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hypeeconomy · 14 days

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Mechanising the fields: The role of robotics in propelling development in agriculture

An extensive study of the sequence of incidents that happened in the recent past which had AI as the subject under scrutiny signalled one thing in unison, and that is that AI is essentially bad. Not because it was programmed to be a villain, but because humans manoeuvred it in such a way that it has involved itself more with mis-deeds than good. However, its character arc is not linear because the 2023 edition of the ‘AI for Good’ Global Summit that took place this July proved that AI is a domain with many faces, especially when it comes down to the use of AI in the field of agriculture.

This global summit provided a platform for over 30 cutting-edge robots to exhibit their range of skills which served as a testament for the potential of autonomous robots to spearhead progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal. Amidst the participants were robots that could be used in agriculture who displayed the importance of using high-technology in the field of agriculture. What it also showcased is how agriculture serves as a breeding ground for new technological developments and also as a key area of application of technologies that were developed somewhere else.

Robots and agriculture, a collaboration that we didn’t know we needed

The utilisation of AI in the agriculture market is expected to grow from US$ 1.7 billion in 2023 to US$4.7 billion by 2028. Despite this initiative being in its embryonic stage, these numbers do not come as a surprise especially because in a world where the demand for food is steadily increasing, agriculture is turning to innovative solutions, primarily robots, to optimise farming operations. The advanced machines that come into play are becoming the new workforce in agriculture and they have the ability to perform different tasks such as planting, irrigation, pest control, and soil analysis. Automating the field of agriculture can reap benefits such as higher productivity, lower labour expenses, and reduced reliance on harmful chemicals.

Farmers far and wide have already begun to embrace technology, including drones and remote-controlled grass and scrub cutting machines to improve productivity and minimise downtime and monitor their livestock with efficiency. For instance, in hilly regions, these robotic machines are particularly valuable as they can access and cultivate land that was previously unusable. Additionally, electric farm and factory robots with interchangeable tools are being developed, allowing for precise soil management minus the negative impacts of heavy tractors compacting wet soil. Soft robotic grasping technologies and sensors are helping out in the production of delicate crops giving farmers and consumers both something to look forward to. Moreover, soft robotics employs gentle methods like rubber cups or small bean bags to delicately grasp and harvest high-value produce like peaches and raspberries from plants without causing any form of damage. Thus, preserving the quality of such delicate crops.

Robots that are used in agri-tech are as cool as ones you see in ‘The Transformers’

Optimus Prime may be a master in hand-to-hand combat and a prodigy in parkour, but RoboBees (which can take-off vertically, hover and steer) could very well outdo it in terms of efficiency. Sarah Murray writing for The Financial Times about ‘Farm Robots Poised For Growth as Labour Costs Rise’ explains how RoboBees; developed by researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, one of the most recent initiatives and is still in its nascent state, has the potential of eventually performing tasks such as crop pollination and environmental monitoring.

Currently, RoboBees are confined to laboratory settings, and their widespread commercial use in agriculture is still a distant prospect. These laboratory settings are spaces such as polytunnels and glasshouses where there is an absence of rain and mud. However, the ongoing progress in technology, coupled with challenges related to labour shortages, is making robots increasingly economically feasible for farm applications. This suggests that as technology continues to advance and labour availability remains a concern, the adoption of robots in agriculture may become a more realistic and practical solution in the near future. Furthermore, the fact that most of these robots are tailor-made and are often streamlined to function on a more plant-by-plant approach makes them even more attractive. For instance, ‘FarmWise’, a company based in California, has created a weeding robot that prioritises computer vision and artificial intelligence. This innovative robot can differentiate between weeds and crops, resulting in reduced labour expenses for farmers and allowing them to reduce their herbicide usage.

Another innovation that was exhibited at the ‘AI for Good’ Global Summit is ‘Digital Farm Hand’: a robotic platform specifically designed for smallholder farms, created by University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR). This robot is programmed in a way that it could detect and identify objects within its environment, including plants and weeds. Owing to a capability of that scale, it can perform various tasks such as field mapping and gathering data on crop health and yield. But the feature which triumphs amidst all the ones it possesses is its capacity to transform the farming industry. By automating the process of recognising and removing weeds, this robot has the potential to decrease the dependence on harmful chemicals by farmers. This leads to cost savings and contributes to a safer and healthier environment for all parties who are shareholders in agriculture.

But do these robots live up to their brand image?

The potential that robots have cannot be denied. However it is worth highlighting that whether or not this potential will be discovered is up to the economic and political choices that the agricultural industry makes. For instance, a concern that is associated with the widespread adoption of agricultural robots is, when the costs of applying pesticides are diminished due to automation, it might lead to increased pesticide usage rather than a reduction, which could have adverse environmental and health implications. In addition, the use of more potent and hazardous pesticides might become more prevalent without human oversight. If heavier robots replace human workers, this could exacerbate existing issues related to soil compaction caused by the use of heavy machinery in farming, potentially harming the quality of the soil. The concerns don’t end there. The standardisation of food items to accommodate robotic automation may create a consumer expectation for perfectly uniform produce. This expectation could result in increased food wastage as fewer items meet these stringent criteria for sale, even if they are perfectly safe and nutritious to consume.

Apart from that, a major issue that has many small farm owners worried is that most efficient and high quality robots that are manufactured are available at extremely high costs. This will automatically gate keep them from gaining access to machinery that can actually make a change. This scenario can change if smaller, more advanced and affordable mobile robots become available for smaller farms. However, currently, most manufacturers of farm equipment are mainly focused on automating their large and more expensive products. This means that larger agricultural producers are the ones who will have a competitive advantage, as they can harness the cost savings and productivity benefits of robots. It is vital that the decisions that are made with regards to integrating robotics into agriculture are done wisely and done in a way that has everyone’s best interest at heart. The minute that it is politicised, it will stray away from the path that leads to achieving the goal of using robotics for SDGs. It will eventually become an antithesis to what experts recognise as measures used to ensure food security and combat climate change.

#online magazine #magazine Publishing #technology #diversity #magazine #newspaper publishing

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genmakesmedia · 1 year

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re-learning html without the pressure of a project deadline

When practicing HTML again, I worked through a PowerPoint presentation given to us by my lecturer Phil. It went a lot smoother than expected, and actually was a lot simpler than I thought it would be. I decided to document my process of going through it:

To start off with I created a NotePad file and saved it on my desktop under the name "index.html" as the tutorial advised. I have also experimented with other coding software - such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Visual Studio Code - but this was my first time coding without any of the helpful autofill suggestions and colour-coding both of these applications offer.

Next, I set up the basics of the HTML page, including its document type and title. Then I added my first heading and paragraph. I decided to keep my text pretty clear and to the point so that I wouldn't get mixed up looking through the code.

After this I experimented with lists! We didn't really need anything like this when coding our Narrative Project, so it was nice to just have fun and explore the many possibilities HTML has to offer.

As I have had experience coding images from the previous project, I decided to skip these for now and focus my learning on things which I didn't know.

The next thing I decided to try was "inline frame" or <iframe> tags. The presentation I worked through describes inline frames as "An HTML document embedded inside another... Typically, MS Stream or YouTube videos." To play with this, I tried to link a YouTube video (to make myself chuckle, I decided on this video posted by the account Rat. However, even though my code was correct, YouTube wouldn't show the video on the page, so I ended up scrapping this feature.

So that the Horizontally Spinning Rat video still got a feature on the page, my next experiment was with hyperlinks! I tried this a couple of different ways, first of all by leaving it as just a generic hyperlink that opens in lieu of whatever webpage you're on, but - once again, supported by the tutorial provided - was able to change it so that the video opened in a new tab when clicked.

The last thing I wanted to experiment with was adding boxes and borders and I did this by attempting to use the CSS box model. I learned the base code for this from this W3Schools tutorial, and used it to essentially add a pink border around all of my <div> code (which essentially gives some really clean line breaks).

All in all, I really enjoyed this exercise. Admittedly the code I produced here is nothing special, and the web file is quite plain to look at, but as I have already used a lot of style functions for other projects I wanted to focus purely on things which were new to me. Coding in NotePad wasn't as hard as I was worried it would be, either, though it was frustrating having to comb through personally to figure out what wasn't working each time I made a mistake (I decided to leave those moments out of my walkthrough as there would have been many.) In the future, when I have more time, I would love to explore creating my own websites in this way, and giving them more interactivity.

My newfound interest in interactive websites I owe almost entirely to the ARG Welcome Home, created by Tumblr user partycoffin. ARG stands for Alternate Reality Game, and essentially these games use real world mediums like websites and social media to tell a story (. I feel particularly inspired by Clown's website as it is of the psychological horror genre, and utilises a lot of hidden/floating text elements to tell its story. I would love to have the ability to create something like it one day, I just think it's so cool.

Bibliography:

Clown. (2023) Welcome Home. Available at: https://www.clownillustration.com/welcomehomeyou (Accessed: 17 April 2023).

Rat (2022) 'Horizontally Spinning Rat for 10 Hours' [YouTube] 15 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXm9qeq1_eE (Accessed: 17 April 2023).

Richardson, P. (2023) 'Into Web Design'. MD4004: Digital Media Foundations. Kingston University London. Unpublished.

w3schools (2023) CSS Box Model. Available at: https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_boxmodel.asp (Accessed:17 April 2023).

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raelly-writing · 3 years

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The Lord of Embers

Since I started in Limsa, the Ifrit questline is the first time Thancred and my WoL really interacts and work together, so I wanted to write something for that first impression sort of stuff.

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The merciless midday sun bore down upon the land, and only a mild breeze stirred the dry air, barely managing to keep it from feeling too stifling.

For all his years in the region, Thancred felt grateful for the shade of the solitary tree that clung to the rocky slope. Leaning against its trunk, he kept one eye on the Amalj'aa encampment further up the ravine, while scanning the lands below, seeking for any solitary figures moving across the flat plane in his direction.

Hopefully the latest addition to their merry band wasn’t completely incapable of following the directions he’d left with the alderman.

Fishing out his water flask, Thancred took a small mouthful to wet his throat. Even for Thanalan, the heat was near unbearable. If he drew Viana’s ire for making her trekk out here for what was a task he could easily do himself, then so be it - he wanted to see for himself how capable this mercenary from Limsa was.

Not that he doubted Y’shtola’s estimation of her abilities - Hells, by his dear colleague’s strict standards, her praise had been positively glowing.

Still, while he’d had no cause for complaints for her conduct so far, his curiosity remained piqued. Even if Y’hstola hadn’t informed them that their new recruit was training with the marauders’ guild, it’d been plain to him from the moment she had stepped into the solar, just from the way she moved, that she didn’t carry that axe just for show.

Just then a dark shape moving amidst the low brush of the lands below caught his attention. Thancred straightened up a little, instantly on the alert. The figure was too small to be one of the beastmen, and there wasn’t much reason for anyone to be heading this way towards the Amalj’aa’s encampment. So, either it was Viana following his directions, or it was another spoken in league with the beastmen.

Fishing out his small spyglass from his bag, he focused onto the figure. Though the armoured figure stayed off the well-trodden path the Amalj’aa utilised, it was easy to pick out their dark red hair and the great axe on their back.

“Well, well, she did not get lost at least,” Thancred mused to himself as he folded up his spyglass. He should be easy enough to spot from her angle of approach, but if needed to, he’d leave the shade of the tree and meet her at lower ground.

But it soon enough became clear that she’d seen him, and Thancred leaned back against the tree once more to wait for her, his eyes locked on the Amalj’aa encampment and ears trained on the sounds of rocks sliding that slowly grew louder. Seven Hells, he didn’t envy her wearing that armour out in this heat. But she was quieter in her approach than he had expected.

Turning his head, Thancred offered her a welcoming smile when she crested the edge of the slope. “Ah, there you are, Viana,” he greeted her. “So good of you to come!”

Viana gave him a curt nod and joined him under the shade of the tree. Wisps of hair had escaped the bun she’d gathered it up in, but other than a mild flush to her cheeks she seemed fairly unbothered by the trek across the plains. “Apologies, didn’t mean to leave you waiting.”

“No harm done,” he replied with a shrug and held out his water flask to her but she shook her head and unhooked her own from her belt. Well, perhaps he should’ve expected a Highlander to know to be prepared for hot weather.

“Did you hear about Sister Ourcen before you left?” she asked before taking a sip from her flask.

Thancred kept his face neutral as he replied, despite the small pang of guilt. “Indeed, I’ve heard all about good Sister Ourcen. Isembard said her wounds were serious. It would seem my suspicions about the poor rose were misplaced.”

Not for the first time in the past few days, he was on the receiving end of a cool and an appraising look. But rather than saying anything, she merely gave him a silent nod and took another sip from her bottle.

Taking the measure of one's comrades was probably something of a useful skill in the mercenary field, but at the back of his mind Thancred had the distinct feeling that he came up short to whatever expectations she had of him. Oh well, he’d play the fool for a while longer still. “But, onto why I asked you to meet me out here,” he spoke casually. “False though they were, perhaps my suspicions were not entirely without merit. Whilst following Sister Ourcen near the Golden Bazaar, a band of Amalj’aa caught my eye.”

He gestured towards the encampment. “And I tracked them as far as here, but…” He slipped on a charming, apologetic smile as easily as one might put on a well-worn glove. “Well, let us just say that I would much prefer to keep my distance and remain here.” He watched her eyes narrow ever so slightly, clearly anticipating his next sentence. “This, of course, brings me to why I requested you, dear Viana. Would you be so kind as to take a look inside?”

There was a flash of something sharp in her expression, a subtle tightening of her brow and flexing of her jaw, before she exhaled in a slow and controlled manner, “As you wish.” It was the polite, well-practised tone of someone used to not making her annoyance with a request too obvious.

Disregarding the feeling that he was poking a bear with a stick, Thancred put his hand on his hip and tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. “Is aught amiss, my dear?”

While making her way past him towards the slope down into the ravine, Viana hooked her water flask back onto her belt, and loosened her axe from its holster on her back, taking the hefty weapon in one hand. “Nay,” she replied over her shoulder. “Merely trying to figure out if there’s more to you than just a pretty face and clever tongue.”

Thancred couldn’t help but chuckle. “Pretty am I?”

But she’d already begun to jump and slide her way down to the encampment below.

----

The distant sounds of soldiers groaning in pain bore down on Thancred’s shoulders as he made his way out of Camp Drybone’s inn and into the mercifully cooling evening air, with a tray of simple breads and pitcher of water in hand. He did not look forward to reporting to Raubahn how things had gone. Luckily, they had suffered minimal losses on their hasty rescue mission at the Amalj’aa’s inner sanctum.

But there were those who still drew breath who were all but walking dead.

Thancred grit his teeth, his eyes searching for the one person who had somehow escaped the primal’s influence. After a moment, he spotted Viana perched atop some crates in a solitary corner. There were a few bandages wrapped around her arms, but scrapes, singed hair and minor burns had thankfully been the worst of her injuries and from what he could see, they did not seem to hinder her much as she gave her weapon and armour a critical look-over.

“Ah, Viana, there you are!”

At the sound of his voice, she immediately looked up. Despite the attentive edge to her gaze - the look of someone expecting orders to move and continue onward, that rest could wait for later - he could tell that she was tired.

