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jittyjames · 2 years ago

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OMGGGGGG OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY

before you reached this final plot, what were the first planned major/somewhat major plot points, and how did they change over time while writing?

(sorry, idk if this doesn’t make sense, i’ll try to explain again if you don’t understand lol)

um yeah basically anything about your planning stage (like, your notes, anything really!)

OOOO FUNNNNN OK I HAVE SO MANY ABANDONED PLOT IDEAS

-ok so in the original draft of mine to subdue there was never meant to be a sequel so it was going to be a thing where another person was captured by the redcoats in the same way alexander was and it was the revolutionary set's mission to rescue them and alexander dealt with his trauma in that way. then, the guy was going to turn up dead (with obvious signs of what happened to alexander having happened to him) and cause the really bad spiral that we see at the end of mine to subdue. this was going to deal a lot more heavily with survivor's guilt and having intense ptsd while on the move. like i had a scene i really liked where they were infiltrating a British camp and alexander starts freaking out and we had a fun silenced panic attack moments. but then i wanted to include characters from act 2 and means to go on was born and this was inevitably scrapped

-another mine to subdue abandoned plot was having the guy john killed's friend in the first few chapters be wayyyy more important than he was. so like i kind of wanted to hint at a romance between these two characters and have the friend really messed up over his death to the point he actually became a traitor. like he actually despised alexander and john so much that he began giving intel to the British about them. This ended with him being a part of a kidnapping plot to retake Alexander and Alexander promptly stabbing the friend to death in a really dark, panicky, gorey scene. This was going to be a moment where Alexander's downward mental spiral really became evident (the first draft had alexander being more unhinged than in the actual series. believe me, the current alexander is definitely more calm now)

-something i kind of touched on in mine to subdue was alexander's insecurity and jealousy over john and eliza being together and misunderstanding their intentions, but that was much more intense originally. Alexander was a lot more toxic (i mean hamboy was traumatized so he had a bit of an excuse but still). It ended with john and alexander getting in a huge fight, but i thought it made alexander seem really unlikeable and ooc so i cut it down for the most part. you can still see remnants of it throughout tho!!

-I WAS GOING TO HAVE THE REDCOATS BURN DOWN SCHUYLER MANSION OH MY GOD. it was such a dark scene y'all like redcoats broke in and it's only alexander and the sisters home. they immediately start accosting the girls and being very slimy and icky toward them. alexander needs to do something but he can't bc of his ptsd and he's frozen. THEN IT GETS WORSE BC THEY RECOGNIZE ALEXANDERRRRR. omg just thinking about this chapter still makes me feel gross bc omggg it was so bad. ok so then they say how they've heard of alexander's "services" and how they've always wanted to be pleasured like a king. they say they'll leave if he just gives them a taste of him (ew) and they command alexander down on his knees. AND THEN HE DOES IT BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY HE KNOWS TO DEFEND THEM AT THIS POINT. AND EVERYONE IS JUST BEING HELD BY THE GUARDS THERE FREAKING OUT. OMGGG I'M NOT GOING TO GET INTO MUCH MORE OF IT BC I DON'T WANT TO POST THAT HERE but after it's over they think they're safe when they first smell the smoke. and then it dissolves into chaos. it felt a bit too dark (that's a lot coming from me) and i honestly didn't know how alexander would carry on after that when he was already so traumatized so i cut it and poof it was no more.

-now means to go on is the fic that changed the most. originally this was supposed to be yearsssss into the future instead of the five i chose. i wanted philip to be the same age alexander was when it was happening but then i thought it was a bit too much time and despite how crazy my king george is, i don't think he would manage to hold on for that long. but it was basically supposed to follow the plot of the musical and have philip wanting to defend his father after the reynolds pamphlet is released. only instead of alexander being the one to give him the guns, it was john (there was a lot of call back to the first fic and john's duel) i had everyyyything written for this. i had a confrontation between philip and eacker, i had john and philip's conversation, i had philip's death scene and his funeral. i spent so much time on these chapters, BUT i had to let them go in exchange for our baby philip instead. also this was going to be at the end of means to go on, and instead of seeing him early on, alexander would meet back up with the king at the end of the book. it looked a lot different than it does now.

-jefferson and madison were not the great guys i changed them to be in this story. they were sooo villainous but almost in a comical way. like initially they were the ones who found the king's letters in washington's office and thought alexander actually did have a relationship with king george (because they're stupid and couldn't use context to save their lives) but i thought them being morally gray and still respectful to alexander after they found out and sort of forming a bond was more interesting than having them be bumbling idiots. but they were definitely meant to be the comedic relief originally

-i was going to have some scenes involving yellow fever and alexander being delirious and having really fucked up dreams and eliza trying to console him but it's like he's actually reliving it, but it never really fit anywhere. i might actually release this as a oneshot just set in this universe at some point.

I THINK THIS IS ALL OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD I KNOW THERE'S SO MUCH MORE SO I'LL COME BACK AND EDIT THIS AT SOME POINT AND ADD THEM MAYBE. BUT I LOVED THIS QUESTION. HONESTLY AFTER I FINISH MEANS TO GO ON I MIGHT JUST POST ALL THE OUTTAKES I HAD IN A FIC SPECIFICALLY FOR IT

#hamilton fanfiction #'the means to go on' asks

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1kook · 4 years ago

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commercial break; SEVEN

this is part of my netflix & chill series ! happens a few months before part 7

summary; And lastly, Jungkook will bring it full circle by indulging you two in some good old fashion spooky sex where he nuts inside you because the only thing scarier than a scary movie is a pregnancy scare. It’s a perfect plan. warnings; horny jk, jk wants to roleplay... everyone point n laugh, mentions of his impreg kink lol, making out, tits, honestly jk is just very horny n in love lol, jk in a vampire costume w fangs O_o rating; mature (18+) wc; 2k

notes; if u don’t know who lindsay is first of all ur sick, second of all here’s my queen’s top moments. also i just gotta say, this was originally gonna be a larger fic (a halloween special) for my ncouple, but i got a lil busy with school n ultimately didn't have time to invest in this as a whole installment so..... enjoy this commercial break instead!!

Jungkook loves Halloween.

He loves the pumpkin carving and the decorating. Loves the spooky music and the abundance of candy. He loves it, absolutely adores it, and for the second year in a row, he gets to spend it with you! Yet another person he loves very much.

He doesn’t remember ever being this excited for Halloween. Last year, you had roped him into going to some frat party with him, had egged him on, begged so cutely that it was your last year in college, baby until he caved. The two of you had spent the night drinking until you blacked out, Ubering home with your costumes half on, and then unceremoniously fucking in his living room with the blinds wide open.

(The next neighborhood meeting had been very awkward for Jungkook.)

It was his first time ever drinking with you like that, and he vaguely remembers, through his own drunken gaze, how cool you had been. Had absolutely owned a bunch of greasy football players at beer pong in your little sexy nurse costume. And when the crowd cheered your name, shrieked in awe, it had been him that you turned to for praise. “Did you see me, baby,” you had giggled, crowded him against the wall of this random house until Jungkook was sweating profusely. In lieu of a costume, he had worn a silly jogger set with a skeleton design that was supposed to glow in the dark, according to Amazon. You had told him he looked adorable, had kissed and squeezed his cheeks until Jungkook was a flustered mess.

It was still early into your relationship— if Jungkook did the math, you were only about five months in at that point —so he didn’t know how else to cope with the rapid thundering of his heart, the confession sitting on his tongue, the then scary L-word begging to be heard. So, he took you home and fucked you until your little nurse cap slid off your head and you were begging for him to let you cum, thus earning him his first ever offense for violating the neighborhood rules (i.e., traumatizing a group of middle schoolers by fucking in plain sight).

Long story short, Jungkook loves Halloween, and he loves it even more when he gets to spend it with you.

(He’ll never admit it, but he’s a hard romantic. He wants to do cheesy things with you, like cuddle you into his arms when you get scared, pat your head until you can look at whatever is happening on screen again. He wants you to feel safe in his arms, wants to be your refuge when things become too much. He likes to think he’s done a pretty good job so far.)

Jungkook’s plan goes like this:

First, welcome you with that Halloween basket you’ve been sending him tweet links about all month. The cute little Jack-O-lantern candy bucket stuffed with candy and hair ties and a soft Halloween themed blanket. It’s so cheesy, makes him blush when he catches sight of it in his closet, but Jungkook will do anything to please you.

Next, after presenting you with your Halloween gift and having you coo and tell him he’s a good boy, he’ll invite you to break your new soft blanket in. The living room will be prepared with an assortment of your favorite foods, the flat screen ready to play whatever horror movie the two of you settle on.

And lastly, Jungkook will bring it full circle by indulging you two in some good old fashion spooky sex where he nuts inside you because the only thing scarier than a scary movie is a pregnancy scare.

It’s a perfect plan.

It’s the best way to spend his favorite holiday, with his favorite girl by his side and some of his favorite horror films on the big screen. Jungkook spends all of October geeked up for it, even considers hanging up lights around the living room to really set the mood. He’s so excited, can’t wait to spend another wonderful holiday at home with you, that he doesn’t fully realize why you haven’t brought up the long awaited topic of costumes.

“You like?” you ask, standing at the door of his bathroom with a sultry look in your eye, tits practically pouring out of the tight top you’ve wiggled into, skin oiled up scandalously. He fumbles with the fake vampire fang prosthetics he’d been trying to glue in for the better half of an hour.

He had heard the door open downstairs when you got here, had called out his mandatory greeting as he heard you come up the stairs. But none of that had prepared him for the sight of you in… whatever this was.

Jungkook doesn’t really understand exactly what you’re supposed to be dressed up as until the two of you are back downstairs—blinds drawn, full moon slipping in through the cracks—with some random horror movie pulled up on the TV. “I’m Lindsey,” you whine, brand new fluffy blanket wrapped around your shoulders. It shields your boobs from view, but he’s not sure if that’s a win or a loss. “From Total Drama Island!”

He settles in beside you, doesn’t get too comfortable because it’s nearing sundown now and he knows the herds of children are bound to start flowing in. “Uh huh,” he says mindlessly. His collar feels itchy, the overly-detailed vampire costume he meticulously scoured the internet for being one size too small. You snuggle into his side anyway.

“You don’t know anything about cinematic masterpieces,” you frown, avidly tuned into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, because apparently you love horror movies all of a sudden, a fact that genuinely throws Jungkook off. He’s not sure what it is about you that had deluded him into thinking you would be a scaredy cat, but he doesn’t take the new bit of information too hard.

The doorbell rings right as the first gorey scene ends and you make a big show of huffing and whining as he rushes to answer it. But it’s only the beginning of the long night that awaits, and, as Jungkook comes to find, running back and forth from the door to the couch is harder than it seems.

Anyway, Jungkook’s neighborhood is a little posh, or ‘bougie’ as you like to claim, and trick-or-treating hours end a little before eleven pm. By then he’s tired, having refused your offer to switch places in fear that your boob might fall out of that scrap of fabric you call a top and earn him his second neighborly offense.

However, that doesn’t mean he’s opposed to your boobs falling out in private.

“Stupid,” you giggle when he gets caught in his long cape, the sound slowly melting into a whimper as he slips his hands beneath your top, fighting with the ridiculous push-up bra you’ve donned tonight. Hands tangle in his hair, mess up the careful side part he’d styled up for tonight, and legs lock around his waist. “Your curtains closed?” you tease.

He huffs, catches your chatty lips with his roughly, presses and presses until your mouth must bruise. He belatedly remembers about those sharp fangs he’d glued on—hey, if he was going to dress up as some gaudy monster it might as well be realistic—and doesn’t realize until he tries to bite your neck and you let out a little yelp. Truthfully, he feels bad right away, but then you’re practically dissolving in his arms so he plays along. “Shh,” he hisses.

The roar of a chainsaw and terrified screams fill the living room, almost drowning out the soft sounds you release by his ear. “O- Or what?” you pant, flinch when he pushes your sad excuse of a skirt up over your waist. “Gonna b- bite me?”

And so Jungkook does.

You shriek. “That hurts, you idiot!” you scold with a tiny whine in your voice, but Jungkook’s cock is so hard. Your tiny, tight outfit does you no favors. Tits in his face, tiny thong against his bulge. He wants to make you sob, litter bites and marks all over your skin until his love makes you ache. You must see the crazed look in his eyes, because you drop the scowl. “Hey,” you say slowly, hand on his chest. “You look like you’re gonna eat me.”

He lets go of a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He wonders if you can feel his thundering heart beneath your palm. “Fuck,” he sighs, leaning away to regain his senses. Was it something in the air? Was it the fatigue? The full moon? Why did he want to fold you in half and fuck his cock into you until you were a crying, shivering mess? Something about you tonight, laid out for him to take, makes him feel absolutely insane. Starved and psycho; he just wants to take and take until you don’t have anything more to give. He purses his lips, tries to ignore the hot feeling in his lower abdomen when your hardened nipples register to his eyes. “I think I’m becoming evil.”

Of all the idiotic things his brain can come up with, this one is definitely top five. His cheeks flush right after, fueled by the boisterous laughter that escapes your lips at his statement. “Oh my god,” you gasp in glee, hands falling down beside your head. “You’re becoming evil?’

