#new underground

[thekgtrax]

NWMNY

[sthlord-t0mmy]

[registereddumpingsite]

Long ago, the BARRIER fell, freeing MONSTERS from the Underground.

Living in harmony with HUMANS, together they made a golden age.

But despite their efforts -- and in their hubris -- the Earth began to die.

Without any other recourse, a group of humans and monsters made a decision.

They ensconced themselves in a sheltered cavern, deep below ground.

Together, they raised up a NEW BARRIER to seal themselves away.

Turning their back on the past, and the world lost above.

Untold generations later...

Their society still remains -- cold, and stagnant, but surviving.

Humans and monsters alike lay subject to the utilitarian NEW UNDERGROUND.

All ruled over by the human DIVINERS and monster IMMORTALS.

The people, from the lowest to the most elite, are bereft of hope.

But even so, there was nothing left to regret.

Until one day...

A child fell into the New Underground from the lost world above.

A young Boss Monster -- a race thought extinct.

Bearing in themselves a human SOUL...

---

So my friend is a total jerkbutt and now I apparently have an Undertale sequel rolling around my head to figure out like the obsessive moron that I am. >:1

The protagonist:

Fallen Child / "Kid"

An enigmatic young Boss Monster bonded with a human SOUL who fell into the Bulwark from the supposedly dead world above.

Equipped with a Survival Knife and a Heart Bracelet by default.

(Survival Knife - ATK x. A sharp and sturdy all-purpose knife. But any weapon, however real, is only as potent as the will behind it.)[Attack increases with LOVE.]

(Heart Bracelet - DEF 1. Inscribed with... Something illegible. Frail and precious, but, nevertheless, it fills you with a flash of hope in any circumstance.)[Leaves you with 1 HP once per battle. Cannot be thrown away or sold.]

Actually quite vocal... But doesn't speak a language known by the inhabitants of the New Underground, nor the player. They can understand others just fine, however.

They wind up nicknamed "Kid" by Near and just roll with it, at least in more pacifistic paths. I, personally as the author here, have no idea what their real name is yet.

Is indeed capable of casting magic and is as incredibly strong as their human-monster SOUL fusion would suggest; They are limited by facing stronger, more ruthless foes more regularly than Frisk had to contend with, as well as their own reluctance to do harm. Would certainly quickly become nigh-on unstoppable in straight fights in more violent routes, especially if they claim other human SOULs, but it's not like that's a change.

The deuteragonist:

Near

A scrappy but compassionate young human girl living [mostly?] on her own in the Bulwark.

She finds Kid early on, and more or less serves the Toriel role in the story, at least in the beginning.

This includes fighting them as the game's first major boss encounter, at the end of the Bulwark, though for reasons and goals different than Toriel's.

However, she can also join Kid as a permanent[?] traveling companion if she is spared and other conditions are met.

Has some bad history with the New Underground society proper, leading to her living on the fringe of it in the abandoned and forgotten Bulwark.

Reasons for this relate to her having a frail constitution and severely low DT, making her a pariah of the utilitarian NU.

May no longer be fully human/been the subject of genetic/magic/thaumic experiments and surgical alteration, which may be a common occurrence for humans of her lowest-most class? I'm honestly not sure, and it mainly comes down to how obvious I want to make her and the story's inspirations.

Certainly has no inherent magical abilities, in any case. However, she is definitely ingenuitive and determined, even if she's not Determined.

The antagonist:

Green

One of the six elite human Diviners who make up part of the NU's leadership.

Plays the Flowey role, though likely a much more active and visible variant, and generally much more difficult to pin down their intentions and goals.

Young, smart, ambitious, and conniving as far as the current leadership goes. Tends to play the part of an affable and energetic gadfly, with a tongue both silver and barbed.

Indeed has a green colored human SOUL. It is typically assumed that any Kindness they display is to be taken sarcastically, but... Their true nature is unknown.

They probably had that mask made to be creepy and unsettling deliberately. The Diviners mostly wear some kind of mask as an unspoken pseudo-rule of dress.

No natural magic abilities, but armed with a host of technology and weapons that let them leverage their human SOUL and DT.

Probably quotes Flowey's "my intent is not regicide, little monarch" quip at some point towards the end of the prologue.

But they probably don't attack Kid themselves in the game's introduction, though they do probably first appear within the Bulwark segment.

Whether they're the final boss or not, I have no idea yet, but they're likely to be among the last enemies to be directly fought.

Their real name is certainly not "Green," and they may not even go by that. Very much up for change. I might also make their hair black instead of reddish-brown, especially if I wind up naming them "Eun."

Original text posts here and here. Also have a crappy map concept thing.

[defiled-burials]

Surprised I've never shared this

[pxssagat]

..notion of the “underground” helps further articulate links between the geological, the geographic, the human, and the nonhuman. ..a space of hidden labor as well as a geological repository of potential energy and minerals, Parikka is able to bring us close to some of the hell that has been so far removed (both spatially and conceptually) from the development and analysis of a digital capitalism. ..Any thought of a post-labor technotopia of on-demand and flexible services is willfully in denial of the hidden abodes of production required to even give life to the fantasy. ..theories of the anthropocene with the obscenities of contemporary capitalism—the sulfuric hellishness of the underground environmental crisis and seeming economic and political inability to confront either in any meaningful way.

Karen Gregory about Jussi Parikka’s Geology of Media

[dynamitehemorrhage]

Visit Original Link

I'm in the midst of a MINUTEMEN bender the last couple of weeks. Here's a knockout comp track of theirs, "Base King" from the New Underground series of early 80s LA punk/art comps.

[pluggeddin]

Sivey - Cause and Effect (Forthcoming "Time In Between" Compilation)

[lanasez-blog]

Live from the New Underground: SPIN Celebrates Hip-Hop's DIY Moment

--I dug up this SPIN article from 2011. It's a little verbose but if you get past all the Danny Brown focused content, you'll see that it has some good insight on how the New Underground came about. Good read--

November 15 2011, 11:00 AM ET

Goodbye, big-money bollocks and big-city trappings. Hello, tireless Internet hustlers taking their futures into their own hands. Welcome to hip-hop's DIY moment.

Rail-thin in skinny jeans and engulfed by a white T-shirt, one side of his hair shaved, the other long, straightened, and dangling in front of his face, Danny Brown steps to center stage. As a cluster of hard drums and groaning psychedelic guitars drops, he yells, "What?!"

Throwing up his arms and sticking out his tongue, Brown reveals a significant gap where his front teeth should be, then doles out high-fives to a mob of hip-hop heads, hipsters, and dance-music dorks...  Continue Reading >>