#(post is mostly about someone else but nonetheless is relevant to & therefore goes in the tag for:)

[paradife-loft]

one of the other things about that fic actually, is it finally got me to nail down some stuff about what the deal is/was with Rivka's first master! ...even though like 95% of the relevant material got cut out of the final draft because it started wandering in an unhelpful direction, but shh.

anyway. Elanthe Pelaggia was, much like Rivka, a curious, stubborn, unconventionally-minded and intellectually voracious member of the Jedi Order who cared strongly about how to be an ethical person. she offered Rivka to become her apprentice in large part because she recognized a lot of those same traits between them, and saw the low-key shitty time Rivka was having trying to (not) conform to a more strict, authority-focused style of teaching for the more inexperienced members of the Order, and saw it as an opportunity to basically be the sort of adult she would've wanted in her own corner when she was younger. they hit it off pretty fabulously! Elanthe hadn't necessarily been super invested in the general idea of training a padawan beforehand, but in this particular case it was... something she genuinely enjoyed and felt proud of.

now. this only happened a couple years after the Treaty of Coruscant was signed. prior to the Treaty, Elanthe had been involved in Republic war efforts against the Sith just like any other Jedi. another couple years prior to cessation of active hostilities, she'd been placed with a unit of the Republic army, serving an infiltration & combat support role for their operations. one of those operations involved some search-and-destroy in Sith-held territory for critical infrastructure facilities supporting both their local war production and its associated Imperial settlements. Elanthe was essentially the one who went in first to scout for the exact targets they needed and their defenses, weaknesses, etc.

one of the places she was sent to scout on had, unknown to the Republic intel they were working from, fairly recently established a Sith training academy on-location to take advantage of its practical integration with Imperial military logistics. so in the process of infiltrating this military-target outpost for "how best destroy this place," she basically ends up walking into some dormitory housing for Sith teenagers. that, uh. that had not been included in the plan.

she also! gets discovered at this point by one of the Sith working at the outpost! who had noticed some funky shenanigans going on with security patrols/equipment/etc. and gone to figure out what was up. s h o c k i n g l y, they do not end up in a fight to the death, because Elanthe gets the absolute coldest of feet-popsicles about the mission and actively explains everything and offers to lie her ass off to the army because wtf she is deeply not ok with atomizing a school full of kids on top of whatever other civilian casualties they'd be inflicting.

so she does. and covertly sends updates/confirmation about the mission being scrapped to the Sith she encountered. she honestly wishes more people were more open-minded like this, had the opportunity to see what the war was costing regular people on the other side who were hardly monsters - yes even the kiddos being trained as future dark side assassins and shit. they're people too they didn't choose this any more than she chose to be a Jedi wheeeee treason is fun enrichment !!!

things move on, the war gets strangled into a close... Elanthe kind of maybe has an online penpal/friend who happens to be a Sith. again, open-mindedness; just because she doesn't personally agree with the Sith doesn't mean she agrees with the Jedi party line about converting or destroying all of them; the two factions aren't at war any more anyway.

several years later... being a Jedi and training a padawan in particular have gotten Elanthe a much more up-close view of some of the Cold War's proxy conflicts and attempts to covertly undermine the Sith than she had ever been expecting. she increasingly feels like she can't continue working for the Order, can't continue teaching a student to become another Jedi Knight who'll eventually get caught up in exactly the same hypocritical shit that's too entrenched for her to do anything about.

she doesn't really know how to leave. it's just... not something that's done. (she doesn't want to just toss Rivka back into the rest of the Order, either. the dilemma and guilt of it give her many sleepless nights.)

...her Sith friend offers, promises, the opportunity of a soft landing and support in the Empire, if she ever wants it. (and genuinely means it and has some capacity to follow through, ftr.)

[last straw breaking point event tbd happens]

and so she defects. spends a while of the planning of it trying to figure out a way she could even bring Rivka with her. there... really isn't one. not without their ultimately getting split up and Rivka tossed into the Sith academy meat grinder. even if she doesn't want to leave her to the rest of the Jedi, there'd be no kindness in forcing her to be trained as a Sith apprentice instead.

she says goodbye without really making it clear that's what she's doing. she doesn't leave any letters to explain, or tell Rivka anything about why. she reasons it's better to keep her as far away from any appearance of being corrupted by a dark Jedi traitor as is still possible, at this point. the only people she does lay things out (partially, very very partially) for, are the Council, via confession-style messages creating a (simplified, caricatured) narrative to swallow.

in the end though, it's all a pretty futile gesture with a significant cost that Elanthe's not around to pay.

