#I made this post back in October and I'm publishing it now because it's green month and it's another doll drop day so yeah...

[ilreleonewikia13]

Before you read, I wrote the first draft of this post in October, then I resumed it in April, but then in May I decided to heavily re-edit it when I noticed the massive grammatical errors that I left. So the version you will read is quite changed from its original form. Starting with the decision to split it into more chapters and not in a single piece as I did before. I even tried to add more characterization to some events as I noticed that maybe I rushed up some important things, cause when I wrote this "fanfic that is not a fanfic" I didn't have a clear vision of the events in their complexity. Some parts were very detailed and explained well, while other parts are only briefly mentioned. As I re-edit it I tried to make everything more cohesive and pleasing to read. For this reason, unlike the first version, this post will only be about the disclaimers and the introduction of my "fanfiction not fanfiction", as the whole "story" will be published on AO3. As I'm writing this I've already posted 2 of the 5 parts, and right now I'm working on the editing of the 3th chapter.

The Doom in Our Blood Comes Back - the Fanfic of a Fanfic

INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUSCRIPT: THE CHRONICLES OF TWO DRAGONS

TRIUMPHS AND DEFEAT

THE CONQUEST OF DORNE

RUBIES AND IRON

When do you start to realize that a fanfiction stops being just a fanfiction and becomes a real work of entertainment?

For me it's when reading it makes you want to theorize about it as if it were a real book and even before it is finished: this is what happened to me with "The Blacks and the Greens" by @sweetestpopcorn a fanfiction (which almost every fan who started watching the series has read if like me you went looking for Daemyra fanfics on AO3 as soon as it started) that tells the story of the Dance of Dragons starting with the idea that Daemon and Rhaenyra got married as soon as their "affair" was discovered, thus an AU of the original plot leading to a completely different scale of events from the original plot of the series/book.

This story, still in progress (at the exact moment I’m writing this post it arrived “just” at its 170th chapter) has gripped me so much this past month that my brain convinced me that this was the real canon story and made me completely forget about the existence of the TV series: so if you are interested to read this AU I suggest you read the original fic, even if it’s a little bit long cause it’s totally worth it.

I thought about writing an actual story about these ideas I had but then changed my mind. It didn't make sense to write about one idea when I already had a bigger story planned that wasn't finished yet.

As I said before, the story from where I take inspiration is only halfway done and things might change a lot in the upcoming chapters as I write this post. This means that the characters I'll talk about in this headcanon might have died to are going to because I don't control the story, the author does.

As I write this post, my idea for "this story" went in a totally different direction than what the original author intended. It became its own separate version of the Blacks and the Greens, with a different set of rules and logic.

I am a big fan of the Black side in the civil war and like happy endings.  I wanted Helaena to be happy with her kids and for Rhaenyra to rule the Seven Kingdoms with her husband and raise her five children. In my imagination, the Greens give up quickly and Rhaenyra becomes the Queen without any fighting. She brings both sides together and makes the dynasty stronger.

This means that in this universe almost all of the Targaryen family is still alive and because the war didn't last too much the finance of the kingdom is not significantly damaged making the reign of the Black Queen very prosperous and full of innovations, technically and artistically speaking, making for them more effortless to conquest Dorn and made Westeros finally United.

The first idea for this story was to talk about Rhaenyra and Daemon's five children and their fun experiences instead of just focusing on Rhaenyra and Daemon's relationship, which is already the main focus of The Blacks and The Greens.

When I was reading the fanfic for the first time, I knew that liked Baela the most because of her personality: plus in my head, she's like a female version of Daemon for this reason, I decided to use her as the main character in my story.

She, in my mind, had the right characteristic to be our main POV, being, in my head, the “middle child” of the group - so the one who is between Aegon and Viserys (the boys) and Rhaena and Visenya (the girls) - and that belong to both of the two worlds, the feminine and the masculine, and have both these sides with her.  She, in my fantasy, will spend a lot of time with her two brothers, with whom she will share a very strong bond as a very strong rivalry for the attention of their father; with the girls too she will have a special relationship. Especially with Rhaena who is her twin, who is, in some way, her opposite and her complementary, especially in the way they decide to express their femininity over the years.  I think that in the Book-canon, Baela looks more masculine than what it was depicted in The Blacks and the Greens, and because this headcanon is heavily inspired by that fanfic, I decided to follow this vision more than the canon one. 

In this universe, she dresses like a combination of Queen Visenya, whom Baela really likes, and Queen Rhaenys. Baela is both strong and sensual like her mother Rhaenyra. She wears bright colors like red and loves jewelry.

I thought about what clothes would look good on her at the court. I imagined she would like dresses that were fun and sexy, with low necklines and tight bodices. These dresses would be like armor to her and would have lots of beads on them. I got ideas from the outfits worn by Anne Boleyn in the show The Tudors, which I really like.

She likes to show she is comfortable with her sexuality, without feeling ashamed for having fun with men as she thinks that both women and men should be able to act in the same way.  Besides her regular clothes, I also see her wearing softer and masculine tunics as she trains, showing how much she loves the culture of the East continents. Even though she doesn't like to study, Baela enjoys reading High Valyrian poems and listening to Lysene music, as she prefers to sing over playing it. I can imagine her spending time flying and staying with her dragon more than her siblings. She will become very fond of her dragon, Moondancer.  She will also train with her brothers with the sword and be very good at it.

