#EDIT: JUST REALIZED I SPELLED 'DESERT' WRONG. MY LIFE IS OVER.

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

ingo just feels like the type who runs cold to me idk. also i was thinking earlier about if they can actually button up their silly coats or if those giant buttons are just there for funsies or like visibility purposes like those highly reflective mirrors on bicycles or something

[purplesurveys]

1003

survey by --rainboweyes--

When you think of this country, what first comes to your mind?

Argentina: We have a local brand of canned corned beef called Argentina, so instead of the country I immediately thought of that food. But if I really have to connect this to the country, I also remembered a wrestler called Giant Gonzales; he hailed from Argentina.

Brazil:  Those “Come to Brazil” hashtags that used to trend all the time on Twitter. Brazil had some reallllly loud fanbases; I’m just not sure if they’re still as vocal now.

Canada: Bret Hart. Also @inchoate-surveys, heh.

Denmark: I don’t really know anything about Denmark. OH WAIT NO there’s Legos, so we’ll go with that.

England: I honestly thought of their dishes first since I find them rather unique and super different from the Asian dishes I’m used to. We don’t really use beans or make a lot of puddings and pies, but I think they’re all interesting. 

France: Escargot and baguette lol. I’m constantly thinking of food, guys; what a shocker. Also the movie Funny Face since most of it was set in France.

Germany: Sauerkraut and long words.

Hungary: I always confuse Hungary with Germany, but the difference is I don’t know a single thing about Hungary. So I don’t actually know how to answer this haha oops, sorry.

Ireland: Niall Horan HEHE. Also the wrestlers Becky Lynch and Sheamus. Ireland’s got a lot of talented folks.

Italy: @justsurveys (:D), Lizzie McGuire, the movie Roman Holiday.

Jamaica: I also first thought of a wrestler. His name is Kofi Kingston and I remembered him because at one point in his career he was packaged to have a Jamaican gimmick even though he’s actually Ghanian, just because of his race and the fact that he had dreadlocks. Like seriously? Classic example of WWE being racist and stereotypical...ugh. It’s truly hard to vouch for them sometimes.

Japan: The brutally honest first thing I thought of wasssss how they took over my country for a few years and subjected thousands of women and children to various forms of torture before killing them.

Korea: Korean food :( Man I miss having jjajangmyeon.

Libya: Their old flag, which was just entirely green. No designs, no stripes, no other colors. Just a good ol’ green flag.

Morocco: I think of Marrakesh and how colorful the place is. I’d love to go someday.

Norway: Northern lights.

Poland: The current Pope. < OMG editing this answer. The Pope I was thinking of was John Paul II, the actual Pole. Pope Francis is from Argentina lmaooooo so sorry

Romania: I honestly can’t tell you a single thing. Slowly starting to realize that I’m not as good in geography as I thought I was, ha.

Russia: Onion domes, I think that’s what they’re called.

Spain: When I think of Spain I always immediately think of the unfinished church, Sagrada Familia is what I think it’s called, if I remember correctly. It’s in my bucket list of places to see, for sure. Then there’s also the 333 years of colonization, but I’m not feeling bitter enough tonight to rant about that.

Tunisia: Not a clue. I’m bringing my ass to read more about other countries after this.

Turkey: Gabie, because she has Turkish blood.

Uganda: That Joseph Kony documentary that blew up nearly a decade ago. I’m pretty sure that was based in Uganda.

United States of America: Trump, Target, cheeseburgers, elderly people on scooters, those machines at the store that count your coins for you, more cheeseburgers.

United Kingdom: The royal family, Black Mirror, accents that sound fancy.

Australia: Barbecue, kangaroos, deserts, Vegemite.

New Zealand: I thought of my relatives who live there. Also Lord of the Rings.

List 3 movies you like in each genre.

Action: Eugh, I hate this genre. Wonder Woman is probably the only action movie I ever really enjoyed.

Comedy: Can romcoms count? I like The Proposal, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, andddddd This Is Spinal Tap. 

Drama: Room, Revolutionary Road, Requiem for a Dream.

Fantasy: Huge pass.

Horror: Midsommar, The Shining, (the original) Carrie.

Kids/Animated: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Tangled.

Romance: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Carol, Two for the Road.

Sci-Fi: 2001: A Space Odyssey(!!!), The Martian, Interstellar.

Thriller: Misery, Black Swan, Gone Girl.

Western: Not my cup of tea. The only thing I could think of is Breaking Bad, and that’s not even a movie.

Answer just in numbers.

Number of brothers you have: 1.

Number of sisters you have: Also 1.

Number of the house you live at: Eh.

Number of close friends you have: Off the top of my head, 3.

Number of pets you have: 2.

Number of times you shower a week: 6 or 7.

Number of concerts you've been to in your life: Too many to count if I include local gigs at schools. But if we’re only referring to bigger acts held in arenas or stadiums, 4.

Number of cars your household has: 3.

Number of serious relationships you've been in: 1, but we dated twice.

Number of movies you've seen at the cinema this year: Hahahaha

Number of people who live in your house: 5, including myself.

Number of plug sockets in the room you're in now: 4.

Some more randomer questions.

What food do you have cravings for the most? My cravings are always changing, though. Right now, it would be sushi and takoyaki. We actually just had both last night for dinner, but we devoured them SO fast and now I’m seeking them out again.

What TV shows do you hate to miss on TV? I’m not that attached to any show. I used to religiously follow WWE Raw and The Walking Dead and always wanted to watch both live as often as possible, but those days are long gone.

What do you tend to lose the most? My appetite. As for actual items...probably pens.

The last time someone shouted at you - why were they shouting? It’s been a while since that happened, so I don’t remember.

Would you rather have a cactus or a bonsai? Cactus. I heard taking care of bonsai trees is quite complicated, and I just know I’d kill it within a day or two, if not a lot shorter.

What scary story freaks you out the most? Not really in the mood to think of an answer to this considering it’s 1:07 AM and dark as fuck in my room D:

Are you better with gadgets or cooking? Probably gadgets, but just barely.

How would you rate your own looks? Personality? I hate deciding on things about me. I don’t want to hype myself up too much but I don’t want to drag myself down either lol

What accent is the most attractive? Some English accents are very pleasant to the ear.

