And we get the scene depicted on the sixpenny paperback:

Connections
Puzzle #701
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Skill 90/99
Uniqueness 1 in a Million

Slept together would just take its literal meaning. They were asleep in the same room or bed.

I did a bit of a search to try and find an alternative meaning of “undressing”. I thought perhaps it might have some meaning similar to “debriefing”—discussing the events each had experienced or something like that. But there wasn’t much to go on. This Stack Exchange thread points to times “undress” could be used something like that, but it’s near-exclusively as a double-entendre. And Wiktionary doesn’t provide any definition other than the literal one.

My best interpretation of that sentence is that it’s because they have complicated layered Victorian clothes on that require assistance to get into or out of. It’s an intimate act, which is why Lucy brings it up, but not a romantic or sexual one.

That’s my reading, anyway. But given how strong Dracula’s themes of transgressive sexuality are in other places, it would be hard to deny it’s possible to interpret this passage as having some Carmilla-esque sapphic undertones.

HAHAHA! 🤣 Those character descriptions are brilliant!

Weapon durability is frustrating, but it ties into what I think is so awesome about Dark Cloud. That being that its RPG mechanics are based not around your character but around your weapons. With upgrading the weapons’ different stats, doing a status break, and building them up into completely new weapons. It’s really unique and I think it’s a shame that I’ve never seen it done elsewhere.

A little off topic, but if you’re interested in recs for other games from that era, I highly recommend the early PS2 title Dark Cloud. It’s not exactly a mascot game like the ones you named, but it’s kinda close; the biggest comparison it had at the time of release was the Zelda series.

Not always. The vast majority of the time the police never bother to charge the actual criminal, in part because of their bias against the victim, and thus there’s no room for anyone else to step in. In other cases, the justice system fails. Richard Pollett’s killer is still walking free. So is Richard Burden’s. Chris Culver and Geoff Havill’s killer wasn’t even acquitted by a jury, but by professionally-appointed judges.

I’m not 100% sure but I think PNG might be light orange too?

Police said he can do what he likes in his own living room

In my experience the police would find a way to blame the victim, because car drivers can do no wrong in a motornormative society.

Here’s a list of the references explained by the Notes of my copy of the book. (As a side note: if you are so inclined, it looks like a version similar to mine, with notes by Maurice Hindle but without the preface by Christopher Frayling, are available for download on Anna’s Archive.)

• Ugric tribe: people who speak an Ugric language (a branch of the Finno-Ugric language family, which includes Hungarian.)
• Scythia: Ancient region of south-east Europe/west Asia, north of the Black Sea
• the Lombard: a native of the northern-central Italian region of Lombardy
• the Avar: a people who settled in Dacia (the land around the Carpathians) from around the 550s, who were crushed by Charlemagne
• Arpad: a Magyar chieftain who conquered Hungary in the late 800s
• the Honfoglalas: “conquest of the homeland”, referring to Arpad
• the shame of Cassova: referring to a battle the Turks won at Cassova in 1389
• Voivode: the official title Vlad III held, roughly equivalent to Prince in English
• the battle of Mohacs: 1526, the Turks conquered Hungary
• the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs: the ruling families of Austria (and previously the Holy Roman Empire) and Russia, respectively

The Extra History YouTube channel has an excellent series on Vlad III. The complete series is available in one video here. With the exception of the Lies video where they go over errata and stuff they left out for pacing & timing reasons.

She’s a total badarse in the novel too! It’s just that she’s a badarse by Victorian women’s standards—transgressing just a little outside the bounds of what would be normal womanly behaviour.

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Puzzle #700
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Skill 98/99
Uniqueness 1 in 236

Not much to say here. “Pop” is a type of popular concert, and “parti” is a marriage prospect, from French apparently. If anyone from France could let me know how that derives, I’d be interested to know.

Je parle un peu francais, mais je ne connais pas du tout ce mot avec cette connotation. Est-ce que c’est lié à “partir” ?

I just click the “Connections Bot” button:

Sometimes it tries to get me to create an account and log in, but I can use the browser inspector to delete the overlay that does that and get to the analysis anyway. Unfortunately it always pops up on my phone, and I don’t have a browser inspector there. So if I ever share a result without the skill & uniqueness scores, you know I’ve been on my phone instead of computer.

Oh wow, good spot! I never made that connection!

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Puzzle #699
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Uniqueness 1 in 206

I don’t think I’d agree you must believe in the Nicene Creed to be Christian. Did Christians not exist prior to 325? Or perhaps even 381, when its current amended form was created?

I’d definitely say being non-Nicene puts a bit of an asterisk on claims and opens you up to discussion about whether or not you’re truly Christian, but I wouldn’t say it’s a clear-cut thing.

Mormons are non-trinitarian, so I’d say people trying to claim that they’re not Christian have a much better case than protestants saying Catholics aren’t Christian.

I clicked on the “3” on the page I was on when it suggested “1 Park per Day”, which I thought was meant to be 3 days. Not 100% sure though. 'twas late last night.