#tons of legends info though

[heyitsaloy]

A idea that I have for a Star Wars fic.

It has been five years since the Galactic Empire rose to power. Five years since you were taken in by Drax the Aruetyc, a disgraced Mandalorian who betrayed his people by saving you. You remember nothing of your life since Drax found you, only remembering your name. He calls you Echoy'la, claiming that you are searching for answers to your lost past. You don't expect to find any answers, but life is filled with twists and turns. Everything changes when you go to Bracca to follow a lead. Your journey begins with train crash, and the clash of lightsabers.

Mando'a Translations:

Echoy'la: searching, mourning, lost

Aruetyc: traitorous

[gffa]

hiya! long time listener, first time caller-- I'm writing a couple fics with Jedi protagonists (Shaak Ti, Mace, other Prequel Jedi) which is really fun so far except for the part where I "majored in" (read: hyperfixated on) Organization and Tactics of the GAR and don't actually know that much about the Jedi as individuals, *especially* anything that happened before TPM.

I was wondering if you know of any resources that organize/compile information about that era of Jedi? Things like lineage lists, who was on the Council when, typical schedules/roles/responsibilities, that kinda thing. Resources can be any format; other Tumblr blogs, articles, images, discord servers, archived websites, whatever works! Even the obvious stuff can be helpful (outside of Wookiepedia), since this isn't a part of fandom I've walked through much. You're the only big-name Jedi blog I know.

(If you don't have the spoons to respond, I understand, thanks for reading anyway!)

Hi! Congrats on writing your fic, I'm wishing you all the luck in the world! And here's where my brain starts spinning in a bunch of different directions, because here's the sticky thing about Star Wars "lore": there are three separate continuities and, while you are absolutely free to mix and match as you like and should pick out all the things that interest you, no matter the continuity, they do still exist in separate realms. You have Lucas' Star Wars, you have Legends Star Wars (the Extended Universe/EU under Lucas' ownership of SW, but he has explicitly said it's a separate world from his Star Wars), and you have Disney Star Wars. There is worldbuilding in each of them (though, often very thin on the ground at times) but what's true in one isn't going to be true in another--for example, in Legends there was an age cut off for Jedi initiates at 13, if they didn't get a Master. This limit does not exist at all in Lucas' SW (is contradicted by Ahsoka at 14 being said to be YOUNG for being a Padawan) and Disney Star Wars (there's an Initiate who is 16 and doesn't have a Master and will have to wait at least another year to try again, with no hint of them aging out). You pick which works for you! Just that I think it helps to be aware of what bits come from which continuity. There's also not a ton of pre-TPM content, at least not after The High Republic! Though, I've found THR stuff generally pretty helpful for prequel-era Jedi stuff, because they act and behave 98% of the same way imo! THAT SAID, I tend to collate as much of the Lucas continuity and Disney continuity (as they're the ones I generally prefer) and I have a bunch of resources if you don't mind some homework reading! 😂 I did at least make it as easy to browse as I can, though! - Jedi Culture and Teachings in Canon - A mix of Lucas and Disney content mostly, organized by sections for hopefully easier browsing for what you're looking for! Because 75k words of citations is a lot. orz This is going to give you probably the most of what you want, because I have been working to collect all of that kind of stuff--descriptions of the Temple and personal quarters, any rituals they have, how a Jedi's day is structured, what different paths and roles are common with Jedi, all the Jedi philosophy, what kind of pets they have, etc. It's in three (so far) parts, so you'll have to browse through each of them, but the set-up is the same in each one, so if you find a section that you need the info on, just Ctrl+F to find it in the next part or skip to the same chapter, they're the same template for each! - My "reference" tag - Which is a mixed bag of various posts and different continuities (primarily Lucas + Disney, though) that organize this kind of thing, like a possible in-universe calendar system [also here], a collection of worldbuilding bits specific to Padawan, which was pre-TPM, crossection of the Jedi Temple, a Jedi Council seating arrangement chart through the years, a list of the handful of Master&Apprentice match-ups that we know, a list of "what kind of swearing do people of the galaxy do?" because it's hilarious, a compilation of everything I could find about Jedi healers in ANY continuity, etc. I hope this helps and if you have any other questions (or anyone else wants to suggest other resources!), feel free to ask, I might be able to better steer you if you have a specific question--or at least tell you that I don't think we have anything on that. AND ALSO just remember: the books and games and comics are pretty low on the "hard canon" level, the movies and the TV shows are the highest level of canon, everything else is supplementary and you do NOT have to scour every inch of it if you don't want to! Relax and have fun with it as best you can. <3

[nanabansama]

Did Sakura take tsukasa out of the borders if so how did she know about him and his whereabouts , or did he get out himself??

Hi!

Admittedly I don't know for sure what happened. But given the fact that Tsukasa hints in 108 that he had to help himself, I have to imagine he played at least some part in his escape. (...still possible that he wasn't referring to escaping Hanako's boundary but it's our best bet currently.)

That said, Sakura knowing about Tsukasa beforehand and seeking him out makes a ton of sense to me. After all, this is a girl who is well-read on urban legends, mythology, and all things spooky. Just look at how confidently she boasts her knowledge on hell itself:

In addition, Tsukasa states she's been trapped in Kamome Academy for over 100 years. This means she's lived through not only the Yugi twins' brief enrollment in the academy but likely the entirety of the school's existence itself? (The first culture festival was held in 1902 I believe...don't quote me on this I can't do math)

We have basically zero info on Sakura besides this but for all we know her family could have links to the supernatural (like being exorcists) or she could've gotten wrapped into it one way or another before becoming trapped in the academy. Either way we just know that she is extremely knowledgable on the supernatural.

Given that the Pit God inside of Tsukasa has been a presence in the town of Kamome for YEARS, presumably dating back to before Sakura was born herself, she must have heard about it at some point during the century she's existed. And perhaps she also somehow learnt of its connection to Tsukasa Yugi, either because he was a former student at Kamome Academy or because he's the yorishiro of School Mystery #7.

If I recall correctly her wish is to leave the school. The Pit God and Tsukasa, known to perform miracles, were probably her best bets to leave. So either the Pit God/Tsukasa knew of this vulnerability and targeted her, or she knew of their powers and targeted them. At this point, it could really be either one.

As for how she located them in #7's boundary it's really anyone's guess... but Hanako's been a School Mystery for presumably about 50 years now, I would not be particularly shocked if she managed to find Tsukasa in that amount of time.

If it helps though it's hard to imagine Sakura didn't help them escape in some way! Sumire, another trapped yorishiro, had to be rescued by Nene and Hanako. Tsukasa needing to be rescued by another person makes a lot of sense!!!

Anyway, I hope that helped answer your question...? This isn't really something I've thought about at length. Hopefully we get some answers soon.

[kob131]

So heard of the Teraleaks for Pokemon? NGL Feel really bad about that employee that got phished to have this released. The leak itself was whatever but the hacker outright doxxing them was shitty.

On another note, highlights include Cyrus of Team Galactic being confirmed autistic in his character bio (IIRC they flat out use that exact word too), Beta Lickylicky's full design finally being uncovered, a TON of unreleased Pokemon lore and background being unearthed especially around Arceus, scrapped GameFreak games, and possibly leaks for Pokemon Legends ZA

Also, apparently there's some Pokemon Concept art that's drawn in a very different style than what we know, a lot darker and realistic looking imo. It looks like Gen 3 or 4 was gonna have a different vibe than what we got initially it looks like.

I saw this in passing, let's actually delve into this.-

-Hulk Hogan is partially the inspiration for Drayden

... Not since James being a partial reference point for Homer Simpson have I ever taken such psychic damage in this manner.

-Huh, so Cyrus just might be autistic. Maybe. There seems to have been a community note but it got removed. I dunno. Assuming he is-

I'll take it. He's not a fucking moron like Archie/Maxie, he's not contradictory and boring like Lysandre and he's got some level of depth unlike Giovanni. And yeah, I get it. The conflict of thinking in an excessively logical way but feeling such intense emotions. This is a win.

-I guess those Fakemon designs aren't that bad, considering so many just look like Beta Pokemon.

-That uh...that creation myth was something. Someone in Game Freak is a HUGE mythology nerd cuz that whole thing had the same feeling as learning about the creation myth of Chaos. ALso somewhat implies the pseudo-Legendaries ARE in fact 'pseudo-Legendaries'

Though note- No Giritina mentioned. So this likely isn't canon.

