#also inb4 'why is it all about their appearances'

[spoonerisrns]

I know this might not be a huge thing, but I love that nearly all the commentators seem to be women??? Realizing I've NEVER seen so many female sports commentators before, and so many different kinds of presentation among them? I've often seen One Pretty Cis Het Woman on a panel of cis het dudes. This is hella refreshing.

[tarisbackyard]

I was prepared to eat my own words about Gale, but turns out, not just was I right about him, he is actually somehow worse than I thought. What a pathetic fucking loser, my gods.

Very happy that the game lets me tell him to his face how much of a dumbass he has been.

What I don't understand though is how and why all the companions appear to be siding with him. Also I feel sorry for Wyll and Astarion, considering that those two are gonna end up in the fucking wall. Inb4 the gang starts a Fourth Crusade.

I might be too deep into the lore for this shit.

[blackjackkent]

Now that we have defeated Arfur's merc squad, he is considerably more deferential.

"All right, you won, you won! What more do you want from me?"

Hector's intimidation check is now only DC10, because it's much easier to make someone listen to you when you just beat up a whole merc squad with your bare fists.

[INTIMIDATION] "I want the family to stay," he says. With the fighting over he has immediately returned to the same calm placidity he had before it. But his eyes are burning with intensity. This has been his first taste of the inequality and cruelty of the city proper and he does not like it much. It is a far cry from seeing the city's crowds from the distance of the monastery, or even from the mad violence of the Absolute cultists. "You have room for them, surely?"

Arfur scowls. "Well, with Zenovia and the others gone, I don't suppose you'll take no for an answer," he snaps. "All right - they can stay. Are you happy now?"

He rolls his eyes. "Now I have to figure out what *I'm* going to do."

Hector debates the merits of pointing out that this house is big enough to house twice the number of people and still have room for Arfur to live comfortably, and then decides it's not worth it. "I'm sure a man of your means can find room at an inn somewhere."

"A room can wait," Arfur says sardonically. "After what you've put me through, I need a drink."

----

We did get an inspiration from Shadowheart there for helping the refugees out, which is nice.

Let's go inside and talk to them.

"Not quite sure why you stood up for us like that, but I won't say I'm not grateful. Thanks. And may Torm keep you."

"You are most welcome," Hector says with a smile.

"You're the first person in this city to have our backs," the man says. "Thank you. Really."

Whew boy. Clearly Rivington (and probably the city proper as well) are not handling the influx of refugees well. Inb4 Hector becomes the local batman figure, swooping in and dispensing justice.

The interesting thing about this, I suppose, is that Hector has been a charitable dude right from the beginning; kind of a fundamental character trait. But it hasn't really had the opportunity to come to the forefront because he has been faced primarily with nightmare monsters and crazy people that he has to fight or die.

If he'd been placed in this situation at the beginning of the game, I don't think he would have opened up on those mercs like that. I think at best he would have tried to smooth things over and given a good chunk of coin to the refugees to try and help them find somewhere else.

But he has spent the last few months faced with problems that he could only solve with his fists; he's become a hammer and I suspect he's going to find a lot of things that look like nails in this city. (Not to say that he will seek out violence if there are other options but I think he's much more ready to take that route where required than he might have been before he started this adventure.)

Went to look around the rest of the house. Arfur's bedroom is locked; I broke into it purely for personal satisfaction and found a book titled "Arfur's Private Musings" under the bed:

Oh my god. >.<

He also had a couple nice outfits we can use for camp, which I stole out of his dresser.

There's also a hidden hatch in what appears to be a workshop on the main level.

Hector opened it up without much trouble. (His multiclass into rogue has given him much more utility in lockpicking.)

The basement looks nondescript at first - but Shadowheart identifies that, surprisingly, it has rigged traps:

Hm. What have you been up to down here, Arfur?

There are actually a LOT of traps down here; walking around triggers a mass of perception checks with every step. Luckily none of them are too hard to disarm.

Disarming the fireworks occasionally gets us these consumables, which is kind of fun:

Hector was also able to just straight up pick this up and take it with him:

Having cleared out most of the traps (aside from the one Jaheira set off >.< ), we can move into the back of the basement, which has this note on a table:

Next to it is a trapped chest which we busted open:

Oho!

I had a feeling we'd find something interesting here; knew there had to be some sort of payoff for identifying how nervous Arfur was in the earlier conversation.

SPILL THE TEA!

Ohooooooo!

"Might be worth checking Arfur's donations," Hector says. "Looks like his generosity's compromised." (His VA, who we don't really hear much out of, made this sound very angry. Hector is not pleased with his introduction to the city.)

This got us a new quest:

*airhorn*

There are various toys we can steal from the basement but none of them seem to be the ones in question so presumably we'll find out more about this somewhere else.

[deusvervewrites]

funny how i managed to get your opinion on of the endings of media you're not familiar with by just being vague and just making the topic about shenanigans of time-travel

but that's not why we're here for so...

Future Nagant x Future Inko x Future Star x Inko/Cathleen/Kaina: with future star existing, it allows me to make a three way spiderman pointing at spiderman meme. lmao

Eri’s Precepts x Equivalent Exchange: it appears that Eri found a replacement for overBITCH (*cough* sorry, i just dislike hate overhaul with a passion *cough*), and he's nicer than the last person with his quirk.

Midoriya Yo x Midoriya Shoto x Midoriya Tenko x Eri Escapes: Izuku now has a larger family, they all agree on one thing, Eri is the cutest little ball of sunshine the had ever seen. one down side would be the costs to maintain, so all of the siblings collectively agree, that to keep Eri's smile, is to do part-time jobs to make sure they float and ease inko's burden on money.

Musketeer x Dragonic Hero: not only that izuku has to deal with having a dragon mutation quirk, but also has to deal with having AfO the quirk, I wonder how is he holding up...

HPSC President: "Look Ma, I managed to clean the HPSC of all of it's corruption, the worst part is that i did it accidently."

Pokemon Legends Mustafa x Time God Uraraka: inb4 she overwrites Dialga's spot and Temporal Tower ends collapsing making her into a primal feral being, a shell of her former self.

UA University: I asked for a rough timeline for after the Student Exhibition Expo, and ended up with nothing as i made the mistake of bringing up the other two movies, so i'll ask again.

wait what, the ask game is coming soon? well shit, imma need to accumulate AU ideas...

Future Nagant x Future Inko x Future Star x Inko/Cathleen/Kaina: The three of them going back in time and falling in love is really cute, also imagine how Star and Nagant would react to now being Izuku's moms in the new timeline

Eri’s Precepts x Equivalent Exchange: She does still have the original Chisaki, he's just a bit young now and way less cruel.

Midoriya Yo x Midoriya Shoto x Midoriya Tenko x Eri Escapes: It's unclear what the Midoriya financial situation is but the kids doing their best to earn money for Eri is very cute

Musketeer x Dragonic Hero: I'm sure his hoarding instincts will be fine...

HPSC President: Wrong he did it very intentionally, it's just not the reason he joined in the first place

Pokemon Legends Mustafa x Time God Uraraka: She has no reason to do that?

UA University: I'm not totally sure. They'd do internships sometime not long after the Expo, their finals would be at the end of each term like normal. Because it's a university, the first years could go for their Provisional Licenses even without an outside situation

[sharky857]

Now am curious how the other bachelors and bachelorettes would react when facing the Troy to their farmer. OvO

Ohh, this is going to be fun.

*cough!*

---

QUICK HEADS UP! I'm tweaking this a little, because my brain was low-key fried and the whole time visualised only a "male-coded" kind of Troy, completely skipping over the fact that there are also "female-coded Troys" out there. Once realised this "f-up", I decided to "update" this musing to include also that counterpart.

I'll be referring to the two versions as "Troy" and (even though it may sound so bad to my ears) "Troyette". INB4: Why would anyone have two different approach to the same issue? The answer is simple: it wouldn't be uncommon for Troy(ette)s to turn the table around so that they would look like the victim. Sadly, it appears that f"emale abusers "Troyettes" can have a small advantage in this than their male counterparts, especially when they try to frame someone of the opposite sex. I figured even our bachelors would know this all too well, therefore adjusting their reactions accordingly, while the ladies would just not give two 💩 and potentially go on a rampage all the same.

(Which also means that yes. Not all reactions are being tweaked.)

---

In no particular order:

Elliott: As per last fic uploaded, both with a Troy and Troyette he wouldn't be able to intentionally hurt thethem. He would still take advantage of the size difference between himself and the other to scare the livin' 💩 out of them (I'll die on the "Elliott is 6ft tall" hill), although being very careful to keep some distance between himself and a Troyette, just in case she would even think about trying to play the victim afterwards. Bonus point for being an active writer, therefore incidentally and constantly "training" himself on which words to use and when. ("The pen is mightier than the sword", after all.)

Sam: His (over?)protective instincts would instantly kick in and he would feckin' deck & pound the Troy on the spot. There might be need for a couple people to get his rabid arse off of that jerk too. He would try to keep the quietest demeanour as possible with a Troyette, partly because he knows how female abusers are underrated and partly because his parents (mostly his mother, probably) have ingrained the "boys shouldn't hit the girls, no amtter what" kind of belief.

Shane: Might headbutt the Troy in the mouth, without a warning. He might or might not also wield an empty glass bottle like a one-handed club. He would look intimidating doing so, but he would never dare to actually smash the bottle against the other's head. Maybe. When dealing with a Troyette he could put on his best unfriendly and unapproachable scowl while demaning the other to "fucking leave before I call the cops".

Alex: He's been training to become a pro gridball player, therefore he could knock the Troy out simply by tackling him to the ground. He might be later spotted dragging the barely conscious Troy to the train station to chunk his sorry bum on the first train headed to the city, as if "the fuckin' incel" was made of thin air. Which shouldn't be much of a surprise, considering how ripped Alex would be. He would probably turn the opposite way when dealing with a Troyette instead. Pounding "a poor woman" and potentially getting himself into serious troubles is definitely not advisable. Alex would try to reason with the other instead; if the Troyette started to be more hostile and try to hit him too, he would take every single blow in like a boss, only trying to put some distance and threatening to call the authorities.

Harvey: The doc seems the kind to despise all forms of violence and he also looks the exact opposite of intimitading. He would try a pacific approach at first, telling the Troy to kindly leave the town. If the other is persistent, Harvey might then threaten to call the authorities to have him forcibly removed from the town. If the other insists still, Harvey also has a vaste knowledge of the human body anatomy; the doc may hate himself afterwards for hurting another person, but in that moment he would give the other either a single kick or punch to some specific nerves (the thighs would be the perfect target), leaving the Troy on the ground in a fetal position for quite a while. There might or might be not an howling Troy too, depending on his level of pain tolerance, to the point of leaving the others to low-key wonder if Harvey had just tried to eviscerate the Troy instead. But no, it's merely a bruised quadriceps femoris muscle. Extremely painful but definitely not life-threatening. Y'all can chill, now. Things wouldn't change much when dealing with a Troyette. Same step-by-step approach, but eventually he would actually go for the phone call instead of trying to hit a nerve.

Sebastian: He's not exactly as imposing as some writer and also kinda scrawny. Theoretically he wouldn't look like much of a threat, but he has a secret ace up his hoodie's sleeve: a resting bitch face. The Troy may already cower at the sight of Sebby's (accidental) homicidal glare. Then the Troy would flee for the hills at the mere sound of the coldest "buzz the fuck off and don't make me hunt you down" ever. He might or might not really mean that latter part. He owns a bike and is also a tech wiz; theoretically it would be a piece of cake to track the Troy down with an online research and pay him a "surprise visit" back. But Sebby would also have this funny feeling that all that would be called "stalking". In the end he might feel tempted to take that kind of action, but would refrain from putting it into practice. Things stay the same in case of a Troyette. Seb simply wouldn't give two 💩 about the other potentially trying to get him into troubles. After all, he would also have a few witnesses on his side to prompty prove a Troyette's words wrong.

Leah: Similarly to Sam, she would go instantly and absolutely apeshit, be them Troy or Troyette. She wouldn't hesitate to make a blunt weapon out of the first thing she could rip off with her bare hands, be it a tree branch or a big rock yanked from the ground. There would be need for more than a couple people to hold her rampaging arse back. The same people would also be the ones actually and kindly suggesting the Troy(ette) to leave the town and never come back or so may Yoba help them next time.

Haley: Might first murderise both Troy and Troyette's eardrums with her high-pitched, bloody-murder screams. She might or might not also take off one of her pretty shoes and try to stab them with the heel (with a bonus of trying to rip chunks of hair off of Troyette's head, if it's long enough); it would take only one person to hold a furious Haley back.

Emily: Precious, little Emily. She would probably cry a waterfall, as if she had been the one personally hurt. She wouldn't try to hurt the Troy(ette) herself, but you can tell she and Haley are sisters from the volume of her yelled cusses. She might or might not need for a valerian infusion tea in the aftermath (and probably a few hours of relaxing meditation).

Abigail: Once her brain has processed the shock, she won't hesitate to keep the Troy(ette) at knife point. It would be merely a tiny, pocket knife, the blade might be a little dull as well, but it would be still enough to get Abby's point across quite effectively.

Maru: Would try to not let on how terrified she is, trying to think what Sebby (and/or her father) would do in a similar situation. She would then resort to grab her own phone, threatening both Troy and Troyette to call the autorities this instant if they don't leave immediately. She would even show the other the already dialed number, all she would need to do would be to just start the call. After the Troy(ette) would be gone, Maru would talk with her S/O about filing a restraining order. Just in case.

Penny: Initially she would look at the Troy(ette) as if they had just murdered her firstborn before her eyes. Then she might cry a waterfall while telling the other what a horrible person they are, how could they be so cruel with their own partner, that was so terrible, what if someone did the same to one of their friends or relative, they should be ashamed of themselves, and so forth. In an accidental twist of events, in the end it would be the S/O to try and comfort Penny first (Penny would still comfort her S/O back, as soon as she would regain control over her nerves).

PLEASE NOTE!

Inb4 someone may come and ask me something similar for SVE and/or RSV: I have not started those mods yet, so I'm not familiar at all with those other bachelor(ette)s. Sowwie. 😔

[defiantbird]

What's your favorite character relationship dynamic and which characters made you realize that fact? What was it about them that resonated with you originally? (inb4 PoTO ramble but I'm entirely here for it)

Ooo, a good one, Anon. Correct, it probably started with Phantom :P You asked for it...

...although honestly this is a complex thing so while I'll try to keep it relatively brief, I may not succeed, so I'ma put this under a cut.

The short answer: light vs dark, enemies-to-lovers, and/or redemptive relationships.

My initial love of Phantom was no so much about the relationship (romatic of otherwise) between Erik and Christine, but more Erik as a person. I have always been a super sensitive person, moreso as a kid, and Erik was the first time I saw a character that was excessively emotional and utterly unable to contain or manage it, and it was the first time I felt Seen. I did like the romantic dynamic in general, but Christine specifically wasn't interesting enough for me as a character to get me fully into it as a romance.

All of this developed in my mind as I got older, and to be honest I didn't understand why this stuff appealed to me until maybe like ten years ago. Pardon me for a bit of personal stuff.

I've considered myself, for a long time, to be Too Much. Aside from being super emotional and sometimes excessively empathetic, I used to be very obsessive, vengeful, and angry. I developed chronic depression at a -very- young age and had almost no guidance on how to manage it, and it made me a pretty difficult person to be around and with.

