#he was fun to design! wanted him to align with the rest of animal force while still being recognizable

[i-rolled-a-zero]

The hero the city never asked for: Iron Jaw!

With his mighty "Crocodile Tears" he can raise his strength and attack to do devastating damage!

[astro-break]

Quick first thoughts on the first ep of the Hypmic Anime. Spoilers beware (and im writing this as I watch so :p)

Otome’s speech is.... questionable from a persuasive point of view. Manga did a great job of introducing her (which you can read here) but they really cut out the more terrifying parts of her speech and how she uses force to show people that she's not to be messed with

Its cool seeing everyone in their respective environments though. thats cool. Though they could have added Sasara and Kuuko (shhh i know why they didn’t let me dream)

I love how poppy the typography is. Its amazing how the visuals just leap out at you. The OP does a great job of this. The first few seconds before the title really gives me Persona 4 OG OP vibes with the influx of information given. The rest is a clear concise and streamlined way that still gives character. Animation is sparse but still carries across a general idea of each character and shows off each character object. Rendering is really nice and pays a bit of homage to the posing artwork thats done for the MVs. They also do their division hand signals and thats cute

Love how the OP has blatant HifuDoppo and DRB matchup foreshadowing

so far I really like what theyre going for. BB is about brotherly familial bonds and they show the goods and the bads. Jiro and Saburo bickering right out the gate really cements the fact that they get along like cats and dogs but you can still see that they love each other, working together when the situation calls for it

Now the 3d models. Theyre... not great but usable if you don’t look too hard. They serve their purpose and don’t actively detract from the viewing experience.

Visual typography in the rap itself are fun and poppy but they dont.... speak to me? like theyre there yes and I appreciate them but the only ones that got me excited were from Ichiro’s rap

I take my words back the group portion was kickass and I apologize

I love how they interpret the Hypnosis Speakers though. Esp. Saburo’s organs. That was super creative and I love it! If there was one thing that I felt was missing from the franchise was a deeper exploration of the speakers but the anime puts a new and fresh spin on it! Love it, especially with their attack patterns!

If the production team ever feels inclined to, Id love to see those info sheets on Otome’s desk released. There seems to be very interesting info and stats written out about each member (like capabilities, personal status etc.) They all seem unique too so I really really really hope they release images of those sheets

OOOOOOOOKAY MTC. I have such a big biased for them so Im very torn to see what unfolds

Rio striking out on his own is interesting. Out of everyone in MTC hes the biggest team player yet here he trusts his teammates to go ahead. This either displays Rio’s willingness to trust his teammates or it becomes very OOC if the anime wants to set him up as a lone wolf like character

I love how they specify its a drug deal. It means that Jyuto surely will show up and it also shows that Samatoki knows Jyuto’s motives and willingly gives black market info that he knows aligns with Jyuto’s goal. Thats A+ detail writing there and a great establishing characteristic for both of them

OOohhhhhhhhhhhhh man Asunama-san’s voice acting is god tier his work as Samatoki is phenomenal. He pulls of Samatoki’s threatening voice so well with those almost calm words before his voice becomes loud and confrontational. Those rolling syllables in contrast to Komada-san’s almost lyrical and airy speech and Kamio-san’s strict and enunciated words is such a delight to hear. It just speaks to how amazing and great these Seiyuu’s are in order to pull of such amazing work

Im so biased but MTC has such a better rap than BB im so sorry. Just by watching Samatoki’s part, the imagery is amazing. Even the arrival of his Hypnosis Speaker was awesome and sent a shiver down my spine. using the lyrics to form blades and blood was such a great thing to do. Theres so much more variety that just him standing there and shots of his hypnosis speaker. The old fashioned vignette shots, the four panel spread, the nods to old Kurosawa era films are great and I love these small details. Even the typography looks better.

Again, the interpretations with the speakers is fresh and new. Its great and I love the different imagery and attack patterns. Each one is so unique but carries across each different style of rap.

The 3d modles aren’t any better tho lol

(Hi this is Astro who is reading over their assessment again and making a note. Yeah I’m a bit harsh on BB’s rap. I’m not going to change it since I still stand by it and this post is supposed to be a documentation of my first impressions. I think one of the reasons why I’m so harsh on BB is because of their dynamic as a trio of brothers. They Have to have a more uniform approach than the other divisions. Which in of itself isn’t a terrible thing, it just doesn’t catch my eye as much as MTC did. Thats all! I definitely don’t hate BB, they’re maybe my 3rd favorite division out of the current lineup [not including TDD era teams like Kujaku Posse, MCD, and Naughty Busters] its just that their rap was pretty meh)

Samatoki crouching like a real gangstar and the cigarette kiss killed me

sadjkhfjkasdghsadjkcsdjhsdfsjhf im dying i love these trio of dumbasses so uch oh y fod someone save me aaaaaaaa (Astro note here! yeah i died when the jyuto and samatoki’s stomach growled im weak please. Samatoki’s face is just so precious and funny I might set it as a profile pic somewhere)

But also my initial assessment of Rio possibly being characterized as a lone wolf is very much jossed and im very thankful for that. It seems that Rio was simply trusting his teammates to carry out their part of the plan while he carried out his own. I like that, it really shows how much of a team these three are and that they genuinely trust each other. He’s also comfortable enough around them to invite them to dinners after work casually and not just for special occasions.

I really love MTC guys

Oooh! we get Ramuda on his design process which is really cute. the inside of his studio is super cute and retro and i love it. the poppy old music you would hear in a cafe or 90′s resturaunt is also really cute (astro note: yeah i know that in ARB you see the interior of Ramuda’s office but its kinda different seeing it animated)

the translation i have has gentaro speaking in early modern english (Shakespearian english for those who aren’t english nerds like me) but from what I can hear, he doesn’t speak in a particularly old fashioned way? Its more formal than old? and hes speaking without any of his character persona lying thing that he likes to do (as he refers to himself as “Shousei” throughout the segment where hes in Ramuda’s office which is kind of his default pronoun of choice). so its kinda odd for the translation to go in that direction but im not complaining

Gendice banter is gold but it feels... flat? a little? it doesn’t have the same impact as in the drama cds or in the manga? i feel? Also Ramuda using gratuitous english is??? idk how to feel about that

kjshf thats against the rules Ramuda omgggg,,,,,,,, (astro note again: while watching i was under the assumption that using your hypmic for monetary gain such a as buskering [which is what FP is doing] is against the rules. May not be the case but whatever)

FP’s rap might be my favorite in terms of tune and lyrics though. It’s a nice laid back bop and really gives of chill vibes. the integration of 3d and 2d is really nice and i love how they play off each other in the rap. The wordplay is so fun with little nods here and there and the beat is poppy too so it really energizes me.

Ramuda’s rap concerns me slightly since he makes very subtle and small nods towards his past (being created in a laboratory, warfare, and his overall very unpleasant life experiences) but spins it into something cutesy. It could be a coping mechanism, it could be me overthinking it. But it does make me worry a bit. Gentaro and Dice’s rap really play off each other with Gentaro sticking to stories and Dice taking up the baton by carrying on that same imagery but putting his own spin on it.

the self awareness of how scattered they are as a team is interesting though. It doesn’t seem like something you’d speak about in a rap? but i guess since its not really a do or die situation they can afford to be looser on things like this.

Right off the bat, i don’t like how they handled Hifumi and Doppo in relation to Hifumi’s fear of women. Slug made a post once talking about this and I echo many of his sentiments. Hypmic has never been very tactful about tackling this particular issue and while I didn’t have high hopes that the anime would be any better it hurts to see Doppo take away the one thing that allows Hifumi to function within society.

Doppo’s breakdown mirrors a lot of my own mental state when I spiral though its shown a lot quicker than what happens to me oof. that hits close to home. though Jakurai’s advice is. Questionable. Its not the best advice to give to someone but we have no idea what kind of doctor Jakurai is so ill let it slide

Jakurai’s pose looks like hes going to do a mahou shoujou transformation lmao

I don’t have many thoughts about the rap though again. How they visualize the rap is interesting. the different imagery is quite interesting for each of them and the typography is nice a distinct but im still on the fence about the visuals here

The sound is in the same boat. The sound effects either drown out the rap or are too quet but some parts are nice at least. When they talk about Tokyo’s beating heart, the heartbeat sound is a but distracting especially since its only played once. But the imagery is at least nice

I wonder if for the eds they’re going to take a similar approach to what Enstars did and have a four different endings, one for each division. I love the blend of styles here and it really accentuates that although they’re different they mesh well together.

Ramuda’s silhouette though is hilarious. Love it.

:p and thats it. Uh not bad for a first episode. Established all 12 characters really nicely and their dynamics. I had some problems with it but then again nothing is perfect. I look forward to what they show us next week

[nowis-scales]

Pre-Verdant Wind Endgame Update

An Update on the ol’ Three Houses Verdant Wind playthrough, since I’ve been neglecting documenting my journey properly for a bit:

• My current placement is Ch.20, so I’m only a few chapters away from the last one. It’s kind of a weird thought because I feel like I just hit the timeskip, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will feel well-paced out. In terms of writing, I’m known for being a bit of a stickler for good flow. It’s why all of my fanfics take so long to update! I have to make sure my flow is perfect.

• The fact that they have been giving background information on characters has been so amazing. Learning that Raphael’s sister’s name was Maya and getting to hear about her has made me irrationally happy.

• Also, just generally, holy shit people sleep on Raphael and Leonie. Raphael often gets shoved to the side, and Leonie is treated like her only trait is liking Jeralt, and for me it all just culminates in the question of “so did you like... not do their support conversations, or...?” Seriously. I think Leonie might be one of my favourites in the game so far, and I adore Raph. He’s so sweet!

• The Flame Emperor reveal for some reason gave me “and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids” vibes. I liked the venom Cherami Leigh had there as Rhea, too. I think I read from someone that in Japanese, Rhea’s actually super calm in that scene. I don’t think I have a preference towards the anger or the calmness, honestly. I think I just liked how smoothly the emotion came across. Plus, I’m a little biased, I’m fond of Cherami as an actress. I haven’t found a performance from her I haven’t enjoyed yet.

• I was really confused as to why Seteth showed up in my house after Chapter 12ish I think? I wasn’t expecting him to just be there after the paralogue, but I definitely wasn’t unhappy. I do like him! I just never use him, because I recruited Bernadetta and Sylvain, so I kinda have a full roster going... 

• I was also confused in the Gronder Field fight because I couldn’t see what people meant about Bernie getting set on fire. Then I remembered Bernie wasn’t on the hill because she was with me. I recruited her. Whatever this proves about me, I don’t know.

• I did end up beating Marianne’s paralogue! It actually wasn’t as hard once I levelled her up a bit and classed her to a Holy Knight. The big thing with her in that paralogue seems to be that she needs a decent amount of power and movement to really get by, so that’s what I’d recommend for anyone else playing it. Using rescue will also probably help you out, but I tried to avoid using Flayn there because it’s kinda easy to kill her. 

• Admittedly, I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the support system. In some ways, I think it’s better that not everybody has that forced S-Support. Oftentimes we were either squeezing a love confession out of two characters who were unlikely to have one, or characters with decent potential might get snubbed because their connection was less apparent to the writers (and unfortunately that still does happen in the case of same sex S-supports in 3H). Having the conversations only go to a certain point is helpful, but at the same time, the inherent romantic undertones of several of the A-supports do make things feel strange. If it weren’t for the fact that I know characters can have only one partner as their paired ending, I would think lots of them were in a polycule. Nothing wrong with that as long as everyone’s comfortable, but because I know they can only have one person in their ending, I find it pretty jarring.

• I think it was interesting that they went to do the fights for breaking into Enbarr and then taking down Edelgard back-to-back. I’m glad they did, honestly, because while I don’t usually like to do two fights next to each other unless I’m grinding, it doesn’t mess with the suspension of disbelief. It would be stupid to break into Enbarr and then just run right back to the Monastery.

• I have still not completed the randomized quest from just after the timeskip. You know, the one I was yelling about with the weeds? Still haven’t gotten any weeds. I think I might just have to give up on it. It’s hilarious that my luck is so good that it’s actually bad.

• The fact that Byleth is praised for having more of a personality than Corrin is the biggest slice of bullshit I have heard from this fanbase in a long time. Byleth is literally designed to be a silent protagonist with nothing going on with them – they even came up with a story reason for why Byleth is such a blank sack of meat! In the kindest way possible, I don’t think most people realize that they are implementing whatever personality they want onto Byleth. Personally, I don’t find anything relatable about being stoic, calm, and not inclined to anyone (until plot happens, of course). I’ve always been the overly enthusiastic and caring type, with a tendency towards nervousness. Trying to relate to Byleth was like trying to relate to the experiences of a cactus. While I definitely don’t think Corrin is the strongest of the modern FE avatars – that award goes to Robin – they still had some things I could understand and relate to. If you’re not the type of person who loves the cool, “I fight for my friends” types like Ike, though, you’re likely to have a hard time relating to Byleth. If you can manage that type of character, then you’re more likely to have present them with a personality of their own.

