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mycasandstarrs · 6 years

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SPN 4x14: “Sex and Violence”

What a tiny foreshadowing moment there. with the meat tenderizer.

It makes me incredibly nervous to hear a person talk in that aggressive tone.

Jesus, dude. Just go to the birthday party.

I would leave the house after that.

RIP Vicki.

Sleeping Dean! It‘s nice to see that he’s under the sheets, sometimes he just sleeps on top of them.

Sam having secret phone calls with Ruby. Boy is he dumb, he could’ve easily taken that outside.

But also,, why not work with Dean to find Lilith??? (I know, I know: psychic powers, demon blood drinking, but also...wouldn’t it matter to Dean to find her? Wouldn’t he at least try to find a way to kill her? Would that be too repetitive of S3? Idek.)

He didn’t even close the door. Sam....

“Want me to paint you a picture?” Does the picture include lies and deceit?

Posing as general attorneys.

Huh, so he was aware that their relationship was a good one and that he loved his wife...(Jumping forward to the end of the episode, does that mean that had either Sam or Dean killed the other, they would have snapped out of it and realized what they had done?)

“Her name was Jasmine.”

“She was a stripper?”

“Dude, her name was Jasmine.” This was another instance of me and Dean saying the exact thing at the same time on my first viewing.

I really like the focus on the eyes.

Uh, it’s “muerto” Dean, but good effort.

Dr. Cara Roberts.

Agent Stiles.

(Cara is really pretty, and she’s got a pleasant voice.)

...did she get an ex-boyfriend’s name tattooed on her? Girl, why?

Agent Murdock, but “Agent” is too formal. Call him Dean.

r e j e c t e d.

OOOoooohhh look at that flirting.

(x)

Huh, so John used their college funds on ammo; one of the perps used their kids’ college fund for the strip bar.

How they described their sirens: “Perfect, and everything they wanted.”

Oh my god, Dean. Don’t get too excited.

“Jasmine, Aurora, and Ariel.” The Disney princess shout out. My childhood just took a bit of a blow.

Huh, Dean is doing his job.

“I stay out of their hair, they stay out of what little I have left.”

MOTE: siren

Special shout out to Dean who knows/has read “The Odyssey.”

(x)

“Let me guess, ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ No, no. Warrant’s ‘Cherry Pie’”. I’m personally a “Pour Some Sugar On Me” kind of gal.

“Their song is more of a metaphor.”

“If you were a siren in ‘09 looking to ruin a bunch of morons, where would you set up shop?” A strip bar. Very clever.

“So whatever floats the guy’s boat, that’s what they look like?”

“Yeah, you see, sirens can read minds. They see what you want most and then they can kinda, like, cloak themselves.” Oohh, you don’t freaking say.

The Siren was right freaking there.

“Hey, Belle.”

So for Lenny, he wanted someone who admired his love and dedication to his mother?

OH GOD THEIR TRUE FACES ARE HORRIBLE.

(x)

Well, she’s direct about her wanting to kill his mom.

RIP Lenny’s mom. That is truly terrible.

Dean just angrily staring at Sam’s phone, then decides to confirm his worst thought: Sam’s been talking to Ruby behind his back.

Dean shows a lot of restraint; he doesn’t even sound the tiniest bit angry when talking to Sam. I’m impressed.

Bobby, my man!

“A bronze dagger covered in the blood of a sailor under the spell of the song.”

That’s kinda obvious guys...

“Supernatural STD.”

Cara only addressed Sam, but not Dean. That’s rude.

Dean gets a taste of the “third wheel” game.

Convenient freaking timing, bud.

Nick Munroe.

Our first look into how Bobby handles phones. I love it, and I love how Dean has kept up this method.

(x)

The “lone wolves” excuse, shut up Dean.

I can’t believe Dean is reluctant to go to the strip bar.

Nick knows and compliments the Impala...

Welp, the blood’s gone.

