#it's byzantine and i'll kill him.

[hypokeimena]

stop sending me max miller's garum episode he said it was roman garum and used a recipe out of the geoponika

[kchasm]

Ryu Number Chart Update: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

Age of Empires II is the second installment in the Age of Empires series, a line of real-time-strategy games putting the player in control of various historical civilizations during various historical scenarios that play out portraying various historical events that occurred historically. Almost historically, anyway—real life doesn't care much for narrative arcs, so there's some conflation and approximation and whatnot for ludicity's sake. Imagine a movie adaption of some famous historical event—Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is usually at least that historically accurate.

The game abounds with a historical figures you can command around a map, but that's really just the tip of the enchilada. Occasionally, other historical figures who don't actually have a presence on a given historical map poke their heads out to toss dialogue your way—which also counts as appearances. Then there are the interstitial bits that provide context for the playable scenarios, and include illustrations of even more historical characters that don't otherwise appear in levels at all. That counts, too.

Admittedly, the appearances aren't always so straightforward. Take the following screenshot, for example. (You might have to click to zoom in on it. Sorry.)

(Credit: blasteg)

At first glance, it's some questionable meat—sure, it says "Byzantine Emperor," but which Byzantine Emperor? There were a lot of them!

Do a little look-into-ing, though, and it turns out there weren't that many Byzantine Emperors who were personally irked by Freddie "Barrel Boy" Barbarossa's local stopover—just the one, mostly. That almost definitely counts! Though, if you disagree...

Well, actually, it's totally fair if you disagree. Ryu Numbers can get a lot more arbitrary than you'd expect. I'm not changing my chart, though.

I'll be real: I went through approximately two hundred playthrough videos, so it really wouldn't surprise me to hear I've missed a uniquely-named unit or two (or three, or a handful, or a league). If you see anything I'm missing, please hoot and also holler.

(It doesn't help that various updates of the game have mixed things up—for example, a Soomra unit you had to kill in Prithviraj's campaign was at one point named "Dodo Soomro"—a real dude who ruled from about 1181 to 1195—but has since been retconned in subsequent updates to the generic "Raja." Do I count him? I guess not.)

(And of course there's the regular complications, like the research I have to do whenever a name appears to make sure they're a historical figure and not not a historical figure. An example of the latter is Togortac, who appears a few times in Kotyan Khan's campaign. There was a real Cuman figure of historical note named Togortac...)

(Komnene, A. (2009). The Alexiad (E. R. A. Sewter & P. Frankopan, Trans.). Penguin Group. (Original work published ca. 1143-1153 CE))

(... but he was active around a hundred years before when the setting of this campaign takes place, which suggests to me that the game character isn't supposed to be the Togortac and is more likely an original character created for the game that the writers named after the historical Togortac because coming up with non-anachronistic names for historical figures is really friggin' hard.)

As for Ryu Numbering yourself through that topologist's nightmare, though, it's not nearly as complicated:

What's a Teppen? Teppen (stylized "TEPPƎN" because somebody in Nigeria is shouting at you I guess*), is a mobile card game, except instead of numbers, the cards have Capcom characters. And also numbers.

This creates something of a quandary. Do you count (and I'm pickin' a random character here; don't at me) Zangief as appearing in Teppen if it's allowable (even strategically advantageous even) to have a hand stuffed with hella Zangiefy (He's Russian, so I think that's the pluralization)? Sure, he's in the game, moving about within the borders for his card, even... but he's no longer unique. In fact, you could argue that he's on the same level as a generic recurring video game enemy.

Teppen clarifies and complicates the issue by classifying certain cards as "Heroes," which means that you're only allowed one in your deck. These are easier to swallow as unique, Ryu-Numberable characters. Ryu is one Hero (natch), but Oda Nobunaga... isn't.

(Side note: Yeah, Oda Nobunaga—the Japanese dude frequently credited with revving up the unification of Japan after its collapse into a bunch of warring clans—counts as a Capcom character, owing to Capcom's Sengoku Basara video game series. If you've never heard of Sengoku Basara before... well, I can't help you, actually, because neither had I. Judging from a random minute of game footage I hauled up from YouTube, though, it looks a lot like something in the same ilk as Samurai Warriors.)

(... And suddenly, I strongly suspect I've pissed someone off.)

Anyway, the whole point is moot, actually (American definition), because for most of the Heroes, Teppen also has "Hero Stories," wherein the characters are characters, and not cards at all, and Oda makes a cameo in Amaterasu's story leading a demon army alongside Nōhime and Mori Ranmaru.

I have wasted your time.

*The Venn diagram of "People Reading This Post" and "People Who Understand This Joke" has an intersection that is at most the size of an atom, within which is fully contained a third circle titled "People Reading This Post Who Understand This Joke and Additionally Find This Joke Humorous." The population of this third circle is 1.

The Genpei War* was a late 12th-century civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans over which one of them would be the power behind the Emperor of Japan. There was a lot of drama involved, but the end result was that the Taira lost, the Minamoto won, and the Japanese Emperor effectively became a figurehead with the shogun—Minamoto no Yoritomo, at this point—being the actual dude wearing the boss shoes (which is what you call a "shogunate").

Unfortunately, according to the Namco game Genpei Tōma Den, Yoritomo's tyrannical rule resulted in Japan becoming overridden with demons, and ultimately required the resurrection of previously deceased Taira samurai Taira no Kagekiyo in order to put the land (violently) to rights.

... Maybe forget that last paragraph before you take your history quiz or your teacher will be very annoyed at you.

But anyway that's why Minamoto no Yoshinaka/Kiso Yoshinaka appears in Namco × Capcom.

*Who was Genpei? Nobody was Genpei. If you take "Minamoto," i.e. "源," and "Taira," i.e. "平," and mash 'em together, you get "源平," which is pronounced... "Genpei." This is because kanji often have multiple pronunciations, including what's descended from the native Japanese pronunciation(s) they used and assigned that character to, and what's descended from the Chinese pronunciation(s) of that character.

