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jq37 · 6 months ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 17

It’s Emily Axford’s World, We’re Just Living in It

Welcome back to Fantasy High where this monster 3+ hour bombshell of an episode is dropping during one of the busiest weeks of my life! There is SO much going on in this episode that I’m absolutely going to have to speed through things to get this out before the next episode but I’ll try to hit on all of the most important points. OK, ready, set, let’s go!

We closed out last ep in the middle of downtime where we learned that Jace had a scar from being infected with a rage crystal shatter star and from there we still have a bunch more downtime to get through. Highlights!

Riz investigates the footage from the crystal cam and again has the feeling that he needs to go back to his office and check out any open-ended clues because he’s missing something.

Gorgug tries to work on a way to harness the power of the Night Yorb’s darkness since it’s trapped in his van since they’ll probably be fighting a solar deity soon. He does mention it to Henry but not why he’s doing it. He also looks into the Cloud Rider and confirms with the Aviation Club goblin kid that it would be powerful enough to lift the Hangman (referring not to the motorcycle, but to Bill’s ship which is now Seacaster manor).

Fig writes another Ankarna themed song and rolls an insane 37. That’s powerful enough that she’s able to commune with Ankarna in her dreams. She calms the distressed Ankarana with the paladin spell Atonement and by commiserating that both of their girlfriends are “out of town”. Ankarna calls Fig her hero and says that “She’s always known” before she wakes up.

Fig keeps haunting Ruben's dreams but they're abjured so she can't straight up talk to him. In his dream, she sees his house in Elmville and feels rage as well as fear. She sees a glade in Far Haven Woods and a scared pre-emo Ruben which makes her think that that's where they did whatever they did to kick things off and that maybe the old Ruben is still trapped somewhere.

She then goes full Emily Axford and–along with the help of Fabian, British Kristen, Gorgug, and Adaine–goes to Ruben’s house and FAKES THE DEATH OF WANDA CHILDA BY KIPPERLILLY. Once she’s “dead” Adaine casts Enlarge on Gorgug and throws a cloak on him so he can take her away the in the same way Buddy’s body was taken away. It’s the performance of a lifetime with a 34 but the craziest part is they know someone was watching through the window but they have no idea who it was. InSANE. Imagine if it’s just Kipperlilly watching from Ruben’s window like ???????

Finally she gets Eugenia to design a tattoo for Fabian’s bday that will let him cast Ghost Step. She’s gonna secretly tattoo it on him because sure why not.

Kristen talks to a very stressed Jawbone who has been dealing with a lot of angry kids lately which is, como se dice, troubling considering the whole rage god situation. She downloads him on everything going on and reveals that she was gonna try to have British Kristen steal files so she can see if the addresses of the angry kids form a 24 pointed star but instead she helps Jawbone clean his office and asks if she can have the addresses. He can’t give out student info but he says he’ll check a map and see if they form a star as well as checking on Jace. Kristen tells him to be super careful because the last teacher they talked to was Yolanda, RIP. (He also mentions the Sophomore Year Hotel Cav fight as being a weird thing that happened and the murder attempt of Lydia–things that we’ve already flagged as loose ends. We’ll get back to this).

Bobby Dawn is freaking out because they can’t find Buddy’s soul in corn heaven. Kristen reveals that he’s not in corn heaven and in fact is following a new god (after confirming he doesn’t have a rage crystal). Bobby Dawn thinks he’s being punked–especially once Kristen says the new god is her god’s ex-wife–but Kristen is being pretty sincere (so sincere that Murph is melting into a puddle anticipating she’s about to give the game away to one of their least fave NPCs–imo, she didn’t give away anything game ending but she was def playing with fire). Bobby tells Kristen to call him if there’s anything he can do to help find Buddy and Kristen dips to go talk to “[her] friend Murph.” Not Riz, Murph the irl guy, lol. As that happens, Bobby goes to have a whisper convo with his wife Pam who is also there. Suspicious.

Riz/Murph makes the connection that Lake Shimmerstone is called that because of the gem filaments that flow from the Mountains of Chaos. It's a classic "no rolls necessary" moment.

Kristen finally checks the bylaws and sees that the major change made was that there is no longer any inaugural period post election. So once the votes are counted, whoever wins is president right away. It was a change by Mazey requested by a faculty member--they think Jace.

Kristen checks on her brother finally and it doesn't seem like he has a rage crystal but he's pretty bummed that he hasn't been able to convert any of his friends despite being a good paladin. He's also having a little existential crisis because he has non Helioic friends who don't actually seem like scary heathens. But then he was warned that sin might be tempting. Kristen tells him that she understands and that he has to decide whether he knows himself better than their parents. She says she's always around to talk. She then does a Relaxation roll and loses 3 stress tokens! Brennan also has her roll a d6 for the Relationship track roll with Buddy and on a 6, loses her final stress token!

Like Fig, Kristen also gets to commune with her goddess. Cass says that she's trapped and the king will come to Spyre. She says her wife's "fiery hand" grasps her in death and she has to protect her from the upcoming destruction--but she can't do it as herself. She tells Kristen that Ankarna has a champion as well and when Kristen asks who Cass says she already knows the champion. Finally, she urges her to look into what Kalina said because there was to be a good reason for her saying Ragh’s name.

I’m going to leave the bullets for a moment (largely because Tumblr gets mad at blocks of text that are too big) to say that Adaine and Fig go to Ayda’s geocache and find an insane amount of spell components which would have been super useful earlier in the year. It also has instruments for Fig including a new bass that Brennan says he’ll get Emily the item card for ASAP. Back to bullets!

In his research, Riz finds the location in the Mountains of Chaos of the Temple of the Fallen Sun where Lydia's party members stopped in their travels.

Riz looking into the Loam files sees that the person they're after must have had some ability to stun their opponents which is probably the reason for the lack of defensive wounds. He also learns that Ruvina's festival was called the Festival of Frost which sounds a lot like Frosty Fair.

He finds some text about something called the War of Shattered Stones which apparently took place around when Ankarna's domain changed.

On a hunch that there is more going on with the rat grinding than meets the eye, the whole gang takes a field trip to Lake Shimmerstone and Riz finds evidence that at some point the Rat Grinders were taken here while a massive giant was fighting deadly monsters. That doesn’t make sense so they call in some rats to question who tell them that there was a giant fighting these monsters and basically leaving the killing blows to the Rat Grinders so they’d get the XP–which is mechanically insane diegetically but we’re gonna ignore that. The rats also confirm that this was when Lucy was still around. The Bad Kids think that the RG’s made a deal with this giant (who the rats say is a guy btw) to get powered up and they got crystals as their end of the bargain.

OK, that basically wraps up downtime. One more piece of business before we head to the Temple of the Fallen Sun! Zara has a talk with Fig where after heaping praise on her, she passes along a message–the appearance of a surprise meteor shower which was arranged by Ayda and is the most romantic thing ever. I won’t recap it, just watch it yourself. I can’t do it justice. Before Fig leaves for some hot tub time, Zara asks about Fig’s evaluation and Fig assures her she already turned it in.

Time for a griffon road trip! And strap in because this is a MEATY lore dump. Sandra Lynn brings everyone on griffons to the Temple of The Fallen Sun and Riz brings his files because he can’t shake the feeling that he’s missing something.

They find this infernal temple littered with humanoid bones and Fig can tell with her divine sense that it's a temple to Ankarna. There is a place where Ankarna’s name was destroyed and replaced with a Ranger’s symbol that says: Do Not Enter. Fallen Temple. There’s also evidence that someone tried to rewrite Ankarna’s name but it’s not her actual name. It’s the glyph that means her but isn’t her actual name. Which suggests that there’s a group of Ankarna followers that are trying to do stuff involving her but that don’t know her name.

Everyone who can loads up on Truesight and See Invisibility before they enter the temple. There are a bunch of pretty good Investigation checks but, in particular, Riz gets a 32 and Fig gets a Nat 20.

Fig sees a vision (and Adaine can see it too--I assume as elven oracle she can just piggyback on anyone else having visions lol) of two giantkin wearing robes with a sun emblem being executed by armored individuals wearing robes with a fiery emblem on it. This temple was built right when Ankarna's domain was changing. They’re seeing the old priests of Ankarna being executed by the new ones.

It's clear that this temple was built as a part of a state religion--the focus on conquest and strength is very empire-y. Adaine sees some writing in Giant and casts Comprehend Language so she can read it. There’s a bunch about the War of Shattered Stone and some new stuff about the temple being built for the glory of the House of Sunstone. They walk through the temple and see all this awful equipment for torture and execution. They get the sense that this is where Ankarna was changed. Her new followers did a bunch of heinous stuff in her name to force her to become infernal. As above, so below and all.

Adaine casts Legend Lore and Brennan basically salivates. 30 seconds later, Riz rolls a Nat 20 to Investigate his files. So we’re about to crack this whole thing wide open folks. Let’s do this!

Fig and Kristen explore a chamber and Kristen's shards glow so bright she has to wrap fabric around them so they don't hurt peoples' eyes. They realize that their goddesses have been in this room together before. It's where they got divorced. Fig sees a vision of a bunch of Cass's followers dropping their weapons and backing up slowly and then being brutally slaughtered by the new guard of Ankarna.

Adaine's Legend Lore starts: Sunstone was the top clan of the giants and conquered all the others--Thunderfist, Hornspear, Moonspeak, and Frostblade (Lucy’s ancestors). Ships got better which meant people started mingling and so did their gods. Ankarna and Cassandra got married. Things were good for a while but the leaders of the church of Sol didn't like having two sun gods in their pantheon so they whispered in the ears of some of the Sunstone guys that maybe conquest was the way to go (this was when they started conquering the other clans).

Clan Frostblade rose up to fight because Ruvina was so concerned with stopping her sister and at the sundering of the Cliff's of Colcath, House Sunstone was destroyed.

At this point, Riz realizes the thing he was missing in his files and it’s the thing we noticed ages ago. The weird moment in Sophomore Year. How did Ragh get cursed so he could see Kalina in the first place? Brennan plays the clip, looking like the cat who ate the canary. Porter did “Barbarian Healing” on him. That’s not a real thing. Lay on Hands is though. Porter is the one who infected Ragh. Emily, who has hated this man from day one, is LIVING.

Back to the Legend Lore: The sundering of the Cliffs of Colcath. Sundering as in breaking. As in Cliffbreaker–Porter’s last name.

They start putting things together. Him telling Fig he's a paladin to his ancestors. Gorgug sees him smite a giant stone with the force that would be needed to fell a bunch of trees in the woods. Disasuding Fig from being a paladin of Cass. His connection to Jace from the start. The large figure healing Buddy? He’s big as hell and Paladins can revivify. And Ankarna telling Fig that she’s known all along.

The Legend Lore Concludes: After the sundering at the cliffs, the remaining Sunstones changed their names (to Cliffbreaker) and went into hiding. The Frostblades destroyed Ankarna's name to free her from the corruption (but I guess that went a little too far and backfired). The name was lost but a lot of Ankarna's true followers waited for her return. That includes Bakur who the Bad Kids realize was trying to bring back not infernal, ragey Ankarna but sunny justice Ankarna. But he was stopped by her mortal followers.

Sandra Lynn watching all of this is like, “Well shit,” and points out that if the world isn’t already in chaos they must not have everything they need yet. The Bad Kids figure the opposition must be missing the name and a successful election. The election is in four days so that’s how long they have to stop it. In one final sick fusion of bard and paladin, Fig uses a riff from her base to uncover an older image of Ankarna and Cassandra pre-corruption and then they head back home.

(Note: This comes up later retroactively but before they leave, they also check for footprints and see recent ones of Porter, Jace, and Buddy. It looks like they teleported in.)

Kristen casts Sending to warn Jawbone that Porter is bad news and then they speculate some more. There was a question in an earlier episode about what does it actually mean that Ankarna died in the Red Waste. They figure out that it means that the last follower who remembered her name was killed there.

They talk to Bakur who says again that he was betrayed by Ankarna’s mortal followers. He also mentions that even in her infernal state, she would refuse to grant her followers spells when they had plans to hurt her sister or wife (even when Ruvina’s followers were attacking her).

Bakur realized that Ankarna's followers were interested in her power but not in her. Bakur also overheard conversation from Lydia's party that said that Ankarna needed to be remade in a place where a god has been borne. A god. Any god. Riz flashes back to Kipperlilly Jawbone asking where Yes! was borne.

Fig with some help from Adaine makes a fake version of Ankarna's name to give to Porter--Bacharath written in Giant. While Fig goes to give this to Porter, Adaine is hiding outside with Detect Thoughts on and Riz is hiding nearby invisible and recording.

