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thecreaturecodex · 2 years

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Modron, General Info

“The Great Modron March” © Wizards of the Coast

[As an experiment, I’m putting the general info for a new subtype in its own post, and will then be posting the first monster for this subtype later.

The modrons have been around for a long time, being introduced in the AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual II. They feel a bit like escalation from the Fiend Folio. A non TSR employee, Charles Stross (yes, that Charles Stross), invented the slaadi as the chaotic neutral exemplar race, and some TSR employee decided to top it in weirdness for lawful neutral. I cannot find who designed the modrons specifically--it might have been Gary Gygax or Jeff Grubb.

Now, the modrons really came into their own in Planescape in 2nd Edition, but I have some issues with the Planescape presentation of them. I’ve mentioned before that D&D tends to have difficulties making lawful creatures and characters interesting, and Planescape definitely had an issue with Law.The lawful factions are at least not boring, but they’re all fascists, buffoons or both*, and the modrons are decidedly leaning buffoonish. The idea that a modron literally cannot conceive of other modrons of a rank higher than the one immediately above theirs was introduced in Planescape, for example.

Another issue with the modrons in general is how samey they all are mechanically. The only differences between the different hierarchs devolved to how many natural attacks they get and what level of spellcasting they have. They’re so monotonous that, even though 5e brought back the modrons to the core Monster Manual (they appeared only on the fringes between 2e and 5e--a web enhancement here, a Dragon or Dungeon Magazine article there), they left all of the hierarchs out completely, and not a whisper of them has appeared since. The most mechanically interesting version of the modrons to date are the ones from Dragon 354, which also only covered the drone tiers.

So I’m going to take a stab at the modrons. I’ll be releasing them in batches of five each with breaks in between, so as not to completely overwhelm the blog or my patience. The drones will be drawn primarily from Dragon 354 as a source, and the hierarchs will be built basically from the concept up. My inspiration to do this was really flavor text forward. I was ruminating on the Pathfinder 2e canon that the aeons created the inevitables, and how much I disliked that idea. So what if some power in universe disliked it as well?]

Modrons The aeons have proclaimed themselves the true creators of Axis, the Eternal City, and its inhabitants. Most axiomites and inevitables bowed to the new order of the cosmos, accepting the aeons as their peers and superiors and following the directives of the Monad. Some, however, rebelled against this. Denying the claim of aeon primacy and seeing the Monad as irrecoverably tainted by neutrality, they forged their own path. Their leader, an axiomite declaring an unbroken line of succession from the creation of the universe, declared himself Primus, the One and the Prime. Primus’ followers were reshaped into beings of perfect geometric order, the modrons.

For the moment, the modrons live in Axis in an uneasy peace with the inevitables and aeons. They occupy a continent-sized district named Regulus, centered on the Modron Cathedral. The Cathedral is the home of Primus and the source of the Energy Pool, a nexus of quintessence and mathematics that new modrons are born from. Despite their existing territory, the modrons are on the search for a new, permanent home, one where perfect law without the demand for balance can be supreme. To find a place to inhabit or the tools to create a demiplane suitable enough for Primus’ needs, large swaths of modrons are on expeditions across the planes. This Great Modron March has seen vast armies decamped and spread throughout reality, periodically sending messages back to Primus to analyze and consider.

A modron appears as a mixture of clockwork and organic components. The body and limbs are gleaming metal, but they have eyes and mouths like those of living beings. Modrons are divided into a number of castes, and these castes themselves are subdivided in ways reflective of numerical sequences. The drone modrons are much more numerous than the hierarch modrons they serve, and often are designated for very specific tasks. Hierarch modrons are more flexible in their behavior but just as rigid in their thinking. Everything modrons do is filtered through a dense bureaucratic process, and the chain of command is seen as absolute. Rumors persist that a modron drone cannot conceive of modrons of any rank higher than the one immediately above its own, but this is a simplification. Rather, higher orders of modron delegate rapidly to the ones immediately below, tailoring their commands to be better understood by the more rigid, less complex programming of the lowest drones. Modrons typically refer to themselves in the plural, as “we” or “us”. Drones rarely have individual names, but instead numerical designations, although they acknowledge names given to them by outsiders. Hierarchs do have names, usually ones that are short and easy to pronounce in a wide variety of languages for maximum efficiency.

Possibly because of their origins in rebellion against the aeons, rogue modrons are more prevalent than fallen angels or risen fiends. A rogue modron can be of any alignment other than lawful neutral, although most of them end up true neutral or chaotic neutral. A modron drone may go rogue if it does not understand its orders and interprets it in its own fashion, infecting them with a dangerous sense of individuality. Modron hierarchs go rogue less frequently, but it has been known to occur. Finding and destroying rogue modrons is a preoccupation with much of modron society, particularly among pentadrones and nonaton hierarchs.

“Modron” is a subtype of outsider with the following characteristics:

Low-light vision

Constructed (Ex) Although modrons are living outsiders, their bodies are constructed of physical components, and in many ways they function as constructs. For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger's favored enemy and bane weapons), modrons count as both outsiders and constructs. They are immune to death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless). modrons are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain. They are not at risk of death from massive damage. They have bonus hit points as constructs of their size. Modrons do not need to breathe.

Resist acid 10, cold 10 and fire 10

Coordinated Ally (Ex) Modrons excel at cooperating with each other. A modron increases the bonuses gained by an aid another action or flanking by +1 if the creature providing it the bonus is another modron.

Fixed Initiative (Ex) A modron’s initiative is always set. Its initiative is calculated as if it rolled a 10 on its initiative roll, adding its Dexterity modifier and other bonuses as appropriate. A modron gains a racial bonus to this fixed initiative score equal to ½ its Hit Dice (minimum +0).

Modrons gain a +2 racial bonus to all Perception checks.

#*just because the American government is full of fascists and buffoons does not mean that all lawful institutions are inherently so #modron #D&D #planescape #the great modron march #pathfinder rpg #pathfinder 1e #i take a hammer and fix the canon

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dsumpsbluey · 11 months

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Unofficial Bluey Timeline: Part II

Welcome to another post of my Unofficial Bluey Timeline. This part will be focusing on "The Weekend" through "Hotels". I will also be highlighting the recently found 2017 pilot of the show, since it pretty much is plot-for-plot a remake of one of these episodes (P.S. if you haven't done so, always read the alt text).

**But first, an update regarding my last post. While making the videos for this week, I stumbled upon a program called HandBrake, an open-source video transcoder. This was because the episode backups I mentioned were MKV files and couldn't properly work on my editing app. There, I found that it could do way more than simply convert file types, but also change resolution, apply video filters, and much more; so I found myself experimenting with how to enhance my copies, especially for the season 1 episodes. To keep it short, the program made the episodes better presentable (no distracting interlacing!), and I'll likely use them for any future video uses.**

So, without further ado, lets get in.

The Weekend - Episode 6 (and the pilot)

Bluey scams Bandit into buying magical statues.

Debuts and Details:

The walking leaf (which as of last week's recent ep "Slide", is apparently named "Leaficus") makes its grand debut.

Being as this was built off the pilot of the same name, the animation moves similar despite changes in the characters' models. This is why the episode feels janky and off-model compared to the rest of the season, b/c it is.

In the pilot, Bingo sleeps on a separate room opposite to Bluey's. While this would switch to both sharing the room in the final show, that exact room wouldn't show up in another episode until "Bedrooms" 3 years later. It's there where we learn that both girls used to occupy the room as babies before moving into their current room, which somehow lines up with the pilot (Bingo, the youngest one, occupying the leftmost room).

It would take ages dissecting every single change here, so I made a quick comparison vid of some key moments.

(Pilot video came from original Streamable upload [Just learned it was taken down :(]; Final video came from Internet Archive, as I hadn't set up HandBrake to clean my copy atm)

Differences in Character pilot design: Bluey: minimal differences aside from different orientation of back spots (They're not Disney-shaped, as I call it) Bingo: Snout shape and size bigger; Dark orange top is now two round spots on each side; back has many spots instead of just one. Bandit: Only left side of head is dark (reminiscent of a spot); no tan belly. Has the more drastic design differences of all. Chilli: Her dark brown spot is often not present, or swapping around sides. In the final episode, her brown spot overlaps her snout, other than the other way around.

What a weird way to make an episode about the weekend. This episode doesn't really rely on plot, and just shows us a glimpse of the Heeler family, which is still neat. As for the placement of this episode on the timeline, by rule the final version of the episode is considered canon as opposed to the pilot. Despite both version's plots being very similar, and the separate room pointed out earlier, it doesn't seem fair that an older version of an episode would be in the timeline, as it doesn't fit with the rest of the series.

Favorite part: The walking leaf scene, I quote it everyday w/ an exaggerated accent.

BBQ - Episode 7

Bingo prepares a pepper capsicum salad.

Debuts and Details:

This serves as the introduction of Uncle Stripe (Bandit's brother), and his side of the family, featuring Aunt Trixie, and cousins Muffin and Socks.

There is a mention of a "Auntie Mary" and her salad dressing recipe, but she is never mentioned in another episode again.

This is the first of many episodes that have been altered in international releases. For this, every mention of 'capsicum' is replaced with 'pepper'; no significant cut of scenes occurs, as mouth flaps were the only aspect changed between versions.

Streamable link, cuz I just learned there's a one video limit

The intro scene with Bluey and Bandit prepping the grill serves as the first of a recurring element of the two copying each other, either through movement or verbal.

5 cans and a water bottle were destroyed during the episode.

Bingo learns how to turn on the hose

Chill episode, you get to feel the struggles of Bingo wanting to relax, while also tasked with creating the best pepper capsicum salad imaginable.

Favorite part: When Bingo is getting the salad dressing. The scream, in particular, gets me everytime.

Fruitbat - Episode 8

Bluey learns to dream in order to become a fruit bat.

Debuts and Details:

This marks the debut of Mackenzie, his dad, as well as Rocko

This is the first episode to span multiple days, going from night to next morning (2 days)

The stairway wall has no changes from its last appearance, however the fridge is reoriented to how it was in "Keepy Uppy"

Bluey is revealed to like fruit salad.

Fun episode. However, the main plot doesn't exactly start until 4 minutes in. Wish there was more to the dream than just flying and eating fruit, though; perhaps something more imaginative.

Favorite part: Bingo's iconic shot of her sleeping.

Horsey Ride - Episode 9

Bluey and the gang ride their dad's as horses.

Debuts and Details:

Polly Puppy, Bluey's special toy makes its debut

Bandit and Stripe play as Gallahop, and Sparkles, and they are technically married at the end.

There's what seems to be a porch in the backyard, that I swear never shows up ever again (unless it does, in which I've haven't seen it)

Universal Rule #1 of imaginary play - Animals can't talk; there is a clear violation by both horses during the wedding scene

Fun episode, nothing to say other than flirty Bandit is my favorite screencap.

Hotel - Episode 10

Bandit books a room at the Heeler Hotel.

Debuts and Details:

Bingo is Slobber-Dobber, I guess? Aside from that, there's really nothing else to bring up

The episode, while being fun, doesn't really have much to talk about, timeline wise and in general. It's not bad per se, but it's very minimalistic.

Favorite part: Bluey smacking Bingo's head on the bed.

With that, part II is complete. While there were some interesting details with this batch of eps, they haven't caused too much of a dent in terms of the timeline. Surely, next week, we get some nifty details for our timeline. As always, leave any comments about details I may have missed, and I'll see you next week.

#bluey #bluey_utime #the weekend #bbq #fruitbat #horsey ride #hotel #like seriously who goes to the restroom w/ their children #if i have to hear bbq again i swear imma #it has been a long week getting things set up #its honestly a blessing its being released in time #SPIDER🕷#watermelon #crazy pillow #crazy blanket

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devilbunzz-moved · 4 years

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drawing of a thing from one of my stories =:}

#oc #milly #thora #okay 2 rb #still doesnt have a name cuz the gameshow doesnt have a name yet but i will figure that out at some point #this took a fucking while #i hate how the back round looks but thats fine =:/#ii have another version of this with text on it but i feel weird posting it so i am keeping it for myself #art #my art #devilbunzz art

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faunusrights · 3 years

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WIP TITLES ASK GAME

Rules: Share the titles of each of your current WIPs, and, if your followers ask, share a preview of the one that sounds the most interesting. Send this on to mutuals who you are curious what they’re working on.

tagged by @texanredrose who probably dislikes me personally for this HGDFSGHJSDF. tbh i often don't title like ANYYYYY of my WIPs until i have to input them onto AO3, so uh. i am going to have to bullshit some names. also i'm gonna do tex's thing and add a little synopsis if i TRULY cannot think of a title lmao.

note: i am NOT counting WIPs that have at least one chapter posted because otherwise we will be here FOREVER AND EVER so uh yeah. this is just stuff trapped in my gdocs. also it's just RWBY for the sake of keeping it simple, stupid,

anyway uh am tagging @edarzhar (bitch) and @flawedvictori too!!! perish,

(this got long so here's a cut)

Bunfeed Bunsolved: The Valley Walk -- YES this is still happening just very slowly. this is the first cinder/velvet fic of the series and i am SO excited because it gets Weird out there. also it's mostly all about how much cinder likes hiking until she's actually doing it. inspired by the horror movie The Ritual (2017) if you MUST have context,

Ode to Stray Dogs -- it's that guard dog!Weiss/Cinder AU i posted the entire plot for a week or so ago! i love love love this AU and it WILL happen and it IS happening i'm just very slow about it sdhjfghjsgdfk anyway weiss becomes cinder's guard dog. that's the fic. also it's very kinky.

Untitled Velvet/Cinder Fic I -- it's untitled and it's a fic! this one is about, erm... a high-class restaurant/bar/whatever that also doubles as a kinky hook-up joint because you can pay for the servers to let you get freaky with them??? im SO sorry this au legit was so spur-of-the-moment but anyway velvet is there being very hot and cinder, emerald and neo are there like 👀s about it sfdhjsgdfgk

Untitled Velvet/Cinder Fic II -- HAH THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!!! this one is also just a stupid dumb kinky idea but anyway it's about... um... well... it's... [makes vague gestures] i feel like if i try and explain this one people are going to be like 'really' at me BUT IT'S REALLY HOT OKAY I'M JUST!!!!!!!!!!! look if i say it has excessive cum and involves like all the girls of rwby can we just agree to leave it there,

Pâte à Choux -- velvet/every girl. they have sex. every girl. and velvet. i TRULY need to say no more,

Untitled Cinder/Neo Fic -- okay this one is good. cinder and neo gatecrash a mistrali wedding in which cinder talks to everyone to gather just enough knowledge to pretend to be a very distant relative whilst neo demolishes the buffet. they are both dressed terribly and get really drunk and whilst the groom is very suspicious of these two two nonbinary lesbians cinder gives the wife a really expensive gift and so she's like 'do not fucking kick them out MICHAEL' and it's very stupid and dumb. anyway they do this once a week,

Untitled Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Neo, Roman Fic -- chatlog! been poking at this one for a bit... it's just the CRME + Neo groupchat and it's a disaster also it's cinder/velvet again I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW SHUT UP I KNOW

Untitled GWS!Weiss/canon!Weiss fic -- you know the one. very horny. also very sad???

The Grimmification of Ruby Rose -- here's the bitch!!! this is happening albeit very slowly. in this AU, grimm are actually infected people (THIS WAS BEFORE CANON MADE IT COOL) who turn into grimm over a period of weeks/months! ruby gets infected when she's 15 and decides to kill salem before salem can kill her. currently tinkering with the idea of making it ruby/velvet but don't quote me,

Untitled Faunus AU (aka The Academy of Menagerie) -- a modified version of my Everyone Is A Faunus AU, in which all the cast are faunus and attend the academy of menagerie, which has been invited to participate in the vytal Festival for the first time in its 25 year history. naturally, teams RWBYJNPRCFVY etc show up and wreck shop.

The Misadventures of Blake Belladonna's Silicone Dick -- THIS IS HAPPENING I SWEAR TO CHRIST it's SO funny i have to finish this eventually!!! anyway this is about a non-binary transmasc blake (aka my regular blake) who uses a packer!!! people find out and things get ridiculous. namely it somehow ends up on the roof at some point,

Untitled Snowboarding AU -- this one is one of those horny ones that isn't horny on the surface but is getting there. anyway ruby wins tickets for an all-expenses-paid trip to one of the schnee resorts up in solitas and gives them to blake and velvet who end up there in her stead. they meet weiss schnee, professional snowboarder, and it turns out that when weiss is amped on adrenaline sahe is absolutely 100% down 2 clown... so yeah it's weiss/blake/velvet fhgjsfdj

Untitled Dishonored AU Spinoff -- for Tex!!! the person who inflicted this upon me. it's a little story set in the dishonored au in which we focus on velvet--in charge of the vale rebellion--and cinder, who is a Crime Lady looking to help the rebellion out if only so she can get back to doing crimes all the damn time. its also about velvet strategically avoiding all of rubys text messages as she runs around like a clown. people die!

My Summer Car/RWBY Crossover -- this is another one i'm gonna get to EVENTUALLY. in which taiyang and summer leave for vacation in mistral and yang goes and hangs out in vale for the summer, leaving ruby in the house alone with nothing but a shitty old car for company. probably ruby/velvet. shenanigans ensue.

Sims Medieval/RWBY Crossover -- i've been working on this one FOREVERRRRRRRRRR and it Will happen. it will. ruby is the bardic hero of the kingdom of vale in service to her majesty glynda goodwitch! along with nine other heroes, ruby has to help save vale from an untimely end... but the old queen salem still lingers in the shadows, and threatens to consume all the kingdoms in her great maw. can ruby, armed with little more than a lute and her wits, help save vale? probably not but she CAN play a banging ballad,

Untitled Taffeta/Sienna/Sherveen Fic -- dicks out for milfs that is all

Untitled Ash/Ghira/Taffeta/Kali Fic -- dicks out for dilfs that is all

not as many as tex but then again if we counted all the motherfuckers still in progress................. yikes. anyway here's that. i've probably forgotten a few/ignored ones that are similar concepts to these just in their own little branches (the aufeis fic has like a BILLION snippets in my files i just count em all as the same thing sdhjgf) but whatever. anyway. pass the curse along.

