#in that they go downhill when the common route ends and i end up hating them

[foxstens]

been reading kin'iro loveriche

[ayshaelshamayleh]

What is Divine Will in The Arab Israeli Conflict & why is it essential to the current discourse?

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been ailing me extensively for the past few years. Not exactly for the reasons that are common amongst Muslim-born Arabs. But for reasons pertaining to contemplations about Divine Will. As a scholar of The Holy Bible -one who has studied the Quran, both having grown up in a cultural context rooted in it and having had to study it as a spiritual seeker in the process of finding a faith/creed - I am burdened by uncomfortable questions. As someone who believes in God, solidly, I am broken by my inability to understand God’s hand in this war that lives so close-by. 

Let me explain my point-of-view: I experience the bible as true word of God, on a personal basis. I live with it. I study it. I model it. I am Arab. I live in Jordan. Israel roots its claim to Palestine in a biblical promise made by God, and narrated in The Holy Bible. 

I find it important for there to be Arabs, accustomed with the bible, engaging (and in fact leading) the discourse about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arabs who are interested in the conflict must know more about the biblical context, no matter what they themselves believe, so that the conversation is more productive than it has been. If your opponent is claiming God is doing this, and it is difficult to understand how it is possible for an entire country to come into existence out of nothing, the question of “is this by God’s will or not?” must be important for every believer or spiritual seeker on both sides. This way you will speak clearer, and more convincingly, using a language all sides understand and relate with. You should not deny religious belief systems are at the core of this conflict, for everyone involved. You can’t care how uncomfortable that process is, it’s uncomfortable for all of us. And if politics, especially in a land heavily documented to be God’s, is a physical manifestation of the design of the energetic realm; it is important for all those who really look for or believe in God, to ask: “what’s up?”, and to consider that a priority question in their outlook, should they be true believers, true thinkers, true citizens. 

Let’s deal with what’s in the bible about this conflict. To summarize, in the bible the Jews are promised to be scattered amongst nations, and God’s subsequent redemption brings them back to a Promised Land. From Abraham to Joseph to Moses to Joshua to David, the journey that is the blue-print for the spiritual-Jew takes him/her from living somewhere, God approaching him/her and wanting a relationship, as part of a chosen people (chosen by random, not because they are better than the rest, but just to use them as a sign, a symbol, for His relationship with all of humanity at a certain point in history). So then, like the rest of us, they dance between committing to Him and wanting worldly desires and comfort, falling in the face of fear to truly trust Him, to follow His voice and wait in the silence, to move in obedience, to humble themselves as to have a sovereign God over them. They didn’t do that. As you and I don’t do that. As we all don’t do that.  

So then, God -having had good things to give them, good things to promise them, good ways to love them (the quintessential Perfect Lover) - in pain scatters them (‘because it’s over’). He scatters them into Egypt through Joseph, where they move and are eventually enslaved. To taking them out of Egypt, through Moses, wandering a scorched land of a desert for 40 years, so that everyone dies but their remnant (a minority out of them that loved God back in action), who are then given their ‘promised land’. And in the historical bible this does indeed correspond to areas in historical Palestine and its surroundings. David becomes the King of Jerusalem. Solomon builds his temple. Then the cycle goes downhill again, by the time of Daniel, famous for surviving a cage of lions, the jews are back to enslavement in Babylon. The downhill cycle continues.  

One important point to mention is that all throughout the Old Testament, the people of God are promised a Messiah, and to define “messiah” in lay terms: it is the someone or something through which we are saved, making life perfect and peaceful (it’s what every human dreams of and is alive in wait of - the perfect peaceful good life; the Messiah is the spiritual linguistic term that corresponds to the tool which brings about that life we dream of; the life-like heaven we pursue, the perfect state of us becoming perfectly ‘corrected’ and at peace with our existence). 

Now the New Testament tells the story of the Messiah, who is named Christ Jesus (consider it a random linguistic term for now that corresponds to this ‘tool’). Just to avoid confusions, because life is such that we are prone to mistaking a new car or a promotion or a new wife for a messiah -I just confirm that if you want to delve into the realm of precise language and the human-Divine story in order to discern whether the life you have is the one promised to you by God (or if you are living in a land way off-track), the ‘Messiah’s’ character is historically embodied by a man who happened to go by the name Jesus, at random (just the case, neutral). The things you like and fall in love with remind you of the character of ‘Jesus’. If we are to use his name just as a name of a character that is uttered by some people on the route through which we get to that life-like heaven, it’s just that. The gospel gives you a full and short enough narrative about that character (philosophically, artistically, literarily, poetically, historically, literally) to be able to use it as a reference for your life in that practical and simple, manual-style way - should you be one interested in answers that come through such a pallet.

So this fella, Jesus, a jew himself, a son of the lineage of David, a Christ of God comes to settle the debt between God and humanity once and for all. This guy comes to give us a tabula rasa, not just that, but a permanent stay in the life-like heaven. In fact, he says he’ll be inviting you and preparing us to live practically and truly as children of God. Like we feel that way, experientially. Now as you can imagine, you turn out to be indebted to the God that you avoided, silenced, maybe cheated on, but who still shows up (from Adam to your name). So this ‘tool’ of a Messiah is necessary. 

We fully understand the feelings of God on that front through the Book of Hosea (in the Old testament). The prophet of the times was called by God to get married to a cheating wife as a sign of the era and the feelings of God about humanity’s relationship with Him. The endless dancing, not settling, confusion, blurred lines, not making a decision about His presence and involvement, confusion, fear-of-commitment; mess. That wife, symbolizing the people of God, keeps running away into the hands of men (and man-made things), until she finds herself in a slave market. That slave market has modern iterations we are familiar with: selling our souls to jobs we hate, making money that is useless to spend on band aid solutions for the void and the endless pain of wanting life-like heaven but losing the way, insisting that is the only way it goes. That was Hosea’s wife; just like us. Wanting to skip investigating God’s design of life in favor of good times, and “busy-ness”.

Now if you’ve ever been cheated on, imagine that happening over and over for centuries with someone - the brokenness and ridiculousness and unfairness pile up, and Him showing up to create a life for you doesn’t mean the wounds went away or that His showing up is sustainable on an energetic level (think “accounting”). So (to be very simplistic in handling Christian philosophy) something needed to wash things over, resolve you, heal you, get a final fix so the two entities -you and God- could be ‘together’, compatible again, somehow -in friendship? In romance? Him, your Perfect Lover (each up to his capacity in His will). And that route that does that, mathematically and mythically and literally and linguistically, was randomly assigned the name Jesus. 

So what would it take God to reconcile us to Him, according to the bible (the new testament)? The answer is counterintuitive and very difficult to accept or agree to believing in. Before I lay it out, there’s this parable in the new testament that Jesus narrates that might help. There was once a man (alternate man with “God”), who owned a vineyard, and worked very hard at it, dug the winepress, built a tower, and lent it out to some farmers (alternate farmers with “us”) and went to a faraway country (alternate that with “life”). When harvest time came, the man (/God) sent his servants (/friends that walk around in your life constantly annoying you about God or things that remind you of such) to get his share of the fruit as agreed. The farmers (/us) responded by refusing the owner’s end of the bargain, so they beat the servants (/annoying friends) and killed them, so the farmers kept the whole harvest to themselves (/as they wished). The man (/God) sent more servants again. The farmers (/us) killed them again. So then the owner of the vineyard sent his son (alternate that with “Jesus”), thinking the farmers (/us) would respect someone as close and dear and connected to him as an actual son in this ordeal, and that we would give this son the rightful share. When the farmers saw the son, they said to themselves this is the heir, come let us kill him and keep his inheritance to ourselves. And so they did, just that. Killed him to get the land (/life) for themselves with no accountability before its owner. 

The proposition that is difficult to understand or agree to is that God, instead of finding a system that would make us pay for our unwise choices in our relationship with him, knew we couldn’t possibly manage to do that. So, be patient with me here and see it in mythical terms for a second; God paid the price of our wrongs by sending someone of Himself, allowing us to witness ourselves choose to kill him, and in response He showed us He resurrects, and everything not of His dies, to reach out to us for further correction again. The cycle of life keeps moving in that direction. God is here for good. At His own price. This is what makes “God” God, his capacity to love, counterintuitively. This personally moves me. 

The Christian philosophy essentially says God made a truce that is light and easy. If you are drawn to the character of this son, if you love this one who lived loving Him and his neighbor, showing the way, forgiving, sacrificing himself; you are saved and you enter your life-like heaven. The alchemy that happens within you, evolving you, as you pursue your belief in him changes your character into a state able to find and enjoy heaven. Now this life-like heaven isn’t easy. It entails embodying a life like that of God’s son. Loving God. Loving people. Telling the truth, even when it’s difficult. Having people mistrust your goodness. And instead of you choosing to retaliate, choosing to expose your wounds and your pain. Humbling yourself before God and man by asking your Maker for the strength to be good in truthful terms, for the sake of the people’s love for God and God’s perfect love for people. You will be persecuted because of that. You will be whipped. You will struggle. Yet within that life, God Himself works miracles in you and through you. You witness them. You feel Him, real, and strong. You know God. You see Him. Daily. He knows you. Personally. And there’s nothing else you need after that point, apart from enjoying your faith. And thus, heaven is on earth. In that counterintuitive and difficult way. 

Needless to say, what I’m describing above is not the ‘state’ of Israel. Let’s tie this back to the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the reasons the historical Jesus was not accepted by the historical jews is because they were expecting a political King for a messiah. A man who controls life. Who leads them to physical prosperity; monetary, “real”. Christ was too ethereal for the historical jew. Too intangible. Promising a kingdom of heaven, not earth. So those who are jews in today’s world are an expression of a spiritual state that hasn’t accepted that the ‘messiah’ (the tool to life-like heaven) can come. They find it hard to grasp that after Adam and Eve’s fall from heaven on earth in pursuit of the physicality of life and its desires, the story ends with God coming down to earth to be with us. But that “being with us” is inside of us -I hate to break that, I know it’s an overstated statement. It demands letting go of the world enough to experience Him, rely on Him, see Him, find Him within the eye of the soul. Peace comes out of that silliness, that wherever your geo-coordinates may be in the universe, you are in God, and you work hard at maintaining that (through discernment of what is and is not God) and you suffer in His name. Faith isn’t a hobby. Faith is a full-life ordeal. 

Let’s tie this back to the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict again. What is going on has to do with another important belief that is so rare. Jews, christians AND muslims all agree on one thing: The world will end with the second coming of Christ (in fact, to Jerusalem). I don’t need to tell you that in today’s post-COVID era and post-Deal-of-the-Century, etc. reality, many feel -as secular as we may be- that the world keeps feeling like it’s ending. Now since all three creeds (i.e. the majority in this region) piously and unanimously agree that earth is destined towards a direction leading to the “arrival” of Christ, then all who are “correct” by their own standards, should be living in pursuit of knowing Christ, regardless of your religion. Your religion stipulates that, should you be a true believer. 

