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do-your-socks-have-holes-in-them · 5 years ago

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Til the End of the Night / Ch16: In which Virgil does a stealth mission

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Summary: Virgil sneaks, does crimes, and gets another strong contender for the top 10 most stressful days of his life.

Warnings: more imprisonment than the average chapter, knocking-out of nameless guards, mind control

A/N: this chapter is a long boi! and one i’ve been really excited to write!

AO3

~ ~ ~

Virgil, very carefully and deliberately, did not think anything along the lines of “this should be easy.” His plan was simple, to be sure: find Logan’s bag, retrieve him and Patton from the dungeons, then go get Roman and be done with all this. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be difficult, especially now that there were all these guards everywhere. The witch had been more than happy to explain to him where they’d come from so suddenly, and insisted that the one stationed outside his room was there purely for his own safety. They served as both an inconvenience and a reminder of why he needed to break Roman out as soon as possible.

At least he knew his way around the castle somewhat by now. It was almost deliberately confusing, full of improbable staircases and unnecessary secret passages, but then again, it had been designed by Roman, so he wasn’t sure what else he had expected. He hadn’t been able to explore on his own, or even managed to leave his room without a guard immediately latching onto him as an escort, but he knew how to get to the dungeons and he had a vague idea of where Roman was being kept, and that would have to be good enough.

Another few days passed before Virgil finally saw his chance. The witch had succeeded in assembling and training her army despite Roman’s attempts to resist her, and she very specifically did not want Virgil there for her first time conquering, stamping out resistance and the like. It was nothing personal, she explained, but she wanted to make it clear that she was the one taking over the kingdom, not him or anyone else. Virgil couldn’t care less about that, although he did have to pretend to be annoyed by it- the important thing was that she would be gone, and he would be in the castle with fewer guards around than usual, since a good half of them were also part of the army.

It seemed like as good a time as any to learn how to use that invisibility necklace Logan had given him.

What with Virgil never having used any kind of magical item before, it took some trial and error to figure it out. Honestly, using magic at all in a controlled way was still hit or miss for him- he’d yet to practice it in any situation where he wasn’t actively in danger. He nearly destroyed part of a wall and somehow managed to set the bed on fire, but eventually, after what felt like hours, something clicked. When he looked at his reflection in the nearest shiny object… well, he didn’t, because it wasn’t there. Since Virgil was fairly confident he wasn’t a vampire, this seemed like a good sign that he’d finally got the invisibility working. Now, he just needed to move quickly so they could all be gone before that evening, when the witch was due to return.

High intelligence was not a feature generally found in expendable evil minions with no distinguishing characteristics, and so it didn’t take much to sneak past the guard at his door. For one thing, pretending to be on guard against intruders getting in and not Virgil getting out required him to face away from said door. All Virgil had to do was pull off the classic distraction of throwing a small object (of which there were many in his pockets- he wasn’t even sure what all of them were supposed to be) in the other direction from behind his back, and he went off to investigate the noise, giving Virgil time to slip out and close the door without being noticed.

Now… where to go? He knew where to find Logan and Patton, so maybe he should go down there first, just to see what the situation was. He wouldn’t be able to talk to them with guards around, and he’d really rather avoid any fighting until he had a definite way to free his friends, but it would be good to know exactly how hard it was going to be to get them out and not get caught. He was sure he could knock someone out if he had to, either with magic or a decent-sized rock, but if anyone found them like that they’d definitely sound the alarm for an intruder, and they might even send someone to tell the witch. Best to avoid any of that until he ran out of other options.

He slipped through the halls quietly, wishing he knew some magic to silence his footsteps and the rustling of his clothes. It was way too stressful having to freeze in place every time a guard passed by or so much as looked in his direction strangely. Thankfully, they all seemed to be working on video-game logic: after not hearing anything else for about two seconds, they forgot they’d ever been suspicious. It took longer than he would have liked, but he made it to the dungeons without any real trouble.

There were guards patrolling, but it seemed like a bit of a skeleton crew. He didn’t have much trouble avoiding them entirely. Frankly, he might have been able to pull this part off even without being invisible, between the atmospheric lighting and the infrequency of guards passing by. Still, he couldn’t risk trying to speak to his friends- sounds echoed down here; best save the explaining for when he actually had something to show for all his sneaking around. He stopped by to check on them anyway. Logan was pacing around the cell, mumbling to himself and looking frustrated, and Patton was sitting on the floor watching him, covering up his own unhappiness with a vague supportive air. Virgil doubled down on his resolve to be quick about getting them out of there. Now, on to looking for any likely places Logan’s bag might be.

He found himself surprised by how many other prisoners there were, besides his friends. Not that he’d expected the Dragon Witch to waste perfectly good dungeons by not throwing people into them for any offense she could come up with, but the castle as a whole hadn’t been around all that long. And- jeez, some of them didn’t look to be out of their teens yet, and they all seemed so hopeless. Virgil reminded himself that, first of all, they weren’t real, and second, everything would be fixed as soon as Roman was restored to his rightful place. Remind him again why it had been such a good idea to come rescue that idiot manually, as it were, instead of just waking Thomas up to summon him?

