#Basically I was gonna try drawing Barkley

[animatronicdoozer]

tango and Elmo!!

[inspector-montoya-fox]

someone recently liked this post and i re-read it and honestly Sly 4 could have potentially been so phenomenal. i'll be the first to admit that i go grr and then zzz (in that order) when someone starts pitching their own idea for an entire game like how we all collectively loathed the announcement for that fanmade game remember that? i'm giving this disclaimer not because this post is gonna be like fanfic or anything but because i'm gonna be suggesting a lot of ideas. so with that out of the way let's briefly discuss the potential of Sly returning in 2013

SP set up such an interesting dynamic between Sly and Carmelita, where he lied first so she lied second but unbeknownst to her he knows she lied. the next game could have focused on that and that alone; at its core, Sly has always been a morality tale and lies are so divisive in terms of ethics. the central theme would be lies, but it wouldn't be explored just through the lens of Sly and Carmelita's relationship. although Bentley knows Sly lied about his amnesia, we never see if Murray does and that'd be interesting to see how someone who wears their heart on their sleeve accepts this (or doesn't). also, instead of getting the bullshit TiT "Sly lied so his gf is really angry with him", when Carmelita confronts him once the truth is out how would Sly bring up her lie? would he use it with spite, kinda like two wrongs don't make a right ? or would he be solemn because despite the lies, their relationship was what they both wanted. Sly and Carmelita's conversations usually follow the consistent pattern of him being witty and flirty and her trying to shut him down, but what if the roles were reversed because of this massive revelation? Carmelita usually has a comeback ready so how does she react when she's caught off guard?

the story would have to deal with the direct aftermath of Carmelita's lie. how would Interpol react when Carmelita pulled up with Sly like 'this is my partner ok' ? and if Barkley accepted this and recruited Sly as an Interpol officer, how would things play out after? in the original post linked above, @pixieluver suggested a tutorial for the game where you play as Sly undergoing police training and i personally find that so genius like can you imagine?? the game starts off with Sly's final Interpol exam or something as the game teaches the player the basics through a police test course and by the end Sly could catch like a breather or something to monologue and catch the player up to speed with the story after the series' 8 year hiatus. it's like undoubtedly an amazing idea

in this imaginary game, Sly has to deal with being on both sides of the law as well as eventually telling Carmelita the truth and the climax would centre around if their relationship could get past this. the exploration between black and white, the grey zone, would be more explicit than ever in the series. what happens when we experience being an Interpol officer through the eyes of Sly? how does he interpret the law and how loosely could he act on his interpretation whilst under his amnesiac facade? he could be more lenient as an authority figure but also him stepping into Carmelita's shoes could bring about some reflection. oh and would he have a shock pistol because i never knew i needed shock pistol/cane combo gameplay until now.

from Carmelita's side, how invested is she in her job? is being a cop part of her personality? can she reduce it down to an occupation and separate it from her personal beliefs? having now experienced the "reality" of being with Sly, would it be more difficult for her to draw the line once shit hits the fan? and circling back to the main theme, is she lying to herself? catching Sly was her career's goal so once she invites him into her personal life, especially in such an intimate capacity, how can she separate the two again? let's bring in the reality of how male-dominated the police force is: maybe Barkley and rest of Interpol are constantly on her case for bringing Sly Cooper into their circle. and maybe they wouldn't buy that Sly is amnesiac.

the main villain could be someone who knows Sly's secret and is threatening to expose him, pressuring him to tell the truth. we've had some pretty evil and ruthless villains in the series but rarely is there an element of mystery, so this could potentially be someone pulling the strings behind the scenes Penelope. let's have a villain who might not be 100% evil, like a sympathetic Justice for All villain à la Ini Miney or Acro. i doubt the gang are the only morally ambiguous characters so why not a villain the player can empathise with but who is also undoubtedly up to not good. we've kind of explored that with Panda King but i feel like after A Cold Alliance it was treated a bit like whatever. anyway, each episode could revolve around getting closer to the truth and finding out the identity of this mastermind by getting rid of his connections, who are like smaller crooks and "bad guys". each level would have the duality of cop missions and classic missions, with Carmelita and Interpol becoming increasingly suspect of Sly.

in closing i want to briefly touch on the fact that this would come out in 2013 instead of TiT: we were really in the midst of the departure from 3D platformers as first person shooters became more and more creative that year (The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, GTA V). maybe Sly 4 coming out back then was a bit premature? like in comparison to the late 2010s/ early 2020s where we saw like a small bump in nostalgia with the Crash trilogy in 2017 or the Sly reference in the new Ratchet and Clank. i don't know if a hiatus longer than 8 years would cause a loss of interest but my brain hurts and my heart aches when i try to think about a world where TiT never came out.

