#squids ake speaks

[halfamilliontransgendercyborgs]

Can’t believe Crazy Bones is powered solely by vengeance, what a character

[chicgeekgirl89]

Teamsgiving 2019: A Squid and the Dagger Story

Fandom: NCIS LA

Characters: Full Team plus a few guests

                                 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Ma!! Mama!!” Deeks bellowed from the bar dining room.

“Martin, how many times do I have to tell you not to yell for your mother?” Roberta stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “If you need me, come find me.”

Deeks was not in the mood for a lecture. “What the hell is this?” He gestured at the long dining table running through the middle of the room.

“It’s a table Martin. A table that I helped you set this morning.”

“No, I mean this!” He thrust a butter dish at her with a frown on his face.

“Oh that. I ran out of butter for the potatoes so I used a little.”

“A little?! Mama, you beheaded him!” Sure enough, the tiny, turkey-shaped butter was headless. 

“Well he’s just going to get eaten anyway. What’s the big deal if he lost his noggin a little early?”

“I can’t serve headless turkeys to our guests!”

“Well I hate to break this to you dear, but the turkey currently in the oven is also headless. I’m sure no one will mind.” She patted his cheek and turned to go. “And if you’d like me to finish cooking said turkey, I’d suggest you refrain from any more criticism!”

Both his mother and Kensi had encouraged him to give up the idea of hosting a “teamsgiving” at the bar, citing that the kitchen was too small to cook for the number of people invited. He’d plowed ahead anyway, stating that he had a second kitchen upstairs. It didn’t matter that Callen lived in the same room as that kitchen. He was sure their team leader wouldn’t mind.

As it turned out Callen did mind, but after a lot of smooth talking and several promises for updates to other things in the apartment, he’d given in. Deeks had left him babysitting the stuffing and gravy while he’d gone downstairs to check on his mother, the butter-turkey murderer. Deeks glared down at the offending bird and then set it down on the table in disgust. His first problem had been allowing anybody else to help with this dinner. Clearly no one knew what they were doing.

His second problem was that Kensi wasn’t there yet with the pies. He checked his watch and then pulled out his phone to text her just as she walked in the door. “Babe, where have you been? I thought you’d be here like an hour ago,” Deeks said as she set several boxes on the side table.

“Sorry,” she gave him a peck on the cheek. “The pies took longer to bake than I thought.”

The word “bake” sent a trickle of fear down Deeks’ spine. “Bake? What do you mean bake? I thought you were picking the pies up at the store.”

“Well I was going to,” she told him. “But then I thought, how hard could a pie be? It’s just a crust with stuff in it.”

“Oh no. No, no, no.” Deeks put his hands on her cheeks, squishing them together. “Kensi. Kensalina. My darling wife. Tell me, tell me, that you did not bake these pies on your own.”

She swatted him away and glared in annoyance. “Yes, Deeks, I baked the pies. And you’re welcome.”

“But Kens, you can’t bake,” Deeks said weakly. “Remember the Christmas cookie incident of 2018? And the brownie debacle of 2017? I can still smell the smoke when I open the cabinet over the stove.”

Kensi huffed. “I just wanted to give it a try. See? Look. They’re fine.”

They did look okay, all three of them lined up inside the boxes she’d brought in. Deeks swallowed his panic and tried to move on. “Okay. Okay fine. It’s fine. We have lots of ice cream anyway. That will cover up whatever these taste like.”

Kensi’s glare turned even stonier. “You know, for someone hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, you’re not being very thankful.”

“I just want things to be perfect!” Deeks said. 

“Yeah, well, maybe you should think about the true meaning of the holiday.” She headed for the stairs.

“Where are you going? You said you’d help me get the drinks ready!”

“I’m going to see if Callen needs any help!”

She opened the upstairs door without knocking and slammed it shut behind her.

Deeks was left to make his Thanksgiving cocktails on his own. He’d just barely finished with the last glass when the door to the bar opened and Nell and Eric came in. “Hey! Welcome!” Deeks rushed over and took the casserole dish from Nell. “Welcome to Teamsgiving!”

“We’re glad to be here,” Nell said. “That’s sweet potato casserole. It should go in the oven until we’re ready to eat.”

“I’ll take that.” Roberta appeared and whisked the dish away into the kitchen. “I’ll just see what I can move around in here to get it in!” she yelled pointedly at her son as she walked past.

“Can we help with anything?” Eric asked as Deeks handed them each a drink. “I’m an excellent dishwasher.”

“No, just come on in, relax, enjoy yourselves. Sam should be by any minute and Callen’s just upstairs—“

The door opened again and Sam came in, but he wasn’t alone. “What’s up Deeks?” he said with a grin. “I hope you don’t mind, I brought a friend.”

“Katherine. What a surprise,” Deeks said, his mind mentally calculating exactly how many dinner rolls that left per person. “Come in. The more the merrier!”

He pressed drinks into their hands as Callen and Kensi came downstairs bearing the gravy and stuffing. “Well hello Katherine,” Callen said with a gigantic smirk on his face. “Good to see you. Did we know you were coming?”

“Well I never say no to pie,” she told him.

“You might say it this time,” Deeks muttered, glancing at Kensi to make sure she hadn’t heard.

The door opened a third time and Hetty strolled in, her eyes taking a critical look around the room. “Well, this is quite the establishment Mr. Deeks,” she said. “I’m so glad I had the opportunity to come and see it for myself.”

“Hetty! What can I get you?” Deeks asked. “Whiskey?”

“I prefer scotch please. Neat.”

“Coming right up.”

“Turkey’s done!” Roberta shouted from the kitchen. A few seconds later she appeared, bearing a gigantic tray “Everybody get settled down while it’s hot.”

As they scraped their chairs back to get seated there was a knock on the door. Deeks looked around the room counting people and then at Kensi who shrugged. “We’re all here, right?” Callen said, as the knock sounded again.

“Oh that’s for me.” Roberta fluffed her hair, and straightened her dress. “I invited a guest.”

“A guest? Mama, you didn’t tell me about this, we’re not going to have enough rolls!” Deeks hissed as she walked by him and opened the door. “Well hello AK!” she crooned. “Come inside.”

“I have brought best vodka for team Thanksgiving celebration,” an extremely familiar voice boomed.

