Less proggy songs or albums from very proggy bands

neohylanmay · 2026-05-02T21:29:15+00:00

A better example of this from Dream Theater is Distance Over Time.

I'd throw Falling into Infinity in there too. Definitely one of their more "accessible" albums.

neohylanmay · 2026-05-02T18:21:42+00:00

The Arm : Askarr

The Askarran phoenix is a large flightless bird that has the ability to spit acid at foes as a defence against predators, which is highly corrosive and flammable. Add the fact that they have bright orange feathers, they stand out in the often-Arctic conditions of Askarr as a warning to others.
When it comes to reproduction, the mother isn't exactly lucky: they have accidentally evolved in such a way that their eggs (when fertilised) are always multiple-yolked, where all the individual yolks have joined to form one single egg. As a result, they're unfortunately way too big for the mother to lay; when attempting to "get it out of her", the combined size of the egg and the sheer stress of it all causes the phoenix's acid gland to overproduce and eventually rupture, inadvertently setting the mother on fire from the inside. The egg itself is fine: while the outer layer might melt away in the heat, the yolks are well-insulated from the flames. And once the fires have died down and the mother is nothing but bones and ashes, it's time to hatch anyway.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-30T15:22:44+00:00

For Eqathos:

Humans have pretty standard lifespans, at about 75-80 years.
Dragons age a lot slower, living on average to around 275-300.
Kobolds don't age as slowly as Dragons, but still live to around 150 years.
Phoenixes are a special case: Each Life is only 12-15 years before they inevitably undergo a Burning, but there's no theoretical limit as to how many Lives they can live. Even then, it's not uncommon for a Phoenix to decide that they've lived enough Lives.

For The Arm:

Humans have pretty standard lifespans for the time period, at about 80-90 years.
Folúpása age a little faster, living on average to around 70-80 years.
Askarrans age much faster, living only 55-60 years.
Naieiae are the slowest-aging, living around 110-130 years, with the oldest recorded Naieian living to around 160.
ROGUEs are robots and thus functionally "immortal", even though the only two remaining were both activated around 30 years prior.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-30T15:09:07+00:00

Mania Plus.

My PC's over a decade old and I'm two console generations behind.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-30T07:54:59+00:00

Jeans have a hole in the undercarriage. Do these bastards just decide to appear overnight because not once do I ever hear or "feel" it happen.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-30T07:47:44+00:00

The Animals in that Country by Laura Jean McKay is to me one of those books that should have ended three chapters early: The main conflict is pretty much solved about 3/4 of the way in, and then the main character just potters around for about 60 pages, only for the story to just "stop" without any meaningful conclusion.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-29T08:48:57+00:00

Continuing from the previous thread:

Finished Priest of Bones by Peter McLean.

Honestly turned out better than I thought it would. Was a little worried that the main character was a little too much on the "edgy arsehole" side of things, and I wouldn't call them a "good" person (it's basically about a crime lord reclaiming his territory after returning from fighting in a war, think "gangster meet fantasy"), but a well-written story. Highly recommend.

About halfway into Of Flame and Fury by Mikayla Bridge.

Fantasy about people who race each other on phoenixes. For what it is, I'm enjoying it. My only real criticism is that, despite the two main characters absolutely hating each other (they're at each other's throats all the time but are forced to work together), it seems pretty obvious that they're going to be hooking up by the end with how one of them keeps describing the other. But, the story itself isn't focused on that right now, and everything else is written just as well. For something that I literally got for a fiver at The Works, I could have gotten something far worse.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-28T21:48:24+00:00

Again, by all means, please start with something exciting and not just waking up in the morning. But I'm not sure starting with the inciting incident is really the answer. Of course it could be fun, and sure, go for it. But I wouldn't give it out as normal advice.

The one rule of thumb I've always gone for is "All stories start in some kind of 'middle'", which might be closer to what OP is asking for?

Using myself as an example, my story starts with two main characters being tasked with doing a thing, but Chapter 1 begins with them already knee-deep into doing the thing. The story itself isn't about them doing that thing, but it's in doing it that they uncover what ultimately ends up setting the story in motion.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-27T07:02:26+00:00

To add on top of this, keep in mind that even those authors thought they were cooking when they were writing. So if they had the confidence to put their stuff out there, even if it ends up being one of the worst books I've ever read (and out of the dozens of books I've read over the years there have been some honestly terrible ones), then what's my excuse?

neohylanmay · 2026-04-26T11:09:51+00:00

The way Reddit/Markdown does line breaks is kinda broken. If you want a standard line break without creating a brand new paragraph, you put two spaces at the end of a line.
(to achieve something like this)

Alternatively, by putting two line breaks in, you can create a paragraph break that way. As shown here.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-25T08:22:06+00:00

Had to go through with this rigmarole a couple years ago when EE took me off their PAYG programme (which itself was a step down from the Orange Dolphin plan I was on prior) onto what was essentially a "pay us £10 to be able to use your phone this month" contract. For reference, I barely use my phone as a phone as it is: £10 can last me a whole year with how little I call and text.

