#anyways. posts this late at night. no one sees me being a dragon age enjoyer

[critterpdf]

happy 1 year to this comic i forgot to post feat. my inq basil <3

[saffronaura]

The Silent Problem of darkSpyro (I would not recommend joining)

DarkSpyro.net. A big Skylanders/Spyro the Dragon website that is steadily growing by the day. While the forum does have some neat information on Skylanders and old Spyro the Dragon games, what members don’t know is that there is more than just fancy walkthrough pages and galleries. There is the communication and the enjoyment fans gain by talking with others about the Skylanders and Spyro games. Or it can be about topics related to silliness and standard real world discussions.  There is also the forum moderation. It can help make your time on the forum fun, or it can make your time there difficult.

Most of you may know me from the forums, and I have been around since 2008. Back then, the darkSpyro forums was just about Spyro games, solely operated by dark52. Besides posting walkthroughs, managing  and creating news posts on the Spyro games, dark52 was mostly on top of rule-breakers and trolls and would ban them from the forums as soon as they ignore their first few warnings. Sometimes though, trolls would come on when the admin was asleep, and it would take hours later until he would come online to clean up the mess. But other than that, darkSpyro was a pleasant place to talk and chat with other Spyro fans. Until the time came when dark52 decided to follow Skylanders and made the site a part Spyro part Skylanders division. As time went on, more and more members joined due to the audience of Skylanders, and it became too much for the admin. Some of us suggested to dark52 that he should appoint moderators so he wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. But dark refused to accept help and believed that he could handle the forum on his own like he always had. Big mistake. At one point, a troll posted inappropriate images on the forum that lasted for 6 hours until dark52 finally woke up and deleted them all. I can’t even imagine how many kids late at night or in the morning were possibly scarred by those pictures all because of dark’s stubbornness. Even after all of that, he was STILL convinced that he didn’t need any moderators. Completely ignorant to the fact that he doesn’t do anything when something obviously bad is happening. Can you believe it??

Sometime after the horrible incident, the admin allowed trolls to get away with harassing users. They broke the forum rules on multiple occassions, drove away older members, and the trolls even had the nerve to start speaking on the admin’s behalf just to belittle others. In short, dark52 basically just sat back and watched the rule breaking scenario all happen. And this lasted about a few years and it could’ve lasted a LOT longer. I was one of the main victims of the trolling, and I can tell you, it was the worst experience I’ve ever endured on any forum. Imagine being harassed and trolled on for months or longer, being the target of an upcoming war started by a troll who was in the process of tricking an entire forum section of children to be against you. And the admin knowing fully well what’s going on but refused to do anything about it. All just to update forum news and making posts about Skylanders. Like the concerns of his userbase don’t matter to him at all. It can drive you extremely fustrated, crazy even. Honestly it drove me insane that I wondered WHY I was still on that forum. After some time during all of the chaos, dark52 FINALLY gave in and went on to appoint moderators after 8 long years of solo moderation. At least he admitted that he neglected his duties. Although he never did apologize to the users, including myself, who were harassed constantly by the trolls thanks to him. But even with mods, dark didn’t do much moderation himself sometime afterwards, besides removing the occasional spambot or inappropriate picture troll.

Nowadays, there is a 10% chance you will get a private message response from dark52, regardless of your question, request or in need of intervention. The other 90% is him updating the forum polls on Skylanders, getting news on Skylanders, and making the site look prettier. He rarely communicates with the forum members and his fellow moderators, keeping most rule changes and decisions to himself until he feels like revealing them at the last minute. You will very likely see him talk about Skylanders, than responding forum issues that aren’t worth his time to talk about. In addition, dark52 has shown some severe signs of neglecting his admin duties. Such as:

Causing an harassment war to nearly happen

Allowing a kid to post his private information more than three times (and we’re talking about family names, home address, email that kind of private information that should be kept your self)

Allowing scenarios to escalate out of porportion until he feels like dealing with it. 

He has even shown signs of being incredibly biased towards other users. Such as spoiling one user to the point that that very user became a disruptive egomaniac who is willing to belittle and even dox you just to be superior. This is a direct result of being pampered by the admin.

If you have a logical issue about dark52 and his way of moderation, he will simply disregard your topic subject at hand altogether and will respond to an-off topic comment on popup ads instead. Or he will simply say: “I care about the community and its members” at the hopes that phrase will get users off his back.

As a former longtime member of the forum, I WOULD NOT recommend darkSpyro.net unless you are used to an admin who doesn’t take his job as site owner very seriously. You might become stressed or unwanted, a victim of trolling caused by returning rule-breakers and egomaniacs. All of this happening to you, with dark52 not doing anything about it. And normally, he would leave the moderators to do most of the work for him. An admin should learn from his or her mistakes. But dark52 is one admin who apparently WILL NEVER learn from his. And even if dark52 changes his ways now or after this post is released, chances are he will go right back to being a recluse and sit quietly while watching rule-breakers run amok until he FEELS like stepping in.

The admin will also repeatedly claim that he still “cares” about his community, something his white knights want to hear and prove others of how “wrong” they are about the admin. 

