#we can get only so lore inaccurate here in this house

[makanidotdot]

#retired head of state returns to her job as just high priestess #young pope meme #nelfs should actually wear hats and glasses more #also i thought seriously abt whether tyrande would smoke and decided no so it's incense lol #cos shes like.. at the temple #we can get only so lore inaccurate here in this house #tyrande

[catierambles]

Blood Moon Ch.13

Pairing: Syverson x Annalisa Caulfield (OFC)

Another full moon came and went, Annalisa offering herself up like a ritual sacrifice after he shifted, clinging to him as he claimed her as a Mate over and over again until his humanity pushed forward and he was himself again, albeit only mentally. Mating or killing satisfied the beast after it took over, letting it retreat.

Working at the clubs was not as exciting as he had initially thought it was going to be. He mainly sat in their security hub, keeping an eye on the cameras, giving orders through the radio to the rest of the security staff. Although his Special Forces training let him solve issues before they became problems, sending staff to certain areas when his gut started nagging at him. Most times it was just a handsy drunk who wouldn't leave the "Concierge Staff" alone, a title he now knew Sweeney and a few others had. They took care of the VIPs and kept an eye out for trouble with an attention to detail security couldn't have given the size of their areas. Took care of the VIPs within reason; Annalisa wasn't running a brothel. If they wanted to go home with one of them, that was their choice, but they did so off the clock. It wasn't required of them or implied they should.

Eugene avoided him like a good boy, even doing an about face when he walked into the security room and saw him in there. Sy didn't know if he took his threat seriously, but he sure as hell seemed to take Annalisa's.

It took a few weeks of coordination with schedules before a get-together was planned with his family. Between his brothers schedules and his new one, they decided on lunch on a Saturday it was going to be nice out, giving Sy enough time afterwards to get some sleep before work. He's seen Annalisa in the sun, so he knew that particular bit of vampire lore was inaccurate, and she sure as hell didn't sparkle.

“What's gonna happen if you eat real food?” He asked as they drove down the highway out of the city and into the country.

“I'll avoid it the best I can, but if I can't...well, we'll cross that bridge if we get to it.” She said, her thumb moving back and forth over his jeans where her hand was wrapped around his knee.

She hung back a little as they got out of the truck after parking behind an SUV in front of a ranch style house, a couple other trucks already there.

“Uncle Kyle!” Came the chorus of tiny voices and he was suddenly surrounded, almost knocked off his feet as they all vied for who got to be picked up and hugged first. He made sure to hug them all in turn in massive bear hugs, picking up two of the smallest who couldn't be older than four and sitting them on a hip each as they waded towards the house, a couple still clinging to his legs.

“You guys are gettin' too big for this.” He said, his voice strained with false exertion. It was chaos as they got closer to the house, a few dogs running out into the front yard and he set the kids down to say hi to them as well, the kids running off for the house. Again, Annalisa hung back, twisting her fingers somewhat nervously. A German Shepherd broke off from the rest to stand in front of her, looking at her curiously.

“Hello.” She said and it sniffed her a couple times before it's tail started wagging at blurring speeds, pressing against her legs and looking up at her adoringly as she pet it.

“See you met Aika.” Sy said, a silvery-blue pitbull plastered against him and trying to lick his face, “She was a demo dog, served with her in Afghanistan. She retired right after I did so I adopted her. Can't have dogs at the apartment, so my folks look after her. Wouldn't wanna keep her there, anyway. She's got a couple acres to run around on here.”

“She's pretty.” She said, kneeling and running her hands over her cheeks and ears. “Aren't you a pretty girl?”

“Woman, that is a highly trained Army dog, you can't be baby-talkin'—”

“Such a pretty girl, yes you are.” Aika ate it up, giving her a doggy smile and trying to lick her face.

“Hey, you two!” They looked up as an older woman came out of the house. “I wondered what the fuss was about.”

“Hey, ma.” Sy said, standing and pulling her into a hug, kissing her cheek. “Ma, this is Annalisa.”

“Well ain't you the prettiest thing.” She said as Annalisa stood, “Bit young though, ain't she?”

“Ma.” Sy said.

“Just pokin' fun.” She said and went to her, taking her hands in hers warmly. “It's nice to meet you, Annalisa. My youngest has been goin' on and on about you and your clubs since he found out you and Kyle were datin'. Nice to put a face to the legend.”

“Thank you, ma'am, it's nice to meet you too.”

“Oh, please. Don't you “ma'am” me, it's Denise. Now let's get inside, the others are already 'round back. Hope you came hungry. We don't often have all our boys together so Jack is grillin' enough to feed an army.” She said as she pulled away, leading the way back to the house. Pictures of Sy at various ages along with his brothers lined the walls and the house was very...lived in, but not messy. Organized chaos of dog toys, children's toys, dog bowls in the kitchen. They made their way to the back of the house, Aika staying at Annalisa's side in reaching distance.

“Well look who it is!” They heard as they stepped out into the massive backyard.

“Hey, pops.” Sy said, going over to give him a hug. “Dad, this is Annalisa.”

“Ain't she pretty, Jack?” Denise asked and Annalisa felt her cheeks heat a little.

“As a picture.” Jack said and pulled Annalisa into a hug, taking her by surprise a little. “Sorry, shoulda asked first.”

“It's okay.” She said, smiling a little as she pulled away, “I don't mind hugs.”

“How do you like your burgers, Annalisa?” He asked.

“Actually, pops—”

“Rare.” She said, “The bloodier the better.”

“Woman after my own heart.” Jack said, turning back to the grill, “Should be ready in a few. Mikey is starin', so best put him out of his misery.”

“Cross that bridge when we get to it?” Sy whispered as they walked away and she nodded. She had noticed the young man trying his hardest to not be obvious in his stares, but he had very clearly failed. He had the same thick black hair Jack did, only his wasn't shot with white, clear pale skin, and the same blue eyes as the rest of them. Sy was handsome, his brother was straddling the line between that and pretty. “Mikey.”

“Hey, Sy.” Mike said, looking at Annalisa and back at his brother quickly.

“Oh for fucks sake, Mikey. Get it outta your system.”

“I love your clubs.” He said in a rush and she gave a small laugh, “Just...everything about them is awesome and the drinks are fantastic and—”

“I'm glad you enjoy yourself.” She said, cutting off the stream of words before he passed out from lack of oxygen, “Have you been getting taken care of okay?”

“Yeah!” He said, “Shocked the hell out of me and my friends when we went and got told I was on the VIP list. I know Sy told me I was, but it was still a surprise. I didn't think he was serious.”

“Why would I lie about that?” Sy asked and Mike shrugged. Sy was suddenly pulled into a headlock making her jump a little.

“How's it goin' little brother?!” The guy asked, rubbing the top of his head.

“Get off me Jake!” Sy said and got himself free, pushing him away. “Jackass.”

“Douchebag.” Jake said, “This the infamous Annalisa?”

“Nice to meet you.” She said with a snort and he gave her a quick once-over.

“You're way too pretty to be datin' this bum.” He said.

“And you're way too married.” Sy said.

“Dani and I separated, actually.” Jake said and Sy winced.

“Sorry, man, I didn't know.”

“Yeah, it's recent. Her and the kids are at her moms.” He said, “Anyway, you're certainly a step up from the Barbie.”

“Tiffany?” Annalisa asked and he nodded.

“Never liked her.” Jake said, “Always had a bad feelin' about her. 'Specially when she came onto me while Kyle was deployed.”

“You never told me that!” Sy said.

“Tellin' ya now. I turned her down hard and told her to fuck off.” Jake said, “Harpy ain't my type and ya know, I was married at the time.”

“Whatever, it don't matter anymore.” Sy said and laid his arm around her shoulders, “C'mon, let's go get you introduced to the others.” Looking over his shoulder as they walked away, he pointed at his eyes and then at Jake, who just flipped him off making him smile. Brothers.

#henry cavill #captain syverson #blood moon

[ani-coolgirl]

Compulsion, Cravings, Consequences, and Control

Written for @wincestwednesdays prompt 5: withdrawal

Read here on AO3

Dean attacks him the minute he walks through the door. There’s no other word for it. Sam barely makes it down the bunker staircase before he’s pinned to a wall, Dean’s mouth devouring his. There’s not even time to set down his bags; they slip from his fingers, contents spilling everywhere, so he can cup Dean’s jaw instead, his other hand going to Dean’s waist. They make out for a good five minutes, kissing out in the open as brazen as a new couple in high school, grabbing a spare moment between the bell. In a way, it’s not totally inaccurate. This—being together—is still new. It’s barely been a month since Sam pulled Dean’s phone away from his face one afternoon and did what he’d been too frightened to do his whole life.

(Sam still couldn’t say why he chose the moment when he did, exactly; if the trigger had been defeating Chuck, he should’ve have done it almost a year ago. Instead, he waited. What he was waiting for, he couldn’t say. For all the darkness in his head to settle and dissipate? To admit what he’s already known for too long? To finally feel safe? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t like to analyze it.)

The point is, it’s still a raw, this thing between them. They’re still learning about this part of each other—the only part left they don’t already know backward and forward. They can be shy, awkward even, which is truly a bizarre state of affairs for two people who’ve known each other their whole lives. If Sam didn’t know Dean would talk smack for saying so, he would say they were going slow. He can still count on two hands how many times they’ve been past first base.

Dean’s hands drift downward, where he toys with Sam’s zipper. Sam’s brain comes back online. “Woah, woah,” he says, gently guiding Dean away. It takes a moment for Dean to back up, but luckily, he doesn’t look too put out—just annoyed. “What’s all this?”

Dean doesn’t answer at first, squeezing Sam’s hips and kissing up his neck. “Wassit look like?” he mumbles as his grip slides further back.

Sam jumps when Dean squeezes his butt. “Y-yeah, but—”

“But what?” Dean asks though he doesn’t sound too interested in the answer. “Don’t you wanna?”

Of course he wants to. There’s a little spot behind his left ear that makes his brain go pleasurably fuzzy and stupid that only one person in the entire world knows about—and Dean just became the second. Equally distracting is Dean rhythmically massaging his ass, occasionally gripping in a way that suggests something more intimate. And, of course, there’s the erection grinding against his front, which his own rapidly rises to meet. It’s almost humiliating how little it takes to get him going these days—they’re both way too old to be playing grab-ass like this in the front door of their house.

“Going kinda fast, aren’t we?” Sam gasps. He regrets the words the second they come out of his mouth. He’s also too old to be sounding like a junior on their first date. That’s good blackmail material for a few weeks, at least.

But Dean doesn’t jump on the opportunity to rib him. He’s too busy untucking Sam’s shirt from his pants. “So?”

“So? Dean—” Sam pushes Dean back, for real this time, far enough that Dean has to actually take his hands off him for a moment so they can both breathe. To his surprise, Dean’s face reddens in a way Sam knows isn’t just from arousal, fidgeting in place. “What’s going on?”

Sam tries not to go down the worst-case scenario track but it’s sort of habit by this point. Dean’s in danger. Dean’s cursed. Dean’s sick. Dean’s dying. Dean’s dying, and he’s trying to say goodbye.

Sam waits. Dean offers a weak grin. “I missed you?” he offers. Sam raises an eyebrow. True, he had been away for a pickup—very rare, very valuable lore books he negotiated away from a witch friend of Rowena’s for their library, all of which were currently dumped all over the floor—but he’d only been gone for two days, maybe two and a half. Dean, wanting no part of any“witchy nerd bullshit” opted to stay behind and run errands instead. There shouldn’t have been time or opportunity for Dean to get into anything untoward, but, well, they both have a history of failing miserably of keeping out of trouble. “C’mon, Sam, can’t we just—”

“Dean, seriously,” Sam interrupts firmly. “What’s going on?”

Dean’s face amazingly gets even redder. He scratches the back of his head and averts his gaze. “I, uh. I can’t stop thinking about it,” Dean admits.

It takes a moment for Dean’s confession to click. It. It. Three days before Sam left, he and Dean had gone all the way (gone all the way, Christ, how juvenile could he get) for the first time. It was strange. And clumsy. And they’d had to stop twice because it turns out, no, there is no such thing as too much lube. And Sam actually had to postpone his trip because sitting was such a pain and he bitched about for a good day and a half after.

And Dean couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Now Sam’s blushing too, neither able to look at each other. Sam would hardly call that his best performance. Any and all attempts to come across as sexy just became awkward when he realized the one looking at him had seen him through every (unfortunate) stage of puberty. Every noise that came out of his mouth was either too loud or too weird. And he knows he could have responded more, given Dean positive feedback during the whole thing instead of just snapping at him when he asked for the millionth time if he was okay. It’s not like it hadn’t felt good, eventually, but part of him had still been so freaked out that he when he finally came it was as much of a surprise as it was a relief. They didn’t even share a bed after, and Sam spent half the night utterly mortified, unable to sleep. He was sure it’d be a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, before they made another attempt. He didn’t want to wait that long but he couldn’t even look Dean directly in the eye right up until he left.

But now Dean’s studying his face with intense scrutiny, the embarrassment slowly fading from his own. “I was fine while you were still here but, man, the minute you walked out that door... I thought I was going nuts,” he says intently. “I kept having these flashbacks. Like, Full Technicolor Stereophonic Surround Sound.”

Sam winces. “That bad, huh?” he asks lightly. Dean shakes his head and steps a little closer.

“It’s never been that way before, you know? Not even after my first time.” Cautiously, Dean reaches out, laying a hand on Sam’s arm. “I kept thinking about... hell, I dunno, everything. How you taste, how you smell. The look on your face when I finally got naked. What you look like naked, obviously.”

There must be something on his face giving Dean the green light because he steps closer, trailing his hand up and down in a slow, soothing motion. “Jesus, you know you’re gorgeous right? And looking at you hard and knowing all of that was for me... You have no idea what that does to a guy.”

“I have some idea,” Sam manages. Now they’re back a square one, Dean pressing Sam against the wall, hands wandering up his body. Dean smirks and presses the advantage.

“The minute I saw your dick,” Dean murmurs, “I wanted to choke on it.” Sam’s mouth instantly goes dry. “I’d never gone down a guy before, and you’re so fucking huge, I was too chicken shit to go for it. But I was drooling for it the entire time. At least until I got you turned over.”

Sam’s once again losing his ability to think. Dean succeeds in pulling out his shirt. The minute he does, he goes for skin, groping and exploring; Sam gasps when he pinches a nipple.

“That ass. Fuck. I can’t believe you let me tap that,” Dean continues. To demonstrate he grabs it again, this time without disguising his intention in the slightest, digging his fingers in a spreading his cheeks as much as he can within the confines of his pants. Dean’s mouth never stops moving, whether to nip and suck at his jaw or whisper more nonsense in his ear. “Let me get you all sloppy. Working all those fingers in you, seeing you shake all over for me. Fuck.” He can’t actually reach, Sam knows he can’t through his jeans, but he still moans when Dean rubs along his crack, teasing his hole. “And when I got in you? Felt you squeezing my dick? God, I almost lost it then and there.”

Sam wishes he could hold himself open, let Dean inside again, but he’s too stupid to figure out how. All he can do is whine and grind against his brother, imagining. “Shit, I’d done anal before but it was different you, know?” Dean rumbles in his ear. “Watching myself fuck you. The way your back looked, and your sweat. And the sounds that you made... Christ. The minute you were gone, those sounds popped up in my head and I had to jerk off, right then and there.” Sam shakes his head and Dean seizes him, holding him still as he circles his hips against Sam’s. “I did. Did twice more after that. Every day you were gone. I don’t think there’s a room in here I haven’t pulled one off in now.”

“Gross,” Sam gasps, the closest thing to a coherent thought he’s had in several minutes.

