#but like ive gone through so many lobbies and i dont think its just a Me thing

[vanillabat99]

Now that I've beat the main storyline of Pokémon Scarlet and unlocked 5 star raid battles, I have some opinions on the raid battle mechanics. Short Version: I think they suck.

Long Version:

First off, the difficulty jumps between 4 Star and 5 Star is outrageous. I am able to do a 4 Star den with the AI team, and it might take me another try. So far it has been genuinely impossible to do a 5 Star den with the AI team, as well as taking at least 5 tries with an online lobby. The only time I've been able to do a 5 Star den in one try is when my lobby makes me wonder if they're cheating. I shouldn't have to hope for a lobby full of exploiters if I want to have a reasonably fair fight.

I've also encountered many moments (regardless of difficulty level) where the health bar of the opposing pokémon will jump up to a seemingly random point, without the use of a healing move or effect. It's also really hard to tell how accurate the timer bar is when my team's health status doesnt seem to be displaying properly throughout the battle. I've had the display say they had half health, only to see they didn't have a pokémon out whatsoever.

The lack of structure has caused a lot of issues. I have sat through 10 seconds of "opposing pokémon removes negative effects" and other such text, and watched as the timer ticked away, only to have to wait for another 5 to 10 seconds with no battle displays for (again) seemingly no reason!! It's never clear if I'm simply taking too long, have unfortunate timing, or if there's been a bug.

What little structure is there has such poor prioritising that it almost doesn't matter it was there to begin with. The "running out of time" warnings are often so late they're just delaying the "you've been kicked out" text. There's so many moments where there's genuinely nothing happening whatsoever, and so many moments where there's so much status text I'm not even playing the game anymore.

I am of the opinion that every game should be playable without having to purchase extra features. I shouldn't need an online subscription to have even the tiniest chance of beating a 5 Star Raid Battle.

In conclusion, it appears that removing the turn-based function of battles causes things to fall apart. And it sucks.

[cazador64]

Electric Lifelike

Emma pulled her old jacket tigjt around her body "it was a diffrent time." She turned the gun over and over in view of Elise. She held the butt of the large pistol to her "kristabelle may be gone but their is still hope" Elise felt the heft of the gun in hands "not many of left aftef Gillette wyoming fell" Emma rolled up her right sleeve "the Enforcers gave me this there." A row of numbers tattooed on her forearm stood out. She tucked the 45. Pistol into her worn pack "what was it like back then?" Emma sighed trying to think back to that cruel time "death,war,fear,families sluaghtered every waking second is all their was." She thrust a yellowed paper at her before the sounds of sirens ecgoed down the alley "go go,you must find Kristabelle!" Emma shoved her throught the make shift door.

She faced the police "suspect 145607 you are under arrest for attempts to harbor criminals." They stepped at her quickly. She tried to deploy her talon guantlets but they had cuffs over her hands before they could. She felt a needle jab into her side then nothing hut darkness.

Elise finally stopped running after a dozen blocks of pale stucko houses "how am i supposed to find her?" The paper clamped in her sweaty hand. She sat on the dirty curb to catch her breath while she unfolded an old map of the midwest. A large faded red area on the map was labled unexsplored "great a map of a place ive never been." The city of Sheridan was labled on the map as an abandonded city. She would start there if she could leave new york without injury or arrest. The sound of the police hover cars roared over head twords the massive complex to the south.

Elise peaked between the boards of a fence too see a small junkyard of old hover cars, a small shack on the far side looked empty, she could cross the lot without heing seen. She slipped between the splitery boards to trip over a fender in the knee high yellow grass "search the lot" she saw a hand full of officers in all black biomech armor. They spread out into a search pattern to find her "search ever car but keep an eye out for homeless." The leader with a rescue shotgun called to the six others. She crawled up against a tipped over parts van "shoo kid!" A toothless woman with sunk in eyes swatted at her from the busted windshield "shhh please!" The woman opened her mouth to yell. In a fit of fear she grabbed the womans throat hard to snuff out her yell "please please be quiet!" Elise pleaded reaptedly as the womans eyes rolled back. She dropped the body then manuvered into the stench filled rear of the windowless van. She lay on a stained matress that reaked of bloody urine "check that van!" A muffled voice yelled. Elise pulled a crusty bug infested blanket over herself "anything?" The swealtering heat made it hard to breath under the squirming blanket "just a dead squater". Their footsteps moved away from the van until the sounds of their cars gave her the go ahead. She wheezed in a fit to get to fresh cool air that didnt sting her eyes "oh god oh god oh god" she struggled not to puke realizing she killed a person. She ran through the rest of the lot into a field running along side the poor drug ridden south side ruins.

