#and harrow would be trying to become a cardinal

[asthedeathoflight]

Still not over the time I saw someone reading Gideon the ninth and said (while they were reading the first section of Gideon trying to escape the Ninth) that the story seemed tailor made to transfer to a modern setting because it reminded them so much of someone trying to leave their small town.

And I don't mean this in a bad way but I literally haven't stopped thinking about that. Ah, yes. Gideon Nav, orphan in a dying small town trying desperately to join the Army so she can make something of her life and escape her highschool valedictorian nemesis. All good so far. And then she gets sent to a death game to appoint the new Supreme Court Justices. And dies. And then finds out her dad is George Washington and her mom did 9/11.

[wyvernscales]

Kirkwall is Weird

Kirkwall is a weird city. It is known that the Veil is so exceptionally thin in the area that demons can enter the mortal world freely underground. Blood magic, lunacy, abominations, and violence all run rampant. Twice the amount of mages are unable to complete their Harrowing than in Starkhaven, a city comparable in size. The streets are a maze, confusing to even the most skilled masons.

Why is this? There are a few hypotheses, but I believe it is because Kirkwall is where the Magisters of the Tevinter Imperium broke into the Fade. 

(For a quick read, look at the bold text)

Let’s begin with its history: According to The Band of Three, a Chantry taskforce dedicated to uncovering Kirkwall’s secrets, the native people of the city are unknown, but the Imperium’s army arrived with force for an unexplained reason. It was founded in -620 Ancient and named Emerius after the Magister who founded it. The location ended up becoming advantageous due to the proximity of quarries that produced valuable metals. After a slave revolt in Minrathous, Emerius was chosen to be the Imperium’s hub for slave trading with a population of over one million slaves at its height. This staggering number is made even more horrifying when we recognize that hundreds to thousands of slaves went missing every year, their blood used for sacrifice. 

The mages of the Imperium created sewers underneath the city so they could run experiments and research underground; hidden away from the eyes of the average citizen. This is notable, since they had no reason to keep arcane research secret. Such tunnels are home to troves of artifacts, scrolls, and relics thought lost that show up in Darktown after the chambers get ransacked.

These sewers served a dual purpose however. The tunnels created across the city were made with grooves carved into the stone, encouraging streams of blood to reach the bottom. This blood was used for their blood magic, as the streets were built in the formation of glyphs and used to power the spells. There is no mention of where this blood ends up, only that they descend far into the earth.

The Band of Three come to an incredible conclusion:

“We've discovered the magisters were deliberately thinning [the Veil] even further. Beneath the city, demons can contact even normal men. Did they seek the Black City to compound the madness of their previous efforts? Or was it something else?” -Codex Entry: The Enigma of Kirkwall

The Magisters were deliberately trying to thin the Veil. The Band of Three pose that this project occurred after they walked into the Fade, but there’s no exact dates.

So when exactly were the Magisters thinning the Veil? What we do know, is that Emerius was founded in -620 Ancient and the Tevinters started losing their grip on the city in -203 Ancient, but fully lost control of it after the First Blight in -25 Ancient. That is a significant amount of time.

We can narrow it further though. Looking more broadly at Tevinter history reveals more. The First Blight started in -395 Ancient, and reached the surface in -380 Ancient. This was the start of the decline in the Imperium. Due to the chaos of the time, I doubt much research was able to be done. So the idea that it happened after the breach of the Golden City seems unlikely. We also see a massive civil war in the Imperium that occurs from -575 to -555 Ancient, and this is the catalyst for many mages to turn to darker magics and demon summoning became commonplace. I see this Veil thinning project as happening after the war due to the nature of this magic.

The timeline for this project has thus been restricted to -555 Ancient to -380 Ancient. It is here that we have a massive gap with no information between. But -395 Ancient, when the High Priests are said to have walked into the Fade is within the proposed timeline.

So in summary, there were mages working towards some secret purpose beneath the city. We know that the High Priests used pseudonyms to hide their identities, even from each other. This city happened to be specifically engineered for blood sacrifice and had access to quarries and Deep Roads entrances. We also know that sundering the Veil required the blood of hundreds of slaves and most of the lyrium in the Empire. And the Second Sin occurs at the tail end of Tevinter rule of the city, allowing around 150 years of research before it occurs.

But where specifically in the city could this have been done? Reason assumes that wherever the blood in the sewers ended up is where it was used, but the only mention of where it ends up is down. No destination other than that. I may be stretching out on a limb here, but I think the Primeval Thaig is where this research was done specifically. A Dwarven thaig located beneath the Deep Roads is a rather convenient location for the collection of all that blood. I don’t think the Magisters created it, but they may have discovered it while they were researching underground. It may have even been why the Tevinters used such force when invading the area, the location whispered to them by the Old Gods. The Thaig is littered with Tevinter constructs as well. For example, the Claws of Dumat, which were used to collect the blood of sacrificed slaves are found in the sealed Thaig. These Claws are specifically said to have been used to tear open the Fade. I can’t think of a more direct connection than that.

There is even evidence of a High Priest near Kirkwall. Corypheus. He awoke from dormancy in -191 Ancient and was trapped by the Wardens in the Vimmark Mountains right outside Kirkwall in -189 Ancient. While it doesn’t prove that Corypheus woke up around or lived in Kirkwall, it does prove that he was close. He also shows an interest in the Primeval Thaig, manipulating Bianca Davri into sharing its location. While this might imply that he didn’t know where it was, the route may have changed due to over one thousand years of cave ins.

I would also be remiss not to note the similarity between Tevinter imagery for the city and most symbols for the Black City. (Sidenote: after Tevinter rule of Emerius, the name was changed to Kirkwall, for the black wall of stone that faces the sea)

The first image is the Tevinter symbol for the city, the second is the current Kirkwall symbol, and the third is a Chantry symbol for the Black City. I don’t think Kirkwall is the Black City, but I do think the similarities in the images show some type of connection between the city and the Second Sin.

So there we go. All of the evidence I have for why Emerius/Kirkwall is where the Magisters walked into the Fade. There’s definitely more to say though, especially on the Primeval Thaig and the implications for da4 with the red lyrium idol are... interesting.

Sources:

Codex Entry: Speculations on Kirkwall

Codex Entry: The Enigma of Kirkwall

Codex Entry: History of Kirkwall 1 and 2

Codex Entry: Privileged to be Wardens

Codex Entry: Corypheus

Codex Entry: Cardinal Rules of Magic

Codex Entry: Claws of Dumat

Codex Entry: Primeval Thaig

Dragon Age: Inquisition “Well, Shit” Quest

[voyage-in-the-dark]

reborn playthrough

i played a pokemon fangame called Pokemon Reborn that sadly i left unfinished because my laptop just couldn’t handle the game, but it was the most fun i’ve had with pokemon since my first pokemon game, Sapphire, years ago. i love tough and difficult, Dark Souls-esque games a la Hollow Knight which is the biggest reason why i loved this game. the battles are so difficult! i love it! there are so little pokemon available that i was forced to use a lot of pokemon i’d never even looked at twice and pokemon that i usually dismissed. i also loved the little side quests where characters or pokemon had little events that allowed you to catch them, and my favorite thing ever is the Field Effects. they make the game so much fun and they make so much sense. so sad i couldn’t finish this

My members:

Ebony (Mightyena). She has Moxie -- she is a little wild and becomes savage and bloodthirsty after every kill. Because of the Lax Incense that she has been holding, she has a pungent and lingering odor that causes enemies to hesitate or miss when attacking her. She's a wild creature and obeys Rook's commands because that’s her 'pack leader'. She was taken in as a Poochyena. She attacked Rook, lured by the scent of PokeSnax, for food (she had been separated from her pack and was rummaging around the rubbish when she smelled the food in her bag). Rook realized she wanted food and gave it to her and she attacked it with hunger and energy. Later on, she began following Rook around hoping for more food.

RETIRED: Persimmon (Kricketune). Given to Rook as a Kricketot because she was listless and tired -- she wanted very much to see the world and her owner wasn't able to. Rook began bringing her around and letting her fight. She began to be more confident and a light appeared in her eyes. She was trusted and valued; she was an important and powerful member of the team; she learned to protect and take care of herself -- she had a killer Fury Cutter that allowed her to sweep opponents. She eventually evolved into Kricketune. With Rook, she saw sights and wonders and met lots of Pokemon. After a while, Persimmon and Rook decided to part ways. Persimmon had found a home with the wild Bug Pokemon near Beryl Ward.

RETIRED: Olive (Garbodor). Caught her in the alley. She has a very hardy type of personality. She was invaluable in the earlier parts of Rook's journey because of how tough she was no matter what attack was used against her; she helped Rook out from really tough spots -- Toxic Spikes and Toxic whatever that couldn't be defeated.

RETIRED: Chocolate (Lopunny). She wears a Soothe Bell around her neck, always. She was taken in as a Buneary. She travelled around with Rook for quite a while before trying out her first battle. She won and she felt heady and happy. After a few more battles, she evolved. As a Lopunny, she was swift and hit hard. She moves fast, and with Return, she usually could take down whatever enemy she was facing. She enjoys keeping herself clean and she likes to take care of her appearance.