Do you get annoyed when people spell your name wrong? Not for the most part since I have the more uncommon spelling anyway. But if someone is talking to me on like Messenger or Viber where my name is blatantly stated and spelled out and they still misspell it, then I get peeved.

[douxreviews]

The Magicians - ‘The Serpent’ Review

“Some God of War. He only liked them when they were too weak to fight.”

Library’s become ever-more fascist, Alice splits in two, and big revelations are made, but not on-screen.

I’m going to be honest: I didn’t feel great about this episode after I watched it the first time. And then I watched it again and found I was better able to understand it and appreciate some of what it was exploring. But I still don’t feel great about it.

Here’s what I liked: the Alice on Alice conflict. From the moment she split I was excited. It’s like taking Gestalt’s empty chair technique and making it literal, and the psychology student in me was living for it. Even better, the execution was pretty great. It allowed the show to directly with Alice’s main conflict, which is that there was a part of her pre-niffin who was sheepish and kind and scared, there was a part of her post-niffin who was arrogant and dominant and selfish, and each part hates the other, blames the other for everything that’s gone wrong. But the thing is, they’re all Alice and all to blame. And she needs them both. She needs to be selfish to survive, but she needs to be cautious to avoid blowing stuff up. Both her arrogance and her fear can put everyone in danger. But she can’t lock either part of herself up and manage, and even if she could she wouldn’t be able to survive long.

It’s an interesting issue to explore, because it’s probably come up for a lot of us. It would be nice to be able to erase or at least lock up the parts of ourselves we don’t like. It’s harder to admit we’re more complicated than that and the whole of ourselves is the source of our problems and our triumphs. So we need to learn to better the parts of ourselves we don’t like, to see the good and bad in them, and, at the least, try to cope with them. But what I like best about what the show does with Alice is that she doesn’t really figure out how to do any of this. Both parts of herself work together to finish the spell, but that’s not because of any real epiphany. She (they?) just realized she didn’t have much of a choice. Alice still has a lot of growing to do. And, really, don’t we all?

While this is going on Zelda learns more about the Library—namely, that it’s devolving into a fascist regime. I didn’t appreciate this plot much the first time around. I thought Zelda finally realized the Library was corrupt after the Library kept the killer deweys in circulation and that the revelation that Everett was her mentor was revealed too late. I still somewhat feel that way. But after my rewatch I do feel more interested in the Library’s continued corruption. Throughout the season we’ve seen this grow slowly. They were meant to keep everyone safe by carefully distributing magic. But they unfairly favored trained magicians over hedges, manipulated people into the Library in exchange for magic and education, rewarded people who posted magic-monitors in their homes, the list goes on. Manipulation, indoctrination, invasion of privacy. And finally, faking a terrorist organization to create fear. The Library wants power, it will do anything to fuel that.

This whole idea of obtaining power by any means necessary isn’t new. What’s more interesting is seeing people why people might trust the Library, believe in its cause and believe that cause is just or that helping it would be a good option (Zelda, Fogg). Seeing Fogg struggle with when to cut ties with the Library, whether that would help or hurt, if that’s cowardly or selfish. Seeing Kady and Alice forced to make ethically-questionable decisions while trying to help those harmed by the Library (using Harriet’s vulnerable position as leverage). And seeing the harm that not only fear, but also apathy can have. When considering what to do about the terrorists, Kaylee Frye the Librarian asks if the terrorists are even the Library’s problem. She doesn’t care about the safety of the hedges, it’s likely few librarians do, and that makes her much more likely to go along with whatever the Library has planned regardless of the cost. And then there’s fear itself. While remembering The Monster’s destruction, The Monster insults Enyalius for going after souls too weak to fight. The same can be said for Everret. It seems Everret fears the hedges—he needs their submission to raise the Library up—and he uses fear to keep them down. And maybe this is—in part—what war is.

In Fillory, things go down with the prophecy. But also, not really. Fen doesn’t want to overthrow Margo, Margo has her eyes on Fen for all of a minute before asking (forcing) Fen to dethrone her so she can go off and find something to save Eliot. It’s all resolved pretty easily. That said, I did appreciate that Margo and Fen didn’t act out of character or that just enough information wasn’t kept from them to make things more dramatic. But I just didn’t understand why Margo had to ask Fen to dethrone her at all. The only explanation I can think of is that Margo had to leave Fillory to go to the desert, and that’s not allowed for kings. But I don’t remember being told the desert was out of the realm. And I also don’t know that leaving Fillory is still not allowed. Ember and Umber are dead and Fillory is a quasi-democracy, do the rules even apply anymore? All this confusion messed with the story’s emotional beats. Not entirely—I’m not a monster—I still felt for Margo losing the crown she worked so hard to get for the realm she cares so much for. But enough.

Finally, there was The Monster stuff. There, we almost get information about Julia’s “transition”, but then we don’t; Alice finds the binder but doesn’t open it up. And then we almost get information about The Monster’s plan, but then we don’t; Eliot tells Penny 23 the plan off-screen, Penny 23’s just about to tell Julia and Quentin the plan when the show ends. It all kind of feels cheap, especially the final cliffhanger. The Magicians has ended episodes—entire seasons—in cliffhangers before without it feeling cheap. But something about the multitude of not-reveals, the show looking away at just the right moment, and ending the episode almost mid-scene was too much. I wish the episode ended right after Margo’s last moment instead. Seeing her walk out to the desert listening to 80s music would be a fitting lead-in to the musical in the desert. And it would’ve felt way less cheap.

Bits and Pieces

-- Kady got to use her mad punching skills, which elevates any episode. Sucks for Alice, though.

-- Zelda gets a back-story! She was a hedge, her mom died, she was found in an ally. Zelda’s right, it does sound dramatic.

-- It was great seeing Harriet and getting her back, but I wish she and Marlee Matlin had more to do than just struggle to communicate with Alice while Alice deals with her stuff and share new plot information. Hopefully she’ll be on again.

-- I feel (maybe unreasonably) defensive of Julia. Zelda says she trusts Kady because she was able to try to understand the woman responsible for Penny 40s death (which must be Julia, right?). But that wasn’t really Julia’s fault, both Kady and Penny 40 agreed to help take down Reynard, Julia never asked Penny 40 to go down to the poison room, and it’s not her fault Reynard was evil and raped her and killed most everyone else. And, even so, both Julia and Kady summoned OLU in the first place. It just felt victim-blamey to me and I didn’t appreciate it from Zelda (I wouldn’t from anyone). End of rant.

