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comicreliefmorlock · 5 years ago

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So here's a fun game. What are, let's say...10-15 pieces of media (books, tv, movies, whatever) that seem to have been made JUST for you? why?

*cracks knuckles*

Surprisingly, not all of these will be Tanith Lee.

…however…

{And this goes under a cut because this is going to be a very long, verbose post. A really long, verbose post.}

1. “Tales from the Flat Earth” by Tanith Lee

These books are essentially like sitting by a crackling fire on a cool summer night beneath the glimmering night sky while a smiling crone cards wool and tells you the stories that come from a time aeons before your birth. I have never in my life found a quartet of books–let alone one book–that have so completely and absolutely captivated me. From the first page of “Night’s Master,” I was gone.

Not only the language–breaking the fourth wall and referring to “words lost when the world reformed itself in the chaos”–but the characters… Azhrarn, the personification of Wickedness who saves humanity with love. Uhlume, the personification of Death who faces a form of mortality and is forever changed by it. Chuz, the walking embodiment of Madness, who is gentle to those under his domain and understands that he cannot understand why he does what he does.

Ferazhin and Narasen and Sivesh and Simmu and Jornadesh and Kassafeh and Zhirem and Azhriaz and Dunziel… Names I have never forgotten because they all but sang to me. A flat earth that holds the best and worst of humanity, often balled into a single person, with Underearth and Innerearth and Upperearth holding gods that have grown so distant they no longer recall humans were their creation at all.

I have always loved mythology and these books? These are myth.

2. Pan’s Labyrinth -dir. by Guillermo del Toro

I’m not from Spain or know Spanish. I knew nothing about the Spanish Civil War when I first saw this movie. And this was the first film I saw that cemented del Toro for me as the only man I would ever trust to turn Tanith Lee’s books into cinema.

I love fairy tales, mythology and folklore. And when you read enough of it, you see how bloody it actually is. How terrifying it is to realize that you’re not the only one in the world, humans aren’t the only ones, there are creatures on the midnight side of reality that share space with you.

And I never really liked the Disney version of fairy tales with “happily ever after” and weddings.

This movie was literally like watching something I’d imagined for myself. The acting was fucking phenomenal, the sets and costumes were off the hook and the comparison of “fairy tale horror” and “real horror” that overlapped just blew me the hell away.

And Doug Jones… Doug Fucking Jones. I never respected mimes until him and now I give all the respect. Being able to act, to breathe real life into a concept and a costume until it becomes a character you could picture walking through a forest or peering around a corner while not being able to use your own voice OR your own facial expressions is a kind of magic I think does not get enough appreciation.

DOUG FUCKING JONES, LADIES, GENTS AND GENDER REBELS.

3. Fatal Frame - Tecmo

I’m a writer/reader, not a gamer. When I have downtime or I want to relax, I almost always gravitate towards a book instead of a video game. The few games I’ve played purely for my own enjoyment have usually been MMOs and involve roleplaying.

Except for the Fatal Frame series.

Survival horror is my favorite game genre and I lamented when Resident Evil became more “survival action” than survival horror. (Fuckin’ lickers in the original Resident Evil game oh my god.) I wanted a survival horror game that had some meat to it, had something really compelling about it.

And I found Fatal Frame.

I love Japanese mythology. I especially love Japanese ghosts. For some reason–maybe out of sheer novelty because I, being an ignorant American raised near the US-Mexico border, have had little exposure to it–Japanese ghosts are my absolute favorites. Yurei (and the other subclassifications) just have something to them that I haven’t found in other mythologies. I’ve read and reread Oiwa and Okiku’s stories, been fascinated by the concept of the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai and wanted more of what I found.

Which Fatal Frame provided.

Not only do the game mechanics work beautifully for someone as easily startled as I am, but the story behind each individual game is achingly intense. The intricacy of the interwoven histories, the rituals, the underlying question of “was all this really necessary or was this a priesthood trying to stay in power”… I love absolutely everything about these games.

4. “The Blue Sword” by Robin McKinley

I’m not going to lie–this book took me forever to actually read. The first two pages were so achingly boring that I had no fucking clue why my mother had recommended it to me.

And then one day, bereft of anything else to read, I flipped through it. I still distinctly remember the line that made me stop and go “wait, what?” – “…your horse tells me where you’ve been…”

me: wait what horses can talk in this? wtf? *flips to the beginning and sits down to fuckin’ read it*

Slogging through those first few pages? Worth it. Because Harry/Hari/Harimad was the first heroine I’d ever encountered that I could imagine myself being. She was too gangly and not particularly pretty and kind of clumsy. She didn’t draw admiring eyes everywhere she went, spent a lot of time going ‘I can’t do this wtf’ and had aches and saddlesores.

Meeting Harry felt like seeing myself on a page for the first time in my life. And seeing someone with flaws like me going through adventure and fighting and succeeding and failing and getting a happily ever after felt like a warm blanket. Like someone had written a book just to tell me: “It’s okay that you’re not beautiful or graceful or soft-spoken and elegant. It’s okay that you’re clumsy and a goof and your hair is fuzzy as fuck because you can be a heroine, too.”

5. “Whoever Fights Monsters” by Robert K. Ressler

No, I’m not a serial killer. :D Nor am I an FBI profiler.

However, after reading “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris for the first time in ninth grade, I was fascinated by serial killers. Like… how did they do it? How did they get away with it? WHY did they do it? What kind of person did things like this? I wanted to know so much more and I started grabbing every book on serial killers that I possibly could find.

And the reaction of classmates and teachers who saw my reading material was… less than stellar. Even my mother was vaguely worried about what I was getting out of reading all…that.

It felt like my fascination with serial killer psychology was a flaw in my character that no one else seemed to share. Until I read “Whoever Fights Monsters” and saw Robert K. Ressler talking about the exact same thing. He wasn’t a “sicko” or a “freak” or a “lunatic” or a “killer-in-training” for being fascinated by the psychology of humans who could treat other humans like a moment’s disposable entertainment.

And suddenly, neither was I.

6. American Horror Story: Hotel - FX

‘American Horror Story’ is entirely my thing. Interwoven narratives of fascinating (and often awful) people combining “American horror history” with interpersonal storylines? Yes, thank you, I’ll take a dozen.

This season in particular, however, is just more for me than any other.

Maybe it’s the vampires that are self-obsessed and not particularly powerful but end up with petty grudges and complaints. Or the ghosts that bitch and whine at each other, find consolation together, use Twitter and spend their long, long days doing little more than drinking, smoking and obsessing over their lives and deaths. Maybe it’s the single location with so many years of history weaving together like a book of short stories.

I love ‘Hotel’ because it feels like Brandenburg to me. I could so easily see the entire season taking place in my fictional city and mentally insert my own characters into the show without losing a single step.

Also Kathy Bates is absolutely glorious and I desperately wish to be a tenth as glamorous as Liz Taylor.

7. “The Butterfly Garden” by Dot Hutchinson

Books about serial killers? Yes, please.

Books about serial killers told by a victim who barely survived and understands what trauma really means? Yes, please.

What especially got me about this book is my thing for dioramas. The first one I ever remember seeing was in the El Paso Museum of Archaeology (yes, I’m from El Paso, Texas) and it always both frightened and fascinated me.

^ This one in particular would keep me motionless for ten or twenty minutes at a time, kind of terrified at a house within a building and then absolutely enthralled at a house inside a building.

And the dioramas mentioned in “The Butterfly Garden” were akin to those in “The Cell” –some terrible, awful glimpse into someone’s mind that was visualized and externalized in a permanent way.

8. “War for the Oaks” by Emma Bull

I love the fae.

And I also have read enough to know that those sprightly little fucks are terrifying and humans are rarely left unscathed by them.

This book was my introduction to “urban fantasy,” much as Charles de Lint was my introduction to what I consider “mythic fantasy” and a city that felt so much like my own.

And what was so quintessentially, absolutely me about this book–other than the main love interest being the Phouka :D :D :D–was the underlying theme about creativity.

It’s a driving force, a magic that humans have. It’s uniquely human (as far as we know) and often the only talisman against the dark that we’ve got. With creativity, there’s magic. There’s a spark of something beyond the mundane realities of survival. Creativity is a sword and shield all in one, complete with a lure to bring others along with you.

Whether it’s through music, art, poetry or graphic design, creativity is the actual drive for immortality that pushes us to reach beyond ourselves and touch those we have no possibility of seeing or speaking to in our own short, real lives.

9. Good Omens - Neil Gaiman/BBC

I loved the book when it came out. I didn’t expect to love the mini-series. I especially didn’t expect to love the mini-series for the #IneffableHusbands.

I won’t belabor the point about why this is on my list. The #IneffableHusbands tag on my OOC blog is enough. :D

10. What We Do in the Shadows - Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi

Vampires who are as absurd, incapable and oblivious as me? Yes. All of my yes.

Having played the old World of Darkness tabletop games for years--and absolutely fallen in love with them--I found this movie and was in absolute heaven. These are vampires I can actually imagine hanging out with. These are vampires (and werewolves) I can envision walking around a city.

Noble creatures of the night don’t seem real to me (aside from the obvious reasons.) The supernaturals in this movie? They felt like people I knew. Like people I could meet or characters I’d written myself.

I like the fantastical being put into the mundane--which is why my genre is ‘urban fantasy’ although I have such an eye-twitch about it being all supernatural detectives chasing various pieces of ass now--and I especially love it when the fantastical doesn’t outweigh the mundane.

Imagining vampires vacuuming and riding the bus fits in nicely with my desperate belief (and hope) that the fantastical isn’t JUST imaginary but actually exists.

{And there, I’m restricting this to 10 or we’ll be here all NIGHT.}

#Asks #Writing is life #Books are life #Here are Angel's specific likes and dislikes #as shown through visual aid

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timeagainreviews · 6 years ago

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Doctor Who and Video Games

We live in the era of the franchise. Everything it seems is getting the franchise treatment. After the success of the MCU, everyone wants that sweet sweet money. We’ve got the failed Universal Monsters reboot, the Harry Potter extended universe, and endless Star Wars movies. However, some franchises, it would seem, struggle to grow further than their core narrative. Star Wars never strays very far from the battle with the Empire. Which is one thing you can’t really say about Doctor Who. Doctor Who has done fantasy, sci-fi, period drama, schlocky horror, whimsy, and utter rubbish. I’ve always admired Doctor Who’s flexibility as a property. It lends itself beautifully to a wide range of mediums, such as audios and comic books. But what about video games? Are there any good Doctor Who video games? Could there be?

Over the past week, in preparation for this article, I've completely immersed myself in the world of Doctor Who video games. I feel uniquely qualified to have an opinion on the subject. But before we continue, I give a word of caution. I'm talking directly to you, now. Never in your life, should you ever play "Doctor Who: Return to Earth," for the Nintendo Wii. It's not worth the £1.80 that I spent on eBay. You don't ever deserve to do that to yourself. I don't care what you've done, nobody deserves that. If like myself, you have played this game, you have my deepest sympathies, especially if you paid for it new.

It doesn't interest me to make a list of the worst Doctor Who video games, as many people have done this already. It's nothing new to say that Doctor Who has a video game problem. When I wrote that Doctor Who should be run by Disney, I don't actually mean it should happen. I was merely illustrating that Disney knows how to take care of its properties. I would venture that Doctor Who has always had a bit of a management problem. Merchandise from Doctor Who has always reminded me of Krusty the Clown merchandise. So much of it is some bullshit they slapped a Dalek on said: "10 quid please!" Barring the occasional home run or third-party licensing, a lot of the merchandise is pretty uninspired. Which is bananas, because the world of Doctor Who has so much colour and potential.

Video games based off of movies and television are almost always as bad as movies and television based off of video games. They're rarely breaking the mould in their new medium. Most of the time, tie-ins such as these are quick soulless cash grabs. You can see this a lot in the Matt Smith era. There are at least seven games featuring his Doctor, and then a sudden decline. Matt Smith was the Doctor during one of the show's biggest points in popularity. Never before had the show been embraced on such an international level. Of course, the Beeb wanted to push as many video games out as possible.

The problem is, they didn't throw a lot of money at it, and not one project seemed to get the focus it deserved. I won't pretend to know the motivation behind the BBC's forays into video games, but it seems to be a trend with them to overdo something, and then be scared of it in the future. They changed the 5.5" figurine set to a 3.75" scale and nobody wanted them. Because of this, we haven't seen nearly as many 5.5" figures since. They once put out a figure of Lady Casandra's frame after she exploded into gore. We used to get figures like Pig Lazlo and the Gran from "The Idiot's Lantern." Now we'll be lucky if we get everyone's favourite- Graham O'Brien. They also did it with the Doctor Who Experience. They make this brilliant Doctor Who museum with the OK'est walkthrough story, and then put it right in the middle of Cardiff. They wondered why it never made any money. I've been twice, and I gotta say- they should have put it in London. It would still be open.

This isn't to say all of Matt Smith's video games are bad. In fact, the Eleventh Doctor adventure games referred to simply as "The Doctor Who Adventure Games," are some of my favourite in the entire lot. And as much as I would like to blame the BBC for their lack of caring, the fact is Doctor Who is not easy to translate into video games. Even if they do care, they still need the right team on the job. Oddly, it's one of the Doctor's greatest charms that makes Doctor Who hard to translate into a video game, and that's the Doctor's stance on violence. If the Doctor could pick up a laser pistol and just frag some Daleks, we'd probably have an entire series on our hands. Unfortunately, most developers go one of two ways. They either ignore the pacifism or we get countless mind-numbing puzzles.

Puzzles are by far the worst element of any Doctor Who game. In the browser-based "Worlds in Time," there were a plethora of Bejewelled type mini-games and pipe matching puzzles. The puzzles got increasingly harder even if the player wasn't also getting increasingly better. Even the platformer "The Eternity Clock," was mired in constantly stopping to do puzzles. They pop up in the Adventure Games, but other than the infuriating "don't touch the sides," puzzles, they don't detract much from the gameplay. There were moments where I felt a bit like a companion because I was decoding a Dalek computer for the Doctor, which is really the money spot for a Doctor Who video game. Any time a Doctor Who game can make you feel like you're in Doctor Who is time well spent.

