#and that one is SUPER chunky and cool but also has the same rock in it that my grandad's ring had

[hella1975]

for the first time EVER i have spent actual Big Bucks on jewellery and im so so excited about it. another bisexual win!

[cherryredstars]

err hii hope ur doing good 🤗

i rlly liked ‘ribbons’ and i was thinking maybe one where the reader is like really serious, dresses in like baggy clothes, or those rlly long leather coats 😓 they’re like a big history nerd and fashion nerd for the most part, they listen to like spanish music like reggaeton or some type of latin rock. miguel

also feel like reader would listen to billie eilish

lowkey reminds me of la flaca by jarabe de palo

idk js thought of this when i read ribbons

have a good day 🤗

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x gn!reader

Warnings: Can be seen as platonic/romantic

A/N: wrote this in a more expanded headcanons form

Unedited

Reader would have SO much fun teasing Miguel.

He mixes up one date from history or gets a fact wrong? LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER. That actually happened in 1358, not 1352. Go back to the lab you science freak. Reader says all of it with a straight face, not once looking up at him. So now Miguel has to decipher if the feeling in his gut is annoyance or the urge to have you degrade him more.

Just to annoy him, reader goes out of their way to point out anything wrong or tacky about Miguel’s outfits. Sits their pretty ass right next to him in class and distracts him from the lesson because they’re mumbling under their breath about how there isn’t any diversity to break up his outfit or that the style of jacket he’s wearing doesn’t correspond with the current weather trends. God forbid he tries to do it back, you already have a fully thought out explanation on why your outfit works and is relevant to the current fashion trends.

Reader is definitely proud in the fact that their music taste is elite and Miguel can’t even make a snide comment about what you’re listening to because he also listens to the same music. Gives him another unfair disadvantage against you, but he does enjoy the random music swaps you guys have and he finds that the songs you recommended to be his new favorites.

fashion!reader and ribbons!reader would be best friends. It’s canon. While fashion!reader doesn’t personally resonate with the croquette style, they can appreciate the dedication and time ribbons!reader puts into their outfits. fashion!reader also enjoys the use of accessories to help elevate the outfit like the large statement bows, the occasional chunky shoe, and the elaborate stitching/lace detailing on the dresses and tops.

Miguel is always nosing around fashion!reader’s sketchbook. He always want to take a peak at what new outfit or accessory they’re designing. Definitely gets grumpy when you willingly show ribbons!reader and asks for their opinions while you threaten to slap Miguel across the face with the thick book if he continues to breath down your neck.

fashion!reader and Miguel definitely give off cool, down-to-earth couple vibes, very “mama y papa: we will come pick you up to get you some fast food and drive around because you texted that you were hungry and bored”.

If you want a more platonic relationship, they’re definitely giving (even if they’re not blood-related and are just super close friends) twin sibling vibes with fashion!reader being born a few minutes earlier.

[baby--charchar]

If Charlie is everyone's sunshine when she's big, then I imagine her being a very fussy and clingy baby. To her, regressing would be one of the few times she doesn't feel responsible for making sure everyone else is happy, and thus she doesn't have to FAKE being happy herself. As a baby, she can be completely honest about how terrible, awful, no good she feels occasionally. She can cry over how much she misses Vaggie when she's working on something in the hotel! She can stomp her little hooven feet every time daddy insists she needs a nap! She can even chuck her plate across the room if Vaggie insists she finishes her yucky veggies! (Okay that one is frowned upon but she is still safe to do so! Freedom of expression!).

Likewise, if a usually happy Charlie lets herself be upset in littlespace, then a super serious Vaggie can finally be silly and playful in hers.

I do see Vaggie as being autistic, so there would be a lot of unmasking she had to learn when she first started regressing. Baby Vaggie would do a lot of rocking and hand flapping when playtime starts. She just gets so excited to see Charlie or Lucifer bring out her chunky Lego sets! She has all sorts of colors and finishes for her Legos, like primary colors, pastels and jewel tones; plus shimmery, glittery, see-through, opaque. She got ALL THE LEGOS. She loves dumping them out of the massive bucket and sorting them all before she gets to building.

She also loves her movies. She's a Ghibli kid through and through. She has certain scenes that she loves playing over and over again, like when Chihiro is running down the old staircase in Spirited Away. She'll hold the remote in one hand and her favorite blankie in the other, then pace back and forth in her and Charlie's room, shaking from excitement, squealing, while rewinding the same clip every ten or so seconds. It's just...such a cool scene! The animation is so good! The voicing and sound effects are intense! She loves all the little details and can focus on one scene for an hour at a time. Charlie and Lucifer don't mind one bit, they love the happy baby!

Only 2 things can really get baby Vaggie in a sour mood: bad food and bad clothes. Vaggie has a very limited range of safe foods while in baby space, with pupusas, rice, chicken nuggets, and water being her usual fair. She makes plenty of pupusas when she's big and stores them in the freezer; that way Charlie always has something wholesome and filling to give her. But one time, Lucifer added sugar to her rice (something Charlie liked as a baby), and it did NOT go over well. Poor baby had a massive meltdown and wouldn't eat until she was big the next day.

Clothes can also be a challenge, but for the most part they have this figured out. A soft, ribbed tank top or long sleeve, super plush drawstring pajama pants, and a diaper (because the elastic on pull ups is just too tight!!!). She gets changes frequently because she hates being anything less than clean, but she's noticed Lucifer is better at closing her diaper just snug enough but not too tight.

She is completely nonverbal but is still a VERY noisy baby. All day long, Baby Vaggie is either squealing, shouting, chuffing, or cooing. Charlie made her a little communication board to help her ask for what she wants, like her favorite foods, toys, or when she just needs a cuddle.

And yeah, I do see the irony of giving them both personality switches when they're regressed...but I stand by it! Let Baby Charlie have a good cry when she needs, and see that no one's gonna be mad at her! Let Baby Vaggie relax and do everything that makes her happy, and see that she is still incredibly loved! And give Lucifer a second chance to try this whole 'dad' thing and be a proud papa of his sweet kiddos!

[rock-swag-tournament]

Mineral Swag Round 1: The Poll Maker's Favorites

More information under the cut (this is a long one, I love these minerals!)

Garnet and Peridot. These are literally my two favorite minerals and here I am pitting them against each other in round one. But it must be done. Their vibes are too similar for them to be paired with any other mineral.

Garnet is #1 on my list. She can be red or orange or green. The most well-known of the garnet species is probably pyrope garnet. She’s the one with that classic deep red color associated with garnet! (For more information about mineral species and what they are and why they form, see when I talk about olivine further down).

The picture above the poll is an almandine garnet and it’s probably my favorite garnet sample of ALL TIME. Those garnet crystals formed like that naturally. Someone did NOT go in and cut that up. They removed some of the schist (the rock matrix that the garnet crystals are stuck in) but garnet just looks like that naturally, babey! Garnet naturally forms as a dodecahedron.

I also love that garnet forms during the metamorphosis of rocks! Shale is a dull, mostly boring-to-look-at rock made of mud and clay. When it experiences high enough pressures and temperatures, it is metamorphosed into schist, a delightfully shinny slippery rock that sometimes has big old garnets in it, as shown above! The rock was smooth and boring, then the minerals recrystallized until it became a weirdly chunky rock!

Another fun fact about garnet has to do with petrographic microscopes and optical mineralogy. Geologists can look at rocks on an outcrop (think big rocks and cliff faces on the side of the road) or in their hand. But to see the minute details of specific minerals, we use thin sections of rock. Thin sections are exactly what they sound like! Super super super thin (30 microns, or 0.003 centimeters thick) slices of rock. Geology students can make them! But if you want good quality ones, you usually send them to a company.

Anyway, when rocks are sliced that thin you can shine light through the minerals (using a petrographic microscope). Minerals have properties you can see and test when you’re holding a sample, but they also have optical properties when you shine plane polarized light (PPL) or cross polarized light (XPL) through it that can be used to identify it. One of garnet’s optical properties is that it looks clear in PPL, but completely dark in XPL and I think that’s a super neat trick.

The same sample in PPL (left) and XPL (right). Pictures from here, annotated by me.

Maybe if people are super geeked about petrology and mineralogy, I’ll talk about it more in another post, but this post is already long and I do not remember THAT much about mineralogy to write a concise summary about any of it!

Now for my other favorite mineral, olivine, aka peridot. Peridot and olivine are the same mineral, but peridot is gem-quality olivine.

Olivine is the real forbidden rock candy. Most of the time it forms these little crunchy looking crystals instead of big impressive crystals like garnet. But it’s such a brilliant green color, and the texture is really very fun.

As for its geologic significance, most of the mantle is olivine! The gooey plastic rock that the tectonic plates float on is mostly this cool green rock. Also, olivine is a great example to use when learning about mineral species. Taken from the preliminary polls:

Olivine has two prominent "end members" or mineral species. The chemical formula for olivine is

(SOMETHING)2Si2O6

That (SOMETHING) is almost always magnesium (Mg) or iron (Fe) or some combination of the two. If an olivine sample has ALL magnesium in that spot, it is known as forsterite (one of the olivine "end members"). If it has ALL iron in that spot, it is known as fayalite (the other end member). And, of course, because nature is not perfect, there can be an olivine with any combination of mangesium and iron (between these two end members).

At their core, fayalite and forsterite are both olivine. They are both silicate minerals (see the part of their formula with Si) and regardless of whether they have magnesium or iron, their structure is the same. They have silicate tetrahedrons (the 3D shape that the molecule Si2O6 makes - think a d4 in D&D) bonded with some iron or magnesium atoms.

In this case, whether you vote garnet or olivine, you have chosen a wonderfully amazing mineral.

[koszmarnybudyn]

Giving you an excuse to info dump about the magical girl au all you want bc I think it’s so cool and wanna hear ur inspiration for the designs

Okay here is the info dump I promise. Also thank you for all the tags they were all very nice, and they really push me to create more :)

Normal: As I always say with his design its winx and cheerleader inspired, I already dweled on the first one in a previous post so I'm gonna skip that.

I really wanted to incorporate a star motive in his costume (thus the star top which I adore but was a pain to choose colors for), because I just think it fits him very well, he does lose some of the teenie memorabilia (without the SD for san dimas and the T's in his design) because I thought it is reminicent of his departure from the costume, yet it comes after his "trying not to be himself" phase (the third outfit) so it does bring back the previous colors.

He has teal as his main color because I really like the idea of the Oaks being green, but because ge doesn't quite fit (and because he is the new generation pc) he gets mix of blue and green which is teal (also because blue and white are the schools colors but i only found that out later).

His "trying not to be himself" costume brings in elements of the others costumes, with the chunky shoes and wings from Normal, he is trying to his friends yet pieces of himself still poje through. It has red and blue for Taylor, purple for Scary and yellow and white from Link.

I imagine this look comes after his confrontation with his dad (I want him to try to not be a magical girl for a while, like with the dance arc, and when he tries to transform after his outfit glitches and his powers malfunction, later it turns into this when fightning before he has his realization and it goes to the powerup version).

The last outfit is just his everyday (I considered drawing the teenie suit but It didn't fit on the page unfortunetly lol), I imagine he wears a lot off school merch because he still misses teenie (and yes it still very much stinks).

I think he looks the most like the classic magical girl, I really enjoy the poofy skirt because I didn't draw a lot of skirts here (it either defies logic or has shorts underneath because a skirt is not practical)

Scary: again I think I talked about the first outfit previously, I did tweak the colors and design a little bit (I struggled with the hair color a bit) but nothing very major changed.

She has purple and red (classic villian colors because she is cool and edgy). I think I started this before the betrayl but the second powerup outfit definitly happens after the reveal.

She has a lot of punk and rock influance in her outfit (and yes the platforms are impractical but they do add to the vibe). She gets cool chains but no wings. Also the prop is the Kellog knife.

Her everyday outfit is one I designed a while ago yet really like (I actually made a Scary doll and She wears the same one).

Taylor: god this was such a hassle for color choices it was terrible, just hard to draw in general and I did the Hermie powerup too many details abomination.

He gets flaiming hair like his dad, its also blue like his dad. Its definitly sailor moon inspired (I'm debating whenether Hero hates super gero Taylor or likes him, either way she does point out the sailor moon similarities either as an insult for being unoriginal or as an admiration thing because she does like sailor moon) (I just realized if I make Hero a superhero she gets the tuxedo mask inspired design for sure).

There was samurai inspiration in this (thanks Usagi chronicles you have ridden my mind) and his second outfit has a very faint flower pattent which I really like.

I think apart from power up link he has the most armor. He does get wings but they are tiny and don't really work at first but then do in his power up. Which he might get after going to hell. He does get a tail which I forgot to draw and his ears get pointer (he does also have fangs which Scary is jealous of).

He gets a staff in classical magical girl fashion (and because of his sword staff) and a katana which he does summon and do cool anime stuff with, and it does catch in flames. I really enjoy the Taylor is disabled headcanon thus the staff and i do think he has compressors in his costume.

Hermie: my boy changes designs way too aften, there is his everyday pre magic (he does get the joker stuff still).

He is a magical girl that kinda just joins the gang and is kinda a trickster, Taylor and Normal don't realize he is actually Hermie for a while (Normal doesn't know the longest) while Link and Scary know very quickly (Link is annoyed at Normal for not realizing it and it becomes a gag).

