radio414

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children -Ephesians 5:1 (NIV) Not explaining her plan until the eleventh hour seemed to work out in Melissa’s favor, she thought, or at least the improvisational efforts of her schoolmates seemed to do well enough. She did wonder a little bit about whether everyone’s safety was more because of the actions of Souji and the Skull Servants who had kept the perimeter, or if it was because of the duel fields and good thoughts, but she decided not to think too hard about that. The important thing, again, was that it worked. Even better, people were still coming in! Most of them were people Melissa didn’t know, but across the field near Taylor Hall were some faces Melissa did recognize. One was just the duelist she and Gabby had watched at the dance (his name was Yushiro, right?). Next to him was Ashley Rendleman, and Melissa supposed it was a good thing she was alive to do whatever she needed to on campus. The third face, though, was Elizabeth’s! She was okay! Or rather, she was as okay as anyone could be at the moment. Melissa gave her a wave to welcome her inside, though Jun jumped in to start answering questions before Melissa could go any further than that. Not that she begrudged Jun for it. It was what she’d been assigned, after all, and she seemed to have a bit of rapport with Yushiro already. When she turned around, she saw Gabby interacting with a monster -- a Kuriboh, or something like it. That was on purpose, right? That it had made it through Gabby’s barricade? She seemed friendly enough with it, so maybe? And yet, at the same time, Melissa recalled her first monster experience of the day, a horde of seemingly cute Mokey Mokey who had crashed their way into her history classroom. It made her uneasy just thinking about it. But she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about things like that, so Melissa tried to think about something else. She turned back around and went over to Jun, Yushiro, Ashley Rendleman, and Elizabeth. “I’m really glad you could make it,” Melissa said (to the group in general but Elizabeth in particular). “I don’t know what’s going on, but at least we can all ride out the storm together now. Oh, and --” she motioned to their duel disks “-- it would help if you turned those on.”

