#The Great Forest Compendium

[the-vengeful-rose]

The Great Forest Compendium masterpost

I'm thinking of making a small compendium of creatures from the Great Forest. A massive forest so incomprehensibly huge that every single map of the realm with all five kingdoms can only show a small portion of the Great Forest. I've only just started this, and I probably won't be consistent with adding to it, but I'll try. This an idea I'd like to try out and I just wanted to share my initial progress on this idea. For now, I'm only putting the entries for each creature, but at some point I'm hoping I will add a picture of each creature so stay tuned for that at some point. This is going to hopefully be similar to the Minecraft Mobestiary in concept. There will be at least 3 levels to the Great Forest, the Outer Great Forest, the Inner Great Forest, and the Deep Great Forest. They are classified by both the unique flora and fauna that inhabit each region. The Outer Great Forest contains creatures not unlike our own, but slightly different. The Inner Great Forest contains creatures and plants very different from ours, with fleshy, bleeding plants and gored creatures that only appear similar to the familiar creatures of our forests. And the Deep Great Forest, the home of some of the most horrifying creatures in all the realm.

I will continue to add to the Compendium as time goes on, so stay tuned for any updates.

So, here's my progress on my newest entries, the Nerida:

Deep within the Great Forest lie creatures unlike any that we know. They have been a mystery to our realm and to our scholars for many long years. This is my Compendium of all the creatures I have encountered within the Great Forest; I write these entries in the hopes that someday in the future we might understand these incredible creatures that live within our realm.

Professor S. C. Faevyre

The Elapos: A peaceful deer-like animal from the depths of the Inner Great Forest. It's body is mangled and gory, much like other creatures from the Inner and Deep Great Forest. The males have antlers made of bloodied and sometimes broken bone and the females have heads with almost no skin or flesh, leaving most of their skulls entirely exposed. They stand at around 5 feet tall for the males and 4 feet and 7 inches for the females. Both males and females can reach speeds up to 68 mph whilst running within their wooded home, and feed both on the fleshy plants of the Inner and Deep Great Forest and the carcasses of dead animals.

The Kerosavra: a peaceful lizard-like creature from the Outer Great Forest. Their predominant features are having dark bloody scales and a horn similar to rhinoceros' made out of pure white bone. They feed mostly on the fleshy petals of flowers and on the bloodsucking insects of the Outer Great Forest swamps. They can reach up to 7 inches in length but are on average 4, they are mostly only 1-1.5 inches tall and weigh around 1.7 pounds.

The Skiudos: a peaceful squirrel-like creature made almost entirely out of bone. They live on the border between the Inner and Outer Great Forest. They feed on the tumor-like seeds of the Great Forest trees and will sometimes hunt Kerosavra in times of desperation or for fun. They reach around 5-7 inches in height while being 6-8 in length when counting the tail. They weigh anywhere between 1.5-3.25 pounds and make their homes in abandoned nests in the willow-like Klefmous trees left by the carnivorous and prideful owl-like Lakviya that occasionally hunt in the Outer Great Forest area.

After careful observation and analysis, I have come to the conclusion that the Isbalvenos, a humanoid creature that bleeds from the mouth and eyes while silently observing civilians in towns, and the Arpatiko, a grotesque creature made of mangled flesh and bone that dashes through the Great Forest while making demonic wails, are one in the same. I present,

the Viyakomogo: a shape-shifting resident of the Deep Great Forest. While they are in their humanoid forms, they pose no threat to anyone. But when they start hunting, it is best to stay away lest you be torn limb from limb. Their main prey is the Elapos, and because of this, they have developed the ability to reach similar incredible speeds as the Elapos. These creatures only know pain. From what I've observed, I've found that Viyakomogo are in constant pain because of their shape-shifting nature. While they are hunting, in what I've dubbed their "wild form", their bones are constantly breaking and connecting, while blood consistently leaks from their hollowed chest cavities. While in their "disguised form", their excess blood has nowhere to go so it seeps from their facial orifices, creating an unsettling appearance many indigenous people have come to call "The Crying Angel". Many have speculated on the homes of the Arpatiko, but none have seen it as of yet. Thus, from my thorough research into their behaviors and appearance, I have come to the conclusion that the Viyakomogo live in a central nest, one I have yet to find but have come to call "The Angels' Hollow", along with a few smaller sub-nests.

The Nerida: Tricksters. These mischievous faeries like to play pranks on other species, not stopping with just us, but even playing with some of the most dangerous creatures from the depths of the Great Forest; I have even once glimpsed one playing with a Viyakomogo, and in its Arpatiko form at that. These creatures are similar to the Skiudos in that they are also mostly skeletal in appearance. Their wings though, are like that of the angels from up above, but twisted to fit the nature of the Great Forest: torn and covered in bloodied white feathers, the flesh of the wing underneath swollen and mottled with pus. I have even had the luck of glimpsing one with a jagged bone pierced through the flesh of the wing and scraping against its skeletal cheek with every beat of its wings. It is unknown what these creatures eat or even if they need to at all. They measure up to 5 inches in height and mostly 1 in width. They have a wingspan of 4.5 inches.

[headspace-hotel]

Native Plant Info Masterlist...2!

This will be a USA centric post sadly, mostly focused on the East, since I am unfamiliar with resources outside of my area.

iNaturalist lets you upload pictures of any organisms and get them identified by the community, but if you don't want to upload, you can still lurk and look through all the photos being posted in your area to develop familiarity with the plants

Wildflower Search lets you toggle between photos of leaves, flowers, fruits etc. of each plant, gives loads of links to other sites that provide info, lets you search by flower color, plant type, time of year, and about a dozen other search criteria- very cool site

Wildflower.org is another very good site- has a search function where you can search plants by various traits and qualities

Find native plants by the number of butterflies that use them

Butterfly host plant list

Keystone species for every USA ecoregion for butterflies and bees

UNC Chapel Hill's 2022 Flora of the Southeastern United States. The ultimate EXHAUSTIVE compendium of plants. You can download it but beware it is over 2,000 pages long

Illinois Wildflowers is an excellent resource for plants found throughout the southeast and Midwest

Virginia Wildflowers

Northern Forest Atlas Awesome high quality photos of trees and leaves, buds, etc.

Name That Plant is a great resource focused on the Carolinas and Georgia

Maryland Biodiversity has much information on plants and many other creatures

Sarracenia.com is all about carnivorous plants

Native Beeology is focused on native bees of New York State

Also try looking up "[your state] native plant society" as many states have one! It could be a great way to find opportunities to get involved.

[blazescompendium]

Shin Megami Tensei and social commentary

Twitter sure is a weird place

So, yesterday i was reading the tweets from Larrue, which is a great content creator if you don't know. And some fans, including me, engaged in a debate over the idea that, according to one specific person in that thead, Shin Megami Tensei ''isn't about politics'' and ''westerns have projected their frustration with politics into the series.'' I absolutely did not know that someone could think this way about a series that grounds itself in social commentary.

I have played SMT Strange Journey during one of the worst times of my society. 2020-2021 we were being ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemics (Please note that more than 600 thousand Brazilians lost their lifes during this crisis, in part due to terrible management of the government.) and environmental destruction lead by a party of completely evil people.

I remember one particular weekend, where a pretty important and big national park caught fire. The way i found out about the forest fire was because, when i got out of my apartment to take out the trash (the only time i got out during pandemics, honestly) and i found a neighbor looking to the sky in chock, when i looked up as well what i saw was a rain of ashes, like someone just exploded a paper truck above us. The ashes were being scattered everywhere, and the air was heavy. When i got up and turned the news up, i just found out the worst forest fire in my city was taking place.

(Do not mistake this for the Amazon Rainforest fires of the late 2010s. My city is very far away from there, but i think the point is still the same and could absolutely be applied there as well.)

The media outlets were hard to watch during this time, because the continuously increasing Covid body count won't stop, while the big capital guys pushed us, the poor, to work at the streets and put our lives at risk. At the same time, the news of the destruction the fire caused were horrifying. Tons of wildlife was burning and the State and people in power did nothing to help. We could not help, because our own lives were in risk.

I recall seeing reports of firefighters claiming to be following the screams of wild animals being burned alive, while trying to save what they could, but in the end it was not enough. 80% of the forest went down that weekend, and with it almost everything that was alive there as well. The reason for this? Someone lit up a Lantern inside the park, which is illegal by the way. This was when it sank to me, the stupidity of the Human being to destroy something so precious, for this little. How can even someone sleep at night with such a burden in their consciousness?

At the time i fell to a violent depressive episode because of all that was happening around me. And the reason for me to bring this all, is because i was actually playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey for the first time, during this event. I was exactly at the Horkos chapter, where the crew of our spaceship arrive inside a level of the mysterious Scharzwelt that looks like a Shopping Center. This level symbolized the greed and consumerism of the Human Race during the late stage capitalism. Its boss being Horkos, a demon that is hellbent in consuming everything, every time.

Horkos here is the greek counterpart of Orcus, the roman god of death. This particular deity is violent, and will consume enemy troups and cause havoc. (I can go deeper if i ever do a Compendium Entry of this one) It is also depicted during medieval times as the probable inspiration of the Orcs, which is the reason they both share similar designs in Megaten.

This glutton evil god is born out of the Human nature to consume and spread without limit, destroying and ravaging the planet as they do so. This point is brought many times during the plot.

The reason i am connecting this all together, is because when i was playing, i felt that the criticism got so close home, i contemplated stopping playing, thinking that i was not with the right mind to do so. I continued though.

Strange Journey does not stop right there. Each level of the Scharzwelt has one more criticism to Human society, it goes from war, to capitalism, to enviromental destruction, and its a great journey on what is about to be Human. So much so, that i felt it so close home, it made me feel kinda bad. I mean, it was hitting very close home, during that time. Every week the news made me feel like i was going a level deeper inside the Scharzwelt.

So, i am sure the game where a gluttonous evil god is born out of Humanity's late stage capitalism and we feel the rage of gods for destroying our planet has absolutely no social commentary whatsoever, and any politics in it was purely inserted by us, the players. Yeah, i am absolutely positive about that huh!?

In the end, it is indeed just a video game. It is as deep as it can be, but this don't stop the medium to convey such strong messages and criticism of Human Society. I am not even going into what Atlus staff say about the matter here (Which do back up this argument) , because i wanted to make this as personal as possible, so maybe when you think about this, you can insert yourself in the shoes as someone experiencing Human society in a personal view. Which, in truth is all what politics is about. See? Hah, got you Twitter anon.

Politics is not what the left want to discuss, and has nothing to do with projecting societal problems into neutral stuff. Politics is the science behind human behavior in society, and thus every work that touches this, ended up being political. I am sorry to be the one to bring this to you, anon from twitter.

