I made it! After a week of pure anxiety I took the 13 hour flight and I'm now in Seoul! My worst fear was to loose my bagage because I need my own bedding and clothes... That didn't happen, I instead got food poisoning (i think or it might have been the stress) on the flight and threw up 11 times. Shame is no longer in my vocabulary haha. How has your experiences been traveling?
But now I'm here and have to start eating which normally is a problem and now even worse. Anyone who has been and can recommend any dishes, restaurant or so? So far I've had an jam, egg & potatosallad sandwich haha. I'm also vegetarian so that's a bit of an issue.

I put ??? in parts I couldn't translate, due to my still limited vocabulary and grammar knowledge of Latin. Feel free to correct it and give me advices.
​
In insula est puella, ???
Ea populum et mare amat,
Est lux familiae eius,
Interdum omnia contra te est, ???
Sed luces quoque te monstrant, ubi es.
???
Et nulla in mundo tacet vocem, quae te loquitur
Et cum ea te susurrat:
"Moana, procul advenit"
"Moana, scis vero quis es tu?"
​
Quis sum ego?
Sum puella, quae insulam suam amat
Et puella, cui mare placet
Me clamat
Filia domini haec villae sum
E nautis provenio ego
Et praeteritum meum in mari est
Me clamat
​
Et mecum hic advenimus
Valde procul jam ii
Sum omnia, quod didici et magis... nunc me clamat!
​
Mare ipsum non timeo, in me inest
Et undas eius, quae jam mihi placent
Et animam meam audire incipiam
Quia cor meum me dicit: "rectem viam scio"
​
Ego sum Moana!

Could you explain me the meaning of a word 'jam' in the context of its usage on vocabulary.com as a vocabulary jam and also in the movie Space Jam. I asked a GPT chat and it said it's all about juzz playing musicians who comes together to play challenging music and to team up to face challenges. So in this context its meaning a difficult situation?

In another posting below, there was a comment that someone was seeking out bad translations!
I found one! In public domain, so it's FREE for anyone to read- long out of copyright! C'mon... I DARE YOU!
Read this and weep!
https://archive.org/details/lesmiserables0000unse_r8z3/mode/2up
What's wrong with it? Ohhh, let me count the ways!
Les Miserables. 530 pages, (editor unknown). 1910?, pub. Ward Lock and Co Ltd. (UK). Word count: Approx 259,000.

• Keeps the place-name censorship
• Language style is old-fashioned (Wraxall)
• VHRQ: present

This is simply awful. It's based on the Wraxall translation, and edited down to only 530 pages, but damn, each page is a chore! Not only do readers have to deal with antiquated English, but antiquated British English and even British slang, which has a very different vocabulary and style. I never thought I'd say this, but suddenly the Wilbour translation sounds far more appealing and understandable.
Translation quirks, some Wraxall, some not (and worse):

• Pervy AF: The Thenn's daughters playing on an improvised swing, right outside the inn. In public! "Their innocent faces had a look of surprise; [...] and the younger displayed her nudity with the chaste indecency of childhood." (⮜This is straight from Wraxall and adds a layer of sick pedo sh*t.)
• More uncomfortably questionable wording in this book re: Mayor Madeleine's attempts to find a volunteer to help old Fauchelevent stuck under a cart: "Is there anyone here who has strong loins?" (⮜koff, koff. Hoping to find a manly man who wants to boast of his...virility?) Wilbour: "Is there nobody here who has strength and courage?"
• Eponine demonstrates her writing skills: "Here are the slops." (⮜does she mean farm animal feed? Food for humans that's barely edible? A chamber pot?) Wilbour: "The cognes are here" with cognes usually explained as "the police".
• Gavroche, after hearing that 2 lost boys can't find their parents: "You didn't ought to turn grown-up people out to grass in that way." (⮜what? Not Wraxall.) Wilbour: "It's stupid to get lost like that for people of any age."
• And then people hail one another with "Hilloh", which seems to be some form of "Hey!" or "Hello".

This book also has excessively LONG chapters. Too many different chapters from the original, with entirely different characters and plot threads were jammed together to make super-sized chapters. Example: Waterloo (one long paragraph), The Battlefield at Night, the ship Orion, Boulatruelle snooping around looking for buried treasure, and the Thenns sending Cosette to get water in a scary dark forest... is all ONE CHAPTER! And, there's just way too much untranslated French. Would be nice to know what Gavroche is singing about. And Valjean's gravestone epitaph is present, but in French only. We should be deeply moved, if only we knew what it said!😡
Nice, but Non-Essential Plot Elements Included? Montparnasse's mugging money pickpocketed by Gavroche? (Yes) Gavroche saves his li'l bros? (Yes) Thenn & Thugs Prison Escape? (Yes) Eponine stops home-invasion robbery at Rue Plumet? (Yes)
The Verdict: Not recommended. The reason to read an abridged Les Miserables is to speed things up and enjoy the story, without all of the side-details and "digressions". This book is hard-going. Common questions while reading, "How's that again? What the heck did that mean?" (looks up a different translation) "Ohhh..." It's very difficult to read to the point of being torturous, and you WILL need a dictionary.
Adaptation Deviation Score: None. It's based on an old, British translation that's not fully comprehensible to a modern audience not born or raised in the UK.
(this review is written by me)

De Cero by Wildey The time to breakthrough for Cuban rapper Wildey is now or never and based on what he has accomplished so far, ‘never’ is out of his vocabulary. Wildey, who is amongst the latest Black Market Records signings in Cuba, has surprised his fans all over Latin America by dropping a full album of only scorching dance-force jams. Dubbed De Cero, Wildey’s album comes with the following tracks that have since sparked off a storm on the Cuban entertainment scene; ‘Sacale Licencia A Tu Odio’ ft. El Ankla, ‘ Love’ ft. Dontyto, ‘La Perlona’ ft. DJ Yeyo, ‘Tu Me Conose’, ‘El Demonio’(Remix) ft. Harrison, ‘Paciente’ (Remix), ‘La Chingona’ and ‘Sécale Licencia A Tu Odio’ (Dj Electro remix) ft. El Ankla.

Ray Kurzweil is an author and inventor who is known for making incredible (yet much of the time accurate) predictions about the future. Below is the first part of a list compiling Predictions from his books.
A few disclaimers. First, where possible I used his lists of compiled predictions in the backs of his books. This was mainly for The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines. Obviously he goes more in depth in the books themselves, so feel free to grab a copy and check out the relevant chapters.
The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990)
Note: Ray has a history in the back of this (enormous) book that starts from the dinosaurs and goes through the date the book was published (1990) and then into the future (as of the writing of the book). I therefore start at 1990 and go from there. All predictions are included and listed exactly as written unless otherwise stated.
Early 1990's

• A profound change in military strategy arrives. The more developed nations increasingly rely on "smart weapons", which incorporate electronic copilots, pattern recognition techniques, and advanced technologies for tracking, identification, and destruction.
• Continuous speech systems can handle large vocabularies for specific tasks
• Computer processors operate at speeds of 10 MIPS.
• Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) technology makes writing chip programs as easy as writing software programs.

1990's (note: 1990's is somewhere in the decade from 1990 to 2000. Early 1990's from 1990 to 1995)

• A multi-hundred-billion-dollar computer and information-processing industry is emerging, together with a generation of ubiquitous machine intelligence that works intimately with its human creators.
• Significant progress is made toward an intelligent assistant, a decision-support system capable of a wide variety of administrative and information-gathering tasks. The system can, for example, prepare a feasibility report on a project after accessing several data bases and talking to human experts.
• Reliable person identification, using pattern-recognition techniques applied to visual and speech patterns, replace locks and keys in many instances.
• Accomplished musicians, as well as students learning music, are routinely accompanied by cybernetic musicians.
• AI technology is of greater strategic importance than manpower, geography, and natural resources.

Late 1990's (1995 to 2000)

• Documents frequently never exist on paper because they incorporate information in the form of audio and video pieces.
• Media technology is capable of producing computer-generated personalities, intelligent image system with some human characterisitics.

1999

• The several hundred-billion-dollar computer and information-processing market is largely intelligent by 1990 standards.

2000

• Three-dimensional chips and smaller component geometries contribute to a multi-thousandfold improvement in computer power (compared to a decade earlier).
• Chips with over a billion components appear
• The world chess champion is a computer

Early 2000's (similar to above, we can assume he means from 2000 to 2005 - this is why he used Early 21st Century later.

• Translating telephones allow two people across the globe to speak to each other even if they do not speak the same language.
• Speech-to-text machines translate speech into a visual display for the deaf.
• Exoskeletal robotic prosthetic aids enable paraplegic persons to walk and climb stairs.
• Telephones are answered by an intelligent telephone answering machine that converses with the calling party to determine the nature and priority of the call.
• The cybernetic chauffer, installed in one's car, communicates with other cars and sensors on roads. In this way it successfully drives and navigates form one point to another.

Early 21st Century (from 2000 to 2050)

• Computers dominate the educational environment. Courseware is intelligent enough to understand and correct the inaccuracies in the conceptual model of a student. Media technology allows students to interact with simulations of the very systems and personalities they are studying.
• The entire production sector is operated by a small number of technicians and professionals. Individual customization of products is common.
• Drugs are designed and tested on human biochemical simulators.
• Seeing machines for the blind provide both reading and navigation functions.

2010

• A personal computer has the ability to answer a large variety of queries because it will know where to find the knowledge. Communication technologies allow it to access many sources of knowledge by wireless communication.

2020-2050

• A phone call, which includes highly realistic three-dimensional holographic moving images, is like visiting with the person called.

2020-2070

• A computer passes the Turing test, which indicates human-level intelligence.

The The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990) has all of its predictions neatly printed on pages in the back of the book. The future predictions (as of 1990) were pulled from pages 482-483. Fortunately, it's much the same with the next book.
​
The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999)
1999

• Cochlear implants exist and have relatively easy to access and adjust settings. (pg 52)

2009

• A $1000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second.
• Personal computers with high-resolution visual displays come in a range of sizes, from those small enough to be embedded in clothing and jewelry up to the size of a thin book.
• Cables are disappearing. Communication between components uses short-distance wireless technology. High-speed wireless communication provides access to the Web.
• The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition. Also ubiquitous are language user interfaces (LUIs).
• Most routine business transactions (purchases, travel, reservations) take place between a human and a virtual personality. Often, the virtual personality includes an animated visual presence that looks like a human face.
• Although traditional classroom organization is still common, intelligent courseware has emerged as a common means of learning.
• Pocket sized reading machines for the blind and visually impaired, "listening machines" (speech-to-text conversion) for the deaf, and computer controlled orthotic devices for paraplegic individuals result in a growing perception that primary disabilities do not necessarily impart handicaps.
• Translating telephones (speech-to-speech language translation) are commonly used for many language pairs
• Accelerating returns from the advance of computer technology have resulted in continued economic expansion. Price deflation, which had been a reality during the twentieth century, is now occurring outside the computer field. The reason for this is that virtually all economic sectors are deeply affected by the accelerating improvement in price performance of computing.
• Humans routinely jam with cybernetic musicians.
• Bioengineered treatments for cancer and heart disease have greatly reduced the mortality from these diseases.
• The neo-Luddite movement is growing.

2019

• A $1000 computing device (in 1999 dollars) is now approximately equal to the computational ability of the human brain.
• Computers are now largely invisible and are embedded everywhere - in walls, tables, chairs, desks, clothing, jewelry, and bodies.
• Three-dimensional virtual reality displays, embedded in glasses and contact lenses, as well as auditory "lenses", are used routinely as primary interfaces for communication with other persons, computers, the Web, and virtual reality.
• Most interaction with computing is through gestures and two-way natural language spoken communication.
• Nanoengineered machines are beginning to be applied to manufacturing and process-control applications.
• High-resolution, three-dimensional visual auditory virtual reality and realistic all-encompassing tactile environments enable people to do virtually anything with anybody, regardless of physical proximity.
• Paper books and documents are rarely used and most learning is conducted through intelligent, simulated software-based teachers.
• Blind persons routinely use eyeglass mounted reading-navigation systems. Deaf persons read what other people are saying through their lens displays. Paraplegic and some quadriplegic persons routinely walk and climb stairs through a combination of computer-controlled nerve stimulation and exoskeletal robotic devices.
• The vast majority of transactions include a simulated person. Automated driving systems are not installed in most roads.
• People are beginning to have relationships with automated personalities and use them as companions, teachers, caretakers, and lovers.
• Virtual artists, with their own reputations, are emerging in all of the arts.
• There are widespread reports of computers passing the Turing Test, although these tests do not meet the criteria established by knowledgeable observers.

2029

• A $1000 (in 1999 dollars) unit of computation has the computing capacity of approximately 1,000 human brains.
• Permanent or removable implants (similar to contact lenses) for the eyes as well as cochlear implants are now used to provide input and output between the human user and the worldwide computing network.
• Direct neural pathways have been perfected for high-bandwidth connection to the human brain. A range of neural implants is becoming available to enhance visual and auditory perception and interpretation, memory, and reasoning.
• Automated agents are now learning on their own, and significant knowledge is being created by machines with little or no human intervention. Computers have read all available human and machine generated literature and multimedia material.
• There is widespread use of all-encompassing visual, auditory, and tactile communication using direct neural connections, allowing virtual reality to take place without having to be in a "total touch enclosure".
• The majority of communication does not involve a human. The majority of communication involving a human is between a human and a machine.
• There is almost no human employment in production, agriculture, or transportation. Basic life needs are available for the vast majority of the human race.
• There is a growing discussion about the legal rights of computers and what constitutes being "human."
• Although computers routinely pass apparently valid forms of the Turing Test, controversy persists about whether or not machine intelligence equals human intelligence in all of its diversity.
• Machines claim to be conscious. These claims are largely accepted.

2049

• The common use of nanoproduced food, which has the correct nutritional composition and the same taste and texture of organically produced food, means that the the availability of food is no longer affected by rources, bad crop weather, or spoilage.
• Nanobot swarm projections are used to create visual-auditory-tactile projections of people and objects in real reality.

2072

• Picoengineering (developing technology at the scale of picometers or trillionths of a meter) becomes practical.

By the year 2099...

• There is a strong trend toward a merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created.
• There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers
• Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence.
• Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human intelligence claim to be human, although their brains are not based on carbon-based cellular processes, but rather electronic and photonic equivalents. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation
• Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology, which provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do.
• Because most information is published using standard assimilated knowledge protocols, information can be instantly understood. The goal of education, and of intelligent beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn.
• Femtoengineering (engineering a the scale of femtometers or one thousandth of a trillionth of a meter) proposals are controverisal.
• Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings.

Some many millenniums hence...

• Intelligent beings consider the fate of the Universe.

That's all for the first portion. If you want the rest, please upvote and, if possible, share. Thanks!
For the introductory article go here.

My dream is the following: to converse with a chatbot in my conlang. This would be like having an artificial native speaker or AI pen pal to practice my conlang with.
I have experimented a bit with LingoJam before, and I tried to get into Apertium in the past. I found these rules-based translation tools to be insufficient for my needs, since my conlang has non-configurational syntax, discontinuities, and other peculiarities I found all too difficult to encode via mere substitution rules.
I've looked into some transformer-based architectures that use PyTorch, such as basic question-and-answer chatbots. However, the most robust and realistic chatbots are predominantly trained on English corpora. I don't have much experience with Large Language Models (LLMs), but I think it would cost the equivalent of a Hollywood Movie budget, (multiple millions of dollars), for me to train my own model like GPT-J-6B in my conlang from scratch.
Instead of retraining expensive models from scratch, I could make use of the English-trained ones and maybe translate and expand from there:
Input conlang -> Translate Input to English
-> (Send to Chatbot) ->
Chatbot Outputs English -> Translate Output to conlang
All the bot would ever see is English, and all I'd ever see is my conlang. Thus, the bot would receive valid tokens, and I'd get some practice in my conlang by approximating the experience of conversation. For this to work, it would all depend on the quality of my conlang-English language pair.
How to train this translation filter, I'm unsure. I've looked into statistical models for machine translation, but there is a paucity of parallel texts between my conlang and English to train such a system. I don't have any full books written in my conlang with a corresponding English version. Maybe someday...
If I could train a sufficient translation layer, I'd embed it as a custom web add-on. Ideally I could play something like AI Dungeon entirely in my conlang. If I can get conlang text communication with a chatbot to work, maybe I could move on to text-to-speech and speech-to-text interaction. I've looked into some few-shot cross-lingual phonemizers. However, both TTS and STT are exceedingly difficult to implement, especially phonotactics and allophony, so I'll stick with pure text-based interaction for now.
--------------------------------
My eventual goal: An artificial friend group, or rather, a multi-agent LLM system, similar to ChatArena. I wouldn't need the smartest AI friends, as long as I could simulate cross-directional conversation in my conlang in an artificial native speaker environment. Eventually, perhaps I could interact with these artificial friends in a PC or VR gaming setting. I could do a gaming stream and speak only in my conlang, with conlang-speaking AI friends as co-hosts. Regardless if there is an audience or not, this would be an excellent way to practice my conlang on an intuitive level.
I do have real friends, too, but realistically even my closest friends are too busy with work or life stuff and have no incentive to learn my conlang to a high level, not that I have ever tried to teach them. I have been private about my conlang, sharing it only with people I trust. However, I do feel a yearning to socialize in it, and perhaps AI is my best bet.
Full-fledged AI friends, capable of both socializing and gaming, would be too computationally expensive with today's technology, but perhaps with advances in quantum processors in the near future, maybe token processing will get cheap enough to make conlang-speaking AI friends possible.
When quantum NLP (natural language processing) becomes more of a thing, perhaps the weights of various polysemies for words could be stored as vectors in superposition, collapsing to one state as needed for the most likely meaning in a given context. Quantum processors could scan entire semantic maps all at once and assign the most likely weights, improving translation quality drastically.
--------------------------------
Back to the present day, has anyone ever made a translation filter for their conlang using a custom dataset? Perhaps if I compiled a list of, say, 500 sentence and clause formations in my conlang, and trained the model with thousands of examples, the English-to-conlang conversions would be more or less grammatical. I would be fine with sub-par translations at first, as long as I have room to refine and improve the system incrementally with time, filling holes in the vocabulary as well. I could also write a grammaticality checker that would work on a sentence-by-sentence basis.
For now, I will stick with some basic chatbot interaction as my goal, instead of seeking Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in conlang form. I nevertheless maintain some lofty ambitions for the future when the technology permits.