Dean chuckles. “It’s true. But nothing helped. Nothing can compare. You got me obsessed, man,” he confesses. “Don’t even know how I can get hard anymore but you told me you were an hour out and I was ready to go. I fucking need you, Sammy.”

That’s it. Sam shoves Dean back and Dean stumbles, nearly tripping over the books in surprise. Now, Sam can see it— the wildness in Dean’s eyes, every inch of him oozing desperation. He’s like a cat in heat. Worse, like a junkie itching for a taste. And Sam just deprived him of a hit.

“Bedroom,” Sam insists before Dean can think he’s being rejected. That gaze grows impossibly darker, and the smile more wicked. Their first attempt might not have been the stuff of romance novels but it was enough to get Dean hooked... and Sam’s pretty sure he’s got the same addiction.

#wincest #wincest wednesday #supernatural #spn #my fic

[yanderelmk]

Don't you find it a bit hypocritical to be preaching the respect of celibacy/asexuality/sexual and romantic disinterest of characters from - let's be honest here, a fantasy adventure novel that was quite biased towards the theology of Buddhism versus Dao/Taoism and not religious text or scripture as you seem to imply, where romance and sex weren't the focus to begin with so weren't going to be focused on anyway in any character driven narrative.

When you yourself are head-canoning/playing out your own romantic views on characters who - despite their marked difference from the source material - also have given no canonical showing of romantic or sexual interest in others?

Ohhh boom, professor, you totally burned me. Oh how will I ever recover? /s Look kid, you clearly think having a keyboard and an internet connection means you're some kind of high-and-mighty literati with an IQ the rest of us can't even comprehend, but I'll try to break this down for you:

Romance and sex are major points within Journey to the West, specifically abstaining from them. Zhu Bajie's biggest struggle is in not chasing after women every five seconds. It's what his whole arc is based around.

Not only that, but the Tang Priest himself was nearly raped and was sexually harassed several times throughout Journey to the West by several female demons. So what do you mean "romance and sex weren't a focus to begin with"?

The entirety of JTTW is about Buddhist principles and the path to enlightenment, and part of that is abstaining from worldly pleasures, the most dangerous of which being sex or getting married.

And to get to that second point you must have been so proud of yourself for typing: Lego Monke Kid is a children's cartoon that's clearly adventure-focused. They're not going to spend time showcasing every single character's romantic/sexual preferences. We can make inferences based on what the writer's Tweet or hint at in their show, but to expect them to outright display their preferences when extremely popular LGBTQ+ kid shows like Steven Universe and Owl House have been cancelled for doing less is downright foolish and shows just how ignorant you are.

Some of those tweets, by the by, have included creators lamenting that they can't make SpicyNoodles canon. Pigsy and Tang have already been as close as they can be to a canon MLM couple without saying "We're gay and in love". By "canonical showing", I think you mean you're one of those people that thinks if the characters don't do exactly that you refuse to count it as canon. If any of the characters were confirmed by the creators (onscreen or off) to be aromantic or not interested in romance, I would not write for them. LMK is already severely inaccurate with writers intent on distorting basic historical facts, and not only that it's not meant to be taken as part of the Buddhist mythos.

That's like saying Hercules is part of Roman mythos (or if we go with the inaccuracies- Greek mythos). "As I seem to imply"? Well, smartass, have an excerpt from china.usc.edu (and, as I'm certain you need pointed out, that .edu means it's from a verified educational source):

A strong background in Chinese folk RELIGION.

Because you need everything spelled out for you...my grief was with people who take the Buddha himself Sun Wukong and try to erase the fact that he is celibate, and that as a Buddha he continues to be celibate. Doing otherwise would show a lust for earthly connections, something all Buddhas are meant to shed and all enlightened beings have shed.

Every story in the Bible is just that- a story. The same for things relating to the Greek, Roman, and Norse gods. However, you don't seem to be dogging after them for being "fantasy stories", hmm? I suggest you take a look at your biases.

The overall point: JTTW shows us the origins of two Buddhas, an arhat, and a Celestial Immortal while also showing us lore relating to other gods. LMK is a kid's cartoon that doesn't even get the fundamentals right and is out-and-out fiction. If I were writing for Sun Wukong the Victorious Fighting Buddha, I can assure you it wouldn't be within the context of a yandere blog. But I'm not, I'm writing for the goofy children's show Sun Wukong that's so inaccurate I feel no qualms about calling him a character and writing scenarios where he gives the reader a kiss.

[hangezoeenthusiast]

God(hcs)

c!multiple x god!reader

notes: the reader will be the god of death to make it a little bit more spicy :). c!punz’s pronouns are he/they, i’m not sure about the others, but i know theirs. also why does ranboo take away my gender? /j

word count: 1,672

warnings: arson, violence, cursing, yelling, mention of death, voices in technos part, spoilers for wilbur if you haven’t watch tommy’s lore stream, revival for wilbur, making a religion, time travel, egg, prison, stealing, anarchy, playful name calling

Sapnap

so obviously y’all would be a great match :)

you have creative mode, so when sap would ask you to give him a lighter and tnt, you would GLADLY give it

also, can we talk about him being a nether hybrid

fire squared

like fires left and right, hide your mom and your children in your house lol /j

but besides the whole arson thing, you favor him above anyone else on the server

like if he asks for diamond blocks, well here’s a whole inventory of it, also, here’s some ancient debris and some netherite

if someone asked, you would probably grant them with poison and curses, just because you can’t be “unloyal” to snapchat 

wouldn’t be lonely anymore

Dreamwastaken

this duo is less chaotic, but chaotic enough where people avoid you

he still asks you for stuff, but most of the time, you don’t give him it because he annoys you too much about giving stuff

“hey y/n/n, can i pretty please get some emerald blocks.”

“nope bitch, get it yourself.”

but sometimes, you grant him some op shit, when it’s your good day

“because i’m being nice, here’s some diamond, now, don’t ask me again you little piss baby.”

“shut your trap y/n.”

“or what homeless teletubby, what are you going to do to a god like me?”

“you hang out with technoblade to much.”

Georgenotfound

maybe the least chaotic duo

you guys keep on relaxing and relaxing until the point where you don’t do anything

he barely asks you for anything, but only when it’s really really important, like a house or build

especially when he was building his little cottagecore house, he needed your godly presence to help

“y/n, what should the roof be made of?”

“i suggest brick, it makes it more aestheticy if that makes any sense.”

also barely any drama or tea with you guys

never arguing and never betraying each other is a must

Tubbo

also another least chaotic duo

literally help him with his bee farm, he will (platonically) love you forever

gotta be close to ranboo, that’s the rule

gives him SO much stuff, he’s a precious boi 🙄

also gotta be close to tommy, but not as much unfortunately

you help him pick out things for builds, like what material clashes with another, etc

“do you think that the wool and the netherite blocks look good together y/n?”

“nah, what i suggest is the wool with the gold, it looks perfect.”

sometiems, gotta put him in check because he gets a little ego built up

you definitely yank his horn a little too hard because of your IMMENSE STRENGTH

“OW, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT Y/N.”

“calm down sunny, you were just getting a bit over your head a little.”

Tommyinnit

chaotic duo like sapnap

snaps at anyone who annoys you and vice versa

you give him EVERYTHING, obviously except op and creative

he tries to persuade you to do something, but dreamxd wouldn’t allow it, since he is the main boss

“come on y/n, give me op.”

“no tommy, xd will kick my ass.”

“pweaseee.”

“no.”

you would DEFINITELY help him with the Big Innit Hotel, making the whole layout and color palette.

both of you have an intense hatred for ranboo, since he “stole” tubbo away from tommy

Ranboo

least involved in everything

just stay in the tundra and drink some tea, and you’re good for all of your life

helps him get netherite all the time so your boii can get the good stuff 😬

when he mines to get diamonds, he literally prays to you

“y/n, if you’re listening, please give me a 6 vein, i desperately need it for my collection of diamond blocks.”

and THERE IT IS

more than a 6 vein actually, a 12 vein

guess he needs to pray to you more

daily tea sessions, to talk about the good stuff, and NO, and i repeat NO skipping

threatening to flick water on him check ✅

Wilbur Soot

literally you spoil him

not to be angsty, but when he died and lost his last canon life, you revived him instead of Dream

now he’s practically at your knees

like he’s thinks that he owes you, but actually that’s the opposite

he was revived because you were lonely, and wanted your best friend back :(

prays to you when he goes to bed

“hey y/n, hope you’re having a great day, (platonically) love you.”

“love you too mortal.”

sometimes, to be at the peak of godness, you shower upon wilbur as gold to symbolize blessings, like zeus did before

“omg y/n, what are you doing?”

“i’m trying to bless you, shut up bitch.”

just saying, he would make a religion about you :/

Karl Jacobs

omg don’t get me started on this

first, you wouldn’t codone him going back in time

he would definitely forget your name a lot, so that’s why you hated it

“hey karl, how are you doing?”

“i’m sorry, but do i know you?”

ANGST IS TOO MUCH FOR ME

you were definitely the one to push him towards sapnap and quackity

this is also another spoiled boi

give him the entire world while you’re at it pwease

he wants a few diamonds, nope, give him a chest full of them

Quackity

why are there so much chaotic duos in here?

literally chaos times infinity

energy to the max

literally, did you take an energy drink

grants him every wish he can randomly think off

“can i get a bucket with lava and a fish in it?”

“weird choice, but ok man.”

gotta be close to sap and karl or he isn’t your friend anymore /j

helps with las nevadas a lot, and definitely tries to rig the machines so you get money

“hey big q, i got 10,000 dollars.”

“that’s impossible... y/n, did you cheat?”

“nooo 😊”

help him preen his wings, and he goes “I LOVE YOU, MWAH MWAH.” obviously in his mind 🙄

Awesamdude

definitely helps him maintain the prison

you both love setting up red stone contraptions and pistons and all that giz

“hey sam, do you know where the redstone torches are?”

“yeah, there behind the pistons in the back.”

also you helped build the prison, since he could do that by himself

“are you sure that lava wall will work y/n, your calculations seem inaccurate.”

“i’m sure sam, this will add some more security to this goddamn server.”

nerd squared lol

BadBoyHalo

wouldn’t condone the egg

you warned him multiple times to get away from its grasp, but most of the times he’ll decline

“i won’t y/n, the egg is the future.”

he still, even after all the advancements, even after everything, he tries to ask you to join the eggpire

“come on y/n, you’ll like being with us.”

“i don’t wanna be on a stupid egg side, like let me crack the egg, i wanna eat it and turn it into a omelette.”

he doesn’t like that joke :(

but before he discovered the egg, both of you were joint at the hip

sight seeing was a must

languages being thrown around everywhere, since you were the little language muffin

Punz

steals stuff from everyone

hide your stuff, because the punzo-y/n team is unstoppable

definitely they can be really stubborn and indecisive

like one day, he will be like, “i need gold blocks.” and the next, “nevermind, i need netherite actually.”

like hon, stop switching

also anarchy buddies

burning down forests and buildings are your guys’s specialty

when you give him gold when they doesn’t ask, his heart goes brrr and his brain goes, “pog pog, they’re so cool, lets hug them.”

Technoblade

now this is the most deadly duo in the entire Dream Smp

better not piss you guys off 😐

he’s the Blood God, and you’re the God/Goddess/God being of Death

so if some occasion where you need to battle someone, like Techno’s enemies, *clears throat and murmurs Quackity*, you will obviously back your boy up :)

help him with enchanting and potions and he’s set for life

also you got have to be close to the great Philza Minecraft since him and Techno are buddy buddy

anarchy squared

helps with the voices since you have some of your own

“so what you’re saying is that i need to pay attention to them?”

“yeah, when i first learned that the voices were in my head, i tried to ignore them, but that sucked. so what i did was try to distract myself with various tasks, and that sucked.”

“so what do i do, you’re saying that i should listen to them, but how do i do that when they literally shout at me.”

“just embrace it, obviously when they do their little chant of blood for the blood god, you have to ignore them.”

“you suck at advice.”

Philza Minecraft

so since both of you resemble death, him being the Angel of Death and you being the God/Goddess/God being of Death, y’all are fucking best friends, platonic soulmates if you will

death squared

watch out, because if you piss them off, prepare to d-

gotta be close to Ranboo and Techno, and obviously others who he platonically likes

he doesn’t need to ask you for stuff, he’s the fricking Angel of Death, but he will ask you to preen his wings :D

“ow, not there y/n.”

“oh shut up grandpa, let me do it.”

“I’M NOT OLD DUMBASS.”

Dream XD

two gods at once, damn there is so much chaos

left and right, you guys are noticed by everyone, like purrrr

y’all would be in some fancy shit, to show your power

you would get jealous of him hanging out with george

“why are you jealous y/n?”

“you’re hanging out with george to much, hang out with me please :(.”

gifts are a must, even though both of you have access to creative

#dream smp #mcyt #myct x reader #dream smp x reader #quackity #quackity x reader #sapnap #sapnap x reader #georgenotfound #georgenotfound x reader #dream x reader #dreamwastaken #wilbur soot #wilbur soot x reader #tommyinnit x reader #tommyinnit #dreamxd #dreamxd x reader #badboyhalo #badboyhalo x reader #louistommosnesquickmilk writes #louistommosnesquickmilk #philza minecraft #philza x reader #technoblade #technoblade x reader #punz #punz x reader #awesamdude #awesamdude x reader

[lochnessies]

I feel like 3H discourse gets fucked over a bit by people not taking into account that characters will say inaccurate information (without it having to be a plot hole). Perspective is a huge theme in Three Houses and characters are going to make, sometimes, dramatic actions based off that misinformation.

yeah

Like, Dmitri accuses Edelgard of being involved in the Tragedy of Duscur, but, she was like, 12 when that happened. It’s a lot more likely that Edelgard was being experimented on or recovering from experimentation during that point in time considering that the Tragedy happens not long after Edelgard and Dmitri last see each other.

do i think edelgard was involved? nah. it’s one of the few things i genuinely believe her on. however, it isn’t unreasonable for dimitri to think she was somehow involved. i mean, faerghast is pretty standard medieval when it comes down to fighting. was sent to quell rebellions at like 14. that’s really young. and in the middle ages the standard age that boys trained to be nights was at the very least seven (glenn was 15 when he was full on knighted). felix says he learned to fight before he could write his own name and dimitri was already swinging swords at nine. not to mention she was in the kingdom and then not long after she leaves the tragedy happened. so it could also look like she was a spy even if she didn’t set lambert on fire herself.

then there’s the whole shit of her saying nothing. a whole nation gets wiped out and she has no plans to ever vindicate them. hell, even dedue says that her being involved in any way is unacceptable and he’s fucking pissed. is he delusional? is he being irrational and unfair to edelgard? she isn’t the victim here, dedue, his people, the kingdom royals and co. are.

Likewise, Setheth accuses Edelgard of trying to become a false goddess when that’s not even remotely close to her goals.

ok this part right here is the reason that this fucking thing took forever to come out (sorry anon). i have so much to say and i wanted to write it all but i decided to put in my edelgard essay instead. i then waited to post this answer but sadly it’s taking longer to edit than i planned and i feel bad so you’re going to have to wait for this bit. so if you stick around i’ll talk about that in depth in the essay but just know that i disagree with the op very much.

Edelgard makes a ton of false accusations and misconceptions about Rhea. She accuses Rhea of being a power hungry inhumane tyrant who has no regard for life outside her own when that just isn’t remotely accurate.