When asking my friends what kind of Doctor Who video game they would like to see, many of them mentioned they would like a survival horror type game. We sort of get this in many of the Smith era games. In "Return to Earth," the mechanic is sloppy and infuriating at best. In "The Eternity Clock," and the Adventure Games, it's a little more manageable. It's a nice way to add a challenge to a non-violent gameplay style. It would be interesting to see what a game team from something like "Thief," or "Resident Evil," might do with the sneaking aspect.

Another way the games have completely side-stepped the non-violence and puzzles is by having the Doctor act as a secondary character. The player is put in the position of the companion or perhaps a UNIT soldier as in the case of "Destiny of the Doctors." If you've not played DotD, I wouldn't blame you. I was hitting my head against the wall just trying to figure out what to do. The only real reason to play that game is for one last chance to see the fabulous Anthony Ainley reprise the role of the Master. He's in totally smarmy ham mode, even if it's a bunch of gibberish they shot in a day. You can find the entirety of the footage on YouTube and it's surreal.

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The problem with having the Doctor be violent is that it doesn't feel true to the character. Sure, Three did some Venusian aikido, Four broke that dude's neck in "Seeds of Doom," and even Twelve socked a racist in the face, but these are isolated incidents. The spirit of the Doctor is lost in 1992's "Dalek Attack," when the Doctor is forced to go full on bullet hell on a Dalek hover cart. It's funny then that one of my favourite Doctor Who games incorporates a violent Doctor. In the Doctor Who level of "Lego Dimensions," the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to make villains fall apart in a very safe Lego style violence. I can excuse this mostly because the game is not primarily a Doctor Who game at heart.

Funnily enough, the Lego game does something I've always wanted in a Doctor Who video game. I've always wanted to have a Doctor Who game where you could regenerate into different Doctors, and also go into their respective TARDISes. Sure, some of the games on the Commodore 64 allowed you to regenerate, but it was pretty naff in its execution. I tell no lies when I say I spent a lot of time regenerating and reentering the TARDIS to explore the Lego versions of their respective console rooms. Really, the biggest problem with the Lego Doctor Who game is that it wasn't it's own game. Lego Dimensions was its own failure. If TT Games would come out with an entire Doctor Who game, I would buy it yesterday.

The overarching problem with every Doctor Who game is the same problem Torchwood had- if it wasn't attached to Doctor Who, we wouldn't be interested. While I did have a lot of fun with the Adventure Games and Lego Dimensions, not one Doctor Who game has every element right. One has a good story, but poor mechanics, another has great mechanics but doesn't feel right. It's a bit of a tight rope to find the perfect balance, but I don't feel it's impossible

One of the reasons I would love to see a proper Lego Doctor Who game is that they have a history of good adaptations. They're not exactly beloved games, but I myself play a lot of them. One of the most impressive things I've seen them do was in Lego Batman 3, where they made each of the planets in the Green Lantern mythos a visitable world. Could you imagine the same treatment for Doctor Who? Visiting Telos and Skaro, and then popping off to medieval earth or Gallifrey? You could get different missions depending on which Doctor you were, or what time you arrive in. And the collectable characters! So many companions, and Doctors, and baddies, and costume variations to unlock! Doesn't that sound nice? You can buddy Jamie and Amy with Seven and Twelve and have an all Scottish TARDIS! A Zygon could ride K9!

The fact is, we probably won't see a very expansive Doctor Who game. I would be very enthusiastic for an open world Doctor Who game, but even as I type it, it sounds difficult to pull off. I may be able to say what doesn't work about the games, but saying what would work is admittedly, not as simple, but this doesn't mean I can't think of at least one good game. Piecing together some of the things I mentioned earlier, I think the best genre for Doctor Who is point-and-click adventures. I know I keep singing the praises of the Doctor Who Adventure Games, but it's because I think they were actually onto something. It's sad then that they scrapped any further developments to work on the inferior "Eternity Clock."

Could you imagine a point and click Doctor Who in the same vein as "Day of the Tentacle," or "Thimbleweed Park"? You walk around as the Doctor, pick up bits, talk to funny characters and solve complex problems. If you throw in a bit of horror survival, you've basically got the Adventure Games, which is my point- Do more with what they've already done. Grow the concepts. Improve the mechanics. A Doctor Who game should be jammed packed with Easter eggs, unlockables, and mystery. The point is, do more. Even their phone apps are abysmal. You know how much I would play a “Pokémon Go,” style Doctor Who game? You go around trapping baddies in cages you set off with your sonic screwdriver or something. I. Would. Catch. Them. All.

We still have “The Edge of Time,” coming to PC and consoles in October, and I'm pensively excited. While the graphics seem really top notch, in no way does it feel like anything more than a fun little VR experience. The game is going to remain exclusive to that small subsection of gamers that own a VR headset. Before it has even been released, it's closed itself off to yet another section of its very wide audience. Let's just hope that it doesn't scare the BBC away from making a proper Doctor Who game in the near future. And in the meantime, I'm going to have to borrow my friends' VR set, because of course, I'm going to play it. It's Doctor Who.

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Well friends, thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun “researching,” this article. Playing Doctor Who games all week? Oh no, twist my arm! Sadly, a lot of these games are no longer available from their original sources. I was able to find a lot of them on the Internet Archive. If you want to give them a go, I would definitely suggest it. A couple of them are even capable of being emulated on your browser from the Internet Archive. The game I had the hardest time locating was “The Gunpowder Plot,” but I was eventually able to find it after some digging. I didn’t play any of the text-based games because I’m not very good with spatial awareness, and so text-based games are usually a nightmare for me. Sadly, Worlds in Time is lost forever, but I remember my character fondly. I also discovered I’m pretty good at Top Trumps: Doctor Who. Go figure.

#Doctor Who #video games #tardis #bbc #matt smith #eternity clock #edge of time #mines of terror #return to earth #nintendo #wii #playstation #xbox #lego dimensions

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theonceoverthinker · 6 years ago

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OUAT 3X10 - The New Neverland

Ooh! A new episode of Once Upon a Time! I can’t wait to see what Emma, Regina, Snow, and their other com-PAN-ions are up to today!

...You laughed. You can admit it.

...Review’s under the cut. You know what to do!

Press Release

The residents of Storybrooke are overjoyed upon the return of Henry and our heroes from Neverland. But unbeknownst to them, a plan is secretly being put into place by a well-hidden Pan that will shake up the very lives of the townspeople. Meanwhile, in the Fairy Tale Land that was, Snow White and Prince Charming’s honeymoon turns out to be anything but romantic when they go in search of a mythical being that could stop Regina cold in her tracks.

Main Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness

Past

Okay, so to start off, this flashback is admittedly a little pointless. Other than the theme of moments -- something so loose, it could’ve just been discussed in the present and the episode would’ve been fine as just a present events compilation -- there’s nothing that this story does to enhance the main one.

That having been said, I think it’s great! While something meatier could’ve gone here, I can’t honestly object that much when a story is just good. And the conflict between Snow and David is really solid. It’s one of those times where it doesn’t feel fully weighted in one direction. Like, we’re supposed to be on David’s side by the end of it, but Snow’s POV is completely understandable, especially after everything she’s been through (Not to mention, her confidence boost from “Lost Girl”). I like the idea of Snow being so caught up in he worries over Regina that she almost destroys her chance at happiness.

THAT having been said, I found the scene where Snow and Charming discuss turning Regina to stone to be so annoying. Charming references the flashback in “The Cricket Game,” a flashback that I LOATHE because of how much of a waste of time it is and how much of an idiot it makes Snow. And it gets worse. David says that they shouldn’t turn Regina to stone because Snow stayed her execution during that flashback when the resolution of that flashback was that Snow regretted that decision. Like, without this scene, the flashback would’ve not only been completely serviceable, but actually better for its absence!

Present

The opening of the present is just so amazingly shot. There’s this unequivocally happy tone from our mains and side characters that’s so satisfying, that for a moment, even knowing what was going on with Henry, I actually got swept up in it. It’s purely fantastic framing because you know this is exactly what they were going for.

And it kind of carries through throughout the rest of the episode. It feels like an epilogue at times, discussing resolution-y subjects like who (if anyone) will Emma end up with, establishing more of a co-parent-y relationship between Emma and Regina, curing David of his ails, having Rumple consider his future, and allowing for the minor characters to achieve their happy endings. Honestly, only when we cut to Henry do we get remember that the story is continuing, and I like it. It’s a subtle build of tension and will show just how much Pan’s curse will fuck everyone over in the next episode.

I also really liked the Emma and Regina conflict in this episode. It feels like the natural continuation of everything they’ve had to work through over the past two and a half seasons and was smartly placed just after the baby Henry flashbacks.

All Encompassing

This whole episode is the most lowkey David centric ever. Like, he’s in a supporting role, but it’s like the main supporting role. He gives out advice, he interacts with so many characters, and it’s just great! David’s character never needed to be a major major character and I feel like this episode captured the best of him.

“Moments” is the key theme of the episode. It’s interesting that the idea of moments plays more of a part in the flashback to our next episode, but I do like how the concept is introduced and implemented here. While the concept didn’t warrant an entire flashback, the idea of life having good and bad moments that just need to be felt and enjoyed when they can was a good basis for a Snow and Charming story with a good follow-through in the present with Emma. There’s a good contrast between those who can celebrate moments and someone who might not have that luxuary.

Insights - Stream of Consciousness

-The town celebration is really a thing of beauty (And kind of tragedy given that Henry’s not Henry...those Grumpy and Granny hugs are either sad as hell for that reason or funny as fuck because Pan is hugging all of these strangers and is probably realizing that his life just became a fantastical episode of Full House).

-You can tell how Jared loved every fucking second of being Pan! XD The dude lives for evil Henry!

-”That’s the last time I don’t listen to you.” ...When you can see the future, there’s irony fucking EVERYWHERE!

-You know, I just realized that Neal and Belle never had a proper introduction. For one thing, why is Belle not saying “Oh my fuck! You’re alive!” (That’s totally how she’d say it too XD ). For another, I’d have loved to see a proper introduction between the two of them. I need more Neal :( .

-Also would’ve liked the moment where Rumple ditches the cane to get a bit more umph to it. Like, that cane has been as much a part of him as the red cap is to Mario and it’s such a symbol of his cowardice that it would’ve been better to see it go.

-*Looks at a dude in a red beanie* The fuck you do to Smee, you little bitch?

-Okay, that Darling hug was fucking beautiful!

-Also, Snow giving Regina that level of cred was just beautiful! I found it to be a really good follow up to both what she saw in “Save Henry” and Regina’s harsh, but effective actions in “Nasty Habits.”

-Thoughts on how the reception went after Regina invaded the wedding? I’d like to think Snow and Charming played it cool and confident for the guests, but, like we’re seeing, were reeling on the inside.

-”Steal her magic.” Well, in one realm, you actually DO that! The results were...mixed, to say the least. BUT we got Alice, the best person ever out of the deal so it was ultimately worth it.

-So I have to wonder: If Regina hadn’t made these threats, would Snow have still wanted to go to the Summer Palace? Like, it seems to connect really well to her parents, so i could totally see Snow doing that.

-Damn. Grumpy is just the ultimate support. He’s on better terms with Charming, but is still 1000% loyal to Snow.

-Plenty of cell space?! Storybrooke needs an equivalent to juvie! Like, Felix is a villain for sure, but he’s a kid! Jail -- which in Storybrooke is basically full-on solitary confinement -- seems a little excessive.

-”As long as I’m alive, that boy will never see the light of day.” ...Yeah. About that…

-”Her name is Tinker Bell.” I actually fucking clapped. Yes, Queen! Slay and filet that shady shimmering shithead for what she did to Tink!

-”You don’t believe in yourself anymore.” FUCK YOU, BLUE. Look, I’ve said in past reviews that Blue’s not as much shady as she is the world’s strictest and assholey beauraucrat, but being that kind of person WILL merit a level of scorn. Look at that almost half smile on her face. Keegan plays that well. “How can I believe in you if you can’t even do that?” FUCK YOU!

-”I need a drink.” You and me both! Shame I can’t get a drink at 8am!

-I love that emphasis David puts on the word “threat” in the woods. He’s nagging it up!

-You know, Pan kind of got the ball rolling on Emma and Regina’s active non-animosity filled co-parenting.Give the dude a little credit.

-How is Pan so unimpressed by Henry’s room? Like, that’s a nice room! With all sorts of tech and comics and stuff! Be a little more impressed, you little shit!

-”I’ll protect you. No matter what.” And the award for the most adorable non-Regal Believer Regal Believer moment goes to… *cries*

-Prince Charming, everyone, number one causes of deforestation in the Enchanted Forest. XD

-”Are you sure you want to condemn Regina to a fate like that?” Dude, she killed Snow’s dad (Who to be fair, was pretty much shit, but you guys didn’t know it at the time), indirectly killed your mom, tried to kill you, poisoned Snow, AND ruined your wedding! I love Regina and I’m so happy she got redeemed, but at the time of this episode, being turned to stone was rather warranted.

-”Killing her wasn’t the answer.” And then she decided at the end of that episode that it was!

-”Last time, she threatened us.” No she didn’t. She regretted not causing MORE death!

-SHEEP BROS!

-Snow, David. Did you really schedule your lunch to coincide with Emma and Neal’s date? That was...bad planning. Like, you don’t even do that with Killian!

-”Does he eat with his mouth open?” Either Charming has misophonia or that was a Kristoph reference!

-Killian...I’m honestly not sure what to make with that Tink scene. On one hand, I see it as Killian trying in vain to get over Emma, but being unable to, showing that he really does love her. BUT it also comes off as a “you still have a ways to go” moment because Killian’s flirting can be a little...really off putting. I don’t know exactly what to make of that because the framing is a little wonky there.

-”Perhaps.” That having been said, the misunderstanding at Granny’s with Emma, Tink, and Killian had me laughing out loud. That one’s better at insinuating “you fucking dork.”

-YES, SHADOW! GIVE THAT BLUE BITCH A SCARE! KILLING HER MIGHT BE A TOUCH EXCESSIVE, BUT IT’S STILL PRETTY FUN TO WATCH!

-Also, this park is just beautiful. I really wish we spent more time in later seasons at these parks. Like, they’re such pretty places to have scenes instead of the pretty generic looking woods that we got in the later seasons.