Fig finds Porter and tells him and she found a new god and found her name but it’s annoying because she can’t read Giant which she needs to do to rez the god. She does it really casually and acts like it’s no big deal and Porter tries to play it cool but Adaine can tell with her Detect Thoughts that he’s chomping at the bit to get that name. She makes sure that Fig crits on her Deception with a portent. He (not at all) causally offers to help Fig translate and snatches the piece of paper from her. Fig then challenges him to spar and he agrees. Brennan asks for a Con roll and when Porter stomps his foot, everyone is immediately stunned (remember the mention of the stun effect and not defensive wounds earlier). Everyone but Riz who rolled a Nat 20. So he keeps his Invisibility. He also gets a high enough luck check to feel that there is someone else invisible nearby, close to Fig and Porter (note: later, Brennan tells Adaine that while she had Detect Thoughts up, for a moment she could detect the thoughts of an invisible KP).

The last thought Adaine gets from Porter as her concentration drops on Detect Thoughts is, “Did I lock the office?”

Porter helps Fig up and doesn’t actually fight her but it feels like they just saw Porter do a Legendary Action which is a weird thing for a teacher to do–even a strong one. Fig asks what the hell that was and Porter plays it coy, saying senior year is gonna be really exciting. Riz is absolutely not having that non-answer and Misty Steps into Porter’s office. With his high investigation, he just finds everything so back to bullets:

There’s a note where he’s intimidating Halo St. Croix (the paladin teacher) into letting him teach the multiclass paladins.

There are MCATs signed for him to teach both Lucy and Buddy paladin lessons.

There’s an encrypted message between Porter and Bobby Dawn where Bobby is basically saying he’s very happy for Sol to remain the ONLY god of the sun in town but a new war god? That could be OK. He also suggests Porter look into Devil’s Honey for his plan.

There's medicine to help with a psychosomatic allergic to feline dandruff (prob Kalina related).

There’s filo dough–the kind you use to make baklava (a honey based dessert).

There’s a leather cord, probably used in the casting of Spy’s Tongue Curse than smells rank.

There are tons of blenders full of whey, protein powder, and ambrosia–food of the gods. Together, they piece together that mortals aren’t supposed to eat ambrosia because it kills them. Not in a violent way–they just ascend to the afterlife. They figure that Porter is basically eating god supplements, with the intention of supplanting Ankarna and becoming the new god of rage. Explains why he suddenly has legendary actions.

There’s some cryptic, vague communication with the Rat Grinders which doesn’t give much away but is enough to tip them off that Ruben’s house is the place where they plan things.

With that they go to investigate Ruben’s place. Before they go, Riz sets up a dead man’s switch that will release evidence if he doesn’t stop it–just in case they get trapped or held up or something. Adaine also calls her sister so she can cast a bunch of protective wards on Fabian’s place–she’s a master abjuration wizard after all.

Riza goes in first and disables all the traps in Ruben’s house which means they won’t get caught but the RG’s will know someone was there later. Here’s everything they find and, like the rest of this episode, it’s a lot:

Adaine finds Oisin’s workstation and most notably finds a picture of his dragon ancestor hanging out with Kalvaxus, some notes about the Cloud Rider, and notes about stealing summons from other people (remember Adaine's mephits going haywire at Fabian's party). There's also some notes about a way to write telekinetically on the inside of a sphere. They’re not sure what that means.

In Ruben's sound studio, they find notes from Porter helping Ruben write the song Get Mad--the song he did at Frosty Fair.

Gorgug hacks into their private servers and sees all their communications. KP insists that they only call Cass the Nightmare King and (presumably) refers to Porter as the "Big Guy". She says he wants the Nightmare King and should have her locked down sooner rather than later just as soon as she shows herself in the Astral Plane. There's also stuff from last year where KP is really excited. She says the Big Guy has been looking out for them for a while and she's hyping Lucy up saying she gets to be the champion (something we know she didn't want). KP is specifically excited that this will allow them to keep up with the Bad Kids. Jace is also mentioned as a conspirator under the acronym JSD which isn’t slick at all lol.

Kristen sees evidence of Buddy helping with a ritual and stuff about where a god was "borne" (spelled correctly) so clearly they know a lot about what's going on. She also finds out what KP wants to do once she's President: she wants to shut down Aguefort as a school forever which will nullify the protections and wards it has centered on it, the big one being that Elmville can't be moved to any other plane of existence while school is in session. They think the Rat Grinders want to teleport the whole town–perhaps to set up a divine domain. Which would need followers–specifically angry followers. IDK about y’all but I feel like being randomly teleported to the Astral Plane would make ME pretty angry.

There are texts post Lucy but pre Buddy where they're like what are we gonna do now? There's a "We're all in this together now" vibe (like some kind of twisted High School Musical) and they resolve to "talk to the Big Guy"

We learn Buddy was chosen for the same reason Lucy was a good candidate–connection to Ankarna. Lucy because Ruvina was her sister and Buddy because of similar domains (Helio’s domain is a Solar offshoot). Also I didn’t mention this before but Buddy did *not* know what he was doing. Oisin and Ivy are joking about his cluelessness behind his back (Booooo I was rooting for you dude).

There’s a message from Jace telling them to stop antagonizing the Bad Kids even though they want revenge which leads the Bad Kids to question what they ever did to them.

In Oisin's room they also find a lot of stuff about dragons and an image of a fetal god being protected by the Nightmare King. Also they remember how cloudy the Nightmare King's realm was (maybe a cloud rider connection?)

Deep breath, this is a lot of stuff and we’re almost done.

There's stuff about the Thistulespring tree and Ruben’s song spreading the rage vibes that represent the crystals in the ground.

They realize that Porter is probably using the Devil's Honey to lie to Ankarna about his intentions as he's communicating with her.

They see that for the ritual they needed a body (Porter), Ankarna's name, the protective storm of the NIghtmare King, and his name inscribed by the champion of the old goddess. They realize that’s why Zara never got her eval. Fig is the champion and she did Porter and Zara’s eval on the same sheet which he swiped for this ritual. He literally made Fig a paladin so he could get what he needed. Diabolical. Aguefort needs better hiring practices.

OK. Phew. Finally done. They head out and the next day is election day. Porter isn’t at school that day which is not surprising but is concerning. They don’t see the RG’s either. After school it’s time for the big party/election at Fabian’s place. Mazey gets a booth set up and Jawbone is there as faculty to make it legit. Aelwyn has warded up the place. Fig is there as Wanda cause she’s a maniac. Adaine is casting Detect Magic continually at the voting booth to watch for shenanigans. Also Ragh shows up and he aced his tryouts! He’s gonna be a profesh bloodrush player! Hoot growl all around!

But Riz (and honestly Murph) is unsettled. Everyone’s at this party where Fabian’s victory is a sure thing? All in one location together? Rat Grinders nowhere to be seen? This is WAY too easy.

Which is Brennan’s cure to drop the other shoe.

Things are just like Adaine's visions...until they're not. The sky was always clear in her visions and now storm clouds are brewing. She gets a Sending spell from someone, "You didn't see the storm coming? Must not be a very good Oracle." Oisin. Suddenly, ping pong balls with runes inside of them start raining down from where they've been stuck in the unkept Seacaster manor for months. From when Oisin "missed" his shots. Telekinetic writing inside a sphere. Runes inside ping pong balls. As they fall, there's a sudden lurch. Winds kick up and Seacaster manor is flying above Elmville. Everyone rolls initiative!

I’m not doing proper Honor Roll/Detention this week because this was such a long episode and I'm exhausted. Honestly, Honor Roll for me for getting this up in time. Detention for Fabian for not using is 10k gold allowance to have someone clean his house in the past 9 months.

Random Notes

Gonna just stick to a few plot relevant ones to keep this brief.

Re: Adaine not seeing the storm in the same way that the previous oracle couldn't. I wonder if that’s just a blanket thing that weather evades predictions or if they did the same thing that was done during Kal’s plan to evade that oracle's sight before Aelwyn sunk her ship.

I don’t think I made it clear but Porter def killed Yolanda according to this ep.

Porter’s Legendary Action is able to stun someone for multiple rounds which in combat would be devastating.

I’m shocked they never tried to talk to Ruvina at any point during the campaign.

I am still VERY concerned about Riz being made staff by Jace and given silver. That feels suspicious given we know he’s on Team Porter Ascension.

I didn’t get into it because it was nebulous and would have messed with the flow of the recap but there was something there about teleportation circles and the Rat Grinders continually casting teleport to make a circle and maybe that’s how they’re gonna get Elmville into the Astral Plane. Just mentioning it in case it comes up again.

I don’t think we got closure on the “where the god was borne” thing. Because borne means carried, not created, right? I wonder if Seacaster manor would count because the corpse of Yes! Was brought there by Ankarna.

The Rat Grinders and Porter have at least 2 obstacles they don’t know about. They don’t have the real name (unless they got in since Fig gave Porter the fake one) and Fig is literally domain squatting on Ankarna’s domain. She already called dibs so any claiming will have to go through her.

I think it’s really nice that Adaine tried to do a relaxation track for Kristen. Handshake meme, her and Riz.

Emily insisting so hard and consistently that Porter was evil that Brennan just made him evil has some real as above/so below energy lol.

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card

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kadextra · 6 months ago

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so on a whim I started reading omniscient reader’s viewpoint manhwa

..and got hooked on the story so hard that I easily blasted through all available eps in less than a week. istg they put dr*gs in this thing it’s so good???? 😭

[SPOILER WARNING! big ramble ahead. if you’ve never read it, leave this post. consider checking it out you won’t be able to put it down]

lets get this out of the way first.

RAHHHHHH KIM DOKJA….. KIM DOKJA I LOVE YOU

GUYSSSSS 🥺 LISTEN. HE’S SUCH A GOOD PROTAGONIST. MY TRAUMA BOY. MY DUDE WITH THE POWER TO INFODUMP PEOPLE TO DEATH. YOU SELF-SACRIFICING IDIOT. his cunning intelligence makes him super attractive what can I say, I LOVE smart mcs with ambiguous morality and self sacrificial nature

here’s a big ✨shut your mouth✨ to every character who’s said he’s ugly- get your eyes checked, get a job get away from him (I know it’s because of the fourth wall’s filter it’s not their fault I’m just being silly)

the fourth wall is such a cool power to have. the complexity of how it acts based on his perception of fiction vs reality as the reader …. that’s very interesting and well thought out!!! how it lowkey has a consciousness too and it’s so tied into his mental state makes me want to psychoanalyze this guy even more. probably one of the most unique powers I’ve seen created and explored in a story tbh

I think the entire system of how the world works is really well done in general. constellations watching the apocalyptic bloodbath via livestream and sending donos to their favorite little guys shouldn’t work as well as it does and cracks me up so much 😭 (uriel is the best). I enjoy learning about all the irl different fables, history & mythologies too. plus doing my own research is fun! I did a deep dive through the web to learn about dokkaebi folklore lol I’m having a good time

I also related hard to how dokja read TWSA throughout his life, the story was a companion for him. got choked up bc I reflected on how much my own favorite companion stories for years mean to me. there’s been situations I’ve thought “what would (character) do?” dokja saying stuff like “what would joonghyuk do?” felt like I got called out <3 I’d probably be the same as him if my favorite characters suddenly came to life

anyways yeah I caught up with the manhwa looked online and discovered it comes from an already completed novel with over 500 chapters and the manhwa is barely a third into adapting it though it’s been releasing every week for 4 years. and that it’ll take like 10 more years to finish. I then planted my face in my hands and screamed with despair

I’ll shrivel up waiting to see what happens……………heyyy woahhhh.. whats this light of salvation ? the novel file just completed download on my phone ? that’s crazyy wow I opened it ? im scrolling it right now ? omg I’m telling myself in the mirror “pace yourself, try to space your reading out do NOT read too fast” ?

jokes aside im excited, first I’ll take some time to read back through the earlier chapters for extra context of scenes! >:D after I finish doing that…. pls pray for my self-control to try stretching this for as long as possible. I’m pumped to see what happens next with this demon king part so maybe I’ll read along with the manhwa unless I get too impatient heh

to conclude- I had no idea the fandom of orv was so passionate. while closing my eyes to spoilers, I was looking at beautiful fanart and animatics (watched this one and ascended that’s one of my fav rin songs). I can tell how much you guys love the story, there’s always going to be people like me who get interested so keep it up :D if the fandom does end up reading this, ummm *knocks on the door* hi im new

I will likely talk about it more in the future!! tagging under “#kade reads orv” ! might draw fanart on my art blog too bc brainworms <3 happy reading everyone

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kade reads orv #kade reads

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jinxxsims · 2 years ago

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Full disclaimer to begin with. This is just how I do conversions. There are no doubt other ways, possibly even better ways to convert objects, but this is the way I know how. This post is going to be long and image heavy and I am going to walk through it slowly so nothing is missed. If any of it is still confusing once you've gotten through it, feel free to send me an ask and I will answer to the best of my ability. Part One of the tutorial under the cut!

Programs You Will Need (and links where you can find them):

SimPE

Sims 4 Studio

Blender

Milkshape

Not Strictly Necessary, But Certainly Nice To Have:

The Compressorizer by JFade or @lazyduchess edit which can be found here

A Photo Editing Program - I use Photoshop, but GIMP is a completely free, open-source program and it would work just as well for recolors or texture editing.

