know, unknown? No clues whatsoever, he could be anywhere right now, maybe you've talked to him already or no. Yeah?"

He held a convincing hum before taking in the cryptic answer, content, for now you assume. "Not many avid readers of the book can place a name to the unnamed author, but how blind they were to see the cryptic signature at the back of the cover. Truly a wonderous act." Xingqiu, you finally learned his name, had took you out to lunch for the trouble and enjoyment. It wasn't really necessary, but you figured it was probably to keep you with him longer to converse about the books more.

A lot of his... analysis actually coincide with the messages that you lodged between the lines. He understands your way of narration more than you do at times, and you were left wondering just how much he had read of the fourth volume despite only having it for a few days then. When evening once again struck, you had bid each other farewell in the promise of another time to hang.

"It's a literature of love and freedom- disguised as a martial arts novel." Was his parting analysis, and you were left to wonder, was that really what you had projected into your works?

Entry Log # 32:

In your young and hopeful mind, you'd sent your first ever manuscript to Yae Publishing House. It wasn't your first work but it was the one you worked hard on the most, with weeks of furbishing and reworks. Your mother, although not directly informed of your whole plan, had provided you with great feedback and generous suggestions. And soon you created the first manuscript of 'String of Pearls'.

With a generous note and what you hoped is enough mora to at least publish a book, your package was sent to Inazuma.

You waited for days, of which turned to weeks, and then to months. You thought by the end of it all, you had been swindled but as young as you still hoped for the best of its outcome.

And then one day, as you were sweeping the outside of your gates in preparation for your father's return from some business in the harbor, a lone man of Inazuman style found its way to your humble abode. He calls himself Mr. Nine, and in his arms cradled two similar looking books, with a familiar envelope.

That was when you had been given the opportunity to write for the greatest Publishing House under the guise of a pseudonym. The great Nine was astounded by your ripeness paired with your prowess in writing. You hid behind Bob Ong, a protection from being belittled as a young child and a woman, to prevent being traced by your father if ever.

Yet you remained as subtle still. Even if your name was not written on the covers themselves, within your heart you were still the writers of those books. You've placed anagrams and mysterious puzzles revealing your name but it was part of the intrigue of the story that they had not thought much about it.

One day, you lost your book when you had gone out to eat. It was the second copy, as you carried the first one in your room, yet it still held a special place in your heart.

Xingqiu was a master novelist too, as you'd expect from someone so enthusiastic on the art of literature too. You'd long since become friends and found out soon enough his true identity. The heir to the Feiyun Commerce Guild, master practitioner of the Guhua Clan Arts, soon to be novelist. He was in every aspect the better half between you two.

One day in his daily reading breaks where he would happen upon you, he had found his eyes wafting over your notebook that you always carry. It was designed to look like a hard bound book specially tailored to your tastes, but it was nothing but mere keepers of your notes and musings.

Your newest page had in it a brand new draft for a brand new story you wanted to flesh out before the success of Legend of the Lone Sword diminishes. Mr. Nine still praised you for the success of your first major publishing and had assured you that there's no need to immediately compensate with another work so early, but your mind was already so eager to work. Your friend had never seen you so- flamed and passionate as the paper caves to the intense pressure your pencil places on it.

So he leans on your shoulder slightly (glad you were still distracted) as he quietly reads the words that articulates on the paper. The more Xingqiu reads, the more he craves, just the same vigor he felt everytime he had read his favorite works when each chapter invigorates him to continue to the end.

"Such a great outline," the blunette breathes out as he leans his cheek at the crown of your head. You let out a cute squeak when you'd finally come to, and turned your head to face him- "I didn't know you were into romance, my liege. Tell me, just where do you get such inspirations?" Your nose softly collided against the smoothness of his cheek, your lips ghosting over the line that is his jaw.

You scrambled backwards to direction opposite of his, yet with his body weight leaning on you, his center of balance quickly shifted on your weight like a net being pulled against the sides of a boat. You both toppled over.

"My, my, I didn't expect such abrupt resistance from you," Xingqiu's arms caged you as it holds him up against the grassland on either side of you. There was a certain mischievous glint in the ocean that is his eyes, which only meant one thing. "No need to be shy," you closed your eyes shut as his face leans in closer to yours, fanning over the frame of your face as he lets out a warm yet teasing exhale, "I'm sure we've gone past our personal bubbles in this relationship." You felt his chest against yours and braced for the inevitable-

as he finally licked your nose(?).

What.

"X-XINGQIUUUUU!" And then a cry of pain after a particularly harmful blow.

Entry Log # 659:

Xingqiu had always been a man of great words despite his chicken scratch of a penmanship. Vivid tales of his manuscript that I'm sure the Publishing House would take great value for, his years of memorizing numerous works in his arsenal. He told me that if I were to one day publish the manuscript, he wants to get the first copy and the first to get it signed. However Xingqiu has one glaring weakness when it comes to the art of words. When I asked him what would be a good title for the manuscript I made, he simply said, "Tales of the Writer!" And he sent a goofy smile. I thought he was joking, and I asked again, this time of what his work would be named. He replied:

"Why, Legend of Sword, of course!" He really sucks at titles.

Entry Log # 660:

Upon returning home with my new work ready to be shipped off for mass publishing, I've finally confronted my father. I had with me the final volume of my first work and offered it to him as first a gift of reconciliation, and my father took it with a mirthful glint in his eyes. He said he has been looking for the last volume of the series he'd been wanting to complete. I... I didn't know father was a fan.

The climax of my entire double-life ended so peacefully and tragically meh. I was expecting a martial arts fight of honor that will go down in history, but instead I ended up signing my own book as my father gushed about how nicely I illustrated the martial arts teaching we had during our sessions. I did not sleep well that night.

October 9th was a day celebrated by others more than the young master Xingqiu. The pavilion was mixed in with people from different walks of life and of faces he doesn't necessarily recognize. He lingers by the open window that shows the grandeur balcony, beckoning him outside. Today was a scheduled new release for Wanwen Bookhouse, and he had heard several chatters from the citizens that a new series would be published hailing from Yae Publishing House once again.

And the virtuoso of literature cannot attend such important matter himself because of his own birthday. How irking, you weren't even there to help appease his grumbling, you should have been here by now upon his invitation.

Suddenly the master of invitations bellowed out a familiar name, as his job to announce the entrance of the invited guests to the banquet. When he looks up, you were already walking down the grand staircase in your creme and blue Hanfu garb, accompanied by a tall man of a different wear—

"(Y/N), M-Mr. Nine-!" He bowed politely to the man as you curtsied at his presence. You looked absolutely dashing yet the man towered your form easily. "It's my honor to finally meet you, sire."

"Happy birthday, Xingqiu, I've heard many great things about you," the blunette opened his hands to receive the book gifted by the man. It had a familiar cover and title to it, Legend of Sword, "Great things, in fact, that there would too be great things to discuss later on." The Inazuman graced him a smile and he almost teared up at the implications, if not for when the author suddenly nudged you forward from your demure state.

Tales of the Ghost Writer

"X-Xingqiu, happy birthday! This is uhm, I've always wanted to- I wanted to give you this myself, I know you'd miss the first batch of releases," an unfamiliar book sits on his palm now. A plume and sword adorning its cover but no title, he shifts his hand to open it to the first page, "You said you wanted its first copy be signed, and I thought it appropriate to be given now at such a special occasion."

There in fresh print and ink he'd finally been revealed the mysteries he had long been searching for.

Against the translucent paper it was written and signed,

Tales of The Ghost Writer

Bob Ong, (Y/N)

@creation-magician @your-local-venti-simp @boxofteenageideas @indigodreamtime47

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact xingqiu #xingqui x reader #xingqiu x reader #Bonafide specials #exile.flower #accidentally posted again but okay #female reader

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bakubabes-tatakae · 3 years

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For The Love Of Humanities Strongest (Part One)

A/N: This is a rerelease of the series that I’ve been doing for a little while now. I’ve made some changes and changed up the wording to make it more of an x reader piece for you all, so I really hope that this new version of it will be a lot better for you guys. I’ve been saying that I’m going to revamp all of my series for a while now, so I’m finally getting to that for you all. I’ll be starting my series up again and will be releasing a schedule for a weekly piece to them very shortly. ☺♥

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Yeager!Reader

Summary: When all seems lost Y/N knows that she can count on one person to always be there for her brother, Eren Jaeger, and herself. Can humanity’s strongest not only keep Eren in line, but keep his relationship alive as well?

