#also the obvious treasure pointing at times make me go nuts

[ultimateotaku666]

Akira and his rules in Mementos

*The Phantom Thieves arrive in Mementos.*

Akira: Okay, before we go any further, I'm gonna lay down a few rules.

Akira: Rule number one, shut the hell up!

Akira: Rule number two, there is nothing I can do about the powerful shadows!

Akira: Rule number three, there are no more Jolly Ranchers. They're all gone!

Akira: Rule number four, when we pass by a chest, don't exclaim it out loud, I can see it. Alright? So come on, let's get going!

*Drive through a bit*

Ryuji: Hey Joker, there's a chest!

Akira, hits the breaks: WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?

[auncyen]

chasing dumb ideas from work lol

-

Ren’s Palace takes the form of a video game world, bright and zany.  The Shadows have their silhouettes color-coded according to difficulty, the cognitions are NPCs repeating stock dialogue--Mona pops up surprisingly often, considering he and Ren haven’t really hung out since May--and some of the logic used to progress is worthy of a click-and-point game.  Which means it’s lucky they have Futaba with them, since she’s the only Phantom Thief who understands the logic of click-and-point games.  Still, it’s such a breeze that it takes only three hours to reach the center of the stage, and Oracle complains they never even left the hand-holding tutorial.

Ren’s shadow smiles at them when they arrive, and hands Ryuji a controller for the P4Storm his parents took away from him and sold after his arrest.  “Wait--is this the Treasure?” Ryuji blurts.  “We didn’t give you a calling card, though.”

“Hmm...we did talk with him about what he thought the distortion might be, though,” Futaba muses.  “He’s the NPC who knows the most about our methods, so that might have accidentally triggered the effect.  Good thing we moved fast.”

The shadow nods at Futaba’s explanation.  “I didn’t want to give you guys too much trouble.  You’re my friends, after all.”

“Dude, you gave us no trouble at all,” Ryuji says with a laugh.  “You’re way too nice for your own good!”  Still, in this case, he’s relieved it’s not coming to a fight.  Ren’s a friend, and he hasn’t seemed all there lately--they might have curbstomped his shadow if it’d come to that, and wouldn’t that feel awful.

Ren’s shadow smiles shyly, and waves them off before disappearing in bright light.  The PT make their usual escape.  The Palace crumbles.

So does the controller in Ryuji’s hands.

-

Despite the alarm the crumbling treasure causes for the entire group, Ren seems to take his change of heart just fine, doesn’t even throw himself a week-long slumber party like Futaba did.  He stays home from school one day, Futaba reporting that he seems a bit sleepy but nothing too serious, and then the next day, Ren gives Ryuji a fist-bump and smile outside Shujin.  Ryuji grins and tackles him into a headlock.  He’s so glad the change of heart didn’t hurt Ren.  Ren’s his best friend.  The Phantom Thieves might have given Ryuji a reason to stay at Shujin and not drop out, but Ren’s pretty much an honorary Thief anyway, and he’s been running with Ryuji, and helping him deal with the track team’s problems, and he’s just so good at knowing exactly what to say to make people feel better.  Ryuji’s thrilled he could help Ren for once.

And then, days later, he gets a text from Makoto during class, which he knows is urgent because Makoto texting during class: “Ren is still logged in the MetaNav on my phone for some reason.  The location and distortion have been erased, but his name is still there.  Is anyone else seeing this?”

Yusuke starts typing.  Futaba and Ann chime in well before him that yes, they see it too.  Ryuji opens the Metanav on his phone.  Ren’s name is glaring on the screen, a partially-complete entry that shouldn’t be there at all.

“Class was that bad?” Ren asks when Ryuji trudges out of his classroom, prompting the blond to immediately shove the phone in his pocket.

“Uh, yeah,” Ryuji mutters.  “Hey, Ren, can we talk about the--uh--you-know-what?”

“The completely unsuspicious you-know-what, yes, what about it?” Ren answers, because oh good the change of heart gave him his sarcasm back.  Actually--that would be good news.  It means the change of heart worked and the Metanav’s got some random glitch.  “Let’s get off school grounds first.” 

Ryuji manages to only jump a little when his phone buzzes.

When he checks, the Metanav has accepted “school” as the distortion’s location, even though the Palace was actually at the scramble in Shibuya and, more importantly, doesn’t exist any longer.

They go to Leblanc, where Shiho and Futaba are both waiting to talk to Ren as well, which helps Ryuji with the conversation ahead.  It’s...kind of hard to muddle through ‘hey, we were trying to help you with your heart, but something might have gone wrong and we don’t know what’.  It both helps and doesn’t that Ren stays calm the entire time, doesn’t get worried or pissed off that they might have screwed up.  Wouldn’t a distorted person get mad?  Wouldn’t a normal person at least be nervous?

Then again, Ren’s always had nerves of steel underneath the nerdy glasses.  It never made sense to Ryuji why he didn’t awaken to a Persona when Ryuji and Ann and Shiho all could, not until they found his Palace.  He’s got the guts for it.

Futaba openly prods Ren on how he views the school, and he shakes his head.  “This must be a glitch.  You guys have already helped me.  I feel better, and everyone else has only needed their heart changed once.  Why would I be different?”

Shiho purses her lips but then agrees.  Ryuji feels a little antsy, wants to push but also wants to trust Ren, and even if the change of heart didn’t work for some reason, his friend is pushing back now.  Ren’s not hurting anyone.  His heart is his call just like Futaba’s was hers, and even the hacker, for all her curiosity, respects that.  They gotta drop it.

But it stays on the back of Ryuji’s mind for weeks as the entry stays in place, 2/3s complete, and everyone else is worried too because they all like Ren and something does seem a little off about him--like he’s trying too hard to be normal, to convince them everything is fine--and then apparently one morning, right before class starts, Ren startles Ann by leaning over her shoulder and drily reciting: “Ren Amamiya, Shujin Academy, theater”.

The keywords work, Ren supplying them is taken as an implicit request, and there’s a good chance their calling card timer is already running just like the first time, since Ren knows how they work after tagging along for most of the first Palace and helping them with supplies for later ones.  So they go.

-

Ren’s second Palace is a theater.  It’s completely different from the video game world, with dark, muted, traditional colors, yet unmistakably Ren’s, and Makoto has to get their navigators back on task several times because Morgana and Futaba are going nuts theorizing (because who has a second Palace to begin with?).  Luckily Shiho doesn’t have much trouble leading the group through anyway.  Once again, Ren’s Palace is weirdly easy.  The Shadows aren’t color-coded any longer, but they also don’t seem to care about the Thieves as long as they don’t interrupt the show on stage.  It’s...an improv show, Ryuji thinks?  Yusuke says it might be an avant garde direction on a play.  (Ryuji has no idea what the difference would be.)  What happens is Ren’s shadow is always acting, and sometimes a cognitive audience member will leave their seat and join him.  All of the Thieves are there, even Morgana, which the cat seems touched by, plus Mishima, and Ms. Kawakami, and Ms. Chouno, and Ryuji is about to question why Ren has the hots for so many teachers when Ushimaru gets up and that thought becomes cursed, and the newspaper club girl, and that cute gardening club girl, and actually, Ryuji still thinks Ren has some kind of bias for hot girls going on here.  Even if the (former) stalker girl is pushing it.

That’s probably nothing to do with the Palace distortion though, since Ren’s interactions are always a simple back-and-forth with the cognition: they request something of him, even if it’s just to talk, and Ren obliges them admirably, or sometimes he acts as though he’s ignoring them at first, only to swoop in at the last second and give them something even better than they asked for.  It’s interesting maybe the first couple times?  Morgana stands out again because his cognition nags Ren to study and make infiltration tools, something Morgana says he’s never done, which makes sense because Ren is one of those aggravating people who never needs to study to ace exams and Shiho’s always made the infiltration tools just fine.   After Morgana, though, it just falls into a predictable pattern, and the only reason to keep watching is to see who else comes up to stage.  And once cognitive guest stars start repeating, the Thieves are out.  Every improv act has been slightly different, but the flow is so obvious that it’s become mind-numbingly repetitive anyway.

They sneak past security into the back halls and find a dressing room.  Futaba and Morgana both detect the Treasure inside.  There’s a white-and-black domino mask sitting on a vanity in a dark corner of the room that both navigators swear up and down has to be the Treasure.  It almost seems appropriate for a Thief mask.  Maybe because Ren’s seen most of the team’s?  It fits the theater setting, at least, but...

“Are we just...taking this?” Ann questions, with an uncertain look around the dressing room.  “Seriously?  His Shadow’s not even going to talk to us?”

“I would not complain about us being proper thieves and going undetected for once,” Yusuke points out.

“Okay, point, but it just...feels like I understand Ren less than I did before the video game place.”  Ann sighs.  “I thought he was just a quiet guy, but he saw part of Tokyo as a game?  Now he’s acting with everyone at school?  I wish I got what it actually meant...”

“We can ask him about it later,” Shiho reassures her.  “Right now we just have to take the Treasure.”

That suits Ryuji.  They take it.  The Palace collapses.

The mask crumbles in Shiho’s hands as soon as they reach the real world, and she makes a small noise of distress.  Morgana and Ryuji spit out the same curse in a rare moment of heartfelt unity.  Futaba, on the other hand, just whips out her phone.  “Hey-hey,” their navigator says, “Guess who doesn’t want to leave the Metanav?”

-

Ren is sympathetic with his thief friends not being able to steal a Treasure, which feels wildly inappropriate to Ryuji because it’s Ren’s heart in question here.  Ryuji thinks in his shoes, he’d be losing his mind.  Ryuji’s in his own shoes and he’s still losing his mind a little, because the only answer the group can come up with for what’s going on is that Ren’s somehow got three distortions.

No, sorry.  It’s that he has at least three.  Three may not be the magic number.  Ren doesn’t seem to think it is, anyway, because now he puts down his foot.  “I’m not hurting anyone.  I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you weren’t even down for a day like last time,” Futaba mutters, giving him such a suspicious look that Shiho nudges the girl.  Ren is their friend, and he’s been helping them be Phantom Thieves.  They’ve got no good reason to antagonize him.

Ren gives her a long, silent look before shaking his head.  “You guys should be figuring out your next target.”

They should be.

They do.

Ren helps them less with supplies this time.  Ryuji wonders if it’s because of the distortion, and then he catches himself and realizes he’s been wondering if everything with Ren is because of a distortion or not.  It’s probably not even Ren’s fault.  They’re just not talking to him about Thief business as much, since...yeah.  The only upshot might be that Morgana has been making some effort to get to know Ren better.  Because Morgana was a jerk when they first found him--he’s still a jerk sometimes, but even Ryuji would say he’s gotten a lot better--and he pretty much brushed Ren off in favor of people who were actually awakening to Personas, like everyone else.  They never really argued or anything, though, and apparently judging by Ren’s Palace...s, Ren’s fond of him, and Morgana seems to have finally realized that sometimes, making friends is its own reward, even if they can’t wield kickass Personas.  So that’s a thing, now, Shiho passing Morgana off to Ren so they can trot off and do whatever people do together when one of them is a cat (apparently watch movies, get food, fish, and just talk).

And that’s why when Morgana says “I think I know Ren’s keywords” at the start of a Phantom Thieves meeting, Ryuji blurts out “I thought you stopped being an asshole” with a disappointment so deep that it kind of surprises him, because, wow, he really had been expecting that Morgana was just trying to be nice and not obsessed about Palaces and Treasures for once, huh?

Morgana blinks at him across the table.  “I have never been an asshole,” he says, outright lying.  “Though there are a few things I could say about you--”

“Morgana,” Shiho says, heading off that argument.  She looks upset, too.  “We don’t have any reason to pursue Ren’s Treasure.  He’s not hurting anyone.  He...seems to be doing all right,” though the hesitation is audible in her voice, and quickly followed with, “and even if he isn’t, it’s his heart.  You’re not getting a unanimous vote here, and if this is why you’ve been friendlier to him lately, I... don’t know what to say, except that I thought you were better than that.”

There are two Phantom Thieves who can scold Morgana and actually make him feel ashamed: Ann and Shiho.  Sure enough, she lands a critical hit; Morgana’s ears pin back, and he nearly ducks down under the table to escape her stare before stopping himself.  “I’m not asking for a vote,” Morgana says.  “If we took his treasure it’d probably just crumble again.  But I want to check if I’m right about the keywords.  It could be critical information.”

There is a long moment of silence.   As much as Ryuji’s still pissed off at Morgana, he can’t deny being curious.  If they at least knew the keywords, even if they didn’t go in, they’d understand Ren better, right?  Though...after how the last two distortions went...

As it turns in, they go in anyway, because Makoto taps on her phone to open the Metanav, places it in front of Morgana, and when he utters “Tokyo, Metaverse,” the app responds “beginning navigation”, and--

“Fascinating,” Yusuke says.

“That’s not the f-word I’d use,” Ryuji says.

“Huh, Kaneshiro’s Palace is here,” Morgana notes, because that is indeed an effing bank flying through the sky, narrowly avoiding a blimp.  The cat continues getting down to business despite the absurdity of the situation he just launched everyone into.  “That means both that he’s seen it, and that his mental map of the Metaverse isn’t accurate.  It might be based on his most recent memory?  We never brought him in the bank, though.  What do you think, Or--”  He stops when he actually turns to Futaba and sees her face.  She’s paler than usual.  “...Oracle?  Are you okay?”

“My Palace is there,” she says, pointing in the direction where Yongen Jaya would lie.  The golden tip of a pyramid gleams over dozens of other riotously colorful, stylistically mishmashed buildings.  “How does he know what my Palace looked like?  How does he know about any of these?  There’s at least two hundred--maybe three!”

Three hundred palaces is a stupid number of Palaces for anyone to personally remember, but it’s especially stupid for a guy who doesn’t even have the Nav on his phone.

-

the idea: “if persona users simultaneously having a Palace can be justified with wildcards having multiple personas (for one to turn into a shadow while the others remain to use), what kind of shitshow would Ren create if all his Personas just--” and then ng+ shenanigans wandered in

[renatogpadilla]

FFVI as a D&D Campaign:

OK, so I've been watching "Critical Role" (Campaign 1, Episode 31, no spoilers!) a LOT lately and it got me thinking how FFVI (arguably the BEST "Final Fantasy" game out there) is essentialy that. The biggest moments could be atributted to CRAZY rolls! I can see each of the characters being played by one of the people at the table! * Marisha as Terra Branford: Would be phenomenal. Her mentality is kinda in-line with Keyleth's. The "Kill Their Own Emotions" moment in the boat shakes the table as a whole. And when it's time to run an orphanage and protect her kids from Humbaba, the emotion in her voice destroys everyone in the Party. The "Mama?" moment becomes the most fan-arted moment for her character until the final fight. Her Trance ability is agreed to be the coolest looking skill at the table. To say nothing of the way she'd react to the whole Slave Crown bussiness!

Matt: "She killed 50 imperial soldiers in a few minutes." Marisha, and the whole table: *S H A K I N G*

* Taliesin as Locke Cole: "Treasure Hunter!" every single time somebody calls him a thief or a rogue. The "Rachel" story would be absolutely heartbreaking with Taliesin's expressions. The solo-sneak through the town while meeting Celes would be one of the highlights of the Campaign... That and his frienship with Terra would only be accentuated by Taliesin's and Marisha's irl friendship. Not to mention him puking on the ship would serve as some comedic timing straight out of "Critical Role"! Also, "That bow looks good on you" LAUNCHES the ship to heights undreamt of.

* Sam as Edgar Figaro: I mean, COME ON! IT WRITES ITSELF! Besides, it would be enjoyable to see him use his -Artificer- Machinist abilities as creatively as he does! Can you IMAGINE him rolling high enough one day and then he just creates the Noiseblaster? And with that he pulls out the microphone every time he uses it and proceeds to shout some thing Scanlan would be proud of... Not to mention his friendship with Sabin would be amazing if played by Sam! "The little shrimp has become a mighty Lobster!" You can HEAR Sam Riegel's voice come out of that! And the two headed coin? Now THAT's a Scanlan! This without mentioning the violations of the Geneva Convention that the Bioblaster would certainly entail...

* Laura as Celes Chere: I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Meeting Locke in the dungeon? The apparent betrayal? THE OPERA HOUSE?! "I'm a former General, not some... Opera floozy!" TELL ME you don't hear Laura Bailey saying that! And then she rolls a Natural 20 on performance and EVERYONE looses their shit! Her Runic ability is the target of MANY close saves. Also, the way Locke and Celes' interactions happen, she'd be perfect opposite Taliesin. The chat on the bridge in Albrook? HEARTSTOPPING. The attempted suicide? You KNOW Matt would call the sesion there!

* Travis as Sabin Figaro: This one was obvious. Monk/Barb that gets mistaken for a bear, and acts like an absolute teddy bear around Terra? Yes. Gods above, YES. "You think a tiny thing like the end of the world was going to be enough to keep me down?" You heard Grog too, right? The moments would be worth MILLIONS. The Opera house and Travis going "Why is everyone singing?" and then getting more and more into it! Him holding up the house for Celes! "MISTER THOU"... But best of all, and probably the single most famous Sabin moment EVER, The Phantom Train:

Matt: The train tracks suddenly lurch to the side. Even after this long and hard-fought battle it seems *chukles* it seems this train isn't letting you get away with your lives. That brings us to you, Travis! Travis, on his 5000 IQ shit: I grapple the train.

Entire Table: ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!?!

Matt: No way in hell are you gonna- You know what? Roll for it. *Picks up dice for the Train* Taliesin: He's dead. He's so fucking dea-

Travis: NATURAL 20.

Entire Table: *Silent disbelief, everyone looks at Matt*.

Matt: *Also in disbelief* ...Rolled a 1.

Entire Table: *Inintelligeble gasping and hyperventilating*

Travis: I'm going to use my last Blitz as Meteor Strike and suplex the Train!

Matt: *Looking at the sheet, knowing damn well what's about to happen* Go ahead and roll for damage...

Travis: *Rolls for damage*

Matt: *Braces for impact* How do you wanna do this?

Entire Table and the Internet: *EXPLODES*

The Fanart keeps coming, even YEARS after the Campaign is done...

* Liam as Setzer Gabbiani: Since he's LITERALY "Mister Steal Your Girl", I think Liam would be PERFECT. Just imagine him getting set up as this suave and smooth rougue who wanted to kidnap a beautiful singer and then gets Laura instead! (Which isn't entirely wrong...) IMAGINE his expresions and his dissapearing under the table laughing as the others barely climb aboard The Blackjack. THE ENTIRE PARTY giving him shit for a low roll on a Wisdom Check (the double-headed coin) and him segwaying that into joining the party, only to find out that he actually knew all along... Priceless. The total and undistilled heartbreak as his ship falls apart, him trying to reach out for Terra and everyone falling on different places. And then meeting Celes a year later and doing the whole Daryll story... Liam would be the one to steal the audience every time he takes the spotlight! Though he would be a little like Percy in the sense that he doesn't get much to do until his arc happens.

"Money, Money, Money!" every time he throws coins to attack, the loaded dice (in character, not at the table?) and the card throws would make him so stylish in a D&D setting I'll be surprised if somebody hasn't done it already.

* Ashley as Relm Arrowny: She takes forever to join because of her constantly being away for filming, but once she's here? HOO BOY, does the fun keep coming! Her paintings coming alive and helping them fight? Her giving Sam shit for Edgar's love life? "Fuddy-Duddy!" becoming A Thing? All of those moments would be hilarious... But probably her most notorious moment comes when they find her a year later, serving a posessed brush, telling her to paint, paint, paint under the Magic House... "Keep painting until I'm complete..." The party snaps her out of it before she finishes the greatest painting she's ever done, her Magnum Opus, and then the painting coming alive prematurely in order to force her to finish... To give her form. And then the Lakshmi boss fight happens... Matt: And with the last of her strength gone, the banshee-like apparition dissipates into mist, and before any of you can react, Relm's magic brush begins to glow, like it had when you first came in here. The glow slowly creeps off the hairs and darts! Off towards the mistified form of it's mistress, enveloping itself into a thicc layer on top of the mist, swirling around... and around and around.

