Life, and, er, fake life? And me having NO life, apparently.
SO. UM. HI. AGAIN.
Classes are getting into full swing,
which is therefore kind of weird because I did half of the Greek course last year and it's the same Professor this year, which, er... means that he spends a large portion of the class making references to stories/jokes from last year and totally skipping me when we review our homework for pronunciation because I'm supposed to know things like pronunciation already, and I do (sort of?), but, er... the rest of the class... yeah. It's awkward. (Also, small class is small, and I missed the first of all my classes because of A, protestors blocking the road and LETTING ONE CAR THROUGH THE LIGHTS AT A TIME, so by the time I would have gotten there class would already be over, sob, leaving FOUR HOURS early apparently doesn't work, AND B, I had no internets and so could not check the time of my classes and while I was reasonably sure Greek would be at the same time I did not know about Latin, Greek Epic or Women in the Ancient World.
ANYWAYS, awkward classes continued TODAY because the only class I have on Tuesdays/Thursdays is Greek History, another class that I HAVE DONE BEFORE SORT OF (well, sat in and particpated but never actually, er, signed up for or wrote any essays or exams or whatnot), and this year it's a different Prof and TOTALLY NOT AS GOOD AS AVEN. Aven, please come back, you were so awesome, how dare you get pregnant and have a baby, sob. And GUY, I DO NOT CARE HOW OLD YOU ARE, NO SABBATICAL FOR YOU. You get your butt back here, too. (Though I have yet to meet Guy's replacement Prof [next term, I think?] and so I should not have an opinion. A-At least I still have Louis? ...EXCEPT NOT, BECAUSE HE KEEPS SINGLING ME OUT IN GREEK. NVM.)
The thing about the Classics and Archaeology and Theatre Departments: they're all in the same building, and all pretty small, so everyone knows everyone and everyone addresses each other by their first names after a student's first semester (so by January I won't be getting any more weird looks for calling Sally, well, Sally, instead of Prof. Katary I HOPE). And this is awesomesauce because it forms a really nice network of people you can talk with and bounce ideas off of and rely on to get your notes from when you miss class, even if you don't really know anyone else in class because you can JUST ASK THE PROF, WUT, e-except if, say, you're late or miss a class or something then everyone is wondering why and staring at you when you walk into the next class, a-and it's just... urgh. Yeah. No. Uncomfortable is uncomfortable. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, as the STUPID PROTESTORS mean I have now missed two (all) of my Greek Epic classes, and it's one of the other new Profs I think, so it's going to be doubly awkward, BECAUSE THOSE CLASSES ARE ALWAYS INCREDIBLY SMALL, SOB.
The highlight of my day, therefore, was walking all the way down the trails and across the Pit and to the stupid bus stop on Ramsey Lake because PROTESTORS NOT LETTING BUSES ONTO CAMPUS GDI (so instead of getting dropped off right at the bottom of the hill up to Thornloe I get dropped off at the bottom of the cliff that the freaking University is on, so CLIFF plus HUGE PARKING LOT plus HILLS plus I GOT BASICALLY NO EXERCISE THIS SUMMER SAVE LAYING SOD means I do not enjoy my classes because I tend to die of thirst/hunger/dehydration/muscle cramps and spasms the entire time. Today, this was a GOOD THING because I happened to be walking across the Pit (aka the GIANT PARKING LOT) and saw a bear.
Yes. A bear. A wild one. (A black bear, maybe?) And it was cute and fuzzy and huge and slightly scary since I have never been ten feet away from a wild bear without a fence between us before, a-and....
Trying to eat a car's tire. While the tire was still attached to the car.
Which should not have been funny to me, except... a tire? Really? And apparently this city (and the area where the University is in particular) is known for wild berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc., all at different times of the year of course--but mostly blueberries), and I know for a fact that if you walk up one of the trails from the Pit to the University's main grounds that there's a couple bushes that bears don't usually tend to go for because of all the people traffic, s-so.... (And if this bear was so relaxed about being in a PARKING LOT with people EVERYWHERE and EATING TIRES, I would think he'd be fine with the bushes up the trail?)
