#cg swamp monster

[softpawpup]

swamp monster caregiver things !!

likes to take you to the pool

is always wet

tries to keep you dry so you dont catch a cold

lets you ride on their back when swimming

always gets your toys from the bottom of the pool

lets you keep your room just a little bit messy

always talks in a gentle voice

very good with sensitive little ones

loves to take you out in the rain to play

makes you amazing soup whenever you get sick

carries you around whenever you want

helps you with all your big to do list things

helps you catch scary bugs

never leaves your side during naptime

[cellarspider]

23/30 Characterization speedrun

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to a movie that exposits with all the grace of an inebriated hippo on rollerskates, Prometheus.

Y’know, I have a soft spot for the first movie adaptation of Silent Hill (2006). Yes, we're tangenting to talk about something else I like better, but I swear it's for a purpose.

It mostly sticks to the first game’s content, meaning it limits the number of themes it has to handle. It makes some alterations that affect its interpretation–it switches the gender of the protagonist, alters the religious elements, cuts out the bit where you basically fight Baphomet at the end of the game, but that always felt weird anyway. And, of course, there’s a required appearance by a certain tetrahedron lad, reanalyzed as a punitive figure turned outward on the world rather than inward toward the person that conjured him. I’ll allow it, partly because I saw it when I was a teenager and I thought he was badass.

But what it really nails camerawork, creature effects, and set design. So much so that a lot of the visuals of following games lifted from creative decisions made for the movie. The Silent Hill movie is more a thing of vibes than anything else, and the vibes are appropriately awful.

[Video description: Rose (Radha Mitchell) and Cybil (Laurie Holden) encounter a Lying Figure (Michael Cota), AKA Armless Man or Straightjacket. There’s only a tiny amount of CG here. It was pretty much all Cota’s unnerving shuffle and his willingness to be shoved into blinding, deafening, arm-tying monster-bondage with a breathing tube hidden around butt-height.. We salute you, Mr. Cota, possibly with our feet.]

But where the movie trips and falls is right near the end, where the vibes screech to a halt so that the movie can sit you down and explain the backstory that it already intimated throughout the rest of the runtime.

On a totally unrelated note, Janek has something to tell Shaw.

This barren moon, believe it or not, isn’t the Engineers’ homeworld. Y’don’t say.

You know what would’ve been a better way to set this up? Have somebody ask “hey, there’s nothing but rocks and ominous buildings here. What gives?”, but they literally never do. Not even the biologist, who does no biology in the movie. The geologist, who also doesn’t do any geology, doesn’t note, say, a lack of siltstone that’d indicate running water, no coal of any kind that’d indicate previous growth of plant matter, no signs of oil or natural gas deposits derived from ancient microbes. Lord knows the poor bastards weren’t swamped with work before the script ate them.

But no, there’s no questioning of this. Shaw dictates in her notes “Was there an outbreak here?”, after exploding the head. But that’s it. No, we leave it to Idris Elba explain, as seriously and as military guy-ily as he can. This is a weapons lab or depot, something went wrong here, Janek’s going to do a self-sacrifice if it seems like the weapon might get to Earth. He even says the weapons are in “those vases”, in case you didn’t notice them before.

Consider: Principle photography for Prometheus was done in 2011, from March 21 to June 10 (cite 1). On November 14, Filming began for Pacific Rim, in which Idris Elba gots to play a serious self-sacrificing military guy with the exact same mustache who has an actual character arc, AND was allowed to use his actual accent.

In Prometheus, Janek apparently had more characterization planned, but it was stripped entirely away until all you’re left is a christmas tree, a plot-mandated laxity in keeping track of passengers, and incomprehensible flirting with Vickers. On balance, that’s more than pretty much everyone else gets, but at the same time, what does that tell us? We are left with a man who’s going to pull a heroic sacrifice, essentially because he’s the only other character we know about.

In cut material, Janek was originally going to give a sympathy monologue to Vickers after she killed Holloway, about a traumatic event in his military career: he watched a bioweapons lab suffer a breach that ended with its destruction. That was cut. His motivation was cut. And more, too, you can see the ragged edges of the script. 

“Right, ‘all you do is fly the ship,’” quotes an exasperated Shaw. “That’s right,” says Janek, who told Vickers that in a cut scene.

Despite these pieces missing, I haven’t been drawing on them very often. Why? Because the movie was still full of baffling decisions, regardless of how they edited it down. The movie that’s shot never looks like what gets shown in theaters, but it is still a representative sample of the material, one that was prepared for us to watch.

While Janek’s entire motivation fell off him in the editing room, Vickers gets undermined by what they did keep. Turns out she’s not just nasty to her employees, she’s nasty to her boss as well, because he’s her dad. She’s presented as obsessed with making sure he dies, which, fair, we’ll soon confirm that his only begotten robo-son is pretty big on that too.

…Except this also means they have the same character motivation, which… That can work, but how well does it work as a twist? 

I am not convinced. Vickers has constantly been pulling power plays on David, who’s pushed back a little in return, but they don’t have to functionally be siblings to make this work. Nor does the weird, occasionally robotic behavior from Vickers have to mean “aha, you see, they are both Weyland’s children with daddy issues!”

She could just be a disposable asset of the Weyland Corporation! She’d have a more sympathetic arc that way, because unlike corpos of Aliens past, she doesn’t want to be there at all. She didn’t want them to talk to aliens, she didn’t express any of the usual flimsy “we can profit off of this uncontrollable killing machine” stuff we’ve come to expect. She seemed to just want to get the fuck out of there. And obviously, she’s gonna die, this movie is frequently aping Alien and Aliens, the corpo does not survive. That could be tragic!

But apparently she wanted to be here, taking five years out of her life and career to sit on ice and do literally nothing but make sure her already dying dad actually dies. Okay. 

It’s especially, structurally weird, because the very next scene has David explaining his motivation to Shaw.

“What happens when Weyland isn’t around to program you?”

“I suppose I’ll be free.”

“You want that?”

“”Want”? Not a concept I’m familiar with. That being said… doesn’t everyone want their parents dead?”

This is what happens when you leave a hyperintelligent newborn alone for two years with nobody but Peter O’Toole as a role model. 

This scene and the pre-caesarian one set up a weird dynamic between David and Shaw that didn’t seem sufficiently motivated by the rest of their interactions, in my opinion. It suggests that David has latched onto her in some way, which the next movie certainly confirms. But why? They’ve barely talked, ad most of it was pure exposition or telling David to do something. Is it because she hasn’t been as bad as the others? Because that’s going to change later. 

David’s hopes are pinned on the Engineer rejecting Weyland. This is a reasonable assumption. The way the scene plays out, however, is not entirely reasonable.

And that will have to wait for another day. Before we get to that, I want another ramble all to myself. About something I like.

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

Alt-text rambles:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbhartzog/558247427/in/photostream/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble 

https://youtu.be/cOrcwL5MHYg

Overflow Ramble 1

The kitchen counters don’t have any grippy surfaces on them, and no lip. The *stove* has no lip, which I have seen before, but it’s stupid. Most modern designs for stovetops meant for installation on ships have a high lip and/or grippers that hold cookware in place. There are multiple open shelves that have no lip. And there’s yet another piece of Decorative African Art just hung on the wall above a food prep counter, within the potential reach of steam or grease splatter. The chair Holloway sat in last time is revealed to be free-standing, as is the coffee table.

No. No free-standing furniture, unless it’s collapsible and used at rest. Put lips on every counter and table. Have lots of grip mats you can throw down anywhere. The design in here is more along the lines of airline tray tables, which are meant to be stowed during rough flight. There is no way to stow all this shit in a reasonable and timely manner. Airline furniture is also designed according to hostile forces, which, frankly, might be relevant here. This comfy, beige apartment space was designed by someone who did not give one fuck if a glass went winging off that 2m tall open shelf and gave you a concussion.

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

[caught-drawing]

Halloween Icon for my main blog. Boo!

[dribbonart]

“Together Breakfast” is so weird. The Crystal Heart and the Smoke Monster are never explained and don’t seem to have any connection or continuity with anything else. Still a good episode. It’s amazing how quickly the show establishes a style.

We only see this kind of arterial piping in Gem spaceships. Is the temple a ship converted into a last refuge for the CG’s? The show never says. Why is the temple shaped like Obsidian? Who knows.

The Smoke Monster doesn’t have a gem involved with it. It’s bound in an arcane scroll. The only other example of magic stuff without a gem I can think of is the swamp plant that tries to eat the cool kids.

[anxiousdepressedintrovert]

Otome Thursday

IT’S BRAM!!!!

Y’all, you have no idea how excited I was for this route/series to start. I wasn’t a big fan of Ravi.

ANYWAY

Bram Route

Episode 1 (The free one 😉)

-I really dig the beginning of the route.

-Like a land hidden from even the Elves? Nice

-Also also, I like that this series, Love and Legends, AND Reigning Passions all take place in the same universe and it makes sense. Unlike the more modern series where the crew just sticks characters in the stories to say “Hey, look, notice these characters”

-Sorry. I’m ranting

-Focusing now

-I named my MC Mari Rya

-She’s beautiful

-She’s got a little, sprite/fairy/thing named Ness

-I love them

-I only know the name of the new land because I played the Ravi short but it’s called Tallav

-Mari’s got a reputation as a researcher.

-But this is also a lifelong dream of hers.

-Ness doesn’t speak (what I’m going to call) English, but Mari understands her anyway

-Ness uses They/Them pronouns. RESPECT IT

-Magic time!

-Ness magic time!

-Mari can feel all the living things. I feel like that’s not a human thing.

-But I will reserve judgement

-She’s had a rune stone since she was a baby. Yeah, she’s def not human.

-Holy shit a bear!

-…with a shield and a spear on it’s back.

-Subtle

-The way these sprites move are fucking hilarious

-Mari said “Nope not today”

-Can’t out run a bear. What does this bitch do?

-Drop down to play dead. Cause that’s totally gonna stop a bear from chewing on your spleen

-the “bear” is able to turn her over to her back (duh)

-it turns into a man and…oh what a man

-this CG is so fucking cute!

-he’s like “Is she alive?”

-She’s like “the fuck is he doing?”

-I’m like “Squeeeee they’re both so stupid rn”

-Oh those eyes…

-I haven’t been this in love since Razi. Or Renzei.

