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aquaquadrant · 5 years ago

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ravenous red

Star Wars: The Clone Wars fanfic Rating: T Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence, injury, blood, death Summary:

i heard you wanted a war funny, i wanted it more

~*~

So he says nothing, letting his gaze speak his hate as he relents, turning and walking away. It feels like disgrace, it feels like a failure, to go do her bidding- go cause some chaos, she taunts- but real victory lies in that which she does not yet know. Good at it, sure, he can admit as much, but the means to the end will be something she doesn’t expect. That’s how he’ll get her, collateral damage in this personal storm he directs.

At her request.

Lady Tano, you don’t know what you’ve just asked for.

A/N: I know I said my last oneshot was my tribute to the Clone Wars, but then I heard a song that fit Maul perfectly so I had to do a tribute to him too. It’s actually a song fic, I’ve been writing fanfic since I was 13 but this is my first song fic so hopefully I did it right. This is basically Order 66 from Maul’s POV, showing off how much of a spiteful, unhinged badass he really is. Hope you enjoy, reblogs/comments are appreciated! – Aqua

Song is Appetite for Destruction by Vo Williams

Click here to read on Archive of Our Own

Click here to support me on Ko-fi

~*~

ravenous red

It starts with a scream.

Ringing out through the force like a shot, chaos crashing in after it. Words pass in flashes, snippets he can’t quite decipher. The impressions of feelings brush against him; shock, betrayal, desperation. He feels the flicker of lightning, a bygone but familiar sensation. Someone somewhere has made a very poor choice, one that will echo for ages, one that he expected.

(He did try and warn them)

It’s not long before they come. Identical faces behind identical helmets approach without words. They are rigid, unflinching, as they move to lower the shield that protects him, ensnares him, with unspoken intent written plainly as anything else.

Any lingering sympathy he has for these beings, these clones that were raised to be tools- as was he- dissipates like mist in the sun. To think, they would kill him like this. Trapped and defenseless. A coward’s method of choice; it insults him, right to the core. Let him out, let him fight, he’ll give them a show. He’ll remove the spines they don’t deserve. They aren’t using them anyway.

The death in the air is a pulse in his brain, a constant crashing and ebb of bloody waves. It’s hard to concentrate, hard to mediate between what’s happening right in front of him and what’s happening lightyears away. The force is a furnace, thousands of bodies toppling into it to burn. It devours them gladly, wiping out light from the sky to leave nothing but smoke and ash in return.

He wants to join in, wants to destroy. Not a Sith, not quite, but he hunts like one still. The darkness beckons for him, a familiar cold, coursing through his veins. Yellow eyes glare through glass, burning with hatred and rage. He’d kill them, if only he could. He wants them to know it. He wants them to feel it.

If looks could kill, they’d already be dead.

this is the end of your days it's time we end the charades open the cage, i want to play time for the bridges to blaze

Blasters are raised- but cut down just as quickly.

His savior is a flash of blue. Unexpected but welcome (though he prefers red). Her hostility is unsurprising, her fear concealed well- but not completely. She feels the same death he does, but it frightens her, whereas it only strengthens his resolve. He will not fall as the Jedi do. He loathes the thought; there is too much unfinished business for him to perish now.

(Kenobi will survive this because Maul must be the one to kill him, no one else, he wills this with every fiber of his being- and will is a powerful thing, will allowed him to survive being cleaved in half)

Between the two of them, everything falls into place. His master’s plan, beautiful and deadly. Brilliant and artful. Cowardly and despicable. To strike them down with the men who were created to serve, to protect. They’re nothing but droids now, mindless droids coated in flesh. It doesn’t matter to him; he’d kill either way, but he knows that she won’t.

It’s good that she’s come to him, he’ll do it for her, do what must be done to get them out alive-

Except, no.

She rejects him. She wants to strike out on her own, condemn him to the same lonely fate. It’s foolish. So blinded by her lofty morals that she fails to grasp they’re both members of the same dying breed. The Padawan who might’ve joined him has retreated far beneath the surface, hiding under a cloak of denial at the vision he sees. Her attachment is strong, too strong, that she cannot accept the truth even when given freely.

How dare she? How dare she?! Dare to use him and cast him aside, as so many others before- always remember that you are nothing- this child in a warrior’s mask, thinking he’ll act as her pawn. No, not anymore.

Oh, he’ll kill her. He’ll kill her for that. So many ways to do it, weapon or no. Reach out a hand, reach for the force, strangle the breath from her lungs, crushing her throat in his grasp. In this moment, he hates so greatly he truly thinks that he could. Crush her throat, or crush her skull, he wants to, grab her head and smash it against the wall. Red dripping down lekku of blue and white, a striking image it’d make, to be sure. He always did have an eye for these things.

He wants to see it.

i'm slipping into a craze twisted images into the brain turn up the volume on the pain give me the feeling i crave

But no.

Logic and reason win out. They dictate he cannot waste time on the likes of her. She proved a difficult fight before and his chances are slim as they are. Save his energy, save his effort for the real battle to come, for the ones who march to the tempo of death and come for him next, they’ll come for him just as well as for her.

Neither of them are Jedi but he knows they will not see it as so.

In the end that’s all that matters, how they will see you, how they perceive you, all the words in the world make no difference at all. Words do nothing, only action can produce results, as he’s clearly been shown.

At her request.

Lady Tano, you don’t know what you’ve just asked for.

show me your villainous ways show me the killer's awake make me afraid that's how you bring me to life make the adrenaline race i want a taste

i feel my rage erupting feed my appetite for destruction blood rushing i love when you feed my appetite for destruction

Alone, he persists.

His path’s uncontested, legs of metal storming heavy and loud through the ship, not trying to hide. Let them come, he’ll be ready. This aggression needs somewhere to go, after all. It’s burning him up inside. He knows intimately what it’ll do to him, if he won’t let it out. The anger, the pain. It seeks to devour, a ravenous red haze flowing through him, taking control of his brain.

It guides him and he lets it. His stalk is a predator’s stalk, single-minded focus on the hunt. He’s not afraid. They’ll see they aren’t the only executioners at work today.

They find him quickly, scattered through the ship as they are, and greet him with a volley of fire. Metal bends to his will, peeling away like skin off of flesh. Weapons or no, he’s been given a task. He can be creative. The true measure of a warrior lies not in their blade. To wield power, he needs only to look within and ask.

The very walls of their ship become the instruments of their demise. He lifts without effort, advancing slowly but surely with an unbroken stride. Walls to deflect their shots, to smash them aside, to cut through armor, through flesh, and through bone. Two heads roll off with a thrust of his arm, slack faces concealed in their helms. Bodies crushed in between, crumbling limp to the floor. A sharp flick of the wrist pins one to the wall, sliced in half- the irony is not lost on him, but humor has no place here, in this tomb.

And finally, they make their retreat, aiming to seal him inside. But no, he’s not done with them yet. There’s something he needs and he’s not asking politely.

The arm comes off in the end, the vital comm-link still attached to the bracer. He slips it on, leaving the limb to bleed red on the floor, staining the armor- and he was right, what a striking image it makes. But he can’t linger long.

Chatter through the communicator gives him his next target.

Chaos… really, she should have been more specific.

i heard you wanted a war funny, i wanted it more here comes the "bang-bang" on your door it's time to back up the noise i've been ignoring the voice begging me seek and destroy it's eating my core feel like a time bomb in the eye of a storm

He makes it to the engine room without interruption.

It’s cavernous, the floor far below, a pit spanned by narrow bridges. It’s protected, as he expected, clones charge to stop him but they matter not. Their efforts are wasted. Over the edge they go; others fall to commandeered blaster fire, or to his fists. He will succeed by any means. It’s futile of them to resist.

(They can’t help it, he knows, but he doesn’t care- he wants their blood anyways)

The dark side has never flowed more strongly within him. It’s a wellspring inside his chest, filling him completely with inky black cold. Their will is one and the same; burn it all. He reaches out, power surging, fueling his rage as it takes hold. All around him, machinery falls. Sparks rain down from above as reactors are peeled off the walls.

He’ll tear them apart from within. Metal shrieks and groans as he pries it away. The ship’s hyperdrive core is his aim. Without it, they’re stranded. Him as well, but he’s not planning to stay. There must be shuttles, and nothing will get in his way.

The doors part, and another squadron advances to stop him- but they’re too late. He topples the reactors on top of them and down it all goes, crashing to the floor far below, sealing their fate.

And with that, it’s time to take his leave.

let all the chips hit the floor do everything that you want settle the score that's how you bring me to life that's when I'm feeling recharged i want it all

i feel my rage erupting feed my appetite for destruction blood rushing i love when you feed my appetite for destruction

The flight deck is a battlefield.

She’s here- but of course- attempting to hold off the rest of the forces, their volley of fire. Somehow, someway, she’s pulled one to her side. Her little captain fights bravely, but there’s too many, it won’t be enough.

He senses opportunity, another chance perhaps to make her see. Come to her aid now and she’ll have no choice but to accept. Offer survival; a joint escape from this wreckage for her and her dog (though he cares not for three). Two are better than one, even if two is the way of the Sith, which he’s not. Their chances are better together. He knows this. He feels this.

Except, no.

She already had her chance, she had three. She rejected him. She scorned him. She cast him aside. You lie, she told him. Your vision is flawed. Arrogant. Stubborn. He hates her. He hates her.

Within a second, his choice is made. He runs past, towards the ship that would be her salvation- now it’s his. She pursues, he deflects; a dangerous dance. The world’s falling around them, and still they cannot help but fight- it’s in her nature, in her nature as well as in his.

You wanted this chaos, he taunts.

Then, without mercy, he pushes her over the edge.

i feel the monster rising up inside and i can't hold it down i'm hungry for destruction pieces crumbling, fall into the ground

i feel my rage erupting feed my appetite for destruction blood rushing i love when you feed my appetite for destruction

She’s still alive when he leaves.

His ship arcs away from the crash, plowing through smoke and fire. The entire carrier is doomed, every last soul aboard sharing its fate. Escape pods destroyed, no more ships to salvage. Surely, then, this is their end- but not his.

(He did tell them they’d all burn; but while some burn in fire, others burn with it)

There’s no remorse in his escape. It’s a measure of strength; only he was enough to get out alive. He cares not for her, for how she will burn. She deserves it. In fact, he’d say out of all the beings on that ship, she’s the only one. The droids-who-were-clones cannot ‘deserve’ a fate either way. Every action is the command of somebody else, not their own.

A great victory for his master. The thought curls his lip. But he’ll count his blessings; he survived, and as the galaxy is reshaped, he knows that he has all the skills required to thrive. A tool he might be, but a sharp one. A deadly one.

His master saw to that. He should thank him. Maybe he will- before he kills him.

As for her... the possibility lingers that she might’ve survived as well. Resourceful. Determined. He sensed these traits in her. But he truly hopes that she hasn’t, that the firestorm has swallowed her whole. Not for his sake, but hers. Because if she survived, then the next time he sees her- and he will, if she has- she won’t be so lucky simply to burn.

He will kill her slowly, painfully. Unimaginable agony. Broken in body and mind. Enough to beg for death. Enough to understand what he’s felt, the culmination of all his suffering- truly, a fate to wish on no one.

Best to be taken in fire and chaos.

Lady Tano, isn’t that what you wanted?

i feel my rage erupting feed my appetite for destruction blood rushing i love when you feed my appetite for destruction

~*~

#star wars the clone wars #swtcw #clone wars season 7 #darth maul #tcw spoilers #my writing

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averycooldad · 5 years ago

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Do you love QUEER and DIVERSE media???

(SPARE A MINUTE+ FOR PRIDE AND HELPING QUEER CREATORS CREATE QUEER MEDIA WITH QUEER ROLES AND QUEER ACTORS?)

Do you like seeing yourself represented? Do you want to see a series where all characters are queer, except for one that is played by a queer actor? Do you want all those queer, diverse characters to kick ass and fight monsters?

Have you ever wanted to see me play a demon Gogo boy (YES, I SAID A DEMON GOGO BOY) in skimpy undies and all, trying to seduce and steal another Gogo boy’s sexual energy???

Well then we have the series for you! I am currently working on a team that is crowdfunding a super queer, super diverse, kick ass, action-horror-comedy web series!

(Yes, it is a grindr joke) Our new series is called DEMONHUNTR, and it is about a group of friends who fight demons and monsters (no biblical, but more mythology type) in LA via a mobile in an attempt to save the world.....well that and mostly just to make enough to pay rent. What? LA is expensive!

I am a writer and producer on the show with the small recurring gogo boy role, and have been working on this series with the team for over a year now, and we have just started our campaign to raise funds! (This pride, consider helping create representation and media that matter to you!)

So let me introduce you to the other actors:

Daniel (played by Edmund Truong)

One of the mediums who fights demons while navigating his love life when his ex-Harold comes back into his life. Yes...a gay asian demon hunting badass. Where have you seen that before???

Jeremy (played by Tamario Fletcher)

I KNOW RIGHT???? Jeremy is our only “straight” character and he is played by this gorgeous, sweet queer guy right here! And both are incredible actors! They are both the nicest guys, look like THAT, and can act???? It is almost ridiculous!

And then we haven’t finished casting, because we also are having a middle eastern woman play a pansexual Djinn, but we are currently in talks with her agent so I can’t include her yet.

But here are the ladies we do have already cast:

Natalia (played by Allie Rivera):

A latinx woman playing a bisexual witch! She becomes the boy’s manager and learns how to use her powers to throw down with some monsters! I’m really excited for some real bisexual representation where we aren’t afraid to use the word and not use the sexuality as a means of plot development or causing chaos. (MORE BI REPRESENTATION!!!!) ALSO, she is directing half of the episodes so our directors are a gay man and a PoC lady!

And finally, Quinn (played by Cara Mitsuko):

She is a lesbian stoner private investigator and Natalia’s ex. (She may or may not end up dating the pansexual middle eastern Djinn woman....SHE DOES). Also, look up her IMDb page because SHE HAS DONE SOOOO MANY AMAZING THINGS!

Seriously just look at this amazing cast! We are currently crowdfunding and need YOUR HELP! If you want more info or to donate, please visit www.demonhuntr.com!!!! If you can’t give financially, you can click the follow button on the campaign page and a follow helps a lot because we unlock cool benefits when we get to a certain number of follows!

PLEASE CONSIDER HELPING US OUT FOR PRIDE! DONATE IF YOU CAN, BUT FOLLOW THE CAMPAIGN IF YOU CANT!

And you can follow us on social media:

Twitter: @DemonhuntrShow / Instagram: @DemonhuntrSeries / Facebook: @DemonhuntrShow

Also, if you made it this far, if you donate any amount of money and then message me with your name (what you put on the donation form) I will follow you and reblog some of your selfies!!!

