#this area made a huge impact on me back when the game was first released & really inspired me

[daeyumi]

For all our future ⚔️

My piece for @hyrulewarriorszine !! The zine is out now & is free to download, so definitely go check it out! Happy 10th birthday to Hyrule Warriors ❤️

[servrz]

been playing around with a bunch of different ops lately, as you can tell. so, here are my main 3 ops for each side at this moment.

attack

ash - ah. nothing quite like ash. stuck with her through the ups and downs-- got her stuns removed, reduced to 2 breach rounds, the r4-c became borderline uncontrollable, her precious acog was taken. but i'll tell you what... she's back, baby. the r4-c slaps again (acog is back but i still use holo), she still fast as fuck, and the boom boom launcher can take care of tons of util. favorite entry fragger, favorite operator. goated.

iana - yeah yeah, i know. no more frags, no more stuns. iana is somewhat of a shell of the entry fragging powerhouse she used to be. but let me tell you, she's still really solid. the arx and g36 are two great weapons that can fit a variety of situations, and the gemini is basically just an unlimited rechargeable drone. still a w entry fragger.

finka - honestly, i hated finka for so long. when she was first released in chimera, she was pretty underwhelming for me and remained that way until she became the staple of the lmg meta. that made me hate her in a different way. but once that whole debacle was taken care of, i tried her out with the spear (which i enjoyed on thunderbird) and realized she isn't so bad. the gun is solid, and the heals provide some good value for the team.

defense

solis - yeah, she's getting nerfed next season, but she will still be good. and right now, she's really, really, reeeeally fucking good. the ultimate drone hunter, with the smg-11 as a secondary, who has the potential for insane plays and lurks. her info gathering ability is unmatched, and she's the most dominant roaming operator in the game right now. the p90 takes some getting used to, but OH MY GOD THE SMG-11. cracked.

vigil - vigil was my boy back in years 5 and 6. the k1a has always slapped, and even though his cloak isn't particularly strong anymore, the ability to deny the attackers access to your precise location can prove really valuable on the roam and in 1vX situations. he's always had a special place in my heart, and it will remain that way. bible done hit luigi

alibi - alibi is an operator that everyone loved for the 1.5. she also doesn't have impacts anymore, so she isn't as strong as she once was, but she's still fun to roam with. the mx4 storm is an insane smg, one of my favorites. the bailiff is a good util sidearm, with a great revolver as an alternative. the addition of prox mines to her kit provides some flank cover for her if she roams, or provides your teammates with intel if you place them around site. her holograms are hit or miss, but with clever placement she could still get some decent value out of them.

also got some honorable mentions for ops that i think are good and fun, but aren't really in my top 3 on either side. they probably don't fit my entry fragging and hard roaming playstyle, but i like them nonetheless.

flores - by far my favorite non-entry frag attacker. if i ever wanna sit back and play more passive, he is my number one choice. i hate thatcher so i never really realized how good the ar33 was until i played flores. the raze boombots ratero drones are super useful for clearing util without putting yourself in harm's way, which can make a huge difference when you're gonna push or contest an area.

ram - my favorite vertical play op. the r4-c is my favorite gun, so that's a plus. the razor roombas are so good at crushing floors-- they cover a lot of ground and can do it remotely. not much else to say, she's just awesome.

deimos - i'm still learning how to play him effectively, but i always thought the ak74 was mistreated because it's been greatly overshadowed by the arx on nomad. i'm happy to see it getting some attention. the 'volver is a pocket dmr, so being restricted to it while the deathmark is active is still fucking good. its destructibility is nice too. but the deathmark is a lot of fun to use, and is a great info gathering tool in a capable deimos's hands.

brava - i feel like brava is greatly underrated in most cases. the para is a good weapon despite its slow fire rate, and the super shorty is always a good destruction sidearm. the ability to use defenders' gadgets against them is really good, and she's a great counter for teams that run a lot of maestro, kapkan, anyone with prox mines, and more.

azami - doesn't really fit my roaming archetype, but i'm still very much a fan. the vsn is a very strong smg, and the deagle is a fucking hand cannon. her pancakes can block off lines of sight and create silly little angles for me and my team to hold, which is super useful for when you wanna hold an area down. the kibas are more easily destroyed now, but who cares? they've still proven to be really strong and effective at their job.

ela - god, i love ela, but it's so hard to justify bringing her nowadays. the scorpion is actually pretty solid with its fire rate and mag capacity, but it's so hard to control, making it pretty unreliable. her grzmots are basically prox alarms that are destroyed upon use. the stun helps a little bit, but not much. i hope she gets buffed soon (and her gun too) so that she's a little bit more viable.

warden - haha. everyone looooved warden for his 1.5, but those days are OVER. i mained warden before the 1.5 even existed, and i can say that he does have his uses. i think his ability is even more useful now that ying is pretty popular and wamai is typically picked over jager (so candelas and stuns still go off). the mpx is a headshot machine, but you can also bring the shotgun for funsies since you have the smg-12 as a full-auto secondary. my only gripe with him is that he's slow now, but it ain't so bad.

thorn - yet ANOTHER operator enjoyed by 1.5 crutch users. and yet ANOTHER operator i mained before the addition of her 1.5. the uzk is a criminally underrated weapon in my opinion, and the cz75 as a secondary is a great full-auto sidearm to compensate for the uzk's small mag. her thorn traps are (like ela) basically glorified prox mines, but (unlike ela) have the potential to kill and destroy util.

[limitlessgojo]

Blood Bound: Red Strings of Fate (Ch 7)

Warnings: Action, Coarse Language, Fighting, Descriptions of Blood

Previous Chapter: Speed of Sound

Next Chapter: Red Strings of Fate

Tags: Soulmates AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Fem!Reader

Taglist: @lessie-oxj @rizzo-nero @whoreuc @fkngkumiko @isl3t @gojoussunglasses @onepotatostand-blog @s-t-f-u-b-i-t-c-h @sunaswife

Notes: If you want to be tagged for every update, please mention it in the comments below ty <3

Double Update today, because these two chapters go hand in hand. It didn't feel right to upload one without the other.

Chapter 7: Bird of Flame

You faced Todo off in a clearing. Everyone else was at the far side watching. “Just run away if it gets too much.” You worriedly said to Miwa and Mai pushing them back.

“It’s okay, I’ll hold off any attacks.” Noritoshi assured you. You beamed up at him, “Thanks senpai.”

“Someone’s being awfully friendly today.” Momo half coughed and half murmured out. Noritoshi just gave her the side eye.

As per your style of fighting, you stayed still if you did not know of your opponent’s cursed technique.

“I won’t immobilise you this time since we are sparring.” You called out to Todo. “Fine with me!”

You could hold out your protective space warping around you for several hours. You just had to make sure it was activated in the space around you.

Todo didn’t hesitate to start off with punches and kicks. Nothing moved you of course. 5 minutes passed with him getting nowhere. Is that all he has?

You narrowed your eyes, but lifted a hand to push him back into a tree. You manipulated its branches such that they were all pointing to him. He was about to hit them until he clapped his hands and suddenly, you were there.

Your eyes widened, barely having time to brace yourself as you guarded for impact. You hit the branches hard. “Shit.” Looks like you might have to use your extended techniques against him.

He was in front of you in a split second and you quickly moved to dodge. You tried to maneuver your way around him, but it was hard to pinpoint the exact origin of the hits as he kept swapping your positions before landing a hit.

Sometimes, when you brace for a hit, he doesn’t swap your positions. How annoying!!! Of course your spacial barrier is still active and taking the hits for you, but it does have its limits.

Moving at mach speed in a short distant range won’t help you too much as it’s better for transport rather than combat.

You breathed out low and slow, before channeling your concentration into your 6th sense. Spatial awareness. Faster and faster, you started bracing for his hits and pushing him back.

And when he was unprepared you lashed out with your hidden twin blade only for him to dodge it. You can’t deny that the 2nd year's have more experience than you in battle. And Todo's specialty is obviously close combat.

You had both blades out now quickly slashing at him dangerously. He avoids it and the slashes cut all the way to the trees behind him.

You gave in, sheathing your blades and turning around to recuperate but he was faster as he finally caught you by the arm. “I got you!”

You grinned. Who got who?

With one hand, you straightened 4 fingers out towards Todo and folded your thumb into your palm. “Extension cursed technique, focus range: Niflheim”. Your applied cursed technique slows down the movement of molecules in an enclosed area, forcing items to freeze.

A layer of ice covered Todo’s entire body. The branches that binded around him were also covered with ice, stretching behind him in an ice pillar.

You quickly released your hand from his hold and slowly breathed to the sky, releasing an icy smokey breath. You turned around with a slow smile. “Checkmate”

He struggled against the ice but, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. That is way under 0 degrees celsius. You might lose a limb or 2 Todo senpai.”

He sighed, “I g-g-guh-give!” He could barely utter the words as his teeth chattered. You gently focused on raising the temperature, melting the ice off of Todo first. You couldn’t do it too fast or else he would combust.

As soon as he was free you reached out and applied your reversed cursed technique on him, healing the cold in his body. “Thank you so much for the match! It’s been a while since I felt that much fun in battle!” You excitedly said.

“Good game. As expected of my little sister, you’re very strong.” Todo patted your head. You stared, “Excuse me, whose little sister??”

“You should have buried him y/n!” Momo exclaimed. “Hear hear.” Mai chanted. Mechamaru just said, “I almost got buried by her once. She should have done the same with him.” You just laughed, “It’s okay, I’m satisfied with this.”

You turned to Noritoshi and he walked up to you and Todo went back. At this distance, the others couldn’t hear your conversation. “That was incredible.” He had a very proud smile on his face. “I hope you take our fight seriously as well. That’s all I ask of you.” He whispered.

“Of course I will senpai. But like with Todo senpai, I won’t use immobilisation techniques so we can spar properly okay?”

“Okay” he patted your shoulder and gave it a small squeeze before moving backwards. ‘Kamo clan, blood manipulation. They can manipulate their blood freely.’ you thought to yourself.

Your eyes zeroed in on his bow and arrows. The smell of blood was always on him, but you bet he had blood on those arrows. “Begin!”

He launched arrows at you only for you to stop them. Projectiles were the worst thing he could do. You frowned as you turned the arrows on him and sent them back. He dodged and shot more.

What on earth? This was so ineffective against yo-

He suddenly came from the side and punched you. Diversionary tactics dummy, you didn’t think about it.

You got pushed back from the force but stood your ground. He was insanely fast for a human. He is currently faster than Todo and any of the male cousins whom you’ve fought with.

It was a jarring experience. “Flowing Red Scale” He moved backwards, one eye wide open with a red blood x mark on it.

Your brain went into overdrive in a hurry to connect the dots while you defended against him. Blood. Red blood cells. Oxygen. He’s increasing his physical abilities.

You quickly lashed out with a double kick only for him to bring out a blood bag. “Blood manipulation: Crimson binding”. Blood strands wrapped around you and caged you in.

But you froze them and easily broke it in the process. You hurried to try and bring him down with mixed martial arts, not wanting to hurt him too much.

Sparring with him actually felt like a dance. You dodged and had an instinct as to where the next move would come from, and he was the same. Barely any hits landed on each other for a while.

Ah right, you promised to go hard on him. You put two hands out in a V shape, with palms facing him. Noritoshi’s eyes widened at the familiar hand signs. It’s the very first one you showed him.

“Tatsumaki” A huge horizontal cyclone hit him and forced him back. “Enhanced Gravity: Output level 4%”

“Aarghhh” Noritoshi groaned as he was forced to the ground. You didn’t notice his hands moving.

“Convergence! Piercing blood” a sudden fast stream of blood shot out and grazed your cheek. It would have been worse had you not moved your head aside. Noritoshi’s eyes widened as blood poured from the wound.

You quickly made tree branches hold his hands apart and forced him back onto the ground. You pointed both your twin blades at his head. “I give!”

You released your technique and knelt down. “Are you oka-”

“Are you okay? I hit your face!” He exclaimed in worry, hand hovering just over your cheek. You stared at him in amusement. “It’s a serious matter!!” he insisted.

You covered your face with one hand, then wiped off the blood to reveal a flawless cheek. He gaped, “Reverse cursed technique. I see. Good fight” He wheezed out.

"You actually hit through my defenses in battle. That was amazing Noritoshi senpai." You whispered in amazement. There was something different about the blood he manipulated.

His bond to it was far stronger than your hold over his blood. So if you tried manipulating his blood, it's a low chance that you could get it to attack him.

You can manipulate anything and everything, even at molecular levels to some extent. But you can't produce what's not there. There seems to be a limit to your manipulation over certain items.

"I still lost. Thank you for the match." He said.

You held his hand for the first time as you pulled him up, when suddenly a searing pain hit the inside of your wrist.

"Ouch!" You exclaimed while Noritoshi winced as well. You both pulled back your sleeves to see a large bird surrounded by flames just below the inner wrist on your right hand. Noritoshi had the exact same symbol, but it was in the inner wrist on his left hand.

You quickly pulled over both your sleeves to cover the markings, “Just say we both got wounds, let’s keep this a secret.” You pulled back and acted on purpose, “Good fight. You almost got me there.”

He naturally followed your lead, but there was a brightness to his eyes that told of something else. “.... Yeah you got me. I’ll do my best to catch up to you next time we spar.”

“What happened?” Utahime ran towards the both of you upon seeing you both flinch forward. “No, Utahime sensei we just got some scrapes that stung badly, nothing too bad.”

“I see. I have a first aid kit on hand, feel free to use it if you need to.” She said, and pushed you two back to where everyone else was.

You both stayed at the back watching the other students ask to spar with each other. Noritoshi quietly tugged at your sleeve, hidden from view with his own large and wide sleeves.

You tugged back twice on his sleeve and grabbed his hand to squeeze it. His hands were rough and calloused from fighting, but also had a tenderness and warmth from the way they tried to hold onto yours.

Both your marks flashed with heat when your hands touched. Noritoshi turned to you with all the world's curiosity in his face.

But you pulled back and put some distance between the two of you so it wouldn't look too obvious. "That binding technique that you did earlier was cool. Is it possible for you to manipulate the blood even after I freeze it solid?" You asked to try and divert the attention.

"Actually I haven't tried yet. But I should be able to as the main composition is still my blood." He admitted.

The remaining time left on the field was spent mostly on the others working on their cursed techniques against each other, and with you engaging in tactical discussion with the other students.

You all bid each other goodbye and went your separate ways. Except… Noritoshi mouthed "library" after he waved you off.

You lifted your eyebrows silently in agreement and walked back with the rest of the 1st year's.

Blood Bound: Table of Contents

[splitcycle]

Okay so I want to talk about a non-gear character this time. Gear's my main game but I want to discuss other characters who interest me as well.

So today we're talking about Carmine.

Yes, that's blood. Yes, it's his. He uses it to attack people. That's his super power. No, his hair isn't naturally red. It's naturally white. He dyes it. With his blood.

Now that we've gotten how much of an edgelord he is out of the way, let's talk mechanics.

Carmine is. . . Not technically zoner? He can kind of zone, and he has lots of wide-angle coverage, but zoning is more the tool he uses to take neutral. I'd say it's more accurate to call him a setplay character. Carmine's kit has lots of nasty little tools in it to let him control the entire area if you let him set up.

First let's talk about his normals. Most of them use his blood as the point of contact for him to hit you. This means that a lot of his moves have bigger reach than you'd guess. Additionally, he has a command normal to throw a fireball.

6B throws a crystallized spike of blood at his opponent. After it hits them it melts into a puddle on the ground, where it sits visibly for later use. If you hold it instead, he throws a spinning blade made of blood up at a shallow angle, making it useful as an antiair fireball to catch high jumps or close jump-in attacks. Either version of 6B can be tapped on hit to make all blood puddles on the ground produce large curved blades that shoot out of the ground, and can hit high. Jumping 6B is the same, except the spike is fired forward and down, allowing you to pressure people or retaliate on an attempted grab by jumping back and fling j.6B at the aggressor. Using 6B without the spike followup deletes any puddle made by 6B previously and places it at the new point of impact.

In UNICLR all specials done using Attack C use half your meter to perform and are generally far more powerful. Carmine's tend to be a little more unique. A lot of Characters in fighting games use resources for specials. Eltnum, the Melty Blood crossover character in UNICLR, has a gun that uses bullets, and she has to reload every so often, and can time reloads for buffed damage. Johnny in Guilty Gear has Coins that he throws to level up his Mist Finer special. When playing Carmine you may notice he doesn't have a fancy meter or an ammo display showing his resources for his moves.

Carmine's special resource is his health bar. I told you he attacked with his own blood, didn't I?

Since Carmine's many, many projectiles all eat away at his own health bar, he can't just spam you out in a corner all day. His own moves won't kill him, but they'll bring him down to 1 pixel of health. Like I said, Carmine's not a zoner. He has plenty of angle coverage to guarantee he fights you on his own terms, but he's too aggressive by necessity to really patiently sit in a corner and wait for you to die.

236A, 236B, and 236C are all variants on the same move. Carmine throws a spinning sawblade made of blood forward, following a different path depending on which button you pressed. All versions of the move are multi-hit moves, and all versions leave a puddle on the ground. A version curves low, slicing grounded enemies a short area in front of Carmine, before pulling back and melting into a puddle. B version veers a bit off-course, and swerves high before pulling back. C version is just Really Big, and covers both at the same time.

When using this special all blood puddles on the ground turn into saw blades that charge directly towards the enemy, letting you sneak in some extra hits at a distance.

22A, 22B, and 22C produce large crystal formations in Carmine's blood, and produces a puddle in front of Carmine. Each one has slightly different reaches and dead zones. A variation is close, B variant is farther away. C Variant does more damage and traps the opponent in a big crystal of blood on hit, allowing Carmine an extended okizeme period to start his setplay anew. Puddles made from this move are distinct from puddles made from 236 or 2B, and using this special makes the same crystal formations appear out of every puddle. Are you sensing a recurring theme yet?

Pressing B+C at the same time activates what this game calls a Force Function. For Carmine that means he moves his blood puddles. Using the stick you can choose to move them left, right, or to clump all of them together. This works for all blood puddles. If there are no puddles when it's used, Carmine makes one. Moving the puddles does minor damage to anyone standing on them when they move.

214A, 214B, and 214C have Carmine create a bubble of blood that he slams into the ground to create a crystal like the ones in his 22 moves. A variant is a close-range, tightly spaced pair of spikes. B variant is spaced further apart for more range, but has a tiny deadzone right in Carmine's face. C Variant is a metered jump-in that leaves a mess of crystals underneath him, and can be used for a few different things, including a crossup, albeit a very risky metered one. None of these moves leave a blood puddle by default. Instead, they have a special means of producing a puddle. If you hold the button down, Carmine will laugh and place a puddle on the ground instead of the normal one-two that this move does. The puddle remains until you release the button, at which point it rises off the ground and explodes. This means you can technically produce six puddles on the ground at once if you want to pay the low, low price of not having any attack buttons until you detonate. This obviously is a big risk, but the real value is that you can strategically pick which button to give up access to in order to let you still perform a combo or string. You may choose to hold B and keep access to SMART combo, the automatic combo function of the game, or use C to maintain full combo capability if you don't have meter for a C variation, or you may give up A so you lose your fastest moves in exchange for your little bomb not making you give up your fireball. This one's risky but it can be used to catch people off-guard and in certain combos.

63214 is a unique move with no unmetered counterparts. It's a command grab where Carmine grabs someone and pulls out some blood for himself. It steals healthbar if it connects. His normal throw does this as well, but it's not nearly as much health as this one. This move and his normal throw are important parts of his kit because of their lifesteal.

I saved this one for last because it's one of the only specials he has that can't leave a puddle. Carmine's 623A, 623B, and 623C all create a big swirl of blood around Carmine himself, hitting on both sides of him. This does damage on its own but it also creates identical swirls of blood centered on every puddle he leaves behind, save the ones he's holding manually from 214. Each of these little swirls do pretty big damage, and with enough setup Carmine can hit the entire screen at once with these.