Tents,make shift houses, rusted out cars,and massive piles of trash sprawled out farther than she could see, the mass of millions of flies made it even harder. She kept her pack in front of her with her arms tightly wrapped around it "hey baby how much for you?" A man smoking sonething out if a tin car reached at her but she picked up her pace. Ahead stood a few somewhat intact buildings where a cleaner community was established. The trash wasnt as bad in the cleaned up street but flies still swarmed in thick heavy black clouds "welcome to middle south side." A man in a tattered sports jacket greeted her with a blackened smilr as she passed him. The sun was starting to set making people scurry into an old hotel "miss i dont mean to be pushy but please come inside beford it gets dark." Elise noticed the whole of south was either lit by massive bone fires or inside so she jogged in too. The man in the sports jacket closed the heavy door then slide a couple sets of rebar into slots along the door "your not from here so im betting you dont know about them?" She shook her head looking around the lobby "well them are predators that are effected by bright light,they only hunt at night" she follwed him and a few others as they barred the wibdows. He looked at her with sweat running down his nose "they come from any place thats dark with a hunger that cant be filled" he switched on a small collection of fans "they are taller,faster, and the most dangerous creatures on this earth, im glad your inside where its safe."

Something slammed into the door "help us!" A couple begged before a loud yipping drowned them out "why didnt you let them in?" She looked at his finger pointing at the bottom of the door. A pool of blood spread out "them got to them." She numbly sat at the remains of a bar where the children sat. They were watching cartoons on a badly worn out vhs "best we keep them from drawing them in." A woman craddling a bad deformed baby stated with a smile. Elise found it hard to smile back seeing these people lived in crouded dumps with no hope of any comfort.....

[theothersideofhim]

Stan Figures It Out: Part 1 (or, Asmodeus’ Super Fun Beehive Poking Text Log) (or, Nobody)

((So a few days ago me and Sarah went through a lot of really cool character development, but it was all over discord. I’d really like to have a record of it over here and let ya’ll read cuz it was GR8. 

Broke up it up into two parts since it’s so much, and this is part one. Basically Ash ( @ashenheartx ) decided to bother Stan about stealing his idea of making Merlin into a Hell puppet for a hot second, his previous relationship with God, and basically have a big old gay crush on Lucifer. Stan hates all these things and overreacts in true Stan theatrics fashion.

Warnings: NSFW descriptions and general lewd emojis. Ash being Ash. No other triggers far as I know.

Next part to come soon, probably tomorrow.))

Ash:

[txt] ps fuck you for stealing my idea and then failing it btw this is overdue

Stan:

[txt] OH CONGRATULATIONS

[txt] ITS BEEN HOW FUCKING LONG? AND YOU JUST GET THE BALLS TO FUCKING SAY SOMETHING TO ME?

[txt] WELL WELL WELL AT LEAST I KNOW YOU CAN DO MORE THAN FUCK

Ash:

[txt] well your butt was already spanked figured itd take this long for it to heal

Stan:

[txt] HARDY HAR HAR. YOURE REAL FUNNY YOU KNOW THAT? I SHOULD GIVE YOU A PROMOTION TO HEAD FUNNYMAN

[txt] GUESS WHAT THE CURRENT FUNNYMAN IS DOING?

Ash:

[txt] ruling hell for you

Stan:

[txt] WHA

[txt] NO

[txt]

[txt] I PUT HIM IN CHARGE OF THE WRITING TEAM FOR RICK AND MORTY

[txt] SO KEEP THAT IN FUCKING MIND

Ash:

[txt] you lied so hard and fast

[txt] you STUTTERED IN TEXT

Stan:

[txt] WELL I FIGURED THATS HOW YOU LIKED IT

Ash:

[txt] STUTTERED?

Stan:

[txt] I MEANT HARD AND FAST BUT FROM YOUR TRACK RECORD YOU DO SEEM TO LIKE SHRINKING VIOLETS SO

[txt] SHRINKING SHRIEKING NUNS

Ash:

[txt] that was ONE nun 

[txt] well alright it was mORE than oNE nun but she was special circumstance

Stan:

[txt] MMMMHMMMMM. AND BY THE WAY THAT WAS TIME WELL SPENT GOOD JOB. THAT DIDNT TURN INTO AN INCREDIBLE FAILURE

[txt] WHILE WE'RE ON THE FUCKING TOPIC

Ash:

[txt] he is only a failure FOR NOW

[txt] he's still not a defective one like many others

[txt] and has actual power

Stan:

[txt] Yeah he does I'll give him that

[txt] Can you really blame me for trying to step in and speed things up?