I honestly didn't get better until my relationship (with my now-husband, then-boyfriend) almost ended, partially because of how I was. What moved me to dedicate myself to getting better was realizing that I was hurting him and would lose him. And I did get better! Way better!

All that to say, even though it sounds dramatic: the idea that love can save someone and make them the best version of themselves is so hopeful and wonderful to me. I adore stories where good and value can be found in people have been broken by their sadness. Not only that, but the idea that just having that good and value recognized by someone else is healing and powerful.

To tie back to Phantom- Erik doesn't have a change in heart until Christine shows him that he's not incapable of being loved. By kissing him at the end she basically says "I could have loved you, I HAVE seen beyond your appearance, it was never about that". She just loved someone else and, y'know, had some entirely valid reasons to come to hate and fear Erik. "What made you ugly isn't your face, it's what you let your sadness turn you into."

So, with that in mind, you can probably see why my two fave ships these days are Reylo and Dimileth- if you know what those are. I always found it really funny when critics of Reylo would say "you don't care about Rey, you just want to be her and have Kylo Ren love you". Because, no-- I'M Kylo Ren, and I want to be loved by Rey. I was the shitty, broken person who needed to be shown I wasn't beyond repair or understanding by someone who DIDN'T let their sadness break them, who had the patience and love in them to help me.

And, this isn't just a romantic thing. I very much enjoy this in fictional friendships as well. Frankly, this all ALSO relates to a lot of my friendships.

...whew, that was dramatic, wasn't it? I hope it wasn't too much, or that it wasn't entirely disorganized and incomprehensible. Thank you for the ask! As you can see, I can talk about this shit forever if I'm allowed.

[yournextflame]

Elden Ring lore is disaster

Elden Ring lore, not even once.

Turns out Loretta’s Royal Knight Helm had different description in prepatched Elden Ring 1.0 

Why is it important? It explicitly changes the context of “Miquella abandoned the Golden Order/Greater Will” into “Miquella abandoned the Golden Order to build new Order under the Greater Will” (inb4: “Miquella was against outer gods” - GW is never referred as outer god 外なる神 in the Japanese or English script). 

(it also brings neat parallels between Radagon reforging his MLGS into the Golden Order Greatsword and Loretta, who changed gems in her War Sickle: originally given for service as a personal guard to Carian royalty, the weapon's blue glintstone has been replaced with unalloyed gold)

This, to be clear, is more evident in the another piece of cut content, Miquella’s ending, which in turn recasts Miquella from twitter-style social justice activist disappointed in an tyrannical authority (or Griffith wannabe) into... Marika’s real heir, who was fully supported by Radagon in what he was doing. Marika is the current “carrier of the Vision” as Enia described her and Miquella was expected to inherit her role as the recepient of the Vision and create more perfect and civilized Order of Unalloyed Gold, following the main theme of evolution/advancement/purification. 

Elden Ring, O Elden Ring. Beget Order most elegant, from my tender reverie.

Notably, there are no contradictions with the patched version, 1.0 is simply more specific and straightforward about Miquella’s role in the story. First, Ranni’s dialogue suggests that she and her half-siblings were chosen to replace Marika.

I was once an Empyrean. Of the demigods, only I, Miquella, and Malenia could claim that title. Each of us was chosen by our own Two Fingers, as a candidate to succeed Queen Marika, to become the new god of the coming age

Second, the placement of the Oracle Envoys in the Haligtree. 

Spirits of a monstrous band of musicians who employ sacred arts. It is said that when Oracle Envoys appear, playing their pipes, they do so to herald the arrival of a new god, or age - descriptions of Oracle Envoys Spirit ashes

Third, Gold, even Unalloyed is the signature material of the Greater Will that ties together all things associated with the Order (just like Silver is the symbol of the Stars and Carian/Nox factions).

More over, several descriptions are implying that Erdtree was slowly dying and lost the power to heal people and grant them blessings.

It's said that the Erdtree was once as warm as the gentle sun, and would gradually heal all who bathed in its rays

The Erdtree once flourished with abundance—yet it was only for a fleeting moment. Such is the course of all life

In some ways Erdtree is similar to the First Flame from the Dark Souls, the difference is that the First Flame should be relinked once in a while, but Elden Ring cycle works slightly different and more dependant on the vessels. 

The surcoat bears the crest of the Haligtree. Though watered with Miquella's own blood since it was a sapling, the Haligtree ultimately failed to grow into an Erdtree

All the subtext that hints Miquella’s role of the next god in Marika/Radagon’s lineage is still here, but it’s very subtle. It’s so subtle that in endless debates between “Miquella is 10yo forever child who needs to be protected at all costs” and Berserk troglodytes, who had read one manga in their life, I’ve seen like three discussions at best, where it was said that probably Miquella wasn’t yet another Katniss Everdeen wannabe rebel like fandom depictions of Ranni and Marika (both fanfiction versions had nothing to do with their in game portrayal tho) and simply was creating his new Order, more perfect and untainted.

However, my point is mostly about the Dark Souls style storyteling that didn’t work in 100-150 hr long openworld game. Miquella’s role is currently contextualized by:

 - a dialogue line in early game that majority of people will forget 2 minutes later

 - certain type of enemies that are respawining in the Haligtree (and Leyndell) with a very specific role in lore, which is hidden in description of their spirit ashes

- a reference to alchemical process of creation of gold

All this mental gymnastics wouldn’t be needed if From in their infinite wisdom didn’t patched the description of Loretta���s helmet... which created another glaring plothole:

Loretta, once a royal Carian knight, went on a journey in search of a haven for Albinaurics, and determined that the Haligtree was their best chance for eventual salvation  

WHERE ARE THESE ALBINAURICS? WHERE ARE THEY, LORETTA? WHY ARE THERE NOT A SINGLE STUPID FROG INSIDE THE HALIGTREE?

Say what you want about storytelling/worldbuilding in Dark Souls, but it was nowhere that bad. Let’s take Gwyndolin for example:

Soul of Darkmoon Gywndolin, god of the Dark Sun and guardian of deserted Anor Londo (description of his soul)

Bow born from the soul of the Dark Sun Gwyndolin, Darkmoon deity who watches over the abandoned city of the Gods, Anor Londo. (Darkmoon Bow)

Catalyst born from the soul of the Dark Sun Gwyndolin, Darkmoon deity who watches over the abandoned city of the Gods, Anor Londo. Gwyndolin is Gwyn's lastborn and a legitimate god, but he is also a Moon sorcerer, and this wand is boosted by faith, not intelligence (Darkmoon Catalyst)

All three descriptions are directly tied to Gwyndolin, they explain his role, what exactly he is doing and his current status as a deity. Dark Souls, a game that was a lot shorter and less convoluted than Elden Ring, wasn’t afraid to give players dots to connect, meanwhile Elden Ring makes things harder to understand just for the sake’s of it.

ELDEN RING STORY CAN’T EVEN DECIDE WHEN MIQUELLA WAS STOLEN

The intro whows a picture of Mohg, who kidnapped his half-brother during the Shattering: 

But Gideon’s dialogue suggests that Miquella was stolen before the Shattering:

So. The Haligtree, now but a husk... I heard speculation Miquella embedded himself in the Haligtree, but before he could finish, someone cut the tree open and absconded with his infant form. Indeed, it seems those words held weight. How vexing. That the All-knowing didn't have the full story... Perhaps the Queen's sorrow was justified...

Otherwise, how Gideon would know Marika’s reaction if she is missing for a long time? Probably due to his weird spiritual connection as he is able to glimps in Marika’s will? But in that case, how Marika could be aware that Miquella was stolen, when she was locked in the Erdtree and her Grace doesn’t reach Consecrated Snowfield, Haligtree or any underground territory?

The possibility that Miquella, Marika’s true Empyrean successor, who was close to the godhood, was stolen before the Shattering, opens up the possibility for new theories about the real reasons behind the Shattering and Night of Black Knives, but I don’t want to touch them because...

Does it matter? 

Elden Ring story is such lackluster that it was rewritten with the first day patch on top of the giant mountain of cut content. I’m not sure that DLC, if there will be any, can fix this mess or give any proper answers as it seems that writers got too much carried with the idea of making story as vague as possible.

[mc-lukanette]

how much you wanna bet that, despite making luka and marinette break up because she doesn’t have time to date, they’ll still have her going around making crazy schemes to woo adrien and will try to pair her off with either him or chat noir? and will try to pull some bs of “only he can understand marinette” or whatever? because let’s be honest, the show simply won’t let marinette move on from adrien unless it’s to fall for another version of him...

“only he can understand marinette” 

also Adrien: *pranks Marinette despite knowing better than anyone else that she’s jumpy, anxious, and reacts badly to being surprised, having literally said that Marinette “gets flustered easily” in “Riposte”*

Anyway, they already proved basically that it was going to be the case. I had a prediction on my other blog that Marinette would conveniently have time for love square stuff and “Lies” proved it. Chat Noir spent the whole episode complaining about how little time he gets to spend with Ladybug, and then the very end of the episode is Ladybug and Chat Noir chilling on a rooftop (a day after the akuma battle so it’s not like it was reasonable time) and talking like she has nothing better to do.

(Plus, them slipping in a scene that literally cannot exist in the place it’s in when put against “Truth” just for the sake of putting in love square shipping fuel.)

I’m also imagining that “Gang of Secrets” might feature Marinette getting the “CharmBug” power-up so Alya gets the anti-akumatization amulet and then Marinette will tell Alya her secret, meaning they purposefully shoved the Lukanette episode right before it/delayed CharmBug appearing since Luka getting an amulet might’ve meant that Marinette would’ve told him her secret, they would’ve stayed together and worked it out, and she would’ve been less stressed.

I dunno, maybe it’s from having long-distance relationships myself (whether friendly or romantic), but I don’t like the narrative they ran with where it was like, “I can’t go on consistent specifically-planned dates, therefore we have to break up.” That’s why all my fix-its feature the reassurance that no, not having planned/consistent/”normal” dates doesn’t mean she can’t be in a relationship or that she should be forced to give up her happiness because of a burden she never asked for.

Also, inb4 reverse love square because Chat Noir would be a loophole to the “I can’t have a boyfriend because it’s dangerous,” thing.

[primrose-path-of-dalliance]

my theory inb4 the finale:

the mysterious cube at niirdal-sarqet was a pre-age of arcanum training tool for prospective spellcasters.

the design of the cube all points to an exceptionally ancient time. it echoes the same long-forgotten mystique as the age of arcanum. the language embedded in it is qoniira—a language older than celestial. some of the power inside hearkens back to dunamancy, the manipulation of time and space, which believers in the luxon allege existed before everything else along with their deity. it's covered in archaic versions of the gods' symbols—not just the prime deities, all of them (excepting the luxon). betrayer gods included, their iconography neutral and non-menacing, as if the people who created it... didn't recognize them as betrayer gods in the first place.

according to the story of the founding in the EGtW (explorer's guide to wildemount, ch. 1), the betrayer gods were only seen as betrayers after the war with the primordials. before then, the gods were just the gods—the creators. all of them together had created the peoples who formed families and cultures and nations. qoniira likely dates to this age.

mortals didn't know how to spellcast at this point beyond divine gifts. so when the primordials, who had claimed the realm for themselves too, eventually decided to wreak destruction and return the realm to elemental chaos, the mortals were nearly defenceless.

this was when the schism between the gods occurred: the ones who would become the betrayer gods fell apart to grief and rage and wanted to wipe the slate clean; let the primordials destroy it all. the ones who would become the prime deities wanted to wage war and save the world they'd created from the primordials. the prime deities ultimately accomplished this by teaching mortals arcane magic. (this was the factor that led the following era to become the age of arcanum.)

why i think the cube was a tool to teach arcane magic:

it's fairly clear that the cube was meant to be both dangerous and easy to access, the way we saw it in episode 7. the command phrases to open it were in qoniira—this would've been easy for anyone native to the tetrarchy to read. even anyone not native or fluent in qoniira would still be able to figure it out with some dedication, as the exu gang made pretty evident. the lack of barrier to activating the cube tells me that access was intended to be unrestricted.

the stone guardians appeared in response to people physically interacting with it. mechanically, each player had to make a wisdom saving throw every time they came in contact with a new face/platform while the cube was active; if they failed, they took 2 points of damage and had their max hp reduced by that amount as a guardian emerged from the stone, apparently fueled by the player's health.

each time this wisdom save was a success, aabria explicitly described the respective player seeing the stone roil before stopping at their attention, unable to form.

before the cube opened, it had begun to move. fearne deliberately forced her will into the cube to command it to stop moving, rolling a 23 spell attack. it listened to her and didn't move; it broke open in place.

recall the command phrases to activate the cube.

the universe above / the universe within / remember what came before / decide what happens next / provide for all / a shield to protect.

note "decide what happens next." this is a phrase meant to be a command to the reader too. in episode 6, tetrarch thrascuur told the party that power—and magic—was about choice. a person deciding and enacting their will on the world around them to realize their desires. if this is the tetrarchy's basic understanding of magic, this command phrase from the cube seems to be teaching that lesson from the get-go.

it ties into the behavior of the cube exactly. the other phenomenon the players experienced was a gift of a powerful boon from 'a mote of light, possibility.' dorian and dariax gained the ability to control the strength of gravity on their bodies; orym got an additional battle maneuver after viewing time as a path forward, like his future; opal, as a martial caster, had an epiphany on how all magic overlaps and got a pool of hit points to heal people with; and fearne was able to change time by willing a d20 roll to be rerolled after viewing time as a sprawling web that she could pluck apart to her liking.

mechanically, each player rolled a d6 on their first turn to determine their boon—except orym, who received a boon without rolling a d6. orym is also the only party member whose class, battle master fighter, doesn't have spellcasting as a feature. the energy of the cube may be limited for those that don't have a lot of experience with or capacity for magic. those who do, though, can get a variety of different powers. based on the others' results (opal: 1, dorian and fearne: 3, dariax: 4), the boons are likely split into three groups: 1–2 seems to correspond to divine-based powers like healing, while 3–4 seems to be dunamancy-adjacent and therefore possibly arcane. 5–6 is a mystery since no one rolled either number, but a probable hypothesis is elemental/nature-based magic.

so, the activated cube will create a hostile stone guardian derived from the person's relative strength, should they fail to use their will to prevent it. at the same time, they receive a gift of power with a random understanding of how to will it into use. the stone guardians challenge the person in combat—an appropriate context for learning magic to fight primordials. the stone guardians' main tactic is brutal too: aiming for what the person fears most. but an effective way, in a controlled situation, to make someone force their will on the world very hard to stop it.

with all that in mind, the rest of the command phrases begin to make a lot of sense too.

"the universe above / the universe within / remember what came before." the first phrase refers to the gods, echoing the story of the founding in the EGtW and its continual references to their origins "beyond the ashen skies." the second phrase likely refers to the primordials, who lived beneath and within the earth. so in the context of devastation brewing at the hands of the primordials, what would a call to "remember what came before" mean—except to remember that the gods had created all mortal life from the elemental chaos? simply by choosing to shape them into existence?

"decide what happens next" is the method by which the person takes control of the power and magic around them—on their own, like the gods themselves.

then: "provide for all / a shield to protect." these two phrases connect smoothly. they can refer to mortals learning magic in order to protect their communities and loved ones from the primordials. it can also refer to the cube itself and the intentions of the gods who would become the prime deities—providing mortals with the methods to protect each other.