“Come now, at ease, you’ve more than earned a rest, I’d say.” He held up the pitcher and tray in his hands, a couple of simple clay mugs balanced amidst the bread rolls. “Some refreshments.”

Her body language relaxed a little, and she pushed together her gear before moving to the side, making space for him where she had been sitting.

Thancred set down the pitcher and tray by her side, before he with a long exhale sank down on the crate. It’d been a long day, both physically and emotionally.

“You alright?” Viana asked just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the people milling about camp Drybone.

Thancred shot her an easy, disarming smile as he poured up some water. “Flattered as I am about your concern, there’s no need to fret, my dear,” he replied while offering her the mug. “Despite the rather diligent attempts of the Amalj’aa zealots, I’m quite unscathed.”

Viana sighed, the tilt of her head giving him the impression that she’d only just resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she gave him a weary, contemplating look as she accepted the mug from him. “Good to hear.”

“Well, my contributions to this mission have been sorely lacking,” he responded while helping himself to a piece of bread, “so it seemed the least I could do.” He felt the weight of her gaze on him, but before she had the chance to reply, he continued. “Speaking of, I do believe I was in the process of apologizing. I do hope you can forgive me.”

“For what? There’s nothing you did wrong.”

Thancred huffed out a laugh that sounded more tired than he would have liked. “That’s kind of you,” he replied, managing a casual, carefree tone, while he tore off a piece of bread. “But there’s no denying that I arrived too late to be of any use… to you or the abductees.” A heavy silence followed his words. Absently, he popped the chunk of bread into his mouth but barely registered the taste of it as he chewed slowly. The heaviness on his shoulders grew deeper. If only he’d been faster. Stronger. More alert.

It was never enough. He was never enough. And people always died because of it. The bread tasted ashen in his mouth as he slowly ate piece after piece.

“But you tried.”

To his surprise, the firm, guarded edge was gone from her voice.

When he looked at her, he expected it to just have been a momentary slip, but gone was the reserved professional facade. In its stead was perhaps not the relaxed demeanour he might have expected from a friend, but there was an earnest warmth to her gaze when she looked at him.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was a shite situation,” Viana continued with a brief, wry smile, “And it would’ve been the practical thing to just write us all off as an unfortunate loss and not risk any more lives.” She paused, briefly, and he caught the flicker of gratitude in her eyes. “But you mounted a rescue anyway.” She shrugged and looked back out over Camp Drybone. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I’d probably have survived Ifrit only to get skewered on some Amalj’aa’s spear while trying to get out of there.”

At the back of his mind, he noted how frankly she spoke of her own potential demise, with not a hint of mirth to soften her words. The reassuring words did nothing to soothe the choking sense of failure lingering in his chest. If he had been faster to mobilize a rescue force, he might have been able to reach them before they’d even been brought before Ifrit to start with. Despite his internal turmoil, Thancred mustered a disarming smile and winked at her, “Of course I did, I’d hardly leave a fair lady as yourself to her demise!”

This time, Viana did roll her eyes and sigh, but there was the hint of a smile on her lips. “Suppose I should thank you for risking a scratch to mar that face of yours,” she drawled, then gave him a side look. “Thank you, Thancred.”

The earnest, somber tone made his chest feel tight. Thancred swallowed and was a little grateful that a sudden commotion between a couple of residents of Drybone gave him an excuse to look away from her. He watched as the two men were quickly shushed and led away by a guard, before things escalated. Try as he might, his smart replies didn’t come as easily to his far too dry tongue. “Well, at any rate, I should have accompanied you to the ambush site,” he murmured.

“For what? It was a simple mission, you had your own tasks to see to and couldn’t have known there was a mole amongst the Flames.” He opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off, her voice growing rough with poorly contained bitterness that echoed what he himself felt about the situation. “And if you had been present, you would have risked ending up tempered as well and about to be mercy-killed with the rest of the soldiers.”

His stomach clenched uncomfortably at the thought all while his overactive mind was constructing a dozen what-if scenarios where he successfully turned the tide at the ambush, or slipped away unseen to swiftly return with reinforcements before the prisoners even set foot within the Amalj’aa’s stronghold.

A multitude of alternate realities where a score of good men and women were free to return home safely to their families tonight. But wish as he might, there was nothing to do but to face the harsh reality before him, once more. “You know of the unavoidable fate of those put under a primal’s thrall then,” he remarked matter of factly.

Viana made a low noise of acknowledgment. “I’ve been around long enough to have heard the tales,” she replied grimly. “In Limsa, they often speak of the Company of Heroes’ victory against the Leviathan.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her cross her arms, and he could all but picture the mournful frown on her face when she continued, “I wish I could have somehow saved the others, maybe lent them whatever power it is that kept me from falling under Ifrit’s control.”

With a quiet hum of agreement, Thancred picked at the forgotten remains of the bread in his hand, feeling the slight brush of the crumbs that fell to the ground. “Well, loathe as I am to say it, there’s naught we can do for them now, but to give them a swift, merciful end,” he said. Taking a deep, fortifying breath he pushed away those dark, churning emotions into the deepest recesses of his mind. Surprising as it were, he’d rather not risk losing this sudden favourable improvement of his standing with her. Smiling, he met her gaze. “And I dare say there’s still some reasons to rejoice this day.”

Curiosity and confusion flickered across her features as she frowned at him.

Thancred made a gesture that was the faint echo of a bow as he inclined his head, bread still clutched in his hand. “Ifrit is slain, and by your hand no less. That, my dear, is the deed of no ordinary individual.” He leaned back with a satisfied look on his face, almost relieved to slip back into the theatrics of this well-worn cover persona of his. “Not that I ever thought you were ordinary,” he finished with a dramatic wave of his hand, like he was presenting her some magnificent work of art, rather than waving about the sorry remains of a piece of bread.

Viana raised an eyebrow, the doubt clear in her eyes, and snorted. “You sound awfully sure of yourself.”

“What can I say? My fine eye for talent remains undimmed.”

“Mhm, and would that be why you didn’t just investigate that Amalj’aa encampment yourself?”

Inclining his head, he gave her the placating, pleading look of a man begging for forgiveness. “Why, I hardly had the pleasure of fighting at your side as lady Y’shtola did. You can’t fault me for wishing to see your prowess with his own two eyes, surely.”

She huffed out a short laugh. “Could have just asked me to slay a beast, rather than doing all the theatrics.”

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that, my dear?” he retorted. “Anyhow, on the topic of your splendid victory; I dare say Minfilia will be proud beyond all reckoning when she hears of your deeds.” With that, he rose up from the crate, letting the rest of the bread fall back onto the tray. He’d barely eaten a quarter of the already modest roll. “I trust you shan’t object to my bearing the tidings to her. That way I can claim to have contributed something to this mission,” he continued and dipped into an elegant bow, then busied himself with straightening his clothes. “You, meanwhile, have earned yourself a rest. Take some time to relax, and return to the Waking Sands when you are good and ready.” He glanced up at her and gave her a wink. “Just don’t take too long, will you? The realm’s problems won’t solve themselves.”

Viana was giving him a barely concealed look of exasperation, clearly waiting impatiently for him to finish talking. “Seven hells Thancred, sit down. You’ve barely eaten, nor drank anything.”

Thancred paused, a bit taken back by the firm tone of her voice that was a rather disconcerting reminder of Y’shtola when she got in a particularly stubborn mood. “As much as I would love to-” He interrupted himself when she tilted her head to the side and the crease between her brows deepened a fraction.

“Really, you’ll be of no use to Minfilia if you collapse on her doorstep due to dehydration.”

HIs posture tensed. He felt torn between the guilt that spurred him onwards and that well-honed, professional instinct to dig deeper for more information - the urge to seek out the next task and try to succeed there instead to make up for this failure fighting the curiosity that bid him to stay and see what else he could learn about her. Another, more logical side that he ignored far too often, saw the wisdom in her words. He was hungry and the back of his throat still felt dry with dust and ash. Thancred swallowed thickly, which did nothing to alleviate the sensation. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt, surely? Just long enough to fill his belly and quench his thirst. “Very well,” he finally relented with a charming smile. “It’d be rather ungentlemanly of me to leave a lady to dine on her own, after all.”

Viana huffed out that weary laugh once more, its dryness betrayed by the hint of amusement in her eyes and faint smile on her lips. “Aw Hells, maybe I made a mistake,” she drawled.

“Ah, how you wound me, my dear,” he replied as he settled back down onto the crate. “Many a fair maiden can vouch that I am a most entertaining dinner companion.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that at all.”

#Thancred Waters #Thancred #have struggled concentrating #just wanted to finish something :)#my writing

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groundbreaking-science · 3 years

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Section 3-2: Amplification

Warning! The following section contains exercises that may cause exhaustion, fainting, dissociation, abreaction and cardiac arrest. No exercise should be undertaken without explicit permission from a medical practitioner, and mental health support may be required for exercise 3.2.5. The reader proceeds at their own risk.

Prerequisites: Exercises in 1.4, 2.1-5, 3.1. Additionally material from section 1.9 is referenced.

The first time my father sensed the Earth and his place in it, a soft dawn was breaking. He stood shaking and gasping for air atop the world's tallest tower, with a view rivalled only by God above. A thick carpet of cloud rolled out to the horizon far below him, the very real verdant lands of Yahhoi still present and visible in glimpses between breaks, and he felt relief.

He'd spent the night screaming in deepest pain and writhing on the indifferent marble floor. He'd flickered between life and death, battling the effects of a poison he'd chosen against all advice to imbibe. It was said that the poison would draw out the drinker's latent power - should the drinker survive the process. My father, at the still tender age of sixteen, was the fifteenth warrior to try and the very first to breathe in the morning's cool air.

In that new light he felt rather than saw life stirring, and he understood the interconnectedness of his own life with the Universe around him. For the first time he sensed a power through the ki-field: the overwhelming strength and evil intent of King Piccolo. With renewed certainty in his abilities my father set out to face down that evil, and the rest is literal history.

After enduring the poison my father obtained the ability to consciously interact with the ki field. Though he wouldn't learn to amplify his abilities with any measured and focused intent for a while, needing guidance from more divine or experienced sources and more powerful, urgent motivators, every one necessitating the honing of a particular element in efficiency or technique. My father's spiritual awakening was slow-going then, though that is not an insult to his effort - even the Monk among our ragtag band took decades to fully master his unlocked potential, and I know there are towering heights I could yet reach.

It is that endless struggle that ultimately gave me the confidence to include this chapter. My current proficiency and my promise to impart certain skills make the work seem simple, but I know I have reached this level with a genetic advantage and a range of thankfully unique life experiences. Yes, nefarious forces could use this chapter to escalate their havoc by orders of magnitude, but that is a highly unlikely outcome, as I'm sorry to say the majority of readers will never achieve a level of amplification that could cause any material damage. Instead I believed it more pressing to think of those curious individuals compelled to perform the "super" techniques covered in the rest of this chapter and beyond, and these skills require ki amplification to perform safely, if at all. And besides, it would never have been fair to keep from you a skill that is considered an Earthling technique at heart.

So whilst I am no God, nor a questionable feline apothecarist making my home amongst the clouds, I am able to employ more traditional teaching methods to improve your ki output with conscious intent, rather than resorting to cryptic life-and-death experiences. And so, in a more measured way, we begin to tie together many elements you have already explored.

Before we delve back into the ki field, I wish to return to the ki we already possess - genki - and the two elements that contribute to the total energy output: the charge (energy per particle) and the flow rate (particles per second). Increasing one or both of these will increase your total genki power output.

The easiest way to achieve a step-change in power output - although impossible for many - would be to utilising a transformation. Simply growing larger means more cells need to be governed, which requires more parcels of genki to be released. You can think of the size of the centre (and therefore the centre's hypothetical surface area) increasing along with the body. A larger surface area with the same flux (flow per unit area) gives a greater power output.

Namekians are able to physically grow in size and therefore power, as demonstrated by Piccolo (the Junior) at the 23rd Martial Arts tournament. This ability is a learnt skill and under conscious control. Saiyans can also grow to gigantic proportions taking on a more ape-like form as Oozaru. Whilst this is an innate transformation and so more accessible (for Saiyans with tails, at least), it requires the reflected sunlight of a full moon to induce, and the Oozaru form does not naturally have a rational mind. Mastery and use of the form is therefore restrictive.

Earthlings on the other hand aren't known for their strength-inducing transformations; the mysterious Shapeshifting Schools utilise magic and transformations in this manner do not appear to grant a power increase. The innate transformation magic of Giants, Manwolves and similar teratoidal folk does grant an increase in power, and zoomorphic people of larger frames will have a greater genki output than the average anthropoidal person, but anthropoidal Earthlings are not granted either of these advantages (by their very definition).

However, Earthlings of all kinds do have access to one technique that will raise the ki particle flow rate: the Kaioken. Against received wisdom I will detail this technique later, if only to emphasize the dangers of trying to learn this skill away from the healing properties of the Heavenly Realm. The technique involves warping the centre's surface, therefore increasing the surface area but preserving the effective volume, allowing more ki particles through. Performed with too much gusto this technique can tear the body apart cell-by-cell, so for those of us bound to the mortal realm, mastery of this technique could take a lifetime.

There is a trade-off to these size increases, however. The pool of ki particles in your centre depletes far faster when deviating from its natural surface area and size. If all particles are used up, you will be left without a way to draw on ki, and will have to rest for an hour to fully replenish.

A further way to boost power output and to much greater effect is to increase the ki particle's average charge. Again some species have access to physical transformations that can achieve this; Frieza's race being one, where various naturally armoured and therefore lower-energy consumption forms reduce the draw on the centre's ki (both in flow rate and charge), and these forms prevent the individual from overwhelming lower ki energy folk around them.

Saiyans have access to another transformation called "Super Saiyan", one that does not increase the size of the body, but does impact every cell, creating a greater demand for charge per particle on the centre. From the combined research of scientists across the Universe, including my own, we know the transformation requires a level of circulating so-called "S-cells" in the body. In brief (as this transformation will be detailed later), high levels of emotion in the body trigger the S-cells to release a message in ki to all cells, asking them to call for more ki in readiness, in turn triggering the centre to release more ki which manifests as a transformation with recognised stages.

The final way to boost your genki output is to use a different version of genki entirely. The Gods and other non-mortals appear to use their own version of ki that is functionally the same in nearly every way, though God ki is more powerful - the reason for which remains unclear. Curiously, God ki is undetectable by mortals unless they receive specific training. Given how parallel they are, I believe then God and mortal ki to be of different chirality.

Chirality is a concept we find in nature. It is woven into the very structure of our bodies, even. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, our mirror image has the same make-up as us - the same number of blemishes on our face and hairs on our head - but there is no way to spin you around to make you look exactly like your mirror image. You and your mirror twin will always be left-right flipped as "optical isomers" of each other. Similarly, some molecules can have exactly the same chemical formula, but the structure can be left-right flipped. In our bodies, one molecule we ingest can fit snugly into a receptor and work as intended, but the optical isomer will be completely ignored (or worse, cause unpredictable damage in the body).

Mortal and God ki then, with their dyadic relationship, can be thought of as chiral mirror images. Unlike chemical optical isomers however, mortals can learn to accept and use the chiral God ki, but it is not natural and so must be unlocked in some manner and developed.

