#i see past it all and i feel so trapped in a 3d world while my mind and heart live in 5d

[jazzzzzzhands]

i loved my dolly so much that i drew her!!

i changed her hair and skin tone because i can! She loves Wally!! Just like me!

[neobora]

Through A Different Lens

people love to talk about ignoring the 3d, visualising/meditating for hours, filling your mind with affirmations… but is all of that really necessary?

remember, our only goal is to change SELF. how do you know you can do that? because you are the inner man, god, higher self, whatever you want to call it. you are not your thoughts, feelings, assumptions etc. knowing this is what makes it possible for you to fully commit to a change of self.

how do you change self? by viewing life from a different lens. imagine you‘re looking through a camera. by changing its lenses in front of it the image you see also changes. you are not the lens itself, neither the image, you‘re simply looking through it. you can switch the lenses anytime. you're the observer.

the lenses are a metaphor for states, your mindset, what you feel (know) to be true. These you can also change anytime, right here, right now, simply by assuming so.

an example: you want to be confident, but you feel incredibly insecure. realise you’re just looking at life through this specific lens! this is not you, just a point of view that can be discarded anytime. and because you know you have all the power, and whatever you assume to be true is true, you look at life through a new lens, through the eyes of someone who is already confident. just let it happen. decide it is done, without conditions, without thinking "god i hope this will work" and the feeling will come to you naturally. that is what we‘re after anyways: naturalness.

something i also found helpful is becoming aware everything is happening NOW. the past and future don‘t exist. you’re reading this NOW. NOW is the only time to change. so when you say you have what you want, you look like this, whatever you want to be true, know it is happening NOW. do not affirm and visualise and think "wow, when i do this for the next 2 weeks i‘m sure it will happen sometime!" why do this when you can have and be what you want right NOW, and look at everything through a new lense RIGHT NOW??

you can look at the 3d and interact with it ALL YOU WANT, i promise it will not keep you from seeing your desires unless you let it! know the 3d is just imagination, as is everything. you don‘t have to react. i‘m serious. i used to get so triggered by the 3d, so much that it started really affecting me. only when i started viewing it through the lens of the inner self, of someone who already has what they want, while knowing it has no power over me, i started feeling fulfilled. i started KNOWING no matter what i see on the outside, no matter what my thoughts say, I HAVE ALL I WANT NOW. i started being able to look at the 3d without worry nor doubts which was so freeing.

feelings and thoughts come from this tiny little change of self identification. you don‘t have to force anything. let it happen.

become indifferent. i don‘t care how long it takes, as long as you view this 3d world through the eyes of someone who has all they want, and know that no matter what you see it‘s already done, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE IT. keep coming back to this 'knowing' feeling. do not fall into the trap of going back to your old lens. it‘s all your choice. know you CAN and WILL change, just by assuming a new point of view.

[virgosimagination]

Free Yourself from Reasoning

Deny your reasoning.

You reasoning is all of the things that you tell yourself while you're manifesting that are stopping you from experiencing what you want in your imagination. Examples include "what if <this> happens and it keeps me from my manifestation?" Or "how do I know I'm doing it right? How do I know I'm not messing everything up?"

These reasonings are what is keeping you trapped in your limited state. You have to abandon your reasoning in order to make your desired state your dwelling state. You have to abandon anything that comes into conflict with your wish fulfilled.

Consciousness is the only reality, so your reasoning is in your consciousness.

Let go of your reasoning in consciousness. Your imagination should be your perfect utopia, don't let your reasoning exist there as well.

Your reasoning is causing you to keep thinking in terms of separation instead of reflection. Your 3D reality is reflecting your consciousness. These two things are not separate from one another. If you are allowing your reasoning to exist in the 4D, it will exist in the 3D. You are not allowing yourself to be freed from your old circumstances because you are allowing reasoning to stop you.

Things go away when your attention is placed off of it and upon something else. Your reasoning will cease to exist when you take your attention off of it. The only way something can go wrong is if you repeatedly place your consciousness on the possibility of something going wrong.

If you focus on the problems of your 3D, your old circumstances, your old story, your limited state, you will continue to create more of them. Allow yourself the freedom of taking your focus off of the things that do not serve you.

You must become very focused on actually being who you want to be. Stop desiring to be it and actually be it.

Your reasoning is very convincing. After all, it points to things that you view as truthful. It uses your past, your fears, your worries against you. But you don't have to be attached to the reasoning, because you are the cause of the reasoning. It only exists because you created it. And you create from reasoning, too. It's how you hold yourself back.

So how do you let go of reasoning while imagining?

You can either tell yourself that what you're experiencing in your imagination isn't real because you're just imagining and your 3D actually looks like xyz, OR...you can grant what you see in your imagination reality and tell yourself that it <is> real.

Experience the reality of it. You can do this by feeling the wish fulfilled. Or by adding sensory vividness to what you are imagining. Either add sensory vividness by yourself, or allow it to happen naturally by abandoning your reasoning and telling yourself what you are experiencing is real.

Through reasoning, you are convincing yourself that what you're imagining is not real because it is simply in your imagination. By everything stems from imagination, so of course it is real.

Abandon your reason. If you do not allow yourself to feel your reasoning as real, and you just ignore it and pretend it isn't there, you can actually start to feel that what is in your imagination <is> real. The more that you let go of reasoning, the more your desire will begin to feel real to you. Nothing has to exist in your imagination if you do not want it to, if you do not give power to it.

Your inner man can do or have what it wants at any time. Where your inner man goes, you will go. You are just a reflection of your inner man. If you allow your inner man to be held back by reasoning, you will be held back by reasoning as well. If you allow your inner man to abandon reasoning, the reasoning will not reflect into your 3D reality. There is no need to wonder "what if?" because it can only happen in your outer world if you allow it to happen in your imagination first.

[isaacthedruid]

Please allow me to tell you about one of my favourite cartoons through this informal essay I did for school a couple of months back. 

Gravity Falls and How it Did The Unimaginable

**SPOILERS... KINDA**

The 2010s saw the creation of some of the most iconic animated tv shows ever made, the likes of Adventure Time (2010), Steven Universe (2013), Over the Garden Wall (2014) and The Legend of Korra (2012). To explain why this era’s shows are so admirable is honestly rather difficult. Yet, there are many factors that can be taken into consideration when looking for an answer.

The past decade was very successful in perfecting their craft and utilizing the animated format to their favour, creating some of the wackiest and fascinating cartoons ever made. With the advancements made in both 2D and 3D animation for film, this bled into the world of TV as well.

To mention that 2010s cartoons have stunning visuals would be an understatement. Everything about the animation was beautiful; the strong colour palettes, the clean and imaginative character designs, the colourful and immersive backgrounds and especially the mesmerizing worlds that can be found within episodes that are half an hour.

This era’s cartoons also led to a massive shift in storytelling, writing longer-running stories that spread out across seasons while also swapping out episodic adventures for serialization. This heavily aided in the popularization of these shows, due to the rise of internet fandoms and dropping the taboo that cartoons were only for kids. Many shows acknowledged their older viewers by leaving clues and even puzzles to be solved by the theorists who have a large appearance on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr. As the shows progressed, their fandoms created many theories for what they believed might happen within their favourite series. The top three shows from this era all utilized these changes, being at the forefront of the shift and helping guide the creative vision of 2010s cartoons.

Often regarded as many people’s favourite cartoon, Gravity Falls presented one of the best mysteries of the decade with two seasons and only 40 episodes. Inspired by Twin Peaks and The X-Files, it’s considered as the kids’ version of these two iconic shows as this cartoon acts as many people’s first introduction to horror through bright colours and fun characters.

This series follows the adventures of Dipper and Mabel Pines, twins, who are sent to spend their summer with their great-uncle or Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls, Oregon. This town is full of oddities like supernatural creatures, insane and eccentric inhabitants, and many puzzles. The Pines twins must adjust to the weirdness while uncovering the mysteries and protecting their new town.

While living in Gravity Falls, the twins are forced to work in the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap created by their Grunkle Stan that overcharges unlucky tourists, teaching about fake monsters despite there being real creatures all over town. On his first day in Oregon, Dipper accidentally came across a mysterious journal written by an unknown author that explains all the oddities to be found in this strange town. This book acts like an encyclopedic of the Weird for Dipper, an inquisitive 12-year-old kid who seeks answers.

Dipper is an extremely intelligent kid, his brain being far more developed than his body. He’s rather awkward and self-conscious as he often stumbles over his words or gets embarrassed trying to talk to girls. Despite this, the boy is an adventurer at heart who just wants to grow up and skip his upcoming teenage years.

While Mabel is quite the opposite in many ways, she is loud and has an in-your-face personality. Mabel is bouncy and fun, she is so excited to start high school. She is easily excitable and for the larger part of the series, she is in her boy-crazy phase. Mabel is a girly-girl as she likes all things; glitter, unicorns, rainbows, partying and crafting. Yet, she doesn’t often compare well with many of the other girls in town, they see her as weird and “too much”.

(In all fairness through, it is not too kind to either of the characters as their personalities are more complex than just awkward nerd and artsy girl-girly.)

Dipper and Mabel’s personalities are very different but somehow, they—along with their Gravity Falls family—manage to solve mysteries and save the town, multiple times.

Gravity Falls is an honestly genius series that completely changed the way cartoons were made. Originally when writing a series, you’d create a base of your story; characters, the universe and a basic plot. Yet, when creator, Alex Hirsch (who was in his early/mid-20)s and his small team first began constructing their show, they planned out everything they could possibly think of for the first season. Additionally, outlining some answers for their biggest mysteries that would be answered at the end of the series.

Despite being rated TV-Y7, this series really pushed the boundaries of kids’ television. From the teeth being ripped out of a deer’s mouth by a demon, rearranging the functions of every hole on a man’s face to an aggressive pop-rock sock puppet show that ended in a dramatic slow-motion scene of the puppets burning. Gravity Falls wasn’t afraid to get a little weird or creepy. Or create some genuine nightmare fuel. 

From the beginning, Gravity Falls had built a mystery into its series, hiding secrets and clues all throughout the show. Most notably were the backwards-recorded message and cryptograms, using roughly nine different kinds, even creating two of their own.

The inclusion of cyphers and mysteries for fans to solve is possibly the reason why this series was so successful. As one of the first shows to do something like this, Gravity Falls used social media and internet fandoms to its advantage.

As mentioned earlier, cartoon fans have quite a presence on social media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr. They create theories and share fun ideas about their favourite shows. Viewers of Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe were all included in their share of theory fun.

Sometimes, fan theories end up being correct but when you’re Gravity Falls creator, Alex Hirsch, you don’t just watch from the sidelines as your viewers figure out the biggest mystery of your show. No, you create a hoax to get your viewers off your trail and that is what he did. Around 2013, only halfway through the first season of the show, viewers had started to follow the clues, theorizing who was the author is Dipper’s mysterious journal.

Unfortunately for the Gravity Falls production crew, the viewers were right— for the sake of readers who have never seen the show, I will not mention who the author was as it would be the biggest spoiler.

In 2013, a supposed leaked image of a tv showing a younger version of the show’s crazy old man character, Old Man McGucket, writing in the infamous journal was uploaded anonymously (by Alex Hirsch) to 4Chan.

Despite the image only being on up for a few hours, it spread like wildfire. Much to the team’s success, theorists stopped searching for the answer to “who is the author” and just accepted the image of McGucket as the truth.

To further push the fake-out, three words were posted to Alex’s Twitter, “fuming right now.”

The tweet was deleted a few minutes later and fans genuinely believed that someone from the Gravity Falls team had leaked the most important part of the story.

While doing research, I came across a Reddit post from April 10th, 2013, the day after ‘leak,’ Alex’s tweet was uploaded. In this post, user, TheoDW uploaded an image of Alex’s tweet with the caption, “It seems that Hirsch got mad at last night’s leak. He already deleted this tweet.”

Seeing the reactions of these Redditors in 2013 is kind of weird and crazy to look at. “He has every right to be upset. Someone internally released a plot revealing screen shot of series breaking spoiler information,” a deleted Reddit account commented.

“This is Alex Hirsch’s biggest success by far, he spent a huge amount of time carefully planning out the series, and then in a moment someone releases a major spoiler. It would make anyone upset,” the user, Time_Loop commented.

“Seriously, this is a nightmare for a storyteller, and shows a breach of trust. I feel so bad for him–honestly, I hope whoever did the leak gets caught and appropriate action is taken. You don’t f–k with someone’s story like this. It’s unprofessional.” the user, lonelybeloved angrily commented.

In 2014, this ‘leak’ was finally disproven when viewers were given an episode on McGucket’s backstory and an amazing tweet from Alex Hirsch. 

Alex had post an image of himself playfully pointing at a monitor with the supposed leaked picture with the caption, “1) Make hoax  2) Upload to 4Chan  3) Post angry tweet about "leak" 4) Delete tweet 5) Let internet do rest”

It is so interesting to look at these comments know that all of this was orchestrated by Alex.

I wish I had been old enough at the time to follow theories and fandom stuff like I do now with current cartoons but really looking at this from an outside perspective, this was insane!

The real author wasn’t revealed until 2015 and when viewers first got the answer to this biggest show on their screens, they must have freaked out!

Following the finale in 2016, a single frame of a stone version of Bill Cipher, the show’s villain, flashed in after the credits had finished.

Alex Hirsch and his team actually created a real-life statue of their villain for their viewers to find and on July 20th, 2016, the Cipher Hunt began.

By following clues, the Hunters found themselves all over the world; Russia, Japan and then travelling throughout the United States for the final 12 clues. When the hunt took them to Los Angeles, actor, Jason Ritter (voice of Dipper Pines, also a massive fan of the series) and Alex Hirsch’s twin sister, Ariel Hirsch (the inspiration for Mabel) joined in the fun helping the search.

Finally, the hunt ended on August 2nd when someone tweeted out an image of the found statue in Oregon, the same state in which the fictional town of Gravity Falls exists. The Cipher Hunt had ended but finding the statue wasn’t Alex’s goal for the scavenger hunt, it was about the journey and bringing together the viewers, more than having them actually find the statue.

Creating its own hoax, an international scavenger hunt and quite a bit of nightmare fuel, Gravity Falls was a show truly unlike any other.

The 2010s saw some of the strongest cartoons ever made, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe acting as the leaders for multiple different changes in the medium; storytelling, worldbuilding, interaction with viewers, utilizing social media, representation and further pushing music into the cartoon world. From what was created this past decade and what has already been released in 2020, I’m so excited to see what comes next.

I have another one of these which is on Steven Universe’s representation and music if you would like to see that too!! 

[descendantofthesparrow]

Shuffle Playlist - Rewrite - Part of Your World - Part 9 - Harriet Hook

Harriet's look:

A/n: GRAPHIC CONTENT IN THIS CHAPTER, BEGINNING AND END OF CONTENT MARKED BY AUTHOR NOTES

=

Ten panic-filled minutes later, you, Gil, Jay, and Harriet had arrived back at the hideout. Jay quickly unlocked the door and sprinted up the steps, you and Gil paused at the bottom as Harriet stopped and leaned against one of the supports. “Aren’t you going to come up?” Gil asked, tilting his head.

You glanced between the two nervously, wanting to get up to the hideout and tell the rest about Harry as soon as possible. Harriet shook her head “nah, I ain't steppin’ foot in a place with all those traitors” she eyed you and Gil for a moment before looking away “I’ll be down here”

You and Gil shared a look and you shook your head “we’ll be back down as soon as possible” you told her, frowning as she didn’t respond.

You brushed it off and ran up the staircase, Gil close behind. You burst into the hideout and turned the corner, the core four were crowded around the couch, their forms tense and nervous “Harry-“ you started, but Mal quickly interrupted you

“Harry hasn’t talked to Uma went” Her eyes were wide with stress “ and Uma wants the wand” you stopped, staring directly into her eyes. You waved your hands around trying to process the first part of her sentence.

“I know the second part but what was the first?!” you could feel your chest tighten as Mal repeated and confirmed what you, Gil, and Jay had thought earlier.

Harry had never talked to Uma, and he had left his apartment over two hours ago to do so. “Harry wasn’t at his apartment” Gil took over, holding onto your shoulders as your breath intake increased worryingly. “and Harriet said he left to talk to Uma over two hours ago, so-“

The core four interrupted, their eyes wide and faces pale “Harry’s missing” Evie paced around the room, wringing her hands together as she muttered something.

Mal held her hands in her head “what are we going to do?! Uma wants the wand and Harry is missing!? And no one knows where he is?!”

“We ran into Harriet at Harry's apartment” Jay spoke up, watching as Gil pulled you into a tight hug “She's going to help (y/n) and Gil look for him with her crew” Mal nodded.

“Okay, so you three will take care of that, the rest of us will brainstorm on what do to with the wand” you groaned, pulling away from Gil's chest and deciding to just get it over with. You already knew how that ended anyway.

“Carlos make a wand with your 3D printer, Evie make smoke bombs, grab Dude, who I still don’t know how he talks-” Carlos gave a sheepish smile.

“Uh, I found some gummies in the girl's room, and I took a couple to try, but when I tried to eat one dude had it and then he could…talk” Evie glanced at him, her pacing finally ceasing.

“Wait were they red and heart-shaped?” Carlos nodded, making Evie sigh in disappointment “those were my practice truth potion gummies, Carlos what have I told you about eating random candy off my desk?”

“Don’t eat it unless you tell me to because it might be a potion?” Carlos guessed, shrugging as Evie raised her brow at him “Sorry, but anyway, what does Dude have to do with the wand plan?”

You sighed “Dude can talk due to non-bad intentioned magic right? So, it should keep going behind the barrier, so when Uma asks for Mal to test it, you can trick her by pretending to spell Dude to talk” Carlos raised his brows before it hit him. “Oohh this is what we did in your world's movie right?” you nodded.