And then there’s Claude, literally the only major faction leader that cares to uncover the truth and nuances of everyone’s decisions. He’s literally the only faction leader to not act like his version of events is the definitive truth. He acknowledges that he and Edelgard are fighting for similar things: a system overhaul of Fodlan. He also doesn’t oppose the Church because he’s learned enough about it to want to keep it’s institution in place. That’s why he’s the only faction leader that can survive in every route (I’d consider Seteth and Rhea to share the role as Church Leader since Seteth leads the Church Route but Rhea’s the one actually in charge of the Church). Claude is also the only leader that doesn’t make any false claims about other factions. I said a while ago that Claude would make the best ruler and this is why.

ok this is fine

But going back to what I said earlier about discourse, this impacts discourse drastically because people can just pick whichever version of events they prefer and there’s probably a character who claimed it went that way. The plot also doesn’t seek to clarify events one way or the other in any route. So even if you’ve played every route, it’s up to the player to make judgment calls on who’s speaking out of their ass.

except it’s literally not. we are told what routes have correct information from the devs themselves. and unreliable narrators can be proven and disproven when you put their words against everyone else, their actions, and the lore.

Between all the relevant character and plot details the game hides behind supports, endings, and other easily missable content and the fact that no two characters interpret the series of events that happen in the plot the same way (due to coming from various background, being present for some stuff but not others, having different priorities and biases that will cause them to interpret different things in different ways, etc.), no two players are likely going to interpret the events of 3 Houses the same either.

just because two characters interpret the events differently doesn’t mean they’re right. for example, the agarthans think the crest experiments are good but edelgard and lysithea would say otherwise. but you wouldn’t say that twsitd’s perspective is valid just bc they see things differently.

and when i see players trying to excuse some of the most horrific things bc they don’t want their fave war criminal to look bad yes i will judge them. you can like whoever but don’t excuse shit like imperialism and racism and we will be fine.

So, if you want to talk 3H, please acknowledge that none of the characters should be taken solely on their word, especially when describing major things. With the examples I gave earlier of misinformation in the game, it makes sense that Dmitri would place the blame of the Tragedy of Duscur almost entirely on Edelgard because he doesn’t know about the Agarthans or Edelgard’s history with them.

ok but she’s still complicate if nothing else. that’s still terrible. like if she was planning to clear duscur’s name that’s one thing but she isn’t. the only way to do that is to reveal twsitd and we know she doesn’t since it is a shadow war that the people don’t know about since that would reflect badly on her for working with them.

It makes sense that Edelgard has a lot of misconceptions about the Church because once you start completely rewriting and erasing history (and the Church does openly censor literature, which is shown in Claude’s route), any possible “true story” is more likely than the story you’re giving. Alongside that, Edelgard is getting most of her information from the Agarthans and a very private source only accessible to the Imperial Family.

fair but choosing war at like 13 is an extreme jump. maybe wait till your brain fully develops and you have a better picture of the world around you

It makes sense that Seteth might assume that Edelgard is trying to become a false god because he’s been helping lead a religion based on lies for centuries.

she is. also the religion isn’t based off of lies. sothis exists. she’s in your head. a few details were changed to hide nabateans from a red canyon massacre 2.0. however, the values are the same. also he came to the monastery 20 years ago not centuries.

When you’re trying to understand some part of Three Houses, you have to think about where that information came from, what factors might be biasing that information, and that there might be some detail that shines a new light on that information somewhere else in the game that you’re missing. And that’s generally a good philosophy to have when processing any information.

yeah

That’s something I like about Three Houses. I like how you have to sort through a ton of biases and misinformation within the game to understand the story. If you let your own biases get away from you too much, you’re going to miss the larger picture. The game let’s you know exactly where everyone is coming from in some way and (almost) everyone is given a sympathetic eye in at least one route. And (almost) everyone is viewed as irredeemable in at least one route.

the only people who are portrayed as irredeemable are edelgard and rhea (and maybe dimitri if you count edel’s contempt for him in cf).

#asks

[inbarfink]

I know I already made a post about the Rose Quartz-Greg Universe Backstory Parallels, but thinking about it... the fact that Greg’s backstory is just the Normal Human Earth Version of Pink Diamond’s Story is important... but it’s not the ONLY reason why Steven felt like Greg is “just like mom”. There’s also another factor here, the fact that Greg has never told him about his human family, the fact that he hid this information from him. He did that Thing Steven associates with Rose most of all, he lied. 

Well, ‘hiding’ and ‘lying’ is kind of heavy words here. I don’t think Greg saw himself as lying. or hiding anything. This is - like a lot of the issues brought up to the surface in Mr. Universe - this is a communication issue created by the wide difference in the perspectives and life experiences between Steven and Greg. 

Greg, in his POV, never divulged false information to Steven about his family. He never explicitly told Steven “I have always had the surname ‘Universe’, I was born with it”, or “No, you can’t visit your grandparents because..... they’re dead”, or “I did not run away from home”. He just... didn’t talk about his family a lot. He occusionally mentioned vauge stuff about his family when they subject gets brought up that foreshadowed this episode, but all in all, Greg just didn’t talk about it. 

(And you can totally understand why, these Family Issues are clearly still a sore spot for Greg. I think he’s been underplaying his own emotions even all through “Mr. Universe”. PLUS, discussing them with Steven in spesifics is gonna be extra-hard cause...well... at what age do you tell your child that his grandparents never answer your letters??? Especially since Steven already has so much on his plate!)

And Greg doesn’t view that as ‘lying’ or ‘hiding’ anything, if Steven actually directly ASKED him about his family at any point in his life, he’d probably would have explained his backstory in vauge, emotionally-disconnected terms and then he would have been like “oh whatever, YOU’RE the only family I care about anymore, schtu-ball!”. He clearly didn’t treat that backstory-revealing road trip, as... like... Revealing anything previously hidden to Steven. This is also consistent with the way he feels about Rose’s secrets and falsehoods:

Rose didn’t *lie* to Greg about Not Being a Diamond, she simply did not tell Greg that she was a Diamond - and there is a difference there. Well, for Greg, at least. For him, that level of ‘secretiveness’ comes off as normal and acceptable. Because he basically grew up with the Normal Human Version of Pink Diamond’s Upbringing! Overcontrolling parents raise oversecretive children, that’s a Theme in the Show!

But I think that Steven sees less of a distinction here. Greg might have grown up until the age of 20 having to Hide Everything from his parents, but Steven grew up constantly having to deal with the emotional fallout of his various parental figures Hiding Stuff from him! Rose’s many, many secrets are the most obvious examples, but the CGs and Greg also have their fair share of it. Steven starts the show knowing almost nothing about Gemkind because the CGs and Greg (who DO know a bunch of Stuff) chose to not tell him and he had to find out a lot of the Lore in the worst possible moments.

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Greg never directly *lied* to Steven about the origins of the Crystal Gems, but they didn’t tell him any of the truth either and quietly allowed him to build a very inaccurate image of the situation in his head - which got knocked down one-by-one as the Gems were *forced* to tell Steven the truth. And I don’t think it would have made much of a difference for Steven if this inaccurate image was purely a result of Steven’s imagination running wild with the void of information that his parental figures chose to give him or if they directly told him false shit. The result for Steven was the same!

Either way he had to deal with Dramatic Big Revelations rather than being able to process stuff like the nature of Gemkind or Pink Diamond’s supposed shattering in a calm environment surronded by loved ones. Either way he had constantly put himself and his loved ones into dangerous situations because he has not been given enough information to know that This Is a Bad Idea. Either way he had his viewpoint shattered a million time. For Steven, who has directly experienced the very worst of this ‘sorta lying by omission’, it’s all bad and it’s lying!

And I think Steven had a similar sort of situation with the Gem-Stuff and with Greg’s family. Like, I guess it’s unclear how seriously we should take “I thought you said you grew up in a prison!”, but I can see Tiny Baby Steven hearing Greg talking about ‘sneaking past the warden’ and assuming his dad Literally Escaped From Prison and then Older Teen Steven just never really questioned that information because it’s just never got brought up a lot. At the very least Steven is VERY suprised that the DeMayos’ house is ‘beautiful’.

And we already know he’s sick of being lied too! It’s been a thing since Steven’s Dream! (at the very least!)

Steven thought he was done with all the Secrets to Supposedly Protect Him back when he found out that Rose ‘shattered’ Pink Diamond. He thought that his family was gonna share stuff with him and be open. So he was extremely mad when he thought that the Gems were keeping yet something ELSE from him (when actually Garnet was trying to avoid the confertation with Blue Diamond she kept future-visoning and Pearl was technically keeping a secret from him... but not necasserly out of her own will). And as he clearly states here, for him, the Gems were LYING to him. When they are not telling him any information, it’s the same as lying to him!

And just as I understand why Greg doesn’t like to talk about his family much, I understand why Steven feels like he’s got a right to know. If it was just Greg not telling a Friend everything about his backstory, it would have been different. But the DeMayos are Steven’s family too, doesn’t he has the right to know about them? Steven has angsted so long about Rose and what’s she like and how unknowable she is to him because he only got to know her through other people’s stories of her... maybe he doesn’t want his grandpa and grandma in this category too. He’s defos has some conflicting feelings about them now. Between being super-charmed by the decor of their house and feeling like he’d be better off raised in such a ‘normal’ situation and between his dad’s super-negative feelings about them.

And remember, “Growing Pains” has just gone over how Steven’s PTSD makes it hard for him to react to Issues in a porpotional manner. Steven has gotten yet ONE MORE THING his loved ones have ‘hidden from him’ or ‘lied about’ (even if it wasn’t Greg’s intentions), and his brain’s Emotional Reference Points are all the OTHER times where his family was keeping Shit hidden from him. Even if Greg’s backstory is technically small peanuts, Steven is processing the shock like he’s realizing the Gems are an Alien Invader race all over again. Like he heard that his mom had murdered someone for the greater good for the first time. Like he is once again seeing Rose Quartz transform into Pink Diamond. 

So as far as Steven, processing his Emotions behind the wheel of that car is concered... what Greg did *feels* like what Rose has done. It at least feels equivelent in a way that I don’t think Greg really understands. 

#steven universe future #steven universe #greg universe #steven quartz universe #rose quartz

[miswaken]

got Alice’s bio written up, and in typical me fashion it’s a novel. so the highlights reel of my interpretation:

I’m basing Alice off of whatever Remedy lore I can get my grubby little hands on -- American Nightmare is canon, no I will not be taking criticism. And I think I’m going to end up particularly leaning on that version of Alice, as well as what we know of her from Control’s AWE dlc.

Related to that, I don’t plan on writing Alice as someone who is completely helpless or who has spent the last decade pining over her dead / missing husband. To that end, Alice does believe that Alan is dead, both because it seems like the most logical outcome and because it’s easier to swallow than the alternative -- that he’s just choosing not to come home. It takes a couple years for Alice to get to that point of relative acceptance, and that isn’t to say she doesn’t miss him terribly. Because she does. But she has a life to live, even if it takes a fair amount of therapy and actively pushing herself through a mountain of grief to get there. She stays in their Manhattan apartment, but she does also start seeing other people from time to time -- including American Nightmare’s Serena Valdivia (see: hills I am willing to die on). Nothing long term really comes of her relationships though because Alice doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready for that kind of commitment again.

Alice doesn’t remember much of her time in the Dark Place. She remembers arguing with Alan in the cabin, him storming out and the lights going off -- and that’s about it. The next thing remembers is dragging herself out of the lake in the morning. The cabin being non-existent according to everyone else starts to give her the sense that something... strange happened. But her camera and whatever picture proof was on it was lost with the cabin and all of their luggage -- as per a document from the AWE dlc. Most of her missing / “clearly inaccurate” memories are written off as symptoms of a post traumatic stress disorder. Alice keeps to herself the fact that she doesn’t entirely buy that.

The nyctophobia never goes away -- if anything it gets worse after Bright Falls. It’s another thing she tries to work through with her therapists, even converting Alan’s old office into a darkroom to try some exposure therapy. She’s able to manage the darkness in small doses, but only when there’s daylight just outside the windows. At night, she still keeps lights on.

Relevant documents regarding Alice’s Control-era fate can be found: [here] [here] [here]. Alice had contact with the FBC immediately after Alan’s disappearance, and then again regarding her experiences in 2016 / 2017. They don’t exactly provide her with answers, and this reignites Alice’s sense that something other than death befell Alan. Post-2017 she starts trying to put the puzzle together herself.

I’m taking little bits of inspo from non-Remedy sources as well, namely House of Leaves. I don’t think it’s enough to consider myself totally canon divergent, but I feel it’s worth mentioning that as Alice develops as a character post-original game, she’s not as completely selflessly forgiving of Alan’s flaws. He had issues, she had issues, their marriage had issues. She loved and continues to love Alan, but she spent a good few years putting him first and trying to salvage their relationship at the detriment of taking care of herself mentally. However, if she knew what Alan was going through against the Darkness -- and if there a way she could help -- Alice would walk through hell to save him, because she loves him and feels like she owes him. And as soon as she figures it all out, she’s going to do just that. Just because things went south before he vanished doesn’t mean he’s deserving of his fate.

#ᴍᴜsᴇ; ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴ #i'm still messing w page formatting so don't @ me for that #but the Content is there

[365days365movies]

March 9, 2021: Orpheus (1950) (Part One)

Greek mythology was my first mythological love.

And yes, that is ironically a very cliché thing to say about Greek mythology, since it’s by FAR the most popular and well-known mythology in the Western world, but...what can I say, I’m a sucker for the classics.

When I was 6, my mom got me a copy of the Odyssey, followed by D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, and that book was my SHIIIIIIIIIIT. From the Titanomachy to the Trojan War, from Decaulion to Daedalus, from the Lernaean Hydra to Ladon, and from Zeus to Dionysus (my second favorite Olympian), I LOVE Greek mythology.

There have been countless adaptations of these stories over the last century of so, some better and more faithful than others. We got Blood of Zeus (which I...genuinely dislike) on Netflix last year, Lore Olympus is a fantastic webcomic and modernized retelling of the universe of stories in general (fuck Apollo, that’s all I have to say), Hercules by Disney is fun (though extraordinarily inaccurate), and who doesn’t like some Percy Jackson (the books, not the movies)?

Today’s entry won’t be the first of the Greek mythology stories this month; after all, it’s DEFINITELY fantasy, so there were going to be a few entries in here. Some will come pretty close to each other later this month, but for this one, we’re jumping forward 10 years from The Thief of Bagdad to 1950. Let’s get back to France, shall we?

Famous for his adaptation of Beauty and the Beast is Jean Cocteau, legendary French surrealist filmmaker. His stylings definitely capture a sort of practical magic, compounded with clever angles and fascinating visual and practical effects. It’s evident with the classic fairy tale, which I would’ve done this month had I not already seen it. So, instead, we’ll be looking at the middle film in a trilogy known as Cocteau’s Orphic trilogy. This is, apparently, the most important one. And that makes sense, since it’s focused upon...

Is Hadestown good? I’m real tempted to find a way to watch it, and it sounds like it’s just up my alley. I’ll probably check it out one of these days.

Orpheus was (maybe) the son of Calliope, the muse of poetry, and Apollo, god of music. Maybe. Parentage differs based on the retelling. No matter the parents, he was renowned for his charm and grace, as well as his voice and music. He was loved by animals, nymphs, and maidens alike. He was invited to be the Bard of Jason’s DnD group (AKA the Argonauts), and used Bardic Performance to inspire his comrades (and also helped them overcome the sirens by singing EVEN LOUDER).

But the one whom he loved most was his wife, Eurydice. Unfortunately, a satyr (AKA horny horned half-goat man) chased her right into a viper’s nest, where she was bitten and died. Orpheus was CRUSHED, and his song was so depressing that even the gods cried. They said, “Dude, go to the Underworld, get back your lady from Hades, please!” And he did.