TL;DR: i think the cube is a religious artifact that taught mortals arcane magic because of how old it is and how the cube made a really cool arena full of magically-granted epiphanies on the nature of magic and the universe.

thank you for reading my ted talk :-) hopefully you enjoyed it before aabria (maybe) dunks this post into the garbage on thursday.

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel III:

...I’m gonna need like a week to process that

I guess I know why people hate George now!

Could really use a good old reset from KeA right now

This is the best game in the Cold Steel series so far. Easily

I... there’s no way they’re all really dead, right? This series has been completely toothless about killing anyone who isn’t a villain until now, no way they’re permanently killing someone who’s been here since practically day 1, no way. Show me a body

And even then I’ll doubt it with all these revivals happening all over the place 

‘He’s HIDING’ I sob as I apply clown make-up 

Ben Diskin did not need to go so hard on the voice acting at Millium’s death he did not need to do that to me

My god when Angie drove into the graveyard and my PS4 popped up a little notification telling me it was a blocked scene, the tension in me... and I never saw that coming, I’ll have to see if it was foreshadowed at all by replaying CS1 and 2 some time

I saw Lughman being a baddie a mile away (a mysterious professor turning out to be evil in a Trails game? UNPRECEDENTED!) but he’s Alisa’s dad!?

Neat writing trick actually, since they probably knew we’d guess the former, they blindside us with the latter

I can’t express how happy it made me that the Rufus battle was Machias Jusis Elliot. My dream team!

Estelle and Joshua got mentioned so much I figured they’d make a surprise appearance at the end and save the day

:(

So. Characters:

Rean: Rean is once again moderately more interesting than he was before, but still the least interesting person in the game. I guess he’s got some guilt that’s actually justified now, that’s cool? 

I ship him with Crow, not because the pairing really appeals to me that much, but because being shipped with Crow would totally piss Rean off and I find that extremely funny

His relationship with Altina is the best relationship he’s ever had with a female character and it is 100% because she’s the only girl he’s never ship teased with

(I don’t have an issue with the concept of ship tease itself, I have an issue with Rean-ship tease because 1. I still truly do not understand why so many girls like him so much and 2. None of it will ever canonically go anywhere)

(Seriously I’m so tempted to write a breakdown of why every other guy in Erebonia is more desirable than Rean)

Juna: I like Juna. I realised early on that she and Kurt remind me of Estelle and Joshua, without being carbon copies, and that’s good. I also think her relationship with Rean was really interesting - ‘I don’t know how to feel about you because you saved my life, but it also wouldn’t have needed saving if it weren’t for your country’s actions, which you’ve played a major role in - but now I’m being forced to confront that you’re a human being too’ is a really complicated situation for her. It’s a lot more interesting than ‘I don’t like you because you accidentally got a face full of chest’, Alisa

I also really liked using her, I ended up loading her with the Platinum Pecky Medal and defensive stuff, and she was a wall, she took an S-craft from Arianrhod in her stride! My buff girl!

She should’ve just been the new protagonist ngl

Kurt: Kurt had a lot to live up to, seeing as his brother is my favourite minor character. And oh does he succeed, Kurt is my favourite of New VII, he’s a good straight man, he’s great in battle, I like his arc, I like his friendship with Juna, I like Kurt

Altina: I was not sure about Altina just... being a student now. But damn if she didn’t have the best character arc in the game. I only did her final bonding event on a whim, but it’s the best one I saw. My girl Allie deserves the damn world

I really, truly believe those three have a bond as well, they’re very well written as a group. This was a problem I had with Old VII, the fact that so many of them just... didn’t have relationships with each other. How do, say, Fie and Machias feel about each other? I have no idea. But this group has a fantastic dynamic and it makes that ending so much more effective

It’s like I praised Crossbell for, really - having a small core group is much more manageable in terms of giving them all equal screen time and getting me to care about them

Musse: Uh, kind of one-note and annoying, honestly. I don’t hate her or anything, but like... she’s either Being Mysterious or Hitting On Her Teacher (I hate it I hate it so much). It’s just hard to care about someone who’s clearly so fake, I guess? I’m definitely interested in her, but like... I don’t really like her

Ash: Poor boy. I thought Ash was such an interesting character (and man do I love having someone around who does not like Rean, and never really changes his mind about it). Ash is very well done imo

Alisa: Alisa is good when the issue is her family drama, and is so goddamn boring when it comes to Rean. Nothing new there

Elliot: I love his little ponytail I love it he’s so cute I want to hug him so bad

Laura: Winner of the ‘best new outfit’ award (was never that fond of her war outfit, but this one is perfect). Still good, but not notably so. I feel so bad for Laura, she tries so hard to matter, but she’s by far the character you’d have the easiest time lifting out of the game

And while I love Elliot... same situation really. You could go back to the start and have one character named Elliaura who likes swords and music and has two big-shot dads, and you wouldn’t lose much

Machias: Took down Rufus, yeah, destroy your best friend (boyfriend)’s evil family! Winner of the ‘worst new outfit’ award, AGAIN. Also winner of ‘dorkiest S-craft’. I did his final bonding event first, and according to Playstation trophies it’s the least popular one! Stop sleeping on my boy Machias guys, I know he was annoying in the first game but I love him :(

Gaius: Special award to Gaius for finally being interesting! Boy’s a Gralsritter now, did not see that coming!

And of course it happened off screen. Because god forbid interesting stuff happen to Gaius when we’re actually around

Oh also goddamn, that is a beautiful man

Emma: Don’t really like the new outfit. It’s kind of remarkable that she’s so important but I keep forgetting she exists. Exposition witch who sometimes just doesn’t deliver the exposition I guess

Fie: Still my fav girl. Wish there had been more focus on her feelings about her dad coming back to life. Like that she’s a bracer

Jusis: Wasn’t sure how to feel about his newly close friendship with Millium because I was concerned that I was meant to ship it (by far my least favourite thing about this franchise is that that was not an unreasonable concern, as it wouldn’t even be the most inappropriate relationship in this game alone). Very, very glad it was confirmed sibling-y (not that it’s stopped them before). He didn’t really get to do anything else, sadly, but he’s good as always

I did the Purebread contest with him, and he made bread from coffee beans Machias gave him, the Ferdibert Fire Emblem energy- 

“What are you doing underneath this scarlet Pleroma Grass?”

Milliam: :(

Sara: Doesn’t get much to do because this cast is bloated but like, I still really like her :)

Towa: Someone needs to check on Towa all her friends are dead or evil the poor poor girl (or uh. I guess Crow isn’t... hmm.)

Angie :(

My kids Tita and Agate are back and completely overshadowed by people teasing this almost 30-year old man about being in love with a 17 year old that he’s only ever claimed to see as a sister, I swear to god

The orbal gear looks so goofy lol

Stop mentioning Schera as just being ‘totally here, just off screen, ha ha’ give her a model! Have her be here!

Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing Josette again, I just don’t get... why? Why is she here?

Tio is back! And so is Randy, as a major character! I’m very very happy, I love them both

Michael’s fine, I guess? He’s kind of bland but I guess that’s kind of the point and I like him just fine. He serves his purpose well

I’ve never really liked Claire all that much, but she’s fine in this one again I suppose. A bit disappointed by the Lechter reveals really, I had expected more, to be honest

Aurelia is a fun character and I enjoy her as the principal. Want to see her fight Cassius

Want to see Cassius 

I love my girl Annabelle, but she’s the only reason I didn’t get all the character profiles (how was I meant to know I could even go to the highway at that point hmmm Falcom!?)

They picked a good selection of returning Thors students. Even Dorothee isn’t as annoying as she used to be. Hilarious that she’s the only one who didn’t get a profile

Juna gave a great big speech about how awesome the SSS are and namedrops everyone EXCEPT WAZY! My FAVOURITE Crossbell character! So offensive!

Oh speaking of offensive I took Machias to the Mishy show and was told he and Rean did a Mishy dance but they didn’t show it, what the hell-

Playable Olivier! Olivier back story! I could write a goddamn essay on why Olivier is such a great character. Glaring at you Falcom

I miss Mueller :(

Ada Grant is wonderful and I want better things for her

Rufus is a damn great villain just because of how much sense his actions suddenly make when you know that one little detail of him not actually being Jusis’s brother

I hate Cedric but like, in a way where I’m having fun hating him. That little bitch

Literally what do you even actually want Osbourne

I still cannot stand Elise. Something I realised playing this game is that one of the things that stops the Estelle and Joshua relationship from being as weird as it could be is that they don’t look at all alike, it’s very clear they’re not related in the slightest. Elise and Rean look like they really could be siblings, and come to think, so do Lloyd and Cecile. Which is also teased, to a lesser extent. It would be so much less uncomfortable if they just swapped Elise and Alfin’s models ngl (though still not good)

inb4 the final plot twist of the whole series is that Estelle and Joshua actually were biological siblings all along

This game looks so much better than its predecessors. Having the models being a little rounder and softer looking makes it look much more like an updated version of the original style than the complete departure that was CS1 and 2. Every time there was a flashback, Rean would be like ‘back then...’ and I’d feel compelled to say out loud ‘when we were shiny, and looked bad!’

‘Evil ancient magic corrupts people into making them do bad things!’ is... honestly a bit of a cop out that I did not expect from this series 

I found Rean telling Patrick ‘leave room for Aidios when dancing with my sister’ extremely funny. Rean would totally be a Christian summer camp counsellor in the real world

I honestly would have enjoyed it a lot more if Alfin decided to cause a scandal and have her first dance with Elise, but we can’t have such luxuries I suppose

When you get that book on dystopias, very clever to put the author on the last page. Seeing the name Gideon gave me such a start

Racquel was easily my fav new location

Leeves > Trista no doubt, maybe I’m just biased because it looks a lot like the village I grew up in but it’s just such a nicer design

Also the branch campus > main campus purely for being smaller, making the filler segments between field trips more bearable 

I prefer the longer but fewer chapters set-up, I think

There’s so many sad faces in this write up :( 

Back when I played Sky SC, I said something about how one of the themes is ‘you are not defined by your trauma’. I now think it would be more accurate to say that the theme of all the games (but especially the Sky arc) is ‘don’t let your worst experiences define you’

Because there are characters who define themselves by their traumas and worst experiences - and those characters are all villains, or miserable, or both. Like, they don’t phrase it as such, but the requirement to be an Ouroboros enforcer is ‘have trauma and define yourself by it’

And both Joshua and Renne’s arcs are about learning not to do that

Equally, the idea that ‘it’s much easier to not to define yourself by your trauma when you have a good support system that wants the best for you’ is a big theme as well

I just think that’s a really interesting idea for a JRPG series to tackle, idk

I can’t believe I’m at the last game! This series has been my life for the past near-half a year, what do I do when I finish it?

...go back and play Sky FC, maybe?

[sageukfilms]

historical context pt 2: on yi bang won’s brothers (and sisters), seon-ho and his father, women’s rights in joseon vs goryeo

a bit more focus on yi bang won’s family this time, since he’s always fascinated me as a real historical figure. he did a lot of good, but he committed a lot of terrible things in order to achieve the good and he’s always been a pretty polarizing figure to Korean historians. (the majority of them like him because he’s the father of Kim Sejong aka the King who invented the Hangul/Korean alphabet while the others are like ‘damn why this dude so murderous’)

yi seong-gye had six sons from his first wife and two sons from his second wife, but why are only like three of them mentioned in the drama?

- mostly because they don’t have any major relevance to the plot, tbh. yi bang won IS arguably yi seong-gye’s most talented/qualified son in a lot of ways. he really was the only son who passed the civil examination in that entire family.

Eldest Son Yi Bang-U

- yi seong-gye mentions him in the drama when discussing who should be named crown prince and dismisses him bc he’s an alcoholic. which was true, yi bang-won’s oldest brother WAS an alcoholic, but he only became so after Yi Seong-Gye seized the throne. he was so distraught by the rebellion that he literally retreated to the mountains and retired. imagine serving your dad and your country and then seeing him betray the very country you both spilled blood for your whole life?? he was granted a princely title, but otherwise stayed away from politics and the military until his death

Second Son Yi Bang-Gwa

- this is the dude who is currently king that appears in episode 14. the one who’s in the throne room while bang-won and bang-gan yell at each other lol.  basically he was just put on the throne bc he’s the second son (and the eldest was like don’t even contact me about this shit) and later in history he renounces the throne so yi bang-won can take it. he also had NO legitimate sons from his first wife (though he had many from his concubines, but they were all illegitimate and couldn’t become princes). meaning he was the safest choice to be bang-won’s puppet ruler. all in all he was supremely lucky in that he got to live in peace and avoid getting murdered by anyone

Third Son Yi Bang-Ui

- while he was on yi bang-won’s side during the first coup, he’s never mentioned in dramas/television because apparently he’s not all that interesting. he’s been described as someone who had a loving relationship with ALL of his brothers, which imo COULD have been interesting to see but what do i know

Fourth Son Yi Bang-Gan aka the One That’s Weirdly Comedic and Also Murderous and Has Like that Weird Sword Boner For Hwi

- bang-gan did in fact try to murder bang-won and seize the throne, but he was urged on to do so by a historical figure called park po who was bitter that all his efforts during the first coup were not recognized by bang-won. the most hilarious thing is that bang-gan is like “damn this is a great idea, im gonna do it” and sets an official date for murdering, and NEVER TELLS park po the day he’s gonna murder bang-won so park po is just hanging around in ignorance until bang-won arrests him and then has him executed

- bang-gan actually tells his father yi seong-gye and his second bother yi bang-gwa of his intentions and they BOTH tell him that he’s stupid as fck. at this point, the historical yi seong-gye is SICK of the fighting between his sons and tells bang-gan to stop (unlike in the drama when he purposefully eggs him on). 

- bang-gan obvs doesn’t stop though, but his attempts are foiled bc bang-won knew of his coup beforehand. bang-gan is not executed and is instead sent away in exile. the fault of the coup instead lands on park po who again has no idea what’s occurring until he’s arrested. (damn it would suck to be park po, though inb4 seon-ho becomes the park po of this sageuk)

The Ill-fated Crown Prince Yi Bang-Seok and his brother Yi Bang-Beon

- in history, Yi Bang-Won forces his father to remove Bang-seok from the crown prince position during the coup, which Yi Seong-Gye IMMEDIATELY does in order to save bang-seok’s life (bang-seok is still alive at this point in time). unfortunately, bang-won then murders bang-seok anyway. (fulfilling the queen’s prediction that no matter what he would have murdered her sons)

- there are two versions of the crown prince’s death: the first is what we saw in ep 12 when he was assassinated right after stepping out in the palace. (this is the official record. his final recorded words are “my brother promised to spare my life, do not worry.”). there’s another version that yi bang-won went into the palace and threw his brother into a well to kill him. which is... not recorded, but yi bang-won’s side framed everything in the records to make him and his people look good. (because they were the winners!!! winners in history get to frame themselves however they want)

- so what about yi bang-beon? aka the queen’s other son that never gets mentioned? he gets murdered too of course!!! though bang-won is content with just exiling him, his brother bang-gan murders bang-beon (of course in the show, we see bang-won approving of the assassination). (Bang-beon also suffers from the unfortunate position of having a.) envied his younger brother for being crown prince and therefore did NOT alert him or his father about the upcoming coup and b.) trying to maintain a neutral position that ultimately got him killed

- btw, yi seong-gye was absolutely in the palace during the Strife. He never left to go to a Temple. he was dragged from his throne and forced to abdicate during the coup after stripping Bang-seok of his position as Crown Prince in order to save him.

