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radramblog · 3 years ago

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Eldritch Moon my beloved

I think most Magic players are going to have a favourite set. Often that’s going to be one they started playing with, or one that really got them into the game, or one that had a limited or standard format they really enjoyed. A lot of people won’t, and that’s okay, they’re allowed, it’s hard to pick favourites sometimes.

But for me, it’s Eldritch Moon, aka the last time we went to Innistrad, and things got a bit more tentacular.

Eldritch Moon had a lot working against it from the get-go.

The Shadows block immediately followed the Battle for Zendikar block, one which a lot of people Didn’t Like. Whether it be for some of the more questionable art direction, for the relatively weak cards and boring parasitic mechanics, and for arguably some of the lamest story the game has had to date. More relevantly, though, it was a pair of sets where a fan-favourite plane was essentially dominated by squid monsters and lost a lot of its unique identity in the process- gone was the fun D&D-esque adventure world, replaced by stark wastelands and a war story with like one good story article. It’s the Tazri one.

And then the next set was Shadows over Innistrad. Another return to a fan-favourite plane, with a huge mystery being built up as to why everything was going to shit again. Why Avacyn and her angels were turning on humanity, why there are all these funky stones everywhere, what exactly Nahiri was doing fucking around on the plane of someone she apparently doesn’t like very much.

There were cryptic hints in the set itself. Its title is a reference to the Lovecraft story, Shadows over Innsmouth, with a fair few cards alluding to the story itself. A few cards did have subtle tentacles in the art, as well as subtle warping of flesh and world. The most damning clue came in the form of a puzzle regarding different flavour texts for the card Tamiyo’s Journal, which gave a particular phrase- “Remember this: they came as three”- flavour text from a Battle for Zendikar card referring to the three Eldrazi Titans, only two of which had been dealt with in that story.

Despite this, people still denied that this was the plot-to-be. There were still rumours that it was somehow Marit Lage again after all this time, or that the threat was a new one, or that it was somehow the Gitrog Monster’s fault. Personally, I wanted to believe this, and desperately didn’t want the next set to be Eldrazi-themed- I’d gotten pretty sick of them from BfZ and OGW and was very much enjoying all the new Werewolves and Madness cards and Delirium mechanic. This was at the point where I was drafting at FNM weekly, and the fun differential between the two blocks was stark.

But of course, the mystery was revealed. It was old god Emrakul the whoooole time! Quelle fucking surprise. And yet it ended up being significantly better than the previous block, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the story is just kind of better. We get to see distinctly through the cards and the plot how the influence of Emrakul has affected the regular citizens of Innistrad, and how all its various factions- the Church, the vampire manors, the packs of werewolves, et cetera- were all twisted in her visage. We get to see the desperate fight against them, with all these gothic horrors warring against eldritch horrors, and against themselves. And we get both Jace doing some surreal journey-to-the-centre-of-the-mind shit while Liliana gets to be the hero and Tamiyo gives us an ending that raises more questions than it answers.

Also, Sorin gets stuck in a rock. Fuck that guy, Nahiri was always cooler, and fuck War of the Spark for apparently just having them make up off screen.

Secondly, the cards. Flavourwise, the three Eldrazi Titans’ corrupting influence manifests differently for each- Ulamog consumes and drains the world, Kozilek corrupts the mind and wreaks havoc on space, and Emrakul? As we see, Emrakul twists flesh into new and horrifying shapes, that the set’s cards display in loving and disgusting detail. While Ulamog and Kozilek’s drones were clearly a part of themselves, the Eldrazi of Innistrad all used to be something much more reasonable before Emrakul made it to the plane.

There are three types of Eldrazi in this set. Firstly- the transform mechanic from Innistrads previous has been played with to suit the needs of the flavour. With the exception of Ulrich, every single double-faced card represents a creature from the world, be it Human or Werewolf or otherwise, that is touched by Emrakul and makes a permanent transformation into something else. There’re masses of limbs, shapes echoing Emrakul herself, and flesh in configurations that Should Not Be. The shift on every card is stark, and in every case, you have to actively put in effort to push them over the edge- and off a cliff which they cannot come back from. This is especially true with the Meld mechanic, with the cards fusing into this giant monstrosity that literally dwarfs every other card on the table.

The next type of EMN-drazi is the Emerge creatures. The mechanic was extremely fun, almost all the cards were eminently playable in at least one format (mostly just limited), and the art is spooky. The flavour of some guy on your table getting fucking chestbursted and having fucking Elder Deep-Fiend pop out is incredible, and each is a great way of showing how the regular fauna of the plane (and flora, like, I think Lashweed Lurker is a plant or something) are mutating in response to the creature’s presence.

Finally, there’s the cards that make 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens. There’s less of these and they’re less intense, but by and large they’re a representation of the regular people being affected by the whole thing. Just about every card that makes one of these involves a creature dying in some way (Desperate Sentry, Otherworldly Outburst) or being spawned by an existing mass of flesh (Hanweir, Howling Chorus), and it gives this sense that everybody is affected by this effect.

Of course, that was also a thing in Battle for Zendikar block. The whole thing was Eldrazi, Eldrazi, Eldrazi, with even vanilla 4/3 worms having something to say about fighting them. They key difference of Eldritch Moon is that the flavour of the world is still preserved outside of this Eldrazi presence.

What I’m saying is- the gothic horror of Innistrad is still present despite the eldritch horror of the set’s antagonist. There’s still a corrupt and violent church (albeit with a few more tentacles now), there are still cults and Frankenstein zombies and vampires and werewolves. Innistrad’s tone is compatible enough with the Eldrazi’s that the combination enhances the two rather than diminishes them.

The final thing I want to say is just- the set’s really fun. It has a bunch of my favourite classic limited cards- Thermo-Alchemist, Ulvenwald Captive, and Boon of Emrakul- along with multi-format all-stars like Grim Flayer and Collective Brutality. It has big potential get-there moments with the Meld cards and some of the flip Eldrazi, and splashy interesting cards like Emrakul herself and Harmless Offering. The set drips with flavour that enhances the gameplay, with very little wasted space.

It’s a set I only really have two complaints about. Firstly- lol Ulrich isn’t good and wasn’t what basically any werewolf fan was after. And two- it suffers from an eternal issue that Magic only recently solved, in that it’s a Small Set with a pile of mechanics that it cannot possibly fully explore in its 200 or so cards. The biggest victim of this is Meld, as they could only fit 3 pairs in under the restraints of the set size. And that’s a real shame, considering that it’s a mechanic that we’re probably never seeing again, especially considering the recent Midnight Hunt. I really think there was a missed opportunity to not have a few leftover Eldrazi in that set- whatever happened to the Dronepack? Or the corrupted vampire houses? I suppose, though, that “I want more!” can be the best complaint a creator can get.

Eldritch Moon had big shoes to fill. However, in my eyes, it didn’t just fill those shoes. It filled them and kept filling them until its distended toes burst out the front and sides of the shoes and just kept growing, and bending in really weird ways, and I think I’ve lost the plot of this metaphor. It’s my favourite Magic set, and I don’t see that changing for a while.

#ramble #mtg #mtgemn #eldritch moon #this was the first storyline where jace actually got to be interesting

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kattegat-kittycat · 5 years ago

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Fates Entwined II: We’ll be as one

Second Chapter to Fates Entwined. Part I

After your former clan was brutally murdered, you agree to an arranged marriage with Ivar to keep your social status. You may not always see eye to eye and sometimes even find yourself on different sides of one war or the other, but somehow you can never escape each other no matter how much you try to forget, deny and run. Somehow you always end up in each other’s faces. Sometimes quite literally.

A/N: This was a chapter that had to be written to get the story going, so the writing dragged on slowly. Also, loads to do on the work front and stuff. Well, now this is done, I can get to the actual story :) Have fun!

Here we are in this fatal design But we'll be as one Under the sun and we're facing out for hope

Entwine - Fatal Design

Sigurd sighed. “Why is she getting married to Ivar? Why not one of us? We are older than him, we should get married first.”

Ubbe sighed. “So, tell me Sigurd, would you really want to be married off to the daughter of an old friend of mother’s? I for my part would rather stay a free man until I find a woman I want to marry.”

“Yes, yes, but why did no one even ask or consider us?” Sigurd answered.

Hvitserk shrugged. “Do you of all people even need an explanation for mother’s behaviour when it comes to little Ivar? Especially now that someone found out that he is not a real man?”

Sigurd shook his head. “Of course not. But that is just it. If they don’t get a child, everyone will question what is wrong with Ivar. It will shove it into their faces rather than hide it.”

Now Ubbe shrugged. “Unless mother tells one of us to fuck her so it looks like Ivar can produce offspring.”

“I wouldn’t mind”, Hvitserk chuckled, “She’s pretty.”

Sigurd looked exasperated. “She is not a good fit for Ivar, she is way too peaceful and rational.”

“Which is exactly why she is to marry your brother.” Aslaug interrupted as she entered the room. “If you must know, I had a vision. It was cruel and brutal and bloody. Ivar had lost control. And then she was sent here by the Gods. A woman strong enough to reign him in, but soft and forgiving enough to encourage his potential and support him. Her mother was one of the greatest shield maidens I know and she raised her as one, too. She can protect Ivar, when the war comes to Kattegat.”

The eyes of all three sons were on her. “Mother, no one can reign in Ivar. Let alone control him. You should know that.” Hvitserk said quietly.

“Then may the Gods be with you, my sons. Stay together and support each other, don’t let anybody come between you.Help your brother find his place in the world, because that is what he is ultimately looking for. Otherwise…the world will burn and we will have to surrender ourselves to the mercy of the Gods.”

***

We had both gone through the cleansing rituals in the bath houses in the morning, after which we had gotten ready for the actual ceremony. They had to make a few adjustments due to Ivar’s condition, but all in all they tried to honour the traditions. As I had no heirlooms or family present, Margarete had woven a beautiful crown of hay, flowers and colourful bands for me, which was to be placed on my braided hair. She had also been one of the women to accompany me to the bath house to sweat and cleanse and thus bid farewell to my maidenhood. A few other women from the town had been with us, but somehow there had been a tension in the air. Everybody seemed to be afraid for me, but nobody dared say anything. It made me nervous, but I knew it was too late to bow out now.

It was only an hour to our wedding, when I sat in the flower crown and a flowing dress in Aslaug’s room and waited for Margarete to finish braiding my hair, when she suddenly looked around. Aslaug and a few other slave girls had left the room a few minutes ago and we were alone for the first time.

“You…you can still run, if you want to.” Margarete suddenly whispered close to my ear.

I turned to look at her, interrupting her work. Her face seemed worried and sincere.

“And why are you suggesting this?” I asked, harsher than I intended to sound, because I could see her flinch. Many of the girls thought that I was a former slave and had been captured somewhere else. I wasn’t sure what Margarete thought of me, but I had learned early on that slaves and servants were more than willing to spill their masters’ secrets when you treated them with kindness. And they knew a lot of the things the families would never want to get public. So I was more than willing to be her friend and listen to what she had to say.

Margarete didn’t meet my eyes, though, and she was about to apologise for speaking out of turn, when I smiled softly at her. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I am just so nervous. You probably have your reasons and you know these people, this family better than I do, so I beg you, tell me why you think it might be better to leave a place where I am being offered a safe harbour?”

She looked relieved first, then slightly troubled.

“Ivar…he is…he is scary. He can be…cruel. His brothers asked me to sleep with him and I was in no position to refuse them. And afterwards he repeatedly threatened my life. He said he’d kill me and if it weren’t for Ubbe and Hvitserk, I am pretty sure, he would have gone through with it.”

“But why? Did you give him any reason?”

“I know too much. That is the other thing; you should know that Ivar cannot… he is unable to perform his male duties. And I am sure, he felt ashamed and frustrated and that is why he wanted to murder me.”

I looked at her, deep in thought. Was she telling the truth or did she have an ulterior motive? Did she maybe want to have Ivar for herself? Then again, the way she shivered when she said his name and her scared look seemed honest.

“I am very close to Ubbe and Hvitserk, and they too say that Ivar has trouble controlling his anger. Please be warned, he can be cruel. As a child, they say, he killed another boy during a ball game, because they would not throw him the ball. He is beautiful, yes, he looks like an angel with his blue eyes and dark hair, and his brilliant smile, but he is the devil. He…”

We heard footsteps and instantly we resumed our roles, she silently braiding my hair and I sitting there patiently. Before, we had shared a quick look and knew that neither of us would be talking about our conversation, and when Aslaug entered the room, we looked like nothing ever happened.

Now, I understood the looks of the women better. Nobody knew Ivar, truly knew him. All they saw was an unpredictable boy, spoiled by his overprotective mother.

***

I arrived at the ceremony escorted by Hvitserk, who took the stead of my brother in the ceremony. Right before we arrived at the altar, Hvitserk turned to me and smiled. It was a friendly smile, but there was pity behind his eyes.

“Are you ready to get married?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Is any woman ever ready to marry?” I said with a fake smile.

He grinned. “I have heard of women waiting all their lives for that day.”

“I have never been one of them. But I am happy. And I hope, Ivar will be happy as well.”

“I am not sure Ivar would know what happiness feels like if it poked him with a stick. But maybe you can change that. He deserves some happiness in his life. But if he ever mistreats you, you come and tell me, alright?”

I nodded. My smile felt more real now. “Thank you, Hvitserk.”

He was about to say something, but was broken off, as we heard the sound of a horn over the bay and saw the longboat arrive that carried Ivar. For the occasion, Floki had built him something like a wooden throne that was carried by four men. There was a small sense of unease on his face, but he seemed to enjoy the attention. By his side were his other two brothers and Floki, in the absence of his father. What a sorry couple we were. The cripple without his father present and the girl from nowhere who had neither family nor hope without this alliance. I could see why I was being married off to the cripple. But there was something to be said about alliances between people who share the same or similar predicament. Sometimes the whole is more than the sum of its parts. And maybe Ivar and I could help each other to achieve a greater future for the two of us.

When Ivar and his small band of relatives had arrived beside me and Hvitserk, his throne was set down and the four men who had carried it, hurried away. Ivar looked up to me and smiled incomprehensively. But before we could exchange any words, the gothi, our priest, already started the ritual.

“Ivar and Y/N, we are here to lead you into marriage, to forge a bond between you, too strong to be broken by fate, suffering or mere men interfering. We will ask the Gods to bless your marriage and protect it from anyone and anything.”

He took a few branches of fir and dipped them into the bowl on the altar, which contained the blood of a goat, only to sprinkle us with the blood. I could feel Ivar’s gaze on me, looking for my reaction. I looked back at him and smiled. His face was spotted with little dots of blood and suddenly, I was in a coountry far away from home. People around me were fighting, there was a battle raging within the walls of an unfamiliar city. It was built from materials I didn’t know or we didn’t have at our disposal. Everything looked strange and different. In the center of it all, I could see Ivar. Older, his hair longer, but braided. He wore armour and chainmail, he was sitting on the ground in front of a strange looking cart, screaming at the onlookers that they could never kill him. His face was covered in blood and it was a ghastly sight. The scenery changed and I could see Ivar throwing an axe at Sigurd. It hit home and Sigurd dropped to the ground dead. Another change of scenery, I was back in Kattegat, and I could see Ivar standing – standing! – amidst the ruins of the city, facing Ubbe and cutting his throat. Yet another jump and I saw Ivar staring at a blood-eagled man, his brothers around him. Another change and Ivar, older and with a beard, was cowering over the dead body of Hvitserk, the city burning around him. The jumps came faster now, I saw him lead an army against Björn. Could see him cry at the grave of his mother. Look at a stillborn baby. Strangle a woman. Then there he was, fighting Lagertha. And suddenly I was back in the present. I had only missed a few seconds of the ceremony, even though it had felt like half a lifetime to me, as the gothi sacrificed the rest of the goat’s blood to Thor, by pouring it onto heated stones in a hearth close to the altar.

I frantically looked for Aslaug and when I locked eyes with her, she knew. I could see it in her face, she knew that I had seen and what I had seen. She quickly glanced away. She had known all along, because this was the fate of her blood. And now, it would be the fate of my blood as well. There was no doubt that the Gods had already seen, accepted and challenged us as a married couple. I took a deep, shaky breath. Ivar looked up to me and in his sing-sang voice asked me:

“What is the matter, is anything wrong?”

I shook my head, fighting back tears. “Nothing, I am just getting emotional.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Women…” he muttered.

I was relieved he had bought this little white lie that was drenched in scarlet blood, but I really had to talk to Aslaug.

We continued with the tying of the knot and the exchange of the swords we had brought, but I could hardly concentrate. I needed answers. I had never been a seer and I did not wish for any further disturbing visions. What had I gotten myself into?

