#SOOOO much meta to unpack in this one

[nalyra-dreaming]

soooo, how about that meta post re: soldiers scene..? 👀

Alright :) here goes - long post! My take, obviously.... - I'm adding here this ask as well:

So, this is the evening after Jonah, right.

Louis goes to Grace and the twins, Lestat goes to the Azalea.

There he encounters Miss Bricktop, who not only gives him the letter of the Azalea being closed down for Louis, but obviously made a remark (or a thought) in regards to their relationship.

Now, I love her. Hope we get to see her again in Paris. But she is also the one with the "shitbox" comment in the first episode... without wanting to infer too much (because that was a very special situation, too!!), but something about the remark or thought at the Azalea must have been sharp enough for Lestat to go "I think she's onto us" (and in that rather biting tone) later.

There's a whole bunch of soldiers in front of or at the Azalea, protesting it closing, and Lestat invites them back to Rue Royale.

@ the nonny here: Battalions are made up by officers. In those times it is not surprising that only one skin color would be in a group. Jonah even says it when he visits Louis, he and his squad are apart from others. So there's no preference or bias of Lestat in that, imho.

EDIT: @cbrownjc noted that US Armed Forces were segregated until the mid 40s. TY for the info!

Lestat likely brought the soldiers back for a couple of reasons:

a) He's pissed and likely hungry, and his favorite entertainment place was shut down and now he needs other entertainment

and

b) I'm very sure he didn't want those soldiers to go across the street to Finn O'Shea's establishment. He didn't care for that man's way of doing things from the beginning, and just because he doesn't actively endorse Louis meddling in human affairs doesn't mean he likes the man or would help that guy in any way.

and

c) Jonah, of course. He wants to see if what he perceived, and heard, and... felt holds true. If it is a kink - or if it was Jonah. If Louis needs a variation - or if it was Jonah.

And those soldiers are perfect for all of that.

So, roughly 24 soldiers at Rue Royale.

You do have to wonder what he did to make them follow him, since the actual influencing later on takes a lot out of him, but that just as a note :)

They raid the wine cellar.

The fact that they have one is definitely interesting in and by itself, and later on we see bottles laying around while they lay low, so they drink it, too. Do they have some mixed with blood? We don't know, but it seems drinkable enough. The soldiers go through the alcohol, both the wine cellar and the bar, and Lestat just lets them.

And he lets them do what they want to their home. He lets them upstairs. AND into the bedroom.

With the single bed.

He entertains them, even. And he doesn't touch them, because he is waiting for Louis. Is waiting to see what Louis will do.

And Louis comes home - which in and by itself is interesting, because shouldn't he have gone to the Azalea? But he comes home (which tells me that he trusted Lestat enough with the Azalea to leave it to him for this night, with the aftermath of Grace etc) and finds the house full.

(Lestat sings "Where do we go from here", a truly rather fitting song...)

And - he gets up from the piano while Louis is still approaching, because he anticipates what Louis is about to do. And when Louis is there he is already up and ready to be "picked up".

twirl, twirl, hop, twirl. Others have said it, but they've done this before :))

Louis' questions when entering this scene are "What is this?" and "What are you thinking?" to which Lestat answers the infamous "Well, I thought we could have an orgy, you can fuck them and I can eat them." And then... "What about the coffin room?"

...

Let's unpack this.

"What is this?" Expected, pretty normal reaction. What the fuck is Lestat doing there. And then... Picking Lestat up, collecting him, twirl, twirl, hop, twirl while obviously annoyed. Check.

"What are you thinking?" Here it starts to become interesting, imho, because... what is Louis referring to? The upstairs, their bedroom? The soldiers themselves? The piano singing, wine, etc? Probably all of it, but... Still. Always a good line of question for Lestat, because, well, Lestat. Check.

Andn then ... Lestat's remark in regards to fucking, eating and an orgy are met with a "What about the coffin room?"

And, I, personally... find that the most interesting part of the whole scene.

What do you mean, Louis?!