Because Baela became a such strong and intense character in my mind, I started to think that she needed an equally strong and enigmatic counterpart that matched it, but at the same time opposed it and gave it a hard time: or in reality the opposite, that is someone she could challenge and confront, someone equally crazy and reckless, but by the opposite and darker energy. 

And so that at any moment this post headcanon "The Blacks and the Greens" has become somehow a story focused on Baela and Aemond, or at least with a particular focus on the relationship and the clashes between these two. 

Let me make it clear that the choice to "pair" these two characters were not based on a double interpretation of the original story, which clearly shows a strong dislike for Aemond and the Greens in general. The decision to highlight Aemond's character was solely influenced by the irresistible charm of Ewan Mitchell, the actor who played the role in the television adaption, which unfortunately clouded my judgment. To be absolutely clear, I have never felt any form of empathy towards him during my entire fanfiction journey, except for some mere pity.

There were multiple factors that led me to spare the lives of Aemond and Aegon, as I believed it would be more gratifying to let them suffer as they experienced the consequences of all the actions that they made thought the first half of The Blacks and the Greens and the accompanying disgrace of their defeat, rather than simply executing them on the spot.

In this headcanon, Aemond will undergo significant transformations, causing a profound shift in his mentality and character due to experiencing a series of intense and traumatic events. As a result, this version of Aemond will differ significantly from both the Bookcanon and the Blacks and the Greens.  The decision was serendipitously influenced by reading a particular sentence in the fanfic where the detestable Aemond ridicules Daemon for allowing Rhaenyra to mistreat him and become submissive to his sister, referring to him as a "slut." Aemond expresses his reluctance to ever allow a woman to control him as his uncle did.

Well, these two simple sentences made me decide that I need to create my own headcanon where Aemond would become the exact thing that he always derided his uncle for: a "loser" who would be bossed around by all the women in his life. And not only command but as a great misogynistic bastard who was, after touching the bottom of the funds, it would be a woman to save him and put him on track, making him feel indebted to her. 

So this is how this literary experiment was born.   

A simple and very banal enemies-to-lovers story with A LOT of drama and a bunch of dragons, but that needs the perfect setting to work, for this reason, most of the work I did was on figuring out how to set the side character and the background events in a way that could serve my goal.

As I specified many times in this exaggeratedly verbose disclaimer and in the tags this is not actual fanfic, I will not so use a prostatic style like many other stories in this platform, still, I want my readers to have a pleasing experience while reading this work, the result of a very elaborate mental wank and my pressing need to take my mind off my real duties, so I decided to write the whole thing as if it were a cross between historical writing and the introduction to a Greek tragedy. 

Imagine, just like in Fire and Blood, that an obviously bored scholar set out to write the memoirs of Rhaenyra and her deeds; as I tried to make up this story I even tried to figure out the timeline of our characters' birth, some of them are the canon ones used in the books, while the others are the ones I tried to calculate trying to use some mathematics and the information that the writer give us on her fic. This means that it's not very precise, but I hope it's remotely accurate.

Aemond= 110

Daeron =114

Addam=114

Alyn=115

Larra= 115

Aegon III = 118

Viserys = 119

Daenaera = 120

Baela and Rhaena =121

Visenya= 125

Jaehaerys and Jaehaera = 123

Maelor = 127

Baelor = 130

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

So I guess Pennywise ain’t considered ablest even though the horror icon she’s based on, Goddamn fucking bit both of a child’s arms off and made him struggle and crawl and bleed the fuck out before devouring him and then the leper shit happened with Eddie, huh?

You know what? This post has the same energy as disfigured people unironically starting their own “I Am Not A Witch!” campaign over The Witches remake even though that movie was terrible and a slap in the face to Anjelica Huston and should never have been produced in the first place. Disregarding the fact that the source material already has it’s issues while GDT has been implementing disability in his narratives throughout his work since the start of his career but apparently people only started paying attention after he won an Oscar?

Like, do we think that this person would feel significantly dehumanized if they found out that the spawn of The Creature from The Black Lagoon also happens to be Australian and loves sports? Or if they knew about this, would they suggest Monster High as an alternative to consuming adult media?

Do we think that every single disabled person who ever threw a fit over The Shape of Water would feel significantly dehumanized by this?

I’d say 50/50.... Since I once saw a slam piece for The Shape of Water written by an adult disabled person whom unironically and in all seriousness compared Princess Ariel ( a protagonist from a G Rated Disney Film) to Elisa Esposito (a protagonist from an R-rated Adult Flim) just to argue what a twat Elisa supposedly was throughout her movie and of course how she should’ve ended up with Strickland and how Ariel was supposedly the better “Representation” out of the two women, because Ariel ended up with a human....... I think I vaguely remember how this adult disabled woman who was possibly in her 30′s or over, also openly wrote about about how she was certain Princess Ariel would be able to “Kick Elisa’s Ass” in the event of a hypothetical fight between the two fictional characters....  Because that’s a very mature and nuanced way to criticize film.  While the irony of how The Shape of Water at it’s core essentially is just an underwater retelling of Thumbelina (if we’re going to be bringing Jodie Benson into this) was basically lost on this women throughout her entire article.

