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rawliverandgoronspice · 5 months

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Hello!! I'm back for: more whining about TotK Quest Design Philosophy

I can't reblog a really great post I just saw for some reason (tumblrrrr *shakes my fist*), but hmmmm yeah not only do I completely agree, but I think I might expand on why I feel so much annoyance towards TotK's quest design philosophy at some point, because it does extend past the fundamentally broken setup of trying to punch a pseudo-mystery game on top of BotW's bones, where the core objective was always explicit and centered and stapled the entire world together; or the convoluted and inefficient way it tells its story through the Tears, the somehow single linear exploration-driven quest in the entire game.

Basically: I'm talking about the pointless back-and-forths. There were a lot of them, a lot that acted against the open world philosophy, and almost none of them ever recontextualized the environment through neither gameplay abilities nor worldbuilding nor character work.

I'll take two examples: the initial run to Hyrule Castle (before you get your paraglider), and then the billion back-and-forths in the Zora questline.

I think?? the goal of that initial quest to Hyrule Castle is to familiarize you with the landmark, introduce the notion that weapons rot, tell you about the gloom pits, and also tell you that Zelda sightings are a thing? But to force any of these ideas on you before giving you a paraglider is, in my opinion, pretty unnecessary. I think the reason it happens in that order is to prevent Link from simply pummeling down to the gloom pit under Hyrule Castle and fight Ganondorf immediately while still introducing ideas surrounding the location; but genuinely, the Zelda sighting makes the next events even more confusing? Why wouldn't you focus all your priorities in reaching the castle if you just saw her there? Why lose time investigating anything else? Genuinely: what is stopping you from getting your paraglider and immediately getting yourself back there, plunging into the depths to try and get to the literal bottom of this? (beyond player literacy assuming this is where the final boss would be, and so not to immediately spoil yourself --which, in an open world game, you should never be able to spoil yourself by engaging with the mechanics normally, and if you can that's a genuine failure of design)

I think, personally, that you should not have been pointed to go there at all. That anything it brings to the table, you could have learned more organically by investigating yourself, or by exploring in that direction on your own accord --or, maybe you think Zelda is up there in the castle, and then the region objectives become explicitely about helping you reaching that castle (maybe by building up troops to help you in a big assault, or through the Sages granting you abilities to move past level-design oriented hurdles in your way, etc). Either way: no need to actually make you walk the distance and back, because the tediousness doesn't teach you anything you haven't already learned about traversal in the (extremely long, btw, needlessly so I would say) tutorial area.

But to take another example, I'll nitpick at a very specific moment in the Zora Questline, that is honestly full of these back-and-forth paddings that recontextualize absolutely nothing and teach you nothing you didn't already know. The most egregious example, in my opinion, is the moment where you are trying to find the king, and you have to learn by listening in to the zora children who do not let you listening in.

So okay. I think Zelda is great when it does whimsy, and children doing children things guiding you is a staple of the series, and a great one at that. But here? It does not work for me on any level. Any tension that could arise from the situation flattens because nobody seems to care enough about their king disappearing in the middle of a major ecological crisis, except for children who are conveniently dumb enough not to graps the severity of the situation, but not stressed out enough that it could be construed as a way for them to cope about it and make anything feel more serious or pressing. It feels like a completely arbitrary blocker that isn't informed by the state of the world, doesn't do anything interesting gameplay-wise with this idea, doesn't build up the mood, and genuinely feels like busywork for its own sake.

This is especially tragic when the inherent concept of "the zora king has been wounded by what most zoras would believe to be Zelda and is hiding from his own people so the two factions do not go to war over it" has such tension and interest and spark that the game absolutely refuse to explore --instead having you collect carved stones who do not tell you anything new, splatter water in a floating island, thrud through mud who feel more like an inconvenience than a threat or, hey, listen to children playing about their missing king less than a couple of years after being freed from Calamity Ganon's menace. It feels like level designers/system designers having vague technical systems that are hard-coded in the game now, and we need to put them to use even if it's not that interesting, not that fun or not that compelling. It's the sort of attitude that a lot of western RPGs get eviscerated for; but here, for some reason, it's just a case of "gameplay before story", instead of, quite simply, a case of poorly thought-out gameplay.