Ivory (Excadrill). She was an Egg given to Rook. She hatched into a Drilbur and was named Ivory for her claws that were ivory-white. She loved to tunnel and she attacks by clasping her claws together into a drill formation before her and diving at the foe. This is how she used Earthquake, her favorite move. Diving, drill-first, at the ground by her enemy's feet. She never missed her Earthquakes. She loved to play as a Drilbur. She is often given Soft Sand. It is a loose, silky sand that boosts the power of her Earthquake. Her fur is silky and coarse, like a cat's. Rook spends time grooming her every night. Ivory also spends a lot of time cleaning, sharpening and honing her claws every night to prepare herself for any battles the next day. She is confident and doesn't fear losing. 

Mauve (Gothitelle). Her mother, a Gothitelle, let her go with Rook. She joined as a Gothirita and has evolved into a Gothitelle. She loves the night sky, the stars, the planets, the cosmos. Every night, there is a little period after everyone's asleep when she stands and stares at the sky, still as a statue, as though she was communing. She doesn't say much and her face is usually expressionless.

Jade (Roserade). She was a Budew, stuck on a high wall and separated from her trainer. Rook took her in and gave her a little Soothe Bell to play with. She came to love Rook and evolved into a Roselia shortly after. She has a killer Giga Drain that's quite harsh and harrowing to the victim. Roots whip out of her rose-arms and funnel into the opponent, sucking away the enemy's nutrients. Water-type Pokemon are very weak to this move because Jade can drain massive amounts of water. Jade is effective and gets the job done -- any opponents who are weak to her Giga Drain are badly poisoned by her Toxic and die within three turns. She wears a Miracle Seed on a necklace around her neck. The Seed is imbued with life force and Rook picked it up on her travels. The Roserade line have their own culture and young Budew in the wild go through a coming-of-age initiation rite where they seek to evolve into Roselias. The Roserade line live near flowers in the wild and flowers are a central part of their culture. They take care of their environment and meticulously drain any water sources near them of any pollutants. Because her tie to nature, the Miracle Seed is a precious and almost sacred item. Jade pauses before going into battle and prays to it.

-----

Reborn Day 1 (unfinished) I picked Cardinal, a Chimchar and was thrown into two battles. After the battle was over, I stopped and let him out. He was really obedient earlier, listening to all my commands, and I wanted to thank him for it. I know we're not used to each other. I crouched down so I wasn't towering over him and introduced myself. He has such lively and intelligent eyes and he was quite serious even if he wanted to keep looking around. I held out my hand for a fist pump and he looked at it curiously and then he looked at his own hand and imitated me and touched my fist. I patted him on the head. I wanted to let him wander around, rather than shut him up in the ball. He was a baby after all. I told him so and followed him as he cautiously looked around at first, then began picking up energy when he saw that I wasn't going to be mad.

A trainer challenged us when we went out. Cardinal tried out his Ember attack. He spat flame and he looked intrigued and surprised and pleased that he could. By the end of the battle, he was using it quickly and creatively, spitting fire on the grass at Yungoos' so that it was trapped where it was. He looked like he was revelling in his abilities.

We explored some more and took in a lonely Kricketot called Persimmon. She's quiet but apparently she likes to fight. I felt really sorry for her trainer and told her I'd take care of Persimmon. She's mainly keeping to herself right now. I feel sorry for Persimmon too because it must be tough to leave everything you've known behind and join a group of strangers.

We fought a trainer with an Igglybuff and a Ducklett. Cardinal was a champ. He was hit by two jets of Water Gun and he gritted his teeth and persisted through it, Scratching desperately at the Ducklett. He was shaking and shuddering at the end. He clung to me and I rushed him to the Pokemon Center. I've been letting Cardinal and Persimmon wander around outside their Pokeballs. They both seemed to enjoy it. Persimmon followed a little to the side, a bit shy with us, and yet not daring to go too far. Cardinal would range far to look around -- but always within sight -- and come back.

This place feels dangerous. People scurry about, looking wary. Groups of people cluster. The water is so dirty and polluted it's mud-brown. Pokemon jump out at us from any hiding spot.

A Cherubi joined us. His name is Charm. We found him in Seacrest's Secret Garden. He's tough and energetic.

[wahbegan]

Red’s Retro Reviews - Condemned Criminal Origins

Hello and welcome to the tag where I use my otherwise useless and time-consuming habit of taking very old classic games that I’ve wrung all the enjoyment out of like a troubled child with an injured bird and turn it into entertainment! Maybe one day the editor of some chic magazine will hire me to talk about how much I know about Batman: Arkham Asylum and how much I hate myself for it.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d start off with an overlooked little gem that had a bit of cult notoriety and good critical reception, but which otherwise nobody gave an ounce of rat shit about: the Condemned series. More specifically, the original game.

Now, when I ask you who started the extremely lucrative habit of live-streaming themselves hilariously over-reacting to horror games, you might be tempted to say the Game Grumps, or Markiplier if you’re younger, or Pewdiepie if you’re the kind of person who unironically uses the phrase anti-white racism. But you’d all be wrong and stupid. Also possibly nazi sympathizers, but I digress.

NO! The first college-age white boys who decided it would be a good idea to beam them fucking up a video game to thousands and thousands of people online are..........lost to history because archiving of the exact history of internet trends is such an enormous clusterfuck that for years people were convinced, and some still are, that Slenderman was a real urban legend and not something some dickhead made up for a photoshop competition circa 2009

But ONE of the first was the 4 Players Network, or 4 Players Podcast, or 4PP. I know very little about these guys, so if they all turned out to be nonces and serial killers please don’t @ me, but what i DO know, is that they uploaded a video that changed my life forever. This video was “Holy Crap That’s a Bear !” Certainly not a name that would stand out in today’s massively oversaturated Let’s Play market, but this delightful video documented these two dumb assholes losing their shit over a game. The game of course, being Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Specifically, the level in which you are chased through a hunting lodge by a rabid bear. As an aside, I looked it up, having never heard of the phenomenon, and apparently it’s very rare, but yes bears can and do get rabies, usually with just about as fatal results as you would expect. So sweet dreams!

Anyway, watching this couple of dipshits get jumpscared and mauled to death by a poorly rendered bear again and again as they were repeatedly outwitted at every turn by an entity with a few lines of programming instead of a brain was, in y’know the year 2008,  the absolute most fun a 14-year-old boy could have. Clearly it still is, but you always remember your first time, particularly when the only LPs i have watched since were a handful of markiplier videos with a girl in college who liked to get me very stoned and then put them on because she thought that counted as courtship.

A n y w a y, apart from the unfortunate and definitely a mistake innovation of streaming video games, the sequence of being chased through a claustrophobic environment by a bear which can rip down doors, break through walls, run faster than you, shrug off 15 shotgun blasts to the face without so much as sneezing, etc. seemed incredibly tense and original, an amazing concept for a game. Once again, this was circa 2008 before “Run for your fucking life” had become the norm for horror games.

So then why the fuck are you not reviewing that game?? You might be thinking if you’re still reading this which someone clearly is or my narrative voice would have ceased to exist by now in that tree falling in the woods kind of way. Well, dear reader, while Condemned 2 was better than the first game in a LOT of ways, it’s always worth taking a gander at the one that started it all. Also, Condemned 1 is, if only slightly, probably better known. Also, Bloodshot commits the cardinal sin of over-explaining the first game’s mystery and a result making it kind of goofy and ridiculous see also the entire history of the Halloween franchise, and as a result the ending is....well, a bit shit, to be honest. Finally, and most importantly, it’s not on Steam for 3 dollars, so shut up

The thing about Condemned is that while Let’s Plays and seemingly inanimate objects moving only when you’re not looking at them and unstoppable juggernauts of wanton death have now become the norm for video game horror (and thanks a fucking bunch, Doctor fucking Who, for always being what people say started the inanimate object fuckery even though Stephen King did it in The Shining in the FUCKING 70s and let’s be honest it’s just a primal universal fear and i’ll be in the cold fucking ground before that bloody show sees one ounce of credit where it isn’t due), Condemned as a whole has remained remarkably unique. Not wholly unique, the developers have heavily borrowed from genre-straddling crime horror movies like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en and in fact almost beat-for-beat stole the most infamous jump scare from the latter, but if it still ends with shit in my pants, and it does, I can’t really call it a failure.

Most of the creativity the game DOES have is in the gameplay itself, or rather one aspect of the two aspects of the gameplay. It’s the combat I’m talking about the combat, seeing as that’s basically all there is. Let’s just get this out of the way first, the forensic investigation shit is........well, it’s a bit shit. Oh yes, there’s a couple crime scenes you have to “solve” in a cursory almost a cutscene sort of way, where you have helpful premonitions about where you’re supposed to look and, as your lab tech helpfully informs you, “the system will choose which tool you need for you, so don’t worry about that!” Well, Christ kill me, thank God YOU know between the three fucking tools I have, one of which is an everything sensor and one of which is just a fucking camera which I’m supposed to use, God knows I wouldn’t have liked to have solved that mystery myself. It’s a shame because some of the crime scenes are quite intricate and yes, I would have liked to have put together myself that “wait a minute there’s a handprint in the paint here that matches the killer but the UV light shows an old blood spatter on the wall right above where he’d be sitting to make it, THAT MUST MEAN-” but nope. No you just have a premonition of the guy getting clobbered over the back of the head because the game is so terrified you won’t be able to put two and two together that it points out both the twos and hands you a multiplication table and nudges you and looks meaningfully at four every few minutes if you hesitate.