Let’s see… empty cell, empty cell, not-empty cell that he wasn’t going to look at too closely- aha! Coming upon a door that looked more like it belonged to a closet than any kind of dungeony room, Virgil glanced around to make sure no one was nearby enough to notice and slipped inside. He was in darkness at first, but once his eyes adjusted, he found a torch in a bracket on the wall beside him and, in the absence of any other fire-starting equipment, made sparks appear from his fingertips until the thing caught.

It was, in fact, essentially a closet he was standing in. It was also exactly the room he’d been looking for. Shelves lined the walls of the small space, filled with various items confiscated from prisoners and small slips of paper indicating which cell’s occupant they belonged to. Virgil scanned all of them quickly, and then scanned them again, more slowly, and then he resisted the urge to bang his head against a wall. Logan’s bag wasn’t there.

Okay, he needed to think. She wouldn’t have destroyed it, would she? Maybe she wasn’t planning to ever let Logan out of the dungeons, much less return his belongings, so she’d just gone ahead and gotten rid of everything. Luckily for Virgil’s state of mind, he didn’t get much further along that train of thought before he heard voices out in the hall. He extinguished the torch in a slight panic and pressed himself against the wall next to the door, listening carefully and hoping no one was about to come in.

The voices seemed to belong to two of the guards, one of whom was just beginning their patrol.

“It’s just our luck, getting stuck down here when we could’ve been out helping to conquer the kingdom,” the one who’d recently arrived complained.

The other made a noise of assent. “Least we’re patrolling, not just standing in one spot for hours while nothing happens.”

“Yeah, this way we get to walk in circles for hours while nothing happens,” quipped the first. Their colleague laughed in the way one laughs when the joke isn’t all that funny, but is still the most entertaining thing likely to happen any time soon. “Actually, uh- on that note, why isn’t anyone stationed at that door?” Virgil assumed they were talking about the one he was currently hiding behind. “Seems like a lot of risky stuff to leave unguarded.”

“Oh, didn’t anyone tell you? We moved all the dangerous stuff for today. It’s up in some room on the third floor. Somebody had the bright idea that it wouldn’t need to be guarded up there, ‘cause nobody escaping from the dungeon would ever make it that far before getting caught.” They snorted, showing what they thought of that idea, but no one ever asked their opinion, nooo.

“I mean… works fine as long as nobody who isn’t an escaping prisoner tries to take them.”

“That’s what I said!” There was a clinking sound which could potentially have been made by a guard in light armor throwing their hands in the air. “But he was all, that’s ridiculous, it would be suicide to steal from the Dragon Witch’s castle…” The sentence faded and became unintelligible as the two walked away.

Third floor, huh? It would be suicide for anyone else, maybe, but Virgil thought he had a pretty good chance.

- - -

The journey to the third floor of the castle, as well as the subsequent search for the correct room, turned out to be tedious- stressful, yes, but not very interesting. After Virgil left the dungeon, snuck past the throne room, wound his way through the hallways on the second floor where his own room was located, and finally made it up the last staircase he needed to take, he found that the third floor had much less security than all the ones below it. This probably had to do with there being not much of value up here- on a normal day, at least. Today, there were quite a few valuable things on the third floor, and nearly all of them were in this same room.

Virgil looked around curiously. He needed a minute anyway, to get his heart rate back to normal and convince his hands to stop shaking, so there was no harm in checking out what else was in here besides Logan’s bag. Mostly, he saw confiscated weapons, which might have been tempting if they hadn’t been so impractical to carry and if he’d had any idea how to use them. He would stick to his knife, thank you very much, and not kill himself trying to use whatever that impressively and in fact concerningly spiky thing was supposed to be.

Ah, there it was- he extracted what he’d come for gingerly from its place beneath a small pile of swords, and sighed in relief when it registered as a part of his clothing and turned invisible once he’d slung it over his shoulder. After a brief hesitation, he grabbed a few other things as well- whatever looked both interesting and small enough to fit- and stuffed a few in his pockets and the rest into the bag. Logan would probably find some use for them. It hardly counted as stealing when the things had already been taken from their original owners by the witch, right?

As he left the room, Virgil realized with a sinking feeling that what he’d just accomplished had, in fact, been the easy part.

Logan’s bag, full of things like glass bottles and metal whatever-Virgil-just-stole, was not quiet. It was a lot harder to slip past guards when he was constantly clinking, not to mention the danger of letting anything fall out. But he couldn’t let himself move as slowly as he’d like- he was really starting to feel the pressure of watching the sun get a little closer to setting every time he passed a window. There were a few close calls, to put it lightly, on the way back down. Thank goodness for guards who didn’t care enough to question things when it must have seemed like they were being haunted by a very jingly ghost.

Alright… now all he had to do was break his friends out of their cell while avoiding the guards, get himself and them to Roman’s tower without getting caught, and then get all of them out of this stupid castle, all before the witch returned. As he crept down the last of the stairs to the dungeons, Virgil was feeling just high enough on adrenaline and success to feel like he had half a chance.