Those who do not know Christ, if they believe in God or are asking questions about God, should learn about him. It is a part of your religion. Social taboos on that front should not concern you, because you claim to believe in God, not people. A life of faith demands a life of your own faith in action, in behavior, in practice - waking up in the morning and working on yourself to find more about your God everyday, about your ‘religion’ everyday. Asking the uncomfortable questions. Anything else is not belief, or creed, it is a facade and a lie. It collapses. If you are unsure there is a God, the most important goal in your life is to go find out whether there is. Don’t wait till a deathbed. 

In my twenties I watched my father die over six years. His real and actual deathbed was fatally propped in our living room. And I watched. I watched him reckon with death. I watched his life be accounted for, both in the human realm and in the other one. I watched him apologize for wrongs he had done people. I watched him pray. I watched him pretend to have beings in the room other than my family. He was asked questions by them (very intelligent, logical and concise). He even gave answers he would turn to me and say were right or wrong or ones he was unsure of. He became so beautiful in his withering, the most loving essence of him palpably fragrant. I saw Christ. He was devotedly Muslim. Not in how he applied laws. But how he practiced, so humbly elegant, real faith is something so dense and real, but unseen, unacknowledged, unaccounted for. That humanity is the only one I wish to see. 

Life takes time. People have different paces and different paths. Intrinsic in the choices they make about how they live life and what they name things (e.g. ‘Israel’), they express what they worship, you express what you believe is the right modem for life. You can’t control your neighbor. You can just worry about your stuff - another overstated statement, I know. 

Here is a political state calling itself “Israel” that believes in doing good for itself and for its people, in hate and at the expense of what’s outside of itself. Is that wrong? They themselves say “no, not when it’s for our best and we are a chosen people”. In my contemplations about Divine Justice, I ache to understand how it is fair that God gives others a choice in how they treat things around them. How is God “God”, if He leaves it all to people? There seems to be no power behind it. Just suffering, and bleeding, and dying on a cross. That’s no God at all - I would imagine the spiritual jew and most Arabs would agree. Not impressive enough to warrant belief. Too passive, many people I’ve crossed paths with have said this. 

As a person of faith, I struggle with those questions as well. I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. I experience God as so perfect as to give people choice, even in how they treat Him, and in how they treat others. He is magnanimous as to warrant freedom of speech and behavior. But don’t take that lightly, because you will win. So it’s on you in the smallest of moments. Life and how the people around you experience it depends on you and your choices. There is divine judgement but you are allowed to do whatever you wish, it has consequences, but that’s not the reason you do good. You do good because you believe in the intrinsic value of creating a good world (should you live in a life-like heaven, then that’s imperative for you). Doing good to avoid punishment points to a young state of faith, baby believer, there is much space for development. We work towards becoming adults in God. 

I fail to understand what sort of life to lead to contribute to the resolution of problems that claim people’s lives around me. I feel the situation, it hurts me deeply. Life and God get confusing to the point of total implosion. To be real, since finding faith, the condition of my life is often signaled by whatever is happening in Jerusalem. If you want to know how I am, look up ‘Jerusalem’. Not because Jerusalem causes my pain at all, but my pain coincides with it, like truth. It’s like we’re in the same box of existence. Not by choice, I don’t even share any genetic roots to the place. I’m a random person of God. That state hasn’t been good. 

I feel that an important response (in addition to the other responses out there) to what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah would be to compile resources again and get the people to live in a neighborhood that loves them. Man should not need to negotiate his value amongst the people who live close-by him. In all cases, and despite complexities, man must live amongst the people who are concerned about him, willing to carry him all the way through. I pray that that comes through, and if in any way I am helpful, I’m interested in collaborating.

I’ll end with this good thought by pastor and author Tim Keller:

“Anger is love in motion to deal with a threat toward that which you really love (to disintegrate the threat) – to see what your heart loves the most, you need only ask what you are defending.”

Worth the think. 

[theyearoftheking]

Book Sixty-Two: Full Dark, No Stars

“Come 2030, only the rats will be happy.” 

Constant Readers know I consider Steve’s novellas to be the strongest of his works. It’s his sweet spot, and Full Dark, No Stars is absolutely no exception. These dark, twisty stories knocked me on my ass. Truly. They even inspired me to do something I never do... turn to the interwebs to get insight. I knew these four stories had something in common... they were bound by some theme I couldn’t quite put my finger on. 

Well, according to Wikipedia, that theme is retribution. If you had asked me, I would have guessed rats. Because every damn story seems to include some cringeworthy scene involving rats. I just can’t handle them. Despite my beloved Sarah Silverman recently saying on her podcast that rats are just an uglier version of squirrels. Maybe I’m too much of a midwestern girl- give me the damn squirrels any day. 

But back to retribution! This is the darkest, dirtiest collection of stories about retribution I’ve ever come across. Trigger warnings abound: rape, violent murder, and rats. 

Here’s the requisite list of Easter eggs before I get into the stories:

“Chap in the belly”- which was a phrase we read countless times during Susannah’s pregnancy in The Dark Tower

“Happy Crappy”

Derry: with additional nods to The Barrens and Bill Denbrough’s mom 

Juniper Hill

“Long Days and Pleasant Nights”

“Fall of the Towers” 

Heminford Home, Nebraska: I can’t take any credit for this one, Wikipedia helped me with this Easter egg. But- this is Mother Abagail’s (The Stand) hometown; and it’s also where Ben Hanscom (It) moves when he’s all grown up. 

The first story is 1922; and heavily influenced by Edgar Allen Poe. With a side of rats. The story is written in the form of a letter from Wilfred James, confessing to the murder of his wife, Arlette James. They had some disagreements about whether or not to sell their farm, and he solved the issue by killing her and throwing her body in a well. Their son, Henry was an accomplice to the murder, and the letter details Henry’s subsequent downhill slide after witnessing his mother’s murder. The most graphic part of the entire story is a rat ripping the udder off one of the cows. I just cringed. So much cringing. But it’s got atmosphere for days. 

The second story is Big Driver; and I think it’s the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read by Steve. Tess, the author of the Willow Grove Knitting Society series accepts a last-minute speaking invitation from Ramona Norville at the Chicopee Public Library. As she’s leaving the event, Ramona gives Tess a short cut to keep her off the highway. Tess ends up with a flat tire, and the good Samaritan who ends up stopping to help her change her flat, violently rapes her, and leaves her for dead. Trigger warning: it’s a graphic story. Tess doesn’t want to bother calling the police; so she takes justice into her own hands. After some internet research, she finds out Ramona is actually the mother of the man who raped her, and she may or may not have intentionally sent Tess on the alternate route. Tess refuses to be a victim, and takes care of business. It’s bloody, but she gets hers in the end. 

Third up is Fair Extension; which is the most honest of all the stories. It’s human nature to hate when good things happen to people we don’t deem worthy. But what if you had the opportunity to reverse another person’s luck? Would you do it? Would you pay for it? How would you feel sitting back and watching one bad thing after another happen to this individual? Would that honestly make you feel better about your life? 

Finally, we have A Good Marriage. This is the story that every single true crime documentary and Dateline special is based on... how well do we really know the people in our lives? Do you think you could be married to a murderer? Where are they hiding the evidence? Steve actually based this story off the Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer. That’s Bind, Torture, Kill for all you non-murderinos out there. I mean... just look at this dude... does he scream serial killer; or bored, suburban dad?

 This was my personal favorite in the collection, but they’re all delightfully dark in their own way.

We even had a Wisconsin mention! Steve based 1922 on a book called Wisconsin Death Trip, which included photos from Black River Falls. Steve was impressed with the isolation in both the geography and the individuals. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Black River Falls: it has a large rest stop which I have visited and enjoyed many a lunch on my way back from northern Wisconsin. I have enjoyed the views of the falls (yes! actual falls!) and the large moose at the truck stop. FYI: the book is out of print, but you can get copies on Amazon for about $31. I know what’s going on my Christmas list this year!!

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 41

Total Dark Tower References: 59

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Wizard and Glass: A+

Under the Dome: A+

Needful Things: A+

On Writing: A+

The Green Mile: A+

Hearts in Atlantis: A+

Full Dark, No Stars: A+

Rose Madder: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

Four Past Midnight: A+

Stephen King Goes to the Movies: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Bag of Bones: A-

Duma Key: A-

Black House: A-

The Wastelands: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

The Dark Tower: A-

Dolores Claiborne: A-

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: B+

Wolves of the Calla: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Song of Susannah: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

From a Buick 8: B

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: B

The Colorado Kid: B-

Storm of the Century: B-

Everything’s Eventual: B-

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Cell: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Desperation: C-

Insomnia: C-

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Faithful: D

Gerald’s Game: D

Roadwork: D

Lisey’s Story: D

Christine: D

Dreamcatcher: D

The Regulators: D

The Tommyknockers: D

Next is 11/22/63; which I have read and loved. I also really enjoyed the series on Hulu as well, and James Franco does an excellent job as Jake Epping. And he’s easy to look at. So there’s that. 

Until next time, Long Days & Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim... volume 17!

The penultimate volume. Let’s sacrifice a few more timelines to the great tapestry of fate that we’re weaving. Or more likely, Doc Scratch is weaving.

This time, “Of Teen and Tech, Acerbic”.

One more jade, and one more indigo. I think at this point we have a pretty even spread across the non-Sea Troll blood colours.

Daraya

I thought there was a TV show of this name, but apparently it’s ‘Daria’. This troll and that Daria seem to have a similar attitude, judging by the image. As for ‘Daraya’, it refers to a handful of places, notably Darayya in Syria, which was apparently the site of a massacre seven years ago during the civil war. Oof.

Daraya is the final troll written by Cee. L. Kyle, creator of prior memorable trolls Bronya, Zebruh, Remele and Lynera. I guess Cee likes writing jades.

Anyway, Daraya’s route begins as a few have in recent episodes - the protag feeling lethargic and listless, too tired to make friends.

We end up in a cerulean neighbourhood. There are some pointed lines...

When this game wants to, it really skewers its targets.

Anyway, the music kicks in as we realise Elwurd (the huge lesbian) texted us to invite us to a party. A bunch of other trolls seem to be showing up as well...

The track this time is called “trollkind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. to obtain something, something of equal value must be lost. that is alchemys first law of equivalent exchange. in those days, we really believed that to be the worlds one and only truth”. No prizes for guessing who decided to name a song after an extended quote from Fullmetal Alchemist.

There’s some more emphasis on how artificial our friendship feelings are...

Anyway, as we approach the party, we spot Daraya, busy looking very goffick.

She’s not thrilled to see us. Of course we’d be friends with Elwurd, she says grumpily.

Now in Befriend Mode, we do our best to mimic her whole ‘disaffected slouch’. Apparently being vaguely cynical and depressed is pleasing to Daraya. She seems to like Elwurd though...

Lesbians, I swear...

I swear...

Anyway, we learn that Daraya has snuck out of the caverns - though she’s not as restricted as little Wanshi. She whines about Bronya’s ‘cloister rules’. But hey, she met Elwurd through Bronya...

We blather about how the caves aren’t so bad, and namedrop some other jades we know. Daraya is not impressed.

Anyway, she’s not invited. So our first choice is to tell her to go home or invite her in.

Let’s let her in, because the other way doesn’t seem to go anywhere interesting.

Bronya isn’t the only troll we know at this party. Chahut apparently hasn’t yet shipped out off planet, and she shows up too.

