#The new series also just got removed from streaming on Crave at the start of January so I assume it's moving to Disney soon

[elenatria]

Ok, so before I sleep I have something to say. Thanks to you I have been sucked in the Valoris ship and not only can't get out but also come up with head canons so here is one: How do you imagine Boris(from the series) reacted when the news of Valery's (from the series)death reached him?

Took me long enough to answer that one, didn’t it?…  Sigh. Hopefully I’m not off topic. Here it is.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349599/chapters/47025865

Here.

Here and now.

Boris squeezed one last time the jagged piece of metalthat was getting slippery with sweat between his thumb and index finger. As ifwaking from a trance he shifted his eyes from one end of the half-lit corridorto the other like a burglar weighing his chances; he had been standingmotionless in front of that door for a good five minutes.

Too long.

Inga is waiting.

Taking a sharp breath in he wondered if there was a pointin carrying on with his plan.

Gubarev said “there must have been a tape foryou”. Not “there is”. Valery had “hinted at it” but what did that even mean?What did Valery say? He should have asked Vladimir his exact words but it wastoo late now, the journalist was long gone and Inga was probably freezing, mewingher lungs out in his trunk. He shouldn’t leave her waiting, he reckoned, lockedin the car just because he was too eager to find Valery’s gift on that sameday. She was only a cat.

Another gulp of air, another squeeze of the key. Heclutched his eyes shut.

What if it’s not there? What if the police, the KGBfound it already? What if they heard Gubarev’s tapes and solved the riddlebefore me?

What if I’m here to waste the next three hours of mylife, whatever life is left of me, searching for something that doesn’t exist?Something I wasn’t bound to find?

“B’s gift.”

What did that even mean?

It meant nothing, they never exchanged gifts whenValery was alive, when they still had time.

Time - the one thing Boris always took for granted,the one commodity his high position in the Party couldn’t grant him. And that fuckingnerd was never the sentimental type, never accepted his presents. Besides hedied on him, didn’t he? No second thoughts, no consequences, no Boris. He nevergave a fuck.

“B’s gift.” What a joke. Time was the only giftI wanted from you, Valery, and it was the one thing you couldn’t give me.

You bastard. How could you leave me behind, howcould you—

Boris tightened his fist around the key letting its metalteeth sink into his flesh. The sharp stinging brought him back to reality, backto rational thinking. Back to standing in front of a closed door.

I didn’t leave you behind, Boris. I had no choice.

He snapped his eyes open. There it was again, angergiving way to guilt.

But there was no time for regret.

Inga was freezing. Inga was waiting. Inga was only acat.

Valery was dead but Inga was alive.

He pushed the key into the lock and turned. With one briskclick the door creaked open into the dark apartment.

The smell of mould and dust hit his nostrils like theitch of an old wound, like a long-forgotten memory. He had never been therebefore yet the scent of old furniture felt eerily familiar. Maybe if he openedthe shutters a stream of pale November light would rid this place of its glum otherworldlyair but he didn’t want to make his presence known to people on the street.

Another lie.

It was the thought of sunlight entering this place, thistomb, that he hated the most. The specks of dust dancing in the frozen air,the rustling of feathers coming through the open window… it was all about life.It would feel as if nothing had changed, as if life went on.

But it didn’t.

Not for Valery, not for him.

He tossed his leather gloves on the telephone desk. Ashe took off his ushanka hat to put it on the hanger he caught a glimpse of hisreflection in the mirror above the desk.

Was that really him? The Deputy Minister sent toChernobyl two and a half years ago who would yell at both his superiors and hissubordinates with equal fervour?

Those weren’t his eyes anymore - they were worn,tired, heavy. He had lost weight, he was missing colour from his cheeks. But itcouldn’t be that bad, could it? He probably didn’t look half as bad as Valerydid on the day he took his own life. Maybe Valery had gazed at this very mirrorminutes before tightening the noose around his neck. Maybe he saw exactly whatBoris was seeing now: a pair of vacant eyes looking back at him, filled with amillion accusations, a million regrets.

You didn’t do enough.

All those people, all the innocent lives you sent totheir graves—

and then the one who mattered most.

You did nothing.

He shook the morbid thought away. He had wished athousand times to be with Valery that fateful day, any day. He had wishedhe wasn’t a coward.

And die for me because of a visit? he almost heard afamiliar whisper in the shadows, vibrant and secure. Have me read about yourdeath in the papers? Wouldn’t they love that, Boris. Wouldn’t they gloat overmy despair. “He fell from the stairs of his own house.” “He slipped on snow.” “Hemistook rat poison for salt.” “He died in his sleep because of a gas leak.” Athousand imaginative ways to die in the hands of the KGB, a thousand convenientdeaths to break my heart. And what would I get? A cheap watch instead of amedal. A faceless article instead of a call from your family announcing yourdeath to me. You would have done them a great service had you come here. Andyou still think you should have done it? How magnanimous of you, Boris. Howgloriously naive.

(shut up you’re not here you’re not me you don’t knowwhat it’s like--)

Boris almost collapsed, his pale forehead against thedoor casing being the only thing that kept him still and standing. When the voicecreeped back into the walls he forced his eyes open and squinted around atsilhouettes of objects he still couldn’t discern.

There should be a switch somewhere, he thought, thereshould be some light. Had to be.

How he craved for it now.

He fumbled in the dark for the small plastic square onthe wall like a castaway desperate for a float.

A click and there it was, the sickly light of a lightbulbgiving colours and names to what were shapeless shadows a second before.

“Hesaid he had hidden something for you in the kitchen, ‘B’s gift’ he calledit.”

Toocryptic. But of course. He didn’t want them to find out.

Borispeered through the corridor. The door at the end of it had been lefthalf-opened revealing a kettle on the stove and a used towel hanging from adrawer under the sink. He dragged his steps across the hallway, his eyes fixed onthe opposite wall, on the kettle and the cracked white tiles behind it.

Enteringthe kitchen he realized there was not enough light for his search – and yet he couldn’tstand another bulb hanging above his head faking daytime. He walked around the tablestaring numbly at the tape recorder on it and the ashtray where someone hadleft his final cigarette butts. Laika smokes and their familiar scent.