-Oh no! headbutt. Gives me a headache just reading it.

-Fuck look at those abs.

-LVS really knows what they’re doing with these character designs

-And Mari’s being thirsty too. It’s not just me

-Whew chile, the way she describes this man. Girl,

-Thank you, Ness, someone has their head on properly

-Never mind. They’re just as thirsty

-I still wanna know how Mari can talk to them

-He knows she’s a human cause she’s wearing clothes. Good lord this series is gonna be a riot in the first couple seasons

-Oh Mari…you’re sounding very Colonizerish

-I don’t like that

-Though it is kinda cute how she nerds out

-I can see her doing this with any thing she comes across.

-Thank you, Ness. Time and Place Mari!

-Invasive is one word for it

-Not much to write.

-She’s gushing. He’s listening. They’re both hot

-oh no, not an eyebrow lift!

-from both of them!

-I can’t do this.

-This bitch just walks away from a question ‘cause she got caught staring!

-I can’t! This is me. Running away from all my problems

-Bram follows cause, y’know, stranger in the woods

-Bram likes Ness. It’s adorable

-Anthropologist=Skald? Maybe.

-Apparently rune reading is impossible, so is befriending a Puck (Ness)

-Mari is def not a human. At least not fully

-See, I feel like if she showed Bram the rune stone she carried with her, that would help bridge this gap.

-But y’know. Whatever.

-Oh they are two bull-headed people

-He’s got (understandable) prejudices against humans/bipeds

-She’s like “MY RESEARCH”

-I’m like “Girl, they’re living people. Respect their boundaries. And Dude, Learn a little”

- She’s very forceful with the fact that she ‘needs to do her research’

-It’s very Colonizerish and I don’t approve.

-Mari, You can’t prove that the Duke who hired you only wanted you to do pure research.

-Ha, Bram called her pretty

-Ohhh Mahuwin Villiage

-Cue Victor from Underworld: “YOU MUST BE JUDGED!!”

-damn he called her insidious

-Mari…honey. Going to a village, you’ll get to see how they live and see how the justice system works. Calm down.

-Of course, no one’s ever been so unwelcoming. You’ve been dealing with other humans and elves.

-Girl!

-I’m judging you so hard rn

-Whew chile that took a lot outta me

Episode 2

-Awww I do feel bad for Ness tho

-They’re scared too

-Bruh, Bram JUST said he doesn’t know what an anthropologist is. You barely related it to a Skald. Showing him your notes means nothing.

-Bram, dude, I get you’re supposed to protect but you’re seeing enemies in the wrong people. Though I get why you’d suspect her.

-The Dinae have no secrets between their tribes (I’m assuming) so there’d be no need for an anthropologist to go looking for old history.

-Also he called her cute (again)

-Ohkay. I draw the line at you accusing Mari of torturing Ness.

-Only a heartless monster would lay hands on Ness.

-I need you to think baby: WHYY WOULD NESS STAY? If Pucks are magical creatures, surely you don’t think that Ness would be foolish enough to stay with a powerless human.

-Oh. Don’t make me insult your intelligence

-Oh don’t make me

-Mari. Don’t do anything stupid. Please. He’s actually being nice. In a weird way. Taking you to be judged. Someone else would’ve just killed you

-Mari…you can’t do your job in someone else’s country without permission. To get permission, you need to go to a village.

-I’m starting to question your intelligence

-Oh good. The bull-headedness is back

-No shit it’s more than just a job! I think you would have gathered that from the fact that to enter Tallav you had to pass a BEAR statue

-Oh no not the sad face

-I know LVS is gonna use that face to get money out of me in future scenes

-Mari, you’re both stubborn. And if I had it my way, you’d’ve gone with him already

-MARI! HE’S NOT A SOLDIER!

-ARUGH

- Not the type of roleplay I thought I’d be reading in this story but sure. Have some hearts

-I wanna smack her so bad and the first season’s not over yet.

-Usually the urge to smack doesn’t kick in until at least season 2.

-She’s a record setter

-Uh oh Bram, you called her an interrogator.

-And he STILL doesn’t fix it!

-They’re both so rude

-Ok, so he gets the why.

-We’re making progress

-This woman can’t let her thirst rest for five minutes.

-I mean same but come on

-Ah! Progress on both sides!

-Still don’t like how forceful Mari is about her job. How would she feel if her job put people in danger?

-You kinda did Mari. You kinda did say “I’m going to do what I want anyway”

-Not in those exact words but enough

-My point!

Bram: You ever think that if we wanted to be bothered by any kingdoms, we would have officially contacted them

That’s my point

At the same time, Bram and his fellow Dinae have their fellow prejudice against bipeds. As I said, mostly justified but they act that they can’t adapt or change

-Mari, interest isn’t always flattering…we aren’t in high school

-Now she’s running away. From a guy that can turn into a bear

-I’m very much questioning her intelligence now.

-Cause she dumb dumb.

-And thus begins an infuriating game of human and bear

-Oh yeah Mari, cause you can totally break the hold of a guy WHO CAN TURN INTO A BEAR

-As Mari is kicking and screaming, Bram: Am I hurting you?

-LMFAOOOO

-Awww Ness trying to help.

-Bitch. He puts you down and you climb a tree. Like bears don’t climb trees?

-Thank you Ness for talking some sense into this stupid girl

-Why is she so defensive?!

-Why can’t they just give me the option of “Fine.” FOR ONCE

-Seriously Mari? If you had stumbled upon a village during your wandering that really HATED humans, the chances of them killing you are SUPER fucking high. Doing it this way is arguably a lot safer

-YO  WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!

-That looked like a swamp deer  monster from It Lives Beneath

-FUCK THAT

-RUN BITCH…FUCKING RUUUNNNN

-Why is run never an option when we are clearly outmatched?

-Oh god why does it have to look at the screen!!!

-I don’t like that

-and ewwwww they did detail on the muscles

-Yeah no shit it’s targeting Mari, Bram!

-I think that’s pretty obvious!

-Thank again Ness for saving One Stupid Bitch

-We…we get to RIDE Bram?

-I can (and will) make so many jokes about that

-I’ve already restrained myself from making Bear jokes. So, you’ll deal with that

Episode 3

-Hehehehehehehhehe

-We rode him

-Hopefully this won’t be last time

-and the next time won’t be in bear form

-Ohkay. I’m back. The chapter’s loaded

-Wait one more

-And we can use that rope for something else too

-Idk how to do the lenny face so……just imagine it

-Ok. NOW I’m done.

-Finally, a decent option. THANK YOU, BRAM

-Yeah Mari get that through your thick fucking skull. He’s a defender. He defends.

-Awwww Bram isn’t comfortable with praise. I’m gonna take every opportunity to do it now

-Mari, this is why we don’t talk shit up.

-Hehe still riding him

-Ewww that thing is back.

-Plus side?

-FIGHT SCENE

-Oh nooooo Bram’s hurt

-MARI CONTROL YOUR THIRST THE MAN IS INJURED

-Thank you, Ness! I swear they’re the only character I haven’t been pissed at

-Mari begins to nerd out over plants. Honestly same

-OMG HIS BLUSH

-GUYS. HIS BLUSH

-The stuff of nightmares was an Abberation. I like my name better so it and all its freaky brethren will be called The Stuff of Nightmares

-And Bram’s back to being suspicious. Sigh. And we were having such a nice time

-The Dinae don’t have pets and that’s the saddest thing I’ve read all day.

-Mari just realized that Bram’s been naked this entire time.

-Lol

-Oh so, if Bram trusted Mari, he’d happily tell her everything she wanted to know.

-Hmmmmmm

-I certainly can’t say no to that face. So neither can you Mari. Here. Have some hearts

-See, they say fur covered thigh, all I hear is, cuddling for the winter.

-OMG SHE COULD SQUISH HIS PAW BEANS

-IF SHE DOESN’T SQUISH HIS PAW BEANS WE’RE GONNA HAVE A PROBLEM

-Mari stahp being so thirsty. There’s a stream next to you. Go dunk your head.

-Ness is adorable and I want a plushie of them

-Oh NOQOOOWW she has a problem with riding him

-…Ok, I mean…her explanation makes sense.

-See, every Dinae does it!

-Bram is so tired of her. It’s so funny

-WAIT. THERE’S WOLVERINES

-….is one’s name Logan?

-I’ll leave now

-I’m so glad they’re starting to understand each other more. Cause I was ready to jump through my phone screen.

-Things are still tense, of course.

-Wait a fucking minute. Going through a patch of brambles saved you a fucking DAY of travel? WTF

-I’m very interested in seeing how this plays out as opposed to Ravi’s route.

-Let’s meet Chieftain Mael!!

[hellafluff]

Bored and thinking about my slasher OC Andy, the Alligator one, and like what her movie arc would look like. The following long ass post details each movie and how good it would be:

Her first movie would be called Gator, releases in the early 80s. It's a suspenseful murder mystery set in Florida that seems to point to the killer disposing of bodies in the swamp for the gators to eat but then its revealed the Killer is killing them with their fucked up teeth so it only looks like theyve been munched on by gators. Andy gets away after being shot a bunch in the end. a solid 8/10 movie, the dialogue kinda sucks

The second movie, which is titled something like Gator II - Birth of a Monster and its a lot like "i know what you did last summer" where a group of now adult friends are being picked off for something they did and it turns out to be Andy seeking revenge for the torment they put her in from her childhood. Andy is arrested in the end but chews through her cuffs and kills the police before escaping. a 4/10, lots of sex scenes between unlikable characters???

Third movie is a clusterfuck, it markets itself as another installment in the franchise but really its a creature feature with elements of the first 2 thrown in. Just called Gator III. HEAVILY rips off Jaws about 30 years too late. The villain here isn't Andy but a congregation of alligators tearing apart a small Florida town, lead by a massive albino gator covered in scars. Andy appears in flashbacks and a house is discovered in the swamp that seems to be where she lived but now is infested with gators. a half rotten skeleton with only one jagged tooth found nearby is implied to be her. 2/10 movie, no one likes it and animals were harmed on set, causing activist pushback

So you know the weird cult plot that happened in the later Halloween movies? The fourth movie, Gator IV - Tooth and Nail does that, retconning Andy's backstory and saying she was groomed by a cult because they see her birth defect as a sign from their demon patron that she will be its vessel. Her remains from last movie are brought back to life in the last half hour as a alligator demon woman that the studio forced the crew to make sexy instead of gross. Effects/makeup for it are practical tho and the movie is considered a 3/10, with some solid kills from the cult throughout and great effects but the pacing sucks and the main cast is awful.