- - -

The second of the guards who’d been talking earlier was walking past the closet of confiscated items when the door suddenly opened, and they were pulled inside by someone- or something- they couldn’t see.

“Who’s there?” They tried to sound intimidating, not scared. Their interrogation attempt was stopped in its tracks by a hand covering their mouth.

“If it makes you feel any better,” said a low voice by their ear, “you were right about what a bad idea it was to move everything.” Then something hard struck the back of their head, and if the room hadn’t been pitch-black already, everything would have gone dark.

- - -

Logan had long since given up on being able to escape the cell on his own. He sat on the floor beside Patton- pressed against his side, really, in an attempt to stave off the chill of the dungeons- and talked softly to himself about strategies they might use against the witch once Virgil freed them. Ostensibly he was talking to Patton, but it was clear that the former wasn’t fully listening and just wanted to nap away as much of this unpleasant interlude in their journey as possible. Logan worried about him. The bruise on his head was slowly fading, but he still moved gingerly, and it wasn’t impossible that he’d received other injuries during their capture. When actually asked about his behavior, however, he’d deflected nervously and changed the subject, which only made Logan worry more. He was beginning to contemplate simply checking while Patton was asleep, but that was definitely a last resort.

At the current moment, Patton had his eyes closed, and Logan was speculating on potential weaknesses of the Dragon Witch and her guards-slash-soldiers. He made sure to do so quietly, since those of said guards patrolling outside the door would doubtless not appreciate this particular line of thought. He stopped mid-sentence when the cell door unlocked and swung open, apparently without anyone present to do the unlocking and opening. A moment later, his bag materialized from thin air and lowered itself carefully to the ground in front of him.

A moment after that, while Logan’s brow was scrunched up in concentration with his attempt to understand this series of events, Virgil deactivated his invisibility necklace.

“Virgil!” Patton gasped, perking up instantly at the sight of his dark strange son. Logan hadn’t been certain he was awake up until now.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Logan breathed. “I was afraid-”

“Don’t have time to talk,” Virgil interrupted just as quietly. “She could be back any time now, I have to get to Roman- you guys meet me there, okay?” He then rattled off a series of directions which only Logan could actually understand and remember. “Be careful.” With that, he reached for the glass pendant again and disappeared.

Logan stood, returned his bag to its rightful place with a sigh of relief, then turned to help Patton up. “…Approximately how much running do you feel capable of in your current condition?”

- - -

Virgil was beginning to care less and less about stealth. The impending return of the witch felt like a physical pressure, and besides, it wouldn’t be long before those guards from the dungeons woke up. He'd knocked them all out and left them in the closet, just to make absolutely sure they wouldn’t bother Logan and Patton on their way out, but he wasn’t entirely sure it had been the best idea. Anyway, at this point, it seemed worth it to risk making a little more noise if it meant getting the heck out of here faster. None of the guards had been concerned enough to go after him or anything yet, and that was good enough for him. He could only hope that he actually knew the way to Roman’s tower as well as he thought he did… and that he’d given the others the right directions, too… and that they could all get there in time.

The door in the northeast corner of the castle’s top floor, leading to a spiral staircase- that had to be it, right? Virgil closed the door carefully behind him and then all but sprinted up the stairs. At the top, he found a short hallway with a door at the end of it, still guarded despite the lack of staff today. He sighed, winced, and gave this guard the same treatment as the ones patrolling the dungeons, before pulling out a set of lockpicks he’d found among the confiscated items. The guard might have a key somewhere on them, but they also might not, and in that case, searching them would just be a waste of time- time he really, really didn’t have.

After a tense few seconds of fumbling with bits of metal, the door swung open with a creak. Roman was sitting on the bed inside, and Virgil staggered under the simultaneous waves of relief and concern that washed over him. He was here, and safe, and he looked awful- exhausted and despondent, refusing to move his gaze from some random bit of floor as he heard the door open. Virgil leaned on the doorframe, carefully casual, and let himself become visible again.

“Heya, Princey. Ready to get out of here?”

Roman shot up. A soft smile took over his face at the sight of Virgil smirking in the doorway. “Finally,” he cried, “my Dark and Stormy Knight has come to rescue me!”

Virgil huffed, amused. “I’m not Batman, Roman.”

“You could be,” he argued. “I mean, with your- black clothes, and all the brooding…” With a few quick steps, he was close enough to spin Virgil around in a hug as they both attempted to crush all the air out of each other’s lungs. “All you’re really missing is the skills.”

“Do you want rescued or not, jerk?” Virgil squeezed him one more time and stepped back. “Come on, we need to get out of here… before…” Uh-oh.

Just as he pulled Roman out the door, the Dragon Witch herself appeared in front of them, dropping her own invisibility spell. “Isn’t this a lovely reunion,” she sighed. “I almost couldn’t bring myself to interrupt… and wouldn’t you know it, standing here watching turned out to be very… informative.”

“If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not on your side anymore,” Virgil growled, reaching for his knife.

She laughed. “Oh, you idiot, I figured that out the second day you were here. It was very entertaining watching you try to pretend, though. Honestly, did you think I was actually leaving you alone in my castle for the entire day?”

