#also guys... i caved and bought Legends...

[hall0wedwyrm]

Minecraft Headcanons for the anniversary

Happy birthday to the biggest brainrot ive ever had.

I wanna share my own hcs for the Block People!! because I haven't escaped them in all of my conscious existance. I am required by law to also include Herobrine. Okay here you go <3

Steve is ancient. As the first mortal being, he's been around for a very long time and watched the world change countless times. They still find exploring very rewarding, as they're always finding new things.

think of the world as like... when you update the game and the unexplored chunks have the new content... its just like that.

Alex is not as old... but they are still very very old. As the second mortal being, they are not as experienced but they know a lot about the world. They're a thrill seeker, and they looove danger.

Steve still panics when they jump into danger, even though they have been together for centuries at this point.

Alex is a free spirit, but they also have their own comfort in their base and being in familiar territory

They're very much the kind of player who has the huuuuge main base with all of their mob farms and projects being close by or easily accessible, where Steve would just have their one home and expand accordingly (a room for... basically everything)

Now... Herobrine is like. THE Oldest Being. He literally made the Nether, and Mobs, which were already around when Steve first appeared.

I have this headcanon that Herobrine is the sibling of the End Poem entities? Where hes their cast out brother because he was 'messing with their perfect world' and they decided to put him in the world. He wanted there to be a challenge but they were having NONE of it

If you know Narinder from Cult of the Lamb... like that.

He got assigned as the ruler of monsters after the individual monarchs had acknowledged him as their Creator. He lives in the Nether.

He's currently working on his Overworld Mansion (i.e. Herobrine's Mansion if you remember) since his siblings presence has faded away, and hes jumping at the chance to adventure into the overworld. He's picked a spot thats nicely tucked away in a deep forest

Herobrine originally believed that Steve was made to be a mockery of his new form, but ended up getting attached to them instead.

He then met Alex and they unintentionally swept him off his feet. They were a very fresh breath of air in his life and he appreciates them greatly.

He thinks Steve is okay (Hes obsessed with them).

Yeah... i'm a Hero/Steve/Alex shipper. I'm also the enjoyer of Steve/Herobrine and Alex/Herobrine as stand alone items too... basically im very open to any variation of this ship i just love them together lmao.

Herosteve enemies to lovers

Hero is Pan, Alex is genderfluid bi and Steve is demiboy bi there you go

I love masc Alex... but i do also like Alex being buff and fem.

Although i do love they them Steve a lot too... maybe at somepoint Steve tried just they them and was like 'this is kinda cool and also i dont mind either'

The newer characters (Noor, Sunny, Ari, Zuri, Makena, Kai and Efe) have built a community spot together. They're like a smp server where they announce "hey guys I'm heading to the mines anyone wanna join?" and there ends up being a little team who heads out.

Alex and Steve are the cool mentors who visit sometimes and help out. Alex brings cool trinkets and rarer items while Steve provides extra blocks and food.

Steve's advice is shit but Alex is actually pretty good at it???

"You just gotta go find it" vs "Oh heres a detailed explanation of how to find what youre looking for"

Herobrine is the 'creature that hangs around in the shadows sometimes' and watches over them. He's not malevolent towards them, so they assume he's somekind of protective force

Ari and Sunny saw him first, and Kai n Zuri did not believe them when they told them. Efe though it was cool though, but Makena didn't leave their safe area for like a week until Noor reasoned with her and said it was probably nothing.

okay yeah im doing part 2 for this with world building headcanons and for the other guys because i made basic ideas for my interpretations of them but this is kinda long already

[zahri-melitor]

I think this is pretty decisive that I should do several of these, however I’m going to start with the 8 November 1989 stories.

These are the 11 stories I had to read.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #2: this is the second issue of five of the story Shaman, by Denny O’Neil. LotDK, for people who are unfamiliar, was premised on being a book that largely told early-career Batman stories, generally in disconnected arcs by a wide range of writers.

The title opens with ritual human sacrifice, involving people’s hearts being cut out and a cult run by people from Santa Prisca. The plot is about a particular mask from an indigenous community in Alaska that was ‘collected’/bought by a professor of anthropology. This particular mask is of a bat, and traditionally used in healing rituals. Also during this story, Bruce and Alfred decide to move Bruce’s crime fighting HQ into the Cave (as I said, this is a VERY early career story).

I have read this story previously (because it’s interrelated to and occasionally referenced in various Barbatos and Zur-En-Arrh storylines), so I know where it’s going, but as a single issue this has a lot of moving various story lines along but not a lot of context on what’s happening or how they’re related.

Action Comics #648: and another second issue in a storyline! This is part two of the Brainiac Trilogy. A good chunk of this issue is just Metallo recounting his backstory to Brainiac. Outside of that, a swarm of Metallo robots are attacking Lexcorp Tower, and Clark beats them up. This infuriates Lex, of course. Brainiac gets cryogenically frozen and this allows him to project his mind at people he’s implanted control chips in, because comics, and at Cadmus Dubbilex senses Brainiac’s men and Metallo trying to steal shit and sends both Guardian and Superman to prevent it.

Clark also makes “I’m disarming you” and “I’m not leaving you with a leg to stand on” jokes while lasering off Metallo’s limbs with his heat vision. Oh, Clark. You think you’re so funny.

Justice League Europe #9: this I had so little context on. The main things that happen are Power Girl needs surgery (performed by Clark via heat vision assisting the doctors) because of injuries from the previous issue (Clark's doing a lot with heat vision this week, it seems). Also Wally and Ralph Dibney come to a level of reconciliation over how much they both miss Barry by telling each other stories of fights Barry had.

The Question #33: oh, hilariously this is actually a good stand alone issue of The Question (and also an important one) given it’s the first appearance of Harold Allnut. I will note that the art for this certainly prematurely ages Harold, making him look older than his mother. But essentially what is happening is a criminal is released from prison and sent by a corrupt judge to attack/kill Myra, who is Mayor at this point.  Harold helps Myra start her car when it’s broken down and then stays with her, helping her protect Jackie from the attack.

I will note this particular exchange occurs (because it’s very 1980s and also still topical today):-

Vic: He said Judge Whelperson released Cathy Fregosi on his own recognizance today. Tot: You said “Cathy” and then said “his”. Pronoun trouble? Vic: No, Cathy is a he.

(Context: Cathy is being used as a nickname for Carlton, the guy who comes after Myra)

Green Arrow #27: I'm going to open by pointing out this wasn't deliberate, this was a completely randomly generated number.

GUESS WHICH ISSUE THIS IS? IT'S THE ONE WHERE TRAVIS MORGAN SHOWS UP, GETS MISTAKEN FOR OLLIE, AND PUNCHES OLLIE!

God this was glorious. Now of course nothing happening in this was a mystery to me, given Travis' helmet outline is visible on the cover and they literally use The Warlord's fonts in the cover and splash.

But Mike Grell and Dan Jurgens have a whale of a time slowly making hints of who this green coated man actually is, revealing more and more details. Truly, they had fun with it and so did I reading along and spotting everything.

Doctor Fate #12: in part 3 of The Death of Innocence, Doctor Fate (Eric Strauss) and Doctor Fate (Linda Strauss) are fighting Darkseid in Apokolips. They join their power together to become stronger by combining via what they describe as their 'sacred union' and their love. They end up so attuned they are talking to each other psychically. Unfortunately, during this battle Darkseid kills Eric.

I had to do a wiki dive to work out what on earth was going on with these two characters, and I couldn't do those summaries justice if I tried. Both DC Database and LOCG have corkers of write ups. We'll START with the fact that these two are step mother and step son, and YES they're in love and mystically fated to be together, also Eric was artificially aged up from age 10 to adulthood when he became Doctor Fate (but apparently is still mentally 10 years old). And that's just the start of it.

I am not sure I need or indeed want to read any more of this run, but it's the most concentrated comics nonsense I've seen in quite a while.

I will also note that this comic does not have Comics Code Approval on the cover. Which, I am not shocked over, but what IS interesting to me is that some of other comics in this set that also don't have approval (The Question, Green Arrow) are listed as for Mature Readers, and this is not. Which. Hmmm.

Mister Miracle #10: Barda's hair is this incredible intricate braided updo in this (yes of course my priorities are in order). The general plot of this is that Scott and Barda are living in a small town hiding their identities and trying to fit in with the humans, only it's just come out that "Mister Miraculous" (what the news is calling Scott, to his disgust) is fighting crime around the town, and a newbie hero who wants to be the super of this tiny community decides to fight Scott.

Suicide Squad #36: this is a very complicated issue to drop into, because it's at the climax of a story about the Squad attacking Apokolips. Despite coming out at the same time as the Doctor Fate story, fighting Darkseid, and having Barda with the team facing Granny Goodness, this story is completely unrelated to the two stories listed above it.

What's continuity and coordination, folks?

There's a lot going on here, but I think the most important aspect if you've never read it is that Doctor Light (the villain, the one whose mindwipe comes up in Identity Crisis) dies in this issue. And explicitly goes to hell.

Captain Atom #36: this issue is called "The Secret Origin of Everyone!" This is a corner of DC I know very little about, and the explanations of this character called the Silver Shield and how it's related to Captain Atom lore are not particularly easy to follow.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure #1: this is a 32 page comics adaption of the movie screenplay. And it's exactly that. I'm not sure there's much else to say about it. I have to say, it’s not very funny to read as as lot of the jokes clearly depend on mispronunciations, accents and comedic timing, and so look dull and stale written down.

Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children #6: this is some experimental storytelling. Happy Birthday to Hell is the Devil explaining his version of events about why he was kicked out of Heaven, and why it wasn't an interesting place to be in the first place, in the tone of a contemporary human with mundane problems. There's a whole rant, for instance, about trying to buy shoes at the shops when you have cloven hooves.

The whole comic is sketched double spreads, with a handwritten monologue from the Devil in cursive all the way through, making it difficult at times to follow.

[seabreeze2022]

2023 Bahamas Cruise, Part 22. April. 26 Rake ‘n’ Scrape, Cleaning graves finding a cave. New Bight.

Bo-Hog and the Rooters do an impromptu gig. On the Accordion is Bo Hog himself, Alfred “Pompey” Johnson. On the drum is Duke Moss owner of Dukes Conch stand, where this happened. On the right is Ishmael, he is playing the hand saw.

The drum is home made. It is heated over a stove to tighten the drum skin just before playing. So beware putting it on your lap. The handle of the saw is placed at the hip and the tip is held with one hand. By flexing the saw and raking the saw with a large screwdriver different tones can be made. Ishmael spent 40 years off the island but came back 9 years ago. Now he farms his back yard and does a/c repair. Great guy to talk with. There were 9 of us cruisers from 4 boats enjoying the music. Nancy passed the tip container around at the end of the set. She gathered up $62 for the band.

Pompey said he needed help the next day clearing brush around his ancestors graves. So Nancy and I volunteered to help him. We walked down to Henry Hawkins Armbrister plantations Great house, built around 1760. There was a slave uprising here and “Pompeys” ancestors burned the house down.

Henry was a revolutionary Loyalist living in Georgia and of Scottish descent. When he left for the Bahamas to resettle taking his slaves with him.

Interesting to note. No rebar in the old houses. New houses have rebar that spalds and breaks the houses down. The old tabby houses will still be standing when most of these new building fall down in the future.

This is “Pompey” showing us the old great house. He is carrying a machete for clearing the graves. He finally walks us about 500 ft. up hill. Then out through a winding foot path in the scrub brush. There are three graves down in a natural pit about 3 ft. deep. Two are of adults and one is a baby. No grave markers.

This was the most prominent grave. Standing about 3 ft. tall with a coat of concrete on the outside. Around the back a gaping hole was in the side of the grave.

The next grave is wider but level and low. The third grave was the size of a baby and had only the outline at ground level. You can see it at Nancy’s feet.

Just east of the graves is a natural bridge about 3 ft. above the pit. Mosquitoes were fierce, so we only chopped down a few small trees. The slave graves commonly had trees planted on top of the grave. Not that we saw planted trees here, these seemed wild.

At the Hermitage there was supposed to be a cave that the Hermit used. We knew where a trail led off the road and wanted to go check it out. “Pompey” said his family used to gather sheep into the cave every night. So we found a small cave 5 minutes down the trail.

“Pompey” said his ancestors had sold several acres to the hermit for his Hermitage. Legend has it, that the Bahama Government gave the land to Father Jerome for his service. He actually bought 8 acres on top of Como Hill from the locals. Probably “Pompeys” people. Before Father Jerome died he gave the land to the Catholic church. The Hermitage is actually well maintained. After reading the book written about him, there is a much larger cave in the hill just below the Hermitage. By his Last Will and Testament, he is buried in that cave facing east with his arms outstretched. It has a wooden gate across the door. Father Jerome died on June 26, 1956.

This is the cave Father Jerome is buried in. Winds are due to shift out of the south and pick up. So it is time to pull anchor……

“Pompey” is adamant that we must have one more beer with him before we go. Nancy is crushed between Crystal on her right side and CD on her left side. CD owns the Fish Fry shack where we ate the Cracked Conch. She also plays the drum for Bo Hog if she is not cooking.

Two degrees of separation on Cat Island. We were telling them about our trip to Port Howe and meeting Prince Hunter. Turns out Prince is CD’s father. While we are discussing this. “Pompey” points at the woman sitting near us and says, “Thats Prince’s wife”. She corrected him quickly, saying they were divorced!

Cat Island is the only out island that ever had a train. Off of Tucker point, south of New Bight are the last iron rails left. The rest of the track was removed for scape iron during WW2 and shipped to England. This train carried sisal and cotton down to the waiting boats tied to the shore.

Sea Breeze, New Bight, Cat Island, Bahama

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Reviews: Miraculous World Shanghai: The Legend of Lady Dragon

Spoilers below.

-OH some lore!

-Wow for Shifu, his students got bought out.

-OMG ITS THE JERK IS THE GUY AT THE END OF THE NY SPECIAL. Interesting

-BABY FEI!

-HE DIED! WTF

-She got robbed. So she failed badly

-Like the intro to this. Damn its crisp

-So Marinette is living her best life right now. Love that ladybug and chat noir bonding.

-Marinette gotta deliver a gift to the post office for her uncle.

-ADRIEN IS IN SHANGHAI!

-Marinetter got a lot of information on Adrien, some of which I'm question means of which she acquired. XD

-So Marinette realized she could use the gift delivery as a chance to maybe meet up with Adrien. That isn't really that bad. Its actually really clever.

-Gorilla is best boy.

-Adrien just wants to spend time with his dad. F*** YOU Gabriel.

-Oh damn! Gabriel has the Prodigious! And apparently its more powerful than the miraculous? WTF. Nooru knows about this

-Gabriel of course sucks and won't listen. Because Gabriel is a desperate whore.

-what do you MEAN 15 years ago? Gabriel how deep is this evil hole

-Marinette honey no, I love her. but wow. Her parents are so happy tho.

-Marinette's parents are the best. STOP SALTING THEM.

-Her uncle is so happy to see her.

-Marinette, APPRECIATE YOUR UNCLE!

-I love The uncle.

-Gabriel is such a jerk. Adrien just wants to spend time with him.

-Oh wow the restaurant looks great.