Again, the link is:

www.demonhuntr.com

#gaymer #gay #pride #representation #queer

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clubcreative · 4 years ago

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Writing in Comic+Illustration

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” I have to admit that’s a pretty cliche starter, but it does help define what writing means in the art community.

One way to define “writing” is to call it a genre.

Genre 101

Before I continue, I want to make sure that you understand what I mean by genre. When I talk about genre I am simply referring to various forms something comes in. For music its different sounds like the genre of jazz or pop. In writing, a genre is a book or a shopping list. Hopefully that clears things up!

When I first began researching various writing genres in the art community I was confused because I thought I was looking for actual written texts like a research paper. Yes, there are the conventional forms of written genre within the art community like a blog, but turns out a genre in the art community simply refers to the art we create!

“I thought art didn’t have writing?”

Comics, manga, anime, ads, posters- those are all forms of genre in the art world. If you are still confused then just think about the different forms that you often see art as.

In our community, the purpose of these different genres vary between the mediums.

Some are for insiders (people who are artists themselves) some genres cater towards outsiders (people who are not artists, but consume and enjoy art).

As an artist, our main focus is to entertain others with the works of art we create. Because the nature of our job focuses on pleasing others, most genres of art are created to be consumed by outsiders.

To illustrate that let’s compare two different kinds of art projects.

Genre 1: Comic Book

SnotGirl by Bryan Lee O’Mallley/Leslie Hung

Who is it for?

Comic books come in various styles and not just what people typically think like the Marvel comics.

A comic book is written in order to entertain an outsider of the art community. That is not to say that artists do not enjoy comics as well, in fact I’ve included one of my favorites as the example!

Sometimes comics are a single page with multiple panels, and they can span multiple pages and volumes. Snot girl, for example, is currently on its 14th issue!

A comic is a very commonly produced genre. Typically, someone who writes a comic has multiple reasons to do so. Most of the artists have their own story to tell. They have created their own characters, their own world, and have a vision or lesson they want others to see as well.

What’s so special about it?

What’s great about a comic is that there is no right way to do it. Comic artists are tasked with balancing multiple parts of their project. They have to consider:

- the organization of the dialogue

-how they are going to lay out the images/ what geometric shapes the panels will be

-inclusion of sound effects

Don’t forget the art itself! The creator has to make sure they are:

- cohesive

-complete and dynamic illustrations

- they do not clash with the already established panel placement

-establish the tone and mood through colors and lighting

When Less = More

Comic books have the daunting task of developing their writing through narration and dialogue. Write too much and the reading becomes heavy and write too little and the author risks confusion.

Imagine condensing an entire essay into dialogue between characters with limited narration. Writing in comics is an art in-and-of itself.

While the writer of a comic and also be the artist, this isn’t a set rule. Sometimes the author and the illustrator are two separate people or teams!

SnotGirl as a comic book case study:

Volume 1, SnotGirl

Analyzing structure

The left page is split into three rectangles and the right page is broken down into multiple squares beside a near full body illustration of the main character, Lottie.

Lottie lives her life as an Instagram model and fashion influencer. The left page introduces us to the real Lottie, a side of her that is disgusting and unkept, snot drizzling out of her nose constantly. The right page shows her in public maintaining an idealized and aesthetic persona.

if you break a page into three sections that means more art needs to go into a single panel. In the middle rectangle her whole body is shown and the bottom panel is largely zoomed into her face. It’s nearly claustrophobic, showing Lottie’s overwhelming insecurities and having the reader up-close to a side of Lottie she wishes to ignore.

On the left page, the dialogue reads as frantic, narcissistic, Lottie is trying to convince herself that she doesn’t feel ugly and that she’s more superior than others.

On the right the multiple squares include more dialogue, space around Lottie, and more zoomed-out compositions (For example, you can see Lottie all the way down to her chest at least four times).

The squares reflect Lottie’s insecurities but they are the problems of her perfect persona: boy troubles, getting coffee, and Instagram profiles. There’s more writing on this page to reflect her more superficial ravings.

Analyzing illustration

Art wise, on the left the colors are grey, dark green or blue, and more cool-toned. In color theory cool tones portray sadder, more serious moods.

The right page which is vibrant and warm-toned, which is supposed to be energetic. If I were to ask you, you might be more attracted to the right side and its happier atmosphere.

These two pages illustrate how color, composition, and organization differ widely to emphasize how the artist wants the reader to feel and understand about the story.

Sounds complicated doesn’t it? The genre of comic books may be common, but it takes a lot of working, planning, and dedication.

Genre #2: Video Game Illustration

Illustration in game

illustration in full

Art by ZAVIR

Aren’t games 3D though?

I know that when most people think about video games the models and backgrounds are in 3-D. Think of Red Dead Redemption 2. While most mainstream games are produced that way, there are still many games who use illustrations like PC click-and-point games, mobile games, and other games use illustration for character sprites. The example I’ve included is from my favorite mobile rhythm game, Cytus II.

For those who don’t play Cytus II, the game revolves around different in-universe musicians who have different songs which the player taps the beat to. For each playable song there is an illustration. (Here’s a link to the hardest song in the game! “Floor is Lava”)

What’s the point of the art?

Most video game illustrators work in backgrounds or character sprites. The illustrations can be single items as well, clarifying items that a character may have picked up in game.

However, to stay relevant to my example I will mainly focus on the aspects of this particular video game illustration.

Cytus II as a case study:

The illustrations in Cytus 2 are meant to:

create further diversity between the different songs

provide the song with a visual outside of the beatmap

By providing the song Extinguisher by Lixound with artwork, it’s not only visually pleasing but adds memorability to the song. People who are fans of the game can now draw fanart of the song.

Differences from comics

there is very little text.

The story or context has to be told by the artist in composition, character pose, and other artistic choices like lighting or colors.

Particularly in Cytus 2, the story the artist tries to tell is set by the sound and “vibe” of the song.

“Extinguisher”, an EDM song, has fast beats and dubstep like qualities as well as a robotic vocal track. It’s chaotic and fast, which could explain why the artist interpreted explosions and a figure that looks like an anarchist.

Why Different Genres Exist: Comics vs Video Game Art

Imagine if a comic was told through dialogue-less illustrations and imagine if video games had backgrounds and illustrations that were formatted like comics.

Visual chaos would ensue. Clashing dialogue, images, colors, and a lack of clarity for what the viewer should be focusing on.

Thank goodness for the different genres of illustration, huh?

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mobianflame · 5 years ago

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Omar, Tlaib Rage Over Potential Trump Travel Ban Expansion: 'Straight Up Racism'

Phrase that the Trump administration might extend its own present trip restriction brought cries of racism from anti-Trump progressive Democrats prior to anyone also revealed which countries could be affected.

The White House is taking into consideration a broadened travel ban, depending on to The Associated Bunch.

: fl-noexcerpt =" true" > Ad- account proceeds listed below The AP record mentioned many of the countries added will likely be majority-Muslim countries,

but did not call each of them. Depending On to CBS News, which described its undisclosed resource as a senior management authorities, the restriction can be actually increased through 7 nations, many of all of them majority-Muslim nations. CBS additionally did certainly not call the nations.

Fox Headlines reported that a paper laying out the plan has been actually producing the rounds in the White Home, yet with the had an effect on countries' names quashed.

The existing ban covers Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria as well as Yemen along with Venezuela and also North Korea.

Are you exhausted of the knee-jerk whimpers of racism coming from the left?

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and Relations to Make use of. You're visited to Facebook. Click on this link to log out. Finishing this survey entitles you to The Western side Publication headlines updates absolutely free. You may opt out at anytime. You likewise concur to our Personal privacy Policy and Conditions of Usage.

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=" firefly-poll-results-yes" style=" width: 100 %" > 100 % (129 Ballots ).

> 0 %( 0 Ballots). Promotion- story proceeds below Under the policy, immigrant as well as non-immigrant visas are suspended for applicants from the affected nations, however there are actually exceptions for students and people along with" considerable connects with" in the USA

Updates that the restriction could possibly be actually increased delivered howls of shock coming from Autonomous Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan as well as Pramila Jayapal of Washington.

Omar knowned as the ban "insanity" on Twitter.

What carry out 5 out of 7 of these countries share?

They are actually Muslim-majority nations the Head of state currently made an effort to ban.

Our team need to pass the #NoBanAct promptly to stop this chaos. https://t.co/UxdV7SsnCU

-- Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 10, 2020

Tlaib pertained to the restriction as "Straight up bigotry!"

Advertising campaign- account continues listed below Say goodbye to waiting. Excessive Muslims have been intentionally targeted, victimized against, split up from their loved ones and also rejected options only based upon their faith. Directly racism!

Depending on to Jayapal, any sort of expansion of the restriction will be actually "xenophobic."

Different Muslim Ban-- very same intolerant Administration.

A grown Muslim Ban is going to aggravate our relationships with countries worldwide.

It won't do just about anything to create our country more secure. It is going to harm evacuees, estrange our allies & & provide fanatics disinformation for recruitment. https://t.co/qMaWQxt6oS

-- Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) January 10, 2020

: fl-noexcerpt=" accurate" > Promotion -story carries on below Democratic governmental candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts assured that if she is actually selected, she'll undo Trump's traveling restriction.

Donald Trump is relatively multiplying down on his bigotry as well as xenophobia. Allow's be very clear: I'll reverse the Muslim Restriction on my very first time in workplace, and I will not quit battling versus policies that patsy and pain Muslim communities and also families. https://t.co/3zKanMq6C1

-- Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 10, 2020

: fl-noexcerpt =" real "> Advertisement- story proceeds below Others dismissed, with one commentator taking note that racial discrimination neglects belief.

Jihad-Reps Omar, Tlaib OUTRAGED over record White Property plans to broaden traveling restriction: 'Directly bigotry!: Really, betches, it is actually "Directly nationwide security!" As well as long outstanding. #BacktheBan Oh, and also Islam is actually certainly not a race. https://t.co/qh57ig5tm5 pic.twitter.com/REh4eAyncx

-- Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) January 11, 2020

White Home replacement bunch assistant Hogan Gidley will neither assure or even refuse that the checklist of countries on the travel ban was actually being increased.

Promotion- tale carries on below

" The Traveling Restriction has been very prosperous in securing our Country and elevating the surveillance guideline around the globe," Gidley pointed out in a statement.

" While there are no new statements at this time, sensible and also nationwide security both dictate that if a nation wants to entirely take part in USA immigration programs, they must likewise abide along with all safety and security as well as counter-terrorism measures-- because our team carry out certainly not wish to import violence or even every other nationwide safety danger into the USA."

Our experts are committed to honest truth as well as precision in each of our writing. Read our content requirements.

This content was originally published here.

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ajourneythroughtime · 5 years ago

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Stories also display repeating patterns because, when expertly made, they reflect the same ideas, themes and events. But because the patterns in story are far more abstract than the visual patterns of a fractal, to see them you have to take a deep dive into the core techniqes of the storytelller. The best storytelling has a unique quality.

The stories we love almost always share this quality.

They are fractal.

Fractals are one of the wonders of mathematics.

When you chart certain equations they produce beatiful patterns. And a quality of those patterns is that they have infinite dimensions.

You keep zooming in and in and in to a fractal, and find the same patterns repeating again and again and again.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” - William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

The fractal displays this pattern because it is generated from basic rules.

Creators of all kinds have a love / hate relationship with structure. Some equate structure with formula and reject it. Others see structure as the shortcut to success and let it overwhelm them. The truth, as with most things, is likely somewhere in between.

“Burn me with Fire. Drown Me In Rain.”

I use this basic principle to measure structure. STRUCTURE IS BIGGER THAN WE ARE. If I set out to make a car, or a cathedral, or an iPhone app, or a novel, or a movie, these things all have a structure. A structure that has been evolved over time, by creators far wiser and more skilled than I.

In martial arts there is a maxim: Learn the form. Master the form. Break the form. Untrained writers often rush to break the form. They see the work of a master, like Ray Bradbury perhaps, who broke the short story form in many marvelous ways, and assume the key to success is the act of breaking. But they ignore the years of hard work Bradbury first put into learning and mastering the form.

Stories seem to exist in a bewildering variety of forms. The 3 Act structure defined by Aristotle is arguably the most widely known.

Modern stageplays often adopt a 4 act structure, while Oscar winning movies like The Godfather spread over five acts. Short stories are commonly based on an Epiphany structure.

But all of these structures share that same single quality.

They are fractal.

Infinite Crisis

Stories within stories.

Here’s another way into the fractal nature of story. All stories are made of stories, and are part of bigger stories. If you pick up an issue of Wonder Woman, or watch the Gal Gadot fronted movie, you’re seeing just one story within that character’s overarching story. If you watch Lawrence of Arabia, and know a little history, you realise you’re watching just one small part of the story of World War One.

(Side Note Link: The Machine At Play - Blade Runner - Sword & The Stone - Lion & The Lamb - Dare we Continue?) History Repeating Itself

As storytellers, we make decisions about the boundaries of the story we’re going to tell. Game of Thrones is the story of one power struggle for Westeros. But it’s the beautiful weaving of the history that came before, and the smaller stories within the grand struggle, that make George R R Martin’s epic so intriguing to so many.

Whether you call them acts, scenes, sequences and beats…

…or parts, chapters, paragraps and sentences…

…or story arcs, issues, pages and frames…

…all stories exist are within other stories, and hold other stories within them.

“To see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour.”

youtube

Can you see an epic tale in every single sentence of your story? Here is one of the single best questions you can ask to raise your storytelling to a higher level. How does this single scene, or chapter, or frame, or sentence, reflect the whole of the story? And how does this trilogy of novels, or 10 hour television series, or epic poem, relate to the smallest story it contains?

The Supercomputer That Could Map the Human Brain

Bobby Kasthuri has a problem.

In an effort to understand, on the finest level, what makes us human, he’s set out to create a complete map of the human brain : to chart where every neuron connects to every other neuron. The problem is, the brain has more connections than the Milky Way has stars. Just one millionth of the organ contains more information than all the written works in the Library of Congress. A map of the brain would represent the single largest dataset ever collected about anything in the history of the world.

Making that map seems like a task that could consume not just one lifetime , but dozens. Yet in just three years, it might just be possible.

Kasthuri, a neuroscientist at Argonne National Laboratory, is one of many scientists whose research will use a new supercomputer the lab is building, which is scheduled to be deployed by 2021. The computer, called Aurora 21 , will run one quintillion operations in parallel—a billion billion calculations—putting it on par with the processing power of the human brain. For the U.S., which has lagged behind China in an intensifying supercomputing race since 2013, this milestone—exascale computing power—is both a national status symbol and a scientific game-changer.