Wake could be Elisa and The Amphibian Man’s own son, overall having ... a body... like that...  for as much as we know .... ^_^;

I have my gripes about the way Wake’s story was handled in that episode (since we’re dealing with Monsters it could’ve been something so entirely different even though it was more of the same; infantilization bad, blah blah... boring, safe, story only written to teach ables and that’s the main problem. Same “Special Episode” every decade. Even at Monster High where the main protagonist that started it all is the daughter of one of the most disabled coded monsters of all time and her limbs can and will friggin detach themselves from her body on a whim which is also the main focus of her character intro:

But that’s besides my point here....

Like okay, we already have a fish man in a wheelchair at Monster High: A franchise with a fandom that has already accepted Greta as a Trans Icon TM.

But God. Fucking. Forbid. God Forbid, if some little girl who also happened to have Ectrodactyly or some other limb disability were to see herself in Greta and want to play with her? That poor delusional thing would just be dehumanizing herself, now wouldn’t she?

And what if that girl also happened to be trans? Even worse!

Yeah, I need to know where all of my crippled monster lovers are at because it’s the cold takes like the above that are actually so tiring for me to have to read and listen to. Over. And Over. And Over Again.

The person who made the bad Shape of Water review is a freaking paralympian for a living. So clearly a biased jocks perspective and not a horny goth’s.

The OP above phrased what they’re saying as if they don’t enjoy horror at all. And I know that they’re are some people who interpret Monster High as an “alternative” to “Actual Horror”...

(Like dude? The original Gremlins designs already had three fingers and this is already way toned down as per usual, with Monster High Dolls? You really want a girl with a limb disability to have this potential representation be taken away? In favor of just giving Greta fingers and hands that present as more “human” or “normal”? Go buy the 2016 reboot and fuck off!)

I didn’t want the Pennywise doll in the first place because of that whole painful scene in the beginning having to watch the little boy suffer and then the whole leper scene....  I did not see the second movie, nor do I really have any desire to.

If I did buy her it would be for my mother and if I did play with her, I would have a little custom clown wheelchair built for her, keep her in it always, and then have more of her personality and accent be based around Tim Curry. 

If this offends any of you, I can assure you, I do not give a fuck.

Because reading this honestly made me want to go on ebay and pay a reseller just so Greta can finally have a home with someone who actually appreciates her. (And Gizmo too. And I don’t see any of you throwing a fit over his cute lil’ hands because who thinks like that?! No one!)

I can think of people saying it’s a racist film, because at the end of the day, like yeah, and I can definitely understand saying The Witches in general is ablest among other things, including the shitty shitty remake, even though I think that people could’ve picked a better name for their protest than a Christine O’Donnell quote...

But, I’d never thought I’d see a white person claiming that gremlin hands were actually ablest, no less on a fashion doll that’s been drastically toned down from it’s source material.

This is the same level of asinine bullshit as someone claiming that Operetta’s existence “felt ablest” to them because The Original Phantom of The Opera was disfigured... So discarding the fact that Operetta was the offspring of a literal ghost in this incarnation, I guess OP was offended by the fact that Monster High let a disfigured outcast of a man find love and fuck and then let his equally disfigured daughter attended their school.

But going on both these peoples logic, are Jackson and Holt not already considered ableist and dehumanizing because Systems exist?

Are Peri and Pearl not already considered ableist and dehumanizing because conjoined twins exist?

What they already did to Ghoulia in the reboot is a literal can of worms so we won’t go there right now.

I just thought of another thing going by this logic though: Do we feel as though Garret Sander ever felt significantly dehumanized by the Werecat or the Grady Twins because he is a twin? Of course not!

I really gotta hand it to the dipshit in the above screenshot though because they made me see this Greta doll in an entirely new light now: Not only is she a Trans Icon for Monster High, she’s also another Disabled and Disfigured Icon in Monster High.

Another thing that I noticed? Watch this everyone:

Finnegan Ryder Wake’s debut episode title ....

Gizmo’s favorite song from the Gremlin’s 2 Movie, canonically ...

I mean, I know that Finn already has a girlfriend in Gigi I guess? And I was going to suggest this as a Halloween prompt to make the wet blankets who think that Greta’s existance is an ableist hate crime even more uncomfortable and angry by drawing Finn Seducing Greta, getting to her heart through Gizmo and singing his exact favorite song, only of course replacing the words “willing” with “wheeling” .... And then just have all three of them having a private little dance party together which ends with Greta covering Finn in kisses ......But if any one did want to use my idea for an art prompt I can assure you that I wouldn’t be stopping you.

Okay, so uh .... Update.... Remember how I said that the person who made the above post made me so angry I could just pay a reseller and get it over with? Remember how I implied in my last post regarding someone else being a complete loser about Greta, how collecting was all new for someone like me and money was no object? Well, in the spirit of speaking about something not stopping us ....

