#all the iterations people have created of them that now occupy my mind

[oscarisaacsspit]

need him to fill me up and breed me with that fictional seed

i hate that he’s fictional i wanna go down on him

[oz-corp-uplink-t]

Good evening. I figured it would be a good idea to describe our area in detail, both the one we're in now and the one from whence we came. This will be in chronological order, from first discovered to most recently discovered. I hope you all don't mind the formality. This is simply how I normally converse, and I do not see any reason to be any more or less formal than normal.

--Homeworld: GemsGoldia--

Our Homeworld was a unique one, compared to the more Earthly planets of most other universes. It was an entire planet made of crystals and gems, and the general climate of an area depended on the gemstone that comprised the most of an area. Green Emerald areas were usually perfectly warm, red Ruby areas were much hotter and had a tendency to contain magma geysers, blue Sapphire areas were more or less frozen wastes, and a few other, more unnatural climates, such as constant lighting storms over yellow variants of gemstones, and complete and utter darkness in Obsidian areas.

When I first appeared here, I was the only one. I saw the Creator soon after, and he told me what I should do. The Creator's form in our worlds is quite odd, actually. He's two hands and a head, and he tends to change size often, though he's always bigger than me. His hands have white gloves, and I'm certain I've seen they are connected to his head by fishing line or puppet strings. His head is just a black sphere with extremely triangular teeth and large, red eyes. It's more intimidating than it sounds.

Anyway, the factory/research lab we started with was already built when I showed up, along with quite a few houses, all made of the Emerald the ground was made of, and there were exactly enough for those that would appear soon after. There was an unfathomably gigantic generator in a basement within the factory, which I was told created an artificial atmosphere around the entire planet. Evidently, this was true, as it was destroyed in the destruction of the planet, and we have recorded several corpses of beings that need an atmosphere to survive.

--A strange new land: Mirrold--

I had escaped the destruction of GemsGoldia, and I had to find my way back alone. I went through several places, most of which seemed familiar and sparked... Memories, of past versions of myself. My first iteration looked similar to the creator, but I had a pale skin tone, my eyes were humanoid, my hair was green, and I had some nasty claws. I was a throwaway, used to add plot to a normal 'roleplay' (Which, as he told me, simply describes writing a story with more than one person, which I find to be an interesting concept) between good friends. I was to stop a wedding by killing the bride or groom, the bride being an original creation, from his friend, and the groom being another one of those... Skeleton characters. I think they called them Blueberry. I mortally wounded them, and was destroyed in revenge.

My next iteration was similar to the 000 model. I can't remember what I did as them, but I do remember that the Creator and his friend made fictional children for fictional versions of themselves. Apparently, this was my longest running form.

Then, we're at what I am now. A product of His creativity, depression from a long-passed break-up, of which he has told me was his own doing, and fantasies of escaping His world, and coming to ours. His mental state has left our world in ruin, and it seems like he may want this one to have a similar fate...

...Oh, right. I need to be talking about Mirrold. Forgive me, I tend to get far off-topic if I think about our home...

Mirrold is a mirror world, which I found in an apparently magical mirror in the ruins of GemsGoldia, which acted as a portal to here. This place consists of four islands and a deep pit under them, which we call Lower Mirrold.

--The glass shatters: Shatternia--

Shatternia is the only entrance to Mirrold that we know of. After you enter the mirror, you come out onto a catwalk suspended above Lower Mirrold, which looks like pitch blackness. This catwalk ends at a concrete building, where the Brokem, Ozwald, and Cordial base models reside. This is at the southernmost area of the island. To the west of this, there is a thick forest with various weak monsters within. The foliage on this island is always colored in a mix of reds and blues instead of the normal green you'd expect. To the north of the building, there is a toxic lake, and a bridge leading to a canyon with a large gate at the end, leading to the only town in the area, Shardini. If you go east from the building, there is a tram station, which connects to the next island over, and allows for transport between them. North of this is a mansion under constant snowfall, which is reminiscent of the home the Creator had imagined being in when with their friend. The Creator put a copy of his past self, specifically from the period of major depression over his relationship, in Mirrold, and they occasionally show up at this mansion and cry to themselves. They are hostile to any trespassers, but reminders of this failed relationship will stop them in their tracks.

I do recall, now that I think of it, there was another skeleton who became partially Corrupt, but never fully turned, and who lived with the models in the concrete building. Actually, they may have been an alternate version of Blueberry. I think the models that live there called them "Grape".

--A major downgrade: Junkedville--

It's much larger than Shatternia, but it's mostly empty desert. There is an exception: Salvagius. This is the one town in Junkedville, near the northern edge. Our factory rests at the northernmost point, and the rest of the place is houses and establishments made of sheet metal. The pub here is highly popular, mainly because it's impossible to die from overdrinking, as they add special ingredients that prevent death or impairments from extreme amounts, without lessening the actual enjoyment of it, including the drunkenness. This isn't completely effective, unfortunately, as you can tell from my entire workforce being in alchohol comas.

I did say that Shatternia was the only entrance, but that isn't completely true. In the factory, we are very capable of transporting people using the multiversal portals we have. We also considered opening them up to other creations for this uplink, but we aren't sure if it matters much anyway.

--Eternal war: Magicant--

Magicant is a small place, and there's not much left by now. Mages populated this place quite heavily before the Corruption followed us here. They have allied with us for the destruction of the Corruption, but they have blown half their island out of the sky trying to fight. There isn't much left to speak of...

--Mixed up anomaly: Lower Mirrold--

Lower Mirrold is... Difficult to understand. It's split into five sectors. These five sectors change randomly into portions of different worlds, bringing buildings, landscapes, and people with them into our own. This has caused many visitors to suddenly show up without intending to, and many strange scenarios where multiple characters and worlds combine in strange ways, causing strange situations. One we have documented in particular is still in progress, and the events until now are as follows.

1: Subject A ( Short/overweight/male, generally known as a thief, wears yellow and purple clothes, a cap with his first initial on it, and cyan eyeliner) receives a message from Subject B (Literally a fucking sponge) that proposes an exchange for taking B's job for a day in exchange for a stockpile of treasure. Subject A accepts, drives into ocean and finds Subject B's workplace.

It should be noted these two should not have known each other at all.

2: Subject A falls asleep on the job, establishment burns down. Subject A flees and finds stockpile. Subject B fires a nuclear bomb at his neighbor to threaten the arsonist who burned down the establishment. Subject A is transported to an unknown location for approximately 7 hours, before Lower Mirrold shifts again and any further events cease.

We have reason to believe whatever's been happening here is still happening now, but we have been too occupied with everything else we can't be certain.

--Core of Corruption: Corrupti--

Not much is known of Corrupti, other than Sally currently resides there and controls the Corrupted from it's core. It rose from Lower Mirrold some time after the event above had ceased. We don't know what to do about it, all we know is that it's ruining everything we worked so hard to achieve, and that we must end it... But we do not know how.

------------------------------------------------------------

A few closing statements...

Firstly, I have been informed the Creator has documented the Lower Mirrold events mentioned above. I haven't been told where, though. Just that it's "On my tube", or something. If you happen to figure something out there, that would be helpful.

Second, I'm not completely certain the Creator has fully gotten over what happened with his relationship. I don't know if that's why he seems to be reluctant to help us, but either way I'm sure he'll figure himself out sooner or later. I hope, anyway.

Good night to you all. I hope you haven't forgotten us.

Oh, and to those of you in bad times, (lookingatyourox) just know your pain doesn't last forever, and all wounds can be healed with help and time. Also, do not try to end your pain early. It will only spreas your pain to others, and, if there is a place after life, give you a worse pain in your ghost.

...Sorry, if I'm being a bit too grim here. I'm in quite a grim mood, unfortunately. I think the Creator is, too.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

To Make A Hero – Maria Brink and Andy Biersack ‘Dark Nights: Death Metal’ Interview

Countless iterations of Batman have been created since the character’s DC Comics debut in 1939. He’s been a detective, a Dark Knight and a key member of The Justice League. Of course, the crime-fighting anti-hero also leapt off the page and onto the screen for TV shows and movies such as the 1960s Batman live action TV show, the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series, and even a 2018 Batman Ninja animated film. Now, fans can see — and hear — their favorite action hero in a completely new way with Dark Nights: Death Metal motion-comic series and soundtrack.

The multi-medium endeavor is based on the comic book mini series of the same name written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Greg Capullo. The official soundtrack was produced by Tyler Bates (Guardians of the Galaxy, Watchmen), who recruited over a dozen musical artists to contribute to the songs. Two such artists are Andy Biersack (Black Veil Brides) and Maria Brink (In This Moment), who came together for the song “Meet Me In The Fire.” Both Biersack and Brink also have speaking roles in the motion-comic.

“I got a call saying that they were doing this series,” Biersack recalls, “and asked if I wanted to do the voice of Batman. For me, not only was it a dream come true, but it was huge to have a creative outlet in a time where there was nothing that could be done.”

Biersack is, of course, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic that kept non-essential workers home for months on end.

“It was this weird period where we couldn’t do anything creative. So to be able to, in some cases, record the audio here in my home studio and pretend to be Batman for a few hours a day was awesome.”

Biersack’s undying love for the anti-hero is well-established, but In This Moment vocalist Maria Brink also professes to adore comic books.

“I’ve always loved them and been fascinated by them,” she says. “I actually got into them more when I was older ⁠— I like all fantasy stuff. I got to have the voice of The Hand, which was so cool. In the middle of COVID, all of us were looking for creative outlets to keep our minds occupied, so it felt like a blessing for sure. To me what was so exciting was to bring in all the musicians and have all of their voices taking on this new storyline. I really loved the creativeness of converging both of these worlds.”

The storyline of the mini series is based on the concept of a dark multiverse, which sees multiple alternate realities and alternative versions of Batman. Told through visuals, dialogue, and music, this project is complex in both content and form.

“What I really liked about this project,” Biersack continues, “is that you have an opportunity to see those iterations individually and how they play into the same storyline. To have every version that you love in the same story is a pretty exciting thing. Especially if you watch the series that they made, you get to see the whole history of this character.”

For the Black Veil Brides frontman, it speaks to the greatness, versatility and longevity of Batman as a whole.

“As someone who enjoys comic book character creating and world-building, I love the idea of having a character that can stand the test of 80 years and have all of these variations, and the validity of one is the same as the other. You can have the Adam West chummy, joke-y Batman and you can have the Frank Miller angry, grumpy, murderous Batman — and they’re both valid versions of the character.”

For Brink, collaborating with Biersack and producer Tyler Bates on their cinematic track “Meet Me In The Fire” was about much more than Batman.

“When I was writing it,” she explains, “I wasn’t just thinking about it in terms of the comic book,  but the world in general. That give and take, the struggle, the fight and the power; people wanting to stand with each other and having to go through hard times together — especially where we were all kind of at [with COVID] when we were writing this song. There’s gonna be hard times and you might have to walk through some flames and get your feet burnt.”

Biersack adds, “The idea of Batman, or any character, is there’s some initial injustice that causes them to become the hero that they ultimately become. In those ways, there’s so many parallels to the idea of those moments of absolute darkness or sadness that we all face. And in a year where not only was the world changing on a literal level — a virus that’s traveling everywhere and putting people in danger — but also socially, there were so many changes and important things that occurred last year. The best value that you can have in life is to not just have something difficult to occur, but to learn from it and grow from it.”

So in a time when lives are literally on the line every day, how do these two prominent rock musicians define what it truly means to be a hero?

“I guess a hero to me is someone who really stands up for others,” Brink says. “Someone who really cares about other people and who will risk themselves and whatever it takes to empower other people. It’s selfless. The doctors risking their lives to help these sick people — they’re heroes. They could die.”

“Also just on a more personal level,” Biersack adds, “anybody in your life who inspires you to be a better version of yourself is tremendously heroic. I think if you can find it in yourself to be a hero for yourself and for everyone around you, that is the most important virtue possible. If you aren’t trying your best to be better than you were yesterday, ultimately I don’t know that you’re spending your time that wisely.

“I think at the end of the day,” he continues, “the message that rock n’ roll has always been about is to not put everyone else up on that pedestal. Rise to the challenge yourself and be the hero that you want to see.”

You can catch Black Veil Brides and In This Moment on tour with Ded and Raven Black on their North American The In Between Tour starting Sept. 17.

[fairy-spring]

So uh… I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about my Hylia before? Design-wise, she really isn’t much different from her iterations within the Zelda canon. I just choose not to include her wings. But uh, I guess I got some headcanons I wanna share about her, too.

A lot of my headcanons for Hylia are shared with my boyfriend, @scopophobia-polaris​, so I in no way take all the credit for all of this.

Okay, so uh…

Hylia can’t create anything. She can only alter what was already there, thus “creating” both the Sheikah and the Hylians.

I go along with what was stated in canon, in that the Golden Goddesses created the world, left the Triforce behind, and instructed Hylia to guard both it and the peoples that they created. Hylia isn’t powerful enough to create life on her own, but she is capable enough to defend herself and the Triforce against major threats.

The only life she was able to create was Fi’s, who is by all means a robot??? I think???? Either way, she’s not exactly… organic.

So anyway, basically Hylia took these pointy-eared humans that Farore made, and she gave some of them red eyes and white hair and made them ninjas because she was going through her edgy phase. She then disowned her edgy phase and decided to give another group of pointy-eared humans powerful magic (but not as powerful as her so they’re not god mod OCs I swear) and then chose these people as her favorites to watch over and kinda sorta ignored the others.

Basically the Golden Goddesses are the original authors and Hylia can’t make any original characters so she makes recolors instead.

Hylia favored the Hylians so much that she spilled the beans about the Triforce, which leads to them getting greedy and wanting the Triforce for themselves.

This one’s a very small headcanon with a major impact because, uh… Well, the Hylians bickering and feuding and warring with each other over the right to the Triforce is what leads to the creation of Demise and all evil. It had been foretold by the Golden Trio of evil’s inevitable rise, and so Hylia did nothing to interfere. However, she was so ashamed of what she had done that she fled to her court of loftwings above the cloud barrier, only to return when the time came to save her chosen people.

The Hylians take Hylia’s departure as her abandoning them. With her and the Triforce gone, the Hylians close themselves off within the walls of their city, holding constant prayer and services every day and night in repentance.

Hylia’s true form is a giant loftwing.

Hylia only assumes a humanoid form to ease the Hylians. Even then, her appearance leans into the uncanny, with eternally bulging eyes, sparse eyebrows, and bird feet hiding under her skirts. Polaris says that Hylia’s bird form is more monstrous in appearance, with her size and shape being similar to that of Wan Shi Tong from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Now that I think about it I also headcanoned that the Forgotten Temple in Breath of the Wild was Hylia’s original temple, and that it was eventually occupied by the Sheikah and used to store every bit of information they learned about her so by all means it kind of is like a big old library aEzsrxdtcfyvgubhnj

tbh she might be bigger but idk really

Hylia originally planned to assist the next hero in Skyward Sword.