-Evil Jared Gilmore cracks me the fuck up!

-Not gonna lie, a dungeon crawl like this would make for the best honeymoon ever!

-”Promise you won’t touch anything?” “Promise.” LIAR!

-”Rumple.” I love how Belle just nagged him. It’s a very Belle-like way of encouraging him to do good without making a whole speech of things.

-Okay, so even the “Entering Storybrooke” sign makes me whimper like a little bitch, too!

-Ooh! I love that Golden Swan moment! Rumple and Emma’s dynamic isn’t shown a lot, but when it is, it’s really something special. While not enough to earn it the “Favorite Dynamic” of the episode, it is incredibly cool to see Emma and Rumple come to that moment of begrudging respect and trust at the town line.

-Holy crap! The rest of the cast pulled off “Penry’s” escape from Pandora’s Box so well. Everyone immediately grows tense and grabs their loved ones. They’re actually scared shitless, a testament to how terrifying pan is.

-Damn, in hindsight, this is dark as hell. Emma has a gun to Henry’s head, and even though he’s in another body, this is a kid!

-Awww! I love Henry hugging Snow and David! We don’t always get a ton of moments of them together, so this was really special!

-I actually needed a solid minute to recover from the way that “Han” just smoothly magicked Regina. Like, that was so freakin’ fluid! “I know. That’s why this was so easy.” Pan, you bastard!

-These hugs with Henry in Pan’s body crack me up for some reason.

-I’m not sure if Storybrooke being the New Neverland is an upgrade or a downgrade. On one hand, you get all of the modern tech and indoor plumbing. On the other hand, no pixie dust and the suburbs are boring.

Arcs - How Are These Storylines Progressing?

The Mission to Save Henry - I love how in so many ways, this feels like an epilogue and then is like FUCK NO. So much comes together and it feels like everything’s winding down, but the action continues in such a fun whirlwind of a way! This whole arc has been a roller coaster and a fun one at that!

Rumple’s Redemption - “On the house.” How much you want to bet Rumple was DYING inside as he said that? “I’m sure if I ever needed a favor, you’d be more than receptive.” Rumple, my boy. You’ve come quite far, but you still have so far to go! But seriously, you do see more of how Rumple’s come into his own redemption. First, his focus is squarely on making Belle happy. Second, he does actually show that he has trust in Emma by allowing her to see what’s up with Pan.

Regina’s Redemption - We get two really great steps in showing how far Regina’s come. First, she stands up for Tinkerbell against Blue. While Regina’s had no problem standing up to Blue in the past, it’s always been for her own sake. This time, she’s standing up for Tink’s sake! The second instance is her grief that Pan fooled her. I say this because it’s so clear how at this point, she genuinely wants Henry to be with her because it’s his choice and how saddened she was by the fact that when her dream came true, it was only a lie. I love Regal Believer and seeing how much Regina’s broken that chain of abuse is something so special.

Favorite Dynamic

Emma and David. There were a lot of great dynamics on display in this episode, but I love how we got our first real David and Emma moment. Daddy Charming is one of the lesser explicitly shown dynamics on the show, but interactions like these show just how powerful it is. There’s an adorably bit of father/daughter banter between them when talking about their love life, David gives Emma solid honest-to-goodness advice that actually does come back later on in the episode, and he’s so comforting. He knows Emma’s dealt with so much and he just wants her to be happy. The scene they share provides a nice calm before the storm and shows that while Emma and David didn’t have that friendship that Emma and Snow had, they do have that strong bond.

Writer

This is Andrew Chambliss’ first solo episode! And honestly, not a bad job! Andrew did a great job balancing screen time between the eight mains and roughly eight minor characters in half an episode’s worth of time, and that’s honestly impressive! The stories themselves are relatively simpler, with the present storyline using resolution as a cleverly deceptive way of making it seem more sprawling than it is.

Rating

10/10. This is an honestly great episode. While not perfect, it provides for a lot of nice moments between characters, an underlying tenseness that is well delivered on when it’s ready for shit to get real, and a more unified Storybrooke.

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

Ariel/Eric - These two are so fucking lovey dovey and their reunion is just the cutest sweetest thing ever!

Rumbelle - Like, from the second -- the SECOND -- these two see each other when Rumple gets off the ship, that’s all the other sees. They’re laser-glued to the other. And the hug is just so perf! Also, THE UP PARALLELS STARTED HERE WITH THE FUCKING TIE! I KNOW IT’S NOT THE SAME KIND OF TIE, BUT FUCK! THAT’S AMAZING! XD Also also, the scene at the shop as a whole is just so romantic. There’s a beautiful theme to it and Robert Fucking Carlyle owns my soul. Every line is just so pretty, and I say that both as a testament to the writing and Robert himself. And Emiliee is no slouch either! She’s so in love and there’s an utter sincerity to it.

Captain Swan - Killian’s decision to back off was just the sweetest. It genuinely shows how he cares for Henry and Emma and doesn’t want to pressure either of them. It doesn’t mean he won’t pursue her if she goes after him, but he wants to let the chips fall, even if they aren’t in his favor. That’s just...honestly, I love it. Killian, your looks aren’t the only devilishly handsome part of you. <3 Also, I like how Emma remarks that Killian is still an option. When David’s trying to convince her to go out with Neal, she points out that he’s trying to keep her away from Killian.

Swan Fire - Snow is just the biggest Swan Fire shipper and it’s pretty cute! Also, Neal’s way of asking Emma out was equally adorable! It takes a degree of pressure off of her and is asked in such a cute way! It’s got a nice youthfulness to it! Also, let’s talk about how sad Neal is when it looks like Emma won’t show. Also also, Emma later implies that her date with Neal would be “enjoying herself.”

Snowing - David loves the fuck out of Snow and that makes me feel all of the things! He wants to enjoy his marriage to her and wants her to be able to relax and enjoy it with him! BUT he also knows her so freakin’ well. He KNOWS when she sneaks off and is just there waiting for her (In one of the show’s most underrated funny moments). And he’s totally willing to give up his honeymoon to follow her into danger! Prince Charming, everyone! And to some extent, Snow KNEW he was gonna do that because she brought the sword. Also, the couple banter in this episode is just so en pointe! I especially love David’s speech to Snow about how he knew what he was getting into when they fell in love. And the kisses and inevitable sex at the end is just the best! And in the present, that BIG DAMN KISS once he’s cured! It’s so beautiful!

-----

Thank you all for reading and to the fab folks at @watchingfairytales!

Next time, we’re coming home! <3

Season 3 Total (96/220)

Writer’s Scores: Adam and Eddy (19/60) Kalinda Vazquez (17/40) Andrew Chambliss (27/50) Jane Espenson (10/30) David Goodman (20/40) Robert Hull (20/40) Christine Boylan (20/20)* Daniel Thomsen (20/30)

* Indicates that their work for the season is complete

Operation Rewatch Archives

#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 3x10 #ouat rewatch #jenna watches ouat

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thetygre · 6 years ago

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30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #2: Favorite Frankenstein

1.) Mary Shelley/Bernie Wrightson

Put simply, there’s no beating the classic. Mary Shelley’s original monster is a landmark in literature, the coalescence of an idea about monstrosity and humanity that has been developing since the dawn of civilization. Alright, so that might be a little grandiose, but the point stands; the original Frankenstein’s monster is still the best. Like Dracula, every new generation brings a new interpretation, and makes new connections to him. The monster has, through his influence on culture, succeeded in becoming the father of his own race. He is a true monster of God, a divine omen, an abstract entity that conveys the importance of man’s reaching scientific knowledge. He makes us question our limits, our humanity, and how much we as a species are meant to stretch and bend away from the natural order. And to this day, nobody has managed to quite capture that ideal perfectly.

But the late great Bernie Wrightson came pretty close. Known mostly as a comics artist, Wrightson’s version of Frankenstein is the one that comes to mind for me whenever I envision the monster. He is simultaneously majestic, horrifying, and pitiful. Built like an Olympian god with a face like a corpse. Wrightson’s work on his expressions can convey anger, sadness, and the creature’s own weariness for existence. Wrightson’s monster, to me at least, comes the closest to invoking Shelley’s description of Frankenstein’s attempt at an ubermensch, and his subsequent failure.

2.) Boris Karloff

There’s a lot to be said against Karloff’s Frankenstein. It created a pop cultural image that is ultimately at odds with Shelley’s work. The monster’s eloquent suffering is replaced with a series of moans and grunts, and his arc is ultimately threadbare. And yet, Karloff’s Frankenstein brings something absolutely essential to the Frankenstein mythos; innocence. The creature is a victim of its own creation, too powerful and too strange for this world. The damage it causes is the byproduct of its father’s meddling in things man was not meant to know. That’s a perspective we didn’t get a lot of in Shelley’s original novel, and for all that the Universal movie is different from the novel, it meshes with the novel’s morality by reminding the audience of an important message; the value of humanity. Karloff’s monster appeals to our humanity on the most basic level, that of an innocent suffering. In that, I think even Mary Shelley would be proud.

3.) Shuler Hensley

Aaaaand now we’re back to Van Helsing. Okay, legitimately? I think the Frankenstein’s monster is the best part of Van Helsing. I am dead serious. Like Castlevania’s Dracula, the monster here is an amalgam of all the different parts of Frankenstein pop culture. There’s alchemy, mad science, and body horror, but there’s also a search for humanity and a desire to find meaning in life. Also, like everything in this movie, overacting. Just some grade-A overacting. Hensley screams his lungs out shouting Byronic prose, which I always took to be a kind of fun dig at the original monster’s own flair for the overdramatic.

4.) Peter Boyle

Boyle doesn’t bring a lot to the table as the creature in Young Frankenstein. The movie is a loving parody, and it clearly derives mostly from the Universal Studios movie. And yet, there are some subtle hints of brilliance in this portrayal of the creature and Frankenstein. The Universal movie was a source, yes, but Mel Brooks also drew from the novel for his own spin. At the end of the movie, Gene Wilder’s Frankenstein departs from Shelley’s (who is also the character’s grandfather) by taking responsibility and trying to help his creation. And in turn, the creature forgives and protects Frankenstein. I know it’s all just for good fun, but when you start viewing it through the classic metaphors applied to the novel, it creates a more optimistic picture about human progress. (Plus, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include one of my favorite movies on this list.)

5.) Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee’s Frankenstein is actually the version that turned me on to the character. When I was a kid, Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein did nothing for me; he was too sad, too sympathetic to be a monster. Frankenstein’s monster was supposed to be scary to me; stitched out of corpses, with greasy black hair and dead eyes, angry at all the world. (Also dressed in a stylish black suit.) Lee’s monster delivered that to me. The moment I first saw him, I knew that this was how Frankenstein’s monster was supposed to look. Now that I’m older, I can appreciate Boris Karloff’s performance more, but I’ll still always have a fondness for my first favorite Frankenstein.

6.) Rory Kinnear

The youngest monster on this list, Rory Kinnear played Frankenstein’s monster, referred to variously as Adam or Caliban, in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. Think a cheaper, tawdrier League of Extraordianry Gentlemen. Appearance-wise, Kinnear’s Frankenstein is... it’s- it’s not great. This show had the special effects budget of some pocket lint and the grace of God. But the character is what stood out here. Kinnear’s creature, more than any other, struggles to find his identity, to find a means to turn his monstrosity towards good. His constant failure as people use him and reject him embitters him even more against his creator, but gives him a common bond to other characters. In the show’s last season, Kinnear’s Frankenstein reunites with the family of the man who’s body was used to create him, stepping in apparently returned from the dead. And that and what happens afterward with the character are, I think, worthy additions to the Frankenstein mythos.

7.) Junji Ito’s Frankenstein

Leave it to Junji Ito to create the first truly repulsive Frankenstein. Lee’s came close, but Ito’s portrayal of the monster is nothing short of revolting. In the novel, it’s never made clear why exactly people are repulsed by the creature’s appearance; it might even have been all in the character’s perception. But Ito’s Frankenstein is simply hideous; it’s the first Frankenstein I can think of where you can imagine what he smells like, and it’s like rotting meat. The monster is imposing, too; Ito, like Wrightson, didn’t skimp on making his creature gigantic in proportion. It’s hard to feel sympathy for this creature, and it almost seems to take pleasure in the evil it commits against its creator. It’s easily the nastiest version of the monster you’ll ever meet.

8.) The King of Toyland

Like Van Helsing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is just something I’m going to keep coming back to during this challenge. League’s Frankenstein is mentioned only in passing, making an actual appearance only as a background cameo, but what little is given might just be the most heartwarming version of the character I’ve read. After the canon events of the novel, Frankenstein’s creature wanders the Arctic Circle, despondent and immortal, unable to kill himself. In his wandering, the creature finds a land populated entirely by sentient dolls and toys, hidden in the North Pole behind a magical field. This is Toyland, from the Noddy series of English children’s novels.

The residents of Toyland are ruled over by Olympia, the automaton girl from the opera The Tales of Hoffman. The toys, instead of rejecting the creature, ask him to stay, claiming they need his strength to protect the land. The toys don’t see the creature as unnatural; to them, he is simply another misfit toy, an oversized doll. In time, the creature and Olympia fall in love and marry, and they rule as the king and queen of Toyland. The creature, at last, has found a place and a people he can call his own, somewhere where he is accepted, a purpose for his strength. And somehow, this was all written by Alan “Old Man Yelling at a Cloud” Moore, without a shred of irony or cynicism. And if you don’t think that’s the most sentimental shit in all of Frankenstein lore, then I don’t know what to tell you.

9.) The Flesh Golem

Before even Christopher Lee, the first version of Frankenstein’s monster that I really loved was the one in the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Well, okay, it’s not actually Frankenstein’s monster; it’s just a ‘flesh golem’. But energized by electricity, afraid of fire, made of dead men cobbled together? Come on. My older cousin used to tell me that her idea for Frankenstein’s monster was that Frankenstein ran out of human parts, and had to resort to animal material to finish the creature. Frankenstein might have the nose of a pig, or the eyes of a horse; anything to finish the work. That idea never left me, and I thought of it every time I stared at the flesh golem, taking in the metal frame and oversized claw. I remember the first time I actually read the novel, I kept drifting back to that lanky, stitched-up construct with its monster parts and lop-sided face.