There is his 1 magical girl outfit (its practiclly the same to my previous drawings of him as nothing really changed), then there is his accident outfit (he gets it after the cheese accident), his two-face arc (also talked and shown this one previously), his after the accident everyday and then his power up.

God does it have many details, there is joker, poison ivy and two-face as inspiration in it (his hat has leaves for ivy and coins for two-face). He gets two eyes in his mask and more trickstery look in ode to his father scam. I was really inspied by court jesters and harlequins. I like how he ends up looking like a fea. Oh also question marks for riddler.

He is a silly little guy and I adore him but drawing that again will be a pain.

Link: finally my boy, after Normal he was the second finished drawing. I had a slight problem with his colors, finally picking almost white, yellow and really light green.

His norma outfit is the most practical and soccer players inspired. He gets cool lightning and angel imagery (I really enjoy his contrast with Scary with her purple and black and his yellow and white). He gets cool glowing eyes because I am a sucker for inhuman traits.

His second outfit is very palladin-y, I think the lightning kinda looks like corruption which I really enjoy, he also probablly gets it after Scary's betrayl.

There is gold and copper in his design as accents. The wing shoes were hermies inspired. He gets a glowing sword. I really enjoy some of the biblical imaginery he looks connected to.

Like I said I might honestly make more refrence sheets (I am working on kiddads designs and some other charakters, escpecially villains, but that is a bit harder for me to design so we'll see). Anyway hope this wasn't too ranty and feel free to ask anything or add ideas.

Also thank you @rooolt for giving me an excuse to infodump I am a sucker for charakter design and analysis so its very nice to rant about my choices.

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

NITA STRAUSS + ALISSA WHITE-GLUZ: Behind-The-Scenes Footage From Making Of 'The Wolf You Feed' Video

Former Alice Cooper and current Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss has released behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the official music video for her latest single, "The Wolf You Feed". The epic, headbanger of a track features huge, chunky, metallic riffs and the insane vocal talent of Alissa White-Gluz of ARCH ENEMY.

Nita comments: "If you look back at old interviews from the last ten years, any time I was asked about collaborating with a vocalist in the future, Alissa White-Gluz was always the first name out of my mouth. She is truly one of my favorite vocalists and performers in the industry and creating this track together was everything I hoped it would be.

"I'm very proud to release this track, especially now with everything else that's going on. This time in history, whether in politics, music, social media, or our personal lives, has been an eye-opening look into the two wolves of a lot of people out there, and maybe this song will be a reminder that we all have the ability to choose how we respond to things."

The lyrics of this song were inspired by "The Story Of The Two Wolves", a legend widely attributed to Native American storytellers. An old grandfather was teaching his grandson about life: "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued: "The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf will win?" The grandfather simply replied: "The one you feed."

Alissa adds: "Nita and I finally got to collaborate — something we have both wanted to do for years! 'The Wolf You Feed' is a kickass, catchy metal track with a really cool vibe. I kept the 'two wolves' analogy as a foundation throughout the song while playing up the dichotomy of the two sides of the tug of war we all have inside us. I recorded my parts in my home studio and it was an absolute pleasure to build this song with Nita. I am honored to be a part of it! Can't wait to do this again!"

"The Wolf You Feed" is the second song Nita has released featuring a star guest vocalist, the first being the enormously successful "Dead Inside" which featured guest vocals from DISTURBED's David Draiman and saw Nita become the first ever solo female to have a No. 1 hit at Active Rock radio. She also returned to her instrumental roots earlier this year with the release of single "Summer Storm", a fast-paced, emotive shred-fest. Combined, the two singles have had 3.5 million YouTube views and over 10 million streams on Spotify alone.

Nita made her live debut with Demi on July 14 with a performance of Lovato's single "Substance" on ABC's Emmy Award-winning late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".

Strauss had been playing with Cooper since 2014 when she replaced Australian musician and former Michael Jackson player Orianthi. She joined Alice in time for a mammoth MÖTLEY CRÜE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker's former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.

Back in February, Nita told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about her upcoming LP: "It's gonna be half and half — six tracks with vocalists and six tracks of instrumental [music]. We've been doing ['Dead Inside'] live on the solo tour and it's been getting a super-good reaction from our crowds."

In early December, Nita told "The Mistress Carrie Podcast" about her decision to make the upcoming LP half vocal songs and half instrumental: "I did feel, and the label and everybody agreed, it's still important for me to keep my identity as a guitar player and not just branch off too much and go, 'Okay, well, now it's just guests.' Let me still have a little of what makes me me, which is the instrumental shred stuff. And the instrumental pieces that I've written on this record are, I think, better than anything I did on the first one — definitely more… I don't know if it could be more emotional but they're very emotional pieces of music and I think a little better crafted this time around. So I think all the songs in general are more well thought out, better put together this time around. And I do have some of my absolute favorite [singers guesting on it]. I have three amazing powerhouse female vocalists on this album so far."

Nita released "Controlled Chaos" to mass acclaim from fans and media alike, with Metal Injection calling it "a great debut that — as its creator intended — leaves no doubt", and Guitar World stating "'Controlled Chaos' is a panoramic view of Nita Strauss's many strengths".

As well as performing with Cooper, Nita has also played with R&B star Jermaine Jackson, early MTV darlings FEMME FATALE, video game supergroup CRITICAL HIT and popular tribute band THE IRON MAIDENS.

In April 2020, Nita launched "Rock Guitar Fundamentals" — a three-module online guitar teaching program suitable for learners of all levels. The course is available at www.iwanttoplayguitar.com.

[wolf-and-bard]

The Geraskier (and Lambden) H2O: Just Add Water AU of my dreams (bc Mermay is almost over and I haven’t done a thing for it and putting Geraskier into my favourite teenage shows is too much fun; this got long and messy):

-Geralt, Eskel, and Lambert grew up on the coast of Australia on an estate that is very big and private with its own sectioned-off part of the beach; among all their surfer kid school friends they are definitely the outcasts; they keep to themselves a lot and everyone thinks it’s because of their overprotective father who keeps them from throwing the best parties and also doesn't want them to go out into the ocean or have swimming lessons

-Vesemir is overprotective, but not for the reason everyone thinks; whenever he and/or his boys come into contact with water, they turn into mer-boys, complete with shimmering golden tails; he hoped this genetic oddity would pass them by, but it didn’t and so he taught them to be very careful for fear of them getting hurt

-they all cope with this in different manners: Geralt and Eskel mostly use their ability to do good; they protect little turtles from falling prey to predators, they collect trash from the bottom of the ocean; they also wrestle in the water a lot; Lambert tries to forget this is a thing and stays as far away form any body of water as he can; he spends most of his time secluded in his room, listening to edgy grunge music; sometimes his brothers can lure him out for a round of waterball in their private pool

-Jaskier is one of the popular kids one grade below Geralt (together with Lambert). He always gets the lead role in theatre, he has dozens of friends and a cool band and his outfits are outrageously fashionable; he vlogs a lot, he vlogs so much that anyone who has half a mind to get invested in his life will know everything from his morning routine to the night cream he uses; his favourite cafeteria lunch, the name of his teddy bear and his least favourite cousin

-Jaskier is also determined to befriend Geralt and his bros; he grew up in the same street as them and ever since he discovered Instagram, he’s been dying to take some shots in that house; he’s been over once, when Vesemir made the mistake of inviting a few kids Lambert’s age to his birthday party which ended up in a cake-throwing disaster; little Jaskier thought it was a great idea to tow the garden hose in and clean everything which ruined Vesemir’s favourite rug and had Geralt turn into a mer-boy on the spot; needless to say, Jaskier attributes this memory to a fever dream

-So, Jaskier starts following Geralt and Eskel around (he knows he’ll have no luck with Lambert) and they brush him off every opportunity they get

-What Jaskier doesn’t realize is that Geralt is hardcore in love with him, like so much so that his poor teenage mind cannot stop producing hormones on overload; he spends a lot of time out in the depths to distract himself from this

-What Jaskier also doesn’t realize is that he is falling for Geralt; it’s only for the sake of the 'gram, he tells himself, and because his followers seem to love the chunky mysterious senior with his strangely white hair

-Jaskier’s followers figure it out, the whole school figures it out, Lambert and Eskel figure it out (Geralt lets the guy sit at their lunch table, of course they’re in love) and eventually, even Geralt figures it out. Only Jaskier doesn’t and Geralt has a big-ass secret to keep anyway

-and so, to get rid of his pent-up frustration, he dives deeper and deeper; Eskel starts to worry, Vesemir says it’s just a phase, Lambert plainly doesn’t care

-Speaking of: Aiden is the snarky rich kid / bully that spends way too much time obsessing over uncovering their secret (bc he thinks he’s smart and always thought something about Vesemir was weird and he doesn’t like how they make such a fuss over their privacy). when he invities the three to one of his pool parties, he tries everything to make them reveal what they have going on, but Geralt doesn’t even show and Eskel keeps disappearing to play with Aiden’s dog and so Aiden is stuck with Lambert whom he definitely has a crush on, but won’t ever admit it. they’re enemies, okay? there’s a lot of tension and they end up drunkenly making out behind garden shed, something they both regret in the morning; Lambert doesn’t leave his room for a week straight and feigns a flu so he doesn’t have to meet Aiden at school; Aiden and Jaskier are friends ofc

-one day at school Geralt and Jaskier hang out on the lunch break alone because Eskel’s on a zoo trip with his class and Lambert is avoiding Aiden so he spends all his time holed up beneath the seats of the football field writing angry poems; Jaskier’s forgotten to charge his camera battery so it’s just them, stealing fries off each other’s plates, actually talking for once and Geralt’s sweating because Jaskier sits so close their knees bump and he looks ridiculously cute in his pastel dungarees and there’s this spot of ketchup on his nose that Geralt’s just itching to reach out and wipe away

-Jaskier isn’t all that hungry and he watches Geralt devour a third slice of pizza when he remembers his stupid childhood fever dream; he tells Geralt all about it, the cake fight, the ensuing mess and how he distinctly remembers Geralt growing a fish-tail and flopping around on the living room floor while Vesemir was screaming at them all to get out. “Funny, isn’t it? What your brain can make up?”; Geralt turns chalk-white and splutters a fake laugh

-he isn’t at school the next day and neither are Eskel or Lambert

-nor the next

-they are all a bit afraid, cautious and they just need to spend a few days, just the four of them, throwing themselves into the waves and being free of the shackles of their secrets; they chase each other around, they play some water ball and Vesemir makes them hot cocoa and rubs them dry the way he used to when they were younger and still unable to handle their transformation well

-as he does this, Vesemir thinks about moving somewhere more secure where there are less people, but he can’t take the boys’ life away; Geralt is clearly happy with Jaskier, Lambert’s coming around to opening up to someone, even if that someone is a giant asshole, and Eskel’s too easily unsettled to move elsewhere

-by the third day the boys don’t appear at school - and answer none of his texts - Jaskier gets unsettled; his followers urge him to just go and visit Geralt (they also finally enlighten Jaskier about his own feelings) and Jaskier does. thankfully, his camera is still uncharged and he forgot his phone at home or he would have filmed what he saw as he climbed their garden fence very ungracefully (no one opened the door)

-Geralt went too far out, too deep and got caught in the undertow of some massive waves, then was pulled under and cut himself on some rocks; Jaskier just about catches Eskel and Lambert dragging their brother ashore, his tail flopping helplessly; there’s blood washing away in the waves; Geralt’s eyes are closed and Jaskier understands with rare clarity that somehow this is his fault

-he hurtles towards Geralt, kicking up mud, so afraid that Geralt is going to die and as he does so he calls for Geralt, ignores Lambert’s curses and Eskel’s glower. They gently lower Geralt to the sand where the other two are out of reach of the hungry waves and Lambert runs for Vesemir, Eskel crouches down by Geralt’s tail, inspecting his wounds; meanwhile Jaskier is completely unfazed by the mer-boy thing, he simply drags Geralt’s head onto his lap and strokes his hair, apologizing over and over

-once Geralt is transformed back into human form, his wounds are patched up and Vesemir has given him a thorough lecture, he and Jaskier cuddle on the back porch couch and Jaskier keeps altering between laughing and crying; it’s ridiculous, Geralt is a mer-boy, but also he looked so fragile being hauled out of the water and Jaskier just loves him so fucking much

-and Geralt loves him back. and that’s how a spot of angst orchestrates their happily ever after

-meanwhile Aiden finds out when he has Lambert over for some making out one day and thinks it’s a funny idea to deposit his not-boyfriend in the pool mid-kiss; Lambert just floats in the pool, arms crossed, tail beating, waiting for Aiden to call the cops on him, but Aiden is super turned on and jumps in the pool with him and there’s more making out

THE END

[adultswim2021]

Ephemera Week (2002)

Mission Hill (originally aired on WB, 1999-2000)

Mission Hill was a perfectly good animated series from former Simpsons show-runners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. It was a sitcom about cool young people in a cool young people city. Andy French is an aspiring cartoonist, intended to be a Matt Groening type who would (over the course of many many seasons) eventually find success and get his own super-successful animated series called THE SIMPSONS: SEASONS 1-8.

The premise of the show was that Andy’s parents retire and sell the childhood home, displacing his nerdy high-school aged younger brother Kevin. Kevin moves in with Andy and learns how to be a cool city style guy, you know, the kind that’s always “walkin here!” and sucking off Bob Balaban in the men’s room and whatnot.