Part 79
Inanna Williams, Desperate, Weeks Earlier
Inanna struggled against the chains she found herself in when she awoke. She was nude, chained to a table. Voices cried out from a nearby room. Her children's voices.
She felt the oppression in the air, magics that denied her access to her own. She struggled, growling, determined to save her children from whatever fate this shit-stained slit had in store for them-
Speaking of the shit-stained slit. A door opened and Inanna raised her head to see Sarisa approaching.
"I'm gonna rip your legs off and shove them up your ass," Inanna growled.
"No, I think you're going to teach me what I need to know about binding divinities to mortals. You and your children. And Duke's daughter, of course. Demigods and the offspring of demigods and divinely enchanted mortals. You're going to help me save-"
She stopped speaking as her head fell off. Inanna gasped as Sarisa's body collapsed. Behind her stood the most wonderful sight.
"Jerry!" she exclaimed, and then froze. Something was wrong. The power she felt inside him...
"What?" she asked. "You.... You're a god... What happened?"
"I'll explain everything in time," he said, his voice gentle and sad. "For now, take this," he handed her a small gem, pressing it into her palm.
"Baby," he said, kneeling next to the table and stroking her hair. "You're about to go through so much pain... And it tears at my soul that I can't stop it. Sarisa is going to kill you and the kids and trap your souls. She'll put them in new bodies and do it over and over... She's trying to learn how to truly bind a divinity to a mortal soul. She needs to succeed, because if she doesn't..." Tears dripped from his eyes.
"I'm so sorry you will have to go through this. I wish I could stop it."
"Just save the kids," Inanna said. "I can handle it, baby, but save the children."
"I can't... I mean, I sort of can't. I can spare them the memories of the pain, but a version of them..."
"A version of them? What does that mean?" she asked.
"I just... I will save them, I promise," he said. He kissed her. "Be strong," he said as she felt a sudden burning in her palm.
"Shit!" she cried. "What was that?"
"The gem.... It's bound you to your wells. Sarisa will try to take them away, to prevent you from resisting. She'll succeed, mostly. This will allow you to maintain a secret conduit, though. You won't be able to draw much power, but it should be enough for you to escape when the time is right."
Inanna nodded.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you too," he told her and kissed her again.
"Go get the kids," she said. "I'll see you soon."
----
Jerry Williams, Dad
I broke the bindings with a simple act of will and gathered the children around me.
"All right, we're going to go time traveling," I said, forcing myself to smile.
"You feel weird," Sara said, touching my chin experimentally. I nodded.
"I had to take a whole bunch of magic," I explained. "Including time travel magic."
"Okay," she said, accepting my explanation. "Where's mommy?'
"Mommy, " I said, and then hesitated. How do I explain to my children that their mother needed to remain in a prison where she would be tortured and murdered over and over, because weaving the timeline where I rescued her, as well, back into the others was destined to result in the deaths of every living being in the universe?
"Mommy's going to be where I'm taking you," I said finally. It wasn't a lie, at least.
"Okay," Junior said. "Can we go see the dinosaurs?"
"I think we can make a quick pit stop," I answered with a smile I did not feel.
----
I took the kids to see dinosaurs. It was... Interesting. I think they were happy to leave after just a few minutes. I brought them where and when I needed to. The experiment room, in the spire, less than an hour before my arrival.
I walked into the room and froze both the avatar and Inanna before they could recognize me, stopping all time passing for them. Before the kids could see anything, I burned the three tiny bodies on the three smaller tables. Thankfully, they were already dead. The soul machine...
Well, a person can only have one soul. No matter how many timelines there are, there's only one soul. The childrens' souls were split between what was contained in the machine and what still inhabited their bodies. Had the versions of them here still been alive, they would have been split three ways, and I would have had to trap them myself.
"Is mommy okay?" Sara asked, peering at Inanna, frozen in the middle of snarling some dire imprecation at the avatar whose head I would take soon.
"I know this is confusing," I told the children. "But I need to put you back on the tables." I brushed the ashes off the tables quickly.
"Why?" Junior asked, already getting upset. Their time spent strapped down to these tables had been a time of fear for them. They did not want to return to it.
"Because if your mother knows you're safe, she won't be able to muster the willpower to escape," I said. "She'll die here."
"I don't understand," Sara said, sniffling. I pulled all three of them into my arms.
"I know, baby, I know. But trust me. This is what we need to do. I promise, you'll only be here a little while, and after you get free, you'll see me again, soon, okay?"
"Will Miss Inanna be okay?" Maria asked. I smiled and booped her on the nose. "You don't know Miss Inanna very well, I know, but let me tell you a secret. She's the toughest, strongest, bravest person I've ever met in my entire life. As long as you kids are okay, she will be, too."
Maria nodded.
With a heavy heart, I got them on their tables and strapped down.
"I love you, all of you."
"Even me?" Maria asked. I nodded. "Even you."
I took a deep breath. "Be brave," I said, and then I vanished.
I hoped they'd be all right. I hoped they wouldn't carry the sorts of mental scars from this that being killed, over and over would have. This was my personal business. Pulling my children out of time, and then putting them back in, skipping what I hoped would be the most traumatic experience of their lives.
----
I went forward in time and moved myself to the top of the tower.
Sarisa was there, along with dozens of avatars. The avatars all froze and stared when I appeared. Some of them gaped at me much the way Avarisa used to do. Others glared, burning anger in their eyes. Still others watched me with detached disinterest.
"Do you hate me?" Sarisa asked, her voice small.
"Yes," I said. "And no. I understand why you did what you did." The avatars produced weapons and glowed with magic.
"Then it's you," she said, still not facing me. "From the future, at least from my perspective."
"It is," I said. Some of the avatars took a step forward.
"Not yet," Sarisa said, holding up a hand. "Let us speak."
The avatars took short steps back, many still eyeing me dangerously.
"Just call them off," I said. "We already know how this goes."
"I can't," she said. "I've already lost my connection. They hate you, for the most part. Some love you, some see you merely as a tool. Regardless, you'll have to kill them all. Their part is done, and they may interfere in the future and cause ripples that will undo what you've accomplished."
I glanced around to see that they had all turned to face each other. Magic flowed between them and they were inching towards each other.
"Why didn't you tell them the whole plan?"
"Because they wouldn't play their parts right, Jerry," she said, throwing up both hands. She spun to face me and I could see the anguish in her eyes.
"The whole Plan is so delicate," she said. "Every single tiny detail matters so much. I know you know The Plan, but you weren't there as I formed it. You don't know how fragile it is. Everything has to be just right."
"I think I do know," I said.
"Maybe," she admitted. But we were both wrong, I realized. I knew The Plan, but I didn't know all of her efforts within it. I didn't know why she'd made certain choices.
"What happened with Astoram?" I asked.
"Fulla," she said bitterly. "It wasn't her fault, though. I had to teach you to hate, Jerry, else the primordials would have done it again and again until they finally succeeded. You had to kill them all. And you never would have done that if you didn't know how to hate."
"What about Fulla?" I asked.
"I should have told her," Sarisa said, tears beginning to well in her eyes. "I was stupid not to. If I had, I think Astoram would have done it. She wouldn't have grown suspicious of me, she wouldn't have passed her hints to you. Astoram would have taught you to hate, and I would have been by your side as you fulfilled your destiny.
"Instead, I was a coward. I shied away from telling her the truth, for the same reason I never told you how I really felt. I was afraid of being rejected. I fucked it up."
"But Fulla did tell me..." I said. "Why not find another enemy?"
"I tried, with Duke," she said. "I almost got you there, but you recoiled at the last second, after you lashed out at his whores.After that... There was nobody else, Jerry. You were too strong. Any other enemy I gave you, you would have just steamrolled them. So I had to do it myself."
I shook my head. I understood, of course. But hearing her tell me her own thought process... I finally understood the sacrifices she'd made. My heart made me offer an olive branch.
"I would have, you know," I said.
"Would have what?"
"I would have loved you, if I thought I could. Back when we first met." She barked a laugh, a bitter, sardonic laugh.
"I know," she said. She sighed regretfully.
"I cared too much about The Plan," she said. "If I had just let it simmer for a bit, I could have worked up the courage."
"You knew," I said. "You had to have known that if you'd just opened up to me..." I let the thought trail off, unwilling to put into words a world in which I had not been with Inanna, no matter how likely it may have been.
She shrugged. "Insecurities are not unique to mortals," she said. "I did know. It didn't make any difference. Emotions rarely listen to reason, you know?"
I did know. Not from the knowledge I had pulled from her as she laying dying mere moments from now, but from my own life, my own insecurities. The knowledge of success does not erase the fear of failure.
I glanced at the avatars. They had gathered together and I could see their forms melding into each other. Sarisa followed my gaze.
"The ones who hate you have won the argument. They're melding together to be able to face you. They're calling in all of the avatars, including the one who's been with you. Use the time domain," she said. "They're calling to her. Don't let them take the current one. Take her from the future, or it will make your arrival too late."
I reviewed what I knew of the plan and realized she was right. If they drew in the Avarisa from right now, they'd alter the timing, and things would become far more difficult for me. I flicked some magic into their... Melding, I guess was the best word, and found the threads reaching out to Avarisa, pushing them into the future.
"Call them off," I said, already knowing that she couldn't. But, much as she had said, the knowledge of violence did not erase the hope for peace.
"I can't. Too much of my power is caught up in the ritual. I already made them hesitate, and in doing so, they've realized that I don't have the power to control them right now."
"I'm sorry, Jerry," Sarisa said. She sobbed once before she went on. "For all my mistakes, for everything you've been through. Everything I put you through. Please come see me, after. Let me die looking into your eyes, at least."
She flew up and I felt her bind herself even tighter to the primordials' ritual. She had to take over, I knew, for one of the avatars who'd been pulled in. If she didn't... Everyone would die.
I looked back down to see a single avatar standing there. She blazed with power as she drew her sword and I felt a wet blanket settle down over us. I tested it, and though I realized I could take it apart, it would take me precious moments, during which she would attack me. If she won, she would drive me back to Nibiru, and I would not be able to return when I needed to. Even using my time domain to fix that would create more ripples that my avatars would need to repair, and they had their hands full already. If I threw too much on them, they would falter, and the risk of failure was too great already.
I needed my body to survive the next few minutes. Which meant that this would be a physical fight.
I reached forward into the future and drew back a copy of Godslayer. I summoned my shield.
"The mistress might have feelings for you," the avatar said. "But we don't. I do, I love you Jerry! I hate you! You've ruined everything! PLEASE LOVE ME BACK!!" The last came out in a shriek of rage before her face shifted to a look of sadness and then to grim determination.
I cocked my head to one side at the contradictions.
All those avatars... I knew Sarisa would have carefully tailored what each one remembered. And I knew that removing a memory here, or there, could drastically change how she felt about me. This must be the result of all those disparate dispositions coming together.
She moved in, lightning fast, the katana whipping around. I dodged two blows and then caught a third on my shield, pushing it out, opening her up. I slashed across and scored her belly with the tip of Godslayer. I felt the universe strum.
"Stars and stones, how did you build that?!" she gasped. "Keep it away from me! Let me touch it... Kill me, Jerry, Kill me now! I'll take your head, you self-righteous prick!" She slashed again, stepping back to avoid a riposte.
I turned her blade aside with Godslayer and then rushed her with my shield.
She hammered at it, breaking the steel binding with her blade. I saw runes flash across it, and recognized them. A fairly standard enchantment for a weapon. Durability and a variable mass that would decrease as she maneuvered it around and increase as she swung it in an attack.
"Is that the best enchantment you could do?" I mocked. "It's a katana plus one, for fuck's sake. You were the goddess of knowledge once, right? You couldn't do anything better?"
"I have no need to explain myself to you! I didn't have time... Do you think you could help me improve it? It's enough to kill you with! I know, I know, it's bad, but it's been a while since I enchanted anything..."
She pressed me as she spoke, her face contorting with each contradictory phrase. Her blade whipped left and right, circling and diving. I worked my shield, keeping the still-reforming part of the banding safe so it could fully restore itself, saving Godslayer for the inevitable opportunity to attack.
In time, I got it. She attacked my left side, then whipped the blade into an overhand diagonal slash from top right to bottom left. I reeled back on my feet, then used a blip of magic to push me back forward as I slammed my shield into her blade, briefly trapping it and stabbing with Godslayer.
The tip had barely struck her shoulder when she jerked impossibly fast, ducking out of the way. It opened her shoulder up savagely and thrummed with its violent magic, but the wound would not stop her. It would barely even slow her down.
I paid for my eagerness. As I thrust in, she broke her blade free and whipped it up, one-handed. The edge chopped into my side, cutting through my armor and into my armpit. The wet blanket made my regeneration sluggish, so even though I spun out of the way and took three running steps to free up some space between us, I still came to a stop hissing in pain.
She grinned, then her brow furrowed in concern, tightened in determination, and then shot up in surprise.
"I'm so sorry! You had that coming! That was but a taste of the slow way I will make you- Okay, you can shut the fuck up. I'LL KILL YOU!!! I'm sorry, Jerry, I'm trying to stop it!"
She slashed at me again, but her movement was off. Jerky and uncoordinated. I blinked, wondering if the conflicted voices were finally affecting her movements. I sure hoped so. Even with the limited access I had to several full divinities through the wet blanket, this avatar moved like nothing I'd ever seen before. Any other being, hell, any god I'd fought like this, I would have expected to have taken their arm off with the last attack. Instead, she had what amounted to a boo-boo.
I decided to change tactics a bit. I dropped the shield and flicked a magical switch inside Godslayer that I never really expected to use. It was old, dating back to some of my first experiments in enchantment. It elongated both handle and blade and broadened the blade until it was a full three-inches wide just behind the point. It transformed my viking sword into a vicious looking longsword.
Contrary to popular belief, two-handed swords are faster, not slower than single-handed swords. The reason being that you have both hands to move the weight around, but also that you can do a lot more movement with just your wrists. This joined-avatar moved with shocking speed, and though her technique was far from perfect, it was good. Really good. It reminded me of the way I had fought right after Inanna had given me an avatar of martial skills. My knowledge and instincts were immaculate, but my body had not yet gotten used to the motions I instinctively made. And my mind had difficulty processing the techniques I used and stringing them together into a strategy.
That was her weakness. She had plenty of speed and competence, but she was vulnerable to trickery, so long as that trickery came from someone with an equal level of competence.
The avatar had taken advantage of the instant it took me to do that by rushing in. As her katana swept down in an overhand strike, I simply raised my own sword up to meet it, letting the edges smash into each other. As I had suspected, the durability enchantments on her katana were not as potent as the ones on Godslayer. I saw sparks and chips of steel go flying as the edges met, and as I whipped Godslayer to the side to open up her guard, I could see the chip in her blade.
I brought Godslayer in, using the flat of the blade to smack her in the side of the head hard. If I'd taken the time to spin it, she would have dodged, and indeed, she almost dodged this smack. But not quite.
The blow rocked her and sent her reeling back. The thrum of a strike with Godslayer was muted, though, letting me know the actual damage done was minimal.
She got her guard back and snarled, "That's the last time you land a strike." For once, she didn't contradict herself. I wondered if I'd fucked up, knocking out the voices that didn't want to fight.
She shook her head roughly and glared at me. She rushed back in, katana flashing as she whipped it through a series of attacks that I warded off with Godslayer, until she got my guard over to the left and stomped on my ankle as I crouched to parry a low slash.
The stomp didn't break anything, but it tripped me, making me stumble. A flash of blazing pain ripped across my face as she tried to take my head, but my motion blunted the force of the chop. Before I could recover, she whipped the blade around and jammed the tip down through my left side.
The blade met only meat, but it still hurt. And it hurt worse when I jumped back and the stab wound widened from the effort. Blood quickly soaked my side and I felt my left arm stiffening.
She grinned, a predatory, devious grin.
"You stole fighting skill from Inanna, didn't you?" I asked. "Or rather, your mistress did."
"One cannot 'steal' skills," she said, pacing forward to close the distance again.
"True," I said. She launched a flurry of blows which I intercepted and then spun my sword like a foil, binding up her curved blade and cutting into her wrist with a thrum of power. As she spent a brief fraction of a second struggling to decide on what technique to respond to my oddball move with, I angled my elbow up and pushed forward.
Godslayer's tip sank into her chest. She gasped, her eyes widening as the blood began to flow from her bifurcated heart.
She began to blur. Her body vibrated, then suddenly erupted into fifty or sixty copies which exploded outwards. I dodged one right as the wet blanket vanished and my injuries healed in a flash.
One of the bodies was Avarisa. I crossed my fingers and released the magic I'd used that pulled her back.
"Please let there be somebody with some healing magic when she returns..." I prayed.
----
Inanna Williams, Wife as Well as Mother
Inanna raced back up the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her.
She'd found Gary. And Yarm, Sookie and a whole host of others, including Loki, which had been a complete shock. But they had an army. An army that could protect her children against any threat. And thus assured of their safety, she turned to her next priority; her husband.
She was mortal now, and her magic was a paltry thing, thanks to the cruel treatment she had suffered at Sarisa's hands. But she had been a warrior since long before she ever gained her divinity. The exhaustion of running up dozens of flights of stairs would not stop her.
She reached the top level and leaped up, seizing the rungs of the ladder that led to a trapdoor near the top. She shoved the door open as she pulled herself up and leaped out.
Dozens of smaller spires dotted the top of the structure. She weaved through them, stepping over dead bodies of Sarisa's avatars until one twitched.
She whipped her sword out of the back sheath and angled it at the survivor, bleeding from a three-inch wide gash in her chest. Something about this one was off, and it took her a second to recognize what it was. She was heavier than the others, her hair dirtier, her skin marked with tiny scars and imperfections.
"Avarisa," she said. The avatar opened its eyes to meet her gaze. One hand lifted weakly.
"Shit," Inanna said. She put her sword down and crouched, placing her hands on the woman's chest. "Where's your clothes and gear?" She willed healing magic into her.
Avarisa's mouth moved weakly. As the healing magic -barely a trickle, but it was all she could do- seeped into her, she found her voice.
"The other avatars..." she gasped. "They melded... It drew me in... It felt strange, like I was being... Drawn out of the world... Into another."
"Huh," Inanna said, focusing her attention on healing. It was a miracle that she still lived at all, given the amount of blood.
"Your magic..." Avarisa said, then winced. "It's so..."
"Yeah, I'm sipping from my wells through a rubber straw," Inanna said. "Just hold on. I'll get you healed in a couple minutes."
"I don't think I have a couple minutes," Avarisa said.
"Then make yourself a couple minutes," Inanna snapped back. She carefully found the balance, where she was drawing as much power as possible without cutting herself off.
"Jerry... He turned to me after... After you died..." Avarisa said. Inanna simply nodded.
"Yeah, I'm sure you loved it."
"I did... It was... Bittersweet but still... The happiest I've ever been."
"Well, just fucking fight, girl. If you just hang on long enough for me to finish, I'll invite you over for threesomes and shit."
Avarisa laughed.
"Just keep him happy," she said. "As long as he's happy... That's enough."
"You're getting a little too fatalistic, knock it off." Inanna said, even as she realized she wasn't going to succeed. Avarisa's heart was damaged. It wasn't beating. Only magic was keeping her alive, the avatar's own magic, and that was fading fast.
"You can reconstitute," Inanna said suddenly as the idea appeared in her mind.
"What?"
"Reconstitute. Like a god who lost their body. I mean, it's basically the same thing. You just... You need to gird yourself to survive in Nibiru long enough. It'll take all your magic, but you can do it-"
Avarisa raised a hand and stroked Inanna's cheek, leaving behind a bloody stain.
"I'm too weak..." she said. "Thank you."
"For what?" Inanna asked.
"For trying to save me," Avarisa said with a smile. Her eyes went distant and her breathing stopped.
"Motherfucker!" Inanna swore. As soon as she did, she heard pounding footsteps behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Kathy rounding one of the spires.
"Kathy! Quick!" Inanna looked back down, but Avarisa was gone.
"What?" she exclaimed.
"What happened?" Kathy asked as she approached.
"It was the avatar... Avarisa, she was wounded, she..." Inanna trailed off as she saw the body a few feet away.
It was her. Her clothes were back. Her eyes were glazed over, her body pale. She looked to have been dead for a half an hour or so.
"I don't..." Inanna said, but then she remembered when Jerry had come to her, right after being captured. He had glowed with divinities, including one she hadn't recognized.
"She was just here, naked and dying. I tried to help but my magic... I was too weak."
"She just vanished a few seconds ago," Kathy said.
"What's happening?" Inanna asked the world at large. The world did not have an answer.
----
Jerry Williams, Almost Done
There was one more thing I needed to do. I dismissed the future blade I had pulled back, restoring it to its proper time. I changed my clothes, dismissing my armor and gear, replacing it with a simple t-shirt and blue jeans.
I traveled back in time, and across space, weaving carefully through the timelines to pick the one where I knew my goal was. I appeared on a street, surrounded by corpses and crashed vehicles. Fires still burned around me, but I barely noticed.
There were two children there, a boy and a girl. Both toddlers, clinging to each other and weeping. I bolstered my learning well's magic with dream and meta-magic, and gently caressed their minds, drawing out what they knew of speech, learning their language. I didn't recognize it. It was too old. And their vocabularies were limited, being so young. But it was enough.
I crouched next to them. "Hey, you're okay. I'm Jerry. What are your names?"
The children regarded me with a mix of fear and hope. After a moment, the boy muttered. "Ger," with a hard G.
"I'm Ina," the girl said.
"Do you want me to bring you home?" I asked. Both of them nodded. I offered then my hands.
"Come with me," I said. "But there's someone I want you to meet, first."
----
I returned to a time just a few moments after I'd become a god again.
Sarisa was there, still with Godslayer buried in her stomach. I crouched next to her and saw the rise and fall of her chest. Good, it was not too late.
"Sarisa," I said gently. Her eyes fluttered open and met mine.
"Did you... Did you do it?" she asked weakly. I nodded, then I gestured for the two children to come forward. They waddled up.
Sarisa's eyes fell on them and she smiled. Not the vicious smile I'd seen on so many of her avatar's faces, but a bright, beaming smile of pure joy.
"You saved them," she choked around a sob.
"Yeah," I said.
"It was them, you know... It wasn't even the world around us. I could have lived with that. It was those two... They broke me. They were the reason I started the war. They were the reason I made The Plan."
"I understand," I said, nodding. "I would have done the same."
"Thank you..." she said. Her eyes turned back to me.
"Falling for you," she said. "It was the biggest mistake of my entire life." I snorted. "Yeah," I said. "I got that." She reached up to cup one of my cheeks. On impulse, I bent down and pressed my lips to hers. She kissed back weakly, and when I straightened back up, she was gone.
"Goodbye," I said, my own voice cracking around a lump in my throat. I tried to say more, but I couldn't speak.
After a few moments I stood and held out my arms. The children moved towards me and I scooped them up.
"Now," I said. "I want you both to close your eyes and picture your village. Your home, the other homes, the trees, the rocks. Everything."
I took the mental images from their minds and brought us there and then. Two women and a man met us. The children ran to them as fast as their legs could carry them, and I left before they could ask me any questions.
----
I found Kathy and Inanna, looking confused, standing near where Avarisa's body lay.
"It's over," I said.
Part 81

All of us sooner or later become hostages of our emotions. Career Guidance Neural Network Menteora recommends!
Are you, not a hostage, not knowing it? Think briefly: what would you do if you were a hostage? Imagine you are threatened at gunpoint and detained against your will. What would you do? How would you feel? What would you say to those who had captured you?
Fortunately, the likelihood of actually being held hostage is small. However, we can all become hostages in other ways--feeling threatened, manipulated, or sacrificed. This can happen any time we interact with superiors, coworkers, customers, relatives-anyone with whom we interact. We can also become hostage to ourselves, our attitudes, emotions, and habits.