Here are the pretty babies, safe at home with someone who actually loves them, taken off the hands of someone all business and no cutesy bullshit or faked Mattel purchese price markups whatsoever in item description, only actually purchased by me once completely sealed shipment box was shown to be physically in dude’s hands, pre-checked by me personally via youtube before actually placing order just to ensure said box was real and that other people were already receiving their shipments from Mattel Creatioins that quickly (it was and they were) and so my actual buy was shipped to me within 48 hours of my order with constant UPS tracking updates from ebay... Considering how I see people in these tags every other day who like to be calling these Skullector Dolls “shitty customs” and I paid little more for this Greta than I do when I find a OOAK on Etsy that I really do admire, I claim that this was a really fair exchange. Not “good” of course, but fair.

I honestly just wish the money that I paid for one of her “Customs” in this case was actually going to Rebecca Shipman herself considering how many ungrateful shits some of you have been to this woman for giving you the Skullectors series.

But why pay extra in the first place, you ask?

Well, besides fact that Greta Gremlin is worth it the first place, I’m going to paint a picture for you:

Imagine being someone who uses a wheelchair and a hand splint, and having your caregiver claim that they’re going to help you, but then all they do is hijack your own card, tilt your own computer over to their side, and then proceed to read your own credit card info out to you like as slowly as humanly possible, number by number as you’re attempting to type that in with one hand while your hands are shaking as it is already and your computer was tilted to one side for some reason and no one offering to actually help type for you. Now imagine if you’ve already flubbed up the whole “I Am Not A Robot” thing two times prior to this and realizing the irony of how the one test getting you through to payment, but one that you knew in your gut you were going to lose her on, is the one test asking you to “identity stairs”.

Now imagine how the sense of powerful irony and rage you feel, carrying around the knowledge of how you lost Greta Gremlin because you metaphorically had to climb up a pair of stairs in order to be allowed to access her .... Is tripled coming across some absolute ding bat whining about how disgusting and ableist Greta Gremlin supposedly is for being born having three fingers, exclaiming how she’s “Monster Highs 1st Ableist Doll11!!1!!1!1!!!11 n no 1 iz goin 2 caaaaaaaaaare... :’(″

When a character..... like Pennywise.... canonically exists in this universe.

This post seriously had me livid and the abled-bodied autistic 19 year old who wrote it should be ashamed of themselves, but I’m grateful that this display of absolute dingbattery from an adult teenager with a Jojo icon gave me the extra push that I needed to spite some of you ungrateful bitches before Christmas.

I really just said “fuck the stairs” and took an elevator. I already got the BeetleJuice one, retail price on Mattel Creations, first try (cause I had someone helping me type then). 

I was not going to just give up Greta after that especially not after seeing some of you guys’ appalling behavior regarding this doll.... And I know I’m definitely not as spoiled as some of you grown adult Cheapy MCcheapskates who whine about having to pay $60 while tearing apart everything about these dolls anyway when you know that it’s just Rebecca and her team who are essentially building you these gifts from scratch to be able to even afford the reboot. One of the reasons I didn’t get into Monster High as a teen is because since I refused to settle for a shitty android, I couldn’t actually afford my own iphone until I turned 25, meaning my first ever phone that I own now is the iphone SE 2020 that just came out last year, just for clarification if some of you think not having a phone in that era wouldn’t effect anything or make someone feel left out. Why buy dolls if accessing extra perks and features required a cellphone?  Why buy dolls that reminded you of how you were too poor to afford a cellphone?

I also adore the clearly campier direction these Skullector’s are going in, for the record. And I can’t understand why the rest of you mediocre foamy squirrels keep demanding Jennifer’s Body and Johnny Depp and more pale faced humanoid characters while you’re treating Rebecca Shipman like shit.

I’m as happy as ever with the results of my decision to take this extreme risk and personally I think Finn would be proud of me for choosing to take the “elevator” out of spite to get to Greta after reading That Post too.

Because posts *like that* are the reason why no one takes actual discussions about ableist microaggressions seriously.

Bite me.

[blazehedgehog]

I'm curious if at this point you're good enough at writing and video editing, to get reviews out on time, and the gimmick is just held out of legacy. It feels like you could.

There is no gimmick.

This is going to be very “how the sausage is made,” meaning it’s a long post. A very, very long post. So I’m hiding it behind a “read more” tag.

I mean, I guess there kind of was a gimmick, nine years ago when I first started doing video reviews. And that’s because I originally envisioned my video reviews as the same stuff everyone else was doing at the time: older games. I didn’t have a lot of money, so it wasn’t going to be a show for new games. It was going to be whatever I was thinking of and playing at the time, which was universally going to be old games, and usually old games I’d replayed more than once. Astal, Shenmue, Klonoa, etc. Classics and oddities.

Starting with Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, I started doing video reviews for new games almost exclusively. I’d get a new game at launch, and from the moment it was in my hands, I’d put together a video review for TSSZ. So, it took me six weeks to put together the All-Stars Racing review. Five weeks for the Sonic Lost World review. And so on.  

When I got bold enough to start doing video reviews in HD, things started taking exponentially longer. DKC Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, etc. all took me around 3 months a piece. Part of that was the methods used to create HD reviews, as my crummy Roxio Gamecap HD required huge amounts of time (weeks, sometimes) to transcode footage out of their broken format in to something Sony Vegas would accept. But I also began to incorporate more artwork in to my reviews, because I wanted to utilize a talent of mine that was beginning to atrophy. It was a good excuse to draw again.

