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steveharrington · 4 years

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your dustin opinions are impeccable. also, would you mind elaborating on what your problems with the scoops troop plot? something about it has never sat completely right with me but i'm not sure how to put it into words

yeah for sure! to start out i’ll say that the scoops troop plotline was probably my favorite of the season, as in i had the most fun watching it. obv im biased because whichever group steve is in will probably be the most entertaining to me, i adore him, but it was also due largely to robin’s presence and the chemistry that i think joe maya gaten and priah all had as a group. that being said though i think the plotline was handled in a really weird, lowkey eerie way that all comes down to tone.

stranger things started out as a drama. like, when it’s recognized in awards shows it’s in the drama category, which puts it up against shows like game of thrones, the handmaid’s tale, shows that tend to have really serious, oftentimes dark content. it fits because stranger things IS dark. it draws inspiration from classic horror movies, characters die, usually in pretty horrible ways, children are traumatized, etc. that’s not to say that there hasn’t ever been humor in the show before scoops troop, obviously there has been, but on the whole the show had a pretty dark premise and a lot of dramatic moments that are written 100% to be dramatic. there tended to be a really good balance of knowing when to keep the tone serious and when to lighten it up a bit. in season three, i personally felt like the duffers decided to try to make the show both a drama and a comedy in equal measure, and their way of doing that was to keep the dark content matter but to make the lighthearted tone more frequent, and that manifested mostly in the scoops troop. it’s made a little worse by the fact that steve, dustin, and erica are undoubtedly comic relief characters. steve’s entire character since season one has pretty much been delegated to being laughed at, dustin has always been the kid with the most jokes and the least emotional arcs, and erica was literally made a season regular based on the fact that people thought she was funny in season two. also, i think the duffers lowkey realized how ridiculous the russian plotline is so they figured adding humor and making the russian general so cartoonish would relieve some of the audiences disbelief that this would ever happen. the result you get is really fucking weird, though.

right away it’s strange how casual they are about everything. i think the duffers were going for like “these clueless children were just having fun and they accidentally stumbled into a dark deadly secret” but it doesn’t really work when they see men with giant guns and think “okay anyways, how are we gonna get past them?” you can argue that steve and dustin have been desensitized, but robin and erica haven’t. once the elevator drops, they become reasonably freaked out and for the first time you get the since that they’re genuinely scared, but even then it’s treated as a joke. again, this isn’t the first instance of this happening in stranger things. steve has a meltdown every single season and it’s always been used for humor during a serious moment, but in seasons one and two it was just a momentary break from the intensity of whatever was happening. in season three, the jokes are consecutive. steve has his meltdown, then there’s a conversation about him liking robin, then there’s a piss joke (??) like there’s never a moment where they stop and really consider that like damn we’re trapped underground with no food or water and no hope at anyone figuring out where we are. that would all be okay if that was the extent of it, because characters on stranger things have had much worse fates than being slightly dehydrated, but then it takes a super sharp turn and becomes irredeemably dark. when i was watching the season for the first time i found it insanely jarring how fast it goes from steve being completely fine to steve being covered in blood. the duffers clearly want to keep up the routine of him getting beaten up, and they go a little harder on him every time, so this being the third time means he’s like pretty seriously injured. i would say the only scene the scoops troop gets that’s 100% serious is the one where they bring steve back to the room and robin is like “what did you do to him” and all that. that was good! that was realistic! but as soon as he’s awake again they switch back to banter and ahaha steve confuses his left and right bc he’s dumb. the thing that Really gets me is that the season 3 trailer used the shot of him getting jabbed with the needle in a very deliberate way to get people to theorize and be like “season 3 steve harrington DIES???” so like obviously they knew how dark it looked out of context. the thing is like......even WITH context it’s dark!! like the duffers were like “so at this point steve and robin, the oldest of whom just graduated high school like a month ago, are going to be tied up and drugged against their consent (after physical violence didn’t work) to get them to confess information that they literally don’t know. and it’s gonna be fuckin hilarious :) one of them is gonna almost get his fingernails removed by pliers haha” and it’s batshit crazy.

the best way to really realize how insane it is is to rewatch the older seasons. i rewatched season one recently and when the scene where hopper is interrogated came on, i was like wait hold the fucking phone. he’s just getting tased. and it was treated SO SERIOUSLY in comparison to when steve who is at most 19 years old gets knocked unconscious during an interrogation and later says his ears are ringing and he cant breathe. the scene where nancy and jonathan are surrounded by all the lab employees at the park is super unsettling and eerie and you’re like oh shit these two teenagers just walked right into a government secret. when there are russians surrounding steve and robin with guns, they put in a joke about dustin quoting a movie at them.

im not saying that this is Problematic or Immoral or anything like that. this isnt like a duffer brothers call out post. like i said, this was still my favorite storyline in the season. i actually think it’s weirdly fascinating. like you know when they take trailers for like, high school musical and just add scary sound effects and editing to make it look like a horror movie? it’s the same premise as the scoops troop. it’s a super dark premise but with jokes and writing that makes it seem like a fun goofy coming of age story. if the duffers were Intentionally trying to do a subversion where they’re like “look we tricked you into laughing while these children were traumatized and nearly killed” i think that wouldve been brilliant. i don’t really think that’s what they were going for, though. i think they accidentally put all their comic relief characters into one group and wanted as many laughs as they could get to break up the drama of the other groups. it just so happened that they also almost tore steve’s fingernails out with pliers :///

#long post #this couldve been way more concise #what can i say #anon #answered #st

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katkonstant · 4 years

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Harrow the Ninth: Act 1 Analysis - Local Bone Lady Newly Single and Ready for Mental Breakdown

I am so scared! so confused! and so turned on by the sepulchered mystery of Harrow the Ninth’s Act 1! And because it’s quarantine time, it’s organizational mapping and near-obsessive theorizing time baby.