Jungkook frowns, flopping down on top of you to hide the embarrassment that paints his face. “Shut up,” he mumbles against your neck, warm and safe.

A hand cards through the back of his hair, nails dig lightly into his scalp. “Aren’t you the cutest little vampire,” you coo, seemingly ignoring the rock hard cock Jungkook presses against your thigh. He’s still so horny, has this sick thought that he could just pin you down right here, tear that silly costume to shreds and swallow you up in his lust. But your voice is so sweet, has his eyes fluttering shut as you gather him in his arms. “Silly vampire,” you hum, one leg thrown around his hip, a subtle roll of you hips up into him.

Jungkook huffs, licks a flat strip along the base of your neck. It draws a shaky exhale from you, has your hands digging into his back when he begins to slowly lap against the skin, nibble and tug until your back is deliciously arching up into him. “Wanna push you down,” he confesses quietly, hands securing themselves against your hips as he leans back. You're all dazed, eyes trained on his fanged mouth when he hesitantly adds, “l- little human.”

You could laugh, tease him for his sudden weird need to role play with you, but you don’t. A look of understanding crosses your face, sly smirk slowly following. “Oh?” you grin, hand coming around to cup his cheek. “The little vampire wants to use my body?” Jungkook tightens his jaw at your jab, but nods nonetheless.

You’re a feast before his eyes. Boobs in his face, pussy begging to be filled. You’re his, just like Jungkook is yours. And when you indulge him and his stupid whims—kinks, he should say, occasional interests that sometimes make him question himself—his heart feels warm and full. Proud and unashamed, like the truest version of himself when you look at him with those eyes. And your words only confirm it.

Your hands reach down for your top, pull the flimsy material over your head in one swoop that has your bra coming off with it. It drops to the floor. If it makes a sound, Jungkook doesn’t hear it over the shrieks of terror on screen. the blood deaths, the suspenseful music. All he hears is he hammering of his heart.

It’s two of your sneaky fingers that come up to play, pinch one nipple tenderly as you meet his eyes. “It’s all yours,” you purr. “I’m all yours.”

And the thirst he feels, well. It’s a little vampiric, to say the least.

—

#bangtanhq #networkbangtan #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook smut #jjk♡#jungkook fic #jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader smut #jeon jeongguk smut #jeongguk smut #mine

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jade-it-queen · 3 years ago

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Jade. The fate of female character in Mortal Kombat

It’s been a while since I posted anything on my blog cause I’ve been busy with my life and rapid changes in it. During this time, I’ve watched the new 2021 Mortal Kombat movie as well as the new animation Battle of the realms and also rewatched the Story Mode of MK11 a few times. As you probably can tell, I have a lot to say.

JADE. MILEENA. KITANA. SONYA.

Skip this if you don’t want to read my very important (and long as sh*t) rant about female characters in MK.

DISCLAIMER. This thing is going to sound extremely feminist and women-supremacist or whatever. By saying things that I’m going to say, I by no means think that male characters should be weak or lacking. If anything, it would be nice to have some godforsaken EQUALITY. I’ll explain further later.

Part One: Mortal Kombat (2021)

There’s no Jade in this movie.

The end. That should be the sole reason I dislike it.

However, it might be better this way since the Nitara and Mileena portrayals in this movie are... questionable to say the least. Okay, y’all been robbed. If MY JADE would be brought into this movie to BE THERE for like 4 minutes of screen time only to get absolutely brutal FATALITY I. would. be. pissed.

More than I already am and that means something.

Sure, there’s a possibility that she’s going to be present in some of the upcoming movies because this one is definitely not the only one they’re going to make. But do I want that? Yes. And no.

Mortal Kombat movies (and Mortal Kombat in general) have a problem with women portrayal in general. The target audience for them are MEN, potentially heterosexual men, who want nothing more than bloody gorey fighting scenes with occasional sex scene here and there. To achieve that, they need a female lead, an attractive, kinda kick-assish but not too much, to not overshadow the absolutely badass men characters. Girls tend to be “independent” (because God forbid they’d want to express interest in the male leads before the time is right), sarcastic, laid back and sometimes even bitchy. Because, you see, they are fighters. And they are Sonya Blade. They need NO MAN. They just need plot armor, bigger than America itself. And if they’re not Sonya Blade, they are... non existent. They are there, but they are never really there. Here, let me walk on screen for a couple seconds. Let me sit beside Very Important Male Character (aka Shang Tsung) for a couple of seconds, looking absolutely gorgeous. Let me have a fight scene in which I make choices so f*cking stupid there’s no potential explanation to it. I exist in this movie to make people that love me (this character) to come into theatres in hopes to see some good action and interesting plot.

Now, I wasn’t born yesterday, I know how the world works. It’S bEeN LiKe ThAt FoReVeR, gEt OvEr here iT. Yeah, it’s been like that forever and the result is a mediocre movie that pleases neither the casual viewer, nor the actual Mortal Kombat fan. I don’t know, there might be guys who just saw Kung Lao’s fatality on Nitara, thought to themselves “Neat” and went on with their lives. But I exited the cinema with a sour taste in my mouth, feeling like I’ve watched one of the “fighting genre” films based on video games that had nothing worth remembering. Well, besides Kano. He was my favourite part of this movie and I normally can’t stand the guy :’D

Would it really help if they changed the way the women were portrayed? I mean - is that the ACTUAL problem of the movie? No, women being the eye candy and barely something else (if they’re not Sonya Blade) are not the only problem it suffers from. It’s that MK has been going the same route, retelling the same goddamn story for the millionth time. It’s always THE SAME. The only thing changing is who’s gonna get brutally killed. But - of course - out of the “disposable” character pool. It’s never Sonya (because you need our female lead or else there would be no female characters in the story), who ya know could be killed by Mileena but magically WASN’T. Because Mileena FOR SOME REASON was like: Ya know what? Naaah. Even though Sonya’s from Earthrealm and is actively trying to stop you. If anything, kill her because she annoys you. BUT NAH. It’s never Liu Kang because he’s the Chosen One. But killing Kung Lao is fine, he can die so Liu can awaken or smth. It’s not the main character because how else can you portray THE MAGIC OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP? Ya, that’s what I thought, don’t even think about it.

You have an amazing universe, filled to the brim with SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL. Let go of the same boring plot line and show us Kombat from another perspective. Change something. F*ck, go all feminist route and make a story center around Mileena dominating the world. Try with different versions of the same story, making it center around different character each time.

SURE, YOU’LL PROBABLY LOSE SOME VIEWERS BUT TIMES ARE CHANGING, AND MOST OF US ARE TIRED TO PAY FOR THE SAME STORY OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Part Two: Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms

Jesus f*cking Christ.

To say this film was rushed is an understatement. While I was watching it, I was like: TF? Everything happens all at once, we have Kuai Liang-Scorpion story line, we have Outworld’s attack, the tournament, not to mention the final fight that should be whole another movie. I felt like no story line was properly laid out, some of the characters died before I got to even know them and the battles were... disappointing. I believe they needed to push this movie out so they squished in everything they had and just went with it.

But, again, this movie just repeats the same things as its live action version. Let me lay it down for you:

Kung Lao dies (because yes)

Sonya Blade lives (because yes)

Jade is just there (more of it later)

disposable characters are disposed of

Liu Kang is badass and always wins

You watch it and feel like you’ve already seen it before. Sure, gore is fine, human Raiden is precious and need to be protected at all costs and adrenaline is pumping (I guess).

BUT NOW.

You know what’s coming.

JADE.

My f*cking piece of sunshine, the gorgeous goddess of beauty and kombat, the woman who owns my heart.

She’s there for like not even a minute.

Words can’t describe how f*cking PISSED I am by this portrayal. These motherfrickers put her in EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE SNIPPET OF THIS MOVIE. HER BATTLE WAS IN THE TRAILER, ONE OF THE SNEAK PEEKS WAS A SCENE OF HER AND KITANA.

TURNS OUT EVERYTHING I SAW BEFORE THE MOVIE WAS RELEASED... WAS EVERYTHING I WAS ABOUT TO SEE OF HER!!!!

THEY MADE ME HYPED UP FOR NOTHING!!!!!!

I know I’m not the only one riding this trolley. Li Mei was there just to be killed. Kung Lao had a f*cking single dialogue line and then BAM, fatality, buh-bye. But I was watching everything of this movie, being so enormously happy that I will finally see Jade in the movies, FINALLY! Only for her to be present in a single scene, get her ass kicked by Liu Kang (what’s new) and then she’s never seen again, even when the whole f*cking world is breaking apart.

Again. She’s just there. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best Shao Kahn’s assassins, gets her ass kicked in fourty seconds. They NEVER let her speak ffs. She just spews some general villanous sh*t and proceeds to step on Johnny. Then, she just goes Observer mode as Kitana “betrays” Shao Kahn, gets tied to the column and then the world is ending.

WHERE THE F*CK IS SHE?!

If you hype me up for her every chance you get, at least GIVE ME what you’re advertising. This is a scam. This is criminal offense. And homophobic. She is more than a revealing outfit and Liu Kang’s punching bag. I’m SO. F*CKING. TIRED. OF THIS. SH*T.

Kitana. The rebellious princess of Outworld... turned damsel in distress in this movie. Her role is so effing bad it hurts me to my core. You see her as a general being so badass and independent... oh right, we need Liu Kang to save her because he needs to maintain his hero look. And we need two kissing scenes. How do we get there? Oh, right, let him save her, because you know - that’s what makes wahmen kiss you.

ARE YOU NUTS?!

The movie started just fine, with Kitana being in charge with her right hand, Jade. Then, obviously, they water her down and soon she is a princess in a tower (in this case, princess on a column) that needs her buffy sexy man to save her. Oh, and she can’t resist him - you know, every normal girl’s reaction to getting untied is to kiss a guy you’ve known for like a few hours but seen before and you’ve talked like three dialogue lines in total. Sure.

Kitana just gets the unfortunate role of a female main character. She’s Liu’s love interest and that makes her take the role of a strong (but surface level, only) woman who still needs her hero to free her. Classic damsel in distress story, with Kitana being the princess, Liu being the Prince charming and Shao Kahn as the dragon (lul). Of course, they try to cover this up by making Kitana a general, letting her win a few fights but it won’t matter in the end. Some say that women want to believe in fairy tales but the more I see fighting games’ lore, the more I say it’s the men who want to believe them.

Is it necessarily bad? No. But it’s boring as fuk.

I would like to ask the directors to stop being so afraid of upsetting the target audience. Target audience can change and sometimes it comes out better than originally planned. My Little Pony was designed as a child’s cartoon but it was the creepy men who made it reach the top. Morally? Questionable at best. But business is booming, right? And that’s what they care for, right?

All I’m trying to say is these days women and gays are the future.

Thank you for today, more to come. I’m going to rant about the Story Mode.

#Mortal Kombat #mk jade #kitana #nitara #mileena #battle of the realms #female #commentary #article #mortal kombat movie

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tothestanders · 4 years ago

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Sleepy Snacks

Warnings: (light-hearted, friendly, non-gorey) cannibalism

Summary:

There were many lines that Logan would like to draw, were it up to him. That was the spot where he and Roman disagreed the most, if either of them had to truly pick just one. Roman was generally not a supporter of line drawing unless said lines were components of an artwork, or perhaps sticks of uncooked spaghetti waiting for water to boil so that they could become cooked spaghetti and then be eaten by Roman (preferably with cumin). Logan, on the other hand, thought that their imaginary existence could do with several more important boundaries.

For example, Logan should really not have been eating his own arm at the moment. The arm aspect didn’t trouble him much – after all, an imaginary being could simply regenerate as needed. But the fact that he was able to consume his own flesh without having any corporeal form to speak of – well, that was very troubling indeed.

Logan’s eyelids drooped heavy as he sat at his desk, hand dragging slowly across a sheet of paper. So much work, so little time, and wasn’t that always the way of things? Such a busy bee he was (figuratively, of course; normally he wasn’t one for such metaphorical language, but Anthophilia were an exceptionally productive species what with all the flower-searching, nectar-gathering, dance-displaying, honey-producing, queen-protecting, dying-after-five-weeks-to-be-immediately-replaced-by-a-new-generation-of-mindless-drone-sisters, and all that).

Logan felt much like a worker bee himself at the moment. Chip, chip, chipping away at the endless stream of tasks, deadlines, and plans with hardly a moment to breathe. Not that he needed to breathe, of course. He could excuse physically manifesting as the personification of the logical side of someone’s personality in contradiction of all laws of physics, but he drew the line at imaginary breathing.

In fact, there were many lines that Logan would like to draw, were it up to him. That was the spot where he and Roman disagreed the most, if either of them had to truly pick just one. Roman was generally not a supporter of line drawing unless said lines were components of an artwork, or perhaps sticks of uncooked spaghetti waiting for water to boil so that they could become cooked spaghetti and then be eaten by Roman (preferably with cumin). Logan, on the other hand, thought that their imaginary existence could do with several more important boundaries.