To see people swearing SMT doesn't has a social commentary, it's just baffling to me because I felt it so strongly in this entry, that i almost stop playing it for a while because I was depressed on how much of it was true.

Not entirely related, but very interesting quote in Nocturne

[ghostowlattic]

TYPE GUIDE

crawls out of a wreck flickering monochrome flames  a crashed rocket ship 

the sort of vessel you’d expect to see plunging into the moons eye  

chiming bells clanging see inside the porthole wails  hear the sirens tale 

somewhere far away over the crook of nightfall past the glowered orbs 

can you hear the sound hearts of galaxies crying weeping milk and light? 

a warbling codex of hazed phonological representation 

in a meager pouch  she keeps back spacers, delete keys, portable jawbone

she’s often survived  on nothing but nibs and pens  she pisses in black

guilty of murder the blood of a typewriter  all over her hands 

it put up a fight  small holes from its many teeth have scarred her knuckles 

feels them vibrating  waiting to be born again  hiding their magic

landed in these bleak heaps of disposed exertions  stinking of sadness

almost anything  half worth its paper thin weight  must pass through here first 

junkyard of heroes  bulky mounds of shabby capes discarded face masks

pits of rotting verse   unwritten compendiums  illusionist meat 

this is where the itch lays down to give up the ghost or to become one

a schloop in the muck things moving every which way under hero rubbish 

there are faint voices coming from under the heaps  cheesy pulp maxims 

cannibal critics  lurking in the damp rubbish  surviving on quips 

first degree weasels  these are true soul sucking finks deep throated golfers  

serpent headed thumbs that come slurping out of holes slack faced jowls snapping

all they want to do  is suck every golden drop of hope and beauty

she gets it, she does;  her great thirst of purpose wants to be fed too

it wants paper planes,  velvet curtain recitals,  and warm warm biscuits 

it wants a coastline coiled around a summer field  like a mama cat  

these inhuman finks each have human like mouth holes muttering slogans 

offering her vast schmoozing book deals for sex dates hard-ons in Dockers 

she escapes their coils but just as she’s on her feet one snatches her hand

strikes like a viper  latches her left hand with its teeth and rips it clean off 

retreats with is prize  they fight over it like dogs snarling dumb lackeys

her stump is gushing rich fountains of black and red memories and pain

those who knock you down they can barely stand themselves  this she knows is true

she gets to her feet  and clutching her jetting stump she struggles to walk

they’re coming again these jaw snapping slithering  bastards on her heels

an unsettled storm inside her deepest nowhere something is coming

gurgling bellows even the weasel finks stop at this ugly noise

her belly tightens the skin visibly shudders rippling in waves 

there is pulsating   subsurface neoplasm under her belly  

the retching comes fast sick with too many dark dreams giving birth to void

it pushes upward  feels like her chest will explode  pressing her throat wide 

she hunches open heaves from her lowest black guts and out come the woods

a stream of tall trees shoot one after the other  flooding out her mouth 

an endless black flood  spewing out a dark forest  of vast crooked limbs 

groves of long corpse arms spat onto the horizon  filling every space 

stones vines and rabbits  saplings and babbling brooks bears in winter dens 

even great mountains spew from her gaping wet maw pooling around her  

there is this new vast  remote melanoid fallow  uncharted landscape 

every direction  something that had never seen  naked light of day 

[thequeendomhq]

"The Creator smiles sadly on his Legion, so the Vanguard says, as no sacrifice is greater than theirs."

Nornwatch Keep

A crumbling ruin. Nornwatch Keep is a pale shadow of what it once was. Upon their arrival, the troupe was received by Field Commander Deidameia, a cambion who served the Legion of the Dead for four decades, the last of which she spent at Nornwatch. Commander of only five others, the Keep itself was devoid of resources that would be of much use to the troupe in question. Crumbling walls, drafty halls, and broken rafters remained of the bastion that sat upon Hrimthur’s Wastes, protecting the realm of Iskaldrik from the Blight that lurked below the ice. 

To gaze out across the tundra gave the troupe little inclination to what might lurk ahead, defined by pronounced and seemingly bottomless fissures, the great peaks of blackened rock loomed in the distance through an unknowable miasma. The Legionnaires were fond of mocking those who had made their way into the halls, seeking sanctuary; this might as well have been the world's edge - a few more steps and the troupe would step off into the void. 

The Archivist of Nornwatch Keep, Iskrates, was a silver elvhen who’d once been expelled from Avalon for unethical experimentation on his fellows. Given the option to take the black, he was sent to Nornwatch to continue his research to see what secrets he could unearth to combat the blight. That was three centuries ago; through alchemical means and manipulation of the joining, Iskrates has significantly extended his unlawful lifespan. However unnaturally, the Archivist continues to live; his body is not aging well. Sagging skin hangs off his brittle bones, slouched over texts written in languages too old or foreign for most to comprehend, with notes taken in the codex of an addled mind. The Calling should have taken him centuries ago, and perhaps it did. However, Iskrates has continued to toil away, experimenting with the flesh of darkspawn and mixing myriad unknown substances. 

Most of the troupe were wise enough to keep their distance, for the seven legionnaires that have remained posted at Nornwatch were sent to fight at the edge of the world for a reason. Anyone who might have held a romantic notion of the Legion of the Dead saw that ideal quickly dashed. 

Every Iskaran knew the old stories of the Legion of the Dead and their battles against the Old Gods; their High King had been crowned amid such heroism when Toth, the dragon of fire, was defeated over Yggdrasildal. But these were distant tales of a time long ago; over the last several centuries, there have been maybe a handful of times when a darkspawn was spotted in the hills near the Iskaran plains, deeper into Ymir’s Spine, and they may be more common. Mindless hurlocks that stumbled out from caverns, a genlock deeper within a cave. The blight is a distant problem; ghouls were scarce but not impossible to encounter. 

Some Legionnaires of Nornwatch Keep boasted of the creatures they’d encountered, shrieks that came in the night, bereskarn that were taller than the pines, hordes of hurlocks in the Lostlands to the East. Far away tales that some took as myths, but Nornwatch Keep was a graveyard of old and new bones. 

Compendium Unlocked!

The First Week

While Iskaldrik had fallen, the monarchy still held power. The witchers maintained order throughout, supported by the jarls and the heirs of those who had not survived. Organizing the people, creating a census, and working alongside the Legion of the Dead to coordinate what scarce hunting grounds they could. Amid the wastes were forests of blighted trees, infected soil, and corrupted rivers - but the Legion knew of some relatively safe sources. But they were scarce, and the many refugees who’d made it through the mountain were hungry. Fearful and starved, it was only a few days before the holding cells below the Keep were used. 

Darkfriends and traitors lived among the refugees, they sent ravens towards the mountains to inform the Aetherian conquerors of the troupe's movements, location, and numbers, but these birds were shot down, and those responsible were publically executed to great fanfare. Many needed a distraction and a face to place their ire; the Aetherians had taken their home and their livelihood - where Iskarans were largely people without any magic to speak of, people who grew up hating anything mystical, the mines began to seem too kind of a sentence. 

Within a week, prayer was held in a hall that was converted into a Chapel; the Vanguard of the Light held service with open arms to any who wished to chant the Creator’s verses, to welcome Him into their heart as the horror of the past hung over them like a shadow. 

Behind locked doors, High King Orhan was kept under guard. Bedridden, he did not appear but was spoken on behalf of his Court. If there were any among the troupe who did not know that there was something wrong, they would come to understand this now. 

Despite the witcher’s best efforts, it was only a matter of time before their pursuers deduced where the High King and those who’d fled from Yggdrasildal had gone. The mountains were treacherous and steep, but even the Spine was not impossible for vessels capable of flight and magi possessing spells that no one among the troupe had ever heard of. The troupe would need to move soon; for now, they hunted for what rations they could and gathered what resources they could carry while the witchers worked alongside the legion to plot their course through the Wastelands. 

The Second Week 

The hungry didn’t take long to become desperate to eat, drink, and go where they shouldn’t. Children wandering amid blighted trees were scooped back into their mother’s arms and brought back into the Keep. Vermin, which was riddled with tainted fleas, was a quick meal but one that was ultimately deadly. The blight was meant to be a distant problem, but before long, an epidemic broke out amid the troupe, addling the bodies of most with poxes and aching limbs. The madness that had them crawling at their skin before they shut down completely; a blade across the throat was the surest way to end their suffering because, across Taravell, there was no cure for cases that progressed much further beyond the point of that initial contraction. 

Those who survived the taint became something far worse: gray skin and sunken eyes, ghouls crept out of their hospital beds to devour the flesh of their fellow survivors. Children lept for the throats of their fathers; mothers clawed for the newborn they’d brought into this world only a few weeks prior. The witchers seemed prepared, if only because the Legion had told them that this would inevitably come to pass - that of the survivors who’d made it through the pass, fewer still would live to see Lysara. If any.

The Last Night

Darkspawn were mindless creatures, unintelligent brutes that caused havoc and corrupted the land with their felled blood. They ate the flesh of humans and humanoid creatures, fought amongst one another, and were an old threat. That was most in Taravell's belief; this was also true in Iskaldrik. If darkspawn were so stupid, they should not have caught the Iskarans unaware, for those who slept soundly in their beds awoke to the great horror of hurlocks, genlocks, ogres, and shrieks amid Nornwatch Keep. The question of how they got in, in such force without detection, would be answered later, but when the troupe searched for the Legion of the Dead, they found Deidameia and Archivist Iskrates butchered in their beds. The legionnaire charged with watching the Keep’s walls had his throat slit, and into the dark, his body had been tossed. 

Chaos erupted as alarms went off when the attack was underway; an ogre alpha toppled and strewed countless about in the Keep's courtyard. From outside genlocks, under orders from a hurlock emissary, lobbed blazing projectiles from their siege weapons that crashed through the walls of the Keep - the ears of the Legion screamed to life as they awoke to the raging call of the blight all around them. Kept in their slumber by unknown means, the calling brought their bodies to action as they joined the witchers and warriors battling amid the Keep. 

Dawn began to rise over the horizon as the last of the remaining darkspawn were slain, the ogre alpha among them. Many had died, but of the bodies, many were never found. The darkspawn took two dozen men and women, grabbed them in the chaos, and pulled them into tunnels below the Keep. It was too narrow for any force to climb down, but caverns undoubtedly led to a larger, unmapped network that would be impossible to navigate among the troupe or legion. 

In the chambers reserved for the High King, Orhan Gökhan stood amid a litany of slain darkspawn, his sword in hand for the first time in years, and his kingsguard beside him. He continued to mumble nonsense, his mind forgetting, but his body still remembering what it meant to be a blademaster.