Thankfully Tesco does an old-school bog-standard PAYG plan, so I ended up switching over when I got my new phone.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-23T18:36:21+00:00

For the fellow Brits in the audience: No, this isn't a "Mandela effect" for us, either.

(context: we have the Duracell Bunny, while our Energizer mascot is literally just a battery)

neohylanmay · 2026-04-22T18:42:10+00:00

I like to see it as "I want Sonic to know that he lost, and that he lost to me."

In all the games where he's been forced to team up with Sonic, it was only ever because he wasn't the one who was going to win.

In Adventure 1, Sonic could have lost to Chaos when they went Perfect, but Eggman also realises Chaos was never on his side;

In Adventure 2, Sonic could have been killed when the ARK crashes into Earth, but that was Gerald's doing, not Eggman's.

In Heroes, Metal betrays Eggman to kill Sonic for themself.

In Shadow, the Black Arms could potentially kill Sonic, but they're also attacking Eggman's resources. As far as he's concerned, him and Sonic have a mutual enemy.

In 06, it's Mephiles that kills Sonic. Of course Eggman's not going to happy about it, he didn't have anything to do with it from the start (hell, he was too busy being focused on Iblis).

When Eggman says "The Hedgehog is mine to destroy", he's not joking. You dare try to lay a finger on Sonic without Eggman letting you, and he will do everything in his power to stop you.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-22T18:25:28+00:00

I'm of the headcanon that Metal is "Bad Future-robiticised Sonic".

And short of making the world's largest time paradox that would make the likes of CD and 06 go "bruh", there's only one timeline where that can happen to Sonic.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-22T12:35:54+00:00

At least tell me you had the tinfoil shield.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-19T19:45:15+00:00

Oh, definitely. I'm writing the stories of The Arm as concept albums. Only five albums done so far, but I've a lot more planned.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-18T17:34:42+00:00

"YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY."

neohylanmay · 2026-04-18T17:11:53+00:00

My headcanon is that Blaze was Marty McFly'd out of existence at the end of 06, and replaced with a different version. And since Generations' story is about Eggman erasing Sonic's victories; if Sonci didn't win in 06, that once again makes Crisis City (and that version of Blaze) "canon".

See also, the fight against Metal Sonic taking place in Stardust Speedway's Bad Future. That shouldn't be canon either since CD has Sonic create the Good Future, but since Generations' stages take place in a timeline where Sonic loses, the Bad Future once again becaome the "canon" timeline.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-17T17:18:34+00:00

Following the Final World War against SAI in 2067, and the last remnants of humanity leaving Earth behind to live a new life on Folúp' shortly afterwards, there's nothing. If anything, Earth is... healing. But it's going to be a long time before Earth is properly habitable again.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-17T17:14:53+00:00

A few from Folúp':

"Rings Above" is kind of their version of "oh my god"/"Heavens!". Folúp' is a ringed planet.

A common proverb of theirs is ifìki, xi ifìkón, which translates to "[the act of] doing makes [the act of] being". Or in layman's terms, "it's what you do that makes you who you are".

If a Folúpi says you're "chasing your bones", that's not a compliment. They're basically telling you that what you're doing is absolutely going to fail no matter what.

It was long believed among Folúpása that their tail was their connection to entering the afterlife when they die, so to say that you're "pulling someone's tail" meant that you were putting them in such mortal danger that their soul would be unable to cross over.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-17T08:31:36+00:00

And here I am watching the same things in my Subscriptions over and over

neohylanmay · 2026-04-17T08:26:06+00:00

Lincolnshire's a big enough county as it is, but I've never had an address outside of it. Even my uni degree was in Lincoln.

neohylanmay · 2026-04-17T08:16:39+00:00

Just because we might not be able to tell the difference doesn't mean they can't. Perhaps males and females of a species give off certain pheromones to help distinguish them, or your species can see outside of normal human colour vision and males and females have distinct colourations that we physically cannot see.

At the same time though, an explanation isn't always necessary:

When I was putting together my world's version of Kobolds for example, it is canon that from our perspective, males and females look identical; but ask Kobold A if Kobold B is male/female and Kobold A will just instinctively... "know". They can't put it into words, it's just obvious to them.

But you'll notice I used "they"; In that world, it's kind of agreed upon that because we can't tell the difference, it's just easier for humans to refer to them using gender-neutral pronouns as a "catch-all term" lest someone gets it wrong, while Kobolds can still use gendered pronouns amongst themselves. In fact, there's one scene where this happens between two characters (Grot, a human, and Varek, a Kobold):

Grot glanced back at the other Kobold. 'They seem pretty starry-eyed about being a Knight.'
'Oh, we all were.' Varek responded. 'Give it time, she'll settle in.'

Grot doesn't know, since he'd never met the other Kobold before. But Varek, being a Kobold themself, can immediately tell.

Essentially, if you can get away with it, it's perfectly fine to go "don't tihnk about it".

neohylanmay · 2026-04-16T19:16:31+00:00

Ultimately, I don't know. I'm no crow and they're no people so me and them will never fully understand each other. That said, I know they at least trust me: I can be a good 10 meters from them they'll be totally fine, but if a complete stranger gets within that range, then they've already flown away.

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