#who is worth tagging specifically because of how weird her absence is

[toa-arania]

I found Touhou on IMDB and then it got worse.

So there's a bit of a story behind this, as there should be with any post. I have spent the past *checks clock* fifteen minutes and counting losing my goddamn mind over this.

Touhou 1-11, including 7.5 but not 9.5 or 10.5 for some reason, are all on IMDB. This is not that strange, as many video games are listed there for their writing or voice credits. What's weird is how I discovered this. I heard a voice in, of all things, a four and a half hour video about the Lego Ninjago show and how badly it fumbles its women. One of the characters sounded a bit like Azula ATLA so I checked. It was not the same VA. Then I saw this.

And then I saw this.

Now the sharp-witted amongst you may have noticed the tiny little inconsistency that

TOUHOU DOES NOT HAVE VOICE ACTING

Touhou has never had voice acting, especially not back in 2003 when PCB came out. There's also the detail that Layla Prismriver does not appear in PCB, nor does she appear in any Touhou game outside of her mention in the character profile of the Prismrivers, which firmly establishes her as very dead and thusly incapable of speech. You'll be pleased to know that it continues to get worse.

This is not the plot of PCB. What the fuck do you mean only one of these heroines intends to stop it. The cast list is also fucking bizarre.

Merlin and Lunasa are here but fuck Lyrica I guess. Alice and Youmu are not credited and REIMU ISN'T HERE EITHER. Youki Konpaku is credited. Youki Konpaku is not in this game. The goddamn Saigyou Ayakashi (which is spelt disastrously wrong here of course) is given a voice credit. THAT IS A TREE. THAT IS A TREE THAT DOES NOT TALK IN A GAME THAT DOES NOT HAVE VOICE ACTING. I AM GOING INSANE. WHERE IS REIMU.

Now obviously what I did at this point is start checking the other ones, and th8, 9, and 10 don't really have much interesting going on other than a continued and bizarre lack of Reimu in all of them. 6, 7.5, and 11 however are all bizarre for fun new reasons. Let's start with Subterranean Animism and work backwards.

I was suspicious of the lack of images so I went to check all of their pages and they're mostly men as far as I can tell. Most of them are credited in a film called Sule, Ay Need You, which a brief google has only barely convinced me is a real film that exists in the first place. It has a wikipedia article in indonesian. One of them, however (the only one with a picture) has been in eleven million different things with reasonably big parts. I have no idea what's going on here. With the player character situation there are eight characters uncredited not including Koishi, who is also nowhere to be seen (which feels strangely appropriate) and Sanae who I remembered literally as I was typing this is in th11.

Moving on to Immaterial and Missing Power:

TGHAT'S REIMU

Also I'm pretty sure Meiling wasn't in IaMP? (According to a quick google she was added in a patch but not given a story mode). Anyway the sudden appearance of Reimu is the only real interesting thing here because random cast absences are just so commonplace now. Now lastly for the weird fucking pages we have the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and oh wow this one is something else.

Where do I even begin. Reimu is gone again. Three separate people are credited as Remilia. Actually most characters are credited twice except for Marisa and Sakuya for some reason. Sometimes they specify (voice) and sometimes they just don't. Most characters have [Character Name] and [Character Name (Voice)] which implies that one person is doing mocap or operating a puppet or something while another voices them but then there's just Rumia and Rumia. Who voices Rumia. Remilia has three fucking credits. Marisa and Sakuya get to be normal people. Reimu and Patchouli are just fucking gone. What the hell is happening.

And now it gets stranger once again because I said th1-11 earlier, not th6-11. The PC-98 games are all here too. However. Those pages are all just. Normal. ZUN is credited as the writer. There are correct plot summaries. No voices are credited. The name format is even different (Touhou [Number] [Japanese name]: [English name] instead of just Touhou [Japanese name]: [English name]). They're far too good quality. It honestly feels like whoever uploaded the PC-98 games is a different person to whoever's been doing their bizarre uploads of the windows games.

Now at this point I was looking for other interesting stuff to add - IMDB has Did You Know segments that had fun little details about the games, which seemed to be accurate. It also has a More Like This section linking to the other pages and-

...

...

Luna Nights is here too.

...

LUNA NIGHTS ALSO DOESN'T HAVE VOICE ACTING!!!!!!!!

[silentprincess17]

A Proposal Gone Awry

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Summary: Link has been touring the breadth and width of Hyrule to clear out the remaining monster camps, and soon enough, he reaches Zora’s Domain. Mipha asks him to wait before he heads back to the castle, which he was intending on doing... but some mischievous children may have other plans.

Thank you to @braidy-maidy, @zeldaelmo and @zeldadiarist for your help betaing!

Relationships: Link/Zelda Link/Mipha- Onesided Link & The Zora Children Mipha & Revali (Legend of Zelda)

Contains spoilers for AOC. This is my take on the Heart's Escort Mission- specifically what you get at the end of that.Basically- I turn my angst gun on another character whoopsie but I don't leave Mipha high and dry I promise!