[ievenranthisfar]

A Race With No End: The Sisyphean Nightmare of Big’s Backyard Ultra

It’s 6:13 in the morning. The sun is about to break over the Tennessee countryside. I’ve already run 98.8 miles. And now, I find myself passing the two giant piles of frozen burritos that have been sitting—inexplicably—in the middle of the road all night. This is the twenty-fourth time I’ve passed them. 

I may have to pass them another twenty-four times before this is all over. Or maybe not. I may have to run for another 100 miles. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Because, you see, I’m running in a race that has no finish line. And it’s starting to drive me insane.

This self-inflicted torture began three years earlier when, I stumbled across a race report detailing a crazy little race in the Middle of Nowhere, Tennessee. Its premise was so simple yet so evil: Last man standing wins. 

Big’s Backyard Ultra has no set time or distance. Just a 4.1667-mile loop that each runner has to complete within an hour, over and over and over, until they can’t. Contestants continue running this macabre, Sisyphean loop until ultimately, there’s only one poor soul left. He or she wins. Everyone else DNFs. Like it never even happened.

My mind began to swirl. How far could I run if I had to run forever? Would my body or my mind give up first? What would it be like to be one of the last two people left, stuck in a stumbling, mutually self-destructive duel of wills? Also, just in general, WTF? 

Like some kind of Phillip K. Dick fever dream, this insanity was cooked up by ultrarunning’s resident madman, Lazarus Lake. He’s the evil genius behind the even-more-infamous Barkley Marathons. And after being personally tortured by him for more than a day straight, I can say that he is a true artist. The Leonardo da Vinci of pain. The Rembrandt of mind games. The Lady Gaga of suffering. A master of sadomasochistic craft.

In 2014 the race went for 49 hours. The winning distance, 204.2 miles. Actually, “winning” isn’t really the correct term. Johan Steene and Jeremy Ebel started on Saturday morning. Saturday became Sunday. Sunday became Monday. The two dueled for so long that Johan was in danger of missing his flight back to Sweden. So, with no other option, he was forced to drop. In an ultimate sign of sportsmanship, Jeremy chose to drop as well. So both men ran 204.2 miles, which is an incredible feat. What’s even more incredible is that because of the Last Man Standing rule, they both actually lost. (Laz later told me this detail with a twinkle of pride in his eyes.)

Naturally, I became obsessed with the race.

Fast forward a few years to me, towing the starting line in Lazarus’s backyard. It’s a beautiful, still Saturday in October somewhere in B.F.E., Tennessee.

Three minutes before the start, Laz blows three whistles. “Oh man, you’re gonna love hearing that thang 20 hours from now,” he says with a grin. Two minutes before the start, he blows the whistle twice. “Almost time.” He’s like a seven-year-old boy about to torture a frog. One minute left, one whistle blow. “Get in here so I can draw the corral!” he hollers. Using a can of orange spray paint, he draws a box around us on his crunchy, dead lawn. At the start of every hour, we have to be standing inside this corral to begin the next loop. Unless, of course, we can’t.

The race clock ticks to 00:00:00, and Laz gives his cowbell a hearty shake. We’re off. Forty-seven human beings setting out to test the limits of our bodies and basic common sense. 

Unlucky number 85

For months, I had worried about how best to run this thing. But within one loop, I quickly realize that the most important is a single world: consistency. In a typical 100-miler, it’s a guarantee that you’ll experience rough patches. Your legs will feel like lead. You’ll get overheated. Your stomach will rebel. But you can always sit down, hit pause and sort yourself out. Hey, you have 30 hours to finish this thing. But with Big’s, there’s no forgiveness. You get in a bad place, and you still have to be standing in the corral when Laz rings the cowbell at the next hour. Razor-thin margin of error. 

After I finish each loop, I plop down in my REI chair and rustle through my bags. (Another fun challenge, no aid stations!) I refill my bottles, scarf down some food and attend to issues. But no matter where you’re sitting, you have a front-row seat for the main attraction: the race clock. It’s big and bright and just keeps tick, tick, ticking away. The seconds keep marching mercilessly towards the next hour and the next loop. Yay.

Running ultras has taught me that time is malleable; it can bend and warp. As I run from starting line to finish line, I often get the sensation I’m detached from time, floating along in my own jet stream. This race is the opposite. There’s no starting line and no finish line. No matter what you do, in one hour, you’ll end up right back where you started. It’s like a cruel mash-up of Saw and Groundhog Day. With possibly more grunting.

Pre-race meal planning: 20 pounds of gels, fried chicken, Mountain Dew and half a pie

Personal aid station or refugee camp? Really, both.

My first morning goes relatively well. I’m feeling good and running consistently. There’s a group of four of us in a front pack, choosing to run at a comfortably brisk pace. We run and chat and laugh for hours, and quickly become a weird little band of friends. It’s a solid distraction. But at the same time, somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep hearing the voice remind me, They’re the competition. A seed of Survivor-style paranoia is planted. I try to shake it for the time being.