Ashley: Oh god, now what?

Matt: The colors dissipate, and Lakshmi unleashes a terrible wail! *DM monster noises* As it is now joined with this colorful cloud... And it compresses, smaller and smaller... And more solid until it's not mist anymore.

Marisha: *Gets it* ¡WAIT A MINUTE!

Travis: *Exited* ¡OH SHIT, HOLD ON!

Matt: The fog dissipates... And the calm returns to Relm's senses. Ashley you are now holding an innert, ordinary paint brush. However! Floating in the air, you see a crystal with a small glowing core, the particular essence of Life embeded in the middle, Terra you *points at Marisha* feel this and recognize it instantly, as it falls to the ground, and bounces a couple times... A brand new shard of Magicite.

Party: *FERAL LOOTING*

"Lakshmi" becomes the most PAINFUL fanart to make, and it's ALWAYS the one that's valued the most among the fandom.

The rest of the Party (Strago, Umaro, Mog, Cyan, Gau and GoGo) can be the guests that come over every once in a while (I particualrly see Wil Wheaton as Strago Magus, Mary McGlynn as GoGo and Will Friedle as Clyde "Shadow" Arrowny) with Shadow coming and going with the excuse that "His contract is up" (and let's face it, after surviving/witnessing the Phantom Train? My contract would be up too...) and coming back whenever his schedule/the plot allows. Eventually, everyone comes together for one last session and the battle with God Kefka. Setting their affairs in order, the reveal of who Shadow really is during a lone chat with Strago shakes the Critters to their core. Everything makes sense! Why Interceptor went straight to Relm when they met... Why his nightmares kept showing a village of magic users, yet they never mention Shadow in Thamasa! The group is RATTLED and wether or not he survives at the end becomes a HEATED argument between everyone at the table. Only Strago knows the truth...

The sendoff on The Falcon with everyone saying goodbye and seeing what the World will bring next is regarded as one of the most emotional scenes in "Critical Role" history... But the most completely DESTRUCTIVE force in this entire cast is Matt Mercer as Kefka Palazzo:

The personality... the narrative... The absolute slime in his voice when he poisons Doma. When he kills Leo and brings forth the Light of Judgement. Matt definitely has his moments playing Ultros. He's fun! And Emperor Ghestal was more of a political "Darth Sidious" villain. But Kefka? OH, LORD. NOBODY was ready for Kefka. "Enjoy the barbicue!" gets memed to no end, while also sending a horrible shiver down people's spine whenever somebody brings it up. Truly, the villain to end all villains. I can see it happen so vividly... If anybody wants to talk about this more, PLEASE hit me up! This just feels too good! Until off course the party moves on to their next Campaign in the setting for "Final Fantasy 5" but that's a whole OTHER can of worms!

[thecatsaesthetics]

Ashara's baby. The whole thing seems so weird to me. What do you make of it?

This is probably gonna be unpopular and let me say this I’m okay to be wrong. So many people write theories and act like they can’t be wrong. I’m fine if I’m wrong. Also, I don’t give a single fuck what the show did. The show to me will never define all the canon. As Martin said when answering if it was the correct ending yes… no…. yes…no. Meaning yes some things were probably “plot points” but just because the show didn’t go into certain things doesn’t mean it won’t matter in the books. So please no “BUT THE SHOW” cause I don’t believe everything has been revealed at all. 

I tend to think if Ashara’s baby is gonna pop up it will be Dany. I know a very very controversial opinion. But let’s look at Lemongate, which doesn’t prove Ashara but raises doubt on Dany’s parentage. Lemongate is undeniable, anyone who says otherwise is completely fooling themselves. 

Martin confirmed it’s important:  

Livejournal Question: “Dany remembers a lemon tree outside the house with the red door in Braavos, but citrus trees shouldn’t really grow in Braavos’s cold, foggy climate. Is this discrepency significant? Does it point to future revelations about Dany’s past? Thank you so much.” 

Answer: “Very perceptive of you. Yes, it does point to … well, that would be telling.” 

This means no matter what Lemongate matters. There is a reason Martin put it in the plot. Whether I am right or wrong doesn’t matter, Martin has confirmed it points to something. Something he will be revealing. So for anyone who claims Lemongate is nothing is wrong. 

Rhaella and Aerys infertility. Rhaella had Rhaegar, 3 miscarriages, 2 stillborns, and 3 short live children. There is obvious fertile issues with them and she has all of these losses under the best medical care. But we’re supposed to believe Rhaella gave birth to a healthy living child, without a maester, after an incredibly stress war, the loss of almost her entire family, flight to Dragonstone, and the constant fear of being caught by Robert Baratheon. 

Dany has violet eyes. People might not think this is important but it is. Viserys has lilac eyes and Rhaegar has indigo eyes. No keep in mind Martin is pretty much you get either “mom or dad’s traits.” recessive genes don’t seem to be a thing (the whole reason the “black of hair” nonsense drives some fans nuts). On top of that Dany is supposed to be the daughter of two generations worth of brother-sister marriages. These violet eyes are a mistake. Even Viserys points it out in Dany’s first chapter he makes her wear a purple dress to “bring out the purple in her eyes” Viserys is terrified she doesn’t look like a Targaryen Princess. But will get into that later. The only person in the timeline of Dany’s conception that had violet eyes was Ashara. Barristan Selmy even says Dany’s eyes remind him of Ashara. 

Back to the Viserys point. He is terrified she doesn’t look enough like a Targaryen. The first chapter is him dressing her up and trying to convince himself that she looks enough like a Targaryen. It’s the eyes that are worrying him probably, they are wrong. 

Viserys doesn’t speak High Valyrian but Dany does. When they speak with in front of the Dothraki they speak in The Common Tongue. We know Dany speaks High Valyrian, a language few would know where they were. So it seems like Viserys didn’t know High Valyrian.   

 Dany says she was born in the worst storm in Westerosi history. Not a single person has a memory of this storm, this storm that supposedly smashed the Targaryen fleet (leaving them defenseless) and made the stones at Dragonstone come down. This doesn’t make for many reasons. First Stannis has a naval battle at Dragonstone, Davos mentions that Stannis led the assault against Dragonstone which implies there was a battle. Furthermore, Dragonstone castle isn’t made out of stone, it’s made out of magically fused Valyrian stones. Dragonstone couldn’t crumble the way Dany said it did. On top of that Stannis, Davos, etc never mentions repairs made to Dragonstone. 

Further disproving the “stormborn” Dany claims the storm happened in the summer during her birth. Which doesn’t make sense, we know that winter/autumn storms are in The Narrow Sea with the worst being winter. 

Dany remembers Willem Darry as a “great grey bear” of a man and also that he died wasting away of sickness. He remembers Willem Darry never leaving his bed, and him walking with a cane. She remembers he had soft hands, but Willem Darry was a knight and master-of-arms. His hands would be rough.

Dany says she and Viserys were robbed when they left the house with the red door. Leaving them with nothing. But Dany also said that Viserys sold all there Targaryen treasures, including there mother’s crown. So the servants stole everything but just missed all that good Targaryen treasure? 

Dany tells us they went from Dragonstone-Braavos- Myr-Tyrosh-Qohor-Volantis-Lys-Pentos. Just look at a map. Tell me how this makes sense. On top of that Dany specifically says she remembers the flight from Dragonstone to Braavos. Dany was an infant apparently, how would she remember it? 

Dany says in her first chapter they lived in Pentos for 6 months, Illyrio says that the marriage between Drogo and Dany was “years in the making” and also mentions to Viserys not to ruin plans that have been in the works for “years”. 

And finally, Lemon trees don’t grow in Braavos. The smoking gun, Dany remembering a Lemon Tree outside her window: here is the specific quote 

“That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window” 

Now many have claimed it’s possible that they lived with the Sea Lord and that the Sea Lord had a glasshouse similar to the Starks. Now that’s possible, but Dany doesn’t remember a glasshouse. She remembers a Lemon Tree outside her window. If you look at the Sea Lord’s Palace it doesn’t seem like the room Dany would be in would be close enough for her to see the Lemon Tree. Also in The Stark glasshouse, it’s interesting that Lemon Trees aren’t grown. Considering Ned Stark had a daughter who loved lemon cakes. 

Lemon trees are most associated with Dorne. This has been repeated in the text a bunch of times. Similarly the idea that Braavos grows no lemon has also been mentioned. And as I mentioned in the first point Martin has said this issue will be brought up and revealed, and I’m sorry if I don’t believe Dany will have it revealed to her she once lived at a place with a glasshouse. I think it’s probably a little more.  

Now all of this is evidence that Dany’s past doesn’t add up. There are questions about it. There are many theories about it, but if Ashara’s baby is going to be important I would suspect it’s because she’s Dany. Now many have speculated Ashara’s baby is Aegon, it’s possible but I think it’s important that we’re told that Ashara’s baby was a stillborn girl. Also Ned’s guilt over the decision to kill Dany. Also, The Daynes hold Ned in such high respect despite him killing Arthur. It’s very odd. I mean Edric Dayne is nicknamed Ned… which seems to be for Ned Stark. There is something going on with The Daynes, I’m sure of that. I mean Barristan says when he looks at Dany it’s like he’s looking at Ashara’s daughter. So I think if anyone’s gonna be revealed to be Ashara’s baby it will be Dany. 

Now there are many baby daddies, Brandon, Ned, Aerys, Rhaegar… I still tend to think Dany is a Targaryen so I would throw out Brandon or Ned. I mean possible B+A=D, especially with the “looked to Stark” but idk I think Dany’s a Targaryen. 

Aerys is interesting Daenerys  Daen-erys Dayne-Aerys. Idk maybe the very name itself was meant to be a clue. Aerys was known to take mistresses, to be a rapist, etc. He was obsessed with Joanna Lannister for a while and Rhaella sent her away in order to protect her. It was said Aerys was interested in beautiful women and Ashara was supposedly the most beautiful of them all. Aerys would have had access to Ashara given she was his daughter in laws lady in waiting. Plus it was said someone “dishonored” Ashara at Harrenhall, Barristan claims. Who was known for dishonoring maidens? Aerys. 

Rhaegar is also a strong case, Rhaegar again had access to Ashara. It makes more sense for him to fall for his wife’s lady in waiting then Lyanna a woman he just met. Dany has strong ties to Rhaegar in the books, he’s mentioned so much in relation to Dany. Rhaegar being Dany’s father would make sense.  Again fits with the “dishonor” but I also argue it would fit with the “looked to Stark”. Let’s say Rhaegar and Ashara were having an affair, and then suddenly Lyanna showed up at Harrenhall and Rhaegar realized that only a child of “ice and fire” would be The Prince that was Promised. Is it possible Ashara took to the Starks in order to actively dishonor or humiliate them after being set aside for Lyanna? Again this is speculative but possible. We know she leaves Elia’s service soon after the birth of Aegon. It seems like she was set aside. 

So that’s it… again don’t take this too seriously. I’m okay if I’m wrong. I’m not someone set in stone when it comes to ASOIAF theories. But I just think The Daynes do have a role to play. 

[iguessishouldbethankful]

Sly Cooper 1 Review:

As in, I recently completed the game and since I was asked to, I will give my review on it. I’m a little nervous because this is the first time I’m doing this, so hopefully I’ll get this right.

KEEP IN MIND: I did not grow up with this series, and I am going in after @oroanillado gifted me the entire series for the PS3. I am a new fan who basically grew up on Nintendo products, so my views might come off differently.

ALSO: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Onto the review.

0. Initial Reaction:::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was pretty surprised how the game collection required no download or installation. So that was a good little bonus as I could immediately sit down and play it without much of a wait. As for the starting point on top of the roof... lemmie say that Sly is adorable at first glance. His movements are fluid and it’s very satisfying to control him--especially the fact that he has a bass sound to his steps that is beyond addictive. I love it.

Not to mention the music is nice. Not exactly as memorable, but I can listen to it and it does give the area a feel.

And then Bentley opened his mouth. Whew boy. Okay. Rok heard my live commentary every time he opened his mouth, so it’ll be a theme. It wasn’t that bad at first though so it’s mostly me wanting to explore the Police Station. It’s mostly a tutorial level so it’s nothing impressive, just giving the feels.

When Carmelita showed up, like expected, I was stunned by two things: she owns an extra fancy taser gun, and that slow as fuck taser gun is able to cause the destruction of public and private property as a massive scale. Ma’am, can we talk? Can you not blow up the cars?? LADY-

As for the comic style animation? Yes, perfect. I was looking forward to it and was not disappointed. I love the cartoony look it gives to the whole world. Which is something else I noticed--the feel and look of the game is very much like the love child of Banjo Kazooie and Psychonauts. The colors and collectathon.

Also the character motivations for Sly, Bentley and Murray are believable. All are orphans, and Sly saw his family get killed but the bad guys and the family book of thieves stolen. Carmelita? Eh, wish I had more context to her but good cop trying to catch the robber is good enough.

Note: I had no idea Carmelita was actually someone that worked for Interpol. My dumbass thought she was just a French cop. The more you know.

As for the hub safehouse area, it’s simple and direct to the point.

Okay. We good? Now onto the levels.

1. Tide of Terror:::::::::::::::::::

Sly dies in one shot.

Sly dies in one shot.

Sly dies in one shot.

No. This was okay. I was determined to find out how I could get around this. I explored the initial open area, collecting the coins and trying to get the bottles because I knew that the point of the games was to collect all pages, right? So I needed the bottles to get the clues so Bentley could give me the code. Thing is, I ran into a few problems on the get go. BESIDES SLY BEING A ONE HIT WONDERBOY.

I didn’t know I could pimp whack enemies with the cane. So I see this walrus looking mofo just hammering away on a boat and I’m like... How do I not aggro this dude. Keep to myself, reach areas I new I could jump to, and... OH FUCK THERE ARE BOTTLES ON THAT BOAT GOD DAMN IT! Fine. Let’s sneak in. By sneak I mean run around the walrus and realize that the guy just sees me and hammers harder. What? Okay then he doesn’t chase me. Get the bottles, realize after 5 minutes that Sly’s pimp ass cane can in fact obliterate the ship’s pole to get the last bottle, before trying to confront the walrus.

So I died the first time. Then I smacked him. You know, for a one hit wonder as Sly is, I appreciate that the enemies are the same as well. That balanced everything out and not made it a colorful furry version of Dark Souls. So off I go. Up the ladder and jumping right into the second area where there are search lights. I’m like okay, let me go around these and--

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ROSE BUSH KILLED SLY?!

GOD DAMN IT!!

Yes, a lot of this happened. It has been a while since I played a colorful game like this and I a lot of this is simple designing that is obvious, but I am also someone that enjoys finding other ways to get around them. So many choices in the game seems nonsensical. A raccoon unable to brush by some thorn bushes was rather hilarious. I was basically fussing at full volume while Rok was laughing at me. Which was good, I meant to be hilarious.

I discovered the wonders that were the search lights and that they are easily turned off in the small sections. That I could in fact dodge most attacks from the minor enemy characters. Realized that this damn raccoon cannot swim to save his damn life. LITERALLY.

kjsdbkjsd And then I realized that I was missing quite a few bottles once I got to the end. I was frustrated. I wanted to get them all already. So I went back and tried figuring out how to get them and I SWEAR TO GOD I CANNOT EVEN LOOK AT THE SAFE WITHOUT BENTLEY GOING “YOU DON’T HAVE THE BOTTLES NEEDED TO OPEN IT U-”

Bro. Bro I know. Bro please.

Shut the fuck up.

Got the bottles and moved on. Found out that I absolutely adore Sly being in a barrel and wanted to take that barrel with me everywhere but I couldn’t. Realized that Sly puts come paper cuts outs of his emblem in opened up safes and--can we talk about this? Does Sly just sit in his room with colored craft paper and cuts these out every night? Does he redo them if one comes out funky? Does he get glittery paper or is it like the kiddy kind? Does he do them in the van? Is it with scissors or an x-acto knife?! How do you make these bro you don’t simply walk into a FedEx’s Kinkos to print these out!

Anyway, I’m learning more tricks as I go along, getting all of the keys and bottles and I do go back to each stage to get all of the damn bottles because I am not leaving one behind because I really want all of the pages. I am also seeing all of the death animations Sly does and honestly, the humor in each of them is not lost on me at all. I adore them. The first time I saw him just realizing he’s gonna fall to his death and he just-

I busted laughing so hard and Rok got to hear me lmao oh my god-- But for real, most of his death animations are strangely adorable in my opinion. Especially when he just falls and his little leg twitches. They never made animations like that for other games I played so far (not even for Banjo Kazooie). And the lightness of everything makes it less frustration in my opinion. As though I had no problem if Sly died along the way. Whereas I would get way more frustrated with how Mario or Banjo would die.

Anyway those are my tidbits. But lemmie tell you something.Once I got to the last stage where I needed to get the 7 keys to access the final boss? There’s a treasure chest with crabs mini games.

FUCK. THAT. GAME.

The only reason I got through it was because I’m stubborn and I distracted my frustrations in my chat with Rok as I had this damn raccoon swim around in a submarine, killing about 100 crustaceans just for 40 chests!! 40! Not a normal number like 20 or 25. No. 40. That drove me nuts for some reason.

Anyway, finally got to the final boss after I collected all the horseshoes and lives around the main hub of the level, and then yeeted Sly from the canon ALA Wind Waker style.

Raleigh is freaking gross. Not in voice, but his animation made me feel really nasty with looking at him, which in my opinion was a good visual design and motivator to get rid of him faster. It was also easy to sort of find out what the boss fight was requiring from me in the end--making it so much easier as well. I guess for a kid it’s a bit more difficult and I can understand that. I just enjoyed the fights for having a repetitive nature that was satisfying. Like even if I died many times, the game didn’t throw me all the way out of the level at all. It restarted the fight from the beginning and that, to me, was a good way to introduce me to the entire function of a Sly Cooper 1 boss fight.

I felt happy when I defeated Raleigh. And of course, Sly isn’t a “killer” so froggo dude is still alive, just in prison after “HOT LATIN FOX LADY” caught him. Of course. Can someone tell me where Carmelita is from? Is she Spanish or Mexican or..? Like was that defined by the games or was it thrown up in the air?

Anyway, onto the next level.

2. Sunset Snake Eyes:::::::::::::::::::::

Lemmie just say that I actually enjoyed Mugshot’s backstory? It made me feel really sympathetic towards him in a way.... Despite him being a murderer but you know. It was a nice touch.

Okay so, are any of you familiar with the whole “Mickey Mouse is taking his dog Pluto for a walk” dilemma? Well, I had a moment like that as well in this section. Why? Because Mugshot has feral dogs all over his turf and that messes me up a lot for some reason. Like I always wondered how, evolutionary wise, can an anthro dog and a feral dog look so similar? I had a moment like that as well when reading Farewell, Beloved Falco. There was a feral pig in that comic and it bother the fuck out of me. But it didn’t impede me from playing the game.

The look was very much classical American desert wasteland in the middle of nowhere. Possibly southwest USA if I were to guess, and I liked the feel of the casinos and run down RVs, trailers and cars. However it made me question why this place was a junkyard almost if he kinda has a functioning casino. For Raleigh I could understand because it was a hideout, you do what you can right? Even if you have a fucking floating metal blimp over your hideout, like that won’t catch military attention at all, nooooooo--

But like, an abandoned casino suggests that it was once owned by the mafia or a mob, and just--Okay. Police regulations and gun control. Etc etc, I’m rambling on about things that have nothing to do with the game. Back to the design.