Chahut makes some remarks about how fascinating she finds jadebloods... or ‘greenies’ as she puts it. She makes a murder joke about whether Daraya is really jade or not.

Yes, that’s exactly how I’d put it. Definitely.

After that brief brush with death, Daraya gets other ideas.

Mmhmm. As we head off, Daraya suggests we have a reputation for being ‘unconventional, weird and rebellious’. That’s certainly one way to describe ‘being a clueless alien pathologically addicted to making friends’.

Ahahaha nicely done.

Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of edgy rebellious ideas tonight.

I’m in favour of being a hoodlum.

Lots of new backgrounds in this episode. Somewhat different style too...

Apparently these are by Phil Gibson.

We ask Daraya how she’s doing. Her answer: not well.

Daraya says some dangerously radical stuff about how everything sucks for everyone but the highbloods... and maybe them too. We get a callback to the joke from last time...

Ha.

The narrator refuses to comment on that. That’s a good call, I think.

Daraya continues to complain. As a jadeblood, she’s not going to have to go into space, but life in the caverns tending to matters of social reproduction. We commiserate, which she appreciates.

We raise an eyebrow at the mention of Lynera. Danara assures us that she hates her - and not in a romantic way! (“or well...”)

At that point, we run into Tyzias. Just the person to take Daraya’s alienation and dissatisfaction and forge it into a revolutionary will, right?

Luckily, protag has the same idea. Which is no doubt why Tyzias was written into the plot at this point.

The well known “goth to anarchist” pipeline, right?

There’s a brief allusion to the weird shift that happened with Fozzer - a vague memory of a different Fozzer. “But why did you remember that guy?” indeed.

Tyzias tries to give a Daraya a little pep talk against hopelessness... Daraya is not particularly persuaded.

God I know that utterly depressing feel. What can one troll do, indeed?

Tyzias answers it the challenge.

She’s not wrong.

Daraya is not exactly being won over, but the protag does manage to get her to chill a bit and keep the conversation going. Tyzias has more real shit to say.

Daraya challenges her - is it just about making herself feel better, if there’s no realistic hope of real change? Tyzias says... in some way, it is. And the protag chimes in - that doesn’t make it less effective, at whatever little it is achieving.

At the end of this, I’m gonna try and make a list like... troll I would most want to be friends with in real life, and least, favourite route and so on. Spoilers: Tyzias would be the friend I’d want to make.

Tyzias points out like... what the hell else are they gonna do? Daraya finally admits she’s got a point.

And... having secured a friendship between not just us and Daraya, but us and Tyzias... we reach the end of the arc.

Let’s go fuck shit up. By which we mean, read law books. I guess!

That was nice. I fully support this lesbian goth and her budding revolutionary consciousness.

God I’m predictable.

Unfortunately, finding the friendship route here means it’s all downhill from here.

If we tell her to go home instead of bringing her to the party...

strut pod encasements!

That was predictably short.

OK, now for the non-phoned in side branch.

She does have an idea, it turns out. We hop into our (now quite low on fuel) car, and head off to a ruined city somewhere near the thriving one we’re living in.

Ooh. I wonder what we’ll find?

We make our way to an abandoned mall to go urbexing. Fuck, I love reading about urbex. Too much of a shut-in to have ever actually tried it.

We end up in a food court with the roof caved in. It’s apparently cool as hell. Alas, it’s not illustrated.

I’m not sure which rebellion this would be associated with. That of the Signless, or some other?

Ah, that narrows it down. The Signless rebellion, then. In which case... Alternian malls are really built to last!

We comment on the strangeness of the absence of adults, but this upsets Daraya.

Apparently, as an adult, she’ll be cloistered off on her own somewhere, and forbidden to contribute genes to the slurry. Huh.

To be honest, it’s a wonder that most other trolls are so cheery. Daraya’s attitude seems like the sensible one on this planet.

Daraya says some real shit about the existential dread she’s living with, the paralysing hopelessness of having no future to speak of.

Hey Daraya, do you fancy this copy of Baedan I happen to have on hand?

make total destroy etc. etc.

Anyway, at this point... Daraya somehow manages to set the mall on fire by throwing a mall at a cooker.

And... the narrator has no choice but to leave, as Daraya lets herself burn in the centre of the mall, one of the few places she cared about.

God, this episode was a bit real lol.

It’s not wrong though. Leftist theory certainly hasn’t cured my depression (lol), but it has given me some perspective to put it in a context where it can be managed, I guess. Something to work towards, no matter how futile it may be, in this fucking hell world that created me.

In the words of 2B... “Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death. Is this a curse? Some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if I will ever get the chance to kill him.”

Let’s look to the struggle within the cycle. What else is there?

Nihkee

So now for...

Nihkee. She stronk. Keep your pants on, lesbians.

Nihkee is the creation of David Turbull, who previously made Tegiri (weeb) and Tirona (baby lawyer). Her theme, appropriately bombastic, is another James Roach piece with a long name: “lmao i still dont know if it’s nicky or nike (like the shoe, not like... the name mike)”. Make of that what you will.

This episode opens in media res - at a sporting arena. How did we get here?

We seem to be watching some kind of cage fight. Knowing trolls, I imagine it will be a lethal one.

Apparently we’re attending to Amisia. She bemoans the ‘boorishness’ of the purplebloods.

This seems to be the troll equivalent of pro-wrestling, rather than, say, MMA. However, injuries are a lot more common. We learn that Amisia won us tickets in a raffle, and invited us to this ‘Display of Muscular Theatre’.

We are watching The Huntress (olive) fight Cullpitz (purple). The narration mentions that Cullpitz is bizarrely un-clowny.

The fights are, naturally, rigged by hemospectrum. The narration notes that The Huntress seems to be deliberately holding back to avoid inciting the crowd. Amisia, however, is excited for the next competitor: Nihkee Moolah of course, who - Amisia claims - has never lost a fight.

Cullpitz wins the fight, and causes The Huntress a likely permanent injury. The protag feels sick enough to have to step away. But as we leave, we get drawn into a conversation with a violetblood (seadweller). He promises money (nah), fame (no thank you) and at last, friendship. And the deal is sealed.

Unfortunately, Nihkee’s opponent is dead. Which means... he wants us to take their place. Having an alien will make big money for the ring.

Let me guess: the choice is gonna be to refuse this terrible plan or go with it.

Maybe, but not yet...

We meet Nihkee, in the middle of working out. Some of these trolls are dressed more for MMA than pro-wrestling but who knows.

There’s a meta joke in the narration.

She is not best pleased with the showrunner for interrupting her prep. Though, I get the impression it’s all in the spirit of showtrollship.

Sure are some muscles. I’m not entirely sure what the [()] typing quirk is menat to represent exactly. Probably not a yonic symbol?

It’s worth noting at this point that all of my knowledge of professional wrestling comes from reading the TVTropes pages a couple of times. If you’re curious, it’s an impressively comprehensive discussion of wrestling terminology and the various dynamics involved in its production.

Kayfabe is the way wrestlers pretend in their media appearances that pro-wrestling competitions are not mostly scripted athletic performances with exaggerated personas, but genuine fights between real people who actually act like their stage characters. Now all the fans fully understand that wrestling is fake (but still fun), it’s not taken as seriously, but apparently it was a huge deal back in the 70s. Give the article a read, it’s fascinating.

Nihkee is not particularly impressed by the suggestion of performing with us.

We protest. At length.

We get the first choice: are we ready for a BUTT CLENCHING, FLESH ABRADING, KNUCKLE BLISTERING, MUSCLE RIPPLING, SMACKDOWN FROM UPTOWN?

Of course we fucking are.

She gives us guidelines for the show. Basically: follow her storyline. “The alien invader challenges me in an exhibition match to TOPPLE the MIGHTIARCHY.” We struggle, but eventually...

...PREVAILS AGAIN!

(I guess to convey suitable drama, a lot of Nihkee’s dialogue is split between multiple dialogue boxes, which makes it a little hard to take screenshots.)

We ask if we’ll die. She assures us no - unless we’re especially weak. But even then...

Well, that’s a great reason to die. Sign me up.

Secondly, an “exhibition match” means we will not be challenging each other for positions on the “flexeladder” - otherwise we’d have to wrestle nude, like at the “Intergalactic Trollympics”. I’d count that as a blessing.

We bring up the question of face and heel. You can read about these on tvtropes, but the narrator does a pretty good job of explaining.

In troll society, of course, the traits we’d ascribe to a ‘heel’ are valorised. So we’re just going to get crushed under her heel. Indeed.

Time for the match. The showrunner does the announcement for Nihkee.

In a clear allusion to good old Equius, Nihkee’s entrance is accompanied by a shower of thrown glasses of milk from the fans.

And opposing her whole deal is...

“Some messed up lowblood alien”. Huh, usually when I go into an arena fight in games I’m the “mysterious stranger”. Who could have seen this coming?

Ah, that’s what fate was working towards this whole time! Thanks, Doc Scratch, for your dedication to the cause of wrestling.

So, naturally, we’re playing the foreigner. Here to prove our superiority to trollkind. TVTropes naturally has an article on this: the Foreign Wrestling Heel. We’re going by the book here.

We put up a good bit of bravado. But are we prepared to face, Nihkee demands, her...

OK, you got me. I’m laughing out loud again.

The protagonist puts up a pretty good show, it seems like - barely dodging Nihkee’s attacks in a suitably dramatic fashion. We bleed, but the narration suggests that under the stage lights, the trolls will take it as ordinary ‘rust’ blood and not ‘mutant’ red. We hope.

Nihkee invites us to attack with appropriate pomp. But we...

...don’t do that, not directly. We springboard off the edge of the cage in “a classic clothesline manoeuvre”... and get knocked the fuck out.

But we haven’t reached our second decision point yet, so that can’t be the end of us. Hopefully we gave the trolls what they wanted.

Do we even have a fourth wall anymore?

Anyway, this turns out to be Nihkee’s hive. She is not impressed at our ring performance - getting knocked out by our own attack. Well, that’s fair.

Training montage incoming?

Hell yes. (She calls everyone sister, including the announcer guy, in case you’re wondering if that’s an implicit gendering of the protag.)

She’s brought us to her BRAWNISEUM. As we can see in the illustration... it’s pretty much made for Space Marines to train at.

After her speech about our indomitable will and potential, she invites us to ASCEND with her.

Hell yeah. Let’s [S] ASCEND together!

Of course we fucking take it.

We start with the acid treadmill. (The acid doesn’t seem to be depicted.) She turns it up... a bit fast.

We manage to run at 12 miles per hour - which is about bronze level good. Apparently all the machines rate us by blood colour. While the low end of the hemospectrum gets the badass psychic powers, the high end gets the physical strength, it seems. There’s more jokes about how great our legs are - they merit a cerulean!

All the while, Nihkee ‘encourages’ us in a way that’s gendered in the opposite way that things usually are on Earth.

After half an hour of that, she gives us a protein shake... except it’s not a protein shake but ‘gatorade mixed with milk’. Amazing.

Then we get tested for ‘pressure resistance’ in a soft iron maiden. Apparently that’s olive level.

The overall verdict?

Hooray.