#vikings #ivar the boneless #ivar the boneless x reader #ivar lothbrok #ivar ragnarsson #ivar ragnarsson x reader #vikings fanfiction #stories from kattegat #fates entwined #ivar imagine

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worldcakecakecake · 5 years ago

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On Deutschland and Italia by Lovino Valenti

Lovino writes a series of blog entries on the relationship between Germany and Italy as he deals with a move to Hamburg, his brother’s wedding, and his budding romance (which he denies) to the infuriating Gilbert Beilschmidt.

Hahaha…hahahaha…hahaha…as you can probably tell, I have absolutely no control. Here, have yet ANOTHER new story that I have had here in the works for a while too. Another new pairing, prumano, which I admit is another of my favorites in the fandom and this is my diving into it as well.

This is done as a gift to a dear friend, Nikki, one of their accounts here at tumblr being @ask-the-icelandic-little. She has helped me several time with the stories, especially with the German in them and even helped me to write a letter so I could get my year visa here in Germany. She has been a great follower and friend and thus I honor her with this story. It is set in Hamburg as it her home and the place we managed to meet and spend some wonderful time together.

I hope this story is a well enough gift and hope other readers enjoy it as well.

Fair warning: Lovino is incredibly biased in writing these articles and can write very negatively about Germany. Things can even come as negative even for Italy and I apologize incredibly if you are deeply offended or you do not agree with the mention. I do admit that Lovino is MEANT to be this biased about Germany and I’m just exploring his thought process during the situation. But, I am extremely willing to hear better accuracies and how I can improve Lovino’s blogs. So please have no fear in messaging.

When it comes to updating, same as some of the last stories I’ve posted.

Chapter 1

On Deutschland and Italia.

Germania and the Roman Empire.

Aldrich Beilschmidt and Augusto Valenti.

The Roman Empire shared a northern border with Germania. Both groups trained and lived to fight, one making wars and pillaging enough to be considered one of the strongest empires in our history, the other the very one that brought this power its end. But before that, the Romans and Germanics lived in relative peace. Although the Romans kept trying to push into their land, Germanics themselves kept seeking entrance into the empire, wanting to live as Romans did, joining their armies, even seeking marriage. At first, the Romans denied many of these chances and it took many years of fighting and other casualties for the Romans to start giving them these permissions. Germanics talked often of the Romans, wanting to be like them, getting their items that they used for their own. And it was shared, for Romans were just as wondered by their brightness of their hair, eyes and skin, their own forms of battle, even their culture, which was extensively written about and it’s the reason we have information of the Germanics in the first place. The downside is that it’s all written by Romans.

These Germanics settled well in the territory, some even reaching high positions to lead even their own groups. Sadly, it was throughout this that they managed to get enough men to sack Rome, a dwindling of the empire beginning since then.

Aldrich Beilschmidt, esteemed for owning the famous ‘Beilschmidt Services’, the high demanded mechanic shop with the best state of the art technology that can get your car fixed like new. Augusto Valenti, founder of the restaurants ‘Antico’, the most acclaimed Italian restaurant in all of Hamburg, perhaps even Germany and I’m not writing that simply because he’s my grandfather.

These two figures hold a friendship that many have watched for years. They went to school together, traveled across Europe and even Africa and Asia together, they were the best man for each other’s wedding and each is a godfather to one of their children.

Who better to begin on this special series of articles about the relationship between Germany and Italy than two men of experience and stories that can well represent this great empire and these proud tribes.

They met in 1949, through a still reconstructing Europe after the second world war, in Denmark, where they were both attending a specialized boarding school. They formed a peculiar friendship, a shield to all the insults of ‘Nazi scum’ or ‘Mussolini mafia’ that they were shot at everybody, bonding over honey buns and which kid was bullying them more.

As the years passed, they managed rooming together, even took respecting trips to Germany and Italy to know their countries and even their families. Each adopted the other, both growing a relationship that was more like brothers each day.

On 1962, Aldrich wedded Louis Oelberg and Augusto, Helena Stefanidis, only by a mere month apart. Although Augusto and Helena only had a single daughter, my mother, Renata Valenti, Aldrich and Louis had three. The two elder boys, Marcellus and Karl Beilschmidt, and their youngest daughter, Monika Beilschmidt, who was born around the same time as Renata. Aldrich became Renata’s godfather, as Augusto to Monika, these two little girls continuing well that friendship, uniting the families through feasts, dinners, chats over the phone, their balconies, their front doors, through every step of their children’s growth, through the death of Helena, for when Marcellus left to Austria and Karl to Switzerland following love, trips, graduations, weddings and any other new births. It was following this friendship that Augusto established himself for some years here in Hamburg, Aldrich offering help to get Augusto opening that restaurant he often spoke and even dreamt of having outside of Italy. It is the reason why I came here when I was three and lived for about two years, before homesickness attacked well my family and we were once again brought back to Italy for many years before…once again, Hamburg, Germany, called us back…because there’s nothing in the world that can stop my grandfather’s ultimate epic romance with Aldrich Beilschmidt.

Now you must be wondering if I, Augusto Valenti’s eldest grandson, heir to the family’s power, has continued well this long family friendship to the great Beilschmidts. I’m sorry, but this is one of the many things I disappoint my family in.

To be honest, I can’t stand any of them, but if there’s one that takes the throne of holding my ultimate hatred, it’s Gilbert Beilschmidt.

There was Monika Beilschmidt and Renata Valenti, exchanging gossip, snacks and any new events happening in the city. Their two youngest sons, Ludwig Beilschmidt and Feliciano Valenti, both two years old, played in a sand box, trying to build castles or pretend foods with their toy molds, a corner just for them which both the mothers could watch them from. Lovino Valenti, Renata’s eldest, chose to sit by his mother, bored, pouting, hands wrapped on his chest angry and even vengeful. The four-year-old kept his heavy stare on the monkey bars, on the big slides and high levels to climb on, with countless games or fake horses to ride, and yet he was not part of it, as any boy his age should.

“Lovino, carino, go on, play,” Renata had tried to usher him, but Lovino would just pout more, wrapping his arms more strongly around him, as if trying to chain himself to the bench.

“Gilbert is out there. I’m sure he’d love for you to play with him.” It was just at the mention that a loud laugh echoed across the playground, said albino boy having found a way to climb the biggest pole, hanging himself from it and waving around a large toy sword, seeming to claim the entire area as his own.

Monika groaned and hid her face in shame in her hands while Renata giggled.

Lovino didn’t want to mention that he was the real reason he refused to stand up, so he just remained as silent as he had arrived to the park.

“Or you can play with Antonio and Francis,” Renata continued to suggest.

Both these boys kept a further slide and small climbing rock to themselves, taking rounds and finishing by picking some of their dolls and action figures they brought to play, all laid across the sand just for them.

Lovino sighed, guessing they will do, finally standing and making his reach. He kept out of eye sight from the raging albino, hiding well until he reached Antonio and Francis’s playing domain.

“Hi,” he shyly introduced himself.

Antonio perked and gave a large smile, running over and even embracing Lovino tightly, something the other was already used to, so he didn’t bother in pushing him off as he usually did, especially when he was trying to avoid getting a lot of attention…thus getting Gilbert’s attention.

“Hi, Lovino! Are you okay? You look kind of scared,” the young Spanish boy worried.

“Can I…can I play with you and Francis?” He asked yet with that very fear.

“Of course, you can! Right now we’re trying to solve a murder mystery! Someone killed Dusky the mime and we think it was Dawny the clown!”

And Lovino joined, partaking in all the action they imagined, using well the slide, the rock climbing, the toys, creating an array that had even others joining. Many began to notice, adults thinking it sweet, other children wanting to partake, even those that played along with Gilbert.

“So, it was Ernest the bat this entire time,” Elizabeta wondered as she saw from one of the top levels of the jungle gym.

“They shouldn’t have interrogated Spotti like they did,” Sadiq added.

“What are you guys staring at anyways?” Gilbert finally dropped from the ceiling, getting between them and wanting a better watch. “What are they doing?” He demanded to know.

“Solving a murder.”

“They just finished interrogating Ernest the bat and they’re going to arrest him.” Sadiq pointed to Lovino, who for now, did the guard that was taking the bat plush away, meant to be hidden under the slide as the pretend prison.

“Oh look, Lovino is playing,” Gilbert grinned evilly.

“Leave him alone, Gilbert,” Elizabeta warned, but Gilbert scoffed.

“I think someone should break in and free Ernest,” he decided, jumping over the rails, sliding down a pole, reaching the ground and running off to the scene.

Lovino had just placed the plush, pretending to close an imaginary cell. “And you’re staying there forever!” He declared, thinking he could turn to deal with the injuries Justin the bear had suffered in the heist. He was completely unprepared for when a new presence slid well under the slide, arising dust into the air, making Lovino cough and wave his hands trying to get clearance. When it all settled, Ernest was not in his prison anymore, instead, in the high arms of Gilbert Beilschmidt at the other side of the slide.

“It is not over! Ernest is free again! And he will not rest until he has his vengeance,” Gilbert shouted.

“No! He has to stay in there!” Lovino went to get it back, but Gilbert was taller and could keep the plush high in the air, not a reach for Lovino no matter how hard he jumped.

“Give it back! Give it back!”

“No, I want to keep him!” Gilbert even went and embraced the plush.

“He’s not yours!”

“Not yours either!”

“You weren’t even supposed to play!”

“I can if I want to! You can’t boss me around!” They kept turning and jumping across the area, Gilbert even beginning to laugh loudly at Lovino’s continued attempts that were foolish now.

“Why can’t you ever leave me alone?!” Lovino was getting furious, his grasps now more harsh, dangerous, his nails seeming to grow into claws now.

“Cause, it’s fun! You always get so funny when you get like this!” And there was that laugh, evil and haunting in Lovino’s mind, annoying, and there was nothing more that he wanted than for it to stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

One of those grasps became a push. It wasn’t hard, it was only a little touch to Gilbert’s stature, but it created an instant halting, Gilbert staring at the area he pushed for some sort of marking. There was nothing, but to Gilbert, the fact that Lovino dared touch him, was mark and insult enough. The glare he grew was predatory-like, his grip on Ernest the Bat harsh, Antonio and Francis fearing he would break it from where they stood staring.

“You’re not…supposed…to touch me!” He shouted, throwing Ernest to the sand.

“Then just leave me alone!” Lovino dared come forward with another push, but that very extend of his arms, Gilbert used them to throw him to the ground, beside the plush. The other kids scurried back in fear.

Before Lovino was given a chance to stand, Gilbert was on him, kicking, punching, scratching and Lovino answered the same way. Children called, the scene one that began to take attention, Monika and Renata noticing, having to jump instantly to stop both their sons’ fighting. By the time both the mothers had departed them, both the boys were already covered in new cuts and bruises, Lovino sending a kick for another, Gilbert his own, both trying to break from their mothers’ hold to continue.

“Gilbert! Gilbert! Stop! That is enough!” Monika shouted commandingly, having to embrace his whole body to get him to still any angered movement.

“Lovino! Lovino! Calm down! Calm down! Stop this!” Renata in turn had to pick him up, hold him to his shoulder, rub his back, a lulling that always made its effect.

They were causing a large stare, one that the mothers were beginning to find intrusive, and so both, with shared glances of apology, decided that it was best to leave and talk about this with their sons back in their own homes. As to not have anymore interactions, they quickly picked their things, having to pull apart Ludwig and Feliciano and leave hurriedly. Both the toddlers complained and cried, making it more difficult with their elders glaring and pouting as they made their way to their respective cars.

Renata lived with her father, husband and two sons in the apartments above the restaurant, a pretty active street in the city almost as lively as it had been in Rome. Renata greeted the waiters and workers she knew worked this shift before taking the brightly red painted door that led upwards, the three meeting the delightful scent of freshly made lunch that even coated the stairs. Renata placed Feliciano on the ground, the little boy confidently, although with some difficulty, making the rest of his climb up.

“Pasta! Pasta! Pasta!” He shouted as he ran towards the kitchen, crushing into the hold of his grandfather, who smiled, taking him up in his arms to kiss and blow raspberries on his stomach.

“Yes! I have made lots of pasta for you and your brother to stuff yourselves!”

Feliciano celebrated and Augusto laughed, expecting the same smile and eagerness from his older grandson, but he entered the room maddened, looking away from even all the tomatoes he had placed on the table.

“And what’s with that face, piccolo pomodoro?” Augusto neared, wanting his embraces and kisses now, but Lovino huffed and moved back.

“I hate Gilbert!” He proclaimed loudly.

Augusto sighed, gazing over to Renata to hear a better explanation.

“The usual,” she rolled her eyes.

“What did he do this time?” Augusto picked up Lovino to sit on the counter, so he could tell his story at eye level.

“I was playing with Antonio and Francis, we were solving this murder and had finally caught the culprit! We send him to prison, but Gilbert wanted to get him out! I told him he wasn’t supposed to, that he wasn’t even supposed to play and that he had to leave me alone. He pushed me and then we started fighting. Look what he did!” He raised the sleeve of his jacket to reveal his new bruises, which made Augusto lament, getting some ointments and napkins to help cure the area.

“Well…at least I know you’re perfectly capable of protecting yourself,” Augusto sighed, even if it meant that he was fighting with one of his best friend’s grandson.

“I gave it to him good, Nonno! He’ll have marks for days!” He exalted.

“It’s not something to be proud of, Lovino. I would much prefer if you two actually…sat down and played nicely. Is it too much to ask?”

“Yes it is! All Gilbert does is make fun of me and call me mean things,” Lovino pouted.

“You’re right, but then you continue in his game and it just gets worst. How about next time, you compliment him or suggest something you can both do together,” he tried to create peace.

“No!” Lovino decided, sure.

“Come on…” Augusto wanted to convince him.

“No! No! No! No! No!” Lovino shook his head fiercely, turning so harshly he began leaning to the side, almost falling from the top of the counter if Augusto haven’t gotten him right.

“If you’re not going to, at least try to behave more whenever were with the Beilschmidts.”

“I don’t like any of them, Nonno, not even Ludwig!”

“He’s only two years old!”

“Still don’t like him!”

“But were all such good friends with them. We can’t just stop seeing them because you don’t like them.”

“I would make me really happy if you did…” he saddened, looking down.

“Lovino, mio caro.” Augusto took his chin, raising his hazel eyes back to his bright brown ones. “You don’t have to like them if you don’t want to, but you have to understand what they mean to us. When you’re older, and you’re no longer living in this household, you can do whatever you want and not see any of their faces again.” Lovino glowed at such wonderful days far in the future. “But for now, bare what you can, and try not to start a fight with Gilbert every time you’re in the same room.”

And Lovino remained silent, adverting his eyes in a way that made Augusto know that no such things was happening any time soon. He sighed, he would just have to repeat this speech on and on until he could finally understand.

“Go wash up and then we can have lunch, all right?”

“Mhm!” His smile and energy was true as he got down from the counter and headed quickly.

Augusto sighed and wondered on about what he could do.

On Deutschland and Italia.

Union and Betrayals.

Leaving Hamburg.

Yes, Germany and Italy have a vast history together that could might as well start with Ancient Rome and the Germanic tribes. Something that constantly repeats between these two countries is incredible moments of union…and then those of ultimate betrayal. Sure, both were in the ‘I hate Austria’ club and parts of Italy were part of the once Holy Roman Empire and the German confederation, but we can’t forget that in both world wars, they would begin allied…only to end betraying each other in massacres. Despite this, they formed an alliance during the cold war and now they are both leading members of the European Union.

Such a thing to ruin the relationship with the Beilschmidts and the Valenti has not happened, but the closest that came to it was when we had to leave Hamburg about twenty years ago.

Such departure was celebrated, in a fine dinner that both Gilbert Beilchmidt and Lovino Valenti were forced to wear tight suits, fitted for their small figures. They both spent much of the celebration trying to remove what they could…only to have their mothers tighten or put back whatever they left in the tables or chairs. With whatever fun they tried to find, they still ended spending much of the celebration just sitting in different tables, pouting and talking about how they wanted to leave.

In the three years Lovino had lived in Hamburg, Aldrich and Augusto had constantly repeated the advice to both their grandsons, yet neither had done fair to their words. Their fights, problems and hatred only increased in number, in fact, they only glared at each other whenever they had to meet during the feast. At one point it seemed like a competition, since they would sit for minutes just sending hatred with their eyes. Aldrich and Augusto couldn’t keep their arms off from each other, Monika and Renata couldn’t stop talking, and Ludwig and Feliciano wouldn’t stop crying. Gilbert and Lovino wanted to get away from each other.

Finally, at deep late hours, Renata had come to place her hands gently on Lovino’s shoulders, after having them clean the tears that fell down her cheeks. “Ready to go?”

For once in the entire dinner, did Lovino actually smile, sure that that glare would be the last he would give to Gilbert Beilschmidt, as well as the last time he would see his annoying white hair, viola eyes and ultimate paleness.

On Deutschland and Italia.

The Eurozone Crisis.

