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This has long been one of my favorite books.
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Oct 4, 2023 19:54
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Kestral posted:I swear, every chapter has a line that is just perfect. "They had already been out. The broom beside the rear entrance was still warm." If this is your first time reading the book, the last line of the book is also a fantastic payoff. Zelazny just had so much fun writing this book. If this is not your first time reading, you probably will always remember the last line.
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Oct 4, 2023 20:49
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[/quote] Asterite34 posted:October 4th Because of the squirrel, and even though Owen is welsh, a lot of people online suggest it is a reference to Odin. Although the mistletoe, in that case, would be related to Baldur Odinson. Sorry for the double post. I’m pet-sitting and a couple of the 9 dogs don’t allow me to sleep at night. Bored fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Oct 18, 2023 |
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Oct 4, 2023 20:53
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Bored posted:Because of the squirrel, and even though Owen is welsh, a lot of people online suggest it is a reference to Odin. Although the mistletoe, in that case, would be related to Baldur Odinson. Huh, okay yeah that tracks. You'd think he'd have a raven, though
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Oct 4, 2023 20:59
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Asterite34 posted:Huh, okay yeah that tracks. You'd think he'd have a raven, though There’s also this suggestion for Owen: “Owen is a druid. As in Owen Glendower, the great Welsh leader of the middle ages reputed to be a Druid. “ Another suggestion is Owen Morgan, a writer of neo-Druidic books that was alive around the time this story is supposed to be taking place. He also was a journalist who wrote about a massive mining disaster in 1877, which may inform the attitude of the Owen in this book. Bored fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Oct 4, 2023 |
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Oct 4, 2023 21:05
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Bored posted:If this is your first time reading the book, the last line of the book is also a fantastic payoff. Zelazny just had so much fun writing this book. If this is not your first time reading, you probably will always remember the last line. It's a favorite, one of the very few books I'll actually re-read, but I only read it after enough time has passed that I've forgotten enough of it to stumble across little gems like that again  Thankfully it's so full of little gems that this means it's like an every other year reread, what a treasure Zelazny was.Bored posted:There’s also this suggestion for Owen: Knowing Zelazny, it's a combination of both references. The man looooved his little references and in-jokes.
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Oct 5, 2023 09:13
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Kestral posted:It's a favorite, one of the very few books I'll actually re-read, but I only read it after enough time has passed that I've forgotten enough of it to stumble across little gems like that again Most likely, since it is a love story to others stories. So I didn’t wiki Zelazny regarding his university degree previously, but he got his Masters in literature:Jacobean and Elizabethan according to some YouTube podcast i just listened to. So i have a feeling Graymalk is an reference to both “Macbeth” and “Beware the cat” which predates Macbeth and is about talking cats: quote:The second part of Streamer's account describes how he heard the mewing of cats outside his window and his search for a way to gain the ability to understand the language of cats. He consults a "book of secrets" which had been attributed to the thirteenth-century philosopher Albertus Magnus, and finds there a recipe to understand birds. Streamer modifies this recipe and acquires various animal organs and body parts, including those of a hedgehog, fox, rabbit, kite, and cat. He combines these into various kinds of food and drink, and after consuming them, attains his goal. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beware_the_Cat What? I like animals. Especially cats and dogs. There’s a decent essay online that the guy working on it updates regularly with “new” incites with regards to the characters, but it is full of spoilers. He’s a medical doctor, so this is just for funsies for him. I was going to wait until later on to link it because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t read the book or read the book lately. Although I’m still finding stuff I didn’t recognize by the time of the last reading that I know now from reading other completely unrelated stuff since.
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Oct 5, 2023 09:43
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Bored posted:Most likely, since it is a love story to others stories. ...so what I'm getting from this, is that the movie Cats can trace its literary tradition back to arguably the first original novel ever published in the English language? Huh.