Oh and Rollo was a Viking who did attacks on France. Then Charles the Simple (i.e. Charles the Straightforward, from the misleading Latin "simplex") of West Francia (sort of the precursor to France) was all, "Look, if I let you have Rouen (and you swear allegiance to me) will you quit it with the ruckus?" and Rollo was all, "'Kay," and that's how the Duchy of Normandy became a thing. He's also known as "Hrólf the Walker" (or "Hrólf the Ganger," which means "Hrólf the Walker"), and he's a skin in the Norse Mythology Mash-Up Minecraft DLC.

Look, sometimes it's not complicated.

There are a few points of curiosity attached to this game and the historical population within, that deserve attention, though. For example, there's the oddly overachieving Mr. Motamid of the Moors.

If you play through the El Cid campaign, the relevant bits go something like this:

King Alfonso takes advantage of the instability caused by a political assassination in Toledo, sending in his army—headed by El Cid—to fold the locale into his empire. While on the scene, El Cid meets Motamid of the Moors, who can only react with gratitude when he hears that the Emperor of Spain has come to restore order to the land.

On a side note, the primary function of the superior rectus muscles is to effect elevation of the eyeballs.

It turns out that Motamid is actually the lord of Zaragoza, which means that El Cid has somewhere to serve when he's exiled by King Alfonso. El Cid, ever-loyal to King Alfonso, eventually convinces Motamid to ratify a treaty that makes Zaragoza part of King Alfonso's empire as well, since, uh… well, the story doesn't actually give a reason for Motamid to have done that, but rest assured that it was a Good Thing That Happened!

Keep working those superior rectus muscles!

King Alfonso is still pretty leery about Motamid and El Cid being the cool kids in Spain, though, so he ends up sending an army down to Zarazoga anyway. El Cid, still loyal to King Alfonso for some reason, cannot fight against his lord/former lord/it's complicated, and so avaunts, forcing Motamid to seek help from the Almoravid Dynasty just past Gibraltar instead.

El Cid comes to King Alfonso's aid, driving back the Almoravid forces, and Alfonso recognizes El Cid's loyalty by, uh, exiling him again. El Cid, once more needing somewhere to hang out, ends up conquering Valencia for himself—Motamid's no longer in the picture, unfortunately, as when the Almoravid folks moved in, they sent Motamid on his own bout of exile into the desert.

When a piece of media gets adapted, it's not uncommon for characters to be simplified for the sake of narrative ease, but it feels a little hinkier when it's real history it's happening to. In this case, Motamid is an amalgamation of at least a coupla different folks:

Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud, the actual ruler of Zaragoza who was served by the mercenary troops of El Cid, and

Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad (note the name), the ruler of Seville and vassal to King Alfonso until the taxation got onerous, at which point he stopped paying and also asked the Almoravid folks for help to keep not paying. This ended up being a Very Bad Decision, as the Almoravid folks decided that the best way to help was by making Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad not the ruler of Seville anymore and exiling him to Morocco.

That said, the in-game character is at least named "Motamid," which I've ultimately arbitrarily decided means he's a vagarious portrayal of Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad rather than being a fictional character created by the writers to serve the function of multiple non-fictional characters. Don't at me.

Ludovico Trevisan and Pietro Giampaolo Orsini appear in Francesco Sforza's campaign, except for the fact that they don't appear in Sforza's campaign at all. What an apparently self-contradictory statement! Don't you feel the piquing of your interest?

If you've never heard either of these names before—which, fair—suffice to say they were a coupla folks around during the time when the Italian Peninsula was a buncha states jockeying amongst each other for power. Trevisan was a Catholic bishop, serving the Papal States—the Pope was basically another king, back then, with his own kingdom and whatnot—while Orsini was a condottiero, which is Italian for "worked for whoever paid him." Both men participated in the Battle of Anghiari in 1440, a battle immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci...

Or at least it woulda been. Unfortunately, da Vinci's The Battle of Anghiari was infamously unfinished and also infamously lost. The most notable remainder we have of the work is actually a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens (who, you might have noticed, is a totally different person)—a copy of a copy of the central portion, which would have featured, among other elements, a bunch of horses having a very bad time.

Now, I'm really not that learned in Italian history, or Italian art (or non-Italian of either of those, for that matter), but I've been informed by The Art Books that those two folks in the upper right hand portion of the sketch are, in fact, Trevisan and Orsini.

(Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2003). Leonardo da Vinci: Master draftsman (C. C. Bambach, editor). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Zöllner, F. (2000). Leonardo da Vinci: 1452–1519 (F. Elliott, trans.). Benedikt Taschen.)

Names are different, but those are the same guys. I'm pretty sure.

(Also, before anyone chimes in, I'm aware Wikipedia says the rightmost guy is Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo instead, but the Wikipedia pages have no sources for that. If I'm gonna be wrong, I'm gonna be wrong post-doing-the-research, dammit.)

So why is this relevant at all to Ryu Numbers, considering that neither of these folks appear in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition at all, even plotwise? It's relevant because of the dude just to the left of those two, who, if you've read those little snippets rather than just taking my word for it, you already know is Niccolò Piccinino, who does appear in the campaign and the plot of the campaign. And when it came time to illustrate Piccinino...

(Credit: ClearSights)

(You could argue the faces look different enough to throw identification into doubt past the margin of error, and you know what? That's fair. I wanna give you the option, at least.)

Yes, Joan of Arc is in Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate.

(Credit: Xaldin)

That might seem weird, but it's already a game about significant historical and pseudohistorical figures from Japan's Sengoku period and China's Three Kingdoms Period getting isekaied into a temporary crossover thanks to the shenanigans of Greek deities et al., so sure, why not? She's actually in from a previous Koei game, Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War, which I'm given to understand is a Hundred Years' War musou and which I really have to watch at some point. It's on my List. I'll get to it. Eventually. Probably.

Point is:

Something something but it's weird that it happened thrice, right?

Wait, isn't Robin Hood in Fate/Grand Order?

No, he's not.

Yes, I know it says his name is—

Okay, listen. I know what it looks like, but this isn't Robin Hood. This is a totally unrelated guy who lived in a forest, dressed in green, used a yew bow, and fought against the local feudal lord.