• Actually, while we’re on the topic of Byleth getting praised for things Corrin got dragged for, the fact that Corrin is still cited as the character who receives the most “player pandering” is ridiculous too. Do a lot of characters like Corrin? Yeah! But most of them who do are deeply traumatized in a way that inclines them specifically towards Corrin. The Nohr siblings cling to each other due to their abusive childhood, the Hoshido siblings all in some capacity seem to suffer from abandonment issues (oldest) and/or attachment issues (youngest), and the official foursome of retainers have also had some sort of abandonment struggle in their past (forced separation from parents, murdered loved ones). While the cast of Three Houses needs therapy and is traumatized too, there is no reason why the inclination moves towards Byleth. Bernadetta feels safe around them just because. Edelgard is obsessed with them just because. Marianne learns to feel better about herself just because. Why are there so many exceptions for Byleth, and so many just without explanation? I don’t hate Byleth by any means, but these two things make my opinion of them lower than it would be otherwise. It kinda sucks that my image of Byleth is tainted by the fanbase’s hypocrisy, but I know I can’t have everything.

• The gameplay overall for 3H has been pretty fun! I love the addition of the Demonic Beasts, as annoying as they are to fight. There’s a charm to having some of your stronger units working to take on the soldiers blocking the path, meanwhile your army’s more intermediate strikeforce works to keep them safe by bringing down the beast. Once you get the hang of it, gameplay with the new additions is fun. The only thing I don’t use is Divine Pulse, but that’s because I’m on Casual and usually when I want to rewind, I want to just plain start over. So I use the old “turn off and start again” trick.

• Edelgard’s death scene was actually pretty good. I must confess that I went out of my way to avoid Edelgard in the academy phase, as I knew how hard the game was going to hit me with the “she’s obessed with you” thing and I wanted to see how wonky it would feel if I didn’t speak to her much. I was right that it’s incredibly awkward in terms of writing when you haven’t spent the time with her, but surprisingly, her death scene still holds up. Good voice acting, animation, and music. My only beef with it is something they have done in FE before, and it’s something I wish they’d stop. If a character is dying, you either let them have a few last breaths after their last lines or you kill them mid-sentence. It’s probably just a personal nitpick, but hearing them get their last word out without struggle and then immediately die just makes me aware of how badly the directors wanted the whole line to be in there. I can totally understand it but I find it so troublesome in the grand scheme of things that I just can’t.

• I also like that in the fight against Edelgard, they tried to make it ambiguous who had the key. Immediately as it told me that, I decided it was Petra and ended up being right. I was kind of sad to kill her though, to be honest. I don’t know her well, but she’s probably one of the Eagles I like more.

• The fight against the Death Knight at Fort Merceus ended up being surprisingly pretty easy. In fact, while I paved the way for most of my army, Nader ended up making it to the Death Knight just as Claude did. He did most of the damage – I’m not kidding, the Death Knight was down to 1 HP – and then Claude took care of the rest. It was a weird fight. They said impregnable a lot leading up to it.

• I understand why they kill Dimitri off-screen at the Gronder Field fight, but I was admittedly a bit disappointed. Again, Salli Saffoti does a good job doing Hilda’s voice for it, but I would have liked to see it animated. It was also nice to have that little rapport with Dedue! If only we could have allied with the Lions a bit more. Everyone always says Claude and Edelgard have similar goals; however, it’s their methods that differ. Claude seems to align himself a bit closer to Dimitri, so I’m usually a bit confused by the idea that Edelgard and Claude would work together. I was spoiled on enough to know her background and story, and even so, I think that her methodology is just a bit too violent for his tastes. But that’s just my two cents.

 Alright. I think that’s about all I can drain out of my brain from the top of my head. With that, I am off to kill the slithers! We’ll see how this goes. Wish me luck!

[nyeh-sureiguess]

CB Theory: Aku Aku’s Guardianship (and the Brothers’ Human Past)

Out of all the characters in the Crash Bandicoot series, I've always found myself drawn towards Aku Aku and Uka Uka respectively. Not only for their unique designs, characterization, and outright whimsical concept (the spirits of two recognized witch doctors immortalized through floating wooden masks? Sign me up!) - but also for the possibilities their characters open up within the franchise's lore.

Below would be one of those possibilities that I like to theorize about; the very reason why Aku Aku devotes himself to protecting our little orange marsupial alongside the archipelago they reside in.

As a disclaimer, I'd like to state that what I'm about to describe will all be grounded in fiction (we're talking about a denim pants-wearing bandicoot around here) and are purely on headcanon territory. I'll be tackling some massive "what if" scenarios that have little to no evidence canonically but are fun to think of personally.

With that out of the way, allow me to go on a full-on I'm-desperate-for-more-lore-and-overall-content-of-these-masks-and-therefore-I'm-making-this-up-as-I-go-to-satisfy-those-needs ramble.

Let's start with Aku Aku. He's a being of high intellect, for sure - usually filling in the role of an advisor to the rest of the characters when they find themselves faced with tricky situations. This aspect of his could only be rivaled by his power, as he not only grants protection to other beings when summoned but has also shown the capability of sealing other mystical entities (such as his brother) away when he sensed that the world would be in peril otherwise.

So with these in mind, why in the world would he go and devote his guardianship role to Crash? The dude's another failed animal experiment from none other than Dr. Cortex; someone who had been planning a worldwide takeover for god-knows how long. Surely with how ancient Aku Aku is portrayed to be, he would have some previous experience encountering Cortex's other specimens (Ripper Roo, Dingodile, Pinstripe- you name that boss battle) and know of how dangerous they are. Heck, Crash himself is unpredictable right from the get-go. His life cycle had only just started by the time he had washed up on the beach and his first-ever conscious decisions are to flail around, breaking boxes and any enemies that happen to cross his path. Sure, he has a good heart. That's something that we come to know throughout the game, as he actively goes out of his way to choose the greater good and stop Cortex from fulfilling his evil plots. But something like that requires the luxury of time that Aku Aku didn't have when Crash decided to spin right into one of his crates on that fateful day.

So what was Aku Aku's thought process upon meeting the bandicoot and deciding to be his protector?

I like to think that it was first out of obligation. Aku Aku's crates seemed to exist alongside the others found within the island, far before Crash had come into contact with any of them. Perhaps - when his spirit was first incarnated into the mask, he made it so that any living creature in dire need could summon him when needed (even if this proved to be a little impractical, given how rarely any of the other creatures break his boxes). So that takes care of their meeting encounter on the beachside in the first game and one could even argue that this logic stretches into the second game, given his absence from the bandicoot duo.

What I'm far more interested in would be the reason why he stays in the third game and beyond.

We're talking about an all-powerful being here who could travel anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye (and even across universes, taking Twinsanity into account), and for whatever reason, he decides to stay with the bandicoots in their own household, watching over them even as they do something as mundane as figuring out new yoyo tricks and watching Uncharted 4 on their laptops.

So why?

To answer that, I have to take a moment to talk about an aspect in Aku Aku's life that we all barely know about: his human incarnation. He couldn't have been a magical floating mask for the entirety of his life, after all. So let's say that centuries ago, he was the witch doctor of one of the tribes on the archipelago, appointed by the chief leader to be at his side and care for the rest of their people. A powerful yet humble witch doctor, at that, as he would never abuse his power for the sake of self-gain. Let's say that - aside from his position in the tribe, he lived a relatively normal life and even had a family to care for, including his twin brother, Uka Uka, who had also been a witch doctor in their village (but we'll get to his part later down the lane).

Let's say that - one day, Aku Aku's wife bears a child. Someone to help carry on their legacy of practicing medicinal magic, ideally. But the child themselves is born with mental disabilities, ones that have shown to only worsen as they grew up. The child found it difficult to communicate properly, to control their movements outside of impulse, and with the limited resources their world was faced with at that time, no one in the tribe seemed to understand what was wrong. Aku Aku would try his hardest; trying to use his magical abilities to help the child in any way he could in hopes of "fixing" him and finding himself at a loss whenever he was unable to.

Now here enters Uka Uka.

I imagine him to be the more practical of the two, wanting things done immediately even if it entails harsher, extreme means. He was matched with his twin brother in terms of their magical prowess, with the difference between them being his lack of empathy towards others. He seems like the type to charge the tribal folk with favors in exchange for his services, that coupled with his malicious demeanor being the reason why the chief hadn't appointed him as the witch doctor of the tribe despite being on par with his brother. This event struck jealousy within him, soon spiraling into an unquenchable need to knock his brother off his perch at every opportunity he got in order to show who the better between them truly was.

That child was his opportunity - because if there's one thing that Uka Uka was also good at, it's making people believe every word he said, as ill-intended as it were.

Uka Uka claimed that the child's behavior was the result of the ancients cursing their family bloodline, aligning his statements with spiritual beliefs that the people of the tribe shared. He linked the ancients' frustration to his brother, saying how they were being punished for how unworthy Aku Aku was to handle such a high-stakes position and even citing instances of the other's failures in saving lives (as he often spent too much time trying to work around the use of force and violence). He further claimed that the curse could be spread across the entire village unless the source itself was purged, that of, the child.

Aku Aku was outright against the notion, still holding onto the belief that he would one day be able to cure the young one of their problems. But it was already too late then; his brother's words had naturally stricken fear into the hearts of the rest of their people, and it was out of their own selfish greed that they pushed for the child to be executed in order to free their village from the wrath of the ancients. It came down to the point that Aku Aku found himself helpless as the chief took the matter into his own hands, having no other choice but to follow through with Uka Uka's theory in a means to appease the restless people.

This was the breaking point in the twin brothers' relationship. The grief of losing a loved one so unfairly made something snap in the witch doctor that day, the result of which being an all-out battle between the two. With how evenly-matched they were, however, the battle had only succeeded in slowing draining each other of their energy until they both reached their final breath. In was in that very breath that they had used the remainder of their powers to seal their souls away into the mask forms, allowing their spirits to live forever and their fight to continue on for the centuries to come. Aku Aku later found the redundancy in fighting and decided to lock his brother away in the temple, keeping his malice hidden away from the world (insert his speech at the beginning of Warped here. His fear of his brother's return stems from how he's well aware of the lengths Uka Uka would go to achieve ultimate power - meaning that countless of innocent lives could be lost in the process).

That brings us back to the main concern of why Aku Aku decides to stay with the bandicoots.

I'd like to imagine that, to some degree, Crash reflects some similar characteristics of that child Aku Aku lost all those years ago. From his inability to properly communicate (outside of actions and limited words and sounds) to even the childlike innocence of the mutant when looking past his chaotic exterior. He learned from his previous mistake of trying to fix the little one of his faults and found value in just being with him; accompanying him along his journey of righting Cortex's wrongs and slowly adapting to the unique way Crash acted (which could lead to why he's shown to understand Crash's gibberish throughout the years).

In doing so, Aku Aku was not only providing the world's only hero with the necessary means and power of stopping an evil scheme - but was also hoping to fulfill his role as a fatherly figure; something that he had once failed to do years ago.

TL;DR: Aku Aku decides to be Crash's guardian as the bandicoot reflects the behaviors of a son he had lost back in his human life due to Uka Uka's doings.

[youreawizardharr]

Cradlesona Event: School Days AU

[the image used can be sourced here.]

Welcome to Milreth

Name: Milreth Academy

Location: Central Quarter

Emblem: Two Staffs Clashing

Motto: "Ever Progressing."

Headmaster: William Latton

Academy Hours: 7:30 a.m - 4:30 p.m

Office Hours: 6:20 a.m - 6:20 p.m

Lunch Hour: 12:30 p.m - 1:15 p.m

┈     ┈     ┈     ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟     ┈     ┈     ┈

My piece for the Cradlesona AU event

Tagging: @lovingsiriusoswald

The uniform below can be found right here.

The uniform Eirene has worn since she attended Milreth Academy as a first year student. She always wears the jacket during class hours, and takes it off during breaks.

┈     ┈     ┈     ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟     ┈     ┈     ┈

"Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird,

That cannot fly."

Basic Information

Name: Eirene Beverly Chapman

Age: 20

Date of Birth: July 9th

Bloodtype: AB

Gender: Female

Height: 5'3"

Weight: 127lbs

Occupation(s): The Classicists

Affiliation(s): Milreth Academy

Alignment: Neutral Good

Item(s): a lanyard with her student ID

Academic Information

Year at Milreth Academy: Second Year

Academic Club: House of Arts

Choice of Course: Art & Design

Major: Fine & Studio Arts

Degree Needed: Master's Degree

The Overview: The coursework of a studio and fine art degree typically focuses on the branch of art students choose, such as painting, sculpture, illustration, animation or performance.