Now onto the tutorial!

Step One - Launch Sims 4 Studio. If it is your first time launching Sims 4 Studio or if you had launched it before without maybe knowing what to do, click on "Settings" and make sure everything is pointing where it needs to.

If it's not, the objects from the Sims 4 games, EPs, and kits you own won't show once you get into the studio. Once you've adjusted the paths, hit "Save."

Step Two - From the main screen of Sims 4 Studio, select the "Object" header.

Leave it on "Standalone Recolor." Once you hit the "Object" header, the studio will begin loading all the Sims 4 meshes in your game. It will just take a few seconds for the objects to populate.

Step Three - Choose the object you want to convert.

You can use the "Game Pack" or the Search fields (which I highlighted above) to narrow down the items instead of being bombarded with all of them at once. For this tutorial, I'm going to be converting the "Caress Chair" from the Base Game.

@sims4t2bb is the most amazing database of 4t2 content. Here you can find the various packs and kits and see what has been converted already, so you don't end up converting something that's already out there available for download. Seriously, this is an amazing resource. @lafeeverte-sims and @twentyfourfirst-sims update this database in practically real time. I don't know how they do it. This is easily one of the single greatest resources for the 4t2 converters out there. Bookmark it and check it often.

Step Four - Select the item you're going to convert and hit "next" down in the bottom, right-hand corner.

Once you've clicked "next," you'll be prompted to give your file a name and choose where to save it. THIS FILE IS USELESS. It will not be used at any point during the conversion process. In fact, you can delete it the moment Sims 4 Studio creates it. If having a lot of files around confuses you more, get rid of it right away.

For my own part, I keep it around because I have the short term memory of a goldfish. I use it to set up what I'm eventually going to name my mesh file. So in this particular instance, I named this pointless file jinxxsims-4t2-base-caresschair because it is the Caress Chair and it is from the Base Game. I know, super original, right? It works for me though.

You could name this thing xyz, it wouldn't matter. As I said, the file is never going to be used. Give it a name, hit "save," and Sims 4 Studio will spend a few moments getting the file up and ready.

Step Five - It's time to gather the components of the object. First, let's get the mesh.

Choose the "Meshes" tab. The LOD 0 (High) field should already be selected. Don't change it. Finally, choose "Export Mesh." You'll be prompted to give your mesh a name. I always just name mine "mesh," because I want there to be no doubt about what files I have floating around in my WIP folder.

Once you click "save," the game will spend a few seconds extracting the mesh as a blender file. Once it's done, go to the "Texture" tab.

Step Six - Gather the textures.

Highlight one of the color swatches at the top of the window. The first one will always be the "mesh" color. Click "export." You'll be prompted to give your texture a name. I always save the first one as "mesh."

Click on each swatch and extract the textures the same way. You will be prompted to save each swatch when exporting them. I name all of mine in the simplest way possible.... rc-1, rc-2, and so on.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Especially when just getting started. Feel free to get fancy once you get the hang of things, but when starting out... simple is best.

This is what my WIP folder looks like after I've exported all the textures. Regardless of what you're converting, yours should look similar.

Step Seven - Double-click the "mesh" file to have it open in Blender.

Full disclosure. Blender absolutely baffles me. I know there are people who can create objects from scratch in it and do other, all kinds of impressive things, but... that is not me. I use it for roughly sixty seconds, just to get the mesh in a format that Milkshape will accept, and that's it.

The first thing we need to do is eliminate the white boxes beneath the chair until the only thing left is the mesh. On the right hand side of the window, there are listings of what the mesh is currently composed of. "s4studio_mesh_0," "s4studio_mesh_1," and "s4studio_mesh_2." Next to each, there is what looks like a little eyeball. Click the eyeball and what that part of the mesh is will disappear.

In this case, when you click the eyeball next to "s4studio_mesh_0," the big white box disappears.

So, we know that "s4studio_mesh_0" is really just that white box. Go ahead and delete it by right clicking "s4studio_mesh_0" and choosing "Delete" from the drop-down menu.

Next, click the eyeball next to "s4studio_mesh_1" and the tiny white squares under each leg disappear, so we know that that layer of the mesh is just more white boxes. Right click "s4studio_mesh_1" and choose "Delete" from the drop-down menu.

You're left with just the mesh on its own, and that's perfect! In my experience, the white boxes are almost always on layers 0 and 1 if there are 2 sets of white boxes.

Step Eight - Export the mesh as an OBJ.

Go to File > Export > Wavefront (.obj)

A panel with settings will appear on the left side of the screen. Leave the default settings, but uncheck "Write Materials" beneath "Include UVs." If you leave it checked, that's ultimately fine. All it does is create an unnecessary file in your WIP folder. I uncheck it because the less unnecessary files you have floating around, the better, because there's less of a chance of confusing yourself.

Set your file path to your WIP folder (that's the black line in the image above) and give your mesh a name if you want to rename it (I just leave mine as mesh) and then click "Export OBJ." Once you've done so, you can exit Blender and delete the Blender file that Sims 4 Studio created.

This is what my WIP folder looks like now:

Step Nine - Launch SimPE. Once the program has opened, launch the Object Workshop. I have mine in a side panel, but you can also launch it by going to Tools > Object Creation > Object Workshop. When the Workshop launches, it will ask you to choose between "Start" or "Open...".

"Start" is for cloning and recoloring Maxis objects. "Open..." is for cloning and recoloring custom objects. When doing conversions of things like chairs, tables, beds, etc., choose "Start" and clone from Maxis objects. Clone from "Open..." when creating objects Maxis doesn't really have in the catalog... like the sprinkler I just shared, the single-tile workout bags I shared, or like an end table with multiple slots when you don't want to add the slots in yourself.

Since this is just a basic dining chair, we're going to choose "Start." This will take a little while for SimPE to load the whole Sims 2 catalog. Just be patient. When it's finished loading, you'll be presented with a list that looks like this:

In this instance, I'm going to choose "Seating" and then "Dining Room" since I'm converting a dining chair. This will make sure that the chair I'm converting has all the functions of a dining chair... like it will be pushed in under a desk or a table rather than be stationary like a living chair.

How do you know which object to clone? Honestly, sometimes it's a bit of a crapshoot. IgnorantBliss on MTS has compiled a list of easy-to-clone objects here that you can download and reference when cloning. I used it A LOT when I first started converting.

When you select an item to clone, most of the time it will tell you which EP it is from. I think it's generally most accepted to clone from Base Game items if there is a Base Game item available to clone from, because the most people will be able to use it, but in my own personal opinion... at this stage in the game and time, clone whatever works for you. The Sims 2 is abandonware. Everyone who wants to play the Sims 2 has access to the full game, with all its EPs for free.

OldGamesDownload works in partnership with the Internet Archive to preserve games that have been abandoned by their creators and keep them available to the public. All Sims 2 (and Sims 1!) games can be found on their website, free of charge.

I say all of that just to say... if you clone a dining chair from Apartment Life rather than the base game... that's fine! You're not obligated to meet everyone's needs, and if someone doesn't have Apartment Life but really wants your dining chair, the means to get it are out there. Create for yourself and your own convenience first.

For this tutiorial, I'm going to clone the base game dining chair "Tea Party in Teak." Once I've highlighted it in the list, I'm going to choose "Next" at the top of the Object Workshop panel.

Step Ten - Clone the object. Under "Task," choose Clone in the drop down menu. My settings look like this:

Once yours match, choose "Start."

This will bring up a panel for you to choose the name, price, and catalog description for your item. Notice how I never told you to close Sims4Studio? That's because I go back to it now to copy the information from Sims 4.

In the Sims 4 Studio window, choose the "Catalog" subheading and copy the information over to SimPE.

I always add a line beneath the description with my screenname. If I'm converting CC from Sims 4 rather than EA content, I also always include the original creator's name. I would encourage others to do the same. This way, if there's a problem with something you shared, people know who to contact. Or, if someone gets a WCIF for an object you shared, it's easy for them to know who the maker is to help a fellow Simmer out. And if you convert someone else's object, it's just in good taste to give them the credit they are due.

Once you've given your object a title, price, and description, click "Finish" in the Object Workshop. You can also close Sims4Studio at this time.

Step Eleven - Finish preparing the clone and save your mesh.

The Scenegraph rename Wizard comes up after you hit finish. In the ModelName field, give your object a name. Not everyone does this, but I do, for neatness and clarity's sake. Once you've given it a name, click "Update," and all the values in the field will be adjusted.

Ta-da! Click "OK" and you'll be prompted to save your mesh. This is when I use that dummy file that I said you could delete immediately from Sims 4 Studio. I click it so it automatically names my new save, then I add -MESH at the end.

In this case, my save file is now jinxxsims-4t2-basegame-caresschair-MESH. I always do all capitalized "MESH" because I think there's less of a chance of anyone deleting the mesh accidentally when it's there all big and bold.

Click "Save" and SimPE will create the file for you. If you hung on to the dummy file like I did, at this point, you can delete it.

And that's where I'm ending "Part One" of this tutorial. I will work on "Part Two" which will take you the rest of the way through conversions later today and hopefully have it up tonight or tomorrow!

#tutorial #resources #4t2 conversion

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universitysunflowers · 7 months ago

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So how are we feeling right now? (TBB Spoilers)

Episodes 10 & 11 may be some of the darkest we've seen this season. We all knew the storm was coming but wow that was such a dramatic shift. I definitely had some thoughts and realizations after watching the latest release.

Okay first off lets talk about the elephant in the room: Tech. A lot of people thought that Identity Crisis would be about Tech and his struggle with having been made into the shadow clone CX-2, but it was actually about Emerie (I'll get back to her in a bit). Even though we don't know exactly who that shadow clone is yet, I do think it could still be Tech. In episode 11 (plus 6 and 7) we saw a lot of hints towards Tech as we knew him in seasons 1 and 2; things like the way he spoke, his leg getting crushed, his flying, and his use of Cid and Phee to get to the others on Pabu. One thing that really stood out to me when he was on Phee's ship is the way he put his hands on the flight controls while downloading her data, almost like it was second nature to him, something familiar he did without thinking (I know this is a stretch but it really jumped out at me as a parallel to the countless scenes of Tech flying the Marauder, it just felt like him again). However there is a dark side to all of this. If CX-2 is Tech that means that:

Tech destroyed the Marauder; the ship that was a home and refuge for CF 99, both during the war and after the Empire took over. It was the one real constant they had in their lives and he would be the reason it's gone.

Tech destroyed peace on Pabu; a place where he and the others felt safe and grounded for the first time since Kamino. It also means he would be at least partly responsible for destroying the lives of everyone who helped and supported them in season 2 (CX-2 was ruthless in ep 11, they made that very clear).

Tech used Phee to accomplish all of this; a friend who trusted and cared about him and rest of the batch.

Tech would be the one who hunted down and eventually captured Omega, whatever that may mean in the future.

There are a lot of people who think that bringing Tech back would make his death meaningless, which I completely understand. Some characters should die and stay dead as a way of furthering the story and development of other characters. However, in this case I do think that revealing CX-2 to be a brainwashed Tech would have huge implications for the narrative. It would mean that one of their own was responsible for so much of the destruction we have seen this season, and that just because Crosshair resisted imperial experiments, does not mean that the others have similar abilities/plot protection. It would also bring immense emotional conflict into the rest of the season (however they might do it) and could be a deciding factor in the rest of the batch's fate; would they realize what he's done and treat him as the enemy, or would they see him and hesitate, possibly losing even more than they already have. Revealing Tech as the shadow clone would be incredibly dark, especially after all of the cruel and deliberate things he has done this season that contrast to the mild tempered and caring persona we previously knew (even if he didn't always show his feelings outright). While I do think there is a possibility that he is dead and not coming back, I definitely would not put it past the writers to do something so drastic as a way of adding to the season's narrative value with a conflicting and completely jarring revelation that would have so many significant implications for so many main characters. I did not mean for this post to be so long but let's keep going anyway.

Some other more general realizations I had:

As of right now, Hunter and Wrecker don't know that Omega was taken again. That said, we might not see them finding out and the next episode could definitely jump ahead like they have done with other significant moments like Crosshair's return.

Crosshair could be blamed for letting Omega give herself up and missing the shot to put a tracker on the ship, especially if they never see her again (but I'm choosing to believe that won't happen). There is no way Hunter wouldn't have something to say about that, even after they have mostly patched things up over the last few episodes. This also contributed to the tone of the episode 11 ending; he missed the shot, meaning they have no way of tracking her and are no closer to finding Tantiss. It was a very bleak note to end on in general, not at all like some hopeful purpose driven endings we have seen previously.

Just because Omega gave herself up does not mean that the Empire is going to leave Pabu intact. She distracted CX-2 by letting him take her back to Tantiss but the other troopers were still there, and I doubt they will just pack up and leave without a fight now that Omega is back in their control.