Tags: Unrequited Love, Heartbreak, Healing, Emotional angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending

Link had just got back from the battlefield, and he’d left Mipha there, albeit reluctantly. She insisted she would be the one to check over the Zora troops, alone, “I’ll be able to heal them as I go along Link. Why don’t you go back to the Domain and rest whilst I finish up? You’re not wounded, are you?” He replied in the negative, or well, he’d shaken his head anyway. He’d remained with her still, but she’d sort of stammered for a while, something about final preparations, and it was okay for him to leave. Link wasn’t entirely sure why she didn’t want him to stay, but he hadn’t heard her clearly through what seemed to be perpetual rain on Ploymus mountain, and Mipha had become particularly jumpy around him lately, so he opted to leave her be. He just assumed she meant preparations for the healing she was going to do- and maybe that was a private thing? Or maybe she wanted to ask him to train at some point and it was preparations for that? Not that there was much need for it anymore, with the Calamity destroyed and sealed away, but he missed his childhood friend and would like to help her if she wanted it. Just before he left, she’d clutched his arm, and had asked if he could wait until dinner for her because she wanted to tell him something. He saw no reason to decline, so he’d given her a slight nod and then moved to leave.

As he meandered back through the twisting pathways, he realised that it wasn’t that late, but for some inexplicable reason he felt tired. Sunset had just fallen over the Domain, and now the luminous stones started to glow and fluoresce. It truly was a beautiful place, although… he wasn’t a huge fan of the way the water flowing the walkways had started to creep through his metal boots. He sighed, it had been a spur of the moment decision to wear his Soldier’s Armour, he had put his Champion’s Tunic through the wash multiple times since the Calamity fight and it was still drying in his Guard’s Chamber. He felt strangely bare without it, and he certainly missed the increased perception he had whilst wearing it. And, well, for other, uh, sentimental reasons. No, not because the Princess had made it for him. No. Not at all. He was pulled from his thoughts when his foot squelched uncomfortably in his now soaked socks into the metal plate of his boot. The flow of water had never been a problem as a child because he could run barefoot everywhere and no one would care, but now as the Hero it wouldn’t be seen as proper. He would have to polish them later, to avoid rust forming. And change his socks.

He slowly exhaled, it had been a long week of fighting off the remaining hordes of monsters from Calamity Ganon’s revival, today being the day that he had decided to help clear out the remnants in Zora’s Domain. It was funny, because before he wouldn’t have seen a weeklong absence from the Castle as a bad thing, but now… He blushed slightly, before shaking his head. He still had to go clean up, and then eat dinner, because by the Goddesses he was starving, and then meet Mipha… And perhaps he’d teleport back to the Central Tower and then to the Castle. Just to see her again. He missed being by her side, and it left him restless to know he wasn’t protecting her. Somehow over the course of their journey together those feelings of friendship and wanting to protect her had slowly morphed into something else. Or perhaps, he reflected, his reasoning for wanting to do those things had changed. But he could start to smell the aroma of freshly made hasty meat skewers made using the abundance of fleet lotus seeds around the Domain and Link’s stomach audibly grumbled. Ah, food was close, so he hurried the last few steps to reach the Dining Hall.

Just as he was about to go inside, four small bodies ploughed into him, and he let out a startled gasp. They tugged at his boots, and he only belatedly realised it was the members of The Big Bad Bazz Brigade. Bazz was at the forefront with the sword Link had gifted him when they were children proudly strapped to his back. The sword was barely off the ground, though, with the tip jutting into the passageway with every jump he made.

“LINK!” Bazz shouted, a huge smile plastered across his face.

“Hey Link!” Rivan jostled with Bazz and they flailed their arms at each other, with both of them gripping one of his legs. Link looked down and wasn’t sure what to do exactly. Did he try to separate them? Or peel them off him? He couldn’t help but smile at their antics though.

“You’re coming down to our Domain an awful lot recently, aren’t you?” Gaddison, The Heroine, had both hands on her hips but then moved to pull the two squabbling friends off his poor boots. He hadn’t realised how heavy Zoran children were.

Behind them shyly stood Sidon, he was smaller than all of them, and he gripped his Lightscale Trident with shaking hands.

Link nodded at Gaddison, pointed back towards the mountain where the monsters had been. She nodded sagely, understanding what he meant. Link moved to pick up Sidon, he hadn’t been allowed to join Bazz’s group because he was too young, but he still followed them everywhere. Actually, he tried so hard to prove his worth to be allowed in, he’d even climbed Ploymus mountain to face the Lynel there in an effort to prove his courage. Link found him to be adorable, Sidon reminded him of what he was like at that age, keen to please and prove he was capable, but too reckless for his own good. Sidon smiled his trademark smile and wrapped both arms around Link’s neck. Link smiled; aw he was so cute.

