#critical defiance

[jwowwsboobs]

th break down in this … HELLOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 10, Number 4

Alena Spanger

For one day in April, we were transfixed by the sun’s brief disappearance, marveling again at our smallness in the universe, our dependence on a fiery ball in the sky which might, it seems, not be as reliable as we had always assumed.  It was pretty cool, even if you weren’t in the path of totality (what an excellent phrase, by the way), and it distracted everyone for a couple of hours from all the bullshit flooding over the transom.  Which is also one of the main functions of the music we consume so voraciously.  We are always hoping for one or two or many transcendent experiences in these CDRs and tapes and mp3 folders that bombard us, and sometimes, dear reader, we find them.  Here’s this month’s report with Tim Clarke, Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Alex Johnson, Jonathan Shaw, Jennifer Kelly, Ian Mathers and Bryon Hayes contributing.

Adult Jazz — So Sorry So Slow (Spare Thought)

Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Adult Jazz’s stunning debut album, Gist Is. Perhaps the title of the Leeds band’s second full-length can be interpreted as an apology to those who have been eagerly awaiting a follow-up. So Sorry So Slow has not only been a long time coming, but also unfolds in fits and starts, as if unsure of the best way forward. It’s convulsive art-pop in the vein of Dirty Projectors or Bjork, with shades of hyper-pop in the digital sharpness of some of its edges, and chamber pop in the prominent employment of strings and horns. The album is most successful when the songs are straightforwardly beautiful, as in “Suffer One,” with its Owen Pallett string arrangement, and closer “Windfarm,” which has a pure, aching, almost New Age glow to it. Elsewhere, the overall lack of focus proves frustrating, and ultimately rather exhausting, across the album’s hour-long runtime. There’s plenty of beauty to be found, you just have to be patient.

Tim Clarke

Jeb Bishop / Tim Daisy / Mark Feldman — Begin, Again (Relay)

Begin, Again welcomes a couple of revenant Chicagoan musicians. Trombonist Jeb Bishop came back to the city after roughly ten years away, and violinist Mark Feldman after about 40. Drummer and vibraphonist  Tim Daisy invited them both to workshop some material in his home studio, and this session resulted. While both Bishop and Daisy wrote pieces, there’s an authentic ensemble feel; this music is very differently balanced than Daisy’s other chamber trio, Vox Arcana. Quick changes in direction and two-on-one dynamics abound, and it’s all enacted with a lightness that gives this music a feeling of floating even when the players are bearing down with serious intent.   

Bill Meyer

Cadence Weapon — Rollercoaster (MNRK)

The first thing you hear on Rollercoaster is a warm strum of acoustic guitar and the mellifluous voice of Bartees Strange. Then Canadian rapper/activist Rollie Pemberton AKA Cadence Weapon takes aim at technological saturation on his new LP Rollercoaster. The hectic production (there are 11 producer credits) mirrors the overwhelming chaos of social media flooded with bots, trolls, ads and misinformation overseen by the bloodless founder of Facebook and X’s fatuous head jester. Hip Hop, electro, RnB and manic hyperpop provide the backdrop to Pemberton’s diatribes which, although they occasionally have an odor of fish-filled barrels, say what needs saying with a maximum of snark and wit. Strange reappears periodically to offer a more organic musical and lyrical counterpoint to the hyperactivity. Pemberton has the awareness to embrace the paradox of working within the system he excoriates which adds an edge to his lyrics. If no-one is innocent and everyone’s throwing stones, Cadence Weapon is at least slinging the sharpest slates.

Andrew Forell  

The Children… — A Sudden Craving (Erototox Decodings)

Michael Wiener describes the music of The Children…, his long-running collaboration with Jim Coleman, Phil Puleo and others, as “gothic blues ambient.” At the height of my concern for tidy iTunes taxonomies, I would’ve been thrilled to think of that. And I’m not being glib: it is apt. One might be tempted to flip the last two words to get the more genre-y “Gothic Ambient Blues,” but Wiener, a Dusted contributor, has the order right. Their latest release, A Sudden Craving, may lead with a loose-hinged “gothic blues,” complete with eerie electronics, possessed voices, disturbed drums and alternately ghostly and shearing guitar chords, but it’s the way the band plays in the looming ambience, the engagement with the persistent presence of space – traced, occupied and ruptured – that ties together the album’s unsettling visions. In its haunted volatility, this can be a viscerally entertaining record and easy to get into, just make sure to carve out enough headroom.