There are only 4 episodes left; what if they don't reveal CX-2's identity at all, and just leave us guessing (I still think there could be merit to the possibility of it being Cody or a Crosshair clone but that gets less likely every time we see him). Or worse, what if they keep hinting at it to make sure we know who he is, but never give us proof; instead just leaving us with the knowledge of what happened to Tech, and what he has done, without any other closure.

Ok let's talk about Emerie. I was definitely not expecting her to be the focus of Identity Crisis, but I thought that was a really interesting twist. We haven't seen her in a while so it was nice to get her perspective, and to get a better idea of what project Necromancer is all about (though I am still not totally sure where they are going with that so I'm reserving my judgments until later). As the title implies, she is definitely starting to question her place with Hemlock and the Empire, and I am also wondering how she is going to react to Omega being captured again, especially knowing what she knows now. I definitely think Emerie will be more sympathetic towards Omega's independence and desire to help the other clones. We might even see the two of them working together on a future escape attempt? Overall I enjoyed episode 10 and I am glad Emerie is finally getting her moment to contribute to the plot, especially after her importance was so obiously revealed in Crosshair's escape attempt during season 2.

I'm sorry this got so depressing but unfortunately I think that is what we can expect for the rest of the season unless something really unexpected happens. Also if you read that entire novel then thank you I swear I didn't think this post would be so long when I was writing down my thoughts earlier but here we are.

#the bad batch #star wars #tbb spoilers #the bad batch season 3 #tbb #clone force 99 #tbb tech #tbb emerie #tbb omega #star wars the bad batch

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hikennosabo · 10 months ago

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#tristampparty day 2, episode 2: the running man

day 2 of @tristampparty!! i have less to say about this episode than the first one so hopefully this will be a shorter post than yesterday LOL

iirc this is 98 knives's seiyuu on the radio, right?!!! i am only about halfway through my jp 98 watch and can't recognize him by ear (yet) but i think it's very neat that the original seiyuus have cameos :')

also vash keeping the photo with him What If I Ate Rocks

he is such a kicked puppy of a man

why does roberto say revenge. what does he mean. what does he know. what has he figured out from knowing vash for maybe like a few hours. or is he just throwing that out there without realizing how close he is to the truth. partially, anyway. he didn't guess the savior complex part.

i'm not entirely sure what meryl means by honor...? but money is a pretty normal reason to want a plant, as we've seen and as we'll continue to see.

i like how meryl has a fear of bugs... i can relate lol. i think this character trait comes from the manga when she was kidnapped by zazie and was grossed out? i think here it also serves to reinforce her being sheltered, still unfamiliar with the world at large since worms are everywhere--WAIT HOLD ON.

PAUSE. ZOOM. ENHANCE.

RAI-DEI SPOTTED?!?!??!?! this rewatch is becoming an I Spy game with the wanted posters, jfc.

man i'm so glad i finally downloaded tristamp so i can appreciate the visuals without the crunchiness of streaming video... i can't do the animation justice with just screenshots but i love watching vash scamper around like a... i don't know. he scampers like a cockroach in 98, but this is giving a different vibe. like a... something. like a creature.

i also want to take a second to appreciate how gorgeous the backgrounds are, like,

i loooove the backgrounds, it looks like... maybe a mix of markers and colored pencil... i love the detail and the colors are so pleasing. this is such a gorgeous anime to look at, i don't know how anyone could possibly say it looks bad without them just blindly hating it because it's 3dcg. god i'm getting so distracted looking at the backgrounds that i'm missing the action AND the subtitles LOL

wasn't there a post somewhere that actually calculated how much a bullet is worth based on this information. i don't remember what conclusion it came to. but i'm thinking either food is expensive (tbh, likely) or bullets are inexpensive and vash is just poor (also likely). also it's funny that the dub changed this to donuts. ...where are the donuts at in tristamp anyway...

roberto lmao 😭😭😭😭😭 i guess that's one way to guarantee it doesn't spill

roberto up until this point has acted like meryl is dragging him along unwillingly, but here he's the one telling meryl to get in the car so they can get a move on, lol. yeah yeah we all already know he's actually a softie and that he really cares underneath his aloof demeanor.

which brings us to this scene... i don't want to say that he has vash "all figured out" because obviously he doesn't, but he's got SOME of vash figured out at least. definitely more than meryl atp. he knows vash is running from knives... i wonder how this conversation would have gone if they weren't interrupted.

yeah i don't really have that much to say about this ep, relatively speaking... i don't have any deep thoughts about the nebraskas, they're just comic relief villains anyway, i don't care about them that much, even though tristamp kind of tries to make us care a little bit by the end of this episode...

next episode is gonna be a doozy though. ohohohohohoho.

#tristampparty #trigun talk #june speaks #i need to not do these right before i go to bed lol

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real-total-drama-takes · 1 year ago

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top 10 reasons why i think julia should be a pre-merge boot next season

⚠️warning: some may find the following content disturbing. julia fans' discretion is advised

it'd piss off her fans

she's overused her potential and hogged a lot of unnecessary screentime. her schtick as a villain is extremely overpraised especially when the main twist in ep 6 that marked her first significant accomplishment didnt even make sense. you're telling me that somehow, from hearing someone say one single word, she went through all the possibilities (including overhearing a confessional from the outside) and concluded that someone was downloading the confessionals?? despite no one knowing about mk's geek persona in addition to it never having been accomplished in the history of the show before? really? they could've at least had more interesting buildup to that twist, and have julia's "clues" actually have substance because otherwise the writing was very flimsy

she's not that complex of a character canonically. it may be difficult to hear but it's objectively true

it'd piss off her fans

her villain persona is just straight up being a bully about things that arent related to the game at all. it's laughable that people call her heather 2.0 when heather certainly had a personality past being an asshole and nothing else. "but we need more mean women in media!" julia fans also hate MK and millie for that exact reason! be consistent about it.

the pre-merge boot order this season was nasty. every single pre-merge boot had potential, even more so than julia (whose personality could immediately be guessed the moment her design was released. whoop-de-doo!)... i'd like more time for dynamic characters next season and not static ones.

julia's twist was very predictable. her entire character is predictable. she's the character everyone thinks they relate to while in reality they're more of a millie. but who's surprised that people prefer the skinny white tiktok girl over the most realistically written character in the show

with all her canon screentime in the show, she's developed very little. i think it's unfair to have her be a screen hog a second season in a row when she already had her time to shine and hardly did anything unique with it. we finally get the most diverse cast this show has seen and yet everyone wants more of the most boring type of character we've already seen in 700 other shows

seriously i don't get why people think she's all that. just step outside for a moment and you'll find an entire sea of people who are exactly like her, in both appearance and personality. calling her the best villain in the history of td is ridiculous and laughable and even mal was more entertaining for me to watch. at least he was funny

it'd piss off her fans

thanks for watching! please hit that like button and subscribe for more aaawesome content💯🔥💪

#total drama #total drama 2023 #fandom takes #character hate #kind of ?

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samkat10423 · 7 months ago

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More Veronaville

As I mentioned before, I had some routing issues with the original Veronaville, and since danjaley used Riverview as her basis for her town, I downloaded an empty version from Mod the Sims and have been using it.

Anyway, I finished up the "industrial" side today. Go, me!

I decided to use the hospital from that Supernatural ep, since it looks old and has the added bonus of being a dual rabbithole.

I left the diner pretty much as it was, with the exception that I changed the sidewalk paving to the same one I'm using throughout the town. Next door was the business lot, but I already have one on the island, so I built a small firehouse here. The Monty's footed the bill for its construction, since cheapo Consort Capp didn't see any sense in wasting simoleons on one. As he told everyone in town, "Our ancestors managed quite well without one! You younger sims are just a bunch of crybabies."

Next to the criminal hideout, I bulldozed the pool EA had there, and placed a water treatment plant that I got from Mod the Sims. (It's still zoned as a pool). The place has "No swimming!" signs posted, but sims still climb over the fence and swim here. Then complain when they break out in rashes. As Consort Capp likes to say, "You can't fix stupid, and the Montys are all really, really stupid," since the medical board - at the last town meeting - complained that the ER has been overflowing with sims covered in rashes and they want more simoleons to cover the added cost of hiring more staff to treat them. What Consort doesn't know is that his grandson has been treated three times.

Across the street is where I was going to place danjaley's Globe Street strip mall. This was where EA had their science facility. Unfortunately, her lot was a bit too big for the spot. So, in my town history, there was a Globe mall here, but it was 'mysteriously' destroyed by a fire - even though it was right across the street from the firehouse - that Consort Capp didn't want. They didn't get there in time to put out the fire, because at the time the fire was blazing out of control, they got 6 other calls from the opposite side of town. Anyway, the previous Globe strip was owned by the Monty family, but after it was destroyed, they couldn't get the necessary permits to rebuild - thanks to the Capps. So, they were forced to sell - at a loss. What they didn't know was that Consort Capp bought the property - for a song - through a proxy buyer. Anyway, since the original description of danjaley's lot said it was the place to go for entertainment, I decided to place a bowling alley there. The building came from My Sim Realty. I just expanded it a bit. And in the parking lot - where there are no parking spaces - I placed Sandy's roller skating object, so my sims can roller skate outside.

In the original build, the roller skating thingie was inside, but since I didn't need it, I replaced it with the ice skating one. Upstairs are some video games.

Anyway, that section of town is now done, since I left the 'festival' lot as is.

#sims 3 #veronaville #thanks to the creators over on Mod the Sims and my Sims Realty.#and of course #danjaley!

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randomisedgaming · 4 months ago

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Xbox 360 XBLA titles without Xbox One /Series X Support, still available to buy!

Following our latest video on the Xbox 360 store shutdown, here is the full list of Xbox Live Arcade games still up to buy on the Xbox 360. If you haven't seen the video you can watch it below.

youtube

With the Xbox 360 store closing on the 29th of July, this list baring the odd error shows all the XBLA games in the United Kingdom Xbox 360 Marketplace Shop. That don't work on Xbox One or Series X and will be lost for good at the end of the month. Some have Xbox One releases, but many are Xbox 360 exclusive. Now the final price drop event on 360 is due to happen on the 16/17th of July.

It seems unlikely any DLC will get reduced so the expensive Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends DLC you will just have to pay through the nose for! If we get time we will try to cover on Demand Games and DLCs next week.

Note at present we are still notes games not all games with extra download content on XBLA are listed correctly yet same with Xbox One versions of some games. As we discussed in our previous videos using the website to buy content is next to impossible and we are buy content via the Xbox 360 in console store.

Warning as per our previous video about the problems we had with the Rabbids Invasions Season Pass. We advice users avoid season passes on the service most are broken.

Any mistakes or omissions please do let us know. Drop us an email, comment or send us a tweet. Also let us know about any Japanese, North America or other games not available in the UK on XBLA and still up and we will add them. If you are looking for games already delisted then visit the excellent website https://delistedgames.com/ for a full list.

XBLA Titles still available to buy on the digital store:

# - Symbols - No games now listed

A (12)

Abyss Odyssey

Alien Breed Episode 1 (On Xbox 360 retail disc in UK Alien Breed Trilogy)

Alien Breed 2: Assault (On Xbox 360 retail disc in UK Alien Breed Trilogy)

Alien Breed 3: Decent (On Xbox 360 retail disc in UK Alien Breed Trilogy)

Alien Rage

Alien Spidy {Has DLC}

Amy

Ancients of Ooga {Has DLC}

Anna - Extended Edition

Arkadian Warriors

Assault Heroes

Awesomenauts [Has Xbox One version] (Released on modern formats with more DLC)

B (18)

Backbreaker Vengeance

Bastion [Has Xbox One version]

Batman: The Telltale Series [Has Xbox One version] (Warning to all, there is a retail version, but this is a season pass disc, which only has the first episode on it and must download the other episode, after the shutdown you will only be able to play the first episode on them.)

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - Deluxe Edition (Listed as Blackgate Deluxe Ed.)

Battle Academy

Battlezone

Bejeweled Blitz LIVE

Bionic Commando Rearmed (Listed as BionicCommando Rearmed)

Black Knight Sword

Blade Kitten

Blazing Birds

Bloody Good Time

Bomberman LIVE {Has DLC} (On Xbox 360 retail disc in Europe, but base game only, no DLC)

Boogie Bunnies

Boxing Fight

Brothers [Has Xbox One version]

Bubble Bobble Neo! {Has DLC}

Burnout Crash!