-Yeah, those are some realistic looking concepts. Especially that beta Cacturne. Kinda glad they didn't go this route because A. looks good but doesn't fit Pokemon's style. B. The style we did get was far more cohesive with older Pokemon. And C. Would work better as an independent monster collector built around this concept. As in- Pokemon did NOT need to dominant ANOTHER aspect of monster collecting.

Also not surprising- Gen 4 had a lot of sharper, more adult-like designs like Gallade or Electrivire.

-'A game about raising and fighting bugs. You can also fuse them' Cool concept, Game Freak. If you do this, please do it without using Pokemon. Again, we don't need Pokemon consuming MORE of it's genre. ... Look, I value the distinction between Pokemon and SMT VERY heavily.

-So looks like Pokemon has been eyeing cutting the Pokedex since Gen 3. Reminds me of the Foxacade video where he said something similar (that their best bet to do this was back in Gen 3). Also shows ideas for what would become Mega Evolution, Dynamax and Gholdengo back in 2000.

P.S. 'They tried to make a game simple but included the REGIS?!' Dude, we went from themes of letting go of past glory and moving on to two dunderheads who failed fourth grade biology.

-So they knew people were gonna go crazy for Skyla. Always thought she was...specially made. Also explains why I keep seeing Shadow in my research.

-... And yet these stories are still better implementation of adult themes than Palworld.

On a serious note- What is up with that fucking Slaking story?

-I don't see any ZA info other than some passing info on Gen 10. Which really sucks for the developers- they're likely getting crunched still and now their hard work that they could deliver with maximum impact using good marketing is now just laid bare for everyone to mock them over.

-Lastly: It's not bad enough some poor grunt accidentally leaked a massive amount of info, likely getting him blacklisted from Japan's video gaming industry but they also had to get their info released so they can get blacklisted everywhere else AND mocked for it?

I don't care much for or against leaks but come on, have some decorum.

[adarkrainbow]

I just got a reblog... Not for one of my posts, but for a post I reblogged YEARS ago... I want to react to it, without calling the exact person out though, because it's not their fault... But here's the deal:

The reblog was about the situation of Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent (yes Disney's Maleficent, though it was on a post applying to Sleeping Beauty in general). And this person explained how Maleficent clearly is evil by fairy standard back "back in the days" (referring to medieval times I presume?), the "Fae" apparently had a limitation of never killing or harming children. "They could kidnap them, but not harm them", and this reblogger explained how this was a sort of moral rule all the "Fae" followed and never crossed. Which is why Maleficent was shown as "pure evil".

... Boy, do I have some news for this unfortunate person. Fairies, fair folk, fae folk, supernatural beings, however you want to call them, DID enjoy killing children on a regular basis. It's not because some specific legends claim some specific groups of entities never harmed children that it is true for ALL of European folklore (especially since Sleeping Beauty not only does not belong to the British Folklore, from which the "fair folk" come from, but is rather a mix of French and German ones since the most famous iterations that built the myth are Perrault and Grimm).

However I do say "unfortunate person" because this poor reblogger clearly has been misled. They said "If you don't trust me, just go ask X user, they'll tell you all about it". Said user is called "thenightling". Pretty infamous on Tumblr, especially on everything related to Neil Gaiman since they have been... haunting, in the most monstrous sense of the term, all Neil Gaiman related posts on Tumblr (especially Sandman which is apparently their hyper-fixation).

"thenightling" is NOT a good source of information. As in they do have some right informations, some good sources and make some good points... But they also are one of the most arrogant, obsessive, self-righteous bullies I ever saw, who randomly harasses and gets into fight with a ton of people everywhere over the slightest misunderstanding on their part. They are the kind of people who start an insane explosive rant at people making honest mistakes instead of just calmly explaining why they are wrong or where they can get better info. Plus, due to being obsessive, hyper-fixated and blind-sided in any of their rant, analysis or post, they also are prone to mass-simplification, presenting limited info as the only real thing ever, and apparently now spreading accidental misinformation...

In conclusion, this is a sort-of warning against this Tumblr user. I saw what they did in the past. I don't know if things got better now, but given people are sharing as "solid facts" some weird misconceptions about European lore using them as sources... You know. Just avoid these murky waters if you don't want to be yelled at for no reasons.

Heck I even hesitate to write this line out of fear this person is just going to come to my blog (which has been spared until now) and make a living hell out of it. It's incredibly stupid to fear such a thing, especially since they are probably never going to come across my blog, and if they ever see this post they'll probably just block me outright. But you know... It is the only real time I saw actual intellectual bullying on Tumblr. It kind of sticks in the mind, you know?

[popculturebuffet]

Here Comes Garfield: Here Comes Garfield Review: Together Again (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you cool cats and nobody's fool cats and welcome back to here comes garfield, a look at garfield's fine history of specials.

Last time I took a look at his first apperance with the hourlong special the fantastic funnies which had Garfield's First animated apperance, some interviews with various comic strip creators.. and nothing else of value. Except maybe a possible doonesbury spinoff where micheal doonsebury and broom hilda become wacky roomates.

The Garfield Short itself however was fantastic, adapting a few great strips with Scott Beach doing a decent job in the roll and Thom Huge's first roll as john showoing what a naturual he was. The shorts were impressive enough that CBS ordered a full special.

So thus here came here comes Garfield. Both John and Garfield were recast from the fantastic funnies short: For Garfield they clearly had wide auditions.. but Lorenzo Music easily won after his first. Licking himself probably helped. Music was best known as the voice only character "Carlton, the Doorman" on Rhoda, and while he did some voice work here and there, Garfield was easily his biggest roll, with the second being Peter Venkman on the real ghostbusters, being just as good at the roll as Bill Murray and yes i'll stake my claim on that. He was also replaced by David Collier of Full House Infamy. I'm cursed with this knowledge and now so are you. And yes it was a massive downgrade.

For John they wanted an LA actor, so frequent guest actor Sandy Kenyon replaced Thom Huge. Thankfully Huge would be given the part back after auditoning for the next special when Kenyon wasn't avaliable and despite never leaving indiana, he was just THAT good. We also finally got a cast for Odie with Gregg Berger, who got cast because

I scraped the background info i got for this from wherever I could. Still Berger went on to be a longtime voice actor, being the only one of the big three's va's to still be at it. My faviorite roll of his is he, grimlock but berger has a staggering career I wasn't aware of.

The rest of our cast are: second fred flintstone Henry Collis as grouchy neighbor Huebert, Owl from Winnie the Pooh and frequent scooby doo guest voice actor hank garret as Huebert's wife Reba and pro wrestling hall of famer and sitcom starr, both entirely true I looked it up, Hank Garrett as vet inmates Fast Eddy and Fluffy.

Our final bit of casting wasn't for voice acting but for the Special's soundtrack, a person so integral to these specials I can't imagine them without him: Ladies, Gentlemen and that beautiful rainbow inbetween and outside, please welcome mr lou rawls!

Rawls is a legendary R and B artist, with "you'll never find" being his signature. He's been on the Muppet Show, the Proud Family, Sesame Street, and more. He was a legend and i'm very sad he's gone.

It's these specials that introduced me to rawls, though it took the muppet show to get me to look at more of his songs and he brought his a game. The reason? He saw the residuals sexual predator Bill Cosby was getting from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and had one thought when asked to do Garfield

Jim Davis would be proud.. because he was also in it for the money. And like the earlier years of Garfield, Lou Rawls didn't half ass it: the songs he performed for this special and later ones were truly fantastic and he always had a banger ready to open the special. I'm still baffled they were never put on a cd, with the only album relases being for here comes garfield and a mixtape from various r and b artists that includes shake a paw from Garfield Gets a Life. The specials would not be the same without Lou in them, and i'm happy he kept taking that check as he made them better each time he provided a silky opening song to kick off the hyjinks.

So with a bunch of vetran sitcom actors, the voice of an angel and a ton of strips, how was Here Comes Garfield? join me under the cut to find out.

We open the special with Garfield throwing his alarm clock through a window after rudely waking him up. A perfect intro: shows off he's cranky, sleepy and takes no shit.

We then follow it up with an elaborate dance number from Garfield, as he's known for, set to our title theme tune, here comes garfield. It's Rawls first crack at the character.. and it's a gorgeous, catchy song that sums up everything from Garfield's love of lasanga to his laziness. Is it weird to juxtopose that with an elaborate rotoscoped dance? yes yes it is. Is the animation and song so smooth it dosen't matter? Yup.

