Walk in Peace

And faith The pogroms of India will despise Bitter lonely and clear For night do they quarrel Listing their love unto house Raiding in China A prayer for the earnest To Scotland then and here Nightsrealm to the Apple defer Meaner than meaning A redundance of sense Multiplying days of the time And Everyman two And quarter at time The Earth will recover- her view

For touchdowns imbue The flashing assault To roddery at four And the summon A day without fear Longing to row Ending this week for the poor And livid this day Fortuned to reef A style of the reel to commend And queue and wait solid The discs of her voice Thoughts for the deal- making news

At springtide return To the year of unpeace Profanity kill and redact The night of illegal Rotations to right Sights to unponder- Nightflight

And Claris dues The Sacrament of the poor And duties in fashion Miscreant apology At nine four

To crystals they come And the forging of noise Seen from the left To the right

A place for December In court and contempt The continuous gold- and re-her The Princess to shore Fighting wave and sea Re-figured to Rome And April search Fires of the Aspyr To London The cheap and the Christened Faithful in prose To Her Majesty’s peace- in command The boler in share And topsview to Sweden Placed to vehemence- alone Faulted to Water For this air to keep moving The British, they keel- for clean Water And Earth at its wits For tides here and glow A solemn but super- I know.

I missed a day. The 15th of july, A whole day without writing, I know. you can throw tomatos at me if you want, tell me how i abandoned my own pages, how i let a day pass without leaving some proof that i existed. But at the end of the day, you cant really do anything about it. I’ll write when i write. You’ll read it if you like it or not. These are my words, my pages and my thoughts. you’re nothing more thn someone who comes around and reads them. thats all you are.Yesterday wasnt exactly a day worth documenting anyway. i was mostly asleep. when i was not asleep, i was dealing with a headache that felt like it was trying to split my skull apart. eating became a challenge because my body decided it didnt want anything to do with food. So yes. the great writer himself disappeared for a day because he was busy doing nothing. i know, too impressive to be true. but anyway, despite how awful the day was, i did something that somehow made it feel a little less miserable. i texted her. soooo cool, i know. we talk. and somehow, even after everything, she still manages to make ordinary moments feel different. theres something about her that i cant really explain without sounding like someone who has completely lost his mind. maybe i have. shes just breathtaking, the way she talks, the way she thinks, the way she somehow makes me forget about everything else for a little while. i dont know how someone can have that effect on me, but she does. she always has.

Anyway, Its 1 AM now. Im going to spend the rest of the night working, maybe play some games for a little while, and drink tea. Yes. The tea she told me to drink, I listened. Miracles happen. I love her. Thats it.

Sincerely, The writer who missed a day

Het stukje over de lijpe en de rijpe

Wie zijn het die nooit een keer de voor opgemaakte afspraken nakomen altijd overal komen droog deppen na kleddernatte dromen die voor ze het in de pedaalemmer smijte de tube volle mayonaise maar half leeg knijpe iedereen denkt het zijn de lijpe maar die zijn het niet, ut zijn de rijpe

Wie zijn het die het nooit kunnen laten van niets nog minder te maken nooit op hun kant het stuur zo draaien dat ze de wal raken die telkens weer elke eer over hun eigen lijf op treden strijken die altijd andersom dansen en ook nog naar verkeerde pijpen zijn het dan nu wel de lijpe? maar nee hoor weer niet het zijn nog steeds de rijpe

De rijpe, die ververste lijpe je hebt er nooit het laatste over gehoord ze hebben na het waarschijnlijk laatste stiekem nog een woord bewaard voor dat ene moment waarop ze verder willen teren zij zijn het waarom jij en ik, en hun, en die anderen verderop allemaal per stuk met elkander in onmin verkeren als het even kan zitten ze verborgen in de stads jungle stilletjes op duizenden kleurloze potloden punten te slijpen en als ze over de markt wandelen langs alle met vruchten gevulde manden gaan ze moedwillig overal in knijpe dat waren ooit de zeer hoog gesubsidieerde werkzaamheden van de best nog wel een beetje bruikbare lovenswaardige lijpe maar deze taken worden nu geheel vrijblijvend en immer ondergewaardeerd stelselmatig uitgevoerd door de rijpe

