The only missing gameplay element that could make P3RE more marketable is a fishing mini game

BLOODBORNE LORE Q+A PART 6: the founding of pthumeru, the discovery by byrgenwerth, and the fishing hamlet

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

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BLOCK #LONG POST/ TO NOT SEE THESE HUGE POSTS

shawn asked me a question about the mensis ritual and mergo and the process of trying to answer it in short became a catastrophic failure.

this is going to be a nightmare (hehehuhehehe) to try to explain in broad strokes to people who don't know bloodborne or even to people who do, but i'm going to do my best. anyone who tells you they know what happened or they have "solved" the mensis ritual is a liar. the timeline is muddy and deliberately vague, up to and including how long ago everything happened. i have educated guesswork but that's it.

i will post pure speculation in italics and important nouns in bold. i am peppering this with as many wiki links as possible to back up my claims. not gonna lie this looks like a fucking MAD magazine editor went to town on it or like the timecube website submitted a guest article.

but much like how you need to first make the universe in order to make an apple pie, we must first talk about the history of yharnam before we can talk about its newest resident, mergo.

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untold eons ago, a race known as the pthumerians served the great ones as they slumbered. after becoming exposed to the deliberately vague notion of "the eldritch truth" (it is unclear if this is a specific phenomenon, like the secret to their longevity, or simply the knowledge of the great one's existence), they developed a unique and startling appearance: pallid skin, black eyes, and slacking jaws. i mean, they also lived underground so they look like underground creatures do. either way, they are distinctly inhuman humanoids.

this civilization became lost, but did not die; they continued to serve the "gods" underground, excavating tombs and chambers without rest. over time, they elected a leader, yharnam, pthumerian queen, who was given a ring imbued with special meaning by the great ones indicating her commitment to bearing a special child, a child of blood (the ramifications of this are not known). she still wears the ring today.

arguably, a civil war breaks out in pthumeru, (as evidenced by the armors left by what must have been early cainhurst knights, but i have not looked into this enough to be satisfied) that results in a schism that pushes some pthumerians to the surface, where they become the modern day royalty of cainhurst. the cainhurst royalty and the pthumerian royalty both aspire to have a child of blood and have knights that work explicitly to further this goal, putting them at odds with each other. today's cainhurst royalty maintains some of the "pthumerian look" but not to such an exaggerated degree, with the resemblance fading with each removed generation.

pictured above are the canonical cainhurst royalty and their descendants in order of relation from left to right: annalise, queen of the vilebloods (top left), lady maria (top middle), arianna, woman of pleasure (right; she is also the most distant descendant). the bottom image is concept art of lady maria during her boss fight with a more exaggerated look that did not make it into the game.

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anyway: a bazillion years later or whatever. the cainhurst royals rule over a land that includes the victorian england-ish city of yharnam, named for the forgotten queen of pthumeru. the main appeal of yharnam is its proximity to a university of bold, weird research.

the school of byrgenwerth and its scholars were once an archeological and historical research center. however, during the course of their studies they discovered a vast labyrinth beneath the school where (if the first location they discovered was the same as ours this would be the pthumerian labyrinth) they encountered ancient humanoids, women with the ability to re-animate corpses, an perpetually burning dog who somehow still lives and, most intriguing of all, a creature that defied all understanding. further investigation revealed an unspecified "holy medium", ritual blood, which does not coagulate. this is the ritual blood found in old yharnam on the altar.

further investigation of the labyrinth was halted by the first encounter with a beast. here is a longer post about that encounter and my evidence that leads me to believe it occurred.

this is where things get really fuzzy as to which event happened first. im going to post this part without italics because all the events do happen. its just not clear in what order.

in order to combat these newfound beasts gehrman, a student of byrgenwerth (as he has dialogue where he refers to willem as "master"), took up self-styled arms (the first trick weapons) and became the first hunter. he was followed by a collection of self-styled mercenaries that would come to be known as "the old hunters". there is evidence of the old hunters having once been in the labyrinth as you can summon one to help you fight and the bell descriptions reveal that they were used by the first hunter after discovering them in the labyrinth.

the miraculous healing abilities of the old blood (the origins of which are not specified but i can show you my guesswork later lol) in the labyrinth became known to the students at byrgenwerth. the blood is used to combat the beasts by use of invigorating injections. blood is plentiful and works quickly to heal.

byrgenwerth also begins study and collection of the "phantasms" present (or were once present) in the labyrinth. the discovery of the augur of ebrietas, a slug that summons flailing tentacles of unknown origin, and the arcane properties of pearl slugs drives the school's continued plunges into the depths in spite of the danger posed. part of this research involved discovering the parasitic qualities of these creatures, which could inhabit eyes.

while continuing to investigate the ruins, byrgenwerth became aware of a fishing village where a washed up carcass of a monster was teeming with otherworldly parasites and a stillborn fetus. the parasites had caused the villagers to transform into fish-like monster people not dissimilar to the monster on the coast. the villagers seem alright with this change and actively cultivate millions of the parasites for daily use, such as especially potent lamp oil [1].

upon arrival to the village, the school and its hunters helped themselves to a little bit of genocide just for fun. villager's heads were treppaned open in the search for "eyes on the inside" (a visual metaphor for insight as well as a literal phenomenon) and the monstrous corpse was desecrated by the byrgenwerth researchers who took her child (as the villagers of the fishing hamlet chant) and one of the orphan's three umbilical cords, the one lined with eyes.

i know we find this in a weird place later. we'll get there.

but this wasn't just some pile of fish goo they were fucking with, it was the corpse of the great one, kos (or as some say, kosm). kos's wrath and retribution would come in due time. this event triggered the creation of the hunter's nightmare, a sort of eternal, bloody hell for hunters who participated in the massacre and those who become "blood drunk" where the must relive the event for all eternity. notable hunters trapped in the nightmare from the time of the old hunters include ludwig (not yet notable), laurence (looking awful but he had a busy couple of years before he wound up there), some named NPC hunters such as yamamura and gratia, and lady maria.

lady maria, gehrman's apprentice, could not tolerate her role in the fishing hamlet massacre and threw her beloved weapon into the fishing village well. she, with others, joined laurence when he split from byrgenwerth to found the healing church. its not explicit that the fishing village massacre was the reason for the split, as there were ideological differences (and family matters) brewing that also came to a head, but a one sided genocide seems like a matter that would cause a splinter between one faction that is ruthless in its methods and another that appears to be in the business of healing.

but thats a whole other post.

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uhhh this took a very long time but once im done with this i will never have to type it ever again. the next one covers the healing church in its entirety and should end with the arrival of our hunter in yharnam as the city fully slides into chaos. thank you for reading. or not. its none of my business.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/3uq6wq/interesting_lamp_in_the_hamlet_spoilers_maybe/ which leads to this image: https://i.imgur.com/zVJbcJ2.jpg

the end of being alone (3)

Ch 1 | Ch 2 |

warning: mentions of fear, crocodiles, discussion of teeth

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Logan found himself grateful that he’d made arrangements to postpone their other jobs for a bit, because it looked as though they’d be staying firmly on this planet’s surface for a while.

There had been all of one attempt to bring Virgil aboard the Mindscape, and it had resulted in a significant amount of crying from both the child and Patton. Whatever circumstances had led the Human to this planet, it had left them deeply fearful of any sort of spacefaring vessel.

… This did not annul Logan’s suspicions about smuggling, though he was careful not to say as much in front of Virgil. The child was keen, and any time the fact that they were a Human was mentioned, they withdrew and began displaying body language that Logan believed indicated a desire to flee. Checking that exits were still there, putting space between themself and any of the Mindscape’s crew, anxious tics, and so forth.

Needless to say, they avoided the topic.

However, to Logan’s surprise, the child didn’t seem at all adverse to basic questions about themself. Understanding their responses was rare, of course, but the kid was picking up on Common with a shocking quickness, and Roman had turned out to be rather talented at interpreting their gestures when they didn’t have the right words.

The data that Logan had collected from these inquiries was both strange and intriguing. He’d carefully woven a mental list of it all.

1. Virgil seemed to identify by he/him, though whether that was an actual gender preference or simply a child wanting to be called the same pronouns as the three of them was up for debate. Either way, Logan seriously doubted that there was any way to convey the nebulous concept of gender through a language barrier, so he let the matter lie.

2. After eating too fast, Virgil would convulse slightly in a semi-rhythmic pattern for a short period. He didn’t seem alarmed or pained by this, only slightly irritated when it would interrupt him mid-sentence. The condition of ‘hiccups’ was thankfully temporary, since it made Roman quite jumpy. For their tiny, squeaking nature, Patton had called them ‘hicchirps’, which was ridiculous, but Virgil seemed to enjoy any and all wordplay that made it through his grasp of the language, so Logan stowed his complaints.

3. Virgil was terrified of the locals. Despite being plainly evident, this observation didn’t make sense at first, seeing as the nearby town consisted primarily of native Hiiynal and a few offplanet transfers, none of which could be described as particularly dangerous or violent. After a few days of gentle questioning and no reprimands for not answering, Virgil finally told them that the locals would ‘chase monsters far away’ and so he couldn’t risk getting near. Questioning was temporarily halted in favor of showing the Human the art of shadow symmetry, for purely scientific reasons, of course. 

(Supposition: Human children enjoyed movement games.)

4. While the synthetic meat from the ration kits was accepted by Virgil, he showed a surprising preference for sweeter food items, such as fruit and sugar crystals. Seeing as Humans were rumored to be obligate carnivores or even raw flesh-eaters, this was a strange discrepancy. Virgil had even eaten some of the leafy vegetables Logan had brought, face pinched up in disgust but insisting that eating ‘greens’ would make one tall. It was unclear to Logan what color had to do with nutrients or growth. He was also slightly alarmed at the implication of Virgil being short for his age.

5. Virgil seemed, for all intents and purposes, fixated on Roman.

The latest data point was a work in progress. Logan hadn’t mentioned it to Roman himself, because the Cravon was already fairly worked up over everything the Human did as it was. Nobody seemed sure if this jumpiness was because of the Human child, or on behalf of it.

Still, it was present in little ways. For example, even as he answered Logan’s latest series of questions, his gaze would occasionally flicker up from his hands to Roman, who sat at the mouth of the little cave, carefully peeling more fruit. It wasn’t about the food; Patton had taken it upon himself to make sure the child knew he only had to ask to get something to eat. No, this  ‘almost-staring’ was a frequent occurrence, no matter what Roman preoccupied himself with.

“You were saying you met… Susan… when another predator was attacking it?”

Virgil nodded, hurriedly looking back to his hands. “It was a big bite monster, and Susan was loud crying, so I did, uh,” he lifted his arms up, hands spread wide, “this, and I was loud at it until it ran away. Like raccoons back on Dirt.”

Dirt was apparently Virgil’s name for his home. Logan hadn’t heard of ‘raccoons’ before. He decided not to get sidetracked. “I’d estimate the creature you saw was a Lifel. They are the natural predators of Humlilts.”

“Natural?” Virgil mimicked.

“It means ‘of nature’,” Logan attempted to clarify, gesturing around them. “In the wild.”

Virgil only grew more confused with the wide, encompassing gesture. “Sky? Was not flying.”

Logan glanced at Roman, checking that he was still preoccupied. Patton was back at the ship, contacting a friend for advice. There seemed no better opportunity if he wanted to avoid overwhelming Virgil.

“Virgil, would you like to try something new?” he asked, carefully neutral. It wouldn’t do to put any pressure on the child.

The Human squinted at him slightly, quick to use his most common phrase. “Will it hurt?”

“It will not hurt,” Logan replied, ignoring the tightening in his core with careful practice. It always felt so wrong, that a mere pupa would be so familiar with hurt. “I will always tell you if something might hurt.”

“Mmm.” The Human hummed, the way he always did when they told him such things. Like he wasn’t sure if he could believe it. “What’s it?”

“What is it,” Logan corrected automatically. “It is something I can do, to show you new words. Want to try a little bit, first?” That was the phrase they used for new foods, but it applied well enough to mindsharing.

Virgil clenched and unclenched his hands for a moment longer before nodding, going a little tense like he expected something unpleasant. Logan held a hand out to him, waiting until he’d reached out in return to start sharing.

Small, simple flashes of images and sensations. Quiet forests, shallow oceans, clean air. Plants, bugs, animals, humanoids, living and dying and living again. Nature.

Virgil had pinched his eyes closed immediately at the start of the low-level telepathy, and Logan only had a moment to worry that maybe it had hurt him in some manner.

Then, there was a feeling of recognition. Without a moment to spare, Virgil had grasped the nature of the Vidi and was projecting his own thoughts. Walking on a crunchy leaf-covered trail with other Human young, a winged insect emerging from a cocoon, the crack of thunder and heavy rain on a windowsill. Nature.

“Wow!” Virgil whispered, imprint thoughts flickering like flames, too quick for Logan to really see. “You see into heads!”

Logan pulled back slightly, offering a bit of content-smug in return to the Human’s awe. “That is one way of framing it, yes. So, you understand what I mean, about the Lifel being a natural predator?”

“Carnivore,” Virgil mumbled, and then offered image-thoughts of several creatures that Logan could only assume were from the deathworlder’s home planet. He watched with morbid curiosity as Virgil remembered a clip from a screen, displaying large ungulates with twisting horns crossing a river, and then being dragged underwater by a dark, writhing shape.

“That’s a crocodile,” Virgil told him, his eyes still closed tight in concentration. “They’ve got big teeth and they do death rolls. They look like alligators, but I know they aren’t because gators live in Florida.”

“Florida?” Logan asked. He wondered if perhaps ‘gators’ were kept in captivity for species preservation. Or perhaps they were too dangerous left in the wild?

Virgil showed him a memory of a long, reptilian form with a narrow, tooth-filled jaw. It was wading steadily through a swimming pool, not paying any mind to Virgil, who was sitting with his legs dipped in the pool, watching in fascination. “I lived there!”

“Oh,” Logan managed, his ears going numb with fear at the idea of a child being so near a creature like that. “So it would seem.”

The Human patted him carefully, a gesture of comfort. “It’s okay. The bad guys didn’t take any gators or crocodiles from Dirt. Just people.”

Virgil’s words trailed off, a sense of melancholy overwhelming him. Rather than find out more about the Human’s past, Logan felt an unreasonably strong urge to stop that sadness. “Could you perhaps tell me more about these… ‘crocodiles’? You seem to be quite informed on them.”

“I had a book about them,” Virgil managed, slowly dragging his thoughts away from his abduction. “Did you know some crocodiles have a… a ‘biting force’ of five thousand pounds?”

He had lapsed into English, the sentence sounding well-recited, but Logan still got the general idea of what he meant, and a strong image of a picture book, covered in writing he couldn’t read but still understood. If Logan was right about the measurement conversions, the fact was terrifying.

“That’s very interesting,” he mused, because terrifying and interesting often went hand in hand. “Are there any other predators that can bite like that?”

Virgil scrunched his face up in thought. “Maybe sharks. Oh, but for sure a T. Rex!”

Logan saw a very concerning glimpse of a large fish with too many teeth before Virgil’s mind switched to a cartoon depiction of a larger creature with also too many teeth. He was beginning to see a trend in deathworlder species. “I… see.”

