#their retrospective section is not offering anything interesting either

[illgiveyouahint]

oh man our queer festival revealed their program for this year and honestly there's nothing that interests me and films that i hoped will be there are not

[lightinthesilence]

A week of contact with a Salamander

In order for me to be more genuine with the expression of each element in the game I am making, I wanted to deepen my understanding of each of the four elements. I decided to attempt to conjure an elemental to tutor me for a week on each element. The nature of the conjuration was very interesting in retrospect, as it certainly was formulated as an evocation, but the tutoring process felt more in the nature of an invocation. On a whim of expression, I decided to go with the Tetragrammaton formula for the order, which is to say in accordance to the correspondences of Yod, Heh, Vav, and Heh. Fire, Water, Air, Earth.

The general formula I used for each of the elements is as follows:

For the first conjuring, I made sure to do so on a day and the hour of a planet that corresponds to the element. For the Salamander, I did this on Sunday(Sol, Fire.) I started with a standard LBRP, followed by a slightly modified LIRH, by doing just the invoking hexagram of the element I am working with.

My altar is a rather basic set up, the offering to the Elemental in the middle, the incense burner on the left, a white candle on the right. A painted elemental banner sits on the altar near the back, forming a sort of backdrop and meditative focus. Once I finish the LIRH, I sit in a chair and call upon the appropriate name of God, Archangel, and elemental Angel to send me a fitting elemental to tutor me in the ways of the element. After that I say the shortened form of the Elemental Prayer as found in the 'revised' version of the MPR in the back of Regardie's Middle Pillar (in the section of material compiled and written by the Ciceros) Other than that, at later points I do start to add in the full Elemental Prayer by Eliphas Levi and started to use a black mirror toward the end of the Sylph conjurations. Before that, I sort of used the elemental banner as a scrying medium, and mostly relied on vision and meditation to receive insight from the spirits.

Enough technical details, here's what the results (at least that which I can share) of each week of each elemental were

First Evocation: After sitting down and beginning to meditate on the elemental banner, I felt a presence start to arise. Physically it was like pins in my hands and feet, and like there was a large pressure, especially when asking the elemental to show me something or reveal something to me. At this point the communication was wordless. At first all I got was the ghost image effect on the elemental banner, but then got an image of the symbol of sulfur that superimposed itself on top of both the ghost image and the actual banner. Upon asking for a name, I felt a sensation in my throat like either something being pulled, or moved, and I spoke aloud how it felt natural, and I said in a low, drawn out voice "Eglė" as I did so the letters appeared in my mind, complete with the accent mark, which I wrote in my journal before researching the name. Surprising to me, Eglė is in fact the name of a mythological figure in Lithuanian mythology, the main piece that stood out to me was that Eglė at the end of the myth becomes the Spruce, which while I cannot find any traditional sources, does seem to have a correspondence with the sun. I asked the salamander if there was anything in addition they wanted to show me, to do so through my dream that night, and concluded with a license to depart.

That night I did in fact have a dream, where I was just told straight up by one of the dream characters very candidly that if I wanted to communicate with Egle, I should meditate on the element of fire. So before the evocation later on in the day, I meditated on the element of fire, where suddenly I received both answers from what I asked last night and other new pieces of information, such as desiring a blend of Cinnamon and Sandalwood. I then received a lesson about the nature of fire as a sort of barrier between the uncreated world and the beginning of creation, which I thought was very insightful given how we usually see Fire as the out-thrusting force, but seeing how it relates to what came before, it takes the role of a barrier. I also received the image of the Cherub with the flaming sword guarding the Garden of Eden.

Second Evocation:

As I went from one thought to the next, I found myself wandering in thought, which was cut by a different voice suddenly chastising me, saying to listen to the Elemental, not my delusions. I saw the voice coming from the image of a black hole. I then saw flame sweep across my field of vision from left to right, and the remainder of the meditation was silence as I felt within the presence of a flame. Later that day, when I did the full evocation, she seemed to take very well to singing the Prayer of the Salamanders, as I did it over and over it felt like I was kindling a fire that grew and grew, to which the candle flame on the altar grew as well.

Third Evocation: After the evocation, I was finally able to perceive the Salamander, she took on a form similar to an icon of Mary, or a nun but with yellows and oranges and reds for the clothing. I saw a very palpable halo around the candle flame, and the tip of the flame had 3 very clear tips, like a crown or perhaps the comparison could even be made to the letter Shin. In the corners of the room, strange shadows bounced in a way that looked like a moving presence.

Fourth Evocation:

By this point, she consistently appeared in the form of a solar nun. Egle tutored me with the art of vibrating Divine Names. By the time the lesson was done, my whole being from my feet to the top of my head felt like I was ringing like a bell. I then felt a great love, it felt very fraternal, is all I can really put into words.

These were the major points of interest in my week of evocation. The chastising voice in the meditation before the second evocation was very interesting, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Egle was a very interesting salamander to have come across. She seemed to emphasize a very solar, loving hearth-fire. During and since this evocation, I found that I have become a bit more warm, spontaneous, and extroverted in my personality. The day and time of evoking for the first time seemed to draw a very Solar-leaning Salamander.

All and all this was a great success. While this was far from my first evocation, it was the first time I had to improvise the ritual and to call upon a spirit that was not laid out in a book. I felt like I was learning the whole time, and am very grateful to the spirits I contacted, and grateful to all the spirits along the way who ensured that the spirit I contacted was fitting of my circumstance and needs.

I will continue on next week to go into the very interesting Undine I contacted after.

[oswincoleman]

2020 Jenna Coleman’s Year in Review, part 3: Jenna and the Media

To summarize all of the following in one sentence; it is absolutely despicable how terribly print media treated Jenna Coleman this year. 

The Daily Mail’s obsessive stalking of Jenna

Typically, the Daily Mail releases about 5 sets of paparazzi pictures of Jenna Coleman each year (not counting instances when she was seen attending, arriving, or leaving an event). This year, there were 21 such instances. It seems as though the Daily Mail, desperate to keep their celebrity section going, have increased their efforts of stalking celebrities. The pictures themselves reveal a lot about the kinds of methods the paparazzi employed throughout the year to fill the tabloid with nonsensical repeated stories, and desperate attempts to turn boring uneventful stalker pictures into somewhat interesting stories. 

It all started out so well, with what might be my least disliked set of paparazzi pictures of Jenna. You could see Tom Hughes buying her a new bike for her birthday. Jenna could be seen beaming ear to ear while riding it, and Tom was visibly happy at having found such a great gift for her. The pictures captured such a beatiful moment that provided a great light during a dark time. 

Jenna was pictured by the paparazzi once in a while over the next few months, mainly in Islington, and other nearby areas of London. The frequency was already alarming, but the pictures and articles weren’t nearly as intrusive as they would become later in the year. That all changed thanks to one particular article from The Sun. 

The Sun and their invented rumour of Jenna and Tom’s split

On the 11th of July The Sun dropped a bombshell. They claimed that Jenna and Tom had split, after being together for four years. It didn’t take long for this news to be picked up by numerous other sites, who also wrote their own take on this news, eager to not be too late to the party.

And yet, where was the proof? Did The Sun have any evidence for it’s claim whatsoever? No, they didn’t. Their “evidence” is that an “onlooker” (aka the paparazzi taking pictures of them) said:

She seemed pretty subdued. She’s usually very smiley, but she and Tom looked really flat when they were talking — it was clearly not an easy conversation.

I wonder why they might look subdued when being stalked by a paparazzi, any ideas? The only other evidence is that an unnamed “source” who has no justified authority to speak on these matters said about them: 

They are trying to salvage a friendship but obviously these are trying times, and it’s not easy. Tom actually helped Jenna with her new place, and they’ve met up this week to talk things through and keep everything as friendly and civil as possible. Both Tom and Jenna are terribly sad, but the relationship ran its course. There was no third party involved. Jenna’s career is going from strength to strength, she’s being offered increasingly more roles abroad, especially Los Angeles, and she wants to focus on this while she’s still young.

Notice how this “source” said a friendship. Not their friendship. A friendship. Not their relationship, but the relationship. Then there is the incoherent nature of these comments. Why does this “source” never directly say anything as simple as “Jenna and Tom ended their relationship”? All of this makes it seem as if The Sun saw the opportunity to invent a “rumour” of their split, and then cut certain parts of a text from the “source” to remove the context, and to make it seem as if the “source” was talking about Jenna’s and Tom’s split, even though they were actually talking about something else entirely. Taking a few choice segments from a long text, rearranging them, and telling the reader what the are supposed to say, will allow you to get readers to think pretty much whatever you want them to think. 

But it should also be noted that not a single part in the above text provided anything to justify this “source” as having any authority whatsoever. In fact, the ability to look at this in retrospect puts even more doubt on the above quotes from the “source“. Jenna hasn’t had any role in LA except a tiny insignificant role in Captain America. And as pictures of Jenna and Tom since this article showed, they are still living together. Jenna does have a new house in the Cotswolds, but she has still not moved out of her London home, more than 5 months after this “source” seemingly claimed that that is exactly what she had done. In her recent interview for BBC Radio 1, Jenna was in her London house (the one that The Sun and the Daily Mail had claimed she had moved out of in July). And just briefly before and afterwards, Tom had also been seen at that very same house. They have both been seen there several times in all the months since The Sun first published these fake “rumours“. 

The article in itself had more problems than truthful sentences. The authors of it even forgot how to write Jenna’s name halfway through, said that Jenna and Tom had been together for 4 years, even though they it’s been 5 years already,  they got names, roles, places wrong, and didn’t bother checking their work afterwards. There are probably more mistakes in that article than there are sentences. Does that constitute a trustworthy source?

Oh and a friend of Tom had also confirmed that the breakup rumours told by The Sun were lies, that they didn’t break up. In the last 5 months, there has been more and more evidence to suggest that they didn’t break up at all. But that didn’t stop many news outlets from repeating The Sun’s lies, without ever questioning their validity. It’s like a repeat of 2015, when The Sun claimed that Jenna was dating Prince Harry. Countless media jumped on board with that, never even questioning the validity of the claim being made. And to this day there are still news outlets saying that Jenna dated Prince Harry, even though Jenna very clearly said that those rumours were completely wrong, on live TV. 

This whole issue has been very illuminating in terms of which media outlets can not trusted; which news sites just copy and paste newsworthy articles, not bothering to question the validity of the claims being made, not trying to do their own investigation, not even considering the possibility that the claims could be wrong, not even if they are made by a highly dubious source with a long history of lying and deceiving. It’s startling how many news sites care more for jumping on the bandwaggon than accuracy, truth, or the principles of good journalism. Many sites that I had thought to be more respectable have lost that respect. 

And even once the media will finally catch on to the lie that this story is, it will probably still persist. I won’t be surprised if we will still get media articles referencing Jenna and Tom’s 2020 “breakup” and subsequent “reunion” for many years to come. 

Subsequent intensive stalking by the Daily Mail

Once the “news” of their alleged breakup was revealed, the Daily Mail decided to show it’s worst side. They ramped up attempts to stalk Jenna as often as possible. They stalked her right to her doorstep. So many of the paparazzi pictures since July were taken right in front of her and Tom’s house (though of course the Daily Mail never admitted where those pictures were taken, because that would contradict the story they wanted to tell). So it seems as if the paparazzi were just waiting in front of her house every few days, to see her either leaving or arriving at the house that she had, according to them, moved out of months ago. 

The Dail Mail thought that they could test the gullibility of their readers even more than The Sun had already done. They pictured Jenna giving Tom the keys to their car. It is completely unambiguous that she is handing over car keys, not house keys. And yet, the Daily Mail made a huge deal of apparently capturing THE moment when Jenna gave Tom back the keys to the house they used to live in. And people actually believed it, even though the picture very clearly shows something very different. It’s times like this that I really lose faith in humanity, when a very dubious tabloid writes “this is a circle” below a picture of a square, and people genuinely believe that what is shown in the picture is a circle, and won’t be swayed by any evidence to the contrary. It sounds absurd, but that is what happened. 

One week later, a paparazzi saw Jenna and Tom at the house that Jenna had allegedly already moved out of. The paparazzi even wrote “Have Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes reunited?” alongside the pictures they took. But of course this contradicted the successful story the Daily Mail wanted to tell about them breaking up, so they obviously did not abandon their wrong narrative in favour of the truth. Once the paparazzi realized that the Daily Mail was willing to go with the story of their breakup, no matter the lack of evidence for it, and the mountain of evidence against it, they took special care to never picture Jenna and Tom together, even though the paparazzi did see them together several times over the next few months. Several pictures sets feature Jenna, and Tom at the same place at the same time, but the paparazzi deliberately waited for them to stand apart, before taking pictures of them separately. 

In September, when Jenna was packing her stuff for a weekend trip with her school friends, the Daily Mail alleged that they had captured the exact moment in which Jenna was moving out of her house that she had lived in together with Tom. They never bothered mentioning that their new article completely  contradicted all their previous articles, and yet people still believed the lies told by them. Unsurprisingly, time would tell that once again, the Daily Mail was wrong. And yet, it seems that the phrase “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” does not apply to many people who can be fooled by the same lie again, and again, and again, and again, even though the new lies from the same dubious source always contradict the previous lies. 

The intensive stalking of Jenna in this period seems to have had one main goal; to picture Jenna together with a possible new boyfriend, so that the Daily Mail would be the first to announce her new relationship. But no matter how hard and how long they tried, not even the liars at the Daily Mail could spin the frequent paparazzi pictures to indicate any new relationship with anyone other than Tom. 

The Daily Mail’s Publishing of pictures of Jenna’s and Tom’s house

On the 24th of October, Jenna and Tom put their house in London up for sale, and attached several pictures of the interior of their house, featuring all their possessions, which provide a lot of insight into them, and their private lives. The listing of their house never mentioned thier names. Unfortunately, 3 days later, the Daily Mail got word of this, and knowing their precise address from all the stalking they did, published the pictures of their house on their front page. 

Now I have to say, their house looks absolutely beautiful, they made such a wonderful job of decorating it to their tastes. But I really hated how these pictures were associated with them, and how these were then seen by many thousands of people, who now were able to learn very intimate things about them. Who could, in less than a minute, find out the exact address at which they are living. Jenna and Tom have tried their best to keep this a secret, and to not attach their names to this, but in vain. 

Jenna and Tom have had a very clear approach to discussing their personal lives in public. They don’t say a word about it, ever. I think they are absolutely right to do so, because it is nobody’s business, and they deserve to at least have a tiny bit of privacy left, that was not yet completely invaded by the media. So this must have been a very great shock for them, to see how the Daily Mail discussed their house and their possessions in great detail, to many thousands of people. 

It was a horrendous thing to do, and the real magnitude of how hurtful this was to Jenna and Tom can be seen in what happened within the next day. They no longer listed their house as being up for sale, got all websites featuring it, and the pictures from it removed, and even managed to pressure the Daily Mail into deleting their article. Unfortunately, the damage was already done, and could not be reversed. It is entirely possible, that Jenna and Tom would have already sold the house, had it not been for the Daily Mail’s horrendous decision to share these pictures to all of their readers. 

Obviously, given the other “rumours” that the Daily Mail had repeated for months already, the selling of their house only had one reason; the proof of the breakup of Jenna and Tom. They even went so far as to ignore the fact that the house had been put up for sale by both Jenna and Tom, and instead said that Tom alone had put it up for sale. They ignored the fact that they would have no reason to sell the house if they had split; one of them could just keep on living there. They ignored that over the next two days their paparazzi pictured Jenna entering and leaving the very same house that they had claimed she had moved out of in July, and then moved out of again in September, the same house that was now up for sale. 

Tatler and The Times

This year, Jenna had two photoshoots and accompanying interviews; one for Tatler, and a second one for The Times. I think the style of the Tatler photoshoot doesn’t suit Jenna at all. But The Times’ photoshoot looks amazing, but unfortunately, only 2 pictures of it have been released so far. 

As for the interviews, although they both were initially intended to be about The Serpent, most of it (for Tatler), and a significant portion of it (The Times) was devoted to other issues, most notably, to badger Jenna repeatedly about her personal life, even though she made it very clear from the beginning, and has done so far years, that she was not going to say a word about it. 

It is quite depressing to see both of these magazines blindly trust the lies told by The Sun without evidence, and repeatedly ask Jenna questions directly about that. If the rumours were true, those are painful questions, and if they’re not, those are still very painful questions. And even besides the repeated pestering of Jenna on a topic she wasn’t going to discuss with them, there were some unpleasant parts in both interviews, with the interviewers making quite disrepectful comments to Jenna. It’s a shame that these magazines felt the need to resort to this. 

But on the plus side, both of these interviews provided several interesting points, for instance the mention of Jenna’s upcoming secret big-budget fantasy project in The Times’ interview, or Jenna’s story of taking a spaniel into Boots. 

BBC TV and Radio Interviews

In the last 2 weeks, as promotion for The Serpent has finally gotten started, Jenna took part in a TV interview for BBC Breakfast, and three radio interviews, one of which was filmed. A segment of that can be seen here: https://youtu.be/4FqH8GvxVzA

These interviews were all really lovely, especially the last one, which was by far the longest, most informative, and most interesting. The interviewer, Ali Plumb, did his research on Jenna really well, and it’s a real joy to watch. I think this has become my favourite interview with Jenna that I have ever seen. 

Since this post is already getting very long, I will not be discussing these in detail here, but you can always look up my recent posts in which I was discussing them, in the last few days. 

[bangtan-hoe]

Masterlist

Jungkook x reader

a- angst

f- fluff

m- mature

*- favourite(s)

It Takes Two (m., f and a)

Oneshot

You don’t need to retrospect to tell that dating a coworker was a bad idea. Two months after your breakup, he seems to have move on to something new- quite happily, if his social media is to be believed. Meanwhile the only thing in your life is your roommate, Jungkook, who seems nice enough. Just nice enough to coax into your company’s annual holiday party and more handsome to show off just a little bit. Or, as it turns out, a lot.  

