#LET US PREY (2014)

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

SUMMARY: A mysterious stranger in a remote Scottish police station threatens the entire town with his unholy mission as midnight looms.

[splatteronmywalls]

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

[suratan-zir]

WHOOPS, I didn't see that thanks for the link! Where did your fascination witjbrats come from?

It's hard to answer this question because there is no interesting story or specific reason. I've had pet rats almost my whole life, so for a while, getting new ones was like a habit to me. I grew up surrounded by animals. My first rodent was a hamster that bit my finger the first time I tried to touch him. He bit right through it. I must've been about 5 years old at the time. So, my parents gave it back and got me a rat instead. I don't remember that first rat because I was so young, but it's for the best, honestly. I later learned from my mother that the first rat died a horrible death because of my parents' stupidity (they thought that rats do not need water??? Two grown-ups in their twenties. wtf).

But since then, I had rats pretty much always. They lived in horrible conditions and alone, but no one knew any better at the time. I loved them, though. I remember especially fondly two of them. One was a black boy whose name I shall not tell because it was so stupid, the first letters were Ts. He basically grew up with one of our cats (which is horrible and you should never let your rats and cats interact in any way!). I was about ten. I still have this artifact, the whole three pixels of it, recorded on my Motorola phone, lol. Nevermind, tumblr won't let me attach the video. Ts. lived for three years and was almost always with me.

Before Ts., there was Buffy, a blue girl. Sadly, I have only memories of her. I didn't have a phone or camera at the time. She had a lot of adventures in her life. I made her a DIY harness and let her roam outside (which you also shouldn't do). She loved to dig trenches in the sand and climb trees. Somehow, she didn't get eaten by birds of prey or simply get lost, I guess I was lucky.

Even when I left my hometown after graduating high school, I took my rat with me. Clementine, a black-hooded girl, also lived a very long life.

Then I finally started researching proper pet care in general and rat care in particular. I should've done it earlier, I know, but I grew up in a family where it wasn't really a thing, like it didn't even occur to me. It breaks my heart to think about all the rats that lived their miserable lives with us when I was little.

Anyway, I got a bigger cage (still very small!) and two girls. But with university and many changes in my personal life, I didn't spend any time with them at all. They fought with each other all the time. When one of them died, I got another one, and they fought again. I was 17-18 at the time but still dumb af. I tried to quit getting new rats after the oldest girl died. I thought I didn't want them anymore. But then the old habit kicked in, and I got Fiona.

Fiona was the one. The rat that changed my perception of rats in general. The rat who turned me into a crazy rat lady. But it wasn't because she was so special. It was just because the year was 2014, I was in Donetsk, the world was seemingly falling apart (if you know, you know). And there was Fiona, way too young to be weaned and sold, tiny and depending on me. I was in love. She gave me comfort and helped me get through the worst (or so I thought) times. I didn't want to have another rat who would bully Fiona, but eventually, I decided to do the right thing and get Fiona a friend. Tori was rehomed from horrible conditions.

She was covered in wounds from mites, not used to handling, and walked weirdly because they never let her out. She made a swift and full recovery, though. And they got along with Fiona instantly and were inseparable till the end.

I let them free roam the room because in that apartment there was nothing worth of saving. And they wrecked havoc, they got rid of all the ugly wallpaper and made a nest behind the couch. Sometimes I would have to move the couch to get them back into their cage.

I really want to have a "rat room" again, but in this flat it's not possible, they would chew their way to the downstairs neighbor.

Then I got the third rat, Shlyopa, she cost me exactly one "kinder surprise" chocolate egg in exchange.

We later made a large DIY cage because we were too poor to afford a pre-manufactured one. Shlyopa was the best rat I ever had, hands down. She was something else. So obsessed with me that it was almost annoying at times. If I was in the room, she would not calm down until I let her out to be with me. I miss her to this day.

She had to sleep hugging my hand, so I couldn't move it until her sleep was deep enough.

I'm getting carried away, I know. Rats are just my spirit animals. I understand them, their thought process, and I relate to them (I'm also afraid of everything, lol). I feel grateful for the love they show me, I find comfort in them. And I hope I find strength to not get any new rats after the three I have now. It hurts too much.

[blazehedgehog]

Do you agree with Gaming Journalists and what do you think of gaming journalism in general?

What does this even mean, dude.

"Do you agree with gaming journalists"? On what?

Do I agree with Shacknews that Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a 10/10, and with Digital Spy that it's also a 7/10? Do I agree with Let's Clear Up Those Halo Battle Royale Rumors?

Like, I've gotten some bait on this blog before, but this is 2/10 stuff, man. This is some hot 2014 garbage. Like no matter what I say, you're gonna go all

"Very interesting. Then do you care to explain why..." No thanks.

My real answer: Something I learned during my time at TSSZ and being around a few people who were deeper into "the biz" than I is that everybody needs journalism more than they realize. Corporations are pushing for consumers to become their personal cheerleaders more than ever before, which makes criticism and the journalistic exposing of information seem villainous.

After all: Xbox is my friend now, so how dare you attack the Xbox. Behavior that used to be reserved for the most dedicated fanboys is now the expected room temperature. I've talked about "The Cult of Naughty Dog" before, and that's the same thing. If a corporation can get you to be parasocial with them, then they have won, and being parasocial with a corporation means shunning real investigative journalism that would otherwise undo them. Journalists and critics used to be marketing tools, but by undoing the press pipeline and talking directly to fans, journalists and critics are painted as untrustworthy for being wildcards that don't always toe the company line.

And there has been more than a decade of people with a "I choose to be stupid and ignorant on purpose" outlook, which just makes that more frustrating. We've all seen screencaps where some brainless rando tries to explain something to a person who is an expert in that field. The rando thinks they're flexing their brain, but in some cases they are arguing with the person who literally wrote the book on their topic of conversation. Some people don't want to know anything but still pretend like they know everything, when there are real people out there doing real work to uncover real truths.

Misinformation is the real problem. It should not surprise anyone that there are people out there deliberately eroding the foundation of journalistic integrity, because the less people trust journalism, the easier it is to get away with lying. The easier it is to lie, the easier it is to control the mainstream, the easier it is to scam people out of their money, so on and so forth.

And misinformation is more than just "this one news article is fake." There are long running campaigns to install people into news organizations themselves to publish false information for all manner of different goals, but it's all the same: nobody trusts anyone and it's making everyone dumber.

That's when we get crypto currency. And NFTs. And now people claiming that generative AI will save humanity. Grift after grift after grift where the people at the top of the snake oil food chain make off with billions of dollars while the rest of the world is left scratching their heads.

The law isn't going to catch them. If they do, it'll take years. Look at how long it took for Sam Bankman-Fried to get caught -- he operated for almost half an entire decade. The amount of damage somebody can get away with in five years is significant.

We need journalism. Real journalism. Good journalism. Watchdogs that keep an eye on things and blow the whistle when it goes bad. Somebody to enforce accountability that isn't a cop.

Where do you find that? That's the hardest question. I'm lucky enough that I know people I trust because they are long time friends, or friends of friends, and thus they've been properly vetted in my circle as The Real Deal. But there are a lot of outlets out there who claim to champion "truth" and "intelligence" in a way to prey upon insecurity. I mean, c'mon, Trump's social media platform is called "Truth Social" and is basically the furthest thing from the truth you will ever get from anyone, ever.

The more obsessively they try to convince you they're telling the truth, the less likely it is they actually are. Which in itself could be an attack meant to undo the foundations of trust in people who actually know what they're talking about. By casting doubt on the very concept of truth itself, they can lie with increasingly greater efficiency.

Any advice I give feels like it is incredibly circumstantial. Which is the point, and is why we're in the state we're in.

