Through the Looking Glass

A crazy cat lady's perspective on books, video games and other things. Follow me on Twitter @LadyAsabat.

[writing-prompt-s]

"Wrong. You are not going to slay me. You are going to remove your armor and set down your weapon, have a good meal — I can tell you haven't had one in a long time — get a good night's sleep, and in the morning you will tell me the name of who sent you, and then you can go home."

[ladyasabat]

The figure in the bent and dented armour puts a hand to their visor with a clonk that somehow radiates both irritation and deep tiredness. "Kityria, Queen of Loximaen and Scourge of the North-West, you know full well who sent me and why I can't just go home." A sigh echoes through the helmet before the 'Hero' lifts the visor.

It clatters back down awkwardly as the one named Kityria looks on, trying to hide the corner of her mouth twitching in amusement as the Hero...no, Heroine tries again to get the visor to stick, gives up and wrestles the helmet off and tosses it to one side with a look of mild vexation.

Regaining what remains of her composure, she rests a hand on a vague approximation of her hip as if it was all part of the Plan. Yes, plan. She absolutely had a plan.

"If you are quite finished arguing with your wardrobe?" Kityria's voice teases, met with a black look from blue eyes. "Sit. You are tired and grumpy and entirely unwilling to see reason in your current state." There is something behind that request. Something that will not take no for an answer. The heroine feels her knees begin to bend seemingly not of her own volition, a nice rest sounded wonderful right now...No. "Stop it Kit." She snaps, forcing herself upright despite the creeping ache of tiredness.

A small sigh escapes the Sorceress as she releases the compulsion. "Fine, Meera. Suit yourself. My point still stands - and with better posture, I might add." Another eyeroll. She gestures to the chair opposite her at the simple wooden table. "Will you at least have dinner, and tell me why dear Uncle Torven wants me dead this time?"

"...You're not going to like it." Meera warns, leaning her sword against the wall behind her and folding with all the grace and dignity of a sack of potatoes into the empty seat.

Kit smiles wryly. "I never do. But he will like what comes after far less..."

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[ampervadasz]

[terribletlg]

That paw tap did it

[petermorwood]

Don't make me tap the sign (again).

[dduane]

Impossible not to reblog.

[may6th2030]

feeling so many feelings about all of this

[kymethra]

brennan just going right ahead and saying the quiet bit out loud here

[shinraalpha]

[tottwriter]

listen i had to

[ladyasabat]

Peak Britishness is announcing a general election in the rain. Bet he's off down the beer garden for a pint whilst he's soggy.

[memeuplift]

[ayeforscotland]

A Willy Wonka pop-up event in Glasgow had attendees calling the police after they paid £35 and the event didn’t deliver what was promised.

Event goers were promised a whimsical adventure all themed around something Willy Wonka might create in his factory.

Source

The keen-eyed amongst you might have noticed something a little bit…wrong.

Imagnation Lab. Encherining Entertainment. Catgacating. Live perforrmances. Cartchy tunes. Exarserdray lollipops. And my favourite “A pasadise of sweets teats”

But what did the event actually look like? WELL.

Feel like the marketing team got a bit carried away.

[modmad]

[ayeforscotland]

[toomanystoryideas]

NOBODY EVEN ADDED THE DEPRESSED OOMPA LOOMPA.

[neil-gaiman]

She play those cartchy tuns.

[ladyasabat]

Watch out for the Unexpected Twits (and other inhuman noise) in the Twilight tunnel!

[ladyasabat]

Jenny's Epilogue

The early evening sun dances on a bright bouquet of flowers nestled in a vase, a faint trail of steam rising from a delicate porcelain teacup on the old wooden desk beside it. Gone are the blacks and greys that used to adorn this room, replaced with bold colours with no care for logic or conformity, bright like a rainbow in a gloomy sky.

The petite figure moving around the room was similar, as she lovingly slotted books into their new homes on the shelves, a sunflower that had fallen from the bouquet nestled into the neat bun on the back of her head. Running her fingers once more over the spines of her her precious paperbacks, she settles into the worn chair, picking up her tea.

Looking out across the grounds of the school - her school - a light sigh escapes, causing the steam to curl away from the cup. Even though she had the paperwork to say it wasn't so, Jenny still felt like it was all a dream and that at any moment she would wake up to find herself still small. Worthless. A wet blanket.

But it was real, as much as all of the unbelievable things could be trusted. Horace Green Academy was, and always had been, hers. And if not for an awful lot of help and encouragement from so many people, she never would have known. This school, a haven for students of all backgrounds, would still be...

A splat of something on glass interrupted her train of thought, and with a small sigh she opened the window, and carefully peeled off a newt. She was sure it was looking sheepishly up at her as it was deposited gently on the floor.

"Pugsley, be more careful with your pet in future please!"

"Sorry Miss Honey!"

No sooner had she turned her attention back to her tea and the honestly quite astonishing amount of paperwork that had accumulated in such a short space of time, did her door swing open and a welcome face peered around.

"Dewey! Is it that time already?"

"I thought you might wanna grab a bite to eat before the concert?"

"Now that sounds like a most pleasant idea to me!"