#ask meme #you can still inquire after any of these!#just know that details range from 'very' to 'none'#thanks tex :) yr life is forfeit :)

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theseerasures · 4 years

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@counterpunches submitted:

Once again there are too many to choose so I’m going to pick too many, but really it’s your fault no I won’t be taking any criticism.

how me that solvable problem

ethically sourced kid!Elsa

well this prompt feels custom made to talk about self-harm

she drops the silver chain of sound

a love sTRONGER THAN BLOOD SISTERS r u kitten me

oh hey! you picked some that actually ended up too unwieldy to keep writing in longhand

show me that solvable problem: post-Frozen II canon divergence where Arendelle sank under the sea like a good little metaphor on sins of the father. kinda your typical “but what does it actually MEAN to step into ur power, mum” thing on both Elsa and Anna’s side, with a side helping of Honeymaren/Elsa, Kristoff discovering ~his past, and uh. a lot of political talk on indigenous knowledge and politics of redress (Arendellians are refugees now, Northuldra have been settler colonized for decades, what do?? that kinda stuff)–almost too much, but ultimately a reasonable amount!

ethically sourced kid!Elsa: stems from my…uh. inability to understand the appeal of present day Elsa meeting a POST-Incident kid!Elsa when obviously her meeting a PRE-Incident kid!Elsa has so much more inherent drama. kid!Elsa steps into an idk portal and shows up at the castle in the post-Frozen II world. it’s been a few years; Anna is VERY comfortable with her current life and is expecting her first child, so um. the child version of her older sister showing up out of the blue throws her into a not-insubstantial tailspin. present!Elsa superficially is more capable of keeping it in stride, but the elephant in the room of “well do we TELL her what’s coming” just looms larger and larger until it all ends in tears, because Elsa and Anna disagree about what to do, and it ends up being their first no holds barred FIGHT, where they both accuse each other of being selfish and they’ve somehow turned into the worst parts of their parents. Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf spend most of their time basically being Bow from season 4 of She-Ra; Honeymaren meets the kid version of her now-girlfriend, immediately and justifiably is like “wow! weird vibe,” grabs Ryder and leaves. poor, poor kid!Elsa is a) kind of a hellion, pre-Incident, which everyone forgot about, and b) comes to a whole slew of horrible realizations, beginning with the fact that her parents are both dead now, Anna is being weird and closed off around her, her present self is being less weird but apparently did something HORRIBLE that no one will talk about, and it’s. it’s bad. if someone has any advice on how to tag dialogue with two characters that are the same character, just time-displaced, that would be lovely, because the closest i came was that kid!Elsa would be called Kid Elsa ala Kid Flash and obviously present!Elsa would be The Elsa (and they fight crime! jk they cry a lot and kid!Elsa ends up throwing hands with her older self, by which i mean Elsa gets a nice taste of what being shot to the heart with ice magic feels like)

well this prompt feels custom made to talk about self-harm: the prompt was “angst, loss, scar,” so. five times Elsa didn’t scar. the self-harm part comes in a few times, but the reason i approached it at all was because i imagined Elsa going through a ~phase as an adolescent where she tore through every medical text she could get her hands on to find out what’s wrong with her, and it…spiraled into thinking some dark thoughts about what would happen, since the magic mostly comes out of her hands, if she…hurt them in some way. she ends up being too chickenshit to go through with it because she’s THIRTEEN, ELSA WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK YOUR THUMB. it ballooned out into a longer meditation on Elsa grappling with her not-quite humanity, where she’s never entirely sure what rules of mortality apply to her (all of them actually! Elsa u fucking melon), going all the way to post-Frozen II, where she’s…weirdly maudlin about her death leaving no trace on her physical body, until Anna shows up. they actually end up talking about Mattias, and the ways he’s visibly aged from his portrait (Anna commissioned a new one for him)–it all ends with something about how, like. yes living does leave its marks on you but maybe Elsa should stop thinking about it in such extreme ways, and also see a therapist

she drops the silver chain of sound: another *sigh* RWBY fic, this one charting Winter and Robyn’s relationship in universe, from Academy years to post-canon. i haven’t been able to find any fic about them that responsibly handles the nuances of Winter a) being abused a lot of multi-layered ways, but also b) being complicit in war crimes and her own transformation into an instrument instead of a person, and (as of V7) STEADFASTLY COMMITTED TO IT. basically starting from the place of “Robyn doesn’t owe Winter jack shit and is Busy, it’s Winter’s responsibility to change herself,” and trying to be realistic about the ways Winter would and would not let herself change. truth kink! it’s a thing with them. a lot of talk about agency and identity, and weird detours about how Cartesian dualism is a tool of the colonizer–but honestly, you can’t make one of your main mechanics be “an extension of the soul” and not expect me to inject some woo

a love sTRONGER THAN BLOOD SISTERS r u kitten me: to answer your PS about which fires i’m embleming: i started with Sacred Stones and then moved through Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (still have no idea what a Fire Emblem is, which i think is v sexy of me). Radiant Dawn has some BONKER-TASTIC sapphic moments–your standard “i’m queen but i’m shy” archetype has a ladyfriend who is the CAPTAIN OF HER GUARD. Captain gets taken hostage, gets her hair lopped off (…by a professional hairdresser i guess, since this is what she looks like after) and sent to Shy Queen in a VERY STANDARD “i have your precious” moment and then has to debate over saving the Captain or the Kingdom and it’s just. so

anyways of course the extreme gayness goes blithely unacknowledged for the rest of the game, and the epilogue has the AUDACITY to say that their bond was “stronger than blood sisters,” which is…fine! it’s fine. the fic is mostly just about actually ADDRESSING the intimacy that they have through some hair washing.

PS: i’ve started Awakening, which a) looks promising re: knowing what a Fire Emblem, and b) has caused me to start a new WIP called “NO YOU’RE NOT YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY LAURA BAILEY”

PPS: appreciate the recurrence of Standard Nintendo Plot Pattern Sigma (gender fuckery to stop a bad time thing), which i THINK is what’s happening in Awakening–no one tell me if i’m right tho!!! i wanna keep speculating about whether ~~~Marth is my daughter or my grandma’s niece or Taylor Swift’s second cousin

#self harm tw #just in caseys #submission

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paperclipninja · 4 years

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Lucifer post-ep ramble 5x01

Hi there, long time fangirl, first time Lucifan. After devouring all 4.5 seasons of this magnificent show in an impressive/alarming (all a matter of perspective) amount of time, I have very quickly found myself well and truly obsessed dedicated to all things Lucifer. And when a show grabs me like this one has, I tend to have a lot of thoughts and feelings that I can’t help but share, and so the post-ep ramble was born. It will probably contain many words, it may or may not be particularly coherent, there will definitely be over-analysing, but I thought I might indulge in re-capping the season 5 eps as I re-watch, so this is the first ramble off the rank.

‘Really Sad Devil Guy’ (A+ ep name btw) kicks off as we’re still scrambling to pick up all our heart pieces after the season 4 finale, which is why Mr. Said Out Bitch (aka Lee Garner) being in Hell is such a cracker of an opening. Lucifer just waiting below deck on Fishizzle II (wth happened to Fishizzle I??) to greet him with his trademark ‘hello’ made me disproportionately happy, mostly because he was on my screen but also because his encounters with Mr. SOB are always great and this was no exception. Getting an insight into ‘life in Hell’, the way the characters in the Hell loops are played by Demons and Lucifer in action as the King was fab at this point in the series. And does anyone else have a visceral reaction to Lucifer stopping that bullet? I know it’s brief, I cannot explain it, it might be the command he has, the fact it’s awesome, but it makes me FEEL things. Just me? Cool.

I think what really strikes me in the way Lucifer just has to pop in on Mr. SOB upon hearing of his arrival, is the fact that he is a link to Lucifer’s life on Earth. They’ve existed in the same places there, breathed the same air, it’s a way for Lucifer to make that connection to his home more tangible. And when he realises where Mr. SOB’s hell loop has them moored, at Marina Del Ray, the way Lucifer says 'Los Angeles' with such yearning makes those heart pieces I had started cobbling back together really begin to ache. What this episode pulls off so brilliantly is the way Chloe and Lucifer remain connected despite being apart, and it’s all set up when Lucifer tells Mr. SOB, ‘You know, there's a good chance I know who's on your case. To them it's only been a few months, a blink of an eye, but here it's been much much longer’.

What’s happening ‘below deck’ in Hell (sorry...or am I?) is of course mirrored at the crime scene, where Maze is still calling Ella Ellen (never change Maze ILY) and Ella is banging on about Lucifer not responding to her DM’s and texts and it’s all so on brand and the thought of her sending Lucifer a clip of a parrot dancing to techno and him finding it funny is just too perf. Maze having Chloe’s back from the get-go and telling Ella to ‘read the room’ just shows how far this Demon has come. And of course Chloe saying that she hasn’t even really thought about Lucifer since he left...(spoiler alert: she has).

Seeing Maze and Chloe out drinking and dancing, somehow they're kinda dorky together and I love it, but it’s also really clear that they’re both leaning on each other pretty heavily and being there for one another and honestly, I love literally every combination of characters on Lucifer, you put any two together and the dynamic is 100% their own and these two are up there. It’s so weird seeing Amandiel running Lux, I big L LOVE Amenadiel but it’s just...wrong. Plus hats off to D.B. because his delivery of ‘No one sells drugs in my place...without me getting a piece of the action’, not gonna lie, I was THROWN.

So are we assuming that the number of months Lucifer has been gone = the number of times Chloe has rocked up to work with a hangover? Lol at the sunglasses but also, you do you Chloe, whatever you gotta do babe. Just like Amenadiel running Lux is like watching a slightly off AU version of the show, so is seeing Maze and Chloe as partners at work. Don’t get me wrong, Maze clearly supporting her and when they’re interrogating a lead, seeing Chloe and Maze have such a groove that they’re finishing each other's sentences and communicating without talking, I dig it. But I love that while it’s great, it still doesn’t feel right. Because that there is why this show is so clever, as an audience we crave the return to the way things were just as the characters we are watching do.

Linda being a completely OTT mum is so fab. I could write an entire essay about my Linda love. Her adamance that ‘Charlie’s special’ and Ella’s ‘every child is special in their mum’s eyes, huh?’ sums it up perfectly. Did I mention I adore Ella? I definitely get the distinct impression Ella is doing a bit of self-reflection, her comment about being drawn to the bad boys for some reason clearly foreshadowing, but also her reflecting that she deserves a good guy for once (just not this ep when there is a bad boy/potential suspect to be hooked up with). I am curious to see the ‘darkness’ Ella has alluded to in earlier seasons being explored further and feel like this is sowing the seeds and I’m also waiting for a significant Linda/Ella D&M at some point. But clearly not this point, because 'science lesson Wednesdays...I checked your schedule and that's your day off' Linda is NOT about deep and meaningfuls (or anyone who isn’t a 2 month old baby), you need to DIAL IT DOWN friend. I love that it takes Trixie pulling some funny faces and Dan offering some sage parenting advice as he returns the self-help books (love the irony there) for Linda to begin to chill a bit.

So Dan has gone all new age with his oils and self improvement and you know what? I love it. And then of course we have Amenadiel needing to help make the world a safer place, he just needs to make sure for Charlie ya know and ugh my ovaries. I must say, I was relieved to realise that the club life had not in fact corrupted the delightful warrior we all love after all - it’s all a ploy to catch a REAL BIG TIME drug dealer (nooooo I can feel the second hand embarrassment already...)! Amenadiel setting up the ‘drug bust’, telling the dealer, ‘looks like gooood drugs’, oh you dear sweet naïve Angel you. We of course discover that the bust is, well, a bust, because the ‘drug lord’ is actually a kid trying to offload his mum’s pain meds *insert facepalm emoii here*. But rather than ridicule or be angry, Dan is so understanding and supportive of Amenadiel and once again offers up advice and I really am so into this friendship on every level and the care and openness it models.

Meanwhile, the genius parallel between what is happening on Earth and in Hell really takes effect as Chloe and Maze go undercover (I mean, they are a glam couple lbh) to the poker game while Lucifer is at a game hosted by the same suspect in Mr. SOB’s ‘exquisite’ Hell loop. His exclamation that it’s exquisite reflects that Lucifer and Mr. SOB are not that different, that it’s the kind of place Lucifer might manifest as well, but I also feel that Lucifer could be admiring his own Kingdom’s handiwork at creating LA with such accuracy from someone’s subconscious. He allows himself to be absorbed in it, ‘City of Angels, I’ve missed you’, and I can’t help but get the impression that hearing Lucifer call LA this for the first time is confirmation that his Heaven, or place of Angels, is in fact there with Chloe.

Chloe remains firmly in the forefront of Lucifer’s mind this entire episode, with him asking ‘what would she do?’ and wanting to replicate the life he had with her at the precinct. But of course he is soon reminded of his reality, as he tries to get more information from Mr. SOB who is being useless. Lucifer incorrectly calling him ’Detective’ shatters the illusion that he is any closer to Chloe, and this is impressively emphasised as he erases the LA cityscape to reveal the Hellscape. For a moment he’d let himself believe he was back there. Back home. His, ‘you’re not her’ making some of my heart pieces fall out once again.

But then the messenger arrives, ‘Lord Morningstar, there’s someone you should meet’ and lo and behold it’s guy who just got hit by car up on the Earth-side of this investigation and I.am. loving. it. Also, did Lucifer put out a Hell-wide memo that if ANYONE arrives from LA they are to be bought to him so he can send messages to Chloe through their bodies??? NO REALLY I'M FINE. Having a Demon possess the dead dude’s body to pass on the tip from Lucifer was just TOO MUCH. His, ‘hey is that Mazikeen?’ made me actually lol but also, look how far we’ve come! Chloe doesn’t even flinch when the dead guy wakes up possessed to pass on Lucifer’s message. I’m so proud.

'It's safe where you stored it' caused me way more amusement than was perhaps intended, but Ella, Maze and Chloe together, trying to figure out what it meant, it's such a great moment and the comedic timing is gold. Also, the fact it actually helps the case, ugh, Chloe and Lucifer are still connected and working together even though they are not on the same plane of existence and I’m just going to need to curl up for a minute because feelings.

You know who else is having a lot of feelings in this ep? The Devil himself. After he is satisfied he has passed on the message, he’s done with Mr. SOB, sending him, ‘back to your torture. And me to mine’. Any remnants of my heart are now once again shattered all over the floor in case you’re wondering. Lucifer doesn’t even try to hide the fact that being away from Chloe is so painful, almost revealing more than he ever usually would when Mr. SOB asks if she’s ‘somebody important?' to which he replies, 'more than you could ever know'.

He only just stops himself before telling Mr. SOB her name, when he realises he's trying to manipulate him. And I'm so glad, Lucifer so sparingly uses Chloe’s name, it's always significant when he does and I feel like he reserves those moments for only between them. But Mr. SOB really does sum it up when he observes, ‘you just seem like a really sad Devil guy’, BECAUSE HE IS A REALLY SAD DEVIL GUY (can we just take a moment to appreciate how not at all scared of Lucifer Mr. SOB is, he doesn’t even refer to him as THE Devil, just ‘Devil guy’. It’s kind of nice that he sees and accepts him as both Devil and human without really questioning it).

The parallel continues as Chloe and Lucifer are talking to a sister and brother and the way this highlights the place they're both in. It's just brilliant writing and execution. Chloe is talking to Meg about her brother’s death and both her and Lucifer's yearning for one another is palpable. At the same time, Maze telling Chloe that they don’t need Lucifer and kissing Chloe highlights Maze’s desire for connection and love. She wants it so badly and the way she shuts down when Chloe suggests they stop working together breaks my heart.

When Lucifer takes Mr. SOB to the root of his Hell loop, yes, it’s about Lucifer projecting his own guilt and lack of self worth onto him, but his assertion that, 'it is inevitable sooner or later you're going to disappoint them all over again. So you'd rather stay away for all eternity’, really feels as though it carries multiple meanings. As a self-referential comment, is Lucifer talking about Heaven or Earth? Is it his fear of disappointing and letting down Chloe and the other humans or is it his belief that he disappointed his family? And if Angels self-actualise does that mean he was never 'stuck' in Hell at all and could have returned to Heaven? I certainly feel there is some sort of realisation occurring here. Or could be completely over-analysing it. Why not have both 🤷‍♀️

You know the line that just up and got me though? ‘Whose hell is this anyway? Are you sure this is my hell? You just here torturing yourself’- Mr. SOB calling Lucifer out is A MOMENT. And I can’t help but wonder if a part of it is Lucifer wanting Mr. SOB to come to terms with his own guilt, wanting to help him because he knows he’s not evil and he is trying to reconcile his own guilt too. If he can help Mr. SOB face and let go of the guilt then he has a chance of it too. And that’s when Mr. SOB challenges Lucifer, pointing out that he missed his chance, ‘but what about you?’ 'The self-centred simplicity of you humans never ceases to amaze me...I am here out of responsibility, I had to protect humanity, I had to protect HER', the delivery of this line, the frustration of being misunderstood, of ppl thinking that he acts for himself when his very reason for being back in Hell is for others, I can feel it through the screen.

The dead guy we saw get shot in the kitchen appearing at that moment with news about ‘the Detective’ and then cutting straight back to the shoot up in the house, file under: how to brilliantly edit. “Lucifer” appearing; the whistle, the casually strolling in, the ‘hello bad guys’ = I was FOOLED. I mean you have to admit, the ‘thought I'd give you a hand' pun was well played, classic Lucifer, very convincing. My shipper heart was SO FULL for the split second Lucifer and the Detective kissed, until Chloe realised that something was off and her open eyes told us something was up. The cut back to Hell and seeing Lucifer still standing there with Mr. SOB...you may have heard my ‘noooooooo’ from wherever you are. ‘She’ll be just fine without me’...said every Devil who has a dick twin brother who’s going to try and destroy, nay STEAL, his life and love of his life ever.

Michael, you're an evil bastard but damn you nailed that villainous smirk over-the-shoulder pose in the final shot. Whatever you have in store, I will no doubt revel in your awfulness and be confused about whether or not I hate you.

#lucifer #lucifans #lucifer 5x01 #ramble #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #ella lopez #dan espinoza #amenadiel #deckerstar #recap

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humansoulsarg · 4 years

Text

Blast from the Past Garfield Comics Solve

On March 28, 2017 - Pangent dropped several modified Garfield comics on the tumblr. Frantic work happened by the team in the discord. You can go find it if you want to relive the chaos. For some reason, it appears this solve was never posted to the humansoulsarg.tumblr.com blog. Today, we aim to remedy that situation. Enjoy! Pangent comics: FEED ME: https://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/158944128617

Original:

Use a Vigenere cipher to decode the comic. Ciphertext is shown in the Pangent version, the Key is the Original text Panel 1: MR TQIAE MVP WWG ZKBKTQIRO ELE A TRXNOBTIQMA HIZ LBSC LB VP GZO MNLM QITQ EZNI. Hi, there… I’m Jon Arbuckle. I’m a cartoonist, and this is my cat, Garfield. Panel 2: OR TPHAFI MNI AHMNNMIUA CAXJ SDTM MBJ TMFK JU CO WWIATJ PPQOBQIA ERVG AAFQNL. Hi, there. I’m Garfield. I’m a cat, and this is my cartoonist, Jon. Panel 3: XDR QRUY XQQYPQC IB CO ERCHATFMW YSDO. NEJV EPU. Our only thought is to entertain you. Feed me.