Hisscent.

Borisopened the window and blinked painfully as the hard white light engulfed him. Thebanging of shutters against the wall startled a couple of pigeons on the ledge causingthem to flutter away.

Heleaned out in the fresh air.

Valery’sapartment was on the fourth floor so he could have easily jumped from there,give his life an instant merciful ending. But it would have been messy,wouldn’t it? It would have alerted the KGB right away. Perhaps he wanted togive Gubarev time to learn about his death from neighbours and find his tapes.

Perhapshe didn’t want to make this public, his death was only meant for those whoknew. Those he blamed.

Borisslammed his fists on the ledge. Squeezing his lips shut he turned back to thekitchen.

B’sgift, B’s gift, B’s gift. He should start somewhere.

Hedragged the drawers open with a clang, pulled them out, emptied their contentson the floor. He pulled the dishes out of the cupboards one by one, stacking bythe sink the ones that escaped his feverish haste, kicking on the side the onesthat got smashed in the process. He emptied every pot, every box big enough tocontain a tape. He removed the strainer from the sink and shoved a hook madeout of a hanger down its depths only to bring up black pulp of rotten food andgreasy strands of red hair. He folded those in a table napkin, carefully pattedthem dry and hid them in his pocket.

After an hour of turning the kitchen upsidedown he was aching from head to toe. He wasn’t a young man anymore; he wasn’t ahealthy man. He collapsed on the chair, his chest heaving as he leaned on thetable, resigned, defeated.  There was notone tile on the floor he hadn’t checked, one rug he hadn’t flipped, onecookbook he hadn’t opened in hopes of finding its pages torn and replaced bysomething as small as a tape. He had emptied the cupboards in search of falsebacks. He had traced the inside of the cooker hood, the vent, but those werethe first things any agent would search.

Therewas no hope. There was no tape addressed to him. There never was.

Hishand lay lifeless on the table next to the ashtray. Unconsciously he traced theflower-shaped edge of the cool brown crystal. He fiddled with the butts andrubbed his fingers together, watching idly the ash fall on his lap. He was solost in the deep blackness of his mind that he barely noticed the buzzingintruder flying through the open window.

Theunlikely visitor landed on the back of his hand tickling his skin. Its yellowand black stripes looked so out of place on such a cold day that broke him outof his haze.

Borislifted his hand to take a closer look at the frail lifeform.

“Whatare you doing here?” he mumbled, his eyes watering at the sight of a creatureso fragile and beautiful. “Aren’t you supposed to be hibernating or something?Protecting your queen from the cold? Who brought you here to die?”

Heturned his hand to get a closer look at the insect’s transparent wings.

“You’re doomed away from your hive, you know, awayfrom your queen. You weren’t supposed to be here at all. You were supposed towork, you were supposed to live.”

Thethought of the bee’s fate made him numb.

Heknew he couldn’t protect it, he could only watch it die slowly or let it go. Forgetit ever existed.

Hejust didn’t know which was worse.

“Youmust be hungry,” he muttered, “but there’s no sugar in this apartment, Idropped it all in the sink. Maybe there’s —”

Hislast words dissolved in his drying mouth. He got up slowly like a somnambulist,mesmerized by the insect’s yellow and black stripes.

Heknew now.

Gubarevnever said “Boris’ gift”. He said B’s gift.

Bee’sgift.

Andbees have only one gift to give.

Howcould he ever think it was about him. How selfish, how blind he had been allthis time. It was a riddle. Something the KGB would never suspect, cynicalbastards that they were.

Borisplaced his palm next to the sink letting the bee fly off and then franticallyturned to the cupboard next to the vent. There was one jar left, one jar hehadn’t checked because it was filled with a substance so inconspicuous and denseand sticky nothing could be preserved in it without being ruined.

Heopened the cupboard and grabbed the honey jar. It was big enough. It wastransparent yet dense enough. No one would have guessed.

You’rea genius, Valery. You’re a fucking genius.

Heunscrewed the lid and let the honey drip into the sink.

Thereit was, a heat-sealed bag and a tape with a red cover in it.

There.It. Was.

Heturned on the tap and rinsed the precious find carefully making surethere were no holes on the plastic to let water in. He wiped it with the toweland ripped it open until the tape was safe and dry in his palm. With shakyhands he took it out of the case, turned to the table, pressed the ejectbutton and shoved the tape in.

Click.  

Manyseconds dragged by without a single word coming from the recorder.

(hesitance)

Howunlike Valery. He was never afraid to speak his mind, never had second thoughtsabout it. But he was at a loss of words whenever Boris was being a bit too bold,whenever he took their relationship one step further. Valery would turn into alost puppy each time Boris asked for reassurance, each time Boris showedaffection. Each time Boris asked for more.

Thefirst sound from the recording broke Boris out of his reverie.

Aclearing of the throat. A cough. A sigh.

“Thistape belongs to Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina,” the voice began in an almost formaltone. “I don’t know if he will be Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministersby the time it reaches him. I don’t even know if he’ll live long enough toreceive it. But there it is… Months of silence condensed into a single tape.”

Borisfelt his stomach clutching as the voice continued.

“Thereason why I’m making this tape now, Boris, is that… you called me thismorning, didn’t you? I knew it was you. And I knew we couldn’t talk. That’swhy I’m talking now.” Valery’s recorded voice drew in a deep breath, preparing hislistener for what was bound to become an unstoppable river of words.  

“Ihad been waiting for that call. How long has it been? Six months? A year? I’velost count. To be honest, I thought you’d call earlier. I would lie in bedstaring at the ceiling and imagine the talks we would have you and I, hours of them,and as months went by and I didn’t get to hear from you I would come to imagineour silences instead. The ones we would share after a long tedious day at thepower plant, smoking and drinking and going through endless reports withoutexchanging a single word. The silences that enveloped us each time we found newways to… explore each other. Sometimes you couldn’t stop, sometimes Icouldn’t stop. But there was always silence afterwards. I cherished that asmuch as I cherished watching you come undone in my arms. Losing control. Iloved you the most when you were like that - vulnerable. Digging your nailsinto my ribs, holding on to me for dear life.”