10.) The Prometheans

Another tabletop rpg rendition of Frankenstein’s monster, this was a whole game built around them. Promethean: The Created was the fourth of the New World of Darkness line or Chronicles of Darkness or whatever we call it these days. In it, players took on the role of artificially created beings, filled with supernatural energy, whose very presence twisted and corrupted the world around them. Normal humans can’t stand to look at them as a supernatural field makes them immediate targets of hatred, and they are hunted by their own twisted, monstrous bretheren who want to consume their divine power. And yet, for all that, it was a fundamentally optimistic game. Promethean marked a trend in the World of Darkness line that turned away from doom and gloom towards seeking salvation. The ultimate quest of the Prometheans is to gain their humanity, and their journey is about undertaking a pilgrimage to their ultimate realization. Promethean is about personal horror, and defining one’s own humanity.

#30 Day Monster Challenge 2 #30 Day Monster Challenge #Frankenstein #Mary Shelley #Horror #long post #young frankenstein #junji ito #promethean the created #penny dreadful

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specialyinterested · 7 years ago

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Spooky’s House of Jumpscares/Jumpscare Mansion Info Dump

(Some of my favourite facts about Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion)

It’s most likely Spooky from Spooky’s Jumpscare mansion Died on October 31st 1964.

In the HD Renovation if the player enters the code 1235 into one of the arcade machines you will see Spooky’s backstory. In this she can be seen Trick or Treating with her dad. Her red costume at first could be mistaken for a Devil costume.

However in the Karamari hospital DLC if you go into the basement you can a note from Spooky’s father part of which reads “I was confounded no one understood your costume but I guess people don’t read Poe anymore, even with the new Price film.” Given this information it’s most likely Spooky was dressed as the Red Death from The Masque of the Red Death a Edgar Allen Poe story that was made into a movie staring Vincent Price and released on the 24th of June 1964.

Another note implies that it was Spooky’s father who brought her back as a ghost. In the note he writes “A second device is needed to bind the spirit to the earth after it has been brought back. I know this sounds macabre but I will turn it off and let you return to heaven after your mother and I get to see you again.” why he didn’t turn off the machine/turning off the machine didn’t work is unknown.

In Spooky’s own notes she refers to the internet as the Spider Portal, and mentions “a cluster of webs centred around short horror experiences as well as some sort of Italian cooking” most likely referring to Creepy Pastas which could be further proof to her dying before the internet was really a thing. (She also refers to LP people which most likely means Lets Players).

(It is also theorised that the child in the notes could be the Demon Child found in Karamari Hospital and that the backstory found on the arcade machine was fake. Though the lines about liking to scare people and binding the spirit leads me to believe this is not the case)

(Facts about the specimens bellow the read more)

Specimens

Specimen 1) The pumpkin is named Sam in reference to the movie Trick R Treat. There was originally going to be a werewolf cut out. After a while the face on the green slime becomes corrupted. This face represents SCP-106. One of the cut outs resembles Jeff the Killer who is also referenced in Spooky’s research notes in endless mode. Specimen 2) First appears in Room 60 and is triggered by the player reading the note in said room. Their death screen reads "I know what you have done, and what you have yet to do. But it's alright, because I'm inside you now. We are one but I am many...". Their chase theme music is titled UNKNOWN HUG They were inspired by the Lub Glub monsters from Adventure Time. They also may be a reference to SCP-106 (who also apears from puddles [Specimen 1 only does this in thr HD renovation]) and the creatures from the 1030 cartoon Swing You Sinners.

Specimen 3) First appears in the GL Lab rooms (that start at Room 120) and is triggered by reading a GL assistant note in which they mention hearing a clicking sound. Their chase theme music is titled WRITHING SNEEZES. They were inspired by the game Resident Evil. They are refereed to as Subject 5. Subjects 1-4 can be seen floating in the walls of the GL Labs rooms.

Specimen 4) First appears in Room 166 once the player has reached the end of the room. Her death screen reads "Hush now my child, you're safe now." She has four chase themes; BREAKFAST WAS TOO EARLY BREAKFAST WAS TOO LATE BREAKFAST WAS TOO WATER DAMAGED RINGU_AMB She is a homage to Japanese RPGs (especially Corpse Party).The second version of her could also be a nod to the Fatal Frame games. Her being the fourth specimen was probably deliberate as 4 is seen as a bad number in Japan The room number may be a reference to SCP-166 She is the only specimen with two different chases

Specimen 5) First appears in room 210 Their death screen reads “Tiny, Shining holes in the sky. Delicate, perfect emptiness. Black, growing absences of life.Cold, swarming death. And we shall become them." Their chase theme music is called LUSTING STRAWBERRY They are thought to be a reference to the Silent Hill Series It is theorised it may be the “Mother” mentioned in the notes leading up to its first appearance They are referred to in the game data as bab

Specimen 6) First appears in Room 310 Nicknamed Ben and The Merchant by fans He will attack if the player doesn’t look at him, but also if the player looks too long “To become a puppet is to rid oneself of the pain and harshness of choice. Now nothing you do is your fault, now you belong to something... You belong to me..." Their chase theme music is titled The Merchant His inspiration was most likely the Happy Mask Salesman from LOZ Ocarina of Time/Majoras Mask and Ben from the Ben Drowned Creepypasta He may also be a reference to SCP-173 or the Weeping Angels from Dr Who Specimen 7) First appears in room 411 They are slow but an instant kill They are only effective against people with past trauma or mental illness. This means the player character could be mentally ill/traumatised (though it’s possible their trauma is their encounters with previous specimens) Their chase theme music is titled STRANGE WIGGLES It’s appearance resembles Giygas from Earthbound and it’s behaviour is similar to the mind flesh wall in Penumbra: Black Plague Specimen 8) Nicknamed Deer Lord First appears in room 558 Their death screen reads “ "And I saw, from eyes that were not mine. And I felt, with a fear I could not reason. They watch us, they invade us. And keep us happy, committing treason. To a King we didn't deserve. To a Son who waits weeping. That I knew, from knowledge gained while sleeping." Their chase music is called Your Consenting Mind. While chasing the player they will say four different phrases: “Join us” “Why do you run, child?” “Your submission is inevitable” “Your flesh will sustain my children” Their inspiration was The Best from Over the Garden Wall They are also similar to Herne the Hunter from English folklore, the Wendigo from Native American lore, a Kyrkogrim from Scandinavian folklore, Remor from Fran Bow and SCP-1417-A

Specimen 9) Can appear anywhere from Room 52 onward Can be triggered by staying in one place for too long or walking down one of the endless coridoors They also act as a final boss to the game Their Cat_Dos entry appears to be corrupted They can kill the player in any of the Safe rooms It’s theorised their inspiration could be Red from the NES Godzilla Creepypasta Their Cat_Dos entry says they were terminated, evidently this is not the case.

Specimen 10) First appears in Room 617 Was the reason the GL Labs were abandoned The original Specimen 10 is described as being Docile Whether Cat_Dos shows the original or current Specimen 10 is random chance Their death screen reads "Now you have nothing to fear. Now you have nothing to think. Follow your selfish desires. Follow your natural instinct. After all you're just an animal. It's much easier than trying to think." behind this text something written in binary flashes on and off screen. When translated this reads "You are more than just an animal. Use the soul you've been given. And be responsible for your actions." Their chase music is called GETTING THERE They seem to be inspired by Necromorphs from Dead Space as they are both parasitic in nature They also seem to be inspired by the creature from the movie The Thing or SCP-610

Specimen 11) Nicknamed Food Demon First encountered in Room 710 after the player has picked up the key in the freezer Once the player character has run out of health Specimen 11 teleports them to a looping hallway made of meat before finally killing them Their death screen reads "With every bite with bone and skin. The temple groaned and shook again. His dwelling place did I neglect. To the end with bad effect." just like specimen 10 a second message in binary can be seen. This translates to read "Believe in God, but question the teachings of men." Their chase music is called We Have the Beef If you reverse the sound heard while they chase the player you can hear the phrases “Come here”, “Stop running away”, “I see you” and “I’ll catch you” Specimen 11 and the Fast Food restaurant rooms resemble a Little Big Planet Akuma Kira made The meat hallway could be a reference to SCP-106′s pocket dimension

Specimen 12) First encountered in room 810 Specimen 12 is actually the Mansion not the Old Man as people might think. The old man is simply the mansion’s Host They are the only specimen with a hide mechanic In endless mode they have to modes Docile and Actvie While active the theme Here Comes Trouble plays. While Docile the theme Gummy Worms With Gummy Bear Heads plays. Was mansion was based off the game Clock Tower and the chase music is similar to the chase theme Don’t Cry Jennifer The old mans appearance was based off the Adult Swim cartoon Too Many Cooks The Old Man was voiced by Vernon Shaw from Hot Pepper Gaming on Youtube According to notes found in endless mode show he was a vlogger who would explore abandoned locations

Specimen 13) First appears in room 910 She will only move if the player is in the water Once the player gets back in the water she starts chasing again. However she is always a little further away than the last splash to allow the player time to move away She will not pause between her attacks Her chase theme is called Something In The Water She is similar to Kaernk from Amnesia The Dark Decent

#special interest #infodump #long post #spookys house of jumpscares #spookys jumpscare mansion

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tumblunni · 6 years ago

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I'm honestly kinda sick of seeing 'creepy monster child' played unsympathetically in media.

Like i mean Selim Bradley from FMA would be SO much more interesting if he actually did have some affection for the human woman who adopted him. FMA really kinda dropped the ball with the homunculi, aside from Greed they all have no real reason why theyre evil or any sort of apparant emotions at all. They try and make you feel sad for some of them at the last minute but its like there was no evidence of it shown ever before?? Just randomly say that Selim and King Bradley both secretly loved their adoptive human family on their deathbed BUT they never showed it before and never trusted her and repeatedly put her in harm's way and never cared about her enough to not destroy the damn world. And WHY do they want to do it? Also at the last minute envy apparantly envies humans and its all sad yet NEVER SAW THAT BEFORE and this trait was never reflected in any sort of doubt about all the evil actions and also why even do those evil actions. And even their BOSS has no damn motivation or personality, he's just Bad Wrong Mc Evildude. He was literally born evil and Hoenheim was wrong to treat him like a human beibg because he abused that trust and became evil as soon as he escaped the lab. And why does he want to eat god and rule the world and shit?? Like if his motive was to become human why did he make this new plan after he achieved it?? Why does he just hide out in a cave and ramble about hating humans, when his motovation in his introductionary chapter was to escape the lab and become real? He like never explored the outside world AT ALL? And why even want to look like a human if you never interact with humans? AND WHY DID YOU WANT TO BECOME A GODDAMN GOD??? He's such a bad villain of such a great show...

Oh well anyway that went a lil bit offtopic, i just tangeanted off cos man its weird that Father is a bigger example of the bad Born Evil Child Character than the actual villain who looks like a child...

Anyway a better example of what i mean is Evelyn from Resident Evil 7. She's a biological weapon made by some assholes, but seriously she's just a goddamn kid! The only thing we really know about her is that she's extremely innocent and keeps mistaking the lab technicians and soldiers for the parents she doesnt have. And she's spent her entire life in a cage only hearing about a normal childhood from picture books. And like she's fuckin already dying already?? The whole big twist is that she was actually the emancipated old woman you saw early on, because her lifespan is extremely limited without regular doses of the virus, and she rapidly aged in literally only a few months. She cant even fuckin MOVE, she's just this poor confused child trapped inside a nigh corpselike husk, trying to play make believe cos those stories are the only frame of reference she has for a happy ending. All the spooky virus monsters are like her 'imaginary friends' and she only attacks humans because she wants to take them home and have them be her mom and dad. How in the FUCK do you write this premise and not expect her to be sympathetic????

Seriousky the first time i saw the game i actually had a way higher opinion of it cos i THOUGHT she was meant to be sympathetic! I was so on edge excited to find out the next plot twist that a lot of stuff flew over my head. Like i only realized we were supposed to cheer for our hero to kill her when he actually did. And then going back its easy to see how she was constantly written as scary and eeeevil and like.. God. Like seriousky yes she is dangerous but she's not evil! She doesnt know what she's doing! She doesnt understand that turning people into thibgs like her makes them go insane and murderous, she's just sitting there crying that her 'family' wont act the way theyre supposed to, and looking for more replacements whenever they go wrong. She doesnt even fuckin know that she's dying, dear god this poor kid! She was literally designed to be innocent, its not her goddamn fault. Its literally right there in the text! They made her look like a child so she could be smuggled into highly populated areas without arousing suspicion and then remotely detonated by invoking a stress response to make her use her powers. And somehow when they were deisgning this literal baby shaped bomb they never once thought 'hey maybe she'll wonder where her mom and dad are?' No lets just portray her as big scary evil and technically make the goddamn scientists RIGHT by showing her only escaping because they showed her a taste of the outside world, and her wanting a family literally causing mass murder and a fungus hell house. Gee all that would have been solved if she just didnt want that gosh darn family!

Where is my hug evelyn dlc.

#just to be clear neither of these franchises are bad in fact i liked everythibg else about their plot #its just a super weak 'villain' to have someone who was magically born with a bad moral compass #even if the audience doesnt find the holes in it youve still got a weak villain cos they dont have a damn motive #and in the worst case scenario you fumble so hard that you make them look #unintentionalky sympathetic #like i mean evelyn is just written to be personalityless and generic scary but father in fma is actually written being actively evik #he's a big fuck and he betrays everyone who ever helps him and also murders several children #but when you introduce him with 'he was made in a lab and kept in a cage' you kinda have my synpathy from the start!#dont tell me he was already evil from birth and somehow fuckin deserved that cage

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mana-burns · 6 years ago

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You Can’t Go Home Again: An Analysis of Resident Evil VII

I'm comin' home, I've done my time Now I've got to know what is and isn't mine If you received my letter telling you I'd soon be free Then you'll know just what to do If you still want me

Introduction

Resident Evil VII is deceptive. Resident Evil, as a series, is deceptive. Numerous spinoffs and unnumbered entries turned the franchise into a tangled mess of intersecting characters, monsters, and conspiracies.