The longest video on my channel is my “How Do We Fix Sonic?” video. It’s 30 minutes and 30 seconds long, and took me 14-16 months to put together. It took more than a hundred drawings, and even some animation, something I’d never done before. It was the biggest video project I’d ever undertaken at the time.

For reference, the Sonic Mania video review I published in July is the exact same length – 30 minutes and 30 seconds. Depending on how you count, the Sonic Mania video review was put together in three months – the same amount of time it took for Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, et al.

I say “depending on how you count” because Sonic Mania came out in August of 2017, in a period of time where I was homeless. I technically had a Sonic Mania video review script written by September of 2017, but we did not find an apartment to move in to until November of 2017. And, even then, when we moved in, my desktop PC was damaged – the motherboard and power supply had suffered an electrical surge when I plugged my system in to an unsafe outlet while staying at my brother’s house in the four intervening months. I spent $200+ on replacement parts and had to rebuild the whole system, something I was not keen on doing in the middle of the holiday season in an unfamiliar town, in an unfamiliar state. I’d just left my childhood home, the place I’d spent 24 years of my life in. It was a nightmare. All of this took place a year ago, and I still feel tremendously homesick. I abandoned everyone, everywhere and everything I ever knew.

So I didn’t get my system rebuilt until March of 2018, and didn’t really get to work on the Sonic Mania video until April. April to May, May to June, June to July. Three months. For a video that was the same length as the longest, most difficult video I’d ever put together for my channel.

Tristan wanted to air my video review on the TSSZ Twitch channel on the day Sonic Mania Plus was launching. I was hoping to get it out before then, but in the end, I think I only had maybe a week (or less) between finishing my video and Plus launching. So it goes.

There’s a small lie in there, however, in that Sega offered us an early review copy of Sonic Mania Plus. I recall that I was still putting the finishing touches on the original Sonic Mania video review when I had a copy of Plus sitting here on my desk.

I took a few days to myself, just to rest and recharge, before I dove head first into producing the Sonic Mania Plus video. Except that when Sonic Mania came out in August of 2017, I finished the game once as Sonic & Tails. I started files as Tails and Knuckles, but I hadn’t really played too far with them, knowing I’d need to replay the whole game multiple times for video capture purposes. When Plus came out, I was coming off a stint of having replayed Sonic Mania four times for the capture – as Sonic & Tails (with the emeralds), as Tails, Knuckles, and Sonic alone (without the emeralds). I was not actually in the mood to keep playing it.

So my playthrough of Mania Plus was… sluggish. I think the game had been out for a week by the time I’d finished it as Mighty, Ray, and done a full playthrough of Encore Mode. But, by early August I had a video review script written and production was starting to get underway on the Sonic Mania Plus video review. I had a sketch of what I thought the review would look like in the end (called a “shotlist,” which I have uploaded here) and I was starting to capture the video I needed and whatever else.

There was one problem with this: SAGE 2018. It dropped in the middle of August and upended everything I was doing. It was a tremendous undertaking. I wrote nearly 30 pages of text about 85 games in just six days. I thought I could handle it, and in a lot of ways I did, but it left me absolutely fried. On top of the growing burnout from spending now four and a half months doing two Sonic Mania video reviews back to back.

After SAGE, I was going to take a few days off, maybe a week. It ended up being nearly four weeks. That still didn’t feel like enough. It threw everything off balance.

Getting those gears turning again was a struggle. It was October now, and I had plans to do other videos for October. Halloween videos. I split my time researching potential Halloween videos with capturing the rest of my footage (a week), doing artwork (a week and a half), and getting my voice over in order (another week, as the stress was starting to get to me, and that doesn’t make for a good environment to do voice work).

I actually tried to cut corners on my video capturing. Rather than capture footage from six full-length playthroughs of Sonic Mania, I scaled things way back, hoping I wouldn’t need quite as much b-roll as I usually capture. Instead of playing Sonic Mania to completion six more times, I:

Captured one entire playthrough of Encore Mode, minus collecting the seven emeralds. I already had a completed file with the emeralds, so having two files would let me compare the endings.

Because I wanted footage of Ray and Mighty also in Mania Mode, I split one playthrough in half between them: every three levels, I would trade off. Ray would take Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and Studiopolis, then Mighty would do Flying Battery, Press Garden, and Stardust Speedway before I’d switch back to Ray again for the next three. This gave me half of the game as each character, and one complete playthrough between them.

Similarly, I needed footage of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles in Mania mode, but since I had Sonic Mania Plus on PS4 and my original review was produced using the PC version, my save couldn’t be transferred. Instead, I grinded out Blue Spheres medals until I could unlock Debug Mode, and summarily, stage select. Then I just did the same thing, but every two levels: Sonic would get Green Hill and Chemical Plant, Tails would get Studiopolis and Flying Battery, Knuckles would get Press Garden and Stardust Speedway, etc.

Unfortunately, even with being smart like that, it wasn’t enough, and in the middle of editing everything together, I still had to go back and capture footage of specific moments to fill in the gaps I was missing. The lesson is: though you’ll throw away 99% of it, you’ll never have enough b-roll captured. Never ever.

