#plus i could not find a good quality video of this scene

[dudleyguildford]

you psycho! look what he's done!

[freevoidman]

The Pros and Cons of Silent Hill: Ascension

Hey there! Are you planning on sitting through Silent Hill Ascension, either because you're excited, want to build up hype/support for further Silent Hill projects, or maybe you're curious about what new shit show Konami's cooked up? Well, I've sat through the first two days, and let this post be a quick run-through on the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly about Silent Hill: Ascension!

Pros:

There's honestly very little, but I'll run through them nonetheless.

Voice Acting is, right now, okay. Some actors are clearly better than others. I have to give special shout-outs to Rachel Hernandez and Xavier Candless. They're both doing really well with their characters so far and I'm excited to hear how they'll act in more emotive scenes. Of course, we're only two days in so we'll see how that changes.

Silent Hill Ascension features minigames which average around "okay." I'll talk about it more in the 'Bad' section, but the good ones are fun little brain teasers that I find satisfying enough to solve. This is not across the board, but it's enough of a positive that I felt it okay to list.

The site is functional enough that the catch-up videos seemed to work without any hiccups (edit: so long as there isn't a livestream occurring at the same time. If you want to play catch-up 30 minutes before the new stuff is released, odds are the livestream will cut in and mess up your video). Plus, the grace period for decision making is very generous so far, ranging from a full 24 hours to multiple days, so they do give you enough time if you can't watch live.

Credit where credit is due: the monster/creature designs are genuinely well-made. You can clearly see where the budget went, and it was towards making these things look cool and be animated well enough to translate that creepy factor. While nothing is abundantly original right now (we've yet to see the flaming box head guy) I won't short-change the monster designers and animators here, they put effort into this.

There was a bit of misinformation spread around that you'd have to pay to participate. Thankfully, that's not true, you can "play" Ascension without paying a cent and I, personally, wouldn't call this a "pay-to-win" type of game with its set-up. In other words: DO NOT PAY, it's absolutely not worth it here.

Bad:

Animation quality shifts from middling to horrible. The main criticism I have for this "experimental idea" is that everything Ascension tries, the 2000s nailed long before. If you've ever seen one of those 3D straight-to-TV movies that airs on cartoon networks during the holidays, congrats, their animation is likely better and has more charm than Ascension. Characters in Ascension move stiffly, either emote too much or not enough, and lip syncing seems off no matter which language you pick. Animation in SH1 is easily better than this, so don't expect a visual spectacle.

As an addendum to this: Ascension is dark--no, not the content, it is literally hard to see. Going into a Silent Hill-adjacent media, you expect visibility to be impacted by fog. Ascension, on the other hand, skips the fog entirely and just makes everything dark. It is incredibly difficult to see anything that's happening (this includes QTEs which, hoo boy! look at the next segment for that). I don't want to be cynical, but I truly do believe that part of the reason why is to cover up the stiff animation. Until Dawn and other Dark Anthology games had some moments of animation weirdness, but Silent Hill Ascension is easily worse than that on a pure technical level.

App and website responsivity is baaad. Minigames are designed for both platforms with zero differences, but this means some minigames are better on desktop than on mobile and vice versa. Two minigames stand out as particularly mixed/bad: a find-the-object game and a guitar minigame. The find-the-object game was better on desktop because your hovering cursor could find clickable areas more easily than on mobile. The guitar minigame was just bad--it wasn't a rhythm game, it was a game where you had to click finger positions for chords on the guitar strings and, my god, it played horribly no matter which platform I picked (though mobile was noticeably worse) and actually hurt my ears.

As an addendum to that, the live QTE events (yes that's a thing) ALSO suffer from this lack of responsivity, with more destructive results. Live participants were abruptly thrust into QTEs with no warning, no tutorials, and no preparation. There were 4 types of QTEs: a quick button press, a hold-release button, a rapid-tap, and a quick swipe. Of these, only the hold-release and rapid-tap worked regularly. The quick press barely responded, and the swipe indicator is practically hidden due to it being borderline invisible.* While you can try the minigames over and over as much as you want, the QTEs are limited to the live showings and cannot be "replayed." In addition, they have been heavily implied to be a major determining factor as to whether or not characters survive, so if every character's fate is based on successful QTEs, every character is going to die in this show, no matter what you do. This is why I said it's not pay-to-win, you can't pay your way through live QTEs, and this set-up feeds into the unsatisfactory system the entire "game" perpetuates. Even if YOU do well, decisions are based on the community, so if they fail, tough nugs.

The story isn't shaping up to be anything remarkable. There's no major hook in the opening scene and even less of a hook for the three scenes that followed. I'm not intrigued by the "horror" being shown, the way this is being shot and told is more confusing than anything else and, while there are some 'good' actors in this, a majority of them are bad and lack any hutzpah to sell the continued experience. I'm going to hold out for the end of the week, when the first "episode" is done airing, but if nothing hooks me I'm not going to continue.

Ugly:

The "Battlepass." Oh dear god the Battlepass. By paying $20, you can get more "influence points," which you can use to determine actions in this game. You also get exclusive little emote stickers for the live chat (oof) that are, at best, a cringey nightmare and, at worst, absolutely stupid and useless. You also get accessories for your avatar (did I mention there's an avatar? it's so pointless I don't even know WHERE to put that tidbit). Why is this even here? You already have freemium options where you can buy influence points, what does a battlepass add?

The "live chat" just shouldn't be there. I'm sorry, it shouldn't. You can already see the community casting votes and helping with QTEs, having a live chat that is barely moderated with hundreds of thousands of people signing on at 9 to watch the stupidity unfold is a bad idea. It also contributes to the stupidity of the Battlepass system--I don't want emotes, I don't want a 3D avatar that can appear in the show if I give enough points--so nix the whole thing. EDIT 11/1/2023: I kinda got my wish! After the amazing lack of moderation on launch, they've either temporarily OR permanently disabled the live chat! Unfortunately, the video's dimensions to compensate FOR live chat have not been altered, so there's a big gap of black negative space where it should be. People can only reply with the dumb stickers the devs have shoved into this, BUT if you have the battlepass, you can apparently type messages! Ironically, this retroactively gives the battle pass an actual fucking purpose since it gives you a privilege, and the stickers serve a purpose since they're the only way for non-battlepassers to communicate in live chat. Fucking brilliant, they've stumbled backwards into an unintentional solution. EDIT 11/4/2023: Genvid's CEO, Jacob Navok, has made various claims on twitter that of course they tested they tested their AI moderation for basic slurs, it's just that the system got overwhelmed by day 1 traffic. Well, I absolutely DON'T believe that (the testing, not the overwhelmed thing, connection and stability were terrible day 1) seeing as people are getting around not being able to TYPE swearing and horrific racial slurs into chat by simply making their usernames swears and slurs without any letter substitution (a la leetspeak). Here is a link to a video of someone who was streaming Ascension and had the chat open, only to see have someone with the user name "Fuck_[n-word]s" in chat (I'm not typing the actual slur fuck that). When he goes to try and flag the user, he is given no ability to report the username. So, yeah, even if you see some incredibly racist/bigoted shit, you can't flag the user and report them to, y'know, assist with the absolutely real robot-powered moderation that totally exists! If there was the most BASIC moderation in the world to catch english swears and slurs, that username would not have been permitted under any circumstances, so I fully do not believe this fucker.

The decisions themselves shouldn't have labels. What I mean by that is that, so far, every option has three possible options. These options are labelled under three categories: redemption, suffering, and damnation. In other words, the watcher can literally see the paths leading towards the "good, neutral, and bad" endings for Ascension. This shouldn't be a thing, period, because it immediately introduces biases into your choices. Every option so far has been massively skewed towards the "redemption" path because people aren't blind, they can see the "good" ending on the horizon, and they want to go for it. The worst part is, the options on their on aren't explicitly good or bad, so if they got rid of that labeling it'd still work. idk, it just feels stupid. (NOTE: day 2 introduced ONE choice that doesn't have this same labeling system. No clue if that's a bug or if there are going to be decisions that don't have a label. Even then, it seems like a small decision in the overall scheme of things, so... :shrug:)

Yes, the decisions are permanent, thus denying you the ability to see 2/3s of whatever Genvids has worked on. I just think that's dumb and, though many in the community have criticized this already, it feels even dumber when watching the show play out live. There's no way that the money Ascension could possibly make would subsidize the effort put into this if you're effectively nixing 2/3s of anything you can see (and it does seem like major alterations to the characters and their routes so far, nothing minor, so... yeah, you're missing out on a LOT). This also means that because of the audience effectively being enticed to pick the clearly labelled "good path," if you put any effort into a different choice, odds are you wasted your time with minigames for the day. This means Ascension is set up to be as unsatisfying as possible for individuals, and only satiates half of the community engaging with it. There is no way this is going to last the entire scheduled 6 months this is intended to run for if this is the system they're operating under.

In conclusion: give this one a pass. If you're really curious, you can watch now and get a good idea of its future quality. This isn't remarkable at all and looks more like a time sink than anything "fun."

I still don't understand why this isn't a video game, other than Konami hoping some suckers will pay for the influence packs and get them more money than a $60 one-time-purchase. Quantic Dreams and Supermassive "Dark Anthology" games are really fun and well-liked because of the CYA angle they take. This could've made a decent amount of money if it were just, y'know, a normal game.

*MINOR EDIT: tested the QTEs on desktop instead of mobile and they were better overall: prompts respond easily to mouse clicks and aren't nearly as invisible on my phone screen compared to my desktop. If you are REALLY interested in trying it live and getting a feel of the "authentic, live experience", I'd recommend accessing the site on desktop over downloading a mobile app.

EDIT 11/2/2023

Yeah I know I keep editing this honestly BUT I do have a big-ass critique I just noticed relating, again, to the minigames.

Here is a screenshot of the rewards you can receive for your performance with the minigames. You are rated on a scale of 1-3 stars, with a failure being 0 stars. In return for your performance, you gain "Interactive Points" and EXP. Tell me, after looking at this screenshot, what the problem with these rewards might be:

Do you see it? Well, if you don't, let me point it out to you.

THE AMOUNT OF INTERACTIVE POINTS YOU RECEIVE, THE CURRENCY YOU USE TO ACTUALLY MAKE DECISIONS AND PROPERLY CONTRIBUTE TO THE STORY, GOES DOWN IF YOU DO WELL AT THE MINIGAMES. THE GAME ACTIVELY PUNISHES YOU FOR PLAYING WELL.***

100 interactive points, by the way, is not enough to vote on a decision! You need 200 minimum. You also cannot repeatedly play the minigames to farm IP or EXP so, once you get two stars, you can't get the rewards for three or vice versa. And remember, if you're not a battlepasser, you only get two of these minigames per day.

Why on earth is it scaled this way? The difference between two stars and three stars is the exact same, why does it not increase when you do the minigames well? 100 for one star, 200 for two, 300 for three, it's so god damn easy AND you can still keep the scummy interactive point packages they sell!

But, I here you asking, what does the EXP do? Well, ignoring that a 10 EXP difference is exceeding minimal, EXP gives you... nothing!

Yeah, not even kidding with this one. There does seem to be a leveling system attached to your profile, but I cannot see a single thing connecting it to rewards (which are across the board useless), giving you a power boost with your voting, or just giving you perks. As far as I'm aware, EXP doesn't grant you a god damn thing, and that's the only increased reward from doing well.

***CORRECTION (because nothing in my life can ever be simple): the minigames DO reward you better than the screenshot above. Just did today's minigames and I got 330 IP from a 2 star ranking. However, if that's the case, I GENUINELY do not understand why this is labelled incorrectly? This doesn't even add up correctly (the 1 star + 2 star ranking should equal 300, NOT 330).