Therewas a pause after that as if Valery was trying to gather his scatteredthoughts.

“Forgiveme, Boris, but I had forgotten how you sounded like, the deep soothing tone ofyour voice.  My memory…” He clicked histongue, probably shaking his head in regret. “It must be the medication,getting heavier every week, every day. Sometimes I just refuse to take it becauseI don’t want to forget, you know? Least of all you. But you called.” He laughed.“I knew it was you, I heard your breathing in my ear and it all came back. Theorders you gave, the barking on the phone, the promises that you’d get us… get meeverything I needed.” A pause. Valery giving himself time to think, toremember. “The pleas, the soft whispers when we were alone telling me what todo, the desperate gasps and soft whimpers when you… when you… Oh god…”

Boriswas almost certain he heard a stifled sob. A biting of the fist. “I’m so sorry,Boris, it all comes back to me now… It’s harder than I thought it would be. It’ssavage.”

Anothersob, masked as a sharp intake of breath. “It’s worse than being alone. It’sknowing that I’m still alive and you’re out there, in a phone booth who knowswhere, wasting your coins on me, unable to even say ‘hi’. Because of what Idid. Because of what I said. I wish I could take it all back now...”

Therewas no doubt now, Valery was crying.

“G-giveme one more chance to lie to the world, Boris, and I’ll take it. One horriblelie for one more day with you. I-I think it’s fair...”

Borisheard the clicking of plastic; Valery had removed his glasses and dropped themon the table. “But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, not when I knew that they werethe reason you were coughing red stains into your handkerchief. Not when I sawyou broken like that, bending over your knees on that miserable bench insteadof enjoying the sunlight, feeling hopeless, worthless. You’re not worthless,Borya, not to me, not to anyone. Not to the millions of people you helped save.”

Borischoked. His vision was getting blurry but he refused to dip his hand into hispocket and bring out the handkerchief – he knew Valery’s hair was still there,soft and fragile, folded in a napkin. He knew the feel of it was going to ruinhim.

Hewiped his cheek with the heel of his palm instead.

Thevoice continued. It was clearer, more composed now. “Do you remember the daywhen we set the lunar rover to motion for the first time? I thought I would neverforgive you for making me blush in front of everyone. I mean how dare you,”Valery chuckled. “That night you made it worse - you kissed me. You made mekiss you. I didn’t know I could do that, Boris. I had forgotten. When the firstrays of sunshine found us together in your bed you traced my lips promising mysmile was yours to protect, forever. I didn’t understand it back then. I didn’tknow why my smile mattered. And you didn’t know ‘forever’ could be awfullyshort.” Valery huffed. “I guess we were both equally ignorant.”

Afaint laugh.

Boriswinced hard against his fist as hot beads slid down the back of his hand.

“I’msmiling now, Boris, I wish you could see it,” Valery sighed happily smothering asniffle. “You may think they won but they didn’t because not a day passeswithout your thought putting a smile on my face.”

Borisblinked again and again trying to get rid of the thick tears blinding him.

Therewas no time for grief. He had to listen to the end. He had to stay focused. Hehad to drink in every single word.

“They’llnever take that, you know,” Valery reassured him, his tone steady and firm likethat day in the court. “It’s that last inch of me they cannot take. The inchthat is you.”

Valery’svoice lowered until it was nothing but a dark whisper. “They turned my worldinto a prison, Boris. They took everything. Except you. You’re that part of methey will never have.”

TheUkrainian was leaning on his elbows, uncaring of the tear stains gathering onthe tape recorder. He didn’t need it anymore. Valery’s words didn’t need a recorderto be remembered.

“Don’tdie before me, Borya,” came the final choked sob from the speaker. “I couldnever live with myself if you did.”

Borisfidgeted with the keys, brushed his hand over the speaker just to feel thevibrations of Valery’s voice.

Justto feel.

Heclosed his eyes waiting for the beloved friend’s last words to pulsate throughhis fingers as if they were together one last time, in bed, feeling each other’slips in the dark.

Thewords finally came. Maybe he had heard them before. Maybe he hadn’t. He didn’tremember. It didn’t matter anymore.

Valerylived. Valery existed. Valery was his.

 “Ilove you, Boris. Don’t die.”

…

 Thatevening, and for many evenings to come, Inga enjoyed a royal meal - not justthe usual canned pet food, no. She had baked salmon served in a porcelain bowl anda large basket to sleep in in front of the fireplace. However the basket wasonly meant for naps and she’d rather spend her day being petted and purringhappily. When she was done licking herself clean she would hop on her new owner’slap and settle herself between the pages of a Pravda issue and a hot cup oftea.

Shewas never denied the tenderness she deserved even if sometimes the petting wasinterrupted by long intakes of breath and hands stilling on her back as if timehad stopped, as if the world had come to an end. She didn’t know what thatmeant, she was only a cat, but she knew what she wanted and she would consistentlybring her owner back to reality with her soft mewing and the playful blinkingof her big emerald eyes.

Thegrey-haired man’s lost gaze would then turn back to her, his reddened eyessoftening, and he would continue to indulge her with long even strokes alongher back, the ones she loved the most.

Shewas only a cat. Maybe she knew instinctively that her time on this planet waslimited and those displays of affection, those shared moments with someone wholoved her were enough to make life worth living.

Maybeshe was so happy because she didn’t know how long she had.

Butthen again, who does.

[lateviews]

LateView: Arkham Knight

I’m in 2 minds about Arkham Knight. On one hand it’s a brilliant game. Refined mechanics, gorgeous visuals, entertaining gameplay, serviceable story. On the other hand, Arkham City is just better.