Here's a good pdf by The News Literacy Project that's probably a good place to start. The general gist is "you'll have to do a lot of fact checking for yourself" but that's unfortunately where we're at these days.

But by and large I would say life is a lot harder for real journalists right now than I think some of their critics have ever thought about. There are people out there trying to do actual good work and being a bubble-brained moron about it just makes everything harder for everyone.

[starlitiris]

“Where is the Justice?”

Chapter 7: Memento Mori

Summary: “Sebastian’s mutations have, for the most part, stopped. He is promoted to MR-P, and is finally able to work again. I would also like to personally and sincerely apologize to mischellaneous_bones on ao3 and eaterof_concrete on Tumblr for the contents of this chapter. Please read the notes at the end if this chapter leaves you utterly heartbroken </3

This chapter is written partially from Sebastian’s POV.”

~ ⚖️ ~

[Grief

Is a beast.

A wicked, unforgiving creature that will try with all its might to crush you under its entire weight.

It sinks it claws into you before you realize it’s even there. It breathes down your neck, breath harsh and cold. A constant reminder that it’s present.

It wears you down, the weight of it too much to bear some days. You pray that when you sleep, it too, will slumber. But it doesn’t. It never sleeps.

It permeates your life, unrelenting in its mission to do everything in its power to strip you of everything that you are.

It wants to see you wither – to eat at you from the inside out until you are nothing more than an empty shell of what you once were.

It will use every trick up its sleeve to see to it that you crumble and dissipate.

Unforgiving. Unrelenting.

It uses its methods of consumption in whichever order it deems fit, according to the person and the situation – to the prey and the environment.

Though, usually, it will start with the one tactic that seldom fails to get the ball rolling:

Denial.]

August 22nd, 2014

He’s dead.

He’s been dead for months, and I’m just now finding out about it.

I’ve been locked up like some lab rat for half a year, and I’m just now finding out that Malachi’s been dead for more than half that time?

I asked about him. I asked them about him. I asked if I could see him, or if I could at least talk to him. No one bothered to say a goddamn thing.

They knew. And they didn’t tell me.

Why? Because I was going through hell and they didn’t wanna put me in worse shape? Or did they just not care?

Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter. Nobody down here gives a damn about anybody with “LR-P” on their shirt. If they did, they wouldn’t have put me through hell for the better part of a year. They wouldn’t have let Malachi die this way.

They don’t care. This is their fault, and they don’t give a rat’s ass.

God, I can’t fucking believe it.

[Denial is a defense mechanism used to protect oneself from the hardship of considering an upsetting reality. It can feel like shock, or numbness. It can look like feigned blissful ignorance. It’s an internal battle of tug-of-war – the push and pull of realization. We fight to stay in the delusion that the past is still the present, while reality keeps rearing its ugly head back into our field of vision. We try to turn away, or close our eyes. But eventually, we will have to look its way again. We will have to open our eyes.]

August 24th, 2014

They promoted me to MR-P to “compensate for my troubles.”

What a load of shit. Do they really think that a bigger room to myself and arts and crafts every wednesday is enough to make up for turning me into a freak? Sure, this room is bigger than my old cell, but I hardly fit in it. It’s cramped. And as much as I’ll appreciate the alone time, I was really hoping to see Malachi again…

…

I can’t think about it. It hurts too much.

Y’know what, maybe he’s not dead. Maybe they lied- or the guy I asked thought I was talking about another guy named Malachi. I mean… it’s not that uncommon of a name. And I won’t be hanging out with any LR-P as much anymore, so if I don’t see him around, it doesn’t mean that he’s dead. It just means he’s… not around. He’s somewhere else.

… That’s what I’ll keep telling myself. Because I can’t face the alternative. Not right now. Not after everything.

I can’t accept that he’s gone. He was the last thing that I had, I… He is the last thing I have.

He’s all I have.

He’s my best friend.

… He has to be okay.

[Anger is what will come next in some cases. When something bad happens to us, we often look for something – or someone – to blame. We become frustrated, hopeless to fight against the tides of change and tragedy. We want to have control over what happens to us, and in the face of reality, where we are harshly informed that we have no control, frustration melds into rage. We get angry. And we realize; we cannot control what has happened to us, but we can control who is at fault.]

September 7th, 2014

It’s been a few weeks, I think. Since I found out that he was dead.

It didn’t feel real. He really was the only friend I had down here, and now he’s gone.

I talked to a guy that knew him and heard about the situation back when it happened. He said Malachi was out in the water with a small group of other LR-P inmates doing routine maintenance on the canons. According to the prisoners that came out alive, there was a current that yanked away one of the team members. He got sucked out into the void, started freaking out about parasites, and Malachi went out to help him get back with the group.

A trenchbleeder crushed them both. A trenchbleeder. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is? A trenchbleeder. Malachi and that other asshole didn’t die because they were stupid and didn’t follow instructions. They died because they’re supervisor, who wasn’t even out in the water with them because he didn’t feel like putting a wetsuit on, wasn’t paying attention. The prick was too busy chatting it up with a coworker to do his damn job. If he had been paying attention like he was supposed to then he could’ve radioed Malachi in time to tell him to watch out for the giant metal foot that was meters above him. He could’ve ordered the person operating the trenchbleeder to stop the damn thing in time.

His death was avoidable. It was completely preventable, but he was killed anyway because we’re nothing but scum to these people. It doesn’t matter if we deserve to be here or not, we’re all the same to them. Human garbage with no value, and that somehow makes it okay to put us in these dangerous situations, and not give a damn when one of us dies.

They had a couple guys scrape their remains off that thing’s foot. They had to scrape my best friend off of that thing.

They did this to him. They killed him.

He had a little sister. She probably thought he was dead way back when he was first brought here, but he had a little sister. He had a family that loved him. And he was a good man.

… He didn’t deserve this. We didn’t deserve this.

[Then, we bargain. We ask ourselves “what if”, and wonder “if only”. We ponder the events that led up to the tragedy. We try to rewrite the story in our heads, praying that if we think on it hard enough, it will become true. We scavenge our minds for a way out. For anything we could do to reverse what happened. But we are only human. We cannot go back in time.]

October 11th, 2014

I wish it were me.

He should be alive right now. His supervisor should’ve been watching. His supervisor should’ve said something. He should’ve not been a good guy for once and just left that guy out there to die. Most of these guys are dicks, anyway. Why go out of your way to help them, if they wouldn’t help you?

It should’ve been me. It’s not like I’ve been enjoying being alive since I got here, anyway. But Malachi… he had his days, but he found ways to be happy. He made the best out of the hand he was dealt. He was doing good. Better than most of us. And he made people laugh. He made people smile. He was nice to people who didn’t deserve it. And he put up with my miserable ass the entire time we knew each other. He was a great guy.

I wish we could swap places. Not that I want him to undergo experiments and surgeries and come out of it looking like the cousin that The Little Mermaid doesn’t talk about, but at least he would be alive.

I want him to be alive. I want to bring him back.

I wish I could just… go to sleep, wake up, and have him here. Alive.

I wish I could wake up and be human again. Be home. Be okay.

My partner would’ve loved Malachi. He would’ve loved them, too.

…

[At some point, the worst part of it will settle in– the depression. It's a dark, deep hole that you’re shoved into. At times, it can be so deep that you look up and can no longer see the sky. Just bleak, suffocating darkness. It drains you. It tires you. It takes the brightest parts of you, and buries them in shadow. It becomes hard to fight against that beast, when all you can feel is hopeless and numb.]

November 3rd, 2014

I’m so tired. I don’t sleep, I can hardly eat. I just feel…

I don’t know what I feel.

Without Malachi here, every day is just so… dull. And boring.