Alex Johnson

Ciro Vitiello — The Island of Bouncy Memories (Haunter x Hundebliss)

Italian producer Ciro Vitiello’s work plays out like a reverie in the liminal space between dream and memory. Ethereal vocals and impressionist lyrics from Russian born singer Zimmy and Italian musician CRÆBABE float on warm wisps of synth and closely miked acoustic guitars. The instrumental tracks have a fractal, dislocated feel as Vitiello layers keyboards and sound effects of water, birds, child’s play and the odd menacing sounds one images hearing in the beast filled fairytale forests of childhood. The mood darkens further on “Sell Change of Heart for a Crocodile” or “Living in a Bouncy Castle” as scratchy disruptions like misfiring synapses interrupt the former as the keyboards swell crepuscular in the background. On the latter, titular castle seems to be deflating slowly, closing in on the occupants in slow motion, the air escaping in big wet bubbles. CRÆBABE closes the album steeped in a lonely haze of romantic and erotic nostalgia. Altogether as lovely and disquieting as the misty maze of memory can be.        

Andrew Forell

Coral Morphologic & Nick León — Projections of a Coral City (Balmat)

Miami duo Coral Morphologic (marine scientist Colin Foord and musician JD McKay) have worked together since 2007 producing projects that raise awareness of threats to marine biodiversity. Their new collaboration with producer Nick León soundtracks a multimedia installation which imagines the rising ocean reclaiming their city and enabling its colonization by resurgent coral reefs. The trio imbues this five-track suite with the tenacity and generative power of coral. An aqueous flow of somber tones dominates, but within them minute lifeforms take shape, coalesce, and spread with a quiet majesty that evokes the fragility of the reefs and inexorable process of survival and regrowth. Projections of a Coral City feels like a requiem, as much for Miami as the damage it has wrought on its environment. Poignant and hopeful it is a fitting tribute to the worlds we are in danger of losing for ever.    

Andrew Forell

Critical Defiance — The Search Won’t Fall (Unspeakable Axe)

Chilean thrash specialists Critical Defiance have delivered the metal record equivalent to a day at a theme park — absent all the waiting around in long lines. There are some long-ish tunes on The Search Won’t Fall (the title track runs close to eight minutes, and album closer “Critical Defiance” clocks in over nine and a half), but you never have to wait, for the next shift in rhythm, usually from fast to really, really fast; the next solo; the next crunching, athletically paced riff. Rollercoaster-scaled ascents and descents? Yep. Tilt-a-Whirl passages of dizzying axe-craft? Check. And the whole thing has the sort of so-bad-for-you-it’s-good sensibility of that extra-large bucket of French fries that came out of a huge bag of frozen shards of spuds, or the funnel cake you watched some tatted-up kid squeeze into a viscid pool of boiling oil of indeterminate age. It’s all hugely entertaining. This reviewer loves it when the songs get short; check out the sequence of “All the Powers” (44 seconds) to “Full Paranoia” (85 seconds) to “Margarita,” in which the record suddenly bottoms out into power-ballad mode. The move is delightfully goofy, a stolen kiss in the Tunnel of Love. It’s an open question if listening to The Search Won’t Fall has any sort of enduring significance, but when the ride is this much fun, who really cares?

