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cellarspider · 3 months

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5/?? The pseudohistory of Prometheus

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We return to a movie I wish to send on a journey down the Kola Superdeep Borehole, Prometheus.

And my insanity truly begins in this segment. We are only 1/10th of the way through the movie so far. Content warnings for discussion of racism in pseudoscience and historical anthropology, Spider getting hung up on logistics and space nerd stuff, and pictures of Yuri Knorozov, the most sour-faced man to ever live.

The cast sits down for a briefing. This is a scene with an easily identifiable narrative function: providing exposition to the theater audience. The act of doing a briefing makes sense. It is the last thing here that will.

We are introduced to a hologram of Peter Weyland, the financier of the expedition. The name means all sorts of Lore to the series, but what’s intensely distracting is that we seem to have caught Weyland halfway through applying his zombie makeup.

Weyland is played by Guy Pierce. As of the filming of this movie, he was somewhere around 45 years old. Yes, they smothered this Australian in old man drag so that he could play this character. This is a baffling decision, that only gets slightly less baffling if you know the production history of the movie, which I did not at the time.

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Guy Pierce was hired to play a younger Peter Weyland. There’s a promo video out there of him giving a fictional TED Talk in the not-to-distant future of next Sunday AD 2023, there were various plans for him to appear in the movie proper. None of those scenes are actually in the movie. They refused to double-cast the role for some reason. While the practical effects in the movie are generally excellent and it does make the tiniest smidge of sense that a hypercapitalist asshole would be portrayed as a literal rubber-faced movie monster, this, like many things in Prometheus, made the movie a very weird sit. One where I was increasingly less open to going along with the movie’s fiction. You are telling me that this is an actual human man. I am not buying it. He looks far less human than David, the only non-human there.

Speaking of David, Weyland calls him “the closest thing to a son I will ever have”, and then immediately says David is an inhuman lesser being, who does not appreciate the specialness of his existence because he does not have a soul.

Which is funny, because I think you can see David’s soul leaving his body at this exact moment.

Weyland then tries to mash in some existential weight to the movie: they might finally get an answer for “why are we here?” and all that jazz! He also tries to explain why naming a ship Prometheus is totally not like calling it Titanic II: Don’t think about the part of the myth where Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his ever-regenerating liver eaten by an eagle every day! Think about the bit where he brought fire to mankind! We’re gonna bring back that bit!

And then the archaeologists take over the briefing, and this, THIS, is the bit where they entirely lost me. My suspension of disbelief had already been strained by multiple oddities up to this point. My skepticism about these characters in particular was already a bit elevated by their implied invocation of the ancient astronauts concept.

Turns out, only Vickers, Shaw, and Holloway know why they’re here.

Two years away from Earth. On a massively expensive expedition that intends to make first contact with an alien culture, the first alien culture that humankind has ever found evidence of. Nobody has been briefed up until this point.

This is lunacy.

Explanations have been figured out by fans since then: this is a passion project by Weyland, an annoyance to the rest of the corporate structure that nobody else believes in. The movie eventually intimates this, through Vickers.

Fans have thus speculated that Weyland was just quarantined off to do his little alien hunt, with no logistical support that would make it actually functional. He believed a crazy theory put forward by Shaw and Holloway, and everyone else wasn’t actually best-of-the-best, they were just whoever would take a big paycheck to do fuck-all for nearly five years of sleeping their way to and from their destination.

I am willing to consider that this was intentional. The movie possibly tries to confirm this with Mr. “I’m here for the money” Fifield, but none of the other characters have enough characterization to determine if this is the general trend.

How could we make a story that more clearly spells this out? Maybe Millburn the biologist could encounter more of the crew talking about the payout from taking the job, or reveal that he himself has some project he needs money for. It would also chip away at the dearth of character-building dialog for most of the cast.

As a result of those deficiencies in characterization, a lot of my discussion of plot points is going to be focused around what they do, rather than why. …Except when it is about the why, at which point the main commentary will be “WHY.”

In any case: while it makes sense, I'm still not certain the film meant for this character motivation. Prometheus is just so loudly explicit with so many of its plot points that it doesn’t seem like this is the case. The movie certainly believes in the sincerity and correctness of the archaeologists, though.

Unfortunately, it also immediately tells me that they’re a couple of wingnuts. I’m not sure if it intends to, for reasons I’ll get into after I foam at the mouth for a little while.

They present a series of artifacts to the crew: Egyptian, Mayan, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Hawaiian, and their Scottish cave painting. All of them feature “men worshiping giant beings”, who are pointing to what stargazer nerds call an asterism: a pattern of stars. Shaw and Holloway believe that these are aliens that engineered humans into their current state. Shaw literally says “it’s what I choose to believe” as the entirety of their justification for this.

Again: I knew the movie wanted me to take this as truth, within its universe. That’s the implicit deal the movie has made with the audience, this is truth. You are supposed to be contemplating the "whys" of it all. But the movie had also smacked me in the brain so many times in the past five minutes, that I, like Millburn the Biologist, was ready to call bullshit.

I appreciate him for doing so, and it shows he could have been a smart character, but sadly, he is in Prometheus.

Because he is a fictional biologist and I am an actual biologist, I will expand on his argument, as I descend into ranting for the rest of the post.

Millburn objects on the basis of evolutionary history, which the movie only partially succeeds in papering over: the implication is that evolution on Earth was directed with the deterministic outcome of creating something like humans.