So, at best, the site is poor at labelling things (which wouldn't surprise me, the UI is a mess most days on this) OR my view of the site/rewards are bugged! Who fuckin' knows at this point. Sorry for the long rant y'all but honestly? Considering I only noticed the labelling earlier today and couldn't test this until the reset happened, I could only go off the labelled point system above.

I WILL say that tonight was the first night the community succeeded at the endurance scenes! I'd be happier about that if the game itself gave a shit, because apparently, what we do does not matter (as this game seems rapt with telling us)

Yes folks, despite the community succeeding two (2!) of these long ass, repetitive QTE events, for some fucking reason, Karl's hope went down further! This is, again, despite the fact that the community AT LARGE succeeded for the first time since the premiere date, but we still lost! Fucking how.

[choosingwhatmatters]

The baby soap song - “Awake” by Boy Sompob

So, in my last post I ranted about the piece of music used in the "let me smell your soap" scene of episode 6 and how I hoped that it would make a reappearance. Boy, did I get my wish in episode 7. Not only do we get to hear the piece again, not only is it connected to the relationship of Wan and Kim, it is an actual song!

I was a little miffed when I made this discovery because I had watched the soap scene about 63 times in order to hear how the song goes and got utterly distracted by what was happening on screen. Had I known that there was an actual song that exists on Spotify, I could have listened in peace. Then again: The onscreen appenings DID warm my little heart. Plus, 63 more views for the video :D

Back to the song: the first time we get to hear the song, we once again hear an instrumental version. It starts when Kim hears that Wan is missing. Kim drops the flowers that Mawin gave her and rushes to look for Wan. Here are the opening bars of the song:

As soon as I heard the music, I knew that Wan would be okay. Somewhat okay. As okay as you can be when you wrangle with feelings for your former best friend whom you scared away by first taking them for granted and then clinging to them for dear life.

The song isn’t dramatic. It has a melancholic, ambient quality. For me, it’s not there to suggest that Wan is in danger but rather that both Wan and Kim have a lot of emotions to grapple with.

This is also true for the second time we hear the song. It guides us through Wan's day of reminiscing and staring into space dejectedly. She watches her mother getting treatment at the hospital. After returning home, she remembers the cutest tidying up scene in human history. (I appreciate the visual of her being physically in the frame as the memory plays out. Also, compliments to the dream team for finding another person who has Fay's perfect hair (tm).)

This is the first time we get to hear the lyrics. As Boy Sompob croons (in the best sense of the word) about yearning for nighttime, about dreaming of a loved one, about never wanting to wake up, Wan suffers through the day until the last bars of the song transport her to dream land. Notably, this is where Kim tells her that she can't be in her dream forever and begs her to see a doctor. Which Wan does! You go, Wan!

We hear the song one last time when the ending credits are rolling. I understand that this is common practice after the first half of a show, but oh!, I am going to miss Mint's "Tha khuu fan di (Reverie)," which I will rant on further in another post.

To conclude: As I had hoped, the song is still connected solely to Wan and Kim's relationship. It has twice now transported Wan to dream land. Both of these dreams were good dreams that led Wan to make decisions that have a positive impact on her life, namely wanting to confess her feelings and seeking treatment for her depression. I will keep straining my ears to catch the opening bars of the song because, as of yet, it has only brought me things that warm my little heart.

[cherrygirlystuff]

Let’s Talk About the New Indie It-Girl – Meet Gabriette!

Hey, babe! 🌸 So, if you haven’t heard of Gabriette yet, where have you been? Because she is everywhere right now, and honestly, we’re all obsessed. Whether you’re scrolling through TikTok, browsing Instagram, or diving into your favorite indie playlists, Gabriette is the name on everyone’s lips. She’s the new indie It-girl, and let me tell you – she’s about to take over your world. Let’s get into all the reasons why Gabriette is the ultimate girl crush we never knew we needed but absolutely can’t get enough of. 🎧✨

Who Is Gabriette? 🌟

Okay, so first things first – who exactly is Gabriette? She’s this effortlessly cool singer-songwriter who’s got the indie scene buzzing right now. Her vibe? Think dreamy vocals, relatable lyrics, and an aesthetic that’s a perfect mix of grunge and glam. Gabriette’s music has this raw, emotional quality that just hits different, and she’s quickly becoming the voice of a generation that’s all about being real, vulnerable, and unapologetically themselves.

But it’s not just her music that’s making waves – Gabriette is also a total style icon. Her looks are a blend of vintage thrift finds and modern chic, giving off that effortlessly put-together vibe that we all wish we could master. From her signature tousled hair to her bold fashion choices, she’s serving lewk after lewk, and we’re here for all of it.

Why We’re All Obsessed with Gabriette 🎤

So, what is it about Gabriette that’s got everyone talking? Here’s the lowdown:

1. Her Music is a Whole Mood 🎶

Gabriette’s music is like a soundtrack to our lives. Her lyrics are poetic but relatable, touching on everything from love and heartbreak to the highs and lows of just trying to figure things out. Whether you’re in your feels or just need something chill to vibe to, Gabriette’s got a song for that. Tracks like “So I” and “Everything is Romantic” have already become instant faves, and we can’t wait to see what she drops next.

2. Her Style is Next-Level 🔥

Fashion-wise, Gabriette is killing it. She’s got that indie It-girl style down to a tee – think vintage tees, layered necklaces, oversized blazers, and those perfectly worn-in boots. She mixes and matches pieces like a pro, creating outfits that are both casual and cool, with just the right amount of edge. Plus, her makeup is always on point, whether she’s rocking a bold lip or keeping it natural with a dewy glow.

3. She’s Real and Relatable 💖

What really sets Gabriette apart is how genuine she is. In a world where so much seems curated and filtered, Gabriette is refreshingly real. She’s not afraid to get deep and personal in her lyrics, and she’s super open about her journey – the good, the bad, and everything in between. Whether she’s sharing behind-the-scenes snippets of her life or just chatting with fans online, Gabriette always keeps it 100, and we love her for that.

4. She’s All About Empowerment 💪

Gabriette is not just an indie queen – she’s also all about empowering her fans. Her music often touches on themes of self-love, independence, and standing up for yourself. She’s like that cool older sister who’s been through it all and is here to remind you that you’re strong, you’re worthy, and you’ve got this. And honestly, we could all use a little more of that energy in our lives.

The Buzz Around Gabriette – What’s Next? 🕶️

With all this hype, you might be wondering – what’s next for Gabriette? Well, she’s just getting started. Word on the street is that she’s working on some new music, and if her recent releases are anything to go by, we’re in for a real treat. Plus, she’s been popping up at all the coolest events and on everyone’s must-follow lists, so you know she’s about to blow up in a big way.

If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and dive into Gabriette’s world. Start with her latest singles, binge-watch her music videos, and definitely hit that follow button on social media. Trust me, babe – you don’t want to miss out on what’s coming next from this indie It-girl. She’s got the talent, the style, and the vibe that’s going to make her a household name in no time.

Final Thoughts, Gorgeous: Gabriette is the It-Girl We’ve Been Waiting For 🌟

So there you have it – the scoop on Gabriette, the new indie It-girl who’s about to be your next obsession. Whether you’re here for her music, her style, or just her overall vibe, Gabriette is serving up everything we love about the indie scene with a fresh, modern twist. She’s real, she’s relatable, and she’s totally killing it right now.

Keep an eye on her, babe – Gabriette is one to watch, and I have a feeling she’s just getting started. 💋✨

Are you as obsessed with Gabriette as I am? Let’s chat in the comments about your favorite songs, her iconic style, and what you think she’ll do next! 💕

[demonfox38]

Completed x2 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Sega Saturn version)

Madness may be doing the same thing over and over again, but hey. At least I'm having fun doing it.

If economics were indicative of what my favorite video game of all time is, "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" would win bar none. Just off of the top of my head, this is how many times I've made purchases of this title alone:

US PlayStation Copy - $6.00 (disc only from a now defunct GameStop location in 2006, so don't get too optimistic)

Japanese PlayStation Copy - $38.00

PSP Copy of "Dracula X Chronicles" (contains a unique SOTN variant) - ~$40.00

PS3 Digital Copy - ~$5.00

Xbox Live Digital Copy – Free (promotional; probably was a tie-in to "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" being released)

Additional copies for friends - ~$5.00

US PlayStation Copy for my sister - $50.00

Sega Saturn Copy - $140.00 (2016 in Akihabara; keep the date/place in mind)

This probably isn't even the sickest I could be in collecting copies of this game. Hell, I've been hung over at a stranger's house with access to their Xbox 360 and thought about purchasing it there as well just so I could distract myself from being sick.

For this particular situation, we're going to talk about the Sega Saturn variant of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night." While I had heard about this one before, I hadn't thought about hunting it down. Content differences aside, I didn't have a Sega Saturn, nor has the Sega Saturn emulation scene been particularly stellar. But, on the one time (and hopefully not last time) @jeannettegray and I were physically in the same place, she happened to find this in the retro game store we were in. At first, I protested. It'd be irresponsible to buy something like that, right? And then I caved because, as established above, I'm kind of a bitch (submissive) for this game.

Fast forward to 2023. I've gotten into the anime series "Lupin the Third" (again, thanks JG!) I've been accumulating some "Lupin" games because they're fairly uncontested in the grand scheme of video game hunting. Considering that at least one is a staple on the bad/weird video game tournament Kusogrande, that should tell you about how well they normally go. But, I did happen to watch a match for the Lupin the Third game "Sage of Pyramid," which seemed to be generally well received! So, I found a copy of it on eBay in a three-pack with two other "Lupin" archive titles. To make a long story short, I ended up with a Japanese Sega Saturn, plus a few extra games.

I know. Between this and the Nintendo Wii U purchases this year, you've really got to ask what's wrong with me.

"Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is a title I have previously reviewed, so I’m not going to bang too much about the shared properties here. Game good; game great; game arguably one of the best games ever made. The Sega Saturn port occurred about one year after the original PlayStation release by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya (KCEN), a branch office (and notably, not the original developer pool from KCET.) While KCEN mostly made either portable versions of console-based Konami games or movie-licensed games, KCEN is notable in "Castlevania" development for both this and "Castlevania Legends," the GameBoy title with female lead Sonia Belmont. Which means that they:

Chugged women-respecting juice like water.

Got everything they did chucked into a historical/narrative paper shredder.

Given this development, the Sega Saturn version of "Symphony of the Night" is in a weird place. It has more content—particularly, in additions to Maria Renard's presence and playability—but is often looked down as an inferior product. In particular, some of the most ridiculed items include load times, transparency implementation/workaround issues, and sprite quality. And boy, did I see some actual, verifiable hardware issues. But, despite that, I do think this variant has some serious charm to it. At least, I'd be way more likely to come back to this version than the PSP version.

Look, if I buy a Sony PSP, you have the right to hit me…up for donations for a charity.

Before we can talk about this game, I think we need to talk about the Sega Saturn itself. Like, the poor bastard only seemed to have success in Japan. (Being $100.00 more expensive than its competitor will do that to you.) It was the kind of non-successful entity that when I heard the Nerve Tower recommending the Sega Saturn version of "Baroque" above all other versions of the game, I felt nothing but mockery for the sentiment. My opinion on the console changed somewhat after tending to a minor memory issue for the console. See, with old consoles or games dying, I'm used to having to buy oddball components and then getting help from my dad in resoldering them into place. With the Sega Saturn? It was simple as buying a new CR2032 battery (from a Wal-Mart! Imagine that) and just popping it into place.

Let's just say I have a lot of appreciation for a console that is easy to manage.

Now, if it were as easy to program as it was to fix, I doubt the Sega Saturn would have floundered as much as it did. I haven't done a great, deep deal of reading into coding for this console, but it seems like working with it required a great deal more knowledge than just popping in some C++ and plugging away. I suppose comparing programming for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation is somewhat like the difference in operating a racecar versus an average sedan. In the right environments and with the right skill level, the former will out-perform the latter. But, at the end of the day, whatever is easiest to handle and cheapest to purchase will be used by more people.