Is fucking, eating (killing) and an orgy okay while downstairs? Or in a hotel? How often did they use the Azalea like that? (We see Lestat escort someone in who will obviously be a victim in their good times, so this more than likely happened, the only question is the extent and if or how often Louis joined in imho.)

The whole fucking, eating, orgy AND their single bed do not blip in that moment - the coffin room does. I always find that hugely interesting, to be honest?

They are standing in their bedroom, in front of their single bed, with soldiers milling about.

And Louis does not care about that.

And... Louis "only" wants them out (now) when he has heard/read the news about the Azalea. Granted, this happens right after, but still... I remember anticipating a very different reaction to the soldiers. And their bed, given his reaction to Antoinette. Which to me seems like Louis does not see those soldiers as any kind of threat to them - or indeed, as food.

And then Louis demands that Lestat gets them out of there, now.

And Lestat complies.

To an extent that has him bleeding out his ears, and visibly weakened, and that has Louis staring in weirded out astonishment.

And the soldiers... leave. Obviously dazzled. Obviously still in that daze outside.

Lestat must've wiped their short-time memories at least. Or he needed to go after them to kill them, later. Single bed and all that.

And then... of course, that infamous scene.

I heard your hearts dancing.

What a statement.

And what a makeup.

They actually managed to make him look like shit there. That's a feat.

So yeah, the soldiers.

A lot of small things that are implied here once more. Hinted at. Their shared history, what they might have gotten up to in their good times. Louis isn't scandalized by the offer of an orgy, and to me it seems as if they might have (possibly) had other men in their bedroom before, if his response/focus is anything to go by.

And he knew that after they left they would not pose a threat.

And Louis trusted Lestat with the Azalea is somewhere in there, too. And in the fact that Miss Bricktop gave that letter to Lestat and did not wait for Louis.

I know that can be taken as a sign for their couple status, but... Louis takes Lestat along to his business meeting (right) after that fight. And that is very interesting, too.

[allgaysunny]

Oh sure, Dennis and Charlie are soooo grossed out by Mac’s attraction to them /s 🙄🙄

(aka Charden are a Liar Sometimes)

[ardberts]

opinion on John Seed?

I think john seed is tragic and what I really love about the way his scenes are done is that you wouldn’t notice how many levels of tragedy there are to him unless you’re watching and listening very, very carefully. it’s hard for me to put into words how much there is there to unpack – I felt like I had taken down the Big Bad and finished the entire game when holland valley was only the first region I’d done. like, I will kind of never forgive the devs for not letting the deputy have any real, meaningful choice or even a dialogue wheel in this particular entry of the franchise because its antagonists – john especially imo – have soooo many layers that you don’t get to see fully unless you do some extra homework. I actually took a few days off from playing after finishing his region so I could read meta and the wiki and the book of joseph because I wanted so desperately to peel away at those layers. it’s actually a big reason why I’m even writing the fic I’m working on.

a lot of the time, I found him pretty frightening too. like, even now, I’ll be replaying cutscenes to make gifs and the way his lines are delivered send shivers up my spine. but after hearing joseph’s voicemail and reading his sections of the book of joseph, I mostly just wish he had had someone who he was comfortable showing his real self to. it makes me sad because joseph promised john a home where he was safe to be who he was, but it’s just so obvious he continues to wear a mask, even for his family. it’s almost like he’s forgotten how to be himself – I mean you really only see him with his guard down completely for, like, two seconds in that one scene I’ve giffed like 574839 times.

ANYWAY I AM RAMBLING because I’m shitty at meta and expressing myself but I love john seed a lot, okay. like, a lot. like, it’s concerning.

[mairzymarzipan]

Night of the Full Moon Character Reviews- Classes

It’s about time I finally get on this.  I’ve been wanting to start these reviews for a while, but personal stuff came up, and then worries about the future of my blog.  But things are finally sussing out so- why the fuck not now?

And naturally I’ll be talking about the characters.  Other folks are talking about gameplay itself and strategy, but I kind of love these characters.  Some of them have really fucked up stories.  There seems to be some translation weirdness(this is actually a Chinese game), but I feel like there was a love when crafting these stories.  I’ll just talk about mechanics when I feel it’s important for the plot.