Every eye at the table widened. “No,” Deeks whispered. “Oh god no.”

“Hello friends!” Arkady Kolcheck himself stepped through the door, a broad smile on his face, the bottle of aforementioned vodka held high. “I am come to celebrate this beautiful American holiday with you!”

Callen turned a pointed look at Deeks. “Did you know about this?”

Deeks shook his head. He could feel tension creeping into his shoulders. “I did not. But I think I’ll turn in my badge because I definitely should have anticipated it.”

“Sit right here by me AK,” Roberta said, ushering him to a chair.

“Oh no.” He pulled out her chair with a dramatic flair. “It is always the ladies first my Robbie.”

Kensi wrinkled her nose. “Did you know your mom and Arkady had nicknames for each other?”

“No, I did not and I wish I still did not,” Deeks said, pouring himself a very large glass of wine.

“But I see one friend I do not know,” Arkady said once he was settled. “Hello lovely lady. I am Arkady Kolcheck, best friend of G Callen—“

“No.” Callen shook his head.

“—And good friend to rest of NCIS team,” Arkady said. “And you are?”

“I’m Katherine,” she said. “A friend of Sam’s.”

Arkady’s eyes immediately began to sparkle. “Oh, a special lady friend. If you have any questions about my good friend Sam Hanna, I am happy to answer them. We have known each other many, many years now.”

“I don’t want to sit across from him all night,” Sam said immediately.

“Well I’m not sitting across from him,” Callen said.

“That’s enough from the two of you,” Hetty said from the head of the table. “We are all here to have a good time together. Mr. Deeks I think a toast is in order.”

The senior agents settled back into their seats with a grumble. Deeks saw Eric and Nell exchange amused looks before both taking large sips from their glasses. “Ah, well thank you Hetty,” Deeks said. “And thank you everyone for coming. It’s uh, it’s truly a gift to have you all here.”

He glanced down at Kensi. She took his hand and squeezed it, all pie comments forgiven. He looked around the table, taking in every face he saw. The faces of his friends. The faces of his family, such as they were. Ten years ago he never would have imagined something like this. And today, he had it all. “I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to share a table and a life with. I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say, everyone in this room has earned their spot here, one way or another. And I’m grateful for every, single one of you.” He cleared his throat. “So let’s eat.”

It turned out having two extra people around didn’t damage the mood of the evening after all. The drinks flowed freely and so did the conversation. Katherine was actually a lot of fun and Eric and Nell were completely on board with Arkady dragging out the karaoke machine and breaking into “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” halfway through dinner.

“Okay, here you go,” Kensi said, serving up pie as the evening grew late. 

“This looks great Kensi,” Callen said.

“I can smell all the cinnamon and spices,” Eric said, taking a bite.

His face changed immediately and he began to chew very slowly. Callen also took a forkful, his eyes widening in obvious discomfort.

Kensi was oblivious to the sudden mood change around the table as one after another, everyone took a bite of pie. That was, until Arkady tucked into his piece. He choked and spat it into a napkin.

Kensi’s jaw dropped. “Seriously Arkady?”

“I’m sorry Kensi, but that is horseshit,” Arkady told her bluntly.

“Well it might not be top of the line but it can’t be that bad.” She plopped herself down next to Deeks and took a big forkful. Her eyebrows shot up and she looked at her husband. “I must have mixed up the salt and the sugar,” she said guiltily.

He shook his head. Only Kensi. “Sorry?” she said, not looking particularly apologetic at all.

He kissed the top of her head. “It’s all right.”

“No it’s not. I want dessert,” Callen said.

“There’s ice cream in the freezer. Help yourself,” Deeks said.

“I’ll get it!” Eric shot out of his chair. “I spent many days in my youth working at a Coldstone Creamery.”

“I don’t know what the hell any of that means, but I’ll have vanilla,” Sam said.

“Vanilla?” Katherine asked skeptically. “You’re asking for the most boring flavor?”

“I will take a hot cup of tea instead Mr. Beale,” Hetty requested.

“I’ll help.” Nell got up and started clearing plates as Roberta did the same.

Deeks settled back into his chair, Kensi rested her head on his shoulder and he put an arm around her. It might not have been a perfect Teamsgiving, but it turned out it was exactly the one he’d always wanted.

[hey-have-you-heard]

Hey have you heard these 50 songs from 2019

I really enjoyed this last year so going to give it another go for ‘19. I put quite a lot of thought into what actually a ‘song of the year’ for me when I was first constructing and then heavily editing the playlist that came to be my Top 50 of 2019. I think the most important thing is that above all it’s a track that I’m glad exists, sometimes this is because of the songwriting or composition, sometimes the performance, sometimes the lyrical importance and sometimes just because it sparks joy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bFJOjL8b8Zc2s5r1oJbsk?si=UJdqSXOTR3SQ8D3IwcmV2g

Explanations for each tracks inclusion below the fold…

100 gecs - 800db cloud 100 gecs channel a mix of Crystal Castles and Sleigh Bells with a Death Grips level appreciation for noise. It’s an absolute rush and that outro is just absurd.

Natalie Evans - Always Be Natalie Evans soft melody and sing song vocals are sublimely sweet on this heartfelt track of lost love, longing and nostalgia.

Petrol Girls - Big Mouth “If you fight back or disagree you’re the one with the fucking problem” this hits home, hard. Big Mouth is a rallying cry to speak out against oppression and discrimination, to raise you’re voice and be heard, not to be controlled.

Charli XCX ft. Lizzo - Blame it on your Love Charli has a midas touch when it comes to pop, combine that with Lizzo who has just about been the most fun thing in music this year and you’ve got a 10/10 banger.

Poppy - BLOODMONEY Poppy’s music just keeps going further down the rabbit hole. Originally playing with blending elements of nu-metal with bubblegum pop, she now seems to have transcended genre altogether to create whatever BLOODMONEY is, it’s absolutely ridiculous and I love it.

Body Hound - Bloom Get on that GROOVE! So proggy it hurts, this track from Body Hound is a technical wonderland of metamorphosing rhythms, gargantuan riffs, and just the tastiest of chord progressions.

Can the Sub_Bass speak - Algiers Word of warning, this is not an easy listen. A freefall tumble through genre and tone accompanies a stream of consciousness monologue full of racism, prejudice and political and artistic critique.