Hades, the old romantic that he secretly is, agrees to let Eurydice’s soul, on one condition. That he doesn’t look back at her as she follows him out. Orpheus agrees, but the man can’t stop himself from looking back to make sure that she’s there. And she was...and then she wasn’t. So, our sad boi fucked up, and then...well, it’s spotty. 

See, some people say that he stopped worshipping Dionysus (his previous patron), and the wine boi’s female followers tore Orpheus to pieces as punishment. Some say that these same women got a liiiiiiiiiittle too into the Bacchanalia (think orgies, but religious and violent), and ripped him apart in a frenzy. And some say that he only took male lover from then on, and women tore him to pieces for not paying attention to them (also, possible homophobia). You know, it varies. Still, we can agree on the ripped apart by women thing. His head could still sing, and as the women threw his body parts into a river, it sang a song so beautiful that the rocks and branches in the river refused to strike it. His instrument of choice, a lyre, was eventually interred amongst the stars as the constellation Lyra.

The story of a pained artist searching for a lost love and losing her is all over the goddamn place, with the crazy-ass Moulin Rouge being a solid example of it.

But OK, let’s finally begin Orpheus, or Orphée to be more accurate. Gonna be a weird ride, I guarantee it. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The story starts with a recap of the original myth, and notes that it doesn’t need to be limited  by time and place. This sort of story, after all, could happen anywhere and at any time. And in this case, that time and place are 1950s-era France, where we quickly meet famous poet Orpheus (Jean Marais).

At a café, he meets a friend, the Editor (Henri Crémieux), where they speak on Orpheus’ fame, which is not well-liked in a cafe frequented by poets. Also arriving there is a young drunken poet, Jacques Cégeste (Édouard Dermit), who is accompanied by his patron, known only as...the Princess (María Casares). Come on, guys, can we give our female characters names, please?

Anyway, Jacques quickly gets into a drunken brawl with other patrons, which leads to the arrival of the police at the café. They forcefully arrest him, but before they can, he’s hit by a couple of motorcycles, and potentially killed. The police bring Jacques back to the Princess’ car, with the help of her driver Heurtebise (François Périer). For unknown reasons, she summons Orpheus to help them. He agrees, and goes with them to the hospital.

Or he would be, if they were going there. Instead, as they drive off, Orpheus discovers that Jacques is dead already. They aren’t going to the hospital. Instead, they head to a mysterious mansion, as ominous and oblique poetry plays on the radio. They’re soon accompanied by the men on the motorcycles that killed Jacques, who work for the Princess. The plot fuckin’ THICKENS.

Back at her mansion, they bring the body of Jacques upstairs, much to the confusion of Orpheus, whom the Princess keeps calling stupid whenever he asks questions. However, he’s not proving her wrong, as she immediately convinces him that she’s actually dreaming at the moment. Although...maybe he is?

She sits in front of a mirror, which breaks...somehow. Frustrated, she commands Orpheus to wait there for her to return, as she goes to check on Jacques and her men. Like me, Orpheus is confused. This gets worse for me, though, as the Princess goes to the other room and tells the dead Jacques to get up. AND HE DOES. Well, Jacques’ a zombie, I guess. He identifies the Princess as “his Death”, which she agrees to. She tells him to hold on to her coat, and then...

...I got questions. I GOT QUESTIONS HERE.

They go through the mirror, and the Princess’ henchmen follow, just as Orpheus walks in. He also has questions, and he tries to go through the mirror, to no avail. Completely confused at this point, he passes out against the mirror, alone in the mansion. And then...he’s outside.

Yeah, he’s just outside now, and waiting there is Heurtebise, the chauffeur! Orpheus is freakin’ out, and Heurtebise has no answers for him, but has been told to take him back to town once he...arrived. OK. Still questions.

In town, the disappearance of Orpheus is being discussed by a police inspector, his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa), and her friend Aglaonice (Juliette Gréco). Aglaonice doesn’t seem to like Orpheus very much, as she’s trying to convince Eurydice that he’s cheating on her. And that’s hard to argue, since he was last seen with the Princess. However, just as there’s about to be a scandal reported by a spontaneously appearing journalist, Heurtebise and Orpheus arrive home.

After a rough encounter with the journalist, he arrives home to a relieved Eurydice, and an enraged Aglaonice, whom Orpheus also dislikes heavily. He’s apparently forbidden her from entering his house, and tells her off. The Inspector leaves too, and asks Orpheus to come to his office to discuss the matter of the missing Jacques.

Eurydice reminds Orpheus that Aglaonice is dangerous, as she runs...the League of Women. Well...I think we know what role Aglaonice is going to play by the end of this. Her and her League of Bacchanalian Women, get me? Yikes. Anyway, the conversation turns into an argument, when the EXTREMELY ornery Orpheus basically just storms off, being a DICK to his poor wife. And when he goes upstairs to his room, he actually sneaks out of the window.

Meanwhile, Heurtebise comes into the house to offer an alibi to the pained Eurydice. While she doesn’t quite believe it, the two share some time together and seem to bond. However, when he smells gas from the stove, Heurtebise lets it slip that he committed suicide by using a gas stove. He covers it up before Eurydice notices the slip-up, but...OK. So, “the Princess” is death. Going by the traditional Greek myth, she’s some form of psychopomp, and the world beyond the mirror is the Underworld, I can only assume. OK...I can dig it.

Orpheus, meanwhile, is at the car, listening to the strange radio poetry and writing it down. The, uh, “Princess” is busy as well. Like a ghost, she walks into the household and watches Orpheus as he sleeps. A narration refers to her as Orpheus’ death. Funny, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be Aglaonice’s role.

Two days later, Orpheus is increasingly obsessed with the poetry from the mysterious radio and its odd messages. While Eurydice seems to mock this obsession, Orpheus also seems to be far too enraptured in it. But, interestingly, the messages seem to be coming from nowhere known. However, it’s all beginning to affect their marriage greatly.

On the phone, the Inspector comes calling, and Eurydice asks Heurtebise to answer the phone. He does so, and soon after, we see the phone float into place, as if placed there by a ghost. That’s confirmed as Heurtebise phases to the outside from nothing, where he meets Orpheus and informs him of the message. The two decide to head to the Inspector in his car, rather than the mysterious talking car.

While Orpheus goes through town, looking for the Princess rather than the Inspector, there’s something that I wanted to mention here. Call it an interpretation. Apparently, Heurtebise is often considered an angel by critics and interpreters. However, I’m gonna suggest that he’s actually supposed to be a representation of Hermes, the messenger god and a psychopomp who escorted souls to the Underworld. Not sure about the Princess yet, but Cocteau apparently never meant for her to be portrayed as actual death. Interesting.

Meanwhile, at the Inspector’s office, both Aglaonice and Orpheus’ poet friends (supposedly) are accusing Orpheus of being involved in Jacques’ disappearance. The Inspector turns them away, just as Heurtebise and Orpheus reconvene in town. While Orpheus didn’t find the Princess, Heurtebise says that she came by, saying that he could stay with the married couple for now.

Speaking of the Princess, we see her at night, staring over Orpheus. And her eyes are...strange. They seem artificial, and it bothers the EVER-LOVING SHIT out of me. And the whole affair isn’t helping Eurydice either, as she’s tired of Orpheus’ obsession with the car, and is planning on going to Aglaonice for advice. Heurtebise tries to stop her from doing so, but she insists. But when she goes...the motorcyclists come for her. And she’s dead. As proven when the Princess arrives through the mirror.

Alongside her comes Jacques, acting as the Princess’ servant. She notes to him that their work isn’t easy, and couldn’t be done if she were dressed in the way the humans portray her. So, she is seemingly Death, or at least an aspect of Death. Obviously, as we’re talking about the Greek story, we can assume that she’s meant to be Hades in particular. But, we’ll see. It’s also confirmed, by the way, that the mysterious messages are indeed Jacques’ poetry, recited by him on the radio waves from beyond the grave. Neat.

Heurtebise is clearly upset with what’s just happened to Eurydice. He asks if the Princess actually had orders to kill Eurydice. She avoids the question, and guesses correctly that Heurtebise has fallen in love with Eurydice. He confirms this, and counters with the fact that the Princess has seemingly fallen in love with ORPHEUS. The plot fucking THICKENS.

Good place to pause, I think. Halfway mark and all. See you in Part Two!

#orpheus #orphee #Orphée #cocteau #jean cocteau #orphic trilogy #jean marais #François Périer #María Casares #Marie Déa #Juliette Gréco #Édouard Dermit #fantasy march #greek mythology #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #surreal film

[vanilla-blessing]

qb anime of the year list 2018

Anime of the Year 2018 - the year of girls going to aquariums together

I’ve seen at least one person who claimed that 2018 was the best year for anime in recent memory and I’m inclined to agree. A large majority of my top ten list is shows that I would consider perfect and even shows that blew away what I thought was possible in the medium. It was a revolutionary year and makes a strong argument that anime wasn’t a mistake after all. - qb

#1

Hugtto! Precure blew away my expectations every week for close to a year. I don’t exactly know what to say about it here, since this isn’t the last time I’ll talk about it for sure. It doesn’t even end in 2018, but it was such a huge part of my 2018 in anime that it would be inaccurate to not include it. The only way I can think to explain Hugtto! Precure is to talk about the Netflix She-ra reboot. She-ra’s a pretty basic modern Dreamworks cartoon, with some interesting ideas thrown in and likable characters, but mostly held back by what they could realistically allot for production. Because of this limitation, She-ra goes hard on a single perfect episode (if you’ve seen it, you know which one) that stands out in a big way and shows the full potential of what they set out to make. Usually, Precure is lucky to get a handful of these stand-out episodes in a season, and most of the time just gets by, due to being an annual series that can never, ever take a break. Normally, the first few episodes of a Precure season can be counted on to be strong, but the realities of anime production being hella tough inevitably catch up.

Hugtto! Precure started with an incredible opening arc, then never let off the gas pedal. Nearly every episode of Hugtto is a stand-out, never-before-seen, innovative tour-de-force. The combination of production miracles that resulted in Hugtto has been talked about by me on this blog before, (http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/176000267859/hana-is-getting-unstable-a-pink-precure) but the length of time that Hugtto stayed in the paint, going extremely hard every single week with few exceptions, was just absurd. Every season of Precure has one or two peaks, sometimes a good season gets lucky and has even more, the best seasons bat a solid average, but are still expected to be held back by reality. Coming out of the fifteenth season of Precure with a majority of the best episodes in the entire franchise isn’t something that I can wrap my head around, but it definitely happened, mostly in 2018. It’s simultaneously a love letter to the franchise’s past, present, and future made by the biggest Precure fans on the planet, and it’s unquestionably the best season. Hugtto threw what we all knew was true and had accepted about Precure clear out the window, retroactively made older seasons better, watered my crops, brought world peace, ect.

Oh yeah and boys can be cures now. 

#2

I’m definitely not done with Revue Starlight and this won’t be the last time I talk about it. Revue Starlight essentially carried the Summer 2018 anime season on its back. Starlight absolutely dominated my anime watching schedule; my week was seriously just waiting for and watching different translations and releases with every other show being almost incidental, far less important than waiting for the song lyrics to get translated for an episode I had seen three times already. I won’t get into everything here, since I’ve already talked about it on this blog after all (http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/179023723689/subtext-is-for-cowards-revue-starlight), but I need to reiterate that it was such a commanding, unique, stylized experience and didn’t drop a single episode in its entire absurdly high-level production. The only reasonable explanation for this is devil magic, and hell, it was worth it. Revue Starlight is probably in my top 5 anime of all time and I wouldn’t get this list out if I said everything I wanted to say about it. It’s great. Watch it twenty times. 

#3

Pop Teen Epic, or Hoshiiro Girldrop, was the most wildcard that has ever been in seasonal anime, and could have been absolutely anything. What none of us predicted was just how much of anything this show would be, encompassing an unprecedented range of artists, voice acting talent, and whatever AC-bu are, each giving their very individual takes on a self-described shitpost comic strip, sometimes covering the exact same material two or three times, with no regard for any sort of cohesion or structure.

Nothing about this idea should have been funded, nothing in Pop Team Epic has any reason to work, and as a straight adaptation probably wouldn’t have worked. PTE spun gold from trash through the raw effort of artists doing their own thing, which captures the original spirit that made the formerly-cancelled comic popular in a way that’s much too intelligent for haters to understand. Also it got a dub, which is the most ridiculously bad idea i’ve heard in my life, and it owns that it happened.

#4

Spider-man into the Spider-verse is legit the best comic book movie ever made. It’s a fun, expressive twist on the most tired superhero origin story of all time, and showcases some of the most sssssssssstyle and raw, real emotion I’ve ever seen in animation. Its particular selection of influences is brilliant and poignant, rising far above the simple fanservice you’ve come to expect from Spider-man. The unrelenting individualistic spirit of this movie will stick with you the longest in the soundtrack, bravely incorporating a side of pop music that you don’t usually get to see in big-budget productions, pulling soundcloud rappers out of their grody (i’m told) dens into the spotlight with equal importance alongside the heroic score. Spider-verse is all about establishing your own unique flavor, and it manages to overwrite every other entry in this cursed franchise with its bold taste.

#5

It doesn’t make sense to me how amazing Aggretsuko’s dub is. The impeccable timing of each line, the perfect integration with the comedy, and the optimal length of the episodes are all far beyond what I expected from a Netflix show. It not only converted the original series of shorts that I already had on my top 10 the first year into a godlike longer series I didn’t know I wanted, but went to the effort to bring real metal singers in for the karaoke. Honestly just repeat everything I said in my 2016 list and multiply it by five. I hope they make more. They’re making more.

#6

I was pretty slow to pick up anime in the Winter 2018 season, but I never missed Hakumei and Mikochi, maybe because it was like, the only simulcast on my favorite online anime streaming subscription service HiDiVE. The subs weren’t great, and it certainly wasn’t all that popular, but it was just the relaxing show I needed. Hakumei and Mikochi brought me back to my favorite non-racist parts of the Redwall series of books: friendly animals, delicious foods, alcohol, and rustic songs. I was ready to put it on my list for simply being a cute healing foodie anime, but to my surprise, it had much more in store within its tiny world: stark confrontations with mortality, a shy riverside necromancer, the inexplicable remake of The Raid: Redemption in miniature, fashion trends, frogs, carpenter weasels, carpenter skeletons, ghost celebrations, a country beetle with lofty dreams. The list of memorable people, places, and things contained in the gnomish roommates’ tiny world goes on and on.

Masaomi Ando’s directing went completely along with the storybook aesthetic, maybe even to an overall detriment, which is exactly the kind of reckless commitment to style I love to see. The distinctive paneling, constantly gorgeous backgrounds, and deliberate pacing perfectly captured the imaginative stories I loved to read as a kid, but with more alcohol, and more sophisticated themes under the surface. Even something anime rarely get right, endings, were perfectly capstoned every week with a short digest that explored more of the history, legends, and very personal lore of their small, unique world. At its core, Hakumei and Mikochi is the calming story of tiny roommates you think it is, but it’s also so much more. They have day jobs and get drunk and remodel their house after it explodes that one time. They gamble dangerously to escape a blizzard, help a photographer give herself a little credit, and rescue their neighbor from a fancy grave of her own making. By the end of the show Hakumei practically built half a town. The collective stories from their everyday adventures build into something tremendous, and it all wraps up on the most perfect ending sequence I could have hoped for, which calls back to every story thus far as a new verse of the show’s central duet is sung. In any reasonable AnimeOTY Hakumei and Mikochi would be my top anime of 2018, but this year, the competition was unreasonable. This show will just have to settle for being the best regular anime of the year.