Agent "one who acts," "effective, powerful," "to set in motion, drive forward; to do, perform; keep in movement" (from PIE root *ag- "to drive, draw out or forth, move") "deputy, representative" "spy, secret agent"

discern "perceive or recognize the difference or distinction between (two or more things);" "distinguish (an object) with the eyes, see distinctly, behold;" also "perceive rationally, understand;" "to separate, set apart, divide, distribute; distinguish, perceive," from dis- "off, away"

The name Aurora is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "dawn". Aurora, the poetic name of the Roman goddess of sunrise whose tears turned into the morning dew, and of (Disney's) Sleeping Beauty, would be sure to make any little girl feel like a princess.

a natural electrical phenomenon

Plasma "form, shape" (earlier plasm) Greek plasma "something molded or created," hence "image, figure; counterfeit, forgery; formed style, affectation," from root *pele- (2) "flat; to spread." "liquid part of blood"

(Click here to see the list of *pele- root forms. Much time is recommended in this open field of potential and connectivity)

Plasm "mold or matrix, cast;" see plasma. Meaning "living matter of a cell"

Aurora has two siblings, a brother (Sol, the sun) and a sister (Luna, the moon)

Gen(isis) Pact

Orion & The Magi

So, this is what it means to be a-live!

True-Man

VR Minecraft is more Real than Real Life

AI will be as biased as the humans that programmed it

youtube

Confirmed: We Really are ‘Star Stuff’

It might be that we are afraid of opening ourSelves to Our infinitely contradicting nature and essence of Infinite Chaos. Fear not, the Journey leads you Home.

youtube

Enter The Cave

#quantum core

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iammickwhite-cn · 6 years ago

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UNIT 1

UNDERSTANDING

1.1 Basic Nature of Cyber Threats:

Nothing seems sacred these days. Where there are a computer and someone with the capability and devious mind, you could potentially find a cyber threat. The trouble is, the nature of cyber threats have changed both in kind and intensity. The global States have raised their game and increased their intensity. What may have been spotty-faced teenagers operating from their mother’s basement, has transferred cyber threats as a major security challenge for businesses. The threat is a possible danger that might exploit a vulnerability to breach security and therefore cause possible harm. A threat can be either “intentional” (i.e. hacking: an individual cracker or a criminal organization) or state-sponsored. In this definition, the threat is defined as a possibility. However, in the cybersecurity community, the threat is more closely identified with the actor or adversary attempting to gain access to a system. Or a threat might be identified by the damage being done, what is being stolen or the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) being used.”In this definition, the threat is defined as a possibility. However, in the cybersecurity community, the threat is more closely identified with the actor or adversary attempting to gain access to a system. Or a threat might be identified by the damage being done, what is being stolen or the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) being used”.1

1.2 Overview of Common Threats:

Insider threats:” An insider threat is a malicious threat to an organization that comes from people within the organization, such as employees, former employees, contractors or business associates, who have inside information concerning the organization’s security practices, data and computer systems.”

The insider threat, whereby an employee acts, knowingly or unknowingly, in a counter-productive way to cause significant damage to his/her organization, has become a key risk for organizations around the world. This is in part driven by the greater access individuals have to critical information and systems as organizations become more and more connected. In addition, ever more sophisticated methods of carrying out a cyber attack and the availability of more outlets for leaking information are increasing the threat.[2]

Cryptojacking attacks: A cryptographic attack is a method for circumventing the security of a cryptographic system by finding a weakness in a code, cipher, cryptographic protocol or key management scheme. This process is also called “cryptanalysis”. SQL injection Attack: A code injection technique, used to attack data-driven applications, in which criminal SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the attacker). SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application’s software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.

Phishing: Fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by disguising as a trustworthy entity in electronic communication. Typically carried out by email spoofing or instant messaging, it often directs users to enter personal information at a fake website, the look and feel of which are identical to the legitimate site. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques being used.

Ransomware: A type of malicious software from that threatens to publish the victim’s data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid. More advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion, in which it encrypts the victim’s files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them.

Advanced malware attacks: These typically follow a common attack sequence: Planning: Involves selecting a target and researching the target’s infrastructure to determine how the malware will be introduced, the communication methods used while the attack is in progress, and how/where the data will be extracted.

1.3 Main features of threats to individuals:

From identity theft and fraud to social networking hacking attacks, everybody needs to be sure their safe. Knowledge is key as the saying goes. Your personal details, pictures, account details, and much more concerning yourself can potentially be exploited by the criminal.

1.4 Main features of threats to companies:

The reputation of your company, and of course the day to day functioning are under threat from cybercriminals. Various types of viruses and hacks can bring your business to its knees.

The number one weak link for businesses when it comes to cybersecurity — by a long, long way — is the people who work in the business.

From falling for phishing emails, and clicking on links or downloading documents that turn out to be malware, to being a victim of business email compromise (BEC) scams that end up losing the company a lot of money, employees are a company’s greatest liability when it comes to cybersecurity.

See also: https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/blueborne-bluetooth-hacking.html

Figure 1: Explanation from CIO|INSIGHT on Today’s security issues for businesses.[3]

1.5:

Analyze and Detail

2.1 Why do people cause and create security breaches:

For fun

Some hackers make attempts on computers, servers or network systems just for the personal gratification. Others may feel that they need to prove something to their peers or friends and hack something only for the challenge

To Steal

Another reason to hack a system is to steal information or money. A large portion of hacking attempts falls into this category. Banks and large companies are common targets for hacking jobs, but sometimes smaller companies or even a specific person’s computer are targeted, as well.

To disrupt

There are also some hackers, including hacking groups; that target a company to disrupt business, create chaos and just be a nuisance. These groups often are trying to make a statement with their hacking, demonstrate security inadequacies, or show general disapproval for the business itself. Examples of hacking groups that made headlines are Anonymous.

2.2 What is a threat and how do they work:

One resource demonstrates potential as “the possibility of a malicious attempt to damage or disrupt a computer network or system.”

The malicious programs inside e-mail attachments usually only strike if you open them. Effects of a virus can be anything from a simple prank that pops up messages to the complete destruction of programs and data.[4].

If a virus is sent through a network. This will spread like wildfire, even potentially globally. In some cases, it can change configurations of a database system (i.e; a worm).

2.3 Features of threats & How they operate:

IBM recently announced the shocking average cost of data breach. While down around 10 percent, the global average for a data breach is $3.62 million. For many companies, the cost of suffering a cyber attack is enough to take the business down entirely, so it has never been more vital for all organizations to invest in their cyber defenses. In order to equip suitable security, you first need to understand exactly where the danger comes from. Looking ahead to 2018, we examine the biggest cybersecurity threats both to individuals and companies across the world.[5]

WannaCry is so-called encryption-based ransomware also known as Wanna Decryptor or WCRY. It encrypts users files using AES and RSA encryption ciphers meaning the hackers can directly decrypt system files using a unique decryption key. From my research, especially remembering how much broadcast it received, it manipulated the laws that, basically, were prevalent at the time in many businesses, and specifically the NHS. People had not updated their systems often, and correctly. A playground for hackers.

2.4 How attack against companies works:

You work in the financial department of your company and you just got an email from an executive.

It instructs you to pay a sum of £78,000 before a specified time. It includes instructions for how to wire the money to your vendor’s bank.

You send the money, as requested, and it quickly moves to a number of small banks and then ultimately to an overseas account, where it is unlikely your company—or law enforcement—will be able to recover it. This is how phishing works.

2.5 Review & Hierarchy:

In the year 2011, a hacker was sentenced to nine years in prison because of the cyber-attack that he caused in a hospital. With this incident of physical damage to a hospital system, this individual used the skills that he had to install malware.

As a result of his action, the Hospital’s HVAC’s system was adversely altered causing the patient’s safety to be unduly jeopardized. By remotely controlling the temperature in the hospital, it posed an immediate threat since it placed drugs and other medical supplies at risk. In this situation, the hacker was controlling both the air and heating systems in the hospital from a remote location. Just goes to show how much of a danger some corrupted intentions can be used to cause massive, and potential health dangers.

Evaluate the impact of threats

3.5 Presentation with research document highlighting the affects:

3.1 According to on researcher[6] data breaches alone see upwards of 4.4 million data records being lost or stolen worldwide every single day. Take the 2015 data breach at UK telecoms company TalkTalk. Web pages containing databases no longer supported by their producer were accessed by hackers, who stole the personal data of 156,959 customers. The result was lots of negative publicity, reputational damage and a record fine of £400,000 from UK authorities.

One of the world’s largest DDoS attack ever took place in 2016, when US network provider Dyn was targeted. The attackers had harnessed the Internet of Things (internet enabled devices like cameras and fridges) to conduct the attack, and took down many major websites as a result. As the Internet of Things continues to expand, the risk is set to increase.

3.2 Hacking is a term used to describe actions taken by someone to gain unauthorized access to a computer. The availability of information online on the tools, techniques, and malware makes it easier for even non-technical people to undertake malicious activities.

What it is: The process by which cyber criminals gain access to your computer. What it can do: Find weaknesses (or pre-existing bugs) in your security settings and exploit them in order to access your information.

3.3 Determining live threats to websites:

Streaming: Ok, i agree, i have used them myself, but in my defence i didnt consider them illegal. I can clearly remember watching a sports event and many many pop-ups appear, asking you to click this or that to access this or that in order (criminally) to get you to sign to something that you will be totally unaware lead to something other than what is being advertised. Scammers, hackers. Call them what you want. But when you do fall for their cunningness, your computer could be infected with cookies or worse. Either annoying or sinister.

3.4 Determining live threats to servers:

There is no such thing as perfect software, and there is always room for further refinement. Good system administration requires vigilance, constant tracking of bugs, and proper system maintenance to ensure a secure computing environment.

A common occurrence among system administrators is to install an operating system without knowing what is actually being installed. This can be troublesome, as most operating systems will not only install the applications, but also setup a base configuration and turn services on. This can cause unwanted services, such as telnet, DHCP, or DNS to be running on a server or workstation without the administrator realizing it, leading to unwanted traffic to the server or even a path into the system for crackers..

[1]https://www.secureworks.com/blog/cyber-threat-basics

[2]https://www.paconsulting.com/insights/managing-people-risk-and-the-insider-threat/

[3] https://www.cioinsight.com/it-management/inside-the-c-suite/slideshows/the-11-top-threats-that-organizations-face-today

[4] https://www.bullguard.com/bullguard-security-center/pc-security/computer-threats/how-does-a-virus-work

[5] https://staysafeonline.org/blog/biggest-cybersecurity-threats-2018/

[6] https://www.regus.co.uk/work-uk/cybersecurity-threats-where-do-they-come-from-and-whats-at-risk/?psrch=1&msclkid=e090cb097c8a1d9752fa9795a609d2a9&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=GB%20%3E%20EN%20%3E%20OF%20%3E%20SM%20%3E%20DSA%20%3E%20NEW&utm_term=regus.co.uk&utm_content=Homepage

#hacking #security #codenation

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howtocuregingivitisinaweek-blog · 6 years ago

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How To Cure Gingivitis In A Week?

Turning Around Receding Gums Normally

You probably comprehend that brushing and also flossing your teeth could aid you shield against foul breath, dental caries, and also plaque. However,, do you know that gum cells disease may influence your cardio body? Effectively, that's merely what most of the recent research studies have really discovered. Inning harmony along with one particular investigation released in the 2005 variation of the diary Blood blood circulation, "taking great treatment of your teeth and also gums may stop you from possessing a stroke or heart attack."

How To Get Rid Of Gingivitis In A Week?

Reversing Receding Gums Naturally

The web link between gum cells disease and heart problem has actually really been looked into for many years, yet earlier no cement documentation can receive the theory that gum disease could trigger heart problem. But although the verification is not clear along with correct however,, the idea is actually so interesting, fascinating, consequently solid that lots of individuals are relatively urged that it is actually the situation. Many specialists in the medical industry think that periodontal health condition as well as heart attack are actually attached as though the microorganisms triggering in gum disorder could possibly journey to the arteries as well as likewise trigger the arteries to swell and also slim, impairing the circulation of blood stream as well as also air to the center. When the arteries are tightened and also the blood hauling oxygen is actually impaired, cardiac arrest could happen.

Due to such idea, considerable amounts of have actually asserted that individuals along with gum cells disease possess the opportunity to establish a heart disease nearly two opportunities as higher as those that possess no gum cells disease. The proof for this hookup in between gum health condition as well as cardiovascular disease is thus solid that in 1998 the study research studies that manage the web link between periodontal sickness and likewise heart problem were approved along with a $1.3 thousand grant by the National Institutes of Health And Wellness.

The hyperlink in between gum ailment and also cardiovascular disease is still currently being considered. Yet, unlike in the extremely early days, various investigation study hall are now doing the job. They essentially perform their researches based upon the well established concepts relating to the web link of gum tissue illness and cardiovascular disease. What these principles are? Think of the following:

* The bacterias in the mouth could possibly influence the center when they enter the blood flow along with connected to the fatty plaques in the arteries. This will definitely induce an embolism progression in the heart's blood vessels, at that point obstructing the ordinary blood stream flow in addition to limiting the quantity of nutrients as well as oxygen required for the center to efficiently operate. Click Now To Read More Swollen Gums Around One Tooth Home Remedy

* The irritation in the mouth triggered by gum disease can increase the collection of oral plaque buildup, which consequently might swell the coronary veins. When the arteries are actually swollen, they will absolutely tighten up as well as also enhance the danger of blood clots.

The principles, as you may find out, are quite interesting. Nevertheless given that there is actually still no cement documentation to maintain the insurance claims worrying the link in between gum tissue disease as well as soul complication, possibly the greatest means our company may do now it to subsequential the scientists and additionally find just how they enter their undertaking. There is actually completely nothing inaccurate furthermore with taking into consideration a healthy and balanced and also balanced oral method for additionally if gum problem isn't definitely in fact creating cardiovascular disease, the web link in between the 2 could still be important. A terrible in addition to hemorrhaging periodontal is a notable indicator of heart disease, nevertheless.

Is Gingivitis Curable

An essential, if in some cases forgotten, part of your smile is your gums. The gums help to sustain teeth and secure the root place coming from decay. Yet if gums begin to come to be unhealthy, they can decline from their appropriate setting, leaving teeth at risk. What may be carried out when gums start to recede?

Gum recession takes place frequently in action to periodontal disease, although cigarette use as well as various other variables can also induce it. When gums recede, tooth origins are exposed and also ended up being vulnerable to cavities. Pockets also create between gums as well as teeth, delivering an ideal region for bacteria to collect. They can easily induce considerable infection throughout gums, various other cells, and bone tissue, eventually triggering tooth loss. Turning around gum recession is vital to rejuvenate oral health.