Ash:

[txt] yes

Stan:

[txt] Nope not allowed

Ash:

[txt] it is allowed because now it will take TWICE AS LONG 

[txt] because now he has sex and it's not as much of a pressure point

Stan:

[txt] im sorry im

[txt] IM FUCKING

[txt] gagGING BE RIGHT BACK

Ash:

[txt] ?????????? stop thinking about my son's dick

Stan:

[txt] YOU MENTIONED YOUR SONS DICK and please DON'T act like you DON'T think about it

Ash:

[txt] it's kind of my entire schtick to think about hidden treasure

Stan:

[txt] Isn't the real hidden treasure the dicks we sucked along the way though

Ash:

[txt] see now ive gone from mad to camaraderie and i dont appreciate that 

[txt] some how i doubt you have sucked any dicks tho

Stan:

[txt] OH NO IM THE DEVIL OOOOOHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[txt] IVE SUCKED ONE DICK DONT @ ME

Ash:

[txt]  🤔

[txt] proof

Stan:

[txt] UH IM SORRY

[txt] THEY DIDNT REALLY HAVE KIK OR SNAPCHAT BACK AT THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE

Ash:

[txt] bitch you gave god a bj why isn't this FRONT PAGE news

Stan:

[txt] THERES SOME HIDDEN TREASURE FOR YOU NOW FUCK OFF

Ash:

[txt] GURL WE AIN'T DONE WHO ELSE YOU BLOWIN

Stan:

[txt] RIGHT NOW IM PRETTY SURE EVEN ENTERTAINING THIS CONVERSATION IS CONSIDERED SUCKING YOUR DICK SO YOU??????????

Ash:

[txt] pretty sure my poor dick is flacid and not in your mouth but okay

Stan:

[txt] THE LAST THING YOU WANT IN MY MOUTH IS YOUR DICK

[txt] I'LL SUCK YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING HEAD

[txt] ILL VORE YOU FUCKING TRY ME

Ash:

[txt] honey 

[txt] darling

[txt] you've done worse to me please

[txt] oop kink shamed the devil

Stan:

[txt] If there's anything that can be said for me

[txt] It's that I don't have that as a kink

Ash:

[txt] shocking honestly 

[txt] what with that mouth tum 

[txt] but really not even luci? slacking

Stan:

[txt] YOUSHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT LUCIFERS ENTIRE DICK

Ash:

[txt] why the FUCK would i do that? it's a good dick 

[txt] ESP WHEN IT'S CUTE AND SMALL

Stan:

[txt] LISTEN YOU OVER GLORIFIED FUCK BUDDY

[txt MAYBE I SHOULD TELL EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR LITTLE """""HIDDEN TREASURE""""""

Ash:

[txt] my cute butt because that's not hidden at all and you can ask luci

Stan:

[txt] Is it motherfucker????????????? Is it???? You're telling me you let Lucifer fuck you in the pussy????????????????????????? Because I'm calling bullshit on that. I'm calling bullshit that you ever allow anyone to get that fucking close to you anymore.

Ash:

[txt] well all of that is true, but he is aware of it i am sure. we didn't spontaneously know each other when we dropped out of the sky 

[txt] besides you probably dont share treasure like that because then how do you get to roll around in it when you want to to feel special. you dont. that's like telling people where the candy stash is

Stan:

[txt] YOU REALLY HIDING THE CANDY FOR LIKE 6000 YEARS CHIEF?????[txt] AT THE VERY LEAST I SHOULD GET A TASTE

Ash:

[txt] oh wait did i let the cat out of the bag for you because wow?????????????????? 

[txt] didn't you already know i had a pussy like come on man you've probably found it already 

[txt] it's pretty hard to remember some of that time when we first got down here though

Stan:

[txt] oh no bitch

[txt] i definitely knew

[txt] a shame you don't reMEMBER the fun we had

[txt] but it's been a WHILE AND A HALF

Ash:

[txt] must not have been all that good????????????? 

[txt] dick wasn't bomb apparently 

[txt] besides you alwyas had a thing for luci

Stan:

[txt] I'LL PUT A BOMB IN YOUR ACTUAL ASS I DID NOT ALWAYS HAVE A THING FOR HIM AND STOP CALLING HIM LUCI

Ash:

[txt] you had a THING for luci the first day we hit Hell don't even pretend you didn't 

[txt] luci luci luci 

[txt] how else am i supposed to say his name when he poppin that puss

Stan:

[txt] IM GONNA F CU KING PISSS

[txt] FUCK OFF

Ash:

[txt]  💄💯✨

[txt] and lemme remind you; it pOPS 💦

[txt] if you aren't saying 'luci' when you come im not sure what you're doing with your life 

[txt] but it's the wrong thing, darling 

[txt] i'll pray for you and your weird little obsessive love affair

Stan:

[If Ash is anywhere near the ninth level of Hell at that moment he might hear Stan literally screeching like a raccoon being rammed with a tennis racket. But then shortly after he wouldn't hear anything except for the illusion of Mitski's "Nobody" chorus playing on loop. It was sad and melancholy and repetitive and perfectly summed up the insult Stan WANTED to say about Ash's fucking life, but wasn't able to get past the screaming. Who the fuck cared about Ash's little opinion? Nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody....]