-- Speaking of Julia, I found it interesting seeing how quickly she offered to shift the focus from her god problems to The Monster problems. Her story has been moving along pretty slowly (probably because if she powered up she would be hard to keep on the show) and maybe this an in-show reason why. Her issues always fall second to The Monster or even the Library issues, because those are life and death.

-- I also liked seeing Penny 23 advocate for Julia (suggesting they try to research the binder while working on The Monster stuff) and Julia advocate for Penny 23 (trying to keep him from putting himself in danger with The Monster, etc.). And they almost kissed! But The Monster cock-blocked them. Maybe now that he’s alive they’ll have that dinner he promised her.

-- Margo found out Eliot’s alive! And immediately had sex with Josh. Fen’s facial expressions were amazing.

The Monster: “Are you aware that there is big money for psychics who are in actually big giant fakers?” I actually did know that, Monster! John Oliver just did a whole segment about it.

Ru, Queen of West Loria: “During the feast you will order the castle doors open where upon my men will enter and chop off—” Fen: “Enjoy the desert course.” Ru: “Did you really think I was gonna say that?” Fen: “Hoped.”

Margo, about Fen: “That false-toed bitch!”

Margo: “Wait! I curse Fen’s name, but if I were you I’d listen to her! And wait! Be nice to her! Your grandkid’s grandkids will fear me!”

Three out of four fascist libraries.

Edit: Thanks to Percysowner and late-ish night reflections I now understand that Margo needed to be dethroned so the Fillory-hating people of The Foremost would agree meet with her.

Ariel Williams

[chacusha]

FFVI live-blogging (1/?)

While I wait for all my game consoles and my PC to make their way here, I decided I would replay Final Fantasy VI on an emulator. In particular, I’m trying out the GBA edition for the very first time. Exciting!

Little known fact: I have never finished FFVI despite it being one of my favorite games. I have probably started a new game and played through a significant portion of the story about five or six times (the farthest I got was the World of Ruin after having re-collected most of party again i.e. able to fight Kefka at any point but still dicking around with sidequests).

Followup fact: This is because there are some aspects of this game that I struggle with because I’m really obsessive about how I play games. In particular, the magicite/Esper system is really hard for me to deal with, because I obsessively try to make sure every person in my party builds up a fairly complete repertoire of magic, which takes an insane amount of grinding. (And then I don’t really use magic other than healing spells, so uh... I don’t know why I do that.) The second thing is Gau’s Rage skills. I also get really obsessive about building up a fairly complete collection, which usually involves HOURS of grinding on the Veldt (an activity that doesn’t even give EXP, apparently? somehow I never realized that...).

So anyway, I’m now at the point where Terra rejoins your party after turning into her esper form (and Celes is back in the empire). In other words, I am now at the point where I have a new flood of magicite and the Veldt is newly accessible again and uh... it might be a while before I move on. 😅

Anyway some thoughts:

One thing I like about the early Final Fantasy games is how obviously inspired they are by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and I think FFVI is the game that makes that inspiration most clear. The story framing of a small group of people (each of them a distinguished person in their own right -- a king, a general, the strongest knight of a kingdom, a gambling airship pilot, etc. etc.) band together to take down an expansionist empire against all odds, even if that means sneaking behind enemy lines to carry out a dangerous mission. (I forever love Biggs and Wedge, and the “Aren’t you a little short to be an Imperial trooper?” line.)

I love the maximally steampunk aesthetic of Figaro Castle going into submerging mode.

Edgar is a very similar character to Ringabel -- charming and flirts with every woman in a kind of gallant way. Despite how that kind of behavior would be irritating in real life (and occasionally crosses into sketchy territory, like when flirting with children), they are both perennially popular characters among women. I find that fascinating. Like, I also know I’d find that behavior annoying if I encountered it in real life, but I also really enjoy both of these characters??

The reveal of Locke’s literal dead girlfriend in a basement will never not be amazingly hilarious, creepy, and very sad all at the same time.

Guy in Jidoor: “After they threw out all the poor people in town...” Me: After they did what now? (Not sure how I feel about the class politics of “all the poor people are pathological liars” that is Zozo. Then again, they also had a “rich dude betrayed everyone in South Figaro to fascists the empire for money” so maybe that makes up for it.)

The opera scene is still A+++. Like, one of the things that make it so great is that the sets (like the balcony that Celes is on) would be crazy amazing if they actually existed in real life. Like, imagine going to the opera, and they have this amazing multi-level tower, complete with a balcony, pillars, and a beautiful night sky backdrop. You’d be like, holy shit, they didn’t hold back!!

Having played FFIX, I now can see how much of FFVI is in that game. The theatre troupe, the auction house, the lady-protecting thief, etc. are all very familiar.

The scene with Celes and Locke in the Magitek Factory (where Kefka claims that Celes was on the Empire’s side the entire time) reads differently to me than it did in the SNES version for some reason. I always thought that Celes was obviously what she appeared to be (a deserting general) and that Locke’s “omg is it true, Celes?? 😧” reaction was just him being dumb/gullible. But during this playthrough, this scene makes it seem like Celes actually WAS meant to infiltrate the Returners and she had a change of heart halfway through. I think the reasons it reads differently are (1) that there isn’t as much flavor text that indicates Celes’s character or personality (the SNES description of Celes having “a spirit as pure as snow” makes it sound like she deserted the Empire because she could no longer stand its crimes, but the more accurate GBA description that people have never seen the woman that lies underneath the general simply suggests that she is hard to read AKA a good spy), and (2) Kefka’s more detailed claim that Celes “deserted” and was “rescued” in order to infiltrate the Returners seems too specific for him to be making that up on the fly. I wonder if that was the writers’ intention, though... Okay, wow, looking up information on the FF Wikia and comparing game scripts, and I think spy!Celes is canon: “Celes was originally meant to be a ‘conflicted spy’ archetype—a spy working for the antagonists, but swayed by the benevolence of the people she was supposed to be spying on and how nice Locke was to her.” Woolsey translation: Cid: Can it be true that you came here as a spy, seeking to cause an uprising!? Locke: !? Celes...? Kefka: So that's it! Magicite... Cid, you miserable blockhead! Now... General Celes!! The game's over. Bring me those Magicite shards! Locke: Celes! You... decieved me!? Celes: Of course not! Have a little faith! Kefka: G'hee, hee, hee! She has tricked you all! Celes, that's so... YOU! Celes: Locke... Please believe me... GBA translation: Cid: Is it true you worked your way in amongst the rebels as a spy? Locke: ...!? Celes...? Kefka: Oh, I see! Magicite...! Excellent work, Cid! General Celes! We needn't keep up the charade any longer. Bring me those magicite crystals! Locke: Celes! You...tricked us!? Celes: Of course not! Please, trust me! Kefka: Hee-hee-hee! The sweet taste of betrayal! Oh, Celes! That's so...you! Celes: Locke... Believe me... (Cid’s line is no longer ambiguous which side Celes is spying for. Coming from Cid (a more reliable character than Kefka), the story that Celes is a spy is not so easily dismissed. Kefka is also so unruffled at encountering Celes in a secure empire facility that it just doesn’t seem like he’s improvising either...)