#7

Bloom Into You is an incredible adaptation of an apparently yuri romance manga that raises the bar for anime adaptations in general. I don’t know when, but somewhere along the line I stopped expecting that serious capital R Romance anime would have a distinctive style, and gave up to the notion that there was no demand anymore and a stylized, seinen/josei romance would just never get made. Well that was 2016 and then Scum’s Wish happened which this blog has covered extensively.(http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/168842023559/how-lerche-adapted-an-average-trashy-romcom-into, http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/168789506264/scums-wish-and-our-messy-uncomfortable) To me Bloom Into You feels similar in concept, as a difficult romantic situation with no easy answers or completely happy people. The main perspective character, Yuu, is among my favorite romantic leads in any series; she doesn’t get romantic feelings, although she wants to, and despite being easily motivated, is kind of dispassionate. Her relationship that she was pushed into with Touko might as well be out of mutual convenience, since Touko doesn’t want to fall in love with someone who would love her back, and Yuu doesn’t think she can.

Yuu filters the developments of the series as they grow closer through a very different perspective compared to more emotional leads of usual romance stories, methodically breaking down and considering where she’s at, observing where others are at, before taking an action that makes sense to her. Her growth through the series takes a very different direction than the common dramatic formula; instead of running headfirst into misunderstandings to overcome romantic challenges, she’s compelled to take a step back and position herself in a way that allows her to understand and confront her girlfriend’s issues. The changes that she experiences herself during this process are extremely gradual, but are no less significant to her. Although the dramatic weight of the series is obviously all about Touko, the central thesis of Bloom Into You is to explore Yuu’s complex feelings, and ask to what degree our actions are dictated by our emotions. It’s a heavy topic to be sure, but what makes this anime adaptation special in particular is how the directing and production pull it off, to maybe an even stronger degree than the original material.

Bloom Into You’s most striking and noticeable feature is the incredible conservation of small movements that connect expressions naturally. Minute changes in characters’ faces are vital to observe the almost imperceptible changes in Yuu over the course of the series, and every aspect of the direction is in service of highlighting these subtle moments. In addition, repeated cinematic themes are reinforced over the show’s run, such as the use of light to impart a blinding realization, flower language to inform deeper personalities, even using a literal (not literal) cinema. Symbols such as trains, masks, and mirrors are used constantly and consistently to reinforce the show’s themes, which should be immediately obvious from the opening animation. I’m still kind of stunned that Bloom Into You’s ending theme is such a banger and managed to use an oscillating sine curve in a metaphorical way. These details might be lost without the brilliant layouts, intentionally resembling a stage, which always push the minute differences front and center. As an anime adaptation, Bloom Into You adds so much value in such a subdued, conservative way that it puts uninspired adaptations to shame.

#8 

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2 rounded out the year with a good old new-fashioned Japanese-speaking Chinese-Wuxia Taiwanese puppet show. The novelty of this wild series, like, existing at all, is still incredible to me, but I was really wowed by the new characters and the direction the series went in after the already high standards of the first season. Following the outrageous action and fights of the previous season, I did not expect that season 2’s introductory goon would 1. Live past the first episode 2. So quickly become my favorite swordfighter and 3. Have inarguably the most complete character arc of the entire show thus far. The Princess of Cruelty’s struggle against her inner and outer demons in a unreasonably stacked, desperate situation developed her into easily the most compelling character of the season, and the rest of the cast including a corrupt police officer with extremely disconcerting and bad puppet teeth, a ventriloquist rock-lutist, and a nihilist monk each bring their own unique flavors to the table. The table that they throw the puppets in the air from to make the show. All of the new elements of Thunderbolt Fantasy 2 improved an already strong formula even more, and revealed an emotional depth to the series that I’m excited to see developed further. Some people might not call this anime, but those people haven’t seen Thunderbolt Fantasy for longer than 2 seconds. It’s so anime.

#9

I blasted all available seasons of Star vs the Forces of Evil early in 2018, and it was basically my first foray into straight-up American cartoon magical girl, despite watching all the Japanese ones, which was probably an oversight on my part. That’s because Star Versus is really good, and provided a flavor of magical girl I had been missing out on. I could talk about the excellent sparkle witch aesthetic of the show, fluid animation, and hilarious comedy, but I’d rather spend this blogspace posting Star Butterfly faces. 

#10

A Place Further Than the Universe, or YoriMoi, or my preferred moniker That Antartica Anime, wasn’t on my radar until well after it had finished airing, but it stuck with me for most of the year. Although it’s definitely melodramatic at times, it utilizes this tendency in exactly the right way to enhance the individual characters’ emotional arcs. Even though I was personally sort of taken out of it for many of the girls’ personal trials, :penguin emoji: is obviously thoughtfully written and carefully constructed, and especially knows how to orchestrate an immense emotional reaction with pitch-perfect timing. If there’s one particular aspect this anime has absolute mastery over, it’s hitting that perfect note and cue to create a memorable narrative climax. And for all my bellyaching about not fully relating to some of the characters, Miyake is definitively the #1 qb-relatable character of the year.

Here’s the rest of my list. Don’t @ me about it because if its not on my top ten then it doesnt really count anymore i dont make the rules thats just how it is

11. Yuru Camp

12. Hisone and Masotan

13. Asagao to Kase-san

14. Devilman Crybaby

15. After the Rain

16. Planet With

- friend of the show @queuebae on twitter 

That’s why the 2018 anime of the year award goes to Kaiju Girls 2.

#top ten anime 2018 #top ten pop team epics #pop teen epic #pop team epic #hoshiiro girldrop #poppiteppikiu #popttippiku #bob team epic #bob epic team #PTE 2018 #Pop Team Epic Season 2

[aion-rsa]

Game of Thrones at 10: The Series That Changed TV Forever

https://ift.tt/3dn9imD

During the Game of Thrones series finale, there’s an exchange between Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister that is as much about the series’ legacy as it is the characters’ inner turmoil. Only a handful of scenes earlier, these same two men conspired to murder the woman they called their queen, Daenerys Targaryen. Now living with the consequences of that heavy deed—with Jon again banished to the white hell Beyond the Wall and Tyrion conscripted to a lifetime of public service—a tormented Jon asks his friend was it right what they did?

“Ask me again in 10 years,” Tyrion says tersely. After all these years, the craftiest of Lannisters finally has learned he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know—and who really knows how the decisions in the here and now will appear to posterity? It’s easy to speculate that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt the same way about their controversial ending to Game of Thrones. And like Tyrion and Jon, they probably could not anticipate the entire fallout that was to come.

It’s been two years since the contentious farewell to the series that defined its pop culture decade. But define it, it did. Running from 2011 to 2019, the show’s rise and fall traces eerily close to the rhythms of its era, perhaps more so than any series ever produced. It launched as the biggest gamble in premium cable history, and it ended as the most popular televised phenomenon of the 2010s. Some have argued Game of Thrones was the last of the “watercooler shows.” Even the divisiveness of its finale was monumental, shaping the next era of TV in still unseen ways. Pop culture really does live on in the realm forged by HBO’s fire and blood.

So while it hasn’t been a full 10 years since Tyrion dodged Jon’s question, a decade has passed from the moment three riders in black emerged from an icy gate, and Game of Thrones premiered on HBO. That’s more than enough time to ask what did Game of Thrones mean to us and the television landscape it shaped?

The Coming of Winter

Television was a different universe in April 2011. Netflix was still that mail rental/streaming company which didn’t produce its own content, storytelling was full of cynicism, and cable television remained king. But within that fiefdom, HBO was facing a problem: the once undisputed ruler of premium cable drama was now seeing challengers for its throne.

“HBO was still coming out of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood,” Michael Lombardo, then-HBO programming president, told James Hibberd for Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, an oral history on the making of the series. “We were getting questions like, ‘Why did you not get Mad Men? How come you didn’t pick up Breaking Bad?’ We had been the place for all things quality drama and were looking to regain our footing. But Game of Thrones didn’t seem to fall into our category.”

In retrospect, it obviously should have. Based on George R.R. Martin’s sprawling A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the show was pitched (somewhat inaccurately) as The Sopranos meets Lord of the Rings. Martin may have written his novels to be unfilmable, but at HBO, Benioff and Weiss would create an impressive facsimile of his Westeros on a budget.

Very much a product of its time, Game of Thrones came out at the tail-end of the “antihero” era of television, the period where HBO led the way in populating TV with flawed if not outright repugnant protagonists. A reaction to television being defined by network censorship for all the decades before the 21st century, the sliding spectrum of lapsed morality between Don Draper (Mad Men) and Tony Soprano was exhilarating in its time. But unlike all those series, Game of Thrones was offering a vast tapestry of protagonists in its ensemble, which provided an even greater range of moral complexity than most popular American shows at that time.

There were fantasy stalwart heroes like Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) and his oldest sons, but also enigmas such as Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), antiheroes who were introduced as full-on villains (read: most of the Lannisters), and young heroines whose nigh transcendentalist adventures belied darker traumas, such as Arya Stark (Maisie Williams). It was both of its moment and a far cry from the cynicism of other popular shows, not to mention the popular image of fantasy, which on the small screen was closer to Xena: Warrior Princess than Lord of the Rings.

“There were a fair number of reasons not to do it,” Carolyn Strauss told Hibberd about the show’s early days at HBO. As the former HBO programming president who first greenlit the Game of Thrones pilot, and then became executive producer on the series, Strauss can recall the apprehension she felt toward the idea of making a fantasy series for adults. “There are many ways a fantasy series can go south. Any show that relies on a mythology that isn’t thought out in enormous detail can go off the rails. You’re maybe good for a season or two, and then after that you start running into brick walls.”

Yet it was Thrones’ moral complexity in such a dense, heightened world that caught Strauss off-guard. “The way [Benioff and Weiss] told the story in the meeting made it sound much more involved and character-driven than I usually feel from fantasy stories. It was not good vs. evil, but characters who had elements of both things.”

That level of nuance was shocking when Game of Thrones premiered in 2011. Nowadays the series is often reduced by TV critics as being simply the show that introduced convincing blockbuster spectacle to the small screen. But in its early seasons that really wasn’t the case. While Benioff and Weiss were quietly aware of how massive in scope Martin’s novels eventually became, they sold the series to HBO as a “chamber piece,” not a symphony. It’s about intimate family drama—at least in the first season/novel—not magic and battles.

In that first episode, there was hardly an unsullied viewer who didn’t gasp when sweet 10-year-old Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) was pushed out a window by Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). The thrill wasn’t seeing dragons lay waste to armies; the excitement was found in character moments or decisions with drastic repercussions on every other scene that followed. At its heart, it was a fantasy series drenched in human psychology and human history (particularly that of the English War of the Roses), and those hooks made the eventual ice and fire spectacle that much more extraordinary five years down the line.

Game of Thrones didn’t come out of the gate as a culture defining event—its series premiere netted just 2.2 million viewers, about 1.6 million less than HBO’s similarly epic and ill-fated Rome—but like the armies of one silver haired queen from the east, it’s rise seemed blessed to gradually, and unwaveringly, build until the bloody end.

A Golden Crown

The moment that personally got me wholeheartedly invested into Game of Thrones, however, wasn’t Bran’s fall from a Winterfell tower, nor was it Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion verbally humiliating his demon seed nephew. The scene where the show fully clicked was in the sixth episode, “A Golden Crown.” Up until that moment, the series was dense on world-building and lore, but the narrative was so finely tuned, and hidden in such a tightly wound coil, that it could feel impenetrable at first blush. It also seemed to be built on a certain set of fantasy archetypes, such as the noble hero Ned Stark and the old fat king, Robert (Mark Addy).

Another seeming archetype was Viserys Targaryen, a malicious blonde-haired misanthrope played so ably by Harry Lloyd that one would recoil when he was on screen. Technically, he’s a lonely exiled prince whose family lost its dynasty. But as seen through the eyes of Clarke’s put-upon and abused Daenerys, Viserys’ younger sister whom he mercilessly abused, Viserys was really just an ugly bully. The kind you might imagine Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy growing into, except with the creepy addition of a leering, incestuous gaze. Also like Draco, I feared Dany would have to endure his pestering for the rest of the series.

Then “A Golden Crown” occurs, and Viserys is plucked from the series like leaden dead weight. Moments before his death, Viserys has realized that no matter how much he calls himself king, no one will follow him. Meanwhile Dany has won the hearts of the Dothraki, a nomadic warrior culture. She now rules as their Khaleesi (queen) alongside Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), the husband Viserys sold her to. Viserys expected Drogo to become his mercenary, but by episode 6, that obviously is never going to happen. So his simmering resentment seemed to suggest Viserys would undermine Dany’s fledgling power and character growth at every future opportunity. But at the end of “The Golden Crown,” the self-styled king threatens Daenerys before the whole Dothraki court, and perhaps more chillingly in Dany’s eyes, threatens to cut out the baby growing inside her womb if he does not get his way.

Drogo ultimately gives Viserys what he wants: a crown. Only it’s made from the molten hot liquid gold he’s melted down to pour on the wretch’s head. Daenerys watches the gold slowly boil before the deed is done, and she sees her brother begging for his life. But the moment he raised her hand against her unborn child, the man was already dead to her. After Viserys’ head is crushed by the burning gold running through his skull, she doesn’t even blink. Rather Clarke says with maximum disaffection, “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.”

Read more

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Tamzin Merchant Brings Back Mystery of Unaired Game of Thrones Pilot and Daenerys

By David Crow

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Who are the New Characters in Game of Thrones Prequel, House of the Dragon?

By David Crow

This hard left turn in the plotting was so sudden and shocking that it signaled what the series would become: a narrative where every character’s action and decision (at least pre-season 7) had potent consequences. Narrative conventions could be cut short in an instance. In this case, it was one that left viewers thrilled, but a few episodes later the same creative instinct would shatter them when the series’ main lead, poor Ned, lost his head. Such twists led me to buy all of Martin’s books and read them within a few months.

However, there was something more unsettling about the sequence. Daenerys Targaryen, our ostensible hero in her own storyline, did not flinch or bat an eye at her brother’s demise. He was rotten to the core, but Dany was no more affected by his death than she would be at the sight of hundreds of strangers crucified along a road on her order (an event which would occur later in the series).

The ambiguity of some of these characters, including Dany who in the early seasons was initially presented as an impending threat to the Starks and Lannisters a world away in Westeros, is what gave the drama so much life. There were reasons to root for nearly every faction and reasons to have pause with each character. You knew, eventually, your favorites would be in mortal conflict. While featuring a greater array of heroes than any of the other popular cable shows of the early 2010s, Game of Thrones also wallowed in moral relativity and bleakness. In 2011, it was like a high; in 2021, that kind of televised storytelling has largely fallen out of popularity.

Thrones also had a hand in that shift.

“Tits and Dragons”

For all of Game of Thrones’ good qualities, they cannot be extracted from its sins. Ten years ago, premium cable networks indulged in heavy use of obligatory nudity (mostly of young women) to keep viewers watching. Game of Thrones didn’t invent this, but it pushed it to its limit in the early seasons, even leading to the new term of “sexposition,” which describes when a show cynically includes images of naked women, usually portrayed as prostitutes in Thrones’ case, in the background during dry exposition.

Even before Thrones ended, these elements had aged badly, and were notably toned down in the later seasons. But they still occurred, even as gags, up to and including the final year. Neil Marshall, who directed two battle episodes on the series, even recalled in 2012 a disquieting note he received from an executive on the episode “Blackwater.”

“This particular exec took me to one side and said, ‘Look, I represent the pervert side of the audience okay?’” Marshall said. “‘Everybody else is the serious drama side, [but] I represent the perv side of the audience, and I’m saying I want full frontal nudity in this scene.’”