Which brings us to the end of October, me not getting to do any Halloween videos, and the final, finished Sonic Mania Plus review. This time, 20 minutes of video in four months.

Could I have been faster? I don’t know if that’s for me to say. Even though I took a month off (almost all of September), I was still struggling really hard with burnout on the Sonic Mania Plus video. I work on these videos from home, and I have an incredibly poor work-life balance as a result. Essentially, I wake up every morning, turn on my PC, and work on whatever until I go to bed. The only breaks I take are to eat, go to the bathroom, or run errands (shop for food, help babysit my nephews, etc.)

What this really means is something that’s familiar to people who have struggled with burnout, and that’s days where all you do is sit around and worry about work but not actually do any work. I’m trying to get better about this, to have hard cutoff points in the afternoon where I stop working and let myself relax, but that’s easier said than done when you relax at the same place you also work. It’s a learning process for sure.

So, like, yeah, it could have been done a few weeks earlier, but that’s assuming I wasn’t burnt out from working too hard, which means I wouldn’t have worked super hard to get to that point anyway, so no, maybe it wouldn’t have been done a few weeks earlier. I’m not a robot.

I am, however, incredibly stressed. Still stressed about moving to Nevada, stressed about being so far behind on the videos I promised to put out, stressed out about things I won’t even mention here on tumblr because they’re personal issues.

But I am going as fast as I can. I might even be going faster than is healthy for my body.

You’ll get your videos when I’m actually done with them and not a second sooner.

But for now, I need a lot of rest. It’s time for an extended rest-and-recharge session. I still have the promised Sonic Forces video to figure out, and that’ll get done eventually, but I’m running on fumes, I need to gas back up, and it’s a big, empty tank.

[meganlovephotography]

What I'm Reading This Month... (Plus a few other recommendations)

Reading is my thing that I love with all my heart and neglect as a last priority in the checklist of things-to-do in life. (And poorly timed with the new season of The Black Mirror, I mean, hello!)

But I love it. 

I love books, I love audiobooks. I love e-books. #givemeallthebooks

And as much as I like books (love books) from my favorite authors, I'm always looking for new books and #NYTBestsellers sometimes does and sometimes doesn't fit the mold. I'm not a bandwagoner on all things. 

So, here's my take on everything I've read (and listened to) in the past 2 months and why I recommend or don't recommend them. Because hey, honesty. 

I'm also going to be starting a book club in February that will run every month for this year! It will start on February 1st and run for the month (at which point about a week previous to the end of the month I'll share what the book is so you can all run out and grab it or download it or reserve it or whatnot, and in our Facebook group we'll have a discussion when the month is up about the book). Just a little way to A) read more and B) talk more. :) I'm also always open to suggestions, so please share with me!

Books I read since October - January and LOVED. As in, you must take my advice and read them now. 

1.

 So, the first book I read of Jojo Moyes was Me Before You. Of course it was. But that book just really affected me. By now you've probably read the book or seen the movie so I don't need to recap for you that whole storyline, but it was so unique and different that even though I wrestled with the outcome, it was refreshingly honest and real. I was so impressed with her authorship that I had to start reading more of her books. I actually had One Plus One sitting in my iBooks library as a sample for like, two years maybe, and on my Audible download list for at least a year. Something about when I started it never hooked me and I don't know why, but I was at a point this fall where I had nothing to read and needed sometihng new and hey, there's a book sitting right there in front of me. SO glad I started it. 

In a nutshell, One Plus One is about a young single mom named Jess who barely scraped by and struggles to make ends' meet. She was (is?) married but her husband vanished one day in need of mental space. Two years later and she has no idea where he is, although she thinks he is living with his mother. Together they had one daughter, a math prodigy named Tanzie (Costanza) and her husband's son from a previous relationship that she adopted named Nicky. All the while struggling to provide for her family, she works part time as a cleaner for the super-rich Ed, who has made some poor choices when it comes to suspected insider trading. Ed is about to get in a lot of trouble, and at a moment when Jess and co are in need of a ride to Scotland for Tanzie's "Math Olympiad" challenge (something that could land her an opportunity to receive a superior education for virtually no cost), he picks them up and they caravan on a never-to-be-forgotten road trip up north. It has something for everyone: Heart, love, encouragement, humor... I just loved this book so much and I was so sad when it was over! DEFINITELY check it out. 

2. 

 So, this was the very first time ever that I have read this book. As a Christian and someone who went to private school, I feel like it should have been required reading and in my curriculum at some point so I'm surprised I never read it. But honestly, I am SO GLAD I never read it because there is no way that my small mind of youth could have comprehended the absolutely powerful message of grace and truth and forgiveness and redeeming love of God over our lives in all circumstances. There's just no way. I think I would have thought it was a nice story, but not until being an adult and really, truly getting it can I say that this is one of the best books I have ever read in my life. 