I love the Maduin flashback. I don’t know if it’s significantly different/pared down in the English SNES version or what, but those scenes never really stuck with me before... But seeing them this playthrough? OMG the feels. First, the ominous esper music playing throughout is so Atmospheric and Foreboding. You really get the feeling that the events depicted changed the fate of the world. (Also, it reminds me of this track from the Sailor Moon RPG, which is also a great track.) Second, Madeline is such a clear and striking character given how little screentime she has. The one trait she most clearly has is, like, a misanthropic hatred of humanity. And throughout her scenes, you get this really strong impression that she’s really fierce, bitter, and almost... thorny? Like really hard to get close to -- a determined loner. Third, the Maduin/Madeline relationship -- first off, I appreciate the metaphorical sex scene where they dance/fly around a cave together and drop two sparkles that combine to form a baby. Second, that last scene where Madeline kind of foolishly runs off and Maduin chases after her and they have this “you’re being a dummy” “I know” “let’s go home” kind of tender moment before EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. Ouch my heart.

Also, it strikes me that Terra and Aerith are very parallel characters -- half-human, half-supernatural race, captured and experimented on as a baby, mom dies trying to save her, etc.

Also, I find Gestahl a very unsettling character. I feel like Kefka is the Voldemort or Bellatrix of Final Fantasy VI -- unstable, weird, very over-the-top, god complex villain who screams “eeeeevil” with his design -- while Gestahl is the Umbridge of Final Fantasy VI -- civil, polite, reasonable, functional, and yet utterly uncaring and dismissive of other people’s concerns. Whereas with the Kefka type, you’re like, “who would follow this person?” and don’t feel threatened, Gestahl is not only a person people would follow; he’s a person many people already ARE. That’s scary to me.

[nightshade-sage]

The Seven Guys You'll Date In Collage.

The 7 guys you’ll date in collage.

My first writing for this site.

Features BTS

Contains a bit of suggested smut, fluff.

A/n: A short imagine for my best friend. She knows who she is. Sorry for any mistakes again this is my first time posting my works.

Jungkook-the Highschool dream.

You would date all throughout highschool and he’d definitely be your sweetheart. You’d share everything with him and become completely under his spell. You’d plan on marriage and kids, your life’s intertwining as you tried your best to imagine the kind of ways your futures would go. He’d be your first on many things as you would be his. He would have known you for years and he’d definitely be your number one fan for collage but as soon as the future did come you didn’t expect it to go so wrong. Both of your relationships before this had been in a safe bubble. But as time grew on the further you grew apart. Studies and friends coming in between your dates. One night in particular you decided to surprise him, waiting in his dorm room with a movie and popcorn … What happened next was a surprise for sure. You had been waiting for hours slowly trying to kill time before passing out on the bed awaking to a light turning on as you saw the beautiful girl now gracefully draped in his arms and sinfully playing with his lips as if the snake in your little garden of Eden. It was the first time your heart was broken…. The first time you cried way more then you thought your body could contain…. It was the first time that soap bubble had been broken…. A future didn’t seem so bright to you anymore. Relationships sick to you now. But really what relationship last past Highschool. It was all a dream.

Taehyung-The fun guy.

You’d met in a club, one of your now many past times as school became a bore and your friends managed to finally get you out of your long study sessions alone in your dorm. You’d met under the pretenses that it would be a simple fuck and the smile on his lips as he moaned your name ment nothing more than a small desire to rid yourself of the man you once knew. But yet again once turned into twice, three times, weeks of now actually getting to know your “one night stand” and those nights where he shared your bed had been the most passionate you had felt in years. You’d get to know his cute box smile and just what to do to keep it on his face. You’d met his mom and talk of the little boy he once was, his fuckboy side seemingly subsiding as he got to know you and what you thought was love, But like the say, you can’t change a playboy. He was and only will be a fun guy…. For a second time your facade of being unbreakable was up and clubs now only left a distant taste of regret as it entered your mouth.

Yoongi- Black and white realist.

He’d seem like the type to be dark and mysterious and parts of you were interested in knowing what exactly he kept in that little notebook of his. He’d always have that calm cool collected smirk on his face when you talked but bringing up the notes in said book always made a sour face appear. You’d meet him in your English and the dark disinterest eyes he kept intrigued you. You’d be assigned a project to which you would peer edit each other’s work and his would be unlike any you have read. Even after the time you decided not to get to close, yet again you couldn’t help the feelings you received when you did talk to him. You’d exchange numbers and for a time everything seemed to finally go right in the world. Taehyung now forgotten as many a date occurred with Yoongi even if it were just napping in-between classes and talking about poetry or classical music. You learned that he loved playing piano and as you grew closer he let you finally see inside his little black book. Filled with nothing but genius music. He’d let his ego get the best of him when you said such things though and eventually his snide comments would turn you disinterested in the conversations you had yearned for before. Just like most things the comments and his lack of trying made you frustrated till the point you broke and here you were yet again with your head hanging low as yet another beautiful man slipped out of your life. But really, could a future happen with someone who only saw everything as black and white and a waste of his time.

Seokjin-The prince/the one that got away.