The show is at least better than the bad seasons of the Simpsons, and has a cool alt-comics style that suits the show really well. Not to damn it with faint praise, it’s a good show. There are a handful of GREAT episodes and plenty of strong jokes. There's news of a revival in the works focusing on Gus and Wally, the older gay couple in the show. It's supposed to take place in the same era the show originally aired in, which is just great.

Like Baby Blues and Home Movies before it, I did catch this show randomly on it's network of origin. I saw one or two of the final episodes to air on WB. I liked it! I was glad to see it get revived for a run on Adult Swim. I've wanted more episodes ever since.

I don't think the show is available for streaming anywhere, which is too bad. It came out on DVD with special features. That DVD set was reissued on DVD-R without special features, so... buyer? be wary. There's also a number of music replacements that ruin some of the scenes. At one point I had a bootleg set where somebody took the DVD video and replaced the audio with the as-broadcast version of of the show. Good luck finding it.

Here's an episode guide showing their debuts on Adult Swim. Bold episodes were originally unaired, making their debut on the channel. Also note: episodes had an innocuous title and a spicier in-house title in parentheses. It’s real Police Squad! shit.

12AM Monday Morning:

May 20: Pilot (or The Douchebag Aspect) May 27: Andy Joins the PTA (or Great Sexpectations) June 3: Kevin's Problem (or Porno for Pyro) June 10: Andy vs. The Real World (or The Big-Ass Viacom Lawsuit) June 17: Andy and Kevin Make a Friend (or One Bang for Two Brothers) June 24: Andy Gets a Promotion (or How to Get Head in Business Without Really Trying) July 1: Kevin vs. the SAT (or Nocturnal Admissions) July 8: Unemployment Part 1 (or Brother's Big Boner) July 15: Unemployment Part 2 (or Theory of the Leisure Ass) July 22: Kevin Finds Love (or Hot for Weirdie) July 29: Stories of Hope and Forgiveness (or Day of the Jackass)

11PM Sunday Night:

August 4: Happy Birthday, Kevin (or Happy Birthday, Douchebag) August 11: Plan 9 from Mission Hill (or I Married a Gay Man from Outer Space)

ALSO NOTE: There are about five episodes that were in early-stages of production and if you poke around you can find scripts for these episodes ( here as of this writing). A full animatic and table read for “Crap Gets In Your Eyes” exists if you search for it. 

MAIL BAG

London Arbuckle ASKS! or, states! sorry I’m writing this lead-in without having read the whole message yet.

Another confusing Baffler Meal thing: the deleted cold open that's on the DVD. It gets called back to in the actual episode ("Between two steamed buns", "Nine dollars!? For what?") and provides crucial context, BUT it also gets contradicted in the actual episode (SG sells out for "one serious speaker" instead of owing a restaurant money). Also I remember all the ads for this episode used a clip from the cold open! It always kinda bothered me that they cut it but boys (matt & dave) will be boys!

I do think the cold open is nice and I always make a point to watch it with the episode. In my mind they are as essential as watching that boring Terry Gilliam short before Meaning of Life. The next step is pointlessly editing them together using Nero. Yeah, that’s the ticket

Here’s ANONYMOUS, baby!

It's summertime and we are talking about Adult Swim and I gotta ask when's the last time you've been to a pool. Have you ever in your adult life enjoyed the benefits of an adult swim. Tell us just how much you like splash around. Yes, that would be quite illuminating I'm sure (rolleyes).

Man, when was the last time I went into a pool? It’s been literally years. I think the last time I swam I did a bad job. I am definitely am getting “bad job” vibes off my hazy memories. Man, my memories used to be precious. Damn!

do you think theyll ever work with george lowe again in any major capacity or do you think he's just bad news.

I was about to say “isn’t he on American Dad” based on him name-checking American Dad as one of his many credits but I just looked it up and he was only in one episode. Damn. Somebody give George work he seems nice.

beakman's world, anyone? The wild and wacky world of Paul Zaloom? Hmm? Anyone?

lol you wish...

Baby Blues really was my everything back in the early 2000s, it may not have head the punk rock cred you clearly seem to crave it was a soothing balm for myself as a new father in a scary world (9/11 and all that, terrible stuff).

you raise a good point, that you’re a huge dork “with child” and I’m cool and laughed at 9/11 because it was funny to me, actually

Just read your Baby Blues "take down" and I gotta say: In the immortal words of Mike Francesca, "You're a fool. ho-kay? A total fool."

Uh huh. Yeah okay. Mike Francesca hordes pot bellied pigs in his apartment and lives in filth. He stinks, and so do youd

Baby Blue is like every animation nerd's wet dream. What if they made the rugrats with only the parents part. And here it is. Be careful what you wish for, chunky.

Yeah and it’s too bad because judging from the previous mail bags my audience is primarily made up of BABIES.

[ace-of-clovers]

can you tell us about gemstones, lucky? 👉 👈

inhales

ITS TIME

basically all my knowledge is just chilling in my subconscious so i probably won't remember all of it but like. yea

SO: there's a buncha different families of gemstones that fall into a buncha tiny categories etc etc. here's the important ones

QUARTZES: amethyst, citrine, ametrine, (cool combo of amethyst + citrine that fades from purple to yellow), rose quartz, milky quartz, basically any color + quartz

They're silica-based, that's what makes them all related

The chemical composition for all quartzes can be written as SiO2, impurities cause the color variations

CHALCEDONY: jasper, agate, carnelian, chrysoprase, bloodstone

Quartz's cousin, it's a gem on its own but there's also other gems that can be classified under it

It is the "microcrystalline" form of quartz, which means it forms into these weird little lumps, I have one and it looks very cool

Jaspers have stripes, agates have bands (aka concentric circles)

There are SO MANY types of jasper/agate

JASPERS: zebra, ocean, leopard, biggs, brecciated, poppy, etc

AGATES: blue lace, pink lace, crazy lace, snakeskin, fire, Botswana, grape(LOOK THIS ONE UP ITS SO FUNNY), rainbow, thunder egg, etc

Onyx is a type of agate, as well as sardonyx

Moss agate is NOT a type of agate because it has no bands, it's just chalcedony with inclusions of hornblende, but they call it an agate anyway for some reason

sard is apparently also a type of chalcedony?? it's just brown and has no bands???? idk

Anyways I love basically all the varieties of chalcedony for different reasons, it's probably my favorite gem honestly

Then we have the garnets

i hate the garnets

They're barely related but still all classified as one type??? idk

GARNETS: almandine, pyrope, spessartite, grossular, andradite, uvarovite

those are the main six but there are MORE types that fit under each

the important ones are demantoids, hessonites, imperial, rhodolite, tsavorite

Side note: the prefix rhodo means the gem is pink, there's like three different gems with that suffix

the only thing I like abt the garnets is their names. those are some cool ass names

BERYLS: aquamarine, emerald, bixbite, morganite, goshenite, heliodor

This is the same case as chalcedony where it's a gem on its own but they just named the different colors

They form into these vertical rectangular shapes, it's p cool

GYPSUMS: alabaster, selenite, desert rose

Selenite fucking slaps it's like,,, it's got this vertical pattern of lines and it's iridescent, it looks super cool

NOT to be confused with the element selenium. they're different

desert roses are like these chunky tan rocks with a buncha white lines scattered on it, I love them

TOURMALINES: schorl, dravite, rubellite, indicolite, verdelite, achroite

These ones are also vertical rectangles, they got l i n e s

CORUNDUMS: Rubies and sapphires

That's it

JADES: the jades are split into two groups, jadeite and nephrite

there's more but I'm tired

like for part 2

[moonlightreal]

Fate Episode One

At long last, it’s tiiiiiime!

First: whitewashing bad.  Fact acknowledged.  Everybody else has said everything on the subject (ad nauseum...) so no reason to say it all again!

I’m diving in with questions.  The main one is “Will there be a good reason for Musa to be a mind fairy rather than a music fairy?” Dunno why that’s what I’m wondering the most, but it is.  There’s also “Is Fate!Stella truly an unholy union of Stella and Diaspro?” and “so what makes them fairies not witches/psychics/mutants?” and “So what’s up with Beatrix?  We know nothing about her, and as an Umineko fan I’m favorably disposed towards witches named Beatrice!” and also “They’re not really having sex are they?!”

I’m going to try and approach Fate just like I do every season of the cartoon, ready to celebrate the good, snark at the bad, enjoy many headcanons, reference random stuff, and have a good time.  Pretending I haven’t had my fannish heart nigh to broken by the state of the fandom and that I’m worried I’ll get hate for even posting this.  I’m’a try to start from zero to find my own answer the really big question… “Good, bad, or totally irredeemable?”

So… In which we discover a new world.

We start with… a night scene.  Not promising when “too dark can’t see” is one of my pet peeves!  An old fella comes out to check on his cute Irish sheep.  He passes through the barrier, into the dangerous forest beyond to look for a missing sheep.  Yup, he’s gonna be guest victim in the first five minutes.

Oh no!  Something has disemboweled a sheep and left it hanging in a tree!  Clearly there are leopards in the magical realm!

There is a great roar and an unseen but very large-sounding beast chases our poor shepherd!  The guy trips and falls just as he’s about to get through the barrier and is set upon and devoured by the unseen beast!  Blood spatters the rocks!

Opening! It’s the wings we’ve sen and some really beautiful music.  One point for the music.

Then a gorgeous flying shot of the outside of the barrier and Alfea. Whatever the plot turns out to be, the outdoor setting is beautiful. Music that seems to be both pop and edgy plays as we zoom in on the logo on the gate, and there’s Bloom coming in the gate.

And there’s Terra with her father and a tray full of plants.

And there’s Aisha walking by with her dreads

And there’s Stella taking a selfie with other students.

And there’s Musa leaning on her suitcase, headphones on, looking at her phone.  Another girl says something to Musa and she turns and replies and smiles.

And there’s one of the guys twirling a knife.  I’ve heard Sky starts out in a pink shirt so this must be Riven.  The camera comes back to Bloom as she gives him a doubtful look.  In the novelization she’s mentally labeling him an edgelord, and that kinda fits.  Any dude showing off his willingness to twirl weapons at a high school probably is best avoided—except the dudes here are training to fight so the weapons rules must be different.  I wonder if Bloom knows yet that dudes with swords are normal here.

Bloom gets a text to meet Stella at the gate.  She waits.

Camera pan to Sky talking to another guy.  Sky looks… Sky-ish.  Chris Evans style handsome, blond.  I’d’ve made him grow his hair to mimic cartoon Sky’s silly shaggy haircut, but points for making Sky look like Sky!  Minus points for not dying Riven maroon.  They could’ve made it work!

Sky is indeed wearing a pink shirt.  In the novelization Bloom thinks he’s wearing it “because gender roles were for the weak” which is a line I think is funny and intend to use in a story somewhere. There is no obvious hint in the show that Sky thinks gender roles are for the weak

Bloom’s tired of waiting.  She heads off.  Sky ditches his buddy to go meet her.  “Wow, you are so lost.  I’m impressed with your confidence in the face of complete ignorance.  Issue is, you’re overcomitted. You’re essentially running.  And now that I’m here you can’t possibly give me the satisfaction of turning around.”  he says, all in one go.  

I can’t decide if that’s jerkish or charming.  Maybe Bloom shares my weakness for men with accents because she decides on charming.

Bloom says she’s a fairy, giggles because that’s something she never thought she’d say, they’re standing in the courtyard of a college for fairies, Bloom’s from California, not the Otherworld.  So we get all that established.  Sky is kinda charming here and points out the specialists’ hall and fairy hall.

Sky: “I’d be happy to-”

Bloom: “Mansplain it?”  

So the writing team does know some modern issues!  Bloom says Sky seems like a mansplainer, which seems like quite a leap since she is new and he is helping her, in a friendly-sarcastic kind of way.  She’s giggling, clearly charmed.

Then Riven comes up, and he’s like a foot shorter than Sky, and Bloom escapes for some reason so maybe she wasn’t enjoying the conversation as much as it looked? Or maybe it was just the plot needs to move along.  Riven glomp-hugs Sky.  He’s got a great accent too.

Bloom must’ve left because she saw Stella, they say hello.  Bloom says she got impatient waiting and Stella says, “How very American of you”  So American stereotypes are known in magical worlds also?    

So, Stella!  Blonde, tall, zero Stella vibe.  Accent. Long pale coat and a satiny top with big chunky pendant.  She gets to her ring quick, “Portal ring, the only thing that keeps me sane in this place is the ability to leave it.  Your world may not always be thrilling but it beats this one.  There are seven realms in the Otherworld, each a different kind of boring.”  All spoken in a jaded monotone.  Ugh, what have they done to our Stella!

The girls walk inside while Stella speaks, the school is pale stone and arches and plants.  Other students are arriving, hauling suitcases, hugging.  At least some of them seem happy to be here!

Cut to the globe!  and it’s a magical globe, the water moves and there are lil sailing ships!  But the lands are totally blank, so it’s a cheap magic globe Dowling didn’t pay enough for the one with tiny forests too.  Alfea is in the realm of Solaria.

Maybe they shouldn’t have made Ireland = Solaria.  I’ve only been to England but we did not see the sun the whole trip!  Bloom’s in Dowling’s really cool office.  She spins the globe but the camera pans away before we see the names of the other realms.  Bloom’s talking nervously about seeing people updating their insta stories, expecting Tinkerbells, and the lack of wings.

Dowling: “We had wings in the past.  As we’ve evolved, transformation magic has been lost.  Tink was an air fairy, you’re a fire fairy.”