Jonathan Shaw

Hässlig — Apex Predator (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Hässlig makes an unhealthily ugly sort of noise that the metal underground has insisted on calling “blackened punk” — a strangely provoking phrase that we seem to be stuck with. This specific iteration of the sound renders the relative kinship to punk neutral (wouldn’t “raw black metal” suffice here?), or perhaps a bit more worrisome. We should note that sole member DB also makes an especially bleak variety of depressive, sometimes doomy black metal under the name Negativa, the band logo of which does an irritating nod-and-wink in the direction of the swastika. So: A Spanish dude who records under a German-sounding band name and makes a record titled Apex Predator? Do we have to do some digging on the internet’s expanding communities of fash-hunting metal listeners? Likely we can take some consolation from Hässlig’s relationship with Sentient Ruin, a label that doesn’t fuck with NSBM nonsense. Unhappy song titles like “Psychopathic Triumph” and “Raping the Exoskeleton of Life” are likely meant to communicate equal-opportunity misanthropy: DB hates everybody. But “Slaves” and “Watch Them Hang” are a more unsavory combo, and it doesn’t help that DB claims Bone Awl and Ildjarn as influences. One wonders if associating the project with punk is a sort of semiotic gambit, hoping to temper some of the more troubling language DB uses (and maybe gets an edge-lord charge out of). It’s all becoming a bit tiresome. This reviewer really enjoys the music on Apex Predator, but by saying so, what is he validating?

Jonathan Shaw

Hour — Ease the Work (Dear Life)

Michael Cormier-O’Leary leads an ensemble of 10 through pensive instrumental reveries in this third full-length as Hour. You might know Cormier-O’Leary from the bands 2nd Grade or Friendship, or from running Dear Life Records. Others playing here have done time in various ambient, folk or mildly experimental outfits, Jason Calhoun, the synth player, in Paper Armies, Elizabeth Fuschia, a violinist in Footings and on the last Bonnie Prince Billy album, Peter Gill from 2nd Grade and drummer Peter McLaughlin from Dead Gowns among others. But the players meld in a very seamless, ego-less way, supporting brief, lovely bits of melody in guitar, strings, percussion, keyboards and, occasionally, electronic samples. The title track ambles nonchalantly, a skittery beat pacing tremulous washes of strings . “Dying of Laughter,” shades a little darker, pitched somewhere between conventional Americana and David Grubbs’ languid improvisations. None of these tracks last very long or stick very well in the limbic system, but Ease the Work is, regardless, a very pleasant way to spend three quarters of an hour.

Jennifer Kelly

Paul Lydon — Umvafin Loforð​un (Píanó)

Paul Lydon is an American who has lived in Iceland since the late 1980s. Throughout that time he’s kept up persistent but low-key recording under the names Blek Ink, Sanndreymi, Paul & Laura and most recently his own name. Over time, the music has changed from brittle, miniature songs to deliberately paced piano instrumentals. As befits a guy who lives his life within cultures, the music on Umvafin Loforð​un (translation: Wrapped Up In Promises) doesn’t slot easily into any genre. While spare, it lacks minimalism’s interest in repetition, and in its quiet way it remains to assertive to be ambient; and while his articulation brings to mind Mulatu Astatke and Alice Coltrane, there’s really no jazz or Ethiopian influence, just a similar respect for the qualities of individual notes. It does give the impression of reflection, as though he’s conversing with himself when he plays, but each piece has a lucidity which suggests that any spontaneous processes are tempered by some compositional pruning. It’s companionable stuff, at the service of those who could use some quiet company.

Bill Meyer

Mandy — Lawn Girl (Exploding in Sound)

Sugar pop melodies nestle into blistering onslaughts of fuzz guitar in this first solo outing from Melkbelly’s Miranda Winters, and maybe what’s interesting here is how a mature artist uses the basic rock and roll tools of her youth.For instance, though a new mom and well past the acne years, Winters casts a jaundiced eye on teenage love in “High School Boyfriend.”The song ends in a drum churning, guitar-busting, cheerleader shouting finale that kicks the whole experience to the curb.Sludgy “Forsythia,” by contrast, acknowledges the distance that Winters has travelled, the experiences she’s had, though that knowledge comes couched in muscular guitar blare.The one cover, of Jimmy Webb’s “I Am a Woman Now,” is acoustic and soft enough that you can hear Winters taking a sniffly breath, but also searing.“Now that I’m a woman, everything has changed,” she murmurs.The sentiment, maybe, but not so much the sound.