[miximax-hell]

Oh my, if it isn’t more @inavember stuff! Don’t get used to this, as there isn’t aaall that much I plan to do for this month, and not everything I want to do is related to this blog. Anyway, let’s try to make this enjoyable while it lasts!

I randomly found a MamoDai doodle I didn’t publish last time and I don’t really want to simply edit a super old post to add it since no one will see it, so I might as well do SOMETHING for once in my life and use this chance to write more about MamoDai, since it seems to be at least a couple of people’s favourite concept within this blog. And I don’t blame then.

This doodle is especially interesting, as it shows MamoDai’s early concept before my friend took part in it. …If you can call that “take part,” that is, but I explained that in the past and I won’t go over that again. ww As you may see, it isn’t very different to the final design, so it comes to show that there wasn’t much experimenting done because of how straightforward the whole process ended up being. Even today, MamoDai’s has been one of the easiest designs to come up with, as pretty much every single idea I ever had ended up making it to the final design due to the special conditions it was created under.

But we’re not here to discuss MamoDai’s design, as I did so thoroughly in a previous post. Instead, it’s about time to cover everyone’s my favourite subject, one I can’t believe I haven’t talked about yet. It’s time to talk about MamoDai’s powers!

For more information about that, please look under the cut.

As usual, let’s add some updates now that we’re done with the intro and past the cut! As some of you know, a couple of days after my last post about Hiroto, my girlfriend came to visit me and we spent almost two weeks together, roaming around my city and being extremely cheesy. Needless to say, after walking around for 10-12 hours everyday, I didn’t really feel like doing much else. Thank goodness I had nothing else to do and we could enjoy ourselves to the fullest. (And play KH lmao) And this same lovely, perfect girlfriend will help me by proofreading and editing 1-2 old stories of mine and making them presentable so I can finally post them to Tumblr during Inavember. Don’t worry, though—those won’t be posted here.

I have also been struggling with mail. I sent some parcels that my friends (including @ishidoshuuji @karasawr and my own girlfriend) never got, so I’ve been trying to fill out claims to try and locate those packages and make sure they either go where they should… or at least try to get my money back. It’s been a pain and the results have been terrible so far. Sigh… The only good thing is that I got to talk to a REALLY nice USPS worker. The second one I talked to was a little shit, but that’s karma, I suppose.

On the bright side, I… beat Super Mario Galaxy 2 and completed Portal? Well, they’re both top-notch games, so I guess it counts. And The Witch’s House too, along with my girlfriend! …Oh, and a super old and very terrible Star Wars game for PSX. That wasn’t so great, but at least it’s out of the way. I won’t complain.

And last, but by no means least, as you all know (and if you didn’t, you will now), 10/1 was EnYaga Day and 10/15 was True EnYaga Day. What you all must know by now is that I’m a very fervent EnYaga king shipper, so I have to celebrate those days properly with nice illustrations!

…However, there was an EnYaga Day on January that I didn’t celebrate (1/10) since I had just moved to America and all, so I want to do something special for this blog to make up for that day I missed. So, if you have any requests regarding Endou’s miximax with Yagami, be it in terms of what you’d like to know more about or what you’d like me to draw next, please let me know! I’m open to all kinds of suggestions!

Well, the rant’s out of the way, so it’s time to start! To do so, let me quote myself: “MamoDai is Endou’s true miximax, and the one who turns him into the incredible monster of a goalkeeper he was always meant to be.” After mentioning that in my last post about him, I said that that was a story for some other time, and that time has finally come.

The sentence I just quoted makes it pretty clear, but I’ll say it properly just in case: MamoDai is strong. Now, don’t get me wrong here. GouYuu is strong. SomeKyu is strong. Super Zanark is strong. But MamoDai is strong. Remember when I said I was trying to make my characters strong and nonetheless flawed because that’s what really spices things up?

I LIED.

Nah, just kidding. ww But MamoDai really is super strong, to the point where he might very well be the strongest character and miximax in this project. Is he undefeatable? Of course not—that would be no fun. However, he is indeed very, very tough to beat.