Anyway, that’s all the whingeing about the gameplay out of the way, because the rest of it is just delightful. Condemned is the rare first person game that focuses almost solely on melee combat and the almost unheard of one that does it well. In fact, it is the only example I can think of that’s not shit. Weapons all have individual stats to do with their heft and how far they can reach and how much of a man’s skull you can cave in at once with it and you have to choose between the plank with nails sticking out of it you can swing three times a second but you have to beat a man so badly with it it’s tiring just to watch and the sledgehammer, which demands a two weeks’ notice in writing if you’re planning on hitting someone with it, but will basically render every living thing in its considerable swing arc sent to the fucking Shadow Realm upon impact.

Something about the sound effects and the way the weapons in this game control really gets under my skin, I was killed by a 300-pound Subway-dwelling crazy survivalist wielding the aforementioned sledgehammer, and when I went down, I was sure I was familiar with the sound effect that played when it struck my skull, a sort of distant, muffled ringing of bone hitting metal. Wait a minute, I thought, I know I’ve experienced this in real life, how did they get this sound effect? Did they kill a man with a hammer to get this sound effect? Was I killed with a hammer in a past life? Killing people is equally fucking unpleasant as even the most vicious and inhuman looking ones don’t go down easily, and you can see them spit gobs of broken teeth and blood and god knows what, hear the lovingly researched impact noises, and almost feel the impact as you necessitate years of reconstructive facial surgery with one swing of your mighty chunk of concrete attached to a rebar. Then some of them have the gall to shakily get to their knees, not quite dead, trying to mumble something and you’re required to hit them AGAIN, which is always harrowing. To quote another underappreciated piece of media about the joys of gruesome murder: Why won’t you just die?! This is hard enough for me!!

The guns you do get are absolute balls, generally having about three bullets in them, you can’t reload them even if you find the exact same type of gun later, you can’t hold them in your inventory, and if you want an aiming reticle you have to actively turn it on in the options menu, and you can almost hear the game laughing at you for being such a shameless pussy.

Well, you now might be thinking to yourself, cheers for making the effort, but I’m not an insane person and therefore do not think the idea of a brutally beating people to death simulator sounds very enticing, but that’s the thing, it’s not really supposed to be. It does have a strangely addictive quality after a while, but for the most part it’s panicky and harrowing and grotesque and you really don’t want to do it but you have no choice, which is absolutely the best kind of survival horror. See, the combat in survival horror is always a bit of a sticking point, isn’t it? Because if you give the player too much firepower it just becomes an action game with spooky set pieces, but if you give them none at all, as is chic today, you better have loads of other surprises in store buddy boy, because the sheen on that trend has died and now you’re just likely to get slapped with the dreaded WALKING SIMULATOR sticker.

No, the best kind of combat for a horror feel is exactly the kind Condemned delivers, so of course they never FUCKING did it again. You leave every fight low on supplies, exhausted, badly wounded, and a bit sick at what you just reduced a human being’s skull to. Too often, the combat in games is, even that word “combat” it’s clean, it’s cold, it’s detached, it’s a very unique euphemism for butchering God knows how many people. I play this little game in my head when I go through games sometimes trying to keep track of how many unique, thinking, feeling entities I’ve just reduced to a mess for the janitor to mop up, and I always lose track around the third level. Condemned isn’t like that. Its violence is violence: horrible, awful, terrifying violence, and it doesn’t let you forget it. 

The graphics also add a lot to the horror if you can get past the dated polygonal weird-ass xbox 360 at launch faces and cutscenes, which is actually pretty easy once you get used to it. The level and character design is fantastic, and really adds a lot to the whole feel of the game. Everywhere you look is dark and labyrinthine, crumbling with rebars jutting out and exposed paneling and plumbing beneath holes rotted in the walls and grime and blood and god knows what just staining everything. This game is really nihilistic in tone, and you get the sense just from the graphics that you’re somewhere nobody gives a shit about, in a part of a city that’s just been left to die and rot. One almost gets the feeling moving around the fourth or fifth condemned (ohhhhh I see what they did there) building that the whole city is just a ghost town full of nobody but violent lunatics, and also that if you keep playing for too long you might get hepatitis just from exposure.

Plot-wise, I could fill another twenty paragraphs with petty gripes. It’s a bit Kill List which i’m sure is a reference you all understand in that it starts as a crime thriller about catching a serial murderer and ends in some bizarre insane bullshit halfway between Hereditary and Hellraiser, and leads you into it gently enough that you never really notice a sudden lurch.

You play as Ethan Thomas, a very boring and generic FBI Agent called in to investigate a serial killer case by two cops who are REMARKABLY blithe about murdering people, and it’s a bit jarring in today’s political climate. Though distrust, fear, and hatred of the police isn’t exactly new, and violence amongst police officers is brought up at one point, albeit in a loading screen, so honestly I can’t be arsed to speculate on what level of self-awareness we’re operating on here. Regardless, it’s bothersome.

“Oh yeah, this place is full of addicts, hopped up on something, I think, just shoot ‘em. What? Lost your gun, eh? That’s fine here’s a fire axe go nuts, kid, we’ll deal with the paperwork later”

Anyway, you are ambushed by a man you believe to be the killer for.......no real reason, really. He was spying on you checking out the crime scene, but we just established this place is full of squatters, what if one of the 8 people I murdered on the way into this ambush was the killer??? Case solved! 

Anyway, needless to say, without wishing to spoil, the dude IS the main antagonist the yellow eyes are a helpful giveaway, and he takes your gun and swiftly shoots Generic Beat Cop and Generic Dick with it, then throws you out a window, whereupon some other asshole whose main role in the game is to be enigmatic and plot-convenient, you know, one of THOSE characters, spirits you away from the scene, making it look like you just killed two cops and fled.

Now, in real life, as we all know, a cop can’t be indicted for murder even if 50 people saw him do it, but in this world, it means you have to go on the run from the FBI (not your lab tech, though, who is somehow assisting you from the lab and sending confidential data to your phone unnoticed??) while trying to solve the murder.

Meanwhile, in the background, in an “I’m sure this isn’t important and will in no way inform the last level of the game going batshit bonkers” kind of way, all of the people, including the cops, in certain dilapidated and neglected areas of the unnamed City City appear to be going what is medically known as balls-to-the-wall kill crazy, and birds are dropping dead from the sky by the thousands. Even you, protagonist, are prone to horrible screaming nightmare visions coming right the blazing blue fuck out of nowhere and that you never feel the need to comment on or go take a lie-down. I’m sure it’s nothing.

The voice acting is what you’d expect from this era of video games i.e. not good and the writing has an absolutely DESPICABLE habit of having characters tell Ethan things he should already god damned well know for the sake of gameplay or exposition, leading to my current theory that Agent Ethan Thomas has some kind of horrible head injury and can’t remember anything from over 2 minutes ago like Guy Pearce in that pretentious movie where he accidentally kills his wife and then runs around for two hours terrorizing random-ass people about it.

The game never full-on plays the AND THE MAN YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING AS WAS CRAZY THE WHOLE TIME card and leaves things a bit ambiguous, but after caving in the 15th vagrant’s head and the 7th vision you’ve had of being murdered by some Cenobite-looking motherfucker while conducting an unsanctioned investigation during a suspension prompted by you presumably murdering the shit out of two guys, you start to think this may not be standard FBI protocol. 

It’s all a bit hard to swallow is me point, a bit hard to sympathize, and a bit muddy if we’re supposed to or not. But you know what? It certainly isn’t boring, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t effective. This game is now one of only two to have genuinely given me nightmares, and I think it’s rather telling that after I played the hallucination part I had the nightmare about, I was having genuine trouble remembering if something happened in my nightmare of it or in the actual version.

Condemned is batshit crazy, hilariously easy to write off as “that game about killing hobos”, and very, very dated. But it is genuinely harrowing and unpleasant, and was clearly genuinely made by artists with the intent of saying.....errr i’m not exactly sure what, but SOMETHING! It’s about as far a cry as you can get from the Triple A crawling with microtransactions like your MCM is with crabs milk-you-for-money-until-your-udders-bleed look-at-how-shiny-we-are games, and even a lot of indie horror games who think it’s a measure of a masterpiece being able just to constantly trigger your fight-or-flight response again and again and again so you can make a hilarious Let’s Play out of it not to name any names Five Night’s at Freddy’s. It’s a relic of a different and i think a better time in gaming history, where big-name publishers were still taking chances and hadn’t quite yet worked out the formula for how to distill games into their most skeletal, malnourished, corporate, addictive, glorified gambling form.