In her final weeks of life, Hylia realized that sealing Demise away wouldn’t have been enough. As she was, she wasn’t able to use the Triforce, while her chosen hero didn’t possess the right qualities to keep the Triforce whole. So, she dedicated every peaceful moment imaginable to craft all of these challenges that would eventually be completed by the Hero of the Skies.

However, she fully intended on waiting and maintaining the seal over Demise until the next hero awakened. Hylia honestly didn’t plan on being mortally wounded at the last second.

Hylia’s light magic is literally her taking all the light around her and hurling it towards her opponent.

The way I envisioned her power, it’s like the light goes out for a second, only to flash in a bright, concentrated bolt. The only way I can describe it is as if it was a lightning strike.

Demise’s gnarly scar on his forehead came from Hylia displaying her magic in this exact manner. Her magic is so powerful, it temporarily blinds everyone around her. On that same note…

Ghirahim fatally wounded Hylia.

I know that Ghirahim is seen as a comedic personality within the fandom, and it sometimes gets to the point where I forget that he’s supposed to be a very serious threat. After all, Ghirahim is Demise’s sword, the foil to Fi. So, I personally think he should have the “honor” of being the one to strike her down. Bear in mind, he was most likely in his sword form when the deed was done, but he’d still take great pride and likely call himself something like “the goddess slayer” or something cooler.

So anyways, uh… I hope these are okay????? I know I don’t talk about my stuff very much, so this is a lot…

[holymoonlighted]

Allant, Amygdalae and You

Spoilers for Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls below:

In Bloodborne’s Alpha test, the Amygdalae were there, but not visible to the player. When re-enabled these familiar Gods have something interesting about them that was removed in the current game. Their eyes. (Images are from here.)

Their eyes are extremely familiar to people who payed attention to Demon’s Souls True King Allant. The eyes are essentially the same, not entirely the same design but, the idea is there.

For those who don’t know, Bloodborne was Demon’s Souls II at one point in development, there are files quite literally classed as “DSII” or “Demon’s Souls II” not Dark Souls II, the team making Bloodborne had nothing to do with DSII, I’m pretty sure. Anyways, the connection is incredibly obvious once you know that. This does clear up one thing, Great Ones are most likely Demons. Or were Demons. This Allant has become a Demon through worshipping the Old One, who is also a Demon. Nevertheless, the Amygdala and Allant share some sort of connection. Allant in this form also look like an early form of the Amygdalae, but not quite. Great Ones in Bloodborne’s story have always been God-like beings, Miyazaki has stated one of the first things written for Bloodborne is that Great Ones cannot have children, meaning Great Ones in some capacity have always been relevant. To get to the point, Amygdala have always most likely been intended with this relation to Demonhood and this connection to Allant. In Demon’s Souls, human-turned Demons have been in the story the whole time, in fact, some of the major bosses are those, see: Tower Knight, Phalanx and Flamelurker. They are all Demons. And now, when in Bloodborne when you take into account that these are also Demons and that most likely have also inhabited the planet, one can wonder if the mist brought them or that they have been placed there like the Old One was. In fact the old names for Amygdala are “False God” and “God’s Fallen Angel” and in the alpha, an unused track associated with Amygdala are called “False God”. Additionally, Amygdala was also the final boss of Bloodborne at one point. If you notice, in the Grand Cathedral on the way to Amelia there are statues lining both sides that depict Amygdalae, no doubt about it.

They have the face and the tentacles. It’s plain and simple; Anyways, it is obvious Amygdalae are still worshipped as Gods. In Bloodborne’s world you can hear characters say “Gods” instead of a singular God. Meaning that Great Ones, in Yharnam, at least, are worshipped in a large capacity. With this, and the assumption that they were Demon’s, it can be said that history is just repeating itself. For those who don’t know, the God referenced in Demon’s Souls is the Old One. It is worshipped, presumably given by Allant the Old One is known and so is its power but only by people who really want to delve into it. Though now, it seems that people fully accept these Demons who live in their city and worship them as Gods, as Boletaria once did. Amygdalae are False Gods under blasphemous worship, the reason there are so many is unknown. Maybe it was explained in an earlier iteration, alas, it is lost or the reason why is gone. So it seems that in Bloodborne the theme of cycles carries true and that was the scene they were trying to push out.

This place here is an interesting point of conjecture, however. At some point in Bloodborne, the plot was that you, as in the hunter, have an incurable disease. This was one of the major plot points too, it wasn’t a side thing. The Doll mentioned it, multiple NPC’s including unused ones did. It was just the entire plot, plus other things. Anyways, this place at one point is called Shrine of the Diseased and Amygdala still occupied this place. The diseased are the name of well, the ones with the disease. Along with some dialogue, it seems that the diseased are almost worshipped in some capacity. And why an Amygdala is here is unknown, this is still DeSII territory so anything goes in terms of relations. The diseased seem to be able to collect madness, early dialogue from the Doll even says as much. This madness, like Blood Echoes are able to be transformed into strength. Madness is not insight, however. Meaning that dead enemies and bosses dropped Madness, or something of that capacity. The Kanji used is “狂気” which is the literal state of Insanity, which suggests that it is the madness that is building inside of someone’s mind. The doll also says: 

“ あなたもそうなのでしょう？ だから、死してなお悪夢で目覚める まるでそれこそが、悪夢であったかのように 狂気とは、つまりそういうものですから “

Roughly translated(and localized) into:

“You awoke the same as you died, yes? This is why you awake again past death, as if it were a nightmare. This is what madness is, after all.”

This disease seems to be the reason why the Hunter, or in this case, The Diseased, awakens again. It is a disease of madness that prevents death. Now, back to the point. It seems in the Nightmare Frontier, this shrine was used by someone or something to worship the diseased. Amygdala could very well be the keeper of the shrine. Meaning, they are protective demons. Or used as some kind of protecting nature and keep holy things protected from danger. In Yharnam, it is probable they are just surveying and making sure things stay intact. Yharnam is a city like Boletaria, full of religion. With this, an argument can be made that Demons do not need the fog to be summoned and that the Dream and Nightmare realms are their homes and the fog just allows them to come onto the Earth. For Amygdala, it’s hard to say if it was a worshipped then came into existence, but it seems odd that humanity would create this cosmic visage in the first place. For Demon’s Souls, Gods like the Storm King are a viable depiction of a god. Amygdala looks like something that has always been there. Though, in cut enemies of Bloodborne, Demons that resemble something of a traditional Demon.

These things prove somewhat that the fog creates Demons based off of the beliefs of the people around them. At least, that is the only explanation I can come up with. It looks exactly like a Christian Demon someone would depict, fire, brimstone with “terrifying” wings.

The early common depictions of Satan, which matches somewhat with the Demonic depiction of the “Creeper” as it is called. To make a long story short, the Fog still obviously creates Demons out of the beliefs of the people. Amygdala does not seem to be one of those, however. There if no proof that they aren’t, but it seems unlikely.

Going back to my first point, there is no clear way to link Amygdalae to Allant directly. However, given the nature of the Amygdalae in cut content it seems Allant is a madman who through this has become a Demon visually similar to other Demons. This also harkens back to the concept of evolution and becoming a Great One. So in this sense, the point was to become a Demon like them, to become a demon with great power, possibly the goal was to become exactly like the Old One which isn’t surprising. Byrgenwerth was always apart of the story so the evolution part was definitely most likely a thing for a while. Anyhow, Allant in the original plot of Demon’s Souls definitely was not trying to become an Amygdala but in Bloodborne, the Amygdala definitely are something people like they want to become it, most likely. Amygdala still has remnants of its’ worshippers with Patches. He wants to sacrifice you to Amygdala, but can’t. Amygdala definitely has a cult even still which was probably more prominent in earlier iterations. 

Speaking of cults, some cut characters suggest something about this. Some figure of “Justice” and influence in the Healing Church: - Louvan - Aragon - Idona These characters are never actually used, they seem to all be a cut minister character. However, they all seem to be related to “Justice”, someone in the Healing Church who decides the worthiness, or something like that. So, this person is in high power. Meaning they are influential, this leads to the fact these people have the influence they most likely tell the Yharnamites to worship these Demons. They most likely keep in touch with the Choir so they know some pretty important knowledge. So, yes, these characters are pretty comparable to religious world leaders who basically make people worship their God. Except, it’s more complex. The Amygdalae probably do not care or possibly do not even know what is going on around them and are just surveying human behavior. So in the end, it’s a ruthless effort to worship something that doesn’t even care about your existence, which is a nice detail story-wise. 

To finish this off, there isn’t a strong connection between Allant and the Amygdalae, nevertheless, the Amygdalae have always had an intriguing role. I might edit this post later for some clarity and more information but for now, have my first cut content post, enjoy! Any critique, feedback and or things that can be added upon, please let me know! I’d love to hear.

[nerdy-bits]

XCOM: Chimera Squad Review

XCOM Chimera Squad is my definition of a pleasant surprise. Just soldiering through quarantine on a lazy April Tuesday afternoon, across my news feed comes the improbable: a new XCOM game getting shadow dropped. Just a short ten days away, Chimera Squad would be releasing. What’s more? If you preordered, or purchased before May first, the game was only ten dollars.

 Now I fully recognize, it may be the trying times we’re enduring, but that lazy tuesday suddenly felt like Christmas.

 I’ve been a huge fan of XCOM since the reboot, Enemy Unknown, was released in 2012. I remember doing my research and discovering XCOM had first launched in 1994, but I never had the chance to play those games. Regardless, ten minutes into Enemy Unknown I knew I was sold.

Where Chimera Squad differs from its predecessors is, well, in a lot of places. Where XCOM 1 and 2 finds you operating as the Commander of XCOM, at first an international force assembled to fight back alien invasion, then as a resistance seeking to overthrow alien overlords, Chimera Squad is the result of an XCOM initiative called the Reclamation Project. With the war against the occupying aliens won, XCOM tasks an interspecies team of operatives to support the police of City 31. The former hub of Advent control, City 31 has become the world’s model city for human and alien integration. 

As Chimera Squad, as directed by the Reclamation Project, you are tasked with seeking out and pacifying rogue groups in the city hoping to hamper its lofty goals, and simultaneously track down and reclaim scattered wartime technologies. But, of course, things don’t go specifically to plan. In the first moments of the game you are tasked with saving the life of Mayor Nightingale. Taken hostage by dissidents, 31PD is at a standstill and calls in the cavalry. With Chimera Squad so newly formed, Verge, your Sectoid Psionic teammate has to take a cab and catch up with the team on site. 

That is the other way that Chimera Squad breaks the mold. Where other XCOM games give you a force of editable, backstory-less characters, this title has twelve operatives with names, backstories, voice actors, and personality. I wasn’t sure how I would like this change at first. Part of my love of the series is the stories that I can attach to the characters as I grow familiar with each of their abilities. And losing those soldiers becomes so much more personal when they fall in battle. 

In Chimera Squad there is no such thing as losing a character. In fact, character death results in a game over screen and a “Load Checkpoint” prompt. Gravely wounded soldiers have an increased chance at earning a scar, a semipermanent debuff that can only be cleared by sending them to rehabilitative training. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about these changes. I have moments from previous games that have stuck with me for years, based on the deaths or retrieval of lost characters. Chimera Squad axes that in the interest of telling a story with its characters, and for such a radical change, it really pays off.

Dialogue in-mission feels largely the same. Conversations back at base however, really lend to the depth of the characters. I found myself constantly bemused by the tidbits of information I could glean from these operatives interacting with each other. It only takes a couple of lines to understand where Godmother gets her callsign. In one instance, Cherub - the affectionate mascot of the squad - asks Godmother to sign off on paperwork allowing the soldier and scientist who found him to adopt him. See Cherub is a clone soldier. Created by Advent for war, but woken after the Ethereal mind control had been lifted. He explains that the two people who found him, set him free, had gotten married a few years later and now they wanted to adopt him.

I truly had no expectation that I would be charmed this much by an XCOM title. But it didn’t end there.

Later in the game, given the opportunity to recruit another unit to Chimera’s ranks, I chose Zephyr, a Hybrid bruiser whose only wield-able weapons were her fists. I rarely choose melee characters, but because Chimera Squad is so unique, I figured I would try something new. In her first mission she was a blast to use. Her attack rooted enemies, meaning they can’t move on their next turn, and after her attack she is granted an additional action point so that she can distance herself from enemies that would take advantage of her close range to shoot her. I was convinced. Then we went back to base.

In her one and only base-dialogue I heard, she asked Cherub to be her training dummy. Except, she didn’t call him by his name, she called him Knock-Off. When confronted by Terminal (another agent) that he has a name Zephyr waved them away and called for Knock-Off to come along. Always the team morale agent, he complied, telling his defender that it was ok. 

I never used Zephyr again. She literally developed workshop projects for the next 20 hours of my campaign.

Again, I never expected that an XCOM game would make me feel like this about my soldiers. And quite frankly, I absolutely fell in love with this game because of it. 

Chimera Squad is clearly built on the XCOM 2 engine. As one would assume, with that fact comes the realization that a lot of the combat mechanics for this iteration of the game are immediately familiar. This lends to Chimera Squad feeling like an expansion in a way that few stand-alones achieve. After learning the non-complex intricacies of the Breach phase, a shock and awe stage that starts every encounter, combat falls into a rhythm that fans of the series will be comfortable with. With one major adjustment.

Rather than the “I go, you go” turn-based nature of games previous, this title takes an approach that feels far more like an initiative roll in a game of Dungeons & Dragons. The devs at Firaxis re-appropriate the term “Interleaved” here. Traditionally meaning to place blank pages between printed pages of a book, here it simply means that your enemy will take turns with you, within a timeline displayed on the right side of the screen. 

This forces players, otherwise familiar with the privilege of running through all of their characters before the enemy gets a chance to act, to plan more carefully. You may only have one agent in line at the start of a fight before hostiles get to retaliate. This leads to an increase in the importance of finding the most synergistic combination of agent abilities. Who can manipulate that timeline? Who can debuff, incapacitate, or eliminate targets the fastest and with the most cascading effect?

I found myself, at the halfway point of my playthrough (about 15 hours), settling into my squad. Godmother, a mobile, agile, hard hitting, shotgun wielding enforcer. Verge, a Sectoid psionic, with the ability to disable, berserk, and mind control assailants. Patchwork, a techie drone pilot whose drone shock can arc between enemies with a chance of debuffing every target zapped. And Finally, Blueblood a gunslinger with two pistols, one that ignores cover, and the ability to fire multiple times per turn. 