Elohim - Buckets Buckets is an onslaught of trap influences, emotional outbursts and aggressive distortion. I’m a big fan of this sound.

VUKOVI - C.L.A.U.D.I.A I know very little about VUKOVI as a band, but that riff is absolutely massive and this track has been a constant throughout my year on that basis alone.

Show Me The Body - Camp Orchestra Apparently more hardcore bands should use Banjos, because this is a damn good sound. Slowly building from a single bass line this track builds into a powerful demolishing force.

clipping. - Club Down Having thoroughly proven themselves able to do afro-futurist scifi on the Hugo nominated Splendor and Misery, clipping. now turn their considerable talents to horror core and unsurprisingly nail it. Daveed’s flows are tight as ever as he brings to life a decaying city backed by tortured screams.

Dream Nails - Corporate Realness YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB. WORK IS NOT YOUR LIFE. YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. Dream Nails are great and exactly what we need right now.

ControlTop - Covert Contracts This track positively bristles with an anxious energy. A fitting sound for the subject of the information overload we find ourselves locked into everyday.

Cherry Glazerr - Daddi There’s an icy coolness to ‘Daddi’, a disconnected sarcasm that falls away to reveal the anger and torment in the chorus, it’s a masterful bit of emotional storytelling through musical tone.

The Physics House Band - Death Sequence I Listening to Physics House latest release, the Death Sequence EP feels like a physical journey. This opener is a perfect example of this, as you’re plunged straight into a heady and disorienting mix of rhythms and counter-melody’s, the Sax guiding you through the turbulence until you land in a placid midsection, before that bass riff drags you forward through rhythmic breakdowns into an absolutely absurd brain melting saxophony and then it just keeps on going from there…

Witching Waves - Disintegration I saw WW back in the early summer, they were a bassist down so it was just a guitar and drums duo. They started with this track and it was one of the most pure punk things I’ve experienced, drummer/vocalist Emma Wigham bashing the absolute shit out of her kit . A great no-nonsense lo-fi banger.

Lingua Ignota - DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR Another, not particularly easy listen here. DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR is a dark and angry brooding track, building in intensity to release the primal rage, fear and horror of the abused. Its deeply chilling and instantly arresting. This track and the entire CALIGULA album stands as an absolute must listen.

Carly Rae Jepsen ft. Electric Guest - Feels Right I love the instrumentation on this one, those chunky piano chords and screaming guitar lift the track out and make it the highlight of an already great album to me.

Orla Gartland - Figure it out Dialing back the intensity slightly, Orla chronicles the frustrations of having to deal with someone in your life who you’re done with. The choruses burst forth in beautifully fuzzy explosions of noise. That vocal flair at the start of the final chorus is chef kiss.

Battles - Fort Greene Park Battles are at their best when they keep things simple. This is evident on 2019′s Juicy B Crypts which features some incredibly cluttered moments, but this just makes Fort Greene Park stand out all the more. A delightfully spacious piece of math rock, from some of the best in the business.

Dogleg - Fox Boy howdy, do I love me some midwest emo. Catharsis in musical form, it just makes me want to mosh my troubles away like I’m 16 again.

Tørsö - Grab A Shovel Tørsö go hard, I can appreciate that. An absolutely brutal track about the destructive power of depression and self-loathing.

“Pijn & Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands” - High Spirits “We were like, are we Pijn and Conjurer, or are we Curse These Metal Hands? I think we’ve settled with ‘we are Pijn and Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands’ …whatever that means!“ what it means is one of the most joyously triumphant pieces of metal music I’ve ever heard. Some of the guitar lines in this absolutely soar.

Lizzo - Juice Lizzo has won 2019, her message of self love, acceptance and body positivity has won her both critical and cultural acclaim and permeates her music in a way that makes it impossible to not love.

COLOSSAL SQUID, AK Patterson - Kick Punch Colossal Squid is the name given to Three Trapped Tigers drummer, Adam Betts’ experimental project. After a solo album of percussive wizardry Betts has now teamed with vocalist AK Patterson to give us something else entirely.

Evan Greer - Liberty Is A Statue Evan Greer uses the a folk punk sound to deliver an essay on the damaging influences of cis-normativity and social inequality. Of course I like this one.

Taylor Swift - Lover I wasn’t on board with this song for a fair while, but then I kept listening to it and kept coming back to it because of a roughly 50 second section which ties the track and the whole album together. Yeah, this is on here purely for the bridge, which is just beautiful.

Dodie - Monster Monster is an incredibly well written and delivered study on how perception changes with resentment and it makes me cry.

The Y Axes - Moon Moon is a delightfully dreamy piece of pop that glitters with infectious melodies, it’s lyrics a blissful embracing of cosmic nihilism, need I say more?

Ezra Furman - My Teeth Hurt My teeth hurt is a song about tooth ache, about that pain you carry with you everywhere and can’t get rid of, that ruins your days and and is one hell of a mood. Yeah it’s about gender dysphoria.

Nervus - No Nations Speaking of things being a mood, this track hits the nail squarely on the head.

Cultdreams - Not My Generation "Everyone ignores me Unless I’m on a stage talking Because they put me on a pedestal And pretend I’m just performing“ Lucinda Livingstone calls out the misogyny in our culture with a singular ferocity.

Lil Nas X - Old Town Road If there’s one song that’s dominated 2019 this is it right here. Who ever had the idea of putting that NIN Ghosts sample to a trap beat and cowboying over the top of it is an absolute genius.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Planet B It’s impossible to predict where King Gizzard’s sonic influences are going to take them next I doubt even they know half the time. Whatever they turn their hand to though they do it as if they mastered the sound decades ago Planet B is an all out thrash track with a strong environmental message.

Kesha - Rich, White, Straight Men Okay, I’m about to compare Kesha to John Lennon here but HEAR ME OUT… As ‘Imagine’ asked us to consider a world without conflict or capitalism, Kesha now posits that we should tear up our conceptions of our society based on its formation by a privileged group and imagine what kind of utopia could be built if we gave the underprivileged and minority groups a say.

Allie X - Rings A Bell The chorus here sounds like it could have been off Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, and I’m all about that sound. Combined with Allie X’s dreamlike vocals make this a certified bop.