The Sixth Brother

 - died at a relatively early age, sadly.

Sisters?!

- yes, Yi Seong-Gye had daughters!!! Two from his first wife and one from his second and two more from his concubines (yah he had concubines). sadly, nothing else is known about them. Queen Sindeok’s daughter aka Bang-seok and Bang-beon’s younger sister outlived both of her older brothers, and died maybe nine years later. (somewhat comforting, but ultimately sad.)

- Bang-won’s sisters lived a little longer, but ultimately they had little historical relevance (or they did and the records refused to record them bc they were just Women). mostly, they were just married off to build political alliances

more on seon-ho

- there’s a scene in ep 5 where bang-won makes fun of seon-ho’s bastard status and compares him to Sambong and i just want to say that imo this is very realistic of bang-won. Sambong is an incredibly important and vital figure in history -- he served as yi seong-gye’s aide and was actually the mastermind behind ALL of yi bang-won’s social/political reforms. unfortunately, yi bang-won murdered him because.... uh.... he wanted to carry out those reforms HIMSELF, essentially. (no one else gets to do it but ME!!) he disliked sambong strongly, and there were rumors that sambong was descended from bastards/had slave blood in his family, so Bang-won sneering at Seon-ho for essentially having the same background would be legit. the line where he mentions that “in his country, bastards will never gain status” is so sad... and also true, even though he introduced the new Slave Law (that law was immediately repealed later)

- in other words, illegitimate children from nobleman + slaves were still eventually barred from taking the government exam and owning property in joseon. seon-ho’s fate would have more or less remained the same.

Seon-ho’s father Nam Jeon

- is a fictional figure, but his status as Yi Seong-Gye’s aide in the show cooouullld place him as the stand-in for the actual Nam Eun who was one of Yi Seong-Gye’s trusted aides and who was also killed by Yi Bang-Won

- the difference here is that Yi Bang-Won regrets murdering Nam Eun after and gives government positions to Nam Eun’s friends as like a way of apology lmfao

women’s rights in goryeo vs joseon

- just wanted to talk about this because hee-jae is such a kickass figure, but the long and short of it is that women lose all the rights (what little they had) in joseon vs in goryeo. they’re forbidden to step outside their homes after marriage, are NOT allowed to mingle with the other sex, they lose their rights as land-owners and property-inheritors, and Confucianism gains a huge foothold in a country that already treats women as second-class citizens. they weren’t allowed to re-marry if widowed, and were encouraged to kill themselves if they were assaulted or harassed so like....... life continues to suck for bastard children and ladies

fun fact for that (1) Legitimate Child that Yi Bang-Won Allowed to Live

- in my last post I mentioned that Yi Bang-Won killed the children of the “traitors” who conspired to prevent his coup except for Sambong’s eldest son, who was demoted (name: Jung Jin). Fortunately, this son managed to rise through the ranks of the government again and became the Minister of Justice under Yi Bang-Won’s reign. 

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 162

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 14 - “Karen, The Troubled Student Council President” Date watched: 3 December 2019 Original air date: 6 May 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/ZVrof8Y Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Karen has a big think

It’s Karen’s turn to hold the character development conch. This time, we get to see how she handles pressure from all directions! We also find out a little secret about Otaka-san and the school’s leadership. Good stuff, so let’s dive in!

The Plot

Various clubs approach Karen, aggressively requesting budget increases. The futsal club can’t afford new balls, the drama club can’t afford costumes, the judo club can’t afford new weights, the list goes on. Karen is taken aback and tries to explain the complexities of the situation to the students, but they are insistent. After trying to come up with a solution, she approaches the Vice Principal and explains her situation, requesting a budget increase for all the clubs. He is reluctant to change the budget that’s already been agreed upon for the year, but because he respects her decision to approach him, he will take it up with the principal. The VP goes to the Principal, revealed (to the audience) to actually be Otaka-san the lunch lady, but she insists that she doesn’t believe they need a budget increase, and there are still solutions the clubs haven’t yet come up with to resolve their budget woes. Komachi talks with Karen, commending her willingness to work hard for the clubs where before she probably would have simply said that the budget was already decided and they had to make do with what they had. The influence of their determined young friends is rubbing off on them.

Coincidentally, Nightmare is also having budget issues of a sort. Although they aren’t in a pinch, Kawarino is scolding Bunbee for blowing a lot of money without producing any results, and implies that his subordinates are useless and the whole department could get restructured. Bunbee decides to go fight the girls himself to get some results.

Back at school, Karen is still being hounded by the clubs, and her attempts at de-escalation aren’t working, so Otaka almost steps in, but Komachi is actually the one to put her foot down, startling everyone. She reminds the club leaders that they agreed to their annual budgets before the proposal was sent to the school administration, and that Karen alone cannot solve everything. With help from Nozomi, she gets them all to line up and explain their problems, to see if they can work together and figure out alternative solutions within their existing budgets.

The biggest offender is the drama club, which is going way over budget because they’ve picked a play with lots of extravagant costumes. However, Komachi gets them to work with the sewing club, who were looking for a platform to display their work, and the two split costs in this mutually beneficial agreement. The Judo club couldn’t afford to buy new weights AND new uniforms, but they also got the sewing club to patch up their uniforms so they could buy heavier weights, and donated their older ones to the futsal club. Now that she doesn’t need to buy weights, Rin can afford new balls, and donates the old ones to the art club, who find their shape and texture very inspirational.

I’d like to point out that the dumbbell Nozomi is struggling to lift is only 5 KG, that’s about 11 lbs.

With everyone’s issues resolved, the girls enjoy a moment of peace as Rin takes her new dumbbells to her club space, but on the way, Bunbee shows up to cause trouble. He turns the dumbbells into a Kowaina and taunts the girls about his own superiority. They transform and fight back, but he is pretty strong. When Mint shields one of the monster’s attacks, he launches a missile that breaks the shield, and he easily dodges when Rouge and Aqua try to fight him in the air. Dream and Lemonade have no luck fighting the Kowaina and they’re all left on the ground, defeated. Bunbee boasts about how much easier it is to do everything himself, and Aqua scoffs. She says she used to feel that way, but now she knows they’d never win if they did that, and the team springs into action. Bunbee tries to missile them again, and again Mint uses her shield, but this time Aqua also blocks it with Aqua Stream and this weakens it enough to bounce off the shield. Dream and Rouge restrain the Kowaina while Lemonade attacks it with Lemonade Flash, then the two throw it and perform their finishers. The Kowaina is destroyed and Bunbee retreats, self-justifying the day by saying you have to spend money to make money.

Back at the lunch table, Nozomi observes that Komachi might actually be stronger than Karen, which gives them all pause. Otaka comes over with a basket full of yakisoba bread, claiming the principal told her how they avoided a budget crisis, and suddenly people from all the other clubs appear, all vying for some of the free bread. Nozomi cries because the crowd beat her to the stuff she really wanted, and that’s the ending card.

The Analysis

What a fun episode. Karen’s commitment to the students is really earnest and inspiring. You can see why she’s the president, and even how much progress she’s made since the start of the show. Old Karen just cared about order, new Karen has the best interests of the students in mind and wants to meet them where they’re at. She fields the ire of the various clubs like a champ, trying not to get overwhelmed, and explaining the delicate balance that is adjusting budgets: since the budget has already been agreed upon, for her to allocate more to one group than previously agreed means the money has to come out of somewhere else, and that could put the other party in a pinch. Important financial lesson for the kids in the audience, too. And when her advice isn’t sufficient for them, she goes to bat for them by requesting assistance from the VP. My only criticism is that she probably should have asked why they needed more money first to see where their funds were tied up at, but honestly I would probably do the same thing, jumping straight to “let me get them what they say they need” and not “let me look into the situation more”.

When they get to the drama club and find out the reason they’re so over budget is because they decided to produce an expensive-ass play, I about died. LOOK AT THIS OUTFIT.

gosh I wonder why

There’s a lesson in here somewhere about working within your limitations. Urara suggests they do a simpler show like Kintarou, which would have costumes and props they could reuse in other shows, but from the club president’s response I get the impression they’ve done far too many shows like that and are sick of it. Also can’t fault them for doing something different. I remember in my junior year (11th grade), my school put on a production of “High School Musical” (this was when that was still a pretty fresh and hot property) and it sold like crazy, so the next year they were able to perform “Little Shop of Horrors”, renting the Audrey II puppets from somewhere. It’s okay to dream big, but you gotta make sure you can afford it. (inb4 ok boomer) However, working with the sewing club was a very good compromise. They get a platform to showcase their work, the drama club gets good costumes for cheaper, and they split the costs. Some of the other deals are a bit more one-sided but as long as everyone’s happy, it works.

By the way, Komachi’s restraint when the club president goes “oh yeah we spent all our budget on that one outfit and we need a bunch more” is remarkable. (I looked it up and I see similarities to Les Miserables: it’s a famous story that takes place over multiple generations and features LOTS of recurring characters) Komachi is, thankfully, very good at keeping herself in check, but if you manage to set her off, she is downright scary. That’s a common attribute for shield-based Cures, and it started here.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, since they only have a few of the costumes done, the drama club president is only ever seen in-costume, looking like a prince with a pencil mustache drawn onto her face. If we take the bold assumption that this all occurs in one day, even one lunch period, then this makes sense enough, but it’s still kind of silly.

The first half of this episode is so good, and tells a pretty complete story, that both times I watched it I forgot what kind of show it was because I was so absorbed in the antics of the clubs, so I thought the resolution was just going to be sorting out their budgets, when that was actually only the halfway point. The fight with Bunbee in the second half, while good, feels incomplete. I’m not sure if something got lost in translation for the subtitles, because he seems to indicate he spent money on a better Kowaina mask but the subs don’t reflect him saying this, only the girls’ response that it looks the same as normal. I do like them switching up their fighting style, and it comes with one of the strangest calls to action I’ve ever seen:

previously unsaid sentences in human history

The context is that, earlier in the episode, Nozomi and Urara traded lunch items, and now Karen is reminding them all to trade opponents and work together to beat the monster. Hilariously, even though Nozomi was the one who wanted to trade in the first place, she’s the last one to get this coded message, after Rin explains it to her.

She is special.

The elephant in the room here is that Otaka-san, the humble lunch lady who always adds a million onto every order, who appears a little disheveled, is in fact the school’s principal. Books and covers, ya know. I don’t recall if the girls every learn her secret, but it’s revealed to the audience here. I assume she serves as the lunch lady in order to get close to the students and understand what’s going on without calling attention to her position of authority. That’s the thing about power, even if you act relatable, if someone knows you’re way above them on the totem pole, they’re going to act differently, so she has put herself on the level of students. It’s like Undercover Boss except she never reveals the ruse. And honestly, it’s a very good ruse. She is approachable to the students and they all love her, so she can listen to their problems and make sure that the school is running well from the ground level. Also, as the lunch lady, she wears plain clothes, an apron, and flat shoes. Her only accessory is her trademark silver brooch. As the principal, she wears a suit, her hair is more tamed, she wears lipstick and earrings. She even speaks differently between her roles, sounding more raspy in her disguise, while she adopts a more formal and stern tone while acting as the principal. It’s impressive. I know she appears in this role at least one more time in the show, so I look forward to seeing that.

As usual there were some great moments of comedy, wonderful facial expressions, and you can see those chronicled in the gallery.

Next time, in Precure Daily, Nozomi’s mom is sick, so she has to do the housework! How badly will this end?

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 kettei!

[bscully]

have you ever read the lost chapter that miura requested to be removed off the eclipse Arc before Griffith transformed into femto ?? if not look it up I want your opinion on this chapter and the idea of evil “god”

Hello and thank you for the ask!

Yes I have!

People have spun quite the theories about it, however I don’t think its as canon as some people make it out to be.

Miura took it out so he can be flexible as he continues Berserk. He’s still developing the concepts around this. That said, we might in for a surprise towards the finale (I’m personally predicting a new god-hand type character or “astral force” that will reveal itself unexpectedly and it might turn out very different to the IOE).

The IOE is in essence an entity that controls human fate: “I am the idea. The desired god. The Idea of evil.” At least, that’s what the lost chapter says.

However, I always thought Miura only tells 4% of the story and world building he has in mind and the fact he took the IOE out and replaced it with something similar, but with extremely sparse information, seem to fit this idea.

I think Miura borrowed the IOE from real life belief systems. There is this one (pagan/shaman, afaik) belief that every being is part of a collective consciousness that potentially “stores” all feelings, dreams and thoughts somewhere in a non-materialistic layer of reality - a “spiritual DNA” so to say. If this system was used as inspiration - which imo it seems to be, this is literally what the lost chapter is all about! - this makes the IOE a self-made “God” somewhere residing in the astral world, and it’s probably mostly made up from hate, despair, malice, violence (wellp humanity at its finest I guess?). I actually typed this up before reading the lost chapter again and wellp:

At the same time, this self-made God is likely disconnected from the greater scheme of things e.g. ask yourself: do other species or astral beings have their own “God”…? (Do Elves have their own “God”? And does that make Guts and SK a unpredictable factor in the equation given they both have a connection to Elves…?) So if this is anything to go by, that means just because the IOE is trying to manipulate causality in a certain way, does not mean it will succeed doing so.

Instead of 100% revealing how the IOE works, we do get a couple of hints about the astral world from Flora. Here, for example she states that the behelit is a spiritual object that governs human fate. But she also states there might be even something greater that sent it to the physical world. This is from volume 24.

Let me just stress out here that this “greater existence” here DOES NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE THE IOE.

But then Guts asks what the God Hand is and we get this answer from Flora:

There seems to be 1) the concept of “fate” somehow connected to the behelits and a greater existence, but at the same time we also have 2) the god hand being the executors of something lurking deep in the astral world.

Are these two the same thing? As far as I am concerned they do not have to be!!! To me it appears like Flora is talking about two different, but related things.

I mean the fact Flora answers these questions completely separate of each other already tells me the Godhand and Behelits/the ”greater existence” seem to be two different concepts entirely: I mean were the Behelits REALLY connected to the GOD HAND directly she would possibly have said so, or brought them up. Note how it was GUTS who brought it up and who knows much less about the topic. I mean sure, Behelits are used to call the “angels” (in this case, the God Hand) - but are they created by the God hand? Flora in fact seems to imply there are different KINDS of behelits and they obey some kind of MASTER. Are Behelits just fateful stones (neutral by themselves) USED by the God Hand for their own benefit? What other “master” is using these Behelits???