Not every quest in the game is like this! I think the tone worked much better in the sidequests overall, that are self-contained and disconnected from the extremely messy main storyline, and so can tell a compelling little tale from start to finish without the budget to make you waddle in a puddle of nothing for hours at a time. It's the only place where you actually get character arcs that are allowed to feel anything that isn't a variation on "very determined" or "curious about the zonai/ruins", and where you get to feel life as it tries to blossom back into a new tomorrow for Hyrule.

But if I'm this harsh about the main storyline, it really is because I find it hard to accept that we do not criticize a structure that is at times so half-assed that you can almost taste employees' burnout seeping through the cracks --the lack of thematic ambition and self-reflection and ingeniosity outside of system design and, arguably at times, level design-- simply because it's Hyrule and we're happy to be there.

There's something in the industry that is called the "wow effect", which is their way to say "cool" without saying "cool". It's basically the money shots, but for games: it's what makes you go "ohhhh" when you play. And it's great! The ascension to the top of the Ark was one of them --breathtaking, just an absolute high point of systems working together to weave an epic tale. You plummeting from the skies to the absolute depths of hell is another one; most of the dungeons rely on that factor to keep your attention; the entire Zelda is a dragon storyline is nothing but "wow effect" (and yeah, the moment where you do remove the Master Sword did give me shivers, I'll admit to this willingly) and so is Ganondorf's presence and presentation in the game --he's here to be cool, non-specifically mean, hateable in a non-threatening way and to give us a good sexy time, do not think about it too hard. What bothers me is that TotK's world has basically nothing to offer but "wow effect"; that if you bother to dig at anything it presents you for more than a second, everything crumbles into incoherence --not only in story, but in mood, in themes, in identity. This is a wonderfully fun game with absolutely nothing to say, relying on the cultural osmosis and aura of excellency surrounding Zelda to pass itself off as meatier than it really is. This is what I say when I criticize it as self-referential to a fault; half of the story makes no sense if this is your first Zelda game, and what little of that world there is tends to be deeply unconcerned and uncurious about itself.

And no, Breath of the Wild wasn't like this. Breath of the Wild was deeply curious about itself; the entire game was built off curiosity and discovery, experimentation and challenge (and I say this while fully admitting I had more fun with the loop of TotK, which I found more forgiving overall). The traversal in Tears of the Kingdom is centered around: how do I skip those large expanses of land in the most efficient and fun way possible. How do I automate these fights. How do I find resources to automate both traversal and fights better. It's a game that asks questions (who are the zonais, who is Rauru and what is his deal, what is the Imprisoning War about, where is Zelda), and then kind of doesn't really care about the answers (yeah the zonais are like... guys, they did a cool kingdom, Rauru used to run it, the Imprisoning War is literally whatever all you have to care about is who to feel sad for and who to kill about it and you don't get a choice and certainly cannot feel any ambiguous feelings about any of that, and Zelda is a dragon but we will never expand on how it felt for her to make such a drastic and violent choice and also nobody cares that's a plot point you could *remove* from the game without changing the golden path at all).

I'm so aggravated by the argument "in Zelda, it's gameplay before story" because gameplay is story. That's the literal point of my work as a narrative designer: trying to breach the impossibly large gap between what the game designers want to do, and what the writers are thinking the game will be about (it's never the same game). And in TotK, the game systems are all about automation and fusion. It's about practicality and efficiency. It's also about disconnecting stuff from their original purpose as you optimize yourself out of danger, fear, or curiosity --except for the way you can become even more efficient. And sure, BotW was about this too; but you were rewarded because you had explored the world in the first place, experimented enough, put yourself in danger, went to find out the story of who you used to be and why you should care about Hyrule. I'm not here to argue BotW was a well-written game; I think it was pretty tropey at large to be honest, safe for a couple of moments of brilliance, but it had a coherent design vision that rewarded your curiosity while never getting in the way of the clarity of your objective. There is a convolutedness to TotK that, to me, reveals some extremely deep-seated issues with the direction the series is heading towards; one that, at its core, cares more about looking the part of a Zelda game than having any deeper conversation about what a Zelda game should be.