The dancing was modeled after Desirée Goyette, who also wrote the songs and sung the final one with Rawls, and also presented an issue as it didn't look quite right at first as Garfield to this point mostly stood like a blob. Since it was done at the Mendelsons where Peanuts was done, Sparky Schultz ended up providing the answer: the feet were too small and it's where Garfield got his big feet and smaller legs. They weren't to the degree they'd grow later, for better and for worse, but it's neat to know this evolution in garfield's appearance came from Sparky.

After this Garfield does some of his usual stuff: He threatens Odie, in his first animated appearance, wants a big breakfast then gets pissy when John won't give him the big breakfast and reacts entirely normally.

Several of the bits from this special were taken directly from the strip. Sadly unlike with the Fantastic Funnies, most aren't bookmarked, but thanks to google I was able to find a few i'll highlight. If I missed one or two, feel free to point them out, as there's a lot. Like the peanuts specials these earlier garfield ones tend to adapt a few one off bits for scenes and weave them into the plot.

Mid Breakfast, cat food as John hasn't yet had his spirit entirley broken, Odie startles Garrfield, a fight insues, and Jon throws his pets outside. Before we join them i'd like to talk about Sandy Kenyon's john.. and how he really dosen't work in the roll. What Huge got and what Wally Wingert and, at least judging from trailers, Nicholas Hoult get as John is that ballance: of put upon weary looser and optimstic dork. The latter part wasn't as prominent yet, but Huge would slide into it effortlessly.

Kenyon's John feels more like we're in a cat themed version of the stepfather and at any moment he's going to kill both pets, change his name and be on to another town. He feels like he's going to put down some plastic sheeting, throw on some huey lewis and get the axe out. He feels like he's one setback away from putting on a mask and going after some teenage cats. John is just too course here, too angry. Kenyon's trying to be deadpan but unlike other Jons, it comes off more threatening. And John CAN be threatning to his cat when he wants to be, but it comes off more like an angry dad, which is what he is, instead of an angry serial killer dad.

So our heroes go out and frolic in the flowers before a dog bites Garfield

And then another dog bites garfiled, Fluffy, the weird looking dog owned by Garfield's next door neighbor Huebert.

I'm so happy to get to talk about Huebert. As you may know, Garfield.. dosen't have the biggest bench of side characters in the strip itself. garfield and friends added a few paticuarlly binky (who went from a one off character in the strip and specials to one of the series best character) and the garfield show did the same, but in the strip it's kept to, outside our three person main cast, Liz, Nermal, Arlene, John's Parents, Doc Boy, Irma, Lyman early on and in more recent decades, the Big Vicious Dog. It's not a bad bench to pull from and some can go out of focus for a while if Jim Davis and his merry band of ghost writers runs out of ideas, but it works. Some strips have massive spraling casts like breaking cat news, some just need a few main characters and a few side cast to function. It didn't mean there were NO other characters or no guest characters, the 80's in paticular has some bangers and two of them even show up in this special, but in terms of recurring cast Jim Davis and Co kept it light.

Huebert and Reba are part of that cast and while not used these days, still made an impression when they were around. They were one note mostly being there to either gape in horror at John and Garfield's nonsense or be a victim of it. It did work though. They mostly stuck to sundays as it gave the gags enough room to work them in.

Huebert here assumes Garfield attacked Muffin unprovoked.. which isn't that unfair if you've known garfield formore than a single minute. Garfield and Odie don't help matters by trolling the guy. Hueburt dosen't help matters by trying to whollop them with his stick.

When that fails, he decides to call animal control. And in the garfield unvierse the city pound is apparnetly fucking psychotic as they not only just. manifest instantly, but don't ask any followup questions such as "are these somebody's pets", "Why do you want these animals removed" and "Whats your offer." They jsut show up to swoop our guys up.

Garfield hides but Odie, befitting his nature, is too stupid to and gets nabbed. Garfield seems genuinely sorry about it.. before griping, reminding us he's nature's perfect asshole. he does try to tell john about it with some fun patnomime.. but all john gets is Garfield might have fleas, a bit I really like.

Garfield gives up to watch some tv, then sleeps, thinking back to him and Odie as puppies.. before seeing the net come in and tkae the boy. And honestly this setup, Garfield feeling guilt one of his only friend sin the world is absent but taking his sweet time to do anything because he's that stubborn and selfish that he can't ADMIT it, works really well.

Eventually Garfield wakes up and needs to feed lest his hunger consume him then us all. So we get our second song, Long About Midnight, a fun jazz number from Rawls about Garfield's appitite. I also say Rawl's r and b style REALLY fits garfield well Rawls music tends to be laid back and jovial, talking about romancin and relaxin, and that fits garfield just fine. He can get it and he's ntohing but relaxed.

We get some food shenanigans during it recycled from a sunday, minus john for plot purposes

Thanks to Alyssabeth on Goodreads for putting this tsrip in her review, I wouldn't of remembered this refrence without it. Though I will say the gags are made better thans to Music's delivery. He just.. fits garfield so perfectly, having that nice combination of sardonic and laid back. There's a reason voices after him.. just haven't quite felt right. Bill Murray did a great job despite terrible material, and Frank Welker is decent, but Music just set an impossibly high bar that's yet to be cleared. He was garfield and elevated the character from great to god tier.

It's telling that for once food can't fill the void inside: Garfield misses his dog/punching bag/brother and decides to go free him. he NEARLY does.. only for the creepy watch men to catch him.

It's in Stir garfield meets two of his cell mates: Fast Eddie and Fluffy. Fast Eddie and Fluffy are actuallyt aken from a January 1981 arc I remember vividly as I had the book it was in as a kid.

The special changed the two slightly changing Eddie's name, Fluffy into a dog, and making both more realistically colored, though the latter's a bit more understandable on Fast Eddie/Guido, as we didn't have a color fo rhim. Fluffy on the other hand was on the back of the book he was in, so I don't know what the excuse there was.

I also admit I prefer Fluffy's original design, the big blue dopey look versus a more generic dog in the special.

The arc they were in was fairly short, with almost none of it really adapted for the special, just taking the characters and the situation of garfield in the pound, but they were still a great take. I may not like the change in fluffy but the two are a lot of fun and help speed along expositoin.

Eddie sticks up for Odie when Garfield gripes at him for getting him thrown in jail, only for Eddie to reveal that Odie is to be PUT DOWN TOMMOROW.

Yes. I wasn't kidding about how.. weirdly sadistic the pound is in this universe. Granted it COULD'VE been this weirdly sadistic in the 80's too but yes, despite having been here for less than a day they already plan to MURDER ODIE to make room. Whose running this pound?

Yeah that tracks. So Garfield tries to figure out a way to savd Odie from death and comforts his best friend on his last night. It's a genuinely heartbreaking scene, not helped by our third song "So Long Old Friend" If you can listen to this song without tearing up, you have no soul and i'm pretty sure even that's sketchy as vampires would cry tears of blood over this.

Garfield vows to save odie but Eddie holds Garfield back as they'll "take you too"

Thankfully Garfield gets an out: a little girl comes by to adopt a pet and all the cats and dogs line up. I also like all the various cats and dogs here, who Eddie outlined earlier my faviorites being Rocky, a nermal sized cat who beat up a neigherbood dog, Charlotte, a lovely kitty who simply scratched up some royal drapes, and Weird Larny who got arrested for impersonating a moose. Garfield gets picked because of plot convience.. but bolts to rescue Odie from certain death...

The other pets join him in booking it the hell out of deathland and overun the one guy trying to stop them. It's here we get our final number, and my faviorite, Together Again, with rawls and goytte combinging vocals. It's a joyful, triumphant song of renuinon as our heroes finally escape and go home.

Jon.. is a bit of a passive agressive dick, assuming they were partying whihle he was worried sick.. even though he clearly didn't you know CHECK THE POUND or do any work whatsoever. They quickly butter him up, he "forgives them" and we get one last gag taken directly from a strip I coudln't find to close things out

Here comes garfield is a great start to the specials. The stakes are high but still grounded enough for early garfield. While the timeline of thigns is a bit sped up, it's anchored by a belivieble yet touching arc from garfield, confromation that while he may bully odie and be annoyed by his existance.. he can't live without the guy and it's a fitting thing to get him off his fuzzy butt to do something. The jokes are fairly funny, the music is top notch. It's an excellent special and only seems lacking.. because they mostly get BETTER from here, with Here Comes Being a good start.. but most of the others take that foundation to new heights. Still it's a fantastic start and well worth checking out.

