rionaleonhart | There's Far Too Much Incest In Oedipus Rex.

I'd forgotten what a terrible craving I get for the Red Dead Redemption world after playing in it for a while. Apparently this craving is not much reduced when that world is full of zombies. IT'S SO PRETTY. (The final treasure map location on Undead Nightmare, in particular, is breathtakingly beautiful. I was becoming quite frustrated, endlessly sliding down the mountainside in my efforts to reach it, and then I managed and got that fantastic view of the whole area and forgave the game designers everything.)

New favourite John Marston quote: I was trying to lasso Famine, one of the horses of the apocalypse, and failing miserably. Marston, evidently as frustrated as I was, shouted, 'Stupid nature!'

I have now completed Undead Nightmare! It is a cracking expansion pack. Frustrating at times (perhaps there are people who can comfortably pull off a headshot without the use of Dead Eye; I am not one of those people), and not as varied as Red Dead Redemption itself, but great fun. I love that it never quite takes itself seriously. I love being able to hear John Marston's fantastically sexy voice again. I love that I was able to ride a unicorn across the Mexican wilderness, leaving a rainbow trail behind me and singing 'Always' by Erasure.

I think Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is ripe for a

respectawoman crossover, actually. The ladies originated from a zombie game;

zarla already came up with a Western AU for them; what could be more logical than throwing them into a Western zombie apocalypse game? Most of their infected forms have Undead Nightmare counterparts, too: Smoker would be a Retcher, Hunter a Bolter, Charger a Bruiser. SOMEBODY WRITE THIS.

(I've been wondering which horses they would ride. Smoker rides Pestilence; that's easy enough. Hunter, who has a bit of an aggressive streak, could ride War. Bit torn on Jockey: my first thought was Death, because she has such a strange relationship with the concept of death, but then it occurred to me that if there's a butterfly-surrounded rainbow-trailing unicorn to be had, you can bet that Jockey will ride it cheerfully through a horde of zombies. No idea about Charger, though.)

In other news, it's time for Strange Things I Have Discovered In My Notebook Theatre:

CHORUS
We are but students, with empty bellies
And so we call upon the God of Cakes,
Dionysus, probably, as he is god
of many interesting things.
Surely the gods will not abandon us in our hour of need
(for cakes).

MESSENGER
I have such a wonder to relate!
An eagle swept down from the sky,
right in front of my eyes, swift as a ship
(a swift ship, obviously), and at my feet
it dropped some Jaffa Cakes - not one packet,
but two, enough for every student here
unless I have miscounted.

CREON
Pah! Jaffa Cakes are not real cakes!

MESSENGER:
And who are we to question cakes from heaven?

CREON
The cake is a lie, my city!
You must eat only the cakes of Thebes!

(And so on.)

I miss studying Greek tragedy. Also, I'm really confused. (I think - I think - that my plan was to sneakily leave this work of art and a couple of packets of Jaffa Cakes on a desk before a Tragedy seminar, but sadly (tragically, in fact) I never carried it out.)

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And so we call upon the God of Cakes,
Dionysus, probably, as he is god
of many interesting things.

I love this!

it dropped some Jaffa Cakes - not one packet,
but two, enough for every student here
unless I have miscounted.

So you've always been this hilarious - is that weird?

Er, what do you mean by 'always'? This was at university, three or four years ago; I think we already knew each other when I wrote this. But thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I was thinking it was older, like high school or something. Never mind, then.

Excellent! Glad we've cleared that up. Can't have people thinking me unwarrantedly hilarious.

Incidentally, do Jaffa Cakes exist in the United States? Charlie Brooker has led me to believe they do not. I don't want to imagine an existence without Jaffa Cakes.

Yeah, if everyone assumed you've been this hilarious for like ten years now, they just might be driven mad with jealousy.

I don't think there are Jaffa Cakes here? I'm not entirely sure what they are.

GASP.

Jaffa Cakes are very tiny sponge cakes, about the size of a biscuit, with a layer of orange jelly on top, covered with a coating of chocolate.

OF COURSE THIS ISN'T MUCH USE BECAUSE 'BISCUIT' AND 'JELLY' BOTH MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS IN THE US. They're about the size of a cookie, and, er... what's the American equivalent of jelly? Oh! Jell-o! Anyway, they're delicious. Here's a picture.