This cavalier attitude about using (some might say exploiting) young actresses who are anxious for a job on a popular series in such a gratuitous way contributed to the creation of a new profession in Hollywood: the intimacy coordinator. The actual HBO series which finally triggered this was The Deuce, not Game of Thrones. Still, Thrones most famously contributed to that sensationalism on television. So much so one of its most lauded guest stars, Ian McShane, deadpanned the show was only about “tits and dragons.” It became the figurehead for a media culture so problematic that there needed to be a reckoning at all networks and streamers in the post-#MeToo era.

That those elements on Game of Thrones were so often used in association with rape or sexual violence has led to a long overdue reevaluation of how stories with women are told in popular media—particularly from writers’ rooms dominated by men.

In truth, Game of Thrones has a litany of fascinating and complex female characters, many of whom end up in positions of power during the final seasons despite the grueling restraints of a medieval patriarchal society. Stars like Sophie Turner, whose Sansa Stark concludes the series as Queen in the North, has argued the series is actually quite feminist in its depiction of a wide range of nuanced female leads navigating medieval misogyny. And Clarke has said the show has taught her to “embrace her feminism.”

Yet both actors’ characters were forced to endure scenes of rape and sexual assault on the series, quite graphically in Clarke’s case during the first season. Even 10 years ago, viewers were rightfully disturbed by that. Clarke’s own thoughts on the use of nudity in the first season have also evolved. These elements, which only seem more glaring to the modern eye, have inspired a shift in how all “adult” stories are told, as well as how fantasy stories and historical dramas are received by audiences increasingly critical of one-sided titillation.

Those scenes likely contributed to the fan backlash when Clarke’s Daenerys, who suffered so much early on only to remake herself as a godlike savior, was revealed to be painfully mortal… turning into the villain of her own story.

A Legacy of Conflict

Game of Thrones began as a gamble for HBO, but even in its first year the bet was paying off when the fantasy show with dragons and ice zombies was nominated for Best Drama Series at the Emmys. Dinklage would go on to win his first of four Emmys for playing Tyrion that year, and even as the show lost the top prize then, it would eventually win Best Drama Series in four subsequent years.

It’s also worth noting that Dany’s dragons were barely present in the first season. Before the 2011 finale, they were creatures of a bygone age that, we’re told repeatedly, have long gone extinct. But in the final minutes of season 1, her ancient dragon eggs hatch, and a scene of biblical import plays out when she emerges from ashes as the Mother of Dragons. With each following year, Dany’s children grew larger in size, as did the pyrotechnics they unleashed. They were not much bigger than cats when they burned down a city of slavers in season 3. By the show’s end, they were the size of 747 jets while laying waste to Lannister armies.

As the creatures grew, so did Game of Thrones’ budget and, just as importantly, its audience. No other series in the modern era grew bigger with each season, from the cradle to its grave. In an age where Netflix invented the term “binge watching,” Game of Thrones remained the rare holdout of old school appointment television, with most audiences simultaneously watching live when the episode premiered on Sunday nights. Entire cottage industries based on fan speculation were born, and reading Martin’s books like they were sacred texts with hidden meanings that only the most learned scholar could translate became a pastime.

The first season premiered with 2.2 million people watching; the final season debuted with an audience of 17.4 million viewers. The finale brought in 19.3 million viewers. By comparison, the most popular scripted drama series on network television in 2019, This is Us, was averaging around 7-8 million viewers.

Yet as its popularity grew with its dragons, so did a vocal sense of dissatisfaction. There was a confluence of factors involved, many of them having to do with showrunners Benioff and Weiss running out of Martin novels to adapt. While they had a rough outline of how the series would end, the final two seasons of Game of Thrones arguably felt at points like just that: an outline the series was hitting by bullet point in each episode, often without the intricate plotting that made the early seasons and novels so addictive.

Yet it was really only during the series’ final two episodes, as a long built-up dragon fulfilled his destiny, that the rift between audience expectation and artistic intent erupted into a social media outrage. After watching Dany’s power build and build, and spending the final seasons with her pivoting from a threat to the Starks and King’s Landing to their ally against the Army of the Dead, Dany did what the series had long been famous for: she took a hard left turn.

In the final few hours of the series, Daenerys burns down the Westerosi capital, kills tens of thousands of people, and takes the Iron Throne in fire and blood, just like her ancestors. It was not the ending audiences, including myself, wanted for Dany, and it was an ending that disappointed even Clarke. Especially Clarke.

Read more

TV

Game of Thrones Season 8: This Was Always the Ending

By David Crow

TV

Game of Thrones: George R. R. Martin on How Hodor’s Origin Story Was Changed for TV

By Louisa Mellor

In many ways, it is one of the most Martin-esque elements of the series’ final years. You were promised high fantasy excitement and then got the cold, harsh reality of death and suffering. The fairy tales and fables which inspired modern fantasy are often derived from uglier histories and troubling sides of human nature. This is what conquest looks like, be it by dragon or sword.

Unfortunately, the execution of the ending left something to be desired. And there are plenty of write-ups out there to unpack the problems with the final season. Nonetheless, it is fair to wonder if for the first time in the series’ whole run, the show was finally out of step with the zeitgeist, and the subversion that was celebrated a decade earlier was no longer of the moment? When the show premiered, it was a realpolitik fantasy about the corrupting influence of power and how it can be wielded. When the series ended, corrupt abusers of power were on the rise around the world. Even Martin noted it was like King Joffrey had come to the White House.

The series not only denied viewers their favorite theories for the series’ end, but also a sense of escape from a world that was feeling uncomfortably closer to Westeros than it had eight years earlier.

In its own realm though, Game of Thrones was a series that shaped the modern television landscape. Spectacle on a scale comparable to Hollywood blockbusters is now deemed as attainable by content creators with deep enough pockets. Amazon paid $1 billion for the television rights of Lord of the Rings alone. But the industry has also reacted to Thrones and the antihero era it came from with a growing sense of wariness, too.

One of Game of Thrones’ contemporaries from its heyday was The Walking Dead. As another gritty, violent, and at times nihilistic genre show that became a mainstream hit, The Walking Dead started in the same TV season as Thrones. And one of its most pivotal writers from those earlier glory days, former showrunner Glen Mazzara, recently tweeted about the change in the industry’s tenor.

“TV development today is all about optimism,” Mazzara wrote. “Buyers don’t want anything dark or bleak.” While he then went on to add that he’s nonetheless writing the “darkest [and] scariest” thing of his career, the point remains that what was once the most popular thing on television, first as austere dramas and then as gory spectacles in shows like Thrones and The Walking Dead, is out of step in a modern TV landscape that has reacted to those shows.

Ironically, genre is more popular than ever, but the moral ambiguity and relativity that attracted HBO to Benioff and Weiss’ pitch is not. Rather than antiheroes, television is increasingly dominated by good natured and heroic individuals (Marvel Studios is even making the most popular shows). Characters, meanwhile, are proactively trying to solve social problems, not reveling in how broken things are. Creative spaces are also thankfully becoming more inclusive, giving a platform to a wider range of voices, including writers’ rooms where someone might be able to say the equivalent of, “You know, maybe Sansa shouldn’t be raped by Ramsay Bolton?”

This environment is a reaction to the popularity and then backlash endured by Game of Thrones. Which means our relationship to the series is far from over, even as the show’s run becomes an increasingly distant memory.

And yet, there’s (clearly) much to be said about what Game of Thrones accomplished in its time, right down to ending the way it did. It’s hard to imagine a show becoming that popular again and existing with such artistic freedom, and for its creators to be allowed to end it where they would like. Even in the 2010s it was rare, hence The Walking Dead lumbering onto an eleventh season this fall as a pale shadow of its former self. When that series ends, it also really won’t be the end, with more spinoffs, movies, and other forms of content planned.

Under new management, HBO has signaled they’ve developed a similar temperament, even with Game of Thrones. Benioff, Weiss, and apparently Martin saw their story end exactly the way they wanted to (even if few agreed with them). But the network has announced five live-action spinoff series in various stages of development, plus an animated one on HBO Max. In the age of endless streaming content, it’s easy to imagine that every corner of Westerosi history will be explored if WarnerMedia thinks there is an appetite.

Our feelings toward the legacy of Game of Thrones have evolved over the last 10 years, and will likely continue to do so for another 10. But it was a show that hit the right beats at the right time, and changed the culture while doing so. It burned brightly and then snuffed out its candle on its own terms. You don’t have to wait a decade to appreciate how rare, and unforgettable, that really is.

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[bookaddict24-7]

June 2017 Book Wrap-Up!

Though the end of June has been an emotional mess for me, I did manage to read ten books in early to mid-June. I read the six pictured books, one borrowed book, and three e-galleys from Edelweiss. This was a really mixed month when it comes to ratings, so we will see how this goes! 

If you saw my June TBR, then you know I failed horribly on the books I wanted to read in June. Nevertheless, that stack remains on my dresser. 

I’m also trying to be a little better with reviews (especially with books I’ve received for review), so like the last two months, I’ll link those reviews under each book that applies. With that being said, this will be a slightly longer post because of all of the books. 

You can friend me on Goodreads here to see what I’m currently reading!

Tell me what books you have read this month and what you thought about them! I love seeing what you’re all reading!

Warning: There may or may not be spoilers ahead.

Question: Would you all like me to add anymore information regarding the books I’ve read in next month’s wrap up? 

Hellworld by Tom Leveen

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Indigo Books & Music Inc. in exchange for an honest review

I’ve only read one other book by Tom Leveen in the past and my liking it was an unpopular opinion. I wasn’t naive enough to think that this would be an amazing read, but I mean, I had hopes that I would still enjoy it. The premise sounded cool and the cover was pretty interesting (ignoring the slightly cliche and inaccurate nature of what the image portrays regarding the story). While I didn’t absolutely hate it, I found it to be slightly problematic and I would be wary to recommend this one to other readers. 

You can check out my mini review here and you can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here.

I gave this book 2/5 Stars

The Impossible Vastness of Us by Samantha Young

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Indigo Books & Music Inc. in exchange for an honest review

I won’t lie--I was a little wary of this book. Mainly because I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood for contemporary, but also because I was worried it would be a fluffy teen romance that would just have me rolling my eyes all over the place. But you know, I’ve learned that though I roll my eyes, I secretly love this romantic stuff. That being said, however, this book had a lot more depth than I thought it would have. Despite the shallow persona of the protagonist at the beginning of the novel and her “popularity” and need to be popular, the character quickly grew into someone more interesting. 

This honestly felt like a more romance-themed mash-up of Paper Princess by Erin Watt and Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen--which may sound like a weird combo, but it sort of worked? My main issue was the dramatic aspect and meanness of some of the characters. But I’m a sucker for these “poor to rich” contemporary YALit storylines, I’m not even going to lie. 

You can read another mini review I wrote here and you can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here.

I gave this book 3.5/5 Stars.

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Indigo Books & Music Inc. in exchange for an honest review

Noteworthy was probably my favourite read of the month. I think this is one of the most underhyped books I’ve seen for a while. Redgate’s novel has diversity, it explores the complexity of gender in our society, it acknowledges bisexuality, it’s funny, and it has some fantastic quotable insights.

Also, if you liked She’s the Man, you’d really like this--though it’s a little more serious in tone and deals with music instead of soccer. 

I wrote a slightly longer review here and you can add it to your tbr on Goodreads here (you won’t regret it!). 

I gave this book 5/5 Stars.

Warcross by Marie Lu

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Indigo Books & Music Inc. in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: September 12, 2017

I haven’t added a review for Warcross on Goodreads because this book doesn’t come out until September and I know that it’s highly anticipated, so I’ve been a little wary of saying too much. 

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. It was exciting, intriguing, and addicting. The premise is interesting, but some of the events were slightly predictable. There have been some instances where this has been compared to Ready Player One (which is one of my favourite books) and while I can KIND of see where the comparison is coming from, for the most part this isn’t really and truly like RPO, which was based on a society that basically lived online (for argument’s sake I’ll say that in Lu’s world, they escape to their digital world, but for the most part, they spend their days in the real world.) 

Basically, if in RPO the characters hunting for the easter eggs was a televised event then I would be more keen on comparing Warcross to RPO. If that even makes any sense.

You can add this book to your TBR on Goodreads here. 

I gave this book 4/5 Stars.

Things I’m Seeing Without You by Peter Bognanni

I received this book via Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: October 3rd, 2017

This book will forever resonate with me, not because of how it was written or because of the main character, but because I finished reading it during one of the most difficult times that my small family has gone through. The title itself has become a part of my daily thoughts because of what it stands for. 

What I liked the most about this book was the treatment of grief and how it can be such a hard-to-manage experience. 

You can read my review here and you can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here. 

I gave this book 4/5 Stars.

Missing by Kelley Armstrong

I received an unsolicited copy of this book via Penguin Random House.

I don’t know what it is about Kelley Armstrong but her books have not been my favourite. A few months ago, I tried reading another one by her and couldn’t really get into it and this one sounded amazing but the protagonist made it really hard for me to fully enjoy this book. 

I can’t even remember how many times I asked “Why?” while reading Missing. This is truly my greatest disappointment of the month. 

You can read my rant review here and you can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here.

I gave this book 2/5 stars.

Insert Coin to Continue by John David Anderson

I read this one on a whim because it made me think of a middle grade version of Ready Player One. All I can say is that this was extremely adorable because of all the middle grade issues explored: first crushes, nerdy shyness, and a storyline completely made for those kids who love video games and want an alternative to their every day life. 

What I was a little iffy on was the protagonist and how he treated his best friend. I mean, I get that they’re only twelve, but it always irks me when main characters get away with treating their best friends like idiots and don’t really change on that aspect by the end of the novel. But even with that, I still enjoyed the funny and absurd situations this kid got himself into. 

You can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here.

I gave this book 4/5 Stars.

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting by Joe Ballarini

I received an e-galley via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

When I pick middle grade books to read on Edelweiss, I always go for the ones who look really interesting and adventurous. Ballarini’s novel did not disappoint! Taking place over the span of one night, this novel not only explores the creepy world of the boogeyman, but it also teaches its readers that one should never put anyone else down for being different and that it’s okay to not fit into the “popular crowd”. It’s okay to be yourself and if being yourself means that you have the power and knowledge that it takes to defeat the monsters under your bed, then why would you ever want to hide that? 

I think the only reason why I didn’t give this a full five star rating is because it had some unnecessary cruelty in regards to bullying and it felt like the story went on a little bit longer than necessary. 

You can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here. 

I gave this book 4/5 Stars.

Generation One by Pittacus Lore

I received an e-galley via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. 

I never finished the Pittacus Lore series and reading this book made me want to go back and read the rest of the series. From the first page, I was hooked on this book and its characters. I am putty for books with kids who get special powers and this one fell right into that category. 

The action and cool factor of this book was nonstop and I found that while there may have been some allusions to The Lorien series, it didn’t really throw me off the book. This could be read really well by people who haven’t read the previous series, they might just have to do a little bit of research on who the Lorien are beforehand. 

You can add it to your TBR on Goodreads here.

I gave this book 5/5 Stars

I See London, I See France by Sarah Mlynowski

I received an e-galley via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. While I loved the travel aspects and the humour, I was really frustrated with how much of a pushover the protagonist was. Also, her best friend reminded me of a negative friendship I once had, so that darkened my feelings for this book. 

With all of that however, for the most part I enjoyed this book and where the characters went and the romance. 

You can check out my review here and add this book to your TBR on Goodreads here.

I gave this book 3/5 Stars

And those are all the books I read this month! Have you read any of these books? 

I hope you all had a good reading month and I’ll be posting my July TBR soon!

Happy reading!