Dowling says classes tomorrow, learn to use magic slowly but safely… we establish Bloom is here to learn to control her magic so she can go home and not keen on ‘slow.’  Dowling says, ‘trust the process’ which immediately makes me mistrust her.

Then she gives a great lil speech: “Alfea’s graduates have ruled realms and led armies.  They have forged powerful relics and rediscovered long lost relics.  They shape the otherworld.”

But Bloom just wants to get done and go home.  She says, ‘I'm here because you promised you’d teach me control.” and Dowling says, ‘no, you’re here because you knew you have no other choice.” and Bloom looks betrayed.

Yeah Dowling’s sus.  

Next scene: Bloom showing her dorm to her parents over video call!  How does that work between dimensions?  Her folks look nothing like Mika and Vanessa, dad’s got a beard and silver temples, mom’s got big blonde curls.  Neither of them have burn injuries or the sort of freaked out vibe I’d expect from folks whose house was just on fire.

Roommate pan-around!  Terra puts potted plants everywhere!  Stella preens at the vanity! Musa headphones-and-laptop but smiles at Terra.  Aisha comes in with her laundry bag.

Bloom’s parents get suspicious about the timezone thing, they think Bloom’s in the Alps, and Aisha comes and covers for her saying it’s time for lights out.

Aisha intro!  She is wearing a pink and brown checkered dress that’s not super fashionable or flattering.  I like her blue braids though. Aisha does not seem to have the accent that many Alfeans have.

Bloom explains the “human parents, fairy daughter, I must be a throwback to an ancestor” thing.  Aisha looks dubious.  Then they mention Harry Potter!

Bloom; ‘Ravenclaw, sometimes Slytherin.’

Aisha; ‘Explains the lies then.  Gryffindor.’

Bloom: ‘Explains the judgment.’

Congrats, you both were jerks in three short lines. 9_9  But they’re smiling so I guess it’s friendly sniping.  

Bloom goes to see Stella, who’s holding up sparkly tops to herself. She’s also got this weird rainbow skirt that looks like gymnastics clothes not real clothes.  Stella’s changing for the party because people have already seen her in her clothes.  Bloom asks confused, ‘People expect you to wear multiple outfits?’ and Stella comes back with, ‘people expect me to care how I look.” In the same jaded monotone.

Before Bloom can WTF outta there like a sensible person Stella snaps her fingers and creates a ball of light.  Bloom gapes, but not nearly as much as I feel like she should.  The magic is beautiful, it’s all rainbowy and sparkly.  Bloom just hesitantly asks, ‘Can I ask, how exactly you..?” and Stella shuts her down with an almost kind, “I’m a mentor, not a tutor.”

But she does give a little infodump.  “Fairy magic is tied to emotion. God thoughts, bad, hatred, fear, the stronger the emotion the stronger the magic.”

And Bloom says, ‘Do you hate me or fear me?  You were looking at me when you did that.  And I’m pretty sure you don’t love me.” Smart cookie, Bloom!  Points to you!  We know it’s because Bloom was talking to sky, and that gives Stellla some emotions.

And points to Stella, she thaws out her voice and talks like a real person, ‘I don’t know you.  I’m sure once I do I’ll find something to love.”  She sounds rather doubtful about the last bit but yay actual emotion!

Then Stella goes over to Terra for her intro scene and I cringe because the novelization did Terra dirty and I’m not keen to see it on screen.  But it works ok.  Stella gently calls Terra on the number of houseplants and says the secret garden was better kept secret, Terra responds that wasn’t really the message of the book, Stella looks at her with amused patience and leaves Musa and Terra to continue the scene.  And I decide if there’s no infodump about how earth and the Otherworld relate to each other in this show I shall be cross.

Then Terra chatters on about her family and how she grew up at Alfea since her dad works here (she’s holding a 100% fake plant) and drops that Stella is a second year.  Musa asks why a second-year is in a first-year suite and Terra says it’s some administrative thing probably best not to mention.  But Terra totally knows the secret.

Musa’s eyes glow purple.  Magic!  But we don’t hear what she hears.  She starts putting her headphones on.  Terra goes on to say they should all not mention it to Stella, then interrupts another headphones-attempt to offer Musa a succulent, “They’re low maintainence, perfect for you, not that I really know you...’

Musa: ‘If I take it will you stop talking?”

Terra visibly deflates and Musa apologizes and grabs the succulent before finally getting to escape into music.

Aisha leans in to ask Terra if Alfea has a pool.  It has a river and Aisha’s been swimming—twice a day every day!  Terra says no pool, just the pond where the specialists train but nobody swims there, at least not on purpose.

And we immediately cut out to the pond, which looks pretty mucky, I wouldn’t want to swim there either!  Two specialists, a boy and a girl, are whacking away at each other with wooden swords on the shore.  They’re all dressed in black pants and tank tops, very Divergent movie poster except with the Alfea logo on the front. There’s a bunch of specialists training all around the pond and one does indeed knock their opponent in with a splash!  But we home in on Sky and Riven and I cannot get over how short and skinny Riven is compared to Sky!  And the fact that I’ve just been rewatching Lord of the Rings and Riven doesn’t look 100% not like Dominic Monaghan… sorry Riven’s actor, I’m sure in future episodes I’ll stop thinking you’re a hobbit!

Anyway, Riven’s teasing Sky about his crush on Bloom, says Sky always goes for the crazy ones and all redheads are crazy.  Sky puts Riven on the mat and Riven says he was getting high all summer and not practicing. Before Sky can give him a “big brother speech” on that riven skedaddled because here comes the teacher with a different speech!

This show’s Codatorta, whose name is Silva and who looks very irish and I like him, does a little speech about how y’all gotta train, singles out a black guy I think is Dane and says, ‘even you will be able to fight like him.” and attacks Sky, who fights back.  They spar for a minute.

Infodump: “Sky’s father was Andreas of Eraklyon, that makes him a legacy.” Also, some of these kids are from families of specialists and some were selected by Silva based on their talent for combat and weaponry. “This place will seem like hell until actual hell comes.  We are the first line of defense, a certainty when the future is uncertain!’

Then Dane snickers about the whole ‘school full of kids with swords’ and Silva says it must be nice to be so ‘soft’ he can make fun. And Dane drops that the barrier exists ‘to protect the school from Burned Ones.”

As he says it, we cut to Sky going out through the barrier to smoke.  

Burned ones are gone.  But Silva saw one when he was a kid.  His father shot it but was killed by the Burned One’s poison.  Burned Ones are inhumanly strong and fast, and have a terrible poison, or disease that kills people who get away.

Sky looks over and sees the shepherd’s body.  Yikes!

Cut to the staff arriving to look at the remains.  Just three: Dowling, Codatorta, and Terra’s dad.  Is that the whole staff?  Who teaches? Could’ve been a wolf or a bear… Terra’s dad collects some gunk from the body and I think calls it “char residue.”

Dowling says, “She killed all the Burned Ones.”

She? This world’s Marion/Daphne, likely.

But the adults clean it up so the kids can party!  Our girls are gathered around the food, and they’re better dressed!  Aisha’s got her hair up and a blue hoodie, Musa’s got a little red coat.  Terra has not been blessed by the fashion fairy, she’s in some overalls it looks like, not flattering.  Terra is saying hopefully that maybe the shepherd died of old age and Musa’s ‘Yeah, that old age decapitation” is gentle ribbing not cruel.  

Aisha’s loading up a stack of cookies, says how much she eats and, ‘If I didn’t swim I’d be massive.” it’s not aimed at Terra , but Terra flinches.  Aisha heads off and Terra says something that boils down to, ‘Musa, you’re tuning out me in particular.” which, Terra you’ve known Musa for what, six hours?  Way too short a time to take it personal.  Musa says, ‘It’s a me thing, it’s not you.” and Terra just flusters and heads away.  Musa looks troubled but not sure what to do and puts her headphones on.

This is SO much better than in the book.  Not perfect, all the interactions between the girls have been very weird as if they’ve been given a script full of cruel catty lines and instructed to say them in a kind way, but at least they’ve tried for the vibe of “trying to be nice to people we don’t know yet and flubbing it” rather than “we are all terrible people” like I feared.

Terra meets her dad and tries to go to the greenhouse with him but he makes her stay to enjoy the party.

Cut to some grownup dude—Dowling’s secretary? Apparently searching for something in a desk that I presume is outside the headmistress’ office.

Beatrix… or possibly a gothed-up Bloom… comes to see Dowling and when told the headmistress isn’t in says, ‘I’ll just take a water, room temp, thanks love.’ and then when the door opens Beatrix greets Dowling with a simpering ‘I'm your biggest fan, I’m obsessed with Alfea...” and cascading apologies for swearing, with more swearing. Dowling and her secretary are as confused by this as I am but Dowling says Beatrix can study the history of Alfea in the library if she wants to.  I assume this is evil Beatrix slyly getting permission to hit the books.  Is Beatrix even a student at Alfea?

Cut to Bloom’s notebook, she’s already started taking notes about powers being linked to emotions, love hate and fear.  Great initiative Bloom, but are there no textbooks you could be reading ahead in?  

We get dumped back to a flashback: Bloom’s mom wants her to go out on a Saturday night, to a party or a movie or whatever teen thing.  All Bloom wants to do is go to antique sales apparently.  Bloom doesn’t want to be a “basic bitch” like her mom and her mom doesn’t want her daughter to be a “weird loner.”

Pause while I urban dictionary “basic bitch.”  Huh.  Not a term I ever heard in my circle of nerds.  

Bloom and her mom are awful to each other.  Back in the present Bloom’s eyes flame up as she remembers.  She decides it’s time to go experiment!  Right now!  Before even one day of magic class or one page of a textbook!  The idiot ball has entered play.

Night has fallen because of course it has.  Bloom runs into Sky at the party.  But she’s not looking to party, she’s looking for a place to be alone outside.  Sky directs her to beyond the barrier, because we’re about to have Plot.  If it weren’t for Plot I‘m sure Sky could’ve suggested a specialist workout area inside the barrier. Sky says there might be wolves or bears or “maybe something much scarier” and Bloom catches the idiot ball and says, ‘But no people?  Perfect!”

Sky offers to go with her but Bloom says no thanks in a “I think you may be flirting and I may be down for that in the future just not right now.” kind of a way.  Good character interaction!  Except Stella grabs Sky for a chat once Bloom heads out to meet the Plot.

Sky and Stella have an opaque exchange that really just establishes they have a past of some sort that everyone knows about because everyone stares—or at least Stella thinks everyone is staring.  I’m starting to feel weirdly sorry for this Stella who has none of her namesake’s sparkle and confidence.  Why does she think all the realms are boring?  Is she ever enthusiastic?

...wait, it’s still day!  Why was it night inside??  This show is weird about lighting.  Gosh Ireland is beautiful!  Where’s this castle they got to be Alfea?  Can I go there?  This FOREST!  It is a fully magical forest.  Aisha is swimming in the river, with goggles and a cap but Bloom heads into the amazing forest.  Good music here too!  Forests and magic and music, come on Fate you CAN be a good show, I believe in you!  Just put down the idiot ball and step away...  Bloom goes through the barrier and outside it sees a swirl of orange and white sparkles in the air.  She watches it and laughs and then hikes through a little more forest.

Finding a clearing Bloom calls her fire.  At first she can’t, then she looks through the pictures on her phone looking for emotion. “Pictures of my sad teenage years are not happy thoughts.  Noted.” She says with an angsty little smile.  Then there’s a photo of the burned out house.  She zooms in and stares at it taking in all the details.  And we get flashbacks to the line of fire racing towards her parents’ bed.

Fire! Bloom turns her handful of fire this way and that, delighted, then tries for two hands.  This is the scene from the trailer, playing with fire.  Good music here.  And good that Bloom thought the magic was neat… uuuuntil she realizes she doesn’t know how to put it out.  She freaks out and waves her hands around trying to blow out the flames.

Aisha comes to the rescue and says dumb things like, “You’re losing control.” and “If you get angry at me...” and Bloom does get angry and throws lines of fire right at Aisha.  Who looks terrified. Sensibly, but also has she never seen fire magic before?  She grew up in a magic realm, does she know nothing about how to help someone get control?  Is control taught to magical babies so teenagers rarely see someone wigging out?  But if magic is emotion then everyone will lose control sometime since we all get upset.  How does an emotion=magic society function?

Anyway. aisha pulls water up from the ground and puts out the flames.

Inside Aisha gives Bloom what for about losing control.  Including, “Is that American for sorry I almost set you on fire?”  Srsly, this show is Irish people and Italians stealth throwing shade at Americans!  *Laughs in January 2021* Bloom retorts that she went away from people to experiment for just that reason, and tells Aisha about not having had fairy parents or any magical experience.

Aisha responds with the story of flooding her school including the toilets and having to wade through poo.  (I also tend to call it poo, after watching Mike Rowe.  I wonder if they watch Dirty Jobs in the Otherworld.)

And Bloom tells her story.  Bloom isn’t a cheerleader, she likes antiques and staying home by herself, so she and her mom don’t get along.  Her parents removed her door, which is awful!  And Bloom got flamey eyes and sent fire straight at her parents while they slept. While Bloom sat on her bed in a rage trance.  Understandable level of fury after that fight.  And Bloom feels awful, also understandable. And she snuck out to sleep in a creepy warehouse to protect her parents.  Her folks didn’t know it was her of course, they don’t know about magic.