Also it’s 3 dollars on Steam and you can finish it in like ffffffffucking...two days? So really why the fuck not. I have no idea how to assign numbers to things i’d probably give ir a 7 or 8 or 4 out of 5 stars but i’m bad at systems like that, just play it if you give a shit. If nothing else, a bunch of people snapping it up out of nowhere will really fuck with marketing, which is always a noble pursuit

[sylvianneliu-blog]

“The real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.”

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME:  Sylvianne Manon Besnier-Liu PRONUNCIATION:  Sill vEE Ann /  M AE - n oh / Ben Yay / l ee uu  (This looks ridiculous but it’s what google told me, I’m not a linguIST oK) NICKNAME(S): Sylv, Sylvie, Vivi, Sylvester BIRTH DATE:  May 22 1997 AGE: 21 ZODIAC: Gemini GENDER: Female PRONOUNS: She/Her SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Biromantic Bisexual NATIONALITY: Belgian  MAJOR: Art History EXTRACURRICULARS: Debate team, Young Ambassadors Organization and Borderless World Volunteers

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: Brussels, Belgium FATHER:  Nicolas Liu MOTHER: Christiane Besnier SIBLING(S):  None. OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIVES:  Granddaughter of Andre Besnier. ARRESTS?: There was that one time in Monaco.. .. . 

OCCUPATION & INCOME

SPENDING HABITS: Sylv’s never looked at a price tag in her life. She’s got expensive taste, which reflects in the way that she runs through money. MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: Her Bugatti Veyron has the highest monetary value of all of her possessions, but an item that is the irreplaceable to her is the offer from her mother on her eighteenth birthday-- a seat at the table and a majority share in Lactalis when she wished to take it on. The offer is something she’s yet to take on, but of all the riches her parents have provided, this strikes her as the most generous.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

TALENTS: She’s remarkably observant for a self-obsessed being, picking out things in other people that others often pass over. Sylv has an affinity for picking out the best colour combinations, can recite the alphabet backwards and forwards without hesitation, and can apply lipstick while driving her car and updating her Snapchat. (Though, arguably, this is the reason that most of her vehicles end up with their front ends smashed in.) LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: German, French, English, Flemish (Dutch)-- all fluent, though her writing in German and Dutch is mediocre. She’s also trying to learn Mandarin, but so far progress has been slow and dreadful. DRIVE?:  It took three tries, but Sylvianne managed to become internationally licensed. She’s a terrible driver regardless, and has murdered several nice cars as a result of careless driving. RIDE A BICYCLE?: Yes, but she learned mostly for the Instagram pictures of romantically riding a bike through Amsterdam. SWIM?: Like a fish. She’s an excellent swimmer and grew up on a steady diet of vacations to the south of France to play in the sun and waters. PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: Her mother insisted that she learned and instrument, and while she’s not very good at it, she can perform a handful of songs on the piano as a party trick. PLAY CHESS?: That’s an old people game. TIE A TIE?: Yes, and her former boyfriends are all in debt to her for it.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: Adrianne Ho GLASSES/CONTACTS?: Nope, this bitch sees 20/20 DOMINANT HAND: Right HEIGHT: 5′9 TATTOOS: A drunk tattoo on her deep lower back that she’s definitely booked to get lasered off. PEIRCINGS: Just her ears. When she was in highschool she had multiple in her lobes, but has since let them grow in. MARKS/SCARS: Nothing remarkable. NOTABLE FEATURES: Her brow game is StrONG CLOTHING STYLE: She’s a clotheshorse. Her favourite clothes tend to be in blacks and reds, and she prefers to carefully tailored pieces to the trendy, label scarred items that are often seen by other influencers. Often caught wearing vintage Mugler and dressing up beyond an occasion demands, Sylv values style over everything else.

PSYCHOLOGY

MBTI TYPE: ESTP MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral TEMPERAMENT: Choleric  MENTAL HEALTH: Honestly? Decent. Considering the harrowing events of last year, she’s been doing pretty well in keeping herself in check and grounded. ADDICTION(S): Cigarettes, but she’s in denial that she’s actually addicted. DRUG USE: Sylv’s a snowbunny, but other than that she keeps her habits lowkey. She’ll indulge socially, though. ALCOHOL USE: Drinking is just part of life!!! PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: She’d never express it physically, but Sylv’s temper is very short. She’s prone to anger-- but it gets expressed in cruelty rather than violence.

FAVORITES

ANIMAL: Black panthers. BOOK: White Oleander by Janet Fitch. COLOR: Red. FOOD: Speculaas cookies, bonus points if they’re dipped in dark chocolate. MOVIE: Gone with the Wind MUSICAL ARTIST: Charlotte Cardin QUOTE/SAYING: The wolf howled under the leaves / And spit out the prettiest feathers /Of his meal of fowl: / Like him I consume myself.��- Rimbaud SCENT: Philosykos by Diptyque, she’s likened it to her signature, dabbing it onto her pulse points and spritzing it onto her jackets and coats. SPORT: Soccer (Vive les bleus!) VACATION DESTINATION: Of all the places in the world, she has the most warm memories of trips spent in Lyon and Nice, but she also has a deep love for the Maldives.

ATTITUDES

GREATEST DREAM: Her biggest aspiration is to join the league of legendary, iconic women. Sylvianne wishes to be immortalized, to have a chunk of glory that is hers forever. Her mother is a powerful woman and she wishes to inherit what she has created, and then surpass her. GREATEST FEAR: Falling into irrelevancy, or losing the beauty that makes her so. Her entire personality is wrapped around the way that she looks, to suddenly lose that would strip her of her identity. BIGGEST SECRET:  OLD DEAD FRED and also a high school nose job. TOP PRIORITIES: To get away with murder and to look good doing it.

[falkenscreen]

HEREDITARY

Hereditary breaks one of the cardinal rules of horror, upending what until this point lived up to its hype.

Immediately following the death of her mother who was apparently involved in all sorts of creepy, an ashen Annie (Toni Collette) returns to her big, creepy house, attic intact, with her pallid husband (Gabriel Byrne) and her children, one half of whom is supremely unsettling, played by Alex Wolff and an excellent, dramatically underused Milly Shapiro. In between constructing her notably life-like miniatures, it soon becomes clear to Annie that Grandmother-dear has left an indelible mark on her family.

Let’s start off with what’s good about Hereditary – it’s production design, some of the best thereof seen in any horror of late. Commencing with an unnerving close-up of a miniature house soon to seamlessly transform into a life-sized bedroom, the effect resonates throughout a film which cleverly deploys that appreciably and for the better part indiscernible. Alternately real and fantastical, Hereditary, but for the minority of instances which are very obvious, keeps you guessing throughout.

Collette is reliably good as the matriarch forced to reckon with unconventional family dramas, while Byrne, ostensibly playing the character (and one of) through whom the audience’s bewilderment and angst is traditionally reflected, is wasted on a stolid, one-note role. Fast-rising star Ann Dowd brings a lot to Hereditary, which notably emanates with inspiration from classics not unlike Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man. Containing two extremely blatant homages to The Exorcist, first-time feature Director and Writer Ari Aster is evidently seeking to emulate facets of Friedkin’s triumph and horror-benchmark, though stumbles on one of those many pillars which still renders that shocker so endearing.

There is a reason filmmakers save the best and brightest scares for the final act, or even later in the movie. A sense of anticipation and escalating tension crucial to any consummate horror fix, having things go from bad to worse to culminate in some fulcrum of morbid ghastliness is something the good fright-fests and even many of the bad ones do. Hereditary does not.

There are several to be sure, but none so memorable as that which it expends in it’s first act and barely a quarter of the way in. What happens, well, it’s something you’re not going to forget anytime soon. Stupefyingly horrific and agonisingly harrowing, what occurs, as well as that immediately following it, draws magnificently on not only our fear of the macabre but on our heightened sense of here very extreme, ensuing social anxiety central to some of the best and most searing scares.

I’m really selling it, and it is to be sure gruesomely creative. The problem however persists that you know after seeing this that you’re not going to see anything nearly as shocking for the next dreary 90 minutes and, depending on what type of films you’re into, probably not anything so squeamish this whole year.

This, converse, to it’s singular impact, creates a numbing feeling that persists throughout Hereditary which cannot maintain it’s mood or sense of foreboding. You’ve already seen the worst thing you’re going to see and with the stakes having peaked and subsided so dramatically so early all which follows, however hard they try, is just going to get easier to filter. Had this or it’s ilk been evinced at a later stage, so much of the second and third act, mood-driven frights would have carried that much more resonance yet otherwise pale sheepishly in comparison as events consequently take a turn to the dullish and recurringly familiar, staple horror tropes.

Problematic more still is Wolff’s presence. Not up to the calibre of his co-stars, so many of the scares and much of the narrative rests on his miscast shoulders. In both his manner and reactions Wolff is notably neither as consuming nor unnerving as his surrounds or any of those circling proceedings trying their best with a series of waveringly shocking if heavily uneven missteps.

Hereditary is in cinemas now

[the-barrens-are-ours]

Happy Holidays!

Hope you have an amazing holiday season @galactiglitter  

Here’s some Stanlon from your Secret Santa, hope you enjoy it!

Word Count: About 5,800

Warnings: Mentions of violence, suicide, death

It was times like these where he just needed to remind himself of the good times.