3.2.1 Raising Yuuki With Kiai

Earthlings are Universally known for their ability to change their ki output without reliable access to transformation or divinely developed techniques. Their wide emotional range and social nature can be repurposed or redirected to drive that increase in power. For an instantaneous boost of genki, we can rely on our yuuki. If you recall section 1.9, yuuki (courage) is not a true form of ki but a mechanism of bolstering the flow rate, and comes from reducing fear to free up "effort" and ki-particles and therefore energy otherwise poised to react in a more animalistic fashion to the stressors before us.

Consider the question - "when we run from a bear, do we run because we're afraid? Or are we afraid because we run?" This truth is a mix of both. Calming the mind can calm the body, yes, but changing our physiological state can also affect very real change in our emotions too, which can in turn free up mental capacity for other purposes. Likewise, amping up the body can amp up the mind and ki in tandem.

In section 2.3 we discussed kiai, the guttural yell. We slowed our breathing, using the inward and outward breaths to create a rhythm that our ki synced to. When our core tightened to yell our ki flowed steadily with the breath, expelled with the kiai. Kiai also raises yuuki, as the steady, conscious breathing slows the heart rate, reducing the physical sensations we attach to fear and therefore fear itself, a calming feedback loop. We can then think of that freed energy as released in a short, sharp burst of "courage" instead.

To practise this, perform a push intent with and without kiai. Notice the increase in strength as ki becomes more dense when paired with kiai. Then repeat the exercise, this time explicitly utilising yuuki. Calm the body to begin with, and with the freed capacity of mind, genki should be easier to focus and kiai more effective, the rush of emotion with each kiai honing the intent rather than distracting from it. Practice these four states until you can sense the difference in power, both in quality and quantity. Throughout your practice keep in mind whether your yuuki is well-maintained or not. There is no need to be perfectly physically calm every practice, only to be able to note how calm to better estimate the strength of that day's intents.

3.2.2. Yuuki - Advanced Calming

Slowing one's breathing has the ability to start a soothing chain reaction through the body. But there is a shortcut - to hack our bodily ki intents themselves, intercepting the messages intended for the heart and other systems.

To learn though we must be quiet to begin with. Sit quietly, slow your breathing, and feel the subtle pulse of ki intent that ripples with your heartbeat. Not the ki itself, as that will be flowing through the body at a near constant, rippling with the breath and heartbeat, but the change in intent that drives the heartbeat. This ripple will track back to the upper-right of the heart (close to the body's centre-line) to the pacemaker cells which control the heart's contractions, and will spread from the pacemaker cells to the rest of the heart. These are the intents we must intercept.

Follow these ripples and imagine them slowing - I think of a soothe intent to envelope and slow the beat intent, and before long you'll feel your heartbeat begin to slow too. The other physical symptoms of fear will leave you as the mechanisms triggering them unwind, freeing your mind and therefore affording you yuuki to use for ki manipulation. With familiarity you'll be able to track these ripples when under huge mental and physical stress.

It should go without saying that upsetting homeostatic equilibrium is extremely dangerous. This technique should only be performed for a few seconds before you let the body drive itself again. I only ever use this technique as a kick to my system, like a full-body shiver to reset. Slowing the heart too much will leave you breathless, drop your blood pressure and cause you to faint. Playing too harshly with pacemaker cells directly could cause them to fall out of sync, triggering cardiac arrest.

The next question both the curious and antagonistic among you will ask is whether this same soothe intent will work on others to incapacitate them. The answer is yes but, thankfully, there is an inbuilt difficulty; these homeostatic intents written with a ki signature are so tightly bound to that person's subconscious that overriding the messages takes considerable skill. I know of one assassin using this method to trigger cardiac arrest, and the genki "injection" must be delivered with great, well-practised precision within close-range. Miss and the assassin is wide open for a counter. I do not recommend developing this technique both for the safety of others and your own.

3.2.3 Field Ki

Genki manipulation has its limits. We have a finite amount of genki (created from chemical (food) energy) and a finite number of ki particles to assign it too. So there is a maximum amount of genki that we can release in one instant and whilst substantial, it is most unsustainable.

Instead the most reliable, near limitless way to amplify ki is to increase the charge per particle by converting genki to field ki (banoki). In section 1.9 we discussed the ki field; how the ki field is a lower energy state consisting of a soup of decayed and garbled ki energy separated from us by a barrier of ki particles. In 2.2 we visited the surface of the ki field to read the ripples created by the ki of others. Now we will reach through that undulating surface to harness the ki energy beyond.

Find a comfortable and well-centred position. Lower yourself to the ki-field as when learning to read the ki-signatures of those outside of auratic contact (exercise 2.2.2). Feel the waves of others, those vibrations, and settle 'above' them. Remember, your spirit is tethered to this reality by its very existence, so it would take a deliberate act to cut that tie and fall in. I'd hope by now you would be familiar with this exercise and such visualisations would be of little use, but for now attend to the ripples to aid the next step.

Now, you must expend a little effort and genki. Let your mind follow your decaying genki down to the field and visualise yourself penetrating the waves' surface with a hollow reed of ki, finding your way between the surface of empty ki particles at the still spots between the waves. A through or part intent works well here. Your genki and the field ki energy will meet through the imagined reed. The link will feel tenuous at first, as both your effort and genki used in the process will render the exercise counterproductive in net ki, but do not fret - with a little practice you will break even and then excel.

Once the connection is established, you will need to gather field ki. Imagine the reed straw you've made growing roots, spreading through the endless sea of field ki below to efficiently fill the space. Imagine those fine tendrils reaching, your ki signature spilling out as genki converts to give a semblance of structure in the field ki. Then, suck that captured ki back through the reed, palming it into your very real hands. Retrieving the ki can be tricky - overextend and your fine genki root system will break, essentially wasting that genki as it breaks down far too fast. Spread too little and, whilst safe, some genki will be wasted, unable to touch field ki and convert. Take your time - the amplification will come. Aim to be able to repeat this cycle of reaching and capture as a smooth, continuous flow. When this convoluted process becomes second nature, amplification can be achieved with a simple boost or swell intent.

3.2.4 Storing and Moving Ki

At first, this mix of kis will be heavy and unwieldy to move between foci as your ki signature is weakened through the mass. The usually chatty and fast to react genki will take a while to send intents through the rest of the more neutral ki, the genki acting as lit touchpaper. The best way to manage this mass of ki is to maintain the "rootlike" structure of genki through the mass, enabling fast communication between genki and the furthest section of field ki.

To practice, focus genki between your hands and swell the mass. As you sense the energy convert, try to send the ball of ki from left to right between your hands. Notice how, as you continue to amplify (and at first even lose total ki energy during the conversion) this movement increases in difficulty, demonstrating that as the fraction of genki energy in the focussed ball lessens, it takes more time to propagate your intent from the ordered, ki-signature laden genki to the unstructured mass of field ki.

Notice too, that if you were to apply for example a push intent, the strength of the ability would falter at first, the genki now having to learn how to send out this particular intent as well as apply it to itself. You will be frustratingly back to those early days of learning the basic intents. With time and practice though your skill and dexterity with intents will return - and faster this time around. When you've matched your previous skill level across a variety of intents when using only a tenth or less of the genki usually required without field ki, you will be ready to move on.

In the heat of the moment more powerful techniques will require more ki than can be created instantaneously, necessitating you to charge up the ki intent. There is a fine balance to be had between adjusting your genki flow as and when you need it for amplification, versus letting your mind work on autopilot at a fixed conversion rate to over-produce ki. The former of course saves you energy, but the micro-management could make you slower to counter. It is therefore prudent to know how to amplify and store that ki for later. If charging and amplifying a specific attack, of course bring ki to the focus in question, but to be ready at a moment's notice to push, to explode upwards to fly and to guard, you will need to store ki in an aura.

The fundamentals of this particular technique were covered in exercise 2.4.5, but to recap, use your centre as a focus, but this time expel ki. The ki should surround you in an approximate sphere, ready to be gathered into external foci like hands or feet, to report back to you nearby danger, or to create a near-instantaneous barrier. Remember when charging to use a hold intent too, otherwise the genki, untasked, will degrade. This technique is named "aura-shoring". When performed at high ki energy densities, ki will spontaneously interact with the world, creating an impressive and intimidating visible glow around the body.

3.2.5 Raising Shouki

We don't only trade genki for field ki during amplification. We expend effort to maintain spiritual calmness, shouki. If yuuki is the calmness between mind and body, shouki is our self-assuredness, the calmness between mind and ki. The stronger our connection between mind and ki, the easier amplification becomes. As discussed in 1.9, disrupting this link by agitating an opponent through very incisive taunts will knock their power-level down considerably, as they will be unable to efficiently convert genki to field ki. Now we wish to raise our own shouki.

To do so we must get in contact with our spiritual selves - not necessarily in a religious manner, but to know and speak our own truth. For my father, his brush with death was enough for his young self to begin to attend to that spiritualness, but you do not need to go to such extremes.

Mindfulness, the ability to just be in the present, comes easier to some than others. Mindfulness is not the ability to empty the mind, for that can be frustrating to achieve as worries for the day pop in and out. Instead we must notice those thoughts, the emotional and physical feelings, and maintain curiosity toward them before setting them aside for the moment. This benign distance affords us the ability to take stock. Spending time attending to how genki moves through our body and the environment around us can also assist in this mindfulness process. It is a focus on the here and now, and is something we can do alongside other exercises.

Mindfulness however is not dissociation, where we disown thoughts and experiences as not happening or not our own as a defense mechanism. And that leads me to a warning. For individuals dealing with dissociation as a result of, for example, psychological trauma, forcing the mind back in the body can cause an abreaction and worsen your state of mind. If you find you have constant bad reactions to mindfulness, or exercises and martial arts that encourage this open state of mind, then please seek professional support before continuing further. I know of one individual who broke through life-long trauma through sheer force of will, but it took him decades and could have ended poorly. However, dealing with the emotional block monumentally improved his raw power through yuuki and shouki, so your mental health is worth working on in whatever capacity you can. I also speak from experience. Fluctuating shouki was a difficulty I had in my childhood, and it took a lot of self-compassion and support from family and friends to let go of the guilt a child can swallow when they do not know any better. Simple grounding exercises - feeling the earth between your toes, naming sounds, colours and smells in the world around you - can suffice to bolster shouki somewhat in the meanwhile, and was the technique I used until I could be truly still and in the moment.

I told you once that I made the fortuitous decision to sit cross legged over seiza for twenty hours of a twenty-five hour ceremony. This ceremony, to unlock my fullest potential, required me to keep very still at a time I wanted to do anything but; my friends and family were in grave danger, some even passing away in the meanwhile, and the god performing the magic did not come across as particularly competent. As the hours ticked by I felt no different, only frustrated and wrestling with all my concerns with little else to distract me. It was only as my anger boiled over that I felt the ease at which ki enveloped my clench fists, and I understood the power of stillness. Whilst I know the silent magic of the god played a more than substantial part in my increase in power, I know holding out hope for Earth while confronting myself and my fears during those endless hours did play some part in repairing and raising my shouki, and I am grateful for that time to reflect. I hope you can find this time, too.

With every possible type of amplification in your knowledge and the most accessible at your disposal, it is now time to relearn all techniques with field ki in the mix. I know, I know it feels a step backward, but trust me, this step is a huge leap forward, and will give you access to all the work following on. When - or if - you can amplify the strength of your techniques by a factor of two with only a tenth of the genki available, you will be ready to proceed to the next section on guarding.

next previous first contents ask?

#dbz #dbs #dragon ball #gohan #groundbreakingscienceupdate

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diochain · 3 years

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Oh hey, I just want to say I think your oc Shotaro Seita is really cool, you blended Akira and JJK’s styles in a really solid way that gets the strengths of both across. I think the idea of characters in media being strongly influenced by art they themselves have experienced is a really under-utilised concept, and the idea of gaining so much power related to an anime is fitting in JJK when techniques can be based of games and animation. Great work

Oh and if you don’t mind me asking, what would Shotaro’s technique be? Presumably he’d have similar abilities to Tetsuo since he’s the strongest psychic that isn’t practically omnipotent, blowing peoples heads up, teleporting, shields and telepathy. Maybe his domain expansion could let him mutate his limbs for the sure hit attack?

AHHH!!! I'm glad you think so, honestly his entire concept started as "Hey it would be pog funny if I made an oc whose entire personality is just 'Boy I sure do love Akira.'" And then it kept evolving until we got Seita as he is now.

this ended up being more of a ramble on his powers i hope that's okay sdkfjsdkfd also!! if stuff is too broken, doesn’t make sense, stupid, or should be considered for editing, let me know. seita’s cursed technique is still in its very early stages of development and is probably extremely unbalanced. he’s meant to be unbalanced, he’s a special-grade, but not like. to an unreasonable extent.

Just note that Seita’s powers are severely underdeveloped and are mostly just conceptual at the moment!

Cursed Technique Overview—Air

His powers indeed seem very similar to Tetsuo's to onlookers, but they are indeed rather different in principle. An image I put on Seita's first profile on Instagram gives a vague and rough explanation of his cursed technique:

Contrary to popular belief in the jujutsu community, Seita doesn't understand or know the power of his own cursed technique (which I very creatively named Psychic). Seita would be too dangerous for any jujutsu sorcerer to take on if he reached his full potential. Thankfully, his arrogance, complexes and mental barriers will prevent him from ever reaching that point as he is. (I can get into his backstory and history another time.)

At its core, his cursed technique basically grants him the ability to manipulate the direction and velocity of motion in a given field. It could also be seen as the ability to pull or push, I guess. It can be seen as similar to and yet vastly different from how The Limitless is more or less the ability to stop. Psychic cannot not stop motion entirely— instead, it slows motion to the point of being nearly still.

Seita’s cursed technique can only be used on things at most 4 meters away from his person, meaning his goal during combat is always to get close to his opponent. Strangely enough, his range was larger when he first met Gojo, at 6 meters. Depending on the volume, distance away and mass of the thing being manipulated, how much energy it takes varies greatly.

His favorite move is Tatsumaki (竜巻), which manipulates the space around a target and twists it. It’s his most frequently used combat technique and is almost always fatal, and is the closest move he has that uses the true nature of his cursed technique.

He cannot mutate his own body voluntarily. This is because, one, I didn't want his powers to too closely resemble an already-existing character aside from Satoru Gojo (Mahito in this case), and two, it felt too far departed from his technique.

At the moment Seita only knows he can pull or push the flow of air, something incredibly versatile and powerful, and yet nothing compared to what his cursed technique actually allows him to do. This misconception limits him considerably and he rarely tries new things because controlling the flow of air is already incredibly exhausting (there are so many molecules and pieces to individually control and is much harder than just a brick or something).

The reason this is a major detriment is because he ends up only manipulating the flow of an “external element,” so to speak. Rather than directly manipulating the movement of the target, Seita has to use the air to push against it, which makes his life more difficult than he realizes it could be.

Seita sees himself as someone akin to Tetsuo, but Seita does not want to be Tetsuo (he wears a jacket closely resembling Kaneda’s and nothing resembling Tetsuo’s design almost to prove a point), he wants to be Akira. He has personal reasons for this only his best friend, Yuta, knows.