De rijpe Zijn de nieuwe lijpe de lijpe zijn nu verplicht om te vallen binnen het spectrum van de meest respectabele tonen en ze moeten daar dan met minder lijp beoordeelde anderen knokken om dezelfde diep gezakte lonen hun oude positie in de uiterste kantlijn van het praatballon oefen kladblok van lieden in de periferie van de rijken is nu in bezit gekomen van een nieuwe groep buitenstaanders die door hun veranderde positie naar elders moesten uitwijken en zo is logischer wijs de verwarring ontstaan tussen de lijpe aan de ene zijde en aan de andere zijde de rijpe

snappie...

Sometimes change is necessary. Sometimes it is a matter of survival, or at least it is a matter of finding your way out of a difficult situation before it becomes impossible to get out of. I think that is where I am at right now. I look around me and see that without change my career may be in trouble. Not because my chosen profession is going away, but because those that I am responsible and accountable to are making it impossible to succeed. Promises have been made that I never agreed to. Expectations have been set that were never realistic. Now it is either meet these or be thrown under the bus as a scapegoat for poorly conceived plans and even more poorly conceived measures of success.

The question is what change is the right change? Do I take steps to make a more drastic change leaving the type of role I have held for years for something completely new and more exciting? Or do I pursue change that keeps me in the same type of role I have had but in a different setting with different players hoping that it will be different this time? My head is telling me to take the more adventurous option, do something different and see where you end up. My cautionary internal voice is telling me to not rock the boat too much, go with the change that you are familiar with and that will be more comfortable. As with any large decision in life, there is rarely a completely obvious choice. Everything comes down to a series of calculated risks and how much risk you are willing to take for the potential of a larger payoff later on.

I don’t know exactly where I am going to land yet. There is more contemplation to be done and more questions to be asked. Yet there is one thing I know for sure, change will happen.

Adobe Stock, the software company’s image and visual assets library, now offers a number of recent wildlife photos from Technology News & Literature. Photos in the new collection were taken this spring and summer at wildlife sanctuaries in Cape May, New Jersey and Fairfax, Virginia.

The current portfolio has bird species — American oystercatchers, geese, osprey, and red-winged blackbirds — both adult and juvenile. The collection also has a cityscape image, shot this past spring in midtown Manhattan. We plan to add more street and urban photography later this summer.

Adobe Stock offers a range of digital content beyond photos: illustrations, vectors, video, and audio tracks. An AI Studio is also available for customizing assets before licensing.

Copyright © Technology News and Literature. All rights reserved.

My acquaintance Alan (@legendofalan) at Substack posted a writing exercise.

Bleeding feet Burning eyes Broken shackles

Consider the exercise if you want. Here is what I wrote.

The pencil sits on the table. Yearning to be used. So is the piece of paper next to it. Your thoughts want to burst out but is restrained by not others, but your own worries, blocks, and the automatic response of self-censoring.

But you pick up the pencil anyways. You move your hand closer to the paper. Broken shackles the second the two writing tools touch. That first line scratching, then another, and another. Finally, those lines form a coherent message.

You’re finally free.

#writing #practice #Substack

Your core question is about how to establish and check Natural Point of Aim (NPA) in ISSF 11‑meter air rifle and small‑bore standing, specifically the transition from rifle on the stand → mounted position → NPA check.
Here is the distilled, ISSF‑relevant method based on authoritative shooting‑sport sources.

---

🎯 Key takeaway

NPA must be set before you aim, and checked after you mount the rifle.
You adjust NPA by moving your body/feet, not the rifle.
The stand is only a repeatable starting reference—not part of the NPA itself.

---

🧍‍♂️ How NPA works in standing (ISSF air rifle & small‑bore)

NPA is where your rifle points when your body is fully relaxed, with zero muscular correction.
If you must “steer” the rifle onto target, your NPA is wrong.
carnimore.com NRA Family

---

🧱 Step‑by‑step: From rifle stand → mounted position → NPA check

This is the workflow used by elite ISSF shooters.

1. Build your stance at the stand

• Feet placed in your consistent reference position.
  
• Hips square or slightly open depending on your style.
  