Okay so. Jason X exists, right? Yeah in the late 90s this happens. Titled Sewer Gator. Unrelated to the Andy of the previous movies, a young woman is experimented on in a genetics lab and infused with alligator DNA. She mutates into a fucked up gator woman thats actually gross this time except is 1999 and CGI is the hot new thing and the studio execs cover over all the fun practical effects and makeup with godawful CGI. She escapes the facility and into the sewers of New York where she begins a massacre and continues to mutate until she's exploded with military grade weaponry at the end. a stinger after her death shows she laid eggs but this goes nowhere because the movie makes no money and its never touched again. Surprisingly good actually 7/10, the bluray remaster gets rid of the CG and adds back in as much of the practical footage it can find and it becomes a 8.5/10

The series goes dormant for ten years

The series is rebooted in 2009 with a remake of the OG, except now its called The Swamp. Much more character focused, starting with a herpetologist and a poacher coming to town to help with the alligator problem. Theyre at odds immediately, the poacher insisting the gators need to be dealt with his way but the herpetologist is like "hey these bite marks arent anything like an alligators what the fuck is going on???" the big reveal of the movie is the poacher knows its not an alligator, but his deformed sister who he was keeping locked up until her escape a few years back and he's here to kill her. He's killed in the end by Andy and the herpetologist manages to snare her in a bear trap and get away but when the authorities show up Andy's chewed through her own leg and escaped. 7/10, goes on too long and the reveal exposition is weird and plot holey but audiences enjoy it. Has really good nu-metal on the soundtrack.

The Swamp II comes out 2 years later and sucks so bad. 1/10. The plot takes the Family angle from the last movie and goes full Wrong Turn incest cannibals in the swamps of Florida with it. Weird and creepy and sexual. Andy is there, missing a leg, as the eldest child of this family who serves an insane mother but the movie focuses on her other siblings with their weird deformities let loose now that the "normal" poacher brother is gone. movie heavily implies one of the female characters has sex with an alligator at one point. trash movie, don't watch in a place someone can walk in on you in

Series goes dormant again.

A miniseries drops unexpectedly in 2019. Swamp Diaries. 5 half hour episodes in the style of a found footage film of a group of friends searching for the legendary "Gator Woman of the Swamp." First episode introduces the characters, all likable and well rounded, college age. Second episode is the beginning of the expedition, outlines a lot of the history of the Gator Woman urban legend. Third episode the group runs into actual gators and starts finding weird, Blair Witch esque shit, becoming lost after they have to run from something, the first death happens. Episode four is suspenseful and horrific as the group tries to get home, another person dies. Episode five is the kicker, ending with the reveal Tamara, one of the last survivors, is actually working with the actual Gator woman, her childhood friend who she promised to protect and later on, feed. Ends with Tamara killing the last survivor and telling Andy it's time to go home. 8/10, paced mostly well and very scary, lots of shaky cam but the final twist is a hit with monsterfuckers bc its all but said Tamara and Andy are together.

[ringwaldtworldbuilding]

Ringwaldt Deities Part 5

So lets hop around a bit and take a quick look at some fun friends.

Well technically not Deities, the Elemental Lords can and are worshiped enough that they can spare power to a small number.

Most of their flocks are warlocks granted arcane power though there are a few clerics and paladins.

There are additional elemental lords.

Ygn’ys : NG : Arson, Ash, Fire, Good, Redemption, Smoke

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of  Flames

Home;  Elemental Plane of Fire(The Whistling City)

Favored Weapon;  Flaming Weapons

Symbol;  A Blazing Hand

Sacred Animal;  Cardinals

Sacred Colours;  Red, Orange, and Black

(Art by; https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6aJVkx ).  An Angel serving under Ygn’ys

Ven’tuss : NE : Air, Cloud, Evil, Lightning, Plague, Wind

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Gales

Home;  Elemental Plane of Air(The Roaring Gale)

Favored Weapon;  Thrown Weapons

Symbol;  A Green Cyclone

Sacred Animal;  

Sacred Colours;  Green

Gla’cyes : LN : Flotsam, Flowing, Ice, Law, Loyalty, Oceans, River, Water

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Twisting Waters

Home;  Elemental  Plane of Water(The Frozen City)

Favored Weapon;  Freezing Weapons

Symbol;  A Snowflake with a blue ring  around it.

Sacred Animal;  Seals, Penguins, Bears

Sacred Colours;  Dark Blues and Crystalline Blues

(Art by; Unknown found no Pintrest without link to original).  How I imagine Glac’yes  prefers to appear

Terma : CN : Caves, Chaos, Earth, Entropy, Metal, Petrification, Radiation

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Earth

Home;  Elemental Plane of Earth(The Carved City)

Favored Weapon;  Two-Handed Weapons

Symbol;  A Mossy Cubic Stone

Sacred Animal;  Moles, and Badgers

Sacred Colours;  Heavy Tawny Browns and Light crisp Greens

Fompor : LG : Archon, Fire, Flowing,  Good, Kyton, Law, Smoke, Water

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Steam

Home;  The Whistling City

Favored Weapon;  Whistling Longsword

Symbol;  A Kettle red hot on the bottom with a sapphire on its side

Sacred Animal;  Frogs

Sacred Colours;  Cast Iron Grey and Red(Females) or Blue(Males)

(Art found; https://gnn.gamer.com.tw/6/179236.html ).  Fompor identifies as both genders.

Ince’dym : CG : Arson, Chaos, Earth, Fire, Good, Metal, Riot

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Magma

Home;  The Volcanic Tower

Favored Weapon;  Flaming Weapons

Symbol;  A Volcano about to Erupt

Sacred Animal;  Camels,  Sleeper Sharks

Sacred Colours;  Silver and Red

(Art by;  https://looceyloo.tumblr.com/image/177664250413 );  An elemental prince of Ince’dym

Tempest’atybus : LE : Air, Cloud, Evil, Fear, Ice, Law, Storms, Water, Weather

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Storms

Home;  The City of Perpetual Rain

Favored Weapon;  Shocking Weapons

Symbol;  An Ice Blue Lightning Bolt with a Worried Eye as the Background

Sacred Animal;  Albatross,  Leopard Seals, Orca

Sacred Colours;  Icey Blue and Bright Gold

(Art by; https://www.reddit.com/r/characterdrawing/comments/g6j82d/oc_commission_lazarith_ninar_elemental_elf/ ).  Clerics of the Lord of Storms tend to be overly dramatic

Verma : CE : Air, Caves, Chaos, Demon, Earth, Evil, Protean, Wind

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Dust

Home;  The City of Twisting Caverns

Favored Weapon;  Unarmed Strikes

Symbol;  A Cloak Clasp Holding  Carved stone.

Sacred Animal;  Antlions

Sacred Colours;  Dusty Brown and Dry Dull Greens

(Art found;  http://granbluefantasy.jp/theatre/detail.php?contents=monsters&id=16 ).  The earth summons of Verma are often odd.

Maarh :  TN : Earth, Inevitable, Memory, Rivers, Water

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Swamps

Home;  The City of Reeds

Favored Weapon;  Javelin, Longspear, Net

Symbol;  Reeds erupting from a Swampy Soil

Sacred Animal;  Alligator, Boar, Python, Turtle

Sacred Colours;  Deep Green and Soft Maroon

Cyn’dus : NG : Air, Ash, Fire, Good, Liberation, Revolution, Wind

Adjective;  Elemental Lord of Cinders

Home;  The City of Sweeping Winds

Favored Weapon;  Pistols

Symbol;  Two hands of Ash grasping a brilliant ball of flame

Sacred Animals;  Drops Bears, Sloths

Sacred Colours;  Ashen White and Green

(Art by; https://www.deviantart.com/art/Shadows-and-Ashes-724473786 )  One does not forget the face or shape of a herald of Cyn’dus.  But yeah change ouit the black for white and you got a good example of their heralds.

Myths of the Deity

-The Elemental Deities are noted for their unique traits as they are greater elementals whose mantles are powerful enough to stabilize and let them attain a sort of pseudo godhood.  This makes them closer towards, say Arch-Angels, Arch-Fay and Demon Lords.

-These are the 12 most prominent of said lords though it's hard to say if there are any others beyond them and as likely it is also equally unlikely which drives many researchers to search the Elemental Planes for knowledge of this.

-Under each Elemental Lord are great elemental princes powerful elementals of great capability under a particular lords dominion.  Each lord has half a dozen at least with the beings varying from being the children of the lord to being the empowered servants.  Elemental Princes often act as heralds and great agents for their particular lord.

Rituals, Holidays, Sacred Days

-Earth Priests celebrate the success in finding new materials and the crafting of new earthenware be it swords, jewelry, pots or more.  Earth holidays thus are one days that riches or caravans or on an annual date when a particular mine vein was found.

-Fire Priests celebrate the rise of the great flaming orb of the sun each dawn. As such their greatest celebration is on the solstice, the longest day of the year and also upon the shortest great bonfires are raised.  Fire Priests celebrate the construction of baths, bakeries, and smithies.

-Water Priests celebrate the first major snow of winter in areas with it or the coming of a monsoon season or the first spring showers in wonder.  Water Priests celebrate the construction of great waterways, aqueducts and baths.

-Air Priests celebrate changes in the weather so the most holy days for them are Autumn and they hold great celebrations over the course of Autumn to commemorate. Air priests celebrate the construction of ships, and large towers that strike high into the sky.

-All elemental priests hold eclipses as dark days of ill content and fear.

-Elemental Clerics have the Rite of Limb :  This involves immersing one’s arm in the element.  Earth Priests immerse their arm into a box full of coarse sand.  Water Priests immerse their limb in freezing cold water. Air Priests immerse their arm into a container filled with poisonous miasma. Fire Priests immerse their limb into a blazing bonfire.  When one draws the limb free should it be scared and or otherwise damaged but not destroyed that is blessed and if the limb suffers no damage that person is considered incredibly blessed.  Such blessed limbs are often magically tattooed to enhance and provide those who have undergone the ritual to empower themself.  Those who fail such a test are punished with their other arm being immersed if this limb also suffers the same fate then the cleric is healed but demoted for their failure.