This opens up a whole new can of worms that the movie doesn’t get into–when exactly did this engineering start? When great apes evolved? When mammals did? Tetrapods? Skeletons? DNA itself? After all, we know the aliens, now dubbed Engineers by the archaeologists, have DNA. Did they seed all life on Earth? How did they evolve? Our last universal common ancestor is believed to have already been using DNA 3-4 billion years ago, evolving out of a likely RNA-based genetic standard. Hominins diverged from other apes around 15-25 million years ago. What sort of culture would undertake a project that required at least 15 million years on the extreme low end?

All excellent questions! The movie is not concerned with them. I am, and that is part of why this movie still lives in a special, awful place in my head.

This isn’t actually what made me become actively hostile toward the archaeologists, though. What managed that, well! It was their archaeology. Anybody who had an Ancient Egypt Phase in their childhood should be able to articulate multiple reasons why the academic community would’ve laughed these guys out of the building.

Bigness in ancient egyptian art does not indicate literal size. It indicates importance. In fact, the artifacts the movie uses exclusively come from artistic traditions which feature hierarchical or non-literal scale. Do the Engineers turn out to actually be eight feet tall? Yes! Am I still annoyed by this? ABSOLUTELY.

You know what else is a big problem? Many of the cultures they reference here had written language! A LOT of written language! They include Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mayan art in their evidence, all of which not only wrote a LOT of things down, but had a habit of annotating a lot of their art with labels to tell you what was going on! You can actually see some on the props they used in this scene!

Beyond that, they had very prescribed formal styles, where you can follow the action entirely through gestures, held objects, attendant symbols, and clothing! If all these cultures, as implied, had actual, direct contact with aliens, recorded in the art presented here, we would know what they were told.

Skipping ahead of the movie for a minute: the Engineers were apparently not telling humans “we’re here in these stars, come find us”, they were telling humans “settle the fuck down or this is where the hurt’s going to come from”.

Here's the thing. Ancient peoples weren't stupid. They wouldn't just not talk about this. If giant aliens came down from the sky and gave them a stern talking-to that contradicted their religion, that would be a big deal. And these characters specifically say the Engineers are being "worshiped" in these images! They're apparently taking onboard what's being said!

It is certainly possible for information to be lost. Over long time scales, that's unfortunately the rule, rather than the exception. But again: half the artifacts have writing on them!

I chose to believe that Shaw and Holloway simply did not attempt to read any available translations of attendant texts, and they were thus cursed for their foolishness by the ghosts of Mayan Studies pioneer Yuri Knorozov and EgyptologistJean-François Champollion, and the still-extant spirit of Assyriologist Irving Finkel.

Knorozov knows your sins against Mayan Studies. Knorozov is a vengeful god. Chapollion and Finkel are likewise very cross.

Two last things stood out to me in the theater. One of them was extremely petty but tied into some very serious issues with pseudoscience, and the other one was not.

Pettiness first: the asterism shown in the artifacts is a pattern of six stars. The movie wants you to believe that it is very spooky that the only asterism that precisely matches this pattern are six stars that are too faint to see with the naked eye. This is laughable, both because the asterism is so generic-looking that I can think of several very visible asterisms that are good matches for the pattern, but it also recapitulates a bunch of really fucking annoying shit from pseudoscientific bullshit.

First: Pseudoscience and pseudohistory likes to make a big deal out of the fact that every culture has stories about the stars. Why?

The sky is very important to every culture’s mythology, because every culture can see the sky. Like, that’s literally it. People can see the sky. They tell stories about it. There’s not much to do at night except look at the sky, when even keeping a fire lit can be an expensive prospect. It is not even the least bit weird when multiple cultures–all of them in the northern hemisphere in this case!–have stories about the same stars.

Second: Cultures vary in their ability to faithfully reproduce celestial landmarks in art and align their architecture is variable, and not as exact as modern techniques can manage. Pseudoscience will claim that they are exact, when it fits their pre-existing theory, or fudge the difference if they want something to fit their claims.

(This is a photoshopped image, by the way.)

Were the stone age temples of Malta secretly aligned with a particular star that foretold the doom of Atlantis, precisely tracking its location through the sky over thousands of years of Earth’s axial wobbling? No! They were roughly aligned with the sun. Sunlight is important when you don’t have electric lights. Were the Great Pyramids of Giza laid out ten thousand years ago to match the layout of the stars in Orion’s Belt, according to the designs of a legendary lost race of highly advanced non-African people? Were they tapping into the Earth’s magnetic field to generate energy? No! They were aligned with the cardinal directions, and they got them a bit wrong!

Hell, if we want to play at that game, I found a decent match for the asterism in Stellarium's Egyptian constellation set. Just flip this 90 degrees clockwise and you'll see I'm totally right. Aliens confirmed.

I know the movie is trying to tell me that all the asterisms in the art are precise matches for each other and are thus impossible to explain without intercultural contact (or aliens!!), but it is also showing me that they are not that precise. So, it’s just showing me stars. At least in some of them. Their little charcoal lad from the Isle of Skye may be throwing fruit at his audience.

In fact, there's a further, probably unintentional link to pseudohistorical claims in the artifacts presented: the Maya artifact shown does not actually depict a "giant figure" being worshiped, in fact, it shows one instantly recognizable, known figure in Classical Maya history: It is an altered version of the ornately carved coffin lid of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (24 March 603 - 29 August 683), with the top quarter of the carving replaced with a star pattern that looks nothing like the ones on the other artifacts.

The carving shows Pakal in the pose of an infant, entering into death and being reborn. It is packed full of so many symbolic elements that can be easily recognized by those more familiar with the Classical Maya than I am.