“They’re all dead, though,” Virgil told him sadly, projecting a memory of a huge display of bones. He then seemed to perk up, glancing over at Roman again. “Except for in space!”

Logan narrowly avoided laughing out loud, covering his throat before the vibrating chirps could get far. So, this was the truth behind the Human’s interest!

“Roman is not a ‘dinosaur’,” he clarified, once he felt composed enough to do so. “In fact, I believe he rarely even eats meat.”

Virgil squinted at him. “Are you sure? Maybe he’s a secret dinosaur.”

Logan wiggled his fingers thoughtfully. “I suppose we’ll just have to check.”

---

“Roman, would you come here for a moment?”  

Roman looked up from his task, immediately suspicious. Logan sounded strangely amused, like he was on the brink of laughing at him. That was never a good sign.

Still, the Human was looking over at him with those wide, strange eyes, and he wasn’t about to run away. He got to his feet, leaving his pile of dana peels behind as he crossed the cave floor. “What is it, dear esteemed companion who would never take advantage of me?”

“I need you to show us your teeth,” Logan said, very much not being a dear esteemed companion who would never take advantage of him. Roman resisted the urge to hang his head in resignation. He should have expected this. The Ulgorii was shameless when it came to exploiting his friends for science.

“How about absolutely not?” he replied, because there were actually limits to his tolerance for shenanigans, and one of those limits was threat-displaying at a baby Human.

“Hold on, look,” Logan said, and then bared his own ridged teeth with a click.

The Human did his small grimace-smile back, entirely unphased. They both looked to him expectantly. Roman felt as though he was being ganged up on.

“Um,” Virgil said, painfully tentative, “please?”  

Roman felt extremely ganged up on.

He squatted, tail keeping him perfectly balanced, and pulled at the corner of his mouth to show some of his teeth.

“Woah,” Virgil breathed.

“See how the back teeth are narrow but dull? They’re designed to crack bones and get to the marrow at the center,” Logan narrated, like the nerd he was. “Roman doesn’t have the small incisors or sharp molars required for proper full-time carnivores.”

Roman almost reminded his crewmate to use small words, but Virgil seemed to get the idea, leaning uncomfortably close to stare. He then opened his own mouth, like he was planning to take a bite out of something, displaying a shocking number of tiny little bone-teeth crammed inside. Some of them were uncomfortably sharp.

Rather than attack anyone, though, Virgil touched his own teeth, carefully inspecting the shape of them. Roman resisted the urge to get him to sanitize his hands. Kits would be kits, he supposed.

Logan was patiently watching as Virgil pointed to each tooth in turn, and he obligingly recited the name of each type of tooth for the kit. His two lower arms took frantic notes on Human jaw structure, probably to prepare more elaborate meal plans better suited to a deathworlder diet. The kid soaked every bit of information in like a sponge.

Finally, after a long moment of thought, he announced, “My ‘lower canine’ is going to fall out in close time!”

“Soon,” Logan offered, always quick to interpret the Human’s occasional nonsense Common. “'My lower canine is going to fall out soon.'” And then, after a moment’s pause. “Wait, it’s going to what?”

And then, because Roman’s day needed more nightmare fuel, the kit bared his tiny fangs at them and poked one with his tongue, revealing that it did indeed seem to be sickeningly loose. In fact, Roman could see a few other gaps in the curved row of teeth, some with little bits of bone peeking out.

“Stars above,” Roman said, feeling a little faint. Logan was already interrogating a very confused Virgil on whether or not losing teeth was indicative of an illness or not.

“They’re just my little teeth,” Virgil told them, seemingly unconcerned with holes in his mouth. “I get big ones later.”

“There are plenty of species that have milk teeth, but to have their adult set not fully-formed by the time the milk teeth are ready to fall out…,” Logan quickly devolved into muttering, hands flicking.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Roman asked despite himself, eyeing the kit just in case he was going to burst into tears all of the sudden. Roman himself had lost one or two front teeth before his next set had fully formed, and each time it had felt like biting on hot metal.

“Nuh-uh.” Virgil seemed to have moved from confused to amused, still not entirely sure what the fuss was all about. “Not unless I,” he mimed pulling on the tooth, and Roman made a click-click-click of parental don’t-do-that chiding before he’d even fully registered the alarm he’d felt at the motion.

Virgil clicked back at him curiously, sounding exactly like a tiny version of an exasperated parent. Roman tucked his face against his shoulder, unsure if he should laugh or despair.

This Human was really going to be the death of him.

Here I go (oh boy, sorry for the terrible English, I’m actually Brazilian so this is hard) (i was about to be like holaaaaaaaa otro latino but then i remembred yall speak porch of geese fml. anyway hi. mod mangles on the case)

Name: Dolly the Dog

Species: Dog

Gender: Female

Job: The narrator of the shows/babysitter

Purpose: To help with the narration during the shows and to take care of the lost children in the establishment. Children are instructed to, if they ever lose sight of their parents, stay close to the stage and play with her; the parents are instructed to look there first. If the parents don’t come back to take their child, one of the employees has to discover where the child lives and take the poor kid home. If the kid is not comfortable with the employee, they can take their favorite animatronic to accompany them (this was only permitted after one incident, in which a girl made a scandal because she didn’t wanted to go with the day guard to her house). while i think the concept of a kid showing up to someone’s house with like a 6 ft furry robot is funny, i don’t see this really panning out in practice. as iffy as i am about it, i think the “babysitter/lost child center” thing can stay as is, but i think employees would defer to calling parents first (if the child is old enough to have memorized a phone number/have a phone), local authorities, or CPS.

Creator: Sarah Brown (another OC), the owner of the establishment and the creator of all the animatronics.

Location: The Showtime Funland, a restaurant for all the family (but specially for their children). It’s a vibrant, cheery and colorful place, where there are seven animatronics: Ollie the Owl, Billy the Bird, Fany the Fish, Charlie the Cat, Dolly the Dog, Happy and Lucky. Happy and Lucky are the only human-ish animatronics, and both of them are out of order during the game, and the others are the main actors of the stage, where they tell stories with musicals during the meals on the restaurant or just stay on the playground with the kids; the only one who can’t go to the playground during the day is Dolly, who’s programmed to stay and take care of the children waiting for their parents.

Where: On the stage; she sits on the front of the stage, on the right, and narrates the story that’s being performed.

Age: She’s the oldest animatronic: seven years of functioning. Her character is older than that, because of her old version, but since it was malfunctioning in a way which wasn’t even possible to take lightly, she was replaced by her new version. Her character is 14 years old. this is a little unclear to me…has she been in service for 14 years, or is the character supposed to be like a 14 year old child? i don’t think animatronics really need ages tbh but i dont see any issue with this either, so you can scrap this detail if you feel unsure about it.

Haunted/not: She is not haunted, but her program is malfunctioning; her AI is not recognizing the faces of the employees during the night for “unknown reasons”, and she attacks them as if they are “threats to the establishment”, in a way that she wasn’t programmed to do; she was supposed to call the police if any intruder came, but she becomes aggressive during the night because of someone meddling with her system.

During the game: The first thing the game shows is a cutscene, where the night guard is guided through the whole building by the day guard (called “Steve Hughes” by Annie, but it’s not known if this is the same day guard or not), and is introduced to the animatronics and told a bit of the story behind the establishment. It was created by Sarah Brown, a famous inventor, and was a well known establishment since its opening during the 80’s. During its history in business, there where countless robbers and stupid teenagers trying to get in and mess around with the things inside Funland, so the night guard was supposed to deal with these problems; but the animatronics, after a terrible incident in which the night guard was attacked by a robber, received a new AI capable of recognizing the faces of the employees and to give the night guard an alert if there was any intruder. The night guard is left alone to watch the cameras while listening to “Annie”’s recordings, since she was the last night guard, and discover about the malfunctioning of the AIs. In the third night, Annie quits, leaving the player with her guide about how to avoid the animatronics and with some recordings of how to flee if there’s something happening during the night (like a fire, for example) without getting caught. First, only Ollie and Fany are threats, but through night two and three Billy and Charlie too start to malfunction; in the end of night three, Dolly starts to do so as well. In the fifth night, Happy and Lucky also leave the deposit where they are hidden to attack the player. On the sixth bonus night, Annie left an odd recording of her and Sarah talking about the AIs of the animatronics, and Sarah implies that she knows of someone who would “do anything to make his business bigger than mine again, and wouldn’t hesitate to sabotage my creations”, as if she knows about the malfunctioning.

During the nights (3-5 (and bonus night)): She is the most predictable and organized of the animatronics, always making this specific path: first she leaves the stage, where she normally is, then goes through the playground (and stays there for a while), passes by the kitchen, through the deposit (where the audio doesn’t work, but the camera does), and then to the left corridor to the night guard’s office. She never changes her path, but as the game progresses she begins to become more and more fast and, since the other animatronics are more unpredictable, it’s harder to pay attention to her movements. Annie says, on her second recording, that she’s afraid of all the animatronics besides Dolly, since she is “the less threatening”; but, on her guide to escape on night four, she seems to have changed her mind (or it was a previous recording, before she labeled Dolly as “predictable and almost harmless”), it doesn’t chronologically make sense to have this be a previous recording, unless you intend to imply that annie went back and remade recordings for nights 1-3 right before she quit in addition to the night 4 guide. saying that “it would be best if you pay attention to her, since she’s fast and difficult to see without the flashlights”.

Skill: She tries to kill the player, first at the end of night three until night five (and the sixth bonus night). Dolly has a very advanced AI and is equipped with a recognition system, at least a hundred plays and stories on her memory, a voice system that helps her to change her voice when needed, the ability to sing, dance and interact with humans properly, and a system that can regulate her body heat. i was gonna say a hundred seems a bit much but idk how many stories the storyteller-esque animatronics are programmed to have tbh. if youre aiming to make the restaurant one of those cheaper places, id recommend scaling this number down.

Personality: During the day, Dolly is incredible cocky and arrogant when it comes to her role as the narrator, and she proclaims herself the “star of the show”, something her old version had but was even worse, coming to the extreme of pushing another animatronic off the stage and destroying it completely after getting annoyed by the poor robot. She’s kind with the children and the adults alike, but acts more politely with the elder and more sisterly with the younger audience; she says, during the game, that it’s horrible to never be able to go to the playground, but that she loves to take care of the lost children. During the night, she becomes a very aggressive but organized animatronic, something that her personality has during daytime as well; she is often annoyed by the others, since they sometimes go against the script for comic relief. Dolly is the most talkative of the animatronics during their attempts to kill the player, often bragging about her role as the narrator and star of the Showtime Funland and threatening to “end the show” of the night guard.

Appearance: A black and white dog (white on her mouth, chin, hands and belly), with big, glowing brown-yellowish eyes. Her ears are long and fall by the sides of her head, and she has paws instead of feet, but still has hands. She wears a magician hat with a blue bow on it, and sometimes during her show takes it off, just to reveal something inside of it that can help during the play (for example, a sword so that the protagonist can slay the dragon or a pie to the little protagonist give as a gift to a friend); she also wears a blue bowtie that matches her hat’s bow.

ok, final thoughts:

i was going to comment on how high-quality these animatronics seem to be, but given that you go out of your way to describe Sarah Brown as a very competent mechanic(? is that the right term idk), i think ill let it go. this seems like one of those higher end fancy-ish restaurants so most of this can slide, unlike if you were to make the location be some sort of cheap or dirty diner.

no notes on the story, i think it works well. the game seems to have kind of a steep difficulty spike towards the latter half with nights 3, 4, and 5, but thats not really an issue i think because you deal with more shit on fnaf 2 anyway. there were some iffy bits here and there, but nothing too bad that was worth pointing out or changing, so overall this is a solid character! good job :D

~mod mangle

On Tentative Mother 3 Naming

Note: this was originally written some years back, then pulled for Unspecified Reasons.1

First and foremost, you should probably read Tomato's official MOTHER 3 translation notes, because he is a consummate professional. This also, unfortunately, means that he is often too busy being professional to do write-ups on personal side projects, especially ones that are finished. I myself would love to see notes covering beyond the beginning of the game. On the other hand, his site is still awesome overall. Gotta love stuff like the Super Mario Bros. manual write-up. Fascinating stuff.

So yeah. Please allow me to lay my credentials on the table. I was the translation guy for the now-long-since-defunct mother3.org translation, which got started a good bit before Starmen.net decided to enter the game and essentially blow us the hell out of the water. Long story short, most of our team was frankly not ready for the project, though the hacking talent (Jeffman, if memory serves) turned out to be super awesome at things. I emailed the project leader at the time, volunteering "I'm majoring in Japanese here in college," with all the linguistic skill level that that level of confidence would imply, and that was essentially enough for the project at the time. It wasn't an especially fancy group at the time, and they were looking for pretty much any talent that could conceivably help out on basically any level.

A word of caution: none of this is organized in any meaningful way, and my memory of a project that was now about half a decade ago3 is gradually fading, so I may have some factual errors or conflations. There are almost certainly cases where I take credit for something that wasn't, strictly speaking, me, but I'm not in contact with any member of either translation team at this point, and much of the pre-merger stuff was pretty much just me translating and/or tossing out ideas to the rest of the team. I do apologize in advance if anyone else from either team sees something I inaccurately take credit for. Furthermore, I think that it's been long enough since the release that I can probably safely talk about What Could Have Been without having to worry about sparking any alternate-continuity concerns, given that the Starmen.net translation patch is very nearly official canon at this point, at least among the people who actually care about the series in non-Japanese-speaking countries.

Also, I make no guarantees that any of this will be even remotely interesting.

So here we go.

Enemy names

A lot of people seem fond of a lot of the enemy name translations, and they're generally among the things I'm proudest of. A lot of them were just plain tough to translate, because, despite the overblown stuff you've no doubt read by Tim "I'm in love with my own importance for Living In Japan" Rogers and decided to think better of,4 Itoi really is a pretty good writer and likes to play with portmanteaus and other wordplay.

These aren't in any real order other than when my memory gets jogged. It's also partially that I'm looking at them in the order they're stored in the game data, which is all jumbly.

Mr. Generator was, at one point, going to be called Gene Rator. This was kind of a tough one for us5, as the name in Japanese, Jenetta-kun (ジェネッタくん) was kind of a play on words inasmuch as it was a modification of "generator" but done so as to sound like a name or something.

The Oh-so-Snake was going to be the Vanelizard early on. This requires a bit of explanation: there was never any real clear indication of what "Osohe" (オソヘ) in the original was intended to mean, so we interpreted it as a sort of inversion of "navel" (おへそ), and wound up with "Vanel." This also worked nicely, because the boss enemy was named the Osohebi (オソヘビ), with "hebi" meaning "snake" in Japanese. In the end, though, "Vanel" was nixed and it's unclear whether that's even a bad thing. Granted, this is all what-could-have-been stuff, since a large part of this stuff has essentially become canon by this point.