I’ll warn you: this got LONG.

Spoilers galore.

This post is to try and organize my own thoughts as well as preserve in time that I don’t know shit when HTN finally hits. All to answer the big question: What in the necro-hell is going on? Here’s what we know as fact:

Gideon the Ninth was about Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter and Badass Emo Princess, and her not hugged enough but grinning through the pain sword lesbian cavalier, Gideon Nav. A catalogue of their romp of death in Canaan House.

Harrow the Ninth is currently cataloguing two things: (1) Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter and Mentally Unstable Concussion, and her cavalier, Ortus Nigenad and their guided tour of Canaan House. AND (2) Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Baby Lyctor, aboard His Imperial and Unending Magic School Bus.

Similar to @Siadea‘s wonderful post (x), I am all aboard the Timeline Fuckery Theory (TFT). Operating under the TFT, I will refer to our cast of characters accordingly. To summarize the TFT, the major point is thus:

In the prologue of Harrow, I think the Harrowhark of Gideon the Ninth (hereby Harrow1) settled in, swan dove into the River, somehow backstroked in time to when she woke up on the Emperor’s ship, and then she resurfaced (with Ianthe’s help), stripped of all memory&detection involving Keyword:Gideon.

Gideon [ORTUS]

It appears Harrow1 has programmed Harrow2 with a find+replace formula for ‘Gideon’ and replacing it with ‘Ortus’ on a pure, sensory input level. I have NO idea how she (or something else) did this. Prologue Ianthe Tridentarius telling Harrow, “I know what you’ve done, and I know how to reverse it” makes me think Harrow did this to herself.

It scrubs the past as well as the present. Proof - (1) When Harrow2 gets the Emperor’s invitation to Canaan House, we gather from context that Ortus asks her if she’s considered someone else. Only we read it as Ortus saying, “have you considered ORTUS NIGENAD?” AND THEN THE SCENE STARTS OVER, but rewound to moments before. Like a glitch in the Matrix; (2) The Emperor’s lips distort when he says “Ortus Nigenad did not die for nothing” and is confused when Harrow2 says it back to him; (3) When the Emperor later says the name of the third Lyctor ‘Ortus’, Harrow2 starts bleeding from the ears and passes out.....We’ll get to him in a sec.

The three syllables Prologue Harrow dies on: Could be ‘Gideon’ and the mark of her successful mindflaying from recognizing the word. Could also be ‘Alecto’. Hell, could even be ‘Nigenad’. Inconclusive.

The Chilly Weirdo Harrow Has the Hots For (alternatively, who tf are you?)

The Lady of the Locked Tomb is appearing and disappearing in Harrow2′s mind, both at her recall of Canaan House and in her (current?) stay with the Emperor.

She has Griddle’s Eyes. As we’re familiar with the lyctors, we know that when their cavs are “eaten”, necromancers’ eyes change to their cavalier’s colors. OR the Lady has simply taken on Griddle’s eyes to put Harrow2 at ease.

She has the voice of who Harrow2 needs to hear. We’ve heard the Lady sound like Pelleamena (Harrow’s mommy dearest), Crux, and Aiglamene (Captain of the Ninth guard). Both of these are people who loved Harrow1.

These characteristics ^ lead me to believe that the Lady can see Harrow1′s obsession with her and is either Manipulating Harrow2 by manufacturing her voice and eyes, or is genuinely trying to love Harrow2 in return. (She may have been present for Harrow’s entire life. See my Ch.3**)

What does she want from Harrow2? --> I think, without support or proof, that the Lady wants to Rise Again (as villains entombed are wont to do). As she doesn’t have a corporeal form, she’ll likely need Harrow’s help. Underlying idea being: the Emperor dies when his Unholy Other Half returns. It would be a little contrived to have the “beautiful lady revealed to be the big bad” device be the GTN and the HTN twist but we’ll see.

Interesting point: The Lady doesn’t like His Holy Frumpyness & Co. “Lie. Lie now.” She’s either protecting herself further down the line, or the Lady thinks that Mercy would have harmed Harrow2 because of this info. It’s possible this is the same interest if she needs Harrow’s help to free her.

Now Let’s Talk about Swords

AKA the sexiest part of this dissertation.

Harrow the Concussed is carrying Griddle’s Two hander. Not just any two hander. It is in fact and distinctly, Griddle’s sword. This is supported by (1) Harrow2 was given the sword by the Emperor “as a gesture” implying he knows Griddle and the sword’s significance to Harrow1. And (2) The severe physical reactions Harrow2 has to the sword’s loathing. In GTN Harrow1 mentioned to Griddle, “I have always felt like that sword hates me”. (this in and of itself is mystifying but I’ve got bigger occult fish to fry)

Either Griddle’s Sword or Cytherea is alive. The fade to black of Harrow rekilling Cytherea is a mystery within a Christmas light tangle of other mysteries and I’m not fucking with it. BUT. There are Five lifeforms aboard the ship that traversed the River: Mercymorn, the Emperor, Ianthe, and Harrow. Harrow2 tells us that the Body/the Lady isn’t in sight. That leaves inanimate objects: Cytherea’s body, or the two hander that hates Harrow.

Harrow2, the Concussed, is not carrying a rapier. Only in the Prologue does Harrow have a rapier on her hip. Ortus the Alternate cav carries a rapier. See the next theory for why this is significant.

The Events of Canaan House Two are Not Real.