“You…”

“I did sort of hope you’d prove me wrong. I’ve been following you around- it hasn’t been difficult, you don’t seem to even know how to muffle your footsteps. But that’s enough gloating… let’s get to what happens when people betray me and try to escape, now that your friends have been good enough to join us.” This last referred to Logan and Patton, who had really thought they were being quiet as they crept up the stairs behind her. They froze in place.

Virgil shifted into a fighting stance, lightning crackling around his hands and all the way to the tip of his dagger. “You’d better stay away from him,” he warned, not sure if he was bluffing or not vis-à-vis actually being able to do anything to her if she didn’t listen.

“Oh, I don’t need to go anywhere near him, thanks to you,” said the witch, looking infuriatingly smug.

Logan glanced at Virgil over her shoulder. Virgil wasn’t sure if the urgent look he returned meant “why are you just standing there, do something already” or “why are you just standing there, get out of here before this situation gets any worse.” Patton tried to move forward, but Logan held an arm out to stop him on instinct.

The Dragon Witch hummed thoughtfully. “Prince Roman,” she said, tasting the words on her tongue and finding them absolutely delicious. Roman turned towards her like a compass facing north, and she smiled. “Disarm your friend there for me, would you?”

“Wh- hey!” Virgil was taken off guard, and Roman had his left arm twisted behind his back before he could process what was happening. He tossed the invisibility charm to Logan with a subtle flick of his wrist when he didn’t think the witch was looking, just in time before his other arm was restrained as well. “Don’t listen to her, what are you doing?!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I think I’ll be nice this time. After all, you were the one who gave me his name.”

Virgil stared at her, twisted around to see Roman’s blank eyes, and slowly went limp and unresisting in his grip. “You can’t do this,” he snarled, facing the witch once more.

She blinked at him. “What a ridiculous thing to say. Obviously I can, or I wouldn’t be doing it right now.” She glanced over her shoulder, and huffed in annoyance when she realized Logan and Patton were gone. “Take him into your room for now, Prince Roman. I’ll return to deal with him properly once the other two pests are back where they belong. Honestly, first order of business now that you’re under my control is going to be making some less useless guards.” She nudged exhibit A, still unconscious on the floor, with a look of distaste. They stood up and returned to their post thanks to a small burst of magic from the witch, only a little disoriented.

As Roman dragged Virgil into the tower room and allowed the door to be locked behind them, the Dragon Witch spun around in a swirl of long dress and cloak and began walking down the stairs. All she had to do was take care of the two heroes running around her castle with no plan, and her victory over the Prince would finally be sealed.

It should, she thought, be very easy indeed.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #virgil sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #my post #my writing #til the end of the night

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andydaly · 6 years ago

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Game of Thrones Trailer Recap For Real This Time

Okay! So this is an actual for real no screwing around trailer this time. The other little things that came out, the thing where the feather froze and then the thing where Arya looked up at the dragon, those were just teasers but this one here is a proper trailer and I will now endeavor to recap the shit out of it. For reasons that continue to elude me, I am recapping Game of Thrones teasers, trailers and ultimately every episode of the final season. It’s been a wild ride so far! To recap my recaps, let me fill you in on my two very bold and correct predictions about the final season of Game of Thrones:

1. I predicted that all of humanity will be wiped out within the first five minutes of the first episode of the season and the rest of the show will follow the white walkers as they build a civilization on whatever planet this show takes place on (Earth?).

2. I predicted that Arya is going to kill a dragon and then become a dragon.

I’m happy to say that nothing I have seen in this new trailer challenged those predictions in any meaningful way. Yes, this trailer features plenty of alive people doing things but all these scenes can easily happen in the first five minutes of the first episode. I concede that that will be a very frantic and haphazard five minutes of television, but all in all, I still think I’m right because nothing beats that zombie dragon. Period. That zombie dragon is just going to kill everyone very very quickly. And okay, maybe it’s more like ten minutes. Are we really going to argue over five minutes? It’s beneath both of us.

That concludes the recap of my recaps. Now onto… the recap!

First off, this trailer is most notable for what it DOESN’T tell us about the new season, namely the year in which these new episodes will air. So far, every teaser and trailer has simply said that the new season premieres April 14. Many fans have speculated, probably correctly, that this is April 14, 2019 or, in other words, six weeks from now. That is still the best guess but it’s very interesting that even in this longer look at the new season the year isn’t specified. What exactly are they up to? Seems like weird marketing to keep us guessing on the year. But anyway…

The trailer opens with a young person running fearfully through a castle. There’s a cutaway to an old dude walking in a graveyard-looking place and then another cutaway to that guy Varis looking bored at a meeting. Meanwhile Arya is speaking poetically about death and then holds something up. We can’t tell what it is but it’s probably a pinecone tied to a stick. Scratch that, it’s definitely a pinecone tied to a stick. Weirdly, she says that she looks forward to seeing the pinecone WHILE literally looking at the pinecone. Is she losing her mind? Or just so distracted by her desire to kill and become a dragon that she can’t think straight? There’s no time to think too much about that question because now it’s time to look at ships!