Warnings: angst, character death, titan attack, family arguments

Word Count: 3.1k

Masterlist (only part one is rereleased so far)

Five Years Ago

As the Scout Regiment walked back through the gates of Shiganshina you were all greeted by many worried faces. You stuck as close to Erwin as you could, you knew that everyone was disappointed in the Scouts. Another failure in the books was how the citizens behind the wall would see this. And you knew that your little brother would be out there watching. He would smile on as the remaining Scouts made their way through the gates. He would be filled with happiness as he watched his favorite group of people return.

The mumbling started as soon as they saw your faces. You walked next to Erwin’s horse, trying to hide your shame as you tried to ignore the words and whispers that circled you.

Erwin had always been like a brother to you, he was your best friend, your shoulder to cry on. He had been the main reason why you had even joined the Scout Regiment.

You looked over to your right shoulder and saw his smiling face. This boy had no idea what was really happening outside those walls. Keeping his innocence was going to be your number one priority. You and Erwin both looked over at him and upon seeing his smile you couldn’t help but hang your heads.

So many of your comrades had lost their lives. So many people that you had spent so much time with were gone in a blink of an eye. You could never unsee the things that you had seen… and this was only your second time outside the walls. You were officially scared, to say the least.

As you listened to the chaos around you, you couldn’t help but let tears slide down your face. “They’ve sure taken a hit, haven’t they?” “The rest of them got eaten.” “That’s what happens when pride takes you outside the walls.”

None of that was why you did it. Pride had absolutely nothing to do with it. You wanted to make a better world for the people that we still around after the titans appeared. Emotions flooded you as you tried to ignore the whispers once again.

You felt a hand grasp your wrist and you looked up, a startled expression filling your features. You met the blue eyes of the one that had your affections. He put his hand on your face and wiped away the tears while looking back at the crowd around you. You hadn’t even noticed that you had let them slip.

He looked over and saw your brother as well, but his face was different this time. There was no smile spread across it, just worry.

An older woman came out of the crowd and stopped the whole regiment from walking. She was shouting, shouting out someone’s name. You braced yourself again. You knew exactly what was about to happen. “Moses! I beg your pardon, where is my son? He should be with you all. Oh please, tell me he made it.” The woman reached forward and grabbed the front of Commander Shadis’s cloak. You turned and buried yourself in your lover’s arms. You couldn’t bear to watch the heartache again.

The Commander had no emotion on his face as he spoke to her. You had all seen too much, you were all exhausted. “I wish I had better news… Give it to her.”

Another man next to him handed her an object wrapped up in a blanket. Her cries broke your heart more than it was already breaking. “I’m sorry. That’s all there is left of him.”

The woman dropped to her knees and you pulled away from your boyfriend’s grip, running to her. If it had been you in the situation you had hope that someone else would do that same.

Erwin tried to grab the back of your clock as you run by, but he was unsuccessful.

You knelt down with her and wrapped her into your arms. You didn’t even know this woman, but you just couldn’t help yourself, and she held you without even thinking twice. You had to help as much as you could. She hugged what was left of her son to her and leaned against you.

The Commander knelt down and she spoke to him once again. “He did good, yes? He was brave? Tell me my son stood his ground until the bitter end.” You had to turn your face from you, you could feel the tears coming again. “Tell me that his death meant something! Tell me his sacrifice gave us a better chance!”

None of you knew what to say to her. You all sat there in shock. You could now feel your brother’s piercing eyes on you. This was one of the last things that you wanted him to see. The Commander stood back up and his emotions got the best of him. “He was brave… But his sacrifice meant nothing.”

The woman went stiff in your arms.

“As it is with all our losses, it’s all the same.” His screaming could probably have been heard all the way to Wall Sina. “The day was lost! We have nothing! Your son died because of me! I sent him to his death!” The Commander was losing himself, you had never seen him this emotional before. “I sent them all to their deaths and there’s nothing to show for it.” It was now that you wished you had covered your ears. “ALL OF IT AMOUNTS TO NOTHING!”

Another group of men from the scouts grabbed our Commander and pulled him away from the woman. And with that the Scouts began to walk again, clearing the way of the road.

As they reached you, Erwin jumped off his horse. “Y/n, let’s go. We have things to attend to. You had a family to get home to that’s worried.”

The woman looked over at you and with a weak voice that tore your heart in two. “Thank you for your kindness.”

* * * * * *

You walked through the doors of your parent’s home to find your mother doing dishes and your father sitting at the table, looking through his medical journals. As they heard the door open both of them stopped, worried about whether it would be you walking through the door, or your other half there to tell them the bad news.

When she saw it was you, your mother dropped the plate she was washing and ran to you, Carla Yeager had always been a huge family woman. “Oh Y/n, I’m so glad you’re okay.” Her hug was crushing, but you welcomed it, being outside the walls always reminded you of how much you loved your family. “There were rumors going around that a majority of the Scouts had been wiped out. I prayed that the two of you weren’t part of that.”

You gave her a weak smile. “I’m fine, mom.” You walked to your father and wrapped him in a hug. “Hey daddy,” He kissed the side of your head and sat back down, getting back to his work, the Grisha thing to do. You sat at the table and barely thirty seconds later after you sat down the door opened again.

Your little brother stood before you with a huge smile across his face. He ran to you and jumped into his arms. “Y/N!”

You smiled the same weak smile you had given your mother again. “Hey, Eren.”

A little girl stood behind him and walked slowly over to give you a hug as well. “I’m glad you’re okay, Y/n.”

“You guys aren’t getting rid of me that easily, Mikasa.” You ruffled her hair as she stepped back from your hug.

Eren jumped into the chair next to your father, the one that you had just occupied. Carla set bowls down in front of all of you and dinner commenced. Eren questioned your father about where he was headed next and the conversation went on as normal. That was until Mikasa spoke again, causing your mother to completely lose it. “So... Uhm, Eren’s thinking about joining the scouts.”

Everyone froze and Carla whipped herself around faster than she had when you had walked through the door. Eren’s face? He was pissed. “Way to keep a secret, you mouthpiece!”

Carla ran to him and scolded him. “You get that thought out of your head right now, young man.” You hadn’t seen your mother this irate since you had told her Erwin had gotten you into the Scout Regiment. “No son of mine is going to be fodder, do I make myself clear?” She looked over at you and her eyes welled with tears. “It’s bad enough that that Erwin character roped your sister into it.” Carla took the towel from her hand and tossed it to the ground. “If she had told us she was going to do it before she did, I would never have let her leave the house.”

“Stop yelling at me!” Eren had always had a temper, and he had no fear of hollering back at his parents.

Carla looked over at you again, you knew that she had never meant the words that she said, but it didn’t make them hurt any less. “This is your fault. If you had never joined that stupid regiment we wouldn’t have this issue.” Her eyes welled up even more as she reached to grab the towel she had thrown. “You never listen to me, just like your brother isn’t now.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but Grisha interrupted. “It’s a nightmare, Eren. The outside… you really have no idea.”

“Yea, I get it, okay?” Eren put his head in his hands and tugged at his hair. “But it’s gotta be better than this life. I’m not stupid. I know it’s ugly out there. I know there’s death around every corner, but I just can’t give up on it.” Eren looked up at your parents and the emotions behind his eyes made you proud in a sense, despite not agreeing with his actions. “Otherwise this nightmare is never gonna end.”

Grisha stood from the table, not wanting to argue about this anymore. “Excuse me, I’ll be late for the ferry.”

Your mother ran after him as he walked away. “Darling wait,” She reached for his arm and tried to stop him. “Scold the boy for heaven's sake.”

“Scold him? Dear, please, think this through. Mere words won’t hold back the boy's curiosity.” Grisha chuckled slightly but stopped as he watched her face. He turned to Eren and tried to reason with him. “Eren, behave while I’m gone and I'll let you in on what I’ve been doing in the cellar.” Grisha pulled at the key that was always hanging around his neck and showed you all. “Agreed?”

Eren was smiling again as he jumped from his chair. “Yes sir, you got it.” As Grisha made his exit you all followed him, watching him as he left. Eren hollered after him, still writhing with excitement. “Have a good trip!”

Once your father was out of earshot, Carla spoke to Eren again. “I meant what I said.”

Eren was confused. “What?”

“This whole idea is just irresponsible.”

“Huh? Irresponsible? So what? It’s more responsible to live in fear and hide behind some wall your whole pointless life?” And with that, Eren turned around and ran.

“Eren!” Carla turned to you and Mikasa, grabbing each of your arms and forcing you to look at her. “The boy needs to be protected from himself. Promise me that whatever happens, I can count on the two of you to have his back.”

Mikasa nodded and you gave Carla a hopeful look. “Of course mom. I’ll always be there for him.” She let you both go and Mikasa ran for Eren.

“Can you please go after your brother for me?” She pulled you into a hug. “Tell him to come home, please.”

You nodded to her in an attempt to calm her. “I have to go back to my place anyway, so I’ll go find him.”