Conspiracy theorist Erich von Däniken thought that it showed Pakal rocketing away on a spaceship. Däniken proposed this because he didn't understand the cultural symbolism, but he had seen pictures of astronauts before.

And on that note, 2,400 words into this rant, we get to the actually bad shit. Unfortunately, it ties into the issue I had with the premise to begin with: the real-world context of pseudoscientific claims of ancient alien contact. Specifically, the racism.

We’re going to unspool this more near the end of the movie, because there was further behind the scenes I was not aware of when I first saw Prometheus, and it just compounds this stuff.

So, when I went on my first tangent on how unpleasant ancient alien theories are, one thing I highlighted is that the further from Western Civilization you get, the more these theories presuppose that fellow humans are incapable of building great works or imagining interesting things. No, they had to be guided, and explicitly shown things that they copied down to the best of their limited capability.

The only european example of alien contact they show is from the Upper Paleolithic, 37,000 years ago. All the examples around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia range from 5,500-3,700 years ago. The examples from the Classical Maya and Hawaiʻi are from 620 and 680 CE.

During this period, Tang Dynasty merchants were creating the first paper money as the famous female emperor Wu Zetian was on her way to the throne. The Prophet Muhammad went to al-Aqsa mosque, and we’re only eight years before the birth of Charlemagne’s grandfather. We’re no longer talking ancient, it’s just old.

I want to emphasize that the movie is presenting these not as depictions of myths that have been passed down–though there are more problems with that I’ll get into shortly–these are implied to be contemporary depictions of events witnessed by the artists, who were quite possibly instructed by the Engineers to record a precise pattern of stars. An equivalency is being drawn between stone age Europe, bronze age Africa and the Middle East, and a couple of startlingly recent Mesoamerican and Polynesian cultures.

But let’s be generous. Maybe these aren’t supposed to be contemporary accounts in these two outlier cases: the movie’s script will certainly indicate later that they have no idea what they’ve implied here. Perhaps these are story traditions that were handed down from the Olmecs and Melanesian precursors of the first to sail to Hawaiʻi.

Unfortunately, this just recapitulates a different racist trope: that European and more “developed” civilizations invented so much cool and comfortable material culture and philosophy that they forgot the Mystical Religious Truths of the old ways, which were preserved only in Primitive Lands and among Uneducated Peoples, where they never found anything better to do with their time. Oh, if only we had heeded the warnings from those spiritually attuned non-white people!

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(Look, I only remember Devil (2010), which has 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, because M Night Shyamalan wrote and produced it, and this was two years after The Happening came out, so I watched it out of morbid curiosity. It's not as unbelievably bad as The Happening, but as shown in the clip above, the spiritually attuned latino security guard Ramirez attributes toast landing jelly side down to Satan. That is an actual thing that happens in the movie. He is proven right.)

But let's be even more generous: someone probably realized that they'd focused near-exclusively on Middle Eastern cultures, and wanted to throw in a couple from elsewhere. Sitting here, having seen the movie in full, this is the most likely option: their inclusion creates a contradiction with a later scene, and was thus probably not checked for consistency. These cultures were thrown in as a bit of background flavor. I list this last, because in the theater, there was no way to know this at the time.

That answer's still not great. Still leaves us in the same position, where Europeans are pretty much given their own agency, while other cultures need to be led.

Oh, and to anyone else who’s made it this far and knows the production history of Prometheus: don’t worry! I know what Ridley Scott told that one interviewer, about a contact between a less-ancient European power and the Engineers. I’m saving that one. I like to save that one, because strategic deployment of that quote made some of my IRL friends scream.

Next time: the Prometheus descends to an alien world, and I descend further into madness. I am going to drag you all down with me.

(Pictured: Yuri Knorozov, and my present mood.)

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Citations for alt text ramblings:

https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/

#Prometheus (2012)#prometheus 2012 #The last time I watched this movie with a scientific colleague and friend #this scene took us twenty minutes to get through #because we were both biologists #plus me with the archaeology and a dash of space nerdery #and they knew mesopotamian history #so by the time we were done with this scene we were ginned up and ready to fight the movie

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putschki1969 · 3 months

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「Kaji Fes」 Home-Video Release Announced!

Great news everyone! Today, after the television broadcast of Day 1 of last year's 「30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ～Kaji Fes.2023～」, it was announced that the special 2-Day event held at Nippon Budokan will be released on Blu-ray! The made-to-order BOX edition comes with benefits such as a limited T-shirt, a replica staff pass, and 48p live photo book! Side note: According to fan reports, it seems like the following five songs were cut from today's TV broadcast => fake garden, canta per me, she has to overcome her fear, I beg you and 砂塵の彼方へ….

■Product overview Title: “30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ~Kaji Fes.2023~” Release date: May 29, 2024 ▼Click here to purchase https://kajiurayuki.lnk.to/KajiFes.2023 ※So far, most links seem to be for Rakuten which does not accept overseas payment methods afaik and also does not ship overseas so foreign fans will have to use a proxy service like Buyee to make a purchase. It is worth noting though that Rakuten is offering a hefty discount! Update: The box is NOW AVAILABLE on CDJAPAN. ■Appearance Yuki Kajiura / FictionJunction <Day1: Guest artist> Aimer, Yuri Kasahara, Remi ※Revo (Sound Horizon/Linked Horizon) will not be featured. <Day2: Guest Artist> ASCA, Eri Ito, KOKIA, JUNNA, Hanae Tomaru, Hikaru, Aira Yuki (ASUKA) ■Release format