At OC Advanced Periodontics, our company make use of the Chao Pinhole ® approach to deal with gum recession. This is a minimally-invasive gingival graft procedure that doesn't demand making use of scalpels or stitches. To begin with, a tiny opening is actually made in the gums with a needle. After that we use exclusive musical instruments to carefully break up gum cells in order to shift it back right into location. This procedure calls for no cutting as well as sewing, which causes a much more comfortable treatment and a briefer recuperation opportunity.

Lots of people have receding gums, in some cases simply, immediately or even while brushing your teeth. Find out more about can you reverse receding gums in your home? Blood in the gums is a symptom indicating that the gums are actually certainly not well-balanced as well as can be a sign of the presence of periodontal disease or even periodontist. Although receding gums generally do certainly not commonly signify the existence of major diseases, relentless bleeding of the gums in many cases may be due to important health care problems like leukemia and also bleeding as well as platelet ailments.

For symptoms apart from blood in the mouth and halitosis, the wonder of gum bleeding (receding gums) is actually usually accompanied by swelling contained or even generalised gum, a colour modification that produces That the gums are actually much redder and puffy than usual.

If gums recession is actually left behind for a number of years it could possibly end up being a much more harmful procedure.

The receding gums generally take place because of the build-up of oral plaque buildup and tartar at the gum frame. Microbial plaque as well as calculus are substances in which are actually stashed a bunch of germs that are actually damaging to the gums and also the health of the mouth typically.

Can You Reverse Receding Gums Naturally?

After that allow's review some ideas to turn around receding gums typically.

It is vital to stay clear of the usage of snuff; it is actually more than illustrated that tobacco smokers are worsened the problem of hemorrhaging gums. An appropriate as well as strict oral care is actually essential to deal with oral plaque buildup and also manage gum recession. Stress and anxiety possesses a dangerous result on oral health and inclines to gum recession because our defenses do certainly not function 100% in demanding scenarios, making it simpler for micro-organisms to inhabit our mouth.

How Long Does It Take To Cure Gingivitis?

Numbers of folks dealing with the periodontal disease possess a 20% greater threat of developing it than those certainly not left open to this aspect, from which it observes that it is crucial to take care certainly not just for our company but to prevent spreading the disease to our individuals Dear ones. If the bleeding is actually heavy, it may be handled through using pressure straight to the bleeding gums with cloth taken in cold water. Sometimes you can easily bleed the gum by vitamin deficiencies, so it might be actually advisable to take vitamin supplements. Unless clinically advised, avoid using acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin). If you take drug as well as it causes bothersome adverse effects, ask your medical professional for a change of medicine, but certainly never modify a drug without first speaking with your physician. Can You Repair Receding Gums? It may be actually really good to massage the gums, for which it is actually suggested to use a reduced configuration oral watering device. In case the blood in the gums seems motivated for a dental prosthesis is actually made use of and also is actually not fit properly you require to view a dentist to improve the complication.

You can remove the receding gums via using natural items and some safety measures. Start making use of Natures Smile Gum ointment; it is actually a 100% natural product made use of throughout the world to Reverse Receding gums Naturally.

Our company hope that with this information and assistance you will locate it simpler to recognize as well as fix the pointed out complications of oral health and also the bad breath or even foul breath that usually fit with all of them.

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cerastes · 6 years ago

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Years ago, I wanted to make a game. It didn’t pan out due to problems in the team, but I’ve always kept the plot and details of the game dear and never really put it out there in hopes of turning it into a short story instead, some 11 to 13 chapters. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize it is impossible to do so in a direct manner, due to how Video Game the core concept is, that is, it simply wouldn’t work in a literary format, at least not with the same oopmh it’d have as the game I conceived it as. Today, I will reveal all of it, in part because I want to get it out of my chest, in part because I don’t want for this to go unshared and forever trapped in the sands of “maybe one day”. A writing prompt I have pending has to do with this, and that is still coming, but otherwise, this is all about the game I wanted to make, “Notches”, a side-scroller action-platformer game.

Big, long post under the cut. It’s a design document, after all!

This is Part 2, in which I will explain the Shattering and the Grievous Attack mechanics, gameplay mechanics exclusive to Lantern Boss Fights, which are different from the regular Boss Fights we’ve discussed so far. We’ll also get acquainted with three boss fights: The Spider-legged Doctor, Delwin, The 4th Lantern of Manjha, Mirko, and The 6th Lantern of Gemini, Cecile/Vogt. We’ll explore the boss fights themselves as well as the lore of the characters and their place in the story.

Here’s a link to Part 1!

Let’s change up the pace and introduce a Boss Fight that isn’t a dual boss fight! Doctor Delwin Pardosa shall meet you as the boss of the Anti-Soul Laboratories stage. Delwin “wields” what seems to be several small black cubes with blue “veins” that float around him, but you’d be surprised to hear that this isn’t what’s most notorious about Delwin! See, out of his right shoulder, four massive, long, thick spider legs protrude, upon which he normally stands. He looks like a regular scientist, he does, with a lab coat, some khakis, and a coffee-stained green shirt, just, with four massive spider legs protruding from his right shoulder, slicked back hair, black hands with blue veins, and long fangs that suggest that maybe there’s nothing mere about this human any longer. It seems the good doctor has been playing with things we should say “no” to, morally speaking, but would immediately say “hell yeah!” to should the chance present itself (don’t lie). In any case, Doctor Delwin opens up with saying “You’ve caused enough trouble, you little skunk. You’re coming back with us, senseless or limbless if you must. In fact, you get to choose, and I recommend the former”. Summergale simply smirks, golden smile flashing a shine, and responds with “You know, Doc, I always none too subtly wanted to throttle your pencil-pushing neck, I just really wish it wasn’t under these damn circumstances, man”. Delwin lowers his gaze just slightly, his cubes still floating around him in orderly chaos, and murmurs back, “Believe me, Summer, neither did I wish for this, but you leave us no choice”. The cutscene ends, and the fight begins. Delwin has immense mobility thanks to his mutant spider legs, being able to move fast and to stick to the walls of the arena. You must constantly stay on the move while dodging the cubes he seemingly magnetically throws at you. Whenever a cube has missed or you have shot it to deflect it, don’t get careless, because cubes then re-lock onto you and go at you again! There’s three different kinds of cubes: Small, Medium, and Big. The Big ones only go at you once before returning to Delwin, the Medium ones will go at you twice, while the Small ones will pursue you three times before going back to the good doctor. For the First Phase, he mostly just sticks to the walls and ceiling while launching cubes at you, with the occasional swipe of a big hitbox leg to catch you off guard when you’re all up in his grill, shooting the hell out of him. Of note is, if you can get close enough to him, using a Ruby Shot (point blank explosion shot) will knock him right out of the wall or ceiling, making him crash onto the floor and leaving him vulnerable for a couple of shots. Usage of the Ruby Vulture technique (using Ruby Shots to navigate mid air via the explosions, launching yourself in the opposite direction of where you shoot a Ruby Shot midair) is recommended, although in moderation, as many Ruby Shots will exhaust your Mana quickly! Once you reach 75% of his HP, Delwin’s true strategy, Phase Two, begins! Using the magnetic connection between his hands and his cubes, Delwin assembles the cubes together in different shapes, creating Weapon Formations. By combining his many cubes in different shapes, Delwin is able to create different weapons, using a rich diversity of attacks. He’ll sometimes form the cubes in a Sword Formation, always Dyed blue, swiping at you a number of times before dissolving the formation (or immediately, if you clash it thrice). There’s also the Guillotine Formation, which consists of a number of cubes swarming you quickly, colliding with you for no damage, but pushing you and trying to hold you still, while the rest of the cubes form a guillotine blade above you, which soon comes chopping down for big damage. Melee and shoot at the cubes rapidly so you can move out of the way in time, simply jumping or Quickstepping away won’t work! Delwin can also form the cubes together in a Flak Formation, forming several autocannons around him briefly before they all begin shooting a barrage of bullets at you. Keep moving or you’ll get caught! Last but not least, there’s the Prowler Formation, which assembles the cubes into many different flying pods that pursue you and open fire autonomously while the good doctor tries to bum rush you with spider kicks. Watch out for the shots and the spider leg strikes, and don’t panic! The Prowlers are Dyed red, so shoot them out of the air while timing your Quicksteps so as to not get hit by Delwin’s spider kicks and stomps. Keep dodging and responding appropriately to each Formation until you empty his life bar, making him collapse, the cubes falling helplessly, raining around him as the harmlessly hit the floor. The “STAGE COMPLETE” message begins to appear from the bottom of the screen, but as the letters ascend, Delwin knocks them away with a spider kick. “No! Not yet! You stubborn fool, you selfish imbecile! It doesn’t end like this! I’m dragging you back comatose if I have to, Summer!” As he yells, Delwin’s life bar reappears, and it fills back to 30%. This begins the Third and final Phase of Doctor Delwin. Standing up on his human legs, not his spider legs, Delwin raises an arm and assembles all of his cubes in Prowler Formation, in which they will remain for the rest of the fight, and then produces a retractable baton. Not using his big mutated spider legs, the doctor moves far less than before, but he moves around with Quicksteps now that, much like your own, have i-frames. He becomes practically impossible to hit with his Quickstep spam, and attacking too much will prompt a counterswing or leave you open to Prowler fire. His Prowlers are still Dyed red, but shooting them out just temporarily puts them out. He’ll Quickstep towards you and swipe, during which he becomes Dyed blue. You can clash with him by using melee, and you’ll enter a button mashing mini-game, in which you must press melee or space (if you don’t feel comfortable with mashing your right click too hard so as to not abuse your mouse) repeatedly as Summergale clutches the baton and tries to overpower Delwin. Be careful! Prowlers still shoot at you in this situation, not dealing damage but giving advantage to Delwin, so shoot down as many as you can before engaging in the clash. If Delwin wins the mash-out, he bashes the baton against Summergale’s head, damaging and paralyzing her before lashing out at her with all four legs, hitting her for heavy damage and blowing her away. If Summergale wins the mash-out, she throws the baton away, grabs her rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat, and swings it violently at Delwin, dealing a heavy damage and leaving him at a smidgen of HP (near 8%). After this, the player loses control of Summergale as she drops her rifle, approaches the downed Delwin and puts him in a Sleeper Hold. You must then mash Space again to slowly deplete the rest of his life bar. This is more of an ‘interactive’ cutscene at this point, with Summergale pleading for him to just give up while he keeps screaming back at her. “It’ll all be over before you know it, you dumbass! Let me do my job!” Summergale chastises as she chokes Delwin out. “You... Arc damned... Fool... You won’t surv... We can find another... Way to do this... Summer... Think of Sigrun and... The rest of...!” As he finally hits 0% HP, he’s finally out for good, unconscious, and you’ve defeated Doctor Delwin. “There’s simply no time, Delwin...” Summergale murmurs before picking up her rifle and moving on as the “Stage Complete” message pops up again. Momentum opportunities come from interacting with anything Dyed (clashing melee against his Sword Formation and shooting Prowlers), but otherwise, don’t expect much Avalanche against him; he’s a cautious man, which is reflected by how little Momentum you receive (by design, you’re expected to get one, maybe two Avalanches against him).

Haunted Tea Sets reveal that Delwin, along with Sigrun, were the ones that found Summergale in the first place. As her body was carried by the river, they were the ones that were there and hauled her out of it, immediately bringing her back to Delwin’s laboratory in Oflans, the only place remotely technological in the otherwise small town, where they tried their best to care for her. Delwin might be a doctor, but he’s not the healing kind of doctor, so it was all a process of trial and hopefully no error. Summergale was lucky that Delwin was adept enough, and when she woke up, she thanked him and introduced herself as... As... Ah, hey, sorry, do you know who I might be...? Those words came out of her mouth as Sigrun and Delwin looked at her with concern: Amnesiac and beaten up all over. No doubt whatever left her to die in the river didn’t go easy on her. She also made a rather honest and rude comment on his spider legs, but Delwin would like us to not go into that. Delwin is a magitech and physics-focused scientist who enjoys a productive partnership with Sigrun the Blacksmith: He comes up with innovative designs, and Sigrun helps him with the manufacturing process. Sigrun’s clearly much more interested in the more traditional kind of weaponry, but the techniques she’s learned from making Delwin’s ideas into reality has been an invaluable experience. While Sigrun and Summergale became fast friends, the same cannot be said about Delwin and Summergale. Their relationship was vitriolic, and not in the fun and games way, but Summergale knew he was a good man despite his crude, caustic personality, and Delwin knew she was a good woman despite her rowdy, devil-may-care attitude, so they put up with the situation and had a real, if unspoken, respect for each other. Delwin was heavily opposed to Summergale interfering with Markus when he came to squat, but following the voice of her heart, and also Sigrun’s cheering for her to break his nose, she went and beat him up. He’s also the one who cooked up a method to get in the castle: By using samples of Summergale’s blood that he took to determine her blood type in case she ever needed a blood transfusion (a thorough man, this Delwin), he made a “blood perfume” that he sprayed on himself, Sigrun, and Axehilt, riding on the hypothesis that Ceoca Castle searches for specific blood matches in order to determine who goes in and who doesn’t. Seeing as the castle let them in, it seems he was right! Or not. It’s not the blood perfume that let them in, as an out-of-the-way Haunted Tea Set will reveal. The blood perfume was a red herring crafted by the good doctor, and the castle simply recognized Delwin, as he used to work in its Research And Development division at the Anti-Soul Laboratories, where he is a boss. This is lightly hinted at because, while Sigrun and Axehilt are lost as all hell and basically wandering around having their own adventure while hoping to come across Summergale, Delwin knew more or less exactly where to go, as there IS a sense of consistency even with the spatial chaos that rends and twists the castle’s insides, and he banked on Summergale needing to go through the Laboratories. His dialogue is intended to imply that he was waiting for her there, unlike Sigrun, who runs into you. Delwin’s spider legs... Will be elaborated on later.

But that’s enough of these outliers, right? Let’s talk about the Dim Lanterns. The Dim Lanterns are Royal Operatives of Phebea that answer directly to the King and Queen of Phebea, and while they are an elite unit dispatched for important tasks, they were assembled for a very, very specific purpose, and to be able to carry out this important mission, Phebea, a small time kingdom trapped between giants, developed truly remarkable weapons: The Lanterns. The Lanterns possess great power and allow very specific manners of rending reality apart to accomplish something or emulate an ability, and nothing like them has ever been created before. Armed with these, the Dim Lanterns were loved by those who knew of them and feared by those who opposed them. When Ceoca Castle closed up, however, people stopped seeing them, and rumors immediately began popping up that, perhaps, it was them that put the chairs up, turned the lights off, and locked those doors...