“Yep, except Harry and Gil were still on the isle and Harry was the one to kidnap Ben instead of that asshole” you muttered, “Okay back to it, get Lonnie because she’s a good fighter, and it’s possible Gil and I won't be there for the fight so let her come when she asks Jay.” Jay furrowed his brows but nodded. “Gil and I will try to be back with Harry before noon, but I don’t know when…or If we’re going to find him” you paused for a moment, biting your lip as you thought of never finding Harry on the isle and being forced to leave him behind. You shook your head, willing those thoughts away.

“That sounds like a good plan” Mal nodded at you, turning back to the other vks “okay Carlos, Jay, you head back and make that wand, grab Dude and Lonnie, and get back here no later than noon” they nodded, standing from the table and shrugging on their jacket “and guys?” you all stopped, watching Mal as she looked at you all “losing? Not an option…cause we’re rotten”

“To the core” you all called back, smiling as Mal winked at you and Gil. You all walked towards the stairs, the boys heading for the limo while Evie and Mal planned for the hair salon.

“Oh Mal” she turned to you, her brow raised “I love the hair” her eyes brightened and she combed her fingers through her straightened mid-toned purple locks.

“I know right!? Dizzy did it!” Evie gasped, reaching out and touching Mal's hair.

“Little dizzy shut up!” Mal and Evie started chattering away about the young vk. Jay and Carlos rolled their eyes at them and continued down the stairs, you and Gil close behind them.

You reached the bottom and mentally sighed in relief as you saw Harriet still waiting for you. Her bright blue eyes turned to yours and she leaned off the pillar “we ready?” she hummed, tilting her head as Carlos and Jay ran past her down the alley.

“ready, let's go” you nodded firmly, walking up to her and gesturing around “lead the way” Harriet watched you for a moment before pushing past you and walking towards the right of the hideout building, presumably towards her ship.

It was a quiet tense walk as Harriet speed-walked toward her ship, you and Gil glancing at each other in an attempt to telepathically talk as it seemed odd to talk outwardly at the moment. You suddenly stopped, tilting your head to the right as someone talking brushed past your ears. Something told you to listen in on the conversation.

You listened to that something. “oi, why’d you stop” Harriet growled, turning back to you and cocking her hip “we ain't got time to sightsee” you held your hand up, running towards the building to your right and quickly climbing up the side to the top “What is she a monkey?”

Gil shrugged and followed your lead, Harriet looked around with wide eyes, groaning a bit before following. The three of you sneaked across the top, the two pirates following your lead and laying down near the edge.

You peeked over, a light gasp escaping as you heard the two isle residents' conversation come clear. “did yeh hear?” one of the men asked the other, his black teeth peeking from his thin and crusted lips.

(a/n): WARNING, TALK OF RAPE AND ABUSE OF MINOR

“ ‘ear wha’?” the other gruffed, leaning against the wall and inhaling a cigarette.

“Hooks boy is back on the market~ Sent out one of his men to all his clients to say he’s free to take~” the man with the black teeth purred, cackling as the other man sputtered.

“What?....hehe” the man chuckled darkly, palming his trousers as he thought about his last encounter with Harry “oooh boy, I've missed that piece of ass for months now, think he’s tighter now?”

You’ve had enough, you let out a growl that made Harriet and Gil flinch, and stood on your feet, jumping from the edge of the building.

“oh definitely, think I get him to bleed ag-GAH?!” they jumped back as you suddenly landed in front of them, your eyes glaring into theirs “what the fuck-who are you?!”

(a/n): okay the talk of rape parts done; you may resume reading if you didn’t want to read that part, but also warning graphic depiction of violence

“Harry’s girl” you snapped, grinning as they realized what you meant.

“you-you’re the bitch that punched Maleficent” the man with the black teeth whimpered, squeaking as he hit the building wall.

You stood to your full height, drawing Harry's sword, grinning at the sound the blade made against the leather sheath. Harriet and Gil's jaws dropped as you stepped closer to the two men. “Now here’s what’s going to happen.” you purred, taking delight in how the two shivered in fear. “One of you will be used as an example for what happens to those who even think about touching Harry, the other, will tell everyone else what happened to his friend as a warning to those who still think that they can hurt Harry and get away with it” you tilted your head as the man with black teeth suddenly got the courage to rush at you, a knife swinging through the air “Seems we have a volunteer~” you stepped to the side, his knife missing you by a good foot. You raised your right knee, slamming it into his sternum and twisting on your heel, using your momentum and kicking his knees in.

He flopped to the ground, his chin hitting it with a loud crack, blood already spilling from his lips. The other man tried to run, but Gil jumped from the building and landed in front of him, grabbing the mad and trapping him. He forced his head around to look at you and the other man. “Thank you, Gil, now” you flipped Harry's sword and gave a sharp grin to the whimpering man under your boot. “Let’s see you touch Harry when you don’t even have hands~” the man’s eyes widened and he screamed before he was silenced by Harriet’s boot.

“Quiet filth” she snapped, grinning as you flipped Harry's sword again “No one talks about my brother like that and gets away with it”

You swung down, thankful that Harry regularly sharpened his sword as the blade sliced clean through the lower half of the man’s arm. The man tried to scream as his arm was severed off, but choked on his own spit as you repeated the process with his other arm.

The man Gil was holding tried to scream but was unable to even take a breath in as Gil tightened his grip around his chest, cutting off his air. Gil closed his eyes and faced away from the gruesome torture of the man beneath you, but kept the man in his arms facing front and center.

People like them needed to learn a lesson.

A/N: End of graphic depiction of violence!

-

Gil watched as the two men hobbled/ran off somewhere, their whimpers of fear and pain echoing in the street. You cleaned Harry’s sword on a nearby tarp and sheathed it, glancing up with a raised brow as Harriet stared at you “What?” you hummed, crossing your arms. Harriet looked away and nodded at Gil.

“let's go, we’re burning time” she led you and Gil back between the alleys and onto the docks, her ship just in sight.

“Harriet!!!” you turned, blinking in surprise as a teen came running up behind you, his red beanie almost falling off from how fast he was running “Harriet! I’ve been looking all over for you!” he slid to a stop before the taller girl, leaning over and panting. “My dad was looking for you, said it was really important that you see him as soon as possible” Harriet furrowed her brows.

“Well, we were heading back now, so come on” The teen raised his brow, looking up to see you and Gil staring at them.

“Hey isn’t that-“ he pointed at you, about to ask something when Harriet grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and pushed him forward “Gah!”

“We can talk about them later Sammy, we need to get back to the ship now and plan, dad has Harry” Sammy stopped, his eyes widening in horror. He bolted off towards the ship with another glare from Harriet.

She sighed and turned towards you before nodding her head towards the ship and continuing to speed-walk to it. You and Gil nodded to each other and followed her.

As you got to the gangplank leading to the main deck, you could see a whole gaggle of pirate teens and young adults, all looking over at the three of you climbing onto the ship “Oi!” Harriet barked, their attention snapping over to her “Where’s Smee?!” they pointed over to the other end of the ship, where presumably her quarters were. She nodded and gestured for the two of you to follow.

You kept close behind and watched as she pushed open the door and call out for Smee “Uncle Smee! You needed to talk-woah!” the old man rushed up to Harriet, grabbing onto her jacket.

“Oh, dear! It's bad it's very bad! You-your father, he has Harry!” Harriet stopped, oh god how she had wished for the two men jeering at her brother to be only based on rumors, but with her pseudo uncle's words, it was all too true that her baby brother was under the grasp of their tyrant father.

“Shit” she cursed, pulling away from Smee and running her hands through her messy hair. “This is bad, this is really-really bad! What are we going to do!? Dad will have him cooped up in the brig till one of his fucking clients decides they want him!”

“We-“ you interrupted her panic attack, her stressed blue eyes turning to you “are going to storm the ship and get Harry, that’s what we’re going to do” Harriet shook her head, crossing her arms.

“But dad’s crew, there's-” you rose your brow, stopping her from continuing.

“So what? How many members are there?” Harriet furrowed her brows, muttering off numbers and names in her head.

“I-I don’t-“ Harriet stuttered, gasping lightly as Smee placed a hand on her shoulder and turned to you.

“Nine my dear, not including me or the captain.” you smirked, just Harriet’s crew alone doubled James’.

“Then we can easily take ‘em” Harriet tilted her head in confusion “girl, do you realize how many members you have on your crew?” you gestured to the door, where her crew were waiting outside “I counted almost fifteen just from the gangplank, and I saw more than that, you have more than enough people on your side to take down your dad’s crew, plus me and Gil. we can and will easily get Harry back.” Smee and Harriet looked at you with wide eyes, slightly impressed by your determination “but I do have a question” you hummed, looking over to Smee, who tilted his head at you.

“Who turned Harry into James?” Smee's shoulders dropped and he looked to the floor.

“Davy Barbossa” a spark lit in your chest, anger burning through your limbs. That red-head that kidnapped ben then ran like a wimp when you threatened to gut him?

“I’ll kill that little coward.” you snapped, glaring down at your boots, the curve of Harry’s hook shining in your vision. You and Gil glanced at each other and nodded, turning back to Harriet “So what's the plan”

She smirked, turning to walk out the door “We gather the crew first”

You let out a breathy laugh and followed her onto the main deck, overlooking the crew as they stood at attention.

You felt Gil's hand clamp onto your shoulder and you looked up at him, giving a reassuring smile as he nodded at you.

You would save Harry from his dad.

-

Harry blearily opened his eyes as he heard the heavy steps of his father coming down to the brig he was trapped in. he closed his eyes again and laid his head on his arm, trying to avoid interacting with his dreadful father.

“Boy” he growled, Harry refused to even move, forcing his breath to stay calm as his dad slammed his hook on the bars “BOY! WAKE UP I SAY” Harry cursed himself as he flinched “I know you’re awake boy, GET UP” Harry forced himself to open his eyes and sit up, knowing if he continued to pretend to be asleep, it would be a worse punishment if he didn’t obey his father's demands. He avoided his father's eyes, continuing to look down at his hands.

“You’re lucky tonight boy, I was just notified that my client that was going to come tonight has postponed to tomorrow.” Harry let out a quiet sigh of relief “…tch” James turned and started to walk out of the brig, unamused by Harry's silence. “I wouldn’t expect your little Auradon brat to come after you, I suspect once she notices your absence she’ll celebrate” Harry let out a low snarl, making James turn with a crooked brow “Ah, some liveliness I see”

“She’ll murder yeh when she knows yeh have meh” Harry snarled, grinning at the look on his father's face as his eyes flashed red “She’ll paint the isle red with yer blood and use yer intestines as garland!”

James' eyes flashed red, and he took a step toward Harry before one of the crew members, the cabin boy, ran down the brig stairs “CAPTAIN! NEWS!”

James rolled his eyes and turned, ignoring the seething Harry. “What is it?”

“One of your clients, his-his hands! And-and his-his...downstairs area, they’ve been chopped off! The mate that was with him said it was a warning to those who would even think about touching Harry!” James stared wide-eyed, slowly turning as he heard the growing giggles of his son.

He froze as he caught Harry's eyes, the ocean blue completely gone and consumed by a gleaming crimson “I told yeh~” he giggled, flopping onto his side and giving a sharp grin to his father “She’s gonna kill yeh~”

James stared at his son's maniac form as his laughter filled the brig “She’ll come fer meh, you’ll see, and yeh won't live ta see another day!”

James growled and slammed his hook against Harry's cell, his shoulders slumping a bit as Harry continued to laugh maniacally. He turned and stormed up the stairs, the cabin boy close behind.

“If that lass is on the isle, I want her killed!” James yelled, turning to the cabin boy and pointed his hook in his face “I WANT HER HEAD ON A STICK INFRONT OF HARRY’S CELL, SO I CAN REMIND HIM THAT I OWN HIM!”

“Yes-yes captain” the cabin boy muttered, his face pale as James stormed into his cabin and slammed the door behind him.

He sighed, slumping a bit “I do not get paid enough for this”

-End of part 9-

 uuuuuuuuuuuuh yep, there it is, Harriet's been officially introduced and is gonna help save Harry along with her crew. The core four know what to do for the wand for Ben thing, and Harry is slipping into madness as he sits in his cold damp cell, luckily he holds onto the hope that you will be coming for him.

and yes i changed why Dude can talk, since Carlos isnt interested in Jane (cuz shes interested in Gil) i made the truth gummies into a test potion gummy Evie had made and was just lying around so Carlos took one (cuz in the first movie he was kinda like “ooh candy” well not completely, it was more background stuff so i wanted to keep that) and then Dude ate it. and i would like to remind those that Dude’s VA is now beast boy/Greg Cipes since that middle aged male one didn't fit him. 

 and yes, (y/n) is also kinda...off her rocker a bit, at least when it comes to Harry, I've tried to convey her as usually chill but if it involves harry, she will not hesitate on anything. oh yeah! and (y/n) finally knows who turned Harry in to James~ prepare for your ass kicking Davy.

anyway permtaglist!

@queer-cosette @sephiralorange​

@lunanight2012​ @daughter-of-the-stars11​ 

@musicarose​ @thecaptainsgingersnap​

@descendantsobsessed​ @rintheemolion​

@random-thoughts-003​ @remembered-license​

@verboetoperee​ @imtryingthisout​ 

taglist

@thesailbells​ @beccad10x​

[translations-by-aiimee]

Dig a Grave to Dig Out a Ghost - Chapter 2

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - Ghost Encounter

Before that incident occurred, Lin Yan didn't believe that there were ghosts in the world. He studied history during his undergrad and continued straight into doing his master's in archaeology. When he was on an expedition with his professor, he picked up the bones of a dead body and plucked a jade cicada from the mouth of a mummified body. Ghost stories were always something joked about in their dormitories. If something happened to people after they died, then the world would know about it. For example, if someone picked up the imperial blue bowl of the emperor, the old man would notice and stand up, shouting: "That's mine!" How interesting.

The dead should just let the dust from the past settle and stay quiet.

Lin Yan had just finished dinner when things changed. He didn't live in the school dormitories. He had moved into the apartment his parents had set aside for him when he got married because of the fights his old roommates in the dorms had with their in-laws on the phone. This apartment was much closer to the school, and he had been living alone since then. He cooks alone, plays games alone, and travels halfway across the city to visit his parents on the weekends. Lin Yan is one of the tens of thousands of small researchers in dozens of colleges and universities in this city. If he makes great accomplishments, his future will be bright, but if he's average, then he will be lost in the crowd.

That day, he made himself Fried Sauce Noodles. Once the minced meat was boiled, it was mixed into the sweet stir-fry noodle sauce. The noodles were drained out of the pan, topped with the sauce, and it was delicious. Lin Yan took the bowl and sat in front of the computer, watching "My Old Memories of Old Beijing" and eating the noodles.

The air was humid and stuffy in the early summer weather. Suddenly, halfway through the movie, a clap of thunder rang out outside. It didn't take long for large raindrops to pour down, and the thin lines of water on the window glass became a curtain of rain, pattering against the windows.

Lin Yan was busy turning off the video. Before his computer had fully shut off, a bolt of lightning flashed across the night sky. With a snap, the computer went black.

Afraid that something might happen, Lin Yan complained and unplugged the computer from the socket. He used a desktop computer specially equipped for 3D restoration renderings of cultural relics. As soon as the power came back after the thunderstorm had passed, he would have to submit a repair request.

Tomorrow, he'd have to trouble Yin Zhou to repair the machine again.

Suddenly, a strange feeling washed over him.

Cold, inexplicably cold, sending a shiver up his spine.

He didn't know when the temperature of the room started to drop. He didn't even notice it while he was watching the movie. Now it feels like he was inside an ice cave. The cold is coming out from all corners and enveloping his body. The sweat on his body turning cold, his t-shirt sticking to his back.

Lin Yan vigorously wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, thinking about how the weather must be cooling down because of the rain, and decided to get up to find a long-sleeved shirt. Before he could get up, his eyes glanced at the computer screen and nervously sat back down.

With the lights on in the room, the situation in the room was clearly reflected on the dark computer screen. In front of the screen was Lin Yan's face, and behind him was the window, which opened wide inward, and the curtains were swept around by the wind. It was the "person" standing in front of the curtain that made Lin Yan frozen from head to toe.

That's not it; it was more like the shape of a person - a person wearing a strange hat.

Lin Yan stared blankly at the things on the screen, a sense of panic slowly creeping up his spine.

It must have been a clothes hanger that he forgot to move, there's no need to jump to conclusions. Lin Yan pulled at the corner of his clothes, took a deep breath, and swung his head around.

Nothing was there. Everything in the house looked normal. The only difference was that the raindrops were coming even larger, the rainwater twisting into small streams on the glass and flowing down.

His suspenseful heart began to calm down.

No! Lin Yan went numb all of a sudden. Not only was there no one there, but the windows were clearly locked, and the curtains were tightly tied on both sides. How could they be blown by the wind? What he saw in the reflection on the screen just now. . . what was going on?

An illusion! It must be an illusion! Lin Yan clenched his jaw. He couldn't help but pinch himself to keep himself sane.

There was a small electric crackle. The power went out, and the whole room fell into silent darkness.

Almost at the same time, the indicator light of the computer monitor suddenly flickered. The two small red lights looked like blinking eyes, accompanied by the squeaking sound of the whirring motors. The screen that was in a completely power-off state glowed green as if the screen saver had been switched. It's like a procedure.

No. . . Wasn't there a power outage? Lin Yan was completely speechless. His whole body was pushed back into the chair by the sudden and weird atmosphere. Then the screen flashed and, as if someone was typing, large characters appeared one after the other on the screen, piercingly red.

"The first day of the month of Wushen; the death date is approaching."

Another clap of thunder boomed outside the window.

Lin Yan swallowed hard and stared at the line of words on the screen. He tried his best to calm himself down, but his mind went blank.

It must be. . . It must be Yin Zhou pranking him.

He was a professional programmer and technical expert. Messing with the program to mess up the power grid. It must be boring to try and scare yourself or something.

"The first day of the month of Wushen; the death date is approaching."

The line of red letters flashed on the screen twice and disappeared. The computer then powered back off. Only Lin Yan's heavy breathing remained in the dark room. He took out his cell phone from his pant pocket and tried to call Yin Zhou. Before he pressed the call button, there was a heavy and repetitive tapping on the windowpane.