If you're thinking that that sounds pretty Robin-Hood-like, you're not the only one who noticed. He ended up being another guy to bear that name, and was eventually betrayed (Robin-Hood-like) and shot one final arrow to mark his burial preferences (Robin-Hood-like!) before dying. All this Robin-Hoodedness was apparently enough such that when the Character Gacha Device went rummaging for any Robin Hoods it had in stock this guy met all the qualifications and got the moniker all slapped up on into him once more.

Look, I don't make this stuff up.

Speaking of Fate/Grand Order lore, Attila the Hun is—okay, actually, this is gonna need another tangent. Like, more than that Robin Hood stuff did. You know that part in Captain Underpants where the narrator's all, "But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story"? Steel yourself.

In Fate/Grand Order lore, the "Velber" is an observational device created by an ancient alien race. It works on a set orbit, passing through the Milky War Galaxy once every fourteen thousand years, selectively targeting and destroying all intelligent life in its path. Why? lol aunno.

Inside the Velber are "Anti-Cells," organic life forms developed from the data of destroyed civilizations, which are specifically designed to be deployed and actually do the intelligent-life-destroying until there isn't any intelligent life left to destroy, at which point the Anti-Cell effectively starves to death.

One such Anti-Cell was deployed to Earth in 12,000 BC, where it proceeded to destroy much of Earth's earlier civilizations, including Atlantis. Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for you, since you have to read this explanation), the Anti-Cell was killed by a human wielding of Excalibur—yes, that Excalibur, the one King Arthur would end up lugging about later. It was made by fairies, but that's not important right now. Don't worry about it.

Bits and bobs of the Anti-Cell remained on Earth, giving rise to a number of mythological characters and mechanisms. One particular piece of the Anti-Cell was discovered by the descendants of the Xiongnu people, woken, and—yeah, you see where this is going by now—dubbed "Attila." Attila, acting on instinct beyond understanding, went on to destroy civilizations until expiration.

Also she was a girl, because Type-Moon keeps doing that. We probably can't stop them anymore.

Oda Nobunaga was a girl, too. That's right, scroll up. Bet you thought that was just a bishounen aesthetic, right?

Anyway, the only problem with counting Fate/Grand Order's Attila as Attila—okay, the only relevant problem—is: Does this count as "Attila," or does this count as "the Anti-Cell that already had a distinct identity, but was referred to as 'Attila' by the Huns"? (That is a difference, as far as The Chart is concerned.) Is this still the Anti-Cell? Would this be more like a piece of the Anti-Cell given its own ego? Does that make her a different character than the original Anti-Cell?

lol aunno.

But of course, you can neatly sidestep that entire issue by just going through Age of Empires instead.

I have wasted your time again!

Here's a question: Can we use Tamerlane to get to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem?

Context: Roberto Bianchi's level in Eternal Darkness starts off with him captured by a warlord and to ordered to apply his architectural knowledge to a monument the guy is having constructed. Spoilers: Things get worse for Bob.

The armor the warlord and his folks are sporting have a real Timurid inspiration about them, but the most Tamerlaney resemblance comes at the scenario's ending cutscene:

(Credit: NineWheels)

This admittedly awesome quote didn't come from anyone at Silicon Knights—it's a thing the real-life Tamerlane/Timur/whatever he wants to be called said himself, according to Bertrando de Mignanelli (and the guy who translated him in 1956):

(Fischel, W. J. (1956). A New Latin Source on Tamerlane's conquest of Damascus (1400/1401): (B. de Mignanelli's "Vita Tamerlani" 1416). Oriens, 9(2), 201-232. https://doi.org/10.2307/1579274)

Also an issue of Nintendo Power straight up says he's Tamerlane, so.

(Nintendo of America Inc. (2003, January). Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Nintendo Power (164), 134-137)

There's kind of a serious issue here, though, which is that Timur died in 1405 (at nearly 70 years old), and Bianchi's level takes place in 1460. A couple of years off is one thing to overlook, but fifty plus is more than a little difficult.

"But you know, K.C.," I hear the version of you I made up entirely within my own imagination say and also it is past midnight so I am not feeling very gracious toward the construction of imaginary-you right now, "Eternal Darkness is a game where reality Gets A Little Wonky, including potentially time. Is there a possibility you can count this as Tamerlane nevertheless?"

And the answer remains a definite no for the most important reason of all: Whether this warlord is supposed to be Timur or not, it doesn't change the fact that—and spoilers, here—he doesn't exist. The dramatic irony, unbeknownst to Bobby (but beknownst to us), is that this warlord is just another identity taken up by Pious Augustus, who technically isn't the Big Bad of the game but is the closest thing the player has considering that his direct boss is one of three of four (of five?) eldritch Lovecraftian ancients. So no, that's not Tamerlane, even if it is Tamerlane. At best, that's Pious Augustus Who Has Taken On The Name of Tamerlane, and as far as The Chart is concerned, that's Different.

... I mean, not that you can't still get to Eternal Darkness anyway. You just can't use Tamerlane. You can use Charlemagne instead, since there's a whole level about catching up to him before he can get hit with All The Curse.

(Credit: Super Best Friends Play)

Spoiler: You fail, and he gets hit with All The Curse. Route still works, though!

Also you don't need Age of Empires in the first place. Just use Civilization.

I continue to waste your time!

(A non-Ryu-Number-related tangent, for a sec: Maximillian Roivas was voiced by the great William Hootkins, who appeared in the flesh in a bevy of supporting movie roles, but who you might especially remember as one of the many doomed X-wing pilots going through the Death Star run at the end of the original Star Wars. Specifically, he plays Porkins, who actually gets identified by name shortly before becoming unidentifiable. If you still can't recall (or if you're stuck the sound off and no subtitles), he's the pilot who, if you already knew one of the pilots was named "Porkins," you'd expect to be the one named "Porkins." Someone in production was mean.)

Finally, at the bottom of this post, I want to talk about a particular connection through Minecraft and The Cursed Crusade that isn't on the chart, actually, because it is Very Iffy At Best and iffy on two fronts besides. Why bring it up, then? Because this is my post, and I'm allowed to ramble fuddy-duddily about the things that interest me if I want.