Outside the walls of Nornwatch Keep, a pyre was built. Those who’d died from sickness over the past weeks, those who’d been killed when they became ghouls, and those who had not survived the night. If Aetheron followed them here, they would find a smoldering pile of corpses where a hundred Iskarans had once been. 

The remaining four legionnaires were too few, and without a commander and archivist, Nornwatch Keep was destroyed. The Legion of the Dead knew of where those taken were brought to; they did not say why, but they stated definitively that the men had already been killed, and the women were taken to Isengrim’s Embrace. 

Isengrim’s Embrace is a crater forged from the Cataclysm, where the Abyss is said to have once been cracked open and where darkspawn lived under a perpetual shroud of darkness. Across the frozen plains of the Wastelands, the troupe would travel until they could gaze at the pit with their own eyes. Iskarans were endlessly stubborn in their resolve, but the Legion of the Dead did not doubt that they'd abandon the few to save who they still could once they saw the truth of the Blight with their own eyes. 

The Ones Taken

Through the ground, you were dragged over rocks and dirt into a cage of twisted iron. Eight to a cage left only a little room to spare, but of the men that were ripped away, their throats were slit that first night. You wouldn’t know if the sun had risen, but as your cart rolled through the caverns, they stopped only to camp and cook. The men were for meat, which became clear as some tore hunks of flesh while the more intelligent among them carved it away. Pox marked the body of one of the women next to you as she whispered of a song that was being carried in the dark, a fanciful tune and the sweetest melody she had ever heard. They dragged her from the cage, and you listened to her screams turn to laughter, turn to the hollow of a dead cry. Imperfect. They ate her next, and you couldn’t be sure if she’d ended up in your gruel, the dark, gray brew that they flung at you in filthy, pewter bowls. 

You saw them up close now, the hurlocks and the genlocks who had runes tattooed upon their flesh. Numbers. A basic Iskaran alphabet; these were kills, and each hurlock had many. When the cage door flung open next, you flew towards it to flee. You weren’t alone, but you only ended up back inside. 

Caverns should have been cold, but these grew hot and dense, and whatever time trickled by felt meaningless. Could you save yourself if you tried? How would you do it? When would you do it? Why wouldn’t they just let you die and be done with it? Another went down and never returned, but there was meat again. Two weeks you had been on the road, hungry; two weeks you had been in that Keep, hungry still. Their cook began to smell sweet, their grunts familiar; they weren’t words but were still communicating. That one loathed the other, but this one was vain - for a beast. Could you use that to your advantage? Pox marked your skin; now, would you be next? 

That music floated through your ears, and it was hard to tell if you were dreaming because when you finally arrived at the flaming pits under the depths of Isengrim’s Embrace, you looked into the heart of evil itself. The floor of the Embrace was a crystalline ceiling that hummed with ephemeral; some Iskarans spoke of the rarest of stones, the volatile resource found deep below Yggdrasildal. Even the noblest among you had only seen a single cut of it once: aetherite. 

How many darkspawn spanned the black city below? More than your eyes could ever take in at once at once. From the crystalline ceiling above, a wyvern descended, and Iskaran words floated from the tongue of a Forsaken as those who’d brought you all this way were given instructions: 

“Take them to the brood.” 

OOC INFO:

Darkspawn attacked Nornwatch Keep in the middle of the night; everyone was surprised. 

The Legion of the Dead can sense darkspawn, but the three awake were killed, and those sleeping were kept that way by unknown magic until they could break free and wake up. 

The following muses have been taken and can only interact with one another from after the night of the darkspawn raid: The Princess ( Aytaç Gökhan ), The Gaze ( Arros ), The Shield ( Freydis ), The Path ( Alessia Hart ), The Stationary ( Luna Darkwood ). For other muses, feel free that darkspawn tried to nab them but they were saved or were unsuccessful. The muses list were just significantly less fortunate.

Witches from the Tower of Olympia and Nightingales are now aware that Iskaldrik was attacked, and has fallen.

[demifiendrsa]

Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection — Announcement Trailer

Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection will launch for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam on June 1, 2023 worldwide.

Title logo

Key visual

Screenshots

Overview

About

Create endless adventure.

Explore the rich beginnings of this RPG franchise with remasters of three timeless adventures that inspire players to go on a journey of discovery, mapping deep dungeons, and building customized parties for exploring and engaging in tactical combat.

Play as the leader of a guild of adventurers, searching for rare treasures and secrets within the depths of a vast, sprawling labyrinth.

Traverse and draw a map of the environment while encountering enemies large and small in turn-based combat, then return to town to rest, sell materials for better equipment, and manage your party, selecting from a collection of heroes to build the right team for the job.

Key Features

An all-in-one bundle of Etrian Odyssey HD, Etrian Odyssey II HD, and Etrian Odyssey III HD.

Touch screen mapping functionality for the Nintendo Switch: Plot your progress through the labyrinth, drawing walls and placing icons to note special events and items.

Full mouse support and functionality to map drawing, menus, and dungeon exploration.

Newly remastered graphics, remastered soundtrack and quality of life improvements including difficulty selection and save slots.

Easy access to the monster compendium, quest log and skill tree.

Maximize your adventuring by optimizing your party, choose the characters that work for your playstyle or the best team for the job.

Etrian Odyssey HD

In a vast and fertile land lies a small town known as Etria, a peaceful village that became famous for a startling discovery. A crack in the the vast forest opened at Etria’s edge, leading downward like a gaping maw. It all began there…

Those who hear rumors of the labyrinth of Etria begin to harbor dreams of exploring it. Riches, fame, prestige… and a promise: the true spirit of adventure on the perilous edge of death.

Build a party of explorers from nine different character classes – Create a woodland survivalist, shield-bearing protector, whip-wielding dark hunter, and more. Scour through the dungeon’s many layers and fend off the unknown to discover the truth behind the Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

Etrian Odyssey II HD

When civilization sunk beneath the seven seas, deep forests spread across the five remaining islands.

Only the chosen ones escaped the waters in their castle stronghold. Eventually, the waves overtook even the last five islands…And the castle was all that remained. After the passing of ages, the people of the floating castle have chosen to descend upon their mother soil.

Build your own party from twelve different classes of heroes and climb through the Yggdrasil tree to reach the clouds and uncover the truth of High Lagaard.

Etrian Odyssey III HD

Traverse through the mysterious ruins that connect to the bottom of the sea.

South of the great continents, beyond the sea, lies the ocean city of Armoroad. Legend has it that part of the city sunk without warning a century ago to the bottom of the ocean, taking with it untold technology that is now lost to mankind.

Intrigued by the legend, many explorers gathered in Armoroad, all hoping to challenge the undersea labyrinth. But so far, none have found the fabled sunken city. Set sail to Armoroad to navigate the Yggdrasil Labyrinth, find the drowned city, and win fortune and glory!

Build your own party of explorers from the all-new twelve different character classes. Descend the labyrinth that swallowed the mystery of Armoroad and the drowned city.

Etrian Odyssey HD Character Potrait DLC Set 1

Adds two ATLUS themed character portraits to your party:

Joker from Persona 5 Royal

Ringo from Soul Hackers 2

These portraits can only be accessed on Etrian Odyssey HD.

Etrian Odyssey HD Character Potrait DLC Set 2

Adds two ATLUS themed character portraits to your party:

Demi-Fiend from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne

Teddie from Persona 4 Golden

These portraits can only be accessed on Etrian Odyssey II HD

Etrian Odyssey HD Character Potrait DLC Set 3

Adds two ATLUS themed character portraits to your party:

Nahobino from Shin Megami Tensei V

Aigis from Persona 3 Portable

These portraits can only be accessed on Etrian Odyssey III HD.

New Character Portraits

Landsknecht (Etrian Odyssey HD) – Masters of sword and axe, Landsknechts can bear a wide range of weapons and armor in close combat. Balanced warriors for the front line.

War Magus (Etrian Odyssey II HD) – Equally skilled at magic and melee. Force Skill: Invoke Heals party HP and ups elemental resistance. Can work from the front or back lines.

Sovereign (Etrian Odyssey III HD) – Those of royal blood from kingdoms large and small. Their orders raise morale to turn the tide. Supporting combatants on either line.

[env0]

Dungeons & Dragons Comes to Minecraft

D&D is coming soon to Minecraft, the beloved sandbox game from Mojang Studios. In the Minecraft x Dungeons & Dragons DLC, you and your friends will journey to the Forgotten Realms as your own D&D characters. Level up, collect loot, and face off against classic monsters, including the displacer beast, gelatinous cube, mimic, and beholder.

But wait, there's more?

Monstrous Compendium Vol 3: Minecraft Creatures

Blazes are elemental beings that congregate at Nether fortresses. They float a short distance above the ground, and each one is orbited by three sets of glowing rods. When a blaze is destroyed, it sometimes leaves one of these rods behind. Blaze rods are a source of great energy that, when carefully crushed into powder, can be used to brew potions and craft other magic items. A blaze attacks by launching three fireballs from its fiery core. This fire ignites creatures and flammable objects. If necessary, a blaze levitates into the air to better see and more easily target its enemies.

A creeper is a green, armless creature that emerges in darkness and silently prowls the Overworld on its four short legs. Its peculiar face bears no clue of its motives, but its destructiveness makes it one of the greatest threats to both life and property in the Overworld. A creeper quietly shuffles toward Humanoid prey. When it gets close enough, it halts and begins to hiss like a burning fuse. Unless the creeper is defeated or its target gets far enough away that the creeper defuses itself, the creeper explodes a few short moments later, leaving a crater where it once stood. Creepers have an uncanny ability to appear when least expected, and few places are safe from their explosive nature. Yet creepers have one strange weakness: they fear cats and do all they can to avoid them. If a creeper is struck by lightning, rather than being harmed, it becomes charged with electrical power. In this charged state, the creeper gains a bluish aura and can explode with even greater power.

The mighty Ender Dragon is one of a kind—a vast, flying creature with void-black scales and purple eyes. It soars above the central island of the End. No one can say whether it is a guardian or a prisoner of the End, but either way, the Ender Dragon challenges anyone who enters its domain. The Ender Dragon buffets enemies with great wings, engulfs foes with its gaseous breath weapon, and delivers crushing bites with its powerful jaws. Its hide is strong enough to deflect all but the deadliest weapons.