#books #book #bookish #list #june wrap up #wrap up #june #read #reader #reading #info it up #recommendations #goodreads #rating #reco #recommendation #review #reviews #book blogger #booklr #book blog #book addict 24-7 #my writing #book wrap up

[kakarikoherald]

Nintendo Download (UK) - June 27th, 2019

UK, here’s your download!

Super Mario Maker 2 (Nintendo, €59.99 / £49.99) - Break the rules and make the Super Mario courses you’ve always dreamed of in Super Mario Maker 2! With lots of new tools, course parts and features at your disposal, let your imagination run wild as you craft unique levels to share with friends and players all over the world

Super Mario Maker 2 + Nintendo Switch Online (Nintendo, €69.99 / £59.99) - Bonus: Download code for Nintendo Switch Online Individual Membership 12-month subscription.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (505 Games, €39.99 / £34.99) - Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a gothic horror, side-scrolling, action RPG set in 18th century England. A paranormal force has summoned a demon-infested castle, revealing crystal shards infused with tremendous magical power. Play as Miriam, an orphan scarred by an alchemist's curse which slowly crystallizes her body. To save humanity, and herself in the process, Miriam must fight through the castle and defeat the summoner, Gebel.

Fort Boyard (Microids, €29.99 / £26.99) - Cross the threshold of Fort Boyard and complete the challenges! Enter Fort Boyard and take up the challenge with more than 10 activities that combine Action and Party Games! Endurance, dexterity, and perseverance will be your best assets for collecting boyard coins.

MotoGP19 (Milestone, €59.99 / £49.99) - MotoGP19 celebrates passion for motorsports with many new features! With the Historical Challenges mode, you can relive the most exciting rivalries that made the history of the MotoGP! Compete with a faster, smarter and more accurate AI based on machine learning! Play with your favourite 2019 Championship rider and race on 19 different tracks! Discover all the classes: MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3, Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup and the new MotoE.

Psyvariar Delta (Dispatch Games, €26.44 / £23.50) - First released in arcades in 2000, this enhanced version retains the classic BUZZ system that lets players enjoy the thrill of levelling up by avoiding direct hits and evading enemy attacks just enough to graze their planes.

Soldam: Drop, Connect, Erase (Dispatch Games, €7.00 / £6.27) - Dispatch Games brings back the Jaleco arcade classic with, Soldam: Drop, Connect, Erase. The game has been refreshed with updated graphics and gameplay, but retains its arcade charm with its catchy music and unique style that have been fan favourites for many years.

Super Neptunia RPG (Reef Entertainment, €49.99 / £44.99) - Super Neptunia RPG lets players explore side-scrolling dungeons and fight in turn-based battles with all-new art and animations! Settle the debate once and for all – which games are better: 2D or 3D!

Devil May Cry (CAPCOM, €19.99 / £15.99) - The first appearance of Dante, the ultimate devil hunter! With the blood of a legendary demon warrior flowing through his veins, Dante takes on a mission from the mysterious Trish to travel to Mallet Island and defeat Mundus, the king of the underworld. But this is no ordinary job for Dante, who is also motivated by revenge... Use your sword and dual guns to pull off flashy combos in this classic title which introduced the "stylish action" genre to the world.

Terraria (505 Games, €29.99 / £24.99) - The very world is at your fingertips as you fight for survival, fortune, and glory. Delve deep into cavernous expanses, seek out ever-greater foes to test your mettle in combat, or construct your own city - In the World of Terraria, the choice is yours!

We. The Revolution (Klabater, €19.99 / £17.99) - We. The Revolution is a unique game with a singular art style set in the blood-soaked and paranoid world of the French Revolution, where often you could not tell a friend from an enemy. As a judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal, you will pass sentences and play a dangerous political game. At the end of a day you will also confront your decisions with your family.

SEGA AGES Virtua Racing (SEGA, €6.99 / £5.99) - Experience the herald of modern racing games, Virtua Racing! It's a race against time, but be careful, running into opponents and obstacles will slow you down. Can you beat the clock? Now featuring rankings and replays, online 2-player races, offline multiplayer races (up to 8-players at once on a single Nintendo Switch), the crash-disabling helper mode, and motion controls.

Azuran Tales: TRIALS (Tiny Trinket Games, €12.99 / £11.69) - Armies of undead, flying sharks and the price of immortality. Azuran Tales: Trials is a brutal platformer with RPG elements, challenging combat and merciless enemies. Journey across the World of Azuran as you discover its beautiful levels, expansive lore and unravel the mystery of Magrath. But don't expect an easy journey as you explore this world full of lore, monsters, traps, and unique bosses. This game is straightforward and hard to beat so you will be forced to learn and adapt or fail and die each and every time!

Baobabs Mausoleum Ep.2: 1313 Barnabas Dead End Drive (Zerouno Games, €5.99 / £5.39) - Welcome to Flamingos Creek, the ghostly town which only appears every 25 years in Albatros Road. A town that only appears in nightmares! Now arrives the second Baobabs Mausoleum chapter with “Baobabs Mausoleum Ep.2: 1313 Barnabas Dead End Drive” which follows the adventure of our FBI Agent Watracio Walpurgis in his quest: Escape from Flamingos Creek. Now you can explore Flamingos Creek wilfully! You will find the logic evolution of an “open town”, where you will have a profound experience with the town, its inhabitants, main story and secondary missions.

Bitlogic - A Cyberpunk Arcade Adventure (OXiAB Game Studio, €5.95 / £4.99) - Bitlogic is an action and adventure game elegantly classic but enhanced with new adapted graphics. In the game you take control of Bit, your personal avatar in a virtual cyberpunk world full of dangerous enemies, hidden paths and digital mysteries. Immerse yourself in Bit's universe and dare to uncover the secrets behind the source code. Explore, defend yourself and find the correct way to the heart and soul of Bitlogic. This Bitlogic version is an enhanced adaptation of our Bitlogic MSX game.

Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling (The Pocket Company, €13.49 / £12.14) - The battle gong sounds! Make your way through the tournament, aiming for the top! The controls are easy! You can bust out flashy moves with just a single button. Unleash jump attacks, drops, holds, and specials, carrying them out just how you think of them! Up to 6 players can play. Compete in intense battles with players from all around the world! Combine your favourite parts and moves to create your very own custom wrestler!

Dandy Dungeon - Legend of Brave Yamada - (Onion Games, €15.39 / £13.85) - Yamada-kun (age 36) is a programmer at a major game publisher. He hates his job. Deep into every night, alone in his apartment, he works on his own game: it's an RPG, and he is the hero, Brave Yamada! One day, he falls in love at first sight with his new neighbour Maria-chan and in an effort to nurture these feelings, adds Princess Maria into his game! Will Yamada-kun and Maria-chan find love? Find out in this unique RPG from Onion Games!

DOBUTSU SHOGI WORLD (SILVERSTAR, €34.99 / £31.49) - Master Shogi easily with this game! Let’s play and learn Shogi on three levels! A game played on a 3×4 square board with eight animal pieces. Cute animal pieces have marks to show the direction of movement. Easy rules. Have fun learning basic Shogi!

Epic Astro Story (Kairosoft, €10.00 / £8.99) - Ready to test your mettle against the final frontier? Pioneer an untamed planet, building roads and houses for your fellow denizens of the future. Cultivate your quaint colony into a stellar space citadel, and you'll pull alien tourists from everywhere this side of Alpha Centauri!

Furwind (JanduSoft, €8.99 / £8.09) - Furwind is a colourful, pixel art style, action-platformer game that evokes the challenging classics of the old days. Embark on this epic adventure in which a little fox will fight the ominous darkness that is invading its world.

Goonya Fighter (MUTAN, €4.27 / £3.85) - A different kind of fighting game! Even with just one Nintendo Switch device, up to 4 people can fight it out. Are you ready to become a Goonya Fighter? Walk too far and you flop over; punch the wrong way and be sent flying! And get back up again just as easily! For beginners and pros alike, welcome to a different kind of fighting game.

Graveyard Keeper (tinyBuild Games, €19.99 / £17.99) - Graveyard Keeper is the most inaccurate medieval cemetery management sim of the year. Build & manage your own graveyard while finding shortcuts to cut costs, expand into entertainment with witch-burning festivals, and scare nearby villagers into attending church. This is a game of capitalism and doing whatever it takes to build a thriving business.

Human Rocket Person (2nd Studio, €4.49 / £4.04) - Join Human Rocket Person on the adventure of a lifetime as he tries to save the universe. Jump your way through different levels on your incredible pogo stick. Fly with special abilities and master the awkward controls.

Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka with Love (Artifex Mundi, €19.99 / £17.99) - Experience the totalitarian Matryoshka through the eyes of Evan – a low-ranking, goofy journalist involuntarily pulled right into the middle of an espionage stand-off between two powers. Jump into the wacky spy adventure, uncover secrets of the bizarre communist country (and the powerful capitalist empire!), witness a story full of unpredictable twists and turns, and discover the true agenda of the mysterious Supreme Leader!

Lines X (Nestor Yavorskyy, €0.74 / £0.66) - Lines X is a Numberlink-based puzzle game involving finding paths to connect coloured tiles in a grid: 100 brain-teasing Numberlink puzzles, beautiful abstract design, more than 10 colour themes, 8 ambient relaxing soundtracks.

NEKOPARA Vol.3 (CFK, €10.99 / £9.89) - "NEKOPARA Vol.3", the third instalment of the world-famous NEKOPARA adventure game series, has arrived on Nintendo Switch! Prepare for a brand-new story in which Maple and Cinnamon take centre stage! The game has been updated for its console release, which includes a completely new opening movie and song as well as full-HD graphics. NEKOPARA is once again ready to serve its loyal customers all around the world!

Penguin Wars (Dispatch Games, €13.22 / £11.89) - Join Riley and his friends on their journey to Gira Gira land. Collect items and earn candy to evolve your favourite character. You can also buy "Gira Skills" that let you learn special moves for each character. You can play one on one, two on two, or even play with different rules such as using bombs and other items against your opponents. Each character has a different skill set so make sure to use and master appropriate characters to help you on your journey.

Q-YO Blaster (Forever Entertainment, €8.99 / £8.09) - Q-YO Blaster is a horizontal Shoot 'Em Up , with peculiar characters, strange enemies, bullets, many bullets and many explosions. Enter the miniature world and stop the threat. Enjoy the rudeness with weapons, special powers and help from mystical beings. Q-YO Blaster has a nice 2d environment with detailed pixel art scenarios, varied enemies section, stages, powers, improvements and many more!

Rain City (ORENDA, €6.72 / £5.96) - The game begins with the main character, a cat, who embarks to Rain City to find his sister. The story is both bizarre and exciting making players get lost in a mushroom field, search for a secret passage, and run experiments in a laboratory. The reason rain continues in Rain City is uncovered when players find his missing sister...

SEGA AGES Wonder Boy: Monster Land (SEGA, €6.99 / £5.99) - Sequel to the original Wonder Boy, Wonder Boy: Monster Land returns in SEGA AGES for Nintendo Switch! The arcade platform action RPG stars a now-teenage Tom-Tom, also known as Wonder Boy. Having previously saved Wonder Land from clutches of the evil king, the hero is called upon again when the evil MEKA dragon invades. It's up to Wonder Boy to defeat all the monsters in the now-called "Monster Land." Fight monsters, purchase magical weapons, and traverse the realm today!

War Tech Fighters (Blowfish Studios, €17.99 / £15.99) - Travelling across the galaxy, the rebel colonies of Hebos and Ares join forces to battle against the Zatros empire with the deadliest weapons ever built – War Techs. Taking space combat to a whole new level, War Techs are giant mechs that combine cold precision and state of the art technology in the battlefields of space.

Attack of the Toy Tanks (Ratalaika Games, €3.99 / £3.99) - War is coming whether you’re ready for it or not soldier! In Attack of the Toy Tanks, across the game’s 60 levels in the main campaign, players must take control of the provided vehicle of war and battle it out across different arenas and be the last tank standing.

Headball Soccer Deluxe (Cool Small Games, €4.99 / £4.49) - Smash the football and score goals in this addicting football game! Aim your big head headers and perfect your kick skills to destroy your opponent's team defence. Use the slime, ice, and gum to your max advantage in offence skills! Decorate your characters with a variety of costumes. Create the best athletes by developing characters in your own way! Game on!

Maddening Euphoria (Chequered Ink, €0.99 / £0.99) - Maddening Euphoria is a unique, challenging arcade game with randomly generated level design, in which you control brother and sister duet Mason and Millicent Zane as they flee from their own imagined realisation of their troubles in life - an inescapable wall of death - while avoiding bottomless pits, deadly spikes and speed-reducing pools of thick goo. Keep within spitting distance of the wall to receive a short, colourful Second Wind speed boost and gain the opportunity to be one-eighth euphoric.

Rally Rock 'N Racing (EnjoyUp Games, €7.99 / £7.19) - In Rally Rock 'N Racing, you’ll enjoy a wide variety of natural environments, such as deserts, snow-covered mountains, forests... where you can show your skill at the wheel, competing against everyone to become the fastest. The game has several modes, such as Championship, Time Trial, Arcade, and 4-player multiplayer.

Arcade Archives CLU CLU LAND (HAMSTER, €6.99 / £6.29) - "CLU CLU LAND" is an action game released by Nintendo in 1984. In "CLU CLU LAND", you control of the main character, GLOOPY, to find hidden gold ingots hidden around the stage. GLOOPY automatically moves forward, but by holding and releasing the turn posts at the right time, you can send GLOOPY off in different directions. You are also able to enjoy playing together in coop mode.

Real Drift Racing (Cool Small Games, €3.74 / £3.36) - Time to unleash the demon of speed! Drifting, speed and competition - all in one game! Get ready to drive on high-performance cars and make them drift at lightning speed on realistic tracks. Improve your racing and drifting skills as you earn cash to buy new cars! Tune and customize your cars and become the best driver in the world!

Spell Casting: Purrfectly Portable Edition (Hidden Trap, €9.99 / £8.99) - Spell Casting is a line drawing puzzle game in which you are a young wizard learning spells in the comfort of your home thanks to Wizardly Distance Education offered by the prestigious Magical Education Of Wizards School!

Switch eShop - Demos Dragon Quest Builders 2 Demo(Nintendo, Free) - Dragon Quest Builders 2 is headed to Nintendo Switch. Combining both RPG and crafting gameplay together, this game is all about gathering materials to create things like weapons, buildings, and even entire towns! With the help of the mysterious Malroth and other villagers, you’ll be exploring large islands, finding quests, and battling monsters and bosses scattered around the world. Are you prepared to take on the Children of Hargon?

Grass Cutter - Mutated Lawns (Sometimes You, Free) - The goal is to cut the grass. Very simple, but only at first glance… Grass Cutter calls for focus and commitment. Just one blink of an eye – and you lost. It is very challenging! The game is made in a cubic retro-style, has high complexity at advanced levels and is ready to truly test your reaction!

GOD EATER 3 Demo (BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, Free) - The latest numbered entry in the popular God Eater franchise has finally come to the Nintendo Switch! Now you can experience the game's intriguing story, distinct characters, and stylish, high-speed combat whenever you're on the go, both alone and with friends!

Desktop BaseBall Trial Edition (SAT-BOX, Free) - Watch as your desk transforms into a baseball stadium! Come for the simple controls, stay for the deep strategy. Customize your team down to the uniforms, bats, and pitches and then aim for the big leagues!

Strikey Sisters Demo (DYA GAMES, Free) - Say hello to a fantasy-themed arcade action brick breaker! Featuring cute characters, silly humour, powerful magic, crazy boss battles, and even a local 2 player co-op mode!