He was always the guy you could count on to have your back and someone who was constantly keeping you in a considerate manner. You had been extremely close since Sophomore year of college over a found mutual joy out of food and instruments. As well as multiple dad jokes and bad puns that would have you rolling for hours and the fact he always was a savior and put your needs before his own made him all the better. You started to believe in love once more thinking you finally had it right. Feeling so over joyed in your accomplishments you could only smile to yourself as a feeling of I told you so was just beyond the horizon, But alas his nice manner and inability to say no would prove so many countless dates forgotten. As time went you’d realize that sometimes prince charming is best left for fairy tales. It was mutual but you missed him like crazy. They never tell you how awful it is to lose your bestfriend and boyfriend when you make them one person. Missed calls and text messages left you numb. You finally realized just what slipped your grasp and the heartlessness settled deep inside you.

Jimin-the popular one.

How he chose you out of multiple fucks you could never understand.Somehow he managed to aways greet you everyday since freshman orientation. He had been the more popular kid of the hell you, he, and Jungkook attended. You two never grew close but with the factor of his family being your parents mutual friends must of helped. Along with the occasional dinner invitations that lead to desert in your new apartment since it being your first year to live off campus. Just like many other girls he tried to trick you with dates and gifts to keep you satisfied, a sugar daddy of sorts but as soon a real feelings did arise the deal was broken off, it did make dinners harder to bear but due to your previous agreement to not grow close it made it easier to fake this time. He was like Jungkook in that way. He introduced you to a world just out of your reach with possibilities only you could dream of just to take away those beautiful objects to leave dark and jagged edges called truth. It was funny. They were bestfriends after all. In that, it was how you expected the truth. One in the same. You were feeling weary and slowly giving up on love.

Namjoon-the nerd/long term.

You’d bump into him in the halls knocking everything out of your hands. He’d scramble to pick them up frantically trying to apologize but you knew it was sorta your fault for having been daydreaming. He was the clumsy sort so he was always the one to think it was his fault but you didn’t mind. He was sweet and shy always helping with your studies as a simple bump turned into a great friendship. He’d understand your convictions about love because in his own way that he didn’t like talking about he was exactly like you. He’d be the type to be a complete dork, breaking things or mishaps being his specialty. Even though he never pushed you knew he wanted more and after a long heated night between the two of you (yes the term you now came to love (daddy) used more then once that evening was involved) you were inclined to give him just that. You grew more invested with each other, going on dates to the park or just to watch the stars but you both assumed it wouldn’t last. When winter came to end your summer fun it was a mutual agreement. Your faith in love grew you still had your wall but Namjoon proved not all men were as awful and before long it was your last year.

Hoseok-the one.

It was your last year and you had months to heal, your friends proud as you slowly came out of your shell, you started going to a cafe to study instead of being alone in your dark apartment that was just cold and hazed your attention anymore.It couldn’t hold a candle to the warm atmosphere the cafe provided which filled you inspiration that now had your finally starting the book you planned since freshman year. The smell of cinnamon warmed you and left you missing home as hours were spent on wrapping up your research paper and thesis and begining on the chapters you now religiously wrote. He had caught your eye the day you walked in. His smile brighter than the sun and his personality always bring a smile to your lips. You never thought about him in a relationship way because he wasn’t your normal type though his sly flirty comments kept you buzzing as he always made sure to keep your cup full. He worked here with Yoongi who even though never sought more with you was now a close friend. He found a great girl after you broke up and you were happy for him. They were to be engaged soon and it left you in awe as the man had changed so much since you two happened. It left you hoping for something like that yourself and with his constant nagging on you and Hoseko made your face heat up and imagine him in different lights. What if it did happen. One rainy day such things did occur. He finally gained the courage to talk to you for a date and you were more than happy to accept. It was weird looking back at it now. So many years and so many dates later how it all lead to marriage was beyond you. He was like a secret that you never thought would be yours only to keep. A small boy working a cafe and a down on her luck collage girl seeking warmth within it’s walls. Seemed out of a fairy tale of such things existed. He was out going, funny, smart, and extremely loyal. Who would have known. You smile to yourself now. He out of all would be the one.

[zippdementia]

Part 11 Alignment May Vary: Undying

Today’s post is part 11 of an ongoing series detailing the converted 3.5 campaign of Tomb of Haggemoth into a 5th edition romp. In this post, the three players go on an adventure of my own creation, giving them the opportunity to level and to add some length to the main campaign.

First of all, a shout out this session to Rock, Paper, Wizard, a welcome oddity among D&D licensed board games. We played it before our session and it is a blast. Quick, active, and hilarious—the point of the game is to have your token be at the front of a small linear board by the end of the round (because you get more gold that way). To acomplish this, spells from D&D are dealt below the board (Burning Hands, Fireball, Charm Person, and the like). Each spell does some combination of advancing yourself, pushing another player, or stealing gold from another player. Each one also has an accompanying unique hand shape, like making horns with your pinkie and forefinger, or a circle with your thumb and forefinger, or a fist. Every player reviews the spells, secretly decides which one to use and on which player, and then you call out “ROCK PAPER WIZARDS!” On Wizards, everyone makes the hand gesture of their spell at the player of their choice, and then going around the table in turn order the spells are resolved.

The resolution of spells often leads to hilarity, as some of them do fun things like reverse your target’s spell back on themselves (this is how I fireballed myself in the face second round). Others might pivot the spell clockwise, or affect the people on either side of you. Also fun is that if two people use the same spell on each other, the power of their magic explodes and turns into Wild Magic—mechanically, giving them both random spells from the deck.

A game takes about 20 minutes to learn and play, plays up to six players, is simple enough that anyone can pick it up, and is a great pre-session warm up to get everyone in the mood for hanging out.

House of Horrors

Last we left our adventurers, they had followed a distressed woman to a mansion on an otherwise deserted island, only to witness the death of her husband as he expires with a final cryptic message: “You cannot leave!” The man is holding a teddy bear that draws some suspicion because it seems so out of place, but when Abenthy uses his Aasimir powers to detect demons, undead, or aberations he picks up on nothing abnormal about it.

This is the beginning of a one-shot adventure I came up with for this session, and which I’m planning to put onto DriveThru RPG, once I write it up and PDF it. I was inspired by a monster called the “Treacle” in Kobold Press’ Tome of Beasts—which is an amazing product well worth the $30 for any D&D DM—though I redesigned the monster extensively for my adventure.