So, long, rambling story short: there was a bear. He was cute. I named him Boo-Boo, because there is another bear who sometimes shows up on campus that's named Yogi. People took pictures (my cellphone was not on me at the time, nor my camera, sob), people picked some berries and left them for the bear, there was a whole plan to get the bear away from the car because, er, bears can cause quite a bit of damage, y/y? And then we all saw the bus driving by waaaay down the road, collectively went, "SHIT!", and went running after it, leaving the bear to... nom... the tire. And berries. And maybe someone who walked by and didn't notice he was there.
...now I want to run into a Moose. Properly. There's been a wild turkey, four deers, two bears now, a pack of wolves, an elk, a carribou, a rattle snake, a tarantula, a few snapping turtles, quite a few foxes, a giant iguana that drank a family friend's equally giant bottle of Corona (I should... show you the pictures?), and various species of bats. All wild, all without fences, all within, say, fifteen metres. I DEMAND A MOOSE. Eating moose steak that my roommate's parent's friend hunted is yummy, but DOES NOT COUNT. (Also, I recomend it. Seriously.)
I AM INCREDIBLY EXCITED FOR VARIOUS REASONS, (not the least of which being NEW CHAPTER and FINALLY RE-CAUGHT UP WITH THE ANIME and LOL FINALLY MY OWN APARTMENT and I NEED TO GET INTO VARIOUS SHIPS/SERIES BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH AWESOME WRITTEN ABOUT THEM, IF ANYONE WANTS TO REC ANYTHING?), but the most has got to be because I finally--FINALLY!--figured out how to get myself a UPlay Account for the PS3 from Ubisoft. And proceeded to both download the hidden two sequences from Assassin's Creed II (which I recomend--the game and the additional sequences) and the Auditore Crypt Assassin's Tomb, because HOSHIT THAT IS AMAZING. And a pain. I-It's like the Auditore made it so that if you go to visit your dead ancestors you'll join your dead ancestors, w-which is not something I would put past them...? At all?
AND HERE BE SPOILERS, IN CASE YE BE WARY (re: Assassin's Creed II)
'Kay, I LOVE both the Battle of Forli and the Bonfire of Vanities (and all the extra little goodies we make grabby-hands at in the process), but I think the Bonfire, Sequence 13, is my all-time favorite sequence of the whole game. Besides Ezio's fist-fight with the Pope. (Not. Kidding.) Um, kay, headcanon explanation time?
The whole plot of the Assassin's Creed series (besides the Abstergo-are-dicks-and-need-to-be-taken-down-by... bartenders?) centres around these things called the Pieces of Eden. Okay, actually, even the Abstergo-are-dicks-etc. plotline revolves around the Pieces of Eden. Just... at different times. Eras. Whatever. And basically the games jump around a lot, going from modern time to the Third Crusade back to now back to Renaissance Italy back to now back to... etcetera, which can be confusing keeping track of the various plots and subplots, but the basic thing remains the same:
There are rocks (shiny! rocks) and things that aren't rocks but that I am calling rocks anyways because they're still Pieces of Eden. And there was this crazy!awesome race of people x-number of years ago that for some reason decided to take their genetics, screw around, and create a new race, aka humans. And then, for whatever reason, said First Civilization decided that they didn't want the humans to get to do whatever the heck they wanted, but wanted them to be content and happy andd whatnot, so they made the first Piece of Eden--an "Apple", a Piece that has some connection to a human's brainwaves (but not to a First Civ's brainwaves) that can be used to remove their free will while letting the humans enter a state of bliss and unreality. So the humans basically becamse slaves, but we so contented with their lives (and, supposedly, were taken such good care of), that they never bothered to question the First Civ or, er, anything. And when there were too many humans for the one Apple to control, the First Civ "asked" the humans to build more and the humans, blinded by their own... contentedness or whatnot, said "sure!" and thus made the instruments of their own effective enslavement.
Except someone decided to sleep around or something? And a sub-race of part First Civ and part humans poppped up, and while they more closely resembled humans in their genetic makeup, the only thing that differentiated them from other humans was the lack of the gene that the Apples used to control people (or, er, the addition of a gene that prevented that, I'm not sure), and so while being equally enslaved, they could not actually be controlled. So two of these sub-race decided, fuck with this, we're not standing for this anymore, and stile an Apple, immediately escaping afterwards.