As you may know if you’ve read other posts, I always try to find a niche for everyone to make them all actually useful and relevant. I do this so no one can simply outclass someone else. I want them all to be good enough on their own. That’s why their perks aren’t usually “HE’S STRONG AND FAST AND WILL KICK YOUR SORRY ASS TO OBLIVION,” but something a bit more specific and unique. Megane’s outstanding luck, Someoka’s sheer bulldozing power, Tamano’s resistance, Midorikawa’s aerial plays… Something special no one else can have. And MamoDai’s perk is quite cool.

You all have watched or played Inazuma—you wouldn’t be here otherwise. Now, tell me: what happens whenever Raimon/Inazuma Japan/Chrono Storm/Earth Eleven comes across one of the strongest teams in every season/game? There’s always someone in the team saying, “How are we supposed to defeat people this strong?! It’s impossible!!”

Well, MamoDai makes the opposing team say this. His perk is having a strength so overwhelming that enemies can barely even believe someone that strong can exist. MamoDai is, quite literally, the Drama Destroyer, as it turns the tables around by showing overpowered people the true meaning of that word. This is part of the reason why Endou is the last one to get his miximax in this project—it would be completely ridiculous otherwise. As I said, MamoDai is not undefeatable, but you ought to save the best for last. It’d be stupid in terms of storytelling to show the absolute best miximax first and then bring miximaxes that can’t stand up to it coming one after the other. I guess no one would have seen that one coming, but still. ww

Anyway, what exactly are MamoDai’s powers? Let’s cover hissatsus first.

The boosted hissatsu here is quite tricky to point out, as many of Endou’s hissatsus are originally Daisuke’s. However, I think this calls for a middle point between classic and powerful. You could think God Hand would get boosted, but God Hand is rather weak, so even evolving it beyond Shin wouldn’t solve much. Same goes for Nekketsu Punch, Grenade Shot or Bakuretsu Punch. You could boost God Catch, since Daisuke inspired it and all, but he didn’t have much to do with it to begin with. Same goes for Ijigen The Hand, Ikari no Tettsui or even Triple Defense and Megaton Head (not to mention Endou boosted Megaton Head to the very limit himself, as shown by the fact that it turned into Gigaton Head).

Our last options would therefore be The Earth (which Yagami already boosted, so scratch that), Seiji no Tekken (which Daisuke never mastered himself, even if it was his idea), Omega The Hand (TEMPTING, but it doesn’t make a super ton of sense) or… Majin The Hand. In fact, this last idea is the most logical one, if you think about it coldly.

Majin The Hand was stated to be Daisuke’s strongest and signature hissatsu, after all—the one he used when he was a pro soccer player and all. Sure, Majin The Hand is far from Endou’s best hissatsu, but in terms of game canon, it’s always been pretty dang strong nonetheless. Boosting this hissatsu beyond all known limits (within the first trilogy, at least) could be rather useful, as it could easily be as strong as his more energy-consuming hissatsus—or even stronger—while still taking a much smaller toll on him. And it’s just a really cool technique overall! Did you all see the Ares version?! I’M SO HYPED.

As for what hissatsu Endou would get from Daisuke… Well, that is a very difficult question. Endou has pretty much learnt everything Daisuke ever created, after all. You could go for one of the techniques Endou didn’t learn himself, like Inazuma Otoshi or Mugen The Hand, but the team already has both, so it wouldn’t be very interesting. You could also go for God Hand X, since Rococo learnt how to use God Hand from Daisuke to begin with (the X variation might have been Daisuke’s doing too—who knows) and he even taught Sangoku how to use it, but, yeah, Sangoku can already use it. What’s the point, then?

The most interesting options are a bit more obscure. There is this one technique, exclusive to young Hibiki, called God Hand Triple. Hibiki, as we all know, was trained personally by Daisuke, so, much like God Hand X, it could very well be Daisuke’s creation. Even if it weren’t, though, it’s an extremely tempting option. The only downside is that it’s a combo hissatsu, and I try to avoid those as much as I can. However, Chrono Storm did get a combo hissatsu at the very end: Saikyou Eleven Hadou. This could be our chance to create some, uh, parallelism with it? We got a shot last time, so a catch would be nice now. I guess.