In short, Redeeming Love is based off of the story of Hosea and Gomer in the book of Hosea in the Bible. God tells Hosea that he is to marry Gomer, who would be the absolute very last person a righteous man like Hosea would expect for his own life. But he obeys God and marries her. He tries to show her love but she continues to run away from him in pursuit of what she thinks she wants. In the book, Michael Hosea (the main protagonist) continues to pursue his wife, Sarah (or Angel as she wants to be called) over and over and over again. I was in tears, like LITERALLY NEEDED TO PULL THE CAR OVER kind of tears at the end of the story and I am legit even tearing up right now with goosebumps. It's powerful stuff, and I will absolutely read it again. So yes. Get this book on Amazon right now or download it or check it out. Honestly friends, I know we all share so many different faiths and that is okay. Redeeming Love is this book that tells a story, a fictional story, about a broken girl, broken into pieces and at a place so far away from who she really is that she doesn't even know herself, and is pieced back together by this pursuant, endless love that takes years and years to manifest and make whole again. You've just got to read it. Trust me. 

What I read and didn't love

1. The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green

 I've been reading Jane Green for almost twenty years. The first book of hers I read was Jemima J and then I never stopped after that. I will probably always read every book she writes just because it's what I do, but I just feel like her books have really become rushed and not in the true"Jane" spirit of her earlier writing. The Sunshine Sisters was unique, but relatively predictable. It was about three sisters who was the daughters of the famous actress "Ronnie Sunshine" who has yet to be able to let go of her previous fame and notoriety even though she has long retired from acting. She and her daughters have a strained relationship (as do they with each other), but when she becomes ill her only wish is to have them reconciled. It chronicles each of their own paths and issues and struggles and then combines together in the end in something that is pretty unrealstic and sub-par. Maybe you think it's great or you loved the book. I just felt like, "Ho hum." Her books always come out in the summer so they are great beach and pool reads and there is definitely a niche and time and place for that. The book is okay and if you like Jane Green's stuff, you'll definitely want to at least give it a once-through but don't have any high hopes. 

2. The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand

 I think Jane Green and Elin Hilderbrand are friends. These two stories about siblings with strained relationships were similar and after awhile it just got kind of old. If I had sibling issues the last thing I would want to do is read about it by the pool. It had the same type of predictability but yet you just keep reading because you hope it will be different. These two sisters live on opposite islands: Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. They had a falling out over a personal matter and they have never reconciled since. Their father recently passed away and their mother begged them to reunite, so for circumstances I honestly cannot remember right now off the top of my head, they agreed to change houses and islands even though they still despised one another. It was annoying to have them be so negative about their relationships with each other like up until the very final second of the book. Which of course is again predictable. Oh well. Some reads are for being light and superfluous and having not a lot of depth and that's how I felt this book was. 

Books I'm Reading Now

1. 

 My best friend and I were Christmas shopping together this past month and popped into the Amazon bookstore at the mall. She decided to buy her sisters books for Christmas and basically threw this book into my hands. That's my kind of recommendation. I'm only about halfway through, but this book is set in Seattle (which is fun) and is about a mom, a dad their daughter who is an only child and the way they live their lives which seems relatively normal to them but potentially highly dysfunctional to the world around them. The dad is a high up, super important and super brilliant exec at Microsoft, the mom is an architectural genius, their daughter is really smart and attends a local private school and they live in a falling-apart home that is a converted commercial building in Queen Anne because the mom just fell in love with it. It chronicles their misunderstandings and personal dealings as a family (currently their daughter just wants a trip to Antarctica for her 8th grade graduation and the parents have agreed). It's so funny, quirky, lovely, and I can't wait to finish it and see how it all wraps up. I'll post my review in full next month!

2.

 This book is set in France, in a small village outside of Paris. The protagonist is Sophie, who is an innkeeper and whose husband was taken away two years prior due to the Nazi occupation of Germany within France. German troops have commanded Sophie to board their soldiers at her inn, so she complies but ends up befriending the main general who shows her kindness in the midst of all that is occurring. She is conflicted, but because she has children (and runs the in with her sister and nieces and nephews), takes the kindness of the German so that her children can eat and balances all that is involved with boarding the soldiers delicately. I'm only about 1/4 of the way through but honestly, this book reminds me SO much of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah which is my most favorite book of all time (rivaled in a close second by Redeeming Love). I'm listening to this on Audible when I cook dinner or sometimes if I have time to myself in the car, and I am loving the storyline so far and can't wait to hear how the plot continues to develop. (For what it's worth, The Girl You Left Behind was published before The Nightingale.)

 So, I would love to know what you're reading and what you recommend I read next! Leave your reply in the comments or on social media and let me know why you recommend it! (You can also let me know what you don't recommend-- I appreciate that information, also.) ;) 

[allcheatscodes]

red dead redemption undead nightmare ps3

http://allcheatscodes.com/red-dead-redemption-undead-nightmare-ps3/

red dead redemption undead nightmare ps3

Undead Nightmare cheats & more for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Cheats

Unlockables

Hints

Easter Eggs

Glitches

Guides

Trophies

Get the updated and latest Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare cheats, unlockables, codes, hints, Easter eggs, glitches, tricks, tips, hacks, downloads, trophies, guides, FAQs, walkthroughs, and more for PlayStation 3 (PS3). AllCheatsCodes.com has all the codes you need to win every game you play!

Use the links above or scroll down to see all the PlayStation 3 cheats we have available for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.