Morning turns to afternoon. The temperature climbs into the mid-80s. People start to drop. We’re less than 50 miles in, and already more than half the field is gone. Images of WWII flash in my brain for some reason.

At the start/finish/coral, Laz and his cohorts—who are all dressed as prison inmates—crack the same joke, lap after lap. “Way to go! You’re back in first place!” or “Allllright! You were in second, but now you’re tied for first!” “There he is! First place runner right there!” The joke goes on for hours. It seems to get funnier to them each time they repeat it.

But here’s the thing. The more loops I run, the more I realize it’s not a joke. It’s the core truth of this entire race. Because everyone really is in first place until they drop. Whether you finish your loop in 44 minutes or 59 minutes, if you’re still running, you’re still winning. In fact, during the infamous 204.2-mile race, that was exactly the breakdown. Johan ran 44-minute loops consistently for 49 hours, while Jeremy ran right at the edge of cut-off each loop. There is no strategy. My brain starts to death-spiral as I realize that no matter how hard I work, I’ll always be in first place, like everyone else. Time is a flat circle.

Run, rest, repeat

In the evening, the race switches to an out-and-back stretch on 4.1667 miles of paved country road. Twelve hours and 50 miles into the race, there are only ten of us suckers left inside the corral. Surprisingly, this proves to be a nice mental break. While you run the trail, all you want to do is last until the road. Once you’re on the road, all you want to do is last until the trail. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

And while road isn’t nearly as interesting as trail, it does provide a few new novelties. Tonight, the moon is so bright we don’t even need headlamps, so we glide through the Tennessee countryside like tattered, sweaty ghosts.

During our first loop, my newfound friends and I notice two lumpy piles of something sitting in the road near what looks like an abandoned house. We wonder aloud what the piles are, and I say, “They kind of look like a bunch of frozen burritos.” Everyone laughs. It’s preposterous. And I’m sure in the back of their heads, their Survivor voice whispers, Excellent. He’s starting to hallucinate. He’s a goner for sure. On the next loop, as we near the piles I tell them, “I wanna see what those are. I really think they’re frozen burritos.” “Ha, OK,” they laugh again. We drift towards the two piles, flick on our headlamps and HOLY SHIT THEY REALLY ARE A BUNCH OF FROZEN BURRITOS. Seriously. Two huge piles of half-melted, frozen burritos. There must be 100 or so. Just sitting in the road. 

It’s by far the weirdest non-hallucination I’ve ever had during a race. (Weirdest actual hallucination: Obi Wan Kenobi in the middle of Hawaiian jungle.)

A few loops later, the burrito piles are flanked by two hound dogs sleeping in the road. Back at the start/finish, someone mentions the whole situation to Laz, and he conjectures that the owners must be out of town so they left some food out for their dogs. This makes no sense, but it also seems like the only reasonable explanation. Sort of a metaphor for Big’s as a whole.

The night marches on.

In the lull between one of the early evening laps, Laz taunts me, “You might wanna try to get some sleep. You’re gonna wish you had it when it’s this time tomorrow night.” Awesome, I think. So on top of everything else, now I have to try to sleep between each loop?? But, he did have a point. I throw a shirt over my head and try to not exist for a few minutes. It never works. Every time I’m about to doze off, I hear that “TWEEET, TWEEET, TWEEEEEET” of Laz’s three whistles.

The night creeps by, both slowly and quickly. Each loop becomes a sadistic episode of déjà vu. And each time, it becomes that much harder to get out of the chair and into the corral.

By the time dawn breaks over the Tennessee hills, there are just four of us left. Also, two piles of road burritos, mostly uneaten.

Twenty-four hour in and spirits are 👍

One hundred miles and 24 hours in, the Final Four line up for our first lap of the new day: me, Charlie Engle (famous for running across the Sahara, infamous for spending 21 months in prison for mortgage fraud), John Starpes (who’s put in a gritty performance, staying just ahead of  the cut-offs every lap) and Babak Rastgoufard (a quiet dude in glasses with a big ole mop of hair who Laz and Co have enjoyed calling “Babagnoush” all day).

With a twinkle in his eye, Laz reminds us that we’re all in first place. Then he rings that damn cowbell.

How long can this go on?

Lap 25 goes off without a hitch. Lap 26, John falters. He doesn’t make the cut-off. One down. Three still in.

Just one mile into Lap 27, I feel a pain shoot through my left heel. It’s my Achilles tendon. How cosmically ironic, I mumble. My Achilles heel. The sudden reappearance of my chronic injury means my race is over.

However, Charlie is staring to look pretty worked. Against better judgment, I decide I’ll only go back out for another loops if Charlie comes in with two minutes to spare. Pride will be the death of me.