Jennifer Kelly

Orgöne — Chimera (3 Palms)

A chimera is a monster constructed of various parts—body of a lion, wings of an eagle, tail like a snake, etc.—and while by no means a monster, this latest LP from the West Coast soul collective Orgöne melds disparate threads into a slinky, funky groove. You can hear, for instance, futuristic fusion jazz, polyrhythmic Latin percussion, Afro-beat, way out soul positivity and psychedelic rock in these cuts, some instrumental, some with chanted vocals. An organ trembles with flickery vibrato, a bass slaps the off beats, a drum cadence saunters shambolically; it’s hot and cold at the same time. Blues-funky “Parasols,” blurts low-end and oozes chill, like Booker T & the MGs, but looser and more discursive. The groove rears up and you expect an old-style soul chorus—Charles Bradley maybe—but the work is done by the instruments, a nattering guitar and a flaring soaring keyboard. “Basilisk” twitches with wah wah and shudders with blasts of bass, not so far off from what the Budos Band does, but “Tula Muisi (Dance with Them)” adds torrid, Afro-beat style vocals. This stuff is fine on the home speakers, but likely much better in the room.

Jennifer Kelly

Polar Inertia — Environment Control (Northern Electronics)

There’s a lot of obscurity surrounding taciturn Parisian techno… artist? project? collective? Polar Inertia, but after a self-described “eight years of silence” they’ve reappeared with a full-length LP (a full hour, even) after previously only releasing EPs and live recordings. As with those EPs, there’s one track with a grim, foreboding spoken word accompaniment and if it puts one in mind of Annihilation at the South Pole, well, following it up with the brain-frying fuzz and throb of “Smothering Dreams” cashes that check immediately. The rest of the album ranges from beatless, dense noise (“Modeless Singularity”) to darkly insistent techno (“Arctic Singularity”) but all with enough of a shared vocabulary and similarly overwhelming, totalizing effect that it all lives up to the end of that opening monologue: “You will soon conceive what polar inertia is. What we do, at our scale, is environment control.”

Ian Mathers

Tomeka Reid / Isadora Edwards / Elisabeth Coudoux — Reid / Edwards / Coudoux (Relative Pitch)

This hour-long, completely improvised performance was captured in August 2021. The trio had played together a few days previously at the third iteration DARA Festival, a gathering of female string players organized by Biliana Voutchkova, so this was not a first encounter, but the trio’s interactions express a still a freshness that could come from players newly falling into a sympathetic union, or simply from the good vibes that tended to suffuse gatherings that post-vaccination, pre-Delta variant surge summer. Tomeka Reid (USA), Isadora Edwards (Chile/UK), and Elisabeth Coudoux (Germany) all play cello, and there’s sufficient consonance within the collective’s approach that time spent trying to figure out who’s who would be wasted. Rather, appreciate the spontaneous counterpoint, astute support, and uncluttered clarity of these four improvisations, which flow easily from rustling quietude to bright, bold cross-hatchings.

Bill Meyer

Sam Rubin — Bullet (Pleasure Tapes/Michi Tapes)

Two bullets, labeled “Bullet” and “Bullet 2” rip through the air on scuzzed-out guitar tone, like shoegaze but dirtier, as a rapturous chaos of drumming erupts and a noxious fog of noise envelopes high wistful vocals.You can taste the grit and sulfur in the air. Sam Rubin raises a lo-fi racket out of Kent, Ohio, letting factory effluents run through fragile melodies, corroding them, poisoning them and coaxing a poisoned beauty from the wreck. From the heart of Red America, Rubin launches “Trump,” a slow-motion, gut-shock of lumbering chords and feedback, but the best songs are about firearms.“Sniper Rifle” closes things out with Swans-ish clangor, guitar, drums, bass, all jumping on the downbeat, repeatedly, like a metal stamper gone amok in a post-apocalyptic heartland. Good stuff.