-CHENG LORE! ALSO SABINE IS SO CUTE AS A KID.

-SABINE'S REAL NAME IS XIA PING! I am so happy to know this!

-He is making good points. She could get lost.

-Marinette tracking him. also Kwami speak all languages. Neat

-I just realized... did neither ladybug or chat noir tell each other that they are out of Paris?

-Adrien out with his dad (Gorilla) for walk is precious.

-PROTECT GORILLA HE IS A BEAN!

-Oh Gabriel being a jerk. what else is new?

-How does Gabriel know about this all? I am so confused.

-Fei is back. She is strong. Also She is a kind person.

-Oh no... she is actually trying to rob people.

-Oh she can disguise herself.

-And GABRIEL STILL SUCKS

-PLAGG is still Plagg. I missed seeing plagg.

- So if Marinette had stayed at the restaurant and chilled with her uncle. ADRIEN WOULD HAVE SHOWED UP. This is what happens when you are TOO THIRSTY!

-Marinette found him.

-and Fei just robbed her. Like HOW DID MARINETTE GET ROBBED SO EASILY?! Marinette is confirmed easy mark.

-Marinette she just robbed her don't help her

-and marinette just realized she is LOST IN SHANGHAI!

-Oh damn Fei is kicks butt.

-Adrien is so happy Marinette is in Shanghai! Thats so sweet. The Uncle ships it. The Bird ships it.

-Adrien you are a sweet bean. But I want to sock you for calling her just a friend.

-HOLD UP, HOW CAN GORILLA HAVE AN EAGLE action figure. Isn't this special suppose to take place between season 2 and 3? I am so confused.

-Marinette is lost, and she is lost.

-ADRIEN BONDING WITH HIS FUTURE IN-LAWS

-Adrien just confirmed she is always late.

-The old lady trying to help. Thats so nice.

-Fei, that guy is the d-bag that screwed over your adoptive dad!

-Guy is such a d-bag

-So Fei was being a jerk.

-Oh they are trying to return the necklace.

-Oh Fei speaks French, how convenient

-Fei feels guilty. GOOD

-Goriila is a bean.

-OH THEY ARE WORRIED.

-ADRIEN GONNA SEARCH FOR HIS FRIEND! YES! MARICHAT TIME.

-Chat noir transformation remix! Nice.

-They are making the police efficient here.

-Well Fei is gonna keep feeling guilty about this.

-Chat noir making Parisian heroes look good.

-Fei is gonna feel super guilty about this.

-THE PARROT IS SENTIENT!

-They found the earrings.

-Fei is pissed.

-Tikki found Marinette.

-Fei got fast hands

-Fei redemption arc now.

-OH NO, THE GUY REALIZED IT.

-Fei gonna fight them.

-THE GUYS FROM EARLIER!? They are great.

-Chat noir calling ladybug out of concern for marinette. So cute.

-Gabriel is such an a**hole. He remembered Marinette but not his own son.

-Fei revealing origins now. Oh damn.

-The guy is the one who ruined everything.

-Liar revealed. What a shock (not)

-So this guy is gonna be akumatized. Well he is a jerk. Gabriel knows how to pick em.

-FEI! KICK HIM AGAIN!

-King Money?! NICE NAME.

-Oh damn King Money looks boss as heck.

-Ladybug is finally here.

-I saw that sigh. You love your kitty Ladybug.

-That ladynoir is so strong.

-Fei is pretty boss.

-Oh no! THEY GONNA OPEN THE VAULT.

-I love that vault. The cave looks sweet.

-The guy realized it, kind of a smart man.

-What was Hawkmoth planning for 15 years?!

-Oh damn that power! Oh snap.

-The dragon guard look sick.

-Hawkmoth pulling a baller move with that. Like "B**** I aint fighting your guardian."

-Ladybug on the scene.

-Fei unlocked the power.

-WOW LADY DRAGON LOOKS REALLY COOL. And the Renlings looks kind of cool. Prodigious seems interesting.

-Renlings, the spirits of Human values. And, most of them look better than the Kwami, except plagg. Plagg is the best.

-Oh wow so they have neat requirements.

-SHE CAN SHAPE SHIFT! AMAZING

-I WANT THE PRODIGEOUS

-Only noble people can use the dragon.

-Revenge aint noble

-CHAT NOIR TO THE RESCUE!

-HE AKUMATIZED THE DRAGON GUARD GUY!

-Yan Woshi! OH DAMN, HAWKMOTH BE PLAYING FOR KEEPS!?

-This akuma maybe one of the best ones yet.

-HE LOOKS SO COOL.

-PLOT TWIST! HAWKMOTH ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT HIS SON FOR ONCE! I am shook.

-HAWKMOTH GOT THANOSED. So Hawkmoth cares instantly loses. XD

-"Is that good news or bad news?" Chat noir, you are right. But thats your dad

-RUN ITS NOT GODZILLA!

-Ladybug and Chat noir getting their butt kicked.

-Fei also getting wrecked.

-Zag confirmed furry

-Fei just left them high and dry.

-And Chat noir is dead! ANGST.

-Ladybug gonna talk some sense into her.

-The mascara smeared. Thats real sadness.

-Cue power of friendship talk.

-Fei saves her with the power of friendship.

-dragon v. dragon fight!

-Oh I like this lucky charm.

- Yaloshi is his name now? (these subs are confusing)

-Oh snap, the power of team work! And fighting in the belly of the beast.

-THAT LADYNOIR HUG.

-They tied up the guy.

-Fei should have killed the guy.

-Meishi is adorable.

-I LOVE THIS LITTLE CONVERSATION. THEY ARE GONNA PRETEND TO RACE. and then show up later.

-Oh fei, marinette AND Adrien are celebrating his birthday. Thats cute.

-They BOTH SAID IT! I Cant even! (also I see you Adrien, you aint slick)

-The boys crushing on Fei.

-Adrien has such soft looks for Marinette.

____________________________________________________________

So overall. The beginning was a tiny bit cringe, but not as bad as the trailer made it out to be.

I really liked Fei. She grows on ya. And I liked Lady dragon. I liked the renlings

I will say it is a better special in terms of Lore and plot than the NY special. It was lacking in the love square interactions that I wanted. But they were still cute when they had them. I do think there are a few plot holes, like Eagle being an action figure. WHEN DID THIS SPECIAL TAKE PLACE. (Edit, found out it was an animation error, NVM)

Also, now the elephant in the room? Was the special racist?

The answer is, no.

It wasn't racist, so we can all calm down about it?

So I give it an 8/10

The lore being my favorite parts.

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch.4

In Which: exposition for exposition's sake exists, and Vlad looks way more suspcious than he ought

| AO3 | Prologue | 3 | [4] | 5

VLADIMIR MASTERS. Human male in his mid-forties, and most notably the founder and CEO of VladCo, a billion-dollar industry that mostly specializes in manufacturing weapons and technology. Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin despite having to drop out due to a lab accident in his second year, landing him in the hospital. Despite being based primarily in Wisconsin, he made an unexpected move to Amity Park Illinois shortly after reuniting with his college friends Drs. Madeline and Jack Fenton.

Not even a year later, Masters ran for mayor of Amity Park and won the election by a landslide. Suspicious, considering Masters being an unknown and the former mayor Montez being quite popular. It’s during Masters’ tenure in office that reports of ghost attacks to the Justice League steadily died down.

“Why?” Damian asked.

Barbara shrugged, pulling up a few files on the screen. “I originally had a theory that related to VladCo’s buyout of Axion Labs—a technological research and manufacturing company that’s mostly local to Amity—being a factor. Within the last couple of years, they had been experimenting with highly volatile chemicals with hallucinogenic properties. Amity had always been known for being extremely superstitious with its ghosts, and if Axion Labs had somehow accidentally released that chemical into the city, well…” She leaned back into her chair, hand twisting in the air. “You could bet how that ended up. The hysteria around ghosts only grew worse in the last two years, with suspected sightings from once every few weeks to multiple in a single day. Early attempts to capture sightings were unsuccessful, and soon enough Amity Park was just written off.”

Much like the mass hysteria surrounding the urban legend of the kuchisake-onna in Japan in the late 1970s, Bruce thought. He pulled up some news footage from Amity Park dated a few years back of citizens being interviewed about their ghostly encounters. Beside these videos were a few photos taken by a shaky camera, showing bright blurs of light streaking across the sky or vaguely humanoid shapes rising from the ground.

“So VladCo., bought out Axion Labs, improved its security, and slowly helped detoxify the town?” Damian shifted his weight onto his other leg and crossed his arms.

“That’s what I thought, but—”

“But the ghosts ended up being real.” Bruce pulled up a video of a field reporter-slash-weatherman taking cover as a figure dropped from the sky, breaking through the walls of a building. The figure—features distorted by an eerie glow—shot out of the rubble just in time before a green blast hit it.

Oracle enlarged other news footage with a few taps on her keyboard. Beings zooming through the air. Massive plants erupting from the ground. Technology coming to life. Each video more worrying than the last, and most showing some footage of a figure bathed in a white glow. “I’d be hard pressed to call any of these faked.”

It begged the question as to how Amity Park survived this long unscathed. Since, if he remembered correctly, even the Dark Leaguers tended to avoid Amity Park like the plague. “They have their own heroes, then?”

“Think along the lines of vigilantes with unofficial support.” A few more files popped up on screen. One showcased a female in a full-length black and red body suit on top of a hover board. The other was a male; young, perhaps a teenager, with white hair and a black and white suit. Hazmat? “The Red Huntress and the Phantom of Amity Park.”

“Partners?”

“More like enemies working on the same turf. Sources place Phantom as appearing first, though it seems Red Huntress has more government support in the end despite there being no official statement. They seem to be the most effective ghost hunters in town, though far from the only ones. The Fentons of Fenton Works are also acting as ghost hunters, though their track record of success leans more towards their anti-ghost tech than any hunting. The town’s even attracted visitors from the Ghost Investigation Ward; a side branch of Cadmus though a now defunct organization.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Damian said. “If anything, this should be more than enough reason for a League intervention. Why the Justice League didn’t come sooner is the real question here.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “That’s because we were warned off it.”

“What?”

While there was no rule against heroes entering another hero’s city, there were certain unspoken rules that demanded that JL members avoid claimed cities or stay just outside of city lines until given permission to enter. Some were especially strict about it such as Batman’s ‘no metas or outsiders’ rule. Others were more lenient, simply requesting a warning before entering.

Amity Park, despite having no listed heroes in the database, was marked with heavy ‘Do Not Interact’ warnings for humans and metas alike.

“Justice League Dark said that under no circumstances should the League interfere in Amity. The situation was never explicitly laid out for us except to say that everything was being handled.”

“Oh yeah,” Oracle chimed. “Constantine even had it bolded, underlined, italicized, and in all caps. The occult community was very clear about everyone staying away—and apparently this decision had support from Amity Park too.” She pulled up another document. “That’s probably what led to the decline in their ghost reports, actually. Amity’s claims were considered bogus and brushed aside. No one outside their town—not even their sister town of Elmerton—believed them, so they simply stopped asking for help.”

Strangely, it reminded Bruce of Gotham. Both cities existed in its own isolated sphere, unwilling to let any outsiders interfere in its business.

“It’s safe to assume, then, that whatever Ra’s al Ghul wants with Amity, it has to do with these ghosts. Do we have anyway to contact the town’s vigilantes?”

Oracle shook her head. “Ghost attacks within the past few months have slowly died down along with sightings of Phantom and Red Huntress. Your best bet is asking Masters directly.”

Damian glowered. “Masters blatantly sent out an invitation for Batman to my father. How do we know that Masters hasn’t somehow found our secret identities?”

“Unlikely,” Bruce said. “Vlad Masters, despite his wealth, has done well to keep a low profile. He’s met Bruce Wayne a total of three times within the last decade and Batman not at all.” That, and with the kind of spyware Batman has, he’d be able to tell when, where, and who was trying to dig deep into Batman’s past. Masters hadn’t even registered as a ping.

“Besides, there’s always a few rumors of Wayne Enterprise’s involvement with Batman. All this tech has to come from somewhere, no?”

“How long is Masters staying in Gotham?”

“Umm…” Oracle leaned forward in her chain and flipped through a half-dozen windows. “Going by his reservations at the Gotham Royal Hotel, he’s leaving tomorrow.”

Bruce pivoted on his heel, heading deeper into the Cave. “We better make this count, then.”

------

According to Oracle’s intel, Vlad Masters was staying at one of the executive suites in the Gotham Royal Hotel. A titanic structure with forty-eight floors, two towers, and the gothic aesthetic that never seemed to leave Gotham’s architecture.

Scaling the building as well as entering the suite proved no challenge for Batman and Robin. But upon entrance, it was abundantly clear that the room was vacant.

“Are you sure you guys are in the right room?” Bruce could hear the clicking of Oracle’s keys through their comms. “Masters had reserved the suite on the west tower.”

“Yes we’re in the correct room, Gordon,” Robin hissed.

“Codenames only, Robin.”

Robin clicked his tongue, sweeping the common room for any hidden bugs or cameras as Batman scouted out the rest of the room. The bed was made to hotel standard and the bathroom towels all completely replaced. There were no clothes in the hotel closet or dresser.

The only thing left that indicated occupancy of the room was an unmarked manila envelope unsubtly tucked within a pillowcase.

Robin tensed at the sight of it. “A detonator of some sort?”

Batman rotated the package, holding it up to his scanner. “Doesn’t seem to be. Regardless, it might be better to take it back to the Batcave and locate Masters ag—” The envelope started ringing. A standard ringtone found in most phones. Quickly, but carefully, Batman opened the manila envelope and dumped its contents onto the bed. A ringing burner phone and a flash drive came tumbling out.

Batman threw the flash drive at Robin before answering the phone, holding it up against his ear but saying nothing.

Silence. Then, Masters’ voice filtered in through the phone with a strange echo-like quality. “Good evening, Batman! I’m so glad my invitation managed to get passed along.”

Batman growled into the speaker, “What do you want, Masters?” He signaled Robin to do another sweep of the room for any signs of Masters they might have missed.

“I sincerely apologize for not being there to meet you myself; incredibly rude of me, I know. But it cannot be helped, the shadows are growing ever bolder.”

“So, you are aware then, of the League of Assassins’ presence in Amity Park?”

“A league of assassins? What a terrifying notion that is.” Batman frowned. It was unlikely that they had misread his words at the gala, so why was he acting unaware now? Could he be watched? “Why such a group would appear in my little town, I wouldn’t even dare to guess.”

Robin came back into the room and signaled back ‘negative.’

“Why did you call for us, Mayor Masters?”

“Do you know what is so very tragic, Batman?”

“This is strange,” Oracle said. “I can’t pick up his signal. He’s not appearing on any of my cameras, either.”

“When someone so young dies much to soon.” A pause. “Could you even imagine such a thing? A parent burying their own child.”

Batman could. He had no need to even imagine it because he lived it.

“Some very close friends of mine have been weighed down by the shadows of death and I require help in providing them the closure they need.”

“Are the Fentons the targets, then?”

Masters paused. Then let out a breathy laugh over the phone. “Oh, if only it were that simple.”

“So a different target.”