Favorite Subject(s):

Reading

History

Literature

Language Arts

Least Favorite Subject(s):

Mathematics

Science

Grade Point Average: 3.8

Academic Credits: 390

Studying Habits:

Eirene prefers a quiet enviroment to study for exams, complete homework or class assignments, practicing with drawing on paper, painting illustrations.

She sometimes organizes study sessions for upcoming exams or class projects (to which she deems important for social interactions, boosts friendships, and helps others in areas they have a harder time with). Eirene usually studies with almost everyone, but studies with Harr and Loki mostly.

Eirene has an exceptional memory, so she doesn't have to write down everything she needs to do or to get.

Her sleep schedule varies at nighttime, mostly because of projects, assignments, writing essays, or exams.

She makes sure to eat healthier snacks.

Student History:

Eirene received a perfect attendance award for never missing a day, or being marked as tardy for being late to class.

A painting she did of the garden in the Civic Center was auctioned at a museum for an extremely high price.

She has wrote several short stories which were published and sold at bookstores across the Central Quarter.

Student Life:

Eirene doesn't have much of a social life, meaning she isn't the partying type, and likes to spend her time wisely by being productive than some of her friends.

She loves going to Milreth's enormous library, but avoids the cafe because it gets overly crowded during exam days.

Eirene enjoys taking long walks or jogging along Milreth's huge courtyard.

Whenever inspiration strikes, she loves drawing, writing, or painting whatever it is that catches her interest. Eirene usually submits these pieces for classes.

┈     ┈     ┈     ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟     ┈     ┈     ┈

Relationships

Harr Silver ;

Harr is a third year student at Milreth Academy. However, he and Eirene are taking two completely different courses. With Eirene having chosen art & design, majoring in fine and studio art, where as he's taking a course on engineering, majoring in architecture. The two are constantly busy, but always find the time to spend together.

Eirene leans forward, continuing to run the tips of her fingers through black tresses. "Hey, Harr?" Her inquiry is murmurered, but the man in question hears her, humming to confirm he heard her. "Want to come over for a study session? You can bring Loki along, if you feel uncomfortable being alone with me." Harr opens his visible eye, staring up at his girlfriend of two years. "W-What do you need help with?" He looks away from her, a blush blossoming onto his face. "Are you having problems with math again, Eirene?"

She stops playing with his hair to stroke his reddening cheek. "You know I've never been particularly talented with mathematics, Harr. But you seem to have no issues with figuring out complicated math problems, am I right?"

The third year student sat up, shifting to address his lover. "I can help you in areas you have the most trouble with. If I have issues with drawing and maping things out, I know you will help me. We balance eachoth--- Eirene cuts him off, pressing her lips against his. Pulling away, she smiles happily. "You know I'll do anything for you, right, Harr?"

Loki Genetta ;

Loki is a first year student at Milreth Academy. He decided to take a course on business, majoring in business management & administration, minoring business sales. Loki wanted to take a course on business, so that he can work closely with Harr. Hoping that, when the two of them graduate, they can open up their own business in Cradle.

Eirene and Loki always hang out together on weekends or through group study sessions. If Harr is too busy, Loki will help Eirene with her standardized homework, and even allows her to practice drawing illustrations of him and watch her paint them, afterward.

Loki procrastinates completing his work alot of the time, making Harr lecture him about the importance of his education and that working hard will pay off once he graduates, even reminding Loki about them opening their own business in the Central Quarter, which inspires Loki to complete his work.

"Loki, have you completed your homework?" Harr inquired the pink haired teen, scrubbing a filthy dish with a soapy sponge. "Have you even started your class project? You know, your paper is due next week." Loki silently toys around with his unfinished dinner, causing the tips of the fork to scrap against the glass. "Eirene is writing my paper. And before you start nagging, she offered to write it for me. She said she wanted to practice writing, so I agreed in exchange for doing her math homework for her. I hate writing, you know that. I believe this is fair."

Harr rinces the plate once he finished scrubbing, setting it down in the dish rack. "Your education is important. I've told you this countless times. Both of you should be doing the work yourselves, so that you can learn to accomplish in areas you're weak in." The third year student grabs another plate to scrub. "Do you want to open up a business with me once you graduate from the academy?" Loki stood up from the table to scrap leftover food into the trash with his fork. "I do want to open up a business with you, Harr. I thought this course would be fun, but it's not fun. There's too much work involved." A sigh escapes from Harr. "Loki, you have to work for what you want. Life isn't going to hand everything to you. If you want to open up a business with me, work hard to achieve it. I will support your dream."

Loki ran up the stairs to his room, the sound of the door slamming shut echoing throughout the house. Harr returns to washing the rest of the dishes, making a mental note to lecture Eirene at a later date.

Seth Hyde ;

Seth is a third year student at Milreth Academy. He decided to take a course in art & design, majoring in fashion & apparel design. He wants to be a fashionista, and expand his experience in the fashion industry of Cradle. Seth is confident in his ability to design fashion wear for women.

Eirene and Seth met by accident one afternoon (during break, to be more precise), becoming good friends with one another.

"You made a mistake." Eirene pointed out, gesturing toward the mistake Seth made. The man let out a shriek when he noticed the mistake. "How can this be?! I was certain I drew the curves correctly!" Smiling, Eirene takes the artbook from him, using her own pencil to erase the mistake and correct it. "No worries." She handed the drawing book back to him. "My name is Eirene Chapman."

He grins, placing the artbook down beside him. "My name is Seth Hyde. Want to be friends, Eirene? We can bond over artwork."

The two of them mostly hang out during breaks, sharing their drawing techniques, offering advice about improving styles, etc. Seth and Eirene brainstorm color palettes, and Seth watches Eirene paint his designs.

Jonah Clemence ;

Jonah is a third year student of Milreth Academy. He decided to take a course in art & design, majoring in drama & theater art. He's confident with his performances on the stage, and wants to be a famous, talented actor of Cradle. Eirene met Jonah when she was tasked to help set the stage for an upcoming event the academy planned for.

"This goes against my aesthetics." Jonah remarked, taking Eirene's artwork and throwing it on the floor of the stage. "Make it better." The second year student kept her mouth shut, feeling her eyes sting with unshed tears. Seth came up besides Eirene, picking up the scenery illustration she made. "What do you know about aesthetics, Cling of Hearts? I believe Ei did a fantastic job painting this piece. Do you know how many hours she's worked on it?" The fashion designer scolded the young actor. "Do you?"

The Queen of Hearts scoffed, regarding Seth with disdain. "No, but I don't care. Everything has to be perfect for this play, since I have the lead role. Second best is not an option."

Eirene forces a smile, reaching down to pick up an opened can of paint. "You think my work is second best? I put my heart into everything I draw, paint, and write. If you wanted someone better, then you shouldn't have wasted your time asking for MY help." She dumps all the paint on Jonah, throwing the can off to the side once there's nothing left, storming off the stage, leaving a shocked Seth and an angry Jonah behind.

[caffeineivore]

Spirits part next

R, Z, hints of R/J, A/Z, U/M.

**

The place they’d gone to had been reasonably priced and boasted a decent bottle selection. It was not the first time that Ember had seen Angela Schein since The Incident, but these girls’ nights out, such as they were, did not happen with great frequency either. Angela, married now and all but glowing with newlywed bliss, had been just as incandescently kind and pure-souled as ever, and they’d whiled away a happy enough hour over some small plates and small talk and wine-- an Argentinian Malbec for her, a Napa Valley Rosé for the blonde. Ember had then conscientiously seen Angela safely to her home, remembering the circumstances of their first meeting, before heading in the direction of Brooklyn herself.

Nothing is out of the ordinary until she is all but three blocks away from her building, but when it comes, the darkness rose with the speed and force of an eruption. She takes off at a run perhaps a split-second before the soft, ominous sounds of a scuffle even reached her ears.

Remember, little Firebird, bad things can happen to people on a quiet street anywhere in this city. It had been a lesson imparted upon her by her grandfather many decades ago, well before 9-11, or the Central Park Jogger case, or even the Son of Sam attacks. It had been cold comfort in the aftermath of some of the tragedies that she’d seen, and even now, though she knows, realistically, that there is no way to cheat fate, the black-fly buzz of impending catastrophe still fills her with knee-jerk anger and sorrow that will never be easy to shake. 

She hears a muffled argument in gutter Spanish-- no less furious for all it’s quiet-- before she even turns the corner, and then the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked, and her heart makes an uncomfortable leap to her throat. Nothing she has on her is powerful enough to stop death in its tracks.

But then, as though out of nowhere, not one but three police vehicles barrel down the street, flashing lights and blaring sirens as they head directly towards where the argument started off. Two cruisers, followed by a burly SUV from the K-9 unit, converge onto the alley, and perhaps in fear or perhaps in a pragmatic desire for survival, two dark-clad figures run off from the scene before any shots can be fired. 

She cautiously makes her way down the street, towards the cluster of police vehicles, and much to her surprise, the door of the K-9 vehicle opens, something sleek and sharp-muzzled jumping out. But where she might have expected a brawny Malinois or German Shepherd on a leash, she gets the immediate impression of something smaller but wilder-- vulpine, before it morphs right in front of her eyes into a man, sleekly handsome with long, curling hair the dusky blonde of old gold. Ember is sure her shock is registered on her face, but the man smiles, peridot-green eyes lighting up in friendly recognition. “Well met at long last, milady.” Silent and fleet, he crosses the street in a blink, and takes her hand in both of his, laying a kiss on the knuckles in a gesture that should have by all rights been sleazy rather than gracious. “I’m Zhen. A friend of Jareth’s, if you will.”

“Oh.” Ember relaxes, looking up into the man’s stunning face. All fox spirits, regardless of gender or clan or alignment, are known for their beauty, and this one is no exception. She knows of him-- a finance wizard, as befits his kin’s affinity for acquisition and illusion-- but had she not known his chosen vocation, she would have expected a visage such as his to grace a Milan runway. “Well. Thanks for the...” She gestures vaguely at the alley where the cluster of police cars had been parked, only to realize, belatedly, that they’d disappeared without a trace. Her eyes narrow-- even distracted, she should have noticed them vanishing into thin air.

His smile morphs into a grin full of fun and mischief. “I could be a hell of a stage magician, don’t you think? Like Harry Houdini and David Copperfield and Criss Angel all rolled into one but better-looking.” The statement incites a scoff and an eye-roll, as it is meant to, and he lets go of her hand, and a bit of the animal hypnotism lets off with the release of skin on skin contact. 

“What were you doing here?” It’s the question that she finally settles on asking first. It is perhaps just a coincidence that they were both present when the shooting would have gone down. Or perhaps not. His aura is colourful and chaotic like an abstract pop art on a spiritual canvas, but she senses no malevolence. 

“My lovely one is working late tonight, leaving me to my own devices, so I was visiting one of my favourite places, earlier.” He names a quaint little 24-hour cafe within walking distance that had been opened only six months ago but was already quite popular with the locals for their buttery scones and their exquisitely smooth espresso. “And then I decided to take a walk. And I happened upon that situation just at the same time as you, so I think I deserve another scone. Or six. You should come. My treat.”

He reaches for her hand again, gives it a tug, and now more aware of it, she feels the whisper of suggestion like the glide of cashmere against her skin, warm and with just the slightest bit of friction. More to make a better acquaintance of this adroit creature than for the promise of treats, she lets herself be guided towards the cafe. Within short order, they’re seated at one of the tiny round tables, with a plate of scones glossy with butter and flecked with orange zest in front of them next to a traditional duo of strawberry preserves and clotted cream. Zhen buys himself an espresso but Ember opts for jasmine green tea. It’s good-quality and gently fragrant, not steeped too long or hot. Zhen helps himself to a scone, then another, with an almost-childlike enthusiasm, and she leaves him to it. An illusion the scope of which he’d conjured takes more than a little skill, a little energy. 

Three scones in, he takes a luxuriant sip of espresso and wipes his lips with a napkin. “Ah. So much deliciousness. I do hate being hungry, don’t you?” Not waiting in particular for her to respond, he leans back in his chair, eyes sharp and alert. “I suppose you’ll want to know what I’m doing here, in a more grand scheme of things than just Brooklyn at half-past ten at night.”

“I can figure that out on my own, but it wouldn’t be polite to pry without your knowledge and consent,” Ember answers, glancing at his hands for a moment before looking back up into his face. “I don’t really like to-- intrude, if you will-- unless I have to, or I am invited.”

“I can see why Jareth adores you so,” Zhen beams with the power of a high-powered halogen lamp. “But in answer to your question, I followed a man here. He did me a good turn once, and I have guarded him, since. We might be a mischievous and occasionally temperamental lot, but we’re loyal to those who come to our aid. And he did just get married-- to a lovely young lady. I blessed them with long life and prosperity, of course. As one does.”

“So you’re here to inquire about a wedding.”

“She’s like a sister to me.”

