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drlauralwalsh · 4 years

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Top 7 Recent Obsessions and 3 Freshly Intolerable Topics

Since my wife died in February, I’ve transformed into an obsessive recluse. I’ve always been a weirdo but now I’m a grieving weirdo. It takes eccentricity to a whole other level. Before, my obsessions were psychology and home improvement projects. Now, work is impossible and I break down trying to choose flowers at the local Home Depot. Removing every last dandelion from the yard is my glorious new passion.

Since I trust you, I’m going to tell you about some of the other strange occupiers of my mind. Like squatters, these topics have moved into my brain to fill up the unused rooms. I vacillate between kicking them out and kinda liking the company. Until new obsessions come along, I’ll play reluctant host to this ragtag collection of ideas.

1. Life After Life

It’s natural to wonder what happens to someone after they die. I’ve been doing some light reading (usually at around 3AM) on what psychic mediums think on the subject. Apparently, we continue life on the other side, often recreating the likeness of our earthly homes and possessions out of familiarity. In my wife’s afterlife, I hope she made some improvements. She’s likely finally found the perfect couch (comfy yet stylish!) and is no longer taunted by the daily dog hair tumbleweeds.

I have a few questions. Does my wife get to meet celebrities? She’d be totally psyched to meet Dolores O’Riordan, the lead singer of The Cranberries, who died in January of 2018. Did she get to watch the last season of Homeland that aired after she died? Can she still water a lawn in contemplative meditation? Most likely, she’s cavorting with her first girlfriend, Suzy. I’m told Suzy was a little crazy in her earth life so I hope she’s not a bad influence.

If I end up living a few more decades, I’ll probably grow and change substantially. Will Patty recognize me when I finally make the trip? Will she and I still be soulmates or will I have to share her? Like, did Suzy claim my wife as her soulmate? I don’t wish anyone loneliness in the after life but dang, I’ve got dibs.

2. Cookie Butter Therapy

If you’ve read my self care tips, you know I’ve found cookie butter solace. Listening to my body’s unique nutrient requirements, I heed the call for that smooth comfort. As a psychologist, it used to bug me when I’d see memes like, “I don’t need therapy, I’ve got wine!” Occasionally speaking aloud, I’d reply, “Hello future client!”

Now, I’m not so sure that retail, alcohol or food therapy is all that bad. I mean, it IS bad in that it doesn’t solve the problem and could turn into something worse. But if keeping your head above water saves your life, perhaps I should reconsider these stopgap measures. Personally, I’m planning a future half marathon to combat the future cookie butter problem. And by planning, I mean it’s on my list to look up neighborhood jogging routes.

3. Signs from Beyond the Veil

After my Dad died in 2002, I looked for evidence that his energy was still around. Losing a spouse takes it to a completely new desperation. Again, according to psychic mediums, we can ask our departed loved ones for specific signs and they will try to send them to us. Oh the pressure! Being an overachiever, of course I wanted to come up with the perfect sign to request from my wife. One that hits just the right balance of inside joke and everlasting love.

To get the ball rolling, I picked the first thing that came to mind. I asked my wife to send me a maroon Nissan Rogue SUV. Weird, I know - but also the perfect symbol of our family. I’m not that great at these requests just yet so I hope she knows I’m asking to see one, not get one as a gift. Years ago, she borrowed my maroon Nissan for a road trip with two little boys who would become my step kids. Having not yet met, questions about the car’s owner became a convenient way to talk about Mama’s new sweetheart.

I started seeing this car EVERYWHERE. There’s this one little problem, though. Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Psychology Today says, “Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. “ Basically, I started seeing the car because I wanted the sign from her. The overly enthusiastic part of my brain said, “Yeah, but wouldn’t she also FLOOD the world with whatever sign you requested????” Next time, I’ll ask for money.

4. Meditation

After all the grief festivities were done (i.e. initial horror and subsequent wake and funeral), one of my besties recommended the book, Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander. The author is a smarty-pants neurosurgeon who had a near death experience. He woke up out of a coma, wrote everything down, and set about trying to disprove the platitudes he once touted to patients. Anyway, a fascinating book and GREAT for the active griever in your life.

Veering from his conventional colleagues, Dr. Alexander’s career diverged towards the path less taken. He’s now involved in projects with the founders of Sacred Acoustics, a brainwave entrainment audio recordings company. That’s a fancy way of saying guided meditations with binaural beats that create experiences. There’s one that facilitates “communication with spirits across the veil.” Since I’m obsessed with getting back with my wife without leaving my kids and dogs, I became a convert.

Before Patty died (AKA BPD), I was known to dabble in mindfulness and may have claimed I meditated for longer and more often than I actually remembered to do. Don’t judge me, I was a busy mom! With a renewed desperation and time on my hands, I gave these wacky meditations a go. OMG, y’all they are amazing. I dare say I’ve done a little cavorting with my wife (at least in my mind). Seriously, between ADHD and grief brain, I can still knock out a 38 minute ‘Love Body’ meditation, no sweat. In the least, it’s a crutch over the rough spots.

5. Crafty Crystal Suncatchers

I haven’t gone off the deep end (yet) and meditated while balancing my chakras (okay, maybe once) with family heirlooms. If you read more than one book about the afterlife, you’ll pick up on themes. Psychics love auras, butterflies, and RAINBOWS. Since I’ve got time, I figured it wasn’t hard to put together my own suncatcher. You can certainly purchase these dandies but I prefer my own extremely amateur creations - especially since I need one for every window. Not sure what to do with these colorful messages from beyond but they are a comfort of sorts.

You may have gathered that I wasn’t previously into the paranormal. For instance, I knew that smudging was a thing but now, thanks to Etsy, I have my own kit. Same with healing crystals. As a child from a family of geologists, semi-precious gems, variegated rocks and hefty quartz crystals already held a special awe. I must note that my grandfather never mentioned crystal suncatchers as a method for communicating with the dead. It’s all me who’s hoping for yet another channel where, through refracted sunlight, my wife asserts her presence.

6. Documentaries About Death

It’s a widow habit to categorize life events as ‘before’ and ‘after,’ We use these terms with a wistful air of melancholy apology. We didn’t create these terms but they’re used as handy shortcuts before launching into yet another story about our dead spouses. This next tidbit is about me, though.

I love documentaries but before, I’d skip over the downers. Who wants to watch a flick about eroding habitats when your lawn looks so good? Times change and now after, I’ve completely confused Amazon’s algorithms with my new entertainment searches. I find comfort in tragedy.

I recently watched The Bridge, a documentary on the world’s most dangerous suicide locale - the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Since it was built, upwards of 1,700 souls have leapt to their nearly assured demise. The doc profiles the families of people actually caught on film at the moment of decision. Should sound awful, right? To me, it’s soothing. Not the suicides, but hearing the family process the death. They’re in the soup with me. Their stories make me feel normal.

7. Unique Grave Decorations

I’m only sharing this with you because I know you’ll understand. I threw this one in the mix because I had a brief, but intense love affair with unusual grave decorations. Did you know you can get “grave blankets” to keep your loved one warm? Obviously more popular in northern climes, they're actually giant wreaths of evergreen branches to cover the gravesite. Sadly, they aren’t allowed in my wife's cemetery or I’d be all over it. She was always cold…..before.

Switching gears, turning towards the following topics is a sort of exposure therapy. They each flutter at the windows of my mind and blot out the light (which I need for rainbows). I might as well add them to the growing list of crap I have to deal with eventually. Just so you know, I’m not weird enough to literally keep a list (yet).

1. Birthdays, Holidays, and Other Horrible Occasions

I know they’re coming. I limped through some already. May holds the double whammy of Mother’s Day and my birthday. Despite the embarrassing lack of evergreen splendor, we’ll visit her gravesite where I’ve already smuggled in other decorative contraband. Since I buy presents for myself all the time, for my birthday, I generally request a tasteful yet classic homemade card. I’ll get through the anticipatory dread and trudge through the sewage of my lowered expectations. It’s only another 24 hours to get through.

2. Getting Married Again

I can’t even think about what’s next. Or rather who. When I do think about it, I feel sorry for the sad sap who’s attracted to the runner up spot. Here’s the thing, I think about getting married again ALL THE TIME. My fantasy only went as far as imagining waking up in a fully formed relationship. Because I loved being married to my wife, it seemed reasonable to want our life reinstated. As the days turn into months, finding someone new continues to stubbornly insert itself from outside my head. I blame Patty. She always insisted if she died first, she’d want me to remarry. Less charitably, I countered that if I died first, she could never remarry because I’m her one true love. She apparently wants the last word.

To be fair, I am only 45 years old. When my stepson asked, I told him I was going to marry the dogs. He just doesn’t want me to change my last name, so on that we’re cool. Like passing me a note, Patty’s best friend from high school also delicately floated the idea. Even my brother-in-law said he wouldn’t want me to pass up something special. They all want me to be happy. I don’t want to want to get married again. It feels like forcing myself into a loveless, arranged marriage. With my luck, I’ll live another forty years. Maybe I’ll feel differently if my wife sends me a convincing sign.

3. The Next Death

The completely self absorbed grieving person I’ve become can’t even think about the next shitburger tragedy that’s surely on its way.. You’d think I’d have a guess who it might be but you’re wrong. I never would have put my wife on the shortlist but here we are. With new obsessions hoarding space in my grieving mind, it’s too crowded to handle another disaster. So I just don’t think about it.

If you’re grieving too, I want you to know you’re not a weirdo. Or at least you’re a weirdo like all of us - another broken toy tossed onto Bereavement Island (like Fantasy Island but more sad). I was never particularly interested in psychics, grave ornaments or dead people (beyond famous authors). Grief turns you inside out until you no longer recognize the person you were before. It wasn’t so easy to tip me over and I certainly didn’t cry in public. Falling into grief is similar to falling in love. With both, I lost my appetite, deeply felt things I’d never felt before, and became completely obsessed. In the end, grief is just another stage of love. An unfortunate byproduct of the grandest home improvement project. I’m comforted to realize that even as I’m swept up by transient passions, I’m essentially the same loving partner at my core.

#grief #afterlife #psychics #weirdo

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syzygyzip · 5 years

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Solaire is the Sandworm and Other Apocrypha

What follows is an essay about Knight Solaire, a character from Dark Souls 1. The essay discusses his metatextual influence, his symbolic import, and a few theories about his supposed fate in Dark Souls 3.

On the Nature of Headcanon Canon as a concept adopts different rules when it comes to videogames. More concretely than in other artforms, the content of the game changes according to its witness. You can’t account for another person’s playthrough, so you are obligated to trust their story—within reason. A player can tell you that they beat a boss without taking a single hit. That’s reasonable. A player can say that they saw an enemy clip through a wall, placing it in an otherwise empty environment. Could be true, might want to see footage, but reasonable. Further out, a player can tell you that a completely unprecedented game-object appeared out of nowhere, started flying around and corrupting objects. This is unlikely, but, like some crytptozoological encounter, could be explained away by the witness’ misapprehension (maybe a hacker invades the game and thwarts the rules).

Just like witnessing the mothman or other spectral phenomena in real life, the person’s impression of the event is real. To borrow Jung’s term, it is a subjective fact of the psyche. Because it is “of the psyche,” it describes the psyche.

Physical is not the only criterion of truth: there are also psychic truths which can neither be explained nor proved nor contested in any physical way. If, for instance, a general belief existed that the river Rhine had at one time flowed backwards from its mouth to its source, then this belief would in itself be a fact even though such an assertion, physically understood, would be deemed utterly incredible. Beliefs of this kind are psychic facts which cannot be contested and need no proof.

[…] The psyche is an autonomous factor, and religious statements are psychic confessions which in the last resort are based on unconscious, i.e., on transcendental processes.” (Jung, Carl pars. 553-555).

Unusual things will happen in games, and still more unusual things will be perceived to happen. What happens “off-screen” in the game world has no true authority, not even from the developers, because every player acts as a co-author. Some fan theories are formed by mentally structuring objects and events. Other fan theories seem to spring forth fully formed from the inky off-screen unconscious; in this case, for the theorist it feels more like a discovery than a construction. But most headcanons are a composite. Theories and headcanons are also informed by the meta-culture—by what a game and its characters have become in the eyes of “the community.” Black Iron Tarkus, for instance, has no lines of dialogue in any game, but has developed a personality and prestige from his interpretation by the fandom. Such occurrences are almost a matter of course. Games, especially when they reach franchise-level popularity, spawn stories and memes. The game reveals content not programmed by its developers. It is doubtful that anyone at FromSoft foresaw Tarkus’ fandom. Nor would any on the staff have guessed that a few discrete game items (Giant’s Armor, Havel’s Ring, the Mask of the Father, etc) would cohere into a folk hero called Giant Dad. I say “folk hero,” though he is a scourge to many. This “character,” who is really just an exploitative blend of game mechanics, would be made, remade, imitated, elevated to memetic and then iconic status. Most other archetypes in Dark Souls are divided into their attributes: Helm of Artorias, Sword of Artorias, etc. Giant Dad is the reverse: he is constellated by his attributes; none of them alone hold his pneuma.

The Knight Solaire is more famous than either of these figures. Like Artorias, he is a character specifically designed to appeal and to exist in relation to; and yet like Giant Dad, he is a fan-fueled nexus of meme. Beyond both of these capacities is the degree to which he emanates himself beyond the franchise. His catchphrases “Praise the Sun!” and “jolly cooperation” have taken on a life outside of Dark Souls—a scope of renown unreached by Giant Dad. Especially noteworthy is his corresponding emoticon \[T]/ How many pop cultural icons can be summed up in 5 pieces of unicode? He has also been coagulated into an Amiibo, which is another ontologically ambiguous prestige, occupying a strange corner between meatspace, the virtual, and the symbolic apparatus of capitalism. But he is not quite so easily as commodified, as a Squid Kid or an Isabelle. He is not moe like they are. He does not have a face. But that is not say he is featureless: he has a personality and a mystique that coheres throughout his diegetic presence, his cross-cultural memetic tendrils, and his various costumes in headcanon. What force accounts for this coherence? No archetype can be summed up into a single definition or personality, but the style by which they draw attributes and myths around them allows us some understanding.

The Knight of the Sun When encountered in Dark Souls 1, the character of Solaire presents a rare locus of optimism. He is standing in the sunlight, staring into the sky in quiet appreciation. He is immediately friendly and encouraging to the player, and gives them the tool of “jolly cooperation.”

I want to emphasize how much Solaire’s demeanor stands out in the milieu. Though he is encountered at an early point, the game has already introduced the player to an extremely dismal and unforgiving world. They have likely met many overpowering obstacles and dejected NPCs, and begun to realize how scarce is the refuge of the bonfire. It doesn’t take much exposure to Lordran to take on its infectious loneliness. Solaire’s optimism cuts through this bleak fog like a lighthouse, and he literally gives the player the key to online collaboration. From another gameplay standpoint, consider how the player has become conditioned to dark corners, to ambushes, and fatal surprises; to visually scouring the environment like a rat, wary of predators and keen to spot a glowing treasure. For a moment, Solaire stops the desperate scavenging to direct your attention to the skybox. These contemplative silences have become a signature of the Souls series, but this is perhaps the first directed instance.