Aisha says that beats her flood story, but Aisha is also wondering about something.  “You drew on a good deal of magic without even trying. it’s hard to believe you’re from a dormant bloodline.  Is there any chance you’re adopted?”

Bloom laughs.  Then says she heard the story of her birth a million times, she was a miracle baby diagnosed with a heart defect but then after birth her heart was fine.

Aisha: “Oh god, you’re a changeling!” … ‘It’s barbaric and it barely ever happens anymore….”

Bloom has had enough and just says, “why would you even tell me that?” and leaves.  Musa comes over and asks Aisha what she said.  Aisha: “The truth.  Because someone’s been lying to her.”

Cut to Dowling, lookin’ sus!

This changeling thing had better be fully explained later.  Why was it done in the past?  Why is it considered barbaric?  What happened to the parents’ real kid?  I assume she died of the heart condition, but that’s a bigole dangling bit of Plot.  In the unlikely event that Fate goes for many seasons that baby will turn up with magic too or as a specialist or something. 

Dowling pours tea.  Then she telekinetically locks her office door and opens a secret passage!  Dowling is sus.

Back at the party, where it again seems to be night.  Dane is leaning on a column hangin out when here comes Riven with a flask!  He offers, Dane says no thanks, Riven says, ‘There are two types of first-years: pussies and aspiring former pussies.” and pours the entire flask’s worth of booze into Dane’s cup anyway.

Dane says something about, “It feels like less a binary choice and more like a spectrum.”  And points for the actor delivering this line like it’s a sarcastic comment on social juscice-ness rather than the large sign saying “Dane is not straight!’ that the writers intended.  Dane drinks, makes a face, and Riven bullies him into drinking the rest, tipping the glass so Dane chokes.

Terra rides to the rescue, “Bullying the first-years?  Can you be more basic?” and Riven says Dane was into it which he wasn’t.

Terra: “Thinks he’s some badass but you should’ve seen him last year he was just a tragic nerd in disguise.”

Riven: “And she’s just three people in disguise.”

Dane does call Riven out on that bit of nastiness but Terra just does a great lil speech and strangles Riven with vines.  Thought I’d hate that but I kinda liked it.  Go Terra.  Then she introduces herself to Dane, says that wasn’t a great first impression but Dane says he’s about to make an impression by throwing up after a single drink, and Terra hurries him away presumably to the nurse.  

Bloom google-imaged changelings!  Lotsa woodcuts, someone’s fanart entitled “horror of fairy babies.’  There’s more nuance to it than that…  Bloom looks at a family photograph.

There’s Stella, coming to be sympathetic?  Nope, she’s coming to conivingly advance the plot!  “You know there’s no shame in that, wanting a normal life, wanting to be home...”

When the girls get back Bloom is nowhere to be found.  Musa mind-reads that Stella is wracked with guilt,  They put it together, Bloom was talking to Sky and now she’s gone.  Apparently Stella did something nasty to the last girl who talked to Sky.  Terra is kinda straight up badass.  Stella confesses, she kindly loaned Bloom the portal ring so she could go back to “the first world” but to use it Bloom has to go deep into the forest outside the barrier to a door in a graveyard.

Portal’s super low special effects, Bloom pushes open a door in a cemetary, the ring glows, and Bloom walks into what must be the warehouse she hid out in.

It’s very dark inside both buildings but away from the cemetary it seems to still be day so we can see a Burned One’s shadow coming towards the portal.  Day and night seem to depend on location in this show, and anywhere you need a monster it’s gonna be dark!  Bloom seems to leave the magic portal open and we see her step out on the warehouse into a weirdly well-lit night on earth.

Real actual nighttime on earth.  Bloom walks to her parents’ house and calls them from outside.  Her dad’s surprised she called twice in one day.  This call her folks seem just worried and nice, not awful like they were in the flashback.  Bloom cries.  She can’t ask her parents about the changeling thing.  Her mom says very kind, ‘Your path isn’t like mine or your father’s but I can’t wait to see who you become.”  Bloom hangs up and cries and watches her parents in their house, then walks back to the warehouse to return to Alfea.

But first we get to see where she was camping!  In a little office in the warehouse. She brought a lot of stuff, bedding and pictures for the walls and everything.  She opens a notebook and we see that she was experimenting already, discovered she was fireproof, wondered if she had superpowers.  Then she senses something and looks out through an interior window into the rest of the warehouse.

Yikes! it’s a Burned One!

Bloom staggers back, trips, and drops Stella’s ring down a grate in the floor.

Bloom’s never heard of Burned Ones at this point but she knows a monster when she sees one.  She cowers, back to the wall. The Burned One breaks through the window and tries to grab her!

Bloom escapes into some kind of tunnel, I guess she opened the grate that the ring fell through?  It’s not totally clear.  There’s the ring, on the other side of a different grate or screen, Bloom can’t reach it, there’s lots of roaring, Bloom runs like hell!

And there’s Dowling!  She says, ‘don’t stop now.’ and gestures Bloom through the door back to the cemetery.  The door closes behind her.  Terra, Musa and Aisha are waiting to make sure Bloom’s ok. Bloom says the Burned One got the ring.

Stella, meanwhile, is on Sky’s bed when he comes out of the shower! Dressed, at least.

Sky is not interested.  “You can’t be here, Stell.  If Silva finds out-’   Sky goes for his trousers but Stella comes over and snuggles up to his bare back.  Sky is still not keen.  Seems Stella dumped him then went silent all summer and now she’s jumping in since he talked to Bloom.  Stella… comes out and says, “I got jealous. I did something really stupid.”  and she says, “I can’t sleep in a room where everybody hates me.”   For sending Bloom into danger to get home when that’s what Bloom wanted?  Not great, Stella, but hateworthy?  Did the girls all tell her they hate her or does Stella just think she’s an awful person?  And is Stella actually desperately unhappy or is she just trying to get in Sky’s pants?  Not sure what to take away from this.  Sky hugs Stella and tells her she’s better than she thinks she is.  

The others get back to the dorm and Aisha reassures Bloom that Dowling can take care of the Burned One.

Cut to Beatrix leaving her raid on the library with armfuls of books. She passed Riven, who’s smoking.  They say flirty things and Beatrix says she’s been “snorting the midnight adderall” to show that she’s a bad girl.  Riven offers her a puff but her hands are full of books so they do this almost-kiss so Riven can blow smoke into her mouth.  Erotic, also gross.  Is that a real thing people do? Riven asks Beatrix if she’s a first-year and she says “I’m lots of things” and walks off leaving Riven and the room he’s in, which has the most gorgeous arched windows with trees in them.  Is this place real?  It’s the same place the party was but now it’s night and these windows are glowing green with tree outlines in them. This has gotta be something the filmmakers added.

Pajama scene in the girls’ suite, Terra waters plants, Musa hops in bed with headphones on.  Terra does a needy little wave.  Musa reluctantly un-headphones.  Terra offers a speaker she borrowed from her brother so Musa can have her music without shutting other people out.

And I cringe so hard because just let people tune you out if they want! Communicate by whiteboard!  People not wanting to share doesn’t mean they hate you, it means they have their own thoughts they’re busy with!  Come on Terra, be better than your novelization self!

Musa calls Terra out on her fake-happy bullshit.  Musa can feel all of Terra’s insecurities and anger.  Seems like maybe empaths shouldn’t have to share a room!  What’s the range on mind reading?  How did Musa hit 16 without learning to tune stuff out or going mad?  But Musa says, ‘but if you want to know how I really feel...” and switches her music to a speaker, it’s guitar-y and nice.

Up in Dowling’s office, Silva says she should’ve killed the Burned One not left it chained up and knocked out in a shack outside the barrier.  Dowling needs to investigate this Burned One, see if there are more of them.  Then Dowling spills that Bloom is a changeling, from the time the last Burned One disappeared.  And she says, “Rosalind kept so much from us.  I’m worried about the students. The Alfea they know is very different from the one we attended.”  There’s something very “there was a war before” about the two of them.  Dowling may not be sus after all, though that may make her a terrible headmistress depending on how the next episodes go.

Montage of sleeping students.  Terra and Dane are texting.  Dane accidentally likes one of Riven’s sexy photos.  Riven’s pleased.  Sky and Stella are sharing a bed but after the last scene I can’t imagine they actually did anything.  Sky seemed pretty unseduceable.  

And outside a Mysterious Cloaked Figure passes through the barricade, finds the Burned One in the hut, and zaps it awake with lightning. It pushed back its hood… Beatrix!  So if she undid her too-tight braids she’d be Stormy?  So is Beatrix the villain?  I mean obviously she’s a villain but the threat of the Burned Ones feels... bigger than one teenager in Bratz clothes who has not got the presence of even one Trix much less all three wrapped up together.  But anyway she’ gets to be a doomful cloaked figure at the end of episode one.

Very pretty ending credits music. Listened to it several times.  I can’t understand the lyrics which is probably just as well.  Is it in irish or is it just sung in a way to not have clear lyrics?  C’mon fate, Irishness is a big thing you’ve got going for you, please milk it for all its worth!

I… I LIKED it!  Now my friends say future episodes get worse so I can’t get my hopes too high but this wasn’t awful.  None of the girls really had any vibe of their characters, only Bloom and Sky really look like Bloom and Sky.  The worldbuilding is lacking, I’m left with more questions than answers.

And oh god one episode was ten pages and about five hours.  I… I meant to do this with every episode but I’m not sure I can.  There’s so much to comment on it takes forever.  Maybe I’ll do each one in parts.  Or maybe I’ll abandon the writing and just watch the show like a normal person.  It’s a lot of fun to fine-toothed comb each scene but I’m’a be here forever!

[spearxwind]

god i know the feeling tbh. here’s some excellent tips that helped me though: 

1. ABSOLUTELY look at mammals for body types. especially big cats!! and look at chunky bird legs for the bottom half of the limbs  our perception of dragons as lizards is only bc theyre scaly, but looking at actual lizards for reference makes them have a different body type than what a lot of people perceive dragons as bc of media (disclaimer im not saying lizard inspired dragons are bad, on the contrary theyre always really creative because most people resort to mammal anatomy) 

also!! the same goes for scales. most dragons in media have either stylized snake scales or FISH SCALES. yes really. like look at this... fish scales look so much more like dragon scales than any lizard on earth thats my hot take

(this is a red arowana by the way i fucking love them) 

anyway uh!! definitely check out mammal anatomy for dragons and slap some fish scales on them n youll be gucci my dude 

aa im glad it helped!! feel free to shoot me an ask if you ever need anything else or more encouragement x) i definitely have experience with the distancing thing

id heard about them at some point but i dont really know much about them at all!!! they definitely look super cool though....

im losing my entire fuck at this one too  

WHO droppe d their spaget..... on the rocks... 

OH I THINK I HEARD ABOUT THIS AT SOME POINT BUT PROMPTLY FORGOT THANK U FOR TELLING ME 

it IS super dope... three tiny eyes in a triangle formation in the middle of their forehead?? sign me the FUCK up. i love bugs so much

definitely dianne and regios,,, they’ve both got magic powers and they WILL trans your gender 

not yet!! but im building up a buffer!! Ill most likely start posting pages in january after i have a site up c: 

yeah he absolutely has to! its his literal purpose :) 

but seriously though if he doesnt it hurts big time and his form starts to fall apart more and more the longer he goes without anything

[rockhopsblog]

Welcome to Rock Hops

Hello and welcome! In this blog, I will talk about rock n roll, hip hop, and the stories behind the music that has coursed through the veins of generations for decades. I’d like to explore the music that made me tick as a teenager living in suburban America, and relate my connections to and appreciation for.

Now let me introduce myself to you formally. My name is Alex, and I’m a 21 year old college student in Boston, Massachusetts. I study communications, and grew up not to far away in southern Ma. When I was 9 I first began really discovering music. My father had an old chunky computer and on it he had a library of digital music he’d copied from his CD collection. One day, while messing around on my family computer, I discovered the Beatles. On that day, everything changed for me. I find it apt to start this blog off with a group who is so widely known, such a giant influence, that the name is known between music nerds and casual listeners alike. The Beatles really are the root of a lot of modern music. 

THE BEATLES-

I was impressionable at the age of nine, and I found the album “Revolver” hidden away in what is now an extremely old digital music player on my Dad’s computer. I found the album instantly addictive. The melodies and harmonies were like ear worms, and I found myself coming back time and time again just to have the pleasure of diving head first into more and more of the songs. The Beatles struck a chord...they were so effortlessly cool and yet entirely too goofy for their own good. It made it hard not to be swept up in the aura that surrounded their music. I even remember touting to all my friends at school just how damn good the band was. I was probably most enamored with the track “I’m Only Sleeping”. The song itself is not a song that’s sales numbers and streams stack up against the group’s most well known super-hits like “Let it Be” and “Yesterday” but I loved it for it’s simplicity, the smoothness of the tune with the acoustic accompaniment and John Lennon’s signature tamber. This track in particular was also the first pop track ever to include the backwards played guitar in the solo performed by George Harrison. The Beatles and producer George Martin have been, throughout music history, acclaimed for Revolver and their other albums from the same era for having innovated the art of producing albums in such creative ways with such limited analog equipment such as tape recorders which had been manually connected as too invent a double vocal track. Hitting the charts at number one across several countries, the Beatles churned out hit album after hit album, leading the young generation of kids to fall in love with the counter culture that would become prevalent towards the end of the 1960s. 