-Elemental Clerics of two elements will undergo the Rite of Limb twice once for each element they hold to.

-The Rite of Gate : Clerics of an Elemental will create a small portal to one of the cities within the elemental plane they are aligned and enter into it they will live among those within the city for a full year and return to the portal to return to their fellows at the temple if they do so they have passed the test.  Clerics that do not return could be those that died, were enslaved or simply decided to stay instead of going back to their fellow clerics.

-Elemental Priests have very exclusive marriage rites based around the elements.  Fire Priests wear light near see through fabrics of red/orange.  Water Priests strip to nothing except minimalist greens and blues that are often accentuating rather than scandalous.  Earth Priests have their wedding clothing incorporate small plates or gemstones and often include thin chainwork.  Air Priests wear nothing or thin gossamer white or light green dresses.  A poly relationship and marriage between 1 Priest of every Element well rare is perfectly accepted by most Neutral Aligned Elemental Lords

-‘May the spirit of the element guide you’.  With Water Priests means to go with the flow.  With Earth Priests it means to stay resolute on a choice.  With Fire it means adapt rapidly but not to reverse course.  With Air it means go slow to build momentum.

[deltaengineering]

Fall Anime 2020 Part 1: 200 free anime templates

Assault Lily - Bouquet

So what if I told you that SHAFT is making an adaptation of a series of moe figurines and what they came up with is “Goofy Marimite but they fight monsters”. Needless to say, this is pretty good. The yuri innuendo is off the charts, the majority of the shots are closeups of thighs, and there’s a ton of hilarious proper nouns (”defeat the HUGE with your CHARM”). Well, thinking about it for a hot microsecond, maybe it’s more like decidedly not good, but in a very entertaining way. Also, it looks cool; you can certainly tell that it’s by SHAFT, but it doesn’t get annoying. Also, the monster CG is much better than in Deca-Dence, which probably implies that Assault Lily is an even more profound critique of late-stage capitalism.

Threat level: G.A.Y.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

So we’re doing this again, huh. I liked Higurashi a lot back when it was new, but then significantly less so once it ended, because reasons. Now, I don’t remember the actual episodes of Higu clearly enough to say how exactly this compares, but I’m fairly confident that this isn’t a significant improvement because overall it’s just the same straightforward adaptation of the source material. It certainly doesn’t inspire me to get on Mr. Ryukishi’s wild ride to be annoyed by swamp parasites once more. Now, this is based on a recent mobile game reimagining, so it’s likely that the later arcs will start to differ, but the purpose of the first episode is to make me excited again and i’m feeling nothing, no matter how many of the memes they bring. Hey, I can say that I definitely love the new OP just as much as the original one - because it IS the original Eiko Shimamiya track. Uh, good luck with your remake, I guess. If I want to scratch that particular neck itch, I can just watch the Made in Abyss movie.

Threat level: NO, HINAMIZAWA

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

So punters take exception when I call shit like SAO “isekai”, so sure, I’ll use your dumb term: This right here is narou-kei as all fuck. Now, I’ve previously said that there’s really not many ways in which these shows can get worse (after all, this is the official genre of school shooter manifestos like Shield Hero), but this specimen finds a way by putting in the least effort to date. All narou-kei is basically identical and there are obvious slots in the template where you put your gimmick in, but Harold & Kuma Go to Another World just handed the sheet back without filling out anything and just doodled an image of a girl in a bear onesie in the corner, presumably out of boredom. There is literally nothing about this that is in any way interesting at all, and the production is just as braindead and uninspired.

Threat level: Void

Jujutsu Kaisen

Speaking of originality, here’s this season’s Wall Street Journal banger. I can say that it didn’t significantly annoy me for the most part, it’s just pointless and uninteresting setup about a good-natured oaf who’s dumb as a brick but strong af, which you might have heard before. I guess it goes from Grandpa-death feels to silly slapstick with all the elegance you expect from a WSJ property. But if nothing else it didn’t spend most of the time in character epically expositing their powerlevel to each other. Well, until the end, when it does that. Because the goofy guy gets possessed by an edgy demon of dark powerful darkness, you see. Once the action arrives, Mappa does bring the dope production, but at this point I can’t say I’m thrilled about their attempts to keep up with the Boneses.

Threat level: Over 9000

[lechevaliermalfet]

Vae Victis! – A Look Back at Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

It was the mid-1990s.  We were in the fifth generation of video game consoles, and gaming as a medium was eager to prove that it had grown up.

This had been going on before the fifth generation, of course.  The Sega Genesis sold itself on its contrast to the status quo.  “Sega does what Nintendon’t,” and all that.  Sega’s whole image was bound up in being the cool kid, the one who’d outgrown all those pokey “kiddie” games like Super Mario Bros. or Kid Icarus or Mega Man.  Sega fans played games like Mortal Kombat and Eternal Champions.  Even a mascot game like Sonic the Hedgehog had a kind of snide adolescent streak to it; leaner, meaner, and less patient.   Nintendo themselves had to butch up a little, even.  When their bloodless version of the first Mortal Kombat got outsold by Sega’s, which kept all the gore – despite otherwise being technically superior in every measurable way – they relaxed their standards and left all the blood and fatalities intact for the second and third games, and saw a jump in sales accordingly.  

The 90s were in part a decade of cynicism and ironic detachment.  Sincerity tended to be frowned upon as being kind of silly and naive, or else a cover for motives less savory.  Strong skepticism was the default mode, and in fiction, anti-heroes were all the rage.

Which brings us to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, described by its developers as a Legend of Zelda “for adults”.

Of course, any self-described adult who can’t bear to play a Legend of Zelda game because they feel it’s not grown-up enough needs to sit down and re-assess their idea of adulthood, and how secure they are in it.  If a tolerance for violence (if not a craving) is all it takes, then I was an adult at about eleven, when I was single-handedly mowing down whole armies of Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D.

But those were the times, and that’s how Blood Omen got pushed.  Which is unfortunate, because it misses the more thoughtful parts of the game’s story that actually did make it material mostly for adults.

“...the first act in my theatre of Grand Guignol!”

We begin in the world of Nosgoth, and if there’s a made-up fantasy word that screams “dark supernatural fantasy” more than that, I haven’t heard it.  Our main character is Kain, a nobleman caught out at night in a town where he can’t find an inn or tavern to stay for the night.  He is cornered by assassins and murdered, whereupon he goes to hell.  Or at least, we can assume it’s hell; I don’t think even a death metal band’s idea of heaven involves being cuffed to twin posts overlooking a literal lake of fire with a sword stuck through you.  Anyway, that’s where Kain is, cursing the fact that he can’t get revenge.  Which seems a little warped, on the surface of things.  You’d think if you were stuck in hell, then getting out, however impossible, might seem more important than getting back at the people who killed you.  But if you’re the kind of person who winds up in hell after being murdered, I suppose it stands to reason that your priorities may not be in order.

While Kain is in hell, lamenting his impotent rage and generally ignoring all the fine mid-90s CG scenery, he is approached by a necromancer named Mortanius.

The necromancer offers him a way back to the world of the living, and thus a chance at revenge.  Eager to oblige his overdeveloped sense of wrath, Kain takes him up on the offer, and fails to consider that there are only a few different ways, traditionally, that a dead person can cross back through the veil.  And none of them really involve returning to life exactly as you were.

Kain rises from his grave as a vampire, stronger than he ever was in life, and only too happy to hack up his assassins when he encounters them not far from the site of his crypt.  However, as he comes down from his vengeance-high, he hears a voice in the back of his mind – Mortanius’s voice, in fact – suggesting that his assassins were “the instruments of your murder, not the cause”.  Mortanius then urges him to seek out the Pillars to find the real reason for his murder, and its true culprits.

We need to rewind a bit.

IN THE BEGINNING, there were the Pillars of Nosgoth (in fact, “Pillars of Nosgoth” was the game’s working title for a while). Rooted who knows how deep in the earth below, and reaching up to the clouds, the Pillars are a structure that should be physically impossible.  They are somehow both integral to the natural order of the world, and also the embodiment of certain elemental principles. There are nine of them, embodying – in no particular order – conflict, energy, states (of being, not political), dimensions, death, nature, time, the mind, and balance.  Each Pillar has its guardian, a human endowed with powers according to the Pillar’s defining principle, and tasked with overseeing that Pillar’s particular province.  

A good while back in the past (how long is not detailed in this game, but probably centuries) there was a genocidal crusade of sorts against vampires, who were evidently a serious scourge of some kind.  In fact, the game opens on a view of a field – practically a forest – of stakes, with a vampire impaled on each.  Vlad Tepes would be proud.  This crusade was ordered by the Circle of Nine (the collective group of Pillar guardians), and carried out by the fanatical religious order known as the Sarafan Brotherhood.

Monsters that they are, the vampires did not take this well.  One of their number, an elder vampire named Vorador, decided to strike back.  Vorador was by this point in his unlife no longer quite human looking, with mottled grey skin (later series installments would make this varying shades of green), odd three-clawed hands, and giant bat-like ears. Blood Omen never elaborates on the reason for this difference.  At any rate, he singlehandedly stormed the citadel of the Pillar guardians while most of the Sarafan brotherhood were away (presumably looking for more vampires to stake), and wound up killing several of them (one of the sequels gives the number as six).  In the process, he even managed to beat down Malek on his way out, perhaps the greatest warrior among the Sarafan, and the one specifically tasked with safeguarding the Circle.

For screwing up his one job, Malek was punished by being made to do that job for eternity.  It might seem inadvisable to take the guy who failed to guard you and then make him your guard forever, but it helps if you rip his soul out of his body and bind it to his armor, thus making him a sleepless, tireless, unfeeling, and ever vigilant warrior fueled by pure wrath.  Which is what they (or rather, Mortanius) ultimately did.  At some point between this time and the present day of Blood Omen, Malek became the guardian of the Pillar of Conflict, so evidently he was fit for his role in the end.

Now we fast-forward a bit, to a point just moments before Kain’s birth. In fact, later games place this at the exact moment of that birth.

