I’m up to date on New Life Begins and I love it so much. It’s gorgeous, we’re getting more and more exploration of the different regions in the world, plot is advancing along with the budding romance, and there are so many different female characters/relationships shown on screen. And so many wives + concubines teaming up and making friends with each other, as well as maids and servants being part of the household.

I got Iqiyi VIP for Between Us (and then discovered I needed a VPN as well) but I’m going to be keeping it for this show.

I may as well try the Xenoblade ask things: all the story ones (11-30) and 50 if that’s not too many.

Oh my! That is quite a few! But hey, never let it be said that I’m a quitter! Thank you for the ask, my friend! Here goes nothing…

11 - Did you get any of the plot-twists spoiled to you before playing Xenoblade?: Nope! I mean, okay technically yes. But sometimes I can be really stupid and oblivious, and even though I was dropped some REALLY BIG hints, I still managed not to get it due to my sheer stupidity alone hah! I suppose being naturally dumb has its perks sometimes!

12 - Which character did you like the most?: This is one of those questions I can never truly have a solid answer for! I’ve re-played Xenoblade so many times, and I swear I have a different favorite of the main characters every time! They’re all very great in their own ways. But!! If we’re including non-main characters in this question, then Kallian and Alvis are solid faves forever.

13 - Opinion of Juju?: I’ve never minded him too much. He’s a little helpless, sure, but he’s got his own neat little arc with all the Colony 6 stuff! I think people make him out to be worse than he actually is. 

14 - Was there any scene which made you cry?: Aah,, It really might be a better idea to ask me which scenes DIDN’T make me cry, because I swear there are fewer of those. But regardless, the ending cutscene in particular always gets me pretty emotional.

15 - What’s your opinion of the ending?: Ah yes, speaking of! The first time I watched the game (watched a lets play before playing it myself), I didn’t really understand the ending all too well. But after playing it myself and dwelling on it for a really… painfully.. long time, I ended up understanding and also really enjoying the ending! It’s very bittersweet and it absolutely made me cry. Just seeing them all in normal situations after all of this is over, in a way beginning a new journey, it’s so lovely!

16 - Which character do you think deserved more spotlight?: KALLIAN. Listen, he’s actually one of the most important characters in the game, and I don’t think he’s often treated enough like it. I think it would have been really lovely to see more of him, hear more of his thoughts and how the events of the game affected him, and especially him interacting with Melia/Shulk/and various other characters. Also he’s really quite the dork if you listen to his lines and I love that. I’d love to see more of him.

17 - Did you want to kill Metal Face, even after it was revealed he was Mumkhar?: I’m pretty 50/50 on that one. I always love redemption arcs, and in truth, I’m VERY high-key a pacifist when it comes to the vast majority of things. But Mumkhar, he very well might have just been too far gone. He didn’t show (idk about feel) remorse for any of his actions. He loved to taunt, to gloat, and especially to put Dunban down. Clearly the dude has some issues to work through. But I suppose what it comes down to for me is whether or not it’s actually kinder to spare him. And in truth.. I think that’s a no in this case. 

18 - How do you think Xenoblade handled the two semi-love triangles? (Shulk/Fiora/Melia and Sharla/Reyn/Gadolt): 0/10 do not pass go, do not collect $200. The love triangles are really my one big beef with the game. I think the Reyn/Sharla/Gadolt triangle was handled better, personally. It started off feeling pretty forced, but in the end it did seem to work and I certainly don’t mind Sharla/Reyn as a ship! It’s really just the Fiora/Shulk/Melia love triangle that throws everything off for me. I had no indication before a specific line that Melia had any interest in Shulk other than being friends, Sharla and Dunban’s interference and comments were frankly weird and out of place, and the tension between Fiora and Melia then just seemed… so off-putting since I never really could get into Melia’s romance side of things. I’m very much a multi-shipper within the Xenoblade fandom, but Shulk & Melia just really don’t go together in my mind. However, I wish MOST of all that Dunban would stop making comments about Shulk and Fiora getting together. There’s like three of Dunban’s heart to hearts dedicated to that and I’m like DUDE. Let em sort it out on their own time, you’re just being weird about this. 

19 -  Favorite race in the game? (Nopon, High Entia, Machina, Homs, any Bionis enemies): High Entia! Probably not the most original pick, but I am just strangely attracted to these arrogant bastards with wings on their heads. (kidding, I love em, but they can be so incredibly stuck up)

20 - When heading towards the final battle, how did you react upon seeing our own solar system and then finally Earth?: I didn’t really understand it at first, but the second time I played it made a lot more sense! I think it’s very interesting, but honestly not very memorable. 

21 - Did you predict any plot-twists before they got more openly hinted at? (Like predicting Dickson’s betrayal before the “I feel bad about deceiving these kids” line): Once again, my own stupidity knows no bounds. I knew something was up, but the first time I saw the game, I took it very face value. 

22 - Is there any lore which you’d like to know more of?: Tons, actually! I loved learning about the history of Bionis in the game! But in a more narrowed down category, I would really love to know more about Alvis’s backstory. I have my theories, only somewhat backed up by the second two games, but it would still be nice sometimes to know more concrete things! Would definitely also help for me with writing fanfics. 

23 - Do you believe Zanza was redeemable?: Yes, actually. He was quite far gone, but I do think there were potentially things that could have ended up redeeming Zanza. The things he truly wanted could have been achieved in other ways. As Shulk said, his future and our future,, could have existed together. 

24 - Which of Fiora’s forms do you prefer – her Homs form, Face Nemesis form, Mech form, or Meyneth form?: Mech form! I mean honestly, she’s wonderful and beautiful in all forms. But Mech form is absolutely the most useful... and she makes for a very pretty robo-girl. Like y’all, I’m 100% gay and yet I’m still a little star struck when it comes to Fiora

25 - Is there any cutscene which stood out to you?: I really enjoyed the cutscenes from the second battle of sword valley. Kallian does indeed happen to be one of my absolute faves, so it’s easy to call me biased, but it’s so interesting to see his growth in the small moments you’re able to see it. He seems so much more confident here, so much happier than in other parts of the game. He’s doing what he believes is going to allow them to take the future into their own hands, and you can visibly see that it excites him! It’s cute!