Ash:

[Look, Ash is a CACKLIN' instead of being offended because if Stan had meant to camouflage his feelings he had instead loudly broadcasted them. So, as a final goad, he gently hit send one final time. 

[vid] it's grainy like ten years ago small cellphone quality with sound, but it sure is Lucifer getting railed from chest to between thighs. it's less than thirty seconds and includes orgasms that end with dick withdrawing with an aforementioned pop and leak of white fluid 

[txt]  ❤️ 🎵 ttyl ]

Stan:

[Stan was having a HARD TIME OKAY????? He sure as fuck didn't need to be called out by Ash, and he sure as fuck couldn't keep up the illusion as soon as the video came through. That song snapped right out of Ash's reality with the same kind of swiftness as Stan's surprisingly potent jealousy boiling up within him. The phone got thrown on the ground, stomped on, punched a few times, then kicked across the motel room. 

THEN Stan got out a bat and beat the phone within an inch of it's digital life, manifested a hydraulic press and squished the phone with 12 tons of pressure per square inch, before finally mANIFESTING A GERMAN LEOPARD 2A6 TANK AND ROLLING IT THROUGH THE MOTEL LOBBY TO FINALLY DESTORY THE PHONE. 

(And then blast it with the tank's fully traversing rotating gun turret but by then he'd realized he'd never get that image out of his head no matter how much damage he did the phone.)]

[skaian-fiddler]

State of the Webcomic

Im not sure what I wanted this to be when I started writing it. I know that as of late, Homestuck, in terms of its fanbase and its surrounding politics, has been pretty bleak. And I know that it feels like there arent alot of us left that care anymore. So I guess this is going to be something of a chronicle of the comic, and its involvement in my own experience. If youre just here for classpecting memes, feel free to totally disregard this. Otherwise… strap the fuck in I guess? Theres a nonzero amount of words about to come at you. For this 4/13, this is my account of Homestuck.

On April 13th, 2009, some guy with a shitty url published the first page of an indie webcomic. As I have come to understand, this fact would eventually become something of a ‘big deal’. At the time, however, it was not. I wouldnt be aware of its existence for quite some time.

Some years passed, and people started learning that this weird thing existed. The webcomic had survived through its fledgeling stages, and had managed to gain enough momentum and a fanbase large enough to keep above the surface and on peoples radar. At this stage, the only thing I knew about the webcomic was a single word, whispered in hushed tones: “Homestuck.” A few more years passed and the fandom began to grow steadily in proportion to a roster of increasingly convoluted characters, as well as the hair-brained complexity of the comics plot.

And then, Cascade.

I heard rumor of a webcomic that went off so huge that it fucking broke Newgrounds. Suddenly the fandom was omnipresent, and potentially out of control. From what ive picked up, it was a pretty rad time to be a nerd. “Somewhere, a soused uncle deliberately shatters china on the floor. Muddy livestock is decorated, and then lost track of. The question ‘Who's mule is this?’ at times can be heard over the din. This is now your reality.”

But, as much as I was starting to learn exactly what Homestuck was, I was hearing equally as much in terms of negativity about its fandom. Of their overwhelming presence during conventions, their reputation for immaturity, the torrents of unsealed gray face paint flooding the lobbies of unsuspecting hotels. So, I stayed away. This was like, late middle school for me, and there was no way in hell I was going to risk putting my image-obsessed ass on the line for a bunch of rainbow blooded zodiac alien shitlords and their apocalyptic tendencies. So, I stayed away.

It really was the first time something pop culture had ever gotten this big. Openbound hit, and it got bigger? Somehow? More trolls? Jesus christ. The fandom kept growing at an exponential rate, faster than people could process it, and so much so that nobody else knew how to handle it.

And then it… stopped.

The Gigapause, I think it was called. At the height of their power, the fandom was left with nothing, no new content to grab hold of, no new development to fuel their fan works, no anything. The fandom starts to lose speed. A spot of hope happens, during act 6 and is subsequently dashed against the rocks below as the Omegapause kicks in. I wasnt paying attention. I was busy, there was work to be done trying to get into college.

And just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. The webcomic concluded in a way that implied that not only the readers, but the fictional characters themselves were freed from the scope and size of their own work. Anyone still reading watched Collide, in what I can only imagine to be 20 minutes of pure catharsis. The fandom got hit with Act 7, and that was it.

This whole time, that entire span of that seven years, nobody had ever ‘told me about Homestuck.’  Until, about a year after it ended, a friend of mine told me that the way I talk reminded them of a character called Karkat (after what Im assuming was a fairly aggressive bitch fest about something or other). Upon my asking what in the fuck kind of name Karkat is, they nostalgically smiled, and asked me if I had ever read a certain webcomic.