And with that, you left your parent’s house for what you had no idea would be the last time.

* * * * * *

As you stood in your apartment you gazed around. It felt like it had been so long since you had seen your stuff. He wasn’t home yet, probably still at the office with Erwin, that wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. As you reached to pick something up from the floor a huge bang that sounded like a shot from the cannons rang through the air. The force shook the entire apartment, sending you to the floor. You put your arms out to catch yourself as you hit the floor and nearly regretted it, twisting your wrist on the way down. You stood up and looked around you as chaos ensued.

You grabbed your ODM gear and ran from your apartment as fast as your legs could carry you. People were starting to build up in one area as they all stared into the distance. You turned around to look behind you and couldn’t believe what you were seeing. A hand was holding onto the wall that stood before you. Wall Maria is fifty meters high, there’s no way a titan could just be holding onto it. A second later it stood, the titan was taller than the wall and was staring straight at everyone below. You were frozen in fear.

With one fierce blow, the titan kicked. Debris flew everywhere as that spot of the wall crumbled before you. Houses were being smashed, people were screaming. Flashbacks from your mission ran through your head. Boulders were crushing people everywhere you turned. Eren flashed through your head and your legs were moving before you had even realized it.

You knew your brother, he would be headed back to the house and you lived farther than where he had probably gotten. You had to move fast. Titans were flooding the streets.

You ran through Shiganshina looking at everything around you, your heart pounding out of your chest. You hollered his name as you ran, not worried about the titans hearing you searching for him. There was already so much going on around them.

As you got closer to your parent’s house, you heard a scream. You knew who it was the second you heard it. Eren.

You turned the corner of the building to your left and stopped dead in your tracks. Eren and Mikasa were trying to lift some a wooden beam, that’s when you realized who was underneath it. Your mother screamed at the two of them. It had been their house that had fallen on her. When she saw you she focused on you. “Y/n, you have to get them out of here. Now!”

You couldn’t even think straight, so many things were running through your head. You ran to her and started to pull on the beam that the kids were pulling on, hoping that maybe your strength would be enough. Carla continued to scream at you. “You three need to run, even if you get me out I can’t walk. We’ll never get away from here.”

A titan was coming toward you, those footsteps were something you were fine-tuned to listen for now. Soon it would be at your group.

Eren shouted at her. “Y/n and I can carry you.”

“I’m not leaving you behind mom!” You pulled with all your might, this board had come loose.

Carla lost her temper, trying as hard as she could to save her children’s lives. “Will you two just shut up and listen to me for once in your lives. One thing I’m asking you to do, just one thing! Mikasa, make them, be strong.” She calmed a little, trying to get you to listen to her. “Do you want all four of us to die?”

You could hear ODM gear behind you and you hoped and prayed that it would be Erwin and your other half. Maybe the extra strength would be enough to lift it.

“Hannes!” You turned to look at him as your mother said his name. “Take the three of them and get them out of here.”

With Hannes there, you knew what you had to do. “Hannes, help Eren and Mikasa, get out of there. I’ll take care of this ugly bastard.” Your anger was starting to get the best of you. Through your tears, you could barely see, but you grabbed your blades from your canisters and got your ODM gear ready.

Hannes tried to talk you out of it. “Y/n, don’t be insane. You can’t take that thing down by yourself. It’s huge compared to the others.”

You ignored him and started to walk forward. Carla started to panic. “Y/n, don’t do this! Your brother and Mikasa need you!”

You had to focus. You saw Hannes talking to your mother more before following behind you. “I’m going with you. We’ll take this thing down together.”

You nodded to him and as you started to move forward he didn’t follow. Hannes froze. You hit the button for your grappling hooks and shot them toward the building next to the titan.

As you got into the air and almost to the titan you felt yourself get snatched. You closed your eyes and panicked, it had to be its fist, there was nothing else that could have grabbed you. Your entire body said not to open them again.

When you finally realized you weren’t in the first of a titan, you slowly opened your eyes. The sound of ODM gear had brought you back to the world. You were in the arms of none other than Levi Ackerman. Levi landed on a building a good distance away from the action and hollered to Hannes, holding you back from going after the titan again. “Take the kids and run!”

You could see Eren fighting and screaming as Hannes picked him and Mikasa up from the ground. Levi held you back and your mother began yelling again. “I love you three, stay alive.”

As you saw the titan bend down and start moving debris around you shouted at Levi, punching him in the chest. “The two of us can take him down! I know we can! Levi, we have to do something!” The titan picked up your mother and before you could even blink, he dropped her into his mouth.

You buried yourself into Levi’s arms and screamed as the sound of teeth on bones filled the area. “NOOO!”

And just like that, everything changed.

Taglist: @monic00l @strangeinternetwasteland @rowley-with-ackerman @kyu-pine @ellechanwrites @bonnisimpparker @impinthecloset @nikiniki743

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sideblog-666-thousand · 3 years

Text

A long bitch of an interview with Euronymous, from Orcustus zine in early ‘92.

What is Orcustus? Orcustus was an early 90’s black metal ‘zine run by none other than Bård “Faust*” Eithun— murderous pretty-boy, and o.g Euronymous simp. I think he might have also played drums in a band called Emperor... but I’m not sure! Its full name is actually “Orcustus— The Shadow of The Golden Fire”, and no, I’m not making this up.

This particular issue here opens up with a quote from a short story called ‘The Doom That Came To Thomas Parkes*’.

Assuming the reader hasn’t read the story, Faust explains that the quote is in reference to what happened to the titular ‘Thomas Parkes’ when he tried to raise spirits. Faust then admits that he’s unsure of his own ability to ‘raise spirits’, but says he hopes that he’ll raise some fists in agreement that there’s something wrong with the underground scene. Ironically (you’ll see why this is ironic very soon), he doesn’t like that certain bands, namely Entombed, are selling so many copies of their LPs.

After a brief diatribe on just that, he goes on to explain that he was in a rush to get this mag out because of problems with the printer. Then, he tells anyone who doesn’t like the fact that this ‘zine only features black metal that they can fuck off, with three exclamation points.

Finally, we get to the end of the opening page, where Faust pulls what can only be called an early form of the Twitter exposed thread. It reads as follows, with absolutely no changes to the text:

“I would suggest you to not do any business with that sucker Evil Ludo from France. He have riped me and several others off, by not return what we ordered. I suppose he’s a medical sensation, as I didn’t know it was physical or psychical possible to live without a brain”

Why am I telling you all of this, when this is only meant to be a transcript of an interview with Euronymous, you may be asking? Because I find it funny, that’s why.

Anyhow, the Euronymous here acts and feels very differently from the Euronymous of the last interview I posted. However, I hope you’ll still enjoy it, and I hope you’re able to appreciate the tiny glimpses of humanity talking to a close friend allowed him, even though they both behave like complete asses. Even though it’s hard to sympathize with him at points.

Like last time, any (sparse) commentary will be between (parenthesis) and in bold. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

F: Well, how in hell shall one be able to come up with an intro worthy enough for this band? The words I wanna describe Mayhem’s music with, is not yet created, and it won’t be created either, because no one has really experienced the real darkness and pure brutality with lays behind Mayhem’s hellish sound, but I suppose you all are familiar with this band anyway. Well, in the first place, I hadn’t really thought to enclose this band in this issue, because if we look away from rereleases of old demos (“Pure Fucking Armageddon”) and live tapes, it’s a pretty long time since their last release (in ‘87 that was). I thought I rather should interview them when they released their forthcoming album “Dee Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, but due to the circumstances, I realised the time was right for an interview now. I won’t bother you with any history shit, but I could tell a bit about what has happened last year. You all know that their vocalist Dead comited suicude in April ‘91, that was a bigg loss for the underground, and I suppose I don’t need to say that this mag is dedicated to the memory of that infernal man. Anyway, Dead was replaced by Cultòcùlus (back then called Occultus), but due to different problems within the band, he left the band in January ‘92, but let’s not say more about that, as Euronymous didn’t want me to say anything about it at all (but Euronymous, you must admit that it has sounded pretty artificial if I hadn’t mentioned it at all). So now, the band consists of Hellhammer (drums) and Euronymous (guitar (and probably bass too)). I know the singer of Tormentor (rip) from Hungary (Esihar Attila) is interested in singing on the album, and also even moving to Norway, so it seems like Mayhem got some sort of predilection to foreign vocalists, but this Hungarian guy happend to be a good one as well, so never mind that. But I don’t think this is official, so don’t tell anyone you read it here, ok? Well then, it’s an honour for me to dedicate the next following pages to one of today’s most legendary and infamous bands......... THE TRUE MAYHEM!!!!!!!