26 - Which story arc is your least favorite?: Probably the whole Ether Mines thing. It’s not that the CHARACTER arcs were bad there, but the mines are just terribly boring. 

27 - Which line is your favorite?: “Your blade, it did not cut deep enough.” IT HAS SO MANY DIFFERENT MEANINGS LORD ALMIGHTY HELP ME

28 - Did you enjoy Riki’s role as a comic relief provider?: For the most part, yes! He’s a very enjoyable comic relief character! But I really appreciated his more serious moments. It’s refreshing to see comic relief with depth. Sometimes, on occasion, I wish he had more of those moments. But regardless, he’s well received to me!

29 - What’s your opinion of Shulk as a protag?: He’s such a good boy!!!! Okay, admittedly there are some Shulk moments I’m not overly fond of, and other characters I find more compelling, but he’s still really great and I wouldn’t have any other protag here!

30 - What’s your opinion of Zanza as the final villain?: EXCELLENT! I think having him as the final villain, it really summed up the whole feeling of the game, how changeable things are, and taking the future into your own hands. 

50 - How did you get introduced to Xenoblade?: Chuggaaconroy! What a dude!

Reading Definitely Not Wednesday

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. A space opera set in the relatively near future. Humans have colonized Mars and the asteroid belt, and a few scattered populations make due on the moons of planets further out. There is, however, no faster-than-light travel, no contact with any solar system beyond our own, no sentient AIs, and no aliens. A major theme of the book is the culture clash between those who live on Earth or Mars – the superpowers of this future – and those who live in the Belt, where mining is the preeminent economy and life is the hardscrabble sort where even water and oxygen have to be imported, never mind concepts like justice and equality. Different characters move from one place to the other or switch allegiances, but their origins are as baked in as we would regard ethnicity or nationality. As one character puts it, "A childhood spent in gravity shaped the way he saw things forever." Corey (who is actually two separate dudes writing under a penname) does a wonderful job of fleshing out the background worldbuilding. I loved references to fungal-culture whiskey, Bhangra as the default elevator muzak, hand gestures exaggerated to be seen through a spacesuit, and largely unintelligible localized slang (“Bomie vacuate like losing air,” the girl said with a chuckle. “Bang-head hops, kennis tu?” / “Ken,” Miller said. /“Now, all new bladeboys. Overhead. I’m out.”). It feels like a more detailed world than a lot of sci-fi does. Which is good, because the characters are not all that compelling. The two POVs are Jim Holden and Detective Miller. Holden is the second-in-command on an unimportant spaceship that works as a freight hauler, moving ice back and forth between the Belt and Saturn. Things change dramatically when a mysterious someone attacks their ship and kills everyone except for Holden and a few others, and he finds himself centrally involved in the runup to war. He has the most generic action-movie-hero personality I can imagine, with no discernable characteristics except 'idealistic' (and I really only know that because other people keep telling him he is), kinda nervous about being suddenly thrust into command but doing a good job, a womanizer (but see, it's okay because he just keeps genuinely falling in love with so many women!), and earnest. He's fine. He's not even objectionable, just incredibly boring. He comes with a crew of entirely indistinguishable followers that I couldn't keep straight, but that's all right because most of them get killed off so I no longer had to try to remember who was who. He also develops a romance that is 100% unbelievable, but I suppose that's what action-movie-heroes do, so who's even surprised. Miller is a detective on Ceres, the largest city in the Belt, who's been hired by a rich family to track down their anarchist, slumming daughter. Miller is an incredibly cliche noir protagonist - alcoholic, divorced, not as good as he used to be, cynical, a little bit corrupt but underneath it all he still remembers his good intentions – but at least that means he has more of a personality than Jim, even if it's a personality you've seen a thousand times before. On the other hand, Miller becomes obsessed with this dead/missing girl in a way that is painfully stereotypical Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Two things kept this from ruining Leviathan Wakes for me. One, Miller is at least somewhat self-aware about it: This was why he had searched for her. Julie had become the part of him that was capable of human feeling. The symbol of what he could have been if he hadn’t been this. There was no reason to think his imagined Julie had anything in common with the real woman. Meeting her would have been a disappointment for them both. And two, there's a twist near the end that allows Julie to finally have her own voice in the text, and not exist solely as Miller's imagined dependance on her. It takes almost half the book for Miller and Holden to finally cross paths, at which point the missing-girl mystery and the war plot combine and take a twist for a direction I DID NOT SEE COMING. I am ambivalent on whether to spoil this; on the one hand, I read it unprepared and it was incredibly awesome to experience it that way. On the other hand, I suspect this is information that will be a determining factor for many people on whether they want to read it or not. So: halfway through, Leviathan Wakes takes a wild jump and becomes about a zombie outbreak. I would not have previously thought that 'space opera' and 'zombie apocalypse' are two genres that should be combined, but the tension and excitement skyrocket once the book takes this turn, transforming it from average quality to 'I CANNOT STOP READING, MUST FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT'. So, good choice! The sequence with Miller and Holden trapped on a small space station trying to sneak their way past zombie hordes is one of the most thrilling I've read in ages. Leviathan Wakes is the first book in a series (apparently it was originally supposed to be a trilogy, but there's currently eight books out with at least one more planned, along with a batch of short stories) and has also become a show on the Syfy network that I haven't seen. I feel like I've spent a lot of this review complaining, but honestly I mostly enjoyed the book and am planning to read the sequels. The fact that people seem to like the characters from future books more than these ones certainly doesn't hurt! Pig/Pork: Archaeology, Zoology and Edibility by Pia Spry-Marques. A nonfiction book about everything remotely related to the farming and eating of pigs. I expected from the subtitle and the author's personal background that archaeology would be the main focus, but it turns out that's really only the first two chapters, which cover the Paleolithic hunting of wild boar and the original domestication of pigs. The other chapters turn to topics as diverse as experiments on feeding farmed pigs leftovers from restaurants, the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, a special Spanish ham called ibérico de bellota which can only be fed acorns, genetically modifiying pigs so their manure would contain less phosporus, sunburn in pigs, minature pet pigs, organ donation between humans and pigs, the terrifying tapeworms to be acquired from eating raw pork, why pork is a 'white' meat, how to make sausages, theories on why pork is neither halal nor kosher, the use of an enzyme from pig pancreases in wine production, EU food-safety regulations on traditional pork dishes, Cuba's 'Bay of Pigs', the Pig War between the US and Canada in 1859, and Oliver Cromwell's favorite pig breed. Basically if it has the remotest connection to the title, Spry-Marques has included it. She even includes recipes for each chapter, though some of them are clearly more for amusement than actual consumption – I can't imagine anyone having just finished a chapter on how eating raw pork will give you cysts in your brain is eager to try figatellu, a type of uncooked sausage from France. And it would take a braver foodie than me to taste "Asian-inspired pork uterus with green onion and ginger". In fact, as is probably not surprising for any book which touches on factory farming however briefly, you will probably come away not wanting to eat pork at all for a while. Spry-Marques's writing is breezy and conversational, which kept me turning the pages even when the structure was a bit scattered. I wish it were more focused, but it's a great book for anyone who enjoys popular science, history, or food writing. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. Song of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope. A YA fantasy novel with some unusual elements. Rather than being set in vaguely medieval England or a dystopian sci-fi future, we're in a country where the technology seems to be around 1900: cars and electric lights exist, but they're restricted to rich cities, and someone coming from rural poverty might well have never seen either. Magic exists, but comes from one's heritage; you're either born with it or not. In Elsira, where our story is set, it's rare to the point of nonexistence. Our heroine Jasminda, however, does have magic, due to her father having been a refugee from the neighboring country of Lagrimar, where magic is common. Elsira and Lagrimar have been constantly at war for hundreds of years, but are separated by a magical Barrier which allows no one to pass through, except on rare occasions when a temporary breach happens and violence erupts. Elsirans are light-skinned and Lagrimari are dark-skinned, so Jasminda has dealt with fairly severe racism throughout her life. The story starts when Jasminda runs across Jack, a Elsiran soldier just back from spying in Lagrimar who has super important information that must get back to the capital as soon as possible; unfortunately Jack has just been shot and is closely pursued by a troop of Lagrimari soldiers. Jasminda and Jack team up, fall in love, and try to prevent the coming outbreak of war. The most revealing thing I can say about Song of Blood & Stone is that it's very, very YA. (As you could probably guess, what with its title that fits exactly into the pattern of the 'YA title' meme currently going around tumblr.) Almost everything that happens is easily predictable from the back cover (Jack's long-withheld backstory is clearly supposed to be a shocking twist, but it's obvious from the moment he appears), the prose is mediocre but fine, good and bad guys are clearly signalled, the real world parallels (racism, treatment of refugees, domestic abuse) are good-hearted but extremely Social Justice 101. On the plus side, the beginning was the worst part and it got better and better as it went along; several developments near the very end were so interesting that I'm tempted to read the sequel, despite my initial boredom. Overall it's not a bad book, but I'd only recommend it to people who are extremely affectionate of the most repetitive tropes of the YA genre. I read this as an ARC from a GoodReads giveaway.