Returning to Hamburg.

Germans like to believe that they are the knights in shining armor coming to save a damsel in distress Italy from some far-off tower in our current crisis. If you dare tell me that, you’re earning yourself an easy punch in the face or an ultimate cursing that will be felt across your entire lineage.

This is incredibly untrue, in fact, Italy has been helping countries like Greece, Spain and Ireland more so than Germany has done. I believe the Germans made all this ploy to get cheaper shopping sprees and take our companies for themselves.

Let me make this clear, I hate Germany, and I could easily make an entire new blog dedicated to my desire to burn the place to the ground. Then why return? Why after twenty years did I decide to return to the city that all I can remember about is nightmares, cold, bad food and an annoying albino making it worst. Easy, because Germany could give me an opportunity that Italy tragically could not. My story is not the first to happen to an Italian, it is a constantly repeated tale that you can find in any other Italian blog, or you can hear any young Italian say.

Germany is not only taking our goods and money. They’re also taking Italy’s brightest minds. Why does this happen? Easy…because Italy is falling apart and we are left with no other choice than to leave for England, or the U.S., or of course, Germany.

Italy owes more than two trillion euros and whenever we think we have that money, it just suddenly disappears (corruption, obviously).

So I’m left with no other choice than to come back and accept this barbarian country as my new home.

I’m twenty-five, independent even when living above my grandfather’s restaurant with the rest of my family in the same building, my own job, my own car, my own wishes, plans…which means I at least don’t have to face those disgusting Beilschmidts again.

He kicked the door open, finally bringing in the last box, dropping it to the floor and then pushing it to join the others. He groaned knowing he had to unbox and organize. He had just arrived and was in no mood to deal with anything else, wondering if he should just take a nap. When he heard the exciting and rushing steps coming up the staircase, he knew that chance for rest was not going to occur at all.

“You are finally here!” His grandfather just crashed into the apartment, hands all over the place, his body seeming to bring an entire parade with him.

Lovino rolled his eyes but readied his opened hands to take and accept the hug Augusto always greeted him with. He was spun, with a couple of bones cracked before he was placed back on the ground.

“So, have you started?” Augusto was too wondered as he gazed about the apartment, empty but for a couple of appliances.

“No, and I don’t think I want to today.” The only thing Lovino settled on taking out was a bean chair, throwing it in what would be the center of the living room, then falling upon it, closing his eyes and settling himself already for a nap.

“Don’t be such a lazy ass!” Augusto scolded and clapped his hands to keep him awake. “Come on, I’ll help you! Where do we start?” He went ahead and opened the nearest stacked box, a fragile one with a lot of flower decorated plates Lovino had gotten in Sicily.

How his almost eighty-year-old grandfather could so readily take a pile and place them already in their cabinet with energy to continue was beyond him, he was still not moving from his spot. He took out a pair of sunglasses and decided he would settle no matter what his grandfather would do. Augusto was not accepting it though, and as he turned around to get to the other boxes, he kicked the bean bag until Lovino was tumbling over to the ground.

“What the hell?!” Lovino shouted in his usual angry fires.

“Come on! Let’s get to it! The sooner you have everything, the sooner you can get to taking all the siestas you want.” Augusto had learned to be unfazed by it all.

Pouting, Lovino stood, angrily kicking the bean bag himself, throwing the sunglasses and opening harshly a box of decorated cups.

“You know, when Feliciano had first moved here, he couldn’t keep still. He had his whole apartment ready that weekend to accept guests,” Augusto recalled as he found some vases that could be used at the counter to decorate.

“Nonno, it was extremely obvious he did it to impress Ludwig and to end up getting fucked that night.”

“Your younger brother is an angel who will not do such things. He told me he was going to wait till marriage and I’m sure of his word.”

Lovino rolled his eyes and didn’t bother continuing forward. “Whatever. Feliciano was excited to come here, I’m not.”

“Yet you’re here.”

“Because I had no other choice. If it was up to me, I would still be in Naples right now.” There was such sadness in his voice as he picked some books to place on a nice shelf in the living room.

“And I’m sure that there will be many other chances for you to return. Hamburg has a lot to offer you as a beautiful young Italian man.”

To be honest, Lovino loved it when his grandfather complimented like he did, as if he was presenting him to an important crowd. For a moment he could forget about that weigh of stress, happily moving about boxes now, trying to get more kitchen related items.

“After you have everything you need from here, something bright will await you once again in Naples,” Augusto was sure as he placed jars now.

“I want to be back by the end of the year,” Lovino had promised himself.

“And you will, but for now, try to be happy here. All will work well, you’ll see.”

next chapter >

#on deutschland and italia by lovino valenti #prumano #prumano fanfiction #prumano fanfic #prumano fic

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tashaleway · 5 years ago

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Karkat Vantas and a Fucking Cherry-Red Stone: Chapter One: The Worst Introduction.

Summary: Karkat Vantas is going to Hogwarts where he will be judged because of something, he doesn’t even know about. How will he react, when he finds out that everybody around him lied? Will his friends stand with him through this, or will they abandon him? No game.

Karkat Vantas was no ordinary 10 year old boy, which was something you could tell already by looking at him. His hair was black and ruffled, which made it look something similar to a bird’s nest. Already here, we have some unnaturalness; the hair was not only black, but in such a shade that it was somewhat near the colour of a black hole. His skin was so pale that you doubted that he had ever stepped outside in his entire life. Dark circles hang under his eyes, pointing to the fact that the boy clearly didn’t sleep well, and this had been going on for quite some time. His clothes covered as much skin as possible, the dark attire making a shocking contrast to the white skin. The kid’s height was nothing to be proud of, since he was some good inches below average. His mouth grimaced in scowl, often showing off teeth like a cornered animal would, but his most shocking feature was most possible his eyes. Crimson red, they were. Like poisoned apples, they stared at you with anger, hate and mistrust, always seeking for an escape route. From a kid, who was showing so many negative feelings and always ready to give a person so much fright, one would think that the Lord at least had graced the kid with a gentle voice or vocabulary, but that was not the case. No, his voice was scratchy, like sandpaper and his words were harsh and insulting, aiming to hurt. Words were after all the only weapon the small boy could use in front of non-magical people. Muggles was the wizarding word for these. Just pointing out the fact that this boy was no near physical strong. Yes, Karkat Vantas was a wizard himself, not yet under education, but soon he would attend Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the only magical school in Britain. Karkat’s older brother, Kankri, was already about to finish his second year and in a few weeks, he would be home, just in time to celebrate Karkat’s 11th birthday with their father. When you saw the two brothers beside each other, you would not be able to tell that they were brothers, not even close relatives. Kankri had brown hair and soft, brown eyes. High cheekbones, a small face, thin lips and a slender figure. Average of high and a friendly nature and person, always making sure that everybody else was in a good mood. Even though that all his hard work was wasted, when they grew irritated of his trigger warnings. That was the sons, but what about the father, you ask? Well, if you expect some kind of man, who looks like a mix between the two kids, or with some of their features, you would be wrong. A man with dark hair, auburn eyes and pale skin, perhaps? Heh, the truth couldn’t have been further away. Their father was a monster. No, trust me, I am telling the truth! He is a monster; a two meter tall, white creature, who looks like some weird lobster with crab-alike legs. He could talk English, but only if he needed to, or else he would just screech or making weird clicking noises. No surprise that his sons are the only ones, who truly understand that language. Everybody else, who knew of the creature’s existence, had a vague idea of what the different sounds meant. Now, you may have guessed that this creature could not possible be the boys’ real father, and you are indeed correct. Their parents died almost ten years ago, under the last war against the Dark Lord, Jack Noir, and when the Aurors (wizarding policemen, who hunts down dark wizards, witches and other criminals, in case, you are an unknowing muggle) arrived with a scared three year old and a one year old baby and was told that their parents had just died, the creature hereafter took them in and raised them as his own, it was after all, what beasts like him were known for. The creature was called a Lusus, which is an almost unknown race, due to their rareness and shy personality. Not many of them are left, because muggles and wizards both hunted them down for their white skin, shell and blood that was (and still is) worth a lot of money. There had never been much information on these. They didn’t look alike anything else, but thing the magical people knew about them, was that they since the time of their beginning had taken care of orphaned younglings, humans and animals alike. Despite their frightening looks, they were a kind race. ~naknaknak~ The young soon-to-be wizard was waiting by the window of the local library for the other boys to grow tired of the hunt and return home. Karkat didn’t go to school, since it would cause more problems than it would solve with the father he had. Too many questions would be asked about the father no one saw. Therefore it would be much better for the brothers to be homeschooled instead. They learned all the basic muggle knowledge by different muggleborns from the Ministry of Magic, who were in fact not too happy to help the orphans, as some of the pureblooded saw it unnecessary and a scandal to the magical world. When it was decided that the two had finally learned enough from the muggle world, they were introduced to wizard customs and culture. It wouldn’t do them any good, if they `entered Hogwarts as ignorant mud- muggleborns, ehm´, as a snooty half-blood once said. As he was not a pureblood, he wasn’t in any rights or means to even dare whisper the insult. If he had been pureblood, no one would even dare to tell him off. But back to the story; Karkat had wandered around in the city after his lessons with Mr. Droog (a weird, strict man with too many war-alike stories from his time in school), with nothing to do since Kankri was still at Hogwarts and would first return in a little month’s time and nothing interesting on his schedule. He had no idea where he was going, lost in his thoughts about the coming year, where he would finally attend Hogwarts, when he walked headfirst into the chest of one of the older boys from the town. Simon Scratch, son of Doc Scratch himself, who was the principal of the town’s school. To make a long story short, Simon and his gang had bullied, hunted and occasionally beaten the younger boy for years. Being as young as he was, he could never do anything obvious. The thing was that he as often as he could, retort to magic as a solution. Not anything too harmful of course, but a little wind that would help him run faster, make him jump longer or push the other boys away, had never truly harmed anyone, had it? He never told his family about these confrontations and control of magic. See, young Karkat wasn’t that stupid. He fully well knew that the amount of control of his magic, he showed wasn’t normal. Yes sometimes a burst of accidental magic would help you out of a situation or grant a wish, so to say, but not in this aspect, no. So there for, he kept it a secret. Not only from his family, but also the magical society. Even from the bullies, who knew that the boy was freaky lucky all the time. A freak was what he was. Just a freak, which needed to be shown his place in the hierarchy. After all, it wouldn’t do him any good, letting anyone know of this, would it? His family might try to understand, but would perhaps be frightened, which most likely would be the reaction from the two others. The society might want to exanimate him, which was something he would avoid for all costs. And for the bullies? They would be scared shitless if they knew just half the things Karkat did. No, it would be better this way. And after all, it was better being beaten for something, they didn’t understand, and able to somewhat defend himself with this power, than being beaten for something they did understand, and perhaps learned how to fight against. Obviously this “short” story became rather long. Back to the facts; when these bullies hunted Karkat, he liked to hide in the library. Ms. Dodd, the librarian, who was an older lady with thick glasses and her nose always buried in a book, but always knowing, when somebody broke the rules, had taken a liking to the red-eyed boy, who no matter his foul language, was quiet and nice around the books and her. When the gang was nowhere in sight, Karkat left the library with the promise that he would return and say a proper goodbye to the older lady, before he left for his boarding school (they had told everybody, who would ask that they went to a boarding school in Scotland, because they couldn’t very well tell them that they went to a magical castle with unicorns, moving pictures, broom riding and potion making, now could they? No matter what, it would be a very unwise decision.) “Hey freakazoid!” Oh shit. Simon and his gang had apparently only hid from view and waited for the boy to come out. Not showing anything that could be read as fear, Karkat turned around to meet the bullies. “What?” he asked in the most disrespectful tone he could muster. Not the most intelligent move, but the kid was only ten, soon eleven, so give him some slack. “I just want to chat,” the boy said and smirked, just to confirm Karkat’s theory about that Simon wouldn’t only talk. After this it went downhill. Karkat had some of the fault, annoying the boy senseless, Simon insulting Karkat’s dead parents, Karkat not going on a rage fit, but instead calling the other boy a retarded toilet, which Simon didn’t react kindly upon. Wonder why? He stepped closer to Karkat, his shoulders raised and fists clenched, but Karkat didn’t have his eyes on the threatening body language. His eyes were instead fixed on a black leather looking rope-thingy, slowly emerging from Simon’s breast pocket. It almost looked like a- “A snake!” Karkat gasped, not realizing that the word had come out like a hiss instead of English. The said snake turned its little black head towards him. Karkat hadn’t realized that the other boys hadn’t heard the words, the same way he and the snake had. They heard it as a threat and just to make things clear, they didn’t like threats from kids, who were younger than themselves. And a few seconds later, the first fist connected with Karkat’s jaw. When he tumbled to the ground in shock, he could taste blood and he slowly and carefully rubbed the sore spot. It was in that moment, Simon commanded the other boys to hold Karkat down, while he kicked him, yelled at him, hit him, insulted him some more and kicked him again, just to be sure. Karkat tried not to scream in pain by each blow, because that would only be the thing Simon wanted, but when the other boy kicked him for the last time, a long scream escaped from his throat, while something that felt like a lot of hot energy, that before was captured inside him, broke free in the same scream. Karkat didn’t hear the other boys’ scream or whining. Actually, he couldn’t hear a thing. Neither could he move and when he tried to speak, his mouth wouldn’t even open. The only thing, he could was just to lay there and breathe and search the sky above him for help. He tried not to panic, but not even that, could he muster. A little by little, the sounds came back and the edging fear that loomed over him, disappeared bit by bit together with the panic. He could hear the moaning and shocked sobs from the other boys, but he ignored it and only focused on making his body move. First, he could only wriggle his fingers and toes, but soon he could control face, feet and hands, and lastly legs, arms and torso. Inch by inch, he stood up and looked over the place. Simon and his gangs, lying on the ground about ten feet from him, caught his eyes, but he could see nothing wrong with them, no broken bones or even strong bruising and they soon realized themselves the same thing. Without hesitating, they stood up quickly, speared Karkat a fearful and shame filled glance, before they turned around and ran as fast as their long legs could carry them, leaving the still sobbing Simon behind them. Great friends, huh? Something slithered around his angle and Karkat quickly jumped away in panic and shook his foot in a desperate attempt to get the thing away. He didn’t recognize the little snake, which was only two feet long, before it lay on the ground again and gave an angry hiss. But to Karkat it wasn’t only a hiss. It was actually words. “Stupid, filthy human!” the words did actually come from the snake. If Karkat wasn’t panicking, he would without doubt find this incredible fascinating, but as I just said; he was panicking, and the only thing he could think was; `the snake just spoke! The fucking snake just spoke!´ `But how was that possible? Snakes can’t talk, can they?´ “Did you just… talk?” he asked weary. Talking animals didn’t sound like a normal thing, even in the wizarding world. “Of course I did! Or did you think it was your shoe?” Great. Karkat was mental, or maybe the snake could talk and had a sarcastic sense of humor. None of those options sounded good to him. ~naknaknak~ As Karkat talked to the little black snake, it turned out that the snake was female and named Sylvia by her mother, but now had a horrible male name, given by her even worse owner (Karkat had of course responded with giving his own name). When that case was closed, she told him that it was not her, who spoke English, but in fact Karkat, who talked snake language, which was apparently called Parseltongue. As a speaker of this language, Karkat was a Parselmouth. It was a lot of information to take in one bite, but when the boy got his thoughts under control, he asked in a somewhat shaky voice, why the human snake speakers, had a name, when Sylvia had never met one herself before now. So if they were so rare, why did they need a name? He was then told that she had once met a snake, who was magical, in a dark forest some years ago, before she was captured and sold to that horrid kid. The snake told her that his great grandfather or something like that had met a kid about twenty years ago, who spoke the language and had told the snake, what he was. The kid was apparently some descendent to an old, pureblooded family, who was known for speaking the snake language, but exactly, who they were, the snake had no idea. The kid never came back. After Karkat had been told this, he secretly hoped that the kid had been his father, an uncle, or maybe a grandfather, but the wish crushed to the ground, when he reminded himself, that both his parents was muggles and so was theirs parents, so there was no hope for either non-magical, being able to speak a language only wizards and witches was able to, if they had the rare gift. As for an uncle, he had never heard of any. In fact, he remembered a time, when he asked, if Kankri and he had any other relatives that their parents, either dead or alive, but the hope of any biological family left was burned to ashes by Crabdad’s answer. His voice was grave, when he responded with a single `no´. Knowing that he had somewhat distressed his adoptive father, Karkat promised himself that he would never ask that question again. In the meantime, Simon had come to his senses, realizing that nothing serious had happened to him. Simon was furious. How dared that kid to punch him (that was, what he thought happened, because such thing as magic surely didn’t exist!) and just think that he would get away with it? The freak did not even respect him! After the freak had punched him, he didn’t even run away, no he just sat there in the grass in front of Razor, mocking him! When the older boy crept closer, not even noticing his friends had ran the other way, he realized that the freak was pretending that he could speak with his black snake! Such a lunatic! In only a second, Simon was just behind the freak, Razor lifted its head and hissed threateningly, the young boy turned around in alarm, but before he could do anything else, Simon grabbed him around the neck and lifted the freak up in the air, making him gasp for air. He trashed violently, as soon he came over the first shock. He kicked, hit, scratched and tried to bite, but Simon stopped the fighting with a blow to the boy’s head with his other hand that made his vision blur and taste blood again. The kid now only scratched at the hand to release its grab. “I’m warning you, kid. Don’ ever, don’ ever go near my snake again. You hear me?!” the last words were spitted out and some of the liquid hit Karkat in his face. If he wasn’t about to be strangled, Karkat would have scrunched up his face in disgust. Thinking that the freak got the point, Simon released him and Karkat fell to the ground, greedily sucking air in to fill his burning lungs. Karkat managed to nod in confirmation, Simon scooped up his pet snake, but when he returned his eyes to the kid, Karkat stood up. Not even realizing, what was going on, Simon received a kick in the gut for all his hard work. Ending in the exact same position as Karkat was in only a minute ago; Simon fell to his knees and gasped for breath. “Not funny, when it’s yourself, is it? Listen fuckass, and you better listen closely, understand? Don’t ever do such a trick again, got it?! Remember just fifteen minutes ago, when you and your little brainless goons flew through the air? What makes you think, I can’t do it again? Don’t ever cross my path again. I’m tired of all your bullshit. Do you. Understand?” Simon nodded furiously, remembering the hit all too well and realized that the kid really was a freak. His dad had been right all along! Before leaving, Karkat nodded to the snake in the boy’s grasp. “Until next time, Miss Sylvia. Please enjoy your time, and remember that you are more than welcome to bite your little human pet from me,” a hissing laughter of agreement was the response. ~naknaknak~ Karkat hadn’t meant to blurt out his secret, that he wasn’t as normal as people believed, but it was too late now. He just hoped that the other boy wouldn’t be a problem in the future.