We do more of this - including getting chased by a literal toothy monster. By the time we finally collapse...

She’s impressed by our commitment - our “strength of heart and soul”. And our great appreciation for the MOST RIGHTEOUS OF PURSUITS... earns us the recognition of “workout friend”.

And that rounds out the arc. Presumably after some more of this, the narrator will be due for a return to the ring.

Go us!

Easy arc to find the right answers in, evidently. Now to see what happens if we hesitate.

First of all, before the match...

We can’t watch as she pulls out lowblood challengers from the audience and smashes their faces into the spikes. Oh, trolls. We get treated to an image of this, too.

Mmm, indeed.

Now, if we hesitate later before the workout session...

She dismisses us - unworthy of her gifts, unwilling to reach our full potential.

She tells us to get out of her sight. The narration steps in to make another meta joke (that’s like three this arc?)

We get a fake out fade to black and the first note of the end card music... but then!

...GET RIIII(...)IIIPPPPPED! In our own way.

D --> Hmm, 100k at this e%tremely subtle reference.

Anyway, that someone turns out to be... Stelsa! And Tyzias, who happens to be present. There’s a brief discussion of a fast food service called ‘door smash’, and Stelsa’s love of scheduling. They’re cute together.

But let’s get down to business... to defeat...

...our own flimsiness.

Stelsa’s into it.

Then we hang with her and Tyzias for a bit. We suggest Tyzias might consider energy drinks.

This arc then extends over... a long time!

Multiple weeks! And the training seems to be going well...

It’s almost as if ‘drill sergeant’ isn’t the ideal demeanour for a coach after all.

But as we go to show off our progress to Nihkee, the question of this being a non-canon branch leads us to hesitate.

So we decide to ‘blitz our chakras’ to try and work this out. We put on some ocean noises (which leads to a change in the soundtrack! soft music starts playing, seguing into the menu music) and... start imagining some metaphors.

In our reverie, we slip beneath the surface of the river.

Things get kind of meta. I’m just gonna take a bunch of screenshots because this seems... important.

The images of failed branches, all these catastrophes, blur together on top of each other.

We are implored to ‘find our river’. And we find the two branches of the current route... one sounding much more inviting than the other.

Then things get REALLY meta.

And then we get the rest of the arc in some kind of summary form, all in this... letterboxed? That’s not the right word, but whatever... all in this view. Nihkee is not pleased to see us. We come up with the idea of sneaking in.

It does not seem to end well.

She chases us on one leg and we escape by getting her run over by a train. But she becomes a cyborg coming to chase us down, terminator-like. Yeah, seriously.

NIHKEEBORG spends a year hunting us across the wilderness. And eventually... she catches us. We die.

And coming out of the meditation, we decide... not to do that. We just go to Stelsa’s house instead, and let Nihkee be.

Oof.

God, you never know what you’re going to stumble onto in this game. That was amazing.

Next time: FINAL CHAPTER.

[pineapplekeith]

House Cat - Pt. 10

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairing: Klance

Universe: Modern Earth/Fantasy

Rating: T (language/sensitive material)

Word Count: 3K+

Part: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ]

Summary:  Werecats are hard to find outside of lab facilities now-a-days and Lance has had a suspicion that a small stray that comes by his house now and then is one when he noticed a new face around town around the same time. / Modern AU setting with werecats for fun and seriousness now and then. Klance heavy with Garrison Trio and maybe some more ships making an appearance later on.

A/N: So far, this has been well liked on AO3 and FF so I decided to post the full parts on here. Links to AO3 and FF are on my story blog @kal-i-ka-stories 

-----

Me: Hey Mamá. I won’t be home for dinner tonight. Matt came home so I’m going to Pidge’s to study and to catch up. I’ll probably be back late or spend the night. I promise not to wake you and pops if I come back late.

Mamá: That’s good that Matt made it back home safe! Tell him I said hi and that he should come visit the twins before going back. Be safe if you come back home tonight. Love you honey!

Me: Will do! Love you too!

-----

Lance then put his phone away in his back pocket and turned away from his usual route home and headed in a different direction.

..::::..::::..::::..::::..

“Kid wake up!”

The sound of Val’s banging on the door made Keith jump awake. He looked around for a bit, not sure what was going on. Val banged on the door again, bringing Keith fully into reality.

“Are you alive in there? I need help opening.”

“Uh, yeah I’m up. Sorry, I’ll be down in a minute.” Keith responded as he pushed himself out of bed.

���You better or I’m keeping your tips.” Val yelled out as he started to walk back down to the shop.

Keith stared at the back door that led to the shop until he heard the door at the end of the stares close. He then let out a heavy sigh of relief and rubbed at his face so he could wake up some more. “What the hell is wrong with me?” Keith asked himself as he thought about his recent habits over the past few days. Like clockwork, Keith would usually would wake up as the sun rose and fall asleep once he hit his bed. But lately he would find himself lying in bed awake all night, and then sleep in every morning till Val or his alarm to leave woke him up. Keith ran his fingers through his hair as he let out another frustrated sigh. His frustration quickly turned to concern once he felt something on the sides of his head that should not be there.

“No. No. No. No. No.” Keith mumbled as he hurried over to the small bathroom in his apartment. He looked in the mirror and his gut instantly dropped. Poking out through his hair, there were a pair of black cat ears on each side of his head in place of his human ears. Hesitantly looking behind, Keith then saw a long cat’s tail poking out from his pants’ waistband and it made him drop his head in defeat. “This can’t be happening.”

Being in hybrid-form after maturity was rare for most werecats, but common for half-breeds. Researchers discovered that this was a biological warning signal within half-breeds that would go off before something were to happen to them internally. Illness, stress, or anything else big or small would cause for a half-bred werecat’s ears and tail to appear whether they wanted to or not.

Keith looked at himself in the mirror for a moment before taking in a deep breath to calm his frustration and focus on correcting the situation. Go away. Go away. Go away. Keith chanted to himself in his mind as he tried to focus on making his feline features disappear. This was something that Keith wasn’t sure on if it would work or not. Focusing on which form he wanted was easy to do when he wanted to be fully human or fully cat, but when a half-breed finds themselves in their mixed form, waiting for things to resolve themselves was always the solution that they were told would work. But Keith didn’t live in the lab anymore and waiting wasn’t going to work.

After his mind settled and he was sure that he was focused on what he wanted, Keith peeked into the mirror to see if he was back to how he should be. Black cat ears were still poking out through his hair. He groaned out of frustrated as he grabbed at his ears, tempted to rib them off his head himself. “I hate these things!”

“Kid get down here! I’m not taking the chairs down myself!” Val yelled up the shop stairwell, growing more annoyed with how late Keith was with coming down.

“Coming!” Keith yelled back, trying to figure out what he could do to hide his secret from everyone. He quickly changed out of his sweatpants and shirt and into clean clothes, making sure to make his tail trail down one of his pants’ legs. He then dug through his dresser, trying to find something he could use to cover his ears. He could just wear his usual jacket with the hood up, but Val would instantly tell him to pull it off once he saw it. Keith slammed one of the drawers closed after reaching the bottom of it and instantly opened the next one underneath. He didn’t own much clothing, just the basics necessities and a few things he randomly picked up while traveling from the lab or was given to from Val when he first moved in. Pushed back in the corner of the drawer, Keith finally found a grey colored beanie that could hopefully help him. He snatched it up and hurried back into the bathroom. The beanie was luckily from one of Val’s sons so it was stretched out and worn and hopefully he won’t have an issue with Keith wearing it while working.

Keith put the cap on and tried his best to tuck away his ears in a way that wouldn’t give him a headache or make it hard for him hear everything around him. He winced a bit as he pushed each of his ears back and pulled the beanie over them. Once he finished situating everything, he took a final look at himself in the mirror before deciding that it was all he had and he would have to hope that it worked.

He grabbed his jacket and hurried down to the shop, still trying to will his ears and tail away in the back of his mind as he headed down. He walked into the shop and saw that Val was already done prepping the bar area and was heating up the grill. He used the opportunity to sneak by and start to take the chairs off the tables and set up everything else in the shop.

“What’s with the hat kid?” Val asked, not skipping a beat with what he was doing.

Keith mentally cursed at himself, annoyed that it was brought up so soon. “I, uh, didn’t wash my hair last night.” He answered, hoping it was believable.

Val stayed quiet for bit, making Keith wait for a response. “Ok. Just don’t tell the customers and stay away from the grill today.”

“Yes sir.” Like you ever let anyone go near your grill. Keith thought to himself as he rolled his eyes and continued to focus on his work.

..::::..::::..::::..

“Hey kid, once you finish with that, go take out the trash.” Val ordered as he continued to sit and catch up with his regular customers before officially closing the shop.

Keith’s day seemed to continue go downhill since his frustrations that morning. Once the usual customers started to come in that morning, it was nonstop teasing from them about the beanie he had to wear. Val then got irritated with his phone constantly buzzing throughout the day and warned Keith that if he wouldn’t turn it off, he wasn’t going to be paid for the day. Now he was stuck doing all the dirty work in the store and closing by himself as punishment for being late.

He carried the dirty dishes that he collected from behind the bar and dropped them off by the wash station, pausing for a moment for a slight break from closing. The store has never been as busy as some of the other diners in the area and because of that Val never really cared for the trash to be taken out every night. But the next morning was trash pick-up, so taking out all the trash in the back was added to Keith’s already long list of closing chores. Deciding that the last bit of dishes could wait and his other closing task were already done, Keith went to go empty the trash cans in the back and clear the bags that have been sitting in the back waiting to be taken to the alley by the dumpster.

The smell of the trash usually wouldn’t bother him, but today was different. Throughout his whole shift, Keith’s senses were working in overdrive. His head was pounding from the mixture of sounds being louder than they were and his ears being pushed back. His stomach would turn whenever he took in a big breath of coffee, grease from the grill, or even when he got close to the fishermen that came in to the shop. The trash was no better, making him want to puke right into the bin when he walked up to it because of the over powerful smells from the bags that sat and waited to be taken out. Keith took in a deep breath before moving closer to the open trash bags so that he wouldn’t have to inhale the different smells as he tied up the bags. He quickly tied up all the trash bags in the bins, making it a bit easier for him to breathe when taking them out and adding them with the other bags piled up by the back door.

Keith looked at the different bags of trash by the door, thinking about if he should really take out the trash in his state or wait and take them out in the morning before it’s picked up. He reached up and touched the side of his head, feeling his feline ears under the beanie along with feeling his tail brush against his skin under one of his pants legs. Finishing his chore right then seemed to be the better option to do instead of waiting and hoping he turns back to normal in the morning. He pulled his shirt over his nose and grabbed some of the bags and headed outside.

His shirt was no help at all. Once Keith was out in the alley near the dumpster, he almost threw up in his shirt from all the smells hitting him. Not only was the smell of damp and moldy trash nauseating, the salt air and the smell fish coming from the docks was too much to handle. Keith dropped the trash bags halfway to the dumpster and backed away so he could gather himself.

“I really hate today,” Keith mumbled to himself as he tried to steady himself. Once he felt he was ready, Keith stood straight up, took a deep breath, covered his nose with his shirt again, and then went to finish what he started. His motions seemed to be done all at once as he threw the trash away. Right when he thought he was in the clear and finally able go inside and get the rest of the bags, Keith’s shirt slipped down right as the dumpster lid closed. Nausea instantly hit him and everything in his stomach ended up on the wall of the alley.