Results: panel 1: FJ AJEJA EJG IJG IJHIJFEJC EJE J ADJAGJAIDJH AAH DJGE JB CJ GIJ EJAJ JAAJ AIJA panel 2: HJ AIDJBA AHI JCEJCJAIA AAEJ FAAF EJB BAHI JD JA IJAIAA BCJGIJEJ AJJA AJAIJA panel 3: JJA CEJA EJCEJJJ AJ JA AEJDJAFEJ AEJJ. JAGJ ABA A1-PF convert (set A=1, B=2, C=3, …, J=0, K=A, … P=F) and reverse, recombine into 3-character groups, decode as decimal ASCII: panel 1: 109 101 100 105 097 032 057 048 118 049 107 104 105 053 056 098 097 097 051 050 106 media 90v1khi58baa32j http://mediafire.com/?90v1khi58baa32j unlockering.zip panel 2: 109 101 100 105 097 032 119 109 104 098 122 056 116 051 119 103 053 098 112 049 108 media wmhbz8t3wg5bp1l https://mediafire.com/?wmhbz8t3wg5bp1l breathless.zip panel 3: 12 107 100 051 056 104 051 100 100 053 051 053 100 ?kd38h3dd535d Unsure what to do with this at the moment, let’s look at those ZIPs… unlockering.zip contains unlockering.wav A Kansas City Standard encoded audio file.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_standard

Decoding yields a text file with some Vigenere text at the beginning and an ASCII art picture Vigenere with key ‘guineapix’:

The ginger one is called Daisy. She is a special needs pig. She has cataracts in both eyes and is blind. The little one with black nose ears and feet is called Lucy. The big ball of fluff is Annabel. Her breed is Swiss. The one with funky fur on the back end and ginger round the eyes is Boris. A neutered boar who lives with the girls.

breathless.zip contains breathless.wav A Kansas City Standard encoded audio file. Decoding yields a text file with some Vigenere text, decoded with key 'guineapix’:

Lottie, you’d like this. I was reading a book the other day. We’re in the information age, right? All of us, we’re just bombarded by too much information, all the time. Spam emails and social media. Doing really simple things becomes difficult, or complicated, or distracting. We’re all looking for a way to cut through all the noise. It’s easy to blend in and get ignored. It’s an atmosphere which rewards people who really stand out. You have to be bold and spicy and delicious. You’ve got to be a spirit. Can’t be a ghost. Dick Tracy’s on, I’m gonna shut the TV off. There are days when I think we could take over Pangent. The three of us. Take it over and make it right. Maybe that’s just a dream. Maybe that’s the thought that keeps me here. Our mutual friend Alex Schreyer has created a culture of secrecy and fear. He learned that from his dad. So we’re scared. Hiding behind layers of security. We don’t talk to each other. That’s not the way to make a scientific breakthrough. We need to share information. We need to talk to each other, brainstorm with each other. Care about one another. We could fix Pangent. Change everything about it. We could accomplish great things. But we’re scared. Scared of what we could actually do. Lottie, there’s something you wrote for the personality test. Technology. Information wants to be free. And progress belongs to the people. Companies will keep their secrets. They’ll copyright anything they can. But they’ll market it and sell it and blow it up all over the place. Well, information gets out, one way or another. Once you invent something, you can’t uninvent it. Sometimes you have to be real careful with what you put out into the world.

Pangent comic: Pipe https://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/158944279592

Original:

panel 2: NTA FJIAF EXATM QHPR YEBN NWFW Now Where could my pipe be? panel 3: MRFSAJPOJ!! Garfield panel 2: AFE JCEJB CJGIJ EJAJ JAAJ AIJA panel 3: GRONSFELD!! A1-PF on Panel 2, reverse, and group by 3’s: 109 101 100 105 097 032 053 056 1 media 58? Aha! Combine comic 2 panel 2 + comic 1 panel 3: 109 101 100 105 097 032 053 056 112 107 100 051 056 104 051 100 100 053 051 053 100 media 58pkd38h3dd535d https://mediafire.com/?58pkd38h3dd535d withourterrors.zip withourterrors.zip contains withouterrors.wav A Kansas City Standard encoded audio file. Decoding yields a text file with some Vigenere text, decoded with key 'argentinamayorsassenheim’: (ooh! a combination password)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% C: Drinking Bird update. Thirteen months without any significant incident. Lucky. I’ll raise a glass to that. The Cube has stabilized to a degree I wouldn’t have thought possible when we began studying it at the beginning of 2017. Reluctant as I am to admit it, Leslie Walsh (aka MayorSassenheim) is responsible for most of that. She’s written code that keeps the Cube stable without real peaks and valleys, and it seems the Cube is capable of learning from that. If I trusted her, I’d leave her to her work and be done with it. I wish I could do that. The situation would be simpler. Officially, I left Project 555 a long time ago. L: you pinged me why did you ping me C: I didn’t. I was talking about you. It must have pinged you automatically L: “Drinking Bird update” jesus lottie C: What? L: you shouldn’t even be doing this who is that even an update for C: For myself. L: of course C: talking to myself thinking about myself it’s what I’m good at. L: i didn’t say that. turn your mic on i’m switching to voice. C: Over a year without any kind of disaster. Leave me alone, I’m celebrating. L: You’re lurking. In the shadows of a project you were fired from how long ago? C: I can do what I want. L: Yeah, I think that’s actually your job title at this point right? Like we don’t know what to do with Lottie and we don’t want any trouble, so I guess Lottie does what she wants. C: Leslie, I’ve been avoiding this conversation for awhile, and I’ve thought long and hard about what to say. So, here it is. Fuck off and die, Leslie, and also fuck you. L: How’s the kid? C: Beautiful. She’s the sun and the moon and the sky and the stars. She’s about six full time jobs, but Eric helps. He’s not bad at the whole father thing. L: Good. I’m glad. I’d like to see her. C: I don’t think that’s a good idea. L: I wish you’d let me be a part of your life again. C: Well, shit happens. L: What was I supposed to do? C: The four of you stole the project out from under me. L: Is that what you think happened? C: And now he’s in charge of all of it. L: Officially, he always was. None of that changed. C: You took control of my work. L: And nobody died. Nobody got hurt. Like you said, nothing happened for thirteen months. What should I have done? Leave it all to him? Dammit Lottie, I did this for you. I worked myself to death on this project, just to make sure it wouldn’t kill anybody. C: It wasn’t your responsibility. It wasn’t your burden to take on. It’s mine. L: Well, shit happens. C: This project, it drains you, it changes you. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that. It’s wrong what you did, and it’s wrong what it did to you. To both of us. L: Lottie, I did my best. Under the circumstances I tried to do what you would do. In my head it’s like I was you. C: That’s ridiculous. For one thing you’re smarter than me. L: No, I’m not. My god, I’m not. C: You are. L: This is a weird thing to say, but like … do you ever feel like you’re in the wrong timeline? Like you’re in a science fiction book about, what if the Nazis won World War II or something? Sometimes it feels like, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Like everything is wrong. C: Yes. I do feel that way sometimes. I think it’s called depression. L: Why do you hate me? C: I don’t hate you. I don’t want to hate you. We were friends and I love you. L: Lottie. C: But we can’t even be friends now and it’s bullshit. It’s him. Alex. And Liam. On their own they’d be almost harmless. The two of them together, they amplify each other’s worst qualities. L: Oh believe me, I know. Multiplying and dividing by a pair of zeroes. C: God, them and every other asshole I had to deal with and still stay halfway sane. L: Project Four. C: Project fuckin Four! Working at Pangent, it’s poison. It poisoned you and it poisoned me. Maybe I do hate you, Leslie. I hate what you did. I hate that you did it better than I could have. L: I miss you. C: Don’t be dramatic. We were only friends to get back at him. L: We were friends because we were friends. C: You know what he said to me, a couple weeks before he took control of 555? He said, I know that you and Leslie will always be friends. Didn’t sound great, coming from him. I think somewhere inside me, I made my mind up to prove him wrong. L: We could have talked this out. Dammit, we were friends. We were supposed to protect each other. C: Whatever that was, that was a moment in time, and times change. You’re stuck in a moment and you think that moment will last forever. But really a moment only comes once. L: I saw you, poking around in the code. Like the whole entire time. You weren’t super subtle about it. Were you trying to get my attention? C: Probably. Yes. L: Alex saw it too, I’m sure he did. C: I don’t care. L: I mean like I kept him from seeing the last build you did. Well, the second to last build. You should really have hidden that better. C: I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. L: He isn’t spying on this chatroom. C: You don’t know that. You fucked me over so many times. You let him in through every backdoor. L: I let him play. Like, I let the baby have his bottle. It was gonna be a fucked up situation either way. C: That doesn’t mean I can ever feel safe again. L: I get that. I’m sorry. C: You should be. I should be. There’s a lot of sorry to go around. L: You finished it, didn’t you? 555. That was supposed to be a final build. Then you erased it. C: I stopped it before it finished uploading. L: It was a finished build. C: Compiled without errors. L: I thought so. What would happen if we ran that code? C: I don’t know. It’s gone. Deleted. Forever. L: I have the partial upload. C: Of course you do. L: I saw you uploading. I mean I started downloading the minute the transfer started. And yeah, so it cuts off at a certain point. So I found the matching point in your previous build and put two and four together. C: See, this is why I can’t trust you. L: I mean I don’t know everything you changed in that build but like I figure it was all pretty top level stuff and bug fixes, whatever was left. My copy is spliced together, but do you think it’s identical to the build you deleted? C: I don’t know. L: It compiled without errors. C: Leslie, no. Oh, I can’t breathe. L: I’ll ask you again. What would happen if we ran that code? C: I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know. It’s dangerous. L: Of course it is. I mean that’s been the whole problem from the start. C: Yes. L: You finished the code. All of it. And then you deleted it. C: Yes. L: Are you glad I kept the data? C: Yes. God, I’m actually shaking. I hope he’s not listening to this. L: So, what do we do from here? C: I don’t know. Leslie, I’m sorry for not talking to you like a human being for so long. I didn’t know what to say and after awhile, it was just … I put it off too long. L: Not too proud of any of this myself. For reals we’ve both got a lot to pologize for. C: There’s a lot of sorry to go around. L: Yeah but like, I’d like to see you. You, with Eric, and Rachel, and Sharon too. C: Who is Sharon? %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

WTF??!!?! Wowzers.

Comic 3: Odie Pangent Version: https://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/158944845847

Original:

Randomiser transcribed/vigenered/A1-PF’d comics 3 & 4, I don’t have copies of the intermediate steps, just the finales: 640114011114754011541010018015017823795018115018019723201111231019017901123101401611230115012301111141148231218923001101811411101511101411231594234111017019911167 Comic 4: Lasagna Pangent Version: https://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/158945180237

Original:

After Vigenering ciphertext with original text, and converting A1-PF: 645111118017970171111151148236456231115013014111115011723201111231019017901123101401611230115012322101110141111167230115018117917231218923001101811411101511101411232594234111017019911167 These final strings may not look like anything, but if you reverse them and manually space them, you get 76 111 99 107 101 114 32 49 51 32 114 101 115 101 114 118 101 100 32 98 121 32 84 114 111 110 32 105 110 32 116 104 101 32 110 97 109 101 32 111 102 32 79 108 105 118 105 97 32 87 105 108 100 101 45 110 45 74 111 104 110 46 76 111 99 107 101 114 32 49 52 32 114 101 115 101 114 118 101 100 32 98 121 32 71 97 118 105 110 32 76 111 114 101 110 122 32 105 110 32 116 104 101 32 110 97 109 101 32 111 102 32 71 105 111 114 103 105 111 32 65 46 32 84 115 111 117 107 97 108 111 115 46 which is of course decimal ASCII:

Locker 13 reserved by Tron in the name of Olivia Wilde-n-John.

Locker 14 reserved by Gavin Lorenz in the name of Giorgio A. Tsoukalos.

Comic 5: Alone Pangent: https://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/158946474637

Original: (with the 'rest of the story’ to trigger your existential crisis)

GU RAT HFR EBA LQI SUI NHE RK UJ RSM OAN LNG CP HCA TNE VRE ZK OU BCI ONT IK SMO MBN ZN NEL MK KNM BQO RET PD NCO RCI OW NH RR TW FRE AWY JXD GN PO EJM HT PP NHO UQA CEN RID EJH SWA LXN HYO VC TI OD SH LEL DKR XAT PM RES FI which becomes FD AJA ABA AJA JJA HJA AAA AG BC JAA AJA DAA GI HJA GJA EJA HG BC BJA AAA BC AJA IJA GI JAA BC AJA DJA FAA BC JAA EJA BC JE ID GI CJA AJA IJA IG BC ABA HI BC JJA AJA HAA DAA AJA EAA AJA DAA BC CE ID BC DAA AJA GJA II AAA FG 64 101 121 101 001 801 111 17 23 011 101 411 79 801 701 501 87 23 201 111 23 101 901 79 011 23 101 401 611 23 011 501 23 05 94 79 301 101 901 97 23 121 89 23 001 101 811 411 101 511 101 411 23 35 94 23 411 101 701 99 111 67

Locker 15 reserved by Omega12 in the name of Niklaren Goldeye.

—– So everyone’s favorite Orange cat gave us bigtime story drops, and three locker reservations. Nice to get those on the books.

#puzzle #puzzle solution #human souls arg #submission

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televinita · 4 years

Text

Little Women (2019): Thoughts

REQUIRED READING: the prequel post about my background going in to this film.

SNAPSHOT VERSION: Though I have some casting qualms, and may adjust my opinions after I reread the book, mostly I think this is everything my heart has needed since the magic of the ‘94 movie was broken for me. My heart is very full.

FULL VERSION: Twice as long as the prequel post (a.k.a. 1800 words), starts below.

I did not expect LW to be the first Unexpected Comeback Fandom of 2020 (or a comeback fandom ever, really), but here I am, having spent every day since I saw this film mooning about this story and looking up different editions and supplemental books in the library catalog, so I'd better process how I feel about it while the memories are relatively fresh.

Most of my thoughts are on casting rather than specific scenes because like I said, I can’t remember the book super well, so I’d like to get my movie memories to fade so that the book can surprise me. Also because I think I will have a more in-depth post about them when I watch the film a 2nd time, whether that’s in theaters or on DVD. But here’s what I’ve got for now.

ON CASTING

In no particular order --

* Emma Watson is very pretty but it is so hard to take her seriously as an actress. She's just Emma Watson, Famous For Being In Harry Potter and Getting Hired For Other Big Name Projects. I feel like she's so consciously acting all the time. She made a not-terrible Meg, I guess? No worse than she made a Belle. But it was roughly as hilarious watching her try to be a mother now as it was watching her try to be a mother in the last Harry Potter movie. To the point that I just kept hearing the "Damn! I'm SO maternal!" song playing as her theme in the background at all times. * I realized 6 days prior to seeing the movie that Florence Pugh is recognizable because she's in Midsommar and honestly, that just ruined everything for me. I didn't even see that film, I just know it's gross and I would hate it and while she is not tainted forever like the 50 Shades actors, she is definitely too tainted for Little Women. Also I could not stop thinking about how I associate Amy with being very dainty and prim and Florence, while perfectly lovely, is not. * Laura Dern was kind of strangely modern and kooky for Marmee, but I love her as an actress and I loved that she was just like "HELLO STRANGE NEIGHBOR BOY, COME BE MY FIFTH CHILD." So I was OK with that. * ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH BOB ODENKIRK. What kind of anachronistic garbage. What crack were you on, because it was obviously not the good stuff. "Did I stumble into an SNL parody??" I wondered more than once. * Meryl Streep as Aunt March was AMAZING. Ten Oscars. * Beth consistently looked younger than Amy, so that was weird. She was okay but kind of childlike, and failed to make Beth my favorite like she is in the book. * JO! Saoirse Ronan is by far my favorite actress in this set, but I didn't think she was right for Jo going in. "Jo's not a redhead!" I said, indignantly stamping my foot, because my childhood-era love for this novel reigns defensively supreme like for no other classic besides Black Beauty. (another 1994 classic they should remake soon, even though I love that version. Just saying.)

But damned if she did not COMPLETELY embody every essence of Jo there is and make Jo my favorite character this time. Truly, nobody except Meryl Streep so thoroughly matched my expectations for their character. Ten Oscars, part II. Or at least the one she is actually nominated for. If Jo loses to ScarJo I will riot. * John was nice. I feel like he was exactly what he was supposed to be, which is to say kind of plain and milquetoast but perfect for Meg. I don't actually remember him existing in the novel, so that was an interesting game of "how important is this guy?" until suddenly Meg was getting married and I realized I did, in fact, have a very dim memory of a wedding from the book. I think I will like their romance more the second time around, though. * Mr. Laurence was VERY EXCELLENT. IDK why I know the actor, even after looking him up, but I liked him in this role a lot. His grandfatherly quasi-adoption of Beth was so sweet. * As for Professor Bhaer...UGH. I hated him on sight and my brain wouldn't even let me recognize who he was for like 3 scenes, I was just like, "who is this random boarding lodger and why are we focusing on that weirdo." I mean, he's objectively handsome? But he did not do it for me. He lacked the gravitas I expect from this character and his thick accent scraped my ears and drove me insane (update from the future: his accent is also driving me insane in the book, where I have peeked in at a few chapters as incentive to reread. whyyyyyyy). * LAURIE: maybe it's been too long since I read the book, but never could I ever have imagined I'd want to use the term "fuckboy" to describe Laurie. It wasn't even Ski Chalet's face so much as it was that in all present-day scenes (post-rejection), he is such an insufferable, melodramatic, pouting trash heap that I didn't want him to marry any of them at that point. (Also YOU STILL DIDN'T MAKE ME UNDERSTAND WHY HE GOES FOR AMY, so good job.**) However, I took especial delight in paying attention to all the cuddly platonic friend cuddling he heaped on Jo growing up, in focus or in the background, and I loved it...kind of a lot? The ship radar made noise. That noise is getting louder by the day, smoothing away his faults. He may have permanently taken up residence in my mind's eye as the new Laurie. ...this is the worst. Make it cease. (**update from the future, I am peeking at the book and it looks like it's a lot easier to understand both in text and when you're inside Laurie's head. He is still clearly sulking his way through Europe, but in a way it's easier to recover from. Also, I don’t have time to unpack this but as I finish the edits on this post I started 5 days ago, I’m starting to think I could not only ship Laurie/Amy, but believe in it from the start.) ACTUAL PLOT AND FILM QUALITY

+ The shifting between past and present was very jarring right off the bat, but after that I think it worked.

+ I loved the attic play rehearsals so much

+ I am so glad Jo’s shorn hair is both fleeting and as hideous as it should look, and not Pixie Cut Chic (Childhood Me wailed at that part reading the book)

+ I remember hardly anything about the book's Part II / Good Wives, so basically everything in their adult lives was news to me. Amy and Aunt March go to Europe? Jo goes to live by herself in New York? Meg marries a relative pauper? Any of this could be true to the book or just made up as an alternate idea to explore, and I would be none the wiser. That made it more fun. (NOBODY SPOIL ME ON WHAT'S TRUE)

+ It did not occur to me until just now that the part where Jo publishes her version of Little Women is not in the book (right?), but that was beautifully done.