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Oct 5, 2023 18:15
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October 5th This chapter has lots of introductions. Here we properly meet Nightwind, the owl familiar of Morris and McCab who attemted to curse Jack's house a few days ago. It seems we're early enough in the game that these sorts of mild aggressions can be forgiven in the name of exchanging useful information. That's how espionage goes I suppose, yesterday's enemy may be tomorrow's friend, and vice versa. Naturally, there's a "who?" pun. Nightwind makes us aware of another recently observed Player who hasn't shown up in person yet, some bugger living in a farmhouse covered in lightning rods beneath a perpetual thundercloud, where his hunchbacked assistant regularly brings him exhumed body parts. Nobody's investigated him that closely yet, so he's currently only known as "the Good Doctor." it's Doctor loving Frankenstein We're also intruduced to a mystery that everyone present is concerned about. A mangled body was found by the authorities, looking like it was torn apart by a large dog, and none of the Players are owning up to it, raising the possibility this is some random unaffiliated third party. This is likely to provoke the sort of police scrutiny to the area that these out-of-town loner weirdos really don't need right now. PROPER Players prefer to keep their blood rituals and poo poo low-profile.
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Oct 5, 2023 22:05
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Asterite34 posted:October 5th Ah, The Wolfman cometh. (This is my first time reading the book, so I have no idea if that's a spoiler or not. But I figure with wizards, Draculas, and Frankensteins, the other characters borrowed by White Wolf in the early 90s must show up eventually.
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Oct 5, 2023 22:15
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I’ve owned a copy of this book for year yet never sat down to read it—thanks for prompting me. Just caught up to chapter five and its been a real hoot so far. nightwind ftw other familiars stay malding
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Oct 5, 2023 23:12
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Didn't get the chance to read October 5 yesterday, so I'm playing some catch-up! I love any bit where Snuff and Graymalk chat with each other. The whole "dude someone got mangled by a dog, made me think of you" exchange was the highlight. Just another average chat around the watercooler in the life of these familiars! Nightwind turning his head around to think is also a great detail for an owl familiar. It's like the owl equivalent of a quick huddle before making a decision. It's real cool that all of the people in the game are a reference to something. A hunched guy graverobbing to deliver bodies to a "Good Doctor" cackling madly somewhere with a perpetual storm and a bunch of lightning rods? Pretty on the nose, but I like that it doesn't straight up say "Yeah, it's who you think it is" yet and just leaves it at very obvious clues like when Jack collects his "ingredients". Or when you find out a dude named Count who has a bat familiar has shown up. cptn_dr posted:Ah, The Wolfman cometh. I was joking earlier in this thread about a monster mash but the more people that get introduced the more that seems like where it's heading haha. What other classic creatures are we missing at this point? A swamp monster? A zombie maybe? October 6 has more appearances of the Things in Jack's house. I'm still not too sure what they are or if they're a reference to something, but apparently the Thing in the Circle can turn into a dog. And also give a doggy middle finger? I might be misunderstanding the last line but I hope not, the mental image of a little Pekingese giving the bird to Snuff is very silly. It looks like finding the center between where all the Players are situated is going to be important for... something, and Snuff is a good boy who's working hard to figure it out. First they'll have to find the Count and any other Players that haven't been counted yet, though. Why do the Players always make a pattern around the center of things? I hope we find out soon Also, the illustration at the end of this chapter (for the next chapter it seems) is probably my favorite so far. That is the most unhinged looking rat I have ever seen. That dude has seen troubles and horrors, man.
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Oct 6, 2023 15:14
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October 6thquote:Down in the cellar the Thing in the Circle had become a Pekingese. The Things in the Mirror tried to escape, but apparently these are the chumpiest Things and it's more of a nuisance than any sort of crisis. Jack just stuffs them in an even smaller mirror as punishment. Interestingly he uses his "mundane wand" to command them, as opposed to his... non-mundane magic wand? Snuff runs into Nightwind hiding out during the day in a tree hollow and asks him to try and follow Needle back to he Count's lair. It seems that all the Players naturally arrange themselves in a complicated arcane pattern, and at the center of the arrangement is an important ritual site they need to locate. Exactly WHY this is the case is unknown, whether the Players unconsciously arrange themselves due to some geomantic influence or whether the ritual site manifests in response to their presence. Either way, they can only triangulate it by knowing everyone's location, and the Count is making this difficult.