"Taptaptap. . . taptaptap"

He couldn't see anything in the heavy curtain of rain.

Lin Yan suddenly jumped up and leaned against the computer desk, staring out the window. This. . . this was the twelfth floor, what could be knocking on the window?

"Taptaptap. . . taptaptap"

The knocking increased as if someone were waiting impatiently.

Materialists couldn't stand immediate losses. Besides, creatures always have the instinct to avoid danger. The atmosphere was so strange. Lin Yan grabbed the car keys from his pocket and rushed out of the house without looking back.

The rain fell harder and faster, and the normally bustling three-ring road was empty. There was only the heavy rain curtains and thick fog. Lin Yan turned on his headlights lights all the way. He hoped to find an exit that was bustling with life and filled with a large crowd. In one night, his normal life was completely messed up. There was no signal from his cell phone and no signal from the radio. He seemed to be isolated in a corner of the world and was just driving around endlessly.

Lin Yan glanced at the fuel gauge. He was running out of fuel as he went further down the road, but he had not found the exit of the overpass. He was a native to this country and yet he was trapped in the city that he had been living in for 22 years. Just saying it was absurd enough to make anyone laugh.

The low-beam light couldn't illuminate the road very far. Under the warm yellow light, only the dense lines of rain could be seen falling diagonally, washing down his windshield. There was a wide road in front of him, turn after turn. There were no people, no cars, and even the sound of the GPS reporting how many kilometres were left was inaudible and his speed on the speedometer was barely visible. Lin Yan looked straight ahead, for fear of missing any fork in the road.

After travelling on the highway for nearly three hours, Lin Yan finally began to panic after passing the IKEA billboard multiple times over.

A deep thought came to mind.

The ghost was making him go around in circles.

The arrow on his fuel gauge was almost at 'empty'. Lin Yan slowed down. He thought he couldn't keep driving forward. Obviously, there was a force trying to stop him. What he should do is to sort out his thoughts and find a solution instead of continuing to drive around aimlessly. He didn't dare think about what would happen if he ran out of fuel.

Lin Yan pulled the car over, leaving only his hazard lights on, then sat in the car and began to think about what happened at night.

Power outages, computers that suddenly freaked out, strange reflections.

The first thing that came to mind was that someone was playing a prank, but he immediately denied it. If it was just the problem with his computer, he might still suspect the unreliable programmer Yin Zhou, but the knocking on the window, preventing him from getting off the highway, and blocking his mobile and radio signals; none of that was this guy's style. Lin Yan searched his mind for a long time to find a candidate that might want to scare a friend like this, but he came up with nothing.

He himself was a very good person. He was a good student from elementary straight through his master's. Apart from skipping classes to play Warcraft, and handing notes to his classmates during an exam, he basically had no blips on his record. He has never even played any tricks on girls, let alone his immediate friend group. Even if someone wanted to play a prank on someone as revenge, that wasn't how Lin Yan handled things.

Lin Yan was a person who, even when he ate toothpaste and cookies on April Fool's Day, still believed that he was just eating something mint-flavoured. To understand what was going on, Lin Yan could only find the solution by going through his process of elimination. By the time he can go through his hilariously incompetent system of thinking, he has probably already vomited up three litres of blood.

Lin Yan rubbed his temples and thought hard. Someone was threatening him in an inexplicable way, or was outright declaring war.

Lin Yan turned on the cell phone's calendar and entered the date of the first day of the Wushan month. The small square immediately jumped to the corresponding date: July 15 and the gates of hell would be wide open.

Something is wrong, Lin Yan thought.

When he looked up again, there was suddenly something that hadn't been there before that appeared in front of his car.

A figure stood near the side of the road as the heavy rain poured down. The figure didn't seem to notice Lin Yan was there, neither holding an umbrella nor wearing a raincoat, quietly standing with his head held down under the dim street lamp. The fog everywhere made Lin Yan unable to see his appearance. He could only make out that it was tall and he was wearing weird, oversized clothes. The caring Lin Yan wanted to offer the figure a ride. Even though he can't really protect himself right now, but he can at least provide some shelter from the rain.

An empty highway, rainy night, a strange individual on the side of the road, this unfortunate picture seemed suspicious at first, but Lin Yan saw something a little more depressing.

The figure seemed. . . very lonely, like waiting for a resolution that will never come.

Lin Yan re-started the car after making sure all the doors were locked, and slowly slid forward along the roadside, thinking that after being trapped in this endless loop for so long anyway, it was more useful to see if this person might be able to help him break the cycle.

When he was less than ten metres away from the person, Lin Yan suddenly froze as though a gong went off beside his ear. He finally realized why he felt there was something wrong with this figure. This person had no shadow.

The streetlamp was casting light on this person, but there was no shadow at his feet. The place where the shadow should have been was just the shape of the streetlamp reflected in the puddle, which was shaken by the continuously falling rain, rippling and disturbing the surface of the water.

Lin Yan knew what he had encountered almost instantly.

He was covered in a cold sweat, he couldn't keep a grip on the steering wheel because of his clammy palms. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, not caring how much fuel he had left. He didn't even care if there was any road ahead, he just knew subconsciously that he had to get away.

40km, 60km, 80km, 90km. . .

Suddenly a car sped out in front of him. Lin Yan was stunned, and instinctively stepped on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left!

"Squeel--" After the extremely sharp and piercing sound, the front bumper Lin Yan's Audi A4 was just a few centimetres away from the Buick's back bumper as he brushed past it. Immediately after, Lin Yan drove into the bushes and the car shook before getting stuck. After it stopped shaking, the windshield was covered with holly leaves.

The car had almost been totalled.

Lin Yan lay on the steering wheel, panting heavily, his whole body was frozen.

"Knockknockknock." Something harshly knocked against the car window

Lin Yan jumped nervously and stared at the glass in horror. When he could see the face of a man, he let out a long sigh, and then rolled down the car window.

"Who the hell taught you how to drive? If you were so desperate to die, just tell me and I'll beat you to death!"

A series of harsh curses about his ancestors gave Lin Yan a sense of joy, bringing him back to reality. He almost rushed out and hugged the Buick driver.

"No. . . I'm sorry, I've been on this highway for three hours. I just found my way. I was a little excited, sorry, sorry."

Lin Yan wasn't paying attention to what the other driver said, and couldn't help smiling bitterly since the driver must really consider him an idiot.

The Buick driver stared at Lin Yan for a while, then suddenly stopped the curse, and muttered, "You look like you've seen a ghost." He took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed one to Lin Yan: "Did you come across something weird? Smoke a cigarette to calm your nerves. You should bring out a protection charm next time. We all have strange experiences at night every now and again."

Lin Yan got out of the car, and the driver lit the cigarette for Lin Yan. The two stood side by side on the roadside. Strangely, cars began whizzing by on the road. There were rows of shops and tall buildings lit up on both sides of the street where there was originally only fog and dark shadows. Even the rain from earlier had stopped.

Lin Yan took a puff of cigarettes and calmed down, and said in surprise: "Have we met before?"

The driver smiled indifferently: "It often happens, especially in places with a lot of accidents. The more deadly the accident, the more evil will be left behind."

Lin Yan nodded. He didn't know how much his materialistic worldview changed from this information.

After sending the driver away, Lin Yan whipped the sweat off his forehead and took out his phone to check the time. The screen showed two text messages and three missed calls, one every half an hour on average within the past two hours. Lin Yan opened his settings; the phone wasn't muted, the volume wasn't very loud but it was enough from him to hear it. It confirmed that the signal had been blocked this whole time.

Message 1: "Will you come out for a drink? The regular place."

Message 2: "What are you doing? Answer the phone!"

Both the sender and the caller were Yin Zhou.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

[purplerose244]

Thinking journal for season 12 Prime Empire 😎😎😎 (2/2)

Here we go with the next part! I really hope we get some major big plot twist at some point, because it's all really cool but I need something to really change from good to GREAT

For now, let's focus on the next episodes!

It's the 17th of April and here we go!

GENERAL

I feel like there's little time to really pull up something, I don't know. Like, what plot twist could happen now that there just half season left with only Unagami/Dyer's identity and maybe Scott's past as mysteries? There's little space for more plotlines, that's what I think

Overall fighting scenes, character designs and game backgrounds are AWESOME!!

Let's see how it goes, maybe I'll be surprised. Wouldn't be weird for Ninjago to pull a bomb last episode 😅

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

ZANE AND PIXAL FINALLY!!! IT'S DETECTIVE TIME!!! 😎

Okay, so there is a photo, and there is a friend. As I thought, Dyer might not be Unagami at all, I feel like there's a lot of backstory coming along. I wonder if Scott has a part in this... WHERE IS SCOTT 💙

Ah, of course Kai would spend his credits on an avatar, I should've known, my flame babe can be such a dummie sometimes I mean why would you even do such a thing as buying an avat-

NEVER MIND I LOVE IT 😍😍🔥🔥 I thought him being blonde was going to bother me, I actually kinda like the change. Still prefer my baby brunette, but it's really cool as well. The best of this season are definitely the characters designs

Was that "let's fight an ogre mission" a hint for next season? I wouldn't be weird, but it's been a while since I've seen forshadowing for new season in this show

HECK YEAH THE DANCING EPISODE!!! I was waiting for this, Jaya is so cute while they are on the dancefloor 😍 They have chemistry 😘😘😘

I like the implication that Nya was really bad at dancing before Jay, like Kai covering his eyes because he cannot handle her sister not being perfect at something 😛

And Cole being the dance expert, that little tango moment with Kai I bet made many lavashippers super happy 🖤❤🖤❤

THE TRIPLE TIGER SASHAY ALL THE WAY FROM SEASON 1-2 ABSOLUTELY YES YES YES!!! AND HE DIDN'T ROAR, HE STRAIGHT UP SAID "NO ONE PUTS COLE IN A CORNER" I'M DYING!!! With this and Nya's 'catch me', I expect so many Dirty Dancing AUs from this 😂👌

JAYA BEING AWESOME HECK YEAH ❤💙❤💙

JUST LOOK AT THEM!!! Nya better say I love you back soon, like Kai and Skylor are a little behind, Zane and Pixal already said it, Jay can't stop doing it, come on girl it's your turn! 😎😎

RACER SEVEN

SCOTT IS BACK YES!!! 😍😍😍💙💙💙

Okay, I think my theory won't happen 😅 Feels like there are not enough episodes for a good reveal, and it doesn't seem like Scott is that influenced by Jay. My last idea is that perhaps he has spent so much time in the game like Jay said (POOR BABY 😭) that he doesn't remember. Maybe the moment he will come back, we will find out that it is Jay's brother/twin, I mean he still has those dragon and lightnings drawing on his back... yeah I like this theory a lot, gonna hold on to it!

So Scott is indeed a person trapped in a game, at least that's confirmed 👍

Also he's got some major issues, the poor thing, and I think there is some special reason behind him not wanting to race besides having just one life.

HERE IT COMES

OH MY GARMADON 😂😂😂 Okay, okay, it's actually better than I expected really. The scarf is cool, and so are the golden tattoos, the suit and the golden sleeve. It's just the mohawk that will take time to get used to, it's not even bad, just weird 🤷‍♀️

Racer Seven is so cool! Always nice seeing a new female character in this show that is not a love interest. I do love Nya, Pix and Sky to death, but I love variety too 💪

Really, really nice the piece of all Racer Seven's crashes! Impactful and sad, a never ending loop that she wants to break through from. That's the heavy stuff I like!

Okay, ready for the race! And I'm... scared? Like, a lot of they guys have one life?? KAI HAS ONE LIFE?? 😱😱 I hope for the best I guess 😅

THE SPEEDWAY FIVE-BILLION

Might be my favorite episode yet

Seven is SO COOL, it's another reason why I'm sad these episodes are so short! I really would had liked see her more, truly have her bond with the guys

Soooo... I guess since Scott's been in the game for 30 years it's safe to assume he's not Jay's brother/twin. To be fair it's really hard to tell a LEGO person's age😅 At this point I guess he could be either Dyer's friend, even if it sounds unlikely, or... idk, still think he could have a connection with Jay. Maybe he's like... an older brother? Libber had him a long while ago?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WHY DID SCOTT HAVE TO DIEEEEEEEE??? 😭😭😭 Just when he was getting more involved, come on! He even said he wanted to try that hero stuff, I love him! WE WILL SAVE YOU MY TECH BABY!!!

Cole getting a ride from Kai, this season has some pretty good lava material ❤🖤❤🖤

I've got some major Ninjaball Run vibes from this, that brings me back 😂 Even the no rules thing is there, come on, there has to be a little bit of inspiration from it!

Still don't know what I think of the rats, kinda seems useless and annoying, gonna be honest. But it's a nice race, exciting with nothing big happenin-

Kai and Cole sacrifice for Jay

I KNOW I THOUGHT ABOUT IT BEFORE BUT I'M NOT OKAY WITH THIS!!! MY FLAME BABE AND MY ROCKY BABY!!! 😭😭😭😭 WHY PEOPLE KEEP DYING IN THIS EPISODE???

I so, so enjoyed how they did it. Like, one look between them to realize that yes, this is it, Jay is the expert and needs to go on. This is the end of our race... AAAHHH!! (Infinite shipping potential too)

Omg Nya screaming her brother's name and Jay his best friend's name, while Lloyd looks so devastated (those masks are actually kinda espressive, I really like them). Wow. This is the angst I needed, finally👌

YES SEVEN WON!!! HECK YEAH GIRL!!! SO HAPPY FOR HER!!! Also Okino in the background being happy, nice touch!

And now they are three... it's gonna end up with only Jay huh. I... I'm not ready actually, my heart 😢 They better all hug when this is all over!!!

STOP, DROP AND SIDE ROLL

I CAN SEE THEY ARE KEEPING THE FEELS FOR LAST APPARENTLY??? 😭

The music of the old school section was actually very nice, reminds me of the past, I kinda hoped The Fold were going to release some game themed songs. Been a while since I have one of those 😍

Lol, explaining the side scroll games was actually pretty cool

YES THEY ACTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGED THE AIRJITSU!! Maybe they will remember they can used it, right Cole? The ladder scene? YOU CAN FLY???

OMG NYA ACTUALLY SAID CICLON-DO JUST HOW CUTE IS THAT!!! All the way from my favorite season Possession, Jay's definition of airjitzu that I actually still kept in one of my fanfictions 😂

Okay the design of the temple of madness is REALLY cool, you can immediately tell it's from an old videogame. Gives me the double vibe the googles for the first 3D movies used to give me 😂

Also look at this

THIS IS ADORABLE!! 💙💚💦 Really old style videogame 😂

And there we go!! Harumi!! Since I saw her in the set I was wondering what she was going to be, maybe an avatar or an NPC of some sort... THIS HURTS WAY MORE!!! And of course pure heart BABY boy Lloyd doesn't feel good fighting her, he had a crush on her! AND HE FREAKING SAW HER DIE!!! It's really sad that he still hopes for her to be good...

The fighting scenes are really, REALLY good! So fluid and active! This fight was really pleasant to watch, not gonna lie 💜

NOOOOOOOOO!!!! NOT MY GREEN BABY BOY!!!! I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN BUT STIIIIIIL!!! 😭😭😭

Okay, down to three members. Remaining Zaptrap and water godess... omg Nya will totally die first and at that point Jay will go completely nuts. I'm both scared and DYING TO HAPPEN!!! ANGST FINALLY!!! THIS IS THE STUFF!!

Got some major Skybound feeling, like when it was only Jay and Nya... will Nya finally say I love you back?? I HOPE SO ❤💙❤💙

With the three keytana now, what will happen? I'm actually curious now, this is the exciting stuff I need! And yes I do realize it's a little weird that for getting hype I need my faves to die 😅

NINJAGO CONFIDENTIAL

OMG THEY ACTUALLY DID A DETECTIVE THEMED EPISODE BLACK AND WHITE I'M DYING 😂😂😂

The Weekend Whip with sax, never thought I needed this in my life 😍

Bet Brent had a blast recording this

Okay this is the third Chima reference I see, they better throw some Nexo Knights hits as well next season! Come on, it's about freaking knights!!!

This is not what I expected when they said there was going to be an episode with only Zane and Pixal but I'm sure as HECK not complaining 👌

Oh, seeing Pixal joining in so normally is so beautiful, I really wish we could have her even more often

Dareth's karaoke bar! From Sons of Garmaron! Also him guessing first try because the ninja really do get post in other dimensions very often 😂 Gotta love them indeed

Pff Zane narrating and getting stopped every time because of it, how I missed this naive little nindroid

So the bartender Tony is the friend? That's it? A little easy really, hoped for more... still calling him Milty is cute 💕

Buddy's Pizza from season 2!!! This season is killing me with references and I LOVE IT SO MUCH 💜💜💜

So, the mechanic is free again (the Kryptarium dudes should really learn how to do their job right 😓), Zane is kidnapped, and Pixal has a fedora that makes her possibly even cuter. I have emotions

AH!! KNEW IT!! UNAGAMI IS NOT DYER!! FREAKING CALLED IT!!... kinda expected really, but still called it 😅

So Unagami was the first name of Prime Empire and is also an AI that got crazy and was shut down, but now is back after programming the game itself and wants to get to the real world?... I'm down with it

So I'm guessing we won't get much of a Scott backstory... Eh, let's see how it goes!

THE PRODIGAL FATHER

I was seriously confused by why those dudes wanted to kidnapped Wu, but it made sense later. Still come on sensei, you're a freaking half god or something, pull yourself together 🤦‍♀️

Very nice that Pixal is the one to bring up the argument about feelings and AI. So very nice to have her in this!!!