Dean’s not even looking at the strippers.

So sirens don’t have specific “songs”, but Nick and Dean are bonding over Led Zeppelin.

Huh, the convenient flower...

Same ones in Cara’s office.

“Haven’t you ever been in a relationship where you really loved somebody and still kinda wanted to bash their head in?” Can’t tell if this alludes to Dean or Ruby.

Also, y i k e s. I’m pretty sure a good relationship isn’t supposed to be like that??? Am I wrong or what??

Drinking on the job!

Huh, so they got divorced and then he died?

“So you two split up?”

“I suppose that’s a word for it.” “He died” is the better ‘word’ tho.

S A M. Your ONLY plan has a huge dent in it, and you can’t even bother telling Dean about it, goddamnit.

Ohhh, sexy fun times coming up.

(Aren’t there security cameras in that office? Cara probably, at least, got in trouble for this.)

It was really plausible that Cara was the siren.

Sam’s hunch was right.

That was the most unconvincing “no” I’ve heard.

“What’s it with you and banging monsters?” That’s a fair question (except Cara ain’t no monster.)

Ouch.

Control that anger, Sam.

Dean calls Bobby, leaves a message, then immediately calls Nick.

How can someone look so shady going into a bar?

Nick making his own pop culture references...then follows Dean’s lead with little hesitation. He also loved Led Zeppelin and admired the Impala. Perfect, and everything Dean wants.

OOHH THAT TINY FATAL MISTAKE.

(x)

O H THAT METAPHORICAL BASS DROP THOOO

(Plot twist. I meant to say “plot twist”, couldn’t find the words for it, and called it a “metaphorical bass drop” instead. Fuck it, I’m keeping it in.)

Surprise, Sam! Your brother wants to kill you!

(x)

“You’re one butt ugly stripper.”

Ok, but why go after Dean first? If Nick had gone after Sam, would he have still been a man? Or did he sense Sam’s attraction to Cara and decided to leave him alone?

“You poisoned him.”

“No, I gave him what he needed. And it wasn’t some bitch in a G-string. It was you. A little brother that looked up to him, that he could trust. And now he loves me.”

“I mean, watching someone kill for you? it’s the best feeling in the world.” Yikes.

Reading is fundamental; the library is open folks!

“You’re hiding things from me. What else aren’t you telling me?”

“We used to be in this together. We used to have each other’s backs.”

“You know why I didn’t tell you about Ruby, and how we’re hunting down Lilith? Because you’re too weak to go after her, Dean. You’re holding me back. I’m a better hunter than you are. Stronger, smarter.”

“You’re too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Whining about all the souls you tortured in Hell. Boo hoo.”

Sam’s being a complete asshole, at least Dean’s complaints were legitimate.

They’re gonna have to pay for that door.

Couldn’t he just open the little door to get the ax?

BOBBY!

(Kinda loved how he stabbed Dean with no hesitation, lol.)

FUCK YEAH BOBBY!

RIP siren.

Yeah Sam, now you gotta acknowledge the fact that you just spilled your mean beans.

Bobby’s a responsible surrogate father. :’)

And like a father, he’s reprimanding them for not doing their jobs thoroughly.

The most unconvincing “we’re fine” ever.

And again, like the great surrogate dad he is, he reassures them.

“You gonna say goodbye to Cara?”

“Not interested.” Ouch.

O H You’re both liars.

#supernatural #spn summer rewatch #spn liveblog #spn 4x14

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years

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Darklands: Heaven Help Us

Praying to a saint causes direct damage to a demon.

If you were designing a real religious system from scratch, this wouldn’t be a bad way for it to work. The world is governed by a large number of mini-gods, or “saints,” each in charge of a different portfolio of existence. When you need to get something done that exceeds your normal abilities, you call for a saint’s aid. But doing so requires that first you have been studious–that you have taken time to learn about the saint and his life, and the lessons that his biography has to impart. It also requires that you are virtuous, or the saint simply won’t listen to your prayer. Finally, you can’t over-rely on saints by calling for their help too often.