Fret not readers, all the comments you may have seen about the launch issues are not relevant anymore, at least in my experience. I actually pre-ordered this game and thus recieved it during it’s infamous lockout period on steam and I downloaded it onto my machine that was using an AMD card, the very type of card that was supposed to be the cause of most issues and the game ran fine. I did reinstall the game for this review and I’ve not suffered any problems moving through about half the game (I 100% the game on my initial playthrough). For those that haven’t played an Arkham game before, about 30% of your time in AK will be spent in hand-to-hand combat in control of the caped crusader. The combat is from a third person and there’s no combos like God of War or Devil May Cry. Instead the game has you focus on your positioning and timing. The game popularised a counter attack system that countless games have copied from (Assassin’s Creed, One of the Spiderman games, the Shadow of Mordor series) and here, the creators of the system have done well by it. Different enemy types and enemy weapons shake up the fight and force you to adapt. For instance there are new medic enemies that attempt to stay away from you will resuscitate unconscious enemies and charge them with electricity, rendering them immune to your attacks until you remove it with your batclaw. The game continues to add new elements to try to overwhelm you with possibilities. New weapons, enemies and enemy attack patterns require new tactics each time and will quickly defeat you unless you’re prepared. Thankfully, being prepared is exactly what Batman is great at.

Around 20% of the time you’ll be entering sections that the game refers to as “predator puzzles”. This is where you have a number of vantage points above a room of heavily armed enemies and have to determine a way to takedown all the opposition without being shot (Batman is human and does not like being shot)(citation needed). This is where the plethora of batman’s gadgets get their usage. You can disable weapons, set traps, stealthfully eliminate isolated enemies. You really do feel like a predator during these sections. You have a constant stream of enemy chatter being fed through your cowl throughout the game but here it’s a reward in and of itself to hear enemies react to your brutal takedowns with fear and surprise. Once again, just as you feel confident they’ll start throwing spanners in the mix. How about drones that can see a wide area of the map? Or sentry turrets covering a walkway? Or what about one guy who blocks your detective vision (which is what let’s you see interactive objects and enemies through walls) and this other guy’s gear pinpoints your location if you spend too long looking through your detective mode? What about when Two Face robs a bank and the alarm is so loud that bad guys can’t hear you? And also the bad guys are shipping money/toxins/unobtainium from one end of the room to the other and you’re on a time limit?

Another quarter of the game is dedicated to puzzles. Most of these are because of the enigmatic Riddler but the game throws some at you through other villains as well. These puzzles range from simple visual problem solving to recreating the scene of a car crash in order to determine what happened. A lot of these also incorporate gadgets. Some of these frustratingly so. The game has a system that allows you to scan a riddler trophy’s location into your map so you can come back but it never feels good to leave an area knowing you’ll have to come back for the trophy. It feels even worse to know that you couldn’t have done it any better because you need a gadget that you haven’t unlocked yet. Through the main game and most of the sidequests, the puzzles serve as a nice break from the combat. Forcing you to think slowly and not quickly like the rest of the game does. The game does fall down a bit when it comes to the Riddler.

His plot in this game is that he has kidnapped catwoman and won’t free her until you use your batmobile in these 9 challenges. And these 9 challenges don’t become available until you have recovered a percentage of the riddler trophies smattered across Gotham City. During my second playthrough I tried to focus mostly on the main story and while I did encounter and solve a lot of Riddler puzzles, there’s still a lot left. I remember during my 100% playthrough that I had long since finished every other quest and still had miles to go before the Riddler was done. They’ve got this.. halfway solved thing you can do, wherein once you have enough trophies to finish the last Car challenge, Catwoman is free and the Riddler rides a mech to fight you but in the middle of the fight, with no warning, the Riddler goes, umm nup, not going to fight you anymore and peaces out through the floor, telling you that you need 100% of the trophies to finish the fight with him... talk about a buzzkill.

Thankfully, the rest of the game makes up for it. At least 10% of Arkham Knight’s gameplay, I am going to say comes down to exploration and story absorbtion. There’s a lot of moving between locations in AK and the game handles it well. The most advertised feature of Arkham Knight is the Batmobile. Yes, you can drive it around and mostly, the car is handled ok. I’ll go more into the Batmobile next as it deserves it’s own section. Here I’m talking about how it is to move around. Gliding and grappling is amazing, as always and they’ve amped up Batman’s (upgrade locked) abilities so that you feel stronger/faster than you did in Arkham City. As I said at the beginning, the story I believe is serviceable. Don’t get me wrong, there are awesome moments (like, the moment before you first gain control of Batman) but then there’s a lot of monotony as well. The titular Arkham Knight is just not an interesting character. He just seems like a bad guy. Someone who is really mean to Batman and his only motivation seems to be his hate for Batman. Let’s look at a couple of other Batman villains. * Penguin? Wants money and power. * Two-Face? Want’s poetic justice on Gotham, not just Batman. * Joker? “Some men just want to watch the world burn”. * Arkham Knight? “I hate you”. It just makes the Knight seem immature and short sighted. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been mad at people before but anger is quick to fade, especially when they don’t continue to wrong you and even after the big reveal of who the Knight is, I just don’t get his motivation. How could he not just get over it? What makes things worse is that the other big bad of the game is Scarecrow. Another guy with muddled motives. What does he want? To scare Gotham? I understand that he craves to instill fear but since we, the player, are Batman, we have no reason to fear him, yet the game plays him off like it wants us to fear him like you would fear the antagonist of a horror game. Hearing Scarecrow rant about fear quickly becomes eye-rolling as we start shouting at the screen, “You’re not scary! Just lie down and stop. Please!”

But, for all this, the story keeps ensuring that you HAVE to do some side-quests and I quite enjoyed this. It’s almost like the game sat down and said, “Hey, I know you’ve been ignoring these side-quests because of our big bads but here, have a break. Your next main story objective, is to do some side story objectives ok? Have fun sweety!” And the game is all the better for it because all the side characters are more interesting than the big bads. With this system, the game keeps you going. Sometimes you’ll have this awful feeling wherein you need a gadget to do a side-quest, and the only reason you then return to the main quest is to get the gadget. If that’s a reason to play the story then it’s not a great story.