The Dim Lanterns serve as the main “Boss Squad”, if you will, in the game. They are very explicitly hostile towards Summergale, and she’d REALLY love to know why this is. Let’s talk about the first Lantern you meet in battle! Mirko The 4th Lantern wields the Manjha Lantern, visually identical to a regular railroad lantern, which Mirko holds by the handle. swinging lo and forth with his every footstep. However, this Lantern endows Mirko with the ability to use razor light. Every light source in a radius around him can be controlled into tendrils of cutting light by Mirko. Mirko is actually a very early game boss, and as mentioned previously, the first Lantern you fight. The purpose of Mirko was not only to introduce the player to Lantern Bosses, but also to drive home the point that Notches is in media res, as in, things were definitely happening before the start of the game, things you can and will find out about, but that you don’t initially know, even if the characters do. When Mirko shows up, his upper torso is covered in bandages and he clearly isn’t at his best. “You ended up coming, you mongrel! Couldn’t just leave it alone, huh? Turning around and walking away just isn’t in your dictionary… And I banked on that.”. Summergale shakes her head and simply points her rifle at him. “I already mangled you once, I sure as hell can and want to do it again”. Mirko fakes a guffaw and then turns his Lantern on, a myriad of tentacles of light sprawling out of the bulbs. “Oh no, don’t get me wrong, you lowlife. We’ve already won. The party’s already going on in the Throne room, and there’s no way for you to stop the gears. I’m just here for myself. Can’t quite let you walk away after leaving me like this, now can I, mongrel!?” The fight begins and, as Mirko is an early game boss, he’s very straight forward and not too fancy. A bit of etymology! “Manjha” is cured and gummed thread covered in powdered glass used in kite fights. The Manjha Lantern takes its name from this thread, as its ability to manipulate light into something physical is used primarily, but not exclusively, to generate hundreds of light threads to cut down foes. Mirko will telegraph long range attacks and lash out with tendrils of light in different patterns: Two tendril thrust, three tendril ascending lashes, a number of tendrils raining on you from above, attempting to pincushion you to the ground, etc. He’s straight forward and attacks with his razor light as you’d expect. Hitting 75% of his HP adds a new move: Matches. Mirko will produce three matches on one hand and, by striking them against his coarse, falconer-like leather gauntlet, will light them. Mirko then flicks the lit matches at Summergale. Lit matches are a source of light, and thus, fall within the jurisdiction of his power, letting him sprawl tendrils of light from them, thus giving Mirko a lot more points of attack from which to strike at you. It all becomes a fight about managing his matches (by shooting them) and dodging appropriately. Shooting matches will award Momentum. Mirko also functions as the tutorial for the Shattering mechanic. Shattering is exclusive to Lantern Boss Fights, and it involves attacking the Lantern during a specific window of time (Shatter Moments) to inflict Shatter on the boss, and what does Shatter do? It functions as a special stun state that allow you to land a Grievous Attack on the boss, powerful attacks with special animations that deal considerable damage. Mirko’s particular Shatter Moment is when he’s striking his matches, taking attention off from his Lantern. Hitting the Lantern doesn’t deal damage to the boss (usually), but it does deplete their Lantern HP, which takes the form of icons depicting their Lantern under their HP bar. Each boss has different amounts of Lantern HP, with Mirko having 2. You hit his Shatter Moment twice, and BAM, you earn a Grievous Attack. The moment you earn a Grievous Attack, a marker will appear somewhere on the arena, such as right next to the boss, or a few character’s width away, or maybe above the boss. Move to the marker during the Shatter Stun and then use Shoot or Melee to use the Grievous Attack. In Mirko’s case, you need to stand right next to him. Using Shoot results in Summergale hitting Mirko in the stomach with three consecutive uppercuts, lifting him off the floor and then using her rifle while he’s above her to stab him in the stomach, exploding him away with a Ruby Shot. Melee, on the other hand, has Summergale thrust her hand in his bandaged injuries, draining a ton of Mana from his and then kicking him away. This deals less damage that the Shoot Grievous, but it seals away his Match attack for a while and restores your MP! That’s the general rule behind Grievous Attacks! A Shoot Grievous does a lot of damage, while a Melee Grievous recharges all of your MP and inflicts a debuff on the boss, usually locking away their most powerful attacks for a bit. Knowing whether to use Shoot G or Melee G is essential: Do I go for big damage? Or do I seal an annoying attack for a while at the cost of damage? I want the player to ask themselves this question when fighting different Lantern Bosses! Maybe you’re good at dealing with the particular attack the Melee G seals, so you go for extra damage instead! Maybe you particularly have trouble with the move, so you seal it and thus are able to deal with the fight much more easily for some time, racking up damage! It’s up to you! This continues until he drops. Simple! Very early game boss, and in fact he was designed with “First boss of the game” in mind. He’s actually the prototype of the Dim Lanterns in general, with a simplistic power compared to those of his peers. As the boss ends, Mirko curses your name and bleeds out, forcing a stiff, bitter laughter as the light abandons his eyes, reminding you that “the ball is already rolling, mongrel...!”. And so ends Mirko’s life, his Lantern shattering. Instead of her usual Stage Complete pose, Summergale instead takes out a small knife and carves another notch on the stock of her rifle.

...However, this is not the last you see of Mirko! Well, in a way, it is, but remember what I said before? That Mirko was meant to show that the narrative of Notches is in media res? Well! Let’s introduce a new gameplay mechanic! Some Haunted Tea Sets unlock boss fights that took place before the game’s start in the form of playable flashbacks. After unlocking certain Haunted Tea Sets that have to do with each other (let’s say, for example, #3, #7, and #21), the memories jostled by these associated flashbacks will unlock a new memory in Summergale, which allows her to remember or reminisce about events that took place before the game’s chronological beginning, especially fights! Mirko dies as the first boss, but MUCH later in the game, you unlock his Flashback Fight! In this fight, Mirko is much tougher. He’s not wounded and he’s at top condition, unlike the ‘first’ fight, which had him severely wounded. I had the idea of giving Mirko a pretty big HP bar in the first fight, but only filled up to around a third of its total capacity, to reflect that he was badly, badly wounded. Now, that big HP bar is full, and Mirko gets access to his full moveset! Unlike the prior fights, I will begin explaining the lore and plot of the fight, and then proceed to the boss fight per se, as it is important to know the context for Mirko’s second round (but first chronologically) to make sense of a big part of his arsenal this time around.

Mirko is the 4th Lantern of the Dim Lanterns, a hot headed young adult who’s got what it takes to talk the talk and walk the walk. Rising the ranks of the Phebean Army quickly thanks to his motivation and vim, he was hand-picked by the King to participate in the Lantern Project after winning an unsanctioned fistfight tournament the soldiers organized by themselves and that the King caught wind of. The King of Phebea, a capricious man with an intense love for the people and the things the people did for entertainment, disguised himself as a civilian and attended the tournament, cheering and jeering with the best of them. After Mirko won, some bad cats that didn’t particularly agree to his underdog victory, mostly due to losing big at the betting table, were looking to introduce Mirko to their daggers, but the King, a man with experience in the realm of rotten eggs due to his political background, immediately caught on and announced his presence, stopping them in their tracks and inducting Mirko to the good life of high society and elite guardsmanship. After a brief stint as a royal guard and tavern hero at Ceoca Castle, the King asked him if he wished to volunteer for the Lantern Project, and Mirko, eternally thankful to the King, accepted. Mirko was assigned the 4th Lantern, the Manjha Lantern, which made good use of his imagination and stamina to properly draw out the hidden potential of the otherwise simple Lantern; The Manjha Lantern was always meant to be a support Lantern to the others, not one to operate by itself. The ability to manipulate light as a hard construct might sound simple, but it is its simplicity that makes it so strong: By functioning as support to other Lanterns, he effectively can keep their Lanterns safe by erecting razor tendrils from them, as their Lanterns, being a source of light, fall under the jurisdiction of his power.

When Markus reported that someone name of ‘Summergale’ had thoroughly trounced him, Mirko immediately departed the castle and headed for this backwater village. Though he didn’t find her in Oflans, he simply asked if anyone knew where she was, and the townspeople, who admire the Dim Lanterns and Summergale, thought he came to offer her a job with them, and immediately told him her whereabouts: The Jalibu Plains, to the northwest of Oflans Town. The Jalibu Plains were known for being beautiful and full of greenery, and on that particular day, Summergale was accompanying the wheelchair-bound Benson Lomprat, aspiring mapmaker, through the plains so he could properly draw the map of the geography on his up-and-coming map. The Lomprat Family (more on them later when we tackle the plot in full!) is the household that took Summergale in initially after she was found in the river. Benson, 15 years old, the son of the household, has always been handy with ink, his dreams of drawing an accurate map of Phebea were only slightly curbed by his disability. He didn’t want to make just any old map, oh no, he wanted to make a truly dedicated, detailed map of his homeland, with illustrations and trivia of the flora and fauna, where one could find cultural heritage, the whole nine (and more!) yards. Summergale would take the passionate Benson on treks through the Oflans countryside to help him with his dream. Unfortunately, this particular outing to the Jalibu Plains would see some problem: Bugbears. Creatures native to these plains, these brutish monsters are intensely territorial, and while they usually keep to the hillside borders just outside the Plains, they sometimes intrude, and today seemed to be one day. There’s a cutscene here, where Summergale and Benson have some small talk before two Bugbears arrive and threaten them. “Alright, Benny, hang on tight, I’ll deal with these punks before the ink on your feather dries!” “...That sounded cooler in your head, didn’t it, Summer?” “I’m going to feed you to them.” The cutscene ends and you fight these two enemies. Despite their intimidating appearance, they are actually an easy fight. However, once you finish them off, a clapping is heard in the distance. It’s Mirko, and he compliments you on your fine riflemanship: “...Well, you were always pretty damn formidable with your hands.” Summergale is shocked, as that statement implies he knows her. “Wait... You know who I am? E-excellent…! Please, please tell me, who was I in the past?” It’s here that Mirko realizes she’s amnesiac, and he can only laugh. Plead as she might, however, the mysterious man refuses to divulge any information, and ultimately says “beat it out of me, if you can, you filthy dog!”.

The real boss fight with Mirko begins now. His patterns are far more complex and he plays a lot more with delays to throw off your dodge timing. Unlike before, shooting at him wildly will prompt a counterattack in the form of him catching your bullets and shooting them back at you with Light Tendrils if you overdo it. He also uses the matches from the get-go, meaning you can have to keep an eye out for his multiple sources of light and their fluid attacks at all times. Unlike the first fight, Mirko also tosses out flashbangs, which, if your are caught in the blast radius off, stun you, but even without the stun effect, they produce short-lived, VERY damaging masses of Light Tendrils. The flashbangs are Dyed red, and shooting them makes them explode. If you can shoot one in front of Mirko, he will become stunned himself, an act that awards you plenty of Momentum. His Lantern HP is now 5 instead of 2. However, the true terror of Mirko starts at 50% HP. When he hits half health, a small cutscene begins in which he yells “Every time…. Every time! You Arc damned obstinate, obscene mongrel! Even back in the castle, every time, you…!” A myriad of tendrils sprawl out of Mirko’s Lantern and start piercing the Bugbear corpses, making them rise on their feet as puppets controlled by Mirko’s threads of cruel light. The fight resumes, and now you have to fight the ever-rising Bugbears as you handle Mirko himself simultaneously. Emptying the Bugbears’ HP bars makes them collapse momentarily, but Mirko soon enough sews them back together and makes them rise and haul with his Tendrils. In addition to his prior strategies, now he organizes team attacks with the Bugbears, such as making them rush you and then attacking you right after you Quickstep with a tight timing, or making them do a grapple attack that holds you in place while he uses a powerful charge attack or throws a flashbang to deal big damage to you. Mirko’s Flashback Boss Fight is meant to be a fairly difficult micromanagement-based fight that tests you on quick decisions, but it’s still mid-game level stuff. The Bugbears are pretty fragile, and if you hit Mirko with the flashbang trick, he loses control of them, making them crumple. It’s all about finding the right timing, as there’s a lot to keep in mind, but Mirko and the Bugbears are rather slow. Keep a calm head, deal with each attack as it comes, and you should emerge victorious.

After the fight, Mirko, gravely wounded, still refuses to speak a word about Summergale’s past, claims this isn’t over, and rips open the Bugbears, spreading their blood around in a spectacular manner. Summergale is about to go at him again, but Benson cries out to Summer, warning her that they must leave immediately: Bugbear blood is pungent, and it attracts other Bugbears, enraging them. The area will soon crawl with Bugbears from all the blood spread from these two, and so Summergale gives up and takes Benson and herself out of there… But not before Mirko says one last thing: “It doesn’t matter if you have your memories or not… It’s already begun, and not even you can stop it now. Just go back to your hovel and await the great news, traitor”. Summergale didn’t quite fully understand this, but her stomach felt like a bottomless chasm when the words “It’s already begun” reached her ears: She didn’t know what that meant, but just judging from her body’s response, she knew something: It was bad, and it had to do with her.

Well… More on Mirko later, when we tackle the plot in full. He is, in a way, one of the catalysts of the story, after all. After this, they meet in the castle and Summergale kills him, as mentioned previously.

But enough about Mirko, let’s meet the last entry in this post… Or shall I say, Entries. Plural.

“Another dual boss, Dreamer?” you no doubt asked yourself. No, but at the same time, yes! That’s my answer, and this is my explanation: The 6th Lantern of Gemini, Cecile/Vogt.

In an area known as the “Numb Gaol”, the otherwise unnamed underground prison of Ceoca Castle, Summergale and the player, surrounded by torture tools and chains that have not seen sunlight in years, will do battle with Cecile. Cecile, much like Summergale, is tanned, which contrasts beautifully with her light blue hair. However, neither of these is the most striking aspect of Cecile, oh no, that’d be her crown of horns. Cecile’s eyes are completely covered by what can only be described as a crown of horns. Cecile is a Glaistan, from the Glais Commonwealth, a country in the Southern Half of the continent known for its goat-like people. Most Glaistans have a set of two long horns, but Cecile is an abnormality, possessing instead an innumerable amount of smaller horns that grew like an unkempt garden on her forehead area and around her head, covering her eyes. Cecile wields the 6th Lantern, the Pact Lantern, which looks exactly like a traffic light. Cecile wears the seemingly unwieldy pole-supported traffic light on her back without a problem, which contrasts with her purple robes with silver patterns. The Glaistan expresses her gratitude for being able to confront Summergale, telling her not to worry about the torture tools surrounding them: She plans to kill her at the first opportunity. Summergale responds with “What, you don’t want to hear how I did that in the first place?”, which is immediately shot down by Cecile with “Oh, don’t try to to get any impassioned hint from me like that. Mirko already told me you don’t remember a thing. It’s a pity you’ll die without knowing why… You won’t be able to repent in the afterlife, and the mere thought makes me ache, but it is what it is.”