#kvaafcrs #chapter one #chapter 1 #the worst introduction #homestuck #homestuck fanfiction #karkat vantas #kankri vantas

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior 8/13/21 - CODA, FREE GUY, DON’T BREATHE 2, RESPECT, THE LOST LEONARDO, WHAT IF, and More!

Well, that was kind of a disappointing last weekend as James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad pretty much tanked at the box office, making less than Birds of Prey did back in February 2020 with all sorts of backseat analysis explaining why it didn’t do well as anyone, other than a scant, few thought. I mean, I’m still kind of stunned, even though COVID and the Delta variant seem to be losing steam as far as being news. It certainly didn’t help that HBO Max decided to release the movie concurrently on HBO Max on Thursday at 7pm.

The nice thing about this week is that we have three new movies, none of which are on streaming or On Demand at the exact same time, so if you want to see any of them, you’ll have to put on your N96 masks and get yourself to theaters. Two of the three movies are originals, while the third is a sequel to quite an original horror movie from about five years back. All of them are pretty good, actually. We’ll get to them soon...

But first, let’s start with this week’s “The Chosen One” and it’s gotta be Siân Heder’s CODA i.e. “Child of Deaf Adults,” which will play in select theaters and on Apple TV+ starting Friday. If you hadn’t heard, it was the belle of the ball at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, winning the Jury Prize and Audience Award alike. Heder previously directed Tallulah and is the showrunner on Apple’s Little America, but this really is a very special film that I’ve enjoyed on repeat viewings now.

It stars Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi, the sole hearing person in her family of Gloucester fishermen, who are out every day on the sea making the latest catch in their nets. Ruby has other aspirations, and when she joins the school choir, the teacher, Mr. Villalobos (Eugene Derbez) sees talent in Ruby that he thinks might get her into the Berklee College of Music. Ruby has to weigh that with her family’s need to have her as an interpreter while dealing with the other fishermen of the town.

I didn’t know what to expect when I saw this at Sundance back in January, and it still surprised me when I rewatched it again, because it’s a movie that involves a lot of elements that shouldn’t necessarily work, between the fishing and the singing and all the ASL between the amazing ingenue, Ms. Jones, and the deaf actors playing her family, including the one and only Oscar-winning Marlee Matlin. If not for these disparate elements, Coda might be a fairly standard indie family drama, but Heder finds just the right balance of showing how these disparities in Ruby’s life make it hard for her to pursue her dreams.

Ferdia Walsh-Peelo from Sing Street plays the classmate who Ruby is set up with to perform a duet at their high school recital, and of course, he also becomes an unwitting love interest. Unfortunately that’s the aspect of the film that’s the weakest, because Jones’ scenes with Matlin and the other actors, including Derbez, as well as Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant, as Ruby’s father and brother, are just so powerful and moving even if they’re all in ASL with no dialogue or even incidental score.

Coda is Heder’s second film after Talllulah, a movie starring Elliot Page that never really connected with me, but Coda is such a strong and exceedingly crowd-pleasing film that I have to imagine that this would connect with everybody. I’m not sure if Apple’s gonna be able to get this movie all the way to Oscar night, but I do like its chances for Adapted (?) Screenplay, and maybe Matlin and Kotsur Supporting? I don’t know, because it’s so early and hard to tell, but hopefully the decision to wait so long after the virtual Sundance won’t hurt this movie as it hurt other Sundance award-winning films. Coda is just a joy that I’m sure will be many people’s favorite movie.

You can read my interview with Ms. Heder over at Below the Line.

Incidentally, in last week’s column, I talked about the 20th New York Asian Film Festival, but I didn’t realize that it was only running at Film at Lincoln Center for a week before going down to the SVA Theater on 23rd Street, and you can check out the schedule of movies playing there at the official site. And of course, there’s still the Virtual Festival that’s running through August 22. Also, Fantasia is still going on in Montreal, and I still haven’t had time to watch very much. What can I say? I suck.

Let’s get to some wide releases, shall we?

First up and probably the most likely to win the weekend is Ryan Reynolds’ new action-comedy, FREE GUY (20th Century Studios), directed by Shawn Levy and co-starring Jodie Comer from Killing Eve. The high-concept comedy has Reynolds playing Guy, a bank teller, who actually is a non-player character in a video game called “Free City” that’s kind of a cross between Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite. When he meets Comer’s character in the game, he falls mady in love and decides to do whatever it takes to get on her level. (Get it?) In doing so, Guy ends up becoming a hero for Free City, as well as a viral sensation across the globe as gamers thrill to Guy’s adventures.

Free Guy is Ryan Reynolds’ first live-action starring role theatrical release since…. Oh…. the action-comedy sequel The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife a little under two months ago. Considering that barely made half of what its predecessor did, and that’s with Reynolds sharing the screen with Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek, one wonders if his draw as an A-lister can be maintained during a pandemic. Before that, you’d have to go all the way back to 2018’s Deadpool 2 for a fully live Reynolds movie, because he wasn’t seen as himself for most of his role in and as Detective Pikachu. Of course, Reynolds’ unmistakable voice was back in DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods: A New Age, the sequel to the 2013 blockbuster that made the ballsy move to be one of the first movies to open during the pandemic. It grossed $58.6 million in theaters, which was slightly more than Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and even more than the Warner Bros. sequel, Wonder Woman 1984.

This is also a big movie for Jodie Comer, who won an Emmy and was nominated for two Golden Globes for Killing Eve, but hasn’t really been in too many movies, other than playing Rey’s Mum in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Later this year, she’ll star in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and may possibly be back in the awards game again, we’ll see. The movie also stars Lil Rel Howery, who seems to be everywhere and in everything these days, as well as Taika Waititi who is super-hot right now due to 2019’s Jojo Rabbit, and his various television projects, as well as having a small role in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad last week.

In some ways, Free Guy is gonna be a test for a lot of things, the first one being whether Reynolds is a big enough draw when not playing Deadpool to get people into theaters, just as people are starting to get skittish again about going into movie theaters. More importantly, it will show whether not having a movie on streaming or VOD means that people who want to see it will put aside their fears and return to theaters… like they did with F9 and Black Widow and Godzilla vs. Kong. Is an original non-franchise movie like Free Guy enough to get people interested in getting their butts off the couch and into a far more comfortable movie theater seat? (I’m being facetious, if you didn’t guess.)

After The Suicide Squad last week, I’m really not sure whether I can trust my own instincts, but I also don’t want to lower my prediction to something ridiculous out of fear that the pandemic really is destroying any chance of the box office fully recovering. One thing working in Free Guy’s favor, besides its PG-13 rating is that it’s not available on streaming and VOD. Anyone who has been intrigued by the film’s great reviews will HAVE to go out to a movie theater to see it or else, they’ll have to wait 45 days.

Maybe if this opened last month, I could see it open in the $30 million to $40 million range, but with things being the way they are, I’d probably go with high $20 million, so close to $30 million but not quite.

You can read my review over at Below the Line, and I’ll have an interview with the film’s Production Designer, Ethan Tobman, fairly soon.

Also opening Friday is the horror sequel DON’T BREATHE 2 (Sony/Screen Gems), starring Stephen Lang as the blind former Navy Seal who terrorized a bunch of kids who broke into his house in 2016’s Don’t Breathe.

The original movie, which starred Jane Levy, reuniting with director Fede Alvarez after the two remade Evil Dead for producer Sam Raimi, opened in late August, on the fourth weekend of the original Suicide Squad, in fact, and it knocked the movie out of the #1 spot. Its $26 million opening in 3,000 theaters was impressive for the time, partially because late August has never been great. It stayed #1 for a second weekend, over Labor Day, and it ended up grossing $89.2 million in North America, which is great for an R-rated horror film.

Levy isn’t around for the sequel and Alvarez has moved into a co-writer/producer role for his creative partner, Rodo Sagayes, to take over the directing reins, but honestly, I’m not sure how many people will know or care, because Lang’s character and the film’s violence and chills are it’s real selling point. Like many horror movies, there isn’t much in terms of star power other than Lang, but that has never really hindered the success of a horror movie in the past.

As with every movie I cover in this column, there’s the pandemic in the room and whether that might hold people back from going to theaters. I wish there was a way to calculate the effect that’s had on moviegoing, because it seems to affect movies differently. For instance, the recent The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It was able to open with $24.1 million just two months ago, although that was down from the $40 million of the previous two chapters. So that’s about a 40% drop-off in a similar five-year gap between movies. (Actually, it’s kind of strange that 2021 is replicating 2021 with three sequels to movies from five years earlier.) There’s no denying that the number of Covid cases are way up since June and movie theaters are still being painted as the “enemy” even though no significant cases have been traced back to the movies.

We also have to look at Sony’s last horror sequel, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, which I quite enjoyed, but it ended up opening with about $10 million less than the original movie a few years back. We can probably expect Don’t Breathe 2 to have a similar pandemic drop-off even if it’s another movie that won’t be on streaming or VOD this weekend.

I think Don’t Breathe 2 should be good for around $15 million this weekend since it’s catering towards a young audience that’s a bit more devil-may-care about going out to theaters. It will also probably appeal more to older single guys than something like Free Guy, which seems different enough to pull in a different audience.

My review will be posted over at Below the Line later on Thursday, plus I have a bunch of interviews coming, including this one with Rodo Sayagues and Fede Alvarez.

Next up is RESPECT (MGM), the long-awaited Aretha Franklin biopic (for those that didn’t see Genius, like me, I guess), starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul. The movie directed by Liesl Tommmy was supposed to be released in January to take part in last year’s Oscars race, but I guess MGM wanted to make sure it got a proper theatrical release, which wasn’t possible since NYC and L.A. movie theaters didn’t reopen until March after the cut-off. But MGM had already decided to push the movie back to the summer in hopes of having more theaters able to play the movie, which is kind of true now?

It’s been a while since we’ve seen JHud in a high-profile theatrical release, and unfortunately, the last one was 2019’s Cats, a movie in which she probably was the best thing, although it still only grossed $27 million domestically, a flat-out bomb. Before that, she provided her voice for the animated blockbuster Sing in 2016, and then a bunch of smaller movies before that. She’s joined in the movie by the likes of Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Titus Burgess, Mary J. Blige, Marc Maron, and Audra MacDonald, quite an impressive array of talent that shows how many wanted to be involved with this project. Director Liesl Tommy is making her feature directorial debut after directing a ton of theater and TV shows like The Walking Dead and Jessica Jones.

Even so, it’s obviously that the ongoing popularity of Aretha Franklin, especially since her death in 2018, is going to go a long way into getting people into theaters, which includes a lot of older black women who really haven’t had much to get them out into theaters in recent months. Will this be enough?

Before Respect was delayed from its original January release, many thought that Hudson would receive another Oscar nomination for her performances. Having not seen the movie at the time of this writing, I can’t confirm or deny those chances. If that’s still the case, then releasing the movie towards the end of the summer (similar to The Help, successfully, and The Butler, not so much) is an odd decision rather than just holding the movie for festival season by holding until next month.

Either way, I think the love Aretha’s fans have for the Queen of Soul as well as Hudson’s fans, Respect should be good for between $8 and 10 million this weekend -- hard to pinpoint exactly without knowing how many theaters MGM is getting for it against the stronger summer movies.

Mini-Review: I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Respect, even after seeing the trailer a couple dozen times in front of other movies, but it’s a respectable biopic that cover 20 years in the life of the Queen of Soul from singing at a young age in her father’s church to returning to church for the gospel records as captured in the recently-released doc, Amazing Grace.

But first, we go back to 1952 where Aretha is a young girl (played by Skye Dakota Turner) is uncertain of her future as she’s being ordered about by her preacher father (Forrest Whitaker) and trying to find direction. The movie casually sets up the fact that young Aretha was sexually abused by a family friend, and maybe she got pregnant, too? It’s hard to tell and maybe a little odd since she would only have been 10 at the time, but it’s something that will be brought up (just as subtly) over the course of the film.

Jennifer Hudson takes over as Aretha as she turns 19 and goes to New York City to start recording, meets Marlon Wayans’ Ted White, makes him her manager and marries her, which basically has her going from one abusive man in her father to another one. It feels like the movie spends a long than normal time on the ‘60s, which is when Franklin’s career really took off with “Respect” and then a series of hits that took her all around the world. That whole time, she’s dealing with Ted’s abuses and jealousy while trying to write and record those hits, before her dark demons return and she starts drinking heavily.

As you might imagine, you go to see Respect to see how well Jennifer Hudson pulls off the Queen of Soul, and she’s an incredibly complex character that needs a nuanced performance, which Hudson tries to pull off by bringing different aspects of her life into different scenes.

There are some scenes that don’t work as well as others, and it feels like there’s a bit of time-crunching or futzing around so that at a certain point, her father seems to be de-aging, although I was just as impressed (possibly even moreso) with Forrest Whitaker, whose performance as Aretha’s father is more than just a full-on villain despite his violent treatment of his daughter. Wayans is also good and almost unrecognizable at first, and there are a few other nice performances in there as well, including Marc Maron as record label head Jerry Wexler.

But the performances Hudson gives as Franklin are goosebump-inducing, leading up to the recording of her record-selling gospel record as depicted in the aforementioned doc.

A fairly decent representation of Franklin’s little-known life leading up to her fame, Respect probably succeeds the most when Jennifer Hudson is performing as the Queen of Soul, but she’s also created a fairly moving portrait with strong dramatic moments that far outweigh any of the film’s issues. Rating: 8/10

With that in mind, this is how I see the weekend looking with two of the new movies bumping Suicide Squad down to third place where it will be facing off against Respect.

1. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $28.5 million N/A

2. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $15 million N/A

3. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $10 million -62%

4. Respect (MGM) - $9.6 million N/A

5. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $8.7 million -55%

6. Old (Universal) - $2.5 million -36%

7. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $2.4 million -39%

8. Stillwater (Focus) - $2 million -39%

9. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $1.3 million -43%

10. The Green Knight (A24) - $1.1 million -56%

Donnie Yen stars in Bennie Chang’s RAGING FIRE (WELL GO USA), which premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival on Monday and at Fantasia in Montreal on Tuesday, and I’m not going to review this, because honestly, it’s such a cookie-cutter Hong Kong police action-thriller that I’m not sure I really have much to say about it, so I won’t.

On the other hand, I do have more to say about Andreas Koefoed’s documentary, THE LOST LEONARDO (Sony Pictures Classics), the Leonardo being Da Vinci, the master artist behind the Mona Lisa and many other works. Since I don’t really follow the world of art, I really didn’t know about the Salvator Mundi painting found about 10-12 years ago that was thought to be an original Da Vinci worth in the hundreds of millions, often dubbed “The Male Mona Lisa.” But it’s also a painting that was surrounded by controversy due to the 5-year restoring job that may have left very little of the original painting.