Granted, "Symphony of the Night" should have been a natural slot-in for the Sega Saturn's library. While its best-selling titles were in 3D, a significant chunk of its library contains 2D sprite-based fighters. Weirdly enough, "Symphony of the Night" could qualify for this with its visual presentation and its control style. It's just…well…from what I can tell, this was KCEN's second and last Sega Saturn title. I don't think the experience or confidence was here for a perfect port. Hell, even notes from the developers themselves are frequently lamenting development delays.

Also—Yoshinori Suzuki is the realest for having a reference to Goblin music in his note. I'm more team Suspiria when it comes to Goblin music, but I have full faith that band could slay a "Castlevania" composition.

Okay. Enough sympathy for the devil! Let's get down to the game itself.

The objectives for this port of "Symphony of the Night" match up to the original base game. If you've got SOTN down 200.6% elsewhere, you'll easily hit 210% here. Does the math not add up? Well, it never really did. But, in this case, the first noticeable change is the addition of two new areas per map side. These new areas are respectively dungeon and garden-flavored, both of which make sense in terms of an addition. Neither add a great deal of room content to the game (capping at about 6 rooms for the garden and 3 for the dungeon), but they do provide some benefits, including:

A bridge piece between the Marble Gallery and Underground Caverns

New enemy types

A new boss fight

Access to the Alucard Spear (which, granted, is more important for Lecarde family lore than anything. But it's nice to pick up!)

These areas (and the castle's entrance) also sport some new tunes. Okay, maybe just "Chaconne C Moll" and "Guardian" are wholly originally. But, it does contain pairs of dance and jazz mixes for the "Vampire Killer," "Bloody Tears," and "Beginning" themes. Sure, they're the most 90s-sounding compositions on this planet. But, goddamn if that isn't exactly what I wanted from a "Castlevania" game.

I know. Real trash-core behavior on my part. At least give the "Beginning" remixes a shot before you take another one at me.

Item distribution and placement has also been slightly tweaked from the base PlayStation game, although it is generally in the player's favor. (For example: the Sword familiar is just below the save room of Orlox's Quarters instead of being in a hidden ceiling space.) About the greatest addition of note here is a cape called the Rainbow Robe, which cycles through palettes to create a constant color swapping effect. Very cool. There are also some different familiars than what is present in the US PlayStation version of the game, but about all that is unique there is getting a Half-Faerie that sings if you get her some lyrics. Which…thanks? I guess?

Honestly, the big content augment to the game is Maria Renard. Not only does she become a boss for Alucard to fight (having him prove his strength to her), but she's also playable! And holy shit, does she kick ass! Like, she generally kicks ass, but my God. Literal ass kicking here! Kicked my ass as a boss. Kicked everyone else's ass when fighting them in her mode. I'm not kidding when I say that only three bosses posed a threat to me while playing her. (For those of you that want to attempt this playstyle: it was Orlox, the "Castlevania III" trio, and Galamoth that gave me the most trouble.) If you've got Alucard's Dark Metamorphosis and Soul Steal input commands down, congratulations. You can absolutely slaughter the game as Maria.

It's wild. In her mode, she's got:

A chargeable magic attack as her primary attack

A triple and high jump

An evasive somersault (while Alucard doesn't even have a slide mechanic, so LMAO)

A base kick attack (for when you're storing up magic)

Access to standard "Castlevania" subweapons

Combo commands for summoning all four Celestial Beasts whenever you've got the MP (granting on-the-go healing, two massively damaging attacks, and a limited-time familiar)

A variety of martial arts attacks, and

Access to a full invincibility-granting move! (Like, you've gotta do a full clockwise input + a charge to do it, so it does require some serious skill to use. But still!)

Talk about a power fantasy! Like, no wonder people talk about the reset to Maria's move pool in the PSP version of "Symphony of the Night" being a downgrade. She's an absolute beast here.

Begrudgingly, I can see why Maria's abilities were augmented in later releases. To some extent, I think the IGA team was trying to keep in lockstep with the "Rondo of Blood" version of her, especially considering that the PSP game is primarily a remake and re-release of that game. And, okay, yes. She was originally designed as a tiny Belmont alternative. But in the Sega Saturn SOTN version? With her input pool and abilities? She's an Alucard alternative. Hell, her heal move maps to one of his recovery abilities (Genbu to Dark Metamorphosis), and her primary devastating spell is also the homewrecker in his (Seiryuu to Soul Steal.) She wasn't designed out of nowhere. She was just pulled from a different man's ribs.

I guess if nothing else, the PSP sprites of her are prettier. So…there's that.

Oh! Prettiness. Guess that leads back to the overall aesthetic quality of the game (or potentially lack thereof, depending on who you ask.) Personally, the biggest issues I had here were not so much with sprite distortion, but with load and lag. This game doesn't have the same load-in grace going between new areas or loading in boss fights as the PlayStation version does. It seems like it struggles greatest with particle effects, although bosses with multiple chunks and entities to them can also cause severe rendering delays. Hoo boy, does it not like a bunch of stuff on screen all at once! The Beelzebub and Legion fights in particular bring out the greatest lag in the system, so be prepared for that when/if you tackle them. Even Galamoth has some lag (although, I was using that to my benefit when possible.)

In terms of transparency compensation, the Saturn version does well enough to skirt around some issues. The trailing movement sprites are still following you, so A+ there. Some magic spells were altered to use white instead of using transparency, which honestly? I thought that made some look very pretty (Tetra Spirit in particular!) About the only place I could point at and scold was the hidden cavern behind the waterfall in the Underground Caverns section. In the PlayStation version, it is smoothly revealed as the player steps into it. In the Saturn version? It's like someone flicked a light switch on. Honestly, it would have just been better to let the player always see it, if that's what revealing it was going to look like.

Also, killing Fire Demons is particularly ugly in this game. It's just a lazy, nonsensical sprite swap (as opposed to the color cycling in the PlayStation version.) The Marionette deaths are pretty funny, though!

There was one point where the lack of full implementation actually impressed me. Anti-spoiler at this point, but the final boss fight with Dracula has a much different feeling in the Saturn version. Not that the move cycles he has have even remotely changed. It's the background! In the PlayStation version, it's a bit psychedelic—maybe more like something you'd see in an "Earthbound" or "Star Fox" ending fight. In the Saturn version? 100% black. Cheap? Sure. But, considering Alucard is fighting his father in a realm between the living and the dead—in a complete abyss—it honestly grew on me. Like, yeah, ha ha! The devs couldn't figure out how to do the funky color/texture cycling! But also? Absolute darkness works, too.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the bodily injuries I'm currently nursing post playthroughs as well. Like, my left thumb was taking some abuse from the default controller's D-pad, so I ended up playing through portions of Maria Mode using an HSS-0104 Virtua Stick. (Like I said—I spent some stupid money on this console.) I just ended up pushing the injuries from my thumb to my shoulder blades. 😅 I can't completely blame the game on that, though. I should know better than to do 8+ hours of gaming in a day.

By the way—I did confirm something switching controllers. It seems like this "Symphony of the Night" variant likes to pick up on Up button presses more than in the PlayStation version regardless of the controller used. At least, I was pulling the Fireball / Byakko spells more than intended. I also found myself thinking less in terms of hitting every button in a combo, instead just smearing into cardinal directions. Like, the Saturn seems to have more of a slide detection to it than I anticipated? It's the difference from going down + down-forward + forward to down and forward while smushing your thumb up. You just kinda go legato, not giving a thought about the intermediate inputs.

Okay, verdict time!

Did I enjoy the Sega Saturn port of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night?" Absolutely! While it has its oddities, I hesitate to call this product inferior. It's definitely not as tight of an experience as the standard PlayStation version, but what is here is cool. I would put this in the same category as "Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow" in that if you can't vibe with the main game for some ridiculous reason, it's got awesome side-modes to back it up.

Would I recommend other people play this game? Of course!

Would I recommend other people buy this game?

Look. I know when I'm being ridiculous. This experience personally cost me somewhere between $300.00 to $350.00 USD. Like, what the fuck. Madness! It would have been worse, had I actually bought this game this year! I mean, as of writing, this game, complete in box, is trending at $219.15 USD on PriceCharting.com! Shit, I might as well tell you to buy an arcade cabinet for how ridiculous this could get! And then you've got to weigh the pros and cons of taking systems out of their native countries, what international buyers are doing to the Japanese video game market, the risks of transporting stuff that far, and so on. It's not something you can just say, "LMAO, do it!" about.

But, what I will say is that BizHawk has a pretty good Sega Saturn emulator. And also, I might have written some documentation on how to get BizHawk set-up for Sega Saturn emulation. Chances are you're smart enough to figure out the rest.

[dasenergi-diary]

Over the weekend I said I'll tell the story of "the straw that broke my back." Here it is:

I will attempt to keep all emotion out of it and only state the facts.

The ex-bf lives near me in Ontario, California. In February he started his new job in Palm Springs. That's an 80ish minute drive (70+ miles).

Every day he tells me about all of the accidents he sees on his commute. He said it's worse than his drive into LA (Los Angeles). Every day he describes to me horrible accident scenes. People drive too fast and swerve through traffic.

When he got the job, the plan always was, when his current lease is up at the end of April (beginning of May), he will get an apartment in Palm Springs.

He HATES his current apartment complex. He's been talking about moving out ever since he moved in. He complains about everything about that apartment complex.

Plus we were already aware they were increasing his rent with this renewal. So much so, that in his words, "I'm going to have to take out a loan to pay my rent. Or I could get a second job."

He wasn't exaggerating. He was serious. They're raising it several hundred.

Moving to Palm Springs would be a great new start!

Since I "work from home" most days, I could work from his Palm Springs apartment on weekdays and come home to my house on the weekends with the kids. That way we can have quality time together without someone commuting. He could also stay with me on the weekends too, or explore Palm Springs and make new friends.

He has never belonged to a gay community, he does not have any local gay friends, and I thought Palm Springs would be a great place for him to build both of those.

After he started working and commuting to Palm Springs every day I kept nagging him, "Have you looked for an apartment?"

He hadn't. So I did an online search and sent him several that met his needs.

"Have you called them? Are there any openings? Scheduled a walk-thru?" He hadn't. He kept procrastinating.

Daily on his lunchbreak I would remind him, "Call the apartment lady." (He had a good lead on an apartment from a co-worker.)

Two months went by. Finally last week he scheduled a walk-thru of an apartment. His comments, "It doesn't have an indoor washer/dryer. I'm not using a laundry room."

Here I should mention, his credit score is only 600. Remember, my mentioning he can't "adult"? Managing his finances is one way he can't "adult."

True story: He hired someone to help get his finances in order. He did NOT do what the financial advisor told him to do, and then he fired the financial advisor because he felt guilty about not doing what the financial advisor told him to do - the exact reason why he hired the financial advisor.

He has ruined his credit rating. We both knew most apartments in Palm Springs probably won't take him. We had to set expectations.

This place with the laundry room will accept him AND this place is $700 less than what he is paying now. AND it's super close to work. He'll be saving money to pay off his debts!

Did he look at any other apartments? Nope!

Then last Wednesday he shared with me that he signed the renewal at his current location... the place 70+ miles from work that he can't afford.

The place in Palm Springs was $700 less a month AND no more 70+ mile commute!

Why would he sign that lease???!!!!!

He sent me a video of that Palm Springs apartment, it was perfectly fine. I could totally see him living there. It had just been refurbished with a new bathroom, kitchen, etc. It was cute!

Even if he didn't like that one apartment he saw, he didn't even look at any others.

He has until the end of April to be out of his current apartment. That's still plenty of time (a whole month!) to find a new apartment, or stay with me, or stay with his parents, or stay in a airbnb, until he finds one.