• Shoulders relaxed.
  
• Head upright, not craning.
  
• Your left hip/elbow triangle (supported position) or free‑arm position set.
  Let's Go Shooting

The stand is only a reference anchor so your mount is identical every time.

---

2. Mount the rifle from the stand

• Lift the rifle the same way every time.
  
• Let the rifle settle into your shoulder pocket.
  
• Set cheek pressure and hand position identically.
  
• Do not steer the rifle to the target yet—just let it settle.
  

This is where your true NPA begins to reveal itself.

---

3. Perform the NPA check

Two authoritative methods:

Method A: Eyes‑closed relaxation test

1. Aim normally.
   
2. Close eyes.
   
3. Take 2–3 relaxed breaths.
   
4. Open eyes.
   
5. See where the sights are.
   If the sights drifted, that drift is your real NPA.
   carnimore.com

Method B: Eyes‑closed mount test

1. Keep eyes closed.
   
2. Mount rifle from the stand.
   
3. Open eyes.
   Where the sights land is your natural mount NPA.
   NRA Family

---

4. Adjust NPA

You adjust your body, not the rifle.

For standing (right‑handed shooter):
– Left foot = large horizontal corrections.
– Right foot = fine horizontal corrections.
Shooting Sports USA

Vertical corrections:
– Move left hand forward/back on the fore‑end.
– Adjust buttplate up/down.
Shooting Sports USA

---

5. Re‑check NPA after every shot or every few shots

Standing position settles over time, so NPA drifts.
Elite shooters re‑check constantly.
NRA Family

---

📌 What ISSF shooters specifically emphasize

✔ Consistency from the stand

The stand is used to ensure your mount is identical every time.
If your mount varies, your NPA will vary.

✔ Zero muscular steering

If you feel tension in:
– wrist
– shoulder
– lower back
– neck
…your NPA is off.

✔ Footwork is the primary NPA tool

ISSF shooters rarely adjust the rifle first—feet first, rifle second.

✔ Watch for “fade” at the shot

If the sights drift just before the shot breaks, your NPA is wrong.
Shooting Sports USA

---

📊 Quick reference table

Component	Purpose	Adjustment method
Stance	Foundation of NPA	Foot placement, hip alignment
Mount	Repeatable rifle position	Shoulder pocket, cheek weld
NPA check	Detect drift	Eyes‑closed test
Horizontal correction	Center left/right	Left foot (large), right foot (fine)
Vertical correction	Center up/down	Hand position, buttplate
Ongoing monitoring	Prevent drift	Re‑check every shot or cluster

---

🖼️ Visual reference

---

Want deeper guidance?

I can walk you through your exact standing position, including:
– stance geometry
– rifle mount sequence
– NPA drift diagnosis
– how to use your stand more effectively

Which part do you want to refine first:
stance,
mount, or
NPA check?

Good question — there's actually a well-documented routine for exactly this transition (rifle stand → mounted position → NPA check), and it's a common technical gap.

The core routine, as taught by ISSF-level coaches:

The recommended sequence is to pick the rifle off the stand and go through your normal routine up to the point right before you'd start settling on the target. At that point, rather than closing your eyes, you shift where your eyes are looking without moving your head — this checks whether the rifle's natural rest point matches where your eyes/head are already oriented, isolating position error from visual correction.

This matters because NPA is the combination of a balanced, low-tension stance and consistent rifle setup — if you repeat the same setup at the firing point, the rifle will always point to the same place. Coaches recommend doing a full NPA check at the start of a session to establish your baseline, then a lighter NPA check before every single shot in the string, adjusting as needed rather than muscling the rifle onto target.

How the correction should be made — this is the most consistent point across sources:

Multiple coaching sources agree on the same principle: don't fight your natural point of aim by adjusting the gun with muscle — instead adjust your stance so the rifle points directly at the target on its own. Practically, this is almost always accomplished by moving the feet, and once NPA is found, the feet shouldn't move again until you're done firing on that target.

For standing specifically, the feet do double duty: the left foot generally stays fixed while the right foot is used to fine-tune the aim on target, and the stance itself acts as the pivot point for horizontal correction, while extending or pulling in the left hand along the stock adjusts for vertical differences in target height.