Poly-Math - Sensors in Everything Sensors in Everything is a beast of a track spanning over 14 minutes of absurdly dense prog. Having recently enlisted keyboardist Josh Gesner. Polymath make use of the new sounds and textures available to them, at times imitating a sort of Hammond sound not unlike John Lord to the chaotic maelstrom of noise.

Calva Louise - Sleeper Big hooks on this one. Sleeper has a confident swagger to it’s sound which stands apart for the bands previous work. It’s an absolutely huge track.

Slipknot - Solway Firth Slipknot didn’t disappoint after the tease of 2018′s “All Out Life”, following up with an album which blended old and new aspects of their sound to create one of their best to date. Solway Firth is a perfect example of this matching the punishing heaviness of Iowa with the melody driven sound of All Hope Is Gone.

Clt Drp - Speak To My Seeing Clt Drp perform live was one of my highlights of the year. The filthy guitar tones, powerhouse vocals tight as heck drumming and the _grooves. _Absolutely like nothing else I’ve seen. Just an incredible band that deserve so much more recognition.

Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Black Country, New Road released two tracks this year and now I just want more. Dense wordy lyricism plays off against ever evolving instrumentation to present a raw cut of emotional storytelling.

Her Name Is Calla - Swan Her Name Is Calla are a band that have always been on the edge of my radar, my Dad is very fond of them and saw them live a couple of years ago, but never went back to relisten to any of their stuff, then they started an album with this. I was sold instantly.

black midi - Talking Heads Talking Heads (the band) are an obvious inspiration on this track. Both David Byrne’s vocal style and the Talking Heads penchant for sharp angular melodies are on show here. But given an extra ounce of chaos through Black Midi’s delivery.

Amanda Palmer - The Ride The ride is ten minutes of bundling up all your fears and anxieties of where we are and where we’re going and just, accepting them as part of the ride. Written off the back of a prompt from Amanda asking her fans what they were afraid of right now.

Kim Petras - There Will Be Blood Okay, let’s have some out of season spookiness. Love the squelchy synths on this, there’s a huge amount of energy on this track and with it’s commitment to the horror conceit it makes for a super fun bop.

Kate Nash - Trash Kate Nash’s sound is like bathing pure nostalgia,here she spins the toxic-relationship narrative central to her work to deliver a bigger story about humanity’s, quite literally toxic relationship to our planet.

American Football & Hayley Williams - Uncomfortably Numb The other side of the “midwest emo” coin. A melancholic song built on a soft bed of arpeggiated chords and clean harmonics, Uncomfortably Numb is a heartbreaking track of losing everything and of cycles persisting thorugh generations. Employing the clever metatextual trick of referencing Pink Floyd’s comfortably Numb to mirror the generational similarities.

Glenn Branca - Velvet and Pearls Disclaimer, Glenn Branca was a musical hero of mine, his approach to music and composition being solely responsible for influence a vast number of my favourite bands. Released posthumously, Velvet and Pearls is taken from a live performance by Branca’s ensemble and perfectly captures the sense of sonic disorientation, conjuring aural illusions through an assault of intricately crafted noise. It’s an exhilarating piece that should be played as loud as humanly possible.

Brutus - War The raw emotional strength of Stefanie Manneart’s vocals instantly made me pay attention when I first heard this track. Then the song exploded into a barrage of riffs and breakneck drumming.

Valiant Vermin - Warm Coke Another slice of throwback pop, Valiant Vermin proved with “Online Lover” how much of an ear she has for pop and has proven it once again with Warm Coke. Is a real good bop.

———

Welp there it is, 50(+1) songs, I had to limit myself to one track per artist in the main 50 because according to Spotify I listened to [checks notes] 1082 new artists this year. There are a small handful of tracks I wanted to highlight from the same artists though as they offer something quite different to the tracks in the playlists, so here they are quickly with 3 word descriptions.

Petrol Girls - Skye (dead dog, sad) Amanda Palmer - Voicemail for Jill (Talk about abortion) Ezra Furman - I Wanna be Your Girlfriend (Trans Torch Song) Battles ft Jon Anderson & Prairie WWWW - Sugar Foot (Batshit Prog Insanity) Poppy - Choke (Dark Minimalist Pop) Show Me The Body - Forks and Knives (Anxious nightmare punk) Lingua Ignota - CALIGULA (the whole album.)

———

Closing Statement

Cultdreams - Statement

There has been a shadow over the entertainment industry the latter half of this decade. Whether film, music, TV or video games, the late 2010′s are filled with stories of people coming forward to bravely tell their stories about being abused and manipulated by men in positions of power. The #metoo movement as it’s come to be known has been a powerful force in giving marginalised people a voice and the ability to call out oppressors and in starting the groundwork to root out the misogyny in the seats of power, but this is a battle far from won.

While there are thousands of stories out there I want to focus on one in particular.

In 2016 a number of women spoke out about various forms of abuse by a well-known musician in the punk scene. It’s now over three years later and this group of women are in the midst of a long fought claim of defamation from this musician. If this case goes through it sets a precedent for silencing marginalised voices in the industry. They have been fighting for so long and with no legal aid available for the case they have had to finance their defense from their own pockets.

This is where Solidarity Not Silence comes in. Solidarity not silence is a crowdfunding effort to help take the case to trial without the women bankrupting themselves entirely so that they don’t have to give in to this mans demands.  You can read more about Solidarity not Silence and make a donation (if you feel so inclined) here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/solidaritynotsilence/

You can also follow them on twitter here https://twitter.com/solnotsilence

[theadventuresofhelena]