This is what people in the medieval period believed, and so it’s what the game runs with–a system of divine magic entirely unlike anything presented to us in other RPGs. Perhaps the closest is The Dark Heart of Uukrul, which contrasted a system of deterministic arcane magic with a system of divine magic that basically put you at the god’s whim. But things are more deterministic here. The saints operate on a specific formula. You have to have a minimum virtue to have any chance with them at all. Once you’ve crossed the threshold, your virtue determines the probability that the saint will act on your behalf for a specific amount of invested “divine favor,” a statistic that is replenished largely by doing good deeds.

First you have to know about the saint in the first place. There are about 140 total saints in the game. Each town’s kloster (most towns have one) teaches three or four of them, and your party can study in each kloster about once a week, imparting knowledge of a saint to a single character. You can also learn about saints at universities and from wandering hermits.

Part of the very long list of saints that one character has learned.

Once you know a saint, there are two ways to call upon him. The first is situation-specific. The game describes a situation and offers “call upon a saint” as one of the options, if you know any saints that might help. Hovering over this sub-menu gives you a list of saints that might offer something in the current scenario. For instance, St. Lutgardis might assist if you need to levitate over something, such as a city wall where the guards are looking to arrest you.

St. Boniface is a good one when you need to purify something Satanic.

But you can also call on saints at your own whim from the character menu, praying on behalf of one of your party members. For instance, the same St. Lutgardis will temporarily improve perception, virtue, and charisma for the prayed-for character. Every saint has a selection of attributes and skills that they improve.

I find myself using some saints repeatedly. If it’s important that I visit a city’s political leader without getting kicked out, I pray to St. Alcuin. He raises the “Read/Write” skill, intelligence, and “Read Latin.” But he also makes noblemen more disposed to see you instead of kicking you to the curb. More important is St. Gregory Thaumaturg, who among other things increases the “Artifice” skill. It’s only because of his help that I’ve gotten through the doors and chests in most of the indoor areas. None of my characters do well with this skill.

Praying to St. Gregory gives Bianca more “Artifice” skill.

I was frankly hoping for more from St. Crispin, whose day I know as sure as my own birthday. Every 25 October, patient Irene listens to me recite the speech from Henry V, though in the last few years, in the interests of time, I’ve taken to doing it in the shower. Anyway, I was disappointed to find that all St. Crispin does in this game is improve the quality of non-metal armor.

In case you’re curious, St. Edward the Confessor is the most laissez-faire saint in the game, responding to prayers from people with virtue as low as 5. He increases endurance, intelligence, perception, all the weapons skills, and “Riding.” On the other side, St. Ita is the biggest prig. She won’t give you the time of day unless you have a virtue of 85. She performs some pretty significant healing, but there are lots of saints who heal.

In my last couple of entries, I mentioned that I was trying to find information on St. Wenceslaus, to whom I needed to pray to end the constant aggravation of Wild Hunts. When I started this session, I made a list of all of the cities in the Empire and crossed them off one-by-one as I visited their monasteries and found no information about St. Wenceslaus. At first, I tried to thread these visitations with quests, but eventually I got so impatient that I abandoned all other pursuits and just ran from town to town. I finally learned about the saint at the kloster in Marienberg, in the far northeast of the map.

At last!

When I invoked Wenceslaus against the Wild Hunt, it had a satisfying ending–but an annoying promise of return.

That’s all right: I know all the saints by now.

This occurred after about 6 hours of random adventuring, building my finances and my fame. I ended the session with the party’s fame at 615, or “legendary heroes,” which is the highest classification that you can get. Other than the usual–robber knights, artifact quests, Wild Hunts, boars, spiders, wolves, schrats, bandits, pilgrims, towns full of witches, and so forth–the only new experience was an encounter with a knight, where I had the options to challenge him to either a race or a joust. Since my characters suck in both “Polearms” and “Riding,” the result was predictable.