Another beautiful, long-lived man. Another inquiry about a wedding over a cup of tea. It’s like a puzzle piece which has fallen into place, and she can see the implications like spider-silk outlined in dew, reaching elusively out in all directions. The thoughts of what this portends for the future, though, fills her with trepidation. Where there is great good, there will always be great evil to challenge it. Despair follows triumph like night follows day...

Zhen must sense something of her distress, because he reaches over, pours her another cup of tea. His hypnotic eyes meet hers over the curling steam. “They’re safe, you know.” He does not clarify whether he is talking about the mortal couple, Adam and Angela, or the rest of the world as they know it, and the oblivious people who inhabit it. “Why, we would never have met, otherwise. And you seem almost as fabulous a personage as me, so wouldn’t that be a pity?”

The remark is flippant and designed to make her chuckle, and works as it is intended to do. But it also reminds Ember of the last part of that fateful Tarot card reading she’d done for Jareth, only a few months ago-- had it been less than a mere year that she’d known him?-- and the last few cards he’d pulled. The King and Queen of Wands, the High Priestess and the Magician. She’d known, in some sense, that he’d become important to her, but not the depth and scope of it. In a mere change of seasons, she’d entrusted more of herself and her heart into another’s hands for safekeeping than she ever had in several centuries of living. She glances again at the man across from the table, with his clever hands and mesmerizing gaze. His illusions and charms. Jareth’s agility and bow, the support of his kin. The primordial nature magic of the Iele and the strength of the Stone-Hewn. There were bound to be others she’d yet to meet. It would be the most powerful, diverse convergence of immortals that she-- and perhaps they, too-- had ever seen. 

She lets out a breath in a long, shaky exhale and picks up her tea. Life and fate came with no guarantees, but she could always hope. And whatever battles may come, she’d never have to face alone, again. 

[scoutception]

Megami Tensei review: The Demon’s Souls to SMT

Shin Megami Tensei is one of the largest JRPG franchises to ever exist, spinning off into several branches such as Demon Summoner, Devil Survivor, and, of course, Persona. It regularly deconstructs the conflict of order vs chaos, the idea of using dangerous creatures as minions in combat, and just how ideal attempting to forge your own, separate path could actually end up. It's also usually extremely difficult and depressing, and God regularly being a jerk makes it unsurprising that it took about 2 decades for the franchise to actually gain a presence outside of Japan. While they’re regularly localized nowadays, many games still remain very obscure, including entire series branches. As someone who plays way more games from series he likes than he should, I’m going back to the very, very beginning of the entire franchise, before even the original Shin Megami Tensei: to the original Megami Tensei, or, more specifically, the SNES remake of Megami Tensei 1 and 2, made after the original SMT released.

Story

As inventive as SMT is, some of its main concepts weren’t of Atlus’ own invention. The original Megami Tensei was actually based on a (rather obscure) trilogy of Japanese novels, Digital Devil Story. The trilogy follows Akemi Nakajima, the reincarnation of Izanagi who invents a program that can summon demons, and Yumiko Shirasagi, his love interest and the reincarnation of Izanami, and their struggles against the demons that are unleashed the human world as a result, such as Loki, Set, and even Lucifer himself. The novels were about as depressing as many of the SMT games, with the ending of the third novel especially being about as bad as some of the worst endings throughout the games, and, as mentioned, invented many of the iconic SMT concepts, such as the COMP, using demons as minions, even the large presence of specific demons such as Cerberus and Lucifer. In fact, Megami Tensei (apparently) means goddess resurrection, referring to Izanami and Yumiko.

Quite a lot of information about a game that barely even has a story. Megami Tensei 1 was actually developed before the third novel was actually released, and thus has its own separate, and incompatible, story, though the development team seems to have at least known the general concept to it. The story is about a demonic palace that rises over the the tomb of Izanami, ruled by Lucifer, who has captured Izanami and plans to conquer the human world with the demonic legions within the palace, including a resurrected Loki and Set. Thus, Nakajima and Yumiko enter the palace to defeat Lucifer. That, about covers all the plot the game has to offer, though the ending contains a few hints of something greater I shall address in my review of the sequel.

Gameplay

Megami Tensei 1 is a dungeon craweler, and a rather revolutionary one at that. You progress through the various different areas of the palace, fighting off the various demons within and defeating Lucifer’s lieutenants, the Minotaur, Medusa, Loki, Hecate, and Set, before fighting Lucifer himself. What made this game stand out was its demon recruitment system. Normally, Nakajima and Yumiko are the only party members you have. Nakajima is physically based, though he also possesses the COMP, used to analyze enemies and summon recruited demons, while Yumiko is magically based, and has decent spell variety, including one that opens a mini map and one that returns you to your last used save point. However, while they may perform at least decently through the actual labyrinths, they have no chance of taking out the bosses on their own. Instead, Nakajima is allowed to converse with the demons they encounter and attempt to convince them to join their cause. Unfortunately, the demons, rather sensibly, aren’t exactly eager to join, and thus you have to work to get them on your side.

Demon conversations in SMT are known to be rather unpredictable and even frustrating to go through, but MT1′s system is rather simple, for better or worse. There’s 4 main options: make an offer, persuade, soothe, and intimidate. Making the demons an offer is the most consistent choice; they’ll ask for money or an item, and if you fulfill their request, they may join you. However, demons aren’t nice people. They make may multiple demands of you, and, even if you give them everything they want, they have a chance of just ditching you instead of joining. That’s why the soothe option exists. It allows you to try various calming actions, such as lowering your weapons or smiling. These have a random chance to either work, making the demon more likely to actually live up to its promise, or fail, in which case nothing changes. If you’re not in the mood for giving your stuff away, or are decently more powerful than the demon, you can instead try to intimidate them into joining. If you succeed, they join right there and then, but if you fail, they immediately attack you. As for persuade, to be frank, I’ve never noticed a difference from trying it. The demons will give various reactions to it, ranging from doubting you to mulling over whether or not to accept, though they will not actually join from persuasion alone. Once a demon joins you, Nakajima can summon in through the COMP, at the cost of some of your money, with stronger demons costing more money to summon. However, demons require a substance called magnetite to physically exist, within the human world, which translates to a certain amount of your magnetite, acquired from defeating demons or random treasure chests, being drained for every step you take in the labyrinths while having demons summoned, which increased based on both the strength of said demons and the amount of then you currently have summoned. Once magnetite runs out, the demons instead begin to lose health.

The main other wrinkle in your demon summoning adventures is that demons cannot actually become stronger on their own. While there’s plenty of decent demons throughout each area, the main method for building your party is by fusing demons at the Cathedral of Shadows, sacrificing two of them for a (usually) stronger one. The downside to this is that, unlike some later SMTs, there’s no demon compendium to keep track of or even resummon previous demons you’ve had, which is especially bad, as the combinations needed are very specific, due to the lack of elementals. While you can analyze the demons you encounter, after a certain amount of them, earlier entries get deleted. The last thing to mention regarding the demons is that they are divided into three moral alignments, evil, neutral, and good (the law, chaos, and neutral alignment system is not present in Megami Tensei 1 and 2). Evil demons are completely unrecruitable, either due to lack of sentience/means of communication, or simply due to them being malicious. Compared to the unrecruitable demons in SMT1, it’s much easier to tell which are and aren’t recruitable, as the only ones that even pretend to be open to conversation specifically ask to speak to you, sending you into a panic if you accept. Neutral demons are the recruitable randomly encountered ones, and good demons are obtainable through fusion, though they make up for it by having most of the most powerful demons in the game.

As for the rest of the gameplay, there’s some... questionable elements to it. Most SMTs are out for your blood, and this is no exception. Whether it be extremely limited healing items that only drop from demons, which demons may even ask for, to the actual combat system, which can feature up to 8 of a demon during random encounters, which your party members just swing at randomly, to mechanic with the bosses where, with the exception of the Minotaur, whose gimmick is just beating you up about as well as SMT4′s version of him, all of the bosses possess an extremely powerful ability, like Lucifer fully healing, which makes them extremely difficult, or, in the case of Hecate, flat out unfightable, as she just likes being invisible. This forces you to scrounge the areas for a special item that seals off their broken abilities and makes them reasonable. While it is an interesting idea to encourage exploration, it can be frustrating, especially with how large some of the later areas are.

Sound & Graphics

The graphics are about on par with the original Shin Megami Tensei, by which I mean not very good. The NPCs you encounter aren’t very detailed, and the battle and spell animations are pretty limited. The best looking part are the demons themselves, but even they don’t look great, at least partially because this game did not actually have Kazuma Kaneko, the main demon artist for the franchise, working on it. Thus, most demons look very different to their later designs, and not really for the better, especially Lucifer himself.

As for the sound, it gets the job done. Sound effects are nothing notable, and the music is, ok. There’s some decent, if ummemorable, tunes during area exploration, but any music having to do with battles is pretty dull.

Conclusion

Overall, I would have to say this game is not recommended. The lack of story, only adequate sound and graphics, and frustrating gameplay elements, including some things I didn’t even mention, like the rotting sea of flames that forces you to go through a lot of damage tiles until you get some protection, make the game feel very outdated and even dull. I did have some fun with it, and it was a very important game that set the foundations for one of the most interesting game franchises out there, but overall, that’s just what it is, the foundations.

If you actually read through all of this, thank you very much. This is the first written review I’ve done of a game, so I’m open to criticism. Otherwise, I’ll be back, with the much more interesting sequel, Megami Tensei 2.

-Scout

[metamodel]

A Machine For Hammering the Soul, With Robotic Padres

It's a juicy weekend read for you, in defence of piety (!)…

📖📖📖

After taking an extended break from social design work “to get some perspective” (ahem), I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice, with added cultural and design commentary. 

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love.)

Today I want to write of vibrations of the soul, the experience of the divine and the habit of prayer. With robots. Yes.

I remain a staunch unbeliever, and yet I find that these apparently religious terms become more useful when I’m wrestling with certain practices: of creativity, of recovery, of becoming a better participant in my communities (local or cosmic). Each of these requires me to paradoxically affirm my own sense of agency by simultaneously curbing it.

For example, working on our addictions is never simply a matter of exerting our individual willpower (which is called “white-knuckling it” in recovery culture, and clearly unsustainable); we instead need to make the choice to surrender to the collective agency of community. 

And the other week, my dear friend Janelle and I attended a writer’s meetup that involved everyone sitting down and just doing some fucking writing. As we sat in a zero-ambience pub bistro, beavering away, she passed me a note: 

“THIS FEELS FORCED AND NOT RAD.”

Agreed, the venue was very much not rad, and we weren't a very inspiring sight, but to be fair to the rest of us, Janelle’s own writing is driven by uncommonly strong affective tides that would wreck a less glorious being. I’d argue that for most people, sustainable creativity needs in some way to be “forced”, and this isn’t a bad thing. My own creative endeavours need to be sustained by the scheduled habit of accessing an animating spirit that might reveal itself to the solidarity of a congregation. (It does need a better venue, though. Blech.)

Such appeals to the beyond have given me a new, practical appreciation of the rigours of piety. But lest I be accused by Slavoj Žižek of some lacklustre, postmodern, liberal-secular appropriation of spirituality, I need to leaven this stuff with a good dose of machines and robots to keep it interesting to me. 😉

Eternal return: burials, and when the earth rejects us

First, some follow-up.

Did you know that in this wonderful medium of email newslettering, you can simply reply to any of these missives from me, and that your reply will appear directly in my everyday, personal email inbox? It’s real email. No really, I love this, so replies are encouraged. Meanwhile, I’m really heartened by the generous messages I’ve received from you thus far. Also, I don’t know some of you, and this mixture of the known and unknown is tantalising. 

Answering my call in the last issue for objects that deserve “burial rites/rights" with us, Andrew (who I know can light a fire with his bare hands) replies that “I would bring with me a wooden spoon for my cooking, a headlamp for reading late at night and camping, and a vr headset because I know I won’t be affording one in this lifetime”. That would just be a simulated, still life VR headset then, right?

And Deborah, who wants “to be buried with seeds inside me, so I could be compost” (and who also first pointed me in the direction of socially responsible design, many years ago 😘), also notes that the word “Pandæmonium”, which I used in my last missive to describe the experience of the classroom in the context of exploring All the Things, “was coined to describe the Place Of All The Demons” — the capital of Hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost. So oddly… appropriate.

Deborah also pointed me to “When the rocks turn their backs on us”, Ken Wark’s review of Elizabeth Povinelli’s Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism:

[T]he Anthropocene is far from being some hubristic discourse about the powers and destinies of Man. It is rather a malignant, viral human presence in geological time. I think here one could read the Anthropocene through the figure of immunity rather than community. It is not the figure of Man becoming sovereign over the community of the biosphere within geological time. It is rather the biosphere immunising itself against forms of (non)life that it can’t endure. 