As the film began, I was groaning a little about sitting through another movie of art experts and historians talking about how important a find this is and why it’s either great or horrible, depending on who is being interviewed. Eventually, the film gets more interesting as it starts getting into the idea of selling it. After being sold to a wealthy Russian oligarch by an unscrupulous Swiss art dealer who made a nice profit on it, the painting ends up being auctioned by Christie’s, and the story just keeps getting more and more interesting as it goes along.

While I’m not one to go ga-ga over any painting by Da Vinci or otherwise, I do like a good mystery or suspense-thriller, so good on Koefoed for realizing about halfway through this movie that the talking heads will never be as interesting as actual footage. And that’s what happens here, too. I actually feel a little ignorant that I wasn’t aware this was going on as it was, maybe because I don’t really follow the art world in that respect. Maybe I just missed it, so it’s good that Sony Classics (who loves making movies about art) is giving this a fairly high-profile release following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival a few months back. In that sense, The Lost Leonardo is quite a gem.

Heinz Brinkman’s USEDOM: A CLEAR VIEW OF THE SEA (Big World Pictures) is a somewhat intriguing doc about the Baltic island of Usedom, the location of a number of imperial German health resorts, beaches and such, and how the Jews were kicked out by the Nazis before Usedom was split into a German and Polish half after WWII. I wish I could get into this more, but I just have a limited mental capacity for a lot of German talking heads.

Which brings us to Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein’s THE MEANING OF HITLER (IFC Films), the new doc from the team behind Gunner Palace, which looks at the cultural fascination with Hitler and Nazism and the recent rise in white supremacy, antisemitism and the “weaponization of history itself.” I don’t know what that last part means, because I got so swamped this week that I didn’t get to watch this, and like another recent doc on the subject of Naziism and the Holocaust, I just couldn’t get into the right head space to hit play on this doc. Maybe I’ll watch it sometime down the road.

Similarly, I didn’t get around to watching Dutch filmmaker Jim Taihuttu’s THE EAST (Magnet Releasing), which I may like as a fan of Paul Verhoeven’s Dutch WWII films, and I probably should give this a look, but I just ran out of time this week. It’s about a young Dutch soldier who joins an elite unit led by a mysterious captain called “The Turk,” and it takes place in the Indonesian War of Independence after World War II.

As far as TV goes, Wednesday sees the debut of Marvel Studios’ WHAT IF...? on Disney+. I’ve seen the first three episodes, and I was a pretty big fan of the comics in the ‘70s (sadly, part of the giant collection that I sold a few years back), and I guess this is okay. The first episode is the one with Haley Atwell voicing “Captain Carter” i.e. Peggy Carter gets the Super Soldier Serum, which is one of the more obvious What Ifs that could possibly done, so that we can get another “women are as good as men, and they need to be heard” storyline that’s in 90% of the Marvel movies already. On the other hand, the first episode does include the voices of Sebastian Stan and others, so it’s quite a coup in that sense, but whoever wrote it, clearly doesn’t understand that people spoke differently in the ‘40s. I liked the 2nd episode, a mash-up of Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a fun idea that brings together a lot of great characters -- including Chadwick Boseman’s last voice performance -- but again, hearing the voices just isn’t the same when the writing isn’t as good as the movie. I feel like the animation for the show is okay, maybe not quite on par with some of the great Batman or Superman cartoons we’ve gotten over the years. On the other hand, the entire series features the great voice of Jeffrey Wright as The Watcher, acting kind of like the Rod Serling for the series, much like the Watcher does in the comics. I also dug the music by Emmy winner Laura Karpman (Lovecraft Country), and I’ll watch the rest of the series as it debuts, but I’m not sure it’s as much a rush to see each episode to avoid spoilers as with Loki or WandaVision.

Hitting Netflix this week is the limited series, BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR (Netflix), starring Rosa Salazar, Eric Lange, and Catherine Keener. The tagline is: “Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar) comes to LA dead set on directing her first movie. But when she trusts the wrong person and gets stabbed in the back, everything goes sideways and a dream project turns into a nightmare. This particular nightmare has zombies, hit men, supernatural kittens, and a mysterious tattoo artist who likes to put curses on people. And Lisa’s going to have to figure out some secrets from her own past in order to get out alive.”

Also, TITANS Season 3 debuts on HBO Max, but since I haven’t watched seasons 1 or 2 yet, it might be some time before I get to it.

Next week looks like it could be a bit of a dog with four or five new wide releases but nothing that really jumps out, plus I’ll be in Atlantic City all next weekend, so who knows how much I’ll be able to watch or write about?

#The Weekend WArrior #Movies #Reviews #Coda #Free Guy #Respect #Don't Breathe 2 #the Lost Leonardo #Box Office

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years ago

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Should you divorce a game from its creator?

Good video games however questionable assist?

I believe in essence, earlier than hitting the dusty path of this matter, some quantity of acceptance of enterprise practices is inevitable. Nevertheless, I believe it was an fascinating juxtaposition of the weeks main as much as Purple Useless Redemption 2‘s launch that everybody was speaking about Rockstar’s 100-hour work weeks. Some say crunch is inevitable and that listening to tales of individuals disintegrating so as to get their video games out is a obligatory evil of some kind. Purple Useless Redemption 2 is only one small instance of selecting to buy a sport versus acknowledging the practices that had been used to create the product.

Individually, I do not suppose too arduous on most video games I supposed to purchase if one thing fishy occurred within the background. I did purchase RDR2 with out pondering an excessive amount of about it. Fez is a much less comparable instance, as it’s a incredible sport that has a little bit of drama behind its creation with Phil Fish, earlier than getting right into a polarizing determine. My go-to instance, regardless of it not being online game associated, is the manga Rurouni Kenshin and its mangaka being arrested for possession of kid porn. There are quite a lot of totally different interpretations of this challenge, however for me personally, I felt bizarre and uncomfortable studying the Hokkaido arc he final began and might’t think about going again to studying the older content material.

I requested the group some time again on their ideas on the thought of disconnecting the nastier practices of the particular person or firm behind the sport and really enjoying the sport. RDR2 is the newest instance, however I additionally suppose it is fascinating for the group to carry up their very own examples of video games and media they’ve considered enjoying regardless of the actions of their creators.

Blanchimont, for instance, introduced up an anime I’ve watched, Gate, in addition to referencing the implosion that occurred with James Gunn’s outdated tweets:

The reply is sure. Simply since you love a piece does not imply it’s a must to love their creator. They’re two separate issues. For instance, the collection Gate is written by a historic revisionist who denied the wrongdoings of Japan throughout World Conflict 2. Nevertheless, though he glorifies the army in Gate, the historic revisionist concepts by no means seep by way of into his work, which is essential to understanding this. Simply since you like their work does not essentially imply you agree with their ideology.

The creator Rurouni Kenshin could be a pedo, however his work is much from it. James Gunn was fired for decade outdated tweets relatively than his early works which included an incestuous model of Romeo and Juliet, however his work on Guardians of the Galaxy may be very totally different from something he has ever made prior to now.

Punished Neitzseche continues the prepare of thought I had about Kenshin:

I do this on a regular basis, particularly when musician, actors or different personalities I favored turned out to be full dipshits. Watsuki was all the time a bizarre man (I have been studying Kenshin since 2005, when it was revealed in Spanish right here) and even within the Q&A piece of the volumes, you might see he was just a little bit off… So, I disconnected the work from the artist and voila!

Voodoome has the superbly cheap stance of taking it at some point at a time:

I take it on a case by case foundation, however I divorce the artwork from the creator extra usually then not. Some issues I simply can’t forgive, however quite a lot of stuff I discover to be overblown outrage for outrage sake. It comes down to private experiences and the way they form my viewpoints on numerous subjects. I by no means wish to utterly dismiss anybody that ever did something mistaken as a result of a bunch of different individuals inform me I’ve to. I consider in second possibilities and forgiveness … when acceptable.

I additionally consider strongly in private duty and that you’ve got a proper to say no matter you need, however you aren’t shielded from the results of your actions. If individuals resolve that Rockstar is mistaken and that they aren’t going to assist them then that’s their selection. I assist them making that selection, even when I’m not prepared to make it myself.

RottySiets makes a case that many builders lately are too far gone to make cheap exceptions. Issues suck on the market, so we would as nicely make the very best of it I suppose:

I believe I sort of have to try this with virtually each developer these days, as practically each firm is responsible of some observe that in a really perfect trade must be non-negotiable from my perspective.

For example, I like Half-Life 2, however I do not approve of on-line DRM being required to put in the sport even if you happen to use Steam’s bodily backup copy choice (it nonetheless forces you to be logged into Steam and on-line throughout set up). This creates a scenario the place there’s all the time a dependency on outdoors servers even for offline single participant content material, and certain, Valve clearly is not going wherever anytime quickly, but it surely additionally should not be up for them to resolve when to simply reduce me off from my very own sport that I purchased and paid for regardless. I firmly consider that once I buy a sport it must be my copy to personal and use as I please with no need to telephone residence to anyone each now and again to show that it’s legit. That goes for Origin and Uplay in addition to Steam.

So proper off the bat that places like 90% of PC sport builders on my shit record, and we’ve not even gotten into microtransactions, day one DLC, month-to-month subscriptions, and all that different jazz.

Even CDPR is not clear, as a result of whereas I completely adore their GOG service, they undergo from the identical issues as Rockstar with their working circumstances. Their titles usually undergo a interval of improvement hell and so they expertise lengthy durations of crunch as a result of mismanagement on the prime, and that is undoubtedly unfair for his or her staff.

It is sort of unhappy to suppose that we’re gone the times when you might simply purchase a sport and it was an entire sport on launch, and all you needed to fear about was simply whether or not it was a superb or unhealthy sport, not bear in mind a bunch of political nonsense and questionable enterprise practices that went into its improvement.

Adzuken and Jetter Mars focus collectively on the difficulty of a giant group versus a singular creator credited for a big a part of a sport’s id.

Adzuken: Properly, since I have been speaking up Earthworm Jim currently, I typically attempt to disregard that its creation concerned Doug TenNapel, whose therapy of LGBT+ people I strongly disagree with.

Jetter Mars: I used to be about to submit one thing comparable relating to TenNapel. I take a look at it as this, if it is a collaborative effort between a number of individuals than I might be extra open to experiencing the sport since I am certain the others concerned could not share the identical views. If one particular person is the end-all be-all of a product, it might most likely be a lot more durable for me to separate the artwork from the artist. That is simply me although.

Sailor Zebes in the end makes the essential level that this challenge is extra difficult than sure or no, so there is no purpose to disgrace an individual for his or her selections and selections relating to it:

On a regular basis. I am unable to consider a sport or no matter that I’ve determined towards getting as a result of creator or somebody on the staff.

Personally I believe it is a type of issues the place if that is what helps you resolve on getting one thing or not, for most individuals they most likely weren’t all that within the first place.

What most likely makes me grumpier is seeing individuals attempt to disgrace others for eager to proceed having fun with the sport or no matter.

And one thing to remember with video video games, until it is an indie sport, it isn’t made by a single particular person. And it isn’t made by the constructing they’re in or it is administration actually both. There’s most likely loads of good individuals who make these video games, most likely the general public making it. Why fault them?

Baccus’ remark brings to thoughts how widespread backlash was what introduced Star Wars Battlefront 2 to its knees for the higher. A bigger firm with a collective of fits behind the steering wheel is definitely simple to resolve towards:

If it is a person and so they have not finished something too excessive alongside the immoral scale then I am all for separating the artwork from the artist. Would not have a lot artwork to expertise in any other case. On the subject of firms I am far much less forgiving. Do not just like the enterprise practices of sure dev/writer? Then keep away from ALL their output till you see substantial change of their strategies.

Chris Hovermale has been going over the difficulty a short time, and it first popped up when it got here to DMCV. There’s undoubtedly a problem of severity, similar to judging the whole lot of Rockstar’s work hours towards RDR2 versus his latest discovery of the very severe sexual harassment on Channel Superior:

It is a crucial query I am nonetheless not fully certain the way to reply myself, even after watching a powerful 20-ish minute video on it a number of months in the past when it was related to some anime I used to be contemplating attempting to look at (however which might inevitably fail to suit into my schedule as a result of since when have I truly made time to look at anime).

So far as RDR2 particularly goes, I by no means had curiosity in it to start with (I respect cowboy settings however do not get pleasure from them with out some sorta spin on it, like Wild Arms or Wild Weapons) however I consider the devs have particularly spoken out saying that if it does not promote nicely, they will not get their bonuses, so they need individuals to purchase it? It is nonetheless an iffy space but when I had been I might purchase it anyway out of respect for that particular want from the devs.

On the whole, it is extraordinarily iffy to narrate any particular facet of a product’s improvement or its creators to a bit of labor. On one hand, it is actually arduous to get throughout the precise message of “this particular purpose is why I am not supporting X product”, and boycotting alone often fails to really resolve the issue in the long run. That is why group outcries towards cruddy practices are essential, to finally increase complaints that actually can’t be ignored, similar to what occurred with Battlefront II’s lootboxes.

Alternatively, I wrote that article about why I am nonetheless wanting ahead to DMC5 regardless of microtransactions, and whereas I am sticking to my weapons about how I really feel on that challenge, I believe I did a poor job of correctly emphasizing that I am strongly against the addition of MTX within the first place (though I did clarify within the article WHY I am strongly against them) and I respect the entire feedback that loudly voiced that concern. I am happening a tangent that is not a lot about creators, but it surely’s based in a equally muddy precept.

I suppose what I am attempting to say is personally, I choose this type of stuff on a case-by-case foundation with regard to improvement practices. On the subject of a selected particular person’s ethics past their work, similar to whether or not a lead developer usually spouts nazi rhetoric on social media, that is one other challenge altogether as a result of supporting that particular person’s work immediately or not directly funds their very own platform for spreading their views. So a creator spreading hate speech / supporting little one porn / equally excessive no-nos is the edge the place I begin to really feel disheartened and can most likely boycott a product. If there is a authorized technique to get pleasure from it with out giving something to the creator, like shopping for it secondhand, I might most likely nonetheless do this?

ADDENDUM: Once I first discovered in regards to the sexual harassment and mismanagement from Channel Superior / Doug Walker / and many others, I instantaneously misplaced all want to look at his movies and I nonetheless don’t have any plans to ever watch them once more. In order that proper there’s an instance of a time I continued to marry a creator’s unethical allegations to their content material.

Dr Mel factors on the market’s a distinction within the scope in how we work together with artwork we select to confront, and this scope can imply simply as a lot because the sure/no determination of interacting in any respect:

There’s an underlying context right here as a result of we have to know why we’re divorcing artwork from artist on this method. The context you are almost definitely to search out is the one the place the artwork is being offered and you do not wish to contribute to or reward a unpleasant particular person monetarily. Nevertheless, this can be a very restricted scope of arts and artists.

If by not shopping for or supporting a factor you then don’t assist the particular person, that to me is sensible. But when a shitty particular person makes one thing and it places you off of merely participating with it in any respect or taking time to understand it with out essentially giving cash, that appears far more excessive and the particular person would have needed to have a really personally detestable historical past for me to try this.

But when somebody is a homophobe, typically, or in any other case has actually unhealthy opinions and their artwork (be it a sport or a film or a portray) is not directly out there to me, I am going to take into account it nonetheless. There’s loads of methods to interact with artwork with out paying the artist (or, extra doubtless, the rights holder of the artwork) and this has its positives and negatives.

m121akuma‘s additionally goes together with a case-by-case determination, however he admits it is nonetheless very murky:

It is a query that has been plaguing me for years now, and I haven’t got a transparent reply. I believe a big a part of it will depend on the extent of involvement the creator has within the work, how a lot the creator’s controversial beliefs/actions come by way of within the work, and lots of different components. I fucking love the Witcher video games and am excited by Thronebreaker, however on the very least whoever in control of social media at CDPR wants higher coaching, as a result of they hold posting casually transphobic feedback. Will that cease me from shopping for the sport? I have not determined but.

RDR2 appears like a special beast altogether, for the reason that controversy is baked into the sport’s improvement. It is not simply “this man did/mentioned/believes terrible issues”, it is “these guys actively abused individuals as part of the sport’s improvement”. I really feel that makes separation even more durable.

Additionally, that incident with the Kenshin creator nonetheless fuckin’ breaks my coronary heart, man.

Hopefully studying by way of what a few of our group members take into consideration the difficulty gave you some distinctive examples that you’ve got been by way of. I consider the video Chris Hovermale referenced is a video I additionally watched, from Mom’s Basement. That is an entire additional discussion board of debate of the subject. However clearly since posting this matter initially within the cblogs, not everybody has the identical opinions on the topic and the dialogue that comes from it’s insightful.

Additionally, I hope the feedback stay civil.

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thegoddamnowl · 8 years ago

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i want me overlord 3 :(

So yeah, Overlord pretty much cimented how the series should go about, and with the somewhat troubled development of the subsequent games, a third installment on the main line should take a look at its older siblings in order to become fully realized.