Why did he sign that lease?

I told him to go back to his Leasing Office and say he made a mistake. That he can't afford it. Did he? I don't know. He kept saying, "I can't."

And that's what made me so furious with him. That was the straw that broke my back.

That he signed a lease for an apartment that he hates, that he can't afford and will need to take out a loan to pay rent, and he drives a dangerous 70+ mile commute to work every day, and the bright future of living in Palm Springs is gone.

And I snapped. I couldn't do it anymore. Those were my exact words to him, "I can't do this anymore."

I was done.

The straw that broke my back.

[afwilliam75]

Silent Hill 1: Or how I learned to stop being scared and love terror. “The fear for blood tends to create fear of flesh” Silent Hill is one of the references in terms of horror in video games, it is unquestionable, but I cannot remember another game that has made me think as much as this one did, that is, in theory it is a fairly simple game, even being such an old game you'd think it wouldn't be so scary I mean I can see the pixels that can't scare me but I think silent hill finds strength in its weaknesses the fact that the ps1 couldn't render a city forced them to think outside the box from the box and reach the iconic fog that generates a lot of uncertainty, since the only thing you can guide yourself with is the sound of your radio to be safe. And despite being such an old and simple game, technically speaking it doesn't show its weak points, it really shows that the team behind this game really had a special affection for it, because it almost never plays it safe creatively, the music is iconic already by the fabulous Akira Yamaoka as well as Masajiro Ito's creature design. It really is a feat that in a genre where you usually rely too much on gore and jump scares here the horror is based on making you feel alienated in a hostile world, this is probably the coldest and most cryptic game I've ever played, but that's part of its design It's part of the psychological terror it wants to make you feel, plus I'd also give it extra points for the quality of the puzzles in the game, they really do require a pretty decent puzzle-solving ability. As for the story, I think it supports a lot of the cryptic and lonely aspect of the atmosphere, so you don't have too much character development; however, when the game wants to make you feel other emotions such as empathy, sadness or nostalgia, it will succeed. Personally, I think that in terms of its central theme, Silent Hill was way ahead of its time, this is already more of a head canon, but I think the theme is a social commentary on how society and especially religions and cults have abused women throughout history, using them as means to an end, as can be seen in the case of Alessa, who kept her alive for the only thing they kept her alive was to conceive despite only being a girl or there is also the case of Lisa Garland who was drugged, abused and physically and psychologically injured by Dr. Aickmann and the cult for god knows how long, to the point of literally losing her humanity and ending in one of the saddest death scenes possible, even To support my theory, we would only have to see the final boss of the game "Incubus" which is defined as: "Incubus is the one that responds to the male gender and likes to possess women during dreams to be able to generate them and thus have offspring." Supporting the aforementioned how Alessa was only kept alive to procreate. In addition, the use of symbolism and occult objects is fascinating and somewhat fresh theme in the genre up to that moment, as well as being able to discover the psyche of a disturbed girl in a physical way as a place that could be every day, but seen from the perspective of a girl who has been abused in many ways is very interesting and creates empathy for this type of case, as if all the sins were mixed and effervescent with the facade of a city. However, it is not exempt from criticism, especially in the gameplay it is archaic and often difficult to control. Above all, it is a game that despite its flaws is mandatory and a masterpiece in the genre. Good night and Happy Halloween.

[fourseasonsfigs]

Fig Fashion Week: Fendi Wolf Tail Zhe

This blog's Fig Fashion Week is all about the figs that celebrate our two favorites in their designer best. And who better to round out this week's series of posts than one of my favorites in this style!

This fig was part of the original 6-set Junzhe Fashion Show fig series I posted about back in October/ November of last year (wow, that seems like forever ago), but I didn't post about it then because I didn't have it. Like all of those figs, I missed this the first time it was on sale. Unlike those figs, this one was not easily available for a decent price by resellers on Xianyu, which was a huge bummer because it was my favorite one of the series! I finally found him for a slightly less unreasonable price bundled with some other items, so I snapped him up. Totally worth it! No surprise he was hard / expensive to find - I think a lot of people love this fig too.

And no wonder, when the inspiration for this fig is so fantastic.

(ooh these shoes!)

Do I love everything about this outfit on him? Yes. Did I save up every single picture of this outfit I could find? Yes! Can I stop posting pics? No!!

Well actually I am forced to stop now since I'm out of pics, which just means I need to switch over to video...

He looks fantastic. I'm not even sure I'd like this outfit on anyone else (well, aside from Gong Jun), but wow does he pull it off. It's just something with the very fitted pants through the hips that emphasizes his trim waist, while the softness of the sweater offsets the structured lines of the cropped jacket. This is my favorite type of look on Zhehan, where he looks out-of-this-world incredible and also very huggable. Strong yet soft!

The fig is so cute! No wonder he was so popular.All the little details plus the sweetest little smile!

Cats in the eyes are always a fan favorite in the Figthusiast household! I like having little pictures in the eyes. I have a whole series of dolls with intricate scenes in the eyes, which sounds a bit odd (and probably is!) but I think it is clever and adds so much interest. This particular look here is super cute.

He's holding the Fendi bag here that you can barely see in one of the pictures, of course upgraded with his own initials!

I'm going to have to find a better shot of the bag he's modeling. For the blog!

The fig maker did a great job with this entire fig, but I really like how they rendered his hair all the way around. The front is so cute with the silver-wrapped pieces, and same in the back.

He does stand up ok, enough to take pictures without a standee, anyway. He's another one of those figs that can stand but is not super stable, and if you accidentally bonked the end of a table he was on, he would definitely fall over.

He stands tall and handsome though, even with the big ol' cap, so this is some quality fig engineering for sure.

Fantastic job on the face and the soft little rose in the cheeks. I like the shininess of his shoes too, and the little shoe lace details.

The fig maker rendered the whole soft-yet-structured nature of this look beautifully. Fig Zhehan also pulls off this very elegant, soft slouchy style very well! And of course, his hair looks fantastic!

I'd love to have fig makers make more figs of this outfit! I'm really, really happy with this one.

This is a good shot to see how the hair comes off the neck and back in back.

And of course, his fancy ballcap, rocking his very own initials!

You might recognize the other 5 of the Junzhe Fashion Show in the series there! The box card didn't make it to me in my Xianyu purchase, which is a bit of a bummer but what can you do. It's not easy to buy from overseas, so I've learned to let many things go! Having the fig is what is most important.

Material: PVC

Fig Count: 335

Scene Count: 24

Rating: No big bad wolf here!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[pandaraid-media]

The Best Place to Outsource Video Editing

Alright, let’s talk about outsource video editing. You’re a talented videographer, but video editing can be a real time-suck. You’re juggling client projects, building your brand, and maybe even trying to enjoy a little personal life. And then there’s that mountain of footage staring back at you. We’ve all been there.

I remember a client’s project. It was a corporate video with countless interviews, drone shots, and slow-motion sequences. After weeks of editing, he emerged looking like a zombie, and the video was okay, but his soul was drained. I knew there had to be a better way.

So, where do you turn when the editing load gets too heavy? Let’s dive into some options.

Argentina: Your Unexpected Editing Ally

Okay, so you’re thinking about outsourcing. Great choice! But where to look? Asia might be the first place that pops into your head, right? Cheaper, right? Well, let’s talk about a hidden gem: Argentina.

I know, I know. Argentina? For video editing? Hear me out.

Argentina has a thriving creative scene, and their video editors are seriously skilled. Plus, they’re in a similar time zone to the US, which means better communication and faster turnaround times. And here’s the kicker: while their rates are competitive, they don’t sacrifice quality.

I’ve worked with a few editors from Argentina, and I’ve been impressed by their talent and dedication. They’re passionate about their craft and eager to collaborate. It’s like finding a secret weapon for your video production.

Let’s dive deeper into why Argentina could be the perfect fit for your video editing needs.

Finding Your Argentine Video Editing Partner

So, you’re convinced that Argentina could be the answer to your video editing woes. Great! Now, how do you find the perfect editor?

Online Platforms:

Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer: These platforms are a good starting point. You can browse profiles, check portfolios, and read reviews. Just remember to look for editors with experience working with US clients.

ProductionHUB: This platform is specifically geared towards the film and video industry, so you might find some talented Argentinian editors here.

Direct Connections:

Video Editing companies: There are several video editing companies in Argentina that specialize in working with international clients. For example, at Panda Raid Media, we provide a service designed for videographers and video production companies (and we work with Emmy award winning companies).

Networking: Word-of-mouth is still a powerful tool. Reach out to other videographers who have outsourced to Argentina. They might be able to recommend talented editors.

Remember, building a strong relationship with your editor is key. Take the time to interview potential candidates and discuss your project in detail. A good fit will save you time and headaches in the long run.

Let’s talk about some potential challenges and how to overcome them.

Challenges and Overcoming Them

Let’s be real, outsourcing isn’t always a smooth ride. There are bound to be some bumps in the road.

Communication: While many Argentinian editors have excellent English, there might be occasional misunderstandings. Clear communication is key. Use plenty of visuals, and be patient.

Time Zone Differences: Although Argentina is in a similar time zone to the US, there can still be scheduling challenges. Overlap your work hours whenever possible, and use project management tools to stay organized.

Quality Control: You want to make sure the final product meets your standards. Set clear expectations upfront, provide detailed feedback, and consider requesting multiple rounds of revisions.

Overcoming these challenges is all about building trust and establishing clear communication channels. It might take a little extra effort in the beginning, but the payoff is worth it.

For more information about Outsource Video Editing Services and Video Editing Subscription visit here website panda raid media

[dojae-huh]

For me doyoung’s voice is not the flashy type. What i mean by non-flashy is when i visualize his voice in nct his voice doesn’t cut through the loud instrumental. A lot of the time it blends with them. Some members i can clearly see them cutting through it. Sorry i just don’t know how to describe it. Bear with me. And that’s why i really really like it when he does a Capella, acoustic, ballad, or just listening to his behind recording scenes. I like when a singer’s voice gets to shine or stands out from the instrument in the background. Sometimes i find instrument of certain songs overpower or blend with his voice. Like his voice is battling against the loud instrument and that confuses my brain. Idk if that’s unfavourable in music production but to my preference yeah it’s unfavourable. That’s also why i really like him opening nct song. It’s like the calm before the storm. I can hear him talking all day too. I really really like his voice as is. And recently as he gets to show more of his vocals i think i hear less of this ‘blend’ with instrument. And that’s a win for me hihu. I still can’t come to conclusion if that’s just his technique to purposely blend with instrument or vocal tone or maybe sth else. But i think band music in his music in his album, two of em are loud for me. Little light and from little wave. But there’s also the case that a good song is when the instrumental shines. I can’t deny those two has really good instrumental. Then, i guess it’s just my preference in songs? What the composer intended to shine better? Vocal or instrumental. Hmm maybe that’s why.

I know I don’t make any sense but I just love his voice as is. He, for me, sounds a hundred times better without accompaniment. It’s almost like I don’t want any sound to interrupt his voice. I guess that’s one way to appreciate his voice. Anyway warmth has climbed my ranking now because of his really really good behind recording. I’m still in awe. Oh, and maniac concert version is crazy mannnn

Someone (was it a neo or a producer, I don't remember) said that neos' voices are used as instruments. Doyoung often stands out to me, but he is often blended in as well. That's intentional. (Also, in some NCT songs the instrumental part is just too loud, SM isn't good with mixing).

Yes, in comparison to Mark and Taeil, Doyoung's voice is less recogniseable, less "heavy and grounded", I get what you are trying to say. Plus he sings airy for many NCT songs. He needs to play a different part/instrument from Taeil. Doyoung is good at changing his voice though, and doing harmonisation. It's his strength though, it allows him to be a chameleon, to sing in many genres.

Do's voice has a piercing quality to it, it's why he is good in the beginning of songs and as accompaniment to rapping (Yestorday, Light bulb).