{This oneshot is from one of my fav author- Junghelioseok. Its soo fluff and who does not love soft koo...}

Clandestined (m., f, a and **)-ongoing

Series

Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.

{Ahh!! The noona romance~ I love the subtly flirt Jk in this book and especially whenever he gets jealous. This book is also from Junghelioseok. And my fav part was the one when they were in bathroom doing it and then Jimin comes. The plot is really interesting.}

True care (m.)- ongoing

Series

Your (endearingly) shy bodyguard- hired by your father- would do anything for you. even though you roll your eyes at his persistence and pretend there’s no need for him to follow you to every and any place you go, there might be many more hazards in your life than you let on. and you might end up needing him in more ways than you- or your father- would ever think.

{I never knew I would want a sub Kook before this series. The plot is amazing and there’s a Jk in tux!! And the fact that he is you bodyguard is a turn on in itself!! This story is written by Joonsgalaxy.}

Falling skies (m., f and a)

Oneshot

Jeon Jiyeon was your childhood best friend; her brother, jungkook, was something else entirely. once upon a time, she had called you her sun and him her moon; it was fitting, given the constant push-and-pull between you two. you used to consider him a friend, but then he had gone from endearingly frustrating dumb boy to card-carrying fuckboy so fast it had given you whiplash. 

you often wondered how jiyeon wasn’t bothered by his behavior. in fact, she often seemed to encourage it. what you failed to see was that she was just trying to show you how he reflected your light. jiyeon had realized he was in love with you even before he did, but of course she knew. it was a twin thing. 

so despite the fighting and teasing, you always found yourself drawn back to him. you knew he was one of two constants in your life: the jeon twins were - and had always been - your one indisputable truth. you were the sun, jungkook was the moon, and jiyeon was the sky holding you both up when she died, it ripped a black hole right through you. {This fic was.... sad. BUT it has a happy ending and a good angsty plot!! I love it when Jk calls you with a special pet name. Read to find out. This fic is written by Fortunexkookie.}

Frost Impression (m., f, a and *) 

Oneshot

Jeongguk is so disgustingly smitten with his new coworker that he ends up making a terrible first impression, and neither of them realize they’ve actually been in love with each other for the better part of a decade.

{This is the fiction!! I beg you to read it!! I love the plot and the characters!! And Jungkook... What to say about him. He is so so o funny and nervous and shy in this book that you’re gonna want to kiss him while punching him. I love the way he rambles in front of the oc. I would highly recommend to read this book. The author of this crackfic is again the amazing fortunexkookie. Do check her out!! 

Ps. She is an amazing author. you are gonna love her writings.}

Roommates (a and m)

Series

Letting your best friend’s baby brother live with you didn’t seem like a problem until well… you discovered how hot he had become.

{I HATE THE COCKY JK IN THIS SERIES!!! Oh the story is such a slowburn and the fact reader is also sooooo obvious about the signs(Jk is not that much subtle either.)But still> Do read this amazing fic by tayegi.}

Beneficial (f and m)

Oneshot

You’ve been friends for as long as you can remember. So you guess it has its perks.

{My fav cliche of Friend with Benefits. This is one sad emo plot that is gonna bring both sad and happy tears in your eyes but it is a happy ending. The way Jk feels about Y/N but never tells her and the way Y/N is onvious about Jk’s crush on her- you are gonna shout while reading this. This fic is written by Jiminables.}

Canceled (a, s and *)

Oneshot

Jungkook has a passion for camo pants, science, and debating with strangers on the internet. Usually, he wins arguments, but when you show up in the comment section of one of his his blog posts, shit goes down and he's left wanting more than a virtual conversation.

{Heh... The ‘porn with plot’. I love how the characters meet online and Jk’s charactr too. This book is all bout smut my fellas. And the ending smut- Whoosh! That was hot. This fic is written by zibermuda.}

Hot boy bummer (a, f, m and **)

Oneshot

When jungkook offers you a proposition of just sex, no strings attached, how can you possibly say no? After all, what are best friends for?

{The theme of casual talk even while sex bring tears of jpy in my eyes. I really love the fic. And this one too is Friends with Benefits au.(Ps.- I told you I am obsessed with it.) This amazing work is by Jungkxook.}

Blizzard (a,f,m and **)

Oneshot

When a blizzard hits your town, you and your shy awkward roommate are forced to spend time together, not being able to leave the house due to the strong snowstorm. To make matters worse, the power gets cut in the middle of his shower. Which also means no heating.

{OMG!!! SOFT KOO!!! This fic is soo cute and surreal. I loved it. My cheeks were hurting while reading this. The plot is sooo cute and soft and fluff and domestic. Jk was giving the ideal husband vibes. This is so cute. I AM STILL SOFT> DON’T TOUCH ME. This fic is written by the amazing Curly-bangtan.}

[bltngames]

SAGE 2020: Indie Games

SAGE may closed more than a day ago, but thankfully, the website remains up for those who still want to download its games. So even though this article is technically very late, nothing listed here is out of date. The event may be over, but the games live on! Which is honestly a relief, because I think doing ten games per article is taking its toll on me. Normally, when I’d write for TSSZ, I’d do somewhere in the realm of 5-7 games per article, and even that would eventually burn me out. After writing about 20 games this year, I was clearly starting to feel like I was running out of steam. Oh well. We live and learn. Here’s another ten games!

There’s one more article left after this, a sort of “honorable mentions” round-up that will feature much shorter blurbs as I blow through way more games way faster. If I didn’t talk about your game here in these three articles, now’s your chance to let me know so I can say something about it in the final article.

Anyway, onwards to our ten indie games.

Victory Heat Rally

I’m all for any game channeling the spirit of Sega’s old SuperScaler arcade technology, and Victory Heat Rally is all about that. Everything about this game seems so MY AESTHETIC that my only complaint is that I’m hungry for more. A lot more. This demo is a simple time trial on one race track and I’m itching to sink my teeth into literally anything else this game has to offer. There is an older demo from back in April with more content, but it’s running on a different version of the code base -- this newest demo is significantly improved both in terms of visuals and control. I really don’t have anything else to say about it. There’s not much here, but what’s here is charmingly retro in the style of Sega’s Power Drift, but cuter and even more colorful.

  Sondro Gomez: A Sunova Story

I had been interested to revisit Sondro Gomez after playing the first demo last year, but I don’t know if I just wasn’t in the right mood for it this year or what, but I kind of bounced off the game this time. To my memory, Sondro Gomez is a kinda-sorta side game in the Kyle & Lucy universe. You may remember Kyle & Lucy as one of a growing number of games coming out of the Sonic fan gaming community trying to break out as an original title. A while ago, the developers announced a partnership with Stealth to use the Headcannon engine to make the game with, something that extended to Sondro Gomez here. The problem is, it feels kind of weird now, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I think it’s the little stuff -- you don’t get a lot of positive feedback when attacking using your whip (the sound is a bit quiet), and the difficulty balancing errs on the side of caution. I died a couple times in my time playing this newest demo, but I wouldn’t characterize Sondro Gomez as a game that feels challenging. Some of that probably has to do with the fact this is still just a demo, which means you spend a long time fighting the same four enemy types in every single level. There’s a lot of charm to the story and the characters it involves, but that only takes you so far when it feels like you’re doing the same things over and over in the actual levels, you know? Either way, the touched up visuals and the new boss fights are welcome. Interested in seeing what the full release looks like next year.

  Delta Gal

In retrospect, a Mega Man Legends fan game seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Where Delta Gal has a leg up is in controls. Even considering the era Mega Man Legends was released in, it had very awkward controls. Delta Gal’s response is to embrace standard third person action game controls with a mouse and a keyboard. Now, there is controller support, but even once you get it set up, you have button layout presets like “Bad” and “Almost Good.” Honestly, if you can, just play it with a keyboard and mouse. The demo offers about 30-40 minutes of gameplay, with a bit of the town, a forest section, a cave, and one whole dungeon. Visuals nail the best parts of the Mega Man Legends low-fi aesthetic, colors are vibrant, and the pixel art textures look very good. The town is full of characters with lots of personality, too. A particular favorite being the guy who runs the junkyard who likes to show off by flexing his muscles but then ultimately chickens out when it comes to exploring the cave he discovers. The only downside I’d say is the sound design. The game sounds okay, but some of the music is a little bland, and certain sound effects lack the right kind of punch. Granted, this style of sound design isn’t easy, so I can empathize with the developers in that respect. Honestly, it doesn’t really detract from anything at all, so maybe it’s not even worth bringing up. Either way, good stuff, and I’m looking forward to the full release.

  Bun n’ Gun

Here’s a cute little game about a bunny in the old west. I’m absolutely in love with the visuals and the music here, but the gameplay is… interesting. Bun isn’t a typical shooter or platformer, thanks to the fact that he appears to only have one arm, which is occupied by his gun. Now you wouldn’t think this would matter, as it’s pretty easy to design a game around only having to jump and shoot, and that’s fair enough. But there’s a strange heft to this character. It takes them a little bit to pick up speed, and it takes them a bit to slow down, and there’s an unmistakable, split-second delay between pushing the jump button and actually jumping. I know enough about this kind of game development that a delay between pushing a button and actually jumping has to be a deliberate design decision, and I split on whether or not I like it. I don’t think I hate it, because it’s pretty easy to get used to the way it feels, but it does mean you’re working with a handicap when it comes to split-second movements. Given the bunny seems to only have one arm, though, perhaps that’s the point. Either way, it’s cute. Give it a look.

  Shield Cat

I feel like I’ve been over-using the word “charming” to describe games at SAGE this year, but you know what? Shield Cat is charming as heck. People also tend to think it’s reductive to describe things by comparing them to something that already exists, but I say nuts to that, too. Saying “It’s like…” is an easy shorthand, and besides, if somebody is saying your project is like one of their favorite games, it just means they’re giving you praise and might lack the words to accurately describe that praise. Thing is, that’s actually kind of hard to do with Shield Cat. The nearest relative to this game would be The Legend of Zelda, but Shield Cat honestly plays very little like Zelda, beyond having a top-down perspective. Secret of Mana, maybe, with the stamina meters? I don’t know. Regardless, this is a charming (!!!) top down action game where you roam around exploring an overworld and solve light puzzles. It controls well and the aesthetics are nice. Can’t really get much better than that, though I do have to wonder what it is you’re supposed to be doing in this game. It took me about 30 minutes to see everything available in this demo, but there’s no story setup and only the smallest pieces of what could be considered a dungeon. What’s on offer here is interesting enough that I find myself wanting to know more about this world. For example, it’s called Shield Cat, but clearly you’re some kind of ferret. What’s that about? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

  Prototype N

I’ve sat here staring into the void wondering what to write about for this game for a long time, because it’s one of those demos that’s just… a solid and fun game that nails exactly what it’s going for. I would say that Prototype N leans a little too far towards the easy side of things, but the third level provided in the demo ramps the challenge up enough to be just about perfect. And, really, that’s it. That’s the game. You get two softer introductory levels to get you acclimated to the controls (which are similar to Mega Man, but different enough not to be a direct clone) and one “real” level to actually give you a bit of a work out. There’s nothing else to really say. This has the vibe of a 1993 or 1994 Capcom game, or maybe something from Data East. Every single part of this game’s presentation is laser-focused on that aesthetic, and it pulls it off flawlessly. Sound design, music, visuals, it’s a bullseye. This game fell out of a time machine in the best way possible. Definitely give it a look.

  Yan’s World

From a game that nails the SNES aesthetic to this, a game which pays tribute to the Virtual Boy… but not really? I actually became aware of Yan’s World many years ago through a mutual Discord, and it always looked interesting, but simultaneously a little confusing, something that still mostly holds true to this day. Per the game’s own Kickstarter sales pitch, Yan’s World is “stylized as a lost title for Nintendo's Virtual Boy.” I can get down with that, but the game almost instantly breaks its own rule because Yan’s primary method of attack is to shoot a missile from his head that can only be aimed using the mouse. As such, Yan’s World doesn’t have controller support, even though one of the stretch goals currently listed on their Kickstarter page is to make a version that can be played on real Virtual Boy hardware. And, honestly, what’s the deal with this game’s whole… everything else? Why is this kid an onion? Why are the platforms made out of clocks? Why does all of Yan’s dialog make him seem like he’s sort of pissed off when he’s got such a big happy smile? There’s a bit of a hand-wave to suggest the entire game takes place inside of a dream, and for once that actually means throwing logic out the window, I guess. Oh, the missile is a pillow? Fine, whatever. Use it to blast this demonic apple, and then threaten to kill an innocent NPC. It’s a dream! Despite how little sense that makes, it… kind of works? The sprites are big and lovely, the game controls well, and the level design is plenty creative. I can’t fault the game for that, it’s just trying to figure out everything wrapped around the game that feels so bizarre.

  Cosmic Boll

I don’t know if I really understand what’s going on in Cosmic Boll, but I love to play it just the same. This plays like if Treasure made Dragon Ball Advance Adventure while strung out on cocaine. The end result is pure hyperactive chaos. There is a whole complicated combat system at play here, and a very lengthy in-depth tutorial when you first start the game, but you can figure out a lot of it by just skipping the tutorial and playing the game for real. You can get by pretty easily by just mashing buttons and seeing what happens, and that’s not a complaint, because a lot happens in this game. Like, constantly. It never stops, it never really slows down. You’re always zipping around, spinning and flipping and punching soldiers, explosions everywhere, collectibles everywhere, just utter madness. It’s Sonic the Hedgehog plus Devil May Cry plus Gunstar Heroes and all of it is mixed up in ways you probably don’t expect. All of this is to say that Cosmic Boll is messy and cool and fun and you should probably play it.

  Brock Crocodile

This is a game I’ve seen a lot of around social media, and it’s nice to finally be able to try it. Weirdly enough, this is the first game all SAGE that has flat out refused to see my controller. For the last few years at SAGE, I’ve been using a Playstation DualShock 4, which typically causes me all kinds of headaches with games expecting an Xbox controller. This year, I’ve been using an 8bitdo SN30+. These things are designed primarily to be used on the Switch, but using a controller macro, you can change it to Xbox or Playstation modes. The “Xbox” mode has served me well so far, but Brock here fails to let me use the controller at all. Fortunately, with only three buttons, Brock manages to be mostly playable on a keyboard. That being said, a lot of this game feels a little bit off. The camera is kind of swimmy, as it's almost constantly in motion trying to get a better angle on what's around you. Brock himself doesn't have a smooth acceleration curve either -- it's more like shifting gears in a car, where you reach one top speed and then click up into the next highest speed. That can work, but Brock changes gears much too quickly and without much feedback, making it look like one jerky acceleration curve instead of two. And then there’s the visuals. Level art looks great, character portraits look great, but I’ve never been the biggest fan of the sprites I’ve seen in this game. Take Brock himself, for example: he’s got insanely thick thighs for some reason but the rest of his body looks thin and wispy, and he stands with kind of weird posture. The good news is, despite these complaints, Brock Crocodile is actually really fun to play. You eventually get used to the game’s control quirks, and the level design and included boss fight are excellent, striking that perfect balance where they aren’t too easy but don’t feel unfairly difficult, either. Plus, even though the cutscenes aren’t skippable (annoying as I was dealing with controller issues), the writing is snappy and the dialog is funny. It may not be perfect, but there’s still a lot to like here.

  Marble Launcher

Here’s one of those games where you can tell the creator is just starting out making games. And that’s great! These sorts of endlessly complex, winding mazes are exactly the kind of levels I started making when I first got into game development when I was 16 or 17 years old. One could spend hours searching every nook and cranny in these levels, which is simultaneously awesome and exhausting. Thankfully, near as I can tell, nothing FORCES you to go exploring, so if you’d rather just finish the game, it’s easy enough to head straight for the goal. Gameplay is extremely simple, otherwise. You’re a marble, you can attack enemies by bouncing off of their heads, and you have a slam move. That’s it. You might think that with this being a marble game, you’d get real rolling ball physics, but all you get is simple platformer controls. They’re good enough, especially considering how esoteric the shape of the levels can get, but it’s hard not to be a little disappointed. Still, it’s not a bad little game for what it is. Controls a bit better than some of my earliest attempts at game development, too.

Thirty games total! That’s a lot of games to talk about. And there’s still more to come, so stay tuned for that.

[driftinglightofthewoods]

🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️

Send me a “🖊+an OC“ and I will talk about that OC! It can be a headcanon, a fun fact, a small paragraph of backstory- anything!Alternatively, send in just a “🖊“ and I will talk about any one of my OCs at random!

You sendin’ 20 pencils? you gettin’ 20 ocs. You asked for this.

1. Sileves

I love Sileves, I love her big generous heart and how eagerly she accepts friends of her children and her husband as honorary family members. I wish I could talk more about her job as a healer because she takes such immense pride in it and she is what I would want any nurse or doctor to be; so caring and patient and kind.

2. Methenor

Methenor is a soft boi hidden under layers of icy indifference, sarcasm and dry etiquette and I love it. He cares for his family so much ;-; And like I feel incredibly bad for him because no wonder he’s cold as ice when pretty much his entire family left him in Rivendell; His parents sailed, his older sister is who knows where, his younger brother ran for Lothlorien and now his only son left him too.

3. Malgelir

Chirpy social butterfly with a small bit of a “ME FIRST” complex towards her siblings. Malgelir always wanted to get married and have a child, and the fact that she did so before her siblings does make her prouder than she probably should be. Thankfully this isnt out of pure malicious intent because I don’t think she ever had an evil thought in her life.

She also cares so much about her hubby and her son ;-; i cry

4. Rhoscthel

Fun fact I aint got a single clue about what goes into fashion design and yet here Rhoscthel is being a tailor. Send help. Plz. I’m making this up as I go and I just hope nobody notices I’m bluffing my way through anything that takes half a glance at her skill as a tailor.

