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 LATEST VIDEO: 48 - No Bonewheels About It I mean and I guess play it too...  So yeah, I recently got an itch to replay Dark Souls, and it kinda got me thinking about how I could basically talk about... anything in this game. And I decided gently caress it, let's record a playthrough and just talk about whatever comes to mind. And that's pretty much all there is to this Do we really need yet another Dark Souls LP? Nope, not even slightly. I don't care, watch it or don't Weren't you in another Dark Souls LP awhile back? Yep, and it's quite good imo; you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1iwwMmsVqKOMes-ZAoWaS0iQKDcGk7Ln This was a blind LP, which is a really good way to experience Dark Souls, because it captures a lot of those fundamental "oh poo poo this game is so magical" moments, but I feel like I don't always see enough talk about why and how this game creates those moments for so many people. There's so much you can talk about with the way the game is put together, the way the game tells its story (both through item descriptions and through level design/item locations), I could just say so much So what will you be doing in this LP? To be honest, whatever I feel like. This is not going to be a 100% LP, and I'm not totally sure I'm gonna even show an entire playthrough of the game, but with this game it's possible I find something to say about basically everything. What I will be doing is playing through the game on a fairly normal path so that I can talk about how the developers built the game and what they expect players to see, so no tricksy poo poo with the master key. That said, I will be talking about things with knowledge of what comes later, and I will be pointing out ways you can subvert the "intended" path. I'll also be talking about the story itself, or really the many little stories and the way the game gets them across, and the way they create the overall "feel" of the world and themes of the game Things I won't be doing include: talking in-depth about the best builds or other min-max-y topics, or trying to show off several different builds or all weapons and combat systems. I'll try to vary them up enough to talk about the intricacies in the battle system, but for the most part I'm just recording a single playthrough of this game and trying out whatever seems interesting to me Also, I'm not going to pretend I'm the first, most brilliant person ever to take a deep dive into Dark Souls. I'll be bringing up a lot of different ideas from articles and other videos that I've seen and found interesting. I'll try to link anything I pull in because a lot of other good analysis has been done about this game, and I'm not always going to do justice to other people's ideas that I half remember while murdering a boss. What makes Dark Souls so good is that it's one of the few games with enough depth that it bears a huge number of interpretations, and that's probably the biggest reason it's one of my favorite games ever This LP is going to assume you have familiarity with the games, but if you're just interested in hearing me ramble I will hopefully provide enough info that you can follow along without being completely lost Anyway, enough rambling (that's for the videos) Videos: 01 - A Warm Welcome 02 - Asylum Demon 03 - Exploring Firelink 04 - Into the Burg 05 - Burgin' So Hard 06 - Taurus Drake 07 - PvPig 08 - Meet the Smith Dark Soils - 09 - A Pleasant Garden Stroll 10 - Battle on the (not so) Big Bridge 11 - Sword Bastard 12 - Gargoyle Rumble 13 - Rock Me, Haveldeus 14 - Goat Simulator 15 - Cleanup Time 16 - Into The Depths 17 - Out Of The Depths 18 - A Curse, of Course 19 - A Good Cutscene 20 - Oh, It's Blighttown 21 - Architectural Musing 22 - Swamped 23 - Gearing Up 24 - Fired Up 25 - Egg Head 26 - Taking Care of a Stray 27 - Grave Robber 28 - Combing the Catacombs 29 - Magic Coffin Ride 30 - Pinwheel 31 - Sneeple! 32 - Boulderdash! 33 - Big Hat! 34 - Iron! Tarkus v Golem! 35 - Anor Londo, At Last 36 - Through The Rafters 37 - That Archer Bit 38 - Mansion Hunting 39 - Cometh Soon 40 - Alright Bonus??? - gently caress You Lautrec 41 - It's Those Guys 42 - Lordvessel 43 - My Good Buddy Patches 44 - I Hate Dog Skeletons 45 - Snoozelord Nito 46 - Painted World 47 - Phalanx For The Memories 48 - No Bonewheels About It Related Reading/Watching: A Grandson's struggle with Alzheimer's and Dark Souls (Destructoid) Aevee Reviews The Destiny Flavor Text [not strictly Dark Souls but a good read about flavor text nonetheless] I'll be posting the videos both here and on Twitter, so if you'd prefer you can also follow me @Vicas3, whatever works I'll probably put another one up later today, we'll see. oh yeah, and before people ask (some more), I'm not currently looking for co-commentators. I might get someone in the future but I might just ramble all on my own this whole time. Either way, no need to ask Vicas fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2015 16:34
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death .cab for qt posted:By the way, you never showed and read the description of the Estus Flask. It's kind of important. Huh, you're right, I totally forgot. And it'll have to wait until Undead Burg is over, because I actually recorded a whole second session before heading out on vacation  In fact, have a video:  04 - Into the Burg I'll try to make a note to read the Estus Flask description next time I get the chance to record
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Dec 30, 2015 23:41
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I use the 360 controller on the PC, too, since I first played the game on the 360. Haven't had that kinda trouble before Also, have a video! Episode 05 - Burgin' So Hard
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Jan 2, 2016 23:46