I’m alone without him.

Nobody really talks to me. Not that I want to talk to anybody. But, still. Nobody talks to me. Well… about things not relating to my new appearance, that is. Which, frankly, is just as upsetting as if I wasn’t talked to at all, if not worse. It’s all people ever care to talk about with me. I hate it.

I miss Malachi. I miss my partner. I miss my mom and my siblings. I miss the children I never got to meet. I miss my life.

I’m so tired. I don’t wanna move. I don’t wanna be here.

I don’t want this.

[It is a hard and arduous battle. Facing reality, suppressing your anger, learning that you can’t undo what was done, and climbing out of that deep pit that is depression. Surviving grief. It has never been an easy fight to win. But, it is survivable. It is something that can be done. And when it is done, you will have your moment of clarity. Acceptance.]

December 19th, 2014

He’s gone. Malachi is gone, and in a way, so is my family. I’m on my own now. I probably will be until I die.

The world has taken everything from me. My future, my friends, my family, my freedom, my body.

The so called “justice system” convicted me of murders they had no evidence on me for. They sentenced me to death, and I was backed into a corner where I had to choose to die, or spend the rest of my days working for an organization that couldn’t care less about my well being. I was experimented on against my will, spent months in pain, undergoing tests and operations all while my body was changing too fast for me to process and understand. They’re still running tests on me to this day.

I may look like a monster now, but I know I am not one. I know who the real monsters are.

It’s the people that can take more away from a man than he thought he could lose, and still sleep soundly at night. The people who won’t feel an ounce of regret for getting an innocent man sentenced to death. The people who’ll horrifically disfigure somebody “in the name of science” and feel no remorse for the pain they caused. The people who will sit on their hands instead of doing what they’re paid to do, and let a good man die for no good reason at all.

Those people are the real monsters.

I have lost everything I could possibly lose to them. Everything they could take, they took.

I at least owe it to Malachi to keep some part of him alive with me. And if the little time I had with him taught me anything, it was, without a shadow of a doubt, this:

They may have stripped me of everything else,

but I still have myself.

And that is something nobody can take away from me.

~ ⚖️ ~

Ending Notes: Because of this chapter I’m going to have to make a spinoff series to answer “what if” questions, lore questions, and to write a one-off story where Malachi doesn’t die and gets to continue his bromance with Sebastian <///3

I hope this chapter doesnt suck, i seriously cannot tell bc ive been rereading it over and over since i wrote it 😭

Ao3

Chapter 6 - Chapter 8 (wip)

[morbidology]

39-year-old Angela Wrightson was a vulnerable woman living in Hartlepool, County Durhman, England, when she was attacked and murdered inside her own home by two teenage girls.

Angela was plagued with her own demons and struggled to quit her alcohol addiction. She was known locally as “Alco Ange.” Due to her dependency on alcohol, Angela looked far older than her 39 years. She weighed less than six stone and was so frail she needed to wear multiple layers to keep herself warm. Angela’s alcohol dependency had exacerbated following the death of a boyfriend, who had died from an alcohol-related incident.

Despite her issues, Angela was very well-liked within the community and did her best to help anybody out who was in need. She often gave candy and chocolate to children and would feed the local dogs and offer refuge for a number of strays. Angela always kept her home meticulously clean and tidy. According to friends, Angela was desperate to turn her life around but struggled because of the destructive cycle that comes with alcohol addiction.

A number of teenagers in the area would take advantage of Angela’s kindness and vulnerability and would pressure her into buying them alcohol and cigarettes and let them drink in her home. Some friends would say that loneliness caused Angela to be very lenient with the teenagers that exploited her, allowing them to use her home as a drinking spot just so she would have somebody to talk to. “They preyed on her because she was too kind-hearted to turn them away. They wanted her for drink, which they would steal from her and if she refused them, they would turn nasty,” a friend said.

On the 8th of December, 2014, two of these teenagers showed up at Angela’s home and ordered her to purchase them cigarettes and cider. The two girls would unleash a brutal and sustained attack on the vulnerable woman...

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞:

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Audubon:

The night of June 10 was warm, but not too much so. After days of rain, Concord, Massachusetts, wrung itself dry. The moon edged toward fullness. Rarely in need of an excuse to wander, Henry David Thoreau took it anyway. He followed Concord’s train tracks out of town and into a moonlit meadow. There, he encountered an iconic bird of the United States: the Eastern Whip-poor-will.

With their cryptic plumage and nocturnal habits, Eastern Whip-poor-wills are rarely seen, but the male’s loud, rhythmic songis hard to miss. Thoreau heard them that evening—five or six at once. A few nights later, when the moon was full, he encountered a dozen or more. “Perhaps this is the Whip-poor-will’s Moon,” he wrote in his journal in 1851.

Into the early 20th century, whip-poor-wills were sheer magic to those who inhabited their breeding range and awaited the species’ return each April and May. An important seasonal sign, the first whip-poor-will’s call signaled an end to frosts and marked the moment to plant sensitive crops, like corns and beans. Farmers let cattle out to pasture. Children knew they could play outside barefoot.

Quirkier and more personal rituals developed around their appearance. One could make a wish on his song, roll on the ground three times for a year without backpain, or shake a pocket full of coins for a year of financial success. Some people believed the repetitions of his name, which he can sing for many hours, predicted how many years they would live or, if they were unmarried, how many until they’d wed. In an article that circulated widely in 1941 and 1942, the United Press reported that an Alabama man—known to friends and family as “Uncle Rip”—waited to have one of his two annual haircuts until whip-poor-wills returned.

The whip-poor-wills’ tune was also part of the nation’s emotional landscape. To 19th century poets, whip-poor-wills might sound mournful, plaintive, and grieving. To John James Audubon, the “cheering voice” of the whip-poor-will was his “only companion” on nights alone in the woods. Others heard the sound of loneliness. When Hank Williams wanted to convey that emotion, he sang of a whip-poor-will who “sounds too blue to fly” in his often-covered 1949 classic, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

Yet in the decades since Williams belted those classic opening lines, much has changed for the whip-poor-will—and for our own relationship with the species.

While many kinds of birds are experiencing population declines, whip-poor-wills are especially vulnerable to habitat loss, pesticide use, loss of prey, car strikes, and predation. Ornithologists estimate that the Eastern Whip-poor-will population decreased by nearly 70 percent between 1970 and 2014. But their decline may have begun sooner. After World War II, agricultural and suburban development swallowed great swaths of woodlands. As early as the 1950s, writers like Knoxville News-Sentinel’s Lucy Templeton, whose “A Country Calendar” often included reports and lore about whip-poor-wills, worried over their disappearance from local landscapes.

We’ve changed, too. Many people moved away from the rural towns where they grew up amid birdsong. In the suburbs that replaced bird habitats, we homogenized landscapes with decorative plants unwelcoming to whip-poor-wills. If whip-poor-wills seemed to abandon our world, we also abandoned theirs.

To describe the human consequences of species decline, the lepidopterist Robert Michael Pyle coined the term “extinction of experience,” an ecological insight gained through his own moments of loss. 

[renardtrickster]

Because I’m a nosy old lady by nature, I cannot help but check in on the green horse man like once a month or so and yeah, it’s never surprising but it also stopped being disappointing because I guess at this point I know he’s beyond hope. It’s like he’s stuck in 2014 like most of the people who got their following from gamergate but was far too much of a neet to truly rise or fall like many others from that time but instead wallowed in his pit he dug and pissed and shit in himself.