In any situation, I could finagle my way into disabling or dispatching two targets fully or up to eight targets partially within my first four actions. Add to this the few odds and ends you can nab from the Scavenger Market, a transient market that visits every week, or side mission rewards, and you can find yourself with a few epic weapons, specialized buff grenades like the Motile Inducer. Two free actions, immediately, to whomever you throw it at. 

Finding these synergies and supplements, is at the core of Chimera Squad, and while the process isn’t entirely unique to this title, it certainly feels more important when the turns are interleaved, the quarters are close, and your innate advantage lasts a single, Rainbow Six-esque, breaching action. 

Over the course of your game you will investigate three factions in City 31: The Progeny, Grey Phoenix, and Sacred Coil. Each faction has different units, abilities, and motivations, and as you take out each faction, the surviving factions will scale up in response. It is your job to root out their goals, foil their plans, and neutralize the threatening potential they hold. As illustrated by the comic book-styled cutscenes, Chimera Squad is against the wall and the clock, as unrest in the city rises you have to manage threats based on their cost to your levels of unrest in the nine districts of the city. You will forgo missions that have good rewards to manage the unrest in an unruly district. Spend your investigation points to deploy Security, Technology, or Financial teams in each district to access buffs that give you the ability to stave off increased unrest, decrease unrest in specific districts, or in the city overall. 

At its core Chimera Squad is truly an XCOM game, forcing its players to train their soldiers, research projects in the workshop, manage unrest across a map, and manage resources, all while fielding an active combat team in harrowing and varied encounters. Is it XCOM 3? No, not at all, but one shouldn’t conflate the two. Chimera squad is a $20 exploration into the ways that XCOM can, and I believe will, evolve. Expect to see hero characters in the future, with backstories and voice acting. Expect to see multiple paths in the campaign, with escalative properties as the game progresses. But more than anything, expect to feel right at home with Chimera Squad, despite the ways it alters the formula. You’ve simply moved on from Sazerac to Vieux Carre. Your rye whiskey is still there, just this time you have some sweet vermouth. Enjoy.

[sepiadice]

Art Direction of Tabletop RPGs

Dungeons and Dragons is good at being Dungeons and Dragons.

That shouldn't be a controversial opinion, and it's not worded as one, yet I have one friend who derisively labels it as a war game, and another friend who believes D&D is all you need in regards to TRPGs. These two are from distinct eras of my life, and have never met.[1]

My moderate view is such: Dungeons and Dragons is good. It's not the ultimate system, but if you want a western fantasy built on the framework of Tolkien, Fifth Edition is the way to go. You could use a different system, in theory, but no other system has the same reach and stability. Everyone knows D&D, which is valuable.

Its combat and mechanics are a good balance of grit and function, and it's mostly teachable. My friend's 'wargaming' derision is because he believes it doesn't support role-playing well. Something about the guy who wrote Dungeon World saying if it's not in the rules, it’s not in the game.[2] But I've always felt that D&D makes the right decision in not bogging it down with structure and dictating the 'correct' way to role-play.

However, if you want to do anything else (Sci-fi, non-european fantasy, superheroes, Slice of Life), best case scenario the seams will creak in the attempt. D&D is good at being D&D, and that's the limit.

I appreciate D&D. I'll play D&D, happily!

There's a reason I bristle when “DM” is used as the generic term.

That said, I've always had a sort of tonal disconnect when I play D&D, and it's because of the art.

Fair warning, what follows is a lot of personal interpretations and vague mumbling trying to relay a point. I’m not actually an authority on anything.

(Dungeons & Dragons owned by Wizard of the Coast . Image sourced from Wikipedia)

Dungeons and Dragons does not have pretty art. It’s technically well done, and far from ugly, but it’s not actually inspiring. Above we have the cover of the Player’s Handbook, the first thing most new players see. Setting aside that the focus of the cover art for what should be the book about Player Characters is a giant monster man[4], the cover is very orange. The actual people are composed of muted, neutral colors, and the background is vague and out of focus.

It’s not really conveying an air of fantastic worlds and larger-than-life characters (giant wearing a dragon skeleton aside). It coveys oppression, monotony, and “realism”.

(Pathfidner owned by Paizo. Image sourced from Wikipedia)

Pathfinder’s core rulebook, on the other hand, is colorful. Look at that big, bright dragon![5] Sensibly dressed Fighter Man’s brown clothes are still bright enough to pop him out from the green-grey dungeon background[6], and Fantastic Sorceress’s red dress is also bright and helps frame the Fighter as her hand glows with magic.

While both covers feature a woman with an orb of magic, D&D’s cover shows magic as contained and lighting a small space, while Pathfinder’s magic is big and trailing, hinting at movement.

Actually, D&D’s mage girl doesn’t have a cohesive movement. Is she falling from above? Jumping in from the left? Where is she going? It doesn’t really follow in a meaningful way.

Anyways: color. Yes, yes, I know the plague of brown and and muted tones is a much whined about criticism, and it might seem odd from someone calling himself SepiaDice, but neutral tones have their place; usually as background and supporting other colors to pop more.

Besides, Sepia has a noble history in film, the brown range isn’t a common image color, and Sepia is fun to say.[7]

Color choice is very important. Bright colors draw the eye and make visuals more distinctive. Bright colors also denote and bring energy to things. Dull colors are used for locations meant to be calm and sedate. If you want the characters and locations to seem fun and full of life, you fill it with bright colors.

Everything breaths, adventure can strike at anytime!

Dull colors, and it’s hibernation. People are around, but they don’t seem to enjoy it.

But let’s turn to the visual storytelling: what does each cover tell you about life in their setting?

D&D: lots of posing to look fancy, but there’s no real sense of energy. Jumpy Magerson’s weird Megaman hop has been mentioned, of course. The Giant has a look of dull surprise as he drops Jumpy Magerson,[8] as he holds a sword in the non-active hand. Foreground fencer man is wide open, holding his own foil up and away from where it might accidentally jab anyone. The locations is… orange? Looks like there might be lava geysers?

Patherfinder: A dragon roars at its enemies! Teeth bared, tongue coiled, tendons on display! Wings unfurled to make it seem larger! The fighter is yelling back at the dragon, his weapons mid-swing! Shoulder forwards to defend the rest of the body! The Sorceress is holding a firm stance as she casts a spell that crackles with arcane energy!

Pathfinder’s cover tells a story of epic combat, fizzly magic, and energy. D&D’s cover tells a story of two adventurers existing in a space also occupied by a giant.

Now, both of these systems have the same ancestry, as Pathfinder is an iteration on D&D 3.5.[9] But one sparks more joy when I look at it.

But let’s do another case study. I’ll need an audience volunteer, and my brother’s the only person immediately on hand.

I’m going to make him list three qualities of goblins real quick:

Green

Wimpy

Sneaky

Awesome. Don’t know if the green text translated, but those are what he wrote. Give him a hand!

So, with those three traits in mind, let’s look at a goblin picture from D&D Beyond:

(Owned by Wizards of the Coast. Source here)

Like, you can’t say D&D doesn’t call that a goblin, it’s literally on the goblin page.

This guy is yellow. He’s built like a four foot tall WWE Wrestler. He’s defending with his advancing arm as he rears up to smack ya!

(Okay, “Sneaky” is a hard one to argue.)

Moving on, what does Pathfinder call a Goblin:

(Owned by Paizo. Source here)

Look at this charming miscreant! Green. Big ole head. Good mix of of ugly and oddly adorable. Probably two feet tall, and happens to want your two feet, please, but you could step on him if you’d like.

He also looks like a Gremlin

(An adorable little chaos monster owned by Warner Brothers. Source)

Point is, Pathfinder’s more cartoony take on the classic monster feels more in the spirit of the thing. Every time I see one of those goofy faces, I feel like I’m in for an enjoyable time.

Bringing us back around to the point of this essay: the art direction of D&D bogs down my theater of the mind. The art in the rulebooks don’t inspire creativity or fantastic visions. It inspires… dull, lifeless people walking through dirt roads flanked by dead grass.

I don’t enjoy looking at D&D’s art. Relatedly, I don’t like looking at the art of Magic: the Gathering, whose style I can’t help by see in every D&D sourcebook cover I see. Neither game invokes an inviting world, but utilitarian ones that exist to give quick, forgettable visual flair to represent mechanical card effects.

To save making this long essay even longer and unfocused, I’ll save talk of actual ‘canon’ lore for another time.[10]

So why do I, a semi-professional funny man and sad dreamer who can’t actually draw, want to talk about rulebook art?

Well, I’ve always felt a disconnect when I play D&D. I make the characters, I roll the dice, I attempt to role-play, but I’ve always had an emotional gap between me and the character I’m playing. I like the concept, but when I use my theater of the mind, the character feels stiff and divorced from everything. Kind of like the 5th Edition rulebook.

Then I saw this:

(Source tweet. All of this artist’s work is great and I wish I could hire them.)

This half-elf showed up on my twitter timeline, and my first thought was ‘How come my characters don’t look like that?’

Soon followed by ‘Why couldn’t they?’

Then I completed the trilogy with ‘Why haven’t I imagined my characters in a style appealing to me?’

As I was deep into contemplating what sort of aesthetic I consider my “brand”,[11] it was entering a mind primed to start overanalyzing.

So, how do I imagine my characters? In the neighborhood of the D&D art, if I have  firm concept. Micah Krane always was mentally nebulous to me, just kinda being a generic half-elf dude. Trix (who was created for the brightly colored Pathfinder) is green-haired and wears a tail coat, but otherwise is also normal looking in my mind’s eye. In the last two D&D campaigns, Tybalt was also vague in appearance, and Teddi had Goat horns, but those were meant to stand out on a generic rogue character.[13]

But you know what I’ve never put on a character I’ve played? Glasses.

I hope that those who read my various media reviews[14] don’t need this overly explained, but I like glasses. I, myself, don’t wear glasses, but I find them to be great accessories in character design. Frames the eyes, come in a variety of shapes, adds bit of extra visual interest. I always point out Meganekkos and pay them extra attention.[15] I really, really like girls with glasses.

But I’ve never made one. Because there’s no cute design in D&D rulebooks. Just a range of handsome people to ugly halflings.[16]

That is the effect of art design in a system. It sets tone, expectations, and aesthetic for the players. It’s so ingrained that everytime I see art of players’ characters that break the standard, it always takes me aback. It’s inspiring to see artists who manage to divorce D&D the game from D&D the art.

I want to imagine fun, personally appealing characters. But the subtle direction of the insert art as I look through to rulebook, or the provided character portraits of D&D Beyond does not suggest things I like to see. It infects the mind, and leaves specific molds. People in practical, mundane clothes, walking down drab, uninteresting roads.

It’s the same lack of escapism that makes Western (Video Game) RPGs super unappealing to me.[17] Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Bioshock don’t look like fun places to be, they look tiring and full of splintery furniture waiting to do 1d4 nonlethal damage.

So I have to talk about anime now.

My mother was staying at my home a little while ago, and I turned on My Roommate is a Cat. This prompted her ask me about what about anime was appealing. I couldn’t form a competent answer for the question at the time, but it’s had time to churn in my head.

Anime is a good middle ground between cartoon and realism. It can broach deeper topics and more mature storytelling than children’s cartoons,[18] without sacrificing a light visual tone and fantastic imagery. Also, the fact that it’s produced by a non-American, non-European culture lends a degree of separation with cultural expectations and tropes. Enhances Escapism.

Luckily, in (very) recent years, after generations of exchanging video games and animation back and forth, Japanese Tabletop RPGs are starting to join in on the fun.

Which means I can look at Ryuutama.

(Image copied from DriveThruRPG. Brought over the pacific by Kotodama Heavy Industries. Buy this book.)

I love this system.

Watercolor art direction. Layout evokes a spellbook. Two Characters and a Dog take the focus on the cover, while the road signs and tiny shrine in the background invoke the emphasis on travel and wonder.

The interior art?

(Taken off the Ryuutama (english) website. Buy this book.)

Well, that makes the game just look like fun. Cartoony characters fighting cat goblins. Conflict, but it doesn’t make life feel like a constant struggle. A world I wish to inhabit. There’s also more detailed images of dragons and other world-establishing pictures mixed in to give the art range, but it’s this sort of charming that makes Ryuutama the first rulebook I actually sat and read cover to cover.[19] It’s a good system I already reviewed. Buy this PDF, maybe they’ll reprint the physical book.

Anyways, I’ll admit, the art’s a little too simple for D&D. Perfect for Ryuutama, and the end of the scale I want my mental image to be, but overshoots the sweet spot. And it’s difficult enough to find players for the much more popular 5e, so Ryuutama exclusivity would grind my playtime to zero.

Still, Ryuutama does a great job of setting it’s light, fantastic tone, where D&D has failed me. The art direction of the books, and years of exposure and defaulting to what I assume D&D should look for establishes a mental habit that’s hard to break. Wizards of the Coast has drowned nerd spaces with its particular kind of art, especially with MtG plastered all over hobby stores, deck boxes, dice, playmats, and even D&D sourcebooks.

That’s not even accounting for fanworks and the speculative fiction art in online spaces.

So what do I want to look like? Were I blessed with talent or with patient to actually learn to draw well, what would I be referencing?

What about what set my expectations of fantasy years before IndigoDice invited me to that fateful Traveller game?

(Screen cap of Tales of Vesperia grabbed from here.)

Well, okay, what I’m actually thinking about is Tales of Symphonia, but Vesperia’s graphics are kinda what nostalgia tells me Symphonia tooked like, as opposed to what it actually looks like.[20]

Look at that verdant town! Warm lighting, bright characters, leaves growing to depict life. A hotel built into a tree. This is a fantasy world that is unashamed about life thriving.

Forget solarpunk. This is my aesthetic.

As for the party members…

(Okay, Judith’s a little gratuitous, but The Definitive Edition lets me put her in a suit, and she’s awesome. Art stolen from here.)

Oddly enough, as far as JRPG outfits go, these are pretty tame with details.[21] Mostly bright, popping colors, even Yuri’s dark clothes are done in such a way to not feel grim and edgy, hints of personality, and I just enjoy looking at them.

The Tales series as a whole does a good job of taking European fantasy and applying Japanese whimsy to the design. Also yukatas. Every member looks like the hero of their own story, while still being part of a cohesive whole.

Which is, you know, the ideal way to operate as a TRPG party.

So, what’s the take away?

Artists, keep being creative. Pull inspiration in from things besides the rulebooks and Critical Role. Look at the other things you love and bring visual flare and whimsy to your art. Then share it. Ignite the passions of those of us who can’t do the draw-good thing.