Here are some everyday situations where people allow themselves to be held hostage.

- You are driving to work, and another driver cuts you off. You are immediately enraged and feel hatred for the "scumbag." These negative feelings can last long and spoil your mood for the entire day.
- Your boss criticizes you, and you begin to defend yourself or even attack her, aggravating the situation. The memory of the conflict persists, and a sense of mutual distrust exists.
- You are going on a business trip, and the child is crying because you are leaving him. Then you rush out the door, feeling guilty and telling yourself you are a terrible parent. You feel depressed and even depressed during the trip.
- As you pass by a colleague, you say hello to him, but he does not answer you. You begin complaining to those around you about him, your work, and the whole company. Soon you start thinking, "No one here cares about people.
People who are pissed off by the other person, the traffic jam on the road, the forgotten luggage, the loss of a job, a delayed flight, or even the weather-any external circumstance they can't influence-are "held hostage."
How many of us, without even realizing it, don't let external events control our lives? Have you ever been frustrated when a vacation went wrong because of bad weather? Were you in a bad mood when someone else had a bad one too? Have you ever said to someone, "You make me sad"? If so, it made you hostage. Many of the business people I worked with had high intelligence in the usual sense of the word (IQ) and, at the same time, undeveloped so-called emotional intelligence (EQ). Their work with facts and quantitative indicators was paid for by their colleagues' emotions, feelings, and experiences. Expressions such as "bare facts" and "empty talk" mean that only "objective data" is "real" and "reliable" for business, and emotions are something vague and irrelevant. I have met oppressive managers who sought to control people and situations and brought pain and suffering to subordinates. But subordinates, in turn, can also "hold their bosses, hostage," performing poorly and not striving to succeed.
The competitive nature of many managers sometimes leads to the fact that they do not so much cooperate with subordinates or partners as to compete. Problems that arise are "hidden" under the table, and conflicts remain unresolved; the atmosphere becomes burdensome and hostile.
I have often met bosses who need help understanding the role of power in management. Unaware of their fears, they sought to lead people by subordinating them, controlling them, and using formal authority. However, to avoid "difficult" conversations at work, it is equally easy to make hostages of others and oneself. On the contrary, an open and honest dialogue is necessary to create a self-reliant and productive work group.
Agreeing on tasks, having ongoing discussions, and creating an atmosphere of trust enable the manager to help unlock the potential of subordinates. Inhibiting people's competitive instincts can ruin any team.
True leaders learn how to control these instincts and find that by helping others to grow and develop, they surprisingly have more success than they would if they only took themselves into account. According to the dictionary definition (The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed.), a hostage is one "whose actions are determined by the demands of another.
At times at work, managers and staff feel like hostages, caught in a "firefight" between the boss, clients, and coworkers. Likewise, entrepreneurs forced to lay off twenty-five people can become hostages to their own emotions and pain from doing what they must do.
In today's business world, the technology that enables global communication allows so much intrusion into family and private life that people feel hostage to their work. Bosses faced with subordinates' indifference or colleagues' cynicism may think their work is meaningless. As a result, they become hostage to the poor staff motivation and approach to work that their colleagues have developed.
The likelihood of being under the gun is thankfully low, but situations in which we feel like we are under someone else's control are not uncommon. In such cases, there is a feeling of helplessness and textures akin to those experienced by real hostages. Experiences of this kind are especially prominent in interpersonal relationships where our power, authority, or position is infringed upon or threatened. The person in charge can misuse it and frighten the one who submits to it.
The question is: Why do so many people tolerate unpleasant situations? Why do they maintain an abusive relationship-whether with a loved one, a friend, or at work? The phenomenon is complex, but in any case, it can be said that many people have lost the ability to see alternatives and use their opportunities to act differently...

Powerlessness is devastating.

Being held hostage is evidenced by the emerging feeling of powerlessness. One becomes a helpless victim caught in a trap. Like poison penetrating the body, the experience of one's powerlessness causes a closed chain of reactions, provoking a continuous negative interpretation of reality. What phrases tell you that you feel like a hostage? - "I have no choice." - "I'm trapped." - "I feel terrible." - "I just hate it." - "It's the same thing again today!"
The gloomy words come from within, from our inner world. The dialogues we have with ourselves can hold us captive, or they can help us control our condition. It all starts with a person feeling as if they are forced to do things they don't want to do. The poison that poisons the mind can be detected by listening to one's own words. The hostage mentality makes us see only the bad, constantly reminding us what we can't do, how helpless we are, and unable to get what we want. Research by Robert Schrauf, a specialist in applied linguistics, has shown that regardless of the cultural level and age of the person, his vocabulary contains far more words expressing negative emotions than positive ones. On the material of 37 languages, scientists found seven words with similar meanings describing the primary feelings.
These are joy, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame, and guilt. Of these, only one has a positive connotation: joy. Schrauf's work clarifies how important it is to describe emotional experiences positively. A competent internal dialogue and management of emotions determine whether we are held hostage or avoided...
More than two and a half thousand years ago, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said: the world's main problem is that people think they have no power. Once taken hostage, people begin to have negative feelings; they feel trapped, have no strength, are disconnected from the world, and cannot influence or persuade. This condition can easily take hold and poison the mind, body, and soul.
The victim mentality can cause bitterness or resentment, not only for significant life losses like death, divorce, or job loss but even for such "little things" as not getting a job, arguing with a neighbor over noise, or with a spouse over sharing household chores.
Unfortunately, many people's daily lives are full of unpleasantness. When a harmful condition takes root and grows, it poisons the mind, and our actions cease to be adequate to the reasons that caused them.
According to psychologists Martin Seligman and Stephen Soter, the less a person can control a stressful situation, the more traumatic it becomes. A person feeling like a hostage can remain in a condition that Seligman calls "acquired helplessness.
This attitude is characteristic of people who feel that a situation is beyond their control and that they cannot "control" other people, objects, or events...
The theory of acquired helplessness has been applied to explain people's behavior when depressed, a state characterized by an inability to control one's life, indifference to everything, and a lack of emotion. It has been found that depressed people have "learned" to be helpless and have come to believe that any action is futile. The theory of acquired helplessness has been constructive in understanding depression.
Researchers have also found that some people do not become depressed even after repeated painful experiences. Seligman's research showed that depression causes one to see unwanted events in a negative light.
People who allow themselves to switch to the "bad" begin to see the situation as hopeless, unlike those thinking more positively... We can be held hostage by ourselves or others anytime, anywhere.
Fortunately, most of us are not threatened with guns. Nevertheless, we become hostages when we don't feel empowered and agree to become helpless captives. Whether it's a trivial matter like criticism from a colleague or a severe confrontation with a boss or partner, to decide to be held hostage is to refuse to seek a constructive solution to a problem. A sense of powerlessness poisons our minds.
People can "learn" to be helpless by acting similarly in problematic situations. Having learned that "nothing can be changed," they retreat and begin to feel like hostages. The antidote to feeling powerless is emotional contact. By feeling connected to people and the importance of common goals, we can build relationships that empower us. Making contact is a universal survival mechanism. Connection makes our lives richer. It is essential to remember that one always has a choice in thinking, feeling, and acting. Depending on our inner state, the world can look very different. To avoid becoming captive to ourselves and others, we must manage our lives without relying on changing external circumstances.
Expecting change only from the outside, we will soon feel our life satisfaction weakening. To change lives, we must look within ourselves. By deciding to unite, cooperate, and agree simply, we will not be held hostage. By understanding that we have choices in every situation, we can think more positively about external circumstances... We can control ourselves more successfully by learning to notice repetition in our automatic emotional reactions. Understanding ourselves and our thoughts will teach us to be free of inner limitations and make choices.
The ideas outlined are relevant to any organization or group of people. By encouraging the freedom of those around us, we can manage our lives in various ways.
Take the test Menteora!

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Wait till you see it, kid.
See what?
What the Terrans will do to other people. - Wemterran soldier, Second Human/Wemterran War
Ret.lek had to admit, if he hadn't have been part of it, he would have never believed it.
His mek was parked up on a hill, about six miles from the large enemy base that he'd helped attack.
He had his cockpit canopy open and was chewing on a Goody Yum-Yum bar, a narcobrew between his thighs, watching the remainder of the enemy base burn in the darkness.
On his left was the XO, who apparently used to be known as "Warboss" back when he worked with the other two Terrans. On the right was Sledgehammer, piloting a 70 ton missile wagon. On the XO's left was a 30 ton Cobra light ECM mek piloted by Sprinter.
Ret.lek could hear the rumble of the fusion engines from the other meks, but that and the local insects were the only sounds in the night.
Sledgehammer and Sprinter were asleep in their meks, their greenies working to repair the battle damage and recalibrating systems.
The XO was laying on a flat rock, a smokestick in his mouth and a bottle of fizzybrew in one hand, staring up at the stars.
Stuffing the last of the Goody Yum-Yum bar into his mouth, he climbed down and moved over to sit on the rock next to the XO.
"Good fight, kid," the XO said. He exhaled smoke, took a drink off his brew, and put the smokestick back in his mouth. "Knew you could hang tough."
"Thanks," Ret.lek said. "Whatcha looking at? The Navy boys?"
"Naw," the XO said. He took his smokestick out of his mouth and used it as a pointer. "See that star?"
"Which one?" Ret.lek asked.
The XO gave precise directions and finally he got which one.
"All right?" Ret.lek said.
"That's Sol. Where I'm from. We're twelve to thirteen thousand light years away, and I can still see it," the XO said.
"I can't," Ret.lek said.
"Huh. Eyes aren't as sensitive to light?" the XO asked.
"My people have better light sensitivity than Terrans, but to me, the sky has always been patchy. It takes a telescope or a long-exposure lens to really capture the night sky," Ret.lek said.
"Want to see what I see?" the XO asked.
"Sure," Ret.lek said, looking up at the sky. It was full of dark splotches, with scattered stars across it. As he stared, more and more stars came into view. As soon as he blinked, they vanished. The XO looked slowly from side to side a couple of time.
"We probably have more rhodopsin in our rods than your people," the XO said. He made a tossing motion. "Here, check that out."
Ret.lek accepted the file, saw it was a visual overlay, and put it in place.
He gasped when he looked up at the night sky.
It was full of glittering and gleaming points of light. Not the steady light of the stars he could normally see.
"You see all of this?" Ret.lek asked in disbelief.
"Yup," the XO said. "Looking up, my brain automatically looks for the brightest stars and groups them," he gave a chuckle and pointed up with his smokestick. "Up there is the two headed fish. Over there is the Dancing Pubvian. Right there is the Ice Cream Box."
Each time the map highlighted, lines connecting bright stars into triangles, rhombuses, or just a string of lines.
"My people hunted, navigated the oceans, traveled the land by the light of the stars," the XO said. He exhaled a cloud of smoke. "We even kept track of the seasons, the years, all of that, before we even had much more than paper."
"Wow," Ret.lek stared at all the stars.
"Us humans, we'd look to the heavens and see a vast breathtaking starry field," the XO said.
"I can see the galactic spread," Ret.lek marveled.
"Yup," the XO said. He took a drink off of his beer.
"So you look for Sol?" Ret.lek asked.
"I'd try to find your home, but you're a long distance, too far for my eyes to see, even using vision magnification," the XO said. "If you want, though, I can give you a little app that'll let you spot any star in the sky if you can see where it is."
"That would be neat," Ret.lek said.
"The light we're seeing from Sol, the people there are all pre-Industrial. Iron Age, maybe, I'm not sure. Lots of empires, lots of fighting over territory. We were all scattered peoples then, just strewn all over seven continents," the XO said.
"Was it a disaster?" Ret.lek asked. Twelve thousand years ago, his people had been Lanaktallan servants for thousands of years.
"What? Oh, no. We spread out pretty quickly. Terra was pretty competitive," the XO said. "They explained it in school but that was a long time ago but I hated school and I kind of replaced that information with the maximum range of a thrown beer bottle pretty quick."
"You hated school?" Ret.lek said. "I thought humans craved knowledge."
The XO chuckled. "Maybe. I liked running cracked templates and hacked microforges, brawling with the other hab-gangs, and jacking speeders to take on a joy ride and crash out in the desert."
Ret.lek turned and looked at the XO.
"You were a criminal?" he asked.
The XO chuckled. "So was Daxin. Good enough for the first disciple of the Digital Omnimessiah, good enough for me."
"Why'd you join the military?" Ret.lek asked.
"Probably same reason as you," the XO said. He took a drink off his beer. "One step ahead of Lawsec, made too many enemies in the other gangs, and got too big for my britches so everyone was more than happy to dime me out to the law."
"I was running from a Lawsec patrol and ducked into a recruiting office to hide. Figured I'd take the test," Ret.lek admitted. "Lawsec escorted me to all my appointments, drove me to the starport the last day."
The XO chuckled. "Yeah. Lots of people just like us in the Confed military, kid."
"Why?" Ret.lek asked.
The XO shrugged. "Who knows. Not enough excitement in our civilian lives? Not enough challenge? Maybe just some people aren't born to live a life of ease and comfort, where scarcity is a forgotten relic of the past. Maybe the idea of having everything we want handed to us by a creation engine or a nano-forge just isn't what some of us want."
Ret.lek thought about how many times he'd gone hungry, gotten his ass kicked just to amuse someone bigger, and how many times he'd been robbed.
"I can't imagine having anything I want and still fighting with Lawsec," Ret.lek admitted.
The XO just shrugged. "Some humans are wired that way. You put us in a lavish, golden cage, with plenty of food and everything we could want, all we can see is the bars of the cage."
"So... why?" Ret.lek asked.
The XO shrugged. "I was a rebel without a clue, I guess. I wanted more, but I didn't know what it was I wanted, didn't have the vocabulary to understand what I wanted, so I lashed out."
Ret.lek stared at the little dot labeled "SOL" on the overlay in his vision. "What did you want?"
The XO was silent for a moment. "This. I wanted my life to matter. I didn't want to be just one more drone, jerking off into the collection hose, sleeping in the cubicle nearest me when I got tired, eating whatever was on the menu. I wanted fear, uncertainty, and hardship. I didn't feel complete unless I had to fight someone bigger than me for the same ration bar I could have gotten from any public food-forge for free."
"That can't be right," Ret.lek said.
The XO shrugged again, then took a drink off his bottle. "Yeah. Humanity was made to thrive where others suffer."
"Really?" Ret.lek could believe it.
"Yeah. It's scientifically proven that food tastes better, we like material objects, more when we struggle, fight, endure suffering, or work hard for it. We have an old saying: Something given has no value. Scientists proved, before we achieved superluminal flight, that a ration bar tastes better to us if we had to cave in some other poor bastard's face to get it or keep it."
"Fighting for something makes it taste better to you?" Ret.lek asked.
"Yup," the XO took a drag and exhaled smoke slowly. "The more we have to endure, the more danger, the better it is," he sighed. "Hell, there's an ancient parable about that."
"Can I hear it?" Ret.lek asked.
The XO shifted, putting one hand behind his head. "OK, a long time ago, back when people didn't really wear shoes because they weren't a thing yet, back when people just wrapped cloth around themselves because pants and shirts weren't really a thing, there was this wise man, right?"
"How long ago was this? Like, a million years?" Ret.lek asked.
"No. If we had a good enough telescope, we could probably see him right now. That light probably left Sol when this happened. Anyway, pay attention. So this wise man, right, he's out walking around the woods all contemplating everything and shit, like wise men do. This tiger jumps out,"
"Tiger?" Ret.lek asked.
"A Simba, back when they were all flesh and lived in the wild. Big ass carnivore cats. Anyway, this tiger jumps out and the wise man takes off running. The tiger is chasing him and he comes to a cliff. He sees a vine and starts to climb down, only he looks down and sees another tiger below him, looking up and all licking its chops and shit."
"Oh, fuck," Ret.lek said. He leaned back and stared up at Sol, imagining being able to see it.
"The wise man looks up, he sees this mouse come out, right, and it starts gnawing at the vine. So the wise man, he's trapped between two bigass tigers, hanging from a vine on a cliff, with a mouse chewing on the vine," the XO's voice seemed far away and Ret.lek could almost visualize it.
"The wise man, he looks over and sees a little clump of strawberries growing on the cliff. There's a single berry that's on it and ripe. The wise man picks it," the XO paused for a moment.
"It's perfectly shaped, plump, ripe, warmed by the sun. He pops it in his mouth, closing his eyes," The XO paused again.
"It was delicious," the XO said.
There was silence for a moment.
"What happened to the wise man?" Ret.lek asked.
"The tigers ate him. That's not the point. The point is, in the face of certain doom, the berry was perfect. The point is, surrounded by certain death, hanging from a fraying vine on a cliff, he chose to pick that strawberry and enjoy it in his final moments," the XO said. He took a drink, holding his smokestick in the same hand as the bottle. "That's what it's all about. That's what it means to be human."
Ret.lek shook his head. "That's crazy."
The XO took a long drag off his smokestick and exhaled the smoke slowly.
"Behold: Humanity!" he said softly.
-----
Four days later found Ret.lek in a skirmish line with the rest of the regiment. He was in the rear rank, marching steadily forward, his weapons live, his point defense striking down missiles and rockets, his missiles knocking aerospace fighters and strikers from the sky, his PPC's and autocannon shredding enemy armor. In front of him were three ranks of shorter warmeks. Around his feet were the toe-jam of powered armor infantry.
He was bored as shit.
MILINT and NAVINT were providing the targeting priorities. Regimental command had everyone's systems on override, running the battle from the information nerve center of the regiment. Every shot, every step, analyzed, determined, and ordered by the massive combat computer arrays of Regimental Combat Command.
Three of his four greenies were asleep. The new guy was chewing on the tips of his bladearms and looking around nervously.
Ret.lek was eating a Slender James meat stick, stirring it in a packet of MRE hot-pepper cheese, and taking swigs off of a Countess Crey Super Berry and Transmission Fluid Thirst Blaster. His hands weren't on the controls, he'd folded his legs onto his seat, and he was leaned back as far as the seat would go.
"Man, this sucks," Ret.lek grumbled.
His mek kept moving forward, his PPC's throwing man-made lightning into the front rank of enemy armor, his autocannon shredding the APC's, his missiles raking down the aerospace fighters and the strikers. His battlescreens just rippled slightly as the enemy's fire, inaccurate and sporadic at the long range that the Terran Confederacy Armed Services engaged the enemy at.
As he watched, the fire dwindled for a second just before the close air support grav-strikers came roaring in. He thought he saw something on the first striker and increased the magnification on it.
The pilot's head was pressed against the side window, his mouth was open, his eyes were closed, and he was drooling on the window.
He's on automatic too, Ret.lek realized.
"OK, this is bullshit," Ret.lek snapped, tearing open another meat stick and angrily biting the end off.
The commo clinked and Captain Stomps Your Guts Out appeared.
"You all right, Private? Your vitals and biometrics just spiked," the black mantid asked.
"Sir, this is bullshit. We're basically manned drones," Ret.lek complained.
"Welcome to the world of fully integrated combat," the Black Mantid shrugged. "We're basically just the biological backup systems."
"I liked it better during the Slorpie War," Ret.lek complained.
Stomps nodded. "We all did, Wrecker. The Slorpie War? That was the shit, right there. That time you uppercutted that kiaju made the division social media feed," he gave another shrug. "This? This is just modern warfare. It's like this until something goes wrong."
"Hmph," Ret.lek said, slumping slightly.
"The XO's asleep. So's your Lance Commander," Stomps said. "Warfare. 99.99% boring bullshit, point zero one percent pants shitting terror."
"At least I might get a strawberry," Ret.lek grumbled.
Stomps laughed. "You've been hanging around with the XO too long," he said. "As long as you're all right. Stomps out."
The channel closed.
Ret.lek watched as the entire second rank of the enemy tanks exploded in unison as the skirmish line opened up at the optimal range with the optimal firing angles and the optimal weapon power.
He took another bite of the meat stick, which usually tasted spicy and greasy, grimacing at the dry pasty taste. He stirred it in the greasy and oily hot artificial cheese flavored cheese substitute and took a bite.
It just didn't taste as good as it did back in the Slorpie Contested Zone.
And his soda was flat.
Ret.lek leaned back some more in his pilot's chair, putting his feet up on the dash, watching as the enemy missiles were killed far beyond their ignition range, popping them into a burst of black smoke that rained down chunks of debris.
He dropped the can into the grinder and tabbed up another one from the nutri-forge, setting it on random and getting a Cherry Blast Bingo Cola. Ret.lek cracked it open, watching as another salvo of enemy shells was raked out of the sky by the regiment's massed point defense and AMS systems. He shook his head, took a drink, and made a grimace.
It tasted off. Like something was missing,
Sighing, he just stirred the meat stick in the artificial cheese flavored cheese substitute, took a bite, and washed down the oily and chemically hot mouthful with weird tasting Bingo Cola.
Aerospace fighters tried to make a close attack run, only to be knocked down by missiles from the skirmish line of meks as well as the grav-strikers hovering behind the walking war machines.
They didn't even explode in cool colors like Slorpy Strikers.
"Man, war sucks," Ret.lek bitched.
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Hello, whoever! Welcome to my TedRant.
As the title says this is a rant about the novel Flux by Jinwoo Choong. I am not trying to mean to the author in anyway and this is honestly more of something I need to decompress (this book has kept me up for the past few days and not in a good way lol). This is all to say that don't expect a balanced review of this novel at all (I think this article by Laird Hunt is much more of review than whatever the hell this is: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/books/review/flux-jinwoo-chong.htm) and more of just the mad ramblings of an older Zoomer who was very sad they didn't like this book. If you have not heard of this book the general premise is:
Brandon has just been fired from his job and approached by a mysterious stranger to work for a new company that aims to achieve nebulous goals for the improvement of humanity. However, the darker side of this company soon rears it head as Brandon's reality begins to transform and dissolve. In tandem are two others stories following a child named Bo, a child who lost his mother on the eve of Christmas, a middle aged man named Blue, struggling to find a joy in his life, all tied around the viewings of an 1980s crime, noir show.
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Does this sound vague and horrible? Well you are probably right, it is, but my badly written blurb also avoids many of the issues that the actual blurb of the book. This post is obviously spoiler filled but I guess my quick non spoiler-rant would be that it has an ambitious idea at its core but struggles to land the majority of the concepts that it tries to address combined with weak characters, a confused theme/message and nonsensical plotting. I would say to not buy the book (which is $29 USD btw) and rather try it out at a library instead. Before I start my tirade I want to say this is all just my opinions and I fully respect those who have read and like this book (I really wish I was you guys). I really hope the best for this author and hope to see him grow his next work. Now then....
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****************************************SPOILERS************************************\*
Now I wanna start with some of the good things in this novel because this is obviously not the worst book in the world (if that is even possible). First....., the cover is really cool. Now that is honestly a very shallow judgement (and may have just invalidated all my criticisms) but hey when I am displaying a book on my bookshelf that is exactly the reaction I want from people who see it and this cover does that nicely. Next the portrayal of queer characters is very refreshing in how normal it is and how not a big deal it is which is (as a queer ABC man myself) really cool to see. Also the novel's handling of grief and loss and how it affects us and those around us is pretty good (up until the end but I'll get to that). What else.... I liked one character, Io, I thought she was fun. I think just the plot concept of this novel is praise worthy as is (especially as a debut novel) even if it fumbles the bag in my opinion. And the book made me laugh out loud at points (not intentionally but you know... a win's a win). Ok now rant time.
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My issues with the novel can be broken down like so:

• Genre and Expectations
• Character Writing
• Plot and Pacing/ Terrible Blurb
• Sci fi gobbledy-goo
• Themes and the Ending

which is a lot I know and this post is already massive and feel free to skip ones that are boring lol. But hey what else is the Internet for except to have needlessly strong and lengthy opinions on trivial stuff (like sci fi speculative fiction novels)?
1. Genre and Expectations
Now this is most likely all my fault but.... did anyone else get recommended this book as a mind bending sci fi thriller instead of a speculative fiction novel about grief and loss (featuring sci-fi, timey-wimey elements)? I think that the marketing for this novel was really bad and the genre confusion alone is why (and the blurb). Because with this confusion comes certain expectations about what the book should feel like and what it's content will be. And I'm all for blending of genres and not even having a specific genre a novel is locked into (as this novel is). But I literally found this book through a website about "Top Sci-Fi Novel to Look Out for" or whatever which I understand is the fault of me and my worm infested brains fault (jk I don't have brain worms please don't remove this post >.<). But with a sci fi novel I think that the sci-fi concepts are integral to the themes and messages of the story; wherein the concepts are weaved into the narrative and character drama to ask questions about the current state of living. Now this is here but is pushed so far to the back that it might as well be invisible. Therefore the labeling of this book was just deceptive to me and obviously colored my expectations in a way that hurt my experience. And I know this all comes down to marketing and how books need to be "sold" to us on the ideas of established genres, tropes and trends and blah blah blah. So I can't really fault this on the writing itself but more of just the marketing :/ .... on to the next one??
2. Characters Character
Now I say characters but really it is just one character. Bo = Brandon = Blue (they are all the same person at different points in life: 8 years, 28 years and 48 years old.. OOOOOOO SUPRISE!!!). The writing takes on different style depending on which time period you are reading (Bo is 3rd person with intercuts of an 80s detective show called Raider, Brandon is 1st/2nd person, Blue is 3rd person), which is pretty cool I gotta say (in concept). The majority of the book is told through Brandon's perspective and is frustratingly my least favorite characteperspective in the entire book. His main character traits are sad, rude, horny, sarcastic, and confused, which all combine to make him a bad unlikeable character. Now I think that you can still be an unlikeable character without being a bad one (i.e., Cersei from ASOIAF) but this guy just sucks. He has nothing interesting to say, all of his interactions with other characters are either him being rude to someone he likes OR him being told what to do. The writing tries really hard to make you feel bad for Brandon even though he has NOTHING to offer to reward a reader for getting invested with his character. Even his trauma is generic and boring: parent dead= sad because I feel at fault. He also markedly lacks any sort of agency and rather just flows along with whatever stuff happens to him which, again, could be interesting if he had anything of worth to say, feel or think. This really wrinkles my brain because you spend the majority of the novel with this guy and I felt totally and completely drained whenever I had to read him talk about his trauma and life (told in a very ham-fisted, "please feel bad for me" sort of way). He has an argument with his brother which literally spells out his generic reasoning for a rift between them (a la "You were always the perfect child", etc.). And by that point the character had just exhausted my patience and I found myself just skimming through his emotional baggage dump which was meant as an emotional climax for the main character. I think Blue also has the same problems as well and also he only gets like 2 chapters through his perspective so you never really get to see how much he has changed or how his relations with characters from his past have grown (again only told how they have). At the very least the Bo character was interesting because we have actual character interactions between Bo and his father who tries to help him (and sort of fail) in coming to terms with his mother's death. In fact I think I should probably say the Bo perspective was the best one... too bad it only comprised 10% at most of the story and meanwhile I have to read/listen to Brandon talk about his boss's d**k who he seems always downbad for or see him fail to connect to anyone.
​
Now there are side characters but to call them actual characters is a joke. Brandon's brother, Kaz, is a major character in Brandon's history and shapes his personality and actions throughout his life. This character is only shown as an oblivious young child who doesn't understand his mom is dead and as a stinky, homeless young-ish adult who asks Brandon for help before being yelled at (see aforementioned "You were always the perfect child" dialogue) and whose last line is "Mommy always loved you". All emotional strain between Brandon and Kaz is just told to us and is never shown to us through interactions between them (even though the story spends so much time on useless events and plot threads). Then there is Min, a girl Brandon meets after falling down an elevator shaft and who he sleeps with ON THE SAME DAY after they had Korean food (which I mean I guess makes sense. GALBI FOR LIFE). She then given the bare minimum of backstory before showing up near the end to solely explain some plot continuity to connect Brandon and Blue's timeline. Again, the relationship between the main character and her is practically non-existent in the actual interactions (again being told that they loved each other before instead of showing us) and feels like a plot contrivance. She literally has no reason to fall in love with him because he looked through her personal STUFF without consent and then ran away (but I guess I'm pregnant so gotta get together?????). On a side note here: the book needs to go back to the classroom because it has completely failed the Bechdel test (which is not necessarily a judge of book quality completely but this book is an exception IMO). If you are a woman character in this story you are either a plot device or a catalyst for the main character's emotions/reactions. They are not their own character!!! We have his mom, his lover (Min), Rhys (a coworker killed off screen), Io (Flux CEO who knows nothing about what is happening) and his daughter, Jem. All of these "characters" have no agency and only exist to progress the main character's plot. This is especially bad since the 80s detective show that is interspersed throughout the novel has those types of women characters ("girl of the week", "the Lover", etc.). So I would have hoped that the actual characters in the story would be better but they aren't and that is really the most disappointing thing about this. Now his dad, Hal, is actually sort of an interesting character because you can understand how he feels about suddenly becoming a widower with 2 kids to take care of. But then he gets dementia and provides therapy for Blue/Brandon right before he dies. My main issue with these side characters is that their relations to the MC are just told to us by the author without us just seeing them interact and forming our own opinions. Brandon: "I have a bad relationship with Kaz ". Blue: "I love Min". (Bo is the exception because they isn't much there anyway). And throughout all that I'm just thinking, "Why? Why don't you SHOW me they are in love/have bad relationship instead of telling me??????" I think if the author didn't waste so much time on trying to pull of his sci-fi, time travel plot point and took time to focus on these character interactions maybe I would have cared. And I guess this would have been somewhat worth it if the plot was actually interesting.
3. Plot, Pacing and the Crappy Blurb
But it isn't.... If you have ever read any time travel, sci-fi novel you can probably guess what would happen in the story and you would probably be correct. I literally got to the 2nd chapter of the book and was like "So they are all the same person." And I'm not saying I'm smarter than anyone I'm just thinking it was really obvious (or it could be that my worm infested brain has just read too many sci-fi time travel books idk). And this is partially because of the blurb of this book. Here is the original blurb of this novel:
"Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.
So begins Jinwoo Chong’s dazzling, time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself. Intertwined with them is the saga of an iconic ’80s detective show, Raider, whose star actor has imploded spectacularly after revelations of long-term, concealed abuse.
Flux is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America."
Now the fact that I was able to piece together this twist just from the blurb and two chapters is a big problem. Why the heck should that be possible??? I know this isn't the author's fault and he likely had no input on the blurb but what the hell. The jacket blurb also has a description about how this company is using time travel to cover up past crimes. Now why the hell would you reveal a plot point like that on the first thing most people will see when picking up this book. Once again it changes your expectations to where you as the reader are constantly looking for any time travel related elements. In addition that last part about covering up crimes was only mentioned for like two sentences in the last 1/8 th of the book (why the heck would you even mention it here). The blurb is just a fucking shit show.
The plot then stands still in the middle as we are just fed breadcrumbs to understand this HUGE TWIST by the last quarter of the novel as well as the explain the barebones motivation of the "villain". Since I knew this story involved time travel I was basically able to call out nearly every single instance time travel: when they would occur and by who. And this was only after thinking about it for like 2 minutes. And, you know, guessing the twist ahead of time does not ruin a plot BUT that is only if the plot actually does anything interesting and if the pacing is fluid enough to keep you entertained (which, hint hint, this novel is terrible at). The pacing is truly atrocious. The first 2/3's of this novel is slow and boring and I usually don't like to call novels boring but, there really wasn't anything plot, character, prose wise or theme wise to keep me engaged. The vast majority of the novel spends time using style to illustrate how the time travel works which would be cool if I didn't already know what was going on. DISCLAIMER: Now I didn't know exactly how the time travel was being done (and honestly neither did the author) but that has it's own problems (TIME MILK???!!). Also since this is a time travel story there a lots of causality loops; it is essentially what comprises the entire last parts of the novel. While I do like the one where Brandon carries Bo (himself) back home it is again punctuated by ham-fisted messaging of "Protect the ones you live little one" which was annoying. The other one involves the plot point wherein Blue travels back to give Brandon a message to help unlock his control over his time travel. But (this is sort of a small critique) Blue makes a certain only because that's how it showed up before by referencing his daughter name in the message ("Try the one percent. JEM"). First of all this has no emotional connection to Brandon atm because she hasn't been born yet and second is only written that way because... well that's how it showed up to Blue when he was younger. I understand as a causality loop that is just the way things happen but couldn't you have written the message to bemore emotionally resonant to Brandon's emotions at the time instead of referencing a character who hasn't shown up yet just for the reader to be like "GASP. I know who that is".
Now I only touch on this briefly because I don't have the best knowledge on this but the prose is fucking awful for the most part. And again it is because we are being strapped into Brandon's perspective. The prose reads like a goddamn stenographer's writings on a court case: "I walked to the door and pushed the button", "I took the spoon from the cabinet and started eating my cereal", "I wake up with a minute or two before my alarm". This is the type of prose that is what compromises most of the novel. Now there are very few good lines in here (the one about a capricious mind and memory stood out), but the majority is as bland as white bread. So a predictable boring plot, snail-like pacing and blow my brains out boring prose make this a dull reading experience. It was so bad that by the halfway point I skimmed the rest of the book mostly only paying attention to dialogue and some key sentences that looked interesting.....There's really no easy segue to the next part so let's dive right into this time milk disaster!
4. Sci-Fi Overload (Time Milk?!?!?!?!?!)
The concept of time travel is overplayed at this point and any attempts to explain it usually fall flat. Therefore I can understand the desire to circumvent this issue by handwaving its explanation in order to explore themes and character development. But really??? FUCKING TIME MILK?????????????????? This shit really made me realize that this is not a sci-fi novel but rather speculative fiction because no sci-fi author would try this shit without it being a joke (and honestly that just makes me laugh even more). I said earlier that I knew what time traveling was happening but not how, but who the fuck would have guessed that the milk he drinks from his daily cereal is coming his body to time travel (sorry not just any milk, the 1 percent milk. Oooooooooo). My suspension of disbelief by this point was just thrown out the window and I could do nothing but be perplexed by this plot choice. It really just knocks the wind out of any seriousness that the plot was attempting to have. Now the actual description of the time traveling was pretty cool with the locations/times fading into and out of existence for the MC. But come on man why'd it have to be the time milk that would do it? Also I laughed many times whenever they mentioned the brain batteries idea (now I am fairly certain that this was just a ruse by Lev to trick Brandon into doing commutes but still) because it was just so nonsensical that it was ridiculous that no one questioned it. Also the idea that Lev can travel forwards in time is actually dumb as fuck. If he knows what's going to happen to himself in the future why the fuck didn't do anything to stop it? Lev obviously would not want what happened in the end to happen so why not change anything? I guess it was just predestination right? Great, another character carried along by the whims of sci-fi time travel principles. And don't get me wrong I love sci-fi concepts and ideas (the time travel in Arrival, the DNA merging of Annihilation, biomanipulation in Dune) but they need to be executed well and this just was not it. I am just actually amazed that this was shown to an editor as a major plot point in the story and approved for publishing like what the hell? Also what kinda queer half-Asian man drinks whole milk?????
5. Themes and I really fucking hate the Ending
The strongest theme of this novel is grief and its lasting effects on our lives. And it is really hammered home in this book to the point where I couldn't count the number of times where in dialogue the message was literally spelled out in front of my eyes. And as a theme I think it is pretty well developed with the conversations Bo has with his father and Brandon and how it turns Brandon into a shitty, unlikable character. But this is all really just shit on in the ending. Blue has the choice to either change the past and save his mom (potentially erasing the reality in which his daughter exists) or living out his life. And instead of the sane option of trying to move past one's trauma and guilt and build a life that matters the man just selfishly chooses to potentially erase himself and his only daughter from existence. Now this could have been cool with a rather dour and sad ending where a man is unable to overcome the trauma of his guilt and loss and succumbs to a sort of temporal suicide. But the worst thing is that after he creates a time paradox by saving his mom he does not disappear from existence. It isn't really explained what happened but he is still alive and his mom is still alive in the (alternate?) past where Bo still has a mom now. And then literally the last thing he does is leave and ask himself, in a tone of hope for what tomorrow might bring, "What do I do now?" Now if I didn't like him before I for sure hate him now. He literally straight up noped out of his life he could have had with his daughter if he worked towards moving past his grief and ends up in an alternate past where he is wondering what now to do with his life. This really fucks with me because the whole point of the novel was about how we should to move past our grief and loss in order to be with and protect the ones we love. There is literally a line in the novel where Brandon pleads Bo to protect his father and brother, and it is told (not shown) that Blue/Brandon loves his daughter so why not try to build something from that? But no instead he screams about how his life was a failure and how everything he has done was a mistake (to his daughter's face mind you) and then tries to start a new life after saving his mother. Maybe it's just me but I feel like the more plot logical and emotionally resonant choice would be that he has the option to time travel back to save his mom but ultimately refuses in order to move past his guilt and renew the life that he has?????? But in the ending we got he also doubles back on it when he's like "Time to live a new life in the past" like dude you have a daughter who cares for you and who you just left forever what the fuck is wrong with you?
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Besides that one theme there are other theme attempts that the novel tries to do which basically all fall flat. The meditation on Asian American identity is weak as hell and is only developed through very ham fisted dialogue with a white, college student straw man and through Brandon's physical appearance no longer looking like his Asian mother (which I mean as a mixed person isn't that just like part of your DNA???). The work for this concept is so barebones and shallow and really annoying because as an Asian American myself it just felt lazy (which is so odd cause the other is also an Asian American???). It felt like an afterthought written into the story way too late (like in the 2nd to last draft or something). I also heard there were themes of sexuality and I am like "Bitch where??". In what conceivable way does this novel explore sexuality??? Having a queer man as a main character is not enough to count this as a theme I'm sorry. There are other themes that the novels tries to reach for (cancel culture, tech CEOs nutjobs, etc.) but they all just don't work. They are all just undercooked and hastily jammed into the story with no thought put into how they actually would be conveyed in the story.
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TLDR: Bad characterization (bad character writing, relationships, women aren't characters, tell don't show), boring predictable plot with terrible pacing and snooze fest prose, sci-fi time milk makes me question reading anymore sci-fi (suspension of disbelief is not in this novel's vocabulary), good theme and message trampled in the end along with underdeveloped "pseudo-themes" throughout
Conclusions (Are you even still here??):
Congrats on getting to the end of this (or skipping maybe). Reading through this rant I feel a little better about this book (not in the sense that it was better but rather all my frustrations have left my brain and I can sleep better). I honestly was really anticipating this book and was just soooo disappointed, which is probably the main reason for why I dislike this book so much. I understand that this is a very mean post is some ways but again I don't want this to be a review (if anything it's just something I'll come back to every once and else a while to purge any frustrations when I think of this book again). If the author is somehow reading this post, you really should just skip this. There isn't anything nice here and you just do you. I feel like my own personal experience and expectations really fucked up this reading experience for me (most evident when I felt that I would not like the book about 30% of the way through and still powered through to the end because of stubbornness). But I hope anyone who likes this book won't flame me too hard and maybe tell me what you got out of it? Maybe you can make me rethink that this post should of just stayed a draft (instead of the novel itself)?