We cut to the deck of a ship where there’s a whole bunch of soldiers standing there ready to do something. I have zero naval experience so take me with a grain of salt but in my opinion, there are too many soldiers on that boat. It looks uncomfortable. But again, no time to dwell on it. This trailer moves fast!

We cut to a dungeony type place where three bearded guys are walking with a flaming sword. I vaguely remember a flaming sword from last season. What was the deal with that? And who are these guys? I don’t remember. Weren’t they there when the dragon got shot down? Is one of them the guy who’s been brought back to life multiple times? Is it okay that I’m going to be recapping the new season of Game of Thrones and I can’t remember this kind of thing?

Yeah, it’s probably fine. I’ll bet when these dudes pop back up for the first time, there’ll be some context clues to help me out, right? Plus my wife read the books and watched the first couple of seasons (which I didn’t) so she usually has a better idea of what’s going on. I’ll ask her. It’ll be fine. You’re in good hands!

Then we see the handicapped boy, I want to say Bram? He’s there with Samwell Tarly (I know that guy’s name. See? Good hands). I’ll be honest, I kind of lost the thread on Bram a while ago. I am unclear on his superpowers or how they’re going to help anyone. He can see through a crow’s eyes? Don’t get me wrong, I can’t do that and I would be psyched if I could, but mostly that whole guy just kind of confuses me and I’m a little worried that Samwell is wasting his time hanging out with him. But I’m not about to tell Samwell Tarly what to do because that guy doesn’t care what anybody thinks about anything. He does whatever. The fuck. He wants. Every time. Check the record. Total rebel.

Next up, Cersei is standing next to an old guy. She seems happy and good for her. That poor lady has been through a lot.

Then it’s Winterfell, spears, dragons and more dragons. If your big hope going into this season was ‘more dragons!’, Game of Thrones has heard you! If you would have preferred fewer dragons or you felt the amount of dragon content in previous seasons was just right, Game of Thrones has not heard you. You were too quiet. This looks like a very very dragony TV show.

We see some getting ready for battle, some fighting, some kissing. Meanwhile John Stark says some pretty obvious things about zombies. Oh do they not tire? Yeah I kind of guessed that when I noticed that they were DEAD ALREADY. C’mon John!

Then it’s a bunch more dragon stuff and a whole lot of shots of people reacting to things we’re not seeing, which is hopefully just a trailer thing and not how it’s going to go in the actual show. I’ll be pissed if the actual show does what this trailer does and just cuts between people being upset about stuff and they never show you why. I’m sure it won’t be like that. Probably just a trailer thing, right?

We finally get a glimpse of Tyrion, who still has that big scar on his face. If I were Peter Dinklage, I would have sidled up to the producers at lunch one day and said “hey guys, since there’s all kinds of magic and stuff in this world, maybe some warlock or whatever could heal the scar on Tyrion’s face and good ol’ Pete Dinklage could spend 45 minutes less in the make-up chair every morning. Whaddaya say?” And then if the producers said no, I’d play it off like a joke and spend the next few days making clear how lucky I felt to have the job. That’s what I would do, but maybe Dinklage didn’t think of it because that scar is definitely still there.

The trailer ends with a bunch of badasses ready to throw down and then a, looks like a horse? steps into the frame. I guess that’s the horse the main white walker guy rides. Right? Doesn’t he ride like a dead skeleton horse? That’s probably what that was. I’m pretty sure what happens is that main white walker guy rides up on his dead horse for the big battle at Winterfell and there’s a moment when it looks like there is about to be an epic sword battle and then he just points up in the sky and the zombie dragon swoops down and everyone dies. I’m glad they didn’t show all that in the trailer but also they didn’t have to because I can see it very very clearly, like Bram seeing through the eyes of a crow.

If HBO releases more trailers. check back here to find out what you saw. Otherwise I will see you either six weeks from now or else a year and six weeks from now or two years and six weeks or whenever they cough up this new season. Okay bye!

Here it is:

https://ew.com/tv/2019/03/06/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-season-8-interview/

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noddytheornithopod · 6 years ago

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Started Spyro 2!

Elora's cute and her voice sounds younger. The Professor sounds older. Hunter's still a dork but doesn't have the goofiness Gregg Berger brought to the role. Ripto sounds less intense than before even though he now has creepy lizard eyes. Also Sparx can be heard in cutscenes!

When you've collected all of the gems in a level, Sparx does a cute little smile.

Zoe reacts to Spyro flaming her (and as I discovered, jumping at and charging her, so any interaction) like the fairies in Spyro 1, which is cool. Also she's voiced by Padme now. :P

Moneybags still is Moneybags. When you flame him he actually reacts and holds his bag of gems. XD Also Hunter and Elora react to attacks, but the level NPCs don't... odd reversal from before.

I caught a Gem Cutter not moving his mouth when speaking (I think it was the one beside the ladder).

Flying feels easier to control now for some reason? Unlike the last game I did Ocean Speedway in one go, both the main part and the orb challenge.

Colossus has interesting updates to it, there's a lot more wood and the architecture is more detailed. There's also lots of decorations and hockey memorabilia, and there's monks at the hockey stadium.