While everyone seems to love the name "Navy SQUEAL," the fact is that the Pigmasks don't really have special names at all in the original Japanese. This guy was originally just something along the lines of "Submarine Pigmask," which obviously isn't memorable or delightful at all. In the mother3.org days, we were going to use "Pork Trooper" (you know, like storm troopers) instead of the more literal "Pigmask" (ブタマスク) and have different names for the different ranks rather than the eventual, more direct translation. The change back to "Pigmask" was probably for the best in the end, though I'm really glad they kept "Navy SQUEAL," since that was one of my favorite name change ideas in the whole project.6

A lot of the enemy name translations were just things that fell into place. There's nothing in the Japanese that would suggest "Top Dogfish" ("Nushi Wanwan"/ヌシワンワン) for the tougher version of the Dogfish ("Wanwan Fish"/ワンワンフィッシュ), but a bit of knowledge of common (if slightly outmoded) English expressions leads that sort of thing to seem a natural fit.

Another one that seemed only natural was the Beaten Drum, which (if memory serves) translates more accurately as "punctured drum." On the other hand, I was too enamored with my own cleverness to realize that my original "Wailing Guitar" was nowhere near as good as "Gently Weeping Guitar," given Itoi's fondness for the Beatles. Tomato definitely made the right call on that one, unambiguously.

One enemy that I'm not really satisfied with the name of, in either my own stuff or the final translation patch, was the Bitey Snake ("Kamu toki wa kamu hebi"/かむときはかむヘビ), which I'd translated as "Snake that Might Bite." Both of these have issues in terms of accuracy of the translation, though given the actual picture of the Bitey Snake, that seems almost fine. The issue is that the name translates most accurately to something like "a snake that will bite when it's time to bite" or "that bites when the situation calls for it" or something equally unwieldy to express in English. That one was frankly a mess and I can't really think of anything that would have actually worked better than Tomato's "Bitey Snake."

One that I still actually prefer my original name for is the Ten-Yeti, which I'd originally translated the name of as "Cowabungable Snowman." Yes, the word is kind of dated (to say the least) but I'm apparently not the only one to have missed the intended wordplay involving "ten-eighty" (which, to be fair, works better in Japanese: compare テンエイティ and テンイエティ, though that didn't stop me from missing it entirely in Japanese too). Maybe it was meant as a nod to Nintendo's now-essentially-defunct snowboarding game series.

Speaking of silly and awkward puns, the Boa Transistor is victim to those on both ends. Obviously the English name is a play on "boa constrictor," but for the longest time it was just such a challenge to think of a decent translation for the Japanese "Hebii Metaru" (ヘビーメタル), a play on "hebi" (snake) and "heavy metal." Eventually I decided to pull the trigger and write in "Boa Transistor," which I'd thought was just unforgivably contrived, and it was received way better than I'd expected by basically everyone.

Barrel Man ("Taruman"/タルマン) was originally going to be "Casked Man," because, once again, I was a little too in love with my own cleverness. You see, because it is a play on "masked man," and there's a masked man in the story, and oh I'll just show myself out

The Pseudoor basically named itself — the Japanese name ("Tobira-modoki"/トビラモドキ) basically translates to "pseudo-door" and it was only a small jump from there.

The Sara-Sara-Sahara was frustrating, because it was clearly meant to resemble plates ("sara"/サラ) but the silliness of the name was just lost in English. The mother3.org translation had been using "Desert Plate" but that name is arguably hard enough to catch at a glance that it probably wouldn't have been much better in the end.

The Artsy Ghost was originally going to be the Abstract Ghost. The name ("Geijutsu na obake"/げいじゅつなオバケ) really does translate to "Artistic Ghost," so "Artsy Ghost" is a more accurate name overall, but I just liked the ring of "Abstract Ghost."

The Whatever was originally going to be called the Halfhearted Attempt. Probably a better translation of the original "Tekitou" (テキトウ) in the end anyway.

The Really Flying Mouse is worth noting just because of the Japanese name, which took a minor liberty with grammar to be pretty clever ("tobimasu tobi-mausu"/トビマストビマウス — literally it means "flying flying-mouse" but it's fun to say).

The Return of Octobot was one of my favorites (and I was glad that it got kept for the final). The Octobots all have weird names in the original Japanese, and the Japanese name in MOTHER 3 ("Tako Fu Tatabi"/タコ・フ・タタビ) basically translates to "Octopus Again," though with needlessly weird spacing to make it look/sound unnatural or foreign or something. I figured that "The Return of Octobot" was sufficiently cool-sounding, and I guess other folks agreed.

I'm ambivalent whether the change from our "Loose Screw" to "Screwloose" even makes much of a difference. In the original Japanese, there wasn't any pun of the sort involved, so it's not like either one is more accurate.

On the other hand, the Punk Rock Lobster became the Rock Lobster, making the clearly intended pun more obvious, though I still think those sunglasses are less rock 'n' roll and more punk rock.

Items

The Pasta with a Past is just about the only food name worth mentioning, really.7 The original Japanese "Wake-ari Pasta"/わけありパスタ wasn't really a joke in the name: the phrase "wake-ari"/わけあり refers mainly to the sort of mildly damaged goods you'd find at a store with a handwritten price tag and a minor discount. It literally means, essentially, "there's something about this item." On the other hand, the item's description is where it becomes a joke, stating that an "unspeakable circumstance" surrounds the pasta, rather than the usual meaning. While the innocuous name couldn't be translated while keeping the joke, a bit of wordplay was entirely within the bounds of possibility for the English version.

The Bufferizer and Defense Spray were originally named the Beefener and the Turtler, mostly because the actual items were named like energy drinks and there's no clear right choice. "Turtler," incidentally, was derived from fighting game terminology (e.g. to turtle, being the action of playing very defensively). On the other hand, the final version's Defense Spray is a neat call-back to EarthBound/MOTHER 2.

Characters

First and foremost, the mother3.org team had noticed that the game, much like EarthBound/MOTHER 2, allowed for a substantial number of "Don't Care" names to be stored. In the final game, this was only used for favorite food and your special PK power's name, but all of the characters had the same number of slots available for "Don't Care" names; they were each simply filled with a bunch of copies of the official name. We basically tried to take advantage of this as a sort of personalized easter egg, with each member of the team basically getting their own "set" of names to assign. These were generally named after friends and family, though I tried in vain to use my own set to follow a clever theme of some sort. Naturally, I never thought of anything particularly good.

Hinawa is named after a type of gun, along with Flint (Flint being named for flintlock guns, and Hinawa being named for matchlock guns, in Japanese). Obviously, while Flint is a nice, manly-sounding name in English, Hinawa is simply a no-go. Until the translation patch projects merged, the plan was very definitely to rename Hinawa to Amber, in order to provide a name that was actually a name in English, as well as keeping to a motif of some sort (in this case, types of stones). Un(?)fortunately, in the end the official translation wound up being Hinawa, though this was, in fairness, because the Starmen.net translation team preferred, whenever possible, to keep the names accurate to Nintendo's official translations they'd made public at various points.8

Ocho the octopus was originally Hachi (ハチ) in the Japanese. While the story of Hachiko is famous enough (and was even made into an American remake-of-a-movie movie starring Richard Gere), we9 figured we could do better for the English release. For one thing, the pun between the name "Hachi" and the fact that it means "eight" would be lost. For a while we just sort of hoped that maybe "Octo" would be an acceptable name, but it was pretty obvious it was kind of lazy and didn't have much cleverness or even giving-a-crap to it. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon an Addams Family retrospective around this point, and found out that, at least at some point, Pugsley had a pet octopus named Ocho. Perfect!

Following this "replace one old pop-culture reference with another" pattern, a lot of people have noticed that Achato and Entotsu (アチャト and エントツ, with the latter literally meaning "chimney") were renamed Bud and Lou, after Abbott and Costello. Incidentally, the original characters were also named after comedians from the early to mid 20th century: Achako and Entatsu.

Fassad's English name has a surprisingly unexciting origin. The Japanese name Yokuba/ヨクバ is basically derived from the word for "ambition" or "greed" ("yokubari"/欲張り), and that just didn't work in English. So I asked a friend of mine, one night, to help bounce ideas back and forth. I figured he was studying Arabic in college and could help out, so I asked him what various words were when translated into Arabic. After a couple of nonstarters, I tried, "What's 'corruption' in Arabic?" and his answer, "fassad," sounded sufficiently Arabian-y (given the character's appearance), as well as just being ever so perfect on multiple levels (given its Arabic meaning as well as the fact that it sounds a whole lot like "façade," which is ridiculously appropriate on, itself, at least two different levels). And that's why Ben Cocchiaro is credited under "Special Thanks." Thanks, Ben.

Frankly, we never had anything good lined up for Kumatora. We had her name as "Jackie" for a while, since it kinda sorta sounded like maybe it could also be a guy's name (c.f. Jackie Gleason), but we never felt particularly confident in it. "Violet," though, was picked for her cover identity later on, because we figured it had a "good, diner-y sounding" ring to it. We kept that in the end.

Salsa's name was kept, though the pun on "saru" ("monkey") was lost, so we figured that we should probably keep to some sort of name motif for his girlfriend-monkey too. "Saruko" just didn't work, so I wound up suggesting "Samba" for her name, partially inspired by Samba de Amigo. This is another case where one motif was switched out for another with the translation, though this one was kept in the end by the post-merger team.

There was a brief time when we considered changing Lighter's name to "Bic" or "Vic," but we eventually thought better of the idea. It's not as though EarthBound/MOTHER 2 wasn't full of silly names like Mr. Spoon, either.

Places

For the longest time, the Sunshine Forest was just called the Terry or Telly Forest, because of the way the Japanese name was written ("Teri-no-mori"/テリのモリ). At some point along the way, I got bored and looked up whether "teri" was even a word, and it turned out that it meant "sunshine" or "clear/dry weather," and there was a sort of collective OHHHHHHH among the team. Given the idyllic setting of the prologue, it seems only natural that that was the intended meaning. Tomato initially opposed it, but eventually relented, since it did make more sense as the name of a place.10

A lot of the other place names were way more contentious, though. The name of the town was the source of some reasonably substantial debate within the post-merger team, since the mother3.org team had been using "Dragonstep" for its translation of the admittedly fairly ambiguous "Tatsumairi"/タツマイリ. Tomato vetoed it based on the fact that the Japanese is far from 100% clear on what the name's derivation would be, and looking back the "Tatsu"="dragon" thing really only applies to very limited contexts in Japanese. Still, between that and the money being called DP (for "Dragon Points") Tomato thought it was just too blatant as dragon-related foreshadowing, and I eventually conceded the point, since he was the guy with professional experience and who could actually, you know, speak Japanese fluently at the time.11

Most of the place names were, at one point or another, going to be translated into at least some semblance of English. Tanetane Island ("Tanehineri"/タネヒネリ) was going to be something like "Twisttrick Island," given that "tane" can mean "a secret" or "a trick," and "hineru" can mean "to twist," or "to puzzle over something." On the other hand, Twisttrick kind of sucked as a name, so the Starmen.net team rightly chose to discard it. Plus, in the debug menus it was already referred to as Tanetane anyway — the final Japanese name appeared to be a fairly late change.

The Sunset Graveyard was, in the mother3.org translation, going to be the Chowding Graveyard, because of the original name "Misoshire" being an apparent play on "miso-shiru" (miso soup), treating it as a verb instead of a noun. If memory serves, this is another case where we wound up going with an internal debug name instead in the end. "Chowding" wasn't very good anyway.

Looking back at the notes, it's clear that we just didn't have any good ideas for a lot of the places in the game, though we probably would have worked something out in the end. Honestly, though, the Starmen.net team's approach of leaving all but the most egregious obviously-meant-as-wordplay names intact was probably the best option in the end.

So that's about it, really.

I just want to finish this up with a big ol' THANK YOU to everyone who did the real work and heavy lifting on the patch, especially Tomato for his insanely great translation work, and the hackers who found a problem that we thought at first would be literally impossible, and then fixed it, to a degree that their fix went beyond the impossible. Thanks again to Ben Cocchiaro, all-around swell guy and owner of an Arabic-English dictionary, for helping to provide the ridiculously appropriate name of a major character in a cult hit, and thanks to @gigideegee, whom I promised via Twitter that I would actually write all this stuff up, and that gave me the motivation to do it because TWITTER PROMISES are SERIOUS BUSINESS. I also highly recommend her great webcomic, Cucumber Quest, especially if you liked her older "Let's Destroy Metal Gear!" and the like.

Thanks for reading.

I applied for a job at Nintendo of America, and hoped that they wouldn't find out about my Sordid Fan Translation Past, so I pulled the page. Given that they just sort of suddenly stopped responding to emails at one point in the application process, TECHNICALLY they have not turned me down for the position. ↩︎

"Localization" is a fancy term that means changing a name or a joke so that it makes sense in the target language, especially when it comes to wordplay in the source language. Sometimes the changes are also just kind of arbitrary, though that can at times be in order to avoid potential lawsuits and the like. ↩︎

!!!. Actually, looking at the files I still have on my computer, they generally show a "last modified" date in April of 2007, so that'd be about five years ago now. Dang. ↩︎

Factual errors I can think of off the top of my head in his EarthBound/MOTHER 2 article alone: the phone call asking for your name happens on a specific tile in Summers, not "at a number of steps that's about halfway through the game," and there's no obscene pre-set name set. The guy's a prolific writer but he needs an editor and a fact-checker, because the editor will already be busy enough trying to cut 60–70% of the length of any given article he writes. TAKE THAT, FAMOUS PERSON! SAYS RELATIVE NOBODY ↩︎

By which I mean, over the course of this write-up, primarily me, because after the projects merged Tomato basically took over all translation duties, and before the merge I was basically the guy doing all of the translation stuff for the mother3.org project, if memory serves. ↩︎

Your run-of-the-mill, never-studied-Japanese anime fan will probably pitch a fit for my suggesting this, but English is a WAY richer language for nuance, wordplay, and just generally enjoying words. Japanese nuance can be hard to translate in certain circumstances, but 90% of English-language movies are subtitled into Japanese with what are basically just factual translations of the content of what each character said, with virtually no effort taken to preserve nuance and color. In other words, you're damn right I'm proud that I made a pun that was impossible in the native language, but that works perfectly. ↩︎

With the possible exception of the Fizzy Soda, which was called the Extreme Soda in the mother3.org translation at the time. There, now you know the entire story of that one. ↩︎

This includes places like Nintendo Power previews of the then-not-yet-canceled 64DD release, as well as the bits and pieces of text in Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii. ↩︎

See footnote 4. ↩︎

Have I mentioned what a consummate professional and just generally swell guy he is? ↩︎

Whereas now I look back on my attempts at translation in the various files I still have stored on my hard drive, wondering what on earth was I even thinking? at roughly one in three lines. Funny thing, language acquisition. ↩︎

ask Two for the angst ones this time: 13 for raini, 5 (possibly will be pertinent come the end of this minicampaign) & 29 (she literally has Any Weapon w/ her pact so it's fititng) for ayen, 7 & 10 (hehe I know there's trauma in this one) for cog, and then mix and match 4, 17, 18 between Caspian, Ryker, and Brilliance bc I don't know them as well and I would Like To

My life is just below readmores now, I guess. Will I ever learn to shut the fuck up? No! And that is a promise 