These are my weakest theories. They’re all weak, but these ones are chief weaklings. The Time Fuckery Theory’s biggest snag is ‘Canaan House: What’s Real?’, and I think only the events with Harrow2 on the ship with Ianthe are actually occurring.

I think someone is soul/spirit guiding Harrow2 on this Canaan House Round II to show her something. Proof: (1) The repeated “Is this how it happened?”/”This isn’t how it happened.” Clearly indicate that this IS a repeated experience for Harrow, and not the original. (2) Ortus glitches a bit, looks at Harrow2 and says “You never did have much of an imagination.” Someone who knows Harrow1 made him say this. I think. (3) If we count who possibly could spirit-guide Harrow2 on this quest, we have to find the denominator candidates: the only people who knew Harrow1 at Canaan House and at Drearburh are Gideon, and Harrow1 herself. And - if the Lady really has been following her around, the Lady of the Locked Tomb. (4) This theory cannot account for the strobing red egg hallucinations on paper Harrow2 is being delivered.

Second explanation: it’s all happening in Harrow’s head, and Harrow1 is the spirit guide. In support: There is a surprising amount of explanation and character depth from Ortus. I believe Harrow1 knows Ortus enough from childhood to be able to project him onto Harrow2 this way.

Third explanation: Because the people Harrow2 is interacting with are all dead, it’s microscopically possible Harrow2 is tripping some soul-shrooms in the River and having the souls of Canaan House teach her something via flashback. In support: Prologue Harrow says five pairs of eyes close to submerge into the River, but hers would not open again. Incredibly vague, but could mean she was going to be spending a significant amount of time in the River. This theory is unlikely, as Harrow is a bone adept. Souls are squishy and freaky to her. Unlikely also from what we saw of the River. Ie; the River is an inhospitable predator which ripped Cassiopea apart and scares the hell out of Mercy and the Emperor. Not an ideal destination spirit-walk vacation spot. Plus, the only clear reasoning we get from Harrow about why she’s descending into the River is because she knows she’s going to die (although she tells Ianthe she has no plans to die)

Things to Note: (1) Teacher immediately spills the Sleeper beans, lets the laboratory cat out of the bag, and unmasks the key mystery. I think who/whatever is guiding Harrow2 around makes this happen legitimately just to save time. (2) Harrow2 is learning things from Ortus, Teacher, Abigail Pent, etc that Harrow1 and Gideon didn’t know.

If the Events of Canaan House Round Two ARE Real.

If the Great Value Canaan House timeline is actually happening and are physically influential, the implications are fucking vast, because now we’re considering the multiverse of how time works. I am not about to get into that shit because I do (contrary to this post’s existence’s suggestion) have a life, and I don’t feel like rededicating it to the theory of relativity and time dilation.

The biggest question though would then become: How would events have unfolded if Ortus had gone to Canaan House and not Griddle? The only conclusion to that is: everyone would be dead and Cytherea would be alive. Which does not jive with the happenings of Emperor Frizzle’s Magic NecroBus and Harrow2 (many are alive, and Cytherea is dead). It could be that Cytherea is, in fact, alive and needs re-killing via the Act 1 end of Harrow2 stabbing her. I can’t say.

What does freak me out about Canaan2 is Harrow herself.

Not her insanity, mind you, but the fact that Harrow2 is hilarious. She’s always been acidic and funny, but Harrow2 is crude and funny. This is very, very bad. She makes a remark about the term ‘bone frenzy’ that Ortus says only someone who’d prefer ‘prurient magazines’ would think of. Can anyone guess who might be more incline than Harrow to prefer prurient magazines? Say a messy sword necrolesbian with a subscription to Frontline Titties of the Fifth?

Harrow2 is also not chasing Palamedes Sextus around the grounds of Canaan House in a near-suicidal race to Lyctorhood.

Not only is she not working herself to death, but Harrow is doing the opposite: she is socializing. With the Fourth and Fifth! She’s caustic and rude while she does it, but she’s still spending time around them for whatever reason.

All these behaviors are Griddle behaviors and they make. me. nervous.

Is Harrow2 Actually a Lyctor?

Harrow’s Dramatis Personae section lists ‘Harrowhark the First’ with a huge and glaring and delightful redacted section below her name. If someone truly had the time, I’m sure they could sleuth out the layers of the censorship and find out what it says. However, it’s plain that the underlying text does NOT say ‘Gideon Nav, her cavalier’. So we’re left with more questions - who or what died to give Harrow her power? .....As a point of interest, it looks like the original writing has been overlaid with even more text.

Ortus’ eyes were black - the same shade as Harrow’s. Harrow2 wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny that she had successfully eaten her Canaan Redux cavalier.

In the prologue, Harrow1 calls herself “half a lychtor” implying that either 1) she’s simply not trained, or 2) something went wrong in her lyctorhood creation

And then we have this weird Chapter 3** internal narration of Harrow2′s childhood without Griddle. And she’s.. absolutely bananas. She grows up a ghoulish, lonely, nut job. But she still says she had committed the indelible sin halfway. That she hadn’t been able to choke him (Ortus) down.

Her manifestations of power don’t add up. First, Ianthe (undisputedly a lyctor) shoves Babs’ knife through her hand and has no problem with it, or healing right up. Harrow2... isn’t so lucky. Prologue Harrow is also in the process of dying. Conversely, while in the River, Mercymorn dismisses the idea that Harrow2 could possibly be using theorems and freaks out when she discovers Harrow can. Conclusion being: Either Harrow2 is incredible weak, or incredibly powerful but untrained, or she is Something Else Entirely*.