Japan was a dream

Ugh. I was absolutely floored with how amazing Japan was. I expected to like Japan but not fall in love with it. Everything about it was amazing, it was a perfect first port. We arrived on January 24th and it was absolutely freezing cold, but we were determined to be outside to watch us pull in to our first real port (Hawaii didn’t count in my mind). My toes were frozen and my body was an icicle, but it was so wonderful. Everyone was so excited to finally be landing in a new country. At the port the workers had balloons and a marching band to welcome us, it was so cool to see and hear them play. We definitely felt like they were so excited for us to be here. My first day in Japan consisted of a Field Class for my Abnormal Psych class. We traveled by bus from Kobe to Kyoto where we went to a temple and had a class on meditation and got to speak to a monk (this relates to my class because of mindfulness). Immigration took forever so by the time I was able to get back on the ship I had to run to get my things, swallow down some sandwiches, and then run to the lounge where my class was meeting. We left about 10 minutes later and went to the bus, the drive from the cities didn’t take too long and it was really cool to see Japan by bus for the first day. Once we got to the temple grounds we had to walk a bit before getting to the actual building, but it was fun to see the little village it was in. We got to the building and had to take off our shoes and bags and then walked to a little room down the hall. When we got inside the room we were all silent because we had no idea what to expect and were unsure of what to do exactly. Eventually the monk slides open the door and pops his head in and says “Hey, hows it going?” And immediately we all start laughing because we had this stereotype of a monk and he broke it within the first second of walking in the room. He turned out to be a really cool guy and he actually travels to the US to speak on Zen Buddhism at universities which I thought was pretty cool! Anyways, I learned so much but I can’t say it all otherwise this post will be one million pages long, but we talked with him for a bit and then we meditated and I found out after about 7 minutes I’m pretty bad at it! But hey, it was fun and definitely something I wouldn’t mind trying more of in the future. After the meditation class we drank real Japanese Green Tea (which wasn’t that bad!) and some interesting rice-looking cookies (not quite sure what they were made out of). Then we talked with him some more and left to go to eat at a local restaurant. The restaurant meal was unreal. It was so freaking good. It had a little bit of everything on the plate (yes I took a photo, and you bet I’ll be adding it on here). There was shrimp, salmon, squid, tofu, a fish of unknown origin, veggies, green tea, rice, the whole nine yards! And those of you who know me know I am not a big fish person, but I’m in freakin Japan so I’m gonna eat it. And not gonna like ALL of it (minus the salmon) was AMAZING. The squid was probably my favorite out of all of them, it was SO good, I was shocked. I miss it honestly hahah it was freakin delicious. The salmon was alright, but the texture just didn’t seem right when comparing it to the AK salmon I’m use to being force-fed (just kidding ;)) but yeah, overall one of my favorite meals by far on this trip. That night, we got back to Kobe and decided not to go out and just go to bed to get ready for tomorrow. I had made plans with my friend Anna to travel with her and her friend Josh the next morning at 5am, but I couldn’t get a hold of her so I just placed a sticky note on her door to let her know that she can just wake me up when she gets up. So I went to bed, but got up at 6am just incase, but I couldn’t find Anna so I ended up finding my other friends Molly, Allison, and Allie to see what they were doing. They were going to Hiroshima that day and I was debating on going with them because I still couldn’t find or get a hold of Anna. I ended up deciding to go and that was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made. We only went there for the day, to see the museum and the one building that wasn’t destroyed when the bomb hit. But that museum was the most powerful museum I have ever been to. Every single one of us were fighting back tears, it is one of the most gruesome things I’ve seen. I questioned a lot about the decision Truman made when I began to see how horrible it was for the people living here (obviously a bomb is horrible anywhere, but when you see it’s effect in real life it is horrifying). The thing that really got me was a small tricycle that a three year old had been riding right before the bomb hit. The father buried his son in their backyard. There was a girl who had grown up healthy after the bomb struck, but later on in her life she developed leukemia and eventually died from it (some time in her teen years), there is a children’s park that is dedicated to her with thousands of paper cranes in containers that have the word “Peace” on them. I never thought about children dying in the bomb, only adults, and I think that is what really struck me. We left the museum with heavy hearts, but after recooperating slightly from that we went back to the train station to head over to Kobe. Now, on a lighter note, when I was in 7th grade I was in my social studies class watching this documentary series about a woman who travels around the world and gives insight on the people, food, culture etc. in different countries. And this particular day in class we were looking at Japan, more specifically Tokyo. And after I watched this episode my mind was immediately intrigued with Tokyo and I told myself I had to go there. Flash forward 8 years later, I find myself in the Kobe port terminal after already spending 2 days in Japan with friends, without yet being able to go to Tokyo. My entire mind was focused on getting to Tokyo, I could feel my body itching with anticipation of getting there. All my friends had plans to get there the next day but I knew that wouldn’t be enough time for me, so I asked my friend Allie if she would want to pack up tonight and catch a bullet train to Tokyo. She said yes and we ran to get our things. We caught a bullet train around 9:30pm which landed us in Tokyo at about midnight. We were struggling to find out how to get from the train station to the certain metro line we needed to get to so we could find our hostel, when a man came up and asked us if we needed help. We obviously said yes and he looked at where we needed to go and pointed us in the right direction, that normally doesn’t happen super often so I think our spirits lifted slightly because we were exhausted from traveling and we finally knew where we needed to go. Once on the metro we got off at the correct spot and then while getting out of the metro we were unsure again of which exit to walk out of. And again, another guy comes up to us and asks if we need help and we show him the address to our hostel and he points us in the right direction and we thank him and continue on. By the time we are coming up the stairs to the actual street, he was behind us (not in a creepy way) going the same way. He ended up catching up to us and told us that he could take us to our hostel because he lived close by. I had my maps up so I knew where we were and semi-knew where the hostel was located so I felt comfortable enough to let him show us the way. He ended up being so cute and funny because he legit gave us a tiny sight seeing tour while on the way to the hostel, we passed by a famous market and he took a picture of us there and then he showed us his favorite place to eat and what he orders, he showed us some places to drink at and other random things like amusement parks that were near by. He ended up adding both of us on Facebook and then we parted ways. Once we got to the hostel, we checked in, got into our room (which was shared with 30 other people-but it was actually wonderful, I’ll attach pics) and proceeded to pass out. We wake up the next day around 8am and decided to book another night at the hostel because we loved the location and the room and the price, once we got that out of the way we asked for a recommendation of where to get good Japanese food for breakfast. So off we went with our new little map, excited to eat because we were starving, but of course, when we got there, it was closed. It opened at 11am and it as only 9:30am, we didn’t want to eat American food so we looked at our surroundings and saw a Starbucks. We decided to get a small snack/drink and use their wifi to plan our day while we wait to get real food for our meal. So, I got my hot chocolate and we decided to walk through the market that Yudai (the guy who walked us to our hostel) showed us, see the temple that was at the end of it, go to the Sky Tree for views, and then head over to the Shibuya area for food. The market was a lot of fun, we tried hot sweet sake which wasn’t horrible but there was chunks of random things in there, and if they weren’t in the sake, both of us would have liked it better-but hey, we tried it! The temple was packed but it was really cool to see all the bright colors and people, and there were also some lanterns to the right of it that looked really cool. We walked to the Sky Tree afterwards which took some time but it was nice to walk around the streets for a while and just observe what people do here. Once we got to the Sky Tree I was taken back by how tall it was, and once we got to the top it was insane how huge Tokyo is. There was so much city all around us on every single side, it was crazy. I had no idea Tokyo was so huge! It was insane. (I’ll also add pics :)) And we could see Mt. Fuji from the top too because it was a pretty clear day, so that was pretty freakin neat as well :-) once we were done with the Sky Tree, we were hungry so we went to the nearest metro and made our way over to Shibuya to eat some highly anticipated ramen! When we got to the restaurant there was a wait, so we knew it had to be good. When we finally got into the restaurant we realized that it was once of those restaurants where there is the least amount of socialization possible, so you sit in a chair and there is small boards that come up to the right and left of the counter, allowing only one person to sit in each spot and in the front of the counter space there is a little blind that the workers pull down after taking your order (which