Anyway, this one depends on two particular appearances: the "Grim Reaper" skin from the Minecraft Halloween Mash-up DLC, and, uh... this other guy from Cursed Crusade.

(Credit: LoadingReadyRun)

Right, so, who exactly is this guy? Well, the game calls him "Death," and he calls himself "Death," subtitled with a capital D and everything, but can you really say an armor-clad depiction of the personification of Death and the Grim Reaper are the same character? Yeah, they're both incarnations of Death, but are they really the same?

(Credit: LoadingReadyRun)

It doesn't help that The Cursed Crusade is so irritatingly vague when it comes to its own lore. For those who have never had the misfortune of experiencing this game, The Cursed Crusade takes place during the Fourth Crusade to Jerusalem, i.e. the one where they ended up sieging Christian cities for money. The protagonist of the game, Denz de Bayle, is Cursed, which effectively means that every now and then someone sets the "Hell" layer to visible in Photoshop and the guy with the slightly techno armor in the screenshots there starts hunting Denz down.

Alright, so that's the big obvious symptom of Being Cursed. But what is the Curse actually doing?

Game doesn't say.

Why is Denz Cursed in the first place?

Game doesn't say.

What is the nature of the knight of Death that seeks to drag Denz to Hell (if he has any nature, beyond simply "Death"), and what tasks him to this duty?

lol aunno.

... Yeah, no, that really doesn't work (hence the asterisk, which usually marks ungrammaticality, but which has taken a part-time job here). If you want to Ryu Number your Cursed Crusade, you have to get in the other way around:

The Cursed Crusade ends in a very And-The-Adventure-Continues! fashion, with the protagonist on his way to Egypt to find his father and said father in Egypt being confronted cliffhangerily by the game's primary baddie. It's all very Hinting At A Sequel, but considering that the game came out in 2011 and, more importantly, Wasn't Very Good, I seriously doubt explanations are forthcoming anytime soon. Or just "anytime," really.

Still, speaking as the dude who made a monstrous Historical Figures Ryu Number Chart in the first place, it's kind of a loss. The Cursed Crusade had a bevy of historical figures, and I can only imagine that a sequel would have done similarly—

(Credit: LoadingReadyRun)

On second thought we are all worse off for this game's existence.

... Wait, am I done? Hey, I'm done! This post took a lot longer than I thought it would to put together, and I thought it was going to take a long time in the first place. Watching two-hundred-plus Age of Empires II videos will make anyone's brain melt, even with the Firefox extension that lets you play YouTube videos at quintuple speed.

But you know what this means, right? It means I never have to watch an Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition video again. Thank goodness.

... Sorry, what's a "turnarome"?

"Return of Rome"? What's "Return of Rome"—

Oh.

Oh huh.

Motherf—

[rulers-of-hungary-tournament]

ROUND 2, MATCH 1

Admin's commentary: Oh my God, this is so sad, they were bros in life and now after death we are putting them against each other. :( :( :(

***

WHAT MY PROFESSOR OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY SAID ABOUT THEM

I.István (Štefan I.) 1000-1038

unifier of the Magyar tribes and first crowned king of Hungary (the damn crown is named after him for fuck's sake)

a literal saint - though not because he was particularly nice, mostly because of the fact that he was the first Magyar leader to be a proper Christian (unlike his dad Géza, who did get baptized, but still retained some of the pagan customs); plus he actively spread Christianity among Magyars (founding of the first Hungarian bishoprics, the one church for every 10 villages rule etc.), for better or for worse

created the basis for later Hungarian administration, including the minting of first Hungarian coins and the first law code in Hungarian history

helped Byzantines conquer Bulgaria

infamous for imprisoning and blinding his cousin and successor Vazul (chronicles blame his wife's influence, but they're probably just being sexist)

@biksarddedrak said about them: "The only thing, what you actually need to know is he was crowned on 25. of December year of our Lord 1000. The absolute unit of this man managed to haggle the pope to elevate whole Panonian basin on the most easly memorabe day. (...) I. Istvám defended his right to rule from several pagan lords who wished to deposed him in the beginig of his rule. And he did it from glorious city of Nitra."

Aba Sámuel (Samuel Aba) 1041-1044

the first palatine of Hungary, faithful second-in-command of I.István, who even married him to his own sister

dethroned Orseolo Péter (mostly Péter's own fault, I'll get to that the next week), but Péter got help from the emperor of Holy Roman Empire, in the end he was killed in battle, allowing Péter two more years of fucking up

[queenlua]

i'm tempted to ask who you *think* your favorite in Fates would be given your ... partial play through Conquest to ch10, if I'm remembering right lol. the other half of my brain is debating on asking a FMK between naesala/zihark/soren OR "what three presidential actions would you make should suddenly lua become president" b/c somehow that's interesting too. tone consistency what's that. :P

1) tragically, i don't remember conquest well enough! alas. i played those chapters in 2015 in a feverdream and just simply did not get a very strong impression of any particular character. (technically i played a bit past ch10—i remember the map with the pots, for instance—but yeah bird guy gave up after ch10 lol)

2) fmk naesala/zihark/soren: kill soren, sorry dude. correct move is to kill naesala and marry zihark but. naesala's on that fascinating border right between "girl, you cannot fix him, run" and "ok look he's been through some shit but It's All Good Now, just look at him," right. it's a coin-flip but it's pretty believable i'd go with marry nae-nae / fuck zi with like >50% probability. zi would be a fine partner and mostly stable but i feel like he's gonna go through at least 1-3 weird Funks that he won't be willing to explain to me even a little bit and that's gonna eat at me. (naesala's going to do the same thing but luckily he's as transparent as one of those films they used to use for overhead projectors so at least i'll know what's up

3) if i'm president

* pedestrians can no longer cross intersections diagonally unless explicitly allowed by clear crosswalk signals. come on y'all

* land value tax would solve this

* single-payer healthcare and/or literally anything more efficient and less galling than the byzantine grift-y pile of "four insurance companies in a trenchcoat" we got going on rn b/c no one wants to be honest about what the price of any goddamn thing actually is

...unfortunately all three of these are things the president, uh, doesn't exactly have authority to fix. executive branch is kind of weaksauce when it comes down to it! now if i were majority whip in an actually-relevant chamber in congress then i might be able to get some work done (though, even then, a lot of the stuff re: property tax comes down to local polities unfortunately). but then i'd have to think harder so, alas, my fun off-the-cuff-ness will have to chill there lol

[aintgonnatakethis]

Update

So the campaign through Egypt crawls along, hindered by the fact that every time we conquer anywhere, we have to sit around there for a while to convert the population to Christianity. If we just move on immediately, the recently taken settlement would just rebel. I left the session with an army on a long march south to get to the next target.