And who better to start with the heroine herself?

Night of the Full Moon is sort of a cross between a TCG and a roguelike.  The cards you stumble on, the events that happen and the people you meet are randomized each time.  It takes place in a magical forest on the edge of a village.  Said forest is cursed and everybody knows it.  It always snows, and those affected by the curse in it can never leave.  On a full moon night, cursed people lose their minds, apparently, and attack you even if they might not usually.  The more times you play through, the more about the story is revealed.

You play as Little Red Riding Hood, an orphan(???) raised by her grandmother.  When your grandmother disappears, it’s your job to march into this forest on a full moon night to find her.  

There are currently six classes to choose for your little cloaked heroine: Lady Knight, Ranger, Nun, Little Witch, Magician and Apothecary.

“Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother relied on each other for a living, and was often bullied by boys.  As a result, she did not have many happy memories of her childhood. However, she had to learn to use her brain and her fists to survive.”

Spoilers, but the knight class is the only one you can play for free.  Yeah, sorry, this game has some DLC so, your mileage may vary.  The knight class is fun to play, though.  It involves using your weapons and armor and combining your armor with cards that hit for a lot of damage.  You may feel a little annoyed when the witch pharmacist keeps offering you useless mana potions, though.

I just don’t really have much to say on the story of this timeline itself.  I do like the idea of a person learning self defense specifically bc of bullies, but something about this wording bums me out.  Her being defined as being a victim is kind of a downer.

Knight Red does not(afaik, feel free to correct me) have any class-specific interactions with any of the enemies.  Yeah- some of these classes will get an extra choice when they defeat a certain enemy, if their dialog is triggered.  It’s by chance, though.

And yeah.  Most of the art depicts Red with anime white hair.  I like to imagine the art of her on the cards is her as a little kid and then she dyed her hair as a teen.

🛡️🛡️ Two shields.  Serves it’s purpose but kind of the most bare.  Considered this is the only non-dlc class, that seems a little lame.  Why not just make Knight, Ranger and Witch free and make the others dlc?

“Little Red Riding Hood has long been the only girl who dared to go into the forest with hunters.  Over time, she became more agile and earned more gold from her prey. Perhaps one day she will achieve her dream of building her grandmother a house, no longer cold and hungry.”

Now this appeals to me a bit more.  And- don’t worry.  It’s clearly in the intro that her and Grandma have a place to live- but it’s probably a shitty apartment with a shitty landlord or something.

But this is a Red who has more agency.  She’s defined by her hobbies instead of how other people treat her.  Not that her life is any piece of cake.  I do like that mention about trying to make money, bc this is one of the classes where you can attain the ‘steal’ card, where can get a little extra money when you fight people.  

Ranger Red gets a class-specific interaction with the a hunter who has a particularly harsh backstory.  I’ll get to him tomorrow.  I like to imagine this guy took Red under his wing a lot when she was younger, too.

The ranger class involves a lot of chain reactions, finagling things so your turn is longer and then potentially hitting for a lot at the end if made your turn long enough.  It’s in my top three favorites.

🏹🏹🏹 Three bow and arrows.  Some cool characterization and legit a fun class to play.

“The king Little Red Riding Hood does not like to use violence to solve problems.  “Injuries of the body are far easier to treat than those of the heart and spirit.” This is Little Red Riding Hood’s motto.  Perhaps this is the reason why she is more understanding than others.”

Nun Red was initially interesting to me because...well, spoilers, but it doesn’t take many playthroughs to realize that the people involved with the church are kind of like the biggest bad.  There are other big bads, but they’re kind of the shittiest people?  And a person kind of has to be involved with a church to be a nun.

But that might not be the case.  She really kind of plays more like a cleric.  Her moved involve healing herself and praying.  Her special interaction is also not with a member of the church but rather somebody who may be described as a pagan.  Also, your Grandmother fucking hates the church, so I really doubt she’d let her grandmother become an actual nun.  Nah, ‘Nun’ Red seems to represent an old faith that the villains have been trying to eradicate.