“Hey Link! When will you go swimming up the waterfall with us? You’re older now right, do you have your scales yet?” Rivan asked.

He shook his head. He didn’t have scales, and he wouldn’t ever get them because he wasn’t Zoran.

“HE’S A HYLIAN you ninny! He’s not a Zora! He won’t ever get scales like we will!” Ah Gaddison, ever the voice of reason in the group of rowdy boys. She mothered them all, he could remember that from when he used to play at the Domain, and she sprouted logic that the Zora-equivalent of a ten-year-old Hylian probably shouldn’t have, but who was he to judge.

Rivan looked traumatised. “So, we can never swim up the waterfall with Link then?”

“NO.” She paused, “Well, unless someone gives him armour with their scale on it.”

Bazz shoved his shoulder into hers, “Why don’t you do it then?”

She shoved him back, doubly hard, so much so that he ended up slipping in the water and skidding onto his bum. Link suppressed a bout of laughter at his enraged face. “Do I look like I have a White Scale yet Bazz? I can’t give him one if I don’t have one myself!” She bent down and whacked his arm again. “AND ANYWAY, did you not listen to the history lessons we’ve had- you only give your scale to the person you want to marry, basically as an engagement present.” She fluffed her fins around, “And I guess by association love.” She shuddered, “What a disgusting concept. Imagine loving a boy. How desperate do you have to be?”

Link suddenly felt ridiculously embarrassed. He tried going to the shop on the way here, but they didn’t sell the actual chest plate part of the Zora armour and had looked at him strangely when he’d showed them the Greaves and Helm he already had and pointed at his chest. Then again, maybe he should have actually voiced it. He found it bizarre, considering all the other races seemed fine with selling their complete armour sets. He chalked it off as just a Zora thing. But now he knew better. Farore, he had been such an idiot. How had he apparently missed this piece of information? He hadn’t known the Zora Armour was only given as an engagement gift! And to someone you loved no less. No wonder the staff in the shop had looked at him as if he had grown an extra head!

Bazz looked sheepish, scratching the back of his head. “Well, that was the girl side of things, Heroine.”

Rivan looked confused, “Then you don’t love Link?”

Gaddison blushed bright red, “NOT IN THAT WAY! And I’m only 52! That’s not appropriate at all!” She punched them both, “Do you not remember anything about our plan?”

Bazz scratched his chin. “We want to go swimming up the waterfall.”

Gaddison took a deep breath. “Well done, Bazz, son of Seggin. That’s the whole point of this venture, none of the adults will let us go on the waterfall by ourselves because we aren’t that strong.” She huffed and sat down, her legs crossed and both hands holding her face up in what Link recognised as classic-moody-child-face, “We just need some supervision is all. That is what Link would have been ideal for, but he doesn’t have the armour, it was a longshot really.”

Rivan piped up. “WAIT I remember now! Wasn’t this to do with Kodah?”

Up until that point, Link had been watching the three of them squabbling with amusement mostly. He’d been surprised with the revelation of the Zora Armour but how was he supposed to know the intricacies of Zora… courting (?) rituals. It struck him as weird that they hadn’t changed a single bit since when he was a child and when he played with them. Although, it made sense, that they had remained children whilst he had matured, because Hylians aged much faster compared to the Zora. As soon as Kodah was brought up though, he winced. He could still hear her screeching LINNY when he had walked into the Domain with the Princess who had come to recruit Mipha as a champion. It had been mortifying.

Gaddison sighed. “Yes, she said she was making the armour for a Hylian remember! And then that gossip that my mother heard that she was in fact going to propose to the Hero? In case you’ve been living under a rock- that Hero is sitting right there!” She pointed at him, and Link went red-faced, his eyebrows raised high. Oh, thank the Goddesses Kodah hadn’t done anything. He had no idea what he’d even say. How had she ever thought he’d agree anyway- it wasn’t like he’d talked to her properly since when he was four! But then, time passed differently for the Zora… “I thought she would have given it to him by now.” She huffed, “We should have realised that flaw in our plan.”

Bazz was uncharacteristically silent as the three of them sulked over not being able to go up the waterfall. Link felt bemused that all of their extensive planning was over this armour that apparently a lover, in this case Kodah, was meant to give to their loved one (him haha what a joke) so that he could wear said engagement gift and take them to the waterfall. He shook his head, children’s priorities and means to achieve those were always… entertaining to listen to. Bazz suddenly perked up, “Baby Prince!” Sidon looked up from where he had been resting his head on Link’s shoulder. “Didn’t you go blabbing around the other day to the King that Princess Mipha was making someone armour?”

Rivan enthusiastically nodded, “YEAH- you said that King Dorephan was worried about it, so he commi-ssioned someone to get the materials, and he gave them the Zora Greaves!”