What if Behelits in themselves are NEUTRAL TOOLS of fate, NOT affiliated with the God Hand, and the Angel that was called 1000 years ago during Gaiseric’s reign was actually a different “type” of astral being? What if the IOE didn’t exist yet at this point, but manifested through this act of sacrifice…!?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EDIT:

Flora DOES state that “A Behelit. […] A a fetish to summon the five angels”. I still find her wording interesting. E.g. she is not stating “all behelits are a key that links a deep layer of the astral world…”. She’s looking at it, saying its a Behelit and then describes its function. Is she talking about about THIS particular Behelit, or is she talking about Behelits in general? Because what she said above ^^^^ about Behelits being devices of fate sounds like a general statement, that is not necessarily tied to the God Hand members.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So if we have different MASTERS of behelits (edit: presumably, members of the god hand still), it’s already fitting with these depictions from volume 10, which clearly show actual angels, that DO NOT look like the God Hand at all:

Inb4 that dude in the middle ^^^^ is the guy that made the first god hand member ascend

It seems like these angels somehow existed during Gaiseric’s reign, but then Humanity fell astray from their “real” path to growth and fell under the influence of the IOE/The God Hand (this would have a lot of resemblance to the biblical story of adam and eve, being expelled from eden after eating from the tree of knowledge)

Shit man if this holds any truth Miura’s gonna surprise y’all. This is why you shouldn’t be so focused on what the lost chapter says!!!

Also side note: Flora says it is NOT possible for someone to actually reach whatever is deeply hidden in the astral world, which directly contradicts the fact Griffith managed to do so in the lost chapter by retaining his ego and conversing with the IOE. Please consider that for a moment before thinking anything the lost chapter contains is still up-to-date (the concept of collective consciousness may still apply - but the rest may not).

Anyway how much control the Behelits, the “greater existence “or the god hand has over humanity is not revealed at all - even if you try to “reverse engineer” this from Berserk’s world events, you still cannot say for sure, but that’s for another lengthy post.

What is also implied later on Elfhelm (chapter 345) is the fact that different “dragon roads” to the astral world seem to exist, and activating a Behelit is only one way to open a road. What is also being mentioned is that differently sized roads to the astral world exist, the larger ones being called dragon roads.

What other roads exist and who is using them? Presumably, other powerful astral beings.

Funny visual parallel: the IOE is also depicted as a spiral.

[unto-myself-together]

Of Stories and Songs: Ch 8

A lot of author notes, I know, but there’s no avoiding that.  A TON of stuff happens in this chapter. 

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Author notes: I really REALLY need to stop making long chapters.  22 pages!  Like I never get them out and I get “fatigued” or something when I make them super long like this. I also wouldn’t have to make such long author notes. 

Inb4 my family thinks I’m creepy for breathing into my phone while recording.

I actually couldn’t figure out how to get the audio files off my phone, but you’re really not missing much anyways.  Just when you get to the part of the story, take a deep breath in and listen to how it sounds when you take a deep breath in.  Change it up by changing how fast you breath the air in, and listen.  Yes, that was exactly what I was going for.  

Character names and the Imagineers they were named after:

Claude = Claude Coates Michael Davis = Mark Davis Karen Anderson = Ken Anderson Solomon Gracey= Yale Gracey Rolly Mortimer= Rolly Crump The Atencio company = X Atencio Nell is named after the main character of the Haunting of Hill House *(as well as named after the author of that story).  And Galloway isn’t anything important or a reference; it just sounded cool at the time. 

Yes, I did indeed try to draw that creepy hand that passes over the grandfather clock.  I’m sad it didn’t turn out quite right, but I dislike the act of drawing too much to actually bother fixing that piece up. 

“Closing your eyes” : When I was young, my mother would always close my eyes when the Ghost Host would show his body hanging from the rafters.  I thought she did it because I was afraid of the thunder and lightning, and she was known to hold my eyes whenever something I found scary happened on other rides.  Even though thunder is a SOUND and not a sight, it did feel comforting to have her put her hands over my eyes anyways.  It took me a long, long time to figure out the real reason she closed my eyes was because she didn’t want me to see the hanged man.  Part of that was because I didn’t know it was a hanged man, even when I had a chance to look at it.  It just looked like a weird clump of clothes hanging from the ceiling. So I guess in some ways, she didn’t even need to hold my eyes close to begin with (because I would not have known even if I looked at it); but I still appreciated that she went through the effort. 

The idea of three people creepily coming closer and closer to you after having cornered you is kind of what I imagined the Cast Members would totally do to guests that don’t listen and leave the ride vehicles without permission.  You know...if security didn’t have to be involved and they were allowed to be theatrical.  

So in the actual ride, there are TWO stretching rooms for all Haunted Mansion locations.  In WDW, they exist on either side of the Aging Man portrait. They are exactly identical, and I always thought it would be fun to imagine that they are the EXACT same room, and that the house just moves rooms around. 

The door hidden in the darkness of the foyer is an actual door in WDW that I’ve been through.  It connects to the small pet cemetery area right outside the exit doors of the ride. I’ve been through it before and it was totally awesome; might talk about it in another post. 

There are actually two versions of Nell; the one in this story and the one that I roleplay.  For all intents and purposes, they have the exact same personality, likes, and etc, but they just have different backstories and reasons for being at the mansion.  In case anyone was confused.

I struggled, for a long time, to figure out what year this story ought to take in (as in, what year the two teens come to the mansion).  There are benefits and downsides to both “modern era” and 1960s, the two time periods I considered.  On the one hand, the 1960s could avoid the idea of under age drinking because the age was 18 back then (in the state of Virginia).  The reason why I mention this is because there was a plot point that I...really don’t want to have to avoid all because the main characters don’t drink.  I think I pretty much solved this dilemma in this chapter though, without underage drinking (even if I had to do so in a bit of an unrealistic way, sorry about that). Additionally, there would be no cell phones 1960s to ruin the story (as they call for help).  On the other hand, it also means I cannot use modern day slang, ideas, memes, and etc....I think I’ve decided to kind of....let this story be in the modern day....possibly.  I don’t know, I just might change my mind later.  The struggle is real. 

I may have forgotten a few author notes, in which case I apologize beforehand. 

FINALLY, I dedicate this chapter to my dear friend, @asktheghosthost .  Thank you for always listening, thank you for all the good times and good stories we’ve made together, thank you for reblogging these story chapters, thank you for pulling me back in the Haunted Mansion fandom...and thank you for helping to inspire this story.   

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Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, domestic violence, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

This chapter: underage drinking (except not really.  You’ll understand when you get to it)

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Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , Chapter 5 ,

Chapter 6 , Chapter 7

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CH 8:  Dust and Ashes

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All of my life I spent searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings

~ Now at the end all I know that I've learned is that all that I know is I don't know a thing

~Dust and Ashes, from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.  

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Karen pulled the blanket closer to her as they descended downward.  It was warmer in the stairway, but only just so; the more they descended, the closer the temperature got to the frigid room she’d woken up in previously.

“…Mr. Mortimer…I’m confused.”

“I can’t blame you none for that.  I’d probably be the same, were I in your shoes.”

He kept pace beside her, his cane ticking with every step.

“What I meant was: Why are we going down?  Shouldn’t we be going up?”

“We’re already up as high as we can get, young’un.  Nowhere for us to go but down.”

“Wha--?”

She stopped, and Mr. Mortimer’s cane clicked to a halt as he, too, stopped a little ways in front of her.

“Where was that?  The place we were before with all the junk?”

“That would be the attic.”

Karen considered this.

“Mr. Mortimer…why…did you go through all the trouble of carrying me up to the attic?  What was the point if we just have to climb all the way down again?”

Mr. Mortimer chuckled, his gold teeth glistening in the act.  The warmth of his tone, however, hardly made the sight terrifying.  

“I certainly would not have gone through the trouble of gettin’ a living body all the way to the attic…You were already nearby.”

She gaped at him, trying to keep up with his logic.

“But I fell down a chasm of staircases…”

“No, you fell up a chasm of staircases.”

“That’s not even physically possible!”

“Talking about the physical in a house of ghosts, hmm?  Trust me, young’un.  Those sets of staircases you’ve been hanging about in are the very opposite of possible. Don’t think too hard about it, as it doesn’t make much sense even to us.”

He gestured for the two of them to continue, and she numbly caught up to his pace.  

“If I…”  She adjusted the blanket as they walked side by side. “…If I had fallen all the way…”

He frowned.  “…Best not think of things like that.  Won’t do nothing but worry yourself.”

She gave him a startled look, and he returned it with solemn nod.  

She went quiet again for a bit, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.  This stairway, at least, seemed to be relatively normal.  Contained on all sides by walls, yet the rickety nature of it still threatened to trip her should she neglect to watch her step.  Tiny spiders crawled along one of the walls. Tiny red spots on their backs that made them look like drops of blood circulating around them.  

“…I’m sorry I didn’t say it before but…Thank you for saving me, Mr. Mortimer…”

“I’m afraid I can’t take all the thanks, young’un.  Because I’m not the one who stopped yer fall.”

“Then who did?”

Mr. Mortimer paused again, and his gaze followed the trail of spiders.  

All of them, the exact same appearance.  All of them, traveling the exact same lines.  Single Filed.   Mindless and unnatural.  

“Are those really spiders?”  Instantly, she regretted the question, just as she was sure she’d regret the answer.

He sighed.  “No.  They aren’t. But that’s a right hard topic to talk about, and I ain’t too sure it’s my place to say.  We better press on.”

His tone suggested that he’d prefer a change in subject, and his cane clacked as he continued forward again.

But Karen lingered a while by the spiders, watching them go from one end of the wall to the other. Black beady bodies with bright red spots each.  A larger one was lingering above the traveling group with the same shade on its hairy exoskeleton as all the rest.  

She looked from the tiny creatures lining the wall to the little bites that still lined her hand. These had to have been the same sort of spiders that fixed the window…and the floor…and attacked her for trying to interfere with their work.  

The spiders stopped.  Unanimously and simultaneously, they all turned towards her and lifted up their front two legs.  

She took a startled step backwards.  

“I’m sorry!”  She said, wondering if they actually understood her.  Her legs compelled her on to catch up to Mr. Mortimer, and a quick glance behind her told her that the spiders resumed their mindless trek once again.  

“They’re so creepy…” She muttered as she was once again beside him.  

“That they are,” The skeletal Mr. Mortimer said.  

“Have they always been part of the house?”

“As far as I’m aware. Mr. Gracey told me he remembered seeing some of them back when he was alive, though it’s difficult to say whether they’d been upkeepin’ the house back then the way they do now.”

“How could he…not remember whether there were strange spiders rebuilding the house from underneath his feet?”

Mr. Mortimer gave a snorted laugh.  “If you ever meet Mr. Gracey, I think you’d do well to keep that comment to yerself.”

“I already have, and I already think he doesn’t like me.”

Mr. Mortimer raised an eyebrow at her.  “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“He was just…”  

She thought back to all the memories she had of Solomon Gracey, and the contrast it stood to her own personal experience meeting him.  The resulting earthquake he seemed to summon right then and there in the hallway.  

“…Really grumpy.”  She settled on that, although it seemed a severe understatement.  

“Likely was just angry with that Mr. Claude.  He assumes all mortals that come this way are the result of that man luring them here. And he’s usually right.”

“Mr. Claude?”

“Ah...”  He tutted to himself.  “Sorry.  Tried to remember not to call him that around you; I don’t think he likes the mortals using that name.  But you would know him to be the self-proclaimed ‘Ghost Host’.”

Karen tightened the blanket around herself.  “He has a name?”  

“Just the one.  No surname, no title names, no family names. Just Claude.  Doubt it’s even his real name, the wretch does like his little nicknames, but it’s the only one he’s ever given us to address him.”

The Ghost Host, imagined as a once real and living person.  Even in the one memory where she saw him as a mortal, it was hard to think of him as human. Having something of a name attached to him did almost nothing to wave away the inherent ethereal nature of his existence.  In fact, it almost felt…discomforting that he should have a name at all.

“Him and Mr. Gracey didn’t much like each other even way back when,” Mr. Mortimer continued, “And their fightin’ didn’t get any better in death either.  If anything, it got worse.  Sometimes see them go at each other’s throats like starving bears maulin’ each other over a fresh kill.”  

They stopped at a landing, and Mr. Mortimer opened up the door into another hallway.  

“As it happens, Mr. Claude is the one who likes to lure in unsuspectin’ mortals, and occasionally shows them off to Mr. Gracey because the ol’ wretch knows it will get the master of the house right and proper pissed at him.  Mr. Gracey doesn’t approve o’ tricking mortals into the house, you see. It’s all a lot o’ prime entertainment for Claude. ”

“So Mr. Gracey isn’t really angry at me, then?”

“I’m sure he’s a bit peeved. Mortals shouldn’t hang about here. They can get themselves hurt, and there ain’t much of a good reason for them to be fraternizing with the dead. Leads to all sorts of things, like ghost hunters and….not so good expectations about what it means to die. So I can’t say he’s much happy that you’re here.  But he’s a right sort, a good man, and even though he’s a little, as you say,…”

He gave her an aside, his sea green eyes glittering at her as he smiled.  

“…Grumpy, he won’t hesitate to help you if you’re in need of it.”

They wandered down a hallway that she could only describe as splattered with crimson; red carpets all across the floor, red wallpaper with a strange floral design, and even the lights seem to glow a bit red.  Or maybe that last was simply a trick of the eye.  

Mr. Mortimer suddenly slowed his pace, and as she peered at him she could see his ghostly brow furrowed in concentration.  

“Speaking of, young ‘un…”

The sound of the wind drifted through the halls; strange as it was since there were no apparent windows about.  

“….If anything should happen to me, you’ll need to go and find Solomon.  The wretch Claude will try to stop you, he’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way, and you’ll need to swallow your fear and go down the scariest looking path to find Solomon. Solomon will help you.”

She was staring at him. “What….do you mean….?”

His eyes squinted; they looked off into the hallway and did not pay her heed “…It seems the wretch is about…Might be comin’ our way…”

“You can tell?”  She tried to look down the hallway as well, but could see nothing out of place.  It got colder; the wind shifted to breeze past her.  

He shifted the hatbox to his cane hand so that he could grab her arm.  

“Quickly now, young’un.” He said, pulling her along back the way they came. “We best be making our way back to the attic.”

“But why?”

“He never goes into the attic.”

And Mr. Mortimer left it at that, a note of finality in his tone that assured her he was not going to give her any other explanation.  

They made their way, at a much quicker pace, down the red rimmed hallway again and back into the stairwell.  He urged her to go up the stairs two at a time, a frantic pace that she was sure she wouldn’t have managed if he had not kindly helped pull up her weight with him. But even as they made it up their way up floors, the stairs seemed dauntingly and sadistically too tall.  

“Can’t understand why he’s this dogged insistent…  Plenty o’ mortals, psychic and not, have come by before and he never seemed this obsessed…What’s different here…?  If I had known…if I had known…Ah, what a fool ya are, Rolly…” Mr. Mortimer muttered to himself.  “Should have kept her in the attic, ya should…”

They made it to their third landing, before she suddenly buckled; an eerie, freezing sensation traced her spine and filled her with dread.  And almost immediately as the feeling came, Mr. Mortimer spun her behind him and….

…And he was thrown against the wall.  

She never saw it coming, for there was nothing to see.  The invisible entity rammed the greenish hued Mortimer up against the wood of the stairwell; she could see Mr. Mortimer struggling against it, his “body” glowing and misaligning and fading a bit as he fought.  She clenched her ears at the horrifying sound it seemed to produce, a cross between a woman screaming, a metal screw turning, and a set of nails rippling down a dry chalkboard.  It penetrated her head.  

Mr. Mortimer seemed to throw his attacker off him, as his feet were then on the floor.  His glow sputtered as he slammed his cane onto the floor in an effortful movement; the screaming chalkboard sound returned again and she stumbled against the wall to hold herself up.  