Raini

13. What does it take to make your character cry? Oh boy. Raini definitely isn’t a big crier, because she a) doesn’t really let herself get to that point and b) hard pivots into “angry” over “upset” and she isn’t an angry crier. She’s cried twice in game so far, and probably not many times before that. In both in game cases -and likely the always alluded to but never seen “before times”- the catalyst for her crying was being overwhelmed. In a good way, bad way, whatever, but that’s the trigger. Just- Looking at something, not knowing what else to do but let yourself cry about it, and not seeing any reason to stop yourself.  (shfjsdjkfh the funny answer is: during sex. But can you IMAGINE jskdfskjdf)

Ayen

5. Would they ever turn on someone they just met in order to save themselves? Oh for sure. Without question. Not without guilt, in fairness, but without question. She’s pretty well adjusted, pretty “go with the flow”, but she did grow up in a pretty cutthroat world. She was spared from having to make those kinds of brutal decisions from a super young age by Shadow Mom, but she definitely saw the fallout of those choices and learned that, while it’s all well and good to do the “right” thing, it’s much more important to do the right thing for you. If that means condemning some stranger to die so you and yours don’t have to? So be it. Better people have done worse, because that’s sometimes just how things go.  I’ll be honest! This character decision was a completely on the fly one when we were having that debate in the library about what we should do with the information we learned in the library. But I stand by it. In character, Ayen 1000% sees whatever’s going on as Not Her Business. It’s fucked up, sure! But, you know. Not her monkeys, not her circus.  29. What is their weapon of choice, and what weapon do they dislike using the most? Bro I love that Ayen doesn’t have A Specific Weapon SO much. Especially because Pact of the Blade specifically makes it so that, whatever weapon she summons, she’s proficient in while wielding it. So she sees somebody using a weapon, goes “oh! cool!” and summons it herself, and then just. Intuitively knows how to use is. How fucking funny is that conceptually??  Her go to if things are serious or she doesn’t have time to pick something obscure is a longsword. Dad uses a greatsword, and a longsword is pretty close to that! Image how cool they looked fighting off assholes, back to back, with two bigass swords? Is that the only reason it’s her favorite? No of course not!!!! That would- that would be silly. And childish. Swords are just cool is all.  She hasn’t used any in game, but I think she honestly just doesn’t like any kind of polearm. It’s like, is it technically safer to be a little further from your enemy? Sure. Does it give you a small tactical advantage? Maybe so. But they’re so uglyyyy and they look weird and you have to use both hands and the balance is weird and >:( Spears can stay because you can throw them but you’re on thin fucking ice.

Cog

7. If your character was allowed to murder one person without any consequences, who would it be and why? Thank GOD Alex I wanted this one for Cog SO bad!!! Valentine WastelandGame! If you can read this! You’re a dead motherfucker!! This is for a variety of reasons including but not limited to: - Is responsible for the deaths of at least 3 separate world leaders! Uh oh!  - Asked for my blood one time! To do Science on! Not cool! - Ace doesn’t like him. Enough said.  - Called Ace “hotheaded” and “brutish” keep his NAME out of your MOUTH - Is fucking Maelo’s ex I think? Honestly I lost that plot on that one a little bit - Keeps taking Sunny on dates! We’re protective and Jealous?? Hard to say! We don’t have time to unpack this one let’s keep moving - Is convinced aliens exist? And are coming to attack the world? OKAY  - Talks in fucking circles about philosophy and the greater meaning of “good” and “evil” in the context of the world. Like, no sir! Good is when you help people and evil is when you kill them! Except unless it’s me killing you which is going to happen because I can cast Finger of Death now and you better believe that spell has your fucking name on it. Freak boy. - Just like. Eats straight raw steak. Not Evil but really weird and probably not great for you? - Overall just a very bad slimy manipulative and stinky dude. 0/10 I’m gonna put an arcane bullet in his skull. Like. Everything Valentine does, everything she learns about him, convinces Cog more and more that the world would be a better, safer place if he wasn’t allowed to exist in it anymore. She was kinda neutral on the guy until he gave his grand speech in Cormir about how the only way to save the world is to ‘conquer and subdue it’ and tried to talk her in circles enough that she had to agree with him or seem like a hypocrite. Since then, it’s been a slow creep from “I don’t trust this man and don’t want to work with him again, even if it makes our lives harder” to “he’s dangerous and needs to be stopped” to “...if given the opportunity, I would kill him myself”. And now that she has our new friend the Shadow Demon whispering in her ear, telling her that “the world will tremble and change before her” and that she should “stride boldly, and fear not the consequences that may follow” honestly? The next time we see Valentine, he might be in trouble!  10. What were the character’s parents like? What was the affect the parents had on the character? Oh, is there trauma in this one? Is there? Alex? Is there? Maybe so!! We’re gonna talk about Cog’s dad first, because he’s a) still alive and b) I KNOW you’re fishing for more mom angst. Cog’s dad name is Conrad Grace! He’s the head of Lafaroh’s town guard, whatever that means for a town of maybe a hundred people. I feel like his day to day really consists more of making rounds to check on people than dealing with criminals, although he likely has to break up the occasional disagreement or toss somebody in the drunk tank for the night. He’s also in charge of making sure the Guardians -the gods that live deep in the swamp outside Lafaroh and protect the town in exchange for food, building supplies, the occasional corpse, and other resources- get their offerings (This is Important, because he does Stop doing that soon). He married into he Grace family (that’s RIGHT he took his wife’s last name because it’s 2021 and he’s Woke not because her family like runs the town okay moving on), initially because I genuinely believe he fell in love! They were probably pretty young, because Lafaroh is very much a Deep South Swamp Town Analogue, but I don’t think it was just a social power move. The most important Conrad fact? He told Cog that he became disillusioned with the Church when she left home, because he couldn’t imagine continuing to support something he could now see had so clearly been hurting her. And I, Rebekah, a homosexual who has had Words with my Christian parents about the way their religion has hurt me? OH buddy we were a little bit of a mess about it. DM Ryan! Don’t you know I’m projecting!! Please be more careful! (Editor’s Note: This is the moment that made me realize I was projecting. Whoopso!!) Cog’s mom name is Charlotte Grace Sr. because, I guess, we’re freaks. I hate that this makes Cog technically a junior because the thought of anyone calling her Charlotte Jr. makes me break out in hives, but it is, technically, correct. The distinction while Cog was growing up was, instead, “Charlotte” and “Charlotte Olivia” because, again, we’re southern as hell. Charlotte Sr. is, unsurprisingly, the head of Lafaroh’s church, which means she very much has more actual power than her husband does. She did love Cog, I think, but in a way that very much more felt like someone guarding an investment than raising a child, especially when Cog became a teenager. She had high, exacting expectations, and grew more distant from Cog the older she got. Whether this was an unintentional side-effect of Charlotte Sr. becoming more engrossed in the preparations necessary to allow Cog to become the “Conduit”, or whether it was a purposeful decision because she knew she would lose her daughter and wanted the sacrifice to hurt less is unclear. Cog’s dad is kinda just a dude, but we KNOW this bitch has mommy issues. I also think an important distinction to draw between the two is that while I’m willing to give Conrad the benefit of the doubt and say that he may have just wanted Cog to stay in Lafaroh when they party returned because he was worried about his daughter and wanted her home, Charlotte Sr. wanted Cog there because it was Where She Was Supposed To Be, because she had a destiny to fulfill. More than that, when Charlotte Sr. found out that Conrad had stopped sending supplies to the Guardians when Cog left and had instead been selling them to Bandits to get money to rebuild the town, she was not nearly so understanding. She accused him of heresy, and ordered for him to be, uh. Flayed alive. Which wasn’t great. It’s what got her killed ultimately; Cog had to choose between her parents, and after watching her Mama summon a shadow demon that very nearly choked the life out of Sunny? It was a choice with only one possible outcome. 

Caspian

18. Would society call your character a good guy or a bad guy? What would they say they are? Caspian is. Caspian is Just a person. Like she is just out here doing her best, trying not to get killed by, idk. Pirates or ghosts or w/e. This is an endeavor that, statistically, could be going a lot better.  I think the more interesting angle to look at this question from is the fact that she’s a monk from a well known monastery, and that there’s Expectations on how she conducts herself in the world as a result of that. She is Just A Person, but that’s not good enough. Not when she’s running around wearing Pelor’s holy symbol, representing his monastery, reflecting on him. For a long time, I think Caspian resented the expectation that put on her! Why can’t she just be a kid? Just a person? She didn’t ask to be raised by these monks in this kind of life. But when she left home and realized how suddenly lonely she was, there were quiet, sad moments it was easy to soften with prayer. Rekindling her relationship with her god was her way of staying connected to home, and I think it also made her want to go from being Just a Person to actually wanting to take pride in being a Good Person.  And then her campaign lasted for two fucking seconds lmao so it didn’t even matter hahah! :)

Ryker

4. Has your character ever been hurt or betrayed by someone they thought they could depend on? What happened? YEAH BOY rye-bread got his SHIT handed to him lmaoooo His whole “why are you adventuring?” deal is that he fell in love with the noblewoman he was hired to escort across the country to her betrothed’s estate, and she played him like a fucking fiddle and convinced him -after her wedding, after she was pregnant with her husband’s first child and therefore heir- that she was in love with him too. But of course, because she was married, her husband would never let them be happy together. She talked Ryker into killing her husband, and promised to meet him the night he did it with horses and supplies for both of them. Anyone reading along at home with even a shred of common sense probably just said, “uh oh!” And uh oh indeed; she fully sold his ass out. There’s something emotionally devastating about slipping out of the bedroom of the man you just killed, his blood still on your hands, to find the woman you love standing between two enormous guards, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.  Ryker figured out her plan in the following days he spent in a cell, awaiting execution. She didn’t love her husband, but by playing the role of grieving widow and anxious mother-to-be she could ingratiate herself with his family enough to be allowed to take control of the estate while her son, the true heir, grew up to run it. It was cruel, and clean, and if Ryker hadn’t managed to escape it would have gone off without a hitch.

Brilliance 

17. Is your character afraid of death? Why/why not? Brilliance isn’t afraid of death, she’s afraid for what she’d leave behind. One of the songs on her playlist really leans into this (and I’m very excited to be posting her playlist soon! Stay tuned!), because she is terrified of what her death might do to Sienna. She never planned to become an adventurer, much less travel to the Hells to try and save an entire city. She was content, more than content, to guard Sune’s church, to help the people that came seeking her goddess’ blessing and guidance. When her city faced a sudden influx of refugees from Elturel after its destruction, she was even happy to volunteer to help the Flaming Fist keep order and root out would-be troublemakers. She never meant to get caught up in a job that would take her out of her home city, much less out of her home plane entirely. Every fight she got into in Hell, every time it seemed like she may be staring down something that might kill her, Brilliance had to swallow down the overwhelming guilt of knowing that if she died here Sienna would never know what happened to her. The image of Sienna, worried and pacing, looking toward the door to their apartment every time there was so much as a whisper in the hallway, desperate for any sign that Brilliance had come home-- It wasn’t delusions of self-importance or self-preservation that had Brilliance taking Glasya’s deal to save her from the narzugon’s clutches; it was the image of Sienna collapsing onto their bed and sobbing because she finally admitted to herself that Brilliance was never coming home. Still. Sienna needs her, but her party needs her too. They’re counting on her to be there for them, to take the big hits that they can’t handle. First one in, last one out; she doesn’t leave until everyone else is safe. She wants to survive, she wants to go home and marry the woman she loves, but she couldn’t live with herself if she did it at the cost of the life of someone who was depending on her. Brilliance isn’t afraid of death; she would die for her party members, even the ones she doesn’t particularly like. She just knows exactly what the cost of her death would be. 

Hey, you know that 35 d&d questions ask meme? I answered all of them.

This is a long ass post. Be warned. It took up seven and a half pages in google docs. Original post here.

1. A favorite character you have played.

Would have to be Zize Fortier, dragonborn gunslinger. Their tag on this blog is #zize and you can find their bio and info on my character page. Love that bastard!! He’s sweet and bratty and a total delight to play (we are such an OP party, y’all).

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

UM UM gonna talk about a few here. To be fair to people I play a *lot* of games with, I’m only gonna  talk about one PC per person.

- The bastard trio in my Wildemount game– @toomanyorphans ’s Nakoria, @overplannedbutunnamednpc ‘s Zier (also an NPC in the campaign Zize is in), and @glasyasbutch ‘s Nissy. They all really suck so bad but in SUCH funny ways. They’re varying degrees of self centered and awful, but we trust each other in this campaign, and those 3 players are SO funny in their RP.

- (RIP) Avri in my Wildemount game. They and Bly named each other,,,,  they were parent and child…… VERY sweet. huge goliath with tiny bird in backpack.

- @bekahdoesnershit ‘s Raini. Zize’s BFF, and her tag on that blog is rich. She’s SUCH a bitch but we love her.

- @bhissar ‘s Saela. She is a dream character for me to DM for– very little fleshed out backstory with room to explore, with still-concrete events in it. Consistent character choices and personality, to the point I can sometimes predict what she’ll do. Very cool aesthetically. And overall? EXTREMELY sweet. Baby, baby bird.

3. Your favorite side quest.

Either the one going on right now in amnesia, where we have to collect brain matter from big powerful elementals, or the stop we made at a family of vampires in Acarnya (the one I played Osfyr in).

4. Your current campaign.

There are five of those, with two on hold. 

-Wildemount, aka the Frozen Sick module from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount (we’re almost done with that, my PC is Bly). 

-Amnesia campaign aka high level campaign: we woke up in hell with no memories! PC is Zize. 

-Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, near the beginning of that, PC is Pointy. 

-Horror campaign, only two sessions so far, but we’re trapped in an alternate dimension carrying out tasks for a creepy dude. PC is Vinny. 

-Kithan, where we’re high level monster hunting guild members searching  out ancient artifacts of the gods (campaign based on the Monster Hunter games), PC is Topaz.

-Silas, party is currently trying to help dragons free themselves and stop a… dude? No spoilers! I DM. On hold because I had too many campaigns going at once.

-Silas v2: extremely vaguely based on the plot of season one of the web series Carmilla. A tweaked version of the first arc the Silas party went through. On hold because it was played in person at school.

5. Favorite NPC.

I don’t really have any NPCs in my campaigns that I’m super attached to, except– Nikeo, a goliath rogue PC in Silas 1, had many adopted children. Three of them– kobolds– sometimes stand on each others’ shoulders, put on a long coat, and help out around their parent’s store. They’ve named themselves Koby.

As for favorite NPCs in campaigns I’ve played, I can think of… a lot. The first is Laurel, a blue dragonborn loner type who followed Osfyr and friends in Acarnya. They were kind of broody and dark, but they really drew me in. They were the first NPC we really talked to– they were sitting on top of the post office laughing at the mob scene of people protesting not getting their mail delivered.

I’d also pick Osfyr’s partners in that campaign– Yelkian, a backstory love interest I came up with, a flamboyant soft sorcerer. Jupiter, politician’s niece, who took pity on Osfyr’s attempts to seduce information out of her and let them succeed on both counts (seduction and information). Xerxes, extra AF rogue with a big loving family, who swept in after a fight on the back of an eagle-wildshaped Brysth (npc druid). 