[DW link for easier commenting]

A time-travelling, galaxy-defending archaeologist – Recurring Thing #4

The scent of the future is wafting in. I’ve been breathing it in, choking on it, attempting assimilation. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve enrolled in a business startup program, went to a workshop about speculative design, and thought about where I’ll be in 10 years. But after seeing The LEGO Movie 2, I hope it’s not being a raptor-training archaeologist from space. (I guess you had to be there.)

After taking an extended break from social design work “to get some perspective” (ahem), I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice, with added cultural and design commentary. 

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

In Issue #2 I mentioned that I’m starting a small strategic design practice called Studio Thing. To help this along, I recently applied for the Australian Government’s New Enterprise Incentive Scheme and am now enjoying free business training for several months, and ongoing business mentoring for a year. I’m usually sceptical of such government programs, but happy to report that our trainer Jason is hilarious, and that my cohort is vibrant and diverse. It includes one of Australia’s leading forensic investigators, an aerospace startup that's designing hyper-spectral imaging satellites in a suburban Sydney home, and three mental health-related startups. 

As you’d expect, the assessable part of the training feels a bit superfluous. The value is instead in the solidarity, support and collective wisdom you get in the room. In this context, formerly snooze-worthy operational details about business become far more alive. Frank feedback still rules, but deviates from the tech-bro/shark-tank consensus; for example, after an exuberant elevator pitch last week by one of the mental health startup founders, the most devastating feedback came from one of the quietest voices in the room, a softly spoken Korean couture designer who lacks confidence in her English:

“You felt like a wall,” she said. “If you want me to come to you for help, I need to see you bend.” 

Uncommon wisdom.

No/future

Being in microbusiness school involves a lot of talk about strategy, and one of the contradictions of thinking strategically is that just as we need foresight in order to endure, we must also embrace uncertainty to thrive. We need a supple sensibility to survive our times. In this, I’m sympathetic to both the apocalyptic nowness of the punk phrase “no future” (which is much more than nihilistic rage) and the science-fictional tendency to imagine the future.

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“No future” is one of the most important messages in punk. In a way, contemplating that “there is no future” opens up a new politics, a much more prefigurative politics. It’s no longer a question of waiting and dreaming of utopias, but of doing what we need to do here and now, and in the ways we can and want to. We’re not waiting for further instructions or permissions to get started. We will take ownership of music and spaces. In punk, anyone can pick up a guitar while someone else starts singing, speaking, doing.

— Guiomar Rovira, “No Future: From Punk to Zapatismo and Connected Multitudes”

Urgent and dangerous, disavowing the future forces a sense of possibility to arrive in the vacant spaces of the present. A very different strategy from, say, Star Trek’s optimistic and intricate future history of the 23rd and 24th Centuries.