This is a good example of how a single monster can be a great inspiration for an entire adventure. Read the monster manuals you have and pick a monster that piques your interest. Really delve into it—one of the benefits of modern gaming is the internet as a research tool. Many D&D monsters have been aroud for multiple generations of the game and you can learn a lot about them online. Just a single interesting detail might become the basis for an entire adventure, like how the Treacle is supposed to split in two after it eats enough, and how its most frightening targets are when it becomes a toy and drains the life from children...

The background is that fifteen years ago, a brilliant inventor, Franke LaCroix, took his wife, Maria, their two twin boys, Marcus and Tom, and baby girl Olivia, and moved them away from what he called the “taint” of Waterdeep out to a deserted island, where he built a manor to be self sufficient. He raised goats, hunted in the forest, and cultivated crops. He kept inventing—most of his inventions practical to make the running of the manor easier (such as special fertilizer to keep his crops healthy and needing little care) but some of them more playful (such as a recording device much like a video camera and accompanying projector). Overal, He and his family settled into a life free of the concerns and dangers of modern society.

He also studied spores and molds and fungi, of which there were several interesting varieties on the island. He became obsessed with one in particular, which seemed to be semi-intelligent, or at least responsive, and able to shift into several simple shapes. He kept this sample, which he labeled the “Dopple-Ooze”, in his workshop in the mansion he had built for his family.

And that was his first mistake.

The Dopple-Ooze proved to be a more malevont hunter than Franke had expected. It made its way from the workshop to the nearest bedroom, which was Olivia’s, and took the form of a teddy bear, which she snuggled into bed with. Having made contact with her skin, it sapped her strength and blood until she was an empty husk.

When Franke found out what had happened, a piece of his mind broke. He captured the Dopple-Ooze and locked it in Olivia’s room, using a combination of magic and technology to keep it there, semi-dormant. Under normal circumstances, the Dopple-Ooze would split into two after feeding. This was its normal “breeding” pattern. But Franke kept it from doing this, convinced that somewhere inside its limited intelligence was kept the memory and soul of his daughter.

Weeks went by, and again the ooze found a way to escape, calling out in Olivia’s voice to her mother, Maria, and then laying with the grieving mother while she slept her last sleep. With his wife and daughter now both consumed by the creature, Franke’s mind snapped and his plan changed. He gathered up the twins and fed them into the creature. Then, desperate to rejoin his family, he offered himself to the Dopple-Ooze.

It rejected him.

Perhaps some memory of his family did linger in the ooze, or perhaps it recognized its captor and was getting back at him. Regardless, the next several weeks Franke found himself the target of vicious taunts from the creature, as it took more and more the form of his family, calling out to him, but never devouring him. Never accepting so much as a drop of his blood. Franke kept the door to Olivia’s room locked, but it didn’t seem to matter. The Ooze seemed able to manifest through the walls of the home. Eventually Franke confined himself to his workshop and lost all motivation to live. He fell into malnutrition and sickness, and eventually passed, alone.

The Ooze remained, in a semi-dormant state, until a hunter came to the island to poach the pelts of the Displacer Beasts that lived in its forests. He went looking for pelts, but instead found Maria, who lured him back to the mansion under guise of being a lonely widow, and then trapped him in the house and (along with her twins, all representations of the Ooze) bled him dry. The man did not last long, and soon the Ooze was hungry again.

The second “guest” to arrive was an explorer and his crew. This time, the Ooze was slower, trapping the men in the walls of the house (which the Ooze was able to infect) and bleeding them almost to death, before releasing them, nourishing them back to health with the bounty still being produced by Franke’s inventions, and then doing the process again until finally they all expired from the strain. Their bones still line the walls of the twins’ room.

This baiting has gone on for over five years, and the house has become one entity controlled by the Ooze to the point where it can block doors and windows and control the forms of Maria and the Twins enough to tend the land and the animals to feed its “guests.” Most recently, it attracted a shipwrecked sailor and fed on him for six weeks, finally letting him die the night my players arrive at the house. They believe they are witnessing the death of Maria’s husband, Franke LaCroix, when really they are witnessing the death of the house’s latest victim.

Whispers of Fear

Abenthy knelt by the bed and began to pray. Twyin walked over to Maria and offered her a gentle embrace. “My lady, I am so sorry for your loss. Words cannot express the sorrow that fills my heart for you. If there is something I can do to ease your pain, but name it and it is done.”

“May Tyr watch over his soul on his journey,” Abenthy murmured, from his place at the foot of the bed, head bent in supplication.

“What am I to do?” Maria sobbed. “The children... what is to become of them? Of us? The fields and the goats, the hunting—this was all Franke’s work. I do not know how to operate his machines or tend to his gardens. We have enough set aside for a time, but...” she trailed off.

“... and may he find his way into your light, oh lord of justice...”

“You will come with us,” Twyin said. “We will set you at any port.”

“And then what?” Maria asked. “What do you propose we do next to care for ourselves?”

“I... I do not know, but we will figure out something.”

“... think well on his deeds, and judge him not only for all the good he did, but for all the good left undone.” Abenthy rose, as Maria moved away from Twyin.

“Supper,” she said suddenly. “The twins must eat. And so must you all. Yes, I’ll prepare our supper. Just like normal.” In a daze, she wandered off downstairs.

“Well that was awkward,” Karrina mumbled.

Though trusting of Maria and the twins, my players realize several things are wrong with the house while supper is being prepared. Twyin finds a locked door to the West Wing, underneaht the main foyer. When he tries to open it, it bangs and rattles in the door frame, and he hears a heavy moaning come from somewhere behind it. 

Abenthy, meanwhile, helps Maria prepare supper, and discovers some of the history of her husband’s illness and a lot of the backstory that I described earlier (of course, stopping before any mention of the ooze is made). Olivia is conspiciously absent from this story, conspicious because while Abenthy is hearing this, Karrina finds the mansion’s study, where a large painting of the LaCroix family hangs. In the picture is Maria and the Twins, and Maria is holding a baby. Also, Karrina notices that the man in the picture looks very little like the man they saw die upstairs.

Supper is a quick affair, and afterwards Maria shows them to their assigned rooms (it is too dark to make their way down the spire tonight and besides there are displacer beasts out there). Karrina and Abenthy are shown to one room, and Twyin to another—though, after Maria leaves them, Abenthy forces Twyin to “do the gentlemanly thing” and sleep in his room, giving Karrina her own. Karrina is only halfway grateful, as the house has her seriously spooked, and this room is full of old toys Franke made for his children. The party agrees to sleep for a few hours, to stave off their exhaustion, and then to sneak into the sick room and get a closer look at the dead “husband.”