+ The house interiors were breathtaking. It's not like I don't regularly watch period pieces, but this time there was just something about seeing an old house, like the ones I am often in for estate sales, decorated the way I always imagine seeing when I enter those homes, that kind of made me tear up. + The outside shots were pretty too + Jo made me cry with her I'm so LONELY! speech, rude. (I went into this movie thinking I was 100% on board to finally read Alcott’s sequels for their Jo/Professor content, and now I'm like 'ah damn it is gonna be the season for the Jo/Laurie AU novel, isn't it.')

+ A strike against Beth and/or the actress playing her: I did not cry about her death (in my defense I was busy crying about Jo's pain).

+ I did NOT remember precisely how Laurie & Amy got married, so even though I knew it happened eventually, I felt that sucker punch to the gut reveal just about as hard as Jo did. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR WIFE.

+ My mom said she’d heard this movie was lauded as being super feminist, which rarely goes well for me, but I thought it felt like really authentic "married women literally were not allowed to control their own income and it sucked" 19th century feminism, and not someone using their 21st century voice to claim this is how people would have REALLY talked if The Patriarchy Of Historical Record hadn't silenced/suppressed it. Nothing rankled me. I’m very confused by the people who think it says Jo is queer and/or didn’t end up with the Professor, but if that’s what you see then I guess it’s a win/win situation for all of us. + LOVED the closing montage. + Basically, at all times that I wasn't annoyed by the casting, I was feeling the same magic I did while reading the book and/or while watching the 1994 movie as a child. I can’t think of any parts I really hated.

IN CONCLUSION

Part of me is honestly kind of sad I didn't reread the book before watching this movie, because even though I usually prefer to go movie first and then get the Expanded Edition that is the book, in this case I wish I'd taken my last chance to properly visualize everything in my head on my own -- since I’ve mostly forgotten the ‘94 film -- before the new movie washed it away forever. This is one of the rare times I would have liked to hope and guess what would be shown vs. cut, and be able to anticipate the thrill of seeing the page come to life.

However, seeing it was the impetus I needed to finally take my childhood copy off the shelf (and thank heavens I have it, because the library request is backed up 3 or 4 deep for every copy), and it took all of 5 minutes to get instantly sucked into chapter 1 and feel such rapturous joy and familiarity that I consciously cut myself off and decided I am going to journal out my feelings after each chapter on this reread. So that’s something!

#the biggest surprise is that maybe Timothee Chalomet is not the worst thing ever #and I frankly do not know what to do with this loss of identity #little women #little women spiral

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papyrus-is-gaster-blog · 7 years

Text

wild theory

(Note: this version is cross-posted from my main blog, @eroshiyda [link: https://eroshiyda.tumblr.com], so please reblog it from there, if you can.]

Today is Undertale's second anniversary. I love Undertale so much that it has been my hyperfixation ever since I played it at the beginning of 2016. I joined tumblr in May of 2016 because I saw that a lot of people were talking about Undertale on here. This is the origin of this particular blog. And now, I have planned a Special Post(TM) for this occasion.

(Warning: this post is extraordinarily long - as in, over five thousand words long - and contains many spoilers for the game. I have hidden it under a "Read More" so that it doesn't clog up people's dashboards.)

I. Preface and Special Thanks

First, though, I must tell you a story. It all started when I made my husband play Undertale, because it was so great when I played it, and I wanted to see how he would play the game. Which route would he take? (He ended up doing True Pacifist after killing the first Froggit and feeling so guilty about it that he reset). Once he finished, I asked him who his favorite character was.

His answer? Papyrus.

"Papyrus?" I thought. "But why?" I felt like he was probably the most forgettable character in the entire game, perhaps apart from Sans (note: I have never done a Bad Time route). What was it about this goofy skeleton that made my husband like him so much? Was it his malapropisms? Was it the fact that he can somehow shout in whispers? Was it his Ghost costume... er, "battle body?"

So, I decided to do some research. I started searching "Papyrus from Undertale" on Google, and most of the results I found came from the wonderful, well-functioning website which we all know and love as tumblr. He was buzzing, and it seemed a lot of people felt about Papyrus the same way my husband did.

I made an account, and the first thing I posted was a Very Profound Theory(TM) which was met with some disagreement. That "theory" is that Papyrus is Sans' older brother, and not the other way around. (Keep in mind that, at this point, I had not seen Toby Fox's tweet about Papyrus calling Sans the common word for "older brother" in Japanese, which was actually an allusion to the fact that he was translating Undertale into Japanese, but I digress.)

The reasons I posted were simple enough, and if you really want to, you can even go back and read it for yourself. I'll link to it here for you also:

https://eroshiyda.tumblr.com/post/144298607667/papyrus-is-the-older-brother [link to my first tumblr post, "Papyrus is the older brother."]

This just came from my personal experience as an older sibling, and a closer analysis of Papyrus' character during my second True Pacifist playthrough.

Through this "theory" post (and I really am hesitant to call it a "theory" now, because it's so mundane), I met a lot of friends who were also theorizing about Papyrus. However, this is not the theory that I wanted to talk about.

As I gained more and more tumblr friends who were also very interested in Undertale (mostly Papyrus in particular), I started seeing more posts about all of the weird things he does and says. Not "weird" in a derogatory way, I just mean weird as in "odd," "unusual," "eccentric," and sometimes "nonsensical" or "unpredictable."

@undertale-encyclopedia did a really good job of compiling each of the canon strings of text, so I will mainly be using that blog as a resource for my canon information (since I never played anything but True Pacifist, and therefore do not have my own screenshots of certain bits of dialogue from other routes).

https://undertale-encyclopedia.tumblr.com/ [link to undertale-encyclopedia's tumblr blog]

@jewels336 (now deactivated) also provided a masterpost for which I am eternally grateful, as even though I had seen all of the posts (and even participated in a lot of them) compiled within that master list, they were now in a very neat and accessible place. I will be referencing those posts as well, as they were a springboard for many parts of this theory, and utilize canon information. Here it is:

https://eroshiyda.tumblr.com/post/151713943787/compilation-of-mysterious-papyrus-things [link to @jewels336's tumblr post, "Papyrus Masterpost!"]

@uselessundertalefacts (formerly @uselessshoelacefacts), @lefthanded-sans, and @papyrus-knows also indulged a lot of questions I originally had about Papyrus. They all made some really good analysis posts about the skelebros in general as well, so you should definitely go and check out their blogs, too.

I would also like to thank each and every one of my followers/mutuals/friends, who let me talk about Papyrus with them at some point or another. I am very much aware of how wild my theories are, so thank you for putting up with me.

Right. *deep breath* Now onto the theory.

II. Introduction

If you have not yet read @napstamuse's "Goner Theory Part III: Skeletons in the Closet," I very strongly urge you to do so right now. Here it is, for your convenience:

http://napstamuse.tumblr.com/post/139568679252/goner-theory-part-3-skeletons-in-the-closet [link to @napstamuse's tumblr post, "Goner Theory Part III"]

This is the actual post which made me join tumblr, and ultimately it led me to make up this theory. In summary, it points out how little we know about Papyrus, despite his talking incessantly. In fact, it even mentions at the very end that there's only one other character in Undertale of whom we know about as little: Mystery Man.

With a name like "Mystery Man," one would expect at least some intrigue surrounding such a character. We know what Mystery Man looks like:

[picture of Mystery Man, surprised]

We know what font he speaks in:

[picture of Entry 17 in capitalized Wing Dings font with no asterisks]

And are therefore able to conclude that he was a Royal Scientist, as the only other person to write "entries" is Doctor Alphys, the current Royal Scientist of the Underground:

[picture of one of Doctor Alphys' entries in normal font, with standard asterisk at the beginning]

and that his name was probably Wing Dings, or W. D. for short:

[picture of one of Gaster’s followers referring to him as “Doctor W. D. Gaster”]

But what does this have to do with Papyrus? Well, let's start with what we know about Papyrus.

We know that he looks like this:

[picture of Papyrus wearing a cape, battle body, and hotpants]

sometimes this:

[picture of Date Papyrus with MTT-brand Basketball Shoulder Pads, a shirt which says "Cool Dude" in all caps, shorts, and sneakers]

or even this:

[picture of Papyrus wearing a sweatband over his head and a shirt which says, "Jog Boy" on it]

We know that he likes puzzles:

[picture of Papyrus standing next to and talking about one of his puzzles]

We know that he's a good artist:

[picture of Papyrus talking about how he painted Snowdin’s bridge over a rock formation]

We know that his name is Papyrus (obviously) because he is referred to as such, and talks in this font:

[picture of Papyrus saying "Nyeh heh heh!" in capitalized Papyrus font, also without the standard asterisks]

And... that's it.

The rest of this theory involves putting these clues together. Ready?

III. Appearance

Let's start with Papyrus' appearance. He's pretty tall, compared to his brother Sans. According to this chart by @kitty4915, he's approximately 6 feet and 8 inches tall:

https://kitty4915.tumblr.com/post/138141358237/yo-undertale-heights-go [link to @kitty4915's tumblr post, "YO UNDERTALE HEIGHTS GO!!"]

[picture of Papyrus next to a door]

A bit strange for brothers, don't you think? One of them definitely got the short end of the stick. *badum-tss*

[picture of Sans Height Chart, 4'8"]

Anyway, I've seen it speculated that Papyrus and Sans are not "brothers" in a literal sense, but they are very close friends who sometimes call each other "brother." However, I do not think this is quite the case.

Sometimes I forget that half-siblings are a thing that exist. Half-siblings are siblings who share only one parent. How is this relevant to the skelebros? Well, @zarla-s has come up with an AU called Handplates which has one possible explanation for this: the skelebros technically share one parent, because they are both cloned from the same person. That person is, you guessed it: Royal Scientist Wing Dings Gaster.

http://zarla-s.tumblr.com/post/139516306171/okay-i-get-a-lot-of-questions-about-what-order-the [link to @zarla-s' "Handplates" AU Index post on tumblr]

Speaking of Mystery Man, we haven't analyzed his appearance next to Papyrus':

[pictures of Mystery Man sprite and Papyrus sprite next to each other]

It is said that the eyes are windows into the soul. Something people notice right away about Gaster's eyes are that they are extremely asymmetrical. His left eye is much bigger than his right.

Papyrus, on the other hand... well, both of his eyes are small, but if you look closely, you'll see that his left eye is smaller than his right, even when it is facing slightly away from view, like in his battle and date sprites. And it's more noticeable from the front, like in his overworld sprite, pictured above.

Ok, so they're kinda-sorta mirror images of each other, nothing too special. Could be a coincidence. Right? Well, sure, if this was the only thing they had in common, it could definitely be a coincidence. Never mind the fact that Papyrus seems to be raising his right eyebrow and squinting his left eye, almost as if he's compensating for them naturally being the other way around...

But why stop there? The other thing to note is that both of these skeletons are tall. Very, very tall. We already know how tall Papyrus is, but how big is Mystery Man?

[picture of Gaster Height Chart]

Wow, 7 feet and 6 inches! That is really tall. Even taller than Papyrus (by ten inches). Cool. So, if Papyrus somehow came from Gaster, then Papyrus' extreme height would make a little more sense. But again, where does that leave Sans?

[picture of Sans shrugging]

One could argue that Sans has inherited Gaster's, shall we say, roundness. That makes a little less sense, as we are not even sure exactly how "round" Gaster even is. His black "cloak" (not even sure if it's really a cloak canonically) does not necessarily represent Gaster's bodily shape - as it could be flowy, melted, or otherwise augmented by some magical law of physics. And besides, this theory doesn't really have anything to do with Sans.

IV. But Something's Missing...

However, even I must admit that something isn't quite right about the height discrepancy between Gaster and Papyrus, either. With Gaster being nearly a whole foot taller, it seems as though there's something... missing.

And, even if you take away that extra ten inches from Gaster's height, there's something else which Gaster has which Papyrus, at first glance, seems to not have.

Refer back to the pictures of Gaster and Papyrus next to each other. See the holes in Gaster's hands? And Papyrus'... well, they're covered in gloves, so I guess we'll never know. Darn.

[pictures of Papyrus saying “I know it like the back of my hand… which, since I’m always wearing gloves… I don’t know anything about!!”]

Thanks, Papyrus.

But, there is still something else missing, and this thing has nothing to do with appearances. Of course, I am referring to Wing Dings' experience as the Royal Scientist of the Underground.

Gaster even has "followers" who consider him to be important in the Underground's history long after he is gone. You can find them with certain Fun values:

[pictures of Gaster's three followers]

In contrast, Papyrus holds no important status in the Underground (unless all of the other boss monsters are killed, leaving Papyrus to take King Asgore's place in the end). But he *does* want to join the Royal Guard.

[pictures of Papyrus saying that his “lifelong dream” is joining the Royal Guard]

Why? Well, for starters, he is friends with the Royal Guard Dogs in Snowdin (which is his place of residence), as well as the Captain of the Royal Guard herself, Undyne.

[picture of Undyne]

Undyne got her job because she asked King Asgore "Fluffybuns" Dreemurr to train her in combat. They subsequently became close, and she was so well-trained that she was basically a shoo-in. (This is all canon information which you can obtain by going on the "friendship date" with Undyne in True Pacifist.) But this theory isn't about her, either.

So again, what is Papyrus' motivation for wanting to join the Royal Guard? He's not close with the King. In fact, Papyrus is never mentioned by anyone other than Flowey (who knows everything, but we'll get to that later), Undyne (arguably his only friend), and Sans (his own brother); and, at the very end of True Pacifist route, by both Toriel (who had only heard his name because of Sans) and Monster Kid. No one really knows who he is, so the reason for his wanting to join couldn't possibly be his connections.

Could it be that he wants to FIGHT? Considering that he can't even bring himself to hit Frisk in any run (regardless of how many monsters they have killed in the Underground upon meeting Papyrus), I would say that this is also rather unlikely.

Luckily for us, Papyrus hints at what it is he is really after:

[picture of Papyrus saying "Powerful, Popular, Prestigious!"]

He wants to be powerful, popular, and prestigious. Sounds fair enough, right?

Not so fast. Who in the Royal Guard is powerful, popular, and prestigious? Certainly the Royal Guard Dogs are not. And, while Undyne is undoubtedly powerful, I wouldn't really call her "popular," except with Monster Kid (and Doctor Alphys, but that is a whole other story). But Monster Kid is exactly that: a kid. A child.

[picture of Monster Kid]

Papyrus wants a child to look up to him. Part of the reason he dresses up and acts like a super hero is to appeal to children and give them a role model to emulate. This is also evident in the way he treats Frisk, who is also a child: with open, accepting arms, ready to embrace them and be their friend.

[picture of Papyrus saying "I, Papyrus, welcome you with open arms!"]

But let's tie this back into Mystery Man, shall we? The previous Royal Scientist definitely had a connection with the monarchy as well (which, as we've already established, Papyrus did not have). How else would he have gotten such an esteemed position? He may have also been extraordinarily intelligent, much like the current Royal Scientist, Doctor Alphys:

[picture of Papyrus explaining to Frisk that Doctor Alphys made an advanced puzzle]

[picture of Bratty & Catty telling Frisk that Doctor Alphys made Mettaton's robot body]

but, ultimately, W. D. Gaster met with an untimely death after having an accident of sorts:

[picture of one of Gaster's followers saying that "he fell into his creation"]

which implies that he was a savant, or someone who could be considered "book smart," but also absent-minded and accident prone. That sort of reminds me of someone else...

[pictures of Papyrus explaining Alphys' puzzle]

[picture of Papyrus getting shocked]

Anyway, there appears to be something *else* missing, on top of everything we've just covered.

V. Memories

Papyrus seems to have a... sketchy memory, to say the very least. At first glance, he appears to retain nothing:

[picture of Papyrus saying "Really though!!! That human!!! Do I know that person?” Hint: the answer is "yes."]

but, upon closer inspection, we learn that he retains quite a lot (as evidenced by his telling Frisk seemingly random trivia about nearly each and every room in the Underground over the phone):

[picture of Papyrus saying, "I have a photographic memory for phone calls!"]

and, upon even closer inspection, we see that he actually can't even remember commonly-used idioms:

[picture of Papyrus using the malapropism "smells like the moon" instead of "odor the moon," which comes from the idiom "over the moon"]

then, upon microscopic inspection, we see that there's something definitely off with Papyrus' memory. He literally remembers and even references things which do not exist (or have yet to happen) in current timelines:

[pictures of Papyrus alluding to Mettaton's EX forme – specifically, his “bishonen eyes” – while Mettaton is still in Box forme, and Undyne inadvertently confirming that his EX forme has not yet been revealed, by replying “He doesn’t even HAVE eyes!!!”]

[picture of Papyrus talking about a "Laborador... y?" which is a reference to both Endogeny and the True Lab, yet to be discovered]

[picture of Papyrus telling Frisk that he will talk to them again, even though this has not yet been confirmed at this point in the True Pacifist route]

[picture of Papyrus telling Frisk that they "can do a little better!" even after killing every monster they have encountered up until this point]

So... what gives? How can he remember things that have not yet happened, unless he is, say, perhaps, a time traveler?

VI. Time-Space Shenanigans

Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, eroshiyda, Sans already told us that Flowey gives Papyrus predictions, so this discussion is all meaningless!"

Ok, but we also know that Sans has the ability to travel across time-space in strange ways; namely, he teleports. It's not exactly an easter egg or anything, as it's too extraordinary a phenomenon to ignore.

[pictures of Sans appearing in two places in the same room at the same time]

[picture of Papyrus asking Sans if he is, in fact, in two places at once; walking into the next room will prove that this conjecture is correct]

But the implication is that Papyrus has the same ability (because they are brothers), or at least a very similar one, as Sans' ability comes as no surprise to Papyrus.

[pictures of Papyrus asking Frisk, "Is Sans pranking you across time and space? I hate it when he does that!"]

And, in fact, there is alternate evidence of their similar abilities:

[picture of Papyrus battle in Pacifist or Neutral routes, showing blue-colored, bone-shaped magic]

[picture of Sans battle, exclusive to Bad Time route, also showing blue-colored, bone-shaped magic]

[picture of Papyrus "preparing a non-bone attack, then spending a minute fixing his mistake"]

[picture of Papyrus telling Frisk "Had I only used my Special Attack, you surely would have been blasted to..." with a forlorn look on his face. This only happens when you abandon a Bad Time route by sparing Papyrus.]

[picture of Sans using Gaster Blasters during his battle with Frisk. This is only available during a Bad Time route, killing everyone else – Papyrus included.]

Of course, you cannot possibly see them both in action during the same route (Toby Fox, you clever dog), so it is difficult to compare the two without going back to play Undertale in an entirely different way than before. So, this may count as an easter egg.

What is, perhaps, a bit more of an easter egg (at least, according to my Papyrus-fixated tumblr friends), is the fact that Papyrus can - and does - manipulate time-space in his own ways:

[gif of Papyrus literally walking on air over Frisk]

[gif of Papyrus quickly transposing across the screen without moving his body otherwise]

So, who's to say that he doesn't travel across time as well?

[picture of Gaster's first follower saying that "he was shattered across time and space"]

VII. Memories, Revisited

Remember that "memory" thing I pointed out? Well, I'd like to come back to that for a bit.