“Everything you need to know is in the flash drive I’ve enclosed in that envelope Whether you take up the case is entirely up to you—though I do hope you take it. Regardless, if he is not returned soon then I assure you that a disaster unlike any you have seen before will arrive.”

Batman narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Masters?”

“No,” He laughed. “That was no threat. That was promise.”

The phone line disconnected just as Oracle exclaimed that she finally found Masters boarding his flight back to Amity Pak.

[peoniesandsmiles]

Thank you @flying-elliska for tagging me in this bookish ask game! I love those asks, never not happy to talk about books ! 🥰

how many books are too many books in a series ? I’d say over 5 ? I feel like if you go over that number there always a book that will feel less I guess. Also that’s the maximum number I’m willing to read when I start a new series it feels like to much to catch up otherwise. BUT. If I’m into a series since the bggining i absolutely do not care about the number of books, I just want them to keep coming hehe (my point about a “feel less” book still stands tho)

how do you feel about cliffhangers ? not the biggest fan overall as I have anxiety and get attached to characters way too easily but if they are well done then hit me !

hardback or paperback ? I read too much for my allocated budget so paperbacks 😶 but I’m known for giving into a nice edition so it’s not an always rule ! (I caved and bought the pretty edition of Six Crimson Cranes last week) Also if I loved an ebook I tend to buy it in hardback later, to build my “forever library” as Ellie said

least favorite book ? Most probably something I read for school, most probably some Molière as it was shoved down our throats and I hate the guy but nothing comes to mind right away.

love triangles, yes or no ? I read too much of them I have to say no. The exception being when it actually makes some sense plot wise and not just for the drama.

the most recent book you just couldn't finish ? So I had to check on Goodreads as I’m pretty stubborn and I like to stand my ground so it doesn’t happen that often. From Blood and Ash. I gave into the booktok pressure and I was superbly bored so I didn’t even try to stick to it.

a book you're currently reading ? I started The Girl of Fire and Thorns last night, I’m not really into it yet but I bought the trilogy so I’ll have to read them all no matter what.

last book you recommended to someone ? I don’t know.... Probably something wlw to @thegreywarren but can’t remember what... Maybe One Last Stop ?

oldest book you've read ?  The Iliad and the Odyssey, nothing crazy.

newest book you've read ? Newly released yes ? Six Crimson Cranes.

favorite author ? I don’t knoooooow.

buying books or borrowing books ? Buying. I have to own the story. How can I live without a book I loved ? Without being able to go back to it ?

a book you dislike that everyone else seems to love ? I don’t pay too much attention to what people think, if I loved a book I don’t need you to tell me why I’m wrong... but a crowd favourite that just missed with me I guess From Blood and Ash ?

bookmarks or dog ears ? Bookmarks. Ribbons specifically.

a book you can always reread ? In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

can you read while listening to music ? I used to, to the point I now associate some books to songs or vice-versa, but not anymore, I need to focus.

one pov or multiple povs ? I prefer one pov as I hate when I have to read the pov of a character I just don’t care about (reason #1 why I’ll never finish the Legend Born series), I’ll admit though that when it’s well done it can give a book the best of rythm and that can be really awesome.

do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days ? I’m a binger 😶 I’m physically unable to slow read unless I set rules with myself first.

who do you tag ? @thegreywarren @flitwickslittlebrotha and whoever wants to give it a go ❤

[popculturebuffet]

Top 10 Sealab 2021 Episodes (Comission)

Happy 2021 Everyone! After an utterly AWFUL fucking year, it’s nice to be in a brand new year with brand new possiblities, new projects you’ll see soon, finsihing the old.. and all that good stuff. And good friend of the blog and only patron and contributer kev had a great suggestion to comission to kick off the year. Since it’s 2021 it’s only fair ot honor one of the very first adult swim shows, one taking place in the same year and still one of it’s funniest and fucking weirdest, and as we’ve seen that threshold is vast: Sealab 2021 Sealab was created by the wonder twins of Adam Reed and Matt Thomspon, and if those names sound familiar.. that’s because their the guys who created Frisky Dingo, a cult classic i’ll defintely have to write about someday soon, and more famously and in Matt’s case still to this day, Archer. Yup, after adult swim jerking them around lead to the closing of their initial studio, the two moved to FX and here they are. So yeah this is where the roots of a lot of archers workplace shenanigans and petty dickery come from.  But even ignoring what it’d lead to, Sealab on it’s own is pretty damn good and holds up pretty well. Some jokes.. have not aged well, especially the treatment of Debbie as the villiage bicycle, but on the whole most of the humor is just really funny, really weird and really insane and I still love it after this revisit even if some episodes didn’t hold up so good, most of them held up good or even better than I remembered.  The show was THE first abriged series, taking bits of old forgotten and seemingl really damn boring hannah barbara show sealab 2021, and using the footage to tell the tale of a bunch of assholes, weirdos and what have you running an underwater research station.. and being so bad at it or getting into such other insane bollocks it often blew up. Continuity was loose, jokes were the priority, and dialouge was key since the animation was not great in any way shape or form, but the cheapness was enough of a charm and improved enough with time that it didn’t really matter. The show was good and set the bar for adult swim shows for better or worse alongside other greats like Home Movies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and others. It also had a unique cast of mostly small time actors, and bafflingly one respected news pundit as local asshole idiot head Stormy, and broadway legend Henry Goz as series MVP Captain Murphy. It was good, it was part of my childhood and teen years, and I love it so. I bought the dvds, quoted it decently and will again now Kev’s brought my fire for the series back.  So naturally for a series like this since regular reviews just don’t.. work on something this insane sometimes, i’m instead counting down my top. 10 . episodes. Yes top 10 lists are comissionable, 5 bucks a pop. As long as I know the series well enough i’d be glad to and here I ws more than honored to. I also uped my game this time and rewatched every cantidate and thus I feel this may be one of my best lists yet. So without further adeu... grab your grizzlbees oninon burst , your bebop cola and your pitcher of whale cancer. this is the top 10 episodes of sealab 2021!

10. Tinfins  This one’s a classsic just for it’s uniquness, taking the piss out of glitzy and vapid hollywood insider shows and their annoying hosts, while also being delightfully weird, from mocking the show’s own animation by having detailed cgi used to map the limited animation, to Erik Estrada’s interview where his fictional self is clearly having none of toni and is also clearly getting wasted, to the utter bizzarity of Kid N Play being the films directors.. it’s just a good time. 

But what REALLY makes the episode are two things: The first is a series of increasingly bizzare commericals for Grizzlebees, a fictional restraunt that would become a staple of the show: From a simple commerical showing off their onion bursts, to their kids meals with tonic water, to Henry Goz’s utterly bizzare farm based commerical for it, to finally a commerical about depression being okay because grizzlebee delivers that’s pitch black as it is utterly hilarious, it’s just one hit after the other.  The crown jewel of the episode of course is the trailer ofr tinfins itself, which is insane and includes great bit after great bit, the best being the titular mecha shark cutting the power “How the hell can it cut the power? It’s a shark. “ Holy Crap indeed. 

9. In the Closet A bottle episode, which Sealab really excelled at and not the last on this list by a mile, as the show’s key was it’s dialouge the episode had a simple premise it quickly managed to have make some pretty insane turns. Marco, played by the glorious Eric Estrada and Muprhy, played by the late and very game Harry Goz, have been trapped in the suply closet for a few days, with Muprhy, being muprhy, having already married a bucket who has a history as a “Hookermop” named wendy. Soon other sealabians get caught inside too, and it results in plenty of hilarious gags, From muprhy sucker punching the hell out of everyone, to Sparks panicking under claustrophiba, to the repair guy getting sucker punched and no one caring much about his well being. This one lives off of Muprhy as while the others are good, Goz as he usually did during his time on this earh and on this series before his untimely passing, steals the whole damn show, and the ending, where it turns out Muprhy adopted and starved a bunch of fighting dogs, is a nice twist on everything. And the punchilne to it is utterly fantastic “It could be worse” “How in the hell could it possibly worse?!” “We could be out there.. with Stormy”. 

8. The Legend of Baggy Pants Speaking of Bottle Episodes and Captain Murphy being awesome.... this one narrowly beat out the episode it’s a spirtual sequel too, the classsic all that jazz, but this one is easily better. Like that one it’s a bottle episode that’s almost entirely just Captain Muprhy on some sort of shenanigan, with only abit of other cast, in this case Hesh, Eggers, and an unfortunate phone operator. In this case the premise is simple, kind of nuts, and utterly hilarious and utterly captian murphy: Captain Muprhy is having a round of Golf in Sealab, which is weird but fits the character but what ratchets it up to funny is apparently this underwater research station, for no reason, has a pro shop. So after loosing his last ball in a reactor, and sending poor hesh in to get it leading to the advent of the glorious Monster Hesh, Muprhy spends the entire episode tooling around in his “Muprh Mobile” trying to find the pro shop. As a result it’s basically 11 glorious minutes of Harry Goz going absolutely mental as muprhy, and it is as great as that sounds. From Muprhy’s sudden hatred of pod 6, to his bullying of Eggers, a hapless sealabian he runs into and then tries to run over, his bullying of dolphin boy and then trying to run him over, to his compuance as eggers steals his stuff and then his muprh mobile, it’s just glorious riffing from one of the best in the buisness and Harry is still deeply fucking missed by yours truly. RIP you magificent stalion. 

7. Cavemen One of the series final episodes, and easily one of it’s best. While the later Seasons get some flack. While season 3 is a bit weak,a s Goz’ tragic passing left them stumbling, Season 4/5... it’s complicated, is REALLY damn good and has some of the series finest episodes which many probably never saw. Case in point, Cavemen.  Cavemen is another spirtual sequel this time to lost in time, which also didn’t make the list, but this one is also better. Like LIT, it focuses on one of the series best dynamics: Brainy super scientest and often only sane man Dr. Quinn and all around idiot, moron and bane of everyone’s existance, Stormy, played by Brett Butler and Ellis Henican, both of who nail the two and this episode. The two are trapped in a cave after Stormy’s stupidity blew up sealab, and his trail of dead rabbits lead a shark to him and quinn. The result is a TON of great back and forth as Stormy tries to make Quinn see him as his best friend, Quinn rightfully shouts at Stormy for... everything, and Stormy tries to show off some ancient cave painting she himself made, that quinn quickly figures out because he left his paint around, and shows that off in a very clever gag I can’t convey correctly here. We also get knife fights and Quinn beating stormy over the head with a dead rabbit, an da surprisingly solem ending where the two hold hands as they die before heading up to heaven for a happy and weird ending. Overall an episode that’s really hard to dive into as it’s just relaly damn good and all in the performances, gags and pacing, as it’s done entirely in real time. Easily worth a watch. 

6. Shrabster Another great late season episode and another really experimental one. This one’s told from back to front, then we’re given the ending. It ends up working really well as it not only jacks up interest but the story itself is great. Asj it ends up turning out over the episode Dr. Quinn’s created the solution to world hunger: The shrabster, a hybrid of crab, shrimp and lobster. Grizzlebees, naturally wants it and after finding out Sparks didn’t actually own the rights, have Shanks, muprhy’s replacement, try and steal it, only for him to fall in love with the creature and spirit it away to give it a better life.. before shooting it in the end and eating it himself. We also get some good runners as Sparks starts speaking in slang and gets his neck rightfully snapped for it by Quinn, Stormy keeps eating shellfish despite being allergic, and we get the glory that is dan and don, two grizzlebees reperceives played by reed and thompson who are just an utter delight. I also ALMOST forgot the fucking announcer whose just fucking hilaroius the whole damn time with his various segways. 

5. HappyCake An early classic and damn worthy with a simple, batshit premise, which as should be clear by now was Sealab’s Bread and Butter. Muprhy’s happycake oven has been stolen, so he sends Stormy (who knows about the captain’s bedwetting and thus must be silenced) Quinn and a fishman out to find it in the ocean. Turns out it’s Sparks, in a character defining episode, fault as he’s working on world domination, and thus is working on driving murphy insane and thus stole it. He and marco discuss Marco becoming his henchman and getting metal teeth, Muprhy goes nuts, it’s a damn good time. Also a lot of talk of Michael Cain so that’s always a plus now I know who he is. And of course it has one of the series best lines period “Pudding can’t help the void inside” but it’ll help. Only this low because i’ts a bit structually messy compared to what’s to come and given it beat out two really damn good structurally episodes for this slot, that should say something. 

4. Hail Squishface! No best of list would be complete without this one. Once again the show banks itself on a simple premise: Captain Muprhy buys a white blob, a gloop, from a vendor and gives it liquor and gremlins style his little buddy multiplies and he soon gives them out to the crew. Everyon’es on board except Quinn.. whos naturally proven right ot be suspicious as the gloops methane output will doom them all and only muprhy, whose gone insane and is wearing squishface like a fez as you’d expect, wants them alive leading to what you’d expect: a flamethrower battle between muprhy and the crew with murphy decked out like a transformer.  This one’s just endlessly creative, from the various glooptransformations to the finale to the gags, i’ts just great. The fart gags are also.. actually pretty funny, which given i’m not a fart gag guy most of the ttime, speaks to how well executed they are and use the gags of htem being fart machines. Also we get muprhy in a fez and that alone cements it as top 5 matieral.. but as for the top 3. 

3. Moby Sick

Our last late season entry and the third to last episode of the show ever, this is top 3 for a reason, even above a classic like Hail Squishface. This one just has so many insane jokes packed in I forget quite a few despite them all being pretty damn great.  The premise is dour: A whale named Avalard shows up in Sealab wanting to die, as he has whale cancer. Stormy recognizes him as the star of the show “Gotta Have that Dick”, even saying “I gotta have that dick!”.. which of course they have a loop of ellis saying in the credits he correctly assumes will haunt him for the rest of his days. And if a whale starring in a cheesy 90′s tgif sitcom wasn’t enough we get the best gag of the episode as Marco eats some of avalard’s whale cancer leading to an insnae kool aid style add

And of course Marco later puts on a Mayor F Whale outfit and eats the cancer.. and his way out of avalard. But before that we get fights over wether the whale should die or not, including the guy on the pro whale side stabbing him, Debby’s rambling nosense and Shanks, who first builds a wooden whale to put his brain in .. that promptly sinks “and all my puppies were in there!” and then goes on a far right pundit show and gets into a giant robot phsyical challenge.. which frankly we need more of. Tucker Carlson would be .0001 percent more tolerbale if he were getting his ass kicked in a gundam is what i’m saying. 

2. Feast of Alvis I’ll be brief here, which in an article where i’m already trying to be brief says a lot but since I JUST covered this one a few weeks ago for my best holiday special lists: Feast of Alvis is, like most of sealab, deeply creative, deeply batshit and deply fun as Muprhy pushes his violent frontier version of jesus on everyone, with predicably great results. I watch it every year for damn good reason, it has some of the series best gags, including “Cram a penny o nthere” And great satire about the supposed “War on christmas”. I’m only being so breif as I said pretty much all I had to say last time. Exxcept this: Adam Reed is a DAMN talented voice actor both as virjay (though in hindishgt he REALLY shoudln’t of been playing a hindu man, especially since otherwise the series actually cast poc), and in various rolls and kills it as alvis here. So what could top one of my faviorites? Wellll.