But it did not seem to last long.  Mr. Mortimer was back and pinned against the wall again, his glowing form turning to glowing fog, and the glowing fog obscuring her from seeing him properly.  

Until the fog cleared, but there was no sign of Mr. Mortimer.  

There was a painting of him instead.  

“Mr…”  She gulped his name back down, afraid of what she was seeing. Her hand shakily reached up to touch the elaborate frame of the perfectly painted portrait of the man who had just been beside her.  

               “Crying for the dead is encouraged in this house.”

There was a twinge of anger that she couldn’t just brush away as she turned to the empty air.  

“What did you do to him?!”

          “Don’t feel so bad. It isn’t as though I killed him.  Merely punished for                                        trying to kidnap you away from me.”

“He wasn’t kidnapping me!”

                “Oh but that is precisely why I have to frame him for it…                       Ahmmh mhmm hmmm ha ha haaaa HA!”

She went back to the portrait.  Mr. Mortimer’s jaw seemed clenched in anger, his eyes glowering.

“Young….un….”  She was surprised to hear a whisper coming from it, barely audible over Claude laughing over his own stupid joke.  

“Solomon…..find….run….harder….to….catch….moving target…”

“But….what about you?” She whispered back.

The edged colors around his face seemed to soften a bit.  “I…am...fine…”

She looked back at the open air; the damnable voice was still laughing as though his greatest enjoyment was to hear himself.  

A quick adjustment of the blanket…Karen took a deep breath….then charged right through the nearby landing’s doorway.  

The Ghost Host stopped laughing.  “Oh? Are we playing the running game now? A bit of cat and mouse?  What fun.”

She spun around the corner of the doorway, but was pulled back for a moment by an invisible force of vice-like cold.  She struggled a moment, trying to twist it off her, before finally shoving off the blanket towards her attacker.  

A tall figure.  

The blanket outlined against a tall figure, where there had previously been nothing before.  Its head was bent in a sickening angle, like the neck had been broken. 

But she did not give herself a pause to absorb this; the grip on her had loosened and she took the opportunity to bolt down the hallway.  

Red carpet, red walls, and as she propelled herself forward, her lungs drinking air, little spider spots came pouring down from the corner edges of the hall.  First in a sprinkling, then in buckets as she traveled onwards.

Mostly, they spilled over the walls themselves, but a few occasionally dropped down from the middle of the ceiling and landed on her head.  She brushed them off, again and again.

Her feet came to a halt at the junction, and her heart skipped a beat to see that one of her optional paths involved statues.  A LOT of statues.  The same kind of statue that had chased her before.  But this path had a whole horde of them, scattered all the way into the darkness of the furthest she could see.  

The other path looked clear.

He’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way.

Mr. Mortimer’s words rang in the back of her head and she balked.  How was she to know whether this were an illusion or a genuine herd of statue ghosts?  

The shadow of a clawed hand, The Ghost Host’s distinctive chuckle phased in around her.  The shadow claw circled her like a shark, twitching its fingers in anticipation of a single mistake on her part.  

Karen cursed under her breath; not just directed at the Ghost Host, but herself.  For the next thing she knew her adrenaline had already made the choice to charge.  Straight into the hallway of statues.  

It took a few ticks for her mind to catch up with her; the moment she thought this choice wasn’t a bad one after all was on the heels of the moment she noticed the statues were turning to face her.  Grinding sounds of stone on wood and fifty pairs of stone weary eyes straight on her. She dipped and dodged around them, too scared to look back to see if claw hand or statue was following.  

But she could feel them all pressing in around her.  The sounds of scraping surrounding her...then one of her arms got caught. She managed to wretch it away.  

But it happened again….and again…And until the other arm was snagged…and then her waist….her legs…stone hands grabbing her neck…her head….pulling her down with them….the restraints too strong…

She turned to look down the hallway to a vanishing freedom…took a deep breath as much as the stone arms would allow…And yelled:  

“SOLOMON GRACEY!”

The statues froze in their grasp of her.  No longer did they push to pull her to the ground.

And she swore she heard, to her great satisfaction, a grunt of annoyance coming from her long-standing invisible tormentor.  Anything that annoyed the Ghost Host couldn’t possibly be a bad idea.

Sure enough, the walls began to shake.  Vases on nearby corner tables toppled over, specks of dust trickled down from the ceiling. That sickening, cold spine feeling that she was beginning to associate with the Ghost Host began to dissipate…..and the statues started dissipating with it.  One by one, as the earthquake rippled across the hall their forms smudged like a blurry photograph, before disappearing altogether.  

Her body was released and she fell to the floor with a thud.  The feel of rough stone was replaced….with a distinct taste of licorice. She swallowed to try and get the strange, sudden taste from her mouth, but it persisted.  And the earthquake slowly died down.

She was alone and it was fantastically quiet.  

“You…”  A whisper on the air breathed.  She looked up, only to distressingly find a pair of vivid, blue glints glaring down at her from the darkness of the far hall.  

“You shouldn’t be here…” It continued, blue eyes moving towards her.    

It sounded like someone taking in a long, deep breath.  

And there was dust and ash.

Dust and ash….

It was like dust and ash….

Swirling together….coalescing….combining….until she could make out a face….a mouth….a nose….from the dust and ash came also the sleeves of a suit….a hand formed from the particles….legs….a person….

An angry person. A furious person.  

The breath sound that lingered on the wind exhaled just as he was fully realized.

Though she had been rooted in the spot, in awe of watching a ghost forming himself in front of her, her adrenaline was still strongly beating in her veins.  And it was this drive that caused her to stumble back, a frantic yearning to run screaming in her head.  

As he advanced even closer to her, that internal screaming fueled her into dashing down the other hallway.

A candelabra blocked her way.  A floating candelabra.  

Another sound like someone taking a deep breath in….Dust and ash swirled around the candlesticks, the smell of roses, the wax dripping alongside the specks, until the figure of a woman appeared.  Grey eyes, black hair, green dress; the head maid from the memories.  

The breath exhaled.

She, too, advanced towards Karen, candelabra in her now mostly formed, dust dripping hand.

“P-please…” Karen stammered. But she herself wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to ask for.  

Her feet took her down the last hallway, only to be cut off by a third figure.

Deep breath.

Dust and ash…

Dust and ash swirled once more, and a man in a green suite formed.  Birds chirping.  The breath exhaling…The dust settling off his shoulders as he guarded her final escape route and proceeded forward towards her.  

Trapped on all sides. The master from the left, the head maid from the front, and the head butler from the right all converging on to her location, one step after another.  A marked pace that noted they had all the time in the world to reach her.

And what would they do once they’ve accomplished this? She pressed her back against the wall, sliding gradually down to the ground as her head whipped from one of the trio to the other and the other.  Her breath heaving in her ears.  From Mr. Mortimer’s descriptions, she had imagined something much friendlier.  Than again, she also had never imagined Mr. Mortimer was dead.  

“No more running,” Mr. Gracey said with a sneer.

Right as she could see the hem of the maid’s dress a few feet from her eyes, she shut them tight. Waiting for…something to happen.  The uncomfortable nothing that followed made her squint her eyes open once more.  

They were just standing there.  Waiting.

“You...really don’t need to do that….” Mr. Gracey said, frowning down at her.  

“Do….what?” She breathed, finally releasing the breath she’d been holding in.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Act as though you’re about to face your own execution.”

“Well how am I supposed to react then?!  You make a show of…of forming yourself all angry like that and just…”  She stammered.  Her nerves were too frazzled for this.  “I only just avoided a bunch of statues grabbing me and…!  And that Ghost Host taunting me and….and the running and…and earthquakes…”

She looked up at him again with the strongest glare she could muster.  Solomon looked unimpressed.

“I don’t care what Mr. Mortimer says about you.  You could have at least told me what you’re going to do to me after you finish chasing me!  I don’t know what you want!”  

“What I want is for you to leave my house.”

She gave a side glance to his posse before turning back to him.  “Alive or dead?”  She said, with no small amount of sarcasm in it.  

“Considering that dead would result in you NOT leaving my house, I would assume you already have your answer,” he said, the sarcasm almost as equally strong.  

She exhaled through her nose. “Then you could have just told me that like a normal person!”  

“Honestly, all of you dead people don’t even remember how to act nicely…” she muttered under her breath as an aside to herself.  

He must have heard that, because he stiffened considerably and looked more than a bit miffed.

“It’s done on purpose, child,” his eyes narrowed at her, “Just a little intimidation to scare you from any ideas about ever coming back.  I will admit, though, you reacted a bit stronger than I anticipated...”

“Well yeah!  Because you’ve just wasted your time!  I’ve already seen PLENTY to convince me to never come back to this horrible place ever again!  Evil murderous invisible men, statues that chase you, people coming out of the walls, falling down giant chasms full of staircases-“

“You fell down that infinite stairway?” The woman interrupted, looking more than a little bit concerned.  

“Yes.  Not long after I met you back in that other hallway,” she said, jutting out her chin accusingly at Mr. Gracey.

To Solomon’s credit, he looked downright horrified.  Which was a nice change from his usual sour demeanor.

“Good lord, is that where you went previously? Are you all right?” He asked.  

“Yes….No…I mean. I don’t know!  I’m alive and everything seems to work…”

He gave a sigh that suggested both relief and frustration.  “This is exactly the reason you need to leave. It’s too dangerous for the living to go skipping about these halls without a care in the world.  Now child, if you wo-“

“Karen.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She stared him down, unflinching even as she held the gaze of those eerily, glow-y blues.  At this point, she was beyond tired of getting pushed around by ghosts.  

“My name is Karen. Karen Anderson.  And I’m eighteen.”

“How good for you,” he said with a wry smile.  “And I am well over a hundred.  So you’ll have to forgive me if I cannot help but see you as a child, Miss Anderson.  Nonetheless, I do apologize if I have caused you any offense.  I meant it merely as a descriptor, and not as any indication that you are somehow lesser.”

One hand folded behind his back and the other hand over his heart, he gave her a short incline of his head.

“Allow us, further, a chance for introductions. I am Solomon Gracey, and this is my family estate. Primary estate, that is.”

He gestured to the other two spirits.  “My associates….”

“Abigail Galloway,” The maid said, giving her a polite smile that would feel friendly if it didn’t seem a little too polite.

“Edgar Galloway,” The butler said, making neither a bow nor a smile.  For all the world, he seemed straight up bored.  After regarding her carefully with a quick glance, he went right back to stand there with a distant gaze.  

By the shapes of their faces, and their matching names, eyes, and hair, the two were most definitely related.  

Solomon coughed, and her attention returned to him.  He offered a hand.  She stared at it blankly.

His lips twisted a bit into a mischievous, almost boyish smirk.  “To help you to your feet.  Which I know are still working…because I just saw you use them.”

She opened her mouth to give a smart aleck retort, but realized she had nothing.  So she begrudgingly took his hand instead.  Freezing cold, like ice.  Something she had already come to expect by now.

“Come along, then,” he said, releasing her as soon as she was steady on her feet to turn and walk down the way he originally came.

She could feel the two servants pressing closer to her; they weren’t going to give her an opportunity to disobey.

They walked silently and casually.  Karen couldn’t shake off the feeling that their pace was measured and set specifically for her, because any hesitance on her part was met and matched by them.  Even Solomon, who was facing forward, seemed to eerily slow-down whenever she did.  That did more to evidence the fact that this was a supernatural situation than even their appearance; unlike Mr. Mortimer, who had a skeletal, glowing visage to him, these three people seemed to make every effort to give off the illusion they were alive.  

“Um…” she started, looking at the back of Mr. Gracey’s head.

When he did not pay her heed, she turned to the maid beside her instead.  Abigail smiled with a strange mixture of motherly affection, strict politeness, and a tinge of pity.  

“Something wrong?” She asked.

“What about Mr. Mortimer?”

Abigail frowned. “What about him?”

Karen looked nervously towards the back of Solomon’s head and then back to Abigail.  

“The Ghost Host trapped him in a portrait in a stairwell.”

Solomon spun quickly to face her, forcing the party to halt.  

“Claude did what?”

Rumbling in the walls nearest to her made her ease a step back.   The boards shook, but it wasn’t nearly as disorienting or terrifying as before.

She could see his hand shaking, fingers slowly furling into a fist then releasing.  The walls seem to respond to that, working up in a frenzy with each tremble of his hand, getting stronger with every moment they closed in on themselves.  And finally settling down, when his fingers gently unfurled themselves to a relaxed state.

“Miss Anderson…” he said, his voice struggling towards calm, “Would you…be so kind as to describe what this stairwell looked like?”

“Um…” her body tensed a moment, regardless of the fact that he was clearly not angry at her. “Narrow...creaky old wood steps…thin railings… and it was all enclosed by purple striped pattern on the walls.  It was down that way…”

She gestured vaguely the way she came.

Mr. Gracey listened intently to her, face as expressionless as he could obviously muster.

“Edgar,” he said.

“Sir,” Edgar replied.

But when Karen turned to look at the butler, he was gone.  She turned to look towards Abigail, who smiled politely back at her.

“He’s gone to help Mr. Mortimer,” she said.

“More of a courtesy to him,” Mr. Gracey said, and already he had turned to continue on. “Mr. Mortimer is powerful; he’s likely already freed himself by now.  Something like this could only ever hold him temporarily, where lesser souls would be forced to spend weeks.  Which means Edgar is mostly only going to inform Mr. Mortimer that you’re safely with us.”

“So…he’ll be okay?” At the maid’s non-verbal urging, she followed Solomon.

“He’ll be just fine. Don’t worry,” Abigail said.

They walked in silence after that; Karen was given time to think things over as they passed oak doors and flickering electric lights caked in cobwebs.  

The taste of licorice. The smell of roses.  These were sensations that had been clinging to her from the moment the spirits appeared.   The soft sigh of birds singing disappeared when Edgar vanished.    

Claude too.  It dawned on her that whenever the Ghost Host was around, she’d feel a tingling down her spine.  Mr. Mortimer always seemed to carry the smell of the sea.  And the statue had that horrible burnt smell.

Spirits, it seemed, came with some sort of identifying sense.  

She broke out of her reverie when they stepped into a room bathed in a familiar dull blue-green light. A slight panic bubbled up within her at the sight of stairways going any which way possible.

“Wait…why are we here? What are we doing??”  The panic snuck into her voice too.

“This is the fastest way back to the foyer,” Mr. Gracey replied, before taking a stairway straight down.

As in, the stairway was literally going vertically down, with the ghost before her now walking with his form completely horizontal.  

The maid seemed prepared to press her towards the same path, but she balked and backed up.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kill me!” she accused, looking back and forth between Abigail and Solomon.

“We aren’t trying to,” Solomon said, already having turned to look up at her.  Neither his tone nor his face suggested maliciousness.  

“Then what do you call this?!” She gestured to the sheer drop.

“Looks can be deceiving,” he walked towards her, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. “It’s ironic that mortals, so grounded in reality, would fall prey so easily to the illusions of the dead.  You trust your eyes too much; not all believing comes from seeing.”

On that advice, Karen took an experimental step.  She could feel her weight shifting, her stomach dropping with the gravity, her body threatening to fall forward, and every nerve in her body screaming at her that this was suicide.  Her mind “helpfully” played out for her the fresh memory of her fall in her head.  

“No…No I can’t do this. I can’t do this!” She made to back away several steps, but Abigail kept her in place.