Jennifer Kelly

SAICOBAB — NRTYA (Thrill Jockey)

NRTYA by SAICOBAB

Japanese quartet SAICOBAB douses Indian raga in accelerant and showers it with sparks, creating an amorphous and fiery mix of traditional and contemporary sounds. Vocalist YoshimiO (Boredoms, OOIOO) both leads and chases the melodies proffered by sitarist Yoshida Daikiti. The two are engaged in a whirling quickstep (NRTYA is Sanskrit for “dance”) over the polyrhythmic pulsations of Motoyuki Hamamoto and Yojiro Tatekawa (Boredoms). The four musicians apply a hyperkinetic avant-rock slant to the traditionally placid raga format, emphasizing both rhythmic and melodic movement. YoshimiO’s extremely broad vocal range helps the music leap into the fourth dimension, and subtle electronic flourishes offer a glimpse into SAICOBAB’s futuristic worldview. With NRTYA, SAICOBAB challenges tradition, as the group’s infectious energy fractures the boundaries of both time and space.

Bryon Hayes

Alena Spanger — Fire Escape (Ruination)

Fire Escape by Alena Spanger

Alena Spanger’s voice is small, soft and very brave, as she ventures out of the shelter of prettiness into the wider world of dissonance and experiment. The singer made her first mark in Tiny Hazard, a Brooklyn art-music ensemble that similarly tested the boundaries of pop. Here in her debut solo album, she coos and hums and trills against a shifting background of baroque experiment; she lets us in, engagingly, into strange and wonderful places. “All that I Wanted,” for instance, pits a wild splatter-beat of tonal percussion, against a wispy pop anthem. “All I wanted is to dance with you,” she declares, in true diva pop style, against surging synths—but wait for it, the tune disintegrates into a soup of off-kilter fragments and spasmic beats. Spanger has some of Joanna Newsom’s wiry fragility, a way of infusing melody with intelligence and conflict, and she surrounds herself with Brooklyn avant-garde-ists, like Kalia Vandever on trombone in “My Feel,” Kitba’s Rebecca El-Saleh and harp and the critic Winston Cook-Wilson on keys and percussion. Ryan Weiner, who was also in Tiny Hazard, plays, engineers and mixes. But in the end, it comes down to one Alena Spanger, with the girlish voice and the voracious appetite for innovation. She can make a Satie reference sound like a sweet confessional ditty and a fire escape stand in for the soft, comforting edge of experiment.

Jennifer Kelly

Sunburned Hand of the Man — Nimbus (Three Lobed)

Nimbus by Sunburned Hand of the Man

Nimbus is Sunburned Hand of the Man at peak fidelity.Imagine Ken Kesey’s Furthur bus tuned up, cleaned up and given a fresh coat of DayGlo.The album also spans multiple iterations of the ever-mutating Sunburned line-up.Original member Phil Franklin returns after a multi-year hiatus, bringing his Franklin’s Mint songcraft with him; long-time associate Matt Krefting appears, offering a sinister spoken word monologue as the band writhes beneath.Poet and new Sunburned member Peter Gizzi unravels his verses over a pair of synth-heavy tunes: both the loping title track and the intense “Consider the Wound” benefit from his wry deadpan.The rest of the tracks are fare for those yearning for the Sunburned of yore, full of lysergic introspection and hedonistic grooves.Even at their cleanest, Sunburned Hand of the Man are weird and wild to the very core.     

Bryon Hayes

[valleyofsacrifice]

[toxicmetalzine]

Critical Defiance

Chilean Thrashers CRITICAL DEFIANCE Release New Single: "Absolüt" Stream the single here: https://toxicmetalzine.com/post/chilean-t

[themetalwanderlust]

Heavy Metal Workout Playlist - With Stephanie Newkirk: March 2023

The workout playlist to BANG your fucking head to. I sacrificed my own body and sweat to compile some of the best new tracks that will guarantee you get moving! Under each band, you’ll have quick access to the title, track time, and how it might help you along your workout journey. Motivate. Dominate. And Kick ASS in your workout. – Stephanie Newkirk|Metal Fitness Artist: Critical…

[sovpologist]

the heavy narrative focus on crow confuses me because i feel like he isn't a fan favorite. he’s a very polarizing character, people either hate him or love him. and even people who really like him admit that he began to overstay his welcome in the seasonal narrative (i would say around lost, but definitely after haunted) and were glad when the writers seemed to recognize this and move on to other characters and plotlines.

the sudden heel turn not only to focus on him again but also to focus on old arcs that have already been explored and concluded (amanda didn't forgive him; he didn't want to talk to mara but was tentatively open to doing so in the future).... to ultimately come to the SAME conclusions (amanda still didn't forgive crow; mara is still interested in reconnecting but crow is still not) feels not only misguided but also completely unasked for. if crow is going to the “main character” no matter what the audience thinks of him then at least do something interesting and new with him instead of just rehashing the same couple of storylines!