So. Batmobile. Initially you view the car as this massive, beastly machine. Any fight hand-to-hand fight becomes elementary with the car. Enemies just don’t pose a threat and this feels great. The game then very quickly implements a Batmobile sized threat for you to deal with in the form of Drones. Batman of course can’t hurt people so the only way he’d get any use out of his TANK CANNON is if SOMEBODY decided to drive into town with a bunch of robot cars that need blowing up. How convienient. So, now that the game has a Batmobile and Batmobile sized threats, the game now needs sections of the game for you to fight them. If you blatantly ignore all the side-quests, there will only be a few of these. Namely when Batman launches the car into a new area and it’s populated by tanks. You blow them up. The Arkham Knight sends in more tanks. You blow them up later on. You’ve now got third-person shooter segments in your fighting game and despite the multitude of enemies and weapons for hand-to-hand combat, there are only 4 drone types. After that they simply just throw more tanks at you to up the stakes. There is a 5th type of tank but it’s reserved for tank stealth sections. Yes, you just read that. You have to sneak up on these Cobra tanks and shoot them from behind (after waiting for the obnoxious lockon time). Without a doubt, the dedicated car-battle sections are the worst part of this game. They just didn’t get it enjoyable enough to endure how hard these sections can be. Couple that with the fact that the Riddler requires you to use the car in some of his puzzles and the fact that the boss fights of the game come down to you fighting another bigger tank and there’s plenty of reasons to see why people hate the car. In the beginning, I mentioned that Arkham city was better and, yeah I have to agree. Some things were improved, like the complexity of hand-to-hand combat but all that was improved didn’t really matter. It’s only a slight improvement compared to the degrade in the story, the warping of the environment to allow for the Batmobile, the fact that you had fights you had to use the batmobile for. Arkham City is an amazing game. Then Arkham Knight sought to try to make it perfect, but they were trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. Imagine you were a painter, trying to paint a picture. You finish your painting of a fruit bowl and you notice the Banana is a little wonky. You try again, except that you can’t just paint the same fruit bowl. You rearrange your scene and try again. This time, your banana is impeccable but you realise that you accidentally fudged the background and the orange seems to be melding with the apple. It’s like in programming when you iron out one bug and 2 more appear. That’s what happened here. They wanted to fix some minor details of the game and they just couldn’t replicate the rest of the game. There’s no point fixing 50% of your game if the other 50% is going to suffer for it.

In conclusion, go buy Arkham City. If you’ve already bought AC and loved it, you can give Arkham Knight a go. It’s mostly the same.

[natural--blues]

Before I start this post, I’m going to clarify that is is a problem in general. This is targeting nobody, but if you think this post is aimed at you, you might want to think about your behavior.

I always find it amazing when someone trips over themselves to excuse their homo/bi/trans/acephobia with “concern”. 

It’s not that they have problems with a queer character, oh no, they just would rather not have one and are so put out by the thought because they’re concerned, on our behalf, that the writers might not create a compelling, accurate representation of us. So, to them, it’s clearly better to go the cishet route. They don’t hate us, in fact they super support us and are just protecting us, is all! 

PHEW! Saved those queer people a lot of heartache through incorrect representation by making sure they have none. Not all superheroes wear capes, etc.

My question is two pronged, to those people. Let’s start with the first one: Do you think we’re naive enough to believe that there isn’t a high chance of problematic storylines and misrepresentation? Do you think we don’t understand?

We do.

We crave three dimensional, complex, realistic representation but we also know that we have to deal with times when the representation is going to be problematic, and we’ll need to critique, and bring out our concerns, and try our best to push writers into a more realistic direction -- that some need to be educated away from stereotypical characterization and lean toward creating complex characters who are people, people who are also queer. Who go through drama that isn’t always and only about their sexuality or gender identity, who are treated as a serious character, a lead character, whose storyline, thoughts, and feelings matter, more than just being there to garner viewership from a thirsty community followed by death, suffering, and sidelining due to queer identity. Especially if it’s out of shock value, or to benefit the cishet chars for an emotional journey. Miss us with that, seriously. 

Similarly, miss us with our only existence being to prop up and prepare the cishet for their straight relationship, or for feel-good moments where we do all of the emotional labor for a cishet person that their romantic partner should be doing, due to heteronormative gender roles making active communication impossible in the straight relationship. There’s a difference between being a best friend with whom you share everything and come to for your problems, and being the poodle in a purse gay that only comes out when you need sassy advice.

We crave good representation.

Of the 895 series regular characters expected to appear on broadcast scripted primetime programming in the coming year, 43 (4.8%) were identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer. This is the highest percentage of LGBTQ series regulars GLAAD has ever found. There were an additional 28 recurring LGBTQ characters.

The number of regular LGBTQ characters counted on scripted primetime cable series increased from 84 to 92, while recurring characters decreased from 58 to 50. This is a total of 142 LGBTQ characters, regular and recurring.

GLAAD also counted LGBTQ characters on original series that premiered on Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix. GLAAD found 45 series regulars and 20 recurring LGBTQ characters for a total of 65 characters. This is up from last year's inaugural streaming count of 59 LGBTQ characters (43 regular and 16 recurring).

The number of regular and recurring transgender characters across all three platforms tracked has more than doubled, from seven characters last year to 16. There are three trans characters counted on broadcast, six on cable, and seven on streaming original series. Of the 16 characters, four are transgender men.

Lesbian representation dropped dramatically on broadcast television, down 16 percentage points to 17% of all LGBTQ characters. Lesbian representation is also down on cable, to 20% from 22% reported last year.

Bisexual representations on broadcast rose to 30%, up by ten percentage points from last year. Bisexual representations also rose on streaming series, from 20% to 26%. However, cable series have dropped in bisexual representations from 35% to 32%. Bisexual women far outnumber bisexual men on every platform. Many of these characters still fall into dangerous stereotypes about bisexual people.

Each platform tracked (broadcast, cable, streaming) counts one character who is HIV-positive, though only broadcast television counts the character as a series regular (Oliver on ABC's How to Get Away with Murder).

Cable and streaming platforms still need to include more racially diverse LGBTQ characters as a majority of LGBTQ regular and recurring characters on each platform (72% and 71% respectively) are counted as white. Overall racial diversity is up again with 36% (325) of 895 series regular characters on broadcast counted as people of color, which is a three-point increase from last year's report.

While this year's report marks a record-high percentage of black series regulars on broadcast (20%), black women remain underrepresented at only 38% of all black series regular characters.

GLAAD found a record-high percentage of series regular characters with disability on broadcast television at 1.7% of all series regulars, this is up from the 0.9% reported last year.