Keith’s throat burned and stung each time he coughed. His headache was turning into an intolerable migraine and it made him want to rip the beanie off his head and yell all his frustrations out to the world.

“Keith?” Someone called out from the end of the alley. Keith looked down the alley and his stomach turned again at the sight of one of the reasons for his horrible day. “Dude are you ok?” Lance asked as he started to walk in the alley to check on his friend.

Keith jumped back in defense mode when Lance got closer to him. He covered his nose with his shirt again and pinched it tighter than he did when taking out the trash. “What the hell?! You stink!” He snapped, reaching his limit with the day and feeling sick again.

Lance froze about five feet away, feeling a bit insulted. “Excuse me,” he asked as his irritation started to boil.

“You stink! When was the last time you showered?!”

“An hour ago, after gym class. Who the hell says something like to a friend that’s trying to check on another friend?! I just saw you puke and got worried but somehow you’re still a jerk even when you’re sick!”

“Showered an hour ago my ass! You smell worse than the trash!” Keith argued back, still focused on Lance’s overpowering smell.

That made Lance snap. He takes his personal hygiene very seriously. He even taught his sisters how to properly wash their faces and put together spa days with them. “I’ll have you know I leave gym class smelling nicer than anyone else in there! Not only do I bring my own body wash, I also make sure to put on deodorant and body spray before leaving! You need to have your senses checked because if you think I smell bad, something is seriously wrong with you!”

“Something is wrong with me idiot!” Keith yelled back without thinking.

..::::...::::..::::..

“Woah! That is a problem.” Lance said as he stared in awe at Keith’s ears.

“Yeah. They’ve been causing me trouble all day.” Keith admitted as he scratched at the slight pain that was still behind one of his ears.

The two were alone in the closed restaurant. The sun was starting to go down and was casting a glare on the windows from the outside, blocking people’s view of the inside. Val had left for the night to go on a short fishing trip with some of his regular customers, leaving Keith in charge of the building till he opened back up the day after he came back. Lance was sitting at the bar while Keith was finishing up the last of his closing chores.

“Well, the beanie did look pretty out of character for you. But not as much as that mask.” Lance said, making sure to point out the dust mask that Keith was wearing over his face now. “Seriously, I finished taking the trash out for you, so is that really necessary?”

“Yes, because you stink!” Keith answered quickly. After throwing up a second time from the smell of the garbage, Keith searched all over the back room for something to use to reduce the smell. Luckily, he found a dust mask that Val had left in the back from when he did renovations to the shop while Lance handled the rest of the trash for him. Keith kept it on while he finished his cleaning in the back, but realized that he still needed to keep it on around Lance.

Lance smelled his jacket, thinking that maybe Keith was smelling the scent of the dumpster on his clothes, but all he could smell was his body spray he put on after gym class. He even ran his fingers through his hair, thinking that maybe his hair smelled sweaty, but that wasn’t it either. “I don’t know what it is you’re smelling on me, but since you said that your senses are heightened maybe they’re just so strong they’re making you think that good smells are bad smells.”

Keith chose not to respond to Lance’s suggestion. He knew he was smelling a bad smell, or at least a smell he wasn’t used to. His senses would heighten whenever he was cat, but with his hybrid form, they’re much stronger and make it harder for him to pinpoint the sources exactly.

“So, does this kind of thing happen a lot?” Lance asked, the question practically killing him.

“No. This is only the second time this has happened to me.” Keith admitted as he put the mugs away under the coffee station. “It was years ago and I had a bad fever then.”

“Well, you were throwing up a lot so maybe you’re sick again?”

“I threw up because of the trash. The smell was so bad, I could taste it.” Keith complained, internally shivering as he remembered the experience.

“Then what do you think is wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, a bit irritated from not knowing what to do. “All I can do is wait it out and see what’s wrong.” Keith put away the final mug and decided that talking about the elephant – or cat – in the room was annoying. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I said I was coming over! Did you not read my text?!” Lance asked a bit offended. “Why would you respond if you didn’t read them?”

“Because you wouldn’t stop messaging me and the old man threatened to take today’s pay away.”

“His name’s Val.” Lance reminded him, something that was becoming normal between them the more they interacted. “Oh yeah, that reminds me! Do you know what an emoji is? Or at least an emoticon?”

“A what?”

“The weird symbols and squares I kept sending you. What kind of phone do you have anyway?” Lance asked as he leaned over and looked behind the bar for Keith’s phone, knowing that he usually kept it behind there when he was working.

“I don’t know. One that one of the old man’s kids had. Hs wife reactivated it and gave it to me when she found out I didn’t have a phone.” Keith explained as he went to carry the dish bin to the back.

“Val and Ellie!” Lance yelled as Keith walked through the back door. “And this really does look like one that their kids’ might have owned.” He said to himself after he found and picked up Keith’s phone which was an older version of the first few smart phones. “I don’t even think they make stuff for this model anymore.”

“What?” Keith asked as he peeked through the small window above the grill.

“I said your phone’s old!” Lance yelled as he turned the phone back on, a bit surprised that there was no passcode to get in but then remembered that passcodes were before the model’s time. His text messages that he sent to Keith started to pop up after a few moments. Lance then went into Keith’s text messaging app and saw that he only had three conversations saved – one that was mostly from Val saying when he planned to open the shop or not, another mostly from Keith to Rufus of when he planned to stop by his bar to eat. The last one was of Lance’s conversations with Keith, his number still not saved. When comparing the conversation with the others, it looked more casual with all of Lance’s broken messages and Keith’s few responses back. Lance quickly saved his number in the phone as Keith walked out of the back room, giving himself a nickname like he did with his contacts in his phone. “Anyway, emojis and emoticons are what those weird symbols and squares are. They’re like little faces to show the context of a person’s message. Some of them aren’t showing up on your phone because it’s a dinosaur.”

“It works, that’s all I need it to do.” Keith answered as he grabbed his beanie and the store keys Val left behind the counter.

“You don’t even have games on here.” Lance mentioned as he continued to snoop through the phone. “Or photos.”

“It’s a phone. I just need it to make calls and send messages.” Keith said as he went to the front of the store to pull the blinds down over the windows.

“Yeah but you have to live a little sometimes. What if you’re stuck on a bus or something and you’re bored?”

“I’ll probably take a nap.” Keith answered, not really getting Lance’s point.

“Spoken like a true cat.” Lance said as he finished his less that fun exploration through Keith’s phone. Lance opened Keith’s camera app and was a bit disheartened when he saw the poor quality of it. He turned around in his seat and pointed the camera at Keith. “Smile,” he said to get Keith’s attention as he walked back from the front, snapping a picture right when he looked up.

“What did you just do?”

“Took a picture of you,” Lance said as he saved the photo and sent it to himself.

“What the hell?! Why would you do that when I’m like this?”

Lance shrugged his shoulders. “Because I’m a teenager and that’s what we do. Besides I wouldn’t worry about other people seeing it. Your camera is really low quality so I’m sure if someone were to see it, they would think the ears were fake.”

“I don’t care! Don’t ever do that again!” Keith snatched his phone out of Lance’s hand and instantly deleted the photo.

“Ok, sorry dude.” Lance apologized as he held his hands up in defense.

Kieth let out a tired sigh and rubbed at his forehead. “Sorry, it really is no big deal. I’m just really hungry, being in this form takes a lot out of me.”

“Then why didn’t you eat during your shift? Doesn’t Val usually cook you something?”

“He does but I told him he didn’t have to today because you said you were bringing actual food over.”

“So you did read my text!” Lance shouted, feeling triumphant that Keith really did read his messages.

“I skimmed them. Where’s the food?”

Lance went quiet, falling hard from his high horse. “Uh, probably being cooked or eaten right now.”

Keith glared at Lance, irritated that he missed his chance on free homemade food. He then woke up his phone and started a new message. When he finished, he put his phone away in his pocket and put his beanie back on, tucking his ears to the side so that they wouldn’t make noticeable bumps on his head.

“You ok there buddy?” Lance asked, feeling a bit nervous.

“We’re going to Rufus’s and you’re paying.”

“What? Why? You’re the one with the job!”

“But this is your fault.” Keith said as he walked to the door. “Now come on, I’m hungry.”

Still fuming, Lance grabbed his bookbag and willing followed Keith out of the shop. Keith locked up the shop and the two started to walk down the street and towards the town’s square. The two continued to bicker as they walked, catching the attention of a shopper walking out of the nearby convenience store. The stranger focused on Keith as the two teens walked down the street, something about him peeking his interest. He then smirked as he let out a small chuckle.

“I knew I smelled a stray in the area,” he said to himself before turning and walking in the opposite direction.

A/N: Want to keep reading? Jump over to my [ AO3 ] or [ FF ]page and continue the fun with 3 more chapters! And please remember to reblog!

[atopearth]

Midnight Cinderella Part 2 - Louis Howard Route

Ooh Louis hates commoners~~ sorry I’m a peasant lmao. How cute that he gave a bookmark with a pressed flower for the heroine to give to her pupil. He seems to have a sweet side…or not LOL. WHY’S HE SO MEAN?! Don’t know how the heroine can think he’s cute loll. When he apologised in her stead though and agreed to be her dance instructor so quickly omgg, dancing is such a close proximity activity hahaha, her heart will be pounding every day lol.

I guess like Alyn said, Louis is a weird but nice guy(?) loll, he seems quite passionate about dancing and he is also very considerate of the heroine’s physical condition (so she can dance properly I guess loll), but it was nice to give her a little tea break to recover herself. I feel so sorry for him that she stepped on him with her high heel omggg, it must have hurt…. Was Louis not a noble previously? He doesn’t like the noble life and doesn’t want the heroine to have to live with it either? Was his life difficult? Why is Sid mean? Lol, so many questions hahaha. He’ll definitely be prince consort though hahaha. 

It was sweet that he carried her back to her bed when she fell asleep and danced with her at the banquet. He’s much softer of a person than he looks on the outside. Zzzz, I really like Sid’s looks but he’s such a frustrating and discriminating man to deal with, why do I always like the crappy ones?!? Well, Louis seems like he’ll be a great guy but it’s only the beginning of the route so it could go downhill… I’m actually sad that Alyn is so disapproving of the heroine because she acts like a commoner by helping out the maid etc. Especially since he was so sweet in his route!! Sigh… But omg, can’t believe she practically straight out asked him how he would feel if she chose him to be prince consort 😱 btw omg, Alyn pat her head to cheer her up! So cute but so disrespectful to the princess lmao. Well, I guess she’s not an official princess yet lol. Louis is so distraught a lot of the time that it feels like you want to protect him loll. Omg, what a way to have to find out about Louis’ past. Sid is so detestable. You know, considering the amount of times the heroine sneaks out, you’d think there’d be guards to stop her by now lmao.