I also wish I knew how people Actually Flirt TM because Rhos is supposed to be a charming she-elf with bargaining powers that could almost rival Caranthir’s but idk anything about either flirting or haggling. The woes of an introvert trying to play a socially savvy extrovert TM

5. Amathel

With Amathel I’ve been contemplating switching her social status of engaged to married but Amathel kind of has concerns and worries about the act of getting married so idk how to really.. change her status? Like should I just change it or drabble it or..

Like it’s not that she doesnt want to be married to Lagoron, she loves him very dearly, but there’s certain expectations that comes with having a wedding especially as a highly valued member of the Rivendell guard.

Idk I kinda want to dive more into the complex nature of her always wanting to be on top and number one in her class despite the fact that she has a lot of… performance anxiety, I guess you could call it?

She doesnt like to be put on the spot or even necessarily in the spotlight even though she has an ambitious drive and is always looking to improve as a guard.

6. Innith

With Innith I’m kinda having the opposite problem I do with Rhoscthel. I don’t get to use her much because she’s a shy, introverted scholar who would really only want to interact with coworkers and patrons of the library in Rivendell; and unfortunately there’s not a lot of those muses around.

this is very much me asking you to throw Pan at her sometimes I think they could be fun together plz

I’m also a bit sad the one ship I had for her has long since sailed away. F/F ships are so hard to come by.

7. Nethel

You would think I have a similar problem with Nethel like I do with Innith but since Nethel is such a drastically different character I actually dont find it hard to find interactions for her lol. People seem to be rather drawn to her even though she’s brutally blunt. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Nethel is a lot like Feanor just minus the genius linguistic part. 

Plus while Nethel is cooped up in her workshop most of the time she does need to come out and tend to her biological needs like eating, bathing, sleeping, much to her dismay as she has little patience for small talk.

Aside from that I think most of the muns I toss her at are aware that she’s a deeply insecure person under all that brutal facade, and people generally seem to have a little more patience with a character like that? like idk, just something I noticed. 

8. Miston

Honestly without Miston this blog wouldnt exist and I wouldn’t be here to gush about all my characters, so needless to say Miston is incredibly important to me. I feel like he has grown as a character a lot since the beginning of this blog but that he has also remained true to the description I give him in his about section. He is still a character who doesn’t like sharing his feelings and rather deflect them, ignore them entirely or distract you with conversations about literally anything else.

Miston is very near and dear to my heart.

9. Eredhon

Baby. Precious soft child. Eredhon is such a sweetheart and it’s truly thanks to a lot of brainstorming with @legolasgoldy that he has been crawling out of his shell because for quite a while I myself didnt even know all that much about Eredhon.

He is a soft, gentle soul with a lot of deep running emotions and his social anxiety can definitely play cruel tricks on him, but with the right support system he blossoms into a very sweet and devoted friend who will always try to help you through any emotional problems. He’s also a lot more emotionally intelligent than I originally gave him credit for. He’s usually paired with social butterflies (see Malgelir) because he does get those type of characters to kind of.. relent the walls they build around themselves and let him see the emotional struggles they tend to ignore

He’ll also never apologises for feeling his emotions. He’ll apologize for snapping, for raising his voice, for letting his anxiety drive him up a wall and for anything that deserves an apology, but he won’t apologize for feeling sad or anxious or happy or in need of comfort.

10. Calithilon

I’ve been thinking about aging canon Cali up to at least a talkative elfling because honestly because he is so young in canon I haven’t really gotten a chance to use him all that effectively in the main storyline.

Most of Cali’s development comes from modern aus with @hclliish where he’s a teen, dating her Sleipnir (another precious child, just not one of mine lol)Cali takes after his mom in looks and unfortunately for him after his dad in personality, making him a rather shy and quiet person with a lot of insecurities. Being born to two singers makes him a natural singer as well, and his voice is higher in tone than that of his father.

Despite being an anxious teen (because when is puberty ever kind) he does find a lot of comfort in his parents unconditional love for him. They’re a very solid parents-child unit tbh.

11. Lagoron

Another character that I don’t get to use all that much, which is unfortunate because I find Lagoron an incredibly funny and interesting character. He’s a very un-elvish elf, in fact he’s more a hobbit in an elven disguise. While also being a guard, he is an entirely different type than Amathel; where Amathel yearns to be the best and the strongest, Lagoron is a team player who believes in the strength of numbers and strong bonds between guards to drag them through the most difficult situations; and that hasn’t exactly made him the top performer of the class. 

He is however truly the kind of person you want on your team, and in a fight he’s surprisingly endurant and likely to exhaust his opponent by focusing on dodging their power attacks rather than wasting his energy in fighting back.

Always has food on him and will offer it to anyone he feels like stricking up a friendly conversation with. 10/10 good friend.

12. Hinnoron

Hinnoron is definitely more of the tradtional elf. He’s radiant, and ethereal, and pleasant to be around. He also has a natural calmness about him and a certain kind of wisdom. Y’know, typical Tolkien Elf TM stuff.

Hinnoron gets interesting when you dive into his deeper relationships. His relationship with his eldest sister is on a very low pit, and the one he has with Methenor has definitely taken some blows. When Gelwenil left to follow the stars, Methenor got rather clingy towards Hinnoron, who felt suffocated in return.

Hinnoron left for Lothlorien, and to this day regrets that he abandoned Methenor when Methenor was clearly struggling with the departure of their parents and their sister. While they have mended their bond since, this kind of guilt does seem to creep into his relationships with Haldir ( @thehiddenhero ) and Oropher ( @oropherrrrr ) He often doesn’t tell them when things about the relationship upset him and bottles his emotions up to an unhealthy degree, all because he fears of upsetting their feelings or even damaging the image they have of him if he’s not the perfect, ethereal and unconditionally supportive partner. For someone who gives love so easily and unconditionally, he seems to have a hard time believing that the love he receives doesn’t come with the condition that he has to be a perfect lover or it’ll be revoked.

Someone plz teach him that he’s allowed to have needs and that he’s allowed to have those needs tended to.

13. Gelwenil

Ah yes. The lost one. Well no, not lost, she knows exactly where she’s going but nobody else does. Gelwenil honestly never meant to upset Methenor or Hinnoron when she left to follow the stars. Like Methenor was definitely struggling when his parents left for Valinor, but in retrospect Gelwenil left several years after that. Maybe not enough for him to have healed and moved on, but I don’t blame her for thinking that with his wife, children and their youngest brother Methenor would have enough of a support net to justify her wanting to explore the skies.

Gelwenil is an avid believer in the power of Varda, and also deeply respects Tilion and Arien. Any type of celestial Maia can be expected to be treated with the deepest respect from her.

Out of all my characters Gelwenil deserves the most TLC tbh I feel like she’s underdeveloped compared to everyone else because I dont use her a lot.

14. Faerveren

Uuuugh I miss Faerveren so much. Mistons second cousin twice removed, and probably the only person to ever leave him flabbergasted and when Miston is the voice of reason in a duo, you know somethings up.

Faerveren is also an interesting character because with her I wanted to present the idea of people assuming you’re always emotionally fine as long as you’re physically strong enough to be virtually invincible.

15. Nengelon

Local edition of the “I’m so fucking done with this shit I don’t get paid enough to deal with” club, together with Feren and Lindir. Nengelon tends to fall into an elven variety of Welsh when he runs upset with the leader of the Sabaid elves, and just about no one knows what he’s saying.

There’s also the implication that he basically ran away from the Riunnag (waterelves, maybe related to the Teleri through distant blood but sources (ie me) dont confirm that yet so its just rumors) tribe he belonged to because of his secret romantic ties to said leader, but Nengelon doesn’t speak of his romantic outings to anyone so it’s just a rumor.

16. Braigon

Ah, big, bulky, burly, 7 foot something Sabaid leader Braigon. Rides a grizzly bear as a warmount, wields a gigantic twohanded battle axe, and is an absolute terror on the battlefield… when he bothers to get his tribe of warrior travelers involved. Braigon tends to stroll around like he owns the place, because not many dare to defy this mountain of an elf.

Maybe thats why people are so bewildered when 5′9 sized Nengelon curses him out on his bullshit in some incomprehensible tongue they don’t know.

Braigon is actually a pretty solid leader of a tribe where elves can pretty much do as they please as long as they do their job as either warrior or provider (finding food and other supplies) outstandingly. The Sabaids aren’t a big tribe, there’s only a couple hundred of them, but they make for fantastic allies… but only if you can manage to convince Braigon to risk any of his people in any given war; and he usually isn’t concerned with fighting the battles of others for them without a good reason. 

 17. Bereneth

Bereneth is an interesting case. An accident between a Sinda lady and a Noldo refugee, at a time when those relationships weren’t exactly accepted after the reign of destruction left by the line of Finwe. (I like to believe thats something that took a generation or two for elves to get over dont @ me.)

Because of this, Bereneth was relentlessly bullied to the point where as soon as the oppertunity rose, her mother left for then newly settled Rivendell. Being under the rule of Elrond, she figured her daughter would be safe there. Bereneth remained there and bore three children to Carandolon and sailed to Valinor when their daughter in law was pregnant with her first child

18. Carandolon

Chieftain of a squadron while Greenwood was under the rule of Oropher, Carandolon was a bright eyed and wanderlust filled soul, born to two fullblooded Silvan elves. When on a mission to Rivendell, where he had to accompany a diplomat, he saw Bereneth and for him it was love at first sight.

When the mission was over and he returned to Greenwood, he immediately requested to be dismissed from his chieftain status and to be allowed to move and live to Rivendell.

A reckless and bold move, and it did take him a while to woo Bereneth, but they ultimately fell in love, got married, and had three children. He sailed with his wife when their daughter in law was pregnant with her first child

19. Nemiron

The missing link that connects Miston to the line of Finwe. Nemiron is the bastard son of Írimë and an unknown father of Vanyarin descent. Nemiron lost complete vision in his right eye when the healer tent he worked at got raided by the enemy in that war; and he threw himself as a shield between the blade and the wounded soldier it was aiming for.

During the war, he was usually found in the company of either Finrod or Edrahil, as he needed help to adjust to his new lack of depth perception. Sometimes during that same war, he left to settle in Lothlorien, where he met the weaver apprentice Dillothés. They married and moved to Rivendell as a position for an experienced healer was open there, and they had their family there.

Nemiron remained in Rivendell, despite yearning to sail, for the sake of his only daughter, and he ultimately sailed for Valinor when she was pregnant with her third child.

I havent decided if the power of Valinor heals Nemiron’s injury, but if it does (and I doubt it), it would do so only partially. His right eye will never be 100% functional.

20. Dillothés

The third and last born daughter of her parents, Dillothés worked as a weaver’s apprentice in Lothlorien before moving up to becoming a weaver of her own, selling her selfmade fabrics to tailors and others interested and making a comfortable living out of it

She became infatuated with Nemiron, who was often found in the library studying Lothlorien native herbs to aid in his small healer practice. After she learned of his injury she never backed away from him once, and helps and supports him to the best of her ability. This remains the case when they went to Valinor and whether or not he partially heals from his injury

[taww]

Review: Furutech e-TP80 Passive Power Distributor by MGD

Furutech e-TP80 Passive Power Distributor

The Audiophile Weekend Warrior (TAWW)

TAWW Rating: 4.5 / 5

A no-compromise power strip to take your system the final mile to greatness.

PROS: Top-to-bottom purity, detail and dynamics; no discernible sins of omission or commission; superb build quality.

CONS: Won't help a mediocre system or transform bad power; look elsewhere if you want fancy features like switching or power factor correction.

It started back in the middle 80s, or so. That’s when I remember the initial stirrings about how changes to AC related components could improve the sound of a stereo system. I recall reading about power cords in Stereophile magazine for the first time. How odd that something, a mere conductor of electricity, could impact the music coming out of speakers. After all, the tiny voltages carrying the musical signal are greatly isolated from the raw energy coming out of a wall. Large transformers, and filter caps measuring many thousands of µF were there for a reason. Their job, or so I thought, was to take power generated many miles away in a plant burning coal, or plutonium or something, and turn it into my music. And between my house and the power plant there were, and still are, literally, tons of cable suspended from towering utility poles traversing pastures, forests and interstate highways. Next to the street I’m on, there is a wooden pole with a rather large transformer affixed to its top. Wires go in and wires come out; several of those wires go to my house – they power my stereo.

The trek of electrons starting so many miles away ends at my wall. Of course, those electrons also power the microwave, refrigerator, clocks, lightbulbs and any number of things populating a modern home. It’s something I take for granted until for some reason the power goes out. It’s only then that I think of ways to punish the power company for my inconvenience. Otherwise, one electron is as good as another for making sure my clock radio comes on as directed every morning. It’s a 60 Hz sine wave after all, what’s the big deal. Where I live, the voltage hovers around 122 volts with amperage sufficient to fry your eyeballs if you touch it with impunity. And while the voltage is a little high, it’s not enough to cause reliability problems or overcooked appliances. How then, could my stereo be materially and substantially changed sonically by 6 feet of cable and what amounts to a power strip? I don’t really know the answer to my self-imposed question. But I do know, and I don’t care what the uninformed, and delusional naysayers say, I can make a sound system suck or sing with the right combination of power cords and AC line conditioning. Yes, the last six feet does make a difference.

Ironically, the first power cord review I recall reading in Stereophile was negative. The writer heard a difference with the insertion of the cord, but he didn’t like it. I remember, when reading his many complaints, that the entire concept of an aftermarket power cord perplexed him. How could a cord plugged into a preamplifier make any difference good or bad? In retrospect, I’ll bet that the reviewer got a cord wired with the polarity reversed. Otherwise, it should have sounded better with something. During the over twenty years that I spent listening to power cords for Bound for Sound, only once did I come across a cord that sounded bad at everything and with every component I tried it with. I won’t name the manufacturer, he’s gone, the market took care of him, but over the years I’ve auditioned over 200 different cords, and reviewed a goodly number of those, and if I’ve learned anything it’s – never think you’ve got it all figured out… because, you don’t.

THE HARDWARE

I could cover these components together, but I choose not to. Elite Audio/Video sent me two power cords and an e-TP80 Power Distributor ($1,995), all from Furutech – I like them a lot. For some, the e-TP80 is nothing more than a glorified, and expensive, power strip. Thinking that would be a mistake. The version sent to me is filled with some nice distributor-added options such as the special production AC outlets, all eight of them. These AC outlets (GTX-NCF) are anything but ordinary. The inner workings are Rhodium over pure copper. The Rhodium is super polished for an ultra-smooth contact area for hooking up with high-end AC plugs. Stainless steel springs are used to maintain pressure at the contact points. The iec connector has pure copper tongs. The Furutech even has negative ions inside! It’s a granular material called 3M CG303. I looked up what an ion is and discovered that it’s an atom that has either gained or lost an electron. If it has lost an electron, it’s a positive ion. If the atom has gained an electron, it is a negative ion. The Director has a bunch of negative ions inside it, or so Furutech says. I don’t know where they came up with the extra electrons, and I don’t know how negative ions are good for a sound system. All I know, is that from the overall performance of this device, negative ions are a good thing. The chassis is extremely well made, and to the hand, it feels like it weighs more than it should. It has the feel of something intended to be elite.

Wiring inside of the e-TP80 is solid core Furutech. What I’ve described for you are the extras added goodies which set this Elite (Scot) modified e-TP80 above the standard Furutech Power Distributor which runs a sweet $799.00. I trust that the standard Furutech Distributor is a great product and excellent value. In my opinion, however, the Elite modified unit is in a class all of its own.

When compared to the price fetched by some things audiophile, the price of the Director at $1,995.00 isn’t that bad. More than mad money, it’s still within range for the serious music lover, plus the eight additional outlets where you need them is priceless. Nothing worse than having a single outlet with two plugs out of reach of even your longest power cords. There are power strip options, everything from cheap plastic strips for sale at Walmart to slightly upscale versions of the same sold at Menards and Lowe’s. EBay has lots of nice looking strips one can basically order direct from China… nice looking pieces that hide their internal workings and offer no domestic support in case of problems. I can assure you that everything coming from Furutech is quality made and that Elite backs it up 100%.

[Editor note: Also beware counterfeits! Apparently there are fake Furutech (and Cardas, and Nordost, etc. etc.) parts being peddled that look all but identical to the real thing. Always buy from a trusted authorized source - if it seems too good to be true, it is. -MIY]

The Power Director has an IEC connector for use with a quality power cord. On top of the Distributor are four duplex electrical outlets. To the left are the outlets for low draw items such as preamps, DACs and the like. The DAC outlets have a simple, but effective, RFI/EMI circuit. To the right are outlets for heavier draw components such as televisions, power amps and subwoofers. Eight outlets in all. It’s not terribly important regarding what outlets you plug things into, but, I wouldn’t plug a large power amp into the DAC outlet, but that’s about it. The finishing touch is unit demagnetization and deep cryo freezing.

A POWER CORD

As I indicated earlier, I’m not going to cover the power cord section of this evaluation in the here and now. There are good reasons for that. What I can say is that the Furutech power cords sent to me are superb – perfect complements to the Power Distributor. The dynamic range they impart to a system is outstanding – NO compression whatsoever (they will pin your ears back). Persons with knowledge of various AC power conditioning and filtering techniques know that the price to be paid for a sense of tonal purity and imaging is oftentimes dynamic compression or a “softening” of edges. The natural expansion of dynamics with the Distributor and the Furutech power cords is as good as I’ve heard. I can discern no lessening, softening or compression of dynamics, contours or edges. And so as not to give the readers of TAWW the old soft shoe shuffle, I’ll be specific: I am very familiar with the LessLoss Firewall, PS Audio AC regenerators, various isolation transformers, battery powered AC such as the old Mark Brassfield, Tripplite, Audience (early model) and a friend’s Furman – and I like the Furutech the best. The Furutech Power Distributor is my “go to” device when determining what clean AC should sound like. But this is not a review of the Furutech power cords, as I have a conflict of interest regarding power cords: I make my own. It would not be fair to Furutech or myself (especially myself) to evaluate the Furutech power cords when I most certainly am biased in my assessment of power cords. For that reason, as much as I really like the Furutech power cords (and am not ashamed to say so), MIY will be reviewing them. He can say whatever he wants.