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Oct 6, 2023 16:06
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Ultimately I think it's okay for some of the players to just be "a Witch" or "a Druid" instead of some major named character, because, let's face it: not all of these guys are going to make it to the Big Event and some of them need to be obviously expendable because you can't just introduce Count Dracula and then have him die unceremoniously a third of the way through the book.
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Oct 6, 2023 17:40
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HermitSupplier posted:And also give a doggy middle finger? I might be misunderstanding the last line but I hope not, the mental image of a little Pekingese giving the bird to Snuff is very silly. You're definitely understanding it correctly, that's why Snuff was impressed with the effort. Poor mirror Things. That was about the shortest-lived escape I've ever seen.
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Oct 6, 2023 20:54
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HermitSupplier posted:It's real cool that all of the people in the game are a reference to something. A hunched guy graverobbing to deliver bodies to a "Good Doctor" cackling madly somewhere with a perpetual storm and a bunch of lightning rods? Pretty on the nose, but I like that it doesn't straight up say "Yeah, it's who you think it is" yet and just leaves it at very obvious clues like when Jack collects his "ingredients". Or when you find out a dude named Count who has a bat familiar has shown up. The cover illustration gives a lot of them away. 
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Oct 6, 2023 21:05
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Was asked late last night to join the read. I caught up just now. I guess my personal questions I'm sitting on and don't expect anyone to answer for me are if this game situation has happened before and/or if any of the familiars have done this before or if they just inherently know what's up when they're summoned. Openers and closers is evocative. Why would that be privileged information? Does it mean something other than who goes first or last? The demon that is trying to get the dog horny enough to gently caress up a salt circle is pretty funny. That's gotta be pretty desperate demon behavior. E: I assumed they're all doing a cool murder and getting ranked on it. I guess my banner over here from the ancient front page series about monsters who do that is affecting my reading, but people are suggesting it's like a battle royale for classic movie monsters? Had not considered that. Might be why the pets are so cagey about sharing information. I thought it was so the cool murders would *pop* more.
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Oct 7, 2023 00:18
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Krinkle posted:Was asked late last night to join the read. I caught up just now. I guess my personal questions I'm sitting on and don't expect anyone to answer for me are if this game situation has happened before and/or if any of the familiars have done this before or if they just inherently know what's up when they're summoned. Openers and closers is evocative. Why would that be privileged information? Does it mean something other than who goes first or last? The demon that is trying to get the dog horny enough to gently caress up a salt circle is pretty funny. That's gotta be pretty desperate demon behavior. All of these questions are answered clearly as the book continues, which is why I’m impressed so many people are able to limit their read to a chapter a day. I could not. The character references are not always so clear which is why I’m having fun looking up stuff about them as they come up.  I kinda roughed (ruffed, teehee) out a picture for the prologue with paint that was drying out. I may finish it or I may not. Probably should since I really like how painting on these tiny wood planks ends up looking.  And a quick sketch from October first. Eats aren’t right and I didn’t put on the deerhound/wolfhound wire-coat, cause that is Bristol board and I have acrylic inks. I’ll catch up soon, I promise. Bored fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 00:25
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Krinkle posted:E: I assumed they're all doing a cool murder and getting ranked on it. I guess my banner over here from the ancient front page series about monsters who do that is affecting my reading, but people are suggesting it's like a battle royale for classic movie monsters? Had not considered that. Might be why the pets are so cagey about sharing information. I thought it was so the cool murders would *pop* more. As a first time reader caught up to ch. 6, I assumed the openers and closers are competing to, well, open and close a rift to hell. Hence it being privileged information because the two groups are diametrically opposed even if they are nominally in the same business. Keeping a vestige of professional civility prevents things from descending into all-out war. e.: idk what policy is regarding spoilers so spoiled just to be safe Corambis fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 00:26