In the middle of the night, Maria comes looking for Twyin under the guise of desperately needing companionship. She wears naught but an open robe, come prepared to seduce him and be taken into his bed. Of course, what she really wants is to be taken into his bed so she can make direct skin contact and start bleeding him (1d8 necrotic damage to hit point maximum every hour), but Twyin traded beds with Karrina... so she crawls into bed with her instead.

Both Karrina and Maria are startled by each other, but Maria plays to Karrina’s sympathy and the Tiefling agrees to let this human girl (or so she thinks) sleep in the same bed with her—minus the seduction and aftermath. Maria doesn’t care: she doesn’t need sex, she just needs touch.

Meanwhile, Twyin wakes up suddenly, feeling something moving at the foot of his bed. He sees a dark shape there and leaps from the bed, turning on the lamp. He sees nothing out of the ordinairy... until he notices the teddy bear at the foot of the bed.

Wholely freaked out now, Twyin wakes Abenthy (”What? Is it time?”) and tells him: “That teddy bear was moving.” Cue long pause. “Are you feeling okay?” Abenthy asks.

Long story short, the two eventually decide that, whatever is going on, they aren’t going to be able to get much more sleep right now. So Abenthy gets his armor on, while Twyin goes to wake Karrina. He opens the door to see the mostly naked Maria wrapped around Karrina, spooning her. He takes a good eyefull before coughing politely and waking the two women up.

“Goddamit,” Karrina says, when she realizes who it is and what he has seen. Maria blushes and quickly covers herself. Twyin’s smirk died on his lips though, when he saw something glistening on Karrina’s chest.

“Is that... blood?” he asked.

Karrina, startled, rubbed a finger across her chest. No wound, but yes, that was blood. Fear took her as she remembered the man in the other room had died from some kind of sickness. Was it contagious? Why had they decided to stay in a plague-ridden mansion?

Before she could contemplate or regret further, they all heard a scream coming from down the hall.

“That’s Marcus!” Maria said, and turned deathly pale.

The point of this set up, as a game designer, was to give the setting some weight. We didn’t spend a lot of time on supper or exploring the house, maybe twenty minutes between the two, and a lot of this action was driven by the players, like deciding what to do before supper. It let them settle into the environment and become uncomfortable with the situation. The trick with a slower set up, esepcially a horror set up, is to give the players a mixture of “things to steer the action on” and “things to react to.” The first (examples: what rooms to explore, letting them steer conversations, giving them time away from the NPCs to discuss plans and change things, like what rooms to sleep in) is important because it keeps the setting from feeling like a tour of a bunch of pre-planned encounters and jump scares. The second (example: Maria coming into Karrina’s room, the banging door, the scream from the twins room) makes them feel like they are in the middle of something bigger than them and keeps the action moving forward.

Speaking of which...

Twin Trouble

Twyin did not waste time grabbing his armor. He ran from Karrina’s room down the hall, grabbing Abenthy on his way as the lithe Paladin entered the hall. The two burst into the twin’s room, Maria and Karrina not far behind them.

“Oh gods,” Maria said in a shocked whisper.

Twyin had to agree with her sentiment. The room ahead of them was lined with bones. They were in the walls, the remains of bodies in twisted positions. The lamps in here flickered on and off, casting disturbing shadows that made the bones look like they were moving, reaching for the interlopers at the door.

“Help me!” Marcus’ thin voice cried out.

The child was halfway in the wall between his and his brother’s bed, his arms flailing madly as he fought to pull himself free. Behind him, the wall was a mass of angry scars and pustules, and his screams spoke to something horrible happening to his lower half, already embedded in the wall.

Abenthy ran forward and grabbed the child’s arms. “Help me pull him free!” he called. Twyin was quick to respond, leaping onto one of the beds and getting a grip on the child’s arm.

In response, Marcus grinned at Twyin, wrapped his child arms around him, and buried his teeth in Twyin’s throat. Twyin yelled in surprise and fear. Karrina moved forward to help but then felt cold hands wrapping around her throat as Maria grabbed her from behind.

A small giggle came from another wall as Tom emerged into the room, pulling free of a stack of bones in the wall. He ran at Abenthy, and leaped onto the warrior’s back, seeking a place he could bury his fangs.

These three are the main baddies in the house. Maria is the easiest of the three, basically a weaker doppleganger. Her main point is to (a) trick the person whose bed she sneaks into, lowering their max hit points. In another scenario, the party might have slept a lot longer, but as our group decided to set a wake up call at around 3:00am to explore the house more, she only drained about 10 hit points from Karrina. After that, she simply exists to make the twins more difficult.

The twins are no joke. They have two main attacks. One is to try and latch onto a person with bite. If successful, it turns into an automatic grapple while they suck the life and strength out of the victim. But worse, they then try to drag that victim into the wall, where the escape DC becomes much higher, and their AC becomes higher. Also, the damage done each round while an opponent is grappled is automatic max hit point drain. It is a low die roll, a 1d4, but it adds up quickly. Twyin drops his hit point maximum by nearly half by the time combat is over!

Their other attack is a multi-attack swipe, which doesn’t do life drain like the bite, but which is heavy enough damage to keep party members distracted fighting them instead of helping their friend getting pulled into the wall.

The party plays against them perfectly. Abenthy lets himself take the brunt of Tom’s attacks, because his 19 AC is tough to break through. Karrina turtles up, too, using her arcane skills to cast Blade Ward and keep Maria occupied (and ineffective). Twyin takes the brunt of the hurt in this fight, as his arm is stuck in the wall and slowly being stripped of its flesh by Marcus, while he struggles to break free. But once he is free, he unleashes his dual weilding forces upon the wall where Marcus is hidden, until both twins flee.

Maria isn’t so lucky. One of the joys of this fight is that Abenthy refuses to attack the children with anything other than non-lethal damage, which does nothing to an these oozes. He simply can’t bring himself to harm children. But when Twyin chops Maria’s head off and it continues to scream at them despite hanging upside down from her neck, he finally presses the attack and chops her in half, sending her sprawling into the hallway in a bloody heap.