Anyway, the other good option is, luckily, a single player hissatsu. It’s one that I will get complaints for, though—mostly from myself. Since Endou is receiving Daisuke’s powers, he could borrow Daisuke’s God Hand, combine it with his own and, therefore, get God Hand W. Now, I’ll list every problem I see with this idea. Let me know if there’s any I missed.

1.       In terms of anime (or movie) canon, Tenma can already use this and I just said it’s pointless to repeat techniques. You could go around this by saying that it makes no sense for Tenma to use a catch hissatsu or say that the movie isn’t canon since it happened in an AU of sorts, but still.

2.       Daisuke never used God Hand W himself, so it doesn’t make all that sense. Then again, for example, Big couldn’t use Ouja no Kiba and Fei got it from miximaxing with him. (Yes, I know you can scout Big’s gijinka in Galaxy and he can use that technique, but we all know that’s not canon at all, much like Nobunaga being able to use Setsuna Boost, etc. ww)

3.       In terms of game canon, young Endou can already use God Hand W, so getting this technique from mixitransing would make little sense. You could argue that this is young Endou within his own universe and he got that technique in the Go games, so it isn’t canon plot-wise, but I’ve already talked about other IE characters using Go techniques, so you all would have many reasons to be mad at me for twisting the rules as I find it fitting (even if the case isn’t exactly the same). What am I, a politician?

I’ll let you guys (assuming anyone reads this) decide whether God Hand W would be a good option or not. But, for now, let me suggest something else.

How about going way, way, way back to the first time this concept was ever shown, back in episode 13 of the original series? This is what we got back then when Endou tried to use God Hand with both hands.

Yes, it was probably meant to be some kind of normal, big hand, but it looks like a straight hand instead of the usual grabby… thing. Couldn’t, therefore, Endou’s take on the combination of two God Hands be something like a… God Palm? It’s a technique he never mastered himself, as he only used it once (or maybe twice at some point?), so the miximax could help him develop it further and, of course, complete it. There goes a thought.

So, yeah. Tricky stuff here. Excuse me for not sharing more than simple thoughts instead of, well, finished things, but at least it isn’t the first time this happens. ww I accept all kinds of feedback or ideas, though!

This time, I decided to save the most boring part for last. To end things off, let’s talk about how Daisuke would change Endou’s abilities.

As I said when I talked about EnYaga’s abilities, Endou’s strength, as a goalkeeper, has always been based on resistance, power and stillness. All these abilities, which pretty much disappeared (or, at least, weren’t boosted at all) when Endou miximaxed with Yagami, are pushed to ungodly—pun intended—limits thanks to Daisuke. The blood and emotional bond makes this miximax reach a power not seen ever since Yuuichi miximaxed with Tsurugi, and we all saw how incredibly strong that was. I even talked about how the bond between vessel and aura can affect the outcome of the miximax back in the day, so there’s that.

Endou’s natural catching and blocking ability (which, in the games, is stronger than Daisuke’s—probably because Daisuke is already old) is doubled or even tripled thanks to this miximax. If there is a single true iron wall in this project, that’s definitely MamoDai. Daisuke always insisted on how a goalkeeper’s power is based on how much strength he has on his stomach because that’s what will allow him to block a shot without being wrecked by it, so MamoDai is able to anchor himself to the ground and not even budge most of the time. It’s fearsome. That’s what I meant when I said he would be reversing the roles and scaring enemies for once. About time something like that happened!

The rest of his abilities—kicking capability, speed, etc.—receive a small boost too, as per usual, but nothing all that extraordinary. You won’t be seeing MamoDai scores many more goals than before, unlike EnYaga, but that’s why it comes in handy to give Endou two different trump cards to choose from… even though one of them is FAR better at what it does than the other. Oh well!

[oneweekoneband]

Why Did It Take Me So Long To Notice That The Word Is “Fury” Not “Furry”?

Hello again. While I must admit to mild surprise at Dinosaur Jr.’s absence from the constantly growing roster of artists covered on OWOB, I should also state my attempted approach to writing about a band with no lack of wordage already available on its behalf. Though potentially futile, I will be trying to write something that benefits a cross-section of readers, from the unfamiliar but curious to the currently dismissive therefore purposely detached to the self-appointed superfan. All of this being stated, please understand that “attempted” carries one hell of an implied emphasis.