A fancy game for fancy lads.

I solved another mine quest. This one involved a bunch of “vulcans”–basically, fire elementals–who had managed to open a gate on the lower level of the mine. I had to battle my way through them and close it. The creatures are particularly annoying because they degrade armor quality, and by the time I was done with the adventure, I basically had no armor left. If I’d had a few “Firewall” potions, the monsters would have been easier, but I just fought through them rather than leaving the mine to go buy some.

I want to call attention to the skillful use of dactylic octameter here. You can sing this verse to the same tune as “Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso.”

During these experiences, I tested and confirmed my theories about armor. Specifically, I think it’s better to have everyone wearing plate, top and bottom, accepting the consequences of over-encumbrance, than to equip lesser armor and remain below the encumbrance limit. With all my characters in plate, hardly any enemies do any damage at all, so it hardly matters if the characters are slower on the swing. To ameliorate the effects of encumbrance during tougher battles, I invested heavily in “Ironarm” and “New-Wind” potions, which raise maximum strength and endurance respectively.

My party hits new heights of fame and wealth.

In fact, I spent nearly every coin I made on potions, buying roughly three “Essence of Grace” potions to every one “Ironarm” and “New-Wind.” I sold my ingredients and stopped wasting time trying to make my own. Yes, I know that you can theoretically make more powerful ones if you make your own, but it’s easier just to buy two.

I kept firing a couple of handgun volleys before each combat, and before long my characters all had near-99 skills in “Impact Weapons,” “Edge Weapons,” and “Missile Weapons.” The handguns are a lot of fun. They’re very slow, but they take the edge off demons and Templars nicely at the beginning of a battle.

The temple had multiple combats with multiple plate-clad Templars.

When I thought I was ready, I tried my assault on the Templar compound again. The building is large and multi-leveled, with about 20 battles against knights, soldiers, hell hounds, and bears. (The random battles with multiple enemies were much harder than the two “boss” battles, described below.) There were lots of chests with treasures, including three holy relics (I hadn’t encountered any until now): St. Olaf’s battle axe, St. Hubert’s bow, and St. Raphael’s water. Is it blasphemous to equip the first two as actual weapons? Are they particularly good weapons? I guess we’ll see.

It’s fun to reflect on the game’s treatment of Templars and witches. The manual is unapologetic about basing its depictions on 15th-century popular ideas of witchcraft. It draws a distinction between this kind of witchcraft and benign neo-paganism of the 20th century. Similar, the idea that Templars were actually Satanists comes from 14th-century persecutions of the order by the Avignon Papacy. Hundreds of Templars were arrested, tortured, and forced to confess to homosexuality, Satanism, and the worship of a demon named Baphomet. The authors of the game of course knew that none of this was true, but the average 15th-century commoner didn’t, and thus that’s how the game treats the order.

The party comes across a gathering of evil witches . . . which is ridiculous ’cause witches they were persecuted, Wicca good and love the Earth and women power and we’ll be over here.

The battles in the Templar headquarters were difficult, but I kept the party going on enough potions to have purchased my own kingdom. Eventually, I found the chambers of the order’s Preceptor and heard him talking about the seals that protect the castle of their “Master.” The Preceptor attacked me alone and died quickly, leaving a high-quality set of plate armor.

My first two characters fight the Preceptor in melee combat while my rear characters shoot him.

At the top of the fortress, I met a demon in a hot room full of smithy fires. I prayed to St. Dymphna ahead of the ensuing battle, and the demon was significantly weakened. He died very quickly, and afterwards we broke the seal on the holy book that we found in the room. “Suddenly,” the game told me, “you know that your ultimate fate lies south of Salzburg.” I already guessed that from having stumbled upon the castle when I was searching for the witches’ High Sabbat.