Harrow2 isn’t experiencing lyctoral indigestion. Cytherea tells Ianthe right after she eats Babs, “I can see him fighting you. Mine [meaning her cav, Loveday] came willingly, and it still hurt for a century.” We know Babs still fights Ianthe in HTN, as her eyes are usually swapping shades. It’s not something Harrow1 or 2 mentions as a problem.

* My working theory is that Harrow2 is kind of lyctor-ish and being protected by the Lady, the Sword, or Griddle (who might be incarnate in either).

Side note: It might be too far into the weeds to wonder about but I want to know what pregnancy would do to a lyctor. If we follow the Die Young but Beautiful and Powerful practices of the Seventh House, Dulcinea’s family uses their crappy genes as internal combustion engines: cells dying within them allow a perpetual source of thanergy. On the opposite end of that same theory, a necromancer constantly producing thalergy (life and cell growth) should therefore be significantly weaker, right?

This^ is only relevant when considering the other theory:

Papa Gideon [ORTUS] knocked up a fellow Lyctor.

While it would explain the creepy “egg” texts Harrow2 is hallucinating, as well as why Cytherea spared Griddle multiple times at Canaan house, I doubt this theory for a few reasons:

Of the available lyctors able to carry children, there is Cassiopeia, Anastasia, Mercymorn, and Cytherea. We only know Mercy and Cytherea.

It’s strongly implied that Cytherea and her cav, Loveday, were in a relationship. Since Loveday is technically still inside of Cytherea, I doubt she wanted to date around.

The Emperor strives to present the Lyctors as siblings. This a) props himself up as the holy and imperial papa bear to guide and govern them, b) perpetuates the eternal and indestructible bond of siblings, and c) kills any idea of inter-lyctoral hooking up. Can you even imagine the destruction a Jersey Shore: Unholy Power bar fight would wreak?

I’m not fully convinced Lyctor Gideon [ORTUS] is Griddle’s father. While it would make sense in terms of stature (Lyctor G/O is a single rippling muscle and Griddle’s biceps are... noteworthy), Silas Octakiseron told Gideon that her mother had hair just the same shade as her (source: Sister Glaurica’s toiling soul). Could be that Griddle’s Mom’s soul screaming “Gideon!” was her calling for the Lyctor, her brother/other relation.

However, I DO believe Griddle is... more than. She wasn’t killed by the nerve gas, and Harrow2′s eyes are not Griddle Gold.

As a second side note, Lyctor Gideon [ORTUS]’s cav was named Pyrrha Dve. This is exciting to me because of my slutty fandom tendencies and because a name like ‘Pyrrha’ begs for Tragic Backstory, and I’m here for it. Also, I want more interaction with Augustine as he’s who Ianthe says “won’t come save” Harrow. Eye emoji.

Alecto

As far as I’m aware, there are no solid leads on who or what Alecto the Ninth is. Casting about in wildly unwarranted guesswork, I can throw a few baseless theories out;

Alecto is Griddle’s truer name (possibly birth name or even what she’s called if when she is brought back);

Alecto is the Lady of the Locked Tomb;

Alecto is the Emperor’s Cav. In Harrow’s ‘Dramatis Personae’, The Emperor is listed as well as his lyctors and their cavaliers. Except, the Emperor does not have a deceased cav. He has “A.L.”, his guardian. A.L. =Alecto, mayhaps?;

Alecto, a combination of (2) and (3). The Lady is supposedly the Emperor’s death and who he could not kill twice. If she were his ‘guardian’ she would be a) more powerful than him, and b) someone he was emotionally attached to which he couldn’t bring himself to kill again.

Things I Cannot and Refuse to Account For:

Ianthe Tridetarius became a sewn tongue as a favor for Harrow1. Wtf.

Ortus Nigenad’s self-insert cavalier epic of Matthias Nonius. Wtf.

**The entirety of Chapter 3 is either true or it’s not. Wtf was that shit.

The psychotic “You lied”/”Egg” texts Harrow2 is hallucinating. Wtf.

This is.... all probably incorrect, and I applaud you if you made it this far. I could keep going, the material of Act 1 is that dense. But in answer to The Great Big WTF that is Harrow Act 1 - my theory is simple.

TLDR; I think Harrowhark Nonagesimus is tearing down the laws of the universe to bring back Gideon the Ninth.

#honestly this is incredibly confusing and i don't super blame the dnf folks on goodreads #but im not a bitch so i guess i'm in it for the long haul #obviously #but i get that this much questioning goes past mystery and into bad plot for some #you really just have to trust tamsyn muir to make it all worth it and hope she ties it all together in a coherent way #which i trust her to do #a mistake really if we're going by what she did to us all at the end of GTN but hey #it doesnt count as bury your gays bc we never found a body right?#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #harrow act one #Tumblr ATE my formatting so sorry for the blocks of text!#SPOILERS

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ask-glados · 5 years

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GLaDOS Liveplay [Part 2]

Something I forgot to mention in the last part is that in The Final Hours of Portal 2 eBook on Steam, the developers said that the reason behind the 50,000 year time skip was because they wanted to separate Portal 2 from the events of the Half Life universe. I personally think connecting the two universes could be pretty epic, so I don't understand why they're so against it.

Here’s the quotes from the eBook:

So, apparently they have giant laser beam generators somewhere and they just portal those lasers over to each test chamber, for some reason. That's Aperture for ya, lol.

This test chamber is actually another one from Portal 1. When you walk in, GLaDOS moves the old High Energy Pellet Launcher out of the room and replaces it with a Thermal Discouragement Beam (a laser). She replaces the receptacle too.