This is to say that Solaire is the first personification of goodwill that the player meets, so early into their journey, and is thus easily wrapped up into that symbolism. As the player’s relationship to the world takes on new dimensions (not simply new game areas, but entirely new spheres: online play, community discourse, lorekeeping), the symbol of Solaire follows them. In online play, he pops up as someone’s cosplay—and spectacularly, most of these sunbros, these independent actors, will reflect his behavior accurately! In Souls communities, Solaire is almost omnipresent, as people will post his slogan or his emoticon as a way of communicating affirmation, respect, or pure joy. There are other things to like about Solaire, like the fact that he is relatively powerful as an ally in boss fights, that he has the cool lightning move, or that it is revealed his armor is “average,” and that his strength comes from some inner source. Another element that should not be underestimated is the psychological potency of his implicit longing for a father. It goes without saying that the motif of the absent father has been especially compelling in the 21st century, ubiquitous in mass media, and often exploited by advertisers, etc. Beyond that, Solaire is searching “for his Sun,” an object which can be interpreted countless ways; suffice it to say it is a timeless and recognizable symbol of purpose and wholeness.

For all these reasons and more, Solaire is an easy point of projection for the player. He is an image both relatable and aspirational; he is average and exceptional. He is savvy, strong, and kind, and never in hyperbolic measure. He realistically represents a player’s best traits. The quality of his goodness is unspecific and broad; it becomes an anchor point for any virtue a player may value, as can be seen in the varied mutations he takes on in the subculture, becoming in turn funkier, wiser, more heroic. This trait of mutability, in itself, is generous! In a game that is by now famous for its therapeutic value in treating depression, Solaire’s influence should not be disregarded. Here is an illustrative example of the potential effect of Solaire on a player, posted to reddit by user unsuppressedYay:

Like most, when I was playing Dark Souls, I was in a very bad time of my life (which was incidentally only a couple months ago). I was at a college that I hated, with roommates who were not accepting of me, and many friends who had stopped hanging out with me. The only joy I would have is going home on the weekends, playing Dark Souls until I accomplished something and then going out to see my friends from back home. In this dark time i had isolated myself from most people during the week and was lonely and didn’t accomplished much, as such my grades also suffered. it was a bad time.

By playing dark souls, I felt accomplishment after getting through a particularly tough area or beating a boss. It gave me a reason to go on, that I would continue in the doomed world of lordran where i had to reach a fire with no good ending. It gave me encouragement to continue in my own life and applying to a different college and get my life back on track.

So to the point. I had accidentally spoiled what happened to Solaire. but I was still unable to stop it. I thought the chaos bugs were the big bugs in the lava after lost izalith. I felt so guilty and like I actually lost someone I cared about. I felt the obligation to wear his armor until the very end of the game. It made things significantly harder because of how weak it was compared to normal armor, but I stuck with it. The item description from the armor was something along the lines of saying that Solaire had no special power or magic, like we did. He made the armor himself, and was strong through his dedication and work ethic and never willing to give up to get his sun. So thanks Dark Souls and thanks Solaire for reminding me that optimism is the best way to go about things.

tl;dr cheesy story about dark souls helping me get through tough time, and feeling obligation to beat the game with solaires armor due to his wonderful optimism, and guilt over his death.

Even if a player doesn’t specifically don Solaire’s armor in tribute, they likely integrate some aspect of his character in other ways. It can be as simple as performing the Praise the Sun gesture before a boss or upon victory. Miraculously, the gesture conveys the attitude quite plainly. The phrase “what happened to Solaire” alludes to the tragic fate that befalls him if the player does not intervene: he goes hollow in Lost Izalith, loses his enthusiasm and direction, and apparently mistakes a Chaos Bug for the sun which he seeks. After this point he will be hostile to the player, and will be wearing the cursed thing upon his head. This piece of headgear, formed from the body of a chaos bug, emits a lighted orb resembling the sun. If the player follows an arcane route through the game, they can avoid this outcome, and bring Solaire as a helpful ally in the final fight against Lord Gwyn.

Solaire as Gwyn’s Son For a long time, the battle at the immemorial kiln seemed like a fitting resolution to Solaire’s arc, as Gwyn was assumed to be his estranged father. Complementing Solaire’s recognition of an affinity between the Sun and the Father, we are told that Gwyn had a long-lost firstborn son. While essentially disproved by the apparent revelation of Gwyn’s actual first-born in Dark Souls 3, this lore speculation continues to live on in the imagination of the Souls community. It remains as another fact of the psyche, and thereby further illuminates the nature of Solaire. To understand why this is significant, we have to go a little bit into the symbolism of the Sun. You may be surprised to hear that people have been aware of the Sun for a long time now, and it has accrued significations far too numerous to list in full. So we will just mention a few of its rays, those that coincide with Solaire’s virtues: generosity, joviality, light, warmth, and cooperation. It also symbolizes the gift of life, vitality, will, and essence. Then there is that important attribute: obviousness; there is simply no denying the Sun in the sky, as it illuminates everything around you, and your planet circles it incessantly. But this principle of “apparentness” follows the sun to its cultural correspondences, like the lion, who is known to be named Leo. Which chakra does the sun relate to? Why, the solar plexus. Guess which metal the Sun corresponds to. It’s gold. You don’t have to be an occultist or a psychologist to notice the sun’s dignitaries: they have a way of exuding themselves. So it is with the conspicuously named Knight Solaire and his undeniable presence. It is simply one of his attributes: the ability to beam out from the Souls world, through the metatext, and into broader strata of culture.

The solar principle is also a consciousness principle. To “shed light” upon something is to become conscious of it. Thus the Sun describes both the ego and the Self (the inner image of God). The ego can be thought of as a low-res isomorphism of the Self, or as an inner, inextinguishable “divine spark.” It seems that this spark is the source from which Solaire derives his boundless optimism. Solaire ambivalently identifies with the Sun, and marvels at it outside himself, terming it as a “magnificent father.” Though he is a source of light for the player, he humbles himself before the “gross incandescence” of some higher power. This ego-Self dynamic, so essential to human experience, triggers a (conscious or unconscious) question of reconciliation. So players may wonder, “Who is the father of Solaire? To whom does he defer?” and the natural affinities between Solaire and Gwyn present themselves. Aside from the fact that it is later contradicted, this genealogy is also simply too concrete and anthropocentric to satisfy the greater mystery. The Solaire-Gwyn interpretation remains as a psychological fact, but it is just the beginning. It is the exoteric story, revealed to players of DS1 not as deception, but as an inaugural step for constellating a much more complex archetype. Now that we have taken a good look about how well the figure of Solaire invites a player’s projections, we will move on to a few other lore theories, far stranger and more infamous.

Solaire Has Become a Worm Who was Knight Solaire and what became of him? Some say he is the great Carthus Sandworm, writhing around the Smoldering Lake in the ruins of Hell. While apparently originally suggested in earnest, the Sandworm story has come to be known as a meme theory. As we have discussed, a meme won’t exist if it’s not compelling on some level.

Here is the apocryphal myth as commonly understood. Canonically the player fails to save Solaire after he wanders into Lost Izalith in search of his Sun. He discovers the Chaos Bug (or slays it and discovers its corpse), and mistakes its gentle glow for his personal sun. Worn as headgear, it becomes the Sunlight Maggot, a “loathsome parasite” that is “completely immobile, yet still lives.” Solaire goes hollow, losing his identity and sense of purpose. He despairs. We don’t know whether the parasite produces this abject condition in Solaire, or whether it is symptomatic, or coincidental. Therefore speculation begins here. Assuming the player does not destroy the mad Solaire, he wanders around the underworld for a very long time. As the years go by the vast hellscape of what was once Izalith disintegrates. Its army of demons becomes hills of corpses. The land itself is now nothing more than a small maze of ruins, and a warm puddle—the so-called “Smouldering Lake.” During this time, the theory suggests, the parasite has completely consumed Solaire, turning him into the “Carthus Sandworm” an enormous, Dune-esque burrowing worm that spits lightning.

So because Solaire was overtaken by a Chaos Bug, it is assumed he never left Carthus and became the worm. The further justification(?) for this theory is as follows. The worm spits lightning as Solaire does. The worm drops Lightning Stake, a miracle that mentions lost dragon slayers, who are affiliated with Warriors of Sunlight and thus Solaire. The worm also has human appendages sticking out from its body, and drops an undead bone shard, which are seen as clues that the worm was once human. (It is also suggested by some that Solaire’s might and indefatigable nature are the reason that he was not consumed by the parasite, but instead transformed into an enormous creature. But this point is often glossed over in the meme-theory variant.)

We can see that the diegetic evidence upon which the case for Solaire-as-Worm rests is rather thin. So what accounts for its popularity? Why does it make some kind of intuitive sense? Why does it generate enough interest to be passed around, albeit ironically? Let’s examine the origin point of the story: Solaire venturing into Lost Izalith and losing his mind to a Chaos Bug. The story of a solar hero venturing into the underworld has—once again—existed for as long as people have been staring at the sun. Each day the Sun goes down, and comes up again reborn. Psychologically, the descent into the underworld symbolizes the journey of the ego into the unconscious. The principle risk of this journey is possession by the contents therein; re-absorption into a state of dependent unconsciousness. For this reason among others, it is associated with the great and destructive Mother in her negative aspect. The motifs of “the devouring mother” and the “belly of the whale” are likely familiar to most people. The loss of a sense of a separate self is a much-feared thing, and this story arises perennially and across cultures. Izalith too is full of (negative) Mother imagery, with the mother of pyromancy at the center, portrayed as a small bug, not dissimilar from the Sunlight Maggot which consumes Solaire. We should of course not reduce the Mother to some Freudian positivism. She is called the Mother because she represents the matrix of the world, which engenders, sustains, and decays all forms. In her fullness she is the divine feminine principle. Her fearsome aspects, such as the devouring mother, are constellated by the ego’s fears and rejections. The mother is the first being from which an infant must differentiate itself, and so there is this necessary period in which the mother becomes the abject, the locus of all that is disavowed and detested. When stories tell us about “slaying the dragon,” it is not about conquering the feminine, or defeating chaos; it is about overcoming a false view of the Divine Mother born of fear and prejudice. It is this view, cohered into a monster, that must be slain, as the Chosen Undead does in Izalith in Dark Souls 1. According to tradition, how is this accomplished? In psychological terms:

The slaying of the mother and identification with the father-god go together. If, through active incest, the hero penetrates into the dark, maternal, chthonic side, he can only do so by virtue of his kinship with “heaven,” his filiation to God. By hacking his way out of the darkness he is reborn as the hero in the image of God, but, at the same time as the son of […] the regenerative Good Mother. (Neumann 165)

The “father” in this case corresponds to the solar principles of Logos, order, and law. Swords and lightning-strikes, Solaire’s preferred tools, refer to the capacities of discernment and insight necessary for differentiation. This identification/alliance with the father in this task is only temporary, for the Father too must be destroyed: he is the old order, the ego deteriorating into an oppressive and petty tyrant. This is why Gwyn is underwhelming and ailing when we find him. So it appears that saving Solaire, and bringing him to defeat Gwyn, is a relatively psychologically healthy outcome. That is—if Solaire is the new ego!! But think about it: when playing a game, is it not the player-character who is most representative of the ego? It is out of the Chosen Undead’s eyes that we see, it is their actions we control, not Solaire’s. We have already established that for many players, Solaire is an ideal image, whose full potential is necessarily unknown. Does this mean that Solaire is meant to be abandoned here? Is he, like Gwyn, an outdated self-conception that must be discarded so that something new can be born? The moral judgment of this situation is more complicated than it first appears.

Let’s look at the steps one must take in order to save Solaire: one must join the Chaos Servant covenant and collect humanity for the “Fair Lady.” This witch of chaos is a pale and deteriorating spider-woman meshed into the wall of her lair. She speaks a language incomprehensible to the player, unless a special ring is worn, which reveals that she mistakes the player for her sister. If she is given a whopping 30 humanity, the Chosen Undead rises to a rank of prestige in her organization, and a special door opens which allows passage to the site of Solaire’s fall. This is the only way to arrive at the scene and destroy the bug before Solaire finds it. So the key, in essence, is offering your humanity to a mysterious dying witch over and over again. Or, as reddit user JotaBarra puts it:

To save Solaire of Astora you have to give 30 humanity to someone who you don't know, that doesn't understand you and the only thing you know is that she put herself in pain trying to fix something that she doesn't did. If you help her, the games give you the opportunity to save your friend. The only way to save Solaire is by being like him. Friendship is exactly like that. You help the only one that help you everytime he can. He will fight alongside with you against the final enemy. It represent what a relationship is. We don't build relationship with our direct actions but with what the actions mean. You dont help directly to your friend, but you do what he could've do for you.

This interpretation makes a good point about how it is necessary to become Solaire, to take on his attributes, in order to save him. Does this therefore mean that by the time the two of you get to Gwyn, you are the same person? Or were you the same person all along, and Solaire was just projected into the external environment, just as he both embodies the sun and seeks it outside himself? That light, whether the anglerfish lamp of the Sunlight Maggot or the Sun itself, compels the body forward, because that compulsion is the Sun.

Specifically, compulsion is the Sun in its chthonic state. It is synonymous with the ever-burning fuel of sulfur, replete throughout the realms of hell.

Lost Izalith, the Hell of Dark Souls, has been reduced to very little in Dark Souls 3. It appears quite plainly that the kingdom has deteriorated. What were once oceans of lava is now a knee-high lake of simmering water. However, among the ruins and heaps of demon corpses, there is indication that new life is growing. Roots of world trees coil around the stone and new forms of demons are singing living flames into being. Most significantly, there is also the presence of crabs, which are a timeless symbol of birth, and present at the other two places of world-regeneration in Dark Souls 3 (the forest and the painting). Beneath the desolate surface of Smouldering Lake, there is the beating heart of new life.

It is on the surface that the pseudo-Solaire worm confronts us. It could be that it is protective of this nest, or maybe it is a crude image of the unborn life in incubation within. The fact that it is coiled here, in a pool of water at the base of the world, suggests the kundalini serpent. In psychology and metaphysics, the kundalini is the libidinous upward force catalyzed by the primal energy (shakti) at the base of the spine. Alongside its physiological manifestation, the rising serpent/worm is one of the oldest mythological motifs:

The Gnostics related the serpent to the mysterious energy of the primordial waters symbolized in the waves of the undulating serpent as well as the stirrings within the serpentine spinal cord of man. The stirrings surface from the abyss of the unconscious, sometimes unexpectedly and with peremptory and terrible effects. (Valborg)

Its undulating path upwards is called “The Serpent’s Path” as it traces a parabolic shape as it climbs to ever-higher degrees of refinement (this is what the player does, you may recall). This journey of upward undulation, often felt by the individual as an electric current, is sometimes preceded by the “Lightning Flash,” the original impetus, which strikes downward from the crown to the lowest point, thus awakening the serpent, which makes its ascent. So these images come together quite conveniently in the figure of this lightning-spewing sandworm. You may remember that the worm drops “Lightning Stake”; not some other miracle, but the one that forces lightning down upon the earth. To see this electric serpent coiled up within a hot, subterranean chamber teeming with life—it is hard to imagine a more direct depiction of the kundalini.