This year, 44% of regular characters on primetime broadcast programming are women, which is an increase of one percentage point from last year but still greatly underrepresents women who make up 51% of the population.

Do you get that? These percentages, for the LGBT people, are percents of the 4.8%. 

We’ve put up with subtext, side characters, and zero screentime since the invention of television. Since plays. Since reading by the fireplace or by candlelight.

We crave representation, and a place of improvement is a better place to start than just never trying.

A queer character comes into a series as an actual character and it brings the gaggles of gays like nobody’s business. We have so little to pull from in widespread, mainstream media. When is the last time you saw a movie in theaters that was a same sex romance, where the story was literally all about that, with straight side characters, and it got as high billing and viewership as whatever romcom with big star names Hollywood craps out this year?

It’s like Field of Dreams. If you build it, we will come. We will squeal. We will watch it, hoping against hope for the character to at least end the series alive, hopefully with a happy ending. 

Why would you want to rob us of the happiness of a large-billed character, or series, or movie, or anything where we’re represented? How do you call yourself an ally and legitimately want this?

Secondly, do you think we’re stupid? 

Let me back this up with real talk here. You may have seen lots of jokes on tumblr about how gay people travel in packs and herds and the like... it’s fucking true. When you’re trying your best to grandstand in public about how concerned you are for our well-being, but in private you try to silence and malign queer people and think those queer people don’t tell each other that you have to be naive. Similarly, reading big grandstand posts about how concerned a cishet is on our behalf and why they just would rather a queer character not exist literally tells us what a phobe you are.  You’re just worried? You just want to protect us, by removing our representation before these shows, films, or seasons even come out? You know, to be a good ally and defend us?

There’s a difference between legitimate concern based on problematic writing of queer characters in the past and new shows and movies coming out now with new writers, or shows and movies coming with writers who have no problematic pasts with queer characters that have you and your concerntrolling lot clutching your pearls on our behalf.

When you turn all of the attention onto yourself and your feelings, as a cishet, you are not being an ally. 

Don’t worry, your concerntrolling wasn’t allyship either. So that’s 0/2 already. But then we hit strike three when you see queer voices bringing up excitement for these shows and making posts about how thrilled they are, and that if you aren’t into it to straight up miss them -- and you take personal offense and turn it around to be all about you and your “ally” feelings. 

In the end, I suppose, this fit serves its purpose. The queers are cast in a nasty light for not being grateful that their all-star ally was so worried for them, and the “ally” gets backpats and reassurance. Cue also, the comments about how if queer people want to get anywhere, they need their cishet allies and should be nicer and more understanding. Tone policing and shunning happens too. 

Part of why we get so upset, and angry, and hurt by that is because you called yourself an ally. Maybe you were a friend of queer people. It’s a betrayal. It’s a reminder of the fact that cishets have that privilege, when they start acting like they’re the victim when they hurt us and we tell them. How we’re expected to coddle, handhold, and beg in our sweetest customer service voices for support. How we have to bend into yoga expert positions to try to act in a way that won’t upset them so much they no longer want to give any support at all. How we can’t vent to them, on the off chance they get offended, or hear ‘ugh straight people’ and start defending themselves.

It’s a great big fucking reminder of how little our relatioships, thoughts, stories, and even lives matter to cishets when the thought of one character, or series, or movie being queer or mostly about a queer character and story turns them off. No matter what excuses are made, if you think queer people haven’t heard it all before and can’t read between the lines, you’re completely wrong.

“But I was just being a good ally!”

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Brehanna Daniels Wants to Be the First Black Woman in a NASCAR Pit Crew

Last month, at Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) held its first race of the 2017 season. Four hours before the event, under a blue sky, fans began streaming into the grandstands as the 34 drivers put their cars through inspections and qualifying drills. The pit crews, meanwhile, went through their own preparation, cleaning tires, preparing lug nuts, testing hydraulic jacks, and checking their air guns.

For 23-year-old Brehanna Daniels, the day was especially memorable because it was her first professional race as a tire changer. She walked over to her assigned driver, Dale Shearer, a friendly, white, 51-year-old Missourian, who stood beside his car in his fire suit and sunglasses. When he saw her approaching—her gear bag and helmet under her arm, an "Xcalibur Pit School" T-shirt over her muscular, compact frame—his lips stretched into a welcoming smile.

"You must be Brehanna," he said.

It's hard to mistake Brehanna Daniels for anyone else at the raceway—she's one of the only women of color in a sport that is still predominantly white and male. Should Daniels continue to rise through the ranks, from ARCA to stock-car racing's big leagues, she would become the first African-American female pit crew member in NASCAR history, and a success story for the company's Drive for Diversity program. Since it began in 2004, Drive for Diversity has produced three professional minority male drivers, and eleven professional female pit-crew members, including Daniels, the only African-American.

"A top-notch pit crew runs about 11.5 seconds." Courtesy Brehanna Daniels

"[At the Speedway], people were looking at me, like, 'What does she do? I know she does something because she has that bag,'" Daniels said from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Then, when I went to the bathroom to change into my fire suit, I really had looks on me…. A photographer who was there stopped taking pictures of the drivers and started shooting me."

Still, Daniels wasn't intimidated by the stares, even though they came from a crowd of virtually all white men. The reason, she said, was that she'd already found everybody in the sport to be fully supportive, exhibiting no racism or sexism whatsoever.

Coaches from NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program recruited Daniels last year, when she was a senior at Norfolk State University, the historically black college in her home state of Virginia. She'd played Division I basketball at NSU, but had no prospects on the pro level. So when she found out that NASCAR was coming to campus, looking for female athletes and athletes of color, she decided to give it a shot.

"I didn't watch NASCAR races growing up. I always thought, Dang, there's no black people in the sport," she said. "But I'm always open to new opportunities, and I didn't have anything else to do, so I went out for the tryout."

The audition was designed to simulate the physical demands of working in the pit, where speed, agility, strength, and footwork are all necessary to perform, be it as a tire changer or carrier, jack man or gas man. Phil Horton, Drive for Diversity's director of athletic performance, realized several years ago that athletes, rather than mechanics, make the best pit crew members.