[from Portal 1]

GLaDOS gets her first dose of that solution euphoria as you solve the first test, and she suddenly sounds more laid back. She tells you to pace yourself because she needs to keep you busy while she fixes up the facility and figures out how to replace you with less dangerous test subjects. She doesn't want to keep you around too long because you might try to escape the testing track and kill her again.

She definitely sounds more relaxed now, her initial rage wearing off as she becomes more comfortable in running the facility and being in control again. Also, apparently she was planning to replace the High Energy Pellets with Lasers back in Portal 1.

GLaDOS is still trying to corral all these panels back into line. They even appear to have little hints of personality to them, some of them spinning around playfully, and they all have round circular lights that seem to indicate an AI core. In fact, a lot of things around Aperture seem to have AI cores. It's even mentioned by GLaDOS in CO-OP that she made Atlas and P-Body out of cores she took out of scientific calculators, so apparently Aperture just puts AI cores in everything. I'll point some of them out as we go along. It'll be like a game of 'spot the AI core'!

This also ties into another thing I wanna comment on. I’ve seen people theorize about the panels and other things in the facility being like a part of GLaDOS’s body that she can feel through, and I disagree. Throughout several chambers, you can see these panels goofing off and acting as if they have a mind of their own. I think it’s only her chassis that acts as her body, and while she IS hooked up to the rest of the facility through wires, I don’t think stuff like panels being broken actually ‘hurts’ her. Let me put it this way: Her body is her chassis, and all the things in the facility connected to her chassis are like tools she’s holding. It’s like a million arms she has spread out across the facility, holding tools. So if you break one of those tools, it doesn’t hurt her, it’s just taking that tool away from her or ripping it out of her hands.

Now, she's moved past telling you how much you made her suffer and trying to make you feel sorry for her, and has moved on to try taking hits at your self-esteem and trying to make you feel guilty for it.

This elevator room looks much better since GLaDOS is fixing up the facility. There's less broken screens and you can see a much clearer view of their weird portaling laser thing, lol.

GLaDOS fixes up another test chamber just as you walk into it. She can barely keep up with you with how fast you're solving them.

And naturally, she takes another shot at your self-esteem. She doesn't actually think you are fat, she's just trying to get under your skin and upset you, because she knows that ‘weight variances’ can upset humans. She even says so in CO-OP:

"Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm."

She actually has protocols on how to mess with test subjects psychologically that involve taking shots at their self esteem to keep them compliant. Notice she is following the protocols listed for "orphans" when it comes to Chell.

"Shame-based psychology." "Opportune moments to obliterate [self-]esteem." "Scorn [and] flattery used in an ironic context and naked contempt." “You’d perform this test better if you had parents.”

This is from an interactive website ApertureScience[.]com that was run by the developers before Portal 2's release. [ half-life.fandom[.]com/wiki/ApertureScience[.]com ]

She can still barely keep up with you since she's multitasking — trying to rebuild herself and the facility, as well as keep you at bay in test chambers. Once again, she tells you to slow down.

Another attempt to taunt you and lower your self-esteem.

She's still barely keeping up with you to clear your path in time and have the chambers ready.

Now she's just being petty and trying to make you feel discouraged and depressed.

Once again, she's trying to guilt-trip you by saying how she has to do all the work around here while you get to have fun with the test chambers. This is always something she's bitter about — how she does all this work and no one gives her any credit for it. Obviously, it's because she terrorizes people, but she doesn't realize that. She thinks she should be treated with intense respect, regardless.

An interesting thing to mention about the "wing of glass" she mentions here is that there is actually a deleted Cave Johnson line where he mentions building a wing of glass.

"Now, the lab boys were adamant that I do not give you any hints on these tests. To be honest, they think I'm spoiling the results just by talking to you. Hizenstein Uncertainty Principles and so forth. I’ll give ‘em something more practical to be uncertain about: their next paycheck. Anyway, overruled. If you think I'm affecting your decisions, in any way, don’t be afraid to speak up. I’m not made of glass. That reminds me: Caroline, do we have a wing made out of glass yet? Let's get on that, Caroline."

I think that makes it that much more hilarious that Caroline is now here in AI form, cleaning up his mess years later. XD

[ tcrf[.]net/Portal_2_(Windows,_Mac_OS_X,_Linux)/Unused_Lines ]

She's still trying to keep up with you and move the panels out of your way in time. She's slowly but surely catching up.

She's still taking shots at your self-esteem, and she couldn’t even bear to be subtle about it, so she literally explains the insult just to make sure you got the metaphor.

And she’s still trying to make you feel guilty for killing her.

The Companion Cubes were created to test how test subjects could gain an emotional attachment to an inanimate object. At the end of the Companion Cube chamber in the first Portal, you were forced to "betray" your inanimate "friend" by incinerating it. So, here GLaDOS tries to get under your skin by destroying the cube multiple times and calling it worthless, implying that you don't deserve friends and that any friendship you thought you had in any Companion Cube is worthless.

Also, a neat little detail: if you listen closely, the Companion Cube plays the tune of "Cara Mia."

youtube

She's still having trouble fixing up the facility, but she's getting there. She's been working on fixing the nuclear reactor core, which was nearing meltdown back at the beginning of the game, as mentioned by the Announcer in the Relaxation Center. The reactor core splits atoms to boil water into steam, and that steam turns the turbines, which are what power the generator to create electricity, which is why you see the lights flicker when the turbines start giving her trouble. The turbine's fan blades are likely heavily corroded, rusted, or gunked up after all this time, so she has to leave to attend to that. She manages to find a quick way to taunt you by pretending to give you a sped-up hint that she knows is beyond a human's hearing comprehension — just another way to flaunt her superiority as a supercomputer to you.