I THOUGHT ZANE WAS GOING TO TAKE A BREAK FROM LAST SEASON, WHY ARE THEY MAKING HIM SUFFER AGAIN??? 😭

Oh finally the backstory of Unagami I'm really curious about what happened in the past and what exactly brought the shut down of Prime Emp-

I LITERALLY CARE ABOUT NOTHING ELSE BUT THIS BEAUTIFUL GAMER BOY IN REAL LIFE!!! 😍😍😍😍😍

So Scott was the first beta tester, Milton asked Unagami to make the experience as exciting as possible, and that ended very badly so the game was shut down and THEY LEFT HIM INSIDE FULLY KNOWING HE WAS THERE??? I HATE DYER NOW!!!

Although it is really interesting knowing a tech genius like him, until now we got Dr. Julien and Cyrus Borg that were plenty open about the idea of AI with feelings as meaningful as humans'. While he doesn't get that, they are only machines for him and that's the reason why he doesn't understand how much Unagami is mad and filled with need for revenge.

This is why I want more than 11 minutes, the themes of this season are really, REALLY cool. I would have loved more introspection and development.

I guess Scott being Jay's brother is officially debunked 😅 Although I am curious about the life he left behind, since he was stuck in that game for 30 years. He still has those lightnings on the jacket I don't understand...

DON'T YOU DARE LET ZANE BE DESTROYED AGAIN PLEASE I STILL CRY WATCHING "THE TITANIUM NINJA"!!! 😢😢😢😢😢😢

The portal is open, Zane might get destroyed, Unagami wants revenge, Jay and Nya are the only one left and I'm pretty sure Nya will be killed as well leaving only Bluebell so there's THAT. So yeah, this is actually pretty cool!

Two episodes left. Okay Ninjago season 12 Prime Empire, wow me 😎

THE TEMPLE OF MADNESS

This felt a little simple if I'm gonna be honest. I felt like the last mission before facing Unagami was a little basic, with nothing really exciting. Still liked it, but this is probably my least favorite episode 🤷‍♀️

Of course, put Jay is a sushi restaurant-themed level and he will kill you with puns 😂 I love this prankster

Again, the fighting scenes are dope. Definitely one of my favorite things since they changed the animation. You lose something you win something 😙

Wooo, Jay saying that he had trained for years just for kick his butt was actually cool! Bluebell is unleashing!

"And that's how we roll!". You rock we roll, am I right 😂

AH!!! CALLED IT!!! TOTALLY CALLED IT!!! MY POOR BABY BLUEBELL 😭😭

I wish Nya said that she loves Jay back though! Freaking come on girl, he is your yang!!! ❤💙❤💙

Unagami is not Dyer, he wants to get to the real world, I'm actually kinda curious about the confrontation that is about to happen... ALSO THERE BETTER BE LOTS OF HUGS WHEN THIS IS OVER

I... genuinely forgot about the dragon medallion 😅 Eh, I love dragons so I'm fine with it. Well, let's see how it ends!!!

GAME OVER

Wow, I actually love this ending?? A LOT?? After last episode I didn't have much hope, but after seeing it I gotta say, it was really great 👌👌

Thanks for not dying on us again Zane, much appreciated

Jay taking charge is quite rare and when it happens you know things are about to get crazy 😂 It was really nice seeing how sensible he could be, telling that Unagami wasn't evil after all, that he needed closure and answers

I know I miss the animation peak we reached with SoG and Hunted, but I gotta say the atmosphere of the city with the lightnings and the gray sky was really awesome. Very cool.

Pff, that part with the elevator though, reminds me of the one in season 1 that made me start watch Ninjago ✌ Also it's always Borg's Tower indeed 😂

OKINO KICKING BUTTS HECK YEAH LOOK AT OUR RONIN GO!!!

And wow. WOW. I didn't expect Jay to drop the I'm adopted bomb on us, I think I never heard him talk about it since Skybound (that technically never happened so 😅). It was SO good seeing him sympathize with Unagami because he was also left with no explaination. His desire to know, along with the hope that the past is the past, but they had a good reason for. Also he freaking said he didn't have the chance to ask because Cliff is dead and I 😭😭😭😭

And here I melted, because we finally see the situation for what truly is, the way Jay also sees it: Unagami is a kid, a child that doesn't understand how the world works, that just wants to make his father proud but got rejected instead. The confrontation was actually touching, I really wish we had more time for that. Even a little resistance from Unagami, another fight, and a finally reconcilliation with Dyer.

MY NINJA BABIES ARE BACK I MISSED YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!! ❤💚💙🖤💦💎

Could you seriously be cuter than this?? ❤💙❤💙 I wished for more hugs but I'll settle for this I guess 😍

Okay, very nice to see Seven and Okino out there and deciding to live their lives in Ninjago, nice to see some others like the rats going back to Prime Empire. As Unagami said, he gave them a choice, it's up to them at this point

But I'm sorry, WHY ARE WE NOT GOING TO TALK WITH SCOTT??? That guy's been trapped inside the game the longest, not even a "Hey bud, you're alive, cool cool"? I know I've been overbearing about how much I love Scott, especially since I had all those theories about him (still don't know why he has lightnings on his jacket and hat, is it just a style thing? Idk), but come on! Well I guess if he's happy I am 🤷‍♀️

Is that his girlfriend or something? After 30 years? Or maybe she got trapped with him a while later? Or maybe that's his... mom? Look, we all know determine the age of LEGO characters is hard, give me a break please 😅😅

Overall, very nice ending, it brought everything together quite nicely. I'm satisfied, yes!! 💜💜

FINAL THOUGHTS

As I said, the episodes' lenght I really think gets in the way of making this an excellent season. There is so much that could be explored more, the choice matter, all the amazing characters, and the AI feelings stuff from the latest episodes. There is room for more, I wished we got that

The characters though were really amazing. Between Scott, Okino, Seven and Unagami himself, there were very different personalities with very different dreams and thoughts, that made this ride much more interesting

Fighting animation was 👌👌👌

Comebacks from past seasons were 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌

Maybe it didn't really focused on Jay as much until the end? Yeah it was about him, but we got to see his sensibility and his past only last episode. He loves Nya, he likes videogames, of course but there's more about him than meets the eye! Wished we saw that, but in general it was nice seeing him first line again 💙

I liked this season. It has flaws, but I enjoyed many parts and at the end I was left satisfied 👍

Just... wasn't Jillian supposed to be in this? Or is it next season? She said a mom was going to come back, I took for granted it was going to be Edna. I'm curious about next season now... FINALLY A COLE SEASON EVERYONE!!! 🖤🖤🖤

Thank you for leaving notes to my last rant, this helps me not jump excitedly every time a new episode comes out 😅 Well then, that's all from me!! Have a nice day everyone!! 💜💜💜

[socionicsdatabase]

Hello there, what would you say is Hisoka's type from Hunter x Hunter?

It seems that Hisoka is Beta extrovert, specifically EIE. He values and respects power and domination over others. He likes the struggle and the challenge of a good fight. He also values the entertainment, fun, and emotional excitement that his fights provide. This is all characteristic of Beta Quadra. His aristocratic preferences can be seen in that he only kills those who he deems “worthy” of killing. However, the most noticeable traits about him are Fe and Ne. This makes sense because in the EIE, Fe and Ne are the two strongest functions (4D) and will both be obvious.

Lead function: Fe (4D, Valued)

Hisoka is highly skilled at reading and understanding the character and traits of others (Fe in combination with high intuition). This skill led him to create a personality-based system to help him determine Nen types, and he is able to accurately use it. Hisoka is also a natural showman and entertainer. It is noted that as a teenager working in the circus, Hisoka "found himself to be a natural performer" and naturally began to notice Moritonio's "aura". He fights in a graceful style and is aware of and responsive to the energy between himself and others, even in the midst of a fight ("A battle is a dance...! We must move to each other's beat...") He understands how to create a certain image and how to make others perceive him a certain way. This can even be seen in his theatrical appearance and the teardrop and star on his face. He is in control of the mood and emotional environment. He is also highly skilled in deception, and seems able to make people believe what he wants them to believe. The fandom page for Hisoka mentions that he "frequently puts up an outlandish or even arrogant act to fool into his opponents into believing he is being careless, whereas in reality he is laying traps." The EIE is a masterful actor, and we can see this trait in Hisoka. He likes to shock and awe others. The lead, valued Fe can also be seen in the fact that it is important to him that the fights and challenges are fun and entertaining, and he is able to create this “fun environment” himself. He is also very aware of the emotions of others. It is noted that he enjoys seeing uncomfortable expressions on the faces of his victims, and that he has a tendency to “freak out” on them. He is very attuned to the expressions of others and often comments about them (”I adore that look on your face”), is able to see the “fire” in the eyes of others, and has been described as “manipulative”. He receives a lot of information from the facial expressions of others, especially from their eyes ("I prefer to look into the living, rather than the lifeless...Eyes, that is.") He is very in control of the emotions of others, and can create the image and external mood that he wants to create. This can even be seen in his abilities, such as transmutation, which allows him to change the properties of his aura to mimic something else. This means he can easily adapt and project other “auras”, which suggests the kind of emotional control and projection that is characteristic of the EIE.

Creative function: Ni (3D, Valued)

As for creative intuition of time (Ni), Hisoka is very aware of the development of situations, making him a skilled strategist. According to Socionist Vera Stratiyevskaya, the EIEs “perfectly know how to take advantage of the time that this or that situation gives him.” This can be seen with Hisoka, and is a quality that also helps him with deception. Hisoka is also very aware of how the current moment is related to the course of events from the past and the future ("Every step we take amends our fate"). Creative Ni can also be seen in Hisoka's strong ability to see the future development of a person. For example, he predicts that Gon will be a much stronger opponent in the future, and so he is willing to wait to fight him until the time is right. Like all Beta types, he has a “vision” of what he wants from the future, and as an intuitive type he is capable of waiting to achieve it at the right time. He is skilled at predicting and feeling the right time for everything ("I have to wait until he's ripe and ready...I have to be patient until my prize is as its peak..."). The right timing for Hisoka is extremely important ("I'll wait. And when the fruit is ripe, I'll pluck it"). Hisoka is also considered to be a "master strategist" who can "formulate winning plans at the very start of a confrontation." Hisoka is often able to analyze the situation and predict how it is going to turn out. His fandom page notes that "he excels not only at planning ahead, but also at picking apart enemy strategies". His creative Ni also supports his lead Fe which helps him to further manipulate others, such as the time when he forged a fake prophecy to trick the Spiders so that he could gain enough time to fight Chrollo.

Role function: Te (2D, Unvalued) Adhering to objective facts are not of great importance to Hisoka. Stratiyevskaya notes that the EIE “can often manipulate facts and arguments at his own discretion”. This is helpful for Hisoka’s trickery. Stratiyevskaya also notes that EIEs “may not be at all embarassed by bluffing, falsifying or manipulating facts”. This is a trait that can be seen in Hisoka, who is described as a “whimsical liar” and is known for his deception. According to Socionist Victor Gulenko, the EIE is, by temperament, “impatient and restless” and is not easily able to perform methodical work, but can force himself to do it when necessary. Hisoka does not evaluate based on usefulness (Te), but rather, entertainment and emotional excitement (Fe).

Vulnerable function: Si (1D, Unvalued)

Hisoka is known to completely disregard his own safety and comfort. He doesn’t place much value on pleasant sensations. In fact, he is able to have his arms and limbs cut off without worrying about how it make him look. Extreme discomfort does not phase him, and he pays no attention to harmony in his environment. He is much more interested in overcoming challenges and shows of strength (Se > Si). For Hisoka, long-term considerations are much more important than health, relaxation and physical well-being, which he pays very little attention to and seems to not even notice much of the time.

Suggestive function: Ti (1D, Valued)

Hisoka respects detailed analysis of a situation by others, and he tries to achieve this himself. According to Gulenko, the EIE is “inclined to solve strategic problems” and can work as a hierarchical leader. We can see this with Hisoka, who does have analytical abilities, however, much of his analysis of others relies on his intuitive traits and ability to feel the mood rather than through objective analysis. Hisoka’s actions often depend on his mood and what can entertain him at the time and it is difficult for him to be entirely objective. The explanations that he gives to others can be inconsistent. It is interesting that Illumi, a lead Ti type who is described as a “cold, brutal person ruled only by logic” is considered to be one of Hisoka’s only and closest friends. He respects Illumi because he provides him with the introverted logic (Ti) that he is constantly seeking. Hisoka can help Illumi loosen up and express himself, while Illumi can help Hisoka become more disciplined. Illumi is also able to help Hisoka see things objectively, and thus is able to gain his trust and provide him with an invaluable service.

Mobilizing function: Se (2D, Valued)

Hisoka (like all Beta types) also greatly respects power. Like all Beta types, Hisoka is aware of the power hierarchies in his world and is constantly trying to improve his status and position in the eyes of others. For example, he joins the Phantom Troupe with the hopes of fighting against the leader, Chrollo, and dethroning him as the most powerful. He is very attracted to people who are extremely powerful or who have the potential to become very strong. In Beta Quadra, weakness is considered shameful and must be avoided at all times. Power and strength seem to motivate and activate Hisoka, which would suggest Se in the mobilizing position. According to Stratiyevskaya, for the EIE, "struggle is what one should live for" and "Life without struggle, without burning and overcoming is devoid of any meaning." The EIE is constantly on the search for opponents, and "if there are no opponents, Hamlet [EIE] finds them for himself, as well as a reason for struggle and confrontration". This is exactly what can be seen with Hisoka, who is constantly searching for strong opponents to pit himself against. However, although Hisoka is very strong, his sensory, and forceful qualities are weaker. He is not very aggressive, disciplined, or domineering, and prefers to play around and toy with his opponents rather than use direct aggression. He is not a pragmatist, not strongly grounded in reality and focuses on future developments and possibilities more than the current moment, but development and improvement of Se qualities is a lifelong goal for the EIE. Stratiyevskaya notes that for the EIE, “Realization of his own powers is very inspiring and activates him. The consciousness of the infinity of his powers is dangerous for Hamlet [EIEs] - it turns him into an evil demon, having fun with the fate and lives of people.” This is exactly what can be seen with Hisoka, who has a lot of fun and enjoyment with the use of his strength and powers. His great admiration of strength and volitional qualities in others, and his constant seeking of powerful opponents, all indicate Se in the mobilizing position.

Ignoring function: Fi (3D, Unvalued) EIEs are known to frequently change who their “favorites” are, and can be seen as ethically inconsistent and fickle. This trait is seen in Hisoka, who even describes himself as "fickle" and once said that "What used to be valuable can instantly turn to chaff." He is suspicious of the good intentions of others and tends to suspect that those who show kindness must have an underlying motive or something they are trying to gain. This is characteristic of the EIE, who “does not initially believe in absolute holiness and infallibility” (according to Stratiyevskaya).  Also, despite his strong understanding of people, he has no interest in developing or strengthening deep bonds with others. He is capable of forming relationships, but his focus in relationships seems to be on whether or not he wants to fight them in the future rather than a personal bond. According to Gulenko, the EIE “prefers to keep his distance from people” and “his other extreme in relationships is obsession and narcissism”. Though not seen in healthy EIEs, these traits can be seen with Hisoka, who is often considered to be a narcissist and tends to keep a distance from others.

Demonstrative function: Ne (4D, Unvalued)

Strong Ne is also noticeable in his character. In regard to demonstrative Ne, Stratiyevskaya notes that for the EIE, “The stock of his inventions and tricks is inexhaustible. He is able to sit out and wait out any danger. He is able to "outplay" any opponent, hide so that no one will find him, confuse the "tracks" so that no one will find the ends. He is not only able to get out of any trap, but also to put a hunter there. He can convince anyone that he is right, inventing arguments for this that can neither be verified nor refuted.” As mentioned earlier, this quality can be seen in Hisoka, who is skilled in deception and constantly uses tricks during his battles. He is very good at misleading and misdirecting others. Strong Ne can also be seen in that he is able to evaluate the potential of his opponents. He can see how they can further develop their potential into the future, and in the background he seems to be constantly evaluating their potential. Hisoka's strong Ne is also helpful to him during his battles. His fandom page notes that he is skilled at "picking apart enemy strategies, compiling all the available information and coming up with multiple hypotheses in mere seconds and in the heat of battle, as well as to rapidly adapt to new developments". From this we can see that although Hisoka has a rational temperament and plans ahead, he can also quickly adapt to other situations based on his strong intuitive ability to predict what the opponent could possibly do. His strong Ne has caused some to mistype him as ILE, but Hisoka is not interested in exploring abstract possibilities for their own sake. Instead, Ne serves in the background to help him locate powerful opponents (Se) who can entertain him in fights (Fe), when the time is right (Ni). Fe-Ni-Se are his valued goals, and Ne is merely at the service of them.

As mentioned earlier, Hisoka is sometimes mistyped as ILE. However, he is not an infantile type. There is no suggestive Si, no preoccupation with food, comfort or health. He is not seeking those things. In fact, he completely disregards those things (Valued Se, Unvalued Si). He is not looking for someone to take care of him. Instead, he seems to desire that others prove that they are worthy of fighting and conquering him. He provokes others and wants to see what they are capable of, testing their strength. He wants to find someone who is strong enough to overpower him. This is typical of victim types, who have Ni in the ego block. Hisoka is not looking for a caregiver. He is looking for a conqueror.

[rayless-reblogs]

the effect of The Caligula Effect

I just beat The Caligula Effect, a game I heard about years ago, but always understood to be a semi-bad Persona clone full of angsty-looking high school kids with superpowers. But I was eventually convinced to play The Caligula Effect: Overdose, an expanded rerelease that allows the gamer not only the opportunity to play alongside the Go-Home Club – a group of students who are searching for a way to escape the virtual utopia that entraps them – but also the chance to simultaneously join the Ostinato Musicians, another group of students who are determined to preserve the utopia and their idealized lives within it at all costs.

I'm a big fan of Persona, and this isn't the first clone I've played. Last year I tried out Falcom's Tokyo Xanadu. As far as I'm concerned, neither game approaches the quality of the latter three Personas, but in terms of visuals, gameplay, and story, Xanadu has Caligula pretty well beat.

I like Xanadu. But between the two, Caligula is the one I like more and care much more about.

Justifications below the cut. Also some extremely vague spoilers.