1. Chickmate Another early one and as should be clear the best. It incapsulates the series the best, has the funniest jokes packed into it’s 11 minutes and in general is just an outstanding episode that throughly defined the cast and their rolls and chemistry.  Debbie’s biological clock is ticking and she wants to have a baby, and after mothering a dolphin dosen’t help decides one of the sealab men will be the father and auditions them. It goes as well as you’d expect: Muprhy thought she’d become his mommy, and not in a kinky way, Sparks provides one of the series best gags by giving her a modest proposal by jonathan twist and giving us the utter black comedy joy of him describing “ribs dripping off the bone”, Stormy’s tape gets interrupted by Hesh who clasically screams “Hesh wants some sex”, Marco freaks her out with his muscles and quinn seems sucessful before ultimately botching it and Debbie decides none of htem are worth it. We also get stormy’s untieontally racist and throughly stupid use of the term “Black debbie” to describe the other debbie, which he gets rightfully called out on. We also get this exchange as a result Quinn: What if everyone started calling you white stormy? Stormy: You mean there’s a .. black stormy Quinn: (Beat to take in the stupidity) no. 

It’s funny, it’s clever, and it’s just damn fun. Easily the series best outing and the reason it became what it became. And overall.. the series is just really good. it’s on HBO Max if your curious, and if you haven’t vistied that lab underneath the sea. maybe i’ts time to. Goodbye, Goodbye, goodbye for now, until then.. play us out marco and debbie. 

[gellavonhamster]

journeys end in lovers’ meeting

Dark || Aleksander Tiedemann/Regina Tiedemann Boris Niewald/Regina Doppler || post-canon

ao3 link eng || ao3 link rus

There hasn’t been such a heavy thunderstorm in a long time – even the power went out for a while. As they raise their glasses to the world without Winden, the rain outside is beating down in slant lashes, and the black silhouettes of trees are bending menacingly against the evening sky. Regina doesn’t have the heart to let the guests out into the storm; driving in such weather and with such state of local roads is a suicide, and Peter and Bernadette even came by feet. So she offers everyone to stay over. No one is really discontented with such turn of events – everyone’s cracking jokes as they share out the places available for sleeping. It feels like they’re all kids again, and this is an adventure.        

Peter and Bernadette get the couch in the living room, and some armchairs put together make a quite comfortable improvised bed for Katharina. Wishing for her pregnant friend to have the most comfort for the night, Regina gives her own bedroom to Hannah and Torben, takes all the necessary things, and moves to her mother’s room. Claudia has retired early, having told “the young” that she’s going to bed, but when Regina steps quietly into her room with a heap of bedclothes in her arms, the light there is on, and her mother is working on her laptop – no doubt writing another post for her blog on the history of Winden or taking part in a meeting of the members of Anonymous or whatever else the seniors who are more tech-savvy than most twenty-somethings might do on their computers.    

“There’s a raincoat on the chair in the living room. A yellow one,” Regina says, settling her pillow on her mother’s wide bed. “Where did it come from?”

“A yellow one, you say?” Claudia echoes, her eyes glued to the screen. “I found it in the attic. I put it aside to think which neighbourhood kid to give it to, and forgot about it.”

“How come we have it? I don’t recall myself or Peter wearing it.”

“My dear, how long have we been living in this house? Do you remember thoroughly all the junk we have? Because I don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if your father bought that raincoat forever ago to give it to you, then stuffed it somewhere and forgot.”    

“Maybe,” Regina muses. For some reason she’s dying to know where the raincoat came from. Or it might rather be the wine she has drunk that’s dying to know that.  

Later, when her mother is already asleep, when everyone in the house must already be asleep, Regina is standing by the window, listening to the cacophony of rain, staring at the pool of light that keeps dancing under the swinging lantern. It’s weird, about that raincoat, and she feels weird, too. Hannah’s words about the end of the world come to her mind, but that’s not it, not really – it is more like something is about to start, but there is no knowing what.    

When she’s already in bed, it suddenly dawns on her what this is reminding her of: she used to feel something of the kind in her youth when she sensed she was about to dream about that boy again.    

 ***

 The first time it happens, she’s fifteen, and the boy is not a boy at all – more like a young man, two or three years older than she in appearance. It’s her classmates that are boys, but this one looks almost an adult, almost a bad guy from a movie, wearing a leather jacket, dark hair falling on his face. That is what Regina thinks when she sees him in the woods that night. Not “What am I doing in the woods, actually?” of something like that, because you don’t ask yourself that kind of questions in a dream. If you are in the woods, then you are meant to be in the woods.  

“Hey,” Regina says gingerly. The young man, who was looking around, gives a start, turns around, and finally notices her.

“Hey,” he says. Anyone would expect such a guy to have a haughty smirk and a contemptuous look, but he just smiles at her when he sees her, calmly and friendly. “Where on earth am I?”      

“In Winden,” Regina approaches him. Again, it does not occur to her in a dream that talking to a stranger in the woods might be a bad idea. “Are you lost?”  

He shrugs. “I guess. I, uh, came here from the highway? Can’t remember clearly. I just left home and came here somehow.”    

“Sounds like you’ve hit your head,” Regina remarks, which is yet another proof that she’s dreaming: in waking life she would never get smart like that with a strange guy who looks older and stronger than she. It doesn’t look, however, like the strange guy in question has taken any offence, because he just grins in response.    

“Perhaps I have. And what are you doing here, robbing the lone travellers?”

“Perhaps I am,” Regina fires back, and smiles hastily to make it clear she actually isn’t. Heavens, she doesn’t know how to talk to boys at all. If Hannah and Katharina saw her now, they’d die on the spot – if not of shame, then of laughter. “If you don’t remember how you got here, then maybe you should go to the hospital? I can lead you there.”  

“What about taking a walk first, since I’m already here, and then hospital or whatever? It’s nice here. Back where I’m from they’ve chopped all the woods down.”

The latest in the series of proofs that this is a dream: in real life such words would only have persuaded Regina further that he has to go to the hospital.  

But all of this is not real, so she says, “Then let’s go, I’ll show you the caves.”

And they head for the caves, and Regina tells her new acquaintance about Winden – how dreary and dull it is, with mostly nothing to do and nowhere to go, but at least the air is fresh and the trees are tall and ancient. Then they talk about school and music and some other nonsense, until Regina finally realizes that she forgot to ask a very important question.

“Wait,” she stops at the very entrance to the cave and grabs the young man’s hand, and blushes at once, but doesn’t let go. “What is your name?”

He opens his mouth to reply – and she wakes up.

 ***

 The feeling is so similar that the next morning she is even a little disappointed that the night had passed without any dreams. That’s silly, of course – she hasn’t dreamed about him for what, thirty years? And there have been enough men of flesh and blood in her life for her not to worry about the one who never really existed.  

But the slight disappointment doesn’t disappear, and the feeling that something important is about to begin doesn’t go away either, and that Monday Regina brings them along to work.

Waldhotel Winden is facing hard times – frankly speaking, Regina cannot remember if there have ever been any other times. Father converted his estate into a hotel when his young new wife, Regina’s mother, refused to live there. Claudia has never elaborated why she rejected that elegant old building, but the older Regina gets, the more often it crosses her mind that deep down her mother didn’t want to live under the same roof with ghosts – not just Bernd Doppler’s late first wife, but also the memory of herself as a child coming there to tutor little Helge. Sweet shy Helge who, according to age, should have rather been Regina’s uncle not her half-brother; who also refused to live in that mansion that smelled of ancientness and dignity with his equally sweet shy wife. Memories had driven the former residents out of the house, leaving it fit only for the strangers who come and go without any trace other than the payment for the room. Unfortunately, there have always been few such strangers: the comparatively pristine nature and the caves steeped in legend are not enough to turn an otherwise ordinary underdeveloped small town like Winden into a popular tourist destination. Presently, for instance, the only guests at the hotel are an elderly couple who checked in three days ago.                                                                          

It makes no sense to keep a lot of personnel in such situation, so it is Regina herself who is at the reception, while looking through the depressing financial statement for the last half-year. The only guests have gone out, the maid is cleaning upstairs, and when the bell rings above the front door, Regina looks up in involuntary annoyance – she has grown so unaccustomed to visitors that she has almost forgotten their arrival is supposed to make her glad.  

“Hello,” she says, having quickly collected herself.

“Good afternoon,” says the newcomer, a man about her age, broad-shouldered and imposing, in an unbuttoned black coat. “I’d like a single room, please. Surely there are any available at the moment?”  

“Oh, more than enough,” Regina can’t help commenting, smiling unhappily. “Your name?”

“Boris Niewald.”

Regina cannot explain why, upon hearing this, she immediately thinks there must be some sort of mistake. It is a name like any other – why couldn’t he be called that? And it is not that she was expecting him to have some other particular name – yet still she cannot fight the feeling that he was supposed to be called differently. That would have been explainable if she had met this man before, but she is sure it is the first time she sees him.

…almost sure. Something in his features seems vaguely familiar. But that must be just déjà vu – nothing unusual for her and most of the people she knows. She remembers being extremely surprised back in the day that her friends from the university could not recall ever experiencing it. Maybe Winden has some special aura. Ley lines, geopathogenic zones, that sort of thing.  

Maybe it’s just some collective mental health issues.

“I can offer you several rooms to choose from,” she tells him. “You may leave your suitcase in the luggage room for now, so as not to carry it with you.”    

 ***

 “You know what I think?” Hannah begins in a sing-song voice. “I think,” she glances at Regina over the history notebook, while wearing her signature sly smile, “that our Regina has a crush.”  

“What?!” Regina frowns in confusion. That’s so unrelated to what they were just discussing, where did this even come from? “I think you’re thinking wrong.”

“And I think Hannah’s right,” Katharina declares. Great, now it’s two against one. It would have been an option to stand up pointedly and go to the kitchen to grab more cookies, but, firstly, then the girls would definitely decide they’re on the right track, and secondly, Katharina is currently painting Regina’s nails vibrant dark red – how would she leave with her nails not dried yet, and just with three of them to boot? “Spit it out, girl. Who is he?”  

Sometimes Regina cannot believe she’s really friends with these girls. They couldn’t be more different from her in their nature: the rebellious Katharina, quick-tempered and defiant, with bruises under the layers of face powder and sharp words for everyone who dares to look at her the wrong way; the elfin Hannah with her fox face, ambitious and perceptive, prone to imitating the older and more badass Katharina. And then there’s she – so… ordinary. The only remarkable thing about Regina is her good marks, but no one ever likes exemplary students, not even when in need of their help – especially when in need of their help. If it was not for her friends who are more adjusted for survival at school, it would have probably been tough for her, particularly in her childhood and early teenage years, when she used to wear thick-rimmed glasses.        

Regina loves her friends, but there are some things she prefers not to tell them.

“I don’t understand what makes you think I have a crush,” she tries to fight back weakly.  

“It’s just that every time I look at you at the lessons lately, you’re always up in the clouds with such cute zoned-out little face,” Katharina says, and tries to demonstrate at once just what kind of little face that is. Hannah giggles. “Come on, it’s not like it’s bad. On the contrary, we’re happy for you. Who is he? Does he know?”  

He must know, Regina thinks. We see each other once a month or two, go on walks, talk, hold hands, but all of this doesn’t matter because he disappears every time I try to ask him what his name is or tell him my own. Besides, there’s a tiny problem: I only dream about him, and he doesn’t actually exist.  

“There’s no one to know,” she tells them with an apologetic smile. Katharina and Hannah hang out with real guys after school, real guys who buy them ice cream and let them wear their jackets when it gets cold, so they don’t need to know that silly Regina (yes, it’s alright to be silly at sixteen, but not sillier than her peers, after all) is in love with someone who only exists in her head. “And I’m up in the clouds because… I keep thinking that school will be over soon, and I’ll be able to leave. We all will be able to leave. And there’ll be no more Winden for us.”    

“No more Winden for us,” Hannah repeats dreamily, and Katharina nods in agreement. It’s a perfect way to change the subject – the next instant they’re already sharing plans for the future, discussing where they’re going to enrol, where they want to go on holidays. Indeed, no crush looks as attractive as the prospect of leaving their native shithole for good.    

None of them will ever leave Winden for long, but at the time they do not know it yet.

 ***

 Boris Niewald has come to their town as a representative of the company that is building a new shopping centre in Winden. He stays in Waldhotel Winden for a week, and as he comes back every evening that week, he and Regina spend some time talking before the night porter arrives and she goes home. Regina is not in the habit of making close acquaintance with the guests, but when he returns on the evening of the first day, she cannot help asking what his first impressions of Winden are, and then it all happens as if by itself. On the third day, they switch from Sie to du. On the fourth day, she unlocks the liquor cabinet to take out a bottle of expensive brandy given a few years ago by her father’s friend, and offers him a glass on the house.    

On the seventh day, when he was supposed to check out, he asks her if it is possible to extend the reservation.  

“I still have some three days free,” he tells Regina. They’re sitting in the armchairs in the lobby; the elderly couple has already checked out, the maid has a day off, and it seems as if they’re not at the hotel at all, but at home. Her home or his; possibly theirs. “With all this construction I never got a chance to see the town.”  

“I’m afraid this town hardly has anything to offer you,” Regina laughs, toying with the glass in her hand. “We don’t even have a museum. Except the caves, perhaps.”

“The caves? I’ve heard something about them. The ones where someone is said to disappear every year?”

“Well, not every year, but there have been several cases. Usually these poor things get found after a day or two, however – dirty, hungry. Apparently there’s an entire labyrinth of natural origin, and the walls cave in sometimes. There are some weirdos who believe that there is the way to…”  

“The centre of the Earth?”

“More like the other dimensions. About ten years ago, some TV people even came to make a documentary, God. I don’t think it was ever released.”                

“That sounds appealing,” Boris chuckles. Regina likes his smile, his silver beard, his striking blue eyes. Perhaps she has a type, and her new acquaintance is the perfect match. Both of her husbands looked similarly – both the one who married her, as it quickly came to light, hoping to make a career at the publishing house of the only Winden newspaper, which was headed by her mother back then, and the one that cheated on her a year and a half after their wedding. In other words, both the one that she still never says hello to and the one she still exchanges birthday and Christmas greetings with. The latter and his wife had some kind of unprecedented abundance of currant in their garden last year, and they gave Regina two jars of currant jam; oh the small towns where everyone knows each other in many different senses.      

Perhaps her type was shaped by the fact that at the age of fifteen to approximately twenty she frequently dreamed about a handsome boy with precisely such beautiful blue eyes. What of it.                            

“You don’t hurry home lately, I see” Claudia observes in the morning while Regina is making breakfast. Her mother is reading a fresh newspaper – undoubtedly thinking that without her being editor-in-chief, that newspaper has gone to shit. “Is he trustworthy?”  

“He? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Regina replies flatly as she puts oatmeal and dried fruit into the bowls.

“What, a she? Didn’t think you’d take after your grandmother, but it’s never too late to get to know yourself, I guess.”

“There’s no one, Mama,” Regina says determinedly. In two days Boris returns to Marburg. There is no point in starting anything.  

There is no point in starting anything – yet when on her day off Boris asks her out for dinner, she says yes.

There is no point in starting anything – yet when he kisses her in the hotel corridor it takes her some time to make herself pull away.