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Corambis posted:
Spoiler policy is that genuinely uninformed speculation by first-time readers doesn't have to be black-barred, but anything from re-readers from later in the month than we've already covered should be spoiled and tagged appropriately. e: Oh, nice fanart Bored! Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 00:40
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That sketch is very much in line with my mental image of Snuff, possibly because Zelazny's narration has a very smoky quality to it that sounds exactly like what I'd expect from the voice of a big, kind of shaggy but dignified grey-brown dog, like if you crossed Hieronymous Alloy's very good boy with an Irish Wolfhound.HermitSupplier posted:October 6 has more appearances of the Things in Jack's house. I'm still not too sure what they are or if they're a reference to something, but apparently the Thing in the Circle can turn into a dog. And also give a doggy middle finger? I might be misunderstanding the last line but I hope not, the mental image of a little Pekingese giving the bird to Snuff is very silly. Speaking of things that need fanart! Zopotantor posted:The cover illustration gives a lot of them away. Doesn't it look like Drac is putting the moves on Sherlock? That face, rubbing that bulbous cane, he knows what's up with Sherlock's bachelor status. Also this is the first time I've ever noticed the rat at the bottom center of the cover, looking absolutely manic. A+ cover art.
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Oct 7, 2023 02:22
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October 7th Well now the narrative is just teasing us with Jack doing benign things in the most murderer-y way you could possibly describe it. Also a brief run-in with the Great Detective Sherlock loving Holmes We're also introduced to easily the best character, Bubo, the rat familiar of the Good Doctor. Snuff catches him sneaking into his house and just kinda staring at the Things in the Mirror like it's a lava lamp, a breach of protocol that invites immediate lethal retribution. Bubo insists, however, that he's just here to get in contact with Snuff to make a deal. See, he's been talking to a few of the other Familiars (mostly the other small mammals and Quicklime) and hears Snuff is amenable to trading info. quote:"Why didn't you trade directly with Nightwind?" He has something juicy: the location of the Count's lair, buried in an abandoned graveyard out in the woods where Nightwind wouldn't be an agile enough flyer to follow Needle. In exchange, he gets a list of the other known Players and their locations (with Graymalk being the only notable gap in his knowledge so far, dude's been busy) This chapter also gives us a fun bit of info: Snuff (and presumably the other Familiars) gains the ability to speak English for an hour or so after midnight, so he can give regular reports to Jack on goings-on. Says he's going to ask Graymalk to use her better night vision to confirm Bubo's intel on the Count's crypt. He trusts her, despite neither of them talking enough "party politics" to know her position on things. Whatever this Game is, there's an ideological component to it, and in order to maintain open avenues of cooperation it's in everyone's interests for the moment to keep their affiliations to themselves, like a Thanksgiving dinner where you really hope nobody brings up politics and makes things awkward. There's a vague reference to "that time in Dijon" when Jack got distracted by a lady on the other side. They've played this Game before.
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Oct 7, 2023 15:14
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Got the audiobook from my local library and Matt Godfrey doesn’t do a half-bad job of it. Caught up to day 7 and even though I know in broad strokes what’s going to happen I’m enjoying getting into the detail’s.
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Oct 7, 2023 20:02
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How is it that the players appear to have gone through several iteration of the game yet seem to retain no foreknowledge of their competitor’s allegiance? At least some of the players seem to be familiar with one another, you’d expect them to have gained certain reputations by now. I wonder if their role as openers and closers is decided by a third-party each time the game starts over, leaving them without a decision as to which side they’ll play for. Maybe Jack has been both opener and closer in the past, depending on the whims of some greater entity.
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Oct 7, 2023 23:38
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It's a nice bit of characterization that the only time we've seen good ol' Snuff be menacing is when something gets inside the house he's guarding. Even when they're being actively chased by The Great Detective and Assistant, he only trips them by accident! Bubo, by the way, is the term for the hideously swollen lymph nodes created by the bubonic plague.
