OK Alchemised thread.
I've never done this shit but I've seen other people do it on other platforms so it must be possible right?

Also I'm audio booking so lol what are names
First off, I heard this was based on a ship from everyone's (least) favorite wizard book series (that isn't Earthsea) and I think that kind of ruined it already lol but I'm curious about and after like chapter 4 or so I'm enjoying it. It got me switched off my Malazan book for the time being, and its similar length.
Anyway what kind of got me hooked is the world building and the post-story setting of it all, but I'm still very early (maybe 10%?) and I have no clue where this goes. But the main character is Helena who is a foreign girlie caught up in religious-secular war, on the side of religion (oops) because she was friends with the pope's son lol (oops). In said world some countries have access to alchemy and its various off-shoots. Which is NOT magic it's SCIENCE. Well depends who you ask actually. Now that I think about it, necromancy is involved and I wouldn't really call that alchemy...

Anyway the narrative is a little broken up because Helena's mind is pretty messed up. She was on the losing side of the war and the book starts with her being woken from a kind of stasis for an undetermined amount of time in a location that no one expect to find her. The Big Bads ('high necromancer', the evil scientist, other cronies) all gather around her and talk about their dilemma of what to do with the last revolutionary they have on their hands and what to do with her brain which is covered in some crazy advanced alchemy shit that presumably is hiding information in it. What is it? Nobody knows, not even Helena (they don't really ask her either since they can just mind scan her lol).
So they send her to the "High Reeve", this total badass who has killed all the coolest revolutionaries, and what do you know it's this dude Helena went to school with. Though his hair is all white and his skin is pale. And he's so slight.

So now the story can start in earnest. Like I was saying Helena has a few problems. She's being held against her will in this big stinky mansion that is covered in iron, and the family that owns it can control iron at will. Her body and mind are severely traumatized - she's weak as a baby from muscle atrophy from being in a pod for more than a year. During this entire time she was conscious (so, sleep paralyzed) and after all that time she developed a fear of the dark or big spaces she doesn't know, so she can't leave her room without having panic attacks. She also had anti-alchemy manacles implanted in her wrists (like,metal ribbon drilled through her wrists and wound around like a cuff) which give her pain and stop her from using alchemy. And the baddies want to comb her brain for secrets to seemingly betray her friends, who at this point are all dead but it's the idea of it all!

I LOVE...
How Do We Relationship (付き合ってあげてもいいかな) (Tsukiatte Agetemo Ii Kana) ("Maybe I'll go on a date with you.")

More thoughts forthcoming... but this is a delightful manga that I had to stop reading and squealing about (actually in real life, yeesh) to post somewhere about. I'm almost done with it so I'm dreading that, but it's so... nice.
I suppose it's romance but more and more when I read it that just seems like 'coming of age' for the college years. Which may or may not be interesting to someone. Also if the cover is not obvious, it's about women loving women, or yuri. The main characters are the two girls on the cover but it covers a lot of other relationships of various sexualities and situations... shituationships even. And its very heartwrenching and heartwarming.
It's heartmaxing I guess.

Something about the characters makes them so real... I have to work through why, but they've worked their way into my heart in a way I haven't experienced in manga for a while. I care for them like real people, I'm worried for their mental health. I hope they can get over, hope they can figure it out? When they're hurt, I feel it. Something like that.

Maybe because for a while, despite myself, I've been caught up in fantasy, sci fi, or action type stories, where the stakes always have life on the line? So maybe this change of pace is something I really needed.
I digress. But I'm fighting insomnia and waiting for my sleepy tea to kick in.

I had been waiting for a while to post about this manga. In this moment, I feel like I might just stop reading it for a while to linger on the chapter I just finished haha... the final volume is not released in English yet (though it is available through serialized chapters on Viz's platform) so it's not the end of the world... but I'll probably get hungry for knowledge of 'what happens next' soon. For now I'm in that liminal space of what happened, being the only thing that is happening... until I turn the next page.

Anyway I hope some more people check out this manga :)
Edit: this turned out to be quite a cringe post but it's appropriate.

#manga #HowDoWeRelationship #thoughts

Started Death Stranding 2 recently. I haven't been taking any pictures really, which I commented on when I was streaming... Perhaps because I'm focused on playing and on new aspects (contrasted with the old) and my brain isn't wandering on how to take a good shot or something. Living in the moment? Interesting to think about not what I want to capture but when I want to. I took a lot of pictures while grinding the platinum in DS1, so perhaps it's another way of playing while I'm doing the more mundane delivery tasks. Tch Kojima got me again.

I don't remember taking the mirror picture, probably an accident, but something I'm really liking about the game is the lighting. This applies to I think every environment - interiors, off of skin, and the sand and rocks of Mexico. I audibly gasped when the light of sunrise hit a canyon wall... Don't do that very often.

The wide angle shot on the bike is a good example of the environment, which I really dig. I took when it was zoomed out while music was playing but I took it in photo mode, but the UI is all there, booo. Oh I just realized I did hit X to take a picture so it's probably in the game's album but not my PlayStation's album lol
#DEATHSTRANDING2 #playstation5