This is what I mean about Carmine not being a Zoner. He thrives off of aggression and being right in your face using his blood to dish out as much pain as possible from anywhere on the stage. A good Carmine is completely oppressive in his setplay. He has to be careful and mindful of his health, using his tools with precision to force the opponent on the back foot. He can zone for a while but Carmine players tend to get impatient due to their dwindling life bar and dive in. A good Carmine will keep you so busy with overwhelming pressure that you don't even notice he's turned the whole stage into a minefield, and a bad Carmine will spam fireballs till he runs out of health and then panic and jump in for a command grab and die.

I initially wanted to call attention to him because he uses his huge number of projectiles in a novel way, throwing out 6Bs as mid-range pressure and setplay, but using his actual fireball as agressive close-up damage that chains well off his combos, making a powerful snowball character who uses his projectiles to drag people in and keep them there as he rushes down.

[newmusickarl]

Album & EP Recommendations

My word, the music world has well and truly spoiled us this week!

The past seven days has seen a colossal avalanche of new releases, so much so I’ve barely had chance to keep up with it all. Although this is not the full list of everything from the past seven days, here are the 16 (yes, 16!) new releases I’ve enjoyed the most this week.

As there is so much to get through the rundowns are (mostly) a bit shorter than normal and there is no single Album of the Week, instead I simply recommend checking out whichever album or track sounds most appealing depending on your preferred taste.

So without further ado then, here’s what’s good:

Californian Soil by London Grammar

It’s been four years since the release of London Grammar’s last record Truth Is A Beautiful Thing - an album that I enjoyed, but I’ll admit also left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed coming off the back of their incredible breakout debut, If You Wait. As it turns out, the band themselves were also having a tough time around that period, with front woman Hannah Reid in particular battling relentless industry sexism, as well as the persistent physical pain caused by her fibromyalgia condition. With this being the case, it is amazing that the young indie-pop trio have made it to their third album at all, let alone delivering what is their best work to date.

Opening on a grand, string-drenched Intro, the record soon morphs into the sun-soaked guitars and soaring orchestration of the album’s glorious title track. It marks an early highlight as Reid catches the audience up with the tribulations of the last few years – “I left my soul on Californian soil.” From there the album doesn’t really let up as the band move through a series of career-defining tracks – the gorgeous contemporary groove of Missing, the dance-influenced How Does It Feel, the chilled-out ambience of the dreamy Baby, It’s You and the sublime, stripped-back closer America.

However, the album’s strongest moment comes when Reid confronts music industry sexism head on with defiant anthem Lord It’s A Feeling. Beginning with some twinkly xylophone, before evolving into an atmospheric synth-laced backdrop where Reid pulls no punches:

“I saw the way you made her feel, like she should be somebody else,

I know you think the stars align for you and not for her as well,

I undеrstand, I can admit that I have felt those things mysеlf”

The cutting lyrics against some blinding quiet rave instrumentation leaves quite the impression, as does this sterling record in general. After a slight misstep, London Grammar have well and truly rediscovered themselves and they have honestly never sounded better – a truly incredible album.

If You Could Have It All Again by Low Island

Oxford electo-pop outfit Low Island are another band that have defied expectations to get to this point. This, their debut album, was not recorded in a professional music studio – in fact, the vocals were recorded in a bedroom cupboard of all places. The band themselves don’t even have a manager or a record label. In every sense of the word, they are a truly independent band. For a self-financed, self-produced effort, If You Could Have It All Again is a quite remarkable first outing.

From melodic, uplifting opener Hey Man, the record quickly jumps into spoken word electro punk banger What Do You Stand For, featuring acid-drenched synths and a dancefloor-ready groove. Fans of FIFA 21 will recall Don’t Let the Light In, with the glitchy pulse of recent single Who’s Having the Greatest Time also standing out. That said, it’s the smooth, infectious sway of I Do It For You that still pulls me in the most.

Having followed the band since their early EPs, I’ve been rooting for Low Island for a while now and this is one debut album I was highly anticipating this year. Safe to say, my expectations have been met – this is a fantastic, accomplished record, which leaves me eager to see where they go next.

The Greatest Mistake Of My Life by Holding Absence

There was a time when the difficult second album used to be a thing, but listening to the sophomore effort from Welsh rock band Holding Absence this week, I’m really not sure that exists anymore. After a dramatic and impressive self-titled debut two years ago, the band have wasted little time taking things up a notch, with this new album cinematic and masterfully produced from beginning to end.

From standout singalong anthems like Afterlife and In Circles, to the album’s epic seven-minute penultimate track Mourning Song, The Greatest Mistake of My Life shows a band pushing themselves and driving forward with ambition at every opportunity. In a year packed with outstanding rock and metal albums already, this is most definitely another one you can add onto that list. Soaring, impressive and demanding of repeat listens.

We Forgot We Were Dreaming by Saint Raymond

It’s been six long years since Nottingham-born singer-songwriter Callum Burrows, AKA Saint Raymond, released his debut album. However it seems the time away has been well spent as this long-awaited follow-up finds Burrows in fine form, with this album packed to the brim with catchy, glossily produced indie-pop anthems.

From the brilliant title track that opens the record, to the bouncy riffs of Right Way Round, Talk and Solid Gold, to more subdued and heartfelt moments like Only You, this album will have you smiling, singing your heart out and dancing your troubles away.

Flu Game by AJ Tracey

AJ Tracey may have only been three years old when Michael Jordan was winning NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, but that hasn’t stopped him making a record influenced by the legendary icon and his famous 1997 Flu Game. Like many others including myself, grime superstar AJ Tracey spent lockdown watching the brilliant The Last Dance documentary, and this record weirdly works as a fantastic unofficial companion, but also just a great summer rap record.

McCartney III Imagined by Paul McCartney

Even if like me you completely missed Sir Paul McCartney’s 2020 album McCartney III, it’s well worth checking out this reimagining, where he has called on the help of some of his famous musician pals. This is a real who’s who line up of guest features including Beck, Khurangbin, St. Vincent, Blood Orange, Phoebe Bridgers, Damon Albarn, Josh Homme, Anderson .Paak and more, making for quite a fascinating mix of sounds and styles.

Moratorium (Broadcasts from The Interruption) by Enter Shikari

And finally on the albums front this week, genre-benders Enter Shikari have released a brilliant compilation of all their lockdown live performances, headlined by an incredible string-tinged acoustic version of The Dreamer’s Hotel and a beautifully stripped-back “At Home” rendition of Live Outside.

Tracks of the Week

Introvert by Little Simz

Wow, wow and wow again. Still fairly fresh off the back of her masterful, Mercury Prize nominated third album Grey Area, this week British rapper Little Simz released the first taste of her next record in the form of this epic and triumphant opening track. At six minutes in length, this majestic and operatic political anthem aims to grab the listener by the collar and shake them awake. Without a doubt, one of the best songs of the year so far, the powerful video for which you can view above.

Smile by Wolf Alice

The second taste of their forthcoming album Blue Weekend, Smile continues Wolf Alice’s pattern for alternating Loud/Soft releases, with this one featuring buzzy guitars, punky vocals and a hypnotic chorus melody.

Beautiful Beaches by James

Although written off the back of the California wildfires that impacted front man Tim Booth’s local community, the lyrics on the band’s latest anthem purposefully offer a dual meaning, giving hope to those dreaming of a post-lockdown getaway and fresh start.

He Said She Said by CHVRCHES

The Scottish trio made their much-anticipated return this week, with Lauren Mayberry also sharing her experiences of sexism on this arena-ready synth-pop banger.

Matty Healy by Georgia Twinn

Georgia Twinn delivers an infectiously catchy break-up anthem, inspired by an ex-boyfriend, who’s most interesting feature was supposedly looking like the 1975 frontman.

Kill It by Vukovi

Underground Scottish rock outfit Vukovi’s new single is so good, they even managed to get KILL IT trending over the weekend of its release. Masterfully produced with big bold riffs and trancey synths, this one just sounds huge.

Can’t Carry On by Gruff Rhys

The latest solo single from the former Super Furry Animals frontman is a stunning, super-melodic tune with an instant chorus you’ll be singing before the track has even finished its first play.

Ceremony by Deftones

One of the highlights off their last album Ohms, the nu-metal rockers have now delivered a cinematic new video directed by horror legend Leigh Whannell. Check it out!

Chasing Birds by Foo Fighters

And finally this week, Dave Grohl and company released a trippy new animated video for this Medicine At Midnight cut to help celebrate 420 in their own unique way. Again, well worth a watch!

[chidoroki]

In Defense of TPN S2

Okay, so before y’all start throwing your salt shakers at me, let me explain. Yes, I’m just as upset and annoyed with how the second season decided to cut out so much content that us manga readers were finally hoping to see: no Yuugo, Goldy Pond arc or GP Resistance, Lucas or Glory Bell escapees, Adam, poachers, or Cuvitidala Search. Since this season also (sort of) reached the 2047 time skip, we were also denied of the Paradise Hideout, Jin, Hayato, Ayshe, the Seven Walls & Imperial Capital Battle arcs and Alex due to the anime’s so-called “original story” idea. While some manga events still took place (B06-32 getting blown up, the trio’s reunion, Norman’s time at Lambda, the cursed blood and the Grace Field raid), they were all significantly changed and barely held the same emotional impact, as we see very little to no build up to these moments. Several volumes were skipped completely and despite others being touched lightly, we unfortunately missed out on major character development for everyone, most notably for Emma, but also the lighter side of things such as chef Ray, medic Anna, Rossi learning morse code, Minerva!Norman, etc. There’s honestly so much of the main story to talk about and I totally understand why we’re all so ticked off, especially since that darn slideshow did absolutely nothing to calm our hearts at the end of ep11.

However.. I’m not gonna stand by and say this season was worthless. Highly disappointing given everything I just mentioned of course, I get it, so don’t curse me out just yet. People can trash talk it all they want and I’ll sympathize 110%, but I personally won’t do so. I love this series too much and that’s a huge reason as to why I didn’t drop this season. Usually whenever I start a new series, it’s because I become interested in a character or two. I find that no matter what happens in that series, whether the story intrigues me or not, I’ll continue it if only to see more of that character. If the story is good, it’s just another plus for me to stay addicted, so while this season totally missed their chance to adapt the wonderful source material of my favorite series, I stayed to watch Emma, Ray and all the other children I’ve grown to love over the past two years. Another reason why I stayed on this train wreck was because of how thought provoking it became as turned into yet another guessing game for me. After first watching the OP and even more after ep3 aired, I kept wondering what would they include or leave out. How would they handle this scene if this and that were already changed? How would they fix this problem if so and so isn’t here? It felt like I was watching season one blind all over again; seeing all these little clues sprinkled everywhere and yet not having any idea on how the story was going to continue or end got me excited. That’s why I came to love this story in the first place, so having the chance to feel that again alongside characters I love so dearly.. it was fun for me (until the slideshow punched me in the face). While many people will look at this season and declare the manga and first season are both superior (which they are, I agree), I’m still sitting over here like “oh look, more content!”

With all that nonsense out of the way, I thought I would go ahead and ramble about everything I believe the second season did well enough, because if I can take any heat off this adaptation then you’re damn right I’m gonna try. So if you’re wondering why on earth a manga reader even mildly enjoyed this season, it’s honestly just the little things such as a decently adapted or improved panel/scene, any new, interesting elements the anime may have included, or other personal favorite moments of mine.. which there were a lot of.

So no negativity past here kiddos, we’re gonna be as optimistic and lively as an orange antenna.

(mild manga spoiler warning, I guess? but I’m sure it’s nothing y’all haven’t heard us readers mention/complain about already)

- If you’ve read any of my reactions to this season, you would know how much love I have for “Identity.” Not only is the song still an absolute banger, but the opening sequence itself is fantastic. From the contrast between human vs demon, the cameos, the symbolism, the match cuts, the build up to the chorus.. just everything. I could talk about it endlessly and watch it several times over and still be impressed.

- Lani’s stupid fall.

- How clearly it shows Emma’s condition becoming progressively worse.

- Her scream.

- Ray’s apology, especially how soft his voice was when saying “sorry, Emma,” and the smile he gives after she tells him not to worry about it.

- And his entire promise to keep everyone in their family safe. Oh I was so happy to finally hear him say that.

- This exchange between Don and Gilda.

- Rossi and those darn faces he gives us. This boy is such a mood.

- How involved the younger kids were so they don’t feel like they were just.. there, which served as a reminder that everyone from Grace Field is smart, not just Emma and Ray.

- How pretty the demon forest looked at night when all those odd creatures started glowing (even those darn goowee).

- So happy with how this panel was adapted. That smirk of his is everything.

- The fact they remembered a small detail such as the bell.

- Knowing now that they cut so much out of the manga, I’m glad we at least got the hug.

- The ending sequence gave us a small look at Sonja and Mujika’s travels by themselves. “Magic” is also so very calming to listen to.

- How the children hug both Emma and Ray, as manga only had our girl receiving the hugs.

- Sonju & Mujika’s voice actors fit them perfectly.

- How impressed Ray was when he first tried their cooking. No wonder he was so eager to learn how to cook.

- Sonju’s story about the demon world from ch46-47 practically adapted word for word.

- While the manga also shows us how frighted the duo is upon learning they’re living in the worst case scenario, it’s seeing them and their hands physically shake that help push this scene a little bit more (not that you can tell this by a still frame but trust me).

- Their synchronized smirks and how well their excitement was not only animated but how genuine and real it sounds too. Emma’s laugh and the fact they made Ray of all people sound hopeful is fantastic.

- They kept the small Ray from this panel and made him better.

- I just love seeing him be optimistic.

- The entire scene when Emma & Ray are both scolded by the younger kids for acting so recklessly is perfect.

- They kept this tiny comment of Nat’s.

- Finally getting chef Ray and hearing how confident he is with his cooking skills already.

- Seeing other children like Dominic pick up archery and be surprisingly good at it.

- Anime pushed Emma’s quick learning ability further with archery by showing us how easily she could land a bullseye even after hitting something midair.

- How well they animated Emma’s first kill, from following the arrow as she pulls it back to when she releases it as it flies towards the bird’s eye.

- The fact that this scene and the next both used a water droplet to symbolize death just like we saw during season one with Conny and Norman’s shipments are so satisfying.

- The gupna scene and how well it emphasized Emma’s reaction to taking a life and how upset/bothered she was in doing so. The addition of a butterfly helps as well, as it’s another way this series tends to convey the idea of death. (you remember how many the OP had, right? tons.)

- I only just noticed that Ray is seen looking at a similar butterfly in the following scene as well.

- The anime doing this panel justice. Ep2 is probably the episode that follows the manga the closest and did real well in regards to that.

- Ray beating Sonju at chess.

- Chris knowing exactly which way to go without using the compass, which makes sense as he was seen mapping out the surrounding area in the previous episode.

- The kid’s adorable little freak out.-

- Giving us a better idea on how large the reference room of the B06-32 shelter truly is.

- Finally being able to hear our boy Nat play the piano. The fact that his first song is named “Nat King Cool” as a possible reference to Nat King Cole is also great.

- Rossi being an accurate representation of the manga readers while watching this episode.

- Chris being his cute self.

- Seeing Ray’s sleeping face after the manga denied us so many times by hiding it.

- It’s.. close enough. We love our chef.

- I love the idea that Nat plays a couple songs before everyone goes to sleep. That’s so precious.

- SHE!! With her hair down!

- Rossi teasing Don and the fact that just mentioning Gilda is enough to scare him.

- It remembered that Gilda has a tendency to count all the children.

- The level of confidence Isabella has in her kids.

- Ray being oh so close to shooting a human with an arrow.

- This hug.

- Chris leading the group through the underground tunnels, which he also does in manga but we learn earlier in this ep it’s due to all the time he’s played down here.

- Because of his extensive knowledge of the shelter’s layout, Chris also guides everyone to one of the secret entrances to escape after he realizes the intruders are only stationed at the main two.

- Ray’s first demon kill is smooth as hell.

- Curse this scene for being so dark because that damn smile Isabella gives us is amazing.

- Since Andrew was cut, Chris and Dominic survive the aftermath of the shelter’s destruction without any injuries.

- Although we weren’t expecting to see their older 2047 selves this soon, they look good okay?

- The emotion in her voice throughout this entire scene (probably the closest we were ever gonna get to Emma doubting herself in ch109/114 too).

- Please just let me enjoy this moment when Ray noticed her negative thoughts and stepped in to help just as I expected.

- Vylk and that goofy smile of his.

- Watching the duo communicate without words during the chase through the demon town.

- Our girl clearing this jump effortlessly.

- Norman’s squishy cheeks.

- Ray’s slap could’ve been better, I know, but at this point I’m happy they still included it.

- The fact we can see Ray’s face during the reunion hug this time.

- And this hug.

- Remembering the small panel of Ray noticing Emma’s bluff.

- Finally hearing this conversation because both voice actors do a wonderful job with it and thankfully the dialogue is on par with the manga as well. Also that one moment when the shadow falls across Emma’s face like that.

- Gilda comforting Alicia after her nightmare.

- The scene is very dear to me so of course I appreciate every little panel we can get.

- How carefree Ray sounded with his “Nopes.”

- How I only realized just now that this panel was also adapted.

- Okay so who’s brilliant idea was it to have the sun rise towards the end of this conversation as Ray helps Emma regain her confidence? I just wanna personally thank them because it was a genius move and I’ll treasure it forever.

- They kept Barbara’s slip-up.

- Like our demon friends, I think the Lambda crew’s voices fit them rather well, although Zazie’s was totally unexpected, like dude you’re 5, why is your voice so low?

- Another “it could’ve been better but at least they included it” moment.

- Vincent’s smile here cracks me up and I don’t know why.

- Barbara’s anger.

- The short snippet we get of the ch126 conversation when the duo was visiting Chris.

- The table from Barbara’s outrage was never magically fixed like it was in manga, so we get this nice shot of Norman reflected in the broken surface.

- The trio’s conversation about the royals and cursed blood follows manga relatively well.

- Anime did this panel better, I’m sorry. Thank you for showing my girl getting angry.

- This frame of Ray.

- This comment of Norman’s that made me wanna slap him.

- How Norman’s face is constantly in the shadows during this scene, which is something his office at the Paradise hideout probably wouldn’t have given us, so hurray for this location instead.

- How he and Emma bicker over how many days their deal should last.

- When the camera shifts in and out of focus during Barbara’s seizure.

- How this scene hid Norman’s face until they revealed the demon the crew killed.

- It really is the small details that make me happy.

- This smile of Don’s.

- I’ll take all the hugs I can get.

- Emma and Gilda’s little headbutt.

- Why does my boy look so grown up and handsome here? Hello??

- I suppose I have to give credit for Peter’s voice actor too hm?

- Actually making Smee a bit more relevant.

- Since the fight against Legravalima was cut, this shot of Zazie is the closest we’re gonna get to seeing him without his paper bag, but it does improve on that one panel of him at the start of ch153.

- Seeing more of Norman’s time at Lambda as well as the aftermath of the explosion.

- While this scene pales in comparison to its manga counterpart, having the sun set behind him while Norman delivers his famous line was still a decent touch. It’s a nice contrast to the sunrise in ep6 and I enjoy it very much.

- Wild demons managing to somehow successful jump scare me not once, not twice, but three times in a single episode.

- Emma getting back up to protect her family despite her injury. (i mean, it’s no ch93 comeback but oh well)

- Ray getting in another decent shot at a demon.

- This face of his.

- Seeing just how quickly the drug causes the demons to degenerate and all the chaos it causes.

- Actually showing Norman attacking a demon rather than just saying he killed Yverk off panel in ch153.

- Hate me all you want but the anime did this panel better too.

- The ch153 discussion is more or less the same but the fact they added in Norman looking to Ray for help and just having him snap back instead was priceless.

- Sonju’s grin.

- The scene when Norman stops Zazie’s attack may only last like five seconds but it’s wonderfully animated and I find myself replaying it countless times.

- How to make the manga readers and anime-onlys panic with just one sentence:

- Isabella being clever as ever by leaking false info into the radio the escapees have to lure them back to Grace Field.

- I just think Emma looks so mature and pretty here?

- Had Norman actually apologize to the demons.. or was just about to anyways.

- Demon Emma is precious and must be protected.

- The adorable mixup between both Emmas.

- I haven’t a clue on where or how the kids managed to gather all the supplies to create several hot air balloons and explosives.. but they did, somehow, and I’m impressed because I’m assuming that all happened within a day.

- Ma’am, could you be any more smug?

- Simon! And he ends up surviving!