Somewhere around thirty years before Kain’s murder outside a nameless tavern in a random town, Ariel, the guardian of the Pillar of Balance, is murdered.  This is bad news for all the usual reasons, and also one or two unusual ones.  It turns out that her lover is the guardian of the Pillar of the Mind, the mentalist Nupraptor.  Her murder drives him insane, and being a telepath (among other things), his insanity infects the guardians of the other Pillars as well. This turns them from their usual purpose of upholding the natural balance, and instead sets them to destroying it.  This in turn corrupts the Pillars, symbiotically connected to their guardians, turning them from pristine white to a pitted and cracking grey.  With both the Pillars and their guardians respectively corrupted and insane, the natural order of things begins to fall apart.  Bad news all around.

Blood Omen is somewhat unusual in that it’s one of the few probably rare instances in fiction where a woman is stuffed into the fridge at the beginning of the story, and in order to drive the villain to extremes of behavior.

So.

Now we have Kain, in the present of our story, given to understand that his death was in some way connected with the Pillars and their corruption.  He makes his way to the Pillars, where he meets Ariel’s restless spirit.  She’s the one who lays out for him part of the business about her murder and Nupraptor’s madness, and the threat posed to the world by it all.  Kain is only interested in a cure for his vampirism (now that he’s had his vengeance, he wants no part of this undeath business), but Ariel persuades him that his best bet is to deal with the corruption of the Pillars.  So Kain storms off to go take care of Nupraptor, and ultimately to cleanse the Pillars by severing their connection to their now-insane guardians, solving the problem of their corruption by reference to his sword.  Go with what you know.

It’s at this point that Kain’s personal arc begins to unfold, as he becomes increasingly alienated from humanity, both the species and the concept.  While initially at odds with his vampirism, Kain spends the story coming to grips with the hypocrisy and corruption of human civilization, all the while becoming more and more comfortable with the seeming monstrosity of his new existence.  This is a matter of some necessity.  He has things he needs to do, he has to stay alive to do them, and so a certain amount of blood-drinking and slaughter seems inevitable.  

In his travels, he comes across Vorador’s manor, situated deep in a swamp teeming with monsters.  Kain seeks his help to destroy Malek.  Vorador, for his part, spends the encounter being lordly and largely dismissive of Kain’s quest.  He advises the fledgling vampire that meddling in mortal affairs is nothing but bad news.  Better to sit back and sate one’s hunger – or thirst, in this case – and let the mortal world turn as it will.  Humans are to be preyed on, not helped or manipulated or otherwise gotten involved with.  Best to stay above such passing concerns.  Nevertheless, he takes a liking to Kain, and gives him his ring to summon him at need.

Say a word often enough, and it starts to lose its sense of meaning.  Actions likewise lose significance with repetition.  They become rote.  And as time wears on, Kain seems to begin making a turn.  There’s a certain honesty in being a monster.  You always know what you are, and you always know how other people see you.  Kain may sneer at Vorador’s decadence when they meet, but at least the elder vampire is never less than one hundred percent honest about what he is.

And as Kain goes on, it begins to seem that Vorador was right.  So much of Kain’s and the world’s difficulties seem to stem from the selfishness, greed, shortsightedness, self-absorption, and general malice of the people he runs up against.  Eventually, he winds up accidentally sparking a second genocidal crusade against his own kind.  This has mostly to do with him traveling back in time to kill a man in the past who would grow to become a tyrant in his current era.  This mistake no doubt has its roots in his not having not grown up in a world with a whole sub-genre of fiction concerned with the merits or otherwise of traveling back in time to kill Hitler.

We will have such fun with time travel as the series goes on, let me tell you.

The game ends by offering the player a choice.  Kain’s efforts to cleanse the Pillars and restore balance to the world have made him the new guardian of the Pillar of Balance.  Yet, like all other Pillar Guardians slain at his hand, he himself is corrupt, and must die to complete the task.  So the player is asked: Will Kain willingly sacrifice himself for the greater good of Nosgoth, or will he refuse the sacrifice and choose to live in an increasingly broken and corrupt world.

The sequels take the second ending as canon, and honestly, it’s hard to argue.  This isn’t a story about hope springing eternal, after all.  The few people in it who are unambiguously good are either killed (Ariel) or largely ineffectual (King Ottmar, who comes to prominence briefly toward the end of the story).  The player may feel differently, but there’s little reason to believe that Kain would.  Proud, haughty, vindictive, wrathful, and growing ever more cynical and mistrustful of the motives of those around him, tired of being used as a tool for other’s schemes...  Why would he choose to sacrifice himself?

And so, canonically, we close on a shot of Kain sitting on a throne at the base of the Pillar of Balance, with it and all the other Pillars lying in a broken ruin around him.  He drinks from a goblet, and muses that Vorador was right after all: “Vampires are gods – dark gods – and it is our duty to thin the herd.”

The End.

“Nothing is free.  Not even revenge.”

So that’s Blood Omen as a story.  What about as a game?

On the balance it’s kind of uneven.  

On a technical level, it’s fairly impressive.  In its time, it stood as a testament to the potential quality of two-dimensional graphics in gaming, even as the entire medium was leaping into the third dimension, ready to ditch and decry anything made in 2D as inferior. The result from a technical standpoint is that Blood Omen has in some ways aged better than a lot of other games of its vintage, including its first sequel.  

But then you actually play the thing, and see where it sort of falls apart.

Let’s get the easy part over with, shall we?  The load times in Blood Omen are godawful, just the worst possible combination of long and frequent. It seems almost like a joke at times: “Really?  We’re loading again?  It was one fucking room!”  Were it not for the fact that it began development as a totally unrelated game, I would strongly suspect that the sequel, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, used its data-streaming technology to avoid loading times altogether purely as a response to this criticism.  I still think that may be the case.

Once we dig past the issue of loading times, though, the game reveals other issues.

There are good ideas on display here.  Let’s start with that.  The game has a day-and-night cycle, and while you can walk around during the day, you deal less damage (and take more) while the sun is up.  Water is like the touch of acid to a vampire, and any time you’re in it, you’ll take constant damage.  Rain and snow will likewise damage you, and while there are power-ups that are supposed to eliminate this problem, I’m not sure they actually work.  At least, not on the PC version of the game, which is what I’ve mostly played.  

The game also requires that Kain drink blood periodically.  His health naturally drains very slowly, but constantly, so you always have to be on the lookout for a way to top yourself off.  There are some more abstract health restoration items, as well as a consumable item you can use, called the Heart of Darkness (this item will become obscenely important in later installments).  However, the game is structured such that most of Kain’s health restoration will have to come from either enemies or, more often, helpless innocents.  This ties nicely into the game’s theme of alienation from humanity, though the way the game often presents these situations –random strangers chained to walls all over the world, for no apparent reason – seems a little odd at times.  And it has interesting ideas about different creatures having blood that might actually be harmful to Kain, or inflict him with a long-term poison.

In addition to the graphics looking nice (the CG cutscenes are definitely of their time, but the in-game sprite work and lighting effects are quite nice), the game has a great soundtrack, dark and moody and ominous. And the voice work is superb.  All character interactions are handled with voiceover rather than on-screen text, and the cast knocks it out of the park.  Not just “good for the mid-90s video game voice acting”, but great, period.

The puzzle-solving is a little lackluster, though.  For something pitched as a “grown-up Legend of Zelda”, its puzzles largely consist of pulling levers and pushing buttons, and navigating mazes. Which is fine, but again, any game that’s going to self-consciously compare itself to The Legend of Zelda needs to bring its A game, especially with its puzzle-solving.

The game does offer you a lot of tools to use, in the form of different weapons, spells, and magical items.  But a lot of these boil down to more inventive yet questionably practical ways to kill enemies.  And considering that setting up a selection of these items for immediate access involves going back and forth to the inventory menu (requiring a load time both ways), it’s easier to just stick with your weapon and a handful of the most commonly used spells and items and call it a day.

Weapons themselves are another problem.  You’ll find that your iron sword from the very beginning of the game is the most generally useful. The mace will let you stun human enemies to drink their blood after just two hits, but it lacks the crowd-control effect of the sword, and also lacks the stunning effect on the non-human enemies that make up the bulk of your later-game foes.  It’s also useful for knocking down certain stone barriers, but these are few and far between, and necessary for progress only very rarely.  The twin axes let Kain cut down trees barring his path, and also let him cut down enemies by spinning like a saw blade… but this means you’ll frequently kill enemies before you have a chance to drain them.  The flaming sword burns enemies alive and leaves only ashes, preventing you from drinking blood that way.  And then the final weapon, the Soul Reaver (also an item of incalculable importance later in the series), deals massive damage as long as you have magic power to fuel it.  But while thus empowered, it detonates the enemies it kills, making them impossible to drain.  And when not empowered, it’s only as damaging as the iron sword, but slower and more awkward.

Combat in general gets frustrating at times, thanks to the iffy hit detection.  One enemy might walk right through your sword swing, while another you could swear was out of range will register a hit.  It never becomes a total deal-breaker, but it’s a point of frequent irritation as you go.

Let’s have another positive: Kain also gains the ability to transform into various other states as the game goes by.  In his wolf form, he can leap over certain obstacles, but his attack in this form has no combo ability and a long wind-up, making him vulnerable.  He can use his bat form to fast-travel between beacons and certain landmark locations, while his mist form allows him to walk on water without taking damage, as well as cross certain barriers without opening the door.  There are also two disguises he can use.  One transforms him into a peasant, while the other turns him into a human-looking version of himself so that he can pass as a nobleman.  The use of both of these is largely situational, required in a very small number of situations and then mostly pointless outside of them.

But perhaps the thing that stands out the most is its linearity.

This is to some extent mandated by the story.  Unlike The Legend of Zelda, to which this game invites much comparison, Blood Omen’s story is very much at all times front and center.  A Zelda game will leave you with bits of story here and there, and largely leave you to explore or puzzle your way forward or dick around in town or otherwise do your own thing for long stretches of time.  The story in one of those games is the starting point of the experience, a backdrop against which you play out the adventure.  Hyrule is to some extent defined by that openness, with its plains and deserts and vast forests and so on.  

Blood Omen lacks this.  Its story is the entire point and purpose of the game. The path forward is always clear and rarely has room for deviation or discovery.  There may be things hidden off to the side, but these tend ultimately to be cul-de-sacs, connecting to nothing else.  This is even subtly expressed in the game’s environments: lots of indoor areas, caves, narrow trails, canyons, and so on.  There’s little opportunity to go off the beaten path.  Blood Omen’s pathways not only discourage exploration, they often disable it. This is not your experience to own; it is Kain’s story for you to be told.