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Oct 8, 2023 05:33
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I’ve started on October 8th and the fact that he just straight up pulled Larry Talbot in wholesale without a nickname is killing me.
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Oct 8, 2023 11:23
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October 8thDreamingofRoses posted:I’ve started on October 8th and the fact that he just straight up pulled Larry Talbot in wholesale without a nickname is killing me. It is a kinda hilariously perfunctory, as Larry Talbot The loving Wolfman, if this is even supposed to be a twist just shows up to introduce himself as Jack's new next door neighbor like he's an 80s sitcom character. It continues to be somewhat sitcom-y as Jack has to try and deal with a potentially embarrassing mishap while entertaining his guest. Namely, the Thing in the Wardrobe escaped, and by the text's description he seems to be a full on Chernabog-in-Fantasia-rear end demon. Snuff heads to the attic and drives the thing back into the cupboard by himself until Jack can lock it back in, so either that Thing is way less strong than its Balrog-like appearance suggests, or Snuff is no ordinary dog. Larry is also no ordinary human, he has a similar air of predatory instinct about him as Jack does, so naturally they get along quite well. Here we finally learn the affiliation of one of the Players: Jack is, in Larry's estimation, one of the Closers, and he's willing to assist him in the Game. It's still unclear if Talbot himself is an actual formal Player or not, as he doesn't seem to have a familiar. quote:"Maybe he's his own best friend." Later in the day Owen pays a visit to toss some obviously drugged meat over Jack's garden wall, a ploy that probably wouldn't even work against a non-magical dog and is just plain insulting to try with Snuff, but I guess these sorts of idle probing attacks are just a thing that happens a lot at this stage of the Game. We also get a visit from the snake Quicklime, who was first mentioned all the way back on the 2nd but only showing up in person now to chat with Snuff. He's mostly here to tell Snuff that he saw Morris & McCab chucking Graymalk down a well like psychos, partly as retaliation for Jill filching some magical herbs from their front porch and also I guess they're just more blunt about rubbing out the competition than Owen was a minute ago. Quicklime doesn't really give a poo poo about Graymalk's wellbeing, but he's a veteran at the Game and finds it gauche for novices like M&M to try and take out a Player this early. I would just like to comment on how much of a weird remix of a Lassie cliché it is for a cat to fall down a well, and for a snake to go run off and get a dog for help. Anyway Snuff goes and fetches her out, and she agrees to go scope out the Count's hidey-hole once she naps off this whole incident. For-real spoiler: This whole incident shows how much of a double-edged sword it is for everyone to keep their team secret, with Jill stealing from and M&M attacking someone who is, in theory, on the same side. That seems to happen a lot with the Openers actually, they are a fractious bunch Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Oct 8, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2023 15:40
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Asterite34 posted:October 8th Yeah, not by a long shot. We know he wasn't originally a dog from his personal introduction, and my pet theory (heh) is that Snuff is still roughly (ruffly?) equivalent in capacity to whatever he was as a Thing From Beyond Spacetime, just crammed into a dog-shaped package. It does make me wonder, though - (Actual Spoiler): Later on, one of the familiars just wants to go back to being an ordinary animal without self-awareness and, presumably, the "powers" that come with being bound to a Player. Makes you wonder what would happen if Snuff went the same route, assuming he even could. Would he revert to an eldritch horror? Would his deep attunement to Dogness, evidenced by his relationship with Growler, be enough to allow him to continue to live as simply a Very Good Large Boy? Or does his bizarre nature render the question moot? All idle speculation, of course, since Zelazny isn't the kind of author to dig into the minutiae of his settings like that, but it still amuses me to think about it.
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Oct 8, 2023 20:56
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Seems like I got some more information as to what openers or closers are. And it's not opening acts because killing too early is considered a faux pas? I did not know Larry Talbot by name. I appreciated the spoiler above to get the reference. Honestly I'm kind of embarrassed I can't name the book that he came from. Like I should have just accrued the author's name like Mary Shelly or Bram Stoker by now. Maybe there is no book and it's just some "Abbot and Costello meet the" guy pulled out of public domain. Did The Mummy get a book? I am gonna think it's extremely rude to make Watson the great detective's familiar (already forgot if one of the animals said they were his). The owl is getting shirty. Won't even say hello. I think Greymalk is going to turn out to be the opposite faction from him just feels like they're too chummy and I've seen a narrative twist or two before.