#thoughts #tloz #totk #totk critical #when will my brain return from the imprisoning war...#quest design #game design #level design #game criticisim #I think the more time goes on and the more uncomfortable I am with “if the game is fun it's good”#sometimes the game is fun and the game is empty #fun games can be addictive and predatory on purpose #(not saying totk is but it is well known that fun is not a neutral feeling)#fun can also reinforce questionable ideas of what “fun” should even look like #*side-eying CoD and co*#and fun =/= coherent always #if we're talking about games like artpieces #then you don't get to pick and choose which parts matter and which parts don't #you can absolutely say “I resonated with it for X and Y” but to make an argument that people who feel uncomfortable by content #that is in the game!! put in the game!! on purpose!!#is not a very productive attitude let's say

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leupagus · 1 month

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The degree to which Davos and Brienne are going to become reluctant BFFs, because their lieges keep coming to them complaining about each other, is UNREAL

or, more from this fic that's slowly eating my life

Their journey to the Northern army's camp had revealed a great deal about Lady Stark and her lords and petty chieftains: their patronizing generosity, their gruff suspicion of outsiders, and above all their mind-boggling obstinacy. Ned and Lyanna had been much the same, from what he remembered, and Stannis had seen shades of it in Jon Snow, though couched more gently than he'd expected from a bastard. He'd imagined — insofar as he'd imagined her at all — that Lady Stark would be gentler still, her mother's line warming that chilled Northern blood.

He had been disastrously mistaken. It was a wonder only one Stark had survived, but it was already clear that she had gathered the entire share of Stark mulishness.

"I have conditions, Your Grace," said Lady Stark. "If this alliance is to succeed in retaking Winterfell, I feel it right that you hear them." She placed the parchment in her hand carefully on his table and stepped back, hands folded primly.

She had requested, and been granted, this conference shortly after Stannis's army had made camp alongside the Northern soldiers. Stannis's tent had barely been erected when she came to him with this parchment, her wolf, and a determined expression. He had thought he'd listened to her enough on the journey as she'd prattled away with Shireen, but he was in the mood to be permissive.

Reading through her list of demands, he could feel the headache building along his jaw and up through his skull. "Have you lost your mind?" he said, for the second time in a week to an unreasonable woman.

Melisandre had brushed his question aside, but Lady Stark was not made of such supple stuff; she stiffened and glowered at him. "That is a peculiar way to agree to my terms, Your Grace."

"Your terms are rather more than peculiar, my lady," he said, tossing the parchment back on the table.

In truth, the first one was not so peculiar: it said that should they regain the Keep, he would recognize Sansa Stark as Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North in her own right. He would not pass her over in favor of some lesser Northern male relative, nor would he obligate her to marry and rule only as companion to her husband. Considering Stannis's own intention to ensure Shireen sat on the Iron Throne after his death, he could hardly begrudge her this.

Considering the other two stipulations, however, he felt very much inclined to begrudge her everything.

"Supposing your younger brothers turn up?" he asked, thrusting his chin at the parchment. "Or Jon Snow is legitimized?"

This question didn't faze her, he suspected because it was a question of logistics and protocol rather than a personal remark. "If Jon is made legitimate, I don't believe he would want Winterfell—"

"Duty is not a question of wanting, Lady Stark," he reminded her. "And the Lord Commander is—"

"The Lord Commander, as you say, is the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch," she retorted. "His life has already been pledged to the Wall. If he didn't abandon that cause in aid of my brother Robb, he won't abandon it now."

Stannis observed her. There was bitterness there, certainly, though less than he would have thought. Lady Stark clearly understood the ties that bound men to their duty, even if she did not like them.

"However," she continued, "Should any of my brothers wish to make a claim to Winterfell in my place, I won't stand against them." She paused for a moment, and added, "I have no wish to die at their hands out of misplaced pride."

Stannis clenched his jaw but let that go for the moment — it would be addressed soon enough. "You call me 'Your Grace,'" he said, tapping at the parchment, "Yet your second stipulation says that you will not bend the knee to me, even if I regain Winterfell for you."

"No, it says that I will not bend the knee to any claimant to the throne until they hold the majority of the kingdoms," she shot back. "The Lannisters hold the Crownlands, the Westerlands and the Reach at present. The Riverlands are still in chaos, the Vale has withdrawn from all alliances to sulk in their mountains, and both Dorne and the Iron Islands have declared for themselves, more or less. You can, at best, claim that the Stormlands still support you, though I've seen no evidence for it — they didn't march under your banner at first, did they?"

