majestic

The Lord Executioner Alkamos is the final boss of the Steps of Torment, and he is very aptly named. It gets a bit easier if you have high levels of cold resistance but otherwise expect to be killed in a hit or two, so... run.

The people here have nothing on posters like Karzak or Caelis who had the unique ability to enrage even the most gentle souls. Actually Caelis was the only one who ever made it on my ignore list, because unlike Karzak his silly trolling wasn't even on topic.

Now that almost everyone in here is armchair moderating I might as well join. I have a question for the moderators, does this forum have a thread splitting function? Since we already had Amentep doing his old man routine and talked about ye old age, back when I was a moderator on the Interplay board we had this nifty little tool that would solve a problem with THIS thread as well as Barti's general problem with him thinking that Bruce derails discussions whenever he posts. Let me elaborate a little, back on Interplay we had two kinds of moderators. Those who would simply go and lock a thread when it drifted off-topic and those who actually bothered to split and merge threads where it was appropriate. I always disliked it when a thread that spawned an interesting discussion was locked with the comment "if you want to talk about this, make a new thread" and thought it was unfair to the original thread starters that often due to no fault of their own the threads they made got killed. Those moderators where well within their rights and only enforced Interplay's community ruleset. Here it seems that neither happens, threads get only locked once they get out of hand pages wise for some reason or another (if it really is performance, well, welcome to 2016, take the person responsible to the lobby and make them the new concierge). So to be honest I can kind of understand Barti when he complains about thread derailing, but I also believe that harsher moderation he demands isn't the solution. So back to the point, obviously I was a moderator of the other group. I don't think I ever locked a topic unless it was complete garbage from the get go. Sure it was more work for me (the IPLY forum also was much, much larger than this one) but I'd like to think that "my" posters appreciated the effort. Interplay certainly did because we once got a free game of our choice from their library for all the work we were doing. That we kind of unanimously picked Lionheart out of all things is probably worthy of a topic of its own. Of course if this forum can't split threads the point is moot. If it can however then as I said before, this thread might be a great example. This discussion about moderation has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic even if everyone inlcuding the original poster is participating and it kind of deserves its own thread, and in my experience a split thread is kind of like the worm myth that both sides live on. Except for real, obviously. Worms just every now and then survive having half their body cut in half. Errr...

Spent a bunch of time with the Everspace alpha version. It is already good fun even though it really only has the core gameplay implemented yet. Lots of potential I would say. Just hope the developers don't listen too much to the whining about the difficulty level on the alpha board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv9L4QmaD74

So GOG released Shadows of the Empire. It's been a long while since I played that...

That would be very... odd, to say the least.

This is the "cuckold-meme" part of the novella (so if this quote does not fall under fair use feel free to remove it): Yeah. This is totally related to the meme in a deliberate attempt by the author to include it. Oh for crying out loud. Seeing how it is appropriate to the discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRUh7sb4c-M I'm guessing there too much muave around right now. Color me (un)impressed.

I have tried long and hard to find a reason to link Animal Farm - which the new Torment novella was very clearly inspired by - to being anti-SJW. It's a tale of a revolution gone wrong, something that has happened time and again in our history, for hundreds and hundreds of years before there even was a concept of social justice warriors or utterly stupid debates on the internet. If anything the novel gets a leftist bent with the final few pages talking about a counter-revolution based on the fact that underneath all their differences, the three races involved in the novel once were - and in some way, still are - humans and that they have more in common than they have differences. A final push for justice and equality for everyone where the previous revolution failed utterly. But hey, it's the Codex. Denial is not only a river in Egypt, after all.

The way I see it they needed the Dorne part to simply get a conflict going with the Tyrell/Lannister alliance in King's Landing, assuming there still is one, they have been curiously absent recently. Which kind of doesn't bode too well for Book!Aegon because he seems to be expendable in a way that a trashed Dorne storyline is not. Euron needs to be there because Dany needs the Iron Fleet and he has a horn to do bind a dragon with. So apparently that is important enough to have her own fleet burnt down by the Harpy, which would have been completely unnecessary if they never had captured it off-screen to make Dany's decision to stay and rule more meaningful. I'm not sure what the hell is going on there to be honest. It seems like George told them things they most likely need to do only after they decided to drop them from the show, particularily the Ironborn. They're also very clearly dropping characters that are of no particular use any more, like Roose, Bashir, Trystane and Hotah. I wonder if we get to see a bottle episode this season. Also, hands up, who is surprised that Jon "He is really dead, we swear!" Snow is back? So anyway I still really liked this episode even if it is a bit strange that Ramsay can take over like that and the resurrection ceremony that came straight out of the most tired fantasy clichés D&D could get their hands on. It does get bonus points for having SJWs knickers in a bunch because Ramsay uses Walda's baby and herself as dog feed. I don't get it. Really. Book!Ramsay is just as bad, some of the things just happen "off-screen" and with implications (ahem, Fake!Arya and sex with dogs?) rather than having them happen on screen, but seriously, this is exactly what would happen to Lady Bolton and her son in the books IF Ramsay could actually come up with a way to do it. I don't think so, Book!Roose is too smart to let that happen.

In 2020 maybe.