The idea of being able to run away from nobility through someone else. It’s kinda saddening that Louis was forced into this world of nobility and is unable to leave it. I guess it would be a relief for him if someone like the heroine could escape from such a fate. I’m actually really liking Louis btw…😍 He seems to be really enamoured by the princess as well because of her radiance and strength in doing her best to go against the tide of nobility. I like how forward and passive aggressive the heroine is in trying to talk to Louis, she even arranged to go to his manor! But Louis is a tough one, it’ll be hard to get him to let down his guard… It’s kinda crazy what nobility gets away with but it’s true that destroying an orphanage for a villa would be something they can do within their powers considering the incapacity for others to care for them since they’re busy caring for themselves. I love how honest Louis is. He apologised for acting coldly to the heroine and asked for forgiveness. I’m so impressed with him! Hugs are the best btw 😍 kidnapping?! Didn’t last long though because our hero Louis saved the heroine but got hurt in exchange, they were very fast to act on considering her sudden proclamation to stop the shutting down of orphanages. These nobles are pretty efficient and crazy lol. I’m glad that Louis kissed the heroine though, he’s losing to her straightforward personality that wants to be someone who can share his burden rather than be protected (although she always ends up being protected but you know, it’s the thought that counts lmao) I was so relieved for Louis when he said thank you to the heroine for saving the orphanage homes. Awww when he affectionately pats her head, I can just imagine how cute it is omggg.

I loved the confession scene!! They danced as themselves instead of teacher and student as they always are and then they (clichely) fell on the grass because she was day dreaming and then he confessed! Yay! It was so cute when he stayed by her side until she fell asleep too. I want that! Louis and Giles are really cool especially in how well Giles understands Louis’ personality, he is someone that will accomplish what he sets out to do. Him being a knight to protect the princess and everything important to her is definitely very true hahaha. And he gets hurt from protecting her again! I wonder if Louis could have dodged it if the heroine didn’t try to get in the way lol. But anyway, priorities woman!! If you know the traitor, go tell Giles! Inform people of the situation! Louis is already lying in bed, no point of you sitting there doing nothing! You’re a princess before a woman! Gahh! Sometimes I really doubt her ability to rule this kingdom.. there were some silly things along the way but I’m glad that Louis was able to face himself, the people at his duchy and his unhappy past with the support of the heroine.

I guess Sid supports Louis in his own way by acting as a friend and adversary (to an extent) by constantly making him face his weaknesses and problems. By doing that, he’d be able to handle strangers attacking these weak points better as well. I think my complaint for the Ever After is the same but opposite for Alyn’s as Louis being an orphan is such a stupid reason to make him not prince elect considering he’s been brought up as a duke where the princess is a true commoner lol. But I guess it’s all an excuse anyway so la di da~ but seriously when the royal ladies are like, oh he’s an orphan, it’s like, I’m surprised no one ever dug up that fact and told the whole world when he was first elected lol. 

I actually enjoy it more than I say though because I think Louis is very practical, resolute and firm with himself and his decisions. He doesn’t always make the best decisions but he most definitely rectifies them well to the best of his ability and you can see that in his route and the Ever After, he is a very responsible guy and I love that. It was nice to see that he realised that he needed to understand the nobles’ perspectives as well to get them to understand why the bridge was so important to them as it would be to the commoners. It was also nice to see that they had a kid! I can imagine how great of a father Louis would be hahaha. Needless to say, Louis is a great guy and definitely a great king~~

[virginieboesus]

7 Of The Worst Movies Based On Games

The video game and movie industries have had a very rocky relationship ever since they first got together. That much is pretty well documented already. I mean, there have been some good, or at least average, movies that were based upon games… The first Resident Evil movie comes to mind, as does the first Silent Hill movie. However, there have also been some outright terrible attempts to create video game related movies.

From films that utterly miss the point of the games to ones that would have been better off without the video game connection, we’ve had our fair share and more of bad tie-ins. Everyone knows that a video game tie-in to a movie is usually going to be terrible, but the same is true the other way around. That’s why, today, we’re going to look at 7 of the worst movies based upon video games that have ever been created!

7. Doom

The Doom game franchise was once the king of first-person shooters… Whilst the gaming side of the franchise may have reinstated this title in recent times with the release of DOOM (aka Doom 4) on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, it will never escape the legacy of the live action movie. Rather than dealing with the religious aspect of Doom, whereby the creatures are literally coming from Hell, the movie decided to go down a much more generic route. With scientists on Mars bringing to light an artificially created chromosome that subsequently infects the entire colony, people who lived and worked there are turned into a variety of different monsters.

However, to make this change in the base plot even more detached from the actual games, this infection will only turn you into a monster if you were already inherently evil. I mean, I would like to say that this feels like it could have been written by a child, but then, they would probably have come up with something better. Add to this the fact that the characters are wholly unrelatable and just unlikeable, and you have a recipe for disaster. The movie even features Karl Urban (a tremendous actor) and The Rock, but even that super-team couldn’t make this movie work.

Also, why does a movie based on a first-person shooter end with a battle of fists?

6. Double Dragon

Now, you’d think that taking a beat-em-up gaming and turning it into an action movie would be one of the easiest things you could possibly do, right? I mean, the entire formula is there for you already! Sure, the storyline of Double Dragon isn’t exactly Oscar-worthy, but then, you wouldn’t expect a particularly deep story from an action movie anyway. So you would need to really do a bad job to screw up a movie based on Double Dragon, right?

Well, that’s exactly what the director and crew of the Double Dragon movie decided to do! Taking place in the year 2007 after a huge earthquake totalled most of Los Angeles, leaving it a flooded shell of a city, the movie features some of the most un-gang-like gangs ever! On top of that, they somehow managed to make Robert Patrick (of Terminator 2 and X-Files fame, amongst other great roles) look even more pointless as an antagonist that Samuel L Jackson’s character in Kingsman – the big difference being that Kingsman did it on purpose and it worked well because of that.

Everything about this movie screams a misunderstanding of the game itself, or a blatant lack of care about it.

5. Resident Evil: Extinction (And All Subsequent Sequels)

Now, I’m in the minority of gaming fans who actually enjoy Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second movie in the live action series. Yes, Paul W S Anderson had made his wife (Milla Jovovich) the main character, pushing Jill Valentine to the background, despite the movie being (very loosely) based upon Resident Evil: Nemesis… But it was still an entertaining action movie (but not a horror movie in the slightest). For me, the entire movie series went downhill when we got to Resident Evil: Extinction (and onwards).

RE: Extinction featured Alice (Jovovich’s character) using telekinesis to move flames around the air and burn all of the zombie crows. It took one of the video game series’ most beloved characters, Claire Redfield, and stripped her of all likeable qualities (likely so that attention would be focused on Alice), and turned an already messed up Carlos into a shadow of his former self. From there, things just got worse, with the characters that we loved from the games being treated like afterthoughts! The first movie was an interesting take on the Resident Evil idea, but the reason it worked was that Alice wasn’t an over-powered Goddess and it didn’t feature any of the characters from the games to tarnish. The second was an average yet entertaining affair, whilst everything after that would do best being put in the nappy-bin where they belong.

4. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

The first Mortal Kombat movie was an entertaining romp featuring some reasonable fight scenes and a plot that actually managed to fit in with the game, mostly. But by the time the sequel came around, we were all in for a laughable excuse for a movie! To begin with, they recast a number of returning characters, killed off one of them right at the beginning, and had some of the worst CGI I have ever seen in a film. Even as a young lad, I knew how absolutely terrible the movie was!

The dialogue is also atrocious, making the original Resident Evil (with it’s “Jill sandwich line included) looking like Oscar-worthy gold! In fact, the only reason I would ever put this movie on again is to listen to the epic theme song. But then, I could just listen to it on Spotify and save myself the torture that is Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

3. BloodRayne

Looking back on the genre as a whole, Vampire movies haven’t had a very good time this century. From being absolutely tarnished by the likes of Twilight, to the fact that the Underworld series started off so well and then just went downhill with every movie after the third, the genre has had a lot of trouble. One movie that did nothing but make this even worse was BloodRayne. Now, the games that this movie was based on are actually really rather fun to play. Sadly, Uwe Boll got hold of the movie rights, and that spelt doom for the film straight away.

With everything from the wrong time period for the setting, action sequences that look like they would be more fitting on an episode of East Enders, and acting from top quality actors that feels like the “phone in” equivalent, it really is an awful movie. How did it go so wrong? Oh yeah… Uwe Boll.

2. Super Mario Bros

Well, here we are; the video game movie that started the crossover industry, and also the first one to let us all down. It is rather common knowledge that this movie is utterly terrible, but what you might not know is that the directors actually wanted to make a cyberpunk movie, which is why everything in Super Mario Bros looks so dystopian and futuristic. As fans of the games, this caused a lot of confusion and outright annoyance for viewers, due to the complete change in the way that the Mushroom Kingdom looked. On top of that, the goombas look horrific, bearing no resemblance to their video game counterparts.

Another interesting fact about the movie comes from the casting; Mario and Luigi are supposed to be brothers, right? So why are they from two different ethnicities? Everything about Super Mario Bros is confused, contrived and just downright badly made. This movie set the precedent for video games movies to come, and for that alone, it would feature high up on this list. However, add to that the fact that it is just a generally terrible movie, and it more than earns the number two spot!

1. House of the Dead

Zombie movies are everywhere these days. In fact, zombies, in general, have taken over the big screen, small screen and gaming industry like a digital apocalypse. Sadly, that means that you’ll naturally get some films that were best left to rot. It should come as no surprise that this particular “gem” of a movie was directed by Uwe Boll (again). It starts off as a generic teen horror movie with a bunch of people going to a rave on an island that then because infested with zombies. From there, we get one of the most confusingly directed movies ever. Scenes will switch between the teenagers screaming and running for their lives, to shots of them pulling of Trinity-esque slow motion kicks from The Matrix!

This, plus the complete lack of a connection to the game, makes you wonder how Uwe Boll ever manages to get the rights to anything anymore!

And That’s All Folks

Those are 7 of the worst movies ever made based on video games. There are, of course, a reverant tonne of others that could have made this list, so I may make a sequel to this post in the future.

What video game movie do you hate the most? Let me know in the comments below!

from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/7-of-the-worst-movies-based-on-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=7-of-the-worst-movies-based-on-games source https://smartstartblogging.tumblr.com/post/174335533990

[smartstartblogging]

7 Of The Worst Movies Based On Games

The video game and movie industries have had a very rocky relationship ever since they first got together. That much is pretty well documented already. I mean, there have been some good, or at least average, movies that were based upon games… The first Resident Evil movie comes to mind, as does the first Silent Hill movie. However, there have also been some outright terrible attempts to create video game related movies.

From films that utterly miss the point of the games to ones that would have been better off without the video game connection, we’ve had our fair share and more of bad tie-ins. Everyone knows that a video game tie-in to a movie is usually going to be terrible, but the same is true the other way around. That’s why, today, we’re going to look at 7 of the worst movies based upon video games that have ever been created!

7. Doom

The Doom game franchise was once the king of first-person shooters… Whilst the gaming side of the franchise may have reinstated this title in recent times with the release of DOOM (aka Doom 4) on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, it will never escape the legacy of the live action movie. Rather than dealing with the religious aspect of Doom, whereby the creatures are literally coming from Hell, the movie decided to go down a much more generic route. With scientists on Mars bringing to light an artificially created chromosome that subsequently infects the entire colony, people who lived and worked there are turned into a variety of different monsters.