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How I ridiculously imagine punk and speculative futures working together[/caption]

But despite being an art of extrapolation, science fiction has often been a metaphor for the concerns of the present, or an opening of possibility, rather than simply a literal attempt to predict the future. And its speculations are often untamed and unruly. “Future” and “no future” are thus closer than we might initially suspect. With both turning on the same hinge (of “there must be something more than this”), I’d like to think that together they can contribute a kind of lubricated friction… towards greatness.

Visions

As it happens, the first edition of Visions, a handsome new science fiction magazine, just landed on my desk as I finished typing the previous sentence. It came with a sexy postcard:

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Uncanny! Visions is “a science fiction magazine where writers, designers and researchers of the past and present come together to explore the future.”

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To be totally honest, I really ordered it to experience Marvin Visions, the awesome retrofuturistic typeface that editor Mathieu Triay cut specially for the magazine, but the whole package is obviously compelling and relevant to my Recurring Thing concerns. Back in the early ‘80s, the magnificent Omni magazine mixed fiction and non-fiction about science and technology in a way whose promise has yet to be truly fulfilled, and Visions is a good step in that direction. More later.

Dying stars and fossil fuel archaeology

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When I recently taught a second grade school art class with a theme of “the future”, I primed them with a range of stimuli: a familiar adage, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” (attributed to everyone from Alan Kay to Abraham Lincoln); a peek at Future Cities, the book my father gave me when I was six years old and which directly inspired the work I now do; plus, many examples of how science fiction has directly inspired contemporary technologies. 

I then invited each student to visit the future, travelling to a date of their own choosing. We set our future destinations using the control panel from Back to the Future’s DeLorean, and to the wheezing sound of the TARDIS time rotor (yes), we entered the time vortex.

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Our challenge: to draw what we saw on our arrival. A group of 7-year-old girls who were usually into drawing unicorns and rainbows surprised me by collaborating on an awe-inspiring scenario, set millions of years in our future: the sun becomes a red giant, swallows the Earth and ends human civilisation. But in a hopeful coda, the solar system’s habitable zone shifts to the orbit of Pluto. (Yes, they went into this much detail.)

Some kids imagined a range of consumerist wish-fulfilment utopias, full of crazy gadgets, but an interesting thing happened: debate spontaneously broke out about how desirable some of these really were. Calvin, the shortest kid in the class, sat grumpily at the back of the class and delivered a running commentary on the ecological impact of each scenario. “Where’s the energy coming from? Fossil fuels,” he’d snipe. “More fossil fuels.” And… “FOSSIL FUELS!!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???” It led to some interesting discussion. (Later that week, I overheard a child from this class ask, “Mummy, what are ‘fossil fuels’?” Which. Is. The. Best.)

There was a future in which everybody lived forever. “What do you think would happen if this came true?” I asked the class. “That’s scary,” my daughter’s friend Reyna replied, “because if everyone lived forever, it would reduce the capacity of the Earth to nothing.” (Her exact words.) The mind. It boggles.

“Fossil-Fuel” Calvin’s future scenario was a barren, charred wasteland.

Design as a race to dystopia

During the Sydney Design Festival, I had the fortune to attend a Speculative Design workshop run by the indefatigable Tina Fung of Meld Studios. Besides using the same Alan Kay/Abe Lincoln quote (snap!), Tina introduced us to Situation Lab’s game, The Thing From the Future, in which players visualise objects inspired by random cards that suggest its different aspects: its future timeframe (“Arc”), area of society (“Terrain”), general form (“Object”) and emotional charge (“Mood”).

Our group drew these cards:

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The concepts people build around such provocations are usually passing exercises in extrapolation, but to teach us critical foresight, Tina got us to take our ideas a little more seriously, running them through a matrix of potential economic, technological, social and ecological consequences. Things got unnerving.

After my experience with the time-travelling children, I wasn’t surprised that most of us created dystopian scenarios. One group created a food-based social credit system within the last outpost of human civilisation — a space station in orbit above a dead world. While those displaying “optimal” behaviour could eat well, those relegated to the bottom of the system could only eat “Hungry Bread”, which left you feeling more hungry. The perversity generated much, uh, food for discussion. 

To relieve human pressure on a future Earth, my team created an authoritarian eugenics program for interstellar colonisation. Those deemed genetically fittest for colonial adventures would be endlessly cloned to form the future interstellar population. Like the Hungry Bread, it was obviously perverse, but more disturbing was that one outspoken designer on our team actually relished the hyper-instrumentalism of this scenario. In the name of human survival, extreme measures could somehow be justified. 

Beyond the obvious point that eugenics runs counter to a just society, I suggested that it also disregarded the distinct possibility that societies require diversity and its attendant challenges of cosmopolitanism in order to actually function. Without an ethic of inclusion, a society of Alphas might easily self-destruct in an orgy of atomised cocksureness. He snorted in reply. 

“Inclusive design is bullshit,” he bellowed, “because design is exclusive, by its very definition! Tailoring our products to exactly fit the needs of an ideal customer is design excellence.” In his vehemence, his face began to flush. “Allowing rubbish common denominators to dilute excellence isn’t just bad design, it isn’t design.”

I’ll consider the possibility that this guy was trying to get a rise out of me, but remember when I recently expressed my misgivings about how contemporary design’s largely uncritical enthusiasm for highly tailored experiences might align too neatly with the way capitalism feeds social divisions? This guy was a living embodiment of everything I see going wrong with my profession. And yet he was factually correct, in a manner of speaking: in its ultimate distillation, design seeks to optimally shape the world to specific ends, and taken to its logical conclusion, we might end up with our nightmarish Things From the Future.

By throwing spanners into its heart, I want to dedicate my efforts to prevent this future design apocalypse.

This edition was brought to you by Go Home Productions’ classic Sex Pistols/Madonna, mashup, “Ray of Gob”. Watch and listen here.

A sustainable portion of all my love,

Ben

Rebirth

Somewhere in what used to be the southern portion of the United States of America.  5 years prior to the events of the Destiny main campaign.