That was the second time she had brought up Renly, however obliquely. If she were trying to drive him mad, she couldn't go about it any better. "When I hold the North, my lady, I will have more land—"

"Setting aside the notion that it will be you alone who holds the North, you'll have more land and fewer men than any other region. If you wish to win against the Lannisters, you'll need more than mountains and glaciers fighting your battles. And if I wish to be Warden of the North, I can't keep the respect of my lords by swearing fealty to a man who has yet to earn it."

"I could have you burned for such talk," he said, getting to his feet and pouring himself some water, hoping it would ease the throbbing in his head.

"You don't burn nobles, you behead them," she replied cooly. "I should know. I was there when the Lannisters took my own father's head for supporting your claim to the Iron Throne. I have no intention of sharing his fate." She took a deep breath, and only then did he note that her hands had been clenched together, her right covering the balled-up fist of her left. "I won't take arms against you now or in the future, on that I give my word."

"And if I do have you beheaded?" he asked, putting the tin cup down before he crumpled it in his hand.

It seemed to amuse her. "Then my words will mean even less than they do now."

"They mean nothing, because you will not give them!" He pinched his nose and attempted to regain his composure. Surprisingly difficult, with this — child.

She regarded him for a moment. "You call me Lady Stark, Your Grace," she said, "but tell me, have you heard anyone else call me that?"

Stannis, thrown by the question, was forced to consider it. In truth, he had heard only Lady Sansa, though said with more reverence by her men and lords than he could ever recall being addressed himself. "You are Lady Stark."

"Not without Winterfell," she said, shaking her head. "It's more than just the home of the Starks, it is our…place in the world. We belong nowhere else. Just as there must always be a Stark at Winterfell, so too do we need Winterfell to truly be Starks." She gave him a pointed look. "Just as Your Grace needs the Iron Throne, and the fealty of all the Seven Kingdoms, to truly be king."

She was wrong, of course, but Stannis felt the same lurch in his belly whenever his footing slipped during a bout. "Perhaps your reticence has something to do with this last stipulation," he said instead, going back to the table and jabbing his finger at the third line. "Falsely accusing a king is treason."

"Is Lady Brienne falsely accusing you, Your Grace?" she asked, smooth as ice. Her hands were still clenched, he noted.

"I was nowhere near Renly's camp when he died," Stannis said, with perfect truth, even as he felt himself balanced on a knife's edge.

He had been nowhere near. He had woken up just before dawn with the lead weight of certainty in his belly, knowing what had happened — what the Red Woman had said must happen — and lying there, staring up at the tent's canvas, he had wept. Wept for the brothers he had loved and who had never loved him back. He would never know if Renly had had a hand in Robert's death; just as he would never know if he himself had had a hand in Renly's. Had he ordered Melisandre to kill him? Had he believed her when she said she could make such a thing come to pass? Davos had begged to tell him of what had happened in the cave that night, what monstrous thing the Red Woman had done to bring Renly's death about. Stannis had refused to hear it. Perhaps there was a sort of rough justice in facing his accuser now, the only one living who knew the truth.

"Lady Brienne has served me faithfully," said Lady Stark, "and my mother before me, at great cost to herself. I believe her testimony, Your Grace."

"Her testimony that I murdered my own brother."

Lady Stark regarded him steadily. "I will not insult either of you by declaring one more honorable than the other. But when I regain Winterfell, my duty as Warden of the North will be to adjudicate all such matters, and this falls under my purview. Even if you were crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms in the Red Keep itself, the North holds all persons, regardless of title, under its laws while they reside here."

"Renly didn't die in the North," was all he could manage to say.

"He died, Your Grace." Lady Stark looked almost pitying. "And for that, I'm sorry. I know what it is to lose your brothers. But on this point I will not waver."

"Is there any point on which you have?" he asked, curious.

She continued serenely. "Lady Brienne will be permitted to make her accusation publicly; how you respond to it is your affair, but if you prevail, you must give me your word now that she will not be held guilty of treason, nor will she be killed by any member of your party by any means." She put enough emphasis on the last two words to make her meaning plain.

"And if she prevails?" Stannis asked. "Your stipulations do not mention the outcome of the trial, only that it will take place." He smiled grimly. "Your father always said that he who passes the sentence should swing the sword, my lady. Will you behead me yourself?"