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Oct 9, 2023 21:09
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Krinkle posted:. Maybe there is no book and it's just some "Abbot and Costello meet the" guy pulled out of public domain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolf_Man_(1941_film)
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Oct 9, 2023 21:15
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October 9th Jack and Snuff are skulking around at night on the foggy streets of London like normal everyday non-murderers, and the Great Detective bumps into them and asks them for a light. Here he is, portrayed as a Gahan Wilson caricature of the author Roger Zelazny in a deerstalker cap:  Him and Jack exchange smalltalk about recent killings, written in such a way as you can't really tell who is saying what line, to convey near-identical facades of guarded pleasantness over suspicious hyper-awareness. The chapter has a feel of paranoia as we get deeper into the month, Snuff starting to suspect he's being followed and watched. Still, it's not all unfriendly faces, as they soon bump into Larry Talbot again, out for a late-night stroll. It seems HE bumped into the Great Detective too, who asked HIM for a light and had a very similar sort of conversation as he had with Jack. They talk shop for a bit, with Larry bringing up the Count. He and Larry go way back, and he suspects he's on the enemy team, an Opener as opposed to a Closer. Speaking of the Count, we get a quick flashback to earlier in the day where we see Graymalk venture into the crypt Bubo discovered to verify that, yes, he was telling the truth about it being his current residence. Snuff invites her back to his place to watch the Mirror Things slither around and change color like a screensaver. I guess this is the closest anyone had to television back then.
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Oct 9, 2023 21:22
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Sherlock Holmes refuses to learn that the earth revolves around the sun because it couldn't possibly help him solve a mystery but he knows what every cigar ash in london looks like to pinpoint exactly where the culprit buys their stogies. I think he's asking everyone for a light hoping to get a peek at those cigs. Or maybe the type of flame produced will tell him if you're a pipe man. I don't think any of this helps in the game i just think he needs to know what everyone smokes compulsively.
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Oct 9, 2023 21:32
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Krinkle posted:Sherlock Holmes refuses to learn that the earth revolves around the sun because it couldn't possibly help him solve a mystery but he knows what every cigar ash in london looks like to pinpoint exactly where the culprit buys their stogies. I think he's asking everyone for a light hoping to get a peek at those cigs. Or maybe the type of flame produced will tell him if you're a pipe man. Curiously, people used to smoke like chimneys in Zelazny works, but it stopped showing up as much in his stories after he himself quit smoking in the early 80s in order to improve his cardiovascular fitness (and thus, his aptitude as an aikido blackbelt. Dude was cool)
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Oct 10, 2023 00:01
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Krinkle posted:I think Greymalk is going to turn out to be the opposite faction from him just feels like they're too chummy and I've seen a narrative twist or two before. I could totally see that happen but I'm hoping it doesn't, I've been loving how chill they are with each other! October 10, The Count has barely had any onscreen presence and already he's so strange and memorable. The word choice for his actions add to his eerie superhuman speed. His head snaps in Snuff's direction, his smile is just a quick twitch, and then he just straight up disappears in the blink of an eye. Snuff's worried behavior really helps sell it, too. Super good buildup
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Oct 10, 2023 14:10
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Asterite34 posted:For-real spoiler: This whole incident shows how much of a double-edged sword it is for everyone to keep their team secret, with Jill stealing from and M&M attacking someone who is, in theory, on the same side. That seems to happen a lot with the Openers actually, they are a fractious bunch The Openers aren't really on the same side as only one Opener is going to get rewarded. They also don't really know What or Who they're opening the way for, all they know for sure is it will result in the death of most humans and enslavement of the rest. They all expect to be rewarded but since very few of them survive a failed attempt they're free to believe whatever they want about the nature of that reward.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:08