We went back to my dorm and they pulled it up on my computer. We read for a couple hours. I didnt think too much of it, but it was amusing enough. I put it away, and forgot about it until one lazy day like month later. And then I think it was Rose dropping a bathtub in Johns hallway that sealed the deal. I dont think I have to tell anyone following a fucking classpect blog about how addicting reading Homestuck is. I got really into the classpect system, as you can see. Im damn near constantly nerding out about videogame-esque class systems and personality studies, and I thought Homestuck’s god tier system was so fucking creative and interesting. And the music, holy shit. A flash webcomic? With LEITMOTIFS?!?

I eventually figured out that thinking Homestuck is cool in 2018 was… lonely. The people that still were fans of the comic enjoyed it in hushed tones, and in shame. It was sad, in ways. A part of me wished that I had gotten to experience it at its peak. I am not one such member of this fandom that has existed when the work was in its primordial stages, and I do not for one second claim to have been at the apex of the movement.

So what does this shitty history lesson good for anyway, right? What does it all mean? It has been nine years to the day, this 4/13, and Hiveswap is the only thing from keeping what was once considered a monumental aspect of pop culture from fading into complete obscurity. I am hopeful of the future of Homestuck, but I cannot help but also feel that one day, in the near future, it will be lost to time. And so, here we are today. I walk amongst the bones of the sun-bleached empire that used to be Homestuck. Not many people live here anymore. One day, it might be empty. One day, it might be that nobody remembers it at all.

But not as long as you are here, reading horseshit like this rant. Not as long as someone is drawing shitty fan art of the Mayor, not as long as someone is shamelessly jamming out on the bus to Sburban Jungle, and not as long as someone out there who cant think of the word ‘Pisces’ without instinctively associating it with the color fuschia. Humanitys drive to build things, to create, is rooted in an effort to outlast their own lifespan. And the same is true for this thing that we have all come to love (hate?), and for all of the thousands of people that have found some connection with each other over a common bond. I know that this whole rant has had some serious cringe potential, but know this, you bunch of nerds: As long as you are out there, reading, enjoying, then the fandom is still alive and well. And better yet? You arent alone.

Happy 4/13, kids.

“I keep having these dreams. Great empty cities, silent roads stretching for miles. The Earth from space, all dark. Not a single light to guide me home. But if someone really came from another world, what would the Earth look like to them? A wilderness? A wasteland? I don't think so. Even after thousands of years they’d see a world shaped by our hand in every aspect of its being. They'd see the cities and the roads; the bridges, the harbors. And they would say: Here lived a race of giants.”

-Acclaimed Actor and Sleeping Prophet, Charles Dutton

-Alexandra Drennan, The Talos Principle

[allofbeercom]

The brave new world of the xx, pop’s brooding perfectionists

Solo success, confronting grief, sobering up the feted London trio talk frankly about how the events of the past four years informed their new album, I See You

The three members of the xx cross from Poland into Lithuania overnight, trying to sleep inside a bus that judders and lurches along an uneven border road. It is December, an unforgiving time to be touring eastern Europe, and snow that was coming in committedly when they left Warsaw still falls when they arrive in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Its cold here, beer-jacket weather, hot-toddy weather, get-messed-up-after-the-gig-to-distract-from-the-bite weather. But the band Oliver Sim, Romy Madley Croft, Jamie Smith travel in good, sober order. They toured their first album, in 2010, blinkingly, greenly, through a fog of personal tragedy. Two years later they got through a second-album tour mostly by partying wherever they went. (Moving from encore to after-show chasing the night, as the band phrase it in a new song, Replica.) When we meet, the release of album number three, I See You, is looming. For various reasons they expect to take this one around the world in steadier, less emotionally hectic fashion.

Arriving in central Vilnius at 10am, the trio alight from the tour bus and teeter over icy pavement, straight to their hotel rooms for some extra sleep. Im in the lobby waiting for them when they emerge, one by one, at midday. Sim (27 years old, bassist and co-vocalist) appears in a splendid fur-lapelled coat. His enormous green eyes lend him at once a striking handsomeness as well as the perpetual suggestion of worry. More so than Sim, Madley Croft (27, lead guitar and vocals) is dressed for her terrain: leather boots, hoodie, black-camo raincoat, a hat over her dark shoulder-length hair. A stitched image on the hat is faded and hard to distinguish and when I ask her what it is she answers in a soft, whistling voice: Three babies dancing. She says she found the hat in a skate shop somewhere. Smith (28, percussion and production) might have found his entire outfit in a Sports Direct somewhere. He comes down in Nike T-shirt, Adidas trackies, his copper curls sprouting over the strap of a backwards-turned cap.

Theres something drastic and strange about Smiths appearance that takes a moment for me to identify. Hes smiling. I find this hard to reconcile with our last encounter.