- Having Sonju fight alongside the Lambda crew.

- Which reminds me that this is possible since the Imperial Capital battle didn’t happen (yet, in this timeline), so the three of them never received their injuries from Legravalima either.

- The smoke bombs, only because I remembered how Sonju used them back in ep1 while rescuing Ray so it’s nice to see them being used again.

- Showing Norman actually use a bow and arrow this time. He also hits his target on the first try through a smokescreen.

- Ray having enough strength to knock out two demons with a simple metal pipe. In ch169 he’s seen holding down a grown man so yeah, I can believe this as well.

- Having Jemima, Yvette, Rossi & Mark disguises themselves as shipments in order to rally up the other Grace Field kids. Mark’s face and the noise he makes upon seeing Naila again is also precious.

- Peter actually falling for Vincent’s trap.

- Getting one young child to listen to you is hard enough, but Emma manages to get about 183 of them (yes I counted, give or take the four who also disguised themselves) to follow her orders in no time flat.

- Phil helping with the plan to lead all the children to the elevator.

- It made me nervous upon seeing it but they made the Day & Night ceiling real pretty.

- I knew the reunion was coming and still cried.

- Take all my hell yeahs.

- I could listen to her say this on repeat and be overjoyed every single time.

- She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll point at gun in your face.

- Getting to witness someone shoot at Peter since no one did so in the manga? Wonderful. Having that person be Isabella who literally lands a perfect shot not even a full second after he pulls out that disc? Perfection.

- Mujika and Vylk bringing in hundreds of civilian demons as reinforcements.

- James!

- Those real quick shots of the ancestors because I had given up on thinking we would’ve seen them at all since the Seven Walls arc was skipped.

- I’m actually surprised they kept his death in and it’s as harsh as the manga.

- Ray confronting Isabella with the addition of this line.

- This panel being animated along with Emma’s thoughts from ch177 towards Isabella even though that chapter’s major event didn’t happen.

- I certainly can not forget about this hug.

- At least anime!Emma told the boys her plan before reaching the door, or didn’t keep it a total secret? If not then I’ll praise the boys for accepting her crazy idea regardless.

- Boy, do you know how much I love you and your smirks?

- SHE. STAYS. ALIVE!!!

- Vincent and Norman’s little fist bump.

- Different but close enough. Still cute though.

- The amount of emotions this one shot makes me feel is limitless. Catch me crying tears of joy over it for the rest of my life.

- Having Phil not only getting the chance to see a train but to ride one as well.

- This pretty shot of Gilda.

- As well as this beautiful one with Emma and Mujika.

- They gave us older Phil. Not sure how much older but he’s still adorable.

- Lastly, the goddamn soundtrack! Of course we heard a bunch of the songs from season one, but the new ones such as “The Evil-Blooded Girl” and the Arabic version of “Isabella’s Lullaby” are absolutely fantastic. I still have to listen to full soundtrack but from what little bit I heard of such songs such as “Nat King Ballade,” “Crisis,” “Norman’s Lament,” and “The Temple Ruins,” I’m sure every track is an absolute joy. I’m so happy we had Obata back for this season.

And that’s the end of it, I guess? Of course it’s not a perfect list, as the majority of it was just personal favorites of mine but oh well. (this is just as long as ray’s birthday post too, oh lord)

I’m not gonna be one of those manga readers who continuously nag people to go read the original source material, because that’s annoying and I understand that some people just might not be up for it. They might watch a series, take it all in and then move on to the next one. Others might want to find out about every little detail and invest more time into the story. It’s totally fine to enjoy a series your own way and you shouldn’t feel pressured to continue something you’re only mildly interested in or feel bad that you love something others might despise. Just do whatever makes you happy. If you wanna check out the manga and see why us readers love it to pieces, then I promise it’s worth it, especially if you enjoyed the anime or wish to see more of any character.. or the entire story. If the manga ain’t for you, then I hope the anime did something for you. It definitely could have been better though, I can’t argue with that.

Whether you’re anime-only or manga reader, can we all still hope for a remake? This season had more flaws than any amount of praise I could give, but if years down the line we get the FMA: Brotherhood or Hellsing: Ultimate treatment where the next anime adaptation follows the manga perfectly, you know I’ll be all for it. I’m too deep in this TPN hole and I’ll probably never leave.

[maryalittlecrazyperson]

Well, we don’t know the completely thing, but I really would like to share my theory about how the game Balan Wonderworld is based, and my main bases are: life experiences, imagination, psychology, growing up and individuality.  First of all, what we know about the game?  --> At the intro, 2 teenagers, Emma and Leo both with 15, and clearly from two different part os the world follow a mysterious creature (the little tims) and end in parallel at the same place, where the mysterious Balan, a tall humanoid masquerade (put that in mind, it’s important) be extremely excited in both visiting there and he will help them to find a lost piece of their heart.  --> What is know is that, for getting that piece back and restoring their own emotional BAlanCE, Leo and Emma have to help other people, the wonderworld inhabitants, each one with their own worlds, made of their own passions, experiences and personalities, using COSTUMES based on those people for passing through each one and even using costumes from OTHER world to reach different areas. At the last act of each world, the story of how each person went TRAPPED in their own HEART is told and shows Lance (at last in the first Chapter) saying something apparently in their OWN LANGUAGE (as I say, Balanese) before just softly touching the inhabitant and letting they became a huge negativity version of their passions, traumas and experiences. (in the farm’s case, a giant wolf that can cast tornadoes just like the one that destroyed his farm.) After using positive energy (in my view) from the costumes to make the inhabitant go back to then self, a dance with a happy and joyful music happens in congrats for clearing the world.  Now, starting to take the pieces together, let’s see: Why... those teens have to see other worlds for recovering a piece of their heart?  --> You know when your mom tells you something won’t work, you be persistent with the idea, it wen’t wrong and she sais that warned you? It’s because she had that experience before, she knows what happens and wants to prevent you from that frustration.  ---> For knowing what’s exactly missing at their hearts, Leo and Emma went into Balan’s theater to see other people experiences, to understand what they had passed by and if they can identify themselves and care for their own heart, developing the most important and complex emotion a human can have: empathy.  --->Empathy is looking to understand other person’s feeling and empathize with them, seeing their point of view and not despise that. With empathy, socialization and health relations between beings happens, and that is what they need to restore their emotional: look forward, understand themselves understanding first the other inhabitants.  Okay, that trip to the wonderworld want to show that, but... how is that done? And there enters the second and third point.  --> The human imagination can just be the most powerful ally for their rationality and understanding of the reality, making their own conclusions, even creating characters, entire worlds and a safe place to be when everything is too tough to handle. Where is the physical place where we go to see other person’s imagination and stories being represented by real people? Of course, a THEATER!  --> With Balan being who guides Leo and Emma, and specially being the theater’s MAESTRO, he has all said before in mind, what Leo and Emma need learn, and even not knowing exactly what they miss (or may he does), both teens need to see in some way, that is the theatrical performance they will be IN (using costumes, dancing with the cast, the train that goes out of the theater’s backstage goes TO THE ACTUAL STAGE, THE WONDEROWORLD) and having the most magical moment of their lives.  -->With a theatrical performance, there comes the emotions and feelings with the characters of course, and how that is represented? By Balan and Lance themselves!  --> Balan, in my view, is the embodiment of all positive emotions, and Lance, all negative ones, and both can show neutral emotions as like Balan showed and how Lance conducted them self so calm in the little appearances showed.  --->Balan is the one that will pull you, cheer you up when you show to be down, will make the cast say you to keep going, will dance, sing, be extremely comical and always energetic, bringing all that makes you happy and delighted about your life. But careful: excess of positive emotions can make you bump the forehead in a wall (literally or metaphorically) or get frustrated if something went wrong or different of what you tough before, leading to get gloomy and lose interest.  -->In other hand, Lance shows to be the one who will “trap you into your own heart”, dragging the things that had a negative impact in your life and making things harder, or even worse: corrupting your heart to those things and making you “feel like a monster” or someone you care about. But... have you stopped to think actually are those negative experiences are what brings us experiences to have a better life? Knowing how to handle difficult situations is important, having a moment to cry or litting the anger out is important, knowing what hurts and what’s safe is important, and he’s as essential as Balan, and that’s why they does what they does: to protect the person’s heart from shattering, to lose a piece. If they won’t fight against their own fears and learn with they, they will constantly hurt themselves and go into a vicious ciccle of self harming emotionally.  --> As both names suggest together, balance between both extremes of emotions is needed, as for having a happy life, as for be careful about the world around you. To have your heart full and protected, you must learn that life has their ups and downs like a rolercoaster, but isn’t because of the downs that you need ot isolate yourself or because of the ups you can run frenetically: you need to understand the middle term, and understanding that requires empathy, told before.  Now... for the last two topics, at some point, you need to leave that adventure that is the wonderworld. You will forget that all, forget you saw Balan and Lance... but why is that needed?  --> Leo and Emma are during one of the most complicated phases of life if not the most complicated one: the teenager years. They think they’re already old enough to know everything but still don’t want to grown up and get the adulthood responsibilities, and those wonderworld experiences, they will be able to find what they miss at their heart, and them... grown up, prepare themselves for the wider part of their lifes, and Balan and Lance, in a ludic and emotional way, will show them that.  --> The wonderworld is sooooo wide because each human is unique, each human has their own way to see things, how their imagination works and how powerful it is, and that’s why they implemented all the costumes being able to be used in all bosses, because each player will have their own strategy, each player will be able to use their way to beat each level, even being harder or easier, because each human is a human, and each mind... is a unique mind.  Now, going more deep about the wonderworld and even Balan and Lance. What they are? How they were created in the first place?  --> Balan and Lance have really artificial looks, not only compared with the teens but their renders. Balan has a too perfect suit with perfect stitches, all in place, all white perfectly clean, the joinned teeth smile, fuzzy aspect of his skin that looks like felt, even his eyes and “hair”. If he is someone’s representation of positive emotions, I would say as first theory that he’s a doll that gained life by positive emotions if is to be more “solid” in ideas, as like Lance that gained by negative emotions.  --> As other theory, Balan and Lance are entities created or that were called from the sharing of imaginations, being by a conversation, a story told or even performing for someone. When they come, is when imagination starts to work, reflecting things of your own life into the wonderworld, with different worlds to reflect about and their forms at the game are Yuji and Naoto interpretations of those emotion’s embodiments, and each one can have your representation of those. All those stories with heroes and villains, can you see that they’re showing the heroes as positive emotions and villains as negative emotions, but in a way showing the negative side actually “bad”? Why don’t you think about the villain’s point of view, WHY they act like that? Those heroes and villains may be Balans and Lances interpretations by different people, showing how the mind can be volatile and so incredible.  Well, I may do an update of it at some point, but that is my view about the game and I maybe go deeper and deeper even before the release. I really love those emotional health catch ups and with joy and delight, I will talk how Balan Wonderworld did me think more about my own mind, meet the most awesome friends I ever had and understand myself even better than before.

[nanami-says]

Part IV (3/5): Chapters 40~44

 Chapter 40

[Mai to Miwa]

“Maki? She’s worthless”

She actually calls her “just a small fry” here. Which imo is more dismissive than just outright derogatory like in the official release.

“An iai technique huh? That’s strange. I have the advantage in terms of reach. She’s probably looking to disarm my cursed tool and create an opening.”

⇒”An iai [technique], huh? On top of that there seems to be some trick to it. With our difference in reach… rather than myself, she’s probably looking(...)”

Not mistranslated per se other than the “there seems to be a trick to it” line, which imo shouldn’t have been simplified to just “that’s strange”. But the original showed Maki’s thought process better.

“She broke it with her leg? Why is she negating her reach advantage.”

⇒ ”She broke it?? With her thigh?? You’re getting rid of your reach advantage here??”

Again, the meaning was all there but some of the characterisation was lost. Miwa sounded so frantic and full of disbelief here, haha.

[After Mei states that Maki should get promoted at least 2 ranks ASAP]

“I agree but her family seems to be getting in the way”

⇒ “I think so too, but you know, the Zen’ins keep getting in the way. It stinks, right”

More casual speech overall in the original, also Gojou’s more colourful language got a cut again.

MM:“Heh… I don’t understand connections not based on money” 

G:“And you’ll always be a cheapskate.”

I get why they went with “cheapskate” here, as the word Gojou originally uses would be accurately translated as “miser”, which’s the kind of word most people would have to check in the dictionary. (I know I had to.) Nevertheless it’s interesting to me how Gojou basically alternates between super casual speech and much less common terms like this one. He seems to like wordplays in general?

“Anyway, I can’t help but notice the video feed around Yuji seems to be a little inconsistent”

⇒ “Leaving that aside, the video around Yuuji keeps on cutting off for a while now, no?”

Again, meaning is there, the characterisation - sort of I suppose? But he was being more casual/straight to the point in the original.

[In reply to Gojou’s question whose side she’s on]

“Whose side? I’m on the side with money, of course. There’s no value in something that can’t be bought since you can’t exchange it for money.”

“Which side? I’m an ally of money, of course. Because there’s no value in things that cannot be exchanged for money. For you see, it cannot be exchanged for money."

I know it sounds like she’s repeating herself but that’s because she actually is. She’s literally saying that there’s no value in something that can’t be turned into money PRECISELY BECAUSE it can’t be turned into money lol. Also, imo “on the side with money” kind of muddled the nuance a bit. Other possible translations for "exchange" include "replace", ”turn into”.

Gojou in reply to above.

“I wonder how much!”

Actually closer to, “[I wonder] how much did you pile up”. The actual phrase is just “just how much did (...) pile up/stock”, so you have to supply the subject by yourself.

“I’m not sure what you guys have planned but Yuji’s different now”

⇒ “I don’t know what you’re scheming but Yuuji won’t be killed so easily anymore”

Again, the basic meaning is there but a lot of subtler nuance got lost.

(jp)

[Explanation on how the school can tell which side exorcised which curses during the competition]

“Talismans are placed on curses released in the area. When a curse is exorcised, the corresponding talisman also disappears. Using cursed energy, we’ve made arrangements for the following -- exorcisms made by the Tokyo school will be indicated with a red flame, while Kyoto’s will be blue. Maki is also participating, so we’ve made sure her exorcisms are marked red as well.”

When I read this for the first time in English, I found this explanation rather unclear. No wonder I did, as it omits vital details such as the original mentioning "recording cursed energy in advance" which imo seems to be pointing to them registering samples of all students' energy.

And then the Maki line adds that since Maki is there too, exorcisms performed by UNRECORDED forces will be marked red as well. And that's why later on the teachers weren't able to immediately discern whether the sudden destruction of curses was done by an outsider or not.

“All those one-on-ones. Did they forget the main objective?”

⇒“(...) Everyone’s waaay too disinterested in the game.”

“Main objective” sounds kinda formal and imo that wasn’t the nuance for the line.

[Nobara to Nishimiya]

“Got down here, you stupid witch!!”

Actually “you shitty witch”. Nanami would be proud ;;

“How dare you hit my sacred face.”

I like their take on this but it’s hilarious in the original because the word she uses literally means “your countenance”, as in you’d normally use it to respectfully refer to someone else’s face, definitely not about your own. And then she adds a “go-” prefix, which further ups the level of reverence haha. 

“A scar on the face can be a good thing for guys. But not for girls.”

Not really a mistranslation, but I love the original wording with its juxtaposition of a scar on the face being likened to an "order" for a man and a "blemish"/"defect" for a woman. It adds so much more depth to the line.

[Nishimiya after she points out how unfair the jujutsu world is towards women compared to men]

“And Mai has to deal with even more discrimination than that”

Actually something closer to ”irrationality”, “unreasonableness”, “unfairness”, “derision”. Discrimination was the translators’ interpretation of that, I suppose.

Chapter 41

[About Inumaki’s technique]

“Cursed speech is words with spirit. Essentially, it’s infusing sound with cursed energy”

...They translated it the other way around (“the spirit of words”) in ch. 33… Needless to say, this is still the same technique and still the very same term being used. I’d be leaning towards the more commonly used translation of “the spirit of language”.

“However if you’re not sure it’s coming… you’ll be in a constant state of unease. Protecting your head is difficult as it is”

⇒ “On the other hand, if you don’t know if it’s coming or not, you’re constantly distracted. Even though protecting the inside of my head is already something I’m not used to doing”

Not really mistranslated but I wanted to propose an alternate translation, especially for the second part.

“Inheriting the Zen’in family cursed technique is reserved for the privileged. Every other jujutsu sorcerer starts at a level much further below. And even within their family, some women aren’t treated equally.”

⇒ “Unless you inherit the Zen'in family's cursed technique, you start out as a sorcerer from a losing position. And for women, some of them are not even allowed to stand on that starting line"

Just an overall different meaning for the whole fragment. After all, it’s not like you can control who will inherit what technique, even if you’re from one of the three big families. Also it was about women being discriminated on a more fundamental level.

“Can someone who thinks that curse Yuji is an ally really understand?”

⇒ “How about you try thinking hard with that head of yours that can even mistake [that] curse for a comrade?”

Written with “Itadori-kun”, read as “[the] curse” - there’s no reason for Nishimiya to call him “Yuji”. Also she actually says 仲間/nakama here, which, as I stated before, I personally prefer to translate as “comrade” in the context of jjk. The official release seems to alternate between “ally” and “friend”, which are rather distant terms imo. I’m not sure either what’s their basis for when they go with “ally” because they also used it when Gojou was talking about raising a future generation of strong and bright comrades in ch. 11 (refer to part II).

[Nobara in response to above]

“Does that mean we have to forgive the unfortunate no matter the circumstances? And if someone is blessed with a fortunate life, do they deserve to be ridiculed?”

⇒ ”So if someone’s unfortunate, they’re free to do whatever they want? Then what? If in turn a person is [more] fortunate, you’re not gonna be satisfied unless you can talk behind their back?”

In the original Nobara speaks in shorter sentences and uses rather simple language, which imo really conveys how angry she is about Nishimiya’s words. It wasn’t really a philosophical conversation. 

“Have any of you ever stopped to consider the person behind the curse you’ve condemned?”

⇒ “And have you people even thought what kind of a person the idiot that you’re trying to curse [from now] is?”

Not “condemn as a curse” but “that you people are cursing”! Huge distinction imo.

“What do I care about whether someone’s perfect or if something’s fair? Is your life just a job?”

⇒ “Are you obliged to stand up to [things like] ‘perfection’ or ‘unfairness’? (...)”

Lit. “where’s the obligation to live up to”. Emphasis mine! Nobara wasn’t saying she doesn’t care whether someone is perfect or not, imo the nuance was more that there’s no need to force yourself to try and meet people’s expectations/standards. 

“Boys versus girls? Give me a break! Just shut the hell up! I love dressing up and being beautiful! I love being strong!”

⇒ “Boys this, girls that? I don’t give a damn! Just do it all by yourselves if you wish! I love myself who dresses up beautifully! I love myself who [always] strives to be strong!”

I know fandom loves the “I love being beautiful! I love being strong” line - it definitely is short and impactful! But I actually really like the nuance that “strive to be/remain strong” has because it implies Nobara’s constantly putting in effort to improve herself and get stronger. Also the nuance of “I love myself who’s all those things [and more]” (emphasis mine) rather than simply “I love being those things”/“I love the act of”, even though to an English speaker the former may sound a bit awkward. 

[Mai saying she can’t contact Mechamaru after his fight]

“It’s not a good sign if he was forced to use his finishing move and this is the end result.”

⇒ “If it’s like that [that we can’t contact him] despite him being forced into a corner to the point of having to use his finishing move, then he’s probably lost”

This was Mai speculating Mechamaru has most likely lost if they can’t contact him despite him having used his special move.

“I need you”

⇒ “If you’re not here, we’re in trouble”

Rather than Mai needing her personally, this was her reiterating Nishimiya’s importance to the team. (Same phrasing as in ch. 35.)

Chapter 42

[About Maki and her family]

Y:“But why wouldn’t they want someone so strong?”

N:“They don’t wanna accept someone they’ve already rejected. They’re stupid that way”

⇒Y: “Wouldn’t a jujutsu family welcome a strong sorcerer with open arms?”

N:“(...) Because they’re stupid/idiots.”

Slightly more informative for Yuuji’s line in the original imo. Let’s not forget that Yuuji’s still super new to the jujutsu world, so he’s not really familiar with its inner workings. Imo this line had such a nuance.