“Forgive me,” Boris says when he sees her face. “I suppose I shouldn’t have done this.”

“That’s right,” Regina says and forces a smile. Tomorrow he’s leaving.

There is no point in starting anything – yet when he closes the door after himself and she takes a few steps down the corridor, she realizes suddenly that she doesn’t care. Then she turns around and goes back before letting herself change her mind and knocks on the door of his room. He opens at once.  

That night she feels madly young, young and loving and loved.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Boris promises her when he puts the key to the room in her hand the next morning.

There is no point in starting anything, yet she thinks: come back to me.  

And, for some reason: come home.

 ***

 At the high school graduation party, the girls from Regina’s class dance with their boyfriends or with the boys they hope to make their boyfriends, lay their heads on their partners’ shoulders, bodies pressed together, hearts full of excitement. As to Regina, she gets asked to a dance by Peter, her nephew-who-looks-rather-like-her-cousin, which is very nice of him. They keep stepping on each other’s feet and laughing about it, and then Take My Breath Away gives way to lively disco, and Regina dances with Katharina and Hannah and then with Peter again and then with some kids who she hasn’t exchanged a word with throughout the entire school year. There are no more couples, just a single happy crowd, and they spin and throw their hands up in the air, like a record, baby, right round, round round.

Officially alcohol at the graduation party is banned. Unofficially, part of the parents and teachers who are chaperoning them all in the festively decorated gym does not care and another part is sneakily sipping something from thermos bottles and flasks themselves. Regina drinks a couple of glasses of the wine that Katharina brought with her in a juice carton. She doesn’t drink often enough to know much about such things, but two glasses mustn’t be too much. It mustn’t be enough to explain why, when she steps out to the porch to take the air and raises her eyes up to the sky, she sees what she sees and stumbles and almost falls down, taken by surprise.      

“You all right?” she hears a voice behind her back. Charlotte Tannhaus approaches her, looking rather curious than worried. “Are you going to be sick?”  

“N-no,” Regina tells her, with something that should ideally pass for a reassuring smile. “It just seemed like…”  

“Like?”

She and Charlotte Tannhaus have never been close, but now both of them are drunk, and besides, Regina is going to leave for the university soon, and whether anyone in Winden thinks her crazy shall lose all importance.

“Like there were two moons in the sky,” she says. ‘Then they merged into one.”

Charlotte nods pensively, as if Regina has just said something extraordinarily deep.  

“Maybe that was a vision,” she points out. “Like… we’re all at the crossroads now, right? School is over, life is beginning? Maybe the two moons are like two different paths.”

“That merge into one because they’re actually one and the same?”

“Possible. Or it might even be the third path, another one. Maybe.”  

Yeah, Regina thinks, they’re definitely drunk.

“I thought I’d be just leaning up against the wall for half the evening, but it turned out quite great. I wish you were there,” she tells her stranger in a dream that night.

“Yeah, I’d love to go with you,” he says, and then adds something strange:

“It’s a shame you’re not real.”

 ***

 A month later – a month of phone calls and Skype calls, a month when Regina keeps reminding herself not to hope too much and still hopes more and more with each day – Boris comes back.

“I have to tell you something which will make you think that I’m not quite right in the head,” he tells her on the first evening after his arrival. This time he isn’t staying in Waldhotel – he’s staying at her place. “Or that I am lying and being incredibly bad at it.”

“Try me,” she suggests merrily.

“When I was young, I would often see the same dream. Or rather, different dreams about the same girl,” Boris comes up to her writing desk, picks up a framed photo – Regina with her mother and grandfather – and looks at it thoughtfully. In the picture, Regina is sixteen, she has voluminous curls and bright eye shadow in the true spirit of the eighties, and, in the opinion of adult Regina, she’s very small, funny, and good. Better than she thought herself back then, probably. “I wouldn’t say I used to be lonely at that time – I had friends, I had everything, basically – but every time I woke up hoping I’d see her again. I believe I was a little bit in love with her – as if with a singer or a teacher, you know, without any hope that my feelings might be returned. What kind of return might be there if she didn’t really exist, after all?”          

He puts the photo back on the desk, and turns to Regina.

“At least I was sure she didn’t exist. And now we’ve come to the part that will make you think me either a liar or crazy,” he smiles at her, but eyes her earnestly, clearly preparing to say something important, clearly wishing for it to be taken seriously despite all the jokes. “You look like her. Judging by this photo, you’re spitting images of each other.”

“What was her name?” Regina asks with bated breath. Boris frowns; he must have been expecting anything but such question.  

“I don’t know. I woke up each time I tried to ask her.”

Regina gets up off the bed and comes up to him.

“I think I also have something to tell you,” she says, “that will make you think me either a liar or crazy.”

Now, as luck would have it, it would be the time for the dream to end – but they are really there, really together, and what has started will not end at the crack of dawn, will not end if they let it go on, will not ever end.

[killscreencinema]

Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)

So I totally caved and bought the new Super Mario All-Stars 3D for the Switch.  I was holding out hope that, similar to the Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES, Nintendo would remake Mario 64 with updated graphics, better camera, and tighter controls.  Instead it got an HD polish and Mario now says “Bye bye” instead of “So long gay Bowser” while tossing the Koopa king.

Let’s not focus on what Mario All-Stars 3D could have been, though, and instead discuss Super Mario 64, including its legacy, my memories of first playing it, and how it holds up today.

When Mario 64 was released in 1996, to say it blew my mind would be an understatement.  Never before had I experienced a 3D platforming game of such scope and with such precise, responsive controls.  We take it for granted now, but before Mario 64, 3D games that weren’t first-person shooters made by id Software were... irksome.   Nobody had quite nailed the fluid range of motion of a 3D platformer before Mario 64.

So skip to me standing in a Toys R’ Us (remember those???), playing a demo of Mario 64 for the first time ever and being absolutely enthralled.  I just couldn’t believe it - Nintendo had done it.  They brought Mario into 3D and it absolutely worked!  Not only was I blown away by the gameplay, the graphics, and the sound but I was also captivated with curiosity at what other wonderful stages and secrets were contained in Peach’s Castle.

When I finally got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas, I was thrilled to explore the game further and playing through the game that following winter, exploring every inch of it, getting every star, and desperately looking for how to unlock Luigi (one of the first video game urban legends I can remember), is one of my favorite gaming memories. 

Later in life I would often revisit the game, but never finish it and certainly wouldn’t bother to try getting all 120 stars.  I would fiddle around with the first handful of levels, go “Man, I loved this game”, and move on.  Only recently, with the release of All-Stars 3D, have I taken the time to fully complete Mario 64 for the first time since high school, and I have some things to say about it...

...it’s still great!  Don’t worry, despite the criticisms I am about to hurl towards it, I want to be clear that at its core it’s still a great game.  Mario games, and other 3D platformers, have certainly surpassed it while building on the foundation Mario 64 laid out.  However, Mario 64 is still very playable and very fun.

On the other hand...

...that camera is a real son-of-a-bitch.  Considering it’s a Lakitu, one of Mario’s enemies, holding the camera, I suspect he fucks you up on purpose.  Hear me out - even though he claims to be a good guy at the beginning of the game, I believe it’s one of Bowser’s most clever schemes yet:  send a double agent to act as camera for the player, but is instead one of the game’s greatest obstacles.  At its worst, the camera will violently shift angles while you’re precariously walking a narrow platform, making you lose balance and plummet to your death.  The camera also fucks up the controls a bit in that it changes the basic directions depending on the angle.  So for example, when you’re hanging off a ledge, normally you tilt up on the joystick for Mario to climb back up.  However, if you’re hanging off a ledge from a strange angle, pressing up makes Mario commit suicide.  It’s really quite infuriating.

I think we had greater patience for these things in 96 because it was all so new, and despite its flaws, Mario 64 still nailed navigating a 3D environment better than anything else at the time.  By today’s standards, though, it can be a real pain in the ass.

If I’m going to be nitpicky about anything else, it’s that I was always rather disappointed by the power-ups in this game.  Metal Head Mario is cool, and I love the theme, while the Flying Cap is fine too, but the blue invisibility cap is fairly useless, and there’s nothing else past that (unless you count the occasional turtle shell surfing).  For a game series that was built on an interesting variety of power-ups, especially in Super Mario 3, I found the Caps in Mario 64 a tad underwhelming, but I get that they were still figuring out the limitations and tech for 3D platforming.

By the way, I mentioned the Metal Head Mario theme, so I would be remiss not to talk about Koji Kondo’s incredible soundtrack.  How that man is able to come up with iconic theme after theme is really quite amazing when you think about it.  Each Mario game has its distinct central “Mario theme”, as well as memorable themes for other stages, and Mario 64 is certainly no exception.  I mean, my god, the tranquil and serene synth melody for Dire, Dire Docks is probably one of the best pieces of video game music ever:

In summary, the point of this post is to just restate the obvious about the greatness and shortcomings of Mario 64 before I move on to discuss how criminally underrated Super Mario Sunshine is...

[weirdponytail]

I promised pics of the books at the Ket Cave and thus I deliver

There’s a few pics so you can read the titles so if you dont wanna see these I’ve added this handy ‘read more’ for you.

ONWARD!

I’m working on the setup. And yes that light is blinding.

This is just the lower shelf. I’ve decided to keep my Eragon coloring book pages, Peace and Sirenity binder and folder, and all my paints, pencils, art stuff, etc down here.

Main shelf!

Eragon and Eldest, OFC. I’ve not read Prisoner B-3087 yet, I just got it yesterday. Next is Escape from Camp 14, a biography from a defector from NK who grew up in the ‘three generation’ secret prison camps (this isn’t a long past thing, it’s relatively recent). After that is another new book from yesterday, How to Build a Dinosaur because who wouldn’t want that book? Also I’m lacking paleo and geo books. My Side of the Mountain is always worth some rereading imo, it’s a good book. 

Now on to the stranger stuff. The Woman with a Worm in Her Head is a book about some of the more whacky infectious disease and parasites and stories about them. The Hot Zone, while completely exaggerating Ebola a disgusting amount, did boost my interest in infectious disease to a level that led me to enrolling as a microbio student when I first started uni before I switched to Geology. 

I’d admit, I bought Pandemic ages ago. It was written in the years following the first SARS outbreak, when everyone was terrified of a combination of another SARS outbreak (oh look what we have now!) and post-9/11 bioterrorism fears. I’ve never really been able to finish it, due to being disgusted by the stereotyping at some points, but I figure i should choke through it due to the current situation.

Next is Spillover. 10/10, ALWAYS recommend Spillover, read it (or at least the first two sections or so) BEFORE you read The Hot Zone. It’s gotten more press due to the current pandemic which is good but means it’s kinda hard to find now.

Hey, Fullmetal Alchemist!

The Desserts Cookbook. Mama Cat gave this to me. 

What if? is hillarous and super informative. If it helps, the front is a picture of a TRex being lowered into a Sarlacc pit. A guy answers all the crazy questions like ‘what if you collected ALL the elements of the periodic table one by one and placed them in a periodic table?’ (the answer is lots of terrible things) or ‘what if you threw a baseball at the speed of light?’ etc etc. I really recommend this one.

Jurassic Park and The Lost World. Because I’m a motherfluffin’ paleontology student, ofc I needed to read them! I’m actually in the middle of The Lost World right now but had to put it on hold.

The Ends of the World. Extinction events. They’re like crack to me.

Heheheh. Calvin and Hobbs: Yukon Ho! You gotta have some of that in a new place.

Alright, on to the next shelf!

This is the reference shelf. The two books on the far left are Dr Halsey’s ‘journal’ that came with the limited/extra special edition of Halo Reach. I actually bought it off ebay for a ridiculous amount of money that I wont specify, but it was worth it for all the cool notes on SPARTAN-II augmentations (which I frequently use as baseline reference for Modern Inheritance Cycle elves). The second book is The Book of Runes. Because I’ve always had it with me and it always ends up being useful somehow. 

Starting from the bottom of the left stack we haaaaave:

A Guide to Nuclear Power Technology: A Resource for Decision Making. Ironically published two years before the Chernobyl disaster. I’ve read the first three chapters. Having a general understanding is a personal choice. 

The A to Z of INfectious Diseases. I mentioned I was going into infectious disease before, right? I’ve read that from front to back and wrote some notes on the 2014 Ebola epidemic. I should probably write an entry on Covid at some point too. 

Surviving the Wilds of Florida. Quick and handy reference!

That last one is a book about the crafts of Florida’s indigenous peoples. Nice little book. 

Second stack, starting from the bottom again!

Gray’s Anatomy. And no, it’s not the compilation of all episode transcripts, that’s the real, dense deal right there. You gotta know what you could be breaking if you’re writing torture and injuries in fanfiction....

Genki 1 and 2. Still trying to keep up with my summer studies. 

A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s The Legend of Drizzt. This was given to me by a woman who tutored/babysat me in middle school. She introduced me to LoD, and thus my first introduction to the world of DnD (though i didn’t realize it at the time), and is why I always chose Undercommon as an extra language in DnD. Fantastic series, beautiful art. 

That turned book is actually a custom printed book someone made of me through middle and high school and gave as a gift at graduation. 

Woop Woop, Eragon coloring book!!

A Practical Guide to Dragons. I think this might be tied in to one of the older DnD editions. It’s still a fun book with lots of different dragons in shapes, sizes and colors.

And that’s it! :D 

[jokertrap-ran]

(未定事件簿) EVENT! 「消失的黄金」 [Tears of Themis] EVENT: The Lost Gold Translations (Mo Yi Chapter 2-05: Mountain Zone)

“...Let’s just say that there’s a saying; to have one’s view obscured by trivialities.”

*Tears of Themis Masterlist is under construction. *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *(y/n) is your name when in direct referral; otherwise referred to as MC.

Location: Mountain

Wang Xian looked a little deflated after his lie was exposed. But we kept going, for we had to reach the next Camp before it got dark out.

He told us exactly how he got ahold of the riddle as we made our way there.

Wang Xian: I actually knew that there might really be gold here, on this Island, the first time I came here.

Wang Xian: This all started when Dong Hechuan asked me to find a certain book for him.

Location: Prison Visiting Room

Dong Hechuan: Dr. Wang, I've recently read a book about Ancient Egyptian Culture.

Dong Hechuan: I think it's pretty interesting. I want to know more about it, so can you help me borrow a book from the Public Library?

Wang Xian: What book? Does the Prison's E-Book Library not have it?

Wang Xian: Unless…it's a prohibited book?

Dong Hechuan: It can't really be classified as a prohibited book. It's from a rather grey area and it's also something from an era long past.

Dong Hechuan: I can only find the title of the book in the Prison's E-Book Library, but not the actual book itself.

Wang Xian: You've certainly piqued my interest. What book is it?

Dong Hechuan: It's the "Book of the Dead". I've already confirmed that the Public Library has a physical copy of the book.

Dong Hechuan: You'll help me out , won't you, Doctor Wang?

Dong Hechuan winked as he said that. Clearly, there was something going on between them.

Wang Xian: Wanting to learn is a good thing.

Wang Xian: If only everyone in the Prison was just like you, then everyone would have gotten out that much quicker.

Wang Xian: And once they’re out, they can get a good job and a new start.

