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This is exactly what it says on the tin: a standing pledge to reciprocate reviews. If you leave a comment on one of my stories - whether on the Board as it's posted, on FF.net (for the few that are up there), on the Board at another time, or on the Wiki (assuming I see it) - I will reciprocate by reading and reviewing something you've written (assuming I can find something). I'll leave that review in the dedicated comment spot, if it has one, or on your Wiki talk page otherwise; I'll also put it on the Board if that's where you reviewed me.

I'm applying this slightly retroactively, so Thoth and Tomash, you can expect something when I get a chance.

hS

(... which is a brilliantly nonspecific answer; everything is a combination of lots of factors.)

Thinking back to the old days on FF.net, there was a lot of subtle emphasis on reviews:

-On the category page and on the story itself, you had the number of previous reviews front and centre, with a link to let you read them. They weren't just for the author - they were for other readers, too.

-You had a big empty text box at the bottom of the page, inviting you to write in it.

-Chapter length limits meant you saw a lot of those text boxes. You'd probably split a big, modern mission over three or four chapters, whereas on GDocs or a website, it's all one huge column of words.

-"Please R&R!" "Reviews are very welcome." "If I get five reviews of this chapter, I'll continue!" "If you review my story, I'll review yours!" These things come across as shallow attention-seeking, and we love to mock them... but they also work.

We don't have that. Even your user page is hidden away behind a link; it's not there, in your face. And the lack of ability to review elsewhere (and the fact that we've drifted away from being a community of fanfic writers and readers) means people have lost the... the cultural imperative to do so.

... hmm. This gives me an idea.

hS, splitting off for a new post

And how is your mother Mnemosyne, my dear? Still smarting from forgetting (see what I did there?) to keep Zeus from my side? Of course, she was his aunt, so it was never going to last, was it?

And yes, Zeus is my brother, but have you seen what my other options were? The Titans were all either jerks or married, their kids were even worse (well, Eos was lovely, but she had a thing for militant types), the older generations were a complete shambles, and Prometheus' little mud-creatures were simply mucky. It wasn't until Hephaestus made the lovely Pandora (the first use of bone china in creature creation, and didn't it just show!) that they were worth paying the slightest attention to.

I suppose there was always Scaphrodite, she wasn't technically a relative, but, um, no. Not my type.

And... well, Zeus is Zeus. If you had a choice between the King of the Gods and, like, anyone else, which one would you marry?

((Herasoron is so petty, you guys. XD ~hS))

... every single Greek myth ever wasn't about the ancient practice of sacrificing your king all the time? Huh, who'd'a thunk it? ^_~

Yeah, he's weird, and his prose is kind of terse and dull. But it's the only complete telling of the Greek myths I've got to hand, so.

hS

The entire playlist should be on YouTube, I highly recommend listening to it (though be warned, it WILL get stuck in your head). Let's start with the first song at least: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VhinPd5RRJw

But before you do here's an introduction to the musical: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6sziLDcwSRQ

(I also recommend watching more of this person's videos, she mainly reviews bad musicals. It's quite entertaining.)

Enjoy!

At least, in the early ones. Smells like spice and hot air.

Except Dune is way, way darker with drugs and instead of the Force the main character (a kid with a four-lettered stereotypically English name) is getting battered with every possible future right into his skull.

Knuckle Sandwich is an upcoming indie game, which is a sort of RPG kinda thing in the stylings of the Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga games and Earthbound. I, in general, recommend it a lot. Play the demo! It's really funny and fun and also gets really really dark.

But, anyways, one of the central parts of the game, as according to its dev, is the soundtrack - indeed, from what I can tell, of the five or six people working on it, everyone but the lead dev is a musician.

My particular favourite songs from the demo are Back Alley Beat and Ninety Eight. The music uses a lot of kind of sampling of human voices and so on, and, in general, fits the kind of quirky, goofy tone the game goes for.

Also, I'll just recommend Nelward, one of the game's musicians, as a whole. He's what drew me to it. It's kinda hard to describe his music, except as, well, sort of goofy electronic whatever such? Love that guy, anyway.

And I certainly haven't read them in the proper order. But I still really loved this interlude! It was really sweet, and it's always nice to see something go right for agents. They usually have to put up with so much garbage. And this seemed like a very nice, satisfying conclusion to the hints of romance that appeared in the stories I read. Even though I didn't see everything about these two, this was still a good read.