To let himself drown in the memories of sunny days, blissful hours, and best friends. Of the time they spent running barefoot through the Kenduskeag, lighting off fireworks, and whispering late into the night on starry evenings. Of the times they had laughed, of the times they had smiled, and of the times they had cried.

It was times like these where Mike Hanlon was desperate for any memory of something strong enough to distract him from the harrowing pain of loss.

Though, it was also times like these where he sometimes wondered if drowning in the past was even any better. Maybe what he need was to simply forget everything. To wipe the slate clean and pretend as though nothing had ever happened, as though nothing had ever even been there, to begin with.

‘But he had been there,’ Mike thinks, ‘he was there and he changed your life. Don’t you dare forget him, you coward.’

Of course, Mike knows the thought of being able to control what he can and can’t forget is soon to be out of his hands. Afterall, he just first hand witnessed the impact It had on the memories of his friends.Still, the thought of one day not being able to remember just who he was to Mike leaves his mind reeling with uncertainty and his stomach feeling sick. He doesn’t want to forget his best friend, but he doesn’t know how he could possibly live with this pain. Even though it was twenty-seven years ago that it happened, in the memory in Mike’s mind it still feels like it was only yesterday that Stanley Uris had first spoken to him...

-

“You want to shoot off some firecrackers?”

Despite everything that had just happened to him, being hunted down by Henry, chased through a junkyard, and having to fight off the scariest gang of kids in town with rocks, Mike couldn’t stop the smile that formed on his lips at the other boy’s words. His body was tired, sore, and ached more deeply than the could remember, yet he’s never felt better.

 Here these six kids were, bruised, cut, and bloodied because they stood up for Mike and protected him, without even knowing his name. Mike felt oddly honored. He felt welcomed.

The boy cracked a smile when he saw how widely Mike was grinning back at him. He stuck out his hand to Mike. “I’m Stan. Stanley Uris. A pleasure to meet you.”

Mike grabbed his hand firmly and shook it. “Mike Hanlon. And trust me when I say the pleasure is all mine. If you hadn’t been there for me, Henry Bowers would have had my guts for garters.” Mike looked at the other kids standing around Stan. “Thank you, all of you, really.”

Another boy laughed. He had curly black hair and was putting an obnoxious pair of glasses on his face. Mike recognizes him as Richie Tozier. He remembers that he talked to him once, and it was a very odd experience, to say the least. “ Ah, don’t worry about it, kid. Any excuse to turn the table on Henry and kick his ass for once is fine by me.”

Mike looked back over at the kids, seeing how injured they were. “You didn’t need to get hurt for me though. I’m sorry about that.”

The girl with red hair glanced down at the cut on her arm and shrugged. “We’ll heal. Everything we got is way less than what you’d have gotten if Henry got you, anyways. This ain’t so bad.”

Mike glanced at Stan with a look of uncertainty. Stan just gave him a reassuring smile in return. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, that’s what friends are for.”

He froze.

‘Friends,’ Mike couldn’t help but think to himself, ‘I’ve never had friends before.’ 

He smiled at the other kids with an expression bordering on tearful. “Thank you.”

“Really, Mike, don’t worry about it.” Stan waved his hand dismissively before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a firecracker. “Now, what do you say we light some of these off?”

Mike, overwhelmed by the kindness shown, merely nodded his head in response. Stan handed him one of the crackers and gave him another smile.

-

“You know,” Stan said an hour later as the seven kids (or, as they seemed to refer to themselves as, the Losers) made their way back to the Barrens after they had lit off their last firecracker. “You’re not bad, Mike. I think we’re gonna be great friends.”

Mike gave a small laugh. “You ain’t too bad yourself. I think we’re gonna be great friends too, Stan.”

—

It was less than a minute until the bell rang and Mike couldn’t help but anxiously tap his foot. It still felt weird to him to be attending a public high school after attending a private religious school all his life. He was just glad his parents were understanding enough to let him attend the same high school as the other Losers. Getting to see them every day certainly made dealing with Derry High’s lacking academics more bearable.

The second the shrill sound of the bell pierced through Mike’s thoughts, the boy was grabbing his backpack and heading out the door.

Dodging and weaving his way through the crowd, Mike quickly made his way to locker 819, the locker closest to Mike’s seventh-period class that belongs to a Loser. Of course, it didn’t just belong to any Loser either, no. It belonged to none other than Stan Uris, and that fact could be confirmed by the cut-out image of a baseball taped to the front of the locker with Stan’s name and baseball uniform number written on it in his neat handwriting. All other members of the baseball team had similar images on their lockers as well.

Mike stood in front of his friend’s locker, carefully trying not to get in the way of students hustling to leave school at the end of what felt like a very long day. He stood up on his toes scanned over the tops of student’s heads trying to spot the curly mess that was Stan’s hair that would be coming from his seventh-period biology classroom. At last, the man Mike had been looking for came into view, smiling at his friend.

“Hi, Mike,” Stan says, giving his friend a small wave before turning to open his locker to put away textbooks.

“Stan!” Mike was beaming. “How was biology?”

“About as good as learning about how grand our existentialism can become gets.”

Mike giggled, and after a moment, Stan joined in. After being friends for so long, Mike had slowly adopted Stan’s bizarre sense of humor, much to the other Losers discomfort since they still didn’t understand it.

Once his books had been swapped, Stan closed his locker and he and Mike made their way out of school and to the Barrens to meet up with the other Losers. The two friends strolled along, chatting casually and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun shining down on them. As they passed by the entrance to Memorial Park, Stan stopped dead in his tracks, grabbing Mike’s arm to get his attention.

“Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike,” Stan whispered in a hushed yet excited breath as he pointed into the park. “Look, look, look.”

Mike followed Stan’s pointing finger and saw a bird at the birdbath located just beyond the gated entrance of the park. He wasn’t much for birds, but Mike did have to admit it was a beautiful creature. It was a striking and bold red in color with a tuff of feathers sticking up on its head, an orange beak, and a black mask over its face. Mike knows he’s seen a bird like this before, but he couldn’t place the name.

“What is it?” He whispered back to Stan, ready for the long explanation and description he was going to be given about the bird. You could hardly ask Stan anything about a bird without being given a whole lecture about it, and that was just one of the many things Mike enjoyed about his friend.

“It’s a cardinal, a male cardinal specifically based on its vibrant coloring, and they’re super rare to see in Derry. I was told a few years ago that there was one that often visited the bath here, but I’ve never actually seen it before…” Stan began to trail off, too caught up in awe of the bird to properly finish his thought.

The two watched the bird as it hopped around the bath for a moment, splashing in the water and ruffling its feathery wings from time to time. After about three minutes, the bird took off, flying across the park and out of their sight. Stan stared after it longingly and Mike couldn’t help but chuckle at him.

“That’s it. It’s been decided.” Stan said firmly after his mind finally returned back to his body.

“What has?”

“My favorite bird. It’s a cardinal. I wanted to be left without a specific breed of bird I was more fond of than the others, but that cardinal was just… stunning, was it not?”

Mike smiled. “It certainly was something.” He nodded his head as he and Stan continued walking.

Stan was quiet for a minute, a small shy smile evident on his lips. “I’m sorry, I’m just still reeling from… this!”

“You’re such a bird nerd.”

“You can say that again, Mike.”

“You’re a bird nerd.”

Stan laughed. “Thank you.”

–

It was a well-known fact that Mike’s home was always welcome to any Losers at any time. It was no secret that most of his friends didn’t have good parents, and Mike’s parents had more than enough love to share to make up for that fact. So when Stan Uris just appeared in Mike’s room, Mike couldn’t really say he was surprised.

“He’s an asshole,” Stan said, flopping down on Mike’s bed.

Mike spun around in his desk chair to face Stan on his bed. “Who?” He asked, already knowing the answer to his rather rhetorical question.

“My dad!” Stan exclaimed, throwing his arm straight up in frustration before dramatically letting them flop back down onto the bed.

Mike stared at his friend for a moment, observing him. He had known Stan for many years now and he knew just how bad his dad could be. As a well-respected member of Derry’s Jewish community, he always expected Stan to follow in his footsteps and become a rabbi like he had. And while Stan was passionate about his beliefs and heritage, Mike knew that Stan also had dreams that differed from that of his father, and that could make family interactions very tense. Mike also knew that Mr. Uris was not shy about playing the ‘I’m disappointed in who you’re becoming’ card on Stan, and Mike couldn’t even imagine how deeply it’d hurt to have to hear those words from one’s parent.

It was blatantly clear from Stan’s demeanor and body language that he was more than just angry about his father. After years of being around him, Mike was able to see through all the hidden chips in Stan’s armor and see just how badly he was hurting within the defenses he’d put up to protect himself. Mike’s heart ached for his friend.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked genuinely, giving his friend a comforting smile to show that he was there to support him and wouldn’t force Stan to talk about anything he wasn’t comfortable with sharing. The other boy was quite comfortable and trusting with Mike, but he knew that sometimes Stan would get so upset that he was shut down and close himself off completely from everyone for a while, and Mike didn’t want to overstep any new boundaries his friend may have established. But Stan just stared at Mike for a second, and in that brief moment, Mike saw the walls his friend put up start to crumble down. Then Stan began to talk. He talked about anything and everything that was in his mind. The pressures his father put on him, the uncertainty of his own future, and the doubt that Stan carried with him at the core of his being. Once he started going, he talked and ranted as fast as the sun was setting outside Mike’s bedroom window, drawing out long shadows across the room as the night crept in.