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Ziere Tole posted:No "used to" about it, it still is a percentage chance (and not a great one), at least as of my last playthrough a couple weeks ago. Vicas just got lucky. Yep, by all accounts this and the next Black Knight weapon are not guaranteed drops Also, I'm a bit of a doofus and forgot to put the newest episodes up in the OP, but they're there now Veloxyll posted:I never got the hang of kicking. So I'd only end up doing it by accident. It's sort of a weird motion and I always have to stop and think about what I'm doing before I do it. I do kinda feel like it's one of those techniques that is useful but not required in a lot of circumstances, and that means most players will really never learn it or try it on new enemies intuitively. It's the drawback of having such a minimalist tutorial that doesn't bang everything into your head, really
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Jan 3, 2016 01:34
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Alrighty, I'm back in the States and also totally through my video buffer once I post this: 06 - Taurus Drake In which I take way too long fighting a boss because I'm rambling and then get overly sentimental about the Drake Sword. Enjoy! e: whoops, here's the article I talked about in the vid: http://www.destructoid.com/a-grandson-s-struggle-with-alzheimer-s-and-dark-souls-243378.phtml Vicas fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jan 6, 2016 |
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Jan 6, 2016 00:29
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Smoky Bandana posted:That linked article really touched a nerve. Going to be hard to see hollowing in any other light now. Whiiiich reminds me, I forgot to link it in the post and OP, like I was meaning to It's in the YouTube description as well, but in case people didn't see it: http://www.destructoid.com/a-grandson-s-struggle-with-alzheimer-s-and-dark-souls-243378.phtml
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Jan 6, 2016 05:12
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Tzarnal posted:While the arrow strategy is popular and safe. Its perfectly possible to use a melee weapon and some of the Gold Pine Resin to just hack the tail of when the Drake has landed. To me it feels like that is the intended way to grab it. When the Drake lands it breathes fire and gives you a good opportunity to walk to its back and give the tail 2 or 3 heavy swings, which is enough to cut it off with the Resin up. I've never tried that before but it doesn't surprise me that it would work. Given its low stat requirements and difficulty scaling past a certain point (as all dragon weapons are) I really do think the Drake Sword was intentionally made fairly easy to get if you're paying attention or daring enough. It feels like a very From-style way of making an easy-mode
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Jan 6, 2016 14:37
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In my first run I rocked it all the way to Sen's, at which point I had a better handle on the crafting system and overall gameplay. The attack pattern is slow but it teaches you a lot about how the game itself is slow and methodical
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Jan 6, 2016 16:51
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Promontory posted:Vicas, how are you planning to talk about the story? You mentioned that the mother and child statues are important imagery, but didn't talk about why. Are you going to wait until later in the game, or after you finish an area, or...? I am doing absolutely no planning at all and just talking about whatever feels good to talk about. I've been pretty free with spoilers pertaining to DS1 in this thread because this is sort of aimed at people who have played the game before and know the general flow of things So basically go hog wild, but please try to keep it at least tangentially related to where the LP has reached. There's no reason to talk about the Sisters of Chaos or Gwendolyn's whole deal right now, but if you wanna talk about that mother/child motif and reference things later in the game that's fine. I don't really have much to say on it beyond pointing it out anyway, truth be told Lizard Wizard posted:I'm sorry, Vicas, but did you say you can't slide down ladders in Dark Souls 1? I was trying to slide the DS2 way, shrug. A lot of the minor changes 2 made to the mechanics really throw me off Paracelsus posted:It's easy to miss, but you got an extra chug of Estus during the fight against Taurus, with a subtle glow and sound effect to go with it. If I recall correctly, it took a loooooong time for the community to confirm what caused that to happen. I saw it happen but I was in the middle of something else and forgot to go back to it. I'll try to remember to talk about it next time it happens, but I'm not really in a rush to explain it because it can happen just about anywhere in the game. You can kinda assume that about a lot of the mechanics that recur throughout the game
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Jan 6, 2016 19:18
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Yeah, DS2 really refined the gameplay of DS1 and took out a lot of the rough bits and annoyances. Jumping in this game is a real adventure
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Jan 6, 2016 21:35
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MonsterEnvy posted:Was looking at the Old LP. Question anyone know what part Nito is fought in. *distant laughter, as if carried from far away by a stiff breeze*
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Jan 7, 2016 00:22
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Hello! I come bearing video. I wasn't too sure about this session by the end of it because it went a bit slower than I had wanted, but looking back on it in editing I think this episode actually came out pretty well 07 - PvPig The Undead Parish is really just a continuation of the Undead Burg. Part of me feels like they just made the area change to signify progress to the player, to be like "hey don't give up, you really are going places, we promise"