We have talked about Solaire as a symbol of the Self, that was at one time appropriate but now needs to be refined, and it is therefore appropriate that he should find himself consumed in the flames of the underworld. The fiery hells of Buddhism are sites of purification; the fire that rages and torments the victim is their own unbridled affects, but they eventually exhaust themselves. What remains after is purified ash, synonymous with the “white foliated Earth” of the alchemists. It is this type of “environment” in which the “gold”—the personality—should be sown, in order to reach its potential. This is assumedly what has already happened to the Ashen One of Dark Souls 3, given their title and the fact that they have arisen from ash; it also seems to be descriptive of the process at hand for the kingdom of Lothric.

It’s easy to imagine that players might unconsciously project the image of Solaire’s rebirth onto this worm. For reasons related to Solaire’s story, as previously discussed, and for these perennial myths. At another point in the journey, the player is also confronted with Rosaria, the Mother of Rebirth, who “respecs” people—reallocates their stats and qualities. The only risk this refinement brings is that the person may become a worm! A few casualties of this process are seen or implied elsewhere in the game. These “mangrubs” are quite revolting, and yet at least a few are linked to the highest divinity. This should not surprise us:

Typical of the paradoxical imagery of the unconscious, the despicable worm can turn into the supreme value. Thus the messiah is equated with a worm in the messianic Psalm 22, verse 6: ‘But I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.’ (Edinger AoP 158)

For the full renewal of the image of the Self, it is necessary that the old king(/sun) dies. The body decays, and at its most revolting, it becomes the bed and the feast of maggots. Because Smouldering Lake is beneath the Catacombs, it can be said to be taking place within the body within the grave. The entire scene can be read as allegory of the processes within the body in the midst of its resurrection. The “messiah” here is invoked because Christ is another euphemism for the Self. And just as the dead king’s body is diffused into the bellies of the maggots, so too does Christ’s flesh become the object of consumption during the Eucharist. This takes us conveniently into our next bizarre fan theory.

Solaire Has Become Soup Slightly more arcane than the theory of Solaire’s transfiguration into a worm, is the notion of his transubstantiation into the Estus Soup, which is found in a few cauldrons throughout Lothric. The justification for this theory was handily summarized on a reddit by a now-deleted user:

Consider the room you get the sunbro badge in undead settlement. It also contains an estus soup bowl...

The sunbro badge is found on a device for dismembering corpses. We know this becasue we see the same device being used to cut up bodies later in the undead settlement just before the stairs down to the lower area with the ravine

The sunbro badge is simply a rag of cloth sitting on the device, which heavily implies that a sunbro was cut up on this device and his badge was left over as a part of the cutting up process

Underneath the cutting up device are an absolute ton of small bowls, receptacles to contain fluid. What fluid will the cutting up device produce? blood and human bodily fluid.

These same bowls can be seen all around the main estus soup pot....

The blood of the dismembered sunbros/other undead is extracted in the cutting process into the small bowls. These bowls are then take to the main pot and their essences poured into the main soup pot which is boiled and the estus fluid is extracted from the blood of the chopped up sunbros. This is what forms the radiant estus soup.

The player is in some sense conditioned to think this, because the entire Undead Settlement is oriented around the disposal of corpses. Moreover, Estus Soup is found at two more places, one of which holds Solaire’s talisman, and the other near paintings of Gwynevere (saint of the sunbros). Now, the more reasonable interpretation of the presence of these Sunlight artifacts near Estus Soup is that Siegward, who is later shown to be the one concocting the soup, leaves them behind in his absent-mindedness. Siegward’s attitude and behavior are very reflective of the “jolly cooperation” ethos, and thus we naturally assume that he is affiliated with the Warriors of Sunlight.

This, however, does not disprove that the Estus Soup is Solaire! Not to say that Solaire was butchered by Siegward, and bled into the soup via the grisly method described above; rather it is more likely that a faithful Warrior of Sunlight has consecrated this special drink in a manner similar to the Christian Eucharist. To understand the concept of the Eucharist, here is an excerpt from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:

The cup of prayer contains wine and contains water, being established as a representation of the blood over which thanksgiving is offered. And it is full of the holy spirit, and belongs entirely to the perfect human being. Whenever we drink it we take unto ourselves the perfect human being. The living water is a body.” (Gnostic scriptures p347)

In other words, “the Eucharistic blood represented the Soul of Christ.” (Jung & von Franz 93). The fact that “the conception of blood as soul prevailed in the middle ages,”(ibid. 93) is visually quoted by Dark Souls periodically, and further prepares the player to respond to such symbolic signaling within this fantasy setting.

Now, Solaire as a Christ figure who becomes the subject of a Lothric Eucharist is probably not a theory that anyone would thread together without the specific intent of performing a Christian reading of Dark Souls. The reason that I discuss it now is because the existence of the Solaire-as-soup theory seems to have arrived at a similar situation unconsciously, and slightly rephrased into a secular materialist framework (more palatable to the conscious mind). We have examined how Solaire is an uncommonly strong draw for projections of the player’s better nature. It is also a fact of our world that certain Christian concepts—such as Christ representing a fully realized being to whom we should aspire, or the mysteries of the Eucharist—are present in the background of the unconscious. These stories and motifs were so ubiquitous for so long in the western world, that even if we live fully secular lives, this material continues to radiate its influence through the thinnest, unassuming little cracks in our speech, our aesthetics, and our stories.

So without any intention on the part of the player, their experience of the character Solaire receives some influence from the Christian world. This effect is aided by a few other elements. There is his resemblance to common depictions of knights from the Crusades, whose defining associations are Christianity and the fact that they were seeking something. Of course we also have the fact of his signature gesture which is similar to the pose of the crucified Christ. This essay has already described this gesture’s prominent contribution to the memetic potency of Solaire, but it bears mentioning that if the player joins this covenant, they perform the gesture automatically upon being summoned—any active sunbro is quite literally forced into imitating this pose! And of course, a third reason for this unconscious association of Christ and Solaire is the factor of the mysterious and divine parentage.

Which is Canon? So of these two fringe headcanons, which is the more valid? Is Solaire a worm or is he soup? Taking anthropology into account, we must recognize that the death and resurrection of the Sun-god naturally predates Christ, and Christian myths are often studied in that context. It is just as natural to see Solaire as a personification of the Sun, of goodwill, or of the Logos … although Christ also covers that ground. Whatever the case may be, the dismemberment and consumption of this embodied principle seems to be a common feature of these stories. Both the worms who feed on the king’s corpse, and the Eucharistic wine/blood, are images of this concept—and perhaps both images are necessary. The feast of the worms is the profane image, and the Eucharist is the sacred and civil version. After all, for the dissemination of this quality of consciousness to be complete, it must extend to every level. Edinger gives us another broad summary of the concept:

[The Golden Man] represents the microcosmos or monas, the initial matter, which also contains the goal of the work. His dismemberment signifies a new conscious ordering of his initial chaotic nature.

It is difficult to consider terms like “initial matter” and appreciate the fullness of the concept. In nitpicking over the details of the specific images, we may begin to lose sight of the importance and universality of the basic story. This is why it is so important that there are multiple histories, multiple headcanons. If Solaire was only the worm, or only the soup, he would be less complete and less adequate as a symbol. And there are many headcanons besides these, of course; they merely represent two aggregations with a mythologically fertile tension between them. By the incredible multivalence of the Sun’s many arms, he means something different and individual to each player.

And speaking of the “goal of the work.” The return of the Sun in the morning is not considered a triumph merely because it has survived. Withstanding the night in itself is hardly an achievement! It is a triumph because something has been earned in the descent, and the same is true of the story of Christ’s incarnation. When the Sun-god rises again, something has been purified, refined, or to use the preferred Christian term, redeemed. The personal stories of players also seem to follow this trajectory. Dark Souls doesn’t treat depression simply because players are enduring its difficulty, it’s because some special quality of attention is polished through their struggles. We ought also to remember that Solaire willingly became Undead so he could visit Lordran and find his own Sun. The descent into incarnation for the purpose of refinement is a journey that should only be made consciously, with optimism and good cheer, for that is the Sun’s native condition.

Edinger, Edward. Anatomy of the Psyche. Open Court Publishing Company, 1985. Jung, Carl. Psychology and Religion: East and West. Princeton University Press, 1969. Jung, Emma & Marie-Louise von Franz. The Grail Legend. Sigo Press, 1980. Layton, Bentley, ed. The Gnostic Scriptures. Yale University Press, 1995 Neumann, Eric. The Origins and History of Consciousness. Bollingen Foundation, 1954. Valborg, Helen. Great Symbols Series: the Serpent. Theosophy Trust, 2013.

Solaire is Pump-a-Rum Actually, you are this fledgling.

#dark souls #dark souls lore #solaire #knight solaire #dark souls 1 #dark souls 3 #solaire sandworm #carthus sandworm #gwyn's firstborn

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lonesomealley · 5 years

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Borderlands 3 Review

*Writer’s Note: I played this game when it came out and have based my review on the version of the game that I played then. Some of this information may become outdated with time.

DISCLAIMER: This review is going to contain a lot of spoilers for Borderlands 3, if you don’t want that then this is not the review for you. My overall opinion of this game is that it’s… okay. It entirely depends on what you value out of a video game. Borderlands 3 is, at heart, just another Borderlands that’s been somewhat dumbed down, and if you don’t like the Borderlands series’ base mechanics (i.e. farming, constantly throwing away weak gear, getting stomped on for being underleveled) then this is not the game for you. If you value storytelling in your video games, this game is absolutely not the game for you. However if you’re someone who just wants to shoot some guys and already like, or think you’ll like, Borderlands’ looting systems then this game is going to range anywhere from okay to good. It should be kept in mind that this review is meant to take into account many of the different aspects of the game, hence why this review is going to have a far lower score than many other reviewers/media publications seem to be rewarding it.

I don’t really know if Borderlands 3 is worth the $60 asking price, and I would ultimately say to either wait for the game to go on sale or at least wait for it to go up on Steam. This is because the game really is just a dumbed down Borderlands entry, you could easily just go buy the Handsome Collection for $60 (if you haven’t already) and have just as good, even better, of a time. Also that Steam has more laid back refund policies than the Epic Store (which can be blamed for this review existing in the first place). But this is where the spoiler free section ends, anything past this point will contain heavy spoilers for the sake of in depth discussion. You have been warned.

When the Borderlands 3 reveal trailer came out back in March I was entirely skeptical that the game would be anything good. The story looked like a mess, the guns looked like complete shit, and overall it appeared that a lot of the things they were promising on were too good to be true or would end up simplified. Also, at the time I had just played through the entirety of the existing Borderlands series (excluding Tales From the Borderlands), so this new game was going to have to spike a certain chord with me. This definitely wasn’t helped by the “additions” that they tried to make to those games such as second game’s graphics enhancements, and the Borderlands 1 remaster. The former, while making the game look prettier, had the problem of cutting off cross platform play (across PC, Mac, Linux, etc.) which left a small crowd of people very disappointed. And the latter had the issue of being a complete load of garbage with many of the same bugs, new performance issues, clunkier menus, new menus not working, and of course Gearbox’s patented golden chest. They pulled a BL2 and just gave you OP guns at the beginning of the game as to make the beginning area more trivial than it already was. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they suited you out with 75 golden keys for connecting your shift account, meaning that you could destroy any sense of value the guns originally had.

There was also the new BL2 dlc that was meant to tie the game into BL3’s story. However I can safely say that after having played through BL3, this dlc’s campaign in no way whatsoever connects these two games together. I guess at best it explains how Sanctuary fell, but that in of itself has a lot of problems. You get attacked by some Dahl commander (who has never been brought up in the story before) where he infects Sanctuary, and by further extension Pandora, with this plant virus. Your job is to kill this guy and stop the plant virus. There is no motivation established for this guy besides that he wants to make Pandora into some paradise, and the story has absolutely no effect on BL3 at all. The crew was already set on going to outer space, this invasion only served to speed up this process. To further this claim, there is no mention of this dlc’s events in BL3 and Pandora is still the same sandy hell scape that it normally is.

Which finally brings us to Borderlands 3. A game that feels surprisingly devoid of passion and love despite how much effort went into it. A game that feels like there wasn’t enough time to flesh out ideas. A game owned by a company who sold out to Epic for money- let’s get a couple of things out of the way first. 1. Borderlands 3 isn’t an entirely bad game per se. 2. I have relatively no issue with the game being an Epic exclusive and my opinion is not biased or soured due to Randy Pitchford’s constant fuck ups.

However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t outright despise Gearbox and 2K for their actions. They take an exclusivity deal with Epic which actively disrupts consumer convenience and confidence in purchasing their product (not a big deal). But then they have the audacity to push this game out in the buggy, unpolished, and unoptimized state that its currently in (kind of a big deal). The menus are buggy on a basic, functional level, the performance tanks constantly, and items would quite literally disappear out of thin air from my inventory. All of these made Borderlands 3 just that much more of a painstaking experience to play through.

It was the unpolished game and the Borderlands’ trademark shitty introductory area that made me want to refund the game. And believe me, I tried to refund the game. Unfortunately I got denied my refund because I had accidentally played over 2 hours of the game, when the Epic client doesn’t even show your playtime. So ultimately I had no choice but to play this game in order to get my 60 dollars worth. In that time I learned that this game is exactly like the other Borderlands games. Right down to the pacing and the disappointing endings. The beginning of Borderlands 3 is a complete slog. You’re just slapped down on Pandora and have to suffer through Clap Trap’s “hilarious” writing and get formally introduced to the mechanics of a Borderlands game for the 4th time now. Gearbox has apparently never figured out that people really hate playing through the beginning of their games because it refuses to give the players a skip tutorial option or a way to just outright bypass the introduction. Now I will say that this introduction isn’t as bad as BL2 or The Presequel, but it's certainly nowhere near good either.

The problem with these introduction areas is that they aren’t engaging or really even play into the story in any meaningful way. In BL3, you arrive out of thin air on Pandora and are forcefully met up with Lilith and the Crimson Raiders so that you can prepare to take off into space. Between meeting up and going into space you’ll be doing menial tasks such as fixing Marcus’ shops, getting a basic vehicle, and doing some really boring boss fights. Your motive for killing these bosses is because Lilith is on the hunt for the vault map. That thing that they had in BL2, how did they lose it? Nevermind that because it’s just sitting with Mouthpiece, a painfully easy boss that expects no brain power out of you other than just avoid the giant speakers that go boom. Apparently it was in Vaughn’s possession before he was betrayed by his Sun Smasher clan in return for good boy points from the Calypsos. Why the Crimson Raiders thought it would be a good idea to leave the map with Vaughn beats me, but I can safely say that this theme of Vaughn being a complete fuck up is consistent throughout the entirety of BL3.

Vaughn at best feels like a comedic relief character, and at worst feels like padding. This character has no important role throughout the story, just plainly isn’t a funny character, and comes across as a complete waste of space. He could literally just disappear from the entire game and nothing would change. You (luckily) don’t even see him for most of the game because his ass is left back on Pandora to do… something. I’ve heard that Vaughn is a far better character in Tales from the Borderlands, however as I haven’t played that game I cannot say for certain whether or not Gearbox really just dropped the ball on this one. Vaughn also isn’t the only character I have this opinion of, however as I am still discussing the game’s intro I feel that I should hold off until later.