That being said, despite avoiding violence, I don’t have a lot to go on with this Red’s personality.  Ok so, she’s really nice?  I assume she’s poor like all the other Reds, but doesn’t seem to care about that.  Like the Knight, she just kind of comes off as too passive.

Gameplay wise, she’s my least favorite.  A healer makes sense if other people are in your party who can hit, but Red is alone.  It’s very difficult to get her to wield damage and fights go on for a long time.  It’s just, boring and frustrating.  For that reason, I’ve giving her just 🙏🏻 one set of pray hands.  Petty, I know, but that’s how I play.

“Even though the study of black magic is strictly prohibited in town, Little Red Riding Hood’s curiosity cannot be suppressed.  What’s more surprising is that the witch has great patience in her guidance of the girl.”

Oh, yes, here we go!  Probably the most interesting Red story wise.  Spoilers again, but remembers those multiple Big Bads I mentioned?  Well the Witch is one of the biggest of the bads...that is, unless you think that Pharmacy Witch and Apple Witch are different people.  Then who knows which one in her tutor.  My headcanon is that they’re the same person using a shapeshifting, so...

But yeah, to have a character who was trained by one of the main villains then go back and take on the evil in the forest makes for a pretty fun story.  Yes, yes, it’s every video game twist, but give me this.  Also this Red is driven, not by her shitty living situation, but simply by curiosity.  She thinks magic is weird and cool and wants to know everything about it, and she’ll break the town laws and go into the woods to just to learn.  That’s pretty neat!

This description, along with some facts about said Witch also lead to some pretty important headcanons about the ur-story but...I’m going to wait to talk about those when I talk about the Apple Witch.  

Witch Red is kind of just, a wizard.  You can be an elemental generalist, or you can focus one of the three elements, or you can stock up your mana up just to hammer people with it later.  The difficulty is often picking a strategy early enough and finding the cards you need to make it work.  The class specific encounter is with a mage who has a similar deck so- it fits.

She gets 🔥🔥🔥🔥 four fireballs.  Great for story and headcanons, but her class isn’t one of my favorites to play.  As I said: petty.

“As a descendant of the Hope family, Little Red Riding Hood discovered a strange bond between her body and cards when she was very young. She sought to cover up this supernatural phenomenon and magic became her best excuse.”

There is a lot of unpack here.

“A descendant of the Hope family” is another thing I’ll talk about when we get to the Witch.  This class is...kind of meta?  I had assumed up until seeing that that everyone wasn’t really carrying around physical cards but rather they represented attacks.  What does it mean if Magician Red has power over cards themselves?  Does she warp reality to mess with people’s attacks?  Spoilers but no, unless you have a card that wipes out mana/attack pts.

Also, it’s wild to me that Red was born with this super power, but it was soooo scary that she told everyone that it was magic.  Yanno, the thing that’s been established as illegal.  What exactly is it that Red is capable of doing, and why is it so frightening?  The description doesn’t reveal much.

You can either use a lot of traps with her or you can bank mana to make combos with your poker dart card.  Both are pretty fun.  Her special encounter is with a robotic stage magician who is actually pretty awesome.  Also he probably didn’t train her, because he’s kind of new to the area.

She gets 🃏🃏🃏 three playing cards.  Fun class to play, and he beginnings of an interesting character, but too confusing for me to latch onto.

“Little Red Riding Hood has been filled with curiosity for the natural world ever since childhood, and enjoys performing strange experiments. To care for her aging Grandma, she secretly learned how to concoct cheap potions from the crazy apothecary.”

Personality wise, Apothecary Red seems to have a lot in common with Witch Red, with the natural curiosity.  The nature of the ‘strange experiments’ is a little dubious, though.  Are you talking ‘let’s see what happens when I mix these two chemicals’ or ‘let’s see what happens to this frog if i stick it in a blender’ strange?  Apothecary Red may or may not be some kind of sadist.

The fact that she willingly hangs out with the other Apothecary does not help her case in that respect.  Dude is kind of a jerk but more on that later.  Worth noting, though, is that she only works for the guy for money, but does her ‘strange experiments’ on her own time.  She seems to be self taught and feels like she’s lowering herself working for this guy.

