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doorbloggr · 3 years

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Friday 28/5/21: Media Recommendations #4

Its Friday again, so that means I gotta nerd out about things I've had on my mind lately and recommend other people go enjoy them too.

Today's topics of interest will be:

Manga/Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist

Videogame: Monster Hunter Rise

Music: Kiss from a Rose; Seal

In past weeks, I have picked my recommendations based on shows/music etc that are not as mainstream as I think should be, hence I am recommending them with the intention of increasing the audience. But this week, I am sure these three pieces of media are very widely known already. And its not wrong to like popular things, they got popular for a reason. So this week I'm gonna gush about why I like these popular things.

Fullmetal Alchemist (Fullmetal Alchemist)

In the vaguely European-esque country of Amestris, those gifted by natural or acquired powers can reshape the world around them using the power of Alchemy. In this world, magic users, called Alchemists, are publicly known and acknowledged. The government even employs many State Alchemists, who receive funding for their specific alchemic research, in exchange for their cooperation during military conflicts.

Fullmetal Alchemist has one of the most well put together and interesting fantasy settings in all of fiction (in my opinion). It is both medieval fantasy but also late 1800s europe, and this helps create a world where magic has very strict metaphysical and political rules.

The story within this world focuses on the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, who become the youngest known State Alchemists as part of their quest to restore Edward's limbs and Alphonse's entire body which were lost to a tragic alchemic experiment gone wrong. Ed has classic napoleon complex, and detests anyone looking down on him, but he often has more than enough bite to back up his bark. Al is much more calm and collected, but despite his soul inhabiting an imposing suit of armour, he is the younger brother and often emotionally immature. The two have an interesting dynamic, where the older brother is small and snappy, but still feels responsible and protective over his towering, intimidating younger brother who speaks with a very child-like voice, but could easily knock you out.

FMA is not a very complicated story, but it has depth. Its rich world, with a variety of interesting and endearing characters, make for a very engaging time. It is a story of growth, trust, bonds, and rebuilding what was once lost, while maintaining what you are still working on.

There are 3 ways to experience this story. I have gone back and read the original Manga, and if you prefer Manga as your story form, it is a very fun read. There are two anime adaptations, one that was in production and finished before the manga was complete, and another that came a few years later. The former has a different ending to the latter, and I can only recommend the latter, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, seeing as I never watched the original series. But I have heard on good authority that both are worth the watch, so it is up to you. I can't really decide on a definitive favourite anime, but Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is easily always top 3.

Videogame: Monster Hunter Rise

Sometimes, the rich lore and story are what makes or breaks consumable media, but sometimes, all you need is pure stupid fun. Monster Hunter is a series built on a simple premise that does not need much fluffing to be enjoyed. You are a hunter: a very skilled and powerful warrior who weilds, often oversized, powerful weapons of many types, and it is your duty to go out and hunt monsters: powerful creatures who can co-exist with the world but on a case by case basis, put the people and wildlife around them in harm's way.

Monster Hunter Rise is the newest game in the series, and is on the Nintendo Switch. Many players I've talked to have said that this is the easiest game to get into, but that does not make MHR an simple, boring game, and top-level play is definitely a grind. The draw of Monster Hunter is that every "level" is a boss battle, and that battle takes place over a huge map. In this game, the hunter is tasked with finding the monster, and then using their own gear, plus the help of nature around them, to incapacitate the target monster.

This game has fourteen weapons to choose from, and using each is like playing a completely different action game. They can be grouped as Heavy, Light, and Technical Weapons, but the truth is, all weapons are unique, and depending on which specific model of a weapon you use, they can be even more unique within that weapon. Monster Hunter games are RPGs, but rather than gaining EXP, and stat changes indicating growth, Hunters use bits of the monsters they've hunted to make themselves stronger.

Both new weapons and armour require monster parts, and you're never guaranteed to get all the parts you need from one hunt. So the game encourages you fight the same monsters multiple times, learning patterns, honing your skills. When you have made your ideal weapons and armour, you have gotten significantly better at hunting those monsters. Monster Hunter Rise introduces Wire Bugs, a resource with a variety of uses ranged from spiderman-ing up and across mountains, to lending themselves as super moves for your weapons. Breath of the Wild held a place in my heart for ages because of how good it feels to traverse, but honestly, Monster Hunter Rise's wall-running and grapple-hooking blow BotW out of the water. Its just fun to move! If you enjoy action games and boss fights, Monster Hunter Rise is 100% a game you should check out.

Music: Kiss From a Rose; Seal

In my very deep Spotify library, there's a lot of music I will just sometimes skip. Not because I don't like it, but because I need to be in the right mood. But there's also a select handful of songs where I will never skip because I will always be in the mood to shout those lyrics, no matter when or where. Seal's Kiss from a Rose is one of those songs.

The song was originally part of the soundtrack for Batman Forever, but it is not a song explicitly about that movie. I didn't even know this myself until a while after I was obsessed with this song. Kiss from a Rose is an emotional, almost melancholy song with a very hard to place meaning. Seal has said it could've been about a difficult relationship, but I feel it is up to the listener how they interpret it.