Again, collecting all the bottles like a desperate AA member that needs a hit for old times sake and running back to open up the safe. Can I just say that the names of each Cooper ancestor is rather amusing? Like some have the most dumb but adorable names. Huckleberry Cooper jfc--

And once I got into the main hub, I got my first taste of the “Murray can’t think without his stomach thus gets himself in trouble and needs to race his Moon Rover turned into a Van to win one of the keys” mini game and “Bentley told me I gotta keep you alive as you run through this area full of trigger happy criminals, Murray, plEASE STOP RUNNING IN FRONT OF MY BULLETS MURRAY-” mini game. Nice. Not as bad as the 40 treasure chests crabs.

Also, why would Mugshot or his minions just leave a red sports car running on reverse for days on end?? Anyway.

The inside of the casino was a nice section to play ngl. I enjoyed that a lot. The platforming too, despite some of the bottles being utterly difficult to get without having to die and do the entire section again to get them. And then comes the level when Carmelita decides to destroy private property because she’s after this dumbass raccoon. I wonder how she felt seeing him jump around back and forth breaking bottles and dodging her SLOW AS FUCK TASER GUN.

“Could you stand still?!”

“Nope. Not my fault you couldn’t get a license for a firearm.”

Finally I got to the Mugshot boss fight and like the first one, it was a very satisfying fight. Mugshot had me in stitches because he walked around with his long ass arms instead of his legs at first like lmao! Also once I got to the final third stage, I was all cautious and excite to jump around the wires. Yessss.

Defeated, all bottles collected, Carmelita caught this villain as well, and off we go... stealing shit from the USA before coming back to the Safehouse? Alrighty then.

3. Vicious Voodoo:::::::::::::::

Let me tell you something about myself. I have an intense love for Voodoo in video games. Started with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father, Princess and the Frog and I had an intense call back to one of the swamp areas of Banjo Kazooie in this level.

So basically, this is my favorite level.

I think it’s also the level where I argued the most with Bentley as well. Or at least the second one because, since the very first game, he keeps repeating the same obvious commands all the time with a constant reminder of press the O button. Sly? Sly?? SLY! PRESS THE O BUTTON! Bentley? You’re cute, but you gotta stop my dude.

The sliding effect on the long branches was a lot of fun, the tree enemies that had more than one hit kills were also satisfying to beat the shit out of. I also enjoyed the general murky color of the level in general. Just the spooky was definitely my aesthetic. You know what wasn’t my aesthetic? The first mini game I ran into, which was the candle mini game where Bentley would repeat himself all the time right at the start of if you had to restart the level. I muted the entire thing and had Sly mindlessly killing the fishes to turn on the candles while blabbing to Rok on the phone so it was easier for me not to get nervous about the time limit or the amount of candles I had to turn on. It was the same thing with the Chicken Gumbo mini game, but I didn’t mute that one. Because Bentley stayed quiet.

Also, @oroanillado​ is the biggest troll. I was on the beast section of the game and they did not describe to me what it was like. So I’m honestly not expecting much at all, just wanted to grab my bottles and go. Once I’m halfway though, and I already saw the water moving around I’m having Amnesia the Dark Descent flashbacks like OH SHIT OH FUK O Shi- But no. No. What got to me was... This intensely huge serpent coming out of the water and chasing me and my camera kept pointing BACK instead of pointing forward so I could navigate Sly out of that mess while also getting the fucking bottles along the way!!

I was shrieking!! I have an acute fear of things that are larger than normal (it’s connected to my Agoraphobia). I have that with whales and sharks and fish, so I usually avoid big mobs if possible in any game. Yes, including the 3 mythical dragons from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. @thekursedone-lylat​ was present when I was freaking out about saving Naydra and how huge it was. But at the same time I have a big fear of these sorts of creatures, I was laughing and cursing at the end of the level because honestly, Rok was having a good time and so was I.

Oh yes, also the other mini game where I had to navigate the same speed boat thingy and shoot down the on coming ghosts and flaming rocks was pretty annoying until I figured out I needed to destroy the pillars where the ghosts came from. Then it was easy.

But my absolute favorite section of this whole level was the Green Water Full of Body Parts and Bones. Bentley was losing his shit at the beginning of the level and I would accidentally yeet Sly into the water of decomposing bodies like yeah, yeah the turtle won’t like the smell of this. It was just a well designed level, so I had no problems having to redo it to get all the bottles again and again.

Now, the boss fight? I was warned about this ahead of time so I had to unfortunately put Mz. Ruby on mute so I would concentrate on her attacks but apparently they were supposed to go with the rhythm of the song and the Sly Cooper Collection messed that up? I think she was the only Boss I was really wanting to listen to as she talked because she was giving me good “yeah I’m bad, probably not the best one in the group, but I don’t care I’mma own up to it so try to dodge my attacks as best you can” vibes. It was also entertaining to see Sly go Neo with some of the commands.

All bottles collected and onto Winter in China.

4. Fire in the Sky::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oh hey look, fireworks!

.....oh.

Surprisingly, this entire stage was rather meh to me? It worked like the others, felt like the others, but I really wasn’t as wowed by it. It might also be just the fact that I mostly saw white in general due to the snow, and spent most of my time looking for a few bottles on one section that really irritated me. Like I legitimately got mad in one section and didn’t want to deal with it because of the noises some of the monkeys were making.

This section. I hated it so much because I thought the bottles I was missing were in here and 2 of them were but I needed hints for it. Argh... Everything else in this section was pretty much a blur for me besides the two mini games with Murray, and the one level where Carmlita came back again, destroying more private and ancient property with her taser gun--and the main reason I remember this was because:

Carmelita saying she was going to catch criminal scum Sly and Sly just went “you really need to get woke, I’m not the bad guy here.”

I collected all the bottles but Bentley told me I had to defeat Clockwerk before I could open this damn safe, and it was the only one requiring this!!

Carmelita went down with the dragon statue, into the hypothermia levels of cold water while shaking her fist into the sky.

I will say the part of Sly and Bentley discussing the whole mechanics of Sly taking the rockets into Panda’s lair was pretty funny tho. Just,

Bentley: Hey you might be able to reach the top of the tower before these explode.

Sly: Okay but what if they explode before I get there?

Bentley: Then I guess you’ll blow up into many pieces.

Sly:

As for the Panda King boss fight, it was okay. I just kept running in circles around the arena while approaching the dude. Defeated him and was like okay, I really need to go and defeat Clockwerk now so I can open that safe.

5. The Cold Heart of Hate:::::::::::::::::::

Look.

I get Sly probably weighs next to nothing, Murray, but could you at least break once Sly gets knocked off the top of the van? Or when the rocks are falling down towards us, maybe also step on the breaks so not everyone is being driven to their ultimate death?

No?

Okay.

I will say, I headcanon that both Bentley and Sly were getting an intense case of whiplash when Murray was driving that van around at 120 MPH collecting all 60 computers because... Bentley needed those to hack into something??? It wasn’t as bad as the 40 crabs and treasure chests but man. And then of course there’s the section where, oh surprise surprise, Carmelita is in an obvious trap, slamming her fist on the glass, needing to be saved. Bentley warned Sly it was a trap. But of course Sly is like:

OH THANK GOD THE BARREL IS BACK.

Anyway, obvious trap is an obvious trap. Carm just bitches at Sly right as he gets stuck in the glass chamber and is sprayed with RAID. So Bentley has to save his ass. This is possibly the mini game I dislike the most. I just put Bentley on constantly circling mode as he shot down the targets.I died about 9000 times before I won.

Carmen is all Oh I was wrong about you the whole time Sly!

Sly: Duh.

And off we go to the next section where Sly lost his cane and he needs to recover it with Carm’s help. So I’m controlling Carm’s taser gun. Guess how many times I purposefully killed Sly? Many. For funsies. Because the gun magically got faster once I was behind the trigger.

Next section was the whole climb up the beam tower as it’s being consumed by lava! I very much enjoyed this whole climbing bit. It was fun. Again, died a lot and I actually glitched through the walls because I jumped somewhere I wasn’t supposed to and had to kill Sly along the way. But still very fun.

FINALLY.

CLOCKWERK.

Are we serious? Are we actually serious right now? Clockwerk had absolutely no motivation beyond ultimate hate? WHAT?! That’s just... not a satisfying reason ngl. Anyway, the jetpack flying section was probably the easiest thing ever and I loved it. What I didn’t like was the laser section that came after it... I kept dying. Again. FUCK. THOSE. LASERS.

Clockwerk speaking random little words while malfunctioning was super cute those. I don’t why, but I loved it. I was shrieking by the end of everything though because once I got right at the back end, where I’m supposed to jump on this mad owl, I was not expecting the head to jump on me. HHHHHHH!!!

Anyway, I killed Clockwerk dead. Back into the lava you go. Witnessed Sly give Carmelita the slip of the tongue and handcuffed her onto a railing over an active volcano before yeeting himself. Classy. Then back to his old tricks again with the gang. End credits.

NO WAIT.

The last chest. In the Panda section. Yeah I went back for that and got the extra ending.

0. MY RATING::::::::::::::::::::

Honestly, 8 trashcans out of 10. If Clockwerk actually had a believable motive besides hate, I’d give it a higher rating. But the game is satisfying and I love the mechanics of it.

Bentley just needs to chill the fuck up tho. God.

[hrk4]

My Sanskrit Story

I am an ardent student of Sanskrit.

Over the past few years, I’ve been learning Sanskrit in a slow, schizophrenic manner – a few weeks of frenetic study of grammar and literature with long months of lackadaisical, lukewarm engagement with the language, mostly through ‘study circles’ (we’ll come to this later) that I’m a part of. But I have kept at it constantly and never regretted it once.

My earliest exposure to Sanskrit was perhaps at the age of two. Born and raised in a typical Hindu middle-class family, I was taught simple shlokas and stotras. My father took me to Cubbon Park or Ulsoor Lake on Sunday mornings and on the way he would teach me verses from the Mukunda-mala (a poetical work composed by Kulashekhara azhvar, a ninth century king and poet-saint). My grandmother taught me the Krishna-ashtakam (usually during power-cuts) and my mother taught me verses from the Venkatesha-suprabhatam. At age three or four, I became a sort of ‘installation art’ at weddings where elders gathered around me, coaxing me to recite verses from the Mukunda-mala. (But of course, getting children to recite verses is not uncommon in our families. Many of you might have experienced this in your childhood.)

That was it, pretty much: Some stray verses committed to memory and the strong notion that Sanskrit was a great language. In spite of my rejection of orthodox theism, rituals, and outdated religious/superstitious practices during my rebellious adolescent years, strangely, I never lost respect for Sanskrit.

Most of my cousins studied Sanskrit in school but I didn’t have that good fortune. I wanted to learn the language but I didn’t know where to start; for years it remained a pipe dream.

By sheer chance, I got involved in co-writing a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita with Dr. Koti Sreekrishna in 2006. At that time, I didn’t know any Sanskrit. My role was to review and edit the English; after Dr. Sreekrishna produced a rough translation, I would work towards presenting the verses in the simplest way possible. By the time we published the book five years later, I had learnt a few words here and there, particularly when we discussed the meaning of difficult verses.

In early 2011, when the manuscript of our Gita translation was being sent to reviewers, someone suggested that I get the opinion of the renowned scholar, poet, and polymath Shatavadhani Dr. R Ganesh. Until then I hardly knew anything about him. When I phoned him, he spoke in an encouraging manner and I felt like I was speaking with a family elder rather than a celebrity-scholar. He graciously reviewed the manuscript and gave his feedback. I casually mentioned to him about my interest to learn Sanskrit and my helplessness at not knowing where to start. Not only did he give me general guidance but he also taught me some of the basics of Sanskrit grammar like noun forms, verb forms, sandhi, and samasa. More importantly, he taught me the real value of learning Sanskrit in today’s world.

The rest of this piece comprises what I’ve learnt from Dr. Ganesh about the study of Sanskrit coupled with my personal experiences. It might be of value to those interested in learning the language.

~

Why Study Sanskrit?

Given that learning Sanskrit—or any language for that matter—consumes considerable time and effort (and some money), it’s a good idea to think for a moment if it’s actually worth it. Now, the worthiness can be decided only by one’s intentions – Why do I want to study Sanskrit?

In my case, I love learning languages when the opportunity presents itself. The process of learning itself is a great deal of fun for linguaphiles like me. So if you are a language-lover, there’s no need to think any further. Go and learn Sanskrit!

There is a widespread notion that Sanskrit is a sacred language meant solely for rituals and that its literature is entirely ‘spiritual stuff.’ So if you’re someone who likes that sort of thing – tradition, philosophy, scriptures, and so forth – you might be thinking of learning the language. The good news is that you probably don’t need to learn Sanskrit.

If you are just interested in the Vedas and want to connect with the tradition better, you could consider learning Vedic recitation, which is definitely easier than learning Sanskrit. In addition, you can read a book or two on the philosophy of the Vedas or listen to lectures on the topic by scholars like Dr. Ganesh. Even those of you who are interested in philosophy can get by reading reliable translations of the Upanishads and Bhagavad-gita as well as general works on Indian philosophy by scholars like Prof. M Hiriyanna.

There is a feeling among the culturally inclined nationalists that it is our duty to preserve Indian heritage and showcase the glory of India’s past. Triggered by this missionary zeal, some people might wish to learn Sanskrit. This often leads to a narrow interest in hunting for science in ancient India, or in the study of traditional works of polity, economics, architecture, law, or other secular subjects. Again, the good news is that you don’t have to learn Sanskrit to accomplish this.

You can always look into reliable translations of works like Artha-shastra, Manu-smriti, Surya-siddhanta, or Brihat-samhita. You can also peruse through books on Indian history, ancient Indian mathematics, temple architecture, and so on. You could even take up the study of a serious treatise like P V Kane’s History of Dharmashastra. That will satiate your thirst to a large extent.

When something can be effectively translated from one language into another—particularly when the objective is to provide information or teach certain concepts—then there’s hardly a case for learning the source language. If I can give you the exact translation of a verse from the Gita and you understand it without any transmission losses, then why do you have to spend ten years of your life learning Sanskrit?

But there are things that simply can’t be translated. Jokes, for instance, are untranslatable when they employ puns or have strong cultural references. The same goes for poetry, where the structure and the substance are closely intertwined. So if you’re interested to explore the vast landscape of Sanskrit literature—Kalidasa’s masterpieces; the two great Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata); Bana’s Kadambari; Shudraka’s Mricchakatika; Bharavi’s Kiratarjuniya; Vishakadatta’s Mudra-rakshasa; and many other poems, plays, and prose compositions—it is worthwhile taking steps to learn Sanskrit. Stories about gods and goddesses, romantic escapades, nature descriptions, episodes from the Epics, idiosyncrasies of public life, the history of a kingdom, tales of commoners – all this and more can entertain and enrich several lifetimes.

In addition to being a wonderful treasure trove of literature, Sanskrit is also a window to our past. Therefore, any serious student of Indian history, archaeology, sociology, culture, sculpture, philosophy, and so forth will benefit immensely if s/he learns Sanskrit. Here I wish to make a distinction between one who is interested in Indian history or philosophy or culture and a full-time student of these subjects (like a BA or MA student). Those who are merely interested to know more about a certain era in Indian history can read a book by R C Majumdar or Jadunath Sarkar and be fulfilled. But for students of history, the knowledge of Sanskrit will enable them to read inscriptions, contemporary literary works, and so on, which will prove invaluable for their careers.

However, if you’re looking to improve your knowledge of physics, become better at technology, get a promotion at work, or win an election, you will benefit from doing other things than learning Sanskrit. 

Is Sanskrit Difficult?

A good way to learn a language is like how we all learnt our mother tongues – by listening and repeating, then slowly moving towards understanding and speaking, and then eventually starting to read and write. If you wish to learn Russian, Spanish, or Japanese, this approach works well. But Sanskrit is not a widely spoken language. And our motivation to learn Sanskrit is not so much trying to communicate with other people as it is to read and savour ancient (and modern) literature.

Although there are a number of people who fluently speak in Sanskrit, it is almost impossible to find a person who knows only Sanskrit and no other language. It’s therefore obvious that you don’t need Sanskrit to communicate with others; you can get by speaking Kannada or Tamil or English. (On the other hand, if you’re visiting the UK and can’t speak a word of English, you’re going to be in trouble!)

To learn Sanskrit, you might have to choose an approach that’s different from what’s popularly known as ‘immersion’ in language-learning circles.

There are some people who think that Sanskrit is extremely difficult and wonder if they can approach it at all. In fact, those who are familiar with one or more Indian languages already have the basic equipment to understand Sanskrit. The nuts and bolts of the grammar can give you sleepless nights but it’s probably not as hard as you think.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are people who think that attending a ten-day Sambhashana course or reading a ‘Learn Sanskrit in 30 Days’ book can give you mastery over Sanskrit. That’s a dangerous notion to harbour if you really want to learn the language.

So, the one line answer is that if you’re interested and pursue it sincerely, it’ll get easier along the way, and more importantly, the journey will be great fun after the initial fumbling about.

Learning Sanskrit

Where do I start?

The answer, surprisingly, is: anywhere. Just start. Sanskrit is an ocean and where does one begin to swim in an ocean? Somewhere. Put your feet in the water, slowly get inside, get used to the cold, and before you realize it, you’re already kicking your legs and having a good time.

And that’s what I did: just started at some point.

I would read a verse from the Gita and then read the English translation. I had learnt Kannada and Hindi at school and as a result, many of the words were familiar to me. Reading the translation after reading the original Sanskrit verse exposed me to new words. I committed verses to memory and later replayed them in my mind, trying to check if I remembered the meaning completely.

That said, the most suitable works to start off learning Sanskrit are lucid compositions like the Ramayana or the Pancha-tantra. Get hold of a reliable translation of one of these works (preferably in an Indian language); start by reciting the original Sanskrit verse or prose passage a couple times, then read through the translation, and go back to reading the Sanskrit – this way you slowly make connections between the words and their meanings. Instead of diving into the technicalities of grammar straightaway, spending time with literature will help you experience the beauty of the language.

Three to six months after commencing the study of a Sanskrit work, you can start learning up some grammar – by reading good books, watching online tutorials, or learning from a teacher.

I’m extremely fortunate that Dr. Ganesh taught me the basics of Sanskrit grammar. That set me off on a winding path of reading different aspects of grammar and trying to wrap my head around them. This continues even today. The more I hunt for rules, more the exceptions I find. My advice: Keep aside logic while learning basics. In the initial stages, don’t ask questions; simply accept things as they are. It just makes life easier. Over time, you’ll develop an intuition for the correct form of a word.

All said and done, it’s easy to start but difficult to keep going. What’s the solution for sustained study?

In my experience, learning a language requires both self-motivation and external agency. Unless one is driven from within, no amount of external push will be fruitful; when self-motivation is present, external agency becomes invaluable. For instance, Sanskrit is taught in schools and colleges – this is a push from outside (i.e., external agency). But only those with self-motivation learn the language well and continue reading literature long after they have graduated.

When I met Dr. Ganesh in 2011, he told me about a fortnightly ‘study circle’ he was conducting and extended an invitation to me. I had never heard the term before so I asked him what that was. A group of friends would catch up every other Saturday and read the Raghu-vamsham of Kalidasa. 

I started attending the study circle. This went on for close to a year and I learnt a great deal. Owing to various reasons I became irregular in attending the sessions and after I shifted to another end of the city, I practically stopped going. During the years 2013–16,  I moved around quite a bit and finally I shifted to Malleswaram in November 2016.