Not to mention the inconvenience of it all. He’d surely never complete all his tasks with limbs disappearing down his throat left and right like some figurative esophageal slip-n-slide. Especially when events took this turn so frequently. Logan could spend hours “going off,” as the youth called it, about Thomas’s bad habit of staying up past any reasonable hour. But of all the negative consequences of this irresponsible behavior the most personally inconvenient to Logan was that the physiology of the brain demanded it begin to consume itself in periods of sleep deprivation. Such was biology, and no use fighting it. However, no matter the logical explanation for it all, which did give Logan a satisfied sort of shiver if he were to be honest, one simply could not work under these conditions.

No, it simply would not do. It would not do inside a box; it would not do beside a fox. It would not do within a house; it would not do next to a mouse. Logan wasn’t quite sure why modified lines from Dr. Seuss were coming to mind, but their presence did helpfully remind him of his and Roman’s rap battle, which reminded him of the originality video, which reminded him that the dilemma of that day had been spurred by Virgil.

There were almost certainly more complex, intricately winding paths of thought and logical connection that brought Logan from Dr. Seuss to Virgil, but no one else could possibly understand the workings of a genius mind such as Logan’s, so we won’t bother to delve into the details.

Logan spared a moment to wonder who this ‘we’ in his thoughts was, but in classic Logan fashion, he quickly refocused on the goal at hand.

One lift of a thankfully still half-remaining hand later, and Virgil was in the room. Logan gazed on with sympathy as the anxious figment took a moment to orient himself, looking a bit out of sorts at the sudden change in scenery. Then again, Virgil always looked a bit out of sorts, so was it really worth being considerate about? On second thought, Logan decided it was not.

“Hello Virgil. Thank you for joining me despite the late hour,” Logan said.

“Didn’t give me much of a choice, Teach, but no problem. What do you…”

Virgil trailed off as he noticed Logan’s mostly missing left arm. Logan had his neck craned to sneak surreptitious bites of the shoulder. It impressed and worried Logan in equal parts, that he was such a master of subtlety. Sometimes he wondered whether Deceit felt obsolete in the face of a virtuoso like himself. Logan, subtly arrogant, kind of hoped he did.

Logan’s natural superiority aside, it was a testament to their friendship that Virgil knew instantly what was needed from him. You see, Logan’s figment consumption had to at least keep pace with the literal self-digesting activity of Thomas’s brain. In light of that unfortunate fact, the only way for Logan to get back to work was to get ahead of the curve, so to speak. And Virgil knew just how important his work was to Logan.

Virgil slouched on over to take a seat on Logan’s desk, swinging up his legs to rest in front of him, but careful to keep his shoes off the paper. He was thoughtful like that. Perhaps Logan would commission Roman for a dreary illustration of some sort on Virgil’s behalf, as a show of gratitude for this kind favor.

He began to consider what sort of drawing Virgil would like best as he rolled up the other Side’s pants leg. Something storm-themed? Perhaps a spidery print…or a poster displaying rebellious graffiti? Logan gave the subject the long, deliberative thought it deserved as he chewed Virgil’s calf, then munched his way down to the foot. The feet (and hands) were his favorite part to chew, what with their elaborate bone structure. Typically, Logan found bones in his food to be a rather annoying encumbrance, an unwelcome sharp surprise, not to mention a choking hazard. But when it came to figments (as opposed to, say, a nice filet of salmon), the scientific fascination of the skeletal structure overwhelmed any pesky inconvenience.

By the time Logan was making headway on Virgil’s other calf, Thomas appeared to have fallen asleep. As his sleep deprivation ebbed further away each passing moment, Logan’s urge to consume the leg before him drifted off in concert. He drew back, delicately wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“Thank you for your assistance, Virgil. I believe that’s all for tonight. You were very generous with your time.”

“Yeah, it’s whatever,” Virgil replied, rubbing the back of his neck. He flipped an awkward thumbs up before sinking out, presumably back to his own room, though Logan doubted he’d be heading to sleep. Virgil’s sleep schedule was even more atrocious than Thomas’s. Still touched by Virgil’s kind gesture, Logan couldn’t summon much disapproval at the thought.

A small smile ghosting on his face, Logan picked up his pen and began to work once more.

#sanders sides #logan sanders #virgil sanders #ts logan #ts virgil #platonic analogical #sanders sides fanfic #my writing

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goldenkamuyhunting · 6 years ago

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Golden Kamuy Ep 24

And so we get to the final episode of Golden Kamuy… which doesn’t change the story to the point a third season would be impossible so I really hope a third season will happen.

But let’s focus on the episode for now…

…and see it starts with the ending scene of the previous episode, Sugimoto crawling out to were Nopperabo is and seeing his eyes are as blue as Asirpa.

Something I didn’t mention previously is I like how the voice actor hints at how Sugimoto is making quite an effort at moving.

I really, really love the flashback they included of little Asirpa when Sugimoto shows to Wilk Asirpa’s makiri. She has such bright eyes and she looks so happy…

The anime goes on with the scene following the manga until Sugimoto tells Wilk he’ll tell them EVERYTHING and Wilk replies if Sugimoto wants the gold he has to bring Asirpa to him as he’ll tell it only to his daughter. As this Sugimoto’s eyes squeeze slightly, as if very angry...

...and then… the scene switches.

Remember how in the previous episode they cut the Hijikata/Inudo duel? The anime decided to place it here, possibly to stretch longer the waiting for Sugimoto’s answer.

It breaks the flow so it’s not a great choice (they could have just started with the duel instead than with a recap plus an extra bit) but I understand why they wanted to do it.

However please, keep in mind when the discussion was interrupted because it’ll become relevant later.

While in the manga at first Inudo and Hijikata talk while just standing...

...the anime show them talking while fighting...

...and I personally think this is a good idea. I love the blue shining of the blades.

However the manga better manages to deliver Inudo’s fury… though this might be just me.

Now… in the manga it seemed like Hijikata tripped when Inudo pulled the chain…

...while in the anime his motion seems smoother so, if he tripped he actually only rolled on the ground and got up, nothing more.

I don’t really like how the blood drips as it seems way more dense than normal blood to me but maybe it’s just me.

Interesting enough while in the manga when Hijikata replies he and Inudo are fighting, now, opposite to what they had done when Inudo was talking, the two of them stand watching each other… or at least we assume so as the camera moves to show us the flares the 7th division is throwing. Well, okay, at the end we see them too and they’re standing.

The fight goes on as in the manga. I love how, in the anime, they showed Hijikata’s blade as it moved, as if it was just a shining light… but I think that having all that blood ‘exploding’ from Inudou’s wound to be excessive and it would have been better to show less of it as they did in the manga.

Now… in the manga it seems as if Inudo just falls unable to stand and in his fall he grabs Hijikata.

In the anime it seems as if he’s still trying to attack Hijikata bare handed before his legs gave away and so he had to let go of his hold of Hijikata.

It’s a change but not a bad one. Also the anime put more focus on the photo of Asirpa that falls from Hijikata’s pocket which, okay is also a change but one that does no harm.

Now… magazine readers might not know about this one but in the volume version the scene was edited so Inudo’s face is dirty with blood, which makes sense as Hijikata tossed it to him.

However the blood on his face is drawn in a much more natural way than in the anime where it seems as if it was Inudo’s eyes that had started bleeding which, is either stupid or implies Hijikata has a wonderful aim at blood throwing as he perfectly hit Inudo’s eyes and nothing more.

Also it seems in the anime Inudo is smiling when he tells Hijikata to kill him which wasn’t the case in the manga.

Gold star to the anime for showing how Hijikata decapitated Inudo in a manner that wasn’t gorey at all. No sprays or blood or Inudou’s head rolling around. We just see from a distance Hijikata lowering his sword on his neck and we clearly get what had happened without needing to see it.

Since the authors ranted about how they weren’t supposed to show violence and things like that I love they decided to still show what had happened and not to cut it but had gone for a tame way to show it.

And so back we jump to Sugimoto and Wilk… and to the problem this intermission caused.

Remember? We left the two of them when Wilk told Sugimoto if he wanted to know about the gold he would have to bring Asirpa to him.

In the manga Sugimoto’s reaction is beautiful. He says ‘The gold? Ahh, right. The gold. Yeah, we’ll have you tell us about that too.’

In short, Sugimoto in that moment was so focused on Asirpa and on the fact this guy who supposedly murdered some Ainu for the gold was her father that he forgot about the gold and when Wilk mentioned it, for a moment he got confused and had no idea what Wilk was talking about.

In the anime there’s no such confusion.

Sugimoto resumes the discussion without any hesitation, stating that Wilk will have to tell him/them everything about the gold.

In short he looks a lot less concerned for Asirpa and affected by the situation than he was in the manga where it was clear the gold was the fartest thing in his mind.

It’s only after a noticeable pause we get this.

On the up side I like how in the anime Sugimoto lowers his gaze for a moment before yelling to Wilk he doesn’t want to let Asirpa meet him.

However it’s interesting how the anime cut the line in which Sugimoto tells him he could have just told Hijikata were the gold was and let him use that for independence or whatever he wanted.

I seem to remember that’s not the first time they gloss over the whole plan for the Ainu independence (though as of now I can’t remember when it happened) so I wonder if there’s a reason for this... but well, maybe it’s just because it will be mentioned again later on but again there will be cuts.

Another cut is Sugimoto claiming he learnt from Shiraishi about how Hijikata wants a reporter to write about Asirpa and accuses Wilk to plan to use newspapers to manipulate public opinion, pointing out that with one wrong move Hokkaido and the rest of Japan could be plunged into a war like the civil one between north and south America.

In short all that remained was Sugimoto claiming he wanted to use Asirpa for a war of independence and make of her a new Joan d’Arc which causes the situation to look a lot tamer than what it could turn out to be.

Then, following the manga, we’re shown Tsurumi shooting with a machine gun to the escaping convicts. The scene is disappointing as again is too still and don’t convey well how the convicts are escaping. The sub missed how Tsurumi said the machine gun was ‘lord Arisaka’s friend’ (as lord Arisaka built it) and turned it into ‘Tsurumi’s friend’. It also doesn’t really felt well connected to the previous bit due to the dialogue being way tamer on what could happen. When you watch it in the manga you get an idea of how Hokkaido’s situation could end up similar to what’s going on in Abashiri… the same doesn’t quite happen in the anime.

At this point however starts a lovely background music which well deliver the drama of the scene.

We jump back to Sugimoto asking Wilk if he’s planning to turn Asirpa into a murderer. Sugimoto’s voice actor does a great job to deliver Sugimoto’s emotions but the images don’t quite deliver his drama.

The manga was much better in this.

The anime follows then the manga and I must praise it for how it shift well from having Asirpa watch into the binocular to Asirpa remembering her childhood.

In the manga it was a lot easier as the flashback was at the start of another chapter but the anime had to make it a smooth continuation of Asirpa watching in the binoculars and… well, it works.

As Asirpa raises the binoculars we first hear her voice as a child and then the flashback starts, implying as she’s about to meet her father she remembered that scene.

Sure, they cut it a bit as in the original flashback first Asirpa and her father observed two bears then Wilk told her the bear would be back the day after and they return the day after. They’ve some more exposition then the scene showed in the anime starts.

Anyway the scene is done well enough, the bear is animated the usual way (I won’t comment on it) and the music helps to make the whole flashback as well as Asirpa recognizing Wilk a rather emotional moment and the music keep well delivering the mood continuing… till Wilk gets shoot.

I’ve to praise the anime for making clearer how Sugimoto grabbed Wilk’s body to shield himself behind it.

In the manga you might have the impression he only wanted to move him, maybe to take him to a safe place like Tanigaki will later do with Sugimoto and Wilk’s bodies, but in the anime it’s clear Sugimoto wanted to use Wilk’s body as a human shield as he placed Wilk in between himself and the point from which the shoot has come.

The two seconds that show Ogata are well done. They show the details of his rifle...

...and Ogata’s movements as he load it are smooth and precise and clearly deliver how he had shoot Wilk and Sugimoto in case you missed it.

Noteworthy though is how in the manga one has the impression Inkarmat’s eyes are teary while the same can’t be said in the anime.

The scene continues following the anime, Asirpa’s drama is beautifully expressed and we get only a tiny cut. Tanigaki doesn’t explain he’s going to rescue Sugimoto because he still owe Sugimoto for saving him in Kushiro…

and sadly this cut makes sense because in the anime Sugimoto never saved Tanigaki but makes Tanigaki too selfless.

Back to Ogata we go.

The anime follows the volume version for his scene which in it was expanded a little

however the anime adds Ogata’s surprised expression when he notices Tanigaki’s hand grabbing Sugimoto’s foot.

Overall I think in the anime Tanigaki is a little slow in tossing himself out to retrieve Sugimoto and Wilk and Ogata is even slower in reacting. Truth to be told, once Tanigaki is on Wilk and therefore also covering Sugimoto regardless of Ogata killing Tanigaki or not, it would be impossible for him to get a bullet through Sugimoto as he would have to have it go through Tanigaki and Wilk both.

Opposed to the horrid work done with Inudo’s blood covered face I’ve to say the anime does a good job with Inkarmat’s blood covered hands and the knife in her stomach.