"I doubt either of us would find that a pleasant exercise, Your Grace," she said, her lip curling slightly. She didn't blanch, however; young as she was, she had seen worse. Had possibly done worse, if the rumors about the Purple Wedding were true. He'd not asked. "If you are found guilty, then you will ride south. If you win the support of the other kingdoms, the North will bend the knee to you. But you'll never come north of the Neck again. Does that satisfy?"

Stannis glanced down at the parchment again. There it all was, in black and white: the price he must pay for the North. The blasted girl had even provided a space for him to sign at the bottom.

"Not remotely," he said, but reached for his pen.

#got: bitches get stuff done #game of thrones motherfuckers #the more I write these two together the more I'm mad that they never got to meet #same with Tywin and Daenerys #(although that's mostly due to watching too many Charles Dance interviews where he gushes over Clarke's performances)#(as he should!)#but some of the most interesting characters never got a chance to meet and it's a TRAVESTY #anyway #I've read a fair amount of GOT fic and none of them so far have written Stannis-Sansa interactions the way I feel that they would go #which is as you can tell: poorly #just let them be bitches!!! god!!!!!!#also don't even worry brienne is absolutely going to kick stannis's ass even if she doesn't kill him #she should get little an attempted murder as a treat

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words-writ-in-starlight · 11 months

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You could say that I have strong feelings about this ongoing debate

#critical role #we can all have coffee on Ludinus' grave and debate the nature of morality until we're blue in the face. but priorities.#cr spoilers #bell's hells #HHHHHHH false dichotomies are not a friend #the choice is not a binary Gods Or Predathos #and you should not pick Predathos just because you don't like the other option!!!!!#anyway i have uhhhh 15 memes that i made tonight because that is who i am as a person #also. also. hey. guys. everybody.#if your philosophical debate is leading you to go 'idk maybe the murderers are onto something'#boy HOWDY you better have the information to back that up!#the thing is I'm not mad this devate is happening i think it's very realistic that people would get caught up in this debate given the given #i have just painstakingly cultivated the ability to have an argument and i have strong feelings about rhetoric #[bangs on a pot lid with a spoon] CONSIDER ALL ANGLES BEFORE YOU DOUBLE DOWN ON A POSITION #if you're curious #yes i am EXACTLY like this in a real life argument i have been told i am infuriating to argue with #both because of my love of Sources and because of my need to be absolutely dead sure of something before i get in a fight about it #which have the annoying tendency to make me like. not lose a lot of fights.

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needylittlegirl · 1 month

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if you dont “believe” in aftercare you deserve to get run over by a bus btw

#tbd #saw a crazy tweet now im just thinkin abt how many people dont think aftercare is necessary #my ex didnt think it was needed ever #he would do crazy things specifically to avoid anything that could be taken as care or intimacy after sex #and it did awful things to my brain!!#i have such a weird relationship with sex now because i’ve never experienced aftercare #its crazy that people think its an absolute necessity #i remember one time he left immediately like he always did #so obviously i started crying cause its very confusing to have sex and then the person just walks out not even 5 mins after!!#especially for how young i was it was Confusing #and he came back cause he forgot his wallet or something so he saw me crying #got mad at me it become an argument etc etc cause i told him why i was crying #and he said to me and i Quote #‘expecting a guy to care about you after sex is idiotic and immature-#‘you should be glad you’re even getting laid in the first place so take what you can get and stop expecting guys to care abt anything else’#which is an insane thing to say and i Believed it for years #the fact i was sitting there crying and i told him it was bc he made me feel like he hated me and i was awful and a worthless girlfriend??#and that was his response ??? how crazy do you have to be #anyways. aftercare is always necessary and if you dont provide then one of you is gonna be suffering

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uncanny-tranny · 5 months

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If you have no idea what fiber art to start with - as in, you aren't sure what you'll like, and don't have much of a clue - you should honestly start with a mixture of whatever piques your interest. Knitting needles and crochet hooks, at the least, are often very cheap per set brand-new, or you can look at secondhand stores if you want them cheaper (other fiber arts tools like looms may be more pricey, depending on what you want). If you can, look for classes such as a crafts class - a library might have something akin to this, some will have craft spaces with a variety of little crafters things.