From the original trek through the Spencer mansion to the bombastic high-stakes setpiece-fest that is RE6, Resident Evil, after three console generations, had descended into itself, becoming bloated and seemingly incorrigible, impossible to nail down and define.

REVII was positioned as a return to form. Like the original Resident Evil, it is a straightforward story set in a spooky house, starring an inexperienced protagonist, Ethan, there with a simple but sympathetic and relatable mission: Rescue his girlfriend and get out. But REVII can’t help but dip into massive conspiracy as it navigates through what should be a relatively easy-to-digest story.

As Ethan searches for the missing Mia, who was away on a, get this, babysitting job, he encounters the deranged and inhuman Baker family, who have been granted a twisted immortality. There’s a pervasive black goo simply referred to as the Mold that seems to be infecting the family and their estate, spawning undead creatures and giving the Bakers supernatural powers. It’s not long before Ethan himself is infected, too.

The game then becomes a series of fetch-quests and races to various Macguffins as Ethan hurries to assemble a cure for himself, Mia, and their newfound ally, the Bakers’ daughter Zoe.

Resident Evil VII is a game running from its own past. As a linear narrative, it works fine, but it works better as a mood piece, a love letter to American horror films. It is meant to emulate a series of tropes and conventions. It's the product of two cultures—East and West— colliding head-on, and as a result it feels disjointed, dissonant, and yet wholly unique, fascinating, and, ultimately, compelling.

Resident Evil VII is an allegory for itself. It is a battle for the series’ soul.

Aesthetics

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: Resident Evil 7 is not concerned with realism. It’s about simulating a horror movie; recreating their grit, visuals, and mood. In this way, it is a simulation of a simulation, and it leans heavily on the history and conventions of the American horror film without ever fully understanding them. You see this in direct, 1-for-1 tributes, such as the chainsaw fight with Jack that evokes Evil Dead 2, or the Saw-like machinations of Lucas Baker’s deathtraps, or the body found in the basement corner in the Derelict House Footage tape, positioned just like the victim in Blair Witch Project. And practically the entire front-half of Resident Evil 7 is pulled straight from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This is par for the course for the Resident Evil series. The first game was a pretty standard take on haunted mansion horror, with some limited ventures into ‘80s action films, casting STARS as the badass special forces team in way over their heads a la Predator or even Aliens.

Resident Evil has always been about taking American horror and action tropes and sort of sifting them through Japanese culture. It is a imitation of American conventions, and it works precisely because it is so imperfect. Its dissonance happens to work perfectly for the mood of the genre. There’s something unsettling about how the details are just off; Louisiana looks like a still frame from an episode of True Detective, but it’s still evocative of how Americans perceive the swampland. Little mistakes regarding the area’s history and culture—the strange references to football, the inaccurate Civil War uniform—make things uncomfortable and strange. It’s like taking an English sentence, running it through Google translate into Japanese, and then translating it back into English again. Some general meanings are there and you may even be able to gleam some sense out of it, but it has lost all context and syntax and turned into something that isn’t quite English and isn’t quite Japanese—something that occupies the space between, something that has become a totally unique method of communication, with its own new signifiers and meaning. That’s Resident Evil. And that may explain a bit of the franchise’s ongoing identity crisis, too.

On a more surface-level reading, the aesthetics of REVII are vastly different from those of its predecessors, an approach to horror that’s a bit brighter but no less terrifying than previous entries. Remember, VII tells us, sunlight casts deeper shadows than darkness. This approach to horror is largely possible due to the wonderful lighting and particle effects at Capcom’s disposal, and though their tech struggles with faces, the uncanny valley works in their favor for this particular title, elevating that otherworldly feeling of imperfect simulation.

The Baker mansion and its surrounding area are dirty, grimy, grotesque. It’s southern gothic. The word “squalor” comes to mind. They choose to live in filth. Is there something ableist and maybe even contempful towards poverty about this dehumanizing of the Bakers? Maybe, but any sort of prejudice that the designers might be preying on here comes from a degree of separation, in that their only knowledge of that context, as mentioned before, is through American horror films, through simulacra. It is seperated by multiple layers, and so I find it hard to condemn their visions of the impoverished American South as anything but pulpy horror. Whatever the case, the true antagonists of the story betray any idea of prejudice against the lower class.

Perspective

Resident Evil 7’s protagonist is a camera. The series shifts to a first-person perspective for the first time, placing the player behind the eyes and within the mind of the game’s lead, Ethan. Despite this, the game has no qualms separating the avatar from the controller; there’s a sense that Ethan is his own character, with his own motivations not necessarily in line with the player’s.

I’ve heard the argument that what Ethan sees within the first half hour of the game would be enough to make anyone turn back. Why does he choose to go in alone? Why doesn’t he get help, or at least arm himself before he starts literally wading through corpses? No justifiable motivation could explain that.

Ethan is ostensibly motivated to look for his lost love, Mia. We’ll talk more about Mia later, but first I want to challenge the idea that this surface motivation is all that is propelling Ethan forward. Of course, you and I, and the developers, know that Ethan’s true motivation has nothing to do with Mia, and in fact nothing to do with Ethan himself, as he has no autonomy in the story. No, the motivating action propelling Resident Evil VII forward lies in the hands of the player. In a horror movie, the sort of films REVII is explicitly invoking, we can feel smarter than the protagonists. We know not to take a shower, we know not to look behind the curtain. In a horror game, we must specifically put ourselves in dangerous situations, and we do it because it’s fun. Without doing that, we can’t participate in the game. In REVII, since there is a degree of separation between player and avatar, our attention is specifically brought to Ethan’s flimsy-seeming motivation. In fact he moves forward because we push him forward, we keep him fighting. There’s a sadistic, manipulative relationship between Ethan and the player, but it’s also more complicated than that.

We sympathize with Ethan because of his love for Mia. Still, in some of Ethan’s barks and challenges to the Bakers, he expresses confusion, true ingenuity, sincerity, and a surprising and inspiring amount of courage and mettle. These motivations are enough for us to bind with Ethan, more so than in any other game in the series. Ethan is dumb, and we love him for that.

Mechanically speaking, first-person allows for some admittedly cheap but still fun jump scares, but it more importantly creates room for and necessitates an extreme amount of detail. Players can inspect drawers, cabinets, and cracks in the floorboards, unlike ever before. Monsters have a more threatening sense of scale, and so Resident Evil VII frequently plays with perspective and height, making its signature footsoldiers, the Molded, lumbering, giant masses of black knots, while also making its primary villain surprisingly pint-sized.

The first-person perspective also gives way to an effective new move, the block, crucial on the higher difficulties. The block gives Ethan a defensive verb and sort of grants the player a satisfying “cower” button. It doesn’t always make sense (how could an arm block a chainsaw?) but it paces out the game quite well against melee enemies, and it lends a visceral clutter to an already elegantly messy game screen.

Speaking of visceral—the new perspective’s greatest strength is probably the way it facilitates body horror. In RE7, you’ll have limbs chopped off, knives driven into your ribcage, and horrible masses of crawling grubs shoved down your throat. It’s a very personal, intimate horror, one that wants to gross you out while it makes your controller shudder and vibrate in resistance. It brings the player deeper into the shell of Ethan, and it creates a atmosphere of trapped, hopeless dread.

In a way, Resident Evil has been grasping at this perspective since its inception; think of the first encounter with a zombie in the first title, how the game shifts to Jill or Chris’s eyes, how the undead slowly turns to face you, its rotted mouth stuffed with human brain. This moment of body horror was essentially our introduction to Resident Evil’s mood. The perspective in Resident Evil VII, and our mouth being stuffed full of rotten flesh as we watch on, helplessly, brings the whole thing to a complete circle.

Kinetics

The movement in Resident Evil VII is deliberately slow, almost plodding. There’s a sense of weight to Ethan and his actions, necessitating such things as the aforementioned block button as well as a dedicated turn, a verb that is becoming more and more common in triple-A games, it seems. There is a sprint button, but there’s no real way to get Ethan to break out into an actual full-on run, ironic considering the urgency of the situation he’s in.

You could hand-wave away his plodding speed by saying it has something to do with his recent infection, but the Resident Evil series has always inhibited its protagonists in order to simulate the physical ramifications that fear has on the body. Despite arming the player to their proviberial teeth, early RE games aren’t about player empowerment; they still want to be a struggle to survive. So the series balances its arsenal of weapons by inhibiting the avatar’s movement. This is of course subverted in Resident Evil 4, further dismantled in 5, and completely out the window by the time 6 rolls around, but 7 is, again, intended as a return to form, and so we see a slower pace to all of Ethan’s movement. It makes up for the increased precision in aiming that the first person perspective allows.

REVII’s movement and control schemes are nowhere near as innovative and revolutionary as RE4’s over-the-shoulder controls or even RE1’s tank controls. But they still work remarkably well, and this is largely due to how the environments are designed to accommodate them. RE7 is filled with little nooks and crannies that demand careful consideration. Most of the time, they’re empty, but they are so discomforting they feel like intrusive negative space. A quick-turn button means that you always have a way to quickly glance over your shoulder. It creates a paralyzing set of blindspots to the player’s immediate left and immediate right.

Some of the guns in RE7 feel flimsy to fire, unsatisfying and cardboard-thin. The pistol has little weight or feedback, and despite the fact that the submachine gun is one of the most effective weapon in the game, it never really feels great to pull the trigger. It’s all just a bit too high-tech and light, and it clashes with the game’s mood. The shotgun, on the other hand, is incredibly satisfying, with a wonderful kick and a beautiful cascade of gore and blood to compliment each round. Meanwhile, swipes with the knife feel weak and desperate, appropriate as the knife will be little more than a box-breaker or last-ditch effort for the player.

I want to note how well the sound design compliments the movement in Resi 7. Each creek of the floorboard that comes with each step enhances the mood. Everything works harmoniously towards a feeling and an atmosphere, even if it isn’t, by the strictest definition, realistic. Remember, Resident Evil VII doesn’t strive for realism. It strives for a different sort of immersion, one that engulfs the player in familiar iconography rather than relatable and recognizable situations.

The puzzles in Resident Evil VII include the lock-key affairs that are synonymous with the series, though some of them work in interesting or subversive ways. Take the shadow puppet puzzles, that ask the player to rotate a certain key until it casts a shadow that fits into a mold or image. It’s clever to ask the player to think about the game’s lighting; it weaves together the environment and the objective. It draws attention to light and shadow, it takes time and manipulation. What it doesn’t quite take is the lateral thinking necessary for most of what you’d call puzzles. No, the puzzles in REVII are slave to the game’s pace, not its challenge. They give you tasks to do, things to fetch, and moments of quiet discomfort to break up the sometimes bombastic noise of gameplay.

Doors

Doors play a significant role in the Resident Evil series. In the first title, they masked loading screens and acted as gateways for player progression—a lot of that game’s pacing is defined by finding and using keys. In REmake, some doors will shake and slam as you walk past them, implying that enemies are waiting for you on the other side.

But doors are also important tools for survival; each door in Resident Evil is a barrier to keep enemies at bay, because each room is treated as its own discrete environment. Zombies (mostly) can’t get through doors. If you can’t deal with an enemy or enemies, you flee towards the door and use it to place a divide between you and them. Doors are powerful mechanically and thematically in Resident Evil and REmake.

In RE7, they work in a different way. You press a button to initially crack them open, but the game makes you physically push them open as a separate action. In this way you must commit actual movement to the action of entering a room to open a door. You need to make a serious mental and physical investment in order to progress.

This is nothing short of brilliant. You can’t back away from a room after opening the door and survey it for safety before plunging in. You have to go in headfirst, and this gives the game control over moment-to-moment player progression. The doors in Resident Evil VII area synecdoche for the game’s entire design; a mindfulness in mood, movement and control that services a feeling rather than a sense of realism or accuracy.

Videotapes

Resident Evil 7’s obsession with horror films extends beyond the game’s aesthetics and into its mechanics. It is fascinated with the concept of video tapes, beyond simply using these tapes as a way to evoke the mood of found footage horror. Rather, it finds a mechanical purpose for the tapes, turning them into puzzle pieces that help Ethan escape.

When we are first introduced to the videotape mechanic, it’s in the initial shack area, part of the demo that was released before the full game. The tape belongs to an unlucky film crew, working for some imaginary (but wholly believable) reality show about plumbing the depths of abandoned houses. In what is RE7’s most obvious expression of its main purpose—placing the player in a horror movie—the player takes control of the cameraman, and indeed the camera itself, and by proxy—through the method by which Ethan diegetically experiences this scene—the tape. We are the footage, and though it supposedly happened in the past, we are now controlling it in real time.

Disturbingly, the crew goes through almost exactly the same paces that Ethan went through just moments ago, and since we see how it ended up for them, it suggests that he is probably in a great deal of danger.

But the tape shows that there is a secret passage in the fireplace, one that the player could have totally missed without its aid. This establishes a pattern; the player will encounter three more tapes during their journey, and each one will convey a little more information and context to not only the player, but to their avatar, Ethan, as well. Not all of the tapes are mandatory for progression, but they are a wonderful way to present missing pieces of the puzzle to the player, through methods that are thematically appropriate and never wrestle control away from the protagonist. The tapes are essentially keys, but they are infinitely more interesting than a simple progression lock.

The most effective and interesting tape is perhaps the most well-hidden one. “Happy Birthday” is buried in a cupboard in the attic, and it is disturbing footage kept safe and secret by the Bakers’ son, Lucas.

The footage is of an elaborate deathtrap set up by Lucas, who’s positioned as a sort of genius psychopath as an in-universe explanation for some of the game’s puzzles. Lucas has captured one of the poor erstwhile documentarians, and the player takes on this victim’s perspective. Interestingly, all semblance of artifice—a camera recording the footage—drips away in favor of this perspective. Through the magic of movies, we become this character, one-step removed from our hero Ethan, yet still somehow viewing it through his eyes. If the intro tape had us jump back in time to where Ethan has been, this tape foreshadows where he will go.