Tsurumi instead comes out as creepy after he says Tanigaki’s name.

I love the way Asirpa watches Ogata as if truly hoping he could bring her good news. I’m so sad for her… still in the manga she reacted with more worry to his totally no good news about Tanigaki while here she’s just interested in her father and Sugimoto because… who cares for Tanigaki?

Still… well, she’s too calm. She saw Sugimoto and her father being shoot. In the manga she’s basically panicking when she asks him about Sugimoto and her father.

Here she seems to worry only when Ogata doesn’t answer her immediately.

Mind you, I like that pause, how Ogata has to look at her before answering, how she grows worried by his silence until he told her they’re dead.

Still well, as I said before Asirpa was too calm.

I love the sad music that accompanies the following scene.

Interesting enough when the manga showed the corpses of the convicts we could see a man still standing, who maybe was meant to be Kadokura whom we know survived at the fight (we don’t know for sure if it’s him as, as of now, the scene was never explained).

In the anime we don’t see anyone standing. Also the anime cut Hijikata standing which, personally, I find is a bad choice.

The anime moves the soldier of the 7th taking away the deceased from the now burned prison PRIOR to showing us Sugimoto eating Onigiri.

The scene stays the same however there’s a change when we see Kiroranke’s group on the boat.

In the manga when they would start talking they had just reached the port. In the anime they’re still sailing, Ogata standing ahead of the ship as if he’s leading the whole thing

(in the manga we can see he originally was seated like everyone else and only later he stands).

Asirpa, who in the manga seemed to lean down here is just seated.

Skipping all this I love how the anime depicted the whole thing.

Ogata turns and says they’re going to get another ship at the port. The camera pans on Asirpa a sign he’s looking at her and taking note of her state.

Then his voice actor speak softly and slowly to her, making pauses. The one more noteworthy is the one in which he says his name as that’s the first time Ogata calls Asirpa by name.

In the volume version they changed things so that when Ogata said let’s go Asirpa the image was whitened quite a bit (to the point Ogata’s hair become a clear grey) although Ogata’s face remains shadowed.

No such effect is in the anime but maybe the whitening was the manga’s way to convey he’s speaking to her softly.

At this point the anime changes the sequence of the scene.

In fact we aren’t shown Sugimoto claiming he’ll get Asirpa back and ask Tsurumi to take him to Karafuto but… the anime, which loves Cikapasi, shows him clearly as he’s caressing Ryu,

while in the manga we could catch a glimpse of him through the window that was behind Sugimoto and cuts Asirpa disembarking.

It then postpones Hijikata hiding with the others and finding the info Inudo collected, cuts Shiraishi asking Asirpa if she saw who shoot...

...to jump at Inkarmat explaining she couldn’t tell who the shooter was.

When Sugimoto claims it was Ogata who shoot him we’re shown the reactions of Tanigaki, who frowns and Tsurumi, who grins,

which weren’t in the manga (Tanigaki was focused on Inkarmat, Tsurumi wasn’t shown). Sugimoto’s expression looks a lot less dark than the manga when he claims he could feel Ogata when he was shoot.

At this point we switch to Kiro asking Ogata if there was really a need to shoot Sugimoto. I absolutely love how Ogata’s voice actor makes him sound amused as he suggests Sugimoto might still be alive.

Sugimoto instead doesn’t sound as murderous as his manga counterpart though this time the visual delivers better he’s not in a great mood.

I think the anime made clearer how Kiroranke didn’t mean to stab Inkarmat and actually wanted to help her when she got stabbed their scene is well done. In the manga he looked colder… which in face of his late developments maybe was more fitting, in the anime he’s more upset, which I personally like more but well, as I said, it might be it doesn’t fit him much.

When Sugimoto talk with Tsurumi about how he’ll bring Asirpa back they’ll cut him asking Tsurumi 200 yen after Asirpa will solve the code for Tsurumi.

Really, sometimes I don’t get the changes the anime make. They cut a scene in which Sugimoto sounds clearly interested in the money… but changed one in which he wasn’t so that it didn’t look like he wasn’t?

In the anime Koito is trembling before hearing he’ll go to Karafuto as if scared. I get they wanted to make him look like he was fearing this but… I don’t know I’ve mixed feelings on this.

Anyway, after Koito learn it’s his father who wants him to leave for Karafuto, the anime decide to go back and recover scenes that were previously shown in the manga and show us Nagakura watching Abashiri prison.

We’ve then the scene of Hijikata, Ushiyama, Kadokura and Toni hiding below the chapel. In the manga Kantarou is with them but here his role is, as usual, cut.

Also there’s too little blood on Nagakura in the anime which makes him look healthier than he is.

Kadokura’s line is cut and it’s also cut the part in which Hijikata worries for Toni with Ushiyama’s reply. For all we know Toni might be a corpse.

In the anime Hijikata grins when he says they’re leaving and heading south while in the manga he’s serious.

And so the anime brings us back to Sugimoto sailing toward Karafuto.

The scene well follow the manga but they cut from it Sugimoto claiming there are a whole lot of things that he needs to tell Asirpa and raising his hat, showing his wound. Still so far the anime had been very good.

Sadly here it begins the part I really dislike and that’s an anime only addition.

Fundamentally we’ve Asirpa dreaming of meeting Sugimoto again.

She asks him if he’s… she trails off, the idea is that she means to ask him if he’s dead.

He replies he couldn’t bring her to meet her father and apologizes for not keeping his promise.

Asirpa comments that her father left for his journey and Sugimoto starts to levitate as he apologizes and then tells her to wait as he’ll come for her before disappearing.

Asirpa comments this is a dream and that, if the kamuy (gods) are trying to tell her something the dream should have some meaning.

Sugimoto appears again and tell her it’s wrong, that it’s not the gods that are talking to her but him. He tells her he’s alive and that there’s so much he wants to tell her (yes, that’s the sentence they cut previously only in the manga it was just Sugimoto’s inner thoughts). Meanwhile they’re reaching out to each other till their hands touch and Asirpa wakes up to discover she was holding Shiraishi’s hand, with Shiraishi sleeping keeping his head on her leg. Shiraishi wakes up as well asking her what’s wrong and she… slaps his head.

We see they’re in a wooden house. They turn to watch Kiroranke and Ogata in the room next to theirs, looking a map and talking though we don’t hear a words they say.

Asirpa tells Shiraishi she dreamt of Sugimoto and that he said he was coming for her.

To put better emphasis on this the anime shows us the boat on which Sugimoto is moving quickly toward Karafuto, Sugimoto standing in front of it (in the manga when he talked with Koito Senior he was on one side of the boat). If he were to spread his arms he could repeat the famous scene from ‘Titanic’.

Shiraishi comments the dream might be true as he can’t imagine Sugimoto dying.

Asirpa scolds Shiraishi, asking him what he’s saying and commenting that of course Sugimoto isn’t dead. She lowers her gaze and smiles very sweetly.

We see Sugimoto still playing the figurehead of the ship insisting Asirpa just has to wait.

Then he and Asirpa comment he’s Sugimoto the immortal while the visual reminds us of their first meeting and of how they hold hands during it… and sorry but I hate almost all this new bit.

I’ll start with pointing out canonically Asirpa didn’t believe in dreams. She called her grandmother old fashioned for doing so but here, in the dream, she’s all ‘the kamuy are telling me something’.

I’ll continue with remarking that Asirpa and Sugimoto have a beautiful relation but, for me, what makes it awesome is that it’s human. They don’t have emphatic bonds so they can talk to each others in dreams but the dream tried really hard to tell us it was a ‘telepathic chat’ with Asirpa talking to the real Sugimoto.

I would have been fine if the dream was just a dream in which Asirpa’s subconscious was telling her Sugimoto was alive but the anime really tried too hard to make us believe Sugimoto was really talking to her.

Long story short this attempt at turning Asirpa and Sugimoto’s beautiful bond into a supernatural one isn’t something I like.

The anime also ruined the cuteness of Shiraishi holding Asirpa’s hand and being there for her by having Asirpa slap his head… because the anime didn’t notice Asirpa’s behavior has changed and she’s a lot gentler with Shiraishi by the time they get to Karafuto.

The anime, with Asirpa and Shiraishi’s chat while Ogata and Kiro are busy, is fundamentally trying to reproduce the Asirpa/Shiraishi scene of chap 147 but in it Shiraishi’s effort to cheer Asirpa up was more marked. Here it almost seems as if Asirpa who has to cheer him up.

Now… I love Asirpa, she’s my tough yet kind girl but really, they didn’t have to remove Shiraishi’s attempt at cheering her up by having Asirpa being the input for the Sugimoto is alive, Shiraishi sounding unsure about it and Asirpa reassuring him about it.

It was completely fine to have Shiraishi trying to reassure Asirpa Sugimoto was alive and have Asirpa let him know she doesn’t need to be reassured as Sugimoto is ‘Sugimoto the immortal’.

And last but not least that bit about remarking how Sugimoto is Sugimoto the immortal feels like a shameless hero promotional message. According to the anime we need to be reminded he’s Sugimoto the immortal, the guy who can do everything, the hero of the story, yadda, yadda so as to end on a heroic note and hey, let’s let him say it at the same time as Asirpa to better remark their telepathic bond and strengthen it by showing their first meeting.

No really, this is the sort of things that don’t work for me. At all.

So well, I would have preferred if the anime hadn’t changed the scene in which Asirpa Shiraishi tried his best to cheer up Asirpa to replace it with this dream sequence that twist their relationship into a telepathic one... which is also detrimental on Asirpa’s faith in Sugimoto as she needed this dream to cheer up, nor the support of her friend, Shiraishi, nor her confidence in Sugimoto, not her strong character. Just a magical mental connection with him.

Well, of course this is just me, there’s who can love the dream sequence but for me... it damaged an otherwise very good episode.

#Golden Kamuy #Ogata Hyakunosuke #Asirpa #Sugimoto Saichi #Kiroranke #Shiraishi Yoshitake #Nagakura Shinpachi #Inudou Shirosuke #Toni Anji #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Ienaga Kano #Tanigaki Genjirou #Inkarmat #Koito Otonoshin #Koito Heiji #Tsukishima Hajime #Golden Kamuy Episode #Hijikata Toshizou

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imsobrooklyn-archived-sameurl · 6 years ago

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TAGGED BY: found & stolen. TAGGING: @saturnrang, @falsedking, @valinta + whoever come across this.

► GENERAL.

HEIGHT: 5′8 — previously 5′6. After being bitten by the genetically-altered “42″ Spider, his stature is elongated by two inches. WEIGHT: 160 lbs — Miles is an ectomorph; it’s mostly maintained because of his obligatory participations in gym classes, playing basketball with the neighborhood every now and again after school, and the rare times he can sneak off for urban exploration or play around with his uncle’s punching bag. He doesn’t exactly have the greastest diet plan. ETHNICITY: African-American && Afro-Puerto Rican. OCCUPATION: Freelance photographer, explorer, artist, F.E.A.S.T. (Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter, and Training) volunteer, Brooklyn Vision student, convenience store cashier, Dream Defender, and vigilante. GENDER: Cis-male. He/him. ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual & Demiromantic. MBTI: ENFP- the champion. Miles know how to relax, and he is perfectly capable of switching from a passionate, driven idealist in the workplace to that imaginative and enthusiastic free spirit on the dance floor, often with a suddenness that can surprise even his closest friends. Being in the mix also gives him a chance to connect emotionally with others, giving him cherished insight into what motivates his friends and colleagues. He believe that everyone should take the time to recognize and express their feelings, and their empathy and sociability make that a natural conversation topic.

Few personality types are as creative and charismatic as ENFPs. Their enthusiasm and vivid imagination allow ENFPs to overcome many challenging obstacles, more often than not brightening the lives of those around them. ENFPs’ creativity is invaluable in many areas, including their own personal growth.

► SPECIFICS.

FAVOURITE FOOD: Pasteles, Empanada, Chicharon de pollo, Pop-Tarts, Platanos, Chopped Cheese, Nathan’s Famous’ hotdogs, Aunt Butchie’s Desserts (chocolate mousse preferably), Chinese food, and Ray’s Pizza. FAVOURITE DRINK: He enjoys his uncle’s Whey protein drinks, but you’ll mostly see him drinking sodas, Gatorade, O.J., and water. FAVOURITE HOBBY: Vandal by nature, Miles loves snagging Priority Mail and Hello, My Name Is stickers to practice his art and toss his mark up wherever and whenever he can. Other than that, he plays mental gymnastics for fun when it comes to math problems. If he’s not doing that, then he’s fooling around with programs like Audacity, Sony Vegas, or FL Studio.

But the activity he feels most at peace at is when he’s isolated in his room or hanging around a building as Spiderman, writing in his journal. FAVOURITE SCENT: Vanilla, Sandalwood, Shea Moisture Manuka and Yogurt. FAVOURITE PERSON: Ganke. Miles never had a brother (a reality he yearned his parents make happen), but Ganke gives him an idea as to how it would be if he did have a biological brother.

► TEN FACTS.

Miles is an only child. “Born” on December 14th, 2003.