So after you acquire the vault map and experience a “high stakes” encounter with the Calysos, Lilith loses her siren powers. I feel like this was supposed to be some big, “Oh shit,” moment but I have to express that I simply don’t care for Lilith’s character and people who are new to the Borderlands series won’t care either. Lilith is not necessarily a “good guy” in Borderlands. She has done some fucked up things that have drastically changed the overarching plotline and a lot of people’s perception of her both in the story and by players experiencing it. In The Pre-Sequel, she is framed as being the reason for Handsome Jack’s insanity as Lilith literally branded a vault symbol onto his face. In the epilogue of TPS she actively commands a firing squad to gun down Athena after she tells her story in its entirety, completely against the judgement of her colleagues. And she makes incredibly rash decisions in BL2 that causes detrimental results for the crimson raiders such as being captured by Handsome Jack after being explicitly told not to come to Angel’s prison that greatly changes the dynamic of the story. These are only a couple examples, and I could keep going, but the point is that I don’t value Lilith as an entirely productive or a beneficially proactive member of the Crimson Raiders. And new players who have never played Borderlands before literally won’t even know who Lilith is or why she is even important. Hence when Lilith loses her siren powers after a pretty pathetic fight with the Calypsos, I can really only roll my eyes and just go with it.

From here the story relatively picks up and becomes a bit more bearable (but not really), however I don’t want a couple thousand words of this review to be about the story. Overall it’s trash, and I’m going to try my best to summarize just why it’s trash. Firstly is that the Borderlands writers might be writing for way too many characters. Seriously you have: ProZ-oh I mean Flak, Amara, Zane, Moze, Vaughn, Lilith, Brick, Mordecai, Tiny Tina, Ellie, Tannis, Marcus, Zero, Rhys, Lorelei, Aurelia, Hammerlock, Typhon Deleon, The Calypsos, Katagawa, Bosses also have some writing with them, Ava, Rhys, holy shit I could just keep going. This isn’t to mention that the the only returning vault hunters from BL2 are Zero and Maya. And then factor in that the writers had to write up a ton of audio logs, some Typhon logs, Eridian logs, side quest dialogue for meaningless bosses, etc. and you have just this disaster of a story that churns everyone out to be really shallow characters. There aren’t any truly good characters in this game. Some of them are passable but that’s because they either aren't main characters or they have some somewhat funny writing and redeeming qualities.

Characters like Ava and Maya (and Vaughn) are completely devoid of any purpose within Borderlands outside of being fuel to the drama fire or just outright being an obnoxious brat. It’s pretty obvious that Ava is just a spoiled teenager who has no idea what she’s getting into, but even in the context of Borderlands her character doesn’t fit at all. For example, after the player kills the first vault monster (Rampager) and returns from the vault, you’re suited to a cutscene where Ava and Maya go pants on head retarded. Ava, a defenseless, tiny, teenager with no powers whatsoever, tries to tell Maya that, “We should be kicking [the Calypsos’] asses!” after the Calypso twins show up to absorb the powers of the vault monster. Mind you, this is after her and Maya debate about how Ava is a piece of shit that’ll get herself killed if she sneaks off to more vaults. Ava then has the audacity to tell the vampire sirens that eventually she’s going to be a siren and she’s going to, “Mop the floor with assholes like you.” These actions ultimately gets her put in her place, and Maya killed. Bottom line: She’s an obnoxious character that makes playing through the story of BL3 worse the more you’re exposed to her. And speaking of Maya, her character in Borderlands is completely useless. She introduces Ava, and then gets killed so that the players can go grrr at the big baddies. Her only significance to the story is that Maya is a siren so that the Calypso twins can steal her powers. Otherwise she is an absolutely useless character that now we’ll never get to see again without Gearbox pussying out on their own writing.

I’ll be completely honest here in saying that Typhon Deleon was the best written character in the game, and you hardly get to hear anything from him outside of backstory and the final couple hours of the game. If Typhon Deleon was a main star of BL3 I think the story would’ve went in a much more favorable direction. However I can’t discount the good writing moments within the story. Even though I absolutely hate Flak’s character even down to his voice, he does have some lines that made me chuckle. Rhys’ entire gag about Rhys ball had me laughing for that entire section, especially the line, “Suck on my big ball, Katagawa.” In fact I think most of the jokes that I laughed at were sexual jokes. I frankly don’t think a lot of these sexual jokes make the cut in a lot of games nowadays outside of obvious fanfare or really out there stuff like Grand Theft Auto 5. This was really unexpected and pulled off well in BL3 as weird as a compliment this is.

I also just want to express my disappointment for how the old vault hunters were treated in this writing: Axton, Gaige, Krieg, and Salvadore aren’t present in this game outside of some echo logs. It could be plausible that Axton and Gaige will come back for a future dlc, but I’m not holding my breath. We ultimately got Maya and Zero, and oh god these characters are bad. Maya dies only a couple hours after you meet her and Zero is comparable to a boomer dad trying to be hip with the kids. Maybe that’s the joke, in which case all I can say is, “Wow, they pulled it off really well and I’m not laughing.”

And finally, the Watcher. What the hell happened to this dude and why isn’t he in BL3? He appears at the end of TPS and is like, “You’re gonna need all of the vault hunters you can get,” however, not only do we have a very restricted roster of vault hunters, the Watcher is literally never mentioned again. Unless the Watcher is the Eridian that left all of the audio logs laying around, but what a disappointment.

I could keep going a good while if I wanted to, but that’s reserved for my videos. The next part of the game that should be brought up is the world design. Most of the world design is okay, I wish Pandora wasn’t just set in desert hell ala BL1, but other than that they seem to have enough content and discoverable areas to make them interesting to explore. My ultimate problem with the world building comes in when considering the planetary system in the game. Now this point can be entirely perceived as me just being an ass but when I think “planets” I expect a lot more than the world hubs in BL3. The planet’s levels are relatively small scale for being on, you know, a planet. And this isn’t just a problem with BL3, many other games that have incorporated planets like this, such as Destiny and Warframe, ultimately fail at capturing the scale of planets. A planet is often scaled down to a simple level within a video game, and it’s somewhat shameful to see a game boasting, “tens of planets to travel to” and then those planets have the same (and even less) scale as their previous title entries that were based on a singular world. Now I perfectly understand that this is a hard request to answer to, and having to build and construct one world is difficult on its own. Despite this, if a development/marketing team wants to promote their usage of a planetary system in their video game, it’s implied that the levels are going to be gigantic. It’s not at all impressive to see planets being used in BL3 because BL2 had the same, if not more, level variety and the same, if not more, amount of levels without the pseudo use of large scale.

This isn’t to say that the levels contained in the game are bad, just that I wish they weren’t pushed into a planetary system. Generally speaking, the levels aren’t bad. I hadn’t ever reached a part of the game where I thought, “Wow this level is trash,” or found levels that were broken. In fact, the gameplay and level design seem to be the real highlights of this game. Gameplay this time around has been modernized and sped up. Players are suited with a slide, ledge grabbing, barrel throwing, and melee slams. Sliding in of itself is important because of how non-committal it is as you can cancel a slide instantly by jumping. These additions ultimately make combat faster and more varied in how you approach the game. See Borderlands 1, 2, and TPS (while it tried) suffered from each fight encounter being basically the same shootout with basic cover systems. This time around, while you can still use the basic playstyle from the older games, you’re provided the methods to really make your gameplay interesting. Personally I never used the melee slam or the barrel throwing, and the new ledge grabbing system only serves to add verticality in map exploring from my experience. However I did use a lot of the slide, and given the right gun (especially shotguns) it became very satisfying to slide into an enemy and pop them into the air with a shotgun.

On this note, I feel like I have to express how much I disliked the feel of the guns. And clearly I am on the contrary opinion here because I have heard everyone on the planet say that, “Wow the gunplay is soooo good omg!!!” but I’ll be honest in saying that I didn’t see it here. Sure, the gunplay now feels more weighty and the new animations and stuff are nice to making the player character good gameplay feel. But the guns themselves, despite apparently having tons of funding behind making the guns sound good and being completely reworked, still have the chronic floaty-ness issues of the previous games. Some guns (primarily early game Hyperion SMGs, Maliwan guns, and some shotguns) just felt so awful to play with that I put them down and never touched them again. I’m not too sure what I was expected as I slid into an opponent and shot them in the face with my shotgun, only for them to fly away a couple feet and just get right back up only having lost about half or less of their health. Jakobs guns were consistently the best weapon, feel wise, despite me always wishing they had a bit more of a kick to them.

One of my major issues with the guns is that they are way too sci-fi and not enough like guns on wastelands and battle driven hell hole. Seriously for how terrible a place Pandora is, you don’t get weapons that reflect this attribute, Instead you get these futuristic Hyperion smgs that will project a shield out in front of you or a Torgue gun that will home into your target when thrown. This is a consistent theme throughout the game where guns won’t aesthetically match the environment. I could understand if you found futuristic guns on Promethea, or even that you find technologically advanced weaponry in the form of Hyperion leftovers on Pandora(given that they’re consistent with the styling of BL2). This would 1. Appease me, because I am the only person worth pleasing, and 2. Would allow the Gearbox developers to create more variety with their weapons so that the game actually feels like it’s hitting its promise of, “Billions of guns.”

Another issue I have is the sound design for these guns, which is probably the point I’ll get absolutely grilled for but: Using actual sampled gun sounds apparently does not work for video games. Seriously every time a game tries to improve the sound of its guns, the new sounds somehow turn out to be worse. This can easily be explained off as having a bias against change, but let's talk about it. Firstly, the guns are way too quiet in Borderlands. And they seem extra quiet in BL3, like worse than BL1 quiet. Maybe it’s a difference in subtlety, because let’s face it: It’s not like a microphone was stuck right next to an actual gun. In reality the sound designers probably had the microphone a good many feet away. This gives the gunshot more of a subtle popping sound rather than the huge blast that the person holding the gun actually experiences (hence why you wear earplugs when shooting guns in real life). But I’m going to put in my take on this matter: Guns need to have an impact in their noise. Now this doesn’t mean that guns sounds even need to be based on real guns or realistic in any shape or fashion. Borderlands is a game with a unique artstyle, so why can’t Borderlands have unique sound design?

It seems that every game nowadays wants the best sounding or most realistic guns to boot, however what happened to all that stylistic choice? Some of the best examples I can think of are Counter Strike’s western inspired whiff sounds for its older titles, Enter the Gungeon’s wide arrangement of different gun sounds, the cartoony gun shot effects for Wasted, and even Borderlands unique sound designs such as The Bane and the beam guns from TPS. These unique sound designs are missing for BL3’s guns and, despite Gearbox making an algorithm to suit one gun sound to thousands of guns, they all really sound the same. Not like you can’t tell the difference between what you’re shooting but in that all snipers sound like a generic sniper, all pistols sound like pistols. Of course you have to discount certain weapons like the Occultist that don’t even shoot the bullets respective of its weapon type. But the point is: this is a missed part of the game. I don’t necessarily like or dislike the realistic approach to the sound design of weaponry, but in a game that feels anything but realistic, the sounds aren’t doing it for me here.

But let’s reel it back to the game again, and get into the basic looting mechanics for this game. Upfront: It’s dumbed down, and takes little effort to get good gear. This is the part of the game where I fall out of my element (if I haven’t already), because I don’t really appreciate Borderlands for its RPG mechanics. It feels nice, and the act of finally getting something you grind out for hours if exhilarating (4 times magic missile), but it is far from how I prefer to play my games. Given this though, even I feel that legendaries drop way too often. Over my playthrough of just the main game content (I did 6 side quests on my first playthrough, and we’ll get to this) I collected tens of legendaries. When I was finished with the game I had 10 legendaries just sitting in my inventory that I was either actively using or keeping as a memorial item. This isn’t to mention that you literally get a chest at the end of the game that contain 4 legendaries in it. The loot dropping system is no longer satisfying at this point. And this isn’t just a matter of, “Oh they buffed the loot drops a little bit,” it’s a matter of the looting system becomes a complete joke when bosses can literally drop multiple legendaries without Mayhem, and will consistently drop multiple legendaries with Mayhem.

Assemble this with a forgiving leveling system, and now it’s just a dumbed down Borderlands experience. In previous Borderlands games, you couldn’t just do the main quest from start to finish. At some point you would eventually become underleveled, and paired with Borderlands’ trademark unforgiving and shitty rpg mechanics, meant that being 3 levels beneath an enemy granted you 10% damage reduction. This is no longer a worry, you can now play the main quests from start to finish with zero leveling hiccups. Or at least from my experience. Some reviews that I indulged in have said that they did have troubles with the leveling system, to which I rolled my eyes and had to immediately question what the hell they had done wrong. On normal mode I finished the campaign having only completed 6 side quests in total. One of these, to tie back to the looting system real quick, gave me a legendary elemental pistol that melted enemies for the next couple of zones. I also asked someone about their experience playing Borderlands 3 so far, only to learn that he had been doing every single quest that he was given and was massively overleveled come time for the first vault boss (he was level 21).

The bosses of Borderlands, this time around, were the best and the worst that the series has ever gotten. They’ve been massively revamped from the older system of AOE insta-kill moves to having actual attack patterns that you can skillfully avoid. To compensate for this, the bosses have been relatively tuned up to be more aggressive, throwing out more attacks. These new bosses range from very good to very, very bad. Some of my favorites were the Graveward, the Penn and Teller styled boss (Pain and Terror), and Troy Calypso. The bosses that I ultimately ended up hating were Katagawa, the Rampager, the Warden, and the Anointed. These bosses either suffered from boring attack patterns, bullet spongy-ness, or a lack of direction on what you’re supposed to be doing to beat the boss. Katagawa and the Warden fit into this last category. For Katagawa I was confused by him taking inconsistent damage (he loses a ton of health on shield break) and the Warden I couldn’t figure out whether or not I was allowed to kill him early. This is because the Warden is styled around the Goliath from BL2, so whenever he kills one of his teammates he gains all of his health back and then levels up. It turns out that you can kill this boss early, I just had garbage guns for this fight. So to answer your question, yes I did get the Warden to max level, and what pursued was a 20-something minute boss fight where you run the boss around in circles and turn around to deal damage when you can, and then he would kill a minion and level up. The only way I managed to kill him was that when he did eventually hit max level, he would stop focusing his minions when on low health.

The bosses that were truly good were the ones that kept the player busy, while not being too spongy or time consuming. It should be noted that the spongy factor of a boss can be easily biased by what type of weapons you enter a boss fight with. Some of the bosses I thought were easier may have actually been harder for you or another player, and vice versa. However, I will speak more of a general design philosophy and less of a, “This guy had too much health,” philosophy. I loved the Graveward (while admittedly being underwhelming for a vault monster) because of his unique battle area and clear attacks that would make his weak point exposed. Having the entire floor tilted to the side while you’re spamming jump to save your life was a fun mechanic to work with, especially when you factor in dodgeable acid balls. This was a simple boss fight that had a unique spin on an FPS boss. Terror and Pain I loved for stylistic reasons and the meta-humor around putting characters themed around Penn and Teller in a game made by a company with a CEO who is super into magic. This boss is comparable to Mouthpiece, but actually just a straight upgrade. The arena you fight Terror and Pain in is far more interesting, the boss itself looks cool, and while I have honestly forgotten the attacks that the boss had, it was still a fun encounter. One of the attacks I do remember though is the floor lighting up to indicate that fire was going to shoot up to incinerate you, and felt far more fitting than getting blasted by a speaker turned up too loud.