Tea forgotten, and a warm smile on her face, Jenny Honey almost floats across the room to the man who suprised her the most by winning her heart, loops an arm in the crook of his elbow and steps out of her office and knows that no matter what the world throws at her she is loved. By Dewey, by her students, but most importantly, finally, by herself.

[ladyasabat]

Lullaby on the West End

Strap yourselves in, it's going to be a long one.

Last weekend I disappeared off to my happy place in Retford to play in Lullaby on the West End, a LARP I'd been looking forward too for far too long and it was everything and more I could have asked for. I had to wait until today to start to convert my bullet points into legibility, and wrangle those word squirrels into sentences before they escape into the wild and get eaten by reality.

I'd like to say a massive thank you to all the people who made the story possible, to the GMs for writing all the chaos, to the utterly exceptional cast of players, but especially to the players behind Miss Mullins/Trunchbull and Dewey Finn who were the cornerstones of most of my play.

I had the utmost joy of being cast as Jenny Honey, timid school teacher of Horace Green being run under the strict thumb of Rosalie Mullins (Trunchbull). I have always felt a kinship with Miss Honey, growing up with the Matilda movie as one of the core tenets of my upbringing and so when that character sheet came floating into my inbox I did a happy little dance in my computer chair (much to the horror of my cats).

Her story can only be described as the most incredible journey. I laughed, I cried, I laugh cried and I cry laughed. The one thing I was not expecting was just how much love everyone seemed to have for her, and how much they wanted her to succeed, from the students (who were her world) to the other teachers and everyone in between. It was that love and support that really gave Jenny the self-confidence she needed. I genuinely cannot emphasise enough how heart-warming her story was, only that it was better than I ever could have imagined.

You don't really have ten years to hear the story in its entirety, and there are SO many heartfelt moments and even more things that Jenny got involved in over the game, but I would like, if I may, to share some of them with you.

Warning, spoilers lie beyond this point.

Miss Rosalie "Mistakes Were Made" Trunchbull/Mullins - The perfect antihero, a villain for everyone to rally against and ironically played by one of the kindest people I know. From yelling at Jenny for the audacity of being given flowers by her students to dragging her to the Chokey for spending FAR too much money on books (more than I the player had really understood) and generally making Jenny feel like the most pathetic, spineless being ever. Only to then have the most wholesome conversation after Rosalie had re-inherited her family powers where she admitted she may have been entirely wrong about Jenny (which was in no small part due to Joe Casey persistently telling her about what she'd done for him) - "Miss Mullins, you're not yelling at me. Are you feeling alright?" and the discovery that Rosalie had in fact stolen the will that Horace Green belonged to Jenny all this time, and that the Chokey was a machine put in place to take the children's creativity to power the factory that Wonka had built. A factory that met an incredibly explosive end.

Dewey Finn/Ned Schneebly - Although they seemed a strange pairing to the outside, Dewey was Jenny's rock in the chaos of the storm, and the one who supported and encouraged her from the first moment Miss Trunchbull yelled at her - even if at that point she just knew him as Ned Schneebly. He brought out her rebellious side and in turn she showed him how wonderful the students were and taught him to be a teacher. He won her trust and then her heart, and as they escaped into the underground tunnels to get away from the tentacles reaping havoc in the city, he realised there was more to Jenny than met the eye "My girlfriend's a superhero!"

The Students - There was nothing Jenny cared about more than her students (both current and ex) and no matter how she was feeling at the time, she wanted to be there to encourage and support them. This resulted in a strange combination of both sweet and chaotic scenes as they asked her for help and advice in anything from issues with their parents to strange bird people in dark alleys handing them a mysterious cheese.

They also handed her an obscene amount of flowers, because it made her happy (or in Raven's case because she didn't want them) which in turn made Miss Trunchbull furious...so they did it some more! She got so many, that when I gathered them all together Jenny had a perfect disguise as a floral arrangement.

She also got to encourage them all to take part in the various activities - Captain Tempest's Space Auxiliaries and the Kite Festival, the latter of which Miss Trunchbull had explicitly forbidden Jenny from taking the students, and in a pique of rebellion, she decided to do the opposite and so turned into an incredibly sweet moment of joyous singing and waving kites to the iconic song "Lets Go Fly a Kite". Until Pugsley blew them all up (perfection).

Jenny held one official "lesson" during the game, which was originally set to contain some Science from Dr Horrible and then ended up being filled with Chaos, as Javert turned up to Educate the students about Crime, Dr Horrible got recruited by the Evil League of Evil and then then students went off with Rusty on a train ride. Because why not?

Parent-Teacher evening was an experience. Taking place just after Jenny had inherited the school, it contained the dramatic revelation that Dewey Finn had been masquerading as Ned Schneebly the whole time, which of course caused an uproar with the parents, and was perhaps the first and only time anyone ever saw Jenny Honey raise her voice. It also saw her put her new-found confidence to the test and persuade Mayor Falco to come see his daughter Raven in the battle of the bands, and witness their tearful reconciliation afterwards.