When The Islands Were Young Dia’s eyes softened at Finn’s question. She’d had her hand raised, ready for another blow across the cheek but instead it slowly drifted down to her side and the water around her calmed. “Like I said when we first met, it was a long time ago,” Dia said. “It would have been just after it became clear that yes, humanity would survive after the apocalypse, just after we agreed on having watchdogs execute our will. Of course, I immediately tried to find one. Most of the gods did. It was especially important to me, though, because what is life without water? How can a world survive without the sea? “Her name was Sarah Rosewater. She was a lot like you. I suppose that’s the point of a watchdog, really. She presented herself before me, and I did not find her devotion lacking. She had an energy to her, much like you do, and a drive to succeed. But she wouldn’t have ‘cannonballed’ into sacred water, or done anything to earn more than a playful jab to the shoulder “Like I said, back then, the biggest fear was running out of water, and that the world would dry up. Dies, my sister, and her watchdog had been trying to help with rainwater, but the constant downpours were causing more problems than they were solving. Obviously. “We weren’t as concerned with worship back then. We just wanted to help. All Sarah thought necessary was an unending spring in places that either had a lot of movement or that would be hard to deliver water shipments to. Galatea has one, and so do many other islands. That’s most of what she did. Aside from the preaching and the service, I mean. It’s not this pool, this was just consecrated with the mother of pearl. But if you go underground -- and there’s a tunnel just outside the city that will take you there -- you can see the remnants of Sarah’s work. “The problem, of course, is that it’s a tourist attraction now. Nobody goes there to praise me or sing the songs of ‘Her Holiness Dia, Mother of the Sea,’ it’s just one of many interesting features, divorced from me in all but name.” Dia raised her hand again for another slap. “You’ve made me wistful. Now, you can either find a way to have Galatea accept the ocean it deserves or, failing that, make them remember just who is keeping them alive.” Emily Awake Emily had said nothing since being led into Myria’s temple, mostly because she’d been so overwhelmed at the sight of it. Myria was not a deity she’d been brought up worshipping outside of the occasional night she’d woken up from a nightmare and had it disappear when she finally fell back asleep. She’d never seen the inside of her temple before, and she only came back down from her wonder when the watchdog motioned for her to remove her shoes before leading her on to a much smaller room for just the two of them. If her situation were less grave, Emily would have said something like, “This isn’t an excuse to proposition me, is it?” But here too, she kept her mouth shut, instead focused on what she wanted to ask. “Breathe deeply and slowly,” the watchdog said. She did so. “Seek her guidance and ask her for answers.” Interlude: Levanna The nerve! After the watchdog walked off so satisfied with himself, Levanna couldn’t find any reason to stay in Dia’s temple any longer. It certainly wouldn’t help in calming her down; despite its soothing palette, the watchdog was still in the building, which meant she couldn’t be. And yet, outside was barely any different. Even after a few deep breaths, the world seemed to only find new ways to aggravate her. The crowd in front of the temple to Taros had been contained, yes, but it had not been significantly diminished. Of all the times to not execute her instructions promptly, why today? Sure, the Taros watchdog had seemed like he was about to take care of it, but that was no excuse. And they still hadn’t found- “Lady Levanna!” A guard interrupted her train of thought, breaking from the group she had summoned earlier to sprint across the square. “Lady Levanna! The watchdogs you sent us to find, we’ve found them!” That was good news at least. Levanna felt her expression soften. “Ah, yes, very good. Have you directed them anywhere or were you waiting for my instruction?” “Well…” The guard scratched the back of their neck. “One is currently occupied in their temple, and the other…” They gestured with their other hand towards, no, just near the crowd to where the young girl stood, watching, waiting. “She was headed to her temple when we spotted her. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to interrupt, but with you here and her there, what are your orders?” “Orders? I would have asked you to escort them to me, but I am already here, so you may consider that task finished. Your other one though, I might suggest moving a bit more quickly on?” The guard nodded and sprinted back to the rest, who moved with a bit more urgency, even if it was still too slow for Levanna’s liking. Levanna didn’t bother managing them further, though. She had watchdogs to corral. She made confident strides over to the girl, who barely moved from her spot, and once she was within earshot, Levanna began to speak. “Oh, you have to forgive me for losing you earlier!” Levanna said, still moving closer as she did so. “We were afraid you had gotten lost and had been looking all over for you. I trust you are well?” Levanna moved even closer. “You’ll also have to forgive us for the commotion, but you must trust that it will be handled with or without your onlooking. In fact, that Taros watchdog just went in there with a whip so I’m sure they’ll all disperse in just a moment.” She got even even closer, and this movement came with an attempt to change the subject. “What did you think of your temple? Was it as grand as you had imagined it?” Emily’s Dream There are so many questions Emily wants to ask, but even the most basic, even something as simple as “What should I know?” sounds silly in her mind. She dreams of a raging storm, thunder echoing in every direction, a lightning flash anywhere she might have chosen to look. And yet, the downpour doesn’t seem to affect her. Droplets that would have wet her skin do not, instead stopping centimeters, no, millimeters from hitting her and sliding away. Her eyes do not flinch away when a bolt of lightning strikes the ground, and the thunder becomes almost a rhythm she can follow along to. She can feel the presence of Myria’s watchdog, even if she cannot see him. That helps too. Soon, she has her first question, and the world shifts. Emily dreams of a temple. It is not Myria’s temple, nor is it any other one she recognizes, a fact not helped by its ruined state. The altar has been torn asunder, and only the tattered remains of tapestries hang from the walls, fluttering in some unfelt wind. The glassless windows show nothing outside but a dark void. The silence is oppressive. The world rotates for her, she does not move or turn from her spot. There, in the pews, lay dozens of sculptures, all unique, and all of stone. One is a column, with tines sticking out of it, one is a small cylinder lying on its side, chipped three times at the top. And so on, and so on. Emily asks her second question, and the world shifts again. She dreams of a fire, and a crowd around it, all humming (singing?) in unison, except for one, who stands in the middle, next to a fire, holding a piece of the fire aloft. In her hands is a small container, a bucket of sorts, and she can feel its weight. It is full of something -- some sort of liquid, and there is little she can do as she watches it leap from the bucket. The fluid moves in slow motion, oscillating and warping yet always moving forward. But just when it’s about to hit the fire and the figure next to it, Emily wakes up. “Okay,” Emily said. She felt out of breath and needed several before she was able to continue speaking. Her forehead felt a wet sort of clammy, too, and she didn’t need a mirror to know it was peppered with droplets of perspiration. “Okay,” she said again. “I guess, did you make anything out of that? I think I know- I think it helped, but if you have any additional guidance, I would appreciate it.” Homily (The Islands Are Old) Simon laughed, though the laugh quickly turned into a cough, which then grew worse, becoming a series of hacking coughs. His attendants looked worried, though they did nothing to assist him, and eventually, the fit did subside on its own. “The short version, hm?” Simon said. “Do you have places to be? No, it is of no matter. If you insist. “But oh, my dear watchdog, where to start? If I tell you about myself and how I came across my revelations, would you accuse me of wasting your time? Should I just get on with it in such brief words as I can describe them? If I gave you a list of ninety or so theses, numbered and organized, would that assuage your frustration? You have to understand, I am at a loss here. Normally I lead up to all this. But I can tell by the look on your face you would call this stalling too.” He coughed a few times, though this did not into another set of hacks like his last. “Why do the gods exist, do you think, dear watchdog? I will answer this for you: the gods exist because people believe in them. Not just that, the gods exist because people worship them. It’s a symbiotic relationship, don’t you see? The gods keep things in order, and we thank them for it as best we can. This was my first revelation. “My second revelation was this: the world has ended. This is not the world as it should be, irreparably damaged as it is from an apocalypse we surely only used to speak about in myth. And yet…” Another cough. “And yet, here we are. So maybe what I should say is this: the world is ending. It is falling into decay. You intend to bless a sword today -- what do you think will happen to it? Eventually, it will cease being maintained, and it will rust. “People believe this deep down, dear watchdog. If they tell you otherwise, they are liars. All we’re doing is bringing that belief to the forefront of people’s minds. Many find it comforting, actually, and those are the people who beckoned you in today. Some ignore it, and we work ever harder to welcome those people in with open arms. And some…” Simon seemed like he was about to say more, but he drifted off, and the sentence was left uncompleted. The only thing he added that seemed to be in that regard was this: “Belief in oblivion can be a harsh mistress, I suppose.” Simon was wrapping up now. “All we ask for is legitimacy, really. I’ve told the religious council this as well: we just want a temple of our own to worship in. But if you are determined to not host us in yours, I suppose we’ll simply move on.” OOC