you pick from a machine and the machine gives you a receipt so really the worker just takes your receipt). The ramen was freakin amazing, oh my god. I about died. There were only chopsticks and a small plastic spoon so it took me a while to eat it but it was sooo good, I cannot emphasize that enough lol After eating we went to check out the Shibuya crossing which is where 10 lanes of traffic is stopped and the crosswalks are open in all directions (including diagonally) for people to cross, it was pretty cool to see! I took a timelapse of it so I’ll add that onto here so you guys can see it as well :) That night we were meeting up with our friend Yuhwa so Allie and I went back to our hostel to get ready for the night and eat dinner. We ate at a place really close to our hostel that had these really long dumplings (our form of potstickers basically, just longer) and they were soo good!! We were still full from lunch so we split a plate of them and again, there were only chopsticks and no forks so I struggled quite a bit, but successfully ate them. After we ate we made our way back to the Shibuya area to go out for the night and meet up with Yuhwa and the people she was traveling with. While waiting to hear back on where we should meet them, Allie and I went to a little bar that was called the Hub or something like that, it ended up being kinda fun because it was jam packed with Japanese people and very few other westerners, but they were all super nice to us. I ended up trying this drink that was something like 20% alcohol in it, slightly terrified I took a sip and it ended up just tasting like Grapefruit juice! It was really yummy so Allie got one as well, and soon we met a guy who was living in Japan but from Seattle, he worked for Amazon and he was already fairly intoxicated and ended up buying us shots and we all cheers to Allie and I’s birthdays, after we took the shot Yuhwa finally got back to us and told her to meet us at this club called Atom, and off we went. It wasn’t too far from where we were so we walked, it was freezing and we didn’t bring coats because we weren’t sure if there would be a place to put them, but soon enough we were there. Cover charges is a thing in Tokyo which was unfortunate, but we paid and while we were waiting to get into the elevators to go up to the club we saw Yuhwa walking in with a bunch of people, so we ran over and they ended up paying for a locker so we waited for them to put their coats away. While waiting we met some Australians and one of them actually had taught English in Thailand, so that was really cool to talk with him about his experiences while teaching there! Finally we make it up to the club and we had so. much. fun. Yuhwa, Allie, and I were going ham with dancing, and we ended up jumping up on these little platforms where females only ( lol ) were allowed to dance, but Yuhwa was just the greatest and we all had such an amazing time dancing and the dj was amazing (and female!! #feminism) so all in all, twas a great night. Unfortunately, by the time we left it was around 3:30am and the metro was closed. So, we had the option of waiting and hour and a half for the metro to open or take a taxi back. Considering we had one million things we still wanted to do and see in Tokyo before we had to leave, we decided to take a cab back so we could get a little more sleep. We woke up around 9am to get ready for the day, we got to eat those really fluffy pancakes that are a thing in Japan, and they were SO filling. We only got two with one order so I was skeptical at first, but wowzers it filled me up so much. It was great. After we ate, we took the metro to the Shibuya area to meet up with Jocelyn, Kenzie, Kelley, and Molly. While Kenzie, Jocelyn, and Kelley went to a piercing/tattoo shop, Allie, Molly, and I went to a Shrine that was in a park area. While we began to walk through the path to get to the Shrine, there were huge lines of Japanese people along the side of the path. At first we were just really confused, but the lines never ended, as soon as one did there would be another starting 20 feet further down the path. As we got closer and closer, we realized that some sort of event had to be happening because inside the shrine there were chairs lined up and a very clear “stage” area as well as security and important looking people lol. As we walked through the square and took pictures and just observed, Molly suggested that we go through a little pathway on the left side of the Shrine. We all agreed because we were just extremely confused as to what was happening. As we make our way through we see a smaller line up of people to our right and in front of them by about 15 feet were 4 people dressed in suits, and this is when we kinda stopped to try to figure out what was happening, we asked 2 women who spoke English but they had no idea what was happening either. It was about 12:57pm and Molly asked if we wanted to wait a little bit to see if anything happens, and I figured if anything were to happen it would happen at 1pm, so we decided to wait. Soon enough, we see the guys in suits looking down a path to our right. I turn to look and I see this little black car come zooming towards us, they stop abruptly in-front of the guys in suits and everyone starts pulling out their phones and cameras (and all 3 of us are still thinking what the heck is going on here) so I pull out my phone to take a video as the crowd starts swarming to the car. The passenger door opens, and I hear Allie gasp and she turns back to us and say “It’s a Sumo wrestler!!!” and we move with the crowd to get slightly closer. He gets out and moves straight to turn a corner and we can no longer see him, but we all turn to each other and are stoked on life that we just saw a real Japanese sumo wrestler, we were seriously SO excited, we were laughing and exclaiming how cool that we got to see this dude. Turns out, a couple days later once we are back on the ship and on our way to Japan, Molly is checking wikipedia for world news (we only get a few free sites on our intranet system) and she finds an article that was talking about this sumo wrestler (here is the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisenosato_Yutaka#Promotion_to_yokozuna) so I guess this sumo wrestler is the first sumo wrestler since 1998 to reach yokozuna, I’m not quite sure what that means BUT we felt really freaking cool that we saw him in person for a good 10 seconds! Afterwards, we went to the National Park which also had a botanical garden in it, which was really cool. The park was nice, but everything was pretty dead because it’s January but it was still nice to walk through. It reminded me slightly of central park in nyc. Once we finished walking around we went to a cat cafe, which is a thing in Japan I guess. I had heard of it before i left and had sort of forgotten about it until everyone starting going to them. We passed by one earlier and decided to go after the Shrine and National Park. We spent 30 minutes there all having a blast, the cats were so cute and soft. But my mind kept thinking that something wasn’t quite right, and I was trying to figure it out and while we were on the metro to our hostel, Molly told me that most of the cats were sedated. Which first broke my heart, and second I was so upset at myself because I was ignorant and supported it by paying them to see the cats. The reason she knew is because their inner eyelids come across when sedated and she opened one of the “sleeping” cats eyes to see and she saw the eyelid. But obviously we can’t do anything about it now, but how the cats were acting confused me because they were all laid back and didn’t try to move when everyone would put their faces next to the cats faces to take a picture, and they were all fairly young cats which usually means they are pretty playful and active and there were only about 3 that were actually walking around and one of those three that was playing (I’m assuming they don’t sedate them all so it doesn’t get too boring when people come). So that was really sad for me, but I know I can’t do anything about it. After the cat cafe, we went back to the hostel to get ready for the night. We ended up going to the Golden Gai area to bar hop but we didn’t want to take a taxi home because it was about $60 total, so we got the last metro back to our area of town, around 12:30am. Molly, Allie, and I were pretty hungry so we ended up walking across the street to the McDonalds and ordering some chicken nuggets, the only problem was that you can only choose 5 chicken nuggets or 15. So, naturally, we all got 15 chicken nuggets and they had curly fries! So we got those as well. We sat in our hostel and just talked about our lives and got to know each other a little better, it ended up being one of my favorite nights because we just had such a great conversation and were laughing and cracking jokes while still being able to have deep conversations. It was wonderful :) The next day was our very last day in Japan, we packed up and checked out of our hostel and went straight to the metro to get to the train station to take our bullet train back to Kobe. On our way back, Allie and I purposefully sat on the right side of the train with the window because we wanted to see Mt. Fuji, and it was a beautiful sunny day and sure enough, about 45 minutes in we got our first glimpse at Mt. Fuji! It was so cool to see, I tried taking one million pictures but only got a few good ones because the train was going about 170 mph and random poles/buildings would get in the way of the pictures but yeah, that was really amazing to see! Soon we had made it to Kobe and we all got on the ship and dropped our things off and headed back to the terminal to get the free wifi for a few hours before we had to be back on the ship. I got to FaceTime my mom which was so great, and a few other people but then I had to head back to the ship. One of the best parts of SAS is everyone coming back and getting together and talking about what they did and how great of a time everyone had and all their different experiences. Japan honestly was such an amazing place, I didn’t expect to fall in love with, but i sure did and I can’t wait to come back to see so much more. The people were so amazing and the food was freakin great. My friends and I had dinner together and discussed all of our experiences before passing out because the amount of sleep we all got was a whole lot of none, and soon we were on our way to China :)