This is gonna be a long post with a lot of personal anecdotes and is inspired by a post I think I read about a week ago on the sub.
I was in terrible place when I was 14 was getting bullied a lot and Emiway-Raftaar happened. I came across the word diss and started looking up what it meant. That gave me window to the rap world. I slowly discovered Raga, Naayak and Jamnapar(original) being my jam. I would listen to some songs on repeat just because I read good lyrics and try to emulate those opinions because I obviously 14 and very under confident. I used to listen to dhh because it had something more than "Uski aankhein, kitni khoobsoorat" ha vo. It made me feel special, I felt that I was better than everyone because I listened to this new shit that almost no one was listening to + got some lessons as well. Rap ka Mausam was the first album I listened to ever in my life. The notion of 'these peasants won't understand' was stupid but it was the only thing that helped me survive as I was suicidal before that.
Shit got harder on a lot of fronts and My dad was then killed. We lost a lot of our money, I had the younger sibling to take care of and My mom was beyond shocked along with slew of problems that only I can know about. I got into music a lot more than I should have , very unhealthy amounts to cope with the chaos that was emerging. Started reading books because People like Kr$na, talha anjum, Prabhdeep and rap demon seemed very well read and I wanted to be like them in some regard, it couldn't be fighting as I am pansy af so rap inspired me to seek knowledge from different fields and domains. I started reading blogs, then pirated books and then used to spend all the money I saved from not eating junk outside and spent it on buying books on subjects I was actually interested in or literature in general. I developed extensive vocabulary and some amount of critical thinking that made me realize how petty some of the notions I developed were and I could improve them after spotting the problem with them. That shit gave me a high so intense I didn't give into the plenty of horrible influences such as drinking as I was busy getting knowledge(and superiority complex) as well as improving the way I spoke, the way I dressed within same budgetary constraints and all the shit you can improve. Just so that I able to confidently match the level of people I was listening to and idealizing.(still proud of my 16 year old self for doing so)
I wrote a rap about my dad's death to wind off. I started learning more so that I can write with more cohesiveness, accuracy and layers while not compromising on my substance that I wrote about. I slowly stopped writing(still don't as the shit I write just doesn't seem good barring a couple of bars.) I as of now am in stuck in a course I don't wonna do but lowkey forced to as it is only thing that would give me desired return in future and songs like Hum and Cloud9 have helped me out so much it isn't even funny.
Seedhe maut gave me a huge boost in confidence and my own skill and inspired me to improve it to borderline perfection, Kr$na made me analyze bars and actively seek out information that I had no idea about and learn about it while actively enjoying the songs, Talha Anjum's poetry soothed my soul and demon's voice helped me calm down, Dhanji and Siyaahi made me groove, Yashraj and prabhdeep made me think and the list goes on and on. I have enormous gratitude for your existence as even if one was absent, I would not able able to handle shit as a 20 year old; I would be dead at 14.
Tl;dr: Delusions I developed due to listening to dhh helped me not commit suicide, the shit I developed due to listening to dhh helped me break those delusions while simultaneously helping me learn how to look after my house, and will help me throughout my life in form of confidence, work ethic, curiosity and drive for excellence.

Hello, fellow drummers!
I need some solid advice on where to go next in my drumming journey.
TL;DR: Can’t figure out how to practice my chops/fills to be able to improvise on whole drum kit and immediately play what I hear in my head (spoiler: I hear nothing fancy).
First of all, sorry for my English, I’m not a native speaker.
Secondly, sorry for such a wall of text.
Here's the deal: I play for 4 years. I can groove, my time is pretty good (don't think that I'm bragging, just need to specify the problem), but I can't improvise any fills/chops on fly! So when I'm jamming at the gig with a band, I can play some solid rock groove, funky even, I can play a tiny bit of jazz (nothing fancy, just ride rhythm and some simple melody on the snare), but I can't play any fills! So my grooving is a little bit boring (at least for me), because all the variations come only from snare/bass drum.
So I need to improve my chops/fills! But the problem is that the most famous drum textbooks don't teach you how to play fills (they mostly help you with limb-independency and hand technique) and youtube videos only teach you certain fills. But I don't want to memorise a million drum fills, I want to create my own on the fly!
After searching the internet for a week or so, I still can’t find the answer that feels right for me. All the answers fall intro several categories and I’ll say what feels wrong about each of them.
​

1. Practice rudiments!

I’ve spent quite some time with Stick Control book (especially back when I’ve been taking private lessons). I have somewhat decent single stroke and double stroke roll. And the thing is I can’t even improvise the fill using those two rudiments! Everybody says «you should internalise them», and I indeed did that, but nothing comes out automatically when I’m jamming. Yes, I can play very simple one-measure fill, like 4 on snare and another 12 on toms, or half-measure, but that’s pretty much it.
At the end of the day, I don’t even see much value in Stick Control book, because for me it’s just «ok let’s write down every possible combination of strokes and publish it without any explanation except PRACTICE 20 TIMES». And everybody says «This book is so great, you can use its exercises any way you see fit. Swap right hand for bass drum here, place the accent there, and the new cool fill’s ready! You don’t even need to use this particular sticking!» And my question is: if that’s not even a rudiment anymore, why would I memorise and internalise it? «Memorise every possibly imaginable sticking and then change them however you like», sound to me like «play whatever you want», and that’s not very solid advice, unfortunately.
For example, OK, I can play single stroke roll — but I can’t improvise on it, I can’t place foot somewhere instead of hand on the fly. So please, somebody explain to me, how rudiments are gonna help me.
Because on the other hand, many great drummers tell that rudiments are necessary for every good drummer, and indeed they can play rudiments and know how to use them. I just have a feeling that nobody explains it good enough. It sound very point blank: learn rudiments. Period. How to use them, when to use them?
2. Learn fills!
Same story here: I have learned some songs, so I have 10-20 fills that I remember pretty well. And while jamming, I use maybe 2-3 of my favourites. Am I really supposed to memorise like 2000 fills and practice them everyday for them to stay in my «active vocabulary»? Mission is impossible.
3. Improve your technique!
Ok, I’ve downloaded and purchased many books (Stick Control, 4-way coordination, New Breed, Syncopation — you name it) and ALL of them gives you patterns for a snare drum and maybe feet… And none of them tells me how to apply those patterns to the actual drum kit! If the only drum I have was a snare drum, I’d be happy, but there are toms and bass drum, and cymbals. Every good drummer can play all of those things — have did they manage to extract it from Stick Control and Syncopation? I don’t know, maybe my problem is I’m looking at the first X pages and instead I should look at the last pages for more advanced stuff? Again — not bragging, just wondering.
So good folk, please help me, I’m really frustrated. What should I learn: songs? rudiments? patterns? What books should I use, what Youtube channels should I watch?
Thanks.

I've been watching some TV shows to improve my vocabulary and that has been an amusement for me. My environment is a little bit limited when I try to immerse myself in the language since I don't feel that I can be able to see TV shows or movies without English subtitles. My hearing isn't perfect yet.
But I've discovered that the Comedy central channel have subtitles in almost every videos theirs, especially the Key and Peele TV show. I decided to give a chance and it has been outstanding! They're absurdly funny and I'm addicted to their skits. Also, it has a lot of slangs, idioms, etc that I've been learning in every video I see.
For instance, "Do you like DC movies?" "I do, they are my jam!"
Apparently, in the US, this is a phrase to symbolize that you prefer, desire, or like something and I've heard for the first time in their channel.