F: First of all Euronymous, I know you and Dead live/lived totally for the old black metal attitude. Is your hate now total to young and trendy bands after Dead’s suicide?

Euro: YES, we have declared WAR. Dead died because the trend people have destroyed everything from the old black metal/death metal scene, today “death” metal is something normal, accepted and FUNNY (argh) and we HATE it. It used to be spikes, nites, chains, leather and black clothes, and this was the only thing Dead lived for as he hated this world and everything which lives on it. If we had the economic possibility to do it, we should meet up at concerts and beat up ALL trend people ALL the time untill they would be too scared to go to concerts at all, now we need to suck their money instead. It’s impossible to stop the trend no matter how much we want, we have to do the best out of it and sell lots of trend shit to them. (I don’t need to tell you that that’s totally not why Dead killed himself, right?)

F: In the spring of ‘91 you started up a shop in Oslo which sells all sorts of music within metal. Is there anything you can tell us about the shop (ideas? plans?)?

Euro: Well, the original idea was to make a specialist shop for metal in general, but that’s a long time ago. Normal metal isn’t very popular anymore, all the children are listening to “death” metal now, I’d rather be selling Judas Priest than Napalm Death, but at least now we can be specialized within “death” metal and make a shop where all the trend people know that they will find all the trend music, this will help us earning money so that we can order more EVIL records to the evil people. But no matter how shitty music we have to sell, we’ll make a BLACK METAL look on the shop, we’ve had a couple of “actions” in churches lately, and the shop is going to look like a black church in the future. We’ve also thought about having total darkness inside, so that would would have to carry torches to be able to see the records.

F: Well, how is the situation all in all in the Mayhem camp right now?

Euro: Difficult as usual, but we’re closer than ever to record the Mayhem lp. Almost all the material is completed, then I and Hellhammer will record the whole thing with 3 guitars, 2 basses and so on. It will be very massive. Who’s to sing on the lp is not yet decided, we’ll wait and see what happens. We have several people who can do the job very well.

F: As Metalion of Slayer mag* said: “it seems like you at certain times lives on the edge of starvation”. Have you ever been on the thought to just give up the whole band and become a normal 9 to 5 person, or is this a completely stupid question to ask?

Euro: It has been very hard at times, but I am not a normal person anyway so it would just not be possible to do that. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why things are as they are (this answer will be long) (that’s okay for me/Ed). The reason why we don’t have any money, is because of hardcore. We have for too long been following the “underground” rules, which say that you must hate money, you must not think you are anything, you must be open-minded, you might have a lot of attitudes and so on. Extremely stupid. But the situation has been that if you don’t follow these rules which are made by hardcore pigs, you are not accepted as a death metal or black metal band! Then you MUST be signed by some big label to be able to make some money, and we’ve never wanted to do that. Then you would anyway be labelled as “commercial” by the HC pigs. This has caused that after 8 years, we are still as broke as ever, while the HC pigs themselves are controlling all labels, and they sign only the bands which fit into their own idiotic world, that means “death” metal bands with society lyrics and jogging suits, and this is what the people see when they grow up. They don’t see any EVIL bands with spikes, as we did. Well, I’m tired about being broke, just to be “underground”. I’m tired of not having money to eat for just because tons of people will call you a “rip-off” if you don’t write 20 letters each day. It’s time to say fuck off to the whole system, which is built to strangle the evil bands in the birth. We must start taking inspirations from the ancient ones, from Venom and their likes. They did their thing BIG, and they never had to think about any idiotic underground rules. They did it big and so must we, but it must never become a trend, it must become a CULT. This is why we have started on a brand new policy with the band and the record label. It’s about time that someone makes a label for black metal and other grim music, and STRIKE BACK. There is NO reason why DSP shouldn’t be as big as Peaceville or Nuclear Blast, if we can just get the business on its feet again and get good distribution. That’s the only way to compete with the HC labels. It’s about time we start taking control over our own scene. We must spread the EVIL bands and pervert people’s souls.

F: What about the Norwegian scene then? Don’t you think that something is terribly wrong when it have gone so far that we have a christian “death metal” band here (Crush Evil)? Advices on how we should kill them?

Euro: First of all— the Norwegian scene is the BEST. There are a lot of GREAT bands (yet with no album out) and of course some shitty trend bands, but nothing as in Sweden. There you have 2-3 good bands out of 100, while here we have a few shit bands who hardly have made even a demo, while all the great bands will make records in the near future. Such as Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Thorns (I’m flattered/ED*), Arcturus, Enslaved and newer bands like Malfeitor and others which I have not yet heard. BUT— when it comes to bands like Crush Evil, we must take serious action. It’s bad enough to have a couple of society bands, but a CHRISTIAN band is too much. But don’t worry, we have plans. They will not continue for a very long time.

F: And now over to something more humouristic....yes.... snuff movies. Who had been the perfect actor for a snuff movie, and why the hell aren’t they legalized? Don’t you think that every video-store should have its own section with snuff-movies?

Euro: Actually I think it’s great that movies like that are forbidden. If they were legal and easily accessible, all the small trend children would be watching them, and then it would not be something extreme anymore (I’m not sure if I agree with you here Euronymous. Snuff movies are usually too raw and brutal for the people with their “peace and life” infected minds. Remember the HC rules/ED) (shut the fuck up, Faust*) It’s just the same what happened to death metal— it became something everyone could buy in every store, something normal and accessible for everyone. All the mystic and evil atmosphere is GONE. I do not think snuff-movies are funny, I think they are DARK. I’ve seen people laugh at them, but that’s probably because they will not be mentally able to take the PAIN and EVIL on over themselves. That is the best way to watch such a movie, to try to FEEL the actual pain of the victims. It becomes much more gruesome then, and that’s great. One must be alone in the darkness and suffer with the victims, if you watch it with other people, they will often talk, laugh and so on, and then you get more distanced from it, it’s not supposed to be funny (death to fun), it’s much better when it’s depressive.

F: Through the years you have been talking about releasing bands like Samael, Rotting Christ, Master’s Hammer, Tormentor, Matricide, Imperator, Massacre etc. on Deathlike Silence Prod., but now some of these bands have released lp’s on labels which only have money in their eyes and know that black metal sells. Doesn’t that frustrate you, and don’t you feel it like the time is running out for you?

Euro: It’s a bit frustrating, but it is also a result of trying to be “underground” which is a suicide policy. Anyway, the main thing is that these evil records get released at all, and not who’s releasing them. We will probably release a record with Tormentor, they’re split up, but they still want to make their Anno Domini demo on vinyl, and we’ll try to fix it within the summer. The time is not running out, because there are a lot of really evil bands around. — most of the Norwegian bands which other labels haven’t heard about. Burzum is ten times better than all the bands on Earache together, and so are Thorns and Arcturus. So there is no problem, really. As for bands like Rotting Christ and Master’s Hammer, we might do something in the future instead. I’ve never been talking with Samael about any deal, but I wish I had as their album is FUCKING GREAT.

F: Almost all bands in the underground today says that they think they got their own style and originality, but the fact is that 95% of the bands sounds totally the same. What is an original death metal band today?

Euro: There exists no death metal bands today. There are only a handful of (mostly great) bands (in case someone hadn’t got it right— black metal has nothing to do with the music itself, both Blasphemy and Mercyful Fate are black metal. It’s the LYRICS, and they must be SATANIC. If not, it is NOT black metal) and what we choose to call LIFE METAL bands. Take a band like Therion. Their music is quite ok, it’s actually one of the best Swedish bands (even though that doesn’t say much) but their lyrics STINK. They are about society and pollution, what the fuck has that got to do with DEATH? If a band cultivates and worships death, then it’s death metal, no matter what KIND of metal it is. If a band cultivates and worships Satan, it’s black metal. And by saying “cultivates death”, I don’t think about thinking it’s funny, or being into gore, I’m thinking about being able to KILL just because they HATE LIFE. it’s people who enjoy to see wars because a lot of people get killed. How many bands think that way? Not many. I can’t think of one.

F: You’re maybe not the most active band when it comes to gigs, but at least you’ve managed to tour Germany and Turkey. What can you tell us from the tour, and is there any new gigs planed?

Euro: That tour was a big mess, we’ll NEVER take the train again! We lost quite some money, but still it was great to get to East-Germany and Turkey. The memories of the tour consist mostly of the starvation and idiotic custom officers, but still I wouldn’t like to have missed the opportunity. We don’t have any concrete plans, we’ll see happens in the future. We don’t like to play for a lot of trendies in jogging suits, so we prefer to leave it be.

F: What do you think of the fact that death metal has been on MTV?

Euro: It sucks. But it isn’t death metal anyway, so....

F: I know that you will soon release the debut album of Abruptum on DSP, so, what can you tell us about it?