There are theories that Aegon might be Illyrio's son and that his late wife was somehow related to the Blackfyres. The entire storyline is a bit weird though. If Aegon is a specially groomed Blackfyre and Varys and Illyrio want him on the Throne, why bother with that entire Dothraki shenanigans? Why help Dany and Viserys in the first place? I wish I could say time will tell but right now it doesn't look like all the time in the world is going to solve any of the mysteries here.

Yeah, I'm a 100% positive that Aegon is the mummer's dragon, which also fits with her visions in the House of the Undying. The uncertainty here is simply the question of whether he is a mummer's dragon meaning he belongs to Varys who once was travelling with a theatre troupe or that he is fake, as in not a true Targaryen. Or maybe both. If he is a Blackfyre he is only distantly related at best, unless there was some hidden heir to Maelys I. But yes, Ilyrio's comment about red and black dragons certainly suggests Aegon might be just that. Oh, and I'm not entirely convinced that the "Quaithe" that Dany can see after she leaves Qarth is a real person. There is preciously little interaction between her and anyone that isn't Dany in Qarth (Jorah I think mentions that he's creeped out by her, but that's pretty much it) and Dany keeps seeing her without anyone else ever noticing or even hearing her. Might just be as nuts as her father.

Hopefully the campaign will be successful this time.

I generally avoid Westeros.org to be honest. Elio and Linda are bona fide nutjobs with a megalomaniac bent that has only gotten worse since they were allowed to contribute to A World Of Ice And Fire. Thanks, but no thanks. It's one of the better fan theories. There are worse. Much worse. Like Varys being a Merman.

There were some hints from Ser Barristan in A Dance With Dragons that the Mad King Aerys had a fancy for Tywin's wife and took certain unspecified "liberties" during the bedding ceremony. It's not much to go on but enough to fashion a theory that either Tyrion or Jaime and Cersei are actually secret Targaryen bastards. It mostly focuses on Tyrion because Tywin said to him that he "is not his son" and while "he cannot prove that he isn't his son" he sure as hell can and will stop him from rightfully inheriting Casterly Rock, plus Tyrion has unusually bright blonde hair, even for a Lannister (noted as early as A Game of Thrones). Tyrion being the bastard child of Aerys would be a lot less out of the left field than Aegon having been baby swapped and suddenly showing up. In the books, at least. The show dropped absolutely no hints at all so far other than Tyrion really liking dragons.

So it apparently is pretty simple to buy a fake Syrian passport. While it is a bit of a stretch to assume that getting a fake Turkish ID is going to be as easy it is just the logical next step, and once they're out of Turkey that's it. Sure thing, a fake Turk that isn't speaking any Turkish might not be that difficult to spot but they are getting free travel across the EU, so why would you check and double check? Not to mention that it still leaves a host of actual poor, unskilled and uneducated Turks free to travel to the EU for any length of time. People tend to forget that Turkey doesn't end at Istanbul. Yeah well, and what with Erdogan saying that assimilation is a crime against humanity and extorting the EU for more money half a week after signing the deal I do reserve the right to be cynical about it. This deal is a bad idea, and dealing with Erdogan in a manner as if he actually were an ally of the EU is a bad idea. He isn't, and he never will be.

Yes Bruce, we get it. Turkey is a NATO member so the Muslim-Putin can do as he pleases while we sort of have to oppose the real Putin because it is tradition. Not to mention that we wouldn't need to let ourselves be blackmailed by Turkey if Germany hadn't messed up Greece so much that they just can't control their borders at all, and not for a lack of wanting. So anyway once the deal with Turkey is fully underway we'll just have a massive influx of legal Turkish unskilled immigrants instead of a massive influx of unskilled refugees from Syria and Afghanistan (and those at least could be legally deported once they are denied asylum). Sounds about right. Surely that is much better than the current situation.

Yes he is, and yes, he is a he. Although I'd rather not see too much of him this season, the "romance" with Missandei was close to being as bad as the Dornish storyline.

We should welcome all types of personalities, we need the eccentric and the idiosyncratic..yes a menagerie of various perspectives is exactly what makes a forum strong..and yes I need oby Fixed that for you, loverboy. Now get to it. Hurry lest Meshugger steals oby from right underneath you.

I'm guessing they hit the reset button on the Dorne storyline because of the mess they made last season. Now they're probably going to use Vivienne as stand-in for the war brought by Aegon & the Golden Company (which totally doesn't sound kinky at all, no sir ).

Grabbed the currently available X bundle and Bloodlines. Yay.

In case anyone ever tells you it is only a rumor that Hasslehoff is popular in certain parts of central Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4k_e4q_B_k Now you know they are lying.

I'd say that is proof that oby really is Qistina. A Russian who doesn't like vodka is probably muslim. Qis is too. Therefore Qis = oby. Seems legit.

I see what you did their!

Sitll wondering what purpose the Watchdogs will serve. One episode spent on introducing a vigilante group led by Blake and some personal issues for MAck and since then, well, nothing. I'm guessing we'll be getting a Blake heel-face turn during the finale so he can die while killing Hive. Oh, and yeah, the Shield member who will die as per Skye's vision. I hope they pick one of her team. Or maybe all of them.