The Lost - Part of Jenny's story was her alter-ego as Jennyanydots, a no-nonsense teacher who had stumbled upon a bunch of people in the underground tunnels who needed her just as much as the students in the school. The genuine pride she felt at Stratt's grammatical accomplishments on the protest boards, and the bonding that happened later in the game as the Lost and the Cats worked together to save the world through the power of musical instruments and the hunt for Schrodinger's guitar.

Her connection to the Lost also led to a few escapades in the tunnels below the city, including the discovery of a train holding barrels of sarsaparilla being guarded by totally-not-cybermen and the Beige Room. Nobody liked the Beige Room. We also went on a quest for Goop and narrowly missed encountering Sid the albino crocodile.

Cats - Oh yes, Jenny was a Cat. Or at least the anthropomorphic personification of one. Struck by strange purple lightning, her and a small handful of other City dwellers were granted cat-like powers including for her a perfect Clark Kent disguise that allowed her hide in plain sight as Mysterious Stranger, Jennyanydots.

It also turned out these cats had an Important Decision to make, which we used to help save the world. Jenny somehow ended up becoming the leader of these felines, even being given the proxy vote of one Hidden Paw, the Macavity cat - something about organising the students, plus seemingly having the most information about what exactly was going on meant she was strangely adept at herding cats.

There were a couple of wonderful moments of getting to really show off Jennyanydots' abilities, diving in to rescue fellow school teacher Harry Blitzstein from being thrown into the Chokey - the first real time she ever stood up to the Trunchbull and it was not as herself - and then dropping into the tunnels to land in the classic superhero pose as her and Dewey escaped the approaching tentacles. 10/10 would be a cat person again.

Singing - My biggest regret, and perhaps my only one is that I never got to sing all the things I'd planned to, mostly due to the grey sponge that occupies my skull giving me incredible stage-fright (which given how much singing/dancing I did in Lullaby 2 made me cross at myself). However, taking part in many of the group numbers including defeating a pop-music AI through We Will Rock You and the grand finale of Bohemian Rhapsody is something I will remember with great joy.

In all, it was the best weekend I could have possibly imagined and my favourite weekend game of all those that I've played. There are so many small things like offering Javert a lamp as people kept telling him to "Lighten up" and calling Charlie Bucket's new suit a "Chocolate Orange" that enriched the game, and getting to spend that time with the people I hold dearest in my heart and adding more people to that number (you all know who you are).

Thank you all for the greatest time, and I shall cherish these memories forever more.

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re an oath-keeper, your god will whisper you the names of those paladins who have broken their oaths, and you slay them. But you awoke at night to an incomprehensibly long list of names, after an hour it said “ fuck it, all the paladins have broken their oath, slay them all”

[ladyasabat]

You grunt as you hear the now familiar voice awaken you from dreams, a sleepy hand fumbling for the pen and scrap of paper left on the bedside table for this reason as you begin to write down the names that tumble into your mind.

Brows furrow as the list gets longer and longer, filling the first side, still writing as you shift to the tiny desk and refill the pen with ink. Then the reverse of the page. Up the sides. Squeezing names into gaps until...

"Fuck it, all the paladins have broken their oath, slay them all."

You drop the pen in suprise, ink splatting the scribbled, overcrowded list, taken aback both at the curse word and the knowledge that came with it. "All of them?!" An exasperated sigh rolls through your mind like a tumbleweed. "Yes. All of them. I've not been given the details as to why - as per usual - just that it's our mess to clean up."

The frustration is almost tangible, and for a moment you feel a slight hint of sympathy towards your God...until the monumental task they've laid ahead of you hits home like a corpse falling from a tall building. You lean back in the chair with a sigh of your own. "Well...shit." You figure at this moment that if it's okay for a god to swear, they're not going to mind.

"Exactly."

You spend a further moment staring down at the list of names, trying to comprehend even some of the task ahead of you before pushing the offending paper away. "Right. Better get started then." Futile words, but enough to at least prise you out of the chair. Shrugging into your armour with far too practised ease (and noting that you never got that pauldron strap fixed from last time) and donning the trademark blacked steel blades of an Oathkeeper, a title you had always held with a quiet pride - and still do, although in this situation it feels like weighs heavier at your side that it ever did before.

You stride out of the room, footsteps heavy in the torchlit corridor as you make your way to the gate, passing orders as you hurry through. Giving what little information bestowed upon yourself in that brief moment.

The sound of bells echoes behind you as the others are mobilised. It is time, for the first time in as long as you had lead them, for the Order to go to war.

War.

Against every single Paladin in the known Earth, for a reason known only to the Gods to whom they broke their oaths. As the bells fade and you're left with the sound of hoof-steps and clinking of armour, one question refuses to leave your mind.

Why?

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re a park ranger of a very dense forest and you take care of everything, including the supernatural cryptids. One day, a murder happens in your forest and the culprit evades the authorities. You then politely ask the cryptids for their aid in the culprit’s capture. They agree.

[ladyasabat]

There is a rustling of trees and then eerie silence, the only remaining sound a rhythmic tapping of rain on the brim of your hat before you turn and squelch your way through the mud back to the shelter of the cabin porch - not that you'd be waiting long, the various denizens of the forest knew their way around far better than any human.