He’s Catholic.

Adaptability comes as second nature to Miles. In two days, he managed to survive his near-death experiences as he tangled with some of the best of the original Spiderman’s villains.

Miles use to cry Martin Luther King Day because the television and radio would play clips of his speeches, and he thought sounded like a ghost.

Until he reached the age of ten, Miles had irritable bowel syndrome and would crap his pants every so often.

He owns an Atari, Sega, and Nintendo console passed down to him from his father.

One of his favorite shows is American Ninja Warrior.

Calculus is one of his favorite subjects. Numbers, symbols, and alphabets is a challenge that he can never tire from.

There’s an unshakable habit he has and that’s speaking his thoughts out loud, much to his chagrin.

His facial features mostly resemble his father and his uncle, which is can be considered a blessing and a curse, depending on the environment he’s in. Because the Davis brothers dark past had them as hustlers, stick-up kids, and graffiti artists, and their lives would take a drastic turn in where one becomes a cop and the other went on to become a boxer, the name Davis is enough to put a sour taste on the tongues of certain circles. It’s a fleeting love-hate thing he has for it.

► FIVE THINGS HE LIKES.

VIDEO GAMES — Jefferson was never comfortable with sharing his questionable deeds on the streets with his son, but he was more than excited to share his childhood glory with him. He couldn’t wait until Miles was old enough to have a controller in his hand. Miles is “heir” to a collection of dated collection. He likes modern consoles too, as he does own both a XBOX ONE and PLAYSTATION 4, but he prides in being a ‘young old soul’. GRAFFITI — It just kind of happened? He wasn’t messing with actual spraypaint because he’s too young to cop them from Home Depot, so he stuck to just stacking up on stickers and using that until he’s legally able to buy his own. HIP-HOP — That’s New York. Hip-Hop was born there. Miles passionately embraces the main four elements that represents its culture: Emceeing, DJING, Graffiti Art, Breakdancing and integrates the other five in how he moves. Street fashion, language, entrepanuership, knowldge, beatboxing, Hip-Hop is something he lives. BOXING — We can thank Aaron for his interest in that. Aside from the man’s criminal resume, Aaron graduated from neighborhood bruiser to professional boxer. His had a impeccable record before he hung up his gloves, but the passion he had for the sport stayed with him and any chance he got with his newphew, it would show when he would spit game on the greats like Mohammad Ali, Joe Fraizer, Dixie Kid, Jack Dempsey, Tyson, and others and teach him a few of his old moves. CLEANING SNEAKERS — It’s nothing deep. You watch Paid in Full a couple of times and add your love for that movie to your natural love of keeping your gear fresh and you get a sneakerhead that’s addicted to keeping his kicks mean and pristine.

► FIVE THINGS HE DISLIKES.

PEER PRESSURE — His hood didn’t have too many stars. There were plenty of potential there, but due to unfortunate circumstances, they make it out, but Miles—everybody regards him as the gold representation. Because of his upbringings, Miles is sort of hood royalty in a positive sense. On one hand, he enjoys it appreciation, but on the other hand, he hates it because his father doesn’t make it easy on him at all. He doesn’t judge his father for doing what he had to do in the streets to survive, but he hates his father for shoving his demons down his throat. Becoming Spiderman was nothing to leap for him to leap excitedly over either. Being stressed with being the “good son”, the “golden boy” of his neighborhood, and acing studies was enough as is. Since Peter Parker and his uncle’s murder, he felt tremendous guilt over not being able to help, and with his abilities, he feels strong on his moral obligation to do what he can to be New York’s protector. It’s not the easiest weight for a teenager to carry. E X P E C T A T I O N S! eff dem! UNDERESTIMATED — In school, he dealt with a teacher that regarded him and kids like him as trash that would never be able to amount to anything. The Spider-gang didn’t think he had what it takes, making him feel as if he was a burden and incapable of being strong enough to keep his promise to his universe’s Peter Parker. He doesn’t do well with people acting like he can’t do anything. TALES FROM THE HOOD — Doesn’t particularly care to hear about criminal exploits, especially the ones his family participated in. Some kids would love to hear about how hard their peers went in the street—Miles isn’t one of them. If anything, he wishes he was oblivious to it and didn’t have to hear one related word to it. That’s one thing he’s thankful for when it comes to his dad and Aaron. They never bragged or felt inclined to share gorey details and for good reason. Miles know they and everyone else want better for him. LYING — His mama raised him to be a honest boy. His pops raised him to be a man of principle. His uncle instilled street honor in him. Other than that? Miles naturally hates lying. It doesn’t make him feel good and can actually make him a serious nervous wreck if it gets to be too much for him. FIGHTING — Even though he was taught self-defense and enjoyed his boxing lessons, Miles avoided conflict as much as he could. He preferred to just be that cool guy that can make friends with the whole world and keep it pushing. He accepts that it’s unavoidable as a superhero, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to come to a peaceful resolve before the situation gets nasty.

► WORDS / PHRASES THAT ANNOY HIM.

CLASSISM — I know it’s not a word/phrase, so I’ll just say toxic braggadocio statements. When it comes to skin color, religion, abilities (supernatural or mortal), lienage, whatever—Miles views them all as people that share the same oxygen and should treat each other like they’re aware of that. Being made to feel like a sub-human aggravates him more than he cares to admit (he once broke his classroom desk because of his teacher constant poking at the african diaspora).

► PERSONALITY TYPES HE PREFERS.

FREE SPIRITS — Chilled souls; people that are down to do whatever they please (in a healthy, non-violent way), and exudes positive energy. It’s nice to be around individuals that understands what it means to have fun without restrictions and not people that live by some book like his father. You can miss him with those that feels like they have to be tight asses all the time.

► PERSONALITY TYPES HE AVOIDS.

GOD COMPLEX — Kingpins/drug lords/gang leaders/criminal upstarts, just people that play God in the streets, dictating who lives and dies, just because they have a gun and have a little bit of power. There’s not a doubt in his mind that there will be elements in the underworld that’s going to try to seduce him to the life. It’s a mission of his to not fall into the same darkness that stained the Davis name. You will never see Miles becoming close friends with a thug or a wannabee. He’ll try to steer them clear of it and be a moral compass of course, but having that as a part of his inner circle is a big no.

#GENUINE DIME—I OPENED MY MIND / HEADCANONS #(I may come back and edit this in the future)#queue

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akocomyk · 6 years ago

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Top 10 Books I Read in 2018

2018 is a year of fantasy for me. I say that because I read a lot of fantasy books this past year. Fourteen out of the 27 books that I read in 2018 is classified under that genre. Why that much fantasy books? Blame it all on Harry Potter and Tiffany Aching.

Unfortunately, the top spot for my 2018 list didn’t go to a fantasy book. It would’ve been great to see a fantasy book rank first since I started turning into a bookworm because of fantasy. But in order for that to happen, I have to be really moved by such book. I have to laugh and cry. I have to remember a lesson from it. I have to have a hangover or some sort. You know, those things that Narnia and A Monster Calls gave me.

YA reigned supreme this year, yet again. Although honestly, I’m middling with that genre as a whole. Sometimes a YA book can be really inspiring, relevant, and very impactful, other times they’re just plain stupid and reminiscent of awkward puberty stages.

Fourteen books were shortlisted for this Top 10. Initially, I had more books than that because for most of the 27 books, I felt like they deserve to be in the Top 10 after I finished reading them. Eventually, I removed some of them for various reasons—and I also cut it to one book per series.

Honorable Mention: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (2011)

This book is very commendable for its amazing “production value”. You know, like if this was made into a decent film, it would probably snatch an Oscar for Achievement in Art Direction or Production Design. The circus in the novel was so vividly explained, it made me wish that it was a real place and that I can go there.

Unfortunately, that was the only beautiful thing about that book.

10. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’engle (1962)

SCORE: 4.015

If I had been younger—say for example, thirteen years old, when I started my love for reading—I would’ve been very amazed by this book.

But it makes me sad that I was only able to read it now. Being an adult takes away most of the magic of this book—at least, I think that’s what happened with me.

Fortunately, nostalgia recuperates with that dilemma. I got into reading because of the Chronicles of Narnia, and reading this books reminds me so much of that. When Narnia is full of magic and fantasy, A Wrinkle in Time is full of scientific wonders.

9. The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik by David Arnold (2018)

SCORE: 4.070

David Arnold has a special place in my heart… the same way all indie folk music has. To me, he’s like my literary indie folk author. That’s what I love most about his books, they attach themselves to me effortlessly because of their quirkiness, simplicity and marvelous character development—one thing I wish Night Circus had.

This one is very different from his first two novels. It’s the most ambitious, and, to me, it felt like it totally flew out from my indie zone. This novel is like a full-on, contemporary YA novel with a bit of a sci-fi and paranormal undertones. And I really, really love it.

8. A Knight of Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin (2013)

SCORE: 4.100

If you’re tired of waiting for the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, this is a good I’ll-read-this-for-the-meantime replacement for it—especially because it happened in the same world and story, just a few hundred years before.

It’s the first published compilation of the Tales of Dunk and Egg. I will no longer dig further into what it is since you can freely search about that on Google.

Anyway, this book reminded me of why I fell in love with the series in the first place. It contained the same amount of intrigue, nobility, and bravery, just without much of the gorey brutality and sensuality of the main series.

7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (1999)

SCORE: 4.120

THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVORITE HARRY POTTER BOOK. I just love the complexity of all the characters, and how that paved way to the whole plot of the novel, and how that affected the series as a whole. And… it’s just the perfect length, the right amount of magic, plot twists, and, all in all, the adventure.

One magical experience for me here: despite the fact that I already know how the entire story will go, I can still feel the natural urge to read further.

6. Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman (2007)

SCORE: 4.275

This is one of the most lyrically beautiful books I’ve ever read. The way it was written was so poetic. Though I do agree to some people who say that this lags the book a little bit, I don’t mind. It’s not everyday that you read a book written this beautiful.

And like... E.L. James should definitely learn a thing or two from Aciman on how to properly write a love scene. Grey felt like it was written to arouse the sleeping sex life of old women. It was so tacky and eerily repulsive, bordering on downright hilarious at some points.

In Call Me By Your Name, the love scenes felt like it was really scenes about love. You can feel the beauty of the romance seeping through the words. You won’t get aroused—not unless you fancy this kind of stuff—you will instead feel awed. And you will feel the love that resonates between the two characters, and the hurt that results from the unrequitedness of it.

5. Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (2006)

SCORE: 4.495

For quite a long time, this novel topped my list. Still, I wasn’t contented by the thought that this would take on the first spot. It’s not that the book was not good. It’s just that I kept on asking myself, “This is it?”. Thankfully, I was able to read great books that I think is better than this one.

This is the third Tiffany Aching book, AND IT IS MY FAVORITE out of all the five. I love the tinge of romance in it. A little bit creepy, but it is what drove me to read on further.

What I love about Tiffany Aching is that… In the story, Tiffany was growing, and that makes sense since she was a few years older after every book. I love that the foundations of her personality remained the same, but as she grew, these personality stemmed out to build a better, more mature Tiffany. The way she grew up to be was written so well, it made me think that Tiffany is one of the best characters in literature.

4. A List of Cages by Robin Roe (2017)

SCORE: 4.505

This is another book with amazing characters, although actually, the book is unnerving because of its blatant and honest themes about child abuse and mental illness.

Still, it’s very touching. The horrendous stuff that it tried to address was handled pretty well, it made the book wonderful. It reminds us that no matter how bad life turns out, you’ll always, always have a reason to be hopeful.

This book is not for the faint-hearted because there are unsettling parts in the story that will really tear your heart out.

But you know me, that’s what I love about books. Prepare a box of tissues if you’re planning to read this.

3. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (2011)

SCORE: 4.540

Second book of The Kingkiller Chronicle, and a sequel for The Name of the Wind—which ranked fifth in my last year’s list. It deserves to have a higher rank this year. I just think the story’s a lot better than the first book. It’s more exciting, and it’s more fun to read. And lemme just say that Patrick Rothfuss is such a literary genius. There are parts in the book that I’m thoroughly wowed.

Kvothe is probably one character that I can never forget—the way I can also never forget Tiffany Aching. Kvothe is like the perfect hero who can do whatever it is that he wants to do, and he just doesn’t get it from nowhere. He learns them. You can feel his struggles in the story when he wants something achieved. He’s a hero, but you can also tell that he’s human.

It sucks that I still don’t know when the last book in this trilogy will be released. The wait is as agonizing as the wait for the next A Song of Ice and Fire book.

2. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (2017)

SCORE: 4.575

IT WAS TOTALLY FINE WITH ME IF THIS BOOK GOT FIRST PLACE. But it didn’t. Of all the books in here, this is the only one that I actually wrote a review of and then posted it in my blog. Because why wouldn’t I review this book??? It completely shattered my soul. Some of the scenes still haunt me to this day.

Why rank second, though? It has a lower score in Goodreads—I incorporate the Goodreads ratings and my personal ratings, and then get a total. The one that took first place has a significantly higher Goodreads rating. Don’t get me wrong, I both gave them the same personal rating, so I’m okay with any of them bagging the first place.