Domain Expansion Overview—Upper Gods’ Realm

Upper Gods’ Realm (上神会館 Kamishin Kaikan) is Seita’s Domain Expansion. It creates an enclosed cube, the area within the cube containing a floating platform high above a cloudy sky (the sky is more of an image projected onto this cube). In this Domain Seita reaches the closest he will ever be to his full power, because within this space is when he truly believes he has full control over the movement of everything. His range is increased from 4 meters to indefinite, as long as what he is trying to manipulate is within his Domain.

The cube is roughly 10 meters in height, width, and depth.

The Domain costs a colossal amount of cursed energy to maintain for periods of time, naturally, and takes a toll on his body. The longer he uses it, the less control he has over his power and own sanity. Upper Gods’ Realm can be used for at most 5.4 seconds before he starts losing control of it and himself.

If used beyond this point, his body will mutate as it tries and fails to contain his rapidly expanding cursed energy and he begins to enter a berserk state. These mutations are irreversible. He cannot stop them from happening unless he deactivates his Domain Expansion and seriously represses his cursed energy. Usually at this point, Seita passes out, and won’t fully recover for anywhere from a week to two months. His ability to use his cursed energy and cursed techniques is heavily impaired for another extended period of time after this.

The worst example of his drawbacks on record are when he used his Domain for 6.2 seconds, the resulting mutation now “doctored” and hidden beneath his clothing. He tried to destroy Osaka in his frenzied state, only stopped because Satoru Gojo was on the scene, and was unconscious for 98 days. Seita was in a largely unresponsive state for another 19 days.

In an absolute best case scenario, Seita can use his Domain Expansion once every 1-2 weeks.

#seita is so underdeveloped in every way but background/backstory sdkfjsdf #ask #jjk #jjk oc #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsukaisen oc #seita #cursed technique

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thewonkywitchescauldron · 3 years

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Candles, Candles and More Candles

Candles have been used in the craft for centuries and to this day candle magick is one of the simplest forms of spellcasting, it doesn’t require a lot of fancy ritual or ceremonial tools so

it's perfect for beginners or for a quick spell when you don't have the time or space to do a whole ritual. Us witch's LOVE a candle or two....or three.....or four. We tend to have a candle for every occasion and all sorts of sizes, shapes & colours too.

We use candles for practically every spell we perform in some way or another, whether it's part of the spell or just as a focal point in your space.

Anyone with a candle can cast a spell. Think about birthday cakes, you always have candles on the cake which you then blow out and make a wish. That would have been your first candle magick spell as a child without anyone even knowing it. We still do it now and no-one even thinks of this as a spell, but that’s such a simple form of candle magick, yet many religions or even just people still have the conception that witchcraft is devil worship, dark and malevolent. Witches don’t believe in the devil and most of us don’t throw curses and hexes around like you're led to believe, but my friends, if another practitioner is throwing something negative towards another witch there could be a war of the witches let me tell you. However most curses and hexes don’t even come to fruition as witches tend to have a defensive in place just to be safe.

But back to the topic of candles….within witchcraft candles don’t even have to be special shape, size or colour, but these elements can add to your intention to give your spell some extra strength and power. With candle magick even the size doesn’t really matter unless you want one that burns for a particular amount of time for a particular spell. Really big candles may actually be counterproductive. For instance, a candle that takes three days to burn can be highly distracting to someone working a spell that depends on the candle burning all the way down for quick spells rather than long drawn out ones (which of course do have their purpose). Small birthday candles can also be used especially when out and about so if you want to make a travel altar, these are the candles that are amazing to have and they come in a variety of colours and shapes.

Typically, a short taper candle or a tealight candle will work best. In some cases, a spell might call for a specific type of candle, such as a seven-day candle or a figure candle to represent a particular person - a form of sympathetic magic. But if you haven’t got a particular colour, size etc then a simple white unscented tealight will do.

One of my favourite candles to use is the ‘Pull-Out’ candle, these are great because you have a large surface to scribe onto the candle, dress with oils, glitter, herbs etc. they really do look good when you go to town on them and they are in a safe container which when the candle has finished burning you can reuse. The burn for a long time and you can make the candle spell last for as long as needed from several hours to days.

An important thing to remember is you should always use a brand new candle for each spell you cast if it is part of the spell or ritual and not candles that you burned at, say, the dinner table or in the bathroom the day before. A candle picks up vibrations from the items around it once it starts to burn. If a used candle is already tainted by vibrations it will lead to a negative or ineffective magickal outcome. So always start fresh.

Now let’s talk about Elemental Energy within Candles as they are often only seen as the Fire Element but thinking about it as a symbolic object, the candle is a well-balanced representation of all the Elements. The wick and the base of the candle represent the Earth Element, which is necessary to keep the flame both grounded and able to stay lit. The wax, which transforms from a solid to a liquid and then to a gas, represents the shape-shifting characteristics of the Water Element. The Air Element, in the form of oxygen, is necessary to keep the flame alive, and is often made visible in the smoke emanating from a burning wick. The flame itself, of course, quite literally represents the Fire Element. Add the Element of Spirit, by charging the candle with your intention, and you have a magical tool that embodies the totality of the Universe in one small package. So as a whole candles play a massive part in the craft when you actually think about it. All the elements rolled into one, literally multi purpose for any spellwork you want to perform.

- Colour within Candle Magick - Many witches like to use colour to symbolise their magickal intent during spellwork. Colour is especially utilised in candle magick. You can use colour correspondences to help choose the colors of your candles, altar decorations and more when planning a spell or ritual. Colours can also be used in home decor and clothing choices to bring their energies into your everyday life.

Red - Passion, courage, strength, intense emotions , love, physical energy, health, willpower. Pink - Affection, friendship, companionship, spiritual healing, romance, spiritual awakening, partnerships. Orange - Energy, attraction, vitality, stimulation, adaptability, encouragement, power, road opening. Yellow - Intellect, inspiration, imagination, knowledge, communication, confidence, divination, study. Green - Abundance, growth, wealth, renewal, balance, prosperity, employment, fertility, health, good luck. Blue - Peace, truth, wisdom, protection, patience, healing, psychic ability, harmony in the home, understanding. Purple - Spirituality, wisdom, devotion, peace, idealism, divination, enhancing nurturing qualities, balancing sensitivity. White - All Purposes, Peace, innocence, illumination, purity, cleansing, clarity, establishing order, spiritual growth, understanding. Black - Dignity, force, stability, protection, banishing and releasing negative energies, transformation, enlightenment. Silver - Wisdom, psychic ability, intelligence, memory, spiritual development, psychic development, meditation, warding off negativity. Gold - Inner strength, self-realization, understanding, intuition, success, health, ambition, finances, good fortune, divination. Brown - Endurance, solidity, grounding, strength, balance, concentration, material gain, home, companion animals. Grey - Stability, contemplation, neutrality, reserve, complex decisions, binding negative influences, reaching compromise.

In addition to choosing the colour of your candle, you can enhance your spellwork in a number of ways. Dressing the candle with a magickally charged oil is a long-standing tradition, and it adds the benefit of magickal scent to the equation. Many practitioners like to follow this up by rolling the dressed candle in corresponding herbs to add even more magickal power.

If using tealight candles you can also add the oils and herbs on top of the candle or melt the candle wax on a hotplate then add the herbs and oils into the wax, then let it cool again ready for your spellwork.

Beeswax candles are one of my firm favourites and if you roll them yourself you can add the oils and herbs sparingly into the candle as you roll. This gives the candle an extra special touch. Or of course if you’re buying a pre-rolled one you can add the oil and herbs to the outside. *Be Careful* When burning candles with flammable oils and herbs this can make the candle burn quickly and more intense so please be careful and keep the candle away from flammable objects and have a holder for the candle that can take the heat if need be.

Candle talk can go on for so long when you get into them and if you're anything like me I use all sorts of colours, shapes and scents on a daily basis from subdued lighting to casting spells. A witch needs her candles, better yet, she won't be without them.

Stay Magickal & Blessed Be WillowMoon The Wonky Witch

#candlemagick #witchescandles #witchspellcasting #witchcraft #babywitch

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jonathonharker · 3 years

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musical continuity and the Greetings (ごあいさつ) leitmotif

i wrote this 2 weeks ago I was originally going to make a post about the main motif first (y’all know the one) and then talk about Greetings later, but then 4.24 aired and,, well here we are

Greetings (the track) first shows up in 3.01 when Kageyama and Hinata display their quick before the Shiratorizawa match. It’s a badass introduction. It’s cool. The music is tied to this display of new ability, and it returns when Hinata saves Kageyama’s weak toss by hitting his left hand, winning them the set (3.06), as everyone is, again, introduced to something new.

((this track might as well be called “someone does some cool shit for the first time and everyone loses their minds”))

All of this, what’s been previously set up, is subverted in 4.09. Kageyama hits a solid serve as we hear the build-up brass, then there’s Hinata’s run-up to spike. They’re both confident. We already associate Greetings with this triumphant entrance, proven three times before (the quick, the left-hand hit, and Tsukishima’s return in 3.08) — and so the music hammers home that expectation: Hinata is going to score the point.

Except he doesn’t.

In this context, Hinata is denied the triumph of Greetings. As Shiratorizawa denies Hinata within the narrative, they’ve also co-opted the theme, denying Karasuno (and us) at a meta/music level. (ps I’m very sorry for using the words “meta-music”)

I think Greetings takes on a bit of a different meaning after this moment, especially because the next time it’s heard is when Hinata says “I’m glad I came here” in 4.12.

SO guess where we hear it in 4.24? Right after Asahi’s spike! Not during that big moment, but after, when Futakuchi’s explaining how Asahi practised and perfected the move. I saw this as a subtle change from its use in S3, because here it wasn’t Asahi adapting in the spur of the moment, it was the result of seasons worth of behind-the-scenes practice. The fact that Greetings plays over not the act, but the acknowledgement of it makes it not a “big” moment in terms of commentators/spectators going wild, but a big moment that’s testament to the team’s growth. As Daichi says, they don’t need a miracle, and as Tsukishima says at the end of the episode, the team isn’t surprised: because they’ve worked hard and trained.

Now here’s the other fun part. Technically, we hear Greetings a second time in 4.24. It’s a completely new track, but the Greetings leitmotif is unmistakable. It begins right here, with the first connection in the long volley:

Just as in s3, the familiar melody comes in anticipation of triumph. But despite the familiar leitmotif, the instrumentation and tempo (overall tempo increases by at least 10 bpm) have changed. Something about it is off. This is felt even more because Greetings itself has already been used in this episode.

hear me out, Greetings goes like this:

starts with the french horn

then the melody is taken over by strings

you hear spiccato on low strings (those bouncing, short notes)

the electric guitar comes in to support them, before backing away

for the vocals to come in together with the strings.

The leitmotif in this new track begins with strings, so that’s recognisable, but the instrumentation of the second phrase is scored for trumpets. The trumpets are accompanied directly with this shot:

I really like the dissonance here, between the expectations the grand Greetings motif carries and Ukai’s worried expression. And as the characters’ pace picks up, the part which would have been the spiccato strings is no longer measured, but panicked and frenetic; the tempo is quicker than in Greetings, and now played by the electric guitar. The electric guitar, instead of having that give-and-take with the strings (in Greetings), fights with the strings and heavy percussion:

Eventually, instead of the choir vocals, arguably the most triumphant part that ends the track, the leitmotif melds into a completely new orchestration. At a musical level, the triumph is essentially slipping away from their grasp into unfamiliar melodic territory. Especially since this is the first time this leitmotif has been used outside of Greetings and i’m so here for it

Then the music stops entirely. And even though the leitmotif cuts off, the circumstances end in triumph: Hinata saves it, almost as though he’s evolved past/overcome the music. And he does this with a simple receive, in a way that isn’t showy or immediately cool.

side note, I think it’s very interesting that Greetings is written in the same key as the main leitmotif. coincidence? i think not

I feel like very often, how scores are used is rather straightforward. Just look at any Marvel film: what you see hear is what you get. Emotional moment = slap some high strings on it. Battle scene = electric guitar/brass. Exposition scene = quiet, generic synth music that practically fades into the background. The music serves an entirely functional purpose: reflects the relevant emotions of that particular scene to fill in what would otherwise be awkward silence. It’s less a score and more just background music.

What makes a show’s score stand out (imo) is musical continuity. There’s awareness of the music in relation to not the moment in isolation, but the story. ((i’m just gonna plug les misérables, it’s done so well; take just one of many examples, with Valjean and Javert: narrative foils, each have an iconic solo with virtually identical music in What Have I Done vs. Javert’s Suicide.))

So as much as the music in hq!! slaps, I’m even more delighted that the score is actually being well-utilised. Don’t get me wrong, not everything has to have some huge narrative significance, and some track choices are probably just for fun (or maybe occasionally odd, but it doesn’t happen often), but for the most part, when it matters, it’s done right.

#i uhh. may or may not have transcribed the melody for this track #to compare to the main motif #which i will have to make a separate post for bc this is getting too long #local lit student never shuts up.txt #hinata shouyou #inarizaki #haikyuu to the top #hq!! meta #haikyuu meta #marc.txt #*mine #long post

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luxurystark-jackson · 3 years

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So, I was watching some YouTube videos on Peter Parker, and I noticed a comment:

This got me thinking (and yes, Tuffnut is the best), what if there was a crossover like that?

(The absolute adorkableness of these two combined omg)

Now, a few days later (aka today) I was watching a HTTYD video and noting the similarities between Hiccup and Peter, and I realised that I’d already made a comparison before. Percy Jackson and Hiccup.

(This is really cool I found it on Instagram :D)

And then I thought ‘what if there was a crossover in some way between these guys?’

I mean, if you think about it, Percy and Hiccup have a similar sort of shade of eye colour (in a way) and Hiccup and Peter (we’re focusing on Tom Holland’s version here if you didn’t realise) have a similar sort of hairstyle and hair colour (again, in a way).

So, I started thinking ‘what if they’re brothers?’

Now, at this point, you probably think I’m crazy, but hear me out. Peter Parker and Hiccup aren’t actually kids of their respective fathers (this is going into fanfic storyline mode but keep reading). They’re both sons of Poseidon. To be clearer, they’re the other two of the Jackson Triplets (really getting into fanfic mode here :D). And if you’re wondering, ‘then why don’t they have the powers of Poseidon like Percy?’, well, I have a theory for that too :D

Let’s start off with Hiccup. My theory is that he’s a time traveller, sent back to the Viking times when he was a baby because it wasn’t safe for him to be in his time period. Say if Hiccup and Peter were born about 10 minutes after Percy, then it would be so that since there was the prophecy and stuff, only one of the trio could be utilised by Kronos if that time came. So if Percy was born first, that would ultimately make him 16 first, and therefore the first possible dangerous prophecy child. Since we know that in the end he is the prophecy child, this kinda makes sense.