Since we already know that the victim of the trap doesn’t survive, it’s not a failure to participate in Lucas’s machinations. Instead, it’s presented as the scripted, linear path that we must follow. The lethal puzzle culminates with a task that requires the victim to uncork a barrel of oil, leading to the explosion that ultimately kills the victim in the tape. But the action that springs this trap just yields a password. If one were to go into the trap with some prior knowledge of that password, one would be fine. And that’s exactly the position the tape leaves Ethan in. Since he, by way of the player and the tape, already knows the password, he’s able to escape Lucas’s trap unharmed.

This means the tape isn’t necessary for success. If the player somehow fails to find the tape, they just have to play the death trap twice. Once they continue the game and run through the puzzle a second time, they’ll realize they can just skip over the deathtrap, since they already know the password. It’s a puzzle that is proofed against stumping a stumbling player.

It also extends the horror movie motif pulsing at the heart of Resident Evil VII. It’s an attempt at creating something that the series has sometimes dabbled with, but never fully explored–the idea of elaborate, claustrophobic death traps. You’ll see spiked walls and bottomless pits in other Resi games, but never something quite so sinister and unique, not to mention devoid of enemies or threats beyond the traps themselves. It is a quiet, challenging horror, one that pits the player against themselves, and I think it’s more than strong enough to stand on its own as a full game.

The video tapes in Resident Evil VII stand hand-in-hand with the tape recorder save points and evoke a certain era of technology, a halted progress that crystallizes the Baker mansion at a moment in time, and suggests that they’ve paused their evolution. It also subtly reminds players of a time and a place, the same crucible of factors that led to the creation of the horror films that inspired Resident Evil VII. It’s a horror born out of grime and dust rather than shadows and moonlight.

Jack

Jack is the first member of the family you encounter; you catch a glimpse of his form plodding through the woods, and he eventually kidnaps you and brings you to the centerpiece of REVII’s introduction, the family dinner, where he makes himself known as an intimidating and controlling presence.

After Jack’s pulled away by the arrival of a deputy, you escape from your binds and start to move through the mansion, but of course he quickly catches on to your plan. What follows is the most compelling, proof-of-concept sequence in all of RE7; a game of cat-and-mouse through a tightly wound series of narrow corridors, with the slow-moving but ultra-powerful Jack following you close behind.

The wing of the house that Jack chases you through is a well-thought out arena, with a few hidden escape hatches and multiple ways to double-back. It makes movement and navigation feel clever and fun, while still keeping a sense of looming dread. You’ll double-back multiple times, and you’ll always have the plan b of escaping back into the safe room on the opposite end of the hallway, as far from your objective as possible.

This scene is marked, most notably, by a few scripted scenarios designed to catch the player off-guard; one, Jack can burst through a wall and surprise the player, but only if both characters are positioned just right—some players will never even see this sequence.

It takes courage to develop entire sequences that some players will never see. It’s difficult and resource-intensive to design and place such moments in a game. But it pays off in REVII; these moments are some of the most memorable in the entire game, and you can tell a lot of care and time went into making Jack’s sequence pitch-perfect. It’s truly the highlight of the game and a Capcom more willing to take a huge gamble might have used it as the entire framework for the game. As it is, it’s the stand-out chapter in the game.

After a bit of exploration and a few confrontations, you’ll encounter the now most certainly undead Jack Baker, during an otherwise slow-paced hunt for a few statues. He catches you off-guard and the game challenges you to once again play cat-and-mouse. As a result, the entire Jack encounter sort of plays like a three-act structure in its own right; you encounter him once, run away, quiet exploration, encounter him again, more puzzles and exploration, and a final, bombastic, Evil-Dead-as-hell encounter in an enclosed space.

The fight challenges how well players have learned to navigate tight corners and small spaces while evading a slow-moving Jack. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to present them with a cat-and-mouse challenge, one that added new wrinkles in order to act as a sort of final exam for the Jack chapter. But it’s hard to argue that this fight isn’t a trippy power fantasy for the player, and the way it flips the player’s relationship with Jack works.

Ethan has now escaped the mansion, but finds himself in the Baker grounds writ-large. The game doesn’t open up or become less linear, but it does explore some novel new locations. Unfortunately, that variance comes at the cost of some consistency. Before moving on to the next location, the player encounters a trailer belonging to Zoe, who ostensibly sets herself up as a mysterious ally. We first encountered Zoe through a phone call in the Baker house, where she warned us we were in grave danger. Zoe is not that interesting as a character, and mainly serves to complicate the game’s narrative, which starts out simply and becomes more and more complicated, to its weakness. Zoe is an element of that. She’s not well fleshed-out in the main game, and she’ll later be part of an arbitrary and superfluous player choice that feels tacked on. Here, however, she’ll play the role of mysterious sherpa for a while.

After a short break to resupply and catch their bearings, the player will soon enter the second house, the old house, and the domain of Mrs. Marguerite Baker.

Marguerite

Pacing-wise, Marguerite’s domain is when RE7 really starts to slip in its footing. It’s not exactly bad gameplay, but it does sag a bit, and a few fetch-quests lead to the previously mentioned flamethrower and a pretty frightening if rhetorically uninteresting tape starring Mia.

Marguerite’s gimmick is insects, cockroach-like bugs that swarm Ethan, fly around the damp wooden shack, and build nests that the player must flush out using the burner. The bugs create some variance in the enemies that RE7 will throw at the player, but they aren’t terribly fun to fight. What’s more, the old house doesn’t feel quite as well-thought-out as the larger Baker Mansion, and though it also follows a somewhat circular layout, its hallways and doors are less distinct, and its rooms are less geometrically interesting.

Jack is horrifying because he feels threatening and powerful. Marguerite is horrifying because she’s unpleasant to see or hear. It’s a skin-deep horror that relies on physical reactions rather than mental ones. Marguerite is repulsive, not necessarily terrifying.

Perhaps most disappointingly, we don’t learn very much about Marguerite at all, before or after her infection. Jack gets a moment of redemption later in the game, and Lucas and Zoe are fleshed out in conversation and flavor text around the Baker estate. Marguerite, on the other hand, only gets bits and pieces of story—she’s really more about an image than a fleshed-out idea. The DLC supposedly characterizes her out a little better, and gives hints to what she was like pre-infection. There are glimpses here and there that suggest she had an affinity for religious iconography; she has a habit of creating small shrines to Eve’s “gift.” This was a potentially rich vein that Capcom could have explored in more detail to make Marguerite feel like more than just a wife and mother.

The highlight of Marguerite’s section, by far, is her boss encounter. Set in a small two-story greenhouse, the boss fight begins when she startles you by popping through a window and grabbing your legs. At this point, she has mutated into a Junji Ito-style horror, with long arms mimicking spider limbs.

Her boss arena is a work of art. While Jack’s pit is somewhat simplistic, Marguerite’s stage has a layout simple enough to grok but complicated enough to provide ambush points and blind spots. There are doors that are blocked from one side, but give the player a route to double-back. There are ceilings and walls and windows for Marguerite to crawl on and climb through. There’s ammo hidden in cabinets, but there’s a risk-reward of wasting burner ammo to open these cabinets—though the burner is the most effective weapon against the matriarch. And, echoing the gameplay in her larger domain, the boss fight is dampened by moments of quiet stalking, though here the line is blurred between cat and mouse; you’re fighting back, and if you can control the tempo of the fight you’re frequently on the offense.

There is some sexual imagery to Marguerite’s final transformation, as her weak point is a hive-womb, and she crawls around on all fours while stalking you. It’s RE taking a page out of Silent Hill’s book, and it might feel a little cheap and grotesque if it wasn’t executed with the grimy style of a western grindhouse horror flick. No, REVII has little reservations about what it is by this point; it fully accepts that it is campy gross-out horror, but never to the level of shtick. It still takes its scares seriously, and this level of sincerity lends it a lot of heart. It makes no apologies for being disgusting, and in that way it’s lovable, just like the shlock it’s based on.

After a grueling fight, Marguerite calcifies and crumbles to dust, leaving behind a lantern for Ethan, who is free to move on to the next chapter of the game.

Eveline (Part 1)

But before Ethan moves on, he makes a detour to the attic and the kid’s bedroom.. Demonic children are nothing new, horror-wise, but REVII sows the seeds of its main antagonist achingly slowly, placing her quite literally right under the player’s nose while still breadcrumbing morbid story details to keep the hook. It’s not a deep story, or even all that unpredictable, but it is compelling enough to push Ethan forward.

You’ll notice I’m not paying much mind to the grand details of the plot, and that’s precisely because the story is secondary to a mood. This is why so many of its characters are so tropey. They don’t need to be real people, they need to serve a purpose.

If this is all sounding a bit harsh, let me assure you; I fully believe anything other than REVII’s broad strokes narrative would probably feel a little too fiddly and intrusive to serve what the game is trying to be. There’s just enough dressings of a compelling story to keep players interested in what’s going on, and that’s exactly the way it should be.

The Baker’s son, Lucas, plans to make you work hard to reach his lair, and as a result there’s a quick and gruesome return to the main mansion to fetch a key out of a corpse and battle some extra molded. This largely feels like filler and fluff, but it goes a long way to building Lucas up as a bit different from his parents. He’s more sinister, more cunning, more self-aware and human. You’ll also encounter Grandma a few more times, placed within the critical path, always watching and always silent.

RE has always been noteworthy for its clockwork puzzles, and the series has frequently lampshaded these puzzles in cute if unbelievable and ultimately unnecessary ways. The police station in RE2, for example, was supposedly a decommissioned art museum, as if that makes any sense.

In REVII, though, it’s the machinations of a character, the inventive, sociopathic Lucas, who, as it turns out, is a major antagonistic force behind the game’s entire plot. His reveal as the true antagonist of the game is brought on with little fanfare. It’s mostly revealed in DLC and notes. But it’s similar to Wesker’s heel-turn in RE1. It doesn’t purporte him to be the main villain of the game, but it sets him up as a possible series-wide antagonist.

Your mileage may vary out of this twist. Some might like having a face to the horror, and the stories of Lucas as a child, spying on his sister and setting traps for neighborhood bullies, are chilling in a lasting way. But the game doesn’t do a great job of selling Lucas as a planner, and the whole thing feels a bit contrived in the face of REVII’s greater narrative.

Lucas

In the Videotape section, I discussed the happy birthday tape and how it uses the conventions and structure of a video game to set up REVII’s most interesting puzzle. I briefly glossed over how the tape and Lucas as a character invokes the found footage aesthetic so important to Resident Evil VII’s style, but in the Happy Birthday puzzle—and through the rest of Lucas’s death traps—we see another piece of horror movie inspiration come to life; the complicated, convoluted deathtraps of films like Saw and Cube.

This sort of claustrophobic psycho-horror came about out of budget constraints. The first Saw was hugely influential because it allowed for an inexpensive yet wholly effective reworking of the slasher flick. It was successful commercially, and it was appealing to producers because it had the built-in simplicity of a few simple sets and some inexpensive practical effects. It was a streamlined reworking of the genre for the 21st century.

If Jack stands in for the ‘70s-era slash-fests like Texas Chainsaw, and Marguerite is a melding of ‘80s and ‘90s body horror from the West and the East, then it’s temporally appropriate that Lucas is the representative for 21st century gore flicks. In a way, REVII is a tour of the genre’s modern history, an exploration of its tropes as they evolved. It’s a love letter to three eras of horror.

Mechanically, Lucas challenges the player to stop, move slowly and deliberately, and fully assess the environment. There are tripwire bombs and spike traps littering the hallways of his home, and though you will still fight standard molded, they’re sort of a trivial threat by this point. No, Lucas demands that you think about the game’s environment as hostile and unforgiving. This is something of a change when compared to the circular, narrow hallways in the Baker Mansion and the Old house, where the game’s architecture and hidden pathways were one of your only weapons against your pursers. Here, Lucas isn’t following you, but he’s attempting to anticipate your movement. You’re not being chased, you’re being funneled.

Lucas leads you into the Baker barn, which he’s set up like a gladiatorial arena. If you needed any further evidence that the game is now fully banking on Saw homages, the hanging pig-corpses should be proof enough. This environment is incredibly quiet at first, but its architecture betrays its true nature; the intersecting, stacked hallways are layed out too perfectly for it to not be some sort of combat arena. In most games, this discord can be laughable; in Resi VII, it builds tension and suspense, and therefore works a little better than it might in, say, a pure action game or a shooter.

Depending on your difficulty, you’ll face some number of a new type of enemy, the fat Molded. These are bulky, powerful enemies who spew bile, one of the few projectile attacks in the game. Overall, they’re more intimidating than actually threatening. By this point, you’re armed to the teeth, and the barn’s layout gives you plenty of ways to obscure line of sight and take cover. But this boss encounter most vitally introduces the fat molded into the ranks of foes you’ll encounter. Resident Evil has a history of introducing powerful minions with such fanfare; they bring around a new, tough enemy type, build them up as an intimidating, powerful force, and then later seed them into the ranks once the player is more capable. It’s a way of ramping up combat challenges and creating an interesting endgame.

Next up is the happy birthday puzzle. Once you beat Lucas’s escape room, he gets angry and tosses a bomb into the room, which you can use to blast the wall and escape. By the time you make it to his control room, Lucas has already fled. There’s a short trek to the boathouse, and a fully-loaded safe room is a pretty good indicator that a big fight is about to go down. There’s a sense of finality to the proceedings, considering that you’ve now worked your way through the main Baker family. Still, there’s something like a quarter of the game left, and it’s when most people say REVII really goes off the rails. The pace and mood of the game is about to undergo a major shift. But first, it’s the final battle with Jack.

Jack’s Return

Ethan’s final encounter in the Baker residence brings his time with the family full-circle. Jack has come back from the dead yet again, and he’s mutated beyond any recognition. This is the beginning of REVII’s slide fully into the conventions of the series, away from the new-age slasher flick pastiche and into the gamey, japanese bio-horror that defines the series.

The fight with Jack is a fairly standard boss battle that asks you to shoot the glowy parts when they start getting glowy. There’s a smart sense of player-enemy placement and blocking and a clever use of levels that keep the fight from feeling dull.