Euro: It’s EVIL. It’s PURE EVIL, they were torturing each other in studio DURING the recording and you can HEAR on the music how they SUFFER. It will be the most demented record EVER, and it’s NOT for normal people. This is music which NEVER can become trendy, because normal people won’t be able to understand it. And that’s great. The price for the album it’ll be the same as for the BURZUM lp, which should be somewhere else in this ‘zine*. It’s called “Obscuriratem Advoco Amplèctere Me”, and stay away from it if you don’t like pure DARKNESS.

F: Don’t you think that people in the underground should respect others ideas and views more? I mean, it’s not accepted to spread unpopular thoughts. It seems like there is some sort of guardians of morality and most people keep in mind not to say or do anything which is not accepted by the public.

Euro: I don’t think people should respect each other. I don’t want to see trend people respecting me, I want them to HATE and FEAR. If people don’t accept our ideas as their own, they can fuck off because then they belong to a musical scene which has NOTHING to do with ours. They could just as well be Madonna fans. There is an ABYSS between us and the rest. Remember— one of the HC rules is that you must be open-minded (except for themselves), so we must be careful and avoid being open-minded ourselves. The HC pigs have correctly made themselves guardians of morality, but we must kick them in the face and become guardians of anti-morality.

F: You say you want your riffs to have a dark mood and really sound evil, but what if you came up with a riff which just sounded good, but not evil. Would you use it then?

Euro: Well, if a riff sounds good to me, it mostly means that it sounds evil too. At least when I make the music myself. Haven’t really thought about this about this before.

F: Do you think you’ve been playing this sort of music today if it weren’t for those old bands like Mercyful Fate, Venom and Hellhammer?

Euro: It’s impossible to say. Venom and the other ancient ones have been fundamental influences on Mayhem, and also the direct reason of the band’s existence. We like to think that if they hadn’t started up this, we would have, but who knows? Doesn’t really matter anyway, we hail ancient Venom as the CREATORS.

F: Ok, no more questions at the moment. End the interview in what way you want......

Euro: Perhaps it should be mentioned that well re-release the MAYHEM mini-lp “Deathcrush” VERY soon. We also have t-shirts available now. People should write for prices on things. Be EVIL, not open-minded.

Ok, I suppose some of you already know that Euronymous started up a shop in Oslo in the spring of ‘91. The shop is called “HELVETE” (which is Norwegian and means “HELL”) and are specialized within underground stuff and death metal in general (though he also have some other styles of music there). As he said in the MAYHEM interview, the shop really have a black metal look, so if you ever visit Oslo, I really recommend you to visit “HELVETE” as well. I think it’s good that people take the initiative to start up with such things, because if everyone were just passive, we would all get ruined by poser-shops like Hot Records where they take 140 NKR for the Earache albums (which you in “HELVETE” can get a CD for the same price). Euronymous also sells though mail, so write and ask for a list or something: HELVETE, Schweigaardsgt. 56, 0656 Oslo. NORWAY.”

That’s all! :)

And now for the things I put in asterisks, in order of their appearances.

*If for some reason you actually don’t know who Faust is, he was the drummer on the Emperor LP and “In The Nightside Eclipse” but you might also know him from other great hits such as “threatening to kill Mortiis from prison whilst simultaneously attempting to plead murder of the secondth degree”, “I’m glad the people Euronymous ripped off won’t get their money back because he’s dead hA hA!”, “I got fourteen years for murder because I’m a socially inept virgin— oops” and “bad... bad lyrics who’s quality somehow don’t improve with the passing of time”. All jokes are done in good humour— if it seems like I dislike him, it’s not that at all. I just find him easy to make fun of.

Here is another short bio, this one less sarcastic: he was born in Trondheim, lived around Kvikne, and Lillehammer, worked at Helvete, was a close friend of Euro’s, and has his sun in Taurus.

He also beefed with Glen Benton for dissing the Party City cape (Note: of course I’m being extremely reductive) he and Euronymous seemed to share. Here are a few pictures of Faust:

Here is the infamous Party City cape:

*This was surprisingly hard to find. I think he read it in a mag or something. Here’s a link to where you can find it: https://issuu.com/davidgamble/docs/paranormal37/3 page 64-65.

*Slayer mag was another zine, this one by a bloke named Metalion, who was Euro’s best friend.

*Faust (who felt the strange need to make a distinction between himself, the editor, and himself, the interviewer) also played in Thorns (well, Stigma Diabolicum), under the hilarious moniker: Fetophagia✨

*He’s being a fucking idiot, what was I supposed to say? It should be noted that Faust actually went down for the snuff films too.....

*In case you’re interested, for whatever reason, the prices for the Burzum LP were as follows:

Norge— 130 NKR

Norden— 100 K

Finland— 60 FN

Island— 1000 IK

Europe— 15$

Outside Europe,

Overseas— 15 $

Air— 22$

East Europe— 10$

By ‘norden’ he presumably meant ‘northern Norway’, and “Island” is the Norwegian word for Iceland. Notice the way he doesn’t include Sweden! (Edit: Originally I thought he didn’t include Finland because there was a black metal war with them as well, but it seems as though that feud came a bit later or had already passed)

That’s all, for real this time!

Legal disclaimer: I am absolutely, in no way shape or form, claiming that the stupid cape you see them wearing is literally from Party City. From my limited research, I’ve gathered that the Party City chain hasn’t yet opened its doors in the beautiful and glorious country we know as Norway— Norge. However, I am saying that the cheap, dinky piece of cloth covering their backs and shoulders are of the same kind of shitty quality you’d expect from a Party City Count Dracula costume and that maybe Glen had a point about how stupid Euronymous (and Faust) must’ve looked.......

#black metal #euronymous #mayhem #emperor #euronymous interview #interview #Faust #Orcustus zine #true norwegian black metal #my transcript #Bard Faust #look at these fucking dorks

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steppedoffaflight · 2 years

Note

Hi! Seeing as the years coming to an end, how has 2021 been for you? And I was wondering what your favourite songs/albums/books/tv shows of the year were? 💌

Hiya!! I've just started preparing for the new year by going through my journal entries, etc, so now I'm ready to answer this 😂

Also of course it's fucking long so I'm just putting it under the cut

First things first, 2021 was fucking awful for me!!! School was about the only thing that went smoothly, thank god. Other than that I literally spent most of this year in the deepest depressive episode I've probably ever been in. Because of that I also feel like I spent a lot of time facing the deepest, darkest parts of myself and it's only been during December that I've felt the depression lifting and I feel renewed and ready to take on a whole new year. Also that summary sounds so dark and horrible but truthfully I did have a lot of amazing moments this year in the process of sorting through the muck and mud of my psyche and questioning everything about humanity and life!!

As part of my personal growth during my depression I started learning Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and I kid you not it has already changed my life. I'm so fucking tired of the idea that we can control our thoughts, and that especially applies to people with trauma in their backgrounds because in reality what the mind mostly does is association!!! So if you have a traumatic background (especially ongoing trauma and not just singular traumatic events) your brain is going to have a lot of unhelpful beliefs and memories that really anything can trigger! But ACT centers around the fact that thoughts are random, it doesn't matter if they're true or false, there's no need to argue with them or try to '"change"" them, you can just be mindful of them and choose to take actions that align with the way you want to move through the world. Anyway, all this to say that if your mind has been being mean to you, it's not your fault, and also this is an explanation as to why so many of the things I'm going to recommend are ACT related.

Okay sooo here's the media I consumed in 2021!

Music - I spent most of the year physically unable to stomach new music, and I think that's because of the pandemic and its uncertainty so I was very attached to music I already knew I liked. - I also spent a lot of it listening to Taylor's rereleases and just processing and absorbing them in the present and reflecting on where I was in life when the albums first came out. I must not have been in the right life stage to appreciate Red when it first came out, because I always kind of thought it got overhyped (and 1989 has always been my favorite) but for some reason Red (Taylor's Version) has hit me SO FUCKING HARD. - Olivia Rodrigo's Sour was one of my favorite albums this year!! The therapeutic power of screaming Jealousy, Jealousy and good 4 u is unmatched I swear!!! - Sam's Seventeen Going Under was SO GOOD for my soul this year. his voice is just fucking STUNNING and the songs were so raw and really aligned with where I was at, god blesssss - Also I love Halsey and saw the IICHLIWP film and really loved that form of listening to an album for the first time

TV Shows - I only really had time to watch TV starting in the summer bc hockey season stole most of my TV time for the rest of the year! - The new season of YOU, ugh, I love it - I think this was the year I rewatched United States of Tara but maybe it wasn't. But either way you must watch it - I watched some reality shows like The Circle, which I really liked, and Too Hot to Handle which is a GREAT show to watch if you're trying to netflix n chill with the person you're watching with. I also for some reason started rewatching Dance Moms from the very beginning but I stopped a few seasons in, but anyway love that one too - writing this made me realize how much I actually like reality TV, I need to get into a housewives or smth - I'm sure I saw movies this year but I can't remember them. It's rare for me to watch a movie at home bc it requires me to sit for sooo long - OH I saw Cruella and as a 101 Dalmatians fan since I was just a lil baby I really fucking loved it.