The main focus of the session was a big push into HRE territory, taking three cities and a castle in a quick coordinated push that overwhelmed the enemy. The plan went smoothly, and now I have a good frontline spread and the HRE are significantly weakened. England are now the main threat, but they haven't made their move yet. (Probably because they're down south trying to kill poor Spain, though Spain were allowed back into the Catholic fold so no more Crusades.)

My new King pushed further into Byzantine territory, grabbing a nice castle to use as a staging point. He then sent his army with his first born son who'd just come of age to take his first prize. (An important point here is that you cannot change your heir and the game won't select an heir if they are underage when the King dies, so his son wasn't heir and therefore had a loyalty debuff).

As soon as he's into the mountains the son rebels, taking the entire stack of high cost units with him... In response the King goes a little insane. Fair reaction tbh - I was feeling pretty stressed myself.

The hits keep coming, as the Plague then arrived, though it was a relatively light one, infecting my King but not killing him. I expect a resurgence at some point. A Byzantine army came into view marching towards the most recently captured castle and err... I had the King flee, which got him a coward trait. The Plague had taken a lot of money from me and I simply didn't have enough in reserve to rebuild the army that had rebelled.

The current heir is the first cousin of the King (they share grandparents) and I've married him to a Russian princess to keep that alliance strong. The current King has two sons waiting to come-of-age, both of who will also get loyalty debuffs. The heir has a daughter and a son who, if he comes of age before the current King dies (likely), will become the new heir.

That's where I left it for the day. So next time I'll most likely see the castle fall, put a force together with my King to take it back, and am thinking about sending him after his son to kill him. Or possibly that can be the second son's job when he comes of age...

current obsession: roleplay-heavy micro-management of my family tree in Total War: Medieval 2

[heliosoll]

Can you share more stuff from your shifters WR and what type of people you met and what stories they had, if you’re comfortable sharing? Did you ever run into any bad people who had done immoral things such as harming others, etc?

Sure! I have to give the disclaimer that I can't share everything of course because that would be a breach of privacy and very rude of me. So I'll have to avoid real names, personal stories, etc. But a few of them have given me permission to share certain things!

I wouldn't necessarily call him a bad person but I did meet someone there who had actually shifted to a Medieval period DR and had lived through a war and everything that came with being in the war (I don't remember exactly which one but I believe it involved Byzantine). It definitely wasn't the same as our Middle Ages as there were a few differences, especially with tools at the time, but iirc, it was sometime during the 12th or 13th century! He shifted there to experience life in the past and basically got wrapped up in different battles. He ended up killing a lot of people there and it weighed him down for decades afterward. There was actually a period of time after he shifted away from that reality where he stopped shifting for good because he couldn't handle the grief of what he had done.

I do remember him telling me that he had eventually shifted back to that reality to not only put that behind him but also to give back (to the best of his ability) to the people he had hurt. I'm not sure if something like that ever happened in this reality (ie people giving back not the war itself) but it was nice to hear. It was initially very hard to listen to his time there...

But he was very interesting! He had a lot of historical DRs and he usually avoided the heavier aspects of them. Honestly, most of the people I met there were generally good people and he was one of the few exceptions who had done something bad while shifting. And thankfully, to my knowledge, he's never done anything like that since.

I talked to him during one of my first few visits there and while I didn't have a shifting blog at the time, he said I was free to tell people this story because he didn't want other shifters to make the same mistakes as him. I actually wonder if I could contact him now to tell him about the law and revising! I think he would love to know about this and know that he could make a change there.

[annelidist]

okay so this is. every particularly fucked writing decision in the last five episodes. ik this is hardly incisive media critique and i'll be writing up another post that goes over my feelings on the show more generally (so issues that span the length of the show won't be in here) but i have GOT to get this off my chest

despite fiends having existed as a known phenomenon for a long time, and despite even one fiend being dangerous enough to collapse the society of the villages entirely, no existing measures have been set in place to deal them if they show up. the leaders of this society have a byzantine and merciless system of control in place to prevent the emergence of fiends and absolutely no plan for what to do when they do emerge.

when they have to kill a fiend, nobody considers using firearms, which have been demonstrated to be an effective method of killing a cantus user if they're caught off guard. while it'd be extremely difficult for a human to overcome their attack inhibition, the main characters bring a loyal bakenezumi with them on their trip to secure an absurdly complicated and dangerous bioweapon, so they very explicitly have a combat-trained ally who doesn't possess an attack inhibition.

it is portrayed as being easier to carry a submarine through a network of caves to an underground river using telekinesis than it would be to use that same telekinesis to carry a group of people along the river. i feel like this one is just self-evidently stupid.

the submarine also looks like ass

the way the psychobuster ends up being used is so deeply strange. satoru throws it at the fiend (with his arm, not his powerful telekinesis) at such short range that he'll also die when the capsule breaks, rather than fucking, i don't know, levitating it towards them from a safe distance, or even just throwing himself out of harm's way before the vial hits the ground. seeing this happen, saki opts to save satoru's life by immolating the now-airborne bioweapon with her cantus (this presumably destroys the virus at a cellular level??) rather than by moving him, or by creating a barrier between him and the vial, or by doing anything else that would save him without rendering the multiple episodes spent dungeon crawling for this dumb macguffin a complete waste of time.

the war just sort of... ends after the fiend is defeated? like we jump from their death to squealers' armies having been routed and the guy himself in prison awaiting trial, despite the fact that they've already overrun the villages and killed swathes of the population. they're winning the war the last time we see them, and then we're just expected to take the fact that they lost as self-explanatory.