The barn burns over the course of the fight, and eventually it’s all but completely destroyed. Once the fight wraps up, Jack will grab you as a final deathrattle, and you’ll be forced to inject him with one of the two cures you’ve cooked up. This means you only have enough serum to cure one other person, and the game is going to make you choose—do you fulfill your promise to Zoe, or do you stay loyal to your original mission, and rescue Mia? It’s a dull, binary, choice that simply determines the ending of the game, as well as what amounts to an optional boss fight. It’s set up to either reward or punish the player, rather than challenging their conceptions of the game’s world and Ethan’s place in it. Put simply, there’s a right answer and a wrong answer, which makes it fundamentally uninteresting.

Whoever the player chooses, the pair will then make their escape down the river.

Mia and the Tanker

The boat crashes, and REVII plays its final third-act twist; a shift in perspective, moving the action behind the eyes of Mia, who is all-too-familiar with the washed-up tanker. The twist is that Mia is much more than she seemed and was hiding a few secrets from Ethan. She’s a mercenary, hired to escort a bioweapon on a commercial tanker in a covert operation. That weapon is Eveline, the main antagonist and the driving force behind the sentient Molded force that both corrupted the Bakers and created the monsters the player has battled this entire game.

This twist is nothing short of baffling. It is unexpected, but it is not a subversion of any player expectations; it’s a twist that devalues the previous rising action rather than usurping it, and it inflates the scale of the game’s conflict beyond ‘creepy house’ and into ‘international high-stakes bioterrorism.’ It’s disingenuous and exhausting, as Ethan is now relegated to a bit player in a bigger conspiracy.

All that being said—it’s Resident Evil sinking back into its traditional mold. Wesker’s heel-turn and the Umbrella conspiracy elevated the first game’s spooky mansion into a secret megascience lab. That twist set the pace for the series as a whole; a convoluted narrative rooted in a distinctly Japanese anxiety over superweapons.

Here’s the thing; I don’t think the twist is all bad, actually. I think there’s something charming about how RE feels it is so vital to create a wide, entangling conspiracy to tell such a tight and quick narrative. It’s an impulse that the series truly cannot escape, for whatever reason. It is never content to tell a story about horror on a small-scale. It needs to dip into some kind of worldwide threat in order to tie all its narrative strings together. Would REVII be stronger without the tanker chapters and the larger ramifications of its effect on the narrative? Probably. Would it really be Resident Evil without such a grand mega-conspiracy at its heart? I’m not so sure.

It’s a complicated issue, because it begs the question; how much can you mess with a series’ DNA before you have an entirely new product? Is a mood enough to connect a series, or does there need to be an underlying thread that connects all the titles to its past? Is there simply too much baggage attached to such a massive beast of a franchise for it to ever escape its own legacy?

Ostensibly, the theme of Resident Evil VII is family. It’s the driving force that causes Eveline to throw off her controllers and drive the game’s plot forward. It’s the bond that causes Ethan to go after Mia, and it's the question that Zoe struggles with as she turns against her mutated clan.

Conversely, then, it is appropriate that Resident Evil VII struggles against its predecessors and the legacy they have created. Like Zoe, it is fighting for its own identity while still maintaining a certain loyalty to its origins.

Eveline (Part 2)

The last location in the game is the salt mines, which act as a sort of final combat dungeon, overrun with Molded. Unlike the tanker, however, the salt mines afford the player a ton of firepower and ammunition. It’s all about player empowerment now, as the scales have been tipped in Ethan’s favor. Fighting the molded is now trivial.

The mine is also set up as a sort of ground zero for the Molded. There are secret labs and documents filled with research on the molded dotting offshoots and chambers.

There’s a thrilling race up a spiraling column and a few more fights with the fat Molded between Ethan and Eveline. She’s in the guest house, and this final confrontation acts as more of a cathartic emotional highpoint than a final gameplay challenge. The mines were the real final test, and though there are some small challenges to the encounter with Eveline, it’s more in position to wrap up REVII’s mood and story.

The player is now up against Eveline’s psychic powers, and it’s about as hokey as it sounds. However, the audiovisual presentation is strong enough to suck the player in, and it still feels emotionally resonant and threatening, even when dipping into the absurd.

After the player figures out how to guard against Eve’s blasts, they reach her decaying body. Like Lisa trevor in REmake, Eve is positioned as a victim of larger, sinister forces, a capitalist war machine that took a little girl and turned her into a weapon. This sympathy for the devil ultimately induces genuine pity for Eveline, and it, again, shifts the focus of the story onto a more worldwide conspiracy and less on its play actors.

Eve’s final form is massive and grotesque, but most poignantly, it is part of the house itself. The Baker estate has been Ethan’s sometimes-ally, sometimes-enemy, and it’s only appropriate that it takes a leading role for the final moments of REVII. The final set piece is one of a massive scale, and it brings attention to the sky above, where dawn is beginning to break through what has been a seemingly endless night. Evenline mutilates Ethan one more time as choppers begin to fly in overhead, and finally, a deus ex machina in the form of a massive handcannon lands next to Ethan’s head. He fires a few rounds and Eve crumbles to dust with a final deathknell.

Ethan is rescued by a man introducing himself as Redfield and working for the series’ signature villians, the Umbrella corporation, and REVII, despite itself, insists on teasing its place in the series’ overarching, complicated mythology. A brief epilogue showcases some more lovely, True detective-esque air shots of Louisiana over narration from an exhausted Ethan, before fading to credits.

Resident Evil 7 is a revisioning of the series that coined the term survival horror. It’s an invocation of a mood and aesthetic, brought into interactivity. It is a product of its technology and time, as such a detailed and intimate horror wasn’t possible even in the last console generation.

At the same time, it’s also a troubling return to form. Resident Evil can’t seem to escape the baggage of its prequels or the conventions of massive conspiracy that provides the framework for its otherwise small-scale horror. It is an antithesis to itself, as it attempts to invoke personal intimate horror through large-scale conflicts between massive capitalistic and militaristic conglomerates. A Resident Evil game will inevitably go off the rails at some point, but its mood and method determines if the player will be along for the ride. RE4 went from moody creepout to action-packed campfest, and it never missed a step. REVII stumbles a bit more, but it promises a strong return to what made RE great, especially after a few strange forays into action in RE5 and 6.

Yet REVII didn’t enjoy the commercial success of those two titles, though it did see a fair bit more critical acclaim. It’s a bold move to shift a tentpole franchise as dramatically as capcom did between RE6 and REVII, but the game is clearly a love letter to its inspirations. REVII is a celebration of Western conventions seen through a Japanese lens, It is a product of dissonance, and that’s what makes it so compelling.

Despite its flaws, Resident Evil VII is one of the best horror games of the latest generation. It provides genuine moments of horror and a piercing, inescapable atmosphere of tension and horror. It is cathartic and wild, moody and visionary, and awe-inspiring in its execution.

Maybe the next entry will lean further into the horror aspect of survival horror, and will have the courage to shake off a messy legacy of legions of the undead.

#resident evil #resident evil vii #criticism #games writing #games criticism #capcom #horror #horror games #survival horror

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

Text

Evil Season 2 Episode 4 Review: E Is for Elevator

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This Evil review contains spoilers.

Evil Season 2 Episode 4

Evil season 2, episode 4, “E Is for Elevator,” stops between floors to squeeze in an urban legend. The team is called in on a job outside their scope, an internet game. It has no demonic ties except for a pentagram drawn on the floor of a player. With that as the only spiritual tie, David Acosta (Mike Colter) goes off to contemplate the mysteries of his superiors’ faith in Leland Townshend (Michael Emerson), while Dr. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) and Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) go pushing buttons.

The family who calls in the team admits there is no satanic connection, but the police have already written them off, and tagged their son a runaway. The whole thing would have been passed on if it weren’t for the game. This gives the episode a pass for an all-ages admission, and lets the children play. “E Is for Elevator” is probably the most intrusive Kristen’s kids have been since Ben got the name “Magnificent.” They actually con their way on the job site and try to take the maiden voyage on the elevator ride to hell. The option is to leave them with a very creepy looking concierge, but that’s mainly played for laughs.

The most important rule of the Elevator Game is if you don’t finish it, you will be haunted by the ghosts of all the people who died in that building. And the building has quite a history with dead people. The Anselina, the only structure in the area which has enough stories to play the game, has its own stop on a local ghost tour. According to the guide, a young woman was cut in half on the elevator. She got stuck in the doors after her dog got out. Residents still hear her crawling down the halls. They call her the “teka teka girl” because that’s the sound her fingernails make as she crawls across the floor. Once the tour guide plants this in Ben’s head, he infects Kristen who starts hearing “teka teka” wherever she goes.

Sure, they fudge a few things. Everyone knows there are no 13th floors in buildings. Superstitious building architects conspired with the Knights Templar to cut construction costs millennia ago. But even with the subjective shortcuts, we don’t get the shaft. The sequence where Kristen gets stuck, alone, in the elevator is viscerally frightening. Not because of the half torso woman crawling across the floor, but for simple mechanics. It’s tightly framed within a limited point of view, which makes it both claustrophobic, and peripherally perilous. We know Kristen won’t get cut in half, but there’s a part of us that has wanted it since the tour guide painted such a vivid picture of it in our minds. While Kristen later blames her prescriptions, the scene also subliminally mirrors what happened at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, when Elisa Lam hid from unseen hazards.

David’s main antagonist for the week is all too visible. Leland is having the time of his life making a mockery of the religious rites. He’s paying for it, so the church goes along. It is slightly unnerving how David can openly express his disapproval of the supplicant to his superiors, only to have them repeatedly ignore him. His teammates have spoken out against Leland. Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) almost asks David to hold her habit so she can kick the possessed poseur’s ass, but still the clergy accommodates Leland’s every whim. You can almost envision them holding their hands over their ears while chanting “I don’t hear you.” Something must be going on here which is clouded by the comedy. The series hasn’t made any overt references, but the church has to be in bed with the devil they know.

Evil Season 2: Katja Herbers Talks Jinn and Dark Tonics

By Tony Sokol

Evil Season 2 is Paramount+’s First Big Opportunity

By Alec Bojalad

Leland’s passive aggressive race baiting is grating, so much so the audience might feel an inner cheer when David punches the local activist Logan later in the episode. Leland’s poisoning has that much of a ripple effect. It’s worse when the diversity-hire comments are echoed by the church officials, and fellow ecclesiastical students. The temptations are expertly hidden in the episode. Kevin, a fourth-year clerical student who notices David hardly ever shows up to class, says the star supernatural assessor is “being groomed to be the great Black hope of the Catholic Church.” David is later tempted by another, possibly more inclusive, faith.

It is a shame the audience doesn’t get to hear David’s homily in full. The priest-in-training has a high regard for his worth to the church. His superiors may think he’s being egotistical, but he honestly has a selfless motive behind the seeming braggadocio. Ben, on the other hand, “never stops feeling like an idiot on this job.” And his is the most interesting arc of the installment. He calls in a friend, who could have been more than a friend, to understand the finer points of the Elevator game. The game itself is a major plus for the series. It is perennially timely, and universally frightening. No one wants to get stuck in an elevator.

Ben’s almost-ultimate fate is almost equally universal. Those cheesy bugs are pretty creepy, admittedly, but they are sold by Ben’s reaction. The realization of their presence leaks into his eyes. It’s a slow ride before he registers shock and revulsion. He is actually expecting the woman to be alive when he turns her over. He is more disappointed than startled at his initial discovery, which suits the character. He’s grounded and, yet, expectant. He wants things to turn out right. Ben’s ambiguous acceptance of his personal demoness is also well played tonight. She is his Jiminy Cricket in reverse, and as he descends into sentimentality, she cuts his treacle down to the stump.

“E Is for Elevator” is a fun episode which really is appropriate for all ages, or at least will appeal to their actual interests. The urban legend keeps it contemporary, the social content makes it timeless, and the off-kilter approach keeps it lively. Evil also continues to leave some of the more paranormal ambiguities uncertain.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Evil airs Sundays on Paramount+.

The post Evil Season 2 Episode 4 Review: E Is for Elevator appeared first on Den of Geek.

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stone-man-warrior · 4 years ago

Text

December 5, 2020: 1:35 pm:

Here is a progression of a bullshit campaign coming from Fox news. I look at it, show how it’s bullshit, then get on with looking for real terror comm.

These are not in the correct order, so, you have mix & match the bullshit to suit your pallet, so it will fit on the size of forklift you have for carting away FOX news bullshit.

Above:

The read is like this:

“it’s too bad that water is so heavy that they can‘t bring some for the astronauts. The astronauts aboard ship say that they were told that the water is too heavy to bring to the space ship, so, they were provided with complicated science equipment that recycles their own urine... the astronauts say they must recycle their urine so that they have some fresh water to drink aboard ship. Meanwhile, there is 6,400 pounds of other stuff being sent up there for them to fuck with in space”.

Above:

The read:

“Do Math: Why is sevenfold the same as sixteen bit?

128

Because you need a piece of paper to start with when you begin folding.

In that way, the Fold is a lot like a Fractal, it keeps going, a Mandelbrot Set, where the ending is just the beginning.

The closer you get to the meaning, the sooner you know that you’re dreaming, it goes on and on and on... it’s Heaven and Hell” ~Dio Sabbath”

(this would go on forever if I keep following the bread crumbs, so, “that’s all folk’s”)

(don‘t forget that the astronauts need some water)

You have to refer to the music video below.

Keep going, almost there... all the way to the bottom of the page here.

Above:

The read:

Displaced water needs to go somewhere, it doesn’t just vanish into thin air.

‘Are you shore?’

‘no, but I am looking for some higher ground anyway’”

(this is the part where I feel like there is a big fucking boat nearby somewhere)

Bonus:

“The boat floats because it weighs less than the water it displaces”

Above:

Reminder of Space Rocks from the moon the other day, w/Chinese Flag, they gained some new ground.

Fox says the Chinese people have a lot of balls doing what they are doing.

Above:

It says: “There are people looking into the US Space Program. nasa, Space X, Tesla, Virgin Atlantic, and other space contractor money trails.”

(it’s coded, very sophisticated)

Above:

I include that one because it’s like the water got lost somewhere, and, it has a built in “save the princess”. FOX news is cooking up a bullshit story, they have some bait, and toss it out of the boat, sort of, like chum.

Above:

The caption “Where the fuck are we?”

That goes with explanations I made weeks ago about Blazing Saddles movie, Indians, number 13 missing from the elevators, emergency workers, and Christopher Columbus who forgot to bring the compass, got lost, and the rest is history.