The air was still and stifling.  Titan Claney Beamard stood watching as a small group of civilians loaded into a transport ship.  Three days ago, the Tower had received a distress call from a small settlement in the area that had come under attack by a band of Fallen.  These people had managed to eke out a living in the years after the Collapse, somehow avoiding notice of the alien scavengers.  A Hunter had discovered the settlement years ago, and they had declined her offer of an escort to the Last City.  They were determined to make it on their own, so the Hunter had wished them luck and left behind an emergency communication device.  It seems as though their luck finally ran out.

Claney had been part of a strike team comprised of himself, another Titan named Iniko Tosia, and a Hunter named Jarus Corbin that had been sent to assist. They had barely arrived in time.  As their ships screamed through the sky on approach, they saw the Fallen breach the ramshackle wall the settlers had built around their town.  The humans had obviously put up quite a fight leading to the break in their defenses, as Claney could see a surprising number of Dreg and Vandal corpses scattered around the perimeter.  Even at that moment, Dregs were dropping as they worked to pry at, and widen, the hole they had made.  The townspeople had taken many casualties as well and it was clear they could not hold out much longer.

The three Guardian’s transmatted into the chaos.  Claney dropped into the middle of the town’s defenses and immediately began taking heavy fire from the invading Fallen.  Shields barely holding, he began firing his heavy machine gun into the breach.  The resulting shrieks from the Fallen brought cheers from the harried defenders.  The Hunter and the other Titan came down outside the city on the other side of the enemy force, presenting a second front for the Fallen to worry about.  

The new arrival threw the Fallen into disarray, but it lasted only a few moments.  A Captain in their ranks was able to rally its troops, regrouping away from the breach, using the wall to protect them from the more numerous defenders while turning to face the smaller force that had appeared outside.  Vandals with wire rifles spread out in an attempted to flank the two Guardians, firing from multiple angles while Dregs attempted to find cover behind rocks and damaged vehicles to take potshots at them.

Iniko grinned inside her helmet and summoned a grenade.  Throwing it as hard as she could, it sailed past the huddled Fallen, sticking to the town wall and blasting lightning back in the direction it had come. Several enemy fighters were thrown forward as the Arc energy lanced into them.

“Ha!  How about that ‘nade?” she shouted to Jarus.

“Yes, yes, very nice.  Now how about we kill the rest of them before celebrating.”

Jarus took aim with his sniper rifle, picking off several of the Vandals before having to take cover himself.  Arc bolts peppers the trees, ground, and rubble around them.  Iniko focused on the Dregs, trying to take them out as they leaned out of cover to shoot.  A three round burst from her pulse rifle caught one Dreg in the head, puffs of ether escaping as it fell dead.

Claney emerged from the breach, now having switched to his scout rifle.  It kicked in his hand as he fired several shots at nearby Fallen.  This distracted them enough that Iniko was able to charge forward, closing the gap. The Captain shouted a warning to his Dregs, but he was too slow. Iniko leapt forward, gathering Arc light to her on the way down, slamming into the ground in the middle of the Fallen.  The shockwave of her Fist of Havoc spread outward, lifting the Fallen caught within its range, flinging them aside as they died.  Simultaneously, Jarus activated his Golden Gun, firing pure Solar light at the remaining Vandals, bringing them down.

The threat neutralized, the Guardians stepped back through the breach to aid the remaining population.  There were cheers and thanks, of course, though it was also apparent that the display of power had also made some of the people wary of the three.  Humans weren’t supposed to be able to summon lightning in their fists or magically producing flaming weapons.  They had all heard stories, of course, but actually seeing it in action was a something different.  Some of the unease lessened when Jarus removed his helmet, his dark skin and easy grin clearly as human as anyone else gathered there.

Over the next couple days, the Guardians had helped repair the town and the breach in the wall.  The offer to move people to the Last City was made again, and this time many of the townspeople had decided to accept the offer to be relocated.  A transport ship was called and arrived on the third day.  For those that wanted to stay, the transport dropped off food stuffs and weapons.  

The transport lifted into the air and turned east, beginning the long flight back to the Tower.  Iniko left immediately after, while Jarus has to extract himself from a small crowd of women who seemed very sad to see him go.  Claney prepared to join them in orbit, when a glint of light caught his eye.  Something metallic was moving near the settlement wall.

Claney drew his weapon, a scout rifle he’d won in an Iron Banner event the previous year.  Keeping an eye for any other motion, he cautiously approached the place that he had seen the flash.  He relaxed suddenly when he discovered the source.  It was a Ghost, flitting near the wall.  It seemed be searching for something.

“Hello, little one,” he said, but the Ghost offered no response.  Instead, it turned suddenly, swaying back and forth a few times, before darting away.  Curious, Claney followed the small, star-shaped object as it crossed a field and disappeared into a stand of trees.

“Should I be jealous?” the voice of his Ghost, Elgan, questioned in his coms.

“Quiet, you,” the Titan replied, “I just want to see where it’s going.”

“A Ghost out here, alone?  There’s only one thing it could be doing, trying to find its Guardian.”

“There are Fallen nearby.  Not exactly a safe place to be poking around,” Claney said, glancing around.

“There are Fallen everywhere,” was the retort.  “If I had stopped searching due to their patrols, you’d still be dead.”

As if on cue, a Fallen called from somewhere nearby.  A hunting call.  They’d seen something.  Claney was willing to guess it was the Ghost.  An electronic trill sounded from just further up in the trees.  As quickly as he could move through the underbrush, Claney crashed his way forward, concerned for the fate of the little Ghost.  The Traveler had produced the Ghosts with its dying breath, and they’d already lost so many.  He’d die before he let the Fallen kill another one.

They came to a stop when they found the ruin of an old house, obviously abandoned for decades.  Most of the structure had collapsed, and vegetation had over grown what remained.  Something about this scene seemed to trigger a memory, a sudden feeling of familiarity, but Claney pushed it away.  Light flickered inside, and Claney got a glimpse of the Ghost, it’s shell expanded, light emanating out of it, directed to something out of his field of view.

The Fallen called out again, closer now.  Claney ducked into the ruin of the home just as the Ghost collapsed back in on itself and let out a worried sound. Looking at the ground, the Titan saw the body the Ghost had revived.

There lay a red-haired human girl, no older than 13 or 14.  She was clothed in a body suit, but the Ghost had not given her armor, nor had it completed the revive process, as she was not breathing.  Elgan materialized near Claney and scanned her.

