#seems like someone watched too many American military propaganda movies

[lainalit]

IC Stans: Feyre did warn tamlin that she would destroy his home

Me: you mean his mansion which honestly I definitely agree with it's very fugly with the black & white checkered flooring and all the old ass furniture that's in it

IC Stans: no I mean the innocent spring citiziens

Me:

[leverage-ot3]

to all the leverage fans out there, I thought I’d throw out some recommendations of other shows that y’all might like

this is completely centered around the lgbt aspects of leverage (how none of the characters are straight, how there is a canon ot3, etc), because I know other people have recommended white collar and stuff but I haven’t personally seen that and I’m just a humble lgbt wanting to share more gay shows with y’all

1. wynonna earp (my sideblog is @angelicearps)

just renewed for a fourth season after two years (this feeling is very familiar to leverage fans)

the first episode of season four aired last night and IM SCREAMING the writers served us a five course meal

the main love story includes waverly earp, a CANON (officially as of 4.01) bisexual girl falling in love with nicole haught, a lesbian cop-turned-sheriff (that’s a slight spoiler, so sorry about that) and both of them are main characters

wynonna earp, another main character, has a complicated relationship with two different men and is not slut shamed for it and is never put down about it

I’m serious- the healthiest and most stable relationship in the show is between waverly and nicole, so wlw nation rise

wynonna and waverly are descendants of the great gunslinger (and demon killer) wyatt earp, who ended up getting a curse on his future generations. the story of the show is centered around wynonna being the chosen heir having to fight demons and try to break the curse for good

doc holiday is another main character- yes, that doc holiday. he’s one of wynonna’s love interests and he has such a pure and loving relationship with waverly. he’d literally die for her and move heaven and hell to make sure she’s safe (that’s literally canon)

jeremy comes in around season two if I remember correctly. canon gay. gets in a relationship with another canon gay character whose name I am blanking on. they are very loving and very pure

literally, in 4.01, when armed military men are breaking into the earp homestead and he doesn’t know what to do, he literally says: “gays only?” lol they didn’t respect that answer

the show has so many good quips and one-liners. so many hilarious lines. it can be an angsty show at times but they definitely balance it out with humor and wlw softness between waverly and nicole

wynonna has a baby in season two and literally calls herself a milf

it also made fans faint because they have been calling nicole “daddy” for like six years and nicole was referred to as daddy three (3) times in 4.01

this show is NOT AFRAID to say things like gay, lesbian, etc. at one point someone tweeted at emily andreas (the writer) asking her to amp up the gay energy and she responded that she would

literally, emily andreas is on the same level as john rogers with trustability and dedication to fans

emily andreas heard of the bury your gays trope and did us one better: unkillible gays trope. the gays are unkillable.

2. motherland: fort salem (my sideblog is @fortsalem)

(HELL YEAH I WAS ONE OF THE FIRST IN THE FANDOM AND I GOT THE HANDS DOWN B E S T URL)

au where during the salem witch trials a witches named sarah alder made an agreement with the government that witches would serve for the us army in exchange for not being systematically hunted down and killed

THIS IS NOT MILITARY PROPAGANDA. sorry, I just had to make this point early on because it’s not even though it might seem like it in the beginning. literally by the end of the season you see it’s very corrupt

since this is an alternate history of the united states, in this universe there are no heteronorms. literally, there’s literally no words for lesbian and bisexual that they use because it’s so normalized and common and accepted that there’s no need for terms like that

the main love story is of star-crossed raelle and scylla. raelle comes from a poor family and is a talented healer, and (this isn’t technically a spoiler because you find out in episode one) scylla is a member of the spree

the spree is a terrorist organization of witches that protests the compliance witches are forced into by having to join the military or die/be imprisoned

scylla is supposed to turn raelle to the “dark side” but falls so deeply in love with her that she can’t do it (THATS TRUE LOVE FOLKS)

the students at fort salem (the military school) are divided into groups of three: the main group being focused on is composed of raelle, tally, and abigail

tally craven is a pure-hearted baby and I’d die for her. she is very idealistic about fighting in the military (but don’t worry that’s fixed by the end of the season)

abigail bell weather comes from a high military family and is kinda really stuck up about it, but she’s humbled a lot by the end of the season. this girl has LAYERS (they all do, but abigail goes through a lot and goes from very stuck up and stuck up the military’s ass to questioning everything she knows)

the trio starts off rocky, especially between raelle and abigail, because raelle blames abigail’s mother for her mother’s death (her mother’s unit was led by abigail’s mother)

the beltane episode literally hits you in the face with how there are literally no heteronorms whatsoever. they do this sacred dance where by the end they will end up with the people they are destined to spend the celebration with (“trust the dance”). raelle makes friends with a gay guy and they spend the celebration making fun of the sex noises around them and become gay friends for life. abigail has sex with two (2) guys who kiss each other. a group of four girls went off together. a group of two girls and a guy went off together. and sex isn’t shamed. at all. in fact, it’s respected as a part of life. and y’all, literally this representation was OFF THE CHARTS

the witch’s most powerful tool is their voice,,, think about that for a minute

it’s an all girls school so there are like no guys whatsoever minus the beltane episode and a couple others