A caution for coaching younger/newer shooters:

One CMP training note is worth flagging if you're working with beginners: fine NPA adjustments — small shifts in rifle height and horizontal position — should only be introduced after hundreds of dry- and live-fire repetitions of the basic stance; new shooters should first just learn to bring the sights onto target with a consistent foot position, not chase fine NPA correction too early.

One more practical detail — speed of settling:

Practicing the stance repeatedly builds muscle memory, which helps a shooter settle into position quickly — and the faster the settle-to-shot cycle, the better results tend to be, since spending too long hunting for NPA causes tension to creep in and pull the shooter off target.

---

How this fits your lesson plan: This maps almost exactly onto the “Drill: NPA Reset Between Shots” I built into your standing plan — the sequence there (settle → close eyes/breathe → resettle → recheck without moving arms) is the same core mechanism these sources describe, just using eyes-closed instead of eyes-open/head-still. Both work; some coaches prefer the eyes-open version because it more closely mimics actual shot conditions. Want me to add this as an explicit “rifle stand to position” checkpoint at the top of the standing lesson plan?

I've been searching for a 'platform' to write my thoughts. A platform where there is no subscription-payment to join, no-one has to subscribe or pay to read my posts – and I, likewise don’t pay to read theirs – and it's independent of everything and everyone.

I asked Claude.ai – not in the exact above words – to find me such a platform – and write.as and another were the recommendations. Write.as is the one I shall start with.

So, what can I do here? Where's the formatting buttons? How do I insert an image. Ironically, my first post is about how to use this beast (trust me, Claude.ai did not refer to this platform as a 'beast,' nor did Claude.ai write this post – every fingered keyboard stroke is my own!)

So, poking around and mousing over the top-left icon (W), a drop-down menu surfaces and I see that I can switch from the 'Use Plain Editor’ to ‘Use Rich Editor.’ Great! Now, I have a menu at the top!!! So exciting! Wonder if I can insert an image? Yep, there it is… let’s stick something in here; I’m an amateur photographer (sometimes semi-pro $) and I love images, especially my own :D

---

NEAT! I wonder what else I can do! Already my mind is racing, but as Claude told me—and I did ask for simplicity and independence—keep it simple. So, sit back, take a deep breath and relax. Write that simple blog post that you’ve always wanted. Distraction free! No commitment from or to anyone! Learn some markdown syntax and go from there. Yay!

Finally, to keep it basic and make me happy, I will place a border around my image. A quick internet search yields this result:

<img src="YOUR_IMAGE_URL" style="border: 2px solid #555555;     padding: 5px;" alt="My Image">

Therefore, by switching back to the plain editor and thereby having my image show as code, I can modify and insert the search code to display the css on my image. That said, the modification failed and that's a wrap for this post. I shall update the 'trick' for a future post.

Have a nice day :)

W

No MLB today, but there is serious cycling.

As we're only a day away from the 2026 MLB All Star Game, there are no regular season MLB games to follow. But since this is July, that means the Tour de France is being run. And since Peacock TV is providing great daily coverage of the Tour, I've got that to satisfy my sports hunger.

And the adventure continues.

Summer remains a challenge for me. Especially when I'm trying to start new habits. I think I always find new habits difficult. Or rather stopping old habits difficult. It's recommended to ease in. I'm really not an ease in kind of personality. I'm on that all or nothing plane of existence. As in, I'm all full of a lot of nothing right now.

I'm finding having patience with the world challenging. I'm not accustomed to being irritated so much, I find it uncomfortable. Like an annoyance just beneath the skin that I can't quite reach. I am continuing to adjust, but I fear I'm losing pieces of myself in the process. My preferred pieces...

I guess that often occurs with the whole being an adult thing. I don't know. I suppose, it's time to get more strict with myself. That's really not my thing. It pushes my creativity to the back of my mind. Mostly I just want to get out and move.

The sun is a cage I'm determined to escape.

Written July 15, 2026. © 2026 AnOublietteofThought.

