Cool Little-Known Things

[halcyon]

Don't get me wrong, LOOM was a great game. It's just that the opening sequence made me hope for mystery, spirituality and high romance. There was as much mystery as you could reasonably hope for in a Lucasarts title, a little interesting symbolism, and no romance. Clearly, my expectations were too high, but LOOM was literally the first computer game I was exposed to, I was in primary school and I didn't know what to expect.

On the other hand, the same thing happened to me with the opening sequence of FFVIII, the first Playstation game I played, and I was a few years older at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09quI356sQ The divergence between what I expected and what was delivered was even more extreme for that game.

Princess Tutu is really good though. Literary types might call me a superficial philistine, but it was the first story that fully satisfied all the expectations that the Swan Lake theme stirred in me when I heard it for the first time all those years ago when I ran LOOM. Don't believe me? Check out this line: "To those who accept everything, happiness. To those who resist everything, glory." That's genuine spirituality as far as I'm concerned.

[anthusiasm]

Oh man that line still gives me chills.

[kuuskytkolme]

The one thing I love the most about Princess Tutu is how good and nice a person Ahiru is. Her crush has a girlfriend? "Gosh, you two are so cute together, I wish I was as good at ballet as her!"

[halcyon]

The heroine has to be an Innocent Maiden in Drosselmeyer's romantic fantasy, (Did you notice how The Ugly Duckling is melded with Swan Lake, elements from Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha exist side by side, etc? :p) but Duck's Innocence is more convincing than the prince's Pure Heart since no special attention is drawn to it... which is saying something considering this is one of those stories like Redshirts where the plot hinges on breaking the fourth wall. Wait, does this mean Innocent Maidens have actually become rare in romantic fiction nowadays, or is this just an especially successful portrayal of the role?

[Ezra]

Anybody watched the short series The Booth at the End? The premise is: there's this guy. If you tell him what you want, he tells you what you need to do to get it. Sometimes the connection is obvious; much more often, it seems entirely unrelated. But if you do the thing he tells you, then you _will_ get what you asked for.

I think it would make a good glowfic scenario.

[Alicorn]

Bell: "I want to be omnipotent."

Guy: "Open as many doors as you can."

[DanielH]

I’m not quite sure that would qualify, at least not yet. I suppose the Bells who follow that advice collectively become immortal and keep gaining power so it might happen eventually.

Was this prompted by the log sandbox, or is it coincidental?

I had not heard of the series before now and know nothing more about it except what’s in Ezra’s post. Still, I immediately thought of how I might end the series:

Thought uncorrelated with real ending

---

Querent: “I want to be omniscient”
Guy: “Sit behind the booth.”
Guy: *gets up and leaves*

[Alicorn]

Coincidence.

[Ezra]

I thought I was prompted by the log sandbox.

[DanielH]

After looking a bit more, the Man would never be nearly as straightforward as saying to open a bunch of doors. At minimum, he would tell the Bell to join a sports team, but not give any advice on this obviously impossible task. When she managed to do it anyway (by bribing the coach, perhaps), Milliways would randomly appear. More likely, there would be other people involved in this plot too.