They had been the ones to inform you of the dead body, buried in a hurry, in far too shallow a grave. The foxes had got there first and from then nature had taken course until the authorities showed up. The forest had been a hive of activity for what seemed like a millennia, until all apparent tactics were exhausted and they washed their hands of the matter - another Jane Doe for the ledger, whilst someone with bloodied hands roamed free in your forest. Your sanctuary.

No. That was not permitted.

You didn't like to ask things of the wild ones, your relationship until now had been one of mutual respect - you kept the hikers and tourists away from their dens and roosts, and in return they kept you safe from...nature? Other cryptids? You found it best not to ask. It was a strange relationship, but a welcome one. Far kinder than the bustling city you had left behind those years ago.

A semi-distant scream de-rails that train of thought from where it was headed, your eyes glancing to the treeline. Back out into the rain. Pause. Listen. Step. The frantic cracking of branches heralds the murderer's arrival as they almost barrel into you, eyes wild.

"Please." He practically begs at your boots, as you apply cold metal to his wrists. Looking away from the mud soaked, pine covered wretch at your feet and into the forest that is your ward, you nod in thanks.

The nearest trees almost seem to bow in return, before the scream of sirens once more breaks the stillness of the night.

[writing-prompt-s]

You’ve been sentenced to 400 years for multiple murders. It’s been 399 years and your jailers are starting to get nervous.

[elidyce]

I was twenty… twenty-five, I think?… when I was sentenced. Four hundred years was a length of time I couldn’t even imagine. It was a length of time I don’t think anyone could imagine, even the judge. It was just a big showy number that let everyone know I’d never see the light of day again. The mages who cast the spells were dramatic about it, practically shouting the part about ‘until death claims you, or four hundred years hath passed, forsooth, thou shalt be imprisoned here’. They don’t waste that kind of magic on most prisoners, but I was special.

The Slayer, they called me then. The Monster of Sentan. I’d killed nineteen people… I remember that number because I was so furious that they stopped me so close to my goal of twenty-one. And I didn’t just kill ordinary people, no, but the Chosen of the Gods. The Great and Good. They were terrified of me. So they locked me away, to die forgotten.

It had been a little less than a hundred years when the king died without heir, and a civil war tore the country apart. When the fighting was all over, the losers were dragged down to the deepest cells under the castle, and the new king and his soldiers stopped and stared at me. “Who… who is this?” he asked, frowning. “Some victim of the usurper?”

People like cooks and jailers and scrubbers don’t change as easily as kings. The same man who’d been bringing me my meals since there was still brown in his hair and beard shuffled forward, hunched and grey now. “No, yer majesty,” he said humbly. “That be a special prisoner, from before the old king died.”

“Special? Special how?” He frowned, moving closer to my cell. “The old king died more than ten years ago. This woman must have been a child then. What could she have done to - “

“Don’t get too close, yer majesty,” the old man said sharply. “That’s the Monster of Sentan… an’ she bites.”

That was true. I do bite.

Keep reading

[ladyasabat]

A Small Molehill To Conquer

Today I did a Thing.

For any other normal human it would not be a Big Thing but to me it was. I've always hated/feared treadmills - no idea why, but they really do give me the fear. I've always enjoyed walking, but the notion of doing it on a machine, staring at a wall just doesn't do anything for me.

But having moved into a more suburban location, it's not as easy to just step out of my house and walk in scenic countryside as it was before when I was literally surrounded by fields and trees. Yes, technically I could go walking in the local area, but I don't really fancy having to constantly keep an eye out in case some entrepreneurial individual decides to mug me for the 50p I have left in my bank account.

For some context, I used to exercise a lot. As in, ballroom/latin dancing and zumba for about 6 hours a week on top of working as a waitress for 50 hours at my peak. Even after my fibromyalgia decided to become a bigger presence than the looming nuisance it was before, I was still very active.

Then the pandemic came along, and as much as I tried, I could not stay as active as I was, hampered by the fact that I am incredibly lacking in self-motivation and easily distracted. And from there it has been an uphill battle to reclaim even a fraction of what I used to do.

When I moved up to bonny Yorkshire, I joined a new gym and started doing their classes - except 3 months ago the teacher that made my Spin classes enjoyable left and the rest of the instructors just don't teach in a way that works for me...which has basically meant that I haven't been to the gym for 3 months.

I work on my feet for 20+ hours a week, but because my metabolism just doesn't do what it's supposed to, it's not enough. Nothing is enough. I can eat all the right things, drink all the water....still the size and fat rolls of the Michelin man.

And thus, whilst stuck in traffic in my 45 minute commute home, I decided to try something Different. Something that went against all of my brain's programming. I decided to buy a cheap set of headphones and go walk towards a wall that would never get any closer.

Today I did just that. I got on one and went for a "walk" for 30 minutes whilst listening to Worlds Beyond Number*. I'd love to say this is a Thing that will happen more regularly but I don't know, it depends if it becomes something that doesn't turn me into an anxiety filled blob trying to find the spoons to Just Do It.

I've also rambled far more on the subject than I have any right to, but serves Tumblr right for not giving me a character limit.