Players, play with the tropes. I love doing it narratively and mechanically. My favorite rogue is still my neutral good stage magician who would never do a crime. Explore what’s possible in the freeform world of tabletop games, both in play and your Theater of the Mind.

Game designers, branch out with the art. And stop using Powered by the Apocalypse as a crutch.[22]

Hope this long ramble was enjoyable and cohesive. If you want more of this, my other works, and maybe to allow me to make an actual play podcast, consider supporting me through Patreon or Ko-fi.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.

[1] Though I would love to read a transcript of the two discussing it. It'd be a fun debate. [2] I don't like Powered by the Apocalypse for precisely this reason. Every actual play I've heard with the system has players talking about their characters in the abstract, because they're just pressing the buttons on their character sheet.[3] [3] I maybe should do a breakdown of PbtA one day. [4] Which is pretty poor direction. Do an epic group shot of characters battling a horde around them. [5] None of the D&D core books has a dragon on the cover. Come on, that should’ve been a gimme! [6] Similar note as footnote 5. [7] Also CornflowerBlueDice is too long to be catchy. [8] I figured it out! [9] I haven’t looked at at Pathfinder’s forthcoming second edition. Fifth Edition reclaimed it’s throne as The ubiquitous system after fourth lost its footing, so I don’t think there’s much point. [10] TL;DR: I ignore it. [11] Pulp Fantasy is too mundane. Steampunk is too victorian-y. Sci-fi fractals into so much. Solarpunk has appeal, but isn’t quite right.[12] [12] Haven’t really found the term. [13] Let’s not examine that I put more thought into female character design than male for the moment. [14] Which you should. Validate my efforts! [15] And desperately pray it’s considered innocent enough of a fetish that I don’t have to stop. [16] Never liked halflings. Gnomes are fine. Halflings, in art, have always been off-putting and malformed. [17] That and the emphasis of character customization kneecapping the Player Character’s narrative involvement. Can’t give them a personality if that’s the end user’s job! [18] Even Avatar: The Last Airbender felt like it had to sneak the narrative depth it achieved past corporate. [19] I do need to give it a reread, though. Relearn the system. [20] It still looks good, especially the environment, but the characters are kind of… leaning towards chibi. [21] This, specifically, is why I chose to highlight Vesperia over Rune Factory. [22] Technically nothing to do with this essay, but I can’t stress this point enough.

[emilyplaysotome]

Chapter 8 - Hiding in Plain Sight

Catch up on Chapters 1 - 7 here! (or just Chapter 7)

I calmed myself down by reminding myself that Meg was no bright eyed fool.

She was a New Yorker in the most stereotypical sense - slightly cynical, (at the moment) jaded towards relationships, and completely self-sufficient. Her second year into her relationship with Noah, Meg had gotten laid off when a major brand had left the agency she was employed at.

Noah was an engineer and steadily rising in the corporate ranks at the time. He’d suggested that they move in together in order to take any pressure off of her, but Meg had flatly refused. She had appreciated the gesture but refused to allow herself to be rescued by some white knight. Instead, she revised her resume and updated her site, applying to jobs and freelancing before she was offered a creative director role at a superior agency than the one who laid her off.

With her upgraded title and upgraded employer, she then considered Noah’s offer to live together and rather than move into either of their apartments, they found a new place together that was also a considerable upgrade.

I remember secretly admiring how Meg had handled herself back then and wondered if I would have handled myself as well as she did. With that said, there was no way she would let her guard down (even in otome-ville) and certainly not with a PUA type like Baba.

Rather than get derailed with what ifs, I refocused on what I needed to do in order to get her home in a timely fashion. I pulled out my laptop and saw that Anita had sent me another message, “Naomi I know you’re sick but we couldn’t reschedule - can you do a video conference at 2? Please!?”

I’d hoped to sneak down to the Tribeca precinct that was dangerously close to my office during that time but with the realization that pressing pause on my life was impossible, I begrudgingly agreed to dial into the Zoom meeting. With an hour to kill I sent a flirty text to Hiroshi - confirming that we were still on for our date tomorrow in the park. 

He didn’t reply immediately and I wondered if this was thanks to his new persona, or if he was merely tied up at work.

As for Soryu, I was at a loss but figured it couldn’t hurt to take a closer look at Terek’s card. I noticed that there was a phone number and email address listed but waffled on whether or not emailing him would lead anywhere. Instead, I opted to google Soryu and his arrest information. I was surprised to find out that he’d posted bail - something that seemed off considering the fact that bail had been set fairly high and he had been mugging people on the train for spare change.

There was no further information as far as if he’d been the one to pay or if someone else had covered it, and before I knew it I had to stop sleuthing and instead dial into Anita’s video conference.

“Hey Naomi - are you with us?”

The quality of the feed made it hard to see who exactly was in the room, but it was clear that the office’s largest conference room was packed full of clients and coworkers.

“Yep! I’m here. Hello everyone.”

“Thanks for dialing in. I know you’re feeling under the weather but I wanted to make sure you were present for this discovery meeting,” Anita said, leading the meeting. “We’ve already done intros so when you’re back in person we’ll be sure to go through that again, but for now I’d like to make the most of our time together and dive in.”

“Sounds good. It’s nice to meet you all.”

I saw the pixilated people nod in acknowledgement and Anita let them know in a lighthearted way that I was 360i’s resident digital marketing expert before moving on to the brand discovery. 

I learned that this “new brand” Anita had been hinting at was actually a hospitality behemoth in Asia that was looking to break into the American market. At the moment their luxury hotel was almost ready to open in New York and they were looking to partner with an agency who could lead a successful digital marketing campaign that would help launch the brand.

We would have one month of prep and discovery (where we’d learn about the brand, their guidelines in order to formulate where in the NYC hospitality space there was a gap that they could fill), a pitch against two other agencies, and once awarded, only one month before the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The owner of the hotel (Hyun Kim) was a heavyset gentleman with salt and pepper hair who sat next to Anita taking notes on a sleek laptop. His fingers made an abnormally loud clacking sound on the keyboard, but his colleagues seemed used to it whereas I noticed a few of my coworkers glancing over from time to time.

Nothing was said during this initial discovery meeting that I found particularly meaningful. In general, I’d worked on and for several hospitality brands and they all required the same type of marketing. The only thing that stood out to me was the fact that this brand did not offer the standard amenities of a luxury hotel but also had created a “health and fitness” component.

LT Hotels was planning to roll out in addition to their spa offerings spin, barre, and yoga classes. Having just been reminded of how cramped NYC gyms tend to be, I silently wondered if there might be an opportunity in our NYC launch strategy by opening up these services to the public for a healthy fee. It seemed like a way not only to define LT Hotels (allowing them to keep half of the space in their classes for guests and half for local members) while maintaining the upper class, expensive and exclusive atmosphere.

I jotted down a small note to research luxury gyms in the city and get a cost estimate, also factoring in that members would have access to LT Hotels’ spa services at a discounted rate, should we propose something along those lines.

At the end of the hour, I thanked Mr. Kim and his team for their time and Anita brought the video meeting to a close. 

Just before she did, I caught a glimpse of some of the men who were on Mr. Kim’s team towards the back and noted that it was slightly ironic that a luxury hotel and spa brand that appealed primarily to women was headed up exclusively by men.

With my work obligation complete, I pulled out all the stops to find Namba knowing that once 6 pm hit I wouldn’t be able to find him until Monday, should he currently be working a 9-5. I raced down to the TriBeCa precinct (and by raced I mean hobbled seeing as how I was incredibly sore), and strolled right up to the front desk where a weathered, butch female officer asked, “How can I help ya hon?”

“I’m actually looking for someone who used to work here - Jin Namba?”

Unimpressed, she raised an eyebrow and said, “And who would you be?”

“Naomi Lee.”

“Hold.”

I watched as she dialed a few numbers on a beat up phone and gruffly said, “Yeah, Fitzgerald - do you remember Jin ever mentioning someone named Naomi Lee?”

There was a pause and she eyed me up and down before quietly saying, “I dunno, regular lookin’ for this area. Dark hair and eyes. Why? Ok. Ok…sure.”

She hung up and informed me to take a seat. 

I wasn’t entirely sure as to what was happening but after a short wait a burly, Irish cop in his 40s approached me. His ID revealed him as the man the woman at the front had been speaking with and with a smile he gave me a small wave.

“Hey there.”

“Hi,” I said, standing.

“Do you mind going for a walk with me?”

It was a little odd, but Officer Fitzgerald didn’t seem to be shady or scary and so, I followed him outside. We made small talk for a block and a half before he finally revealed that he wasn’t really supposed to say anything about Jin, but had remembered him talking about a girl he was crazy about.

“You’re that girl, aren’t you?”

I flushed and nodded, “I think so.”

“So why you lookin’ for him now when before you didn’t give him the time of day before?”

“Did he tell you I was engaged?”

“Was?”

“Yes, was.”

Officer Fitzgerald smiled, “Shit. I’m a sucker for a happy ending. I was gonna grill you but fuck it - he’s a PI now.”

“That’s a real thing?”

“Sure it is! You mean to tell me you thought it was only somethin’ in movies?”

Officer Fitzgerald let out a good natured tsk and with another grin told me the address of Jin’s office a few blocks away.

“You think I can just…go?”

“You better go! I expect to be the best man at this wedding, ya know.”

“Officer -”

“Call my Fitzy - all my friends do.”

There was something magical about a city where a tough looking man had a soft cuddly nickname and I found myself smiling as a result.

“Thanks Fitzy. I owe you one.”

“Hope it works out. Don’t break my dude’s heart, ok?”

I started to walk in the director of Jin’s office, but Fitzy stopped me by calling out, “And Naomi - if anyone asks���you didn’t hear any of this from me.”

“You got it,” I said and then picked up the pace towards Jin’s office in the west most section of TriBeCa.

“Can I help you?”

I found myself frozen standing in front of Jin Namba as the magic hour light flooded the large windows and illuminated his office, creating a warm glow around a man who still occupied a special place in my heart. He was the same Jin he’d always been - tall, serious, and eyes that had a hint of good natured mischief behind them.

Out of all of this world’s iterations, he was the closest to his original self - wearing a rumpled, outdated suit that was slightly too large as his five o’clock shadowed ventured on beard territory.

I think it was because of how familiar he currently felt to me that caused all these old feelings to come racing back and I found myself fighting back tears knowing that I wasn’t familiar to him at all.

“Miss - are you ok?” He asked cautiously.

“It’s Namoi,” I said. “Ami. Naomi. You don’t remember either one, do you?”

“Either? I don’t understand…”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m sorry.”

Jin ushered me to have a seat in his office. The space had a small waiting area, but there was no receptionist and from what I could see it was just Jin in an office resembled the one he’d occupied in Her Love in the Force. It was ironic that he’d lost his recollection of who he was, and yet had managed to recreate a space from his past.

He sat behind a large mahogany desk and I sat across from him and watched as he pulled out a vape pen and inhaled.

“So what brings you here?” He asked quietly, sensing my emotional upheaval.

“I’m looking for someone, but I don’t know who…”

Jin grinned and I felt my heart jump in my chest, “Sounds like quite the pickle Little Bird.”

“What did you just call me?”

For a moment, I could see in Jin’s eyes that he looked lost. He whispered the nickname to himself again and then apologized, noting that he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but that there was something familiar about me. Hearing that made me feel received - as if for once, I wasn’t experiencing something that was completely one-sided.

It was strange that I felt so nostalgic now, seeing as how since our breakup, I’d never looked back.

I knew why I had chosen Zyg and had also not-so-secretly thought that Jin was slightly too old for me. Despite that, there was something about the fact that even the “changed” Jin at his core was so closely tied to the man he was that even the king himself failed to alter him drastically. Perhaps it due to his age that he had maintained this strong sense of “self” while his younger otome counterparts had been altered much more.

The utterance of his old nickname for me conjured a bunch of feelings in both of us, and he mentioned that he’d gotten into a skirmish at work and suffered a blow to the head which the doctor said caused temporary amnesia. 

I knew it was less of a blow to the head and more the doing of a nefarious king, but seeing as how Jin didn’t seem to want to go into detail he changed the subject and asked, “Anyway, how do you propose finding someone whose identity you don’t know?”

“I have no idea,” I said, “which is why I came to you hoping that you could help.”

“I mostly do cheating spouses, runaway kids, that kind of thing…this….”

“Why’d you quit the force?”

He paused, and I watched a flicker of curiosity flash through his gaze causing him to take another drag of his vape pen and avert his eyes before asking, “You knew me from before?”

“Something like that.”

“Being an officer in this city is dangerous. I’m gettin’ too old for that kind of thing. I thought tailing adulterers would be a bit safer and have far more job security.”

“That doesn’t sound like the person I knew.”

“How did we know each other Little Bird? I get the sense we weren’t just casual acquaintances.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because when I look at you…no. Nothing.”

“No, what?”

I could feel myself leaning towards him with a seductive look that I hadn’t anticipated wearing. He grinned at me and ran his fingers through his hair and with that irresistible smirk of his playfully noted, “I gotta be on guard around you heartbreaker.”

I pretended that he didn’t, though of course I was planning to get that kiss. For now, I celebrated the fact that I’d found five of the six men and left his office fifteen minutes later, promising to compile a list as far as who my top suspects for the king’s mystery sixth person was in this world. 

As I stood in that small waiting area, I boarded the elevator feeling pretty good about this plan of Jin helping me locate this mystery man. However, when the elevator doors closed and I was alone once more, I realized that time was a flat circle and I had a legitimate, authentic crush on Jin Namba once more.

I managed not to run into any of my coworkers on the way home, and walked into my apartment tired but feeling on top of the world.

I collapsed on my couch and took out my planner to make sure I was on track to get Meg back (and also show the king who was boss). As I reviewed things, I also took notes with the hopes of brainstorming for situations that didn’t seem to have a clear answer at the moment.

Regardless though as drained as I was, I was also feeling very accomplished.

Tomorrow I was set to go out with Hiroshi. I’d met Soryu but had no idea as to his whereabouts. Thea’s contact information was in my phone and as much as it pained me, I could follow up and hopefully figure out what Zyglavis’ new life looked like. Hijikata had me popping Advil like they were candy but I was hopeful my haiku had started to thaw his heart. And finally, I was relieved to know that Jin hadn’t been transformed into some sexist, racist bad iteration of a NYPD cop.

Just as my guard started to come down there was a bright light and a snap and the King of the Heavens stood with an annoyed looking Meg standing next to him.

“Meg!”

I ran towards her and gave her a hug which she reciprocated.