“Tch… Arc damned slimy bastard made sure to let everyone know about my little memory loss problem, huh? Hey, I’ve come this far, at least talk to me a bit. You’re going to kill me, right? At least let me know what I did to you all!”

“...No,” replies Cecile, “there’s no need to te… To te… Hrrrg… YYYYYOU FLACCID BACK ALLEY WHORE, YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE SHOWING UP HERE!”

As she’s saying this, Cecile suddenly clutches her chest, and her horns begin to shift, opening the way to her eyes and accommodating themselves more orderly, on her forehead and to the side of her head, completely unlike the unkempt garden of horns she previously had. Her red eyes now visible, it seems her change was not only physical.

“You! How dare you forget about everything! How dare you just relinquish your sins as if you weren’t the one who ki-- No, shut up, Cecile, I’m letting her have it! This bitch will die regretting what she did, she doesn’t deserve a pleasant passing!” -- ‘Cecile’ convulses once anew, and her horns become an messy crown that covers her eyes again -- “You don’t get to decide that, Volg. On the off chance that she beats us, she’ll armed with more knowledge, and knowing is half the--” -- Cecile’s horns shift once again -- “BY THE ARC, yes yes, it’s half the damn fuckin’ battle, yes, you say that every time, would it KILL you to look up some new phrases or proverbs? You ok we beat her to an inch of her life, then I tell her, then we kill her, then?” -- Volg once again turns into Cecile -- “That’s acceptable, actually.”

“Well, you can tell my amnesia is particularly terrible, because there’s no way I would otherwise forget a freakshow like you,” snarks Summergale as she assumes her combat stance.

“My, how rude.” “Choke on dick and die!”

Cecile and Vogt reply in quick succession and the Lantern Boss Fight against Cecile/Vogt begins.

Cecile and Vogt are two personalities that are housed within the same body. Cecile is the more rational and calm of the two, while Vogt is rowdy and aggressive. Despite their fundamental differences, however, the two consciousnesses usually find a middle ground where they can agree to do something, for they come from the same psyche, after all. The Pact Lantern that they wield has the special power of allowing the wielder to do “intrinsic transactions”. That means they can trade aspects of themselves for other aspects, or to heighten something they already have. Cecile and Vogt, however, utilize the Lantern in a different manner: Cecile, a skilled and intelligent spellcaster, trades her physical faculties for heightened mental faculties. This manifests around her as a transparent green ‘command center’ that surrounds her (imagine keyboards, monitors, a little spinning radar, etc), with the Lantern standing tall behind her as the centerpiece. She floats around very slowly, but she is constantly bombarding the player with different spells. As she’s traded most of her physical faculties, she can only move her arms and hands, and does so to operate her ‘command center’, which is how she launches spells (it makes her own advanced spellcasting easier to comprehend to herself by associating some physical actions to it is the lore reasoning, and the design reasoning is that it looks cool). Cecile bombards the player with the Four Elements, in contrast to her otherwise technological look (intentional; she might be using the primordially technological Pact Lantern, but she is from a Southern Half nation, and an expert traditional spellcaster), all of which have a different tell before assailing Summergale. The Glaistan will shoot quick blue-Dyed Firebolts directly at Summergale, (you can melee these to absorb them; the tell is her mashing on her keyboard), splash around blobs of water that remain suspended in the air before sharpening into ice spikes that descend all at once (you can shoot attack these blobs in any manner to get rid of them, which is recommended as they are numerous and descend quickly and all at once, which might catch you off-guard as you’re dealing with other attacks; the tell is Cecile spinning a steam valve with her right hand), creating a Summergale-sized wave of earth that comes from behind you or, if used on one of the platforms in the arena, makes that platform unusable for a while (there’s nothing you can do about these other than dodge them; the tell is her yanking on a lever with her left hand), and creating delayed blasts of wind where you stand (keep moving, nothing to do about these; the tell is Cecile manually making the radar device on the command center spin faster with her hand). Cecile moves slowly across the air and doesn’t really do much to defend herself other than viciously launch attacks. Periodically, an Earth Carapace generates around her, which takes a couple of shots or melees to break, and if you hit her too many times, she’ll use a blast of wind to propel herself away, regenerating a set amount of Earth Carapace. At set intervals, however, Cecil will tag Volg in by yelling her name. When Volg is in control, she becomes a completely different boss. Volg’s usage of the Pact Lantern is to trade “perception” for “wrath” and “instinct”. In place of the ‘command center’, Volg wears a transparent red spiritual armor, and instead of using magic, she uses the Pact Lantern itself as a large polearm-club. She attacks in a variety of ways by swinging the traffic light around. Her main attacks are a warcry followed by a quick thrust with the Lantern, dragging the Lantern across the ground in an uppercut motion to launch damaging torture tools at you (Dyed red), and spinning the Lantern rapidly to deflect shots and advance towards you. Shooting at Volg is mostly useless, as she will block most bullet. All of her attacks, however, are dyed Blue, and clashing is how you mostly will defend against her. Trying to simply dodge her around is going to get you beaten to pulp, as most of her ferocious moves have follow ups with very strict timing to dodge, or frame trap you entirely if you don’t clash. Volg can also stomp hard on the ground to make torture tools near her bounce upwards, catching a cleaver between her teeth, and VERY quickly lunge at you with the Lantern, spitting the cleaver either mid-sprint or immediately after the attack. Unlike Cecile, Volg is an expert physical fighter, especially trained against ranged foes. Volg can also tag Cecile back in by yelling her name.

So, how do you even deal with this boss? Cecile is what I’d call “HP Phase” and Volg is what I’d call “Lantern Phase”. When Cecile’s out, you mostly have to dodge, Quickstep, and disable her attacks while putting damage into her. If her floating away is too annoying, use the Amethyst Shot (Chain shot) to pull yourself to surrounding platforms, to the ceiling, or, if you can, to hit her and pull her to you. Summergale’s melee attacks drain magic, remember? Chain her in and melee her to debilitate her magic powers while refilling your own Mana. Directly after meleeing Cecile, she’ll use her wind to pull herself away from you, but will fly noticeably slower, attack slower (and her magic is smaller), and generate Earth Carapace slower. Melee her a certain amount of times, and you’ll forcefully make the AI tag out. It’s important to note that Cecile will cancel out all of your Gem Shots except Amethyst Shot with her own magic, so you’ll rely mostly on normal attacks and Chain for this. While she’s Volg, shots are mostly useless, and instead of dodging, you’ll want to meet her attacks with clashes. Volg phases are mostly to deal Lantern Damage and fill Avalanche when mastered. Clashing any of her attacks builds Momentum, every third clash you land directly against the head of her traffic light Lantern will take one Lantern HP out of her total of 4. But watch out, Volg’s attacks reduce a lot of Momentum if they land! Taking out one Lantern HP from Volg stuns her momentarily, dissipating her “armor” and letting you hit her for increased damage (especially with a Ruby Shot, the explosive one). Do NOT use Amethyst Shot (Chain shot) on her, as she’ll catch the chain’s head and throw you across the screen with a special counterattack. The main advantage to use on Volg, as mana allows, is to use the expensive Topaz Shots (hitscan thunder shots that immediately travel the screen and deal good damage, but use a third of a full MP bar per pop). Volg can block bullets, but not thunder, which will electrify the metal Pact Lantern and hurt her. The optimal moment to use it, however, is when she’s preparing her Lunge attack! Once she has caught the cleaver between her teeth, get ready. The moment she starts running at you, hit her with the Topaz Shot. This will cause her to crash from the velocity and force of her sprint being broken and will send her cleaver flying, Dying it red (remember this). At this moment, you can attack her directly briefly, BUT, if you are a true Notches pro (and you are), you can wait until the cleaver is aligned with her. If you shoot the cleaver at the right moment, it will be sent hurtling towards Volg, hitting her for big damage and giving you a huge boost to Momentum. Once only 15% HP remains, whichever boss is currently active will get away from your and say something (Cecil: “That’s far enough… Volg, she cannot leave this gaol alive! Engage Blood Pact!/ Volg: “Damn you, damn you, damn you! Oi, Cecil! That’s enough shitting around! Blood Pact time!”). The active boss then sends the Pact Lantern into overdrive, changing their color to yellow and emitting a powerful aura. Cecil and Volg can now tag each other in and out extremely fast, mid-attack even, so it will become a test to everything you’ve dealt with so far. The way this works is that Volg will mostly be in command, leaping at you, and while she’s midair, she’ll tag to Cecile, who’ll let out a magic attack or infusion, and quickly tag back to Volg so she can finish the melee attack. It’s a strategy based on their perfect coordination, but you can use this against them! Remember how Cecile blocks Gem Shots and Volg blocks normal shots? Using two shots quickly followed by a Gem Shot will trick Volg into trying to block the Gem Shot as if it were a normal shot, getting hit. Likewise, using two Gem Shots followed by a normal shot with get Cecile mixed up and make her unable to block it. The advantage of the former is obvious, but why would you depend on the latter strategy? To hit the Lantern, of course, and deal Lantern Damage. Shots directly to the Lantern in this phase deal one Lantern HP. With so little HP remaining, it might be wise to do so! Keep up the mix-ups and finish them up in whatever way you wish. Grievous Attacks against Cecil are activated directly below her. Shot Grievous makes Summergale use her Chain Shot to pull her to herself, blasting her away with a point black explosion from the Ruby Shot, while Melee Grievous makes Summergale use her Chain Shot to pull herself up to Cecile, punching her square in the face and bringing her all the way to the ground with, disabling her flight, Ice Spikes, and Earth Carapace temporarily. Grievous Attacks against Volg (including the Blood Pact phase) are activated adjacent to Volg. Shot Grievous makes Summergale jump kick Volg in the chin, land behind her as she’s collapsing backwards, pressing the barrel of her rifle against her back, lifting her, and letting loose three consecutive Topaz Shots pointblank, while Melee Grievous makes Summergale give Volg a firm uppercut to the chin, followed by gripping her rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat, and smashing it against Volg’s kneecap, disabling her dash attacks and slowing her down temporarily.

After being defeated, Cecile lies midst the many torture tools. “And so, you claim another one of us, you greedy nobody… Haha…”

“...I couldn’t convince you to at least give me a hint, could I?” Summergale inquires as she looms over the dying Glaistan.

“You’re getting nothing out of m--EAT SHIT.” interrupts Volg with her usual glamour.

“Ah. The other one. Well, I don’t exactly have all the time in the world, so I have to get going.”

“Wait,” Volg hails, standing up with what little strength her broken body has left. “...I hate your guts, but I ain’t a pussy like Cecile. You fought us directly and you beat us. If nothing else, I can give you a hint -- Volg, stop right now, die with some dignity! -- I should say the same to you, Cecile. It’s over. We already played our part, we can just keel over and die, knowing those Urelian shitheads will get what’s coming to them.”

“...So you’re really targeting the Ureles Empire. Don’t you realize that this will only fan the flames of their wrath!? I hate those bastards as much as the next girl, but I also know how to not sign a death warrant for my country!” yells Summergale.

“And whose fault do you think that is!?” Volg chastises as she crumples once more, her wounds too great for her. “We had the perfect plan! We had the perfect way to exterminate all of those bastards in one fell swoop! And you ruined it all in one day, you smashed this carefully calculated clusterfuck of righteous retribution!”

“I… Did? How could I alone have done that?”

“Ask your partner over there,” Volg whispers as she points at the rifle. “The second notch holds the answer, you sick bastard.”

“The second notch?”

“Yeah… That rifle should have had two notches carved on the stock when you came by, no? Ever wondered about them?”

“Who did I kill?”

But Volg simply smiles. “See, Cecile? Someone that doesn’t know anything can’t feel any pain, but give them a little morsel… And… Suddenly… They realize just how badly… They are starving…”

With Volg’s sick smile, Cecile and Volg pass away, not before taking one last jab at Summergale: Giving her just enough information for her to realize just how little she knows. Summergale silently takes out her small knife and carves not one, but two new notches on the stock of the rifle.

As for their lore, to close up this post, Cecile used to be a single consciousness, but during the tests and development of the Pact Lantern, she grew very close to a rowdy scientist named Volg. The two became inseparable friends, if not more, who would often banter and take jabs at each other, but all in good fun. Cecile was a foreigner from the Glais Commonwealth, and while Phebea is known for its hospitality for foreigners, the ambiance in the castle was a little different. While not xenophobic, the royal guard is rather nationalistic, so Cecile, who was brought in by the King of Phebea as his Court Wizard, received a rather cold treatment. Volg, on the other hand, always treated her fairly and warmly, if not lacking at all in friendly vitriol. During research, however, a certain incident occurred in which an Ureles Empire spy found his way to the Laboratories one day, late at night. Volg, who was the only one still working there, saw him, and just as she rang the alarm, a poisoned dagger thrown by the spy pierced her neck. By the time help came, Cecile included, Volg was already dead. Consumed by her wrath, Cecile eviscerated the spy with her deadly magic, swore revenge, and volunteered for the Dim Lanterns project. The Pact Lantern’s special ability is to do “intrinsic transactions”, and so Cecile’s first transaction was to bring Volg to life. By sacrificing part of herself, Volg was revived! In her mind, at least. Rather, what Cecile did was give part of her identity away so it would become a facsimile of Volg who would live in her forever. It was the only solution she had, and ever since, Cecile and “Volg” have shared a body, a mind, and a reality submerged in denial. Cecile’s horns move way to reveal Volg’s eyes when Volg is the dominant personality because Volg’s eyes were Cecile’s favorite part of her, and the Pact Lantern’s power was so absolute due to Cecile’s conviction that she could revive her this way that her body changes to fit this ideal. In other words, it’s an unnatural metamorphosis brought by the Lantern. Change the inside enough, and changes reflect on the outside, after all.

Well, that’s that for this post! I hope you enjoyed it. The next post is more technical-minded, with stuff like controls, level design, and other such things. See you next time!

