Interdimensional Observer

Fixed. The princess could be just chatty when she wasn't the lead controllable character. I know a lady she could grab a drink with.

Whenever I make an attempt at narrative fanfiction, I feel like I try the opposite.😆 Having structure in place makes it feel like I'm not wandering through the primordial darkness. -If at the price of later causing gears to grind when I trying to -naturally- bridge a seemingly unbridgeable gap, and making me wish I could delete the rigidly-fixed next event. *Enters Orphean mode* ...Reason dictates a logical explanation as to why this Anti-Coronid Predator exists in Arcticia, yet not Sylvalum. Unfortunately, genetic testing has not yet been completed on Arcticia's Coronids, which could determine the degree to which the DNA of the two Coronid populations differ. Until then, we can only construct hypotheses as to why this may be the case. The mapping of Mira's oceanic topography remains very incomplete, yet perhaps there was a land bridge once connecting the hemispheres of Mira, later submerged due to sea level rise. Did the Coronids migrate to Sylvalum from Arcticia, yet their predators did not follow? Such an event would have involved climate change, and that by itself could be another explanation, megafauna require as significant resource quantities to survive. Perhaps a changing climate and the particular environment of Sylvalum, already a difficult one being so ashen (although very preliminary geological excavations is beginning to give us a vague idea of what Sylvalum was like before the Cauldros Mass-Volcanism), was too much for the predator. Provided we had more geological data, if we could determine the evolutionary age of the Coronids' "crowns" and cross reference it with the speed at which Mira's plate tectonics move, perhaps it was continental drift, not migration, that split the Coronid -yet not their predators'- population in two. 🤓😆 They say water is the origin of life Shrimpy.😏 Return the world to its nascent state.

Isn't there like two standards approaches to writing a story? One where you have a bunch of important chronological events planned out between the beginning and the end, and then you try your best to fill in the spaces between these inflexible points. The alternative method being where you set aside the question of how things end, and simply start writing, making everything flow organically from what came before it? (I would imagine in practice that writers blend in differing ratios the two manners of writing.) Xeno largely abides by the first case, Trails by the latter? Speaking of... "The pores of these massive creatures absorb ether as a main energy source while capillary action sponges up water through their feet. The crown, which resembles a head, is in fact a defensive adaptation that hides its vital crystalline organs. The presence of such a decoy suggests they once had a powerful natural enemy, though no such foe is known to exist today. Coronids are egg layers. Said eggs are incubated and hatched internally before joining the world via the process of live birth." Considering the size of a Coronid... think X2 would remember this flavor text and show us what this predator may have been?

Is the overambitious mega-length feeling familiar?😛 Although N-F being independent, is both willing and free (finances provided) to see it through.😝 Is Discount Xeno Unabridged better than True Xeno Cut Short? Four-legged creatures are difficult for a starting artist? Like, is the humanoid form wired into our brains and drawing animals that deviate, can result in some awful failed attempts? -Barely bothering me (and I've hardly read the tutorials either). Already seem to have swapped protag teams without having the faintest idea why it happened, where I am, nor who these people are.😆 -I swear I'll break.

Ehhhhh Gen 1 already gave us Machoke/amp.😛 Chaos Zero, the first, much smaller form. Which has been playable before. Nice.😀 Had to swap computers to see this (one blocks social media posts). Wasn't expecting the aurora and coronids thankfully you didn't do the crimson aurora, I thought you'd do daytime Syl'. Indeed. -Currently have it going on in auto-battle as I type this. Eventually I'll submit.