The Bad: The Caligula Effect has major shortcomings in many, many areas. For me, the battle system is clunky and bland (though if I raised the difficulty, I might find it more interesting). The character models are awkward. The environments are repetitive and the levels are too long. And as far as battles go, you are literally just fighting other students – no interesting monster designs anywhere. Those are a few points, but there are definitely more flaws that could be gone into.

But if you've followed me for a while, you know that the games that end up grabbing my attention aren't necessarily the most deserving. So here's what I like:

The 2D art is lovely. The characters have changeable portraits based on their emotions, as per Persona, but the menu features two full-length portraits for each character, Go-Home and Musicians alike. The elegant, silvery art style is gorgeous, and it's a shame it wasn't used more prominently and creatively, rather than the awkward 3D models. The main visual motif is flowers, and to that end each Go-Home member has unique (and highly symbolic) flowers associated with them. When they access their superpowers, each of them is shown with a stake driven through their heart, surrounded by their flowers – a striking and unusual effect. The desaturated colors in the characters' designs make their flowers stand out all the brighter.

And definitely check out each character's status screen because their portraits hint towards their true personalities.

Speaking of which –

Caligula mimics Persona's Social Link system (it doesn't use the term Social Link, but that's what I'll use here), allowing you to grow closer to your teammates on both sides of the ideological conflict. Not all of the Social Links are written equally well – some are more interesting than others – but a number of them are intertwined (even across both teams in the Overdose release) and become very engrossing as you try to figure out how events fit together. And who these people you're working alongside really are.

Like Persona, several of your teammates are motivated by personal trauma. As great as Persona 3 is, it can start to feel ludicrous how many of its characters have dead parents. (In fairness, their traumas aren't just that they have dead parents – but most of them have at least one dead parent and it gets old.) In Caligula, the traumas feel varied and more unexpected, touching on subjects I haven't often seen in JRPGs. For example, I guessed Mifue's trauma fairly early on, but was surprised at how seriously it was eventually depicted. I thought I figured out Ayana's quite quickly, only to have my theory pulled out from under me. Izuru's Social Link ended up shocking me at one point, then made me more thoughtful as I listened to him analyze himself. I've heard Kotono's arc wasn't universally liked in Japan, but I was really happy to see her specific backstory handled, even if it made her more complicated than a typical pretty girl in a high school game. And when it came to Shogo's, I immediately started to downplay the seriousness of his past – only to be proven quite wrong.

And it's not just the heavy stuff. Going through characters' Social Links (and talking to them on the game's texting feature) often changed how I felt about them. When I first met Suzuna, I was instantly fed up with her timid personality and thought I was going to hate her. She ended up being one of my favorites, the change not so much due to big story events but because of small details about her personality. I disliked Ayana and Naruko early on, but softened as I got to know them. This is especially noticeable with the Musicians. If you only encounter them as the Go-Home Club, they'll be rather flat, easily dismissed antagonists. Getting to know them on their own turf reveals characters who are often as fleshed out and interesting as the main cast. And again I was surprised at who I ended up really liking, like Sweet-P and Shonen-Doll.

Another, more subtle, thing I enjoyed – in different Persona games, a number of your teammates are very cool people. Eriko's mysterious and interested in the occult, Mitsuru's this unattainable school celebrity, Akihiko's a star boxer, Ann's a professional model, Yusuke's an artistic prodigy, Rise's a literal teen idol. There are certainly talented people among your teammates in The Caligula Effect, but for the most part, you're all nerds and losers. And that goes for the villains as well. Most of the characters aren't that socially impressive, either because of their personalities or they have very powerful reasons for turning away from the mainstream. And while many of them grow and change, they're not really wish-fulfillment characters.

One last thing I want to touch on – this virtual utopia our characters are struggling in is rather deceptive. Everyone within it takes on the role of a high schooler, but this doesn't always reflect who they are in reality, adding another layer of interest for me. Without going into specifics (because one of the most fun things for me was trying to figure out who people really were), a (vague) number of these characters are adults, not teenagers. And many of them are motivated by very adult concerns, such as dissatisfaction with their professions and questioning their positions in their adult lives. One of the main tensions of the game is whether it's better to direct yourself as an adult in the often-disappointing real world or whether it's better to remain a child free from responsibility in the virtual world. Despite all the game's high school trappings and tropes, I found myself wondering who the intended audience really was.

Caligula's main story is pretty flat and basic, much less sophisticated than the plots of the Personas or Tokyo Xanadu. But because of the characters and the multitude of B-Plots you go through with them, the game still has a compelling, and even adult, quality.

It's not a great game. I can't stress that enough. The first handful of hours are terrible. I think one reason I'm so into it is that I entered the game with very low expectations. But its characters have a lot to offer, and for me that ended up being the heart of the game. So I liked it.

[jmsebastian]

Metroid Prime 2 Really Enjoys Wasting Your Time

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve always thought the praise that the Metroid Prime series got was overblown. Don’t get me wrong, Metroid Prime, in particular, is a good game, but the series seemed to suffer in ways that the 2D games never did. Most of these issues come down to asking players to scour every inch of every level in order to find a critical item or hidden path forward. That is in the spirit of the classic 2D Metroid games, Super Metroid in particular, but 2D presentation allows for those sensibilities to shine because it doesn’t take all that much effort to examine what’s on screen in a 2D game. Even the map, as intricate as it is, only allows for four directions of exploration. After playing the game for a while, it’s pretty easy to look at a room you’re currently in, compare it to the map, and check out areas that may contain secrets.

When you move that into 3D space yet try to maintain the amount of detail that’s present in the 2D games, you’re going to have a mess on your hands. To solve this problem, Metroid Prime took a very minor component of Super Metroid, the scanning visor, and basically made a whole game out of it, all while trying to remain an action game. Scanning objects is easily the worst part of Metroid Prime. It essentially forces you to crawl your way through an area the first time, stopping every few feet to look around with the scan visor. Scannable items are highlighted in red if you haven’t scanned them before, which is supposed to help you quickly determine what you need to focus on, but so many rooms have numerous items to scan, which destroys the pacing.

Granted, not every item is important, so you can get by without scanning a great deal of the available items, but seeing as progress is often locked behind items you need to scan, or knowledge you gain from a scanned item, you are heavily encouraged to scan anything and everything. When you realize just how much of your time is spent scanning items, you realize how little of it is spent actually exploring, fighting bosses, and having fun.

Yes, many of these chairs have to be scanned in small groups or individually for...some reason.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has all of the same problems as Metroid Prime and then really doubles down wasting the player’s time. The biggest change from Prime to Echoes is the introduction of the Dark World. The Dark World concept is pretty much lifted directly out of A Link to the Past, meaning that in order to make progress, you have to hop back and forth between the Light and Dark World in order to discover new areas, obtain new abilities, and change things in one world to impact the other. Conceptually, this is a great idea and it’s actually amazing it took until 2004 for this idea to be brought into the Metroid universe. Unfortunately, the execution is hampered by one extremely important detail: the Dark World actively hurts Samus just by being there.

I know there’s a story reason for all this, but it completely ruins the game. Initially, being in the Dark World at all takes a huge toll on your health very quickly, so you can’t spend very long in it. The only protection you get are these little beacons of light that project domes of safety. This, naturally, sets you up for the expectation that you’ll eventually get a suit upgrade that lets you withstand this constant HP drain. This is true, but it doesn’t happen until maybe the last (and most boring) 10% of the game that just has you backtracking through a bunch of areas to get some keys. Before that, you do get one suit upgrade that reduces the damage done, but you still take damage in the Dark World for the vast majority of the game, making exploring far more dangerous than it’s generally worth.

If you know what you’re doing, are good at the game, and don’t face too many issues with combat, you can get through the Dark World areas without losing too much health over time. Unfortunately, I’m not especially great at these games and tend to take a lot of punishment in enemy encounters. Since the game is extremely stingy with regard to its health and ammo pickups, I dread every time I have to go into the Dark World, fearful that I might get stuck out between safety zones or trapped fighting enemies for too long.

Thankfully, you can recover your health in the Dark World by hanging around those safety beacons. Unfortunately, the health restoration is so slow (about 1 HP every second), that you will spend a lot of time standing around doing nothing, waiting for your health to reach a point where you feel confident about going out and fighting or exploring more. I can’t think of a more blatant way to waste the player’s time. First, the suit that reduces the HP penalty in the Dark World should just eliminate the effect altogether. There is no really good reason you couldn’t take damage early on in the Dark World, find the suit upgrade, and then be free to traverse without penalty. I’d prefer that the Dark World not damage you at all, but I get that there is a narrative purpose to this, initially.

You’ll spend a lot of time just standing around in these safe pods, waiting.

What I can’t reconcile is just how slowly your HP regenerates when you’re in a safe zone. The reason it’s so slow is because there are enemies that engage you in rooms that contain these beacons and obviously they didn’t want players to be able to camp out under the beacon and just mindlessly shoot until the enemies died while they faced no serious danger. It seems that a better solution would have been to simply reduce the number of safety beacons a bit, or make sure enemy encounters were in areas that didn’t contain them. That way the threat of exploring would still exist, but if you did get in trouble, you could just backtrack to a beacon, stand around for a few second, then go back out and try again.

Instead, you still have to stand around beacons if you go exploring for too long or take too many hits, and the time spent doing it is drastically extended. Maybe having faster health regeneration would still make the game too easy, but I’d take a game that’s too easy over one that literally stops my progress so I can stand around for an arbitrarily long amount of time, actively making me not want to continue exploring.

Going back to the issue with detail, Prime 2’s map system does little to alleviate the inherent issues with exploring complicated level designs from the first-person perspective. One of the reasons I tend to have gripes with first-person perspective games is because they do a very poor job of mimicking what it’s like to actually see a space with your eyes. Most of this is related to peripheral vision what you can see in your peripheral vision in real life, as well as the fact that you can move your eyes around in your head, shifting your focus, without actually turning your head. You really can’t do that in games because you’re detached from the space by a screen. To look around, you have to physically move your character’s head (the camera) in the direction you want to look. It’s extremely disorienting to me and as a result I often get lost in games, even ones that don’t have levels as intricate as those found in the Prime series.

Naturally, there is a map in the game, and it is absolutely vital to navigating the game. However, reading the map is, in itself, a challenge because it, too, is in 3D. Honestly, it pretty much had to be. The levels in Echoes are extremely complicated (needlessly so, I’d say). Of course, it’s the same map that was used in the original Prime, but due to the levels not being as distinct in Echoes as they were in the first game, as well as the fact that you have a complementary map of the same areas to accommodate the Dark World, we’re looking at another area where you end up spending a great deal of time. I can’t tell you how many times I’d walk into a room, even one I’d been before, check the map, go into an adjacent room, then immediately go back to check the map. When you combine the time spent sitting around waiting to regain health and the time spent simply trying to orient yourself in the map (and often fighting with it since you can easily highlight rooms in floors above or below you by accident), it’s easy to see why the game can take around 20 hours to beat, even when really the game should take about half as long.

As I get older, I get a lot more irritated with games that do things simply to waste your time and pad out the play time. You really get the feeling that the changes made to Prime 2 were done specifically to make sure players spent more time with it, even if the quality of that time was drastically diminished compared to the first game. As such, Echoes is a vastly inferior game to its predecessor, and one that isn’t really worth revisiting. And if all the time wasting isn’t bad enough, it also introduced Dark Samus, which I consider the worst thing to ever happen to the Metroid franchise.

[selfdulgent-selfinsert]

Caught in the Middle. (A self-indulgent, reader insert) Chapter 26:

Your fingers were frigid. The gun Joseph gave you absorbing any head your delicate fingers could ever have. Though you had no other way to carry it. Joseph’s holder wouldn’t fit you and anything loose and strappy was bound to be an incident waiting to happen. The apartment complex was grating on your nerves, blocked paths at every turn eventually forcing you down a few floors. Amongst the scattered fires and occasional trap, the building was quiet. A couple crows perched around the open windows and gaping holes in the side of the building. You smiled at them, the slight ruffling of their feathers making them look so fat. It was a brief escape; something simple that made you forget your surroundings.

 It was short-lived, however, with a loud thunk. Turning to see a large familiar beast; the dials of its safe head seeming to stare into your soul its hammer digging into the remaining drywall. “Fuck! (Y/n) the gun!” Joseph shouted, pushing you up in front of him as the two of you began to flee. Fumbling the pistol into his hands as you tried to stay ahead of Joseph, just thankful you hadn’t dropped it in the commotion. You could hear Joseph fire at the thing. Its heavy footsteps never staggering. While it had been long since you had seen the hulking creature it hadn’t laid a hand on you, but you weren’t about to find out if that had changed now.

Running through hallways, holes, and hazards; almost being caught in the scattered bear traps and mines more than once. The steps of the monster were hard to hear now. Slowing your pace in an effort to travel silently, Joseph keeping you in front of him. Turning to check behind him regularly. The halls behind were dark and silent. Many doors dotting along, many paths leading who knows where. Letting out a long sigh, stepping ahead and putting a bit more distance between you and him. Deciding it was unsafe to go back, the only way you could go was forward. Your escape was cut short, however, as you were passing through a small foyer one of the connecting doors burst open.

 The creature was back, this time separating you from joseph and pushing him back. Using its girth to zone Joseph further and further back. The shock freezing you momentarily but it put quite the distance between you and your friend. “Joseph!” Calling out for him though the beast blocked your path, stranded without a weapon. Joseph wasn’t exactly in a better position either; while the thing was a behemoth one wrong shot and he could risk hitting you. He wouldn’t hurt you again but thankfully the monster seemed focused on him and hopefully, he could lead it away from you. He could do that much after he let himself…

The monster took a swing at him with its large spiked hammer, the force of the blow shattering the adjacent drywall. Almost striking Joseph as he was lost in his own regret; the instinct to save himself was growing overwhelming as he turned and ran. You continued chasing after them, whatever possessed you to run and directly follow immediate danger you didn’t know? Even a nurse outside of this situation would hesitate to get in-between such a creature. The walls became more industrial. Like the bowels of a hospital, easy to clean and cold. Joseph turned, looking to aim at the monster but he was still too worried he may hurt you. He couldn’t see where you were behind such a large problem but he had to take some kind of action. He held the pistol up properly, taking aim as the creature lumbered closer. His finger on the trigger, muscles flexing tighter and tighter.

 He couldn’t do it. Making a quick dismissive click, Joseph turned and continued running. Unknowingly passing Sebastian who was hidden in the dark kitchen beside him; watching in silence as the monster picked up the pace behind Joseph. Moving quickly Sebastian tried to follow up behind, you darting into the junction forced him to pause. “(Y/N)!” Shouting brought you to a stop. Turning to the voice, a relived smile gracing your disheveled and bruised face. For Sebastian, it was if time had slowed down for a moment; the relief of seeing you making his shoulders lighter. He smiled back at you, moving forward to meet you in the light. The air behind you started to distort. The smile on Sebastian’s face faded as the specter of hate appeared behind you. A twisted smile plastered on his face, visible barely from the harsh shadow cast from his hood. Watching your face twist in confusion as his arm wove around you to seize your throat. Confusion replaced by immediate panic as your hand flew to try and pry the hand from your windpipe. Pulling you against him and whisking you away, leaving nothing but visual static and an empty hallway. The departure sending Sebastian into another nightmare. But this one made him groan. Ruvik was getting lazy, the man had the audacity to send what equated to a Roomba with knives taped to it. The spinning blades bounding around the kitchen, scratching the industrial metal before bouncing into another direction. The spraying fire, protruding spikes, and acid trap being the more prominent issue. It took him little time to escape the kitchen, coming out into the empty hall before the doors shut behind him. Looking down each way he huffed. There was no way he would know where you and Ruvik went; really it pissed him off to no end. You were growing on him, his desire to protect you was becoming less of an ingrained duty and more of a personal vendetta. Trauma bonding does that but after being alone for so long, the continuous interaction forcing his heart to open.

 The only thing he could do was try and get to Joseph, following down the hall in a light jog and into a meat locker. The cool air dusting his skin, making his hair stand on end. Just in time to watch Joseph escape in a dumbwaiter; leaving himself alone with the safe-headed monster…

 “God Damn it.”

  For once after he took you; your final location wasn’t trapped somewhere in his manor. Instead, a bright park full of swings and even a merry go round. Raindrops froze in place around you as you seemed to be encapsulated in a bubble of peace. The light sound of feet behind you forcing you to turn around.

“Can I… go home? Take the train all the way home?”

Leslie and Officer Kidman entered behind you. The landscape behind them stark against the friendly atmosphere of the park. The swings swaying as if in use. You couldn’t hear what Kidman had to say but soon as Leslie saw you he began shuffling into your arms. As he nestled in, you could see over his shoulder, Kidman raising her gun to you both. Panic overtook you, doing your best to move Leslie behind you. “I’m sorry (y/n). Get out of the way.”

Her tone was cold and forlorn. “Stop!” Sebastian came around one of the pillars marking the park entrance. His gun trained on Kidman, approaching slowly. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what he’ll become.” Kidman spoke, keeping her own gun pointed at you and Leslie.

“I do. I’ve seen it.”

“You don’t understand what Ruvik is after.”

“So tell me then. What is he after?”

Kidman cocked her gun; you were still able to stare down the barrel. Her hands were still. “I have orders. I can’t let him have Leslie.” She shifted, turning to look at Sebastian. That when you saw Joseph come out of hiding and quietly dart towards you. But the impending stress was too great, Leslie screamed. The piercing ringing coming back once more as the surrounding buildings seemed to shatter. Their windows cracking to sparkling dust under the noise. Leslie managing to escape your grip and dart away, but it all happened so fast. You tried to turn and follow only to hear a gunshot from behind you, Joseph falling on top of you. There was no new pain, but Joseph trapped you underneath him, like a dead weight. Trying to grab at Kidman's ankles as she ran after the poor boy. Letting out a scream of anguish as she slipped out of your grasp.