I have never seen or eaten anything like that, and I've never heard of stores selling anything called Jaffa Cakes.

notebook is amazing! I long for more notebook!

how is this even possible? J.C. It's not coincidence. they re amazing!

I've never seen them in stores, even when I was in Fiji and they actually had whole sections of the store devoted to biscuits and cordials and other British-sounding things, and it probably wouldn't occur to me to eat them if I did see them, because I'm weird about chocolate combined with fruit flavors (I like chocolate with stuff like mint or caramel or peanut butter or fancy stuff like rosewater and absinthe and earl grey tea, but not fruit).

I totally agree, RDR is one of the prettiest looking games ever. I play it just for the sightseeing sometimes :P

Also I found that the horses of the apocalypse who weren't War were all so underwhelming. I mean how do you beat a horse that's ON FIRE. Death was kinda creepy-cool, and the unicorn rocks (though he's not a HOTA) but Famine and Pestilence are pretty dull-looking =/

I have a frankly ridiculous number of notebooks (a quick count in my room just turned up thirty-two, and that's only counting the ones I've actually written in), so I doubt I'll ever run out of strange things to discover in them.

It's so gorgeous! I used the 'fast travel' option quite a bit in Undead Nightmare, I'll confess (perhaps because there was less wildlife to watch, perhaps because the 'settlements come under attack again a little while after you saved them' aspect made it feel like time was more pressing), but in Red Dead Redemption itself I just rode everywhere.

I agree; I quite liked Death, but War was so much cooler than Famine or Pestilence. War ended up my favourite mount throughout the game; even after I got the unicorn, it wasn't long before I went back to War. I'm thinking of replaying Red Dead Redemption, but if I do I'm probably going to end up annoyed that my horse isn't on fire.

(Or maybe not, because, although War is extremely cool, I never became quite as emotionally attached to him as I did to my beloved Kentucky Saddler.)

SOMEDAY I REALLY NEED TO FINISH RDR AND PLAY THIS ZOMBIE EXPANSION

I CONCUR. Both the game and the expansion are excellent! And I really would love to see the ladies in the world of Undead Nightmare. (I want Charger to be a sheriff, actually, but I suspect that would be anachronistic.)

Hahaha more anachronistic than zombies?

Waitwaitwait...

There was a unicorn in the game? And you could use it to travel around??

(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lt6p7dlbpW1r1b6b6o1_400.gif)
(Not only was this pony the first thing that came into my mind, but also it sort of describes how this information makes me feel)

I seriously need a ps3. I also would like jaffa cakes.

Yeah, also it's not as attractive without the GLORIOUS lighting. I love the sunrises/sets the shadows and everything are all so amazing. I like war but I find he can make the game a tiny bit juddery. I've heard fire is a difficult thing for consoles to process, so for fire in motion, always there in multiple locations must give the processor a run for its money.

True, I don't suppose Marston will be all that surprised by a lady sheriff when the dead are roaming the earth and there's a rainbow streaming out behind the unicorn he's riding. (I'm building up this whole scenario in my head, now, where the sheriff of their little town is killed in the outbreak and Charger immediately takes keeping-everyone-alive duty upon herself and the townsfolk gain so much respect for her that they elect her sheriff, societal norms be damned. Of course this completely conflicts with established Western AU, er, canon, if you can use the word 'canon' when you're talking about an AU of an AU of an AU.)

haha I LIKE IT would Smoker and Hunter still be nogood scofflaws or would they just be driven into town by zombies OR BOTH

There was indeed! You have to jump through a few hoops before the unicorn will become available, but, yes, you can absolutely ride a unicorn. It is surrounded by butterflies and a faint rainbow trail follows it as it runs. Here is a video.

That unicorn is so amazing~! I definitely need a new console so that I can play this game ;~~;

RE headshots. I had wondered that. Due to Resi 4 and my generally tendency toward effeciency, I don't usually have much issue with headshots, but I thought it would be a pretty nasty obstacle to people who wanted to play undead nightmare. At least it auto-snaps to the head with the sprinter zombies.

There's Far Too Much Incest In Oedipus Rex.

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