Check Xbox 360 cheats for this game

Official Title: Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Also Known As: Undead Nightmare: Red Dead Redemption

Genre: Action, 3D Platform Developer: Rockstar Publisher: Rockstar Games ESRB Rating: Mature Release Date: October 26, 2010

Hints

The Four Horses Of Apcolypes And Big Foot

There are four awesome horses that you can get from running around in this game and you will find big foot at times too. The horses are the four horses of Apocalypse. The one I found was war but there are 3 others. War is a fire horse that sets people on fire. The bigfoots are in the tall trees but for 1 misson only. Don’t kill the one that talks to you. Watch the video and you’ll understand why. The horses are very hard to find.

Mythical Creatures Of RDR – Undead Nightmare

I love Undead Nightmare, but there are a few strange things that I find coolest. MYTHICAL CREATURES. There’s lots of them including Sasquatches, El Chupacabra, the Unicorn and the four horses of the apocalypse, War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. Sasquatches are the easiest to find. If you do the mission, Birth of a Conversational Monument, a man will tell you to kill 6 Sasquatches in Tall Trees. They come up as green circles on the map. Once you kill five of them, the mission ends at a secret place outside the map. A Sasquatch is crying under a tree because somebody killed his kind. If you wait, he gets up. You can let him go and maybe see him later on or just kill him. However, keep in mind the quickest and almost only way to kill a Sasquatch is a headshot. To find the Chupacabra, you must be a level five or six undead hunter. He then appears. He is most commonly found near Diez Coronas, Las Hermanas and Perido. Once he’s dead, you can find and break the Unicorn, found in Diez Coronas. Finally are the FHOTA (Four Horses of the Apocalypse). War is a flaming steed that stets stupid zombies you trample on fire. He can be found outside Cholla Springs and Armadillo. Next is Pestilence. He is a white, cut up horse that can be shot or clawed in the sides almost forever. A green cloud constantly follows it. Next is Famine. It is black with red eyes. Its sides can also be hurt a while. A huge cloud of flies follows it constantly. The final horse is Death. He is a universal horse. If you want to find him, you must be a rank four of FHOTA even then, it could take hours to find it. It is easier to beat all the missions and cure the world. You get it free after that. All FHOTA have unlimited stamina. For all of the mythical creatures, it says the note, a mythical creature has appeared in the blue area. It does not say it for the Unicorn. When you find one, the blue circle on your minimap may go away, but the creature is still in the area. To capture a FHOTA, you must lasso it, get off your horse, get on the FHOTA and break it by using the L analog stick to stay centered on its back.

Apocaliptic Horses

There are 4 apocoliptic horses: 1) War: Lights nearby people on fire 2) Death: Kills people on contact almost instantly 3) Plage: Never grows tired 4) Famine : Never grows tired The horse that represents war is found very commonly.

Where To Find War Often

Cholla springs is the best place to find it.

Cheats

Cheat Codes

You can enter the following codes in the Cheats Menu under “Options. ” Enter the entire phrase given below to activate the cheat, punctuation included. Capitalization does matter. Once a cheat is entered you may toggle them from a master list. If the cheat effect isn’t made obvious by its title, we give a description of it in parenthesis below. Entering cheats disables saving and Trophies / Achievements! Finally, cheats can often be found in a box at the bottom of the newspapers you can read in towns.

* Invincibility - HE GIVES STRENGTH TO THE WEAK * Infinite Dead Eye - I DON'T UNDERSTAND IMNFINITY * Infinite Horse Stamina - MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES * Infinite Ammo - ABUNDANCE IS EVERYWHERE * Money ($500) - THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, WE THANK YOU! * Horse - BEASTS AND MAN TOGETHER * Diplomatic Immunity (Marshalls ignore crime) - I WISH I WORKED FOR UNCLE SAM * Decrease Bounty - THEY SELL SOULS CHEAP HERE * Gun Set 1 - IT'S MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT * Gun Set 2 (buffalo rifle, sawed-off shotgun, semi-auto pistol, Schofield revolver, Winchester repeater, and fire bottle x3) - I'M AN AMERICAN. I NEED GUNS * Who? (Turn into a Nobody) - HUMILITY BEFORE THE LORD * Old School (Sepia Filter) - THE OLD WAYS IS THE BEST WAYS * Sharp Dressed Man (Unlock Gentleman's Suit) - DON'T YOU LOOK FINE AND DANDY * Lewis and Clark (Unlock all areas) - YOU GOT YOURSELF A FINE PAIR OF EYES * Jack Attack (Change John into Jack) - OH MY SON, MY BLESSED SON * Man In Uniform (Unlock US Marshal, US Army and Bureau Uniforms) - I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM * Good Guy (Get a good reputation) - IT AINT PRIDE. IT'S HONOR * Gang Chic (Unlocks Treasure Hunter Ouftift) - YOU THINK YOU TOUGH, MISTER? * Hic (Permanent "drunk" effect) - I'M DRUNK AS A SKUNK AND TWICE AS SMELLY * Coach (Spawns a coach) - NOW WHO PUT THAT THERE? * Famous (become instantly Famous) - I AM ONE OF THEM FAMOUS FELLAS

Unlockables

Currently we have no unlockables for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Easter eggs

Currently we have no easter eggs for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Glitches

Currently we have no glitches for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Guides

Currently no guide available.

Currently no guide available.

Trophies

Currently we have no achievements or trophies for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.