「30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ～Kaji Fes.2023～」 Limited Made-to-order Box Set　￥20,000＋tax [Contents] Blu-ray x 2 [Day1 & Day2] / replica staff pass / T-shirt [limited colour] / 48p live photo + interview book ※The Rakuten product page actually mentions a third undefined disc (most likely an audio CD) Buy here ▶ https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VVXL-200 　 https://kajiurayuki.lnk.to/KajiFes.2023

「30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ～Kaji Fes.2023～」Day 1 Regular Edition ￥8,000＋tax （Blu-ray×1） Buy here ▶ https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VVXL-203 https://kajiurayuki.lnk.to/KajiFes.2023

「30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ～Kaji Fes.2023～」Day 2 Regular Edition ￥8,000＋tax （Blu-ray×1） Buy here ▶ https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VVXL-204 　https://kajiurayuki.lnk.to/KajiFes.2023

■「30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ～Kaji Fes.2023～」Day 1 Tracklist

fake garden

canta per me

the world

Liminality

in the land of twilight, under the moon

swordland

she has to overcome her fear

luminous sword

星屑

花守の丘

ｗe’re gonna groove

Obsession

千夜一夜

Point Zero

salva nos

花の唄

I beg you

櫂

朝が来る

My Story

Parallel Hearts

stone cold

the image theme of Xenosaga II

蒼穹のファンファーレ

■「30th Anniversary Yuki Kajiura LIVE vol.#19 ～Kaji Fes.2023～」Day 2 Tracklist

street corner

希望の光

prelude to Act 1

Numquam vincar

Magia [quattro]

storia

君の銀の庭

to the beginning

海と真珠

太陽の航路

time to sail!

The main theme of “L.O.R.D”

I talk to the rain

a song of storm and fire

ring your song

ことのほかやわらかい

夜光塗料

雲雀

君が見た夢の物語

everlasting song

世界の果て

優しい夜明け

君がいた物語

Rainbow~Main Theme~

風よ、吹け

lotus

inverse operation

目覚め

夕闇のうた

荒野流転

Silly-Go-Round

cazador del amor

nowhere

zodiacal sign

into the world

red rose

Parade

#kalafina #yuki kajiura #kajiura yuki #fictionjunction #news #Kaji Fes #Kaji Fes.#Kaji Fes. 2023 #keiko #hikaru #yuki's first home video release under Sony #maybe that's why there is no need to cut the Kalafina songs

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hunn1e-bunn1e · 1 year

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MASTERLIST HUB!

🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.

Series Non-Franchise Specials Post+

Aa.

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A3! Act! Addict! Actors!

AFTER L!FE

Attack On Titan

Bb.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Baki the Grappler

Black Butler

Black Clover

Blackstar Theater Starless

Bleach (+ Thousand Year Blood War)

Blue Exorcist (+ Kyoto Saga)

Blue Lock

Buddy Daddies

Bungou Stray Dogs

Cc.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Castlevania

Chainsaw Man

Dd.

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Danganronpa - D:THH, SD2:GD & DV3:KH

Death Note

Demon Slayer

Diabolik Lovers

Disney Twisted Wonderland

Dramatical Murder

Durarara! (1 & 2)

Ee.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Ensemble Stars

Ff.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Fairytail

Fate Series - FZ, FSN, FGO & FA

Fire Force

Free!

Fullmetal Alchemist (+ Brotherhood)

Gg.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Genshin Impact

Gintama

Granblue Fantasy

Hh.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Haikyuu!!!

Honkai Star Rail

Hunter �� Hunter

Hypnosis Mic

Ii.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Inuyasha (+ Yashahime)

Jj.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Parts 1-7)

Jujutsu Kaisen

Kk.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

K Project

Kuroku's Basketball

Ll.

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Lookism

Mm.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

MAGI (Ft. LoM, KoM & AoS)

Mashle: Magic and Muscles

My Hero Academia

Mystic Messenger

Nn.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Nanbaka: The Numbers

Naruto (+ Shippuden)

Nuu Carnival

Oo.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Obey Me! : One Master to Rule Them All! (+ Night Bringer)

One Piece (+ Films Red & Gold)

One Punch Man

Ouran Highschool Host Club

Overlord

Pp.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Qq.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Rr.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Record of Ragnarok

Remarried Empress

Ss.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Seraph of the End

Seven Deadly Sins

Spy × Family

Tt.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

The Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo

The Legend of Zelda (Ft. BotW, TP & ToK)

The Rising of the Shield Hero

Tokyo Ghoul

Tokyo Revengers

Uu.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Vv.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Vampire Knight

Ww.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun!

What in "Hell" is Bad?

Who Made Me a Princess

Xx.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Yy.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Yuri on Ice

Zz.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.•°•.🐇.

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princesssarisa · 7 months

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The Top 40 Most Popular Operas, Part 2 (#11 through #20)

A quick guide for newcomers to the genre, with links to online video recordings of complete performances, with English subtitles whenever possible.

Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus

The most famous Viennese operetta, a rollickling comedy set amid Vienna's high society.

Studio film, 1971 (Eberhard Wächter, Gundula Janowitz, Renate Holm, Waldemar Kmennt, Wolfgang Windgassen; conducted by Karl Böhm)

Mozart's Cosí Fan Tutte

A comedy of romantic partner-swapping, its cynical libretto juxtaposed with Mozarts sublime music.

Zürich Opera, 2009 (Malin Hartelius, Anna Bonitatibus, Javier Camarena, Ruben Drole, Martina Janková, Oliver Widmer; conducted by Franz Welser-Möst)

Verdi's Aida

The quintessential "grand opera": a tragedy of love vs. duty and country amid the pomp and pageantry of ancient Egypt, which inspired the Elton John/Tim Rice musical of the same name.