The instrumentals are subtle yet powerful, soothing yet exhilarating. It is just a very engaging song and the lyrics are just hard to not sing along to. If you've heard it, you know. If you haven't, take a listen and meet your favourite song this week.

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apexart-journal · 6 years

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Radha Gomaty in NYC Day 25

yeah ! of all things -a blonde! ive hardly seen a blonde head in NY actually...

Well, my ma used to joke ,actually only half joke, when she was much younger that she is going to dye her hair blonde or wear a blonde wig!

She had this penchant for reading all kinds of perfectly horrid political espionage novels and really goshawful state-of-the-art horror pulp too in English that my smart aleck, super brilliant older brother , my only sibling and her favorite offspring,shared with equal fervor.

(BTW She can read Malayalam ,Tamil,Hindi and speak Kannada as well with her natural flair to pick up languages and dialects with the admirable ease of a sponge).

I would stand gaping looking from one mouth to another like a viewer of a tennis match does as mother and son went into animated discussions of events , characters and motives in such books that I had no truck with . I came from altogether a different stock -a wild arboreal creature who skinned her heart &her knees endlessly against all well meant advice engaging with real life projects&relationships each time with the same indefatigable sense of optimism and enquiry .

In the long spells of solitude in between, I was drawing.

She created another sub story about going blonde_ with her typical dark self deprecatory merciless sarcasm ,combined with a high degree of histrionic skills "...You know i am going train to be a detective.A famous one working with the Globe detective agency .And then to look unobtrusive , I shall wear my blonde wig ,lean on a pillar or sit on the street side bench and pretend to read the morning paper while actually I am on assignment observing my target through a hole that i have cleverly punched in it ...!"

That narrative detail about my mother peering through a hole cut out of the morning newspaper with her large eyes ,wearing her blonde wig would have my brother and me rolling helplessly on the floor in splits

It was perhaps her way of expressing the much repressed travel bug in her.An insatiable curiosity about the world,its cultures ,landscapes,languages...

It didn't matter that warring alongside was her Vertigo ,bad enough for her to shut her eyes tight if she saw Spiderman by chance on the TV yelling- "Change that channel !Im giddy!"

Or her terror of water (kindly remember here that she ended up marrying my father who is a seaman!)

Or her strict adherence to vegetarianism but with great tolerance of outlook limited only by her very real physical suffering due to her acute sensitivity to smells. Her olfactory capabilities sharp as a dog's that while making her a superlatively gifted chef also affected her to the point of making her sick.

When she she was younger ,her tendencies for violent bouts of migraine also wore her out.

But that is my Amma.

From the time i was little i have borne witness to the live wire trembling with which she lived this split ,this mercilessly twisting Torque of equally intense&opposing contradictions every moment -Between her desires and her conditioning,her drives and her internalized strict self restraints.

It was always like she had more than two people in her who were constantly at war with one another . As a child , i could sense this wild impatient suffering moodiness in her around which she wore a cloak of inapproachability as she stormed her way through her chores in the kitchen with absolutely formidable multi tasking skills.

It always scared me quite a bit. Still does without fail to bear witness to suffering I am not allowed to approach or address.

I sensed it simply wasn't easy for her to be who she really was and learnt to empathise deeply and respect her for it .

When she was that young woman ,while she satisfied that hunger to travel and see the world by reading insatiably magazines like the TIME and national Geographic , the only favors her proud self deigned to accept from two of her brothers in the US, she ended up opening huge windows for my brother and me .

When she also tuned into foreign stations with an inborn instinct , even foreign language ones , they greatly contributed to my brother's and my own enrichment through the subconscious means of listening in into international languages and soundscapes while doing perfectly ordinary chores.

Today through some strange cosmic plan ,without any prior preparation or goal setting i find myself in NYC where my identity is mirrored back to me in a different light than the one I am used to being seen in back from I come.

That 'Outsider ' residing in me that also comes from and is perfectly hand in glove with a Universal Insider by which I am inhabited...One that recognizes increasingly the oneness of all life Forms with every passing moment ; A form of being that is becoming a form of seeing itself that with every passing moment is a lived affirmation of an insight that is more ancient than this little i that I am and present myself as.

There is no greater and more avid reader of the spiritual than my precious Amma has been for me . I learnt so much just watching her. I have been witness to that flowering of what is already in her , a legacy from her namesake and her pious courageous resilient paternal grandmother who took it on herself to raise her children single handedly with the early demise of her husband,teach the unlettered women of her immediate neighbourhood and initiate them into spiritual readings while she could.

My Amma retains her intellectual and researcher oriented approach while I ,as usual, remain that earnest and extremely foolish child who cannot learn it seems without repeatedly having her heart broken and knees skinned .But we appreciate one another now much better than ever before.

In a couple of hours it will be 7 pm back home. i can see my ma settle in with her plate of rice gruel in front of the TV Even today her idea of winding down after a day's home management at 77 ,is to watch a french film on the TVE channel.

This small town girl brought up cocooned in a conservative Tam Brahm household,my Mother Alamelu Ramakrishnan ,is my idea of a certain kind of unsung genius.

My Salutes to YOU ,with Blonde wig and the works!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

#radha gomaty #inbound from south eroor

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