Because of the time travel stuff, Hiccup loses the ability to use the powers he inherits as a son of Poseidon, and he isn’t able to use them at all, and would live out his life as a normal Viking would. This sort of explains why we have the sudden growth spurt between HTTYD 1 and HTTYD 2. Yes, I know there’s a five year gap, but no normal human being grows an entire foot in the course of five years. Speaking of the growth spurt, if you search into Google for Hiccup’s height, you’ll find out that in the first movie, he’s approximately 5’1, and in the second movie, he ends up at 6’1. That a ridiculously huge growth spurt, and none of the other characters have such a sudden growth spurt (they all grow a few inches I guess, that’s pretty much it). The only plausible explanation is some sort of special power, or perhaps god genes? As we know from Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods, Apollo and Artemis grow to average adult age in DAYS, and if their kids (not that Artemis has kids) have their genes, then it would make sense for such a growth in such a short time.

Now to explain Peter Parker. You see, in the movies, they never mention how often Aunt May and Uncle Ben saw Peter before his parents passed. Most people assume that they saw each other on a day to day basis (I think), but that doesn’t nessecarily have to be the case, as we’ve seen with other people in the past (*cough* dursleys *cough cough*) and in general, it’s not that often that people visit nieces and nephews or vice versa. Sure, they probably knew he existed, but we don’t know when they found out he existed. At this point, you must be questioning ‘But if they adopted him why wouldn’t they tell them?’

See, this is where truth and lies come in. Peter’s supposed parents could’ve easily lied to Ben and May. Or even better, we know that there is magic in the PJO universe. Gods can easily use the Mist or modify their memories to make it seem like Peter was their son, hiding the weird stuff that he does like his brother, Percy, does. I have a slightly darker theory if we were to go to the lying to Ben and May option.

Say if Peter’s supposed mum (I’m British sorry) was actually pregnant. In the last few weeks, she goes into labour way too early and a miscarriage happens. Of course, the parents are depressed. Losing a child isn’t easy, especially your first child. They find out from the doctors that a baby that sorta has their features was left at the hospital last night, and he seems to be a little premature, and that maybe they could adopt the little guy. They don’t want Ben and May to know, so they lie and say that he’s just a bit premature and that he’s their son (like I said, dark).

Then the whole car crash incident happens and Peter is left with his supposed Aunt and Uncle, who he’s kinda close to. They’re the only family he has left as well, and they happily take him in. Peter doesn’t understand the weird stuff that happens to him, and nobody understands when he tells them about it. 14 year old Peter Parker lives this confused life, not knowing that one of his triplet brothers only lives a few towns away from him (idk if this is right. Like I said, I’m British, and I have no clue how far Manhattan is from Queens). Then one day, he gets bitten by a radioactive spider. Suddenly, he can’t seem to talk to sea animals anymore, he doesn’t have strange water powers. Instead, he can climb walls, has increased strength and he can shoot webs. He’s now a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

You might be wondering, ‘if that’s the case, why don’t they ever mention this Spider-Man in the PJO books?’

Well, (here we go again) I have an explanation. Percy just is never there when the headlines are blaring about Spider-Man. He’s at camp and going through multiple schools. He’s too busy to notice stuff about a guy who can shoot webs and climb walls. And his best friend (soon to be girlfriend 😏) hates spiders (the whole Athena and Arachne stuff). She won’t be wanting to know about a guy who has the powers of a spider. And the camp won’t mention that sort of stuff because A) they probably don’t have access to daily news channels from Queens, and B) this is a camp where the Athena cabin are a valued part of the camp. They (sorta) have some respect, and probably don’t have the guts to mention someone that meant to have spider powers where any Athena child could hear them. And at this camp, word travels fast (*cough* Minotaur *cough cough*).

Gosh, I’ve been ranting for a while. Anyways, there’s my (fan) theory on how Peter Parker, Hiccup Haddock and Percy Jackson are related, feel free to add on as you wish, and thank you for coming to my Ted Talk :D. Bye!

#how to train your dragon #peter parker #spiderman #percy jackson #time travel #hiccup haddock #crossover #brothers #triplets

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algrimthestrong · 3 years

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@beautiful-mischief | Continued from here.

beautiful-mischief:

It almost felt as if the heat was seeping into every pore of his skin, and if not for the fact that the oppressive humidity left him feeling drained Loki likely would have rolled his eyes at Aednan’s sullen pouting — but even that seemed like too much of an effort. It was the elven prince’s next remark about having wanted something nice and cold to suck on that finally elicited a response, the dark-haired prince swatting in Aednan’s general direction in hopes of landing a blow. “You’re a menace.” Loki retorted, exasperated. Though Aednan’s antics could never truly provoke his ire, he was feeling much too hot and bothered to deal with pouting and theatrics. The prince was more than happy to let the elf get in a huff when the thought of skin to skin contact in such weather seemed utterly hellish, whether they were both already drenched or not.

Aednan at the very least seemed pacified by the icy sphere that he had conjured, but Loki fast found himself lamenting the rather brief period in which they lasted. They both seemed to have enjoyed the brief reprieve from the heat, a lazy smirk unfurling itself across his lips at the sight of Aednan divested of his tunic and trying to cool himself down. He certainly made quite the sight even soaked with sweat as he lay there against the trunk of the tree — their tree, as it happened — the golden light filtering through the leaves casting dappled shadows across those planes of flawless pale skin. After a moment he created another two balls of ice, tossing the elf a second and immediately pressing his own to his forehead, considering Aednan’s query as he did.

“I don’t know.” Loki admitted. “There are a few things that I’ve figured out, but it’s obviously an under-utilised skill set of mine when I went so long not knowing about it.” It wasn’t as if there was anyone who could teach him how to utilise his natural Jotun abilities, so a little practice and experimentation in private would have to suffice, particularly when Asgardian perceptions of his kind were less than favourable — and that was before he even considered his own biases. For all that Loki was curious about what he was capable of, there was always a small voice in the back of his mind reminding him of the stories they had been fed about Jotunheim, the childhood games where he and Thor would careen about pretending to fight off frost giants. They were not tales that were so easily unlearned.

“I know that I can use it in an offensive sense, but I don’t think that’s particularly helpful in the middle of a heat wave.” Loki mused, eyes fluttering closed as he savoured the chill of the ice against his skin, able to feel a droplet rolling down the side of his face where it was already beginning to melt. “Ugh. There has to be a better way than this.” He muttered. “Can’t we just go jump in one of the garden fountains or something?”

Though Aednan would have very much liked to sit back and let Loki relieve his discomfort, he couldn’t say that Loki’s answer surprised him much. There was no one around to instruct Loki in the use of Jotun magic, so he would have no other choice than to figure things out on his own. Even Algrim, who seemed to have an answer to every query, had run out of advice. If they were to sit in the shade all day long, tossing spheres of ice back and forth between them to combat the heat of summer, then be it so.

At Loki’s suggestion they jump in one of the many fountains that adorned the sprawling gardens of Ljosalfgard, Aednan cast his lover a droll look, followed by a chuckle. “Of course we can do that, Loki.” The elf’s gaze flickered to the nearest fountain, where glittering sprays of water shooting from the mouths of three marble fish promised relief from the blazing heat. “But isn’t that beneath your dignity?” Though shame was not an emotion common to the population of Alfheim, Aednan knew his lover could be rather self-conscious at times and finding out about his Jotun heritage had not helped Loki’s confidence. “We aren’t alone here,” Aednan remarked, nodding at the small groups of elves sitting under trees, on benches, or strolling between beds of candy-coloured flowers. “Not that it would bother me.” He reached out to nudge Loki’s leg, but pulled back abruptly, not wanting to add to his lover’s discomfort. “I’m up for it if you are.”

Before long, the fresh sphere of ice Loki had created had melted down to water. “Could you make it snow?” Aednan asked, but he quickly dismissed his own speculating with a shake of his head. “No, I imagine that’s not really possible. Jotuns cannot manipulate the weather… or can they?”

He toed off his slippers and wriggled his toes in the grass. Shifting onto his stomach, Aednan lay down beside Loki and propped his chin on his crossed arms. A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves of the tree under which they sat, bringing with it scents of honeyed tuberose, seductive gardenia, and sugary honesuckle. Aednan sighed as he felt the swirl of air blow softly across his naked back, cooling the sweat on his skin and offering the briefest of respites from the cloying humidity.

“It is probably too early to ask, but have you thought about asserting your birthright some day?” He glanced at the other prince curiously. “Aednan, king consort of Jotunheim.” The fantasy he conjured up in his imagination brought a grin to his lips. “That doesn’t sound too bad.” He gave Loki a tender look, his amused expression softening into a smile of affection. “I know you struggle with your heritage, but know that you couldn’t be any more perfect to me. Male or female, Asgardian or Jotun, I love you as you are.”

#beautiful-mischief #beautifulmischief #:side muse aednan:

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

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Ectober Day 28: Fall - Sinners Are We Chap.6: No More Idle Hands

And Dove could stay silent no more.

Neither he nor his brother got their father’s infamous wail. For Russet that made perfect sense, he simply didn’t hold up in the power department for such a powerful ability. And Orrin didn’t find such a brash brazen ability to be suited to him, so he rather didn’t care if he developed it or not. But Dove having it, and so young, was truly a surprise. And he loved those. So he feels he is quite justified in laughing as everyone else grasped their ears and collapsed, even father fell to the ground as everything shook. Everything around bursting, exploding, pluming even more smoke and ash into the sky practically blotting it out.

Who would have thought she’d have such a destructive ability.

He summons enough ectoplasm around his ears to muffle the sound, father wasn’t honestly smart enough to think of this quite yet. Then again, father was never on the receiving end of the Ghostly Wail. Orrin stands up, defying gravity to keep his balance on the shaky ground, sticking his arms out to the side and laughing, “WOW! I MEAN REALLY! WOW!”, grinning wide and a bit wild, if everything’s descending into madness and chaos then might as well behave a little mad to match, “KEEP THIS UP AND YOU MIGHT JUST KILL EVERYONE YOURSELF! HAHAHAHAHA!”. He absolutely knows father looks to him and notes his little trick to get around the wail, and will, of course, utilise it himself in a few seconds. The pressure’s on Dove, what will you do? What will you do.

But again she catches him by surprise, picking an option he never realised was on the board at all. She doesn’t stop, or aim it; no she changes octaves. Which, was father even capable of such a thing? She, she might just be stronger than him. Well fancy that. This octave though, oh it absolutely makes Orrin drop to his knees; the ectoplasm doing nothing to muffle the sounds.

All the mortals groan and roll over, many simply watching or backing away in stunned silence as three of the -apparently- four present Gray-Phantom’s pass out, the little girl- the princess losing the human disguise in the process.

Rio pushes herself up, staggering to run over to the little glowing gray-haired girl with her little head tilted skyward as green/purple sound-waves pulsed out of her mouth, sparkling pale blue tears streaming down her face from amber eyes. Rio collapsing next to her and hugging the little girl she’d grown to know as so gentle it almost hurt, “ROBIN! DOVE! STOP! SWEETHEART IT’S FINE! IT’S FINE! NO ONE’S HURTING ANYMORE! BUT YOU NEED TO STOP!”, and practically smushes the girl into her as the horrific sound peters off and the girl shakes violently.

Rio looks around as everyone starts to stand, some very cautiously looking towards the downed Gray-Phantom’s and chucking things at them from afar. Rio squeezing Dove/Robin closer and snapping her head towards Rex as he walks over, “she’s never hurt anyone”.

“She’s one of them”.

Rio snarls, “do I look like I care?”. Rex just huffs and wanders off, waving over his shoulder, “this is your problem then. Remi’s fine though”. Rio sighs at that. Then looking around as she stands. What the Hell are they going to do?

Spotting one of the hunters moving to put anti-ecto braces on Lark -Orrin, she staggers over, minding her twisted ankle and other injuries, “wait. This- this utterly insane nutter is to thank. He did this. Planned this. He-”, glancing to the girl she’s carrying in her arms who looked to just be staring blankly, “-got her to take them down. At least wake the twit up”.

The hunter huffs and cuffs him anyway but does give the... prince a good zap to wake him up. The guy groans on the ground in a way that makes it sound like he had simply been taking a nice afternoon nap, “well. That was certainly interesting”.

Rio grunts down at him, slightly out of pain, “and that was a stupid choice of first words. I don’t think I need to point out that you’re at gunpoint, cuffed, and surrounded; Orrin”.

He chuckles faintly, sits up, and crosses his legs. Cool, calm, demeanour never faltering, “well I would certainly hope so. These fellows wouldn’t be doing what they’re supposed to otherwise”, he looks around and shrugs a little, her following his gaze towards Russet. Him chuckling faintly, “well damn, that imbecile’s still alive”.

Jester loses it at that, “you wanted us to kill him?”.

“Arguably, why not? He’s a real bastard”.

One of the hunters makes a wheezing sound, “oh gods”, looks to Rio, “how in all the worlds did you turn one of the princes. Seriously”.

Orrin apparently won’t let that statement fly, “oh no. Blame the little missy. Real gentle doll that one”.

Rio looks to the side as Dove/Robin stirs at that, looking down at Orrin. Rio holds on to her, unsure, when the girl moves to reach for him. Orrin just chuckles and stands up while the cuffs just fall off and takes the girl from her in a swift motion. Everyone near -who aren’t helping with clean up or medical care- gape at him and follow him with their guns, Rio turning around gapping herself. Orrin chuckles again, looking at them with a smirk, “what? Did you really think I wouldn’t have altered everything to have little to no effect on me?”, he grins, “I’m the smart one you know. The sneaky shadow. Guess it’s true what people say that no one notices what their shadow does until it does something they don’t expect”. One of the hunters shoots him in the foot as if to check, which he rolls his eyes at. It, of course, does nothing more than leave a bit of ash on his black spandex high-heels.

Everyone looks to the two Gray-Phantom’s that could actually be cuffed. One guy clearing his throat, “so... what are we supposed to with this? Did... did we just win”. It takes only a bit of murmuring for most of the people around to break out into cheering or crying. No one stops pointing weapons at Orrin though, which he obviously ignores as if they don’t even exist.

Rio does smile at Dove when she seems to hum slightly happily over the cheering. Though Dove straightens up and leans away from Orrin a bit, reaching her fingers out towards Russet. Everyone jumping and staring as both Russet and Phantom move across the ground to the other two Gray-Phantom’s inhumanly fast, yet never waking. Orrin putting Dove on the ground who goes over, takes off her teddy bear backpack, and bops Russet on the head with it; pointing at him with puffed out cheeks like she was scolding him. Then moving to do the same to Phantom. Orrin blinks at the scene, “I do not claim to understand that girl”.

Rio is the only one willing to stand anywhere close to him, her crossing her arms, “I think you just don’t understand being nice and innocent”.

“You may be right there. Though I doubt most would be any different in my shoes”. No one really argues him there, because he was probably right. How could anyone be raised by those monsters and not wind up one?

Rio scowls at him, “I almost feel bad for you. But you’re probably as much a murderous monster as the rest of your family”, scowling more when he chuckles and grins meanly. Making it very clear to everyone that he was perfectly fine with that fact, and that he has, in fact, actually killed people. Rio draws her eyebrows together, “then why, why effectively save us”.

Orrin quirks an eyebrow, “didn’t I already tell you? Oh well, mortal minds are hardly of quality”, then steamrolls right over multiple offended objections, “me and brother dearest started out like terrible terrors”, pointing at Dove, “she, did not”, smoothing his jacket, “be a shame to turn gold to brass, don’t you think? Further, this seemed like a far more interesting course of action, I dare say”.