it's established in the final handful of episodes that cantus can generate electricity and rapidly regenerate damaged tissue. that last one is only mentioned in the final episode, not because it's being used for any sort of medical application but because a particularly edgy form of torture is happening. i feel like everyone in the setting being able to power machinery and heal wounds at will, even if to varying degrees of success, should have come up earlier than this.

i'm struggling to even begin to unpack how unsatisfactory and shallow the ending is. our protagonists take until the final episode to acknowledge that maybe it's bad to enslave sapient beings and massacre them whenever they step out of line, and then, absolutely nothing having been done to ameliorate this state of affairs, we get a platitude about how it's possible for societies to improve over time and the show ends. satoru and saki get married for no reason and make nebulous changes to their society that are never shown or expanded upon. i guess we're supposed to feel happy about the remaining bakenezumi population not being subjected to total genocide?

it doesn't matter that bakenezumi are genetically similar to humans. like. it doesn't make any difference to whether or not they're sapient beings deserving of respect. it's a complete nothing reveal that only alters the ethics of the situation if you think that being genetically human is what determines whether or not a life form counts as sapient, which i can't imagine is an opinion many people actually hold. also the reasoning behind why a majority of humankind were modified into mole rat people is completely incoherent

christ almighty i am not even going to talk about what a fucking garbage fire squealer is as a character

[dragonotaku-justineverything]

Hey, this is gonna be a really long one but for good reasons and I see no other way to ask it. I'm writing a Hellsing fanfic and I'd like to ask about something that could give me a bigger picture from a different perspective. I saw your last ask on Seras and it somewhat gave me the courage to ask this. It'd be both SFW and NSFW but here I go. (I'll say male main character or main character but maybe do this in a reader headcanon style. OH and thank you if you answer this)

Let's say, before Seras joined Hellsing, or even left the orphanage (in my story when she was at the age of 16 and my male oc would've been about a year younger than her) she had a boyfriend. Believe it or not, it was when she had snuck away from the nuns and administrators to go to a creek near the Welsh border (because I'm just gonna say that the orphanage was there) where small communities of Welsh/Old English (I mean the really old English) people basically dress in clothes that are like early medieval clothes/tunics (basically accurate Viking age tunics or clothes) but have some modern stuff like jeans or stuff like that and use modern tech, but the culture is also derived from this period but is massively modernized. Yet as she sits at a bank near a creek, somewhat crying or maybe just having a bad time and suddenly my main character comes through and sees she is having a shitty day and talks with her.

At first, she's defensive and standoffish, but soon he disarms her attitude and turns out to be a really chill and good kid. Of course, after a few weeks, Seras starts to sneak out and see him every few nights or even nightly. They become boyfriend and girlfriend after one of the villages caught her sneaking into the home of the uncle of the main character. Eventually, the nuns let her see him and all that.

After some time they got really close as partners and would make out under the tree they first met. Yet on one of the last nights, they see each other before the main character tells her he's going to a festival/reenactment in the Balkans and maybe gone for some time but he promises her this, that he'll return and some good news, his uncle promised to take her to America where she can live with him and his family so she doesn't have to worry too much about what happens after the orphanage. Then, he leaves after giving her his farewell gift, a necklace of Freyja the Norse Goddess of love, she gives him the address of the orphanage so he can write letters to her.

Once he gets to the Balkans, Millennium sets up a rebellion and massive terror attack that sparks tensions in the Balkans and leads to another war, a really big one too. The entirety of Europe, some of the middle east, and parts of North America are engulfed in its flames, nations burn and new empires rise. Russia, many Balkan nations, Central Europe, Scandinavia, France, and even Canada and America are being hit with this disastrous conflict.

5 long years passed, my main character has been through a lot. He's been a slave during the beginning of the war, led a slave revolt, fought alongside his brothers as leaders of warbands, bringing the fight to the monsters that tried to take over the Balkans and many other places, fought off Iscariot and the catholic church with the many troops apart of their factions when they led a botched crusade down to Bosnia, saw his eldest brother get killed by Iscariot, then moved all across Eastern and Northern Europe to fight monsters and liberate many of the countries under their reign of terror, and had finally reached North America after fighting through Greenland and Iceland alongside the Vikings to free the people there and then managed to land in Newfoundland to set up a small kingdom there. He was a captain of the Varangian Guard (Viking guard to the byzantine emperor) and was a famed man far and wide, yet his mind was in tatters from the PTSD and haunted by the tragedies unfolding around him

Yet the main character forgot about his promise to Seras... worst of all he knew he left someone there and would try to return one day but he forgot her name. Yet the memory of the orphanage's address stayed in his mind... not only that, he remembered her face. Yet he wrote back, yet no response came. Then he met another young woman and adopted her brother. He was 18 at the time when they got married and became king and queen together and signed a peace treaty with the vampires on the island of Newfoundland, so they could live in peace. Sadly it was not meant to last. One day, marking the anniversary of the peace treaty signing, the leader of the vampire faction on the island broke the treaty and attacked the capital settlement, killing the main character's wife and capturing the main character. After three days they sentenced him to death, only to be saved by his adopted son, who would be dead in a snake pit when a vampire threw him into the pit of venomous snakes. In a rage, my main character slaughtered the vampires in the prison and got to bury his son next to his mother, then had destroyed the vampire faction after rallying an army of Vikings. Yet... vengeance was bittersweet. The leader that instigated this was dead, yet there were vampires and human thralls that were totally innocent who had gotten killed in his berserker-like rage. The main character looks at the wasteland of the killing field, guilt finally setting in. Now they had reaped what they are sewn. All was lost, nothing gained and now the ghosts would haunt him for years to come, never to leave him in peace and only serve to haunt his nightmares.

The main character and his friends went back home to their mothers and fathers, only to be expelled from America after a great Viking army led by the king of the North Sea Empire, Knut, invade America.

Fast forward a week or two later, The main character and his family move into Wales and the same village where this all started. Memories of when he was 15 slowly come back to him, he was 20 now.