Endermen are tall, black, bipedal creatures with long, thin limbs and piercing, purple eyes. Violet particles flicker in and out of existence around them. Endermen are unnerving and enigmatic, acting in a manner that is all but impossible to interpret. Endermen seem particularly drawn to the End, where they gather in large groups. They are uncommon visitors to other dimensions, although they appear more often in pairs in such peculiar places as the warped forests of the Nether. They shun sunlight and are hurt by water, including rain. When an Enderman becomes the target of a ranged weapon or takes damage, it teleports to a safer location nearby and makes a distinctive “voop” sound at its destination. Endermen have no known predators. When a Humanoid looks directly at an Enderman, the Enderman becomes enraged, opens its mouth horrifyingly wide, and rushes to attack with its long arms. A defeated Enderman implodes and sometimes leaves behind an Ender pearl, which, when thrown, teleports the thrower to the place it lands.

Running through the forests of the Overworld on four legs, this gray-furred hunter is at home in the cold of the taiga. Wolves hunt in packs, roaming their territories and chasing sheep, rabbits, and foxes. Wild wolves are typically indifferent to Humanoids, neither running from nor attacking them, but a pack of wolves becomes hostile toward any creature that hurts one of the pack’s members. Wolves can be tamed by adventurers who feed and look after them. Tamed wolves follow their masters everywhere they go. Wolves instinctively regard animated skeletons as enemies and attack them without hesitation. Even tamed wolves, which obediently hold themselves back from attacking their natural prey, freely charge at skeletons unless they are commanded to sit.

Enjoy adding these delightful monsters to your campaigns or building a campaign of your own built around them. (I am not sponsored by Wizards, Hasbro, Mojang. I just think it's neat and everyone should see it)

[thesyndicateofeden]

First fully original work, this one’s gonna be a little violent and disturbing, so be warned.

Twilight Circumstance

The dusty tomes that filled this place barely got used. It had existed for so long, yet only the rare college student or eccentric bookworm ever came here anymore…

Despite the “ancient” nature of the place, the dust and age to Vex was just a child’s amount of time compared to how ancient she was. It felt..calming, being in the presence of books like this. Like them she was a thing of vast depth, knowledge, and power, yet hardly anyone ever got close enough, or lived long enough, to open her and read her pages. It was nice to know she wasn’t alone in being forgotten, she wasn’t alone in being unknown. Then again, some of these books probably told her story incorrectly. Her eyes, those horrid pits of abyssal black overlaid with cracking, spiderwebbing lines of orange hellfire flicked down to the spine of one of these tomes. “Gods of Greek Mythology, a Compendium.” It read. Ahhhhh…Greece. What a beautiful place. She could only enjoy its beaches and ancient civilization during the nighttime, but surely humans would think the Mediterranean Sunshine a most gorgeous sensation. To her it was abhorrent. The Greeks had given her one of her favorite names: Nyx. A being so ancient that even Zeus feared her wrath and displeasure. How charming! They clearly thought highly of her.

Vex never did anything that Nyx did, all that had occurred were the few glimpses the ancients had gotten of her. Moving in a forest, spying her orange eyes around pillars, and on the rare, rarest of occasions, either helping or killing their number as fancy took her. It felt good to be revered, or feared, by a society en-masse. She was a superior being to them after all, maybe not in thought or morally, but most definitely in physical prowess.

That had been stolen from her, that reversion, in the modern era. No longer could her bare feet walk into the center of a nighttime plaza and not fear light around every corner. The lanterns and candles and torches of yore were unbelievably easy to avoid, or stamp out with impunity should they get in her way. In America, every city was a glowing beacon of disgusting accursed poison. It spewed from places it should never naturally spew, humans carried light bricks of the stuff in their pockets, who could make a beam as intense as 5 torches and with great direction. How dare they-

“H-HEL-“ Came the cut off crying of a young woman, piercing through the growing tendrils of dark hate gripping the walls of the abyss that was Vex’s brain. Very calmly putting the book back on its dark shelf, she leisurely took a more physical form.

Prior she was an amalgamation of thick black miasma with her trademark eyes, wallowing in the library aisle who’s lamp above was broken and neglected. In that shadow the miasma solidified, black webs erupting inside itself and violently tearing the darkness together. First came an ebony skinned body of a woman, bare and as gorgeous as the last sunset. The hair bounced into long curls that tended to roll and smoke at the edges, rising back up above her head and invisibly resettling into the mass of curled tendrils. Next the dress, silky and loose, had little style to it and more as if Vex had taken the most beautiful sheet of coal-colored silk, sprinkled stars inside, and tossed it over herself.

The Wraith never wore shoes, for her feet could no longer feel whatever the ground could resist her with, and as she stepped forward near the end of the shadowy aisle only the most observant could notice she walked toe-heel, instead of the modern heel-toe that evolved out of the comfort of shoes. Such was one of the only outward signs of just how ancient her customs were. At the edge of her home material she stopped and looked distastefully up at the working aisle light that thrust its burning curse down the central walkway of the library. Her ears could hear the muffled cries for mercy and gentleness that fell on the deaf ears of two attackers. Human, male, based on the sound of their muscles and the thoughts in the head she could read as easily as that book earlier.

“Hmm..simple as always.”

Sneering at the light she raised her right hand and brutally snapped her wrist in an arc, out of the darkness molded a double bladed dagger she sent into a spin so rapid it blurred. Her machinations could not go through the light, but humanity in their ignorance tended to never light the wires who fed them their power. Into the ceiling the shadowy dagger chewed as if wood were the thinnest of paper. With a great ZZZZT-KHSH the lights in the library went out..

And oh how great was her smile, framing those eyes who burned with tantalizing desire.

As calmly as before Vex walked into the aisle, and into the aisle over where she saw the mugging. A college student, it seemed, with red hair, freckled face, and glasses, had chosen the wrong time to study at night. Holding a knife to her throat, the burlier of the two men pulled her wallet from her pocket.

“Alright, thanks swe-“

Vex cleared her throat impatiently, and the two whipped around, switchblades now drawn on her. The Wraith had closed her eyes and could barely be seen as a normal, humanoid outline. Mentally, she was giggling so loud she couldn’t even hear the thoughts of the would-be muggers. Aloud the burly one growled,

“Hey!! Stay right there..double payday, or this kid gets it.”

Vex smiled wide and shrugged, her voice playful and teasing.

“Pry it from my corpse, little baby.”

The hooded and masked criminal stepped forward threateningly.

“Say it again! To my face!”

He rushed up right in front of Vex and stopped inches from her face, whose eyes were still hidden. The young and wiry bandit was trying to pull him back, whispering to stay quiet and calm down.

But the deed had been done, and Vex’s emotional manipulation had easily bent this man’s mind to one course.

He struck forth with his switchblade-!

It shattered upon her chest.

In a violent flash her eyes opened and she laughed so hard she nearly fell over. In shock both men yelped at her demonic eyes and began running in the dark, flailing for an exit.

“AHhaHA! No no no! Playtime isn’t over!!”

The darkness around the wily one suddenly solidified into tight chains, crushing him lightly and dragging him screaming away from the door outside. The pitiful whimper annoyed Vex’s ears and a dark tendril shut his mouth with such casual force several of his teeth snapped.

The other didn’t last long either, only he simply tripped over himself in his own terror and right into the sharing embrace of solid darkness that dragged him back to her, airborne.

“Now now now…”

Her voice could only be described as the most sweet of coos,

“You’ve both been..despicable, right?”

She giggled lightly at both their floating bodies and turned them upside down and grinned wickedly at the student, who was paralyzed with fear.

“And she seems so nice. What a shame you chose a target I care to defend, I don’t do it much! Unnnnlucky you..”

Vex flung both of them onto the table she had been studying at and strode to the girl, who immediately fell to her knees and started crying. To her credit, the Wraith was offput. When her mood was protective, the tears of the innocent always felt painful to Vex. She’d cried once too. Long, long, long ago, she knew she did it. Her hand gently reached down and patted the red hair.

“Don’t weep, Angel, it’s alright. I-“

Breaking down into sobs the student asked, begging an answer,

“W-w-wh-what-what are-are y-you?!”

Vex smiled ear to ear and crouched down so she could look eye to eye with the one she saved.

“The same thing you are, only fallen. Long, long, so long ago.”

Her fear was so delicious to the dark hungry shadows of her mind, but Vex tried to not enjoy it too much. She didn’t feel like killing this one too tonight.

“Run along now, and carry some protection, Maeve.”

Confused and terrified the thing knew her name, she sprinted away and out the door to freedom.

Turning back to the two bandits strapped onto the table, that charming, confident smile kept its confidence but abandoned charm in favor of wicked pleasure. She ran her hand along the burly one’s chest.

“Hm, you’re quite a buffoon, but I can admire the rage in your..”

Her hand gripped with enough strength to instantly shatter his ribs and his screams were muffled by the shadowy tendrils holding him down as Vex’s hand began to plunge into his chest, brute force enough to destroy flesh and muscle under its weight as he began to concave inwards.

“Awww, that’s a pretty sound…and poetically ironic, given you made that girl cry in a similar manner.”

The screams turned to bloody gurgles as her hand clamped around his beating heart, and with a vicious tear a fountain of blood exploded into the air, as it did, the crimson turned black, and thick with a horrible cursed ichor from being touched by the Wraith. The body convulsed and trembled as the curse spread throughout every vein and artery that remained, until the flesh had rotted away into a saggy grey skin over bones. Swiping it aside it crunched against the ground as a second Wraith formed out of the shadows along the ground in its place. It was the man, except with his horrible wound and a death mask covering his whole face. Instead of a hoodie and jeans he now wore a tattered medieval cloak and robe that hid his insides from view.

“…..Mistressssssss”

The wiry bandit was sweating bullets and struggling against the chains as he screamed through his shattered teeth. Vex floated upwards, feet trailing down, and her arms spread out wide with palms up like a cursed parody of Jesus, with a playful and cruel smirk.

“Kill your friend, make it entertaining.”

The puppet-wraith’s ghastly head tilted and let out a croaking hiss.

“Yesssssssssss…Misssssssstresssss…”

With the croaking and creaking of bones it stumbled forward and pulled upon what was once his partner in crime. Soon enough his muffled screams too turned to choking gurgles as Vex laughed at the mortal body getting torn apart in front of her. When the last chunk of meat had fallen off the table the Goddess clapped and descended back to the ground lightly.

“Thank you. Kneel.”

She smirked as the thing obeyed without question.

“While you were very fun, I prefer more.. worthy servants. Die, for now.”

“Yessssss Missstressss…Thannnnkkk Youuuuu.”

She shrugged as the soul fell apart and was consumed by the hungry darkness in her heart.

“Now..it would be so rude to leave a mess.”

With the many tendrils of darkness at her bidding they cleaned the scene as best they could, even filling the ink back in with her own ichor before placing the books Maeve had been studying back on the shelf, exactly where they belonged in the organized rows. In a burst of black miasma Vex became one with the Darkness of the world at large, and this library was abandoned and dusty once more.