Everyone pauses and looks to Dove and Russet as the latter stirs. Orrin actually smirking when Russet spots Dove glaring down at him with crossed arms and Russet actually flinches. Orrin saunters over with a very wicked-looking grin on his face, “now what was that? Did the big scary bad Rusty flinch at the sight of a little girl?”. Which fine, more than a few people around laugh at slightly. Though many find this to be incredibly surreal and way too mundane after everything; petty sibling bickering between those framed to be the worst of monsters in the middle of what was just a battleground that had promised nothing but death for all the mortals there mere seconds ago.

Russet scowls up at the younger prince, “fuck you you fucking piece of shit demon child bastard. Ancients fuck you are a psychopath-”.

Orrin cuts him off with a shrug while everyone else just watches wide-eyed, “I appreciate the compliment, though really this seems more like a situation where you should be aiming to be insulting”, he shoves Russets head with his boot, making Russet squirm and start spewing profanities at noticing the cuffs and everything. Orrin just talks over him, “be glad I’m not power-hungry like you. Otherwise-”, Orrin grins and everyone tenses as he bends down, “-I’d find it quite tempting to take advantage of this and just do away with the first prince entirely. I find doing so would hardly be difficult, considering your current predicament”. Everyone relaxes when Dove hits Orrin with the plushie backpack, and he just chuckles faintly and gives her a head pat as he straightens up.

After a second though, all the hunters and rebels nod to each other, marching over and move to grab up both the still unconscious Phantom and snarling Russet. But Dove grabs both of them and squeezes them, somehow knocking Russet back out, and puffs out her cheeks defiantly.

Everyone glancing at each other awkwardly. Orrin breaks their awkwardness slightly by sighing, “and she still doesn’t know how to snarl properly”.

Rio shakes her head, personally glad for that, and walks over the kneel in front of her, “sweetheart, we can’t just leave them in the street. And remember what I said about bad people needing to be punished?”, when Dove nods she continues, “well we punish people by locking them up. Besides-”, side-eyeing the hunters, “-I doubt you’d let us seriously hurt them. Right?”. Dove nods immediately and repeatedly, puffing her cheeks more. Rio can tell that the hunters got the damn message that this was a losing battle. No Gray-Phantom was dying/being destroyed here today. This tiny girl just effectively took out all of the ghostly Gray-Phantom’s with one attack and practically instantly, even nearly destroyed the city and everyone in it at the same time. They were very lucky she was a kind gentle soul. Very. It would be better to not tick her off or do something to change that. Not that Rio was entirely sure it was possible to piss that girl off. Annoy? Sure. Piss off? No.

Dove huffs again, turns almost dramatically, and starts marching off in the direction of the -probably wrecked- jailhouse; dragging Phantom and Russet under her arms across the ground.

One of the hunters pointing out, “she does realise we can’t put them in regular cells, right? Like, those things need special ecto-containment cells. Especially Phantom”, grumbling, “with that bloody crown of his”.

Orrin grins and turns to him, sticking his hands in his pockets and giving a smile that’s close to charming, “actually, no”, tilting his head, “well, yes, but no”. Rio glares at him so he explains himself without any further prompting, “I think it is fair to say that father was quite efficiently and effectively bested, yes?”.

One of the hunters scowls, “your point, monster”, scowling a little more, “and know that regardless of this, you still belong in a cell or obliterated out of existence”.

Orrin only chuckles instead of seeming even slightly threatened, “oh I’m well aware how others feel of me, no need wasting your breath. After all, you need it and you have so very little of it”, grinning meanly, “why it could be snuffed out just like that”.

Rio pinches the bridge of her nose, “for the love of- stop being threatening just because you can be now that it won’t make you suspicious”.

Orrin rolls his eyes, “you have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to tear off your pretty little head”.

“Uncalled for”.

“And yet you still seem to put up with me. Strange”. Rio absolutely scowls deeper at the Gray-Phantom for that. “Anyway, my point is, when you best a royal, what is it that happens?”, he taps his chin in obviously fake contemplation before sounding rather condescending, “why you usurp them of course. You take their throne. Their crown. I do believe you get the message this time”.

Rio blinks at him, bullshit, “there is no way your... mother will go for that”.

He wags a clawed finger at her, “ah but her role as Mortal Queen is entirely made up and her claim as High Ghost Sovereign is that of a Consort”, shrugging, “normally in chess, you kill the queen, you win the game. But in this case, it’s the king”, smirking, “or was”. Needless to say, everyone starts freaking out.

Rio watches him smirk as people panic, it was mostly a good or confused panic though. “You just like chaos, don’t you”.

He doesn’t even look to her as he speaks, “I find it enjoyable yes. It’s more that I like to be entertained. I’m a creature of novelty and I had been rather bored as of late”.

Rio squints at him, “I can’t figure out if you’re genuinely on our side or are just dicking around”. Scowling when he winks before sauntering off in the direction of the jailhouse. More than a few hunters and rebels following largely to ‘keep an eye on’ the Gray-Phantom they could do nothing about; though some were conflicted on their feelings over the halfa that they had become familiar and even friendly with over the past while.

They walk in to Dove sitting on the floor attempting and succeeding at braiding Phantom’s flaming hair. Orrin furrowing his eyebrows at her, “why? What purpose does this serve”. She predictably just hums at him, rocking a little. Many of the hunters and rebels mutter, “you've got to be kidding me”. Rio and a few others barely hold back cooing ‘awww’s at the girl; the fact that it was Phantom getting his hair braided rather killed the cute effect of the scene.

Everyone but Orrin and Dove jumping at a portal swirling open on the wall and the FrightKnight waltzing through. All of the fully living aiming their weapons but doing nothing when the ghost bows to Dove, who pats his helmet with a small smile.

The FrightKnight looks to Orrin, “I must say, you frighten me. It will never cease to amaze me how so many call the first prince the demon rather than you”. Orrin bows very exaggeratedly with a coy grin, “you flatter me so”. The ghost shakes his head before turning and kneeling before Dove, “shall I take these two to the dungeon for you, my queen”, she just hums but the ghost seems to understand and before anyone can do anything the two captured Gray-Phantom’s are whisked away by the ghost.

All the fully living around are stunned stupid, Rio looking to Orrin, “you were serious”, then screwing up her face, “wait”, throwing her hands out to the side and scowling at Orrin, “Dove obviously doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. Isn’t she just going to let them loose?!?!”. The group giving the halfas panicked looks as they come upon the same worry. The princess -Queen?- was practically a newborn and those two monsters were her family.

Orrin waves everyone off, “oh it’s no matter. Crown’s hers all the same. Dear brother isn’t strong enough to beat her and father wouldn’t bother to even try. He never genuinely harms family in any long-lasting or permanent ways”, Orrin looks around and gives another mean smirk, “though you should thank little Dove for stopping you from killing Russet. I sure wouldn’t have”.

One of the guys squints at him, “why? Also, them being free is the problem, not them trying to challenge her. Though fine, that would be an issue too”. Everyone had officially decided without question that they’d take the sweet little Dove as a ruler over her monster parents or siblings.

“Why that’s so very simple. You may think father is bad already, but that is nothing compared to what he’s really capable of. I wouldn’t put it past him to annihilate everything he could get his claws on if one of us were destroyed”.

Rio almost can’t believe that she’s hearing the Phantom, the mass-murdering monster of monsters, had a ridiculous soft spot for his family. A genuine one. Turning to look at Dove and going wide-eyed at her floating/walking over while tugging at a flaming glowing green crown. Which pulls down over her face before springing back over her head every time she lets go of it. The girl humming and purring in clear joy and amusement. Then kneeling down to poke Rio’s ankle which suddenly doesn’t hurt. Rio blinking, “sweetheart... did you just... heal me?”. Dove hums and nods before running off poking people.

Orrin sighs and shakes his head a little, guess she thought the hiding game was over; he does follow her with his eyes though. Which doesn’t go unnoticed.

One of the hunters kneeling down to let the little glowing girl poke his head, then staring off after her as she moves on, “this is going to take some getting used to”, then noticing Orrin’s staring that’s boarding on a glare, “chill out ah... for the love of everything take your human form again, this is too weird”. Some others nod, some laugh though it’s weak.

Orrin rolls his eyes but promptly shoots the guy lazily with an ecto-beam; the guy hissing from the impact and being caught off-guard, “that’s for proposing the idea of kidnapping Dove”. Unsurprisingly everyone points their guns at him again before lowering them and glaring at the halfa after he spoke. He just grins, “just keeping things interesting”, the grin turning rather mean as the guy brushes himself off, “besides I think you’d prefer a weak little ecto-beam over my original idea. Which involved cups, mice, and your eyes. Make of that what you will”.

Rio scowls, “I think I preferred when you didn’t randomly threaten people, let’s go back to that”, sighing and glancing to Dove, “at least you’re protective I guess”.

Everyone goes silent, which becomes slightly awkward till Remi comes running in looking for her ma only to get practically tackled by Dove. Gently tackled, but still tackled. Remi just looks confused and kinda scared, “w-who”. Resulting in Dove looking almost heartbroken and making gestures at Orrin, who rolls his eyes but twirls his fingers dramatically; both of them suddenly looking as everyone was rather more familiar with. Remi gets over her shock instantly and starts worry babbling at Dove.

Orrin grins faint and amused as he leans his arms on the windowsill, watching as Dove finishes poking people outside, everyone exchanging glances before basically shouting, “LONG LIVE THE QUEEN”. Oh there were so many possibilities to be had. Especially when father wakes and mother hears of this. Would she be proud ‘her little girl’ bested the ghost she never could? Would Dove ‘talk’ them into being peaceful ‘or else’? Would the dead accept her as a High Sovereign or would she need to prove her worth?

Looking down, she obviously had little idea what was going on. Possibly none at all. She was simply smiling and moving her hands around because she was enjoying their happiness and cheer. Such a strange thing. Her enjoying... joy. He truly has little clue how their parents made her. And he rather doubts they understand it either. Even when those two were ‘good guys’ they certainly weren’t able to be called ‘innocent’ or ‘gentle’. While those were the first words that came to mind with Dove.

Turning his head slightly as Rio comes in, her closing the door and leaning against it with crossed arms, “so... are you guys going to be staying or...”, and quirking an eyebrow.

“Is this your mortal way of asking me to”.

She huffs, “Remi would be sad, that is all”. Which Orrin isn’t even close enough to a fool to believe for even a second, “yeah. Sure it is”.

“...”.

Orrin shakes his head a little and turns to look back out the window. The mortals were giving her sweets. How quaint. “I doubt I could keep Dove away. As I find I doubt she would really let me try to in genuine”. She had clearly grown fond of this place and it’s creatures; and clearly not as simply pets, servants, or loyal manipulatable underlings.

He can hear the raised eyebrow in Rio’s voice, “wouldn’t ‘let you’? You don’t seem like someone who’s controllable”.

He elects for vague, not as if he needs to explain in the first place, “there are ways”. Far be it for him to mention that the Crown makes the wearer able to control the dead, or part dead for that matter. He doubts Dove would make much use of that, which is quite fine by him. Not that that wouldn’t make things interesting regarding father.

“Riiiight”.

He outright ignores that. Him speaking again as she joins him by the window, “regardless, no we will not be staying. Dove has her castle and throne to attend to”, grinning both mean and mischievous, “and I have a brother to torture”.

“... I can’t tell if you mean that literally”, she sighs, “so she’ll come back then”.

“Indeed”.

“And you?”.

That does catch him just slightly off-guard. Apparently he wasn’t completely deplorable to these people. Fancy that. Though he had a level of feeling that this particular member of the living was more than just tolerant of him. “Oh I doubt Remi would care if I did or not”, him smirking a bit, “unless of course, that particular question has nothing to do with her happiness at all”.

He glances at her as she audibly scowls at him, “you’re an emotionless asshole without a caring bone in your body”.

Which only makes him chuckle, “then clearly you’re rather nuts for getting feelings involved”. This entire escapade was bringing plenty of interesting surprises and twists that he hadn’t yet experienced it would seem. “Particularly when you know said asshole has wanted to at the very least mildly murder you on multiple occasions”. Why that of all things gets her to promptly give him a chastised kiss he isn’t going to claim to understand in the slightest. Instead he furrows his brows at her, “I find I don’t understand you much either at times”. Did Phantom’s just have a habit of attracting living women? That could be an idea to look into at a later date.

She rolls her eyes and looks back out the window, where Dove is now chuckling flowers at people. “Good. I’d probably bore you otherwise”.

He dips his head slightly to acknowledge that is rather true, “accurate”.

“... so, will you come back?”.

“Well I dare say my curiosity is rather peaked now, so I hardly can find a reason to not”.

She scowls at him, but even his moron of a brother could tell she wasn’t actually upset with him. “Yup. You’re still a jerk”.

He snorts, “don’t go expecting change. Dove’s the ‘sweetheart’, not me”, running a hand through his hair and smirking, “I’m definitely more charming though”.

“Annnd there’s the ego”.

“It’s far too late for you to make denials-”, pausing and tilting his head at sniffing mothers scent. Looking up to spot the red suit and hoverboard far up in the sky, clearly she was watching, was seeing this. Dove frolicking with a bunch of mortals, a green crown flaming over her head all the while. “Mother’s here”.

Rio immediately jerks to attention and puts her hand to her blaster in preparation for assault. Orrin tilts his head though, watching as mother seems to shake her head and laugh before shooting off into the distance. “She... left”, he’s never felt genuinely shocked by something before. Why?

Rio blinks at him, obviously in shock herself, “what?! Why?!”.

“I... don’t believe I know”.

Rio blinks at him before shaking her head and stiffly leaning on the windowsill again, “well I'm not about to look that particular gift horse in the mouth”.

He squints before smirking after a bit, “she may very well be going to mock father and berate brother for being a moron again”.

“Still not even glancing at the gift horse”. He chuckles at that.

Suddenly Dove’s floating in front of them, tugging gently on Orrin’s sleeve. ‘Come’. He feels the unspoken command deep into the core of him, and he can’t very well deny it. Now can he? So he floats off the ground and moves to head out the window, though smirking meanly and grabbing Rio at the last second to yank her out too.

“You bastard!”. That only makes him chuckle more.

Him speaking quiet enough that the living won’t hear, “you truly ought learn to be more sparing with the KingSpeak, being forced to do things is hardly enjoyable. Particularly for a Gray-Phantom”. Dove just hums pleasantly at him as he’s effectively dragged into the silly dancing thing. And while the mortals keep their distance mostly, they don’t outright flee from him. How quaint and a rather peculiar turn of events.

End.

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eljackinton · 4 years

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Final Thoughts on Greedfall

Greedfall popped up on my radar last year when people began mentioning that it had been a while since we had last seen a Bioware style RPG. In recent years story heavy RPGs have tended to come in two varieties: Massive open worlds, or Baldur's Gate style throwbacks.

It wasn't long before people started talking about Greedfall for another reason: It's rather insensitive take on colonialism. In both instances enthusiasm for Greedfall was tempered. It was a worthy effort to try and rival something like Dragon Age, but it had too many problems to succeed.

Still, with no Dragon Age or Mass Effect game currently on the horizon, and nobody else trying to contribute to the genre in that way, I knew I was going to find myself playing Greedfall eventually.