Link swallowed; he had a small inclination of where things were going but he wasn’t sure. He pulled out the Greaves anyway and after a round of ohs and ahs, a hushed silence fell over the group, everyone watching Sidon as the small red spots on his cheeks flared a darker red. He sucked in a small breath and slowly nodded.

Bazz nodded, and immediately stood up. “This is a mission for the The Big Bad Bazz Brigade. We hereby announce that we will go searching for this Armour- this is your pre-pre-liminary mission, Rookie Comrade Sidon. We cannot go find Kodah’s armour because we have no clue where it is so that would waste valuable time, but you know where Mipha’s is don’t you?”

Sidon nodded, much more enthusiastically this time. Link held his hands up, trying to get them to stop.

Gaddison stood up then, “Wait, what if she made it for a Zora?”

Bazz shook his head, “We’ll make do. You want to go swimming tonight, don’t you Heroine?”

Link was vehemently shaking his head, and opened his mouth, but the words died in his throat. What were they doing? What was he agreeing to?! No, he had to say something, he might not know much about courting rituals, but he didn’t want to wear something meant as a present for an engagement!

“Hey!” They all looked at him, “Is this… okay?”

“We need to ask Comrade Gaddison for that information because we, ahem, didn’t, uh, study the particulars.”

Gaddison paused. “Well, I don’t really know. Do you just propose once in your life and that’s it? I mean technically the scales grow back right? It’s not like you have a gaping hole in your chest. And really, everyone seems to be making one at the minute, so it probably doesn’t hold all that fancy meaning anymore. And Lord Jabu Jabu knows we have so many traditions that no one other than the oldies bother with.”

Rivan piped up, “Princess Mipha is nice too, so she won’t mind right?”

Gaddison nodded, “True, and theoretically, we’re just borrowing it. It’s not like Link here will take it forever or something. It’s just so we can practise going up the waterfall a few times on our own, and then we’ll give it back. She probably won’t even know we’ve taken it!” She shook her head, “I surmise no issues Comrade Bazz. We may proceed.”

“Comrade Rivan?”

“Sounds good! It means we can swim with Link, right?”

Bazz sighed, “Yes it does. Good so, last person, Comrade Link?”

Link blinked. This whole situation had gone from zero to one hundred so fast. He wasn’t even sure what he was consenting to, and he was really confused. Did this armour really matter to the Zora? Apparently, it did to the shop keepers, but maybe he’d just confused them? That was highly likely considering he hadn’t even said anything to begin with. And Kodah had made him one and he’d last seen her when he was four- she couldn’t genuinely believe he would agree to marry her right? But even ignoring that, it made the whole thing seem a bit like a joke- surely the Armour doesn’t mean that much if you’d make it for someone who you haven’t talked to in years? Plus, the way Gaddison was talking, and she was really the only source of actual knowledge on the topic, made it seem like it was something all the Zora did in their spare time. But stealing Mipha’s potentially specific armour for her future husband? That felt really wrong. And he knew Mipha was a very serious person, not at all like Kodah, so he had a feeling this meant more to her. Plus, why exactly was he agreeing - because the kids wanted to go surfing vertically? That just felt ridiculous. He shook his head. No. He wasn’t going to ruin Mipha’s gift for her, um, future husband. It’s not what friends would do.

Bazz’s eyes widened, “Please Link. You don’t… play with us anymore. I know you’re all grown up, and you have like responsi-si-”

“Responsibilities you fool.”

“What she said!” and then Bazz opened up his pouch, “AND we got you a gift! Your favourite from the Domain, Hearty Salmon Meuniere!”

Link sighed, about to decline, but his stomach rumbled again and Bazz shoved the plate into his hand. He always was too susceptible to food. And, they made a valid point. He hadn’t spent much time with them lately and they seemed desperate to go up a waterfall. Maybe this was a Zora rite of passage- he knew when he was younger, he’d been desperate to duel with soldiers, but everyone had laughed at him because he was so young. Perhaps this was the same for them. And who was he kidding- he just couldn’t say no. Especially to food children. And he couldn’t deny a small part of him was intrigued as to what the Zora Armour looked like after all. It was the last one he had yet to collect, having received the Greaves from who he now knew was the king, and the Helm from when Mipha had been recruited. So, even though he felt like it was probably not the right thing to do, he agreed, the reckless and hungry side won out. “One ride up the waterfall. And then we return the Armour.”

A series of exclamations and happy cries of “YES! LET’S GO!” rang out through the Domain.

Next (Part 2)

[buckyreaderrecs]

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power: Chapter 2/?

Summary:  Nobody knows about your power. You’ve never really wanted to use it, let alone hurt someone with it. But, someone has figured you out, and now they’re following you. There’s only one place you can go for help - The Avengers. Good news is they’re good people. Bad news is your power is entirely relevant to soft, sad, recovering, broody Bucky Barnes. Chapter 1. 

