#theories getting attention + being a massive nuisance in general

[unnonexistence]

hermann thoughts: if i discredit newton and his approach enough, the martial won't give him the equipment for his kaiju drift, and i can protect him from himself. if he despises me for it, so be it. there is little i wouldn't sacrifice to see him safe.

newt thoughts: this is a Best Science competition and i have to Win

[darkanachronism]

Keziah Mason Meets the Whateley’s

"Who 're yew an' what're yew doin' in my lab?"  Wilbur demanded, looking down at the old woman.

"Depends," she started, "on why you smell like Yuggoth."

~~~~~

What’s this, me posting writing on main?  More likely then you think.  Anyways have the Lovecraft crossover no one asked for. 

Wilbur had been preparing the shed for some time now.  He didn't have to yet, but he would eventually with Twin getting as big as it was.  

For now though, he just wanted a bit of space.  A little respite from his mother, from his brother.  From the Byhakee it had upstairs.

Just a quiet place to read, to write, to study.  

Admittedly it was a rather sad little makeshift lab, but it was his nonetheless.  The chairs and tables fit him, he barely had to stoop to get in the door, yes this was as comfortable as he could hope to get.  

Wilbur was just about to enter with another armful of books when he heard a crash from inside.

The crash, and accompanying string of curse words belonged to an old woman stumbling out of a corner, tripping over a pile of books and face planting onto the floor.

Keziah Mason has taken a wrong turn on her trip back to Arkham.  Something she immediately decided not to tell anyone about, in a rush or not this was an amateur mistake.  

She rolled onto her back and cussed again.  Being fairly certain she'd heard some bone or other make a noise it shouldn't.  And took in her surroundings, digging in the pockets of her robe for something to throw at whoever owned the place.  

The door creaked open and Keziah was staring down the barrel of a revolver.  

Fuck.

"Who 're yew an' what're yew doin' in my lab?"  Wilbur demanded, looking down at the old woman.  She looked harmless.  

So did lots of things.

Keziah blinked in surprise, trying to take in all of the massive figure that loomed above her, to place the unearthly stink that came off him, and come up with an answer to his questions all at once.  

"Depends," she started, "on why you smell like Yuggoth."

She managed two out of three, and to stall for time on the third. The gun lowered just a little, Wilbur's brows furrowing in surprise.  Not the answer he’d been expecting. Or for that matter one he’d accept.

"I’ll answer yew once yew answer me seein’ as I asked first an' I've got the gun."

No point in distracting himself.

"Both valid points.  I'm Keziah Mason, and I took a wrong turn.  Now you."  

Cryptic and sort of a non answer, but in certain circles her name preceded her, and in others bothering to explain that you were not just a common burglar but an fiendishly intelligent witch who could use her knowledge of advanced physics and arcane secrets to travel long distances via interdimensional shortcuts, well that sort of talk was just as likely to earn you a bullet as keeping quiet.  Even if the man towering above her could barely pass for human himself.  

" 's just how I smell is all."  He answered her first question.  "And I'm Wilbur Whateley."  She hadn’t asked for a name, but it seemed polite to give one.

Whateley, of course, everything clicked into place.

“Yog-Sothoth’s kid then?”  She asked quirking a wiry brow.  She’d expected more...Tentacles?  Maybe a tail or something.  Still, something around the eyes put her in mind of the fathomless space beyond spaces.  

The revolver dropped to Wilbur's side as he tried to puzzle through how to respond to being called out so casually.  He nodded.  Not sure what else to do.

"Help an old lady up would you?"  

Wilbur did, hauling Keziah rather artlessly to her feet, still baffled into silence.

"How'd yew know that?"

Keziah shrugged. “Your family’s been at this for a while.  Honestly I’m surprised things lined up."

"Yeah, guess et were a bit 've wurk on granpa's part."  Wilbur trailed off mumbling, scratching the back of his neck and looking around for something else to discuss.  The topic of his conception was awkward, he imagined that was one of the few things he had in common with any other teenager.

"Sorry, didn't catch that.  Tinnitus."  Keziah said, adding the explanation with a grimace.  It was a small price to pay for visiting The Court of course, but a deuced nuisance most of the time.  

"Uhh, Nuthin'."  Wilbur said, before changing the topic abruptly.

"Yew still didn’t explain why yer here."  

"Told you I took a wrong turn.”  She was trying to sound casual, but perhaps came off as a tiny bit defensive.  “Just a tiny miscalculation on my part.  We are in New England aren’t we?"

"Dunnich."

Keziah pulled a face and Wilbur laughed.

"Take et yew've visited before?"  

"Not if I can help it.  Is it still as painfully backwoods as it was in...1786?"  

Wilbur quirked a brow, sure, she looked old, but not that old.

"Nah, et's wurse."  