St. Margarethen Opera Festival, 2004 (Eszter Sümegi, Kostadin Andreev, Cornelia Helfricht, Igor Morosow; conducted by Josef Pancik)

Humperdinck's Hänsel & Gretel

The quintessential "children's opera," based on the classic fairy tale.

Studio film, 1981 (Brigitte Fassbaender, Edita Gruberova, Sena Jurinac, Hermann Prey, Helga Dernesch; conducted by Georg Solti)

Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore (The Elixir of Love)

A sweet romantic comedy in the Italian bel canto style.

Vienna State Opera, 2005 (Rolando Villazon, Anna Netrebko, Leo Nucci, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo; conducted by Alfred Eschwé)

Puccini's Turandot

A dark fairy tale of love and deadly riddles in ancient China: controversial in its Orientalism, but with thrilling music, including the ever-famous tenor aria "Nessun dorma."

Opera Hong Kong, 2018 (Oksana Dyka, Alfred Kim, Valeria Sepe, George Andguladze; conducted by Paolo Olmi)

Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow)

Another iconic example of Viennese comic operetta.

Metropolitan Opera, 2014 (Renée Fleming, Nathan Gunn, Kelli O'Hara, Alek Shrader, Thomas Allen; conducted by Andrew Davis) (sung in English)

Act I, Act II, Act III

Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin

The most famous of all Russian operas, based on Alexander Pushkin's great verse novel of unrequited love.

Kirov Opera, 1984 (Sergei Leiferkus, Tatiana Novikova, Yuri Marusin, Larissa Diadkova; conducted by Yuri Temirkanov)

Verdi's Nabucco

The grand Biblical opera, based on the story of Nebuchadnezzar, that first launched Verdi to fame.

St. Margarethen Opera Festival, 2007 (Igor Morosow, Gabriella Morigi, Bruno Ribiero, Elisabeth Kulman, Simon Yang; conducted by Ernst Märzendorfer) (click CC for subtitles)

Rossini's La Cenerentola (Cinderella)

The world's most famous fairy tale reimagined as a "realistic" comedy of manners with sparkling bel canto music.

Studio film, 1981 (Frederica von Stade, Francisco Araiza, Paolo Montarsolo, Claudio Desderi, Paul Plishka; conducted by Claudio Abbado)

#opera #top 40 #part 2 #11 through 20 #complete performances #english subtitles #die fledermaus #cosi fan tutte #aida #hänsel und gretel #l'elisir d'amore #the elixir of love #turandot #die lustige witwe #the merry widow #eugene onegin #nabucco #la cenerentola

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yuurei20 · 2 years

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Meet the Seiyuu: Idia Shroud

Idia’s VA Uchiyama Kouki’s second-ever lead voice acting role was Roxas in 2005’s Kingdom Hearts II.

He has since had lead roles in over 130 different anime and video games including Banagher Links from Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Tsukishima Kei in Haikyuu!!, Shigaraki Tomura in My Hero Academia, Neku Sakuraba in The World Ends with You and Yuri Plisetsky in Yuri!!! on ICE.

Uchiyama won an award for Best New Actor in 2011 and the “Anime of the Year Voice Actor Award” in 2015.

He seems to have a lot of overlap with Silver’s VA Shimazaki Nobunaga, working with him on Free!, revisions and more.

(images: 1) Uchiyama second from left, Shimazaki second from right 2) Uchiyama and Shimazaki 3) Uchiyama left, Shimazaki center 4) Shimazaki left, Uchiyama center)

This video is a compilation of 44 different characters all voiced by Uchiyama

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#Idia Shroud #Uchiyama Kouki #twisted wonderland #twstseiyuu #Youtube

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pheobia · 10 months

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Songs I think the podium fam would skate to

Yuuri: Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act II: No.10 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The archer - taylor swift

And before he retires i feel like he would def skate to Long Live - t swift

What was I made for? - Billie Eilish

Viktor:

What was I made for? - Billie Eilish

Young and beautiful - lana del rey

The lucky one - t swift

Numb Little Bug - Em Beihold (maybe instrumental version?)

Yuri:

Gladiator - Jann

Once upon a december - Liz Callaway

Bloody mary - lady gaga (instrumental)

Applause - lady gaga

#podium family #yuri plisetsky #yuuri katsuki #victor nikiforov #yuri would also skate to lana but idk which song #gladiator IS yuris song

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coolmomacchiato · 2 years

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T&B2 Cour 2 Theory (Part III)

Kotetsu will go “rogue” and form a vigilante hero duo with Lunatic Part I Part II

We already had one hero fall victim to Gregory, causing mass destruction where the hero was the only collateral damage

This leads me to believe that two things could happen: 1. Kotetsu will fall victim to Gregory (perhaps while trying to protect someone else – his daughter?), and due to the nature of a haywire Hundred Power, this will result in the death of someone (probably Gregory Sunshine himself), resulting in him getting convicted and losing his Hero license. 2. Aware that the TRUE threat still lurks, and frustrated by the (corrupt? ) bureaucracy of the decision, Kotetsu takes things into his own hands.

After all, we know that he tends to shirk what is “lawful” in order to pursue what he feels is Justice (just like Lunatic himself). For example, when he goes to investigate Barnaby’s accident on his own despite strict orders not to do so from Agnes and Yuri

So how does this bring us to LL Audun and Lunatic? First of all, back in episode 8 when Thomas is looking at the LL Audun exhibit, the mention of Hundred Power is framed boldly underneath his name – one of the few legible things within the shot

Then we have his costume, which bears certain design elements that are similar to Kotetsu's crapsuit in particular (excuse my very bad attempts at pointing them out):

Also, both the LL Audun logo and his pose (which is basically the Wakanda pose) can make a “W”. On this note, stylistically, two “L’s” also make a “W”.