I wouldn't say "hype" exactly, if one relates hype to eagerness, as I wasn't actually eager whatsoever to begin XC3 (though I truly want to begin it). Were I excited, I might've plunged in with less hesitation (but not none, I'm not sure if that's possible with me) and pushed through. It's more like "veneration". Like I'm walking into the Holy of Holies, and XC3 is both the Temple's inner chamber and the Ark of the Covenant contained within. I'm not afraid of being disintegrated (I won't open the Ark), but I need to fully commit my mind, body, and senses to the game. If I detect a single stray thought or feeling, then it feels wrong, and soon that sense of wrongness snowballs. -Which is a downright bizarre way to think of a piece of entertainment.😅 They should be relaxing, not send me into performing austerities. Yet all games on some level, but especially full-length JRPGs, do this to me nowadays. (Berseria being the most recent prior, though I didn't start acting weird there until the opening act got underway.) If there was a way to upload the first ~five hours of XC3 directly into my skull, with a save file at the same point, that'd be great. To have the meet & greets among the initial crew over with, the plot past the initial liftoff stage, the gameplay through the most basic of tutorials. I wouldn't care that much if I didn't have a full understanding of why I'm going where I'm going at that point, nor why Male B calls Female C "Screech Lady" b/c I missed a first-hour comical interaction. As is, I think I'll simply have to wear myself out. This instinctual irrational behavior takes effort, and while I can keep it up for an entire game (Fates and 3H), in this case, I ought to surrender, I want to surrender. If only this was X2 dangit! My yearning to know answers to the mysteries that the first game left behind outweighs any hesitancy I would have. I would dive in playing furiously seeking to discover who the "Great One" is ...until side-quest fatigue sets in, and then an IRL week passes of not-playing, during which Arma gets to the final boss whilst I'm only at Chapter 7. I'll wait for Sky Remake, Second Chapter.😛 Though in a way, Trails would be easier to leap into. As that franchise is at ground level for me, it's just video games, I haven't placed it on a pedestal atop Mt. Everest. -Yet, while I'm okay with an Unfinished Battle, I don't want an unfinished story that I'll be forced for years to wait on a conclusion for. Even if the sheer number of existing Trails games and present overarching story completion % might have reached the point where I can begin, and the True Final Ultimate Last Best Game will have released. The possibility had never crossed my mind. I must've given up for the year already.😆 It was wariness, wariness, wariness.😅 No animations nor music either. What's this about a deity getting torn to shreds in a supernova? Thankfully, I very much enjoy Fire Emblem gameplay.😆

-Well they initially announced Flamefrit (post-April Fool's) as a Card-en-Ciel preorder bonus. But only in Japan, and only for physical buyers of CeC. Now, they said that if you buy CeC digitally (regardless of region), you'll get free early DDF digitally -but if you want to buy DDF alone (digitally) (which I'm considering), you'll have to wait until later. Weltall and Weltall-Id faces? I feel like the shade of blue is too bright for Weltall, though maybe a watch face needs to be reflective of light to everything atop it readable. At least there's a market for robot figurines (referring to the Weltall I posted the other day). Wristwatches inspired by mecha? Gundam or Evangelion and they probably would sell, easily. But Xenogears? Hammer "doubt" like an ejection button. Square Enix has been remastering -to mixed results- a bunch of its back catalogue of late. Much of it SaGa b/c the old respected founder is still there, yet there was Trials of Mana (and the Mana compilation, Secret's visual remake, and Legend's remaster), Live-A-Live, Actraiser, Tactics Ogre, and Chrono Cross (but surprisingly not the more famous Trigger). -Though there remains absences from Square's and Enix's prolific 16/64-bit outputs, and any SE plans to financially slim things down and trim out smaller games could kill future remasters. In the case of these portable timepieces, I'm thinking it could be different regions of the brain acting independently. That if SE has a merchandise branch, it acts without any regard for what the gaming development sector of the company is doing. All this said, sure, I'd be fine if SE sold XG. Nintendo would unite the 'G with the 'B under its creator, but how often does Nintendo purchase IPs? Bamco, though notorious for not giving us an XS compilation remaster, could hardly be worse than SE, and at least it'd bring XG and XS together. -Other than these two giants, I really don't know if anyone would want it, nor do Xenogears any better.

Metaphor or Meh-taphor? ...Is what the demo may determine.😀

Silver lining- it sounds even better than Fates and Radiant Dawn for "I think this tragically-flawed story could've been fixed, if..." creative-speculative ideas?🤔 Fan chatter I've glimpsed suggests that? -Like, ambition + some nice established pieces - poor execution = a great dollhouse to fanfictively play with? Plus those (so far, perhaps forever) unanswerable questions of how the process of 3H was actually developed. The mystery concerning the chronological sequence of the creation of the routes.