"You poor thing."  Keziah patted him on the arm, it was about all she could reach.

The condescension wasn't appreciated, nor was the physical contact, Wilbur pulled away from that, but since she evidently loathed Dunwich, he let it slide.

"Where were yew tryin' t' get then?"

"Arkham."

"That ain’t far,” Wilbur started helpfully.  “Yew culd take our horse, Long as yew return et."  

It’s not that he was a particularly generous man, he had no natural inclination to help a stranger out.  But it wasn’t as if he was planning to ride anywhere any time soon.

Keziah chuckled.  

"Thanks for the offer, but I can get there faster."  Keziah glanced around the makeshift magical laboratory, looking for something.  

"Do you have some graph paper I could borrow?"  She asked after a moment.  

"Uh, yeah I c-" Wilbur was cut off by a tentative knock on the half opened door.  

"Wilbur, dinner's rea-," Lavnia called out, opening the door as she did so.  Ordinarily she wouldn't but in like that, Wilbur had been so insistent on his privacy lately.  But he’d left it ajar, so she didn’t see any harm.

She paused mid step to stare. In what world did Wilbur have company?  And how had she missed the woman showing up in the first place.  

"Who's yer friend?" .

Wilbur looked between the two and stepped out of the way to make introductions.

"Uh, hi Ma, this is-"

"Keziah Mason.  One of Nyarlathotep's Thousand Favoured."  she said, brushing past Wilbur and offering the other woman a hand to shake.  No need to be cagey about who she was now.  

Lavinia very quickly wiped her hands on her skirts before accepting, clearly flustered by the title drop.  

"I'm Lavinia Whateley, pleased t' meet yew."  

Wilbur wasn't half so impressed, actually he had to wonder what she did to earn the Crawling Chaos' attention.  Or if she wasn't just full of shit like so many magicians turned out to be.

 "I'm sure it's mutual.  Don't let you keep you from Dinner though, I was just about to leave."

"Yew dun half tew, ef yew dun want. I mean, yew culd stay fer diner ef yew'd lak.  We dun often have guests, 'specially 'un so destingished."  

Wilbur winced at his mother's gushing and hand wringing.  She was special enough in her own right that she shouldn't be tripping over herself to impress some witch who couldn’t even keep her angles right.  

Admittedly Wilbur’s understanding of interdimensional travel and the mathematics involved in them were shaky at best. But he could make an educated guess as to what a wrong turn meant.  

Keziah considered the invitation, taking a quick look at each of the Whateley’s to guess at how much of an intrusion she’d be before answering.

“Why not, I don’t really need to be back until Sunday.”  She gave a casual shrug.

Lavinia positively beamed when the older woman accepted her invitation.  A reaction that made Keziah question the other woman’s sanity just a bit.  

“Well, house es this way ef yew tew want t’ follow me.  Sorry ‘bout the house bein’ in a state, et’s ain’t usually this much ‘ve a mess.”  Lavinia gestured for the other two to do just that, before backing out of the door way.  

Wilbur let Keziah go out ahead of him and locked up behind the trio.  

Dinner at the Whateley house was usually an awkward affair, consisting of strained attempts at small talk from Lavinia and increasingly successful attempts to avoid that small talk on Wilbur’s part.  So a third party was appreciated, and it really didn’t take much to set Keziah off.   

An idle question about how exactly she knew the Whateley’s from Lavinia prompted wild stories about Wilbur’s great great grandparents, questions about Yuggoth from Wilbur earned an even more energetic response.  All the while Keziah displayed the kind of table manners that startled even Wilbur.   

It was increasingly difficult to imagine the hunched old woman tearing into a drumstick with clawed hands and trying to explain the Dho Formula through a mouthful of chicken rubbing elbows with The Outer Gods, acting as a messenger for Nyarlathotep himself.  

But she did know things.  Gods did she know things.  His grandpa has known some and read some, and Wilbur had done his best with that meager tutelage and a plethora of crumbling books.  But Keziah, she rattled off facts and incantations and corrections to his magical theory like other people talked about the weather.   

The conversation was beyond Lavinia’s grasp, she nodded when she thought it was appropriate.  And was quickly forgotten by the other two.  She didn’t mind though.  It was a rare treat to see Wilbur so animated.   

Dinner ended with everyone in a good mood, Lavinia offered to clear up and let the other two retreat to Wilbur’s lab, Keziah still had to work out exactly where she’d gone wrong in her calculations earlier, and Wilbur was eager for a crash course traveling the space between spaces.

“Don’t worry kid, I’ll work slow so you can keep up.”  

The teasing earned her a sour look.  Even as Wilbur bent over the desk to see what she was working on.  

“I’m sure I’ll manage just fine, I’m sharper ‘en most folks.”

“So am I.”  

If Keziah made things a little unnecessarily complicated just to show off who could blame her.  Wilbur was a nice enough kid.  But she couldn’t let him think he was smart just because his dad knew absolutely everything there was to know.  