What she actually says is a quote from the very first paragraph of Moby Dick:

"And methodically knocking people's hats off. Then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

This could be a subtle fat joke because whale = fat. But Moby Dick is also a tale about a man's obsession with revenge against a whale who bit off his leg, and GLaDOS is clearly obsessed with revenge, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was a favorite book of hers that she decided to quote from. Also, if you look at the context of this line in the paragraph it comes from, it's talking about this guy saying that when he gets angry enough to "knock people's hats off," he knows he has to get to sea and hunt that whale to vent that rage.

GLaDOS isn't there to comment when you beat this test because she's busy fixing the turbines, which ends Chapter 2, and also Part 2 of this Liveplay! I really hope you're enjoying it! :D

#Portal #Portal 2 #GLaDOS #Aperture Science #Liveplay #Live Play #GLaDOS Liveplay #analysis #GLaDOS Analysis #Portal Analysis #Portal 2 Analysis #long post

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nilim · 5 years

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My Mythodea Adventure - Part 2

Day 2!

During the first in-game night it rained and a thunderstorm passed over, waking us up in the middle of the night -- but luckily everything stayed dry inside our tent. The next morning we were woken up at an early hour by a woman who was running through the camp ringing a loud bell, yelling that the fighters had to get up and get prepared as we would soon be under attack from the Black Ice.

Conquest is a continuous in-time LARP, although there is generally less activity from the NPCs between 3 and 8 AM. This also means that getting woken up at 8 by your camp being under attack is part of the in-game life, and although it can be annoying it is also very immersive.

As we were not fighters, and had no armour to put on, we stayed in our beds a little longer before having a quick breakfast and finishing our translations of the documents.

The first document was about a garden, and it talked about how different kinds of ‘creatures’ or people lived there, and what they liked, and how they lived in harmony. It read very much as a ‘garden of life’ story, like a scripture describing the origin of the different tribes and people of Mythodea.

The second document continued that story, but specifically talked about a Forbidden District within the garden that was protected by a wall of thorns. If you went through the wall with the intention of getting into the Forbidden District, the thorns would poison you, and mark your ‘Kahat’ and cause a slow death. It also talked about the birds that lived in the wall of thorns that were immune to the poison.

We theorized about what this Forbidden District could contain, how we could get through the wall, and where this garden could be located, before setting out to visit the different temples.

At the temple of Terra, which was close to our campsite, we asked the druids how we could help out. One of them told us that the temple was also a place of death, and that we could set out in the world and collect stories and songs about death, or we could bring people there who were close to dying, or even go there if one of us were to die (yikes). We promised her we would do our best and return with stories and songs.

We continued towards Trost, and passed by the Temple of Fire. It had a big fighting pit next to it, surrounded by pillars and chains. There was a line of people to speak to the priestess, and there was a big fire pit, than contained dozens of smaller glass candle holders. We were informed we could complete an offering for this temple by picking one of the candles and taking it to the priestess. The priestess flipped it over, and looked on the other side of the candle, which contained a number. She looked up the number in a big book, and then removed the candle from circulation -- therefore, every single quest someone picked was unique to them.

Our quest turned out to be one where we had to confess a ‘sin’, and then atone for it. If we had finished our quest, we should return and receive a blessing.

We continued to the Atelier, to see if we could find any additional info on this ‘garden’ in the archives.

Our healer, Cerriel, is the eldest sister, and she is somewhat bossy but the most ‘do good’ person in our group. She immediately settled on going through the history section.

The two youngest sisters are Kenna and Nova, who play twins. Nova is the diplomat, who is a little shady in that she had a knack for magic spells that are borderline dubious, like the ‘forget’ spell. In the game, I am closest to Nova, as she is not as ‘good’ as the other two, and has still supported me throughout my bad life choices. The very first thing she did was descend back on the Dark Studies section.

Kenna is the bard, and is very happy go lucky. She immediately got sucked into a conversation with a bunch of other bards, who invited her to come sing songs with her, which she immediately did - sitting on the grass in the middle of the atelier.

I, on the other hand, zeroed in on Radavan, as I wanted to ask him about himself and find out more about him, the Atelier, and what kind of favour we could expect from him. I told him we had translated the document, but that it was hard to know what to ask for as I didn’t know what he could offer, so I asked him to tell me about himself. He was very amused at this, and told me about his house, and his goals, which were mostly about making his house stronger. From what he told me I gathered he was kind of like a spider in a web of people, making sure that every person in his house was in the best position to be the most effective. He was the one that made sure everyone got what they needed.

I listened to Kenna sing, and we told the bards we wanted to learn songs about death, and they taught one to Kenna. When they finished singing, one of the GMs threw a white pearl at the bards, and one of the other bards proclaimed that as Kenna was the one who had learned a new song, it must be awarded to her, as clearly the atelier had given them a blessing.

Soon after, smoke started filling the small stone circle next to the Atelier, and a ‘projection’ started. We discovered that the Atelier had several ‘projections’ every day, which were these visions of what the enemy was up to. It was very cool, as they brought out the actual NPC enemies, who would play out scenes and would stand still for us to study them.

They projected the servant of the Queen of Bones and a vision of her working together with the Black Ice. They also projected the Queen of Dragonflies, who was a leader of the Black Ice and a merger between the Black Ice and Pestilence. A lot of plot stuff went on here, but I won’t get into it because it’s way too much and way too confusing - save to say, it was a very cool mechanic.

At this point we also met those we lovingly referred to as the ‘Frenchies’, which was a group of French players who also hung out in both the battlefields and at the Atelier all the time.