Has There Ever Been a Better Time to Be a 'Degenerate' by Nitsuh Abebe, On Language in The NYTimes

Marco Rubio is turning Venezuela into a colony by Zeeshan Aleem at MSNow

Google's AI search features pose 'unacceptable risk' to children, new report finds from PBS News, the first paragraph really says it all here:

The organization found that across more than 2,600 test interactions, Google's two built-in AI search functions, AI Overview and AI Mode, routinely failed to recognize risky and harmful behavior, answered 100% of hypothetical homework assignments students should do themselves, and provided incorrect and inconsistent responses to questions. Both AI Overview and AI Mode are built into Google Search, and cannot be disabled.

Tbh I really don't give a shit that this thing is bad at being a psychiatrist, however, I do give a shit that its inaccurate and can't be turned off. In case you missed it, I shared this related story from Techdirt yesterday. It's about how a German court recently ruled that Google is liable for false claims in it's AI overviews, as it should be.

Napalm Death's Tiny Desk Concert at NPR... And while that's a sentence I thought unlikely I'd ever type, NPR is often in touch with things that are culturally relevant to me. Anyway, awesome!

That's all for now.

-Ira

I hate prequels. I hate them conceptually, which is to say I hate the idea of prequels as opposed to any particular prequel. there are good prequels, sure, but those are an accident, an exception to the fundamental rule that prequels are narrative poison. I’ll die on this hill. these worthless prequels… they took the Planet from you, didn’t they, Mother?

ahem.

the narrative problem with prequels is that stories are not universes. this is a bigger problem with the way we use the term “universe” in storytelling, as in the marvel cinematic universe or whatever — it implies a holism that is part of the illusion, not the reality, of stories. when the camera pans away from Captain America, he is not still around, eating a granola bar or catching up on his emails, because Captain America does not exist outside of the confines of a beginning and ending of a story being told about or including him. the answer to “when do they use the bathroom in 24” was always “this is fiction, what the fuck are you talking about jesse.”

this isn’t just semantics I’m getting at here. if stories aren’t universes, then a prequel is not simply “let’s turn the dial back to the past and see what these folks were up to” because the answer to “what were these folks up to” is “they didn’t exist.” a prequel is as much an arbitrary construction as any story is, except now its reason for existing isn’t because there’s a good story to be told but because a story was already told and some people who want money would like it to be told but longer this time, and some people who write fan wikis would like all their dots to connect.

a storyteller tells a story because the story has something interesting to say. done well, it’s not the arbitrary creation of new worlds or people — it’s theme and catharsis wrapped into narrative arcs and climaxes that reveal or emphasize or disrupt our understanding of the human condition. even the fun, silly stories do this if they’re done right; it’s what makes storytelling satisfying at a fundamental level.

prequels and cinematic universes and whatnot, made for their own sake, presuppose that the valuable parts of any given story are 1) the IP, and 2) the fan wikis. many prequels are tiresome dot-connecting exercises that only recognize the superficial iconography of their source material and none of their narrative heft; the worst ones actively undermine the original story by misunderstanding or failing to recognize the power in concision, in not saying everything, in keeping some things buried or carefully placed.

crisis core: final fantasy 7 is both tiresome and undermines its source material. great!

*

I’m biased here; final fantasy 7 hit me at exactly the right time for it to forever have a golden nostalgic glow. but also I’ve played the original game maybe a dozen times in my life and have a firm grasp on what it actually is as much as what it looks like when I remember playing it on my brand-new playstation as a 10 year old.

for a game of its era, and especially for such a shoddily translated game of its era, ff7 is remarkably good at subtext, theme, and metaphor. the entire game revolves around the perils of allowing others to define you; this is cloud’s character arc in a nutshell, but it’s also tifa’s, and barret’s, and cid’s, and red xiii’s, and so on and so on. but let’s focus on the dynamic of cloud, sephiroth, and zack for a moment, since that’s where crisis core decides to focus.

to be honest, choosing the day sephiroth went crazy as a place to expand and add context isn’t a terrible idea for an ff7 prequel, because it’s a space of tremendous thematic potential that the game uses sparingly enough to suggest there’s more to mine. there is also an aspect of telling the “true” story of what happened, since the primary way ff7 tells this history is through cloud’s false version of events, where he’s SOLDIER and zack doesn’t exist.

but let’s break this down in terms of how this story is told in OG FF7:

1. zack is a cipher. he is the man cloud wanted to be and eventually pretends to be, and thus a symbol of of cloud’s shame and fear. he is effortlessly cool, composed, and heroic because these are the qualities cloud desperately wants and believes himself to have failed to achieve. he’s a narrative device first in this context; you barely even see him unless you spend the time to unlock the hidden cutscenes that play out his ultimate fate.