There’s a blue dragon in the HOTDQ campaign that we don’t know much about. I really enjoyed the way @dungeonsanddraconicqueer played him. He’s just a dude! Lex’s warlock made a Deal with him to leave the town alone. We still don’t know the implications of that. It’s fine, guys.

And then, there’s Stewart the Skin Steward, a servant of False Mystra. Fun dude.  Very cavalier– nigh, enthusiastic!– about the fact that his entire city was made of skin. Something of a skin connoisseur, in fact!

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Saela, hands down. She got breathed on by a dragon, yo. We then had to stop playing for 4-5 months because a player lost access to the Internet. I wrote a vision/speech from her warlock patron, the Raven Queen, the night she died, and basically didn’t touch it until I read it out in game. It involved a confession that the Queen was  tired of being a god, and showing Saela all the lives she’d touched. Then we used Matt Mercer’s rez rules for her. She came back– but it was her choice.

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Fucking tinkering dude!!! I don’t get to do it enough as Zize and that is entirely my fault. @ morgan, eyes emoji

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

I LOVE creepy shit. There was a train car with people dancing in it, and party members got enchanted to dance along and eat the food,  and the revelers were clearly in pain, and snuffing out a candle caused a reveler to disappear. Creepy shit!

In Kithan, we had to climb a staircase, and we timed it with produce flame which is a 10 minute duration cantrip, and we were climbing for 50 minutes. We started to see things in the edges of our vision. Then someone realized it was an illusion, and it all vanished. It freaked me out so bad.

In amnesia campaign, at level 19, we were traversing a cave, and our shadows started dripping the same black goop we were there to investigate. We killed one and it took down the max hp of the person whose shadow it was, and then they straight up didn’t have a shadow until they long rested. It really freaked us out, realizing the shadows were actually creatures, but they were like CR 1. Really effective use of a low level monster.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

The way it has something for everyone… the way it’s brought me so many friends… the way it’s inspired my OC creation like nothing else.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

I’m not sure if this is asking about NPCs I’ve had as enemies, or any monster in D&D canon? The longest campaign I played in didn’t have long term enemies  per se. I’d say I was frustrated with the cultists that ambushed us last session in HOTDQ,  but I didn’t hate them! I just couldn’t seem to hit or dodge them. As for a favorite… probably False Mystra: the demon lord Orcus who’d taken over  the position, and therefore the duties, of Mystra, the god of arcane magic.  We killed it,  but then whoopso!! Our wizard lost her powers.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

I play an ideal amount, honestly: four times a week, for about 2.5-3 hours a session. HOTDQ Tuesdays, Kithan and horror campaign switching off Wednesdays, Wildemount Thursdays cause we miss CR, Amnesia Sundays.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Amnesia: Yocheved, the party barbarian/full time fish, has a secret third arm and/or a prosthetic ass. Cylthia, the druid, does arson (but actually). Relentless is a Crown paladin, so she puts her fingers in her ears when we do crime/lie. She also has a rod of lordly might that, immediately post amnesia, she made into a 32 foot climbing pole. Yocheved eats pounds and pounds of raw fish for every meal.

Wildemount: just the shenanigans and sabotaging each other that the Bastard Trio get into. Example: Nissy was tasked with buying Zier a cloak for cold weather and purposely got him an  ugly one. Zier then prestidigitated it to be a nicer color.

13. Introduce your current party.

Oh boy, I have 6 of those. Here goes. Keep in mind many of these characters are played and games are DMed by my friends who have OC blogs of their own: Raini and Ayen are bekahdoesnerdshit, Ezra, Nissy, and Roona are glasyasbutch, Horror DM, Lent, Eve, and Nakoria are toomanyorphans, Wildemount DM, Saela, Daecyne, and Cylthia are bhissar, HOTDQ DM is dungeonsanddraconicqueer, and Amnesia DM, Zier, Nyxi, and Sarril are overplannedbutunnamednpc. Not an OC blog, but Yocheved, Avri, Arbor, Thraf, Nikeo, and Whisper are mickgoesabsolutelyhamforbarbie.

Amnesia (Zize): Lent, tiefling paladin, former crownsguard who “fell” (became an oathbreaker), then un-fell when we lost our memories. Cylthia, tiefling/elf druid who can shift between tiefling and elf forms and loves setting things on fire. Yocheved, 14 foot tall nereid (fishfolk) barbarian with a dry sense of humor, is the party parent. And Raini, aasimar wizard, sass machine and Zize’s bff.

HOTDQ. My PC is Pointy. Ezra, quiet human paladin. Theata, moon elf rogue. Freya, sweet (human?) light cleric who sometimes misreads situations. Eve, 13 year old (!!) human warlock who kinda sucks, but like, she’s 13. Nyxi, motherly gnome bard who Is going to adopt Pointy. 

Wildemount (Bly): Alene, human barbarian. Quiet and with somewhat of a parent instinct. Some sort of Mysterious Backstory. Delta, aasimar rogue, similarly shady backstory? Unclear. Sticks with Alene. Nissy, drow rune knight, sucks. Zier, drow sorcerer, also sucks. Nakoria, dragonborn warlock, ALSO sucks. (Those three make up the Bastard Trio.) Avri (F for them), goliath bard and Avri’s guardian, died last session by falling on a floor full of knives. 

Horror campaign (Vinny): Roona, halfling bard, very impulsive, eats exclusively with her spoon that says ASS, and chills in Vinny’s fanny pack. Ayen, elven teenage warlock with a dark backstory. Sarril, Ayen’s not-dad, half elf beast barbarian who got it from his wife. Arbor, dryad  monk, who wears an all white plague doctor outfit at all times.

Silas v1 (DM), Original party before 1 left and 1 died: Hacka (RIP), human luchador-styled drunken monk. Nikeo (left), goliath rogue with so many adopted children. Inferno, fire genasi paladin/phoenix sorcerer with anger and impulse control issues. Saela, babiest aarakocra warlock of the Raven Queen. Hacka’s player now plays Voda, a stoic water genasi tempest cleric who cast Raise Dead successfully on Saela. Nikeo’s player now plays Whisper, a tabaxi astral soul monk.

Kithan (Topaz): Thraf, monsterborn (universe-compliant dragonborn) barbarian. Very social, very outgoing, very stupid, and very traumatized. Fucks majorly. Daecyne, sweet tiefling druid and Topaz’s good friend. Viosa, aasimar homebrew class I forget the name of, uses her small stature and allure to her advantage. Damur, half-orc eldritch knight, the party’s only braincell.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Acarnya. My PC was Osfyr. Soraphine, traumatized halfling bard. Azalea, human fighter. Durzuell, haughty high elf sorcerer. James, nerdy half elf wizard. Drago, erratic Russian dragonborn monk. Kairon, slightly edgy ranger/paladin (but we love him). 

Nordenheim. My PC was Cap. I will admit: we only played 2 or 3 sessions, so I don’t really remember  most of the other party members except Rory, a fire genasi ranger who almost burned to death.

Silas v2 (hopefully will continue; I DMed): Kysseris IV. Half-elf paladin, uptight. Tower 1-6, warforged wizard who crawled out of the desert and is looking for info on how he was made. Mae “Pock”, gnome rogue, very small and  sweet. Josh, human trickery cleric, kind of an asshole, but in a way that’s funny and hasn’t bled over into IRL annoying.

[school] West Marches campaign (Ner): by the nature of West Marches, there was never a consistent party, but a few stood out to me. Red Foot, a hyperactive kobold sorcerer who’s level 8 against all West Marches odds. Lyra, Great Old One warlock of Tzee’Mhor, an abomination goat that a party I was in accidentally created. Fildo Baggins, divination wizard who can only affect allies whose toenail clippings he has in his vial.

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Hell yeah babey!!! I mostly play digitally, especially during COVID, and I need something to munch after DMing for a while. Shit’s exhausting.

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

Welp! Online mostly, since everyone I want to play with has the audacity to live far away, and now exclusively online because of COVID.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Our Amnesia party is so rich that we just don’t keep track of money. In Kithan, a lot of rules that make characters less powerful are just… abolished (like the bonus action spell rule). (The DM likes super OP characters so she can throw SUPER OP monsters at us.  My character has a necklace that gives 5 additional uses of channel divinity.)

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Nope. No opportunities for them. Zize’s party has a little water snake on the druid’s arm but I doubt that will last very long.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Absolutely. Cursed dice get j a i l.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

Acarnya got me into d&d, it was my first campaign, and it was happening at the place I lived. I’ve been playing almost 2 years. (Critical Role inspired me to DM)

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Not sent a fucking letter to say goodbye to their boyfriend before the world-fate-deciding bullshit that was gonna happen and possibly destroy shit. It was fine in the end though!

22. What color was your first dragon?

Red. Man, that guy sucked, he almost killed Osfyr. We were investigating a monastery secretly run by dragons disguised as humans.

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

Original campaigns. I’ve never run a module before! I’m not opposed, but most of my campaigns came from ideas  that I had. I’ve never been short on ideas for a game.

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

As a player, I just open my character sheet and get out dice. As a DM, I try and think about what material I want to get through this session, and write some narration and/or stat things out if I feel like it.

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

A lot of times, Inferno has rushed into battle from what I’d built as a stealth mission, and gotten her ass and sometimes the party’s asses kicked. I should really have learned by now.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters?

Definitely Saela’s resurrection ritual and vision.

27. Do you allow homebrew content?

Yes! I’ll check it first,  but I’m all for expanding the boundaries. I homebrew items and monsters all the time, why shouldn’t my payers get to homebrew their shit?

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

Too often in my first arc. I had like 7 NPCs running around at all times (they were Carmilla characters). Super not recommended. I have 0 right now.

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

I’m still finding my groove with RP as a DM. I like encouraging my players to RP amongst themselves. I consider myself fairly good at combat on both sides of the equation, DM and player, so that’s always fun to me, especially when my players enjoy it too.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

I have one actively reforming murder hobo player, the rest are diplomatic. (The character, Inferno, is having a great growth arc. I’m super proud.)

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

I fucking love genasi as a concept. Favorite class would have to be rogue or cleric, but gunslinger’s up there too.

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

I  honestly don't have the patience to not play DPS. I love doing lots of damage. Healing is satisfying, support is satisfying, but there’s a reason I picked rogue twice and tempest cleric over other domains.

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

Sometimes the backstory is part of the character concept– especially for Pointy, because I had the name first, then went hmm why would she have this name. Almost always, though, more backstory gets written during the campaign when I have an idea. Sometimes a character will act in a way I don’t expect, and it’s fun thinking of a justification to fill backstory gaps.

34. Do you tend to pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

Mostly  usefulness honestly. I’ll make choices among several for flavor, but I’m a big proponent of using mechanics to build character. What I mean is, think about Magnus in TAZ Balance– his protection fighting style contributed a lot to the way Travis played him as a protective person. I love that shit.

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

I like to do a lot, but unfortunately my  energy is pretty down lately so I haven’t been doing as much.

Okay okay I'll stop soon

A - Independent business-oriented woman, hates kids

B - big friendly guy, huggable, dad vibes

C - gremlin, probably knows how to build a bomb

D - cool mom friend, knows F

E - would wear all camo, fishes, lifted truck

F - maybe related to E? Lives in an apartment and probably smokes weed but you could never tell, geek

G - bastard, rich and has a study, an absolutely bitch, wears a robe

H - G's only friend, like G-lite but nice

I - young, nice, skinny, smiles a lot

J - like I but older, more outgoing, would twitch stream some Nintendo game I think

K - mom friend like D but with more lesbian vibes, rock music, the "cool mom"

L - like J but if he was super religious, we're talking no premarital hand holding, showing up to your house asking if you've heard the good news kinda religious

M - has a record player, fixes cars, good listener, always smells like weed

N - M's brother, lazy, would hunt, angers easy

O - 0-0 *ominous noises*, clear/white color

P - popular girl, nice to your face, mean behind your back

Q - older woman, regal, probably rich?

R - in the military, jock, just rude enough where its mean but you cant say anything

S - in the military, playful and super nice, determined (dating R probably)

T - in the military to impress S, likes S, super scrawny, tries very hard

U - alien but with compassion

V - related to U but not an alien... no idk how thay works, v smart tho

W - like B but less dad vibes and more preschool teacher vibes, probably codes or builds stuff in his garage

X - alien but with less compassion

Y/Y - Popular girl like P but for the right reasons because shes nice, cheerleader, pink and yellow at the same time... I can see it in my head idk what to tell you (P and K are also multicolored but not as much)

Z - leather jackets and motorcycles, probably has a like foot tall green mohawk and would like to try to jump the Grand Canyon

I used to not think I had synesthesia because the groups IJLWF and UVX dont have very strong personalities that are clear... both have very clear genders and colors tho so I'm guessing I just dont have the STRONGEST OLP ever

0 - O-O *ominous noises*, a baby, clear color

1 - baby, baby boy, baby, white/light gray color

2 - preschooler, very sweet, wears dresses

3 - little kid, plays-in-the-mud kind of kid, toy trucks

4 - early elementary school age? Very smart

5 - like 10ish years old, a little shit who would probably destroy your stuff and blame you

6 - 12ish year old, tomboy, hangs with "the weird kids" at school

7 - no clue with age, kind of a follower, smart but doesnt use it

8 - 7's friend, older than 7, computer smart, not very popular

9 - oldest number (maybe 15-16?), tomboy, kind of like an older 6, skater, very kind to children and old people, not popular

The colors of 7 and 8 are... the only ones I'm unclear on. I KNOW what they are dont get me wrong, theres and association and it doesnt change, but I think it's like Y,P, and K in that the color is multiple at once so I never have any idea how to actually show it to people. 7 is green and blue, 8 is green, dark blue, and orange

Also all the letters are adults, idk why the numbers are so young. They feel older once they're together is bigger numbers over 9

1. favourite pokemon gen? 2. favourite redragon moment and/or promo? 3. favourite kyle o'reilly match/es? 4. favourite food? 5. favourite pokemon region?

1. favourite pokemon gen?

- i might have to say both gen 4 & 7 bc i rlly love the gameplay style/mechanics in both of them! and diamond was the first game i ever Owned (and subsequently put. over 400 hours of time into.) so ive got a soft spot for it

2. favourite redragon moment and/or promo?

- god ok this is gonna be semi incoherent so srry in advance if any of this is vague or unclear!!!

killing davey together as a statement of alliance 😌😌; first tag title win at the 11th anniversary show; that first post victory promo with "lets take a look at the footage" (pointing into the sky); literally every fish tank ive been able to find; "is it whole milk? they KNOW you take almond milk"; "did we ask for it to be a title match?" "no....." "bobby... we did."; "catching me with pants ON today... weird!"; INCREDIBLY non specific but theyre just So Good at being Bastards AND doing physical affection at the same time its just a Talent; the house show on kyles birthday this year w bobby tryin to sing for him before their match Literally gave me rights; not to be soft but the entire "it feels like coming home" line RUINED me i havent stopped thinking abt that AND the overlapping Energy it has with "my dream tag team partner? well, lets just say im Living The Dream!"

3. favourite kyle o'reilly match/es?