[thementalattic]

We thought Kate Walker’s journey was over after bringing Hans to meet with the Mammoths, but after a rough time, she’s embarking on another quest, to help the Youkols reach their promised land in Syberia 3.

Genre(s): Adventure

Developer: Microids

Publisher: Microids

Release Date: April 2017

Played Main Story

Platforms: PC

Purchase At: Steam

Good:

Beautiful environments.

Bad:

Disappointing plot and clumsy writing.

Terrible voice acting.

Awkward controls.

Review

I remember my lasting impressions of Syberia 2, those being disappointment at its very open ending, which resolved very little in terms of the storyline threads it had spun, particularly relating to Kate Walker and her family and employers in the US and their incessant pursuit of her.

Syberia 3 opens very soon after those events, with the Youkols, the nomadic tribe that helped Kate on the last leg of her journey, finding her unconscious in the snowy fields. They nurse her back from the brink of hypothermic death but eventually leave her in the care of the doctors at the Valsembor clinic, a small town the tribe approaches on their way to the sacred mating grounds for their Snow Ostriches.

Yes, there’s nothing suspicious about the electric-chair-ish thing!

When Kate wakes up she finds herself in a grimy room in the clinic, with only the Youkol sacred guide with her. He’s been injured, an attack by the local militia took his leg and he’s waiting for a mechanical replacement. But something’s off about the clinic and the staff seems unusually unfriendly and the doctors downright vicious, and it’s soon clear they’re keeping the spirit guide and Kate prisoner. It’s now Kate’s turn to repay their kindness and help them reach their destination.

Those nail textures…

Syberia 3’s plot is about the modernisation of the world and the viability of ancient cultures and traditions in the face of it. The problem is that Syberia 3’s writers aren’t exactly subtle about it and pretty much hammer this point down in the most heavy-handed way possible about every five minutes of the game. Villains even state they want the Youkols to return to the north and abandon their nomadic ways because, “such things have no place in the modern world.” Yet there is no sign as to what sort of problem their migration might mean for them, making their cause vague at best and frankly nonsensical at worst. It’s almost as if the game needed villains but no one bothered to give them something reasonable to pursue.

One of the key lessons in writing fiction is “show, don’t tell,” and in a video game you can use the environment, character animations and even the voice acting to give players important information without drowning them in minutes-long blocks of exposition…which is exactly what Syberia 3 does, the English voice cast not even keeping the emotional intensity throughout, resulting in a monotone that shows just how bored the performers were.

Sure, delight me with 5 minutes of exposition, please!

There is a scene where the daughter of the local clockwork engineer tells you about a nuclear disaster that happened on another town and how the drunkard captain of the large ferry you see rusting at port left hundreds to die there. It could’ve been a simple short conversation giving you the important bits and perhaps even use some camera work to show the state of the captain, but instead you must listen to her drone on, everyone getting increasingly bored.

But to be honest, my greatest complaints when it comes to Syberia 3’s writing are with the characterisation of the Youkols and the wasted story potential.

Youkols, master artisans, great merchants…complete morons when travelling

On the first one, I’m used to dealing with bumbling companions and useless NPCs, but the Youkols take that to a suicidal level of stupidity, often willing to take courses of action that would ensure their demise if it weren’t for the main character taking charge. How did these people do their migrations before?