Doyoung carries the generic sound of Little light, so I can't agree he doesn't stand there (with the exception of a some live performances). From little wave is one of my faves on the album, I think it's a good blend of powerful instrumental and a powerful (in energy) voice.

I think comparing Do's voice to a watercolour is fitting. He is not a powerhouse to take with brute force, he doesn't have a specific rasp or unique warmth that just makes a voice pleasant to listen to without much of additional training, he is more about the colour and nuances, transitions.

I always found one thing perculiar, neos are always boastful about having Taeil, but they talk more about Doyoung's voice. And people who listen to him live, work with him get impressed as well. It seems he is impressive live. Maybe it's the cleanliness, lightness. Something that gets lost in recording or covered by instruments during mixing of songs.

Do probably just wanted to give more to his fans of himself, so his recording sessions were so long. However, in the end it was a smart move. We finally could see his current level. And the sound in the videos is very good, as well.

[gamerdog1]

Castlevania Nocturne Season 1 Review

Its a good time to be a gamer, or an adult who likes animation. After decades of flop after flop, it seems that filmmakers and animation studios finally got their shit together, and realized that video games aren't just a fad that will pass in a few weeks. We can now rest easy, knowing that the people who make video game adaptations actually know what video games are, and did their research on them before putting pen to paper.

Sure, in every boom, there's bound to be a few stinkers. I doubt any news outlet is putting the live action Monster Hunter movie in their 'Top Ten Best Video Game Movies' lists anytime soon. But as it stands today, the market for video game adaptations for the big (or small) screen is bustling, with major successes like the Super Mario Bros movie proving just how successful they can be.

Streaming services, as well, have taken this in stride, putting forth their best and brightest to make some damn good shows for their platforms. With shows like Arcane, Cyberpunk : Edgerunners, and Castlevania (2017), most video game or animation fans have been eating well with Netflix, and the release of Nocturne last September was just another scoop on the sundae.

Castlevania: Nocturne is a short animated series created by Clive Bradley, and directed by Sam and Adam Deats. Based on the Konami games, Nocturne follows a group of young magical heroes who work together to stop a secret ruling class of vampires from summoning a messiah and bringing about the end-times. A cunning show with a dark premise, Nocturne is 8 episodes of fast-paced, blood spraying, beautifully animated action that lives up to it's precedent's legacy.

Coming just 2 years after the finale of the original series, Nocturne only ups the quality of the series as a whole on all fronts. For starters, the visuals. My god, the animation is incredible! I wish I could show every fight scene, every smoothly-animated sequence here, but alas, I'd lag the shit outta this post. I'll spare you, mobile users.

Watching this show took me back to 2017, when the original series came out. Sitting on a bus, on a youth trip in the middle east, I'd watch the fight at the end of season 1 over and over, trying to spot how they animated it. Seven years later, I still find myself staring in slack-jawed amazement at the slick animation on display, which moves so fast that at times, I can't even tell what's going on. One thing's for sure, though: its goddamn beautiful.

On top of that, Nocturne keeps the series' ball rolling, adding onto the previously established lore while keeping the past relevant, to make it fit the overarching narrative. It acknowledges what happened at the end of the previous series, and continues where it left off, albeit a few decades later. Nocturne's main characters aren't nobodies: their family lineage and abilities link them to the previous trio, showing how though the passage of time, the show stays the same.

The main character, Richter, is a stark contrast to Trevor, the previous series' protagonist. He's polite, nicely dressed, works well with others, and has a lot to learn about his ancestry, which gets revealed more over time. Where Trevor felt like a seasoned vampire hunter, Richter has this sense of youthfulness about him, making him feel more inexperienced. We get to watch him learn and grow, rather than start with him already being experienced, and it feels satisfying to see how far he's come by the last episode. Plus he gives me gender feels, so he's alright in my books.

Supporting him is Maria, this series' counterpart to Sypha, and Richter's adopted sister. She is a leader in the fight for freedom in the French Revolution, and can summon magical animals to fight for her. Her youthful energy, stubbornness, and deep knowledge of politics keep her from being another 'strong empowered woman' , a stereotype which many fantasy series believe is somehow akin to feminist writing.

The third member of this series' main trio isn't a counterpart to Alucard, though she could end up being just as powerful. Annette, a Caribbean woman who fled slavery as a child, can harness the powers of an African god to control rocks and metal, to create weapons or help her allies. She is one of the first major Black characters in this series, and proves to be a valuable ally time and time again, saving her friends' asses at least a dozen times.

Despite the show only being 8 episodes as of time of writing this, Nocturne manages to pull you in quickly, with its likeable characters and quickly escalating plot. When I started this show last year, I was hesitant to let go of the old trio and old story, and adopt this new one. By episode 4, though, I was into it, and wanted to know more about the story. While the original Castlevania takes four seasons to get to the point of a unified team and major evil, Nocturne does it in a fraction of the time, with all of the same grace and glory, and none of the season 3 like its predecessor. Now this is speedrunning!

To top it all off, Nocturne continues its family legacy of giving some damn good representation in a show that's source material never really demanded it. Much of the main cast falls into various minority groups, and for one in particular, her struggles are shown in detail. We live in an era where a major animated action series features a metal mage who escaped slavery, an gay Aztec vampire who falls in love with a holy knight, a Black vampire with flaming hair and bat wings, and a vampire matriarch with the power to blot out the sun. There's something for everyone here, and I mean it.

Unfortunately, that's all there is for now. Castlevania: Nocturne, as it stands, is just one season, with a second on the way. Still, what's here is strong, and proves that the original Castlevania wasn't just a lucky break. Just like it, Nocturne delivers blazing fast action, awesome character design, and tons of representation, but quickens the pace of the story to get the ball rolling right away. After 8 episodes, I already feel attached to these new characters, and I anxiously await the next season. Who knows, maybe they'll add a werewolf character!

[fzzr]

Angel Beats! Made Me Cry for Twenty Minutes

I should probably emphasize that Angel Beats! made me cry for twenty minutes on multiple viewings. Nothing else in anime or even in media in general has ever left me so emotionally devastated. I find it to be Perfect in Every Way That Matters, and I need to talk about why.

To get us started, I will be plagiarizing referencing this part of the Mother's Basement video "Why We Love Spy x Family". In very short, when media needs to get the consumer invested in its characters as fast as possible, one of the greatest tools is humor. If you want your reader to cry with your characters, first you make them laugh with them. Angel Beats! gets you laughing ASAP so that when the first emotional assault comes in episode three, you're already invested enough to feel it. With only thirteen episodes to work with, this is a show that needs to be efficient, and boy is it ever.

I need to take a not-quite-side-trip here: Angel Beats! has something that is very unfair, and that is the quality of its music. The "Beats" in the title is there for multiple reasons, but music is certainly one of them. The opening and ending are both never skip. You especially MUST NOT skip the ending, no matter how slow it seems. Watch it every time. Trust me on this. The insert songs are also so good they put most dedicated music anime to shame. Like, I love me some Show By Rock!! and Ya Boy Kongming! but I watched those around the same time as Angel Beats! and despite them both providing multiple tracks to my top playlists, Angel Beats! tops them both. It will not surprise you that part of this is how integrated the music is with all those feels.

There's more! The story is not just emotionally fraught, it's also fascinating in concept and flawless in execution. The pacing is even used as a tool to keep you invested. After a particular cliffhanger the show goes into an extended flashback, leaving you hanging from that cliff while it hits you with yet another brutal twist. The animation is consistently great, even when it's not flexing with dynamic action scenes. A show like this doesn't necessarily need that level of quality, but since it does have it there's nothing to distract you from the truly important stuff.

So, where does the crying for 20 minutes come in? Well, each episode is 24 minutes long. During the final episode, I only kept it together for four of them. Even the final ending theme is a crying part - that's one reason why it's so important to watch it each time. I don't want to spoil any reasons here, plus explaining it all would take as long as everything I've written here so far. It should be obvious by now that the 11/10 factor that makes Angel Beats! a 10 is the feels.

Before wrapping up, I do need to give some content advisories. There is a nontrivial amount of violence in this show, though not excessive gore. Some of those hard-hitting emotional moments include discussion of suicide.

Conclusion:

Score: 10/10, obviously. If you have somehow not watched Angel Beats! yet, you should rectify that ASAP. It's shorter than two Marvel movies. It's one of the most emotionally impactful pieces of media I have ever experienced, and I think it could be one of yours too. It's Perfect in Every Way That Matters.

The power level requirement is minimal. The only limitation is tolerance for violence, and if you can watch a modern somewhat gritty action flick you can more than handle what you'll see here.

Comparisons:

Saekano is another show that hit me hard in the feels. Indeed, watching that prompted me to re-watch Angel Beats! to check if the crown had been passed (it had not). Saekano is more than twice the length of Angel Beats! and it spends the extra time on the secondary theme of artistic fulfillment, and on shenanigans. Angel Beats! has no time to spare, so even what seems to be shenanigans is building the infrastructure necessary to deploy feels when the time comes. The fact that it manages to find time for humor every step of the way is even more impressive. Saekano is a great, emotionally impactful show - but when it comes to feels it doesn't hold a candle to Angel Beats!

[ingolditrust]

✨ Dream Girl Guide ✨

After reading @2pretty's Dream Girl Guide, I knew it was time to get down to business and also set some serious goals for the rest of year.

Although I have evolved a lot in the past year and managed to incorporate a lot of new beneficial habits, I feel like there is still room to grow and glow-up. So let's make the next 6 months count and hold myself accountable with this post to keep myself on track. 💕

The dream girl version of myself is an elegant, graceful and witty beauty, who is worldly and speaks multiple languages. She oozes confidence and enchants her surroundings with her knowledge, wit and charm. She seizes opportunities when she sees them and unapologetically asks for what she wants. She has clear boundaries and does not let any man or woman disrespect her or her boundaries. Her home is always spotless and smells fresh, she is completely on top of her house chores. She has a trim figure, which he tones through consistent workouts. She has a booty!! she built in the gym. People want to be around her energy, she is grounded and calm and practices mindfulness on the daily. She always looks naturally put together, takes absolute pride in her appearance and SPF is her best friend. 💖

12 Qualities to create her:

♦ speaks HSK 5 level chinese

♦ oozes confidence and charm in social settings

♦ has a killer job and focuses on her professional development

♦ has a booty (does a booty count as a quality? i say yes) trim figure and graceful posture / flexibility

♦ knows about Art

♦ practices minimalism / essentialism

♦ Slow, clear and pronounced speech

♦ great financial knowledge and builds up her investments

♦ is kind and compassionate

♦ continuously seeks new knowledge in various areas

♦ speaks intermediate Russian

♦ is grounded and calm, has control over her emotions

June

✨ Ramping up my Chinese ✨

I am staying in Taiwan for the summer on a Chineses language scholarship. Initially it was more to just revise what I have forgotten last year and enjoy a covid free summer, but now I really want to push my command of the language to new heights. I will study 2-3 hours per day (next to my daily language course) and try to seize every opportunity to really further my Chinese and not fall back to using English. It is going to be uncomfortable and awkward sometimes, but it will pay off.

July

✨ Confidence and Charm ✨

I will use July to explore the dating scene in Taiwan and also use this opportunity to further build my self-confidence and charm when it comes to men. This may sound like an unusual quality to train, but i want to make it my goal to feel completely unintimidated and at ease around men. I will clearly state my boundaries at all times and not allow anyone to push or violate them. I will state my wants and needs and see who rises to the occasion or not. I will only focus on men's action and not their words. This month will also give me the opportunity to discover more about myself.

August

✨ Finding a killer Job ✨

August will the month of intense job-search and career exploration. I have already polished my resumé and I will send out at least 15 job applications. Next to that, I will do extensive research on graduate / Masters programs and decide at which universities and for which programs I will apply.