As covered in the previous post, I’m an active writer with many years in the trenches, though at least a half-decade in between my first toe-dips into this endeavor and the formative teenage moment when exposure to two Dinosaur Jr. albums (1987’s You’re Living All Over Me and 1991’s Green Mind, their second and fourth, respectively) combined to transform a fervent interest in underground music into a terminal, all-consuming obsession that almost seems to have dictated, in some way, shape or form, each lifting of a finger since. 

I’ve had a fair amount of writing published on the subject of this band, but most of it appeared during the first half of my now 18 years in this racket, barring the entries about several Dinosaur Jr. albums did make it into my second (and most recent) book, which carried the subtitle of 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981 - 1996 and a title that I absolutely hate so it shall not be revisited. On that note, attacks of full-body cringe have become as reliable as Christmas upon revisiting older writings, therefore I did not in order to guarantee no points or angles reiterated. But for what it’s worth, at some point in the early-00s, I did a long and embarrassing tribute to You’re Living All Over Me for the Perfect Sound Forever website as my first piece of writing on the band. Then once the spotlight was aimed backwards and topically in 2004-2006 for that period’s two-tiered reissue and reunion activity, I wrote a bunch of features about the Homestead and SST years (plus the early run of reunion shows) for several outlets. I interviewed both Mascis and Barlow, twice each if I remember correctly, and essentially felt like I said everything there was to possibly say about this band whose music more or less put me on a personal and professional course that continues to this day. I don’t feel like that anymore.

Two things to take into account before we move on: First, none of the subsequent entries will be this long, or at least that’s the plan. Secondly, this week will feature very little writing on the four albums of new material Dinosaur Jr. has released since the original lineup of J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Emmett Jefferson Murphy III (almost exclusively known as “Murph” but I find his full given name to be amusing) reunited in 2005…will be of the unflattering comparative variety. However popular it might be to jump to black-and-white, definitive conclusions, do not take this to mean I consider these albums to be bad or boring or anything of the sort. But do know that they are, despite what the rest of the world seemingly believes, inferior when placed against what I will be trying to push into your ears and lives going forward. And understand that Dinosaur Jr.’s major-label era (1991 - 1997) will be explored in a nooks-and-crannies fashion (meaning, we’re going to get into Mike Johnson’s discography), as I feel there’s a nice chunk of amazing music hidden in there that has been largely overlooked or misunderstood.

I am about as obsessed with music as I am the non-fiction ghetto in which I operate.  Therefore it might or might not behoove me to do something no one outside of this little world should waste their time with, and that would be lot of overthinking about a couple of crucial elements of artistic criticism and appreciation that appear to be under constant attack these days: context and nuance. There is no such thing as good-to-great creative nonfiction or journalism that lacks or misuses either, and the most difficult to translate of the two is, of course, context. 

These days it seems every talking head (or every record-store loiterer or live show barnacle) of similar vintage to myself should be wearing a t-shirt or rocking a bumper-sticker that says, “Ask Me What It Was Like Before The Internet!”. This is something for which I harbor a visceral and distinct distaste if not great embarrassment. Any historically-precise party line of assumed profundity is going to fail at transmitting the intended impact for two reasons. First is the obvious neutering of any meaning or relevance when beating a cultural audience over the head with something, year after year, generation after generation. The second is more problematic, as I’m not certain that being present during its heyday or for a following period of linear influence is necessitated so as to provide fundamental context needed to understand how or why a band was groundbreaking or brain-rearranging or whatnot. 

For example, Dinosaur Jr. was four albums and seven years active once its music entered my life in earnest. Still, when it comes to blanket mantras of the reality-removed like, “This Was Before The Internet!” or “We Didn’t Have Cell Phones” battle stories, usually issued as some delusional badge of struggle or evidence of authenticity, we’re talking something that means far less than is assumed to a recipient without the same experiential history. I usually cringe when I witness someone else trying to get this across to a younger generation, though I have yet to figure out myself how to do it effectively. 