I wanted this house to feel less like a dungeon and more like an environment, so I moved away from the idea of filling certain rooms with certain encounters and opted instead to build a “creature” that could roam the environment, being fought in multiple locations. Thus, the twins ability to move through the walls. Doing something like this occasionally in your own game can keep dungeons from feeling too simliar to one another, and it works especially well in horror settings, where the focus might be better placed on a singular monster or two, rather than on a dungeon crawl.

The twins continue to haunt the players as they move through the mansion, throwing Karrina off the foyer to the entrance hall 20 feet below, and trying to pull Abenthy into a door frame. Finally, they have a last confrontation in the dining room, where Tom rushes Abenthy with butcher knives, and Marcus tries to absorb Karinna into a wall (he fails, as she does a barrel roll... no really, she barrel rolls over the dining room table to get away). This is where the twins are finally cut down.

Abenthy looked at the ruin of the child that had once been Tom. Your blades did this, he thought to himself. You brought this one’s life to an end. Even though he knew that this creature was no longer Tom, nor a child, and had likely not been for many a moon, he still could not get the image of cleaving a child in half out of his head. Was there nothing he could have done to save him? Was there nothing he could do now? A thought began to form in his head, and Abenthy knelt close to the body...

So Abenthy, who has roleplayed his character’s justice flaw so well, gained a minor madness here as he cut down what looked like a young child. I rolled on the random madness chart in the DMG and got “you feel compelled right now to eat something.” Abenthy and I looked at each other. “You start eating the child,” I said. “You believe you can take his soul into your own body this way and deliver him unto Tyr.”

And so things get gross for a moment.

The West Wing

With the Twins defeat, the door to the West Wing flies off its hinges and opens up the way to the rest of the “dungeon.” I’ve talked in previous blogs how I think a good adventure should have a mixture of four different kinds of obstacles:

Social obstacles, in which players have to interact and roleplay with NPCs, usually trying to get something from them, whether help, directions, or an item.

Skill obstacles, in which players have to use their skills and ability scores to bypass barriers or make something easier (jumping over a chasm, climbing up a tower, finding the secret door behind a bureau, beating the pirate king in a game of chance in exchange for his help).

Combat obstacles, in which players use their stats, spells, and abilites to overcome monsters and other enemies in combative situations.

Puzzle obstacles, in which players have to use their own minds to figure out how to beat an obstacle (solve a riddle, figure out a way past a trap, figure out where a hidden key might be).

So far, the adventure has started out with a nice dose of social obstacles, and then led into a long section of combat. Now I bring the focus to puzzles. Past the locked door are two rooms: Franke’s workshop (where his dessicated body still lies, untouched by the ooze) and Olivia’s room. The latter is locked (and is the location of the final encounter). The former hides the key to her room. The recording device I mentioned earlier is here, and by searching the room the players find the gems that activate the device and hold the recordings. From this, they learn the true history of Franke and his family tragedy as described before. They also find a ring which makes them look like Olivia. Disturbingly, Franke had used this ring to make himself look like his daughter, then record himself talking to himself as her. Later, when he would play back these recordings, he could pretend Olivia was alive and speaking to him, a mental mindscrew that speaks to just how far gone he was. His video says as much:

My mind is going... I’ve been putting things in the wrong place... I can’t remember one day to the next. I wish to rejoin my family...

Franke’s message here is a clue. Above the worktable is a shelf holding four jars. One holds a key—but it is a red herring. It unlocks nothing. The real key is hidden “in the wrong place,” inside a jar containing brown mold. In previous messages, they have seen him put the key away on this shelf, and say it is important, which does trigger Karrina to wonder if there is something to the other jars—but it isn’t enough.

My players figure it out eventually, and also find a way to destroy the brown mold and get to the key, but it takes some prodding and first they try pretty much everything else—searching the whole hosue for the  key, attempting to pick the lock and break down the door... and this is after they’ve already gotten all of the clues to the puzzle. This leads me to believe that the riddle might be a bit obtuse—I think in the final version of this adventure I will change this and add in a skill based option to bypass it. Maybe a loose panel somewhere that leads into Olivia’s room through the woodwork—that could be freaky and also explain how the Ooze escaped from the room in the first place.

In any case, inside the room is the final boss, a creature that resembles a giant teddy bear dripping with ooze and pus (if you’ve seen Akira, you know my inspiration). It has Ogre stats, making it an easy to hit heavy hitter. In addition, it can try to grapple on a hit, and if successful forces a single character inside itself, pressing them into its gut where the ooze traps them, removing them from combat until they can break free. It also reduces damage against him by half, dealing half of it to the trapped character.

The idea in designing this fight was to create a monster that wasn’t too hard on its own, but would get harder depending on how much life the players had lost in the previous sections of the house. The beast can hit pretty solidly, possibly killing a character whose life has been drained to leave him with only a dozen or so hit points.

My players actually don’t have much problem with this fight, and I think I will ultimately toughen it up a bit in the final version, maybe adding a “Maria” or two to the room as well, to force players to split their attentions, or giving him a multi-attack to let him at least target multiple characters and try his grapple more than once. Twyin, in particular, makes this combat a breeze, trapping the teddy in a corner and going to town on it with his multiple attacks and special abilities. As a battlemaster he has acces to parry, which reduces damage by 1d8. He uses this to immense effect, saving himself from death dealing blows twice.

I’ll talk a little more next session about designing fights and monsters in D&D 5th Edition.

After this, there is not much else to tell. The players escape the house as it collapses, the ooze having infiltrated most of its structure and dying when its central brain was destroyed in the final shape it took. They eventually make their way back to the boat, where Krisp tells them they missed a rockin’ beach party last night, and that the repairs are done and they will reach the oracle’s island within a couple of days.

Everyone is now level 4. Karrina resolves her flaw, too! It used to be that she was racist against humans, but her time spent amongst them in the last month—not to mention having her past companions sacrifice themselves so that she might live—has changed her perspective. She realized this fully when she was willing to comfort Maria when the woman came to her in the middle of the night, claiming she felt so alone in the room she used to share with her late husband.

Karinna’s new flaw is a tendency to perform acrobatics in the heat of combat. Her natural arrogance has increased as she has survived more deadly encounters and now she is like a kid who has learned to ride a bicycle well enough that they start to wonder: “Can I ride with no hands?”

Next time, depending on how things go on the oracle’s island, we may get a chance to find out...