But in the end, ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. 

And dark52′s actions have shown that he does NOT care: if you are harassed or not, what his moderators think about certain scenarios AND their inputs, unless it’s regarding the very thing that is keeping his forum going: Skylanders.

I’ve been on darkSpyro for ages, and it’s hard to leave a place where I grew up going to after a day’s work. But with the way things are on the forum, and the admin STILL showing no signs of improvement on his moderation AND being biased, I’ve had no choice but to move on. So I ask you, users. Would you want to join a nice looking forum like darkSpyro.net, but with a reclusive, extrememly biased and ignorant admin like dark52? 

I wouldn’t. 

But in the end it’s your choice. You may like the forum just because of how fancy it looks or it’s the only popular place to see new Spyro or Skylanders info. But remember that in the end, it is run by a user - a user whose actions can either make your time on darkSpyro fun or outright miserable and unenjoyable.

The egotistical white knights of dark52 have already posted about this on the forum somewhere, in which dark52 responded with his repeated phrase that he “cares about the community” and all that. But don’t fall for his false claims and lies. As I said before, actions speak louder than words. And dark52 rarely communicates with users anyways.

[renlyisright]

Season 6 Episode 8: Assassins Bleed

Pieces are moving towards the last two episodes of the season. A bit of a retrospective: I don’t know if it can be said by reading these posts, but in hindsight the least exciting times in the show were in the midpoint (3-7?) episodes of the third season and also somewhere around there in the fifth season too. The slowness of the third season can be explained with most main characters having little to do (Tyrion wasn’t a Hand anymore, Davos was locked up, Sansa continued being a captive, Arya, Jaime, too… now that I think about it these people spend a lot of time as each other’s captives. Anyway, that was the time when many people’s motives and dealings were still kept secret (like Varys, Littlefinger, what was Tywin planning and so on), so in hindsight having the not-point of view characters running the show made the point-of-view ones passive (especially in King’s Landing).

Then the fifth season, coming up after the climax-filled fourth season, had most of those motives clear as a day, and while there was the excitement of “what now”, that mellowed a couple of episodes in, and a lot of the season was set-up, with for example Stannis’ battle of Winterfell serving as a warm-up for Sansa’s and Jon’s try.

Now these seasons five and six feel like one book in two seasons. The climaxes are in this season. It’s like the seasons three and four, except that I know that by the end of the sixth season the show has long passed the books and has changed a lot. For example, Stannis is not dead in the books.

To which I say “Ha! Maybe he should be!” Sure, people can say that he is a much more three-dimensional character in the books and it’s a pity how the show dealt with him, to which I say that sorry, I can’t hear you all the way here to my blog named Renly Is Right.

Back to the regularly scheduled program: Arya currently has only one acquaintance in Braavos that doesn’t want her dead, so she goes to her. The actress is still playing Cersei and getting applauses. Following Arya’s tip she has added a revenge speech in the end. It’s still much more eloquent than Cersei’s actual speech at the time but art is art. As Cersei she announces revenge on those who have wronged her, Sansa and Tyrion.

The real Cersei in King’s Landing hasn’t achieved those revenges yet. Actually, she hasn’t achieved much of anything lately, if locking up Margaery and Loras doesn’t count. But I feel like she is finally getting to do something. At least she is so done that she picks a fight with the Sparrows.

The Mountain kills one of them as an example, but of course the High Sparrow is one step ahead. After these two seasons, I’m ready to see a time when he is not. He has run the show long enough. If Cersei manages to fix a problem of her own creation she would get some points.

Sidenote that Pycelle is still where he has always been, whispering to the king. One true constant.

I do like that the High Sparrow is both an outsider to the court and poor, and has been able to get the poors’ point of view into the high and noble’s court politics. When people like Cersei or Olenna speak of the people they rule, they make it clear why the High Sparrow is able to get so much traction from the people. Nobody really cares about them. A couple of months more and they would gladly storm the Red Keep if the High Sparrow asked for it. But I don’t enjoy watching people being tortured, no matter who they are, and so the whole imprison-starve-and-humiliate-people-for-many-many-episodes routine he’s been doing hasn’t been much fun. I’m ready to move on to something else.

Speaking of moving on to something else, the Sons of Harpy business on Meereen seems to finally be over, thanks to some religious preaching. What is the lesson here? If you are a ruler, make sure that religion is on your side. Varys is not that positive, he must have heard news from King’s Landing of how pacts with fanatics could end. I may not like the Lord of Light, like, at all, but his supporters are solid enough folk. Melisandre should learn to say “no”, though. Except that that would likely kill her, considering her age.

One of the Lord of Light’s priests is Thoros of Myr, whom we finally see again. Next to him is his life supported leader of the Brotherhood, Beric Dondarrion. Beric doesn’t seem to have lost any more parts since we last saw him, and they were hunting the same people the Hound was, the ones who attacked the settlement. So the Brotherhood on the whole has not turned into brigands, and Beric wants to keep their brand good.