#Notches #tiza #gamedev #kinda

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americanmcgeesalicefc · 7 years ago

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Newest Alice update is here. To click any links mentioned in the post, go to the source link: “Dear Insane Children, Stop! Before you read any further into today's update (which does contain some pretty amazing stuff)... See the cover image for today's post? That's by our good friend Omri Koresh. He's doing amazing work for the Asylum project but he's also got a really beautiful art book project of his own over on IndieGogo. Please consider supporting his efforts by backing HIS CAMPAIGN. Why? Because it's a direct way of showing love for the artist who brings you this sort of gorgeous madness... He says of this image... "It's when the hatter is sad about his friends that were hurt because of the explosion in the lab. in my mind he of course blames Alice. In this image he's looking at the glass and thinks about how he was before the accident. His body is also mechanic of course, so he made himself higher, hence the old Book version vs the Game's version. I think i'll call it "I'd like to forget what you did" as referring to Alice." Omri's said he's interested in creating more of these story illustrations and I am encouraging him to do so. Can't wait to see what he produces next. Of the Queen/mask image called "I survived the fire" he says... "I thought that in the AMA game the queen is a disease on the world with tentacles. so i thought of making the new queen as young Alice, seeing the fire, constantly. because it's her guilt that's literally eating her alive. and if the queen is being created in the asylum world, i think it fits." Speaking of the structure and narrative of the world, I've been working with Joey on a world-map of the new Wonderland. Based on our initial chats she turned in this image: Since then we've had a deeper chat about how to represent Wonderland during this period of history. Here's my thoughts: Joey, This looks like a good start. It has me thinking about the shape and meaning of each area... Since the new symbol for Asylum is the Chaos Symbol, I think maybe we should consider a layout based on this shape (or the number contained in the shape: 8)... (we'll need to create a new "stage" to make this work)... When we first enter the story we'll be in a stage called "Shock" which is just like a horrible nightmare of Alice's family dying in the fire. It's a part of Wonderland - since everything in her mind is a part of Wonderland - but after the first part of the story we'll never be able to go back there. It will be like a bomb and a fire at the start - and it will break Wonderland into many pieces. We can place this area in the center of the Wonderland map - like a volcano or a floating island with a massive crater in the middle - or a sort of inside-out black hole which is releasing fire and smoke and chaos into the world. What remains of Wonderland needs to be floating around this central core. We've talked about this before... having each of the areas of Wonderland as a floating island - broken pieces of the world as it was before. (Some examples other artists follow). I can imagine these pieces are floating in orbit around the "Chaos Core" just like the planets are orbiting the sun. Some of the floating islands may touch from time to time - allowing Alice to jump from one to another or complete some puzzle which requires alignment of the areas. So think about the map you're drawing like a map of the solar system. There can be variety in the orbits - they don't all have to be around the same plane ... think about an "atomic orbital" instead. For now, you don't need to worry too much about the design/art of the areas included in the list which you've not yet explored. You can create generic floating island masses to represent those - and maybe make them unique by placing a large statue or building on them which is related to one of the Wonderland characters. We'll sort out the specifics of the "owners" of these places in the coming weeks. *** That's it for today's update on art and design. As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below. We'll discuss your feedback during this week's live stream. That's scheduled for Hong Kong Time, Friday, April 27th @ 09:00AM (6PM PST on Thursday, 26th). CLICK HERE to set a reminder via my YouTube Channel. While you are there, be sure you are subscribed and that you hit the little "bell" icon to be reminded when we go live. Lots of people saying they aren't getting reminders. /shakes angry fist at YouTube. Before we go... AN IMPORTANT REMINDER FROM MARTIN: Be sure to update your Patreon Profile to include your shipping info. Otherwise we can't send you rewards! That's it for now. OOPS! Just saw that our friends at Freaky Fandoms emailed with details of this week's podcast where they will discuss the life and writings of Hunter S. Thompson. Be sure to check it out over on Soundcloud! From Shanghai with Love, -American (and Lulu”

#american mcgee's alice #alice asylum #alice liddell #queen of hearts #mad hatter

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annoyingkoalawinner · 4 years ago

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English Dogs Metalmorphosis

English Dogs, culminating with the 'Metalmorphosis ' 12' and 'Where Legend Began' album through Under One Flag in 1986. In Spring of that year the Dogs toured the USA to sold out shows at the LA Olympic auditorium, Fenders Ballroom, San Diego, San Francisco, Baltimore, New York, Chicago, in fact all over the East and West coast.

English Dogs discography (all) They Only Come Out at Night (1985) Metalmorphosis (1986) Where Legend Began English Dogs. Type: Full-length Release date: 1986.

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1986 Vinyl release of Metalmorphosis on Discogs. Label: Under One Flag - 12 FLAG 101. Format: Vinyl 12 English Dogs - Metalmorphosis (1986, Vinyl) Discogs.

English Dogs are a British hardcore punk band that began life in the early eighties. Two versions of the band exist,the Punk/Metal Crossover band featuring original drummer Andrew 'Pinch' Pinching and second era members Graham 'Gizz' Butt and Adie Bailey and a punk-based one featuring original vocalist Pete 'Wakey' Wakefield.

History

English Dogs formed in October 1981 in Grantham and produced two demos during 1982 entitled 'Show No Mercy' and 'Free To Kill'. The band toured as support to fellow punk band Charged GBH in Germany during early 1983 and followed this with a British tour supporting Discharge. In 1983 they signed to Clay Records and released a 6 track EP titled 'Mad Punx And English Dogs' July 1983. English Dogs' first full-length album, 'Invasion of the Porky Men', emerged a year later. Personnel changes ensued after the debut album emerged with vocalist Wakey departing to be replaced by ex-Ultraviolent singer Ade Bailey. At this juncture the band also decided to augment their live and recorded sound by adding ex-Destructors guitarist Graham 'Gizz' Butt who added Metal riffing, guitar leads and contributed to the English Dogs songwriting.

This change saw them leave Clay records to sign with Rot Records and release the decidedly metal tinged 'To The Ends Of The Earth' EP in September 1984. The metal leanings increased with Forward into Battle. English Dogs, culminating with the 'Metalmorphosis ' 12' and 'Where Legend Began' album through Under One Flag in 1986. In Spring of that year the Dogs toured the USA to sold out shows at the LA Olympic auditorium, Fenders Ballroom, San Diego, San Francisco, Baltimore, New York, Chicago, in fact all over the East and West coast. Upon their return to the UK Jon Murray left the band.The group appeared on the legendary Shades promoted Thrash bill at Camden's Electric Ballroom with Possessed and Voivod later in 1986. Pinch also left the band around Winter '86. The band carried on with Adie, Gizz and Wattie playing with other musicians until calling it a day in the fall of that year. In 1993 Pinch and Gizz Butt reformed English Dogs with 'Mad Punx' vocalist Wakey and Future Damned Bassist Stuart West, signed to German label 'Impact records' and released 'Bow To None', Wakey left shortly after with him being replaced by Stuart 'Stu-Pid' Jones (Also of Police Bastard, Sensa Yuma and ex Contempt) for the 1995 five track EP 'What A Wonderful Feeling... ...To Be Fucked By Everyone' on Retch Records .

Eventually English Dogs became a 3 piece with the line up of Gizz Butt - Lead Vocals and guitars, Pinch - Drums and backing vocals and Shop - Bass guitar and Backing vocals . They released the 16 track crossover album 'All The World's A Rage' also on Impact records and toured UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland many times. in 1996 the English Dogs played their last shows as Pinch, Gizz and Shop were soon to re-emerge as Janus Stark. An English Dogs / GBH union resulted in Wakey and Pinch creating The Wernt with GBH members guitarist Jock Blyth and bassist Ross Lomas for a 1997 album 'Wreckin' Temples'. Gizz Butt replaced Jim Davies of Pitchshifter as the live guitarist for The Prodigy, which in turn revitalized interest in English Dogs and prompted a re-release of Where Legend Began. Gizz also announced the formation of a new act Janus Stark the same year recording with (3 Colours Red producer)Terry Thomas acting as producer. 1999's 'I've Got A Gun' was recorded live in Finland in 1994 when Pid was on vocals . By 2000 Pinch had joined The Damned. Gizz Butt returned in 2002 with The More I See.

In May 2007, English Dogs reformed with the original line-up with the exception of Pinch, who is drumming for The Damned. He was replaced by Stuart Meadows, who played for Resistance 77. They mainly play throughout Europe, but they do not play their crossover material. English Dogs released an EP called 'Tales of the Asylum' in November 2008. English Dogs had another line-up change in 2009, then afterwards a hiatus . At one point the only original member being bassist Wattie .After months of leaving, Wakefield reformed the band with him being the only member to have featured on any official release. In 2011 three original members of the 1984 Crossover line up announced they were going to reform to perform the 'Forward Into Battle' and 'To The Ends Of The Earth' releases in their entirety . This led to a sell out tour which received great reviews. After the tour the lads announced they were to write new material in the vein of the Crossover material and plan more touring. The new English Dogs album, entitled The Thing With Two Heads, will be released on Candlelight records in July 2014. Drummer Pinch says 'We got back together because we felt like we had unfinished business. Tons of people ended up turning up to the gigs. We started to think maybe we are worth a fuck after all. We started writing and recording and it clicked immediately.' The Thing With Two Heads, he continues, 'is the missing link between To the Ends Of the Earth and Forward Into Battle. It’s classic English Dogs punk metal. It doesn’t sound like anyone else, because it wasn’t inspired by anyone else.' The Crossover line up are now back out on tour with long time friend and associate Spike T Smith on drums (who played in the Dogs way back in '87 when Pinch had to step out back then) who stepped into the drummer position in August 2014 as Pinch was unable to commit time to the Dogs due to his role in The Damned.

Discography

Albums

Invasion of the Porky Men (Clay Records, 1984)

Forward Into Battle (Rot Records ASS20, 1985)

Where Legend Began (Under One Flag Records FLAG4, 1987)

Bow to None (Impact Records, 1994)

All the World's a Rage (Impact Records, 1995)

I've Got A Gun! Live In Helsinki (Retch Records, 1999)

This Is Not A War (Retch Records, 2002)

'We Did, We Do, We Always Fucking Will' (2014)

The Thing With Two Heads (Candlelight Records, 2014)

Singles and EPs

Demo '82 tape (1982)

Mad Punx and English Dogs 12' (Clay Records, 1983)

To the Ends of the Earth 12' (Rot Records, 1984)

Metalmorphosis 12' (Under One Flag Records 12FLAG101, 1986)

Sei Was Du Bist (Impact 1995)

What a Wonderful Feeling to Be F**ked By Everyone (Retch Records, 1995)

Tales From The Asylum (Retch Records 2008)

Get Off My F***ing Moon (2011)

Dog Sick Split with Sick On The Bus (2012)

Clockwork Boys / English Dogs - Lusitanian Punk Rock - Punk Fucking Rock ‎(7')Chaosphere Recordings, Raw 'N' Roll Rex, Dog City Records, V.D.C. RecordsCHAOSV009, RAW002, DCR004, VDC 0062013

Compilation albums

Have a Rotten Christmas Vol. 2 LP (Rot, 1985)

Driven to Death LP (Clay, 1990)

Angry Songs and Bitter Words CD (Ruptured Ambitions, 2003)

Members

First line-up

Pete 'Wakey' Wakefield - Vocals

Jon Murray - Guitar

Mark 'Wattie' Watson - Bass

Andrew 'Pinch' Pinching – Drums

English Dogs Metalmorphosis Rar

'Forward Into Battle' line-up

Adie Bailey - Vocals

Graham 'Gizz' Butt - Lead Guitar

Jon Murray - Guitar

Mark 'Wattie' Watson - Bass

Andrew 'Pinch' Pinching – Drums

Present UK line-up

Pete 'Wakey' Wakefield - Vocals

Nick Wynch - Guitar

Michael *Tat* Tatler - Bass

Richard *Grizz* Grizzwell - Drums

Present Crossover line-up

Adie Bailey - Vocals

Graham 'Gizz' Butt - Lead Guitar

Ryan Christy- Rhythm Guitar

Craig Christy - Bass

Andrew 'Pinch' Pinching – Drums

Spike T. Smith - Drums (since July 2014)

English Dogs Metalmorphosis Shirt

English Dogs evolved from being a punk band to a crossover band to a power metal band. The Metalmorphosis EP is from the more punkish crossover time. While evolving so much, and changing style so much, they obviously produced albums of different quality. Metalmorphosis is not one of the better releases. The production is very good, considering the EP was made in the late eighties. The guitars are clearly punk-influenced yet sounding like they were inspired of technical thrash. The paradox is total. Drumming are pretty metal, without the double bass and Wakey screams his vocals in a punk/hardcore way. His voice cracks at times, but most of the time he does just fine. All this results in a sonic chaos. Although behind the chaos there is a hidden complexity, which is the key reason, I love this band’s later releases. In the end of Nightmare of Reality there is a psychedelic drumbeat, building up a real nice atmosphere. The members of English Dogs are skilled musicians even though they are punks. They can do what they want, but I’m not sure that they knew what they wanted on this one. This release isn’t bad, but a better overlooked part of their discography.

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growinstablog · 5 years ago

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This Client Is Generating 7x Their ROAS During The Coronavirus & Here’s How You Can Too

Things May Seem Uncertain Now, But You Can Overcome Them

COVID-19 is affecting the world in a way we haven’t seen before. Public spaces are empty, people are out of school and work, and we’re all trying to remain calm amidst all of the chaos.

We understand that the impact of COVID-19 is very real for a lot of business owners.

We know many people are losing their jobs and when you’re talking about small businesses, “people” means friends, family and coworkers that feel like family- loved ones.

With the restrictions on social interactions and limitations of space, a lot of businesses have had to send their employees home, change their work procedures, and re-evaluate how they’re going to stay afloat.

It’s a scary time to be a small business owner, but we’re here to tell you that there are ways to turn this situation around.

How do we know? Because we’re currently producing sales for many of our clients in the midst of the Coronavirus.

One Of Our Clients Is Currently Generating 7x Their ROAS During COVID-19

As a business owner, we understand you may have several questions in regards to marketing your business during COVID-19. Are customers even looking to buy things right now? Is it even worth the effort to promote your business at a time like this?

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Navigating economic prospects is a little bit different right now, but the desire to buy goods is always there. Many consumers are still looking for everything from necessities to luxury items.

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Fortunately, there are ways to keep your business moving forward at this time. By adjusting your marketing efforts and adapting to the recent challenges, you can develop a strategy that engages and reassures your audience amidst the Coronavirus scare.

Still unsure about it? Kenz Laurenz, a fashion brand that designs active wear and accessories, worked with us to adjust their digital marketing strategy around the developments with Coronavirus.

With our adaptation strategies, they put out a new Facebook ad campaign on April 2nd, and were able to achieve these results in the first two weeks:

→ Increased their total link clicks 20-fold

→ Doubled their conversion revenue

→ Generated 7x return on ad spend (ROAS)

→ Accumulated 29 new website purchases (and counting!)