There came an inflection point in my Sanskrit study in 2017. Around that time, my good friend Raghavendra G S had started his PhD program in IISc. and my house happened to be a sort of midpoint between the metro station and his lab. One day I casually suggested that we should meet once a week and read a Sanskrit work together. He readily agreed and we started reading the Krishna-karna-amritam (a poetical work by Lilashuka). By the time we finished reading the text in early 2018, a few other friends showed interest in coming together to form a study circle. And so, in April 2018 we formed our Sanskrit study circle and have continued ever since. I also got the opportunity to join a few other study circles and this ensured that my Sanskrit study is ever fresh; over the past three years, not a week has gone by without a few hours of Sanskrit reading (unless I was travelling or unwell).

So if you want to learn Sanskrit, try to find even one other like-minded friend and get started. Even better if you can find more friends – especially those who know more Sanskrit than you. The ideal is a group of four to six, meeting once a week, for about an hour or ninety minutes. (You can meet in person or online – it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.) There are ample online resources and translations available for various Sanskrit works. Start reading a work together. Take turns to read the verses aloud. (Even when you’re reading Sanskrit by yourself, it’s useful to read aloud). Then look at the translation. Discuss. Read the original verse again. Then move forward. In the first few sessions, you may read just three or four verses in an hour but as you go forward, your speed will drastically improve and you’ll start getting comfortable. After a while, refer to the translations only after you’ve made an attempt to understand the original. This will slowly push you to rely on your memory and learning.

And once in a while, when there’s an opportunity to meet during a long weekend, you can take a short poetical work like Niti-shataka or Kali-vidambana and read the whole thing in one marathon session.

There are many possibilities with study circles. In fact, it can prove to be the mysterious ingredient to accelerate your learning. That’s been the case with me for sure. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can say that I’ve learnt Sanskrit but the journey itself has been incredible so far. Dr. Ganesh and friends have been largely responsible for what little Sanskrit I know. And for that I’m ever grateful.

Hari Ravikumar August 2020

Thanks to my friends Pratap Simha (for getting me to write this piece), Arjun Bharadwaj (for his valuable inputs), and Sudheer Krishnaswami (for his review and feedback).

[pleasecallmeeds]

im one episode away from finishing the umbrella academy and

I want to sum up my thoughts before I head into the finale (which will be tomorrow since I’m about to go the heck to sleep). I don’t really have any predictions because I’m not that clever but I do want to just speak some thoughts I’ve had so far.

1. The music is killer. Love awesome songs tied to awesome sequences, and this show has many.

2. The Hargreeves. I have mixed opinions on every single one of these characters. I have heard almost every opinion you can have of them but I think my opinions are different.

Diego—I have mixed opinions of him. I like him, I think. I didn’t like him at first but I grew to like him. He really cares about his siblings and his robot mom. I appreciate him wanting to avenge his friend/lover/partner.

Klaus—a national treasure. needs to be protected at all costs. I think everyone agrees on that at least. I understand his want to be numb when his greatest power is also his greatest fear.

Five—I love him. I just...love him. He’s an ass sometimes (ok, most of the time) but it’s obvious behind all of his walls that he really cares about his family. Yeah, saving the world is pretty great but his family is the main priority to him I think. Also, almost all of his scenes are iconic.

Allison—I didn’t like her at first but I’ve warmed up to her. She genuinely tried to involve Vanya and show how much she really cared for her as a sister. You can tell she regrets how she acted before. She wants to start over, and I can respect that.

Ben—also wonderful. Wish he wasn’t dead, but you can’t always get what you want. Love the Klaus and Ben duo. There’s so much brotherly love there.

Now it gets somewhat...different from the majority.

Vanya—Vanya had it rough. I understand that. She had a hidden power, something that was hidden from herself as well as almost all of her siblings. She was locked in isolation, she was given pills to drown her power, she was kept away from all of her siblings and didn’t get to be a part of the Umbrella Academy, and she was told by her dad and everyone that she was just ordinary. Even though she really did have powers, it still really hurts to be told you’re really nothing special. Still, I think she’s been rough with Allison and the rest of her siblings. Allison was only trying to help and out of Allison’s understanding speech all she got out of it was “you did this to me,” when everyone knows it was her dad’s fault to begin with. And she didn’t just get mad at Allison and just yell at her. No! She litERALLY slashed her throat with a knife. That’s her sister. She wasn’t willing to listen to reason. It’s not like she’s known Leonard forever. She got caught on the fact that Leonard thought she was special and she was manipulated, true, but to kill your sister in the blink of an eye for saying that your brand new boyfriend might not be who he says he is is nuts. She knows where she went wrong. She apologizes to Allison. She breaks down. She regrets it. But that doesn’t mean she won’t do it again. Vanya is a loose cannon and doesn’t know how to control her powers. She could turn on anyone that makes her the least bit unhappy.

Luther—I think he gets a little too much hate. As I finish the ninth episode, yes, I’m a little upset with him. He shouldn’t have locked Vanya up. No. But I completely understand why. See the points above, obviously, but there’s also some other reasoning.

1. Luther’s sister and well, you know, love interest, was literally almost killed by Vanya. Vanya is also Allison’s sister. That shows Vanya isn’t showing restraint. She’s letting her emotions get to her. She’s obviously powerful, too.

2. Their father might have been an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot. He must have had a reason to lock Vanya up. This guy knew about the end of the world and killed himself in order to save it, so why wouldn’t he know the extent of Vanya’s powers? He obviously had some idea.

3. The end of the world could still be in play. For all we know, Vanya could be that catalyst. He doesn’t know at this point that locking her up is the catalyst for the apocalypse (at least that’s what I’m assuming—I haven’t seen the last episode yet) and doesn’t know that she’ll burst down the door so maybe he thinks locking her up is the only way to save the millions that are at risk. He doesn’t want to lose anyone else and we’ve already seen how Vanya can snap in an instant.

I don’t think Luther should have left her locked up. I think he should have realized after Allison herself told him to let her go that he should let her go. He didn’t. And I’m mad about that, but I also understand that. He thinks he has to be the bigger person—the number one—the leader, and make the tough calls. He doesn’t want to lock Vanya up and he doesn’t want to hurt Allison or his brother’s feelings. But if this is how he protects them—or protects millions of people...maybe that’s what he’s gotta do.

I really strayed from the point of this post! Whoops! I still don’t like Luther, don’t get me wrong, I just feel like he gets a lot of hate when he’s a complex character just like everyone else. All of these characters have major flaws, each one fueled by some kind of trauma. Don’t get me wrong though, those “dad sent me to the moon” memes are still hilarious. :) Anyway I’m really tired. My thoughts might completely change tomorrow when I watch the finale so I’ll keep you updated I guess.

[strayscenarioskids-blog]

Bad Influence - Bang Chan [M] Part 1

Stray kids Scenario

After a fight with her parents the quiet and reserved Roxeanne decides to rebel and get a tattoo.

The last thing she'd expected was to win over the interest of the tattooshop owner, bad boy Bang Chan and his gang.

____

Title: Bad Influence

Pairing: ( Roxeanne x Chan )

Word Count: 1.6k

Genre: gang, romance

Warnings: Later on, Violence

____

______________

Bang Chan

Two days ago

"Hyung.." I.N whispered while quietly handing me the book.

The police were suspicious of our actions and had ordered a search in the tattoo shop. That's alright, they wouldn't find anything anyways.

Before I.N could give it to me a officer put out his hand motioning for me to give it to him. I smirked before I handed it over.

"What's with this book?" The officer asked directly to Jeongin

I smirked and gave our youngest a pat on his shoulder, giving him the go to speak.

"Just a book with sketch ideas." He answered. The officer eyed me suspiciously before he looked at Jeongin again.

"So why did you gave it to him now?" He questioned.

"This book once belonged to my father, it's something personal I would rather not allow anyone to touch." I explained.

The officer scoffed and flipped through the pages, obviously hoping to at least find something.

This same man had been here at least once a week. It was obvious he was some sort of head from the police department and wanted to do the job himself seeming his men couldn't do it.

"And?"

"Found what you're looking for?" I asked.

The officer rolled his eyes before handing me over my sketchbook.

"Obviously not, because there's nothing to find here." Changbin spat out standing in front of me.

I laughed and told the younger boy to calm down. The point was obviously to not come off as aggressive.

The thing is that it weren't sketches at all. It were pieces of the map of Seoul. Valuable pieces to the gang whether they were for business, hiding money or hostages.

"Come on guys, we'll get them another time!" The officer spoke before giving us all a look and walking out with the others.

"I want you to find out everything about him." I told Minho.

"Already on it!" He answered. As expected Minho was a hard worker and did stuff without me having to ask him. That was his personality.

"What now?" Felix asked.

It was no surprise the guys were wondering how we could forward our business with the police breathing in our necks.

"Continue as usual, just watch out." I warned them.

The boys all nodded their head before going back to doing their daily tasks.

__________________

Roxeanne

Present

"You have to work harder." My father scolded while looking over my report card.

"90 percent is to weak for you, I expect at least 95".

"I'm sorry dad, I will work harder." I spoke. It were a few words but they did not mean anything. It only meant that I heard him, but I would not obey. I never did.

The last thing I wanted to do was cause a scene at dinner.

"How is it going with your ballet?" My mom asked.

"Good, it's going great." I answered politely. My mom proudly nodded her head.

"Work has been rough." My father spoke.

Nobody asked

Deep down I knew my mom was not interested to begin with, but my father was her money bank which meant she had to obey.

"Oh, how come?".

My father sighed. Here it comes.

"We went into the shop once again, but we still haven't found anything."

"These guys might be young but they know what they're doing. I think there might be a higher up." My father spoke.

What could he be talking about?

I don't wanna know and don't care either way.

"Roxeanne, you should sit up straight." My father scolded. I rolled my eyes before sitting up straight. Could he not leave me alone for once.

"Don't roll your eyes at me." He almost growled.

"I wished you'd put that same kind of energy in learning." He continued.

This man was driving me nuts.

"And I wish you would just shut up for once!" I yelled before getting up from my chair.

"Roxeanne, sit down, NOW!" My father commanded.

Instead I took a few steps back and shook my head.

"Roxeanne sweety, please sit down." My mother kindly asked. We were both aware of my father's bad temper and what would happen if we wouldn't listen.

"When I count to 3 and your ass is not on that table I promise you, you will be sorry." He yelled.

"One."

I'm not gonna do it.

"Two."

He can smack me to death for all I care.

"You know what, fuck you!" I yelled before walking away. I heard my father get up from his chair but before he could get to me my mom was holding him back.

"Roxeanne, go to your room." She spoke calmly while my father was making a scene. My father did a lot but one person he would not touch was my mother. He loved her and treasured her.

She did not had to tell me twice, but instead of running to my room I quickly grabbed my coat, my phone and stormed out the front door.

If I would be in that house a second longer I would probably go nuts. The best thing would be to go back home later, when my father was fast asleep and calm.

Luckily for me it was not that dark yet, but it probably would be in a hour or so. Perhaps I should go to a coffee shop and wait until my father calmed down.

Because we had just moved back to Korea I did not know the neighborhood very well, and it was actually the first time I would explore the neighborhood. The only thing I did not expect was to do it like this.

I opened google maps on my phone searching for the nearest coffee shop and started walking. This would not be hard right?

I thought. But after ten minutes of walking I noticed the path on my phone had disappeared and not only the path but also my surroundings.

This was not the same luxe neighborhood I lived in, perhaps I should ask for directions before I got completely lost.

Luckily for me there were no people outside, and the streets were quiet. I was not the one for

I walked into a street where I noticed a couple of stores. I was not the one for prejuidice but with the way how I dressed from head to toe in designer clothing it seemed as if there were any people they probably would bother me.

On the opposite side of me there was a tattoo shop that grabbed my attention. It was the only shop with the lights completely on. Stray kids, I read on a banner.

Maybe I could ask them for directions. I thought.

Or maybe, just maybe I should just get a tattoo instead.

Get it out of your head Roxeanne, why on earth would you.

Fuck it.

I crossed over the street and stood in front of the shop, second guessing whether I should really enter.

No Roxeanne, your father will murder you.

Just as I was about to walk away the door opened, making me bump into someone.

"Oh, sorry." The guy spoke with the unlit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes that were starring down at first looked into mine as he got a smirk on his face.

The guy looked legal but rather young. The smirk on his face made his cheeks go up giving him a squirrel 🐿 look. His dark brown hair was perfectly parted in the middle.

"Do you want to get in?" He asked rather surprised. I nodded my head before he smirked and stepped aside.

Before I could get in he gently grabbed me by my shoulder and starred in my eyes again. Flustered I quickly looked down.

"Are you here for Chan?"

"Who?" I questioned. Who the hell was Chan.

The guy laughed before he let go of my shoulder and put his cigarette back in his mouth.

"Stop bothering her and close the door, it's cold!" A voice could be heard from the inside.

The guy laughed before he bowed his head at me and walked past me. Flustered I walked inside of the shop.

"So, are you lost?" Another guy asked me. It was the same voice of the person who had told the other guy to stop bothering me.

He was standing behind a counter. This guy gave me statue vibes, but even then also he was very handsome.

In response I shook my head at him while still being shocked over his handsomeness.

"Aah you're here for a tattoo then?" He asked. I nodded my head.

"Do you already have an appointment?" He asked. Once again I shook my head.

"In that case..." He spoke as he smirked.

"Do you have a tongue?"

I choked in my own spit and nodded my head. Shit I'm doing it again.

"I mean yes, I do." I smiled.

The guy flashed his perfect white teeth and leaned over the counter to get a good look at me. As he looked at me I looked back at him, but all sudden we were interrupted by the ringing of a phone.

The guy chuckled before pushing some sort of button for a intercom.

"Chan, since it doesn't look like you're picking up that phone anytime soon, can you help this sweet customer?" He asked through the sound of the phone that was still ringing.

"On it." The voice spoke.

The guy gave me a wink before picking up the phone and walking away while still eyeing me with a smirk on his face.

What was wrong with him?

_________

You can continue reading this story on Wattpad. Link below.

[indigozeal]

Remothered, the one-time Clock Tower vaporware remake turned giallo-esque horror game from NightCry artist Chris Darril, launches in early access tomorrow in a two-thirds-complete state (meaning, you won't be able to play through the whole story).  I was part of the beta a few months ago, and I thought I'd share my impressions of what I played before tomorrow's quasi-release.  The game's promising and gets some things very right, but there are problems, some of which may prove a barrier to mass-market acceptance.

Before I start here, I want to say that it's an accomplishment that there's enough of a game here to fuel a substantive discussion.  Longtime Clock Tower fans might remember the origins of Remothered over ten years ago as a straight remake of the first CT, featuring rough 3D graphics straight out of an FPS mod and a Jennifer with bowling-ball tits.  Darril was keen on remaking Clock Tower, though, and pursued his idea through a couple drastic revisions: a 2D, straight-to-the-plane remake with memorable magazine-collage graphics and more extreme gore, and what was presumably a more modern remake featuring multiple imaginatively-designed stalkers in a Haunting Ground vein, promoted solely with detailed art from Darril (who is a professional video game illustrator).  These ideas, however, never progressed beyond trailers or concept art (with its third incarnation not even producing a screenshot), and being such a bald remake, the project always had the spectre of copyright smackdowns hanging over its head  -  even the third version, which was allegedly a unique title, merely changed the names Schmennifer Shmimpson-style.  Combine the wheel-spinning with Darril's weird style of communication  -  always through third parties who should not have been in the PR biz, giving conflicting information as to the status of development and the IP's ownership  -  and there was no reason to expect anything to come of this start-and-stop endeavor.  But Remothered has resurfaced, fully reborn, and that Darril persisted and grew from a fan developer to a professional to shape his remake concept into an original idea and get it to market is encouraging.

That said: from what I experienced in the beta demo, I don't know if I could play this game to completion.  (And I don't mean that in an "I'm too scared to continue" way  -  though the game is very tense and scary.)

Let me start with something good: the look of the environments.  Given Darril's background, art was always a strong point of the various Remothered projects, and the mansion in which the story takes place looks really great.  It nails an aesthetic you don't often see in video games: an old, lived-in grunge.  (This is as opposed to the pure-filth grunge of Resident Evil 7, a game to which Remothered will receive many comparisons.)  The outdoor gardens are predictably, grandiosely overgrown, gorgeous and giallo-esque in their unbridled lushness yet speaking to decay.  The interior is convincingly old and neglected in the way of fallen wealth  -  the furniture is ornate but old-fashioned, with a musty museum quality of things that were previously treasured but aren't used or tended to on a regular basis anymore.  The environments are dank in the manner of a once-grand environment that no longer is populated enough to require proper illumination, and there's a clutter that denotes both accumulated wealth and disuse.  

I'd also like to single out for praise the design of the Red Nun stalker, an element justifiably carried over from Remothered's previous incarnation.  She has a lurid, dramatic presence that instantly announces itself as giallo and is more than strong enough on which to hang a horror title.

A problem on the art side: the faces look somewhat stiff and weird.  Rosemary's face did, at least, in the beta, and while it's impressive that Darril's been able to get as far as he did with the faces on an indie budget, he still has a way to go to compete with the modern standard for face technology and expressiveness -  and this is not an area in which audiences are forgiving.  (I remember Run Button criticizing Mia's face from RE7 as fake-looking, for example, and that's near the current cutting edge of realism.)  And the title screen, the first thing you see of the game after the studio logos, is a big close-up of Rosemary's face.  Again: this factor doesn't matter as much to me personally.  I can see this, though, being a big stumbling block for the game.

(Also: while Dr. Fenton's incidental voice acting is very good (the actor is having a lot of fun), the pacing of dialogue between characters is remarkably stilted (in a very Argento way, but: despite his influence, the man has a limited audience), which adds to the "unnatural human" feel. )

Another problem is the game system.  It's a combination of Clock Tower elements: the "find disposable weapons to ward off stalker attacks temporarily" system from 2 with (apparently) the change-ups in stalkers for each level of later installments and the "move, or don't move, your cursor to hide successfully" thing from NightCry.  It also adds, though, a number of original mechanics, mostly involving how you and your stalker track each other.  The game makes extensive use of stereo sound to clue you as to your stalker's location  -  there's an early sequence, for example, where you're stuck in a bathroom and are expected to gauge by the volume and direction of the stalker's jabberings when he's left the adjoining bedroom and it's safe to sneak out.  Stalkers can detect you using similar methods, however, so you have to use care in your movements: don't make too many footsteps on bare floor in a row, for example, or he'll hear you.  (Carpets, conversely, can cover your footsteps.)  It's very smart, and very tense.

A number of choices detract from this, though.  First, there's the sheer number of actions available to the player at any time: you can run, crouch, place a diversion item (taken with you from the environment here instead of being usable only at hotspots like traditional CT), throw a diversion item, and try to use a stabbing item (separate from diversion items, which are like teacups and stuff you can throw).  Typing that out, it doesn't seem like much, but it proved rather overwhelming for me.  Horror games, with their focus on primal fears, are in great part about instinctual reaction: they need simple controls.

(And speaking of controls, a related gripe: movement is, naturally, mapped to the L stick, but to crouch, you depress the L stick.  That seems intuitive, but when you're trying to move your character quickly (y'know, like in a horror game), it's easy to make movements that the controller registers as depressing the stick.  As a result, I spent a good amount of time during chases trying to run away but going into crouch and creeping at a snail's pace.)

Second, while the environmental-tracking gimmicks are very tense and smart, the game, disappointingly, doesn't always play by its own rules.  Once, for example, I thought I had successfully escaped the starting bathroom/bedroom early enough to get a head start on my pursuer, only to have him materialize in front of me Jason-like on the first-floor landing as I was going down the stairs.  That ain't fair; the stalking system is so good and tense on its own terms that it shouldn't need to cheat.  (This incident might have been just beta jitters, though; I hope it was.)