In the hotel lobby, the band and I reminisce about meeting last time, more than four years ago, when I shadowed them for a couple of days as they toured through Los Angeles. They were about to debut Coexist, their second album, high in the British and American charts. Their first album, xx, had won the Mercury prize in the UK and gone gold in the US. Its sound sexily gnomic lyrics sung huskily over precise and chilly synths was exerting a blatant influence on the music industry, imitators of the xx springing up all over the place. Now Baz Luhrmann was courting them for one of his soundtracks, and he showed up one night in Hollywood to buy rounds of drinks. The band went to after-parties backstage at the Ford theatre, by the pool at the Chateau Marmont, on the roof of a downtown hotel.

Watch the video for the xxs single On Hold.

I remember the experience for the hilarious difficulty of interviewing Smith, who was then emerging as the silent genius of the group, an unfeasibly talented engine-room operator who was responsible for so much of their musics distinctive and influential texture. At the time he betrayed none of the weight or assurance of someone with great and growing industry clout. Instead he seemed to trust that if he stayed quiet enough during our encounters I might forget he was there.

These days Smith tells stories, tells jokes. While he speaks he taps his fingers in time to some imagined and apparently buoyant interior music. If theres a reticence to him, still, it transmits as a cooler and more grown-up nonchalance. Life, is his deadpan explanation for the transformation. I went from being 23 to 28. It happens to everyone. Perhaps theres a little more to say. Under his solo stage name, Jamie xx has long tended a fertile sideline as a DJ and a producer of other artists work. In summer 2015 he released an album of his own, In Colour, that was enough of a hit to fuel a substantial world tour. He was nominated for the Mercury and Grammy awards. Its easy to see how much Jamies changed, says Madley Croft. Its obvious, because of his personal career hes more confident.

Sim and Madley Croft made guest appearances on their friends solo record. But this was very much Smiths project, one that had been building up for quite a while, and its gestation contributed directly to the years-long wait between the xxs second and third albums. The band started writing material for I See You as long ago as 2014. But the finish line, as Sim describes it, kept getting pushed further away into the future. He is diplomatic about the difficulty of Jamie just not being available. Even though he was really pushing himself, and not giving himself time off, getting face-time with him was tricky. Smith is apologetic. I was busy doing my thing. It was going well. I was happy in that way. But I was also anxious about finishing our [group] record. I definitely felt bad, coming and going. And I did understand that Romy and Oliver were really anxious to finish it. Because they didnt have They obviously had things going on. But they didnt have a creative outlet.

The band get ready to leave the hotel for an afternoon of rehearsals. Before we spill out into taxis I take Sim out of earshot of the other two, and ask: What about jealousy? We cant always rely on ourselves, as humans, to be perfectly delighted by our friends achievements. What did you and Romy really feel while Jamie was flying solo?

There were moments when I felt jealous of his time, Sim says.

And of his success?

Sim speaks carefully. I think of jealousy as: I dont want you to have this. And I felt proud of Jamie. I felt pleased for him that he had all of this going on. But, at the same time, I wanted this. Me and Romy wanted this. We wanted to be back up there, on stage, with a fire lit underneath us.

The trio strongly believe the hiatus has been beneficial to their music. I agree. After his secondment in a more dancefloor-orientated world, Smith has brought back with him to the xx a sense of pace and playfulness, obvious from the very first hands-in-the-air bars of the new record. Across its length the album has a brewed, stewy, experience-enriched quality, subtly but importantly different from the older stuff, which always had terrific clarity but which could lack human warmth.

From a bald commercial perspective the bands absence does not seem to have unduly alienated the fanbase. All tickets for seven nights at Londons Brixton Academy in March recently sold out. Still, there have been some surreal moments for Sim and Madley Croft during their semi-enforced sabbatical. They describe to me how bizarre it felt, trotting along to watch Smith play alone at Brixton, a spiritual home of sorts for the xx and a place they had played many times together. Only now two-thirds of the band were stood among the audience craning like everyone else to see over the next head.

Rehearsals are taking place at the venue for tonights show, a mid-sized arena on the outskirts of Vilnius. I ride there in a cab with Madley Croft, who has a digital camera and takes occasional pictures of the bleak winter landscape. Touring, she says, means seeing countries through the windows of cars. Tomorrow the band will fly to Japan. After that Australia, then Scandinavia, and eventually back for those Brixton dates and four other UK shows. They were on a killer tour the last time we met too. Then, they spoke to me about how strange an existence it was, their every need taken care of while they moseyed from encore to after-party. They made it sound cloying but also comforting, cocoon-ing, in Madley Crofts phrase. At the time I wondered what the effects might be, of the long tour finishing and all the machinery of the band falling away, leaving them to their own devices again.

It took an adjustment, Madley Croft says, of varying degrees for the three of them. She thinks Sim probably found it the hardest. Oliver, to me, is the natural performer of the band. I know he gets a lot of confidence from performing. And I sensed he might not be quite sure what his place was, for a while, when we were off stage. For herself, Madley Croft used the time away to address private matters shed ignored for some time. Stuff from the past. Losses Ive had. It all kind of hit me.