“Why did you stop?” he asked the other Ghost.

“She’s too young,” the other Ghost replied in a masculine voice that sounded very young itself.  “She can’t be a Guardian.  What do I do?”

“You’ll finish reviving her before the Fallen find us, we’ll take her back to the Tower, and then figure it out from there,” Claney snapped.  The Ghost bobbed up and down in the familiar nodding motion, then opened his shell again, bathing the figure in Light.  

She coughed suddenly and sat upright, blue eyes darting around in panic.  When they saw Claney, she screamed and scrambled back from him as quickly as she could before she collided with a wall.  Her Ghost tried to move in to introduce itself, and she swatted it out of the air.  Claney knelt down, bringing himself to her level in an attempt to appear less threatening.  It did not work.  Reaching around frantically, the girl grabbed a chunk of the crumbled wall and threw it at him.

“Okay, you need to quiet down and stop doing things like that,” the Titan said. Remembering Jarus and the townspeople, Claney scooted away from her and brought his hands to his helmet.  “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to take my helmet off.  Please don’t throw anything at my face.”

He removed the helmet and set it on the ground, revealing fair skin and close-cropped red hair, almost the same shade as hers.  He tried giving the most reassuring smile that he could.  The girl seemed to calm down a little, and she looked at him curiously.

“My name is Claney,” he said to her calmly and quietly, “Claney Beamard.  I’m a Guardian from the Tower.  I’m here to help you.  I know things don’t make any sense to you at the moment, but they will soon. Right now, we need to think about getting out of here, otherwise some bad people are going to come.  Will you come with me?”

Claney offered his hand to the girl, but she shook her head, pushing back against the wall as hard as she could.  He sighed and lowered his head before grabbing his helmet and rising to his feet.  Leaving the girl’s Ghost to try to calm her, he turned and walked through the crumbling doorway.

“I wouldn’t trust our luck enough to assume the Fallen didn’t hear that scream,” his Ghost said through internal coms.  “We’re going to have to move very soon.”

“What, just transmat her with no warning, rush to get her to the Tower, and have a panicked teenage girl destroy my ship or throw things at me as I try to fly?  I’ll pass.”

“We might not have much choice.”

The Titan sighed again and turned to reenter the building.  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed an object flying through the air toward him.  The shock grenade landed at his feet and he dove through the door quickly, rolling as he hit the ground, coming up to one knee and drawing his scout rifle in one smooth motion.

“Fallen!” Elgan announced unnecessarily.

Claney located a Dreg at the tree line, presumably the one who threw the grenade.  One squeeze of the trigger and its head disappeared, leaving behind a puff of ether.  Almost immediately, a squadron of Shanks appeared, firing arc blasts as they emerged.  Claney took two quick steps to move closer to the girl.  Concentrating on the Void, he flung out his arms, putting a Ward of Dawn up to cover the both of them.

“Ghost, get some armor on that kid,” he shouted.  The Ghost bobbed again, quickly breaking down portions of the ruins and fabricating some basic armor around her.  While it covered her, Claney stepped out of his bubble to return fire at the shanks.  Each exploded in a shower of sparks and metal after a few shots.  Emptying the clip at them, Claney started to reload when something hit him hard from behind.

While he had focused on the Shanks, two stealth Vandals had slipped around behind him. The nearest was bringing its swords down at his head as he turned to face them.  He brought is scout rifle up quickly to block the cut. It deflected the blow, but shattered the rifle.

“Elgan, get me something else quickly!” Claney shouted to his Ghost.  Dropping the broken weapon, he swung his fist, striking the Vandal in the side of its head.  Tapping into the Void again, he swung once more, this time the contact released the energy, causing the Vandal to howl in pain as it disintegrated.  Another scream sounded, and Claney looked to see the second Vandal advancing on the girl who was throwing anything she could get her hands on at the alien while crab-walking backward.

“I’ve got something,” Elgan said, and Claney held out his hand.  A shotgun materialized in his hand and he brought it to bear quickly.

“Hey!” he yelled at the Vandal, drawing its attention before letting loose a stream of buckshot.  Two close-range blasts took the second alien down.  Claney turned to the girl and held out his hand again.  This time she took it and he raised her to her feet, handing her the shotgun.

“We don’t have much time, so I’m going to say this quick.  Whoever you were in your past life, I’m going to guess you weren’t a soldier like most Guardians.  To be honest, I don’t think I was either. Regardless, your Ghost should have given you some basic knowledge in the revive process.  Do you know how to use this gun?”

The girl nodded her head quickly, shifting the gun around in her hands to hold it properly.  Arc bolts struck the structure around them or fizzled against the Titan’s Ward while he spoke.

“Good.  Now, you see this bubble around us?  It’s called a Ward of Dawn.  It will stop any shots or anything they throw at you.  You stay inside it. If one of them comes in, you shoot them.  You’ll have five shots before you need to reload.  These are ammo synths,” he held out some green and white objects.  “Activating them creates ammo for the gun. I’ll leave some here if you need them.  Elgan, give me another weapon and then call for the ship.”

The Titan held out his hand and his Ghost transmatted in an auto rifle.  Giving the girl what he hoped was a reassuring pat on the arm, he stepped out of the Ward of Dawn to take on the rest of the Fallen force.  The girl gripped the shotgun, watching intently as the armored man leapt into action.  All around, the Fallen fell one by one, either shot by the auto rifle or taken out by a grenade.  She saw several shots hit him as well, and he staggered, but never stopped moving until the last of the attackers was down.

“We need to get out of here before more of them show up.  Will you come with me?” the Titan asked as he returned to her side and the Ward of Dawn winked out of existence.  The girl nodded.  Claney braced for the familiar feel of the transmat at it transported the two of them to his ship, a Phaeton class ship he had named Lost Days.  Once aboard, he removed his helmet again.  She watched him do it and then reached up, unfastening her own and removing it.  There was still uncertainty behind her blue eyes, but most of the fear had faded.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Yes.  Thank you,” she replied, glancing around at the cramped interior of the ship, eyes taking in every detail.