While I think there’s every reason to despair, this feels a little too enthusiastically misanthropic. (Perhaps Wark is trying to make up for his embarrassing social democratic excesses of the ‘90s.) Not all community is naturalistic, hippy-dippy togetherness and accommodation, and the pain of recognising and negotiating it, against the predations of capital, might offer a bleak kind of hope. I shall ponder. I’ve naturally procured Povinelli’s book and will report back in a future issue.

⚒️🎵 The Hammer Song

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Kandinsky’s "Winter Landscape", 1911[/caption]

The Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage show could so easily have drifted into Adult Contemporary Viewing territory, but it brought me this amazing quote from Kandinsky:

Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, and the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.

The eyes are the hammers. Whoa. Despite its manifest spiritualism, this image builds a model of aesthetics that’s all about resonant, relational assemblages of awesome in which each actor plays a material part. My eyes and yours live together inside a big piano. Fucking yes. This is society and ecology, defined — via aesthetics. The exhibition leaves Sydney this weekend if you want to catch it.

🔪🥀 Nick Cave is a joyful robot monk. Wait, what?

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Nick Cave in conversation. Photo filched from Daniel Boud.[/caption]

I was grateful to be at Conversations with Nick Cave the other week, not just to hear Cave’s voice and solo piano really rise to the occasion and fill a venue with their resonance, but to see the open Q&A format of the show return repeatedly to Cave’s creative process.

Fans who might’ve been clamouring for transcendent tales of sudden inspiration, or 19th Century Gothic influences (“I don’t have any”), were brought back to earth by the familiar refrain of the committed creative professional: Cave shows up to work, which requires lots of meticulous preparation and backbreaking iteration, and he makes it happen. “It’s a job,” he said, with finality. (I love the incongruity of this stuff coming from people like Nick Cave, or Bobbie Gillespie, who apparently keeps office hours for Primal Scream.) 

But I’ve become a little sceptical of the total demystification of creativity that’s now common in our algorithmically inclined age of, uh, content-marketing savvy. With our era’s overly instrumentalist promotion of a well-adjusted creative-entrepreneurial mindset, it might be all too easy these days to reduce everything to using elbow grease to, you know, hit targets. 

So I love that Cave is still in awe of sacred aesthetic magic when his rigour allows it to happen. He talked of putting in the work so that the divine can arrive. All his meticulous “going through the motions” (again, not a bad thing) produces something more than the sum of those motions. For him, it’s a way to experience God. And despite his Prince of Darkness reputation, Cave was at pains to describe how joyful that process can be. “There’s nothing dark about it.” 

🤖🙏 Oh yeah, the bit about robots

When I was listening to Radiolab the other day (despite my long-running ambivalence about the show), I found that this recent episode’s focus on robots of antiquity resonated unexpectedly with my reading of Nick Cave’s creative process.

Hear me out.

In 1562 the crown prince of Spain, Don Carlos, falls down a flight of stairs and sustains a head injury that is by all accounts going to be fatal. According to Radiolab, his father King Philip II “kneels at his son’s deathbed and makes a pact with God: ‘If you help me, if you heal my son — if you do this miracle for me — I'll do a miracle for you.’” 

Don Carlos miraculously survives, apparently thanks to the intervention of the spirit of Diego de Alcalá, a celebrated monk who died a century before. And so now Philip II needs to somehow perform his miracle:

[He] enlists a really renowned clockmaker named Juanelo Turriano — a huge ox of a man, described as always being filthy and blustery and not a lot of fun to be around — but a great, great clockmaker. So the king says, “Look, I want you to make a mechanical version of Diego de Alcalá, a mechanical version of this 100-year-dead holy priest. Yes, a mechanical monk — a robotic padre.” 

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

The robotic padre[/caption]

Artist and historian Elizabeth King describes the result: 

Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order. 

A miracle of technology! (You can watch a very low quality video of the robot in action here.) “He walks a delicate line between church, theatre, magic, science,” King writes, pondering the significance of the mechanical monk. “Here is a machine that prays.” 

What does it mean? According to King and Radiolab, in the context of Counter-Reformation Spain, the robot monk strikes to the heart of debates about how one gets close to God:

You have the Protestants, with Luther, who are saying, “it’s not about works … it's about whether you feel it.” And then you have the Catholic argument which is to say you do these rituals because these are the rituals, and this is the way you get close to God.

The robot monk teaches us how to do ritual. Controversial! Given the ridiculous degree of crufty observance and corruption in the Church at the time of the Reformation (and, um, other times), I obviously understand why the Protestant appeal to pure feels was compelling. But my own ingrained Catholic social justice calculus of “good works” aside (“don’t fucking tell me your account with God hinges on how you feel inside instead of your concrete actions in the world, you schismatic apostates!”), I can’t help but think that this debate, and the robot monk himself, is a metaphor for the observance of creative process. 

As stated above, I’m suspicious of the reduction of creativity to a bunch of instrumental observances in the mechanised pursuit of… metrics. Hack-work content marketing success, paid in SEO indulgences to the Church of Google. But to respond to this by abandoning the rigours of creative process for the inspiration of pure feeling would be a mistake. Unless you're a tidal wave like my friend Janelle, feelings are fickle. Protestant churches tend to trade the horrific institutionalised power of the Catholic Church (about which we need no reminders) for another kind of tyranny: exploitative emotional economies in which the faithful tend to be at the mercy of charisma. And to trade in pure charisma is to produce strongmen. As our current times remind us, charismatic populism offers release for the anxious but also destroys the processes that ultimately help us flourish as communities. Creative populism that relies on emotional catharsis tends to destroy the basis for a consistent creative practice. Just as the Reformation ended up eliding the point of what “good works” might potentially be about (i.e. acting rigorously to enable the arrival of goodness), we also need to remember what creative rituals are for (i.e. exactly the same thing as good works).

Thus it is with Nick Cave, who for me is the amazing robot monk. He mightn’t be your cup of tea, or you might even find his work occasionally objectionable, but I think most of us can agree that his creative practice really hums. (Don’t let his obsession with Southern Baptists or his own Anglican heritage distract. In terms of process, he is an exemplary Catholic robot.) He prepares, meticulously. He shows up to work. He performs the motions regularly, not worrying about inspiration, and through these observances somehow accesses what he feels to be a divine and joyous experience of creativity. 

I’m convinced that if Nick Cave relied on pure feeling, or murderous inspiration, or spontaneous gothic possession, or any of the other assumptions people make about his artistic persona, so many great moments of his oeuvre wouldn’t exist. Nick Cave walks the square and kisses the cross and talks to God. For he is a joyous robot monk.

🎼 Coda

For those of you who remain unconvinced by my yoking together of monks and murder ballads: the final line of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, an historical murder mystery set in a monastery, is “Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus”, or “The rose of old remains only in its name; we have only naked names”. 

Meanwhile, I was never really a fan of the chorus of “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” Cave’s duet with Kylie Minogue:

They call me The Wild Rose 

But my name was Elisa Day 

Why they call me it, I do not know 

For my name was Elisa Day 

Oooh. The name of the rose. Anyway, to me, Minogue’s delivery always reeked of passive fatalism. But the other day, I realised that it wasn’t fatalistic all — it was full of spooky reproach. Elisa Day remains known to us by her Wild Rose name of legend, but her ghost insists on remembering her own name. She’s crossing t’s and dotting i’s from beyond the grave. 

Following Kylie, we would do well to pay proper respect to the names of those who are in the beyond. The way we relate to them constitutes its own assemblage, its own machine of observances. In this I’m reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 short story, “The Nine Billion Names of God”, in which Tibetan monks manage to automate the process of transcribing all the permutations that God’s name can take, using a supercomputer (naturally). Observing the names is the universe’s purpose, you see. And when the final name is encoded… Whoa.

How's that for a crazy constellation? (I know I'm just reaching. But it's fun!)

A sustainable portion of all my love,

Ben

[tfwiki]

Is there any chance of ,,Crisis" Like event in IDW Transformers Comics? Like one giant crossover for EVERY main incarnation of the franchise (not every obviously but main like G1,Beast Wars,Robots In Disguise 2001,Unicron Trilogy,Animated,Prime), If so, are there like some wish list, because for me it would be Beast Machines Megatron spark landing in some another universe and taking over, and knowing that there are some other Universes, he plans to take over, Now Vector Prime has to do something

Well, never say never, but it doesn’t seem too likely given how positively massive the Transformers multiverse has become since IDW started out. But, fun fact, a multiverse-spanning crossover was the original proposal Simon Furman made for the IDW TF Universe way back at the very beginning, with the apparent intention of it being a continuation of the Dreamwave G1 and Unicron Trilogy comics. I’ll turn it over to a quote from the man himself to tell you more, under the cut! 

In the (Armada/Energon) Cybertron timeline…

…UNICRON IS DESTROYED, utterly wiped out of existence by a seismic shock warhead detonated deep within its superstructure (events which would be visited retroactively in any subsequent ‘Energon’ conclusion issues).

But as one threat to Cybertron ends, another has only just begun. A rift in time and space – a massive ‘chronal’ black hole formed by the annihilation of Unicron – is threatening to suck Cybertron in, tear it apart in an internal maelstrom of deconstructed space and time. Only by anchoring the planet, via a spacebridge, to Earth’s energon core can Cybertron maintain its tenuous position, but it’s at best a quick fix. To seal the rift, they need the power of PRIMUS, the progenitor of the entire TRANSFORMERS race. But while a fragment of the dormant Primus lifeforce exists within Cybertron, the rest is lost, scattered throughout the universe, buried deep within strange, alien worlds.

Roused (from eons of chronal stasis in a dimension outside of normal space and time) by the impending cataclysm, the immortal sentinel known as Vector Prime spearheads the search for the Primus lifeforce, guiding Optimus Prime and his Autobots on a quest that will take them to aliens worlds in the farthest corners of the galaxy and beyond. But where Prime and the Autobots go… Megatron and the Decepticons are never far behind.

Clad in the armor of Unicron, fuelled by a fragment of his Spark, Megatron has become a true agent of chaos. He’s prepared to sacrifice Cybertron, Earth and any other world in order to contain and absorb the lifeforce of Primus himself, his ultimate aim to transform himself… into a living god!

And the ‘Cybertron’ timeline is not the only one to feel the effects of the destruction of Unicron. In fact… it’s one of the lucky ones.

>

In the G1 timeline…

…CYBERTRON IS DESTROYED! The resident Autobots and Decepticons barely have time to evacuate the planet, to eject the core of the planet and it’s precious Vector Sigma cargo (an eventuality made feasible way back when [in The War Within v3]) before the planet is torn apart, smashed into component molecules by the roiling chaos wave. Many Cybertronians don’t make it at all, and are simply wiped out. In a shockingly short time, Cybertron is gone. Forever.

Shocked, stunned, bereft of their homeworld, the remaining populous finds itself spread far and wide throughout the galaxy, seeking (in the Autobots’ case) safe harbor or (in the Decepticons’ case) new worlds to conquer… and colonise. Megatron’s Decepticons have perfecting ‘mechaforming’ technology, invasive, self-replicating machinery designed to restructure the entire geological substructure of a planet, in effect turn it into a new Cybertron. And since the Decepticons are indifferent to the presence or fate of any indigenous civilizations on the planet(s) of choice, it’s down to the Autobots to stop them… at any cost.

Earth, always a pivotal world in the G1 timeline, becomes even more of a focal battleground. Its natural resources are a potent brew that – with the right exploitation and manipulation – can be turned into energon, the lifeblood of the Transformer race. In Decepticon hands the whole world would be turned into a vast refinery, bled dry to fuel the creation of the ‘new’ Cybertron.

And Optimus Prime has an even more pressing concern. Contacted by Vector Prime (who can move within all remaining TF timelines), he is warned that the omniversal geometry is critically out of alignment. The removal of – for want of a better word – ‘evil’ has disturbed an age-old natural balance. Though it goes against every Autobot credo, they must somehow resurrect the dark force known, among other things, as Unicron! The key is the so-called ‘Decepticon Matrix’, a quasi-mythical power source spread throughout the galaxy. Said to be fragments of Unicron itself, released in some apocalyptic confrontation with Primus before the dawn of time, its retrieval and coalescence could restore the balance and dissipate the chaos wave.

Reluctantly, with grave reservations (and considerable dissent in the Autobot ranks) Prime forges an uneasy alliance with two of Unicron’s heralds, Cylonus and Scourge, both of whom are dedicated to the rebirth of their master (for different reasons). But, unknown to Prime, they have a secondary agenda, a plan to use a fragment of the Decepticon Matrix to destroy Megatron… and recreate him as the unstoppable force known as Galvatron!

>

CYBERTRON #0 (AND ONGOING)/G1 #0 (AND ONGOING)

Amidst the larger framework of the ‘chaos wave’ saga, the ongoing thrust of Cybertron is a focused series of one or two-part (largely self-contained, featuring different character assortments) adventures set on Cybertron, Earth and the key planets (Speed, Beast and Giant) that support its core quest… the search for the lifeforce of Primus. At every turn, the Autobots are confounded and frustrated by the Decepticons, but in the process forge new alliances and friendships, both on Earth and beyond. It’s a race against time… with the fate of Cybertron (and more) hanging in the balance.