2. sephiroth is a pathetic monster, self-absorbed and driven to madness by his refusal to accept the horror of his origins. he’s killed by cloud in a moment of miraculous selflessness and heroism on the latter’s part; the memory of this victory is, however, so caught up in cloud’s larger sense of inadequacy that he hides the details from himself. sephiroth himself, again, functions as a cipher or a lens, the dark mirror of the power cloud wishes he could possess.

both of these characters exist in the context of cloud. even the ways zack has more of an external life reflect back into cloud — zack’s relationship to aerith deeply complicates a player’s understanding of what aerith sees in cloud and how she understands him, and likewise reinforces the sadness and desperation in cloud’s attraction to her, his desire to be a version of himself that already had that relationship.

likewise sephiroth. oh, sephiroth. here’s the thing: in FF7’s “present day” storytelling, sephiroth is dead as fuck. the sephiroth that harangues cloud, manipulates him into surrendering the black materia, and confronts the gang in the Northern Cave — that’s jenova, wearing sephiroth’s face because she knows how much cloud fears him.

but sephiroth himself? his entire story is contained in the nibelheim flashbacks. he’s been led to believe his whole life that he’s a very special boy; he learns that instead he’s pretty much just the least gross of a series of science experiments; he rejects this and decides he’s god’s only son instead. this ends badly for him. again it’s meant to be a twisted mirror of cloud’s own choices and self-perception and anxieties; sephiroth’s entire psyche is built upon his self-conception as a certain hero, wanting the world to see him as above it, and when the world forcibly shatters that image, he shatters with it, going insane in order to maintain his sense of superiority. men will literally summon meteor instead of going to therapy.

incidentally, jenova/sephiroth gets the best bit of characterizing metaphor in the whole game, in the sequence of final boss battles.

1. first you fight jenova’s “ultimate” synthesis form, an “accurate” representation of the monster that crashed into the earth, an woman’s torso made eldritch and stuck onto a malformed meteorite. this is the literal monster.

2. then you fight “bizarro” sephiroth, an even more eldritch representation of jenova’s influence over her erstwhile progeny, a jumbled assemly of the beautiful and horrible with a version of sephiroth himself stapled onto his own head.

3. then there’s the seraphim, “safer” sephiroth. this is ego projection epitomized. jenova’s defining characteristic is believing itself to be the rightful god and heir of the planet; sephiroth’s defining characteristic is that he believes himself to be the chosen one and a god in his own right. thus their final form is, simply, god. a chorus sings for a being of angelic perfection. his most powerful attack is the destruction of the entire fuckin’ universe.

but it’s a lie! he can summon super nova multiple times! but also jenova is not a god, just an alien asshole with a god complex, whose self-projection can be overcome by those like cloud, who are now self-assured enough to see through it.

and then at the end of all things, cloud duels with sephiroth in a black void, and if there’s been another RPG battle that’s more obviously just a dude working some stuff out in his head, I haven’t played it. this shirtless babe is the spectre of sephiroth in cloud’s mind, the vestiges of his anxiety and self-doubt, and cloud defeats him in a final sequence of masterstrokes, and he simply disappears.

the key thing to take away here is that all of these characters exist (or don’t) in service of narrative build and payoff. even cloud, the most complex character in the story and the one against whom so many of these pieces refract and make meaning, only exists inside of this story. when the lifestream impacts meteor and the world goes white, cloud disappears just like everyone else; his “life” ends when the story does.

OK anyway with all this rambling in mind let’s take a look at what crisis core decides to do with these pieces:

1. remember how safer sephiroth’s whole “one winged angel” thing is just an extended riff/metaphor on jenova’s god complex? nah buddy, metaphors are for suckers: jenova cells give you literally one wing, like half a can of red bull. this overuse and mishandling of the “one winged angel” concept didn’t didn’t originate with crisis core, but it is definitely the dead horse this game wails on the most.