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Jan 10, 2016 05:41
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The point I was making is there are like 10 perfectly reasonable "intended solutions"
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Jan 10, 2016 15:35
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SloppyDoughnuts posted:No one can stop GandalfSSJ4. He's a wizard and a Saiyan. It's hosed up and OP Seriously though I love basically every PvP player name you come across (except the slurs) Anyway, got 4 videos out of this most recent session, though the last one's a bit short. Hope you like talking about smithing!
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Jan 10, 2016 19:28
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Lizard Wizard posted:This is the worst and smallest of nitpicks, but the Estus Flask description is using "treasure" as a verb, not a noun. Yes, I realized this long after the fact. Not sure why my brain refused to parse it like that
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Jan 10, 2016 19:43
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Hello, have a video! 08 - Meet the Smith
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Jan 12, 2016 20:44
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Jolyne Cujoh posted:As long as you have cleared out all the necromancers you are guaranteed to get 1 lantern, and even if you haven't you will get one in the pit I'm reasonably sure the former was not true on launch, though. This game is kinda funny that way
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Jan 14, 2016 04:52
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Heya! I made another episode, but this time it's all about botany: Dark Soils - 09 - A Pleasant Garden Stroll I'm doing my best to keep the OP updated, and now I'm posting the latest episode on top of it, just so people can see at a quick glance if anything new is happening. No idea if I'll remember to keep up with it, but we can dream
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Jan 16, 2016 18:55
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ZeeToo posted:This LP inspired me to play Dark Souls, which I bought some time ago but which my last laptop couldn't handle (current one can). It's a little slower going than you make it look! For most people who haven't played a Souls game before, the first few hours are extremely difficult, both to get a feel for the controls and to understand enemy tells. Like, with basically every enemy we've encountered so far, I know all of their tells and thus exactly what they're going to do before they do it. It sort of just comes naturally after awhile
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Jan 16, 2016 20:51
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Good morning, have a video: 10 - Battle on the (not so) Big Bridge tbh it's a pretty tiny bridge
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Jan 20, 2016 16:38
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Not only do I not parry, I'm going to get the Eagle Shield at first chance so it is literally impossible for me to parry
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Jan 21, 2016 17:58
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Good morning! have an episode from the latest recording session! 11 - Sword Bastard This episode runs a little long because I wanted to get a bit of action in the Parish in. In this episode we find my true calling, big swords The greatswords probably have my favorite overall moveset in the game, faster than the ultragreatswords but still really good reach and really powerful. It's mostly personal preference
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Jan 23, 2016 16:28
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VietTam posted:It's how it moves. Did not know the first one would move away too, huh But yeah, I went back and looked at the video and the second tree did stop turning when I got close to it
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Jan 23, 2016 22:04
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Do you like Gargoyles? I sure do 12 - Gargoyle Rumble e: i have already hosed up updating the OP, but it should be caught up now
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Jan 26, 2016 00:42
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CuwiKhons posted:I think the most satisfying thing is the gargoyle cutscene - something about the way the first gargoyle hits the roof is viscerally pleasing to me. I think it's the way he rebounds slightly like a real creature would after a fall. It's very good attention to detail in the animation. Everything about this fight makes it feel so heavy and intimidating, just like all the demons we've been fighting. It's pretty fantastic
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Jan 26, 2016 02:00
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Alright folks, let's tone down the snark arguing. I don't really mind talking about people's personal feelings about what lore actually is, but one of my big points in all of this is gonna be how some things are very purposely left unclear, and arguing what the "true story" is sort of misses the point. Dark Souls is very purposely a picture book with some of the pages ripped out
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Jan 26, 2016 19:06
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So we have all these keys now. Let's figure out what to do with them and talk about level design while we're at it 13 - Rock Me, Haveldeus
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Jan 28, 2016 01:53
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^^Vicas posted:I am doing absolutely no planning at all and just talking about whatever feels good to talk about. I've been pretty free with spoilers pertaining to DS1 in this thread because this is sort of aimed at people who have played the game before and know the general flow of things Your case is fine, though I wouldn't really recommend going into it moreso since we will eventually be getting Dusk out of her wack rear end crystal prison