September

✨ Booty time ✨

I will work out at least 4 times per week, really focus on high protein intake and a good mixture between strength and cardio workouts + stretching. I will focus on finally growing that peach of mine 🍑. In edition, I will do this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5HBnDig8hY&t=5s) 8 min posture exercise video every day to strengthen my back and help me look more graceful and elegant.

October

✨ Work of Art✨

October will be the month of Art. I've always wanted to get more acquainted with it, so in October I will research about the Art world at least 3 hrs per week, get more familiar with the different art periods, artists and styles. Plus I will try to visit at least 2 galleries.

November

✨ Minimalism / Essentialism✨

Before the Christmas mayhem starts, I want to refocus on minimalism and essentialism, being intentional with the items and things in my life. Essentially Marie Kondo-ing my life. Decluttering my apartment and closet, taking inventory of what I own, what needs to be polished and better taken of or what needs to be replaced. I will revisit my minimalism habits and check if i have kept on track with them during the year (e.g. am I buying things because I really need them and will serve me in the long run or I am I buying emotionally and/or instant gratification?). I will try my best to make this a no-buy November, unless the item is essential to my life / growth or if I have to replace something.

December

✨ Slow, clear and intentional speech✨

I know that a lot of people tell me that I sometimes speak to fast and unclear, thus making it hard for people to follow and keep up with what I am saying. As I fear it could sometimes diminish my presence and credibility, I will actively use December to try and work on this. Whether that is through guided speech exercises that I will look up online, or get a speech the therapist, remains to be decided.

I have sketched out my plan for the rest of 2021 and plan to revisit my dream girl guide at the end of December, to plan anew and adjust and recalibrate accordingly for 2022 ♥️.

✨ Let the glow-up gods shine their light upon me ✨

[aeonmagnus]

Happy 20th Anniversary Robots In Disguise!

This year, and today in particular, marks the 20-year anniversary of Transformers Robots in Disguise airing in the United States.  This was the official English language dub of the Japanese show Transformers Car Robots, which aired in Japan the year before.   This show and it’s accompanying toy line were a big shift in the Transformers brand and affected how things moved forward in the new millennium.  It was also a big influence on me and this website in it’s early years, so both the brand and TFW2005 may not be what it is today without it.

We hope you will read on after the break to check out our celebration of Robots in Disguise on it’s 20th!

Intro

The following is not a comprehensive article on the show proper, but rather a trip down memory lane from my personal perspective.  It was a period of change in my life, in the fandom, in the brand, and in the world – all happening at once.  Robots in Disguise was smack dab in the middle of it all and I think that’s why it still resonates with me all these years later.  For a deeper dive into the world of Robots In Disguise you can check RIDForever.info, a site I maintain just about RID and Car Robots. The 2021 updates are here, and the 2017 round of updates are here.  I’d also suggest checking the TFWe issue all about RID over on the 2005 Boards.  Now, onto today’s festivities…

The Show

RID, and yes I say RID as if it is the only RID.  If you must reference that other RID show and it’s off-shoots, refer to it as RID 201x, thanks. 😊 RID aired during the Fox Kids programming block on a Saturday morning, with additional episodes set to air each weekday during the afternoon hours.  Instead of stretching the show out over the course of 30+ weeks with only a new ep each weekend, they were going to blaze through it non-stop.  By the end of the first week, we would have been 7 eps in.  That however hit a big roadblock due to 9/11 just three days later.  While some local markets did air the episodes, many larger city networks, and especially east coast markets, stuck with news coverage.   Many of us did not catch the early episodes on TV the first go around.  In addition, several of the episodes got pulled from TV due to depictions of buildings being destroyed and other similar visuals which understandably could upset children that just experienced 9/11.  So right off the bat, the new millennium and new era of Transformers were dealing with a new reality.

The show, for those that don’t know – was a weird one-off in Transformers history.  We had G1 and then the G2 remixes for a bit.  Beast Wars came on the scene and ran all the way through 2000 with it’s successor – Beast Machines.   During the Beast Wars era – Japan did a couple of their own Beast Wars shows, non-CGI extensions of what we saw in the US.   Their market wasn’t quite ready for full CGI so they stuck with traditional anime.  When Hasbro decided to continue Beast Wars into Beast Machines, Takara went a completely different way – a traditional animated show which brought back Autobots and “Decepticons”, mixing them in with the beasts.  They focused the toys on a couple new and complex molds, then filled the rest of the line with repaints of previous toys.  Old 2nd tier Beast Wars toys, G2 Laser Prime, and even some Generation 1 molds in the form of the Combaticons got new life as new characters in this show, capped with the biggest TF of them all at the time – a repainted G1 Fortress Maximus, now Brave Maximus.  It was the prototype for what the Transformers brand did for years to come – repainting old toys into new characters.  Universe, Classics, Botcon, and even some Generations runs used this method to give us some great toys in the 00s.

While there is a very complicated and long explanation for how every single Japanese show is one continuity, to someone casually starting with Car Robots it was a refresh, a new story, a new arrival on Earth.  The Autobots vs the Predacons, and eventually the Combatrons/Decepticons. It was a hard cut from the last 5 years or so of CGI Beasts.  Hand drawn traditional animation featuring vehicle Transformers.  It wasn’t G1, but many of the folks who grew up with G1 were just getting out of college around this time.  They were rediscovering their childhood love of Transformers through Beast Wars, flea market finds, raids on their parents’ attics and basements, and for the internet savvy – imports of Japanese reissues from Takara.  It was a perfect storm of nostalgia; a return to Autobots and Decepticons was welcomed by kids and adults alike.

RID and TFW2005

In the years leading up to Car Robots, I was just getting into the internet, coding, design, some digital music, and all the possibility that came with it.  Beast Wars, especially when it hit Season 2/3 and the inclusion of G1 lore, really got me focusing on Transformers again as a hobby.  I eventually combined the two newfound hobbies into one and Transformer World 2005 was born.  At no point did I ever think it would last 20+ years and take over my life in the way it did.  I started the full version of TFW2005 around April 2000, with some starts and stops before that.  That was right around when Car Robots started airing in Japan.  Through the magic of 56k internet, I was able to connect with folks in Japan and get them to send me VHS tapes of Car Robots.  Really nice, high-quality tapes too, I still have them hehe.  To the younglings reading – try to picture this: no youtube, no video sharing. The concept of streaming anything did not exist yet. Napster and the eventual peer to peer stuff hadn’t fully kicked off.  Plus, we were all viewing the internet on giant computers in our rooms at the speed of 1x on your phone.  Less than 1 bar 3G mobile speeds today.

Yes, someone recorded episodes from TV to video tape over there, did that a couple weeks at a time, then physically mailed them across the world to me, who then got them on the internet.  Can you imagine waiting weeks to watch an episode of TV the size of a twitter profile avatar?  Crazy.  Uploading a full episode to the internet was a big pain in the ass, not easily done.  I decided to get a converter that allowed me to plug my VCR into the computer and encode the tape into digital format.  From there, it was reduced using Microsoft’s WMV technology so that the episodes were about 5 MB each.  30 minute episodes at 5MB each. Dimensions – 176 x 144 pixels.  4k video today – 3840 x 2160 pixels.  You can imagine that video looked like crap.  But we didn’t care – we were blown away.  Old school animation, vehicles, some cool Japanese anime vibes, it was what we as G1 fans kinda had in the back of our heads on what Transformers should be in a new era, and we were seeing it.  Most of us had no clue what they were saying or what was going on.  Also didn’t care.  I still to this day think CR/RID is better like that.

So one of the first things TFW2005 did on the internet was provide these super small windows into Car Robots and what was going on in Japan. It helped get US fans hyped up for what Transformers could be. It got us wanting the toys, and importers bringing the Takara toy line over were moving serious product.  It helped swing Hasbro, who was planning to return to Autobots and Decepticons again down the road, to move that schedule up.  Instead of running Beast Machines until 2002 and then starting what we now know as the Unicron Trilogy, it was cut short.  Robots in Disguise as a toy line and show came over in 2001, ran fast and hard for a year with non stop releases, got extended because it did so well, and then faded into the Universe line of repaints.  The new millennium of Transformers was here and Robot In Disguise kicked it off with a bang.

Wrap Up

As we all continue with collecting Transformers now, regardless if you tagged into the fandom during G1, Beasties, the Unicron Trilogy, the Movies, or just yesterday – let’s take the time to give Car Robots and RID some props!  It set the tone for what the new millennium of the brand would be.  It gave us some toys ahead of their time.  It solidified the repaint as an accepted thing in the hobby. And it gave us one crazy 39 episode run of TV that’s still a fun ride 20 years later.

For those that would like to learn more about RID and Car Robots – I still maintain a Robots in Disguise website that archives everything I have or came across.  There is a lot there if you want to go on a tour of all the awesome Car Robots and Robots In Disguise era stuff.  Check it out at RIDFOREVER.INFO! FIYAH!

Let us know what you think and remember from the good old days of RID on the 2005 Boards here!

Epilogue

If someone over there at Hasbro is reading – can someone please figure out who owns the rights to the show in the US market and then get it out on DVD in full, finally?  Work all that funky licensing stuff out (if there is any) and get it done.  The US has never had access to it via an official release.  Maybe get it up on YouTube like G1?  Something.  Announcing plans for that before the end of 2021 would be a nice 20th anniversary tribute.

[aiyexayen]

So uh that essay about how Wei Ying takes after Yu Ziyuan? I am LISTENING

There were two things that really made me start to think about this, one was this tweet which says, "You know what we don't talk about? Wei Wuxian getting his cry-laughing from Madam Yu" and this incredible ChengXian video which sets their relationship to the tune of When Doves Cry and wrecks me every time I watch it (I just watched it now when I went to get the link and I'm whimpering).

As to the first matter:

seems fairly conclusive.

The second matter:

maybe I'm just like my father, too bold maybe you're just like my mother-- she's never satisfied

Was there this much meta thought put into one line of lyrics in a video set to When Doves Cry? Hard to say. There is now, though! Because dang, what a line. Essay under the cut.

There's a (valid) tendency to pull out the ways Jiang Cheng is more like his mother, and the ways Wei Wuxian is more like Jiang Fengmian, especially where their relationship is concerned.

Jiang Cheng wants proof of care through passion, through a willingness to fight. He will provoke and poke at things better left lying, with no shame and no regard to who else is around, dredge up old hurts and old grudges and old matters even if they're long buried or long forgiven, so long as he thinks it will get him the reaction he's looking for.

He wants Wei Wuxian to fix things by rising to the bait, rising to the challenge, giving him pushback when he says blatant lies, showing him that his shige still thinks he's worth it.

This is terribly unhealthy, of course, don't do this at home kids, but it's one of my core Jiang Cheng Truths.

Jiang Cheng shows that he cares in turn by being willing to fight, by pouring his emotion out even if those often end up as negative expressions. He's messy and unrestrained when he feels things, not all of which is from his mother--a lot of that is just Jiang Cheng--however, you can see the way he tries to rein in his emotions when he's embarrassed about caring or is trying to pretend that he doesn't care. Whether it's pretending to shrug off Wei Wuxian and walk away when they have a problem, or trying to rein in his temper at Lan Wangji on Dafan Mountain. Because from his mother, he's internalised the message that to engage in the fight is proof of care, so the opposite is also true.

And oh, when he hurts, he seeks to hurt back. That's very Yu Ziyuan of him.

Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, frequently defaults to calming and placating with Jiang Cheng. Not as much as Jiang Yanli does--but more on her, momentarily. We see Wei Wuxian complain at Jiang Cheng to not get riled up, tell him he's being stubborn and just to accept the peace offering, etc. The difference is that, at first, with Jiang Cheng, a lot of that is just general pouty childishness and Wei Ying-ing, general sibling shit.