C (11)

Call of Duty Classic

Capsized

Charlie Murder

Child of Light

Choplifter HD {Has DLC}

Cloudberry Kingdom

Cobalt [Has Xbox One version]

Constant C

Crazy Machines Elements

CrazyMouse

Crimson Alliance {Has DLC}

D (18)

Darkstalkers Resurrection [Included games featured on Xbox One version of Capcom Stadium 2 & Capcom Fighting Collection]

Darts Vs Zombies

Deadliest Warrior Battlegrounds (Listed as DW: Battlegrounds)

Deadlight [Has Xbox One version]

Death Tank

DeathSpank

Deep Black - Episode 1 (Listed as Deep Black - Ep. 1)

Defenders of Ardania

Defense Technica

Diabolical Pitch

Dogfight 1942

Dollar Dash

Double Dragon II

Duke Nukem 3D [Has Xbox One version]

Dungeon Defenders {Has DLC}

Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale

Dust: An Elysian Tail (Only Xbox release, also on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC)

Dustforce

E (3)

Ecco the Dolphin [Included on SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis Classics]

EXIT {Has DLC}

EXIT 2 {Has DLC}

F (12)

Fatal Fury Special (Not shown in A-Z listing has to be found using Bing search on console) [Has Xbox One version by Arcade Archive, but that lacks online play]

Fez (Only Xbox release, also on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC)

Field Goal Contest

Final Exam

Fire Pro Wrestling

Fireburst

Freefall Racers

Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition

Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight {Has DLC}

Fruit Ninja Kinect {Has DLC}

Full House Poker {Has DLC, most is delisted}

Fusion Genesis

G (7)

Guilty Gear XX A Core Plus (Listed as GGXXACP in store, make sure to download the free DLC upgrade) {Has DLC}

Gel

Geon

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

Goosebumps: The Game

Gotham City Impostors {Has DLC}

Guncraft: Blocked and Loaded

H (9)

Happy Tree Friends

Haunt

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit {Has DLC}

Hexodius

Home Run Stars

How to Survive [Has Xbox One version How to Survive: Storm Warning Edition]

Hunter's Trophy 2 - America

Hunter's Trophy 2 - Australia

Hybrid

I (1)

Ion Assault

J - All listed as Xbox One supported

K (2)

Kinect Fun Labs {Has DLC} (Not shown in A-Z listing has to be found using Bing search on console for both game and DLCs. Base game is listed as an add-on in store and can only be run via the Games & Apps page on the guide button, select recent then press RB twice for all and scroll down.)

Kinect Party - Base Game {Has DLC}

L (4)

Leedmees

Life Is Strange Episode 1 [Has Xbox One version] {Has DLC}

LocoCycle [Has Xbox One version] {Has free DLC, required to play game}

Lucidity

M (12)

Mark of the Ninja [Has Xbox One version Mark of the Ninja: Remastered]

Mars Rover Landing [Free Game for Kinect] (Not shown in A-Z listing has to be found using Bing search on console)

Marvel Puzzle Quest [Has Xbox One version] {Has DLC}

Masquerade The Baubles of Doom [Has Xbox One version]

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood

Meteos Wars

MicroBot

Mighty No. 9 (Has Xbox One version, but 360 doesn't have broken achievement) {Has DLC}

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Outdated version released on all modern consoles) {Has DLC}

Minesweeper Flags

Mini Ninjas Adventures

Mortal Kombat Arcade

N (1)

Naughty Bear Panic in Paradise {Has DLC}

O - All listed as Xbox One supported

P (11)

Panzer General Allied Assault

Penalty Saver

Penny Arcade Episode 1

Penny Arcade Episode 2

Pinball FX2 [Has a now delsited Xbox One version, most table are on Pinball FX3 & FX4] {Has DLC}

Ping Pong

Prison Architect: Xbox 360 Edition [Has Xbox One version, 360 version is unfinished trash] {Has DLC}

Prize Driver

Puzzle Arcade {Has DLC}

Puzzle Bobble Live!

Puzzle Chronicles

Q - All listed as Xbox One / Series supported

R (15)

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! (Listed as Rainbow Islands: T.A.)

Raystorm HD (Only Xbox release, newer ports also on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, however this version includes content not on the newer ININ Games release)

Resident Evil Revelations 2 (Listed as RE Revelations 2) [Has Xbox 360 retail version] [Has Xbox One version] {Has DLC}

Reaction Rally

Red Johnson's Chronicles

Rekoil: Liberator

Renegade Ops {Has DLC}

Rez HD (Only Xbox release, newer Rez Infinite release on PS4, PS5 & PC)

Risk

Risk Urban Assault

Rocket Riot

RocketBowl

Rotastic

Rush'N Attack: Ex-Patriot

Rush'n Attack

S (22)

Sanctum 2 [Only console port, PC Steam version has more content] {Has DLC}

Schizoid

Sealife Safari

Section 8: Prejudice {Has DLC}

Ski Race

Skulls of the Shogun (Only Xbox release, also on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC)

South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!

South Park: Tenorman's Revenge

Space Channel 5 Part 5 (On Xbox 360 retail disc Dreamcast Collection America & Europe)

Space Invaders Extreme (Only Xbox release, also on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC)

Spare Parts

Spyglass Board Games

Star Raiders

State of Decay [Has Xbox One version State of Decay: Year-One]

Storm

Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting (Listed as Street Fighter II' HF) [Included on Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection & Capcom Stadium for Xbox One]

Street Fighter III: Online Edition [Included on Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection for Xbox One]

Streets of Rage 2 [Included on SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis Classics & Sega Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage for Xbox One]

Strider [Has Xbox One version]

Super Time Force [Has Xbox One version]

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Listed as SuperStreetFighter2THD)

Syberia 2

T (18)

Takedown: Red Sabre

Tempest

Terraria - Xbox 360 Edition (Newer versions, more updated)

The Bluecoats - North vs South

The Bridge

The Dishwasher Dead Samurai (Listed as The Dishwasher)

The Dishwasher Vampire Smile (Listed as The Dishwasher: VS)

The Fancy Pants Adventures

The Path of Go

The Wolf Among Us {Has DLC}

Things on Wheels

Thunder Wolves

TiQal

TNT Racers

TotemBall

Track and Field

Trials Fusion {Has DLC}

Tron (Not shown in A-Z listing has to be found using Bing search on console)

Twisted Pixel Games Bundle (Bundle of games)

U - All listed as Xbox One / Series supported

V (3)

Valiant Hearts [Has Xbox One version]

Vigilante 8 Arcade

Voodoo Dice

W (15)

War World

Warlords (NB: Not to be confused with the 2012 release of Warlords on Xbox 360 which is a different game and is back catalogue support, this one is the original arcade & an evolved update.)

Warp

Watchmen The End is Nigh

Watchmen The End is Nigh Part 2

Way of the Dogg

Wik: Fable of Souls

Wing Commander Arena

Wits & Wagers

Worms {Has DLC}

Worms 2: Armageddon {Has DLC}

Worms Revolution {Has DLC}

Worms Ultimate Mayhem {Has DLC}

Wreckateer {Has DLC}

Wrecked Revenge Revisited {Has DLC}

X- No games now listed (RIP X-Men Arcade)

Y (5)

Yar's Revenge

Yie Ar Kung-Fu

Yo-Ho Kablammo

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Decade Duels Plus {Has DLC}

Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium Duels {Has DLC}

Z (5)

Zeit 2

Zeno Clash 2

Zeno Clash Ultimate Edition (Listed as Zeno Clash UE)

Zombie Driver HD [Has Xbox One version]

Zombie Wranglers

0-9 Numbers (4)

0D Beat Drop

10 Frame Bowling

1942: Joint Strike

3 Point Contest

Japan Only XBLA Releases

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On

Virtua Striker

Any mistakes or omissions please do let us know. Drop us an email, comment or send us a tweet.

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#Xbox360 #Xbox 360 #xbla #Xbox Marketplace #Youtube

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schismusic · 9 months ago

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THE DISCOGRAPHY PRINCIPLE, Episode 2: Shellac - or, The Song Remains the Same

The discography principle may be defined as an objective way to determine whether or not you're worthy of calling a band or artist "your favorite" or "one of your favorites". A possible enunciation of it goes as follows:

"Let u ≝ some asshole, B ≝ {b|b is a band}, n ≝ #({x|x is a record by b}); let p = #({y|y is a record by b in u's possession}) = p1 + p2 wherein p1 ≝ number of physical records by b you own in any format and p2 ≝ number of records by b you have downloaded. If p ≥ n ∨ p2 = n (for n → +∞), then ∃b∈B such that b is one of u's favorite bands."

When u = me, this subset of B (which we might call Bf) is comprised of six bands, off the top of my head: Autechre, Godflesh, Shellac, Kraftwerk, Fugazi and Coil, listed in no particular order.

If you want to read the prologue to this series, go here. Otherwise, let's get going.

My first year of high school was a year of exploration. Coming out of high school having exclusively listened to Pink Floyd's entire recorded output (it wasn't yet time to do anything more esoteric and perverted with record, like asking them questions, using them as spaces to be mapped out, springing poetry pieces off of them as if they were trampolines; all of that is stuff that comes the more expert you get at using records and the less respectful of them you become, which isn't necessarily a net negative) I then set out to find out more about the history of rock, sailing all alone. I'm not one of those people who get their passion for music from a relative or their parents, music was my thing and my thing only — that is, mine and the Internet's, because that's what you do in 2013 after all — you hear a name off of somewhere, you look it up on Wikipedia — the page in question usually has citation problems, provided it exists at all — and it becomes your personality for a while.

It went like this with the Mars Volta for me, my next Pink Floyd-level obsession, which consumed my conscious mind for about a full year. In the meantime I went along, getting into Nine Inch Nails (my first paid gig, on the Hesitation Marks tour; it was June 3rd, 2014) and Slint, slowly but steadily going through OndaRock's cute little "milestones" section. I never actually did go through it all the way, even though the records it includes maybe oughta be checked out at one point, but it did spark in me a form of interest in stuff that I normally wouldn't have cared for at that time. One of the names that came out of this was Shellac, a band I frankly checked out exclusively because the OndaRock page for them mentioned physics and odd time signatures. There comes a time in a music listener's journey where playing in five or in seven is simply the most big brained thing you could possibly do, especially if you're a guy who grew up on King Crimson and who thought the fact that Money by Pink Floyd is in 7/8 was hot shit — conveniently ignoring the very fortuitous slide into 6/8 right as David Gilmour is about to start his solo…

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So as My Black Ass started I was on board, my own white ass absolutely floored. I was on board the exact second the pick first hit the strings (I was later to find out Steve Albini uses exclusively copper picks and aluminum-neck guitars) and that absolutely fucked-in-the-head sound that these three guys have found a way to conjure. It's a sinewy sound, something that really requires a maximum of four different elements to obtain, and as such has a slew of imitators that never really fit the bill. What we have of Shellac (at least officially) are seven LPs, one of which recorded live and another one limited to a release of 779 copies, three EPs, one or two singles and compilation tracks, and two Peel Sessions — one of which made when the actual John Peel had already been six feet under for about a month. Critically, John Peel as sound engineer (criminally underrated) is probably the only person who could have made justice to Shellac's sound, to a point where some of these songs featured on the 1994 Peel Session might be at their absolute best there.

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At Action Park, finally, was a rock record that required of me a form of thought that went beyond simply learning the riffs and calling it a day; more importantly, it was a record whose riffs I could learn. Slint weren't as easy to me (at the time still relatively inexperienced), nor did they feel as genuinely dangerous — and Steve Albini's previous recorded output was absolutely critical in conveying that sense of forbidden. Honestly, if your first band makes songs about all sorts of horrifying violence and your second band is called — ahem — Rapeman, in reference to a Japanese erotic manga, what the fuck can I tell you? Of course everything you lay your hands upon becomes imbued with an air of deep distaste and transgression and genuine fear. Song of the Minerals is the first time I realized that there are people in the world who simply don't care about other people getting hurt and treating themselves so badly they die from it. Il Porno Star is a song that so openly and directly describes the life of somebody involved in the sex industry that it finally, for the first time, made sex workers look and feel real to me, giving them a backstory of sorts. At the same time, Pull the Cup sounded positively lobotomized, and A Minute felt so enraged for no reason at all that it made a lasting impression: anger was liberating, or in John Lydon's words anger was an energy. And best of all — I could play those songs from start to finish. Some dude, his name was Claudio, had made a webpage on the Tiscali provider which he had kept updated up until about the year 2000 and where he collected a number of guitar tabs contributed by various people. The page, amazingly, can still be found online here (as of Feb 20, 2024) and most of the tabs are still accessible.

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Surprisingly enough, it didn't take me long before I moved along to Shellac's other records; I was lucky enough to find a copy of Dude Incredible in a store back when it was first released and then a copy of 1000 Hurts at a record fair (both CD only at the time). Those two and At Action Park remain the two Shellac records I've spent the most time with to this day, and again it was very interesting getting to see this band attempt to find a way to move past that absolutely stellar debut and never really doing that, but still writing some very worthwhile songs and albums in the meantime. Upon listening to Dude Incredible it felt like the most complete summa of the band's work, and that was my favourite Shellac record for a while — it probably still is, for different, more sentimental reasons — but in retrospect that wasn't the case at all. Shellac's body of work is pretty interesting in that the single records always feel achingly incomplete once you get to know the rest of their work, but at the same time — as far as the songs they include go — all records include nothing but the very best the band could have put forward at that particular time. When I feel like listening to Shellac again I am, for time reasons, forced to go record by record, especially because it's a very logical way of going through it (see my piece on Autechre), but unlike Autechre you have this thing where all records sort of blur into one another. It surprises many people to know that Steve Albini's dream band to work with is AC/DC. As an avid Shellac listener, it puzzles me that anyone would think otherwise.