2. wouldn’t sephiroth’s “oh shit I’m a monster? no, it’s the children who are wrong” arc be better if two other characters do it before him but more confusingly and shoddily, so that by the time he “learns the truth” it feels like he’s just been stupid or deaf the rest of the game?

3. would you like cloud’s big sword to have an origin story? oh no, not that one, not the one it already had that made it a signifier of both his hidden failures and his hidden heroism; I mean a second, far less interesting origin story, where it was also some other other guy’s sword for a while?

4. ff7 has professor gast and professor hojo, two guys who did experiments on ancients and jenova with very different ideas of what they were doing and why. neither is a saint, but only one is a devil. oh also I guess there was a third guy also doing the same stuff just over there where we couldn’t see him

this isn’t even getting me started on how much the invented writing and story of crisis core sucks, sucks so badly that even when it isn’t directly polluting the ground for the story to come, it’s still stupid and bad, poorly written and poorly directed, so many cutscenes full of characters blankly standing still saying nonsense that means nothing, or else doing floaty advent children sword duels that are, don’t get me wrong, cool as hell but also the emptiest calories available.

the best narrative bits in crisis core are exclusively incidental and function only in the context of having played ff7 itself and thus already being in love with its characters. in that context, I suppose it’s compelling to see young cloud pre-mako-haze, insecure and feeling like a failure but still fundamentally decent and full of the potential to be a true hero. aerith’s presence is fascinating; she’s younger enough when we see her to be not as self-aware as she is when cloud meets her, but she’s full of the same melancholy and pre-acceptance of her fate.

(baby yuffie is cute, too.)

but these aren’t stories, and they’re not telling us anything new that wasn’t already in the original story, except in the form of “X years ago, this character was over here” wiki details. and they’re not enough to make up for how crisis core fumbles, misunderstands, and kind of ruins its representation of the crucial moments from the original story.

zack himself I’m of multiple minds about. on the one hand he’s genuinely likable and compelling as the lead in crisis core. he has exactly the fundamental decency and heroism he should have, tracking well with his limited portrayal in the source material. on the other hand… so what? what does his story here amount to, that it didn’t already have before? do we learn anything about him that changes his status in the larger story as “the guy cloud wishes he was”? is there an arc here that justifies spending hours with him outside of that context?

maybe I’m just being a wet blanket here, I dunno. enjoy crisis core if you want. I didn’t hate my time with it — the combat loop is entertaining enough, the bite-sized mission structure makes my steam deck feel so much like an oversized PSP that I wanted to time travel and buy zack’s flip phone just to get back to that era — but it sucks as a narrative extension of final fantasy 7, because it exists as an expansion of intellectual property first, a “hey remember this” iconography game second, and a story that someone truly thought was worth telling in a distant last place.

oh well time to take a big sip of this coffee and play final fantasy vii rebirth, a game that’s sure not to have any similar negative effects on my psyche—

Que nous reste-t-il ?

Quand tout ce à quoi nous tenions, Semble aujourd’hui si fragile.

Que nous reste-t-il ?

Alors qu’à tous les horizons, S’accroissent les périls.

Mais alors que nous reste-t-il ?

Quand après le naufrage de la raison,   La vie ne tient plus qu’à un fil.

…

L’incertitude d’hier avait du bon, L’improbable pouvait encore surgir.

Mais inerties, emballements et effets rebonds, Font que chaque jour voit ses lendemains s’étrécir.

Quand la connaissance devient un tel fardeau, Comment résister encore à l’appel du déni ?

Comment ne pas être tenté par les faux messies, S’accrochant à leurs promesses comme à un radeau.

…

Alors, il nous reste quoi ?

Il nous reste des choix. Cultiver la joie, c’est déjà un combat.

Prendre soin du bien, propager la beauté, C’est déjà une manière de résister.

Faire en sorte qu’un enfant puisse rêver, C’est lui ouvrir le champ des possibles.

Et qu’importent les chances de succès, Essayer, résister, est une question de dignité.