Also, while gameplay is very tense, there's no let-up to that tension.  Once chasing had started, there was no point in what I played of Remothered where I was not being actively hunted, and  -  for me, at least  -  that was detrimental to the game.  Clock Tower depended on a rise and fall of tension, periods where you were free to explore punctuated by chases where you had to drop what you were doing and focus on eluding your pursuer.  The tension in the exploration segments slowly builds as the possibility that your explorations of your environment might trigger an encounter with the killer  rises higher and higher  -  then comes to a head when the killer does appear and you have to find a way to elude them, then subsides when they are, for the moment, thwarted.  Hitting a single high note of sustained tension for a half-hour, 45 minutes, an hour is too draining, too much of a barrier; it's wearying to have to be constantly vigilant, constantly creeping around.  There's no release, and it's not tense and fun but annoying and unpleasant.

Which brings me to another problem with Remothered: it's unpleasant.  This sounds like an odd, illegitimate complaint to lodge against a horror game, but there is a difference between horror and disgust.  For one, Remothered is much more invested in gore than I am personally.  In the game's early fail states, I would again and again watch Rosemary's skull get cleaved open like a cantaloupe; in later stages, the stalker makes to put out Rosemary's eyes with his thumbs before, again, busting open her brain cavity.  Giallo is a huge, obvious influence on Remothered, and grand guignol deaths are a hallmark of that genre (though I'll note that they're usually big, isolated setpieces meant to have emotional significance in the story; bringing the same spectacle to ad nauseam game overs threatens to make its impact overwhelming or fatigued).  This might all, though, be far from home for Clock Tower fans, as those games actually weren't all that bloody.  

Then there are other accoutrements, like the appearance of a prominent parent-child incest subplot before the first chapter is up, or the first stalker shrieking "you stupid BITCH!!!" in unpleasantly shrill tones constantly throughout the chases.  Yeah, I know: oh, man, look at this nut, doesn't want the villains to do anything villainous!  But with games, the player is continually facing the question: do I want to keep spending time in this world?  Are intrigue, mystery, and tension carrying the day, or are the skeevy elements taking over?  Before, I would've really pushed for, say, a supergreatfriend run of Remothered.  After playing, though, I just don't think it's suited to a "fun" horror game reaction run.  Then again, people love RE7, so what do I know.  

(To get on another tangent, though: RE7 has a lot of humor & humanity (the behavior of the conceited anchor guy in the demo; Jack's lines & voice acting) that defuses the tension & impact of the exploitation material in a good way.  Not to the point where I'd be able to stomach the worst of what's going on firsthand, but it has a positive effect.  That's not really present in what I played of Remothered.)

Also, a word about the PR.  I'm on the mailing list, and the missives from Darril's home office have, thankfully, been much more polished than previously.  They do, however, have an element of carnival-barker to them.  In a way, communication is much clearer now (given that it's actually more or less straight from Darril himself, though there's still a level of remove), but in another way, the hard-sell approach taken makes me feel as if he's trying to put something over on me.  That's not an approach this project needs, particularly given its previous history of bad information, copyright-dodging, and starts/restarts.  (Darril is also pushing hard for Remothered to be a trilogy: hold your horses, friendo.)

That's pretty much it from me.  Again, a two-thirds-complete beta of the game releases tomorrow.  I'm glad for Darril that he got to this point; I might not choose to take a front seat to it.

[smugrenges]

Now for a Crack Fic that No one Wanted

Note: This is a joke. I spent actual time on this. Have fun.

Giraffe had been waiting for the mangaka she now shared a hotel room with to finally got to sleep at the ripe time of 5AM. There were coffee cups all over the place alongside the manga scrapped sheets of failed manga, but on Wolf’s desk was a pile of paper that the super detective Giraffe assumed was the final product that was to be sent off to her editor.

Giraffe looked over to the sleeping Wolf, who was now hugging her body pillow of a washed up mangaka with colgate hair. This was the perfect chance to get a little sneak peak of the great Grey Wolf-sensei’s latest work of art! She sneaked past the empty cups, trying her best to not make a single sound as she reached Wolf’s desk.

“Aha!” Giraffe laughed before she quickly shut herself up, turning her loud prideful voice to a quieter volume before speaking again, “Wolf-sensei’s next work is in my hands, only a super sleuth such as myself would be able to come across such a treasure...even if it was...out in the...open. But still…”

The pages almost shone a bright gold as Giraffe held such art in her hands. What kind of spectacular art would be just a page turn away? Giraffe turned the blank cover page over, it appeared that Wolf had yet to come up with something to grab the attention of Friend readers.

“Don’t You DARE Take Your Eyes Off Me!”

“What an odd title for one of Wolf-sensei’s works,” Giraffe thought as she read the work in progress title. There was nothing to even give away the plot.

The plot was probably pretty obvious, but Giraffe was like a conspiracy theorist who overanalyzes things. She probably thought the earth was flat too. Anyway, Giraffe turned the title page over and started to read it.

Things had been normal for the first few pages, the two main characters were familiar, but Giraffe just assumed Wolf had made characters based off the new Friends they had met after the Kaban shit. By the time Giraffe had turned to page five, things got…

Fucking spicy.

This was fucking porn. Actual fucking porn of a Lion Friend fucking a Moose Friend.

“I can’t look…” Giraffe pussied out and averted her eyes, “But I can’t stop reading.”

What a fucking flip floppy pussy. She looked to the page again.

“Is...that a pee pee?!”

She may have yelled that aloud. Wolf stirred a little, but still held onto her colgate husbando pillow.

“What about a dick?” Wolf sleepily asked, rubbing her eye with one of her hands. When Wolf noticed that Giraffe a) had a raging nose bleed and b) was holding her manga, her eyes widened, “Honey, I can explain.”

“I saw this and thought it was another super detective issue and you were coming out of hiatus…” Giraffe’s eye had gone lifeless, like she had died, or seen something that died, “But no! You did hentai!”

Wolf shrugged and had a shit eating smirk on her face, “It’s fine right? Friends like that shit right?”

“Yeah...If they’re fucking Margay.”

“She totally preordered a copy on JapariBooks,” Wolf pointed out. Giraffe facepalmed.

Of course Margay did. God, how did those penguin idols handle that yuri fag? Whatever, Giraffe finally put the hentai back on Wolf’s desk.

“It’s just nut fuel my dude,” Wolf said, still having that shit eating smirk on her face, “My muses appreciated it when I showed them.”

“I’m scared to ask who they were.”

Wolf looked at Giraffe as though she had just said the dumbest shit ever, “Are...Are you fucking serious? It’s literally in the manga dumbass.Lion and Moose? Y’know, the lesbians that have a BDSM thing going on.”

“TMI!”

What the actual fuck was wrong with Wolf?

“Did...Did you cuck them?” the not so good detective asked.

“Maybe a little,” Wolf replied, “Moose makes great Ahegao faces by the way.”

“Fucking disgusting.”

“What?” Wolf didn't understand why Giraffe was not into this shit.

“That’s fucking gay.”

“You’re fuckign gay.”

“Shut up.”

“Traps are also gay,” Wolf suddenly declared.

“WHAT?”

Wolf looked away, “I may have made Lion a...Imeanwhat?”

Shit was getting more and more spicier. That would also explain the peen that Giraffe had seen.

“I want a divorce.”

“We’re not married.”

Shit.

“I’m just gonna...leave you to your colgate pillow.”

Wolf grabbed her body pillow of the shitty mangaka husbando and yelled, “First of all, his name is Rohan you normie! Secondly...don’t kinkshame me!”

“...Bye.”

Giraffe hot footed it out of Wolf’s room, her nose was still bleeding when she passed Campo Flicker who had eventually chased after her with a box of tissues.

“No bleeding in the lobbyyyyyy! It’s unhygienic!”

Giraffe kept her nose covered, it was fucking gross, but, uh…

“That shit was hot though.”

--

“So,” Wolf started to say as she held onto her colgate husbando, “What do you guys think?”

Lion and Moose sat down in Lion’s den, staring at Wolf’s hentai manga. Moose had blood running from her nose and Lion was drooling.

“T-This is…” Moose stuttered.

Lion finished her sentence, “FUCKING ART!”

“FUCKING SUCK IT GIRAFFE!!”

[captainswanluver]

CS FF: Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Egg Hunt for Me

Summary: Never let a pirate plan an Easter egg hunt.  

Rating: G

Note: Just some Easter fun at the expense of our Captain.  Hope you enjoy it!  ~Steph

...Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Egg Hunt for Me: Part 1/1…

“Swan,” Killian began, as he sat down across from his wife and her mother at Granny’s.  “Why are there bunnies and eggs covering every bloody surface of this diner?”

“It’s for Easter,” she replied.  “It’s in a couple of weeks.  I think this is just the first time we’ve actually been in this realm to celebrate it.”

Killian arched a brow.  “And what exactly does this holiday entail in this realm?”

Snow smiled.  “Kids visit the Easter Bunny. They decorate Easter eggs.  They have Easter egg hunts.  You give kids baskets filled with candy and trinkets.”

Killian nodded.  “I see.  So this is a children’s holiday.”

Emma shrugged. “More or less.”

Snow leaned forward.  “That’s not true at all.  Families also have a big feast.  Easter can be fun for all ages.   And, Hook, since you brought it up, I know Regina is looking for someone to organize Storybrooke’s annual Easter egg hunt in the park.”

Emma let out a scoff. “Mom, I really don’t think Killian is interested in organizing an Easter egg hunt for a bunch of kids.”

Killian held up his hook.  “Hold on.  If there’s anything a pirate likes, it’s a good old fashioned treasure hunt.”

“See,” Snow said with a self-satisfied smile at her daughter.

“Killian, you don’t need to feel obligated just because my mother asked you.”  Emma held up her left hand, flashing her engagement and wedding rings.  “We’re married now.  You don’t need to keep trying to impress her.”

He shook his head. “I do not feel obligated.  A year ago, I was torn away from you and this town. And I wasn’t prepared for how much I missed it.  Storybrooke is my home now, Emma.  I think it’s high time I start acting as such and begin contributing to this community.”

“I think helping to defend it from the villain-of-the month is more than enough contribution,” Emma replied.

Snow patted her daughter’s hand.  “Emma, if your husband would like to volunteer to organize the Easter egg hunt, then let him.”  She paused and winked.  “It will be good practice for when you have little ones of your own soon and have Easter egg hunts in your backyard.”

Emma’s eyes grew wide, as she exchanged a glance with her husband.

Emma cleared her throat uncomfortably.  “We’ve only been married a year, Mom.  Slow down.”

Killian’s lips slid into a smile, as he linked his fingers with wife’s.  “I look forward to the day when we can share such events with our children, love.”

Emma smiled at the thought.  Easter had never been anything special for her growing up.  No big feast.  No egg hunts.  No visits to the Easter Bunny or dying eggs.  She never even got an Easter basket.   The most she ever got was a few measly little chocolate eggs.  

She wanted things to be different for their children.  She wanted to start traditions and make memories as a family.  

…

It was Easter morning and the hunt was set to begin.  Everyone arrived at the park as scheduled.

Emma smiled at Killian.  “I am so proud of you for taking this on.  You didn’t even ask for any help.”

He cocked a brow.  “Swan, I’m a pirate.  I’ve been on many a treasure hunt.  I hardly see how a children’s hunt for eggs would be a challenge.”

Emma chuckled. “You’ve never witnessed an Easter egg hunt before.  The kids can be brutal.  Parents too.  It can devolve into total chaos.”

Killian offered her a grin, a twinkle in his eyes.  “Sounds bloody entertaining.”

It was nearly 10 a.m.   The children lined up at the spot Killian had marked, Easter baskets in hand.  Neal and Robin were finally able to walk, so they were ready to toddle around in search of the eggs.  

Killian waved his hook above his head.  “On your mark, get set, go!”

The children took off like bulls in Pamplona.  Neal and Robin were nearly trampled by the older children.  The kids scattered throughout the park.  They looked under benches, in the flower beds, in the bushes, even in the trees.   Ten minutes passed without a single egg being found.  

“Um, Killian, you did remember to hide the eggs, right?” Emma asked.

“Love, what kind of pirate would I be if I forgot to conceal the treasure?”

“Okay, but the kids haven’t found any of the eggs yet.”

He shrugged.  “It’s quite obvious they are amateurs.  It’s not as if I would hide treasure in a bush.”

Emma’s brow furrowed worriedly as a few children began to cry.  She turned to her husband.

“But you did hide them in places where they could be seen by the kids, right?”

“Seen?”  Killian said, his eyes growing wide.  “Why the devil would I do that?”

“Um, so the kids could actually find the eggs.  That’s the whole point of an Easter egg hunt, Killian.  They’re supposed to be at least a little visible.”

“Love, where is the challenge in that? Where’s the fun?”

Emma gestured to the children before them, all of whom were either crying, screaming, or pouting now.  “Does this look fun to you?”

Killian gestured with his hook.  “It’s a good life lesson.  Nothing of value ever comes easily.”

Emma groaned and mumbled,  “You’re going to be super fun to parent with.”

Killian placed a kiss to her temple, her sarcasm lost on him.  “As are you, Swan.”

Emma crossed her arms over her chest, as her parents and Zelena came storming over to them.

“What kind of bloody egg hunt is this?!”  Zelena snarled.  “My Robin is in tears!”

David shook his head. “Listen, Hook, if you forgot to hide the eggs, then just tell us.  The kids are going nuts.”

Snow nodded.  “No one will blame you.  This was your first Easter egg hunt.  We should have helped you.”

Killian shook his head. “I did not require any help, nor did I forget to hide the eggs.”

Emma sighed heavily.  She was glad Regina was busy today or she was sure she would also be raging at Killian.  

“He hid them out of sight,” Emma finally said.  

Zelena gritted her teeth together.  “What?!  Have you used up all of your nine lives yet?  Because I’m about to take one more!”

Emma held her arm out to block her, as Zelena lifted her hands to choke Killian.  

“Okay, everyone just calm down.”  She turned to her husband.  “Killian, how about you give the kids some hints to help them find the eggs?”

Killian’s jaw tightened.  “Well, it goes against my pirate code, but I suppose I could make an exception this one time.”

“Thank you,” Snow said.

David hollered for the kids to come over.  Their faces were red and tearstained as they stood before Killian.

“Hello, lads and lasses.  I see your efforts have been fruitless so far.  Fear not.  Your perseverance will be rewarded.  I once ravaged an entire village before locating my treasure.  It was-...”

Emma elbowed him in the ribs and muttered.  “Skip the story.”

“Very well,” he said.  “Now, children, you must think.  Where would a pirate hide his treasure?”

One little boy’s hand shot up.  “He would bury it!” he yelled.

Killian’s eyes lit up.  “Precisely, lad!”

Emma turned to him.  “You buried the Easter eggs?”

Killian nodded.  “Aye.”

David blew out a frustrated breath.  “Hook, what were you thinking?  The kids don’t have shovels.”

Killian shrugged his shoulders.  “Well, you’re their parents.  I can’t be faulted if you brought them to a treasure hunt unprepared.”

“They could be anywhere!  Look at all of the piles of dirt and bushes and flower beds!  We’ll be here for days!” Zelena screamed.  “This is what I get for trying to involve my daughter in the ridiculous traditions of this realm.”

The children started crying again.  Emma threw Killian a glare, as Snow held up a hand.

“Okay, calm down, everyone.  We can still salvage this.  Zelena, can you conjure up some plastic shovels for the kids?” Snow asked.

“I suppose,” Zelena said. “But I say we save ourselves some time and trouble.  I can dig up this entire park with the wave of my hand.”

David placed his hands on his hips.  “That would take all of the fun out of an Easter egg hunt, Zelena.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Zelena said.  “I must have missed the part where this was fun.”

Snow clenched her teeth.  “Will you conjure up some shovels or not?”

“Fine,” Zelena said begrudgingly.

“Okay, then we’ll help them dig, starting with the areas that seem to have been disturbed recently,” David said.

Zelena waved her hand and plastic shovels appeared on the ground.  The children scurried to retrieve a shovel and then took off running in various directions as their parents followed after them.

Killian offered Emma a grin.  “This is even more entertaining than I imagined.”

Emma shook her head.  “You’re incorrigible.”

An hour later, there were still no eggs to be found.  The children were tired, sweaty, dirty, and cranky, as were their parents.

Zelena came storming towards Killian again, eyes flaring.  She waved a tiny shovel in his face.  “Alright, you foolish pirate, you better tell us where those bloody eggs are right now or I am going to use this shovel to dig your grave.”

“I imagine that would take quite a bit of time, but would be a sight to behold,” Killian replied with a chuckle.  He shook his head firmly.  “It’s as if you’ve never been on a treasure hunt before.  No pirate worth his bounty hides his treasure just below the surface.”

David and Snow appeared by Zelena’s side.  

“Wait, are you saying that the eggs aren’t buried a few inches below the surface?” Snow asked.

Emma squeezed her eyes closed.  “Seriously?” she groaned.

Killian offered them all a satisfied grin.  “Inches?  Bloody hell, you must think me an amateur.  The eggs are buried feet below the surface.”

“Feet?!” they all exclaimed.  

Zelena shook her head violently.  “That’s it.  I’ve tried to be a good mum and let Robin have her fun, but I am done.  We’re doing this my way now.”

Zelena waved her hand and every hole that was dug deepened several feet.   The children cheered and raced toward the holes.  Their parents followed them.  Emma looked at Killian, who had adopted a frown.

“Sorry, I know this wasn’t your idea of a treasure hunt.”

“And to think I believed I had made it easy by telling them the eggs were in the park and not forcing them to use a treasure map to locate them.”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” Emma said.

The kids reached the eggs and started picking them up, but it soon became apparent that something was wrong.  In their hands, they held real white eggs, not plastic eggs filled with chocolate.  They began to cry again.

Emma turned to Killian.  “Where are the Easter eggs?”

“Right there, love.”

“No, those are regular eggs, Killian.  They’re not even dyed.  Where’s all of the candy?”

“Candy?” he asked, lifting a brow.

“Yes, the candy that is supposed to be in the plastic eggs.”

“No one ever said anything about candy or plastic eggs,” he replied.

Emma sighed.  He was right.  They hadn’t.  They had assumed he knew.

“Okay, please tell me you at least hardboiled those eggs.”

“Hardboiled?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh God,” she mumbled.

The children began to crack the eggs on the ground, hoping that at the very least they had found hardboiled eggs that they could eat or dye at home.  But every egg splattered on them, yolk covering their outfits and shoes.  

Snow, David, and Zelena came charging towards Emma and Killian again.  

“You are a bloody fool!” Zelena screamed.  

“Hook, if you needed help, you should have asked,” Snow said.

“This is a disaster!” David yelled.  

Emma held up her hands. “Okay, everyone calm down.  It was an honest mistake.  And in the grand scheme of things, like curses and spells, this is pretty minor.”

Killian nodded.  “I agree.  Life is filled with disappointment.  The lads and lasses might as well learn that now.”

Zelena bobbed her head.  “You’re right.  It is.”  

“I appreciate you-...” Killian began, but was cut off by Zelena lifting her arm and throwing an egg right in his face.

Emma and Snow’s mouths dropped open, as David fell into hysterics.  

The shell and yolk slowly slid down Killian’s face.   The children turned to see the commotion and saw the mess that was now Killian.

One of the older boys waved his arm at Killian.  “Get him!” he screamed.

Suddenly, all of the children raced toward Killian, armed with eggs.  Emma and Killian’s eyes widened in horror.

“Run!” Emma shouted at her husband.