(Here’s my original review for this novel)

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017)

SCORE: 4.780

I love a book that’s not afraid to address difficult themes… and that’s what I adore about this book. I think this is probably one of the most relevant novels in this century. It reminded me so much of To Kill A Mockingbird—which is one of my favorite books of all time.

Reading this wasn’t as painful as They Both Die at the End, but it is more enlightening. To me, They Both Die is more about seizing the day, The Hate U Give is more than that. Bigotry. Prejudice. White Privilege. Bullying. Stereotyping. Injustice. And, of course, RACISM.

And to think that the novel was able to tackle these stuff gloriously makes me love it even more.

Another thing that I like about this book is its characters, particularly Starr who is the main character. She’s so real and relatable. You will root for her to the very end, and you will sympathise with her when things didn’t go the way she wanted them to be.

Reading this opens your eyes to the sour realities of our world. There are people who die simply because of the color of their skin, or what they are perceived to be based on the stereotype. And they don’t even get justice. They’re left to the dirt. Forgotten. And then we stay silent about all of this as if it’s okay because we’re already so used to it. And we don’t speak up about it as much as we should.

Why can’t we try to speak up more?

#Top10books

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hopoo · 7 years ago

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DEADBOLT Q&A

I tried to answer every question as honestly as I could, so I hope this is a good read. If your question isn’t there, it’s either identical to another one asked or joined together with another question. Cheers!

Q: In total, how much time does the campaign of Deadbolt span? It’s hard to tell, what with it being infinite nighttime and all.

A: I would imagine a month-ish. It is implied that the Candles are doing some sort of investigative work between missions, which would surely take some time. Q: Did you have any major inspirations for the visual design of DEADBOLT? A: John Wick is obviously the biggest one! Q: What would hopoo do if someone made a game completely based and inspired from Deadbolt and its… Concept? (with permission and not) A: There’s no way DEADBOLT is that unique in settings or thematics – ultimately, you know what’s right and what’s wrong when you’re inspired by a work, and so will everyone else! If you feel obligated to ask for permission, maybe you’re not exploring enough original ideas? Q: When will we get modding? if so could we get a simplified modding kit? Any plans for updating dedbort, even just the map editor? Feature for adding custom sprites, rotation tool, copypasta tool, just to name a few… A: So the thing with that is that the map editor is only half the equation – while the map editor may be writing stuff to files, it also has to be interpreted on the end by the DEADBOLT game itself. Therefore, adding features that aren’t supported in engine simply won’t work – it won’t know what youre talking about. While rotation is supported in the engine, it doesn’t know how to read that from the files, etc. I also am trying to avoid any legacy issues where old maps are required for old versions of DEADBOLT, or vice versa. Q: When is deadbolt 2 coming with werewolves and mummies A: Werewolves aren’t undead you dingus. But mummies could be cool.

Q: Will the stuff that came with the release of Deadbolt on Play Station, will be added on PC? A: Nope, that was sorta our deal-sweetener for getting on the Sony consoles. Q: Will we ever see expansion levels for Deadbolt or would we get Deadbolt 2 instead? A: DEADBOLT 2 maybe sometime

Q: Does Ibzan is gay? A: I haven’t really thought of the sexual orientation of any of the characters, and I definitely don’t want to pull a JK Rowling and retroactively assign them. So in terms of canon, that just hasn’t been explored.

Q: Would you prefer deadbolt 2 to be in 3d and 2d? Would you do a sequel? A: DEADBOLT is probably the narrowest design space I’ve worked with – there’s no dodging, insta death, insta travel attacks. By the end I felt very stretched out in terms of enemy design, and for that alone I’d think 3D. But hey, I may also just hate 3D by the end of RoR2 so who knows :^). I’d love to do a sequel one day, most likely from the perspective of Ibzan. But who knows! Q: Did Ibzan want to kill the Fire, or just try to reconcile with it? A: He just wanted to talk – but who knows what would’ve happened after the Fireplace rejected him? Q: Would you be interested in going back to the world of deadbolt sometime in the future? I remember hearing somewhere a 3D concept would be interesting to work on. A: I wish I was talented or driven enough to write comics for it – I think DEADBOLT is more about the stories of individuals, compared to RoR who is a story of the universe. I wrote the Cassette Tapes to reflect that. Q: Looking back, is there anything you’d change about Deadbolt? A: Hmmm… I just wish I somehow could expand more on the lore and gangs, and what their goals were. Gameplay-wise, it was a tad too short. I liked doing a few standard stages, and then a mix-up stage (sniper, trap, boss, etc) – maybe we could’ve fit in a few more rotations. Q: What’s your favourite loadout? A: Death/Taxes and Flashbang, like a scrub. Q: Would you ever be interested in restarting the asset suggestion thread A: I consider DEADBOLT to be done – as a 2 (now 3!) man team, we financially can’t do the games-as-a-service thing like most big companies can for smaller games like DEADBOLT. I also intended DEADBOLT to be a one-and-done thing as a contrast for Risk of Rain, which we updated for years after release.

=CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT= I personally also think that EVERY game getting a bunch of DLCS and updates and patches for a long time is, in a way, exhausting as a player. I think it makes it hard to feel satisfied when you finished a game and it’s over and you feel completed in the journey, knowing it’s not ~technically~ over until the devs stop patching. I think it’s great for some games (mostly multiplayer-based ones), but some games you just gotta let… finish, on a good note. Semi-open ended endings are always unsatisfying, in my opinion, and so recently it just feels like you don’t ever complete a game. …On the flip side, we are planning on doing lots of post-launch support for RoR2 because it’s actually inline with our design goals, so don’t fret! Q: Will bugs like Scythe not having a cover sprite or some enemies not having a falling sprite (which causes the game to crash) be fixed? A: Which enemies have been missing a falling sprite? They should be resorting to idle, not crashing. Bosses? Q: Just wanted to say, you guys are my favorite games studio, hands down. Now for the question: Now that the Reaper has completed his task and is allowed to rest, what’s next? Is the Fireplace going to keep him resting for a while? Does our MC have another task to accomplish? A: The Fireplace has never let a reaper “rest” before - the reason he is allowed to rest is because Ibzan never got to, and the Fireplace is trying something different with you. This is unexplored territory for the both of them – presumably he just pets his cat and gets bored before getting back to work. Q: What happens to everyone else in the afterlife? A: People who aren’t in the Place? Who knows, and who cares about boring happy afterlife 😊 Q: I had a question about the lore. There’s mentions of places outside the city, across the river Styx. What are they and what are they like? A: The Styx connects the other realms together, including (presumably) wherever the demons came from. This is explored lightly in one of the demon cassette tapes. Q: Will you ever expand more on the world of deadbolt or are you 100% done with it at this point? A: Nope definitely not done, really wanna explore more one day Q: What’s your office address? For post and stuff, maybe I want to send you a box full of A4 sheets of paper with a thousand hoopters on each. A: Maybe this is the paranoia in me but I’m not comfortable posting my address online – you can just tweet it at me a thousand times instead Q: Did Ibzan think the flames would give warmth to the Dredged or was he just lying to them and using them for his own gain? A: He was lying to himself, but he did truly believe that this was going to work, because this (at the time, anyways) seemed like the only way out. Metaphor woawoawo Q: Could you add some sorta DEADBOLT reference into RoR2? Will the Reaper be playable in Risk of Rain 2 as a bonus? A: Definitely references happening in some form, but playable might be stretchin’ it a bit, especially since it’d be taking up the slot of some more in-universe secret character. Q: How excited are for RoR2? A: Honestly very nervous for the reception, with very big shoes to fill as a sequel for RoR. I just hope people like it, and that we don’t get burnt on 3D because there’s so many possibilities in the future for our games in 3D. Q: How are the Demons born? We know they’re made in birthing chambers, but then is it just like humans or is there anything specific needed for a demon to be born f.e. skeletons>suicide, zombies>overdose, etc. A: Demons aren’t undead and don’t naturally exist in the Place, which is why they have to be smuggled over – they exist in whatever version of hell is in the DEADBOLT universe, and are natural denizens of the underworld. Q: was izban hot before he died? A: The hottest Q: do all the nightclubs canonically have chris c. as the dj A: Yes Q: I love Deadbolt very dearly and i’ve listened to its soundtrack (particularly “Now I Am Become Death”) more times than i can remember. What’s your favourite tune from Deadbolt ? A: Defunktorum or The Proverbial Dust Biters Q: In the Hardmode Cassette Tape it talked about a Reaper that wasn`t the current Reaper that we play as in the Game. Was this Reaper Izban? Since in the tape, he talked about the fireplace as his friend and that could be why he wanted to go back to the fireplace through the portal at the end of the game, to revisit his friend. A: Yes yes and yes. This was most heavily implied in Ibzan’s “home”, which parallel yours. Q: Will RoR2 still have opportunities to create silly messy builds like covering the screen in missiles or releasing an endless stream of Thqwibs? If so, how are you working to mitigate the performance impact of those crazy builds? A: Yep! Currently we have a system that detects the average particle count in a scene and slowly adds a chance non-important effects (like hitsparks or impacts) don’t ever spawn. This will at some point also involve turning off expensive effects and reducing particle LODs. Q: I really love the attention to detail to the characters, environment, aesthetics and gameplay mechanics. Its themes on the criminal underworld and the supernatural give a unique identity in a high-octane/stealth pixel action game I have not seen before. Additionally what prompted or inspired you to make DEADBOLT in the first place? A: DEADBOLT in its entirety was supposed to be not-Risk of Rain. It’s a gorey, violent, moody singleplayer puzzle-stealth game. We were just burnt out from the Risk of Rain experience, and we also wanted to flex our design muscles a bit and show that hey, we’re not just a one-trick pony of gamedevelopment :^) Q: I just played through this game on PS4/Vita over the weekend. Huge fan of Risk of Rain. Even bought it through Limited Run Games. So I had to pick up Deadbolt (Didn’t previously know you had made it either.) and I love it. Its a super solid experience. I’m not sure I have any questions about it. I guess I was curious if co-op multiplayer was ever considered in development? Keep up the great work. Can’t wait to see what you guys make next. A: Nope, because of the reasons above – we wanted a single player game, since RoR was a multiplayer one. Q: First of all, congratulations!! I really loved the game since came out, I bought it for my birthday, since risk of rain made me fell in love with all the pixel art in it, deadbolt didn’t disappointed me!! Everything in it I love it! Thanks for the game!! Now the question You already answered about how the skeletons or vampires came to be in that Place, how the vampires are killed by their lovers, but, how a reaper, becomes to be a reaper? I mean a candle said “I’ve never been so close to one” A: Originally, the reapers were actually supposed to be from suicides – if I remember right, the reaper when going down the stairs to the docks still has the hole in the back of his head in his sprite. Currently, it’s not explored how a reaper is made – I think a bit of mystery is always needed in making a believable universe J Q: Lorewise how many reapers are there total? Why are they incredibly fragile compared to the undead? What makes the reapers not undead? A: IIRC there were 4 fireplaces in the final stage, which was supposed to represent the way the fireplace was communicating to all reapers in the field. Q: Do you like turtles? How about corgis? A: Yes, and yes (although there’s way too many in Seattle now). Q: Did you have any idea Chris would break out a whole band’s worth of musicians for the soundtrack? His work was superb and the OST remains my absolute favorite to this day. A: DEADBOLT OST was actually done with many people – it must be in the credits somewhere! If I remember right, there is at least a drummer and a musician.

Thanks for all the questions, and happy hunting :)

hopoo

#deadbolt

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theraptorreviews · 7 years ago

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A Review of Netflix’s Death Note

Netflix’s Death Note adaptation is bad. The film has been panned by critics, diehard fans of the show, and even casual Netflix browsers. Death Note (2017), to be blunt, has absolutely nothing to offer that is new or interesting. It is a film embarrassed of its source material, while simultaneously relying on it as a crutch for when it fails to create anything original. It’s worst crime isn’t that it just fails to be a Death Note adaptation, but that it fails to stand on its own.

The plot of this movie is extremely simple. Light Turner, played poorly by Nat Wolff, one day stumbles across the Death Note, a notebook that kills whoever has their name written in it. Together with his forced romantic lead, Mia Sutton, played by Margaret Qualley, and the death god that accompanies the Death Note, Ryuk, played by Willem Dafoe, Light decides that he will use the Death Note to rid the world of crime, all while avoiding the detective extraordinaire, L, played by Lakeith Stanfield, who will stop at nothing to put an end to Light’s killing spree.

Let’s start with the good:

1. Willem Dafoe as Ryuk

Willem Dafoe was a perfect casting choice for the role of a uncaring cold monster who loves death and destruction. We know this because he was the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film. And while he’s entertaining in this film, you can’t help but feel as though he’s just going through the motions of being the Green Goblin once again. I’m not sure I would say that he’s just phoning it in, but it’s very clear that he was chosen because of his role as the Green Goblin. He’s easily one of the “best” parts of the movie, but we’ll be touching more on him later.