They also were scholars, with very cool outfits, and zero weapons. They were composing an encyclopedia of everything that went on in the world of Mythodea. They had a girl who had a huge wooden drawing board in front of her, and would draw all the important NPCs she saw. The guy with the leather hat had a contraption on his back that could fold out into a table with the encyclopedia and additional. There guy in the blue shirt and straw hat was the plant guy and gathered info on herbs and plants. The last guy was also into flora and fauna.

We talked to them a bunch to ask about the garden, and also other info they had. They showed us the encyclopedia. We had actually seen them run around in the battle the day previously, and they joked that if we saw the girl (whose name I forgot) on the battlefield we should grab her and run the other way because she would get into trouble by getting too close to the enemies all the time, because she wanted to draw them.

We kind of became friends over the next few days as we kept running into them all the time, and we had similar interests. They showed us a map of the area, with different temples, and told us all the temples were corrupted and feeding into the central ‘temple’, which also contained underground tunnels. You could earn these elemental pearls at all the temples by completing quests, and you could donate them at the temples to strengthen them, or spent them at the middle temple in order to get into the dungeons.

The bards Kenna had hung out with discovered that she called herself a ‘bard’ but wasn’t a member of the Bards Guild. They seemed a little agitated, and tried to convince her to join the Bards guild, which all sounded nice up until their sales pitch included the fact that they were very nice people who rarely broke people’s legs or fingers. And I was like… ehh, why would you ever break people’s fingers? And they said, well, because in the Bard’s guild every bard gets assigned a tavern to sing at, so if you sing for coin at places you are not assigned… they might break some fingers. And we nervously laughed until we realized they were serious.

One of the bards took us to the Bards guild was we nervously deliberated behind him, because this all sounded very Bad.

Before we could get into the Bard’s guild we were actually checked at the gate, and had to show are hands and arms, and the back of our neck, and that is how we learned that the forsaken elements had actually send spies out among the settlers after infecting them - and they could be recognized by marks on their bodies. We were let in, and Kenna deliberated with them, but in the end decided not to join. Every time she sang after that, we were nervous we were gonna get in trouble with the Bard’s guild, haha!

We swung by the water temple in another district. You could fish out a shell from the waters, and the shell contained symbols. By showing the shell to one of the priestesses, she would look up the shell in her book, and then set you a task. We all fished out a shell, and got different tasks. There were two women in front of us, and when they were told their task, one of them burst out into hysterical laughter - like full out, a couple of minutes, tear laughter, as the other one just glared at her. We found out the one who was glaring had been instructed to not speak for 2 hours, and it was just a hilarious situation.

My task turned out to find a traveler and ask them about the fiercest beast they had ever encountered. I was then to draw/paint that beast. Cerriel got tasked to write down a secret and slip it into three people’s pockets unnoticed. Kenna had to ask five people about their dreams, and draw dream symbols and their meanings. Nova had to come back and announce to the temple the most beautiful dream she had ever had.

After this, we wanted to swing by the Atelier again, and we passed by the temple of fire -- where the Queen of Dragonflies was sitting in the throne, speaking to a whole bunch of people sitting in front of her!

With no context, we were curious if this was another projection, or what was going on. As me and Nova got closer, a GM immediately walked up to us and whispered in our ears that we felt a sudden incredible, motherly love from the Queen of Dragonflies, and that we were attracted to her. So we sat down with the other players and listened to her speech. She talked about the love she had for us, and that we should go out and tell others that she loves us and that we should fight for us. She passed through the crowd and hugged and caressed people and as she passed us she caressed our faces and called us beautiful.

This was not part of our plan, but we were now under the spell of the Queen of Dragonflies, and tasked with spreading her message. We went to the Atelier to draw pamphlets which we left in the archives. We then went back to our tent to eat dinner.

While close to our tent, I stumbled upon another one of those scroll cases, which we immediately stole again. It was another letter in code, but this time it had also a drawing of a plant. We set to translating the info, as we ate dinner. Suddenly, one of our neighbours swung by our tent and he told us we had saved him in the battle the day before. He asked for my sword, and he blessed it with a potion -- it would now put to sleep the first person I hit with it. Score!

After dinner, we made tea, and continued translating. The new document contained info about a mushroom that could strengthen potions of healing, and also told how through alchemical processing one could use it. It also told that on hills where these mushrooms grew, one could find materials that could be used for the forging of artefacts. As we made tea above our fire pit, the neighbours across from us asked us if we wanted some of their rice pudding they had made. We gladly accepted, and they came to bring us food as we offered them tea. They sat down with us, and we started talking.

One of them was a scribe for the banner council, and all day he wrote down what everyone had done and new info. We shared the info we had found in our documents, and also told him about the Queen of Dragonflies, although we carefully left out the info where we had been enchanted by her. Everything was new info to him, so he got up and ran to get his book from the council chambers so he could write stuff down. We gave him some of our documents to copy, and he told us we could pick it up at the council the next day. After talking for a while, we said our goodbyes and headed for bed. For our help and company, they left us with a bottle of mead.

#nilim larps #long text post

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the-e4b · 7 years

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…You know….I do this to myself.

I tell myself that I’m no longer gonna waste my time with Ephrom Josine because really, it’s the same cycle every time.

He insults someone in the community or makes up a shit accusation, we come to the person’s defense, and he goes on our case with more accusations and smug comments, all while sitting on his tumblr making commentary on political topics that he obviously has no knowledge of.

After the shit he said about 9/11 victims, I thought that was the bottom of the barrel and he had become “THAT GUY”, the person people begin to notice and want to avoid or marvel at their complete lunacy. I myself even thought “He can’t get worse…can he?”.

WELL HE DID.