Mike knew Stan well enough by now that he knew based on how Stan was talking he didn’t want help with his problems. No, he didn’t want solutions, he just wanted to say everything on his mind and have someone listen to and hear what he had to say. And Mike made sure he heard every word of it. He nodded along thoughtfully, keeping all of his attention on his friend who at this moment in time needed to know that someone was there for him, and Mike was determined to make sure Stan knew he was there. Stan didn’t have to be alone. He’d always have Mike by his side whenever he needed him there. “And he’s just so… so…” Stan made an angry gripping motion with his hands, staring at the fists he made with rage and frustration as tears started to form in the corners of his eyes.

“Hey,” Mike said, carefully grabbing his friend’s hands to get him to stop before his nails punctured the skin of his palms and he hurt himself. “It’s alright, Stan, I get what you’re trying to say. Don’t worry about not having the right words now, they’ll come to you when the time is right.”

Stan sighed heavily, slowly relaxing his hands. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry.” He sniffled and Mike’s heart ached.

“No, no, no, no. You don’t need to apologize, Stan, I understand. It feels good to let everything out, but you don’t want to hurt yourself.”

Stan pulled his hand from Mike’s. “Yeah, I don’t want to hurt myself either. He just makes my life miserable.” Stan forced out an awkward and uncomfortable laugh to cover up the pained sob that was threatening to spill. “It’s probably time for me to calm down now. This is getting too emotional.”

Mike understood immediately that Stan was done being vulnerable for the time being. He had a lot of insecurities, it was just who he was, and he often times wasn’t comfortable with so openly expressing his emotions.

“Of course.” Mike nodded, turning his desk chair back around to his desk to grab a pad of paper and a pen. “Wanna draw some birds?” He asked.

Stan smiled, taking the paper and pen from Mike’s hands gratefully. No one was ignorant to the fact Stan liked birds, or even the fact that he loved drawing the birds he’s seen in his bird book, but only a few people knew was that the number one way to get Stan to calm down and to relax when he was upset was by drawing birds. The boy just gets so swept up in meticulously replicating the intricate design and details of birds, that all his worries vanish from his mind, even if it is only for a few hours.

So there the two boys sat, tucked away from the vileness of the outside world in the safety of Mike’s room, hidden from sight in the cloak of the night as they drew. Stan laying on his stomach on Mike’s bed, carefully making sure each and every part of his drawing was beautifully accurate towards the real thing, while Mike awkwardly drew blobs with a beak, talons, and wings at his desk. Mike never really was one for drawing, but he would do anything to help his friend feel better, even if the act alone held no interest to him.

Seconds passed quickly, becoming minutes which accumulated into hours, and before either boy noticed, it was two in the morning. They had spent the night talking and drawing, and now they both struggled to keep their eyes open.

“Stan,” Mike whined, flopping down on the bed next to him. “I’m so tired.”

Stan’s small chuckle quickly turned into a yawn. “It is late. I should probably head home.”

“No!” Mike rolled over onto Stan. “Don’t go home yet to your asshole dad. Stay the night, we can have a sleepover.”

Stan gave a choked cough from under Mike. “If I agree will you get off of me?”

“Oh shit. Sorry, Stan.” Mike laughed, rolling off of his friend. “What do you say though?”

Stan quieted, pretending to ponder the offer though they both knew there was no way Stan would choose going home over staying the night with his best friend.

“You know what? Sure.” Stan finally said, and Mike beamed at him happily before scrambling off his bed to pull his sleeping bag out from his closet for Stan.

After watching Mike rush around his room, gathering things for him so he’d be comfortable overnight, Stan got up and helped his friend set up sleeping arrangements for the night. Once the bag was comfortably arranged on the floor with one of Mike’s spare pillows and an extra blanket since Stan always got cold during the night, the two friends gave each other proud smiles before settling down for the evening.

“Need anything else before I turn out the lights?” Mike asked after they both got situated in their respective beds.

“No, I’m good. And thanks for everything tonight, Mike. Thanks for being their and listening and helping. It really means a lot to me.”

Mike chuckled a bit. “Of course. What else are friends for?”

Stan was quiet for a minute, before shifting over to dig through the pockets of the jacket he had discarded when they got ready for bed. At last, he pulled out one of the drawings he did earlier and handed it to Mike. “Here. I know it’s nothing great, but think of it as a symbol of my appreciation and gratitude and friendship.” He gave a shy smile.

Mike took the page, looking at the drawing printed on its surface. It was a cardinal with its wings spread gracefully in flight. It was beautiful. It was also personal, Mike realized when thinking over how cardinals were Stan’s favorite bird.

“Thank you, Stan. It’s wonderful.” The look he gave Stan was full of love, joy, and appreciation. It was also clear he was trying not to tear up at the small yet meaningful gift.

“Don’t you dare cry on me, Mike Hanlon, cause if you do, I’ll cry,” Stan said, blinking quickly to prevent any tears from building up.

“I can’t make any promises, Stanley Uris.”

“I figured not.”

“Love you, Stan.”

“Love you too, Mike.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Mike clicked the lamp off.

—

“And with this mostly useless piece of paper you’ve given us all here today, Derry High, I must say to you, thank you. For four unpleasant years. And to another four at college, here here, folks!” Richie cheered, throwing his graduation cap up into the air as the crowd gave him a confused yet energetic round of applause. Mike laughed as the principal rushed across the stage to herd Richie off who only just laughed and made faces at the crowd. Ben, who was arranged to sit right next to Mike due to the closeness of their last names, gave him a bone crushing hug after they all had thrown their caps in the air, following Richie’s poor example. Students quickly began to leave their seats in the center of the gymnasium and make their way outside where they could meet up with their families once again. Mike and Ben, however, got out of everyone’s way once outside, heading off school campus over towards the designated spot the Losers had picked out in advance to meet up at after the graduation ceremony had ended. The two boys saw, as they approached, that Stan and Beverly were already there waiting for them. As soon as they arrived, Bev quickly went to hug Ben and Mike. Stan looked on, smiling happily for a moment before Bev dragged him over to join in on their group hug. “Some valedictorian speech Richie gave there, eh?” Mike asked Stan with a chuckle once Bev let them go to sprint over towards Bill who she spotted making his way over towards them. Stan laughed. “I do suppose that is one way to give an important speech. To give Richie props, it’ll definitely be something we remember for the rest of our lives.”

“You can say that again.”

Beverly made her way back over to them with Bill in tow and a recently found Richie and Eddie not far behind. The seven friends, finally reunited, cheered, celebrating their graduation from high school.

“Wait, wait, wait, Mike,” Richie said, smiling at him. “You got your camera with you?” Mike smiled, taking out the Polaroid camera he had attached to a strap that hung around his neck. His parents wanted him to take pictures of his graduation, so he had to sneak his camera in under his graduation gown.

The Losers quickly scrambled to strike a pose as Mike set up his camera for a group photo. After setting the timer, he quickly rushed over and threw his arm over Stan’s shoulders, smiling. The camera flashed and Richie cheered again, reaching over to ruffle Eddie’s hair as the Losers started to disperse.

Mike went over to grab the photo that came out and Stan followed after him.

“So, staying in Derry, Mike?” Stan asked.

Mike looked up from the image he held in his hands. “Oh, yeah. Can’t really afford to go out of state, and you know what they say: no place like home. What about you?”

“Heading to New York State. Nice university. No offense, Mike, but I’m glad to finally be getting out of here and away from my dad.” Stan frowned slightly at the thought of his father, before returning the small smile Mike gave him. “Well, you’re going to be missed here, Stan.”

“I’m gonna miss you too.” Stan quickly embraced his friend. “You better keep in contact with me, Mike.”

“I will. And you better not forget me, Stan. I know you’re leaving and will undoubtedly move on to bigger and greater things, things grander than what this small town can offer, but don’t forget to look back and remember your good ol’ childhood friend, alright now?”

“I won’t, Mike, don’t worry. Jeez, you sound like my mom. Want me to write you every week too?”

“Yes, that would be preferable.”

Stan laughed and Mike gave him a joyful smile back. “Every week then. And you better write me back every week too then, Mike.”  

“Sounds like a plan.”

—

And it had been a plan, Mike remembers. A plan that had started off rather well. One week after Stan had left for university, Mike had received a postcard from him that he quickly responded too. The two had gleefully exchanged cards every week, and on rare occasions, they’d even call each other on the phone. Mike had kept every card he’d been given by Stan in a small box of keepsakes hidden safely under his bed, and his pile within it continued to grow regularly. But as time had passed, the postcards would start coming later and later from Stan, until one day, Mike never got a response from him.

Mike couldn’t say he was surprised when he realized he wouldn’t hear from Stan again until the day when he might have needed to call him and all the other Losers back to Derry. He knew that the Losers who’d left were destined to forget about their hometown, childhood, and friends, though that didn’t stop it from hurting when Stan had finally forgotten him.