Borderlands 2, Just Cause 3, The Witcher 3, and Darkest Dungeon.

It should really go without saying, but I heavily, heavily recommend Life is Strange (though it deals with sensitive topics like suicide, rape, and murder, so just a heads-up if you're triggered by that). It's an excellent choice-based story driven game with puzzle elements to it, and I cannot stress enough how much the ending will make you cry. It's excellent.

So, Steam is having a summer sale that'll be lasting until July 5.

I haven't actually bought anything yet, but I'm thinking of picking up Caves of Qud and Frozen Synapse, mainly.

So yeah, a thread - what've you bought, what do you recommend, what's definitely not worth it, and so on.

- Tomash

Have I made it quite clear enough that I like these two yet? I like these two.

I kinda just skimmed this piece because jeez is it 10:40 already? But yeah. I like Gall and Derik, and they have a good thing going.

...And you mentioned my agent in response to Ix's comment. Allow me to quietly sink into the floor for a moment, as is semi-customary when my work is mentioned. :-P

Y'know, when the banter is just banter and not actual fighting...

Actually, in all seriousness, the more I play with the ship, the more I see how it can be nearly stable. Not totally stable, cuz look who we're dealing with, but considering Gall settling down a bit as she gets older and Derik getting more of a grip with help from his bro Thoth? There will certainly be bumps in the road, but the ship won't totally derail and fall out of the sky because of them.

... I think I have lost track of what kind of vehicle this actually is.

In any case, I'm having a lot of fun using these prompts to set it up. Much easier than trying to do it in missions alone. I'm glad you enjoyed this one. Thanks!

~Neshomeh

Fun fact: Quake wasn't supposed to have a soundtrack at all, originally. But Trent Reznor convinced the team to add it. He also did a lot of the other sound effects as well: IIRC, those grunts and screams and stuff? That's Trent.

This was a really cute fluff piece! Poor Gall, throwing out hints left and right and Derik resolutely not noticing them.

(And now I have a sad knowing they don't work out in the end, because they're just so cute here and I want my OTPs to be happy, dangit.)

Gall thunked her third glass of mead down on the table and stared across it at her partner. “You’ve never cooked for yourself? Not once?”

“Why would I?” Derik glowered at her, taking umbrage at her extreme disbelief. “More to the point: when would I? My time was thoroughly occupied with studying, then raising a dragonet, then being a dragonrider.”

Frowning in skepticism, she held out her hands as though to encompass a simple object. “But it’s, like, a basic life skill.”

He snorted. “It’s called division of labor. I sing, they cook; I fly, they cook; I mission, they cook.” He indicated Rudi’s kitchen with a gesture.

“But . . . you never even cooked out or anything? You know, meat on a stick, fire, something even the biggest, dumbest idiot should be able to do without totally screwing it up?”

“With that attitude, I suppose you’re some sort of culinary expert.” He chuckled, plainly very amused with the notion.

Gall regarded him quite seriously. “My father and I lived in exile for eight years. You met my father. Who do you think made that whole thing work?”

That gave him pause. “Well, all right, but feeding yourself isn’t the same as cooking. Like you said, any idiot can roast meat on a stick, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Freya’s tits. That’s it. You. Me. General Store. Now.”

“What? But—” He gestured to the half-finished food and drinks on the table, but Gall was already up and tugging on his arm.

“Now!”

“All right, all right!” He downed the last half of his ale as he rose and just managed to get the glass back on the table upright as he was dragged out of the pub.

Twenty minutes later, Derik found himself sitting in the moon-lit Courtyard with his sleeves rolled up and his fingers sunk into a mound of barley and wheat flour on a flat, freshly scrubbed rock. A small fire, courtesy of Fellrazer, gave additional light. Occasionally, a horse or a wolf would wander by to see what was going on, but the presence of the dragon, curled up on a patch of ground he’d toasted to a comfortable warmth, discouraged them from getting too close.

Gall hovered at Derik’s elbow, watching his progress. “Okay, you’ve got your flax, your lard, and my personal very secret ingredients that you will not share with anyone on pain of asskicking. Now just work it until it comes together—carefully! If you mess up that well, your bread is screwed. Here, look. Like this.”