And like with my monthly muppets reviews, i'll be ranking these as I go and since I already covered babes and bullets and the fabulous funnies, that gives us two to start. I'll also be adding the garfield films to the ranking if I ever do them, and would be happy to do those on comission if anyone's intrested. Anyways here's our current ranking

This ranking probably won't move much at first, but we shall see

next time: In honor of the movie's launch we're looking at this special's followup, Garfield On the Town. With the new movie finally introducing us to Garfield's Father, it's only fair to look back at how we met his mother in one of the best of the specials. Tears will be shed, weird musical numbers will happen and you will be moved> yes you. in the front there.

Thanks for reading.

[thebananaiscold]

Now that I posted part 5 and 6 of my Creeps comic Au today, I wanted to share some additional info about some of the characters in my Au that I never really explained in detail or even just talked about before.

I know I said Ashley can shapeshift into people, but it’s not just people she can transform into. A Person, a raccoon, a houseplant, a literal monster? Yep, she can do it all, there is literally no restriction on what she can form into, if she can think it? She can be it. (How do you live in the middle of the woods, with a shit ton of big scary monsters, without being killed? Simple. Transform into an even bigger and scarier one)

Ashley and Hazel can both mimic voices, but unlike Hazel, Ashley actually has her own voice. Hazel is only able to speak using the recycled voices of her victims. Whereas Ashley mainly speaks in her own voice and really just uses her voice changing ability for disguises and prank purposes. Hazels voice imitating is mainly for survival (luring more victims for food)

3. I was gonna make an entire voice Head-canon post for my comic eventually, but literally all the main casts have the same voice as in the original comics and the only real voices that I can mention as of now are Ashley, Vinny, Issac, and Tritira (she might not even make it into the comic though) I’ll post a small voice Headcanon below and maybe make a full voice Headcanon post, once I figure out Ashley’s parent's, Hector, and Ashley’s ex husband’s voices.

My Creeps Comic Characters General Voice Headcanons:

Vinny’s Voice= Steven Universe (Steven Universe)

Tritira’s voice= Old Toph Beifong (Legend of Korra)

Issac= Belos (The Owl House)

Ashley= Jinx (League of Legends)

[sonicasura]

I just got done watching a playthrough of the 1st Legend of Zelda. And when I take Ocarina of Time and bit of Skyward Sword into account, it makes the setting much sadder with these details.

Every resident you encountered, minus the Great Fairies, live in caves or hidden passages within shrubs and dungeons. Bomb sellers practically get trapped in dungeons.

The economy crashed leaving 1 and 5 type Rupees the only cash available. 10, 50 and 100 Rupees no longer exist or can be made.

The Moblins whose homes you break into are probably rogues not with Ganon and are bribing you to keep their location quiet. There are also starving Moblins in some dungeons which means even they suffer under Ganon's rule. Especially since Enemy Bait works on normal enemy Moblins than other monsters.

Money is valued to the point that you can't get clues or even pass certain places. In the Second Quest, there's an old man who requires you to give up a Life Container or 50 Rupees. Literally says: Your life or your money.

The Lost Woods look...dead. Even if it's just graphics for that era, the trees look like they're dying alongside being sparse.

Fairies can only be found by defeated enemies except for the rare Fairy Spring. Nearly every fairy had been captured and held prisoner by monsters.

Zoras evolved to become monstrous just to survive. This trait being more recessive and altered for BotW Zoras as they now represent different species of aquatic life.

Dragons become hostile as most dungeon bosses are a draconic species. Something made sadder if you read the OOT comic or played Skyward Sword.

Even though Gorons aren't a concept at that time... The thought of Goron genocide lingers in my mind. Ganon's lair is found near Death Mountain and a shit ton of graves near said area. Twilight Princess had such occurrences with the Twili and Gerudo for Arbiter's Grounds alongside the Oocca in City in the Sky.

The Triforce of Wisdom was torn into pieces and Zelda put into a magical sleep. You don't get Courage until the second game. Mask/Time(OoT Link) had it on him...so what happened to him exactly (other than death)? I think I just made the context for Dark Link in the sequel more fucked up. 😶

But yeah. This is some sad shit with the timeline context. Now for stuff outside of angst.

Hyrule (this game's Link) acquires magic rings that boosts his durability. One can be bought and the other found in a dungeon.

Immediately can do sword beams at full health without the Master Sword.

Rupees serve as arrowheads cause when you use the arrows, your rupees drop with each shot.

Acquires a magic wand which can be enhanced to create flames via magic book. That means the wands/rods had upgrade potential which is probably something rarely seen for weapons in a Zelda game.

Gambling. Hyrule has gambled before for cash.

There are pocket watches capable of stopping time and recorders/flutes that can warp you to different dungeons or reveal hidden places.

And that's all I can list really. It does give me better context when I get to writing Hyrule's character. As for who I watched involving this playthrough, it was HCBailley here. Pretty entertaining and has a lot of info on hidden secrets or easter eggs for the game.

Until next time folks, I'll see you back in Hyrule!

[deerayled]

Ray Thyssen Masterpost

This is for @smallartistocbracket​

Just Some GuyTM Ray and his best friend, the Grim Reaper.

Everything you need to know about Ray!

Appearance

176 cm (5′7)

Male

(tired) Bisexual

Green eyes, black hair

Slim build, but not a twink (he’s pretty much a Twunk)

Half Japanese/Half Dutch

His hair is quite messy and he often has unshaved stubble

looks like he hasn’t slept in 3 days

Personality

Soft and kind hearted. He really has a heart for people in need and a big desire for change. He’s a reporter and uses his writing skill set to reach the hearts of people and raise awareness for important topics. He loves to write about ordinary people.

Very curious and ridiculously impulsive. His hunger for information is never stilled. He often does a lot of stupid things, sometimes getting into trouble, because of his impulsivity.

Goofy. I wouldn’t say he’s the funniest guy you know, but he enjoys a good dose of humour and shits and giggles every now and then. And of course weird ass shenanigans.

A fucking nerd. He is a big Pokemon fan and of course loves other video games too. He is also a major bookworm and has his own personal library.

Has a big interest in the supernatural, legends and folk lore. He has a ton of books on these subjects and he knows a lot of ghost stories from the top of his head. He loves visiting creepy and possibly haunted places. And of course, he’s into horror. Might I add, he’s also a bit of a monsterfucker. Look at this man.

He LOVES cooking and is very passionate about good food. Especially Ramen, Ramen is his favourite and he will info dump on you about how amazing it is when prepared correctly. That being said, he’s also tired 24/7 and often struggles to come up with enough energy to cook for himself so instant Ramen it is.

Ray’s special talent

I can’t talk about Ray without mentioning Dee.

Ray has the unique ability to talk and see Death/The Grim Reaper, which he started lovingly calling ‘Dee’. He obtained this ability involuntarily after a near death experience in a car accident. There’s a lot to say about this but I don’t want to spoil too much, you’ll have to read the story ;D

But it’s safe to say that Dee changed his life a great deal. Even though she’s sometimes annoying and has the worst timing, they have become quite good friends. Dee has shown him aspects of life he wasn’t aware of (which is quite ironic) and in turn Ray teaches her about humans. And, of course, Dee finally gets a friend.

[riddlerosehearts]

time for more long-winded bg3 playthrough thoughts! this time with some musings on my tav elenion's backstory/characterization and his irrationally intense hatred of volo. i'm sure this really only matters to me, but: if something i say about elenion's backstory or personality in this post contradicts what i said in the first post where i talked about them, then whatever i'm saying now is what's correct. i didn't have very many fully formed ideas about them when i first started the game so i've been thinking a lot about them and deciding things as i've been going along.

i got spoiled on a lot of stuff about the companions but i know fuck all about the actual plot of this game outside that--like, before i started i honestly didn't even know the most basic plot element of your party coming together because you all have literal brainworms. so this stuff about true souls and cultists is just wild to me.

halsin makes it sound like you have to go through either the underdark or the mountain pass, but i really wanna explore both and i've heard that it is possible to do so in one playthrough. if i can think of how to justify that from a roleplay perspective then i might do it.

oh yeah, i guess we have volo in our camp since we saved him from the goblins. elenion really does not like him! they generally try not to show it when they interact with him, but they were having too much trouble hiding it here:

like, the dude just claimed to be an expert on mind flayers because he knows that they have tentacles. sure, and i'm an expert on cats because i know they have whiskers. and after this he offered to give them eye surgery with an ice pick when there is no way he has the qualifications to do that. get out of here with that lmao. i like volo because i think he's funny, though.