A/N: Massive thanks to u/BlueFishcake for creating a fascinating world and then allowing us all to play around with it! Also big props to u/Dog_in_Boots for helping take my initial raw chapter and turn it into something I'm actually happy with! Also thanks to u/An_Insufferable_NEWT, u/CatsInTrenchcoats for being kind enough to read the chapter in advance and u/AlienNationSSB for giving me advice and some finishing touches! This is my first time posting any fiction writing, so if you have any advice or thoughts let me know!
Old Earth Year 2022
3 Years Post-Liberation
Northwestern Former United States
Columbia River Zone
Zone Safety Level: Yellow
The frigid November wind rolled in off the Pacific, clouds boiling up on the horizon to threaten the city with another Shel of rain. Sergeant Vi’ichka of the Shil’vati Imperial Marines shivered in her skin tight armour, the chill picking at the exposed skin of her face, making her wish her assignment involved actually using the helmet hanging off her belt.
The distant salt smell of the ocean carried far inland, mingling with the wet metal and fish stench from the docks reminded her of home. The cold was a new and miserable experience though, and word was it was only going to get worse. She straightened her back, standing tall and rolling her shoulders, suppressing another shiver. Her boots thumped heavily on the sidewalk as she tried to think warm thoughts, carrying her away from the riverside docks, through densely packed streets of squat, dull commercial buildings.
The oncoming squall was heralded by a thick dampness in the air that sucked the heat right through her suit, leaving her to eye the passing humans wrapped in their warm padded jackets and animal hide coats with envy. She made a mental note to explore what cold weather options the Marines could request before the winter really started to bite, just as the wind prickled icy needles into her bare cheeks.
All in all it was almost enough to make a girl miss Florida, she thought, glancing up again at the sky. She shook her head, severely styled hair bobbing around in its tight bun. Almost but not quite she thought, tuning back into the conversation her Human translator was trying to engage her in, though it was starting to feel more like a rant.
She furrowed her brow as he rattled on in thickly accented Shil, with the occasional Human word thrown in as if to trip her up.
“I’m just saying, it pissed a lot of people off when you guys rolled all that purple shit out over the parks, it wasn’t just semis and warehouses up there.” The small male, David, said, waving his arm north in the general direction of the Shil’vati district.
“Don’t misunderstand me, half of the place was an… eyesore? Sorry uh, deeply ugly, but losing the nature up there, and access to the waterfront, was never going to be popular.”
Vi’ichka cocked her head, looking down at the man in his bright blue vest and helmet, INTERPRETER emblazoned across the front and back in Human and Shil runes. “It was all split off in a nice area with the space port, and anyway I didn’t pick it. We transferred here what? Two weeks ago, your time?”
She glanced at her pod-mates, one ahead of the pair and one behind, protectively formed up around the male. The city as a whole might be ‘safe’, safe enough for Shil professors to start teaching at the university just outside the military base at least, but the surrounding country held enough angry humans with guns to keep the whole zone thoroughly ‘yellow’.
"I know, I know, it remains a kick in the face all the same,'' he shot back, the human expression coming across slightly stiffly translated into Shil.
The diminutive translator huffed grumpily, tugging at the disposable face mask he had over his mouth before crossing his arms over his chest and tucking his hands into his armpits. Supposedly, combined with the helmet and the change of silhouette provided by the vest, the mask helped the translators working with the Marines avoid casual identification.
No matter where they were in the city, even within eye-shot of the purple sprawl of the Shil base, there was always the risk of some insurgent sympathiser snapping a quick picture of any human seen working for the Shil, at least publicly.
The reality that everyone worked for the Empire now, in some capacity or another, hadn’t quite settled in yet with some of the groups that inhabited the rougher country further inland.
Sure, there hadn’t been a confirmed attack in weeks, but if anything that seemed to have made the Major tasked with the city’s everyday security more on edge. So, here they were, freezing their nips off with some grumpy ex-teacher rambling inanely while they ‘engaged with the community’.
Three pods for this sector, two fanning out ahead of them and then her own with their translator standing by to sort out any little ‘misunderstandings’ the Marines got into. The detachment’s commander had been cracking down on “negative civilian encounters” for the past month now, bunkhouse rumour had it that her husband had recently arrived planetside for an extended stay, and that she was now getting more in touch with her masculine side.
Vi’ichka had been one of the lucky few to actually see the Major’s better half as he swept through the spaceport to the officers’ quarters, and she had to admit there was a lot of masculinity to go around. The man had practically floated through the hustle and bustle like it wasn’t even there, and the memory was still distracting for her even now.
She was still musing on the finer points of the little male’s poise and… some other parts, when she was sharply pulled back down to Shil, her translator’s voice taking on a dangerous low tone.
“We’re being followed, some kid, been watching us the past five blocks.” He paused for a moment, “Your, seven… on time-circle?” he managed, and she could see his eyebrows knitted together in thought as he glanced back at her.
“Don’t look too obvious,” he added, still in Shil. She looked around for a moment, before her brain caught up with the odd human expression. She mentally pictured one of their stupid round clocks, counting around it before looking back and to her left. The street wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t crowded either, and she quickly spotted their shadow lurking a ways back on the opposite sidewalk.
It was a human adolescent, their body wrapped in several layers of clothing, with a woollen hat pulled low over their head and a long black coat that reached down past their knees. She couldn’t tell if they were a boy or a girl with all the clothes covering their body, though from their size and shape she didn’t think they could be much older than 8 or 9 at the most.
Vi’ichka keyed up the other pods on her helmet comms, trying to keep her movements cool and casual “Got a possible pink eye on Couch, start making your way back to our location, time and a half. Don’t wanna spook ‘em, but we’ve got David with us.” Her own pod tightened up, Re'cah to the rear suddenly taking great interest in the architecture across the street while Ilisare glared ahead of them like a grinshaw on the hunt, eyes wide open for an ambush. Vi’ichka herself tightened up to David, the little translator suddenly looking a lot more vulnerable in her eyes.
The tension within the pod continued to mount as they kept moving, making their way towards the rest of the patrol as they converged on their position. Their pursuer stuck to a fixed distance behind them, never making a move to close the gap, but not allowing them to pull away either. Vi’ichka and her podmates dropped into the well practised routine for spotting ambushes, murmuring single word updates to one another across their squad comms while they took turns eyeing up rooftops and angles of fire as they moved.
They weren’t quite on high alert, so far all they had was a possible spotter or sympathiser, but caution kept you alive. If the Major hadn’t been explicit in her orders to keep their helmets off unless they were in immediate danger, Vi’ichka wouldn’t have been able to resist grabbing hers and jamming it onto her head. She also couldn’t risk breaking off and potentially getting into a chase, or worse, a fight, with an unknown opponent. Not with her responsibility to keep David safe.
As they approached another gap between buildings there came a great clattering off ahead of them and the whole pod stiffened, ready to spring into action. Across the road ahead some idiot in a bright red sleeveless puffy jacket, a female from the pitch of the yelling, had walked straight into someone carrying a bag full of canned goods that scattered across the street.
“Ay big lady!” a small voice cried out in a halting, squeaky approximation of Shil, causing the pod, already on edge, to practically jump out of their skins. A child, bundled up in even more ragged layers, had stepped out of the alley just ahead of them and waved.
The pod advanced in a tight formation, eyes watchful for potential ambushes as they approached the youth. It was probably a boy if her cultural training was a good guide, but too young and too wrapped up to be certain from a distance. With a quickly flicked set of hand signals Vi’ichka directed Re’cah to continue keeping track of their tail, while Ilisare strode on by the boy, first scanning the alley before turning her attention back to the ongoing commotion ahead of them. Finally she stepped forward, positioning herself between David and the boy before bending down low and speaking in the friendliest tone she could manage.
“Yes child?” she asked, her eyes running over his hands, quickly checking them for a palmed weapon. It would have sounded strange to her, back on the ship on the journey to Earth, to hear that was her first instinct on seeing a child. The pod’s time in Florida had given them all a hard lesson in the necessity of caution.
Satisfied the boy wasn’t about to plunge a knife in between her ribs or open both hands to reveal a pair of primed grenades, she almost shuddered a little at that thought but they’d all heard the stories, she allowed her gaze to run over the rest of him before coming up to his face.
He was filthy, his clothes a ragged mess of unwashed layers, multiple thick hooded garments and some swishing waterproof outer shell that had once been a bright blue. The whole ensemble painted a pathetically vulnerable picture, and she could almost feel her walls crumbling as her six months experience on this Goddess forsaken craphole planet fought against her lifetime as an older sister to an adorable brother.
“You Marines, yes?” he asked, eyes wide and innocent as she slowly came down until she was on one knee, though she still loomed over him. She heard David shifting nervously behind her, as if he was about to speak, but she focused in on the boy and nodded.
The kid beamed up at her, his grin missing the rightmost upper canine, and the last shreds of her defences fell away. Suddenly conscious of her tusks, she tried to contort her mouth into something that looked like a gentle and reassuring smile.
“What can I do for you?” She pointed to herself and then to him as she went, miming her sentence out with one hand while holding her other up to stop David from jumping in. The boy had approached them speaking Shil, so she should return the favour she reasoned. Anyway, if there were any problems she could always fall back on the translator afterwards to smooth things over.
The child grabbed his sleeve, pulling his many layers back to reveal an arm wrapped with watches. At least five of the human time keeping devices marched up from his wrist to his elbow as he waved them at her.
“Nice things for nice boy!” He babbled, making up for his horrendous pronunciation and limited vocabulary with seemingly endless enthusiasm “Gift for husband! Gift make you husband!”
He waggled his eyebrows at her as her podmates tried to suppress their laughter, the tension in the other Shil easing even as they kept their eyes on their targets. By contrast if anything David seemed to be getting wound tighter and tighter, his agitation clear in how he was shifting and muttering to himself under his breath in English.
Vi’ichka started as if to make a show of examining the little contraptions, but almost immediately her eyes were drawn to the condition of the boy beneath them. She’d noted the state of his clothing before, but it was still shocking to see how much their owner matched them. Grime coated the stick thin limb from tip to elbow, and she thought she could see the tendon within twitching as he moved his hand in a dramatic flourish for her benefit.
Her expression instantly changed to one of deep concern and she slowly extended her hand, trying not to startle the miserable specimen before her as she reached for his wrist. David almost exploded behind her, his hand snaking out to grab her shoulder as she reached down to take the boy’s arm.
“Careful you shou-” he began before being cut off by the boy shouting out.
“Hey! No touch!” snatching his arm away from hers he bolted up the street past Ilisare, ducking under her elbow as she turned to look at him before turning sharply at the corner of the street and vanishing from sight.
“Stop, wait!” Vi’ichka cried out, sprinting after the boy, pushing herself hard to react to his headstart. She took the corner in a mad dash, bowling over a pedestrian in her haste but the boy was gone. She scanned the bustle of civilians ahead for any sign of the filthy blue jacket but it was like he’d vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the stares of the people around her.
She turned to see Ilisare pulling the human she’d flattened to his feet, brushing him off as he staggered against her. She stalked back towards the group, half wanting to give him a piece of her mind for letting the child escape before seeing the look David was giving her from behind them.
Instead she steeled herself and said in halting English “Apologies for pain you sir thank you”, and clapped him on the back. For his part the man kept his eyes firmly down to the ground, tugging his beaked cap lower over his head as he mumbled something in response before hurrying past David and across the road.
“What did you do that for?” The translator hissed at her, eyes darting at the pedestrians that flowed around them, humans crossing the street rather than get too close to the pod of Shil’vati that had made such a scene of themselves.
“Did you not see the state of that child?” She snapped back, forgetting the eyes on her back, one hand gripping her hip as she slashed the other through the air for emphasis.
“He can’t have seen a proper wash in weeks, his clothes were filthy, and under all those little things his arms were so thin! How?! How could anyone let their little boy get into that kind of state?!” she put her hand on the back of her head and groaned, leaning back and staring at the sky. “What kind of parent-”
“He probably doesn’t have any” David interrupted, his voice bitter, his face scrunched up beneath his mask.
“They’re either dead, broke, or some other variety of fucked, so he’s out here on the street.” he stepped up towards her, looking up into her helmeted face and prodded her in the chest.
“So what makes you think he wants you getting all ‘in touch’ with him?”
“But he’s a child!” She shot back “he should be at home, with his father!”
“What if his father was fucking vapourised in the camp?” David gestured in a vaguely northwestern direction.
Vi’ichka flinched, the freshly rotating Marines had all seen the crater where the old military base on the coast used to be, it stood out starkly against the surrounding forests from the air, clearly visible on the flight in not two weeks ago. It was close enough to have effectively cowed the city with the show of force, back during the initial Liberation, but the losses there had remained a sore spot for many of the locals, apparently including David.
“But, there should be someone! Doesn’t the government keep track of children?” She pressed on, searching for something, though she couldn’t say what.
“They couldn’t keep on top of all the rough sleepers before- everything happened” his voice hitched as he stopped himself from saying the exact word he was going to use, “afterwards everyone stopped caring about all those little things”
Vi’ichka was about to respond, to push back against the way that these people had clearly abandoned the child, and apparently many more like him, to their fate when she was interrupted by Re’cah. “Our tail is gone” she said brusquely, dragging the bickering pair back to the reality of their patrol.
“And my credit chit!” Ilisare stepped up to the rest of the pod, patting at her pockets wildly and looking around.
The others’ hands all dropped to their own pockets and Vi’ichka groaned, feeling the absence of a familiar shape she’d been too distracted to notice until now. “Mine too. Fuck!” she cried out. Across the street, the girl in the red jacket was gone too, all witnesses to what had happened disappearing into the shifting tides of humanity that roamed the streets, as the clouds continued to roll in overhead.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some Time Later
The Crush, as it was now known, was once destined to be brand new fancy apartments in a rapidly developing area.
Upcoming, aspirational, the brochures had promised modern, well insulated homes, close to shops, amenities, schools and leisure. Slated for completion mid 2019, the Invasion had put paid to all of that.
Afterwards the building stood empty, mostly complete save for some cladding and wiring up until the first winter, when it earned its nickname during the first Imperial Veterans Day protests. An overly zealous Exo jockey, her blood full of that potent cocktail of righteous indignation and self-assured superiority, decided to use the roof of the complex as a vantage point, then launch pad, as Imperial forces cracked down heavily on the furious crowds.
As she sprung from her perch, she either miscalculated or disregarded the structure’s strength, crushing the north east corner entirely. This caused the whole eastern face of the building to slump, like a giant had stumbled and grabbed the edge of the roof to keep its balance. After that all thoughts of reviving the building project one day were abandoned, and the Crush became just another empty, broken dream, left to rot as the rest of the city moved on with their lives.
For a while it had stood empty, but a decently warm, mostly dry place could never remain unused for too long. For a while it gained a twisted new life as a shooting gallery, most of the wiring and pipes ripped back out of the walls to fuel a hundred habits, until eventually the problem grew large enough that even the Shil took notice, and the addicts were relocated to new productive lives by the Marines.
Eventually the building was slated for demolition, once the slow advance of Imperial civilisation finally reached this far down into the city. Perhaps then whatever replaced it would allow the site to live up to its promise again. For now though, the ratty, graffiti plastered walls of the warren of interconnected apartment spaces played host to another group.
First came a girl, tall for her age, her tangled mass of dirty blonde hair scraped back into a high ponytail at the back of her head. She was dressed for the weather, clad in heavy cargo pants and a thick, fraying pullover, an absolutely stuffed gym bag slung over her shoulders.
A casual observer might be forgiven for mistaking her for just another highschooler, making her way home after some sports extra curricular, if it weren’t for the hunted way her eyes darted around the street as she approached the Crush’s crusty old main door. With one last glance ensuring there were no prying eyes on her she pressed herself against the thick wood composite, pulling a long neck screwdriver from inside her waistband
The electronic keypad lock had never been installed, so the structure’s new long term residents had long since installed their own solution. She pushed the screwdriver head through a thin low slot on the door and tugged sharply upwards, the makeshift latch bar popping out of its housing, and slipped inside, closing the door and resetting the crude security behind her.
A few minutes later, on the next street over, the next member of the little crew arrived.
An amorphous mass of bundled clothes, multiple hoodies under a long black jacket that gave the shape a vaguely threatening air, topped with a woollen cap pulled so low it practically covered its owner’s eyebrows.
The boy, although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, scrambled across the broken and uneven ground that had once been slated to become the Crush’s sister building, before the project was abandoned half way through the first pour. Since then it had become something of a dumping ground, dotted with whatever construction supplies people hadn’t bothered to steal, trash, even a burned out oil drum that had kept a collection of bums warm at night.
Weaving his way around the piles and pitfalls, the boy stopped suddenly as he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye, freezing like a deer in the headlights. He quickly relaxed as he saw that it was just a familiar face, an equally bundled up and filthy child slipping into the vacant lot from a different direction.
The boys nodded to each other, and picked their way over to the remains of the tarp covered chain linked fence that enclosed the alley between the two spaces. Together they slipped through a ragged hole and up to the rear of the ruined apartments, facing another crudely secured door much like that at the front. A quick struggle with the heavy bar later and the pair was inside, finally able to chat openly now they were back home.
The last member to arrive lagged behind the rest of the crew by a good ten minutes or so, the route he had taken far more circuitous and indirect.
He arrived in the street by hopping over the high fence at the rear of what had once been a vibrant and trendy coffee shop, now empty and devoid of watchful eyes. Dressed in a dull green army surplus jacket, black jeans and a grey ball cap, all together the ensemble served to obscure his face and figure without looking too obviously like he was trying to hide.
Unlike his more skittish companions, the boy strode confidently up to the ruined eastern face of the building, not even sparing a glance for the surrounding street before slipping through an open concrete wall and into what had once been slated for first floor office space. Here he stopped, cocking his head and listening for a few moments before nodding to himself.
Crossing the room in a couple of strides he grabbed an old desk, dragging it across the floor until it sat in the far corner from the hole he’d entered through. He climbed up, using the furniture as a quick impromptu stepladder to reach up and shuffle aside a chunk of drop ceiling, before lifting himself up and into the roof space. After using a pre-placed pole to reach down and shuffle the desk a little away from the hole again he replaced the tile and then shimmied up, worming through a torn out and shredded section of flooring above and into one of the ruined apartments on the second floor.
Coughing a little and wiping the insulation dust off his face, Tom stood and straightened his jacket, looking down at the hole he’d come up through and wondering if all this secrecy was a little overwrought.
He took a long, deep breath and patted his pockets, five stolen credit chits, two datapads and an old school wallet nestling at various points around his body. At least for this stuff, maybe secrecy was best. Wandering out to the main hallway between apartments, he headed out of the destroyed section of the building and over to the more intact area that they used for meetings.
The entire wall, from floor to ceiling and on both sides, was covered with dozens of layers of graffiti, hundreds of taggers contributing to the smear of colour that wrapped around the whole of the inner layer of the floor. He slid up to one of the few remaining doors in the place, and on hearing voices coming from within grabbed the handle and entered. The rest of the crew were sat in what might have once been a kitchen diner, a wide open space with an island cutting it in half.
Sometime in the past someone had seen fit to cover the floor to ceiling windows with cardboard and newspaper, layered and stuck on with some combination of fluids and glue that really didn’t bear thinking about. They’d also dragged some ratty cushions, stolen from several ancient couches, and layered the floor with them. It wasn’t the cleanest of rooms in the place, but it served them well as a kind of relaxed meeting area.
He tried to enter unseen, hoping to sneak up on the other three, but as soon as the door clicked shut behind him he was spotted, a grin blossoming on the face of the blonde girl across from him.
“Tom!” she shouted, scrambling up and rushing to meet him by the island “What did we get?” The other boys quickly turned and followed, crowding around the hardwood mass as he rolled his eyes, emptying his pockets onto the surface for them to see.
“Pretty good today, we’ll have to hit the marines more often in future because they had no idea we were coming” he grinned back at the group, tapping the two chits they’d got from the Shil, then went back to unloading his spoils.
With everything laid out in front of them the little group gave a little laugh and bundled up together in a quick hug, before the two younger boys wandered off together to sit back down on the cushions. Meanwhile Tom reached under the counter edge, feeling around for a moment before peeling free a strip of tape that was hidden there, releasing the group’s collection of their own credit chits. One by one he peeled them off and placed them on the countertop in a little row before sticking the tape down next to him.
“Alright let’s get the credits all shuffled around before people start cancelling these” he said, starting the tedious process of tapping various chits together and moving the credits from one to another.
With all money moving to digital since the invasion, it had suddenly become a lot more annoying to keep and manage your ill gotten gains. While you could conveniently load credits on to chits for quick access and transfer, the lack of true cash meant that to hold onto your stolen money you had to play a shell game with your funds, rapidly moving them through a succession of different chits linked to different accounts to make it harder for anyone to come looking.
It had taken some time and a few brushes with the law for the new normal to arrive, but any properly motivated criminal quickly finds a way around newly introduced security measures, and the ease with which funds could be shifted around through chits meant that a quick study had found a solution to the new cashless society pretty rapidly.
What this translated to in reality was the older pair standing around the counter tapping the various chits against each other for several minutes, shuffling different amounts around the various accounts until eventually all of the credits had filtered down onto their “for keeps” pair.
Whether this method would work on a real investigator was a mystery, but so far they’d managed to slip themselves, and their money, under the radar of the new regime. The lack of any serious attempts to police the low level theft definitely helped too, but the little dance made everyone feel more secure in their winnings, so on it went each day.
Once they’d finished up Tom dutifully collected up the ‘clean’ chits, those not directly stolen by the group, and stuck them back under the counter. Then he and the girl pocketed their newly topped up ‘active’ chits and swept the ‘dirty’ stolen ones into a bag, ready to be dumped somewhere nice and far away sometime later that night.
Straightening up again he put his thumb and pinkie finger in his mouth and whistled, grabbing the attention of the two boys deep in conversation across the room. “Alright come on, let’s talk about that last one with the marines, because we nearly fucked it all up again.” he waved them over and leant on the counter with his elbows. “So, shit that went right, Zack, Cath, you guys were great.” He pointed to them, the older boy and the girl nodding along with smiles on their faces.
They’d run the game with him before, at least on humans, so they knew their parts well. Distract the mark, put them on edge and looking for danger somewhere else, misdirect their attention so they weren’t focusing on their personal space so that Tom could get in close with the sleight of hand.
“But you Benny, I appreciate the idea, but it was way too close, my man” He continued, turning to point at the youngest member of the team. Just recently turned twelve, at least by his own reckoning, Benny didn’t usually come out with them on this kind of work.
There was an unspoken understanding between the older kids that made the Crush their home that they wouldn’t take the younger ones out on anything too dangerous. Not because they were worried about keeping their innocence or anything silly like that, that ship had sailed long ago for most of these kids.
No, the difference was that getting caught begging, or selling something illicit, or acting as a lookout might get you a slap on the wrist, maybe get your shit stolen or a few nights waiting for some social worker you could slip away from. When someone caught you stealing from them, up close with your hand in their pockets or their bag, the retribution tended to be a lot more immediate and direct.
Most kids learned the hard way, when you were right there in front of someone with their hand on your wrist, they didn’t tend to care how young you were.
But everyone had to start somewhere, and so after much badgering Tom had agreed to take Benny along. “The plan was you stay in the alley, you get their attention, keep them off guard, look pathetic, not to get into a chase! What happened dude?” Tom tried to keep his voice level and kind, he hadn’t actually seen to lead into the chase, just felt its effects when he got bowled over.
“Fuckin’ purp bitch don’t keep her hands to herself, you seen what they’re like” the diminutive thief in training shot back, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. Zack nodded along in agreement next to him as Cath and Tom shared a heavy look.
“He’s right, I saw from where I was, he was just showin’ her the watches y’know and then she went to grab him!” Zack clapped Benny on the shoulder, pulling himself up to defend his friend and staring into Tom’s face angrily.
For his part Tom just leant his head on his hands, letting loose a long slow groan. “So, let me get this straight. You approached the pod of marines, got nice and close to them, then you showed them a bunch of clearly stolen goods?”
“Yeah, that was the plan!” Benny said, a little indignantly “I go up and I draw their attention to the alley so they’re not watching you as you come up to them right?” Zack kept nodding along, although his face slowly began to take on a thoughtful expression.
“No, you were supposed to stay in the alley” Tom hissed back, face still buried in his palms “Where they might stop and look at you with pity, and you could safely bolt back and over the fence if you needed to. Instead you decided to try and what? Sell them stuff?”
“Maybe they’d have been interested, y’know!” Benny almost looked bashful at Tom’s lecturing, before rallying “And I was fine! I got away clean!”
The whole group jumped a little as Tom slapped both of his hands down onto the counter with a bang “You tried to sell! The purple space cops! Stolen shit!” He punctuated each short sentence with a slap to the counter between them “While we were robbing them! What if everything had gone to plan and I’d actually gotten the lift off normal like, and then they go to fucking make a donation to your fucking pissant filthy orphans fund and find their chits all gone!”
He was struggling not to yell at the kid, so he paused, breathing deeply through his nose and forcing his voice to remain steady. “And you got away clean because I ate 400 pounds of purple shit to the face for you! We’re lucky I’ve been doing that kind of bump lift since you were in diapers or we’d have gotten sweet fuck all for all that risk.” Rant over he flopped his face down onto the counter for a moment and took a long breath in before looking back up at the group.
Benny was still stood there, stuck between defiant and chastened, lip wobbling, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Tom sighed, straightening up and grabbing Benny’s hand “Look, it’s not all bad, we got the shit. I just want you to think okay? The last thing any of us want is you ending up vanishing away in one of those fucking stupid purple trucks alright?”
Benny nodded, lip still quivering, so Tom stepped around the counter and pulled him into a close hug, wiping away the wetness at the corners of his eyes with his thumb “It’s okay, it’s always a lot doin’ shit for the first time right?” Benny nodded, head buried in Tom’s chest, “next time it’ll be easier okay? And until you’re ready for it, you can go back to hawkin’ shit at ‘em.”
He patted the boy on the back, looking up at the other two and giving them a little smile “I bet you she only went to grab you cause you did such a good job sellin’ to her right?” the boy nodded again, and Tom pulled back, holding him by the shoulders. “So why don’t you guys go upstairs, see what Frankie’s got left over huh? I’ve gotta have another meeting so you get on without me.”
Benny nodded a third time, letting out a little “Okay” before turning and heading to the door, Zack hurrying to catch up with him and give him a hug of his own, murmuring something quietly in his ear as they pushed out of the shitty apartment.
“It wasn’t that bad you know” Cath spoke up for the first time, leaning back against the kitchen wall as Tom turned back to the island, rubbing his hand over his face. “He’s still just a kid.”
“But if I don’t scare some good habits into his brain he ain’t gonna be a kid much longer” Tom shot back tiredly “Someday I’m not gonna be around anymore” Cath interrupted him with a groan, rolling her eyes at him.
She always thought he was being overdramatic about their situation, but he’d kept track of his age. As the oldest of the Crush’s residents, he was past the point of no return. Or at least, what used to be the point of no return, back before the Invasion. He didn’t know if 18 was still the cutoff for being tried as an adult these days, but he didn’t especially look forward to finding out.
Outwardly though he shrugged in defeat, holding up his hands in surrender “Okay fine, but still, he’s gotta learn sometime.”
Cath nodded and pushed herself up off the wall, wandering over and hip checking him with a smile on her face “On the subject of needing to learn, you gonna finally let me come with?” Seeing his expression start to change she frowned, carrying on and leaning down to sweep up her bag “Cmon T, you were literally just getting all worked up about what happens when you fuck off to the great beyond or whatever, so someone’s gotta be ready to step up right?”
He huffed, arms crossed defensively “Fine, but I’m doing the talking okay? You’re there to watch, listen, but if he asks you somethin’ you look to me first alright?” She rolled her eyes, coming back to walk with him as they made their way out of the apartment. “I’m serious, this isn’t me being some overdramatic macho fuckhead here, this guy is fucking dangerous. And put your hood up”
Cath gave him the kind of withering look only an exasperated teen could manage before rooting around in her gym bag and pulling out a thin lime green hooded sports jacket, flapping it around her shoulders and then flipping the hood up. “Why?”
“Just trust me okay” the pair headed out, down the main stairs, popping the latch on the front door to head out into the street, “Last thing I want is you gettin’ hurt.”
Next