Plus, he was still willing to fight/express himself fully. They fought a lot. He always ran after Jiang Cheng, always roped him into expressing himself, always let Jiang Cheng fight it out. He understood, at least intuitively, and he didn't back down. The benefits of having grown up together, and of being an older one/middle sibling in the dynamic.

But when things really started to break down between him and Jiang Cheng, when the conflict was much bigger, much more grown up, much more real, Wei Wuxian started modeling his behaviour even more on Jiang Fengmian in regards to Jiang Cheng, possibly seeing more of Yu-furen in Jiang Cheng and responding the way that felt natural.

(Also, a lot of his own guilt and depression/apathy/intent to die and assorted other issues came into play at roughly the same time.)

Thus, we see Wei Wuxian start to turn down Jiang Cheng more often, and back off. He shrugs it off or rejects it when Jiang Cheng reaches out, and he stops reaching out himself. He tries to placate Jiang Cheng, tries to defuse him, tries to send him away. Some of this is because he cares and is trying to show he cares by taking himself out of the situation; some because he's trying to maintain his lies; some because he just doesn't have the energy to deal with this anymore.

After Wei Wuxian is resurrected, by which point he's done what he perceives as the worst things to Jiang Cheng, this intensifies. Jiang Cheng provokes him beyond reason, lashes out, starts fights, sneers, and Wei Wuxian almost rises to the bait but he stops himself. He lets Jiang Cheng be angry and he shrinks himself down, he backs away, he disengages. A decent portion of this is Wei Wuxian himself, and his faulty perspective on the situation and on Jiang Cheng's anger and complexity of emotion and intent. Some of it is lingering relationship modeling off of Jiang-shushu and Yu-furen's relationship. Either way, he's definitely "being the Jiang Fengmian" in the situation.

Additionally, Wei Wuxian tries quite actively to model himself off of Jiang-shushu's good qualities, which is understandable given that this was his primary benevolent adult figure and liked him quite a lot. We see it in the way Wei Wuxian teaches, the way he instructs with archery, the fact he prioritises archery to begin with, the way he expresses kindness the way it was expressed to him, through encouragement or noticing people who are down and out. Things that Wei Wuxian, at least, attributes to Jiang Fengmian's character (I'm trying so hard not to make this a Jiang Fengmian salt post) even if a lot of that is just his own outlook on life at the end of the day.

But all of these kids were around both of these parental figures/people of authority. This is most clear in Jiang Yanli. We see the way she's become a mediator figure between her parents when they're upset with each other and understands them both.

She takes all the kind intent and patience and willingness to placate and calm from her father, and adds in the knowledge and understanding needed to actually use it interpersonally. She's more open with communication, can identify the heart of an issue, and effectively diffuse a lot of tension. She has middling success with this with regards to her parents, but a lot more success with her brothers. It helps her see eye to eye with Wei Wuxian, and share that spark of playfulness between them too. It helps her understand why Jiang Cheng says things the way he does, and what he means.

We also see Jiang Yanli reveal herself to be the steely, fiery daughter of Zi Zhizhu when someone attacks what is hers. She is just as much her mother's child.

So, too, Jiang Cheng is his father's son. I think this is true much more when he grows up and inherits the sect and has held it for some time in the wake of tragedy. We see evidence that he's become a well-regarded leader, and for all we see cool, flashing, calculating glares and bitten-back sneers, we see worried disciples fussing over his health. We see a mild manner that was learned, and an authority that has accrued with time, and a self-assuredness when dealing with his peers that seems more modeled off what we see of Jiang Fengmian than of Yu Ziyuan.

Jiang Cheng is a match for Zidian, through and through, but he is also steady and determined and bold, good at making and keeping allies, or else how could he have achieved the impossible in rebuilding his sect? He learned to take some of his mother, some of his father, find something left over of himself out of the wreckage of his life, and meld it all together.

That brings us to Wei Wuxian. I had, at the time of first seeing that tweet, showed it to a friend who said:

Are we gonna talk about how Wei Ying gets his cry-laugh from her? Are we gonna talk about how he learned that intense glare from her, too? Or his tendency to act swiftly and decisively even when it might not be the actual best course of action? Or his violent protectiveness of his siblings?

Inspired. And yes, we are.

Yu-furen was a figure of absolute strength in Wei Wuxian's life. Uncompromising, unyielding, impressive as hell. She had the capacity to inspire deep loyalty and was fiercely protective over things that were hers. Her son, her daughter, her family's reputation, her sect, her home, her disciple. (Yes, even Wei Wuxian was hers, too, she made quite the point about that.)

Wei Wuxian is very easygoing. But when he decides something is his, whether that's a duty or a person or whatever, it's his to protect, it's his to do anything for, even cause a scene, even start a war, even lose allies or his own life. It's one surefire way to get him to fight no matter what headspace he's in.

You can see Jiang Cheng realise/remember this in real time in the Ancestral Hall, when he can't get a rise out of Wei Wuxian by talking about himself and his family, and that stings, but he's desperate to get a rise out of him somehow, and immediately he sets in on Lan Wangji. And it fucking works. That's what gets Wei Wuxian to almost fight him. If he'd posed a real threat, and if a whole bunch of other complicated psychological shit wasn't part of the mix for everyone involved, there would absolutely have been a fight.

Wei Wuxian latched onto the Wens, yes, and they were his, too, but they weren't the only ones. Lotus Pier was his, as was Jiang Cheng. Yunmeng Shuangjie was not just a pipe dream, and Wei Wuxian's loyalty was not simply easy to sway. Yunmeng Jiang's strength, their reputation, their future, and Jiang Cheng's along with it were always on his mind.

He lied, and fought, and even left and took himself out of the picture to that end. For Jiang Cheng, and for his ability to carry on. In so many ways, Wei Wuxian absolutely took so much of his perspectives on that from Yu Ziyuan, for better or worse.

Uncompromising, unyielding, even when turned on himself. Never satisfied, always pushing for more, for answers, for solutions, for the right path, even in his own frequently easygoing and curious ways. Unhesitating, across the board. Even if it meant his own life, or his core.

There is nothing wrong with hesitating. Hesitating, worrying, being uncertain, trying to think first, trying to find the right path, and then being able to find it, or choose it anyway, is such an act of courage. That's a quality Jiang Cheng has in droves. He hesitated, when he saw the Wen soldiers coming for Wei Wuxian. And then he chose to sacrifice himself. For Wei Wuxian, there was no hesitation whatsoever. No forethought. No choice, really. Just go. I think that's very Yu Ziyuan of him.

I had to go digging to find that message my friend sent me, and I'll conclude with my response:

If we're going to talk about how Wei Wuxian is like Yu-furen, then we'll have to talk about how Yu-furen knew that. Or at least, the only parts that she ever had cause to see in him while she still lived. How he was hers even if he wasn't her son. How Fengmian's lazy favouritism was intolerable in this way, too, in the way it sowed discord where there didn't need to be any, and was a barrier between her and the things that should have been more fully hers. How the farewell at Lotus Pier was more of a betrayal than she intended. How she thought she and Wei Ying met over more even ground at that moment, because she knew he loved Jiang Cheng as much as she did, in the way she did. How she expected more from him than for him to give parts himself up in such a horrifying way. How she underestimated the actual damage that had been done. And if she'd survived to see it, she just might have been truly horrified.

[janamelie]

Dimension Jump XXI Report

I suppose I’m a DJ veteran now as this was my fifth consecutive one and the fourth at the Nottingham Crowne Plaza which is an expensive four-star hotel.  Sharing with a friend helps keep the cost reasonable and honestly, it’s worth it for the sheer convenience of being right there in the hotel and being able to nip back to your room as required.  (To be clear, you don’t have to stay in the hotel to attend the con.  There are plenty of other hotels nearby.)

Plus there is always the chance that you’ll see a guest at breakfast as I did Danny once.  He picked out a few pieces of fruit and nibbled at them before wandering over late to his photoshoot.  What else would you expect from a cat though?

Friday

Myself and @downonthepharm-red-dwarf (Amy) had arrived the previous day so had plenty of time to be near the front of the queue for registration.  Which meant we saw Hattie Hayridge arrive in a stunning designer coat and with smart luggage.  She really brought her outfit A-game and looked great the whole weekend.

Once we’d presented our respective proofs of full Covid vaccination or a recent negative test, we were given our DJ passes and booklets.  The latter has spaces for signatures from guests, an Order Of Events and various handy tips for the weekend.

The con kicks off at 5pm with an hour of gradual build-up in the Main Hall - they show videos from previous events, specially made titbits with various guests past and present such as Mark Dexter doing a mock guide to DJ and Rebecca Blackstone voicing Pree.  It all helps with the atmosphere, as do the numerous RD posters dotted around the hotel.

Then it was time for the Opening Ceremony featuring various Fan Club team members and an overcrowded stage full of cardboard boxes - the joke was that they’d had too much time on their hands during lockdowns and bought loads of stuff online.  It was obviously also a nod to Lister’s hoarding in “The Promised Land”.  

The sketch featured a specially made shot of the AA adverts’ Starbug model landing outside the Crowne Plaza and an 80s computerised version of the lovely convention logo.  You could tell a lot of loving effort had gone into the whole thing.

Once the guest line-up had been announced (I’ll get to that not-really-a-surprise-guest shortly), we went straight into the RD Pub Quiz, hosted by Hattie.  DOTP and I had been joined at our table by Lapsang and Barbs from our Discord (No Kind Of Atmosphere) plus various other attendees we’d befriended.

Someone in the crowd yelled “I love you, Hattie!” to which she quipped “I’ve pulled already!”  Another bloke shouted “Fuck off, she’s mine!” which led to a few shouts of “Fight!”  When neither seemed keen to do so, Hattie joked: “Only two?  That’s a bit pathetic!” and then we got started.

The quiz is hard, by design, but I’m good at quizzes and my team - No Kind Of Atmosphere after our Discord - came joint third which was gratifying.  (I was on the winning team a few DJs ago, to blow my own trumpet for a moment.  This is my report, after all.)

And then it was time for the first guest Q&A with - surprise, surprise - Johnny Vegas aka the Crit Cop in “Timewave”.  Not a great episode but he more than made up for that with an appearance I can only describe as chaotic.  Warning - DO NOT attempt to heckle him unless you want to be singled out and humiliated in front of the entire audience in a “Can’t look away” fashion which was nonetheless entertaining.  The man in question tweeted about it afterwards and seems to have taken it in good spirit.

Once we’d moved on from encouraging people to leave unpleasant things in room 429, it turned out Johnny’s a big fan of the show and owned it on VHS (so did I).  He thinks of the main characters, Holly would win at “Taskmaster” and had good reasons for that conclusion.  

He was dubious about the pink costume he wore in “Timewave” as he thought it might take away from the character but said he eventually decided he needed to get over what he was wearing and just go for it.  He also said one of his worst working moments was on “Benidorm” when he had to hold his breath underwater in a freezing swimming pool and his co-star kept forgetting her two lines so they had over 30 takes.  Ouch.

Johnny left commenting that he got less love at his 50th birthday party.  But we hadn’t seen the last of him by any means as people kept buying him drinks during the Auction, leading to him successfully bidding for one of the items on offer.

And then he was back for the Karaoke.  Now if you - as he informed us - had to undergo emergency dental surgery in the morning and had practically lost your voice, would you sing karaoke?  And not only that, would you sing a version of “Love On The Rocks” which lasted 11 minutes according to someone on Twitter (I wasn’t timing it, but I can believe it), followed by the full-length version of “American Pie”?

If you answered no, you’re clearly not Johnny Vegas.  He went to bed so late that the unfortunate Fan Club team member assigned to look after him got a grand total of 90 minutes’ sleep.

Saturday

DOTP and I had paid for the Photoshoot with Mr Vegas, Danny John-Jules and Ray Fearon.  We got in the queue at 9am which was when it was supposed to start.  An hour later we were still waiting.  Yep, Danny was late.