-At least you gave it a fair shake before. I don't think in all honesty that I can say I ever did that for 3H.🙁 Three playthroughs, not one iota of doing monastery, nor witnessing plot, nor seeing characters. If all I did was fight, nothing else, I don't think I truly played 3H. Isn't an ouroboros supposed to be one snake eating its own tail? With two people, is it an ouroboros, or a 69?🤔 Well, if you're a yoga master, I suppose you can make yourself an ouroboros. ...After several hours' further delay, I opened the game at 2:00 PM. I didn't get past the title screen until 2:19. Did I then play the game? "Yes", but no, no, no no, nononono!😐 I skipped all cutscenes, muted the TV and turned off all sounds in the options while swapping voices to Japanese, I set the combat to easy and auto, ignored any written dialogue on screen (minus tutorials I had to manually complete), expanded the mini-map to block out the scenery (I actually struggled to keep my eyes on the screen), and just ran in a straight line from objective to objective. I stopped as soon as I got a mandatory fetch quest. I exited the game by 2:44. The irrational behavior feedback loop could not be broken. Though I quoted Revelation earlier, as I know painfully well, I am neither the Alpha nor the Omega. Beginning and ending games I both struggle with. Does that make me the Mu and the Nu? -The 12th and 13th letters of the 24-letter Greek alphabet?🤔 Well I can struggle with resuming games after a hiatus too, so I wouldn't say even the middle goes smoothly for me. Yet even so, I wasn't expecting to flounder so terribly today.😑 At least I bashed my head against XC3? Maybe I'll try again undocked later tonight, redoing the whole of what little I forced myself through. Everyone can have their own definition of "progress".😅 I mentally sketched it out days ago. Just waiiiiting for my chance to pop it on Shrimpy.😝 Would that be the worst thing right now? -Some would ask. You're saying people confuse White Rider and Pale Rider? Or are you saying White with Red? Or are you saying both are confusing for different reasons? Black Rider/Famine is the only one that can't easily be confused, I think?🤔 ...A cursory look reveals White = Pestilence can only be traced in writing back to 1906. That then is such a newborn interpretation, that I'd be inclined to think it inaccurate and go with Conquest instead though maybe the Almighty didn't want us to figure it out until nineteen centuries after He sent His Son?.

"And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." (I'm aping Xenosaga.😉 In the style of Dr. Mizrahi and Voyager to be precise. Quoting the beginnings of Revelation feels appropriate for something so drawn-out in coming, and what feels as heavy as the end of days.😝) Card, loaded.

Go outside and shove some sand in your mouth. What you're staring at, Shrimpy, appears to be a pristine, deep blue lake, canopied by palms of delicious dates. But it's as textbook a mirage as it comes. You know this is the case. Cup thy hands to bring relief to thy raging thirst and you'll be coughing up dust for a half-hour, irritating grit remaining stuck in your esophagus for days after. -Just trying to help you avoid making a purchase you're very concerned that you might regret.😉 In case the demo doesn't kill the curious contemptible craving. -I realize I sounded like one of those people who complained about 13S and its modern setting & dulled color palette.😅 But yeah, letting the protagonist be plain and typical is fine. Surrounding the ordinary with the extraordinary is nothing new, and nothing bad. Maybe because I have some liking for it, but let's not forget about the world beneath the waves. -Yes I said your average Under the Sea!🎶 merpeople might not itself be sufficient for me (although I would appreciate any colorful coral reefs they drew, don't get me wrong), but I'm sure Vanillaware could do something appealing.😀 Maybe turn the pitch-black depths into a kind of successor to Odin Sphere's netherworld, or place some eldritch gods that surface for the final battle down there (something original design-wise please, no Cthulhu copy). -And I can't believe I never once brought up Atlantis or Ys. Any fantasy nautical story could be likely to include it.😆 Japanese folklore (and Vanillaware is Japanese) has its Ryugu-jo, the undersea Dragon Palace. Anyone up for aquatic manaketes? Which reminds me that Greenland sharks, which I read are understudied, can live up to 250-500 years, the longest of any vertebrate on Earth. -The one question that doesn't seem to have been answered yet is the translation. I know Working Designs has a mixed reputation on that front. A simple remaster would probably not bother changing it. Yet Lunar is infamous to some as an earlier-in-gaming-history example of deviating too much from the Japanese.