Still, she helped.  More than slaving over his books alone could.  And after some untold hours.  Keziah stood up, stretching and cracking her back and knuckles as she did.  

“I think that’s enough for the night.  I’ve got to get back to Arkham, and I really hate to travel when I’m tired.”  

Wilbur looked down at her with a frown.  

“S’pose ef yew’ve got tew.  Like ma said, yew can come back whenever yew like.  Jus’ use a door next time.”  

Keziah let out a low scoff and rolled her eyes.  “Absolutely not kid, doors are for people with no imagination.”  

She traced a quick sign in the air,  lines lingering that glowed a shade no human eyes could really appreciate, and without another word Keziah stepped through the corner of Wilbur’s laboratory and was presumably back in Arkham.  The space she just occupied tilting strangely before folding in and righting itself.  

Wilbur stared and wished he’d had his better eyes out to watch that.  Probably would have been quite impressive to see in five dimensions.

[rudyskatopianiii]

Breath of the Wild Review (long AF)

So, as the title says, this is a review of the game Breath of the Wild and it is exceedingly long (TLDR at the end). THUS there are going to be some major huge spoilers for the game both lore-wise and gameplay-wise. If spoilers are not in your best interest, GO NO FURTHER THAN THIS CAPS LOCKED SENTANCE! Seriously, I’m going into some major important stuff both in the main story AND in sidequests. You have been warned.

First the review. 3 days before writing this I finished the very amazing game LOZ: Breath of the Wild and I will admit, it was pretty awesome. However, I was recently asked what my final thoughts on the game were and I had to stop and think a pretty long time. I was forced to review all of what I had experienced within this massive game and condense it into a single concise explanation of my overall emotion and thoughts about the staggering 150+ hours I spent in the land of Hyrule. It took some time as I relived every mountain I climbed, every guardian I destroyed, every secret I dug up, and all the various emotions I felt during the entire journey. And then I found an answer. The one thing that could possibly encompass all of the thoughts I had about Breath and the adventure I had been involved in for an entire cumulative 6 and a quarter days. “Meh”.

Now I know that "meh" is not the most glowing of reviews but it was the only thing I could say to completely sum up my entire Breath experiance. But why was the game so meh? Well, when I look back on everything I liked and didn't like, the game is terribly balanced. Everything that brings the score up is countered by something that brings the score right back down. The diverse and varied weapon style and techniques is brought down by the horridly low weapon durability. The characters are well designed but some lack depth and others have so little screentime I didn't feel any emotion for them. Even the main villain and major conflict, though epic in scale and interesting in the story, was little more than a blurry low-res shadowy wallpaper that I forgot it was there half the time. So many good things have been counteracted by bad things that I am left with a truly neutral ruling.

Now lets start with the story. Specifically, the characters. Link is devoid of any memory at the beginning of his adventure and is tasked by Impa to seek out those memories. There are a total of ten memories including the secret one Impa points you to and they are supposed to include all the information you need on all the main characters of the past that you are supposed to care about. But the main problem I have is that it's not enough. Only three out of the ten memories have to do with the other characters other than Zelda and the rest focus solely on Zelda and her relationship with her father and Link. There seem to have been more thought given to the character of Zelda than there is to the other characters who you actually need to save the souls of from the divine beasts. There's no incentive to go through with that as I am not in any way motivated to like or care for those characters. Rivali is a pompous ass, Urbosa is slightly amusing, Daruk is like a drunk uncle, and Mipha is in love with Link. Each of them have very compelling personalities but it is never expanded upon to the point where I want to save them. Even Link in almost all cutscenes is a deadeyed straight faced machine who does what he's told and has no real expression in reaction to things happening around him.

Now the past isn't the only place the game tries to gain your motivation, there is another motive for completing the divine beasts. That is for the sake of the people in immediate danger of their rampage. Nabooris is threatening the Gerudo, Medoh is oppressing the Rito, Ruta is drowning the Zora, and Rudania is attacking the Gorons. So, as a good hero must, you are expected to save those races from the rampaging colossi. However, if I were a first comer to the Zelda series, I wouldn't be that motivated to save these races as I don't really care for much of the characters. The ones you interact with are either super one-dimensional or they are interacted with so shortly you don't have time to get to know them.