- ok im gonna. stick to singles comp for this. and say, in no particular order:

vs adam cole (bitw 2012); vs katsuyori shibata (kopw 2016); vs adam cole (fb 2016); vs kushida (revpro british j cup 2017); vs marty scurll (wcpw loaded (aug 3, 2017)); vs adam cole vs johnny gargano (czw best of the best x (2011)); vs matt riddle (bola 2016); vs el phantasmo (eccw ballroom brawl vii (2017))

4. favourite food?

- this probably changes with seasons but since its summer rn im gonna have to say fruit based desserts especially with berries, peaches, or citrus. like. a good peach pie is rlly hard to beat.

5. favourite pokemon region?

- oh its Absolutely hoenn!!!! every time i open up emerald it feels like Home (also i do believe the first time i ever had a crobat was in emerald and i was Blown Away)

Pleasantly Unpleasant: The Women of the Pleasant Family

Sul sul!

Plumbob Post is back yet again, and today’s topic of choice is the Pleasant family. More specifically, this article will give a brief overview of the Pleasant women as well as the often controversial Kaylynn Langerak. Despite being part of one of the most popular families in the series, the female Pleasants are often considered divisive within the fandom. Starting from the very beginning, here’s a look at the notable female members of the Pleasant-Oldie-Burb clan:

1. Diane Pleasant

Despite being the OG matriarch of the Pleasant Family, there’s unfortunately little to say about Diane. She appears in The Sims and its console spinoff of the same name, living with her husband Jeff and their two children, Daniel and Jennifer. She is unemployed in both, and it can be assumed that she is a homemaker. Her bio suggests that her family is new to Neighborhood 1 and that could be the one to “set her family on its way up the social ladder.” Diane does not make an appearance in The Sims 2, but she can be seen in the family trees of her children and grandchildren in Pleasantview. Interestingly, while her hair was brown in The Sims, she has genetics for red hair in The Sims 2. Her son, Daniel, shares this distinction. Both of her children appear in The Sims 3, but neither Diane or her husband are referenced.

2. Jennifer Pleasant (Burb)

In The Sims, Jennifer Pleasant is an average child with dreams of soccer stardom. She and her brother have the same personality points, and Jennifer returns alongside her family in the console version of the game. At the start of The Sims 2, Jennifer can be found in the family bin as part of the Burb family. In the twenty-five year gap between The Sims and The Sims 2, Jennifer has married John Burb, another returning character, had a young daughter, Lucy, and given up her dreams of being a sports star; her brother fulfills that role instead. She does, however, start off with four body skill points as well as two creativity points. Her aspiration is fortune, though she starts off unemployed, and the Burbs are stated to have made their return to Pleasantview fairly recently, having lived in the city prior to that.

Jennifer does not return in The Sims 3 base game; however, she and John are reintroduced in Dragon Valley as engaged young adults. According to the storyline of the world, they were travelling before their wedding and got lost. This iteration of Jennifer is surprisingly consistent with previous versions of the character. She has the Vegetarian, Artistic, Athletic, Ambitious, and Friendly traits, and her lifetime wish is to, surprise surprise, become a superstar athlete. The athletic and artistic traits refer back to her skills in The Sims 2, while the ambitious trait matches her fortune aspiration. As of right now, neither Jennifer or any of her relatives have appeared in The Sims 4.

3. Tiffany Burb

Tiffany Burb is related to the Pleasant family through her son John’s marriage to Jennifer, as mentioned above. She was introduced in The Sims: Unleashed alongside husband Jeff, son Johnny, and dog Tucker as new residents of Old Town. Interestingly, she is employed as a store clerk in the fashion career track, making her one of the only mothers in the original game to not be a housewife. Additionally, her biography states that she does not share her husband’s love of nature, which could indicate that she did not wish to leave the city. Her fashion-centric character and new-in-town status somewhat mirror Jennifer’s storyline in The Sims 2. Like Diane Pleasant, Tiffany is not playable in The Sims 2, but she appears in John and her granddaughter Lucy’s family trees.

4. Mary-Sue Pleasant

Introduced in The Sims 2, Mary-Sue Pleasant is the wife of Daniel Pleasant, making her the daughter-in-law and sister-in-law of Diane and Jennifer, respectively, and the mother of teenage twins, Angela and Lilith. Her aspiration is fortune, and she starts off at level 2 of the politics career. Her biography states that she finds people “inherently good” and implies that she is kept quite busy by her job, which prevents her from pursuing her hobbies such as pottery. Her husband is involved in an extramarital affair with their maid, Kaylynn Langerak, though she is unaware of this at the start of the game. On the first day the Pleasant household is played, Daniel will have the day off of work, and Mary-Sue will receive a chance card. Unless the chance card is ignored, Mary-Sue will either be demoted or fired from her job, causing her to return home early and potentially catch her cheating husband.

Mary-Sue, as depicted in The Sims 2, is a divisive character. Many players pit her and Kaylynn against each other or try to justify Daniel’s actions by stating that she was ignoring him in favor of her work. Alternate takes on the character, such as Skell’s, suggest that since Mary-Sue is low on the career ladder and Daniel is higher up, it is likely that she was a homemaker in the early years of her marriage, putting Daniel’s career ahead of her own. When she returned from work, she had to focus on herself more, and Daniel could not cope with the change. This more positive interpretation of the Mary-Sue is supported by her characterization as friendly, provided by her bio. Either way, Mary-Sue is most definitely not a Mary Sue, cue the eyeroll.

Mary-Sue and Daniel return in The Sims 3 as a young married couple in Sunlit Tides. Her lifetime wish is to be a chess legend, while her traits are Perfectionist, Workaholic, Hopeless Romantic, Over-Emotional, and Charismatic. The Workaholic and Perfectionist traits complement her fortune aspiration in The Sims 2, and the Hopeless Romantic trait seems to provide an explanation for how she and Daniel fell for each other in the first place. She is unemployed with handiness and cooking skills; this is odd considering that she only has creativity, logic, cleaning, and cleaning skills in The Sims 2, which takes place later in time. Mary-Sue does not appear nor is she referenced in The Sims 4, despite her best friend Cassandra Goth returning.

5. Lilith Pleasant

Appearing only in The Sims 2, Lilith Pleasant is the younger of Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant’s twins, as indicated by her parents’ memories. Her aspiration is popularity, and if FreeTime is installed, her one true hobby will be sports. Lilith is depicted as a stereotypical gothic teenager, and she is dating another Pleasantview teen, Dirk Dreamer. She has low relationships with every member of her family, and it is not uncommon for her to run away from home. The cause for her low relationships with her parents and sister are stated in her bio to stem from Lilith having it harder than her sister. This assertion is supported by Lilith’s memories; she does not remember learning her toddler skills, her personality has been altered, and both of her grow up memories are negative. Her grade will start out as a D, further characterizing her as troubled.

It is common for players to take sides in the Pleasant family. Some players see Lilith as a victim of neglect as a result of her memories as well as an image from the Pleasant family album which shows her isolated from Angela’s birthday party. These players on occasion vilify Angela as being part of the problem, citing the fact that she has a computer in her room as some form of favoritism. Others claim that Angela is also an innocent victim of her parents’ mistreatment of her sister. Alternatively, some simmers characterize Lilith as a moody and rebellious teen who was never mistreated; she is simply experiencing growing pains. Each of these interpretations are valid.

6. Angela Pleasant

Angela Pleasant is the older of Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant’s twins, as indicated by her parents’ memories. Her aspiration is popularity, and if FreeTime is installed, her one true hobby will be nature. Angela is dating Dustin Broke, a teen employed in the criminal career who her father is enemies with. She has a low relationships with her sister, Lilith, and the two often fight upon first loading the household. Her low relationship with her sister, as mentioned above, stemming from Lilith’s belief that Angela had it easier. While Lilith does not have positive memories of growing up or any memories of learning toddler skills, Angela does. Her starting grade is a B.

Angela is perhaps as divisive as her mother. Most players sympathized with Lilith, at least when the game was originally released, and as a result, Angela was vilified. Her critics often considered her spoiled, despite there being no evidence to support that. Others have stated that dating Dustin is an act of rebellion, though the two recall being friends since childhood and share the nature hobby. Angela is stated to be “patient and dutiful,” both of which are positive qualities and in an endearing twist, she “dreams of being a fishing boat captain.” Given the details provided by Maxis about Angela, there are no strong hints that she is anything other than a kind, respectful teenager, but as are all characters, she is open to interpretation.

7. Coral Oldie

Coral Oldie is the mother of Mary-Sue Pleasant. She only appears in The Sims 2, alongside her husband Herb. Interestingly, Mary-Sue is adopted, making her one of few base game sims with that distinction. Coral is a family sim, the “picture of maternal perfection.” She is unemployed and according to her memories, has never had a job, instead being a stay at home mother and wife. Despite her and her husband having a reasonably positive relationship, her biography ominously questions the price she paid for raising a successful daughter; the meaning of this statement is unclear. It could be in reference to Mary-Sue’s marital troubles or to marital troubles between Herb and Coral. The meaning is left open to the player, though Herb’s bio further clouds the intention of the game’s creators by referring to him as a “reasonably reliable husband.”

8. Lucy Burb

Lucy Burb is the child daughter of Jennifer and John Burb. She has a “knack for getting into trouble,” hinting that she will take after her teenage cousins. As she is a child, there is very little information on her, and she is not directly involved in the storyline of the neighborhood. Lucy is, however, a fan favorite character, and she is often paired romantically with Alexander Goth, another Pleasantview child, by players.

9. Last but certainly not least, Kaylynn Langerak

Kaylynn Langerak is not a Pleasant by relation or by marriage, but she is forever tied to the family as a result of her involvement with Daniel Pleasant. Interestingly, despite being involved with a married man, Daniel, and an engaged man, Don, Kaylynn is a family sim. Furthermore, she is a shy sim, with only one outgoing point. These qualities create an interesting mismatch between Kaylynn and the stereotypical other woman. It is possible that she was created to be a joke around the common soap opera trope of male characters carrying on extramarital affairs with their maids. As mentioned above, it is possible for her and Daniel to be caught by Mary-Sue depending on their choice about her chance card.

Kaylynn is yet another character who is a common source of debate amongst The Sims community. Though her personality is not consistent with a home wrecker, many were quick to assign her that title in the early days of the game. More recently, it has become common for players to sympathize with Kaylynn and make her a playable character, often having her dump both Don and Daniel. Sometimes, players even marry her and Mary-Sue in an interesting twist. Either way, Kaylynn is a complex character, with room for players to interpret her in a variety of ways.

While she does not appear in The Sims 4, Kaylynn is a playable character in The Sims 3. She is depicted as a child, residing with her father Dustin, her mother Iliana, her aunt Zelda Mae, and her teen brother Parker. She has two traits: neat and perfectionist, both of which align with her future as a maid. She is also said to enjoy painting in her free time. Kaylynn is at the center of the largest inconsistency between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. In the former, she is at the start of her adult life stage, while she is an older child in The Sims 3, which takes place fifty years before. This inconsistency is made more apparent by the fact that Mortimer Goth, an elder in The Sims 2, is younger than Kaylynn in The Sims 3. This timeline discrepancy has led to many fan theories involving the elixir of life or in Skell’s case, two Kaylynns.

   The Pleasant family is an interesting and diverse group with a variety of personalities within it. As a result, they remain popular amongst fans of The Sims and its sequels.

Do you want to hear more about the Pleasants? Or perhaps about the Langeraks?  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Rally marks 1,000 days since China detained two Canadians amid Huawei dispute (Reuters) Supporters of two Canadians accused of spying and held in prison in China for 1,000 days rallied on Sunday, demanding their release in a case that has soured diplomatic ties between Ottawa and Beijing. Businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig were detained in December 2018, shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies on a warrant from the United States. Last month, a Chinese court sentenced Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage. Meng is waiting verdict on her U.S. extradition request here after the hearing wrapped up in a British Columbia court last month. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, who joined the rally, said in statement that years have been cruelly stolen from both men and their families. “This must stop. Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor must come home,” the statement added.

Evacuations lifted for thousands in Tahoe as wildfire stalls (AP) Tens of thousands of people who fled South Lake Tahoe in the teeth of a wildfire were returning home as crews finally managed to stall the advance of flames scant miles from the resort. But authorities warned that residents of the scenic forest area on the California-Nevada state line weren’t out of the woods yet, with risks ranging from smoky, foul air to belligerent bears. Evacuation orders for South Lake Tahoe and other lakeside areas were downgraded to warnings on Sunday afternoon and California Highway Patrol officers began removing roadblocks along State Highway 50 from Nevada to the city limits. The threat from the Caldor Fire hasn’t entirely vanished but downgrading to a warning meant those who wish could return to their homes in what had been a smoke-choked ghost town instead of a thriving Labor Day getaway location.

Florida gunman killed 4 (AP) A man wearing full body armor fatally shot four people and engaged in a massive gunfight with police and deputies before he was wounded and surrendered, a Florida sheriff said Sunday. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a press conference that even after 33-year-old Bryan Riley was arrested Sunday morning, he was so aggressive that he tried to wrestle a gun from police as he lay on his hospital gurney. Judd said Riley, a former Marine who served as a sharpshooter in both Iraq and Afghanistan, seemed to have targeted his victims at random and appeared to be suffering from mental health issues.

Migrant caravan broken up again in southern Mexico (AP) Mexican border agents and police broke up a caravan of hundreds of migrants Sunday who had set out from southernmost Mexico—the fourth such caravan officials have raided in recent days. The group of about 800—largely Central Americans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans—had spent then night at a basketball court near Huixtla, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) up the road from the border city of Tapachula where they had been kept awaiting processing by Mexican immigration officials. But shortly before dawn, immigration agents backed by police with anti-riot gear went into the crowd, pushing many into trucks. Mexico has faced immigration pressures from the north, south and within its own borders in recent weeks as thousands of migrants have crossed its southern border, the United States has sent thousands more back from the north and a U.S. court has ordered the Biden administration to renew a policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico for long periods of time.

Fear Grips Nicaragua as It Veers to Dictatorship (NYT) From the moment Medardo Mairena decided to run for president, in direct challenge to Nicaragua’s authoritarian leader, he was certain the security apparatus would eventually come for him. Over the summer, he watched as other opposition leaders disappeared. One by one, they were dragged from their homes amid a nationwide crackdown on dissent by the president, Daniel Ortega, whose quest to secure a fourth term had plunged the Central American nation into a state of pervasive fear. Since June, the police have jailed or put under house arrest seven candidates for November’s presidential election and dozens of political activists and civil society leaders. His turn came when heavily armed officers raided his home and took him away late on July 5. He had not been heard from until last Wednesday, when relatives were allowed one brief visit. They said they found him emaciated and sick, completely disconnected from the outside world. Government critics say the unpredictability and speed of the wave of arrests have turned Nicaragua into a more repressive state than it was during the early years of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinista Revolutionary Movement led by Mr. Ortega and several other commanders.