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At a certain point I stopped feeling that playful horror-movie disgust that Shellac's lyrics kinda toy with and started marvelling at just how insanely sexist some of their stuff is. Obviously, this is the kind of stuff you think of when you're sixteen and devoid of any capability to process parody and irony. I like to posture myself as though I was "in the know", as though Steve Albini's mastermind plan was to kind of lure people into thinking he was a piece of shit, but at the same time it was very easy — scarily so — to get into Prayer to God's protagonist's point of view when he sings the lyrics to the song. In time, I kind of grew to alternately despise it and try to pretend it was being somewhat parodic, until I re-listened to the song and re-read the lyrics and holy shit: it actually was parody all along. Who the fuck sings a song like that and says "make him cry like a woman — no particular woman"? It was that perfect point where the game was revealed all along: the song's protagonist likes to pretend he's a decent person, that he "respects women", but deeply ingrained within him (and fundamentally at odds with what he says he believes in) there remains a profoundly predatorial, territorial and ultimately violent view of romance and sexuality. And all was well once more. It became even better once Steve Albini decided, after the pandemic, to stop posturing as the victim and finally talk about all the stupid bullshit he did and said over the years, to distance himself from all people who ended up essentially embracing right-wing talking points for no reason other than to, supposedly, own the libs. Interviewed by The Guardian, he said something to the effect of "if the stupidest person in the room agrees with you, it's time to ask yourself some questions".

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So after a whole year of preparations, in May 2015 Shellac hit Italy and played Catania, Rome and Bologna together with Uzeda — another great band full of great people. I went there with my then-girlfriend, C., and we proceeded to creep the shit out of all the people in the queue when she mentioned she knew how to skin a hare and I asked her to explain how to do that. Fun times were had. Anyway, I knew rationally that there were three people in Shellac (Steve Albini, velocity; Bob Weston, mass; Todd Trainer, time) but until I was there it didn't really hit me. To me, Shellac was the third Steve Albini project, after Big Black and that other band. Then all of a sudden they take the stage, after Uzeda finished up their absolutely blistering hot set which I barely remember at all (despite really enjoying it), and it was bloody fucking murder. I only have a very vague recollection of what happened during the set; bits and pieces, really — me jumping like two meters into the air when the main riff for Dude Incredible hit, the ten-minute spoken word short story that Steve Albini improvises during the silent break in Wingwalker, the little bit called The Defenders of Fun (actually named Killers, and you can find a studio version of it here) they do before that same song, the impromptu Joy Division references during The End of Radio. But the best, most memorable parts of the concert were the very beginning and the very end.

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When the gig was about to start, Bob Weston came out of the backstage area and you better believe I straight up jumped him right then and there. It is simply impossible to understate just how much my respect for Bob Weston went up that night. This motherfucker, no joke, stood around and hugged me like he was my long-lost father, we talked for a full twenty minutes and after that he told me "now I'm sorry, but I have to go" and I told him "oh sorry, are you still unloading the last things?" and he very calmly replied "I have to take a shit". Which meant that this dude stayed behind for me and delayed a whole ass toilet trip for twenty! fucking! minutes! to talk to a hyperactive, boundary-overstepping fifteen-year-old who had potentially absolutely nothing worthwhile to say. But this was nothing. When the show ended (the last song they played was The End of Radio, they dragged it out for like a full ten minutes while Steve Albini rambled on for the entire duration of the track — possibly one of the band's best set of lyrics, regardless of the absolutely buttfuck insane improvised bits that were thrown in on that particular night) the last note ringed out for like five full seconds. The sheer sustain these aluminum-neck instruments put out is scary. Then Bob Weston specifically looked at me, I was standing right under the stage in front of him, and handed me his pick. To this day I still keep it within the Dude Incredible CD case, which all three Shellac have signed. To get that signature I pissed off poor Todd Trainer, who really just wanted to get his drum kit off of the stage (Todd, if you're reading this: I'm so sorry. I did not know any better and if that weren't enough I was in a massive rush. If we ever meet again, drink's on me). But another thing I will never forget about that night was their interplay. The perfect, and I hate using this kind of superlatives but there really is no other word for it, absolutely perfect way that they locked into one another and the natural flow of song bits and parts and even just the physical nature of the sound itself. These songs are not as simple as they sound, which was life-altering to me as a musician and as a person.

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So apparently Shellac have been teasing a new record for about a year. Sometimes they upload snippets of the vinyl master copy playing, some other times it's small clips from the pressing plant, other times they just play three or four of the songs live, as they have for the past four years or so. Hadn't it been for the pandemic, I think, they would have gotten the record done in time for 2021 — seven years since Dude Incredible, their last studio album. Lately (i.e. since 1000 Hurts) Shellac have released records at a very sluggish pace; some might think it's a matter of ideas slowly running to an end, I for one it's a matter of songwriting quality. Chick New Wave I didn't really like at the time, but I hear they got a couple new ones that they've played to an audience — the titles are The Girl from Outside and the spectacularly-named I Don't Fear Hell and you can hear them one after the other here. And everytime a Shellac record releases, ooh boy, it's a party: these guys' passion project is, very simply, a labor of passion; it actively refuses to play by the market's rules and everytime it's just eight or nine songs that the band felt were strong enough to release. Who cares if people on websites think that it's repetitive and more of the same and cookie-cutter, and anyway almost no one does. We as Shellac enjoyers appreciate that this is just something these three guys do for fun, and if a record comes out of it then all the better for us. Plus, it's new songs for live shows, and that's where the real substance is at. So, let's hope the record comes out soon, and they visit Italy again. I know for a fact I'll be there. Now Todd, about that beer I owed ya…

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#schismusic #musica #music #shellac #shellac of north america #steve albini #bob weston #todd trainer #schism writing #long form content #rock #alternative rock #Youtube

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jsasimmer · 1 year ago

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Sim Tag

Thank you @kestrelteens for tagging me 💛💛

1. What’s your favourite sims death? I don’t like to see my sims die so I let them to die of old age when no more Elixir of Life ahhhh

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Maxis Match, especially conversions from ts3.

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? Never! I force them to workout!

4. Do you use move objects? Yes and turn off immediately coz I messed up the game with this cheat before!

5. Favorite mod? Shiftable Everything mod is everything! With its flexibility, I can use less CC!

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? The Sims 1, I’m old.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Mimi Landgraab, she’s so fun to play with! I can say I created her half as I created her mom 😇

9. Have you made a simself? Yes! Look at my avatar! Though she isn’t 100% look like me :p

10. What sim traits do you give yourself?

🎨 Artistic, 🍌 Clumsy, 🥴 Unstable and🚶‍♀️Loner

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? Unnatural color!

12. Favorite EA hair?

13. Favorite life stage? Adult becoz they’ve more stuffs to do!

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I’m more of a decorator than a builder, I’m suck at building exterior, I need to look up many references for inspiration and sometimes I just clone it :/ so I prefer gameplay! I'm still amazed by details in games I never noticed before!

15. Are you a CC creator? No but I hope to learn to convert sth one day :D

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? Not really but my fds know that I love playing sims so if there is anything related to it, they’ll think of me and we’ll talk about it!

17. What’s your favorite game? Ts2 definitely!!!

18. Do you have any sims merch? No

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? No but I enjoy watching other simmers’ sims story on YouTube~

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? I completely changed my play style comparing to when I was a kid, I don’t use money cheat anymore becoz I get bored real quick when I get things easily. And I gradually using CC and mod from a vanilla game (but still limit the download folder to around 2GB)

21. What’s your Origin ID? I’ve forgot already…

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? All of them are amazing! Thank you all for putting your time and love into this game 💛💛

23. How long have you had a simblr? Wow it’s been 3 year but my simblr doesn’t have that much posts :p

24. How do you edit your pictures? I follow a photoshop tutorial and adjust the settings a bit to mainly smooth edges and sharpen.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? I want a ep that my sims can get famous if ts2 still alive. I love the content of ts1 superstar and celebrity system from ts3, it’ll be a perfect mix of both.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? Open for Business, I feel extremely satisfied when customers fill up the store 🤩

I’m tagging @cobycobsy2k, @mynameisquoi, @grimbunnies, @sims-for-semi, @simsdada and @townieacres Feel free to ignore :)

#tag game #yes sims

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jackiietaylor · 1 year ago

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hi im kinda new to gifing and i was wondering what you use to download/screen record episodes? ive just been screen recording with quicktime but i think its making my gifs way more pixelated especially darker scenes

hi!! so in my experience screen recording will almost always reduce the quality, so i screencap episodes instead!! basically instead of recording whatever scene(s) you want to gif, you’re screenshotting each frame. the main program i use is mplayer osx extended, and it’s available free to download online. this post explains how i do that, as well as the well programs used and how to import the frames to photoshop, but ill include the relevant part here!! (ive changed how i do a lot of other things in that post but the process for this is still the same) if you already have (high quality) eps downloaded then this should help keep the quality, especially for dark gifs, but if you have more questions about where to download from message me off anon!! and if you have any other questions/if anything needs to be explained more let me know :)

basic tutorial:

i open the clip in mplayer to get the screencaps ill use to make the gif. i do this by pausing the video right before the part i want to gif, then pressing and holding command+shift+s (for mac) until ive got the full scene. if you want, you can create a folder on your desktop for screencaps, but I usually just leave them there and delete them once im done.

the next step is when i actually open photoshop. to start, go to file>script>load files into stack

this is where you're going to load in the screencaps you just took. go to browse, then select the first screencap and hold down shift until you select the last screencap, then hit ok

#anonymous #answered #gifmaking

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thesinglesjukebox · 11 months ago

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CALVIN HARRIS FT. ELLIE GOULDING, "MIRACLE"

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Some of us believe in miracles, some of us don't...

[5.84]

Taylor Alatorre: This song made me check if my computer was Y2K compliant. This song made me surf the alt.politics newsgroup to find out the date of the next WTO conference. This song made me "borrow" my weird friend's Prima strategy guide for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. This song made me call up my local PBS station to see if it had any plans to air episodes of Serial Experiments Lain. This song made me print out and annotate the lyrics to my illegally downloaded copy of NOFX's The Decline EP. This song made me contemplate making an "Acceptable in the 90's" pun. This song re-taught me HTML.</br> [9]

Leah Isobel: I need Kingdom Hearts AMVs set to this song and I need them immediately. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: It's vintage trance rather than blockbuster eurodance, but Calvin Harris's '90s pastiche is more dead-on than anything found on the Planet of the Bass. Precisely, it's a dead-on recreation of "Children" by Robert Miles, though perhaps Ellie Goulding has been recruited to provide a point of differentiation. It took one-and-a-half listens to remind my that the odd warpings of her cellophane voice go from novel to vertiginous very quickly; they might be more welcome here if they were either less glassily pristine or more. The breakbeat at the end is its own work of miniature history: the years going on and club trends shifting to drum and bass. [6]

Edward Okulicz: When I first heard this song I was sure it must be a sped-up remix thing a la Robin Schulz/Oliver Tree's "Miss You". How could it not have been? It's just so much. I would suggest that if they want to squeeze any more virality out of this song, they might get some mileage by slowing it down. But then it might lose that tasty early 00s UK mainstream chart dance-pop energy it's channelling so well. [6]

Hannah Jocelyn: This gets a [6] because the way Ellie Goulding sings "Oh No" makes me think of Webcomic Name. But also because Goulding sounds the most like herself she has in years, after eras upon eras of producers wasting her fascinating vocal timbre. How many vocalists have a soprano voice that husky? How many have that weird vibrato? Goulding's voice already sounds sped-up before Harris even touches it, and if it is sped up, I need to hear the version of "oh no" that sounds like "MacArthur Park." [6]

Crystal Leww: Calvin Harris is like the cat with nine lives of EDM, having gotten his start during the days of freaking bloghouse, blowing up during peak girly-ass EDM, continuing to thrive through the UK pop-house era, and sliding and funk waving bouncing through the late-aughts. I thought that finally he would retire to hitting the play button on prerecorded headlining sets in Vegas and Ibiza, but alas, he's hopped on trance during a time when it's back, baby. Trance's grand return is something that's been building with a very specific set of underground dance nerds for a while, in a bunch of different formats (see: the hypertrance crew, the hard trance pop song edits, and the latest point of arrival for PC Music/-adjacent gang), and Calvin Harris takes it all the way to UK #1. "Miracle" joins him back up with Ellie Goulding, who was one of his best collaborators during the peak girly-ass EDM era (twice). Goulding's vocals have always felt like an intimate whisper - they're there and they emote, but they never overwhelm - perfect for a track that needs to speed and glide on the clouds. This may be a sanded down, corners smoothed out version of whatever is happening in the underground but damn if Calvin hasn't always been good at making a hook. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Fuck Calvin Harris and anyone who wants him to make EDM. [3]