 The Beatles changed my life, as well as my listening tastes forever. I feel that my discovery of them has laid a strong and well influenced basis for my further listening endeavors, as it made me accustom to simple yet strange music landscapes and raised the bar for solid songwriting. The album “Revolver” opened my eyes to a lot of new sounds, and it still holds a special place in my heart to this day. Hope to see you around again soon for more stories behind the music! 

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Maya?? Maya!!

also Athenas lmao

finally i am free to work on this

boy i sure hope we don’t get more info soon *squints at Amara’s character trailer just around the corner*

tl;dr: athenas. wow. uhhh temple areas with the weird vault-shaped statue things might be a teleportation hub or something like a Stargate cuz, uh… they’re probably not Vaults. i mean. given what we know maybe they are Vaults but not like vaults with important stuff inside, just teleportation vaults. you know what im trying to say? i mean it’s not like the eridians had any spaceships we’ve seen. but they had to get around somehow. 

also it’s possible the big temple area we see is on Athenas, is in that giant fucking pyramid in the background that i completely and totally did not notice for the longest time. 

i also discuss Maya and her thoughtlock skill (if she gets her powers taken away from her) and if she’s gonna die or not. because she’s got the Cloud Kill legendary (’oh noo she ded’), an apprentice (let’s be real, the cliches aren’t looking great), and she seems to working beside rampagers in that giant temple area (also another reason i think it’s on athenas) and tbh i didn’t see her tattoos in either of those shots (but that could be cuz she’s so smoll). so that’s cool. 

oh also the order of the impending storm was probably pretty respectable back in the day, since they can track sirens (maya’s assassin in son of crawmerax), and maybe that’s how maya figured out ava was gonna be a siren even tho she hasn’t manifested her powers yet. and Maya’s probably unearthing all this buried Siren/Vault knowledge and bringing the Academic District back into power while also protecting the Order from Maliwan. who’s still v sus.

wow we have a lot to go over

so to start, im taking a wild guess and saying the temple is on Athenas. why? because we really haven’t gotten a lot of looks at either of those areas too much (compared to promethea and eden-6) and the architecture lines up to me. 

also i, an idiot, was all like ‘mannnn Athenas is super mountainy, that’s wild. love it’ and neglected to realize there’s literally a giant fucking pyramid in the background of a lot of shots

on the right

behind the tower

to the right of ava

on the left

so i feel really dumb right now for not noticing this sooner and writing it off as a mountain. It's literally the fuckin Vault symbol like. ~triangles~. i played skyrim i should know what mountains look like when they’re not 1 polygon

either way, if that’s not at least part of the temple, it’s definitely important. somehow.

but let’s talk about the temple. the parts we know.

let’s try to look out the windows of this wild place

see cause this looks like inside a mountain

so my first instinct was eden-6 because we see a volcano on there

i mean im under the assumption this is eden-6???

bc all the plants match up

… maybe there’s more than one temple?

oh god i don’t wanna separate these by temple that’s going to be IMPOSSIBLE

but yeah i guess it’s possible there’s one on Eden-6 and one on Athenas… dear god…

but yeah my first instinct for that was ‘inside a volcano’

possible mountain on the left there

very rocky all around. im assuming this is underground or smth?

it feels like we’re underground

so maybe it’s a thing where it just keeps going further down. iunno.

it’s hard to place exactly where this is going to be because of the whole ‘underground’ thing

the part that’s throwing me off the most is this

because this looks like Pandora bc of Elpis and the rocks

and it looks like we’re walking outside a temple with the same friggen tiles on the floor, which means it is possible that this is The Temple, but you think we’d know about a giant-ass temple just on pandora. especially with the big dig site

but then we see a super similar dig site (supposedly on promethea). so what the HELL

im almost inclined to believe this is some sort of Eridian teleportation system. i know, i know, we have Sanctuary-III so it’s pointless. but… will we always have Sanc-III throughout the story? yada yada orange/gray -> blue/yellow/red markings. you get the dealio by now.

to

when taken by the cult or smth.

idk it’s possible we won’t have sanc-III for the entire game (just like normal sanctuary in bl2, in that we’ll get it back eventually (or ill kill someone for taking my room decorations)) and then we’ll have to use this wicked eridian tech to move between planets with these gateways. sort of like a stargate…

this thing is a stargate. I’ll call back to this in a hot second.

what kinda shit am i tripping on? i don’t really know. but given how it seems like these temples could be on ANY of the planets we see, im trying to figure out wtf the connection could be.

and give me this: we have never actually seen an eridian spacecraft, but we know they’ve traveled across the galaxy, putting vaults on different places. how in the fuck could they have done that if, you know, they didn’t have spaceships to travel through… space? 

well we know they have the power of teleportation down pat. i mean down so hard they were able to create a ‘teleportation gland’ that allowed a giant vault monster to teleport at will. (now im wondering if lilith has one… hm.) 

this blue thing (which… is the same color as siren stuff. okay. im sorry. i won’t get off topic this time. but it’s stewing in my gray matter)

and given that we know all the (okay, we only know for certain some) vaults open up into this other dimension (space place), would it be so hard to believe that they’re created links between planets using this dimension? i just… something isn’t right here and this seems like the most logical solution. 

take a look at Eleseer. look at all those holograms of labeled planets. of galaxies and stars in the distance. it’s possible eleseer is like the Hub for this teleportation system (explaining why it’s always open) and explaining why it’s got all those weird planet holograms sitting around. could also explain why Moon = Key.

These aren’t Vaults, they wouldn’t show up on the Vault Map- explaining why we never saw this one on Pandora- these are like… gateways or something, iunno. name pending until sept. 13th i guess.

so why tf am i going off about this on a post about maya and athenas?

because i think athenas has a gateway in it too

yeah you should recognize that thing in the background!

that’s this place!!! from the behind closed doors demo!!

and it still

doesn’t look like a vault to me

it’s intact (also it looks like stairs…). all the Vaults we’ve seen are 100% not intact. they’re all chunky and in pieces (we’re gonna ignore eleseer and uhhhh all that business right now, but even thinking about how the sentinel tried to emulate a vault by spawning it in chunks and THEN assembling it)

chunky

im just saying there has to be a reason these vault-like shapes are intact. they’re either just statues/monuments or they have a purpose.

so why tf am i convinced they have a purpose?

bc we’ve seen one light up

taken straight from the void itself (seriously it’s like a gradient back there. which is weird.)

so there’s gotta be a reason it does this right? and if it’s not a Vault, because it’s on Pandora and the Crimson Raiders would have seen it on the Vault Map, then what the fuck is it?

welllllllll i just don’t know. but my best guess right now is some sort of teleportation system to travel between planets. if there are ‘temples’ on every planet then it would make sense that there is some way for eridians to travel btwn them. 

personally i think there’s one on eden-6 (maybe in that volcano area??) and one on Athenas (cause we really haven’t seen a lot of athenas yet and… i dunno i just have a feeling). and there’s apparently one on Pandora (given we see it with elpis in the background) and possibly one on Promethea. i don’t know what that instagram video was trying to imply. i don’t wanna think too hard about it right now my brain hurts enough already as it is.

but uhhh i was gonna talk more about athenas than this

i promise this is gonna lead into maya

the academic district, with a Vault symbol on the door, to boot.

so this place is really interesting to me for a lot of reasons.

1. that vault symbol on the door

2. they’re flying flags with the vault symbol on it

3. giant pyramid in the back

it’s staggeringly huge

4. they have siren tattoos on the building in the back there. specifically, amara’s tattoos

yeah. maybe this is Partali? a smaller area on Athenas, like Meridian is a city on Promethea, and this is Amara’s way of tagging her presence/an area under her protection as the Tiger

more shots of Athenas from the amd horizons e3 stream

it’s a very pretty planet

so if anything, this is the place we’re going to go to learn about Sirens.

and i don’t know how much the Order of the Impending Storm actually KNOWS about Sirens, because all we know about them from maya’s backstory is that they were assholes and using maya to keep the people scared and giving them money

also that they knew how to track sirens

that’s probably important…

“Maya, you’ll like this next dude. He’s a Siren tracker named Mordo Sophis, Father of Brother Stephen Sophis, that dude you ganked back on Athenas. And boy, oh boy, is he just itching for vengeance.”

who isn’t, mr. mordo, sir? get in line

anyway apparently the Order knows how to track Sirens. Which could explain how Maya has a Siren apprentice when Ava uhhh apparently hasn’t manifested her powers (or tattoos) yet. might also explain how they got their hands on Maya when she was a baby. cuz yeah… i got the feeling they stole her and killed her parents… just a feeling.

y’know if tannis didn’t kill that siren tracker dude maybe she could’ve learned something from him first. that could’ve been interesting.

anyway, idk. maybe at one point the Order was respectable and, like, didn’t force people into giving them money by using sirens as a scare tactic. 

it looks like they have/had an academic district (which im sure maya is helping cultivate) focused on Sirens/Vaults.

and there’s a lot of importance on books this game

seriously

apparently

there’s

a

lot.

but let’s get back to this in a minute, because i do wanna talk about the name of the Order.

it’s full name is the Order of the Impending Storm.

I know while writing bl2 they probably didn’t know that they were gonna be building towards a war in tps, but it’s still interesting that they decided to bring them back into play now. because they 100% could have just left them as a background monastery that Maya came from and have maya refuse to return/start her own organization. but they made her specifically return there.

so does their name have significance now? i’d be willing to bet a yes. I mean, war is coming. Impending Storm sounds like it’d be a pretty fitting name for an organization that knew this. Especially because according to Maya’s cosplay guide, they worshipped her like a God (seriously lol are all Sirens worshipped as minor deities? most people know Sirens are Sirens right? like just people with magic powers..? hmmm)

And if Maya returned to learn more about Sirens, then isn’t it implied that the Order did, in fact, know more about Sirens than Maya did? hell, maybe even Tannis…

especially if the temple or eridian ruins are nearby. Say… In this giant pyramid…

so this doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic of Athenas at all. it’s almost like those are caution colors on the bottom strip there. warning you to not go inside. i don’t know if this was built by the eridians or by whoever is on Athenas to keep whatever’s inside… inside (cough Rampagers cough)

either way that pyramid is FUCKING HUGE

seriously, just compared to the academic district, it’s insanely big (that is the BASE in the background)

also guess who just realized this would be a hilarious joke by gearbox

to have pyramids built by ancient aliens. oh, you.

also, side note, there’s a crew challenge for moxxi in the academic district

i just have no idea how we’re getting up there…

oh but the Order. yeah i get the feeling they know A LOT about Sirens/Eridians. maybe even what’s about to go down. but maybe a majority of that was lost in the archives when some corrupts assholes came into power. and now Maya returned and is slowly but surely unarchiving everything we need to know about Sirens.

perhapith this book has some Siren-y knowledge within it? from someone who went into the temple on Athenas and… never came back out.

and I would bet Maya is waging war against Maliwan at the same time as she’s uncovering all this buried info (protecting the Order) because Maliwan is trying to get this info as well. 

Seriously, anyone else notice Maliwan is SPREADING?? They’re not just on Promethea. they’re on Eden-6. They’re on Athenas. They’re even fuckin on Pandora in some trailers (although I would not trust any trailer with roses at this point. something’s really fucky. I will make a seperate post about that i think, once we get Amara’s and Fl4k’s trailers). I’m really suspicious that Maliwan has either joined the cult, or they’re going to become the main villains. which, y’know, given corporations are the big bad in borderlands always… that seems about right.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if Maya/the Order knows something about the Children of the Vault. Given that one pic of her holding a book with the CoV symbol on it.

that she seems to be passing on to Ava

I dunno. I don’t think Children of the Vault is a name that the cultists/Calypsos just HAPPENED to come up with. And I still don’t think that the broadcast easter egg is from the Calypsos. it doesn’t make sense. I know I went over this in-depth in the Promethea post but god damn it im going to do it again because i feel so strongly about this.

i feel like the cult stumbled upon this name and decided to adopt it as their own. or tried revive an old cult with the same name. and if they didn’t, why in the hell does the message say ‘Do Not Open the Vaults’? How do the twins know about Tannis by name?

i mean, okay, granted we don’t know exactly how she fixed the Vault Map and it could be that the twins know how she did it. Because I still haven’t been able to place that one shot of them walking outside the Recruitment Center 

this one

and we know tannis fixes (??) the Vault Map in the recruitment center, so, maybe they saw it happen or there’s some sort of record in the vault map? that shows her fixing it and when they get to Promethea they send out that message?

i meannn she seems pretty surprised it’s functioning, herself.

so maybe they come while/after tannis fixes the key/map to get it back and Lilith like alright everyone let’s book it to Ellie’s garage with the Map. she’ll help us get to Sanc-III.

and in that they see that she’s able to fix it (possibly with weird Siren/Destroyer/Slag/pickurpoison powers) and that’s how they know Tannis is not what she seems.

and maybe the twins just don’t want their cultists opening the vaults because they want to be the ones to open it.

Sure

BUT that’s boring sauce to theorize about because it’s all just there. I’m still partial to the idea that Children of the Vault is actually referring to Sirens tho. It would explain why Maya has a book with the symbol for the CoV on it and is offering it to Ava. Because why would Ava need a book about the Calypsos? who would WRITE a book about the Calypsos?? and make it look THAT old? like… c’mon.

At the very least, it’s an old name for a cult that got revived by the Calypso twins.

At the most, it’s the name for Sirens.