I think what's more tragic is that he isn't quite stuck in 2014. It is true that he is a bit of a holdout because he's still posting about how feminists get mad and cry when they turn on TV and not every single female character is fat and in a burqa. I'm not saying that "anti-feminism is kind of a done topic", it is still a serious issue. It's more that the focus of contemporary discourse is more on queer rights and multiracialism, and it's kind of notable to argue "feminists are dumb because they do gender equality poorly" when nowadays the messaging is "women don't deserve rights, females are like dogs that you can have sex with". Andrew Tate type stuff. So he's 2014 in the sense that this is when his biases were formed, and so that's basically where he goes mentally when dealing with new information.

At the same time, things have advanced. The common joke is that the anti-sjws of 2016 are, at this point, either ethnonationalists or transgender furry ancoms. That's broadly true (guess where I'm at), but the dichotomy implies that becoming a full-fledged fascist is as active a decision as cutting off and going anti-fascist. I alluded to this before, but you don't need to do anything to get worse. You just need to let the water rise around you. I like to inject levity into discussions on serious topics, but I wanna be clear that the trans groomer or Haitian pet-eating thing would have been parodically extreme even in 2016, when people were still downplaying the "Mexico is sending us rapists and thieves" stuff. "They're outsiders, coming in to prey upon your women, pets, and children" is the language of genocide, and everyone giving credence to the idea that this is any way real is a knowing or unknowing stooge to fascist politicians trying to instigate a pogrom.

Which is why I say that if there's any value to checking up on him, it's in that he's in the "moderate" part of the alt-right pipeline, and as such you can kind of guess what positions have become acceptable to say out loud.

[hrodvitnon]

Abraxasverse Headcanons - Titans and Classification

Some headcanons of mine about the Abraxasverse’s monsters. ;)

1. After Godzilla’s crowning at the end of the Mass Awakening, with both Protectors and Destroyers submitting to him, Monarch needed to instigate a new Titan classification system to distinguish the “ally” Titans from new “hostile” Titans. Apart from Alpha Titans whom are their own category in this new system, the other Titans, Sub-Titans and M.U.T.O.s fall under two distinct categories:

(a) Monsters that directly acknowledge and submit to an Alpha Titan like Godzilla or Kong as their head honcho, and serve them when called. (Shall we call this category Subjects? Lord Titans? Subordinates? Thralls?) Rodan, Scylla, Methuselah, Barb, and the Hawk Monster from the Skull Island series (if it exists in Abraxasverse) would all fall under this category.

(b) Monsters that don’t answer to/won’t answer to any Alpha Titan, and strictly serve their own wants, urges and ambitions even if it brings them into direct conflict with an Alpha. Camazotz, Skullcrawlers, the 2014 Mutos, and creatures which fight to the death trying to kill Kong like the Mire Squid, and Killer Chameleons (if they exist in Abraxasverse) would all fall under this category. (Shall we call this category Rogues? Independents? Autons? Solitaries?)

2. The Titans/Sub-Titans/other M.U.T.O.s overall vary in intelligence and sentience depending upon the species:

Most to all of the “big ones” (Godzilla, Kong, Ghidorah, Rodan, Mothra, Thor, most Mass Awakening Titans) we already know are human levels of intelligent and self-aware.

But a lot of other creatures, mostly lesser M.U.T.O.s and Sub-Titans have much more primitive, basic, simple and animalistic minds - they’re just animalistically semi-sentient or non-sentient. If Abraxas or another Titan tried to communicate with a semi-sentient lesser M.U.T.O., it would only be able to understand or communicate back select things mostly related to their natural instincts and habitation and memories, and its Animal Talk would probably just be broken words and phrases rather than the fully-intelligent Titans’ complete “sentences.”

---

I dig it! “Lord Titans” sounds cool honestly, as it indicates a position of power and responsibilities that being a lord would come with, albeit from a giant monster standpoint. Rodan would love being called a Lord Titan, of course. “Rogues” seems an appropriate category for Titans who are only interested in doing their own thing. Sub-Titans having more halted communications is a good idea too, as it shows they’re still intelligent but in a more clearly animalistic way.

Man, you know the brainrot ain’t letting go anytime soon when you read “communications and airwaves [...] mindscrews” and your knee-jerk reaction is hearing the Three Note Oddity play in your mind... which I can imagine Gigan or even his followers employing for more subtle fuckery. Gigan handles the more overt and visceral radio mimicry when tormenting his prey. The members of the fleet however are fascinated by these old number stations humans used, adopting the old transmissions and adding their own subliminal subtleties to them...

Achtung, achtung...

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

Stats from Movies 801-900

Top 10 Movies - Highest Number of Votes

Thirst (2009) had the most votes with 1,097 votes. Captain Clegg (1962) had the least votes with 413 votes.

The 10 Most Watched Films by Percentage

Fright Night (1985) was the most watched film with 32.8% of voters out of 665 saying they had seen it. Zibahkhana (2007) had the least "Yes" votes with 0% of voters out of 444.

The 10 Least Watched Films by Percentage

The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) was the least watched film with 68.3% of voters out of 492 saying they hadn’t seen it. Sewing Love (2023) had the least "No" votes with 5,9% of voters out of 523.

The 10 Most Known Films by Percentage

Fright Night (1985) was the best known film, 14,6% of voters out of 665 saying they’d never heard of it.

The 10 Least Known Films by Percentage

Zibahkhana (2007) was the least known film, 93% of voters out of 444 saying they’d never heard of it.

The movies part of the statistic count and their polls below the cut.

Near Dark (1987) The Wrath (2018) The Uncanny (1977) Fright Night (1985) Zibahkhana (2007) My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1987) Willard (1971) Woman's Wail (1986) The Atticus Institute (2015) Resurrección (2016)

Nanny (2022) The Lodgers (2017) Dead Birds (2004) The Medium (2021) Captain Clegg (1962) The Flesh and the Fiends (1960) Hagazussa (2017) The Priests (2015) The Wailing (2016) The Devil's Doorway (2018)

House of Usher (1960) Shutter (2004) Without Name (2016) Lake Bodom (2017) The Axe Murders of Villisca (2016) Under the Shadow (2016) Southbound (2015) The Dybbuk (1937) The Golem (2018) Invaders from Mars (1986)

Birth/Rebirth (2023) Dave Made a Maze (2017) Await Further Instructions (2018) The Beast Must Die (1974) Imprint (2006) A Wounded Fawn (2022) The Housemaid (2016) Slash/Back (2022) Slumber Party Massacre (2021) Sissy (2022)

In The Spider's Web (2007) Maneater (2007) Stigmata (1999) Resurrection (2022) The Pale Door (2020) Jack Frost (1997) Return of the Fly (1959) She Will (2021) Spiral (2019) The Strange House (2020)

Mary Reilly (1996) The Binding (2020) 32 Malasana Street (2020) The Strange House (2015) Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight (2020) The Reaping (2007) The Moth Diaries (2011) Let Us Prey (2014) The Possession of David O'Reilly (2010) The Burrowers (2008)

Cruel Peter (2019) Sewing Love (2023) A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) Darkness Falls (2003) Night Killer (1990) Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022) Black Sunday (1960) Superhost (2021) The Puppetman (2023)

Tom at the Farm (2013) Malum (2023) Suitable Flesh (2023) The Deep House (2021) Winifred Meeks (2021) Son (2021) The Banishing (2020) Alone with You (2021) Enys Men (2022) The Unkindness of Ravens (2016)

Sennentuntschi (2010) The Queen of Spades (1949) Super Dark Times (2017) Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (1970) Life (2017) Citadel (2012) Creep (2004) Thirst (2009) The Canal (2014) A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

The Innkeepers (2011) The Sacrament (2013) Apollo 18 (2011) The Outwaters (2022) Horror in the High Desert (2021) Spring (2014) The Uninvited (2009) The Grudge (2020) The Messengers (2007) Rawhead Rex (1986)

[the-stanley-parable-roleplay]

How to avoid drama

The TSP fandom is not without its drama and cliques, which every fandom eventually crosses into.