BACK TO THE POWER DIRECTOR

Now, that the cat is out of the bag, allow me to tell you what the Furutech AC Distributor does, and doesn’t do, so that you can make a determination if an audition is in order. The finest AC treatment architectures do some things very well. Almost all of the finer units have some very positive strengths. And in almost all AC units, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. Otherwise there would be no reason to purchase any of them. However, I have yet to hear a single conventional AC treatment unit that didn’t have some form of negative associated with its performance. I hear no negatives with use of the Furutech Power Distributor. Among all of the positives heard with the PS Audio AC regenerators, after a while a heaviness, some call it a darkness, sets in that I wasn’t crazy about. Upon extended use I observed the Firewall to be softening transient information ever so much. In other ways it is exemplary. The Monarchy isolation transformer is a superb device, and I still use one. But use it long enough and one notices a subtle compression of extreme dynamics and a small curtailment of the extreme bass. All livable things made obvious after using the Furutech Power Distributor.

I am hesitant to say, but will anyway, that the greatest strength of the Director is that it does nothing negative to the sound, the absolute glory of the music shines forth. Listening notes confirm it, the Director strips away electronic artifacts by the boatload. The music is laid bare to observation, negative artifacts which ordinarily adorn the music in sometimes subtle ways are eliminated. Bass previously scrubbed away is realistically restored to a clean replica of that recorded. Dynamic contrasts, along with ambient details are again, laid bare. The “air” and natural space around performers is not exaggerated, still, if anything, it’s more recognizable than ever. This is the kind of product that refuses to impart enormous changes upon a sound system that is otherwise in need of a major overhaul, it doesn’t do huge things. Instead it does those small things that are not available elsewhere. Instead, it acts as a finisher. It’s where you go when you think your system is finished and its performance is already the envy of your friends, audiophile and non-audiophile, alike. It will not transform something mediocre into something wonderful. If it’s a miracle you need, then I’d go PS Audio or LessLoss. The Furutech is more of a “closer” than it is a middle relief man.

CONCLUSION

The basic Power Distributor can be purchased for less than $1,995.00. But the lower priced Distributors do not have the Rhodium over copper duplex outlets (all highly polished and so perfectly fitted for your AC plugs), along with a few other refinements that seem to further heighten performance. The top-of-the-line Furutech is a high-end performer that makes no compromises in terms of parts quality and construction. It’s what you give to the audiophile that has everything.

[woohooligancomics]

A Personal Racism Issue. Can I Get Your Advice?

I'm at a bit of a loss... so I'm hoping some of you hooligans might be able to help me out. This weekend I'm tabling a gaming convention with a friend of mine (and I'll leave his name out here for reasons that will be apparent -- I'll call him X). Admittedly, I'm a comedian and a cartoonist, so a gaming convention is slightly off-brand, but I'm hoping there will be a good cross-section of people who also enjoy comedy, and at the end of Friday I've already collected 5 new subscribers to our newsletter, the Woohooligan Weekly Dick Joke Advocate.

This came about when I got an unexpected call from X about a month before the event and he mentioned in passing that he'd already booked a table for this event. I offered to share the booth with him, because I want to attend more cons and I thought I could handle the 5hr drive. I've tabled about a half-dozen cons so far, this would be his first. And although he's a relatively new friend (a year?), I didn't have the impression he was racist -- at least not overtly or knowingly so... I wouldn't associate myself with anyone who identified as "Alt-Right", I think that should be apparent from my work, of which X is aware. Dunking on these racists was part of all three of my most recent YouTube videos, and a comic I published in 2016 which appears in my recent Woohooligan Vol 2 (page 29) that I now have on the table at the event thanks to our recent Kickstarter.

What I didn't realize until I arrived at the event, is that X is selling t-shirts labelled "Fantasy Lives Matter". There are about a dozen of them, roughly half of his t-shirt designs, so for example a picture of an orc with the text "Orc Lives Matter", another for Elf, Dwarf, etc. I hoped at first that it would go unnoticed as people often don't read the text and just check out the artwork. I've already noticed one girl at the table this morning was put off. She asked me, "are you a Black Lives Matter person or an all lives matter person"? To which I responded "black lives matter... I haven't had that specific conversation with X, though I suspect he's the same"...

Apparently I was wrong, which, I realize in retrospect is what I should have expected, because I think the majority of people would have picked up on the poor taste of trivializing serious problems faced by real people. I want to say I think most people would have picked up on that faster than I did actually, since I think I'd seen these graphics before (I mean, months ago), and it just hadn't clicked in my mind, despite all the work I've done.

I tried to have a brief conversation with X about it, which went nowhere good...

Me: Hey, X. This girl just left, put off by the FLM designs... she asked if I was BLM or ALM.

X: [rolls eyes] Yeah that was my dad's big problem too, thinking people would be offended, and if they are, fuck 'em. I'm saying "all lives matter", even fictional ones.

(That last sentence is a huge problem for me, for reasons I think should be obvious.)

Me: "All lives matter" is intended to shut down people trying to address serious problems.

X: People don't know how to address problems... and to be honest, some of those people running in with the police deserve what they're getting.

(We're way into not-okay territory here and I've invested a huge amount of time and a notable amount of money in this event, and knowing now that X apparently has difficulty staying awake while driving on the freeway, I'm also concerned about his safety if I decided to just leave suddenly... but at this moment I'm not ready to get into what seems like is likely to devolve into a screaming match in front of everyone at the con.)

Me: the BLM movement only exists because there's a huge amount of injustice built into the system. When everything else is held equal, a black person on average receives 2-3 times more jail time than a white person, and that should never happen.

(I don't have reference for that specific figure on-hand -- please check my work and leave a link if you have one, whether I remembered it correctly or not. Thank you.)

X: [basically murmurred agreement]

I don't want to make any excuses for his diminishing of real-world problems, I think it's bad... I'm conflicted about how to address this problem for myself... I plan to publish photos of myself at the con, and the signs for those designs will be in the background... do I black them out? If I do that, am I enabling him?

I don't *think* he realizes what the problem is... I don't *think* he's deliberately racist. On the way back to the house from the convention he offered to buy me dinner at a shawarma place (I'd never had it -- it was good -- it actually reminded me of some southern cafeterias, although the seasoning and the decoration were a little different.)

The waitresses wore hijabs and he was familiar them (had been there many times), and treated them nice enough... though I will say that some of the things he says seem fairly insensitive in a general sense. For example, he makes a lot of objectifying comments about women, including for example, one of the shawarma waitresses, "[damn she's hot]... and great tits". (Of course, he's only seen her breasts 100% covered -- not even cleavage -- so it's a little odd to me to hear someone be so overtly objectifying of someone who's entire outward image is one of "I am not here for you to ogle".) And the whole day at the con was similar -- frequent mentions of "she's smokin' hot" or "that red head" or "I've never wanted to give wood to an elf so bad", which I tried not to encourage. (I like porn too, but my interest in potential partners isn't based on their looks.)

These are things I hadn't noticed in previous phone or online conversations. So I'm a bit conflicted... He's open enough to be friendly with the shawarma waitresses... but he's also interested in them to the point of sexual interest in women who're being very careful to be NOT sexy. So how confrontational should I be about "fantasy lives matter"?

I don't plan to share a table with him again if he's going to continue promoting them... I would hope he would eventually figure out that the phrase is likely to reduce his sales, even when a person might agree with his sentiment, because they don't want to buy a shirt that's going to get them into verbal fisticuffs with people. But this being his first event, and saying that he's already plunked down $1400 into it, it seems to me unlikely that he'll learn that soon. Though in honesty, it always feels like cold comfort to me when someone is doing the right thing only because they realize some kind of financial reward for it.

So should just not sharing tables in the future be where I leave it? Is it okay to accept that, "he's not a deliberate racist, just kind of an insensitive jerk" and just limit my involvement? As an autistic person who knows what it's like to be ostracized for being unintentionally insensitive, am I being too harsh if I say I feel like this is too much? Does that make me a hypocrite? And what about the fact that there are now photos of me in the act of affiliating myself with the creator who promoted "fantasy lives matter"?

Regardless of how it may impact my image, I'm trying to figure out what course of action will produce the best results for everyone -- that hopefully anyone who can become a better person will, regardless of how it impacts my image. Obviously I always have to think about my image, we all do, but that's a secondary concern. I feel like I should be willing to sacrifice my image if the alternative is being hypocritical, cruel, or even just unwilling to evolve or better myself.

Thanks for reading and helping me with this. I appreciate any advice you have.

- Sam

(Now I need to get about 6 hours sleep, because I spent too long composing this blog and have to be up early for the event tomorrow. Thank god my diabetes didn't trash my energy today, and fingers crossed I have the same luck tomorrow.)

UPDATE 9/17/2018

Maybe I should have waited until the end of the event before writing this blog, but the subject distresses me and I wanted to talk about it sooner than later. At the end of Friday, neither X or I had sold anything at the event. Saturday morning, X printed off about 4 shirts as samples to lay on the front of the table (good marketing), to show people that, "hey these pictures on the poster in the back go on t-shirts". It worked and over Saturday and Sunday, he sold at least a half-dozen shirts, most of them "Fantasy Lives Matter" shirts. So while there are some people who are offended by them, there are apparently also a large number of people excited by them (I think exclusively white people that I saw, although most of the attendees looked pretty white to me as well). ::sigh::

Over the course of the event, 27 new people signed up for our Woohooligan Weekly Dick Joke Advocate mailing list. I know many of those people were either indifferent to the FLM shirts or some may have even been excited by them... but I have no idea how many people may have simply avoided conversation with me all-together because of them.

I still have no plans to share another table with X. It's weird to me, because he's really sensitive about other things, like he kept profusely apologizing for falling asleep in the car because he apparently suffers from pretty bad road hypnosis. He's made the hour drive before, but I was concerned about him making the drive after a full day manning the table at the con. Meanwhile I also discovered he's got a huge chip on his shoulder about (of all things) shaking hands.

X: I hate it. I don't like people touching me.

Me: You know people are about 30% more likely to buy from you right?

X: You may be right, but I don't care. It was originally a symbol of distrust. Do you know where it came from?

Me: Yeah, it was originally a way of showing that you weren't armed, but it's evolved into a symbol of trust.

X: It's evolbed into a bullshit thing we do for no goddamn reason!

So to recap: shaking hands is tragic evidence of the decline of civilization, while Black Lives Matter is deluded and don't know how to address problems, and "many of them deserve what they're getting anyway".

I just can't fathom how a person can have that set of priorities when they go out of their way to eat shawarma and so forth and don't appear to be outwardly racist in any other way that I can tell.

His FLM shirts outsold mine by a wide margin, and frankly I don't care... or rather, I find it disheartening... and I'm not about to deliberately associate my work with it in the future. All people need justice, and if you think it through, you should realize that "all lives matter" is the actual meaning of "black lives matter". Saying "all lives matter" as a response is like saying of the condition of slaves, "slave owners have problems, too!" It takes air away from the importance of addressing a great deal of injustice in our country and I don't want to contribute to trivializing that in any way. Even if I stood to gain financially from it, I wouldn't do it.

I'm still not sure what else to do, beyond just not sharing con tables with him again, and would still appreciate hearing any thoughts you have on it. Thanks.

- Sam

[seedfinance]

Illinois Regulator Issues Proposed Predatory Loan Prevention Act Regulations; Lawsuits Filed To Block Implementation Of Act’s Database Reporting Requirement And For Declaration Act Does Not Apply To Pawn Transactions – Consumer Protection

United States:

Illinois Regulators Publish Proposed Predatory Loan Prevention Act ordinances; Lawsuits filed to block the implementation of the database reporting requirement of the law and the Declarations Act does not apply to pledge transactions

June 21, 2021

Ballard Spahr LLP

To print this article, all you need to do is register or log in to Mondaq.com.

In March 2021, Illinois Governor Pritzker signed Act SB 1792, which contains the Predatory Loan Prevention Act (the “Act”). The new law went into effect immediately upon signature, regardless of the power it gives the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (“IDFPR”) to make rules “in accordance with” [the] Plot.”

The act extends the 36% “all-in” funding limit of the Federal Military Loans Act (MLA) of the Federal Military Loans Act (MAPR) to “any individual or legal entity offering or making a loan to an Illinois consumer,” unless a loan was granted by a legally exempt agency. The law provides that any loan that exceeds a MAPR of 36% will be considered null and void and no company will have the right to capital, fees, interest or charges related to the loan. ”Any violation of the law will punished with a fine of up to US $ 10,000.

Proposed regulations. The IDFPR has proposed rules to implement the law. In addition to the section on definitions (section 215.10), the proposal includes a section on loan terms (section 215.20). The credit terms discussed in Section 215.20 include:

Calculation of the APR for purposes of the law (i.e. which fees must be included in the APR)

Bona fide fees charged on credit card accounts that may be excluded from APR, including standards for assessing whether a bona fide fee is appropriate, an adequate safe haven for the bona fide fee, and references the appropriateness of the entry fees

The impact of funding fees on bona fide fees

In addition to these proposed law enforcement ordinances, the IDFPR has simultaneously proposed changes to the Illinois Consumer Installment Loans Act and the Payday Loan Reform Act. These changes propose extending the material and disclosure restrictions previously targeted at high APR payday and auto title loan programs to loans with a MAPR of 36% or less without change. For example, a premium credit secured by a consumer vehicle with a MAPR of 1% would be subject to a $ 4,000 capital limit, refinancing and gross monthly income limits, check and various leaflets and disclosure requirements that apply to a loan with a MAPRs of 36% or less make little sense.

Lawsuit to block the database reporting requirement of the law. Before the law went into effect, only lenders granting certain more expensive loans at an annual interest rate of over 36% were required to report credit information to a government database maintained by Veritec. The law amended the Illinois Consumer Installment Loans Act (“CILA”) to require all licensed lenders, regardless of the interest rate charged, to pay Veritec fees on each loan and to report information about the loan to the database. With the law going into effect immediately and Veritec’s onboarding typically taking several months, Illinois lenders were initially faced with the challenge of either breaking the amended law or stopping all lending operations. To address this dilemma, the IDFPR issued a notice in April 2021 stating that it would “not take any adverse regulatory or enforcement action for reporting violations until further notice” under applicable Illinois law.

The American Financial Services Association and the Illinois Financial Services Association have filed a lawsuit against the IDFPR to prohibit the implementation of the reporting requirement of the law retrospectively March 23, 2021 and to require a statement that the requirement is unconstitutional and non-compliant. In its complaint, IFSA alleges that despite the impossibility of complying with civil law procedures, licensed lenders may be subject to the CILA and that implementation of the law exposes consumer finance lenders to significant risk of loss.

The action to explain the law does not extend to pawn shops. Two trading groups and two pawnbroking companies have filed a lawsuit against the IDFPR to explain that the law does not apply to pawn shops unless and until the IDFPR passes its regulations to implement the Illinois Pawnbroker Regulation Act (“PRA”) amends or cancels. which are incompatible with the law. The PRA requires pawnbrokers to be licensed by the IDFPR to lawfully operate in Illinois and sets out the permitted terms and funding fees for pawn shops.

In April 2021, the IDFPR published a series of FAQs on the law, listing “pawn loans” as an example of loans that fall under the law. In their complaint https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/consumer-law/1080620/illinois-regulator-issues-proposed-predatory-loan-prevention-act-regulations-lawsuits-filed-to-block-implementation-of-act39s-database-reporting-requirement-and-for-declaration-act-does-not-apply-to-pawn-transactions, plaintiffs allege that the law does not change the PRA or contain any reference to pawn shops. They also claim that the law’s legislative history suggests that the law was never intended to affect the pawnbroker industry. According to plaintiffs, the IDFPR has not provided the pawnbroking industry with guidance on key issues such as how the law and the PRA interact and what, if anything, should be changed from a compliance perspective regarding the conduct of pawn shops.

Plaintiffs allege that as a result of their FAQs, “the IDFPR not only raised a myriad of questions about how the pawnbroker industry in Illinois worked, but it did so while setting a goal on the back of the industry and” opening up for consumer litigation. “Plaintiffs also claim that if the 36% APR limit were to apply to pawn shops,” it would have a devastating impact on the industry and likely result in the closure of most, if not all, Illinois pawn shops because the deposit segment is the company’s main source of income. “

The content of this article is intended to provide general guidance on the subject. You should seek expert advice regarding your specific circumstances.

POPULAR ARTICLES ON: United States Consumer Protection

AI & Algorithms (Part 4): The FTC’s Guidelines on AI

Hogan Lovells

Although the U.S. doesn’t have federal law that specifically regulates artificial intelligence (AI), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has hinted that it may be preparing to exercise its consumer protection powers over the use of AI.

source https://seedfinance.net/2021/06/21/illinois-regulator-issues-proposed-predatory-loan-prevention-act-regulations-lawsuits-filed-to-block-implementation-of-acts-database-reporting-requirement-and-for-declaration-act-does-not-apply-to-p/

[sunderlorn]

Got tagged in this big long Describe Yr OC Meme by @chameleonspell because they love to make me suffer as they have suffered, toil as they have toiled. I am more merciful, which is why I am tagging no-one. (Also cos chameleonspell tagged most of everyone I’d’ve tagged anyway.)