So these two--Adam and Eve, apparently--ended up either accidentally or purposefully starting a rebellion, which started a war, which, combined with other natural forces, ended up destroying the entirety of the First Civ and most of the humans and sub-race. The few who survived did the usualy "repopulation of the planet" thing, and humans became the most advanced species. The Pieces of Eden--including the Apples and the other Pieces that I've yet to figure out the abilities of--were hidden and lost and, because they were used to enslave humanity, said humans thought no one would be stupid enough to go after them again.
...except, uh, yeah. Humans = don't always know what's good for them. So an Apple was discovered by the Knights Templar during the Third Crusade, and thus kicked off a world-spanning underground war over not only their Apple, but other Pieces of Eden and the knowledge to find them. Eventually, it boils down to two sides: the Templars (not all, I'm assuming, just... most) trying to find the Pieces because humanity is corrupt and needs guidance, and wouldn't it be better to have no free will or knowledge or sense of self and yet live in peace and harmony and equality? And the other side ending up as Assassins, because Templars (and related peoples) tend to take powerful positions in the world, openly and with the support (or, er, knowledge, of the masses), and so if you're going to go against the people effectively in power then you have to take the "low" road and get down and dirty. And the Assassins want to collect the Pieces, too, but to study the information they contain because those natural causes that are the primary reason an entire civilization fell? Yeah, it's likely they'll be coming 'round for round 2. (And yes, the Assassins are all for free will and knowledge and spreading it around and people being creative and speaking their minds and whatnot, which even the greatest assassin ever, apparently--Altair--comments is just weird, because they're Assassins, you'd think they'd be the ones killing people off for stepping out of bounds or being different and unique or something.)
BUT. BACK TO MY POINT ABOUT THE BONFIRE OF VANITIES.
The entire game is basically "Templar kills Assassin(s), Assassin kills Templar(s) in revenge, Templar kills Assassin(s) in revenge, some innocent people die horrible deaths, Assassin gets pissed and just goes on a killing spree against EVERY TEMPLAR EVER, cue fist-fight with a Pope." Which is fun, actually, really fun, but it never really goes into exactly what the innocent people and those not directly wrapped up in this war but witness to it think of all this, how they react to it.
Then we get the hidden sequences 12 and 13, the Battle of Forli and the Bonfire of Vanities. And you go into this thinking, "okay, so these two aren't really important to the storyline because the game itself jumps pretty concisely from the end of sequence 11 to the beginning of sequence 14 and so at best these will just be mini-quests or something and you get to kill more people in various weird, cool, and downright wicked ways."
And then 12 stars, which makes you question-mark because, uh, why am I in Forli/Romana, wasn't I just in Venice (if you're coming from 11), and why are there suddenly all these memory markers on my map, and which one do I go to first?!, SOB, but of course there's that nice big glowing memory marker circle not TWENTY FEET DOWN THE DOCK so just jump on in there and go! And it's hillarious, because Caterina Sforza is a demon woman and I love her to bits and I WISH ADELHEID OR BIANCHI OR CHROME OR SOMEONE GDI TOOK A LESSON FROM HER ALREADY. And Machiavelli just cracks me up, how he's all, "I am your mentor now, EVEN THOUGH YOU'VE ALREADY LEARNED EVERYTHING AND ARE ALREADY AN OFFICIAL ASSASSIN YOU STILL MUST LISTEN TO ME NOW KAY?" XD.
[An approximate paraphrase of the conversation:]
Ezio: Pardon me, madonna, but I have never heard of a woman running her own city.
Caterina: This is true, no woman normally does. But my husband, the old Lord of Forli, died years ago.
Ezio: Oh. I am sorry for your loss.
Caterina: Don't be. I had him killed.
Ezio: [edges away slightly] A-Ah....
See, Ezio? YOU DO NOT PUT THE MOVES ON JUST ANY WOMEN. YOU DON'T. (Also: Ezio is a bit of an unrepentant manwhore. Frankly, I love him the more for it.)
[From the very first sequence of the game, before things really go to hell:]
Ezio: Christina, Christina!
Christina (Ezio's old girlfriend/lover): [opens window] Eh, who is it? Oh, it's you, Ezio.
Ezio: May I come in?
Christina: If you must.
Ezio: Don't worry, this will just take a minute.
Christina: Will it now?