“So we have to win this event. You better put your life on the line!”

Not incorrect as much as it's just so much funnier in the original because she tells him to put enough effort to die one more time lol (emphasis mine).

[Maki to Tokyo team, telling them to focus on the competition rather trying to make her look good]

“Don't’ worry about me”

⇒ “Don’t think about unnecessary stuff”

Imo this showed Maki’s personality better.

[Mai to Maki, in her head]

“You thought you could get the jump on me? While keeping your distance as well?”

⇒ “So what if you’re in my blind spot. Aren’t you dumb to put distance between us”

This was more about it being advantageous for Mai, a gun being her weapon, if Maki gets farther away from her.

“I knew it! Maki has something I don’t”

⇒ “I knew it… Maki has a talent I don’t have”

How a single exclamation mark can completely change the meaning of a whole line. Yes, it is “I knew it” but as in “I understood it”, “I felt it”. It’s not some revelation about the fight itself, it’s the beginning to Mai’s retrospection about herself and Maki and their approaches to life that follows after. Also, it literally says “talent” there, not to mention the line gets repeated word for word at the end of the same chapter for emphasis before the conclusion is given to Mai’s musings. (Gege seems to like this particular trick a lot, huh?)

”Did you hear about the daughter of the Ougi?"

Hmm, I tried googling the phrase with “Ougi” in it just to check if it can have some hidden meaning but found out even Japanese fans weren’t sure about the exact meaning of the word. Probably a name, either of a person or of a place.

[Mai thinking about Maki]

“You were always so carefree. I hated it. You just kept moving fearlessly forward into the future”

⇒ “I hated how you were always boldly pushing your way towards the future as if you had no worries/unease”

Imo a slightly different nuance for this line (which’s just a single sentence). “I hated how” could also be “I hated you for” and other translations for “pushing your way to” include “plunging forward”, “pushing on”. 

(jp)

[About Mai’s cursed technique]

“Unlike creating an object inside a domain, objects created with cursed technique: construction will not disappear after the spell is finished. However, an immense amount of cursed energy is used, which has a harsh effect on the body”

⇒ “Unlike materialisation of an innate domain within the barrier that occurs in ‘domain expansion’, objects once created with Construction Technique will not disappear even after the technique has finished. That’s why(...)”

Ever wondered why domain and domain expansion related stuff is impossible to understand? Well, here’s why. They only left “inside a domain” out of the whole explanation... “Materialisation” was actually “realisation” but I thought the former would be easier to understand. Also it literally says only “realisation of an innate domain” but imo it could be also interpreted as “inner domain and things within in”.

(jp)

“Maki has something I don’t. Kinda like Mechamaru’s Heavenly Restriction but the opposite. You were supposed to be born with a cursed technique but you traded that in for superhuman physical abilities. This skill was shunned by the Zen’in family. And it’s an ability I don’t have.”

⇒ “Maki has a talent I don’t have. (...) A talent which didn’t get appreciated in the Zen’in family and which I didn’t possess”

Like I pointed out earlier, this is the conclusion to Mai’s retrospection about herself and Maki and some of its effect was, in the original, achieved by repeating the line about Maki’s talent that Mai didn’t have, and by further expanding on it here.

Chapter 43

[About Kamo’s attack]

“A trace of blood on the arrow fletching. Like I thought, Kamo’s technique defies physics”

⇒  "The physics defying trajectory [of the arrow] was because of Kamo-san's cursed technique after all"

More informative in the original, I’d say. The arrows themselves are (and look) normal, hence double the wham i suppose?

[Megumi about Kamo’s Blood Manipulation Technique]

“The ability to control whatever touches his blood”

⇒ "The ability to control his own blood and whatever is stained with it" 

Why would they skip the "the blood itself" bit…

[Kamo about Megumi’s Ten Shadows Technique”

“A cursed technique passed down in the Zen’in family”

Just to be clear, it’s actually specified here that it’s “one of the techniques”.

[Kamo about his technique]

“I can manipulate blood beyond its form or motion”

Once again sounds a bit like a more general explanation. “To manipulate blood means (...)”.

[After Megumi calls him out on doping]

“Very good. Although I don’t appreciate the negative connotation”

⇒ “But I’d prefer if you stopped with the vulgar phrasing”

Simpler, more direct language here.

[After Maki’s taken off with Miwa’s sword in tow]

“Mai’s sister is gone. Well, that makes sense. I’m useless without my sword”

⇒ “Mai’s older sister has gone somewhere. Well, it was a correct call as I can’t fight without my sword”

The phrase used here that got translated as “I’m useless” while can indeed mean something similar has the nuance of “to not be useful [in battle]” . So although it’s not incorrect per se, I’m not sure if I’d go with “useless” myself, especially because it comes with tandem with “correct call”/”good decision” wording.  She DOES literally say she’s useless later on though.

“We’re a little disorganized after all”

Not incorrect per se but imo the original line might’ve had the nuance of “we’re not monolithic [as an organisation]”.

“Use this scent and whistle to control it. If you can, make it kill Itadori”

⇒ “This scent and whistle were used to train him [this cursed spirit]. If a chance arises, use it well and kill Itadori”

I’m not sure if this can be interpreted as it being JUST the curse itself that’ll do all the work.

Chapter 44

“- Why does everyone torment mother?

 - Because she’s a broken mistress”

Closer to “dissolute”, I think. Also the word used for “mistress” can also mean “concubine” and “kept woman” but it’s apparently also an old expression for “close female servant”. It’s hard to say which it could have been without more context but it’d actually make a lot of sense if it was the last one, especially given the fact how Kamo is one of the olden jujutsu families, and very traditional at that. 

“Then why do you favour me? Why did you deceive me into becoming a heir”

⇒ “(...)Then why did you take me in and lie about me being a heir”

I may be wrong but it doesn’t sound like they deceived Kamo himself but rather, everyone else. The word used also means “falsify”. “Favour” here is the same word as for “patronage”, btw.

“Then as the heir to the head of the Kamo family(...)”

It’s just “the next head” here, possibly an allusion to his plans for /after/ he becomes the clan head.

[After Kamo praises his growth as a sorcerer]

“Why are you acting all familiar with me?’

⇒ “What’s with this sense of comradeship you keep on showing?”

Not incorrect per se but I found the phrase he used interesting. Also means “fellowship”.

“I intend to kill Yuji Itadori”

“By principal Gakuganji’s order?”

“No, this is my decision.”

⇒ (...) “No, this is my personal/individual judgement.”

Emphasis Gege’s. The word does mean “decision” as well but imo “judgement” (as in “call”) fits better here.

“As a member of the Kamo and the big three families, I believe it is the right decision. You should also understand it. (I must play the part of the heir to the Kamo family)”

⇒ “(...) I consider it a correct call. It’s something you should be able to understand as well. (I must conduct myself as is appropriate for the heir of the Kamo family)

Lit. “think it’s(...)” for the first bit. Imo “you should also understand” could imply that Kamo’s trying to convince Megumi here but in the original it’s more him appealing to the common understanding he feels must already exist between them because of their similar positions within their respective families. Also, wording his inner thoughts as “must play the part” was imo giving off a wrong impression. 

Cont. from above

“You and I are the same”

Not wrong but the original has the connotation of “the same kind”.

“He’s saying some scary stuff”

Skipped “all of sudden" here.

(jp)

“(I’ve never thought of myself as doing the right thing.) Actually, I’m sorry. I don’t care if I’m right or wrong. I only believe in my conscience. I will follow my conscience and save people. If you disagree with that then, let’s agree to curse each other.”

⇒ ”(...) No, I’m sorry, that is incorrect. It’s just that I believe/have faith in my own conscience. I will help/save people the way my conscience tells me. So if you’ve denied that, then there’s nothing left but to curse each other.”

Again, like in ch. 9 (refer to part I), the nuance here was actually that Megumi will save people BASED on his conscience. Here it’s literally “I will save people according to my conscience” (emphasis mine), which imo heavily implies that he will choose which people to save, as had already been indicated in ch. 9 as well. This is a huge distinction from the way he’s been (mis)portrayed in the official release as just wanting to save people because that’s what his conscience says or because he thinks that’s the right thing to do. (That’s Yuuji). Also, the way they phrased it as basically “let’s agree to disagree” was imo way too mild.  And it wasn’t just “if you disagree” but “if you contradict/negate/renounce”.

“A shikigami! It was still around?!”

Not sure but given the context it might’ve meant “so he still had some left” instead.

Cont. on next page

“He used a wounded shikigami as a decoy!”

⇒ “He used a shikigami at the verge of being called off as a decoy!” 

“This uses too much cursed energy, so I can only summon it once”

⇒ “This eats a lot of cursed energy so I can only summon it solo”

Lit. “a shikigami before the release/dissolution” for the first one. Coupled with Megumi’s reply, which was “as a stand alone” instead of “only once”, imo the whole thing meant that Megumi called the frog off intentionally.

[Megumi about the elephant shikigami]

“It only recently surrendered to me.”

⇒ “I’ve only exorcised it very recently”

Seems like they confused “to exorcise” (調伏)  for “to surrender” (降伏)...The word he uses here is the former, it also means “to unwish”!

Btw, “surrender” is actually used later in the manga when Getou’s curse manipulation is discussed in the Gojou’s Past arc (ch. 73).. So to me there definitely seems to be a distinction between those two terms and which techniques they apply to.

[to part iv (4/5)]

[redtail-hero]

Tags: @meganshinsou-tm @bakugoukatsukiswife @simplybakugou   @gr0vndz3ro @bakugousbrat @gallickingun @brebaguette

Rating: MATURE. 18+

Pairing: Bakugou x Reader x Kirishima

I tried really hard to make the reader gender neutral, so anyone can insert themselves in the story. Ultimately this is my time trying to do this. In my head the reader is female and I might switch over by accident. I apologize in advance if I do that.

This chapter has a little Bakugou X Kirishima in it. Just forewarning of a little boy love. It's toward the end if the chapter so it's easy to skip if you want.

Pt. 6 Tag Team

"You both have to face it. You've both practically jumped down the rabbit hole willingly but refuse to admit it." Sero chuckled. 

"Still don't know what you're even talking about." Bakugou replied grumpily as he watched for the signal that it was time to 'rescue' victims of the 'natural disaster'. 

"What rabbit hole?" Kirishima asked, looking over at his friend. 

"Oh, you're in denial too Kiri! It's so obvious. I've seen they way you both look at Y/N - like they're the only damn person in the room." Denki stated. "They're extremely comfortable with each of you, which is surprising since Bakugou usually acts like there is a stick up his ass."

"Watch it Sparky." Bakugou growled. 

"He's not wrong. Y/N's always joking with you and teases you guys." Sero agreed. 

'Oh they tease me alright.' Kirishima thought to himself. 

"Alright, I'm used to Sparky frying his brains daily but apparently this heat is getting to you both and you're beyond delirious."

"Deny it all you want, we know what we see." Sero stated. "There's the signal, wonder which of you will find them first." He chuckled and used his tape to shoot himself off to find someone to rescue. 

Kirishima and Bakugou stared at each other for a moment, neither moving to do their task yet. 

"Just think about it. Y/N definitely feels something for both of you. When it's their night to cook dinner they always switch between your favorite meals to make. They baked cookies for you guys 'just because they could'. During your work studies Y/N prepared both of your lunches every day." Denki stated, shaking his head at the two of them. 

"That's just how Y/N is. They'd do the same for everyone else." Kirishima scratched the back of his neck trying to ignore the face his face was heating up. 

"See that's where you're wrong. Y/N doesn't do that for anyone else… Are you blushing?" Denki laughed. "About time you guys notice what they do for you." With that he took his leave. 

"Tsk." Bakugou looked down at his shoes. "They're not wrong are they?" 

"No, I guess they're not." Kirishima sighed. 

Bakugou didn't stay any longer, using his quirk he blasted up off the building. 

"Uh, good talk…" Kirishima talked to himself. He walked all over the disaster area, looking for anyone he could pull out from the rubble. 

It wasn't too long, maybe a rough 15 minutes later he found you sitting in a pile of rubble, whining at him to help you out. He couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. You just being there made him feel happy. 

Excited that he was the one to find you he hurried down and started removing debris off of your legs, tossing it behind him in every which way. 

There was a shift behind him, a light rumble noise sounded before you yelled out his name. He reacted before he could even think. His body hardened as he covered your body with his, pulling you close to protect you. 

The heavy impact never came, instead a loud blast was heard and pebbles of debris rained down over the two of you. He knew it was Bakugou and was thankful for the assistance. 

Mina was with Bakugou, not that Kirishima paid any attention to the girl. Red eyes glared down at him. 

"Tch. Idiot, watch where you're throwing that shit around. You would have been buried if I wasn't around. 

Eijiro frowned. The blond wasn't wrong. You both could have been injured and then he wouldn't have been any help to you at all. He couldn't focus on anything except his small fuck up. 

"Hey Kiri, " His eyes snapped to yours. "are you okay?" 

"Of course. Are you okay?" 

"Yes, now… want to get off of me?" 

He was suddenly very aware of your limbs being tangled together and your skin against his. No, he didn't want to get off of you. You were very comfortable to him. He couldn't just stay that way though. "Oh, Haha, sorry about that." He resisted the urge to roll his hips against yours and pushed himself up immediately missing your skin against his. He brushed himself off and offered you his hand. 

You had come up with a brilliant idea to get him to carry you out of the debris but forcing his hand, laying on the defenseless citizen-act real thick.  The look of embarrassment fell upon your features as he scooped you up in his arms bridal style. A small string of protest came from your lips. 

He noted that you felt right in his arms as you rest your head against his chest. Breathing in deeply he could smell your natural scent he couldn't help but grin. He could get used to this. 

It unfortunately didn't take him long to get to the rest area. There was a table with red solo cups of water lined up. Other classmates were already refreshing themselves with the cool drinks. His eyes caught Katsuki's, the blonde glared at him. Kirishima couldn't help but chuckle at the jealousy rolling off him, not that the boy would ever admit it. 

Kirishima announced your arrival to the rest area. You scrambled out of his arms so quickly that it surprised him. He watched you grab a cup and down the water in seconds. 

Small talk fell upon the small group while waiting for other classmates. Mr. Aizawa gave some instructions for the following day. 

Thirsty, Kirishima walked up and kept a respectful distance between you. Asking for a drink, you politely help him out grabbing him a cup. A small collision of hands caused a spill of the water on your arms. 

"Hey, you got me wet!" The glare you gave was playful but the words were so suggestive. The words shouldn't have had any effect on him, but they did. 'Play it cool.' He couldn't help himself. "That's nothing." He pretended like he was going to splash you and you backed away. 

It ended up turning into a huge water fight among the class. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Everyone was game now, he splashed Mina and then Sero. Before long the ground was soaked. 

Bakugou was chasing you around the table and Kirishima hit Denki on the shoulder, motioning toward the 5 gallon bucket of water. The two of them lifted it together and waited for the perfect moment. Sero stepped in to help by cutting you off. You halted to a stop and Bakugou grabbed you around the waist. 

Kirishima and Denki lifted the cooler and poured it over the two of you, a loud squeal of surprise could be heard. Everyone roared with laughter at the "drowned rat" looks the two of you now sported. 

“Kirishima! I’m soaked!” The words barley left your lips as he watched the water droplets dance down your skin. His mind went right to the gutters, he felt a small twitch in his pants. 

You looked up at Bakugou who could only nod as he stared at you. He swallowed deep and you were confused. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah… Just fine.” He swallowed as he looked you up and down. 

Kirishima also noticed what Bakugou did. It was hard not to stare and it was entirely his fault. His eyes caught a droplet of water and followed it down your skin to under your shirt. 

You covered your body, hiding the details of your body.  “I- I have to go! You guys clean up!” With a wave you rushed out of the building. 

The two of them were disappointed to see you leave so quickly. A hand slapped on both of their shoulders. "Oh boy, you guys have it baaaaad." Sero let out a hoot of a laugh.

"Yeah, he's not wrong. You guys were acting like little kids trying not to flirt with their crush, but failing miserably." Denki added with a laugh of his own. 

"Both of you shut it. I'm fucking out. Damn extras." Bakugou stormed off. 

"I'm just gonna check on him." Kirishima excused himself. 

"HEY! WHAT ABOUT CLEAN UP?" Denki yelled to them but neither boy turned around. 

Bakugou stormed into the dorms, he made a beeline to his room - thankful that your room wasn't anywhere near his. He stripped of his hero gear and fell back on his bed. He glared hard at the wall as a knock came on his door. "Go away Shitty Hair."

Kirishima opened the door anyway and entered. He locked the door behind him as they needed to have a serious talk and didn't need anyone else walking in. 

"Are you deaf? I said go away."

Ignoring him, the redhead sat at the end of the bed. "What are we going to do man?" 

"What are you talking about?" 

"Don't try to pretend. You can't tell me that when you're going to bed at night that your mind doesn't bring you back to that damn lollipop."

Kiri flopped back on the bed, closing his eyes tight. "Y/N's lips wrapped around that lollipop. They sucked it so good. Licking the stickiness off their lips. Fuck, I wanted a taste. No, I wanted to be that lollipop. I imagine Y/N taking me so well." He absent-mindedly palmed his crotch, hips lifting slightly. 

The mental image alone made the blonde groan in frustration. "It doesn't even need to be bed time." He admitted. "I just hear it. I hear the moans and groans of when I gave them that massage." As if on cue he could wear he heard you moan out loud. "And then I can't just ignore it, it doesn't go away on its own. I need the release." He motioned to his tented pants. 

"I get it man. It's to the point where my own hand just doesn't cut it anymore. I want the real deal." Kiri's cheeks were shaded scarlet. "We need to figure this out man. I don't want bad blood between us. You're too important to lose over this."

"You're not gonna lose me Shitty Hair." Bakugou sat up. "So, we like the same person. We don't even know if they feel anything for either one of us."

"I just don't want something to happen between one of us and them and the other one be angry." 

"So, we don't let that happen." 

Eijiro sat up and turned to face his friend. "And how exactly do you stop something like that? It's not like we can tag-team and take turns fucking Y/N. " He sat on his knees and looked down at his friend. "Are you trying to tell me that if Y/N walked in here one night and did this," he touched Bakugou's hard on once, before giving a gentle squeeze. "that you would just tell them no?" 

Bakugou hissed at the contact, hips snapped up into his friend's hand. "No," Bakugou licked his lip. "But I don't see that happening." His eyes closed as the motions on his lower half didn't stop. "Kiri…" He hissed out a warning to the redhead. 

"Did you see this happening?" Kiri asked as he pulled his friend's pants down, releasing his hard cock. 

Bakugou's eyes snapped open as he was about to tell his friend off. The words died in his throat as Kirishima's hand wrapped around his cock and moved up and down. A slight twist here and small tug there had the blonde gripping the sheets. 

"You want release. You stated that yourself. I'm just sexually frustrated and I can't handle it anymore. What if Y/N was doing this to you? Would you really stop them?" He pulled his shirt off before leaning over Bakugou's cock. "Let's see you not let this happen." 

Bakugou groaned, his hips snapped up as Eijiro engulfed his cock into his warm mouth. "Fuck…" He didn't know how he was feeling right now. He never pictured his best friend on his cock but here they were. He was blaming you. This was entirely your fault. If you weren't so damn attractive then this never had been an issue. Fuck, they had it bad for you. 

It didn't take long for him to spill into his friends mouth. He felt relief like he hadn't in a while. 

"Now, let's take care of my problem." Kirishima licked his lips and pulled his pants down. 

 Thoughts? 

[rpgmgames]

May’s Featured Game: Verloren

DEVELOPER(S): Choko ENGINE: RPG Maker VX Ace GENRE: Horror, Adventure WARNINGS: Flashing images, loud sounds, sudden sounds/images, full list (contains spoilers). SUMMARY: Chris Winter, find himself alone and lost in a black void filled with nothing but coldness. The only warmth you feel comes from your breath. In this void the young boy sees a door filled with light, trying to reach the door only leads to the boy to fall deep into a world filled with nothing but nonsense. Only when you find the key, then you’ll be able to leave.