There are two things which I have noticed, and I get why they've been met with resistance in the past when I brought them up. But, keep in mind all of the evidence listed above and the things we've talked about thus far. As I said, I know that these are wild theories, but please bear with me for just a little bit longer.

Ok, here's the first thing I've noticed:

[picture of Papyrus leaving Frisk with 1 HP so that he can capture them after battle; this happens no matter what, if you lose to him]

[pictures of Papyrus referring to the battle as “a terrible memory" over the phone]

[pictures describing the Bad Memory item, found in the True Lab; it depletes exactly 1 HP when consumed by Frisk]

And the second thing is this:

[pictures of Papyrus immediately recognizing Frisk as a human during a Bad Time route]

[pictures of Papyrus not recognizing Frisk as a human during a Pacifist route]

Something about HP, bad memories, and a human... Now, how could this possibly be connected?

Well, I'm afraid that I have no more canon evidence to support my theory, so now we are plunging deep into headcanon territory from here on out. If this upsets you, please just stop reading now. I'd rather you form your own headcanon, given the canon evidence so far. Perhaps yours will be more satisfying than mine is, because it's about to get kind of dark. In fact, I would hide it under another "Read More" if I could. But I can't, so I'll give you a break.

Last chance to turn back now.

By continuing to read this, you are submitting yourself to probably the most wild and ridiculous theory that has ever been made in the Undertale fandom.

VIII. Conclusion

If you're still reading this, I must confess that I do have one, tiny piece of canon information to support this theory, which has seemingly nothing to do with anything I just talked about. Here it is:

[picture of a sillhouette of Toriel standing next to a human in the introduction to Undertale, with the caption "Long ago, humans and monsters lived in peace."]

[picture of a sillhouette of Asgore fighting with a human in the introduction to Undertale, with the caption "They were at war."]

The king and queen were on the surface during the Monster and Human War. This implies that they knew humans at some point before they were sealed away Underground when the humans won.

So... what if Gaster, their Royal Scientist before Doctor Alphys, was a human?

A stretch, I know. But here is another tiny piece of evidence to consider:

[picture of Gaster's second follower saying, "I'm holding a piece of him right here." In their hand is what looks like a human face]

Our Mystery Man once had a face which looks strikingly human. Of course, by the time we see him, he looks more like a skeleton with two large fractures on either side of his skull. So, it makes sense that his face went missing.

Which reminds me of this:

[picture of Papyrus realizing that he doesn't have ears]

[pictures of Papyrus referencing his “hair” and “skin,” neither of which he has, since he is a skeleton]

The only reason that Papyrus could possibly "realize" that he has neither ears nor hair is if he had had them before, and only now realizes that they are gone. Remember: Papyrus has a sketchy memory. Something definitely messed with it at somewhere along the way. But what?

Well, remember the aforementioned "accident" which Royal Scientist W. D. Gaster had? I would think that being spread across time-space would be... disorienting, if you will. Parts could go missing. Pieces. Memories, physicalities, any of it.

"Wait," I hear you thinking. "Surely you're not trying to suggest that Papyrus is Gaster! That would be ludicrous!"

Wouldn't it?

"They have such different personalities!"

Don't they?

"Papyrus could never be the Royal Scientist!"

Are you sure about that?

Let me explain to you how I think it happened.

(This is the dark part. I decided not to dive right into it because I wanted to give you time to adjust to my wild theory. Once you are comfortable with the headcanon of Papyrus being Gaster, please proceed. If this is against your sensibilities, I won't hold it against you at all. You are free to stop reading this post at any time.)

Gaster was a human who lived on the surface like everyone else. He was a friend to monsters before the war. He even knew Asgore and Toriel, although Toriel took to him a bit better. Once the war broke out, everyone had to choose a side. The line was drawn between monsters and humans. Only W. D. Gaster decided to cross that line.

When the monsters were sealed Underground by a magical barrier after the humans won the war, Gaster ended up being sealed with them. Asgore and Toriel were elected the King and Queen of the Underground, and they elected Gaster to be Royal Scientist.

The magical barrier transformed Gaster as time passed. He became immortal, like a monster. He started to adopt their mannerisms, and even started to look like a monster. As his body aged, soon all that was left of him was his skeleton. Without vocal cords, he could only speak in a strange font: Wing Dings. This earned him his nickname.

Then, "The Accident" happened. I don't know exactly how, or when, but we all know that it happened. Gaster "fell into his creation," and "was shattered across time and space," according to his followers. A new Royal Scientist was needed.

In the meantime, two skeleton brothers randomly showed up in Snowdin. We get this information from an NPC in Snowdin:

[pictures of the Snowdin Shopkeeper telling Frisk that Sans and Papyrus "just showed up one day"]

Interesting.

IX. Supporting Evidence/More Headcanons

But how did the Royal Scientist Wing Dings Gaster become the Papyrus we all know and love?

(trigger warnings: mentions of violence and child death)

Let's go back to canon evidence, shall we? We are far enough into the headcanon realm that I do think it's time for some canon reminders:

[Papyrus, looking slightly worried as he says "LOVE." in all capital letters, which holds a very different meaning than lowercase "love" in the game of Undertale]

I know that Papyrus speaks in all caps all of the time, but look at the expression on his face. Doesn't that look like someone who knows what LOVE stands for "Level Of ViolencE," as Sans points out to us in Judgment Hall? Because it sure does to me. Also, remember how Papyrus definitely knows that Frisk is a human during the Bad Time route, but not during a Pacifist route? Why would Papyrus make the connection between humans and violence?

There are two explanations for this.

The first is that a few sub-conscious memories of his time as Gaster were somehow retained; that is, he remembers the war between humans and monsters, much like how he remembers having hair and ears. So that is one possible explanation.

The second is perhaps the wildest headcanon you will ever hear about Papyrus.

Ready?

Ok.

*sighs*

Papyrus... has killed before.

"WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? HOW?" you ask. Well, here's my theory.

Papyrus, being newly incarnated from Gaster (alongside his brother, Sans), doesn't really know much about the world around him. He has memories missing. Which ones, we're not sure of, but he's definitely... not all there, if you get me.

Now is a good time for to mention Papyrus' stats versus Sans' before I continue with this story. Have you ever noticed how Papyrus is up to twenty times stronger than Sans?

[picture of Papyrus' Pacifist stats: 20 Attack, 20 Defense]

[picture of Sans' stats: 1 Attack, 1 Defense, with the caption "*The easiest enemy."]

But Papyrus and Sans are brothers, so we would expect that they would have the same stats, which clearly isn't so.

Tying this back into what we know about LOVE, we know that with every increase of LOVE, one receives an increase in stats as well:

[pictures showing LV 1 stats, and then saying, "Your LOVE increased!” and the HP stat going up.]

So, the only logical explanation is that Papyrus received an increase in stats because he received an increase in LOVE. And how did this happen?

Think about the Items which Frisk finds in Snowdin: the Tough Glove and the Manly Bandanna.

[pictures of Frisk acquiring Tough Glove and Manly Bandanna in Snowdin]

To which child did they belong? The Orange SOUL.

[picture of the Photoshop Flowey battle, depicting the Orange SOUL in the box and the Tough Glove being used as a weapon against Frisk]

Which trait is attributed with Orange? Bravery.

[picture of the Ball Game in Snowdin showing the word "bravery" in orange]

What happens when an attack is Orange? You have to keep moving.

[pictures of Doctor Alphys explaining how orange lasers work in Hotland]

From this canon evidence, what can we infer the Orange SOUL kid's gimmick was, if they were "brave?"

I'll tell you: they kept moving forward, no matter what.

Now, what color magic does Papyrus have?

[picture of Papyrus using blue-colored bones in battle]

What does Blue magic do? It requires you to *stand still,* or else you will get hurt.

[picture of Doggo using blue magic on Frisk's motionless, red SOUL and doing no damage]

Tell me, how is a kid who is incapable of standing still going to survive Blue magic? Simple: they won't.

I even wrote a short ficlet about it here:

https://eroshiyda.tumblr.com/post/152526581522/orange-soul-headcanon [link to my tumblr post, "Orange SOUL headcanon"]

Of course, I'd like to think that it was just an accident. But, accident or not, Papyrus killed a human child, which was enough to raise his stats to twenty times higher than what they were originally. (Remember that humans are far more powerful than monsters, so they would be worth a lot of EXecution Points.)

This is why Papyrus knows exactly how much to lower his stats during the Bad Time route. He's not trying to kill Frisk, and he knows how much force is needed for that.

[picture of Papyrus lowering his stats to 5 ATK, 5 DEF in a Bad Time route]

That's also how he knows that Frisk is going down the "wrong path" by moving closer to Papyrus in a threatening way.

[pictures of Papyrus lecturing Frisk to stop moving before battling them during a Bad Time route]

Papyrus has experience battling at least one human child. And Papyrus didn't lose, either; otherwise, he wouldn't be around anymore by the time Frisk arrives, right?

But this is why his character development is so important to the story of Undertale. This is why he's (arguably) Flowey's favorite monster in the whole Underground, long after Flowey grew tired of torturing everyone else:

[picture of Flowey at the end of a Neutral route saying, "Took me a long time to get bored of that one."]

Because even after Papyrus committed the most heinous atrocity any monster could ever think of, he changed. He resolved to never FIGHT again. He solemnly swore to only use MERCY, no matter how dire the circumstances got. Even after all he had been through, he proved that people can change their ways.

[picture of Papyrus saying, "Everyone can be a great person if they try!"]

It's all about the choices you make. Because accidents happen, everyone makes mistakes, but ultimately you have a choice; do you keep going down the path of least resistance, or do you learn and grow from it enough to do the right thing, no matter how hard it gets?

X. Afterword

Thanks for reading this theory all the way through! You're a real trooper!

I know that this is a topic that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, and I probably left out a lot of discrepancies, but I really did have fun working on this for the past year and a half. I hope you had fun reading it, too.

As I was finishing up this project, the Japanese version of Undertale came out. Some of the information gathered from gleaning nuances in the Japanese text conflicts with this theory, while some supports it; but I just didn’t get a chance to include any of it, to my dismay.

By the time you see this post, I most likely will have left tumblr. So, I cannot accept any of your thoughts about it, unfortunately.

However, if you would like to do even further research of your own, I have left behind this blog as an archive, along with another, super-secret blog I used to reblog my sources. The url is @papyrus-is-gaster. Here’s the link to it: https://papyrus-is-gaster.tumblr.com/ [link to one of my sideblogs, called papyrus-is-gaster]

I'd like to think of this as my sort of "tumblr dissertation," and I've officially graduated and am ready to move on to other things. Undertale was a fun phase in my life, but all phases come to an end.

And, with that, this post has also (finally) come to an end as well.

Just remember,

[picture of Papyrus saying "Still! I believe in you!"]

The Great Papyrus believes in you, and so do I.

19 notes · View notes

theonyxpath · 6 years

Link

Aaaah, what does Jon Snow know, anyway?

(The answer is “nothing”.)

But we know that we’ve themed our Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition Kickstarter to change from season to season, week to week. This week, we’re finishing up Winter, and next up is Spring and all the growth that promises.

But right now, Winter rules and with it a post-Thanksgiving sense of lingering thankfulness.

Maybe it was attending PAX Unplugged in my hometown of Philly a couple of weeks ago just two blocks from the hobby store where I bought the original D&D Monster Manual, then a wonderful family Thanksgiving, and then getting back together with an old friend and gaming buddy from our college years after ten years yesterday, but I’m in the mood to tell you about how I got into this tabletop gaming thing of ours while expressing some thanks.

(Feel free to skip to THE BLURBS! and the Updates, if anything pre-White Wolf causes your eyes to glaze over. This is pre-history, dude.)

Half Damned art by Michele Giorgi

Here’s the preamble: I started serious tabletop gaming in my sophomore year of HS (Central HS in Philly, class 239) by walking into the Strategy & Tactics Society where about a dozen guys were playing board games like Squad Leader and Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

You want to see where checking off heatsinks in BattleTech came from? That’s your game; you checked off hull, rigging, etc. Also probably influenced Star Fleet Battles.

Anyway, I was amazed because I had never met anyone who wanted to play Avalon Hill and other tactical boardgames. Besides myself. So I stayed and played, and within a couple of weeks I heard that Robert was coming back, and he was ready to DM.

I had no idea who this guy was, or what a DM was, but this was apparently big news to the group who were into this new style of gaming called Dungeons and Dragons. A bunch of the other gamers in the club were not happy with it; it wasn’t real gaming, they said. Apparently, we had all been waiting for Robert to get his hands on a book of new rules called Blackmoor. Sure, whatever you say.

Well, I did sit in on the session when Robert returned, and while my Halfling Thief was hardly an original fantasy character concept, I was enthralled by this combination of improv theatre and wargaming where I could discover the world that started on sheets of graph paper that Robert scribbled on in response to our questions – a tree here, a pool of mud there – but was so much bigger and richer in my mind.

And Robert was amazing. The way he worked with each player to include their ideas, but kept his conception of this world of his constant, was like watching a narrative grow. Like sitting next to Moorcock, Tolkien, or Leiber, and suggesting ideas. I didn’t know anything like this existed! So my first Thanks go to Robert, my first DM, who inspired me to start my own campaign world not six months later.

A bunch of us took turns DMing as Robert faded away towards graduation, and not just D&D, but Boot Hill and Traveller as well. How we laughed as our intricately planned space military characters died in character creation! Good times.

Enemy Action art by Andrew Trabbold

But I DM’d D&D specifically, and began a consistent world that I fined-tuned over the Summer vacation, so that when we resumed playing in our club after school, and I had enough players that we could divide them into the good, neutral, and evil, teams, they all started in The City With No Name that sat astride the east/west and north/south trade routes nexus – and their adventures affected the city and the world.

Two years the gaming club guys played in that same world, many of them running through multiple characters. I graduated, went to art school twenty minutes from high school, so I returned to DM for the club some afternoons. Many of the folks who learned tabletop RPGs from playing these sessions became friends and we got together outside of the club, especially as they graduated and went to college too.

Meanwhile, I started DMing, same world, for a group of students at art school and their friends once a week. A bunch tried it, thought it was fun (or not) but didn’t keep up with it. But a core group loved it, and became the nucleus for a weekly gaming session that went on for twelve years. (I did not run all of those games, and we did miss some weeks, but it was mostly my D&D world).

And here is the next Thanks: I’m thankful that our group was mixed genders and races and that there was never an issue with prejudice within our group. There were affairs and jealousy and grudges and other human interactions, but for whatever reason I was lucky to have a group that saw this weird hobby as something that everyone could partake in and play in whatever way they felt good playing.

We had Mickey with her crafted storylines for her characters like Kwik the duck monk (Mistress of Kwak-Fu), and the brutish DW the half-ogre and his evil intelligent two-handed sword who did his thinking for him. Danilo with his “what’s next?” questions, and chaotic characters like Elmer who reincarnated into a troll. Jodie, who read every D&D book and magazine she got her hands on and knew all the gaming tricks for Yain Yarwa (Y-Squared) elven thief/assassin, and Isis, illusionist were-tiger. Chaka with his intricate strategies and plans that could take months to come to fruition, and Ed, who wrote up our sessions as chapters in a novel featuring his character Farcist, half-orc renegade.

In fact, our group only stopped playing because I moved to Georgia in 1992 to take over all Art Direction at White Wolf. We had been to hell and back together in our personal lives, and except for one guy who deserted us during those times, the group stuck together. When I moved, they were the ones who drove the rented vans with all my worldly goods down to GA.

Which brings me to now and several decades later. Because as of last year, most of the old crew have started to get together once a quarter. Sometimes for game night, sometimes for a movie, once for a wedding; always so we can talk with each other as only old friends can. Our kids are heading out into high school and college or into their own lives, and there is time again to get together with those people whose characters were once an adventuring party, but whose real lives have bonded even more tightly. My third Thanks goes to them.

So fourth Thanks: for forty years (this month) of this RPG hobby that set me on a career path and allowed me to make friends all the way through those times. My good gaming friends from high school and college and my WW friends and all the people I’ve befriended since then. Folks I’m simply glad to see at conventions, folks on-line, and those who have stood with me facing the hordes of hell.

Kind of getting inspired here; I may even start running my D&D world again…

Many Worlds. One Path.

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Almost halfway through our KS campaign!

Our story so far: We funded in about a day, and have already blown through nine Stretch Goals and went past 200% funding before last weekend! The goals include the two novellas: Autumn and Winter, an art budget increase, two new sections for the Kith and Kin book that we’re calling the Book of Kiths, the first sections for the CtL2 Companion: Entitlements and Freeholds, and we added another 2 PDFs to our CtL 1st Edition PDF reward. And we’re just on the verge of adding another Kith section to that book!

We’ve also revealed excerpts with notes from the developers, and half the book text has been shown to backers so far.

Come along as the seasons change and we reveal the next chapters of the core book text to backers!

Next, our Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will start in early January!

ON SALE NOW:

As we try and find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking! Right now, they’re working on implementing multi-dice and die previews in the store, after adding in a lot of requested upgrades and tweaks, which is going along nicely but is a ton of work. Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://ift.tt/2zjnD0c

http://ift.tt/2hhT5Fk

Three different screenshots, above.

(The Solar Anima special Dice)

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

http://ift.tt/2w0aaEW

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://ift.tt/1pOsnTb

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday, we unveil Vampire: The Requiem 2e‘s Half-Damned as an Advance PDF on DTRPG.com!

I love her, she’s family, but I don’t love what she is.

– Antonio Ramírez, dhampir

This book includes:

• An exploration of what it means to be one of the Half-Damned, dhampir, revenants or ghouls.

• Mechanics for creating Half-Damned characters.

• Information for creating and running chronicles using the various Half-Damned character types, both with vampires and alone.

• Information on Half-Damned antagonists for vampire chronicles.

Legacy of Lies, the V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart, goes undead in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG:

http://ift.tt/2k981ql

TWO PRINCES. BITTER RIVALS. AND A COTERIE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM.

Marcus Verus, the vampiric Prince of Chester, secretly prepares to go into torpor. Should his plans be made public, the Prince knows the wolves — both real and imagined — would launch an attack, threatening all within his domain.

That’s where you come in.

Legacy of Lies includes:

Basic rules for players and Storytellers

Introduction to the Vampire: The Masquerade Dark Ages setting

Introductory adventure

Characters for players and Storytellers

Appearing on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition! http://ift.tt/2A0ga4f

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

NOW on DriveThruCards, the Pugmire Card Set One (Trick, Condition, and Initiative Cards) are helpful visual aids for your Pugmire gaming fun! http://ift.tt/2zC3kuY

Enhance your Pugmire game with this set of player aid cards! These helpful visual aids make your Pugmire gaming easier! Lay them out next to your sheet for ease of reference during play, and to keep track of what you can do, what affects your character, and when they get to act.

Set one contains one card each of every trick in the game, as well as every condition. It also has a set of initiative cards to track player and non-player character actions during combat. Sets two and three (covering artisan and shepherd spells) coming soon!