So the question becomes – what could motivate Kotetsu enough to not only go the “rogue” route, but take up the LL Audun mantle in particular, and team up with Lunatic while doing it?

Well! Coming back to the theme S2 is setting up regarding filial piety – as we know, Lunatic was Mr. Legend’s son, and was a victim of his abuse. Perhaps at some point, Kotetsu learns that the man who was once his idol (who his original crapsuit was DESIGNED after, in fact!) – the one who represents the very backbone of Justice in Stern Bild – was not only a hero to a corrupted city, but a villain to his own son.

This would be an extremely distressing revelation for the Kotetsu we see in S2, who’s key interpersonal conflict will be his relationship with his daughter, and the question both she (and Yuri) asked him earlier - WHY is he continuing to be a Hero?

To add to this, T&B2 co-writer Erika Yoshida made this tweet about episode 7: “It's a wild obnoxious thing to say, but it's also the time to contrast Kotetsu and Yuri in terms of their parent-child relationship. You know, like the scars related to the palm of the hand. The way they interact with each other. And congratulations to Muramasa! (Be happy!)” https://twitter.com/yorikoko/status/1528010899826438144

If the threat is big and personal enough – for example, a danger to those he loves, then Kotetsu would stop at nothing to protect them from that danger. With the suits owned by Apollon (as referenced in episode 3) and the nanotech potentially having the ability to lock users out, then Kotetsu – a man who seems quite attached to symbolism – would have to turn back to his old crapsuit. Only why would he want to bear the symbolism of a corrupted justice he no longer wishes to uphold – that of Mr. Legend? Instead, wouldn’t it be only natural for him to turn instead to Mr. Legend’s greatest rival – LL Audun?

As for Yuri: We know that he, like Kotetsu, has a very strong sense of justice that is at odds with the law. If he were to become that he works for a corrupted Justice Department, that would certainly serve as motivation for him to take up the mantle of Lunatic once again. Only – with the theme of the “buddy system”, and Yuri coming around to the idea at the end, understanding its value enough to burn his dissolution plan at the end of Cour 1 – perhaps he won’t act alone.

Perhaps both he and the rogue Wild Tiger will form their own vigilante buddy duo, fulfilling the LL Audun/Wild Tiger and Mr. Legend/Yuri parallel, forcing each of them to confront the very foundations of their belief systems and what it means to be a hero (and a father). So that Kotetsu can finally answer Kaede’s question: Why are you a hero?

#tiger & bunny #tiger & bunny 2 #tnb #tnb2 #t&b #t&b2 #t&b2 spoilers #tiger and bunny #kotetsu t. kaburagi #kotetsu kaburagi #barnaby brooks jr #taibani #yuri petrov #thomas taurus #cour 2 prediction #theory #analysis #rogue #vigilante

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neotachyons · 19 days

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top five ygo spinoffs characters?? 👀👀

CRACKS KNUCKLES i've been waiting for this one

5. KYOSUKE KIRYU my good friend from 5ds omg I love that bitch. he has the most insane character arc ever they bring him in and he's sick in the head then he dies in yusei's arms and then comes back as a cowboy actively trying to kill himself hes a father by the end of his cowboy arc ITS SO GOOD. also his dub name is so cute kalin kessler my good friend.

4. YURI YUGIOH ARC-V i've only know him for like 2 months but potentially the most me bait yugioh character to date. his color scheme is made up of my two favorite colors and he's a little cunt it's hilarious. HIS DECK ROCKS SO HARD I LOVE PREDAPLANTS and his ace starving venom fusion dragon she is so beautiful to me. hes only in like 30ish eps which is a damn shame cuz he's so good. they couldn't handle his power. also i've only heard clips of it but his dub voice is UNBELIEVABLE I think they told the VA to just do an asshole voice and he kills it it's amazing

3. KITE TENJO where do I begin. mr yugioh zexal rival he is incredible. yugioh always knocks it out of the park with big brother characters but kite might just be the best one his bond with hart is so sweet it makes me sob. he engineered a robot at like age 12 to help him take care of his brother and im :'). his deck is amazing #galaxyeyesphotonSWEEP and his character arc was so wonderful to watch. his dub voice is one of my favorites of all time he sounds PERFECT like genuinely when he appeared in arc-v it took me a while to get used to his sub voice. HE'S CATHOLIC. i think he's the first yugioh rival to die on screen. he's incredible. kite tenjo world domination

2. REGINALD "SHARK" KASTLE. THIS FUCKING GUY !!!! if we're talking about insane character arcs he is like top 5 that boy did it all. he's the rival he's the best friend he's a big brother he's the VILLAIN??? they put him through the war. he grew on me so so much as I kept watching and especially in zexal II he's incredible. there's so much i wanna say cuz they really did it all with him. his drive to protect his sister and those around him makes me sob like he's the most 14 year old of all time. acts like he doesn't care but jumps in line first to help out. he's sososo good. love shark to death

1. JADEN YUKI THE KING HIMSELFFFF my favorite yugioh protag he is so beloved to me. he's so sweet and has one of the most unreal character arcs of all time it's INSANE but so good. i'm a little biased cuz I love gx sosososo much but also that's the Jaden Yuki Effect he's wonderful. PIONEERED THE HERO ARCHETYPE. WHICH NOW HAS THE MOST CARDS OF ANY ARCHETYPE. he's just such a joy to watch anytime he's on screen and his growth throughout gx makes me cry like i was a mess the last few eps. being the first yugioh spinoff protag is not easy but he did it and he rocks so hard. i have such love in my heart for him