Covid-19: Vaccine passports to start in England this month (BBC) Vaccine passports in nightclubs and other indoor venues in England will be required at the end of this month, the vaccines minister has confirmed. Nadhim Zahawi said it was the right time to start the scheme for sites with large crowds as all over-18s will have been offered two jabs by then. The Night Time Industries Association has said plans for vaccine passports could "cripple the industry" and see night clubs facing discrimination cases. Opposition to the plans has also come from Tory MPs on the Covid Recovery Group as well as the Liberal Democrats, whose leader, Ed Davey, described them as "divisive, unworkable and expensive".

Volunteers help poorest survive Thailand’s worst COVID surge (AP) For two months, carpenter Tun Nye hasn’t been able to send any money home to his parents in Myanmar to help them care for his 11-year-old son, after authorities in Thailand shut down his construction site over coronavirus concerns. No work has meant no income for him or his wife, who have been confined to one of more than 600 workers’ camps dotted around Bangkok, living in small room in a ramshackle building with boards and blankets to cover missing windows. In Thailand’s worst virus surge yet, lockdown measures have reduced what little Bangkok’s have-nots had to zero. Volunteer groups are working to ensure they survive. For Tun Nye, 31, the bag of rice, canned fish and other staples dropped off by Bangkok Community Help volunteers meant not having to go hungry that week. Bangkok Community Help delivers about 3,000 hot meals a day and up to 600 “survival bags” like the one Tun Nye got.

Paralympic closing marks end of Tokyo’s 8-year Olympic saga (AP) The final act of the delayed Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics came Sunday, almost eight years to the day after the Japanese capital was awarded the Games. The Paralympics ended a 13-day run in a colorful, circus-like ceremony at the National Stadium overseen by Crown Prince Akishino, the brother of Emperor Naruhito. The Olympics closed almost a month ago. These were unprecedented Olympics and Paralympics, postponed for a year and marked by footnotes and asterisks. No fans were allowed during the Olympics, except for a few thousand at outlying venues away from Tokyo. A few thousand school children were allowed into some Paralympic venues. Like the Olympics, the Paralympics went ahead as Tokyo was under a state of emergency due to the pandemic. Like the Olympics, testing athletes frequently and isolating them in a bubble kept the virus largely at bay.

Taliban say they took Panjshir, last holdout Afghan province (AP) The Taliban said on Monday they have taken control of Panjshir province north of Kabul, the last holdout of anti-Taliban forces in the country and the only province the Taliban had not seized during their blitz across Afghanistan last month. Thousands of Taliban fighters overran eight districts of Panjshir overnight, according to witnesses from the area who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement, saying Panjshir was now under control of Taliban fighters.

Taliban stop planes of evacuees from leaving but unclear why (AP) At least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people seeking to escape the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan have been unable to leave the country for days, officials said Sunday, with conflicting accounts emerging about why the flights weren’t able to take off as pressure ramps up on the United States to help those left behind to flee. An Afghan official at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif said that the would-be passengers were Afghans, many of whom did not have passports or visas, and thus were unable to leave the country. He said they had left the airport while the situation was sorted out. The top Republican on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, said that the group included Americans and they were sitting on the planes, but the Taliban were not letting them take off, effectively “holding them hostage.” He did not say where that information came from. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the accounts.

Guinea’s new junta leaders seek to tighten grip on power (AP) Guinea’s new military leaders sought to tighten their grip on power after overthrowing President Alpha Conde, warning local officials that refusing to appear at a meeting convened Monday would be considered an act of rebellion against the junta. After putting the West African nation back under military rule for the first time in over a decade, the junta said Guinea’s governors were to be replaced by regional commanders. A nightly curfew was put in place, and the country’s constitution and National Assembly were both dissolved. Conde’s removal by force Sunday came after the president sought a controversial third term in office last year, saying the term limits did not apply to him.

Bottom trawling in the ocean is running the tap on earth's largest carbon sink

https://sciencespies.com/environment/bottom-trawling-in-the-ocean-is-running-the-tap-on-earths-largest-carbon-sink/

Bottom trawling in the ocean is running the tap on earth's largest carbon sink

Fishing trawlers that drag big nets along the ocean floor potentially release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the world’s commercial aviation industry.

The first study to estimate the real carbon footprint of bottom trawling globally has found this type of fishing releases roughly 1.47 billion tonnes of aqueous CO2 from the marine soil annually.

That number only represents 0.02 percent of all sedimentary carbon in the ocean – the largest pool of organic carbon on the planet – but as the authors point out, that’s up to 20 percent of the atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the ocean each year and is “comparable to estimates of carbon loss in terrestrial soils caused by farming.”

How much of that aqueous carbon makes its way up into our atmosphere is still unclear, but even if all those emissions remain in the marine environment, they can have detrimental effects on ocean acidification and biodiversity.

“The ocean floor is the world’s largest carbon storehouse. If we’re to succeed in stopping global warming, we must leave the carbon-rich seabed undisturbed,” argues aquatic ecologist Trisha Atwood of Utah State University.

“Yet every day, we are trawling the seafloor, depleting its biodiversity and mobilizing millennia-old carbon and thus exacerbating climate change. Our findings about the climate impacts of bottom trawling will make the activities on the ocean’s seabed hard to ignore in climate plans going forward.”

Satellite data from 2016 to 2019 shows industrial trawlers are dredging up roughly 1.3 percent of the seafloor each year, equivalent to roughly 5 million square kilometers of untouched seafloor (nearly 2 million square miles).

The worst carbon emissions occur in the first year after an area is trawled, mostly because of changes in the carbon metabolism of the sediment. After nine years of continuous trawling in the same spot, emissions stabilize to roughly 40 percent of their initial surge.

If the current rate of trawling is maintained, an international team of 26 researchers found it will take about 400 years to completely deplete the first top meter of all sedimentary carbon in our oceans.

Their comprehensive new model, which was published in advance of the 2021 United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), supports the emerging idea that we should protect up to 30 percent of the ocean by 2030. The authors say that not only will this save over 80 percent of ocean habitats for endangered marine species, but that it could also boost the productivity of fisheries and secure critical carbon stocks in our oceans.

“Rather than viewing protection versus extraction as a zero-sum game, we ask whether strategic conservation planning can simultaneously yield benefits for biodiversity conservation, food provisioning, and carbon storage,” the authors explain.

MPA lifelines

Marine protected areas (MPAs) can be effective ways to safeguard certain habitats and restore ocean biodiversity for ecosystems and industry. Unfortunately, as of March 2021, MPAs cover a mere 7 percent of the ocean, and only 2.7 percent of these areas are highly protected.

To figure out where future MPAs could prove most useful, researchers examined a range of conservation goals, including a reduction in species extinction risk and improvements in biodiversity, food provisions, and carbon storage. 

The multi-faceted framework also considers how and where we can reduce human impact to reduce nutrient pollution, ocean warming, and acidification.

Compared to a business-as-usual scenario, this new model suggests that strict protections for just 21 percent of the ocean (including 43 percent of the coasts and 6 percent of the high seas) would provide 90 percent of all the possible biodiversity benefits examined.

This would increase the average protection of endangered species from just over 1 percent of their current range to between 82 and 87 percent.

The most irreplaceable ecosystems are those that reside in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of a nation’s coastline, where most fishing occurs, but even in the deep seas of Antarctica, the Indian Ocean, and the mid-Atlantic, MPAs could be implemented to great success, the authors say.

Of course, such protections will require global action and teamwork. By protecting just 4 percent of the ocean from bottom trawling, mostly within national waters, we could eliminate 90 percent of the current risk of carbon disturbance.

The countries with the greatest potential to mitigate climate change are those with the largest EEZs and industrial fisheries, including China’s EEZ, Europe’s Atlantic coastline, and other key areas where ocean upwelling occurs.

“Perhaps the most impressive and encouraging result is the enormous gain we can obtain for biodiversity conservation – if we carefully choose the location of strictly protected marine areas,” says marine ecologist David Mouillot from the Université de Montpellier in France.  

“One notable priority for conservation is Antarctica, which currently has little protection, but is projected to host many vulnerable species in a near future due to climate change.”

Past attempts from environmentalists to create a large marine reserve in Antarctica have failed due to competing industry interests, but this new research suggests we can appease both groups to some extent.

If we strategically place MPAs in 28 percent of the ocean, the new blueprint shows we could increase food provisions by 5.9 million metric tonnes compared to what we’re doing now. Expanding MPAs to cover between 3.8 and 5.3 percent of the ocean would achieve 90 percent of this target.

“It’s simple: When overfishing and other damaging activities cease, marine life bounces back,” says marine and fisheries ecologist Reniel Cabral from the University of California Santa Barbara.

“After protections are put in place, the diversity and abundance of marine life increase over time, with measurable recovery occurring in as little as three years. Target species and large predators come back, and entire ecosystems are restored within MPAs. With time, the ocean can heal itself and again provide services to humankind.”

The study was published in Nature.  

#Environment

October Break: Hiking in UK and Ireland

Since we had kind of reached our fill of big cities, museums, and palaces last year, the trip I planned for our first vacation this year mostly focused on hiking and sightseeing in nature. Did you know that the British usually say “walking” when Americans would say “hiking”? I think they’re just being modest.

It was nice to be around our fellow English-speakers for a change. However, in Scotland and Ireland, I sometimes had more difficulty understanding English spoken with the regional accents than I would have understanding French!

This was our itinerary:

Day 1: Traveling Aix-les-Bains > Chambéry > Geneva > London Luton Airport > Oxford

Day 2: The Cotswolds AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty)

Day 3: Sightseeing in Oxford, traveling Oxford > Manchester

Day 4: The Peak District

Day 5: Traveling Manchester > Kendal, Sightseeing in the Lake District

Day 6: The Lake District

Day 7: Traveling Kendal > Glasgow, lunch with K+A, relaxing (I had planned for us to visit Loch Lomond but a combination of lack of planning, gloomy weather, and fatigue made us nix it)

Day 8: Scottish Highlands

Day 9: Sightseeing in Edinburgh, traveling Glasgow > Belfast (via ferry)

Day 10: Giant’s Causeway

Day 11: Traveling Belfast > Dublin > Galway, sightseeing in Galway

Day 12: Connemara National Park

Day 13: Cliffs of Moher, traveling Galway > Cork

Day 14: Killarney National Park

Day 15: Traveling Cork > London Heathrow > Geneva > Culoz > Aix-les-Bains

And here are our miles walked over that time:

The weather/the season. The extended forecast for the UK and Ireland before we left showed rain every single day. However, we only got rained on less than half the time! I knew it was too much to ask for a repeat of the miraculously sunny vacation we had in Paris/Normandy in February, but I was still happy with the amount of dry weather we had. We also had the good fortune of being there to see the fall colors at their very best. Even our rainy and foggy days were enjoyable because of the cozy autumn ambiance.

Going car-less. I was worried that we would have trouble getting out to the trailheads if we relied solely on public buses and trains, but it mostly turned out to be fine. Let’s just say that in our experience, the British transport systems are much more punctual than the Irish ones! Riding instead of driving gave us both the opportunity to relax and enjoy the scenery as we traveled from place to place. Buses and trains in the area almost always had wifi or USB charging onboard (or both), which was an extra bonus because it alleviated my anxieties about missing our stop (we could follow the bus on Google Maps) and/or about my phone dying.

Walkers’ rights and public rights of way. In planning for the trip, I learned that in England, walkers/hikers have organized into formal clubs and won the legal right to have public footpaths and “rights of way” all over the country. I’m still kind of unclear on how this works legally (I googled “Can you just walk anywhere in England,” it didn’t help much), but we took full advantage of these walkers’ rights during our time in the region. We took paths that went through practically infinite sheep pastures, climbing over stiles or letting ourselves through cattle gates as necessary. I think it’s so nice that the country allows people to access the natural beauty of the countryside in a way that really doesn’t harm people’s private property much at all. The sheep never seemed to mind us, after all. It was great to have access to all these places, but even better was the way the English culture has helped to facilitate and accommodate walkers on their journeys. On several different websites I was able to find not only maps of hiking routes, but detailed turn-by-turn instructions for the routes which kept me, a navigationally challenged person, on the right path every time.

No buses in the Cotswolds. Blackberries. Our first hiking day was a Sunday, and no public buses run in the Cotswolds AONB on Sundays. We therefore had to rely on trains alone to reach a trailhead, so our options for starting and ending points were limited. We found a suitable out-and-back trail running from a village called Moreton-in-Marsh to another one called Stow-on-the-Wold. The map and instructions I found for it listed everything in kilometers instead of miles, so when I saw the distance involved, I assumed it wouldn’t be that much in miles without ever actually bothering to do the calculation. By the time we got back to our Airbnb in the evening, we had walked about 17 miles. Oops. Fortunately, our route that day had us pass by lots of hedgerows, and lots of those hedgerows had blackberries growing in them. At first we were hesitant to eat any of them, but as we walked further and further, and our stomachs got hungrier and hungrier, we were eating them by the handful. I’m still not sure whether to feel guilty about this; the blackberries didn’t belong to us, but the sheep in the adjacent pasture could never have reached them, and it seemed pretty unlikely that anyone was growing them on purpose. All I know is that these possibly-sinful blackberries sustained us on our accidentally super long trek that day, and we were both very thankful for them.

The bus at the Lake District. Bus tickets in the Lake District were not sold per ride, but per day, and they were pretty expensive. I was sad we had to pay so much just to get from one town to the next. They turned out to be one of the best value parts of our whole trip! First of all, a ride that is only 25 miles as the crow flies takes an hour and a half. Make it round trip and that makes three whole hours of your day. This sounds like the ride would be tedious and boring, but with the jaw-dropping scenery to look at the whole time, it was so much fun. I listened to The Prisoner of Azkaban on audiobook the whole time and tried to take pictures out the dirty bus window, nudging Nicolas every 30 seconds to show him another beautiful mountainside or lake. The icing on the cake was that the bus driver on the second day gave us a discount for our tickets!

Lunch with K+A. K and I usually check in with each other at the beginning of each school break to see what the other one’s plans are. On our second night, K texted me saying they were in Ireland and planned to go to Scotland later in the week. I told her it sounded like we were doing the same trip, just traveling in opposite directions. Sure enough, we realized that we would all be in Glasgow at the same time, so we planned to have lunch together. K suggested a restaurant where we could eat a three-course meal for £10 apiece, so we went there and caught up on our school years so far and compared notes on our travel itineraries. They had to catch a train soon after their meal, so we didn’t get to hang out for long, but it was nice to see some friendly faces in an unexpected place.

The ferry. We opted to take a ferry instead of a plane from Glasgow to Belfast. I expected that we would have to stand out in the dark and cold for two hours as we waited to arrive in Northern Ireland. The ferry turned out to be more like a cruise ship than the little Valley View ferry I’m used to. We sat in a huge lounge with lots of comfy armchairs and took a nap as we waited to reach the other side of the sea. There were at least two restaurants on board, and there was one room with a large TV where we were warned not to sit because the ferry was expecting four hundred soccer hooligans to come watch a game there. I also saw a sign for a Swedish spa on a different deck. It was a really cool way to travel—I wished the ride had been a bit longer!