“Good.  Like I said before, my name is Claney, and I am a Guardian.  I’m going to take you somewhere safe, okay?”

“Okay,” she said with another nod.

“I know things are strange, and I bet you’ve probably noticed that your memory is fuzzy at best.  Your Ghost, that little spiky guy floating right there, he’ll talk to you about what is happening while we fly to the Tower.  Do you at least remember your name?”

“My name…” the girl thought for a moment, her face twisted in confusion.  “My name… is Celeste.”

“Well, Celeste, it’s nice to meet you,” Claney stated, settling into the pilot seat of the ship.  He set course for the Tower and began the long flight home.

Celeste settled in on the bunk toward the back, and her Ghost flittered over to her. Its shell twisting and turning as it thought about the best way to approach her.  It had nearly figure out what to say when the girl took the initiative.

“Hello,” she said, reaching up a hand and tapping her finger against one of its edges.  “So you’re a Ghost?”

“Hello, Guardian” it said in its soft, boyish voice, “yes, I am a Ghost.  Your Ghost. I’ve been searching for you for a very long time.  It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.  Now… tell me everything,” she said eagerly.

...

So this was my first “Tales We’ll Tell” entry, showing the first meeting of two of my OCs.  I wrote it after the two characters ran into each other in my longer (eventually novel-length) fiction “A Not So Simple Patrol”.

Claney is my main.  Celeste eventually becomes a Nightstalker.  Jarus you may remember from his brief appearance in “Home Alone”.

Bit of a headcanon note: It is generally assumed Guardians don’t age.  I am going with a “stop aging at physical maturity” premise simple because... well, just because.  When it comes to non-dead humans, the whole “lifespans tripled” bit led me to thinking that aging slowed at that point, otherwise you’ve have 30 year old children.  While there is nothing in-game to back me up, it’s something I decided to work with.

Nostalgia Glasses: Sailor Moon (Part 3): Season 1, Episodes 23 - 33

So, a reminder about how this series works.

I will be looking at these episodes without wearing rose tinted glasses and openly criticize what I do and don’t like about each episode. I will be skipping past any filler episodes, this means that I will be skipping past any episodes that don’t directly relate to the plot of develop more aspects of each character than we have already established. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Episode 23 - Naru’s First Love

This episode was the turning point for Nephrite’s character. He starts off by taking advantage of Naru’s love for him but by the end he starts to realize that human love isn’t something that can be taken or controlled. Naru ends up protecting him from Usagi’s tiara, even if it would mean her own life would be at risk. He, in turn, protects her from a youma that’s attempting to kill her. It’s a good example of a sympathetic villain who starts off very abusive.

Now the biggest criticism I have here is that Nephrite’s entire character arc happens over two episodes instead of happening over the filler that’s really easily skipped without missing anything.

This episode also brings up themes of infatuation and abusive relationships. Naru doesn’t realize that Nephrite is using her to get the crystal and Usagi is attempting to tell her that he’s not a good guy. In fact it isn’t until she protects him from death that he becomes sympathetic towards her and actually seems to care about her.

They even treat the themes of infatuation really well in this episode. It’s stated in this episode that Naru only really loves Nephrite because he’s really attractive and has shown her, and her alone, false kindess at various points.

Episode 24 - Nephrite Dies for Love

So going into this episode I want to bring one very important thing up about Japanese culture, and something we could learn from it here in the west. Now before I get into this I want to say that I know that Japan is not a perfect country and there are many flaws with the way it runs, much like any other country. Though they do have a few censorship laws that I like.

So, this episode shows a 14 year old girl in the complete nude. It shows her entire body but what it doesn’t do is sexualize it. This is the biggest difference between western culture and Japanese culture, the West has this cultural taboo against nudity, I’m not going to get into everything, but even non-sexualized nudity will bring a show’s rating up to 14+ (or 14a in America). In Japan however, the censorship laws don’t make this a taboo in their fiction and this show can still be a family series.

Now getting on to the actual episode...

Some people could criticize this episode for having a damsel in distress plot halfway through but on the other hand it’s actually having a male character sacrifice his life to save the girl he loves. It’s not until this episode that he really starts to have feelings for her and understand what love is, but at the same time it is his redemption episode, he dies so that somebody else might live on. Turning a damsel in distress plot into a very well written tragic romance.

I always remembered Nephrite the most out of any villain I’d seen in fiction up to this point because he was the first sympathetic villain I’d seen since I started really taking fiction seriously. Up until this point I’d been watching really bad kids shows because they were on, but along with getting easy access to the internet I also came across anime for the first time in 7 years.

The dramatic timing in this episode is perfect though. When Nephrite enters to save Naru he looks intimidating, he fights near flawlessly and ends up rescuing her from the three Youma that have captured her. The pacing in the next few scenes in spot on as Naru brings him into a little park to wrap his wounds in some of the fabric from her pajamas. They have a conversation about starting a legitimate relationship and just as things start to seem like they’ll go right for them and he might actually become a better person for her, he takes an attack meant for her.

This leads to him telling her to run so that he can die without her having to see hit happen but she refuses and starts to pull the weapon from his chest. The Youma tells her it’s impossible but using all the strength she can muster while simultaneously being electrocuted she nearly pulls the weapon out. This is of course before they’re attacked again. Nephrite shields her this time and takes the entirety of the attack, again. He insists that she runs but before the Youma can kill them the Senshi arrive and save them. But it’s too late for Nephrite and we get a heartfelt goodbye of him apologizing for all the times he’s lied to and manipulated Naru, showing that his true character was honest and compassionate and that in another world they could have been a healthy couple. With those thoughts in your mind the episode ends and this song starts to play:

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqJBXggDvc)

I love this episode so much.