 The world again began crumbling around you, the earth giving way as if to swallow you whole. Leaving the weight of Joseph behind and you plunged into darkness. Falling seemingly endless, with no end in sight; at first, you were convinced the end was just going to come without warning. Falling splat onto a flat surface, but after what felt like minutes it never came. Shapes began whizzing past you. Like something out of a dream or even that one old book that everyone loves to reference; as they passed you could make out what they were. Your skin turned cold, falling through horrid memories of your past. Like a 3d horror movie they came at you, the people you saw in the ER clawing for you, begging for you to save them despite their inevitable death. Inner demons eating you alive as you fell endlessly. Their faces morphing between familiar and not rapidly while their touch burnt your skin. Swarming you to where you almost couldn’t feel the air moving past your falling form. Pulling at your hair; prying your mouth wider as you screamed. Tears welling in your eyes, the light from before a faint speck above you.

You felt as if everything was turning, instead of the falling sensation is seemed to shift until horizontal as if the mass was moving quickly over a plain. You couldn’t see it but you could feel the cool difference on your feet stark against your blazing surroundings; feeling as if you were on fire as you tried desperately to move your body forward. Your body struggling to push through grasping, gaunt hands and claws as your feet barely had traction on the ground. The heat was smothering; your heartbeat pounding wildly in your ears as your tears stung in your eyes. Able to work your hands free and to pull yourself forwards on the bony arms ahead; moving forward with momentum and determination. Your body catching up with your legs, preventing them from flailing about in an attempt to go forward.

The hoard clawing at your back as you broke free. Darting ahead in the darkness, though despite the lack of light, it wasn’t hard to see. It was like running through a void as it was simply filled with nothing but black. Turning while you sprinted proved to be a bad decision; wanting to see if you were still being haunted had you run full-on into a cement wall. It was covered in crumbling paint which came off a bit as you recoiled from the force at which you slammed into the wall. Splayed out on the floor, disoriented as you stared upwards at the ceiling.

“Please do not lay on the floor. Other patients may step on you.”

A voice to your left, it was apathetic, a bored tone bordering on annoyed. Craning your head, vision spinning as it finally settled on a woman, who dressed surprisingly familiar. Clad in the same white dress, cap, and red cardigan as you had been with her hair pulled back into a low brown ponytail. Small lensed glasses framing her bored eyes as she turned back to whatever she had at the desk in front of her. The quiet shuffling of paper was soothing as you slowly made your way upright. Taking care not to stumble, your hand rested on the wall and traveled upwards with you. Bumping into a corkboard hung on the wall it was covered in pinned missing posters, unfamiliar faces, the… woman standing behind the desk… switching your sight between her and the board rapidly trying to confirm or deny insanity. Though other papers caught your eye, Leslie… missing.

Dr. Jimenez, missing.

Joseph, missing.

Sebastian, again, missing.

You… Missing.

Your own face staring back at you. The image taken for your ID badge, bright smile included. Your hand shaking as you touched the paper, your smile ominous above the printed text. “Special Care Nurse at Beacon Mental Hospital. Last seen entering her apartment. No evidence suggests she had left the building.” Another poster peaked from behind yours, old and worn as the edges curled inwards. Ripping off your poster to reveal a man. His stare was cold and distant. It was Ruvik, much younger and unmarred. “Please don’t make such a scene. I know the missing wall can be hard to look at but you must try and keep in check. Lest the doctor need to prescribe you more medicine.”

Turning, indignant at her words and holding up the poster to your face, parchment crumpled from your grip.

“T – This is me! Can’t you see, this is me? Why do I have a missing poster? Why am I here!?!”

She went back to her paperwork. Huffing to herself as the shuffling of papers resumed as she gathered a stack, placing them into a manila folder before rounding the desk and proceeding down a hallway. Her voice grown faint as she left. “Some people just can’t be fixed.” Leaving you dumbfounded before rushing after her but all that greeted up was a short empty hallway. Four heavy looking doors lined the hallway with a mirror and small table adorning the end. One of the LED lights flickering above. “Hey!” You called into the hall. “Don’t leave me here… Please!” Voice timid and shaky. Turning around forcing you to take a step back; a horrid bastardization of a wheelchair sat ahead with restraints and sharp looking apparatuses adorning the contraption. It didn’t help that it sat under a single light within a tiny observation room. You dropped the poster, looking around for another way out and landing on a corridor behind the desk. It was dark but was worth a shot as you all but hopped the desk and once again ran into the darkness.

 The darkness was all-consuming but you couldn’t turn around, there was no light left behind you, it had closed off. The ground became squishy and revoltingly slimy; your aching feet sank into the muck, it seeping between your toes and into open wounds. Running around in rubble had surely destroyed your feet. Walking with your hands out in front of you, cautious of any sudden walls that may suddenly pop up, as they apparently do. Instead of a wall, something fleshy slammed into you, its grunt sounding suspiciously like Sebastian as it took you to the floor. The connection spurring the lights like a switch. The darkness was gone and in its place sterile walls reminiscent of the Beacons basement; the same hall you had brought Leslie down many times.

Sebastian was panting on top of you, his chest heaving. It was a moment before he lifted himself off of you. “(y/n)… good… I found you…” He slumped down again. Resting his head on the ground as his huge frame engulfed you, his arms digging under your body to wrap around you. He was heavy and honestly it was hard to breathe a bit but the pressure felt nice, calming in a sense and you almost didn’t want it to be over but it was getting slightly uncomfortable. “Sebastian, can we please get up? You’re kinda crushing me a little bit.” He whined as his arms retreated; pushing himself off and helping you upright. He brought you into another hug, his hands soft on your back, rubbing gently along your spine. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I was worried about you. Did he… did he hurt you?”

 You paused, Ruvik had been so disinterested with you lately. Seemingly more interested in popping in only to pull you away somewhere for his own kicks. Yet he had only put you into danger, had had yet to hurt you again directly. Or at least that’s what you hoped. “No… no, Sebastian I’m fine.” His shoulders visibly dropped as he relaxed. “I made it across that train car.”

“Oh yeah?”

“No thanks to Ruvik but it was certainly a feat. Had me going so fast I ran into you.”

“So that’s what had you so worked up?”

You both shared a short laugh, it naturally faded and in its place was a comfortable silence. With your only way to go, through a pair of swinging doors, the small circular windows giving off a faint blue hue. Taking your spot behind Sebastian you approached the door. It creaked loudly as you entered, back again into a familiar room adorned with tubs and the central STEM device. Water pooled on the floor around the device, reflecting in the murky water was the specters of Ruvik and Dr. Jimenez.

“You published my research in your name again. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Ruvik spoke bitterly. Swathed in his tattered attire; it was odd as weren’t these ghosts nothing but memories? He approached with an accusing finger, his storm of anger towards Jimenez evident in his body language. Jimenez, however, leaned back on his heel smugly.

“And I have done you a favor.”

A pregnant pause as you and Sebastian moved closer.

 “You have no credentials. You’d never appear in a reputable journal otherwise"

Jimenez laughing gruffly at that statement. They kept speaking but you couldn’t hear them anymore. You were frozen, perplexed, shocked. Was Ruvik even a doctor? You’d never seen any credentials, nor anyone else interacting with him. His office had walls barren of proof and his work hidden away from the hospital. It all fits together too well. Sure Ruvik had knowledge, mountains upon so, surpassing many in a field he could maybe only grasp at in vain. His old missing poster… was he ever formally found? Did he just hide away in his family’s house for decades? How could he even?

The specters moved around you, no longer paying attention as you were lost in your own hypothesis as they burst into dust. Sebastian separating from you to poke about the room. You could feel a swell of pressure build in the room, making your racing thoughts painful. The swell seemingly emanating from the STEM system in the center of the room. Turning to look at it, half expecting Ruvik to be standing there but only to see the machine, whirring away. All the cords and wires reminding you of a brainstem. Sebastian spun, drawing his weapon and pointing at the machine. “Trying to make me feel sorry for you?!” Shooting at the machine as it flashed bright blinding orange, taking Sebastian with it. Leaving you in the empty room, with the machine and its misplaced brain. It began to quiver, shaking within the glass sphere and getting faster; becoming a blur before shattering the glass. Sending fine shards around the room. Forcing you to shield your face. Lest shrapnel get into your eyes. When you were able to let your arms down, your breath left. Your blood ran cold and skin crawled. Ruvik stood before you, his posture and expression smug as he sauntered towards you. Cornering you against a wall he imposed upon you.

“Sunflower, do not keep running from me.”

His cold fingers gripped your chin. “When we are out of here you will come with me. You are mine; there’s no one else who can fill you like I can. I own you, and I expect you to follow me to the ends of this earth. Of course, you have no choice in the matter.”

His fingernails dug into your flesh before he flung you across the room, sending you spiraling and into another hard surface.

 Landing in one of the many hallways of Beacon.

Sunlight streaming in from the windows, illuminating patient rooms. You couldn’t be sure which hallway it was as the hospital had many of the same stacked upon each other so your exact floor was a mystery. Despite the warm sun, the mood was ominous. A forgotten wheelchair sat casting a long shadow in the middle of the hallway; a blanket draped over the back. Rising from another hard floor you walked slowly. Your lone footsteps echoing down the hall. It was solemn and empty as you reached the wheelchair. Taking it gently in your hands and pushing it to the side of the hall and peering out the window into the courtyard. The greenery drifting gently in the wind. The word echoing through your head with each continuous step was ‘forlorn’. Reaching the end of the hall you turned and looked back. A feeling of finality as you stared back at the door, from where you came. The trial seemingly at your tail end as you opened the door, into a blinding light.

[canarhys]

valdangelo headcanons

hey guys. so... i reached 500 followers last night. and i’m really happy that you fuckers can deal with my dumbass posts because jesus, i never thought i’d get this far.

so in return for the amount of souls i have stocked up, i have redone the valdangelo headcanons i did for 100 followers a long time ago.

let’s fucking go.

• the two of them are meant for each other simply for the fact that nico sleeps all the time and eats so much junk food he has cavities while leo hasn’t slept for an entire month and hasn’t eaten in three days.

• they don’t like grand, fancy dates and instead go for drives through the city at night and hang outs at a fast food joint. (“nico stop saying mcdonald’s we’ve been eating there for the past week i’m starting to hallucinate ronald mcdonald.”)

• they don’t show much affection in public. usually it’s just hand-holding (it’s basically their second nature) and cheek kisses but when alone they’re touch-starved and cuddle all the fucking time.

• they play video games together obviously. when they compete (say, mario kart), it’s a ruckus because they’re both equally good so the entire camp watches and places bets because it’s so intense. when they play together, it’s usually nico on his nintendo 3ds playing pokémon with leo resting his head on his shoulder, making jokes and occasional pointers.

• i’m all for the idea that they two of them could hold conversations without even talking. nico and leo share a look, nod, and somehow they know what the other is implying. it’s insane.

• they get matching tattoos not just because it’s a couple thing but because it’s fun. they decide to get star tattoos on their ankles.

• nico: lend me a hand.

• leo: throws his prosthetic arm to him

• nico: thanks.

• i just love the thought of them having such funny ass laughs. nico cackles and it almost resembles a wicked witch. leo wheezes like a balloon losing air. also nico slaps people whenever he laughs while leo is stuck in a position for a fucking hour.

• and i just imagine when one is laughing the other is silently watching them with an adoring smile. despite the fact that the one laughing looks so fucking stupid.

• when they laugh at the same time it sounds like a hospital delivery room, ngl.

• they argue all the time but it’s over stupid shit like which superhero wins or who can be the most edgy/annoying. it’s all playful banter but it goes on for hours on end and everyone is about to kick them out.

• they’re fucking dorks; they watch jojo’s bizarre adventure and binge stupid instagram videos and recreate tik toks that are somehow worse than the original.

• they can’t give each other flowers because nico always ends up with lifeless, drooping ones and leo somehow manages to set all of them on fire so they just pack snacks and lunches for each other.

• they have to coax each other into taking care of themselves because they’re self-destructive little shits. nico often drags leo to bed when he’s working on a project. leo cooks nico healthy foods and forces him to brush his teeth. when one of them is sick, the other is by their side all the time.

• they share earbuds a lot. they both really like the arctic monkeys, they’re basically their soul band and whenever one of them is listening to them, the other senses it and immediately grabs the bud out of the other’s ear.

• i like the thought of them trying to be like buzzfeed unsolved and recording videos of themselves strolling through haunted houses and searching for cryptids but it would be so... disastrous.

• nico, playing don’t mine at night on a stereo at goatman’s bridge: come out, bitch.

• goatman: i’m fucking begging you to stop.

• leo, recording: fucking wheezing

• or they would try to be like game grumps and record themselves playing retro games like donkey kong or sonic but it also yields some fucked up results.

• leo, playing sonic adventure dx with tears in his eyes: screaming at the tv and trying not to have a nervous breakdown because the game is so fucking bad his brain functions have gone haywire

• nico: laughing so hard he knocked over twelve vases on the table

• they call each other by their last names a lot. it used to be an insult when they were arguing a lot back then, but now they use it as fun little nicknames with mild malice (unless one of them fucked up).

• they also have some personal ones for each other! nico calls leo “firebug” and “bombshell” and leo calls nico “sunshine” and “angel.” (they totally call each other “amor” and “bébé” as well.)

• they have small picnic dates at the strawberry fields in camp since leo loves strawberries to death and nico likes seeing leo’s adorable face as he eats them. usually they eat those along with chocolate dip and some milkshakes.

• leo has tried to teach nico how to cook in the past but it resulted in the inflammation of the argo ii’s kitchen and buford sending nico angry “glares” due to leo having to scrub off all the excess smog off of him.

• leo buys nico a fuck ton of hawaiian shirts as a joke but nico had worn all of them in less than a month and rocked all of them. leo now has taken the duty of buying as many as he can because damn, if his boyfriend didn’t look so cute.

• the two of them wear each other’s clothes all the time. leo uses the excuse “i’m cold” in order to achieve nico’s jacket or sweater. nico has started using it as well and leo hands him his hoodie or mittens. it’s cute.

• also i love the idea of them either wearing complementary clothing or drastically different ones, with no in-between. one day leo is wearing a soft rainbow-striped shirt under some overalls while nico wears a floral striped hawaiian tee, the next nico is in all black and leo is wearing a neon green jumpsuit. everyone gets whiplash from it.

• i feel like after the giant war and during apollo’s mortal quest, they go with him to indiana to search for meg. and they find themselves at the waystation and after the entire commodus fiasco, the two of them decide to stay and live there. both of them are going to visit chb in the summer but they like the thought of having normal lives and being normal teenagers, plus jo and emmie basically adopted them into the family and all of the kids there love them (especially georgina).

• at camp, they usually hang out in bunker nine or the hades cabin since both of them don’t like crowds and get overwhelmed by them. also they talk about conspiracy theories all the fucking time.

• leo: what if... in a parallel universe... we were straight...?

• nico: holy shit.

• they’re such horror movie fanatics. leo’s favorite is texas chainsaw massacre and nico has a heart for alien. both of them have confirmed that killer clowns from outer space is the best horror movie of all time and have watched it exactly thirty-six times.

• they both had serious discussions of which horror tropes their friends are. they are still categorizing to this day.

• nico: piper would be a final girl, that’s clear. what about jason?

• leo: first one who dies. that fucker is literally dead and hanging in a hotel.

• i also think the two of them love horror/thriller shows. stranger things, tales from the crypt, ash vs. evil dead. especially ash vs. evil dead. leo literally dressed up as ash for halloween, chainsaw hand and everything. nico, in turn, dressed up as a deadite.

• speaking of halloween, it’s like the culmination of their entire beings. because they both a) like dressing up, b) like free food, c) love halloween decor and shit, and d) love seeing each other’s happy faces during the holiday.

• both of them are incredibly dedicated to it, wearing black and orange and hanging up the majority of the decorations around camp. they buy the candy, organize the activities, and take a roll of what campers are dressing as so if someone is worried that they’ll have the same costume as another person, they can check with them. percy says they should get married on halloween just because they’re that into it.

• both of them hyper-fixate a lot. leo gets so invested in a project that he forgets to eat or sleep or even acknowledge anyone else around him, so nico makes sure to not disturb him unless it’s time for lunch or bed. he wraps his arms around leo as he works and buried his face in the crook of his neck and leo always smiles.

• leo does the same for nico, as the guy is incredibly invested in nerdy things that he tries not to tell anyone lest they make fun of him. so leo lets his boyfriend infodump as they lay in bed together, stroking his dark wavy hair and watching nico’s mouth move and continue to describe a dnd campaign he’s been watching recently. leo has to use all his will to stop him and get him to brush his teeth.

• they’re not really much to make future plans as they’re pretty pessimistic about everything due to their pasts but one day they found themselves discussing about getting an apartment or even a house together. leo said he’ll probably open a garage if they become the next caretakers of the waystation or even get a house and ask annabeth to help with the design. nico joked that they could have a floral shop there too since they’re both bad with flowers. and suddenly the conversation shifted to them planning a round-trip across the world on festus and one of them mentioned “kids.” then the two realized what they were doing and stopped, albeit hesitantly.

• i love the idea of persephone being a total mom to them (i don’t care about canon, she loves hades children no matter that her husband cheated) and having garden parties with them down in the underworld. she started teaching them how to take care of flowers better — which was sort of relevant since nico brought up the flower shop at home thing — and soon their blossoms almost stopped wilting or catching on fire.

• persephone: hey, you guys want some pomegranate?

• leo: yeah s—

• nico: n o w e ‘ r e g o o d .

• persephone wasn’t trying to trap leo in the underworld but nico couldn’t take chances.

• leo’s pretty good with instruments because of tool proficiency and is a master at the drums and guitar. nico actually has a nice singing voice and recently got into guitar as well, so you bet your ass that they have jam sessions constantly.

• leo is the gay that can drive while nico should not be within a steering wheel in any circumstance, so leo usually drives them to their dates. that, or they enlist the help of nico’s zombie chauffeur to drive them there.