As Mike sat at the edge of his bed, the box of keepsakes in hand, he couldn’t help but think about what he’d been told about Stan’s fate. Reports state that after receiving a call from a friend, Stan had excused himself to go take a bath, and when his wife had gone up to check on him mere minutes later, he was found dead in his bathtub, wrists slit.

Mike knew without a single shred of a doubt that he had been that friend that called Stan right before his death, and even though he knew Stan would never blame him, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Guilty that he might have driven his friend to do such an extreme thing after he reminded him of a promise he had made nearly three decades ago. A promise to fight an ancient evil that had nearly killed them all before. An evil that wanted another attempt at killing them. And before It had even gotten Its attempt in, Stan was gone.

Mike bite his lip as he tried to control the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. He knew that there would be time to grieve later, plenty of time assuming he was able to live through Round Two with It, and Mike knew that this final fight had to be his main priority. But this fight could also wait a damn hour, long enough for Mike to feel what he needed to feel after learning about his friend’s death.

Taking a deep breath and sniffling a bit, Mike opened the box.

His box of keepsakes was hardly something he even really went through. Most times when it was opened, it was just because Mike had something else he wanted to add to it by throwing it on top of the pile. This meant everything within the box was in reverse chronological order from the top down. This meant that the last letter from Stan was the first thing he saw. The sight of it felt like a knife had been plunged deep into his soul.

It had been evident by this point that Stan had almost completely forgotten who Mike was. The mood of the letter was hesitant and uncertain like he no longer knew how to properly interact with his friend. It was kept formal in tone, and all inside jokes that the two thoughtful weaved into their messages had been scrubbed clean from the words staining the card. The note was brief and to the point, lacking any new personal life details that they usually included, as if Stan was no longer comfortable with sharing with him. Almost like Mike was a complete stranger to him.He supposed at that point, he pretty much was.

Mike took a few breaths to control his breathing that had become slightly more erratic as the knife he had been hit with twisted inside of him. He knew this would hurt, but it appears he had underestimated just how much it would.

The gently lifted the card out of the box, setting it down next to him as he began to look through everything else within it.

Most of them were postcards from Stan, especially towards the top since mail deliveries were all he had gotten from Losers once they moved off out of state to college and beyond. No more little hand-made personal gifts, and small objects of sentiment that represented a shared moment of intimacy between him and another one of the Losers. And the last picture he had of all of them together was taken right after the graduation ceremony. Mike tried to ignore the part of him that stated that this was the last image of all seven of them together, alive and well, that would ever be taken ever, even if that part of him was correct.

Seven had become six.  

And no matter how painful that thought was, nothing would ever change it.

As Mike continued to sift through letters and other miscellaneous items within the box, he noticed the familiar look of the page at the bottom, underneath everything.

He pulled out the piece of paper and stared at the drawing.

Stan’s cardinal was just as beautiful as he always remembered it being. Despite the fact that it had nearly been twenty-five years since it was drawn, the picture was still in incredible condition. No tears in the paper, no smudged or fading lines within the drawing, nothing. Nada. It hit Mike strongest with the memories he and Stan had shared. For a brief moment, it felt like he was back in that night, staring at the newly acquired image before turning his lamp out for the evening. He remembered what he thought when he was given the drawing.

‘Stan and his birds.

He truly is amazing, isn’t he?’

Mike stopped fighting the tears and wept.

—

Memorial Park was just as dead as the rest of Derry was. The entire town had died right along with It, and as painful as it may have been for Mike to say, he missed his hometown. Everything he had grown up knowing and loving was destroyed and gone, leaving Derry almost completely unrecognizable. When Mike had first seen the little remains of downtown Derry once he was released from the hospital after he had been attacked by Henry, he certainly wouldn’t have guessed it was the same town he had always known.

Memorial Park was, only the surface level, the least destroyed place left in Derry. Mike supposed it was rather hard for an entire park to be destroyed in comparison to a building that could easily crumble and topple, but the influence of Its death was still evident. Trees lost their leaves, the grass was turning brown, and the sidewalks throughout the piece of land were crumbling. Mike still found it hard to believe that the life of Derry was tied to the murderous spirit that preyed off the people that lived in the town.

Mike limped carefully down one of the paths of the park, being careful of the wound on his leg that was still healing. He didn’t know why, but he had been overcoming with the desire to go out on a walk to Memorial Park, and after all he had been through, Mike was not going to ignore any instinctual feeling that came to him. After all, he owed everything he had in his life to said feeling. Even if everything he had in his life was now almost completely gone; either destroyed or being slowly wiped from his mind until nothing was left.

After a bit of walking, Mike’s injury started to throb painfully and he was forced to sit down at one of the park’s few remaining benches for a minute to rest. The day was warm and surprisingly calm despite the destruction that plagued the town. There weren’t many people out and about, probably due to the current dangers of being outside, but Mike did notice a few other individuals mulling around the park like he was. He sighed contently, trying to enjoy the day as much as he could.

Life was going to be hard over the next couple of months, Mike came to realize. Between having to find a new job since the library was demolished, to having to find a new home since his house was gone, to just overall having to start a new life in a new city since Derry was dead, there was a lot to do. Mike knew he was also going to become a new person once he finally started over someplace else. He would no longer be a librarian, a lighthouse keeper, a historian, a Loser. All of those sides of him that Mike associated with his childhood friends were going to be cleansed from his mind alongside them. He was already having difficulty remembering what buildings Ben had designed, what books Bill had written, what the style the clothes Beverly designed were, and how many Voices Richie had. He remembered even less about Eddie since his passing, and Mike was pained to admit that he could only remember very few details about Stan. He remembered he was Jewish, married, lived in the south, didn’t get along with his dad, and that he was Mike’s greatest friend. Most other facts and tidbits about him had already slipped from his mind.

It wouldn’t be long, Mike thought, until the rest was gone too.

Mike’s train of thought was interrupted by the flutter of wings and a flash of red. Quickly looking up, he noticed a male cardinal, a brilliant red in color, resting out on one of the barren branches of a tree in front of Mike, with its black eyes trained on him. When he laid his eyes upon the bird, Mike was hit with a sudden memory so strong that Mike was left lightheaded and reeling. Cardinals were Stan’s favorite bird. How could he have ever forgotten?

Mike remembers the first time he and Stan had seen a cardinal together when they were barely even teens. He remembers the night Stan had come to him, drawn a cardinal, and given it to him forever. He remembers rediscovering that drawing buried under memories in his box of keepsakes right after he was informed of Stan’s passing. He remembers the knife of grief he felt when he had looked back at the picture. He can still feel that pain as intensely as if it had just happened.

He also remembers an old memory, buried deep within his mind. He doesn’t recall from when or where it came from, and the memory itself is covered in dust, long forgotten, but it still returns to him.

“Did you know,” Stanley Uris had once said to him, “cardinals represent the fire of life that is said to burn within our souls, even in the darkest of time. Fascinating, isn’t it, Mike?”

“It sure is.” Mike had nodded in response. “It sure is fascinating.”

Mike thinks about what Stan had said to him as he stared at the small bird that in returned stared right back at him.This small red bird was meant to represent life, burning brightly in even the blackest of nights. Mike knew it was no coincidence then that this bird also reminded him of Stan. Someone who was there for him, who’d stay by him in dark times. He remembers now how fearlessly Stan had stood up for him during the Apocalyptic Rock War against Henry Bowers and his gang of goons. He had also saved him and the other Losers when they had fought It when they were kids. He was always there in the darkest times. He was always that spark of life that kept things lively and bright and hopeful. Stan was a cardinal.

And Mike realized that even if Stan passed on, and even if Mike forgot him, he’d never truly be gone. Part of Stan was right in front of Mike, staring at him, watching over him.

The red bird turned, spreading its wings and taking flight. Mike watched it go for a moment, wondering why that bird was so important to him as his thoughts of Stan once again disappeared from his mind.

Mike decided at that moment that cardinals were his favorite bird.

Something about them just made him feel warm inside. Safe. Protected. Loved.

Whenever Mike encountered the colorful bird from then on, he would always get the faint feeling that he had forgotten something.

Something important.

Someone important.

[flauntpage]

The Day I Quit Baseball, Then Came Back

I could breathe again. I could smile and mean it. That thing on my shoulders and in my neck, that heavy and dark and relentless burden that in four and a half years had grown with my ERA, it was gone. My head was clear. So clear, I had to laugh. By giving up what I'd thought was my life, I knew I'd gotten my life back. I knew it in that moment. I'd traded baseball for me. I'd miss it, sure. But it wasn't for me. Not anymore.

I didn't turn on the TV. I didn't turn on the radio. I sat on my old brown couch, happy to be happy, happy for the silence in my head, happy to be free, at twenty-five, of the only thing I had ever really wanted.

In Asheville, North Carolina, a phone rang, and Harvey Dorfman picked up. Years later, Harvey, a sports psychologist I worked with for years, recounted the conversation to me.

"Scott," he said.

"Well, he did it," Scott Boras said. Scott was my agent. "He told the Cardinals. He's not going back."

"I know," Harvey said. "How's he seem to you?"

