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Final announcement from president Joe Biden

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guys. please

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"fuck it we ball" is for stress about the future "it is what it is" is for stress about the past and "this too shall pass" is for stress about the present thank you for coming to my TED talk

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what's the first movie you remember seeing in theaters? don't try and be all edgy and cool and say like tetsuo: the iron man. be honest.

Go!!

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Someone sent me this

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someday i will post this fic and then its all over for you fools. i mean not now. or any time soon. but someday it will happen

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In case anyone missed it

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one of the most frustrating things about the neil gaiman situation (and others like it) is people who were fans immediately moving to a different person to idolise ('well, at least we still have x author' or 'please tell me y author is still a good person') and in this situation specifically, 'terry pratchett would be furious'. no!!! you do not know!!!you have no idea whether terry pratchett or any author you like was/is a predator! you cannot take a situation in which a man's public persona as a feminist and supporter of women allowed him to prey on vulnerable women without suspicion and then look at all the other men who portray themselves as good people and say 'well, these ones are still okay though.' just stop idolising celebrities!!!!!!!

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My muse🐾🚬👠

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There was an interesting thread on Bluesky dissecting Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's relationship

TL:DR - It seems like Gaiman has been exaggerating the level of closeness between them for YEARS

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Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook.

Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earth here in paperback or here on Kindle.

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Huh?

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The Shining Lost Crown

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is finally out on Steam today, and everyone should play it. I'm really hoping that a large audience can finally appreciate this game for what it's worth, because I feel like it received a double whammy of negativity upon reveal and not-so-high sales upon release.

Part of this unfortunate combo is due to gamers being crappy, while the rest is Ubisoft being Ubisoft. When The Lost Crown's first trailer hit in 2023, it initially seemed like it had replaced the long-dormant, long-awaited, long-troubled remake of the most-loved PoP game, The Sands of Time. That remake has since been rebooted for a release date in 2026, but it didn't stop some from lamenting that Sands of Time 2.0 had been ditched for a sidescroller. "Looks like a mobile game," cried members of the YouTube peanut gallery. Others focused their ire on the main character, who is Black, and the trailer's accompanying music, which was a rap song. I read at least two comments that said "More like Prince of Wakanda," which made me want to slap a bitch through my screen.

But then the game was released, and it got lots of positive press. As someone who'd felt the burning need to defend The Lost Crown from folks making "Prince of Wakanda" comments, I was enthused to see them eat crow. Alas, Ubisoft made the decision to release the PC version of the game not on Steam, but on the meh Epic Games Store and on their Ubisoft Connect launcher, a piece of software that nobody uses because they want to. And so, despite strong reviews, The Lost Crown came out of the gate slightly hampered.

At last this error can be rectified, and hopefully everyone can see that this is the PoP revival we needed. Even though series creator Jordan Mechner wasn't specifically involved in The Lost Crown, this game feel like a natural evolution of the formula he established in 1989 right off of the heels of Karateka. PoP started out as a tough-as-nails platformer with an emphasis on exploration and cinematic scenes - it only makes sense that it should transition into a tough-as-nails Metroidvania with style and storytelling influenced by anime.

Prior to this game's reveal, the PoP franchise had been floundering, trying in vain to recapture the mainstream appeal that it had snagged during the Sands of Time trilogy in the mid-2000s. Proof of the struggles to reimagine the franchise have emerged in since-leaked videos showing reboots that were thrown away by Ubisoft in favor of more Assassin's Creed games. (Hi, I'm one of those folks who remembers that the first Assassins' Creed was supposed to be a PoP spinoff, and resents the fact that the Prince floundered in obscurity for over a decade while AssCreed got over two dozen games.)

But the wait was worth it. Ubisoft Montpellier (the one team at Ubisoft that I like, since they made Rayman and seem to rise up every five years to drop a banger before disappearing back into the mist) reinvented PoP by looking at what AssCreed had become and then veering in an entirely different direction. Instead of an overbudget open world experience littered with microtransactions, we have simply a good ass video game that focuses on the trademarks of the Prince - sweet parkour moves, tricky combat, and time travel shenanigans.