Chapter 2:  Bucky checks in on you while you're in limbo, waiting for a decision from The Avengers.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff Additional tags: Bucky needs a hug, recovering Bucky, mostly canon compliant (Infinity War and Endgame didn’t happen, Stark Tower still exists), angst, possible future smut (who knows, not me), mutual pining, reader has powers, she/her pronouns, more tags/characters to be added with future chapters

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power Chapter 2/?

It wasn't a prison cell, that's for sure. It was almost a small hotel suite, only a touch more clinical. Compared to your own bedroom though, it wasn't home. It wasn't comfortable, nor comforting. The room served to detain you while you sat in a background check, moral compass limbo. Somewhere else in the building, deep in the secret spaces of Stark Tower, a group of heroes sat discussing your fate. All you could do was pace from window to ensuite and back again.

Everybody was in agreeance that your story was worth a test of validity. If what you said was true, then someone had a method of seeking out powered people. And, not just those with abilities and faces splashed across the news like themselves, Jessica Jones or Luke Cage. Someone found you. That alone was just the tip of the hypothetical iceberg. It also begged the question… What did they want with you?

As good as they were, it was only one in the group of six that thought all of this only after being concerned for your wellbeing. It took Wanda a good minute to catch up to the others' conspiracy theories and climbing heartrates. She had been the one to walk you to the detention suite, softly spoken and apologetic about the circumstances. When you were locked in, you could hear her on the other side of the door hesitate for a moment before leaving to join the others.

When Wanda sat down at the table, she pulled a tablet close and began to read through the data already being collected on you. The room felt off somehow. Her friends were on edge. Steve, in particular, seemed… something… Wanda couldn't read him. That's when she noticed the absence of Bucky.

Only Steve, Sam, and Natasha were seated around the oval table. Tony was pacing, talking to F.R.I.D.A.Y. about you. He had a cup of coffee in one hand, and his other waved around. Wanda put it together then; whatever Bucky said or did to leave the party, it had unsettled Steve. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing - Steve wasn't sad or angry or worried - but it must have been a rare thing.

Wanda stopped analysing the room and started to flick through digital files. "What was the point?" she asked then. Everybody looked up from their work to Wanda. "Locking her up. What was the point?"

…

You wondered what the point of locking you in a room was. Did The Avengers feel safer that way? Maybe they felt more in control. Really, all that stood between you and getting out was a phone call, getting redirected to Stark Tower and hey presto - magic - bam - confetti - you'd have someone there within minutes.

They'd seen it in your face though. There was abject fear and a lack of options. Each and every one of them had been there, in one way or another. They knew you weren't going anyway.

But someone was coming to you.

The rapping of knuckles on the door startled you. When you squeaked you felt stupid for it. Hopefully, the knocker didn't hear.

He did. He bit back a smile too.

"Uh… Come in," you called, again confused at the point of the locked door.

As the door opened, you stood up, bringing with you a throw pillow from the bed you'd been sitting on between perimeter paces. Hugging it to your chest was a completely unconscious action. It wasn't until Bucky Barnes stepped into the room and you saw his eyes flick from your face to the pillow and back again that you even realised you were holding it. Putting it down now seemed like an even more awkward course of action, so you let yourself keep it.

Bucky left the door ajar, then came to stand in front of you. He knew the exact distance to leave to not be threatening, but not be eerie either. He'd learnt that lingering on the edges unnerved people. It was a habit he'd formed to keep himself safe or unseen, but Steve and Sam were constantly reminding him that he was safe now.

"I'm sorry!" you blurted out before Bucky could say anything. His eyebrows pulled together in confusion, but the floodgates had been opened and you weren't really watching him for a reaction. "I'm so, so fuckin' sorry. I said-I said, like, if I got this far and I got to… show you, that it wouldn't be you, you know? Because… Fuck. I'm just…"

When you waltzed your way in to see The Avengers, you knew you'd have to show them your power. Over and over, you'd made yourself promise that it wouldn't be Bucky or Clint Barton. Honestly, none of them were great options. Their sense of independence and autonomy was paramount to them being… stable… okay… alive. It just seemed cruel to take that away, even for a second. All the way over to the tower you'd had your fingers crossed, repeating over and over, 'don't let Bucky be there, don't let Bucky be there, don't let Bucky be there.'

He let you speak, let you say what you thought you needed to. There were only so many times you could apologise though.

"I'm sorry," you whispered again, voice cracking. You threw the pillow aside, frustrated.

Bucky couldn't remember the last time someone was so considerate of his very specific history. The others treated him with semi-hostile gentleness. It was weird. He was a war hero, the longest-serving P.O.W. in fact. But he was also The Winter Solider. Even The Avengers found it hard to reconcile that into one normal approach to his presence. "It will take time," Steve assured him, "But they'll get there."

"It's alright," Bucky spoke. You watched him watch you. "I… insisted," he reasoned with a shrug of his left shoulder. "And, you weren't in the position to be makin' demands."