Her playstyle supports the notion of this Red being a jerk.  You can set people on fire and they’ll burn for a little while, or you can slowly drain their life force, or you can blow up your own stuff in their face, causing damage.  It’s...actually really fun!  Especially you have the right weapons to set up chain reactions.

The apothecary is who you have a special interaction with, and even then she seems to be unimpressed by him.

Anyhoo, I’m go ahead and give this girl 💥💥💥💥💥 five explosions.  She’s definitely a sadistic heroine, but that’s what makes her fun!

WEREWOLF RED WEREWOLF RED WEREWOLF RED???

So, this is the teaser image for the ‘coming soon’ class.  I’m hoping it’s indicative of what’s to come and not just a generic plate.  It looks like a girl with an axe with a werewolf growing out of her back which...is actually a concept that’s already canon, so yeah. Anyhoo I am so pumped about this.  You interact with so many monsters in the story, it’s about time you get to be one.

🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺 five potential werewolves!

Ok, so there you go.  This post is going to be a little different as we’re talking about one character in different timelines and also we didn’t touch on voice acting.  Hopefully that gives you an idea of the game without skipping ahead too much.  Next we’ll talk about some of the people mentioned here, as well as a few others.  

[whitneykt]

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So exciting!!  We finally got our new 2016 Vanleigh Vilano 325RL home.  Since we live in an apartment and will be putting her in storage before our trip in August, we decided to rent a space in one of our local RV Parks called Fort Amarillo RV Park  & Resort for a few days.  Originally we were going to stay Monday to Thursday then change it to leave on Saturday.  After thinking about it, hubby wanted to be able to spend some time in it over the weekend since he had to work all week which included a meeting out of town.  So I check if we could checkout the following Monday instead.  The lady worked hard to rearrange everyone so that we could stay there and not have to move.  Even tho we could use the practice hooking and unhooking, we really didn’t want to have to do it.  Especially since I had set everything up so nice and would have to pack it up for a short drive across the park and unpack it.  I thanked her for not making us move.

When we sold the house, I saved a bunch of bins and baskets (plastic & wicker) of various sizes and shapes.  I knew that they would come in handy in some way in the new RV and now I can finally see what I can use and what I can’t.

While hubby worked, I spent my week arranging things the way I wanted them.  I have to admit, the first day I pretty much spun my wheels and didn’t get anything accomplished which was pretty frustrating for me. I spent my time hopping from one area to another and back saying “This will work here.  Nope.  Maybe here.  Nope.  How about here. YES!”  So I just kept doing that until I found a place to use them.  Those that I didn’t find a use for, I ended up putting in the back cabinets for future use.  No reason to take them back to the apartment where I really don’t have room for them.  Then as we start using the RV, I may find uses for them.  Not getting rid of anything just yet.

We had taken some items with us on our first trip to Oklahoma when we picked up the RV and they were kind of put where I wanted them.  Some where just together in a drawer/cabinet to keep things from flying around in empty cabinets.  Now that we had the RV here, I took the items that I’ve been storing at the apartment for the RV . . . things like . . . more decorative items, dishes, pots & pans, glasses, paper goods, toiletries, towels, etc.  AND while putting these things where I think I want them, I have to keep in mind that I need to leave room for food.

The next day went much better and I was able to make some great progress and the 3rd day I was able to get it all put somewhere and actually decorate the RV.  That was so much fun and something I have been looking forward to doing for over a year.  When hubby wanted to stay another couple of days so we could just sit back and enjoy it before putting it into storage for a month, I was all for it and couldn’t wait to just sit back and enjoy it.  I was able to take some great pictures of it all decorated so that my family could see our new ‘part-time’ home since they didn’t get to see it in person when everyone was here for the Anniversary Milestone & Retirement parties.

Today hubby decided to come work from the RV.  While he worked I was able to put the finishing touches on the RV and show him around so he’d kind of know where I put things.  At least for now!  Because if you know me at all, you know that I will be making changes many times before I get things where they work best for us.  Then we sat down, looked around enjoying our new beautiful “part-time’ home and then . . . .