*I've been wanting to listen to it since it first released, but I wanted to give it my full attention, you could say I'm using the treadmill as a motive to do so. If you haven't listened to it, I highly recommend it.

[ladyasabat]

Tutankhamun: The Drama of America’s Sweetheart

It has been a good 7 years since I last traveled to Retford for a weekend of LARPing, but having spied a last minute space, I would have been a fool to pass up the opportunity to see and play with everyone again.  This is by no means the full account of my character’s weekend, but this is quite long enough.

So it was I stepped into the sparkly shoes of Hollywood movie star - Mary Pickford, leading lady, founder of United Artists and wife to fellow Hollywood royalty Douglas Fairbanks.  To the outside eye it looked like she had it all.   Money, fame, love?  But things were not as blissful as they seemed.   Fame and the pressures of the movie industry had taken a large toll on Douglas and Mary’s marriage to the point where she very nearly left him for another man in the event she refers to as That Night - it being one of her biggest regrets on many levels, and when offered the chance by their good friend Charlie Chaplain to go to Egypt on holiday, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to fix their marriage and to put Mary’s troubled past behind her.

Except drama was always in a movie star’s life, and no sooner had she arrived in the city of Luxor she was accosted by a man representing Wolf Industries demanding that she pay back the debt her former rat of a first (yes, first) husband Owen had lumped her with - having forged her name on paperwork whilst they were still married.  After telling the man in no uncertain terms she wasn’t paying it, Mister March returned to Mary her ex-husband’s wedding ring...with the finger still attached and a promise if she failed to pay up then this fate would await her too.  Shocked and appalled, Mary reluctantly paid the man the £25,000 and told him to go away and never return.

Asking both her husband and Charlie, Mary discovered that Wolf Industries was behind the gambit to buy out United Artists and made the pair refuse any and all offers to hand over their shares, having a heart to heart with her husband about Owen’s debt, the ring, her affair and the events of That Night.  Promising that it was all behind her, and could he forgive her?  It seemed he could, and Mary genuinely believed her marriage was on the mend.

Mary was quite good at avoiding things she didn’t want to talk about, or more specifically people.  One particular person in fact.  “Prince” Ali Kamel.  Despite him sending a Private Investigator to look into her (something that very nearly earned him a slap) she managed to avoid her former beau until he turned up at the set where United Artists were filming “Freedom” - a short movie for the EFOFF awards held later that weekend  - and desperate to avoid confrontation between Ali and Douglas, she asked her good friend Charlie to cover for her and snuck away with the Prince with every intention of telling him to go away and leave her alone forever.

Except she couldn’t deny that she still had feelings for him, having fell in love with him when he was just a Major in the Army, and when he told her that he had written to her as promised all those years ago, she called him a liar.  She had married Douglas because he hadn’t written to her at all and assumed that to him she was nothing but a fleeting romance and Douglas had gone to such lengths to prove just how serious he was about marrying her.  Ali now “Prince” Ali - came back into her life the second time, conveniently when her husband was away for 5 weeks, leading to That Night where Ali had proclaimed that Mary was leaving Douglas for him..except she couldn’t do it, and once gain Ali had left and never come back before Mary had time to change her mind.

Upon pressing Charlie for information, he produced the truth.  A large stack of papers stolen from Douglas’ office, written from Ali to Mary proclaiming his love to her.  Furious about being deceived so, Mary publicly denounced Douglas’ behaviour and his claims that he was only “Doing it for her” .  Ali took Mary for a walk around the Winter Palace Hotel to calm her down, and she apologised for doubting him all this time, and he once again begged her to leave Douglas for him because all that he had done, he had done for her, to be seen as an equal to her, confessing that some of those things might not have been entirely honourable.

Douglas, however, had decided to drown his sorrows at the bottom of not one, but two bottles of bourbon.  When she first heard that he been “Taken unwell” she rushed to his side, worried that he had been poisoned or something else.  The only poison was alcohol, and he had throw up over the poor waiting staff.  After asking Charlie and his bodyguard Charles (who was fast gaining Mary’s respect and friendship) to take care of him, Mary was back to a white hot anger at spending most of her holiday apologising for her husband’s messes and fights when all this time he had been lying to her and asked Ali to whisk her away on a date, where he proceeding to woo her some more, promising to give her the world if she would go with him and her promising to give him her decision by the end of the night.

After the whirlwind of her date and the excitement of the Motor Race, Mary found herself in a strangely frank but honest conversation with King Fu’ad about choosing what was best for her public image and her business and what was best for herself, promising her safe sanctuary, her own palace and a yacht at her disposal should she need it as Fu’ad confessed himself to being in a similar position with his own wife.  Mary discovered a new level of respect for the King-behind-the-scenes and knew she had a difficult conversation to have with Douglas.

However, her husband was not incapacitated for as long as she thought and had spied her out on her date, and whilst she had been in the Palace with the King, he had sought out Ali with the intention of having it out.  Instead Charlie had somehow convinced Douglas that the way to win Mary back was to (for the first time in Douglas’ life) be nice to Ali and prove he could change for the better.