Smith, AKA Jamie xx, playing Londons Hyde Park last summer. Because of his personal career, hes more confident, says bandmate Photograph: RMV/Rex/Shutterstock

Wed touched lightly on this in Los Angeles her difficult backstory, intimately and pretty cruelly interwoven with the backstory of her band. She was only 11, in 2001, when her mother died. (This was a few years before she started writing music with Sim a friend from school in Putney, London as a form of escapism.) Her father died in early 2010 when she was 20. (By now, with Smith, another schoolfriend, the three were established as the xx. They were performing an early show in Paris when the news about Madley Crofts father reached them.) Towards the end of 2010 a close friend of hers, a cousin, died too. (The band had just won the Mercury and were becoming quite famous.) By the time I met them all in Los Angeles, Madley Croft was 22. Shed barely stopped touring or recording since her double bereavement in 2010, and I got the sense of a young woman putting a lot on hold.

The last few years have been, for me, about facing all of it, she explains. At the time I just went for it. Encore, after-party, encore, after-party. Its only on reflection I think how intense everything must have been, and how I just pushed it down. But everything comes up. Ive learned that everything comes up.

When we met before she was in the first months of a relationship with a designer, Hannah Marshall, who was then travelling with the band. They were sweet together, newly and sorely inked with matching tattoos patently in deep, even though Madley Croft seemed a little awkward in a public setting, as if she was getting used to her band-life and love-life intermingling. When we first got together Hannah was always so much better in social situations than me. I felt so shy. But through being with her I feel so much more at ease. Ive noticed thats happened in a different way with me than it has with the boys. And I know its because Ive been with someone.

The couple recently got engaged. It was the stability of the relationship, Madley Croft says, that gave her the grounding she needed to look squarely at her past. She went from pushing down thoughts about her parents to actually kind of craving going to therapy and dealing with it… Its an ongoing thing, she says. I feel like Ive dealt with a chunk. With a hell of a lot more than I ever did before. And the self-examination has borne creative fruit. Right in the middle of the xxs new album comes its tenderest and most nakedly spiritual track, Brave for You, a song that Madley Croft wrote about drawing strength from the memory of her parents.

We pull into the car park of the venue, sure weve got the right place because we can see the steaming figure of Sim, shivering in his coat, smoking a cigarette. Together he and Madley Croft clomp inside, shed their layers, and walk to the stage. She takes up her Les Paul guitar, he his Fender, and behind them on an elevated platform Smith finds his place among an array of mixers and synthesisers. Performing for an empty arena, they play a few old songs and a couple of newer ones, including Brave for You. Smith taps out a high rhythmic pulse. Sim waits for his moment to apply some bass. Madley Croft closes her eyes and sings: When Im scared/ I imagine you there/ Telling me to be brave

Madley Croft with her fiancee, designer Hannah Marshall. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images for Equipment

The rehearsal lasts a long time: hours. I perch with Smith in his mixing station and watch over his shoulder as the trio pick through 20-odd songs. Sometimes the noise, ringing off the exposed concrete of the arena, is tremendous. During uptempo songs Smith starts dancing, big-stepping in time like a cowboy at a line dance, thrashing his head like a metalhead in a mosh pit. Impossible to imagine, Madley Croft says, the old Jamie doing this.

Sim, frowning, the least at ease on stage today, unsticks a printed set list from the floor. He thinks back to the previous gig in Poland and says: Oh. I spoke in the wrong place last night. After a lifetime trying to maintain belief in the spontaneity of artist-to-audience banter, its a little shattering for me to learn that the xx arrange their chatty interludes in advance. But these guys are precision workers, broody perfectionists; and theyre rusty in their stagecraft after so long apart. When they rehearse a mid-gig spectacular of mashed-up songs, the music builds and builds, smoke machines gushing, some glorious climax imminent until at the clinching moment Smith slaps a button on his mixer and a deafening error-sound hums around the arena.

Everyone flinches. Argggh, shouts Smith. The mixer is unplugged and hauled away in machine-disgrace. The band take a break. Smith consults a roadie about a replacement. Sim drifts off stage. Madley Croft picks up her phone and taps out a message to someone.

Im starting to see that these three took very different paths away from their last album. Madley Croft into domestic stability and a worked-for interior peace. Smith into self-affirming solo work. Sims route took him where? He has always been the xxs most elliptical member, a charming if skittish, ambiguous interviewee. Unlike Madley Croft he has resisted overt statements about his sexuality. And the particulars of his family background, apparently as troubled as hers, remain much more opaque. When the New Yorker published a deep-digging profile of the band in 2014, the reporter was obliged to include a vague line about Sims early life, which was scarred by family dysfunction that he declines to discuss. Madley Croft has grown over time into openness, Smith into sureness. Sim seems still on his way somewhere.