I feel like in story terms, that’s ultimately the difference.  Legend of Zelda’s story always exists to serve the game that Nintendo crafts.  Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain’s game exists to serve the story.

And just to be clear, none of this is bad at all.  It’s every bit as valid in terms of game design and mechanics as any given Zelda.  But if you’re going to compare your game to The Legend of Zelda and then fail to do the most essentially Zelda things in it – not just do them poorly, but not do them at all, missing the point entirely of what a Zelda game is about – then it’s worth commenting on.  I like Blood Omen, but I had to get used to thinking of it on its own terms.  The Zelda comparisons are easy to make. Even without the developers making them, the look and structure of the game seems to invite them.  

Like a good book, Blood Omen is a (mostly) straight shot from start to finish.  Its linearity is what allows it to control the story, to unfold its plot and explore its themes at a pace of its choosing.  The game to some extent revels in its edginess, but to be honest, it was perfect for me at the time.  I was sixteen when I first played the game.  Sixteen, and a bit of a loner with an odd and private (but intense) interest in vampires.  It was probably the perfect game for me at the time.  And it’s still ultimately enjoyable today, if you take it as what it is.  Not as a Legend of Zelda game for adults, but as a decent action-adventure game with a good story and top-notch presentation.  If you don’t mind the linearity and the relentlessly dark and sometimes disturbing story, it’s just about perfect.

Post-script the First: Likelihood of Re-release, and Current Availability

Eeeehhhhhhhhhh...

Here’s the problem: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was originally dreamed up and created by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics (who also had a hand in the development, late in the process), with distribution to be handled by Activision.  Crystal Dynamics eventually got full ownership of the Legacy of Kain brand, and used it to make the first sequel to Blood Omen, titled Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.  Silicon Knights was against this, but had less deep pockets than Crystal Dynamics, so they were ultimately the losers of the resulting court battle over the affair.  The lone bone thrown to them was that Crystal Dynamics had to acknowledge in the game that Soul Reaver was based on characters and ideas created by Silicon Knights.

By the time Soul Reaver rolled around, Crystal Dynamics belonged to Eidos.  Then, in 2005 (not long after the last Legacy of Kain game was published), Eidos was completely bought out by Square Enix, and was mostly refocused on creating western-style games under the Square Enix umbrella.  Crystal Dynamics still exists as a division within Square, where they’ve been making various Tomb Raider games almost exclusively ever since the acquisition.

The problem with any hypothetical remaster or re-release of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is that, for several years, it would have required some three-way legal wrangling to determine who really owned the thing, and what they could do with it (if anything), and under what conditions.  

As of about 2014, Silicon Knights ceased to exist (about which more later, because it’s a fun story), but that still leaves the rights an open issue.  Square Enix seems to own the larger Legacy of Kain intellectual property, but there’s the question of ownership regarding Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain specifically, and I’m not sure that question has ever been answered.  Silicon Knights doesn’t exist, but many of its personnel are still around in some capacity, and would presumably have something to say about anything involving it.

Venues like Steam and Good Old Games have released the every other installment in the series digitally (even Blood Omen 2), but nobody’s touched the original game.  Probably CD Projekt Red and Valve don’t have much desire to try unsnarling the ownership and licensing issues themselves, and none of the owners seem all that keen on it, either.

And it will probably stay that way.  The Legacy of Kain series in general has always been pretty solidly in the B tier of video games, from back when there still even was much of a B tier in the first place.  The fanbase for that kind of deliberately overwrought gothic supernatural fantasy was loyal, but never very big, and I’m not sure how much that’s changed.  Moreover, I’m not sure either Square is willing to bank on it having grown in the interim enough to do anything about this first game in the series.  The more time goes by, the less inclination any party has to make anything of the series, especially an early entry whose ownership may be contested. An indirect sequel, and also some kind of MMO, were both in the works at various points.  The MMO vanished after not very long at all on the market, and the indirect sequel never made it out of development.

Legal options for playing Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain are limited.  You can play the original PlayStation version on the PlayStation 1, 2, or 3.  It’s also digitally available on the PS3, although not for the PSP or Vita.  Infuriatingly, it’s one of a small handful of games that can’t even be side-loaded (a process that involves downloading a digital PS1 game onto your PS3, then copying it uninstalled to the Vita).  The PC version, meanwhile, can still be played, though there’s a special program custom-made for it that you’ll have to get in order to install it and run it on modern systems.  And this tends to run a little slow.  Music and sound are fine, it’s just the game actually moves slower than normal.  Or you could install a virtual desktop and play it that way.

Post-script the Second: The Death of Chivalry

So whatever happened with Silicon Knights?  

Well, the story is… not complicated, exactly, but not entirely straightforward, either.

Development of Blood Omen was troubled.  As we would later learn, this was not an especially novel situation for Silicon Knights to be in.  Two of their other big projects later on underwent some turbulence in production.  Blood Omen was originally to be created by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics.  Later on, after Crystal Dynamics became part of British publisher Eidos, they were able to somehow leverage this connection to strongarm their way into ownership of the overall Legacy of Kain intellectual property.  They used it to make the first sequel to Blood Omen, titled Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. This had begun life as a brand-new IP (originally titled Shifter), which helps explain some of the tremendous thematic, aesthetic, and design differences between the two games.  

Silicon Knights later maintained that they’d had their own ideas for a potential Blood Omen sequel, but never got around to it, and after Crystal Dynamics started making their own sequels, Silicon Knights lost interst.  I’m not sure how much of that is real and how much is just so much sour grapes.  Anyway, they went off and did their own thing for a while.  They published the survival horror game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem for the GameCube, after having signed an exclusivity deal with Nintendo around that time.  It had originally been in development for the N64, but was ultimately moved up to the newer hardware after development delays.  For anyone who’s wondering, Eternal Darkness an excellent game, on the shortlist of must-own GameCube titles, even if you’re not necessarily a fan of survival horror.  It’s not perfect (among other things, you have to beat the game three times to see the true ending), but it does a lot of interesting things.  

They also developed the GameCube remake of Metal Gear Solid (likely under heavy scrutiny and supervision form Konami), dubbed Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.  Much as I tend to prefer the original version of the game for its restraint (Twin Snakes has a lot of ridiculous high-flying wire-fu maneuvering in its action cutscenes), the remake is worth any Metal Gear fan’s time. Among other things, series creator Hideo Kojima has apparently declared it the canon version of events.  It also saw a re-dubbing of the entire script, since apparently when the original audio was played back at a higher sampling rate, you could hear the traffic in the background, which the ramshackle soundproofing used in the original hadn’t been able to entirely shut out.  The re-dubbed script also has the benefit of having allowing Jennifer Hale and Kim Mai Guest to ditch their put-on accents – Guest’s being particularly irritating, and borderline racist (maybe actually racist; I’m a white dude, and not totally clear on these things).

After this, they moved on to the Xbox 360 with their passion project Too Human, which had been troubled from the beginning.  Its on-again, off-again development cycle spanned a decade and three console generations.  It began development for the original PlayStation, then shifted to the GameCube when the developer did in the early 2000s.  It went quiet for a few years, then resurfaced as an Xbox 360 project that was ultimately delivered in 2008, two years after its projected release on that console.

Too Human was a notorious, news-making flop, and Silicon Knights responded to this failure not simply by pinning the blame on someone else, but by doing that and then actually suing them.  Specifically, they sued Epic Games, from whom they had licensed the Unreal Engine 3 to make the final version of Too Human.  The accusation was that Epic deliberately sabotaged developers who licensed their engine by providing an incomplete product, and that the difficulties stemming from this had caused development delays.  These delays, and the compromises they brought about, were supposedly ultimately responsible for the failure and the financial losses of Too Human.

Epic responded by then counter-suing, which was the beginning of the end for Silicon Knights.

Epic’s counter-suit stated that Unreal Engine 3 was a work in progress, and that they were making it essentially on the fly as they developed the first Gears of War.  The counter-suit further stated that it was readily and openly acknowledged that the engine was unfinished, and that when it was done, it might ultimately not turn out to be useful for the licensees.  Epic’s suit further indicated that these facts were all known and laid out in the licensing contract, and so like all licensees, Silicon Knights knew this when they signed for it.  

But it gets better (which is to say, worse, at least for Silicon Knights). Epic’s counter-suit also included the allegation that Silicon Knights had knowingly and wrongfully copied code wholesale from Unreal Engine 3 and incorporated it into their own engine without permission from Epic.  They had then gone on to use this hybrid engine on other internal projects without the permission of the people they’d cannibalized it from.  

Now, I’m not one to root for a big corporation, even (especially) a game developer.  But Silicon Knights had the misfortune of being run by Denis Dyack, a known con-man, grifter, shady bullshitter, and general ambulatory phallus.  He maybe wasn’t in the same category as a Randy Pitchford or a Bobby Kotick, but that’s less a matter of capacity and more a matter of opportunity.  Given the chance to operate on their scale, I don’t doubt he’d have fit right in with that crowd.  

As far as the court case went, the evidence was overwhelmingly in Epic’s favor. In addition to their own court costs and damages awarded to Epic, Silicon Knights was forced to recall all unsold copies of Too Human and X-Men: Destiny (another game they’d developed with their Unreal Engine 3 hybrid), as well as scrap all projects using the engine, which seems to have been literally everything they had in the works at that point.

So what happened, essentially, is that Silicon Knights sued Epic Games in an effort to offset their losses by making money out of the Too Human debacle somehow, and it backfired so comically that they broke themselves against their opponent.

But their end, one way or another, was probably inevitable in that console generation.  Looking at their release history, there’s really nothing that stands out as a hit or an absolute classic.  Eternal Darkness and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes were both fine games, this much is true.  But Eternal Darkness was a GameCube exclusive, and the GameCube didn’t sell the way Nintendo hoped.  Meanwhile, The Twin Snakes is certainly nice, but as a remake of a different developer’s game, it has little in the way of originality, and very little of the material can really be said to “belong” to Silicon Knights, since it was someone else’s brainchild right from the start.  