This began what can only be described as the oddest evening in Mary Pickford’s life.  After having performed at the gala entertainment*, Mary found herself dragged up to dance with both Ali and Douglas.  At the same time.  In public.  It was at that moment that Mary really wanted the ground to swallow her whole to save herself from the mortal embarrassment of having two men - one of which being her husband, who was proclaiming very loudly “Look honey, look I can change, see” - fighting over her.  After being told by several rather confused that her dear, darling husband was going around stating loudly that he was so proud that he was able to keep conversations with pretty ladies “above board” and control himself, Mary was more than ready to make her decision.  Except her husband had gone to bed early so she couldn’t explode at him until morning.

But this turned out to be a strange blessing, because it meant she could spend the rest of the evening with her Prince uninterrupted and told him her decision.  Ali then proposed to her one the spot, to which she accepted... just as soon as she had broken things off with Douglas in the morning.   However their night of bliss was not to be, as an army of the undead had accidentally been released from one of Egypt’s many tombs and had surrounded Luxor!  The only thing that could keep them at bay was the Torch of Anubis, which Ali volunteered himself, his golden Rolls Royce and Mary to drive around all night to hold them off until a man called Fritz with a Special Rod could turn up and (hopefully) banish them for good.  Up until this point, Mary had heard nothing but rumours of animated mummies and such things, thinking it just an elaborate set piece by someone with a really good special effects team.

But as she sat in the open topped Rolls with her true love (and a very enthusiastic Fakir in the back honking the car horn with a reckless abandon akin to Toad of Toad Hall), holding a strange Egyptian artifact above her head in what made her look more than a little like the Statue of Liberty she couldn’t deny that it would make a really good movie, especially when morning came and Adele Blanc-Sec and Fritz Lang jumped in the Rolls to lasso one of the undead, discovering that it did indeed kill them, instantly.  But only on touch.  Then they realised that the other mummies refused to go anywhere near their fallen brethren and built what can only be described as a low circular wall of the twice-dead around Luxor to keep them at bay so someone could actually work out a plan to close the portal and banish them for good.

Tired, yet exhilarated by the nights events, being heralded as Saviour of Luxor by a few, Mary was confronted by her husband who tried once more in a misguided attempt to win her back.  Upon realising that her decision was made, Douglas launched into a fight with Ali.  Distraught, Mary leapt between the two, breaking up the fight, throwing her wedding ring Douglas and telling him for all the world to see that he had lost her the moment Charlie had given her the letters from Ali, and that in hiding them from her she knew that he was only acting in his interests not hers, that he was the one who never truly loved her and she would never forgive him for getting between her and her true love.

At Ali’s insistence King Fu’ad dissolved Mary’s marriage to Douglas there and then in front of a crowd of witnesses, then re-married her to Ali later that morning with the Fakir as witness (because if it was alright for Henry VIII, then surely it must be fine here).  In the absence of her actual family, Charlie Chaplain gave Mary away to her beloved and Mary was accepted into Ali’s family with open arms (and several offers to quietly remove of Douglas should he decide to cause trouble).

And trouble he did.  Seeing his wife get married to his worst enemy was enough to break him once and for all.  In true Hollywood drama, Douglas Fairbanks drove himself out into the wilds of Egypt and off a cliff into the sea, it is said he changed his mind at the last minute, but it was too late and he perished so incredibly dramatically.  The car was found later that day, after Aziza Amir told her that he had rudely kicked her out of the car in the middle of nowhere and driven off at high speed.

In all of this, the EFOFF awards were nearly forgotten and although United Artists did not win the award, all the movies were incredibly well received - Forbidden Love being a fair and worthy winner.  Mary and Charlie however were not...impressed with the edits Douglas had made without them (*cough* changing the villain’s name) and decided that should “Freedom” go to a public audience it would need a re-vamp.**

That was the end of Mary Pickford’s weekend of drama, although it followed her for many months to come.  After discovering that her husband had committed suicide, the media spoke slightly more favourably of her, for a grief-stricken (twice) widowed movie star who had been betrayed by her husband, denying her the opportunity of true love made for a better story (and movie) than the scandalous American harlot that ran off to Egypt with a street rat.  

Mary did grieve for Douglas, feeling an intense amount of guilt that it was all her fault, but Ali persuaded her that she was not to blame, and with Douglas not able to voice a complaint, passing the paperwork to file her divorce in America went a lot smoother than it would otherwise, having learned from Valentino’s prior mistake and staying firmly in Egyptian soil for the requisite year before marrying Prince Ali officially and with great public ceremony.

United Artists continued to thrive under the joint care of Charlie and Mary, with Mary opening a studios near her newly acquired palace called Shifting Sands, bringing more industry and fame to Egypt (much to King Fu’ad’s delight).  Her and Ali lived a pleasant and incredibly comfortable lifestyle after Mary had persuaded him to give up the...less above board parts of his money making in the interests of not bringing scandal to their door, and for the first time in her life, she was happy.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

And there you have it!  It was an amazing time and I genuinely could not have asked for better people to play with.  Saturday evening and Sunday morning had to be the highlight of my game, the incredibly bizarre dance scene between Mary, Ali and Douglas having me trying to not be in stitches, the explosive ending of her marriage and gaining the Disney ending of her story.  I would also like to say that Mary had no less than 6 separate offers of making Douglas...disappear before he returned to America.

