Key posts by Minna through the comments and on twitch

[Mebediel]

Even though we're not making transcriptions of the Twitch streams anymore, here's a tidbit that people here might find relevant (paraphrased because I wasn't fast enough to catch the verbatim wording):

Adventure 2 is planned to be shorter than Adventure 1, since Minna doesn't have to do the work of introducing each of the characters. It's projected to be around 3 books, or 800 pages instead of 1,000.

Of course, we'll see how Adventure 2 actually goes, but that's the current info!

[wavewright62]

Good info, thanks! *chinhands waiting for backlog of printed books*

[Windfighter]

So I asked about Hannu and Ville's turtle during stream today and Minna gave us a name for it!

Herra Kilpinen

So there we have it for those of us who write aRTD-fanfics

[Jitter]

Kilpinen is also the Finnish name of the turtle in kids’ comic Bamse

[Temteno]

Kilpinen is also the Finnish name of the turtle in kids’ comic Bamse

I really hope this name choice was intentional from Minna

[Windfighter]

It was! She hadn't decided when I asked so she looked up Skalman on wikipedia to find his Finnish name and went "there we have it, that's the turtle's name!"

[Jitter]

I want to add a little tidbit on magic from yesterday’s stream. I asked Minna whether one’s strength as a mage is innate or do they grow in power with age or training. And to be more precise, is Onni so much more powerful than Lalli because he’s older, or just because he is.

So Minna’s answer was that it’s a bit of both. The innate strength between people varies, so to become really strong you have to have strong potential to begin with. But the potential alone doesn’t become power, you have to train and focus on it a lot to realize that potential. Onni is innately a lot more powerful than Lalli but he also has concentrated on mage training a lot more.

Furthermore (and when she said it, it’s clear, but I hadn’t thought of it) Onni has a very different mindset. He is determined and disciplined, whereas Lalli usually does what he’s told and more like floats around. Minna didn’t exactly say, but I interpreted it to mean that Lalli would never become as powerful as a mage even if he had the same magic potential, because he doesn’t have it in him to focus on the training on a sufficient level to become a really badass mage.

On an earlier stream Minna promised that she could probably do an info page on Finnish magic! Of course “promises” during the stream are chatting and not committed plans, but here’s hoping! I for one would love to learn more!

[Mebediel]

Important news from the Twitch chat: Lalli, Onni, Tuuri, and probably Mikkel would like salmiakki.

[Róisín]

Jitter, Minna’s remarks on magic make perfect sense because most of the our-world magic systems familiar to me work like that: a mixture of factors, such as innate magical ability, which as I have mentioned earlier in other contexts, I see as a talent in the same sense as ability to do math or music, or to make art, that is, an ability to perceive and shape patterns; personal nature as regards mental discipline and the ability to focus and concentrate and keep on paying detailed attention to what you are doing; training, both in endurance and in memorising traditional patterns and in learning how to make new ones; and for the theurgic systems, faith and trust in one’s god or gods.

Mebediel, I can understand liking salmiakki, it is delicious.

[Temteno]

Important news from the Twitch chat: Lalli, Onni, Tuuri, and probably Mikkel would like salmiakki.

I'm glad our fellow Finns are in the group who likes salmiakki Mikkel sounds chaotic enough to actually like it, but maybe his taste buds have experienced so much that it isn't the worst he has tasted.

[wavewright62]

I'm glad our fellow Finns are in the group who likes salmiakki Mikkel sounds chaotic enough to actually like it, but maybe his taste buds have experienced so much that it isn't the worst he has tasted.

I tried salmiakki after being exposed to the concept here in the fandom, and I have acquired the taste.  I too headcanon the Hotakainens as mad keen on the stuff.

Spoiler: shameless self promotion • show

I even wrote a story about it.  Ukko’s Löyly

[Jitter]

Temteno, don't the Danish have salmiakki of their own? Or is it the Dutch? (I love the stuff, unfortunately "irtokarkki" isn't available at the moment!)

[Temteno]

Temteno, don't the Danish have salmiakki of their own? Or is it the Dutch? (I love the stuff, unfortunately "irtokarkki" isn't available at the moment!)

I had actually no idea if Dutch or Danish have their own ones - but it is at least commonly know that Nordic people enjoy it (though only people outside of Finland that I know enjoy it are the people on this forum )

[Róisín]

Well, as mentioned earlier, I like it well (Irish-Australian living in South Australia), and so does my Welsh cousin, and a friend who is also Irish- Australian and lives near here, and likely acquired the taste for trying strange new flavours because she is a spicer by profession. She and I can get it from the English Sweet Shop in Hahndorf, or from several confectioners in the Barossa Valley (though nobody is getting anything from there at present, because chunks of the area are on lockdown due to two Covid19 infection clusters among tourists there).

[Vulpes]

Temteno, don't the Danish have salmiakki of their own? Or is it the Dutch? (I love the stuff, unfortunately "irtokarkki" isn't available at the moment!)

To my absolute delight, one of the local grocery stores carries Dutch "Zoute Drops". I have no idea where I encountered it first, but a Dutch fellow grad student came back after Christmas one year and was going around slyly offering unsuspecting Canadians a "treat" from home. He was gobsmacked when I looked at it and said, "Salty liquorice?? Yes please!" He entertained himself for weeks by sporadically offering it to his office-mate, who would recoil in horror recalling his initial introduction to the stuff.

My significant other frowns on it, and says, "That is not food!" But there are a few fans at work, although they do tend to be, as we say around here, "from away" (France in this case) or have spent time in Nordic countries - including Denmark, so you appear to be right on both counts, Jitter.