Download the demo here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *Choko: Hello, I'm Choko! I'm the developer, artist, and writer for Verloren. I've been messing around with rpg maker since 2013 but finished my first finished game in 2016 which is Desolate Village. I've also made other games since then. Those being Demon Tea, Friend Hunt, and Star Detective. So Verloren isn't my first rodeo in the whole game development stuff, but it is the biggest project I've ever work on so far. Besides game dev stuff, I'm a huge rpg maker games, horror games, rhythm games, and just games with a interesting style to them.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Choko: Verloren is a horror adventure game that focuses on Chris Winter, a young boy who finds himself alone and far away from home because of this he won't stop for anything to find a way home and learn why did he arrive here. During the course of the game Chris would meet others who have their own goals. What inspired me to make Verloren is a bit hard to say from what I first started to work on it back in 2017, I was mostly trying to work on another project after finishing Desolate Village. It could have been something else but I really forgot. But since I took a huge hiatus year break during 2018, I would personally say the time I actually initially started to work on Verloren was in February of 2019. Since everything was rework with a fresh outlook on everything, so the whole head space with Verloren is totally different from 2017-2018. What inspired me when I went back to rebuild/fix the game was friends, since their support made me feel I could go back to work on the game. During 2018 I would say I wasn't in the best mood while working on the game, so the support my friends gave me really helped a lot and encouraged me.

How long did you work on your project? *Choko: I've been working on Verloren for three years now. But will say 2019 to now is when actually development started/actually got going. 2018 I took the whole year off to cool down/chill. So the Verloren of 2017-2018 is very different from the Verloren of 2019 to now. If that makes sense....

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Choko: Oh boy, this section might be very long since there's a lot of games and media which inspired/ influences Verloren, though for many different reasons. Will say the two rpg maker games that inspire me a whole lot when it comes to everything they do is Mare and Akademia (I know it's just a demo still at the time writing but it's very good. Good demo, like the characters are great!! Everything is very nice!) Other rpg maker games do inspire me, mainly friend stuff but Mare and Akademia are two games I really love and wish I can make Verloren a game which has characters which feel realistic in a way they do. Like please go play them. Besides rpg maker games will say that NieR Automata, Okage: Shadow King, RE 1/RE 0, Deemo, Rule of Rose, Smile For Me, and the Kirby series are games that just really inspire me with Verloren, there's just certain aspects of them which I hope I can capture in Verloren. Other than video games, I do get a bunch of inspiration from artist I follow, comics/manga, and anime though if I mention all of them it would just lead me to ramble away, but will say Pandora Hearts and Death Parade are two series I really love and both. I just enjoy series that shows character interaction and bonds, because that's a main part in Verloren. I really just get inspire by character development if you couldn't tell..... ^^;

Have you come across any challenges during development? How did you overcome or work around them? *Choko: Besides the 2018 thing I mention earlier. There has been tiny bits of challenges, like with creating maps, since it takes me a while to get into the mood to make them, but wouldn't really call it a challenge. Since all the time I just have to take time away from the map to gain motivation to make them. Another challenge I guess would be writing cut scenes which I love, though it's a whole process of making sure the characters aren't just rambling or going off-topic since when I write I tend to get in character, as in voice act the lines or try to think how they would. Though the process isn't really a bad challenge since it just takes a while until I get it right.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Choko: There's been soooooo many changes to this game. The biggest change I would say is the characters, they had a lot of design changes and personality/motivation changes. But other than that, I would say the mood of the game change a lot, also how scenes play it, originally it just felt like stuff happen to happen. Now it makes a lot more sense and isn't just some random thing I added. Sadly I can't list everything that change because that's spoilers but trust me everything change for the better.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Choko: At the beginning there wasn't a team, since I wanted to do everything solo. I mostly enjoy doing art, writing, and eventing the game. Though currently now there is a team, mostly with people I know, it's more so just a critique/feedback team + voice actors. Currently there are only two VAs since I didn't want to focus on voice acting before I had most of the game done, in the far future I may make a post about it. But so far the whole team is more so just a chilling area then anything else and I enjoy all the fun talk that happen there.

What is the best part of developing a game? *Choko: The best part of creating a game is to see the characters you created come to life. I just really enjoy seeing everything come together. Idk I just find it cool that when making a game all starts out as concepts/ ideas and then after days/weeks/months of work it becomes a actually thing you can look at and show others. Most cutscenes in Verloren I get super happy when I finish them up, because I can see them as a real thing rather than a bunch of ideas of "this is what I'm going to do". Also the joke/shitpost memes....they are also the best part of making a game.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Choko: Yep!!! I play a lot of rpg maker games, I really enjoy seeing what other people do. I just find it cool that anyone can pick up the engine and learn how to use it. Also it's a fun way to find inspiration, just seeing other rpg maker games and being like ">:O I didn't know you can do that!!!".

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Choko: This question is very hard, mainly because I relate to because a lot of characters in the game I relate to in tiny levels. For my favorite character it's Vladimir....I do like every other character in game. Chris is my second favorite I have to say (kinda a lie since ties with another character) but Vladimir number one, he's just soo much fun to write. He's maybe the one character who has a lot of scenes which gets a huge smile from me.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Choko: Not really, mainly since I was lucky to be able to take a huge hiatus which help me in 2019 to rework everything. So every problem I had with the game I fixed.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Choko: I would just leave the game alone after I finish Verloren, it's a game that doesn't need any follow ups because I feel it would just take away from the impact when you get to the end. There really isn't anything I would need to explore, since Verloren is meant to be a single game and that's it.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *Choko: I look forward seeing how people react to the full game, I am low key shock on how people are reacting towards the demo and all the tiny predictions/speculations. Also the warm positive feedback towards Vladimir is shocking, since I thought no one would like him because of all those jokes/puns. I hope the final game has the same positive reaction, also that other characters get a warm positive feedback towards them.

Was there something you were afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Choko: The only thing that worries me is that if I mess up and people can't understand reasons why x character did that. Since one of the main things with Verloren is that characters have their own way if viewing stuff. Like morality is pretty gray because I don't want to write a black and white story.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Choko: Main advice I'll give out is placeholders are your friend. Don't spend time making assets for a system you didn't test and you test it and it doesn't work. Just have a placeholder graphic which helps you test it and when it's done you can always slap on the asset. Following up with this, create a debug room. It would come in handy to test systems/ events than having to play through your game to test it and learn you need to fix it.

Question from last month's featured dev @cheesesteak-horror: Do you have creative processes you practice before starting development? *Choko: No, not really. I often just jump right into development and go from there. Most of my practice come from when I work on small stuff or just when I'm bored I often just mess around with things.

We mods would like to thank Choko for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Verloren if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[hilltopsunset]

I Regret Buying Pokémon Shield

I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen time and again the lack of innovation from main-series Pokémon games, and I insisted nothing would convince me to buy this latest atrocity. Yet here I am, reviewing the game I said I’d never purchase. I should have listened to myself. I KNEW BETTER! Strap in, ‘cause this one’s pretty long.

Pokémon has been around for a long time—like, a long, long time—and I’ve been around for every single new main-series game that’s been released since the franchise’s first arrival in North America back in 1996 with Red/Blue. I was not yet 10 years old, and I still remember the childlike excitement of finding rare, never-before seen creatures, the stress of trying to catch a wily Abra or elusive Pinsir, and the challenging first encounter with the Elite Four and the Champion, a 5-man gauntlet of trainers with powerful Pokémon rarely (if ever) seen in the game prior to that moment. It was exhilarating in a way that keeps me coming back for more, hoping to rekindle those same flames of wonder. 

While the main gist of the games hasn’t changed much over the years, one of my favorite parts of playing a new Pokémon game is seeing the improvements each game brings to the series. Many of the initial sequels made huge leaps in progress: Gold/Silver introduced a plethora of new mechanics like held items and breeding; Ruby/Sapphire introduced passive abilities and was the first to include multi-battles in the form of double-battles; Diamond/Pearl was the first generation capable of trading and battling online and brought us the revolutionary physical/special split so elements were no longer locked into one or the other. These changes all had significant impacts on how players approached battles, formed their teams, and used each Pokémon.

Those changes, combined with the addition of new Pokémon to catch, regions to explore, and enemies to fight, were enough to keep me interested. But I know I wasn’t alone in imagining all the possibilities of taking the franchise off the handheld platforms and moving the main series games over to a more powerful home console. In the meantime, each generation that followed Gen IV highlighted a new, troubling pattern that became more and more prevalent with each addition to the series.

1.       Gen V: Lack of meaningful gameplay innovation

By Generation V with Black/White, not only was Game Freak quickly running out of colors, they were quite obviously running out of ideas for significant gameplay innovation. The bulk of Black/White’s biggest changes were improvements on or adaptations to existing staples to the franchise: many new Pokémon, moves, and abilities were added, and the DS platform allowed for greater graphical quality where Pokémon could move around a bit more on-screen during battles, the camera wasn’t as rigid as it had to be in previous games due to machine limitations; perhaps most importantly, they FINALLY decided to make TMs infinite. Thank goodness. While the updates were nice, they were nowhere near as impactful on the game as previous generations’ changes were and served more as needed quality of life adjustments.

I would also argue Gen V also had the least inspired Pokémon designs (like Vanillux and Klinklang) with the worst starter choices of any Pokémon game, but that’s a discussion for another time. Excadrill and Volcarona were pretty cool, though.

 2.       Gen VI: Gimmicks as the main draw

Pokémon X/Y (See? They ran out of colors) continued this new downward trend in innovation. Mega-evolution—while admittedly pretty cool—wasn’t enough to carry the new generation into an era of meaningful improvement because it was equivalent to adding new Pokémon rather than developing innovative gameplay, ushering in a new era of gimmicks in lieu of substantial updates.

Though the gameplay innovation for X/Y was minimal, the graphic updates were substantial: Pokémon X/Y was the first generation to introduce the main series to a fully 3-dimensional world populated by 3D characters. However, since X/Y was on the 3DS, it was a ripe target for the 3D gimmick seen in almost all games on the console, which I personally used for all of 5 minutes before feeling nauseous and never using the function again.

Despite the fresh look of the new 3D models, the battle animations were, to be frank, incredibly disappointing. Pokémon still barely moved and never physically interacted with opponents, nor did they use moves in uniquely appropriate ways. To my point, for years now there’s been a meme about Blastoise opting to shoot water out of his face rather than his cannons. I was sad to see that they didn’t take the time to give each Pokémon’s animations a little more love. But I figured, in time, when or if the franchise ever moved to a more powerful machine, they would be better equipped to make it happen, right? I also convinced myself that the lack of refined animations were kind of charming, harkening back to the games’ original (terrible) animations.

 3.       Gen VII: Focus on Minigames

The main innovation (gimmick) that came with Generation VII, Sun/Moon, was the lack of HMs in lieu of riding certain Pokémon. Sun/Moon also added Ultra Beasts (essentially just new Pokémon) and Z-moves (just new moves) which only added to the number of gimmicks present in the games. These changes, which provide some mild adaptations to gameplay from previous generations, don’t fundamentally change the way players go through each game, the way that updates in the earlier generations did. I personally played through the entirety of Sun/Moon without using a single Z-move or seeing a single Ultra Beast outside the one you’re required to fight to progress the main story. Ultimately, these changes were not a significant enough experience to warrant an entirely new game that is otherwise full of more of the same stuff with slightly different creatures who have slightly different stats and occupy a slightly different world.

Though Sun/Moon was comfortably embracing the franchise’s affinity for gimmicks, it brought to the forefront yet another troubling trend: mini games. Between photography, the Festival Plaza, and Poké Pelago, the focus on and attention to detail toward mini games had grown considerably over the years. Pokémon games have always had minigames and other time-sinks—which is great! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having more to do than trudge through the main story. But it is apparent that, with each new generation, more time seems dedicated to development of these extras. Pokémon Contests, Secret Bases, Super Training, feeding/grooming; a lot of their larger innovations after Gen IV were centered on non-essential parts of the game, which results in diminished game and story quality overall.

Admittedly, Sun/Moon did have some of the best exploration moments of any of the Pokémon games, which I did very much appreciate. More on that later as it relates to Sword/Shield…

 4.       Generation VIII: You Can’t Be Serious

When Game Freak finally announced they were launching Generation VIII, Sword and Shield, on the Switch rather than a dedicated handheld console, I was beside myself with excitement.

And then I saw gameplay footage like this, and my heart sank.

What is the purpose of launching the game on a stronger console if they are going to continue copy/pasting their sprites and their animations? If they aren’t going to provide the Pokémon any unique flair or create more appropriate animations? It was disappointing enough seeing the same animations/models from X/Y for Sun/Moon, but that was sort of expected since the games were on the same console. But now that the game has moved to the Switch, this is unacceptable.

When I learned that they were significantly cutting the number of Pokémon available in the game, I thought for certain that would translate to more time dedicated to the ones that made the cut, to focus on adding animations and character to the critters to make them feel like real parts of the world, rather than avatars of a child’s imagination, unable to fully process how the world functions. Alas, what was I thinking?

I thought the Dynamax gimmick would be one of my biggest gripes because it’s so pointless, or maybe the Wild Area’s severe lack of organic belonging (all Pokémon are just wandering aimlessly, weather can change drastically after crossing an invisible line, trees look like they were cut and pasted out of Mario 64, you can’t even catch Pokémon if they’re too high a level) but honestly the most disappointing part of the game for me was the pitiful routes between towns/gyms. Previous installments of the game included routes full of trainers and puzzles you needed to defeat or solve before you could progress—in Sword/Shield, the only thing that ever prevents you from progressing are some Team Yell grunts barricading paths the game doesn’t want you to take yet, for literally no reason. It completely removes player autonomy and a sense of accomplishment earned through overcoming challenges—now instead of learning that you need to find an item that allows you to cut through certain trees to gain access to new areas, you simply follow the story beats and then, upon returning, the path will be open. It’s inorganic, it’s clunky, and it’s extremely lazy.

Speaking of lazy, the story itself was another massive disappointment for me. Pokémon games are not particularly known for having deep stories, but Sword/Shield takes it to a new low. Every NPC simply pushes you to battle in gyms, and every interesting story beat that occurs happens just outside the player-character’s reach. Any time something interesting happens, you are shooed away and told to let the grown-ups handle it while you just get your gym badges. There COULD have been some interesting story moments where your character gets more involved with helping fix the havoc occurring around the Galar Region, but instead we as the player are simply TOLD what happened, why it happened, and who fixed it (usually the champion, Leon).

I honestly think having the game focus on the story of Sonia, Bede, Marnie, or even Hop (was not a fan of this kid) would have been a much more interesting game, because those characters actually had some depth to them, some bigger reason for taking on the gym challenges than simply “I want to be the very best.” Albeit those stories would have required a tremendous amount of work to add depth and details, the potential for a better story is in those characters. There is just no story at all to the main character, who is ushered from gym to gym because…because? Because that’s what kids do? I’m not even really sure what the motivation is.

There are SO MANY exciting, interesting, innovative ways Game Freak could drive Pokémon into a new and exciting direction while still maintaining its charm and building on existing mechanics, but they instead choose to demonstrate their lack of interest in significant graphical and gameplay innovation. I imagine this is largely because the masses will eat up just about any Pokémon product produced so long as there’s a new bunny to catch, and Pikachu is still involved. I’m disappointed, and I wish the Galar region could meet the expectations of my 10-year old mind’s imagination.

When abilities were added, we suddenly had to consider whether our Earthquake could even hit the enemy Weezing and adapt to the tremendous changes the passive skills added, reconsidering how we faced each battle. When the physical/special split occurred, entirely new opportunities opened up and certain Pokémon who were banished to obscurity due to their poor typing and stat distribution, like Weavile, were suddenly viable. Some even became incredibly powerful, like Gyarados, who had been hit pretty hard by the Special attack/defense split. There were also already-powerful Pokémon (Gengar, Dragon-types) who became even more so through access to STAB moves that benefited off their strongest stats.

I want new games to include updates that feel as impactful as these changes. If you’re interested in how Game Freak can improve on the main gameplay, I have some fun ideas that will be fleshed out in another article: How to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise. That article will be dedicated to explaining what those changes are, why I want them, and how they can improve future games.

[mymelodyheart]

Starting Over Chapter 1 ~The Birthday Party~

James Fraser peered through his front windshield into the sunlight and wished he was back in his apartment in Edinburgh. If his older sister Jenny hadn't called earlier to drag him out of his blissful, mind-numbing slumber and reminded him of his nephew's birthday, he would have been still in bed. Instead of his usual routine of sleeping until past midday, eating junk food and washing it down with beer, playing Xbox and going back to sleep, he'd found himself putting on some fresh clothes and driving to Lallybroch. His sudden motivation had more to do with his nephew, wee Jamie. He wouldn't miss his birthday for the world, come rain or shine. Unfortunately, sunshine and children's parties seldom bode well for his mood while nursing a massive hangover.

It had been three months since he was last in Lallybroch - three months of avoiding his family and dodging questions about his future. He knew he'd hit his limit for grieving the untimely death of his career and feeling sorry for himself. It was time to face the world of adulting, and it was time for a change.  But what change? A job in the Fraser distillery?  It was his legacy and fallback plan, after all.

But he didn't need the money, and his brother-in-law, Ian Murray, was more than capable of overseeing its running. He considered going away to take an extended sabbatical and figure out what he wanted to do with life.

Not too long ago, he had been the nation's sports phenomenon until his sterling rugby career was prematurely cut short by a neck injury sustained during a Six Nations game against France. Later, it was discovered that he had a triple fracture of the vertebrae. Although he avoided any serious nerve damage and had worked with the best therapist in the country in an attempt to get back on the field, he'd been advised by his doctor and friend, Joe Abernathy to retire.

See it this way - you could have ended up in a wheelchair. Count your blessings, Jamie. You're still young, you have a fat bank account from your time in rugby and sponsorships, and the future is full of possibilities. How about going back to your roots? Like your family's distillery?

Jamie pushed himself out of his black BMW SUV with an annoyed grunt and grabbed the toy bicycle from the back seat of the car. He could hear the loud, shrill screams of children and smell burger meat grilling on the BBQ. Tugging on the collar of his T-shirt, he grimaced at the perspiration running down his back. It was a warm day, and already a headache was starting to grow. From his vantage point, he could see the flowers in the front of the manor house in full bloom and the path leading to the rear garden where the party was being held. Colourful birthday buntings were hung, and balloons decorated posts and hedges. Whether he wanted to be surrounded by people at that moment or not, coming home always hit him with a sense of nostalgia for a time when life was less complicated.

Tamping down the sudden urge to turn around and walk away, he thought of his wee nephew and kept moving. He wondered what kind of reception he would receive now that his identity had been stripped away. He'd always been a rugby player and the game ran in his veins. However, it appeared that the end of his career seemed to have cast a shadow over his every interaction. Ever since he retired, the topic of rugby had been delicately avoided anywhere he went. He thought if someone asked him about the weather or complimented on how good he looks one more time, he was going to implode.

Is this how it's going to be from now on? Pretending as though ten years of his rugby career never happened? What was the point of all the hard work then?

Jamie came to a stop when he reached the back of the house and took in the scene before him. A few adults were clustered around the makeshift buffet, and some congregated around the BBQ. There were probably around twenty children surrounding an entertainer who was dressed as a cartoon character from Paw Patrol.   Conscious of his damp shirt sticking to him, he felt sorry for whoever was in the mascot outfit on this sweltering day. Somehow it made the state of his mood, and the complexity of his life seemed insignificant compared to the person earning a living dressed as a dog. Disgusted with his wallowing and despondency, he pulled himself together and took in a huge fortifying breath and braced himself.

"Uncle Jamie! Uncle Jamie! Ye're here!"

Jamie's gaze landed on the small figure hurtling towards him, hands flapping in the air. Putting the toy bike on the ground, he crouched down and grinned, opening his arms to catch his nephew. His lousy mood and discomfort dissipated all at once. " A chuilein ," he breathed, gripping the boy's small frame and lifting him in the air. He smelled of lollies, vanilla buttercream and baby sweat.

Wee Jamie squealed with delight as he was spun around. "I knew ye'd come, uncle! Ma said ye have lots and lots to do." As soon as he was released, he eyed the shiny red bike and let out a gasp. "Is that my pressie, uncle?"

He laughed. "Aye, that it is. Want to try it?"

"Ma! Look what I got from uncle Jamie!" his namesake shouted at the top of his lungs as he excitedly got on the bike. 