GENERAL

Name: Simra Hishkari. Alias(es): Sim. Harmless. Flintfingers. “Hey, greyling…” Lonya, to his mum, but not for a while thank fuck. Gender: Cis male. Age: That depends where you’re reading, doesn’t it? Uhhh. He’s 11 in chapter one of part one, poking his nose around Senvalis’ shop and bothering the poor mer for paper. And now in part three, he’s recently endured his twenty-fourth birthday. Place of birth: Chiming Row, The Rigs, The Grey Quarter of Windhelm, Eastmarch, Skyrim. Spoken languages: Native Level Grey Quarter Dunmeri Patois. Fluent Marchspeak. A flexible range of Tamrielics, from the sort of versatile trade-tonguey Imperial Tamrielic you’ll hear at the docks of any major city, to something like the closest thing Skyrim has to a unifying language: an archaic version of Tamrielic with enough in common with all Skyrim’s dialects that it’s at least mutually intelligible for most people. Fluent House Dunmeris, with a few dialectic oddities picked up and understood. Relatively fluent Velothis. Some Riftspeak. Can curse a bit in Jel. Sexual orientation: Insert a withering stare and a question as to why it’s your fucking business. Practically speaking, bisexual. As in, he’s been attracted to men, women, and in the words of the warrior-poet Fred Durst, people who just don’t give a fuck. He doesn’t really have the terminology to parse that out in his own words though. Probably thinks of sexuality more in terms of activity than identity. Occupation: Murderhobo. Uhhh. I mean…freelancer. Currently, anyway. That is to say, sellsword, bounty-hunter, scavenger. Formerly? Semi-pro urchin. Carrier of heavy things on the Windhelm docks. Soldier-of-fortune. Prayer-scriv. Storyteller and sort-of-kind-of-sheriff at one point. Basically like a literal  accountant at another point too. Moral support to more qualified goatherds. Fireman — like, literally, a man who makes fires happen. Quartermaster’s assistant. Caravan guard. Itinerant herder and spokesperson of certain itinerant wisewomen. Bootleg performer of certain Temple rites and duties.

(This is long, so more under the cut.)

APPEARANCE

Eye colour: A reddish shade of amber or an ambery shade of red. Hair colour: Cinder-white. Height: About 5’10” (178 cm or s0). Scars: Oh god I literally have a fucking like reference sheet to keep track of all these. His Velothi harrowmarks: a hornlike curl out from the corner of his left eye, and a tapering line underscored for half its length with a series of dots, curving from the right edge of his mouth up towards his ear. A deep stiff scar through the left side of his lips, diagonal, from near his nostril to the beginning of his chin. A shallow horizontal scar across the side of his throat. A ragged starburst of scar tissue, in the muscle between neck and shoulder, just above his right collarbone and again at the back of his neck, from taking an arrow and having it pushed out. A flat diagonal stab-wound, on the left side of his ribs. A torn right earlobe. A straight raised scar up the back of his ribcage, on the left. A series of silver lines on the outermost three fingers of his right hand, where the joints meet the knuckles, and lightning-scar-looking traces following from those fingers over the front and back of his hand. And a plethora of tiny nicks and burns, mostly concentrated on his forearms and hands. Does a twice-broken nose count? Overweight: Nope. Underweight: At several points in his life, yeah.

FAVOURITE

Colour: Sea colours and shades of bronze. In clothes? Leather tones, slate greys, off-whites, neutral gloomy blues, details and decals in reds, silvers, copper, brass. Doesn’t tend to wear pure blacks or whites, or any particularly saturated colour — they spoil too easy. Hair colour: Statistics suggest red, though he’d be quick to insist it’s just coincidence, not, like, a fucking Thing or anything. Eye colour: Not red. Light-coloured eyes are weird and novel. Music genre: Weirdly he doesn’t enjoy music with lyrics all that much. (In canon, anyway — he’d feel differently in a modern AU or whatever.) Finds it distracting. They can be interesting, of course, but it’s not something that makes him happy hearing it. He likes stringed instruments with an emphasis on drones or echoes and silence. Things like the Tamrielic equivalent of qanun, koto, morin khuur, etc. Side note, but in modern AUs he’s definitely the sort of person who’s physically incapable of doing anything as mundane as laundry or tidying without putting a podcast on first. Movie genre: This is AU stuff, but yeah, he might talk a big game about being into Deep Penetrating Drama and so on, but he’d most often find himself watching the feature length equivalent of all you can eat hi-octane junk food buffets. Fighty action movies, particularly with an emphasis on melee combat. Finds revenge narratives particularly rewarding. Only genres he really considers himself a buff on though are samurai cinema and westerns. He’ll yammer at length about Anti-Westerns too if you get him started. (Don’t.) TV show: Hates the idea of having to watch anything live at a particular time. Fuck letting something as petty as TV schedule and section his life. Will gladly on-demand binge on historical drama, gritty travel documentaries, and twisty-turny political and intriguey thrillers. Doesn’t like cooking shows. Doesn’t want personality with his foodporn. He’d rather wait for the book to come out. Food: The Platonic ideal of Simra food is basically like soft starchy silky carbs with something sharp and heavily spiced on top. Rice porridge and preshta-jan, maybe with a raw egg stirred in while it’s hot. Fresh soft panbreads used to mop up redspiced mutton. Meat still feels like too much of a luxury to have often though, and he has a lot of feelings about vegetables. Pickled carrots, cucumbers, turnips, greens, green tomatoes, soft or crisp, spiced or just salty. Yams roasted in embers, smashed open, drizzled with spiced honey. Dried fruit is a particular pleasure as well, with a special place in his heart for persimmons and figs. Drink: Black tea of any sort – Nordic pine-smoked, Dunmeri fermented, light or dark, toasted or not – taken with sugar or honey. Alcohol of any sort felt like a luxury to be taken whenever luck offers it, back when he was a little younger. He’s got preferences these days, though whether he sticks to them is debatable and down to circumstance. He likes red and dark beers, biscuity flavours in the former, bittersweet in the latter. Hasn’t had either in a good few years though, and mazte compares oddly, to him — too starchy and sour. He once drank some Colovian grape brandy before he realised it was expensive enough that he really should have just sold it, and liked that well enough. He’s had actual grape wine once or twice and liked the idea of being the sort of person who liked it. He doesn’t especially like sujamma except in some freak cases – almondy and subtle vanilla-y wood flavours in that one bottle that one time – but he’ll drink it anyway because at least of all the quietly awful things Morrowind might offer you to drink, you have to drink less of it to know you’ve drunk it. He can’t remember if he liked mezga better or whether he was just less fussy back then. Book: Ideally he would have a larger foundation for reference than he does, but he doesn’t. Still, his basis for comparison has grown a little since he first learnt to read and first got covetous of books, so he does at least have some preferences. He’ll still hoard up and devour literally any book he can, good or bad, because books are expensive and serious business – even the cheap ones – but there are some where he’ll fall into impressed absorbed silence and others where he’ll complain the entire time. He has a thing for treatises on use of one sort of blade or another, not because he really enjoys reading them, or really because they’re very useful. Mostly they’re awfully written and opaque to the point of being very unhelpful. But that puts a sense of the arcane around them, doesn’t it? If something’s hard to read, it must be hiding something worth knowing. Simra reads, trawls, lives in hope that one day that assumption will prove right, but really the issue is that if you never check you’ll never know. Back in Suran he read a lot of pre-Red Year devotional poetry from back during the time of the Tribunal. That and poetry the old Temple couldn’t or didn’t censor and so decided was devotional even if it wasn’t. A lot of that was just wankery – tongue twisters for the brain, either thematically or in terms of its showy prosody – but you’d occasionally get the odd scrap of lyric that was just effortlessly well-turned. There was a third era Dunmeri poetess called Anthiss for instance, the printing of whose work the Temple officially banned which only stoked its popularity. It was only after she died – mysteriously, it’s worth noting – that the Temple lifted the ban and claimed all her work had been religious allegory all along, revealing a conflicted but truly faithful sole. Simra’s pretty sure that, no, she was just writing about her girlfriend the entire god damn time. Between that and tracts on philosophy, interpretation of scripture, hagiography…he enjoyed reading it all but in retrospect couldn’t say he liked all of it. At the heart of what he really enjoys unreservedly in books is escapism. Travel narratives – little holidays for the brain – they’re what put a glint in his eyes and a lightness in his heart without really having to try much.

HAVE THEY

Passed university: Nope, nor has he had any formal education of any kind, yet. Given my headcanons about the state of the Mage’s Guild, for instance, in the 4th Era, and other Imperial institutes of higher learning there aren’t quite as many opportunities for that sort of thing as there used to be. Not in the parts of the world Simra’s kept to so far, anyway. Had sex: Currently, not in a while.   Had sex in public: Define public… The tonghouse of the Dyer’s End Few wasn’t a premises as rich in privacy as it could’ve been, but I’m inclined to say no. Gotten pregnant: Please no. Kissed a boy: Yes. Kissed a girl: Yes. Gotten tattoos: Do scarifications count? If so, yes, facial ones. Gotten piercings: Six in his left ear. Mer have more cartilage than humans. One through the lobe of his right ear too, but that doesn’t really count as a piercing anymore — just a tear. Had a broken heart: Don’t ask. Been in love: Something like that. Stayed up for more than 24 hours: Here’s where he laughs in your face and says “twenty-four?” and kisses his teeth for two minutes.

ARE THEY

A virgin: Covered this. A cuddler: There’ve been times. Sometimes being close to someone’s all you want to fill your head with, your time with, your world with, and all you can do is do that. Not many times though. They’re more anomalies than anything else. Prolonged touching, or lengthy physical intimacy — he’s pretty averse. A kisser: Mouth-on-mouthy kissing makes him nervous. Half his lips don’t really work right and he gets very conscious of it. Makes him feel ugly, clumsy, exposed. Scared easily: Terrified, yes. He doesn’t exactly keep a level head on him all that easily. Jealous easily: Statistics would suggest yes. Worth noting thought that this is less in terms of seeing everyone as someone his lover might leave him for and so being possessive and shitty and more like he feels left out easily, left behind easily, and if he sees someone he cares about sharing some sort of positive experience with someone else, he’ll feel a sense of abandonment and sadness about it. It’s not an angry or suspicious feeling so much as a melancholy self-effacing one. Trustworthy: In what sense, exactly? Depends who you are, what you’ve done to deserve Simra’s trust or respect, what the circumstances in both your lives and their mutual conjunctions are, what there is to be gained from breaking your trust, or what there is to be lost by keeping it or sticking with you. Depends how strong Simra is at this point in his life. Uhhhh…this number of variables probably suggest that, Simra is not inherently a trustworthy person by nature. But that doesn’t mean he’s never loyal, or faithful, or worth putting your trust in. Dominant: Uhhhhh. Submissive: Fuckin uhhhhhh. In love: Right now? Fuck off. Single: And ready to mingle. (God can you even imagine.)

RANDOM QUESTIONS

Have they harmed themselves: Not with anything sharp. Thought of suicide: Yes. Attempted suicide: Comments on my fic suggest that a lot of what he does, accidentally or by choose, basically constitute attempts to die. Thing is though, Simra’s pretty much more terrified of dying than of anything else. Any attempts at straightforward suicide would be impulsive cries for help or lashings-out against feeling particularly helpless. The goal wouldn’t be dying. Wanted to kill someone: Wanting to sounds way more personal than he really wants to have to deal with. Appreciating the reasons for having had to do so? Fine. (Yes, yes, yes, but funny how the people he’s really wanted to kill are for the most part still alive.) Ride a horse: He regrets to inform you that, yes, he has ride a horse. Have/had a job: We’ve covered this. Have any fears: Ghosts and bones, yes. Death, or more accurately, ceasing to be alive and existent. Being maimed; no longer being whole. Blindness, deafness, muteness. He has a pretty primal flight-or-fight response to the idea of being caught out in any sort of lie. Oh, and he’s not fond of dogs.

FAMILY

Sibling(s): Yes, Soraya. Does she still count? Parents: Sambidal Dunsamsi Hishkari nas Mabudani nas Zainab, his babu, Windhelm dockworker and former adventurer. Ishar Dunsamsi Hishkari nas Nem nas Zainab, his ammu, Grey Quarter spellwright, seller of medicines, and former adventurer. Children: No. Pets: No. A cat might be good, but he’d get terrified of it deciding to abandon him, and would take it very personally if it was ever gone for very long.

[asiplaythem]

Devil May Cry: Series Retrospective- "DmC: Devil May Cry"

At long last, I sat down and played DmC: Devil May Cry. Well and truly, the dust has settled, the dead horse has been beaten into compost, and the reactionary rages and defenses have died down. And, for myself, I think my fanboy passion for the series has subsided.

A weak Special Edition, a pachinko machine and a bad MvC model later, I hold out no honest hope for the Devil May Cry franchise now. We’ll always have the Temen-ni-Gru Dante...but we’re not getting back together, lets face it.

So now, when I look at Ninja Theory’s protagonist, who I will still refer to as Donte, the fresh insult that he used to be is now replaced with a genuine, tryhard, grittiness that just seems cute in an “ah, bless” kind of way. He’s no longer the sour white whale that ate my favourite character and franchise, he’s just a little fish who flops around in a harmlessly funny way.

....before the massive flaws of the game come forth.

This review is based on the PS3 launch version and does its best to criticize it on its own merits/failings, not merely on fan insult or in comparison to the previous games. But it is after all called “Devil may Cry”, so its existence as part of a wider franchise isn’t ignored either.

Also, fair warning, this is going to be long as hell. Which is suitable, because it feels like hell sometimes...

Technical Qualities

The engine/optimization is dogshit.

Ninja Theory infamously rejected Capcom’s offer to translate their wunderengine, MT Framework, into English so that they could use it. Instead the team built DmC: Devil May Cry using Unreal Engine 3, which was already starting to look dated by 2010 when the game was announced. For perspective, Unreal Engine 4 was revealed to the public before DmC even came out. The likely reason Ninja Theory chose to stick with Unreal was because of a  developer kit popular with young game creators. Unreal 3 was a ubiquitous engine in the last gen of consoles, being the backbone of games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Batman: Arkham series. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any games using it that were as fast paced as the Devil May Cry series.

Off the top of my head, games that use Unreal 3 usually have collision and texture pop-in problems. This is less of an issue in first person or isometric games when player movement and camera angles/viewable space are restrained, but it’s disastrous for something like DmC with its wide angle camera, large open areas, dense enemy count and fast player movement.

On the very first mission, in no more than 2 minutes of having control, Donte got stuck in a wall as I tried to go through the level like a normal player. This was followed by hideous amount of texture pop-in, audio glitches that muted parts of the soundscape, a couple of attacks that didn’t connect with enemies when they should have, and loading times out the arse.

A nasty little secret I only found out from replaying it first hand was that many of the mini-cutscenes (like when Donte looks at the Hunter demon hop around buildings, or does a backflip as he collects his guns) are secretly loading screens, unskippable until the loading operation is completed. All of which are frustrating to have to sit through in such a fast paced game. The way they make such a deal out of the same, generic enemy spawning in by giving it a dramatic close-up every time feels patronizing on repeat fights. “OOOH look! It’s a flying thing again!”. Yeah, no game, these things are easy to kill and I know you’re covering up something with this. Nice try.

Without seeing the development build firsthand, I can’t say for certain why it ran so badly. The release of the Definitive Edition for PS4/XBONE implies that it was a hardware limitation...but....like....that’s what optimization is for; making games run well on older hardware. More on this later, but design choices in level layouts, for instance, can remedy this. You can, for instance, segment levels in a way that stops you from seeing large areas at a single moment, reducing how much the consoles needs to render and thus cutting down load times.

Instead, what we largely got were huge foggy rooms and camera lens flares there to hide unloaded textures. The problem then is that it just, in my opinion at least, doesn’t look very good. Think of how Silent Hill 2 and 3 manage to still look so good due to how they segment rooms with doors you can’t see beyond. Or how the use of fog doesn’t cover up anything that you’re supposed to be looking at. And how they manage to have shorter loading times for it, a whole generation of consoles in the past.

Another trick is to “hard bake” lighting effects into the level’s textures themselves, rather than relying on extra shader operations. It’s more taxing on hardware to emulate, say, the actual light physics of a red spotlight instead of just making the textures of the walls and floor red, using trickery to make it seem like there’s a functioning red light there. Open world games generally don’t have this option, but with Devil May Cry, which is a linear series with rarely changing environments, you can use trickery like this effectively. Instead, DmC has more shaders -many of which look terrible in cutscenes- than it can handle.

Ninja Theory did a bad job of optimizing their game for their primary hardware. Even with the update there were visual problems, audio glitches and collision bugs throughout the entire game. It’s far from unplayable, but it’s ropey for a AAA game.

Level Design

Before I get into the artistic choices, I want to take a moment to look at the more technical, grounded aspects of how Ninja Theory designed levels.

Most of the previous Devil May Cry games are economic with their level design, reusing areas multiple times over with remixed enemy layouts and the occasional change in lighting, music and even textures. This cuts down on development time, saves disc space, and allows the designers to really put care into each individual location. Resident Evil, the Souls games, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are other good examples.

DmC had potential for this with its “living city” concept. The best use of this concept is with Mission 2: Home Truths, where Donte visits his and Vurgil’s gigantic childhood home. As you backtrack into familiar hallways and foyers, the corruption of Mundus’ influence causes walls to crack open, pathways to change shape and different enemies to spawn. It’s a great (re)use of assets that trip up your expectations as a player the first time around. It also uses some Metroidvania style locked doors and obstacles which you need certain abilities/weapons to traverse. The unfortunate limitation of that is that you can literally fly through some levels and skip entire sections of the game upon a replay; Mission 3 requires you to unlock the Air Dash move in order to clear a gap that appears early on, but you’ll already have it on a replay, turning a 20~ minute level into a 3~ minute one.