The G1 title expands the scope and reach of the line, exploring wider character/conflict story arcs (while pulling in much more fan-friendly past and future continuity) and dramatically shaking the whole TRANSFORMERS mythos to its core, streamlining and redefining the sometimes confusing mass of ‘alternate’ timelines. But as with Cybertron, the focus will shift to different groups of Autobots/Decepticons on different worlds, faced with differing agendas and challenges.

The issue #0s will be mirror-images of each other, both told from the perspective of Vector Prime as he awakens to an omniverse in chaos, threatened on all fronts. His narrative will serve to encapsulate what has gone before while his actions introduce the primary cast and lay the groundwork for what is to come.

[crystalized-dreams]

So after 180+ hours, my husband and I finally bothered to beat Ganon and finish the main story of Breath of the Wild. I have been wanting to talk about my various likes and dislikes for a while, but I wanted to at least wait until this point. We still have plans to keep playing (need to get all those Koroks and also working on a World Boss-related thing), but at the very least, most of our goals are done.

This WILL contain spoilers so if you do not want spoilers, you may not want to read this just yet. This also will not be a proper review–if you’re looking for that, reviews will be up on my husband’s website.

That said, this is going to be a bit different than most of my other ramblings as I’m going to be talking from a standpoint of watching more than playing and thus, will focus more on the characters and story and music and things versus controls and gameplay. Zelda is a game I grew up always watching and so each one is like its own movie for me and thus, it’s something that I’ve always gotten more out of watching than playing (though, I still play sometimes). I will say, just to give an idea on what to expect, Ocarina of Time is my favorite Zelda followed by Skyward Sword. I also don’t think it’s possible to really rank Breath of the Wild due to just how different it is, but let’s get to it.

Starting from the top, I’m really glad they voiced the game for the most part. I actually do enjoy most of the English voices and some, I even prefer to the Japanese such as Impa’s, but others, like Mipha, go back and forth for me. Sometimes I think they sound fine in English and fit well compared to the Japanese while other times it just feels sort of off. The only voice I really found myself disliking is Zelda’s because it’s just… so different from the Japanese version and in general, I find I prefer when they at least try to get a voice that is a similar speech/tone in every language because otherwise it can give such a different feel to the character and it really does. Despite her saying the same things, it doesn’t feel the same and it’s just really odd and I don’t understand why they gave her such a dramatically different voice.

It may also just stand out to me because I relate to the Zelda in this game a lot. I don’t want to turn this into talking about myself and own experiences, but I empathize with her so incredibly much and she is definitely one of my favorite characters in the game and definitely one of my favorite Zelda’s. Besides Zelda’s voice, the main thing that bothered me is the fact that Link never speaks. We kind of get a reason for why this is in Zelda’s own diary in the castle, but the problem here is the fact that: 1. He doesn’t have his memories so this should no longer be an issue to begin with right now. 2. By the time he does have his memories, many moments are just… incredibly awkward because he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even have to talk much, but the silence just doesn’t always work here and it genuinely removes part of the immersion of the moment, which, ironically the reason they probably wanted him not to speak is to not ruin it for the player. We’re rarely even in the first person though to ever actually feel like we’re Link. There are the moments where he looks down at the Sheikah Slate and one time towards the end and that’s really it. In general, considering we see all the memories in third person omniscient (which is weird in itself considering it is supposed to be Link remembering these things and not only are we seeing everything in third person, but we’re seeing and hearing things Link wouldn’t have been able to), it just makes everything all the weirder.

If they do continue with the voice acting in Zelda games, I really hope they will reconsider and actually give Link a voice, even if he doesn’t say too much.

Going into things more story-related, I really want to know what was with all the blue in this game. Hyrule Castle’s banners aren’t blue, yet the Champion’s clothes, Zelda’s Princess Gown and Scholar Outfit, and Link’s outfit in the game were all various shades of blue and I just… don’t understand why? I wish there was some explanation for why Link didn’t wear green in this (heck, you even get a “traditional” tunic for the game if you finish all the shrines…) or why Zelda’s dress was blue in this game instead of pink/purple. I feel like we were given changes for most things (such as Ganon’s appearance), but not really any information on this and I feel it’s something that will bug me for a long while. Despite my issues with Hyrule-related colors, I adore the Zora designs in this game. All the jewelry that Mipha wears is so pretty and I think she has an amazing character design–I really wish she was given more than just being another unrequited Zora love interest to Link.

I will say though, this story is… really depressing. Like no matter how I think about it, I think the story makes me feel more sad than happy. In general, I don’t think any Zelda game really has a 100% happy ending, but at least I feel like things are mostly positive as they continue to improve. Here, things will start to improve, but with all the loss weighing heavily on it. 100 years of destruction, Castle Town is gone, Link finally has his memories back, but his family is probably long gone. The fact that the only Champion that even got to see some of their family/a descendant is Daruk. I wish Mipha got a chance to see her brother and father. I wish Urbosa got to see her daughter. Revali is kind of a jerk, but I still wish he got a chance to see his home too. The fact that Zelda’s last meeting with her father was that fight on the bridge is absolutely heartbreaking. He finally wanted to properly comfort her and he died. She didn’t even get to see him before his soul finally rested.

It’s just… really heartbreaking in a lot of ways. Heck, the fact that as you go onto each Divine Beast talking to their spirits and then having to fight the enemy that murdered them 100 years ago. There’s such an overall heaviness that even upon saving Hyrule, it still feels a little empty–like it wasn’t enough. And Zelda blames herself where, even if maybe she could get her summoning power working (which is another thing–I’d love to know more on why it didn’t work sooner (besides her losing her teacher and mother), why it had to wait for that moment and what that specifically unlocked it), she never would have reached them. There’s just so much loss that even after saving Hyrule, I still don’t really feel satisfied.

One of the things I really hope the DLC adds, especially after the post-game scene if you have all the memories, is a post game with both Zelda and Link going around and trying to help build back up Hyrule and talk to everyone who suffered these 100 years and/or lost someone. Maybe someone can even play as one of the two and it’ll be a fun co-op journey. I don’t know how possible that actually is, but it’s what I really hope they do. Even if not a co-op thing, I just want a proper post-game. While I get why the whole “oh, you can go back and re-fight Ganon because we put you right before it!!” thing exists, I feel it’s really out of place with this kind of game. I feel like maybe they could’ve had an option if you go in the castle to ask if you’d like it set to before you fought Ganon, but it just looks kind of silly to be exploring this enormous map with the same evil castle and people worrying about it.

The world itself is quite amazing. There’s so much to explore and I’m not really sure if we’ve even seen all of it despite how much we’ve played and getting more than half the Koroks… speaking of Koroks, while I love them, I wish there weren’t so many. 900 is just way too much and while I can guess why they did (with such a big map, gives more people more chances to find them randomly upon their explorations), I still think it would have been better to just have a smaller amount. I mean, there’s 120 Shrines which is only ~13% of the amount of Koroks. They could’ve done a similar amount and been fine. Especially if it means we wouldn’t need to zoom in as far as possible to even see the ones we’ve found.

I also really love that every character has a name and personality. Everything is so dynamic and you learn so much about all the people in each place. It kind of reminds me of part of why I enjoyed a lot of the Side Quests in Majora’s Mask. Here are just some of my favorite side characters: #gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Notts

Saki

Molli

Laruta

Laflat

Aster

Kohm

Ashai

Patricia

Included in favorites but not shown above as that would make this post even longer: Every single wild animal + dog + horse + donkey :P

I would say my biggest issue with the game is the item durability and limited weapon/shield/bow space. I just dislike those kind of systems and while I enjoy most of the changes in the game from traditional Zelda games, this isn’t one of them. I think I’d have at least been less annoyed if item limits weren’t an issue and you could repair everything, but it just was disheartening to use a lot of things I really liked only to end up losing them. At least my favorite weapon could always be replaced. Unfortunately, my favorite bow was forced to disappear and only be used in the final battle :P I wish you got to keep some version of it as it’s really pretty.

Going back to the world of the game, I will say I have… mostly good feelings on the music, but it’s a bit odd as well. I liked everything I heard, but because it’s all very atmospheric, there isn’t really much that is very iconic. Like Breath of the Wild’s main theme is definitely one of the most recognizable new pieces for the game. There are Battle-related ones as well, but I don’t care for those too much myself. The thing is, and what I feel a lot of people demanding for these forget, even if they had a few selections for bigger songs as you explore, the constant repetition when exploring such a vast world would get incredibly annoying. The game wants you to explore and a constant song playing over and over would just get tiring. This also means when certain songs like Kass’ Accordion or the big boss battle themes start playing as you explore, they’re THAT much more recognizable and it really helps them stand out.

I remember when my husband and I first ran into Kass. The Accordion started playing and his first thought was that the music changed for the area while mine went straight to there being an actual Accordion Player and urging him to find them. I was clearly right, but it made it such a standout event for our playthrough which I don’t think would’ve been as exciting if the music wasn’t the way it is. Or like wandering around and hearing the music change and seeing a giant Dragon fly by. That was so exciting to run into on our first exploration of Faron.

Even Hyrule Castle, despite being like this… dark, gritty, remix of various past songs, the fact that we don’t actually get to hear most of them outside that just makes it all the more of an experience. And I’ll be honest, I did get a little tired of it just from exploring the entire castle–I think if you’re just heading straight to Ganon, the music is perfect for the atmosphere, but if you’re exploring every single nook and cranny, it does kind of get to you after a while.

My favorite songs are probably Prince Sidon’s theme, the music for Zora’s Domain (which is one of my favorite places in the game along with Satori), the music after beating a Divine Beast Boss, Princess/Zora Champion Mipha’s theme, Gerudo Champion Urbosa’s theme, Rito Village, Rito Champion Revali’s theme, the Epilogue Theme, and Captured Memories. Captured Memories especially, while just being a remix of the original Zelda theme, is just so beautiful and I wish it was longer. And while not necessarily my favorites, I also really enjoy the Molduga Battle Phase 2 song, Kass’ theme, the Dragon theme, Attack on Vah Medoh, and The Divine Beasts Strike. Also Hestu’s theme is always amazing as is his dance:

Going into some minor things that I wish were changed up: 1. More spaces for more Horses (and it’d be fun if you could Board other things too). 5 isn’t enough when there are so many amazing horses in the game. As it is, because we didn’t realize one side quest required a horse we had boarded, we had to give up a horse we had already become attached to. Sure, it let us make room for the Giant Horse, but it’s not really an issue I liked running into. Similarly, I wish you got to pick which Horse you used at the end. If we knew the first horse you boarded was picked for the end battle, we would have boarded Epona first rather than me having a panic attack seeing Shortcake show up who, besides being my lovely pink horse, also had some of the lowest stats which made the battle a bit trickier than it should’ve been. 2. I wish we could get more houses. I love the house quest and how decorated it gets once you buy everything, but it just made me really want houses in some other places too. I feel like with how you help build up Tarrytown too, it was like setting up for a house there as well that never came. 3. The awful Blood Moon cutscene. Good for the first time to introduce it. Bad every other time. Like the moon is red and fire-y ash is practically floating down everywhere–we can kind of tell. I get that you can skip it, but it still felt frustrating to even see it come up? Even just the option to turn it off permanently. We once had the cutscene pop up 6 times in a row. I wish I was kidding. 4. Not being able to complete the 3rd stamina wheel or the 2nd Heart row :/ Even if you do everything, you’ll be 3 short. I hope maybe you can get more in the DLC. 5. I wish there was some gear to make rain not effect your climbing because wow, does that ruin things a lot. 6. Please stop making every Zora Princess/member of Zora royalty be in love with Link. It’s always unrequited and they deserve better characterization at this point. 7. I really disliked how the Fairies were done in this game. Ignoring the creepiness of some of the cutscenes, I just don’t like the whole “give us tons of rupees to let us help you” thing from it and I would’ve preferred some kind of puzzle or other aspects over paying them tons of money. The Horse God is really the only one I can understand the “money to open” thing, though, they also terrify me in a whole different way so… 8. More Rupees. I get that there is a reason for them to be so scarce in this game, but it still felt like too much. 9. The lack of Saria’s song in the Lost Woods or even by the lake named after her. Saria is one of my favorite side characters in the series and that is one of my all-time favorite songs (In fact, I used it as my town theme several times in Animal Crossing–the original, Wild World, and City Folk). 10. I REALLY WISH THE TRUE ENDING LET THEM HUG. They just walk off together and they both just need a hug, okay? 11. It’s silly that the Champion Powers/Gifts will only recharge once you fully use them. If I use up one of Daruk’s charges essentially, I shouldn’t have to wait until I use up all of them before it’ll start recharging any. It can be a longer charge when there’s at least one left, but it’s incredibly silly to be wandering around for hours on this last charge only to get somewhere I may need to use multiple, have just the one left, and then get stuck waiting. 12. Not an actual dislike, but I genuinely do want to know why the Gorons were let into Gerudo Town. The fact that you never get some kind of answer to this bugs me. 13. The Yiga Clan are just super annoying. The stealth mission was also kind of annoying–I wouldn’t have minded so much if it wasn’t for the fact that being caught made it an endless stream of them attacking you versus just the group of three that initially attack. 14. While I do love most of the tools in this game, I genuinely miss the Hook Shot/Grappling Hook.