Or it’s the symbol for the Order of the Impending Storm, back when they were respectable. tho you think we’d see maya wearing the symbol somewhere in bl2, so maybe not. unless she took it off her clothes because they had her try to kill unarmed civilians.

I mean, why is the cult’s symbol the Vault symbol upside down, anyway? We know that the symbol for the Vaults in Eridian is the upside-down V in a circle, because Tannis tells us so in bl1. So why would a cult of people who believe the Vaults to be their birthright go around slapping what is essentially the opposite symbol everywhere?

i personally wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the symbol for Siren or something, given how closely intertwined they both seem to be to that alternate dimension.

regardless. let’s keep going

so let’s talk about Maya’s fate in BL3. Is she gonna die? is she not gonna die? i dunno. let’s discuss.

i personally would not be surprised if she does, but i’d be a little disappointed regardless. if any Siren is gonna die… Lilith is going to finish her character arc this game. not that I want her to die, but still. I get that they gotta keep the Siren cycle going.

sooo one big point in the ‘maya dies’ category:

“Oh noo she ded” i mean. that’s just mean, gearbox. 

of course we don’t know if that’s talking specifically about Maya, could be talking about Tyreen, or a miniboss, or something. but i do think it’s interesting that it’s on maya’s legendary. plus uhhh given we had a death out of Roland in BL2, and in TPS 2 of those VHs died as well, I think it’s a given at least one BL2 VH isn’t gonna live to see the end of 3. as much as that actually physically pains me to type. 

And… to tip the scales further to Maya, Zer0 has crew challenges, which probably means they won’t be biting the dust anytime soon, unless you wanna completely ruin doing all the crew challenges by beating the game before doing the assassination quests. which doesn’t seem like something they’re keen on doing, if Roland giving out side quests had anything to say about it. Of course there’s always the argument that someone will take over Zer0′s crew challenges if they die, but… who would? Rhys? maybe. i get the feeling he might be too busy with Atlas though. Lorelei..? … i don’t know her well enough to make a statement on that.

taken from K6′s awesome legendary loot vid

Back to the legendary. we know it’s hers based off the name ‘Cloud Kill’, which is one of her best skills (after the buff lol). It’s a corrosive only Maliwan smg (as far as i can tell. it doesn’t look like there’s the option to swap elements. so it’s cool to know uniques might throw out their manufacturer’s alternate firing modes). i’m gonna take a guess and say it mimics cloud kill by spawning a cloud on top of enemies that are shot with it. that could clean out an entire room in seconds, especially on Amara with Phasegrasp.

anyway i got more

so Ava is Maya’s apprentice, hmmmm?

well i dunno about you guys but whenever a character gets an apprentice/kid/whatever, it’s not good news for the character. and given that borderlands definitely doesn’t need children to keep the premise fresh, I’m a bit worried for Maya.

Ava must be important to the main story, or they could’ve taken her out or put Gaige in. The devs themselves said they only wanted to bring in characters that they knew had significant importance to the plot and so that characters wouldn’t feel shoehorned in.

so there’s a few ways things can go down with Ava, using apprentice stereotypes:

1) She takes over after Maya dies/has her powers stolen/is brainwashed and helps us bring Maya back by proving herself using the stuff she learned from Maya (or, the stuff she taught herself that Maya said wasn’t important)

1b) she inherits Maya’s powers and Maya trains her in the way of Phaselock

possibly maya handing over her class mod or smth

2) she’s evil and the cult is using her to get info and secretly hates maya or whatever

Given Ava is like… 12… I wanna believe she’s not evil. of course we don’t actually know if she’s 12 cause apparently the Siren lore got messed up knowing Angel had her powers manifest at 5. but that’s not canon until mentioned in-game, so fuck it: let’s believe Ava is 12 and not evil and is just Maya’s kickass Siren apprentice.

The apprentice Maya was able to find because the Order knew how to track Sirens/determine if someone is going to exhibit Siren powers.

yes, let’s go with that.

So… what’s gonna happen to Maya, then?

I personally believe she’s going to have her powers stolen and used against her. One major part of her powers is that she’s able to ‘Thoughtlock’, which basically brainwashes an enemy to fight for her.

That sounds like it would be insanely powerful in the hands of the Calypso twins, especially since Maya has gotten more powerful since bl2, and tbh I can’t see them wanting to pass it up. Of course it could also be story-breaking, but let’s say they can only have one person ever Thoughtlock-ed at a time and suddenly it’s a lot less troublesome.

so this scene makes me do a big thonk

(also, another reason im thinking this temple area is on Athenas is bc Maya’s there! plus there are triangles everywhere. Triangles… pyramids… iunno. just spitballing)

also idk if this is just cause she’s super teeny-tiny buuuut

im worried i can’t see maya’s tattoos

she’s also entirely focused on the player instead of… oh, idk, the giant rampager right next to her

and idk it looks almost like she’s holding a gun and aiming it at us?

which hey, i wouldn’t jump to conclusions right away because she does have a skill that allows her to heal allies by shooting them

but also… if she doesn’t have her siren powers, then that’d just be like… regular shooting, wouldn’t it? and if she DOES have her Siren powers, why in the hell is she not using them on the giant monster right next to her???

we see her again in the background of this shot

again… tattoos not 100% clear.

she also seems to be taking radiation damage from the rampager! which is good. but also she doesn’t seem to care that much about it.

we can also see her gun here

sorry it was kinda being obscured by the youtube progress bar

but uhhh it’s not looking good.

boy i really hope Maya doesn’t die

we also know it was hinted that Krieg might be making a return! from his voice actor’s twitter:

tho, he also soon made a tweet after that was all like “this doesn’t confirm nor deny that krieg is returning” which, yeah i get that.

either way, if Krieg is coming back, it’d be interesting to see what goes down with him, especially if Maya dies. or even if Maya’s ‘just’ in trouble, I could see him going absolutely apeshit.

maybe krieg will sacrifice himself to save maya, somehow. maybe he’s have a moment of pure lucidity and save her. maybe she’ll die and he’ll lose his mind and become a boss battle. maybe she’ll save him and they’ll live happily ever after ;w; who knows~

maybe ava will have heard about Krieg through Maya and will go to get him to try and help save her. that’d be really interesting to see- krieg smashing through a wall with Ava riding on his shoulder lol

anyway, holy shit im exhausted. i gotta wrap this up because it’s like 1am and i’ve been working on this post for like… 3 days straight now. ech.

if maya does die, it would be interesting to see is Ava inherits her powers after we kill the Calypsos. like, would the powers try to go back to their original host? would they see she’s dead and just find another Siren to give the powers to? i wonder if maya dying/being about to die would be enough of a traumatic experience for ava to unlock her siren powers.

ohh it’d be cool if Ava unlocked her siren powers and used them to save Maya from the cult/brainwashing/whatves

alright. im tired lmao

good night.

[perylinsus]

Rant

Rant Contents-

Perming hair

Dyeing hair

Cutting hair

Getting piercings

Body weight

Tattoos

CONTAINS ENOUGH HATE AND UN-NEEDED CRITICISM TO LAST MILLIONS OF LIFE TIMES.

Okay, so this rant is gonna be weird as fuck, since it's about my hair and some piercings, but listen as I start talking about my hair. It's weird. It's straight somedays, curly on others, wavy on the others, and a combination of all three, though most of the time it's straight. It's also very, very, very thick and oily. Now, being in the end of my 3rd quarter of 8th grade, I keep telling people at school that I plan on getting a perm over the summer, since everyone is counting the days till then. But when I say perm, I mean tight-curls perm. Not even curls, more along the lines of coils. But everytime. Every. Single. Time. I say anything about getting a perm to someone with wavy/curly hair, they complain about how hard it is and how it'll be so much harder for me since; I'm not used to curly hair, my hair is too thick and/or my hair is super oily. All I want to do is turn and just fucking snap.

The only fucking reason my hair is straight and oily is because of the lice treatments I had to go through. I had those assholes all up on my head for 5 years straight. When I was a kid, I had to straighten my fucking hair everyday just to get it to cooperate. When I was a kid, I was fucking mistaken for a different race. My hair has always been thick, it was always silky and soft and it was in tight ass curls up until I was 5 or 6. I've experienced curly hair my entire life cause my step sister adopted triplet girls with hair that was on the verge of being kinky, but was still considered curly. I do their hair every fucking morning to this damn day. I have since they were adopted at 3 years old and that was 8 years ago. I was in my first year of having lice (I took precautions to make sure they didn't get lice. Luckily, it worked cause they never did).

I wanna fucking snap when people say to not get my hair permed into tight curls cause I won't be able to take care of them. I take care of curly hair every damn morning, 4 AM sharp, listening to babies cry when I only get 2 hours of sleep cause of my damn homework. Everything's good. I cope now, I will always fucking cope.

Two more factors make the complaining worse. Before I perm my hair, I'm getting it colored. Again, more complaining. Things like, "You'll damage your hair!" Or "Why would you color your hair, it's already so pretty." I might be doing two different colors, they might be bright and because of that, I have to bleach and color my hair. Don't get pissed because I don't wanna have basic brunette bitch hair like you (that's aimed at one person, not all brunettes. I luh u). I want to die my hair because I can. I'll perm my hair afterwards because my cousin, aunt and grandma, certified hair dressers, told me it was okay. I'm tryna live my life so back the fuck up.

Next thing, I wanna cut it, too. Before getting a perm, but after coloring it, I'm gonna try and get an undercut. More. Fucking. Complaining. "Sweetie, if you wanna color and cut your hair, you can't perm it. It'll look weird. I've tried it." Bitch. Does it look like I care about what you tried. You're pale, skinny and you have some fake ass lookin blonde hair. I am, on the other fucking hand, a delicious hunk of chubby Mexican (I'm trying to love myself more. Don't judge me). Me and you, we're completely different. I have an ass, some tits and some fat around my waist. You look like a sheet of horny construction paper (that shit feels weird...idk what y'all feel like, I swear). People may retaliate with;

"I'm not saying you'll be ugly, I'm saying curly hair and undercuts don't go well together." What if my main goal is to look ugly? To put shame to my last name (that rhymed bruh). Idgaf what you think. I'm cutting my hair, I'm coloring my hair and I'm perming this shit. I fucking live for coloring my hair, I've done it for the entirety of my middle school life. I miss having an undercut. Living in Florida with some dark ass, thick hair is hard, so the less hair, the easier my life (less shampoo and conditioner too). And my curly hair. I want that shit back. I didn't hate it then, but I also didn't love it, but. I. Want. It. Back.

So, with my hair, back tf up. Now some piercings.

My uncle does piercings for people. Yeah, total fucking pothead, but he's chill and good at his 3 steady jobs. He said, once I get old enough, he'd give me good quality piercings. Because we moved away from him, down to Florida (that was 5 years ago btw. I had ear piercings then. I also temporarily moved up to Michigan for like half a year, when he promised me), he hasn't given me my piercings yet. Over a video call, since he's overseas helping a friend move into a new house, he asked me what piercings I wanted so when he got back (I'd be halfway through my first quarter of freshman year) he could give me my piercings.

As many as I want, for no price at all. He's self employed so it's no problem, however my face/head area is all he'll do. I'm okay with it bc that's all I want. I tell him, with my bff and her bf sitting next to me. Her bf has his friend with him so he can hear me too, obviously. I say both ears and lips, possibly nose. My uncle says ok. He asks me what kind I'm considering for my ears. I say; standard lobe, upper lobe, helix and industrial. That's another ok. Then for my lips. I say; angel bites, snake bites, spider bites or shark bites. Again. Another okay. Then he asks for my nose. I say septum or nostril but the nose piercings weren't definitive. Again. That's okay.

My mom knows about this and she's okay with it. I'm my own person and what I choose to do needs to be dealt with by me. I face my mistakes, or I suffer. I choose to take some pretty bad ending risks but I learned. That's always been my lesson and it won't change. Face the consequences. My bff asks if she could get the same deal as I did. He says no but that he could lower the price significantly. She says okay, definitely happy, and her bf asks the same, getting the same response as my bff (he's cool with piercings. He had some. He just wants more). Now, my bff's bf's friend starts criticizing us, specifically me. We hate eachother so it was expected.

But this asshole. THIS ASSHOLE. Had the audacity to insult me on my choice of piercings. He's anti everything. Anti gays, anti abortion (this one is agreeable), anti Muslim, he's HORRIBLE (his personality filters into this. Believe what you want but if your personality is too evident in your opinion, DO NOT TALK TO ME. Especially if you're stuck up). I'm learning makeup atm so he goes down that road and calls me an ugly whore who deserves to die on the streets. Nice. But...same thing with the hair. I WILL DO WHATEVER I FUCKING WANT TO. IDGAF ABOUT YOUR OPINION. Don't criticize me because I want to get tons of piercings. He went down the path of racism, too, and called me a typical Hispanic bitch. Rebellious and dumb. I have nothing to say to this other than get tf out of my house. I turn to my friends and tell them if they agree with him to leave with him. They're actual friends so they stayed but he had to find his way home in the pouring rain. Don't be an ass to innocent people cause Karma's a bitch.

Anyway, I was called a hippy, spic, typical druggie, shitty person and retard (this word isn't taken lightly in my family. Don't call people that shit).

You know what, let's rant some more.

I'm a chunky motherfucker. I way well over 100 lbs but I ain't too close to 200. I'm almost 14 and I'm kinda short. Still growing, but short.