• both of them share this soft and tender expression with each other that they don’t express towards other people, not even their other friends. it’s sort of like a face saved for them, for their little world and it’s cute.

• nico is way more touchy than leo and likes to wrap his arms around leo’s waist a lot. he often peppers his face with kisses and shit and leo gets really shy about it. when this happens, he nuzzles his face into nico’s shoulder or chest to stop his boyfriend but nico is resilient.

• i just... love valdangelo being so soft towards each other. every single banter they have they do with heart eyes and they usually just cuddle in content silence because they’re not big on talk, communicating better by actions. when they kiss, it’s like a perfect mix because nico is cold while leo is warm. they often lay in bed, smiling as their limbs are tangled together. maybe they’ll start up another conversation or game file. but for now, they like the quiet.

[virtual-lara]

PC Gaming World - Adrian Smith Interview - Tomb Raider Chronicles

Interview appeared on Gamespot UK website, dated to 20th October 2000

PC Gaming World's Cal Jones talked to Adrian Smith from Core Design.

Cal Jones:

With Lara apparently buried under the pyramid at the end of the last game, how are you going to resurrect her?

Adrian Smith:

We never actually saw Lara die. She became trapped in the pyramid and her body has not yet been recovered, so Chronicles begins with a memorial service rather than a funeral. The game starts only a few days after the end of Last Revelation.

Cal Jones:

After four Tomb Raiders with no revolutionary changes to the formula, what are you doing to persuade gamers that they need to add a fifth Lara game to their collection?

Adrian Smith:

If we were to make such changes to the formula, it would no longer be Tomb Raider. We always listen to feedback from fans and look at the Tomb Raider sites extensively so that with each game we can make the most frequently asked for additions and changes.

Due to the nature of the Tomb Raider engine, it's impossible for us to change the formula too drastically - we'd have to create a brand-new engine to do that. Funnily enough, said engine has been in development for about 18 months now so next year you can expect to see Lara Croft in an entirely different game which will bear little, if any, resemblance to Tomb Raider as it's currently known.

What we are doing with Chronicles is consolidating the very best elements of all previous TR adventures and also adding new features. The result is four separate adventures, each from Lara's past and each with its own gameplay style. The engine has advanced, particularly for the PC version, and we're basically looking at what is technically the very best Tomb Raider game to date. Chronicles is also the best-looking Tomb Raider yet and we feel that the different styles of gameplay give it great balance. We wanted to finish the Tomb Raider series with a game that stretched the limits of the engine to the max so that we could round off knowing that we have given Tomb Raider our very best.

We're also including the level editors with the PC version so that fans who buy the game will be fully-equipped to create and play their own Tomb Raider levels at home. The editor will be supported via the Eidos site

Cal Jones:

Will the next-generation Tomb Raider game be available on PC as well as the next-gen consoles?

Adrian Smith:

Both.

Cal Jones:

How will the gameplay compare to previous games?

Adrian Smith:

The Irish levels, The Black Isle, played as the 16-year-old Lara, depend on the use of cunning and guile rather than weaponry to deal with their puzzles and traps. The German U-boat levels have an X-Files feel, filled with action, while the Rome levels comprise classic Tomb Raiding adventuring. Finally, the New York-style Tower Block features hi-tech systems that require stealth, strategy and continual guidance from your companion, ZIP.

Cal Jones:

Have you made any changes to Lara's appearance?

Adrian Smith:

No, not to the actual dimensions of the 3D model but we have given her two new outfits - a Matrix-style black leather catsuit with headset, and an arctic camouflage suit. The other outfits are Young Lara, plus the standard kit.

Cal Jones:

Is there going to be any sort of a tie-in to the Tomb Raider movie?

Adrian Smith:

No, Chronicles is an entirely separate entity to the movie. We are, however, hoping to include a feature whereby if the player collects certain numbers of secrets in the game they are treated to special areas on the disc that feature the trailer for the movie, maybe information on the cast and so forth. This is still to be confirmed but we're certainly hoping to include it.

Cal Jones:

What aspect of Tomb Raider Chronicles are you most proud of?

Adrian Smith:

Probably the fact that it consolidates the best bits of the whole series, while still including new features. In some ways, the fifth game has enabled us to put the Tomb Raider series to bed knowing that we have given it our absolute best. We're also very happy that we are finally able to give dedicated fans a present in the shape of the level editor.

All rights belong to GameSpot and/or their affiliated companies. I only intend to introduce people to old articles and preserve them before they are lost.

[nobodyfamousposts]

What's the CoN timeline??

I’m going to try to clear this up and work out the kinks so bear with me.

The Clash of Noir timeline is as follows:

This AU starts out in the plot of the 2D Miraculous Ladybug where Felix Agreste is the Black Cat. For Felix, the ring is cursed and he can’t remove it. So he’s stuck with bad luck and forced to become Chat Noir, but he hates it and needs a kiss from Ladybug in order to break this curse. He only works with Ladybug and attempts to woo her in order to get her to kiss him.

Ladybug eventually finds out this little secret of Chat Noir’s and is heartbroken because she at least thought they were partners. Figuring it would hurt less if she just let him go, she kisses him and breaks his curse, revealing him to be Felix (AKA, the boy she was crazy in love with). Felix immediately abandons his position of Chat Noir and Ladybug is forced to fight alone from then on.

Eventually, the akumas get to be too much for her to handle alone and in an assault on the school, Ladybug is killed in an attempt to protect Felix, revealing herself as Marinette and dying in Felix’s arms. Horrified, Felix attempts to use the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculous to fix things.

A new timeline is created.

Felix wakes up in the past before he ever got his ring, but discovers he doesn’t exist and that instead there’s another boy named Adrien Agreste living his life. Felix takes this as a second chance and is intent on protecting Marinette and preventing that bad future from happening again.

Felix doesn’t trust any version of himself and is worried Adrien will take his place and repeat the events from the bad future. He still has some form of his “bad luck” powers and decides to determine his own successor to the Ring.

He realizes Hawk Moth is bound to attack soon and attempts to regain the Ring and keep Marinette away from Adrien. He fails in both.

Cue events from Stoneheart’s attack. Adrien gets the Ring and becomes Chat. And Marinette still ends up falling in love with Adrien.

Felix continues to attempt to push Marinette away from Adrien. This doesn’t work as he intends. Marinette continues to harbor feelings for Adrien, but Felix at least ends up causing her to temper them so they’re not as debilitating as what we see in the 3D canon.

Felix also keeps an eye on Adrien to judge whether he should be allowed to continue as Chat Noir. His juvenile antics and tendency to needlessly take hits and get himself in trouble are of great concern. In the meantime, Felix has left an impression on Adrien. And over time, hearing some of Felix’s opinions about Chat Noir’s behavior causes Adrien to temper himself and take fighting more seriously.

While watching Adrien, Felix is also searching for an appropriate replacement to be the new Chat Noir. Nathaniel? No, he doesn’t quite fit. Alya? Too much trouble. Luka? Certainly an option. Kagami? She has the fighting spirit for it.

Felix fails to realize that he’s having an impact on people or akuma fights. He continues to intervene behind the scenes in several akuma battles in an attempt to protect Ladybug, but is having trouble due to being a normal civilian.

Fu notices this intruder and his strange dark aura. He realizes that Felix does not “belong” and chooses to keep an eye on him.

Princess Fragrance — Felix steps in to assist in aiding Prince Ali while Marinette is trying to get Tikki healed. Because of Felix’s interference, Prince Ali is able to avoid being caught. Chat Noir still gets hit with the perfume and becomes Princess Fragrance’s servant. He attempts to capture the two, but Felix manages to take him down and knock him out. Felix takes the Ring and traps Adrien in a closet. This allows a short reunion between Felix and Plagg—who reveals he remembers everything about the previous timeline. Felix transforms to become Chat again (temporarily) in order to help keep Princess Fragrance at bay. When Ladybug arrives, she KNOWS this isn’t her Chat Noir, but he’s all the help she has at this point so she is forced to work with him. She is surprised that his powers are very different—bad luck instead of pure destruction. They still manage to take out Princess Fragrance and end the battle. Felix does not reveal himself. He doesn’t have the time or inclination to explain things to Ladybug at this point and assures her that the previous Chat Noir will remain the Black Cat (for now). He goes back to where he left Adrien and returns the Ring, but warns Adrien that he will be watching him.

OPTIONAL (This was thought up before the reveal about the Peacock Miraculous being damaged): Felix eventually realizes he cannot continue as he is. At some point, possibly during Bubbler or Simon Says, Volpina (after Adrien sneaks in and takes the book), or alternatively on a completely different occasion altogether, he manages to sneak into the office and get the Peacock Miraculous from the safe. He replaces it with a fake.

OPTIONAL: Volpina happens differently. Tikki still notices and stresses about the book. Marinette is angry over Lila’s lies. It’s not even because she’s jealous over Adrien—she is just outright FURIOUS that Lila is lying about her and trying to manipulate Adrien based on that. She goes to confront her during her little “date” with Adrien in the park. Felix interferes and stops her. Something is wrong. Marinette wasn’t like this before. In the previous timeline when it came to Volpina, she had privately confronted Lila kindly but sternly about her lies to warn her of the danger she was putting herself in, NOT just go up to Lila and try to out her in public. That’s…not how Marinette is. But when Ladybug expresses being upset due to Lila lying, Felix is horrified. Marinette was never this reactive about lies before—it’s an echo of the previous timeline and a remainder of the impact HE had on her because of his betrayal. Because he LIED to her before. He’s horrified because even removing himself from existence couldn’t erase the harm he caused her. He encourages her to focus on getting the book and swears to deal with Lila himself. Ladybug is uncertain, but is calmer now (albeit mostly out of confusion) and agrees. Felix is the one to confront Lila in front of Adrien and call her out. Ladybug takes this opportunity to search the trashcan and take the book. She may or may not be seen, but regardless Felix is able to disprove Lila’s claim. Lila storms off, gets akumatized, and naturally targets Felix.

Felix uses the opportunity that Lila and her lies present to try to convince Marinette that Adrien really isn’t that wonderful or amazing as she thinks if he’s stupid enough to blindly trust Lila’s words. Marinette is left questioning. She retains her crush on Adrien, but there are doubts there.

After Volpina, Felix calls out Chat Noir on not trusting his partner. Instead of accusing her of being jealous, he should have taken her suspicions into account. He makes a point to highlight how unlikely it was that a meteor would just appear out of nowhere to nearly destroy the city when none of the space-monitoring agencies were aware. Of how convenient this happened JUST IN TIME for a new hero to appear. How this new hero’s first words—the VERY FIRST thing she said was that she was the ONLY HERO Paris needs. Of why on Earth the super villain who had been hiding in the shadows and turning people into monsters would suddenly make an appearance with no reason. Of how Chat COULDN’T put two and two together that the angry girl who had just been outed as a fake in front of him was very likely turned into an akuma because of it so she could parade as a hero to make her lies true. Come ON!

Chat/Adrien is defensive about this, but can’t deny the point made. He makes more of an effort to be more supportive of Ladybug. While he still questions her at points, he doesn’t dismiss her out of hand like that again.

Collector — Felix is the one to return the book to Gabriel. There is…a tension there. Gabriel doesn’t know what to think of it and doesn’t understand why he seems to recognize this boy when he has never met him. Felix merely returns the book and leaves. He doesn’t know Gabriel is Hawk Moth, but his father was never much of a father to him. And his having the book and Peacock Miraculous is still suspicious.

Fu decides to have a chat with this stranger. Either he approaches Felix or Felix has finally tracked him down—if it’s the latter, it will be because Fu LET Felix find him…

Felix is encouraged to reveal the truth about the original timeline and what happened. He explains his history—that he was Chat Noir, that he was cursed when he found Plagg, and how he only agreed to help the city in order to find a way to save himself. He reveals how Ladybug discovered his secret and kissed him just to put an end to the charade. And he goes on to tell the tragedy of how it killed her in the end.

He gritted his teeth at the memory.

“Ladybug fell. And the world followed.”

The man hummed to himself, processing that information with what Felix felt was nowhere near the appropriate level of concern. “And what of Chat Noir?”

He tensed. Because wasn’t that just what it all came back to?

“He…”

He thought back to her final broken smile, his own selfishness, and a kiss that both fixed and destroyed everything.

“He wasn’t there.“

“Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t there.”

Fu is…not happy to hear about what happened in the original timeline.

Fu ends up acting as a sort of mentor and advisor to Felix. He understands Felix’s concern, but doesn’t believe Felix understands why he made the choice he did when picking Adrien. He asks Felix to let him judge whether Adrien remains a suitable choice of being Chat Noir before taking away the Ring.

Felix is hesitant, but agrees.

Ultimately, the end result of this AU isn’t that Adrien loses the right to be Chat (though that’s not to say there aren’t branches where he could if he messes up badly enough), but that he grows into a better Chat Noir precisely BECAUSE Felix was there.

Think of the second Lego Movie and what Rex says at the end:

“It’s okay. I’m proud of you. You’re going to grow up to be better than me. But…kind of thanks to me, so I’m also great.”

[latin-dr-robotnik]

What went wrong with Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces? (ft. beevean)

The following is a project I’ve been cooking for some weeks, trying to find out some reasons behind the general lackluster feeling that surrounds Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces. As you may have spotted already, this is not a solo project, since I’ve had the opportunity to talk about this very same topic with @beevean and she raised quite a couple of interesting points that I’m going to bring up as we go through. 

Also, Spanish speakers: you can catch the Spanish version of this post here, it’s probably a more polished experience with additional text.

Long post below, so, bring up a ladder and a boombox, I’ll explain along the way. (there’s also a tl;dr at the bottom if you are that type of person)

Sonic Forces stands as a divisive point in the Sonic fandom, that much we all know, and we are not going to discuss the game’s general quality at all on this post. But we are going to take a solid look at Classic Sonic and, most importantly, its music, since I consider that’s the most clear symptom of a bigger problem with Classic Sonic in general, in this post-Generations Modern Sonic world.

A quick look at Classic Sonic

When Classic Sonic debuted in Sonic Generations (2011) as this new-but-also-old Sonic, gaming as a whole was still being bombarded with this “retro-revival movement” that brought back many classic franchises (like classic Mega Man with MM9 and 10 after a decade since MM8), and SEGA itself was in the middle of that train with the recently released Sonic 4: Episode 1 (2010). While Sonic 4 tried to marry Sonic’s current style with classic level tropes and even Genesis-inspired music in a seamless way (showing Sonic’s physical transition from his Sonic 3 days to Sonic Adventure as a smooth one), this new “Classic Sonic” guy in Generations suffered from a mixed message about his origins: is he Sonic from the past, from an alternate universe, or both? Is his music supposed to sound like arrangements of his classic 16-bits tunes or just modern-sounding remixes like the rest of the soundtrack? The fandom still debates about it to this day.

This all led to the introduction of a character that, although considered a “Sonic” like the other “Modern” one, could not establish his own identity beyond Generations’ anniversary-title plot threads. No unique music style, no unique traits, he was just a simpler Sonic.

Major manifestation of the Classic problem.

Fast-forward some years to November 2017, Sonic Forces’ release date. Besides gameplay, story and character criticisms, the music of Forces turned out to be quite controversial for a part of the fandom. Although I personally consider the Avatar songs as top-tier Sonic music, I share similar concerns as the rest about the rest of the game’s music, specially the Classic Sonic level themes. 

With Forces, it seems the composers managed to solve some of Gens’ Classic Sonic music problems, as this time there was a better and more consistent attempt at making Classic’s music sound more at home with the “Genesis days” tunes, but even then the composers fell into other traps that ended up being more damaging to the final product.

Years later after the game’s release, I finally brought up this very same topic during a conversation with beevean (I encourage you that, if you find the following snippets interesting, read the entire conversation), and she had the following thoughts to share as to why Classic Sonic’s music was so... underwhelming:

the classic music in forces is the weakest part of the ost, some tracks are okay while others suck, and the main reason for this is that they hired the wrong people for the job

Okay, that wasn’t a fair cut on my part. She talks a lot more about each and every aspect behind the music, and about the people that composed it, she had the following to say:

Okay, about Forces’ music. First of all, the Classic tracks were handled by two people: Tomoya Ohtani, who also composed pretty much 90% of the OST and has been working solo since 2013 (relevant later), and Naofumi Hataya, one of the two geniuses behind Sonic 2 8-bit’s and Sonic CD’s OSTs (plus some miscellaneous work in Heroes, Colors, Generations, etc.). If you loved tracks like Sky High, Palmtree Panic or Stardust Speedway, you have to thank him.

This is already a reason as to why the Classic music in Forces doesn’t resemble the music in the Genesis games. While I can understand that it would have been impossible to hire Masato Nakamura again, Jun Senoue would have been good for the job, having composed music for Sonic 3 and most importantly Sonic 3D Blast. But apparently Senoue was MIA until 2019, so who knows.

I’d like to point out that Naofumi Hataya’s involvement will play a bigger role later in this post, as we keep searching for what went wrong and we look for a potential solution when adressing Classic Sonic.

Beevean continued with:

There are mainly two problems here:

1) some of the tracks just don’t fit their stage. I already mentioned that Ghost Town sounds way too happy for a city under attack by giant robots. Death Prison sounds vaguely Egyptian and the difference with the original, bass-heavy composition is staggering. Chemical Flow is the most generic thing and would fit everything and nothing, and again comparing it with the original iconic track is just sad. I think the reason Casino Forest and Iron Fortress are my favorite Classic tracks is that they go very well with their respective stages. This is a problem Adventure 2 had as well, associating a particular style to a particular character, and while I think Forces did it better, for me the priority should be fitting a level.

2) Ohtani was once a very versatile composer (the guy could go in one game from Wave Ocean to Crisis City, for example), but since Lost World, the first game in which he had the responsibility of an entire soundtrack, his style quickly became “anime”. Runners’ tracks? “This sounds like an anime opening!”. How do you recognize his only track in TSR? It’s the one that sounds like an anime opening and uses a synth.