[wonder-worker]

"Contemporaries acknowledged Bertha of Lotharingia's political ambitions and supraregional influence. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus called her “the great Bertha” (τῆς μεγάλης Βέρτας) and highlighted that she reigned on her own (ἐβασίλευσεν) for several years after her husband’s death. [Bertha’s quest for power also seems to have prompted contemporaries to harshly polemicize against her and against women striving for power.] Liutprand of Cremona describes her negatively as a highly influential and scheming political actor, whereas the contemporary Gesta Berengarii accuses “the Beast of the Tyrrhenian, lifted up as usual by poison” and “pouring wild hisses from the mouth” of having impeded Berengar’s imperial coronation, among other things by employing “the wealth of neighboring Charybdis." [Bertha has also been identified by scholars as the figure likened to the sorceress "Circe", who the Gesta condemned for allegedly corrupting Berengar's wife with "venomous words"]. Much more positively, the epitaph on Bertha’s gravestone in the church of San Martino in Lucca underscores Bertha’s royal and imperial Carolingian pedigree as well as her transregional prestige and influence."

— Daniel G. König, "Bertha of Tuscany's Correspondence with al-Muktafī bi-llāh in the Version of Ibn al-Zubayr."

[robertsbarbie]

the love and respect female athletes have for one another (for the most part) is really beautiful like the way simone biles talked about rebeca andrade with almost this sense of awe, the way sha’carri richardson immediately celebrates with her teammate who came in their but also with julien alfred the person who beat her and there was just this joy and excitement on the track, the way katie ledecky’s first instinct after breaking another record was to hug and compliment the ‘rival’ from australia she was continuously pit against and the was ilona maher was so excited to trade pins with simone biles and women showing up at different events to support each other it’s just! like the whole internet and world at large wants to put them at odds with one another and ‘no medal but gold is worth anything’ and they refuse to play that game! it’s just!!!

[macgyvertape]

Is anyone really enjoying the difficulty changes? It feels like the casual enjoyment has been stripped out of a lot of mid-range PvE activities where it feels sweaty and the rewards aren’t worth the grind time.

Battleground Mars Nightfall exemplifies this, it takes 3 runs in Hero mode and it punishes you if you aren’t using a meta loadout. So that’s between 40-60+ minutes for one pinnacle, assuming your team doesn’t wipe in the last room to the infinite ads and 1 hit kill boss. I think its going to become the new worst GM, even not counting the 1 hit KO lasers, because the design is so that you fundamentally cannot play it slow. 

The first playlist defiant battleground (in regular difficulty!) I loaded into 10 minutes in and they hadn’t cleared the EDZ beach-head. I left and loaded into a fresh one in the cosmodrome map and it took 34 minutes including a section where it would revive us in the middle of a mob of enemies, champions, and turrets so we kept dying after a few seconds. I’ve since done a few more and I’ve never had a seasonal activity that took so long and felt so different playing with random players vs clan mates. 

Legend Solo Lost Sectors were already infamous for low exotic drop rate, with the sort of rumors of “if you haven’t gotten anything but glimmer after a few runs try leaving to orbit and coming back to reset it”. I enjoyed doing all but the moon ones as a way to try out new loadouts or do something challenging while chatting with friends. They fucking suck now since there’s no increase in exotic drops; the difficulty is 20 over the pinnacle cap so you’re at a disadvantage unless you bounty grind instead of the old system where Legendaries were at powerful cap

Fun fact, 20 difference in power mode is the same difficulty difference for Raid Contest mode. I don’t understand the reasoning behind locking additional loadout slots behind a flawless solo completion; new and casual players will struggle to achieve that much more than hardcore players, and hardcore players are more likely to not need this and already are saving tons of loadouts in DiM. With the difficulty so high, I don’t understand why Bungie doesn’t encourage teamwork or helping out clanmates and let it be a personal flawless completion with a fireteam. 