can i request a nice hat?

←Previous Post -- Next Episode→ Duel 08: Curried High Trip Or: The One Where Anthy Slaps Back If you haven’t been following She-Ra or Utena twitter, you probably missed this, but in that intersection between the two fanbases, there was a collective squee as the former show referenced the other in a couple of key images. I won’t show those images here -- they’re from later episodes and might be a little spoiler-y, but it got me thinking about how other shows might have referenced Utena in various ways. Tvtropes has a list, but a good section of that list is other anime and manga, a lot of which is either Penguindrum (another Ikuhara creation) or references that are questionable at best in my opinion. There is Shitsurakuen, which apparently draws heavily on Utena’s plot, but what I’m more interested in is western animation. Besides She-Ra, Steven Universe is the obvious standout; one episode borrows several sequences of acrobatics. Series lead Rebecca Sugar is apparently a fan, and I imagine many others working on the show if those shots made it in. Scott Pilgrim is also very similar; I anachronistically called Utena “Scott Pilgrim but made in Japan” way back in the first post of this blog, but there are also visual references galore if you look for them (including one poster in the background of Volume Three). I don’t mean to turn this post into an archive, recounting each and every time someone mentions a show I like. I just think it’s interesting when cultures cross-pollinate like this. I have to be honest, I had a lot of trepidation going into this episode. According to commentary, this was supposed to be Episode Six (and Episode Six was supposed to be Episode Eight) before production issues threw a spanner into that plan, and honestly, it kind of shows. It’s a lot like Episode Three in stakes, and the show is going to have to explain Tsuwabuki’s absence later on. But after rewatching, it kind of still feels like an escalation of the weirdness that Take Care, Miss Nanami set up. The elephants constantly attacking Nanami as she searches for the secret curry powder now seem like an extension of the gag from the previous episodes, where wildlife just seems to hate her. The episode seems to make a note of this with its shadow play, one of the most straightforward in the series: “Divine Judgment” is what she’s experiencing. Is it really divine, though? We’re given multiple instances that it’s not. It’s not the divine winds that cause Nanami to trip when she arrives home, it’s Chu-chu. And, as we’ve established, Chu Chu is frequently a stand-in for Anthy’s actions. We also find out the curry powder was never actually used in the two explosive recipes; Anthy’s cooking is just that weird. This is what I mean when I mention Anthy’s passive-aggressive streak; confined to her role as the Rose Bride, this is how she copes, by lashing out against those who have wronged her, culminating in her, not Utena, being the one to give Saionji a sample of the curry. The rest of the episode is your standard Freaky Friday affair, meant to have its two principal characters understand more about the other. Since Utena is our perspective character most of the time, this is her mostly learning about Saionji’s exchange diary, though she also experiences some of the abuse that Anthy goes through (reminder that this is the seventh out of eight episodes that the girl’s been slapped). This is the part that leads into the next episode (that’s not a spoiler, it’s literally in the post-credits stinger), another reason I think it’s okay that the release order swapped this and Episode Six. I mentioned that each Nanami episode has a moral attached, and while the obvious “what goes around comes around” moral might apply, there’s something to be said for how the episode progresses the show’s main statements about how each character views Anthy Himemiya. Miki bursts into tears, for example, at how “impure” Utena’s version of Anthy is acting, while Saionji refuses to accept what Utena wrote in the exchange diary. Touga, too, is only concerned for the protagonists inasmuch as he hopes they will continue participating in the duels. It’s only Utena who really seems concerned. -r Next time: More flashbacks and more Saionji breaking rules. ←Previous Post -- Link to Episode -- Next Episode→