A not-insignificant polity in the history of India. -And distinctive in its turn to the sea. As 4.9 billion years ago (meaning- childhood) I did watch the first two PotCs, I'll cede. -Sure, pirates are okay. I don't hate them. I just think a game entirely focused on Age of Exploration Caribbean (and Indian Ocean too) European piracy would be a waste of Vanillaware's talents. And tossing in merpeople wouldn't be enough to compensate by itself. I'm too learned and I desire more than that. Else I'll drink seawater. Please don't put Lenga on vocals. His groans of increasing (dis)comfort were remarkably unpleasing. I did come to like the group.😆 I'd take another castle-crashing with the lot of them. Corrected.😉 It appears we actually lack physical evidence for naval battles at the Colosseum. When the hypogeum -underground rooms- were later added, the idea of flooding the Colosseum became not so feasible. This happened during the reign of Domitian (81-96 AD), whose short-reigned brother Titus had opened the Colosseum in 80 AD. The written record says naval battles happened during these reigns, so if true, we're talking less than two decades for any mock naval battles in the Flavian Amphitheater. Which I've seen others say has become a major problem with Level-5, everything has to be multimedia. And they're too small for that to be wise. I heard people say they've spotted the marks of generative AI in the trailer. And that L5 in a shareholders' meeting or something announced their intent to use AI.😐 They appear to still have room for one unannounced game at the Tokyo Game Show, I think. I'll presume the worst possibility of a mobile game, and squash any thought of it being something that would grab any real attention (Persona 6, an attempt at reviving Sakura Wars, Panzer Dragoon Saga remake).

They're adding the pilots!😄 Please let there be actual interactions between these three and the Megaton crew. Their robots were added with no in-game narrative fanfare, so I'm skeptical and thinking RyoDuKou will be dropped in solely as portraits with VAs and ten new pilot skills each. Now when are you going to finish MM's story, Level-5? I'm surprised Level-5 is still supporting this game, I've heard the online is on the deader side. But I appreciate this. (And yes, I recognize the lack of Hayato & Musashi/Benkei, and the that the Choudenji leads aren't here either.) -Something of interest that came for me from L5's "To the World's Children" presentation today.😀 (It didn't build that much general excitement I see, since all the games are now 2025 or 2026 (this presentation itself had been scheduled for earlier in this year, Level-5 delayed the event), and they're adding a new Yokai Watch and an Inazuma Eleven remake to their workload. The production pipeline at L5 still looks very very worrisomely congested.) Could we get some international variety? -Not all Medieval/Age of Exploration (Early Modern) European ships and pirates and vikings. How about some Arabian dhows? And while I don't actually know that much about what it looks like 😅, I want a nation to be based on the Chola Empire. India's great maritime empire, it needs more love. ...And while we're in Asia, gimme Indonesia- Srivijaya Empire, Majaphit Empire, or the Islamic sultanates, whatever. Turning northward, China and Japan at times had pirates. Zheng Chenggong (also known to the West as Koxinga) conquered Taiwan from the Dutch, while Wokou/Wako pirates in Japanese territory pillaged the three East Asian countries for several centuries. (China also has Zheng He the Ming dynasty explorer-admiral of fame. And who can forget how Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang's forces set Cao Cao's imposing river armada ablaze at Red Cliffs?) Oh, and canoes don't make for good battle ships, but Polynesia deserves some love in a thalassophilic game too. -Getting back to the Mediterranean, sure, make sure Venice is around. And Byzantium, not for the Fourth Crusade, but because of their legendary Greek Fire. Nor would things feel right without Phoenicia and its daughter-successor state, Carthage. (Slip in the Greek city-states and West Rome too, sure.🥱) ...Not sure if there is anything to draw from for the peoples of the Western Hemisphere.😅 I don't think the Americas were as rife with maritime history as Eurasica. -Still plenty of diversity out there, plenty of pretty and distinctive cultures to beautifully draw. Don't give me "Aargh me hearties!" Caribbean slop, Vanillaware!😝

...Envision this with all four non-Lenga dudes lounging in here, plus the Raikoh the thunder god (an optional boss). B/c you can have that equipping the Towel of the Mystic (they have no bath interactions with each other, unfortunately). While you can't see anything b/c very bright steam and towels, I don't want to risk bumping into the rules of this place.😝 Besides the great bath (shown above) in the safe zone of the castle where the item shop is and the other dudes have their bedrooms, the save rooms have some visual variety.: Unusual for a Metroidvania. Absolutely. If angels were prudes, he'd be a college-age Lucifer.😛 Although, the exact relationships vary.: Arenas are Roman, bathhouses are Roman.😀 Although I know the Colosseum didn't have room for those. Not sure how often if ever gladiators bathed. The daily lives of gladiators consisted entirely of eating, fighting, and sleeping in their cells (b/c they're slaves). Though Galen the ancient physician mentions unctores- slaves tasked with keeping the gladiators comfortable, including daily massages. As the average gladiator had a lifespan of ~27, I'm not sure why you'd need to order slaves to rub these fit men, unshackled volunteers willing to work for free shouldn't be in short supply. The word my eyes immediately fell upon.😆 And I still haven't played it yet.😅 Oddly didn't hear anything about that. I guess not every 5-interval is worth celebrating. We're probably 15 years from the next big one.