Karen turned to her. “Please, I can’t do this!  I ca-”

“It’s all right.”

“Don’t make me do this, please! Don-“

“Miss Anderson,” Mr. Gracey said, and he was already back on their stairway.  The stairway with the CORRECT stairway orientation.

“Please, I just had a fall, I can’t—“

“You won’t fall.  And if you do, I’ll catch you.”  Mr. Gracey said.

“I can’t! I know gravity when I feel it!  That isn’t just a trick of the eyes!”

“Miss Anderson, please. You won’t fall. I give you my word: As long as you remain with me, I won’t let you die.”

She looked from the maid still holding her to Gracey, who gave her a small smile of reassurance.

That did not make her feel better.  She turned to Abigail, and there must have been pleading in her eyes because Karen could see her slowly relent.

“Here,” Abigail said kindly, turning her around.  The feeling of cold fingers on her eyes. Karen’s sight went dark.

“Wha-?”

“Just step to the edge,” Abigail whispered at her ear.  It was a bit unnerving to know that ghosts had frigid cold fingers, yet somehow (someway) managed to have hot breath.  As if ‘breathing’ was even a thing with them.

“But I ca-“

“Just relax and step towards the edge.  I’ll let you know when you’ve arrived there.  If you cannot stand to go further than the edge, then we’ll find another way,” her voice had hints of softness despite the formal tone, “But try this first.”

“And if you’re just leading me straight off…?”  It was a doubtful statement, but one that still managed to worm into the back of her mind.  

“She’s not,” Mr. Gracey said.  

She took a few experimental steps forward, completely blind.  Solid wood met her feet each time.  

“It’s all right; go a little further,” Abigail encouraged.

So she took a few more steps, larger steps this time, and still met solid wood.  She also met with the realization that her ghostly companions made no footsteps; only HER steps rang against the chasm-like walls.

And yet, they HAD to still be there; she could still feel ice fingers covering her eyes. Her eyelids, in fact, were getting a little numb from it.  

She took a few steps further, smaller this time because she was quite sure the edge would be there, and yet once again met with solid wood.  Perhaps the direction change was farther along the path than it originally looked.  Dimensions really were difficult to discern when you couldn’t see a thing.  

“Where’s the drop?  Is it much farther?”  

“Keep going; we aren’t quite there yet.  Take a few more full steps.”

She did as she was told, her shoulders heaving as her anxiety calmed down.  And she continued to walk (tapping her foot experimentally in front of her before putting all her weight into it), until Abigail suddenly tugged her back a bit to stop her.  

She could hear a door slam shut behind her, and she twisted to escape Abigail’s grasp.  The maid let her go without a fight.  

…Karen blinked.  She stared at the sight long enough for Mr. Gracey to delicately raise an eyebrow at her.

“Are you all right?” He questioned, and there was a tug at the very corner of his lips that threatened to tease over into slight amusement.

Gobsmacked, she stared at him, then back to the scene in front of her.  

She was in the first hallway.  The very FIRST hallway.  The hallway where the Ghost Host took Michael away from her.  

“But…the stairway…” She looked around and spotted a door in the dark corner of the hall, across the way from the stretching room.  She was sure she had tried that same door much earlier that night; it had been locked before then.  

“You already made it through.  Alive, no less.  I guess we’re not very good at killing people, are we?”

His voice was dripping in sarcasm, and it both irked and amused her to the point where she, again, tried to find a clever response.

But her mental exercise was interrupted as the aforementioned door banged back open with much enthusiasm.  

Nell Jackson, green pinstripe dress and all, stood in the doorframe, excitement frozen on her face at the sight of Karen as if she weren’t quite expecting her.  Karen was sure the ghosts would remark on this, but they stood still and said nothing.

“Oh is it a party?” Nell cheerfully said, bounding into the room and shutting the door behind her.  Karen caught a glimpse of twisted staircases encased in green light.

“Nell, what’s that all over your dress?”  Abigail sternly said.

“Hm?” Nell picked a speck of dull grey from her apron.  “Oh. It’s just a bit of sand.”

She did a twirl with gleeful grin on her face, and the sand fell off all in a circle around her.

“NELL!” Abigail cried, looking insulted.

“What??”

“The carpet!”

Nell looked down at the ground, faux inspecting the carpet.

Karen did a double take. Had there ALWAYS been carpet in this hallway?  She thought there had only been floorboards before.

“Good news!  The carpet doesn’t seem harmed by it.”  Nell said.

“You’re still going to pick that up, young lady,” Abigail seethed through her teeth.  

“I can do that later.”

“Nell.”

“What?  It isn’t like the sand is going anywhere.  Sand isn’t sentient…” a beat, “…I think.”

Abigail gave a pointed look at Solomon, who in turn looked a little uncomfortable.  

“It’s just sand, Abigail. It won’t stain,” he said.  

Abigail gave him a hard stare akin to betrayal, and he coughed before venturing into the stretching room.

“Come along chil- erm, Miss Anderson.”

She made to follow him, but dust and ash swept across the floor, and as she stood to watch she saw Edgar appear from the flurry.  

“Edgar!  Perfect timing.  Help me clean up this sand,” Nell said, smiling.

Edgar gave one, long, bored stare at the mess on the ground before returning to a flurry of dust and ashes, particles picking up particles and the sand coalescing right into him.  

“What?  No!  Edgar, stop that!” Abigail said.  

Edgar half formed himself, just enough so that his face was showing.  Eyebrows raised at Abigail in quiet confusion.

“Thank you, Edgar. You’re the best!”  Nell smiled cheerfully at him.

“Nell, you needed to clean up the mess.” Abigail said.

“As long as it’s clean, why does it matter? And really, I wouldn’t have ever been able to do it that fast.  Besides, Edgar doesn’t mind.  Do you, Edgar?”

“I don’t care.” Edgar said, glassy bored look already returning to his features as he reformed himself.

“You see?  It all works out!” Nell gestured towards Edgar.

Abigail gave a long-suffering sigh.  “You disappoint me, Nell.”

“Well that isn’t unusual.”

“Nell…” Abigail sighed again, before finally turning to Karen and gestured her to enter the next room.

Karen gulped away her questions under the gaze of the still-irritated Abigail and went inside; the silly little drama of what she just saw was in stark contrast to the life threatening fear the Ghost Host had constantly subjected her to.  

Solomon Gracey was waiting for them in the center of the room.  He nodded in acknowledgement as the rest of the party joined him.  

And what a stark contrast that was here as well.  The room had changed since she’d last seen it; the differences were minor, yet remarkable in how they affected the mood.  The gargoyles looked less threatening due to the fact that the room was lit up brighter, and the portraits had reverted back to their original, un-stretched appearance.  It was just as cold as earlier, but infinitely less creepy.  She couldn’t feel the gaze of the hanging man hidden above them, and the general air didn’t feel nearly as oppressive as a result.

As strange as it was, she felt safer, in spite of the fact that this time she walked alongside practical strangers.

They came back to the foyer, and as she turned to look behind her she paused.

“….Wasn’t the portrait room on the other side?”

It was true.  She distinctly remembered Michael and herself being forced by the Ghost Host into a room to the left of Solomon Gracey’s portrait.  Yet as they exited this very same room, they came out to the right of the portrait.  

She checked; nothing but a blank wall to the left of Solomon’s painted visage.  

“Ah.  Well you see…” Abigail said, hesitant.

“The house moves rooms,” Nell interjected, grinning excitedly as she hoisted herself up one of the cabinets, “Isn’t it cool?”

“The house does what?” Mouth open and eyes wide, Karen stared back at her.    The word ‘cool’ was the furthest thing from her mind.

“What the house does or does not do is of no concern to you.  You’ll be on your way back to town shortly…as soon as we find your friend,” The actual Solomon turned towards her, “There is another mortal roaming around the house, correct?”

“Y-yeah… My boyfriend, Michael.  We were separated when that Ghost Host dragged him underneath the floorboards.”

A flick of anger on his face sprung up before fading into sympathy.

“I am sorry about that. That filth is known to do things like that,” his stare towards her hardened just a tad, “I do hope this act as a lesson to you both not to intrude upon old houses, even if you think they’re abandoned.”

Now it was her turn to get a little angry.  “We weren’t intruding!!  We were just….we were just lost!  And it was raining! And…”

She caught sight of Nell, happily sitting on the counter and eating from a jar of cookies.   The sight irritated her a little more.

“And she!”  Karen pointed an accusing finger at Nell.  “She said we could come visit her if it ever started raining!”

All three ghosts slowly turned to look at Nell, who suddenly stopped mid bite.  Both Abigail and Solomon had their eyebrows raised in the same exasperated expression.  Edgar just continued to look bored.

Nell, still mid bite, looked from both Karen to the spirits and back again, before raising her head solemnly.

“Well I never said you could come in.”  Nell said, quickly eating the remainders of her cookie as defiantly looking as she could.

“Wha—“ Karen began to protest, but Nell cut her off by wagging her finger towards her.

“Ah ah ah!  I never said you both could come in!  Now did I, Edgar?  Edgar was there; what did I say to them, Edgar?”

The other two ghosts now turned their exasperated sights on Edgar, who took it in stride by looking especially bored.

“’If you’re ever in an unfortunate rainstorm, you’re more than welcome to hide underneath our awning.’” Edgar quoted.

Nell was triumphant as she turned back to Karen.  “There, you see?  I never gave you permission to use the front door, now did I?”

Karen glared at her.

Abigail, meanwhile, glared at Edgar

“You never thought to inform us of this?”

Edgar, with an utterly neutral expression, simply replied, “It did not seem important.”

“Edgar,” Abigail seethed.

“Nell,” Solomon groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“Master Gracey,” Nell said, tone treating the name-calling like a game.

“None of this ‘Master Gracey’.  We talked about this,” Solomon said, looking a little more irritated, “You are not my servant and I am not your employer.”

“As you say, sir.”

Solomon grumbled on his way to a cabinet that looked like it had a wooden, intricate box built on top of its surface.  When he took out a glass with a bulge in it and a strange, ornate decanter filled with eerie green liquid, Karen assumed it to be some sort of cubby hole for drinks.  

“Abigail, Edgar,” he gestured to them aimlessly as he set up some extravagant drink that involved a strainer, what looked like a cube of sugar, water, and that sickly green stuff. “Could one of you be so kind as to find that other wayward mortal?”

“As you wish, sir,” Edgar stated, and he faded nearly instantly into whispy ash before vanishing completely.

“I could go too,” Nell offered.

“No, Nell.  If I know you, you’d only hinder any effort to actually retrieve him.”  

Solomon settled into an armchair that Karen swore hadn’t been there a moment ago.  It was only a handful of feet away from the fireplace, and so faded that you only just barely make out its deep red color.  

“What you could do, instead,” Solomon continued, “Is to get rid of that uniform and wear....well whatever it is modern mortals wear these days. Jeans and t-shirts, if I recall the words correctly.”  

“You let Abigail go around in the uniform, even though she’s not your servant anymore either…”

Nell crossed her arms, but the ghost of a smile on her lips suggested that this had been brought up before. And her eyes occasionally darting towards Karen brought with it the implication that she was only mentioning it for the benefit of their guest.  

Sure enough, Solomon stiffed in his chair, and Abigail looked just as equally uncomfortable as she busied herself with straightening papers on a nearby shelf.

“Nell,” Solomon warned, his tone deeper now.

“Alright, alright.  I see how it is.”

Nell made to cross the room, but lingered out of Solomon’s sight.  Karen caught sight of her gesturing to get her attention before pointing to the two ghosts, bringing her two fists to gently bump into each other while making a kissy face and giving a wink.  

Karen stared hard back. What the hell did the girl expect her to do with this information?

Her staring morphed to horror when Nell took off her maid’s headpiece and made a sign as if to throw it at Solomon.  Before Karen even had a chance to vocalize a sound, the headpiece went flying, phased straight through the middle of Solomon’s forehead, and landed quite obviously in front of him.

“Head shot!  Yes!”  Nell said while she fist pumped the air.

Solomon angrily shot out of the chair and spun to face Nell.

“Going, going, gone!” Nell said, grinning in that guiltless nervous way people get when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t.

She quickly exited out a door so hidden by the darkness that it was a wonder if it had itself materialized like these ghosts were known to do.

Solomon sighed, his anger abating as he settled back down in the chair and stared wistfully at his drink.

“God, I wish alcohol still affected me,” he muttered as he took a sip.

As he lowered his drink, he seemed to notice Karen was still standing.  He motioned to the faded couch next to him.  

“You’re allowed to sit, you know,” he said, smirking a little, “I imagine you’d need it after that self-induced workout you gave yourself while trying to evade us earlier.”

Karen clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a response even as her face burned a little out of embarrassment.  She officially hated ghosts.  

 She instead focused her complete attention to the dead embers lying in the fire, her hands absentmindedly rubbing against her arms.

“Are you cold?” Abigail asked, coming back towards them.

“A little…”

“I imagine any mortal would feel quite cold around here,” Solomon said, getting up to move towards the fireplace.

“I’ve got that, sir,” Abigail curtly interrupted.  

Solomon moved back to his chair, palms raised in surrender with a slightly amused smile on his face, “As you say, Abigail.  Thank you.”

The fireplace roared up in a flicker of odd green flames, and the room began to grow wonderfully warmer. The remnants of anxiety faded as she sank into the couch, relaxation causing her mind to drift a bit.  She felt the weight of exhaustion start to consume her, and she idly wondered what time it was.  Her eyes wandered about, but were no apparent clocks anywhere on the walls.  

She considered Solomon’s drink on the table near her.  It didn’t have its greenish hue; it was more of a milky white with only a hint of green, and already halfway gone.

“How do ghosts even drink?” She asked in her absentminded state.

“Very carefully,” Solomon replied, with both sarcasm and a smile.

“But you can’t get drunk…”

“Such is the tragic nature of not having a body to intoxicate.”

“So what’s the point?”

Solomon took a sip, and made a show of smacking his lips as he stared into the pale liquid.

“Nostalgia,” He said, putting the glass back on the table.

She stared at the drink. “What even is that?”

“Absinthe,” he said, “Or the Green Fairy, as it was once known.”

He seemed to regard her as she remained transfixed by the glass.  

“…Would you care for some?”

Her eyes grew wide at the offer.

“I’m only eighteen! Also, doesn’t...that stuff...cause hallucinations?”

Solomon’s smile bent at the edges a bit, and he looked towards Abigail.  She was neatly standing near the other end of the couch from them both; she had been so silent that Karen had temporarily forgot she was even there.

“While I won’t lie; there were plenty of things we consumed back then that probably caused hallucinations,” Abigail stood with her hands clasped behind her back, a small quirk to the side of her lips, “But absinthe was not one of them.”

“At least, it’s not possible to get that effect with any amount you could feasibly drink,” he smiled bitterly, “Trust me on this.”

“This may be one of your only chances to try it,” Abigail added, “Since, currently, it’s very much misunderstood in America.  That’s where your hallucination idea comes from.”

Karen looked back at the drink, her stomach queasy just staring at it.  

“I…” she started. Solomon held up a hand to stop her.

“Please don’t feel like you have to drink it.  You will not be missing much, I promise.  It’s just another alcoholic drink, and you can get plenty of those once you’re older.  I personally find it rather ridiculous that they increased the drinking age, but I respect that you aren’t comfortable with this.  And if it will make you feel better…”

He made to get up, but Abigail was already on her way back to the drink cabinet.  So he sat back down with a nearly unreadable (but distinctly defeated) expression.  