However, to make this change in the base plot even more detached from the actual games, this infection will only turn you into a monster if you were already inherently evil. I mean, I would like to say that this feels like it could have been written by a child, but then, they would probably have come up with something better. Add to this the fact that the characters are wholly unrelatable and just unlikeable, and you have a recipe for disaster. The movie even features Karl Urban (a tremendous actor) and The Rock, but even that super-team couldn’t make this movie work.

Also, why does a movie based on a first-person shooter end with a battle of fists?

6. Double Dragon

Now, you’d think that taking a beat-em-up gaming and turning it into an action movie would be one of the easiest things you could possibly do, right? I mean, the entire formula is there for you already! Sure, the storyline of Double Dragon isn’t exactly Oscar-worthy, but then, you wouldn’t expect a particularly deep story from an action movie anyway. So you would need to really do a bad job to screw up a movie based on Double Dragon, right?

Well, that’s exactly what the director and crew of the Double Dragon movie decided to do! Taking place in the year 2007 after a huge earthquake totalled most of Los Angeles, leaving it a flooded shell of a city, the movie features some of the most un-gang-like gangs ever! On top of that, they somehow managed to make Robert Patrick (of Terminator 2 and X-Files fame, amongst other great roles) look even more pointless as an antagonist that Samuel L Jackson’s character in Kingsman – the big difference being that Kingsman did it on purpose and it worked well because of that.

Everything about this movie screams a misunderstanding of the game itself, or a blatant lack of care about it.

5. Resident Evil: Extinction (And All Subsequent Sequels)

Now, I’m in the minority of gaming fans who actually enjoy Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second movie in the live action series. Yes, Paul W S Anderson had made his wife (Milla Jovovich) the main character, pushing Jill Valentine to the background, despite the movie being (very loosely) based upon Resident Evil: Nemesis… But it was still an entertaining action movie (but not a horror movie in the slightest). For me, the entire movie series went downhill when we got to Resident Evil: Extinction (and onwards).

RE: Extinction featured Alice (Jovovich’s character) using telekinesis to move flames around the air and burn all of the zombie crows. It took one of the video game series’ most beloved characters, Claire Redfield, and stripped her of all likeable qualities (likely so that attention would be focused on Alice), and turned an already messed up Carlos into a shadow of his former self. From there, things just got worse, with the characters that we loved from the games being treated like afterthoughts! The first movie was an interesting take on the Resident Evil idea, but the reason it worked was that Alice wasn’t an over-powered Goddess and it didn’t feature any of the characters from the games to tarnish. The second was an average yet entertaining affair, whilst everything after that would do best being put in the nappy-bin where they belong.

4. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

The first Mortal Kombat movie was an entertaining romp featuring some reasonable fight scenes and a plot that actually managed to fit in with the game, mostly. But by the time the sequel came around, we were all in for a laughable excuse for a movie! To begin with, they recast a number of returning characters, killed off one of them right at the beginning, and had some of the worst CGI I have ever seen in a film. Even as a young lad, I knew how absolutely terrible the movie was!

The dialogue is also atrocious, making the original Resident Evil (with it’s “Jill sandwich line included) looking like Oscar-worthy gold! In fact, the only reason I would ever put this movie on again is to listen to the epic theme song. But then, I could just listen to it on Spotify and save myself the torture that is Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

3. BloodRayne

Looking back on the genre as a whole, Vampire movies haven’t had a very good time this century. From being absolutely tarnished by the likes of Twilight, to the fact that the Underworld series started off so well and then just went downhill with every movie after the third, the genre has had a lot of trouble. One movie that did nothing but make this even worse was BloodRayne. Now, the games that this movie was based on are actually really rather fun to play. Sadly, Uwe Boll got hold of the movie rights, and that spelt doom for the film straight away.

With everything from the wrong time period for the setting, action sequences that look like they would be more fitting on an episode of East Enders, and acting from top quality actors that feels like the “phone in” equivalent, it really is an awful movie. How did it go so wrong? Oh yeah… Uwe Boll.

2. Super Mario Bros

Well, here we are; the video game movie that started the crossover industry, and also the first one to let us all down. It is rather common knowledge that this movie is utterly terrible, but what you might not know is that the directors actually wanted to make a cyberpunk movie, which is why everything in Super Mario Bros looks so dystopian and futuristic. As fans of the games, this caused a lot of confusion and outright annoyance for viewers, due to the complete change in the way that the Mushroom Kingdom looked. On top of that, the goombas look horrific, bearing no resemblance to their video game counterparts.

Another interesting fact about the movie comes from the casting; Mario and Luigi are supposed to be brothers, right? So why are they from two different ethnicities? Everything about Super Mario Bros is confused, contrived and just downright badly made. This movie set the precedent for video games movies to come, and for that alone, it would feature high up on this list. However, add to that the fact that it is just a generally terrible movie, and it more than earns the number two spot!

1. House of the Dead

Zombie movies are everywhere these days. In fact, zombies, in general, have taken over the big screen, small screen and gaming industry like a digital apocalypse. Sadly, that means that you’ll naturally get some films that were best left to rot. It should come as no surprise that this particular “gem” of a movie was directed by Uwe Boll (again). It starts off as a generic teen horror movie with a bunch of people going to a rave on an island that then because infested with zombies. From there, we get one of the most confusingly directed movies ever. Scenes will switch between the teenagers screaming and running for their lives, to shots of them pulling of Trinity-esque slow motion kicks from The Matrix!

This, plus the complete lack of a connection to the game, makes you wonder how Uwe Boll ever manages to get the rights to anything anymore!

And That’s All Folks

Those are 7 of the worst movies ever made based on video games. There are, of course, a reverant tonne of others that could have made this list, so I may make a sequel to this post in the future.

What video game movie do you hate the most? Let me know in the comments below!

from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/7-of-the-worst-movies-based-on-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=7-of-the-worst-movies-based-on-games

[fmpollieenever-blog]

Final evolution.

Final evolution.

Concept and progression

 This project, being our biggest and most important, made me want to push my abilities and therefore try new things to make my shoot out of my comfort zone, something I rarely do if I can avoid it. To begin with I knew I wanted to shoot more of a portrait led project with chance to shoot in the studio as well as on location depending how I wanted the shoots to come out. My idea for the project came around after discussing with a friend how dreams (and nightmares) are so easily forgotten and yet when something triggers the same or similar dream again the feeling is almost identical. So, from there I wanted to try and recreate the common nightmares people have and don’t seem to talk about or remember to well until it is experienced again. With this idea being simple and easy to work with I begin thinking of how I could incorporate the idea of familiarity yet leave the shoots slightly abstract. I didn’t like how the thought of being obvious with my shoots, which left me feeling bored and uninspired, it seemed to avoid this I needed to look for inspiration and avoid the first thoughts I had in terms of planning a shoot. I feel the shoots I did fit well with this idea even though some of them I’m not as pleased as I’d hoped for. The final picture I have selected for the summer show was shot on one of my practice shoots and not even from an actual pre-planned shoot which I had hoped would be better. I think this was because I shot without a clear image in my head of how I wanted it to look and I let the shoot just flow without trying to control it too much or go to over the top. The image below represents anonymity in dreams and connotes the idea of evil with the red smoke.

This project started off with the idea to recreate the themes in dreams and nightmares with some contextual side to it as I went along. But as I started shooting and editing my work I felt it was all moving very quickly and with my bad time management, felt it was more important to edit and finish up shoots I had started than to start doing something else on top of what I had already done. I knew this would make me more stressed as I would have twice the amount of work to do, which wasn’t all practical based. This meant I didn’t really have the contextual written work or influences I’d have liked to get along the way. Also, this is a negative thing to come out of the project I also feel it meant I could follow what was more important to me, a more personal project than something I felt forced to do. Because of this, I do want to try more portrait, model based work in the future in this style as I found it fun to as well as to edit. The use of drastic colours and the smoke does create a very bold, eye catching image which I don’t tend to have when I shoot landscapes.

The main thing I’d change if I were to shoot this project again would be my time plan. I failed to make a detailed one and one I knew I’d stick to. Photography to me is something I love to pick up when feeling inspired and if forced I always feel my work reflects that. I would say at least half of my project was forced as I felt the time slipping away from me whilst only having a few shoots. This did make me force out more ideas and create a very detailed image in my head of how I wanted my shots to look like which helped in the long time from the editing side. If I were to shoot my final image again the main thing I would be paying attention to is composition, to me there is a little bit too much negative space to the left-hand side of the model and but cropping the image it either looks to narrow or badly shot. I think this is due to using the smoke grenades for the first time properly and trying to compose that correctly and getting the shots I wanted, I ended up forgetting the rest of the image.

    Research

When researching into horror styled photographers and projects people have done I found a large percent used violence or gore to create a darker, creepier atmosphere and this was something I didn’t want to do. I came across Joshua Hoffine whose work was a bit more of how I wanted my final images to look. He didn’t use the graphic gore in every shoot and this helps make the viewer create their own scenario within the shot. I found it easy to first think of how I wanted my shoot to look then decide how I wanted the model to look and where I wanted It to be based. This first, almost sketched idea made me ignore the composition and style based things when thinking of what I needed to include in the shot. Lighting wise I wanted to try some styles like Joshua Hoffine but felt once I had shot a few times in natural light that this was how I was going to do all of them. Looking back, I think I would try at least one shoot with studio lighting just so I could have experimented more.

Blog wise I feel I could have done more researched and evaluated how this effected my work and thought process as I felt most of my ideas came to me randomly through the day or at night whilst the research would have had an impact to this it wasn’t ever when I was sat writing on my blog. This meant I ended up missing out stages of progression and tried to recap back as I was blogging in the day or at college, usually this meant a while after the idea had come to me.

 Problem solving

The main problem I came into when doing this project was shooting in jpeg. Something I never do and have no idea why my camera kept going into that mode. The first time this happened I assumed it was due to being very cold and I must have turned the dial by accident and not realised. This was okay as I went out and reshot the next week. Unfortunately, didn’t like the outcome of that second shoot anyway as the first seemed to look a lot better. The next time I did this it seemed my camera kept going back to this setting by default unless I had accidently changed it again. To this day I don’t know but it’s not done it again, only when needed on these shoots. I reshot these two and changed were I felt needed without a huge problem. Luckily my favourite shoot which ended up being my final image was shot on raw. and had no technical problems during it.

The only other thing I feel I have had to overcome is the time management I had throughout this project. It being so much longer than previous ones, I made good progress to begin with and felt a slight downhill as it got started and had to pull myself out of that to carry on shooting and researching else I knew I’d get stuck with little work done and I’d have to do loads last minute. This fits with my planning stages at the beginning of the project, knowing I can’t keep to a time plan like that I started a basic layout that I knew if I swapped around and changed as I went It would work better for me. But as the project went on I started to move away from it as I felt it was stopping me from experimenting and taking my own route for my work.