But it was too late.  His back was pelted with eggs as he attempted to escape.  His leather jacket and jeans were covered in egg by the time he rounded the corner and jumped in the bug.  Emma quickly followed, locking the door behind them.   The children continued to pursue them, attacking the car with eggs.   When they had finally used up all of their eggs, they retreated.

Killian turned to his wife, his face growing red with embarrassment, as he sucked in a breath.  

“I’m sorry, love,” he said.

Emma laughed, as she lifted her hand to pick shell out of his hair.  “This may be your home now, Killian, but you still have a lot to learn about this realm.”

He bobbed his head, as he threaded their fingers together.  “I may make my share of mistakes along the way, but I’ll never stop trying.  It’s important to me to fit into your realm as best I can.”

Emma squeezed his hand and shook her head.  “I love you just the way you are, Killian.”

She then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, wincing at the taste of raw egg.  

She pulled back, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.  “But let’s keep the organizing of town events to the rest of the citizens.”

He nodded. “As you wish.”

“And when we have children of our own, I will organize our backyard Easter egg hunt.”

Killian chuckled and shrugged.  “Very well, but I will make sure our offspring know how to conduct themselves properly during a treasure hunt.”

Emma smiled and started up the car.

“Oh, and, Killian?” she said, turning back to him.

“Yes, love?”

“You’re washing the car when we get home,” she said.

He let out a groan. “Perhaps you could use your magic to assist me?”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Come on, Swan.  Please.”

Emma smiled and patted his leg.  “Nope.  Think of it as a good life lesson.  Life is filled with disappointment.”

Killian dropped his head against the headrest and squeezed his eyes closed, as his wife’s laughter filled his ears.  

Emma knew one thing was for sure:  Life with her pirate would never be dull and this was just the beginning of the memories they would create together.

...THE END…

Thanks for reading!  I hope you enjoyed it.  I’d appreciate hearing what you thought. ~Steph

[prayforbrains-blog]

I HEARD YOU LIKE NEW FEATURES

SO I’M GONNA GIVE YOU SOME NEW FEATURES.

And when it rains it fucking pours. 

I am c r y i n g over Twitter’s vehement division on this new Twitch ‘affiliate’ program. So far these have been my favorites:

“Whelp no one’s gonna care about getting partnered now.”

“Well so much for partnerships being exclusive. My sub button doesn’t make me special anymore RIP my streaming career.” 

“OMG THIS IS GONNA HELP SO-AND-SO SO MUCH.” *same person 180s 20 minutes later* “I think the requirements for concurrent viewers should be raised to 50.” *immediately disqualifying the so-and-so originally mentioned*

“TWITCH JUST WANTS MORE MONEY. FUCK TWITCH.”

OH BOY WHERE DO WE START. 

Let’s just get down with the facts. 

What is the Twitch Affiliate Program?

The Twitch Affiliate program is simply a way for non-partnered streamers to obtain sought after features like bits, AN emote (note: singular), and that elusive purple sub button. Here’s a breakdown of existing features and how they apply to the three subsets of broadcasters:

Looks cool? Looks weird? Looks confusing?  All of the above? Honestly it doesn’t concern you that much UNLESS you are a broadcaster, however you might be concerned how your favorite channel may change if the broadcaster decides he/she desires to opt into these features (once they are accepted that is). So let’s dive right into this shit fest and start with my favorite topic that’s come into question:

#1  G R O W T H  

People who want to hustle and network and ACTUALLY have potential (i.e. personality/talent) to succeed on Twitch will succeed. Bacon Donut wrote a phenomenal article a few months ago (which I highly recommend reading) on why YOU might be the reason you’re not successful on Twitch.

“Every single excuse that you dream up that doesn’t focus inward to your own content is either wrong, or is the same obstacle that someone else managed to leap over to become successful.” - Bacon Donut

He goes on to discuss the multitude of reasons why people fail to grow and achieve their goals on the platform. I’ve been around Twitch long enough to know that every one of the topics he touches on is spot the FUCK on. Most people spend more time bitching about how ‘over-saturated’ the directory is. Let me enlighten you kiddos: EVERY INDUSTRY CAN BE OVERSATURATED AS FUCK. You have to fucking put yourself out there. You have to be entertaining or talented or have a gimmick. No amount of sleek new (formerly) exclusive features and a (singular) emote will help you if you aren’t producing consistent engaging content.

“BUT PRAY YOU DUMB BITCH YOU AREN’T PARTNERED AND YOUR STREAM ISN’T GROWING AT ALL SO YOUR OPINION IS IRRELEVANT.’

The fuck it is punk. I don’t stream because I wanna be a Twitch partner. I stream because I love video games and I enjoy interacting with people. I also have an opinion because I (along with damn near every other Tom, Dick, and Shithead on the block) am eligible for this program. I also don’t need to be a partner to give advice on how to get partnered. I’ve watched 20+ friends grow from NOTHING on Twitch to quality partnered casters. I’ve even helped some of them. Ask around, people will tell you I’m all about spreading the love, helping those I am able to help, and introducing people to new like minded individuals. 

Let’s continue...

#2  M O N E Y 

Let’s start off with the only thing you really need to know about Twitch. TWITCH IS A BUSINESS. I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING, ‘WOAH PRAY FUCKING EARTH SHATTERING INFORMATION.’ but you’d be surprised how many people don’t understand this. Twitch is not here to hold your hand and walk you down the purple brick road to that shiny purple button. Twitch is here to make money just like any other business in the universe. Lemme give you a breakdown on some numbers kiddos:

1. Amazon reportedly acquired Twitch for a cool $970 million 

2. It has been suggested that the vast majority of Twitch streamers average less than 10 viewers. (Though I’m sure Twitch is highly aware of the actual number and percentage)

Let’s start with that first bit and the most glaringly-can-be-seen-from-fucking-space obvious: Amazon wants both return on investment and solid plans for future growth. They wouldn’t have acquired Twitch if they weren’t looking for more money fam. That’s just business and regardless of how much you bitch and moan about corporate greed on Twitter that won’t change. 

Second: all those (including myself) down in the bottom of the directories with less than 10 viewers all take up resources on Twitch’s end. Those broadcasters get those resources for exactly zero dollars and zero cents and let me tell you that is a fucking steal. It would be completely ridiculous for Twitch not to take a little bit of advantage from those people at all. The affiliate program will surely not hurt any of those streamers. They’ll get a cool global emote and their viewers can toss a few bits their way. C O O L . You know what Twitch gets? A few extra $$$ to keep the servers up and the lights on. 

Are you feeding some corporate fat-cat’s wallet in the process of subbing to your favorite streamer? Sure, but you already do that every time you buy a box of cereal, TK Broha. So unless you’re planning to completely remove yourself from society and live off the land (which you’ll still have to pay $$$ to the government for, effectively feeding rich+corrupt politicians) YOU CAN’T REALLY AVOID IT GOOD CHUM. Sure your intentions might be fantastic: CONGRATULATIONS Robin Hood: you’re a decent human being. but at the end of the day I know for a fact you’re still gonna go buy your fucking Honey Nut Cheerios™ and your car’s still gonna need gas because you forgot to fill it up on your way home from work yesterday broskiski. Unless you’re actually an adolescent or just have absolutely no idea how business and the economy works (in which case go take a fucking basic economics class jfc) all of this information should be understandable and acceptable in 2017.  

#3  N U M B E R S

So the most compelling commentary about the affiliate program is about the requirement numbers. According to Twitch’s press release broadcasters simply need to meet these simple requirements to be invited to the affiliate program: 

At least 500 total minutes broadcast in the last 30 days

At least 7 unique broadcast days in the last 30 days

An average of 3 concurrent viewers or more over the last 30 days

At least 50 Followers

K. Sounds legit. The biggest concern people have voiced is that the requirements are TOO LOW, more specifically the follower and concurrent viewer count. Some have stated it should be as high as 50+ concurrent viewers with 500-1000+ followers.  K. That makes total sense when the majority of new partners I’ve seen have been average between 50-100 concurrent viewers. [LET ME BE CLEAR. THIS IS NOT A DISS FOR THOSE NEW PARTNERS WHO PULL THOSE NUMBERS. THOSE NUMBERS ARE FUCKING RAD. PLEASE KEEP KICKING AS MUCH ASS AS POSSIBLE AND CREATING CONSISTENT CONTENT. I APPRECIATE THE FUCK OUT OF YOU.] I’m saying it’s pretty fucking ridiculous for that to even be considered to be the threshold for this program. Twitch is seeking to capitalize off of EVERY POSSIBLE STREAM IT CAN. Twitch doesn’t care that you feel threatened or like your ‘cool kids club’ is less cool; they just want that spicy revenue. 

‘Yeah, but how many subs is a person with 3 viewers gonna have Pray?’ 

A M A Z I N G L O G I C. Hold on to those Cheerios™ you bought TK Broha cause I’m about to rock your honey nuts to the moon and back. They could have anywhere from 0-(insert number here). Now hypothetically let’s say ALL of those 3 concurrent viewers decide to invest and subscribe/throw bits at that caster, Twitch gets it’s normal % cut. Not a lot you say? Now multiply that by every. single. streamer with that many viewers. THAT’S A LOT OF FUCKING MONEY. Or rather, that’s a lot of potential money that up until this point in time had been squandered/lost to companies like GameWisp and Streamtip.

Twitch isn’t trying to put those people out of business necessarily, but it does want to maximize profits. It makes sense that they would offer this program to as many people as possible. So keep bitching on Twitter (cause honestly it’s entertaining af), but I HIGHLY doubt those numbers will change. Sorry not sorry. 

#4  E X C L U S I V I T Y 

So that thing on the right? It’s called a cubic zirconia and it’s man made stone that resembles a diamond. It’s significantly cheaper to buy. I can walk into any Target and buy a pair of those bad boys to wear in my earholes for less than 20 bucks. Pretty neat right?  That thing on the left on the other hand is the real deal. That’s a certified diamond boiz. The price of diamonds? Start in the hundreds and start climbing faster than The Flash can run around the globe. You can tell the difference between the two pretty easily once you notice the little things right? Diamonds can cut fucking glass, CZs can’t. They’re both timeless and incredibly beautiful stones, but one outshines the other. It’s rarity makes it worth more, but they’re both used in jewelry that can be treasured forever and sometimes passed down from generation to generation. IN CASE YOU’RE CONFUSED THIS IS A METAPHOR KIDS. [met·a·phorˈmedəˌfôr,ˈmedəˌfər/nouna figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.]  My point is fairly simple. Partners will always have access to new features and cool parties before affiliates. Partners will have an easier time networking with sponsors and game devs. Partnership will still be a goal for those individuals who are passionate and want to build relationships with other brands. Just like a diamond is a status symbol in society, partnership will still be a status symbol on Twitch.  Another really important component here is: these things are only worth the value you see in them personally. You may be enamored with the idea of being a partner because you want to be a part of that cool kid’s club. That’s 100% okay. Some people aren’t interested in the status symbol. I’m sure there are more people like me out there who could fucking care less about the little checkmarks next to people’s names on social media, but for others that’s the epitome of internet fame and the ultimate goal. 

You know what this program is really going to do? It’s gonna RUDELY awaken some folks who have delusions of grandeur.   A sub button is not going to make you successful. A sub button is not going to make you famous. A sub button is not going to make you rich.  A sub button is not going to bring new users to your channel.

A sub button is just a button that the people who are already in your channel are going to choose whether or not to press. 

This is going to be a hard pill for a lot of small and medium sized casters to swallow. People are excited now, but when they don’t wake up with 1000 subs they’re gonna have to take stock of what’s really going on and why they aren’t growing. A lot of dreams are about to be brutally shattered. 

[artificialqueens]

: Sinning Never Felt So Good : Chapter One : katyasbingowings

AN: a religious Matt and defiantly not religious Jason, mainly Pearlet with some cute lil Biadore and Trixya moments, hope you enjoy! :)

Matt would marry Jesus, if he had not been a male of course, or dead. Basically, Matt was your classic bible-loving, goody-two-shoes - one of the few students who attended St.Annes voluntarily, instead of being sent here to solve his delinquency. When he waved off his loving mother, Eve, and priest of a father, Adam (don’t ask), he giddily scanned his surroundings. Now, what Matt was expecting was equally thrilled peers, all ecstatic to be in such a religious and wonderful environment, cross necklaces, knee length skirts, the whole sha-bang. What Matt wasn’t expecting was an aura of pure misery, disgruntled goodbyes from both conflicted parents and children alike, at least four fellow students breathing out tar and nicotine, and defiantly not a brooding, long-haired figure examining him from afar - he could practically sense the dark-eyed gaze pierce his skin.

The skittish boy quickly focused his attention on the pebbled ground beneath him, now extremely self-aware of his actions and embarrassed that he was being watched - he could already tell that the boy was trouble (to be honest, Matt didn’t trust anyone who wore ripped jeans in the cold, it was simply illogical) and didn’t want their eye contact to be an invitation for interaction. When he glanced back up, the boy was gone, and Matt sighed in relief.

“Good arvo everyone! I’m Sister Courtney, follow me you bunch of you scamps and we’ll get you sorted out in no time!” Matt couldn’t help but giggle at the Australian slang that left everybody momentarily baffled, hearing some try to imitate - and completely butcher - the strong accent, before everyone eventually filled into the impressively large main hall. He was handed his timetable, a list of rules, and a key to his dorm. ‘BLOCK C - ROOM 4’: his new home.

Accompanied by a smile that hadn’t left Matt’s face since he arrived, the brunette practically skipped along to his new quarters, unlocking the door and bursting through with an overwhelming amount of enthusiasm. The first thing he noticed was the two single beds, quickly realising that he would be sharing the bedroom with a complete stranger, the idea somewhat worried the young one, but as a good Christian Matt would welcome his new friend with open arms. Beginning to unpack, the naive boy prayed he would be paired with someone nice, they’d say grace together each morning and night, share bread, and do whatever other religious nonsense running though the poor boy’s mind.

***

Jason wanted three things in life: a carton of cigarettes, designer clothes and a free pass at life. With a personality perfectly fit for reality TV, and a face for it too (as he would tell you), him and St.Annes didn’t seem like the ideal match. For one, he was far from religious, convinced he’d begin frothing at the mouth if he even stepped within fifty feet of a church. He wasn’t frothing yet, so at least that’s a positive. ‘Out of all the boarding schools they could have sent me to, why did it have to be one that bust a nut over the Old Testament’, Jason sighed at his thoughts and examined the endless list of rules that he was not planning on biding by.

While Matt had paid zero attention to the rule list, having already researched all the guidelines weeks in advance (his nightmare would be disrespecting the school on his first day after all), Jason viewed them in disgust:

1. No smoking
 2. No drugs or other illegal substances 
3. No alcohol 
4. No visible piercings 
5. No leaving dorms after curfew
 6. No sexual activity 
7. No leaving the school grounds 
8. No chewing gum
 9. Uniform must be worn at all times during school hours
 10. No excessive makeup

Before he even finished the figurative novel of restrictions in front of him, a swamp-green haired female voiced his own thoughts, “this is bullshit.” Pretty much summed it all up.

“I second that,” Jason agreed, now fully examining the oddity beside him. She was tall, easily towering above him, the black knee-high heels probably helped that fact, but Jason knew he’d still be looking up at her even with them off. The mermaid-esque creature was also doused in various shades of glitter, as if she bathed in the shiny flakes before leaving the house. She was basically a mix between a cartoon character and doll, which both intrigued and amused Jason.

She turned towards his voice, smiling widely, joyed to discover a fellow punk-rock, party-lover who was ready to throw these rules aside and actually make their time in this shithole an enjoyable one. “I’m Adore!”

“Adore? We’re your parents high when naming you or did they just hate you?” Jason cackled, blatantly demonstrating his lack of filter, luckily Adore was too high (on life and life alone) to care about Jason’s rude demeanour.

“Well my parents named me Danny, but I thought Adore was a more suited for a mythical beauty from another world like myself,” she adjusted her shorts that had began to ride up, somehow higher than they already were, and continued bantering with her new friend. Jason introduced himself also, and the two quickly realised they had both been banished to St.Annes under the same reasoning: smoking, partying and sucking dick. The twosome were shedding tears of laughter after this realisation, earning strange looks from a silver-haired boy clutching onto a leather- bound bible with dear life, and a disgruntled demand to shush from Sister Courtney.

After a solid ten minutes the pair had calmed down, Adore pulled a cigarette from her bra, gestured to the door as an invitation, though Jason just shook his head. “I’m gonna check out my roomie, make sure he’s not a psycho bible-basher,” the dark-haired boy explained, “and to check if he’s cute,” he added with a wink. Adore dismissed him by merely stating ‘party’ and strolling off.

***

Matt was a stickler for rules, and they were specifically instructed to find their rooms and get unpacked immediately, so when his roomie was still vacant after a generous half an hour, Matt knew the pairing were not going to be compatible. He, however, had already changed into the uniform provided, reread the rules twice - just to make sure, and secured his own personal cross above his bed.

Dinner was in an hour, and just as Matt’s frustration over a lack of company grew, the door opened. Opened was a loose term, thrown would probably suit the action better, as the door slammed into the wall with such a force that Matt’s treasured cross was knocked onto the soft comforter below. Matt released an almost comical gasp, immediately rushing over to fix it back in its rightful place, all while Jason stared at the boy.

At that moment, Jason went through a spiral of emotions. His venture began with amusement, what could he say, this vulnerable religious boy cooing over a mere cross was considerably amusing. Then annoyance, realising that he was forced to room with a stuck-up freak whose kink was the bible - he brought his own cross from home, who brings more crosses to a bloody religious school, it’s not like they needed anymore. Though Jason could just about put up with all of that, as that boy was unbelievably attractive and Jason was easily won over (that’s a nicer way of phrasing that Matt’s face alone made him undeniably ‘excited’).

‘God I haven’t talked to you, like at all, maybe that one time when I broke my leg and thought I was going to die, but that’s beside the point. I want to send my most grateful thanks for creating that boy’s face, that is all. A-to-the-fuckin-men.’

Matt immediately recognised his new roommate as the boy who had stared him down earlier, the one who must have cold knees from the impractical rips in his trousers, and to be honest, the milky-skinned creature observing him again made him undeniably agitated. Though the bible preached finding the positive aspects in everybody you encounter, so he had no choice but to give the obvious delinquent the benefit of the doubt. “Hello there, I’m Matt! I guess we’ll be roommates for a while, so we best get used to each other!”

To Jason, this was a higher dose of enthusiasm than he could handle, so he merely muttered ‘Jason’ and threw himself onto the leftover, unclaimed mattress. Every time Matt’s peppy voice piped up, Jason merely grunted in reply, and eventually fell asleep to a truly fascinating tale about a pregnant choir singer.

“And so she was in the middle of the chorus, and her water broke, right there in the middle of church, and -”

***

Jason was disgusted by what this church considered food, so with a plate stacked with cross shaped tator-tots, he searched for somebody who wasn’t going to rant about Satan (or whatever religious people spent their free time discussing). He soon recognised Adore sat next to scrawny blonde woman, and joined the pair.

“Hey baby girl!” Adore welcomed as he sat opposite the other-worldly individual, “I was gonna order pizza cause the foods tastes like actual arse, but the nearest place apparently got yelled at by Courtney the last time they brought pizza here or some shit, and now they’re too scared to come back.”

“But that is not the even best part, Adoor, you offered to eat his pepperoni do you not remember,” Jason cackled along with the tale, and immediately clocked the thick Russian accent the woman sported, “I go by the name of Katya in this American land my friend, and you?”

“Jason. Are you from Russia?” He asked, pushing the so called 'food’ around his plate, pizza honestly sounded so good right now.

“No Shit Sherlock,” Adore drawled sarcastically, causing Jason to playfully kick her beneath the table, before turning his attention back to his new acquaintance.