What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://ift.tt/2sV8lZR

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing. There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2z4uZnU

A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2fEO9YJ

http://ift.tt/2fELqyx

Heroes, Villains, and Others in Between!

This tome is a revision of the original book by the same title, originally published for use with 3rd edition rules for the world’s most popular roleplaying game. In this revised edition of The Wise & the Wicked, all the same characters have returned (and we’ve added some new ones, too!), for use with the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide.

Champions of Gods and Titans

The Wise & the Wicked introduces a rogue’s gallery of the Scarred Lands’ movers and shakers, characters who carry out the will of the gods or the fallen titans. These non-player characters can be friends, enemies, or simply convenient resources for the player characters in your game.

Inside, find villains such as King Virduk of Calastia, the Black Dragon, along with his wife, the beautiful (and black-hearted) Queen Geleeda; the Grand Vizier to King Virduk, the wicked warrior-mage Anteas; and the sinister general of Virduk’s northern armies, Archduke Traviak the Steel-Fisted. At the other end of the spectrum, meet the gracious Lady Ariniel, the Swan Knight, champion of Madriel; Kimer the Shatterer, bearer of the Earth Sword of Scarn and tenacious foe of the titanspawn of the north; and King Thain the Just, the Aleking, ruler of Burok Torn. And many others beside!

Here you’ll find a fascinating compendium of characters from the Scarred Lands, but easily transported into campaigns set elsewhere. In addition, find multiple appendices full of new magic items and artifacts, class archetypes and prestige classes, new feats, new creatures and races, and more.

Available in Pathfinder and 5th Edition versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2zdVHXS

http://ift.tt/2zeEpd8

CONVENTIONS!

This weekend, Matthew Dawkins, Dave Brookshaw, and Eddy Webb are going to be at Dragonmeet in London. https://www.dragonmeet.co.uk/ Expect plenty of playful class warfare as these three mix it up, represent Onyx Path, and generally redefine the term “hooligans”.

Planning ahead for 2018, we’re heading back to Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14, where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show! http://midwintergamingconvention.com

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week): No changes this week.

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Redlines

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

WW Manuscript Approval:

Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – New art getting assigned.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Origins

Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2

Trinity Continuum – Assigned art notes for pieces for KS.

Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Pugmire – Pan’s Explorer’s Guide (or whatever) – Sending notes for this over to Laubenstein, Syme, Loboyko, and Alida this week as soon as I finish going through them.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Beast PG

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content – working on the logo.

Book of Freeholds – To Mark

DtD Enemy Action – With Josh

Pugmire Fetch Quest – Working on sample designs for more playtesting.

Proofing

Wraith 20 – Final layout proof to WW.

W20 Changing Ways – First proof.

At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – To fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover and the Screen proofs.

Prince’s Gambit – Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer.

M20 Cookbook – Files uploaded and processing.

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology – Layout waiting for errata.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– Inputting errata.

C20 Ready Made Characters – Ending Backer PDF errata gathering.

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Advance PDF on sale on DTRPG, gathering errata.

Pugmire Artisan Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pugmire Shepherd Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pentex Indoctrination Manual – Being sent to backers this week.

VtR Half Damned – Advance PDF on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: To reference last week’s TRTC, the new version of MST3K has been picked up for a second season! (While you may think this is just a casual aside that speaks of another’s cultish nerd interest…consider how interested a person might be in a revival of a project with a hard-core group of vocal fans, if that person revives game lines with hard-core vocal fans on a regular basis. They did a great job at it, there is always much to learn from that.)

#Onyx Path Publishing

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spamzineglasgow · 5 years

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(ESSAY) “Capitalism will even alienate you from your face” by Eleri Fowler

In this essayistic meditation, Eleri Fowler taps into the strange subjectification and temporality engendered within the quest to become a ~ female worker ~ in the Neoliberal job market. Bodies, affects and identities are all at stake as Fowler moves compellingly through a curriculum vitae’s worth of feminist reference, anecdotal experience and social performance.

> Libby is LinkedIn she is linked to everyone else she is in there. She is one in a constellation. She is a cog. You must make yourself known by asserting that I am, I am, I am. It is Austinian. It is Poststructuralism. You are nothing unless you say you are. You do not exist unless you have a(n online) presence. Have you noticed how I keep switching pronouns? Your I has to become a bit less wobbly it must be robust it must be strong and stable. I am resourceful, I am driven, I am good at working in teams. I am writing in the third person. It’s a different kind of prose. These are words made dirty through circulation, furrowed bank-notes passed through the changing hands of pragmatism. I am writing in the third person. I am performing a strange kind of introspection. Enquire within. Is what I am an office administrator? Is that what I do? Is and and and is and and. Between then and then did this. Year X Role X Skills. Flexi-time. You cannot be on the commute to yourself. Instead, you must be a fully formed specimen but also a progression, developing, a narrative [Also - very bad to have gaps in your CV]. Then is it a bildungsroman? Well, where do you see yourself in 10 years? When being interviewed, you will often be asked questions you don’t have an answer for. No one knows the answer to them, they are so massive. They might as well be asking - what is the meaning of life, is it all worth it? Here now is they. Us and them. We (in good company / in a good company). In her applications,Libby is shouting at no one in particular she is boasting posturing it is so embarrassing. Orbiting yourself towards imagined employers. Scrub your social media of swearing, of references to drugs and alcohol. Fill the position. Be who they’re looking for.

> Libby cranks open her zygomaticus major and picks some lint off her shirt.

> Another step on the slalom of job hunting.

Ducking and diving. Hawking wares.

Darting in the backstreets, shiftily opening your shearling lapels and revealing all your silver watches (your goods, your credentials).

> Going around and selling … what? Your body and its functionality to make buying things easier for other people? Your back and knees to bend down and pick up low things; your arms to reach and pick up high things.

The metonym of your smile.

Offering up your selfhood, but a weird flambéed version: all the custard gloop of your multifarious self, caramelised into a hard, darkened shard. All anyone ever saw was this opaque lid.

> The journey is made on a dual carriageway and has a parallel cyber tract, traversed similarly itinerantly ‘surfing the web’.

The end point to this vagrant wandering is like the diminishing spot on the horizon during a trip down the M6 at 3am, high on energy drinks.

Meanwhile, time is fed through you like the gap-toothed centre lines below the undercarriage of the vehicle in front.

> The work when you do get it is physically demanding and requires unprecedented reserves of emotional resilience.

Such anaemic, flimsy little promises offered to the precariat.

The mechanic hand of Late-Capitalism picking them up and flippantly dropping them like a limp stuffed toy.

You should not ‘get on with’ your oppression, the correct thing to do is have a tantrum, throw your toys out of the pram. A crotchety childish response is the only logical one to a whirlpool that swirls inscrutably around you; one so complicated and entrenched it can’t be explained beyond a weary sigh “Things just are the way they are”. How do you complain about a system? [i]

> And yet.

When she miserably googles ‘Qualities That Interviewers Look For’, she is surprised so many lists prescribe ‘Optimism’.

‘It is important to develop optimism in ourselves and in the people around us, because research has shown that optimists tend to do better in many areas of their lives than pessimists. Pessimists get depressed more often; they tend to achieve less at work/school and their physical health has been shown to be poorer than optimists over time. The good news is that we can all learn to become more optimistic and the key is in controlling our self-talk.’ [ii]

And yet.

Optimism is not peppy delusion but the stalwart old sea-captain steering his ship through the sea-fog of our categorically insane moment. What future am I facing? How am I going to live? – You can’t let these questions wash over you because otherwise you will drown.

II.

> “We’re not looking for corporate clones. We like people who do things a little differently. Tell us what makes you stand out from the crowd.”

“Show off your personality! Be Bubbly! Energetic! Enthusiastic!”

> Why do they go in for the old popularity contest? How much more smoothly do charismatic, well-liked people glide through the world.

Why is there such demand for big personalities in essentially repetitive, menial jobs? Why must you have exceptional interpersonal skills to operate a point of sale system?

The pathological oxymoron ofwanting to hire ‘individuals’ and making them wear a ‘uniform’: everyone homogenised by the steam-roller of brilliant white Christmas cakeicing.

Anyway, the utterance of demeaning, subjectifying sentences howarewedoingtodayeverythinggoodhereguysgradually wears them all down into something as smooth and easy to walk over as generations of footsteps over ancient stone stairs.

Indeed, workforce is no more than an exercise in pointillism. Each valued, special, infinitesimally different member blurs into the body corporate.

> It is not lost on Libby that she has access to a particular slice of jobs because she is a good girl.

She is pretty, well-spoken, nice.

In Neoliberal synaesthesia, she would be lilac, or pale pink.

Because of this privilege, she has clearance to earn minimum wage by frying fish and chips at an annual elite tennis event, or selling custom-mixed paint, or becoming somebody’s stylish personal assistant. She is eminently employable because she has been given the social advantages to perform a particular form of palatable compliance.

Libby starts work at a purveyor of luxury footwear. A CV is instantly rejected because the individual who delivers it has a slightly abrasive manner and an imperfect dye-job. This woman has worked in lots of shops before. Libby has no previous experience.

> Customer-service is essentially femininity. But in what form? Femininity as air-bag. Muscle-memory femininity.

Femininity is saying “yes”

Femininity is absorbing all the static melodrama of the demands and vitriol of others. Taking it.

Femininity is the work of acting happy when you don’t feel like it.

> “The customer is always right” - What sort of world is governed by this moral law?

We want an easy dynamic, a dialectic.

A hollow, buffeted, maniacally happy - Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube (WO)man

III.

> All around Libby, her peers wear the livery collar of their usability

Experiences calcify into vocations. Twitter epithets accrete like zygotes. Multi-hyphenate babies.

> They attend events for ‘Women in Business’. They lament the dearth of female CEOs.

They post earnest, prescriptive Facebook statuses – urging women into action - on occasions such as International Women’s Day or on any election (“Remember the women who fought for your right to have this vote!”)

They are often beautiful.

> They put on some glitter and go out and take coke and wash their hair the next morning and post their eggs benedict on Instagram – determinedly observing these acts like social rituals. Like the rigmarole getting married.

They are unblemished by the weirdness of life. They just march on through.

They always have something to report to enquiring relatives.

They have never once in their lives stayed in bed all day in convulsive despair.

> In lots of ways, this is a perfectly valid and sensible way to get through things.

[i]Sara Ahmed on complaint.

[ii]The handbook from a motivational training course I was sent on at work.

Text: Eleri Fowler

Published 13/10/19

#essay #essays #SPAM #post-internet #CV #customer service #LinkedIn #Eleri Fowler #social media #ontology #late-modern identity #femininity #job hunting #capitalism #ideology

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morshtalon · 5 years

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My Top 5 Video Game Intros

Since I haven't posted in a while and since I don't have any ideas for full-fledged reviews, let's do something different today and talk about my 5 favorite intros to video games I enjoyed in the past. Please note that this is a very personal, opinionated list; I have somewhat deliberately avoided really obvious picks (consider Metal Gear Solid 3's and Final Fantasy VI's openings, among others, to be hovering around in spirit somewhere around here). Furthermore, I'm not limiting myself exclusively to that very first, usually pre-rendered opening scene of a game (like, the attract mode before you even press start), because most of the time those are kind of devoid of any meaning and without context, I'd just be judging them by coolness or whatever, which isn't very interesting or inducive to commentary. Anyway, without further ado, here are my top 5 video game intros:

#5: Wild Arms 3's evolving opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvoueEiVyWE

At first, Wild Arms 3's opening is just a standard anime thing. It's fairly animated and stuff, and that's fine as far as that goes, but there are two things I find quite special with this opening; one that was always there from the start and one that was a product of the localization. First off, there are actually four versions of the opening. You see, the game is separated into 4 chapters, each with a different main villain which is somewhat related to the last, with varying levels of directness. In that way, as has been said before, it feels like seasons of an anime, and I think the game struck a good balance of making itself both a cohesive experience and a sort of episodic narrative simultaneously. To reflect that, the opening "evolves" as you progress through the game, changing key scenes to reflect the current "season" villain. I find that to be pretty awesome and an idea I haven't really seen repeated anymore; I believe mostly due to the fact that WA3 has this sort of unique story direction that lent itself to the evolving intro. Still, more games should adopt this style. They might have, I dunno, this is the coolest example out of the games I've played anyway. The second thing that impresses me is how well the localization performer fared singing the english version of the opening theme, Advanced Wind. I think it's actually better than the original. There's a certain sweetness and determination in her voice that is so fitting with the game's main character, I could almost trick myself into thinking it was actually Virginia hollering those lyrics. Pretty good opening, not higher on the list because it -is- just a pre-title opening I guess, but still. Also, Wild Arms 3 itself is alright, check it out if you're a fan of this kind of stuff.

#4: Cave Story's first taste of gameplay

What makes Cave Story's introduction interesting is that it... sort of doesn't exist. You're just dropped straight into the action with no real clue what's going on besides a brief interaction between two characters that makes completely no sense at that point. Every plot detail is up to you to find out in an immersive manner that doesn't barrage the player with endless backstories and setups and information you don't really need. Even Dark Souls, one of my favorite games and the one I perceive to be closest to the ideal of gameplay and story integration, feels the need to weigh down your mind with stuff before you start. Don't get me wrong, I understand why Dark Souls and many other games need it, but the fact that Cave Story -doesn't- is rather admirable, in my opinion. I love games where you start out without knowing what's going on, solving challenges just based on the fact you're playing a game and need to go forward, to only then start piecing together the great scheme of things from in-game data collection. What's even better about Cave Story is that there's no limitation at the start: you're dropped into full gameplay conditions, without bumbling around a peaceful area while the backstory is exposed to you by an NPC or anything "cinematic" like that. You're just left to figure everything out on your own. Pretty cool.

#3: Dragon Warrior II's extended prologue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OlHofpQ7LA

Dragon Quest 2's original Famicom version started out pretty shitty. It was basically only a slight alteration to the previous installment's intro: you're in a throne room (this time you're actually the prince, sitting on the queen's throne for some reason), some guard from the faraway kingdom of Moonbrooke comes along and warns the king of impending doom before collapsing from his wounds, the king gives you some brief words of encouragement and sets you off on an adventure with minimal financial backup and a crap sword (admittedly, a better deal than in DQ1). For the international version, by some divine intervention causing a brief miracle shining in the face of Nintendo's then-oppressive censorship, an extensive prologue scene was added depicting the events that befell Moonbrooke prior to that guard setting off on his journey. What makes this scene special, however, is how brilliantly it expands on the tropes established by the localization of the previous title. Dragon Warrior 1 had this faux-Elizabethan translation for some reason, which was pretty charming but otherwise just a strange quirk they added for the overseas release. The extended prologue added here actually runs with that theme and frames the story as some kind of fairy tale; a narrator intercepts the dialog message boxes to preface each character's next line, there is some opening text that feels as if some elderly gent from Shakespeare times was weaving a tale in front of his audience's eyes, and it even goes somewhat into detail pretty much leaving no room for the player to doubt that the people of Moonbrooke flat out died. Also, the guard that makes the voyage to your kingdom is given a tiny little bit of characterization, just enough to wrap up the scene pretty much as best as they could have. Overall, this makes Dragon Warrior II have the most engaging start of the original trilogy; it was something they didn't have to do at all, but they did it and actually made the game better for it. At least until you get to Rhone and it starts its genocide of the player's happiness, soul, and reasons to live.

#2: Suikoden II - Reminiscence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WLyjRex0ac

Suikoden II's emotional storyline and comparatively grounded narrative offer a nice contrast to the PSX's library of jRPGs concerned with elevating their epicness to ridiculous degrees. The game really cements this approach on the introductory flashback scene that functions as the opening credits. To me, the reminiscence scene is pivotal, serving a variety of functions that cause ripple effects lasting even beyond one's playthrough of the game. The setup is simple: The main character and his best friend run afoul of a ploy to abruptly terminate a cease-fire between two nations; they are pursued by some knights and cornered at a cliff above a river. You and your friend, then, etch a marking on a spot in the cliff wall and jump into the river below, planning to return to the etched spot should he and you get separated. While you are being carried by the currents, the scene itself begins. It's simply a flashback montage showcasing glimpses of the life you and your friend led leading up to your enrollments in the army and departure for the sabotaged expedition, accompanied by a relatively simple piano piece. However, it's a scene that is central to the themes of the entire game. It provides, first and foremost, a contrast between a perceived bright future with an everlasting bond of friendship and the tragedies that will soon occur in these characters' lives. It's a window into the will and emotions of the main character himself in his comfort zone; the life that he will so clamor to return to as the game progresses and things get increasingly more unwieldy for everyone. It sets up everything you need to know about the relationship between you, your best friend, and your sister on a 2-minute scene with no dialog; conveying all it needs only on its fantastic sprite work and score. It lets you know that this is, first and foremost, a game about feelings and about interpersonal relationships, using the war that you expect to happen from having played Suikoden 1 more as a backdrop to explore introspective consequences and how it affects people's visions. Most importantly, however, is that it serves as a reminder of what it was like for you, the player, when you come back from having completed the game. I literally cannot watch this scene anymore without shedding a tear or two. It happens every time. I actually prefer the normal version with the sepia filter, but I couldn't find it on its own like that, so here's the full-color version of it that you get from doing some ludicrous stunt before you jump into the river or whatever. Either one's fine, really. By the way, get the bad ending. The good one completely ruins the message and weight of the entire story, almost making the game meaningless.

#1: Vagrant Story - Climax of the Graylands Incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4m42OmAczo

Vagrant Story is an odd game in many aspects. Its gameplay is a crossbreed of roguelikes and rhythm games, it has yet another strange Shakespearean localization, the characters are dressed all weird and BDSM-y and showing a lot of skin... Anyway, one of the game's odd quirks is that it has tons of stuff that you can miss by pressing start at an inopportune moment. One of them is the simply amazing opening; an epic 11-minute in-engine "cutscene" (with occasional gameplay sections that transition very smoothly because it's all done with in-game models and graphics) jampacked with plot detailing the events leading up to the game's start, with even the music trying its best to synchronize itself with the cutscene's many shifts in mood and intensity. You can easily miss all this because it starts with a long wall of text that most players would read faster than the time it takes for it to disappear and press "start" because they think they're done with it and there's nothing left to see. A shame, really, because to me this one part of the game almost manages to outshine the entire rest of it. There's just such a density of things happening here; this urban gray rainy moody setting is more fitting to the localization's flowery prose than the things that happen in Léa Monde, and it's all just done so well with the PSX's limitations. While pretty much every other game ever opts for FMVs or an otherwise pre-rendered solution for its openings and important moments, Vagrant Story does it all with the same exact rules (well... excluding the vapid meaningless pre-opening that happens before the title screen shows up but just forget about that one), and the result is that everything feels like it has much more weight to it. Also, as I said, there is the advantage of transitioning smoothly into gameplay, which the game -does- go on to use a few times later on for short "boss appearing at the boss arena"-type cutscenes, but those all lack the juice and meat of this glorious opening scene. It's just a meticulously created, awesome example of Video Game craftsmanship, outside of just being really awesome to watch as well. I absolutely love it.