Special thanks go to the players behind Douglas, Ali, Charlie, King Fu’ad and Charles for without them Mary’s plot would not have been anywhere near as fantastical as it was and they were perfect to bounce off, as well as all the other Actors and Movie cast.  It was a pleasure to disrupt Karnak with you all.

Without the GMs this game would not have been possible at all.  Thank you so much for letting me step in at the last minute, your time, patience and the hard work you all put in behind the scenes and for helping me when I was struggling with Mary’s problems hitting a little to close to home.

I really hope I get to play in 1897 next year, and that I will at least see some of you before then!

* I apologise on behalf of everyone’s eardrums and if I try and sing in public again you’re all welcome to duct tape me so I can’t.

** I would like to note, the film was made beautifully by Douglas’ real-life counterpart and it was incredibly fitting and done so VERY well and true to Douglas given the limitations of the software.

[ladyasabat]

Frostpunk: Through The Looking Glass

It is very rare lately that I pre-purchase games or buy them upon release for too many times I end up so very disappointed.  However, for Frostpunk I made an exception and hoped that this time I would be proved wrong.  11 Bit Studios have an excellent track record for beautiful, heart-wrenching and thought provoking games - my personal favourite being This War of Mine.

Frostpunk did not disappoint.  Despite technical difficulties getting the game to co-operate causing me to almost give up altogether, once the game was running I could marvel at the beauty of what was before me.  The depth of detail in graphics alone bring the game to life, from the snow particles to the tiny figures wading out from their tents into the frozen wastes to recover coal for the furnace, every detail lovingly crafted to bring beauty to the cold, desolate wasteland that Frostpunk is set in.

For those who haven’t read the Steam Store description, Frostpunk is a post-apocalyptic city-builder in which your basic goal is simply to survive.  Collect coal, wood, steel and food to keep your tiny colony alive.  Feed them, look after them if they’re ill and keep them warm.  Sounds easy, right?  Maybe so at the start, when the resources are plentiful and the citizens are hopeful.  But as the cold sets in and morale drops, tough decisions must be made.

Will you be a benevolent leader?  A bastion of Faith or Order?  As much as I tried to be a good person, there is no way to please everyone and sometimes you must make decisions that will rest heavy on your conscience, for even though it is simply a game, you really feel for these people freezing out in the wastes, just hoping they can make it to the next day.

There’s not just your little empire to manage either, scouting expeditions add additional rewards and perils (damn bears) for you to contend with.  You come to dread the little notification icon in case it’s yet another tale of despair, then the relief when it is instead the fruits of your carefully tended labours come to bear or panic as it draws upon a dwindling resource.

I have so much I would love to say about this game, but Frostpunk is a game best experienced for oneself.  It is a purchase I do not regret for one second, and 11 Bit Studios should be proud of the excellence they have accomplished once more.

[ladyasabat]

Don’t Starve: Diary of a Gentleman Scientist

The following is the by-product of boredom and the notion of chronicling my gameplay through poor Wilson’s eyes.

Day 1:

I have woken up on this strange, unfamiliar territory with an aching belly and a fire in my head. A strange willowy fellow spouted something uncouth at me before disappearing rudely into the ground – how very rude of him! I have no idea to what purpose he has brought me here, all I know is that I must explore it in the name of science!

Day 2:

Things are proceeding slowly. I am living on a diet consisting mostly of berries, carrots and nuts roasted over a fire – a mere step above the strange rabbits I see darting in and out of burrows. Perhaps tomorrow I shall see if I can eat one of them for my supper.

Day 3:

It seems I am a successful hunter, even though this small morsel of roasted rabbit doesn’t entirely fill my stomach it is better than another night of seeds. To keep my spirits up I have decorated myself with a rather fetching flower garland – it does wonders to keep away the pressing gloom. I wonder what interesting things I shall discover on my travels tomorrow.

Day 4:

My, but this world is huge! I have walked and walked and yet still I find no limit to the fields and forests. To the north-west there is a promising quarry area, to the south a forest. Occasionally I hear the low burbling of a swamp, yet I do not wish to muddy my boots quite so thoroughly just yet.

Day 5:

This is a lonely world, but thankfully there are many resources at my beck and call.  My feet hurt from traversing the very edges of the globe, but it is vital in my understanding of this strange place.  I appear to have befriended a small, furry being that eats my belongings as a form of storage.  I have decided to name him Chester.

Day 10:

It has been some time since my last report, but the constant rain showers have made it unreasonable to write in this journal. My boots have only just begun to feel dry again, and Chester smells uncannily like wet dog. However, I think I have found the perfect place to set up residence until I can find a way from this place – it seems to be something to do with this ‘Thing’ I found, nestled in a prickly circle of flowers. The thought of there being more pieces to this puzzle fills me with both excitement and a small amount of fear at what challenges I may have to overcome to reach them.

Day 13:

I have stumbled upon an ancient relic, which upon translation reads 'Touch Stone’. From what I can gather, it gives a second chance at life…let us hope I will not have cause to use it.