Let me be clear, I absolutely think RPG fans out there should play Greedfall. Problems or not, I have to applaud Spiders for at least attempting to make a game nobody outside Bioware (or even in Bioware these days) is trying to make. I'd absolutely be up for seeing a sequel, and I hope some modest success can put pressure on EA to let Bioware get back to regular releases again, or encourage other studios to try something similar.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about what I liked and what I didn't, but first, we have to talk about...

Greedfall's one big problem.

Greedfall is a story about colonialism that has nothing to say about colonialism. It takes place in a fantasy world where an island is sort of, but not quite, being colonised like the Americas were. The game skirts the line between how much it resembles this. The natives of the island are not Native Americans, but they're not not Native Americans either. The game wants to ask the difficult questions about expansion and coexistence, but then wraps it all up with mealy-mouthed 'can't we all just get along' platitudes.

Greedfall's idea of colonialism is about as complex as Disney's Pocahontas. It's a world where bad things only happen because of bad individuals. It it wasn't for the craven or immoral there would be peace on the island. Colonialism is capable of being benign. The game constantly pushes this idea at you, and makes it super obvious that when the time comes to nominate who will be the next high king, the candidate who wants to drive the colonists off the island is treated as one of the bad choices (or 'less good' if you're being charitable.)

Despite the name being Greed-fall, greed and the nature of it are barely explored. The colonists are on the island searching for a cure for a plague. The Bridge Alliance is driven by scientistic discovery, Theleme is driven by religious conviction. The faction the player represents, The Congregation of Merchants, is probably the one most motivated by monetary gain, but they, ironically, feature so thinly in the plot that they might as well not be there.

Over the last few years, culture and society has began to look at colonialism with a more critical eye. The fact that Greedfall failed to consider this shows both a profound lack of imagination and ambition. Better writers than I have already discussed whether this makes the game mildly insensitive or outright offensive, but it's undeniable that it's a problem and it's a dead weight at its core.

What I liked

- The gameplay and game feel was all great. Combat felt smooth. Magic and technical abilities never felt redundant and always added a new dimension to the fights. Firearms felt powerful but never overpowered. There was never a point in the game where I felt overwhelmed.

- There was no 'busywork' sidequests dragging the flow of the game down. There is exactly one 'collectathon' side quest and it's short and easy to ignore. You manage to see all of the world simply by following the quests, meaning it's hard to miss anything significant.

- Collecting resources goes seamlessly with travel and you always have an abundance of resources for crafting and alchemy, which is as easy as 'do you have all the components.' No multi-part crafting or blueprints required.

- The writing and the dialogue was all really steller. At critical points in the game I got really drawn in and could feel the weight of the steaks.

- The characters were a joy to hang around with, chat to, and discover their past. The romance was heartfelt. The side quests were all interesting and cool.

- The visuals were beautiful and parts of the game really made me want to go off and explore.

- Great soundtrack.

- I liked how you could only learn so many abilities over the course of the game. This is a character system where you're either going to be a specialist or a jack of all trades. I don't like it when RPGs essentially give you enough skill points to unlock everything because it just robs the player character of their own unique flavour.

What I didn't like

- The pacing was a real mess. We spend far too long in the starting port that it kills all momentum. The whole story lacks direction for most of it, and any semblance of a plot only really begins two thirds of the way through the game, This was a game that really struggled to make me want to find out what happens next. This is particularly weird given how well the actual dialogue is written.

- The world-building is also implemented poorly. There are whole chunks of the world and backstory that are not elaborated upon. The factions all lack depth and dimension. The game fails to utilise the companions as a means to flesh out the factions they come from. It's hard to appreciate a 'new world' when we don't really know anything about the old one.

- The story brings up ideas and does nothing with them. The fact that (spoilers) the player characters is revealed to be the child of a native adds nothing to the story. The reveal that there was a secret former colony on the island adds nothing to the story (spoilers end.)

- There's not enough variety of environments. Every sub-map blurs into another after a while, even the cities from supposedly vastly different nations have identical architecture styles. It's a crazy big mistake that the HQ of every faction is just the same building template with the textures swapped.

- You can't really impress a personality upon the player character. The game really needed some dialogue choices that added 'sarcastic' or 'frustrated' options. While there are choices the player can make, the personality of the plater character is pretty much set in stone.

- There really wasn't enough content to justify the romances. It basically boils down to about three or four conversations. There's no chance to flirt, or have a bit of back and forth. You just complete the companion quest and then 'romance now?' A missed opportunity.

So all in all, Greedfall is not a prefect game. It's got a lot of problems and a big one in particular, but, again, I applaud the effort. I'd like to see a sequel, and I'd like to see more studios taking chances like this.

#greedfall #review

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raikoren · 4 years

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some onions bout the bnha manga since im reading it in jp nao

the more i read of bnha the more i realise. i kind of fucking hate this series. it’s got all the ingredients of the classic old big 3. brilliant art, a cool character here or there (sometimes), bursts of muddled clunky progression but a cool fight to soothe the pacing and the mostly frustrating boring uninteresting pussy story choices! the sloppy sort of toothless writing only shounen jump editors can give me. it really truly reminds me of how i felt reading bleach .. but it hasnt got the same charm to make me forgive it. the artist is really really talented though absolutely adore some layouts especially when handguy is included and we get some cool reaching illustrations. he and his team are commendable for making such polished work week in week out and its genuinely so fun to read from an art perspective and i really like the fact he leans very heavily into a much looser style that makes everything stretch in a satisfying way as if its designed for animation despite being so complex in its illustration.

its one of those series that is painfully mediocre shounen and you can immediately tell that by the fact that even in this hammy nonserious plot, somehow, the female characters still get completely fucking shafted as excpected. they literally do almost fuck all and the big three characters that get the most development and are considered in-universe ‘main characters’ all happen to be male despite the entire main cast supposedly being the absolute best of the best at the best of this top superhero school.

yaomomo is probably one of the most egregious examples. a character whos top of the class, who got in on recommendations (just like the other deuteragonist) with only three other students making the cut and her big character conflict was that she for some reason, felt inferior to todoroki shouto, whose initial character arc revolves around the fact that ‘he’s not trying his best’. it’s notable that todoroki is never considered to be some freak of nature genius in the same way other characters, he’s impressive but there are stronger. but for some reason, his superiority over yaomomo is pivotal to her character. she doubts her own decision making skills compared to his due to losing so badly at the sports festival against fumikage.

now lets see here: this fucking emotionally constipated idiot who is noted in writing to not using his full potential since he has no motivation to actually win, handicapping his own abilities for most of the time due to crippling personal issues, who ALSO completely jobbed at the festival and gave up at the last match against bakugou and suffered a humiliating defeat because he lacks shame and conviction and who ALSO got in on recommendations? todoroki is an interesting character in his own right, hes strong but his flaws are glaringly evident and interesting. but for some reason he gets elevated to this position of being yaomomo’s ‘wall’.

hes not a team player, yes hes notably perceptive but to position the realtionship between momo and him like this it feels like such a pointless angle to work in cause its so antithetical to yaomomos whole characterisation and contradicts her entire background for .. what? shes got such a strong natural-leader type personality or she is attempting to have one despite the author somehow forgetting. yes she’s nervous and panics sometimes, but i think her entire character arc is intended for her to overcome this as the main crux. there is no doubt that yaomomo is strong. she is excellent as a leader, works extremely well in a team, has a level head and every single time we see her the author always brings it back round to the fact she is an excellent strategist and everyone looks to her to make a tactical decision. almost like her entire character revolves around leadership and self-confidence.

but compared to how shes portrayed against a ‘tactician’ like midoriya for example you would literally never guess that about her unless they didnt spoonfeed it to you that yes, this character is supposed to be smart sorry we keep making her look inept despite her entire character skill and ability being completely and utterly centred around this main concept teehee.

even compared to yoarashi (who i love), who also got in on recommendations, she doesnt get the same level of merit in the fiction. shes never truly made out to be a big deal in the same way the others are which not only fucking blows but makes the story more and more of a grating power up treadmill like a classic shounen jump manga without any of the charm or love. interesting characters like yaomomo who have clear visions are easily pushed aside and their traits sidelined to put more emphasis on other characters.

plus when she does get to make a big decision the narrrative acts like ‘oh was it even the right choice?! did we even make it worse!???’ which would be an interesting introspection for the headstrong characters who jump straight into shit, a reprieve from the individual bullshittery they can pull off without consequence but even though we set this character up specifically to make the right tactical decision in a pinch were not even gonna give her that satisfaction of being a HERO in this situation in this hammy feel-good plot cause thats reserved for the cool main character. its truly fucking unbearable. in the next few panels the main big trio of strong characters are making thoughtless decisions left right and centre with no hesitation or comment from the narrative with no internal struggle but here we are .. at what should be the culmination of a character arc that just .. falls fucking flat. for one of the bigger characters in the supporting cast of the series.... man the writing is just so poor.

you could say that trying to set up some linear character development where ‘girl is strong > gets confidence shaken > confidence comes back’ struggle contrasting against her ojou-sama calm and secretly playful demeanour is meant to be interesting and give her depth but honestly its just played straight in the most truly boring way but its ok! todoroki said keep your chin up queen and shes fine now. hes gonna go save aizawa-sensei with no input, no plan and be a hero because being hero is just about being the main character! everyone else can fuck off. she really needed that validation since she most likely will not have her own achievements, being recognised by this moron is her progression as a character despite her own character arc being infinitely more interesting and nuanced.

i do not expect a lot from a shounen manga sir, i came in with middling expectations and to look at some cool art whilst i awkwardly practice my japanese and yet. here we fucking are. i keep reading this hoping we get some comeuppance or some result but man. i feel like bnha is actually one of the series i wont bother keeping up with at all. the practice was really good! dont get me wrong its a great light read but im honestly surprised at how skewed the actual story is compared to fanworks. i just wanted some easy jp practice but i became weirdly invested in this probably cause i have a huge bias with cool character designs and the anime production was so ambitious.

o yea and one other thing. with tsu, ochako and nejire being introduced as going on the hassaikai raid but then completely sidelined at the first boss, essentially being relegated to being the mob charas that fits the thematic needs of that one random villain character it was sooo fucking lame. it really felt like the midboss had more thematic weight than these three girls first big fight. they were truly only there to fit the ‘lust’ theme they couldve been replaced by anyone else with tits.

in that arc too, midoriya definitely stepped on my toes the most since he took up moments that i thought would be more meaningful and appropriate with the other dot-eye dude that fell compleltey flat with him, got to use possibly the coolest fucking villain as a beatstick meter to show idk he had even more of a god mode i guess sometimes thanks to taking eri into battle instead of ykno relying on the other UA students and also giving them time to shine rather than interspersing flashbacks and shit before every meaningful fight to show ‘hey look how much this character has grown’ in the most cop out sort of storytelling. jirou i think at least gets some life written into her with meeting her parents and the ua school festival arc showing her talents and passion but shes barely utilised too and hagakure is a literal noncharacter her gag is barely even included half the time. mina gets some characterisation but even then its in the form of through another male character, kirishima, and in both instances its like the two are fighting for the spotlight of relavance which is a shame cause theyre both cooooooooooooool aaaaaaaa. every single girl character just feels like an ‘add-on’ or an afterthought, even moreso than the already forgotten secondary cast of which the most interesting dynamics and characters libe (denki and fumikage are cool!).

plus one gripe is that literally 5 separate girl characters have the same “oho they have to take their clothes off for their quirk to work ohooohgoho! so nautghty guess it cant be helped” and that just makes me like. you fucking suck at this bro just be horny with your whole chest making them have a flimsy embarassed half-excuse to be horny is lame. if you wanna make horny characters just fucking do it! enough of this stupid preamble you have to shoehorn in to every character every fucking time. just make it slutty and move on. there’s no need to be so annoyingly coy about it. also UA is the best most prestigious hero course and the girls who are going to become the top pro heroes go to their internship and its a fkn beauty commercial and its like. if they were at least building towards some commentary that female pro heroes are treated less seriously than their male counterparts like with mt.ladys flirting and her immediate paparazzi who takes pics of her ass, or to show that to become popular it means some level of corporate gameplaying and fanservice, it could be something but theres literally zero effort to comment or build on it at all its literally just presented as is and played straight. this is what it means to be a girl hero. that’s all. no comment.

i feel like miruko was a half-hearted attempt to remedy the lack of girl heroes that are actually strong and not bg props but its like it just feels like its been written as they go along with no overarching theme, nothing being built on or anything to say and it just feels so unsatisfying to read. characters that are introduced regularly get used at beatsticks to show how strong they are and get obliterated soon after to serve to show how cool and totally serious this new villain is ykno??? its so fucking tired a really classically shit kind of pointless circling narrative, like nothing truly has any weight to it and everything is meaningless before one for alls almighty relevance and power and whatever the plot needs has suddenly always existed lol dont worry bout it bro it was totally always there heres a star wars reference!

imo outside of the mangas art, the best thing about bnha is the anime adaptation with the exception of season4. the concept of having a long running shounen but giving it ample time, and a higher ambition in terms of production value and having a just absolutely fucking solid staff really make the first three seasons of bnha anime. naturally the voice acting and sound is anime standard gold but the production cant be understated it pulls so much of the slack. the direction and pacing of the first three seasons is honestly really well done, it feels like stuff builds up with ample time and we get much more focus on the background characters even in simple ways like introducing new group shots etc that give them much needed characterisation. one of my fave episodes is s3e3 which gives us a feeling of actual life and interaction as the kids train hard and get to spend an evening together having a bbq and its honestly full of just like group shots, framing in a way that really truly makes it a believable group of good kids trying their best at summer camp and gives almost everyone some much needed screentime.

one thing i noted as well is that the anime really likes to drive home important emotional points for certain characters through some great character acting - like yaoyorozus pivotal fight with fumikage is barely a passing glance in the manga whereas the anime really captures her desperation and panic as she tries her absolute best to react to the situation, not giving up even as shes overpowered only to realise in horror shes already lost. theres so much more weight and time given to this match and tbh its annoying that something that is meant to be so pivotal is barely glossed over in the manga since its so important to her future character motivations. it feels like when these moments and the strength of the supporting characters is lacking, the main story beats become more and more blatantly repetitive. some of the best parts of the arc are the bakugo rescue plan but were always served a fresh bland helping of izuku midoriya being the main character over utilising the strengths of other characters in this pivotal situation. it’s not like theres any fear of giving other characters ‘origin’ chapters and handing over the reigns away from midoriya it just for some reason, the author chooses not to really bother fleshing out characters who dont have immediate plot relavance or not the main three which makes the whole cast weaker.

imo even the anime is suffering from the source materials holes and its own slightly shoddy choices in direction with season 4 for some reason deciding to faithfully adapt the awful pacing of the overhaul arc and faithfully make it as dry as possible and devoting a solid 6 episodes to the frankly lame school festival arc despite it clearly suffering for time in the first half. it also includes my new least favourite trope of cutting the sound design completely to a slow vocal track along with the most eye wateringly boring fight pacing it was literally like. sir i want to skip this. you are going to make me watch this stupid fight with the dude whos character motivations got explained to me three seconds ago? with a new power up for green boy? with no sound design so theres even less weight to this whole fucking fight? and youre not even going to let me listen to you say run? how fucking dare you do this to me. the anime adaptation cannot stand on its own two legs with the source material alone. it needs strong direction to patch up the holes or stellar animation to distract me since without either its truly a weak weak show.