Here are some runners-up: Wild Arms 2's Disc 2 cinematic (US version); Fire Emblem: Thracia 776's opening (before title screen); That part in Actraiser when you descend into Fillmore stage 1 and go into the statue and that kickass track starts playing; The brief scroll down on the dark forest scene in Tales of Phantasia (Super Famicom) before the title screen shows up (really fascinated me as a kid); Lufia: The Legend Returns (odd pick but it has a pretty charming intro with some nice artwork for the GBC); Probably many others that I'm forgetting right now.

Anyway, from this list you can sort of tell what games I like to play so I can excuse myself from writing a dreaded positive review of something for a while. Also, I noticed that things that are done with the in-game engine tend to impress me more than things that aren't, even though it's technically actually more work to do an anime FMV thing I guess? Well, whatever, I'm a hypocrite and stupid so make sure to share your own opinions too if you want I guess I dunno.

#top 5 #video games #intro #review #list

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doomsteady · 7 years

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I thought I might start sharing new fic chapters here before they get posted on ao3, while I wait for beta-reader feedback. If you’ve not already caught up on The Cat & The Fox, you might want to skip these posts. But if you’re a reader of that fic and can’t wait for more updates, then these posts are specially for you. <3

Some additional editing may occur before they get officially posted. But by and large, what you see is what you’ll get.

Also, I’ll keep it mostly under the cut. I don’t want to flood your dashes. Ta!

Chapter 30

25 years ago

“Mikey! You forgot your lunch!” Sherlock waves the brown paper bag aloft as he runs to catch up with his big brother. Mycroft hauls his suitcase up the steps of the coach before turning to meet him.

Mycroft smiles down at him, taking the bag from his hands and wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders in a tight hug.

“I’ll miss you, Bumblebee. Be good for Mummy and Daddy while I’m away, won’t you?”

Sherlock huffs into Mycroft’s coat collar, beating a small fist on his back. “I’m nine. Stop calling me that stupid baby name.”

“You still are a baby,” Mycroft says fondly, grinning over his brother’s shoulder when Sherlock gives him another answering punch in the arm and wriggles out of his grasp. “And don’t go into my room while I’m gone. I’ll know if you do.”

“No you won’t.” Sherlock pouts, but his ire is quickly forgotten. “Will you write to me?”

“Of course. Every day, if I’m able.”

“Mycroft, dear, don’t promise him such things. Imagine the temper if a letter arrives late?” Mummy steps forward to encircle Mycroft in her arms, speaking quietly in his ear. “He’s going to miss you too, very much. We all will.”

“I will write, Mum. I promise.”

She squeezes him for a moment before stepping back, her eyes shining with tears. Daddy approaches then, taking Mycroft’s hand in a gentlemanly shake. “Good luck, my boy. Knock their socks off, eh? We’re proud of you.”

Mycroft promises to do his very best.

In the Holmes family tradition, all boys strive for a career at MI5 from an early age. At sixteen years old, they’re taken into London for their introductory application. It has always been this way. His father worked for the government, as did his grandfather and great-grandfather, all the way back to the very formation of the Secret Service Bureau.

Even before then, there has always been a Holmes involved in the country’s governmental operations. It is a closely held family secret that during the Revolution of 1688, it was a Holmes ancestor that convinced the Commons to allow both William and Mary to take the throne of England after the defeat of King James II, despite opposition within Parliament. It was the result of King William III’s subsequent governance that directly influenced the drawing up of the United States Constitution 100 years later.

This lofty legacy should be intimidating, but Mycroft has embraced it with zeal and ambition. He dreams of a position of power and authority, and a responsibility to his country, to protect and serve her from all who would do her harm. Of all the careers a boy of his sharp intellect might have chosen, this offers everything he could ever desire.

As he looks over at his family’s tearful smiles one last time, he wishes he could stay with them just a little longer. Especially Sherlock. Mycroft worries so much for him. His little brother has never shown any interest in his world of kings and spies, and the only knights that inspire his imagination are those who ride into the hills to challenge mythical beasts atop their piles of gold. He has already set out on a different path, and it will take more than gentle coaxing to bring him back. Perhaps, after Mycroft’s training, he will be better equipped to change Sherlock’s mind about what future he would rather pursue.

A sharp tap on the shoulder tells him it’s time to leave, and Mycroft boards the coach. He finds an unoccupied seat next to the window, and waves as his family recede into the distance.

At last; this is the beginning of a new life. He can feel it. He’s not there yet, but it won’t be long now. Everything he’s worked for, everything he’s studied towards. It all comes down to this.

The trials ahead will be difficult. They will test his mental acuity, which won’t pose a problem, he is certain. But the physical training might require him to dig deep into his reserves. No matter. He is officially one step closer to his dreams. Whatever it takes, he is ready and eager to begin.

Across the aisle, a boy leans over and taps him on the shoulder, interrupting his reverie.

“Hullo. Mikey, is it? Sorry, overheard the kid say it.”

“Mycroft. Hello.”

“Jim.” The boy extends his hand. Mycroft takes it cordially. He seems young, several years younger than Mycroft, at least. “Brother of yours?”

“Hm? Oh, yes. His name’s Sherlock.”

“And he’s James,” Jim says, jerking his head at the identical twin in the seat next to him. James nods once before turning away, visibly disinterested. Jim’s enthusiasm seems unaffected. “Brothers, eh?” He grins toothily.

Mycroft thinks he spots a missing molar. He returns a polite smile, but can’t think of much else to say. Socialising with other children has never been one of his stronger suits. Jim releases their handshake and relaxes back in his seat, throwing his arms over the backrest.

“Well, pleased to meet ya, Mikey. Don’t confuse us like the rest of these idiots do, and we’ll get along famously.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you,” Mycroft replies. He glances furtively at the other one before turning his gaze back to the window. Some discreet minutes later, he rubs his hand on the seat beside him.

Mental note: Jim is the one with sweaty palms.

——

Four months ago

“John, wake up. We have a case!”

It startles him awake, one hand already scrambling behind the headboard. For a blind second his mind is operating on pure instinct, a soldier’s training, lingering PTSD and an unfortunate array of half-obscured memories of being kidnapped at night. In a hot second, John is staring down the sights of his handgun at a very surprised looking Sherlock. His mind catches up a moment later.

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock.” The stiffness in his arm melts, falling to the pillow with a soft thud. John rubs the sleep from his eyes and peers over to squint at the alarm clock. He groans. “Do you have any idea what time it is.”

“Yes! It’s exactly the perfect time to catch him in the act,” Sherlock says, his eyes already lighting back up with excitement. “I’ve been tracking his movements all week. I know exactly where he is at this very moment, and this time, he won’t be getting away.” Sherlock straightens, lifts his weight off the mattress with aplomb and claps his hands together. “Come on, hurry up. Get dressed. We need to get downtown before he’s done looting the exhibit.”

John has no idea who Sherlock is talking about. It’s a feeling he’s been growing used to, being left behind, mentally speaking. Moments like this, Sherlock tends to skip over the necessary step of filling him in on the basics, his mind ever locked ten steps ahead of everybody else in its obsession with the intricate details of his deductions. It leaves him virtually incapable of conceiving of the idea that John doesn’t just already know everything he needs to.

It can get a little annoying. And more than a little dangerous, when he decides to spring into the room like an over-excitable greyhound and nearly give John a heart-attack in the process. As John sees it, when they work together from the beginning they automatically fall into sync. He may not have the deductive powers of his genius lover, but he can usually keep up with him as he explains how his mad version of logic leaps from point-A to point-B. But sometimes he wonders if Sherlock doesn’t even realise it when he starts a new case without him. He has caught him, on more than one occasion, carrying on a conversation with himself as if John was already in the room.

Sherlock had been out all day today, and yesterday. The house was still empty when John came home from his shift that evening. An abandoned mug of tea sat on the kitchen counter, the only evidence of Sherlock’s presence there for breakfast that morning, however fleeting his appearance. That night John waited up, just in case, but Sherlock often got too caught up in his own little world and was still offering unsure, one-word answers to John’s texts by the time he gave up and turned in at around midnight.

It hadn’t been more than a couple of hours since John had climbed into his side of a cold bed. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, then, that Sherlock chose the exact moment he entered his first REM cycle to magically reappear and summon him up for an adventure.

John presses his head into the pillow and scrunches the sides up to his ears with both arms. “You know I’d love to. But I have an early shift tomorrow. Can’t the police handle a simple break-in?”

Sherlock scoffs. “There’s nothing simple about it. That’s why it’s so interesting. None of the thefts appeared connected, until last Wednesday when he made one of the most elementary errors you could imagine—”

“That’s great, Sherlock. Really, I’m happy for you, but that doesn’t explain why you can’t just call the police. You’ve done your bit, yeah? It’s their job to catch the guy now.”

“But… Where’s the fun in that?” John opens his eyes again. He recognises that tone. ‘But Jooohhhn,’ whenever Sherlock feigns utter ignorance of why he isn’t getting what he wants at any given moment. Sherlock stands rigid and buzzing with energy next to the bed, already dressed up in his Sherrinford clothes for the world beyond their front door. Seeing him like that, looking so different and yet still so quintessentially Sherlock, is another thing he’s slowly getting used to. Though, the hair is still a little weird for his tastes.

“You could just join me in here. I’d make sure there’s fun in that.”

In the light of the open doorway, John catches the unguarded smile that slips into place before Sherlock can school himself. He reaches out a hand in silent offering, and watches the internal struggle play out like theatre in Sherlock’s eyes. But eventually he shakes his head slowly, presses his lips in an apologetic smile and employs his most effective puppy-dog eyes. John can already feel his resolve wavering. That really shouldn’t be as effective as it is on him.

“Come on, John. The other day you were saying how much you enjoy it when we’re working cases together. You said we didn’t do it often enough.”

“I did, but—”

“And I agreed with you, and promised that the next time a really big, interesting case came along, we can do it together. Remember?”

“Yes, I remember, but—”

“Well?” He spreads his hands wide. John has visions of sleepwalking through his next surgery and accidentally sewing somebody’s leg to the table. But he is right. These opportunities really don’t come along as often as he would like, they’re always both so busy. He misses Sherlock every moment they aren’t together.

If only it wasn’t the middle of the bloody night. Sherlock’s timing is impeccably awful. But John couldn’t go back to sleep now if he wanted to, knowing that if he let him go alone, Sherlock would be off tackling a potentially dangerous criminal without any backup. There’s no stopping the man once his mind is set.

And it’s just one night, John supposes. He has pulled all-nighters before. He’s not overly keen on coffee, but a few extra cups during the day will keep him going. Sherlock looks ready to bolt out the door.

“Alright,” John sighs, yawning and flinging back the duvet. “You win. Give me a sec to throw on some clothes.”

—

An hour later, the pair of them are pelting down a side-street in pursuit of their fleeing target. John is a few steps behind, keeping pace, his Sig pressing into the small of his back. At Sherlock’s signal, he’ll know when to break off, to duck down an adjacent alleyway and come around the other side of their route, trapping their quarry in a pincer movement. It’s a tactic they’ve already used to great effect in the past, so in-sync with each other’s movements that the coordination comes naturally, works beautifully. They were born to do this.

This was an excellent decision, John thinks. Better than sex, in some ways. Or, perhaps this is sex, just in a different context; he feels alive, every instinct and muscle tuned to the thrill of the chase, and he knows Sherlock must be enjoying this too, just look at him. Flying across the ground on long, powerful legs, black denim jacket flapping its wings behind him like a bat in his wake. The open collar of his shirt revealing a long expanse of creamy neck, tendons thick and straining with effort. Feet thumping rhythmically against concrete as he rounds another corner, lithe as a fox chasing a rabbit through an urban forest. John can’t help stare at him as he follows the thief’s trajectory up onto some bins and vaults over a fence in one graceful movement— a stunning, sensual creature, revelling in his element.

Out of sight, there’s a dull crack and a yelp of surprise, and John’s heart hammers in his chest as he sprints forward, yanking the gun from his waistband and flicking off the safety. He sees the thief disappearing down another alley as he makes it over the fence a little less gracefully than his partner. Sherlock scrambles to pick himself up from the floor a few steps ahead.

“What happened? You okay?” John says, panting to catch his breath. He jogs up to where Sherlock is wobbling to his feet, and has to grab his arm to keep him upright.

“Bastard was waiting for me,” Sherlock says, grimacing, brushing dirt from the back of his thighs. “Slammed my head into the wall. I’m alright, though. Come on. I’ll take that way, you head around—”

“We’re doing nothing of the sort. Come on, let me take a look at you.”

“I said I’m fine,” he insists, but John digs a pocket torch out of his coat and flicks it on, carding his fingers through Sherlock’s dyed-blond hair in search of a wound. Sherlock rants his frustration, his voice echoing off the narrow alley walls. “I should have anticipated it. Stupid! We had him, John. He knew he was about to be cornered.”

“Yeah, he did. Hey, sit down for a minute.”

“There’s no time for that! He can’t be far, we can still—”

“I’m serious, sit down, love. You’re bleeding.” John rubs his wet fingertips together in the light of the torch. Sherlock waves it away.

“It’s just a scratch. Head injuries always look a little over-dramatic, you know that.”

“That’s true, but I still want to be sure. Sit, please?” John puts on his most persuasive smile, urging him gently down with his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders. Reluctantly, Sherlock eases himself down to sit, grumbling and touching the back of his head for personal confirmation. His enthusiasm for the chase gradually deflating.

“Let’s not take any chances with that magnificent brain of yours, eh? I think you should get that looked at down at the A&E. You might have a concussion.”

“Oh for god’s sake, John.”

“Colin,” John corrects, casting a wary look above to the windows overlooking the alley. “Sherry… Please? For me. I’ll worry if you don’t.”

“I don’t need a hospital, I was just dazed. It’s already passing. See? It’s nothing to worry about. I feel fine.”

“Then will you come home, then, and let me dress it? You can’t just leave it like that.”

Sherlock casts a wistful look in the direction of his lost quarry. John crouches by him and squeezes his hand. He understands the sense of loss his mad, brilliant lover must be feeling, to have come so close to the prize only to have it slip through their fingers. Just as Sherlock trusts him to know when to cut their losses and take care of what’s more important at the moment. He eventually nods, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet, and they make their way out into the open streets.

—

John fusses at the tightly wrapped bandage, making doubly sure of the quality of his handiwork as Sherlock stares glumly across the kitchen. Bloodied clothes lie discarded in the laundry basket in favour of a flannel dressing gown and slippers. Satisfied with his work, John steps back and checks his watch.

“Right, you should go get some rest. I’ll check on you every half hour. I need to call into work and tell them I won’t be in today.”

Sherlock brushes shower-damp curls away from his eyes. He looks up at John. “You were right. It would’ve been stupid to keep chasing him. I’m glad you were there to stop me.”

A soft smile crinkles his eyes, and John leans down to press a gentle kiss to his lips. Sherlock hums appreciatively, wrapping his arms around John’s waist and drawing him closer to sit on his lap.

“Me too, love. That was a lot of fun. Much rather be running around Tok Town with you than pulling another TV remote out of someone’s arse, any day of the week.”

Sherlock bursts into giggles. The effect is contagious.

“I’d prefer that too, if we could afford it.”

“I assumed we could, until I saw our bank balance.” John’s eyes fall to the stack of bills on their kitchen counter. “If we ever go back to London, I’ll have a few choice words for that brother of yours. He promised enough to keep us comfortable for at least a year.”

“Well, you know Mycroft,” Sherlock replies, laying his head on John’s chest. John strokes his hair absently. They sit in comfortable silence for a while, holding each other in a moment they recognise has become too rare, too precious.

“Speaking of your brother…” John begins.

“Let’s go to bed,” Sherlock says, lifting his head, and John dearly wishes he could read such guarded expressions.

“Still no word?” he tries, but Sherlock doesn’t say anything else, just kisses him on the lips and slowly lifts them to standing, and John allows himself to be guided back to bed.

—

When John wakes again some time in the early afternoon, Sherlock is already gone, his side of the bed cold once more.

—

#sherlock #ao3 #fanfic #the cat and the fox #doom's projects #chapter 30 #preview

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shananaomi · 7 years

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2016.

hi. i haven’t been around these parts much this year, but i couldn’t quite let this one go by.

here’s last year’s.

[note to self at end of 2017: you deleted anything you didn’t feel up to answering, so maybe go find a complete version if you’re into that sort of thing now.]

What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before?

Went to Paris, then drove around the French countryside in a tiny car, just as I’d imagined ever since seeing Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown, as a little kid. (Fewer haunted chateaus, more champagne.) Ran a 10k and only truly hated the last mile of it. Watched my wife run a marathon. Finally started reading Harry Potter, but only made it through 2.5 books before it...scared me too much to keep going.

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions and will you make more for next year?

Last year: I vowed to prioritize watching more TV shows by and about women, and largely stuck to this and its corollary “no more whiny white guys.”

Also, in answer to the question about what I wish I had done more of in 2015, I said (pre-Hamilton, I should add): I’m sure it means something that every year my answer to this is write. It means I’m never satisfied, right?

Today on Twitter I said: has there ever been a year my resolution was not "write more; complain less"?

Also, per @yayponies, we are going to #GetFitToFightFascism.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Several people we love now have more children! And several more are about to.

Did anyone close to you get married?

I...don’t think we went to any weddings this year, or missed any big ones.

Did anyone close to you die?

2016 was definitely the year for crying over people who felt so close it stabbed inside to know they were gone, from Bowie to those killed in Orlando to George Michael.

What countries did you visit?

France! It was beautiful and also intense, like more of a city than even New York but in less space and smaller streets. In many ways the general nervousness and militarization reminded me of New York City post-9/11.

What would you like to have in 2017 that you lacked in 2016?

A sense of safety, both personal and global.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

In order to avoid getting a spinal tap or going on a scary-sounding drug to reduce high pressure in my skull, I got a personal trainer, finally stopped eating anything and everything I wanted, and lost 30 pounds. Then I sort of plateaued, or in fitness-speak, maintained that weight successfully for the last 4 months while magically continuing to wear ever-smaller clothes. I’ve set a goal for at least 10 more pounds by the time I turn 40 in April, because that was a random thing I told myself a year ago I could try to do but sounded impossible at the time.

But I also discovered that I fucking love hiking and even running outside and generally feeling stronger. And before 2016 totally and completely went to shit, I knew looking back that would be my biggest story of the year: I finally put real work into my body, and it was worth it.

What was your biggest failure?

Outside of the never-ending churn of work emails, I have become a terrible, almost entirely absent correspondent. I almost never reply to emails any more, and even text messages often go unanswered. I am so ashamed of this behavior I can barely type it out, honestly, and yet it is somehow the greatest tiny step to take in any free moment I find or set aside for specifically that purpose.