I could've sworn I saw the yaks briefly had glowing red eyes.

If you press hover right after you begin gliding, you just drop.

Hurricos looks great. The level is now surrounded by I believe water too, so you drown instead of fall? Also spitting the balls in that challenge where you chase down the monsters stealing them is seamless if you're close to the sockets.

The baby turtles are now more annoying sounding. :V

Spyro's underwater superflame looks more like blue flame than ice crystals now (I believe it's still that but yeah). The powerup markings also look different underwater, and when he jumps out flame surrounds him as he gets them back.

Aquaria Towers is... interesting. It's harder to see underwater now, but to make up for it the design is more befitting for the location and the seaweed you have to superflame is now coloured differently and given a distinct design from the environmental seaweed.

I'd say I'm liking the music more in this game, but maybe that's just because Spyro 2 has a more energetic and upbeat soundtrack. Still some unfitting charging percussion and overly tame loops, but some of it also works well. Hurricos and Aquaria Towers were particularly strong.

The Homeworld music doesn't seem to have an idle version, probably because it's already very ambient and atmospheric.

Like how Crush's Dungeon looks more distinct from Gulp's Overlook, it also looks more... dungeony.

The superflame sends fodder flying in Sunny Beach, more than normal attacks. IDK about the enemies though, I used it on a penguin dude and he just disappeared? And the ones in the water have normal animation.

Framerate seems better in the loading between levels?

#spyro 2: ripto's rage #reignited trilogy

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liaragaming · 7 years ago

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misakikaito replied to your post: So, I know Origins is widely know as the fan...

The gameplay is a real challenge in DAO, namely because it’s less pretty than DAI; Understandably more dungeony and less exploring, and I see where you’re coming from! TBH I am hoping for more diversity in background for the next DA game, more choices that *matter* and less handwaving the character’s background as a measly side quest that you don’t even get to go there and help but you have an advisor do it and that can potentially fuck things up. *breathes*

I know a lot of people weren’t happy with how the different origins were handled in DAI, and I get that. But I also get the amount of resources it would take to get into that on top of learning a whole new engine (at the time) and building all these new maps and areas. Actual Origins origins would be nice, but I just don’t know how realistic that is going forward. But I hear you.

I’ve heard the choices that “matter” complaint a lot, and I’m not sure I understand. I know people who kill characters in earlier games (Zevran, Leliana, Anders) get frustrated when they aren’t dead. And I get that. But I also get the devs need to develope a certain continuity across game states no matter the choices made. I think choices do matter in a smaller, personal scale (like involving your companions and hero character). Maybe not so much in the grand scheme of things (like you can’t stop mage/templar war), but is that what people want?

Not trying to argue. Just converse.

#reply

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vio1315 · 3 years ago

Note

Wii is actually a great console for access to a lot of games. If you have a gamecube controller and memory card, you’re really in the money.

(If I remember right the eshop is down for wii now? : ( )

And I absolutely recommend all Zelda games. Beyond the obvious like Twilight Princess, Windwaker, and Skyward Sword (if you have the wii mote accessory), you can play Majoras Mask if you get the Gamecube Zelda collectors disc. It would come with Zelda 1 and 2 as well as OoT on it as well, but I assume you’re not looking for those?

I HIGHLY recommend Zack and Wiki for wii if you like point and click/puzzle games, it’s downright one of the best puzzle games I’ve played.

For platformers, obviously Mario games are always good, you can play both Galaxy 1 and 2, and Sunshine from the gamecube. Personally Sunshine is my favorite, but it can be pretty buggy and isn’t as perfected in its formula as the Galaxy games

You can play Shovel Knight and its DLC which are good 2D platformers. I know on 2DS for sure, I forget which console it was also on.

Paper Mario Thousand Year Door is actually a great RPG in my opinion. It’s a bit quirky but has good mechanics and story. Also a gamecube game.

I’ve never played The Last Story myself, but I hear it’s good and is a JRPG

Oh right,

Okami is also one I highly recommend, especially if you enjoy Zelda because it plays like that in terms of combat and going from place to place in a world. Also a fun story.

Xenoblade is supposedly good, but I didn’t enjoy the sequel, so could take some research.

Super Paper Mario plays closer to a traditional, 2d Mario title, but has a very engaging story, if you enjoy JRPG esque stories.

I hear the Metroid Prime trilogy for Wii is really great. It’s more of a shooting/exploration (of dungeony environments?) game, and is also 3D which for me is a perk anyways

Luigi’s Mansion is a pretty good Gamecube game

For your 2DS, obviously A Link Between Worlds is a pretty decent 2D type Zelda experience. (the real shame is that Minish Cap is I think peak of 2D Zelda but was for Gameboy Advance)

You have access to a lot of Pokemon games, but I think Soul Silver/Heart Gold are peak of the Pokemon experience. (2DS can do DS games if I remember right?) Mario&Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story is pretty good and quirky. Technically an RPG. Less tactical in my mind, but the battles are engaging because it relies on player timing on if they attack well or dodge etc etc

I recommend Fire Emblem Awakening. While some argue it’s not the best of the series, it’s a fantastic entry point into it. The older games tend to be more challenging, but I personally am thankful for the more forgiving options of turning off permadeath.