There's sometimes this idea floating around that you are only permitted to do one craft at once - this isn't true. You are a multifaceted, complex person. It only makes sense, then, that your art is the same. Fiber art is an expression of one's humanity in its rawest form, no matter what you pick up. This goes for all art beyond the fiber arts, too! Art is an expression of your humanity. Let it express that 💛

#art #fiber art #every fiber art is good! they ALL have their place and their benefits. there is NO wrong decision to make in what medium of fiber you choos #i know for knitting and crochet especially that beginners aren't sure which to pick up...#...the secret is that you can pick up BOTH. you don't have to settle 💛#you might like one better than the other and that is okay too - but you don't have to pressure yourself to pick one #there's a handloom at this secondhand store and it's a german one so the instructions. are in german. but i want her................ loom <#i absolutely don't need it and i probably shouldn't get it but. loom. fiber. fabric #was watching a crochet vs. knitting video but i don't know if i always agree that you should pick one up and almost shun the other #there are ways to make it work out - it's going to work out!!

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novelconcepts · 18 days

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Do you ever just lay awake at night, turning over in your head the stark difference in delivery between Hewson's Van saying--steadily, unshakably--"it's just something that's happening to you...happening to us" and Cypress' Taissa saying--imploringly, whiningly--"this was not just my dream, this was our dream"?

Do you ever just turn it over and over, how often Tai tried to scare Van away, and how it only made Van set her feet more firmly? How Taissa's first love was this person who saw a problem fall into Taissa's lap, a problem that was quite literally trapped inside Taissa's body, and decided unflinchingly: No, that's an us problem now? How she refused point-blank to walk away even with blood in her mouth, how she flatly informed Tai "I'm never gonna be scared of you", and promptly turned a moment of pain into a declaration of love? And how this would etch itself into Taissa for the rest of her life? How she'd take these things that worked with Van--with the person Van was, with the bond they shared--and try so hard to run through an identical script with Simone?

Except Simone is her own person. A completely different kind of person. A person who hasn't been offered any of the context, any of the realities going on inside Taissa. So: naturally she doesn't respond the way Van did at eighteen--and will go on to do all over again in her forties. Naturally, she hears our dream as the excuse it is, not as a plea for connection. Naturally, she is scared away when Taissa pushes, and shouts, and begs. Because there isn't blood in her mouth, not yet, but there will be. And they have a son to worry about. And she isn't eighteen and a special kind of immortal, a special kind of romanticized. She's a grown woman with responsibilities, with priorities, with an understanding that you can't fix someone just because you love them. And Tai can't just perform a revival of the play she and Van had memorized twenty-five years later with a whole new performer in the works, and expect it to shake out the same.

Of course it doesn't work. But look at Taissa trying it. Look at Taissa trying to reframe her first love through a new lens. Trying to recast it. Trying to play it through again. Van taught her love was sticking out the blood, shaking off the pain, making a you problem into an us problem. Does it ever just eat at you, how tragic it is, watching Taissa try to shape her marriage around a woman who isn't even wearing a ring?

#yellowjackets #yj meta #taivan #sorry i'm just fucking obsessed with cypress' delivery choice in that scene #it is the most immature we EVER hear tai sound #and it's not teenage taissa. it's adult wife-mother-almost senator tai flat out whining in desperation #it is SUCH a choice #and then after the S2 opener to hear van sound so adult offering a glimpse as to WHY tai would #so pleadingly seek turning a Tai Thing into an Us Thing #yeah. yeah of course she would. because van shared the worst of her #van shared it without allowing tai to dissaude her. van quite literally tethered herself to tai's problems #and tai learned: that is what love is #and tai thought: this is what love is #it's sharing. and giving up on sharing is surrendering the whole thing #and she's lying! is the thing! she's lying to simone and to herself #she's making excuses for doing what she wants to do even though she shouldn't be doing it #but the core of it is Team. the core of it is Us. the core of it is #'if you love me you will be on my side. for better or worse.'#because that's what van did. for better. and for so much worse.#which isn't true. isn't actually how love works. love is sometimes putting your foot down and saying 'nah dude that ain't it.'#love is communication. but that was never taivan's game and it isn't tai's now and so she's just trying old plays #and it is NOT a play that can ever work the same with simone in the leading role. nor should it.#but god everything about them makes me so sad because simone deserves better and taissa needs what she won't admit to #anyway. will be absolutely gnawing at the walls until S3.

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