In Syberia 2 they were skilled and wise and when you read of past Youkols in the Olympia journal in Syberia 3, you read of some amazing members of the tribe which constructed secret tunnels and hid them from the authorities all while being overworked to death in the construction of a new Olympic stadium.

Yes, there’s a giant squid battle…and yes, it’s incredibly dumb

Where is that ingenuity? It doesn’t add up. There is a clear difference between the Youkol of the past game, those you hear of and the Youkols while trading and crafting, and the Youkol when travelling on their migration. It’s almost as if riding drained their intellect. They are morons.

On the other point, even if we skip the purposeless villains, we still have so many threads open and discarded for no reason. A detective shows up at the beginning, intent on taking Kate back, but after a quick escape, her vanishes from the plot, even though he mentions people are looking for Kate for a variety of crimes, up to and including embezzlement.

Environments look great

While Kate is getting the Youkol transportation, they show the villainous Doctor Olga using hypnosis to plant suggestions in the spirit guide’s mind, particularly on giving up on the quest and taking their tribe back north and settle, because “nomad bad” apparently. Yet, this never plays out, he never acts out and purposely tries to derail the migration. He simply does what they all do, point to the player character and ask you to fix things, because they know it’s a video game and thus they must be useless.

Now that I mention all of this, I think of something else. What happened to the setting? Syberia 1 & 2 are clockwork steampunk wonders. It’s an industrial world, where the greatest advance are clockwork automatons. Hell, Hans’ train is another technological marvel. Yet in Syberia 3, the detective has a cellphone, he uses zip-ties to hold Kate for a microsecond and the villains have Helicopters and AK-47s. What the hell happened to this setting between Syberia 2 and 3? Did Kate sleep for 50 years in her coma? Have some consistency please!

So many visual glitches though

The first two games in the series are point & click adventure games but Syberia 3 is a 3rd person adventure where you control the character directly, be it with mouse & keyboard or as they recommend, as Gamepad. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to PC games and tend to play them all in Keyboard & Mouse configuration, but I gave up with Syberia 3, as all puzzles and interactions feature gestures, such as pulling or turning wheels, and they’re so badly implemented on the mouse that in some cases they become impossible if you don’t have the gamepad, and in some really bad ones, even the gamepad will have you struggling.

At one instance, I was using the gamepad to pull on some levers, shifting gears for an ice-breaker to avoid stalling the engine, and it took me many retries because on pulling down the stick, the game didn’t properly recognise the action and slid left and right before ever considering I wanted it to go down, adding to my frustration.

Best puzzle in the game!

Puzzles for the most part are of the inventory variety and very straightforward, without many curveballs to be honest. If I didn’t know the solution of a puzzle at any given moment, it was only due to not having the right item, not because I missed the logic. While it does take from the difficulty of the puzzles, it does prevent the usual issues of trying everything with everything else, which is something I remember doing in the first two instalments of the Syberia series.

My favourite puzzle is one on reflecting light sources to different destinations and I absolutely adored it and wished the game had spent more time with this kind of challenge rather than depending on inventory-based puzzles. This one puzzle is the most memorable of the entire game.

Snow Ostriches are weird

Visually it’s a mixed bag. The character models are ugly and stiff. If you’ve read my reviews before, you know visuals aren’t ever a point of much criticism as I don’t really care that much about them, but it really struck me just how stiffly the characters moved and how low the quality of the character models was, except for their faces. Faces have detail but hands, legs and fingers have such messy textures that I seriously spent five minutes staring at one of the evil doctors’ fingernails.

But as is tradition in the Syberia series, the environments are gorgeous, with intricate details that tell you so much about the world and its people that it baffles me how they still went with the heavy-handed writing. I love the dilapidated Baranour, with its radioactive zones, the homely yet troubled Valsembor and its dirty clinic with a surprisingly pristine lobby, showing you that the entrance to the building is all about keeping up appearances, to make people believe nothing is wrong.

Evil-looking doctor is evil

The music is another strong point. The environmental music is strong throughout the game and the main theme is just amazing, a beautiful melody accompanied by strong harmonies. Of the entire soundtrack, I love that track the most.

I mentioned the issues with the voice cast above, but it’s not just the monotone exposition dump issue. There is also a severe lack of consistency when it comes to accents. They’re all over the place and no one speaks with a regional accent save for the Youkols, and only because they speak in broken English. Unless we assume they’re all speaking in Russian and the game just plays it in English—or the original French—it marks a severe flaw in voice direction.

Having said so, Kate Walker’s performer Sharon Mann is the strongest part of it all, never missing a beat and pretty much slipping comfortably back into character. I just wish she and her character had a better ending to their adventure rather than another open one that leaves most plot threads open, particularly Kate’s fate.

Doctor Evil is watching

Camera glitches are so common in this game

It’s easier than ever to try everything with everything!

The technology of the setting has progressed in leaps and bounds since Syberia 2

Valsembor is a village of clones.

Foreshadowing right there!

Stairs can become invisible walls at any given time

Love that painting by the way

Gamepad or mouse, this one’s a nightmare

Dog or Ostrich, it’s freaky either way

You’ll have problems even with the gamepad!

Chain goes under the skin, sure…

More camera/visual glitches, superimpose camera feeds. Great…

Even good ol’ Oscar is back

Conclusion

I had big hopes for Syberia 3, but what I found was a messy game that doesn’t seem sure of what story it’s trying to tell and struggles to tell what it has. Characterisation is clumsy and uneven, the ending leaves you disappointed and even the setting seems to have undergone a transformation, and not a welcome one. The gameplay is good enough, but even one great puzzle can’t make up for all its conceptual issues.

TMA SCORE:

2.5/5 – Average!

#Syberia3, a game brought down by poor writing. Our review.

We thought Kate Walker’s journey was over after bringing Hans to meet with the Mammoths, but after a rough time, she’s embarking on another quest, to help the Youkols reach their promised land in…

#Syberia3, a game brought down by poor writing. Our review. We thought Kate Walker’s journey was over after bringing Hans to meet with the Mammoths, but after a rough time, she’s embarking on another quest, to help the Youkols reach their promised land in…

[halfamilliontransgendercyborgs]

Hard to be a fearsome sea monster when you look like a pineapple, just saying… :/