#sorry is this is A Lot i love rambling #ygo #ask #justapalspal

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ddlcsprite · 1 month

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DDLC | Yuri reading cutscene | cutscene

Act I:

Act II:

#ddlc #ddlc sprites #doki doki literature club #file #yuri #Cutscene #Reading #book #Portrait of markov

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eldritchcatgirl · 10 months

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LVA: Lesbian Vampire Novel Project

So over this summer I've been forcing myself to do something that's been on the backburner of my mind for at least a year, but so far I've been pretty happy with the results. I'm about 70,000 words into a novel, which I'd say is ~55-70% done, though it definitely seems that the full story I wanna tell is going to require at least a duology, if not a trilogy. Regardless, I've been drafting up chapters in long hand and then rewriting them as I type them up before posting them incrementally on my writing blog. Which, if you're not aware, is this site: Ink Sepulchre

A few months ago I wrote up a short story called Running on Fumes that was meant as a prequel story in the same universe explaining the backstory of a major character. If you'd want to read that first and get a sense for how you feel about my writing or the themes that the novel is exploring, then you can give that a read first. Running on Fumes

I won't say too much about the premise of the novel, besides the fact that it involves vampires and that most of these vampires are lesbians. I've taken some inspiration from some pretty eclectic sources from this novel, including but certainly not limited to: various creepypastas, Homestuck, Carmilla, House of Leaves, Pontypool, Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Ligotti, Salem's Lot, Christine, Carmen Maria Machado, The Lost Boys, Bogleech, Berserk, Bloodborne, Near Dark, and a good deal of yuri manga. I'm pretty bad at writing blurbs for things, but hopefully a few of those things pique your interest.

Here are all the chapters that have been posted so far, and I'll be sure to reblog this post to add on new ones.

~ Act I ~

Chapter 1: Clogged Hourglass Chapter 2: The Four Pronged Wheel Chapter 3: Three Strains of The Night Chapter 4: A Dead End Town Chapter 5: Heart of The Nightmare Chapter 6: Lost Apostates Interlude: Parable of Sophia Coda: End of Act I

~ Act II ~

Chapter 7: Take Out Night Chapter 8: Modest Proposal Interlude: Preliminary Research Notes Chapter 9: Friends Like These Chapter 10: Sweet Summer Nights Chapter 11: Stag Party Interlude: Research Notes 2

#short stories #novel #LVA #vampire #horror #masterpost

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brookstonalmanac · 20 days

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Events 4.25 (after 1940)

1944 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated. 1945 – World War II: United States and Soviet reconnaissance troops meet in Torgau and Strehla along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two. This would be later known as Elbe Day. 1945 – World War II: Liberation Day (Italy): The National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy calls for a general uprising against the German occupation and the Italian Social Republic. 1945 – United Nations Conference on International Organization: Founding negotiations for the United Nations begin in San Francisco. 1945 – World War II: The last German troops retreat from Finnish soil in Lapland, ending the Lapland War. Military actions of the Second World War end in Finland. 1951 – Korean War: Assaulting Chinese forces are forced to withdraw after heavy fighting with UN forces, primarily made up of Australian and Canadian troops, at the Battle of Kapyong. 1953 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA. 1954 – The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories. 1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping. 1960 – The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. 1961 – Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit. 1972 – Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive: The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5,000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2,500 others northwest of Kontum. 1974 – Carnation Revolution: A leftist military coup in Portugal overthrows the authoritarian-conservative Estado Novo regime and establishes a democratic government. 1980 – One hundred forty-six people are killed when Dan-Air Flight 1008 crashes near Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands. 1981 – More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. 1982 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula per the Camp David Accords. 1983 – Cold War: American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war. 1983 – Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit. 1990 – Violeta Chamorro takes office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman to hold the position. 2001 – President George W. Bush pledges U.S. military support in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. 2004 – The March for Women's Lives brings between 500,000 and 800,000 protesters, mostly pro-choice, to Washington D.C. to protest the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, and other restrictions on abortion. 2005 – The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937. 2005 – A seven-car commuter train derails and crashes into an apartment building near Amagasaki Station in Japan, killing 107, including the driver. 2005 – Bulgaria and Romania sign the Treaty of Accession 2005 to join the European Union. 2007 – Boris Yeltsin's funeral: The first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894. 2014 – The Flint water crisis begins when officials at Flint, Michigan switch the city's water supply to the Flint River, leading to lead and bacteria contamination. 2015 – Nearly 9,100 are killed after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes Nepal.