“Ah tut tut,” the king said, gently separating us. “I’ll admit that I was amazed by your progress, but until you tell me the names and whereabouts of all the men you don’t get this one back.”

“Meg, are you-”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me…”

“Goldfish!” The king barked, “Names and whereabouts now or I send her back!”

“But I’ve only found five of the six.”

With a devilish grin the king laughed and noted, “Oh ho! I should have known you weren’t that clever.”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t even realize that you found the sixth man?!”

The king’s laughter grew from a chuckle into a hearty belly laugh and I racked my brain trying to think of all the places I’d gone today - from the subway, to the bodega, and even those at Hijikata’s gym. Either way, I’d been far too distracted to really notice and was beating myself up as a result.

Meg caught my attention by covertly waving her hands in the hopes of pulling me out of my stupor. She stood slightly behind the king (out of his eyeline) who was having a grand ol’ time at my expense, and mouthed something at me while pointing to her pocket. Before I could process everything that was happening the king snapped his fingers and she was gone once more.

“Just text me when you figure out the identity of the 6th man,” the king said flippantly, dabbing the tears that formed from laughter before snapping his fingers and leaving me alone again.

I let out an angry moan and collapsed on the couch once more, frustrated and wondering how it was possible that I could have met the last man without realizing. I had been so tired when I came in that I was still in my army jacket and as I slumped onto the couch I heard a crinkle and remembered Meg’s gesturing.

It was then that I reached into my pocket and discovered the list of possible suspects I’d written out before the king had taken her. My eyes widened as I saw that not only had Meg survived her time in the otome world, but she’d continued to be my ally as more than half of the names on my list were crossed out.

I now had three suspects for the mystery sixth man, and to be honest I wasn’t happy about who they were.

Chapter 9 here

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[wozman23]

My 2020 in Gaming

I finished my 100th video game of the year yesterday. In a normal year that would be an embarrassing feat. By in 2020, pretty much stuck within these four walls for nearly nine months now, I'm really proud of it. The last few years, my gaming habits took a severe hit due to working too much. I was fortunate to have the finances to pick up the PlayStation VR and the Switch, but I couldn't dedicate a lot of time to them, and when I did, the joy wasn't there as much since I was often exhausted. In 2018, I still managed to get through almost 40 games, but last year that number fell to 25. There was so much I wanted to play, but I just didn't have the free time. And then 2020 dealt me a lifeline... When LA came to a halt, three and a half months into the year, I was only working on finishing Game #6. Since then, I've been on a tear. A large part of my efficiency came from two choices. In late April, I signed up for Xbox Game Pass for $1 for the first month. Then in June, the “Racial Injustice” Bundle with hundreds of PC games – about a dozen of which I really wanted to play - released on itch.io. Overall, it was a solid mix of AAA games and indie games, although I've skewed more toward indies for years now. There were big anticipated releases like The Last of Us, Part II and Doom Eternal. Splatoon 2 finally got the shrink wrap pulled off that it's been suffocating in for years. (It was fantastic, so I'm not sure why I waited so long.) There were massive games that I put dozens of hours into, like my 77 hours descending into the madness of Hades, or my 69 soaking in the world of Ghost of Tsushima, with a sizeable chunk of those hours being me just toying around with Photo Mode. (Props to the PS5 for finally telling you your playtimes via the OS.) There were dozens of small indie games that only took a few hours to complete – which is kind of my sweet spot these days. A few weighed in at just 30 minutes, like Swarm, a Steam game I found through Get Indie Gaming's Youtube channel, or Syphonia, a student project from ISART Digital that I was anticipating. There were games I replayed, like some of my favorites of all time, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and Alan Wake, as well as the remastered versions of Ghostbusters: The Video Game and the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro trilogies. There was great stuff I paid for, and a few awesome games that I got for free through the Epic Games Store, or via subscriptions with PlayStation Plus, Game Pass Ultimate, or the times I took advantage of free trials of Amazon Prime. And I even got hooked on an online multiplayer only game, which has only happened on a handful of occasions in the history of online play.A lot of people are going to look back on 2020 as a terrible year, but for me it's been a godsend. It's allowed me to enjoy multiple passions, with gaming being one of the biggest. Like any hobby, my gaming habits over the years have ebbed and flowed. Overall, the last generation I've been fortunate to own every major console for the first time in a generation. Yet – outside of a few phenomenal games like Horizon Zero Dawn, ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission on VR, and the other aforementioned PlayStation first party titles – overall I wasn't really impressed as much with the AAA offerings. The indie scene is only gaining ground. But with the PS5, the proper return of my all-time favorite franchise, Ratchet & Clank, and my Game Pass renewed until 2022, I'm optimistic about where gaming is headed. As for my favorite games that released this year, here's my list: 1. The Last of Us, Part II 2. Battletoads 3. CARRION 4. Hades 5. ASTRO's Playroom 6. Filament 7. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout 8. Bugsnax 9. Ghost of Tsushima 10. Ori and the Will of the Wisps The Last of Us, Part II The original The Last of Us was my favorite game of the previous generation, as well as the most impressive game of all time. It was mind-numbingly good, so much so that I really did not want a sequel. I didn't even want to replay it. It was one of those things that just felt complete. Nothing more needed to be said, and in doing so, there would be a large risk at ruining what made it great. Slowly, Naughty Dog eroded away at me, and I began to anticipate the sequel. Right before it I even replayed the remaster of the original. Part II is one of those rare project that manages to one-up what you thought was already perfection. It's like a 30 hour blockbuster movie that just keeps ramping up in intensity. So much of what makes it special is within the design of its details: the way it presents itself, the pacing, its message. Like many, key details were spoiled by online trolls prior to launch, but it really didn't matter. This post could be just as long and be only about The Last of Us, Part II. (I still may write something up at some point.) There's just so much of it to dissect. But it's impossible to talk about without spoiling all of its magical moments. It simply offers a masterclass in game design and narrative flow. I really don't need a Part III, but should one exist, I know damn well I'll be there. Battletoads I loved the original Battletoads. I even replayed it, and beat it with the help of the Rare Replay rewind feature right after playing the new entry. It's practically impossible otherwise. When there was talk of a new game I was hyped. But when it was finally revealed, with a completely different art style, I was taken aback. Because of that, I went in to the new entry not expecting much. However, that stylistic choice is exactly what put it in the Number 2 spot in my list. The original Battletoads concept was created to ape the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the original game felt much like the early TMNT brawlers. The new Battletoads doubles down though, expanding their empire to combat TMNT's cartoons. The game itself is a fairly straight forward 2D brawler, that looks and plays great, but the real stars are the cutscenes and the humor. It has this great Saturday morning cartoon vibe that I've never seen a game nail near as well. I don't watch a lot of the modern cartoons, but many have compared it to Rick & Morty. It's really quick, and silly, and feels exactly what a company should be aiming for if they wanted to create the next TMNT craze in the world today. Sure, the game itself is nowhere near perfect in all dimensions, but the way it tackles humor is really impressive and admirable. That's the main reason it occupies my Number 2 spot. CARRION CARRION reminds me a lot of INSIDE, typeset aside. INSIDE for me was this solid atmospheric game that at it's end became this awesome fever dream, but was over just when it was getting interesting. CARRION feels like INSIDE's spiritual successor. You play as this creepy creature, with all these grotesque tentacles, and you just run amok. It's just plain fun. Plus it's an insanely unique lifeform to play as, and there's nothing more I love than playing a game where you take on the role of some strange creature. Like many of the indie games I love, CARRION doesn't overstay its welcome. Over the few hours of its journey, it iterates, provides you with some unique challenges, they grabs its hat and coat and bids you adieu. There's nothing more I love than a game with that approach. Show me something cool. Make me play something that feels like something I've yet to experience in my over 30 years of gaming. Then get out of the way so that I can find another game that makes me feel that way. Kudos to Game Pass as well for partnering with the CARRION developers and offering the game on release day. I was looking forward to the game, but with so many games on my radar, I often simply can't get around to all of them. Had I needed to purchase CARRION, it might have had to wait in the wings for a while. I've played so many games on Game Pass this year that I may have otherwise never actually purchased, and many of them have found the ranks among my favorites from the last few years. Hades Up until now, I'd like Supergiant Games as a creative studio. I've played all of their games, and loved the artistry present in them. However, I've always felt like the gameplay was a bit lackluster. Not previously being a fan of roguelike games – although Game Pass has provided some great experiences there as well – I initially had no plans to buy Hades. But praise was unanimous, the Epic Store gave people a $10 coupon just for downloading Rocket League for free, and it was on sale for $5 off, so I scooped it up for $10. At first, I thought I had made a mistake. I wasn't really into it. But then it slowly started to sink its hooks into me. After about 30 runs, I'd finally vanquished Hades himself. And what was your reward: a brief encounter with your mother, followed by your death and cyclical return to The Underworld. And that's really where the brilliance of Hades comes in. In beating the game, you realize you have only scratched the surface. I played around 70 more runs. I got the full story from my mother. I tried out the different weapons. I played around with the perks and heat gauge. I maxed out the relationships with almost everyone. (I never got Demeter's final few dialog options to pop.) All along the way, I kept thinking, I'll quit after I do X, but then Y and Z would egg me on even further. I spent 77 hours in that world. Sometimes, with nothing to do during the day, I'd practically play all day long. No other game this year took up that much of my time. Few ever do. Not bad for a game I initially had buyers remorse for. ASTRO's Playroom I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get a PS5 at launch. I got lucky on release day thanks to the PlayStation Direct website. (Every other retailer is a giant hunk of shit, who doesn't care if they sell to an actually gaming fan or some asshole reseller.) Had I not secured an early PS5, it wasn't a big deal. Most of the games I wanted to play were coming to PS4 as well. The baked-in ASTRO's Playroom was the only exception. And there's always that extra special feeling of playing something right when it comes out. It's funny to think that the best PS5 game is given away for free with every console, but that is just the case. Much like ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission, which did wonders for showing off what PlayStation VR could do – it was my 2018 GOTY - ASTRO's Playroom shows off what the PS5 can do, primarily via the advancements of the DualSense controller and the solid state hard drive. I've never been one to care for graphics, and the PS5 will surely evolve over time, but those two details are what makes the device feel truly “next gen” so far. The way the triggers adjust tension is so wild. I really don't know how much they'll be used, but it's a cool option to have. And loading times are practically non-existent. (I've since went back to the Xbox One for a few more Game Pass releases, and loading times feel jarring.) As far as ASTRO goes, he's a terrific mascot in an age where mascot platformers aren't really a thing anymore. The experience relies heavily on nostalgia, as you collect relics of PlayStation's past. Also scattered throughout are other bots dressed up to reference other franchises. Dozens of franchises are represented, from characters like Crash, to Ratchet, to Kutaro from Puppeteer. It's really a lovely homage to PlayStation that any longtime fan will enjoy. Plus, it's a really fun game to play, with beautiful tech themed worlds, some infectious earworms, and some cool mechanics. Japan Studio has been a bit of an enigma for a while now. But the ASOBI Team is knocking it out of the park with ASTRO. ASTRO reminds me a lot of Iota from Tearaway: they're both cute mascot characters, crafted with a lot of love, from terrifically artistic games that did an excellent job of showing off new tech. I can't wait to see what ASTRO is up to next. Filament This one sat  near the top my Steam wishlist for nearly the entire year before I finally grabbed it about a week ago when it went on sale. I love a good puzzle game. Basically, you control a bot that tethers out a string-like filament that you use to interact with pillars. Sometimes you just make sure you graze the line by one; other times you loop around one. Sometimes you're simply turning a pillar on. Other times they must be linked in pairs, by color, or a specific number of times, just to name a few of the options. That's really where Filament glows. What starts of simple grows insanely complex by the end. You'll be combining mechanics in some rather brain-busting puzzle. And the game does very little to explain things to you, or help you along the way, yet it feels very inuitive. Still, many times I simply hit walls, where I was almost convinced the puzzles were impossible. In a few instances, it took a while to understand new rule sets. Eventually I solved every single puzzle without resorting to help. And it took me about 48 hours. (Granted I think my stat tracking was probably counting some idle time where I had the game running but walked away to do stuff like make a meal.) It's a surprising amount of content for a puzzle game that can easily be reduced to: solve puzzles by drawing lines. One other thing I appreciated was that I found myself taking notes and drawing things out on paper. That's a tactic I don't pull out often, but love when a game pushes me in that direction. One instance in particular even had me cut up squares of paper to piece together one of the secret text logs. By the way, I missed a ton of those logs. After completing the few I found, I did look how to unlock the rest, and some of the stuff there was absurdly complex. There's really not a lot to compare Filament to outside of The Witness. But if you like a really challenging puzzle game with a ton of content, give this one a look. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout I don't like online multiplayer games. They rarely hold my interest. I put quite a bit of time into Rocket League, Uncharted 2, Resistance 2 Co-op, and Fat Princess, but that's been about it. And in some of those cases, the main reason I spent a good amount of time with them is because I was unemployed during their reign. Overall, I'm not one to interact with people online. And I don't like the idea of a game dictating when I play it. But when Fall Guys was included with PlayStation Plus, I liked the look of it enough to give it a try. Getting a win took a while, but after the first one, I started to become pretty consistent with my runs. Much like Hades, I thought, “I'll just play until I get the trophy for 7 wins.” Then I set my sights on 20. Then I got hooked on collecting the costumes. By the time I'd finished my first stint in Season 1, I'd reached the max Level 30 and had every trophy except for the one requiring five wins in a row. I've given up hope there. Sony says I logged 40 hours with it, which equates to a lot of rounds. One day I went back for Season 2, and enjoyed the new levels, even though I was getting eliminated since I was sight-reading them. I don't know how much time I'll be putting in with it in the future should I find gaps in my list of games. Usually with multiplayer games, the focus fades once I unlock all the trophies I can. And I'm not sure how much time I want to dedicate to becoming proficient at future season. But the fact that Fall Guys even got that much attention from me to begin with is a testament to how much fun it is. Bugsnax Bugsnax could have been a joke. The previous game from Young Horses, Octodad: Dadliest Catch was just that: a silly romp that equated to little more than just a goofy control scheme. Bugsnax was the butt of many jokes upon reveal, reaching meme status in which it became the Schrödinger's cat of games. When someone talked about it looking good, you weren't sure if they were being honest or a hipster. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was intrigued. It's another fine example of a list of stellar games that have been given away for free with PlayStation Plus. Would I have played it otherwise? Who knows? But I'm glad I got to. It is silly, but the silliness works in unison with what turned out to be a very fun game to play. The world and its characters are weird. Everybody has a laughable name, Filbo Fiddlepie, Chandlo Funkbun, and C. Clumby Clumbernut, just to name a few. ( I wonder what the C stands for?) The Bugsnax, which are part bug, part snacks, follow suit, with the burger inspired Bunger, the french fry spider, Fryder, or the popsickle, Bobsickle. The most delightful part is when you catch one of the bugsnax and you hear them say their name from the speaker in the controller. Hearing “Weenieworm” never got old. Any sound coming from Bunger put a smile on my face. Feeding the bugnsax to the other characters was a blast as well. Certain bugsnax resulted in sheer silliness, while combinations could provide interesting fashion statements. But past all that silliness was a fun game too. You're given a few different tools to capture bugsnax, and are sent to figure out how. By the time I was reaching the end, having done all there was to do, I was sad to see it end. It was simply a joy to platinum the game, and I'd definitely be down for more Bugsnax adventures. Ghost of Tsushima I love Sucker Punch to death. Sly Cooper is one of my favorite series. On the other hand, I've never been into the world of the samurai, or watched any samurai movies. But Sucker Punch is a studio I'm happy to support, and I figured I'd be getting a good quality game, so I was in. (Plus, I had the free time. At the time, I thought it might be my gaming binge swan song as I thought we'd be coming out of this pandemic in July. Boy was I wrong!) The world of Tsushima is breathtaking. The partnership of style and graphical fidelity creates beauty in every square inch of the world. As far as the game is concerned, it what I would expect from a AAA open world game. There are main missions, and side missions, and things to upgrade, and all kinds of places to explore. It's fairly predictable in that regard, although I did enjoy some of the ways it tackled many of those side missions. The haiku system was a relaxing alternative to combat missions. Foxes and birds always encouraged me to meander from the main missions. And shrines provides some nice platforming challenges. Combat was unique, and being about to cater it to your preferred combat style was appreciated. It did wear out its welcome a bit after dozen of hours, but I appreciate its simplicity. Still, most impressive was just that living, breathing world. I spent a lot of time in photo mode. A LOT! I could easily spend an hour or two just traveling around finding beautiful vistas to tinker around with lighting and effects. In the end, most of my complaints really just boil down to the fact that it's a large AAA game, and comes with the tropes and restrictions of the territory. Otherwise, it would be higher up the list. Ori and the Will of the Wisps Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a great game, but ultimately it's just more Ori. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It just doesn't really subvert expectations. Everything that made the first game great is here too. It looks gorgeous. It's fun to traverse and explore. But looking back, it doesn't stick out as fondly in my memory as many of the other games in this list. Some of that could be the fact that it released early in the year. It was the game I was playing when the world crapped the bed. But it could also just be that I prefer the intrigue of new IP over sequels. Even so, it's hard to discredit just how well it plays and how beautiful and rich that fantasy world is. Honorable Mentions (that released this year): Carto, Lightmatter, Swarm, Symphonia, Bartlow's Dread Machine, Doom Eternal, Control's AWE Expansion Honorable Mentions (I played that released years prior): Bomb Chicken, SUPERHYPERCUBE, Dead Cells, Moonlighter, Songbird Symphony, The Messenger, JUMPGRID, ETHEREAL, Spring Falls, Unruly Heroes, Celeste, Lonely Mountains: Downhill, Splatoon 2, My Friend Pedro, A Short Hike, Future Grind, SOMOS, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The King's Bird