She pushed up her own sleeves and slid her fingers in with his. Derik followed her guidance, and together they pulled the dry ingredients into the wet, first mixing, then kneading. Their hands got slick with the grease and flax, and slid easily over each other. After a few minutes, they had a uniform round of dough.

“There. That’s good.” Gall nodded, then gave him one of those looks, like she expected or hoped for something from him.

After a moment spent deciding how to respond, Derik folded his hands in his lap and said, “So now what?”

Gall shrugged. “It rests overnight, and we get fresh, hot bread in the morning.”

“Really.” Derik raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see an oven.”

“You don’t lug an oven around on a raid, genius.” She punched his shoulder for his quibble. “It bakes on a rack over the fire, or you wrap it around a stick. In this case, stick-bread. Only one rack to be had around here, and it ain’t for baking.” She grinned.

Derik’s mind resolutely sidled around the come-on. “In the meantime, we’ve got a lump of dough sitting on a rock in the middle of the Courtyard. What’s the plan for that?”

“Wanna camp out?”

“You don’t get enough of that on missions?”

“That’s because we have to. This is because we want to. It’s totally different.”

Try as he might, Derik couldn’t fault her logic. And it was nice to be safe from Suvians or rogue time skips under a wide, starry sky, even if it was fake. He couldn’t think why he didn’t come here more often.

“You don’t think it’ll get too cold?” he said.

“Well, if it does,” Gall started eagerly, and then, with a visible effort, turned the remark in a different direction. She’d tried the spooning for warmth tactic before, to no avail. “I’ve got Fellrazer,” she finished. “Anyway, it’s not like we’re in the Archipelago or somewhere it gets proper cold. This is nothing.”

“True enough. All right, I suppose I don’t mind. And in the morning, we’ll see if this recipe of yours actually turns out edible.” He got up to go wash off in the nearby stream.

Gall sprang up after him and gave him a shove, setting him off-balance for a step. “No, we’ll see if you aren’t a completely pathetic waste of space when it comes to practical skills.”

Once recovered, he shoved back. “I have many practical skills.”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

“Functional literacy?”

“Nah, that’s a fancy-pants Harper skill. Try again.”

This continued while they scrubbed the fat off their hands and while Gall wrapped the bread dough in the empty barley flour package. Finally, they settled down on the grass under a large elm tree and went to sleep.

In the morning, there was fresh, hot stick-bread, it was indeed edible, and both partners considered it time well spent.

---

Viking flatbread recipe yoinked from a YouTube video I've since lost track of, based on findings from this study.

The stick-bread comes from commenters on the video, who remarked that the recipe sounds similar to something still made in Scandinavian countries today.

I kinda want to try this myself... we'll see.

~Neshomeh

And I love it.

Might analyze it further a bit later. What you mentioned about Fireworks Factory is right - reminds me of a video I saw where a guy ranted about how winter level music can't ever seem to ditch those god dang sleigh bells. If you're interested, I can find that.

-Twistey

...I could check them out and see what I can dig up music theory wise. Or you could link to a YouTube thing, either way works.

-Twistey

/deliberate misinterpretation of what you wanted to be given, activate!

Every Other Beat makes remixes of songs where every other beat is taken out. Check out their rendition of Smooth Criminal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLvDnRU_ajk

-Twistey

Let's give 'em a look, shall we?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8P_raHQ4EoWTSH2GMESMQA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeZLO2VgbZHeDcongKzzfOw

https://www.youtube.com/user/ongakuconcept

-Twistey

...but I don't know much about Quake. I'll click on that Quake 1 title theme because I'm retro...

What really stands out to me is the fact that it has a pattern that lasts 3 measures long, instead of a conventional power of 2. Or it's just very slow 3/4 time, take your pick.

Wait why's there someone screaming fading in and out on loop? Oh yeah, dark edgy game. It's getting ol- okay now it's fading out entirely. Good. Starting to hear that ambience now. I really like that.

Yeah, that does a really good job. Thumbs up!

-Twistey, suddenly laughing about her stupid idea for a bootleg Quake called Quack

...weren't Zeus and Hera siblings too? I mean from what I remember, they were both Cronus's children?! Or is the book I was taught out of getting it wrong?

Whatever the case, when you look into it deep enough, ancient mythologies are basically the weird stories the human race wrote when it was a kid! Am I right?

-Twisthalia (see what I did?)