Paradiso Guardian- Review and Final Thoughts: There. That’s all I think I want to say?🤣 Would I rate this game? As I’ve said before, I’m not big on numerical rankings. And as I concluded, while there are many Metroidvanias and many yaoi games, Paradiso Guardian has a monopoly on yaoi Metroidvanias. It’s first-in-class …because it’s the only thing in its class.😆 T’was good, light, silly fun.😁 Entertainment that I’ll have a difficult time finding exactly more of in the future.😝

-When you create art designed to be viewed from one angle/viewpoint. Banpresto wouldn't even need to do that much to correct the rearview issue.

There, Paradiso Guardian is done.😇 (Still missing four achievements -not like I ever care to 100% them. Yet after 15 hours playtime, I've gotten everything else, including every scene.) ...Even though this game is especially for me and absolutely nobody else here 😆, I'll still post my detailed final thoughts. -Tomorrow morning. It's just past midnight now, and I could easily spend an hour meticulously writing out what's in my head. (And I need to journal some thoughts first.)

Trying to wrap up Not-So-PG today. Maaaaybe I won't, but I really want to. I can't move onto something else with this still trailing behind me.😆 Ran through a gamut of optional bosses this morning. Some easy b/c I challenged them much later than I initially could've, though Raikoh was a good challenge (not using items, as healing consumables in Metroidvanias are cheats). And the thunder god also gave me what feels easily like the most powerful Bond skill in the game, he kicks as much as ass he shows (he wears only a loincloth). -I mean, there are millions of gamers who grew up on JRPGs shallowly preaching "protect the environment" and "racism is bad" via magical fantasy substitutes for the real issues. And yet, do I presume all of them embraced those memos? No, I don't think that's realistically going to be true, unfortunately.

...It took me two minutes to realize this wasn't an edit.😝 Just parroting what I was reading earlier today.😆 (It was nice reading weather outside, and I wanted to empty my brain of hunk for the day.) Dunno it'll be worth stopping by either ancient slab of stone for you, but I thought it couldn't hurt to mention them.😅