EMPOWERED WOMEN (of all ages and ethnicities too)

3. siren (my sideblog is @polymarinelove)

imma start off by saying that season three doesn’t exist. don’t watch season three. don’t do it. the disappointment is real

ANYWAYS

the central love story is between an interracial couple (a white guy and his black girlfriend that has a native american stepfather) that turns into a loving polyamorous relationship

maddie, the girlfriend, is amazing and incredibly smart and the first two seasons (and the beginning of the third) accentuate that and they never downplay her because she’s a black woman like many shows and movies do. she’s a smart stem woman and we stan her so hard. she’s also bisexual.

ben, the guy, comes from a rich family that are basically the hotshots of the town and own the fishing company that the community works for. his dad is hella untrustable. ben doesn’t trust him and neither should you. he is kindhearted and smart and respectful, and at one point teaches a merman about consent after being kissed by him (and he didn’t even #nohomo it which was AMAZING)

now to the mermaids

mermaids are apex predators. they are very dangerous. they are very strong. they’re also wickedly smart, canon smarter than humans

the story begins when donna, ryn’s sister, is captured by a fishing boat and carted off to a military facility. ryn comes to land to try to find and save her. (she literally choses her name because she sees a character on a kid’s tv show saying “I am ryn” which is also the first thing in english that she can say)

she ends up being helped by ben and maddie and legit is like these humans are hot imma learn english for them

there’s a lot of really cool and thought out lore as well as TONS of thoughtful marine biology science that makes sense

oh and transforming from mermaid to human? painful as FUCK. realistic depictions of having your body literally transform into something else

humans are wrecking the oceans and that’s a heavy theme of the show

oil rigs are poisoning the water (making them infertile) and killing mermaids with their sonic drilling

so ben and maddie lowkey commit an act of ecoterrorism but it’s chill

“ben and maddie are love” they’re poly, bitches

they come together in a natural, organic way

very healthy and communicative

ben’s alright but ryn and maddie are amazing

don’t watch season three if you don’t want to be majorly disappointed. the writers listened to the homophobic trolls on instagram and broke up the polyamorous relationship and I’ll NEVER forgive them for that. seasons one and two are amazing though. just don’t watch the third one.

[somerton]

The American Trilogy

People have said that Stanley Kubrick’s final 7 films are more like 1 film about humanity spanning different genres. It’s undeniable that there are specific parallels and connections between his films, but the way his films connect to each other on a basic level is quite interesting and not very difficult to see.

Dr. Strangelove ends with nuclear bombs destroying the world cut to the black void of 2001; The Dawn of Man. The end of the world caused by man’s violent nature transitioned into the beginning of man’s violent nature with Moonwatcher discovering the bone as a weapon.

2001 ends with the Starchild looking directly at the camera; at us, while A Clockwork Orange opens with a closeup on Alex’s eye. A transcended soul cut to a devilish man. The eye was a very potent symbol within 2001, representing the vast exploration possible inside oneself. The eye continues to be important in Clockwork, especially with Alex’s stigmata eyeball cuff links, strengthening the comparison to the godlike Starchild and Jesus Christ dying on the cross as a man, transcending to a God. Alex does not transcend, he lives on to do the deeds of evil men.

A Clockwork Orange, set in a near future or alternate reality, ends with an offer for Alex to move his way up the societal ladder by aligning himself with the same corrupt politicians who used the Ludavico technique on him in the first place, then a daydream with Alex surrounded by what look to be noble men and women of a past era observing him in a sexual act with a woman. The next film, Barry Lyndon is a period piece that explores the issues of class in 18th century Europe and trying to better oneself by moving up in the classist system. Clockwork is a story about where society is now (or was then), while Barry Lyndon explores where society was within the period piece genre. Interestingly enough not much has changed. Both world’s are violent, full of wealthy people using lower class people to further their own agendas, the people at the bottom forced to scratch their way to the top of a corrupt system, often using nefarious techniques to get ahead.

Kubrick is trying to communicate the way society / humans are and have always been while connecting the films with transitional elements that bring this idea into the viewer’s subconscious.