"He said he's fine."

"What do you think?"

"He said he's fine."

"I'll call Walt," Scott said, meaning Walt Jocketty, the Cardinals' general manager.

"You better be right," Harvey said.

"There's no more monster," Scott said. "We killed it. It's gone."

"All I'm saying is, this better work."

"It'll work."

"If it doesn't . . . "

"Harvey," Scott said, "trust me."

"Trust you? You kidding? You're more messed up than any of 'em."

Their usual dance. They shared a laugh. Maybe Scott needed Harvey more than I did, which was saying something.

"Gotta go, Harvey. I'll stay in touch."

They'd been plotting this for months. They'd had a plan for when I couldn't do it anymore. They'd hidden it from me.

Courtesy PublicAffairs

I let my mind drift to the backyard games in Fort Pierce, Florida, to the early ball games at Sportsman's Park and then Port St. Lucie High School, the draft, a couple years in the minor leagues, my big-league debut for the Cardinals in Montreal a month after my twentieth birthday, my first home run, an opposite-field shot on a cold, damp night in St. Louis. The road to the major leagues had seemed wide and empty, without a speed limit. Damn, was that me back there? Had I ever been that fearless? That sure of myself?

Occasionally, as word spread that I'd gone home for good, my teammates—former teammates—would wake my phone with a text message.

"All good," I'd send back. Yeah, all good.

"Good luck," they'd say. "You too."

"We'll get a beer."

"Sounds good."

We probably wouldn't. I wasn't part of that anymore.

I closed my eyes again and considered the path to here, to a couch in Jupiter and a Wednesday morning in March with nothing to do but reassure those kind enough to reassure me. And to say good-bye. They'd go off to their lives, my former life, and I'd get on with mine, which at the moment had nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with a fluffy cushion under my head and, I didn't know, maybe some lunch or something. I could do whatever I wanted, and I'd never have to chase the fastball I'd once had, or stand in the middle of a ballpark in disgrace as my catcher spun and sprinted to the backstop, or fear my next pitch, or live up to the player I had been. I wouldn't have to be the guy who used to be Rick Ankiel anymore. Maybe I'd sleep again. The nightmares could go haunt some other poor schmuck.

On my couch, I was content. The poster on the living room wall behind me was from Scarface, one of my favorite movies. Al Pacino lazed in a huge bathtub, bubbles everywhere. He pulled on a cigar. In a lower corner, the words "Who do I trust? Me." I believed that again. It had been a while.

I'd just spent better than four years trying to trust everyone, anyone but the man on the couch. But I knew where my guy Tony Montana—Pacino's character—was coming from. I'd known that feeling once, forever ago. I'd been untouchable. They'd said I was gifted, that my arm was special. At twenty, I was certain of it too. More than certain. At twenty-one I stood on a pitcher's mound in a full stadium in game one of a playoff series, and from that height I could see the future everyone talked about, that I'd wished for myself. That I'd worked my ass off for.

From a slightly lower vantage point—my feet up, head back, eyes closed, late-morning sun on my face—I understood something similar. I was in control of my future again. So I wasn't going to be a special baseball player. I'd live up to practically no one's expectation of me. I probably wasn't going to be rich. There'd be no yacht, no mansion on the water, no easy life through middle age or for the next generation of Ankiels. There'd be no World Series game seven, me against some big ol' hairy dude, the crowd loud, the moment taut, me knowing I was born for the next pitch. Turned out, it was the next pitch that had run me off. I'd have to get a job, maybe go to school, sort out a life that had melted away on that mound and hadn't stopped bleeding until now. It all sounded so . . . wonderful.

In the beginning, when the monster was in its infancy, Dave Duncan had hope for me. A decent catch-and-throw catcher in the 1960s and '70s, he had become the most respected pitching coach in the game. Duncan turned out Cy Young Award winners and World Series champion pitching staffs, and he had a particular touch with pitchers who'd been successful but had somehow lost their way. He didn't say a lot, but the few words he chose were enough. His reputation was as a coach who'd turn rookies into men, average pitchers into good pitchers, good pitchers into great pitchers. The ones who came along great, he'd keep them great.

Then there was me. He tried. He knew pitching mechanics. He understood the mind of the ballplayer. And he could sort through an opposing lineup, pick it apart, and present the strategy that would work in a few simple, encouraging sentences.

None of which prepared him for the can't-miss prodigy who missed a lot. None of which prepared him for the monster.

"Dunc," La Russa said to him that day, "Rick went home. He's not coming back."

Duncan shook his head and blinked his sad eyes. He'd seen it coming and thought it was for the best. He'd been bothered by the previous four seasons, by his inability to fix me, to set it right. He'd lost sleep himself. He had a pitching staff to deliver by opening day, and there was plenty to do that morning, but he'd allow a few moments for regret. There'd been days along the way, moments, really, a pitch here or there, when Duncan had allowed himself a drop of optimism. But the next day would come and bring another bucket of reality, which inevitably got kicked over, drenching everybody's shoes again.

La Russa knew precisely what Duncan was thinking. They'd spent plenty of nights together considering ways to reconstruct me, and La Russa would wonder when the game might become fun again for me. He'd stand to the side and see me on a mound, watch me start my windup, and remember when he'd allowed himself to believe he was witnessing the next Bob Gibson, the left-handed version. Wasn't that long ago, he'd muse. He would not have said it aloud, not in public, where such reflections would stalk a ballplayer to his grave. But, hell, I'd had as live an arm as La Russa had ever seen. The way I threw a baseball, it was as if the ball itself was alive and couldn't wait to be excused from its temporary place in my hand. From the Rawlings factory, to the box with eleven other balls in it, to the ball bag, to the baseball glove, and then to my hand. These were merely transitional areas for a baseball on the nights I went out there and, a pitch at a time, tried to become something great.

They'd talked themselves out on the subject of me, and so in the brief silence between the manager and his pitching coach in the immediate aftermath of my departure, La Russa chose to accept it. He understood that this thing had ridden me long enough, that my really bad day had become countless worse ones. It was time for me to go, and for the organization to let go.

All things considered, I thought I was pretty well adjusted. I mean, I was screwed up and everything, I couldn't throw a ball sixty feet without practically breaking out in hives, and I'd become expert in medicating my ghosts so at least I could survive the harrowing hours around the ball games. But, hey, fake it till you make it. To the end, I'd shown up every day, and worked to get it right and held on to the hope I'd make it, and now I was in my midtwenties and could think of no reason at the moment to get off the couch.

Harvey believed I was, his words here, that psychological tire. I'd been riding hard miles on that tire for four and a half years, and the tire was worn and road-weary and quite possibly dangerous. He also believed I would know when the journey, that being my career, was done. He'd never said, "Ank, it ain't gonna happen," even if he'd known it. And he did know it. He got me through the day, however, and then went to work on the next day, and he prepared me for what he knew was the inevitable.

Harvey would tell Scott the time was coming when the tire would blow. They had to be ready with an alternative to the lives I'd once had—the one I'd been chasing for four and a half years and the one I'd escaped before that. I thought Harvey was being my shrink, being my friend, being my father figure. He thought he was saving my life.

The phone rang. It was Scott. Geez, I thought, I'm fine. I picked up.

"How's it going?" he asked. This again.

"I'm good, Scott," I said. "You sure?"

"I'm fine."

"Ank," he said, "you ready to go play?"

"Go play what? I'm done." Wasn't he listening? Wasn't anybody?

"Outfield. For the Cardinals. I talked to Walt." Wait. What?

"Jocketty," I said. "You talked to Walt Jocketty, and he wants me to play the outfield. For the Cardinals."

"Yes."

"You're not bullshitting me, are you?"

"You're a big leaguer," Scott said. "You can do this. They'll start you on the minor-league side. You'll work your way up. It'll work. You're good enough."

Scott and Harvey had worked this out. Harvey had advised against it, against inviting more failure, unless Scott was absolutely sure I could return to the major leagues. A five-year minor-league slog, topping out in Double A, sending me back to the couch again at thirty years old, would only put more miles on that same psychological tire.

"When have I ever been anything but up-front with you?" Scott chided.

"I know. I know I know I know."

"You can do this. Go have a good time. Go beat the game. You'd be great."

Damn, I'd just quit baseball. Three hours before, I'd said good-bye. No regrets. I sat up, looked around, found the poster. Who do I trust?

I hit in high school. I hit a little in the big leagues, when pitchers figured there'd be nothing to lose by throwing me fastballs. I did hit some in the minors. That was rookie ball. Against kids. I wasn't an everyday player. I hadn't played the outfield since Port St. Lucie. This was crazy. Beyond crazy. But I was twenty-five. Wasn't that when regular people started their careers? It would never work. But it might.

I tried to clear my head. Was I ready to fall back in love with baseball? Was I going to do this to myself again? Didn't I want to sleep?

"They wanted me?"

"This isn't charity," Scott said. "You can play. You can do this."

"OK, lemme think."

"Ank, I believe in this. I think you should too."

"When?"

"Tomorrow." Well, damn. "Tomorrow, huh?"

Excerpted from "The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life" by Rick Ankiel and Tim Brown Copyright © 2017. Available from PublicAffairs, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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