At NSU, Daniels was up against eight other student-athletes, all of whom were men, most of whom were football players. But being the lone woman in the pack only added fuel to her fire. Like most athletes, she thrives on pressure—and the adrenaline that comes it.

"We started off with a hundred jump ropes and then we moved to a cone drill," she explained. "Then we moved to a ladder drill. The ladder was so tough that we got to practice before being timed for real. Then we did rollout abs, then pushups, and then we had to finish it off with a hundred sit-ups. The guy I was next to, I was destroying him. I had him beat since the jump rope. He had to take a break. I think he caught a cramp. I was like, 'Yeah!'"

Horton couldn't help but notice Daniels as she tore through the military-style obstacle course. It was obvious she had the physical prowess and psychological makeup of a seasoned athlete. What's more, at five-foot-five, she had the ideal frame for a tire-changer, a position that requires speed and hand-eye coordination more than size.

Daniels during the national combine. Courtesy Brehanna Daniels

"We liked her skills, we liked her style, we liked her strength," he said from his office in Charlotte. "We liked the fact that she had a leadership role as a point guard on the basketball team. She just fit the template."

NASCAR invited Daniels to the national combine in Charlotte, where she competed with twenty other pit crew candidates and made the cut by placing in the top ten.

"I liked doing it because it reminded me of being an athlete," she said. "We athletes crave that feeling of knowing you're competing against someone. You just love being in situations where you're under pressure and you have to get the job done."

Daniels moved to Charlotte to begin a six-month program for pit-crew members run by the Drive for Diversity. There, she trained six hours a day, five days a week, learning to operate the tools and getting up to pit speed. Her hands were so sore after the workouts that she soaked them in ice water every night.

Daniels is now a professional tire-changer, working independently. She'll continue in the program for another two or three years, training three days a week at a track, in tandem with daily workouts at the gym, where she does bench presses, rowing exercises, weighted squats, and hundreds of sit-ups to boost her strength and performance.

That preparation came in handy at the ARCA race in Nashville. When Shearer pulled into the pit at the mandatory 45 miles an hour, Daniels jumped off the wall and ran out to the car, an air gun in hand and a fresh 65-pound tire under her arm. As cars flew by on the track at over 100 miles an hour, she dropped to her knees and hit the back tire's lug nuts with the air gun. She pulled the tire off using her index and middle fingers, and set it aside, careful to not let it roll. Then she grabbed the fresh tire, slammed it on the rim, and gunned the lug nuts. After racing to the other side of the car, she repeated the process. Her time for removing and replacing both tires: 13.5 seconds.

"A top-notch pit crew runs about 11.5 seconds," Horton said. "Right now, Brehanna is about two seconds behind. Not bad after only eight or nine months of training."

A NASCAR pit crew in action earlier this month. Photo by Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

Daniels' goal is only partly to cut her time and make history by becoming the first African-American woman in a NASCAR pit. She also wants the validation, not to mention the six-figure salary that can come with working the elite races in NASCAR's Cup Series.

"To get to the very, very top series, it will take some time," she said. "They say give it three or four years, but I'm trying to get there in under three. I'm impatient, as most athletes are."

Coach Horton says Daniels is exactly where she should be in her quest.

"She's starting in the ARCA series. That's where everybody starts. Then she'll move up to the Camping World Truck Series, which is a NASCAR series, and if she has the talent, will move up from there."

Does Horton think she has the talent?

"We selected her," he said. "We don't bring someone in if we feel they can't do it. We expect her to make it to the Cup Series. She definitely has what it takes."

Horton repeatedly pointed to Daniels's drive, which her family continues to stoke. Her father, Luxley, a hospital supervisor and NSU alum, at first was leery of having his daughter working in such a risky environment, afraid she'd be hit by a runaway car while working the pit. According to Coach Horton, when taking into account all the racing series, at least one crew member is brushed or bumped by a car every week. "It's no small feat to get the job done and survive," he said. But once Luxley saw his daughter's determination, he got fully behind her, and is thrilled that she's on the verge of breaking an historic barrier.

Daniels's mother, Kimberly, lost a battle with cancer nine years ago, but Daniels has no doubt she would have been supportive, too.

"My mother would be like, 'Brehanna, what are you thinking doing this?'" Daniels said. "But she always believed in me. My mom motivates me. Whenever I think about giving up, I always think about her."

As for the ARCA race, Dale Shearer failed to finish. He had a problem with his car and left the track after thirty laps. Before doing so, he made sure to stop in the pit twice, giving Daniels the practice she needed.

Now she can't wait for her next race. Through it all, she's grateful to the diversity program for opening NASCAR's doors for her.

"It's a great thing to get more people of different ethnicities and different races involved in the sport, and to have everyone feel that they're welcome," she said. "It's not just one face, it's multiple faces."

When asked what she would say to young girls who might think about following her into the pit, Daniels enthusiastically shared her personal philosophy. "You can do everything you put your mind to. It doesn't matter what other people think. Seize every opportunity."

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Brehanna Daniels Wants to Be the First Black Woman in a NASCAR Pit Crew published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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The Unexpected, Groundbreaking, Cult Phenomenon of ‘Twin Peaks’

What do you tell people to expect before watching Twin Peaks? It’s as complicated an answer as what to expect when you meet David Lynch. Just ask the man: “They expect, like, a person that's 5-foot-8. Who's very hairy. Who's had most of their teeth removed and who's just gotten out of the hospital,” the filmmaker said in 1990.

ET spoke with Lynch and the cast of Twin Peaks throughout the unexpected, groundbreaking series’ short-lived initial run from 1990 to 1991 on ABC. The TV phenomenon, which returns Sunday, May 21 for a third season on Showtime, showcased Lynch’s penchant for challenging our initial perceptions of everyday life and suggesting there’s always something more going on. 

MORE: Kyle MacLachlan Returns as Agent Cooper in First Look at 'Twin Peaks' Revival -- Watch!

“Then sometimes they're surprised and a lot of times they're not, because we all know that the surface is one thing and there's 99 percent to us all that we don't see right away,” Lynch explained. If there’s a perennial theme to be found throughout his body of work, it’s Lynch being fascinated with that 99 percent.