2. Lakeith Stanfield as L

He puts in effort into playing the character, one that’s easy to see especially compared to the horrendous performances put forth by the majority of the rest of the cast. He is actively trying to nail the character that he was hired on to play, even attempting to get the anime/manga character’s mannerisms down. He is easily the most competent person in this movie, but that’s not a huge compliment considering the rest of the film.

That’s it. That’s all the positives that are worth mentioning.

Now onto the negatives:

1. Light Turner

Casting a person of asian descent as Light would have in no way saved this movie. While it would have definitely limited the amount of controversy that the film acquired as early as the first trailer, the character of Light is so fundamentally broken and unlikable, that I doubt that even someone as charismatic and likable as George Takei would be able to make him enjoyable. It’d be more entertaining, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t be good.

Light is a walking contradiction played by Nat Wolff as every 90s punk-stereotype loner kid. The fact that Light never once says “welcome to my twisted mind” is astounding to me, as it would legitimately fit his “character” here. He is very much so like every 80s comic that attempted to leap off of the success of Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns comics: the attempt to appear deep is more important than actually being deep. We are simultaneously supposed to root for Light as the good guy while he takes pleasure in killing, develops an egotistical god complex, and takes tips from anonymous strangers on the internet on who to kill. But that fails because he is not a deep, complex character. He is simply a loner murderer that can easily be explained in that sentence alone, the fact that they are presenting him as this deep, psychologically challenging character is, frankly, insulting to the audience. You can’t have him be simple enough for every person to figure out but complex enough to need to peel back layers, you can’t have it both ways.

Maybe we’d be able to buy that perception of depth, if he weren’t such a unintelligent character that simply cannot plan ahead for the life of him. He is simultaneously a genius, but is completely unable to tell that his murder-loving girlfriend, Mia, is psychopathic, unhinged, and willing to do anything to save herself. He is simultaneously a mastermind, and yet he walks around with the Death Note out in plain sight and literally tells Mia everything about it without the slightest bit of provocation. Light is a dumbass, and yet we’re supposed to believe that he is a mastermind capable of knowing multiple languages and outsmarting everyone aside from L.

2. Mia Sutton

Mia Sutton has two personality traits in this movie. Either she is Light’s loving, obsessive girlfriend who revolves her entire life around him, or she is a psychopathic murderer who thinks that she can have moral superiority while in the middle of killing innocent people.

The big plot twist of this movie is that she kills several FBI agents who are investigating Light, and it’s meant to be a massive reveal. The only issue is that it isn’t a reveal, it can be seen coming a mile away. She even tries to get Light to kill his own detective father just so that he can be assured that no one will come after him. She is psychopathic from the very beginning, but it’s meant to be taken as a massive shock when Light figures it out.

Couple all this with the fact that Margaret Qualley just doesn’t act when playing her, and you have an absolutely boring and pointless character who’s only purpose is to be romantically involved with Light. It would be sexist if it weren’t for the fact that it might just be purely incompetent writing. It might just be too stupid to be able to accept fault.

3. Tone

Death Note (2017) doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s an adaptation of an anime/manga series steeped in philosophical undertones directed by a man who’s known more recently for cheap, jumpscare laden horror films like the recent “Blair Witch” sequel reboot.

The opening scene displays this perfectly as we cut to an overcast and dreary day in Seattle, paired together with an unfitting 80s synth pop tune. From the opening scene, you should be able to grasp at least some form of tone for the rest of the film, but Death Note (2017) can’t understand how to maintain any tone they put forth.

The opening suggests a character drama from the way that we focus on the two leads and how they interact with the world around them. We pan across the overcast Seattle day towards a local high school, where we see Light Turner finishing homework for other students for money, he looks up and sees Mia, a disinterested cheerleader who smokes on school property. All of a sudden, the Death Note falls from the sky right next to Light.

But then not even twenty minutes later, it turns into a horror film with the introduction of Ryuk. Light is in detention having been caught by a teacher. The lights cut out and something breaks in the darkness of the room. Slowly Light traverses the empty room, and comes across the silhouette of something unearthly and demonic. He stares, frozen in terror, when all of a sudden the beast looks dead at Light with glowing red eyes. It’s transformed into a horror movie with no provocation, completely contradicting the serious tone previously established. With that tone being immediately broken with one of the most unmanly screams ever put to film. Nat Wolff’s scream is the equivalent of the shitty joke where someone runs over to a character saying “we heard a girl screaming” only to reveal that it was a male character who screamed. If I were Nat Wolff, I would be legitimately pissed that Adam Wingard and the editors chose to put this take in the movie.

And then we get to the first kill. Light, still in detention, looks out the window and sees the stereotypical bully and lacky who picks on him attacking another student. Remember that this kid, although he is an asshole, is still a kid whose worst crime is punching another kid, but we’ll get back to that later. With Ryuk egging him on, Light decides to take revenge on his bully and writes his name in the Death Note, with the instructions that he will be killed by decapitation. A truck with a ladder is run off the road, and the ladder flies off the top of the truck, and completely severs the bully’s head in a puddle of blood and guts and grey matter and gore. In the span of thirty minutes, this film has gone through presenting itself as a serious character drama, a dark monster horror film, and a gorey shocking film like a bad slasher flick. And it doesn’t get better from there.

Adam Wingard cannot manage to maintain a tone, which is completely baffling to me considering that this appears to be the only movie he has directed that I know of where he cannot manage that. Over the course of the film the tone can be anywhere from the aforementioned serious dramatic story, to a cheesy romance story with as much chemistry as a Twilight book, to a serious in nature crime procedural, to a dark ending where a main character dies to an upbeat 80s synth song about love. And while some filmmakers can easily shift between tones, Adam Wingard shows that he cannot as you feel every single tonal shift that this film has with the force of a semi-truck colliding into a smart car.

4. Pacing & Character Development

Because this is an “adaptation” of the anime/manga Adam Wingard chose to fit as much as he could of the 25 episode run of the manga into an 1hr 45m movie and, naturally, it runs into the same problem that movies like “The Last Airbender” and “Dragon Ball Evolutions” run into. You cannot condense every single ounce of character development that the original source has into something so small. And while the original Death Note anime/manga isn’t as long as Dragon Ball’s 300+ episode run, it’s still a lot to try and condense into such a short amount of time, one might even say it’s impossible to successfully condense.

As such, Adam Wingard and the screenwriters compensated for the condensation of the original source material by completely scrapping all character development of every character aside from Light, and just glancing over Light’s transition into a murder obsessed psychopath in the middle of a 20+ minute montage that covers:

The beginning of Light and Mia’s relationship

Light’s transition into a serial murderer

The majority of the Death Note kills in the entire movie

The impact Light has on the world with his murder spree

The start of the FBI’s investigation into the murders

All of that would seem like it would be fairly important to cover in the actual movie, and you would be right for thinking that. Why they chose to only give character development through a montage that has no concrete end date is beyond me. Maybe that montage lasted one month in the time of the movie, maybe it lasted up until the beginning of Mia and Light’s senior year. I don’t know, because they never say.

By the time you reenter the world of the movie post-montage, it’s a completely different one. Character relationships have changed, Light has killed hundreds if not thousands of terrorists, dictators, and other criminals and has formed a god complex where he has deemed himself a dispenser of justice onto sinners, and violent crime has begun to decrease worldwide because of Light’s actions. All of that isn’t shown over the course of the movie, but in the quick montage that also focuses more on how Light and Mia are a couple. This single montage absolutely kills the pacing of the movie.

5. The Script & Deus Ex Machinas

I’ll be frank in saying that Death Note (2017) feels incoherent script wise. It’s like the first two credited writers had brilliant ideas and wanted to possibly create an American Death Note spin-off series to the original anime/manga, with the only connection being the titular book and possibly Ryuk. But then after they pitched the idea to Netflix and got it approved, it’s as if Adam Wingard and another screenwriter got absolutely terrified that nobody would look at a Death Note adaptation without Light and L and so they quickly changed everything and added in the two characters.

It feels this way, because the script feels rushed and unnatural. I would easily say that the script is over 50% just pure exposition. Exposition from Ryuk on how the Death Note works, exposition from Light on how his dad, the cop, acts read as though it were a character description taken directly from the script, exposition from L about how he’s solving the case, exposition from characters on who’s what, why, and how, and so on and so forth. It’s bad writing, not just for a Death Note adaptation, but in general.

This is especially apparent in the numerous Deus Ex Machina’s that the script willingly stumbles into. One of the most apparent to me, aside from the entirety of the ending, is when L discovers that Light is operating in Seattle. He knows this because Light’s first known victim is a guy from Seattle who was in an armed stand-off with the police, which Light watches via a live news feed over the internet. According to L, the live news feed was only broadcast to the Seattle, but Light found the feed on the internet. You know, the internet. Where I can find live video footage from pretty much every country in the world. This is an asspull at best and lazy at worst. Had this been before the prevalence of the internet as a way to see live footage, like the original Death Note, this would make sense. But it’s not. You can argue that because of proximity Light’s internet search would bring him the closest result first, but L has no way of knowing that. Logically he should know that Light could’ve scrolled through pages of live crime newsfeeds before finding one to test the Death Note out on. This is circumstantial evidence at best yet the movie treats L as if he’s a Einstein level genius for figuring it out.

And if it’s not Deus Ex Machina’s it’s just butchering characters to make the plot work. As stated previously, Light openly walks around the school with the Death Note and, despite not yet knowing Mia personally and knowing that the Death Note is actually able to kill people, just reveals everything to Mia without any real provocation. She legitimately just walks up to him, asks what the Death Note is because she sees it, and he tells her. But at the same time he’s supposed to be a mega genius who can do everyone else’s homework for them for some spare cash and a loner who has absolutely no friends nor any interest in making friends. The screenwriters have the characters bend to fit the plot rather than the plot working around the characters.

6. Who Is This Made For?

When visual media adaptations come out, I always ask one question: why should I watch this over the original? And this point still stands here. The film fails to live up to the potential set in place by the original manga/anime, but fails to stand on its own as its own thing. You have absolutely no reason to watch this over the original anime/manga, especially when considering quality.

Frankly, this film doesn’t seem to have a target audience and instead tries to give something for everyone. Casual horror fans were meant to enjoy the creepier, horror movie moments. Action and gore fans were to enjoy some of the more creative deaths. And Death Note fans were to enjoy the fact that it’s based on an intellectual property that they enjoy. But in trying to please everyone, you get this vapid, bland film that appeals to almost no-one.

Every American film adaptation of anime run into these same pitfalls headfirst. “Dragon Ball Evolutions”, “The Last Airbender”, “Ghost in the Shell”, and now Death Note (2017). All of these films share the fact that they don’t know how to interpret their source material, yet they rely too heavily on it. And my point still stands. Why should I watch the abysmal “Dragon Ball Evolutions” when I could easily watch the cultural icons that are Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z? Why should I watch one of M. Night Shyamalan's worst film when I can just watch one of my favorite cartoon of all time, Avatar: The Last Airbender? Why would I watch the derivative “Ghost in the Shell” film when I could see the animated feature that inspired the Wachowski sisters to create “The Matrix,” one of the most influential action films of all time?

Right now, Netflix is one of the only streaming service that has the original Death Note anime. Even Crunchyroll, a streaming site for anime specifically, doesn’t have it. And this makes the film even more pointless. Why would anyone want to watch the critically panned film when they could just scroll the screen a bit and have the cultural icon that is the original ready to go in seconds? When you search “Death Note” on Netflix, you are inevitably going to get the anime and the movie right next to each other.

Don’t watch Death Note (2017).

If you enjoyed this, please consider following this blog to read this and other reviews that I have written and will be writing. Or consider donating to my monthy patreon, any amount helps.

Thank you all and have a good day.