Something that I disliked across the board with these bosses, and this is a massive opinion piece, is that the bosses were too easy. Sometimes I honestly wished I was playing Borderlands: The Bullet Hell. I really wanted a boss that wasn’t just going to engage my attention, but make me feel like, “Holy shit, holy shit, oh my god, I am going to die.” Actually, the entire game was pretty damn easy. Although this can come down to a lot of reasons such as ally NPCs now being able to revive you, and the upped pacing of the game causing players to need to rely less on cover.

And I mean, it’s not like the game stays easy forever right? After you complete the campaign on normal mode you then unlock True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM) and the brand new, super cool, “Badass-,” oh whoops I mean, “Guardian Ranks.” The end game is perhaps the most disappointing thing is this game for hardcore veterans of the Borderlands series. Firstly, that “reworked” end game comes in the form of the new badass ranking system, only this time you can’t disable it (This pieceo of information has become outdated with time, a future update has included the option to turn off these gaurdian perks and the passive bonuses). I mean, this time you get some rewards for using the guardian ranks? Meh. Otherwise the game still revolves around making you play it multiple times in order to get to the level cap. The only real reworked thing here is the new mayhem difficulties, annnnd they’re bad. So what the mayhem system is supposed to do is make the game more difficult while incentivizing you to play it by giving you consistently better loot rewards (more blues, purples, and legendaries). This system would otherwise be okay if not for just one problem: Mayhem 2 added no difficulty to the game, while Mayhem 3 felt typical to Borderlands end game difficulty (It should be noted that the Mayhem system has been revamped to include 10 Mayhem levels). Again, this may be because of my own personal experience with the game, see apparently Flak is outright broken when it comes to crits (Future updates have severely nerfed Flak). So this could be influencing my opinion greatly on this difficulty switch. But I’ll say that I had no reason not to play Mayhem 2, because for essentially no difficulty increase, the game started commonly dropping me blues, purples, and legendaries, while rarely spitting out a green.

At this point I had essentially had enough with the game, as my terrible, clunky inventory was constantly filling with valuables, and I had to make constant stops to dump stuff out of my inventory. Given this, the fact that Mayhem gave you a ludicrous amount of XP for very little difficulty on Mayhem 2, and a quick Google search about the raid bosses in the game, I’ve ultimately put the game down. I went from level 39 to 44 in the span of an hour, was being drowned in good loot, and the biggest sting of all: There are no raid bosses in the base game of Borderlands 3.

This is a massive review for a game that probably doesn’t deserve it. Borderlands 3 has a lot of ups and downs. It’s not a game that many people will enjoy for the story. Veteran players may have a distaste for the lack of an interesting end game. All in all, if you’re playing Borderlands 3, you’re probably playing it for the gunplay and the loot, which still, somewhat, hold up. I didn’t see how the game had a billion guns, but you know what, that’s alright. And after all of the controversy, and now that Gearbox is releasing patches, performance fixes, and balancing to the game, it’s not that bad of a game. The game just doesn’t strike me as the godlike triple A, return to Borderlands that many had hoped for. Overall, I would give the game a 6/10.

EDITOR'S NOTE: There used to be a video here demonstrating a supposed XP glitch that had occurred to me while playing through True Vault Hunter Mode while using Mayhem. It turns out that, at the time, this was an intentional mechanic for Mayhem to give you massive XP gains. To correct for this error, the video has been pulled from Youtube and this paragraph has been written, as well as all mentions of the XP glitch being pulled from this article.

-Count_

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #critique #review

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thecoroutfitters · 7 years

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With summer comes great joy, but great dangers also lurk around almost every corner. Okay, the situation may not be as dramatic as I describe it, but the thing is, summer’s heat waves do present a clear and present danger to one’s health, especially in a survival situation.

The thing with summer is that almost all of us are gearing up for going out and experiencing epic adventures. Summer is vacation season and the best time of the year for businesses such as water parks, hot air balloon rides, bungee jumping resorts, para-sailing docks, and so on and so forth.

You see where this is going, right? Keep reading to find out!

Well, while you’re standing in line at any of these fine establishments, the thought that goes through your mind is probably, “This is how I’m going to die?”

Truth be told, this pessimistic state of mind is the logical consequence of years of horror stories pushed by the mainstream media, depicting terrifying accidents and misfortunes that people suffered during their summer holiday.

People died in all sorts of gruesome circumstances while having the time of their lives, i.e. when their hot-air balloon drifted into high-power lines, their parachute failed or their boat flipped at high speeds or on rushing rivers. Folks died or lost limbs while enjoying the ultimate ride at amusement parks or when hiking without proper training/guidance etc.

The nightmarish stories of good times gone bad go on and on.

And then there’s always death from exposure. To give you a grim statistic, heat exposure kills thirty outdoor workers on average on a yearly basis.

What we’re about talking here are agricultural, roofing, construction and landscaping workers; these folks are particularly at risk, especially during heat waves which promote heat-related deaths and illnesses such as heat stroke and heart attacks.

How will you survive when there is no doctor around?

Keep in mind that the elderly are particularly affected by heat waves and in some geographical locations (like Arizona), air conditioning is not a luxury, but a necessity.

#1 Killer in the Summer Is…

So, let’s begin with the biggest killer during the summer season, which is heat, obviously.

Prolonged exposure to heat – especially humid heat – would have immediate effects on one’s health and state of mind alike. Heat stroke and heat exhaustion are the most common issues associated with scorching heat, but sometimes the effects of prolonged exposure to excessive heat may take odd forms.

The most important thing one must realize during the summer is that dehydration is a killer. To stay properly hydrated, you should drink at least 2 liters of water per day (or approximately half a gallon), but that’s an average figure and it depends upon your age, gender, physical condition, and circumstances.

For example, you’ll require way more than 2 liters of water per day if you’re hiking in scorching heat or if you’re working out, rather than staying indoors in a house without air conditioning etc. That’s common sense, though.

If you don’t drink enough water to replace the loss of fluids which occurs via sweating, you’ll put your body in a state of emergency, as your body is losing salt and water and not getting enough electrolytes.

Salt, magnesium, and potassium imbalances caused by dehydration may cause cramps, cardiac arrhythmia, dizziness, and confusion – basically your brain doesn’t work right.

For people who aren’t used to heat, there’s also always the risk of heat edema and, worst case scenario, a fatal heat stroke when your body gives up and stops sweating. This occurs when you’re exposed to extreme heat for long periods of time and is called anhidrosis.

However, the most common problem that occurs during a summer heat wave is heat exhaustion.

Heat exhaustion is a consequence of one’s body losing significant amounts of salt and water; sans electrolytes, the body can’t cope with heat anymore. Salt and potassium are the two primary minerals that control your blood pressure and when you sweat, they’re two of the first that you lose.

Obviously, heat exhaustion and all heat related ailments are particularly dangerous in a survival situation, i.e. when you’re outdoors hiking, climbing, or whatever.

Heat exhaustion’s first symptom is when the core temperature rising above 98.6, your normal body temperature, resulting in intense thirst, heavy sweating, dizziness, and an overwhelming feel of fatigue. Your body is literally starting to cook.

The first thing that you need to do is get out of the heat if possible and hydrate, obviously. Avoid strenuous activities during the day in open sunny spots, especially if there’s a heat-wave warning.

Now, if heat exhaustion sets in, you must find a cool, shaded location and remove the victim’s clothes, including (especially) the shoes and socks then, apply wet clothes to the victim’s face, head, neck, and if possible, their feet.

Spray with cool water if possible. Encourage the victim to drink as much water as possible. Sport drinks (if available) are great, as they contain minerals and vitamins (the famous electrolytes included) together with sugar, which gives the body a boost but push water, too.

Try to get medical aid as soon as possible, especially if you spot the early signs of a heat stroke (way worse than heat exhaustion), which include:

profuse sweating or hot,

dry skin,

a core temperature of around 104 degrees F (or higher),

feeling cold (yes, it seems strange, but it’s a fact),

loss of consciousness, and/or seizures.

All of these symptoms are signaling that the body’s mechanisms for coping with heat have failed and he/she’s at the death’s door. Heat strokes are very serious as they have a mortality rate of about ten percent, and yes, people really do die in extreme heat conditions, and it’s not rare.

Most people who die during heat waves are elderly folk living in big cities in the upper floors of buildings, especially old, inadequately ventilated condo buildings. Just in the US, over 600 people die annually and thousands visit emergency rooms due to extreme heat conditions.

Since we’ve already established that heat is a silent killer, as the weather gets more extreme, avoid the main danger by staying out of the sun. If you’re outdoors on foot, avoid traveling during the day, and do it by night, like Bedouins.

If you find yourself traveling or lost in the wilds in the heat, drinking lots of water and covering your head and your entire body in white (best case scenario) sheets would go a long way toward preserving your body’s reserve of electrolytes if traveling during the day.

The rule of the thumb is that when your core temperature gets above 104 degrees Fahrenheit, you’re in serious trouble.

Obese and elderly people are especially vulnerable to heat, and small children have tiny hearts which are not always capable of cooling their bodies efficiently. Kids also have a slow sweat response, which puts them in danger in extreme situations.

And here are a few more hints on surviving the heat:

try to avoid caffeine and alcoholic beverages (they act as diuretics) during heat waves,

maintain a proper level of hydration at all times,

when indoors, try to eliminate extra sources of heat (computers and appliances left running, computers, etc.),

don’t eat big, protein-rich meals as they warm the body by increasing metabolic heat, be ready to recognize the early symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke and take action.

Beware the Dangers in the Water!

Another thing to keep in mind during the hot summer season is that jumping in public swimming pools, lakes and ponds are not the best ideas for beating the heat wave. You should think at least twice before diving in these cesspools, which are giant petri dishes by any definition, leaving aside that going into cold water when you body is overheated can bring on a heart attack.

Even chlorinated swimming pools are filled with chlorine-resistant bacteria (think Cryptosporidium, a bacteria living in the stomach, E.coli etc.) which can cause all sorts of disease, especially for people with immune issues.

Freshwater lakes and rivers are also home to a myriad of bacteria, viruses, and amoebas. All these tiny bugs that flourish in warm water may cause diarrhea and vomiting, which are exacerbating the dangers of dehydration, if you catch my drift.

And with dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke are just around the corner, provided you don’t deal with it immediately. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes – less than 30 – for the situation to go from bad to worse if the conditions are right.

Besides the relatively harmless e Coli and Cryptosporidium, there are killer bacteria and viruses in lakes and rivers, which can infect you via water getting inside the nasal passage and then to the brain.

For example, Naegleria fowleri can cause a deadly infection of your CNS (central nervous system), called amoebic meningo-encephalitis.

There are dangers in paradise too, especially during the summer season when these places are packed full of people trying to relax and enjoy their vacations.

When Summer Turns into Disaster

The beach may look like paradise on Earth, but it’s not all fun and serenity. Beaches are also filled with dangers, and we’re not talking about heat stroke alone. Coastal areas in some parts of the planet are prone to tsunamis and others to hurricanes.

One may say that beaches are prime real estate when it comes to natural disasters, hence, stay frosty and learn your escape routes just in case disaster hits. Most coastal areas are using early warning systems including sensors which monitor storm and earthquake activity and issue hurricane/tsunami alerts.

Toxic algal blooms happen almost every summer in places like Florida, on its Gulf Coast especially. Algal blooms kill fish and shellfish and they also render them unsafe to eat. Remember to avoid eating shellfish and fish from areas affected by toxic algal blooms; also, avoid swimming in waters infested by these critters.

Even if shark attacks are relatively rare, keep in mind that where there are fish in the ocean, there also might be sharks, hence avoid swimming near fishing areas and also avoid murky waters and areas were fishing boats and diving sea birds abound.

It’s also important to remember not to swim alone, sharks or not, and never at dawn or dusk because that’s when sharks feed. Watches and jewelry gleam like fish scales in the water, so get rid of them.

Another danger for beach goers is rip currents, which may pull even the Olympic swimming champion away from the shore. These fast-moving currents of water kill at least one hundred people annually, especially at surf beaches, and those are just US figures.

If you’re caught in such a rip current, try not to fight it. Go with the current and swim parallel to the beach, and try to swim back to shore once you manage to pull out of the current. If that doesn’t do the job, try to float/tread water until the current stops and try to call for help.

Edge Sports Have Their Price

Parasailing is an awesome summer activity for thousands of Americans. If you’re not from this planet, parasailing means that you’re towed behind a boat using a parachute canopy while flying like Superman.

Even though this may sound safe as far as extreme sports go, the majority of fatal parasailing accidents occur as a result of high wind conditions. To play it safe, make sure the weather is friendly before engaging in such crazy activities, alright?

Scuba diving is another all-time favorite activity doing the summer season, but is plunging in deep blue waters safe? Well, pretty much yes, but there are caveats to that.

The most common causes of death during scuba diving are oxygen supply problems, cardiac issues, and emergency ascent. To play it safe when scuba diving, make sure you are prepared for the water and you’ve learned all the techniques from your instructor.

Next on the list is skydiving. Skydiving is immensely fun for those crazy bastards with no self-preservation instincts. I’m kidding, but yes, skydiving is becoming increasingly popular among certain folk during summer vacation.

Even though you’re more susceptible to death by a lightning strike or a bee sting than due to skydiving gone wrong, make sure to look for riggers, jumpers and pilots with proper certification before making the big jump into the abyss. The same goes for bungee jumping.

White water rafting is another dangerous summer activity and there are tons of potential hazards involved in this awesome water sport. To reduce risks associated with white water rafting, never boat alone, wear a life jacket and a helmet at all times, and don’t overestimate your skills.

If you’re a hot air balloon aficionado, make sure your ‘ballooner” has all the necessary paperwork and be aware of adverse weather conditions, especially wind, before getting in the basket.

Whatever you do during summer, stay safe and be aware of the dangers. Ultimately, learn your lesson about first aid and surviving without medical assistance. Click the banner below to get the knowledge!

I hope the article helped. If you have other ideas or comments, feel free to use the dedicated section below!

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

#SHTF #TEOTWAWKI #MARTIALLAW #BUGOUT #PREPPERBAG #USAF #USSOCOM #ARMY #NAVY #SurvivalFirestarter #Sur

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tyrantisterror · 7 years

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THE ATOM Create A Kaiju Contest Masterpost

It’s done! After nearly two months, the ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest has finally come to a close! Now it’s time for the part of the contest that actually requires significant effort on my part: picking winners and giving out prizes. This will be an incredibly difficult task because they’re all so fucking good. You guys submitted dozens of original monsters to me, creating a bizarre and wonderful menagerie. I wish they could ALL be winners, but I don’t have time to make 79(!!!) different kaiju files in a timely manner, so we’re gonna have to narrow it down a bit.

Of course, if you remember the rules of the contest, you know that every entry gets a prize by default: a sketch of each kaiju by me, with a few sentences or so of commentary as well. So here, below the cut, are the 79 (!!!) different monsters made for the world of ATOM by viewers like you!

Two special notes before we begin:

First, for the written entries: I tried to interpret everything as faithfully as I could. All the descriptions were wonderfully detailed, but as we all know, two people can read the same description and get two entirely different images in their head. There are more than a few written entries where I wasn’t 100% certain my interpretation was correct - like, where I realized it could mean something very different than what I thought it meant. So apologies if I got your vision a teensy bit wrong - I am a fallible man.