@Armagon, since you'll be in Paris and London, just feel like mentioning what's likely a five-second tourist attraction of both cities- obelisks. In 1830 AD, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, gifted the king of France an obelisk. This was one of the two obelisks erected at the entrance of the Temple of Luxor by Ramses II (r. 1279-1213 BC), and the last pair of ancient Egyptian great obelisks (smaller ones continued thereafter) ever commissioned. The obelisk was brought to Paris and set atop a pedestal at the Place de la Concorde, in 1836. Later, in 1877 AD, Great Britain received an obelisk from the Egyptian government. This obelisk had been ordered by Thutmose III (r. 1479-1425 BC), and placed in the city of Heliopolis (now buried beneath modern Cairo). In 12 BC, however, the Roman Empire decided to relocate this obelisk in their newly-conquered province, to the Caesareum of Alexandria, a temple built by Cleopatra VII (the famed Cleopatra). Due to the ancient relocation to Alexandria, this obelisk is now commonly known as one of "Cleopatra's Needles". It is presently located in London on the Victoria Embankment along the Thames. (Its sister obelisk was simultaneously gifted by the Egyptian government to the United States, and is located in NYC's Central Park.) --- (Unnecessary for your trip history information!🤓) The oldest fragment fragment we have of an Egyptian obelisk dates to between 2305~2279 BC, roughly during the reign of Teti, pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty (the last of the Old Kingdom dynasties, the preceding Fourth Dynasty being the one that built the Pyramids of Giza). Obeliskos is a Greek word, meaning "small, pointed pillar". Tekhen was the native Egyptian word, but of uncertain origin. The square pillars, which usually slightly tapered upwards, would be topped by a pyramidion in Greek, or benben in Egyptian- "to shine/radiate". Almost all Egyptian obelisks were made of red granite from the quarries of Aswan near the First Cataract of the Nile (waterfall/rapids). A failed obelisk -it had a massive crack at the base- from the reign of Hatshepsut or her stepson Thutmose III, remains almost-extracted, and helps us understand how the obelisks were made using along with the tools they left behind. Obelisks represented solidified rays of the Sun. And the pyramidion would sometimes be covered in gold or electrum (a naturally-occurring gold & silver alloy why wasn't this the 2nd Gen third version?), to make it reflect the Sun's rays. Benben is also the Egyptian name for the "Primordial Hill" from which the god Atum, surrounded by the primordial waters of chaos, created the world some versions say via self-love, by hand or with his shadow. So the pyramidion and thus obelisk as a whole, also represents the Egyptian creation myth. (Well, the myth according to the city of Heliopolis, whose Egyptian name was Iunu- "the City of Pillars".) The base of an obelisk would sometimes feature the imagery of baboons, because the Egyptians thought baboons prayed to the Sun like they did (due to certain baboon behaviors). On the shaft of the obelisk would be nice things written of the god to whom the obelisk was dedicated, and usually the pharaoh/person who commissioned the obelisk would have their name written for eternity on it too. The Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (2575-2150 BC) began the construction of obelisks with large altars at the base at its solar temples (smaller pharaonic structures b/c big pyramids were too expensive). The Middle Kingdom (1975-1640 BC) saw obelisk construction spread, and it was the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BC) sculpted the slenderer, taller obelisks which are known of to this day. The New Kingdom also usually erected obelisks in pairs at the monumental gateways (pylons) to temples, why is uncertain. After Ramses II, the smaller Egyptian obelisks which continued to be constructed, lasted until Ptolemy IX Soter II (r. 116-107, 88-81 BC) dedicated the final pair to Isis at a temple on Philae Island. The first foreigner to develop a liking for Egyptian obelisks, was the great King Ashurbanipal (669-630 BC) of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This very cultured man sacked the Egyptian city of Thebes in 663 BC, and had two obelisks brought back to his capital of Nineveh (in modern Iraq). The Roman Empire under its first emperor Augustus began extracting obelisks in 10 BC, placing the first inside the Circus Maximus atop the central barrier known as the spina. Charioteers would do laps around the obelisk, which kept the spirit of Sun-worship alive, as chariot-racing symbolized Apollo/the Sun making its procession across the sky. Later obelisks would be brought to Rome (and one to Constantinople), as for the Romans, initially, relocating these Egyptian pillars was seen as act of taking righteously-earned spoils of conquest. The result is that Rome is now the city with the most obelisks in the world- 13. As for Egypt, none of the great obelisks that remain there are still in their originally-intended spots, the article claimed. After the fall of Rome, obelisk exportation would stop until the 19th century. If you read it, I hope this little lecture on monoliths didn't bore you.😜 Thanks for the visual comparison and info. -For a moment, I was thinking the stone might be retroactively the Crimson Stone that Lament of Innocence invented, and is the thing that turned Mathias Cronqvist into the powerful evil he is. -But then I remember he wears that on his chest (and is perhaps oddly not spoken of enough after LoI). No, the Fool is the Arcana that is beyond human artistry.🎨 With enough magic mushrooms, water lilies, and tobacco both smoked and consumed as a liquid (which is more dangerous than smoking, but recent archaeological evidence says yes the Mayans drank tobacco), maybe? While Mars is a fair distance away -outer space & all- you'd think with all the rovers they've sent to the surface of the Red Planet, that they would've sent something already to the moons. But I guess funding for space research isn't that plentiful, and the dreams of finding accessible water/microbial life/landing humans on Mars takes priority.

-A mistranslation buries a possible stray Relic, I was not aware of that.😮 In that case though, it's one of the tarot rings. It's a name chosen by Konami not to allude The Devil, but to complete the Arcana. Shame collecting all 22 rings doesn't do anything. I'd take a "Blank Ring" representing our Empty Tome of a protagonist. A ring whose mounting is left empty, like a blank card, in being undefined, it contains all possibilities.

The Mayans liked their mushrooms.🍄

If you're looking for a world end, there was this space news from ~10 days ago.😛 It's possible that Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, are space rocks that were captured by Mars. Although scientists presently don't have the evidence they require to rule out the alternative "moons born of debris from a massive impact on early Mars" hypothesis (which ofc is how the Earth's Moon came to be).

Looks like the Earth is about to get a temporary second "moon". We already have Professor B as a traveler of spacetime who became stuck. What's the harm in having a second?😛 Not a problem.😄 -I wanted to throw out the factoids, as a way of making the estate come more "alive and relevant", a little something that happened there that went well beyond the absolute monarchal estate of the Bourbons. Bloodline's choice to do a European grand tour instead of sticking to Transylvania was creatively different.😀 Even if: Atlantis and Castle Proserpina aren't real, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tourist-trappy for an Italy stage, and why did Germany get stuck with a Munitions Factory?😝