Jamie watched his nephew pedal towards his mother to show off his latest acquisition. 

Jenny turned, smiled and then she was coming towards him.

"Aah, the prodigal son is back home." Her face was flushed with heat, and her expression showed relief. He had been expecting reproof or anything of that sort. But his sister seemed genuinely happy to see him.

Guilt prickled his nerves. "Jenny ...can we talk?"

"Not now lad. We have plenty of time for that later. I'm just glad ye could make it." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek and stood back to get a better look at him, a platter dangling in one hand. "I need to get more buns in the kitchen. Can ye sort out the lass in the mascot costume for me? My purse is upstairs," she explained, jerking a thumb towards the children's entertainer.

"Aye, of course, I'll do that." There was a squeeze in his chest at the prospect of facing his whole family and explaining his disappearance. He knew it had to be done, and it was only a matter of time.  

..........

What have I gotten myself into? Argh, Geillis you owe me big time! 

Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp rolled on her back in the grass, gasping for air as half a dozen five-year-olds piled on top of her. The impact of hyper and sugar-high children nearly dislodged her mask. She wished she was dressed as a clown or some other cartoon character instead, and one that didn't require her to put on such a weighty headgear. Alas, the birthday boy was a Paw Patrol fan.

Under different circumstances, she would have enjoyed the company of children, but she felt like dying from heat and exhaustion. Sweat trickled down the nape of her neck, and the fusty smell of her mascot headgear was making her nauseous. Without looking at the mirror, she knew her hair was an untamed mass of frizz thanks to the humidity.

Surprisingly, she hadn't collapsed from fatigue after her back to back shift at the hospital. She had been up all night when she was called into trauma surgery during an emergency. Despite having very little sleep and her body crying out for a much-needed rest, she couldn't back out on her promise to help her best friend, Geillis. 

Geillis had just started her own business in children's party entertainment. The venture was still at its early stages, and because she was double-booked that day and didn't have enough money yet to hire extra staff, she had pleaded to help her do the Paw Patrol gig in Lallybroch. 

How could she say no? Claire was already guilt-ridden for the many times she had cancelled on their night outs. These days her life revolved around her job at the hospital, planning her wedding and Frank. It was the least she could do for her neglected friend and social life.

"Who's hungry?" a voice shouted from the designated BBQ area. "Burgers, hotdogs and chips are ready!"

Instantly she was relieved from the weight of tiny bodies holding her down. Sitting up, she adjusted her mask as the children abandoned her for food.

"Um, Geillis?" She looked up. It was Jenny Fraser, the mother of the birthday boy. Claire hadn't bothered correcting her and elaborating that she was a stand-in for her friend. After all, this was just one-off and favour for Geillis.

"Yes?"

"Listen, the other children's entertainer is here already, and the bairns are eating. I believe yer two hours are up. D'ye mind collecting yer fees from my brother? He's just arrived and..." Jenny shrugged, looking down at the empty platter she was holding. "...as ye can see my hands are full at the moment."

She stood up, and through the eyeholes of the dog mask, she glanced at the newcomer. 

Aah, bloody hell, it's James Fraser. The Highland's homegrown hero is back.  She wondered how she failed to make the connection. She was in Lallybroch, the childhood home of Scotland's rugby best and finest centre.

"Ah, of course, I don't mind."

Jenny gave her a grateful look and smiled. "And thank ye. I ken it's nae job for the faint-hearted keeping the wee bairns entertained especially on a hot day like this. Ye must be shattered. Not to worry, though, I promise to give a good review online for yer new business."

She bobbed her big doggie head and watched Jenny turn and approach her brother before disappearing into the house. 

After all these years, the sight of James Fraser could still make her heart kick into a gallop and the moisture in her mouth dry right up. What is it about this man that turned her into a lovesick teenager just by looking at him?

Easy now, Beauchamp. You're as good as married. Remember Frank?  The weight of the three-carat diamond engagement ring on her finger served as a reminder.  Think Frank! Frank! Frank! Frank!   But her head refused to obey, and she continued to stare.

The first and only time she exchanged words with James Fraser, he was half-naked in the men's locker room being treated for a hamstring injury during a game. Her friend, Joe Abernathy, was a Tournament Medical Manager for the team, and through him, she had been there to assist for her own selfish reason - to see a live rugby match, up-close. It hadn't been difficult for Joe to get her in since she was an intern from the Royal Infirmary Hospital, and was more than qualified to assist. 

She remembered only too well when she came face to face with the famous rugby player. He had been cocky as sin when she was caught staring awestruck instead of preparing the ice pack for his thigh. How could she not stare? Given his considerable height and athletic frame, he was one fine specimen of a man, gorgeous and bursting with character. 

"Like what ye see, love?" he asked in amusement, flexing his pecs to tease her.

Mortified at being called out, she felt the heat creep up her neck. Not one to be intimidated by the display of cheek, she swallowed her embarrassment and tilted her chin at him. "To be honest, I've seen better. Robbie Henshaw is more my type," she retorted, referring to another rugby player.

A ruddy eyebrow shot up. "A sassenach that fancies an Irish charm! Weel, that's funny. I had a feeling ye like looking at my arse."

Ooh, the arrogance!  "Sorry to give you the wrong impression Mr Fraser but, I thought I was looking at your face." Joe's snort and Jamie's frown sent her backing away to get the ice before he could respond. But by the time she returned, he was already surrounded by his manager and other paramedical crew, her presence and their exchange soon to be forgotten. It didn't come as a surprise since, in the grand scheme of things, she was just one of a myriad of faces he came across daily.

Later on, Joe teased her regarding the chaffing rejoinder she had launched at Jamie. "You should have seen his face after that comeback you did back there?"

"Sorry?"

"Come on, LJ ...stop pretending you don't know what I'm talking about. I saw sparks flying." LJ stood for Lady Jane, a nickname Joe had given her during her first year of internship at the Royal Infirmary Hospital. It all began when their mutual friends made fun of her voice, and posh English accent, jokingly pointing out that she sounded like she just had tea with the queen. The moniker remained ever since.

"Sparks? You must have mistaken it for my short fuse firing off."

Joe boomed with laughter as he walked away. "You definitely like the man ...no use denying it. Your mouth may be saying one thing, but your face tells another story."

"I most certainly do not!" 

"Oh, and LJ?" Joe paused and turned around, ignoring her vehement denial.

"Yeah?"

"Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper about Jamie. Most are just tabloid nonsense."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

Yes, it's true she had a crush on James Fraser and had religiously followed his career. But her infatuation was just that and nothing more, even though she was often teased by her colleagues in her early years of internship. She was realistic enough to admit he was way out of her league, especially when he had been photographed and linked to high profile women in the past and fawned over by over-eager fans. After the locker room incident, she crossed path with James Fraser a couple more times, and there was never any hint of recognition on his part. She simply put it down to her baseball cap concealing most of her face and her refusal to engage, in case the embarrassing episode of her ogling at him was brought up.

Over a year and a half ago, she'd watched him score try after try for the national team during the World Cup, along with everyone in the local pub she frequented. There had never been a doubt he was destined to become one of the all-time greats in the rugby world. But no one had seen the injury coming, especially Jamie. Claire could still remember the heartbreak in his eyes when he announced his retirement on live TV at the age of twenty-eight, despite the light-hearted joke about having more time to practice his golf swings. And just like that, he disappeared from the media circuit. 

After a while, rumours started to spread that he had gone off on a self-destructive bender. Joe Abernathy had confirmed the stories were true and he had tried to reach out to him, and so had the local community and his own family. Instead of being coaxed out into the light, James Fraser hid in his apartment, refusing to answer calls and emails. She thought what a waste if he ended up as a drunken slob as she'd never known him to be anything but a fiercely confident man even to a fault. Although she was a nobody to James Fraser, she had urged Joe multiple times to keep trying to reach out. Unfortunately, he didn't want the help and soon, even his staunchest fans began to lose interest. Except, maybe her.

Making her way towards him, she watched with interest as James Fraser smiled at his nephew whizzing about on his new toy bike. Russet coloured hair curled unruly over his brow and brushed the nape of his neck. He looked rather pale, and it was the first time she'd seen him with a beard. The uneven state of it told her the facial hair was a product of self-neglect rather than a style change. Her gaze dipped lower. With his feet braced apart, arms folded across his chest and at least his six-four height, he towered with an impressive bearing. Clad in faded black jeans that hung low on his hips and a white t-shirt that stretched over his muscular build, he looked like a modern Highland warrior.

"Hi there." 

Claire's thought bubble burst, and she quickly reeled in her dwindling focus and pulled it higher until she met his eyes. A pair of pale ice blue with piercing intensity momentarily froze her in place.  Right! What was it again I'm supposed to do? Oh yeah, collect the money, and get the hell out of here. Piece of cake.  "Hi." 

He gave her a forced smile as he fumbled at the back of his jean's pocket. "Ye've come to collect yer money. How much does my sister owe ye?" 

"That'll be seventy quid, please. And um, good to see you out and about, Mr Fraser."

He stopped and squinted at her as if attempting to see through her doggie disguise. "Ah, a sassenach!"

"Yes, I've been reminded often enough."

There was a moment of silence.

Puffing his cheeks, he dragged a hand through his hair and rapidly let out a lungful of air. "Christ, I didn't mean it that way. And please call me Jamie. Everyone else does. And nae need to be so formal!"

She nodded her big head. "Alright ...Jamie, it is then. And don't worry. I didn't take offence. I know you didn't mean anything by it."

He was about to pull a note out of his wallet, but he stopped. As if he was in search of the right words to say. "Ye have a beautiful voice. What's the word ...aye, husky. Kinda like a bedroom voice."

Her heart skipped a beat, and she searched his face. It seemed he was genuinely just attempting small talk. "Thank you."

"Would ye like a drink before ye go? It's a hot day. Ye must be parched."

"Ah, no, I'm quite alright. But thanks."

"Ye have a name?" He drew out a hundred-pound note from his wallet, pinching it between his fingers.

"Call me Chase. I'm one of the Paw Patrols." When he laughed out loud, she was grateful for the mask that hid her unexpected smile. 

"Weel, Chase I think ye sound bonnie." He took a careful step forward to peek through the eyehole. "Ye bonnie under there, Chase?"

Oh no, you don't!  She took two steps back.  This is getting bloody ridiculous.  In as much as Claire was enjoying the harmless blather with the handsome Scot, she knew she was running out of time. She had a couple of hours of nap to take, shower, and meet Frank for a dinner date. For the most part, he was affecting her in ways that no other man had made her feel. Including Frank. "I really need to go," she said hoarsely.

"Right. Just one request before ye go. I'll give ye this ..." He waved the hundred-pound note in front of her. "...and ye can keep the change if ye let me see yer face."

Claire felt a stab of exasperation.  Why does it matter what I look like?  She was exhausted, hot and bothered and all she wanted right there and then was to get out of the stuffy costume. "Why do you need to see my face?"

Suddenly he looked uncomfortable. "What I meant ..."

She didn't let him finish. "What if you don't like what you see? Do I have to give the change back? Don't you have enough girls fawning over you?"

His shame morphed into annoyance and then into smug. "Careful, Sassenach, ye're starting to sound a little jealous to me."

Ooh, he's back to his usual cocky self.  "Wot? Me? Jealous?" she fumed almost sputtering. 

"Aye, jealous." He looked like he enjoyed making her feel uncomfortable as a corner of his mouth lifted into a half-smile.

A cloud above her head darkened, lightning threatening to shoot at all sides. She knew it was the heat and exhaustion that was making her cranky and tried to take calming breaths. "You're presumptuous and rude."

"And ye're annoyed because I can see that the idea of girls fawning me irks ye."

That's it, I've had enough of this palaver.

Claire rolled her lips inward to plump them, then reached up and removed her mask. Gratification coursed through her when his jaw went slack, and his blue eyes turned a deeper shade.  That's right matey, I am not at all that bad!  As she took a step forward, he straightened his posture, a groan escaping from his throat. He saw the intention in her eyes and knew what was coming.

"Jealous, you say?" she hissed. Remembering the embarrassment Jamie had caused her during their initial meeting, she shoved him against the wall of the house, not caring if anyone was watching the spectacle she was creating. Surging up on her toes, she brought her face up close to his, their noses almost touching. "That's right, darling, I would rock your world."

Ah, what the heck ...I'm getting married soon, I might as well.  Not giving Jamie a chance to get a word in edgeways, she leaned even closer and merged their mouths together. To her astonishment, his lips parted, and the kiss hit the ground running in no time. One strong hand gripped her chin and pulled it down further, allowing him to slant his head and deepen the kiss more.  Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!  Shock exploded into her brain, and she swayed a little under the onslaught of heat. Jamie pushed his tongue deeper, making a low moaning sound, and she echoed it in kind. Then she felt his hand slide behind her neck as if he couldn't allow her to get away, and that's when she knew she was losing control.  What the hell are you doing Beauchamp? Remember Frank?

Claire pulled away and took a deep breath. With his mouth damp and parted, he too was trying to draw in as much air as he could, his face a mask of stunned disbelief. "Ye look familiar. Who the hell are ye?"

Swallowing the odd lump in her throat, she plucked the hundred-pound note out of his fingers. "I'm gone. I'll have a receipt sent over." She took a few steps, stopped and then turned around to look at him. "Oh, by the way, I sincerely hope you're done feeling bad about your rugby career. Circumstances mess everyone up once in a while. And I guess it's fair to say, you've been messed up really bad. But, please, don't lie down and play the victim. I know you're better than this. Look at this way, you've achieved more than anyone could in a lifetime. You did it, Jamie. You've already achieved what you set to do. And I wish you all the luck in the world." 

Taking advantage of the group of people approaching them, she hurried away.

"Hey ...wait, what's yer name?"

This time she didn't respond nor look back. With as much dignity as one could summon while dressed in a doggie costume, she ran as fast as she could.

[maenvs3000]

A Home Away from Home: How Nature Has Helped Me Adjust to City Living

Have you ever felt a strong, emotional attachment to a certain location or environment? Are there people in your life that, through sharing their knowledge and expertise, have amplified these emotions and simultaneously strengthened your relationship to nature and culture? I think most of us would be able to answer this question with a place (or places) and a person (or persons) in mind that have given them this ‘sense of place’. My story is likely similar to many others, in that it started from a young age, and the skills I have acquired continue to impact my life today.

For me, nature was a major part of my childhood and has had a massive impact on my present studies, and my future career interests. Growing up on a farm in southwestern Ontario, my siblings and I spent most of our time outside playing and exploring the vast landscape. One of my earliest memories was going on ‘nature walks’ in the bush that surrounds our property and ‘looking for signs of spring’ – a game that involved hunting for budding on trees, or blooming flowers. This was my first introduction into what would become my lifelong appreciation for nature and my surroundings.

My dog ‘Star’ in a bed of Trilliums while on a ‘nature walk’ in our family bush. Photo by my mom – Joanne Sanderson

This bush is owned by my family, and over the years I have developed an emotional connection to it. We also have tapped maple trees and planted a garden every spring for as long as I can remember. This contributed to my deeper appreciation for what land and nature can provide when treated properly. 

As a child I was my mom’s reptile and amphibian re-locator (I found out later that this was the product of my mom’s extreme phobia of reptiles and amphibians!) and I was OBSESSED with frogs, toads and snakes. We were encouraged by my parents to explore our surroundings, ask questions and, most importantly, have fun! In this way, my parents played one of the biggest roles in interpreting nature and giving me a sense of place at my own home.

Me and ‘Tony’ – a toad I discovered under an outdoor chair.  Photo taken by my mom – Joanne Sanderson.

Me in a tree with my dad while on a walk of our property. Photo taken by my mom – Joanne Sanderson.

However, my parents are not the only people who have given me skills and practises important in natural interpretation. From a young age I was also taken on camping trips every year by my aunt and uncle to various provincial Parks in Ontario. On these trips I learned to canoe, hike, and make the world’s fluffiest pancakes! They taught me about the different constellations, proper campground etiquette and how to read maps and use compasses. These trips were what I looked forward to every summer and played a huge part in giving me the skills to interpret nature and find a sense of place even when unfamiliar with my surroundings.

My sister, Aunt Mary, Uncle Michael and me canoe/kayaking at Killarney Provincial Park. Photo by a friend – Lindsey Bryan

Me, learning to use a compass and read a map at Grundy Lake Provincial Park. Photo by my Aunt – Mary Sanderson

I do, admittedly, feel more separated from nature being a student, and living in a city that I don’t have a deep-rooted connection to (but still love very much!). However, I am very lucky to be living with friends that enjoy hiking and being out in nature as much as I do, and we have made a conscious effort to explore the land and find new trails and areas to walk through. 

My roommates and I hiking at Hilton Falls Conservation Area, in Milton. Photos by my roommate – Claire Gazeley

I have been trying to explore new ways to stay connected to nature while being away from home. Recently, I have begun collecting monarch butterfly larvae in my student house and releasing the butterflies when they emerge (its really fun and easy to do!). This was something I used to do as a child, and it has become a way for me to bring familiarity to a place that was unfamiliar AND it has allowed me to communicate my natural experience to my roommates.

My monarch caterpillar/butterfly ‘Garfunkel’ in my Guelph student house. Photos by me.

I believe it’s the dexterity that I obtained from my parents, and aunt and uncle that has given me the ability to ground myself and find my sense of place regardless of my surroundings.

Some Questions to Consider When Reading

-       In what ways has moving away from your home altered your relationship with your natural surroundings?

-       Have you had to get creative in bringing childhood experiences pertaining to nature into your adult life? 

-       I mentioned that we tap maple trees and grow vegetable in the spring: in what ways has nature given back to you? Are your experiences similar to mine?

[gamesception]

So the Outer Worlds port finally came out on the switch a couple weeks ago, which is what I had been waiting for to give it a try.  Beat my first play through yesterday.  And... honestly?  I kind of expected better.  Like, a lot better.

Not getting into the technical side, since I’d have no idea how to separate the stuff that was Obsidian’s fault from stuff that was Virtuous’s fault from stuff that just comes down to the Switch itself.  Also because technical stuff doesn’t affect my own experience overmuch - I can’t easily spot the difference between 30fps and 60fps unless someone points it out to me, and as long as a game is at least on par with, like, the ps2 era graphically then it looks good to me - though I will say the game crashed twice while I was playing it AND I had a random quest breaking companion death bug that by the time I noticed it I only barely had a save far enough back that I was able to fix it, and the game performed badly enough docked that even I gave up on playing it on the tv and just went with handheld....

But again, I’m not overly concerned with the technical end and wouldn’t necessarily blame obsidian for the shortcomings of the switch port anyway.  But where the game was disappointing was in areas that I was sure Obsidian would deliver in - an immersive world with believable and engaging factions and societies, interesting and well written quest lines and npcs, a main story with something compelling to say and a lot of opportunities for subtle role playing.  The stuff that New Vegas did so much better than Fallout 3, or that KotOR 2 did so much better than KotOR 1.  Stuff that the reviews around the time of the game’s release on other platforms all praised the Outer Worlds for.

And that’s.... like...  I mean, Outer Worlds isn’t terrible, I enjoyed my time with it more than I didn’t, but wow I expected more.  The game is short, the explore-able areas are relatively small, and, like, it’s really really dumb in a lot of exactly the same ways that people complain about Bethesda Fallout games - token quests that just have you following a quest marker around mindlessly, never getting to work anything out for yourself.  Settlements that don’t make sense, npcs and villains that feel like goofy dumb jokes rather than communities of people, random respawning groups of the same handful of enemy types with no integration into the world - the game’s raiders have no motivations, outposts, or place in the world like those of New Vegas, they’re just enemy spawns to give you something to shoot.

The world just doesn’t work.  Like, I get it, corporations bad, I even agree in principle, but there’s no depth to it, just a surface level, cartoonish reiteration of the idea.  It doesn’t get at WHY corporations are bad.  In Outer Worlds they’re just bad because they’re dumb and incompetent and pointlessly cruel.  Nothing about systemic lack of accountability or profit motive.  The game even just shoves a couple arbitrary human villains in at the end so that you have a generic bad guy that you can kill to magically fix everything.