Back at home base, Laz blows his whistle three times. No sign of Charlie. I start to get excited. He blows his whistle twice. No sign of Charlie. Thank God. And then, “There he is!” Charlie bursts out of the woods. Ugh.

I grab my bottle and trudge over to the starting corral. A minute later, the three of us set off again. This is my last loop, I promise myself.

It’s been 112 miles. As I hobble in, I tell my mom (who has been horrified for two days straight) that that is my last loop… “unless Charlie comes in with, like, 30 seconds left.” I cringe as I hear the words coming out of my mouth.

We sit there waiting. Three whistles and no Charlie. Two whistles, no Charlie. One whistle, no Charlie. Then, just like an underdog movie scene, Charlie comes barreling out of the woods. I close my eyes. “Dammit, Charlie.” I think that’s the first time I’ve cussed in front of my mom. 

Charlie crosses the line with 35 seconds left. Resigned to my fate, I shuffle into the starting corral. Now on the ground, Charlie throws up his hands. “No más. I’m done.” “Noooo!” the crowd cries. The cowbell rings. Charlie doesn’t move. It’s just me and Babak now.

As soon as we get out of earshot of the crowd, I turn to him and say, “Hey man, this is gonna be my last loop.” “What?” he’s confused. “Yeah, my leg is hurt really badly. I can’t run on it anymore. You ran a hell of a race. Congrats, man.” “Ah man, I’m sorry…” he commiserates for a second. And then, he looks me in the eyes, “You’re not fucking with me, are you?” “Ha, no. I promise.” “’Cause that’d be kinda messed up,” he double-checks. “I promise, I’m not fucking with you.” I told you, this race messes with your head.

 Even though I’m about to lose, it feels like a victory lap. I’m going to enjoy it. I say goodbye to all the little landmarks I’ve spent the last day with��the crumbly rock, Kat’s Cave, the edge of the field, the top of the hill. Forty-seven minutes later, we burst out of the woods and into the sun. The crowd cheers.

I stride across the line one last time. 116 miles in 27:48. I immediately bend down and rip the timing tracker off my ankle. “I’m tapping out,” I announce. “NOOOOO,” the crowd erupts in unison. “YOU CAN’T.”  “I have to.” I explain my injury. But they’re having none of it. They came to see a bloodbath.

I sit on the ground in front of Laz. He stares down at me with the tenderness of some sort of hillbilly Santa Claus. “You sure you wanna drop? You still got plenty of time.” He speaks with a mixture of genuine care for me and morbid interest in seeing this spectacle dragged out as long as possible. “Thanks but I’m really done.” “Alright then.”

A few minutes later, Babak is standing alone in the starting coral. We all start chanting his name “Babak! Babak! Babak!” as he takes off on the very last loop of the race, solo. I’m Second-to-Last Man Standing. 

Striding out once more

Tapping out

 Big’s Backyard Ultra asks everything of you as a runner and as a human being. It’s as fascinating and as terrible a race as will ever be dreamed up. Its genius lies in its simplicity. And the more time I spent around Lazarus—trust me, I had about 15 minutes every hour for 28 hours straight—the more I became convinced that he’s some kind of savant.

The world is a better place because of madmen like Lazarus Lake. And I’m a better person for living through his terrible genius firsthand. Because now I’ve run a race with no end.

And also someone gave me a Long Day Lager afterwards

 Epilogue 

Unbeknownst to me, throughout the race, Lazarus composed strange, little updates that he blasted out every loop. Each reads like the beautiful poetry of a sadistic Thoreau. 

if we did this to dogs, they would throw us in jail.

hour 8 just began. 25 runners are praying they can survive 5 more hours and reach the road loops...

here is what they keep saying, as they drop and drop and drop;

if only this was just a 100 miler, and i could take a break. just 5 minutes. that is all i need.

24 runners are alive, out on the trail and the whistles start again in 54 minutes...

laz

   pray for the 18

we had our clean lap. 18 finished hour 11 18 started hour 12...

this is the critical hour. the sun is setting, and it will be dark before they get back.

nobody has more than a minute or two a lap to spare. they cannot slow down. dark or not.

if they finish this hour, there are 12 hours of gravy, before we return to the trail.

pray for the 18. they need it.

laz

  nightmare under the hunters moon

tim dines and gary kaspar. refused to continue.

may god have mercy on your soul.

14 tortured souls started hour 15.

it is one thing to run a 100, and start once. it is another to run a 100, and have to start 24 times...

and you might not even be halfway through.

laz

the final chapter it was the invisible injury that won out. andy's achilles had been gradually deteriorating for many hours. after the two youngsters hammered each other during hour 28, babak pulling away, andy bowed out after the finish (to the dismay of throngs of andy pearson fans) babak is out on the deciding loop....for the first time, he is alone. in somewhere around a half hour, we will know if there is a finisher this year. we already know who it has to be. thanks for listening.

laz