but that's not the main reason elenion dislikes volo. they dislike him because his work is filled with falsehoods and exaggerations and in their opinion he's just a liar who fancies himself a bard. not that elenion thinks there's anything wrong with writing fiction--he himself enjoys folklore and legends--but he's more of a historian and he thinks it's wrong to mess with actual events and blur the lines between fact and fiction the way volo obviously does. it's also wrong to brag about accomplishments and expertise that you do not actually have, especially when you're trying to claim you can get rid of mind flayer parasites. so yeah, volo makes elenion irrationally angry and they're probably ranting to gale or wyll about him after every interaction they have. there's a one-sided rivalry between them going on in his head.

the only good thing that volo could do for elenion would've been to sell them a lyre. but alas, this fool only has flutes and hand drums. what is he even in our camp for? 😔

(i still bought the flute and the hand drums just to try them out anyway. and if you play an instrument in camp while volo is around he starts whistling along, so i guess that's what he's good for!)

anyway, enough about elenion's hatred of volo! was not expecting gale to kneel down in front of them and had them put their hand over his heart the day after he told them his condition was too volatile for him to be with them. and then nobody acknowledges the absolutely insane connotations of doing that. okay.

and then he reveals a ton of other incredibly insane things! i've gotten shadowheart to give me a lot of info about her backstory as well. but unfortunately i already knew about a lot of both their stories because i let myself get spoiled lol. i thought i wouldn't get around to playing this game for months or even years (and would probably forget about most spoilers i'd heard by then) so i let my friend talk to me about whatever and didn't blacklist anything. i'm still enjoying actually seeing how everything plays out, though!

the fact that i waited as long as i did to go out and progress karlach's personal quest just makes the lie that "yesterday she butchered an entire family" hilarious to me, sorry. like she literally spent the entire day yesterday hanging out with the tiefling refugees from the grove. i know because i was there. also, i'm going to need to look up how this quest goes if you actually bring karlach along because i'm guessing you'd get pretty different dialogue... and i did not think of it until after i was already mid-battle, whoops.

WOW way to perfectly hit elenion with his worst insecurities. like, he has actual backstory reasons to really hate being called all 3 of these things 😭 and then she basically reads him like a book despite him trying so hard to hide all that. this is why he doesn't like her.

it uh, worked out though, i guess! she explained that she was wrong about him and i was so tempted to pick the option to call her a prickly grouch (not because i dislike lae'zel or even because i think my tav would say that out loud, but because it's hilarious). but i did not pick that. instead i had him ask if she was coming onto him and honestly i'm kind of shocked that she is?! i really did not think my approval with her was very high and also... he kind of already turned her down at the tiefling party?? and she said both here and at the tiefling party that she wanted to taste him and that rejecting her was his loss?? seems kind of redundant to get such similar dialogue twice tbh but i guess maybe the game is giving you another chance to be really sure you don't wanna romance lae'zel. that or the dialogue is glitched.

okay, because of this i checked my approval with everyone and somehow it's literally still only on medium with shadowheart but high with lae'zel. that feels backwards to me based on our previous interactions and the types of actions they each approve of so i'm genuinely not sure how that happened? oh well lol.

i don't think i like how the saving mayrina quest plays out... i won't go on too much about it but unless i missed something, my only options to complete the quest were to use a wand from ethel's workshop to resurrect her husband, which seems extremely stupid considering everything we just saw that made it way beyond obvious that messing with magic from a hag is going to be a bad idea--or to snap the wand in half right in front of her, which seems pointlessly cruel. i even used speak with dead on ethel's corpse to find out that she was actually going to eat the baby and i have no option to tell mayrina about that, or to just end the quest by comforting her without telling her about the wand. so idk. maybe choosing to bring her husband back will lead to something cool later on??

AND THEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER MAYRINA LEFT I HEARD MY TAV SAY "PERHAPS USING ETHEL'S WAND WASN'T THE BEST IDEA". ALSFDSFJG. NO SHIT. sorry lmao, but i did think that was a really cool and interesting quest for the most part.

anyway--i'm going to go to the mountain pass, even though i've heard people say that's the harder path, because it just makes more sense from a roleplay perspective to me? like i've currently been rejecting nearly every lead on a cure because all of these offers of help are coming from absolutely insane people like volo and auntie ethel and priestess gut. but the githyanki actually know shit about mindflayers and lae'zel seems trustworthy. and if i want to go through it and then double back to the underdark i can say that we were planning to check out the creche based on lae'zel's advice before going and doing what halsin said to do. or if the mountain pass is really too hard i can just ignore the roleplay in this one situation because it's not a real d&d campaign lol.

[ralofofriverwoods]

📏 👑 💧 for virthik? if i spelled it right

You spelled it right! Autocorrect certainly doesn’t help with that type of name tho haha

📏 is your oc well educated? where did they get their learning from?

Somewhat? He hasn’t had much proper schooling, but he’s picked up tons of info since he started adventuring.

He got some general farming/homestead management know-how from the few years he lived with his parents, though it’s all self taught so it’s not all the most reliable info. He’s also learnt some stuff from merchants and the like across Skyrim as a teen, including basic math and reading/reading comprehension. Generally a mishmash of different skills and stuff people have been generous enough to provide.

👑 what does your oc want to be remembered as? why?

This is a hard one bcos I don’t think virthik would want to be remembered(or at least revered) all that much haha. If only because you can’t write history about yourself, and it’s easy to change a dead man’s legacy once nobody remembers what you were actually like.

Seeing as he’s the Dragonborn he will of course, so if anything he’d want to be remembered at least partially as a good man, or someone who’s done some good. Someone that can be looked up to, that can inspire hope. Generally he wants to be regarded as a hero, but not a perfect hero from your usual legend. Everyone makes mistakes and has down spots after all.

He would likely get remembered as someone who was great at dealing with having the shittiest hand in just about every situation, and turning it into something at least mildly workable. ‘The last, and unluckiest, Dragonborn’ essentially.

He’d like to be regarded as at least somewhat good because that would mean he at least did something right, even for everything he got wrong. Best way to figure out whether you’ve won the game of life is to see how the bard tales treat you, as the decades go by. At least in his mind.

He’d be considered the most unlucky Dragonborn mainly because no matter what he did, it always got worse before it got better. And somehow he always gets beat up pretty bad, even when it shouldn’t have been that bad(ex: the main game vs his universe alduin fight. His version was MUCH harder, and had a slightly worse outcome for him specifically)

💧 random angst headcannon.

So so so many to choose from for this one tbh. He is by far the most punching bag shaped character I got, and the narrative has gotten very into boxing lately

One of the ones I don’t think about a lot, but definitely has some good narrative potential, is his relationship with fire+fire magic. He used it to get out of the less than great circumstances of his childhood, and then he almost got char broiled in a massive forest fire lit by people trying to get rid of him and some new ish friends, and then he used a flaming sword to make his life substantially better, permanently.

For all that his themes are icy blue and grey, he certainly has an interesting relationship with arson and how it’s shaped his life. All things considered, virthik has an amazing relationship with fire, despite it being like. Very high Up there in the things that should have left lifelong scars, mental or physical.

- - -

Thank you for the ask!! These were really fun to do, certainly made me think about his actual story more than usual. Seeing as he mostly just gets put into situations as I do, it’s nice to consider something a little more in depth

[gamerbearmira]

Bermuda Triangle AU⁉️⁉️

Ok so I’m just posting this I don’t forget in the future

Mirabel, at six on her birthday (before Antonio is born, though he is born, just within the triangle). She gets a door. It appears the night before and the family sets up for a whole party blah blah blah. Redo the ceremony. It didn’t work before because the family “wasn’t ready” to enter the Bermuda yet.

She opens it, it leads to a really large room, bed and furniture and stuff, looks a bit unfamiliar but they don’t care. A room is a room. They all enter (it’s not big enough for the town hut big enough for the family). Door closes on them and. When Mirabel goes to reopen the door, it leads to a hallway,but not Casita hallway.

Anyway after a little more exploring they find the main deck and realize. They are on a massive ship. Absolutely huge. Some other wacky stuff but now they gotta figure out how to get home. Good thing is, Casita sorta followed them there. In ship form.

Town is left in a lifeless Casita and. The miracle just isn’t there. Turns out it gotta teleported out of Alma’s hands and somewhere in the Bermuda. Now the family gotta find it in order to go home. Takes them up until a little after Antonio’s birthday to find it. He does get his gift, but no door, and is given one of the rooms on the ship. Should be noted that the family doesn’t retain their doors (expect Mirabel), but they DO retain their powers, to an extent. The Bermuda and it’s wonky magic kinda makes them a lil wonky but it’s fine.