Which, speaking of tools in the game, I know some people are mixed about getting everything at once and while I’m a bit mixed myself (mostly because I wouldn’t have minded if we got a few things later on similar to how we got the camera feature), I actually really liked that we did. I think it gave people a lot more freedom to experience the World in so many different ways versus having to do it in the same order every time and/or get certain things before being able to go back to properly solve a puzzle. There’s many things where I’m sure we didn’t solve it as intended, but I think that also makes it a lot more fun too.

So yes, overall I really enjoyed the game. I have a lot of feelings about it, clearly. I’m really anticipating the DLC and I hope they bring out more information soon. Despite being nearly done with the game, I think we’ll still be finding new things overtime, even once we 100% it. Also I really hope someone makes Sand Seal Plushies:

Ramblings about Breath of the Wild (Unsurprisingly, I had a lot to say :P) So after 180+ hours, my husband and I finally bothered to beat Ganon and finish the main story of Breath of the Wild.

[sir-argues-a-lot]

Finished Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

It was pretty much what I expected. Which is to say that it was pretty bad, though there were some surprises.

First off, the good:

The gameplay has been significantly improved over SMT IV in practically every aspect, and these various tweaks to Tokyo’s map, demon balance and other systems fix pretty much all of SMT IV’s gameplay issues.

Smirk’s rebalancing makes it an actual strategic part of the gameplay now, nerfing some overpowered skills and forcing the player to actually utilise strategy in their approach to the game.

Assist System no longer amounts to little more than a liability.

Now, the bad parts:

The Assist System is still shit. 

While it’s no longer a perpetual liability like it was in SMT IV, and assist partners can actually make a difference at times, the AI still simply isn’t smart enough to be reliably helpful. 

Take Hallelujah as an example. His ailment-preventing skill is probably the best skill he has, he’ll only cast it occasionally, whereas a human would just spam it relentlessly because it would negate one of the most dangerous aspects of combat. Thus, the player is left at the mercy of an AI that’s ostensibly meant to support him, which ends up being thoroughly unenjoyable. 

These issues are compounded by the negative mechanics that Atlus purposely designed into the system, such as Asahi’s demons randomly refusing commands, or Gaston stealing Press Turns. There is absolutely no reason why any of these mechanics are in the game other than someone at Atlus suffering from a stroke and forgetting that mechanics should be fun.

The final dungeon.

It is the absolute worst. It’s effectively a ten hour slog through a massive featureless arrangement of platforms, featuring tedious teleport puzzles, an inability to recruit new demons or use Demon Analysis half the time, and has a terrible background theme to cap it all off.

Every improvement this game made to the gameplay is completed negated by the sheer awfulness of the final dungeon. The Cosmic Egg wasn’t very good, but YHVH’s Universe makes it look good by comparison.

I can only imagine that all of Atlus suffered a massive stroke when it came to designing this, and so it came down to the asshole intern nobody likes, who promptly took out his frustration on the players.

It’s been several weeks since I finished the game and I’m still pissed about this fucking piece of shit dungeon. Fuck.

The characters.

Quite frankly, none of them have any genuine depth. Most just end up being stock anime stereotypes (and not even the good ones), unlikeable hypocrites, retcon parts of SMT IV and/or had potential that was squandered away by virtue of being stuck in SMT IV Apocalypse.

For example, the game never properly tells us what motives Gaston. There’s a throwaway line about how Navarre disgraced his family, but his own dialogue doesn’t really show any sort of love for his family, since he really just goes: “SAMURAI CODE SAMURAI CODE PERSONAL HONOUR SPEAR OF MICHAEL SPEAR OF MICHAEL WHY DO THEY EXPECT ME TO DO MY JOB AS CAPTAIN WAAAAAAAAAH.”

He’s just kind of an asshole, and it’s really hard to care for him when he’s relieved from a position he constantly boasted about but never did anything to fulfil.

However, as bad as the main party is, that’s nowhere near as bad as what happened to everyone else. It’s incredibly obvious that in order to make the Neutral alignment look good, they decided to just remove all nuanced and positive aspects from the various factions so that they turn into mere caricatures of their former selves. SMT IV already had issues with the Neutral path being far too obviously the “correct” path, and not showing its flaws well enough, but Apocalypse just takes it a notch further and presents Neutral as a perfect, flawless situation where all the issues come from external sources that you can just go up and kill and resolve forever.

There’s no real conflict, and thus, the entire game ends up feeling hollow as a result, which brings me to:

The story.

I honestly don’t even know where I would have to begin talking about the story.

Dagda wants to return to a primal state of being some sort of abstract force of nature, but also he wants to kill all the gods, but also wants humanity to reach their full potential except when he revives Flynn and one of your old buddies as mindlessly loyal to you, but he didn’t revive Nanashi as mindlessly loyal to him because I guess he forgot? Oh, and humanity is responsible for creating all the gods, except when YHVH forced them into their current forms or something. Also, YHVH wants eternal war between Law and Chaos because it benefits him somehow? And he can’t just work with everyone mindlessly worshipping him because, uh... Even though that was the plan of Law in SMT IV but I guess while we’re at it, we might as well retcon that, too.

Nothing about this plot holds up under any scrutiny. Especially not anything related to Observation. The idea of trying to put a definite answer to a series that’s rooted entirely in mythology is laughable at best, and in practice turned out to accomplish nothing other than facilitate Apocalypse’s mess of a plot.

--

Honestly, Apocalypse is little more than an unneeded and unwanted sequel to a game that, while it had more than its fair share of flaws, could at least be enjoyable when you ignored some of its worse parts. Apocalypse, on the other hand, is something that can only be enjoyed for its gameplay (most of the time), but suffers from such atrocious storytelling that it tries to retroactively ruin SMT IV and the rest of the series while it’s at it.

I can’t really recommend SMT IV Apocalypse to anyone other than obsessive SMT players, and even then, you probably shouldn’t subject yourself to it because the game just isn’t worth it.

[entergamingxp]

my life with Jason Brookes • Eurogamer.net

In the autumn of 1995, I interviewed for a writing position on Edge magazine. I had no experience in publishing; I’d spent a year since leaving university writing manuals and design documents for the developer Big Red Software, but I was desperate to be a journalist. Although I hadn’t read Edge that much, everyone I worked with treated it like a holy text. It felt like a long shot. Then Jason Brookes turned up late for my interview, was friendly but distracted throughout, and at the end set me a writing task before disappearing completely. I assumed I had failed. Over a month later however, he called me and offered me a job. This was my first inkling that Jason had his own way of working.

Three days ago I got a call from Simon Cox who joined Edge just after me and later became deputy editor. Jason had been ill for three years – he died in the early hours of Monday morning. Between long difficult pauses, Simon and I swapped a few stories about our time on the magazine. I put the phone down and cried, and thought about Jason. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Jason Brookes began his journalism career at the cult Super Nintendo magazine SuperPlay, under the tutorage of launch editor, Matt Bielby. He’d originally applied for a job on the Sega magazine, Mega, but editor Neil West soon realised Brookes was a complete Nintendo fanboy and pushed him Bielby’s way. “From the start, we were influenced by Japanese magazines – not just games mags, but women’s mags, car mags and anything else we could get our hands on – as well as Japanese comics and anime,” says Bielby. “What struck me about Jason was just how much he knew about and loved Japanese culture – and gaming in particular, and Nintendo especially amongst that. He knew more about all of it than the rest of us put together.

Photo credit: Hilary Nichols.

“Getting reliable info on Japanese games was a painful, time-consuming business in the pre-internet days, involving late-night phone calls to the other side of the world, local language students doing vaguely comprehensible translations for us from Japanese magazine articles, and all sorts of palaver. Jason was intrinsic to this.”

As there were so few SNES games officially released in the UK each month, the SuperPlay team was forced to scour the obscure grey import market – and this was Jason’s forte. “Even if the average SuperPlay reader was never going to buy Super Wagan Island or Zan II, the fact that it existed and we could tell people about it added to the unique feel of the magazine,” says Beilby. “Jason would find all sorts of obscure stuff that I, for one, couldn’t get my head around at all. It became his territory in a way, and his enthusiasm made us all consider the most oddball releases in a new light.”

In 1993, Future Publishing’s magazine launch specialist Steve Jarrett was looking for writing staff to help with an ambitious project. It was a new type of games magazine, eschewing the pally, hobbyist tone of most publications of the era in favour of a serious, refined, journalistic style, inspired by visual effects mag, Cinefex. That project was Edge. “He made a huge impact on the magazine,” says Jarrett. “He filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge – he brought with him his love of Japanese culture, games and game art – and at the time, that was where all the innovation was coming from. He opened Edge up. He was fortunate, too, because I wasn’t so keen on travel at the time so he did all the trips to the US and Japan!”

His first issue as editor was Edge 11, which featured a series of exclusive articles on the forthcoming PlayStation console, which at the time was still known by its codename, PS-X. Jason and Matt had been invited by Sony’s third-party development manager Phil Harrison to view the legendary T-Rex graphics demo being touted to developers, and Jason later secured interviews with staff within Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, as well as at Namco, Konami and Capcom for the big reveal feature. Over the course of ten packed pages, the magazine communicated the importance and potential impact of this vital newcomer to the games industry. As a knowledgeable fan of dance music, Jason also perfectly understood Sony’s determination to align PlayStation with the ascendant 1990s club culture, running several articles on the machine’s groundbreaking marketing and its relationship with hip brands such as Ministry of Sound and Designers Republic. He saw that both the audience and industry were maturing, and that popular culture would have to cede ground to video games. He just got it.

The Edge office in the mid-1990s was a cross between a university halls of residence, a night club and a game development studio – an atmosphere utterly presided over by Jason. He was an unapologetic perfectionist, determined that every page of the magazine exemplified the Edge vision of style and substance. He would spend hours choosing exactly the right photograph or screenshot for even the most minor preview, and my abiding memory of him is hunched over a lightbox, examining 35mm slides from some Japanese arcade trade show or obscure Shibuya-based development studio.

Everything would always come together at the last possible minute. The magazine flatplan – the page layout guide that showed writing and art staff what each issue would contain – was almost always virtually empty until the week before deadline. Then suddenly, Jason would announce that he’d secured an interview with Howard Lincoln or Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux or Bill Gates, or an exclusive look at some amazing new AM2 arcade game, then we’d be off. He’d trust us too. I remember the day Susie Hamilton from Derby-based developer Core Design (then best known for aging Mega Drive title Thunderhawk) brought their latest project into the office for us to see – something called Tomb Raider. Jason wasn’t interested so me and production editor Nick Harper had a play during our lunch hour. I think within five seconds we were over at Jason’s desk, saying “Um, we think you’d better come and have a look at this.” Straightaway he gave it two pages. Deadlines would often involve two or three all-night sessions, the whole team writing and laying out pages as Orbital blasted from the stereo. It was hard work, but it was fun. We’d smuggle beer in, and Edge’s art editor Terry Stokes, an inveterate prankster, would set up elaborate traps for us around the office.

What did I learn during this fraught, tense, hilarious nights? I learned everything about writing quickly, about getting the best from poorly translated interviews, about how every sentence needs to carry a fact or idea that takes the story forward. Jason hated waffle, he hated mediocre, colourless writing. He wanted us to communicate the joy of a Treasure shooter, the technological magic inherent in a lit, textured polygon, the underlying philosophy of an executive soundbite. He thought deeply about games and how they functioned. His favourite was R-Type and to hear him break it down was to hear a Nobel prize-winning scientist explaining DNA strands. As Jason’s brother Matthew recalls, “He loved the passionate attention to detail, the creativity, the huge sprites, the multi-layered parallax, the colours, and even the superlative collision detection. I’m not sure how long he must have spent playing and eventually completing that game.”

Jason didn’t teach us how to make a magazine, he just expected us to know. When I turned up to the Edge office on my first day of work, he told me to take screenshots of Sega Rally. I didn’t know what the hell that meant, I had no idea of the process. I just had to go over to the Sega Saturn, plug the leads in, figure out how to use the Apple Mac connected to our CRT gaming monitor and get on with it. Sometimes, he’d disappear to Japan or LA for a week and you wouldn’t know when he was coming back, you’d have to piece together his intentions from vague emails and editorial meeting notes. That’s just the way it worked, we all knew it. You figured stuff out. And then he’d return and flip through the latest issue of the mag and say “you did a really good job on this article” and my god, you’d glow with pride all day.