He looked sorry for you.

"Have you's decided?" you asked after a few beats of nothing.

"Ah... no, well, maybe. I don't know. I didn’t go with them."

You expected him to explain, but he didn't, so you just nodded.

The world had co-existed with powered people and superheroes for a while now, definitely for your lifetime. You grew up with stories about Captain America, and a dozen other myths and legends. In 2008 Tony Stark outed himself, and from there society just had to get used to the fact humans weren't top of the pecking order anymore. You had turned 18 that year and had finally been granted some relief to the painful alienation you felt. You weren't the only one. Now, you wondered if Bucky had got that moment.

When he came out of brainwashing, when Steve pulled him back into the light, did Bucky finally get to feel like he wasn't entirely alone? Did he look around at the kid spider and talking raccoons in absolute wonder? Or did he still feel that cold isolation?

Another few beats of nothing had gone by. He looked like he was moving to leave, his body turning only slightly but enough to prompt more words from your mouth. "You on babysitting duty then?"

He smiled. His whole fucking face lit up when he smiled.

With a sly tilt of the head, Bucky said so casually, "Don't think I'd be much use against you."

A joke! You grinned and shrugged with a little too much ego.

"Nobody here is really used to that… Feelin' powerless doesn't go down to well," Bucky said.

"I'm not…" but you couldn't find the right word; they all seemed a little too cliché.

"Evil? Tryna' kill us, take over the world and all that?" he offered, serving the exact cliché up on a platter. When you nodded, he mirrored your action. "I know. They do too. Can't always trust your gut though,"

"What does your gut say about me?" you asked, the words slipping straight out of your head from where they had popped into your head. The environment was too foreign, the situation too peculiar for you to be self-conscious. That saved you from being embarrassed.

"That you're dangerous," Bucky answered as quickly as you had asked the question. "But… you're tellin' the truth. You're scared."

Hearing the words out loud forced you into some sort of confrontation with the emotion. You were scared. So, so fucking scared. Tears began to roll down your face and your teeth gnawed at the inside of your cheeks.

He hesitated, but Bucky stepped closer and carefully held your shoulders. The pressure was grounding, even on each side. You looked up at him, sniffling. His expression was soft, neutral, warm.

"You're safe here," he told you. "I know how you feel… Trust me."

You tried to start your sentence, but it kept halting between tears. "I don't know what I'm meant to do now," you finally got out.

Bucky sighed, offered a small lopsided smile, and nodded. "I know, darlin'," he whispered, then pulled you into a hug.

Folding your arms up between your chest and his, you felt enclosed. Safe in a bubble. It didn't occur to you to think about how strange it all was. It didn't even occur to Bucky to think about how out of character he was being. Maybe it was because it wasn't really, not if you were judging him by pre-WWII Bucky standards. This was who he used to be, before it all.

Chapter 3. 

[one-divides-into-two]

elfgame shit pt. 2: currency, funerary rites, and how to prevent graverobbing adventurers from destabilizing local economies

i’m running my game in an OSR (old school renaissance) system - specifically Knave, which you should absolutely check out because it’s flawless - and one of the major conceits of such systems, which encourages a particular approach to play, is gold-for-XP. i like that: i want my players to be, well, knaves, freebooters, etc., and motivating them to explore and risk their necks by dangling the promise of sick loot in front of their noses is one way to do that. one gold coin = one experience point, if you can get it back to town and blow it on lavish parties.

there’s strong archaeological evidence supporting the claim that currency in its formal sense emerged first in the mesopotamian city states that i talked about in my last post (you can check my #elfgame shit tag to find it quickly), with metal weights corresponding to quantities of grain stored in urban storehouses (the shekel). this quickly spread across existing exchange networks (at least as far as the commodity value of the stored grain was accepted as safe due to the assumed capacity of city states to defend their storehouses); silver bars were, at least within the expansive trade networks of these city states, the closest thing to standard currency [coins didn’t start to be minted until at least 1000BCE, some 200 years after the Bronze Age collapse that will be the historical analaogue for my game].

(Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer, 3100–3000 BC - stolen from Wikipedia: G-d knows i’d never list dates in BC)

But - as far as I can tell, and I’d love to be corrected on this - the emergence of commodity-value currency wouldn’t have started until the Uruk period and the real formation of city-states; this roughly corresponds to the civilization which the human migrants built in the ruins of sneople culture mentioned at the very end of my last post, while the sneople culture is closer to that of the preceding Ubaid phase. If the ‘dungeons’ of my setting - at least in the heartlands of old sneople civilization - include old sneople ziggurats or something, there’d be no chance to find currency in the grave goods, and that makes cash-for-XP difficult (since trad game systems don’t typically encourage you to count magic item values towards gold for XP exchange). How then to encourage players to raid sneople ruins?