Now Seras was dealing with her own losses, first, her humanity, her arm, and many friends died in the attack on London. Yet she still had Pip for the most part and Integra was still around. Yet one day, Integra receives word that you and your friends are settled in Wales and are securing Welsh provinces and the now Welsh-speaking areas of western England from the vampire threat that millennium exacerbated.

One day Seras is assigned to go to her old orphanage, long-abandoned mind you, and meets the main character once again, at first they can't recognize each other. The main character is in his chainmail and lamellar armor, his coif covering his face except for his eyes with a nasal helmet protecting his head. Not to mention his Norman arming sword was in hand, ready to fight hard and Seras had her big guns, they had a job to do, kill the vampires dwelling in the orphanage together. How would Seras react if his coif and helmet were knocked off?

Okay so here are a few of the things I thought of.

Seras would already be a bit rattled or on edge being in her old orphanage, and this new agent/person she's meeting for the first time doesn't help.

After the helmet comes off and his face is revealed, she'd pause, taking a good look at him. At first it's just to get more intel on the man. (It's up to you if she'd recognize him right away, I don't think she would though)

When she would finally recognize him, her memories would come flooding back to her, also letting Pip know who this man was as well as he'd be able to see her memories as well.

She'd rush over to help with the reason his helmet got knocked off, if it was an enemy, the building collapsing, or whatever and call out to him by name, shocking the Main Character as he doesn't know her so how does she know his name?

After the battle Seras would be more friendly and open with him, and be filling Pip in on information mentally as she tried to converse with the Main character

That's when she'd realize that he doesn't remember her, which hurts

I think after that, Seras would try to jog his memory with stories and stuff, like their old promise. Again, it's up to you if this would work (or at least help) or not. I think the Main Character would at least realize the situation and explain that he lost his memory a few years ago.

One big thing I definitely would personally do is have them visit the old tree where they used to meet up and lay together.

I hope this is what you were hoping for and that it helps with your fanfiction! It sounds like you already have a lot figured out! Best of luck with it and I hope you have fun writing it!

[alittlefrenchtree]

Helloooo! Guess who’s back? The Dune notes! yaayyyyy!

ok, chill.

SPOILERS BOOK 2 : MUAD’DIB (Chapters 1-4)

Chapter 1:

I’m still struggling to get all the politic aspects and understand who’s on which side but that’s not what I’m focusing on right now. Once I’ve read the whole thing and had the whole picture, I’ll study all the details of this part of the story.

I loved this quote:

in the French translation, and thought it was beautiful to see Arrakis through Paul’s mind and eyes only to find out that the original quote said stuff like Cheddar-colored. Damn you, American people.

Chapter 2:

Bless you, Muad’Dib, your father and Princess Irulan. Might your words be heard loud and clear on every planet of every universe.

I love, love, love this chapter. This whole conversation between Hawat and the Fremen, the world building made through it and through the Fremen is really good. I don’t think the Fremen has a name because he’s exactly what he describing of his people. He’s only one to serve the whole clan.

Many interesting stuff about the conversation and the scene.

First, I wonder if the Mentat’s abilities can work on Fremens? This part seems to say that they can’t : "But still he did not know what this Fremen wanted and this rankled. Mentat training was supposed to give a man the power to see motives." Then here again : "He said worm. He was going to say something else. What? And what does he want of us?" It’s funny to see how Hawat’s powers seem to be limited after we saw part of what Jessica and Paul were able to do.

"You must make a water decision, friend."

is my favorite quote of the chapter. The whole chapter is built to make Hawat and the reader really understand how primordial the water is. Blood doesn’t exist in the Fremen’s mouth, life is all boiled down to water. They doesn’t seem to care about the Spice either. When he’s thinking in terms of currency, it’s not about the Spice or money, it’s still about water:

"You think we have the Byzantine corruption. You don’t know us. The Harkonnen have not water enough to buy the smallest child among us."

It’s one thing I find fascinating about sci-fi/fantasy writers who are creating whole new worlds in different universes. It’s not only about thinking about crazy new technologies or super powers or anything like this. It’s when they shift the whole logic because context is different and you see it in the smallest details, in ways of speaking, in turns of phrases. It’s where you find so much richness for a fandom. And get so easily immersed in the said new universe. Every time I'll get really thirsty in the future, I'll think about this chapter. And the water decision.

I’m guessing water is one of Dune’s real plot? Every stranger coming to Arrakis comes for the Spice, thinking it’s the goldmine of the planet, the way to conquer it and truly owns it. But it’s not and the Fremen are still the one owning the desert powers because they’re the only one seeing that Arrakis needs to be ruled by water and not by the Spice? I don’t know. But that’s where my guesses are heading at the moment.

About this,

I’m really curious about how they’re going to handle on screen the deep religious roots of a large part of the story. We all know how tricky it can be. Is it going to be tone down? Are we going to see people living in the desert worship a young white male? We’ll see.

Chapter 3:

It’s cute to see how, even if Paul sees himself as a some kind of monster or as something else and undefined, he’s still sensitive to what he sees with his powers of prescience. But it's difficult to get a grip on what he is exactly, and how he feels.

Ok-- wait a minute. Last time I’ve heard about Liet, it was supposed to be a local divinity and now… Liet is Kynes. Ok. If you say so. — does it mean there going to be some kind of competition between Liet and the Muad’Dib? About who has the biggest divine aura? About who’s supposed to lead?

Anyway, what Kynes says, it goes with what I mention earlier. About how all the different people who came on Arrakis have failed to make it a Paradise because they were all focused on the Spice instead of the water.

I love how convenient Paul and Jessica are as characters to introduce the descriptions of every room they step in. You can go wild on details and just be like that’s not me, the bene gesserit/mentat/whatever Paul is things are calling for all. the. details. I should do that. Only write characters who allow me to naturally waste 7 lines of words on the pattern of a wallpaper. Frank Herbert doesn’t do that, but I definitely would.

Again, it’ll be interesting to see how Tim is going to handle the Paul and Kynes’ confrontation/conversation. We’ve seen him touch on these kind of feelings and behavior with The King but Paul seems to require a lot more of everything. So I’m impatient to see.

And I’ve already leaked the quote but let's look at it once more time. Quickest way to prove Timmy is the right cast for Paul.