He also seems to want to go North. Cold winds are rising there. More talk of how the Lord of Light wants these people alive for some reason. He also wants the Hound there. The word “chosen” isn’t mentioned, but “for some reason” is many times.

...Don’t tell me that the Lord of Light sent those Brotherhood men to kill the settlers just so the Hound would come back to civilization. “The night is dark and full of terrors”, they said. That would beat even what he did to the Baratheons (I have mentioned a lot of how he was a dick to Stannis but it was Shireen who was burned to death). What next, he’ll kill the firstborns of King’s Landing to get the king to listen?

Varys leaves Meereen. :( Hopefully not for long. He says he has important business to do. Getting a fleet? Two are coming on this direction, one of them Yara and Theon’s lot, the other the slave lords, so they are fine on that part.

Especially as Daenerys is back, with Drogon. The dragon could quickly burn all the ships, with a bit of a restraint they can have few to sail with. Westeros is so close aaah. The answer to my “will she leave the Slaver’s bay in very good or very bad position” might actually be “very good”. Or not. While I think that this plotline has gone on for long enough, I don’t wish to abandon these people to be fought over by more masters after Daenerys leaves.

The siege of Riverrun is over just as quickly as it started. But it lasted long enough for Brienne and Pod to pay a visit. Some nice reunions, but politics make sure almost nobody gets what they want here. Brienne wanted the Tully army for Sansa, she didn’t get it. Blackfish wanted his home back and/or die gloriously in battle, he didn’t get it. Edmure… well Edmure wanted to survive, that happened, at least for now. He may be allowed to rule Riverrun as Frey’s bannerman, but more likely one of the Freys get it, like apparently happened before Blackfish’s rebellion. There’s enough Freys to hold every castle in Riverlands.

Jaime gets exactly what he wants. Quick end to the siege, everybody home before winter, he gets back to Cersei. His speech to Edmure was chilling, and I don’t doubt that he was completely serious. “The things we do for love”, good grief. He and Cersei are still very messed up, but after all that “I don’t care of anybody except Cersei”, he lets Brienne get away, to help Sansa whom Cersei wants dead.

A word about Edmure Tully. Before he was seen in the show, I had read about him in the first two books. For some reason I imagined him with glasses, and a bit nerdy. I have no idea where that came from, but I have a somewhat cartoony imagination when I read. But at least I can be a proper book-first-reader in this case and say that the show version of the character is nowhere close to how I imagined him.

Arya is stitched back together. Apparently the main characters have some defenses from wounds that would kill any other. It was several stabs to the stomach. I don’t remember any other wounds as grievous as this one which would allow the wounded to do what Arya does later in this episode. Ned used the walking stick to the end after his leg was hurt, the Hound didn’t have pleasant weeks after fighting Brienne, Jaime lost his hand and spent the next episode almost dying, and the Mountain is more machine than man.

But the actress is apparently good at stitching people up. She has hurt the other actress who called the Faceless Men on her. That was not enough, as the name had already been promised and the Faceless can’t just change it to a different name like a man did back in Harrenhal. So the girl finds them and kills the actress.

And then it’s on. Some Assassin’s Creed track playing on the background and I’m right at home.

Now I want Assassin’s Creed: Braavos. And I haven’t yet got Total War: Westeros. Or speaking of dream games, Assassin’s Creed: Gondor Civil War. That has been my wish ever since I heard that there was going to be AC-style game in Middle-Earth (then it turned out to be Shadows of Mordor, which was fun, but come on, think of climbing Minas Tirith!)

Anyway, Arya is running for her life. She sneaks through a sauna. Braavos has saunas? I like this place more now. And she’s back in her hiding place, with Needle. But what chances does she have, with already bleeding wounds? She was smacked around by her every time they fought before-

She puts out the light, and they are both in darkness. Clever girl. Have some of your own medicine, girl with no name.

I like it when people win by being clever. On the other hand, I also like it when people who are too clever for their own good (Oberyn, and hopefully Littlefinger soon) get theirs. As in everything, a healthy mix is good.

Interesting that both fights to the death (Blackfish and the girl) were not shown, but in Blackfish’s case he was only in four, five episodes total and did not “deserve” a big last stand like for example Barristan did. Besides, Riverrun had already surrendered, Blackfish killing regular Lannister soldiers just for his own ego wouldn’t have been enjoyable to watch.

And in this case any sounds that followed the light going out would have ruined the moment. Better this way. Arya confronts the Faceless Man and says that she is going home. She doesn’t kill the man even though she must know that he was the one who gave the order. Maybe what she learnt here was that she does not have to kill everybody who has wronged her.

But yes, come back home, Arya Stark of Winterfell, so I can continue asking “Will she meet Nymeria again now? Or now? What about now?”

Goodbye to the Faceless Man for now, but now I remembered my fan theory that Syrio Forel (Arya’s swordmaster from Braavos), and Jaqon H’ghar from Harrenhal are the same, as in they are both this Faceless Man’s faces. There hasn’t been any confirmation of that, so I think that theory is dead.

Ooor is it? Or has it just... changed it face?