Both Overlord and Overlord 2 presented additions that work well in their respective games, though on the second one there could have been a benefit if the devs had implemented the upgrade as they wanted. Even on the spin-of games there are some rather good features that shouldn't be overlooked too.

Bring back the custom forging and the forge stones

The forge stones where incredibly convenient and actually I did welcome their inclusion, maybe because I actually stopped for a while to farm even before knowing they even existed and thus got nice uniques by the time I had them avaliable, but I digress.

Make it so that the forge stones not only give you unique recipes but also so they give you like a special type of ore recipe to forge and imbue armour and weapons just like the first game, using mineral and materia to create it and maybe upgrade it with like some alloy or stuff. I say this because when you get a better smelter on Overlord, the other one(s) become basically pointless (which is likely the reason for the change from smelters to forge stones). Having an upgradable forging material helps getting rid of that problem. Or make it so you can recycle armour and stuff you don't use anymore, be it because you got a better object or just because it was a human mistake.

Bring the variety and customization from Dark Legend to the main line

Dark Legend is commendable within the franchise in that the Overlord here has access to quite a number of weapon tiers, types and even armour options to customize as pleased. For example, I love that you can hue your armour with at least 3 different options.

Put it like being an option on the forge similar to the tower upgrades

Make the tower upgrades be more substantial

I really dig having a Dark Tower that suits my evilness and stuff, though I'd like it to also be seen by everybody and see what they think about it. The Tower upgrades should make like, affect a respect/fear gauge similar to the Tyranny rating. I know in Overlord 2 people were actually very trusting with the Overlad after conquering the regions, to the point of making audience for stupid silly requests, and in Overlord because of the main story my subjugates both welcomed me and feared me and somewhat seemed rather paradoxical

So yeah, the Tower upgrades should be more useful aside of eye candy, with every upgrade having an affinity towards either respect or fear.

Make a respect/fear gauge, but keep the corruption and tyranny as well

In Overlord we had Corruption level. In Overlord 2 we had Tyranny rating. And though both affect the Overlord in their own particular way, as well as having their own benefits, it somewhat ends up feeling not fully realized. For example, I liked how by being more evil I got a new small quest where I could "persuade" people and take them as servants for the Tower, or made people fear me when I destroy towns. Or how my final spells became more evil and savage. I liked how I got from simply "Witch-Boy" to "Demon Lord of Nordberg" as well as having a differet outcome from missions depending on what I favoured most. However, this can be expanded further.

A respect/fear gauge would affect how people react to your presence, making your enemies like, approaching you more carefully or outright somewhat nasty if they were able to hear about you, the more fear they have the more desperate their tactics become, as well as making your subjects or subjugates like give you some hints or useful stuff or small side missions through chitchatter or audiences. Keeping both the corruption and tyranny also helps to measure just how much out of the line you want to go and also what kind of help would you receive from your people.

Make the effects of corruption and tyranny more noticeable

Corruption and tyranny are actually pretty good concepts. The more corrupt you are the more people fear you, you also get a slight power bonus as well as slightly different final spells. Tyranny makes your abilities work differently depending of your alignment with slight bonuses to certain traits. The problem is precisely that: slightly.

Just make the bonuses slightly more noticeable.

Bring town management

One of the aspects I liked a lot on Overlord 2 was that of really going on and subdue everyone to my evil presence (overjoke haha). When I first downed the governor of Nordberg, seeing a Town Hall interface popping up made me feel actually good because I thought I could have a more hands-on management of my conquered lands. Sadly, this is not the case. Continuing with my first point, subduing everybody has the benefit that they'll work tirelessly to give me resources like weapons and armor for my Minions, and gold. Though I didn't like I had to get the gold from chests and run about every single time I wanted to gear up. And seeing how the lore establishes the Overlad being a more hands-on kind of Overlord with its conquered lands, I think it justifies the inclusion of such mechanic.

So, expanding on that solitary hall menu, make it a central management hub for the towns, allow for upgrades to gather more resources or to keep everything centralized, like the money made by the slaves over time so one can go and just take it no problem. I know Overlord is not a management simulator, but since the management aspect is actually there with the Minions and we even got an item that helps us get more and more of them faster, it should be logic to bring at the very least basic town management into the table. It could also receive a small bonus from the strongest aspect of the Tyranny rating (Domination or Destruction).

Add a reticle for the war contraptions

Or at least something to know where I'm aiming at. I approve of the side-weaponry like catapults and crossbows in Overlord 2, however they are very difficult to use without a proper reticle. Well, maybe just the catapult since I can actually aim with the crossbow somewhat. I learned how to aim and shoot the catapult by counting the clicks on the weapon as well as looking at the joint height when I charged the throw. A reticle is a more than welcomed addition.

Expand on vehicle use

It was interesting to see the change from going on foot around the tundra, to sailing across the jungle. Upgrading my ship by stealing the one from the elves was also a rather entertaining challenge too. It'd be nice that we get to see more transport options, like Minion-leg powered chariots, perhaps a rudimentary tank with Red firepower, maybe a mount for the Overlord at some point?

Implement the concept of Elite Minions

From Minions, we got to know that there are certain Minions able to work without direct influence from the Overlord for the most part. The Elite Minions are Minions that are extensively trained and can perform rather difficult missions that a normal Minion couldn't.

In Overlord 2, troopers had a Centurion that actually made an impact on their combat behavior, and overall made the opposition more resilient to the Overlord advances. Minions can also level up as well in both main games. With all of this in mind, you could implement a way to train one or two Elite Minions per tribe that aside of being more resilient and maybe have an special attack of their own, can also help giving a bonus to Minions that are within a Marker with it, as well as making their behavior adopt a more aggresive approach. Though you can do that with the Minion branch spells and the Minion Domination spell, the former affect all and also makes you unable to put them on Markers or direct them unless the spell runs out or you cancel it, and the latter affects just one that you target. This would make the Elite Minion a compromise between the two, making the Minions slightly stronger and aggresive but only if they are on a Marker. Of course, knowing when and how to use this considering the enemy behaviors based on type and your respect/fear ratio should be a tactic to consider as Minions tend to be go lil bit out of control when they are blood-thirsty which can go so right or so wrong for the Overlord's evil scheming.

Give more chances to use the mounts

I loved the mounts on Overlord 2. Shame one doesn't get to use them as often as one would want. I could have added Blue Mounts, but then again they are too meeky for having one. Perhaps there can be an implementation of dolphins like on development, but honestly I can see why it was scrapped.

Tweaking the Minion control

Or rather, just fix it. Its tweaked already but is a bit twitchy on Overlord 2, especially on sweep mode.

Implement the Mincyclopedia from Dark Legend

I just like to have some lore to read about and maybe find something to help me on my conquest. It could be on the menu for looking at enemy references and also could be accessed on a new library for the tower just if the Overlord feels like staying at home with a nice read.

Fusing the Dark Legend and O2 maps

Dark legend had the regions divided into zones, Overlord 2 had relatively comprehensive markers as well as the objectives for the regions. Fuse the two and you get a nice view of any part of the world and what needs to be done where.

Charged physical attack (third attack command)

A charged attack aside of the three-hit swing and the spin attack. A charged attack would be a high-risk high-reward sort of thing. Because its always nice to have options :v

Teleporting Greens, Overlord-healing Blues, RC-Kamikaze Reds

The one good thing from Fellowship of Evil aside of the writting (which is very Overlord if you ask me) are these new Minion abilities. Enough said. You could put these as the Elites special abilities in order to not break the game.

Bring back the costumes

This serves no purpose in particular besides of pure comedic entertainment. Except for the fact that you could make your Minions pass up as one of the enemies and give them a nice backstabing to their frontlines before they even realize they suddenly had a few extra men. Or even make them wear leather pelts and the like so they can avoid some animals or monsters attacking them on sight. Case in point being that costumes should trigger different responses from others. It doesn't have to be very extensive, just enough to influence how to approach things.

Bring back the higher enemy variety

I know most magical creatures went extinct or into hiding on Overlord 2, but the plague of Golden from Fellowship of Evil should have had at least something to do to bring them back. But yeah, more enemy variety is something that shouldn’t be ignored.

I have some story suggestions as well to tie up everything and maybe opening a [good DLC] opportunity too but that’d be entering into spoiler territory :V

that above :T

ALL OF THAT can be achieved relatively easy with the current hardware and some time and investment. It could have happened on Overlord 2 but now is late for that. At least the third installment should be an improvement over everything, I think.

#Owlpost #Owl things #Overlord #yeah- i like those games

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actutrends · 5 years ago

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Content Rated By: An Oral History of the ESRB excerpt – “Evolution, Expansion, and Enforcement”

GamesBeat is publishing this exclusive excerpt of Content Rated By: An Oral History of the ESRB. Previous chapters can be found here.

To help commemorate its 25th anniversary, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) reached out to Blake J. Harris, the best-selling author of Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation and The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality to document the behind-the-scenes origins of the rating system for video games and how it has evolved over the past quarter century. Content Rated By: An Oral History of the ESRB provides eyewitness accounts from the key people involved in the ESRB’s creation and its development into one of the country’s finest examples of industry self-regulation.

PART 4: Evolution, Expansion, & Enforcement (or Lack Thereof)

On September 16, 1994, the ESRB opened its doors and started to assign ratings. Due to the relatively poor record-keeping at the time, which according to current employees was once just “an Excel spreadsheet,” there remains a lingering mystery about which games were actually the first to receive rating assignments.

Poor record-keeping aside, the ESRB continued to focus on assigning ratings, and gradually became a more recognizable part of the industry. Unlike the launch of the industry’s new trade show, there wasn’t that singular moment of gratification. But one year after facing the threat of government regulation, that worst-case scenario seemed unlikely to come to pass.

DON JAMES (NINTENDO): I don’t remember it being a formal process where the government said, “okay, we’re not going to bother you guys anymore because you’ve done this.” I think it slowly sort of just ebbed away. Once the ratings system came out, the irons in the fire cooled off.

Meanwhile, as the threat of government regulation dissipated, the ESRB came to face a new immediate challenge: a competing ratings board called “RSAC.” RSAC was short for the “Recreational Software Advisory Council” and it had been created by the Software Publishers Association (SPA) as an alternative to the ESRB.

Like the ESRB, RSAC was an independent, self-regulatory body whose mission was to inform potential consumers about the nature (and suitability) of the content it evaluated. But it differed from the ESRB in significant ways, a few of which are noted in this excerpt from a 1994 Washington Post piece entitled, “Video, Computer game industries split on ratings.”

Above: The ESRB versus the SPA ratings systems

LISA SCHNAPP (ESRB): There was a competing board — RSAC — so we were always trying to knock them off and take their business.

Schnapp was among the first to join Pober’s small ESRB team. Having come from a string of administrative jobs at media outlets like Warner Bros., CBS News, and Polygram/Mercury Records, Schnapp initially served as a jack-of- all-trades at the ESRB. Over time, her role would evolve greatly, but early on, it was simply about organizational survival.

LISA SCHNAPP (ESRB): When I took the job, my father said to me, “Do you know what you’re doing? Do you think this organization is even going to be around for a long time?” And I really didn’t know. In the early days, we were so small. There were hardly any people here. In fact, the person who ran ratings wasn’t even a full-time employee. So it didn’t help that there was this competing board. They mostly did PC stuff, and we mostly did console stuff; but we were kind of trying to just be the only rating board.

RILEY RUSSELL (SEGA): It was touch-and-go for a while on which rating system would win out.

By this point in time, Riley Russell — who had been the Director of Business Affairs for Sega—had left to join a different company that was planning to enter the console race: Sony.

RILEY RUSSELL (SONY): The key difference [between the two ratings boards] was that the PC guys did not want to do anything other than self-ratings. Which led Sony to make the decision that — in order to be on our system — you have to use the ESRB. I think Sega and Sony both deserve credit, but Sony particularly knew that the ratings would be important. At that point, it was by no means certain that PlayStation was going to win when things started. But just because of the chain of events, we went from being the “third platform” that everybody developed for but then because of the lateness of Sega’s tools and the limited launch, we became “the place to be.” And then it just took off.

As Sony took off, so did the ESRB — which begs the question as to why Sony, at such a fragile and uncertain stage of their console business, felt the need to take such a strong stance.

RILEY RUSSELL (SONY): Previously, Sony had made Betamax players and ultimately recorders. And they had an experience in that industry—and I don’t want to say this is over-arching—but…after that experience we realized it was important to let as much content onto your platform as possible. Because VHS probably won out because of porn. So we wanted to have edgier adult type content. Because we recognized (as Sega had recognized) that the industry was getting older; it wasn’t just a kid’s toy. In the end it was about a sense of responsibility. I think Sega was going to go that route anyway, but whether we were days or weeks ahead of them, we [at Sony] were the first to do it. Sony was looking at it as: we were getting into the market, we had a new console, we wanted to have something that offered families peace of mind. Sony has a reputation for making safe, reliable products…you know: we wanted to be “the IBM of the gaming space.”

Throughout the mid-90s, adoption of the ESRB’s rating system soared. Incidentally, during this time, the ESRB introduced its first organizational mascot:

Above: ESRB Guy?

By the end of the decade — standing on much surer footing — the ESRB began to really expand.

LISA SCHNAPP (ESRB): Arthur was always looking to grow and take on things. For example: the privacy department…

ARTHUR POBER (ESRB): I didn’t want us to be just “the ratings service.” What we were was a full-service organization to make sure that this industry is regulated and regulated well. And I’m never quite satisfied, I’m always looking for what the next issue is. So what was that next issue? The issue of privacy. So I put together a special unit that would make us a seal provider.

In 1999, the ESRB launched its Privacy Online certification service. The following year, Pober set up another new group — the Advertising Review Council — which Lisa would run.

LISA SCHNAPP (ESRB): I always said, “If you want a paper tiger in this job, I’m not the right person.” I’m not just gonna sit and roll over. So I was really happy to take on that role. It’s a tough job, but an important one — making sure that all of the marketing complies with industry guidelines.

Given all the money that game companies put into marketing, it’s not surprising that Schnapp—as the face of the industry’s advertising enforcement—would become a well-known figure amongst the industry. And that her role would lead to situations like…

LISA SCHNAPP (ESRB): I remember one time I went to give this presentation and someone said, “You’re Lisa Schnapp?” “Yeah.” “Hey, you’re famous!” Infamous, maybe. I mean, I’m the person who goes out and issues the violations. So, a lot of people know me, yeah. Oh, and there was this other time — this is one of my favorites — someone wrote me a letter, and this guy was really angry about something, so he called me “The Overlord of the Darkside” [laughs]. I always really liked that.

RILEY RUSSELL (SONY): Overall, I think the ESRB was run well early on. There were hiccups, no one had really done it before — no one really knew how to “rate” a game — but I think that Arthur did a good job. He got it up and running. And he got us what we needed.

In many facets, this was true and, as such, the ESRB continued to thrive. But beneath the surface, there was a chink in the armor — which began to become an issue towards late 2000.

Specifically: in September 2000, when the FTC published a “Mystery Shopper” survey. What they had done was send in “undercover” shoppers (between the ages of 13 and 16) and sent these minors into stores — unaccompanied by their parents — to see whether retailers were enforcing rating systems. To find out, these mystery shoppers would attempt to buy one of the following four entertainment products:

Above: The FTC’s “mystery shopper” audit

As such, this operation was by no means meant to target the game industry. But compared to those other industries, the enforcement of video game ratings proved to be the worst. The following year (2001), the FTC published another mystery shopper survey and the results were similar.

In 2002, IDSA — which was on the cusp of its own restructure and would soon change its name to the “Entertainment Software Association” (ESA) — decided that it was time to find a new president to run the ESRB.

DOUG LOWENSTEIN (ESA): The problem was, it was a really tricky search to do. Because it’s not like there’s a hundred people running self-regulatory rating boards. There’s not really an obvious pool of candidates out there. And that made it tough — really, really tough…

The next four parts of Content Rated By: An Oral History of the ESRB include how ratings are assigned, garnering support from video game retailers and how the ESRB created a scalable global rating solution to meet the needs of mobile app and other digital game storefronts. Part 5 will be published next week in the ESRB blog.

Blake J. Harris is the best-selling author of Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle that Defined a Generation, which is currently being adapted for television by Legendary Entertainment.

The post Content Rated By: An Oral History of the ESRB excerpt – “Evolution, Expansion, and Enforcement” appeared first on Actu Trends.

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jeroldlockettus · 7 years ago

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“How Much Brain Damage Do I Have?”

John Urschel of the Baltimore Ravens was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a Ph.D. in math at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly retired. (Photo: Gene J. Puskar/AP)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “‘How Much Brain Damage Do I Have?’” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly retired. Here’s the inside story — and a look at how we make decisions in the face of risk versus uncertainty.