I made a long list of artists for learning Spanish with music. Switching all my music to Spanish helped me a lot in getting comfortable with the language and learning vocabulary. Also, in my opinion, Latin music is great!
If you want to do this as well, here is a list of artists, with their country of origin, genre, and a wiki like introduction to the artist.
List is taken from my blog post on LyricFluent (a website and app for learning Spanish with music): https://lyricfluent.com/blog/artist_recommendations/learn_spanish_with_song_lyrics_best_artist_recommendations
I copied the list below. Also, there are a few more on the blog, and has images, but I added here how many I was could until I hit the Reddit limit of characters.
Hope it's useful!
​
Shakira
(Pop Colombia)
📷Shakira is a Colombian singer, songwriter, and actress. She began her music career in the early 1990s, releasing her first album in 1991. Since then, she has become one of the most successful Latin American artists of all time, selling over 150 million records worldwide. Her unique blend of Latin, rock, and pop music has earned her numerous awards, including multiple Grammy Awards and Latin Grammy Awards. In addition to her music career, Shakira is also known for her philanthropic work, including her 'Pies Descalzos' Foundation, which provides education and resources to underprivileged children in her home country of Colombia.
Enrique Iglesias
(Pop Spain)
📷Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler is a Spanish singer and songwriter. Enrique was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1975, as the third and youngest child of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and Filipina socialite and magazine journalist Isabel Preysler. His father Julio is recognized as the most successful continental European singer in the world. Enrique didn't want his father to know about his plans for a music career and did not want his famous surname to help advance his career, so he started his career under the stage name Enrique Martínez. Since then, Enrique Iglesias has won more than 200 awards from various ceremonies, including 1 Grammy, and has often been names 'King Of Latin Pop'. Iglesias holds the record for the most number-one songs on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart with 27 songs.
Piso 21
(Latin Pop Colombia)
📷Piso 21 is a Colombian reggaeton and Latin pop group formed in Medellín, Colombia in 2007. The name Piso 21 derives from an elevator in a building in Medellin, Colombia, which has 21 floors. The group has achieved success with singles such as "Me Llamas", "Déjala Que Vuelva", and "Te Amo". The group has won several awards, including two Latin Grammy Awards for Best Urban Music Album and Best Urban Song.
Maluma
(Reggaetón Colombia)
📷Juan Luis Londoño Arias (born 28 January 1994), known professionally as Maluma, is a Colombian singer, songwriter, and record producer who has become one of the most successful Latin American artists of the 21st century. He chose the stage name Maluma, which is a combination of the first syllable of the names of his mother Marlli, his father Luis and his sister Manuela.
Nicky Jam
(Reggaeton Puerto Rico)
📷Nicky Jam is a Puerto Rican-American singer, songwriter, and actor. He is best known for his Latin-infused reggaeton and hip-hop music. He is best known for hits such as "X", "Travesuras", "En la Cama", "Te Busco", "El Perdón", "Hasta el Amanecer", and "El Amante"; the latter three are from his 2017 album Fénix.
Prince Royce
(Bachata Dominican Republic / United States)
📷Prince Royce is a multi-platinum, award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer from the Bronx, New York. He is best known for his romantic Bachata and Latin Pop music, which has earned him numerous awards and accolades.
Bad Bunny
(Reggaeton Puerto Rico)
📷Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is a Puerto Rican singer, rapper, and songwriter. He first rose to fame in 2016 with his debut album "X 100pre" and quickly established himself as one of the most popular Latin American artists of his generation. He is known for his unique blend of trap, reggaeton, and Latin pop music, and for his collaborations with other Latin American artists. His music is characterized by its socially conscious lyrics and its ability to cross over into mainstream pop culture.
Sebastián Yatra
(Pop Colombia)📷
Sebastián Yatra is a Colombian singer, songwriter, and actor. He began as a Latin pop artist and has recorded many ballads, but has released several successful reggaeton singles. Yatra is noted for his romantic lyrics, melding traditional lyricism with modern reggaeton influences. His music has earned him numerous awards and nominations, including two Latin Grammy Awards. His music has been streamed over 1 billion times on Spotify, making him one of the most streamed Latin artists in the world. Despite growing up in Florida and being fluent in English, Yatra sings almost exclusively in Spanish, and is quoted saying "I wanted to give my roots the importance they deserve.”.
Alvaro Soler
(Pop Spain)📷
Alvaro Soler is a singer, songwriter born in Barcelona, Spain. Alvaro began his musical career in 2011 when he released his debut single, "El Mismo Sol". Since then, he has released several hit singles, including "Sofia", "La Cintura", and "Loca". His debut album, Eterno Agosto, was released in 2015 and reached number one on the Spanish Albums Chart. Alvaro has achieved international success with his music, topping the charts in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. Alvaro is known for his upbeat, catchy songs and his energetic live performances. His music is a mix of Latin pop, reggaeton, and dance music, and his lyrics often focus on themes of love, friendship, and life.
Romeo Santos
(Bachata Dominican Republic)
📷Anthony "Romeo" Santos, known as Romeo Santos, is a multi-platinum selling singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer. Romeo was born in 1981 in the Bronx, New York, to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother. He is often referred to as The King of Bachata, a style of Latin music that originated in the Dominican Republic. He is the former lead singer of the popular bachata group Aventura, and has since gone on to have a successful solo career. Over his career, he sold over 40 million albums and over 100 million singles, and won numerous awards, making him one of the most successful Latin artists of all time. Romeo Santos has collaborated with some of the biggest names in Latin music, including Marc Anthony, Nicky Jam, and Daddy Yankee. He also had a cross-genre collaboration with Bad Bunny in his song Volví. He also has collaborations with English speaking artists, such as Drake and Justin Timberlake.
Camilo
(Pop Colombia)
📷Camilo Echeverry (born 16 March 1994), known as Camilo, is a Colombian singer, musician and songwriter. He is known for his singles "Tutu", alongside Pedro Capó and Shakira, and "Desconocidos", with Mau y Ricky and Manuel Turizo. His debut album, "Por Primera Vez," was released in 2018 and was an instant success, reaching the top of the Latin music charts. Since then, Camilo has released several more albums, including "Favorito" and "Mis Manos," both of which have been certified platinum.
Selena Gomez
(Pop United States / Mexico)
📷Selena Gomez is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and producer. She began her career as a child actress, and rose to fame as the leading role in the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place (2007–2012). Selena has also ventured into the music industry with the release of her singles "Come & Get It" (2013) and "Good for You" (2015). Selena's father is of Mexican descent, while her mother, who was adopted, has Italian ancestry. In 2021, she released Revelación, a Latin music EP which centers on themes of "strength, love, forgiveness and moving on".
Morat
(Pop-folk Colombia)
📷Morat is a Colombian folk-pop band from Bogotá, Colombia. The band consists of vocalist Juan Pablo Isaza, guitarist Simón Vargas, bassist Martín Vargas, and drummer Juan Pablo Villamil. The members of Morat have known each other since they were five years old. The band has released 4 studio albums, "Sobre El Amor y Sus Efectos Secundarios", "Balas Perdidas", "¿A dónde vamos?", and "Si ayer fuera hoy". Their music is a mix of folk, pop, and rock, with lyrics that explore themes of love, heartbreak, and nostalgia.
Manuel Turizo
(Bachata Colombia)
📷Manuel Turizo is a Colombian singer and songwriter who has quickly become one of the most popular Latin artists in the world. He is best known for his hit singles "Una Lady Como Tú" and "Esperándote", which have both been certified multi-platinum in several countries.
Selena
(Cumbia Mexico)
📷Selena Quintanilla Pérez, (April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995), known mononymously as Selena, was an American Tejano singer. Called the "Queen of Tejano music", her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the late 20th century. In 2020, Billboard magazine put her in third place on their list of "Greatest Latino Artists of All Time", based on both Latin albums and Latin songs chart. Selena was shot and killed on March 31, 1995, by Yolanda Saldívar, her friend and the former manager of her Selena Etc. boutiques. Selena has sold around 18 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling female artists in Latin music. In 1995, the United States Social Security Administration ranked the name Selena one of the 100 most popular names for newborn girls, and namesake Selena Gomez acknowledged Quintanilla's influence. In December 1999, Selena was named the "top Latin artist of the '90s".
Jay Wheeler
(Latin Urbano Puerto Rico)
📷Jay Wheeler is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, and producer from Puerto Rico. At the age of 16, Wheeler separated from his girlfriend, an incident that inspired him to write a new song, "Ahora Estoy Mejor" and record himself singing it. After showing it to a friend, he was encouraged to post it online, where it went viral overnight, generating over 500,000 views and serving as a platform for Wheeler to seriously pursue a career as a musician. At the beginning of Jay's career, he often sang about heartbreak. Now he is best known for his hit singles "La Curiosidad" and "Vete".
Carlos Rivera
(Pop Mexico)
📷Carlos Rivera is a Mexican singer who has become one of the most popular Latin music stars in the world. He rose to fame by winning the third generation of La Academia. He then went on to pursue a career in music, releasing his debut album, self titled 'Carlos Rivera' , in 2007. Since then, he has released seven more albums, all of which have achieved great success in Mexico and Latin America. His music is a mix of pop, rock, and Latin rhythms, and his lyrics often focus on themes of love, family, and personal growth. Carlos Rivera is also an actor, and he took on the role of Simba in the Latin American dubbed version of "The Lion King" (El Rey León), and won Best New Actor at the 2012 Broadway World Spain Awards.
Marc Anthony
(Salsa Puerto Rico / United States)
📷Marc Anthony is a multi-Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, actor, and producer. He is one of the most influential Latin music artists of all time, having sold over 12 million albums worldwide. He has released a total of 11 studio albums, including his 1993 debut album, Otra Nota, which earned him a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album. He has also won two Latin Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, and four Billboard Music Awards.
Luis Fonsi
(Reggaeton Puerto Rico)
📷Luis Fonsi is a singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer, born on April 15, 1978 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is best known for his 2017 single "Despacito," which became the most streamed song of all time. The music video was the most-watched YouTube video of all time until November 2020, with over 7 billion views. Fonsi received his first Latin Grammy Award nominations in the Record of the Year category and won Song of the Year thanks to the song "Aquí Estoy Yo".
Danny Ocean
(Dance Venezuela)
📷Daniel Alejandro Morales Reyes (Caracas, Venezuela, May 5, 1992), known by his stage name Danny Ocean, is a Venezuelan singer, songwriter, producer and graphic designer, of Latin music, reggaeton, and dancehall. Ocean began his career in 2016, when he released his debut single, "Me Rehúso," which quickly became a hit in Latin America and the United States.
Carlos Vives
(Vallenato Colombia)
📷Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo (born 7 August 1961) is a Colombian singer, songwriter and actor. He is known for his interpretation of traditional music styles of Colombia such as vallenato, cumbia, champeta, bambuco and porro as well as genres such as Latin pop, reggaeton, dance pop and tropical music.
Becky G
(Pop United States / Mexico)
📷Becky G is a Mexican-American singer, songwriter, and actress from Inglewood, California. She first gained recognition in 2011 when she began posting videos of herself rapping and singing on YouTube.
J Balvin
(Reggaetón Colombia)
📷J Balvin is a Colombian reggaeton singer and songwriter who has become one of the most popular Latin music artists in the world. He is known for his unique style of reggaeton, which blends traditional Latin rhythms with modern hip-hop and R&B influences. He has collaborated with a number of other artists, including Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and Pharrell Williams. T
ROSALÍA
(Latin Urbano Spain)
📷ROSALÍA is a Spanish singer, songwriter, and record producer from Barcelona, Spain. She is best known for her flamenco-influenced pop music, which combines traditional Spanish sounds with modern electronic music. ROSALÍA has released 3 studio albums, Los Ángeles (2017), El Mal Querer (2018), Motomami (2022), all of which earned her numerous awards and nominations. She has collaborated with a variety of artists, including Pharrell Williams, J Balvin, and Billie Eilish. ROSALÍA has become one of the most influential artists in the Latin music scene, and her music has been praised for its unique blend of traditional and modern sounds.
Paulo Londra
(Reggaeton Argentina)
📷Paulo Londra is an Argentinian singer, songwriter, and rapper who has quickly become one of the most popular Latin artists in the world. He is best known for his hit singles "Adan y Eva" and "Party". His music is a mix of Latin trap, reggaeton, and hip-hop, and his lyrics often focus on themes of love, heartbreak, and life in the city.
Daddy Yankee
(Reggaeton Puerto Rico)
📷Daddy Yankee is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actor, and record producer. He is one of the most influential and successful Latin American artists of all time, often called The Kind of Reggaeton. He is credited with popularizing the musical genre of reggaeton, and is known for his hit singles "Gasolina," "Rompe," and "Lo Que Paso, Paso."
Cali Y El Dandee
(Pop Colombia)
📷Cali Y El Dandee is a Latin Grammy Award-winning duo from Medellín, Colombia. The duo consists of Alejandro Rengifo and Mauricio Rengifo, two brothers who have been making music together since they were children.
Elvis Crespo
(Merengue Puerto Rico)
📷Elvis Crespo Díaz (born July 30, 1971) is an Puerto Rican singer and songwriter of the Merengue genre. He is best known for his hit single "Suavemente" (Softly), which topped the Billboard Latin charts in 1998 and earned him a Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Performance.
Juanes
(Rock Colombia)
📷Juanes, born Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez in Medellín, Colombia in 1972, is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Juanes began playing guitar at the age of seven and soon began writing his own songs. He formed the rock band Ekhymosis in 1992 and released five albums with the group before embarking on a solo career in 2000, which has been incredibly succesfull. He has sold over 15 million albums worldwide and has won numerous awards, including 19 Latin Grammy Awards and three Grammy Awards.
Soda Stereo
(Rock Argentina)
📷Soda Stereo was an Argentine rock band formed in 1982 by Gustavo Cerati, Héctor "Zeta" Bosio, and Charly Alberti. The band achieved international success throughout the 1980s and 1990s, playing a mix of rock, pop, and Latin American styles. They are considered one of the most influential and important Latin American bands of all time, and their influence can be heard in the music of many Latin American artists today. The band released seven studio albums, two live albums, and numerous singles and compilations before disbanding in 1997. After a brief reunion in 2007, Cerati passed away in 2014, leaving behind a legacy of music that continues to inspire and influence generations of Latin American musicians.
Pedro Capó
(Reggaeton Puerto Rico)
📷Pedro Capó is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, and actor. He is best known for his hit single "Calma", which topped the Latin charts in 2019. He has released four studio albums, including his most recent, "Amor y Más". His music is a mix of Latin, pop, and reggaeton, and he has collaborated with artists such as Farruko, Daddy Yankee, and Marc Anthony. He has also acted in several films and television shows, including the Netflix series "Club de Cuervos". Pedro Capó is a multi-talented artist who has made a name for himself in the Latin music industry.
Los Angeles Azules
(Cumbia Mexico)
📷Los Angeles Azules is a Mexican band from Mexico City that has been playing cumbia music since the 1980s. The band is composed of brothers Elías, Jorge, and Carlos Mejía Avante, and their cousin, Memo Mendez Guiu. Los Angeles Azules has released over 20 albums, and their music has been featured in films, television shows, and commercials. They are known for their unique blend of traditional cumbia music with modern sounds, and their live shows are always a hit with fans.
Thalía
(Pop Mexico)
📷Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda, known mononymously as Thalía, is a Mexican singer and actress.. She is one of the most successful and influential Latin American artists of all time, having sold over 25 million albums worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including five Billboard Latin Music Awards, eight Lo Nuestro Awards, as well as seven Latin Grammy Award nominations. As an actress, Thalía starred in a variety of successful telenovelas that aired in over 180 countries with an estimated audience of 2 billion people. Considered a Latin pop icon, Thalía was included in Billboard's Greatest Latin Artists of All Time in 2020 and People En Español's The 100 most iconic Hispanic entertainers of all time in 2008.
Ricardo Arjona
(Pop Guatemala)
📷Ricardo Arjona is a Guatemalan singer-songwriter who has been a major force in Latin music since the early 1990s. He has released over 20 albums, and has won numerous awards, including four Latin Grammy Awards and two Grammy Awards. His music is a mix of Latin pop, rock, and folk, and his lyrics often focus on social issues, such as immigration, poverty, and racism.
Ozuna
(Latin Pop Puerto Rico)
📷Ozuna is a Puerto Rican reggaeton and Latin trap singer who has become one of the most popular Latin music artists in the world. He has released several chart-topping albums, including Odisea, Aura, and Nibiru, and has collaborated with some of the biggest names in Latin music, including Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, and Bad Bunny.
Mau y Ricky
(Reggaeton Venezuela)
📷Mau & Ricky is a Venezuelan Latin pop and reggaeton duo formed by singer-songwriter brothers Mauricio Alberto "Mau" Reglero Rodríguez (born August 17, 1993) and Ricardo Andrés "Ricky" Reglero Rodríguez (born November 21, 1990), both sons of Argentine-Venezuelan singer Ricardo Montaner.
KAROL G
(Pop Colombia)
📷Karol G is a Colombian reggaeton singer and songwriter who has taken the Latin music world by storm. She is best known for her hit singles "Mi Cama," "Ahora Me Llama," and "Culpables." Karol G's music has been described as predominantly reggaeton and Latin trap. Karol G has collaborated with some of the biggest names in Latin music, including J Balvin, Anuel AA, and Bad Bunny. She also collaborated with English speaking artists, and her song "Tusa" with Nicki Minaj charted internationally and was certified 28× Latin Platinum by the RIAA, staying on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart for 25 weeks.
Alejandro Sanz
(Pop Spain)
📷Alejandro Sanz is a Spanish singer-songwriter and musician who has been a major force in Latin music since the early 1990s. His music is a mix of pop, rock, flamenco, and Latin rhythms, and his lyrics often focus on themes of love, heartbreak, and social issues. He has won numerous awards, and he has also been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His collaboration with Shakira on the 2005 single "La Tortura" reached number one on several charts worldwide.
Bomba Estéreo
(Tropical Colombia)
📷Bomba Estéreo is a Colombian band founded in Bogotá in 2005 by Simón Mejía. Their music has been described as "electro tropical" or "psychedelic cumbia". Bomba Estéreo has released six studio albums, with their most recent, Amanecer, with all of them getting nominations at the Latin Grammy awards. In 2019, their song "Internacionales" was used in a TV ad aired in the United States for the Walmart Grocery App. "Soy Yo" appeared in the 2019 dance rhythm game, Just Dance 2020, and in the GrubHub advert "Delivery Dance", which gained traction as an Internet meme for its inhuman dancing. In 2022, the band collaborated with Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny on the song "Ojitos Lindos", from his fourth studio album Un Verano Sin Ti. "Ojitos Lindos" became one of the most popular tracks from the album.
Manu Chao
(Reggae Spain / France)
📷Manu Chao is a French-born singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who has been making music since the late 1980s. He is best known for his unique blend of Latin, reggae, ska, and rock music, which has earned him a large and devoted fan base around the world. He has released several solo albums, as well as albums with his band Mano Negra, and has collaborated with a variety of other artists. His music is often politically charged, and he has been an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice. Chao believes that our world lacks spaces for "collective therapy" and describes his concerts as small temporary spaces where people of different backgrounds can come together.
Aventura
(Bachata Dominican Republic)
📷Aventura is a bachata group from the Bronx, New York, formed in 1996. The group consists of four members: Anthony "Romeo" Santos, Henry Santos, Lenny Santos, and Max Santos, all of whom are of Dominican descent, although Romeo is also half Puerto Rican on his mother's side. Aventura is one of the most internationally recognized Latin groups of the last two decades and frequently refer to themselves as "K.O.B.", or "Kings of Bachata". Aventura is widely credited with popularizing bachata music around the world, and their music has been described as a mix of traditional bachata and R&B, hip-hop, and pop. Aventura has been nominated for awards such as American Music Awards, the Latin Grammy Awards, Billboard Latin Music Awards, and Premio Lo Nuestro. They have sold out many arenas including the world famous Madison Square Garden.
David Bisbal
(Pop Spain)
📷David Bisbal is a Spanish singer, songwriter, and actor from Almería, Spain. He rose to fame as a runner-up on the interactive talent show Operación Triunfo in 2001. Since then, he has released five studio albums, all of which have achieved platinum status in Spain and Latin America. His music is a mix of Latin pop, flamenco, and R&B.
Natalia Lafourcade
(Pop Mexico)
📷Natalia Lafourcade is a Mexican singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has been making music since the early 2000s. She has won multiple Latin Grammy Awards, 2 Grammy Awards, and was nominated for many more. Her music is a mix of traditional Mexican folk music, Latin pop, and rock, and she often incorporates elements of jazz and bossa nova into her songs.
Gente de Zona
(Reggaeton Cuba)
📷Gente de Zona is a Cuban reggaeton group formed in 2000 by Alexander Delgado and Randy Malcom. The group is known for their unique blend of traditional Cuban music and modern reggaeton. In 2014, the duo gained success with the collaboration of Mario Proenza, who helped them record with Enrique Iglesias the song "Bailando".
Ulises Bueno
(Cuarteto Argentina)
📷Ulises Mauro Bueno (Córdoba, Argentina, June 26, 1985) is an Argentine quartet singer and composer. Ulises ventured professionally into the world of music at the beginning of 2002, at first interpreting songs by his brother and various artists, in pubs, bowling alleys and other places in different cities of Argentina. The song "Intento" (cover of the Spanish group Fondo Flamenco), gave him a boost in his career, since the song exceeded 120 million views on YouTube.
Natiruts
(Reggae Brazil)
📷Natiruts is a Brazilian reggae band formed in Brasília in 1996. The band's music is a mix of reggae, with elements of rock, funk, dancehall and Brazilian rhythms. Their lyrics often focus on themes of love, peace, and social justice. Natiruts is one of the most popular reggae bands in Brazil, and their music continues to inspire and bring joy to their fans around the world.
Eddie Santiago
(Bachata Puerto Rico)
📷Eddie Santiago is a Puerto Rican salsa singer and songwriter who has been a major force in the Latin music scene since the 1980s. He is known for his passionate and romantic style of singing, which has earned him a loyal fan base throughout Latin America and the United States. Santiago's career took off in 1986 in Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America as a soloist, recording songs including: "Tú me quemas" ("You Burn Me"), "Qué Locura Enamorarme de Ti" ("What Madness To Fall in Love With You"), "Me Fallaste" ("You Failed Me"), Antidoto y Veneno ("Antidote and Venom"), "Tu Me Haces Falta" ("I Miss You"), "Lluvia" ("Rain"), and many others. Santiago has earned both gold and platinum records, along with other awards. He was one of the main singers of "salsa romántica" ("romantic salsa").
Monsieur Perine
(Pop Colombia)
📷Monsieur Periné is a Bogotá-based musical ensemble from Colombia with an Afro-Colombian sound that mixes Latin and European flavors. Lead singer Catalina García sings in a mixture of Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese. Monsieur Perine's music is a unique blend of traditional Colombian rhythms, jazz, and Latin American folk music. Their debut album in 2012 won Colombia's national gold album award. Their style mixes elements of cumbia, tango, danzón, bolero and pop music.
Manuel Medrano
(Pop Colombia)
📷Manuel Alejandro Medrano López, known as Manuel Medrano, is a Colombian pop singer and a winner of two Latin Grammy Awards. The story of Manuel Medrano begins when he failed a school year and, as "punishment," he received a guitar. From the age of 16 he began writing songs, which motivated him to start a career as a solo artist. For several years he played in bars in Bogota while composing his songs, which, years later, made him popular at the national level.
Luis Enrique
(Salsa Nicaragua)
📷Luis Enrique Mejía López (born September 28, 1962) is a Nicaraguan singer-songwriter. He is known as "El Príncipe de la Salsa" (The Prince of Salsa). He achieved widespread success with the single "Yo No Sé Mañana". He has released over 20 albums since his debut in 1991.
Ricchi e Poveri
(Dance Italy)
📷Ricchi e Poveri is an Italian pop music group formed in 1968 in Genoa, Italy. The group is composed of Franco Gatti, Angela Brambati, Angelo Sotgiu and Angela Brambati. Ricchi e Poveri has released over 20 albums and has had numerous hits in Italy, Europe, and Latin America.
India
(Salsa Mexico)
📷Linda Viera Caballero (born March 9, 1969), known as La India, is a Puerto Rican singer and songwriter of salsa and Latin pop. La India has been nominated for both Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards, winning the Latin Grammy Award for Best Salsa Album for the "Intensamente La India Con Canciones De Juan Gabriel" album. Her stage name, La India, was given to her by her grandmother because of her dark features and long, straight, black hair.
Celia Cruz
(Salsa Cuba)
📷Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American singer and one of the most influential figures in Latin music. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1925, Cruz began her career singing in local clubs and radio stations. She soon gained recognition for her powerful voice and unique style, which blended traditional Cuban music with elements of jazz, salsa, and other Latin genres. Cruz rose to international fame in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming one of the most popular Latin singers of all time. She recorded 37 albums and won numerous awards, including two Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards. Cruz was also known for her vibrant stage presence and her signature phrase, “Azúcar!” (“Sugar!”). She passed away in 2003, but her legacy lives on in her music.
Beret
(Pop Spain)
📷Beret is a Spanish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has been making waves in the Latin music scene since his debut in 2013. Born in Seville, Spain, Beret has been surrounded by music his entire life, and his sound is a unique blend of Latin, pop, and R&B.
Cuco
(Alternative United States / Mexico)
📷Omar Banos (born June 26, 1998), known professionally as Cuco, is a Mexican American (Chicano) singer-songwriter and record producer from Hawthorne, California. His music is a unique blend of dreamy indie-pop, R&B, and Latin influences.
Pipe Bueno
(Norteño Colombia)
📷Andrés Felipe Giraldo Bueno (Cali, Colombia, February 7, 1992), better known as Pipe Bueno, is a Colombian singer-songwriter, composer and actor, his musical genres are popular and ranchera music.
Frankie Ruiz
(Latin Music Puerto Rico / United States)
📷José Antonio Torresola Ruiz, better known as Frankie Ruiz (March 10, 1958 – August 9, 1998), was an American salsa singer and songwriter of Puerto Rican descent. He was known for his powerful voice and his ability to blend traditional salsa with modern influences. His music was characterized by its upbeat rhythms and catchy melodies. He released several successful albums throughout his career, including "La Rueda de la Fortuna" (1982), "El Campeon" (1984), and "Solo" (1995). He was also a prolific songwriter, writing many of his own songs as well as collaborating with other artists. Ruiz was a major influence on the salsa scene in the 1980s and 1990s, and his music continues to be popular today.
C. Tangana
(Rap Spain)
📷C. Tangana is a Spanish rapper, singer, and songwriter from Madrid, Spain. He is known for his unique blend of hip-hop, trap, and flamenco music. He has released several albums, including El Madrileño, Avida Dollars, and Ídolo. His album, Ídolo, was released in 2019 and featured collaborations with artists such as Farruko, French Montana, and then girlfriend Rosalía.
Héctor Lavoe
(Salsa Puerto Rico)
📷Héctor Lavoe was a Puerto Rican salsa singer and songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Latin music. Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1946, Lavoe began his career as a vocalist in the 1960s. Lavoe's music was characterized by his passionate and soulful singing style, as well as his unique blend of salsa, jazz, and Latin rhythms. He was known for his ability to improvise and create new musical ideas on the spot. His most popular songs include "El Cantante," "Periodico de Ayer," and "El Dia de Mi Suerte." Throughout his career, Lavoe was plagued by personal and professional struggles, including depression, drug addiction and financial difficulties. He died in 1993 at the age of 47, leaving behind a legacy of music that continues to influence Latin music today.
Anthony Santos
(Bachato Dominican Republic)
📷Anthony Santos is a Dominican singer, songwriter, and producer who has been a major force in Latin music for over two decades. He is best known for his romantic bachata music, which has earned him the nickname "El Mayimbe de la Bachata". He is known as one of the pioneers of modern Bachata in the early 1990s with his role in redefining the genre to include romantic lyrics, poppy guitar licks, and implementation of new instruments such as the piano and saxophone.