The family is. Much closer knit in this AU. Mostly because they only have each other. Sure, there are other people and small little towns on islands, but they don’t really trust them. On more than one occasion have they been attacked, so they can only trust each other. Turns out the miracle is pretty sought after, it’s got this crazy legend surrounding it, and people on a regular basis try to kidnap one of the Madrigals to try and get info on its whereabouts.

Also??? Mirabel’s gift. Sumn to do with the Bermuda. Kinda like has domain over it? Or like she is connected to it somehow. I DON’T KNOW YET. All I know is that Alma is a bit skeptical and kinda blames Mirabel, but eventually gets over it after about about a year when she realizes her and her family aren’t getting out of their for a hot minute. Eventually takes over as captain with Mirabel as First Mate seeing that she seems to know a crap ton about everything going on there.

They only find out they’re in the triangle because Agustín has read about it and has heard about it. Forgot to mention, Bruno IS there. He ends up staying after Mirabel ceremony because he had a vision that she eventually did get a door, so he decided to stay until the next ceremony. He just seldom goes into town; most of the time hes at Casita.

I literally wrote this AU off the top of my head. It’s essentially pirate Madrigals but also not really. ANYWAY WHAT WE THINKING…

Palate swap?? Outfit swap. Something…not all of them, I only got to do a few

A lookout, a navigator and a chef/medic

My followers trying not to go insane as I present another AU among a million others:

[somethingshifted]

I could image a film working today, what with all the adult animated shows like Legend of Vox Machina, Hellova Boss, Bojack horseman, and Harley Quinn, and I think that's what netflix was going for, when I look at Jamie's storyboards for cracker island it feels way more grittier and scary, I'd love the idea that gorillaz was making a documentary(mockumentary in our world) but was hijacked by celebrity zombies (or in cracker islands case celebrity cult members) throughout the documentary, and its worked kinda like a parody of a found footage horror film (think of the Scooby Doo blair witch project parody but more mature). but unfortunately we'll never get a film because Netflix is just like any of capitalistic money hungry corporation that will gut there animation team for a quick buck. (i have the strong opinion that a gorillaz film or even an album with heavy lore hasn't worked not just because they had too many ideas but because of capitalism too)

the climate's better for a gorillaz animation now compared to 2003, yeah. and i completely forgot about the mockumentary angle though they were throwing out a ton of ideas... i'd like that more tbh! gorillaz has a good amount of b-horror film references it can work. though flashing cult imagery in relation to hollywood or celeb worship culture and making an entire movie about it requires a very fine line to be tread.

i do agree with your strong opinion. they have a lot of ideas and not a way to fund it properly, and asking tv or movie companies for help is a surefire way to get your project manhandled by corporations who want to dumb it down and make it palatable for everyone else. which, they avoided with dreamworks via backing out, and were saved i guess by netflix dropping them. i really do want to hear what the script was since they were in the middle of writing it and celebrity harvest got to have some tidbits dropped here and there. damon said cracker island was created after the cancellation so it wouldn't be a wild guess to say it was related to whatever new plot they had... certainly explains the story-book level information dumping. BUT that's me making shit up rn as i wait for info

and on the heavy lore-based album part, i don't know! it could work or it couldn't. i personally think they work better in an episodic style, maybe you can see how it railroads the characters if they go down a heavy lore style, it can be stifling for a band like gorillaz where the style changes when new ideas and world events crop up which is why i prefer the band stuff to lore stuff... of course referencing past events/history between the members is always great, but it gets kind of heavy handed when the crazy events of plastic beach occurred and its been like, 3 albums of 2D and murdoc having tension but bouncing back to being friends then suddenly referencing the kidnapping and shit, and since PB didn't feature much of noodle and russel talking they've stagnated since then. if they can avoid that kind of stuff i'd be all for it. (it's hard to sum up my feelings on recent stuff between 2D and murdoc because they like don't hang out as much anymore

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Josh trivia: my first tumblr URL was the-legend-of-elder-scrolls (I actually can’t remember if the dashes were there though lol), with “the legend of” referring to guess what, and the Elder Scrolls referring to, uh, yeah.

Skyrim’s a game that throughout my life I’ve probably put over 2000 hours in. I don’t actually know the exact number - I’ve played it through I think 3 different Xbox 360s with lots of corruption across them all, and even outside of the Xboxes failing me I’ve had plenty of 200+ hour files where I got bored of the character I was playing or bored by having done every major questline and would just start new files that would get however far they do.

Obsession went beyond just playing the game as well - my favourite YouTube channel was Fudgemuppet and I’d watch tons of other channels too, especially modded content, I think longing for the PC version of the game while I remained trapped on console lol. I’d stare at the UESP for hours, get into arguments in comment sections, Facebook even had a political beliefs thing you could add in your personal info for some scuffed reason where I established myself as a firm follower of the Stormcloaks. I was too stupid to get dosbox running on my laptop so I couldn’t play Arena and Daggerfall, and I was too “I don’t have a way to digitally use cash at all” to play Morrowind, but I could certainly get Oblivion on Xbox 360 as well and... not quite play the fuck out of it to the same degree because man that core gameplay feel is very rough around the edges, even compared to Skyrim. But still! For a few years I lived and breathed Skyrim and it was the best.

But yeah that, did kinda stop. Primarily because of how long I’d played the game for. It was just very easy for me to get bored of it. “Seen it all” mentality because true enough I’d finished every main guild questline and DLC story and Daedric quest like ten times over. I knew how to game the systems so strongly in my favour that I wasn’t so much “playing Skyrim” as I was just menuing all the challenge out of the game. I was also so committed to roleplaying specific characters with specific equipments that I’d almost lock myself out of doing fun things as well as purposefully kind of cheat the game (as much as 360 allows anyway) to achieve my desired build faster. But that’d mean once I had all the components of a build I’d kind of lose all desire to play that character anymore lol. I just lost the ability to actually enjoy the game anymore.

However, I’d never say I lost interest. There’s a classic question - if you could replay any game again for the first time, what’d it be? - obviously it’s purely a hypothetical you can never really do but, my answer’s probably Skyrim. And while I can’t replay it for the first time, perhaps if I give myself a good few years away from the game, it can feel fresh to me again? And that’s what I’ve done. After god knows how many years, I’ve gotten the game on PC and started finally replaying it. Several times before now I’d considered pulling the trigger and buying the Switch version for ease of accessibility - but the £50 price tag for an 11 year old game is steep lol. So we’re on PC now using Steam’s family sharing thing, since my little brother owns the game. It was actually helping him out with mods that kind of inspired me to push myself towards playing the game again, and yeah, here we are. I have Skyrim on Steam. We gaming.

Since it’s a relevant detail, I am running a couple of mods - but it’s important to me to fundamentally preserve the vanilla experience here. That’s what I fell in love with in Skyrim in the first place, and it’s what I’m here to re-experience all these years later. Accordingly, I’d describe basically every mod I downloaded as just adding a bit of atmospheric and some gameplay flavour. I didn’t even wanna fuck with Nexus so I’ve just gone workshop and downloaded the entire cities and villages enhanced collection, the entire sounds of Skyrim collection, what’s basically an immersive armours substitute adding the armours individually (I deliberately excluded one set that pushed outside the lore a bit too much for my taking) and an actual immersive weapons substitute just to get a couple more weapon types that still work with the world. I actually think the only gameplay mods I really got are a few that make like Daedric and other unique weapons a bit stronger to justify their lore position a bit more. For all intents and purposes though I really am just playing vanilla Skyrim but with a touch more atmosphere by way of sights and sounds. And that’s what I wanted.

Aside from that, the one other rule I’ve really set for myself in order to get the most out of this is just try play it like it’s my first time. By which I mean, let myself get distracted. Don’t lose myself in overarching goals. Wander into that cave. Take your time exploring. Chat with NPCs. I have a character, but I’m not really roleplaying. I’ve not specifically decided on an armour set I’d really like. I’m playing on apprentice even to avoid getting bored by damage spongy combat encounters. On finishing Helgen I walked westward, away from Helgen and that first main story segment I’ve done to death. I’ll get back to it eventually, sure, but I’m not interested in the urgency anymore. Instead I met Angi in her cabin in the southern mountains of Skyrim, where she trained my archery - which is not a thing I think I was ever even aware of having existed. Then I went down to Falkreath, where I learned that the current Jarl is a lazy bastard whose uncle the former Jarl was basically demoted in what almost seems to be an Imperial ploy. It’s weird, a younger Josh got so wrapped up in Tamriel’s version of the creation myth or whatever that I didn’t even really engage with the minutiae of actual current lore in just Skyrim as a place. And sure, reading wiki pages for hours has its charm, but just playing the game itself and talking to people and reading books? This is what I missed. This is what’s making Skyrim fun for me again.