Second, for the illustrated entries: while I mostly tried to preserve your designs as they were presented, every now and then I threw out modifications - whether it was about translating between one artistic style or another, or because the concept you pitched for your monster reminded me of some things I have planned in my little fictional and haven’t thought of yet. In short, any changes made were to make your monsters fit in the ATOM universe just a little better. Again, apologies - I am a fallible man.

@raffleupagus‘s entries:

Engineered by a mad scientist to kill other kaiju with its single, enormous leg, Pogo Tomiyama is one of the weirdest concepts this contest threw out, and as you’ll soon see, that is saying something! Mixing a giant bug with one of the most iconic toys of the 1950′s is such a strange idea, but also totally in line with the aesthetic of ATOM - it’s all about that atom age nostalgia.

Pogo’s nemesis, the heroic Kaerugon, isn’t quite as bizarre, but the fact that a big toad with an even more preposterously long tongue is the “hero” of this tale is still pretty excellent (and fitting, given Pogo’s status as a great big gnat). Kareugon also reminds me, intentionally or not, of the heroic toad from The Magic Serpent, an obscure and weird little fantasy movie from Japan that ends in a pretty decent low budget kaiju battle, so props there.

@bugcthulhu‘s Entries:

Bloated and slimy, Bocagran is a prehistoric amphibian that floats because of his gassy innards. He’s got a nice Rat Fink vibe to him, mixing creepy, pathetic, and cute vibes in a way I absolutely love. His creator mentioned The Giant Claw as an inspiration, and despite one being a giant salamander and the other being a vulture, I can see it - both manage to blend “goofy” and “creepy” together into one lovable package.

A perfect companion to the Writhing Flesh and Pathogen, Dreg plays with the idea of nuclear strikes making kaiju more monstrous in an entirely new way. Having been hit by a nuclear bomb while still in his mother’s womb (well, technically still in the egg that was still in his mother but whateves), Dreg’s kaiju physiology is dangerously and uniquely unstable. He shifts between a pathetic fetal form and a mangy but dangerous fighting form depending on how well fed he is - which means he constantly has to devour flesh to maintain any semblance of power and security as a monster. Monstrous in appearance and deed, but not necessarily by nature, Dreg is as pitable as he is terrifying.

@takingturnsatrandom‘s Entries:

An enormous echinoderm even by kaiju standards (it towers over Tyrantis by 50 feet!), Blasteroid gets around in an ingenious way that would make Godzilla and Gamera proud: it flies via a pressurized jet of water! It’s one of the cooler kaiju powers I’ve ever heard of, and it’s made even cooler by the fact that Blasteroid is unambiguously heroic - continuing the ATOM tradition of non-humanoid monster being sympathetic despite their inhuman appearance.

Looking much like a modern day chupacabra sighting, Sibuan is the second (and far from the last) mangy monster in our list. As you may know, I’m slightly afraid of/repulsed by dogs, so I kinda love that the first canine monster entered into the contest is so scuzzy. Sibuan is definitely a tragic monster, though still a fearsome one with her toothy jaws and bristle-y fur.

Hammerbeak gives me a specific sort of Ultraman monster vibe - like, you can see the base animal (cassowary) in the design, but it goes down a lot of strange paths before it finishes its journey from beast to monster. The long tail tipped with a thagomizer is a particularly fun touch - it’s not often you see a bird monster take after an ankylosaur.

I tried my best not to make Vermamand’s moth look inappropriate, but Planarians work the way they work, you know? Since Planarians literally look like cheap, googly eyed monster toys, using one as a basis for an ATOM-verse monster is pretty ingenious - this fella would fit in well alongside Karamtor and Googora. The ribbon-like body also gives this worm a very distinct visual presence.

There are a lot of ways you could make an arboreal creature like a chameleon into a kaiju, but making their tree-climbing adaptations suited for an aquatic lifestyle has to be one of the nuttier ones. Turning those clasping oven mitts into flippers is such a weird idea, but it works so well!

@cerothenull‘s Entries:

A flying retrosaur that traded speed in flight for the ability to swim as well (and thus becoming triphibian), Aiguan ended up looking like the lovechild of Gamera and Gyaos. I’m not sure if that was intentional or just a lucky accident of how I read the description, but its a point in her favor regardless. I love how this takes retrosaurs - a fairly well explored monster type in ATOM - in an entirely different direction than we’ve seen in the canon monsters.

Osteogre is a strange blend of retrosaur, placoderm, and just a little bit of Creature of the Black Lagoon - ok, maybe more than a little in my rendering, but it couldn’t be helped. As soon as you say “humanoid fish” my brain goes pretty hard on the Gill Man imagery. I like that Osteogre’s chimeric build is left as a mystery - how did such different creatures get crossed together? The world may never know.

Centipedes are generally considered pretty ominous animals, so of course an ATOM-verse centipede monster would be a giant sweet heart. Scutlgor’s description had just enough specific details to set her apart from normal centipedes, allowing her to fit in with the other arthropod monsters in ATOM just fine. I also like that personality-wise she’s basically the experienced nanny to Bobo’s teenaged babysitter - those two would get along really welly.

One of the missed opportunities of ATOM was the inclusion of one Japanese mythology inspired monster in the Japan arc - a King Shisa/Manda equivalent, basically. I tried a couple of designs (both Kappa and Baku inspired kaiju were considered), but nothing gelled. So it’s kind of awesome to see a monster filling that niche pop up here in the contest, and the idea of blending an Oni’s features with a sasquatch’s is pretty inspired. Onigoro’s face was particularly fun to figure out - and yes, I worked just a little bit of Aku in there.

Cerothenull’s final entry also hits upon another monster I briefly considered but dropped from ATOM’s final lineup: the Jersey Devil. The Frankenstein-style origin for Ublen is pretty inspired, and the manic personality caused by his hybrid brain would make for some pretty awesome and scary scenes of kaiju havoc. He also maintains the idea that the scariest monsters in ATOM are also generally pitiable, which is important to me.

@skarmorysilver‘s Entries:

ATOM has been on the internet for over a decade now, albeit under different titles (from “Tyrantis’s Saga” to “The Second Age of Monsters” and on and on), and many kaiju have been added and cut from the story in that long stretch of time. Skarmorysilver chose to take a couple concepts that had been dropped and rework them a bit, and one of the monsters he rescued was this lovely blue sabre tooth cat. I’m surprised there aren’t more sabre tooth cat monsters, honestly - it’s such an iconic prehistoric predator, which you think would make it excellent kaiju fodder. Julkath here is a solid take on the concept, mixing in bits of snow leopard and a hulking, almost bear-like physique as well as a lovably grumpy disposition.

ATOM shares a universe with a few other stories that belong to somewhat different genres, and has made a few winking references to them throughout its 50 canon kaiju files. So it was to be expected that at least a few monsters entered in this contest would continue that idea. Bamutan here, while considered just a weird long fish in ATOM’s modern (well, 1950′s) world, is actually a leviathan, i.e. a big sea serpent that survived the purge of magic in the world (it’s a whole thing, don’t worry about it). Bamutan is specifically descended from the Jasconius breed of leviathans, and thus has a friendly disposition - which makes her sort of the “good” counterpart of Old Meg as far as ATOM’s sea monsters go.

Another monster saved from the scrapheap, Oz is reinvented here as a prehistoric flying marsupial - one with a whole litter of babies (not pictured here) at that! We got a lot of weird Australian kaiju from this contest, and Oz makes for a Aussie good counterpart/foil for Ahuul. Plus she adds another weird monster to the “prehistoric mammal” roster, which is always welcome.

While kaiju are defined as organic beings in ATOM, a lot of entrants tried to push the limits of that definition as much as possible, and Gnashphalt here is a pretty successful example of how far it could stretch. A rotting heap of tar and garbage animated by kaiju-fied bacteria, Gnashphalt is a grisly looking monstrosity driven by an insatiable hunger for both oil and the Yamaneon that powers its fellow kaiju. It is suitably revolting for a Hedorah/Blob expy, an archetype that ATOM doesn’t quite fill on its own.

@dinosaurana‘s Entries:

Karamtor used to have a lot of fellow Venusian monsters to keep her company, but their designs were a little redundant. Barusstrakk avoids that pitfall by being really fuckin’ weird looking, with a body described as looking like a meteor and tons of “craters” that hide little secret tentacles. Its most obvious physical trait, though are its hammer and sickle arms, which give it a sort of USSR vibe. This is particularly appropriate given Barusstrakk’s chief opponent is:

Yeah that’s a rock-robot made out of Mt. Rushmore. While not quite a kaiju per ATOM’s definition, it is powered by yamaneon, and also look at this crazy fucking thing. President Rushmore reminds me of that one episode of Dexter’s Lab where Dexter and Mandark turn the Washington and Lincoln heads into robots to battle it out, only for the Rushmore bots to realize they’re both super honest dudes and bond as friends over it. What a crazy show. What a crazy monster.

@theload‘s Entries:

ATOM’s world is an alternate universe for a lot of reasons, one of which is that its mesozoic era was a lot different than ours - instead of being ruled by prehistoric birds, it was dominated by weird crocodile descendants called retrosaurs. Birds still evolved during this period, but they didn’t dominate the world the way they did in our Mesozoic era. Pengku fleshes out that alternate evolutionary path for birds by presenting a very different sort of ancestral bird than the ones we know existed - specifically one based on very old and outdated ideas on what the ancestral bird may have looked like. Essentially a feathered, flying lizard, Pengku is as adorable as she is intriguing, and helps flesh out the alternate prehistory of ATOM.

Parakon isa Hoogah, i.e. a member of a group of dragon-like reptiles from the more fantasy-inspired part of ATOM’s universe. I hadn’t quite nailed the design philosphy of Hoogahs yet when Parakon was entered in the contest, so I took the liberty of tweaking his design just a tad to better fit with his peers. Like the magical monsters he’s related to, Parakon is sweet natured and friendly. His dimetrodon sail styled wings make him just plausible enough to fit within the sci-fi aesthetic of ATOM, too!

@connorricks‘s Entries:

Dangalar’s entry is absolutely hilarious, as his pitch is basically “what if a giant monster actually looked like a giant marionetter puppet that was poorly composited into reality?” He moves in a strange, jerky fashion, he’s held aloft by string connected to some invisible puppeteer, and no one knows what the hell he’s supposed to be. It’s absolutely eerie and yet also incredibly hilarious - and somehow manages to be even more meta than is usual for ATOM.

If nothing else, this contest made a lot of great friends fro The Writhing Flesh. Normus’s design was inspired by a picture of a half-dressed Godzilla suit actor - human above the waster, dinosaur below. In story, he’s basically what would happen if someone tried to fuse a human with three different retrosaur monsters and kaijufied the result - the kind of mad science that’s horrifyingly common in ATOM’s world. Normus is a pitable monster, but I like to think he’d eventually get used to his situation and find a way to enjoy being a giant freakish retrosaur-man.

@titleknown‘s Entries:

Our first monster designed to be ATOM’s equivalent of Ultraman, Malorel is also the strangest – and again, that’s pretty strange considering how this contest goes. Part of Malorel’s weirdness comes from the fact that she also homages The Monolith Monsters as well as characters from a couple of shows I haven’t watched yet. Like President Rushmore, Malorel isn’t a traditional kaiju, as she is mostly composed of inorganic matter. The bulk of Malorel’s body is made of Yamaneon crystals and a second substance that’s sort of the anti-Yamaneon (implied by titleknown to be Magic), while only the chewy center of the being is made of a flesh and blood human. Said human also directs Malorel’s actions, which is why she ends up fighting kaiju to defend mankind. I took a few liberties with Malorel’s design – Yamaneon crystals have a very distinct shape, and if ATOM-verse Magic were to manifest physically it would be as a gas instead of a solid – but I tried to keep the spirit in tact.

Jimmy Neutron was a pretty fun show. Panku is basically a kaiju-scaled version of the mech-suit wearing egg monsters from it, and since both Jimmy Neutron and ATOM are built on atom age sci-fi tropes, it meshes pretty well.

Based on a famous non-giant monster from the 1950’s, Jan in the Pan from The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, The Head is possibly the most explicitly villainous monster entered in the contest. A megalomaniacal supervillain whose machinations affect the storyline of every monster Titleknown entered in the contest, The Head is a force to be reckoned with even before she kaiju-fies herself. The visual of a big giant floating head battling giant monsters is pretty surreal, and the creepy neck tendrils make for a grisly visual that’s quite appropriate for such a sinister villain.

Javellaro forms an important bridge between the “humanity learns to live with monsters” story of ATOM and the “human hero kills monsters of the week” story of Titleknown’s entries. A pig whose artificial kaijufication was botched by The Head, Javellaro’s healing factor is degraded enough to not work fully, yet powerful enough to keep her going despite how painful her should-be-lethal wounds are. Her pitiable condition draws audience sympathy while still making us comfortable with Malorel putting her down – it’s honestly a mercy in this pig’s case. Tragic and haunting, Javellaro poignantly illustrates how a kaiju can invoke pathos.

A second pseudo-mecha, Playboy Rumble is similar to President Rushmore in that she’s neither a traditional mech nor a true kaiju. Instead, she’s a super powered human piloted a hard light construct (which would probably be called a hologram in ATOM’s time period) via mad science. Her human form was created to be a minion and eventual replacement body for the Head, but, in true mad science fashion, turned against her master and joined with Malorel. Playboy Rumble is also sort of our third Ultraman homage, being a human with a thing in her chest that lets her turn into a giant to fight monsters for a period of time. Also she’s a giant bunny bot, and you gotta love that.

@canadian-tuxedo-mask‘s Entries:

A hybrid of a giant ground sloth and literally the entire audience of a drive in movie theater (or their ghosts?), X-Nertha is another monster that I’m gonna label one of the weirdest ideas submitted to this contest - though, like Pogo, that weirdness is totally in line with ATOM’s aesthetic principles of mixing kaiju with 1950′s nostalgia. X-Nertha’s personality is as unique as its design, as it is a perennial spectator of other kaiju fights, rather than a combatant itself. I did my best to work in 1950′s car elements to the design, though I’m not particularly good at drawing cars in general.

Ok, nothing in Butch’s description said he was a Greaser, but nothing said he wasn’t a Greaser, and his name is Butch, so here we are. Captain Sensation’s supernatural elements aren’t apparent in an isolated black and white sketch - you need color to see the green parts of him and another monster to realize he’s kaiju-sized. I also didn’t realize until re-reading his entry that he’s got a superhero costume I could have drawn instead - look, some part of me just wanted to draw a giant Greaser, ok? Is that ok? I’m pretty fond of Butch. He’s a giant dude who shoots hot sauce (well if you want to get technical it’s just the acid from peppers but shush) out his eyes like a horned lizard and punches monsters to save the world. He’s our second or third (depending on how you count) Ultraman homage, and a damn good one at that.

An homage to the Wasp Woman (one of my favorite 1950′s monster concepts that sadly had a lackluster execution), Malzzang is an insidious Korean crime boss who uses kaiju-fied giant hornets to further her schemes, only to become one of them herself via a strange turn of events! She’s wicked and sinister even before she becomes a monster, and is an excellent “heel” kaiju. Also she gave me an excuse to draw a giant hornet with a woman’s head, and that’s always great.

Lance is another monster that takes its base animal in some weird directions, from his name-worthy pointy snoot to his slug-like eyestalks. He’s also got a dog’s brain, which somehow just makes everything weirder. He’s still got a lot of what makes an oppossum adorable though, and his personality is utterly charming.