You can avoid it and you should avoid it if you're not a part of it. It doesn't need to ruin your roleplaying experience.

You don't have to side with people, whether they're your mutuals or not. A lot of drama posts demand you interact or reblog to "prove" you're on the good side or to "spread the word" against the 'awful person' they're attacking, but more often than not, drama posts are just meant to bully people without actually protecting anyone.

Suddenly your dash is full of two sides arguing and you might even get angry anons in your inbox asking why you're siding with someone or calling you names.

Some tips to help you steer clear of it are

don't believe he said/she said posts (i.e: posts that just have statements like this person is toxic and you shouldn't write with them)

avoid call out posts. 99% you won't get all of the information anyway and if you don't know what's going on, that's all the more reasons to not get involved

block urls and tags that make you upset or uncomfortable (info below)

delete anons that try to get a rise out of you or turn off anons. You can also turn off messages and replies from non-mutuals (tumblr.com/settings/blog/yourblogurl)

don't let mutuals bully you into choosing a side. if someone demands you side with them or they will block/unfollow you, they're probably not worth keeping around

YOU ARE ALLOWED TO BLOCK AND UNFOLLOW FOR ANY REASON. YOU DON'T OWE ANYONE ANY EXPLANATIONS. PERIOD.

NO one, no matter how close they are, are allowed to make you feel uncomfortable, unsafe or insulted. If they disrespect your boundaries, they are not a good friend.

What if this person is said to be a pedophile/groomer?

If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, you can block them! But again, keep in mind that he said/she said posts are not proof. If there's concrete evidence that someone is grooming or preying on minors, that's another story.

Note: I've been roleplaying since 2014 and the only time there was a groomer warning was for a fandomless blog that only briefly interacted with TSP blogs.

How do I blacklist urls/tags?

Go to Settings → Account → Scroll down to Content You See. When you filter a post or an url, Tumblr will block that post with a warning label.

Official Tumblr Article

What if I don't like that person?

Unfollow, block, soft block, it's your choice. You don't need to help harass anyone.

I'm scared to lose my partners if I don't agree with them / I don't want to lose a friendship / My friend is more important than this stranger they dislike

In the end it's your decision but if your friend is pressuring you to side with them in an argument with the threat of losing their friendship (whether spoken or unspoken), you have to decide for yourself if that's a relationship worth keeping around.

Especially since a) there's no telling if this will be the last time they demand this from you and b) they might turn on you if they decide you did something wrong.

This person writes problematic content / has a rude or hateful OC / tried to kill my character / has fucked up plots / uses a face claim I don't like / writes for a fandom I dont like / writes toxic or abusive ships / etc.

Absolutely none of these give you the greenlight to bully someone or help others bully them. You control your own experience. If you don't like a character, don't interact with them. If you don't like a plot, tell your partner you want to write another one. Something they write triggers you? Blacklist the tag or unfollow.

You are not a knight in shining armor if you get upset at something and decide to try and harass someone off the platform.

Roleplaying is fiction. None of these plots affect any real life people. If it triggers you, you can take the necessary steps to prevent yourself from seeing it.

[himi-wiz]

Hehe

Chuuya for bingo! <3

(And Dazai, if you want to.)

YOU. YOU HAD TO HUH.

Definitely don't know you anon. And therefore I can lie about it but here we go:

Dazai —

Interesting lad in the most atrocious manner possible. Admittedly I still needed to read the novels but I think Dazai is an odd character which I've never quite gotten completely even from the start of my initial bsd phase at 2014-2015. Now I'm as old as him (which is bizarre to think about) and I get what's going on, I still don't think I'll ever quite grasp what's in his head. He has this apathy and intelligence I will never take hold of as someone who understands that I am extremely an ordinary individual and chooses to remain so — being oblivious and normal — for fear that I would turn out to be as isolated as he is.

I think it's terrifying.

To be too smart and think too much of yourself, to realise you're never going to be normal for you will always reason a way out of your greatest passions and your worst nightmares. And therefore you never truly fear anything nor could you truly love something wholeheartedly either. How could you when you can't trust in anything?

I am fond of the irl author, Mr. Dazai Osamu's dedication to his work of No Longer Human which I did read through ages ago and encounter some memorable quotes. But it's only rather recently I was able to fully comprehend the sheer terror it brings as the protagonist Yozo elaborates on the despair of understanding one's role in life is inevitably meaningless, akin to an insect realising its doom to fall prey to fate in a web full of lies.

Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.

— No Longer Human, Dazai Ozamu

And I only have pity for such a being that is unable to unlearn that despair or at the very least, be able to stop, condense and move forward with these thoughts and live with them.

Our BSD Dazai however is given a chance to do so unlike Yozo thanks to Odasaku and it brings a fond affection to see him trying his best. I hope he does find his way and learns to enjoy the difficult journey stumbling around in life. But at the same time, it'll be foolish of me to presume just because he's moving towards the light, Dazai's darkness and general sense of dissatisfaction with people and life would change.

Dazai is not kind, he is not gentle, he's inconsiderate, deplorable, utterly wretched nuisance of a man who can and will use you if he decides it's worthwhile for him to do so, otherwise he has little interest in you even if he can sees through all your struggles and how he could help you, he wouldn't, certainly not intuitively desire so.

And I much prefer that viewpoint for it's more remarkable that Dazai is choosing when he does good. And how he's actively trying to be the side that reaches out to someone else and be there for them. To let himself be tied to people he feels isolated from and be vulnerable enough to take bets and place his trust on the Armed Detective Agency (and Chuuya and Akutagawa) so he could save lives he honestly doesn't care much for. How fascinating.

And so when fans do brush that darkness aside, I can be mildly peeved. But hey, it's still valid and okay to have some fun with just comfort and softness of just wishing happiness for a character you like. It can hard to decipher these layers if you don't know where to look too. Or perhaps am I reading too deep into this? Who knows. Asagiri sure has a way of writing nuances like these and it's so delightful to unpack them.

I still don't understand Dazai on a fundamental level.

That is more of my fault as I am someone who both emotionally and socially impaired so much that I use myself as a medium to "empathise" with people. I merely mimick emotions — like I don't feel sad if someone lost a loved one, I 'force' myself to feel bad if I am that person, I play out the scenario of losing something precious to me and I take that sadness to apply it to the person.

That's how I can predict people well enough, aside from those who are far too passionate in an ideal or passion I can't understand like Kunikida, those who learn to hate everything, and those who comprehend the reasons why they hate and shift to a complete apathy, able to pinpoint all the ways they're wrong — ways they don't fit, they aren't human enough, but are ultimately far too timid and cowardly to work on why they are outsiders and maintain a distance for it's far safer this way.

Dazai is still that person who's terrified of attachment and rejection, still struggling to believe in people more than he trusts his mind and vision of the world around him. And he appears to be doing his best, so perhaps I would fall in love with his character a little more when I finish rereading No Longer Human, the dark era stuff and other bsd side stories.

For now let's see how he'll end up.

Chuuya—

I refuse to elaborate on him.

Suffer anon.