Day 15:

There are many perils here in Maxwell’s world.  The spiders are most vexating, although they are easily eliminated by setting the surrounding trees on fire.  I may have accidentally eradicated an entire forest in the process. Hopefully the trees will grow back at some point. A pig-man looked most disgruntled at the burned shell of his former accommodation but forgave me after I shared the blackened corpse of a spider with him – to be honest, I’d rather he ate it.

Day 16:

Aside from spiders, it now seems I have to worry about hounds. I heard their baying for several hours before they set upon me and Chester. Thankfully one of them made the mistake of biting a Beefalo’s rump and the resulting stampede took care of the rest. I must be more careful in future.

Day 18:

Dear lord, I have never been so afraid for my life as I have been today. Upon waking from my restful night’s sleep I heard the most horrifying noise! The earth quaking beneath my feet, I hid behind my faithful science machine just in time to see a badger twice the size of a bear descend upon my chest of belongings – although he did not seem to find what he was looking for and quickly began to chase me instead! I do believe I have never run so fast before as I did to escape that monstrosity. Trees and grass stumps were scattered as he pursued me for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, starving and more than a little dishevelled, I escaped. I can only pray that I do not encounter him again.

Day 20:

The weather is beginning to get colder and I am thankful for the marvellous beard adorning my face. It is past time to start storing food for the oncoming Winter, and I have taken careful preparations to set up both traps and drying racks to aid my survival in the cold. It is my thought that I might perhaps make a nice pair of earmuffs from the rabbit pelts I have caught so far. At least I know that I am safe from 'Mac Tusk’ and his clan…whoever he might be.

Day 22:

Winter has settled in with a vengeance, leaving me unable to wander from camp for long periods of time. Gathering fuel for the fire has become a race against time, darting out and back as fast as I can wade through the snow. The cold weather has left me much time, however, to experiment with my science machine, and I have successfully crafted weather reading devices so that I may better gleam when Spring is near.

Day 25:

A host of suspicious looking pengulls have made their roost near my camp. They do not seem to do anything other than squawk in my general direction, so I will leave them well alone. Although my bunnymuffs keep my ears warmer, I rather miss my flower garland. The world seems a less brighter place without it.

Day 27:

To make matters more difficult, upon harvesting a tree this morning I accidentally angered a guardian – it is actually rather easy to appease a very large, very angry tree however, he was satisfied by my offering of pine cones and seems to be patrolling around my little camp.

Day 29:

It is just as well my Evergreen friend was nearby to save me from a second hound attack. Sadly poor Chester perished in the kerfuffle and I have placed his eyebone beside the fire as a monument to his friendship in this unwelcoming world. I shall miss him dearly.

Day 30:

Things are not going as planned. I fear I may be beginning to lose my mind – or that there was something in my hound meat sandwich that was not good for my well being. I spied some eggs among the pengulls and thought to make them my lunch. After persuading my frost-bitten lungs to play the pan pipes, they were soon asleep. But damn my clumsiness, I accidentally awoke one. Hell has no bigger fury than a mob of pengulls with their jimmies rustled.

I thought I had died – and perhaps I had, for I awoke upon a Touch Stone cold and without any of my possessions. I nearly perished once again retrieving them, but somehow made it back to the safety of my campfire. I wish from the bottom of my heart that this treacherous season will end soon.

Day 31:

I am seeing eyes in the dark, strange animals in the shadows. Is this what Winter has driven me to? My head is spinning, and the flowers that I so carefully plucked from the clutches of the snow are doing nothing to ease my fear. Something out there is watching me.

Day 32:

Help me. Won’t someone help me? Chester has returned, but he looks up at me with sad, telling eyes. Even the rabbits look horrifying to my eyes. Everything I eat tastes bitter and sour, as if it had turned in the blink of my sleep-deprived eyes – for how can I sleep, knowing that a shadowy, questing hand may extinguish my precious fire?

[ladyasabat]

Contrast: Through the Looking Glass

I picked up contrast having watched a few videos here and there, and I thought it looked like an interesting game and one I might like to play.  The Vaudeville-esque surroundings are interesting, with a run down 1920’s Chicago feel and cabaret music playing softly in the background lures you in, the interesting mechanic of switching between 3D and a 2D shadow world starting off intriguing and fun as you jump around the maps.

Yet sadly the series of vexating and sometimes pointless puzzles makes the novelty grow old rather quickly.  The protagonist can break down ‘weak objects’ and yet is unable to break glass or open doors.  She can pull herself up from ledges -  but only certain ones and only in the 3D world.

The storyline is also rather disappointing, with nothing but a marital dispute and some frankly un-intimidating gang members surrounding a boisterous, trouble making little girl named Didi that has far too complex a grasp on human nature and the world in general for a child that young.  She shepherds you along the story like some bossy little know-it-all, and gods forbid that you should attempt to stray from her whims.  I don’t mind a story driven game, but to be told 'No, you’re not allowed to’ go wandering off to find the secrets is a little…annoying.

All in all, Contrast is a nice concept…but I’m not sure that I will continue playing it.