Ezio: ...er, wait, that came out wrong.
REALLY LOVE THIS MAN. <3 (And his mother, and just everyone. And there's all these innuendos EVERYWHERE and you can hire courtesans to seduce people, a-and it's hillarious, because whenever I talk with my Italian family, it is impossible to have a converstion where an innuendo isn't used. IMPOSSIBLE. So the realism is amazing, and the hillarity is amazing, and just everything.... XD I swear Maria, Ezio's mother, was trying to set him up with Leonardo (da Vinci) at one point in sequence 1. IT WAS GREAT, I WAS ENTERTAINED, IT WAS WONDERFUL, AND LEO IS OFFICIALLY THE SINGLE. MOST. AWESOME. Person in this whole game, INCLUDING EZIO. AND MACHIAVELLI. AND MARIO. AND GIOVANNI. AND LORENZO DE MEDICI. AND EVEN FUCKING BORGIA.)
Anyways, off-track. ^^;; U-um....?
So Battle of Forli is Borgia trying to make grabbyhands at a map that Caterina's (dead) husband had created regarding the location of various Pieces of Eden, and doing so by sending assassins. Specifically, the same two assassins that Caterina had once hired to kill her husband. (Turn around is fair play?) And when they see Ezio they figure they can earn an extra MILLION DOLLARS or the then-equivalent by tiefing the Apple, which Ezio has apparently brought to be locked away in the Rinaldino's cellars, WHICH ARE INSANE TO NAVIGATE BTW, or somewhere else that will be safe. (In the citadel, anyways.)
To get said things, the brothers Orsi kidnap two of Caterina's (five, six?) children. They threaten them, of course, at which point Caterina says something like, "Fine! Kill them! I won't hand over anything to you bastardi, and you know what? I have all the machinery to make more!" and promptly lifts up her skirts to show them what machinery, exactly, she's talking about. (She's wearing underwear, if you're wondering. Just pointing that out.) (Ezio is very, very amused by this.)
Ezio, in payment/return for Caterina hiding the Apple for him (plus they're "SCREW YOU BORGIA!" BFFs) says he'll get her children back. He does. But the second Orsi brother that wasn't with either of the kids? Snuck in and tiefed the Apple, if not the map. So Ezio goes after him, kills him, and re-grabs Apple; the brother, in his last act, stabs Ezio, too, so we have one dead and one nearly dead body on the roadside outside of Forli.
A monk happens to wander by around then, sees a small-ish, finely decorated bag lying on the ground not too far away, picks it up. It's the kind of thing you'd store money in, and the Orsi is dead and Ezio certainly looks dead, so the monk kind of goes, "Mine now," and opens it up to see what monies he has scored. Alas! It is not monies, but a sphere that fits in your palm and looks like it's made of solid gold with pretty decorations and engravings on the side. EVEN BETTER THAN MONIES.
Ezio wakes up to see the monk examining the Apple and tries to warn said monk that, er, unless you're descended from that original half-First Civ and half-human sub-race, then using the damn thing will EAT YOUR MIND. And, you know, people will be after him non-stop to kill him and get it back. The monk thinks he's babbling nonsense, I guess?, and wanders off with it. Ezio promptly dies. Faints. Same thing.
He gets FIXED! and promptly starts on a QUEST to find the monk that tiefed the Apple. This is why I love sequence 13, which starts about now.
You have a crazy monk abusing the POWERS OF GOD to take away the power in Firenze (Florence) from the people who have power (I... guess making him a descendant, too, since he can use the Apple and not, uh, get mindraped?), and he's a monk who is disobeying orders from his Pope to hand the damn thing over, and you had both sides (plus some) fighting each other and this crazy monk (so it gets very, very confusing, because there's different guards that can be walking down the street all happy and fine and RANDOMLY BREAK INTO DEATHMATCHES and if you try to help either side then YOU might as well be dead because they immediately turn on you), and it's both YAY and BOO because Lorenzo is your friendly but he's kind of an idiot friendly that is nice but not exactly an effective ruler of Firenze and so CHANGE OF POWER but NO CHANGE OF POWER and DO WE REALLY WANT A CRAZY MONK RUNNING FIRENZE ANYWAYS?! and then there's the people. The average citizens.