Scott Mildenhall: In lesser hands, this would be a facsimile, losing all joy in a vain search for an excuse to exist. In the hands of experts, it is joy afresh. "Miracle" is at one with its euphoric essence, granting it the space to diffuse and reveal itself not as pastiche, but as a reminder of the power of piano presets. Ellie Goulding in trance alien mode is the perfect fit: human, but not distractingly so. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I listened to this song twice this year, both times in the passenger seat of my middle aged uncle after not having seem him for years, stuck in traffic in Shanghai, singing along with broken English and appropriately and awkwardly bumping our heads. He thought it bumped. [6]

Ian Mathers: I can't remember if I've ever felt dismay when the beat comes in before, but on first listen that's exactly what happened. I'm not even sure why! It's not like I was much enjoying the song before that; maybe it just suddenly seemed clear this was going to be exactly what I'd expect from the combination of these two artists, neither of whom I love. It felt like I could have predicted the rest of the song from that point, and that's kind of how it played out. [3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I love dumb dance pop -- My favorite Madonna song is "4 Minutes"! This is too dumb even for me. How do you even do that? [3]

Katherine St Asaph: This kind of pop-trance was already a massively guilty pleasure for me because of the accumulated secondhand disgust of trance purists. "Miracle" has an additional source of guilt in being a pop-trance track by Calvin Harris, who has been around long enough that his releasing a Robert Miles rip this hacky has to be either condescension or a bit. Clearly I have no standards. [9]

Alfred Soto: Give me more anonymous dance tracks like "Miracle," which it isn't but it will do. Jessie Ware would do well to cast off her pearls before the swine who helped perpetuate her approximation of failed euphoria. [7]

Aaron Bergstrom: We have DJ Sammy at home. [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: What the hell... this literally ends right as I'm starting to believe how good it is? [4]

Brad Shoup: Feels like I should be rating the progressive-trance remix in my head, one that's 12 minutes long, shamelessly milks the piano decay and pushes Goulding to match the urgency of the BPM. She's as centered as ever, despite Harris's breakneck rave tempo: nearing the end, he tosses out some breakbeat like an anchor. But in my head, it's still going. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: I know I should be accustomed to it in 2023, but when I come across someone such as Harris who clearly has zero musical integrity, who'll do anything for hits -- well, it still catches me off-guard. And no one hops from one dance/pop trend to another faster than Harris. (Allow me to remind you that his 2007 album I Created Disco was pretty good!) Which is all to say that I shouldn't be surprised to hear "Miracle" hopping on the '90s trance revival bandwagon. He's got the ability to make it sound right, but by no means does that make this good. I disliked '90s trance at the time, and find it even more loathsome now as a big-budget no-ideas Hollywood sequel. Goulding could literally be any other female singer, as generic and over-processed as her vocals are here - and she's never been the most (ahem) distinctive singer to begin with. Truly, almost impressively awful. [1]

Will Adams: In our 2022 Amnesty post-mortem, I wrote about Romy's "Strong" and how trance music had been bubbling up in the pop landscape. Fast forward a year, and now we have mainstream acts -- Tove Lo, Icona Pop, David fucking Guetta -- all dialing up the tempos and the sawtooth synths. I should've known Calvin Harris -- who has contorted himself to align with the electronic genre du jour for over fifteen years -- would hop on the train, but "Miracle" still came as a welcome surprise. I spent better part of my tenure at the Jukebox yelling about how much I love trance, and this is no different. In the tradition of euro-trance classics, there are, at most, two key elements at play: the Robert Miles piano; the lyric "are you too cynical to believe in a miracle?" The rest is routine: the accelerated heartbeat BPM, a feather-light vocal from Goulding, reverb galore, all in service of creating that dream-like state on the dancefloor, when you close your eyes but still feel the strobe lights on you. [7]

Jackie Powell: I'll preface this by saying "Miracle" was my top song this year. When Spotify wrapped told me what I predicted was true, I wasn't surprised. "Miracle" was a song that stuck with me throughout the good and the bad in 2023. It was with me when I couldn't get out of bed, when I was driving or walking to my destination, when I was exercising, when I was transcribing an interview, and even when I was writing. I'm not the only one who proclaimed that the third Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding collaboration was an addictive listen. It's an earworm. It's meant to be looped. Calvin Harris knows how and when to introduce new sounds, something that happens from the first verse right into the second chorus. Those introductions stimulate the brain and since I've listened to the track so many times, I can anticipate each dynamic shift and new sound that arrives. I feel like a conductor when I know exactly when the "boots and cats" percussion finally hits. The lyrics aren't really groundbreaking on this track and they aren't supposed to be. To enjoy "Miracle" at its fullest, the appreciation comes in the diverse sounds, and its velocity. Hat tip to Chromatica producer BURNS who provides the listener with a similar type of movement and constant tempo changes following the drop in "Rain on Me." But that is to say, the most stunning part of the "Miracle" experience isn't what makes it the most addicting. It's Goulding's vocals. Not only does the melody written in give her the freedom to use her voice at its most natural, but this is a song that not many other pop artists could pull off convincingly. You want to know what her voice is going to do next because it's so unpredictable. This is a track that is exemplary of the fact that Goulding is a generational talent, her unique timbres and range aren't contained but rather are given a space to play. And if you can't hear that alongside techno and Eurodance beats, have no fear: Harris and Goulding put out a "Church version" of Miracle, stripping back until this version is truly all about Goulding. There's a euphoric sound when she's harmonizing with herself during the second verse. It's so satisfying and soothing. It's so stupefying and even a bit moving. [10]

#calvin harris #ellie goulding #music #pop music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

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wordsandrobots · 2 years ago

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Thoughts on the Urdr Hunt (Eps 1-5)

As of writing, five episodes (each in two parts) of the Iron-Blooded Orphans tie-in game campaign ‘Urdr Hunt’ have been released on the Iron-Blooded Orphans G App. This is currently only available in Japan; I’ve been watching it subbed by Youtuber Trafalgar Log. I thought I’d summarise my impressions so far, since we’ve now had every character who shows up in the opening sequence appear at least once. Spoilers etc below.

The Set-Up

The titular Urdr Hunt has been revealed as a chase to recover data from various landmarks of significance to the Calamity War in general and the Seven Stars in particular. So far, the participants have visited a wrecked ship belonging to Angelica Elion, an Ariadne Beacon/resupply station administered by Kalf Falk, and an orbital satellite marked with the coat of arms of Gargin Bauduin. It seems probable that places overseen by the other four founders will be next on the itinerary.

Now, I’m of the opinion that one of the best things about IBO is that it’s not a ‘war is hell’ story so much as about how the peace afterwards is as well. The great big space war is three hundred years in the past and everyone is still living with the consequences: the unjust systems it created, military technology that has encouraged the use of child soldiers, powerful relics buried across the solar system like landmines waiting to be stepped on, etc. I think a series actually focused on the Calamity War would be considerably more generic than the one we got. That being said, it’s an obvious and perhaps irresistible narrative hook. The idea of some rich personage (the prize is a 100 billion meria, one of the two in-setting currencies in IBO) instigating a search for data and even artifacts from a by-gone, technologically superior age is a cool set-up for an episodic game.

Moreover, the central mystery here actually has little to do with the War -- only one of the competitors so far has voiced interest in the what the data they are collecting actually means -- but concerns the identity of whoever set up the Hunt in the first place. All we know about them is that they are wealthy enough to offer such a huge prize and that they go by the appellation ‘N’.

Now, given that Naze Turbine pops up in one of the trailers for the Iron-Blooded Oprhans G app, in the section pertaining to the Urdr Hunt (and in conjunction with Shino flying an updated version of the Season 1 Ryusei-Go) suggests he and indeed Tekkadan may well be putting in an appearance at some point. And certainly, the all-female team of Hunt guides might be an indicator that this is the doing of IBO’s premier harem-haver. However, there are three reasons I think it’s unlikely Naze is ‘N’. First, it seems wildly out of character: Naze shows zero interest in the Calamity War over the course of the show and this is extremely elaborate for Teiwaz, whose interest would be purely material in the sense that they have uses for old equipment. Second, the Hunt has already intersected with drone weaponry and some actual pluma sub-units of a mobile armour. If this is building to Naze being responsible, why didn’t he freak out when the half-metal mining operation uncovered Hashmal? We know Eco didn’t have a clue what a pluma was at the start of that arc in Season 2, so it would seem a continuity goof for Naze to have previously collected loads of information on the War. Finally and most importantly, there’s the presence of the Rakou Pirates as one of the entrants in the Hunt. They are explicitly described as the Turbine’s black-ops team, so if Naze wanted to know more about the War an the Seven Stars, why didn’t he just ask them to visit all the way-points and collect the required data? After all, the risk faced by the competitors has been entirely caused by the other competitors. Even the drone missiles wouldn’t have been a problem if Cyclase hadn’t turned them on. It would just be a case of bopping along the trail and downloading some files.

Basically, I don’t think it makes much sense for Naze to be ‘N’. Plus I really don’t want him to be? That’s too much of a tie-in to the main show and makes Naze out to be too much of a scheming jerk. But if not him, then who? A single-letter pseudonym implies a reveal of some kind, so who are the other options?

One who springs to mind is scheming jerk Nobliss Gordon. We know he likes byzantine plots and is rich as Croesus, plus being an arms dealer would give him a reason to want to dig up Calamity War relics for his own gain. That being said, it does seem a bit . . . fanciful for him and certainly a massive investment for potentially little gain. Still, not one to rule out.

A better fit might be Nemo Baklazan. ‘Who?’ you’re probably asking -- well, Nemo is another member of the current Seven Stars, the old, possibly blind gentleman who exists primarily to fill out the table and tell McGillis ‘no’ at the worst possible moment. The biggest evidence I can see for the Hunt being set up by someone in Gjallarhorn, aside from the Calamity War being the whole impetus for their existence, are the rings that serve as the means of entry. Each competitor has been given one and they appear to be highly advanced technology for the setting, basically being a wrist-sized computer capable of holographic projection. Nowhere else in IBO have we even seen that holograms are a thing. To me, that suggests they are War-era tech and since Gjallarhorn have controlled such technology for 300 years, I’m going to apply Occam’s Razor. Plus, it would make sense for a Seven Star to see what happened in Season 1, look at his fellow council members and go, ‘hmm -- wonder what other massively powerful weapons are lurking out there. Maybe I should do some digging into that . . .’

Of course, ‘N’ might not be anybody we have seen before. But if I had to bet, Nemo or someone else connected to the people who already know most about the War is where I’d put my money.

The Protagonist

I’m going to admit straight up that I don’t find Wistario Afam as engaging as either Mikazuki or Argi Mirage (lead for the other spin-off, a manga) which I think is partly due to him being a protagonist.

Let me explain. Neither Mikazuki nor Argi are precisely ‘protagonists’ in their own right. They are, broadly speaking, where the narratives are centred but both have complex relationships with other characters that mean they cannot be taken on their own. You can’t talk about the story of IBO-proper without making it about Mikazuki AND Orga, and indeed, Mikazuki AND McGillis. Similarly, the events of Gekko/Moon Steel happen to Argi, but while he has a more concrete personal aim than Mika (getting revenge for the death of his family), the narrative drops him into things that mostly have nothing to do with it. He’s a sullen grump, who’s nevertheless easily spurred into helping other people and as a result, it’s generally their stories (Volco wanting to restore Astaroth, Liarina taking over her father’s business, Mina running from her family) that we follow.

By contrast, Wistario’s quest to win the Urdr Hunt and use the money to buy Radonitsa Colony is where we come in and broadly speaking where we continue to go. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s structurally shallower.

Wistario himself is by turns a slightly-spoiled, slightly-sweet kid, lonely as the only youth not to have left his home town, swaying people to the side of his big dreams with a charismatic earnestness I’m not sure the game has sold as effectively as it could. Broadly inoffensive and not as grating as I’d feared going in, but not as striking as his peers.

Also there’s his attitude towards killing -- always significant in Gundam fiction -- and, look, I feel I’m being unfair picking on this given we’re talking about a game where battling enemy mobile suits to destruction is the core mechanic. All the same, it’s a bit jarring to have a hero positioned as a *civilian* -- the teenage heir to a maintenance and administration company -- who gives less of a damn about shooting down enemies than Mikazuki Augus.