(Woolley, C. L. (n.d.). Drawing of the Ziggurat at Ur. [Drawing].) I have a multi-part answer to this: the first part, which I’ll describe below, relates to prehistorical funerary practices, while the second part (which I’ll eventually make another post about) is related to how the cash-to-XP pipeline will play out in my game, and how leveling up will work.  SO - funerals. 

Above is a weird ‘genealogy’ of the Sumerian pantheon - complicated and distinct pantheons like this one seem to have begun to form in the Uruk and later periods, thus, considerably after our Sneople analogues; this makes sense, as, without the concrete urbanization that marked the formation of actual city states, there’s not much cause to develop organized and systematized practice on this level. Compare, for example, to Marija Gimbutas’ (once again, sorry for bringing her up - unfortunately, she’s responsible for some of the most extensive scholarship on this period, and the area I’m interested in, that exists in the English academy, so I kinda have to) scholarship on the Goddess cults of ‘Old Europe.’ In her model, each household or small settlement would have had its own set of fertility goddesses, related to the agricultural practices and early animal domestication. The religious practices were a superstructural development emerging from the economic base: agricultural settlements, connected to their neighbors through clan ties, gatherings - typically feasts, potentially funerary rites, although this periodization in OE is marked by a strange absence of systematized burial compared to the later periods and the practices of the neighboring steppe - and (although not according to Gimbutas) internecine warfare.  This sort of Irigarayan domesticity cult was purportedly common until  the invasion of the ‘Kurgan culture’ - the nomadic steppe people that I talked about in the last post, who buried their dead in stone complexes called kurgans. Weird fascist subtext of the “‘Old European’ idyll disrupted by unruly neighbors who worship differently” aside, there’s reason to use the ‘kurgan culture’ as archaeological justification for intricate tomb complexes in the Sneople culture (even though the steppe nomads are incredibly and entirely culturally distinct from the Ubaid-period Sumerian basis for the Sneople). Perhaps they practiced an ancestor-worship-based religious system, which eventually lead to the deification of ancient ancestors. I dunno. I haven’t worked that out yet. That is, we establish that the early urbanization common to the Sneople period means excess resources eventually used to build the first examples of public architecture in the region - Sneople ziggurats; ‘Kurgan culture’ burials included corpses being laid to rest with lots of their treasure, mostly metals traded with the Maikop people of the North Caucus mountains, who connected the KC people with the Ubaid Sumerians, so I’ve decided that our Sneople would likely engage in similar practices, burying their social elites with lots of precious metals. Still no coins, but the contemporary culture had to get their metallurgical practices and high valuation of silver from somewhere - why not from the Sneople predecessors; maybe they even found silver artifacts in the abandoned Sneople cities?  So there are old burial complexes filled with grave goods - primarily precious metals, in the form of jewelry and weapons - waiting to be uncovered. Boom. Motivation to delve into them. This might mean having to shift from a coin-based game economy to a weight-based system, closer to shekels, ironically: an amulet contains X stone worth of silver, a sword Y stone worth of silver, etc. This also leads to more dumb roguishness: hairbrained schemes to drag the solid-silver statue of Sneople-Goddess-X out of the dungeon. Whatever. this post is rambling and already way too long. I forgot to talk about how to not destabilize the economy - i promise that will come up in the leveling-up post.

(The Great Salbyk Kurgan, from ~600-500BCE, so far far after our period if interest, well into the Iron Age)

[arecibomanual]

It seemed like the transcripts of some of Chronos' videos were lost, so I went ahead and redid them myself.

I strongly believe that my mom was being monitored and harrassed by Youtube, Universal Pictures, and their affiliates, due to a secret, of sorts, she had uncovered within the original trilogy of Jurassic Park films Let me start by saying as early on as I can that I am not crazy - never been diagnosed with schizophrenia, [????] disorder, or any other mental illness. I'm just good at noticing patterns I've always been a big Jurassic Park fan. [near illegible, but I tried my best] I saw the first[firat?] film in the [??] when I was five years old, [etc] It's possible that Youtube's part in the harrassment campaign may have started with the removal of her various tribute videos to Jurassic Park after her passing but those may also merely be the result of the vast machine that is the automated copyright-takedown system. As big of a JP fan as I am though... [yes, just one word gets its own entire block.] [The next two slides are both on screen for like a second or less each, and both very hard to read.] I was never as [Jebus??] into the franchise as my mom was. She would watch the entire trilogy [something something] weekend [something] month She would buy JP-branded oatmeals and sugary cereals, long after her doctor advised her to steer clear of these for [sdffghjh] tribute videos [sasfsds] like those Linkin Park anime music videos, [there seems to be another line below this in smaller text, but all that can be seen due to the "Lost World" logo is an 'n'] I started noticing their absences toward the end of 2015 Without access to her Youtube password [again, the logo obscures a second line of smaller text] videos s[asdf] eate[n???] on her old laptop I contacted Youtube many times regarding the videos, but have only recieved canned auto-responses and unhelpful, yes sympathetic responses from actual employees after pressing the matter

Sudden huge increase in views... I hope anyone reading this is good with computers. Can you help a dude out? Anyone with experience in the "Eratas" or "Erratas" system, if you could send me a message I'd be extremely grateful. I realise reaching out to my Youtube viewers is a stretch, but hey I guess it's worth a shot, right?