Once he made it to the hotel, I got my photo in front of a Science Room backdrop.  You might think Mr Vegas would be hungover and rushing through it, but on the contrary, he was still enjoying the hell out of proceedings which was refreshing to see.  Since he’d been added to the line-up too late to be in the souvenir booklet, he signed extra inserts for the Fan Club which they handed out to everyone at the later Autograph sessions so attendees got his autograph after all even though he’d finally left.  That’s what I call throwing yourself into an event.

Next up was a combined Q&A with Danny and Ray (originally separate but Danny’s lateness meant they were teamed up).  This wasn’t a problem at all though - on the contrary, it worked really well as the chumminess between them added to the vibe.  Also it was Ray’s first convention so he probably preferred to have Danny backing him up, especially since the poor man tripped on his way to the stage and almost fell.  I don’t think he was hurt but I cringed with secondhand embarrassment and empathy.  He wasn’t the only one to fall foul of the edge of the stage that weekend; I think it was the slightly raised dancefloor in front of it.

As is usual for Danny, we were treated to over half an hour of what you can only really describe as a stream of consciousness as he pontificated about various things.  He and Ray did also talk about working together on “Death In Paradise” and Ray described his worst working experience there - he had to play a scene in a club in 45 degree heat with a live snake wrapped around his neck!

Ray is attractive in a “Hollywood hunk” way and Danny was clearly conscious of this, joking that he’d “brought his own security with him” and muttering “I’m better-looking anyway!”  But all in a jokey way as they’re clearly friends.

Danny had come from filming and dropped a heavy hint that he’s appearing in a Dickens adaptation which I imagine will be shown at Christmas as they generally are.  He also complained that Craig Charles never answers his phone: “You send him a message and he answers it on Twitter a month later!”  (Interestingly, Chris Barrie later mentioned a recent phone conversation with Craig so make of that what you will.)

Ray was quieter but happy to talk about the vagaries of showbiz and typecasting - he said that due to his Shakespearean background he gets a lot of serious roles so people were genuinely surprised that he could also do comedy but “I was always funny!”  He also gently teased Danny about the age of some of his references before admitting he still finds Tommy Cooper funny.

Danny usually performs “Tongue-tied” with a good grace when inevitably asked to by an audience member but perhaps it’s finally starting to pall as this time he did it in the style of Oliver Reed’s Bill Sykes and included a lot of X-rated references to cunnilingus etc.  It was entertaining though.

Next up was a live Q&A (over Zoom) with Chris Barrie.  Danny decided to stick around as he wanted to show Chris something he’d ordered online.  It took a while to get the cameras in the right position for Chris to be able to see it and Danny needed a knife to open the parcel, leading Chris to quip “Is this a good time for me to step out for some lunch?”

However, it turned out to be worth it as it was a custom-made Ace Rimmer doll which impressed Chris with its quality and he complimented the maker.

Danny and Ray then departed for their lunch and to take part in the Coffee Lounge which this year had reduced its numbers for Covid-related reasons and held a ballot for entry in the interests of fairness.  Amy and I didn’t get in but happily stayed for the rest of Chris’s Q&A.

In the “working from home” spirit, Chris was in a hoodie in his living room as opposed to his more usual smart suit.  He was suitably relaxed and revealed he got through lockdown by concentrating on the things which make him happy, such as his hobbies, his garden and his family.  His favourite episodes are “Marooned”, “Dimension Jump” and - less predictably - “Twentica”.  He also referred to a recent “mannerly, as he would call it” phone conversation with Craig.  No details but it had clearly been a positive experience.

Amy decided to liven up the ending of his Q&A by asking a vitally important, “TPL”-related question.  Whom would Rimmer find more attractive, a female version of Lister or a female version of Cat?

Once the laughter had died down and Chris had bought some time by pointing out that “neither of them are women”, he gave the question appropriate consideration.  He pondered whether Rimmer would be more taken by the “simple charms” of Lister or the “feline grace” of Cat.  This next bit is courtesy of Amy as my memory isn’t infallible: He said it’d be a choice between a feline form or a rounder, a bit more slovenly woman - he wouldn’t want the perfectly feline woman because she might not like his imperfections, but he also wouldn’t want someone who ate curry three times a day.  “Basically, a balance would be ideal.”

That was the last question but Chris provided a little more entertainment as he had a “How do you turn this off then?” moment a la Gordon the computer in “Better Than Life” and made amusing faces as he figured it out.  If it was anyone but Chris I’d think it was a deliberate reference to that but I think he was genuinely befuddled.

We then broke for lunch, followed by Autographs with Hattie, Danny, Ray and Norman Lovett.  I got the latter three to sign the “TPL” poster I’d brought with me but gave Hattie the booklet instead as it seemed more tactful.  She complimented the dress I was wearing and I returned the compliment, telling her how much the fans appreciate the effort she makes with her DJ outfits.

Norman commented how there’s a version of the “TPL” poster he isn’t on, bemusedly.  Fortunately mine was the version including him. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon chilling in the bar with Amy, Lapsang and Barbs, chatting to other attendees.  Graphic Designer Matthew Clark was now in the Merchandise Room with various props from Series XII and “TPL” including the Starbug manual used onscreen.  I got his autograph on my poster but it’s an incomprehensible squiggle.  Oh well.  He was very friendly and easy to talk to.

After a break for dinner, the Main Hall reopened for the Costume Competition.  This seems to get better every DJ, with an amazing “Greyscale Rimmer” who was discomfiting to be around due to the corpse-like makeup, a Natalina Pushkin, a Nirvanah Crane who could almost have been Jane Horrocks herself and a Diving Suit Cat from “BTE”.  Other entries included Rimmer’s Mum, “Giraffes who were armed and dangerous” and a Confidence And Paranoia who were later pictured at the bar chatting to Paranoia himself, Lee Cornes.

We then had a special video message from Doug Naylor which I won’t go into as I’m sure everyone’s already heard the details.  Suffice to say, his tone was positive.

The second Auction was hosted by Ian Boldsworth who made it more entertaining by adding his own commentary to each item.  This was followed by a stand-up set from Norman.  It was amusing but he misjudged the mood a bit, I feel.  When you’re waiting for a disco to start and it’s already hours late due to Danny’s tardiness, you don’t particularly want to contemplate your own mortality.  We were here to get away from all that, as much as possible.

Anyway, the Disco was a lot of fun even if Dave Benson Phillips’ presence as host was sorely missed.  Hattie danced for the best part of an hour alongside everyone else.  The stand-in DJs did their job and I stayed until the end.  The final two songs were “Bohemian Rhapsody” and … “Tongue-tied”.

Sunday

Not being in the Sunday Photoshoot, Amy and I had a nice leisurely breakfast and got over last night’s festivities before the first Q&A, live over Zoom with Robert Llewellyn.

This was hosted by Ian Boldsworth who in his capacity as Dave era audience warm-up knows Robert well.  Clearly well enough to get away with teasing him relentlessly about not being at the con in person until poor Robert was a mess of Krytenesque guilt.  

His protestations that he’d been scheduled to be in Munich this weekend but no longer was (he was at home) only made things worse.  Ian: “Oh, so that’s two sets of people you’ve disappointed now!  Stop saying yes to things!”  It was hilarious and Robert took it in its intended spirit.  Also Ian was getting a measure of revenge for Robert - in character as Kryten - dry humping him at recordings.  One attendee asked “With the groinal attachment?!”

Robert admitted that he finds Kryten’s various groinal attachments hilarious and if he was writing the show they’d be in every episode.  He praised Doug’s restraint.

He also admitted that in “TPL” he had an earpiece to have his lines fed to him.  Since it’s controlled by an iPad, certain unscrupulous cast members took great delight in feeding him rude ones.

He still intends to update “The Man In The Rubber Mask” but atm “Fully Charged” is consuming a lot of his time as it’s become much more successful than he anticipated and he’s in charge of several people.

Surprisingly, he would hate appearing in RD without the Kryten makeup, both because it’s become much quicker to apply and because it provides him with a shield and he becomes Kryten and forgets stagefright.  He still can’t watch “DNA” for that reason.

Lapsang, who played Kryten in “Into The Gloop”, asked Robert if he’d seen it.  He hadn’t but said he was now very curious and would find a way to.

Next up was Lee Cornes aka Paranoia who said he originally auditioned for the lead roles and like the other unsuccessful actors got the consolation prize of a guest appearance.  Upon being asked if he’d gone out for a drink with Craig Ferguson’s Confidence, he said no because at the time they had a frosty relationship due to rumours that Craig was plagiarising other comics’ jokes.  Lee said it was all very silly and he’s since apologised.

Interestingly, Lee is a qualified science teacher and carried on with that career alongside his media one, leading to surreal situations where his pupils would ask: “Sir?  Were you on the telly last night?”  “Yes.”  “Are we on the telly now, sir?”

Someone asked a good question - what would Lister’s Paranoia be like now 33 years later?  Lee would be willing to reprise the role but isn’t sure it would work as the original had a childish quality whereas he feels now the character would be a lot darker and less funny.  Lee was both thoughtful and entertaining in his responses.

He was followed onstage by Hattie and Norman, who resolutely refused to rise to the bait of an audience member attempting to stir up a rivalry between them.  That only works when one isn’t the nicest person you could meet.

A tactless audience member asked both if they’d watched “TPL” instead of directing the question at Norman.  Luckily Hattie had seen it and particularly enjoyed the cat flap joke although she felt there was a little too much focus on the guest cast.

Norman didn’t really watch RD after he left but Hattie has seen Norman’s early episodes as he lent them to her back when she was originally cast as Hilly for research purposes.  Bear in mind this was 1988 when they weren’t even available on VHS so presumably he recorded them off the TV.  

Hattie confirmed with a sigh that she’s simply never been asked to return in any capacity: “That’s the short answer.”  What the hell, I’ll say it one more time - Bring Back Hattie!  One episode, that’s all I ask.  As it stands, it’s starting to look like a pointed and deliberate snub which mystifies me.

We then broke for lunch, followed by Rob Grant and Paul Jackson.  For obvious reasons they didn’t go into the current legal mess, opting instead to entertain the fans with the story of how they met and their early pre-RD work (Rob and Doug as freelance writers for Paul’s producer).

We saw some clips from their early shows including “Three Of A Kind” with Lenny Henry, Tracy Ullman and … later magician David Copperfield; apparently they all had the same agent and Paul took on David as a favour.  For a 40 year old show it held up pretty well and was in much better sound and picture quality than older shows often are. “Carrott’s Lib” was just as funny.

It’s a bit hard to summarise but this session was entertaining and gripping.  Rob still wants to write another RD novel and I believe there’s nothing actually stopping him as both he and Doug had an option to write a second solo novel.  So we’ll see.

The final Q&A was Matthew Clark who was very informative and interesting, showing us numerous production stills from Series XII and “TPL” and talking us through them.  There was a groan when time was called before he was finished.

By now time was running short and Amy and I went back to the room to pack and leave our luggage with reception before watching the start of “Dibbley Family Fortunes”. Since I knew I wouldn’t have time to watch it all, I instead nipped upstairs to Autographs with Lee and Ian, timing it perfectly as the queue had almost vanished.

Ian was still performing, drawing scornful attention to the fact that Lee had a longer queue: “Can you imagine all these people queueing to see Lee Cornes?!”  It sounds rude out of context but he was clearly joking.

I decided to ask Lee what flavour the yogurt Paranoia eats was.  He said it didn’t really taste of anything as it was the cheapest, nastiest canteen yogurt available and was also starting to curdle under the studio lights so eating it can’t have been much fun.

Since I now had about 15 minutes before I had to go, I caught a bit of Dibbley Family Fortunes, said goodbye to Amy, Lapsang and Barbs and then dashed off to catch the tram to the train station.  Another great DJ.