Episode 25: The Brawny Girl in Love

So, this episode introduces both Sailor Jupiter and the moon scepter 

I still like Jupiter’s character a lot. It’s obvious from her first episode that she feels very self conscious about her height. Though she seems to go for the same type of guy who would say things like “massive girls like her aren’t my type” instead of giving her a chance. This leads to her being a hopeless romantic. By the way she reacts to the way he turned her down we can safely assume that she lost it when she was turned down the first time and attacked the guy. Getting herself expelled form her past school and moved to this one, where she would practice more restraint. She’s a lot more aggressive with complete strangers than any of the other main characters as shown by the way she reacts when Usagi is spying on her, this being in her nature makes it so that she doesn’t understand why people see her as unapproachable. She also shows that when somebody she either idolizes or loves is in danger that she’s willing to fight to protect them, and that she’s physically strong enough to lift between 100 and 200 pounds of weight over her head.

In other words, she’s tall, strong, and aggressive yet compassionate.

She’s very deep from her first episode and this episode was really meant to both introduce her and develop her character.

Episode 26: The Power of Friendship

So, I may start using the western title on few of these because they’re generally better and don’t just give out the episode’s plot in them starting this episode.

So this episode revolves around Usagi attempting to cheer up Naru after a couple weeks had passed since Nephrite died. Now I want to bring up that well this was airing in Japan, this happened over a couple of weeks in real time, it’s pretty awesome how they made the series match up with real time as it aired.

This episode also gives us a bit more exposition about the Great Youma and serves to develop Mamoru’s character a bit more. When it comes to the villain of the week, well, I wish we could have seen this priest throughout the rest of the series. I mean we see him in the RPG, which I may cover later. It would have been nice to see Naru try to turn to something like the church to try and cope with Nephrite’s death, which for this episode she does. But it would have given her a bit more character in the end.

This episode is also a good example of how Usagi is always in a constant state of “holy shit” whenever she’s fighting an enemy. She’s inexperienced and it she definitely shows it when she fights, though she can follow orders when they’re given to her. I also think she’s bipolar, but that’s neither here nor there.

Episode 27-32: More filler

Now having plot relevant happenings being filler isn’t new for this series. They did it with Ami’s introduction after all. 

In these episodes, we see that Ami is capable of being more than just a bookworm, but instead of physical attractiveness, intelligence is what somebody would have to use to attract her. The character in question Urawa, only does well on tests because he can see the future and therefore know what the answers to tests are. He also doesn’t canonically show up again and only really makes an appearance in the RPG after this. Another one has Usagi and Mamoru being forced to model together for an artist. Another one has Usagi and Makoto realizing that the guy they have a crush on has a girlfriend. Then we get Umino dressing as Tuxedo Mask to try and woo Naru, saving her life in the process. The last one does reveal that Luna is from the moon (though she’s actually an ambassador from another solar system in the manga, alongside Artemis). It’s a whole lot of filler that doesn’t really push the plot forward. But then we get to...

Episode 33: Sailor V Makes the Scene

Minako is probably the most developed character in the series, save Usagi and Mamoru. She has the most episodes centering around her out of any non-Usagi senshi throughout the entire series and to be honest it’s for good reason. She’s an amazingly deep character who was actually the first Sailor Moon character to be created, she starred in her own manga serial when Sailor Moon was only in it’s infancy and honestly, it’s a really good serial that allows her character to develop even further. Why do I bring this up, well if the title of the episode didn’t give you a hint, this is her introduction episode.

So the episode revolves around Zoisite cross-dressing to masquerade as Sailor Moon in an attempt to draw Tuxedo Mask out.

This episode was probably the reason Zoisite is female in the dub, because even if the actions are portrayed as villainous, the catholic parents will get pissed off about it and that’s not something we’d want now is it. I never really got this way of thinking, if you think something is bad and a villain is portrayed doing it and these guys are obviously the bad guys, why are you mad about it. Do you have such little faith in you children that you think they’ll idolize the bad guys? Mind you they have a homosexual couple portrayed as normal in the third season, which takes the hetero-normative attitude out of this show for pretty much the rest of the series. It’s also one of the reasons that the third season is my favorite.

But what I do like about Zoisite’s disguise is that it’s made of blues and purples. In Japan, blue often represents hidden evil or a character who at first seems nice but ends up being evil by the end. And purple represents death. Both are bad things, so even by looking at the design, you could tell that they were evil. Say if Zoisite hadn’t outright stated his plan beforehand. Another thing, Zoisite has really, really nice legs.

There is, however, one animation mistake that actually made me break out in laughter. For an entire second (about 20 frames in the 90′s) they had started the animation to open her mouth and just left it until they were at the right part for her transformation sequence.

So Zoisite successfully tricks everybody and Mamoru “saves” him. Zoisite then proceeds to stab Mamoru in the shoulder, causing him to fall in pain.

So this shows the first aspect of Minako’s character that I love. Aside from being an attractive character, though I don’t want to sound like a pedophile with that statement. She’s only 14 (even though every female character in this is drawn with adult proportions) in this arc. Actually, the characters in this show are all written with the personality quirks of a 16 to 18-year-old girls rather than 14-year-old girls. Mamoru’s also only around 16, being only a couple years older than the rest of the main cast. If anything that’s something I can heavily criticize about the writing in this series. Especially when it comes down to things like Naru’s infatuation with Nephrite. I also don’t want to seem perverted or pedophilic at all by saying this, but they all have rather larger breasts for 14-year-old girls and their legs are way too long.

If you want a good example of a 14-year-old character, take a look at shows like Pretty Cure. At this stage in their lives, 14-year-old girls don’t necessarily have a bust the size of any of the characters in this show. The design works with characters like Uranus and Neptune due to them having gotten through puberty. Hell, by the time the fifth season rolls around they’re 18-years-old, which is now the age of majority in japan.

Sorry about that, I do have a few gripes with this show and the fact that the main cast have adult figures kind of peeves me.

Anyway, getting back on track, she’s very confident when she’s transformed into Sailor Venus. Nobody knows who she is and she doesn’t nervous like she does when she’s not in costume. She’s also willing to break fingers to save her allies. She shoots straight through both Zoisite’s and Kunzite’s hands to stop them from harming others, this means that she’s not afraid to get violent if the need arises. Yet she’s vastly different when we see her in her everyday life.

It’s also nice to see how Usagi reacts to meeting her idol.

Overall this was a good episode, even if it does bring up a few of the things that really peeve me about this show.