I’m not talking capacity here. I mean, Wistario goes from worrying about leaking pipes to efficiently murdering attacking pilots without really remarking on it and later proves completely OK with launching himself into fights to the death. With Mikazuki, we’re shown he understands what he’s doing. It’s one of the most scary things about him, that he isn’t killing people under the impression it’s not serious but out of a fundamental belief it’s the only way to survive. As for Argi, he goes from wannabe hit-man to frantically trying to save the life of the man he was there to shoot in, like, the first two pages. Looking back, I’m not sure he kills anybody over the course of the manga and many of his fights end with him demanding the defeated party give up. In their own ways, these are both characters in dialogue with the necessity of fighting and killing.

Yet it’s not been a part of Wistario’s story at all. He’s just . . . fine with it.

Maybe we’re building towards something here. This is the problem with making judgements halfway through a story. It could be that Wistario is being set up to be just as psychopathic in his own way as probably-main-villain Cyclase, willing to do anything for his dream.

And there is certainly *something* up with him, in regards his connection to his Gundam, which has been shown operating at Alaya-Vijnana speeds despite him not having one. I suspect we might be headed for the reveal that he’s our first non-Gjallarhorn descendant of an original Gundam pilot. Which -- eh. I guess that’ll be fine too.

I still prefer the other two.

The Supporting Cast

I have to say, I’m also rather ambivalent about Wistario’s direct subordinates. Demner Kitaco Jr basically exists to dote on him and Dexter and Sinister are fairly one-note old geezers. They’re well-designed and work OK in the story, but mostly, they’re just there. Even if Demner keeping a Gundam in the basement hints at more backstory for him in particular to come.

Katya Inoshi, on the other hand, intrigues. She provides a necessary extra element to the crew, which is otherwise made up of Wistario’s lackeys, offering common sense observations and asking questions the audience might be thinking. She is also clearly on the run from Gjallarhorn and her similarities to Carta Issue (hair, eye colour, eyebrows) may offer some hint as to why.

That said, while her joining the Erda II crew after they help bust a human trafficking operation (and she raids their fridge) works well, I do wish she hadn’t been relegated to ship’s dogsbody. It feels rather rote for the girl to get lumbered with the cooking and cleaning, and she lacks the framing that helps with alleviate the feeling over in the main show. Atra is supremely at home in her chosen profession as Tekkadan’s cook (as competent as her comrades, just along a totally different axis) and demonstrates a core of iron-toughness that makes it clear she belongs alongside them. By contrast, Katya essentially begs for the roll in order to stay aboard the ship, making her far more subordinate to Wistario as a result. It feels like a step down, though her personality offsets it somewhat.

I want to deal with the Urdr Hunt guides later, so let’s skip to the next member of Wistario’s gang, Range Dubrisko. Oh, Range. Well first off, he endears himself by being the kind of mook who wears his poncho over his normal-suit.

Beyond that, he has the most involved backstory we’ve seen so far, as the son of a human debris-trader who grew sickened by family business and took a job with the Omden Colony Company instead. His aim in doing this was to gather the power necessary to build a paradise where people could be free and equal. Unfortunately, Range is . . . how to put this . . . a bit of a chump. A well-intentioned chump, but a chump nonetheless and it’s clear there was no chance of him pulling off his grand design -- which was in truth not so much a design as a dream chased to ease a guilty conscience. With the loss of his loyal followers Andy and Bito (who exist to believe in Range unto their deaths), he has thrown in his lot with Wistario, drawn in by the teenager’s unwavering conviction in his own big dreams. I’m interested to see where that dynamic goes. And he’s certainly fun to watch, in a ‘cutely flailing disaster’ sort of way.

The Friendly Rivals

Speaking of flailing disasters, time to discuss my favourite character: ex-ish human debris and Tekkadan wannabe 598. Now I have to confess, I primed myself to like this kid from the get-go, having adored his character design since it was first revealed. Just look at this doofy gremlin child.

He is absolutely dying horribly before this is over. Indeed, 598 is the most typically IBO character in Urdr Hunt. A kid sold as human debris before getting abandoned on the street, he was taken in (in both sense of the word) by a pirate who convinced him to fight and steal by spinning stories about Tekkadan’s success in Season 1. The prospect of becoming a similarly-powerful gang blinded 598 and his numerically-named comrades to their exploitation until a fight with Wistario led to the revelation their boss had a cargo hold full of young girls he was planning to sell off. 598 ended up taking control of the ship, freeing the prisoners, and setting off to join the Hunt as head of a new group named Foundling. There are a lot of things I like about 598, from his boisterous enthusiasm to the fact he’s both more worldly than Wistario and much less smart. But mostly, I like his stubborn refusal to live on anyone’s terms except his own (even when he doesn’t quite understand what those terms are). While Wistario gets him thinking (and later comes to his aid in battle), it’s the discovery of those human trafficking victims that spurs 598 to change and he takes responsibility for actions he took as a pirate, finding dignity in owning his mistakes. He even refuses to take a new name, not seeing what’s wrong with the one he’s got. As I said, I suspect this attitude is going to get him killed but in the meantime, he’s the highlight of the game.

The second friendly rival takes the form of a pirate captain by the name of Tamami Rakou, head of the single most unsubtle black-ops team you could imagine.

Yep. Yep, that’s literally just the Turbines’ logo with a skull painted over it. Tamami self-describes as someone who was once a lot like 598 in the sense of being extremely reckless, before being brought into the Turbines by Naze and Amida. She learnt how to run a business under their tutelage and took on the kinds of missions that would reflect poorly on the company. Eventually, this led to her crew becoming known as pirates and they just sort of ran with it. It’s a nice, straightforward backstory that fits well with what we know of Turbines, and as I mentioned above, speaks to a separation between the Hunt and our favourite Teiwaz subsidiary. Tamami comes across as a fairly reasonable woman, albeit one who turns fierce when confronting threats to her family. She had to be drawn into the Hunt via pursuing 598 over his attacks on Teiwaz shipping, but now she’s involved, I’m looking forward to seeing more of her teaching him the ways of the Jupiter mafia. It’s a nice means of taking their stories forward.

Thirdly we have Mendou, a treasure hunter with very different priorities to the other two.

Where 598 and Tamami are, like Wistario, in the Hunt for the massive cash prize, Mendou is here for the historical knowledge. We’re introduced to him braving danger in the name of uncovering information on the Calamity War, and I suspect we’ll see more of that. He seems pleasant, but his off-putting reaction to hearing the Erda II crew are from Venus and cryptic hints about Wistario’s Gundam make me think he might not be as much an ally as he currently appears. Certainly he seems the sort to press a big red button that should on no account be pushed . . .

The Antagonists

On to the unfriendly rivals, we should probably start with the Zan brothers, Rome and Aiko, who reflect that thing about it being very clear when an anime character is intended to be American.

Their theme music is literally named ‘Gangsta Bros’, they’re members of a crime family from the SAU (the fictional country comprising the Americas), and leaning into this set of stereotypes doesn’t feel like the greatest choice, honestly. But it’s what the makers of the game went with, so here we are. Rome is a self-important blowhard, puffing himself up as the natural successor to his father while being not nearly as smart as he thinks and a bit of a cowardly lion, retreating when it’s clear he’s not going to immediately get his way. Aiko gives the outward appearances of subservience, while muttering under his breath about his brother’s shortcomings, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this relationship is headed towards fratricide. Their role has been to show up intermittently trying to kill the competition. For all their flamboyance, they’re presented as basically rich bullies, happy to send human debris out as cannon fodder, and a threat through force of arms rather than anything else.

Far more dangerous, it appears, is Cyclase Mayer, the most villain-coded git you could imagine.

Cyclase starts out as Range’s superior in the Omden Company, coldly demeaning the hapless poncho-wearer, before graduating into full-blown bastardry by abandoning him, Andy and Bito to an automated weapons system simply to ensure the destruction of a Hunt way-point. Indeed, this has been his overall modus operandi, demolishing artifacts of historical significance to make sure nobody else can extract the precious data. Such single-minded ruthlessness has put him firmly at the front of the pack, with barely any interaction with Wistario to get in his way. All this said, we haven’t really had much hint as to what drives Cyclase yet. He gives a big speech to Range about being a cog in Omden’s machine, so he clearly has no belief that he’s valued by the company. On the other hand, he’s been diligent in pursuing their goals. I guess time will tell if he has an agenda of his own (the character profile describes him as a former Gjallarhorn officer who killed his commander -- he even flies a stolen Schwalbe Graze -- but this is yet to come up in-story). He’s working well as the competent opposition and I look forward to seeing that expanded with an actual confrontation.

Finally, a note on the minor antagonists. First up, we have the nameless prisoner from the very start of the game who is the intended recipient for the Hunt ring that Wistario ends up with, who I mention chiefly because it’s a point that’s gotten lost in the shuffle.

Wistario isn’t meant to be involved, and the fact the guy who is was sprung from a Gjallarhorn prison seems like it might be notable with respect to whoever’s running this thing.

Then there’s Torrado Omden, the man at the Omden Company in favour of continuing with the hunt (and presumably the owner of said company?).

We know absolutely nothing about him, but the fact he has a character model suggests we haven’t seen the last of him yet. I do wonder if we’ll dive deeper into the corporate side of things, something IBO has gestured to in the past but largely evaded in favour of your actual mafia.

Then there’s this arsehole.

Kimball is the pirate who 598 originally worked for and was, it turns out, a member of the Dawn Horizon Corps who struck out on his own. He’s probably not all that notable, save that he rivals Jasley for awfulness and has a fairly striking design. It was extremely satisfying to see him get his comeuppance. Which is kind of what you want in a villain, right?

The Urdr Hunt Guides

So far, seven guides have appeared, all helpfully providing the bare minimum of exposition required to get everybody involved in the Hunt. They are:

Korunaru Kousa, with Wistario;

Berose Kousa, with the Zan Brothers;

Parstai Kousa, with 598;

Tagging and Bana Kousa, with the Omden Company;

Kenshal Kousa, with the Rakou Pirates;

And Slice Kousa with Mendou.

Out of these, Tagging and Bana have had the least screen-time and precisely zero lines, appearing only in the background of an Omden Company board-meeting. Berose, meanwhile, has been relegated to the Zan Clan’s battleship, bemoaning her lot in being stuck with the brothers.

Kenshal, by contrast, seems to be having a nice time with pirate crew, albeit a rather boring one until Tamami gets drawn into the Hunt. She’s the youngest, a literal child, with the attitude to go with it, partial to sweets and loudly overruling an exasperated Tamami on competition matters. It’s actually kind of refreshing to have a kid in IBO who freely acts like it. Huh. I’m not going to dwell too hard on that, if you don’t mind.

Parstai might be my favourite of the lot, working as she does to directly help 598 out of his situation with Kimball and going on to administer his new company, despite being barely more literate than he is. She offers us possible hints about the Kousas’ background: she more or less says outright that she used to be human debris and doesn’t seem too far removed from that existence. She’s clearly come to care about her brash young charge and I do wonder if that’s going to creat a conflict with her mission. Generally calm and quiet, 598 does say that she’s utterly terrifying when she’s upset, as she certainly is with him offering up his arm as collateral and then signing away his life to a pirate captain.

I like Slice quite a lot too. She’s obviously invested in doing a good job and frustrated with both Mendou’s side-tracking and the dodgy comms system that have meant her hard work going unreported. (With her completing the set, I draw your attention to the fact that for all the guides, their hair-colour matches their eyes, though Berose’s character page shows that in her case at least, it’s dye.)

However, I can’t say that I’m too enthused by Korunaru, nominally the most important of the guides since she’s palling around with Wistario. It’s fine for a character to be meek and quiet, but I don’t think we’ve gotten much of a personality from her beyond her love of making tea. She mostly exists to gesture towards the plot, without really doing anything. Again, I hope that’ll change as the story progresses. Certainly there’s plenty of directions to go, including maybe giving us the full explanation for what the guides’ deal is. That would be the logical path for getting to the bottom of who ‘N’ is and what all this is in aid of. But for the moment, there’s not a great deal of connection established between her and Wistario, despite them having spent a lot of time together.

Closing thoughts?

Honestly, I have rambled quite long enough but if I had a closing remark to make, it’d be that I’m not sure how to evaluate the story in comparison to the main show yet. I don’t know how many episodes there are going to be, so I’m not sure how far in we are. We’re gotten through most of the trailer footage excepting that showing Gundam Hajiroboshi‘s original form and the aforementioned Naze and Shino cameos. Time wise, we’ve had at least 10 episodes of the anime, but structurally, I’m not sure it’s quite that much content (though neither is it just 5 so . . . hmm).

But with the next part showing Cyclase and Wistario coming face-to-face, a mobile armour’s reactivation and bloody Iok putting in an appearance, it seems things are about to start moving very quickly indeed. Hopefully there will be enough space to expand on the parts I’ve been meh on and this will all cohere into a satisfying tale!

#GUNDAM #Gundam Iron-blooded Orphans #gundam ibo #g tekketsu #Tekketsu no Orphans #Iron-Blooded Orphans: Urdr Hunt #Urdr Hunt #notes #thoughts #more rambling

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