Conversely, there are examples of past underground rock prescience (well beyond the legendary trio of albums released by Dinosaur Jr. between 1985 and 1988) such as Mission of Burma, Black Flag, NEU!, Brian Eno’s “Third Uncle”, The Feelies, The Embarrassment, Can, This Heat, The Fall, mid-period Sonic Youth, Husker Du’s SST years, Black Sabbath, Slayer, mid-80s Swans, and Miles Davis’ 1970 - 1975 output, to name but a few, that occurred long before I developed anything close to refined taste or the ability to let music have an impact on a deep emotional and intellectual level. Or, for that matter, the ability to breath air outside of the womb in some of those cases. 

Still, once properly blown away, I could easily wrap my head around how each example was way ahead of the curve, or scared the shit out of most listeners who came in contact with it in real time. Of course, it helps if the music in question resides in the exclusive canon reserved for that which is genuinely timeless. If it falls short of timeless it sure as hell better be a high quality, well-aged specimen of music that’s nonetheless easily identifiable as being from a certain era of yore. Much of material released by Dinosaur Jr.’s during the band’s first two phases of activity, which together span 1985 until 1997, fits into one of those two categories.

My first meaningful introduction to Dinosaur Jr. essentially played out in similar a similar fashion to formative life-altering moments spun by many writers, musicians, and fans of my generation or older. I suppose a warning should now be issued that you’re about to read yet another account of someone taping episodes of MTV’s 120 Minutes. I had a habit of setting the recording time to the shittiest quality of six hours and fitting three episodes of said show onto my parents’ VHS copies of HBO and Cinemax films like The Cotton Club and Bill Cosby’s Himself. Some time after its parent album (You’re Living All Over Me) was released, on a Christmas night when I was in my early teens, the video for “Little Fury Things” ran between a Michelle Shocked number and The Cure’s infuriatingly awful “Let’s Go To Bed” (that goes for the video and the song). At first I focused on other future life-alterers like the clip for The Fall’s “New Big Prinz” and Sonic Youth’s iconic “Teenage Riot” video, as Dinosaur Jr.’s idea of a video and that song were just too fucking dark and ominous for my young teenage mind. 

But because I had to fast forward or rewind through multiple Christmas-special live-in-the-studio tomfoolery from hosts They Might Be Giants along with crap that was somehow already “not for me” like Fishbone, Camouflage, Translator, and the not-that-bad-but-long-as-hell video for Love And Rockets’ “Dog End Of A Day Gone By”, I eventually came around to the three minutes and change that was the “Little Fury Things” video….like a moth to flame. I still have the very VHS tape I used to play and rewind repeatedly while my parents were at work during the day, blasting it through the shitty speakers of our 27” Sony Trinitron and running all over the floorplans of the three houses (well, one house and two apartments, if we’re to split hairs) I lived in during my high school years. The beginning of the video goes blank for a few seconds because I accidentally hit “record” on the remote amidst some furious bouncing all over the couches and chairs.

I seriously doubt there’s a song I’ve listened to, on my own accord, more times than this one and it still delivers a palpable, albeit much different due to time passed, charge as it plays at this very moment. The sonic dichotomy that makes this track exciting- powerful noise/distortion married to a huge, highly emotive pop hook-happens to be another dragon I chase to this day and in general has been one of the crucial elements of forward movement undertaken by post-hardcore, proto and first-gen indie-rock, punk rock, shoegaze and underground metal over the last 30 years. Because I still run into music obsessives, mostly younger, who are unaware of Dinosaur Jr.’s legacy and historical place as a paramount force of innovation, influence and well-aged listening excitement, I’ll close this entry with the aforementioned video despite it visually communicating far less than it does musically. 

Much has been written (years ago by myself and more recently in Nick Atfield’s 33 ⅓ book on the album it opens) about attempting to decipher or assign one’s own meaning and words to what is probably a bunch of lyrical nonsense. I think that’s organically symptomatic of anything that hits with this kind of power and non-cheesy melancholic punch. A personal fave, however, would have to go to the one-off “Hallelujah, the sunlight brings the red out in your eyes” line that opens the gate for an instrumental mid-section of riffs (where a guitar solo might normally be).

“Little Fury Things” official video from 1987′s You’re Living All Over Me

And here’s a couple of clips that hopefully illustrate how insanely loud and air-moving Dinosaur Jr. Mach I must have been as a live band, especially considering the average age of the members was 20 to 22.

1986 at UMass…

Germany, 1988, full set. Pretty good sound given the age/era.