The decision of the director, who had already earned three Oscar nominations in the first decade of his career, to work in TV puzzled a lot of people in the entertainment industry. Today, we don’t think twice about the fluidity between film and TV, as many acclaimed directors and actors regularly jump between mediums. Why wouldn’t they crave the longform storytelling potential that only TV can offer? Lynch certainly did. “People can get to know characters and fall into another world, and have so many great experiences in it,” he explained. 

After Blue Velvet, his fourth film following Eraserhead, The Elephant Man and Dune, people had a good idea of what to expect from a “David Lynch film” -- or perhaps at least what not to expect. Along with his writing partner, Mark Frost, Lynch was now starting to get ideas about a woman’s murder in the Pacific Northwest, the region where they had both grown up. At the behest of their agent, they began thinking of TV as a way to tell an expanded story and give depth to stereotypical characters. The project ended up at ABC, a network that ultimately welcomed the duo’s vision. “We were lucky to get green lights all the way through many, many barriers at ABC. They were supporting us like crazy,” Lynch said.

“It's a story about a young woman [Laura Palmer, who] gets killed in the town and an FBI agent comes in, and so on and so forth, but it becomes a character study of all these people in the town and how idiosyncratic people are,” Sherilyn Fenn said during a visit to the set in 1989. Largely unknown at the time, Fenn went on to earn an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Audrey Horne, whose jukebox diner dancing and cherry stem knotting scenes hold two of the top spots on the list of the series’ most memorable moments.

Rolling Stone

As with most cultural phenomenons, the people involved couldn’t imagine the success that was about to follow. But everyone could acknowledge the series was unlike anything else on TV at the time.

“I knew that David was working in conjunction with Mark Frost, writing something that was unusual for television,” Kyle MacLachlan said at the time. Just like everything in the town of Twin Peaks, MacLachlan’s character, Special Agent Dale Cooper, was full of surprises. Many TV pilots will use an outsider presence to help the audience feel grounded in reality amidst their journey through a strange land. In Twin Peaks, just as we start to feel safe with Cooper, Lynch and Frost directed us toward the Black Lodge.

“It's a place you look at and you think you would love to live in. The people are very charming. A little quirky,” said Lara Flynn Boyle, who played Donna Hayward, Laura’s best friend. “And then the more time you spend looking at the town and being in the town, being around the people, you see that everything isn't what it looks like.”

It became clear that while the series began as a murder mystery, learning more about the characters became a fan priority. “The characters are so, so intriguing. So bizarre. Do such strange things. Unexpected things in situations that are very odd. It's just the nature of the show. The unknown factor keeps people on the edge of their seat,” said MacLachlan. Wondering about what’s in Laura’s diary is easy to put on hold as you pause to witness the magic of the late Miguel Ferrer deliver a monologue as FBI forensic pathologist Albert Rosenfield that ends with “I love you, Sheriff Truman.”

MORE: Showtime Releases New 'Twin Peaks' Teaser With Some Familiar Music

“It kind of cracks me up how much people want an answer to who killed Laura Palmer thing, because that murder was kind of the ball that got everything rolling,” Sheryl Lee said later, after the show had become a hit among fans. The actress played Laura as well as her cousin, Maddy Ferguson, in season two.

“I just keep hearing that question over and over again, and there's so much other great stuff going on,” Lee continued. She believed that while Laura’s death was the pilot’s crucial catalyst, the show’s essence lay in the many secrets and relationships that were subsequently uncovered.

Of course, that didn’t mean the show’s producers were in any hurry to reveal her murderer. “We have our number on every page of the script. If that gets out anywhere, they know it's your number. You're in trouble,” Madchen Amick (Shelly Johnson) explained. One week, the future Riverdale -- a show very much inspired by Twin Peaks -- actor received a script that contained the answer to who killed Laura, but later discovered it was a trick from the writers.

Soon after Twin Peaks began airing came the viewing parties among passionate fans offering the series’ signature coffee and donuts. Several cast members were also known to gather at Russ Tamblyn’s (Dr. Jacoby) home to catch the newest episode together. (During one viewing party ET attended, a young Amber Tamblyn, whose directorial debut comes out the same weekend as her father reprises his role, was spotted watching with the cast.) The series’ unique characters and attention to detail within episodes helped elicit a cult-like following of Rocky Horror Picture Show proportions.

“The cult figure thing -- it's not anything I did. I just did this role and it captured people's imaginations so I'm kind of there giving something that I'm not really clear what it is. Do you know? So, it's an interesting phenomenon,” said Catherine E. Coulson, our Log Lady, while Lee added that it gave viewers credit for being intelligent. “It is definitely an audience participation show.”

She continued: “I have heard theories about every character having killed her and with different motivations and reasons and all this, and all of them make sense. And whether or not they're right, at least the viewers are thinking. You know it's not the kind of show you can go, ‘OK, I want to tune out for two hours and turn it on to watch it.’”

The series also enjoyed international popularity. Japan, in particular, suffered from a huge case of Twin Peaks mania, with MacLachlan later becoming a spokesperson for a coffee company there. 

“A few years ago, the people who live here knew about the Northwest, but as far as that goes, the rest of the world didn't really care about it. And who could figure that in Spain and Italy and England and Japan and many, many other countries something like this that seems sort of homespun could be understood and appreciated so much and intensely,” Lynch said in 1992, after the show had gone off the air.

“All I keep saying is it's the mystery of the woods and it's the same kind of thing that gets a fairy tale going on. Once you start walking in the woods, your imagination starts going and you know there's something of this in the land of Twin Peaks,” he continued. 

Close enough.

Twenty-six years after Laura spoke those words, the prophecy is being fulfilled. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, a 1992 prequel film that chronicled the final week of Laura’s life, had seemingly been this story’s final chapter. But the show’s cult status never died, as Twin Peaks found new life among viewers of the streaming age. And eventually, the series was set to continue on Showtime with 18 new episodes -- impressive, considering the original series only ran for 30 episodes -- with the original cast and creatives in place.

“If they ask us to come back, I'm sure it would be a real pleasure to see our friends again,” Ray Wise (Leland Palmer) said in 1992.

A damn fine pleasure, indeed.