Thank you so much for reading, or even just scrolling, if you made this far. I’m happy to finally have a place to share my work with the world. I’m very new to real fictional writing and trying my best. As always, criticism and feedback are always appreciated. Thank you again, and until next time: May the stars guide you.

-Eden

[ravenwitch45]

Story time with the Goetia household! Whether a child Stolas is reading by himself or an adult Stolas is reading to a little Octavia, they are taking the time to read a new storybook. [Part 23]

This is a continued reading of "Cereza and the Lost Demon".

Moving on...

Faerie compendium - Entry 6: ⬇️

Fomhórach - Stalwart Guardian

What thoughts, feelings, and opinions do you think Stolas (and Octavia) would be having when reading this part?

~~~~~~~~

New item: ⬇️

Vitality Blossom

Another chase through the forest after the white wolf, with a bit of banter between Cereza and Cheshire that makes the Goetia's laugh a bit, before the wolf runs off and a seemingly calm bit ends with a big surprise.

The Fomhorach appears, being the first truly towering faerie so far, wielding a sheild and spear looking ready for a fight, and appearing as a commander of this little ambush, seeming quite threatening. That is before Cheshire leaps out of Cereza's arms, roaring out a boastful threat after transforming

"Who's going to be the appeteizer, and who shall I save for Dessert?"Stolas narrates darkly, using a bit of magic to make his voice deeper and more threatening to fit the role, getting Octavia to chuckle as the battle begins.

It is truly the first combat challenge of the story, and a tough one the book portrays, Cheshire even taking enough of a beating to revert back to plush form for a bit, but still while it's an emotional rollercoaster for the reading pair, it's a battle hard won. Stolas sighing in relief while Octavia giggles and cheers, both glad it turned out well.

As for the vitality blossom, I feel both would find it quite pretty, saying that it'd be a great gift, or in a piece of jewelry, the long life is pretty inconsequential considering Goetia's naturally have long lives but they still find it pretty.

[rockislandadultreads]

Nonfiction Thursday: Great Outdoors Month

A Wilder Life by Celestine Maddy

In our technology-driven, workaday world, connecting with nature has never before been more essential. A Wilder Life, a beautiful oversized lifestyle book by the team behind the popular Wilder Quarterly, gives readers indispensable ideas for interacting with the great outdoors. Learn to plant a night-blooming garden, navigate by reading the stars, build an outdoor shelter, make dry shampoo, identify insects, cultivate butterflies in a backyard, or tint your clothes with natural dyes. Like a modern-day Whole Earth Catalog, A Wilder Life gives us DIY projects and old-world skills that are being reclaimed by a new generation.

Divided into sections pertaining to each season and covering self-reliance, growing and gardening, cooking, health and beauty, and wilderness, and with photos and illustrations evocative of the great outdoors, A Wilder Life shows that getting in touch with nature is possible no matter who you are and—more important—where you are.

The Campfire Cast Iron Cookbook by Editors of Cider Mill Press 

What is better than cooking with cast iron? Cooking with cast iron on an open fire, camp stove or grill is better!

There’s no such thing as spending too much time outdoors. The cravings you work up exerting all that energy in nature will be satisfied when you cook with The Campfire Cast Iron Cookbook, making for a healthy and delicious adventure. This guide to outdoor cooking over a campfire guarantees that the more time you spend outside, whether in the backyard or the backcountry, the better your meals will taste. Inside you'll find:

- Over 100 recipes for all meals and all tastes - Chapters dedicated to breakfast, sides and starches, meat, seafood, vegetables, and desserts - An in-depth description and explanation of different types of cast iron cookware - A guide on how to set up your fire and cookware for the perfect outdoor cooking experience - Tips and tricks for cooking and clean-up, including how to properly care for your cooking fire and firepit

From roughing it to van life and glamping, The Campfire Cast Iron Cookbook has your outdoor meal needs covered.

No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs

For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. As he recounts his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go. A cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest, but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs has an unyielding motto, "Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory." It is with this philosophy in mind that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues.

America’s Best Day Hikes by Derek Dellinger 

Beautifully illustrated, this best-of compendium features the most memorable one-day hikes in every region of the United States from Sierra Buttes Lookout in Tahoe National Forest to Grinnell Glacier Trail in Montana's Glacier National Park to Giant Mountain in Adirondack Park and beyond. Organized by region, this guide goes into detail about what makes each hike so remarkable and why it might be worth a detour or even a special journey for someone looking to broaden their horizons. All of the hikes are doable during daylight hours and none require camping.

America’s Best Day Hikes comes with all the information anyone would need to experience these unique locations, including details about the hike itself—difficulty, duration, seasonal hazards, and more—as well as traveling, planning, and packing suggestions. All this paired with Derek Dellinger’s stunning photography makes this incredible volume a must-have for any lover of the outdoors.

[fictionz]

New Fiction 2023 - January

"Psalms" (1-100) ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

Okay so this is where priests pull all the one-liners that they drop during sermons.

"The Husband Stitch" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

Can’t let it go despite the peril.

"Inventory" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

When in doubt, a list.

"Mothers" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

Penitent daughters of singular mothers.

"Especially Heinous" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

You learn sooner or later that they were always dead girls.

"Real Women Have Bodies" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

They’ll always find you.

"Eight Bites" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

When left with little recourse, it’s only natural to sing the song.

"The Resident" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

Make things around people? No, thank you.

"Difficult At Parties" by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

The party parable rings universal.

"The First Peer" by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore (2010)

The things we do when we failed to realize we’re not at fault.

"Reservoir Ferengi" by David McIntee (2010)

Can’t make a song bird do your taxes.

"The Slow Knife" by James Swallow (2010)

The only reasonable conclusion to plotting.

"The Unhappy Ones" by Keith R.A. DeCandido (2010)

Carving out the place you’re due from bone.

"Freedom Angst" by Britta Burdett Dennison (2010)

You can play the part, but when will you live it?

"Revenant" by Marc D. Giller (2010)

Once more: Star Trek is primed for horror.

"Work Is Hard" by Greg Cox (2010)

Achieving a satisfactory life.

"The Briefcase" by Rebecca Makkai, performed by Victor Garber for NPR's Selected Shorts (2009, 2023)

The skin is loose but if it fits...

"Paradise" by Yxta Maya Murray, performed by Tanis Parenteau for NPR's Selected Shorts (2020, 2023)

Limited options means limited solutions.

Honor in the Night by Scott Pearson (2010)

That’s the stuff. A cross-generational Star Trek mystery is just my game.

Trapped in Bat Wing Hall by R.L. Stine (1995)

Goosebumps books are simply a delight.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, presented by Rice University Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts (1595, 2013)

Hey, this Shakespeare guy was pretty funny.

"Comet as Paperboy" by Samantha Blysse Haviland (2022)

Forever waiting.

"The Art of Negotiation" by Meghan Privitello (2016)

We’re still waiting.

"Forest Spirits" by Secondlina (2022)

Give them space.

"Forest Spirits 2" by Secondlina (2022)

Gotta have a Joe.

"With Sympathy" by Oglaf Comics (2017)

You can have it.

"it went like this" by chaumas-deactivated20230115 (2023)

Power of the belly.

Simpsons Comics Colossal Compendium - Volume One (2013)

Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.

"Full Void Demo" dev. OutOfTheBit (2023)

Oh this is great. I've been in the mood to play a game just like this. 2D movement, careful and considered locomotion, single screen puzzles with no frustrating resets to far back in the level when a player dies. It looks and sounds amazing, and I love the environment design.

Thunderbirds dev. Saffire (2004)

I worked on this nearly twenty years ago but somehow wasn’t sure that I’d actually completed the game. Now I know.

"bugs" dir. k. pakiz (2023)

Of course there’s hats.

"enter initials" dir. k. pakiz (2023)

Three letters, no supervision.

Avatar: The Way of Water dir. James Cameron (2022)

Looks pretty, stops short.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody dir. Kasi Lemmons (2022)

A respectful consideration.

Thunderbirds dir. Jonathan Frakes (2004)

I wasn’t sure about the game, but I know I hadn’t watched this movie. Something in the wake of the Spy Kids era.

M3GAN dir. Gerard Johnstone (2023)

It builds up but doesn’t quite land. Not sure what I expected, but it seems to have done well so they’ll get another shot.

Corsage dir. Marie Kreutzer (2022)

Just follow a person for a while and listen.

Broker dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda (2022)

There’s no conscious family.

Skinamarink dir. Kyle Edward Ball (2022)

You had me without the jumpscares.

Plane dir. Jean-François Richet (2023)

Plane goes down, plane goes up.

Missing dir. Will Merrick & Nick Johnson (2023)

They ratchet up the melodrama.

That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime the Movie: Scarlet Bond dir. Yasuhito Kikuchi (2023)

As lost in the weeds as expected.

A Man Called Otto dir. Marc Forster (2023)

I mean, so would I.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish dir. Joel Crawford (2022)

This many characters done so well. An impressive story.

Women Talking dir. Sarah Polley (2022)

Stageplay tragedies.

Thunderbirds - "Trapped In The Sky" (1965)

An impressive VFX showcase.

Tales from the Crypt - "The Man Who Was Death" (1989)

This is supposed to be the best the series has to offer? (But I’m here for the cheese anyway.)

The Outer Limits - Seasons 1-3 (1995-1997)

Speaking of cheese, this is perfect 90s sci-fi, and a fine example of Canada’s dominance of 90s TV production.

[rjjameshiii]

RJ's Platinum Collection #11: TOEM

Achieved on 9/9/2022 11:03 PM

I first became aware of TOEM's existence when it popped up as one of the monthly free games on PS Plus. Looking into it, I discovered that TOEM was about a young photographer traveling across the Scandinavian-inspired world populated with ghosts, swimsuit-wearing horses, and sentient balloons in order to witness an amazing phenomenon known only as the "TOEM". I thought it look very cute, so I decided to give it a spin!

The core gameplay of TOEM is exploring the five regions and solving puzzles using your Camera in order to complete tasks for locals, who give you tokens as a reward, and you use these tokens to purchase your progression to the next world. The trophies are earned by completing these tasks, while also taking photographs of specific people or things, including all of the animals in the game for the Wildlife Compendium.

I decided to just go into the game blind and play it through for the first time. I managed to complete my first playthrough of TOEM with 15 trophies!

1/38: The Beginning - Start your Adventure.

2/38: Home Sweet Home - Photograph Nana's house.

3/38: The Calm Forest - Visit Oaklaville.

4/38: Who's A Good Boy?! - Pet a pet for the first time.

5/38: A Majestic Hotel - Photograph the Oak Hotel from the vantage point.

6/38: Set Sail For Good Weather - Visit Stanhamn.

7/38: Flight Ready - Capture a close-up photo of a very special seagull.

8/38: Going Long! - Walk a thousand miles.

9/38: A Sparkling Jump - Capture a close-up photo of a dancer.