Dong Hechuan: That’s pretty high and mighty coming from you. You can see from just a single glance that things are different for a small grunt like me.

Wang Xian: Just wait, I’ll borrow the book for you. You have to hurry and finish reading it though. I have to return the book on-time.

Wang Xian: Else, having an overdue book will tarnish my borrowing records.

Dong Hechuan: Don’t you worry! I won’t make things hard for you at all.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

MC: So you thought of the gold legends surrounding Nosta Island back when Dong Hechuan asked of you to borrow a book for him?

Wang Xian: Of course not. I didn’t think that much into it at that time.

Wang Xian: The only time I actually thought about the gold on Nosta Island was when Dong Hechuan returned the book.

Wang Xian: I found a sheet of handwritten notes within the “Book of the Dead” that he returned.

Wang Xian: Written on the note was a simplified map of Nosta Island and a couple of poetic lines.

Mo Yi: You made the connection that it probably had something to do with the reason why Dong Hechuan was in Prison, and that Nosta Island might actually have gold on it. And then, you came directly to the Island…

Mo Yi: You probably wanted to monopolize all the gold for your own back then, correct?

Mo Yi: At that time, he probably hadn’t shown you his true colors, neither did he coerce you to reduce his sentence and get him out of Prison, right?

Wang Xian: That’s right. We were still on pretty good terms at that time.

Wang Xian: After obtaining that note, I immediately made time to come down to Nosta Island.

Wang Xian: Back then, I finally found a similar cave to the one described in the poem after searching the Island for days on end; but there was nothing there.

Wang Xian: I only found out that that cave I found back then was actually the resting place of Dong Hechuan’s fallen brothers, after I had come to the Island together with him.

Dong Hechuan: It’s the place where he went to pay his respects.

Wang Xian: And that the riddle on the note was something he created by playing around with the original.

Mo Yi: Do you still remember the contents of the “fake” riddle?

Wang Xian: I don’t. That riddle was awkward-sounding, making it hard to remember.

Mo Yi: Then, exactly when did Dong Hechuan give you this piece of parchment that’s currently in our hands?

Wang Xian: Right before we got to the Island this time.

Wang Xian: I’d already explored that swamp and the terrain around it, so I’m familiar with the area.

MC: Did you question him immediately, upon failing your first expedition to the Island?

MC: Have you never thought about the fact that there might not even be gold on the Island at all?

Wang Xian: There’s definitely gold on the Island.

The finality in his answer caught me by surprise.

MC: Why?

Wang Xian: If there wasn’t gold, then why would he borrow the “Book of the Dead”?

Wang Xian: I checked his borrowing records during his time in prison. He has never once read anything relevant to Ancient Egypt.

Wang Xian: He specifically borrowed this book to solve the riddle that the second leader left behind.

Wang Xian: Dong Hechuan also insisted on wanting to get out of the Prison, the moment he heard that PAX Entertainment had bought the Island. Which only further proves to show that the rumor about there being gold on the Island is true.

Wang Xian: Otherwise, he’d have another two years before his intended release from prison; there’s no real need for him to be in such a hurry to get out.

Wang Xian: It’s not like he’s afraid of PAX digging up his gold.

Mo Yi: Wang Xian, does he have any other acquaintances that he might be secretly close with besides you?

Mo Yi had suddenly interjected with a question that had nothing to do with the gold at all.

Wang Xian: Probably not. Even if he did, they’d only be the other Prisoners back in the prison.

Mo Yi: ……

We had reached the bank of the night river while conversing.

Standing on the elevated grounds of the mountain slope, I could see a small ferry across the river which should have been placed there by the Event Organizer.

Wang Xian immediately ran off the slope, making a break towards said ferry.

MC: Mo Yi, do you really think there’s gold on this Island?

MC: I can’t help but to feel that Dong Hechuan is playing him.

Mo Yi: If I absolutely have to say, then, I think there’s something very precious or important hidden on this Island.

Mo Yi: Whether this may or may not be the gold, that, I am unsure.

MC: Why?

Mo Yi: Let’s put everything else aside. Think about it, why would Xia Yan come to this Island?

Mo Yi: There are some things that aren’t convenient for us to be asking about, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

MC: Hmm… You do have a point.

Mo Yi: And regarding Dong Hechuan…

Not far ahead, Wang Xian had already undocked the small ferry and was waving back at us.

Wang Xian: Hey! Hurry and get over here, guys!

MC: If my memory serves right, he’s only here with us because we coerced him…

MC: Isn’t he a tad too proactive for a hostage?

Mo Yi: He won’t attempt to separate from us and act alone on his own accord; not until he has found the gold and safely left the Island.

MC: And why is that so?

Mo Yi: Wang Xian can never confront Dong Hechuan alone if it comes to it.

Mo Yi: Theoretically speaking, Dong Hechuan can never manage to move the gold that weighs over a 100 kilograms or more by himself…

Mo Yi: But Wang Xian is still wary that he might try to silence him while still on the Island.

Mo Yi: Together, we make a three-man team. Which is a slightly distinctive advantage to have.

MC: He really calculated this through, I see.

I opened the Tracking APP to check on things, noticing how the dot that represented Dong Hechuan was steadily getting closer to Xia Yan’s position. And it seemed like neither of them had any intention of heading towards us.

Mo Yi: Wang Xian isn’t stupid, but...Let’s just say that there’s a saying; to have one’s view obscured by trivialities.

Mo Yi: It’s a pair of gold leaves that are obscuring Wang Xian’s vision, I’m afraid.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

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[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance ep 7 liveblog

“Time to Make… My Move”

Life got busy for a while and then I forgot to watch and then I remembered the game existed and I bought it and I played it and got to the point in the plot where I left off and realized crap I’d better get the plot from the show not the game, the game hasn’t been stellar with story.

So here we are!

Just a stream of thoughts.

And we start with vomiting Hup. Okay then. Good place to pick up.

Rian: “How could so much come out of one little podling?”

“The most beautiful desert flowers are always the most dangerous” This Dousan guy is a flirt!

Hup: -vomits-

Hah.

I like this desert with its random crystal spikes. Its very cool. Its got a lot of lightning which hits the sand and turns it into glass I guess.

The Circle of the Suns.

Uh oh lightning sandstorm

Lore: ‘i’m getting outta here!’ grabs brea and tries to climb up the mountain.

Brea: ‘don’t split the party my dude’

The CGI of Lore climbing the mountain looks a little stop motiony which makes me feel better about it being CGI.

Rian: “Well that was exciting” the anti-Jen.

I think Jen would have curled into an overstimulation ball by this point.

Heretic: “GELFLING”

Me: “SKEKSIS!”

Heretic: “WELCOME”

Heretic: “ITS WONDERFUL TO SEE YOU! LOOK UPON MY WONDER”

I like him

Hey, Heretic is Lore’s dad. Nice.

RIan: “You’re a Skeksis”

HERETIC: “I’M A WHAT??!?? THAT WAS A JEST! I’M A FUN SKEKSIS!”

I like him!

Heretic: “COME INSIDE AND BRING YOUR PODLING SLAVE”

Deet: “He’s not our slave, he’s our friend!”

Heretic: “????? EVEN BETTER”

He used to be the Conqueror and I could see it.

Heretic: “WELCOME TO THE CIRCLE OF THE SUUUN” -maniacally laughs for like a minute-

Rian: “Are you alone here?”

Heretic: “YES I AM ALONE so very alone BUT I’M ALSO WITH MYSELF”

Oh hey an UrRu

I think this is the first time any Gelfling has met an UrRu and they apparently they thought they were just legend.

Heretic losing his shit as UrGoh slowly walks over and slowly introduces himself.

UrGoh is apparently the Yakov Smirnov of Mystics.

Aw he’s shutting down Lore 

Lore hugs Brea goodbye

Heretic: “HMMPH HE NEVER HUGGED ME LIKE THAT BUT WHY SHOULD HE WE ONLY GAVE HIM LIFE”

And pulls out his shiny life ball.

Hup is not having a good time here.

Heretic: “WE HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU”

Brea: “We don’t really have time for a surprise”

Heretic: “WE HAVE WAITED OVER THREE HUNDRED TRINE FOR YOU TO SHOW UP! YOU WILL BE SURPRISED!!”

So over at the castle of the crystal, apparently the Skeksis have a hotline telephone webline right to the arathim. Not sure why since they’re apparently the sworn enemy of the Skeksis

OH SWEET the arathim are like a hive mind and form a big talking face to talk to the Emperor.

THis is really cool and creepy puppetry. 

Oh so the Arathim Ascendency were banished into the wild and been labelled public enemy one because they rose up against the Skeksis. So they were really just ahead of the curve.

The Emperor promises to return the arathim home cave to them if the arathim help quell the gelfling rebellion.

Deet: -almost eats some drug berries-

Rian: “Maybe don’t”

Poor Deet. I don’t think she’s had time to really adjust to the surface world before getting thrown into all kinds of misfortunes and mishaps.

Rian: “I think your nurloc rump dress is quite lovely” Aw, what a flirt!

I can see why the internet lost its shit over the Heretic and the Wanderer. They’re a delight.

Heretic is going to present THE TRUE HISTORY OF THRA

Aw poor Hup, he’s been press ganged into being an actor and Heretic has endless notes on his performance. Poor guy.

Hmm… what conquest could the Conqueror conquer if the Skeksis were seen as the rightful caretakers of Thra? What did the world look like in his prime?

Maybe the arathim maybe.

Then Thra gave urGoh and the Heretic a vision that Skeksis and UrRu should unite not divide. And the other Skeksis were like ‘gross’ and kicked him out.

They don’t mention what the Mystics said. Probably ‘lets not get ahead of ourselves.’

Heretic and Wanderer do an opera. Which is RANDOM VOCALIZING.

Emperor: “The Darkening!”

General: “Its purple”

Oh the arathim cave is infected with the Darkening so the Emperor is screwing them over. How expected.

Oh nerts the emperor thinks he can control the darkening eventually-

PUT YOUR NOSE BAACK ON SIR I DO NOT CARE FOR THIS

Emperor: “Never forget, there is absolutely nothing in this world which does not bend to my will”

If he’s messing with dark corruptive power no wonder he aged like crap and died before the other core group of Skeksis.

Oh double nerts, the Hunter is in the desert chasing down Rian.

Dousan flirt: “I’m not afraid of getting hacked to pieces by you”

His sidekick: “I AM, THEY’RE AT THE CIRCLE OF THE SUNS”

Deet is the only one who stayed awake through the whole opera. Aka the only one with TASTE

THEY’RE GOING TO DO PUPPETS

Puppets doing puppets how meta.

So they’re going over the plot reveal from the movie that the Skeksis and the UrRu used to be one. Hey they even have an UrSkek puppet. 

Also that the UrSkeks are aliens. 

They wooed Aughra with an orrery and then started doing experiments on the crystal. AND BROKE IT.

The worst house guests.

And then when the Skeksis started bullying the Mystics, they accidentally broke a shard off the crystal.

These are really good puppets that these puppets are puppeting.

UrGoh: “Every moment one is two is too terrible for one to bear”

Huh. Super special sword. The Dual Glaive. I guess since they can’t use the shard macguffin they need a different plot device.

Heretic: “Cast in the deepest fires of the inner sun, it carries the spirit of Thra. And when held by Gelfling holds the power to unite the seven clans and defeat the Skeksis!”

INNER SUN IS CANON

GIMME THURMA PLS

Pffft UrGoh accidentally set himself on fire the poor dear.

Rian just assumes that he’s the one who gets the plot sword. Pretty presumptive of him.

Heretic: “WE DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE THE DUAL GLAIVE”

They gave it to “the most reclusive of gelflings” where the three brothers dare not shine.

Deet: “oh hey its in my home”

Maudra Fara is planning to storm the castle. But a castle guard shows up and tells her that the castle guard were all killed by the skeksis

Fara promises to make the Skeksis pay.

Aughra: “Promises you cannot keep are no better than lies!”

Hello the all-wise buzzkill.

Fara: “No its cool after we overthrow the skeksis we’ll melt our weapons and have peace and stuff”

Aughra: “my point is that you should plot to survive you damn lemmings”

She’s not doing a good job convincing them to not try to fight because her suggestion is ‘go away and hide and a gelfling will eventually take care of things’

Also doesn’t help that she foretells that Stone-in-the-wood might fall and that just makes Fara indignant.

Oh no Tavra is getting chosen to be the ‘strong gelfling’ to be sacrificed to the arathim

She was too cool to live =(

UrGoh: “As   they   say……. Whats  good   in    the    gourd…… is    good    in    the    gelfling”

Heretic: “WHO SAYS THAT??”

UrGoh: “Every  one”

DAMMIT HUNTER WHY YOU BREAKING UP THIS COMEDY ACT much rude.

Hup stood up to the Hunter to protect Deet and whoops he’s light mass and got tossed

Hunter: “WHERES YOU FATHER NOW?”

Thats just a low blow.

Hey its the Archer! He’s come to shoot himself to save the others. That takes determination.

And Hunter runs off with Brea out of spite. What a dick.

Ooo near night sky in the desert of Thra is beautiful. Love the scenery.

And back at Stone-in-the-wood right when Maudra Fara is planning the castle attack on the war planning board the Skeksis General show up. WITH A WHOLE BUNCH OF SPIDERS

The General is kinda more extra than you’d think of him. I mean, all Skeksis are extra but I saw him as one of the more lowkey ones. Like a watered down Garthim-Master.

Huh. Princess Tavra is here. Looking… Oh no she’s speaking with the voice of the legion.

OH NO SHE’S MADE OF SPIDERS 

UNPLEASANT

I know these are dangerous spider monsters but they’re tiny and the Gelfling trying to stomp on them is kinda silly.

Then again I have minor arachnophobia so this is still working on me.

Oh gross the threader arathim borged the whole stone-in-the-wood village.

Wait, if they’re this dangerous how come they were a backwater problem this whole time?

One tries to get Aughra

Aughra: “What? You try to control Aughra? AUGHRA CAN BARELY CONTROL AUGHRA!” -yeets the spider-

That’s a mood.

Emperor: -watching the plot through a telescope- “lol”

[danetobelieve]

Fangs For The Memories || Ricky and Winston

Really, as far as roommates went, Winston was pretty much as good as one could get. Ricky liked having them around, and they got along well enough, but sometimes it was nice to have the house to himself. Winston had mentioned they were going to spend the night at their parents, so Ricky was enjoying the concept of some home-alone time which meant time he didn’t have to spend in hiding. Rifling through the refrigerator, Ricky decided it was as good a night as any to treat himself to the nice piece of salmon he’d bought the other day, and he was in the process of firing up the stove to sear it when he heard the front door slam open. Several things went through his mind in quick succession; one, that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and two, that his false teeth were in their case in his nightstand, and not in his mouth which was currently filled with very bright very sharp fangs that were on display for his very human roommate to see. He slammed the refrigerator shut and busied himself in the spice cabinet, keeping his back to Winston, “Oh hey dude…. You’re back early. Everything good?”