I don’t know if I have a fun or interesting or really at all conclusive way to approach this post. I’m really just playing Skyrim again and wanted to talk about it, for nobody’s sake but my own. I’m just so happy to finally be playing it again.

[mask131]

Cold winter: Saint Nicholas

SAINT NICHOLAS

Category: Christianity / European folklore

Saint Nicholas’ Day is the second biggest December holiday in Europe after Christmas, and everybody knows how Saint Nicholas was “Santa Claus before Santa Claus”. But it is a much more complex and fascinating world to explore than you might think… Because through Saint Nicholas, three different “layers” of identities pile up on each other.

I) The historical Saint Nicholas

Because some people seem to forget that Saint Nicholas was a real, historical figure. He was Saint Nicholas of Myra, also known as Nicholas of Bari, a Greek Christian bishop of the city of Myra, in what used to be Asia Minor (now Demre, in Turkey) under the Roman Empire. We don’t know much about his historical life but we could piece up clues and elements together.

Tradition says he was born in 270 and died in 343, at 73 years old. He was born in the city of Patara (Asia Minor) from a wealthy family of Greek Christians – some accounts claim that if he became priest, it was because his uncle was already a bishop (of the city of Myra) and recognized the “call of the Christ” in his nephew, so ordained him himself.

After the death of his parents and a travel to the Holy Land (a pilgrimage passing by Egypt and Palestine), Nicholas returned to Myra: his uncle had died, leaving the position of bishop to another, but this second bishop also died – and the priests of the city decided that they would make bishop the first priest that would walk through the city doors. It was good old Nicholas, who thus inherited by luck (as the legend claims) his uncle’s position. Under the rule of the emperor Diocletian and the latter’s heavy persecution of Christians, Nicholas was imprisoned and tortured – but he was released by order of emperor Constantine the Great. In 325, Nicholas attended the First Council of Nicaea (which was a big reunion of all the Christian bishops at the time) where he opposed Arianism, defended Trinitarianism, and signed the Nicene Creed (a lot of Christian technical stuff you can look on your own if you are curious). Though note that there is a big debate concerning whether Nicholas truly participated to the Council or not. Now, a thousand years AFTER the Council, around the 14th century, a legend arose concerning his time there: story told that he lost his temper there and slapped a supporter of Arianism in the face, which led to emperor Constantine taking away Nicholas’ miter and pallium (staff and hat). As time went by this anecdote was embellished so that Saint Nicholas actually punched Arius himself (the leader of Arianism, considered today as an heretic) in the face – and that while he was imprisoned, Jesus and the Virgin Mary appeared to him in his cell and set him free from his chains.

  Now, the thing with the life of saints is that it is always hard to split historical facts from attributed legends – and with Saint Nicholas it is especially hard as, while we have little historical info (just enough to know he truly existed), we have a TON of miracles stories and legendary facts. To the point that one of Saint Nicholas’ official nicknames is “Nicholas the Wonderworker” due to the enormous amount of miracles attributed to him. So I’m going to put a few things there mixed:

After the death of his parents but before his trip to the Holy Land, Saint Nicholas was said to have distributed a lot of his personal and family wealth to the poor. One of his most famous “charity stories” explains how one day he met a faithful Christian man who was once rich but had lost all of his wealth through plotting and the jealousy of others, and thus he could not afford the dowries of his three daughters anymore – which meant that at best they would be unmarried, at worst they would become prostitutes. When Nicholas heard the despair of the girls, he decided to help – and either due to being too modest at the time (he was just an unknown priest) or to avoid the humiliation tied to public charity, he went near their house each night and threw into it a purse filled with gold. With the first bag he received the man arranged a marriage for his eldest daughter, and with a second the same for his second daughter ; but the father stayed awake two whole nights to finally spy who was throwing the bags – and upon giving its third bag, Nicholas was caught. The father thanked him a lot, and Nicholas begged him to not tell anyone about these secret gifts.

It is said that when he went to the Holy Land, during his boat trip there was a huge storm, which nearly destroyed the ship: but Saint Nicholas used his divine powers to calm down the waves and stop the storm. This legend explains why Saint Nicholas is considered today the patrons of sailors and travelers.

A third legend claims that soon after becoming bishop of Myrna he saved three innocent men from being executed by order of a local governor: he threw the sword of the executioner to the ground, cast away the chains, and chastised with anger the juror which had condemned them, revealing that he had taken a bribe. Another variation of this legend claims that a consul had taken a bribe to put to death three faithful generals, and saint Nicholas appeared to both the corrupt consul AND Emperor Constantine in their dreams, to inform Constantine of the truth of the situation, and to threaten the consul with the menace of Hell.  (Later these two versions were woven together into a more complex story).

A fourth legend speaks of how during a great famine upon Myra, between 311 and 312, a ship stopped at the city’s port, filled with wheat for the Emperor in his capital of Constantinople. Nicholas asked the sailors to offer a portion of their cargo to the hungry city – they refused at first, out of fear the emperor would punish them, but the Saint promised they would not suffer any consequences for their actions. Now, to check if the cargo was still intact the people of Constantinople had to weigh it, and thanks to Nicholas’ miracle powers, despite the cargo being less than originally planned, it apparently still weighed the same!

As for the final and most well-known of the stories: in another great famine, an evil butcher lured three children into his home, then promptly killed them and kept their bodies with his meat as if they were animals, “pickling” them in a barrel full of brine and planning to sell them as if it was pig meat. Nicholas, who was around at the time taking care of the hungry people, stopped by the butcher’s house and immediately saw through his lies: with a sign of the cross, he resurrected the corpses of the dead children. It was a VERY popular legend across the Middle-Ages, to the point that people think this story is the reason Saint Nicholas is considered today to be the patron of children.

These are just his most famous legends however – there are many more deeds given to him (including one memorable story where he chopped down a tree possessed by a demon).

  II) The worship of Saint Nicholas

Now, every Christian saint has a specialty, specific domains over which they are the most active and powerful, and Nicholas has a lot of “patronage”. His most important one in Greece and Italy is his patronage of fishermen and sailors, protectors of ships and boats, patron saint of harbor-cities. It is to the point that in Christian Greek folklore he is known as “The Lord of the Sea” and many point out that he basically replaced/fused with Poseidon from Ancient Greece. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, he is so important that he is put at the same level as the Apostles, and together they are celebrated every Thursday. Thanks to his “secret gift-giving”, Nicholas is also recognized as the patron saint of unmarried people, and the butcher episode made him the saint of all children. Additional functions also made him the patron saint of students, archers, merchants, repentant thieves, brewers and pawnbrokers.

Saint Nicholas was apparently first buried in a church at the highest point of the Turkish island of Gemine, which was known in Antiquity as “Saint Nicholas’ Island”, and is known today in Turkish as “The Island of Boats” (again, highlighting Nicholas’ link to boats). But in the middle of the seventh century, due to attacks by Arab boats, the remains of Nicholas were moved by Christians to the city of Myra. In Myra, legend said that each year the saint’s relics produced a clear liquid that smelled of rose water and had miraculous properties. When the Byzantine Empire lost control of most of Asia minor to the Turks (after the battle of Manzikert, 1071) and the Catholic Church of the West declared a schism with the Greek Church that was the official one of the Byzantine Empire, Italian sailors took advantage of the politico-religious confusion to steal away a part of Saint Nicholas remains from Myra – they brought back the remains to the city of Bari in Italy in 1087, and two years later Pope Urban II opened up a new church, the Basilica di San Nicola, to place himself the holy relics in it. It happened on a 9th of May and since then the “translation”/arrival of the Saint’s relics is still celebrated (despite this being a “holy robbery” by Catholics onto the Orthodox). Even today the Turks and the Orthodox Christian claim it was a theft, where Bari Catholics claim it was a rescue mission.

In 1096 the Norman and Frankish soldiers preparing themselves for the First Crusade stopped at Bari to worship Saint Nicholas as the patron of travelers and seafarers – it is believed that it was this worship by the Crusaders that caused a surge in popularity of Saint Nicholas, who previously wasn’t very well-known or well-liked in Europe, a bit too foreign for people’s taste. The relics of Bari apparently continued to produce the same perfumed clear liquid they did in Myra, called “myrrh” or “manna”. It was collected and sent all around the world – still today at the Basilica the sacred “manna/myrrh” is collected on every feast day of Saint Nicholas, as it leaks from his sarcophagus.