Books - don't get me fucking started - As for fiction books, Verity by Colleen Hoover WAS THE BEST. I could NOT put it down - I was also reading Such a Fun Age and really liked it but didn't end up finishing it - okay now we need to get into nonfiction, which is what I read the most of - EVERYONE IN THE WORLD NEEDS TO READ The Power of Small by Aisling Leonard-Curtin & Dr. Trish Leonard-Curtin. I can not express this enough. This book changed my fucking life. For like the past 2 months I have only been writing in 5 minute sessions everyday. It's just centered around the mentality that small, consistent changes are so much better than big life overhauls. It follows the ACT model and I just need a print copy of this book so bad so I can always stare at it and make everyone read it. This book helped me really get out of my depression. - I learned ACT originally though A Liberated Mind by Steven Hayes (the founder of the model) BUT it could be kind of research heavy at some times so I also recommend ACTivate Your Life by Joe Oliver, Jon Hill, and Eric Morris. I'm reading that one currently and I realllllly like it. - Chatter by Ethan Kross. I really loved this one!!! Our brains are so amazing and terrible for talking to us all day lmfao. - Polysecure by Jessica Fern was very refreshing - Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer was soooo interesting!

Podcasts - if you care to know what podcasts I listen to, my faves are: - You Can't Do That (a hockey podcast, so fun and amazing omg I love it so much, like soooo much) - Psychologists Off The Clock (which is where I learned about ACT and ended up doing my own reading from there) - 10% Happier with Dan Harris, he just has a lot of interesting conversations and I have a lot of aha moments listening Anyway thanks for the ask, I know this is long, and happy new year (in two days haha)!!!

#i'm gonna call this #steppedoffaflight's year in review #also my goal this year is to track my media consumption better so hopefully next year I will have a more thorough list #asks

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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The Three Caballeros Ride Again Review!: And Ladies (Ride of the Three Caballeros)

Saludos Amigos! I’m back with yet another comics review! And we’re back on The Ride of the Three Cablleros! Thanks again to WeirdKev27 for commissioning this retrospective. It’s going to get pricey and I greatly appreciate it. PREVIOUSLY ON RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS

In short.. a bunch of short segments of varying quality, a very thirsty Donald hitting on ladies, the first appearance of Panchito and some very good music. A fun time was had by all. Along with a LOT OF drugs by the Disney Animators. The film wasn’t a huge success, but out of the 6 package films, it was a fan faviorite alongside the Mr. Toad and Ichabod movie, and thus was rereleased quite a bit, as well as being one of the first of this era to end up on VHS due to it’s cult popularity. As for Panchito and Jose they’d get plenty of success overseas, with both getting solo series in their respective home countries, Jose himself having just resumed having comics again this year, and being rightfully massive characters. But despite being a hit with fans across the world.. in the US... they were pretty much shoved in the Disney Vault for a few decades. Jose would show up on the Wonderful World of Disney, in it’s various forms, three times after the Three Caballeros while Panchito just vanished aside from reuses of the Three Caballeros footage. Their careers in the US just sorta vanished for a few decades. But as suddenly as they vanished, our boys returned triumphantly. Naturally being the most used out of the duo, Jose would show up for the first time in decades during Mickey Mouseworks, a show full of new late 90′s produced Mickey Mouse shorts, all but two of which would end up being recycled for the much more popular and well loved House of Mouse, which would feature the triumphant return of the Cabs to animation after so long away. We’ll get to that next time, as just a year before the Cabs had already reunited in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in one of Don Rosa’s best loved tales. The Ride of The Three Caballeros was something Don Rosa had wanted to do since he got the job writing Duck Comics in the first place. As he explained in the back of the complete library edition named after this tale, Uncle Keno isn’t the biggest fan of the Donald Theatrical shorts. Having experienced the Carl Barks comics first, and having built his career around them later, he just wasn’t a fan of the goofier, angrier, less nuanced theatrical short Donald, often feeling like he was an entirely different character from the one he loved. And.. honestly he’s not wrong. Both were built for entirely different kinds of comedy: While both did slapstick, Slapstick, along with standard comedy shenanigans, was the main weapon in Shorts Donald’s comedic arsenal. Barksian Donald, while not immune to slapstick, was more like a well built sitcom character: Multi layered, sympathetic when he needs to be, but still having tons of faults to be exploited for laughs and to play off other characters. As a result while I like Donald in the shorts I do prefer Barks version of him, and the shorts Barks did are usually the best of both worlds, combining Donald’s everyman schtick with his slapstick schtick. Of course later cartoons would pick one or the other or combine both, but I do get his point and at the time he wrote this story the only cartoon show starring Donald was.. Quack Pack.. which I can only imagine his reaction to seeing that train wreck.

But as you can probably guess there was one exception and it was The Three Caballeros. Don genuinely enjoys the beautiful music and the wonderful chemistry the three have. So after a trip to Mexico gave him the perfect setting and the fire in his belly to finally do it, he finally wrote the story. And since they weren’t Barksian characters and hadn’t had any other apperances in decade, Don also took a dive into their comics. Since Jose was more of a fancifial freeloader in his comics, Don decided to ignore this characterization and go with his own based on the film: A latin playboy and lounge singer. And i’m okay with him doing that, as unlike say with Marvel and DC when they destroy a character, Disney characters are both more fluid continuity wise and his is still rooted in a version of the character, and he’s fully accepting and apologetic that some fans hate him for this. Also for some damn reason they redesigned Jose at some point in his Brazil to look like this:

This is far from the dumbest comic book costume change i’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most lame, as his original outfit is dapper, stylish and fits the Brazilian version of him well. And it’s not like you CAN’T update the classic Disney characters with modern appearances. Quack Pack, which has somehow come up twice in this review, did so great with Donald and Daisy, giving them new clothes and a haircut in Daisy’s case but both still look great. Same with Goofy for Goof Troop who just wore a dad sweater and bow tie, which puts him in the small but significant club of “Bow Tie Wearing Characters who have defined my life” with Opus the Penguin and the 11th Doctor. You can update a classic character’s’s appearance without coming off like...

Which given Jose’s outfit there is horrifyingly similar, says something. Anyways, Rosa had more use for Panchito’s stories, which had him as a cowboy protecting small towns with the help of his trusty steed Senor Martinez. Rosa loved both aspects and thus used them here, with Martinez getting a makeover to fit Rosa’s style better. Rosa is also the one to popularize Panchito’s last name, having found it on a scrap of research, not realizing the character’s last name was not at all widespread and thus giving him a canon one that has stuck to this day, and sighing in relief when he finally got conformation from another fan this name was indeed something Disney had used after loosing his research scrap. So with the two boys characters set, a plot set up and a whole sequence planned we’ll talk about on the way “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!” was born. How good is it? Well join me under the cut and i’ll tell you.

We open in Mexico, specifically near the Barranca Del Cobre, aka The “Copper Canyon” of the Sierra Madre, a natural land formation simlar to the Grand Canyon that Don Rosa saw during his trip and thought would make a great setting. While larger than the Grand Canyon, Rosa figures in his notes it simply isn’t as popular because it’s more isolated than the Grand Canyon and that, combined with it having trees inside distracting from it’s rugged beauty, makes it much harder to build a tourist industry around. The four are headed to El Divisadero, because this comic is determined to kill me with it’s difficult to spell names apparently, where Huey, Dewey or Louie spouts off for no particular reason about the currently being built Chihuahua El Pacifico Railway. Seriously the boys might as well be the security guard from Wayne’s World in this comic, their role for most of their brief page time is just to set up stuff for later. I mean i’m fine with setting up your setting but there are better ways than just spouting off tons of exposition apropos of nothing.