This is one of the monsters where I felt I had a good feel of what they were going for until, like, the last sentence of the description that made me doubt the whole thing, but I liked how it turned out anyway. There should probably be a moray eel head in there somewhere - let's say it's hiding behind the seaweed. I love the idea of this giant heap of a sea monster made out of all these disparate parts - he's like the better aspects of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 rolled into one giant monster.

@highly-radioactive-nerd‘s Entries:

It’s a well-known fact that the original Baragon costume – one of the best monster suits ever made in the Showa movies – was used and reused to make so many different monsters that it was barely functional by the time Toho wanted to make Destroy All Monsters. There are so many pseudo-Baragons out there, so it’s only fitting that ATOM got one of its own. It already has a Baragon homage of course, but Blastra here is specifically designed to be a reused Baragon suit, complete with a new head and some extra doodads.

I love this guy because he does something fairly difficult: he makes me interested in duckbilled dinosaurs. Sibelisaurus takes the idea that hadrosaurs had musical horns and runs with it, making a dinosaur whose body is designed to resemble a variety of musical instruments and even has some markings that look like musical notes and rests. It’s a very clever idea that works way better than you’d think, and takes what could have been a plain retrosaur and instead makes it very interesting.

While there are lots of King Kong homages out there, surprisingly few use baboons as a base, which is shame because they’re utterly vicious and weird looking animals. King Solomon takes that savage inspiration and adds an interesting layer of greed to it – he’s not just called King because he’s big and strong, but because he hoards shiny objects. It’s like if King Kong was significantly more literal about his title.

Salagara captures the feel of a 1970’s Hanna Barbara monster perfectly, looking as if he just stepped out of the Godzilla Power Hour or The Herculoids. He’d have good company in that regard, as many of the Beyonders’ monsters were also designed to fit that vibe. His design is simple but effective, and I never tire of aliens with eyestalks.

A mummy, a landshark, AND a retrosaur, Tutandra blends three very different things into one well rounded whole. He pulls in the “archaeology adventure” story that’s also common in atom age sci-fi and mixes it with ATOM’s giant monster narrative, and the result is pretty great. Also, again, this is a giant mummified retrosaur that swims through sand like a shark. What’s not to love?

@glarnboudin‘s Entries:

Salikor is a loose homage to the primary monster of one of my favorite obscure kaiju movies, The Legendof Dinosaurs and Killer Birds. Like the plesiosaur in that film, Salikor emerges from a lake and proceeds to wreak bloody havoc upon the human populace, leaving a trail of blood and carnage in his wake until he finally has a fateful encounter with a flying retrosaur. His design is suitably vicious looking, with lipless crocodile-style exposed teeth and an armored hide.

Terravia emerges around the same time as Salikor, but unlike the monsters that inspired them, the two end up becoming lovers despite being wildly different species. It’s a pretty weird turn for a kaiju story, but not an unheard of one (more than a few lost Godzilla movie projects have similar premises). Terravia mellows Salikor out a bit, and their story has a sort of sweet “make love, not war” theme that fits ATOM well enough.

A lot of people like the idea of making retrosaurs fill niches that dinosaurs eventually filled when they became full on birds, and Tabbaogen here is an answer to the question of what a retrosaur penguin might look like. The answer is “pretty ridiculous and fun.” As his name suggests, he uses his body as a sled, much as penguins do. He’s also a lot more dangerous than he appears, which is always fun – he’d make a good tag team partner for Gorale.

@akitymh‘s Entries:

A vampiric newt from another world, Kabold’s head gives me a nice Wayne Barlowe vibe. It also reminds me a bit of Irys from Gamera 3, which is pretty neat. Its six limbed body is simple while still distinctly alien, and it has a nice collection of little tuber-thingies on its body. I love those little tuber thingies.

King Horn reminds me of all the space gorillas from Silver Age comics despite not actually being a gorilla. He’s very definitely alien, yet also unmistakably ape-y, and that’s pretty cool. Also, like a certain Ultraman monster, his name is slightly misleading, as his horns aren’t particularly prominent. I don’t know if that was intentional, but I like it.

Going with the Ultraman vibe of the last entry, Rampart here feels like a monster who was designed for a specific fight scene. Those two enormous armored plates would make for some very unique battles, with the retrosaur in between them providing just enough normalcy to ground the design. I also like how the taxonomic placement of this guy is unclear in-universe – it’s a nice touch.

I figured I took Martian anatomy about as weird as it could go with Podritak, but Sevarahz here might top that. His phallic head section is wonderfully gross, and his pelvic section, while recognizably Martian, is distorted into a really weird shape. The “tail” should probably have more limited joints since it’s technically a third leg (and Martian legs have a distinct bone structure and all), but it looks better as a serpentine tail, so we’ll let that anatomy slide a bit.

Akitymh’s final entry is Awkwas, and he’s basically a what you see is what you get monster: a great big retrosaur with a bearded dragon style frill, ready to fight other monsters and have a fun rowdy time. He doesn’t have a lot of frills to him, but in a way that’s kind of refreshing – we’ve got a lot of weirdoes in this contest, so it’s nice to have a few simple monsters for contrast.

@quinnred‘s Entries:

The most Ultraman-looking of our Ultraman homages, Odinokiy Soldat still manages to be a very weird and unique take on the “human hero who fights kaiju” concept, with his jet black skin and bone-white armored plates. The turtle-like beak is a particularly wonderful and unsettling touch. I love that, despite his grotesque mad scientist origins, he’s unambiguously a heroic monster, protecting the USSR from kaiju threats just as Tyrantis protects the US. It’s important to me that ATOM doesn’t demonize the USSR, even though a lot of what they did with nuclear testing is great monster origin fuel. I feel Odinokiy Soldat tows that line really well – his origin is horrifying, but at heart he’s a good person who happens to be loyal to his mother country, Russia.

I love plant monsters even though they’re often frustratingly hard to make – it’s so hard not to just make a new flavor of Audrey II, y’know? Papaver Magnus here not only manages to feel entirely unique in design, but also brings an interesting story hook: she intoxicates other kaiju. Sometimes this puts them to sleep, while other times it drives them into a rage. She could be a useful tool for kaiju control, or manage to make a kaiju attack even more violent than normal. A great design with a great story concept!

I didn’t expect to see an homage to my favorite sandsverse vendor in this contest, but here we are. Even if you don’t get the joke, King Bekantan is a great spin on the giant ape monster archetype in his own right. Instead of being a rough and tumble warlord, King Bekantan is a peaceful farmer who cultivates the earth (fruits in particular) and basically tries to protect the environment. There’s something eerie and beautiful about the idea of some giant ape striding the land only to spend all its time farming – it’d be such a beautiful yet surreal sight.

A collection of massive crustaceans that pretend to be islands, the Humarr Petram take the medieval folktale of a living creature that’s mistaken for an island and give it a sinister atomic age spin. These would be one of the scariest kaiju to encounter, and could make for one kickass standalone story in the ATOM universe.

Finally, we come to the Slickener, an organic giant monster who may not technically be a kaiju, as its powers seem to have a negative effect on most Yamaneon-rich organisms. While you can identify the different terrestrial animals who inspired its design, the Slickener’s design nonetheless feels incredibly alien and off putting. It’s delightfully unsettling.

@godzillakiryu91‘s Entry:

Rayken takes a monster I’ve wanted to homage for a while - the titular beast from The Giant Gila Monster – and mixes it with the mythological amphisbaena to make a wonderfully lumpy monstrosity. The fact that you could also call this a “Beast with Two Heads” adds to the delightful B-Movie vibe, and that false second head could definitely produce a lot of fun scenes, both with human victims and fellow kaiju. Imagine a human shrieking as they think the monster’s about to eat them, only to realize they were looking at the wrong end! Hilarious.

@bowlofgabe‘s Entries:

A heroic pair of conjoined twin crabs. Hell. Fucking. Yes. Clawdia is the hero kaiju of Mexico, and as far as I’m concerned she’s just as fit for the job as Nastadyne and Tyrantis. Between her light psychic powers and love of luchadores, she has more than enough personality to carry her own series of adventures, and her sisterly bond with herself (Clawdia is technically two monsters in one) provides a nice emotional center for whatever those adventures may be.

Mixing a kaiju story with the darker sides of the space race, Eldritch Ed’s haunting origin story is paired with an oddly touching relationship between him and humankind. Despite being turned into a horrific monstrosity because of a botched experiment with Yamaneon and cosmic radiation, Ed devotes his life to protecting Earth from extraterrestrial threats, turning his accidental exile in earth’s orbit into guard duty. It’s hard to get more heroic than that.

@iamthekaijuking‘s Entries:

Plume is about as “realistic dinosaur”ish as an ATOM kaiju can get, exploiting the loophole within ATOM’s prehistory that states that a small lineage of dinosaurs who were direct ancestors of birds did exist alongside the Retrosaurs. She’s a pretty addition as well, a vibrant songbird of a monster who completes the trio of maternal monsters started by Bobo and Scutlgor.

Baby kaiju are adorable and I would have added more of them to ATOM if I wasn’t worried about their safety. Bubblor is basically an infant of a species very similar to Zillser, and takes everything cute about the later and amps it up a bit. That’s a lot of cute, even in such a big package.

Shēnghuó tǎ (my Godzilla font doesn’t have symbols with the little marks) hails from Ugugular’s planet and inexplicably resembles Chinese architecture, which is pretty rad. It’s the second of a trio of monsters that serve as “good” counterparts to the other Beyonder monsters. They probably defected almost immediately when the Invasion started.

Dhyandogen completes that trio, being a peaceful counterpart to The Great Beyonder and a stoic counterpart to Pleprah. His golden coloration gives him an almost angelic feel, and he makes for a good leader for this trio of extraterrestrial pacifists.

Essentially the Biollante to Tyrantis’s Godzilla, Unit 01 has one of the most tragic backstories of any kaiju submitted to the contest. Created to kill other monsters and then forced into stasis when not in use, her life is even more miserable and battle-heavy than those of the Beyonder’s kaiju, and her story culminates in a vicious rampage that humanity frankly deserves to suffer from.

@virovac’s Entries:

Themed around its power, Artileron is basically a wholly organic dinosaur tank. The heavily armored long necked goliath has head armor that coincidentally resembles a soldier’s helmet and shoots gastroliths at its enemies like tank shells, creating a pretty fun spin on the retrosaur concept. I imagine this guy talking like the Soldier from TF2 and it makes me happy.

A synapsid that evolved to coincidentally resemble paleo tyrant retrosaurs (which in turn are crocodiles that evolved to coincidentally resemble therapod dinosaurs), it’s my head canon that Bajingis is a member of the same species that Dreg’s mother belonged to. The idea of a big furry version of a retrosaur running around is cute, and could cause an interesting bit of confusion for the kaiju-ologists in ATOM’s world. Also, Bajingis is a fun name to say.

This is one where I’m pretty sure I misinterpreted the description, as a friend of mine pointed out that it was probably an homage to the ratbatcrabspider from Angry Red Planet, but I liked what I came up with so I’m sticking with it. Regardless of how off my drawing may be, Pomogitan is a crazy looking monstrosity of a kaiju, and definitely makes the extraterrestrial side of ATOM just a little crazier.

We’ve got more than a few apes in this contest already, but they’re kind of a male dominated archetype, aren’t they? It’s nice to have a lady or two to even things out, and Hagayag’s lumpy, hideous appearance definitely keeps things monstrous in the process. Since she’s described as being close to an orangutan, and since sasquatches are distant descendants of orangutans in ATOM’s world, I gave her a few sasquatch touches as well.

@plebeiantologist‘s Entries:

Mixing the vicious savagery of a hummingbird with the suave charm of a vampire, Nosferatu is an excellent solution to ATOM’s lack of bird monsters, as well as a clever and unexpected homage to Count Dracula. I love the serrated beak that evokes fangs without actually being them, and feel the same about how the interior markings of his wings resemble a scalloped opera cape without actually being one. He’s also not an evil monster – he needs to drink blood, sure, but that’s not lethal to most kaiju (just annoying), and he’s intelligent enough to smooth things over and even make deals with other monsters to get his sustenance. Overall, a cool and clever take on the idea of a kaiju Dracula.

We’ve got a lot of sad stories and a lot of silly stories in the contest so far, but none mix the two together as thoroughly as poor Dromeo here. A normal bee that was kaijufied, Dromeo wants nothing more than to find true love, mate, and die as a result of mating. However, as the only kaijufied bee of his species, he can’t find said mate, which means he lives in a perpetual state of longing. In addition to being extremely relatable, his situation is both hilarious and tragic.

I-Am-Fish-Mage’s Entries:

Another entry that plays with some of the more occult parts of ATOM’s universe, Gurt is what would happen if Pathogen used a dog instead of a retrosaur and the naturally occurring vampire virus instead of an artificial hybrid of different degraded strains of it. Or, more simply, a great big vampiric doggo. Gurt has the telltale signs of higher functioning vampirism, from the scar-like neck markings to the growth of bat wings. Very interestingly, Gurt’s kaiju physiology keeps him from fully exploiting the malleable nature of a strigoi vampire – instead of being able to turn into mist, Gurt can only become a sort of vampiric sludge, as his kaiju physiology refuses to transform into a gaseous state (Yamaneon can only exist as a mineral). It’s a really fun and well thought out cross of two very different monster types in ATOM’s universe.

While I haven’t made a file for them yet, between Promythigor’s file and various asks people have cleaned roughly how sasquatches work in ATOM. Ignorilla takes one of the weirder aspects of ATOMverse sasquatches – the fact that they’re mildly psychic and make people forget about them as a defense mechanism – and runs with it. The result is a giant monster that people have trouble seeing or remembering, which proves to be quite the hassle when it accidentally strolls on a collision course with mankind. It’s a great hook for a story, since it makes an otherwise fairly benign monster extremely dangerous through no fault of its own. Ignorilla also has plants growing in its fur, which is a nice nod to some other obscure sasquatch myths.

@bonelessnerd‘s Entries:

I couldn’t resist. Look, it was either this or drawing essentially the same pose as the original sketch – there are only so many ways to pose a hand that keep all of this glorious monstrosity’s anatomical quirks on display. Manoamano not only fills a niche ATOM didn’t manage to cover – i.e. the living body part monster – but does so in a unique and scary way, with the implication being that it’s merely a part of a much larger kaiju drifting out in the cosmos. It’s such a creepy plot that you almost forget it’s basically a giant hand with crab claw fingers and googly eyes. But you don’t, because a giant hand with crab claw fingers and googly eyes is awesome.

Like Humarr Petram, Nogad updates the “this island is secretly a monster” myth, although in this case the twist is a lot more sad than scary. Like the Writhing Flesh, Nogad’s bulk isn’t actually a positive, as the massive kaiju is stuck in a comatose state. It would die if its kaijufied parasites weren’t keeping it alive, and instead spends its life in a state of suspended animation, providing humans the rare opportunity to explore the internal workings of a kaiju without (too much) threat of harm. Nogad is spooky, sad, and intriguing, and would be a marvelously odd addition to ATOM’s kaiju ecosystem.

A size shifting dog with plastic skin, Rizablitz is basically Frankenweenie with an even bigger kaiju twist (and also less racism). The resurrected pupper can size shift from a normal sized dog to a kaiju-sized monster, and together with his owner he protects humanity. It’s a fun take on the “kid and their dog” story, and a nice light counterpoint to the previous two entries.