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I don't recall where it is in the book, so spoilering: at one point Snuff admits that this isn't his and Jack's first rodeo, which the person he's speaking to takes as confirmation that they're Closers - because if the Openers had ever won then the world would be a very different place, and the losers don't walk away from the ceremony. QED: veteran = survived = Closer.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:48
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Krinkle posted:I am gonna think it's extremely rude to make Watson the great detective's familiar (already forgot if one of the animals said they were his). The Great Detective is not a Player, and he doesn’t have a familiar.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:15
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Asterite34 posted:Snuff invites her back to his place to watch the Mirror Things slither around and change color like a screensaver. I guess this is the closest anyone had to television back then. Ooh, I used to make screensavers; maybe I should try this. But how to achieve the mirror effect other than turning off the screen, which would be boring…
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Oct 10, 2023 19:18
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October 10th Pretty quiet rainy day. Sort of day when you just wanna stay inside, get cozy, check on the Basement Thing. Turns out these old houses are kinda leaky, and a puddle of water was mere minutes away from disrupting the circle. This is why it's important to Scotchgard your eldritch binding formulas. Snuff rolls around in it to sponge it all up until Jack can come down and put a bucket under the drip, which pisses the Thing off to no end. While the Wardrobe Thing is described as looking like a pretty classical gargoyle style demon, the illustration of the Thing in the Circle is a bit more... hosed up  After the rain stops, Snuff does a quick check-in on the other Players. He takes Owen's drugged meat and dumps it on his front step, noting a number of baskets he's constructing in his backyard. I wonder if this is preparation for some Wicker Man deal. The storm is still going over the Good Doctor's house, and peeking in his basement window shows he's doing the sort of mad science you would expect to take advantage of the frequent lightning strikes. Snuff has seen enough after the large figure under the sheet on the exam table twitch a bit. Larry Talbot is having a quiet night in, talking to his houseplants. Last item on the agenda for the night is paying a visit to the Count's crypt. We finally see the man himself, returning from a night on the town in bat form and immediately sensing Snuff's presence. Snuff is confident in his ability against the Things, but in the Count's presence he has no recourse but to put on the big dumb friendly dog act, which... I dunno if the Count buys, but if not he at least keeps up the pretense by giving him a scratch behind the ears before slinking into his lair. This chapter is neat because Snuff is a character long-acquainted with the malevolent and supernatural, he hangs out with Jack the Ripper and wizards and bound demons all the time, it's easy to get jaded to poo poo like that after a while. But here we see him interacting with stuff that even he finds kinda unnerving and, frankly, spooky. Even for a practiced hand, there's stuff going on in this Game that is inexplicable and eerie, really gives some proper Halloween vibes. Lemniscate Blue posted:I don't recall where it is in the book, so spoilering: at one point Snuff admits that this isn't his and Jack's first rodeo, which the person he's speaking to takes as confirmation that they're Closers - because if the Openers had ever won then the world would be a very different place, and the losers don't walk away from the ceremony. QED: veteran = survived = Closer. Spoiler: Does this logic also apply to Quicklime? He admitted back on the 8th that he's played the Game before, and since he's still alive and R'lyeh hasn't risen from the Depths, that's him basically admitting he's a Closer too. Of course, Cheeter seemed to imply that him and Owen had some experience in the Game themselves. Maybe that was just veiled insinuation and not real confirmation. Or maybe they switched sides since they last played? 
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Oct 10, 2023 23:34
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| # ? May 10, 2024 21:20 |
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Holy poo poo that illustration of the Thing in the Circle is a nightmare. I'd always pictured it in its bound state as like, colorful ooze, but nope it's so much worse. These illustrations are unironically great, they're like the drawings you'd get in old-school D&D adventure 'zines. I like to think that the Count's appreciation of a Good Dog is a nod to Dracula's "Children of the night" scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xmz-p9FYW8
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Oct 11, 2023 02:20
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