Practical skills

From the beginning, I knew there was lots to learn for the style I wanted and that was how I wanted this project to go. A learning curve and a big push to try something new for me. It started off with basic editing of bold colour in photoshop and colouring in with layer and mask to create the tones I wanted. Removing things and replacing objects in photos became something I was doing a lot for my photos and that was a test of my skills and practice as if I don’t feel my work is as best as I can do, I end up hating it.  The worst thing I felt when editing my work like this was seeing unnatural lines where the brushes had effected the image a little too much in certain places and not being able to do anything about it as that was the extent of my photoshop skills.

After a few practices and shoots it felt more natural to me which helped when doing it in mass on shoots I wasn’t sure which image I looked the most. I was also new to Tumblr when starting this project to that took some time getting used to the flow of the website and how to customise your page to how I wanted it to look. Luckily it wasn’t hard and I didn’t come into any issues where I know other people have when using Tumblr.  The reason I started off doing something different in almost all senses is because I felt this big project shouldn’t only be something I want to do but it should also be something I grow as a photographer when doing creating a diverse portfolio at the end. As long as I was going to enjoy doing it from start to end I knew that’s what I wanted to do, didn’t matter what the actual concept was. Although I am happy with what I chose and ended with.

 Evaluation and reflection

I had evaluated once I had shot and edited my work in most cases, but looking back I know that I could have done more for it and expended myself a lot more. This is something I definitely regret when writing my blog. From the colours chosen and composition used could have been wrote about a lot more. It’s something I’ve always struggled with when writing as to me it’s not something I think about in black and white it’s just something I’ll do on the spot without thinking into it like I would write about it. All refection was done on my blog other than what was in my head but I did try to keep that down on there as it was always something to do with previous shot work. In some cases, I would go back and write little bits on my work as I felt at that point I had a vailed feeling towards this where I could write about it without just being negative.

I don’t think my overall evaluation skills were the best they could be and I also don’t feel this effected my blog to much as there was still a good amount where I felt I had the most emotion towards my work. Some shoots where done to fill the box and not to be how I wanted them to look

Presentation

From the beginning of this course I have been worried to do the final presentation as my bad social anxiety makes me feel extremally nauseous and faint at even the thought of having to stand at the front of the classroom to talk about my work. I found it very hard when preparing my work knowing it was going to be up at the front of the class but as I was making a PowerPoint I knew if I had memorised a few parts to it I could go off my memory but also use the images on the board as ways to change the way it was going if I went off on a tangent. When it got to the presentation I found it hard sitting waiting as I was the second to last and it meant I had to be there whilst everyone else was doing there as my nerves were building up. But whilst up there it was okay and I felt okay by the end of it, the build it is always worst in my experience and that sort of situation is my worst fear but after doing it I knew I didn’t have to do that again and could get on with my project without any issues.

I feel my blog goes along quite well and shows my progression from the beginning of this project to where I am now with my final image up in the summer show. But know if I were to evaluate further on each post it would go together a lot better. I have posted each stage of my work which I think has an almost step by step guide of how my work improved and changed ideas throughout which I like. The end result showing final images is a good way to end it in my opinion. I am also pleased with my final image even though I planned to have a series printed where it could almost tell the story its self, now it’s just a single cool looking image without much context. I know this isn’t always a bad thing but as I wanted my work to have a story behind it from the beginning this was a bit annoying at the end when I had edited the others and felt it would drag my work down as they weren’t as good in my opinion.  The message is still there in a sense but I know with the others as a set it would show the meaning a bit better. This isn’t a huge problem because this can be seen as a single image as well now without the others and the viewer can create their own story if wanted. By artist statement next to it at the show will also help with the concept to those who want to see it through my eyes.

I am presenting my summer show work on a 5mm Foamex board which in my opinion looks much better than if I were to hang my work in a frame. The boarder of a frame I feel would definitely take away from the actual image and almost make the image seem further away. I wanted my work to jump off the wall with the strong contrasting colours and bold lines, this on the Foamex floating off the wall I feel shows this off well and doesn’t take away from it at all. If I was to do this again I’d spend more time editing my work as only after printing did I realise the lines along my work which stand out quite a lot on the print but also don’t matter to much as these are cracks in the floor and almost look intentional. Just something that after so long doing, just bugs me.

Character development

This project has brought out a new sense of responsibility in myself I think, with having to organise my time, models and working schedule this has made me see the importance of being more responsible of myself. This also links with my drive for working well and efficiently towards this project and work at home. In terms of college I feel I met all deadlines well and in time without too much stress as I tried to deal with them either as soon as we got them or when I knew we still had time yet I could still complete other bits of work beforehand. I put a lot of effort into this project and spent a lot of time trying to get it exactly how I wanted it to end out. The presentation is exactly how I wanted it when I decided to use one single image. I had to push from the beginning when I shot a lot of my work in jpeg which at first really annoyed me and started to make me give up on giving as much effort as I was towards this work. Planning a shoot at the weekend when I could get other people involved and then getting home, starting to edit and realise it was in jpeg was very frustrating.

Meeting the proposal

My whole project and final images fit the proposal I wrote which to me is a good sign of keeping persistent with my work. This could be one reason I like my final images and they don’t fall to far from my original ideas. I enjoyed editing these and shooting as it was something I wanted to do from the beginning and not something I almost forced myself into from choosing a bad idea which didn’t leave me with too much room.  The best parts where actually having fun experimenting and shooting these instead of finding it calming like I normally do. Other than finding out they went wrong which was by far the worst part of this project. Spending all the time organising it and finding out it went wrong was irritating.

When talking to people about my work, college students, friends and family were all saying similar things about how their favourites were the bold coloured, strong contrasting images which is one reason I carried on editing and seeing what I could do with my final picture. I agree with this as a single image it creates a bigger shock factor which to some people is the only way to get their attention when it comes to photography. I loved creating this image so getting positive feedback was great.

Time

I feel there was more I could have done and understand this now looking back at my work but at the time whilst doing it I felt I was doing okay. This is the calculated average time I spent on my work.

-        Research - 40

-        Shooting - 25

-        Editing - 50

-        Blogging - 160

-        Planning - 28

-        Practising - 20

-        Total – 323 hours.

[yahoo-devil-ball-golf-blog]

Erin Hills was different, yes, but also great as US Open host

From the sounds of the bellyaching in pockets of social media, Brooks Koepka’s name should have an asterisk next to it on the U.S. Open trophy.

You see, Koepka, in their view, didn’t win a real Open. Koepka won something less than an Open — maybe a PGA Championship or something like that — because he tied Rory McIlroy’s 72-hole scoring record en-route at Erin Hills en route to his first major title. What’s worse, in their eyes, is that six other guys finished at 10 under par or better, more than triple the total number of players to finish at that mark in the prior 116 U.S. Opens.

This Open was too easy, they say.

I say this Open was great, and, too, was Erin Hills as host.

Of course, if you’re a traditionalist who wants the one-week-only pain and suffering of a U.S. Open, you hated this week. Too many birdies and eagles. Too many players under par. Medinah No. 3 in Illinois laid down in 1990 like Erin Hills did this time around, and it’s only hosted PGA Championships and Ryder Cups since. You’re probably wishing the same on Erin Hills.

Most of golf knew going into this week that this course could yield a lot of red numbers if the wind didn’t blow (it didn’t except for portions of Sunday) and it rained (which it did, in spades). The wide fairways aren’t hard to hit by design, influenced by the Augusta National design so lauded for playing as a second-shot golf course. However, the purists want second-shot, friendly courses reserved for two other majors. They want the U.S. Open to be an every-shot golf course, inducing claustrophobia with tiny fairways, unfair bounces and deep, penal rough to play into rock-hard, lightning-fast greens. The 2-foot-deep fescue was too far offline to play a starring role this week, and the weather left Erin Hills practically defenseless.

However, what happened at Erin Hills isn’t an isolated barrage of scoring. The U.S. Open has lacked bite in six of the last nine years, including four in a row.

Ricky Barnes got to 10 under at Bethpage Black in 2009, which looked as muddy as Woodstock did in ’69.

Rory McIlroy made a mockery of Congressional in 2011 thanks to a one-two punch of heat and rain on weak, renovated greens.

Martin Kaymer smoked Pinehurst No. 2 in the first two rounds in 2014, forcing the USGA to juice up weekend pins as the German coasted to a second major.

A lack of rain devastated first-time (and maybe only-time) host Chambers Bay to the point that some putting surfaces were missing grass — and 5-under total still won on the then-longest US Open course.

Oakmont caught deluges of rain last year and couldn’t show all of its teeth as we’ve come to expect.

So, tell me more about how Erin Hills was too easy. With modern, impeccably made technology and pro golf talent pools deeper than ever, it’s practically impossible to deter scoring with rain and without wind.

The counter from the purists is that the USGA has traditionally thwarted scoring and administered pain by tightening fairways to nearly microscopic widths, surrounding targets with juicy rough and ginning up green speeds. The USGA also does that by artificially setting par, typically at 70, by reducing common par 5s into monstrous par 4s and by adding length that no one would use but for an Open. Case in point? No. 15 at Erin Hills played on Saturday as a 278-yard par 4. Fun! Oakmont’s eighth hole was a nearly 300-yard par 3. Boo? One’s easy; one’s tough.

If there are any hurt feelings from how mean the U.S. Open field was to par this week, then try this mental trick: Imagine it as a par-70 instead of a par-72. Imagine No. 1 as a par 4 and No. 15 as a par 3. All of a sudden, the winning score is 8 under and just eight players beat par. Voila!

Erin Hills didn’t need beat-you-over-the-head features to make players think, though it lacked the features that viewers have traditionally come to anticipate as a Drudge siren for difficulty. Wide fairways meant choices, and choices, as Pete Dye often attests, are what really gets the best players into a bind. The ego is a funny thing. When we have no choice, the task becomes more focused and a little easier. Sure, hitting a 22-yard-wide fairway at your daddy’s Open is harder than hitting a 60-yard-wide fairway at Erin Hills. But a guy like Brooks Koepka, who hit a 379-yard 3-wood downhill and downwind on No. 18 on Sunday, still has an edge either way because he knows, just as short-knocker Jim Furyk does, that if they both miss the fairway off the tee, Koepka has an even bigger edge from the rough.

Even if you didn’t like Erin Hills, we can agree on one thing: Length clearly is not a deterrent. Brian Harman is a perfectly average driver of the ball on the PGA Tour, and he finished T-2. Bill Haas isn’t long, and he finished T-5. There’s actually scoring data from the PGA Tour to suggest that, at a certain length, making par 5s longer improves overall scoring regardless of a player’s average driving distance.

Brandel Chamblee said on Golf Channel he thinks the Open and other major courses need to go to 8,000-yard lengths to stymie players. First, there aren’t many of those. Second, what difference is 165 yards going to do compared to what Erin Hills offered? The problem with length is that it makes it harder to draw up true hazards that aren’t vast seas of sand or water features running the full length of holes. The more north-south space a golf hole has, the more difficult it is to reasonably frame it with obstacles.

If anything, Erin Hills proved that the only things that can be done to bring the field back to par are the classic USGA manipulations. If there’s a clamoring for that, we’ll see how they do in defending par in the coming years, as the U.S. Open moves through a run of classic venues: Shinnecock Hills, Pebble Beach and Winged Foot. By then, the whining about Erin Hills will end, but the onslaught against par will not.

  Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.