[jeremystrele]

Bringing Stories Out Of The Shadows With The Artistic Director Of The Sydney Biennale, Brook Andrew

Bringing Stories Out Of The Shadows With The Artistic Director Of The Sydney Biennale, Brook Andrew

Dream Job

Sasha Gattermayr

Brook Andrew is the artistic director of the 2020 Sydney Biennale. Here he is at Cockatoo Island, one of the five venues around Sydney the exhibition is held, next to Lhola Amira’s installation Philisa: Ditaola (To Heal: Divining Bones). Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Not less expensive than gold by ArTree Nepal. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Brook surveys ArTree Nepal’s installation, Not less expensive than gold.. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

A glance at ArTree Nepal’s Not less expensive than gold. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Ibrahim Mahama’s No Friend but the Mountains is made of charcoal jute sacks, sacks, metal tags and scrap metal tarpaulin. Photo – Zan Wimberley

Entering Ibrahim Mahama’s large-scale installation No Friend but the Mountains. The Ghanian artist is renowned for wrapping buildings in these jute sacks! Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Cockatoo Island is one of five venues across Sydney hosting the biennale. Most of the works here have been made specifically for that site. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Brook contemplates Lhola Amira’s piece Philisa: Ditaola (To Heal: Divining Bones). Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Philisa: Ditaola (To Heal: Divining Bones) by South African artist Lhola Amira. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

The industrial scale of Cockatoo Island dramatises the installation pieces exhibited there. The Act of Perseverance by Jose Dávila. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

re(cul)naissance by Dr Léuli Eshrāghi is made from a neon light and fabric hovering over a water pool beside a moving image installation. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

The Act of Perseverance by Jose Dávila is an installation piece made from objects found on Cockatoo Island. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Healing Land, Remembering Country by Tony Albert on exhibit at Cockatoo Island. The sustainable greenhouse invites its visitors to sit and reflect, and engage in the action of remembering. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Retaule dels penjats (Altarpiece of the Hanged People) by Josep Grau-Garriga exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo – Zan Wimberley

Brothers (The Prodigal Son) by Tony Albert outside the National Art School. Photo – Zan Wimberley

THERE MIGHT BE NO OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD AS GOOD AS WHERE I AM GOING TO TAKE YOU by Joël Andrianomearisoa exhibited in the Grand Courts at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo – Zan Wimberley

Approximation to the Scenes of the Facts by Teresa Margolles exhibited at the National Art School. Photo – Zan Wimberley

Hanging bark paintings by Noŋgirrŋa Marawili at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Photo – Zan Wimberley

Brook Andrew knew he wanted to be an artist when he was growing up, which is good because he is one. ‘I don’t really get asked that question much,’ he admits. ‘But when I was a kid I thought about what I wanted to do, and I suppose it was just make art, and now I do.’ It’s perhaps the most uncomplicated way I’ve heard someone with such an impressive career distil their passion. His frankness is refreshing.

With a Bachelor’s degree and a Masters in Fine Art, Brook has woven an impressive academic career through his artistic achievements, fitting them in somewhere between a photography laureate position in Paris and a survey show at the NGV! He holds a staggering number of professorships and research assistant roles at universities in Australia and the UK. He’s exhibited in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, held fellowships with the Smithsonian in the USA and a residency in Berlin. In March he received an Australia Council Award for Visual Arts. He is, without a doubt, the most astonishingly accomplished person I have ever interviewed.

But now, as the Artistic Director of the Sydney Biennale, he can weave all these tendrils of his professional life together. Drawing on his Wiradjuri heritage and the focus on community he has centred his artistic practice around, Brook developed an entirely First Nations-led program for the country’s oldest and largest Biennale.

The 2020 Sydney Biennale is titled NIRIN, the Wiradjuri word for ‘edge’. As an artist, Brook has focussed on bringing stories from the margins into the centre, and challenging the traditions that excluded them for so long. As an artistic director, he has the ability to program artists whose art asks the same questions. His groundbreaking program is dominated by First Nations artists from Australia, Alaska, South Africa, New Zealand, and Haiti, as well as artists representing the diasporas from China and Africa. Kylie Kwong even made an appearance discussing the cultural impact of food!

Brook was appointed in 2018, giving him two years to conceptualise, prepare and program over 700 artworks by 101 artists and collectives from around the world. For the Biennale’s 22nd iteration, the free contemporary program occupies five venues across Sydney, including Cockatoo Island – where the photographs accompanying this story were taken. Just 10 days after it opened, the monumental program was forced to close, as the world locked down due to the health crisis. But earlier this week the program re-opened, with extended dates. 

It’s Brook’s job to let loose hundreds of potential concepts, and then string them all back together again, catching artists and their work in his net of ideas. It’s a difficult role to pin down, and one that means something different to every person who holds it. But Brook’s programming carries the same intention as his art: to challenge the idea of Australia we have been taught for so long, by bringing new stories out of the shadows.

The most important verb in my get-your-dream-job vocabulary is…

Self-determination. It’s a pretty powerful verb. It’s about the need to control our lives and have control of our lives, and the pathway you set for yourself. Especially being Indigenous and especially being in a place which denies a lot of the history of its own country – there are real issues at stake within the concept of ‘self-determination’ that many Australians don’t understand, especially with what’s going on at the moment with Indigenous Lives Matter. I think for people to determine their own lives is the most powerful thing that anyone can do.

I came to this role by…

Following the pathway of hidden shadowed areas, in histories that often ignore a balanced view of the world.

The process of curating this exhibition has been…

A state of constant engagement and excitement, but also problem solving.

The most rewarding part of my job is…

Seeing the accomplishment in the artists and communities, and also the self of achievement within the staff and volunteers through the development and creation of the works, and the public who finally see parts of themselves in the work, or a sense of new journeys.

Over the years I have learned…

That we constantly learn and change our mind. In our personal lives it’s okay to feel that something is shifting or that you’ve got a different opinion. I think people can get stuck with a particular rhetoric or a particular value through their childhood, or through insecurity or something else, but it’s important not to be stuck.

NIRIN is a groundbreaking program for the Sydney Biennale. As the artistic director, how is this Sydney Biennale different and what are you trying to achieve?

NIRIN is First Nations and artist-led, the trajectory is to present urgent issues of the state of where we are today in the world that is often pushed to the side, these include issues of First Nations sovereignty, working together, healing and the environment.

Biennales are the legacy of the great European exhibitions that exhibited the wealth and collections of often colonised lands, the effects of this heartache is often ignored and the inter-generational cycles of pain, trauma and poverty are greatly misunderstood by the status-quo. Therefore, to create a biennale that focuses on shadow areas due to ignorance is removing the blindspot and opening dialogue for healing and working together.

How does your work as an artist inform your work as an artistic director?

I was really surprised when I got the call to submit a proposal. But the first thing I thought about was how to empower the artists to do their work, especially when the issues [they create around] are often glanced over. Whether you’re a queer artist or an Indigenous artist, I think there needs to be a level playing field on a broader scale of how we look at the visual arts, especially when it’s usually from the European perspective of what art is. I think that because within my practice I work with communities and engage in collaboration and interdisciplinary works constantly, that really gave me those skills to support the artists in the Biennale as much as possible.

I am interested in the power of objects, and this includes historical objects that were often stolen from people’s traditional homelands and placed within international museums. These collections become places of power and voyeurism, and objects often become empty. Empowering these objects through community and ceremony, or alerting the status-quo to these histories is a passion of mine, and there is a sense of this within NIRIN.

The 2020 Sydney Biennale will run until late September. For information on programming, venues, events and a complete list of artists, visit their website here.

[wishforwash]

5 Reflections after 5 Years of Leading the Social Impact Organization Wish for WASH

ODecember 12, 2019 by Jasmine Burton

Still reeling in the surreal. I was on stage with two other Georgia Tech women in STEM, wearing colorful dresses and talking about toilets. It was 2014, and we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergraduates from one of the best colleges in the world. And we were driven by a mission — to bring innovation to sanitation with a gender equity and design thinking lens.

Then following the pitch, which I had overhauled a few hours before based on some last minute, deeply critical feedback, Emmy Award Winning CBS Contributor Faith Salie shouted our names on stage and on live TV that was being streamed across the state of the Georgia. We had won both the People’s Choice Award and the First-Place Award at the Georgia Tech Inventure Prize Competition, making us the first all-female team to win the largest undergraduate invention competition in the United States.

And from that moment on, I have continued speeding ahead full throttle across 10 countries, in the public, private and social enterprise sectors, and all in the name of inclusion and innovation in the sanitation sector. Still reeling in the surreal.

Six weeks after our astounding win, our team experienced our first “glow up” where we progressed from the on-stage foam prototype to nearly a dozen manufactured toilets which were shipped to a refugee camp in northern Kenya. Here, under the auspices of the sanitation enterprise Sanivation, we participated in our first usability pilot.

Our journey was launched in a beautiful display of love and community when our Georgia Tech peers, professors and individual families (Shout-out to the best parents and sister in the whole world!) hustled to help us. They helped us manually pull plastic toilet molds at strange hours in the Georgia Tech design shop, shipped the parts and construction materials to the refugee camp, and provided an enabling environment in which we could grow and thrive.

We concluded the summer with a series of learnings about how to improve our toilet based on user feedback, and we sought to iterate it in the name of design thinking, which has been integral to our work from the start. In the fall of 2014, I founded Wish for WASH, and I have grown by its side over the past 5 years.

While in this season of thanks, as I marinate and meditate on musings that are the Wish for WASH story, I want to share 5 notable reflections that are top of mind.

1. Defining What It Means To Be an Expert

I have frequently asked the people in my immediate spheres of influence about ‘what it means to be an expert’. Do you just wake up one day and feel that you have now absorbed enough knowledge in your interest area to claim the status of ‘expert’? Or do you immediately become an expert the day that you complete a degree or certificate program? Or if enough people call you an expert, is that when you become one?

I began grappling with this issue over the course of the past 5 years as I have increasingly been labeled as an expert when I myself had not yet claimed that professional status. Beyond talking and processing with my communities of support about this, I have also begun defining what ‘being an expert’ means to me and what things I will align with as well as what I will not align with.

For instance, my 5+ years of work in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector in primarily the innovator, researcher, and communicator functions does make me a relative expert in a host of roles within the WASH space. However, while my extensive work in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past 5 years gives me a more realistic and nuanced picture of the realities of WASH-related work within the region compared to others who have not worked in the region as long, it does not, by any means, make me an ‘African expert’, which is a label that has been given to me quite a few times over the past few years.

I have come to align with, and increasingly claim, my growing expertise in my technical area of interest (WASH); however, I do not subscribe to the notion that non-African nationals can be ‘African experts’ as I believe that reinforces a pervasive neocolonial narrative and silences the voices of the brilliant minds that are actually from the region. These definitions that I have outlined for myself have helped me in both my personal and professional development, as I strongly believe that words matter.

2. The Importance of Claiming Your Space

Similar to my personal journey with the term ‘expert’ as described previously, Wish for WASH as an organization has experienced a bit of mission drift as we sought to find our niche within the WASH sector. We started as solely a product company and then pivoted to include research and education, which has been an incredible adventure in finding a way to have sustainable impact through a mission-oriented organization.

Due to high manufacturing costs and the complexity of overall logistics, with the support of our organizational advisors and my individual mentors, we have needed to redefine ourselves several times over the past few years. But while that process was often ambiguous, for me as the lead, it is really amazing to reflect back and see where we are today: a network of 100+ young and diverse professionals, all under the age of 30, who have been a part of the Wish for WASH journey since 2014.