They were never a hugely prolific publisher, with eight games published before they folded, and according to Wikipedia, seven known titles cancelled at various points during their existence.  These cancelled projects included two sequels to Too Human (which had always been planned as a trilogy).  Given the cold reception received by the original, both from critics and consumers alike, that seems questionable.  In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.  But however you look at it, they didn’t have what you’d call a good ratio of finished to unfinished projects.  And while it’s worth mentioning that many of those unfinished projects were upcoming games they were forced to cancel because they’d been made (or begun) with their illegal Unreal Engine 3 hybrid, the fact is that when your business plan hinges on stealing another developer’s game engine to make your own games, you’re already in a bad place.  

Silicon Knights pretty firmly slotted into the middle tier of video games.  For my money, the middle tier is in some ways the sweet spot.  It’s more high-tech and technically involved than the indie set, yet not so high-budget that developers in it can’t feel free to experiment.  But that middle tier has all but vanished these days. It’s questionable whether Silicon Knights would have hung on long enough to find a spot in it today, even if they hadn’t destroyed themselves going after Epic, just based on the iffy reception of their games.  That’s without considering the general skullduggery it took to keep them going in the first place.  And I also tend to think of X-Men: Destiny as a bad sign.  There’s no shame in work-for-hire; it’s how a lot of major development studios (like Blizzard) started out.  But that’s the key: you start out doing work-for-hire projects to make the money to strike out on your own. Silicon Knights was moving in the opposite direction, and that’s a bad sign.

Vae Victis, indeed.

[softpawpup]

:o like the vampire cg and swamp monster cg things, may I request zombie cg things?

@cerealkiddie

it is in the queue and u will be tagged when its posted !! thank you for the request < 33 im having a lot of fun writing my ideas for this prompt !!

[thatawkwardnerdytomboy]

Scooby-Doo Live-Action TV Series

So I randomly had an idea for a live-action TV series for Scooby Doo when I saw a picture of Scooby Doo at my girlfriend’s house.  It would be a nitty-gritty realistic horror and supernatural drama. Basically Riverdale meets Stranger Things. 

The Setting

The setting would be in upstate New York (because I’m personally somewhat familiar with a few upstate towns) in the 70′s. The town would still be named Coolsville, which was reportedly named after Calvin Coolidge by it’s Republican founder. The town became mired in political corruption following the Great Depression and lot of business owners went into debt trying to keep their struggling industries afloat. In order to keep business rivals out of the town while they were trying to rebuild, business owners would concoct ghost stories and make people believe that a lot of their older abandoned properties were haunted. It seemed to become exacerbated by the influx of liberals and young beatniks moving into the town after attending Woodstock. The political atmosphere of the town changed and the ghost stories only became more wild and realistic.   The Characters

Fred Jones:

Fred is a handsome and popular football quarterback who has all the girls at school swooning after him except for, for a while, the girl he’s truly interested in. His friends and family see him going on to play football in college, but ever since he witnessed a new player to the team going through intense hazing by the other players, his life changed. He told the coach what happened but the coach did nothing about it. After not being able to stand it anymore, Fred got into a physical altercation with the boys who were hazing their new player and was kicked off the team. Fred befriended the player, a scrawny guy with shaggy brown hair named Norville Rogers. His parents, his father particularly, was very angry and disappointed about this. Fred decided that when graduated from school, he wanted to become a police officer while all of his friends were talking about being drafted into the military to go fight in Vietnam War. However, while attending a Vietnam War protest, he saw police brutality against the protestors and decided that the police could be just as thuggish as the football players he knew and decided not to become a cop. He knew he wasn’t going to apply to college the following year seeing as though his grades were mediocre and he lost his chances with football. Not having any other options, his father reluctantly hired him to work at his record store until he graduates and figures out what he wants to do with his life. When his record store became successful enough to open a second store, his father decided to buy a new property. He was told by the owner that the store went out of business because it was haunted. Fred’s father didn’t believe it until he decided to check out the property and was scared off by a glowing white entity moaning and yelling for him to get out. Fred decided that this was suspicious and decided to investigate with the help of Norville and his dog... Norville “Shaggy” Rogers

Norville, nicknamed “Shaggy” by his stoner friends is the son of a Tuskegee Airman and his mother who is a nutritionist. They recently moved to Coolsville where he found a difficult time fitting in. He’s one of the only bi-racial students in his entire school. He doesn’t have many friends but often spends time with the beatniks getting high in the back of his van that a relative gifted to him after he got his license. His voracious appetite while high leads him to eat obscene amounts of food in one sitting, though because of his sky-high metabolism, he never gains weight. When his father noticed his lack of real friends, he pushed him into getting into sports and he joined the football team. However, he was attacked as part of a “hazing ritual” for the new players. When Fred watched him getting hazed, he protected him, becoming his first friend. They got high together when Fred was kicked off the team and needed to relieve stress. Shaggy often invited his Great Dane Scooby into the van with them and often, they would get so high that they swore that they heard him speaking to them. Shaggy left the football team to join track and gymnastics which suited his athleticism better and the his teammates treated him better as well. Ever since Shaggy was in middle school, he swore off of eating meat and became a vegetarian. Since he grew up with Scooby being his best friend, he could never see himself eating an animal, though while stoned, he often eats meat ("nah, man, I’m like, a vegetarian...never touch meat” he says while scarfing down a giant turkey leg and a cheese-burger at the same time). Shaggy almost never goes anywhere in town without Scooby because of the rumors that many parts of the town are haunted but when Fred told him about his suspicions about just how haunted the town really is could be false, he agreed to help him solve the case of the so-called haunted store.

Daphne Blake 

Daphne Blake is also another pretty and popular student at Coolsville High. Her father, a judge and lawyer mother rake in a combined 6 figure salary and are the wealthiest family in town, making even more money than the mayor. Unlike the Daphne from the earlier cartoon, Daphne realizes that she doesn’t want to wind up like some of the girls in her town who are abducted on their way to school after her own abduction scare and decides to take up martial arts lessons with a private instructor. She often spends a lot of time alone when she’s at home because of her parents’ busy careers dealing with their town’s still, corrupt politicians and business owners. Daphne is very observant of her surroundings and pays a lot of attention to detail, which contributes to her love of fashion and her looks. She became a writer for the school’s newspaper, the Coolsville Grapevine. However, this doesn’t help her in school since she mostly stares at Fred while they’re in class together, having fell in love with him after hearing about him standing up for Shaggy. When she began failing science because of this, her parents demanded that she get a tutor. Daphne also noticed that her classmate Velma Dinkley seemed to get the best grades in science and decided to ask her to tutor her. Velma agrees on the condition that she ask her friends to stop talking about her behind her back which Daphne wasn’t aware of. When Daphne confronted her friends about it, an altercation ensues, prompting Daphne to leave them behind and befriend Velma. One night while Velma was staying over for dinner, Daphne’s father told them that he was residing over a case of a real-estate owner being involved in a scandal where he was telling ghost stories about an abandoned store-front he recently purchased that happened to have a fortune of money and other valuables in a vault in the basement and that he was keeping it off the market until he could hire someone to break into the vault. Two teenagers who attend their school named Fred and Shaggy helped break the case and they were considered town heroes. Daphne and Velma took an immediate interest in the boys after this and decided that they wanted to join them. Daphne wants to become a journalist someday.

Velma Dinkley

Velma is an honor student at Coolsville. She’s considered to have a genius level IQ. In my version, Velma is of Vietnamese descent and was adopted by the Dinkley family who adopted her from Vietnam amidst the Red Scare. Her parents are McCarthyists. Despite this, they have always pushed Velma at succeeding at everything she does to become successful in the future and achieve the American dream. They placed her in Karate and the Girl Scouts as a child to teach her survival skills and how to take care of herself. Velma became a black-belt at a very young age and despite her short stature is a very strong fighter. Her strength is also mental as she is also a chess master and a straight-A student. While attending Coolsville high, Velma was both admired and envied by other over-achievers at her school. She developed a jaded nature about her after her only real friend at the school was abducted by what the authorities claim was a monster from the nearby swamp. Ever since, she’s been obsessed with trying to figure out who’s really behind all the abductions in town and has spent all her free time reading mystery novels, law books and books about supernatural beings. Her obsession became so serious that she started asking classmates to help her form a search team to go find her friend, helping the town post fliers for the missing girls but they all refused. One day, she suffered from an emotional breakdown during class when the police reported to the school that some of the kidnapped girls were turning up dead. She overheard Daphne’s friends talking about her behind her back one day in the library, claiming that they hope that Velma gets abducted next. Velma noticed that Daphne often hangs out with these girls so when Daphne asked Velma to tutor her she tells her that she has to tell her friends to stop talking about her, which Daphne agrees is the right thing to do. When Velma agrees to tutor her, they spend a lot of time together and start to form a bond. They soon become close friends. Like most teens in their town, Velma takes a job in town to save up to move elsewhere and attend college and gets a job at a library. When Daphne invites her over for dinner, Daphne’s father talks to them about a scandal going on in the real-estate industry in their town. When he tells her that their schoolmates helped solve the mystery, Velma begins thinking about enlisting Fred and Shaggy’s help with finding her friend.  Scooby-Doo

Scooby is going to be played by a real Great Dane with occasional CG animated other features to perform what the actual dog cannot. As a puppy, he was abandoned by his owners at a dog boarding house in Coolsville when his owners were scared off by another ghost/monster haunting. Shaggy’s family adopted him when he was taken to a shelter and was given to him as a Christmas gift as a child. Him and Shaggy grew up together and have been inseparable since. Shaggy often sneaks Scooby with him to school and keeps him in his van which he parks on campus while he’s in class. Shaggy will sneak out to the van to feed him cafeteria food during lunch and sometimes sit and eat with him. When Shaggy and Fred get high together, they claim that they can hear Scooby speaking to them in deep voice with a speech impediment. And as expressive as Scooby is, when he eventually meets Daphne and Velma, they are often able to understand what Scooby is trying to tell them when he barks and makes gestures. Sometimes Shaggy has to translate to them what he is saying. Even though Scooby is such a large and intimidating dog, he is often afraid of even the smallest things, including mice. However, whenever Shaggy feeds him his favorite brand of dog treats which Shaggy calls “Scooby Snacks,” he becomes fearless and more confident. Whenever Scooby barks, there will be a voice-over of him communicating with the teens that often, Fred, Daphne and Velma are unable to understand but after a while, they are able to understand him. 