If I have failed at some point or many to write you back, know it was certainly not because of anything you said, or didn’t.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

I did something of a mid-year review on my birthday where I wrote about the medical mystery in my brain that dominated the end of 2015 and first half of this year. I’m very lucky; another few rounds of check-ups found my high pressure situation so reduced it was basically now undiagnosable. Also I avoided having a spinal tap, thank fucking god. My great USC Eye Institute doc left for another city but I have a follow-up in January with a guy who basically wrote the book on neuro-ophthalmology so we’ll see whether a true second opinion changes any of that.

What was the best thing you bought?

It’s not that I don’t like working out with other people. Wait, yes it is. I survived a month of boot camp in 2015 out of sheer stubbornness but hated myself and my body more by the end of it than I’d ever thought possible. But in a one-on-one situation, it turns out I can just channel all that stubborn perfectionism into something meaningful. It was a massive investment, and one I plan to continue in 2017, but there is really no question to me that it was worth it.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

My wife. Did I mention she ran a goddamned marathon? In that and so, so many other ways, she is so much stronger than she thinks or believes and inspires me every day to keep going.

Where did most of your money go?

Trainer, rent, car payment, student loans. Mostly all those old familiar beasts.

What song will always remind you of 2016?

“Youth,” Troye Sivan. Sitting by a pool in Palm Springs listening to him sing and writing about him and feeling pretty goddamned blessed.

not a bad view to get serious on a deadline.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Sadder. There’s just no other way to say that.

ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner!

iii. richer or poorer? We’re being more careful about money now than we have at times in the past, I’ll put it that way.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Always: write. But I need to think a little more specifically about what that means for me right now. I run a major media outlet at which I could theoretically write almost anything, but almost never do. Part of what I most miss writing about is queerness and sexuality, but I am not totally sure what, if anything, I want to write for OUT. Should I write fiction? Should I be trying to write and report other, more politically focused pieces (either about entertainment in some way or not)? Should I do something with this TinyLetter I signed up for but have yet to use? Should I write more Tumblr posts?

Oh yeah, and when am I going to do this? It’s not that I have no time, but I don’t have huge swaths of it either just sitting around waiting to be claimed. I can do this, if I really focus and prioritize. Having some kind of goal type thingie or vision here would obviously go a long way.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Crying.

How did you spend Christmas?

Writing George Michael’s obit.

this is the ridiculous family photo we took on a street near my parents' new house - just before my phone buzzed with the news of George Michael's death. i'm just completely heartbroken. our first conversation, first date, first I love yous - all owe something big to our gay guardian angel, as we always called him. thank you George for being queer and angry and so, so, so beautifully talented. thank you.

What was your favorite TV program?

Save Pitch!

What was the best book you read?

Probably Julia Child’s memoirs, the perfect pre-France guide and also a reminder that a woman can find her way to a whole new life no matter her age. I also adored my old friend Tim Murphy’s novel Christodora. Highly recommended.

What was your greatest musical discovery of 2016?

This should fairly be answered Hamilton, since it took me a while to decide I was ready to jump in even if I wasn’t sure when I’d get to see it. I’m in. All in.

What did you want and get?

To spoil my wife silly on her 40th birthday, including a slightly early trip back to Paris in honor of our first conversation being about her trip there on her 30th. I am traditionally the distant second place present-giver in our relationship, but I think I adequately stepped it up this time.

What did you want and not get?

For our happiness to be as simple as finding the perfect present. A country I felt confident loved us back. My dog to feel as peaceful and calm and quiet as she does when she’s not in Los Angeles. For all the words and thoughts inside my brain to magically appear on a screen or the page without having to find the time or peace to make sense of them.

What was your favorite film of this year?

I did vow to do a better job of seeing films this year, especially big ones that I needed to consider how much work-time to devote coverage to, so maybe that’s why I feel like I have a surprisingly strong, solid list here to choose from. I don’t think I saw Spotlight until 2016, when I watched it back to back on a plane before All the President’s Men. (Don’t yell but: Spotlight was better.) I absolutely loved Arrival and Loving. I don’t plan to give into the weird backlash cynicism about La La Land, which I found delightful if not exactly epic.

Ultimately I think my answer here is that Moonlight and Hell or High Water touched my soul and heart and made me think the most. They are both, in distinctly different ways, about the deep, lasting curse of poverty. In Hell or High Water, Chris Pine’s character eventually offers this terse motivation for a deadly bank robbing spree he has undertaken with his brother: “I’ve been poor my whole life, like a disease passing from generation to generation. But not my boys, not anymore.”

For whatever reason, I’m thinking now about how some people have compared Moonlight to Brokeback Mountain. (I would have compared the latter to Loving, actually, in that they both turn very much on the passionate decisions of reticent white men acting on emotions they cannot figure out how to name.) I guess what people are saying is that Moonlight is also a groundbreaking film about sexuality, but to me what was always missed about Brokeback is that it was a film about a poor man’s sexuality.

Moonlight very pointedly creates a new possible dialogue to model in conversations about being black and queer - when asked what a faggot is, Chiron is told, “‘Faggot’ is a word used to make gay people feel bad.” And it asks an even harder question: can sexuality and our expression of it ever be separated from the sheer human need to survive other, perhaps unrelated or perhaps more complicated and threatening circumstances of race and class?

I guess I had some things to say about movies this year.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 39, and one of the only long form pieces I wrote this year actually covers that territory too!

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Sigh. A Clinton presidency. That’s not one thing, it’s a million, but that’s the goddamned point, isn’t it?

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2016?

Last year I said: I’m damned determined for 2016 to be the year of the lipstick.

And actually I did pretty well on that count. Also I bought some impressively ridiculous over-the-knee boots that I’ve worn almost every day since.

What kept you sane?

Was I? I still feel pretty unhinged, honestly. My staff and colleagues were actually a consistent source of stability even when there were major changes in that world, too. (Part of CBS basically sold us to a different part of CBS.)

But each and every day: my wife. This marriage is the best and most important thing I will ever do in my life, and whatever “work” it may be, it pays back in sustaining my existence a hundredfold. Coming soon, allegedly: a podcast and/or Insta live series with me and @yayponies called Marriage Is Hard. (No it’s not.)

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Oh hey, I finally got to introduce my wife to Chris Pine when we bumped into him at the reception after the Loving premiere/screening. (Sorry-not-sorry for the utter LAness of that sentence.) I kind of hate reintroducing myself to people I interviewed years before, but in this case: worth every moment of internal awkwardness. He has very strong feelings about cinematography, you guys. And projectionists. And cheesy grits.

What political issue stirred you the most?

I am sickened by the fact that young trans and gender-nonconforming folks are bearing the brunt of the right-wing’s latest scare and hate tactics. I am not scared for my marriage headed into a new administration; I am terrified for their lives.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

America. All of us.

Who did you miss?

I miss...people. I miss Sunday potluck dinners like Ray and I threw in college, the kind that were just about people having a safe space but then really about organizing, but I’m still not sure how to create those in our lives right now in a way that doesn’t create more anxiety for us than it relieves. I’m putting this here in hopes some other folks might have an idea. Maybe I’ll even be bold enough to put it in its own post.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2016.

"I’VE BEEN PLANNING WHILE YOU’RE PLAYING.” -- Jenny Holzer

We saw this at the Broad. Jessica did a better job of writing about it.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Raise a glass to freedom Something they can never take away No matter what they tell you Raise a glass to the four of us Tomorrow there’ll be more of us

What is one photo that represents a moment you want to remember?

Here we are on an impossibly beautiful day in Paris after one of the best meals of my life, grinning like fools and taking photos that don’t even look real.

even as we were taking this photo I knew it would look super fake. but it's not! I mean that palm tree was definitely brought in special but it was there when we went to pick up our bibs. oh yeah, we're running a 6k-but-probably-more-like-8k through the streets of Paris tomorrow along with about 35,000 other women. (and by running I mean trying not to fall too far behind the pack.) #laparisienne

#2016 #if you don't mind please don't reblog this one #but feel free to comment of course or drop me an ask

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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Closing the Books on Crystalware

Crystalware was not the sort of company to let trademarks deter them, whether incorporating the Enterprise in their logo or marketing an unlicensed game called Imperial Walker.

A year ago, I’d never heard of Crystalware. Then, someone rediscovered their catalogue and uploaded all of its games to MobyGames and my year became in large part about the company. But let’s face it: none of its games are really RPGs. They have some RPG “elements” in some of the inventory selections and random approach to combat, but there isn’t a single one in which the character grows intrinsically from his experiences except for The Forgotten Island (1981), and that was a basic “power” statistic whose rapid growth made the game fundamentally too easy.

Most of Crystalware’s games instead occupy a strange subgenre that we might call “iconographic adventure.” Most adventure games are either all-text (Zork) or made up of graphically-composed scenes. Sometimes, the scenes offer a kind-of first-person perspective (Countdown, Timequest), and other times they feature the character in a kind of side-view perspective that I’ve taken to calling “studio view” (King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry). I’m sure there are adventure games with axonometric perspectives, although none come to mind. But something about a top-down iconographic interface screens “RPG!” even though there’s no reason adventure games couldn’t feature the same perspective. That’s really what Crystalware games are. They involve finding inventory items to solve puzzles and often escape a situation. Only a couple offer character attributes and none offer character development.

I’ve been gamely trying them anyway, but the last few have been giving me trouble, and I’m not going to continue wasting a bunch of effort for titles that aren’t RPGs in the first place. I’m going to reject or “NP” the rest and suggest that MobyGames, which also cites character development as the primary mechanism for RPGs, remove the RPG designation although keep “RPG elements” under its gameplay elements.

Crystalware’s catalog in late 1981.

As we’ve seen, Crystalware was a remarkably high-quantity (if not high-quality) company for its brief 1980-1982 existence. Within those three years, they developed and published the following titles, not all of which are even on MobyGames:

The House of Usher (1980)–also the name of the pop artist’s inevitable reality show–is a Gothic adventure based on the Poe story of the same name. I reviewed it in June 2019.

Labyrinth of the Minotaur (1980): Set on Crete. I haven’t been able to find much about the game, but it’s attested in their 1982 catalogue.

Sumer 4000 BC (1980): A text simulator in which you’re the King of Sumeria, trying to manage resources and make your empire survive another year.

Galactic Quest (1980): A space combat and trading simulator.

World War III (1980): A strategic wargame for two players, one fighting for Iran, the other Iraq.

Beneath the Pyramids (1980): An adventure game in which you explore some weird combination of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid at Giza for an artifact. I reviewed it in June 2019.

Waterloo II (1981): A two-player wargame in the Napoleonic Era.

CompuGolf (1981): A golf simulation.

Imperial Walker (1981): An unlicensed action game in which an imperial walker commander tries to shoot down rebel craft. (I think it really says something about the company that they conceived of such a game and made the imperial the protagonist.)

Laser Wars (1981): An action game in which you defend a city from alien attackers.

The Sands of Mars (1981): An adventure game in the style of Oregon Trail, in which you assemble a crew, purchase supplies, and try to make it to Mars and back. This one was categorized as an RPG. I tried to play it but couldn’t get past a takeoff procedure that required the Apple II paddles. (Multiple sites say that AppleWin emulates paddles, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how.) The manual doesn’t make it sound like it has RPG elements. It suggests that there are multiple phases of the game, each involving a different interface and style of gameplay.

As far as I can get in The Sands of Mars.

Forgotten Island (1981): An adventure game where you escape an island. It was renamed Escape from Vulcan’s Island when re-issued by Epyx. I reviewed it in October 2019.

Oregon Trail (1981): Some version of the classic.

Quest for Power (1981): An adventure game in which you try to prove your right to inherit Camelot from King Arthur. It was re-issued by Epyx as King Arthur’s Heir. I reviewed it in March 2020.

Protector (1981): An arcade game in which you fly a ship through caverns.

Fantasyland 2041 (1981): An epic multi-disk adventure game based on Fantasy Island. I reviewed it in October 2019.

Dragon Lair (1981 or 1982): As attested in this Hardcore Gaming 101 article, perhaps the first RPG in Japanese.

The Bermuda Experience (1982): An adventure game in which you have to navigate a ship around the Atlantic Ocean in several time periods. It is also known as Bermuda Triangle.

Treasure Island (1982): An adventure game in which you explore the Caribbean for map pieces.

The Crypt (1982): An adventure in which you must survive the night in a cemetery. This was also designated an RPG by MobyGames, and I tried to play it but ran into a bug where neither you nor an enemy ever dies in combat. Instead, the game happily takes you into the negative hit points as you pound away at each other round after round. Thus, the first combat you get stuck in ends the game. It otherwise had the same characteristics as other titles that I reviewed that weren’t really RPGs. It was re-released by Epyx as Crypt of the Undead.

Combat among crypts in The Crypt (1982).

Zardon (1982): An action game where you fly a ship, blow up enemy ships. This one was re-released by Avalon Hill after Crystalware folded.

The Haunted Palace (1982): An adventure game with RPG elements in which you try to solve a mystery. You can choose among characters who have RPG-like attributes but they never grow. It was re-released as The Nightmare by Epyx.

Clonus (1982): An adventure game in which you navigate the future as a clone with cyborg parts. A near-immediate Clonus II seems to be a re-release of the original rather than a true sequel.

They also released two compilations of simple games like Hangman and Tic-Tac-Toe for kids, a diet planner, a yoga instruction program, a garden simulator, and a program to help cat owners diagnose illnesses in their pets.

Almost all of the company’s games were written for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, and TRS-80. The company principals, John and Patty Bell, contracted a team of programmers who sometimes wrote original games, sometimes spent their time porting games created by others. About half of them were created by the Bells themselves. Almost all the adventure games hinted at a deeper mystery beneath the surface of the game and offered a cash prize to whoever was the first to solve it.

By 1981, the company was putting out a quarterly newsletter.

With each game costing $39.95 and up, Crystalware must have been doing well even if they only sold modest amounts. But that’s nothing compared to the company’s plans. A company newsletter from late 1981 shows that future offerings would include Glamis Castle, a three-dimensional adventure game in which you could explore the famous Scottish landmark, an RPG based on Lord of the Rings called Wizard and Orcs, and an epic hub-and-module adventure called Galactic Expedition. Each module would sell for $29.95 and contain the ability to explore a different planet or moon.

Oh, but that isn’t nearly all. The company was planning to release a series of home-schooling programs based on the “Crystal Theory of Alternative Education” (CTAE). They were working with Universal Pictures to provide realistic computer program “props” for an upcoming film called The Genius (it seems to have never been filmed, although the associated producer, David Sosna, is a real person). They were working on the first “videodisk fantasy” for the PR-7820-2 Videodisc Player from Discovision. They were starting a “lonely hearts club.”

Best of all, Crystal Films was being born! They had a named producer, script supervisor, costume designer, and key grip on their masthead. They had three productions in the works: Haunted (a horror film), Fantasyland (based on the game), and Sarah, about the life of the eccentric Sarah Winchester, who built that sprawling monstrosity of a house in San Jose.

Apparently, Haunted was to be filmed in an actual haunted house, not just a set that they made appear haunted. I guess that’s one way to save on special effects.

The newsletter, in short, feels like it was dictated by someone in the middle of a manic episode, and what happened to Crystalware next suggests that it all came crashing back to Earth. I haven’t been able to find an official, comprehensive account of the company’s last days, but we can piece it together from evidence. First, I have an anecdotal report from a reader who owned a computer store in the area at the time, saying that Crystalware’s finances were essentially a giant house of cards and someone was destined to lose. To clarify, I don’t think the Bells were deliberately scamming anyone. One programmer I spoke to, Henry Ruddle, said that the company always paid him well and on time. Another, Mike Potter, has posted online that Bell fired him when he questioned his royalties, but did pay him and also gave him back the rights to one of the games he’d developed. The issue is more that they seem to have been leveraged beyond a sustainable debt.

We know that in 1982, Bell sold the rights to his games to Epyx, which re-published them, often under different names, with absurdly elaborate manuals. We see the company changing addresses several times in 1982 and finally abandoning “Crystalware” altogether and publishing the last few games under the name “U.F.O. Software.” As we’ll soon see, John Bell also seems to have (at least for a time) changed his own name.

Towards the end of its life, Crystalware briefly became U.F.O. Software.

John Bell is an enigmatic figure (although not as enigmatic as Patty, about whom I’ve been able to find nothing). He claims to have worked for Lockheed in 1966, which is hard to reconcile with the best candidate I can find, who was born in 1948. Even that candidate has used both “A” and “F” as his middle initial. Crystalware used several addresses in Morgan Hill and San Martin (both south along the 101 from San Jose) during its existence. I think the Bells first owned a computer store, Crystal Computers, in Sunnyvale or Gilroy, before they decided to get into software development and publishing.

I corresponded earlier this month with Henry Ruddle, a programmer who did most of the TRS-80 adaptations of the game. I had hoped he would confirm my suspicions that Bell was something of a lunatic, but the best he would offer is that he was “charismatic, loud, and very eccentric.”

John was very creative and could not stop thinking . . . or talking. [He] would tell wild stories about getting high on amphetamines or cocaine and staying up for three days cleaning his bathroom with a toothbrush . . . He often talked about his wild ambitions [like] a plan to create a virtual reality booth with 360 degree views projected on the walls using “laser cameras.”

Of Patty, Ruddle remembers that she was polite and very quiet, heavily into New Age philosophy and astrology.

There’s a long period of silence after the collapse of the company, but in the late 1990s, Bell, now using the name “J. B. Michaels,” started promising an upcoming game called Clonus 2049 A.D. It never materialized, but you can read about it–sort-of–on the Crystalware Defense and Nanotechnology Facebook page, where an “actress from Hollywood” has recorded the incomprehensible opening text. Yes, John Bell is still using the Crystalware name. His various LinkedIn profiles give him as the CEO of Crystalware, CrystalwareVR, Crystalware Defense and Nanotechnology, or just “CDN.” The address is listed in Charleston, West Virginia. On the various pages associated with Bell and these companies, we learn that James Cameron’s The Terminator was plagiarized from the original Clonus, that Bell had a heart attack in 2018, and that he’s working on a virtual reality game called World of Twine. I haven’t rated any of Crystalware’s games very high, and I was actively angry by the time I got to Quest for Power, but in retrospect I have to give the company credit for originality and a certain amount of sincerity. Most of Crystalware’s titles show no dependence on any previous game or series. Instead of generic high-fantasy settings, they went with unique, specific settings based on history or literature. Adding a “mystery” and cash prize to each title (even if I never really understood what they were going for) was an interesting touch, and letters to their newsletter (if authentic) suggest that they did pay. The thorough documentation that each game received, the manuals full of backstories and lore and quotes, the newsletter with so many promises, all suggest that the company was mostly unaware that it was a sausage factory. This was in the “dark age,” after all. Wizardry and Ultima were released in 1981 but hadn’t really made an impact yet. From the testimonies above, it’s easy to see John Bell as an Ed Woodish character, willing to wrap and print anything, in love with the process of creation that eclipsed his own abilities as a creator. But I suppose there are days when I’ll take that over auteurs so obsessed with quality that you end up waiting a decade between titles. Every genre needs its pulp.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/closing-the-books-on-crystalware/

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

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