"In this moment he'd give his life for Paul, she thought. How do the Atreides accomplish this thing so quickly, so easily?"

Because that’s what Timmy does, right? Makes people ready to give their life for him.

Ok about Duncan… We’re back at it, right? He’s not dead until I’ve seen the body. And I didn’t see the body so, he’s not dead. I think? Paul’s abilities don’t seem to be 100% reliable (at least not yet) so even if he believes Duncan’s dead, he might not be. I certainly hope so. My boy Jason deserves more.

I still wonder how the power of prescience is working. Are the blind spots blind because Paul is living through them at the moment and can’t have knowledge of the immediate future OR would they have been blind even if he had looked in their direction long before?

I was also wondering if Paul was going to rely too much on the new dimension of his abilities and how long it was going to take until he realized he made that mistake. It was… quick but I guess it’s Paul, so it shouldn't be surprising.

And that fear litany ❤️ I could kill to write something as iconic and powerful. I could read it every day and still got the chills each time.

Chapter 4:

The Baron is like me, he needs to see bodies to believe in death. I’m delighted to have common ground with that creepy, disgusting asshole. Delighted. To be honest, I’m not that interested with the Baron himself. So far, he’s been nothing but clichés over clichés and really not the best ones. He’s the evil character so he's all the kinds of evil. Shocker. I usually like evil characters (very often more than I love "good" ones) but not him. Really not him. I hope it'll change but I’m afraid he’s too far gone and beyond redemption.

I’m very interested by what’s Hawat is going to become though. Will he turn his allegiance to the Baron? It kind of remind me of Teal’c in Stargate SG-1, but the other way around. The Baron opposes two things : Hawat’s loyalty and his admiration towards those who calculate without emotions. Based on what we know about Mentats and how the human part carried by the human body overpower the Mentat’s education and training, I’d say loyalty should win? And the part of me who is part Mentat agrees on the loyalty so, we’re all good. But it can be an interesting storyline, so I’m waiting for it.

What’s funny about this quote

is that he could very much be talking about Paul and still be right. Or the baby sister. Or Lady Jessica. All Harkonnens are waiting.

And what’s also funny is how The Baron thinks of Feyd-Rautha. In addition of being absolutely disgusting there are some similarities between what the Baron wants for Feyd and what Paul is meant to be/already is.

I wonder if Feyd is meant to become some kind of opposite alter-ego to Paul. A better, more subtle opposant than the Baron. Could be fun.

You know what? Every time I start this kind of post, I said to myself: I'm pretty sure I haven't that many notes this time, it should be quick. And then here we are again 🤷🏻‍♀️ See you next time! 🌖💛

[thethreemages]

Sooo, been a lil while since I did something like this for TTM-verse and my mind was lowkey in the mood for a "just-for-fun" kinda survey, thus... here you go! ;) Don't think I'll give much of the "true" answer anytime soon but a lil speculation could still be fun to work with in the meantime~

For anyone who remembers a lil while back, I mentioned in the bios for Cable's parents that his father was mysteriously killed one fateful night a few years back... and to this day no one was able to detect the true suspects as to who did it (and tbh, knowing his reputation many were all too keen to try and forget about him anyway, his remaining family included).

...Still, there are many who are rather curious as to who exactly decided to finally put an end to the Boss's reign... so with that said, who do you think was the "true" culprit behind the scene of the crime? 👀

(NOTE: as mentioned in the survey above, both Cable and his mom had rock-solid alibis that night so neither of them count as potential suspects)

[leam1983]

On Food

Me: my meals are prepared in an extremely self-conscious frame of mind, with my main drive being to appear as Adult and Capable as possible. To date, this involves chicken, veggies, red meat in lean cuts, and very little fat that doesn't feature in the cooking process itself. I couldn't cook for shit for most of my early adult life, so I now stand on the cusp of my forties as someone who considers a basic-ass palm-sized steak and a handful of bean stalks to count as a full meal.

Sarah: our polycule's eternal teenager, Sarah still hasn't lost her juvenile metabolism in her mid-thirties and consequently subsists on sandwiches, Pizza Pockets, microwave burritos and quantities of ice cream that make Walter and I balk.

Walter: the resident foodie and kitchen Dad, Walter abdicates control over the fridge Mondays through Thursdays, and then kicks us out on weekends. His idea of a decent meal is Byzantine, unthinkably rich, and is an event in and of itself. Sarah and I more or less eat to survive, but Walt lives to close his eyes, pucker his lips and moan in self-satisfaction as whatever morsel he's sampled gets analyzed like a rediscovered John Everett Millais painting.

His words: "Never apologize for liking food. Food should be sensual and loving, and if you reduce it to pre-processed goods, you're killing yourself on the inside. I'm not referring to your health, but to how there's nothing quite so primal and satisfying as finding something that makes you think 'Fuck me, that's good'"

This Friday's offering will supposedly be melted Camembert under pesto in a brie baker, as an aside to Thursday's planned Chicken Cordon Bleu. He wants to bake a fucking apple pie after work, tomorrow, and salaciously added that I'll think it's better than sex. His words, not mine.

Sarah watched him make love to his plate of meat macaroni for a few seconds and then noted how Walter was the only fat person we knew who didn't give in even subconsciously to the weight loss grift, how we admired his resolve.

He stopped and wiped his knife on his slice of bread. "I'll worry about weight loss the moment you tell me I can't kiss you without smothering you, Sarah, and as soon as I'll be forced to passively lay under Grem for everything else. Until then, the first person who brings in a low-calorie varietal will have words with me."

He half-seriously pointed his knife at us, more like a professor using a stylus than like, someone gesticulating with a breadknife. "This is my one and only condition for living with you two. We eat like civilized beings, in this house. Without shame, yes - but also with some perspective."

Sarah turned beet-red and chuckled. Walt sniggered. "Yes, that goes for you too, Mrs. Ben & Jerry's! I'm teaching Grem to get past the basics, and I'll teach you how not to push your greens around like a pigtailed girl in kindergarten!"

So, um... I might have earned myself the best colleague ever, the best lover I could've hoped for - and a Kitchen Dad. That last part's a little frightening, I won't lie.