Sequence breaking like this doesn’t happen in any huge way though, due to how each level is an entirely separate area of its own. Likewise, most of these ability/weapon barriers lead to optional bonus areas that are slightly off the beaten path.

Linear level design isn’t inherently bad, but in this case I think it was a huge missed opportunity. Not only is there a parallel real world vs Limbo premise that has Donte shift from a greyscale, mundane city into a colourful, chaotic image of itself, that Limbo dimension has the ability to change in real time. If the level designers allowed players to shift from dimension to dimension in-game, a la Soul Reaver, or if they had just played up the “living city” concept in a more interactive way, the city would have been much more interesting and, ironically, feel much more alive than it does. Instead we got a linear, albeit pretty, collection of corridors with very little off the beaten path. DmC incentivizes exploration by hiding collectables, but “exploration” ultimately means turning left where you should turn right to find a Lost Soul behind a bin.

One place where they ALMOST got it right is the first Slurm Virility factory level. After a cutscene showing a mixing room, Donte and Kat break from the tour, slowly jog down some empty, boring hallways in to an equally empty and boring warehouse. Dante can’t attack or jump in this section, and there is absolutely nothing to interact with. It’s an unfortunately uninteresting forced walking section, only one small step above being an unskippable cutscene. Kat then sprays her squirrel jizz magic circle on the ground, Donte enters the Limbo version of the level, the room expands and the crates become platforms, and the level really begins from there. For reasons I never understood, Donte then has to take a huge route up sets of boxes and across dozens of different rooms to circle back on the way he came in. On the way back, he backtracks down the Limbo version of the boring hallways of before, except now they’re slightly less boring, with a few enemies to fight and moving walls and floors. Then you get to the mixing room (which is only shown in a cutscene) for a brawl, before moving on.

The reason this didn’t work as well as it could have are twofold. 1: You only see the real world version of a tiny portion of the level, and 2: said portion is boring as fuck and you don’t interact with it in any meaningful way. But hey, at least the idea was there.

Moments where the living city concept is pushed to the side for more one-off but more effectively done ideas can be found in the upside-down prison, the short prelude to the Bob Barbas fight and Lilith’s rave.

The upside-down prison starts off fairly strong, tapping into one of those childhood ideas we all idly wondered about; what if gravity suddenly shifted? The level starts off strong and has moments throughout that give a trippy sense of vertigo. Mostly this is with car and train bridges, but unfortunately loses the point as it progresses. Because the prison isn’t just upside-down, but is also in Limbo, gravity is already unreliable and the bottomless pit below the floor already looks like the sky. Similarly with the lead up to the boss fight with Poison that has you run “down” a vertical pipe, it all looks floaty and weird by default, making further attempts to be floaty and weird just seem...normal. Likewise, the prison is mostly comprised of bland, urban and industrial textures, completely interchangeable with any old warehouse. You quickly forget that you’re upside-down at all.

The setting also well outstays it’s welcome, taking up 4 entire levels to itself with not enough ideas to justify it. There’s even one moment where, after meeting Fineas, you’re told you need to follow a flock of harpies to find their lair....even though their lair is a completely linear set of halls...That says it all really; there was a fun idea in here, but it was executed without the same creativity.

Following that is the tragically short Bob Barbas prelude. THIS is one of the single most interesting concepts in level design I have ever seen. Seriously. I cannot think of any other game that took news graphics and idents and turned them into platforming sections. Even moments during the fight where Donte is dropped into news chopper footage manage to do something brilliantly original, stylish and funny. But as quickly as it came, it’s gone before you know it. It’s a fucking crime that the previous 4 levels didn’t use the same concept to break up the monotony of their urban corridors. They could have had Donte teleport around chunks of the level using the various TV screens with Bob Barbas propaganda on them, hopping across idents until he got to the other side. Shame.

Next up, almost in a moment of clarity from the designers when they realized that could do digital environments and cheesy tv show graphics in their game more than once, we have Lilith’s nightclub. Again, much more interesting than the living city stuff, albeit a bit harsh on the eyes with its lighting effects. There’s not much to say about it beyond “it looks cool”, but it’s worth mentioning that it feels much more focused and fully utilized than the upside-down prison. All in all. the level design in DmC is at odds with itself, marked by its lost potential. The concepts are interesting, but the execution is almost always lackluster, favouring hand-holdy linear hallways with “cinematic” qualities over more interactive, open spaces with a sense of place. For a game that, pre-release, seemed to want to show us a more fleshed out world than previous games, it winds up as little more than a flat backdrop.

But oh well, DMC is all about the action happening center stage, right?

Combat

Combat in DmC is a mix bag.

The number of different attacks available and Donte’s versatility at chaining moves across 5 different weapons is pretty great. I’m a fan of how you can swap special pause combos across your alternate weapons; two quick hits with Rebellion, a pause, then a final triple smash with Arbiter takes a little extra skill to pull off but rewards you with a faster combo than if you just used Arbiter alone. Likewise, little tweaks like how fast Drive can charge now and how it does actual damage unlike Quick Drive in DMC4, or how you can hold Million Stab for longer, are all mostly fun changes. I tend to have a lot of fun with Osiris and find it to be the most versatile weapon for pulling off different combos. Its ability to charge up the more hits it delivers is a good incentive to hook in as many enemies as possible too, even if it means its uncharged state doesn’t do enough damage. Aquila is a fun supplementary weapon, mostly good for distracting one enemy with the circle attack and pulling the rest into range for Osiris. Eryx, however, is rubbish. Its incredibly short range, long charge times and weak damage output really throw it onto the trash pile when Arbiter is right beside it. Also, personal taste, but it just looks stupid. It’s like a slimy set of Hulk Hands. And they don’t even yell “HULK SMASH” when you attack. Previous DMC gauntlets all include a gap-closing dive attack to put you in enemy range, but the Demon Grapple doesn’t work the large enemies you’ll want to use it against. More on that in a bit.

Guns are mostly pointless. Donte can move laterally so much easier than before that long range combat is redundant. Charge shots with Ebony & Ivory are like Eryx in that they take too long to charge and don’t do enough damage to be worth the wait. Also, because you need to be in a neutral, non-demon non-angel, state to fire them, charging them up while you wail on someone only works if you limit yourself to Rebellion. Switching to Demon or Angel weapons resets the charge and limits you to a grapple move.

Which leads to another problem; 4 of your 5 weapons disable the use of guns. I mean, you’re not missing out on much by the end anyway because the guns are boring and ineffectual to use against all but one enemy (the Harpy), but it feels like a mistake. They literally give you guns in cutscenes as an afterthought. Like when Vurgil goes “oh yeah, have this, it’ll kill the next few enemies really quickly then sit in your back pocket for all eternity thereafter”. Donte never feels like he’s earning these guns like he earns the melee weapons, and they never seem to be worth a damn in gameplay.

The grapples are more useful but, again, having two different types feels redundant in combat. Large enemies can’t be pulled towards you, so why not do what DMC4 did and have one grapple that does both jobs; pull small enemies towards you, pull yourself towards larger enemies? The end result in either scenario is to get in melee range, so it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Considering Aquila has a special attack to pull enemies in, why not offload those moves to the other weapons too? If you want to keep both pull-in and pull-towards moves in combat, why not give, say, Eryx a special pull-in attack so you can swap back to guns easier?

In short; while the combat is versatile and very satisfying to pull off combos with, large parts of it feel badly thought out. The moves and weapons that end up being useless most of the time have enemies spawn after you unlock them, just as an excuse to show how they work.

The infamous “demon attacks for red enemies, angel attacks for blue enemies” gimmick actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Until I had to fight a Blood Rage and a Ghost Rage at the same fucking time. I don’t think I need to get into it due to how many other people have complained, but it was just fucking infuriating to say the least.

Okay, so.....Devil May Cry 3 did it better. Most people don’t seem to know this, but DMC3 gave you damage bonuses if you used the right weapon against the right enemies, signified by a subtle particle effect. Nowhere in the enemy or weapon descriptions does it explain this, but if you use your head (or just experiment) you can generally figure it out. Beowulf is a light weapon, Doppelganger is a shadow monster, using light on it does extra elemental damage signified by a flash effect with each hit. Cerberus is an ice weapon, Abysses are liquidy enemies, so using ice on it freezes them, signified by an icicle effect. etc But most importantly; it never STOPS you from using the “wrong” weapon against enemies. I don’t think I need to go into how annoying it is when your combat flow is interrupted by your angel weapon PINGing off a red enemy, but god damn it.

Credit where credit is due; Ninja Theory did emphasize the right part of DMC’s combat when they opted to focus on combos over balance. Both 3 and 4 had broken combos and attacks that skilled players could easily pull off, but they would make combat boring and the games all emphasized an honour system to prevent abuse. If you were good enough to use Pandora to break enemy shields in 4, you were good enough to not abuse it.

Then again, a games combat is only as good as its enemies.

Enemies/Bosses

So it’s a real shame then that enemies and bosses don’t push you hard enough.

The AI is atrocious. NO hack n’ slash should have two hardcore enemies accidentally kill each other without you noticing. The mixing room in the Slurm levels pits you against two Tyrants/the big fat dudes who charge at you. There’s an easy-to-avoid pitfall in the middle of this room. Once, on hard mode no less, they spawned in as usual and one accidentally nudged the other into the pit, insta-killing him while I literally stood still and watched...

Most regular man-sized enemies (Stygians, Death Knights, and their variations) have a common problem of just not attacking first, opting to side step around you forever until you run at them. Luckily there usually is one aggressive enemy mixed in there, like the flying guys with guns or the screamy-chainsaw men, so you’ll be forced to dodge into their range, but it’s embarrassing when they’re isolated. You’re left standing there, charging a finishing attack with Eryx like you have your dick in your hand, and these things are just strafing around you, doing nothing. So you miss with Eryx, step forward, and anti-climatically twat them about with Rebellion just to get it over with.

At first I thought this combat shyness was a design choice, but then it happened with the final boss, revealing it to be a pathfinding bug. But more on that later...

So yes, the red/blue enemy gimmick is bullshit and breaks the flow of a room-sweeping combo you have going, but it actually works really well with the Witch enemy who hangs back, projecting shields onto other enemies while she snipes at you from a distance. She’s annoying to hunt down when you’re dealing with 10 other enemies, so you have to prioritize whether you want to plough through them first or clumsily chase her down first. It’s a nice dynamic to fights, adding that extra layer of strategy to mix things up in a less punishing way.

The main difference with the Witch and the other colour coded enemies is that the Witch gives you options. Blood/Ghost Rages do not, and make fights involving them feel like complete chores. You’ll find the one tactic that works, then rely on it every time.

No, the most egregious enemies were the bosses.

All of them, every single one, was terrible. Not including the Dream Runner mini-bosses, there was a total of 6, less than any of the other DMCs, which makes how sloppily designed they were all the more horrendous. Every single boss is formulaic, partitioned out into “segments” cut up by mini cutscenes that have Donte do something sassy when he works them down enough. But each of those segments tend to have Donte repeat the same, boring, tired tactic until the fight is over. Bob Barbas is the worst example; jump over his beams, use that one Eryx attack to slam into the nonsensical floor buttons, wail on him for a third of his health bar, kill 10 minor enemies in his news world, repeat two more times.

No matter what difficulty you’re on, these bosses never manage to be a challenge due to how placid they are. They will always accommodate their little “formula” you need to solve to beat them.

It’s baffling, because the previously mentioned Dream Runner mini-bosses are great. They’re aggressive, reactive, open to almost any combo you can outwit them with, and don’t force you to repeat the same set of steps in every encounter.

Vurgil on the other hand....

So, here we are, the grand finale. The ultimate evil has revealed itself, and it’s your own brother! You’re clearly a badass because you just took down Satan himself along with his army, so surely the only thing left that could challenge you is your more experienced twin.

Well, he would, if his AI didn’t start the show by consistently suffering from that same pathfinding bug that makes minor enemies interminably strafe around you. So far so good for my first playthrough. So I attack him, maybe hit him 5 times before a min-cutscene rears its head because I’ve suddenly made it into the next stage. Same thing happens once or twice. Then, somehow, Vurgil’s model freezes in the air during one of his attacks. He hangs there indefinitely until I attack him again. Then, at the end of the fight where he’s summoned a clone (because he can do that apparently, not that he’s ever so much as referenced the fact) so his real self can take a knee and heal, I’m supposed to use Devil Trigger to move him out of the way and finish the job (though, I don’t understand why the real Vurgil isn’t also thrown into the air). I do so, but the clone lingers on the ground for a moment, trying to attack me before just zipping into the sky; another bug. I attack the real Vurgil, but nothing happens at first. I keep wailing on him, hoping that one of my attacks will eventually collide and then, -Scene Missing-, the final cutscene of the battle plays.

Do I need to say any more? Do you see what a fucking mess the boss fights are? The final battle for humanity, the emotional crux of the story, the update to the final unsurpassed boss fight of DMC3, reduced to a buggy, embarrassing slap fight that gave me four glitches on my first playthrough.

The whole thing bungled the climax of its story. But, then again, was the story really that sacred to begin with....

Concept and Story

I promise I will not use the word “edgy” here.

Satire and social commentary, no matter how cartoonish, is a weird fit in a Devil May Cry game. DMC2 had an evil businessman too, and 4 ended with you punching the Pope in the face, but neither seemed to say anything substantial against capitalism or religion. They existed in a much more fantastical place, where any sort of commentary was aimed at a more philosophical target. “What makes us human? What makes us into demons? What is hell like? Is family more important than what you feel is right?” The previous games are all centered around a much more personal, individualistic identity crisis, and not any sort of populist, society-wide problems.

DmC brings up surveillance states, the most recent economic crisis and late-capitalism, soft drink addiction/declining nutrition, news manipulation, the prison industrial complex, conspiracy culture, populous revolt, some scant mentions of mental institutions, hacktivism, and the Occupy Movement. These topics, all of which are pretty damn serious and warrant long discussions, are simply decoration for a story about fantasy demons secretly running the world They Live style. Hell, it basically IS They Live, only the aliens are demons and the tools of control are more contemporary. (somehow there’s nothing about the internet in there though...)

All in all, its treatment of modern issues is childishly simple at best and cynical at worst. Sure, the game presents itself as defying capitalism and social engineering via advertising, but it then goes on to launch an ad and hype campaign bigger than any of the previous games, spanning across billboards, phone apps, social media promotion, the usual games media rounds and expensive pre-rendered television commercials. Hell, they even had an ad for their ad! All of this amid a gigantic fan backlash and in-fighting with games journalists on whether people were mad about Donte’s hair colour of if they were just outrightly entitled.

The fact that lead designer and writer Tameem Antoniades responded to this backlash and feedback by tweeking Donte’s design and adding in a random moment were a wig literally drops out of the sky onto Donte’s head for a jab at this “controversy” says something about the intent he had with his story; There is no real political statement behind DmC, it simply pulls from what was in the news at the time, and uses it as fodder for an otherwise archetypal plot.

The problem is that it tries to do this while also talking about hellish demons, heavenly angels and earthly humans. Well, mostly demons, because the angels are absent from the plot and Donte doesn’t seem to have any sort of Angel Trigger, and the only named human character is Kat, who doesn’t have much ploy within the story; she’s there to be rescued, and provide minimal help with a pat on the back from Donte. So demons rule the world, the angels are absent, and the people who suffer are us lowly humans. But it’s a half-demon, half-angel who “saves” us all/reduces the city to rubble, while all us humans can do is post about it on Twitter. Doesn’t sound very empowering to me.

The main villain should say it all. He’s some sort of businessman/oligarch/banker/economist/military commander/mayor/Satan, but he makes the undeniable point that he gave human civilization it’s structure. He has a wife he at least somewhat cares about, and a child he has high hopes for. He (and his wife) shows more emotion than any of our protagonists, and they have more at stake than anyone else, with a genuine vision for the future no less. So, when he very reasonably asks Donte what his goal is, all Donte can say is “freedom” and “revenge”, then continue to childishly taunt him when pressed further. I could go on about how unhealthy the obsession with the post-apocalypse our generation has is, but suffice to say; Donte is not someone to look up to.

Donte himself, and by extent his story, has no real ideological motivation behind him despite being dressed up as an anarchist. His motivations and arch as a character are no less two dimensional than the original Dante, but now manage to be over-stated and hamfisted, with an added veneer of “politics”. Vurgil points how much he’s supposedly changed right before the final boss fight, but how he changes doesn’t include a strong statement of intent. What does Donte want? Fucked if I know! Fucked if he knows.

All of this says nothing about how...well....plain bad the writing is. The dialogue is famously cringeworthy and the plot has more holes than a sponge.

If Mundus was hunting Donte to kill him this whole time, why can’t he find him despite having multiple cameras aimed directly at this house? Why didn’t he just kill him when Donte was in the orphanage run by “demon scum”? Where was Vurgil this whole time? Why does Kat need to hit the Hunter with a molotov? Actually, what the fuck is she doing in the real world while this is happening? Are people just ignoring this pixie girl throwing bottles around a pier? What’s that weird dimension Donte goes into to unlock new powers? If it’s his own head, why are Mundus’ demons in it? And why would it change his weapons? Why doesn’t he have an Angel Trigger? If Vurgil can do all that cool shit he does in his boss fight at the end, including opening a fucking portal to another dimension, why does he need to rely on Kat to hop dimensions earlier on? Or rely on anyone for that matter? Why does he have white hair when he’s born, but Donte has black hair until the end? If Mundus is immortal, why does he need an heir? Why does time randomly slow down after Vurgil shoots Lilith? How did Kat know the layout of so many floors in Mundus’ tower? Surely he didn’t give her a tour of the whole building, right? Did Donte and Vurgil fuck the entire planet by releasing demons into earth and destroying world economics and governments? Or are there pre-existing governments anyway?

Seriously, I could go on forever.

Beyond basic plot, logic and diegetic continuity (the rules of DmC’s world, and how it suspends your disbelief), you get into more subjective questions like “is Donte a likable character?”