[sarahlancashire]

i'm watching midsomer murders & it's really fucking long

PILOT (1997): (1) the killings at badger's drift

SERIES ONE (1998):

(2) 1.01: written in blood (3) 1.02: death of a hollow man (4) 1.03: faithful unto death(5) 1.04: death in disguise

SERIES TWO (1999):

(6) 2.01: death's shadow (7) 2.02: strangler's wood (8) 2.03: dead man's eleven(9) 2.04: blood will out

SERIES THREE (1999 – 2000):

(10) 3.01: death of a stranger (11) 3.02: blue herrings (12) 3.03: judgement day(13) 3.04: beyond the grave

SERIES FOUR (2000 – 2001):

(14) 4.01: garden of death (15) 4.02: destroying angel (16) 4.03: the electric vendetta (17) 4.04: who killed cock robin? (18) 4.05: dark autumn(19) 4.06: tainted fruit

SERIES FIVE (2002):

(20) 5.01: market for murder (21) 5.02: a worm in the bud (22) 5.03: ring out your dead(23) 5.04: murder on st. malley's day

SERIES SIX (2003):

(24) 6.01: a talent for life (25) 6.02: death and dreams (26) 6.03: painted in blood (27) 6.04: a tale of two hamlets(28) 6.05: birds of prey

SERIES SEVEN (2003 – 2004):

(29) 7.01: the green man (gavin troy leaves!) (30) 7.02: bad tidings (dan scott arrives!) (31) 7.03: the fisher king (32) 7.04: sins of commission (33) 7.05: the maid in splendour (34) 7.06: the straw woman(35) 7.07: ghosts of christmas past

SERIES EIGHT (2004 – 2005):

(36) 8.01: things that go bump in the night (37) 8.02: dead in the water (38) 8.03: orchis fatalis (39) 8.04: bantling boy (40) 8.05: second sight (41) 8.06: hidden depths (42) 8.07: sauce for the goose(43) 8.08: midsomer rhapsody (dan scott leaves!)

SERIES NINE (2005 – 2006):

(44) 9.01: the house in the woods (ben jones arrives!) (45) 9.02: dead letters (46) 9.03: vixen's run (47) 9.04: down among the dead men (48) 9.05: four funerals and a wedding (49) 9.06: country matters (50) 9.07: death in chorus(51) 9.08: last year's model

SERIES TEN (2006 – 2008):

(52) 10.01: dance with the dead (53) 10.02: the animal within (54) 10.03: king's crystal (55) 10.04: the axeman cometh (simon dixon arrives!) (56) 10.05: death and dust (57) 10.06: picture of innocence (58) 10.07: they seek him here (59) 10.08: death in a chocolate box

SERIES ELEVEN (2008 – 2010):

(60) 11.01: shot at dawn (61) 11.02: blood wedding (simon dixon leaves!) (62) 11.03: left for dead (63) 11.04: midsomer life (64) 11.05: the magician's nephew (65) 11.06: days of misrule (66) 11.07: talking to the dead (aired between s12 & s13)

SERIES TWELVE (2009 – 2010):

(67) 12.01: the dogleg murders (68) 12.02: secrets and spies (69) 12.03: the black book (70) 12.04: the glitch (71) 12.05: small mercies (72) 12.06: the creeper (73) 12.07: the great and the good

SERIES THIRTEEN (2010 – 2011):

(74) 13.01: the made-to-measure murders (75) 13.02: the sword of guillaume (john barnaby arrives!) (76) 13.03: blood on the saddle (77) 13.04: the silent land (78) 13.05: master class (79) 13.06: the noble art (80) 13.07: not in my back yard (81) 13.08: fit for murder (tom barnaby leaves! also joyce & cully barnaby, gail stephens!)

SERIES FOURTEEN (2011 – 2012):

(82) 14.01: death in the slow lane (sykes the dog arrives!) (83) 14.02: dark secrets (sarah barnaby arrives!) (84) 14.03: echoes of the dead (85) 14.04: the oblong murders (george bullard leaves!) (86) 14.05: the sleeper under the hill (kate wilding arrives!) (87) 14.06: the night of the stag (88) 14.07: a sacred trust (89) 14.08: a rare bird

SERIES FIFTEEN (2012 – 2013):

(90) 15.01: the dark rider (91) 15.02: murder of innocence (92) 15.03: written in the stars (93) 15.04: death and the divas (94) 15.05: the sicilian defence (95) 15.06: schooled in murder (ben jones leaves!)

SERIES SIXTEEN (2013 – 2014):

(96) 16.01: the christmas haunting (charlie nelson arrives!) (97) 16.02: let us prey (98) 16.03: wild harvest (99) 16.04: the flying club (100) 16.05: the killings of copenhagen (betty barnaby arrives!)

SERIES SEVENTEEN (2015):

(101) 17.01: the dagger club (102) 17.02: murder by magic (103) 17.03: the ballad of midsomer county (104) 17.04: a vintage murder (kate wilding leaves!)

SERIES EIGHTEEN (2016):

(105) 18.01: habeas corpus (kam karimore arrives!) (106) 18.02: the incident at cooper hill (107) 18.03: breaking the chain (108) 18.04: a dying art (109) 18.05: saints and sinners (110) 18.06: harvest of souls (charlie nelson & sykes the dog leave!)

SERIES NINETEEN (2016 – 2018):

(111) 19.01: the village that rose from the dead (jamie winter & paddy the dog arrive!) (112) 19.02: crime and punishment (113) 19.03: last man out (114) 19.04: red in tooth & claw (115) 19.05: death by persuasion (116) 19.06: the curse of the ninth (kam karimore leaves!)

SERIES TWENTY (2019 – 2020):

(117) 20.01: the ghost of causton abbey (fleur perkins arrives!) (118) 20.02: death of the small coppers (119) 20.03: drawing dead (120) 20.04: the lions of causton (121) 20.05: till death do us part (122) 20.06: send in the clowns

SERIES TWENTY-ONE (2020 – 2021):

(123) 21.01: the point of balance (124) 21.02: the miniature murders (125) 21.03: the sting of death (126) 21.04: with baited breath

SERIES TWENTY-TWO (2021 – 2023):

(127) 22.01: the wolf hunter of little worthy (128) 22.02: the stitcher society (129) 22.03: happy families (130) 22.04: the scarecrow murders (131) 22.05: for death prepare (132) 22.06: the witches of angel’s rise

SERIES TWENTY-THREE (2024):

(133) 23.01: the blacktrees prophecy (134) 23.02: the debt of lies (135) 23.03: a grain of truth (136) 23.04: dressed to kill

SERIES TWENTY-FOUR (2024):

(137) 24.01: the devil's work (138) 24.02: book of the dead (139) 24.03: claws out (140) 24.04: climate of death

[eljackinton]

A freewheeling pitch for a System Shock style successor to Alien Isolation.

Alien Isolation is a game that's been stuck in my head for a very long time. I bought the game at launch in 2014 but never finished it because it was too scary. It's only going back a few weeks ago to finally do it that I managed to banish the old ghost. Nonetheless the pitch perfect visual designs harkening back to the 1979 original as well as the perfect adaption of that film's tension to it's core mechanics have cemented the game with a legendary status that it rightfully deserves.

This has left many over the years questioning the lack of a sequel, and yet when actually pondering this question it's answer is immediately apparent. Escalation. How do you escalate a game whose tension was already wound as perfectly tight as it needed to be? Empower the player too much and you ruin the tension, empower the alien too much and you make the game frustrating.

Far better to leave the game untouched. It's own solitary island in the Alien franchise history.

Anyway here's how I'd do a successor.

Note that I said 'successor.' This is not a pitch for a sequel, semi-sequel or even a spiritual successor. This is a pitch for a game that takes the same relative premise as Isolation but zigs where the previous game zagged. While my pitch takes a hearty dose of inspiration from Isolation, it also harkens to one of it's older predecessors, System Shock, and by extensions Shock's own 2016 successor Prey.

This is just going to be a bit of a freewheeling ramble to explain an idea in my head. A sort of pitch as to how the experience would unfold, but to be clear from the start, here's what ideas and concepts that we will be carrying over from Isolation:

- The plot takes place on single, isolated space station, it's downfall being told through audio logs.