Another step solved in this quest.

Miscellaneous notes:

I really enjoy the puzzle doors in the mines. Here are a few if you want to try your skill:

Hope you have a Bible handy!

Svir’f fgngrzrag vaqvpngrf lbh arrq na rira-ahzorerq snpr gb bcra gur qbbe. Guerr’f rafherf gung gur guerr rira ahzoref unir gur guerr anzrf. Bar’f fgngrzrag ehyrf bhg Qbbe Gjb, yrnivat Qbbef Sbhe naq Fvk. Fvk’f naq Sbhe’f fgngrzragf gbtgure zrna gung Qbbe Fvk vf Tbyvoreg, juvpu pna’g or gur evtug qbbe orpnhfr Gjb fnvq gb bcra vg. Gung yrnirf Qbbe Sbhe.

Snprf Bar, Gjb, naq Sbhe unir qrcraqrag fgngrzragf, fb gurl’er rvgure ylvat be gryyvat gur gehgu gbtrgure. Fvapr vs Bar naq Gjb jrer obgu ylvat, gur nafjre jbhyq or qvssrerag qbbef, gurl zhfg or gryyvat gur gehgu. Fvapr tbyq pnaabg bcra gur qbbe (Snpr Sbhe), Snpr Svir vf ylvat naq guhf fb vf Snpr Guerr, fb cre Snpr Sbhe, gur qbbe zhfg or fvyire.

I figured out the nature of the bug that has prevented me from collecting any robber knight rewards in Flensburg. It’s not just Flensburg. If the town doesn’t have a “town hall” and the only political leader is located at a separate castle or burg, he never acknowledges that you’ve completed his quests.

I haven’t played an Infinity Engine game in over 10 years, but I constantly catch myself hitting the “equals” sign (=) because that was the “select all party members” key in those games. This game doesn’t even have a comparable key.

I started spending more time storming robber knights’ castles in this session instead of just calling them out or sneaking in and fighting them one-on-one. You get more wealth that way.

Going into this session, Bianca was my character with the highest “Artifice” ability at about 25. Somehow, she lost all of it–her skill is at 0. I don’t think there’s a non-bug mechanism that would account for this.

I found yet another witches’ High Sabbat and again destroyed it, but I didn’t learn anything new.

You can tell when a town is full of Satanists. when they get something screwed up about Catholic doctrine.

Basic Christianity: knowing good from evil is a bad thing.

Selling all the equipment that I looted in the Templar fortress netted me nearly 300 florins, which is about as much as I need to restock my potions and go for the castle south of Salzburg. I’ve been assuming that the witchcraft/Templar/demon plot is the “main quest” of the game, but feel free to tell me if I’m on the wrong track or if there’s anything I should do before heading to what I assume is the endgame.

As I came to the end of this session, I became determined to track down a dragon. I keep hearing rumors of dragons north of one town, east of another, but every time I’ve searched in the stated direction, I haven’t found anything. This time, I started in Flensburg, where rumors around the political center said that there was a dragon ravaging areas to the south. I rode south to Hamburg and heard the same rumors, but this time to the southwest. In Bremen, I heard south again.

A few klicks south of Bremen, I encountered a message that “the land is sere and lifeless,” the trees nothing more than “blasted stumps,” a ruined village in the distance.

Darklands segues smoothly into Fallout.

Not far away, I came to the destroyed village:

They shouldn’t have killed Missandei!

But I found no sign of the dragon. In Osnabrück, they said it was south. In Soest, southwest. There, I got another message that the creature destroying the landscape had also poisoned the waterways. In Köln, rumors had the creature to the east, so I felt I was closing in. But I still found nothing, and suddenly I stopped hearing rumors of dragons when I visited nearby cities. I hope I get a bead on one again. I was looking forward to seeing what dragons look like in this game.

Time so far: 59 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/darklands-heaven-help-us/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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