Apparently someone sent him two anon questions (which raises some flags for me anyway, considering his content, either (A) He himself sent himself the ask (which would be sad really..), or a “friend” of who follows in this madness sent him the ask to again, poke at Sega.

As seen before, Jojo, Saturn, and myself did a retrospective on Josine’s little stupid video mocking Sega’s blocking and as usual, I was fucking livid. He had done at best four videos on Sega. One being about the fact that it was so stupid Sega went to the defense of her boyfriend, the other was where he took her peace offering out of context and made it seem like she was insulting the brony fandom, the reviewing community, and Voice, the recent video where he fucking “discussed” Sega’s terms and conditions to Peet after the bastard did a video mocking and insulting Voice of Reason and the aforementioned video where he found her blocking “hilarious”.

So basically from the looks of it:

Ephrom turned Sega into his secondary GoldenFox punching bag.

Aka

He’s bullying and harassing her.

And I have this one question:

Why.

Why the fuck are you harassing the shit out of Sega, Ephrom. And before you say ‘This isn’t harassment/bullying”, YES IT IS. You’ve made four videos fucking commentating on her and painting her in a negative life, you made several twitter posts on her, and even went as far as to question the fact she’d come to Voice of Reason’s defense when Peet decided to do a video on VoS.

She has a right to defend her boyfriend, or what you’ve fucking never had a loved one come to your defense on something like that? Guess not considering your fucking stalker like behavior.

She tried to fucking make peace with you because she felt there was more to you than your constant screeching and wild accusations and you instead kick her to the curb by accusing her of insulting bronies, the reviewing community, and Voice despite that’s not what she did.

And you in return stalk her, bitch about her posts criticizing Peet, and do two more videos on her.

JUST WHAT DO YOU FUCKING WANT.

Oh and better yet, Why do you fucking give two shits over the reviewing community. You have no knowledge of the community whatsoever, you snark and make petty comments towards all of them (The aforementioned comments on Sega and Golden, getting angry and whiny over the fact AnimeChristy blocked you when you fucking kept bothering and harassing her over the DCMA incident with Peet, getting owned by MagnaKamen after he was upset at the shit fact he got a strike on his channel and you proceeded to do a video on that, flat out accusing MisAnthroPony of being “biased” because he called out your third video on Sega, your entire fucking bullshit towards Ink Rose, and that’s to name a few). You claim to be a fucking fan of MLP despite the fact you’ve only recently started watching the later seasons and even then, showed complete lack of knowledge over certain things of the show like saying Scootaloo and Fluttershy are orphans (Scootaloo kinda, but even then it’s theorized that her parents aren’t around that much but Fluttershy?!). That’s a literal definition (and I really hate this term…) of a poseur.

That’s what you fucking are: A poseur.

And I know that someone will say ‘Well he has a right to say what he wishes”, except all Ephrom does is lie, lie, misinterpret, and then has the gall to present it as fact.

I am sick of you doing this shit because the community, for how flawed it was during Season 3-4, but they don’t deserve to have some pathetic, sad, low-life, self entitled, egotistical dickbag who thinks he can push out 5 videos a week ranting about people reviewing a show about magical horses, making wild accusations (in the same way as the same “McCarthy” term you obsess of) all while having this shit eating grin on his that shows everyone how fucking full you are of yourself because you think your fucking videos are all important.

They aren’t.

You do not matter Ephrom.

The Analysis community don’t care for you.

The fandom doesn’t care for you.

We don’t care for you.

And we sure as hell don’t think anybody else doesn’t.

Especially with the egocentric and complete lack of fucking empathy over everything else.

And again, knowing you, this will be the result:

> sees blog posts about his commentary on someone of the reviewing community

> gets pissed

> ignores EVERYTHING that was said

> does video missing the point

> video consists of you having this fucking, pathetic, and obnoxious self absorbed grin

> video may contain failing, moronic accusations, and laughing at person’s point

> ends the video with some stupid sign out message.

> rinse and repeat

I can’t.

I just can’t.

- deafpony.

I really have nothing to add towards DP’s comments on that dickwad…

What I do have to say something about is the person who’s asking these questions.

Firstly, if it’s really himself asking the questions then that’s just pure deplorable shit. The deep end of the pool of shit he’s wading through.

Secondly, and here’s where the real rage starts, if this was posted by someone else (I have a nagging feeling who):

What’s your fucking problem? You really think that is who Segasister is? You think that she’s a person that would only love a person for their fame? Sega has, and I got this from good sources, through some very VERY bad shit and Voice has probably been one of the first lights in her life. That’s love, pure and heartwarming love. She would do anything for him and she did. She came out of her shell to defend him against a sociopath and a waste of humanity, fully knowing that this creature could do so much harm in return. But did she falter in her resolve? No, she didn’t. And all because she LOVES Voice and I hope for them both that they will stay together for a VERY long time.

And even THINKING that she would cheat on him. Such a disgusting feat. You know who thinks those kinds of things? People who have never felt true love, someone who has never been in a real relationship. People don’t cheat on each other because they love each other, they cheat when one of the two partners isn’t good enough for the other. Did you go through that, anon? Weren’t you good enough? Didn’t you love your significant other enough? Probably, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking this or asking this.

Sega and Voice don’t have this. They love each other. They are there for each other. Through good AND bad.

So, anon, I pity you. Pity that you’ve never felt true love and if you keep this sort of attitude up then you’ll never feel it. But hey, you always have the internet, where you can fap your troubles away and be an anonymous little shit that creeps on others’ happiness.

- Space Mare

#deafpony mod post #ephrom josine #segasister #mlp analysis #i give up

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