This is the current automatic transcript of the song lyrics- note the address is gone.

0:00 yummy with our bodies we go double take 0:16 when double towel and down because you 0:18 will obey yep at the moment a swing 0:24 according and what if they were moving 0:26 out of people put this flag again me and 0:30 where we get the Kyrian's logbook that 0:32 much will be here with norma j whatever 0:35 same time of shipment be ready rings I 0:39 got the swagger bomb dinner she gotta be 0:41 the banker getting hungry mi made it was 0:46 a motherfucker I get the most which is 0:49 one of those bad Mama's lawmakers face 0:54 big to wait before the game silly 0:56 mistakes by me for the legality long 1:00 incremented plan to participate there 1:03 are few things that remain partly in 1:05 fact women brown one jet respect for 1:08 just a sec all want to hear that amana 1:12 fellas 1:14 where's little water water some people 1:20 talk to prepare a while did you dress 1:22 this is probably one night shift with a 1:25 flower wanna sesh with the left yeah I 1:28 came with the girl boy more than I can 1:32 make you feel a bit of summer fun dirty 1:34 hands off what you got this one is 1:37 different cuz of giving up their friend 1:40 not expedia we go up as much me what is 1:44 now for miracles that reason who I saved 1:49 it up for going my life we thought okay 1:52 II didn't see results el Muppet is 1:55 liking the brand back when we flew with 1:58 the what the fucking bag guys what dear 2:01 what I do like her to the finish my blog 2:05 or give it give you burn the neck yet 2:08 before pop pop pop you're already 2:10 because up just a touch the phone fucker 2:14 hit e'rybody chose to be seven dollars 2:18 oof amazing makers Allah fuckin ear for 2:21 my age / or two big horses doing his way 2:26 where we're going 2:28 we're breaking any / you an exact 2:32 digital model for the problems of 2:34 opinion i wanna do you live with my 2:37 first build up an American town to fit 2:42 terrasse de multiple more Chicago's 2:45 that's what we not all results too 2:48 powerful for design code changes

And here's the transcript for the QnA video, copy-pasted from KYM because it's under a spoiler tag on that page and thus won't archive. I don't know why KYM thinks this video was deleted, as it's very much still available.

TRANSCRIPT: [start of video] I’ve been fairly reluctant to really ask anyone for help since the nature of ] like pre[ classic paranoid nutjob ramblings - algorithms controlling things behind the scenes, weird stuff in that vein. But I would never waste anyone’s time with stuff like that. In the past couple of years I’ve asked for help from friends in programming and business circles. but over time, friendships fade, people move, people stop talking to you. You know the drill. As such, I’m very grateful for the help people are giving and I’ll try and answer as many questions as I can here. Cork Top writes: Q: "So with this video, are you essentially trying to see if this system called “Erratas” or “Eratas” will attempt to take down the video because it’s some system/algorithm that takes down videos that… I don’t know, include the term “Eratas”/“Erratas” in them? Which is why you used asterisks for letters in the word in the description, to see if the system could detect text on videos?" [Cont…]

A: Thanks for writing, Cork. Yes. I don’t know much about programming or computer systems, so I’m not too savvy about how to trick them. All I really know about Erratas is that it’s used by dozens of companies. (“recent���, as in, within the last 5 or 6 years) they seem to use it as a copyright-enforcement tool which works as an excellent [?] if you want to take down other things as well. But it has its limitations, and I’m fairly sure that my “test video” helped ferret those out. Maybe. The original Jurassic Park trilogy is excellent, by the way, I highly recommend it. The second film is my favorite, in spite of its flaws. Frank Horrigan writes “what is the erratas system? any documentation?” A: Thanks ]ing, Frank. “Erratas”[?] is something I [?(I’m not sure if there’s a word here or not)] crossed paths with over the years, and in[scope[?] disturb[??(this word MIGHT be “disturbance,” or it might be “disturbs me”)] … The fact that it went after my mom in her twilight years is either evidence of its enormous and uncaring[?] reach in other words, a coincidence, or it means it’s specifically still coming after me after all these years, and to be frank, both options freak me out equally. 3M and Unilever were early adopters, which shows the versatility of the system. Too much faith is put into computers in general, and WAY too much faith was put in Erratas. Lots of people lost their jobs. And Aaron4420 [referring to a YouTuber who posted on one of his videos], it’s easy to talk shit from behind a computer screen but takes a real man to back it up so suck my dick through a straw [end]

rip aaron4420