I, perhaps surprisingly, think he is. He’s such a tryhard asshole for the majority of his game, never stopping to think about what he’s doing or to engage with the They Live world he lives in that he is, honestly, a bit adorable. He’s not someone I’d ever have the patience to hang out with in real life, but he is at least consistent. He’s a total lughead and he almost blows up the planet, but it makes sense that a nihilistic, “act first, think later” bro would do that.

And I think that sums up his story too; dumber than it thinks, but entertaining all the same. It’s a different kind of dumb than the original games, a kind of dumb that stares at the camera wall-eyed instead of with a sideways wink.

Conclusion

As of writing, I consider Devil May Cry to be dead as a series. With no solid news from Capcom on further projects for 7 years now, DmC: Devil may Cry is the swansong of the entire franchise. Well, beyond shitty cameo costumes in Dead Rising 4, or pachinko machines or whatever.

Likewise, more recent hack n slash series like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Nier: Automata have risen to challenge Devil May Cry for its crown, and without something better than Ninja Theory’s efforts to stop them, they’ll probably get it.

DmC is not a complete trainwreck. It’s enjoyable, worth the second hand price and 10+ hours of your time. It’s entertaining in a similar way a bad film is; so long as you don’t expect too much from it, you’ll have a laugh. Let go of your bitterness with Ninja Theory and Tameem and you’ll poke fun at it in a less mean-spirited way then your fan rage wants you to. DMC deserved to end on a better note than this, but.....honestly....fuck it. Capcom probably couldn’t make anything much better themselves these days anyway.

Treat DmC like a pug; malformed and lumpy, probably should have been neutered a generation ago, but funny to look at and play with, even though it’s covered in its own slobber.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 82 - DET - Clinched the Offseason

I’ve been meaning to go to a Sabres road game for years now. Initially I had plans to go to Columbus way back in October. Life happens and that trip was scrapped for a trip to visit a friend in Virginia the following month. When I bought the tickets to this game and made the hotel reservation it was December. I hadn’t accepted the team was in the early stages of the collapse yet and I speculated the Sabres could have already clinched a spot by game 82. If they didn’t than oh, what an epic battle they would put on to clinch it in the last game of the season! Oh, how I was wrong. Somehow I still made the journey across the Niagara Peninsula to the Motor City with some happiness in my heart about this team. It was an interesting little stroll around Detroit. My wife and I had been warned again and again by every baby boomer in our lives to be careful in Detroit. Parents love you so I’m not mad but what is this reputation of Detroit being a scary city? It was delightful! Between the Renaissance Center right on the river to half a dozen other cool destinations around the City, we had a great time. I’m not doing an ad for Detroit here, but it was a fun road trip destination and don’t let anyone tell you not to come here. Anyway, the Arena is new: Little Caesars Arena, or the Pizza Palace if I’m going to be rude about it, was pretty rad. I was disappointed there weren’t TV’s in the bathroom stall doors but whatever, it was the best hockey arena I’ve ever been to far and away. If you haven’t looked at the standings lately your smart but you may not know Detroit is also in the dumps at the bottom of the league as well. In spite of that, the arena was packed. Hats off to you guys for that. You Red Wings fans were pretty nice across the board too. There was one incident that wasn’t really an incident that I’ll get to in a bit. This game was a shockingly good one to go to and it leaves a good taste in the mouth for the Sabres future even though we all kinda hate them right now. Let’s just say we clinched the offseason in compelling fashion!

This game was far more fun than I expected. Honestly the pregame ceremony was just so wicked that I would not have felt bad losing to the team that presented it, especially when the Sabres season is this far gone. I was still in the daze of that smoky pregame cult ritual when Sam Reinhart outmaneuvered Jimmy Howard right in front to give Buffalo the early lead. It was weird being the only shooting out of my seat after a Sabres goal, but I did it. It was fun catching the sounds of about three other Sabres fans in the section I was in. One was within high-fiving distance! When Zemgus Girgensons drew a penalty, I was shocked to learn that legend Chris Chelios has a son named Jake Chelios. Evidently there are several legendary NHLer’s kids on this Detroit squad. Buffalo took an early lead in shots in this game and the passing was great on their part, but Detroit was just not good in their own zone. Rasmus Dahlin went bar down from the circle on the powerplay to get the road team ahead 2-0. I felt thoroughly blessed at this point already and when Anthony Mantha scored in the dying second of the next Detroit powerplay I wasn’t really even mad. It was nice to hear their goal horn but if there are any Red Wings fans reading this, please comment what the goal song is because I didn’t hear it. The second period was bizarre: the Sabres pulled away. First it was Conor Sheary redirecting a Casey Nelson shot and then it was Jeff Skinner going in dirty. He skated through three defenders and just pulled one over in the slot. It was classic Jeff. It made me really amped on one hand because that put him within one goal of 40 on the season but on the other hand, gee, I was fearful it would be the last Jeff Skinner goal for the Sabres I’ll ever see.

Zemgus Girgensons potted a weird one and we went to the second intermission up 5-1. Now at this point my wife is telling me to tone down the celebrations because there was a kid in a Red Wings jersey several seats down crying. I didn’t do it, but the Sabres did and I we were wearing their jerseys, so I obliged my beautiful bride for a little bit. Then the incident happened that I alluded to earlier. I got cheering Jack and Jeff. Both of those guys could hit a goal scoring benchmark in this game if they turned on: Jack with 2 to get 30 and Jeff with 2 to get 40. Jeff Skinner had already scored one in the second so he was knocking at the door for 40 and I started verbalizing something like “You can still get 40, Jeff!” There was a young woman behind me who simply and solidly uttered “Doubt it” after I said that. I am a good Christian man, she got no reaction out of me; but oh boy was I all in on Skinner getting that next one now! At 10:27 of the third that’s exactly what happened. Whatever ECHLer kid that they put in for Howard juggled the Skinner tight angle shot through his arm pit and in. Sam Reinhart went right to retrieve it and if my wife was not taking snapchats I might have cried. I hollered for his resigning with no shame. The Sabres had a 40-goal scorer this season for the first time since Tomas Vanek in 2008. That was eleven years ago. We got to witness it again this season. He still doesn’t have a contract and let me say this with not an ounce of humor in my voice: Signing Jeff Skinner this offseason is the Buffalo Sabres’ Stanley Cup. You do that and we won it. For all intents and purposes: that’s our Cup this offseason. Brandon Montour scored a slapper he looked a little embarrassed it went in and this one ended 7-1. The game was reminiscent of the second Ottawa Senators game this season back in November, but I feel like a jackass even thinking that. Whatever, it’s over and the only thing we clinched was the offseason!

The Sabres ended up not clinching anything terribly meaningful this season. In fact, they fell off so bad in the second half that there are pretty much zero positives to consider going into next season outside of the natural development of the young core and some theoretical moves that range in excitement from Johan Larsson not getting a qualifying offer to… trading away a Ristolainen? Oh boy. I’ll save the recapping and offseason hype for the Season Retrospective but why not some predictions? Let’s talk about how stupid I am! Let’s talk the predictions we made for this season and specifically: my predictions. I said the Buffalo Sabres were going to be 7-3-2 in the month of October. I was close on that as they actually went 6-4-2 but whatever, that was just October. I also said Rasmus Dahlin scores a goal on or before Columbus Day. That didn’t happen but Rasmus Dahlin was already solidly the second-best rookie defenseman in Sabres history. I also just generically said Eichel will have a career year. He took a big step forward and did exactly that this season, his first as Captain. I pitched the super softball that was the Rochester Americans will dominate the North Division. That wasn’t a huge guess, they’re in a good position to win the division now and have dominated all season. Looking back on those thoughts and feelings we had going in it made me think about how we should actually feel about the big picture right now. Even some of the best Sabres bloggers are writing some dark stuff right now and there are plenty of reasons to feel that way; most notably that the final third of the season was an abject collapse. We wanted them to be on the playoff bubble going into this season and they were until mid-February. The goal differential is a totally unacceptable -51 here at the end and that’s a problem of goaltending and lack of scoring. I am very hopeful about goaltending but, once again let’s save that recapping and previewing for the retrospective. I’m not going to rationalize the shit we went through it’s over now. Let it be. Turn your attention to the Rochester Americans and let it be. They won 5-2 over impending Playoff opponent Syracuse tonight. That’s a Cup run you can get behind!

I will be posting a 2018-2019 Season Retrospective Bonanza as early as Monday Morning, so we’ll tie up all the loose ends then. Big thank you for reading all season, you’ll get a bigger thank you in the retrospective, but you guys are the real MVPs! In the totally impossible chance a Buffalo Sabre is reading this: thank you. Thank you and know that we love you in spite of the end result. That said, if you’re still on the team come October: winning is all that actually matters in sports, but I suspect you knew that. I got a long semi-spiritual spiel about human flourishing in sports if you need a little more than that, DM me. If your name is Jeff Skinner and you’re reading this: PLEASE STAY! I BEG YOU! IT WON’T ALWAYS BE THIS BAD, PLEASE JEFF! Do what’s right for you and your family but please stay! We love you so much. Anyway: like, share and comment on this blog. The Retrospective Bonanza will have all the bells and whistles: awards, trash talk, Draft predictions, and much more! Read it. In the meantime, savor what was: a fun season at times. I use “at times” very generously there. Either way, I look forward to writing for you again next season. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The Rochester Americans legitimately may win a Calder Cup Championship this season. I don’t know if I’ve wrote those words in a while. That’s not an exaggeration. Pay attention if you really love this organization no matter what; they may be the ones to reward our suffering.

[fromthedeskofelizabeththird]

The Parisian Girl

JuminV Week Day 6 Prompt: First Kiss

My last fic for JuminV week. This is set in Vabverse (between Shelter and VAB), but that isn’t necessary knowledge to understand and enjoy it. This fic is about V’s regrets in every instance he never revealed his true feelings to Jumin. (AO3)

On the regular occasion that he looked back on his life, there were a lot of things Jihyun could honestly say he regretted.

As a student in Paris, he spent many hours walking the streets, going out of his way to capture it on film. It was only after he returned home, having spent years examining each and every angle of the city, that he realised he did not have a single one of the Eiffel Tower. And only after leaving did he understand that he had come to use it as an anchor.

He once took a flight to England on a whim and stopped Jumin in his tracks outside of the Bodleian library. It had been pouring with rain at the time and he had spent the last few hours stopping random students to look at a picture of Jumin and ask in a perfectly rehearsed way if they recognised him. He liked to think that it was the rain dripping from everyone’s hair and noses that left them unwilling to talk to him and not the fact that he was a complete stranger. As it was, though, no one gave him any clues about Jumin and he only happened to be standing outside of it when he left.

Jihyun had planned to say something meaningful, but it all went out of the window the moment Jumin took in his drenched form and demanded to know what on earth he was doing there.

“Surprise!” He had said instead. “I was in the area. Thought I’d say hi.”

And he regretted that his first kiss came less than a week later, from some Parisian girl with auburn hair who sat fully clothed in the bathtub to smoke and whose name he forgot immediately afterwards.

He regretted seeing every inch of Rika so clearly as if illuminated by a golden halo. A halo that burned ever brighter until he could no longer make out her face beneath, nor make out the burn marks where it touched her skin.

Jihyun regretted sitting in his car in the middle of the night, soaked to the skin with a cup of bad coffee. He regretted calling Jumin at that moment, with the intention of saying something equally as meaningful as he had wanted to outside of the Bodleian. But he backed out that time around too, changing the subject and speaking of coffee dates he never meant to share.

He wished he had gone for that coffee. Wished they had only taken the time to sit in some warm corner of one of his favourite haunts, even if he knew that Jumin would have been restless and he likely would have been too. In the end, however, they did not see other very much at all until several months later, when a stranger arrived in Rika’s apartment.

At the time, Jihyun had two expectations of Nari. That she would appear as a faceless stranger and leave before he could consider his mistakes. The other was that her motivations were deep, dark and sinister and her presence among his friends was the result of one mistake in particular, though he did not know which.

And so it was that he showed up at Jumin’s apartment the night before the RFA party with a cat in his arms, ready to break the silence that had haunted him since Paris. He regretted that decision immediately, for the moment he crossed the threshold, he caught his reflection in the mirror and comprehended for the first time the magnitude of the empty words in his throat.

He did not know what it was he meant to say to Jumin and yet the words lingered at the back of his mind like a favourite song or a poem he had waited his life trying to put to paper. Later on, as he cursed his own cowardice, he supposed the metaphor ran true.

To say that Jumin had not expected him was an understatement, although in retrospect Jihyun imagined the expression of pure surprise had more than a little to do with his threadbare cardigan and haggard facade.

As Jumin greeted him, every carefully considered word evaporated; as if he watched the entire scene play out from underwater.

He did not know why, but at some point he had come to believe that the stranger from the chatroom was just another Parisian girl; another pretty face to chat on the messenger and disappear into smoke. He did not know when he had taken comfort in the idea, but ultimately, he regretted allowing himself to fall into his own illusion.

In reality, however, she was something he had never encountered before and he regretted the fact that he had not come to know her sooner. She was soft light and calm tides and he could not bring himself to hate her for being everything that he was not. Instead he averted his gaze as Nari kissed Jumin on the cheek and said her goodbyes.

At some point between the car ride and waving goodbye to Nari as she returned to Rika’s apartment, it occurred to him that perhaps he was the one destined to fade away all along, and the truth had reached him twenty years too late.

One of the biggest regrets of his life was that he had little choice but to move in with them both in the aftermath of his eye surgery. He could not stand their patience, nor their smiles at breakfast. He was unworthy of such a thing and any given time he took a deep breath, he was quite convinced that he would overflow with words he could never take back.

At any given moment that he and Jumin were left completely alone, he found some way to remove himself for fear that he would begin to speak and never fall silent for as long as he lived.

He considered it fortunate that Jumin was not home so often and on the occasions that he was, he could call upon either Nari or Elizabeth as a distraction. The moment Jumin glanced at him overlong in the familiar fashion from poker, Jihyun would lift Elizabeth into his arms or turn to Nari and pick up the threads of a prior conversation. And he regretted it, of course, for all of the things he meant her to be to him, it had never been as a crutch.

Even so, he found that his heart skipped a beat at the news that Nari’s mother had taken ill and he lingered outside of the bedroom door as she packed her bags for a weekend visit. He knew it was selfish, but he wanted to tell her not to leave. He wondered how obvious it would be if he packed his things too and claimed a full recovery.

She did not spot him standing there until she turned to fetch her toothbrush and gasped, taking two steps backwards towards the bed. The shock quickly turned to amusement, however, and she laughed out loud even as she leaned over to clutch at her chest.

“V, you’re so quiet!” She cried out. “We need to get you one of those little bell collars.”

“You think it will go with my outfit?”

“I think you’d look charming.”

And he could not help but smile as she retreated into the ensuite bathroom, even though he was profoundly miserable. He opened his mouth to crack a joke, only to remain silent as she returned with her toothbrush.

“I forgot to tell you,” she said, opening up her bedside drawer. “This was in the newspaper and I thought you’d be interested.”

She’d taken the clipping from the weather section of the previous week’s newspaper and Jihyun could not help but raise an eyebrow at its content.

“A meteor shower?” He said.

“It’s a great coincidence, right?” She said, fastening her bag. “You were only talking last week about how much you and Jumin liked to stargaze when you were little.”

It was true that he had referenced it in an attempt to change the subject. He had not thought she would remember, though. She had been so busy laughing at the idea of Jumin indignantly searching through college level textbooks for the name of every star that he had honestly believed she had forgotten the story involved him as well.

For a moment he almost regretted telling her otherwise. He almost believed he would prefer her not to acknowledge him.

He screwed up the clipping while she wasn’t looking with the intention of throwing it into the garbage after she left, only to unravel it and reread it when he was alone.

She was right, after all. He remembered climbing to the roof of his childhood home and waiting for every light in the Han residence to be switched off before fiddling with the controls on his walkie talkie. Jumin would climb out of his bedroom window and out onto the roof of his own house and whisper into his own walkie talkie, usually complaining about the late hour or the heavy text book he had insisted on bringing with him for scientific purposes.

Back then, he was content to sit in silence. He would sit back and stare at the stars and rarely speak a word but for the occasional giggle every time he heard Jumin rifling through his books. When he did speak, it was usually to comment on the beauty of the sky.

In the end, he organised the telescope while Jumin was at work and he did not bring it up until the morning of the meteor shower. In Nari’s absence, the silence between them grew increasingly obvious and Jihyun was sure Jumin had started leaving for the office earlier on the day.

“Nari said something interesting before she left,” he said as he reached for his coffee cup. “There’s a meteor shower tonight. I...well...that is...if you would. I’d quite like to watch it.”

As soon as he said it, he took an enormous sip of coffee to hide his blushes. He wished he had never said anything. What was he thinking? There was so much he wanted to say and he feared that he did not know the limits himself. He wondered what would happen if he spoke of 2:15; if he took Jumin by the arm and told him the real reason he had gone to England.

But Jumin, who knew nothing of his conflict, and had almost certainly noticed his awkwardness, did not refuse the offer.

Jihyun regretted everything as he sat up on the roof with a warm blanket and cup of hot soup, watching Jumin roll back the sleeves of his shirt before attempting to change the settings on their binoculars. He had insisted that binoculars did not work as cameras did and sat down to read the manual from beginning to end in the half light.

“I think that's it,” he said with a satisfied smile, sitting back to peer through them. “Now we just need to wait.”

Wait, Jihyun realised, as he took a sip of soup and tried to ignore Jumin sitting down beside him and adjusting his own blankets.

“Have you heard from Nari?” He asked, glancing away as Jumin leaned down to pour himself some soup from the flask.

“She says her mother is getting much better. I offered to send Dr. Park over there to make an observation, though she reassures me it is not necessary.”