I absolutely DO NOT recommend trying FE: Fates, basically ever. Worst story in an RPG I have ever experienced

I haven’t gotten around to playing Bravely Default past the demo, but I enjoyed what I did play pretty well. It’s an RPG

Also Millennium Girl is a decent RPG with a not-too interesting story. I enjoyed the gameplay more than the story anyways, and it has the ability to get Very tactical if you know how to play RPGs

At least in my opinion.

If you really enjoy platformers and don’t mind games that feel a bit Flash game, N+ is one I really liked, it was for DS

Kid Icarus Uprising I haven’t gotten to yet, but I hear is pretty good. It has a weird control scheme though, so if you have any kind of concern for weak hands/getting hand pain, maybe not a good idea. I think for most people it’s okay, but if you have any kind of conditions for it, might be a pass.

Okay that’s all I have for now, but I’ll look through my GC/Wii games later to jog my memory if you like recs

A mere stranger, but I definitely recommend playing older games if you can. Idk if you prefer console or pc, but depending on your gaming wishlist, there’s some consoles that really peaked in how many diff games they can play between backwards compatibility and remakes and such. There’s so many great old games I hope you get an opportunity to check out the ones you’re interested in

Thought none of our computers can really run games, I've been fortunate that my family has a 2006 Wii (which has seen a lot of love through Mario Kart, Endless Ocean, and various lego games) and a shared Gameboy Color (which only has odd games, but still loved). In recent years I've gotten a 2ds and someone gifted me their old 3ds Ocarina of Time and I'm loving it.

I'm not sure which games people would recommend besides the old legend of zelda games, but I'm definitely a fan of RPGs with a good soundtrack.

#Vio Speaks #I know I’m forgetting real gems but it’s been awhile for me #I didn’t bother recommending much 2D Mario #but there’s def a lot of it if you like such things #Also idk how expensive any of these are by now

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ichhabeschwein · 7 years ago

Text

Life Update

I’m pretty terrible with keeping up with this blog, huh?

Well first I’m going to give a general update on my day to day, and if you stay tuned, you’ll get to read a kind of life update/new goal of mine! Isn’t that exciting? I hope so.

“SO” (this is how most Germans start off a sentence when they’re really getting ready to do something with/for someone. The “S” is usually kind of drawn out and half-sounds like a “Z”).

Here’s what my day to day looks like.

7:00-7:20am: Up and at ‘em. Gotta get ready, maybe pack a gym bag, scarf down some Müsli (cold oatmeal popularly eaten all over Europe, but mainly in German-speaking countries, I believe) and catch the 15-minute train to the city. (If you remember from my last post, I’ve moved in with a host family that lives in a dorf (small village) outside of the main city, Magdeburg). I watch the horses go by, oogle at the Barleber See (a lake north of Magdeburg), and show my month-ticket to the ticket checker when they inevitably come around and say, “So, ihre Fahrkarte, bitte.” Which basically means, “May I see your train ticket” (And if you don’t have one, you will have every eavesdropping commuter judge you while you get a ticket for 60 euro).

8:30am: Most mornings I go to the University gym, which is a little dungeony, since it’s in a basement with no windows, but it’s cheap, and that’s what I’m after while on my minimum-wage budget. When you walk into the locker room, you’ve got to say the classic “Guten Morgen” (Good Morning/formal greeting) to all of the fit grandmas getting ready for whatever fitness class they’re taking there. They’re a happy bunch and inspire me to stay active and create a band of fit older women when approaching my old age.

Now, I live in former east Germany. This was the part under the soviet rule when Germany was separated into East and West after WWII. This introduced many practices and general moods to the German culture, and one of these was a general acceptance of nudity in East Germany. Enter FKK, or “Frei Körper Kultur”, which translates to “Free Body Culture.” This basically means Ossies (shhhh, I know Germans living in former East Germany don’t like this term) are pretty cool with the naked body.

Now that you’ve gotten this lil’ cultural tidbit, you probably get where I’m going with it.

There are no barriers in the shower area keeping any one of these fit grandmas from seeing all your natural goodness when you want to wash your pits. I’ve gotten used to it and like to think that I’m a pretty open-minded person (* waves my big old Women’s Studies Minor flag *), but sometimes it’s hard to shake the culture that informs the way you interpret the world-- the main one in this situation being the EVERYTHING-INVOLVING-SEXUALITY-IS-BAD one from that one country with apple pies and stuff. And what embodies the symbol of sexuality from the US better than the naked, stereotypically-female body!! I’m beginning to rant. I’ll get back on topic, I swear.