Since there's too many people for one Apple to control, the monk (he has a name, but like heck if I remember it) chooses instead to control/mindrape nine of the most powerful and influential people in Firenze that are not in the immediate league of the Medici's supporters, and gets them to set down laws and enourage and lead the populous in whatever direction the monk feels like taking this. So the people are all confused because there's suddenly this huge power struggle but no one has died (recently) so it doesn't make sense, and what kind of base does the monk have to build all his power/influence on, and...?
I love it even more because you're just walking down the street, trying to blend in, and there's a lot of people around the city that are whispering and gossiping: that if only that Assassin from all those years ago that stopped the Pazzi uprising against the Medici were still around, this wouldn't be happening; to not be silly, because the story of the Assassin is just a bedtime story parents tell their children to get them to behave; that yes, maybe that's true, but would it really hurt to hope for someone who knows the people and supports the people to show up and help sort this out in the best possible way for Firenze? And how Ezio is right behind them and he's the Assassin from all those years ago, and how it's because this almost-fable amongst the people of Firenze (and Monteriggioni and San Gimangano, and how everywhere else most people hate the Assassin but in Tuscana he's this secret hero XD).
But my favorite part of this, hands-down, is the actual glimpses of the townspeople as they try to balance the different rules, and the various people brought under the monk's control and everyone's reactions to this. And the monk himself. How he's so sure that this is right, that the Apple was a gift from God and that he's leading the people of Firenze in a new, but good, better, best direction. How easily people can be caught up in this war and not realize it, and then what happens when they do.
And at the end, where Ezio is able to get the Apple away from the monk and the townspeople immediately rise up, grab the guy, and bring him to the Palazzo della Signoria (the jail/courts/place where people are killed) to be "tried" and burned at the stake. And the monk says he was only doing what he thought would be the best for the people, only doing what he thought would help them, and to have mercy. The people, in their mob!frenzy, refuse to listen to it, but Ezio is kind enough to leap up and kill him before the flames start to really eat at his form. And cue this huge speach Ezio gives about free will and not bending to people's wishes if that's not what you want, even if it's the person standing beside you and it sounds like a good idea, to fight for what you believe in, to cherish creativity and free will and to make one's own choices regarding one's own life. And he mentions the not-trial of his father and brothers and their hanging, and people--the people who are Ezio's age and a bit older (35 years old plus, I'd guess) actually remember this, remember him, and everyone sort-of realizes that yeah, that Assassin? Not just a myth. That he kills indiscriminately? Is a myth. Cue simultaneous silence and hero-worship, and Ezio just walks off with his uncle and the people who've really helped him since he lost everything, and it's both heartwarming (because he's come such a long way from the noble punk with money and good looks and WOMEN and he's learned so much and been through so much and even with all of that, all of the pain and suffering and getting knocked down to the lowest low you can go and somehow climbing back up and somehow still having a good heart and loving and respecting everyone and everything) and sad (because he was knocked down so low and lost basically everything and had his entire world flipped on its head and everything was different and nothing made sense and he can never go back to how it was before, never walk freely down the streets of his home and never banter with his older brother and never play with his sick younger brother and never learn anything more from his father good God) and entertaining as all heck (because you just made yourself a local hero, Ezio, you're going to have fanclubs EVERYWHERE now, yo).
Anyways, enough ranting/retelling the story of Assassin's Creed. (BROTHERHOOD IS COMING OUT SOON, I CANNOT EXPLAIN HOW EXCITED I AM!)
I am working (still) on last year's NaNoWriMo ficcage (which has somehow evolved from being totally gen to the somehow omni-present Italian Tuna Sushi lunch special BUT THAT IS FINE BECAUSE GIOTTO IS THERE TOO <3 AND G., OF COURSE THERE'S G.) and prepping for this year's NaNo and writting little pieces that are both gen and horribly, horribly biased pairing-wise, but I AM ALSO TRYING MY HAND AT OTHER THINGS (and obsessing over characterization for once, argh).
POINT IS. THERE IS STUFF TO COME. I AM NO LONGER AWAY FROM THE INTERWEBZ. AND THE WORLD IS GOOD.
(Also: essay-ish-thing coming up about my favorite characters/series, because I've just noticed a certain trend and SOB, BUT IT MAKES NO REAL SENSE. EXCEPT IT DOES.)