Winston was very wet still. After hanging out at their parents they’d been distracted by Pokemon Go and through a weird series of events with Skylar -- a girl they met through chance really -- they had been attacked by a gollum-esque creature and Skylar had revealed a rather sharp looking set of fangs. It was … well it was a lot to take in. Winston was trying to explain what they had seen just hours before, and on autopilot they had driven straight home to change. After all the Cave of Voices wasn’t the ideal place to go and fight weird animal things (which Winston was in the process of convincing themselves that’s what they must be) without getting a little wet. Brushing sand out of their hair, they slipped in the front door and pulled off their coat, hanging it to dry before heading towards the kitchen. “I had a very … weird experience.” Winston frowned gently as they strode into the kitchen. 

Ricky carefully kept his back to Winston, grabbing some spices from the cabinet and mixing them in a small bowl. Without turning he reached over and twisted the volume down on music he was listening to; he knew it was probably louder than was standard for a normal conversation. “A weird experience?” He called over his shoulder, patting the spice mixture into the large salmon filet. There was no easy way to exit the conversation and make his way upstairs to put the most crucial piece of his human disguise back on. He turned over his shoulder to look at Winston and furrowed his brow at their appearance, “why are you wet?” He kept his lips as close together as he could but knew it’d be a hard conversation to follow if he couldn’t read Winston’s lips as they were talking. His hearing wasn’t completely absent on land, but it was bad enough that he usually needed to supplement with lip reading “Didn’t think it was supposed to rain tonight?”

Winston had left a basket of clean laundry in the utility room, slipping in, they began to peel their now damp clothes off of their skinny body, throwing each item of clothing straight into the washing machine and stepping into a fresh, clean pair. “I am getting to why I am wet, but have you ever been to the Cave of Voices beneath the Hanging Rock?” Winston was sure that Ricky wouldn’t have been there, “I was up at mom and dad’s and they were boring so I was playing Pokemon Go and I wandered over there.” They paused as they pulled on a warm pair of joggers and zipped a hoodie snuggly around them, pulling the hood up and slipping their glasses back on before going to take a seat at the breakfast bar. “So I go in search of a Pokemon I want, I end up in this little sea cave, and there’s that girl who helped me at the internship with those hard of hearing kids, Skylar, I’m sure I mentioned her a few months ago.” They weren’t really paying attention to what Ricky was doing, focussed more on explaining their weird day. “But that’s not the weirdest part. There was something in there.”

Ricky stiffened slightly when Winston mentioned the Cave of Voices. As far as he knew it wasn’t the permanent home of anything dangerous but it definitely had enough supernatural visitors that it wasn’t a place humans should be hanging out regularly. “You went to the Cave of Voices for a Pokémon? That place is super dangerous, Win. The tides will drag you out to sea real easy if you’re not careful.” It was Winston’s mention of something else in the cave that really gave Ricky pause however. “what kind of something?” He turned to face his roommate, cupping his chin in such a way where his fingers obscured his mouth. He didn’t think anything had taken up residence in the Cave recently but if something had it was something that was going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later and he didn’t really feel in the mood to have a knock down drag out fight with yet another alghoul. “You want some dinner? I’ve got enough for two here.”

Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston couldn’t help but admit that they wished they had known that before hand. “Now you tell me that it is dangerous?!” Winston replied exasperatedly, “If I’d known about the tides I would never have gone there.” They were too nervous taking risks as it was already. Risk averse might as well be their double barrelled middle name. “But like I was saying, the tide was not the problem, the problem was this something, and what kind of something I couldn’t tell you. Maybe if a bat and orangutan had a baby then it would’ve looked like this, but it also just looked like a jacked Gollum.” Winston wanted to tell Ricky the whole story, to explain about Skylar’s veneers and everything with her mouthful of teeth, but they didn’t feel as if that was really their secret to share. “It came after me and Skylar…” they paused and shrugged, “I’ve called animal control and informed the sergeant at the office.” After all one of the perks of working at the police department was if anything went wrong then they would be able to talk to someone they knew personally. “They said they’d send someone down there to check it out, but I don’t know if they really believed me.” Pausing for a moment, they adjusted their glasses and nodded. “If you’ve got enough, I wouldn’t say no.” 

“Haven’t you lived here your whole life?! You should know that tidal caves are some bad news bears up in this bitch. I’m glad you two made it out okay but that shit coulda gone south if the tides were super strong.” Ricky grabbed a pan from the rack and lit the stove, listening to the click click click of the pilot before the burner caught and the flame whooshed to life. A pat of butter went in the pan as he carefully listened to Winston’s story, mentally trying to catalogue what it might be that was lurking down in the cave. “Did it hurt you guys? Wild……. animals can have all sorts of nasty diseases. We should get you to the hospital if you got bit or scratched.” He knew a lot of the lesser necrophages were disgusting disease vectors, and even a scratch from one of them could lead to a terrible infection. “Well. I believe you. The legends about that place” and the entire town, he thought silently to himself, “put some pretty gnarly shit down in there. I haven’t been in since I was a high schooler,” another convenient lie, “and I don’t plan on going back anytime soon.” Given the description Ricky thought it was probably a ghoul that had attacked them, which made him feel slightly better. Ghouls weren’t that terrible. “Two salmon dinners coming right up then.” 

“Hey,” Winston snapped back, shaking their head indignantly, “I know it was a bad decision, I don’t need you to call me out like that. Besides, I’m just fine at swimming, I’d have managed. I’m more concerned about the fact that Gollum is down there and apparently without the one ring.” Raising their palms, Winston showed Ricky their palms which were still grazed and raw from their fall in the cave. “I have a few bumps and bruises, it really went took it out on Skylar worse, she was in a worse state then me but we both made it out.” Winston was surprised that Ricky accepted their story so easily. “I can’t reconcile it within my own head, it was like something out of a game dude, there’s… there’s …. I just can’t get it straight. I know rationally that this makes no sense. But I saw what I saw.” Not to mention Skylar’s fangs. This town was getting weirder and weirder by the second. Picking at the drawstring  of their waist band, Winston smiled gratefully before taking their glasses and anxiously polishing them. “Thanks, I appreciate this dude.” They knew they must’ve interrupted a quiet night alone, which was a rarity for the both of them. 

“It’s literally your roommates job to call you out when you do dumb shit. It’s like in the roommate handbook. You need a beer to settle your nerves?” Ricky pulled two out of the fridge and popped the tops off, sliding one across the counter without waiting for a reply before turning back to the meal he was cooking. The kitchen was starting to fill with the smell of pungent spices as Ricky thought about his next move. He prided himself on being honest with the people around him; but there were some very specific loopholes to that policy and they all dealt with the supernatural. Which is why he was less than pleased with his choice to gaslight his roommate. “I’m sure Gollum himself wasn’t lurking in the Cave of Voices.” He kept his voice pitched light and breezy, “it’s dark, it’s cramped, and it’s more than a little creepy. The human brain likes to fill in all sorts of blanks with the insane when it’s confronted with something terrifying. You probably just startled some poor forest creature who got stuck in there by the tide. You’re lucky you don’t catch rabies.”

Winston was about to say that they didn’t want a beer, but Ricky put one in their hand anyway and the cold, malty liquid felt good. “Thanks dude, I know it is your job to make sure that I’m not doing anything that could potentially kill me.” Ricky was a good guy. He had done a lot for Winston in the small amount of time that they had been living together. Winston was distracted, otherwise they might have noticed that Ricky was keeping his back to Winston. They might have noticed that they weren’t directly addressing them and they hadn’t seen their teeth yet. But they were kind of preoccupied. “I don’t think it was Gollum either, probably an animal and a bump on the head or something, i know that your brain tries to turn everything into a narrative and the fear probably just y’know, changed my perception.” They had been convinced earlier that whatever it was hadn’t been an animal, but this was the real world. It had to be an animal. There was nothing else that it could be. “I know, I know,” Winston replied glumly, their left thumb picking at the corner of the label on the beer, rolling and unrolling it restlessly, “I just can’t shake the feeling that there was something more to it then a rabid animal.” It wasn’t really their problem. They weren’t a member of animal control.

“Your mother would kill me if I let anything happen to you and frankly I’m convinced that she could do it with little effort on her part.” Ricky plated the salmon and slid one of the plates across the counter to Winston, setting a fork down next to it. “Fear is a powerful thing. But I know deer and badgers and the sort go down there to forage at low tide and then get trapped in the cave. You might have just startled one of them that was already at the end of its rope and its fight or flight response kicked in.” He waved his own fork glibly as he laughed off Winston’s story, trying to put them at ease while pushing them towards believing they hadn’t seen a necrophage and instead had just seen a frightened animal. He realized too late, however, that between taking a bite of his salmon and laughing brightly he’d left his mouth open for far too long, and he no longer had his back to his roommate. He snapped it shut and took a sip of his beer, hoping that Winston has been too distracted by the delicious food to look at him.

Winston didn’t think that their mother would kill Ricky. They were certain that their fate would be far more gruesome then an easy death. “Well don’t worry because I won’t let anything happen to you, and my mother isn’t about to find out about this.” Turning the plate round, Winston scooped up their fork and picked at the slice of salmon that Ricky had cooked for them. Ricky didn’t seem to eat much other then fish and meat, but they knew how to cook it and they did a damn good job. Winston just assumed that Ricky was fussy and out of deference to their friend had elected not to bring the topic up, incase it embarrassed them. “Maybe, but I’ve got to admit that it didn’t look like any sort of deer or badger that I have ever seen before, this looked like a cross between a monkey and a bat.” Winston looked up just in time to see Ricky’s gleaming mouthful of fangs. Wait … fangs? Winston felt their eyes widen and realised that they had caught Ricky’s eye for a moment. A look of shock on their face before they looked at their plate and shovelled a huge mouthful of fish into their mouth. “Mmhmmm this is great fish dude,” they said inbetween bites, doing what they could to avoid admitting to what they had just seen. But they’d seen those very same teeth on Skylar, hours before. What the fuck was going on? 

Given the profound look of shock on their face and the renewed vigor with which they ate and commented on the fish, Ricky knew pretty immediately that the jig was up. “Winston…” he sighed wearily as he set down his fork and took a drink of his beer. “Yeah. I know it’s great fish. I can cook fish like a motherfucker. Because fish and meat are pretty much all I can eat. Listen. I know you saw and you can stop trying to hide that behind food comments and eating. Mostly because at the rate you’re going you’re gonna finish that fish in two bites. So. Yeah. Let’s talk.” He’d really planned on going a lot longer without having this conversation. But. Hopefully Winston’s cool head would prevail “if it makes you feel better… it definitely wasn’t a badger or a deer you saw.”

With a mouthful of fish, Winston looked up at Ricky and let out an uneasy laugh. “Yeah, I know you eat fish and meat, because you’re a giant baby living in a man’s body and you hate your veggies, you’re a fussy eater and you’ve probably got like a gluten intolerance right?!” They let out a high pitched anxious laugh and shoved more fish into their mouth. “But you’re right, really good fish, you did an amazing job, like you always did. HA ha what amazing fish.” They chewed extra slowly on the tiny amount of fish that they had left. “I’m sorry Ricky,” Winston said glancing at their wrist and realising they weren’t wearing a watch, “but I’ve got to dash, my parents are expecting me for dinner and they’ll be upset if I’m late…” they tried to force their heart to slow down, but it wasn’t working. They didn’t have time to focus on something else and just breath. “Anyway, I’ll catch you later.” They were standing and grabbing their rucksack and keys. They would stay at their parents house tonight. They would also be checking to see if they too had a mouthful of sharp teeth. “Thanks again for the fish dude.” 

It became readily apparent to Ricky that this was going to be at least a two part conversation, as Winston gathered their things and started to head towards the door. “Winston.” Ricky called out from where he was sitting picking at his fish, “my….. fussy eating” which seemed to be the terms they were going to couch this in for the moment, “Is a secret for a reason. There are people who would use that as an excuse to hunt me. Literally. So if we could keep this between us for the moment. I’d appreciate it.” He took another swig if beer and glanced down at his phone as Winston headed for the door, “also. It was probably a ghoul. Down in the cave. Sounds like one. Don’t go back there again. It’s not safe til that things been taken care of. Be careful.” All he could do was trust that he and Winston had enough of a bond that his roommate wouldn’t go blabbing to the whole town. 

Winston was pulling their rucksack onto their back and had their hand wrapped around the handle to the front door. “Ricky,” Winston said turning to face him, “Ghouls aren’t real. In the same way that ghosts, vampires, werewolves and magic aren’t real. This isn’t supernatural or the Witcher. None of these things exist in the real world. If they did exist, don’t you think that the internet would’ve spread the word about them? You think that a secret that big could be kept?!” They laughed nervously, suddenly unsure in everything that they had just asserted was the truth. “I won’t tell anyone about your fussy eating,” Winston said sourly, “I know how to keep a secret,” they pulled the front door open and felt a cold breeze roll into their house. “Besides, I’ve always got your back, even if you … are a fussy eater.” With that they were taking a step out of the front door and heading towards their car. They needed answers. They needed time to think and try and wrap their head around this. Ricky had used the words ghoul for fucksake?! 

[hardeepcox]

My First Job in Vietnam

               The first job that I acquired in Vietnam was at an English center whose name I won’t say… but it rhymes with Ah Paw Low. We had to work early on weekends, so that instantly bummed me out. I actually almost quit after the second week, I thought dude this is bullshit I’m not working at 7:45 on weekends! But after a while I got used to the schedule and before I knew it I had been working there for 6 months. I met some awesome people there and I really enjoyed watching the interactions between the foreigners and the locals. It reminded me of when I used to work in restaurants back in the states and the workplace was divided between servers and kitchen employees. In restaurants, I had worked in both the front and the back of the house, and at this English center it felt like foreigners were the front-of-the-house and the locals were the back-of-the-house. I know how it feels like to be the back-of-the-house, so I found it really easy to connect with our Vietnamese assistants. Something really interesting that happened at this job was that it began to make my distrust for white people to fade away. Yup, that was actually a thing.

I think this mistrust had started when I was 18 and I worked at a restaurant called Sweetwater in Virginia. My manager had pretended to be super nice to me during the hiring process but after I was hired his attitude changed completely and I was always confused by that. I felt a similar attitude change from my other managers at this restaurant and eventually they fired me because I had come to work late twice (of course this was after letting me work through their busy months leading up to New Year’s Eve). This led me to believe that wow maybe those things about white people being untrustworthy is true, and I bought into it for a LONG TIME. Well, thanks Vietnam for changing this thought in my mind because it was never going to bring about anything positive. I’ve tried to figure this out in my mind, okay so not all white people are bad maybe it’s only American whites? Nope, that was wrong too. Maybe it’s only whites in Northern Virginia? Nope, because I have white friends in Northern Virginia including my bros Ryan, Max, and Jake. Maybe I should just stop judging people? Yeah that’s probably it.

 Anyways, back to Ah Paw Low.