Maybe theres a clue in the new music. I See You has a couple of tracks that come over as more direct and less cryptic than anything else in the bands back catalogue. A Violent Noise, for example, seems to be about partying too much, overdoing it (Youve been staying out late/ Trying your best to escape). In a subsequent track, Replica, chiefly written and sung by Sim, it sounds as if an unnamed parent is being addressed: Ive turned out just like you They all say I will become a replica/ [That] your mistakes were only chemical 25 and youre just like me Is it in my nature to be stuck on repeat?

Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer

Away from the rehearsal I sit down with Sim and tell him the lyrics to Replica register, to me at least, as a kind of confession. A child of addiction, growing up to worry he has become an addict himself, wondering if the problem is unavoidable and hereditary or whether he can go down a different path. Does that sound accurate?

Sim, his large eyes open to their fullest extent, stares over my head for a while. Then he clears his throat and says: Um. Well. Thats kind of bang on, your reading.

He takes a breath. Yeah. Just kind of That was a big thing to deal with, over the past couple of years. Just kind of dealing with my relationship with using [drugs]. With drinking. And, um. And also my parents. Yeah. He says its a shock to realise that the private matters underlying this song have come over so plainly. This conversation is a bit of an eye-opener.

He started writing Replica, he says, a couple of years ago. Before I was taking any action. Or saying anything out loud. The bands 2012 tour had finished. The pace we were moving at stopped, suddenly. It was a pretty flaky existence Yknow, I left school thinking I wanted to live my life like a nomad, free-floating. Turns out I absolutely need some kind of structure. Living back in London again, structure-less, he thought of his drinking and drug-taking as blowing off steam. Later, I started to wonder if it was still charming to be the drunkest person in a room.

His decision to seek help took a while. A long, drawn-out decision. Smith was away gigging. Madley Croft was travelling the US with her girlfriend. I felt a bit lost. The schoolfriends all describe this period end of 2014, start of 2015 as the farthest apart theyd been from one another, geographically but emotionally too. As Madley Croft puts it: We werent in tune. Jamie was on tour. Oliver wasnt being entirely truthful with me about what he was going through. Walls were up.

When they did regather, Sim brought them the lyrics to Replica. Madley Croft recalls the moment. I thought: This is very real. Even though everything we do is real, this felt more transparent? It felt brave. And I loved that he let me in, to discuss it.

Sim makes it sound inevitable it should be writing, rather than talking, that helped bring down the walls between the band. Im a lot better and braver in songwriting than I am in conversation.

He says he has noticed, of course, how much his two friends have evolved in recent years. Theyve come on in leaps and bounds. He says he feels more sluggish in his own progress, a bit stunted People are like, So Jamies done his record and toured the world. What have you done? To be honest, Ive just been at home, figuring stuff out. He doesnt seem to realise that hes made the most progress of everyone. I ask him how long hes been sober.

Watch the video for the xxs Say Something Loving.

Eleven months, he says.

And?

And lifes been transitional, he says, smiling shyly. Quite a shift. Tonights show in Vilnius, for instance, the fifth of the current tour, will be the fifth show hes done in his career without drink. Its why I dont maybe feel so confident here. I dont have that support. I dont have my booze blanket. Everything feels more raw.

Are you happier?

Im. He stops and considers. Im Yes, I am happy. Im sort of adjusting to a different pace of life. But yeah, Im good. I feel anxious. About the next year [of touring], and being away from home. I wonder how its going to play out. But Im excited too. He might be about to experience the beginnings of a music career for a second time. I realise I was never entirely present before. Booze took away the nerves. But it also, like, definitely capped the highs. If hes sacrificed some self-confidence, he says, at least hes gained some self-understanding. Madley Croft agrees. I think hes getting to know himself. Who he is, as a 27-year-old, not as a performer on stage, but in life. Im really proud of him.

Soon enough their rehearsal resumes. Theres not long to go until the show now, and fans are beginning to appear in the snow outside. The band practise what will be the nights final run of songs. They try Intro, one of the first things they ever wrote together, as well as a new track, a happy-sad doozy called On Hold, which explores the ways in which life can seem to move at different speeds for different people. Transitioning from the old song to the new, Smith turns a dial on his mixer. Madley Croft steps forward and sings her half of the shared lyrics, Sim his. Then they sway, gently, by their mic stands.

At the end of the song the two guitarists lay down their instruments. Smith tidies his things. Madley Croft walks around taking a few photographs of the arena before it fills with people. Sim, before he leaves the stage, attaches a small light to his microphone stand. So that hell be able to find his way back to it, later, in the dark.

I See You is out now on Young Turks. The xx play UK shows from 4-17 March

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-brave-new-world-of-the-xx-pops-brooding-perfectionists/