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. And you’ll find credits for the music in the episode noted within the transcript.

* * *

Andrew LO: Why is it the case that we have billionaires? Why should they exist?

The economist Andrew Lo is a finance professor at M.I.T.

LO: That’s a very strange concept for an economist because we usually think that markets are reasonably competitive. If it’s reasonably competitive, then no one person should be able to make billions and billions of dollars.

Hmh. That is an interesting idea, isn’t it? You could imagine market failures producing billionaires — like monopolies or cronyism. But yes — if markets are “reasonably competitive,” why do we have billionaires? Andrew Lo is not the first economist to consider this riddle. In fact, if you went back 100 years, an economist named Frank Knight had a notion …

LO: And he came up with that notion to try to explain the difference between ordinary businesses that would make a reasonable living versus these incredible captains of industry — the Andrew Mellons and, at that time, the incredible wealth that was generated by a relatively small number of entrepreneurs. These are people that, in today’s dollars, would be multi-billionaires.

Now, we all know the conventional wisdom — that the big rewards in life go to the people willing to take big risks, right? Frank Knight saw it a bit differently.

LO: He realized that the way you make a huge amount of money is not to take on risk. The reason is because risk, by its definition, is the kind of randomness that you can quantify. And if you can quantify it, so can everybody else. You can’t really outsmart other people because they can calculate just as well as you can.

So using probability and statistics, you can calculate risk. And because the odds of a given risk can be calculated, that risk can also be priced.

LO: Exactly. A good example is the insurance industry.

So risk is the stuff of actuarial tables. Taking on risk might make you a good living. But it wouldn’t have made you a multi-billionaire. To do that, Frank Knight argued, you had to take on something else entirely: uncertainty.

LO: For example, if you create an entirely new industry that didn’t exist before, there’s no way to calculate what the odds are. When Bill Gates started up Microsoft, we didn’t have a huge PC and software industry. He created that. He couldn’t sit down and calculate what the odds [were]. Knight came up with this idea that the way you really make money, the way innovation really occurs in the economy, is through taking on uncertainty, not taking on risk.

Okay, is that clear? Does the distinction between risk and uncertainty make sense to you? Maybe we could use an example …

LO: The difference was highlighted in a really neat experiment that was done in the 1960s by an economist by the name of Daniel Ellsberg. Most people remember Ellsberg not because of his economics, but because he was the fellow who released the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s.

NEWS CLIP:… detailing secret Washington events; events behind President Johnson’s decision to wage secret war against Vietnam in early …

NEWS CLIP:… Daniel Ellsberg, an M.I.T. senior research associate, surrendered to federal authorities in Boston …

NEWS CLIP:… to begin with, how did you get the papers?

NEWS CLIP: Well, I can’t discuss …

LO: But before he did that, he actually did some really pioneering work in economics. The experiment goes like this: imagine if I have an urn. In this urn, I’ve got 100 balls and 50 of the balls are colored red and 50 of them are colored black. And you and I are going to play a game where you pick a color, red or black. Don’t tell me what it is, but write it down on a piece of paper. Then I’m going to draw a ball out of this urn. If the color of the ball that I draw is the color you wrote down, I’m going to pay you $10,000.

And if it’s not, I’m going to pay you nothing.

Now the question is: how much would you be willing to pay to play that game?

LO: When most people think about the odds, they come up with an answer of about $5,000, because that’s the expected value. That’s the probability of getting the ball of your color multiplied by the odds of winning. That’s an example of risk. You know what the odds are.

But now …

LO: But now, suppose I change the game slightly and I have another urn. In this urn I’ve got 100 balls, but I’m not going to tell you what the proportion of red or black is. It could be 100 percent black. It could be 100 percent red or 50-50, 75-25 and so on. Now the question is, “If we play the exact same game, where you write down the color of your choice, and I pick a ball from this second urn, what would you pay to play this game with me?”

In this case, most people would pay much, much less than $5,000 …

LO: … much, much less than $5,000. This is an example of uncertainty. You don’t know the odds, and so therefore you’re much less likely to want to play.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between risk and uncertainty.

LO: The fact that risk allows us to make these inferences while uncertainty doesn’t means that from an evolutionary perspective our brains are going to start telling us “Red alert, stay away from an uncertain environment.” Because, from an evolutionary perspective, we actually need to know what’s out there. Because what you don’t know can kill you.

John URSCHEL: How much brain damage do I have?

Ann McKEE: The question is, “Would the risk be acceptable?”

URSCHEL: I don’t know. And it’s extremely hard to know.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: risk versus uncertainty in the real world — but a part of the real world that most of us will never get near.

URSCHEL in a previous Freakonomics Radio episode: In football, I just love running around and hitting people. It’s not a bad deal.

* * *

The National Football League begins its new season this week. Football is far more than just the biggest sport in America. It’s part of our calendar; part of our social fabric. Even during the off-season it makes big news. Among the three biggest stories this off-season: the New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, arguably the best quarterback in history, turned forty, and is still amazingly good. The quarterback Colin Kaerpernick, meanwhile, has no team — in part, it is suspected, because he has chosen to not stand during the national anthem; it’s Kaepernick’s protest against what he calls “a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” A third big story this summer: a Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman named John Urschel, entering the prime of his career, abruptly retired. At age 26.

URSCHEL: I told the Ravens, the Ravens announced it and then all of a sudden … This was a very naïve thing of me. I was really hoping to just go out quietly.

Stephen J. DUBNER: Really? [Laughs.]

URSCHEL: Nice and quiet, like a thief in the night. “No one pay attention to me. There’s no story here. There’s nothing going on.”

DUBNER: That is naive.

URSCHEL: On July 27, I had a lot of phone calls, certainly in the hundreds of phone calls and this was, frankly, a nightmare for me. I don’t really relish being the center of attention and I’m trending on Twitter. People are writing articles and people are making guesses as to my motivations.

Why did a relatively obscure player suddenly turn into such a big story? That’s pretty simple. He quit football just two days after the publication of a study that assembled the most compelling evidence to date on the relationship between football and brain damage. And: John Urschel has a particularly compelling brain. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in math from Penn State, where he also taught math while playing college football. He’s published papers in major journals — like “On the Maximal Error of Spectral Approximation of Graph Bisection,” which appeared in Linear and Multilinear Algebra. Also: he’s been working toward a Ph.D. in math at M.I.T.

URSCHEL: Yes. For the majority of my N.F.L. career, actually.

DUBNER: How did that work out? When did you do what, as a doctoral candidate, around the football season?

URSCHEL: Well, I was — I shouldn’t say “was.” I am a full time Ph.D. student at M.I.T. and I was full-time the entire time, so there wasn’t really any working around to be done.

DUBNER: But, obviously during the football season you’re not attending classes. That’s not possible right? Football’s [a] very full time job.

URSCHEL: Yes, of course. This is a natural question. I guess since I’m retired, I’m allowed to say, I was full-time, full-time. For example, last fall I took courses at M.I.T.

DUBNER: During football season.

URSCHEL: Yes. Via correspondence. I took courses which I thought were very manageable in season; areas that I was more or less familiar with previously, classes which had a textbook, which the professor followed the textbook and I would just do the assignments and then just send them in.

DUBNER: You say that you can tell me, “Now that you’re retired.” Am I to gather, then, that you didn’t tell the Ravens that you were actually full-time at M.I.T. during the football season?

URSCHEL: I did not tell anyone this. Well, except M.I.T. But I don’t think an N.F.L. team would be extremely happy to hear that I’m working towards my Ph.D. also in the fall.

DUBNER: How did a standard day work out?

URSCHEL: My schedule — to put the M.I.T. things in perspective — what I would do is, I would play the game on Sunday. Then from Sunday — suppose it’s a home game, one o’clock kickoff. I get home around 5:00, perhaps 5:30. From Sunday, 5:30 p.m. until Tuesday, say, 11:00 a.m. — when I have to go into the Ravens — all I am doing is M.I.T. coursework and math. That is all I am doing. M.I.T. accepted me as a Ph.D. student, but they don’t have part-time Ph.D. students. If I have to finish in four years, maybe five, this is just completely infeasible if I’m only working on the Ph.D. half a year.

DUBNER: Gotcha. You said that it would have been hard to do your coursework during the later part of the week. That’s because the intensity of the football week is building and you’re getting more in your brain in terms of game plans and the opponent and so on?

URSCHEL: Yes. Your focus is very much on your opponent. Wednesday and Thursday in the N.F.L. are full eight-hour, seven-to-four days, or eight-to-five days. You’re very tired at the end. You have to watch film of practice. You have to watch film of your opponent and even Friday, Saturday, you’re really preparing for the opponent. You’re really getting your mind right for those things.

DUBNER: Was the reason that you didn’t do work later in the week because you would have felt it was cheating your team, the Ravens, and maybe the fans and the league?

URSCHEL: Yes, of course. Very much so.

As we spoke, Urschel was planning to move from Baltimore to Boston, with his fiance.

URSCHEL: My fiance’s name is Louisa Thomas. She is a historical nonfiction author.

The two of them will soon be three.

URSCHEL: Yes. I’m expecting a baby girl. Her name is going to be Joanna.

We were speaking in August. In previous years, Urschel would have spent August training for the N.F.L. season, or — before that, the college or high-school football season. This time, he was on vacation, along with the rest of America.

URSCHEL: I actually didn’t even know that August was like the vacation month. This is news to me.

He and his fiance were in St. Louis for a chess vacation.

URSCHEL: Yes! Chess vacation.

Chess is a fairly new but serious passion of Urschel’s. St. Louis is the site of the Sinequefield Cup.

URSCHEL: It’s an elite chess tournament. It’s been very enjoyable for me.

He’s not nearly good enough yet to compete in this kind of tourney; he was there as a spectator.

URSCHEL: You can go up and watch them play. You can go into separate places and watch commentary. Certainly, you can grab a beer and chat with your friends about the game.

So John Urschel is just another 26-year-old, chess-spectating former N.F.L. lineman getting a Ph.D. in math at M.I.T. How did that happen?

URSCHEL: I grew up in Buffalo, New York with my mother. My father left when I was three, though I have a good relationship with him and he’s a good guy.

DUBNER: He was a surgeon, ultimately, yes?

URSCHEL: He was a thoracic surgeon. He was the chief of surgery at Harvard’s hospital in Boston, Beth Israel, before he retired.

DUBNER: He had played college football, I believe. Yes?

URSCHEL: That is correct. He played college ball at the University of Alberta initially, as an offensive lineman, and then he moved to linebacker.

DUBNER: Your mom, then, I understand, became a lawyer?

URSCHEL: Yes, that is correct.

DUBNER: What were you into and not into as a kid?

URSCHEL: As a kid I was very much into puzzles. Math puzzles, any puzzles really. I was quite into horror movies.

DUBNER: Now, what about sports as a kid?

URSCHEL: I believe when I was younger, my mom put me in indoor soccer. My mom was not quite in favor of me playing football. Actually, ever, now that I think about it. But my father was in favor of it.

In high school, Urschel was a good enough player and student to be recruited by, among others, Stanford, Princeton, and Cornell.

URSCHEL: I visit Cornell, and they show me the best time of my life. I almost commit to Cornell on the spot. Those familiar with football recruiting and how those things go … That works!

DUBNER: Can you give us some details on what was so great about this visit?

URSCHEL: Uh, no! [Laughs.] But it was a very —

DUBNER: Did it involve alcohol or other generally forbidden substances?

URSCHEL: [Pauses.] So as my story was going, it was a very enjoyable time. Tons of trips to church and Bible study. It was the best. One that I will never forget and I still have not forgotten. [Laughs.]

Urschel’s dream school — and one of his mom’s dream schools too — was Stanford. But after showing interest in Urschel, they disappeared.

URSCHEL: Penn State offers me, very late. I make a visit to Penn State. I commit on the spot. I just fell in love with the people and also it was my best option. I go home and the Monday after the weekend of my official visit to Penn State, who calls me? Jim Harbaugh.

Harbaugh was, at the time, the head coach at Stanford. He also happens to be the brother of John Harbaugh, who would become Urschel’s head coach in the N.F.L.

URSCHEL: And he says, “Listen, I’m so sorry we’ve dropped the ball on recruiting you. The person who was recruiting you quit suddenly.” They had to get things in order. He called me that Monday and offered me a scholarship on the spot and offered for me to fly out that weekend to go look at the school. I remember, because my mother was in the car with me, I had to tell him that, “I’m sorry. I just committed to Penn State this previous weekend.”

Penn State wasn’t expecting all that much from Urschel.

URSCHEL: I was the 26th out of 27 people they got for their class. I’m also undersized, I’m only about 265 at the time. I just put my head down and I worked hard. I worked hard in the weight room. I worked extremely hard to try to improve my technique as an offensive lineman. I always like to say that my math talent came fairly easily. My football talent very much less so. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of long hours.

Urschel had an outstanding college career, winning athletic and academic awards.

URSCHEL: Yes. It started to become apparent to me that I’d have a chance to play in the N.F.L.

DUBNER: Did you have any reservations? Was there ever a point where you said, “I’m thinking about a Ph.D. in math. You know what? I love football and I’m good at it but I’ll pass on that and just go straight into academia?”

URSCHEL: Didn’t even cross my mind. I was 100 percent pro-N.F.L. Just the dream of playing the sport I love at the highest level —this was a no-brainer. In hindsight, it would still be a no-brainer.

Urschel was not a superstar with the Ravens — but to be fair, very few offensive linemen are. They do the dirty work that most fans don’t pay attention to. But he had an absolute blast.

URSCHEL: The thing I really love about playing offensive line is it’s a very physical, visceral position. Every play I’m fighting with a defensive lineman or a linebacker, where they are trying to get through me to physically tackle someone and I am doing everything I can to stop them, whether in somewhat of a passive fashion or an extremely active one.

In his second year, during a pre-season practice, Urschel got a concussion.

URSCHEL: I believe I was playing left guard. I pulled right to trap out the defensive end or outside linebacker. I got a little bit more than I bargained for and I was knocked unconscious.

DUBNER: What was the treatment like for you, then?

URSCHEL: I walked off the field. Note that the Ravens did try to cart me off the field.

DUBNER: Okay.

URSCHEL: But I was being my stupid self. I walked off the field. They checked me for a concussion. They diagnosed me with a concussion and I was in concussion protocol for perhaps two weeks, I believe. I had some trouble passing this so-called “ImPACT test.” I just wasn’t quite feeling well, nor feeling myself.

DUBNER: What did you notice about your brain during this concussion-recovery period?

URSCHEL: It was tough for me to do high-level math. I really tried to. I really wanted to because there was actually a paper that I had been working on that I was really proud of because it was going to be my first, like big, solo-authored math paper. I just wanted to keep working on it to finish it. I really couldn’t because I had really hard times thinking through things and visualizing things. Thankfully I got the paper done and I was really happy to have it accepted. It all ended well. But at the time I was frustrated.

A few months before Urschel’s concussion, a promising young linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers named Chris Borland announced he was quitting the N.F.L. He was concerned about long-term brain damage. Urschel, who was friends with Borland, responded by writing an essay for The Players’ Tribune called “Why I Still Play Football.” “Playing a hitting position in the N.F.L.,” Urschel wrote, “can’t possibly help your long-term mental health. However, it’s also true that how bad such a pursuit is for you is something that, I believe, no one really knows for sure right now.”

LO: From an evolutionary perspective, we actually need to know what’s out there.

“With that said,” Urschel wrote, “Why take the risk?”

LO: Because what you don’t know can kill you.

“Objectively, I shouldn’t [take the risk],” Urschel went on. “I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. … But … I play because I love the game. I love hitting people.” Then, a few months later, Urschel got the concussion that left him unable to do high-level math.

DUBNER: Did you think about retiring or quitting football right then?

URSCHEL: Actually I didn’t. I didn’t actually think about it at all. I want[ed] to keep playing football. I loved the game and I was very much focused on being the best offensive lineman in the N.F.L. I could be.

Coming up on Freakonomics Radio: what finally changed John Urschel’s mind?

McKEE: It’s clear that there is a link and that there’s a problem in football. It’s not what any of us wanted to hear.

How did his head coach take the news that he was quitting?

URSCHEL: He even called me recently to check in on me and see how things are going at M.I.T.

And: how sympathetic has the N.F.L. been, historically, on the issue of brain health?

Alan SCHWARZ: As far as the N.F.L. goes, they’re bullies.

* * *

Even if you don’t follow football at all, you’ve likely heard that it has a huge problem.

SCHWARZ: It was really when guys started blowing their brains out and having their brain tissue examined for a degenerative brain disease — that’s when things started getting pretty icky.

That’s Alan Schwarz.

SCHWARZ: And I’m a journalist and author based in New York.

The brain disease is called C.T.E., or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

McKEE: It’s characterized by a deposition of a protein called tau, and that accumulates in nerve cells and other cells throughout the brain.