 The first person to invite me to chill with the Ah Paw Low crew was Niall, a really chill dude from the UK. My stupid ass kindly refused the first few invites, but eventually I did meet up with the Ah Paw Low crew at the famous banh mi lady’s restaurant. I also met Eva, a chill American/Costa Rican chick with resting bitch face. Honestly for the first few months that I worked there, I thought she was angry, but nope that was just the way her face looked. I met my bro P from South Africa, we played a few matches of football (soccer, yeah I prefer saying football because your fucking foot touches the ball) and we actually still work together now at another company. He’s basically like my older brother from South Africa who introduces me to delicious Indian food every now and then. I met Andrew from the UK, fun fact about him is that he’s been in movies. He’s a handsome bastard.  Myra from Brunei, fucking party legend. At the party Olympics she brings home the gold medal. I hope we can party soon, even though I’ll never reach your level of godliness because I’m not worthy. Then there’s JR and Sabrina, both from the Philippines. JR is basically an R&B legend AND this dude can dance. I seen’t it! Sabrina is basically a model and her wardrobe must be like the one in the Chronicles of Narnia because I swear I’ve never seen her wear the same outfit twice. There was Parvinder from India, he would protect Sabrina like Kimari protected Yuna in Final Fantasy 10. Also, he loves the song Broken by Seether and Amy Lee, I thought I was the only one! Dude if you are reading this... I still owe you 100,000 dong. There’s also Justin, a quiet dude from Montana who used to be in the Marine Corps. He’s a really serious short guy, kind of looks like a mix between Danny DeVito and Lord Farquaad from Shrek. There’s also Nyomi from Canada, we started working at the company at about the same time and we also left the company at about the same time. We used to crack up when we said that our co-worker Paul from the UK looked liked Jafar from when he was undercover in the cave of wonders. You’ve seen Aladdin right..?? Paul could always talk about any topic at any time, and that was always fun. There’s my bro Grant from the UK. We chilled a lot outside of work and we had the most amount of immature inside jokes. Damn man… good times. There’s that one dude that I kept thinking was a gay Canadian, but he’s actually Ryan from Pennsylvania. I thought he was gay because of his reaction to Andrew’s story about being shirtless and I still laugh hysterically about this memory. There was Nhu from Vietnam, she is like one of my Vietnamese sisters and the office gossip. Dude I owe you 1 million dong omg! There was also an American dude whose name I can’t remember but basically he was like the green character in Happy Tree Friends. What I’m trying to say is that he probably had PTSD from previous military experience. Vi and Vy from Vietnam, they were two of my teacher assistants and we worked really well together with the kids. There’s another teacher assistant, she was really small like a hobbit omg what was her name… Rosie! Yeah she was super chill too. More assistants, Tony and Tan were cool dudes too. Guys sorry if I’m forgetting anyone! I’m sure there was a dude named Nguyen too. Khanh from marketing was so cool too and she has really good taste in music. Even our boss was really chill, not really any complaints on my end.

 This job was really challenging but so rewarding. I’m sure that it made me into a more disciplined individual. And the most interesting thing that happened in the workplace was probably when one of my students hated k-pop so much that he started screaming at the top of his lungs during break time. When I saw the vein in his head popping out I thought he was about to turn Super Saiyan. We had to escort him to the bathroom to chill out, Damn I thought I disliked k-pop but this kid was next level.

I’m glad that I still stay in touch with most of my Ah Paw Low co-workers. I know our schedules now are kinda mismatched, but I hope we can all chill again soon! Oh yeah and fuck corona.

*I seen’t it = I saw it

It’s an expression that might be said by a Native English speaker even though it’s grammatically  incorrect. Hey it sounds cool though haha. Check out the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H0W1pRVRBE

[caithyra]

Vampire Game Reviews Part 1

This Halloween I sat down and played a bunch of vampire themed games and decided to review them. First up, Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova, Dracula: Origin and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I might get around to Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption and Dracula: Love Kills in a later post.

I use my own 5-scale gradation in this:

0: Either I couldn’t force myself to finish it, or I was more relieved it was over than anything else. 1: I had no fun, but there might have been something fun in there… maybe…? 2: More bad than good. 3: About evenly good and bad. I actually start having more fun than not. 4: A solid entertainment piece. Has it’s blemishes, but despite that I like it. 5: Almost perfect (perfection is a myth). I had lots of fun and am satisfied.

(Semi-minor spoilers below. Unless you’ve gone quite far into the games, you likely wont suss out what’s happening until it’s happening.)

Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova: You’re an investigator for the Hapsburg Empire going to the small town of Kisilova, recently beset by a killer leaving bloodless victims behind them. Rumors of vampires abound. After a series of mishaps the rumors do not feel so farfetched. Especially not when a mysterious, young woman enters the picture.

(Left: The Beginning of the Adventure with our buddy and hint machine. Right: The first of many, many hidden objects screens in this game.)

Okay, it is a point-and-click visual novel adventure thing that’s really short (less than 5 hours, and I think I left the game — and the clock — running for a while at some point), and also cheap. It was enjoyable enough, the music was forgettable but good enough, the graphics nice and atmospheric enough and the story was short and serviceable. The problems mainly came through the game-play; this game relied faaar too heavily on hidden object minigames, and those were unskippable, while all others were skippable after a short while. Fortunately, your partner can give hints to speed things along. As for my final decision in the winter-themed bonus chapter? Well, it was Halloween so I thought “why not?” and that was that for Europe. I always try to pick the most supernatural decision whenever I can lol (see Squirrel Elves in the Witcher franchise, or picking spell-sneaking classes in the Elder Scrolls).

My biggest problem with this game, however, is that I need to resize the resolution on my ultrawide monitor to play it without horizontal stretching distorting the art. The Options menu is seriously lacking in Options (actually, that whole menu is a mess that looks more at home in a Free-to-Play mobile game).

All in all, I generally liked it and its short nature meant that except for the hidden objects minigame, most of it didn’t outstay its welcome and it was really cheap (less than 4€ when I bought it, which is about the right price IMO. I think regular price is something like 9.99€?) so worth it. 3/5.

Dracula: Origin: You are Van Helsing. Yeah. That guy. And you have a missing friend, Harker, who had something to do with Dracula, and you have a pretty friend named Mina who ends up targeted by Dracula and now you must rush across the Old World to save her from a curse.

(Left: Yup, same dev as the Sherlock Holmes games. Middle: Vampires don’t like garlic breath. Right: Dammit Mina, I gave you ONE job. One. Job. All of this slow walking could have been avoided!)

Ah. Frogware. I generally like their Sherlock Holmes games, but this game… It felt more like a waste of my time. Oh, I’m sure there is a good game in there that isn’t a waste of time. Unfortunately, it is hidden behind the biggest time-sinks in the game: Van Helsing walks at half the speed of a normal person at all times and speaks really slowly, in conversations that has no branches, yet they will periodically be interrupted so that you can click on the next topic in the list (that wont reveal the next topic until you’ve listened to the topic listed before it). There’s this scene during a cave in when he says something like “quickly, we must make haste to escape!” and then you click on the exit and he waaaaaaaaalks slooooooooooooowlyyyyyy through it. It certainly doesn’t help that he must cross the entire span of the screen and backtrack locations many times and… AGH! RUN YOU FOOL!!

And, well, Frogware adventure game with its strange clues and non-clues and objects. There’s this bit in the first outdoor area when you have to capture some flies. Now, if you have followed the story logically, you will have a jar and a lid in your inventory. Easy, peasy, just click the flies with the jar, right? Nope. You must find a mourning veil hidden in the cemetery (that is large and that Van Helsing waaaaalks sloooooowlyyyyy through), use it on the flies and then combine the fly-ridden veil with the jar to get a jar of flies (I wont say what for because of spoilers, but, well, I don’t recommend eating during the Cemetery/Mansion part of the story if you have a phobia against bugs). There are also several objects that are basically five pixels on the screen because of the angle we’re viewing them at that we must find to pick up, and on the whole, I had more frustrations than fun with this story. Like, there’s even this puzzle minigame with a picture of Minos, the Labyrinth and the Minotaur and you find thread/string in the same house and wouldn’t you know it! The thread/string has nothing to do with the minigame and the minigame has nothing to do with the legend of the Minotaur!

On top of that, well, lets just say that the Egyptian section has quite a bit of stereotyping (think Victorian stereotypes of Egypt and its people in a modern game. Also, potential racism against white people must be prevented at all costs, including lying to a bereaved family), and when we run into our first, unliving female vampire she of course wears a top made of strips of cloth and a sheer skirt (you’d think a rich vampire’s favorite mistress would own a nice dress at least, but nope), and every woman (including dead of non-vampiric variety) have their beauty commented upon (and, of course, a young, pretty girl’s defilement/death is a tragedy, which is why it is so important to include that she was pretty).

And, well, this game markets itself heavily with Dracula at the forefront, not Van Helsing, yet while Dracula is the main antagonist, he only has a few, brief scenes, which were disappointing. All in all it was a 1/5.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines: You are a fledgling of one of the Camarilla clans, recently thrust into the secret world hidden by darkness, and more specifically into one of the most fucked cities of the World of Darkness. After your illicit embrace into the undead by your executed sire, the Prince of the City has graciously offered to adopt you, provided you prove yourself worthy to the exacting clan of rulers. Except the prince’s domain is built on quicksand, and this is Los Angeles; the birthplace of the modern Anarchs, and one of the domains of the Kindred of the East, on top of the eternal, political dance all Kindred must dance, and you, baby vampire as you are, have no allies and no clue as how to proceed except to survive.

(Left: Told ya Velvet is a mascot in this game. Middle: Did you know that Mercurio was meant to handle the Voerman sisters and we wouldn’t have to go through sewers and a haunted hotel if he did his job? Right: Apparently the Chinese are masters of Japanese swords and the Ventrue need no neckbones...)

Here’s the thing about VtM:B: It is a very enjoyable game and definitely the definite vampire game out there. It also has no story for your character. “What about the Ankaran Sarcophagus?”, well, your character participates, but it does nothing to answer the questions we are immediately confronted with in the opening of the game: Why would our unknown sire, an upstanding member of Kindred society, break one of the Traditions (pretty much laws set in stone for all Kindred over the entire world) to embrace us? Why would the prince, whose sole job is to uphold the Traditions, then break one of the Traditions and allow the ill-begotten progeny live?

Except for the opening of the game, we never hear from our sire again, nor the questions raised during the opening. And that makes our player character a bit superfluous when any random neonate could serve just as well.

So if not story-telling, what does VtM:B do that makes people sing its praises? In short? Characters and the World. It is incredibly atmospheric and while characters don’t develop (vampires are static by nature in this world, and most characters in the game are entrenched in their places and wont be shaken by some random baby vampire showing up), they are all very distinct and written in different tones. However, if you’re not role-playing as an ignorant fledgling, but meta-playing with some Vampire the Masquerade lore known, you will feel extremely railroaded (if your character had any inkling of who Smiling Jack is in the World of Darkness, they would never believe his coarse but kind uncle-figure thing he’s got going on. Because even before a certain hugely Biblical spoiler got involved, Jack was an imposer, liar, manipulator and mass-murderer who has sired many, many thin-blooded vampires and abandoned them to their fates. There’s a reason why only ignorant neonates like Nines’ gang admires and likes him. What I just said is not a spoiler for the game, btw, because it never comes up because your character is an ignorant fledgling being manipulated and deceived by literally everyone. Maybe Velvet and Bertram don’t, but Velvet might seem so sweet when she convinces you to be her knight because of Presence and acting, and Bertram is a Nossie and they have major secrets within secrets).

And while it is easy to sink into the world of the game and roleplay, thus mitigating the railroading feeling above. This game was clearly written with an audience of White Male Teens in mind. We have Velvet (of the fashion-conscious Toreador clan) show up at the prince’s court in Elysium in only a lacy basque, g-string and thigh high fishnets, tall heels and not as much as a peignoir thrown on top. Yeah, she attends an important society function in her fetish underwear. Then we have the explicit sex life of game cover-girl Jeanette (yeah, the one dressed like a dilapidated school girl), and those two are THE female mascots of the game.

The less said about the Orientalism and the Kindred of the East the better, but that segues into how around the time you reach Chinatown, the game starts losing its luster and strengths. Okay, so if you’re sensitive to that kinda thing, you might notice it a little bit in Hollywood, but by the time Chinatown rolls around, you might notice how it is less immersive and how it starts to feel more and more gamey (specifically, Action gamey), and you get less options that isn’t some variant of “kill it”.

On top of that the game has technical issues if you do not use the fan-made patch (I always use Patch Plus, which restores cut content and quests, as well as ReShade for better anti-aliasing and sharpness), and it still has a few cropping up from time to time. At least it works perfectly well in ultrawide resolutions?

Still it has that charm, and despite its flaws and how I can think of a dozen complaints at the drop of a dime, I still love playing it. So it’s a 4/5 from me.

[curvedroygbiv]

Act 1 “What? No, please, don’t hurt my son. I’ll pay anything.”

Act 4 “Of course this is my kid. I have a receipt and everything”

The audio recordings that the police recovered are the stuff of legends. Bruce hears his kid is hostage and immediately caves. He will pay SO much for Jason’s safe return. The kidnappers hand over a short person with a bag over their head. After taking the money and leaving, Bruce lunges for his precious baby and takes the bag off to find a very confused blond kid. “And...who are you?” Bruce asks. Jason is at home eating pop tarts and Filet Mignon watching the news, livestreaming his reactions with Dick on the line. 

(The kidnappers don’t get far. “Batman” beats them up with escrima sticks)

Bruce stumbles in with Stevie. Jason pushes the platter he’s eating off of towards Stevie “You look hungry” Bruce gives Jason a big hug and spends like 15 minutes assuring himself that Jason is ok in an embarrassing outpour of fatherly concern. “Dicks on the line. He’s definitely still in California and not kidnapped”. Bruce finally sits down, the relief palpable on his face. “I have never been so afraid in my life. Not even when that Trivia guy held me at gunpoint with the mayor.”

“The Riddler, Dad, it was the Riddler.”

“I can’t hear you over how traumatized I am.”

“Why are you traumatized? Stevie here was the one who was kidnapped. And I had to sit here helpless while you paid for some strange kid on TV.”

“Oh no”, Bruce says, face falling and all the good feeling evaporating away, “Is that what I did? Oh no. I bought a child.”

“Maybe don’t say it like that in front of the live stream.” Says Alfred, serving Stevie his own plate of food. 

“Aw - Fuck. “ Jason dives for the camera and the feed cuts off.

The newspapers go wild over the “switchboard error” that meant the call somehow, by extraordinary coincidence, was redirected to Bruce Wayne's personal phone. In typical Brucie fashion, he immediately overcompensates and is ready to go to extreme measures to make sure that everything is done correctly this time.  Unfortunately, Stevie, flush with macaroons and embroiled in an Xbox tournament with his new best friend, swears he’s never seen those two people claiming to be his parents before in his life. Bruce is only barely swayed by the finger print analysis of not just Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, but also the police accompanying them as well. 

(Stevie has to be literally pried out of the Wayne Mansion by the authorities and his family once Bruce is finally convinced. He has months of therapy to cope with the kidnapping, and years of therapy to cope with the fact that his stupid family wouldn’t let him be the 3rd pampered Wayne adoptee. “That could have been me” He constantly tells Dr. Grant. “That could have been me” he whispers to himself as Bruce adopts another half dozen children.)

All these 'we have your son' joke with Bruce Wayne and him asking which one.

Bold of you to assume he'd waste time to ask but he's already signing the check and it turns out the kid wasn't even his and the kidnappers just dialled the wrong number.

Bruce walking past a public landline and answering a kidnapper and paying for someone else's kid.