#Posts from the Raptor's mouth #Death Note #netflix #netflix original #Death note 2017 #anime #manga #movie review #adam wingard

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hellpug · 7 years ago

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Too much Note, not enough Death

SPOILERS (If you give a shit)

Death Note review: Overall rating: 3 Dafoes out 10

Movie cliche count: 15 ( I am sure I am missing some, there was a lot)

People you recognize from other things : 4

TL;DR: Too much Note, not enough Death

Overall, it isn't boring. I will give it that. Some ambient music choices were good. However, much like the main character, this movie didn't have a fucking plan. Someone gave the source material to someone who said fuck it and skimmed through. This results in a lot of shit unexplained. I tried watching this from the point of view of someone who hadn't read the manga. I'm not a fan of the anime either due to the fact Death Note is a story that really is best as written fiction/a comic. Because it's initially a suspense/thriller that involves a smart ass high school student internal monologuing. There's also so much to explain that one movie cannot. So to I will give that the movie decided to remedy that by putting actual action in it, rather than action packed eating of snacks. But of course, because there is so much and not a good plan on to how to summarize this story, there's a lot of dumb cherry picking. Ryuk eats a lot of apples, they spend a lot of time on the apple motif. Perhaps they're relying on Western audience's familiarity with Eden/original sin and will make an apple connection with that. But otherwise it's a quirk and one that is emphasized for no reason. Death Note rules could have been shortened to the extension of the movie itself for the sake of clarity and consistency. The writers clearly tripped themselves up over the rules and even put that frustration into the writing by having Light Turner occasionally spit out "SO MANY RULES." If they had kept it to 5-10 and followed the movies plot using those 10, you would've gotten a much better movie. So instead, it feels like the movie is making up shit as it goes along. Which it is essentially. The movie's world doesn't feel consistent, even with real world rules. Kenny Doyle, the first "so deserves it" victim, is such a strawman it's ridiculous. He's a student held back so long that he's apparently of adult age, which in real world rules, would make it that he would be in continuing education, NOT STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL. This point is important Light threatens him with this fact. This of course, changes nothing. Light, despite supposed to be brilliant, is a goddamn moron who carries all the homework he got paid to do in his bag, so instead of addressing the assault when he wakes up, he's getting detention (not suspended or expelled) and nothing is done about the 15 students they have evidence on. He's placed in detention in a generic classroom that is also part candy and toy store it seems. I'm not kidding. Ryuk makes his appearance by knocking over some marbles and eating Light's apple. Light does the most hilarious spaz out, which makes it clear why these random ass shelves of whatever are in this classroom in the first place. So he can spasm all over the place in a comical fashion. Also not joking. The place is not even more of a mess and looks like the fucking Kool-Aid man tore through it. After Light is done freaking out, slapping himself to assure that he is not in a dream, the Green Goblin gets right to it. Kill Kenny. Kill 'em. Look, he's beating up a chick with his buddy. Kill 'em dude. So he casually writes decapitation, resulting in some final destination bullshit. Kenny gets decapitated with a ladder, it's gorey and hilarious. It's after it's first three deaths, the movie decided it's not going to be a Final Destination rip off it shifts into romance, with killing. After sharing the secret of the notebook with Misa Mi-I mean Mia, the cheerleader who's allowed to smoke on school grounds with anyone giving a shit, they of course fall in love. They roll around and giggle as they off more people. Cliche "gonna love you" type music plays. It's a bizarre teen love and death montage. Also MisaMis-Mia looks like Kirsten Stuart but isn't Kirsten Stuart. Oh, and Light picks the name Kira (In the manga, this name is given to him by the public). It's not something the masses comes up. Despite acting like he's oh so innocent and moral, dude has a fucking ego. He goes over with Kirsten Misa Misa over the name he has chosen. Kira means other shit in Russian and other languages, but it's also "sort of means" killer in Japanese!!! SO SUGOI! So part of the rules of the Death Note is that you can partially control PEOPLE for up to two days until their death. That capitalization is important for later. So prisoners that he's murdered have written his name in perfect Japanese, despite never have spoken the language. People start cults and shit. At some point, Light's dad is brought on the case, Light has another tantrum. Light has a lot of those. I should include a tantrum counter on this review as well. This also brings me to another point. It seems there are two ways of writing suspense with intelligent characters. One, you write in depth characters with clear motivations (in that not confusing or dumb) and with actual fucking brain cells. The other is to simply write stupid as fuck characters, with the genius being the one who has a couple more brain cells than the rest. Guess which one this movie was. Holy fucking shit, I could've figured out who Kira was. Anyone could have. Light was a subtle as someone wearing a purple sequin nightgown, shaking maracas at 3 am through a field of tin garbage cans. Dad says he can tell when he's sitting across a guy who's apparently murdered like 400 people. You can tell a killer just by looking. This is supposed to give us the impression that Light Turner is some sort of mastermind, as he shifts around uncomfortably in the guiltiest fashion possible. So we meet L, who is black, because you can't be accused of whitewashing is you make one of the characters black. Watari is the only remaining Japanese character, necessary to dispense ancient Asian wisdom to L. Watari is apparently his entire fucking name and NOONE THOUGHT TO TELL HIM NOT GIVE OUT HIS BUSINESS CARD WITH HIS NAME IN ALL CAPS. Or even hide his face. Even though L does this. Watari gets owned and is controlled long enough to get the location and name of the super secret detective school which tortures children but not long enough to get the name. A plot foil of excessive records is what foils him. The super secret school, which is abandoned, just left all that shit there. Oh, and Light Turner never attempts at it again. I guess that avenue is completely exhausted. L goes fucking nuts, eats candy, reveals his face like whatever. Yells at Light Turner everytime he eats (once before Watari dies at a restaurant and then at Light Turner's house.). L begins throwing tantrums and has the house raided. Don't worry though, Misa Stuart is somehow completely forgotten about by the ace detective and she sneaks the Death Note out in her Calculus book. It's also prom, because yeah. They go to prom, L is getting CLOSER! (Not really) There is this feeling of tension and then really kind of nothing. It seems like they were gonna do bait and switch at prom but Mia Mia took the page out of the book that Light Turner was gonna burn so Watari wouldn't die but you only get one, so Misa Mia ripped it out, kept it. GUESS WHY? CUZ SHE WROTE LIGHT TURNER'S NAME IN THERE. GENIUS. She wants the book to continue what they started because she's not gonna punk out. I feel like they swapped the personalities of Misa Misa and Light Yagami in this movie. Kirsten Stuart doesn't give a fuck. Kirsten Stuart will bang you for your killer notebook. Also, Ryuk even likes her better. She gets 10/10 green goblins. Light Turner panics, runs away from prom, goes to the computer room. He goes to the Kira worship site which he earlier said was a bad idea to take names from cuz "rumours" and uses it for his ELABORATE PLAN. L, like Batman, does not like killing people or using weapons they are bad. Like Batman in Dark Knight, L resolves to using a fancy ass gun. During Light Turner's night on the town to do things and stuff, he is cornered in an alley. Light is all like "You can't stop it if you don't know man!" L doesn't shoot, stupidly tells the cook from the restaurant who has come out into the alley that this is Kira. Cook knocks out L with a convenient 4x4 and lets Light Turner escape. Light Turner and Mia Mia meet at the ferris wheel. This is where CONTROL OF PEOPLE clause becomes important. He issues an ultimatum. If she really loves him, she won't take the Death Note. Otherwise, she will never see him again. She's all like "Yeah I love you babe" then when he's looking out the ferris wheel, she snatches it. He's all like NNNNNOOOOOOOO. Turns out he wrote "When Mia accepts the Death Note, ferris wheel will start to lose its shit, she will fall to her death. Light will fall into the water. A rapist doctor will give him cpr (Retrieved from that website). A pedo (website) will find the Death Note, use it in order to keep up appearances that Kira is active while Light Turner is in the hospital. Oh, and the page with Light Turner's death on it? IT WILL BURN. I wasn't aware the Death Note page was a person. See, I could've bought that it accidentally got burned, but they had to add that, because it makes Light Turner look smart. But that's not what the Death Note does. Sure, objects will fail in order to ensure an individual's death but I doubt to prevent them as well. Given that they are saying Ryuk is actually executing the deaths (but they have to write the names what?) I GUESS HE BURNED IT MAYBE. Except he didn't. So Light Turner lives, BUT HE FORGOT ONE THING. MISA STUART'S PAGE! L, who has been disgraced forgetting owned by a 4x4 and seemingly attempting to kill a minor, realizes that he forgot about Misa Mia. He breaks into her house, gets the calculus book and we are left on the cliffhanger ending of will he kill Light Turner or not. Also, his dad figures out it was him all along because a stupid newspaper clipping was missing. Not anything else obvious.

#Death Note #Death Note 2017 #Death Note movie #Light Turner #Light Yagami #JFC #bad movies #netflix

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ornisapiens · 7 years ago

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Silence of The Clones - 1

《This Clone High fanwork continues along the original ending with a premise different from the source material, as its focus shifts onto Scudworth and Mr. Butlertron. How will they manage after a long term investment disappears?

I tried to keep the prose snappy in tune with the show’s pacing. Future chapters may be longer. Expect slow updates due to chronic fatigue.》

Tonight, on a very special episode of Clone High: Scudworth let’s it go to his head, foster parents share their dread, and every clone you loved dearly is dead.

The glaring caution tape was wrapped around the perimeters. Numbered plaques were daintily placed, and ice samples less daintily harvested. After seconds of intense scrutiny, the evidence technician turned to address his colleagues.

“It is my professional opinion that what happened here is... a mass murder.”

Unanimously, the investigation team paused and stared beyond the man, who walked over to the gorey specimen near the lever. He hrmmed as he gave the spectacle a top-down scan with a discerning eye.

“I believe we have our first suspect. Arrest him.”

Shortly, the frozen body was lifted and secured into the police car’s back seat.

Scudworth filed his papers in yellow envelopes by their year as Mister B dusted the shelves. They spent hours cleaning and sorting which things to pack away and take with them, but in that generous span, it was Mister B who completed more chores with strained glee. He hoped his cheer wouldn’t elevate the former principal’s blood pressure, but the lines on Scudworth’s face deepened til he and the Marianas Trench resembled one another.

A file with amusement park plans peeking out was left offside in the way one would place a picture of their pet on their work desk, which clued Mister B in on what plagued Scudworth at this hour. Not that he’d needed that when he’d listen to the man gobble carelessly about the dream he had, when there was still someone there to have wool pulled over their eyes.

That gave him an awful idea.

“Maybe a bit of wordplay will cheer you up, Wesleeeeeey.”

Scudworth paused, then resumed shuffling documents. On a normal, clone infested school day, he would have snapped back with an unhinged remark. He would have flipped his lid at his organized chaos being reorganized in a formal fashion, especially by anyone else.

Mister B hadn’t seen Scudworth this focused since their third or fifth late night grave-robbing spree, way, way back. Kicking back with some alcohol and basking in nostalgia would have to wait.

A hard bump on the robot’s arm broke this reverie, and he caught the fallen object just in time. Inside, the sloshing fluid tossed a fleshy lump around.

“Careful with that fetus!” Scudworth shrieked over his shoulder, “we can’t get formalin on our top secret documents, or their non-existent backups now.

“We’ll have to dispose that by next morning,” he said evenly.

“It already is tomorrow, Wesley,” Mister B still held the jar, only now he appeared to cradle it.

Scudworth began to empty his paper hat drawer, chiming, “I don’t count midnight as tomorrow, you know tha--” he stopped upon seeing it was in fact almost four in the morning.

“Oh. God. DAMN IT!”

“Witness, you’ll state your name and occupation. For ease of communication, we’ve brought over a marine biologist who’ll translate for you via rubber duck.

“Now tell us what you were doing on prom night.”

The light from overhead reflecting in the dolphin’s eyes wobbled as she clicked defiantly something about the kiddie pool being too small.

“This won’t take too long, but it would go faster with your cooperation. We have a year’s worth of tinned tuna for you, if you comply.”

Shamra cackled abruptly.

“She’s imitating shrill human laughter,” the marine biologist glanced aside, “I think.”

“Now where have I heard that laugh before...?” the interrogator said, rubbing his chin.

Mister B watched Scudworth slip various papers into the shredder, some of them were once at risk of becoming formalin-soaked. The robot’s eyes occasionally darted away while he formulated a non-flammable way to ask about his human buddy’s slapdash decisions. He must be panicking deep down trying to get rid of anything that could be used against him.

But that meant everything had to go.

If there are only single copies left, they could be kept close for future referentials. The only organized chaos that’d be left would live behind Scudworth’s smile, and machines with ambiguous purpose to the layman.

He cracked his neck craning it to look at the time again while frantically crumpling the remnants in his labcoat. His robot companion remained motionless, which stood him out from the hurly burly.

“Mister B, why are you still holding that?”

“I forgoooot I waaaas.”

Scudworth’s brows bunched together as his hands lifted. “OOOOOOooh like how you ‘forgot’ the board of shadowy popsicles intended to terminate me? I didn’t give you the brain of a programmable toaster oven, but I’m considering placing yours in one!”

Mister B’s antenna and gaze drooped.

They were lucky the whole district didn’t catapult awake from the screeching this one man could do.

The robot searched his memory banks for an answer far less embarrassing than the feeble one he gave. It was hard for a hot second with thoughts of recycling, but that was the ticket he didn’t know he wanted.

“Oh Wesley, I was going to ensure that this doesn’t leak into the soil and groundwater.”

“And avoid drawing the ire from the environmental protection agency! Splendid!”

Mister B was already knitting a cover story should hazardous waste contractors ask about the obviously human specimen-- should it ever come to that. There was something charitable in giving it to a hapless thrift shop of curiosities, or someone working in a medical field. Yet, he could only think of parting with it, something that was a failed attempt at their impressive feat, and a piece of themselves.

Scudworth opened the overhead entrance of his death maze and motioned for the robot to enter.

And what, careen off every corner on the way out? The man’s unusually nonchalant expression hinted he was at least aware how grave this matter was, but didn’t care for wasting minutes to procure bubble wrap.

Before Mister B formed half a thought, Scudworth flew up the tube.

The day began with a choir of birds disrupting the sleep of many a grumpy night owl who hated the nine to five schedule and oversaturation of bad news.

Some who dragged themselves to the coffee felt something burst inside and renew their senses at the headline “Death On Ice” followed by clinically delivered details and the dreadful ticker scrolling across just underneath it all.

A few were stunned until tears brought them back to reality, but one inebriated woman slurred at her TV set, “cool”.

#fanfiction #clone high #my writes #humor #silence of the clones #bringbackclonehigh #cerebral ejections

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