- The hunting Alien that triggers an instant kill if it reaches you.

- The complete dedication to a retro-future aesthetic. While it won't be 1:1 the style of Isolation, it will share a great deal of similarity in it's low-tech future depiction.

- The Working Joes.

Other than that, the differences will become apparent as you continue to read this pitch. So what I'd like you to do is sit back, imagine you've just booted this game up on your console or PC, the distorted 20th Century Studios fanfare plays, and you begin the game.

Intro

Our opening cinematic begins our storyline. Our point of view, player character and protagonist is the daughter of a wealthy CEO of a pharmaceutical company. She has been diagnosed with an incurable future disease. Doing all he can do, The Father puts The Daughter into cryo, in order to have her transferred to his brand new, state of the art medical space facility out in the heart of the colonies. With a promise that one day he will see her again, The Father puts us to sleep, and the game begins.

Tutorial Prologue

The Daughter awakens from her pod to the sound of emergency sirens and flashing hazard lights. All around her is devastation and chaos. We are confused, with no explanation to the scene in front of us. Quickly, we hear a voice from a nearby speaker. Making our way over to a medical desk, we pick up a headset and are greeted by our first friendly voice. We'll call them Mission Control.

Mission Control tells us that he has no time to explain, but numerous hostile beings will be approaching shortly and if we want to live we'd better damn well follow his instructions. Swiftly we run to hide as a Working Joe, dressed in medical scrubs and covered with blood comes to inspect the scene. He expresses confusion that the 'priority patient' is unaccounted for.

Following Mission Control's instructions we sneak our way out. He tells us that the cryo wing is currently under lockdown and he won't be granted the authority to let us out until the 'hostile contaminant' is dealt with. He guides us through the corridors, avoiding Joes and catching glimpses of something sneaking its way around the vents. Once we start to assemble our inventory, a hacking tool, wrench, blowtorch, the creature then reveals itself.

Our first Xeno encounter will be of a Runner Xenomorph, of Alien 3 fame. Fast, but weaker than their larger brethren, we use our guile and cunning to evade it's grasp (though no doubt screw up and die a few times) building noise-makers and whatnot to draw them away. Mission Control confirms that it can be killed, but it'll need to be weakened first. Following his instructions, we find components to build a pipe bomb and obtain a slug shooting heavy pistol.

Eventually we head out to the cryo wing's reception area. Following more of Mission Control's instructions, we set a trap, putting down the pipe bomb and throwing a noise-maker. If done correctly, the explosion stuns and weakens The Runner, giving us a window to bring it down with the pistol. However, it still takes some putting down, with nearly all of the ammo we have collected so far required to kill the thing. After it's death, Mission Control requests that we obtain a nearby 'sample extractor' device, to preserve some of the creature's biomatter, which will become useful later.

At that, he lifts the lockdown, and allows us to enter the greater part of the station.

Act One

The game opens up proper as we enter out into the station's foyer. It's a big, grand entryway that reveals how prestigious the station was in it's prime. Huge glass windows look out over the planet the station orbits, very much invoking the opening of Prey. Our respite is brief, however, as a patrol of Weyland-Yutani combat synths start paroling the floor. We've seen these guys before, in Aliens Fireteam Elite. They're armed, and one or two shots will kill us outright, so Mission Control tells us to sneak past  them, since we're also low on resources after having taken on the Runner.

We make out way to a great glass elevator which Mission Control has sent down. We ride it up to the station's secure command centre. It's a huge spherical vault accessible only from a single walkway. Part panic room, part security office, part personal lab, part emergency habitation, the command centre is the one place in the station totally secure from both the aliens and the synths.

We meet Mission Control in person. He's a maimed young man in a wheelchair, acid burns revealing that he likely lost those limbs taking on one of the Xenos. He greets The Daughter, who impatiently demands an explanation as to what is going on. He fills us in on what has transpired since The Daughter went into cryo.

The Father began his search for the cure with great optimism, funded on the back of his state of the art medical station bringing healthcare to the colonies. However, after an attempt at an operation performed by an expert doctor failed, his behaviour became more and more erratic, leading to a bad series of business decisions that began the downfall of the station, like replacing a lot of the orderlies and staff with budget Seegson androids.

Getting ever more desperate, The Father was offered a deal by Weyland-Yutani, who needed specialised lab space for the research of 'exotic biomaterials,' some of which might help result in a cure. The Father sold off part of the station to them, but over time their demands would start to get higher and higher. Eager for a solution, he let them take over more of the station, as well as help themselves to 'test subjects' from the patients.

Eventually The Father figured that there was no cure forthcoming, and that W-Y had been stringing him along. When he confronted them, however, it was far too late, as whatever they had been doing resulted in an outbreak of deadly life forms. W-Y locked down their own labs, overrode the Working Joes, and sent their Synths to protect their assets, and most of the station was wiped out by the aliens or the synths.

Mission Control, a menial worker and union rep, managed to round up a few survivors and flee to the command centre, where he intended to lift the lockdown and broadcast a distress call. The Father didn't trust MU-TH-UR computer cores, so instead the command centre was designed to be a human operating system for the station. However, it was also locked to his own bio-signature, with only minimal functions to everyone else.

Mission Control figured the only way off the station would be for him to unfreeze The Daughter and guide her to the command centre, using her bio-signature to unlock greater functionality. He apologies that she doesn't have long to live, but that she is their only chance to get off the station.

Naturally The Daughter begrudgingly agrees to help, and with a drop of blood unlocks the command centre's functions. W-Y however, have sabotaged the distress beacon, and so our first order of business is to go about the station, building up our arsenal and going through a series of convoluted quest-lines to lift the lockdown on the W-Y labs and reactivate the beacon.

To go about this, the command centre introduces two critical gameplay mechanics:

1) Station control. While she is unable to activate the beacon, The Daughter can control pretty much every other aspect of the station. However, there is not enough power to have everything running at once, so she can delegate 'power points' to various wings to aid her in her quest and mitigate threats. This involves things like activating security defences that can kill synths and repel xenos. Power up health stations. Deactivate the Joes or turn them to her side. Unlock all doors to bypass hacking. She can also turn off the lights, which makes her harder to detect by synths but makes being hunted by xenos more dangerous.

From the station control map she can also see which wings currently have a roaming Xeno. To begin with there are only a limited number of Xenos on the ship and once they're eliminated they stay dead. However they can roam from one wing to another, so The Daughter can spend power points to 'lock down' certain wings, keeping the xenos from roaming. The reactor is also permanently locked down to start, as we suspect that it contains a hive that could spawn more Xenos across the ship.

2) Research Lab. I always loved the research aspect of System Shock 2 and felt that it's semi-revival in Bioshock and Prey was too watered down. Upon killing a Xeno we can harvest biomaterials from it, and use that to research better weapons and equipment. This takes time, however, so once a research has started we'll have to go off and do some side-quests for a bit. This serves as a sort of tech-tree, allowing us to increase  the damage of our weapons, resist harm and improve stealth, however, there are only a limited number of Xenos, meaning we won't have bio-material for every upgrade, players will have to chose which ones suit their style best.

Hopefully by now this should be giving you an indicator of how the core gameplay will go. We'll have multiple objectives across the station that players can complete in any order, and freedom to roam most of the wings. Threats are deadly, but beatable, but resources scarce. Players will be using the environment as much as their arsenal, leading combat synths into electrocuted floors, or luring Xenos into industrial crushers, for example.