I regret not finishing all the triumphs for Master Wellspring, because what’s the point of doing it with increased difficulty with no increased rewards. Same thing with Legend Dares of Eternity, the difficulty has been increased but none of the bounties or rewards have been adjusted, and the Legend difficulty bounties were already a pain to do because you had to get it completed in one run and fight all your teammates for the kills. I have no comments on Vex Incursion zone because I haven’t gotten one to spawn. 

Legend Vexcalibur is a pain in the ass where with 3 people it feels tougher than a GM, but there’s no solo operator mod so the long fights where the ads are infinite are frustrating since if you wipe you’re repeating very long fights. Even regular Vexcalinur feels more frustrating than fun when doing it solo. 

In past seasons I played a lot of endgame activities, and I’ve talked about how I enjoyed the legendary Lightfall campaign difficulty a lot. However I don’t enjoy hard difficulty all the time, especially not in activities I’m going to have to run 30-40 times for the seasonal challenges. I’ve heard similar complaints about PvE difficulty changes from clanmates who don’t enjoy endgame activities at all, but they aren’t in fan spaces like tumblr. I know it's about 6 months of development time between feedback and ingame changes, so in the meantime I think I’m best served skipping all the seasonal stuff till week 10 and just doing raids and dungeons until then. 

TLDR: not sure if others feel like the new harder difficulty is the monkey paw’s result of Bungie transitioning away from power level grind, and if others are finding it frustrating

[bi-octavius]

shoutout to claudia gray for writing a book that has made me absolutely WRECKED and INSANE after finishing it :))) (yes this is about master & apprentice)

[rocaillefox]

ppl reading repent harlequin said the ticktockman bc of the blorbo poll.... my influence hehehe

[amiharana]

this might be a stretch but i think rewrite the stars is very revalink vibes

[skypalacearchitect]

can't believe there are still people out here in the year 2023 that genuinely think aang should have killed ozai

[sovpologist]

well i guess i might as well give my opinion, i feel like mara has been simultaneously out of character and sidelined this season and it was disappointing to me. i try not to get my hopes up but they marketed the season with a giant picture of her head and she's basically a power generator and crow's therapist this season. i feel like with seth dickinson gone no one really knows how to write her particular brand of "mean cunt but extremely loyal and with a soft spot for people she cares about" like this is NOT the mara sov i know... this is an imposter...

[astrolovecosmos]

Aries Moon cycles through different waves and bursts of passion.

Taurus Moon cycles may look more like routine or habit, a creature of comfort and contentment.

Gemini Moon cycles in eras of curiosity, excitement, and stale moments.

Cancer Moon cycles through vicious and deep emotions, to emotional enlightenment and contentment.

Leo Moon cycles through feelings of being invincible, fierce, confident, and/or proud to low, small, doubtful, and/or potentially even shameful.

Virgo Moon cycles through moments of focus, nervous or scattered energy, and potentially patience and impatience.

Libra Moon cycles through inner and/or emotional darkness and lightness, heaviness and carefree, unbalanced to balanced.

Scorpio Moon cycles through intense currents of emotions such as obsession, desire, sacrifice, empathy, vindictiveness, passion, wrath, and loyalty.

Sagittarius Moon cycles through feelings of wonderment and/or excitement, a strong inquisitiveness, maybe fanatic enthusiasm and then disappointment, disillusionment, and/or clarity, and then boldness, defiance, and/or rebellion.

Capricorn Moon cycles through feelings of negativity, harshness, and/or self-criticism and blame to hope and/or ambition, survival mode, or logic and level-headedness.

Aquarius Moon cycles through thoughts and feelings of appreciation and respect for others to detachment and even judgment. Can have conflicting emotional needs which cause more internal chaos than predictive cycles.

Pisces Moon cycles through intense empathy and concern for others to sensitive fantasies to surprising apathy, isolated suffering, or heavy guilt and self-blame.