And the segregated design of the world - instead of one big wasteland like fallout games there’s a bunch of smaller regions you space ship between like a KotOR or Mass Effect game - means nothing you do in one area or quest line seems to meaningfully impact or even just tie into anything going on anywhere else.  There’s a faction system like New Vegas, but the factions feel pointless and paper thin.

The only ethical/story choices in the game are between factions, and there’s always a pretty obvious “right” answer.  Do you side with the company town full of innocent people, or do you side with the outsiders who just want to be free even if that freedom comes at the cost of an entire town of innocent people?  Or do you want take the obviously best option milquetoast moderate liberal “both sides” option where you easily resolve the differences between the two sides by getting rid of the one individual bad man who is actually to blame for whatever’s going wrong?  That exact situation is repeated twice.  Then do you want to side with the board who are literally killing everyone through wilful incompetence or do you want to side with everyone else because literally nobody actually likes or depends on the corporate board?  The choices presented to you are as cartoonish and reductive as anything you could point to in any of the Bethesda games that Obsidian fans like to complain about.

Some of the companions are ok, Parvati is endearing enough, and there’s a bit of biowaresque banter between them while walking about which I like, but their quest lines, like pretty much all quest lines in the game, are pretty short and largely perfunctory fetch quests, and once they’re done the companions have literally nothing left to say to you.  Just as you get close to them they stop being characters altogether, and are reduced down to ‘attack that enemy’ buttons.

The game play was... like bare minimum passable, and way way too easy.  As with the quest lines, the game play seems to be idiot-proofed at the expense of all challenge.  There’s a neat infiltration mechanic idea, but those segments are all but impossible to fail if you aren’t trying to do so.  Combat likewise was way too easy, at least for the default stealthy long gun character I typically make in these sorts of games.  Enemy AI is pretty bad and rubber banding is super noticeable.  There’s multiple difficulty levels, but hard mode didn’t fix the problem and ‘supernova’ mode comes with a bunch of obnoxious survival busywork, plus the companions can be perma-killed, and since their AI is as bad as the enemies that would lead to me never taking them out of the ship, which would mean missing out on the party banter which is one of the few bits I was enjoying in the game, so I didn’t even bother trying it.

Skill checks are present but almost always too easy to distinguish character build decisions, and even when they are, bypassing checks by other means is always so trivial that it’s not even worth the quick travel jump back to your ship to respec - which you can do at any time.  If there’s a hard lock pick blocking anything important then there’s always an alternative computer hack, or a nearby pass key, or a room with a couple enemies that can be easily stealthed past, or even more easily killed, or some other alternative path never more than a room away.  The only thing that seems to be blocked by actually hard checks are more loot, and this game throws so much loot and ammo and medpacks at you that missing out on some never matters.

None of that would be a huge problem if the game’s story and world had more depth.  The game play coasts by on the bare minimum, but for an rpg of this type that would be absolutely fine, if the story and quests and setting weren’t *also* coasting by on the bare minimum.  That ‘bare minimum’ bit is highlighted by the game’s overall length, which is really pretty short.  I did every side quest I came across naturally, collected all the companions and did their quests, and capped my character level before going to the final mission, but that still capped out at well under 20 hours of play time, and a lot of that was spent backtracking back and forth over the same few areas with the same copy and re-pasted respawning enemy groups.

The whole thing isn’t, like, actively bad, I’m coming across as too negative here.  Again, I mostly enjoyed my time while I was playing it, and the relative lack of these sorts of games on the Switch means I don’t feel like I wasted my money on this one.  I *did* play it all the way through instead of just losing interest a few hours in.  I’ll probably play it through once more at some point in the future, a no companions, supernova difficulty run maybe, and I’ll probably enjoy that well enough.  And I guess maybe that makes Outer Worlds look good compared to recent Bethesda efforts, which I’ve either avoided entirely (76, mobile garbage), or lost interest in and stopped playing a few hours in (4).  Maybe that explains some of the overwhelming praise of the game I remember from when it first came out.  But I wouldn’t say it’s even on par with slightly older Bethesda fare like Fallout 3 or Skyrim.  And to the extent that the game’s world structure and focus on companions calls to mind Bioware games like the original Dragon Age or Mass Effect, Outer Worlds falls notably short there as well.  Most painfully, when it comes to the core elements that made previous Obsidian games like New Vegas or KotOR2 great, Outer Worlds doesn’t even come close.  Hardly even seems to try.  And if you’re comparing Outer Worlds to those games instead of to Fallout 76, I don’t really see how you could see it as anything other than a disappointment.

[baphomet-media]

Top 10 Games I Played in 2019

Another year has gone by just like that, and here we are with another year’s worth of games played! There were some good releases this year, and I’m excited to talk about them all. Before that, though, let’s touch briefly on the criteria for these lists:

Any game that I played for the first time in 2019 is eligible, regardless of initial release year. Games that I started late in the previous year but spent most of the time playing in the year in question also count.

Ports, remasters, remakes, etc. of games that I have played before do not count.

I have to spend a certain amount of time with a game or the game has to make some kind of significant impact on me to be considered.

Lastly, these are just my opinion out of a very limited pool of games that I was personally able to get to this year, so if a game you played this year doesn’t show up, chances are either I didn’t have a chance to play it, or it just wasn’t personally as impactful to me as some of the others on the list. Now, on to the list!

10. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

Developer: Intelligent Systems / Koei Tecmo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Strategy RPG

Release Date: July 26th 2019

Before Three Houses, the only Fire Emblem game I played was Awakening on the 3DS. I mostly enjoyed it, but I couldn’t get into the marriage aspect of the game, and I felt that many of the battles a bit too lacking in any sort of story context other than “There are bad guys here, let’s take them out!”

However, Three Houses really succeeded for me where Awakening failed. The academy was a really great home base and actually gave some meaningful context to most of the battles in the game. I really enjoyed micromanaging the different lessons in the game and tweaking each of my students into exactly the build I wanted for them, however I felt the drawback of this was that there weren’t really a whole lot of different classes to really explore. Most of the game’s character classes are just stronger variations of lower-level classes, and it definitely felt like some skill categories became woefully underutilized as the game went on, so there was no point in training people for them. I also liked recruiting other students to my house, but I felt like the other houses students didn’t really offer anything that my current house already had, so some students ended up feeling mechanically similar to others.

The battles were exactly what you’d expect from Fire Emblem, and gave me a bit of a tabletop RPG vibe, which I enjoyed, particularly when there were large monsters to fight that took up more grid space than standard units.

That being said, the story was really interesting, and I really liked watching everything unfold. I picked the Black Eagles house (because Edelgard is great), but I felt like that story didn’t really do a great job of explaining everything, and expected you to just side with Edelgard on some of her more bold decisions with no explanation as to why what she was doing was right, which felt kind of unfair. The game really wanted you to go through and play each one of the houses stories, but with around 80 hours poured into a single house, I didn’t really feel like there was much point at the end.

Overall, I think Three Houses is a great fit for the Switch and I’m excited to see what the future of Fire Emblem on Switch will look like.

9. Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch)

Developer: Next Level Games

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Adventure

Release Date: October 31st 2019

When it comes to Luigi’s Mansion, I enjoyed Dark Moon on 3DS back in 2013 while waiting for Animal Crossing: New Leaf to drop, but I never really had much of a reason to come back to it. Still, I really enjoyed the exploration aspect of the game and the attention to detail really impressed me with how nearly everything could be interacted with.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 on Switch is more of what you’d expect from the Luigi’s Mansion series. The game centers around Luigi exploring a haunted hotel to stop King Boo and rescue Mario and his friends. While Dark Moon focused more on a few isolated mansions with different themes, LM3 brings things back to a single gigantic building. This time, each floor of the mansion has a different spooky theme, from ancient Egypt, to classical music, to a floor overgrown with plants. Luigi has to defeat the boss of each floor to reclaim the elevator button for the next floor as he gradually works his way to the top.

Like with previous games in the series, you can expect loads of environmental interaction, such as all the items you can suck up and mess with using the Poltergust, but LM3 brings some new mechanics to the series, including a launchable plunger than you can then pull on to yank certain objects around, as well as the remote-control Gooigi, who is as fun to use as his name is cursed. Gooigi is basically a slime doppelganger for Luigi who can be deployed at any point to assist Luigi with different tasks, or split up for local co-op play. He also has the ability to squeeze through grates and pipes, allowing all sorts of hidden areas that only Gooigi can explore.

LM3 is a game that oozes with charm (no pun intended), though the combat does get a tad repetitive. Also, I was a bit disappointed that there was not more interplay between different floors of the hotel. They’re almost exclusively completely isolated levels, which definitely takes away from the feeling of having a huge building to explore.

8. Blasphemous (PC)

Developer: The Game Kitchen

Publisher: Team17

Genre: Adventure Platformer

Release Date: September 10th 2019

Blasphemous is a game I remember seeing teasers for earlier in 2019, but saw little to no hype for otherwise. However, the concept and the stunning hi-bit pixel art immediately drew me in. The game is a 2D adventure platformer set in a gothic fantasy world reminiscent of Dark Souls. In fact, quite a lot of this game is reminiscent of Dark Souls, with a lore thicker than gravy that’s brimming with little tidbits of information in every NPC dialogue, every item flavor text, and in the bosses you encounter. The world takes inspiration from Christianity, though not actually being about Christianity itself, instead a fictional religion with many similar aspects (an approach I wish more developers would take).

In Blasphemous, you play as The Penitent One as you explore a rotting gothic world and learn more about a strange quasi-religious curse called The Miracle and other fascinating bits of the world. You explore such locations as rotting cathedrals, a frozen mountain, the interior of a colossal bell set upside down into the ground, and more. Along the way, your eyes will feast on some of the most gorgeous pixel art in games this year.

The Penitent One is able to battle with their sword and certain special abilities picked up along the way. While the combat is fairly simple at first, it gets much more deep and nuanced as you go along, dodging enemy attacks, parrying and countering, using spells to buff yourself or shoot projectiles, and much more. Personally, the game feels a lot like Dark Souls meets Castlevania, particularly Symphony of the Night. It’s definitely a lot of fun, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea due to tone and difficulty.

7. Mario Maker 2 (Switch)

Developer: Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Action Platformer and Level Editor

Release Date: June 28th 2019

I was a big fan of the idea of the original Mario Maker on WiiU, so I was really excited when Mario Maker 2 was announced for Switch with a plethora of new parts, themes, mechanics, and features. I have a pretty big soft spot for classic Mario games, and level editors really get my gamedev side going, so this game pretty much checked all the boxes for me.

I was glad this time around to see an extensive singleplayer mode, where Mario has to play through Nintendo’s own pre-made levels to gain coins to rebuild Peach’s castle after the Undodog resets it all to nothing. It was a great introduction to the game, particularly showcasing what all you can do with the new parts. It was the perfect thing to get any creator’s brain tingling with ideas for their first level.

The editor itself is largely improved from the WiiU, though you’ll almost certainly need a capacitive stylus in order to really take advantage of the Switch’s touch screen, though it’s nice to finally have a Switch game with proper touch screen support, since it seemed like Nintendo had all but forgotten about this part of the device. There are tons of new improvements here, too, such as all modifiers for objects can be accessed by long-pressing on an object. One thing I wasn’t fond of though was the way the Select and Copy modes are accessed, needing to toggle through them and normal edit mode instead of just having a single button for each.

Unfortunately, the Amiibo costumes have not returned, which would have been a great use for Amiibo on Switch (anyone remember that the Switch is Amiibo compatible?), though with the recent release of the Link costume, it seems that Nintendo has plans in mind for these alternate forms.

Fortunately, if you’re not much of a creator, there’s still plenty to do in MM2, as there are tons of ways to play levels online, including an endless challenge mode with different difficulties, browsing top level lists, and a new speedrun mode where levels are available for a limited time and you can grind them to get your best time, playing against the ghosts of other players’ best times.

All in all, I’ve had fun with MM2, and I’m excited to see what Nintendo will bring to the game in future updates (please implement level playlists).

6. Baba Is You (PC)

Developer: Hempuli

Publisher: Hempuli

Genre: Puzzle

Release Date: March 13th 2019

Out of nowhere back in March came a little indie game known as Baba Is You. In this programming puzzle game, each level contains the rules of the level as physical objects that you can push around and recombine to manipulate how the game plays. Each rule statement can (usually) be broken down into three components: an object (such as Water), a verb (such as Is) and a property (such as Stop). Each one of these components can be pushed around at will, and if you line all three of them up you get the statement “Water Is Stop”, meaning that all water tiles in the level do not allow other objects to move over them. If you break this statement, the water loses this blocking property and you can walk over it. It doesn’t stop there, though, and there are tons of combinations and complicated scenarios that will leave your brain hurting after too long. While some of the puzzles are unfortunately rather obtuse in their intended solutions, and the game doesn’t always do a great job of teaching you the skills you’ll need to face harder puzzles, you at least have the option of completing multiple different levels, so it’s rare that you’ll be stuck on just one.

It also helps that the art for the game is a cute but simplistic hand-drawn style that makes it easy to distinguish all the various elements of each level. The only reason this game didn’t rank higher on my list is that I got stuck and I found most of the levels to be a bit too hard for me (shocking, I know).

5. Gato Roboto (PC)

Developer: doinksoft

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Genre: Adventure Platformer

Release Date: May 30th 2019

Gato Roboto is a cute Metroid-like adventure platformer that sees you taking the role of Kiki, a cat who has to explore an alien planet to rescue her master’s crashed ship. Fortunately, while Kiki is defenseless on her own, she is able to pilot a robotic mech suit to run, gun, and jump across different zones of the planet. While a Metroid-esque platformer is nothing new, it’s the charming 1bit graphics and the interesting interplay between power suit mechanics and suitless cat mechanics. Sometimes there are gaps that the suit can’t fit into or walls that you need cat claws to climb, so you’ll have to abandon your robot suit and proceed on foot for a bit. In true Metroid fashion, you’ll acquire many upgrades for your suit as you go along, including movement abilities and health upgrades.

The game is short, but very sweet, and the mechanics are super satisfying. You could maybe finish the game in a few hours, but the controls and speedrun potential will likely keep you coming back for more.

The only downside I have to the game is that there is at least one section where you have to explore extensively on foot, and since you die in a single hit while on foot, it makes for some frustrating moments when you just barely mistime a jump and graze an enemy. Also, at one point I managed to softlock the game by accidentally bypassing a barrier that the player isn’t meant to and getting stuck in a boss area when a required button doesn’t work after you defeat the boss. Fortunately, the developers managed to patch this, so I was able to continue playing after a while.

4. Hollow Knight (PC/Switch)

Developer: Team Cherry

Publisher: Team Cherry

Genre: Adventure Platformer

Release Date: February 24th 2017

I’ll admit, I was a bit late to the party on this one. Hollow Knight released back in 2017 on PC, and while I played it for a bit on there, I didn’t get far and just never had time to come back to it. However, when it was released on Switch in mid 2018, I ended up picking it up again some time later and gradually worked my way through it into 2019. Hollow Knight is a Metroid-esque adventure platformer with light Dark Souls elements set in a dark and dismal world of a fallen insect kingdom. You play as a lone knight who seeks to explore the Hallownest and learn its secrets. Armed only with your Nail, a rusted sword, you explore the caverns and abandoned civilization beneath the town of Dirtmouth.

The game has tons of exploration, and allows the player to explore Hallownest at their own pace with minimal signposting towards destinations. Additionally, the game has an interesting map mechanic where you start off completely without a map and have to rely on memory to navigate the tunnels, however very quickly you’ll be able to purchase a blank map where you can record rooms you’ve been to at each save point. However this map only works for the current area, so for each area you discover, you’ll have to start this process all over, finding a map so you can chart out the area. While this sounds like a pain at first (and definitely can take some adjusting), it’s actually really interesting as you feel like you’re really discovering a forgotten realm and charting out your own personal course through the world. There are also plenty of points for nonlinear progression, as many areas are often open to the player at once, so it’s up to them to choose where to go (or just stumble across new areas at random like me). Each area offers vastly different visuals, from a mushroom-filled series of tunnels, to an elegant garden, to dank sewers, to a city drenched with perpetual underground rain. In each area you’ll explore every nook and cranny to find upgrades and new abilities.

Along the way, you’ll find many badges that you can equip, a la Paper Mario, that give you various passive bonuses and abilities, however you are limited in the number you can have equipped at a time, so strategic planning of which badges to use is crucial.

One of the game’s main features is challenging boss battles. The further you get in the game, the more the balance shifts from exploration to combat, with the late game mostly revolving around hunting down multiple different bosses. Many bosses are optional, however, and some are even hidden, so many players might miss them entirely. Personally, while I found many bosses to be fun challenges, it got kind of tedious to constantly be fighting bosses at every turn, which led to me not completely finishing the game.

3. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (Switch)

Developer: Square Enix

Publisher: Square Enix

Genre: RPG

Release Date: September 27th 2019

I’ll admit I slept on Dragon Quest XI when it released for PC and PS4 back in 2017. It was constantly on my “maybe someday” list, but it wasn’t until the Definitive Edition released on Switch back in September that I decided to give it a go, and boy am I glad I did.

DQXI tells the story of a young man who finds out one day that he is the reincarnation of a legendary hero called The Luminary, who is said to defeat an evil known as The Dark One and bring peace to the world. However, he soon finds himself hunted by a corrupt kingdom that has branded him as The Darkspawn, claiming he is responsible for bringing The Dark One to the world and causing disaster. Thus, our hero travels the world, meeting friends along the way, and finding out what it means to be The Luminary.

The game’s plot may seem a bit generic, but that’s the thing. The whole conceit of DQXI is that it’s a classic JRPG at heart, but with a lot of modern touches to make it feel accessible today. So while there are plenty of turn-based battles, MP gauges, and a story that’s simplistic at the surface, there are loads of surprises throughout and lots of mechanical tweaks that drastically improve the quality of life of the game. For instance, as characters level up, they gain skill points that they can spend on a grid of skills to improve their abilities in different disciplines. Usually, each character has a sector of the grid for each weapon type they can use, as well as one section full of character-specific buffs and special abilities. By the end of the game, you’ll be able to unlock nearly every ability, so it becomes more of a matter of deciding which abilities to prioritize based on how you want to customize each character.

Speaking of characters, there’s a pretty full cast of characters to enjoy, and I found myself loving all of them, such as the spunky Veronica, the flamboyant Sylvando, or the warrior princess Jade. Each character has their own battle style, too, including casting spells, using strong weapons, buffing the party, and more.

The game will easily get you over 100 hours of playtime, with myself clocking in at around 120 hours so far. I’m not quite done yet, but I’m almost there. See, there’s a ton to do in DQXI aside from the main story, including crafting and improving items in a quick minigame at your Fun-Size Forge, gambling in the casino, horse racing, side questing, and exploring various parts of the world.

As for quality of life features, there are such things as the Horse Hailer, which allows you to immediately summon a horse on the overworld for quick travel, early access to the Zoom spell, which lets you teleport back to any town, important location, or campsite you’ve visited throughout the world for free, campsites being free healing, a speed-up option in combat, multiple auto-battle options, the ability to quick-heal in the menu, and more. It’s hard to really list everything, but there are tons of instances where you’ll think “Oh, that’s really handy”.

The visuals of the game are fantastic, with lots of that Akira Toriyama style that’s become synonymous with the Dragon Quest series. The characters are all really well designed and memorable, though some of the NPCs have a bit of a case of same-face, which is especially jarring considering that the game’s world is inspired by many diverse real-world cultures, making it odd that people from a Japanese-inspired area look exactly the same as people from an area based on northeast Europe. Still, I think the game otherwise does an excellent job at respecting world cultures, and even incorporates real-world languages into different regions. For example, the in-game city of Gondolia is based heavily on Venice, Italy, and the people of that city sprinkle bits of Italian into their dialogue. It’s a charming touch.

The music for the game sounds really great if you enable the orchestral version. Unfortunately, the game originally released with only a synthesized version of the soundtrack, which sounds terrible by comparison. Unfortunately, I felt that although each of the compositions were very memorable and pleasing, there sometimes didn’t feel like enough of them. The overworld, city, battle, boss battle, and dungeon themes are exactly the same wherever you go in the world, and I felt like that was a missed opportunity to really spice up the soundtrack with more unique themes to each area.

Overall, If you like JRPG’s, you’ll definitely like DQXI. My only complaints are that it can be a tad on the easy side, and that there are a few points of no return in the story that cause certain quests to be locked out without warning.