And we now can claim our space as our growing mission is to bring more diverse minds, talent, and innovation to the problems of global health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) through the lens of research, design and education because #everybodypoops. With this change of our mission statement, it is clear that our organizational impact is no longer tied to the impact of a single toilet design, but it is captured by the youth-led and women-led movement that we have created to help the world reach the 6th Sustainable Development Goal. Claiming this space has enabled us to be more clear internally as we seek to grow in the future. I am incredibly grateful for the people who walked with me through all of these iterations and helped us reach this point of clarity and purpose.

3. Applying a Design Thinking Iterative Approach To Yourself

As a product designer with deep professional roots in the Design Thinking Methodology, I am quite familiar with the concept of not being married to any professional products that I create but being married to the process. The goal of approaching work in this way helps me to reframe ‘failures’ as just a part of the process of iteration and implementation until the output (be it a piece of design work, a research proposal, a manuscript, communications strategy, etc) best meets the needs of the end user or audience.

However, over the past few years growing as the leader of Wish for WASH, I have realized the importance of internally applying these same principles to myself. As a human-being who happens to be occupying a leadership role, I do make mistakes. And for me, some of those mistakes have hurt and felt more personal than others.

I am still working on truly internalizing this reflection into my life’s practice. However, I think the idea of approaching personal or leadership ‘failures’ as parts of the journey (and reframing them as opportunities to iterate and continue to grow) is a healthy way to strive to be both a responsible and servant leader. And in this increasingly polarized world, I have a deep respect for those who strive to lead with these leadership approaches.

4. The Need for Leaders to Lift As They Climb

Over the course of the past 5 years, it has become increasingly clear to me that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. I have been blessed with incredible communities of support that have enabled me to grow and thrive as blossoming innovator and thought-leader in the WASH sector.

The opportunities that have been afforded to me by my communities of support have given me a platform to better advocate for increased representation of diverse voices in the WASH sector with a particular focus on women, youth, and people of color. I firmly believe in the notion that responsible and servant leaders seek to lift as they climb to amplify not only underrepresented voices in the sector, but the voices of their team to ensure their professional development and ownership of products.

The decentralized and remote nature of Wish for WASH has facilitated an environment where our team members have had the opportunity to own products and processes rather than having it all led directly by me. While there have been some logistical challenges, overall, our 5 Year Wish for WASH Impact Survey revealed the value of the professional development opportunities and autonomy afforded to our team members.

5. Family Over Everything

And last but not least — family. As a person of faith, this mantra has always been central to my ethos, and as a young and growing leader, I could not align with it more. For those who know me personally, you know that my family is my rock. They are my biggest cheerleaders, support system and enablers, despite how crazy my ideas may sound. My family is always there for me, no matter what the topic is or which time zone I am based in. And as I have gotten older, this blessing is not lost on me and I am so thankful for it.

Because of this, I have sought to create a family environment within Wish for WASH. While not completely successful and with room for improvement, I do think that my team members feel seen, heard and valued. The work that we do is important, but the people doing the work — and their stories, visions, and needs — are equally as important.

My biggest realization over the years is the value of loving your people. Seek to love your teammates, your co-workers, your supervisors. Despite hardships, obstacles and differences. Show up for them. And approach them with respect and grace. It is not always easy and is a space where I am excited to continue growing. But overall, family — no matter how you define it — is everything.

So with that, I am ecstatic to still be reeling in the surreal. It has been 5 years and we are just getting started. Happiest Birthday, Wish for WASH! I am forever grateful for the person you have inspired me, and continue to inspire me, to become and the amazing people that I am blessed to work and grow with.

Onwards and upwards. The best is yet to come.

To learn more visit our website here and subscribe to our newsletter here.

Original post can be found here. 

[yrcurations]

Making Space:

By Sayre Quevedo 

Latin American Youth Center, Washington D.C. Photo 1

The opening night of the exhibit in Long Island was quietly stressful. It was the first time myself or my teammate, Julie, had done anything like this before. We were running late to put the finishing touches on the space with a little under an hour until it would open to the public. We pulled into the parking lot and lugged bags of pushpins, magnets, and photographs past the waiting room on the first floor and up the stairs. The light outside was fading quickly and a group of young people practiced a cheerleading routine in the parking lot. I felt sick from the stress but equally excited. This thing that had been in my head for two years was finally going to be tangible and real. How would it be received?

I've been working on a transnational multimedia exhibit for the last two years that looks at the legacy of the Salvadoran Civil War (1980 - 1992.) Re: Construcción is an interactive multimedia exhibit. The work focuses on the legacy and impact of the Salvadoran Civil War as well as transnational identity, intergenerational knowledge, and the societal effects of conflict. The exhibit is a transnational collaboration between individual artists, collectives, and community organizations that work with Salvadorans in the United States and El Salvador.

It’s is a three part project. The first part is a series of tables, 'Las Mesas', dedicated to the stories of six individuals and families. Each table contains numbered household objects and photographs. Each number corresponds to a piece of audio interview or ambient sound. Viewers are guided through the interviewee’s stories by mp3 players. Their stories can be listened to linearly or the viewer can pick and choose which object they want to listen to.

Part two of the project is an interactive wall that we are asking the Salvadoran community to come and add their own objects, drawings, writings, and perspectives on the impact on the war for themselves or the Salvadoran community at large. The idea is that as the exhibit travels across the United States and El Salvador the wall will gain new perspectives in every exhibit location.

The third part of the exhibition is an art exhibition that brings together artists living in the country as well as those living in the diaspora. These artists are Danny Zavaleta, Oscar Diaz, Veronica Vides, Carmen Elena Trigueros, Ricardo Patricio Majano, Mauricio Esquivel, The Fire Theory, Fred Ramos, Jose Cabezas, and Melissa Guevara.

The Beginnings

I grew up not knowing my mother or father’s families. I knew that my grandparents had migrated from El Salvador during the late 1970’s to San Francisco and that it had something to do with a war that had happened there. The emptiness that comes with having no historical links to the world is difficult to explain to those who have never experienced it themselves. All of the questions that began to emerge during my teenage years about who I was and where I belonged were complicated by the fact that was no set blueprint, no particular narrative line to follow. So, when I first started this project it was mostly to try and understand the place my family had come from. I felt that this moment in history had a lot to do with how my family had ended up in San Francisco, California in the 1980's and in turn led to me being brought into the world. While this investigation wouldn't satisfy the hunger to understand who I was, it would provide me with a sense of the world that I could have been a part of had life not separated me from history.

I had done plenty of academic research but understanding this point in time meant listening to the stories of others and understanding what their lives had looked like before, during, and after the war. Over the course of two years we collaborated with two artist collectives out of the country, received a grant and managed to collect enough funds to take the work on the road. I chose to take the exhibit to areas where there are still large Salvadoran communities,  places that families and individuals fled to during the war: Long Island, Washington DC, Maryland, and Los Angeles.

The following essay will unpack some of the philosophies and realities of occupying, creating, and sharing spaces around the subject of the conflict.

Draft After Draft

The work has gone through many drafts and iterations. Originally it was going to be a website. Then it was going to be a set of walls with objects and photographs. Then it became a series of tables and a collaborative exhibit with 10 other artists. Then it became a travelling exhibit

in community spaces that serve the Salvadoran community across the US and El Salvador. These changes, however drastic they may seem, were intentional in that they were made with the philosophy of the project in mind. Every transformation was meant to serve our purpose:

to explore the past and present of the Salvadoran community in the country and across the diaspora.

The decision to host the work in community spaces added a lot of logistical considerations. How would we move the work? How would it be presented? What equipment, funds, or resources did we need to mount it all? Every space would be, physically speaking, different. How would we

accommodate the programming and services that were already happening in these spaces. For example, the first stop of our summer tour was in the Consulate of El Salvador and the

work was to be presented in a room that was essentially a waiting room for those going to have their papers processed. We would have to think about how to respect the practical uses of the space while also encouraging visitors to interact with the work.

The realities of existing in those spaces were in some ways unpredictable as hundreds of Salvadorans of all ages, with their own experiences and understandings of the conflict would be walking through the doors of the Consulate every day. What was within our control was primarily how we would situate ourselves in every space. Below are some photograph examples of the work in the Salvadoran Consulate in Brentwood, Long Island vs the Mayday Community Space in Brooklyn, New York.

The Consulate of El Salvador, Brentwood, Long Island NY (Photo 2)

Consulate of El Salvador, Brentwood, Long Island NY. (Photo 3)

In every space we had to consider lighting. For instance, the space in Brentwood had several large windows with plenty of natural light. The whole wall was essentially occupied by the windows so we had to be creative about what we would display there. In Photo 3 you can see the work of photojournalist Jose Cabezas is framed above. We also had to think about how the works were in conversation with one another. Cabezas presented portraits of ex-soldiers from the war. Alongside it was Carmen Elena Trigueros’s ‘Lavandera’, a performance piece in which she washes the national flag on the steps of the Salvador del Mundo monument. What message were we presenting? It was important for us to consider the ways in which layed out the work, trying to understand how our viewers might move about the space.

A shot from Carmen Elena Triguero’s, ‘Lavandera’

After Long Island, we headed to Brooklyn. We were lucky enough to have access to the classroom area of Mayday Space. Mayday is an organizing space whose value and mission we felt was well-aligned with ours. Their website describes them as, “a neighborhood resource and a citywide destination for engaging programming, a home for radical thought and debate, and a welcoming gathering place for people to work, learn, drink, dance and build together.”

The floor we were in had three rooms: main room (picture 1), the classroom (picture 2), and the library (not pictured.) The main room was used for everything from AA meetings to trainings or conference breakout rooms. As a result we had to make the exhibit easily-moveable. Something we learned quickly was that adaptability was equally as important as aesthetic.

Mayday Space, Brooklyn NY. (Photo 4)

Mayday Space, Brookyn, NY (Photo 5)

These challenges recurred across spaces. We had to be ready to adapt at all moments and to accommodate programming that was not our own.

Realities: Making Space, Giving Space

When I was rushing to put the finishing touches on the exhibit in Long Island nearly two months ago I had asked myself, how would this be received? Now nearing the end of our US exhibit I realize that there is no way of knowing. We could only control what the physical space looked like, nothing more.

One of the most important things we eventually recognized was that making space for stories  often meant giving space. While my first instinct when people walked in was often to want to explain the work or engage in conversation I slowly realized that each person was carrying their own trauma and experience. Rather than making assumptions about people’s experiences with the topic we waited for them to approach us to speak. Our job was to guide viewers through the work and to make the layouts intuitive.

We could not control how people reacted or their readiness to share their experiences. On one of our last days in Washington, DC a young woman quietly approached the exhibit, looking over each of the pieces quietly and carefully. As she turned back to me I realized she had tears in her eyes. She had lost her father to violence in El Salvador as a child, well after the war. We had a long conversation about what the war had meant and what was still occurring in El Salvador and across the U.S. She told me that even though the exhibit made her sad, she was glad it was there because it meant others would perhaps have the opportunity to understand what herself and others had experienced. That understanding, I see now, comes in many forms. Sometimes it can be verbalized and sometimes it can’t. But to create spaces, however temporary, in which we feel recognized and understood can be powerful beyond measure.

LEARN MORE: www.reconstruccionproject.com

[lynchgirl90]

#TwinPeaks @Kyle_MacLachlan Actually, no one in the cast know what's going to happen!

'Twin Peaks': David Lynch and Kyle MacLachlan on the Revival's Secretive Nature

It is happening again — and that's just about all David Lynch is willing to say on the subject of the Twin Peaks revival.

The legendary filmmaker, who along with co-creator Mark Frost serves as the key creative mind behind Peaks, one of the strangest and most surreal series in television history, returns to the Pacific Northwest for another proverbial slice of cherry pie in Showtime's upcoming revival. Much like it was in the damn good coffee glory days, the new iteration of the series comes shrouded in secrecy. Trailers and teasers have revealed almost nothing about the plot, except for the fact that some of those familiar gumshoes you liked are back in style, including Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Dale Cooper, the late Miguel Ferrer as the blunt but brilliant Agent Albert Rosenfield, and Lynch himself as the hard-of-hearing Gordon Cole.

Beyond that? Fans are in the dark, trapped in a Black Lodge of sorts as they wait to find out what exactly happened to Agent Cooper after the brutal cliffhanger that closed out season two. For frustrated fans looking for someone to blame for all the secrecy, look no further than Lynch.

"It comes from my own personal desire to not know anything before I see a film," Lynch tells The Hollywood Reporter about why he's keeping the story under such tight wraps, an ethos so serious that several of the cast and crew won't be permitted to speak about Peaks on the record until after the season ends in September. "I want to experience it in a pure way and be taken into a world, letting it go where it takes you. It takes you where it wants to take you, and it's a beautiful, beautiful experience. It's very precious, and the more you know, it sort of takes away from that full experience."

Lynch is so committed to keeping the show's secrets that he won't say whether the upcoming season paves the way for another. ("I'm not allowed to speak about this," he says.) He won't weigh in on any of the new characters, either. ("I don't know if I can really get into that," he offers coyly, punctuating the mystery with a quick laugh.) He's tight-lipped on the casting process, too, with the series involving more than 200 actors, including franchise newcomers (albeit Lynch veterans) Laura Dern and Naomi Watts.

"You try to get the right person for the part, and that's it," he says. "Pure and simple. So much of filmmaking is common sense."

It's common sense that Peaks is returning now, given the events of the initial series. In season one's unforgettable third episode, Agent Cooper experiences a vision of an older version of himself sitting inside the infamous Red Room, where he sees the backwards-speaking Man From Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) and a woman who is a dead-ringer for the dead Laura Palmer. "I'll see you again in 25 years," she later tells Cooper — and at least on that one plot point, Lynch confirms that Laura's promise has been upheld.

"It's 25 years after" the original run, Lynch says about when the series takes place. "It was spoken about in the original series, and it just so happened to be about that time [in real time], so Mark and I got together and started talking. One thing led to another, and here we are." Lynch adds that he and Frost didn't write that line originally with the intention of returning to this story all these years later: "It wasn't really something you can plan, but then again, there it was."

How will the 25 years of story and real time between seasons impact what viewers are about to see when they return to the Great Northern and the Bang Bang Bar? Again, here comes Lynch with another riddle: "I'll say that many things are the same, and many things are different, just like in real life." Take Agent Cooper as an example of that dichotomy. It's clear that Kyle MacLachlan is once again locked and loaded to lead the charge on Twin Peaks, but it's not clear that he'll be reprising the eternally optimistic Cooper, at least not in the traditional form. The final episode of the series ended with Cooper's soul trapped inside the Black Lodge, with the murderous spirit Killer BOB (played by the late Frank Silva) now occupying Cooper's mortal form in the real world.