Now the Italian sailors had actually only taken the “big” and “main” bones of Saint Nicholas, leaving at Myra all the “little” bones: but soon, the Italian city of Venice decided they needed to have for themselves these leftover bones. So in 1100, as Venetian ships passed by Myra with a bishop named Henri onboard, they took the leftover Saint Nicholas bones (as well as other bones of other Myra bishops) and brought them back to Venice to place them in the local church dedicated to Saint Nicholas: San Nicolo al Lido. Now, as with every Christian relics, there was a huge trade and market as everybody wanted a piece of the saint and the corpse was completely broken down. We know that a Norman knight, William Pantulf, managed to obtain one tooth and two sarcophagus fragments, and brought them back to his town of Noron in Normandy ; we know that a count of Flanders obtained several bones from the duke of Apulia (the region of Bari) that he placed in the abbey of Watten ; and the thing is that Bari, to promote the cult of Saint Nicholas, actually gave away – not kidding there – “bone samples” of Saint Nicholas. Originally all these “bone samples” were kept in Constantinople, but after its sack during the Fourth Crusade the samples were scattered throughout Europe.

Two other important point I can talk about are: 1) Port. A French city near Nancy.  In 1101 saint Nicholas appeared to a French man who was visiting Bari, and told him he needed to take one of his bones back to his hometown of Port. The man took a bone finger and did so. Port became a BIG center of devotion for Saint Nicholas in Western Europe, to the point a church was built around the finger in the fifteen century, the Basilique Saint-Nicolas, and the town itself was renamed “Saint Nicolas de Port”. 1) San Nicola in Carcere. This Roman church is literally named Saint Nicholas in Chains, because it hosts a hand that belonged to Saint Nicholas and was built over what used to be a former municipal prison. Legend then arose that Saint Nicholas, during the Christian Persecution, had been held prisoner in this very prison before it became a church: as a result, a specific cult formed itself there, where mothers would come and pray for their jailed sons to be released, and where repentant criminals would leave offerings to the saint. This is how in Rome Saint Nicholas became the patron saint of prisoners, and of those falsely accused.

What else to say? Oh yes, some iconography. Saint Nicholas always appears in a bishop outfit (Orthodox or Catholic depending on which side of the world you’re on), and as an old man with a big, long white beard and a balding head – his depictions from Bari insists on him having a dark skin tone, to emphasize his foreign origin (after all he was what we would consider Greco-Turkish) but you have a lot of “whitewashed” versions around the world (because as the saint got adopted by "whiter" countries like France, Germany, the Netherlands, he also got represented with the skin tone of the locals to make it clear it was "our" saint and not some foreign idol). As a patron of mariners he is often depicted on a boat or rescuing sailors who are drowning ; as a saint patron of children he is often depicted helping the freshly-resurrected children climb out of the barrel the butcher had placed themselves in ; and in memory of his episode with the three poor daughters he is often shown holding three coins, three purses or three balls of gold. In an ironic twist, in the medieval “Low-Countries” (today’s Netherlands), due to the belief that Saint Nicholas lived in Spain, the three balls of gold were reinterpreted as… three oranges. Which is notably why oranges became a “Christmas fruit” back in Northern Europe – but that’s a different story.

III) Saint Nicholas: the holiday

And now we reach our December tradition… Saint Nicholas Day! Celebrated on the 5th or 6th of December if you are Catholic, 19th if you are Orthodox. A day of the Christmas season where Sant Nicholas, the “gift-giver”, comes to reward good children with lovely toys!

In the French regions celebrating him (which are mostly Northern and Eastern France), he arrives on the 6th of December with his little donkey, and baskets filled with biscuits, sweets and gifts that he offers to children, visiting them in their home or in nursery schools. In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas arrives on the 5th of December or on the morning of the 6th (well technically he arrives on a steamboat to the country mid-November but he is only active at the beginning of December), with his horse: children put their shoes in front of their chimneys for Saint Nicholas (or Sinterklaas as he is known in Dutch) to give gifts ; and alongside they leave a carrot or some hay for his horse – usually, Sinterklaas will leave a big bag filled with toys either in front of the house or into the living room, and bang on the door or windows to warn them of the delivery. In Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Ukraine or Romania, children leave their boots, all cleaned, by the windowsill on the St Nicholas Eve so that Nikolaus/Miklavz as he is known there, would leave them candies and gifts. In Northern Germany children put a special boot outside of their house on the evening of the 5th, the “Nikolaus Boot”, which will be filled with sweets and gifts during the night if the children were good, polite and helpful, and if not they will have a stick in the boot (for their parents to beat them with). He can also visit the children at their school, directly asking them if they were good or not ; he usually rides in a grandiose way through town on his horse. He is also present in Switzerland as “Samichlaus”.

Mind you, despite these strong traditions of Saint Nicholas appearing himself as a gift-giver to the children on his feast day, they aren’t unanimously celebrated throughout Europe. Every European country celebrates in a form or another Saint Nicholas’ Day, yes, but in a lot of other countries it is just a more “regular” Saint celebration with no visit from the folkloric figure: In Bari for example they celebrated the saint between the 7th and 9th of May, with its relics being carried on boat during the 8th for everyone to admire, while the 6th of December is rather the “Rito delle nubile”, a special morning Mass very early in the morning where unmarried women can go to wish for a husband, and to make their wish come true they need to turn around a column seven times. In Greece, his feast day is rather a celebration occurring on all ships and boats, as he is there mostly known as the “saint of sailors and fishermen”, not so much as a gift-giver, and thus his festivities are limited to ports ; and in Bulgaria, even though the 6th of December is a time for people to gather their neighbors, families and colleagues around one big fish meal, it is not a gift-giving day either.

- - - - - -

Of course, something that needs to be talked about, in the “gift-giving tradition”, is how Saint Nicholas usually appears with what is considered a “dark companion” or “threatening servant”, a figure that embodies the punishment where Saint Nicholas is the gift, an entity that “rewards” naughty and disobedient children while Nicholas takes care of the good ones.

I already talked of Krampus, who manifests himself (or themselves as there could be several krampuses) in South Tyrol, Udine, Austria, Bavaria ; and of the Père Fouettard in France and Belgium. But I can also mention Schmutzli in Switzerland, Knecht Ruprecht in Poland, Zwarte Piet in the Netherlands… But more interestingly, in other traditions Saint Nicholas is also accompanied by an angel, who assists him in his duty – and often the angel and the demon, the kind supernatural child and the wicked man-punishers, form a duo who actually do all the gift-giving/punishment-giving job while Saint Nicholas oversees it all: the “angel assistant” notably appears in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Alsace or Slovenia.

[dwarvendiaries]

You'd probably be better-off to someone who follows the forums like @knight-otu, but I can do a bit of a sum-up with what I know from reading old FoTFs.

World

There's multileveled system of permanance. Permanent stuff is more or less organised like you see in the world data dump from legends mode (that's still a thing right?).

Below that you've got local map (tracking weather and wandering beasts) and then (Play area).

Playarea

Last I checked Tarn said it was a lot of vectors at least for equipment. In an answer about the Military menus he said:

I'm not sure what people have been calling things, so it's hard to describe. When you go to choose a specific item, there are several lists sitting around from back in the arsenal dwarf days - that's an array of item ptr vectors with size item_type_number (ie, a vector of weapons, a vector of helms, etc.). That's sitting up in the global fort information structure (legacily called 'plotinfo' but I dunno what you all call it -- it has your civ id and the number of reserved bins, tons of fort-type info, along with these item array-vectors which live in a member structure that has equipment data), and there are three arrays like this, one for 'unmanifested' items, one for 'unassigned' items, and one for 'assigned' items. Those lists themselves seem to get corrupted, though I've never caught the raid bug actually happening, so it's hard to tell what the starting point is, just that the military UI stuff is a symptom and not a cause (though military equipment assignment could very well be the cause somewhere in the giant mess of assignment code. I've pored over the part where raid stuff is offloaded more than once and couldn't find anything, so I suspect it's something bad about the military screen/equipping logic and how that interacts with a later raid offload, but I could be wrong there.) But yeah, as a bandaid, those lists could probably be cleared and reassembled from the existing fort items. There's also the specific items assigned to the equipment slot in the squad position, which are stored by id number so less likely to be the initial problem, though corruption could piggy back in there in the form of invalid (slab etc.) id numbers, and so it might ultimately be quite a task to fully rescue saves here.

Not sure how these fit in as part of a greater whole

I’d be super curious to know what kind of data structures Dwarf Fortress uses to track thousands of objects and other entities, and what patterns Tarn Adam’s has experimented with. Tracking wear, decoration, ownership, etc for items in an efficient manner is an interesting problem.