i know i already talked about it but really wish overhaul and his whole arc was handled better since i felt like it had promise. the wild shift in tone as i was reading was actually pretty surprising and the whole premise reminds me of how fucking nutty and exciting the yorknew city arc in hxh was for that series. the possibility of building how the actual underworld functions, which is tantalisingly never truly talked about in a world of cartoony heroes and villains was interesting and i was ready to see what organised crime with fucking superpowers could bring to the table plus all the new characters really looked damn cool. but overhaul himself, despite his fucking amazing intro and his title of no.2 in the underworld after all for one was in like 12 chapters and the arc literally served to introduce a plot device then fuck off with all its characters immediately having no impact at all and not even utilising the introduced concepts of the yakuza, organised crime and drugs in the age of quirks in any fuckin way. the majority of development came from fucking flashbacks literally seconds before a fight and they were scarce with anything interesting. like SIR WHAT A WASTE I HAD FINALLY FOUND MY GRIMMJOW AGAINST THESE UNSEXY LoV LOSERS WITH NO CHARISMA AND YET everyone keeps telling me that it was just a weak arc and the others are better. but having read them i think its just emblematic of the sort of writing style which prioritises having cool ‘moments’ for its beloved main character over a a cool interesting solid story that produces amazing moments and has the insane shounen payoff that you expect.

my closing thoughts are that its at least a solid manga to read whilst eating breakfast a solid 3/10 and probably higher if you like little broccoli boy and for some reason want him to win. which i dont. he has a terminal case of unlikable bland shounen mc syndrome and the worst thing is that he didnt used to be like that, he grew into it. his whole character is such a waste to me, turning him into the chosen special one with the greatest quirk is the most boring path possible for someone who had such a strong desire and conviction to be a hero. that we see building themselves up out of their own merit for most of the series and then suddenly giving him the power of more quirks fucking sucks. having such a ridiculous power and such a devastating payoff kept his fights interesting and i think the fight where eri allowed him to use it at full power with no drawbacks was such a fucking let down. there were better ways for him to grow other than idk more quirks cause hes special. and truly outside of attaining more power to become no.1 he has very little conflict in his character after someone else goes out of the way to instill confidence in him its also very annoying that repeatedly were shown how hard everyone works to get into ua, to become the heroes they want to be but its always dwarfed in comparison to izuku and the whole fucking scene with allmight at the end of the kamino incident being specifically for izuku, instead of a rallying cry that you are next, every one of you must struggle to become the hero that you want to be - to bear the weight of the symbol of peace is not for one persons shoulders alone like its a shame cause the series spends so much time hammering home how these kids are the best of the best, the ones who really truly want it but theyre not really treated with the same regard at all and their struggles and improvement are nowhere near on the monumental level of midoriya.

i feel like the narrative has all the makings of something interesting, but somehow fucking hilariously misses its own point. truly ripping apart the idea of becoming the greatest hero, the ‘symbol of peace’, that becoming a pillar isnt any way for a human to live and glorifying one persons sacrifice for all our sakes isnt right and that the true insiduous evil of hero society is that it makes us truly believe that people are painted in black and white rather than many shades of grey and forces people to take on things they shouldnt, allows certain powerful individuals to enforce their own wills on the world and robs everyday people, the powerless and weak of any agency of how their society works. it acts like heroism is an inherent trait only afforded by the strong and that being anything less than the ultimate hero is a failure even if it means doing awful tings, like throwing away your children giving them mental scars, leaving behind whole families in the name of heroism falling in the line of duty being seen as some great honour, leaving kids to wander the streets since doing necessary but painful things are for better equipped people, right? wash your hands of it and let a hero deal with it. honestly i just want to see a weak supporting characters heroism. that was the charm of early bnha. ive had enough of this blind thoughtless heroism thats presented as the correct one, for the chosen few. i want to see the struggle for it, insatiable longing that you cant help pushing you on, but most of all i want to see the hero you can be in ways that are meaningful but yours alone and taking back the world inch by inch from the common villainy of our society with one person at a time, reaching out to your hand no matter how scarred. to look your dreams in the face and turn your back on them. tearing down the sun, shattering it into a million pieces, but the small shards shine brighter and can be held in mortal hands. but nah izuku is going to be all might super cop 2 dont worry bout it guys. dw he’ll also choose some poor fucking kid to bear this burden after he becomes useless in battle and we can discard him as a person and simply keep him as an icon since the narrative keeps allowing the villains to have valid criticisms against society but always dismiss them since theyre villains you know and youre not meant to actually think about changing society despite your position of power, just enjoy being no.1 whilst your alive and rinse and repeat pog.

i think thats why i can easily see why bakugo and todoroki are so popular through the series as they do take a long time to get through their extremely shitty issues and they are genuinely shitty little teen psychopaths who are horrible fucking bastards. but they grow up and in really tangible gratifying ways. they seem to have as many setbacks as they do wins, constantly fucked over by their own hubris but still finding a way to power through despite it all trying to awkwardly form connections and become better people as well as better heroes and they can not do so on their own. their struggles are treated with gravity and they always acquire some kind of new strength in return but at a pace that doesnt put them miles ahead of their other classmates but definitely feels weighted and substantial to their development. todoroki gritting his teeth but slowly realising that he has a fucking ridiculous opportunity in his hands with endeavours agency and even inviting his friends is monumental in its own way, endeavour texting his son and his son texting back is like. it really does feel like something. its also interesting that as broccoli boy gets stronger he gets subsequently less and less likeable imo like ... sir you are NO shirou emiya. you do not have the range or the sheer trauma to be so dogged and blind in your ideals despite the world you occupy and everyone else around you. i was sold shirou emiya superhero manga with sexy juwabe sunichi teacher and only one of those thigns is true!!!

#damn you ren #yea i just finished now and my head is busting open with thoughts #probably an awful word vomit of opinions but like. i just finished reading it and im like sir why do i do this #i have this awful illness its called being a shounen manga fan

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thequietmanno1 · 4 years

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Thelreads, MHA 232, Replies Part 2

1) “Oh my god he cloned himself while he was dying to be able to reach Giran.”- Yeah, all Twice needs is an arm and a functioning brain to make a new clone, which speaks to the sheer unstopability of his multiplication- every blow has to utterly obliterate the upper halves of twice’s clones or they’ll just make before they vanish- in fact it’s implied the Clones can actually somewhat resist their impending dissolution to an extent, granting them more time to use double before they collapse.

2) “I guess it really is a two-way road, he cares about them to some extent, and he feels responsible for putting them on this spot.”- Giran might not be somebody who’s fully on board with the league to the same extent that Twice cares about the members, but they were his clients, and he does feel bad about his failure to keep up his end of the bargain, to protect them and their information against their enemies, both hero and villain.

It might also be partly due to the fact that the league actually did bother to show up and save him, even making it to the room where he was kept despite having to fight through a literal army to do so/ That’s not the kind of commitment and loyalty you just turn your nose up at, and despite himself, giran must be pretty touched by their sincerity.

3) “Meanwhile, Bigarm McNose is doing the omae wa mou shindeiru pose while talking about how not caring about the people that fight alongside you is the way to success.”-Given that Twice Broke his ‘no more clones rule’ it’s very possible that Re-Destro was actually going to splatter both 4445 and Giran as punishment, thus rendering the league’s efforts for naught, and as a means of demonstrating the impracticality of prioritising emotions and individuals over the goal of an organisation- even if the rest of the league made it to the tower, there would be nobody left for them to rescue, thus rendering all the effort and wounds they’d accumulated for naught.

4) “No, there’s no way the real one already got here, but I don’t recall seeing the clone getting away from the bitch slap of capitalism.”-That’s rather the point as neither did Re-Destro notice him- if a frontal attack wouldn’t work, then Clonegaraki instead opted for a sneak attack, utilising his insane reflexes to barely dodge the massive slap and the following wind pressure, and then aiming for a sneak attack when he was obscured by the dust kicked up by Re-Destro’s attack. Some translations made me think he; barely dodged the blow, but got knocked backwards almost out the tower by the wind pressure, barely hanging on and then climbing back up as Re-Destro gets distracted by 4445, but it’s unclear how he dodged it exactly save that it was a close call.

5) “Okay, I noticed that the mark on your face was a bit bigger, but it seems to be growing again. That’s really creepy, but it was rather obvious that was part of your quirk.”-Yeah, it’s a cool effect and it makes it easy to tell where he’s channeling his stress powers to bulk up his body (not the the expanding muscles and everything didn’t make that clear enough already) but I’m not really sure how the Rorschach tattoo relates to his stress ability exactly. Something to do with Stress lines perhaps?

6) “Oh, so this is what kick-started the name for era of quirks, the woman that had the glowing baby was the one that called those powers quirk. I wasn’t expecting a backstory for that, but I must say, its kinda cool, and depressing.”-Yeah, you got plenty of asks about that, but the mother of the kid with the first recorded quirk and Destro’s mom are two separate people- it’s just that Destro’s mom coined the term ‘Quirk’ when then went worldwide as a catch-all term for the superpowers everybody’s possessing- which is something of a meta statement, since the term ‘quirk’ is actually an English woolyism of the actual original Japanese term ‘individuality’ that’s used instead, but it works so well that pretty much everybody actually uses it.

There is a hint to the fact that they’re two different people in his speech here- namely that there was an ‘anti-meta mob’ that was formed and lynched her, which implies that the superpowers had been appearing for long enough now that there were people who could form riots to oppose those with powers, which likely wouldn’t have formed if it was for the first recorded example of this abnormality, since it would have been kept under house arrest and with gag orders applied whilst people tried to figure out what was happening to the glowing kid. If it makes you feel better, there’s other live bloggers who made the same error the first time they read through it as well.

7) “He knows his story, how fucking dare he take him for a ignorant thug? He’s a well-educated thug, thank you a lot.”- In Re-Destro’s defence, thanks to Shigarak’s lack of a background in official sources, and his general appearance, it’s easy to assume that he’s not been through primary school or gone through normal educational systems that other people his age would do so to learn about these events. AFO made sure to give Shigaraki a good education, but that, like most of his background, was done in secrecy, so just looking at him, it’s easy to assume Tomura lacks basic education- there’s probably tons of villains out there who are exactly the same, who fell through the cracks in society from a young age, and thus never received a formal education, thus limiting their ability to improve themselves. It’s a slippery slope, and there’s no facilities out there presently to help educate villains on how to improve their chances in society- once they’re labelled as villains, it’s pretty much a stigma that drags them down for the rest of their lives, and it’s hard to improve themselves once they’ve ended up on that path, whether through their own fault of the failings of society.

8) “Anyway, the history lesson continues, now that we have the martyr that died to save everybody, we’re getting into the part where everybody change their way of thinking in favor of the words of salvation. Except they don’t, and things still have a lot of problems hundreds, if not thousands of years later.”-Well, they did, but at the same time, it wasn’t really much of a change. It seems to be along the lines of adopting a more understanding viewpoint of people with superpowers, accepting that they’re still human beings, not monsters, and changing the terms used to describes them from ‘metas’ which denotes a term of otherness, and separation, to ‘quirks’ which is friendlier and accepting of individual character traits, was the first step, through the overall issue- namely discriminating against those who were different from the majority- didn’t exactly change- in fact, as time went on, the boot ended up on the other foot, and even with said ‘metas’ as the majority, everybody still adheres to the old ways of viewing people’s superpowers, namely that they should be suppressed and hidden unless you’re in a profession with a legal license to sue them correctly, with ordinary civilians trying to act like ordinary muggles, and being punished by the law if they use their God-given abilities. You can see why the current state of affairs would be unpleasant for those who believe in quirk freedoms, and even more for Re-Destro’s line who are intimately tied to the very term used to support the current administration.

9) “The first quirk user was the meta terrorist?”-No, but you can see why he became one. Not only was his mother killed, but then society went on to use her memory and last words to support a new administration that suppressed quirks, but did it in a more indirect manner, basically brainwashing people, from Destro’s perspective, into supporting the same regime that killed his beloved mother out of hatred for the otherness that he possessed, and proceeded to defile her even afterwards. Hearing the term ‘quirk’ used to support a less- violet and peaceful society must have ‘really’ pissed off Destro, as it reminded him of his loss and how nothing had actually changed from before, even if people were condemning outright acts of violence against super powered individuals.

The fact that his connection to the term is buried by the present day is an indicator that the administration of old intentionally buried the truth about Destro once his terrorism acts began to ramp up in scale, so as not to damage the image of the pro-quirk society they were trying to build. It’s an overall shitty situation, where you can see both sides had a point, but it gives an explanation as to why the MLA are so insistent on using the term ‘meta ability’ instead, as ‘quirk’ is basically the creation of the government and society that oppresses their cause, and used Destro’s tragedy for their own gain.

10) “HOLY FUCK THE MOMENT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN, TIME FOR THE TOWER TO FALL, MOTHERFUCKERS”-

Re-Destro: alright, in preparation for this Would-be King’s arrival, I’ve prepared this tower with dozens upon hundreds of booby traps, each of which he’ll have to struggle through if he wants to rescue his broker friend… Tomura: (half dead and half asleep) wait, this place has stairs? Goddammit, I’m too tired to climb some stairs right now. (touches tower) Dungeon Bypass!

Re-Destro: (plummeting 30 stories to the ground) You Cheeky Fuccckeeerrrrrrrrr!!!!

11) “Insert “Komm, süsser Tod“ because holy god, that’s the moment of upheaval and destruction one would associate with the The Tower card.”- I have to assume that Clonegaraki, still having more marbles than current Tomura, took into account the fact that Tomura is too wiped out at the moment to remember the original reason the league are assaulting the MLA is to rescue Giran, not kill Re-Destro, and so ordered Twice to keep him safe whilst Tomura just breaks it all down.

It does seem that, thankfully, Tomura’s upgraded decay does appear to be somewhat target-based, in that he was able to order it to destroy the ‘tower’ but the decay didn’t spread to either Giran or Re-Destro, implying that if he lacks a mental image of what he wants the decay to hit as it spreads, he can’t make it affect targets that he can’t mentally visualise. Re-destro Lucked out that he phoned Shigaraki and didn’t activate a video call instead, since that might have resulted in him being destroyed without either of them actually meeting face-to-face.

12) “Oh, the man is pissed, and that mark is growing out of control, now it’s looking more like a mask, covering his eyes. It’s kinda like the mark Destro had in the flashback, just bigger… “-It’s kinda hilarious to realise how inconsequential the fight in this chapter was to the arc overall, since it was mainly between Re-Destro and a bunch of clones being wiped out, none of the actual league members were present save Giran, and all the revelations we’ve just had between Re-Destro’s past and the overall goals of the MLA might as well have never happened- small wonder Re-Destro’s pissed, realising that he’s basically just wasted his entire motive rant on a nobody instead of Tomura himself.

13) “Now it remains to be seen if all that training against Gigantomachia will be worth it, or if we’ll have to wait for the big guy to show up and end this madness.”-Well, Tomura’s not dead, but he’s not far off it right now- and that point of no return is swiftly approaching as Giganto gets closer….

@thelreads

#bnha #my hero academia #chapter replies #thelreads #mha232

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