@polygonfighter‘s Entries:

A kaijufied personification of the La Brea Tar pits, Index is a mass of tar animated by kaijufied bacteria and wearing fossilized bones as armor. Its powers have a vaguely ghostly vibe, and it preys on its fellow kaiju with the aims of decorating its lair with their corpses even as they slowly turn into clusters of Yamaneon. Altogether it has a nice ghoulish vibe – the kind of monster that would make other monsters scared.

Another monster that has a great Hanna Barbara vibe, Volcanus’s bug-like appearance is mixed with some strangely human features to make it extra creepy (and also hard to place taxonomically). While he’s posed as a rival for Index, he definitely isn’t the heroic part of the duo, as Volcanus is noted to hate everyone, kaiju and human alike, with explosive intensity. Creepy and vicious, Volcanus is an excellent antagonist monster.

SirKaijuOfVaudeville’s Entry:

A great big subterranean monster, Torgong’s story is another one that brings in some Archaeological Adventure tropes to ATOM’s universe, providing a villainous contrast to the Reptodites with its society of subterranean mole people (mole in the “they live underground” sense, not the literal sense). Torgong’s owners are wicked race of rock eating cave dwellers who have enslaved another race of more peaceful, slightly insectoid cave dwellers. Torgong is of course their bestial god, and looks nice and freaky as a mole monster should.

@scatha5‘s Entry:

Being a mammal, Cervere brings some diversity to ATOM’s pantheon of monsters basically by default, but his powers are what truly make him shine. Cervere is designed to be a kaiju-repellant, with a scent designed to drive other kaiju away. That’s right: it weaponizes the odorous nature of mammals. Cervere releases this smell through a colored gas emitted by its mouth and ears, providing a nice visual for its power as well. Unfortunately for the lazy cat, the power can attract and repel in equal measure, and sometimes Cervere is forced to fight against monsters it was supposed to scare off. It’s a really clever power that makes ties this punk rock kitty together quite nicely.

@cstalli‘s Entry:

As beautiful as they are alien in appearance, the Trifitan Arum are a gorgeous entry in the contest (make sure to check out the original drawing, which is a lot prettier than anything I can manage). Though they appear humanoid, they’re entirely made of terrestrial (albeit hybridized and heavily mutated) plants. They’re also a swarming monster – weak individually, but strong when collected in a large group, making them sort of a benevolent counterpart to the Heisei Gyaos.

@profcene‘s Entry:

A prehistoric aquartic hyena, Gevlek is yet another monster that feels sort of like a Hanna Barbara design (and that is always a compliment here as far as monsters go). Contrary to stereotypes, Gevlek isn’t a malicious bully or a cowardly predator, but rather a social creature that wants a clan. Like most ATOM-verse monsters, though, he’s also kind of socially awkward, so finding that clan is harder than it seems – especially since he’s the only member of his species around. Still, he’s a clever creature, and, again like many of his peers, he proves a valuable ally once you get past his rough edges.

@ask-drakos‘s Entries:

There were far less birds than I was expecting in this contest, but on the plus side the ones we have are all varied and solid designs. Okhalee is a victim of quick kaijufication, much like the Myrmidants and Girtabane, which means he resembles a normal animal with some sudden and extreme mutations. Most notably, he takes the vocalizations that make songbirds so interesting and weaponizes them into a sonic scream – a power that’s strangely absent from ATOM’s lineup of kaiju given how prevalent it is in kaiju media. Kinda fills a couple missing niches at once, huh?

We end with Crab Voltron. Well, ok, technically Crustacean Voltron since they’re not all crabs, but Crab Voltron is more fun to write. It’s an appropriately weird idea to end with, I think, and like so many lunatic things in ATOM, this one is the fault of a mad scientist. And y’know what? It’s honestly not the weirdest thing mad scientists have done in this world. In fact, Crab Voltron is almost a logical response, and I love that.

And that’s it! That’s all 79 entries! I cannot overstate my satisfaction with the results of this contest. The amount of creativity on display her is astounding, and I absolutely adore how game you guys were for playing with my little monster story. Make sure to check out the originals, as linked to in this post, and stay tuned for the announcement of the winners and the presentation of prizes and all that! It should take me… oh, maybe a week or two?

“Why so long?” you ask. Well… look, this contest got roughly 4 times as many entries as I expected, and all of them are so high quality. I can’t limit myself to five winners - there have to be more, which means more work for me, which means I need some time to pull it off. So savor these sketches while you wait, because this might take a while.

#ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest #Atomic Time of Monsters #kaiju #giant monsters

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Which Altcoins Will be Hot in 2019?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/11/which-altcoins-will-be-hot-in-2019/

Which Altcoins Will be Hot in 2019?

Now that Halloween’s behind us, it is officially time to start preparing for the holiday season! Seeing as most cryptocurrencies peak in value around the start of the new year, now is probably the best time to cozy up with a cup of joe and spend a couple of hours researching. To get started, read this list of three altcoins that could very well be among the top contenders to mark 2019.

Which Altcoins Will be Hot in 2019: Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a distributed computing / smart contract platform that recently celebrated its first year anniversary — and it seems to have a bright future ahead of itself with many anniversaries to come. It is the product of Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) – a blockchain engineering and development company led by Charles Hoskinson, who’s known to the wider audience as the co-founder and ex-CEO of Ethereum.

As a third generation cryptocurrency, Cardano aims to improve upon the scaling issues of its first and second generation predecessors (Bitcoin and Ethereum respectively).

Here’s why it made our list of top coins to zero in on in 2019:

Cardano has been in the works since 2015. The team behind it developed the platform extensively for more than two years before finally releasing it on September 29, 2017. This shows patient and thorough development, seeing as the development team could’ve easily gone with the flashy whitepaper and unrealistic promises like thousands of its peers did, deliver on none of it, and eventually crash. The project hasn’t missed a beat in meeting the targets laid out in their roadmap.

Why Cardano: The philosophy behind the project > https://t.co/rdmQxnrWnr

— Cardano Foundation (@CardanoStiftung) September 29, 2017

Cardano secured a spot among the top 10 cryptocurrencies on CoinMarketCap in under a year and is currently ranked #8. That’s pretty impressive for such a novel project!

Cardano went with the testnet approach as opposed to mainnet. This means that they will implement an alternative blockchain on which users can test new features and enjoy the same properties and functionalities as they would in the Cardano production environment. The upside of this approach is that the team can learn from the users’ experience and build a stronger product without putting the community through the hassle of constant changes, updates and bug fixes that could result with them losing their ADA just by interacting with the platform.

The Cardano team is developing support for multisignature transactions, and they will soon be available for HD wallets.

Cardano uses a variation of the Proof-of-Stake protocol that is somewhat similar to Delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPoS) called Ouroboros. The algorithm was developed with the help of the University of Connecticut, University of Edinburgh and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. It is a piece of tech that’s been extensively peer-reviewed and is said to have “security properties […] comparable to those achieved by the bitcoin blockchain protocol.”

As of October 29th, Trezor is undergoing final preparations to support Cardano on its Trezor Model T hardware wallet. Trezor have brought us the first hardware wallet to survive the test of time and become a community favorite, which means that once the Cardano integration is complete, this currency will be even closer to the wider audience. Cardano will soon be supported on another industry standard hardware wallet as well – the Ledger Nano S. Cardano users will be able to hold their coins offline and reap the benefits of this convenient and secure hardware wallet.

A Cardano debit card is in the works, and you will be able to fill it with the ADA that you are holding in your crypto wallet. Once you’ve transferred your funds, they will then be automatically converted into the (local) currency of you choice and become available for spending, just like you would normally transact with a debit card.

All in all, Cardano seems to be a well-thought-out project with an experienced team that is careful and precise in bringing it to life. It is a serious rival to Ethereum — the two offer similar functionalities but Cardano takes the cake when it comes to scaling and efficiency.

This following year is packed with exciting events for Cardano which should really add to its value, which is why we recommend you keep an eye on it in the following months. Like most altcoins, Cardano is currently experiencing a decline in price. You can purchase this cryptocurrency for around $0.07.

Stellar is a blockchain-based, open-source, distributed payment infrastructure that facilitates multi-currency and asset transactions using its Lumens (XLM) crypto-asset as a bridge.

It is a hard fork of Ripple that was initially released on July 31st, 2014. In fact, it was Stellar and not Ripple that made our list because, even though both projects share similar technology, they have two key differences: a) Stellar is a decentralized currency while Ripple is centralized, and b) Stellar is geared towards individuals while Ripple is better suited for institutions.

So, without further ado, here’s why Stellar might be a notable market player in 2019:

The Stellar protocol has multiple use cases. It is best suited and mainly intended for quick and efficient cross-border transactions, but it can also be used to host decentralized apps (dApps) and power decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Stellar has also become a viable alternative to Ethereum for ICO launching and token issuance.

Stellar has managed to survive its fair share of bearish market slopes. Currently ranked #6 on CoinMarketCap, Stellar has a dedicated community that insulates the promising project from failure (nearly 100,000 readers on Reddit) and a good product-market fit.

According to the 2018 roadmap, a Stellar – Lightning Network integration is scheduled for December 1 and just days ago Interstellar made an announcement that they’ve released Starlight – a software implementation that enables bi-directional payment channels on the Stellar network. Payment channels are off-chain networks that allow for two connected parties to perform multiple transactions without broadcasting them to the blockchain, thus providing a faster, cheaper, and more private alternative to traditional on-chain transacting; the only information that makes it on to the blockchain is the final balance of all connected parties once the payment channel is closed.

While there haven’t been any noisy partnership announcements this year, Stellar did close 37 partners in 2017. Most notably, in October last year, Stellar partnered with tech giant IBM; less than a year later, in September of this year, IBM announced Blockchain World Wire (BWW) – a new “financial rail” that uses the Stellar protocol and blockchain technology to allow financial institutions to “clear and settle cross-border payments in seconds.” Seeing as IBM has taken a serious interest in Stellar — they must be doing something right!

Due to various scams and compliance conflicts with existing regulations, the ICO market is experiencing great volatility. Enter security token offerings (STOs). They are similar to ICOs in that there is a crypto token offering made by a business to potential investors, except that ICOs are the sale of coins whilst STOs are the sale of securities. However, the most notable difference between the two is that STOs are registered with the SEC (U.S. Security and Exchange Commision), meaning that they are more compliant to regulations than ICOs are. Furthermore, ICOs have gotten a bad name over time; they’ve become synonymous with scams and the word itself has become dirty and tainted. These are some of the reasons why STOs are expected to grow in prominence — and Stellar is ready to make the most of it. In fact, Stellar-based security token offerings have been the weapon of choice of many companies ranging from start-ups to large corporations, specifically for the aforementioned reasons: compliance and reputation. Seeing as all transactions on the Stellar network are paid in Lumens (XLM), as STO adoption goes up — so will the value of Stellar, much like it was with ICOs and Ethereum in 2017.

These are all factors that should positively affect the adoption of Stellar in 2019.

The propitious currency is friends with some of the “big guys”, both in the private and the government sector. With such support from both ends on the spectrum, at least one thing is for certain: you won’t be the only one interested in Stellar’s success. XLM is currently trading at about $0.24.

Currently #30 on CoinMarketCap’s Top 100 Cryptocurrencies, the Basic Attention Token is the underdog of our list. It is an open-source, decentralized platform that is looking to improve digital advertising by introducing a new token of exchange that can be traded between users, advertisers and publishers.

Basically, it is a system based on rewards that are measured in the native currency; in the Basic Attention Token ecosystem, users (i.e. ad viewers) access the Internet via the Brave web browser and are compensated with BAT (an Ethereum-based token) for their literal attention.

They can then use these tokens to tip websites and content creators (somewhat similarly to Patreon) in order to improve their browsing experience. Advertisers achieve better targeting and, consequently, a higher ROI while the publishers’ decrease in inefficiency results with an increase in revenue. Sounds interesting?

Here’s why the Basic Attention Token deserves your attention in 2019:

The co-founder and CEO of Brave Software, Brendan Eich, is the creator of JavaScript – the most popular programming language in the world. He is also the co-founder of the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Corporation, and the Mozilla Foundation, which brought us the Mozilla Firefox browser — a clear testimony to Eich’s credibility and competence in this niche. Also part of the team is co-founder Brian Bondy, who has worked full time on the Mozilla Firefox browser and has spent a year working for Khan Academy.

Who owns your attention? Who owns your web browsing experience? Who gets paid? If not you, then you’re “product”.

Time to get paid.@Brave

— BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) April 8, 2016

Even though BAT is not limited to the Brave web browser, Brave is still an integral part of the project; it blocks ads completely, but then allows users and publishers to opt into the ads of their own accord. It also serves as a diagnostic tool that assesses whether or not ad viewers are engaging and paying attention. Brave currently has over 4 million monthly active users and is expected to pass the 5 million mark by the end of this year.

BAT seems to be committed to creating partnerships that will bring premium content closer to its users. This includes the partnership with the Dow Jones Media Group which is aimed to “experiment with blockchain-based technology in media and advertising” and with TownSquare Media – the owner of a large portfolio of music and entertainment-focused digital brands.

The BAT platform is integrated with popular social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. This enables audiences to reward their favorite creators using Brave Payments. There are currently over 17,200 YouTube channels (HowToBasic, VICE and Funny Or Die to name a few) and numerous websites (CoinMarketCap, BitTorrent, Vimeo, The Guardian, Washington Post…) that are verified Brave publishers.

According to the New York Times, ad downloads currently cost users a monthly average of $23 in mobile data. They also cause a decrease in battery life of 21%. Brave’s goal is to help the end user save on these expenses, all the while offering him to opt-in to the content that he wishes to see.

To sum up, BAT is the product of an exceptional team and a pioneer of this kind of blockchain-based advertising for their users. As a result of the ad blocking features, the Brave browser is much faster which will surely contribute to its adoption and, with that, the rise of BAT’s value. BAT is currently trading at $0.3.

Which Altcoins Will be Hot in 2019: Final thoughts

Coinbase, the biggest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, expressed interest their in all three of our picks in July of this year.

Today we are announcing that we’re exploring the addition of the following assets to Coinbase: Cardano (ADA), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC) and 0x (ZRX). https://t.co/qoECyR0V1f

— Coinbase (@coinbase) July 13, 2018

On November 2, Coinbase announced that BAT is launching on Coinbase Pro (but not on Coinbase.com and Coinbase’s iOS/Android applications at the time of writing this article.)

Following the announcement, the price of the Basic Attention Token underwent a whopping 20% surge. Similar, though smaller increases in price can be noticed in both Cardano’s and Stellar’s price charts during the same time frame, probably due to the fact that Coinbase grouped these currencies together in the initial statement.

When it comes to long-term trends on nascent markets such as the cryptocurrency one, fundamental analysis trumps technical analysis and this is exactly why we chose to present you with the fundamentals of these 3 crypto projects rather than produce technical charts that have nearly zero chance of predicting the future price.

Our candidate altcoins have managed to keep afloat during tumultuous periods of market instability, damage to the industry’s reputation, massive investor losses and much more. Imagine, then, what their performance could be like when the market equalizes and altcoins as a whole have had time to recover from this bear run.

DISCLAIMER: This article is not intended to be financial advice. Any and all cryptocurrency investments should be done according to your own judgment and research.

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