"It was kind of like, the engine's revved up again," MacLachlan tells THR about that nightmarish ending. "There's a great question of, 'What's going to happen now?' Unfortunately, it was too late — which is why it's so beautiful that we're able to return after all of this time and pick the story up and move forward and hopefully have some answers."

Alas, those answers will have to wait, as MacLachlan happily abides by Lynch's policy.

"I think it's terrific," says MacLachlan. "I'm excited about the idea. I'm actually thrilled about the idea, that we've been able to keep it under wraps, which was the idea from the very, very beginning. When I had my first reading of the script, I read it at the studio in a room by myself. Of course, I didn't tell them I took photographs of every page…."

(He's kidding, of course, in case Mr. Lynch is reading.)

"They let me read it all the way through, and then I had to pass the script back," he continues. "The pages were then distributed out, and I was one of the ones who had most of the script, which I needed. Most people just received what was pertinent to them. Again, it was an effort to keep things contained, and also to help us. That way, if anyone asks us about the story, we could say, 'I don't really know!' As opposed to feeling an obligation to say something, or maybe you would feel compelled out of your own sense of whatever to say it's about this or this. There were no opportunities for that. I love that people are going to be embarking on this fresh. For something that's so well known, it's going to be a whole new journey. I think that's wonderful."

When it comes to speaking about Peaks from a structural standpoint, Lynch and MacLachlan are much more open than they are about the story. The series is set to air across 18 episodes, all of which were directed by Lynch, who prefers to view them as 18 hours of one sprawling movie.

"I see it as a film," he says. "I think if you think about it as one whole that's been divided, it's a little different than thinking about it as one episode after another. It's just a little bit different."

"It was definitely a different structure," MacLachlan agrees. "Instead of traditional episodes that were handed out one by one, this came as a very long feature. He's made a point of calling them 'hours' or 'parts.' In his mind, he's directed an 18-hour movie that was fractured into 18 installments. It's different in the telling of the story; maybe not different in the playing, because the scripts were already broken into scenes, anyway. You're concentrating on smaller pieces. But when you go to assemble it? I'm sure the editors were looking at it and going, 'What are we going to do!' The assemblage, I'm sure, was very different."

The structure may be very different, but several other ingredients are very familiar, starting with the man who plays Cooper and the man who created the character. Twin Peaks' long-awaited return serves as the long-awaited reunion of Lynch and MacLachlan, who first worked together on the 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. After more than 30 years of knowing each other and collaborating on films like Blue Velvet, few individuals are better positioned to weigh in on Lynch's mysterious ways than MacLachlan.

"He's unlike anything else," says the actor. "The environment he creates for us is so supportive. There's a lot of humor involved. There's tremendous focus. There's a clarity of vision. If for some reason he's not sure about something, he sits and thinks about it until he's sure. There's no forward steps without knowing where we're going. But that's not to say he's not open to happy accidents, as well. That's one of the catchphrases about David's process: If there's something that happens that's unexpected or accidental, as opposed to rejecting it outright, oftentimes he welcomes it in. He counts it as life. Those things can be very revealing and important. There's room for that in the creative process. It's a real pleasure working with him, whether you're talking to an old-timer like me or people who have just come on for the first time. To a person, they'll say that it was one of the best working experiences they have ever had."

To MacLachlan and the hundreds of actors appearing this year in Twin Peaks, rest assured: the feeling is mutual.

"I love these characters, and I love the actors and actresses," says Lynch. "This was like getting together for a family reunion."

link (TP)

[hragon]

Hi! I have a question: how do you manage to be so devoted to your OCs? I love making my own stories and I've created many of my own characters. But every time I come up with a new idea I create a new story and now I'm stuck with so many characters and stories that I have trouble counting them. I still love them and come back to them even after a few years, but I cannot focus on one story for more than a few months. How come you have been so passionate about your OCs for such a long time?

Hi there! I had to think about this one.

The honest answer is, I’m not really sure because some havebeen around so long it just feels natural – I have to wonder if, in part, I’m justone of those people that can’t let things go, haha. But, I’ll try!

First off, I think it’s fairly normal to have a lot of stories lying around - I do, too! Everyone works in different ways and I don’t think one necessarily needs to be super hyped all the time to make progress.

But, to answer your question:

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ve had somany adventures with them already, even years prior to them finding their “canon” story. Ruby has been around since I was 9 yearsold. I’m 23. She has endured countless AUs, daydreams, stories, iterations,adventures across 14 years of sketchbooks and bad writing and self-inserts and doodling in themargins of school notes. The same goes for Rex. Most of these cases are not in their canon – they’re just an excuse to go on adventures and to explore many stories and ideas with my characters. Itkeeps them new and fresh and I stay excited because I get to explore facets of their characters I couldn’t otherwise, and then have to find ways to tie the ideas I like back intocanon. I’m constantly generating new material even if I’m not writing it down. When I’m bored, I’ll just throw a couple of characters into a scenario inside my head and watch it play out.

Also, I’m not afraid to be self-indulgent. For me, I think that’sa big part of it. I created my characters for my own enjoyment, without holdingback, and it is so fun to embrace them for that. Now, don’t get me wrong: if something doesn’t makesense, or doesn’t work in the story, or isn’t contributing like I had hoped it would, I’llpull it out a la “murder your darlings” style even if I really like it. Maybe Ican use it later, after all. But I’m a very gut-feeling kind of person when I make final decisions, and inthe end I have to go with my gut even if I have my doubts about a character. I’vetried to change up Rex’s design many times because I was afraid it was tooweird, but it never felt right to me, and so I didn’t (though I did get a newcharacter out of my experimenting). I tried to rein in Ruby’s other form but itdidn’t feel quite right and you know what I ended up with? A fire-breathingdinosaur. Is it weird? Probably, but I’ve been more in love with her ever sinceand happier with her character than I ever was when I was trying to tone herdown. When I’m that self indulgent and I come up with ideas that I am so in love with, that are so entirely my aesthetic, I can just run with it for what feels like forever.

Another reason I can think of is the fact that charactersare really one of the most interesting pieces of a story to me, and in thestories I work on they’re often what I tend to focus on the most. In TbF, Rex,Ruby, Austin, Liam, no two characters interact with each other like they would withanother. How do they complement each other? What can traits can one characterhighlight in another? How would they interact in each scenarios? How do theythink, what are their actions – and how often do they have conflict? What canthey gain from that? These are all questions with different answers for eachcharacter and vary with the scenario and also where they are in theirdevelopment. Each character is an ever-changing puzzle whose pieces have to fit togetherwith the many other characters – and that’s something that can keep me occupiedfor a long time.

And, finally, the last thing that’s coming to mind is that I often find ways to tie characters into things that I like over time. This is mostly a subconscious action but it’s easy to catch myself when I’m doing it. I’m inspired by a lot of things and I guess it helps to keep those in mind, since they can help me remember what I loved about my characters in the past while also getting excited about how they’ve grown and where I intend them to go.

Anyway, that’s fairly long and convoluted. This was a really interesting question so I hope you’re able to glean something out of this! Thanks for sending this - I love my kids and it makes me happy that it shows. :3

[cthulu-calls]

Suicide is a force of unthinkable strength and volume at this point in history. It is almost banal. Kids younger than ten carry out this act with a frightening level of success, and many more fail in their attempts. The demography of suicide is presently a very interesting subject - mostly, it represents the general feeling that there is No Alternative. It is the ultimate act of isolated revolt, in its most desperate and atomized form. It is capital's preferred option for those who are discontent, as it leaves the dominant social order intact quietly, while drumming up sympathy for "those poor people" who took their own lives. It does not demand any discussion on why.

The intelligent revolutionary harnesses dominant social trends for their ends. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was one of the first to figure this out, in tandem with Hafez Al-Assad, Bashar's father. They figured it out in a vulgar way - by inducing those who followed them to commit suicidal acts of military and terrorist strategy. Of course neither Khomeini nor Assad was the first to sign up to blow themselves up - Allah had willed a different path for them, surely. Peasants were used as pawns, and to this day, are induced to blow themselves up for the sake of the hierarchies that exploit them and their survivors.

It is obvious that this represents some of the most extreme cases of hierarchies preserving themselves and exploiting their subjects. The anarchist is quite likely, if not practically duty-bound, to reject this. Does this mean that suicide is of no use to us? In my mind, it does not. It simply means that we would do well to approach the matter from the other end.

Presently, resources are not scarce in the postindustrial west. There are homes, there is food, the means exist to produce a brilliant standard of living for nearly all people, were those means in our hands. What is in absolutely short supply, however, is meaning. Our peers who are currently chest-beating and flag-waving their way around the likes of Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, and all variants of the anti-neoliberal, ultra-nationalist ideologies are given a prepackaged set of parameters within which meaning can be produced. If they can't find themselves a job, or a spot in the army, they can at least find themselves a sense of belonging in a hyped-up mob of hyper-emotions like hatred and fear. They can find their views and existences affirmed by the society that already exists - family, labor, positions of power, moral authority, it all stands strong and in such a fashion that the project of continuing to exist seems to be a good idea (for them).

Those who imagine another way of living see no obvious road to it, and as such, there is unbelievable inertia, apathy, depression, and suicidal urges springing up on the left and among anarchists. They do not see the world they imagine - if they are even able to imagine it at all - affirmed anywhere. We have some ideas here on this board, some theories, even some quite reasonable historical analyses pointing us in the direction that seems sound and decent. But these ideas mean very little if they do not appear to be readily practicable or of much consequence.

This puts us on the downward end of a war of meaning and individual self-preservation. Our "post-truth" world is so flaccid, and so without content, that the individual frequently sees the voluntary ending of their own existence to be a more reasonable alternative to resistance, because all forms of resistance heretofore imagined are not, apparently, of much consequence. This is more true of the so-called "liberal left" than of anarchists, but is still generally relevant for most anarchists who are not naive enough to be hopped up on ideology 24/7.

Opposition to violent means is at a low among radicals, yet violent means are notoriously good ways to get killed or imprisoned. Draw a gun at a protest and you will be ended. Organize a militia and you will be kept under the watch and quite possibly framed into imprisonment. Yet do we not see the reality that is in front of us? The nature of violence has changed. Classical combat, even updated to include the likes of guerrilla warfare, is not particularly relevant. Yet force is still the blood of history and power. Now, combat consists of the presence or absence of meaning, and the subsequent affirmation or negation of existence. Does the world around us, in how it is altered by our adversaries strategically, drive us to a place of desperation? (It does). Conversely, could we not begin altering the worlds of our opponents to be just as desperation-inducing? Could we not, on the level of the collective and the individual alike, compose targeted means of driving our enemies to suicide?

This is the realpolitik of conversion. Radicalizing people does not consist of convincing them through reasoned argument. It instead is a matter of examining the nature of a person's desperations, and addressing them by offering meaning. Luckily, unlike material resources, meaning can be created by nothing. This is why Nietzsche, Stirner, and Novatore offer some of the most relevant tendencies within anarchism today. It is also the realpolitik of destabilization. As surely as we create and distribute the means of producing meaning to those we align with, we poetically expose the baseless and empty nature of the meaning our enemies derive from the systems they interact with. If this means the tables turn and they off themselves, this is our enemies killing our enemies for us - far superior to direct violence. If it means they reach a point of desperation, where their resolve is weakened, it may also mean they are radicalized and brought into the anarchist fold, because their old ideas gave way and fell apart (I know more former nazis who became anarchists in this way than you'd imagine).

My last point: What does this look like in practical terms? I think to a certain extent we could brainstorm this in the comments, but my first thoughts are:

We gain a reputation of being the ones who get the most out of life. This means learning to Live Well. We must be seen universally as being the top assemblage of humanity that is eating the best food, having the best sex, creating the best art, and most importantly: having the most fun. Somehow, radicals have gained the opposite reputation, as being joyless guilt-mongers who lead austere and bitter lives, and infighting constantly, living in squalor, and generally having a bad time. We need to ask: What makes us happy? And begin doing that as a group, loudly and in the streets. This might be more important than nearly anything else. If we are seen as an order of existentially brilliant clowns, vagabonds, and intellectual hedonists, we will draw a great deal of interest for that fact alone - while implying that our enemies are boring and sad. Their steady diets of hatred and fear make this easy to imply - because it is true.

The point about fun makes sense only when it is situated in a larger imaginative vision of a better society. Without this element, it becomes little more than a self-righteous iteration of party culture. When we posit a clear vision of how things could be, and we do so in a manner that is accessible and viewed as being potentially close at hand, we succeed in a critical way that we have continuously failed in since 1968 (generally). This means offering visions of how life could be that are not highfalutin', distantly utopian, or explicated in dry academic terms. For all the uses of our theory, it cannot ever exist in a vacuum, nor can it exist without its proponents acting out this theory prefiguratively. This is why fiction, cinema, poetry, and comedy are immensely important. They create culture that has a vision, and that vision is participatory here and now, in a manner that gathers people together, often physically.

Clowning is a great tactic that embodies what I am saying here, I think. The clown, in her foolish attire, fashions herself to be someone who is bound to be rejected and loathed - but this is used to her advantage, to make a mockery of the processes by which individuals are rejected or thought to be fools. She empties herself out publicly in order to attain a strategic position where she can completely cut down and make fun of the world around her without firing a single shot. The suicidal person may at times feel like a sad clown, a misfit who lacks the energy required to laugh at the world that has fashioned him into this sad character. Anarchists can offer a meaning-making culture that converts the wallowing of the misfit, and all its desperation, into a weapon of high enjoyment and utter decimation of our enemies. I am envisioning roving gangs of redneck clowns on freak-bicycles, dressed like sad Rebranded White Nationalism kids, blaring country music, perhaps with pepe masks, riding near conservatives, white supremacists, and Trump supporters on the street, heckling them and mimicking the sad behavior of these people. All of this would be perceived as a joke, with no violent intentions, and inevitably, a violent reaction would be provoked, offering the perfect opportunity to both kick fascist ass (in a pepe mask) and to highlight the weak desperation of our adversaries. Entire societies of dropout clowns could be formed, with the daily intention and sole goal of embarrassing the enemy comedically - and having as much fun as possible while doing it. These clowns could also act as a buffer between police and serious protestors (we've seen some of this before in Occupy and with the Guerrilla Clown Army from Scotland).

There is a lot more to say here on these points and maybe I'll write more about it, but I figured I'd post this here for the sake of maybe provoking some interesting discussion. Not sure what y'all will think. if you read all this, thanks!

- Taken from r/Anarchism, called Suicide, Desperation, and Clowns