“No, no, Adoor this is a sensible question, I could have been from many a place. But yes I am from Russia, though I much prefer the Americas, it’s not as cold so I do not have to wear so much fur of the dead animal!”

The conversation continued along that nature, Jason soon learning that Katya and Adore ended up being roommates, and Jason venting about his extremely attractive yet bible-worshipping roomie, until the one and only topic of conversation strolled past. Matt’s eyes were frantically darting around, trying to find an empty table to perch at to avoid awkward conversations with strangers, he was having no luck in the matter.

“Thats him,” Jason pointed out, and he kid you not, Adore and Katya were the least subtle people to ever walk the halls of St.Annes, case in point:

“That one?” Katya asked, arm stretched and pointed directly at the brunette, Matt and all those around him turning to towards her, curious to what spectacle was occurring in the previously lifeless dining hall.

“Jason you were right that man right there is bomb.com.org.co.uk,” Adore voiced, which - again - everyone overheard. Even the neighbouring table agreed, muttering various compliments under their breaths towards the baffled Matt.

“His bum bum is very cute,” Katya just had to add. Adore hummed in approval. And who’s kidding, Jason also hummed in approval.

Matt was completely frazzled by half the hall of students gazing his way, all apparently appreciating his arse and gawking at his physical appearance. Matt looked for the source of commotion, and of course, he made eye contact with a smirking Jason seated at a nearby table, partnered by two fairly unconventional looking women. Be a good Christsin Matt, be nice, smile, and be on your way. As he was about to saunter off as far away from the scene as he could, Jason gestured for him to take a seat. Matt swallowed, hard.

’Weird company is better than no company I guess.’ Matt thought, quietly sitting down beside his new roommate.

[fictionerd]

Chapter Two: Awake - Entry #2

“This isn’t a reward. It’s a responsibility.” - Rose

---Last Seed, 31st, 4E 201--- My first day as a human and I've already become a Thane of Morthal. I gave thought to purchasing a parcel of land in the hold, but swiftly discovered just how expensive that would be. I think that's a long-term sort of goal.

I still need to decide whether to kill Lurbuk or not. On the one hand: I consider myself a professional. I may hurt that reputation of I fail to complete an accepted contract. Apparently so many people want this fellow dead that Astrid had to hold a lottery to decide who paid the fee.

On the other hand: I heard him play and he doesn't sound THAT bad. What could he have possibly done to warrant so much animosity? I've seen what the people of Morthal are like. The way they treated Falion was a good example

When in doubt: Put it off. I picked up a strange glowing crystal in Movarth's lair. A voice asked me to return it to Mount Kilkreath. That's nearby, so why not? Besides, the longer I stay in the field the longer Astrid has to cool her head.

>Ah, Meridia. Daedric Prince of Life. Suddenly I'm glad that I got cured before attempting this. As I understand it she's not too keen on the undead.

>Guide Meridia's light through the temple. Kill Necromancer. Claim Dawnbreaker.

Consider it done oh Fallen Star.

---Heartfire, 1st, 4E 201--- A new month is upon us. I write from Dragon Bridge. Malkoran was a tough nut. I managed to sneak past his ghostly soldiers and give him a steel (well silver I guess) kiss, but he popped back up as some sort of wraith himself. Took a few more whacks to get him to go down for good. My reward: Dawnbreaker. A legendary single-sword that burns away the undead. Daedric Artifact of Meridia.

Now, I'm not one for single-handed swords. So imagine my surprise when, upon grasping the hilt of the weapon, it grew into a nice, big greatsword just for me.

Divines I love artifact weapons, and this is the first one I've ever had! Might need to work on the whole "glowing crossguard" thing while sneaking. Then again for all I know it won't be noticeable when I don't want it to be.

>The strangest thing just happened. I went back to Morthal and was sitting in the tavern. I was mulling over the Lurbuk dilemma when the orc just snapped and started attacking the innkeeper! I valiantly leapt to her assisstance, unfortunately we just couldn't get the big guy to calm down. He fought to the death and we had no choice but to do the same. I wonder if there were any warning signs that he might do such a thing.

Now if only there was a way to write a wink.

>I know it was meant as a noble sentiment, but when Lani said to me "May you die with a sword in your hands" just now I got the strangest chill down my spine. Really that's the sort of statement that could easily be taken as a curse. Though if I had to choose how I'd die it WOULD be a close call between that and "Of old age in a house surrounded by mementos of my adventures"

>I wonder how the Sanctuary will react to me being human again? They didn't seem to notice that I was a vampire before. Maybe they just won't say anything or care.

>Well if Nazir is anything to go by they didn't notice at all that I was a vampire. When I reported Hern dead he made a comment about "contracting Sanguinare Vampiris". If he'd realized I was a vampire when I joined he'd have known that was impossible. Also he'd definitely have noticed that I'd come back human. I can hear it now.

"So when a Vampire bites another vampire they turn human? That's a neat trick."

Update on the Astrid situation: She's decided it's a good idea to follow the advice of the Brotherhood's founder and supernatural ally. I mean that must have been a difficult conclusion to arrive at. I can just see how she'd need all this time to weigh the pros and cons of accepting assistance from a higher power. (Or I guess lower power perhaps?)

>Notes on Volunruud job:

Nazir: Reminded me that "Astrid is my mistress" and "not the Night Mother". Astrid didn't give me my memories back. Astrid isn't treating this Sanctuary like a family. Astrid is striking me as a threatened politician desperately trying to cling to power.

Festus: Jealous of my being chosen as Listener. I'd tell him it's because of my history, but I'm not ready to take that leap yet. For all I know Bellamont is still a taboo name in the Brotherhood regardless. He also suggested I prepare for Draugr since I'll be entering an old crypt. Decent advice. I'm serious. You'd think that was unhelpful and obvious, but how often is the obvious overlooked?

Gabriella: Astrid is right to fear my power. Was that a subtle vote of support? That's almost sweet. I'll commit to being touched when I'm sure I've removed all the sharp objects from that bit of sweetmeat.

Babette: Commented that the man I'm meant to speak with, Motierre, bears the name of an old and powerful Breton family well established in Cyrodiil. I'm honestly surprised I didn't recognize it before. I'll need to see if I can recall hearing that name in my past.

Arnbjorn: He's an angry puppy. If he's not careful I might just have to get ruff with him. Though I don't know. He might enjoy it. Astrid seems like the type.

Veezara: Is convinced that Astrid is committed to her "Family" in the Sanctuary. It really doesn't seem that way to me. These people feel less like a family and more like acquaintances. Could this be what the Dark Brotherhood of old was really like? No, I don't think Mother would lie like that. She spoke fondly of her brothers and sisters. On top of that I saw her interact with them. This is not the Brotherhood she was a part of.

>Alright planning time:

Volunruud is roughly to the north of Whiterun which means I'll be heading through the city without a doubt. While I'm here in the south, though, I believe I'll head through Helgen to Orphan Rock and retrieve Nettlebane for Danica. May as well get done as much with one excursion as possible, and I'm sure the Night Mother would have informed me of any time limit. So I'll set my own pace.

I remember hearing some rumors of Imperial activity around Helgen too. Perhaps I'll be able to find out more about this Civil War from the Empire's side of things.

>I arrived at Helgen to find the place completely destroyed. A dragon (yes I'm serious) lifted up from the wreckage of the town and flew off to the north.

Well I'll certainly have a story to tell when I make my way to Whiterun.

>I have acquired Nettlebane. That was a bit tougher than I thought it'd be. I need to learn when to use my Fury and Fear spells. If they're spread out: Fear. If they're bunched up: Fury. That way I can more easily manipulate the battlefield to my advantage.

Oh! and when all else fails: Calm

---Heartfire, 2nd, 4E 201--- Sleeping at night and rising with the sun. Well before it in this case. It's strange how quickly I've acclimated to this. Though now that I think about it I've always been able to sleep wherever and whenever I wanted. I'd play hide-and-seek with mother and on a particularly good day for me she'd find me hours later asleep in some high-up spot out of sight.

It's so good to be able to remember these things again. I feel whole. It's nice.

Nostalgia aside: Today I head to Whiterun from Riverwood once more. I informed the town about the dragon and a few of the townsfolk confirmed my sighting. I've been asked to report this to Jarl Balgruuf. SO I'll be stopping by Dragon's Reach before visiting Danica with Nettlebane.

>Report went well. The Jarl was grateful for my assistance. So grateful in fact that he tasked me with helping his Court Wizard retrieve information about the dragons. Add that to the list of things I need to do at some point. First and foremost though: Danica and Volunruud.

>I've picked up a tagalong from the Temple of Kynareth. A pilgrim who came to see the Gildergreen and was disappointed by its current state. When Danica asked me to go to the Eldergleam sanctuary to retrieve the sap for her this fellow asked to come along. Personally I see no reason not to have him join me. We'll catch a carriage to Mixwater Mill and then head into the volcanic tundra toward the Eldergleam from there.

>Incredible. I've witnessed the power of faith in the Divines first hand. Maurice was taken aback when I began using Nettlebane to clear a path to the Eldergleam. When I explained what I intended he was apalled, but suggested there might be a better alternative. Instead of tapping the tree for its sap I allowed Maurice ot do his thing. The tree actually sprung a sapling from the ground at its base for me to take back to Danica!

This is a rare treasure. I will have to be cautious in my return. Fortunately I had the carriage driver agree to wait for us at Mixwater.

>Danica was at first disappointed, but after conveying Maurice's message "The beauty of nature is in Renewal, not maintenance" she came around. I wonder if there's anything in this world I could have that kind of faith in. Actually there's one thing I can think of: Mother. Not "The Night Mother" but my mother. Luna Morandi the Listener, mother, teacher, goddess as far as I was concerned growing up. I believe in her. Even after the events of that night I still trust in her now that my memories have returned. She must have had a good reason to place me where I am. I hope that I live up to her expectations.

On that note: Screw sleeping tonight. I'm heading to Volunruud in full Brotherhood regalia.

>Well, here I am. Volunruud. Time to go in and meet this Amaund Motierre. The name doesn't dredge up any memories. Perhaps the family rose to prominence after I started my "nap". Whoever he is, and whatever is going on with the Brotherhood I'll find out tonight. Time to follow Sithis' will.

>Dead body of an explorer in the entranceway. Most would see this as a bad sign, but given the forces I'm currently aligned with I feel it's a good omen.

---Heartfire, 3rd, 4E 201--- The Emperor... of Tamriel

Amaund Motierre wants us to assassinate the EMPEROR of TAMRIEL!

Granted, he said there were a great many contracts he needed us to do, but it's all focused on that final kill.

The Emperor. It's been done before, yes. It's taken me almost a full day and I've still barely wrapped my brain around this.

The Emperor of Tamriel.

To think there's a chance that my hands may end up holding the blade that changes the future. It's exciting, but sobering. This isn't a reward. It's a responsibility. A responsibility to know why. A responsibility to carry this out without any problems.

I've got to get Motierre's letter and the jeweled amulet to Astrid. The carriage can hardly reach Falkreath fast enough.

[ciathyzareposts]

Spellcasting 301 – The Party

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak’s Journal #2: This is not the spring break I had dreamt of. But it is getting close. I mean, I am getting to know very hot girls and even rekindle some old passions. However, there is this part about having to compete with the SWAM boys, the YUs, for the priviledge of coming to Fort Naughtytail for the next five years. And it seems like, as always, it all depends on me. I don’t even know why I am part of a fraternity anymore. Lucky for them, I managed to trick some bimbos into coming to our party because otherwise I am sure we would have lost the first game: getting the hottest girls to the Pharts party.

Seeing this screen I can’t avoid by thinking about this

Allow me to start this post by saying that advancing is veeeeery slow. As I predicted in my last one, I have had to replay the first two days several times until I was able of doing everything needed to win the first competition of the tournament, and even then I am still left with the feeling that I am missing something.

It doesn’t help that I am constantly fighting the interface. Specifically, the look verb. I am playing mostly using the keyboard because I didn’t find the verb and item menu all that useful. The problem is that when you “look” in a location you don’t always get the complete list of items there in the description. The game expects you to look at the graphics to learn more, which is fine. With the only problem being that objects are not always depicted in the picture, or are only painted from a perspective from where you can’t interact with them. Case in point, you can see a board and a calendar from your jail in the police station but you can’t interact with them until you get out of the jail. At that moment, you stop seeing them as they are next to the door and the perspective changes to seeing things from the office door, hiding them. In the end, this means that I am getting into the habit of typing “take all” in every single location to see the list of interactible items.

Now you see us

But enough disgression, let’s get on with the game. In spite of my previous fight with the parser and the slow advances, I have to say I am having quite a blast playing this. Not because of the girls and/or the humour, those are like having a trip back to the eighties. Man, has humour evolved since then. No, it is because even in the face of the time limits and once you reconcile yourself with having to be restoring very often, the game is very open to exploration and experimentation. It gives you enough to be always thinking about several problems at the same time. So when you are stuck on one problem you might want to spend some time working on another one and there is never a dull moment and I haven’t reached the point yet when I run out of ideas or things to try.

The only problem with this is that I think it would be a very dull(-er?) for all of you if I simply wrote about how I am really playing, so I have decided to summarize my advances on the puzzles where I think I’ve made significant advances and how I got to those advances. Starting with…

The party After having the weight lifting competition with the YUs at the beach, we are left there with one day and a half, a little less because you have to discount the hours you need to spend sleeping, before the next competition: the hot girls at the party (I know, I suck at naming things). Whatever we do, just one turn after this, Moe comes to us to ask for help. It is not as we didn’t know it would all fall on our shoulders but it is nice of the game to ask us so nicely.

No pressure

In my last post I commented that I didn’t know how to tackle this puzzle. And I think you are not supposed to. Not at least until the very next day. In my very first replay, I skipped going to the party, but in the next one I decided to be at 7pm Sunday in the hotel. Before getting to Moe’s room, you find a group of “bimbos” in the lobby, looking for action. And I was scared of having to work for my puzzles..

To be fair with the game, it does give you some clues beforehand. If you go to the lobby there is an activity board on Sunday saying that there is a Nail Polishing Seminar at 6pm, and you go there at 6pm the group of bimbos is about to enter the seminar talking about coming back at 7pm to see what to do. It is only that I was doing so much out of the hotel that I didn’t bother going back before 7pm the first time I discovered them.

I must be weird, as I usually prefer to change and finish dressing  up in my room instead of in the middle of an hotel lobby… 

But there is still the problem of getting them to Moe’s room (3313). Of all the items in the different shops in town, I have gravitated towards the ones in the hardware store and the pawn shop and they seemingly look the most useful ones. You can buy a hex bolt (used for another puzzle I will comment later on), a shovel, a studfinder and some pearl dust in the Hardware Shop. In fact, when you enter the Souvenir Shop one of the Pharts is there looking for a shovel, so it is a no brainer buying everything in the Hardware store. I was hoping using the studfinder as a short of metal detector, probably because I don’t know what the heck is a studfinder, but once I found the bimbos looking for men, something clicked in my mind (thank you Grease or otherwise I wouldn’t have known stud is slang for muscular boys) and I gave it to the bimbos. That worked, the only problem now was guiding them to the party, which I was unable to at that moment.

So, none of you brought any girls. It is nice to know I can rely on my brothers!

One restore later to just after having the weight-lifting competition I immediately went to the Hardware store, bought everything and spent the day with the studfinder turned on going around. And what do you know, it activated in one location I had already described in my previous post.

When you enter The Tourist Trap restaurant, a group of spring-breakers breaks through the wall and when you exit the restaurant the sheriff detains you and sends you to jail. But before that, the broken wall leaves two wooden two-by-four in the floor of the restaurant which make the studfinder go nuts. Incidentally, I also discovered that you can eat the bisque you can order at the restaurant to find a very heavy shell.

But then, if you eat the bisque how do you plan on getting out of the jail? Well, it turns out you can give anything edible to the rat. And even better, you don’t lose it. So this scene in jail is completely pointless except for presenting you the sheriff, which I am guessing right now is Ernie’s stepfather, Joey Rottenwood, the bad guy from the previous games.

If you really wanted that to be true, maybe you should not have left the magical prince turned rat that can open doors inside the jail

At this point I have to make a comment on the stupid inventory limit. I don’t know if it is a thing with an internal weight/size assigned to every item or if it is simply the number of items you are carrying, but inventory is limited to a very low number of items you can carry. I figured that since you should probably sleep in your room that would be the best place to store items, but I found out that’s very impractical, so I have made the Plaza at the center of the tourist section of the map my treasure hoard. Still, I have to continuously go there and back to drop items and it gets annoying, so I make sure to only leave the plaza with the absolute minimum, namely the gold, the spellbook and whatever I think could be useful for my next experiment.

Going back to the party, the solution is quite obvious then. Go to Moe’s room beforehand, drop the two-by-fours and then wait until seven to give the girls the studfinder.

Or be an asshat and carry the two-by-fours with you…

That happened because the action is not immediate. That means, you give the studfinder to the girls but they take their sweet time getting to the party. So I started getting nervous and tried to guide them there. But as in many things in this game, you simply have to wait a little. In the meantime I discovered that if you carry around the beer keg I dropped from the carpet and that you can find just lying around at Cliff Bottom, just before the party in a public area, a group of “plain-looking women” will start to follow you around and you can get them to stay at Moe’s leaving the keg there.

Now, that’s a less sucky party

With the plain-looking girls and the bimbos there, I was sure this round was going to be for us. And it was, eventually. If you think the bimbos took their time, the judge is not better. It is not until 10.15 that she arrives to give points. You have to wait almost three hours of the Pharts being amazed with the bimbos and girls. One of them even seems interested in Ernie, but I didn’t manage to get that to come to anything.

One of the boys even wonders how the YUs are going and what kind of girls have they managed to get into their party. Well, you and me bud, because I don’t even know where they are staying. There are two hotels in Naughtytail Fort: ours, the Royal Infesta, and what I assume must be theirs, the Coral Reefer. However, none of the receptionist at either hotel is able to tell me where the YUs are staying. The Coral Reefer is even harder to navigate, as in the Royal Infesta you get to choose from an elevator button panel and a map of each floor which room you want to explore so you could potentially get to a yet unknow location simply by brute force/luck. The Coral Reefer works differently and you have to type in the parser the number of the room you want to go.

Totally rad now

Anyway, in the end, I didn’t manage to get to the YUs party, but the judge ended up coming to ours and granting us 80 points and 60 to the YUs. Yay us!!. I also found a kaleidoscope in the party, but no idea how that got there…

Expanding our spellbook and meeting hotties Do you recall us finding this old fellow in our previous wanderings?

The one with the trusting smile

Well, he is travelling with his wife, which is also a known associate of Ernie. A visit to their room shows that the lady is having her own spring-break. A very long and exhausting spring-break.

Move along!! Move along!! This is an adventure gamer trying to complete the game!! Move along and let me in!!

There is even a ticket dispenser, and the ticket you get varies with time, with the queue being longer and longer the more you wait before going there. However, if you wait a few turns, a guy will come looking for his friend and the friend will sell his ticket for 30g. Once inside, Hillary does seem in the mood for some action, I didn’t manage to do anything other that steal Otto’s suitcase, containing a RATANT spell box and a spare tie.

The RATANT spell is one of a kind. It is the only spell I have found that works on other spells. It mutates spells into other versions. So, for example BIP (produce soft music) becomes BIM (produce soft mucous). I will list at the end all of the spells and their counter-parts, and although I still haven’t found a use for the alternative version of the spells, I am pretty sure this will come handy.

One thing of notice is that you can mutate the RATANT spell itself to become RATTAN (shell mutation). Once used on the conch from the bisque, it transforms into a couch with a soggy-looking seahorse in it. However, as this makes you lose the RATANT spell permanently and I still don’t know what I could use that seahorse for, I prefer not to make that change yet or otherwise I will be trapped with whatever versions of the other spells I have mutated.