The maid returned with something that looked just like Solomon’s glass; milky white.  She offered it to Karen, but Karen hesitated to take it.  

“This one isn’t alcoholic,” Abigail explained, “It’s made by a brewery in France, on special request and using the same kind of anise.  As a result, it doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it has some of the same notes…”

Karen stared at it, wondering if she could not find shapes within the milky white liquid.  The inkling of an idea had begun to gather at the edges of her mind, but the hazy warm room and the fact that it was likely the dead of night made it difficult to properly think.  She kind of wanted to just sleep.  

“Pomegranates...” She said.

The ghosts both looked perplexed, briefly side glancing each other before resting their eyes back on her.

She tried to gather her thoughts a little better so she could spit them out.

“In the story, there was a girl who had been kidnapped to the underworld and was tricked into eating the seeds of a pomegranate, forcing her to-“

“-To remain there, trapped, for several months every year.  The story of Persephone.” Abigail smiled, “It is good to hear that present day mortals are still taught classic Greek mythology.”

“But your concern is a little misplaced,” Solomon added, a glint in his eerie blue eyes akin to an adult humoring a young child, “The food and drink here is not somehow magical.”

“And that would also be a little counterproductive to our goal of getting you to leave…”

“Oh yeah…” Karen said, trying to frown away her exhaustion.  She partially wished she was still in that bed in the attic.

 “Besides, this is not the underworld and I am not Lord Hades.” Solomon said, stealing another sip from his drink before setting it aside.

“This is nothing more than a mansion,” he said, gesturing around him, “which, for better or for worse…just happens to be haunted.”

She nodded to him; it was a bit of a foolish idea. If she had a little coffee, perhaps she would have thought things through a little clearer. Carefully, unwilling to trust herself, she used both of her hands to take the cup from Abigail and brought it to her lips.

                                                             ….

                                                 It tasted of licorice.

[reilink]

Saw Endgame. Absolutely hated it. 

Not a fan what they did to Thor, Gamora, Bucky, Thanos and Peter Quill.

Movie reeks of fan pandering but isn’t as clever and well crafted as Infinity War was.

Everything Iron Man related was great but that’s really it for me though.

I’m gonna talk about some scenes/characters now, that I especially hated. 

Spoiler Alert

The scene between Hawkeye and Black Widow, where they fight over who gets to die for the Soul Stone to appear was hilariously bad. They constantly try to sudoku themselves but they get interrupted by eachother. It’s like those two didn’t get the rules of how to get this stone. I thought the scene after Widow’s death was great but then I got reminded by my wife that it’s an exact shot for shot replica of Gamora’s more impactful death, so that’s kinda shitty and disrespectful.

Captain Marvel can fuck right off to be honest? What a garbage character. Every scene she was in were the worst minutes of this movie. She’s the Poochie of the MCU.

Thor suffers from despression, he gets fat and the movie wants you to laugh at him. He became my favourite character in Infinity War and this is what they do to him in the Sequel? What the absolute fuck.

Pepper’s actress doesn’t know how to emote. While Tony was dying she looked like she was glad he finally kicked the bucket. I get that you want to have her comfort him in his dying seconds but it didn’t feel like the actress did give it her all.

You cannot kill Gamora permanently and then pretend like I have to accept Pre development Gamora as her replacement. That’s just shit. No one really questions her return in the movie. 

Don’t make fun of better time travel movies for breaking their own rules if you’re worse at crafting a time travel stories and constantly break your own rules.

Many characters were robbed of their moments like Drax. Didn’t he hate Thanos more than anything? WHY DIDN’T HE GET SOMETHING DO WITH HIS DEFEAT THEN?! Not even a line after he was defeated? Seriously? Same for Nebula. No we just haaaaad to see Captain America fight Captain America. Movie wouldn’t have worked without it.

Having the more interesting Thanos die to be replaced by Thanos but less interesting was an awful decision. 

Thor gives away his king status to some random Drunken Who he met in the third Thor film. We’ve never seen her lead people but sure whatever, who cares am I right?

The final battle also looked like shit. The only thing I remember from it was that Cap suddenly learned how to use Thor’s Hammer all of the sudden. Sure it didn’t make sense that he instantly knew how to use it but people clapped and that’s everything you need, right fellas?

Why didn’t Captain Marvel use the Infinity Gauntlet to snap Thanos? I thought she was the strongest being in the entire Omniverse? That sure could have avoided Tony’s death. Speaking of it. Why didn’t she revive Tony if that wasn’t possible then? You’re telling me Thanos could snap an universe in half and not die but Captain Mary Sue can’t revive a single guy? 

There was an entire trilogy about Cap wanting to save his friend and not turning away from the battle for what was right when others would do, but now all of the sudden he wants to, just to bang his dead girlfriend? inb4 MUH TONY SED HE SHOUDL LIVE AS A MAN, NOT A HERO!!! I know he loved his girlfriend but it’s out of character for him to leave the battle for what is right for his personal gain. Also kinda undermines the whole tragedy aspect of his character that doing the right thing would come with a cost. Dude barely got scenes with his best friend for whom he fought 2 movies for. Fuck this. Cap trilogy became filler thanks to this film.

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon SoulSilver Randomized Nuzlocke [Part 1]

Since I haven’t fully learned from my mistakes, hey! It’s time for another Nuzlocke. With extra Randomizer action for reasons that are going to be very apparent as I go through this set’s rules.

I’m going to try what this person on the internet calls a Chainlocke, though with slight alterations for the sake of sanity; basic idea is that my catch Types have to be linked. If I catch a Grass/Poison pokemon, my next option has to have one of those in common.

That gets thorny really fast, which I guess is the point, but I’m more about wacky fun than serious challenges. So to make things more entertaining, I will be randomizing every pokemon in the wild, as well as NPC gifts and trades. All the other Trainers keep their original stuff. I get to be special.

So. Rules:

Only the first viable pokemon of each route may be caught.

Gift pokemon are cool to use.

In-game trades are also cool.

‘Viable’ in this case means that they must have a Type in common with the most recent caught pokemon.

The starter will be starting that chain despite not technically being caught by me. Because I feel like it.

Each pokemon must receive a nickname.

If a pokemon faints, it is considered dead. It will go in an appropriately named box in the PC.

In the event of a team wipe, the run will continue with whatever’s left (alive) in the PC.

And that’s about it. Let’s kick it.

No.

I can’t remember if this version does the all-caps for names or not. In any case, this protagonist avatar will take on the name Sunny. Because I am in a warm and welcoming mood, ready to make all the new creatures I encounter my friends.

I love how they have Lyra use the mail system.

Someone has to.

It certainly won’t be anyone playing these games.

Okay, based on how Lyra’s Marill is discussed, human names don’t get the all-caps treatment, but pokemon do. What does this mean for my nicknaming schemes? No idea. The hour is late and I don’t care enough.

-rubs hands together-

Hmmmm.

...

Dude.

Get out.

Hmmmm.

I can’t pick Cyndaquil, because what even is the point if I do that. Sableye I’ve never been so interested in as a true companion. Dewgong is fully evolved, and I hate starting out with that.

However.

I never get to use Dewgong.

Seel is never anywhere convenient.

DEWGONG WELCOME TO THE TEAM!

Shaped like a friend.

I haven’t worked out any particular theme for this run. I can name her whatever I want. I think I shall call her Chance.

Look at how cute she is. She is adorable. Sassy and highly persistent. I declare her perfect. She also knows Headbutt! That matters beyond being a cool move in this version! Much squeeing! She also knows Growl, Signal Beam, and Icy Wind.

My next pokemon will have to be Water or Ice. It will probably be Water, thanks to Water being absurdly common. That’s cool. I like Water pokemon.

And so, without yet being able to catch anything, I head out into the world. Running my obligatory fetch quest for Professor Elm.

Huh, a Smoochum says hello. That’s a good thing to know for later. But what’s in the Headbutt tree?

...A Hoothoot. Sigh. Well, one less thing to worry about when finding pokemon.

Weedle also lurks in the grass.

Yay. Gotta go fast.

Can I buy poke balls yet?

No. Sad face.

The next route has Kricketot. Did I check the similar strength button by accident?

Then suddenly, Grumpig! Okay, sweet. Just a few Buggy coincidences. Gligar is also here.

Literally have never heard of you. You have a boring name. No one should ever copy it ceaselessly for a gag that no one sees any value in.

Hello, a wild challenger approaches! With his super duper Totodile! Headbutt it, Chance. Headbutt it into submission. Good girl.

Uh. There’s not enough room for it.

Perfect.

I love how Silver’s most defining feature is his red hair.

After a short visit home to tell our mom we are far too irresponsible to be trusted with all of the money we’re going to earn from mugging other children, plus a short tutorial on catching things, we can finally get started!

Smoochum is the only thing available in the routes we’ve visited so far, but I haven’t checked out the northern one right outside the starting town yet.

But the walking takes the decision out of my hands! We encounter a level 4 Smoochum, and as per the rules, that is what I have to go for. Lest I kill the route.

...

I killed the Smoochum.

I guess that answers my question about its Typing. Ruh roh. Signal Beam was a mistake. For multiple reasons, now that I’m taking a second to think about it. Whoops. Any game that requires me to think is screwed from the start, honestly.

So now we search for something else to catch.

Route 46? Be nice?

Carvanha! That’s a Water! Can catch!

In theory. It’s broken out of two pokeballs. It’s also level 2, so I don’t think I can risk attacking it.

.I’m going to run out of balls, aren’t I?

I think I have to risk an Icy Wind. I’m on my last poke ball. I don’t really want to leave it purely up to the mood of the RNG.

Chance apparently doesn’t want friends.

She got a critical hit.

Two dead routes! Okay!

Still needing a Water or Ice Type!

Also more Poke Balls!

One of those problems I can fix. As for the other, inb4 the Mystery Egg and whatever I get from Bill are the only other teammates Chance ever has.

We march through the trainers between us and the next town. Certain of nothing but Chance’s ability to murder them all.

Route 31 has an Elekid as the first thing I see and the rules say I can’t catch it. What horrible person came up with this. Seviper and Lopunny are also here. Those I care less about.

Dark Cave? Help? Mayhaps?

A Golbat appears.

Okay.

Before we think too hard on that, I’ve gotta say that I do love how gen 4 does the caves. They are very gorgeously cavernous, and the few times I bother to think about the background art, I enjoy walking through them.

But yeah, is there anything in this cave that is not a Golbat?

Route 31 has a Butterfree.

These are things that do not help me.

The person who usually gives you an Onix for a Bellsprout in whatever this city is (Violet) offers a Corphish for a Kecleon. Things to keep in mind if I ever find a Kecleon. That I can catch.

In no version of this game have I ever done this egg thing. I was unaware there even was an egg thing, since anything that requires me to pick the right word out of the hat of words bores me to tears. Then I started watching too many people play Pokemon games on the internet.

-Googles how to get egg-

So normally, you can get a Mareep, Wooper, or Slugma. In the spirit of the Chainlocke, even though I said gifts were cool, we’ll take the Wooper egg. Vote now on whether or not it’ll actually be a Wooper. I don’t know how to use the Randomizer.

Hm. Iiiiiiinteresting.

Chance, Headbutt some trees on the off chance that a Water pokemon falls out, please.

It’s a Hoothoot.

I get the feeling that the Randomizer settings didn’t care about the pokemon found through Headbutting.

Route 32. Help.

Gligar. That is not help.

Rhydon is not help either. Likewise Torchic.

SQUIRTLE. THAT IS HELP.

...

...

...

Chance.

Why are you getting so many critical hits against your friends. Do you not want friends. Have I raised you to be so antisocial.

-sigh- Route 32 declared dead.

Ruins of Alph? Maybe you have someone Chance likes?

...

Why is Gligar everywhere.

I guess. I will go to the tower. With Chance. Just the two of us.

Plus the Gloom egg, which is looking like a very likely candidate for the only friend Chance will ever have. Besides the Mystery Egg we don’t have yet.

(Also Rock Smash HM get. Yaaaaay.)

Local level 11 Dewgong beats up 3 year-olds.

So many dead Bellsprout.

I haven’t run into any wild pokemon here, yet. Sadness. We will never know which new friend Chance was going to kill next.

SURPRISE!

It’s Medicham.

Chance kills it.

Partially because I can’t catch it anyway, partially because that is just what Chance does. Her sassiness belies her murderous intent.

Flash obtained with little fuss, and time to move on to Falkner. He of the coolest name. Yet another Gym Leader I wanted to be as a child. Even if he uses nothing but birds. Falkner is just the coolest name.

Oh, and it looks like there’s also Roselia in this tower.

I can’t do anything about it, but that’s nice.

I love how each generation of pokemon decides the Gyms need to be more extra.

They’re right and they should say it.

-five seconds later- Well that went by quickly. Good girl, Chance. Your murder spree continues. And our prize? Picking up the Mystery Egg! Which gets to be a genuine mystery for now! Chance! You might have a friend! In pure spite of your best efforts!

Time to spend an hour doing nothing but walking. I normally wouldn’t be so interested in hatching the eggs, but. I would kind of like to have a promise of Chance not being completely alone this entire game.

One down! His name is Cloud! He is... also Sassy (Chance, is this why you let him stay), level 1, and alert to sounds!

!

whatisitwhatisitwhatisitwhatisit

...Wow. Something I actually could have gotten legitimately in this Chainlocke. In theory. In a world where Chance is of slightly different temperament.

Her name shall be Sleet. She is Quiet and likes to run.

Hm.

I remain unsure if I’m going to actually use either of these new friends. The spirit of what I’m going for with this doesn’t really work with me just being handed two random Official Teammates. I might change my mind after a few more routes of things not going well for me, but for now, I think I’ll mostly stick to me and Chance.

..Though before I do..

They’re both level 1. I can be nice and not set them up for death. They can make it to level 5 before we say a cordial farewell. I can grind in this game. I can be nice.

-ten minutes later-

-tfw Ivysaur also lives on Route 32 because Route 32 is starter central-

Niceness done, let’s get on the road.

The road takes us, and our level 17 Dewgong, to Union Cave.

If you squint, this looks like fanart of a sleeping Sandslash.

Will we find the Water or Ice pokemon our team longs for here????

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Uh.

Let me look up the rules for evolving Feebas in this gen. Because Feebas is pure Water. If I can’t evolve it, I’m better off killing it so I have more options available with what I can catch.

...

The internet says I need eight massages from Daisy (Blue’s sister. in Pallet Town.) to max its Beauty so it can evolve.

Chance. just. just do the thing. we all know how this ends.

So dies Union Cave.

Awww, how cute. A Shaymin. Now just one of the many corpses littered at Sunny’s feet. Hariyama is also here. A floor below, it’s the return of Grumpig. Plus Yanmega for the first time. Girafarig.

-SIGH-

Route 33. Do you want to save us?

Weezing.

WHISCASH. GIMME. CHANCE, SWAP OUT AND LET CLOUD HELP.

AT LONG LAST.

WE HAVE.

THE CHAINLOCKE’S FIRST CATCH.

FLUDD, WELCOME TO THE TEAM!

NEXT CATCH?

WATER OR GROUND!

LET’S END IT THERE WHILE THINGS ARE STILL GOOD.