Ann McKee is a neuropathologist who directs the C.T.E. Center at Boston University School of Medicine.

McKEE: It starts as very focal problems or abnormalities, but then over the decades becomes a devastating neurological condition. It causes memory loss, cognitive changes, behavioral changes, like aggression, impulsivity, depression, and it can be very disabling with time.

Alan Schwarz wrote 130 articles for The New York Times about concussions or brain trauma in sports, primarily football.

SCHWARZ: There were two reasons why this blew up in football’s face, or in the N.F.L.’s face. One is players started dying and were found to have the brain disease. And then the the N.F.L. put up such a fuss saying, “Oh there’s nothing happening here, we have our scientists who have shown” — they played the perfect villain. We had something that resembled the tobacco industry.

Former players were dying young, sometimes by suicide. Older players were completely losing their faculties. And, occasionally, a current player would quit the game young, afraid of long-term brain damage.

SCHWARZ: As far as the N.F.L. goes, they’re bullies. They have been able to quash every public-relations problem in their history in the sense that — whether it’s domestic violence recently, whether it’s steroids, whether it’s the strikes and lockouts— there are games to be played on Sunday and everyone forgets by then. But this is one public-relations crisis that they have lost.

McKEE: Well, my feelings about the sport have definitely evolved.

The brain researcher Ann McKee again.

McKEE: I was born and raised right outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. My brothers played football. In fact, I was an absolutely enormous Packer fan, and because I was raised in such a football-centric community, I have always had a terrific admiration for football players.

But then she began to study the brains of deceased players.

McKEE: At one point I could compartmentalize. I could still enjoy the games, I could watch them on Sunday on the television. But at this point I can no longer dissociate what I’m seeing under the microscope. After listening to hundreds and hundreds of stories of profound tragedy, I can’t look at the game anymore without imagining what might happen to some of those players.

One challenge in brain research is that a lot of it can only be done post-mortem.

McKEE: Being able to detect changes in the brains of living athletes, looking at structural changes after playing seasons, and also being able to detect C.T.E. is going to be absolutely a game-changer — pardon the pun — in research going forward.

But for now, researchers like McKee work with brains donated by the families of people who’ve died.

McKEE: I run a number of different brain banks. I have the Framingham Heart Study brain bank. We have the Alzheimer’s brain bank. We have an A.L.S. brain bank. We have P.T.S.D. We see that the incidence of C.T.E. in those other brain banks is extremely low. But then in this brain bank, where the criteria for inclusion was participation in football and that was the only criteria, we see a very high percentage of C.T.E. It’s impossible for me to dissociate the risk of playing football from the risk of C.T.E.

It’s been nearly 10 years since McKee began finding evidence of C.T.E. in the brains of deceased football players. Sometimes she’ll meet with family members after she’s done the analysis. The memory of one such visitor has stuck with her.

McKEE: Her father had died, and she came to the lab and wanted to look at the slides. She was an adult — she was 30s or 40s. I remember she looked at the brain. I explained it to her and she seemed fine with it. Then a bit later, I saw her really crouched in a corner and sobbing. I was wondering, “Why? Had I upset her? Had I [given]too much information with the brain autopsy?” It wasn’t that at all. She was so overwhelmed because she suddenly realized that her father had loved her; that his behavior of not remembering her birthday, not remembering details of her life, or seeming distant was actually part of his illness and not part of a dad who didn’t care.

SCHWARZ: Women are the heroes of all of this, in my opinion.

Alan Schwarz again.

SCHWARZ: They were the ones who really stuck up to the N.F.L. and stood up to the N.F.L. It was Sylvia Mackey, the wife of John Mackey who wrote to Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to say that her husband had early dementia and she knew a lot of wives dealing with their husbands and former players and appealing to the N.F.L. to help, which started a charity for families. Linda Sanchez was the Congressperson most involved in all of this, and most caring. Gay Culverhouse, the former president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is the only N.F.L. executive to come out and speak out about the issue of brain trauma among former players — happens to be a woman.

Culverhouse is no longer the only such executive, but she was the first.

SCHWARZ: Dr. Ann McKee, the neuropathologist — these women are all football fans. They like football. They don’t want to destroy football, but they wanted to introduce some sanity, some realism about all of this and to demand from the over-testosteroned men who said, “Shut up.” And say, “You know what? I’m not going to shut up.”

Ann McKee’s latest study, co-authored with more than two dozen fellow researchers, was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in July. Just as John Urschel was getting ready to play his fourth season in the N.F.L.

URSCHEL: That is correct.

The fourth season, by the way, is typically the last season an N.F.L. player is bound by his rookie contract. Which can mean an even bigger payday the next year.

URSCHEL: Money just like showering, allegedly.

DUBNER: What did you see as your financial future within football?

URSCHEL: I don’t know … I didn’t really think about it that much. I don’t really spend money that much and I’m quite happy with my bank account. There’s nothing I really want to spend money on. I buy books, on occasion, like chess books, math books. That’s about it.

This new study was unprecedented in scope.

McKEE: This is the largest case series by far of American football players.

It included brains donated from 202 deceased former players, across all levels of the game; 111 of them had played in the N.F.L.

McKEE: And we did this very rigorous neuropathologic examination. We had defined criteria to make the diagnosis and we had a team of four neuropathologists who looked at the cases.

What did McKee and her colleagues find?

McKEE: And so, ultimately we found that, I believe, the overall was 87 percent of the football players in the series had C.T.E., and that included 99 percent of former N.F.L. players.

URSCHEL: Here’s my thing about this study — and this is something that bothers me — the big headline is like 99 percent of like N.F.L. brains they looked at had C.T.E. It was 99 percent, right?

DUBNER: Yeah, more than that — 110 out of 111.

URSCHEL: Yes. Especially to N.F.L. players that ask me my opinions about it, I said, “Listen. This number — do not like look at this like, ‘99 percent chance that I have C.T.E.’ because that is far from what this is saying.”

McKEE: Yeah. I don’t think we’re at the point where we can talk about a definitive risk estimate for an N.F.L. player. I do think the 99 percent — although we have said in every interview and we said it very clearly in that paper — that number became larger than life. But that wasn’t because of the authors of the scientific manuscript.

URSCHEL: Frankly, there is a strong case of self-selection bias there and that cannot be ignored.

DUBNER: In other words, the brains that are being donated to this bank were from families or players who suspected that they had C.T.E. or something close to that. Is that what you’re talking about?

URSCHEL: Yes. I can’t say that I know for certain that it’s self-selection bias. But my instincts tell me it’s extremely likely that it is.

McKEE: It’s not a general population of all people in the community or all football players in the community. If we had those population studies, I’m sure the risk would be lower. However, the question is, “Would the risk be acceptable?” In my opinion, this study says, “No, it would not be acceptable.”

DUBNER: I assume the timing of the study and your decision were not coincidental?

URSCHEL: No, I don’t think it was necessarily coincidental but I don’t think it was necessarily directly causal. The best, the easiest way I can explain it is that it was causal in one respect but not in the way that most people think it was. The way that it was causal is that it really reopened the dialogue within, talking to myself and also between myself and my fiance. It really opened a dialogue that I had not opened in an extremely long time.

DUBNER: Why was that? I mean, can I psychoanalyze you for one second?

URSCHEL: Yes, of course, feel free.

DUBNER: Is [it] because you loved playing football so much that even though the rational part of your brain — that maybe contained the mathematical abilities in your brain — you were able to override that or quiet it down so that you could keep doing what you wanted to do?

URSCHEL: Yes! That’s a good way to put it. This thing comes out and obviously it’s not 99 percent. Like it’s 99 percent in the study but it’s like, for me, is my chances 99 percent? I highly doubt it. Is it 0 percent? I highly doubt it. But it’s not 99 percent and the biggest thing it did was it made me say, “I should actually probably think about this again.” Not like, “This new evidence is extremely overwhelming [and changes] my opinion.” It’s more like, “This really brings something to my attention in a very real way that, quite frankly, I was more or less aware of but attempting to ignore to a degree.” In the back of my head, I had already been having these thoughts to some degree about my longevity and how long I wanted to play. The main thing that I thought about [was], “What was I most passionate about and what was I most excited about in life going forward?” When I thought about, “What are these one or two or three things?” Football, all of a sudden, was not one of these top two or three things. Football is actually actively hindering me from doing some of these things. Well, then it became a real conversation.

DUBNER: Was your fiance eager and ready for you to not only open this dialogue but to make the decision that you did?

URSCHEL: Yes. Quite ready.

DUBNER: What about your mom?

URSCHEL: Yes, she has been ready.

DUBNER: What about your dad?

URSCHEL: Not in favor. Yes. So what I did was I called John.

DUBNER: John Harbaugh, the coach.

URSCHEL: Yes.

DUBNER: Head coach.

URSCHEL: I thanked him and the Ravens, because quite frankly I thoroughly loved my time in the N.F.L., I loved my time with the Ravens. He expressed sentiments that he has the utmost respect for me. I stressed that these are mutual feelings. Yeah. John and I, we had a very positive conversation. He even called me recently to check in on me and see how things are going at M.I.T.

DUBNER: Were you concerned at all that your retiring would signal to the world that, “Holy cow, this is very startling and a very strong indictment.”

URSCHEL: Yes. This was actually a serious concern of mine. Because, yes I am retiring, I did retire. But at the same time, I love the N.F.L. I love football. I wouldn’t trade my experiences for the world. I do believe football is a great game. I didn’t want to be, for lack of a better word, I didn’t want to be perhaps fodder for certain anti-football establishments.

DUBNER: Do you think football survives long-term?

URSCHEL: Yes. Yes, of course.

SCHWARZ: I take no pleasure at all in the suggestion that I might have helped kill off football.

That, again, is Alan Schwarz, whose reporting in the New York Times highlighted the connection between football and brain damage.

SCHWARZ: I hope that football stays around and I’m very confident that it will.

DUBNER: Because why?

SCHWARZ: Because two things: N.F.L. owners are not in the business of having their $2 billion assets disappear. And the game will adapt. I’m not sure exactly how all this is going to play out, but the game — it’s a great game. It’s just played more recklessly than the market will allow.

McKEE: Because this affects a game we love, a game that defines communities, a game that is really the lifeblood for many colleges, there’s a lot of resistance to really addressing this problem in the way it should be addressed.

That’s Ann McKee.

McKEE: I just want people to be aware of this disease and I want individuals who decide to play football or continue to play football to be aware of it so that they can make as many individual changes to keep their head out of the game, to limit the amount of head impacts they experience, and make as an informed decision as they can regarding their own future.

And what is the N.F.L. doing? The league sent us a statement that read, in part, “The N.F.L. has made real strides to do everything it can to better protect players and make the game safer,” and it pointed to 47 rule changes since 2002. These include requiring more medical personnel to help diagnose head injuries; more careful treatment of players suspected of sustaining a concussion; and the prohibition of certain plays and procedures that have been deemed too risky.

McKEE: The responsible thing is to make some real changes in the game: limiting the amount of head contact, limiting practice, raising the age that children start to play football, maybe limiting playing career, and really addressing — with some strong research support — how to identify this disease in people while they’re still living and come up with treatments for it.

All that said, Ann McKee says it’s hard to know exactly what to do since the science on brain injury is still young. And since there are some surprising wrinkles — like the correlation, or lack thereof, between concussions and C.T.E.

McKEE: Repeatedly in our studies, we’ve looked at concussion and number of concussions. In none of the studies have concussions correlated with the development of C.T.E. We’ve had individuals with no reported concussions who have C.T.E., and we’ve had individuals with a number, high numbers of concussions, who don’t have C.T.E. But the one thing that seems to be holding up: it’s years of exposure to the sport and the length of playing career and the number of subconcussive hits. That is: the same impacts that lead to concussions in some people and symptoms don’t rise to the level of symptoms in others. It’s really the duration of the career — the cumulative number of what we call subconcussive hits — that seems to correlate best with the presence and severity of C.T.E.

There’s one more point about the brain — obvious, maybe, but often overlooked.

McKEE: The brain is just this marvel. It really controls our personality, our thoughts, our experiences, our emotion, even our reflexes, and our athleticism. Because that’s what the risk is here. It’s not like an arm or a knee. You’ll still be the same person even if you have difficulty moving or pain when you move. But the brain is actually your identity.

Especially if you’re the kind of person getting your Ph.D. in math at M.I.T..

URSCHEL: I’m interested in Voronoi diagrams, centroidal Voronoi tessellations, but also interested in other things. My advisor is this guy Michel Goemans, and he specializes in combinatorial optimization. I’ve been working on a lot of combinatorial optimization lately, and this is what I’ve been learning a lot about. I do have diverse interests.

DUBNER: I do want to hear what you think about the extent of any brain damage you may have done by playing all the football you’ve played.

URSCHEL: That’s a good question. How much brain damage do I have? I don’t know. And it’s extremely hard to know. While there are encouraging signs for me at the moment because I don’t have any problems currently — again, I don’t know. And I don’t know how much of an effect having played football will have on my experiences later in life. To know with certainty is a very hard thing in this area, I believe.

John Urschel always knew that playing football involved risks — as does just about anything in life. But: when risk tipped into uncertainty — well, that seems to have been his tipping point.

LO: From my own perspective I think it’s wise because doing mathematics could provide a lifetime of pleasure and success, whereas being a very successful football player can provide you with 5 to 10, maybe 15 years of success.

That, again, is Andrew Lo, who teaches finance at M.I.T. Maybe he and Urschel can be friends!

LO: If you don’t know what the odds are, you really have to say, “It’s probably not something that I’m comfortable doing.” He’s making a very human decision because we don’t know what the odds are, the potential loss both for him and for the community. It could be incredible. I mean imagine if Albert Einstein ended up being a linebacker for his football team, and we never would have gotten the theory of relativity because he got tackled during a particularly nasty game. If you don’t know what you’re giving up, if you don’t know what the odds are, it’s actually very easy to say, “You know what? I don’t think I want to play.”

Coming up next time on Freakonomics Radio: we’re talking about talking:

John McWHORTER: I find it fascinating that there are seven thousand different ways to do what we’re doing right now.

We talk about how talking began:

McWHORTER: There are many theories as to why people started using language, and some of them are ones where you want it to be true because it’s cool.

And: if we could start over, what would that look like?

McWHORTER: The truth is that if we could start again, I don’t think anybody would wish that the situation was the way it came out.

We return to our Earth 2.0 series with a look at our modern-day Tower of Babel. That’s next time …

Maria Luisa MACIEIRA: Isso vem no próximo episódio.

Oleg IVANOV: Это будет в следующем выпуске.

Dayana MUSTAK: Episod seterusnya dalam Radio Freakonomics.

Justin CHOW: 在下一集

Anisa SILVA: Yang akan datang selanjutnya.

Rendell de KORT: Esey ta sigi proximo.

… on Freakonomics Radio.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Stephanie Tam with help from Eliza Lambert. Please don’t take our fair treatment of John Urschel and the Baltimore Ravens as any sort of endorsement of the Ravens; Freakonomics Radio is firmly a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Our staff also includes Alison Hockenberry, Merritt Jacob, Greg Rosalsky, Emma Morgenstern, Harry Huggins and Brian Gutierrez; the music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. Special thanks to Andy Lanset, New York Public Radio’s Director of Archives. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, or via email at [email protected].

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Andrew Lo, professor of finance at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ann McKee, professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University.

Alan Schwarz, journalist.

John Urschel, Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at M.I.T. and former lineman for the Baltimore Ravens.

RESOURCES

“111 N.F.L. Brains. All But One Had C.T.E.,” Joe Ward, Josh Williams and Sam Manchester, The New York Times (July 25, 2017).

“Advances and Gaps in Understanding Chronic Traumatic Encephalophy: From Pugilists to American Football Players,” Gil Rabinovici (2017).

“Clinicopathological Evaluation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Players of American Football,” Robert Cantu, Lee Goldstein, Douglas Katz, Robert Stern, Thor Stein, Ann McKee et al (2017).

“Long-term Consequences of Repetitive Brain Trauma: Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy,” Robert Stern, David Riley, Daniel Daneshvar, Christopher Nowinski, Robert Cantu, Ann McKee (2011).

“Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Risk Factor for Neurodegeneration,” Brandon Gavett, Robert Stern, Robert Cantu, Christopher Nowinski and Ann McKee (2010).

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit by Frank Knight (Martino Fine Books, 1921).

“Why I Still Play Football,” John Urschel, The Player’s Tribune (March 18, 2015).

ETC.

Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought by Andrew Lo (Princeton University Press, 2017).

“An Egghead’s Guide to the Super Bowl,” Freakonomics Radio (February 2, 2017).

“On the Maximal Error of Spectral Approximation of Graph Bisection,” John Urschel and Ludmil Zikatanov (2015).

The post “How Much Brain Damage Do I Have?” appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/brain-damage/

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