“That's good,” smiled Jihyun, lifting his binoculars to observe the sky.

Still beautiful.

“V,” said Jumin, screwing the lid onto the flask. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“You've not been yourself lately,” said Jumin. “It would be irrational of me to suggest I knew the reasons why, or to suggest that you have never kept anything from me in the past…”

He took a sip of soup and glanced up at the sky.

“...but I like to think that if there was something weighing on your mind, you would feel comfortable speaking to me about it.”

Jihyun hated hearing Jumin speak so kindly of him, knowing the truth as he did.

“I…” He said, meaning to say that he would confide everything; that the only thing weighing on his mind was the aftermath of his surgery.

He found that he could not do that, however. He sat up and put down his soup, tapping Jumin on the arm and taking a deep breath, meaning to tell him about his flight to England and the rain that soaked through his socks. He wanted to tell him about his favourite black and white photograph of a French café, in which he refined the art of ordering café au lait and sitting in a window to watch strangers walk by, all the while writing letters he would never send.

He wanted to tell Jumin that he never looked better than on the occasions there was moonlight in his hair, but he could not find the words and ultimately reached for his shoulder.

He meant to touch foreheads, to whisper something overbearing that revealed his vulnerabilities only a little at a time.

He did not expect Jumin to meet him halfway, touching his lips against his in a lingering kiss only broken by second, softer one to his forehead. For the first time in months, Jihyun’s mind fell silent and he stared up at Jumin, realising for the first time in well over twenty years that for all of his understanding of camera angles, at no point had he considered Jumin’s perspective on the situation.

“I'm sorry,” said Jumin, turning away as if embarrassed.

And as he reached out to cup Jumin’s face, Jihyun said something he had never said before.

“I don't regret it.”

“What's going to happen when they realise there's no meteor shower?”

Jaehee adjusted her glasses and turned to Nari, who considered the question as she tucked into her ice cream.

Nari, who among other things, happened to be pretty good at photoshop.

“I'm sure that won't be a problem,” she said, smiling softly.

[mrstevenbushus]

House Design Masterclass Part 5: Building regulations and technical design

Although they are both primarily concerned with keeping the council happy, planning and Building Regulations applications are dealt with entirely separately.

If you are granted planning permission it is not a guarantee that you will get approval under Building Regulations and vice versa. A completely different set of people deal with each and sometimes there seems to be no discussion or communication whatsoever between them, even when officers who work for the same local authority are involved.

The information required to meet Building Regulations has little in common with that needed by the planners and it is assessed by a different method. There is a large element of subjectivity at play when a planning application is scrutinised.

The personal views of the planning officer, the chief planner and the committee may all influence the scheme that finally gets approval.

Obtaining Building Regulations approval is, in many ways, simpler and more predictable. In England and Wales, the government publishes a set of rules called the Approved Documents.

These tackle each aspect of building construction and set out how to comply with the regulations. On the whole, if you follow these edicts, your project will be approved, and if you don’t it probably won’t.

Designing to meet the Regs

There is a certain amount of negotiation to be had but it is possible to anticipate and design out any problems at the concept stage.

Whoever prepares your planning application must be intimately acquainted with the Regulations and avoid drawing anything that has to be modified because it contravenes them.

For example, your house may make use of the roof space, with rooflights for the first floor bedrooms set just above the gutter line. This may sail though the planning committee without a murmur of objection. If the cill height of the rooflight is over 1.1m, however, it will not pass the regulation that says it must be low enough for an occupant to easily climb out if there is a fire.

Another problem can develop if a wall is closer than 1m to a boundary and has a door or large windows in it. This may be no problem for the planner but is virtually impossible to get past a building control officer. They will restrict the area of glass in the wall because it increases the risk of fires spreading between separate buildings.

Building Regulations in the UK

The procedure covered in this article mainly relates to the Building Regulations as they apply in England and Wales. In Scotland there are significant differences.

For example, work cannot start until a building warrant has been issued (you can technically commence on site before regs approval has been granted in England and Wales if you wish, although you’ll then need to secure retrospective approval). In addition, a new house cannot be occupied unless a habitation certificate has been issued at the end of the build.

Other than that, the Scottish system is pretty flexible. The guidance here is contained in what’s known as the Building Standards Technical Handbooks; a separate part of which covers houses.

The Technical Handbook Domestic version is accompanied by a Procedural Handbook and a Certification Handbook. When it comes to Northern Ireland, the Building Regulations are set out in a series of 15 technical booklets.

But generally speaking, all of the requirements for construction found in the four areas of the UK are quite similar.

If you are fortunate enough to have acquired a plot out in the countryside at the end of a long farm track, the regulations may profoundly affect the design of the footprint of the house.

Should the track be more than 20m from the road, there must be space for a fire engine to turn around on the site, requiring a large area of hard standing. A fire hose no more than 45m long must also be able to reach from the engine to all sides of the property.

If the location of the plot or the size of the dwelling prevent you from complying with these stipulations, your only option is to negotiate. One compromise might be to offer to install a sprinkler system. This would be costly, but would be a way that you could avoid having to go back to the planners with a revised layout.

A similar bargaining process is required if you decide you want a three storey home with an open-plan ground floor which includes the staircase in the same space. The issue here is that the regulations require an enclosed, protected route from the upper floors directly to the outside. This is to give the occupants at least half an hour to escape from the property in case of fire.

The details needed for a planning application

The information needed for an application is surprisingly brief compared to the drawings and specifications for a tender pack.

All that is usually needed from the architect are 1:100 scale elevations, 1:50 scale plans and sections and a few pages of A4 specifications, backed up by some calculations from a structural engineer and an energy use consultant.

This information is submitted to either an approved inspector or to a building control officer, who may then have a few queries and ask for extra information before they are in a position to pass the plans.

Once work has started, it is the responsibility of whoever is managing the site to notify the inspector shortly before the construction reaches key stages. It is possible to press ahead without getting the plans approved beforehand by serving a ‘building notice’ and having the work inspected as it progresses on site.

This is not a good idea for any project other than minor alterations, partly because any good builder will want at least basic plans to work to. Also, if any aspect of the structure turns out not to comply, it will have to be demolished and rebuilt correctly.

One area of confusion that I come across with clients quite often is over the limited usefulness of Building Regulations drawings. These only show the very basic construction of the house. Although it should be fairly clear how the property will work structurally, all that has to be described are the main features of the dwelling to a level of detail that is sufficient to show the scheme is compliant with the regulations and not much after that.

With this package of drawings, the structural design, foundations and basic materials that are to be used for the roof and walls will be mentioned, as will drainage, fire protection and other elements that are covered by the approved documents.

This is probably enough for a builder to quote and construct the shell of the house, but it is inadequate to get a reliable price to finish the dwelling.

Many aspects that are not covered will be crucial to the cost, design and success of the project. For example, sanitaryware, decorations and landscaping are of little interest to the inspector checking for Building Regulations approval, but are usually crucial for the budget and also the appearance of the finished dwelling.

The purpose of architect’s designs

Like most architects, I know that paying us to prepare drawings and specifications beyond the minimum requirements of the regs is very good value for money, but occasionally a client will decide that this service is not required.

So it’s mildly irritating to get a call from the client or builder after work has started demanding to know why our drawings do not contain sufficiently detailed information. I then have to tactfully point out to them that we were only commissioned to obtain Building Regs approval, and because a certificate has been issued by the inspector, this proves that we have done that job to an effective standard.

There are plenty of times when the inflexibility of the Building Regulations can cause frustration and even seem a bit petty, but they were conceived and developed to protect you as much as the community in general.

When it comes down to it, I am hard pressed to find any of the standards imposed that fail to follow this principle.

The post House Design Masterclass Part 5: Building regulations and technical design appeared first on Build It.

Article reference House Design Masterclass Part 5: Building regulations and technical design

[rbbox]

Services

Chapter I. Services

308. Interpretation-

In this part, unless the context otherwise requires, "State" is not a state of Jammu and Kashmir under 1 [].]

309. Recruitment and terms of service of persons serving the union or state--

Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Act of the Legislative Assembly shall be able to regulate the conditions of service of the recruitment for the public services and posts related to the activities of the Union or any State and the service of the appointed persons: Provided that unless the provision is made for this purpose under or under the provisions of the appropriate Legislature, under this article, in the case of the services and posts related to the activities of the Federation, the President or the person whom he specifies and the State In the case of services and posts related to the activities of the Governor of the State 2 *** or recruitment for such services and posts to the person whom he specifies. And will be able to make rules regulating the terms of service of the appointed person and the rules made therein shall be effective, subject to the provisions of such an Act.

310. The term of the persons serving the Union or the State-

(1) Except as provided by this Constitution, every person who is a member of the Defense Service or the Union Civil Service or a member of the All India Service or holds any civil post under any post or association related to defense, The President holds the office till the offering and every person who is a member of the civil service of any state or holds any civil post under the state, the governor of that state, 3 Holds the position till the occasion of Prasad. (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in this behalf, the person holding a civil post under the Union or any State, holding the position as the case may be, the President or the Governor of the State, till the release of 2 ***, under which any person Or is not a member of the All India Service or the Union or State Civil Service, is appointed under this Constitution to hold such a post, in that case, in which, as the case may be, The President or the Governor 2 *** considers it necessary to receive the services of a person with special qualifications, it may be able to provide that if the term is terminated before the expiry of the contract period or for reasons which If there is no relation to any misconduct, it is expected to vacate that position, then it will be compensated.

311. Removal of persons employed in a civil capacity under union or state, removal from office or demerger in line--

(1) A person who is a member of the Union Civil Service or the All India Service or the Civil Service of the State or holds a Civil Status under the Union or State, not passed by any authority subordinate to the authority appointed. Will be done or will not be removed from the post. 1 [(2) In the case of any such person, after such inquiry, in which he has been notified of charges against him and in relation to those allegations, a reasonable opportunity of hearing 2 **************************************************************************** Will be removed from the post or demote in line, otherwise it will not be] 3 [Where, however, there is an establishment to impose such penalties upon such investigation, such punishment can be imposed on the basis of evidence given during such investigation and such person must give an opportunity to make representations regarding the established penalties. Will not done : But this and that this section will not apply there - (A) Where a person is deposed on the basis of such conductor is removed from the post or demote in line, for which he has been convicted on criminal charges; Or (B) Where it is resolved by the empowered authority to depose a person or to demote office or demote it in the line, for some reason, which will be written by that authority, it is not reasonably feasible that such a Be checked; Or (C) Where, as the case may be, it is the solution of the President or the Governor that it is not expedient in the interest of the security of the state that such investigation should be done. (3) If there is a question arising in relation to a person pending before it, that the scrutiny specified in clause (2) is reasonably practicable or not, to empower the person to remove or demolish or demote the quota The decision on that will be final.

312. All India Services -

Notwithstanding anything contained in Chapter 6 or Part 11 of Part 6 (1) 4, if the Rajya Sabha has submitted its resolution by at least two-thirds of the members present and voting, it has declared that If it is necessary or expedient to do so in national interest, then Parliament can provide for the creation of one or more All India Services (for which there is an All India Judicial Service)] for the Union and the States. Gee and subject to the other provisions of this chapter, shall regulate the conditions of service of a recruitment service and appointed individuals. (2) At the commencement of this Constitution, services known in the name of the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service will be deemed to be services created by Parliament under this article. 5 [(3) Under the All India Judicial Service referred to in clause (1), there shall be no posterior to the post of District Judge as defined in Article 236. (4) In the procedure to provide for the creation of the aforesaid All India Judicial Service, such provisions can be made for amendment of Chapter 6 of Part 6, which are necessary for the implementation of the provisions of that law and such a method is in accordance with Article 368 For the purposes of the Constitution the amendment will not be considered.

1 [312a] Power of Parliament to make changes in the terms of service or to revoke the services of some of the services--

(1) Parliament, by law - (A) Those persons, who were appointed by the Secretary of State or by the Secretary of State in Council before the commencement of this Constitution, had been appointed in any civil service of the Crown in India and which was established at the commencement of the Constitution (Act of the Amendment) Act, 1972 And after that, any service or post under the Government of India or the government of any state remains on the terms of service, remuneration and pension-related terms and conditions. Snik topics related rights may prospectively or may retrospectively change or revoked; (B) Those persons, who were appointed by the Secretary of State or by the Secretary of State in Council before the commencement of this Constitution, were appointed in any civil service of the Crown in India and from the beginning of the Constitution (Act of the Amendment) Act, 1972 In the past, either have retired from service or otherwise have not been in service, can change the terms of pension-related services in future or retrospective Or may be revoked: But in the case of a person who is holding the post of Chief Justice or other judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court, the Comptroller General of India, the Union or the Chairman of the Public Service Commission of any State or the other Member or Chief Election Commissioner Has or has done, no point of sub-clause (a) or sub-clause (b) shall be construed to mean that it shall not allow Parliament to appoint the person in the said position. However, in the conditions of his service, except for the conditions of such service, he is made by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of State in Council, being a person employed in any civil service of the Crown in India. Empowering to make non-profit changes or to retaliate. (2) Except as far as the Parliament, by law, subject to this article, any matter of this article shall be construed to regulate the terms of service of persons specified in clause (1), under any other provision of this Constitution, Do not affect the power of the division or other authority. (3) The Supreme Court or any other court shall have no jurisdiction in the following disputes, namely: - (A) Any dispute arising out of any contract, contract or another such instrument, or any person referred to in clause (1), has executed or executed any provision made or made on it, or such person, Generated on the basis of any letter sent to any civil service of the Crown in India or in relation to the continuation of the service under the Government of India or any province of his province. Oi dispute; (B) Any dispute regarding the rights, obligations or obligations under Article 314 as enunciated in the original form. (4) The provisions of this article shall be effective in the original form as enunciated in Article 314 of this Act or in any other provision of this Constitution.

313. Transitional provisions-

Unless other provisions are made for this purpose under this Constitution, all such methods which are immediately preceded by the commencement of this Constitution and any such public service or any such post, which after the commencement of this Constitution, Remains or remains as a service or post under the Sangh or any state, it will remain in force till it is consistent with the provisions of this Constitution.

314. [Provision for the protection of existing officials of some services.] Rep. (2-8-1972) by the Constitution (twenty-eight revisions) Act, 1972, Rep.

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[mitchforsyththinks]

BA3b PROJECT SUMMARY

The thing that I have really come to terms with in BA3b is how well a collaborative creative effort can go sometimes. The end of second had left a sour taste in my mouth when it came to working with other people on one project. Whilst the year had been full of successes in collaboration, it didn’t happen without a real struggle. When it came to BA3b, both my work with Stevie on MAC YAMAMOTO and Maylott on DRIFTING went off almost without a hitch- and I say almost since I think part of the reason me and Stevie worked so well was that our supposed partnership with a UEA writer went so badly on our side. It forced us to design and decide of our own creative practices, rather than having to apply it to another persons, and soon we came to really we were pushing each other in really positive directions. The bounce back of ideas was really fluid, and there wasn’t really a point where either of us didn’t get each others thinking. The same could be said of working with Maylott. It really helped that he and I have very similar tastes in the kind of work we were going to be making, and so the vision was shared as well as the influence.

This isn’t to say I wouldn’t change how things had gone. There are a couple of areas of both MAC YAMAMOTO and DRIFTING that I feel could do with a slight retouch or shift.

When it comes to MAC, I think it’s the format that might need a rejig. Whilst the size of the book and the weight of the paper was very much a decided and intended thing for the exhibition copy, I think potentially producing a mass print copy in the future offers us an opportunity to play with how we size it. We had been aiming for a kind of ‘style magazine’ sized edition when it came to the exhibition copy, but I think the book could do with scaling down very slightly for mass print, and maybe adjusting the glossyness and weight of the paper stock so it feels more pocketable. A nugget of creative mystery, a kind of compact postcard book of narrative visuals.

With DRIFTING, maybe the only thing that I would like to really play about with now I have the film at this stage would be the sound design. I was reliant on the music to carry the film in a classic film musical sort of sense, but in retrospect I think it could do with some even subtle hints of ambient room sound. Engine noise, computer alerts, door openings, suit compressions. Even a continuation of the repetitive heartbeat sound to carry on behind the credits as they roll. Like I’ve mentioned, these are things to correct in the future when I can owe the film some more time.

A thing that both I as director and the audience need to bear in mind is that I had envisioned this to be the first entry in a series of music videos that would tell the entire story of Lt Henry and his Drifting in space (as detailed in BA3a). I think as it stands, this cut of DRIFTING acts as a stand alone music video. It is concise, and starts and ends. I would like to continue on with this project, and potentially expand it into the live performance event. When I started writing the music about a year ago, it was born from a love of the 70’s concept album and a challenge set by my tutor to ‘write a space opera’. Live performance could really be the thing that sets the project a flame in terms of finding and delivering to an audience. Even the notion of putting a collection of musicians together to perform the music live in front of the film as it plays would be an interesting interactive experience for an audience member. If anything, there’s something about live performance that can redefine what a script or a recorded tune is actually for.

I think the main thing I set out to do in this final unit was to make the best use of the facilities and time as I could, and in when it comes to both of these projects I don’t think I could have done so any more. I set myself tight deadlines as to getting every little section of each project done within, as to maximise my efficiency and the constraint of having that final cut off date. Everything essentially went off without a hitch. In the time, I’ve also managed to secure solid and engaging roles in both the curation of Ampersand show in February, and our upcoming final degree show. Balancing my inclusion in these teams with managing all of the project work was certainly a challenge, but keeping myself to tight weekly deadlines and quotas really helped to keep everything under control and moving forward at a steady rate.

This past term could have been both my most enjoyable and most successful unit of work in the whole of my 3 years. All of the practice and thinking and process really felt like it was culminating positively and actually, and the portfolio of work that I have now feels solid and considered and uniquely me, which I suppose was the best outcome that there could have been.