Molly the pub dog and George the hostel cat. One of the things we miss most about home is the availability of our friends’ and families’ pets to play with and snuggle. It’s rare that we feel comfortable enough to interact with a stranger’s cat or dog over here. But after another hike in poor weather in Ireland, we stopped in a pub that happened to have a border collie named Molly curled up in front of the fire. As we sipped our coffee, Molly periodically got up from her spot by the fire and visited the tables of the people in the pub. We showered her with so much affection that she laid down under our table and let us rub her belly (excuse the poor quality picture). One of the hostels we stayed at had a permanent resident in George, the ginger cat who was usually found curled up on a window seat in the hallway. Whenever we came across him we gave him a quick pat too.

Traditional foods. Since Great Britain and Ireland are typically colder and rainier than France, their food is typically cozier and heartier. We had bangers and mash, scotch pie, haggis, fish and chips, English breakfasts, Irish stew, black pudding, and steak and ale pie. Yum on all counts.

Non-traditional foods. We were walking to our Airbnb in Manchester when a poster for Taco Bell caught our eye. Although McDonald’s, KFC, and Burger King are commonplace in Europe, we’ve never seen a Taco Bell. We immediately made plans to locate the TB and give it a try, and our dinner there the next evening didn’t disappoint. Although we had to pay about twice as much for it as we do at home, it was worth it to taste our favorite American comfort food so far from home. We also ate an entire Domino’s pizza in a public bus station. I felt like a criminal the whole time, but it was tasty.

Irish music. I love traditional Irish music. In grad school, I had a Spotify playlist of jigs and reels that was perfect for studying to because it was upbeat enough to keep me awake but instrumental enough that the lyrics wouldn’t distract me. We spent the last night of the trip in an Irish bar in Cork where musicians had gathered to play trad music. Music in a cheery pub was a nice complement to a day spent on a cold, rainy walk, as well as a perfect conclusion to our whole vacation. 

The Truth About Working @ Hudson Yards

Hi everyone! My name is Ashton and I am a current Marketing MBA intern working with the Garnier brand (specifically the haircare team, Fructis and Whole Blends!) for the summer. I am pursuing my MBA at Columbia Business School, and am a native New Yorker so some of my favorite things include bagels, pizza, waterfront bars and restaurants, and bagels.

While there have been countless experiences in my day-to-day at L’Oréal this summer that I would consider blog-worthy, I thought I’d chat a bit about what it’s liking working at Hudson Yards (L’Oréal’s NYC headquarters), as it’s a relatively new fixture to the New York City skyline and I am very passionate about what it has to offer!

1)      Unpopular Opinion – I <3 the 7 Train

The 7 train (subway) has historically gotten negative reviews for running pretty unregularly and being a crowded way to get to Mets games or the US Open in Queens. I take the 7 train every morning, and have become a tremendous fan (especially compared to its commuting predecessor, the 1 train). I like that its color association is purple, I like how peaceful it is (the Hudson Yards station is NEVER crowded, even at very peak commuting times), and I like the enthusiastic salutation that plays as you disembark (“this is the last stop on this train! Thank you for riding New York City transit!”). Every other subway station is a zoo between 7:30-9:30am on weekday mornings – the 7 station is an oasis. Photo time-stamp: 8:17am on a Thursday morning.

 2)      Popular Opinion – I <3 Avocado Toast

Following my commute, one of my first stops is up to the Le Café, L’Oreal’s cafeteria, on the 36th floor for my [almost] daily avocado toast from the avocado toast bar. I will say that again – avocado toast bar. Could I make my own avocado toast at home? Probably. But would it be as satisfying as getting it from an avocado bar? Probably not.

3)      My Team Room – 10/10 City Views

I am lucky enough to share a fabulous team room with several of my fellow MBA interns (hi Ijeoma, Matt, Dru!). I have been to many scenic outlooks in NYC – top of the Empire State Building (not recommended), Top of the Rock (recommended), and have to say the view that’s in front of me [literally right now], gives them a run for their money. Plus, we’re surrounded in the room by colorful Maybelline and Essie products. I may have done my nails one day after work in the room (unclear if that’s advisable, but there I’ve gone and owned it). I’d also like to take this time to thank my conference room-ates for putting up with my singing while making slides, and daily drama of whether I love or hate bananas as an afternoon snack option. I appreciate you.

4)      I Just Ordered Sushi from Japan L’Oréal Café

Second only to my love of the bfast avocado bar is L’Oréal’s sushi bar at lunch every day. Lines can get long around peak lunch hours (I recommend jumping on line at 11:55am), but totally worth any wait. Here is a picture of my lunch yesterday in portrait mode for your enjoyment. The thought of cafeteria lunch sushi would have frightened me previously in life. Now, the sushi train has left the station and I am on board.

5)      Company Store, When You’re Here You’re Family

Another benefit to working in the Hudson Yards office is proximity to the company story, selling a fabulous slew of L’Oréal products on major discount. I became much more popular with family and friends (including my mom) when I became eligible for the corporate discount. It’s also very good if you’re in the mood for some ‘90s nostalgia – I see you L’Oréal Kids fish bottles. Welcome to 1998; it’s good to be back.

6)      One Time for My City

Has your family taken a photo with the new landmark Vessel (featured below in both regular photo mode and portrait mode)? Then I am probably in the background of it. New York’s hottest new tourist attraction brings in people from all over and we’re lucky enough to see it every day. And that’s the thing about being located in building with views of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, One World Trade – as a native New Yorker it still takes my breath away.

OK guys hear me out on this but- I think that the entire TAZ world, or at least the seven red-robes are running on a constant majoras mask/refuge year long loop that resets with the earth being devoured by The Hunger, and that there is a second voidfish that (up until now) kept this a secret

There will be a tl;dr at the end

SECOND VOIDFISH

UPDATE: CONFIRMED AS OF EPISODE 58

This is up first because its less of a theory and is something I have no doubts about happening in canon. There is a second fully functioning voidfish out there, and it is blocking memories from *everyone*

- First and foremost, the huge memory gaps each of the boys find that they have in the eleventh hour when June is going back through their memories, emphasized by the fact Magnus’ had the biggest gap

- This is made especially evident by Magnus remembering a book floating in the voidfish tank, I strongly believe that this was the book of the “lonely journal keeper” keeping record of all the events of the red robes, it was destroyed by the voidfish, explaining the huge memory static in THB

- Magnus only began remembering because he died, this ones obvious because the episode started off with an explanation of how voidfish cannot suppress memory from beyond the grave.

- The reason it is coming back so slowly (shoutout to Brian for figuring this out) is because of how unconventionally Magnus died, he was seperated from his body, killed, and then possessed another body. If he had died ‘normally’ his memories wouldve been restored in a similar manner to when they drank the voidfish water

- This is also how Barry remembers! he was dead- with this information, we could argue that literally any living person could be a red robe without knowing

update: now we know who the red robes are

- (EDIT): Its possible the second void fish is the “EGG BABE” the voidfish told Magnus about! given that communication is difficult, the voidfish could have matured enough to be able to consume and hide memories as well

LOOP THEORY

Getting it out of the way now, Refuge is the biggest foreshadowing for this theory, (see more at the end of this post), the entire arc in and of itself was basis for what the entire world is like.

I believe that the world, is being looped in a Refuge-esc style.

I’m not sure where it starts, but it ends with the world, each individual plane, being eaten by The Hunger. akin to how each loop in Refuge ended with being eaten by the purple worm.

The only difference being not every loop is exactly the same, things are different slightly each time- which explains why there were two suns, and the sky was purple in Magnus’ memory. I think that was his origin before the loops began.

evidence:

- (UPDATE) The vision the voidfish showed Magnus "12 multicolored circles rotating in perfect harmony with one another" Then a Bright white circle flies into the center, and the circles begin to make more intricate movements and rhythms until a large black circle appears and consumes all the other circles. Eventually the white light breaks from the black circle and the entire pattern repeats.”

It’s unclear right now what the white circle is, but the large black one is clearly the 13th plane, The Hunger. The scene the voidfish is describing is what has been happening over and over in the loop, repeating when The Hunger consumes all (and the white plane escapes).

- In the eleventh hour Griffin tells the boys that something about dying like this is ‘familiar’, while theyve gotten close to death before in the podcast theyve never truly died, how could it be familar if they hadn’t been reliving an even bigger loop unknowingly for years

- Kravitz states the boys have died more than anyone hes seen before! He acts as though he cant understand /how/, this was before the 11th hour so there’s literally no explanation other than they’ve been dying over and over again from the hunger, on a loop (EDIT: it was bought to my attention that Kravitz stated they have different death counts! taako having the least and merle having the most- while this complicates things i still think the loop is possible)

(EDIT 2.0: SOLVED!! by @stalllme in this post here)

- Barry Bluejeans turning to Magnus and saying “next time”, theyve been trying to save the world over and over in each loop, unable to succeed (until now??)

- This quote from Istus  "Our existence is made up of countless realities where the same people are just doing the same actions at the same time in parallel worlds throughout the echoes of creation, except for you! The three of you are the only three that there are doing the things the three of you do here in this world! When I say that you’re unique, I’m not being flattering, I’m being quite literal… The three of you are anomalies, and I certainly have god-like powers and I don’t like to brag, but I’ve never known anything like the three of you and I don’t know why that is, but I’m intrigued…”

This is relevant because this is going to be the loop that they break.

- It’s important also, because THB broke the loop in refuge, foreshadowing that they could potentially break the one around the world

-  Another helper on the “loops but everything is slightly different” is @martypines’s theory that the second sun in the purple sky that Magnus saw could be a base for the red robes! similar to the bureaus except, well, a sun

every arc is foreshadowing for end game

1 (here there be gerblins) - basically Barry Bluejeans’ origin story, cant be asked to expect much from here seeing as griffin had barely started fleshing out the story until halfway through the arc

2 (murder on the rockport limited) - (UPDATED: thanks to this anon!) murder on the rockport limited taught us and the boys not to trust people by their first expectations, similar to the attitude shown towards the redrobes. that attention to detail, a keen eye and the boy detective are key to solving a mystery

3 (petals to the metal) - Introduces us to the fact not everyone who takes a relic is evil, and more importantly, the sheer strength and power that love has. Hurley is able to break the thrall the sash has on Sloane through the power of her love.

4 (crystal kingdom) - The astral plane got introduced the most prominently here, showing us the ability to pass between them, the fact people live on past death, and that multiple dimensions do exist. There was probably a lot more important exposition I’ve forgotten.

5 (the eleventh hour) - The most important arc imo!! The entire concept of looping is introduced here, that a whole town can be completely unaware theyre reliving the same day over and over again, resetting as they are all killed. It also introduces the concept that red robes arent inherently evil

6 (the suffering game) - Unsure as of the moment, it was very endgame.

MISC BUT STILL IMPORTANT

Magnus and the red robes were collecting information about the loops, and trying to fight against it. I also strongly believe that they are the seven birds in the prophecy.

- This is backed up by the book being destroyed in the voidfish tank, I believe that was written by “The Lonely Journal-Keeper”

UPDATE: CONFIRMED: this is what lucretia was doing

- This would explain the reason Magnus knew to protect the chalice in Refuge! because the red robes had already figured out the global loop that was happening, and it was almost an unintentional test run?

EDIT: I believe LUP was the leader of the redrobes, and might be still alive but very out of action. (UPDATE: Davenport was the leader, chalupa theory got confirmed) I strongly believe she was the one speaking to Taako through telecommunication (no other female redrobe has been introduced by name excluding her, it makes the most sense!)

I think shes the leader, or at least, was very strongly important to their ‘family’ (in barrys words) because of the strong emotional connection Taako feels, he cant distinguish it but its there. LUP meant a lot to all of the redrobes when they were alive, i mean, she was able to convince Taako ‘dont trust anybody or anything’ to trust Barry. (UPDATE: Chalupa theory was correct)

prophecies and their continued relevance

" But I saw a brilliant light heralded by seven birds flying tirelessly from the storm. I saw seven birds: the twins, the lover, the protector, the lonely journal keeper, the peacemaker, and the wordless one.”"

I am almost certain that the birds in Maureen’s prophecy are the red robes. the lonely journal seeker would be the one who wrote the book we saw getting fed to the voidfish. this is backed up by “A Brilliant light[...] flying tirelessly from the storm”, i believe the light is the silver ship we saw in Magnus’ memories.

(UPDATE: confirmed, and

taako & chalupa = the twins barry = the lover magnus = the protector lucretia = the lonely journal keeper merle = the peacemaker davenport = the wordless one)

“In the future, you will be offered a terrible choice, between two options that will determine the fate of reality itself. In this moment of crisis, remember: There is always a third option.”

"And I cannot make the difficult decision that lies at the end of your quest for you, but I can grant you the time that you need to make that decision."

This is the choice that will determine the fate of both the world and the astral plane, it’s also what Istus said she would give the boys time to choose as seen in the second quote. She’s granting them the time they need to find and make that third choice

The first one just looks like an ocean made out of tar, with a black sky above it, and this tar is like bubbling, and you see some stuff moving under the surface of the tar but you can’t make out what it is, and that’s on the left picture. And the one on the right is just a grey world, covered in ash, that is just completely barren and lifeless.

Shoutout to bee for figuring this out a few weeks back! This is what we believe the boys will have to choice between, saving the astral plane (1st) or saving the physical (2nd). I am not as confident in HOW this will play out, but it is relevant.

UPDATE: all but confirmed that these are descriptions of what the astral/physical planes are becoming due to the hunger!!

-  "I have one last prophecy for you, Taako. Something you will need to know. In your hour of greatest need, you will find the power that you seek from the man wreathed in flames."

speaks for itself

the patches THB recieved were red robe patches

-  And they’re these dark blue circle, like, iron-on emblems. And inside of each of these blue fabric circles, there are twelve more circles, all of different colors around the outside of each badge. And in the middle is a word that’s written in a language that none of you recognize. You cannot read, you cannot make out what the word is, what these badges are for, because you cannot read the word in the middle. And tucked in between these three badges is a note that says, “For Your Eyes Only”

- "(..) Sewn into its breast you see a familiar sight- you see a circular patch with a design containing twelve multi-colored circles and a sort of shifting imparsible text in the middle of it. Only Magnus, you can read that text plain as day, it says “I.P.R.E.”

update: basically confirmed, these were THEIR redrobe patches

TL;DR

Time is looping on repeat, every loop being a slight variant but always ending with The Hunger swallowing the world whole, causing a reset.

The vision the voidfish showed Magnus is the happenings of every loop.

Refuge’s entire existence is foreshadowing for the global loop

There is a second voidfish suppressing everyone’s memories of said loops, especially the red robes. the reason Magnus and Lich-Barry remember is because they died (CONFIRMED)

This means that literally anyone alive could be another red robe without knowing

The red robes are a group of seven, who worked together to gather information about the loop and try to break it.

LUP was the leader of the red robes (it was davenport)

The patches the boys received in the candlenights lunar interlude are red robe patches (CONFIRMED)

Maureen’s prophecy about the seven birds is about the red robes

Paloma's prophecy about making the third choice is about THB choosing between the astral and physical plane somehow, possibly by breaking the loop

Istus used her divine power to give the boys more time to make the third choice, which is, to break the loop

here is my tag for this theory! if you have any additions, questions or find mistakes please send an ask!! i love discussing it ^_^

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