The Plot/Pilot

The pilot opens up with with Fred’s father having a conversation with his business partner in their record shop about how the influx of hippies and yuppie liberals to Coolsville has been making his business take off like a rocket. Fred’s business partner makes a small complaint about how a lot of their teenage customers often come in high to which Fred’s father replies “high enough to pay retail prices.” Fred comes walking into the shop and tells his dad that he’s going to school and that he needs to borrow the car. Fred’s father tells him that he’s planning on buying a second car that day and that when he does, their old Camero is his. Fred thanks his father before he tells him “good luck at football today, son! Bet you can’t wait until your driving yourself to college on your football scholarship.” Fred agrees and leaves. Throughout the show, you’ll see posters of missing girls on lamp-posts and at the school and on a news stand outside of the store, there’s a paper with a headline reading “Swamp Monster Abducting Young Girls.”

When Fred arrives at school, he sees a new kid (Shaggy) getting out of a truck. His parents, a black man in a military uniform and white woman embrace him. He complains to them “man, did you guys like, have to drop me off? I’m 16 now. Granddad didn’t gimme the van for nothing. I can like, drive myself to school?” To which his mother replies “We know, honey, we just wanted to drop you off for your first day. We’re in a new town and we just wanted to make sure that you got to school in one piece.” His father says “this town isn’t exactly the safest either. I don’t know how long I’m going to be stationed here but I just want to make sure you’re safe son. I’ll pick you up later and you can drive to school tomorrow. Clear?” Shaggy replied “crystal.” His parents get back in the car. “Good luck at football tryouts today! I hope you’re able to make some real friends at this school and not those hippies you’ve been hanging out with all summer.” As they pull away from the curb, he catches a glimpse of Fred staring at him before he enters the building.  While Fred is at his locker, he looks across from the lockers and sees Daphne getting books from her locker surrounded by all her friends feeding her the latest gossip. Daphne looks back at him, to Fred’s surprise but she doesn’t return any discernible expressions. 

Fred goes to first period (the school year is already underway) and when everyone is seated, he asks the class if they’d like to volunteer to present their projects. The class is silent. Velma is the first person to volunteer. She presents her project, which is about the history of the town’s corruption and about how all the ghost and monster stories made up by politicians and businessmen are part of a conspiracy to keep foreigners out. Her teacher tells her that she’s biased and lying to which she states statistics that show how the racial and political demographics of the town remained the same until the economy experienced a boom and showed him newspaper articles about how a lot of factory owners in their towns concocted stories about their town being haunted and how it deterred new people from settling in the town. When he looks at her assignment, he realizes that she’s right but doesn’t apologize. Embarrassed, he merely thanks her and she takes her seat. The class begins murmuring about her being a bitch and a know-it-all. Some of them whisper about her being crazy for not believing in ghosts and monsters in the midsts of the swamp monster abducting girls.  Fred overhears people denigrating her and decides to present next. He gives a presentation about how Japanese internment camps were wrong and his conservative teacher and classmates scoff at him. When class was over, Velma tells him that she enjoyed his presentation and Fred returns to sentiment. 

At football practice, Fred is in the locker-room suiting up when Shaggy walks in. The coach approaches Shaggy and tells him that he was impressed with the video footage of his game at his other school and says that after try-outs, if he’s able to work well with the team, he has a spot open on the team for him. Shaggy nods and thanks him. The try-outs begin once the team is suited and the coach has given them the run-down for the day. Out of all the boys trying out for the team, Shaggy is by far the fastest and most agile out of everyone. A lot of the boys are really impressed. Some of them, however, are jealous and worried that he’ll outshine them. When the try-outs were over, the boys on the team congratulated him on his performance, telling him that the coach was going to choose him for sure. Shaggy thanked him and as he was about to leave the locker room, one of the boys stopped him. “Y’know, we have this thing that we do with all the new players on the team. It’s like, an initiation. Now we know that you haven’t officially made the cut yet but we wanted to give you a pre-celebration party.” Shaggy is confused by this. The boy socks him hard in the stomach and he bowls over in pain. “Every bruise you get, is a point of respect for you, bro. And a free can of beer at my place this weekend.” As he leaves, the other boys on the team hit him and push him against the lockers. Fred watches this and stared worriedly at Shaggy. Shaggy looked back at him and glowers. “Why don’t you like, take a photo, man. It’ll last longer.” He asks before leaving. 

That night when Fred went home and sat down to eat dinner with his father, his father asked him how practice went and he told him about the try-outs and that they had a new kid try out for the team. He spoke about how fast he was. His father said he hoped that he wouldn’t replace Fred as quarterback but Fred assured him that they wouldn’t do that. His father told him that he was curious about watching this new kid play at their next game and asked for a description of him. Fred told him that he was part black and white and that he had dark hair and eyes. Fred’s father replied “oh yeah, they can run pretty fast. Like that Jesse Owens fella.” Fred asked him what he meant by that and his father said “negroes. They run pretty damn fast. I mean it must run in their blood.” Fred told his father “y’know dad, you really shouldn’t refer to him and all other blacks as ‘them.’ He’s his own person.” His father replies “I know. I’m not trying to be prejudiced, I’m just saying, a lot of them--I mean, he and other people like him can just run really fast, that’s all I’m saying.” Fred responds “And I’m just saying it’s the 70′s not the 50′s, dad. People have their own identities. You can’t just go around grouping everyone together like that. Isn’t that why you started your own business? So you wouldn’t have to go work in some factory like grandpa and all your friends did? So you could be your own man?” His father nodded. “Yes, but we also don’t have the same financial security as we did when I was your age so I had to make changes.” “Exactly,” Fred said “and we have to make changes to benefit other people around us and it starts with how we think.” His father laughed at him. “You been hanging out with those hippies and liberals, haven’t you?”

The next couple of days later, the list for who made the team was posted. Fred checked it out and saw Shaggy’s name on it. (He had heard him being referred to his real name by the coach.) He was glad that he made the team but he was worried about what the other boys would do to him. When he went to practice that day, he noticed that the other players on the team wouldn’t defend him against the opposing side and the coach blamed it on him, telling him that he needed to show the speed that he showed before. When practice was over, the same boys in the locker-room who hit him the other day officially invited him to their party, handing him directions to the location. After they gave him the note, their ring leader said “more respect to you, bro” and they all took turns punching him. As they were leaving, the ringleader remarked that he would probably be getting an entire keg of beer to himself at that rate. Fred asked him if he was ok and told him that he needed to tell the coach what they were doing. Shaggy brushed it off and said that his father wants him to make friends with these assholes and that he’s never fit in anywhere he’s gone. He told him that it’ll probably end after the party. 

That weekend, Shaggy took his van to the location. His parents were excited that he was already being invited to a party and that he was already fitting in. However, when he pulled up to the address, he thought it was a mistake because it was an old creepy abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. He got out in walked in, only to be approached by a group of people in white sheets. “Zoinks! What the hell is goin’ on, man??” He yelled before he was about to bolt out of the door. But the figures grabbed him and started beating him up. 

That following Monday, he showed up to school bruised and in bandages. He wasn’t able to participate during practice but the coach wanted him to sit on the bench. He confronted the boys in the locker room after one of them remarked “fun party, right?” He threatened to tell the coach but they told him he didn’t have proof and that he wasn’t going to believe a half-breed negro over them. Shaggy cursed at them and they started beating him up. Fred ran in and began fighting the boys off, punching one in the eye, shoving another into the locker and low-blowing another. When the coach came in and saw what he had done, he kicked him off the team and he was suspended from school for a few days. When he returned, it seemed as though word got around of what he did. He went to his locker as usual and saw Daphne across from him again. Her friends, again were surrounding her but this time, they said something to her and pointed at Fred. Daphne smiled back at him this time and Fred returned the smile. As they walked away, her friends commented that they wish they had a boy like him to protect them since some girls have gone missing in their town. During lunch, Fred decided to eat outside in the parking lot, not being able to stand his newfound attention. While he was there, he saw Shaggy walking across the way with a big pile of food on his tray. When they saw each other, Shaggy walked over to him. “Hey, man. I just like, wanna say thank you for helping me out. I know I wasn’t the nicest to you but like, I’m new and I guess I didn’t know who to trust. But now I know, man; you’re a good dude.” Fred nodded. “No worries. That initiation shit is bull, dude. They just like picking on people who don’t share their fucked up mentalities or people who don’t look like them. But yeah, if you ever need anything, you can come to me.” Shaggy smiled at him. “Thanks, man. I left the team, by the way. Track and gymnastics are more my scene. And more importantly, the people on the team are like, far out. Hey, you wanna like, come in my van? I got a friend I want you to meet. Her name is...Mary Jane, if you like, catch my drift.” They walked over to his van and stepped inside. There was shag carpeting on the floor, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix posters and a large great dane who sat up immediately when he saw the food. Fred, confused, asks “you named that dog Mary Jane? Isn’t that a boy dog?” Shaggy laughs. “Nah, man. That’s my dog. His name is Scooby Doo.”  So that is all I have for now. Eventually, Fred’s father buys a new car and starts looking into buying that second store and is told by the real-estate owner that it’s haunted and Fred and Shaggy investigate. And when Velma and Daphne heard that they were able to solve the case, they asked to join them to solve the case of the Swamp Monster. They also eventually start their own investigation crew called Mystery Inc, give Shaggy’s van a new paint job and name Scooby their mascot. 

[rdlogo]

ayupan x BloodyBunny episode 1 [official]

An official preview of ayupan X BB 1st episode of 5 episode series is finally released !!! ayupan x Bloody Bunny is a joint effort by Avex Management (Japan), 2Spot Studio (Thailand), and RIFF CG (Thailand) to produce an animated story of ayupan and Bloody Bunny featuring songs by Japan Super Idol Hamasaki Ayumi. In the 1st episode, the Vampire Lord has emerged after 600 years in search of the Girl of Legend who turned him into a doll. They planned to capture ayupan at her Christmas concert. Unfortunately the Vampire gang doesn't know what they got themselves into. The fight takes place right in front of the concert crowds, and the Vampire Lord and swamp of Minion Bats turn into a gigantic black monster. Can ayupan and BB save their concert from this chaotic attack? Watch and enjoy! via YouTube https://youtu.be/9ViWzXB5700