His perfectionism at Edge lasted until his very last act at the magazine – his final Editor’s Intro. “I just remember how long it took him to craft it,” says production editor at the time, Jane Bentley. “That sign off was the most agonising 300 words I’ve ever seen someone write and rewrite. I think I came out in hives having to stay up all night for final sub checks before the mag could get biked off to the printers. But Edge was a magic world back then. A real gang of super fans.”

After this, he moved to San Francisco writing for US magazines Xbox Nation and GMR as well Japanese publications LOGiN and Famitsu. More recently, he got back into pure design, helping indie studio 17-Bit Studios create its website.

A few months before he died, we all attended Simon Cox’s wedding in the Cotswolds. I sat next to Jason for most of the reception, and we reminisced about the olden days. At some point quite late on, after a few glasses of champagne, I said to him, “when you gave me the job on Edge, you changed my life. Everything I have done in writing after that is really down to you.” He just smiled at me in that charming and slightly airy way of his. I hope I have lived up to whatever it was you saw in me on that warm autumn afternoon long ago.

This is what I have learned from Jason Brookes: be good at what you do. Take care. Make every sentence you write, every image you capture, every idea you foster mean something. And if you are given the chance to thank someone for helping you, take that chance. In fact, do it now. Email them, text them, put down your phone or close your laptop and go find them. Tell them what they did. Because life can be cruel, and important people are sometimes taken away too soon. Jason, you were brilliant, difficult, talented, chaotic, spiritual and loving. You always ended your editor’s intros with a single phrase – the future is almost here. That’s how you lived – with one foot in next week, or next year, or the next decade even, waiting with a smile on your face for the rest of us to catch up.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/my-life-with-jason-brookes-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-life-with-jason-brookes-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[sarahburness]

What To Do When the Voices in your Head Disagree

“Ego says, ‘Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace. Spirit says, ‘Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.” ~Marianne Williamson

Muse: I’d love to get another job one day. One where I can feel inspired and give my best gifts to the world! One where they have a casual dress code and summer Fridays. Ah, I can just feel it now!

Critic: What are you, crazy? You’re always talking about quitting and starting over. Do you remember how hard we worked to get the job we have? (That you’ve only been at for one year, may I remind you.) What do you think, you can just throw that all away?

Muse: I don’t care. I don’t want to live my life for my resume. One year is a good amount of time. I’m ready to try something new. I want to start feeling satisfied at work, and you know we are not happy in our current situation.

Critic: It’s not all about “happiness,” okay? Who do you even know that is happy? (And don’t show me their Instagram feed as evidence.) There’s more to life than just what you want, you have to be responsible.

Muse: Responsible means “able to respond,” and with that ability I’m responding to feeling dead at work with the idea to do something new. Why are you always such a downer?

Does this style of dialogue sound familiar? What’s fascinating is that this kind of banter goes on internally ad nauseam, and we barely even recognize that it’s happening.

According to several different therapeutic modalities, these inner “parts” of us are perfectly natural, but it can cause distress when they are engaged in conflict and we remain unaware of the inner battle we are constantly fighting.

When I first was introduced to “parts work,” it made so much sense to me. I quickly identified a little girl part, a writer part, a dreamer part, a victim part, a wise part, and many others that were at play within my psyche—running more or less amuck having been left unattended for years.

Once I got to know these parts (from their names, to what they like to wear, to their age, to their qualities of being), I began to develop a relationship with them where they could show me deeper fears and desires that I was struggling with.

At the time, I was most conflicted by the battle the Muse and Critic have so nicely illustrated above. I was concerned as to whether to follow a more traditional career path, or set out on my own as an entrepreneur.

When I would listen to either side individually, each seemed to make a compelling case. In the Muse’s case, she seemed to have my back regarding my heart’s desires and what would be both fun and fulfilling. In the Critic’s case, he seemed to be protective of my well-being and trying to ensure that I would be able to succeed and not be doing something rash or impractical.

The beauty of working with your parts is that each of them has their own unique perspective and wisdom for you.

Too often we hear things that imply that we should silence or even banish the inner Critic. However, from my vantage point and experience, the Inner Critic is most often attempting to offer something of value. He’s trying to be helpful in the only way he knows how (through fear and thus behaving protectively).

When I started listening to the Inner Critic instead of avoiding him, I was able to use his strategizing, focus, and love of structure and stability to help balance out the Muse’s go-all-in approach.

Whereas I tended to favor the Muse because she is more colorful, upbeat, and fun-loving, it was an important process to see where she was blindsided by her aspirations and sometimes ignoring realities that the Critic rightly brought to my attention.

In fact, the relationship between the Muse and Critic highlighted why they were so diametrically opposed—by being pitted against each other, each one grew more and more extreme.

Through working with these parts and having them relate to each other, the Critic could become an “inner architect,” and the Muse could open up to his ideas for designing the life of her dreams without throwing caution to the wind.

It gave structure and form to the wispy and grandiose ideas of the dreamer. I was able to launch my own business, while also balancing the realities of daily life.

Most importantly, working with my parts helped me feel more peace and alignment inside myself. From there, the external aspects of life became easier to navigate because I could connect to the clarity and direction within.

I fell so in love with the personal transformation that parts work has to offer that I now incorporate this methodology into my work with others. It has been amazing to see how similar and yet how unique every person’s inner parts (and their relationships to each other) can be!

By working with one’s parts over time, you can see how and why they disagree and move closer and closer to a deeper understanding and harmony among them.

Do you also have an internal struggle currently where you feel like there’s a Ping-Pong game of back and forth going on inside your brain? Are you feeling torn between “I want to” and “I shouldn’t”? Are you feeling split between “If only…” and “Impossible!”? Then, it’s possible that two sides of your own self are waging war trying to get to a solution that actually lies in the middle ground of what they both have to offer.

To start getting to know your own parts, you might:

1. Sit down and list any of your roles or personas—as many aspects of yourself that you can think of.

Some examples include: Debbie the Downer or Suzy the Spunky One; Donald the Dreamer or Percy the Protector.

Trust your first instinct on their gender, if applicable. Some may even be an animal or have an amorphous presence, like a pervasive mist or a dark blob. *Also note that parts are not fixed or stagnant, they can continually evolve and shift, just like us!

2. Secondly, write a few descriptive adjectives beside each of them.

Write down what arises for you when you imagine them and when you connect with their needs, fears, and desires. For bonus points, draw a picture of them! (Even stick figures count!)

3. Then, pick the two parts that seem the most contradictory, and begin a dialogue.

Start with the most eager and curious one asking the other, “How are you today?”

At first, they may start out pretty opposed, but if you write for at least a page, they may come to understand each other. However, the only goal here is to witness their perspectives as they are, and let the rest unfold organically. Don’t force the process; rather follow your intuition and be open to letting the process lead you!

Feel free to share below how this goes for you. I hope you at least have fun exploring. You might be surprised at what unfolds!

About Jeanine Cerundolo

Jeanine Cerundolo is a holistic life coach with a degree in spiritual psychology from Columbia University. She loves supporting others to find inner peace and their own rich creative expression through self-exploration and personal growth work. In her free time, she loves to write, especially poetry for the page or the stage! Visit her at www.jeaninecerundolo.com.

Web | Twitter | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

The post What To Do When the Voices in your Head Disagree appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-to-do-when-the-voices-in-your-head-disagree/

[jrgarcia]

The Erickson Aircraft Collection

I was in Oregon last month to partake in a road rally called the Gambler 500 (a story you can check out here). One of the motto’s on the rally was “If you ain’t having fun, go find some.” My teammates and I had been on the road for about 7 hours, heading towards the overnight checkpoint, when we spotted a sign for a vintage aircraft museum. Jeremy, who was driving at the time, decided to stop and stretch our legs while checking out some cool planes. “Why not?” We thought. I’m glad we did, because we ended up finding a hole in the wall  with some truly impressive military warbirds, the Erickson Aircraft Collection.

Tex Avery’s Little Johnny Jet

Before I get to the museum I need to set up the vibe. When I was in grade school I would watch Cartoon Network with my little brother. There used to be a show on called Toon Heads. It was a 30 minute show that aired classic cartoons like Droopy Dog, Screwy Squirrel, Looney Tunes and others. Each episode had a theme and aired cartoons relating to that theme. What was interesting about the show is that before airing the cartoon they would give you some “Toon Heads Trivia” about the cartoons. This included facts about the animators and production of the cartoons. Stuff kids wouldn’t be interested in, so looking back I wonder why they bothered but I’m grateful they did. Could have been what sparked my interest in history later on in life.

Anyway, one time they aired a cartoon by Tex Avery (creator of Droopy Dog, Wolf, Little Red) called Little Johnny Jet, from 1953. The cartoon was about a veteran B-29 war plane struggling to find work after the military because now everyone wants jet planes. Then he has a son and little Johnny turns out to be a baby jet plane (adorable). Desperate to earn a living, John B-29 enters a race around the world for a big military contract against much younger jet planes. Little Johnny saves his father when his engines give out and pushes him to victory. Great cartoon, but there is a scene that has haunted me ever since.

Before John B-29 goes to enter the race he sees one of his superior officers in a hanger. John asks the plane, “Good morning sir, flying today?” The plane’s responds, “No. Old planes never fly, they just fade away…” And you see him vanish into thin air. Then it cuts to the next scene. That is a heavy sentiment for a kid’s cartoon. I was probably 8 or 9 years old and thought that scene was incredibly sad. That scene was imprinted in my memory and I can’t reflect on it without thinking about the boneyard in Arizona that is filled with retired warbirds collecting dust and getting sun tans.

RED – Retired, Extremely Dangerous

When we walked into the museum the woman behind the counter, Holly, told us that she was about to close for the day. We mentioned that we was part of the rally and told us that we could look around for 20 minutes while she cleaned up. She also informed us that all the planes in the hanger were operational. World War II war birds resting comfortably in an AC hanger surrounded by memorabilia while listening to the greatest hits form the 1940’s. Oil sheets were placed under all the planes to collect drops of oil from their engines which I found endearing.

Just a bit of Oil. It’ll still fly.

Having the hanger all to ourselves meant it was dead quiet expect for the music. All the planes sitting like statues, beautifully restored and at peace. We even saw a pair of Willy’s Jeeps, one that belonged to the Air Force and a rare blue Willy’s that was used in the Navy. They even had a German Messerschmitt BF-109, a fighter plane used by the Luftwaffe during WWII and kept in production by the Spanish after the war.

Across from the Me 109 was a Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawk. A fighter plane most famously known for being the warbird of choice for the Flying Tigers of WWII. The Flying Tigers were the first American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force. Pilots from the US Army Air Corps,  Navy, and Marines were recruited to be official members of the Chinese Air Force and partake in theater over the Pacific after Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Flying Tigers lasted until 1942 before being disbanded, but are accredited for destroying 296 enemy aircrafts while losing just 14 of their own. Even the most uninformed people can recognized the famous shark mouth design on these P-40s. Next time you see a car being wrapped with this design know where it came from.

Another cool piece included a Rolls Royce Griffon Mk-58 engine, a direct descendant of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. These were used to power the British Royal Air Force’s Super marine warplane, the Spitfire. As well as the Seafire and Avro Shackleton. This massive V12 has a displacement of 2,240 cubic inches and made 2,455 horsepower in its heyday. A real hotrod aviator of an engine.

We left the museum with huge smiles and a warm feeling of nostalgia. Not because we are patriotic, or history buffs, (we are) but because we were happy that these old warbirds were not going to just fade away into the past. They’ll be around, ready to fly if needed, for decades to come thanks to devoted collectors and restoration groups. All the vehicles and aircraft at the museum belong to a single private collection.

#gallery-0-25 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-25 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-25 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-25 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Why Knowing About the Past is Vital for the Future

In school, I remember classmates complaining about how boring history was. They all used the same line, “It already happened, who cares?” Being a hot head that line always infuriated me. Its such an ignorant, horse shit, line (Pardon my language). I love history because its a list of the human race’s greatest mistakes and accomplishments. History tends to repeat itself because we failed to learn to the lesson the first time.

That’s the bottom line to why history is so important,because we learn from it. Each of us has a personal history of mistakes that we learn from (or don’t depending on the situation) so we know better next time. Flipping through the news channels in 2017 it is easy to see that we live in an era where information is literally in the palms of our hands yet we live voluntarily uninformed or involuntarily misinformed. Like the old saying goes, “Man is the only animal that will trip over the same stone twice.”

  Read more stories and articles Here.

    A collection of restored WWII era planes reminds me of a cartoon from 1953. The Erickson Aircraft Collection I was in Oregon last month to partake in a road rally called the Gambler 500 (a story you can check out…