The lights started to blink . . . that was the beginning of the end!!

To make a really long boring story as short as I can . . . we had another power failure!!  We had to call a mobile tech out to find out what the problem was this time.  FYI – 100+ degrees and no AC at the hottest part of the day!! The mobile tech checked several things:  shore power, fuses, breakers, converter, etc.  Apparently our power cord has a burned ‘leg’.  So it’s either been fried by something in the RV or the something in the RV is frying the cord.  We paid him and he went on his way.

No power . . . no more having fun in our BRAND NEW RV for the weekend.  So while hubby was out of town at a meeting on Friday, I was at the RV packing it up to put it into storage until we can find a few days to drive it back to Oklahoma City to the dealership.

THANKFULLY it was a windy and MUCH cooler day.  I was able to open windows and get a good cool breeze throughout the RV since I couldn’t run the AC or a fan.  So I was able to take my time and put things away in an un-hurried manner.  I closed up the RV and headed back to the apartment instead of staying there to spend the night at the RV Park.

Our checkout time was noon on Saturday.  So hubby and I get to the park around 10am thinking we’d have plenty of time to do a couple things I didn’t get done the day before, dump the black/grey tanks, pull the slides in and hook up to drive to the storage space.

The first thing we did when we got to the RV was to hook the truck power to the batteries to help charge them so we could pull the slides in.  I kept worrying that we wouldn’t be able to pull the slides in and hubby says “we are at 12v, we should be ok.”  Well, we weren’t!!  The second I tried to pull them in the paneled blink off and the power was gone!!!  Thankfully one of the workers at the RV park had a set up on his truck that would hook the power straight from his truck battery to the batteries on the RV (basically he jumped us).  Yay!! Slides are pulled in.  So we hook up the truck and start to raise up the jacks.  I bet you can’t possibly guess what happened!!!  YEP!!  Power was gone again!!!!  Again he was able to jump us and we got the jacks up. WHEW!!!

And I bet you all think that is the end of our saga .  . . well, you’d be wrong!!

We scoped out the storage unit space earlier in the day to see where/how we needed to pull in to angle the RV into the tight space between another RV & a pole!!  So we pull in, confident that we know exactly how we need to pull in to back into the spot.  All I can say is it didn’t go as planned but we finally got it in the space.

Ted reaches up to pull the release handle of the hitch and it releases!!!!! That is the first time it has released on the first pull!!  So we were soooo excited!!!  We lower the front jacks to barely touch the ground and then I try to slowly pull away and can’t!!  The jaws of the hitch are open but I can’t pull away from the hitch!!!  SO . . . we go try to ‘bump up’ the jacks to get some more pressure off the hitch of the truck . . . and . . . guess what?  Yep!!  NO POWER!!!!

We have the battery charger that we bought in Oklahoma City when we first lost battery power but it runs on electricity and we don’t have power at the storage unit!!!!  So I call the RV Tech to come out to jump us.  However, he’s busy and says it’ll be a couple of hours before he can come out.  However, he was able to leave the job he was on to quickly come get us unhooked.

After he left we took the batteries out  . . . which wasn’t easy . . . and have taken them to Auto Zone for a DEEP charge and then they will test them, under load, to see if they are bad or not.  The tech thinks we may have gotten 2 bad batteries that will not keep a charge.

So . . .in the end  . . . the RV is going back to the dealership and we are most likely canceling our plans for our first month long trip in August.  There is no telling what kind of electrical problems we are having and how long it will take to fix.  Looking at the bright side . . .we are glad that this has happened close enough to home and we are not out in the boonies somewhere and having these problems.

Did we buy a Lemon?  Or will this be an Easy Fix?

Only time will tell!!

Stay tuned for more excitement to come from “The Ole Rooster and his Hen” . . .

  A Lemon or Easy Fix? So exciting!!  We finally got our new 2016 Vanleigh Vilano 325RL home.  Since we live in an apartment and will be putting her in storage before our trip in August, we decided to rent a space in one of our local RV Parks called…