Now the question everyone wants to know: how did they do it?!

The short answer is this: they took the hair-bow and headband products that they sell online and repurposed them into a DIY face mask kit.

Now you may be thinking, “My product can’t transform into a health or safety product, so what now?”

Don’t worry! We’re going to break down the marketing techniques behind their campaign that you can use no matter what your product or service is!

Marketing Tips For Small Businesses Under COVID-19 Restrictions

Now how did we help Kenz Laurenz optimize their marketing strategy and generate these results? There are a few areas in which we noticed room for growth for them. The great news is that these same areas would make great points of focus for your own business too, no matter your industry.

1. Adjusting Your Marketing Approach

Probably the most obvious adjustment was made to their online marketing approach. In light of Coronavirus concerns and suggestions made by public health organizations, they decided to temporarily repurpose the use of their products.

Since they make headbands, hair ties, and other related accessories, together we had the idea that customers could buy their headbands and hair ties in order to create makeshift face masks for themselves.

Consumers right now are primarily concerned with keeping themselves and their families safe, and face masks are specifically becoming harder to come by, so Kenz Laurenz offered a practical solution that would benefit their audience.

Think about what your business offers. Do you provide essential goods? Are your products or services useful for customers at this time?

No matter what you offer, it’s important to find ways to highlight what you do in a way that’s relevant to your customers right now.

Reaffirm to customers that your business is helpful and reliable even under current circumstances.

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The process is simple: Identify customer needs → Adapt your strategy → Assert your value

2. Building Relationships With Your Audience

During stressful times like these, consumers want all of the support they can get. They want to know that the businesses they interact with are taking care of them and have their best interests at heart.

Kenz Laurenz recognized an area in which a lot of people needed help, and they did what they could to ease their customers’ stress. By repurposing their products around new health regulations, they were able to provide their customers with widely-needed facemasks.

They even provided sales codes, so that their customers wouldn’t have to stress about breaking the bank. It’s the little things that make a big impact, and their combined efforts proved that they care about their customers’ wellbeing.

So what can your business take away from that? Create and develop more relationships with your target audience.

By showing compassion in these trying times, you prove that your focus truly is on the people you serve. Customers want to trust the products and services they rely on, so give them a reason to believe in your business.

Not only will you prove that your business is credible, reliable, and trustworthy, you also gain access to more loyal customers who are likely to stick with your business throughout this time period and for the foreseeable future.

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Your customers are the driving force behind your business, and when you prove your value to them, they’ll stick with you for a long time.

3. Investing In Your Long-Term Sustainability

While yes we want to help our clients implement short-term solutions to carry them through COVID-19, we’re also encouraging businesses to look beyond COVID-19.

There are many things you can do to prepare your business for long-term success, and yes, you can still carry out some of these methods despite COVID-19 limitations.

The great thing about digital marketing is that you can work on and implement your campaigns anywhere you have a device and internet connection.

Our client combined the two previous steps by giving them a helpful solution now and by solidifying a spot in consumers’ minds for once COVID-19 restrictions are no longer necessary.

By establishing a stronger digital presence now, they’ll be able to stand out to customers once things go back to normal.

Even if you’re unable to adjust your strategy to reflect changing consumer needs, there are other methods for getting ahead.

For example, now would be a great time to invest in your SEO campaign. This process takes time, and now that you have it, don’t waste it. We provide SEO services that can help you determine high-traffic keywords, implement techniques for optimization, and maximize your growth on search engine results pages.

While other businesses are putting their marketing efforts on the backburner, you can make great strides and put yourself at a bigger advantage.

This will put you ahead of the competition now and in the future!

Put Your Brand In Front Of Your Audience While They’re At Home & Their Screen Time Is At An All Time High

Remember that you have more available to you at this time than you think. Even if your employees are working from home, or you’re lessening production to a more feasible level, there are things you can do to ensure that you’re well prepared for when COVID-19 is no longer a pressing issue.

Now that many people are out of work and school, internet usage is going through the roof.

Stay in front of where your audience is already scrolling while screen-time is at an all time high!

You want to make sure your digital marketing efforts are solid and engaging so that you can attract those who might not have had the time to find you otherwise.

This situation is unlike anything most of us have seen before, so most businesses are rapidly trying to figure out how to sustain themselves, and for many, smart marketing may be the answer.

By putting effort into your marketing methods where you can, you put yourself back on the path to success. A lot of businesses are pausing their marketing efforts out of panic, not strategy, so use this as a chance to pull ahead of your competition. You can grow in rank and become the prominent provider in the mind of your audience.

So What Are The Next Steps?

Times are tough, but your business can still grow and make it through this. This is an opportunity to prove the value and resilience of your business, so that you can secure long-term success.

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illbefinealonereads · 5 years ago

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Blog tour day! Today, I present to you an excerpt from Day Zero by Kelly deVos, the first book in a duology. Keep scrolling to read more about the book!

DAY ZERO Author: Kelly deVos ISBN: 978-1335008480 Publication Date: November 12th 2019 Publisher: Inkyard Press

Don’t miss the exhilarating new novel from the author of Fat Girl on a Plane, featuring a fierce, bold heroine who will fight for her family and do whatever it takes to survive. Fans of Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It series and Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave series will cheer for this fast-paced, near-future thrill ride. If you’re going through hell…keep going. Seventeen-year-old coder Jinx Marshall grew up spending weekends drilling with her paranoid dad for a doomsday she’s sure will never come. She’s an expert on self-heating meal rations, Krav Maga and extracting water from a barrel cactus. Now that her parents are divorced, she’s ready to relax. Her big plans include making it to level 99 in her favorite MMORPG and spending the weekend with her new hunky stepbrother, Toby. But all that disaster training comes in handy when an explosion traps her in a burning building. Stuck leading her headstrong stepsister, MacKenna, and her precocious little brother, Charles, to safety, Jinx gets them out alive only to discover the explosion is part of a pattern of violence erupting all over the country. Even worse, Jinx’s dad stands accused of triggering the chaos. In a desperate attempt to evade paramilitary forces and vigilantes, Jinx and her siblings find Toby and make a break for Mexico. With seemingly the whole world working against them, they’ve got to get along and search for the truth about the attacks—and about each other. But if they can survive, will there be anything left worth surviving for?

KELLY DEVOS is from Gilbert, Arizona, where she lives with her high school sweetheart husband, amazing teen daughter and superhero dog, Cocoa. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. When not reading or writing, Kelly can typically be found with a mocha in hand, bingeing the latest TV shows and adding to her ever-growing sticker collection. Her debut novel, Fat Girl on a Plane, named one of the "50 Best Summer Reads of All Time" by Reader's Digest magazine, is available now from HarperCollins. Kelly's work has been featured in the New York Times as well as on Salon, Vulture and Bustle.

Social Links: Author Website | Twitter: @kdevosauthor | Facebook: @kellydevosbooks | Instagram: @kellydevos | Goodreads

Excerpt:

Dr. Doomsday’s Guide to Ultimate Survival

Rule One: Always be prepared.

I exhale in relief when Makeeba pulls the car into the Halliwell’s Market parking lot. The store is one of the only places in town with Extra Jolt soda, and I have to buy it myself because Mom won’t keep any in the house.

She thinks too much caffeine rots your brain or something. Halliwell’s is a low squat brown building that sits across the street from the mall and is next door to the town’s only skyscraper.

The First Federal Building was supposed to be the first piece of a suburban business district designed to rival the hip boroughs of New York. The mayor announced the construction of a movie theater, an apartment complex and an indoor aquarium. But the New Depression hit and the other buildings never materialized.

The First Federal Building alone soars toward the clouds, an ugly glass rectangle visible from every neighborhood, surrounded by the old town shops that have been there forever. Most of the stores are empty.

We park in front of the market.

Our car nestles in the long shadow of the giant bank building. Charles gets out and stands on the sidewalk in front of the car. Makeeba opens her door. She hesitates again. “Listen, I know you might not want to hear this or believe it. But my book report wasn’t about hurting you or getting revenge. I’m trying to get you to see what’s really happening here. That Carver’s election is the start of something really bad. We could use you at the rally. You’re one of the few people who understands Dr. Doomsday’s work. You could explain whathe did. How he helped Carver cheat to win.”

“I’ve been planning this raid for months,” I say. My stomach churns, sending uncomfortable flutters through my in-sides. I don’t know what it would mean to talk about my father’s work. What I really want to do is pretend it doesn’t exist. Pretend the world is normal and whole.

I reassure myself with the reminder that there’s no way Makeeba is going to the rally either.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Charles give us a small wave. Before Makeeba can say anything else, I get out and grab my backpack.

Inside Halliwell’s, I pick up a blue basket from the stack near the door. The small market is busy and full of other people shopping after school or work. The smell of pine cleaner hits me as we pass the checkout stations. They are super serious about germs and always cleaning between customers.

We come to the produce section, and I leave Makeeba and Charles at the Click N’Go rack checking out the seed packets that my brother collects. Dad got Charles hooked on this computerized gardening that uses an e-tablet and a series of tiny indoor lights to create the ideal indoor planter box. Each week, they release a new set of exclusive seeds. Their genetic modifications are controversial.

All the soda is in large coolers that line one of the walls of the market. They keep the strange stuff in the corner. Expensive root beers. Ramune imported from Japan. And! Extra! Jolt!

I put a few bottles of strawberry in my basket. I snag some grape too. For a second, I consider buying a couple of bottles of doughnut flavor. But that sounds like too much, even for me. The chips are in the next aisle. I load up on cheese puffs and spicy nacho crisps.

They keep the Click N’Grow kiosk in the store’s tiny produce section between small tables of apples and bananas. Charles has selected several handfuls of seed packets. My brother dumps them in my basket.

Makeeba grimaces at the top packet. “I still don’t like that first one. It’s pretty. But still. It’s…carnivorous.”

Charles smiles. “It’s a new kind of pitcher plant. Like the Cobra Lily.” He points to the picture on the front of the seed packet. “Look at the blue flowers. That’s new.”

“It eats other plants,” Makeeba says.

“You eat plants.”

“But I don’t eat people,” Makeeba says. “There’s got to be some kind of natural law that says you shouldn’t eat your own kind.”

Charles giggles.

My brother’s gaze lands on my selection of soda and chips. “Can I get some snacks too?”

Crap.

I usually don’t buy unhealthy snacks when I’m with my brother. I smuggle them in my backpack and have a special hiding space in my desk.

“What’s your number?” I ask him.

My brother has type 1 diabetes, and he’s supposed to check his blood sugar after meals. He can have starchy or sugary snacks only when his glucose level is good, and usually only on special occasions.

Charles pretends he can’t hear me. That’s not a good sign.

“Charles, what’s your number?”

He still doesn’t look at me. “I forgot my monitor today.” “Well, I have mine.” I kneel down and dig around for the spare glucometer I keep in the front pocket of my backpack. By the time I get it out, Makeeba has already pulled Charles out of his blazer and rolled up the sleeve of his blue dress shirt. I wave the device over the small white sensor disk attached to my brother’s upper arm.

After a few seconds, the glucometer beeps and a number displays on the screen.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

“Charles! What did you eat today?”

My brother’s face turns red. “They were having breakfast-for-lunch day at school. Everyone else was having pancakes. Why can’t I have pancakes?”

I sigh. Something about his puckered up little face keeps me from reminding him that if he eats too much sugar he could die. “You know what Mom said. If you eat something you’re not supposed to, you have to get a pass and go to the nurse for your meds.”

My brother’s shoulders slump. “No one else has to go to the nurse.”

Charles is on the verge of tears and frowns even more deeply at the sight of my basket full of junk food.

“Look,” I say. “There are plenty of healthy snacks we can eat. I’ll put this stuff back.”

“That’s right,” Makeeba says, giving Charles’s hand a squeeze. “We can get some popcorn. Yogurt. Um, I saw some really delicious-looking fresh pears back there.”

“And they have the cheese cubes you like,” I add.

We go around the store replacing the cheese puffs and soda with healthy stuff. I hesitate when I have to put back the Extra Jolt but I really don’t want to have to make my brother feel bad because I can drink sugary stuff and he can’t.We pay for the healthy snacks and the seed packets.

I grab the bags and move toward the market’s sliding doors. I end up ahead of them, waiting outside by the car and facing the store. The shopping center behind Halliwell’s is mostly empty. The shoe store went out of business last year. Strauss Stationers, where everyone used to buy their fancy wedding invitations, closed the two years before that. The fish ’n’chips drive-through is doing okay and has a little crowd in front of the take-out window. Way off in the distance, Saba’s is still open, because in Arizona, cowboy boots and hats aren’t considered optional.

I watch Makeeba and Charles step out of the double doors and into the parking lot. Two little dimples appear on Makeeba’s cheeks when she smiles. Her long braids bounce up and down. Charles has a looseness to his walk. His arms dangle.

There’s a low rumble, like thunder from a storm that couldn’t possibly exist on this perfectly sunny day.

Something’s wrong.

In the reflection of the market’s high, shiny windows, Isee something happening in the bank building next door. Some kind of fire burning in the lower levels. A pain builds in my chest and I force air into my lungs. My vision blurs at the edges. It’s panic, and there isn’t much time before it overtakes me.

The muscles in my legs tense and I take off at a sprint, grabbing Makeeba and Charles as I pass. I haul them along with me twenty feet or so into the store. We clear the door and run past a man and a woman frozen at the sight of what’s going on across the street.

I desperately want to look back.

But I don’t.

A scream.

A low, loud boom.

My ears ring.

The lights in the store go off.

I’ve got Makeeba by the strap of her maxidress and Charles by the neck. We feel our way in the dim light. The three of us crouch and huddle together behind a cash counter. A few feet in front of us, the cashier who checked us out two minutes ago is sitting on the floor hugging her knees.

We’re going to die.

Charles’s mouth is wide-open. His lips move. He pulls at the sleeve of my T-shirt.

I can’t hear anything.

It takes everything I’ve got to force myself to move.

Slowly.

Leaning forward. Pressing my face into the plywood of the store counter, I peek around the corner using one eye to see out the glass door. My eyelashes brush against the roughwood, and I grip the edge to steady myself. I take in the smell of wood glue with each breath.

Hail falls in the parking lot. I realize it’s glass.

My stomach twists into a hard knot.

It’s raining glass.

That’s the last thing I see before a wave of dust rolls over the building.

Leaving us in darkness.

#day zero #kelly devos #booklr #blog tour #tour #excerpt #i'm haven't gotten around to reviewing this book as i'm busy with nanowrimo #but it's excellent and you should read it #enjoy the excerpt

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