10/38: Photograph The Smiling Huntsman - Capture a photo of a sunken ship.

11/38: The Big City - Visit Log City.

12/38: Snowy Peaks - Visit Kiiruberg.

13/38: All Geared Up - Find and equip all four winter clothing items.

14/38: So Close Now! - Visit the top of Kiiruberg.

15/38: Experience TOEM - Photograph the phenomenon TOEM.

After that, I decided to go back to all of the areas and, using a guide, find all the rest of the things I needed to photograph for the miscellaneous trophies, as well as get all the rest of the animals for the Wildlife Compendium, AND complete all of the photo challenges in each region. Basically, part 2 of this platinum was clean-up.

16/38: You Found Us! - Capture a photo of the hidden developers.

17/38: Just A Sock - Capture a close-up photo of the sock man.

18/38: Calmed Down - Capture a close-up photo of the skeleton.

19/38: Slow And Steady - Witness the snail reach the flag.

20/38: Nature's Showstopper - Complete all of the Photo Challenges in Oaklaville.

21/38: Employee Of The Month - Hang up your own photo in the Employee of the Month frame.

22/38: A New Job - Capture a close-up photo of a stressed human.

23/38: Strong as An Oak - Complete all quests in Oaklaville.

24/38: Seaworthy - Complete all quests in Stanhamn.

25/38: Calm As The Sea - Complete all of the Photo Challenges in Stanhamn.

26/38: 100 Followers! - Capture a close-up photo of an influencer.

27/38: The Grand Clock Tower - Capture a photo of the clock tower's special event.

28/38: City Professional - Complete all of the Photo Challenges in Log City.

29/38: Business Executed - Complete all of the quests in Log City.

30/38: A Great Story - Find all of the wall paintings, then capture a close-up photo of the mountain explorer.

31/38: Happy Youth - Capture a close-up photo of an old man.

32/38: The Biggest Hurdle - Complete all of the Photo Challenges in Kiiruberg.

33/38: Cosplayer - Equip every item in the game at least once.

34/38: Look At Those Cuties - Photograph each of the developer's pets.

35/38: Collect Them All - Photograph all of the Compendium animals.

36/38: Ice Fighter - Complete all of the quests in Kiiruberg.

37/38: A True Completionist - Complete all quests in the game.

And voila! I got the TOEM platinum!

38/38: And That Completes The List! - Obtain all of the trophies.

TOEM is a very cute and fun game, and it even has some DLC in the form of an extra region called Basto that you can access after finishing the game once. I definitely recommend TOEM to any platinum hunters or cozy game enjoyers!

Rating: 10/10

[finishinglinepress]

FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space: Meditative Poems by Julie Dunlop

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Renew your mind-body-spirit wellbeing as Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space takes you on a journey into some of life’s most sacred and #mystical moments. Inspired by the beauty and power of #nature, these #poems are timeless. Their imagery illuminates our shared humanity, offering unique insights into our exquisite anatomy and psychophysiology. In communion with the #Ayurvedic five elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space vividly expresses the profound resonance between individual and universal; our inner nature and nature as a whole. Enjoy the poems on their own—or dive deeper, if you wish, by welcoming them into a practice of #yoga, #meditation, or contemplation, nourishing and expanding your inner peace.

Julie Dunlop is a poet, an author, and a teacher of yoga, Āyurveda, writing, and wellbeing. Her previous books include Ocean of Yoga, Honoring the Light in You, and Thousands of Years of Prayers. In this new collection, Dunlop takes readers on a meditative journey exploring the Ayurvedic five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space. Collectively, Dunlop’s cosmic constellation of poems uplifts and heals, offering an oasis in which to rest, meditate, and explore.

PRAISE FOR Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space: Meditative Poems by Julie Dunlop

Julie Dunlop‘s new compendium of poetry is at once a delight, a mysticism, an awakening, and an education. From the get-go we are led by the poet to consider our beings in the context of other entities, living and non-living, with whom we share elements, space, and time. Thus, there is abundance in “Entire communities/of trees/meditating.”—and we enjoy a blessing of “Three hawks sweeping down/from the mountaintops//glid[ing] over acres/of graves—/the smooth curve/of their wings/blessing the bones.” Julie Dunlop possesses in equal amounts an extraordinary sensitivity to the world around her, accompanied by the courage to let her perceptions and intuitions of locus lead and inspire. This poet–whose work offers contiguity of the elements outside ourselves and the elements within ourselves–reveals to us a passion and fascination for the timbre and light of all of nature. Julie Dunlop emerges as a poet of supreme sensibility, craft, and insight. Her poems are beautiful, accessible, of great depth, and instructive to the reader. Indeed, through the insights of this poet, the reader appreciates more profoundly that all matter indeed matters.

–Dr. Thomas O. Phillips, Former Associate Dean, Wake Forest University; Director, Wake Forest Scholars; Associate Teaching Professor, Interdisciplinary Humanities

The earth is grounding, the air is carrying the fragrance of love and compassion, fire gives a warm welcome to the maturation of thoughts, feelings, and emotions, water nourishes the soul, and space gives freedom. Where there is freedom, there is love. Where there is love, there is compassion. Compassion is passion for all elements. So this book of poetry is touching all elements of life as it unfolds the inner soul of the atom to be one with the galaxy. Love and light.

–Dr. Vasant Lad, BAM&S, MASc, Founder and Director of the Ayurvedic Institute in the United States and Vasanta Institute of Ayurveda (VIOA) in India; author of Strands of Eternity and the Textbook of Ayurveda series

Great poet and Ayurveda teacher Julie Dunlop shows us in her new book remarkable visions, the way rescue works — from the heart outward, “the heart/ like a canyon,/ a constellation,/ an ocean// forgiving/ remembering,/ and letting go –// then shining again,/ with devotion/ uncollapsible/ as rock, sunlight, the tide.” How “In the damp coolness of a morning . . ./ the raging wound of a regret softens.” This book is Dunlop’s gift to her readers, a map of the doors between our human selves and the universe. She opens portals, one after another, and makes of them all accessible miracles. For meditation practitioners and others, this book is indispensable.

–Hilda Raz, author of Letter from a Place I’ve Never Been Before: Collected and New Poems

In Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space Julie Dunlop reminds us of the positive bond between ourselves and the wealth of daily miracles that make up the natural and the metaphysical world. With an exquisite sense of language, she reconnects us to the subtle beauty laced so supportively throughout our everyday lives. Reading these poems can bring calm to the wounded or unsteady heart and an ongoing uplift to the spirit.

–Clint McCown, former Director of the MFA Program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and author of The Dictionary of Unspellable Noises: New and Selected Poems

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetrybook #read #poems

[blazescompendium]

Blaze's compendium entry #7: Never deny tobacco to the Saci Pererê

The Saci painted by Newton Cavalcanti to a stamp collection, 1974

Warning: Faith and religion are important real life topics, that tackles the culture and way of life of millions of real life people. It is a cultural expression, and must be respected by all means. Here, we use a video-game ( some times) and other media series only to ignite the flame of learning about the matter, using its art when well depicted, but we do this with all due respect to the cultures we talk here, grounded by real life sources, cultures and people. And i mean this with respect. Hope you all enjoy.

I can finally talk a bit about my home country myths after a brief trip around other countries mythical creatures. The Saci is an extremely popular creature in Brazilian Folklore, and if you are Brazilian i am absolute sure you have encountered its fabulous tales already.

The Saci is (regrettably) not represented in the Megaten game series, as most of characters from my Compendium series. But i want to pop this bubble going forward, and not be exclusively tied to this games, since Mythology is a much more expansive subject, and i like to use Megaten just as a welcoming gate to more casual audiences!

The Saci Pererê is a Brazilian folkloric creature, akin to the trickster ''gnome'' archetype, not considered an evil creature by any means, but very mischievous and a prankster. Normally depicted as a black skinned toddler smoking a pipe, red cap, and some times red clothing. It's most striking feature is his only leg, which he uses to jump around in a surprisingly agile manner. His mischief deeds are many, like he would tie horse's manes, startle them, move objects inside people's homes, etc... His most known power is his control of wind currents. He can summon small sized typhoons, in which the creature can ride on to flee or use to fight if he needs to.

The Saci is hyperactive and fast, always doing something. Some people can interpret this creature as malevolent since its mischief and pranks can cause serious problems, like stealing the breaks of a carriage. However, that's not exactly the truth. The Saci is, almost always portrayed as neutral creture, and it has been since it's inception into the public consciousness. As we can see, some times it can be treated as a little devil, but it's a beloved figure nonetheless.

The name Saci Perere cames from a theorized corruption of the Tupi Guarani words: Caa Cy Perereg, which means ''Jumping Evil Eyes''. That's stated on the book ''Saci Perere: An Inquiry Result''. I was not able to verify it independently because i do not speak Tupi, and i was also unable to find online translators. But, this wording is also verified by the book ''Geography of the Brazilian Myths'' by the legendary Brazilian folklorist Camara Cascudo, so it seems legit. There will be a lot of this book in this subject, because it is such a complete work and a vital piece of research for anyone getting into the topic. [2], [1]

Cascudo does a great scholar work, going as far as giving dis-ambiguity of the Saci from other myths, and even animals that could be related to the legend.

Context: The Tupi Guarani, or just Guarani are the biggest native population living in the territory of Brazil today. They live more from the central region to the south and south-east, relatively far away form the Amazon forest in the northern regions. In general they are polytheists, and today are around 57.000,00 people. [This is sourced by the IBGE, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics]

But, even being a very popular creature in the local folklore, and even transcending the boundaries of its homeland some times, (as we will see ahead) the Saci has a relatively recent history. It's impossible to pinpoint exactly who and how this legend started. But we know it started on the southern and south-eastern most regions of the country, but there's no mention of it on the old fables from native people, which makes scholars think that the Saci is not that old as its relatives of the regional folklore.

A fact that corroborates this assertion is that, besides being a very popular folklore in Brazil, Saci is absent form any mentions to ancient sources, starting to appear more from the 18th century and above. [1]

The name Saci is not stranger to Folklore in the region though. Saci is also the name of a bird, Tapera Naevis, which has a related myth according to the Brazilian National Museum. The Saci bird is treated sometimes like a demon, that can confuse travelers with its singing. Another local legend has that this bird can suck the dead's souls. Al tough both of those claims are backed, i personally did not hear about it until researching for this topic. [1]

This particular bird its said to be seen as a bad omen to this day, in the Amazon region. This is pretty far away from where the folkloric Saci was born, but it seems that a common association with the bird is that it asks for tobacco to its pipe, just like the Saci does. This animal has the habit to sing during night times, so the legend says that it means it wants tobacco. If you actually replies to it, its said the bird will come after your promisse. [1]