The term "golden age" is kind of loose, but I'm not the only one who says we're in a "golden age" of board games. There are so many good ones, offering so many different experiences that not only is standing out from the crowd difficult, so is finding a liscense that doesn't already have a board game attached. Even Portal has a board game. Maybe something like Risk of Rain? I'm imagining a deckbuilding game (deckbuilding is a pretty standard mechanic these days, popularized by Dominion) where monsters spawn in and loot is randomly generated -- roguelikes and deckbuilding games probably go hand-in-hand in that regard -- but what I'd be most interested in is how Risk of Rain handles time. It seems simulatable enough, using some sort of counter, and the obstacles get more difficult the more counters there are, but the devil's in the details and this is just an elevator pitch. An alternative would be to have an actual timer, and have it be a real-time sort of deal, I don't know how that plays with deckbuilding, but I'd be interested to find out.

If I had the stamina and the wherewithal for it, I'd like a late-night block of time (preferably an hour, maybe 4 to 5 AM, though I could settle for thirty minutes) that would be dedicated to ambient soundscape dj sets or production. No ads (obviously), no commentary aside from maybe an introduction at the beginning, just chill. Something akin to Surf Solar or XYZ, which aren't technically ambient but are in the same wheelhouse, would be as intense as it would get. Why late at night? I mean, I'd imagine that'd be the best time for it. Not that I wouldn't want listeners or anything, just that I'd want those listeners to talk about it in these mythical tones a la "if you tune your dial just right at such and such a time..." and that seems like a good way to add to that effect.

You asked a lot of word questions recently, so on a similar note what's your favorite English oddity in The Chaos?

well if we assume "in" to mean "within the set of these three words: 'the, english, and language'" then i would say "the" is the most useful and therefore my favorite More seriously, this isn't a question I think about too often, and I don't know if I can narrow it down to just one, but there are some goodies out there like "praxis" or "dialysis" that are more fun to say than anything else. "Colloquialism." "Xenial." I learned that last one from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Outside the English language is a bit trickier because, although I know significantly fewer words, a lot of them, like "schaudenfreude" are technically loaner words so I'm not going to count those. I do have "Götterdämmerung" which I'm pretentious enough to use as the title of an RP, so I guess that?

