How fitting.

I was working on making dinner today, when an onion I was slicing up slid under my hand, and I ended up doing the knife-equivalent of whacking my thumb with a hammer. For such a relatively small wound, it bled a surprising amount. Which brings us to today’s word.

imbrued, verb – past tense of imbrue, to stain, particularly with blood

Learned from: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Playstation 4, PC, Switch, XBox One, mobile)

Developed by ArtPlay, Wayforward

Published by 505 Games (2019)

When I found my first Imbrued Skull, I thought it was a typo of “imbued.” But the rest of the translation had been pretty solid, and nothing in the item’s description suggested it was imbued with anything (except perhaps blood). So, on a whim I looked it up, and yeah, it’s just a very tongue-in-cheek play on words, considering the game it’s from.

I actually kind of respect that, because while <i>Bloodstained</i> is <i>Castlevania</i> in everything but name, it’s got enough self-awareness to give it a slightly playful identity all its own. Sure, there’s themes of human experimentation, and demonology, and all that, but you’ve also got a bumbling villager who keeps getting lost, despite all your efforts to help him get home, an old lady who just wants to eat all her favorite foods one last time before she dies, and the occasional fourth wall-breaking joke. And somehow, it all works.

What a terrible night to have a bloody hand injury…

Actions need to have consequences.

I’m not sure how funny this post is going to be, but I’m writing it for several reasons. First, because of the reprehensible and sadly unsurprising siege that was laid to the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., today. I’ve been unable to concentrate on anything else, as democracy in my country nearly came apart entirely at the seams. I need to focus on something else, but I also need to vent some of the maelstrom of emotions I’m feeling right now. Which brings us to tonight’s word.

imprison, verb – to confine or jail

Learned from: Archon II: Adept (Apple II, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum)

Developed by Free Fall Associates

Published by Electronic Arts (1984)

I know that you might be thinking this word seems unlikely, as it’s a simple derivation from “prison.” But I was maybe five years old when I first played Archon II; I knew what a prison was, but I’d never heard “imprison” until seeing the spell here, that immobilized an enemy unit.

That’s about all I can muster for backstory right now, because current events are so much more pressing. Thousands of rioters descended upon one of the most iconic government buildings in my country this afternoon. And by and large, the police just let them. I can understand this at the onset, to some extent: While it’s absurd that there wasn’t a larger security presence, the fact is that the police who were there, were vastly outnumbered. It’s the fact that they more or less just…let these criminals just walk out and go wherever, rather than making any concerted effort to make arrests–that is what has me angriest.

There need to be consequences for this, for as many people involved as possible. If authorities aren’t going through the abundant footage of this, seeking to identify and prosecute as many rioters as they can, then this situation is even worse than it seems. Because it implies a tacit approval for actions like this, and I don’t know how things can move forward, if that’s really how things are.

Creepy stuff knows no season

I know Halloween was awhile ago, but recently on my way to work, I walked through a scene straight out of a horror movie. But first, today’s word.

eviscerate, verb – to disembowel; to remove the entrails

Learned from: Quake (PC, Mac, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, mobile)

Developed by id Software (PC), Lobotomy Software (Saturn), Midway Games (N64)

Published by GT Interactive (PC), MacSoft (Mac), Sega (Saturn), Midway Games (N64) (1996)

Quake had a lot of personality, from the Lovecraftian overtones, to the goading messages taunting you whenever you went to quit the game, to the death messages unique for every monster that could kill you. The most memorable one for me was, “You’ve been eviscerated by a fiend.”

At the time, the graphics were pretty much first-generation 3D. Character models were blocky, animations were stiff and jerky, and blood was just a spray of square red pixels. Obviously, they couldn’t effectively display every unique death with the technology of the time, but flavor text like this really lent a vivid level of detail as to exactly what happened to your character…and now, to continue the story.

So, I pass by a cemetery on my way to work, which is enclosed by a wrought-iron fence. I’m going along like normal, until something catches my eye along the fence: a beachball-sized area of the fence itself, where it looked like something had been either pulverized against the side of the fence, or else staked on the spikes at the top. The main area was a bloody mess, with bits of hair and actual flesh still clinging to the posts. It had dripped down the fence, to a patch of grass the size of a coffee table–I should clarify, it had soaked a patch of grass the size of a coffee table. And as I followed it off the grass, I realized I was standing in a smear of blood that trailed all the way down the hill, occasionally meandering to the edge of the sidewalk and pooling. As if whatever it was had dragged itself as far as it could, before stopping periodically to regain a bit of strength, before forcing itself onward.

It was too late in the year to be a Halloween prank, and there was far too much blood for it to have been a bird that flew into the fence or something (and again, hair, not feathers was sticking to the metal). At the time, I was at a complete loss, but rather freaked out; after some consideration, the best explanation I have, is that a deer tried to jump the fence, and didn’t make it…yet managed to tear itself off the spikes, and continue on its way…which is pretty horrifying, in and of itself.

Quake seems downright tame, by comparison.

04a-fiend

Far less bloody than what I (literally) walked through.