10:00am: So after I expose my goodies to the grannies (the alliteration was too good to pass up, sorry mom) then I just hop right on across the street from where I work out, swipe my cool, little electronic key on a pad, and let myself into the Max Planck Institute for the Dynamics of Complex, Technical Systems (MPI). An interesting thing here is that the institute is very international, which I guess shouldn’t be so surprising, since this reflects scientific research in general: very international. I’m pretty sure everyone here tries to follow Germany’s cultural rules, but because it’s so mixed, I can never be sure if the cultural practices I’m learning pertain specifically to German work-life or not. One of these practices is that everyone greets everyone, even if you don’t know them, even if you just pass someone in the hallway or if you’ve walked into a kitchen, etc. I’m not the expert on this, but this hasn’t been common practice anywhere I’ve worked in the US. (Another random side note and weird formality in Germany is that people address and give a sign off for text messages here. So, every text starts with a greeting, which depends on how formally you want to address the person, and a sign-off like “Sincerely, Megan,” for example. And this is expected even if you’re texting someone your own age!)

Other than that, I make up samples, test solubility and different crystal formation behavior of a specific substance and report to a young PhD, whose project I work on. Sometimes, I wait long periods of time on crystals that never behave how I want them to! Crystals are can be very unpredictable in their behavior, and this one behaves especially unpredictably, which is why industry has handed its issues over to us to standardize. But in this down time, I usually sit on skyscanner and plan trips to different countries, “huhu” (this is how Germans type out “haha” if they want to sound cheeky. I imagine is sounds something like “hyuhyu” in their heads, but I’ve never heard a German actually say something like this out loud.).

I share an office with a bunch of other HiWi’s (”Hilfswissenschaftler”, or research assistants that are paid through the University) and it is usually dead quiet in there. People are coding, typing furiously, reading through research articles, etc., so this isn’t exactly the place to chat. People usually gather in the kitchens on their respective floors and chat over lunch or breakfast, but no one really uses my kitchen! I’ve slowly figured out that most of the Master’s students stroll on over to the Uni Mensa (cafeteria) for lunch in packs at specific times. I’m trying to work my way into one of these lunch possies and have had some invites to come along, but remember how I said crystals are unpredictable? Yeah, I usually have to babysit them and/or work through lunch to tend to them. Yay, work social life!

4:00 - 6:00pm: Once I decide there’s nothing left to be done for the day (this time varies depending on what was on the work-menu for the day), I usually wait until I can catch a train home (it only runs every hour). When I get home, my host dad is usually cooking dinner or cutting up our appetizer of various fruits. I give Momo, our cute lil’ miniature Bernese Mountain Dog, a couple scratches and then try to get something done before getting called to dinner. I have no idea what my host mom and host sister do beforehand, but once dinner has been called and my host dad and I are sitting at the dinner table, it takes a solid 20-30 minutes before they mosie on down the stairs, maybe slowly making a cup of tea, or checking their phones at the counter before they sit down. In Germany it is rude to start eating or even to serve food until everyone is ready to eat, so, as you can imagine, my stomach is like, “whaaaaaaaaat’s the hold up.” The TV is usually on during dinner, so there’s not usually a lot of conversation until we’re all done eating and someone turns on the news. They meckern ( “to gripe” kind of fits this translation) about politics, and this is my time to grasp some German and try to get involved in some German conversation. We’ve talked about gun control, driving laws, the western-hemispheric drug war, the (related) refugee crisis in the US (most call this the immigration crisis), the change in the cultural climate in Germany due to immigration from Turkey and refugees from Syria, etc.

8:00 - 9:00pm: After dinner, the mom or dad takes the dog on a walk (interesting tidbit: if you own a dog in Germany, you are walking this dog 2-3 times a day, automatically. I have yet to meet a German who does not walk their dog at least 2 times a day.), and this usually signals the end of dinner. I head upstairs and usually talk to my boyfriend about travel plans, our days, etc. and then hit the hay.

NOW. I was just talking to a few friends about this, but with this schedule, I’m trying to fit in a new piece, namely, studying for the TestDAF.

What the hell is the TestDAF?

This is a language test that evaluates how well you can wield Deutsch als deine Fremdsprache (German as a foreign language).

Why would you want to do that, that kind of sounds like a lot of work? (What my brain says to me every time I think about taking the test, really)

Well, I want to apply for a master’s program in Germany.

To anyone from my program reading this statement, it’s kind of like, Na klar, ich auch. But to friends and family, hey yea what’s up I might live here a little longer term.

There is one program in Germany, specifically in Hamburg, for Cosmetic Science, and all of the classes in this program are in German. This means I have to take the TestDAF, prove that I am C1, or basically fluent, in order to apply and have my application considered. One of my huge motivators for pursuing this opportunity is that school is free in Germany.

You read that correctly. And anyone can apply to their schools, as long as they can fluently speak the language that the program is taught in. They have small administrative fees, which also include a student transit ticket that covers all of the transit in the city the school is in (some tickets cover multiple federal states!! What a deal!!), but the semester fee is less than ($250) half the cost of cheap rent in Ann Arbor.

So why not try?

I wouldn’t usually post about something exciting that isn’t a sure thing yet in a public space, but seeing as I haven’t started pursuing TestDAF preparation materials, etc., getting something concrete out there to hold me to my goal seems like a good motivator.

I hope all is well on the other side of the pond for y’all! I fly back July 17th and will spend some time in NYC with my little (who I miss so much, shout out to Ryan Gentil) before I’m back in Michigan, but I hope to post a few more updates until then!

Alles Liebe

Megan

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