Peter thought Hana’s “go with your gut” pun was clever, but then she had to go and explain it so all the reaction she got from him was a brief (though still relatively intense) exhale through the nose and maybe an “Okay.” He’d always heard that you weren’t supposed to shop with your stomach. If you were hungry when you were shopping, you’d be more likely to buy more than you expected. Hana’s personal budget could have been as bottomless as her appetite, but that didn’t mean he was about to just take her advice on principle. He did have to follow her, though, partly because Hana had proclaimed herself the leader of the group and (besides having to nix the two-hundred pizza rolls) Peter didn’t see a reason to break rank, but mostly because she seemed to know where she was going for once. She was following someone else, sure, but that was better than his complete lack of ideas. Makoto had suggested looking for the rice, but wouldn’t these both take them to the same place if she was correct? And she had been correct! The Asian section was the way to go to find instant noodles. The only thing left was to decide on kinds. Hana had struck up a conversation with the girl she had been following, and chicken seemed to be the way to go there, but then Hana did her Hana thing and grabbed not only the chicken noodles but the spiciest chicken noodles they had. And she grabbed a bunch of them. “Hey, uh, maybe not?” Peter stepped in. “I’m sure you can handle it, Hana, but Coach Clara is probably going to want us to share these, and we don’t know if everyone can.” Like himself, for example. Even a drop of Sriracha sent him rushing to the sink, the water fountain, whatever he could find. “Why don’t we get a bunch of flavors so people can choose? “Also, hi.” He gave a slight wave to the girl Hana had been talking to, not wanting to completely exclude her from the conversation.

It's important to start with some history, since Marvel movies have been "a thing" for twelve-ish years now, starting all the way back in 2008 with Iron Man. My parents were the "no seeing PG-13 movies until you're thirteen" sort of people, so I didn't even see any of them right away. My mom has a celebrity crush on Robert Downey Jr., though, so she got into them on the ground floor, relaying information to me (because of course I was curious about them) until she took me to my first Marvel theatre experience in Iron Man 2. From there it was a straight shot to The Avengers with my dad, and as I grew up, I continued to see them with family or friends. Of the twenty-two movies released thus far, I've seen ten of them. I know that comes out to less than half, but that also comes out to one a year for that first decade, with the last one I saw being Black Panther. I was a casual viewer even at the best of times, completely ignoring any of the supplemental materials like Agents of SHIELD and overall my opinion of the series kind of reflects that. They're fine. Casting finds decent-to-inspired actors and gets them decent-enough scripts with decent-enough directors and crew including a second unit that, I imagine, stays the same throughout the series. They're adventure serials, and outside of the big Oscar push Black Panther got, I don't think they're intended to be much more than that. But that same "fine-ness" is also probably my biggest problem with them. Because my favorite ones always have an extra style to them, whether that's the eighties aesthetic of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies or Taika Waititi's improvisational charm in Thor: Ragnarok (my actual favorite, to answer your "best" question). Other movies, like, say, Captain America: the Winter Soldier, don't. Winter Soldier is set up as a spy thriller -- a unique style to the Marvel movies in a bubble, but not to anything in the spy thriller genre. I'm not getting into details because this isn't a video essay but compare the Bourne movies (especially starting with Supremacy where director Paul Greengrass and cinematographer Oliver Wood came in). I don't think the Russo brothers, or anyone else who worked on that movie, get it to stand out from the crowd those movies inspired. My least favorite is The Avengers because of similar reasons combined with not finding Joss Wheadon's dialog charming, though I desperately don't want to turn this into a negative rant. Again, they're fine, and I know I keep saying that phrase like it has ulterior meanings, but I truly believe that. I have concerns with how bloated the superhero film genre is becoming, but that's just me being cynical at the Hollywood machine, nothing more.

Everyone else’s answers were in the same vein as his, Chris thought, but they seemed honest enough. Again, it was kind of a sensitive question, so if there was more to their answer than they were letting on he wasn’t about to pry. Besides, once they found the Spark, he’d find out anyway, right? Well, unless only one of them could get it, in which case he was sure it’d be him, so it didn’t matter. To the next floor! The fourth floor of the dungeon was a dank one. The moisture wasn’t just confined to the pool in the center, the air was practically cold, breathable water. At least it was lit, so they could see what was coming. What was coming was a bunch of mushrooms, carrying what looked spears and somehow also looked like they were itching to use them. “Este-” Chris instinctively called out to their mage, recalling the same plan they’d used to get past the goblins of two floors prior, but caught himself when he remembered one: that plan only worked because the goblins hadn’t been aware of them, and two: Estellise had mentioned she needed to recharge. So that was out. They probably weren’t taking on guys as fun as them in a ten-to-four fight without that advantage. So that left the final option: making a break for the staircase. It didn’t seem like the mushroom men were very fast, so as long as they avoided them… Chris looked back at his teammates. “Uh, left-hand rule?” he said, gesturing at the semicircle route he wanted to take. “Just like the other ones?”