2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)

Developer: Bandai Namco Studios / Sora Ltd.

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Fighting

Release Date: December 7th 2018

Was this really a surprise? A new Smash Bros. game releases the day before my birthday? Of course I’m gonna love it! I had been hyped up for Smash Ultimate for months preceding its release, going as far as watching any gameplay videos on YouTube I could find from various demo events and tournaments around the world. Even after the game’s release, there have been tons of content updates, new fighter DLC, and just so many reasons to come back to the game. It doesn’t hurt that one of the most accessible fighting games of all time is available on a handheld system (literally the only reason I played Smash 3DS). Smash Ultimate stands out in more than just its portability factor, though. While it largely recycles content from previous games, it can be seen as the “Ultimate” Smash Bros game, bringing back every single fighter from the series history, nearly every playable stage, and tons of familiar modes. Not only that, but new content is also present in terms of fighters, stages, and more. Long awaited characters include the Inklings from Splatoon, Ridley from the Metroid series, King K. Rool from Donkey Kong, and surprise guests, including Simon and Richter Belmont from Castlevania. On top of that, a plethora of DLC fighters and stages have been added, with the 5th DLC fighter still upcoming and shrouded in mystery.

Most prominent of the new additions is the game’s approach to a story mode. Unfortunately not as robust as the Subspace Emissary from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, The World of Light is still a welcome addition. In this mode, a strange angelic being called Galeem has turned all of the Smash fighters into evil controlled puppets, except, of course, for Kirby, who sets out to free each of the game’s 70+ fighters from Galeem’s control across a large board of levels, each connected by pathways. Each level features a battle against a copy of one of the game’s fighters possessed by a Spirit, essentially the essence of a video game character, and you have to free the Spirit and claim it by defeating the possessed fighter in a themed battle. This was a really nice way of including references to characters across not only Nintendo’s history, but the whole history of gaming as well, including some characters who do not otherwise appear in Smash, such as Shantae and Rayman. These Spirits, once collected, can be equipped to your character to not only improve your power level, but also offer different buffs, such as resistance to certain attacks, powering up your Smash attacks, starting you off each battle with an item, etc. I definitely enjoyed the World of Light mode, though I felt like it was a tad on the shallow side, and battles could get fairly repetitive after a while.

Fortunately, Smash really shines on its core mechanics, and the most fun I’ve had from the game is exploring all the different characters and finding which ones I like best. My current main is Ganondorf, though I still love playing as Ness and Lucas. Really, this is Smash at its best, and a number of much-needed mechanical tweaks, such as dodge fatigue, directional midair dodging, holding smash move charges, and an overall faster pace make this my favorite Smash game yet.

1. Persona 5 (PS4)

Developer: P-Studio

Publisher: Atlus

Genre: RPG

Release Date: April 4th 2017

Okay, wow. What a game. I’ve never played a Persona or Shin Megami Tensei game before, but buzz for Persona 5 was everywhere, and with the inclusion of P5’s Joker in Smash, I had to check it out. Even though I got to the game nearly two years late, I’m so glad I did.

Persona 5 is an RPG where you take on the role of a high school boy (he doesn’t really have a default name, but the most common name for him is Ren, so that’s what we’ll use) who has gotten tangled up in some legal trouble after intervening in a drunken assault on a woman he witnessed on the street. Turns out, this guy was something of a bigshot, and Ren soon finds himself placed under a form of rehabilitation where he is forced to transfer to the illustrious Shujin Academy in Tokyo. While at Shujin, Ren must live under the guardianship of a man named Shojiro who runs a coffee shop. Ren must stay out of trouble at school and live honestly.

However, trouble almost immediately finds Ren again as he discovers a lecherous teacher is mistreating many of the school’s students, and while investigating, accidentally slips into a strange dimension called the Metaverse, where the twisted perceptions of corrupted people are manifested into reality, and a sprawling Palace exists for the evil teacher. There, Ren meets a strange talking cat named Morgana who offers to help Ren if he will help Morgana find the Treasure at the heart of the Palace. Turns out, the Treasure is the manifestation of what caused the person’s desires to become corrupted, and stealing it causes them to lose their distorted emotions and confess.

Thus, Ren becomes a Phantom Thief, infiltrating Palaces and stealing Treasures by night and masquerading as a humble high school student by day. The Palaces are effectively the game’s dungeons, and this is where combat and exploration take place. Along the way, he’ll discover the power of his Persona, effectively an avatar of the user’s personality that enable them to unleash their true power inside the Metaverse, as well as use special abilities. And of course, you’ll recruit many friends to the Phantom Thieves, all of whom have their own motives and Personae. However, Ren has a special power. Instead of just being limited to one Persona, he has the ability to capture many Persona from the Metaverse by recruiting the game’s enemies or fusing Personae he already has to make more powerful ones. Thus the game has a light monster-collecting aspect to it, as each Persona can be leveled up to unlock new abilities, fused with others, and much more. What’s cool is that each Persona must be persuaded to join you by knocking it down in battle and then speaking to it in whatever way you think it wants to hear.

Outside of Palaces, you’ll investigate your targets, infiltrate a mega-palace called Mementos, as well as managing your free time. You see, Persona 5 allows you a limited amount of time to do everything you want to do, and it’s crucial that you manage your student life as well. This means spending time studying for exams, reading books to improve stats, working part-time jobs for money, playing minigames, and most importantly, hanging out with different NPCs, your teammates and supporters, to boost their friendship levels. As you get higher in friendship with each NPC, you’ll unlock new abilities, some of which are truly game-changing. I really enjoyed this aspect, as it felt like a puzzle trying to figure out how best to use my time. Almost nothing felt wasted, but I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to do everything, so I was always thinking about how best to optimize my time. Unfortunately, you can’t do everything in a single playthrough, but fortunately you can carry a lot of your progress over into New Game+. Some features are actually restricted to NG+, so it makes it feel like that second playthrough is really necessary if you want to see everything.

While the dungeons and the battles are mechanically fairly straightforward JRPG faire, the battles are interesting in that each enemy species has its own strengths and weaknesses, and exploiting weaknesses can knock down the enemy and allow you to take an extra turn, which can lead into strong combos. Furthermore, once all enemies are knocked down, you can perform a powerful All-Out Attack for massive damage. It honestly doesn’t get too much more complicated than that, but there is enough depth to the system to keep you engaged until the end of the game.

Each of the game’s characters are extremely well-designed, and I loved pretty much all of my party members, though Yusuke didn’t click with me as well as some of the others, despite being voiced by the amazing Matt Mercer. My favorite, of course, was the imperious Makoto, who appears little more than a bossy student council president in reality, but explodes into flurries of righteous blows in the Metaverse, alongside her robot motorcycle Persona.

Of course it’s impossible to talk about Persona 5 without mentioning the absolute masterpiece that is this game’s presentation. If you know anything about the game, you’ve likely seen the striking art style used in all of this game’s art and UI. It’s honestly every bit as eye-catching and jaw-dropping as it seems. The music is an utter masterpiece as well, with all manner of swingy jazz tunes, somber piano pieces, heart-pounding rock tracks, all of which come together with the visual style to give you something unlike anything you’ve ever played before and to truly make you feel like a suave Phantom Thief.

I managed to not only get through the main game, but get all the way through a NG+ playthrough back-to-back to get that platinum trophy and not once did I feel bored doing so. I clocked in at around 200 hours in total and it was one of the best gaming experiences of my life. If you like RPGs, time management games, good anime-style stories, or just good games, do NOT pass this one up, especially the upcoming Royal version that’s releasing in March.

[sciencespies]

Saving Our Planet Starts With the Soil

https://sciencespies.com/nature/saving-our-planet-starts-with-the-soil/

Saving Our Planet Starts With the Soil

Smithsonian Voices Conservation Commons

Saving our Planet Starts in the Soil

May 14th, 2020, 3:27PM / BY

Cat Kutz

How can the right kind of farming protect our soils and our climate? Find out in Carbon Cowboys. © 2020, carbon nation. Photo by Peter Byck

Peter Byck is a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, in both the School of Sustainability and the Cronkite School of Journalism. He is the director, producer and writer of carbon nation. He is currently helping to lead a $6.3 million research project focused on Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing; collaborating with 20 scientists and 10 farmers, focused on soil health and soil carbon storage; microbial, bug and bird biodiversity; water cycling and much more. Byck has currently completed carbon cowboys, a feature-length documentary (in ten parts) focused on regenerative grazing: www.carboncowboys.org and is in production on a long-form documentary on the AMP grazing research project.

The trailer for carbon cowboys premiered during the 2020 Earth Optimism Digital Summit during which Byck also shared a bit more about the film as a speaker for a ‘Telling the Story’ session. Ahead of the premiere of carbon cowboys, Earth Optimism Communications lead Cat Kutz chatted with him to learn more about the regenerative farming the film highlights and how it can shift the way we think about food, climate and the future of farming.

The first question that I had for you is hopefully an interesting one. If you were to tell us about the film in just a tweet, How would you describe it? So that’s less than 280 characters…

I would say meet the American farmers who are regenerating their soils and discovering solutions to climate, food security and water security. While finally making money growing us healthy food.

Alberta, Canada © 2020, carbon nation. Photo by Peter Byck

That’s perfect. It’s engaging and it definitely sets people up for something that they’d want to learn more about. I like that. Now, can you explain soil carbon storage and how this impacts agriculture?

Sure. Organic matter, the things that were once alive and have now died in the soil, are built of carbon – old microbes, old roots. And when you have a system that has a lot of microbes and a lot of roots and those things die, they actually create the structure for the soil, besides all the mineral material. And that structure actually has air in it and it’s squishy like a sponge. The carbon within those dead microbes and in those dead roots is very durable and lasts for decades or centuries.

And so that carbon was taken out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis from the leaves of the plant. The plant then burps out oxygen, keeps the carbon, mixes the carbon with water and creates these sugars that then go down through the plant’s roots and feeds the microbes. And so when you have a system that has a lot of different plants, it ends up having a lot of different microbes in the soil. Biodiversity above ground equals biodiversity below ground, and all of that material as it dies off, becomes actual soil structure and then that soil then becomes the home for the next round of life.

The dead stuff is still food for the plants and that structure actually is like a sponge, so healthy soil is not compacted, it’s absorbent. So if you have a system with great plant cover and great healthy soil structure, when you get eight inches of rain in a day it all soaks into that farm, but across the fence, they are in flood conditions. Where the next day that farmer can be out in the field working, across the fence they’re out for two weeks with that eight-inch unusual rainfall that we’re getting more and more of.

But what’s also amazing about that spongy quality of the soil that’s made up of so much former life and full of carbon, is that it’s got so much surface area that it actually holds water longer so the water doesn’t evaporate as quickly. So in drought conditions, again, because the plants are covering the soil, the soil doesn’t overheat and the overheating doesn’t cause evapotranspiration beyond what normally happens to the plants. You’ve got the soil that’s holding onto water longer, so on the side of the fence where the farmers focused on soil health, they’re growing forage for their animals, a month or months longer than their neighbor in the drought. The neighbor has to go buy hay or sell their animals, while this farmer is still growing food. And so there is a huge economic benefit to having healthy soil.

The more carbon in the soil, the more plants and more photosynthesis and more drawing down of the CO2 from the atmosphere. The more you’re putting that carbon into that soil system, it’s still going to cycle. It’s still going to get back out into the atmosphere. But it’s going to take decades and centuries, rather than when you plow it – that’s the immediate release of carbon from the soil that binds with the oxygen, you’ve got CO2 building up, leading to climate change. So right now, there’s just a heck of a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere and that carbon – they think like a fifth or more of the carbon that’s up in the atmosphere right now – came from the soil systems.

And so let’s get that carbon back in a place where it’s part of a very healthy cycle as opposed to where it is right now, in the atmosphere – where it’s part of a cycle, but it’s a warming cycle beyond what we have grown accustomed to. We have coastal cities, we’d like to keep them.​

So we’re talking about farmer resiliency and right now in the current global crisis, we’re seeing a huge effect on them because of the food waste and other issues that are rising from the pandemic. Does regenerative farming help protect them from these effects?

I think you’re seeing a lot of that food waste in really bad situations. It’s happening in the meatpacking industry, but I don’t think you’re seeing that from the regenerative farming community. I think you’re seeing that from the industrial farming community.

The farmers that I know of that sell directly to customers and some farmers in our films their sales are up between 300 and 1,000% They’re selling out.

There are places that I ordered from online that are sold out of meats where they were never sold out of these things. And so, so they’re actually much stronger right now – the ones who are either already selling to customers or pivoted to selling to customers. And so I think this is a pretty amazing sign that focusing on soil health is actually a great business plan.

Allen Williams of Starkville, MS © 2020, carbon nation. Photo by Peter Byck

I have one farmer who has a farm store and he said he’s never seen lines out the door before — he’s had lines out the door. And I’m sure he’s keeping everyone six feet away from each other.

But you know, people had to pivot… One of the farmers in our film, Allen Williams, he has a company called Joyce farms. He’s part of that company, and overnight, they lost 75% of the business selling meat produced in a regenerative way to Disney. So all those cruises, Disney World, all that stuff just went away overnight and they pivoted and they started having these parking lots. Sales selling out all over the southeast.

Wow. It’s almost as if people are kind of relearning how to get good quality food as a result of the pandemic. A lot of the public is gaining this awareness by seeing firsthand how important farming is… so do you think that this is a climate solution and these kinds of initiatives are going to become more bipartisan as time goes on?

I would hope so. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want soil health. But there’s a whole lot of farming going on in the country right now that doesn’t lead to soil health. And so how do you change that and how do you change that quickly? That’s, that’s the stuff that I think about and collaborate with people about and plan. Try to come up with more game plans and pilot programs. That’s, that’s sort of where my focus is right now. But I think people trust nature. I know people trust nature. And when you get into a stressful situation, you want to, you want to go to what you know works. And these farmers are working with nature and their customers are coming to them.

When I was on the road with carbon nation, I mean, one guy said, because he heard I was making a film about solutions to climate change, he said to me, ‘You and I are going to disagree about everything.’ And then we dug into it, and we agreed on about 70% of how we’d run the country. That blew us both away. We realized that there’s a lot more common ground than any newscast will tell you. Back then I was looking at solar and geothermal and energy efficiency and the reasons that the Department of Defense should be concerned about climate change and national security and all those things.

But then when I started working specifically on soil and healthy soil and rejuvenating soil and seeing what was happening with me and the farmers that I was meeting; we were getting along, in total agreement about soil heath. And we definitely have different politics. Then I realized that the common ground… is the ground. I’ve always been hunting for where people already are in agreement. It’s just they haven’t had the opportunity or taken the time or broken through the noise to find out that there is an agreement, and people agree about healthy soils.

We’re working on helping more and more people rejuvenate their soils. It’s so important, it touches so many issues. It’s what the Smithsonian always talks about – it’s what Earth Optimism is all about.

​

Yes! And definitely sharing the solutions… We like to think that the more you share solutions, the more solutions then come from that. It’s like the greatest aggregator of positive change is being able to share your story.

Exactly, and farmers will learn from our films. That would be a home run for us if it’s already happened. Some of the parts of our documentary, called paddocks, have been in festivals as standalone short films and farmers have called us to ask how they can do this and can we hook them up.

So we’re hoping this big film will inspire more of that, and wouldn’t it be amazing if a lot of farmers wanted to learn about this because they saw it’s just good business?

Are there any barriers that you have to overcome to get farmers to watch your films particularly because of the climate change element?

Our films aren’t climate-focused, they’re farmer-focused. Yeah, the climate piece is my driver, but it’s not all over the films at all. Partly because we wanted to communicate with farmers, and we know it makes sense – a farmer wants to listen to a farmer.

And so we wanted to make films that would highlight those conversations so that farmers could learn from farmers, but we also wanted these films to speak to a consumer and remind them to know where they’re getting food – go meet your farmer.

Deborah Clark of Birdwell and Clark Ranch in Henrietta, TX © 2020, carbon nation. Photo by Peter Byck

People are now spending so much time in their area now. Maybe they’ll understand meeting their farmers is a part of being in your local area and that farmers can produce food that they know is going to be eaten by the people in their local area, kind of like it was 60-70 years ago.

It’s like what Will Harris says in 100,000 Beating Hearts: He doesn’t have to feed the world; he just has to feed his community. This idea that every farm is supposed to be some big monolithic industrial complex because they have to feed the world – that’s a construct. That’s not a truth.

There are some farmers that are going to produce enough food so that we could export it to Canada and Japan and England and elsewhere… Great. That’s fantastic. But if every farmer really focused on feeding their community, the world would get fed. Something like 85% of farmers are smallholder farmers with an acre, or two acres, or half an acre. So the idea that you have to feed the world with any method that hurts our soils doesn’t make sense to me.

Alberta, Canada © 2020, carbon nation. Photo by Peter Byck

Farming to regenerate soils, farming so that next year the soils are in better shape than they were last year. That makes sense to me. To me, the scale is not the goal, but profit per acre – that would be a great metric for farmers. How much profit did you make per acre? Not how many bushels did you produce per acre? And when farmers do well, they feed us.

Well, since you bring that up, it’s interesting to think about it from the consumer side too. Do you think that this film is a good way of explaining to consumers that this is a way that they as an individual can help mitigate climate change by supporting our community soils?

Absolutely. There’s a lot of consumers who have stopped eating meat because they didn’t like the way they saw the larger meat industry going. But then when they find out how these animals are treated in all of our films by these farmers – there are a lot more regenerative farmers than what we filmed, obviously, and it’s growing – I’ve seen and heard of a lot of people who’ve come back to eating meat because they know where the meats being produced, and they can meet the farmer and they could see it’s a different situation.

So at the end of this farm is medicine (one of our paddocks), the farmer tells a story where these people come to his farm and they hadn’t eaten meat in years and years. But they looked at how he was treating the animals and how his operation looked and they bought some meat from him and he was surprised. So that’s the end of one of our films

But then a buddy of mine, who wrote the music for 100,000 Beating Hearts, was vegan, his wife’s vegan, and they are raising three incredibly cool kids that are all vegan. And so when I called him and said, ‘Hey, I want you to work on the music for this section of the film. Are you up for it? It’s about meat.’ He looked at a rough cut and goes, ‘Wow, these animals are really well treated. Of course, I’ll work on this.’ And then a couple of years after he did the music, he told me that he had started eating meat again. And it was because he’d met a farmer after the experience he had working on this film. And he saw a system that was working, that was making things better. And he was happy to participate in that.

I’ve got plenty of friends who don’t eat meat and I wouldn’t ever have suggested to my composer friend that he should eat meat – never in a million years. Everyone should eat what they want to eat. But I can say that if you’re going to be eating vegetables, your vegetable nutrient density will be a lot higher if they’re grown in soil that’s really, really rich with soil microbes and all the biodiversity of all the little critters in the soil that feed the plants and make sure the nutrients get to the plants.

And one of the quickest ways to get those soils healthy is adaptive grazing and so even if you don’t eat meat, you sure do want your row crop production combined with your animal production – in a very old fashioned way – to get those soils as healthy as possible because that makes healthy food. Makes sense?

Yes definitely! It’s interesting that as more people try to eat a diet with the planet in mind how often and how easy it is to forget the best way to do that is just to go find a farmer.

Yeah, and it’s the processed foods that will get you as far from a farmer as possible. I haven’t really seen a highly processed food that’s good for the planet, although some folks might say they are.

Yeah, maybe better in some cases than some of the alternatives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Perhaps it’s the lesser of two evils in some cases, and so it’s just an interesting way to look at it…

According to a buddy of mine, a scientist at Michigan State, if you add up the three major crops we grow the United States – corn, soy, hay – you put that on one side of a scale and then you put on the other side of the scale the soil we lose every year to erosion… the soil will weigh more. Our top export from our major farming industries in this country is soil, that can never be used again. That can’t last, and so there’s a lot of concern and worry about our soils becoming less and less robust, less full of carbon, less able to produce food… and then even the food that’s produced is less nutrient-dense.

This type of grazing is a phenomenal way to read rejuvenate and regenerate soils. It’s getting attention now – we’re seeing it. And there are people who have been working for decades on this. I’ve been working for seven or eight years on this from my perch. But things are changing. I really do think things are changing.

#Nature