And look, I love Ohtani, he has nothing but my respect, and he made some of my absolute favorite tracks in the series. But I do think they’re making him work too much - he’s the best when he can work with at least another person, and has the chance to span a little. I also think his style is incompatible with the Classic music, which was never anime: even at its mellowest in Sonic 1 it always had a little jazzy/new jack swing touch. Basically the only thing they got right in this game is having a wicked bassline :P

It ain’t *only* the composers’ fault

Following beevean’s words, I’d like to add my own take on the problem. You see, I do agree that the composers maybe weren’t up to the task of nailing the classic Genesis tunes’ vibe (Hataya got real close, though), but at the same time I do think they weren’t properly oriented or didn’t have enough time to keep reiterating on the frameworks they were working with. Like beevean said, some of the tracks improve quite a bit after leaving behind that mixed as hell “almost Genesis but not quite” soundfont.

The composers will work on what they were told to make and I have a strong, albeith unconfirmed, feeling that the Classic Sonic composers where asked to “make it sound retro” by someone higher up on the project management chain, and after checking on their progress, simply said “meh, it’s retro enough, no one will notice”.

The “make it sound retro” argument, in my opinion, opens up a big discussion about Sonic music, because there is no easy way to make it “retro” with Sonic. You just can’t pump out a few nostalgic chiptunes and call it a day. Sonic music may have originated back in the 16-bit days of the Sega Genesis, but his identity is so much more than just that Genesis FM sound. I personally believe, similar to another thing beevean point out, that Forces focused too much on sounding “retro enough” instead of fitting each track better to each level theme or even tap into what really made Sonic appealing on the classic days. 

This last point is something that SEGA struggled a lot during the past decade, they introduced Classic Sonic as an entity separated from the current Sonic, yet they simply don’t give Classic Sonic enough development as it’s own character. He’s there because he’s there and we don’t know what to expect from him beyond “he represents the good old days”. But not even SEGA itself knows what that means.

So, what really makes up Classic Sonic’s identity?

For me this is the true heart of the post. Knowing full well what makes Classic Sonic should be the key to every project that features him. 

There are lots of points to make about Classic Sonic’s identity and how to establish him should he return once again on a 3D Sonic title (not even using the “modern” anymore, and I personally wouldn’t like to see him again on a 3D title for another decade, if ever), but seeing as the main topic of this post has been music, I’m going to focus on what music style makes Classic Sonic shine.

I already said that throwing some generic chiptunes won’t work, but I DO think that Genesis-inspired tunes can still work, should they stick to what made the classics so great.

And what is that? Well, you have several options here: you can choose from more J-Pop and jazzy tunes to some sick R&B and New Jack Swing beats, all the way through to late 80′s Acid House and wacky 90′s Dance music, even cinematic-like scores and ambient sounds.

Personally, I think the heavy R&B (with its fair share of New Jack Swing) influences are a constant throughout Sonic’s first years, and that kind of sound is one that goes well with his cool attitude™. Spring Yard Zone has always been referred to as “16-bit Every Little Step”, while Sonic CD... well, and Sonic 3... well... JAM. Even Masa’s demos of Sonic 2 feature some sick basses that aren’t all that different from what I was thinking (Chemical Plant and Metropolis come to mind). Sonic CD (JP, also the work of Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata) in particular springs up to my mind as the purest representation on everything that Sonic was about on his old days, but “pure” doesn’t necessarily mean “refined”, so I think the Sonic CD style coupled with some more smooth Pop for emotional moments (straight from Nakamura’s school of smoothness) and harder 90′s raves for boss fights (think how iconic Stardust Speedway Bad Future has become) could make up the perfect blend for Classic Sonic to follow in terms of style points, but also considering the general themes of each zone (Wacky Workbench being this Dance-heavy zone was a stroke of genius if you ask me, the same with Spring Yard being a jazzy urbanscape.)

Sonic is a product of the late 80′s and 90′s pop culture, he has the moves of MC Hammer, Bobby Brown, and of course, Michael Jackson (also his shoes). As such, no generic “retro nostalgic” tune will fit with him, unlike many other gaming franchises. By embracing Classic Sonic’s wacky nature gems like Sonic Mania happened, and just like I pointed it out to beevean, if you were there the week that game was first announced, you probably saw how much people were gushing about Studiopolis Act 1 sounding so much like Sonic CD with that funky beat. People instantly knew that was the Classic Sonic music they wanted to hear.

And just to make this section even better, I recently asked beevean about her thoughts on what makes Classic Sonic’s music identity. I now urge you to go and read her full analysis because it’s so deep yet very accessible, as I’ll be collecting just a few parts of her response for this post. Trust me, that post is so useful, go and reblog it now, I’ll wait here.

About Classic Sonic’s music styles, beevean says:

So… which is the style that fits Classic Sonic better?

The big love letter to the Classic series that is Mania used CD as an inspiration, and while Mania’s OST is excellent and one of my favorites… I don’t automatically associate New Jazz Swing with Classic Sonic. Before Mania, it was only in one game, the odd one in the bunch too.

3D Blast is my favorite Genesis soundtrack, and as I said it combines the best of two worlds (plus it’s just full of bangers), but it influenced the next era more than the Classic one. The same could be said for the American OST of CD - and besides, tracks like this are nothing like Sonic anyway.

Sonic 1 is the first one and all, but that mellow style fits that particular game more than Classic as a whole, I think the closest OST to this style was Advance 1, actually - another slow-paced, simple game.

So the choice is narrowed down to the ultra-popular Sonic 2 and the refined Sonic 3 & Knuckles. And I’ll be honest, while I think S3&K has higher “highs” compared to S2… my brain immediately jumps to the latter. When I think of Classic Sonic, I think of Genesis brass (the real deal, not that fake synth they used in Forces), twang basses, a swingy rhythm (too many to choose lol), and tons of energy.

Only one Classic track in Forces came close to this description. The others sound more like either a pale imitation of Sonic 1 or modern tracks with a bad soundfont, and that’s when they’re not a complete insult (no i won’t link to it you know what i’m talking about :V).

Author’s note: it’s been, like, two months and she still refuses to talk about Faded Hills, lol

Author’s note: sorry, beev.

(TL;DR) Closing thoughts.

So, what did go wrong with Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces?

A lack of definition on what Classic Sonic even is about, carried from Generations, made the task of defining his style more difficult.

The composers weren’t up to the task, or they were simply asked to make Classic Sonic “sound retro”, generic sound be damned. 

This also means management of the project wasn’t that interested in the Classic portion, or they ran out of time to make it better. This is something that the entire game seemed to have a problem with as well.

The music didn’t fit the stages, and even if it did, Classic’s identity was all over the place. He was there just to be there, and his music suffered from that (compare it to Mania).

Tomoya Ohtani (often credited as the maker of the arguably worst tracks of Classic Sonic in the game) has experienced a shift on his musical style over the last few years that led to his tracks start sounding very similar to each other, this, coupled with the fact he was working on the other 2/3rds of the game’s OST, caused his Classic tracks in particular to suffer.

Classic Sonic’s tracks didn’t take from the 90′s Pop and R&B influences that plagued the old games, and as such, the current Classic Sonic doesn’t have an identity as strong as the original 90′s Sonic. Beevean’s take on this point involves Classic Sonic tracks that feature strong, legit Genesis brass, with twang basses, swingy rhythm and tons of energy.

Once again, I’d like to thank beevean for providing such insightful information and opinions (you can clearly see we both tend to have different takes on what made Sonic back in the 90′s, but in the end agreed to a similar set of requirements to make good Classic music, like basslines and lots of energy), which helped this post a lot more than you can imagine. I wanted to post this back in late January, but the extra time allowed me to keep thinking, searching and listening, while also opened the door to ask beev again about her opinions. This is probably the first “big” article I’ve written this year, and I hope to return soon enough with more. 

[sibyl-of-space]

Finished a binge re-play of Ocarina of Time (3D) for the first time in a very, very long time. Long-winded thoughts below.

Disclaimer: I played the original n64 version (red blood Ganondorf and all) ad NAUSEUM as a kid. It was by far in my top 3 most-played video games, and if you all know me you know that I don’t play a lot of video games, I play the same few over and over and over and become obsessed with them. As such, OoT is not new to me. I also played the 3D version once before, but it was over the course of several years when I was in college and that was a no-lens-of-truth run for the heck of it. I have not touched either since though, so this is the freshest eyes I’ve had on the game since I was probably about 6-7 years old seeing it for the first time. Do keep in mind though that I already knew virtually all the easter eggs and secrets and story and progression and had a vague recollection of the vast majority of dungeon concepts/puzzles before going in, because this game was my entire world for many formative years.

This game has really excellent dungeons. I ranked them below because I was inspired by my friend ML’s ranking (in fact a desire to rank them myself is what caused me to binge replay this in the first place), but honestly I found all of them engaging. My least favorite was ice cavern but even ice cavern has a really cool atmosphere and an interesting concept, it’s just a bit tedious and bottle management gameplay is not particularly fun to me.

1. Spirit Temple - unlike Shadow which uses invisible walls as a mechanic to trick you, Spirit subverts every single mechanic and puzzle you've encountered so far to really throw you. It's extremely clever. The ambience and overall design is also just excellent.

2. Forest Temple - gameplay wise it is fine but as the first adult temple it REALLY sets the scale and tone for the latter portion of your adventure; the vibe in this temple is just so fucking cool. The sacred forest meadow honestly does come off as sacred, ancient, and haunted but in an ethereal way as opposed to a spooky way. Ooh, I love it.

3. Ganon's Tower - the concept is excellent and the execution is solid, the medallion portion is interesting but the gauntlet up to Ganondorf with increasingly loud organ music and hallways filled with bats and just cool fights and great atmosphere makes this one of the sickest final dungeons I can think of. I was starting to be like "eh maybe the medallion rooms are a bit underwhelming" and then I got hit with the fakeout room in Light that just won me over with how cheeky it was. All the medallion rooms felt a bit like Spirit temple with how they played with expectations, which (ironically?) made the spirit portion actually the least good.

4. Gerudo Fortress - I'm counting mini dungeons and the whole espionage thing is just SO much fun. Break into a thieves’ hideout, jump across rooftops and shoot people with your bow to sneak past them?? WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE?????

5. Water Temple - okay I gotta say this replay really sold me on water temple. It's a cool concept and a fantastic atmosphere, and 3DS quality of life changes (boot swap ease of access + very clearly visually marked water level change rooms) made me actually thoroughly enjoy playing it. Also Dark Link is rightfully hailed as one of the coolest, if not the coolest, miniboss(es) in the game, so extra points there.

6. Bottom of the Well - Shadow's invisible wall mechanic is much more interesting when you can't see through them and everything is a potential trap. Falling down to the basement does get frustrating but that room where you light torches to open coffins and a FLOATING GIBDO EMERGES makes up for it, holy crap. Shadow Temple is underwhelming because Bottom of the Well already did what it tries to do but better.

7. Dodongo's Cavern - hey man I like blowing up dinosaurs this dungeon is just solid 0 complaints

8. Fire Temple - Fire Temple is also solid I just a) am so used to the original music that this version feels empty and lacking atmosphere by comparison, and b) find the above temples cooler. Shout out to dragon whack-a-mole boss fight though.

9. Shadow Temple - this suffers from being the only temple I really had completely memorized (I think my weenie friends* must have made me beat it for them as kids) so playing it this time was really just going through the motions; it didn’t get the chance to win me over because I remembered all of it and nothing particularly stuck out to me as being super clever. The boat ride, however, is sick as hell.

(*disclaimer: I was also a weenie. Shadow Temple scared the absolute pants off of me. But I clearly played it enough times that the entire thing was etched into my memory regardless, so.)

10. Deku Tree - does its job as tutorial dungeon, nice atmosphere, thats about all there is to say.

11. Jabu-Jabu's Belly - redeeming feature is using Ruto as a projectile. Throwing her at the ceiling switches will never not be hilarious. Honestly not a bad dungeon, merely gross and I like the other ones better.

12. Ice Cavern - I used to dread Ice Cavern; this time around I just found it tedious. The atmosphere is successful - it really feels cold and chilling - but not appealing enough to make up for it being dull and kind of annoying. Has the potential to be really cool if the blue fire were used in a more interesting way than “fill your bottles and dump them elsewhere.”

BUT, I feel it would be a complete disservice to my younger self and my younger self’s reasons for playing this game so much, if I focus completely on dungeons and disproportionately on gameplay in a review. Because while gameplay is a huge reason I kept going back to it (hard to want to go back to a game if it isn't fun to play), that’s not what made me love it so much, and a replay has given me fresher eyes to enjoy everything else it has to offer.

Ocarina of Time creates a world and a story that I deeply cared about, and revisiting as an adult, I find if anything I have more take-aways than I did previously. I have always really enjoyed coming-of-age narratives when done well, and this is a coming-of-age narrative done REMARKABLY well. You see dumb bratty kids doing dumb bratty kid things and then see the mature people they’ve grown into 7 years later; the game does not make the mistake of projecting a personality onto a voiceless protagonist, but it does imply a narrative arc for him (and you) regardless just through how strong and cool and awesome you get by the end and all the rad shit you’ve accomplished over the course of the game. It manages to very, very successfully make its story about other characters who DO have personalities, but also make you as the blank slate mc cool guy hero very much have a part in that story that feels very earned and satisfying.

Link doesn’t have a personality. You can project whatever the hell you want onto him or nothing at all. Ocarina of Time makes that *work*, because it doesn’t try to frame him as either ~adult in a child’s body~ or ~child in adult’s body~, it just lets you experience the literal growth from a kid who has to jump to reach ledges and has to thwack things twice with a slingshot and tiny sword, to an adult who can LAUNCH MASSIVE PILLARS INTO THE AIR and one-shot previously difficult enemies, and interpret that however you will. I think the most powerful example of this is going back in time again after doing several adult temples, and entering the bottom of the well, where you see enemies you’ve previously only encountered as an adult, and feel confident that you can tackle them as a child, too.

I really love these kinds of narratives. Where the growth of the main character is purely in the sense of you as the player becoming more adept and stronger, and the context of the story makes that mean something, but the game doesn’t try and pretend the avatar itself has a 3-dimensional personality.

I also think the balance between narrative and gameplay is excellent once it hits its groove. The beginning is very hand-holdy (Navi taught me how to open a door after I had already opened a door elsewhere because she’s scripted to do it at a specific door even though you can technically get to a later one first. lol), and I very firmly believe that with Saria’s Song as a device that lets you seek advice when you want to, it is completely unnecessary to have Navi yell at you what she thinks you should be doing. That said, the game doesn’t stop you from doing whatever the hell you want, and the number and depth of dungeons makes exploring and killing stuff by FAR the meat of the game, over the story. There is a suggested dungeon order, but you have some freedom if you’d rather do them a bit out of order, and there is a LOT of fun side stuff you can do and get rewarded for.

Most of that side stuff is an excellent way to highlight the humor in this game. If you beat Malon’s horse race record she mails a literal fucking cow to your house. Your house in Kokiri Forest. You just show up and there is a fucking cow in your house. That is the funniest thing that has ever happened in a game in the history of forever, sorry. You can race the running man, and all of the other sidequests in the game make you think there is a beatable goal you’ll be rewarded for, and the fucker just goes “lol good try but I beat you by one second. :)” You can blow up the Gossip Stones and they turn into rocketships and launch into space. After you beat the game, and have a really poignant moment with Princess Zelda where she sends you back in time, there is a completely out of nowhere dance party featuring the entire cast in celebration. The game does not try to explain this. It just gives you a dance party, and after such a bittersweet finale and such a fun and engaging game, a no-context dance party is exactly what it needs. A line o Gerudo doing the can-can? Thank you, yes please.

There is SO much that this game does not feel any need to justify in-game, that it simply puts in there because it is fun or cool or both, and I appreciate that so much. There are easter eggs out the butt (still haven’t bothered catching the Hylian Loach and I have still NEVER found the sinking lure despite following every guide in existence). Most of the temples imply some sort of greater history that is not even the slightest bit touched on. It has a very cohesive “core” game that has a start-to-finish suggested progression and a matching narrative, and it has absolute mountains of random shit outside of that it in no way pretends to justify. It explains just enough to give it ground to stand on, but no more, leaving you with more questions than answers. That ambiguity drove me nuts as a kid, but now, I think it’s also why I kept coming back. I wanted answers the game wouldn’t give me so I felt compelled to try and find them myself.

Ocarina of Time’s ending is incredible in ways I am just now able to appreciate. First of all, Zelda is like “I’m gonna send you back in time now” and pulls up the Ocarina and instead of playing the Song of Time which everything in the game implies she should, she plays Zelda’s Lullaby and hesitates just enough on the last note as you are sent back in the past - oof, that’s a good moment. The entire game you’re told about how the Kokiri can’t survive outside of the forest and suddenly they’re at Lon Lon Ranch having a dance party. You walk away from the Master Sword and seal it back in the temple, but nonsensically are then able to meet Zelda in her garden as if nothing had happened, meaning she sent you back so far it erased not just the adult timeline but also everything you accomplished as a child too? So many questions, but the fact that it does not even bother to answer them and just leaves you with such an open-ended image of you and Zelda as kids, calling back to that very early moment after the first dungeon in the game, and you can interpret for yourself what exactly that means.

I’m getting rambly (HAHA as if I’m ever not) so I should wrap this up shortly. Ocarina of Time’s ending is why I am so vehemently opposed to the concept of a ~Zelda Timeline~. The ending is nonsensical if you try to apply concrete logic to it. This game proposes ideas and makes me feel a certain way about them and the ending succeeds in providing just enough closure to make me satisfied and just enough open-ness that makes me want to keep coming back to it to experience it again. It’s not an open-and-shut piece of history of a fake world, it’s a really remarkable journey thats ambiguity is what allows it to feel so very magical.

Ooh boy I can’t wait to replay MM again, but that is a game I’ve never stopped playing, so it’ll be anything but fresh. It hits different right after completing OoT, though. The only way to follow up on a story like Ocarina of Time is to be even MORE batshit, ambiguous, and loose with your definition of how time works.