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Jan 29, 2016 17:53
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The second half of the game is absolutely weaker, and contains some of the worst parts of the game, but is still worth looking through for what works and what super, suuuuuper doesn't. To the comment about interconnectedness vs linearity, part of me agrees but part of me also does feel like in many cases there really was no satisfying way to tie the whole world up, giving the very real disparity in locations. I do like the way that many locations are visible from other locations, especially in places like Tomb of the Giants (this will probably be one of the few nice things I say about that place), and in some ways the sense of distance between those locations makes the world feel bigger The second half of the game has a lot of the seams that any game has and we'll be exploring as many of those as I happen to notice all in good time, but for now let's continue to focus on the beautiful earlygame as I casually manhandle it:  14 - Goat Simulator (I randomly googled this episode image but credit for it goes to EnigmaSystem on DeviantArt: http://enigmasystem.deviantart.com/art/Capra-Demon-452237624)
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Jan 30, 2016 00:15
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After the Capra Demon fight I spent the rest of the session cleaning things up and meeting some new friends at Firelink, so this video is a bit slower, but hopefully still interesting: 15 - Cleanup Time Oh and here's an article talking about item descriptions in Destiny, and about what makes an interesting "lore description" in general: https://medium.com/@MammonMachine/aevee-reviews-the-destiny-flavor-text-d44a1ef55b75#.cus17ypgm Vicas fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 16:44
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Just figured I'd mention, it turns out sometime between the last recording session and now I seem to have snapped the USB connector of my 360 controller (the only controller I have for the computer), so the episodes I wanted to record last Thursday didn't happen I just got the new one I ordered so hopefully soon I'll have the chance to record a new session and put the next episode up without too much of a delay. Thanks for your patience
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Feb 7, 2016 16:21
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Hello, have a Soul 16 - Into The Depths
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Feb 13, 2016 03:29
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There's a lot, and Anor Londo is probably one of the best put-together areas in a game. Kind of a shame the crunchtime really starts to show through soon afterwards, but we'll get to that when we get to that
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Feb 13, 2016 05:12
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I don't think I have ever managed to kill a TinyRat, and I always assumed they kinda weren't killable
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Feb 13, 2016 06:01
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Paracelsus posted:Then we can try and argue over the exact implications of that, because as far as I know no one has ever been able to derive the exact damage formula, only approximations. Well, the implications are that when you hit them with a sword, it will do...... not very much damage
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Feb 13, 2016 15:29
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Enough with the spoiler text, Xanthos King Jeremiah and Vamos are not super spoilery names
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Feb 13, 2016 16:35
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This whole ep mainly takes place in Firelink so I figured I'd just throw it up today as well: 17 - Out Of The Depths (art for this update comes out of http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=30675456)
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Feb 13, 2016 21:19
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Looper posted:man, dark souls gets a lot of praise for a lot of things but i don't see people gush about its voice acting too often. and it's good! it's really good! I believe a lot of the subtleties of region/class that are obvious to British people are mostly lost on Americans just due to lack of familiarity, so a lot of people just interpret everyone's accent as "fantasy British" even though the game actually does a lot of things with real regional accents to convey character information, like Domhnall of Zena, who we'll be meeting soon Another good example is Carina Reeves, who plays Rosabeth in Dark Souls 2 and speaks with an extremely working class accent, which fits in well with her extremely destitute characterization. She also plays Fiora in Xenoblade Chronicles and it's easy to miss that it's meant to show how technologically backwards the Homs are compared to the High Entia
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Feb 14, 2016 16:13
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Now we'll actually go explore the depths, I swear: 18 - A Curse, of Course Sorry to those of you expecting me to actually go to New Londo to clear up any curses
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Feb 15, 2016 23:00
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It very much gives the impression of a curse not just petrifying you but actively feeding off you and growing out of you. Something like cordyceps fungus, in a way
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Feb 17, 2016 05:32
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