For the US Download, click right here!

#nintendo #nintendo download #nintendo switch #nintendo eshop

[wishingfornever]

11/21/17 – No Contact:  Impatience

I’m impatient, I think.  I can’t stand watching youtube videos under 2x speed.  And even then, I mindless click away.  I have no patience, hence impatient.  Maybe I’m restless.

I went out to apply for some jobs.  Not much now.  Applied for the HEB. I’ll apply at other locations soon.  Again, I can manage for another two weeks if need be.

Hrm… NationStates.  It’s a riot.  A few days ago, I decided to comment in a thread asking if your nation (YN) would be able to defeat the above nation (AN) militarily.  I use stats to determine my nation.  That’s obvious. However, I also avoid certain stats in lieu of my own.  Instead of having 2.022 BILLION citizens as of writing this and have the population of China and India, I choose to limit myself to 10 million people.  The reason for this is simple: 10 million is an easy number to remember.  Cuba has a population of 11-12 million and my country is supposed to be smaller than Cuba.  I figured the population gap would decrease with my massive technological increases and healthy citizens.  May be wrong, but whatever.  The Dominican Republic has my population and is about the same size as my theoretical nation.  Probably smaller.

Ah, just checked.  By my own lore, it’d appear my nation is smaller…

Anyways, population of 10 million.  Military might is in the top 4% in the world, almost top 3%.  Scientific Advancement is top 3%, unsure how close it is to 2%.  We’re top 3% in health, intelligence, and healthcare.  Top 4% in information technology, pacifism (shut up), and top 22% in Arms Manufacturing. My nation’s military uses conscription.  I’ve meticulously written out the inventory, taking into account military spending, what I can and can’t do with said spending, and based the inventory off other REAL world nations with equal power. A lot of thought and planning. This guy…  Dis muthafucka.  He says he can take on ALL that “In a longshot” so it wouldn’t even be close.  Upon further inspection, his population in game is 45 million.  That sounds impressive, but if we really did population stats I would win without end based on that alone.  But I don’t because population is too damn high.

His arms manufacturing is top 14%, information technology is at 20%, military is at 21%, has a death rate of 21% (top 21% in the world, mind you and not only 79% survives to adulthood), scientific advancement is at 28%, and everything beyond that is just… crap. Now, clearly by stats alone he’d get DESTROYED.  Even if he had 42 million to my own lore’s 10 million.

Here’s the thing. This muthafucka… his active personnel is 12 billion out of 19 trillion.  This is HIS OWN LORE.  Reserve of 10 billion, 2 million WMD’s, 1 million nuclear, 100 million chemical, and has all this other scifi sounding crap like “antimatter” or “black hole bombs.”  I mean… really?

He has ONE billion active ships with ONE billion active sailors.  These are all in space, I assume but I’m not sure.  Makes you wonder how many people are required to run something that’s called a “Ship” of course, but whatever.  And, of course, there has to be more people running logistics on the planet and won’t actually be on ships.

Then there is Air and Space with more ridiculous numbers and he uses a screenshot for a Helghast from Killzone and says, “Super secret supersoldier project.”

I mean… seriously? What’s stopping me from retconning my lore and just saying, “Yeah, well we have 50 trillion people and 12 trillion are military and I have another trillion ships with only 50 pilots who are so advanced they can fly all trillion ships WITH THEIR FUCKING MINDS!!!” I’m not trying to crap on him for using Future Tech (or FT).  My Nation (from now on will be referred to as MN for simplification’s sake; should have done this sooner but whatever) is certainly bordering on Future Tech, thanks to the HUGE advancements in science.  Not the top, but definitely near there. Walter and I wanted to device a bit of a cold war and to demonstrate some games for settling disputes.  It would have began with Wargame:  Red Dragon, had Kerbal Space Program, a few others, and ended with Supreme Commander.  That certainly would have been future tech. I designed MN to basically be… flexible.  I’ve prepared not just military histories but also political ideologies.  Mostly for conflict purposes, but these conflicts aren’t EXCLUSIVELY violent.  In fact, my own nation’s lore has been that MN has never beaten an enemy in ANY combat until 2017.  Really, my history is just supposed to be funny but also balanced. I REALLY want to get a thing started with other nations where terrorists happen and try to blow up things and use a game like CS:GO or Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes to simulate successes of counter-terrorist and law enforcement or their defeats.  I thought it’d be very clever.

Regardless, most of the history is very… historical.  MN began as an uncontacted tribe who was a sister tribe of the Aztec but failed in mostly everything, Spanish Settlers come in and settle on their way to Mexico, MN was mostly ignored as a colony and accidentally was granted independence, had a republic with a presidency, was often confused as Mexico or Cuba depending on the time period and nation, was slow to adapt new ideas, had a monarchy that later became a republic again, and during the previous century because a Fascist dictatorship who hated jews.  Mind you, there were only two jews on the island and they were retirees from Brooklyn.  They were never harmed but quietly respected, meaning when Fascists were running around yelling, “Kill the Jews!” they would quietly bow their heads in the presence of the Jewish couple and say “...except the Rosenblatts.”  Pacifism!  :D

Anyways, that fascist dictatorship was toppled by Communists.  That basically leads into today.

Almost Cuba.  More a mixture of Cuba and Mexico’s history, depending on how you see it.  So, depending on the game I should be fine.  For example, say… there is a multiplayer game based on city building for the wild west.  I’d basically be using Mexican assets if it were the wild west.  Or if it were based in the Caribbean during the cold war, I’d obviously play as the Cuban option.  And if there were a game in the early 1800’s or earlier, I’d play as either Spain or a Native Population like the Aztecs.

Well, what if it’s based in the Ancient World? I’ve settled this too.  Apart from the Aztecs (because they’re not always available), Spain and the kingdoms that made Spain would be the choice in this scenario (Castile, Leon, Asturias, etc) but in a world where the kingdoms of Spain haven’t been formed yet? The Spiritual Successor of MN is Syracuse.  An aircraft carrier has been named “Siracusa” which is the name in Spanish.  So, I’d basically be using a greek template.  If in between Spain and Greeks, I’d be using Goths (Visigoths to be specific).  I try to avoid using Rome because they tend to get associated to Fascists (thanks to Mussolini) and they’re always overpowered.  Keep in mind, most historical games tend to be either historically inaccurate or extremely warlike. Usually both. Don’t get me wrong, I like war games. Real time strategy, real time tactics, shooters and what ever else there is.  All great fun.

However, I wish there were more… peaceful games like Kerbal Space Program. Just something where I don’t need to try to destroy the other person but try to manage myself.  Tropico is a fine example, but eh. Multiplayer games tend to require conflict.  I guess I’m saying I wish there were more peaceful multiplayer games.

Of course, in the same breath, I also wish more of the violent games had a unique shtick.  For example, I think one such game that’d be fun would be a TURN OF THE CENTURY Counter-Strike.  Here me out: In Counter-Strike, you set up bombs and release hostages.  Well in the late 19th century and early 20th century, there were these political extremists known as… Anarchists!  Maybe you’ve heard of them. Here’s the thing.  They were FAR more extreme than Anarchists today.  Trust me, I used to roll with Anarchists today.  These guys would constantly explode shit, sabotage shit, even assassinate people.  They assassinated Tsars, Kings, even US presidents (as well as Non-American Presidents).  Like, the French dedicated a newspaper article dedicated to them called “The Dynamite” but in French for some reason. Now, in CS you just plant bombs or rescue hostages.  In this hypothetical scenario, the game modes should be planting bombs and maybe also hostage rescue… but also assassinations!  A nameless, NPC king or Archduke has to be protected from the Anarchists.  Maybe have NPC civilians who loiter or whatever.  Guards against Anarchists. How the game is done is really irrelevant.  It’s more a concept to expand on CS.  NPC’s of course need programming… but if done, you can run around with a hidden pistol and just shoot the nobility up close.  Have an animation where a guard pushes the nobility down and protects them with his own body.  Have an Anarchist set up a sniper position in an apartment complex and have a team of guards clear out the houses for suspected Anarchist activity. Ah… a beautiful dream, no? Programming, however, is hard.  NPC’s are just a pain in the ass to work with.  Not many games actually have decent pathfinding. However, that could be good. Anarchists should be dressed as normal civilians.  Would add to the affect, right?  Hard to spot.  The guards actually have to watch out for suspicious behavior.  Of course…  NPC’s are dumb.  So, they’ll shoot a civilian or whatever.  And you’d need them to want to NOT shoot civilians. And there could always be game mods without Civilians.  Planting bombs or whatever so it’s basically CS before WWI.  I think it’d be fun, but then again… what do I know?  :3 Anyways… yeah.  I think my original point was why do people insist on their own stats?  Like, I WORKED to get my military that high.  Pacifism just came to me.  I can understand if someone wants to do FT instead of MT (Modern Tech) but come on.  Be a little reasonable.  Like, I won’t ever imply my nation will do something if I don’t have the stats for it.  If I do have the stats for it but I don’t like the stats, then I’ll work to change it. In that regard, why don’t I just say we’re backwards and uncivilized until I reach the correct stats again?  I bitched about that a lot. The thing is, I worked for those stats.  Even if I wasn’t trying for them, I got them.  The population is one thing, but those stats… yeah.  I think they’re more influential because there is about a million nations in NationStates and MN happens to be one of them.  If those Nations were reduced to only 100 nations and all of them were placed on a ladder with the lowest percentages at the bottom and the highest on the top, I’d be the top on most the ladders.  For my military, only three other nations would be above me.  And that’s not even my highest stat. That is crazy. Of course, a lot of nations have been destroyed so I doubt there are 1 million active nations.  Really, just a lot of defunct nations with only a few thousand actually active. A lot of nations don’t use the NS Stats.  They impose their own…  Honestly, I can be fine with that.  However, when your nation becomes the Grand Duchy of Maryland-Sueberg, then you have a problem.  Overly powerful nations… they annoy me. So much so, the first war in NationStates I’ve participated in with MN was against a Constitutional Monarchy of the Puerto Rican Empire.  They were pretty Mary Suish, but they had to be replaced due to inactivity.  Thus I fought against someone else representing them. They had a 10 million man military, and my population then was far less than theirs.  Their lore was that Puerto Rico got independence and some how managed to annex some islands… then they were attacked by Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic because they were “Jealous” and thus formed a coalition and declared war… Casus Belli:  Your hat is shinier than our three hats. Dumb.  It was pretty dumb. An issue happened between PR (Puerto Rico) and MN where they basically were liberating the Bourgeoisie of MN who fled my nation as if it were the Mariana Boatlift. Um… okay?  It’s not an event I got, they declared that they sent their navy there to rescue an oppressed people. Thing is, I’m fairly certain he thought the Bourgeoisie was a race rather than a class.  Because he said people identified as being Bourgeoisie…  Sure thing.  MN is Marxist-Leninist and had a classless society, but you know what?  I rolled with it.  This was perfect. I used this intervention as a VALID Casus Belli (reason for war) and announced my intention to declare war.  We were in the same regional alliance at the time so I had to get it approved.  It was. PR… I wish they were still around.  They were top 1% in religion and had Fox News.  They were ultra right wing when I was super left wing (top 3% in Secularism due to Marxism).  We couldn’t have been more opposite.  He had unrealistic views of his nation and I had realistic goals.  However, I had this little thing that I written up earlier this year specifically for warring nations in the same regional alliance. Basically, it was what I used to declare war. Such a brilliant document outlining and trying to have a fair 1v1 tournament that used population to determine the battles required to win in game.  Normally, the defending party would choose the game but it was the first time this document was being used so… yeah. This was a practice run, basically.  They had a larger population than me so I needed more victories to beat them.  Of course, they went inactive so another nation in the region took their place and represented them. I won several and lost one.  The war was placed on hold because the prelude to this Esther mess and… well, it hasn’t really ended.  I took stats and meticulously recorded the casualties and used a random percentage to calculate the fatalities as opposed to wounded. Basically, I would have won the war so it never really mattered.

I regret it not being the REAL PR but whatever.  His replacement was fine enough.  It was more to settle a point.  If you think your nation is hot shit and your leader is this fantastic general, your arrogance will betray you.

Looking now… there was this gentleman who I had the misfortune of playing with (in Wargame: Red Dragon, same game I used in the PR War) to just test it out.  Was supposed to lead to a grand war, regional even with three vs three. Thing is, this guy was far more advanced than me in the game.  I don’t remember his stats because he seemed friendly. I was deceived.  I managed to beat him and he couldn’t be more upset. He claimed I helo rushed him when in reality, I had two helicopters in the middle of the match.  They went around the flanks and hit his spawn at the same time.  It was a coordinated effort to give my forces a break because he pushed HARD.  I was only slowing him.  By the time he realized what had happened, he sent forces back to destroy my helicopters but not much was accomplished.  I won after destroying basically everything. Thing is, he had anti-air.  But he claimed I helo rushed and I would be GLOBALLY REJECTED BY THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY IF I KEPT DOING IT!!! Yeah, well I knew what a helo rush was but I wasn’t going to confront him about it.  I asked a pretty well known player about it and he said, “Nah, not a helo rush.”  So, I’m not crazy.  He certainly was though.  Haven’t spoken to him since, seems his nation is now defunct.

Whatever.

I’m not well.  I don’t feel well.  Something in my stomach.  I feel like I should be worried.  Strange.  Today, however, shall be important.  Regardless of how I feel.  The future is mine to take. I’m going to begin Rosetta Stone today.

Everyone messaged me in the middle.  I’ve been ignored all day but the moment I get into something, everyone comes out of the woodwork. Typical.

Anyways, the previous segment was written BEFORE I took Max out on a walk.  I just came back.  A little tired. Honestly, haven’t been eating much but that shouldn’t a surprise. What is surprising is how well I’m doing on Rosetta Stone!  :D I blasted through the first three lessons on level 1 for disc 1.  The final lesson will complete the level.  So, assuming they’re divided like this in all the other lessons/levels/whatever it should take me about 3 hours per level with 4 levels per disc and they’re 6 discs… should take me a solid 3 days to go through EVERYTHING.  That’s a rough estimate, of course. Honestly, I think I sped ran it.  I was doing very well.  Of course, it was a beginning course and I did restart when the damn program couldn’t hear me.  I was sitting there yelling “WHITE!!!” as loud as I could and eventually it went through.  I mean… it’s “Blanco” but basically yelling white because blanco is white in Spanish.

Ariel is under the impression that I can speak Spanish.  I told her I couldn’t before but she’s forgotten.  I’ve allowed her to believe this for a few years now.  Doesn’t really come up.  If Spanish ever comes up, it’s so basic it’s not even worth looking up. Oof… this girl I’m talking to.  Not Ariel, another one who I’ve not mentioned.  I referenced her, but never stated her name.  I discovered she has a purity ring.  She’s a few years younger than me AND VERY attractive.  And…  I think I know why she has a purity ring.  Victim of sexual assault.  She’s had trauma she hasn’t told me about, so I know something happened. I’ll be gentle with her.  Same thing happened to Esther and Ariel.  :/ Of course, that’s something most people don’t like to reveal.  And… well, I’ve revealed it for Esther and Ariel multiple times.  I want to go back and change it, but… I can’t.  I told myself I wouldn’t in the interest of upholding the truth.  What I believe in.

Of course, you may think I’m crazy.  I’m not.  I don’t think I am, at least.  I don’t care if I’m viewed in a negative or positive light.  What does it matter?

Eh… it’s getting late.  I’m pretty tired.  It’s only 6.  I want to go to bed.  Well, if I do go to bed I’ll go to bed early… and I can wake up early.  Get started on everything.  This… may be my break.  I can finally do what I planned on doing.  Took me long enough.