Donald has driven the boys here for a Woodchuck Jamboree. I did actually look into Jamborees, as before this it only had ever come up in one of my favorite movies of all time, Moonrise Kingdom, and mentioned occasionally in the Ducktales Reboot. Jamboree was first used for a worldwide scouting Jamboree but has gone on to mean a huge gathering of scouts, with the Boy Scouts of America having one every four years, so odds are it’s just a big yearly or quarter yearly thing for the woodchucks. Still it would be nice to see a big gathering like this in the series, especially since several of our cast are involved in them, including the possible power trio of Huey, Violet and Boyd, and Della and Launchpad could easily be slotted into the plot as seen in this season’s premiere.. as could Dewey and Louie if they really want to since according to Frank their members.. they just aren’t nearly as invested as their brother, and thus don’t do Woodchuck stuff unless he drags them into it, as seen with “Day of the Only Child” in the series itself. It does make sense: Dewey doesn’t have the survival instinct or patience for camping, and Louie hates effort, the out doors, and doing things for anything but profit. Scouting is all of that. So the boys have driven all this way for the Mexican Jamboree, as they’ve been carefully raising their tarantula Tara, and the Tarantula Breeding Badge is only given out in Mexico, which is plausible: Different branches of a worldwide organization would have different awards and what not in different countries. And Tarantula’s are also native to mexico so that makes sense.. and I want you to apricate that I’m afraid of spiders, not cartoony ones, for instance, this is adorable.

Galvantula4Life. But real life ones or realistic looking ones? Yeah no fuck that. So I had to go to the Wikipedia entry and see several horrifying looking sizeable spiders for this one tiny fact. Your welcome. Tara ends up on Donald’s face with the boys assuming Donald is sad to see her go instead of you know FUCKING TERRIFIED A GIANT SPIDER IS ON HIS FACE. This gag does not work.. but probably because as I said i’m afraid of spiders and this is my nightmare, you little sociopaths.

The boys however worry about what Donald will do for the weekend as they prepare to board the bus to the Jamboree... why it’s meeting in an out of the way town like this I have no idea, but i’d guess plot convince. They realize he has no friends, which Donald shrugs off, and they REALLY shouldn’t say to his face, but ruminate on it once he leaves to do whatever after vaguely talking about friends he had in the past.

I like this scene even though it annoys me a bit: Ilike it because it does set up how Donald really DOSEN’T have any friends in the comics. It’s part of WHY Rosa was drawn to the Cabs: Their one of the few equal relationships donald’s ever had, people who treat him as a partner, in both sense probably, a friend, a true amigo. As the boys point out Scrooge is a monster to him in the comics, paying him 30 cents an hour which I actually put into an inflation calculator to get an accurate read on how little that was by 2020 standards.. and it’s 3 dollars an hour. Hence why I call him a monster, why that bit hasn’t aged well, and why Rosa REALLY, REALLY should’ve retired it. It dosen’t help reading that knowing Disney largely treated Rosa the same way is cringe inducing at best, if not for any fault of his own. It being cringe inducing for an employer horribly mistreating and underpaying his employees though is his fault, he’s a grown ass man, even in the 90′s this had to be a problem, be better.

And yes i’m being hard on Don Rosa but just like with the comics thing, I simply expect better from the man given just how much respect I have for the guy. His art is gorgeous, his research is immaculate, his knowledge of old films is wonderful and his love for them so infectious i’m tempted to seek the ones he’s mentioned in notes out. He’s a truly wonderful guy and one of my faviorite comic writers.. but I have to treat him fairly like I do ANY of my idols. Just to prove that, I love Grant Morrison, especially his run on New X-Men, but a lot of it hasn’t aged well including some of the language and the entire subplot with Emma manipulating Scott into having an affair when he wasn’t in the best mental place and she knew that and was acting as his therapist, and treating that as a regular affair REALLY doesn’t play well nor should it have. I love Al Ewing, with all my heart and soul, but his run on Ultimates, while having some great worldbuilding and a spectacular cast, ultimately wasn’t very good after the first arc. Not terrible but not good. John Aliison, of Scary Go Round and Giant Days fame, while impressive has had plenty of stories I just didn’t like for various reasons and will probably get into some day and some parts of his stories haven’t aged well. It’s the hard but necessary part of being a critic: You have to be objective and see all the parts of a creator’s creation, not just the ones you like and call them out when they screw up. To me being a fan isn’t about just blindly loving something, it’s about knowing WHY you love it and being willing to call out faults while still thoroughly enjoying the work. There’s a fine line between being blindly loyal to someone, which has created Zach Snyder's awful cult of personality that I hate so much, and being an overly critical shithead and I hope I’m straddling that line.

Back on the scene after that filibuster they point out Gladstone, who himself is a monster to me for how he doesn’t lift a finger to help his nephews or cousin, and constnatly flaunts his luck to Donald, and is a bit more than teasing especially since he tried to, you know, steal your house once boys. That’s canon.. that’s a barks story so it’s canon here. You.. You remember that right? He tried to steal your house. And we will be getting to that one next month, just you wait. Finally the Daisy part that annoys me slightly. The boys being sexist.. was sadly the style at the time this story is set, the 1950′s, and thus plays better for me than it does in Ducktales, as their just little boys and don’t know better. Them assuming Girlfriends aren’t like having friends, while accurate though does bother me a bit, but only because the way this story treats Donald’s relationship is PRETTTTTYYYY bad and this sets that up. But we’ll get to that. Thankfully this foreshadowing of terrors to come is quickly forgotten as we get a GENUINELY great two panels of Donald lamenting his lack of friends. It just works really well, selling his loneliness and how isolated he truly feels without any, which while I have friends I can relate to as I only really hang out with on regularly.

This is what I was talking about. While I will point out Rosa’s flaws.. their truly outweighed but his artistic mastery. In just three panels he really has a truly emotional and heartrending scene, and just that one close up among them is all we need to get the true depths of Donald’s loneliness. I can be hard on the guy, but it’s because he’s one of the best there is, best there was, and best there ever will be and thus I hold him to a high standard. But with that we transition to...

Or rather first his boss at the hotel, whose pissed his headliner has skipped out on him again to woo a lady, and while he plans to fire the guy, only isn’t throttling him because he figures one of his “Senorita’s” boyfriends will do that for him. And while I do like Jose as a playboy i’m not really fond of him trying to have sex with someone in a relationship, as it puts both him and the person he’s having an affair with in a really bad light. It does fit the character, I just don’t have to like it. As for this particular Senorita, it turns out her boyfriend is a notorious Bandito and is thankfully out of town. So yes, Jose is essentially acting out Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans.

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Naturally just like the song, said Bad Man returns, Alfonso “Gold Hat” Bedoya, a machete wielding baddie who while understandably pissed about another man making time with his girlfriend, is less understandably about to murder Jose. Though unlike the song, Alfonso’s Lady, rather than help Jose, encourages her boyfriend to murder him and clearly has a fetish for cheating on her boyfriend with various men and watching as he kills him which.. Jesus. This is why while I don’t LIKE the idea of Jose hitting on women in a relationship it does work here, as he’s still not nearly as bad as either of these two, so it evens out. Jose escapes with his umbrella but crashes.. right into the back of Donald’s car. Rosa, Alfonso’s lady, encourages him to murder both of them for funsies, and being a brutal thug, Alfonso obliges and shoots at the car. And since, to quote the duck himself, Donald doesn’t like being killed “Even a little”, he books it out of there.

Alfonso doesn’t peruse them though. He’s on the trail of a treasure hunter who has a map to the lost town of Tayopa, which contains untold silver, but before he can do that he has important buisness to get to.

I fucking love that gag and that Rosa snuck more adult gags in there knowing plenty of Duck Fans, such as myself, are grown men, women and others who can handle this sort of thing, while still slippnig it past the kids.

Donald, once the fear’s worn off a bit, starts to wonder WHY he’s running when he’s not the one who pissed off the guy, and ignores Jose’s good point about the fact Alfonso really dosen’t seem like a guy who sees nuance.. until Donald sees a wanted poster for Alphonoso and keeps driving. He eventually gets far enough away to feel safe.. and confront the guy who got him into this mess.

Now kiss. While sadly, they do not, we do get a lovely warm reunion between old pals. Rosa keeps their past vauge as, correctly, he pointed out in his authors notes that the Cabs movie really had no plot, accurate, so instead just vaguely alluded to Donald having known the two in his pre-daisy and boys past and likely had similar adventures to the movie, but adapted more for Rosa’s barksian universe. Jose explains he often finds himself cash poor and thus hits the road to drum up some money, and Mexico is a great place for that as it has plenty of tourist money.

Though as Jose talks about their past we get the most uncomfortable running gag of the story.

While Donald’s paranoia here is played for laughs.. it just.. isn’t all that funny that Donald’s relationship with Daisy in the Rosa canon is apparently sooooo deeply unhealthy that just HEARING about him having a romantic past before him, as Rosa confirmed this was pre-daisy in his notes, causes Donald to panic and worry she actually somehow heard this. It just isn’t funny.. it speaks of MASSIVE relationship issues and some form of domestic abuse on Rosa!Daisy’s part. It’s stuff like this why there’s only a handful of Donsy relationships I like: Her treating him like shit is reduced to a punchline, instead of being used for character growth. It’s also why I’m deeply dreading covering “Legend of the Three Cablleros” at the end of this retrospective. I just don’t like when Disney media treats Daisy expecting too much of Donald or being hyper jealous of him as hilarious and while I take this more as the story not ageing well rather than barks fault, as since then Domestic Abuse against Males has become a more widely known and talked about issue, it still doesn’t’t make it plesant. It just makes this not entirely his fault. Just like it’s not Stan Lee’s fault this panel is both deeply hilarious and uses a now kinda racist term.