The Read:

“They are getting into the dingy now, saying... paddle faster, I can hear the banjo music.”

Way, way, way above... high.

“There is some high level bullshit going on at the US Capital”

Sea Weed. Trump’s boat is hung up in a big wad of sea weed. no va. Won’t go... have to push it. Kelp, he says.

See music video below.

This above is the key to whole thing, it’s all bullshit, he says it’s bullshit, they are making up the bullshit as they go, there is no basis for any of he bullshit. Just wear the fucking mask because that is what we told you to do.

(insert Heaven & Hell here, by Black Sabbath featuring Ronnie James Dio. Do that on your own, read the lyrics, it’s a sing-a-long. I like the part where “when you run through golden halls, you get to keep the gold that falls”)

youtube

=============================================

3:26 pm:

Third amendment, from Google:

Constitution of United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992)

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

youtube

There are homeowners, and there are people who rent.

The lessor between them, is the renter.

Both, in that clip, are evil.

There is a house, and there is a guest house, trailer, lean-to, shak, small quarters, where the terror soldiers reside, tucked away behind a facade of zoning regulations, building codes, motor vehicle registration rules, and a variety of other ways we are made to feel safely secured with a wall of governmental agency inspectors and assessors who, we are told, do their jobs to enforce the rules and regulations. Canadian terror army soldiers occupy a dwelling somewhere, they live among everyone else in the neighborhoods and apartment complexes, trailer parks, and in homeless camps, rest homes, motels.

Third Amendment has been weaponized by the terror army, where the regulatory agencies are managed by elected public officials, who maintain the facade of perceived rules that were designed for the better of the common good, and safety of the people. The facade is difficult to see through, gets increasingly more opaque as time passes, elections take place, shill SAG leadership is elected, and ruled are broken in effort to advance the takeover of the nation. Every residence has turned into a place where third amendment is violated by the terror army, not US military.

As the citizens are killed, their recreational and other vehicles begin to pile up. There is surplus RV campers, motor-homes, travel trailers. They get parked illegally at residences that have been hijacked in the neighborhoods. Mobil and stationary terror soldiers always can find a place to stay in one of thousands of such RV’s that are distributed around the counties, while the elected officials look the other way when complaints are made about the trailer park that is growing in size next door, and people keep staying in them, invading not just privacy, but use those places to invade with physical attack. The attack is often done with menacing aggravation of a marked victim, a frame for crime when a set-up is done. Those elected officials participate by allowing zoning violations to continue, as the terror army occupies the distributed trailers and motor-homes.

On this account here, you can read about daily experiences I face resultant of a few travel trailers that are around the area, occupied by murderous terror soldiers, many of them are from out of town, show up, use the accommodations that were arranged for them by the shill SAG officials. There are permanent murderous terror soldiers at he Monroe’s next door to the north, and the neighbor house to the south is more like a revolving door of different terror cells that come to kill me, and take my property. The Monroe’s serve as a host distraction and work in association to mobile terror cells who are temporary at the neighboring houses.

There are many thousands of travel trailers in the yards around this rural area. Some residences have three, or four of them in the yards. All are places where terror soldiers can and do stay from time to time. All of those travel trailers and motor-homes belonged to a US Citizen that was killed. DMV makes whatever necessary vehicle registration or VIN changes as is necessary to maintain the facade where it all looks legit when onlookers come asking questions.

If you were to do a flyover, you would see that most of the rural residences have at least one modern and usable RV that can be occupied, and would see that often there are multiple RV’s just in the yards, growing in number regularly, in areas that are not zoned for a trailer park.

There are many safety oriented reasons why we have zoning rules. The elected SAG Shills don‘t care about any of that, they need to house terror soldiers, and they have all the support they need from uniformed fake police, many of whom are SAG actors who work to advance the takeover of USA.

The third amendment is not about US Soldiers being housed, it’s about mobile terror soldiers being housed, and it’s violated like a highschool girl at prom night football game, all fucked up and brought home in a shopping cart.

The Lesser of Two Evils is missgnomer, it guides you into a place where there are evils everywhere, only two are pointed out. That leads into the realm of “Pass the Buck” when regulatory agencies are involved. There is always another department to blame, to send people on a “wild goose chance” when they come looking for someone in charge on investigation, but the terror army has it all rigged such that there is no one in charge, just a endless loop of dead ends, each regulatory agency explains that there is a different office that handles the subject matter investigative people are interested in.

Try complaining about a dangerous boat ramp in Josephine County, I have found that is a quest that has no place to land, endless transfer to some other department on the phone call, and recommendations to call a different agency that handles boat ramp issues. “Is the dangerous condition above the water line, or below? We only deal with the boat ramp public restrooms at this office”.

Lesser of two evils means pass the buck.

There is no one in charge of anything around here, by design.

Honestly I don‘t recommend calling any county office anymore, they always insist on getting your name and address, and assassins are sent to your house.

One a few occasions years ago, I wanted to complain about small aircraft the were buzzing low and slow over my house all of the time. I called a lot of places, wound up at the FAA phone number, where the menu options took forever to navigate. I finally found an option that suited my call needs, it was a demand that includes you must leave a recorded message, say who you are, where you live, and the nature of the complaint, so that the pilot of the airplane that you also must identify, can contact you back, to talk about the complaint. All of that is explained on the FAA phone number menu system. If you don‘t want to do all of that, or, if you don’t want the pilot to call you back, you cannot make a complaint about the low flying aircraft.

I pushed a few more buttons on the FAA Menu, and a live person answered one of the options, when I explained what I needed to do, she just kept saying that she could help to fill out any kind of State and County Grant Money Form that I may need help with, but could not take a low flying aircraft report.

===================================

5:41 pm: Josephine County Courts terror cell County Tax Assessor Attack, update:

They sent me a letter. Just one paper in the envelope. It says that they are going to “reduce the assessed value”.

The explanation for the decrease in Value, is based on “no progress towards completion of the partially built house”.

The letter goes on to say that the County Tax Assessor will be in contact with the County Tax Collector, for unspecified reasons. That means we are not done with the Josephine County Courts terror cell County Tax Assessor Attack Scenario, I still need to deal with what will happen when the Josephine County Tax Collector comes knocking. There is sure to be a set of “Pass the Buck” and “The Left Hand Does Not Know What the Right Hand is Doing” arrangements yet to endure. The letter closes with an advisory that I can call if I have questions about why the Assessor chose to decrease the property value. There is very little mention of “Tax”, the whole thing is about “Value” now, decidedly not about “Tax”.

The letter is signed by “Connie Roach”, who has previously signed the other letter as “Constance Roach”. A Roach by any other name, is still a Roach” terror comm is in the letter.

The letter got here quick, it’s dated December 3, 2020. Mail usually takes six days to get here, that one only took two days.

It all smells very organic to me, stay tuned.

now I have to go look to make sure the bastards are referring to my property, at my tax lot, and not some other property somewhere else. The tax lot ID shown on the letter from Josephine County Tax Assessor Office does not look like the way I remember from that last time I needed to know my tax lot number.

==========

6:13 pm: More Tax Attack Update: It’s like I was thinking, the bastards did not include the complete tax lot number. They have it truncated, it does not say what particular actual individual property tax LOT they made the assessment information at. The way the terror bastards have done the paper work, that letter could be used to fool the nsa fools who insist on always being fooled all of the time. (I am going to go ahead and put the link to the Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell song just especially for the nsa fools). The letter could be used to say information about any of the addresses on Jackpine, they only give the map book page, not a specification for what tax lot from that map book is being referred to.

Terrorist Bastards.

“Vintage King Audio, where we’ve changed our name to Vintage Audio King”

Constance changed to Connie. It’s a big deal, looks small, is big.

=================

Here you go:

youtube

For nsa, it’s a sing-a-long:

Heaven and Hell

Black Sabbath

Sing me a song, you're a singer

Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil

The devil is never a maker

The less that you give, you're a taker

So it's on and on and on, it's heaven and hell

Oh well

The lover of life's not a sinner

The ending is just a beginner

The closer you get to the meaning

The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming

So it's on and on and on, oh it's on and on and on

It goes on and on and on, Heaven and Hell

I can tell

Fool, fool

Oh uh

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Well if it seems to be real, it's illusion

For every moment of truth, there's confusion in life

Love can be seen as the answer, but nobody bleeds for the dancer

And it's on and on, on and on and on and on and on and on and on

They say that life's a carousel

Spinning fast, you've got to ride it well

The world is full of kings and queens

Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams

It's heaven and hell, oh well

And they'll tell you black is really white

The moon is just the sun at night

And when you walk in golden halls

You get to keep the gold that falls

It's heaven and hell, oh no

Fool, fool

You've got to bleed for the dancer

Fool, fool

Look for the answer

Fool, fool, fool

Source:

LyricFind

Songwriters: Michael Butler / Ronnie Dio / Tony Iommi / William Ward

=================================================

Bonus Elected Official terror comm: 7:55 pm:

Biden's Tow Jamb terror speculation:

He wore a "boot" at first, news media said it was a boot, therefore, we are to assume it was a boot.

Then later, the boot was tossed in favor of a "slip on", news media said so, "slip-on".

The boot, is Biden saying "wait". He's a gangster, so, gangster boots are made of cement, are heavy, are weight, so, "wait".

The slip-on, is a "deck shoe". Joe is a pirate, and pirates wear deck shoes, so, it was "all hands on deck" by then.

now, we wait, for the other shoe to drop.

It's about SDA terror army heroin supply and distribution.

The rules:

There is a salesman, one who is so good at sales that he can sell snow shoes to a native American in Arizona, and, can sell Moccasins to an Eskimo in Alaska.

Both the native American and the Eskimo were wearing their new shoes one day, tripped while crossing the road, were run over on the same day. Their shoes went flying, stayed laying in the road long after they were killed.

There is a family who made a variation of the "slug-bug" game for traveling, when you see a Volkswagen, you can punch your brother in the arm, but, there are not enough slug-bugs anymore, so, shoes are the thing that allows a free slug in the arm. If you see a shoe laying on the side of the road, since they are so plentiful these days, the family adopted the slug-bug rules for a shoe in the road, they call the game "Shoe-Fix".

Those are the rules.

That family traveled from Alaska to Arizona, the Moccasin and the snow shoe both count towards "shoe-fix". Two hits were granted.

It’s Biden making SDA terror army heroin distribution arrangements while his people keep the nsa fooled all of the time. They needed to wait, then they got ready to ship, we don’t have other delivery information yet, but the news about the US Military, 700 troop reduction somewhere is likely to contain the rest of the heroin terror comm. Stay tuned.

There are some indications of use of Armored Transport, but that could be anything. Try Garda Armored Transport, they are popular in Canada and Josephine County Oregon for all kinds of valuables. The Garda Armored Cars are often seen on I-5 between Grants Pass and Medford, and frequent the Walgreen’s on Union Ave. and Williams Hwy.

Also, try transposing information about Fort Bragg Twitter news about US Military deaths, into Boeing 737 Two Airplanes. I don‘t have much confidence there, but is worth a mention. I don‘t have specifics, story still developing, smell like Joe Biden.

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8:10 Other terror comm:

The cam snaps in two at one of the inner cam journals. If you get lucky, you can still drive the car with no problem if the thing snaps directly beneath and inside of the overhead cam journal. Just put it back together carefully, and then don’t do anymore drag racing with your Hyundai. Works OK, could be worse, not the end of the world, when the car is no longer under warranty. Just keep driving it.

I suspect this link is the broken Hyundai Overhead Cam Journal:

https://psso.doxy.me/

Doxy Proxy Snuff Cam COVID Test Center terror there. Pain Specialists of Southern Oregon. You cannot see a doctor in Oregon anymore without a Smart Phone, those are the new COVID Rules... video appointment only, bring your own Smart Phone.

Too complicated and too personal for saying more here.

In room number 8 at the Pain Specialists (maybe Room 7, is a corner room) there is artwork on the wall, is three dimensional, in a frame, is abstract art, is copper, looks like a cam for internal combustion engine. Other art in that room is also communication in three dimensions.

The Pain Specialists practiced for “COVID Testing Easy Up Canopy” terror tactics once about in summer of 2019 ahead of time. They set up the canopy and had a lot of pre-arranged screenplay activity that was performed by the staff and fake patients who are terror cell members there. The activity included that you need a smart phone, the doctor only does video appointment for the COVID Testing Terror Events. However, they had about 25 different kinds of electronic computer tablet size devices, all were different models, no two were alike. It was as if they robbed an electronics store of all of the display models, because all of the loaner video devises were different. That happened, I was given a loaner when I said I did not have the required smart phone, and the video appointment happened, the billing does not specify that I did not get to see the doctor in person that day, more than one year ago, way before there was a Corona Virus problem.

Then, later, this past summer, that same scenario happened at a different appointment at the same place, I was given the very same loaner device as the year before. The one they gave me to use was a Samsung and was bigger than a smart phone. When you turn the Samsung device sideways, the thing shuts off, they warn you “don‘t turn it sideways, it will shut off and we have to re-start, and re-enter the appointment information for you.” The thing shut off three times while I was holding it, had to start over at the front desk. During that visit there was an assassin with a big knife attacked me in the lobby while dressed in nurse uniform. I defended and it was caught on the camera of the device, as I used the device for the defense.

The next COVID visits were different, they make you bring your own smart phone, if you don’t have one, they make you come back later, reschedule, as if I am supposed to go buy a smart phone just for the mandatory video fake terror doctor appointment murder festival. And they don’t let anyone go inside the lobby anymore, the COVID variety video appointment happens under the COVID Canopy in the parking lot now. There were two people I saw doing a video appointment from their cars in the parking lot with smart phones. That is what I was told to do, but I don‘t have or want a smart phone, so, the reschedule happened instead. They have a stand with the hand sanitizer there by the front door, and another stand with a sign that explains the dangers of COVID. The door is locked at the doctor office, you have to knock on the door, feels like you are supposed to know what the secret door knock is so they will let you in. They don‘t let you in anymore with the Easy-Up COVID Canopy attack.

I am remaining confident that one day soon there will be some national Security personnel who will stop the terror take over, so that is why this information is provided.

Please send help.

Bring your own hospital.

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