This particular bird can also be connected to another folkloric tale, this time from the northern regions of Brazil, a witch called the Matinta-Pereira. This is a particular demonic witch, that can transform itself into the Saci bird, (Tapera Naevis) to get offerings from residents of villages. When her demands are not met, she causes bad things to happen. She also wears a red hat, and her name also bears the ''Perereg'' wording from before. Scholars believe that this is because this bird sometimes jumps in one leg, and has red feathers in their heads, which would also make senses with the Saci! I personally could not find any visual registry about it, but i am sure most of birds some times do this kind of stuff. [1]

The Matinta eventually became a generic name for haunting and supernatural ocurrences in the Northern regions, while the Saci became a thing in the southern regions. The Matinta became more associated with its cursed singings, as the book mentioned before says: ''It trespasses villages with its haunting screams. It will not attack or go after people, thought.'' [1] It kinda resembled me personally of the European Banshee, which also caused misfortune and disasters, and possesses a terrifying cry.

The Saci bird and the Matinta-Pereira witch. (Art i got from Wikipedia, can't find the artist ): )

But this is just one, of the whole ''Birds named as Saci''. There is also the Romococcyx Phasianellus known colloquially as ''Peixe Frito'' (Fried Fish) and inhabits most of Brazilian territory. It has myths around its singing. [1]

If you got interested in this whole rabbit hole of folkloric birds, there's a lot to go on around the world myths! Just some time ago we made an article about the Muh Shubbuu from the Buryati people!

Notably the Saci shares its notoriety and Brazilian legends Pantheon with other similar trickster spirits, like the Caipora and the Curupira. Both are protectors of the nature, both of those are tricksters, and both also asks for tobacco in some legends! Although, the Saci is not a protector of nature, his only goals are to cause mischief. In more recent times, Saci is treated like he's a friend of those two, but this has more of a childish connotation, when teaching about national folklore to children.

The Saci also has spawned some relatives in neighbor countries. In Uruguay there is the Yasi Yatere, which is kind of a gnome with a magical wand. It can shape shift, and it usually kidnaps woman. When its wand is taken, much like the brazilian Saci with its hat, its powers ceases and it becomes weak. It's described in great detail in the book ''Supersticiones y Lendas'', from Juan B Ambrosetti. [1], [3]

In Argentina the Yasi is described mixing the features of its cousins from the region. It is also a dwarf type of gnome, but it's red and also carry a magical wand that protects its powers. They also would kidnap children to play with them, but they would go insane after that. It is also described by Ambrosetti. But also mentioned in a letter of a European missionary called José Guevara. [1]. [3]

Many of these features that the Saci and the Yasi shares comes mostly from European legends, the old archetype of a monster that can be tamed by taking it's belongings. Like the Vouivre from France with its carbuncle. The Saci wears its distinct red hat, that its often taken as the source of its power, so capturing a Saci involves capturing his hat. This could have a Portuguese influence. [1] Theres myths in Portugal, like the so called ''Pesadelo'' which is a creature that when having its hat stolen, could be controlled by the assailant.[1]

-Interesting fact that i have found many sources for this Portuguese myth, and other books mentioning it, but when talking with a friend from Portugal, he could not recognize this specific legend. If you are also Portuguese, and know about it, please let me know!

The 1924 book from F.C Maytzhusen: ''Pigimeos en Leyendas de los Guarnies'' Roughly translated as ''Gnomes in Guarany legends'' tells that the own Gurani people from the region had already its own myths about small magical people living in the woods, which some scholars attribute to an ancient memory of a small stature tribe that potentially lived around. This concept probably mixed very well with the before cited European beliefs, brought by the invaders. [4]

As you can see, it's like the already established lore about native gnome myths got fused with the European equivalents, such as like: The haunting trickster spirits of the woods, small size, agile and mischievous. In the book Geography of Brazilian Myths, the author makes a lot of comparisons to Djins, Imps, Faes, Fairies, and in fact i believe the Saci can absolutely fit in any of those ''races'' of mythic creatures, specially a Djinn or Yokai.

But in that book, the author fixates on the European Kobold being it's main ''ancestry''. The Kobold is like a Goblin, gnome and other whimsical forest creatures like the Brownies, Knockers and Silkies. Kobolds are a bit more versatile than its relatives, being told to live in houses, mining sites, and even boats. The boat ones used to smoke pipe! Kobold are individuals and can be mischievous, haunting and tormenting Humans that don't do their will. Just like their possible Brazilian relatives, the Kobold encounters are not usually fatal.

Silky, Knocker, Kobold and Brownies are just some whimsical European fae that can be the common ancestor to the Saci

While some of those European Fae often smoked, the actual academic theory on why the Saci smoked pipe, it's from the native smoking rituals and culture of the Brazilian Native people, such as the Guarany. In the book before mentioned, the native people from Brazil teached the European invaders how to smoke. This was quick considered to be a sin for some European priests and got demonized by some as well, while it spread quickly between their peers. [1]

The Saci being one legged is not something original in mythology. Going back further in time to the legendary book ''Natural History'' from Pliny the Elder, (i really want to come back to this book one day) where he describes the Monopods, humanoid creatures that had just one leg and a giant feet, which they used to cast refreshing shadows on themselves when it was too hot outside. This creatures were before described in the even older book, Indika from Ctesias, and supposedly spotted in India. Just like the Saci, this creature was extremely agile even if just having one leg. They continued to be believed and continuously described well over the middle ages. [1], [5]

Monopod. A rather Silly guy from Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

There's no consensus on its origins, but some people say that the first people from the Europe seeing Yoga practitioners in India stand in one leg, or have some kind of parasol confused. We will likely never know, but that goes to show one legged humanoid creatures were already talked about much earlier. [1]

In Chile you also had the Ketronamun from the native people there, a small gnome with just one leg, that appear in myths from almost every part of the Pacific South American coast. [1]

But there were also one legged deities around, take Tezcatlipoca from the Mexica (Aztecs) for instance. Being the god of moon and the stars, and one of the most important beings in the Mexica pantheon, he lost its leg fighting Cipactli. It was also related to the nocturnal wind, another connection with the Saci. But there is no scholar belief that the two were actually connected, they just shared a lot of similarities. [1]

T ezcatlipoca misses his leg, or foot in many depictions!

But How the Saci was actually Born?

As we discussed the Saci Pererê was not cataloged by the first European Invaders of the 16th century. In truth, there are a lot of myths and tales that were properly archived by them, but the Saci is nowhere to be seen. So, scholars deduct the Saci was not that old, being actually born and popularized around the 17th century. [1] But the Saci would just gain character and personality around the 19th century.

The legend much probably, spread by word of mouth from south to north, while it would slowly absorbing local and foreign elements during its trip. From the regional mythical creatures like the Curupira, he inherited the ability to confuse and mislead people. From Caipora he inherited the haunting whistles and its relationship with horses. Its only leg could be from the Bird myths, and also inherited from European folklore as well. Its own red hat also coming from there. [1]

The red hat sometimes its a sign of supernatural entities in Europe. The name ''The One With The Red Hat'' was an euphemism for Satan himself and other devils in Portugal. The Saci some times is treated like a devil, in the Book ''Saci: An Inquiry Result'' at the page 83, there's a tale about the Saci appearing with a sulfur scent, just like demons would normally do. [2]

The Revival and the Controversy of Monteiro Lobato

When we talk about the Saci in Brazil, the elephant in the room is always Monteiro Lobato, an author from the 20th century. Without a doubt, his work was one of the most prolific and known authors if its time, and also dedicated a lot of his work to disseminate national Folklore. There was just one big problem: He was a terrible person. Lobato was a racist, aligned with the United Statian KKK, (yes) and generally treated people, specially black people, very poorly. So, if that was a text oriented only for Brazilians, i'd completely ignore his name, and would focus on the texts. But, for the sake of education of foreign readers, i had to mention him.

In 1917, this (awful) individual published an inquiry in one of the biggest newspapers of the country, searching for personal and regional tales about the Saci, which he planned to catalog and archive. The idea was to protect the national Folklore, since he would argument that we should focus on our own mythology, rather than importing everything from other countries. While the Saci had the ancestry of European Myth, it was a 100% modern Brazilian born legend. This kind of thought is pretty impressive from a racist dipshit, but ok.

Although Lobato did had the idea of collecting tales, they were all brought from other people, regular people, which i prefer to credit. With this rather than him. They published the book ''Saci: An Inquiry Result''. This book would be very important for the Saci lore, because it ended up skyrocketing its dim popularity, making sure he would survive for more centuries.

A funny trivia about this book, is that at the time of its publishing, the newspaper asked its sponsors to make ads using the Saci. Which had some pretty weird art that i rather not show. Thank you Monteiro Lobato for creating our capitalist version of the Dictionaire Infernal, very cool.

[EDIT] Lobato is also the creator of the work ''Sítio do Pica Pau Amarelo'' or roughly translated as Spot of the Yellow Woodpecker. I ended up not talking about it, but this is by far his most famous work that featured the Saci Pererê as one of the main character, as many other folkloric Brazilian entities. This work is often credited as many children's first contact with the Saci, and other folk Brazilian tales. This particular series is about a farm owned by Benta, an elderly woman that lived alone in the countryside. Her friend Nastácia lives along, and is famous for her dishes. She often gets visits of her nephew Lucia, which has the nickname Narizinho. She brings along her doll Emillia, which ends up gaining life and becomes a sort of tomboyish sidekick. They both live adventures along her friends and folkloric creatures.

Much regarded as the ''Brazilian Wizard of Oz'' this work was so popular it got adapted into several comic books and live action shows. The most popular of which aired during the 2000s from 2001 to 2007, and i as a kid often watched it. My favorite character had to be Emilia. (She will be present in the compendium, or a lesser post soon enough)

Al tough, due to Lobato awful nature as a person, the series is often pointed out as racist and problematic, being also written in the early 20th century it was filled with problems, which made a lot of people that grew up with this work depressed by those details. Luckily this is one of the rare occasions where there is an active effort from scholars and fans alike, to separate Sitio's influence on Brazilian culture and Folklore, from the awful person that was Lobato. The book is now on Public Domain, and each new iteration of the story deletes more and more problematic points, and as more decades went by, it gets more safe to consume and mixed with the Brazilian folklore, leaving the author in a sweet side note.