I named an entire youtube channel after that.. we all have our regrets. I also bring it up since currently Harry’s become terrifying villain Kindred... and thus the current big bad of an entire Spider-Man run and the being hopefully bringing one more day into the light and hopefully leading to it’s undoing.. once had a goofy mustache he genuinely referred to a “Fu Manchu Face Fuzz” that for all we know he regrew under the mask.

Donald fondly remembers the old days of being a badass adventuring team and decides, screw it, let’s go show that Gold Hatted Paloka whose boss.. but being Donald ends up driving them into The Copper Canyon instead. Our heroes end up lost in the canyon and , fitting for Donald get shot at. I can only imagine his thoughts right now.

Their mysterious attacker threatens them.. before revealing himself to be Panchito, whose glad to see his friends having mistook them for Alfonso. Turns out HE’S the mysterious treasure hunter Alfonoso was after, to no one’s surprise. We get another deeply unfunny “Daisy’s only a thousand miles away gag” as the boys reminisce and get introduced to Panchito’s horse, Senior Martniez. He also tells the boy about his map.. but how he’s hit a snag as the lost town where the silver, from a silver mine.. is now buried under pounds of volcanic rock, a volcano having erupted. This is artistic license as Don Rosa admits there aren’t any known volcano’s in Mexico, but that they also still haven’t found that missing town, so this was his explanation. All is not lost as Donald’s globetrotting with Scrooge meant he knows his history.. and thus spots an old mission which, at the time, were used by preists as cover for secret mines. Donald naturally bungles his way in and we get the much better running gag of the Cabs thinking Donald did something amazing when he really just wondered into slapstick. They end up down the shaft, with Jose deciding Donald can’t do all the work, and finding a secret entrance under a sanctum sanctorum.. a religious thing I have no idea what it ii s but is clearly where Dr. Strange got the name. Regardless they find some old kegs filled with pure silver. As Panchito puts it:

And he did ideed. In a nice moment that shows off his character, Panchito has no hesitation for sharing the wealth: He wouldn’t of got this far without his friends, and he wont get the Silver cashed in without their help. He also fires off his guns in celebration.. forgetting their in a cave, a gag I genuinely like.

After some off screen loading and hoisting, the boys are slowly on their way out of the canyon, with Donald’s Car and Senor Martinez pulling the cart with the silver together. With some downtime the three talk about what they’ll spend the money on.

About what you’d expect. A big beautiful music venue

For Jose, and a nice ranch to retire at for Panchito. Both despite being wondering souls would love a simple place to call home, in their own personal styles. While they are BIG goals, their also likeable and understandable ones: Jose just wants to stop having to do all these tours and carouse and party and perform at home. Be his own boss, and live his own dreams instead of working for whoever will put up for him. Panchito just wants to retire from being a wondering hero to a peaceful life of farming, an honest reward he well earned. And Donald?

This is easily one of my faviorite moment’s of Rosa’s, one that really cuts to comic donald’s character: Sure he can be lazy, a trickster, hot tempered, and overconfident.. it’s why we love him.. but at the end of the day he genuinely loves those boys and their his first prority and I can see why the reboot took that trait and made it his defining one. They may annoy and frustrate them and he may pull a switch on them, 50′s after all.. but he loves his boys and knows they’ll do great one day and despite his spendthrift ways when given big money.. their all he can think about. Sure Donald probably has his own personal dreams, but instead of going big and retiring he’d probably just take only a small sliver of that money to open a humble hot dog stand or something, so he could have something of his own to provide them, while still giving most of the money to their college. Scrooge is who we all want to be.. Donald is who we are at our core: Flawed people who just want to do our best. It’s why I love the guy so much. The boys rest in the small town of El Divisadero, which like the town we started in is a real place, though both are much smaller, even as of 2000 when Rosa made his visit, so he had to embelish slightly. THey stop at a local watering hole only to find Alphonso. While Jose is naturally worried, Gold Hat has moved on to Panchito and wants to know why he’s here. However Donald thinking quickly says he’s part of their nightclub act, and we get a rousing version of the three cablleros, which when reading this I synched up to the song. I won’t put it here, as it’s too big for tumblr and it really works more as a whole, but needless to say, it’s the highlight of the comic. While Rosa did have doubts about putting a musical number in a comic, and it’s often trickey, he makes it work with the energy, vibrance and number of gags, that compensate for the music not being there. There’s tons of great gags, from Donald getting thrown out window, to the stone faced crowd who only cheers when Alphonso ends the number by whacking the three with one of their own guitars. Alphonso quickly realizes what’s goin on, finds the silver, and then hyjacks the train. The boys take off after him in the car, as Donald triumphantly states “The Three Cablleros Ride Again!”. The three head after Alphonzo, who finds them when trying to release the other cars to increase speed, and then shoots at them. It seems hopeless... until donald gets launched into the air, into a cactus then back into Alphonzo knocking his guns out in a great bit of slapstick. The Conductor, likely not knowing about the others or not carring, detaches the cars though, so our heroes and villian are now sent rocketing through the world’s most dangerous railway. Which, as you’d probably already figured out, is very real and what inspirited rosa to use this setting and thus indeed wind through dangerous mountainsides and over thin cliffs like a real life Donkey Kong Country level. Eduardo still has his machete though and easily beats Jose’s umbrella, but some more Donald slapstick and him apologizing to daisy about the senioritis as he wishes her goodbye seriously GET SOME COUPLE’S COUNSELING IF THAT EXISTS IN THE 50′S. It puls his sombrero down over his head, and with jose’s umbrella top landing on it, carries him off where he ends up in a lazy asshole sheirff’s jail for a gag. The boys however continue going back.. and the railway is unfinished at this time in history and while they save the silver, their fucked. But Donald has a plan, running to the back of the cars to get his car, and while it has trouble starting, Panchito throws some chilie’s in the tank to get it moving again. The boys find the silver.. but when one barrel spills they find out it’s not actual liquid silver.. but quicksilver, which was used for silver refinment. So while i’ts shiny, and toxic so of course Jose sticks his hand in before knowing what it is, it’s worthless. Probably. The boys.. all have a nice laugh over it. I love this moment. Sure the boys lost their dreams.. but like Scrooge, the three belivie theirs always another rainbow. What matters is the journey they had and the reunion that restored their friendship. Donald also muses the boys are smart enough to get their own scholarships anyway, so it’s no big loss.. but he does have to get back to Disvadero as the jamboree ends tonight and Jose agrees as he now needs a job again. The owner balks, understandably since Jose missed a performance to get laid and then disappeared overnight.. but the Hotel Owner is visiting so as long as he can provide a big act he’s good, and while Jose is worried as he already gave them his best, the boys naturally pitch in to be the cablleros once more. After all

So we close on Huey, Dewey and Louie returning, still worrying about donald, when they find him on stage. We then end on a truly heartwarming and great last few panels.

Final Thoughts: What else can I say? This story is beautifully drawn, as usual for Rosa, well paced, fun and really fleshes the Cabs out from the movie. It has a warm, fun adventurous tone and it’s nice to see Donald in the lead since Rosa usually did Scrooge stories and thus Donald was the justifiably surly sidekick instead of the main man> here he’s in the spotlight and gets to show just what he’s made of, while still being the hilarious mess we all know and love. The story honors the original film well, while forging it’s own path and is beautifully built into history. My only real complaints are the nephews being annoying, Alphonso’s somewhat overwrought accent, and of course the daisy gags.. but it’s all HEAVILY outweighed by one of Rosa’s finest hours and easy enough to ignore. Check this out if you can. It’s a classic for a reason.

If you liked this review, you can commission your own by messaging me on here or at my discord technicolormuk#655 for five dollars a comic story or animation episode. Whenever the ride resumes next, we’ll coming on down to the house of mouse to see the boys return to the screen. In the meantime keep an eye on this space for regular Ducktales reviews every Monday, including once this run ends as I intend to start playing catchup, loud house reviews whenever, my tom retrospective that’s returning soon, and my retrospective on the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with chapter 2 of that also coming soon. Until then, there’s always another rainbow.

#the three caballeros #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #donald duck #don rosa #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros ride again #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #daisy duck #mexico #comics #reviews #elmo keep

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