That said, you don't actually play as full-on nobility in The Lost Crown - you play as Sargon, a cocky member of an elite team of bodyguards dubbed the Immortals. These larger-than-life anime figures are tasked to go to Mount Qaf to rescue the Prince, and Sargon's connection to the title "Prince of Persia" is interesting and not the obvious "oh, he's just the Prince in disguise" twist that I expected.

All of this is to say that the plot of The Lost Crown is solid, and there's a certain amount of respect paid to the source material that goes beyond the "vaguely inspired by the Arabian Nights" schtick of every other game in the franchise. As should be the case in 2024 for something with "Persia" in its title, actual people of Middle Eastern descent worked on this, and apparently the Farsi dub is excellent.

As for Sargon, his design does boast the Killmonger dreadlocks that have become a tropey shorthand for "cool Black guy" in media. But aside from this, he's great, and he really grows over the course of the story. Everything about his dual-wielding fighting style to his double jump is excellent, and you'll need to master those moves to make it through The Lost Crown's boss fights, which are intricate, multistaged affairs that toss Sargon in arenas against huge foes who have their names presented in ALL CAPS along with a subtitle - for instance, "JAHANDAR, Guardian of the Citadel."

I'd been cocurrently working through Elden Ring for my fulltime job of writing game guides as I started playing The Lost Crown, and after dying for the eighth time against Jahandar, I realized that this game's emphasis on bosses combined with Sargon's ability to quaff healing potions a limited number of times (and take a limited number of hits) was awfully Soulsy. That said, The Lost Crown isn't a full-on Soulslike, but there's borrowed DNA here. Aside from the bosses and healing, collectible lore items that reveal extended backstory lie in abundance, and Sargon's moveset demands the sort of attention and mastery that Soulslikes promote. There have been some stunning combo videos showcasing everything he can do in combat, and outside of fights, expect to make Sargon navigate through some absurd platforming sections replete with spikes farther than the eye can see.

Honestly, there were a few instances in The Lost Crown that made me curse modern gaming's love affair with Soulslikes and grunt, "WHY DO GAMES THESE DAYS HAVE TO BE SO HARD." Then again, I was playing on Hero difficulty level, which is a step up from Normal and meant to be tough, so I have nobody but myself to blame. And the original PoP was no walk in the park either, even if you can speedrun it in less than a half hour these days if you know what you're doing. Overall, the challenge level in The Lost Crown is fair, especially because the game presents you with a wide array of accessibility options, and you can lower the difficulty at any time.

I think if you've played Hollow Knight, which I've seen The Lost Crown getting compared with a lot, you'll be ready for all of the obstacles that Sargon faces. I haven't, despite obtaining it via one Steam sale or another several years ago, but now I want to. Both games share an absolutely huge map in common, and as someone who enjoys Metroidvanias but is mostly used to the two franchises that gave the genre its title - Castlevania and Metroid - seeing Mount Qaf spread out before me on the map screen in a seemingly endless fashion was way larger than anything I'd previously witnessed. Games today, man. They're not just hard, they're big.

I for one am grateful that PoP is back in action with such a big title, and with the recent release of The Rogue Prince of Persia only a few months after this game, suddenly I am inundated with more Persia content than I've had in years. Maybe Ubisoft's gearing up to milk this franchise AssCreed style, which seems to be a possibility that I'll be forced to call them out on if it ever occurs.

In the meantime, I'm just glad to be performing death-defying wall jumps over beds of spikes in a fantasy Persia once again. If you missed it the first time around and love Metroidvanias, platformers, or Soulslikes, don't delay. The Lost Crown shines like headware fit for a prince, and this is a game more than worthy of your time.

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Managed to finish this just before the end of 2024. Another entry in my bi-annual redraw of some old fanart. Spent a lot of time on detail work this time. I saw it fitting to start 2025 with the first illustration I have done in the new software I am using.

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Also, lol at the Prince saying that he wanted to win acclaim not through violence but by being the first to reach the Maharajah's treasure right after he's killed three guys.

Although, that probably is meant to be him massaging the truth to make himself look good, but whatever.