Taking on the alien will be a challenge not to be taken lightly, and one that players will need to embark upon with great care. Doing so is optional, but required if you want those precious upgrades. Think of them like the big daddy fights in Bioshock, but rarer and much more difficult. I also envision a few different xeno variants roaming the halls. A spitter that can attack at range if it's not close enough for a charge, a chameleon alien that can blend into the scenery, and of course a health dose of the deadly drones.

Act 2

After doing a bunch of busywork and helping survivors around the station, as well as finding out about more of the backstory in detail from terminals and audio logs, we'll finally get the chance to access the W-Y labs. Surprising nobody we'll find out that they've been breeding Xenos, but what we also find there in a large hanger is an intact Engineer ship (cue Prometheus soundtrack sting.)

It turn out that W-Y had obtained an Engineer ship fully stocked with Xeno eggs and needed a secure location to study it. We also learn that the ship had two occupants in stasis, one of which was infected with a chest-burster.

By this point in the game we will have gotten quite proficient at taking on the aliens, so act 2 goes on to introduce two new threats. Firstly, roaming the W-Y labs and later the station as a whole is an imposing Engineer. He's not immediately hostile, instead staring at us menacingly from a distance. However, if we get too close, attack him, or interfere with his unknown goal he will immediately charge us and break our neck. He cannot be killed, but he can, however, kill other Xenos, and luring one to him to get pummelled is one of the possible solutions to taking them out.

However, we now also get the other new addition. A massive Engineer Xenomorph (based on the Ultramoprh concept from Alien: Engineers). This creature serves much the same role as The Nightmare did in Prey. It can't be killed, acting more like the alien from Isolation, and it can come from anywhere, but it will only roam for a limited time, so best you can do is hide or try and evade it.

As we explore the W-Y labs, The Daughter will begin to wonder why her health isn't deteriorating, and, in fact, is only getting stronger. Up until this point we'll maybe drop in some red herrings that W-Y might have implanted alien DNA in her, sort of like Clone Ripley from Resurrection, but that was dumb then and it'd be dumb here. In actuality we will discover that The Father's initial operation was actually successful, but, wanting access to the station and needing to keep The Father in dire straits, W-Y secretly killed the lead surgeon and replaced him with a synthetic duplicate, lying to him that The Daughter was still terminally ill when in fact she had been cured the whole time.

While The Daughter has now accessed the labs, reverting W-Y's sabotage of the distress beacon, she now has a new goal to undertake while they await rescue, tracking down the details of her operation and finding the cure, knowing that if she can bring the details to light many other lives might be saved.

Act 3

With a distress call sent it's time to start wrapping up our affairs, filling out our arsenal and finishing off any remaining roaming aliens. While the Xenos will still be a big threat, they'll be much more manageable at this stage of the game with better gear and skills researched. The Engineer and Ultramorph will still be roaming the station though, so we'll need to evade them if we can.

After travelling around the station looking for clues and the eventual location of data regarding The Daughter's operation (could be randomised, or always the last potential location you look,) we eventually have to go to the office of the former security chief to acknowledge a response to our distress signal. One unique alien spawns to pursue you to the office (maybe for security reasons The Daughter won't be allowed to enter the security wing with weapons, like the Apollo Core in Isolation).

With the xeno in hot pursuit, we make it to the office, to discover a lockbox containing a pulse rifle with a single magazine of ammo. We use this to execute the Xeno with ease. However, most of the ammo will have been used to take it down. There'll only be enough left for a very brief further use.

Mission Control confirms that a unit of Colonial Marines has responded to their signal, but there's a problem with the hanger that they're trying to board. Making our way to the hanger, we find that it has become a battleground between the Engineer and The Ultramorph, and the chaos they are causing is preventing the hanger from functioning.

With some sneaking around required to not get killed in the ensuing melee, we repair the airlock and door functions and, ending two threats in one go, eject both the aliens in to space. Shortly afterwards the Marines arrive, revealed to be the same unit that appear in Fireteam Elite as a nice little cameo. They start evacuating the survivors, but tell us that their scans reveal that an alien hive has been constructed at the base of the station beneath the reactor core.

Since it is the Marines duty to never leave a threat unresolved, so they prep to head to the core with a bomb to destroy the station and make sure no Xenos escape. While we might want to just leave, the unique status of the station means that The Daughter will have to go with the Marines to the core, as the stations system will only accept her request to lift it's permanent lockdown.

Finale

Seeing as she clearly now knows how to look after herself, the Marines kit The Daughter out with weapons and armour. With this new upgrade, all our previous weapons pale in comparison. Our pistol and shotgun are replaced with a fully stocked pulse rifle. Home made pipe bombs and EMPs are replaced with grenades and shock lances. Our acid resistance increases tenfold, and if a Xeno engages us in melee we will have now a short window to hit a few keys to push the thing back.

The game has, for it's brief few moments, now become a power fantasy after hours of hiding and stalking. The Daughter lifts the reactor's lockdown, and with the Marines we descend into the hive. We now do battle with hundreds of Xenos, but with better weapons and squamates at our side, we can hold back the tide.

For the final challenge in the game, you and the squad must defend the bomb being prepared at the base of the reactor, first fighting off waves of Xenos, before eventually drawing the ire of the Queen. The Queen can't be killed, but she can be stunned, so it's up to you to keep her distracted and lead her on a chase while the Marines finish their prep.

With the bomb set, The Daughter and the Marines charge desperately back through the halls of the station, Xenos and Queen in pursuit, as they run back to the dropship. They make it at the final moments, and then launch, left to watch the station erupt in an atomic explosion. In the final cutscene, Mission Control contacts The Daughter on the radio, asking her what she's going to do with her new life, pulling out the data package from her pocket, she notes that only one threat has been ended, but there are still many more lives that need to be saved.

Roll credits

So there you have it. Obviously the game would be compared unfavourably to Isolation, given that it cribs it's core premise from it, and I think a lot of people will find contention in the inclusion of more action orientated elements, especially the ending, but ultimately I think doing a game where the player escalates from a helpless victim to a gun toting badass would be an interesting take on the genre. A sort of truncated version of Ripley's evolution from the start of Alien to taking on the Queen at the end of Aliens, but explored through game mechanics.

There's a few other ideas that I spitballed that I liked the sound of but couldn't really fit into the pitch. I toyed with the idea of being able to send other survivors on their own mini-missions with some instances putting you in a Mass Effect 1 situation where we are forced to chose who to sacrifice, but it'd probably overcomplicate a game that's going for the lone survivor System Shock vibes.

Likewise, I liked the idea that the Union of Progressive Peoples and a squad of W-Y Mercs would board the station, each looking to get their hands on Xeno samples, with you being given the option to help or hinder them, resulting in multiple endings, but I thought this would be overcomplicating a story that would be best kept as lean as possible.

So what do you think? Do you think drawing too much on Isolation would invite unfair comparison? Do you think more action elements like the finale with the Marines needs to be dialled back. Should the elements taken from Prometheus just be left well alone? Let me know if you have thoughts, I'm always happy to chat.

[man-made-misery]

*crashes through the ceiling* Good evening, dear! 💜 I need to ask now: what are your favourite horror movies? 💜

I could literally go on about horror movies forever so I've tried to keep this short or it could be a whole essay haha

-Suspiria (2018) but I don't need to tell you about how great it is 😈

-As Above so Below (2014)

-The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

-the V/H/S series, but especially V/H/S 99 (2022)

-Impetigore (2019), maybe my favourite horror ever? So so underrated and so creepy. it's in Indonesian but definitley worth it if you can find a subtitled version

- Gaia (2021), also so worth watching if you can find subtitles. It doesn't have great reviews which is sad, but if you like the last of us or environmental-based horror I'd definitely reccomend it

- Let Us Prey (2014) also super underrated! I watched it about 5 years ago and still can't get it out of my head

💜💜💜