#Events

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theowlhousefanboy · 1 year

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Good/Great Games That Sorely Needed Expansion Packs/DLC Stories, if not More (And What They Might Have Entailed):

X-Wing Alliance (tying up the loose end that is Uncle Antan, whilst maybe extending to the Liberation of Coruscant)

Quake 4 (eliminating the remnants of the Strogg while fighting what may be fellow humans sent to hunt you down)

Return to Castle Wolfenstein+Enemy Territory (just more B.J. Blazkowicz adventures)

Star Wars: Squadrons (modding, more ships like the Assault Gunboat and E-Wing, and a far better and more expanded story campaign akin to X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Balance of Power)

Battlezone II: Combat Commander (probably cleaning up General Braddock's remaining yet fanatical forces, with an alternate campaign showing the full extermination of the Scion)

Batman: Arkham Origins (basically, a singleplayer campaign between Batman and Dick Grayson Robin based on the premise of the now defunct multiplayer)

Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 (just more missions for the Colonial Marine, Alien, and Predator; maybe even more modding tools)

Original War (an Arab campaign that explains the main game's plot holes, among others)

SiN: Wages of Sin (perhaps an alternate timeline where the elusive Elexis Sinclaire was actually killed, thus preventing the existence of the lackluster episodic sequel)

Valiant Hearts: The Great War (an extension involving the American intervention, the fall of czarist Russia and the rise of Communism, and the end of WW1)

Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars+Kane's Wrath (basically, Kane's Wrath-like takes for the GDI and the Scrin, with maybe a bonus campaign involving CABAL remnants and an actual crossover with Red Alert 2 by way of a Nod agent about to be sent back in time named Yuri)

Brutal Legend (even I can't think which)

Singularity (mayhaps an interquel involving another time traveller who may or may not be helping the protagonists)

Impossible Creatures (again, I can't think of anything)

Shadowrun Returns (Dragonfall and Hong Kong are great, but really, we need more)

BattleTech 2018 (same as Shadowrun Returns)

Mad Max (more adventures, vehicles, and franchise fanservice, and I don't mean the skin kind)

Halo Wars (just some side stories over the course of the Human-Covenant War)

Total War: Shogun 2 (Mongol invasion, 'nuff said)

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (I don't really need to say more)

Act of War: Direct Action+High Treason (either a campaign that shows us the fall of the Consortium or, better yet, a full blown alternate universe Consortium campaign)

House of the Dying Sun (more intriguing missions and ships, I guess)

Edit: OK, Valiant Hearts actually got a sequel named Coming Home in late January 2023, in a different medium that does show the American intervention and thus the end of WW1. Suffice to say, heard it did well.

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gascon-en-exil · 1 year

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Working on the Octopath Traveler II demo, restarting once I get to the message about the story continuing so I can see each character's opening. Temenos and Osvald were my first two.

Temenos

I looked up the English voice cast, and it turns out he isn't voiced by Dimitri's VA. Honest mistake considering half or so of this cast were also in Three Houses: Osvald is Yuri's, Agnea's is Marianne, and Throné is Bernadetta's.

Opens with a scripted encounter where you get to play as a god in a backstory that turns out to be Temenos staging a religious play for children. It was unexpected and kind of cute.

Temenos is indeed as quirky as prerelease material suggested, snarky and willing to beat people up for Jesus the Sacred Flame to get information at night. Speaking of day/night cycles, it seems like each opening will give the characters a chance to try out their time-sensitive actions, but I haven't come across any way to manually switch the time of day. I presume that'll come later.

Temenos is joined by a knight named Crick who actually becomes a guest party member and was very necessary to the first boss. Osvald gets one of these too, so I'm wondering if this is just something for the squishier solo characters or if everyone will have a temporary partner in their Chapter 1. Incidentally, Temenos and Crick banter and have contrasting personalities, so I can see people shipping them. Let's hope Crick isn't killed off/becomes a villain/gets no homo'ed by a sidequest like Alfyn's friend in the original.

This is shaping up to be a story resembling Cyrus's, with Temenos looking to solve a murder mystery and even having a similar ability to read suspicious scenes for clues - via the Flame literally guiding his path, how about that. It's not clear yet how the church in this game ties into the one seen in the original, since I'm pretty sure the number of gods is off - eight versus twelve - and neither game clarifies just how high-ranking a pontiff is in this universe. It seems closer to a bishop here as opposed to being the head of the entire church.

Eh, details. I love pseudo-Catholic aesthetics in games, and Temenos is a fun counterpoint to the straightforward piety of Ophilia the first time around.

Osvald

His opening is structured irregularly, with a standard Chapter 1 followed by a brief Chapter 2 that's included fully within the demo and is just a direct continuation of the first. Chapter 1 is breaking out of prison and fighting the warden; Chapter 2 is escaping the island and separating from his temporary partner (who sacrifices himself for Osvald's plan once he realizes he's going to die anyway).

Speaking of structure, while it's sure to annoy speedrunners and repeat players I liked that Osvald's escape plans are spread out over multiple days that you're forced to play through in pieces, underlining the misery and tedium of prison life.

If Cyrus was a riff on Sherlock Holmes, this game's scholar is more or less le comte de Monte-Cristo, framed for a crime he didn't commit and out for revenge after escaping prison. He's less interesting of a character with a revenge motivation than Primrose, but there's still time for him to show some more layers. What really helps is that OT2 is overall more cinematic than the first, with dynamic lighting, better use of cutscenes, and more consistent voice acting. I haven't yet come across any random scenes that are only partially voiced - it's either all or nothing.

Osvald is muzzled for most of Chapter 1, preventing him from speaking and using magic but also giving him an excuse to internally monologue all the necessary exposition. I suppose that's better than having characters spout information they should already know.

I must reiterate that both Osvald and Temenos absolutely needed the help from their partners against their first bosses. I expect this game to be even more hostile to solo run challenges than the first if even the earliest bosses are built with a party in mind.

I was tempted to follow the path south from where Osvald lands on the mainland to see how the snowy environment transitions into the autumnal mountain area just to the south where Tememos starts, but I'm restraining myself. All in all the geography of OT2 looks much more natural and less obviously like it was made for a video game. I presume you can access a ship for crossing the large body of water in the center fairly early, if only to allow for the possibility of recruiting everyone as soon as possible.

#Octopath Traveler #Octopath Traveler 2

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