There are three other spells I have managed to get my hands on. The UPPSSY spell (spell of opposites) can be bought from the Souvenir shop for just 99g. A Steal. From the shopper I mean. The PEAWEE spell (regression) can be bought from the Pawn shop for 40g.

I don’t know Rick, seems fake to me

The last one is the SPURJ spell (enlarge tree root) that I found lying in the ground at the Mansion Grounds. The south part of the island leads to a fence that blocks the access to a mansion. The curious thing about this fence is that everything inside its grounds is blue. And that means everything, even the trees. There are three screens where you can see the fence: the Deserted Beach, the Dead End, and End of Road. The only gates, locked, at sight are in the Dead End.

Ok, I admit that line about the Fatally Wounded End got a chuckle out of me

It seems like there is no way in, but in the End of Road there is a hungry dog barking from inside the fence. I tried giving him any of the many food items in my inventory but none seemed to satiate him. By pure luck, I entered the screen with a hellhound carrion you find lying around in Mouth of Cave and the dog became nuts and started digging a hole. I tried to help him with my shovel but to no avail. Tried to FRIMP (levitation) the carrion to him, but that only made me drop the carrion. However, the carrion was then painted into the screen, and that gave me the clue to leave it there and see what happen.

I almost expected the dog to break the fence to be honest. Kind of disappointed.

Lo and behold, when I returned the next day, the dog had digged a hole that allowed me to enter the mansion. Once inside, there were several items in the Mansion Grounds, the spell I mentioned earlier and the case full of tan lotion we were carrying in the carpet. A button allowed me to open the gate to the mansion, although if you exit that way the gate closes behind and you have to walk all around the town to get to the mansion again. Climbing a statue also allows Ernie to exit to the deserted beach by jumping over the fence.

An exit to the west takes us to a maze. But a very special one, not the kind you have to navigate. It is a mini-game about getting the whole maze blue. You start with the center in white:

Everytime you select a color, the center changes to that color and grows by “eating” squares it is in contact with of that same color. The goal is to turn the whole maze… blue. Of course.

Anyway, there are three difficulties and a way of skipping the whole thing (which must be very useful for daltonics). I only managed to beat it in Medium, but didn’t find any difference apart from the cost of playing between beating it in Medium (5g) or Easy (10g). The reward is always a golden seahorse. Just so you know, Hard is only 1g and skipping the mini-game is 100g.

To the south of the Mansion Grounds there is the titular Mansion, and inside we can find Azure.

Casually wearing a night dress and perfect makeup to spend the day in a blue room…

She is quite sad and… well… blue. She is the daughter of Milton J. Blueberrystains, the founder of Blueberrystains Industries, the largest producer of spells. If that should ring a bell, it doesn’t.

In any case, in one of my previous shopping sprees, I remember buying a color bomb (150g) from the Pawn Shop. After using it on the shop to see what that was, it changed the colour of the whole shop from a brownish thing to green. I immediately wanted to see the effect of that bomb here…

Meet Scarlett, the red version of Azure. She takes us to his father’s lab through a secret door. I didn’t manage to do anything there, but there is a vat with lemon juice that could be interesting but I don’t know what to use it for. The case we got in the Mansion Grounds contains several tubes of lotion that say that their effect is lessened by contact with lemon juice and you can put the tubes inside the vat to soak some of the lemon juice. There is a tan contest up the line so I am guessing this is a dead end until then.

More like “torture basement” than lab

Final remarks

This has ended way way longer than I intended but I will try to recap the other threads I am following:

Stream of Consciousness has a workman lamenting having lost a hex bolt needed to repair the bridge there. Once I gave him the bolt from the Hardware Store, he starts lamenting not having a left-handed ratchet and I have no idea how to get that. Maybe in the Employees Only door at the Aquarium. On the other hand, drinking water from the stream recovers you some vigor, which makes you less tired at the end of the day so maybe it is possible to spend the whole night doing things without sleeping at the cost of frequent trips to the stream to drink.

I have tried my luck at the casino but I always lose. There is one game that is about guessing the door a mouse will appear in which seems like it could be cheated. I also realized that you can sell some things in the Pawn Shop, so maybe the money problems won’t be that hard.

The mine at the north east part of the island is pitch black. I will need to find some kind of light source or maybe repairing the lighthouse will solve the problem

There is a jellyfish sitting on top of a chest at Cliff Bottom. My efforts to remove it have shown no results.

Bothering a lobsterman in the Wharf for a brief time produced a boot.

There is a seahorse trapped under a root in Windswept Road. This is a job for the new SPURJ spell or the golden seahorse, but haven’t tried anything yet. What’s the deal with all of these seahorses?

Just a turn after being in the Guild Hall, an apprentice will come around and drop a treatise that talks about the irreversible state of spells and how to counter it. Apparently you have to mix a Loosexa Wingus Maxima (a goose maybe?) with some pimento moss, that I found inside a cannon at the Fort. Damn me if I know what any of that means.

I found a blatant copyright infringement BATMAN!!

Holy game, Batman!!

One correction from my previous post. Chapter 2 starts just the Sunday morning, the day of the party, not the day following the party

Ok, I am officially an idiot. Just while writing this post I realized that I was playing in Nice mode. In Naughty mode you can score Hillary, although it serves no purpose other than seeing her with even less clothes. I am wondering if Scarlet would be the same.

Just for the sake of comparison. It even includes some sounds. yay?

And that’s everything for now. See you on the next contest: sand castles!!

Inventory:

63 pieces of gold

Bathing suit (worn)

Glasses (worn)

Spell book

#40 hex bolt

Golden Seahorse

Case (auburn tube, umber tube, sienna tube, brown tube, tan tube, beige tube, sepia tube)

Kalidoscope

Studfinder

Two-by-fours

Empty sack (had 200g)

Instruction Sheet

Confirmation Letter

Trophy

Cloak

Sid’s book bag (text book, nose shield, deflated pool float)

Otto’s suitcase (spare tie)

Pimento Moss

Some suction cup-covered gloves (left by Batman)

Package of breadsticks

Shovel

Conch

Boot

Potential items:

Diamond ring (1500g from Pawn Shop)

Pulverized pearl (15g from Hardware Store)

Strawberries (6g from Grocery Store)

Laxative (39g from Grocery Store)

Bread (3g from Grocery Store)

Rust Spray (10g from Souvenir Shop)

Roc Caller (79g from Souvenir Shop)

Greasy food (5g at Beach by Snack Bar)

Slimfish (33g from Fish Market)

Spells:

Level 1 spells BIP (produces soft music) BIM (produce soft mucous) FOY (create daiquiris) VOY (create dungarees) Level 2 spells FRIMP (levitation) FRUMP (legislation) SPUNJ (enlarge tree root) SPURJ (enlarge wee fruit) Level 3 spells RATANT (spell mutation) RATTAN (shell mutation) PEAWEE (regression) POWWO (digression) UPPSSY (spell of opposites) DOWNSY (spell of opossums)

Map:

Score: YUs – 100, Pharts – 125 (yay us!)

Session Time: 3 hours Total Time: 7 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please…try not to spoil any part of the game for me…unless I really obviously need the help…or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I’ve not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/spellcasting-301-the-party/

[catboyfeli]

COPY PASTING SOME YOUTUBE COMMENTS BC ALL THIS MABEL HATE MAKES ME MAD

ShadowRevya91 week ago "He wasn't lying in that regard as to just casually mocking her." Bill wasn't just casually mocking her. In context, he was trying to create a rift between the twins because at the time Dipper wasn't yet willing to make a deal with him for so much of a stitch of one of Mabel's puppets.

"Makes Mabel seem like a Mary Sue." I don't follow, what is it that makes Mabel seem like a Mary Sue? I thought a Mary Sue was a character without flaws, but your issue here seems to be based in Mabel being deeply, brokenly flawed.

"Dipper is shown to constantly give something up for Mabel" Dipper willingly giving things up for Mabel—in circumstances where it is clearly established as the decent course of action, with Dipper learning a lesson in doing so—does not mean Mabel is selfish. Ex. Dipper learning that it's creepy to be so controlling over another person's life choices and choosing to give up his hard work for his sister the moment he sees for himself that losing her pig would genuinely hurt her means that Dipper grew as a person and cares about his twin respectively, not that Mabel somehow got away with something to his detriment. For comparison, in Carpet Diem, the moment Dipper explains to Mabel why it is he wants his own room, she gives up the key and tells him she won't fight him for it. This obviously isn't an example of Dipper being selfish, it's just that Mabel understands and cares about her twin. And as you say, the lessons Dipper learned in his eps and his ultimately being able to forge a genuine friendship with Wendy are positives, not losses, and certainly not losses "because of Mabel's selfishness".

"Everything (in her mind) has to be about her." Mabel is portrayed as constantly trying to help other people. As shown in The Last Mabelcorn, other peoples' happiness is what she stakes her own happiness on. She says as much in The Love God when Dipper and the teens ditch a suffering Robbie: "How can I be happy if I know someone else is sad?" In contrast, Dipper holds grudges; he isn't invested in the well-being of people he doesn't know or people who have crossed him/his sister in the past (Robbie, Pacifica, the gnomes, etc.). Mabel's so concerned about Gideon's happiness in The Hand that Rocks the Mabel that she can't bring herself to turn him down even when it distresses her. She tries to help Dipper along in his crush on Wendy and in building confidence, and when it doesn't work out offers to make him a list of rebound crushes. She tries to play matchmaker between Lazy Susan and Stan when she finds out he wants her to like him. When she finds out Stan has a fear of heights, she spends the episode trying to help him move past it. I could go on, but seriously she does these things for the entire length of the show; it's her 'thing'. Ford, Dipper, and Wendy agree in Mabelcorn that Mabel's the most pure-of-heart, well-meaning person they know.

"she is shown to constantly take advantage of his dedication and/or belittle his ambitions" When is she ever shown to consciously take advantage of Dipper or hurt his feelings? She makes fun of his voice, lack of manliness, and love of nerd things, but only playfully and she's definitely not the sole character to do so (see Stan, Wendy, and Soos) (Stan is so hard on Dipper that it becomes a major plot point near the end of season one). In Bottomless Pit, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy all express how much they think Dipper's voice is perfect at the end of their mixtape. Mabel realizes in DD & More D that Dipper's actually been taking a lot of their teasing to heart and feels bad about this because it was not her intention. This isn't a realization specific to Mabel either. In Little Dipper, Dipper realizes that he's unintentionally been rubbing his success in Mabel's face, that she feels inferior to him because "you're better than me at like everything", and that her teasing is her attempt to feel better about what few victories over him she has.

"And she never really "pays" for it" Mabel is punished while learning lessons, same as Dipper. As I said before, it's just easier for the audience to brush off. Ex. Mabel gets multiple attempts to kickstart the summer romance that is her central desire for the summer; every single one goes down in flames (literally, in Sock Opera) and we see in Society of the Blind Eye how much those failures weigh on her and how difficult it can be for her to remain confident in the face of them. Like Dipper, we see throughout season 2 that Mabel makes an effort to move past this and comes out better for it.

"Is she at least sorry for nearly getting her brother and close friend killed simply to teach them a lesson? It was an accident, yeah, but it was a result of how short-sighted she is." Maybe it's just me, but Mabel... pushing Wendy and Dipper into a closet together... falls a bit short of consideration as a heinous crime. Besides, Mabel 1) was trying to be helpful, 2) was also in danger, 3) didn't know there was a monster in the bunker. Pinning Into the Bunker on Mabel is like pinning Sock Opera on Dipper for not realizing he was about to be screwed over or pinning The Inconveniencing on Dipper for going along with the teens in an attempt to fit in or pinning Weirdmageddon on Dipper for not telling Mabel about the rift in the first place. You could pin Into the Bunker on Dipper as well while we're at it; he led the mission, the purpose of which was to benefit his summer priority, and the gang almost were crushed in the security room. Point being: The kids not being able to see the future isn't a character flaw and the others don't typically expect apologies from them in such instances. This is different from, say, when Dipper intentionally raises the dead in Scary-oke or Stan leaves Waddles outside in Land Before Swine.

"Unlike in season one where it's pretty obvious that the story is about Dipper" How is season one about Dipper? I didn't get that impression personally.

"I can only think of two episodes where she actually learns a lesson (Boy Crazy and Sock Opera)" Here's what I can remember off the top of my head: Tourist Trapped, Irrational Treasure, The Legend of the Gobblewonker, The Hand That Rocks the Mabel, Boss Mabel, The Last Mabelcorn, The Golf War, Society of the Blind Eye, Northwest Mansion Mystery, and The Love God. Not that number remotely matters (as you say, Ford's arc wrapped up neatly despite his only being present for the final 7 episodes), but hope that helps.

"She KNOWS this isn't real that Bill is gonna destroy everyone she cares about in the REAL world... but CHOOSES to stay put." This... ignores a couple things. 1) So did Wendy and Soos and nearly Dipper, only he remembered that what the bubble was showing him wasn't actually what he truly wanted, only what he thought he did (i.e. being Wendy's age). Which ties into his speech to Mabel later. 2) It's a magic prison bubble; Mabel's under a spell. She doesn't snap out of it until the sincere sibling hug. 3) This incident is parallel to the first season's penultimate episode, wherein Dipper initially decides not to save Stan and the shack because he feels Stan doesn't care enough about him to merit rescuing. Mabel is similarly hurting because she believes Dipper has decided to ditch her. This is part of the reason she creates a false Dipper; she thought the real Dipper meant to abandon her and couldn't accept a reality where that could be true. Because when it comes down to it, and Dipper spells this out himself, Mabel isn't stuck in her fantasyland because she's selfish and it's giving her everything she thinks she wants; she's stuck because she's afraid of losing Dipper and "of growing up".

Throughout the series, Dipper and Mabel are both portrayed as childish. Dipper has a childish idea of what it means to be grown up and can't wait to leave his childhood behind and become the great person he imagines he will be as an adult. Mabel is a tad more mature in that she understands being afraid of being perceived as childish is itself childish and that the twins have to cherish their childhood and their time together while they have it because it won't last forever. However, faced with both the thought of her childhood ending and Dipper leaving, she can't handle both at once and instead seeks solace from reality, refusing to move forward in the process. Dipper developed as a character over the series, but like Mabel those lessons don't fully sink in until the events of Weirdmageddon, where he becomes a realist who understands he can't deal with reality by constantly living in the future. He sees Mabel struggling with the unrealistic desire to remain stuck in time as similar to his unrealistic desire to have already grown up and explains to her they can kill two birds with one stone and face reality together; the spell breaks here because Mabel no longer needs the fantasy world to deal with losing Dipper and that subsequent panic of having to grow up alone. "Man, I went nuts back there. The real world can't be that bad, right?" Show less Reply 3     ShadowRevya9 ShadowRevya91 week ago (edited) "It's sad to see that ONCE AGAIN, Dipper sacrifices his ambitions for her" "All she really learned that is if she guilt trips Dipper enough times, he'll always turn around for her." I think you're missing a critical component of Dipper's character arc here. Dipper's 'ambitions', to essentially begin a career path at friggin' 12 and skip/squander the remainder of his childhood and teenage years, are explicitly portrayed as being as delusional as Mabel's fantasyland. Dipper isn't giving up anything of value here and he isn't giving it up for Mabel's sake; it's a personal decision he's made and he's using this decision to show Mabel that he's chosen to face the music and implore her to join him in doing so. This is why when Mabel tells Dipper—immediately after they've escaped the prison bubble—that while she appreciates his speech he's free to take the apprenticeship if he wants to and she doesn't want to be responsible for holding him back, Dipper simply reiterates that he doesn't want it.

Again, Dipper letting things go of his own volition (not due to supposed emotional abuse on Mabel's part) is not somehow synonymous with him getting the short end of the stick. The only ones who try to frame it that way in-universe are Bill "literal monster" Cipher and Stanford "isn't having siblings suffocating?" Pines.

"with her... not really giving up much this time" This is what I meant when I said it's easier for the audience to value what Dipper sacrifices more. Mabel gave up the prison bubble, a world where she gets everything she wants (except Dipper, which makes the whole thing worthless). The bubble was her dream the way Ford's apprenticeship was Dipper's: unrealistic and unfulfilling. It would have been awful of her to choose to stay, the same way it would have been awful of her to give Bill the journal to keep her play; the same way it would have been awful of Dipper to keep the megaphone, the same way it would have been awful of Dipper to deny Wendy's freedom to make her own choices. These are all sacrifices, but only seem to be viewed as such when they are Dipper's, despite the fact that in each instance, 1) giving up the thing was hard for them, 2) unambiguously the right thing to do, and 3) they realize the thing being given up wasn't actually worth much at all. Show less Reply 2     jenny xu jenny xu6 days ago I'm feeling bad for jumping into this argument but at the same time...

Alright, I see a lot of what you're saying here, but my first impression agreed with Edward Gil and my reason for 'why' stands thus. Dipper, as far as I've perceived him in both season one and season two, drops everything (except for Wendy, I suppose) the moment Mable needs his help. When Waddles was taken by a pterodactyl in the Land Before Swine, Dipper dropped his attempt to photograph the pterodactyl the moment he learned that Mabel's pig was taken. Of course, he would help, but as far as I remember, it never occurred to Dipper to bring a camera 'just in case.' That's him caring for Mable and putting her above his priorities.

Later on, in the Golf War, Mable may have been the bigger person and stated that cheating was wrong while Dipper was perfectly fine with it, we have to remember that Pacifica is Mable's nemesis. Not Dipper's. The only reason Dipper would have any issue with Pacifica would be because of the way she treats Mable.

Even earlier, in the Deep End, when Mermando couldn't breathe and Mable told Dipper (as the assistant lifeguard) to give him reverse CPR, Dipper didn't hesitate. The obvious solution would have been to roll Mermando into the lake, yes, but I thought it was heartwarming that Dipper /didn't hesitate/ to give reverse mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a merman he met literally seconds earlier. He probably would have done it, Mable or no Mable, but I think the fact that his twin went through all that trouble before hand to get Mermando to the lake played a role in how quickly he conceded to the demand.

In dangerous situations, Dipper's first words are always 'let her go!' and 'her' always being Mable. Despite not being the bravest or strongest person (don't we know it), Dipper always, always, stands in front of Mable against monsters and threats to shield and protect her. Obviously, this isn't to say that Mable is less capable than anyway. If it comes down to it, I'm willing to bet that she's the more athletic one, but the fact of the matter is, Dipper is constantly proving how much he cares for his twin.

Now Mable on the other hand? Aside from how she always supports Dipper fully in his investigation of the supernatural (Mystery Twins!), it's hard to think of an example where she dropped her own priorities in order to help Dipper.

Now, in terms of 'being a good person,' I think Mable probably has Dipper beat. She goes out of her way to help others, she has a stronger sense of morals and in the Last Mablecorn, Mable outright stated that she had the purest heart and Dipper just went, 'no arguments there.' I just think, when it comes down to paying attention to each other's needs and such, Dipper is just more aware than Mable, you know? He's the analytical one, the one who's always winning at chess. So he's the one who takes more care to see things from Mable's perspective.

Meanwhile, Mable is playfully ribbing Dipper about an assortment of shortcomings, from lack of manliness to his voice to being slightly shorter to his crush on Wendy to a miscellaneous collection of other small, harmless comments that... frankly add up. It's not much of an issue considering. as you've pointed out, Wendy, Soos and Grunkle Stan do virtually the same but considering how Dipper is towards Mable, it's worse coming from her.

When things get serious, Mable is there for Dipper, but not the same drop-everything way he is for her. When it comes down to it, I think that's what rubs people the wrong way.

This is all open to discussion, of course. Show less