Take everyone's favorite at the moment, Prince Sidon. Memes aside, this was the worst case of a missed opportunity in the entire game. Mipha, the Zora champion, is not only the Zora King's daughter, but Sidon's sister as well. A very compelling and intriguing story would've been to have the two of them immediately angry with Link or be an obstacle to the objective to begin with. I mean, losing a family member is the extremely traumatizing and it would make sense for those closest to the deceased to be the most affected. But instead, the King is all too happy to help you, Sidon is all "I believe in you!" right from the very start, and the only obstacle between you and Ruta is some crotchety old Zora who is quickly convinced to help by a set of armor and a memory. Yeah, its cute and unexpected that Mipha's armor is like a Zora wedding ring but that's the most you get in the direction of meaningful connections. In the end there is only one reason to do any of the divine beasts and its just for an easier endgame.

Speaking of endgame, Ganon is also a point that kills the score I gave this game and not just because of the anticlimactic final fight. @blueganon has said this already but I'll add it here because it is so true. Ganon is supposed to be the main villain in this game with the Yiga Clan as his devoted disciples. You'd think after games like Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time that Nintendo would know how to make a overbearing evil that looms upon you from every angle or goads you forward with each step. But the team missed the mark with this game. Ganon is locked in place as a hazy smoke rolling around Hyrule Castle that is obstructed from view as soon as you go past a mountain and the Yiga clan, though more active after defeating their master, is more a nuisance than an active threat. It is such a passive thing that you could easily forget that there is even a Ganon at all. The final fight is depressingly simple as well. The first round is actually pretty active and very well designed (see my theory post coming after this) and incorporates all the techniques and equipment you've been collecting on your adventure. But then the fight devolves into a shoot-the-weak-point generic 3D Zelda boss that this game had done so well trying to avoid.

Even the side quests are shallow and not that fun to do. They're either a "get this thing(s) and bring it here" quest or a "kill this thing(s)" quest with few deviating from that formula and they all have either common or uncommon rewards that are easily found in abundance in the overworld. The only quest that even comes close to being worth the chore is the Tarrey Town questline where you build an entire settlement and populate it with people from all over the map. But even that is comprised of multiple fetch quests. I mean, I know they're just side quests and those characters don't really matter in the grand scheme of things but Majora's Mask is chocked full of side quests that are not tied to the main objective but the majority of which have memorable characters with great stories spanning before, during, and after their completion. It's that attention to detail and good storytelling that give the world its own voice and each and every NPC their own special place in not just your memory but your heart (god what a cliché...).

Then there's the music. The game has only 3 memorable pieces in it (at least for me), the song that plays at Rito Village, the song at Tarrey Town, and the final assault orchestration that plays at Hyrule Castle. Rito Village is the melody on Dragon Roost Island from Wing Waker but much more mellow, Tarrey Town is an amazing melding of each theme across Hyrule and is a real calming melody, and Hyrule Castle's music really does feel like a final assault with its epic orchestra and the weaving of Ganon's theme and Zelda's lullaby together along with an original theme for the Castle itself is so fulfilling especially when your there to finish the game. But that's it. Other than some of the mini-boss themes like fighting a Hinox or Molduga, which are good but... fleeting to put it mildly, there are no other really memorable melodies or compositions even for the overworld witch is eerily silent except for the once in a while piano piece that only serves as ambiance. Even Kass' song, though very recognizable and a great example of good open world design, is just a loop that gets old pretty quickly. The final boss' theme was so forgettable that even a few days after completing the game I've already forgotten it. That. Is. Not. Good. My last thoughts on the game should not be "welp... that's done".

There was just so much missed potential in this game that could've made it so much better. And it's those multiple shortcomings that are ultimately holding it back. I want to be exceedingly enthusiastic about the game. I want to give it a perfect score. Hell, I WANT to be excited about every part of this game. But I just can't. And it kills me that I can't have it on that level of esteem.

TLDR: Breath of the Wild counters itself so well its just an "ok" game. Ganondorf theory post coming soon.