That said, not everybody is ok with this approach as well, and prefer to just abandon the literary work entirely. Which i honestly can't blame them for...

One of the latest iterations of Sitio do Pica Pau Amarelo is a cartoon, produced during the 2010s. Here are Emilia and Lucia.

But, as the 20th century went by and more people went in contact with the Saci tales, now widespread, the once regional myth started to gain the world, and became a symbol of the country culture. For instance, in the 70s and 80s the Saci would be featured in the Japanese anime: Akuma Kun, from the legendary author Shigeru Mizuki, which i already covered many times here. Mizuki is an old acquaintance of us theologians, because he was not only a mangaka, but also a devoted scholar of over the world mythologies. Its studies some times ended up in Brazil, and that's how he got the Saci.

You may know this author from the famous Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro series. Mizuki made some mistakes, but he was one of the most important folklorists of its time, helping to protect and disseminate the folklore of his country. According the author Michael Dylan Foster, in the book ''The book of Yokai'' Mizuki was influenced by folklorists as such Yanagita Kunio (we already mentioned him here as well, for the Obayrion post!) And thanks to Mizuki, most post war Japanese people were thinking of his works, when thinking about Yokai.

But back to the Saci, he was a recurring character in the Akuma Kun manga. The series was about a boy that could control mythical creatures from around the world. Since Akuma Kun got a lot of sequels and reboots, we are talking about Saishinban Akuma Kun, from 1988. There, the Saci makes an appearance! The looks is very faithful, but the hat isn't red, and in the animation the character would have two legs, rather than the only leg always associated with it. Still, he controlled the winds and was very mischievous just like in its home country!

The Saci in Akuma Kun Manga vs Anime

Mizuki's iteration of the Saci also just loses its powers when people take out his pipe, which differs from our regular version, where the hat does that. Besides this fact, Mizuki takes the artistic freedom to make the creature liking Football, which i particularly find funny but a bit stereotypical, and some people did not liked it. Overall, i thought it as a great representation!

Akuma Kun will get a new Anime in 2023. Lets hope that our Brazilian whimsicall friend makes an appearance.

There is much talk on how Mizuki found about the Saci Pererê, and the contact of Japanese with Brazilian folklore. I already explored that on my text on the Pokémon Whimsicott as well. However, the Brazilian Folklore in my opinion resonates very well with Japanese Folklore, so much that a lot of other Japanese artists that came in contact with it ended up using it as inspiration as well. A very known example is from the animator Ype Nakashima, that much probably had contact with Mizuki. The Saci was a character in one of Ype's most beloved works, the animation Piconze.

Although the exagerated details in the Saci, that can be seen as problematic nowadays, this depiction is a product of its time, and i do not agree with it. It's here for the purpose of education.

While the Saci is not from Japan, we can see that it would get along very well with other Yokai, which ends up making it kind of popular with Japanese audiences. Other Brazilian Mythical creatures were also explored by foreigners like the Cuca, Caipora, (which appeared in the Demi Kids series of games, by the way!) The Curupira, and many others!

The Saci vs the Halloween a National Symbol

The Saci Pererê got the status of a national symbol. And as such, it was often used as a counter point to foreign interference in Brazilian culture. Since its rebirth in the 20th century, in an attempt to retrieve its legacy, the creature is often held as a protector of Brazilian culture.

As such, in 2003 it was proposed by Brazilian politics that the Saci should have a national holiday, and it should be commemorated in October 31st, in opposition to the growing Halloween culture around Brazil. The argument was that this was a foreign holiday, not from our country, and we should celebrate the Saci as a symbol of patriotism.

But the problem is that Halloween was never a tradition nor a holiday in Brazil, and both holidays never caught too much attention. Still, the Saci vs Jack O'Lantern fight is somewhat took lightly as a funny way to protect our national Folklore.

Notoriously, the beef between the Saci and Jack O'Lantern was commemorated in a song, from the 2013 parody metal album ''Metal Folklore'', sang by the Brazilian metal singer Bruno Sutter, acting as his parody Persona the Detonator. The album was pretty well received and brought attention to the concept again, with the song called ''Saci.'' which is a critic to United States imperialism and its forced influence on Brazilian culture. Bruno brought along the famous Punk Rock singer João Gordo to this track, which is a celebrated artist in the country, who even ended up in some Nirvana gigs, back in the 1990s.

I personally got to know Bruno during a concert, and even watched him perform live. The dude is amazing, and you should give it a listen!

You can listen to this particular song on Spotify!

''October 31st is the Saci day!

Do not fool yourself my friend

Halloween is american, which is far away from Brazil

Trick or treat is your fucking mother!

Saci is the red cape warrior!

Saci is a mischievous boy!

The Pumpkin is already shitting itself

Don't fuck with Brazilian Folklore!'' -Some Lyrics from the song

This amazing artwork was provided by my great friend @atmaflare! Here we see the Saci having an argument with Jack O'Lantern, probably saying to him to stay away from his turf.

The comedic and critic nature of the song made it pretty popular at the time, and this canonically beef between the two creatures became somewhat common here. Still, both are dates are celebrated without any major incident!

Inside Brazil, Saci is also a major character of the amazing Netflix series ''Invisible City'' which is all about Brazilian Folklore, and supernatural occurrences in a life of a police officer in modern times. Give it a watch!

On Personal Notes

So, in this case the Saci comes from my home country and naturally i grew up with his tales of mischief and supernatural occurrences. In this sense, i have much more of a personal connection to my topic of study for this text, and so i can have my own verdict to it. It's natural for kids here to have contact with this mythical character. Or at least, it was when i was a kid in the early 2000s.

When i was little, the Saci was a particular mythological being that i feared. It was not that he was dangerous in a real sense of the way, but i rather not find it alone in the woods, or be bullied by him.

Still there was a grain of fascination by his figure, because there was the possibility to actually win against the Saci, taking his hat and making him do as our biding. And most of time, his mischief ended up as funny for kids.

Nowadays the Saci is still regarded as one of the most beloved folkloric tales of Brazil, inspiring newer generations of folklorists to protect and share the culture that they belong and grew up with, such as myself. For this reason, the Saci will always stay in the Brazilian collective consciousnesses, not only because of its supernatural powers, its haunting abilities surviving the current age, but also as a symbol of our own home in this planet.

As Camara Cascudo said in his book:

''Today the Devil that is inseparable from tales, from countryman conversations. Vague, haunting, unexpected, malicious, humorous (...) Now, diluted in the memory of those who does not have the spiritual age to fear it anymore.''

Sources and Bibliography:

1- Camara Cascudo: Geografia dos Mitos Brasileiros (Geography of Brazilian Myths)

2- Saci: Resultado de um Inquérito, Monteiro Lobato (Saci: An Inquiry Result)

3- Supersticiones y Lendas'', Juan B Ambrosetti.

4- Pigimeos en Leyendas de los Guarnies, F.C Maytzhusen

5- Natural History, Pliny the Elder

6- The Book of Yokai, Michael Dylan Foster (small Citation)

[windsofcourage]

— Link's Diary : the Shiekah Slate .

Throughout Link's journey through Hyrule in BoTW, his one constant companion has been the Shiekah Slate. Due to its wide range of abilities - most of which are helpful in everyday circumstances - Link would have become fairly reliant on the Shiekah Slate for a variety of reasons. The pictures Princess Zelda took that remained in the Slate's memory are his sole, surviving anchors of a time 100 years past. He would have studied them fervently for the sake of not missing a location while traveling on foot. Its scope, map, and teleporting capabilities are extremely useful in a pinch. Its combat abilties would have been especially useful to Link when his resources were low. Oftentimes, Link would chart out his travels by referencing the map pieces he'd restored to the Shiekah Slate, trying to maximize his journey through the kingdom's ruins to the fullest.

Photography ended up becoming something of a hobby of Link's as a result of filling out the Shiekah Slate's missing information. A picture of a sleeping Hynox in the distance, a shot of a boar grazing across from a silent shroom, two herons idling along a hillside, a photograph looking down upon a forest landscape in the early morning from the top of a hill, a Shiekah Tower standing tall in the distance... A great deal of the photos taken by Link, if perused through, would offer insight to his travel paths and interests at a glance.

But most of all: he'd use its typing abilities (in conjunction with its photography capabilities) to keep something of a log for himself. (The quests a player goes through in game are notably written in first-person in the Japanese version of the game, so I'm keeping with that original vision for this next half of the hc.)

All quests, compendium entries, notes on Zelda + Champion Memories, key locations, etc. were all written by Link. Not just as a way to keep himself focused... but also as a way to make sure he doesn't forget anything important. The entries range from strictly factual notes, to personal anecdotes, and can even sport some of Link's personal thoughts, opinions and feelings in the entries he has typed.

The compendium entries in particular started off as something of a survival log. Being able to pull up his own personal notes on different game, monsters, animals and weapons are all handy. Over time, though, as he began to remember the princess better, Link would further flesh out the Compendium log on the unspoken hope he might be able to show her one day.

[xasha777]

In a time where nature and technology were interwoven into the fabric of daily life, the Great Library of Aeon stood as a testament to human knowledge. It was said that within its walls, a single eye observed all who entered, a guardian crafted from the ancient trees and the wisdom of a thousand books.

This eye belonged to the Abbot Primate, a figure shrouded in mystery, the keeper of the world's knowledge. He was not man, nor machine, but something in between—a bioengineered sage whose body was a library, and whose heart was a compendium of humanity's greatest thoughts.

One day, as the rustling bamboo whispered secrets to the wind, a young acolyte named Elara stumbled upon the Abbot's sanctum, where the giant eye rested within the nest of wooden scrolls and vibrant tomes.

"Abbot Primate," Elara spoke with a voice tinged with awe, "what wisdom do you seek today?"

The eye shifted, and in its depths, galaxies swirled. The Abbot's voice was a chorus of whispers, like leaves in a storm. "Elara, seeker of truth, join me. The future is a branch that grows from the past, and today, we witness a new leaf unfurl."

Mesmerized, Elara stepped closer as the Abbot Primate’s iris revealed a vision—a city where technology did not conquer nature but danced with it. Buildings grew like trees, vehicles flew like birds, and humanity walked in harmony with the earth.

"This is your destiny," the Abbot intoned. "To build a world where the eye does not rule over the forest but sees through its spirit. Take this vision, Elara, and share the wisdom of balance with the world."

Elara left the sanctum, the image of the future seared into her memory. The Abbot Primate continued to watch over the Great Library, an eternal sentinel at the threshold of what has been and what could be, in a world where nature’s whispers carried the weight of knowledge.