Blades in the Heart: Gluttony and Pestilence

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The following session the team is split up early - mom accepts a challenge from the assassin Steiner who has kidnapped Mother Narya (and put a bomb around her), DL is tricked by Father Yoren (who is actually possessed with his murderous ex Mercy) to go have a drink at the tavern where Grace (his current girlfriend) works, Rose is convinced by her friend Klyra to give herself over to the Ironhook guards as an exchange to get Klyra's brother Harker out, and Juris pursues Roslyn Dimmer (who was once Nyryx's vessel) through a ghost door as she dog-naps Nyryx the second.

Mom wins her duel and disables the bomb, DL one punches to KO and disables the suicide vest of Father Yoren's Mercy, but s/he gets a shot off that injures Grace, Rose simply lets the transfer happen then closes her eyes (turns invisible) and flies away (LOL I forgot she could do that), and Juris gets his corgi back but is left by Roslyn in the ghost realm with some zombie hollows and the demon Master Slane. Alas, zombie hollows can be controlled by his Lord of Nature ability and Slane fights so poorly that the demon is quickly overwhelmed by them and Juris' lightning. Juris then helps the zombies devour him before escaping out of the ghost field and taking Mercy out of Father Yoren, anchoring her to a bottle which he returns to DL (a bottle of Mercy). He also then tinkers with the TNT explosives DL and Mom recovered.

While the others then regroup to take down more ritual sites (as that is the driving tension I'm using with the timer ticking down), Juris decides to go off on his own and gets Matt Demon's help in tracking down Roslyn (who seems capable of ghost field hopping) for some payback. They eventually corner her in the basement of the now defunct Cathedral of the Ecstasy of the Flesh and using a single stick of TNT collapse the structure on her. She almost dies, so Juris bottles her spirit and devours her body.

Meanwhile at the Gaddoc Rail Station, DL, Mom, Rose and Mara go to find all the station staff dead including the passengers on the now parked train from Tycheros. The victims include mom's contact, Veleris, whose journal details a deadly plague spreading in that Northern nation. Following his journal, the heroes (immune because tier VII armor) collect and burn the corpses while Mara informs the authorities. As this is the first train available to them (the previous ones were all ferrying drafted soldiers to the war in the South), they then commandeer this one with DL driving to reach the next ritual sites further out from the barrier.

Blades in the Heart: The Pink Fart

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The next day the team meets Mara, their new liaison to Lord Governor Kotar, who goes with DL and Rose to Bellweather crematorium which had been flagged as another ritual site. The Spirit Wardens within haven't been doing their jobs as they're still being "repaired" by the new master builder Bob, but obviously this is a ruse as Bob is working with the cult. While Bob (in his robot suit) is easily defeated, Rose manages to convince the remaining wardens that they aren't bad and succeeds. Mara is super impressed with this and wants to be her student. As this is one of Rose's dream goals, she gains the ability to fly.

Meanwhile, Juris and Mom work for Lord Elon to find his cousin (Fartinghard) who he believes is in danger. In exchange Elon will divulge a possible new ritual site that's cropped up. While his child workers really do intend to kill him, they haven't yet and they find the slouch blind drunk on his new pink barge. After convincing the murderous kids that they'll "handle it", Juris helps Quill pull Fartinghard's spirit out and put the spirit of Quill's deceased brother in the body. Juris then anchors Fartinghard's spirit to the barge which they rename "the Pink Fart" and take it as their own then succeed their bluff to Elon that Fartinghard's "ok, just drunk". Elon reveals the new location to be near the eelfarms but the team ignores it to first go to the site at the North Hook Lighthouse (via their new boat).

There they encounter a humorous lighthouse keeper hull who is very forthcoming by telling them "don't disturb the ritual upstairs and definitely don't look at the bombs in the basement", so DL disarms the bombs, mom disrupts the ritual site and Juris tries to free the hull of his master's control - but fails. Instead in his mindscape Juris encounters his teacher Quellyn, who reveals she has been keeping him safe by blocking out traumatic memories. Due to his continued interference she lets one return: "Did your best friend Flint ever forgive you for experimenting on his girlfriend's soul?"

This breaks Juris and puts him in a trauma coma so the team grab him and Rose, who decided to check out the nearby masquerade street party being held by (vampiress) Lady Freya Oriolle who wishes to unseat Lady Drake from her magistracy seat, before getting back on the Pink Fart and sailing back to base to recover. For her actions today mom also gains a new ability - she can now "eat" trauma. Hers or anyone else's (for a mystery penalty). Juris doesn't like the sound of that so just prefers to take the trauma hit normally.

Jujutsu Kaisen (Seasons 1-2) and 0 (movie)

It feels like Naruto, but better and bloodier.

This anime features some of the best combat animation I've seen for awhile. Where other series have slow story episodes so that the animators can make some epic fight scenes later on, this one throws that formula out the window with some crazy combat happening almost every single episode! The flip side of course is that the story does dip into silly territory often, to the point that it might be two minor characters you don't actually care about but they're having an epic animated fight. :P

The main premise of the show is a nice one though - our high school protagonist joins a secret group of sorcerer / martial artists to try kill an ultra powerful curse who he happens to be the host for. Thumbs up so far, though on my first watch I did not actually get that the main character is being possessed by the main villain. There are also awkward humor bits (Naruto does this better), and it did take me longer to warm up to the character roster here despite them even making the bad guys have silly and funny moments.

But the best part of this show is that it isn't afraid to kill its characters left, right and center. Things always pick up when that happens and this, along with the aforementioned animation, earns two thumbs up from me. Recommended, and I'm looking forward to season three!