I have lots of body fat. Obese, depends on your definition of it. Fat, yes, but I can still rock some tight clothes better than anyone else. I've embraced my body fat. Yes, I'm currently researching healthy, lemme repeat, healthy ways to get rid of it, but I've embraced it and I now tell myself I'm cute whether people like it or not. It's strange since I've never done it before but it helps with depression.

Anyway, I'm chubby but I'm working on it. I need to glow up to rock my bullies' motherfucking worlds. This dude, idek who he was, comes up, calls me fat and walks away. I turn around and yell fuck you or fuck off or some shit like that. I'm making my way to class and this other kid trips me. When I hit the ground, he screams earthquake and runs.

I get up and walk my way to class like a civil person. Eventually, my mom, who works at my school, has to take me to the hospital cause I couldn't get up and leave my class at the end of the day. Why, you may ask? Well, I had;

minor whiplash

a sprained wrist

Scrapes on my knee that were so bad, they'll probably scar

My day sucked before that so it only got worse. Besides that, the whiplash is gone, my sprained wrist is healing nicely and it's just my knees that are still fucked up.

All that trouble because some bastard wanted to fuck with me cause I'm chubby. Stop being dicks everyone, unless that's your nickname.

Finally, the last topic. Tattoos. My other uncle, the twin brother of my piercings uncle, is a tattoo artist. Game addict, too, but, like, srsly, unhealthily addicted.

Anyway, if I can't do college, I have a guaranteed spot as a tattoo designer in his parlor. I'm trying to plan for college so it might not happen but, you never know. Besides that, he gave me a deal. As many tattoos as I want, for no price. All because I'm his only blood niece.

I said hell fucking yeah (I got a shoe thrown at me for it). He said as long as I designed them, he'd give me them. Okay, not too bad since I'm a 14 year old with college level art. First, though, I had to tell him what type I wanted. I said I wanted tribal, illustrative and possibly neo traditional.

I have designs for my illustrative tattoos. One for each important person in my life. My older brother, my younger brother, my mom, my grandma, my bff and my 1st dog. I was gonna try and do one for my husband/wife when and if I get married but I was warned about tattooing names of people I'm not related to on my body. Again, I might still do it. Anyway, those are for my illustrative tattoos. Then, comes my tribal tattoos.

I plan on asking my bestfriend and my mom to choose from a set of Moon Glyphs, which symbols best represent me. Whichever common ones they choose, will be hidden in a tribal tattoo on my ribcage. I also want a tribal on the top of my forearm and a tribal band around my bicep. I may just get arrows on the inside of my other forearm.

Neo traditional will probably be a worn down banner with flowers that has a saying in it. In another language, most likely, but there'll be a saying.

Anyway, I told my uncles this and my tattoo artist uncle said he was perfectly okay with it. My mom was chill with it, too, so everything was good. Until my great grandmother got ahold of the information. So many vulgarities.

Anyway, don't be a shithead when it isn't necessary. Let people learn from their own mistakes when said mistakes are revocable.

Luv ya and thanks for reading.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #492

Top Ten Team 17 Games

I’d already been thinking a lot about old Amiga games this week, because news came out of the blue that some kind of Zool update was on its way. Now, I really liked Zool back in the day, and I thought that it was fondly remembered, but if the comment section on that Eurogamer article is anything to go by, I seem to be in the minority. I don’t care; Zool rocked and I’m glad he’s on his way back, with his sticky hands and feet and gloriously sugar-coated levels. Frankly, in a world that seems mostly populated by people who spent the entire 1990s playing Metroid or Zelda, I could do with an Amiga renaissance.

This was exacerbated when I discovered that Team 17, beloved purveyor of 16-bit computer classics, has an office in Media City. Quite how this passed me by I do not know (I, er, guess I just didn’t see the Tweets), but all the same it’s very good news; perhaps I’ll stop some of them in the piazza and bore them about the good old days. Especially if they’re, like, 25 or something.

Anyway! All this is a boring preamble to me listing my ten favourite Team 17 games. If you don’t remember, T17 was a major player on the Amiga: tons of classic games, phenomenal graphics, and – something I didn’t quite appreciate properly at the time – a nice Northern sense of humour. I don’t want to do much more preamble, because really I wanna let the games do the talking. One thing I will say, however, is I’ve taken advantage of their more recent moves as a publisher to include some games that they didn’t develop too – because I do feel like they’re really good at picking publishing projects that reflect the core tenets of their “brand”, such as it is (as opposed to Core tenets, which is probably something to do with Chuck Rock).

So here we go: my ten favourite Team 17 games. Enjoy! And bring them all out on the Xbox.

Alien Breed: Tower Assault (1994): the Alien Breed games were almost platform-defining, atmospheric blastathons that evoked the tension and exhilaration of Aliens, with superb (and difficult!) twitchy gameplay. Tower Assault, with its less linear, more explorative gameplay, was the best of the bunch. Back in the day, this was the equivalent of a Mass Effect or BioShock to me: an intense action game coupled with an enjoyable amount of back-and-forth. One thing I’ve always been a bit sad about is never having played the 3D Alien Breed games; I graduated to PC just as they were coming out, and I’m not even certain if they ran on an ordinary A1200. I wonder what they’d be like to play nowadays…?

Worms World Party (2001): how do you differentiate between the Worms games? I mean, I’m old enough to remember the “Total Wormage” demo that marked the first appearance of the little critters. But there was a point there when the gimmicks were still new, but they’d had a couple of releases under their belt, and there was a short run of games that were utterly hilarious, gameplay out the yazoo, and still a slight air of rough-edged weirdness. Can you still get the Yorkshire “Tykes” voice set in new Worms games? I mean, the formula is still unbeatable, but the Golden Age of Worms will be the World Party era for me, when my brother and I played it all the blinkin’ time. Get under that.

Assassin (1992): if Zool was the Amiga’s Sonic, then arguably Assassin was the platform’s equivalent to Strider or Shinobi (er, despite those games actually being released on the Amiga; never mind, just go with me on this). I remember the game mostly for its acrobatic movement, allowing you to climb walls (hey, shades of Zool again!); also, you had a boomerang, which is really cool, apart from when they re-released the game after two years and got rid of the boomerang. Basically, I really dug it for a lot of reasons. I also think it’s the Team 17 game which had an hilarious spoof of the “Reg” ads for Regal cigarettes, a joke I thought was incredibly clever thirty years ago but which I can find no evidence of on the internet.

Body Blows (1993): back when Street Fighter II ruled the world, and everyone was going gaga over the Super Nintendo, the Amiga suffered in comparison; it couldn’t do the multiple parallax layers of animated backgrounds, and most common joysticks didn’t have the button configurations to do the special moves justice. Step up Body Blows, a gorgeous, chunky, responsive fighter that’s still probably my favourite beat-em-up (I’m not the biggest fan of the genre, to be honest). One of the few games I remember really trying really hard to complete it, but I’m pretty sure I never saw the final opponent (some kind of Terminator-style robot, if I remember right). I always wanted the sequel, but never played it.

Yooka-Laylee (2017): feels a bit of a cheat, as this is really a Playtonic game, but they published the physical release, so it counts! And in many ways the cheeky British sensibility of the game fits right into the T17 ethos. I remember getting so excited for this game – I backed it on Kickstarter, in fact – and it didn’t disappoint: a colourful, meaty-looking platformer with a nice line in terrible dad jokes and a slowly-unfolding roster of abilities. It might not quite coalesce the way the old Rare platformers did in the late nineties, but it’s still fun; and it was a very popular game in our house with my wife and daughters.

Superfrog (1993): would probably be higher, as it’s thought of as one of the classics, but it didn’t quite hook me the way it seemed to everyone else. But even back then I could see everything about it that worked even if I didn’t fall in love; a beautiful, colourful world, with a tremendously designed lead character who looked like he’d leaped from a Cosgrove Hall cartoon. It also had a pretty naughty sense of humour. All in all, a good game, and one I’d love to revisit with a more refined palate.

Overcooked (2016): I think I first started to fall in love with this game when I saw it on Go 8-Bit; an anarchic and crazy-looking multiplayer fun-fest. And, sure enough, it’s a delightfully chaotic experience, really funny, with colourful and nicely-designed characters. However, it loses points for being one of those games that give you an odd-numbered Achievement. Multiples of five, people! Multiples of five!

Arcade Pool (1994): this one feels a bit niche, but I loved this back in the day. After the full-3D polygon wonderment of the Archer McClean pool and snooker games, going back to a simplified top-down aesthetic might have felt like a step back, but for me it was an excellent and really, really fun pool game. It’s the sort of experience I’ve chased in years since – a totally hassle-free arcade pool game – but nothing’s quite scratched the same itch (or, at least, the itch I remember, if that makes sense).

Golf With Your Friends (2020): the most recent game on the list, and another one that’s just damn fun. A wild and rather weird crazy golf game, with a succession of increasingly-bonkers courses, but one that’s easy to get into and – yes – persistently entertaining. I started playing it due it being available for cloud streaming on Game Pass, and it’s a pretty good phone game, even if the touch controls don’t give quite the nuance needed for some of the trickier shots. Also it’s worth saying that I am just terrible at the game. Really, the worst.

Project-X (1992): a bit like Superfrog, this is a game I respected rather than adored, hence it being a bit lower on the list. I think the big problem is just that I was utterly shit at it; I mean, I was flat-out rubbish at all these side-scrolling shooters, even if I really wanted to be good. But this game was a stunner way back when, and I think one of the ones that really cemented Team 17’s reputation as a graphical powerhouse of a studio. It also had a tremendous score from Allister Brimble, T17’s resident maestro. It’s funny, because I remember this as being heralded as “the new masterpiece from Team 17” upon its release, but it was actually one of their first titles; so either they hit the ground running or this is one of the games that secured their reputation. Either way, it’s still a classic of its type. And apparently there was a sequel on the PlayStation. You learn something new each day.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down Commodore Memory Lane. Yes, I know, some of the games are a lot newer than that, but I’m afraid I’ll always think of Team 17 as “an Amiga studio”. They did sterling work back in the day, they really helped define the Amiga and give the platform its own identity, distinct from consoles (even though a lot of their games were, obviously, ported to other systems). And thanks to the success of Worms, they’ve endured, even as most of their contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. And now they’re in Salford! A Yorkshire invasion of Lancashire. What could go wrong?!

[chineselaundryblog]

6 Styles of Fashion Boots Women Are All About This Fall

It’s fall. Boot season is officially here, and women are ready. Imagine walking through a pumpkin patch or picking apples in a pair of laidback lace-ups. Think about sipping a pumpkin spice martini with your girlfriends while wearing an over-the-knee boot beauty. Fall fashion is so much fun. Bring on the chilly-weather days with the following fall boot styles.

Effortless Tall Boots Maybe you’ve noticed more women wearing knee high boots as the season progresses. They offer a chic look with a touch of sass. One of the fashion shoes women are embracing this fall is a tall, slip-on boot with a block heel. They are pretty much the perfect fall boot, so make room in your closet. Western Boots Reimagined Lean into the Western-inspired style with a fun pair of boots with faux animal fur in a block heel or stiletto. Many of the new styles are extremely versatile and look great with thoughtfully styled outfits. Booties and boots can add just the right touch. A pair with a chunky low heel, an O-ring accent, and small studded details offer a subtle, fun flair. When it comes to boots this fall, choose what inspires you to celebrate this season of abundance. Your boots are made for walking, strutting, and making statements. Enjoy it. Cool Combat Boots You may already have your go-to combat boots lined up, but this fall clear space in your closet for at least one more pair. Perhaps an edgy boot with tiny silver studs along the sole, adjustable straps, or even a front zipper. Super stylish combat boots are the perfect accent to any of your fall outfits. Platform lace-ups and combats are hitting the mark this year. Glam Over-the-Knee Boots Not a new fashion statement, but over-the-knee boots this year are showing some glam elements and popping colors. Think rich velvet and a block heel. Lace-up over-the-knee boots are another statement-maker this season. Over-the-knee boot styles look gorgeous with jeans, and with dresses or skirts, making them more versatile than one might imagine. They will be the winning feature of all your outfit combos. Updated Lace-Up Boots A lace-up boot is timeless. They can look rugged and feminine at the same time. They can also look casual and exude cool-girl vibes. Black flat boots that lace up go from day to night like a boss. If your current pair has seen better days, snag a new pair while you’re thinking about it. Or, this season, why not add a modern twist to your lace-up selection with a cute print? There are many lace-up styles women are rocking this fall, made with gorgeous materials like leather and suede. Choose your perfect pair. Cute Cut-Out Booties Don’t love when boots rub against your ankles? Pick up a low-riding ankle bootie with the sides cut out. Chinese Laundry, for example, nails the cut-out bootie style with Western-inspired accents, snakeskin patterns, and animal prints, to name a few. Show off your ankle bone and frolic down the street where everyone can see your stylish pair of booties. About Chinese Laundry Chinese Laundry is recognized globally as a distributor of modern, fun, fashion-forward, and feminine footwear. From black platform heels to casual flats to the latest in boots, shoe styles from Chinese Laundry keep you on your toes. Since 1981, Chinese Laundry’s accessible, quality designs have been worn worldwide. Chinese Laundry is a family-owned company with four main brands: Chinese Laundry, CL by Laundry, Dirty Laundry, and 42 Gold. Chinese Laundry’s expressive styles give independent women on-the-go stylish footwear for work and play. Slide into fall with your next pair of favorite shoes from Chinese Laundry at Chineselaundry.com Original Source: https://bit.ly/2HZuPof