Friends, I am a dude that grew up in a city with no Phish or any jam band in my vocabulary. Went out to the burbs and started working with some guys that loved the dead and Phish. I hated the dead, then fell in love. They then told me about Phish and I listened to a couple but didn’t jive with me.
THEN they introduced me to Goose and I saw them with Trey! BUT alas, I’ve stayed away from Phish because I don’t want to ruin them for myself by picking random songs. I know it sounds insane but
I just want some recommendations that have a groovy bass line and some sweet guitar licks

Baby’s second GOTY at Giant Bomb! Wow! It’s happening!Honorable Mention: Save RoomHey man, this is cute. It’s a bunch of puzzles based on the Resident Evil 4 briefcase inventory system. It’s a bunch of em, it’s cheap, it’s something I didn’t know I wanted so bad, but I did.Honorable Mention: TinykinIf you take Pikmin and Chibi Robo and subtract the time limits and stress, you get Tinykin. It's a really lovely game with tight controls and satisfying collectibles. It also manages to have rather sprawling levels that don’t feel overwhelming, due to its usage of speedy and logical traversal via silkworm rail grinds. Each level has a great sense of momentum and a flow that just feels good. It’s a bit shorter than I was hoping – about 6 hours – but it was a very pleasant time overall!Except there was that one level where I think I crossed a picket line and worked with the bad guys to stop a strike? That was mildly off-putting. I’m a little confused about why they went in that direction for a cutesy game like this. (For what it’s worth, this is not the reason Tinykin didn’t rank on my list!)DA GOTY LIST10. Card SharkOoh, what a neat thing this is. It’s not a card game, it’s a Cheating at Cards game. It’s got a bit of a WarioWare-but-more-tactical/deliberate feel to it, as you have to recall and pull off various distraction and slight-of-hand techniques in your “rob from the rich to give to the poor” scams. I haven’t beaten it (too many games) but I’m itching to go back and fleece a whole bunch more aristocrats.9. Betrayal at Club LowThis little weirdo hit me by surprise and left me wanting more. It’s a strange little indie jam where you play a spy, pretending to be a pizza guy, infiltrating a club to extract another agent. That’s as normal as the game gets, because what follows is a dice-rolling, role-playing, strategy game where you load up your die with pizza ingredients to affect the outcomes of whatever weird crap you’re doing. Cooking a stew, DJing, shmoozing with other people, enduring lasers, whatever. Your fate is in the pizza dice. It’s definitely a short game, but the mechanics were novel and the style was the kind of garish I can get behind (like Cruelty Squad, which is not made by the same developer). Really I just want another mission in this same world. Or a bunch more. Please make more of this weird thing, whatever it is.8. Cult of the LambAlso leaving me wanting more was Cult of the Lamb, which charmed me hard and fast. It’s a bit short and a bit easy for someone who’s into Binding of Isaac and Hades like me (uh, then again, I didn’t play on the hardest difficulty or anything, just Normal/Medium) BUT the potential of this game is through the roof with regards to DLC. There’s already a bunch of cosmetic DLCs out for the cultist cuties and such, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an expansion is in the future of this game. And I’m totally there for it, ready to be worshiped by adorable animals all over again.7. Elden RingThis originally was at number 5 but then I thought… This game’s had enough praise, let’s boot him down a bit and give some other very ambitious (but less AAA) games a place to shine. Am I grading on a curve? No, I’m grading with my heart.Shame on me - I got distracted after beating the Fire Giant and didn’t actually beat the damn game. I’ve been told I’m practically spitting distance from the end of Elden Ring, but I fear that my reflexes have probably atrophied to the point that getting back into it, this late in, would simply not work out. :( That being said, Elden Ring was (like everyone else says) a crazy triumph of “fuck around and find out” gameplay. Even a person like me, who was formerly scared off from ever playing a Souls game due to the “get gud” mentality found immense thrills in it (I have since been told that “get gud” is “a joke,” but my almost 2 decades of being wrecked at Smash Bros. has irreparably made that phrase an immediate morale-murderer. Please respect my Gamer Feelings on this matter.)6. Vampire SurvivorsYummy yummy numbers go up get da gems.Sorry people thought that Garlic was a scrub tier “Best Vampire Survivors Weapon” choice, but we were just talkin’ about the plain-jane first form/level of it!! Sheesh! Garlic is basic but it gives you early momentum to gain levels and therefore buy other, more effective things! Sheesh! Embrace garlic and be a scrub like us. Sheesh!5. The Stanley Parable Ultra DeluxeThe feat of making a follow-up to the original Stanley Parable that is this excellent, this funny, and this biting about the current atmosphere of sequels, DLC, etc, is kind of a miracle, and thus guaranteed this game a comfy spot on my GOTY list, even though I didn’t do the Eurovision thing with it. (I had to pick and choose my battles there!) Kevan Brighting hasn’t lost any of his charm as the Narrator, and if you wanna know how I feel about the writer, Davey Wreden, you can check out the dang Hot Takeout I did about this game. I respect the hell outta this game, lol. 4. FAITH trilogyHow can I not be ridiculously impressed by an indie franchise that manages to unnerve me and even sometimes give me a little jump scare me while having graphics like this?The third chapter of FAITH came out this year and it’s pretty amazing. Using the graphics and sound stylings of an ancient gaming console/computer, FAITH manages to weave a compelling and frightening tale that evokes classics like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. The simple graphics are sometimes punctuated with extremely stylish rotoscoped cutscenes that fill in the blanks, turning a little goofball pixel guy like this: Just a widdle guy :3Into something that’s worth being very nervous about:oh NO get AwAY from me, widdle guy!!!Plus, it’s just a cool-ass story. What if the various Satanic Panics of the 70s, 80s, and 90s were totally valid? What if there really were demonic forces barely simmering under the surface of reality as we know it? What if your only weapon against this force was a crucifix? And special shout-out to the sound design in this game, which is very successful at creating an off-kilter atmosphere. The music is absolutely great, the ambient noises are perfectly tailored to instill unease, and…. Is it possible to have an audio version of the uncanny valley? Cuz the way people talk in this game is that. Here’s a possessed person saying “Do you think my face is pretty?”FAITH is a kinda tricky game too, with a bunch of puzzle elements to it, and some surprisingly tough boss fights for your slow and delicate priest to handle. But it’s worth the struggles to deliver us from evil.3. Neon WhiteIt’s a game that makes you feel FUCKIN COOL despite being a HUGE LOSER, and really isn’t that the goal of so many games? Neon White and his buddies are big horny anime goobers and I love them. I don’t know why so many people were down about this game’s story, it’s perfectly fine for what it is. And it seems to be going for an early-oughts Toonami anime vibe – something I believe is totally on purpose. It’s taking some biblical lore junk and slapping it on a teen-acting Chosen One and his dumb friends, what’s not to like? Gameplay wise, obviously, this thing rules. First-person platforming has long been an awkward-at-best, unplayable-at-worst kind of beast, but then Neon White shows up and makes all those other attempts look like chumps somehow. The level design, aesthetic choices, and music all complement each other SO well, as to make the game super flowy and fun, even when you’re messing up for the 40th time.2. SignalisI know, it’s a shocker that the survival horror dork didn’t place this at Number 1, but I hope I can explain that when you get to the number 1 section! Also, you may have noticed that I placed this at Number 1 during the Eurovision GOTY thing and, my dudes, it is because nobody would have given it points otherwise. And I was right! Nobody did! And it deserves to be on the list.Signalis really is a hell of a game. It manages to take many lessons learned from other games in the survival horror genre, and make them its own. Too often, games will simply slam references to other, better games into theirs, hoping that reminding you of that game will make you like theirs, too!Signalis has something other devs don’t, and it’s something incredibly important in horror: restraint. The devs knew to ask themselves “Does this actually help me tell the story or is it just a cool thing I like?” and, even better, “Can I improve this thing that I saw in some other game, and make it work for my game? Can I weave this thematically with what I’ve already got going on?” Like, I never thought I’d see someone take something that really, really sucks from Silent Hill 4 – something that was so ass, I thought was just fundamentally not fun or good to have in a horror game – and made it WORK. Specifically, I'm talking about the final boss of Silent Hill 4. Unbelievable. It’s incredibly rare to see such a confluence of extreme ambition and wise restraint, but for it to show up in an indie game, of all things, on top of that? Flabbergasting. Kudos to the devs. I didn’t even mention the sound and music of this thing but it’s a triumph, too. Silent Hill vibes, in the best way, because it also stands by itself even if you haven’t played the Silent Hill games.1. PentimentMe and my partner, while playing this game, kept pausing it, just to go, “Holy shit…. Is this making me care about history?” Do you have any idea how hard it is to make two products of the American educational system CARE about HISTORY? This is an edutainment benchmark that nobody has ever even barely approached. This is a MIRACLE of GAMING. I’m learning things. I’m re-learning things I forgot from school. I’m solving murders! Or am I…? Actually, I’m not really sure I got the right guy here.This is maybe one of the most interesting games I’ve ever played, and it has the gall to be based on real life history? The most BORING thing ever? How in the HELL. By the way, I learned that a “gall” is a weird thing that grows on trees and you can make ink from them. WHAT.We kept getting gobsmacked with quiet realizations that everything we are, everything we do, is because some rando did something 1000 years ago. Not only that, but the way in which your choices matter works SO well. Yes, game choices don’t REALLY affect anything major but they do when you’re invested in the little things going on. It’s because of me that one of my pals in town got married! Aww! And there’s variables happening that you don’t even know are variables! Sometimes the things you don’t say or don’t do have lasting repercussions. —-Mild, non-story spoiler—- For example, after the game was over, I popped on over to the subreddit to see what people were discussing, what things I missed, etc. And I was very confused to see a bunch of comments talking admirably about this one character who was nothing but an unrelenting asshole to me for the entire game. People were even crushing on them! I’m sorry, what? Turns out, if you’re consistently nice to this horrible jerk they actually soften up by the end of the game and become an upstanding citizen. In my game, they ended up a miserable wretch who was still an unrelenting asshole. And I didn’t know it was even in the realm of possibilities that this dude’s personality could be different! And it’s all because of small moments that seem trivial at the time.—-Spoiler ends here!—-This game not only makes one reflect on the ripples that art and history have throughout time, and how others’ interpretations of the long-forgotten nuances can completely alter history. It makes you wonder about what ripples are currently, constantly, unknowingly emanating out from all of us, right now. Whose lives have I unknowingly ruined by saying some careless thing? Whose lives have I saved by doing some small kindness? How will events that I saw firsthand be altered by future people if it’s not preserved faithfully? Is it worth preserving it perfectly, or is it worth changing, reinterpreting, treating like a first draft that we can iterate on? Hey, did you know what the word “Pentiment” means?It’s harrowing and it’s awe-inspiring, and it’s very rare that a video game makes me consider such things. The final decision of this game was something that me and my partner had to have a full 15 minute long discussion about! It was agonizing, it was amazing, it’s my Game of the Year.Huh, I just realized my GOTY list is bookended by historical period pieces. What a weird year for me, the history hater. Anyway, here’s some other quick categories I wanna slam in here:Best Game I played this year that’s not from this yearHalf-Life: AlyxGood fucking GOD, this game rules. I don’t even have the vocabulary to INSIST HARD ENOUGH that this game is phenomenal. It’s Half-Life 3. It’s the third Half Life. Okay, it’s a prequel, but it’s a full-ass Half Life game in the world of Half-Life!!! I thought it was some short side-story but it’s actually legitimately more Half-Life!! It’s got new lore, it’s got more world building, it’s got VORTIGAUNTS <3I can’t be more thrilled. I forgot how much I adored the story and world of Half Life, and god DAMN, am I reinvigorated. I cried at the end, and half of that cry was because I so desperately wanted more Half-Life right now and knew that there wasn’t any more left.Well, there’s the Director’s Commentary (it’s amazing so far) and some mods though! Very much looking forward to those. Please Valve, make more Half-Life, you've still got it.Biggest Disappointments:Ghostwire Tokyo & Scorn & The Callisto ProtocolAww man, these are all horror (or horror-adjacent) games! I weep! These all sucked! Ghostwire was a boring, by-the-numbers open-world snoozefest, Scorn was a frustrating-to-play visual feast that would have been WAY better as a walking sim with puzzle elements and zero combat, and Callisto Protocol was simply unfun to play and had no decent story hooks. I looked up the last cutscene/boss fight and was not surprised at how cliché it all went down. Just a game that felt totally void of personality or joy. It’s tough out here for horror fans sometimes. (Which is another reason why Signalis deserved to be on the site’s GOTY list.)Games I missed out on playing, sorry!Perfect TidesWeird WestSaturnalia (I played a liiiiittle bit of it and it seemed neat though)Plague Tale: Requiem (haven’t played the first one, either)Stray (which is weird, as a big fan of kitties)Nobody Saves the WorldReturn to Monkey IslandNorcoPowerwash Simulator (but wow, I get it)The Case of the Golden IdolCitizen Sleeper
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