I believe those films, are also connected to the final three in Kubrick’s portrayal humanity and the way he sought to hold a mirror up to us via the cinema screen. However, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut seem to have a deeper connection to each other than the previous films. Yes, they too are an exploration of genre, using the conventions of it to subvert more complex themes, but I feel Kubrick started to develop ideas on how to thematically connect these films on an even deeper level throughout the 20 year period spent completing these three.

I suggest that the final three films act as a trilogy, exploring the genocide America was built on and the ideals of which continue to permeate through our society. These films are his ode to America’s dark secret hidden in plain sight. Not since Dr. Strangelove had he made a movie even based in America. These final 3 are inherently American films. While Strangelove was an overt criticism of authoritarian power, the final trilogy shrouds itself in a ghost story, a war epic, and a sexual thriller in order to issue Kubrick’s vicious critique.

Just to caveat, I don’t think the final trilogy are ONLY critiquing America but I do think this is crucial in all three films, more so than his others excluding Strangelove. 2001, Clockwork, and Barry Lyndon are more overtly commenting on humanity and culture in general.  

Let’s get into how the final 3 specifically do this. I’m going to breeze by a lot of basic info that any Kubrick obsessive should already know.

The Shining references Native Americans constantly, the hotel is built on an “Indian burial ground” and had to repel Native American attacks while building the Overlook. There’s a ton of info on this out there already so I don’t feel it necessary to explain all the evidence to support this, but it’s overtly injected into the film, barely under the surface. There’s also a ton of material to support the idea that the hotel itself represents America and it’s constant ability to “Overlook” the horrors that our society is built on. Stuart Ullman, the Hotel Manager has an American flag on his desk, echoing his jacket and tie with an American eagle statue poking out form behind his head (Symbols related to characters’ heads are important in Kubrick’s work). In a film where mirrors are also important his initials backwards are US. The Shining is about the bloody birth of America and the generational inheritance of said violence. To see these things, one has to use their own ability to Shine and see through the veil of genre.

The next film is Full Metal Jacket, based in the Vietnam War. The film starts out with soldiers getting their heads shaved, representing the first step in their dehumanization at the hands of the U.S Military. Vietnam is not considered a just war and is an obvious extension of the genocidal characteristics America was born into. America is still doing the same thing that The Shining represents; going into a place full of brown skinned people and wreaking havoc for their own benefit and seemingly justified by racial bias. Vietnam is truly the beginning of a modern genocide, justified by politics, fear, money, and propaganda. This film came out in 1987, 12 years after Vietnam ended, but interestingly enough 3 years before another example of this American Imperialism; The Gulf War. Full Metal Jacket makes us look at something inhumane that just recently happened and yet most people remember the drill Sergeant yelling hilarious obscenities at the soldiers, many thinking the second half of the film as inferior to the first. As horrific as the dehumanization process of bootcamp is, it’s easier to watch than the reality that happened in Vietnam. In the film’s major battle sequence, we see multiple solders die, wasting hundreds of rounds only to find one young girl to be their target. This is the reality of Vietnam. Note the poster’s reference to Joker’s helmet, BORN TO KILL, relating to both the birth of America and the eagle behind Ullman’s head, turning him into a literal figurehead of this inherited American violence. 

Eyes Wide Shut continues this theme from the perspective of someone living their adult life in post Vietnam society. The modern genocide has turned war into a commodity and has shown the darkest side of capitalism. Bill probably was too young to go to Vietnam but would be a first generation adult starting a family post Vietnam (meaning he was old enough to experience Vietnam as a child but not old enough to go).

Coincidentally enough, when EWS was released in 1999 the US were only a few years away from yet another unjust conflict in Iraq based on lies with huge non-compete contracts handed out to companies that the G.W. Bush administration had personal and financial connections with. It’s also interesting to note that although this couldn’t have been intended by Kubrick, the themes of generational violence being passed down through the generations connects to George Bush starting an Iraq war in the 90s while just over a decade later his son would do that same. Kubrick saw humanity in such a deep way, the good and bad, that he’s almost seen the future through his exploration of complex themes. Sadly though I don’t believe he was psychic, but purely able to to see the reality of cycles we humans perpetuate throughout time.

Eyes Wide Shut is about modern society’s classist structures and how someone like Bill Harford could be so oblivious to the dangers that surround his lovely life and how easily that can be taken away by his own inability to see himself and the various social constructs he participates in. He is blind to the world, happy as clam to live an upperclass Manhattanite lifestyle. This is inherently connected to the more overt violent themes in the previous two films. There is a cultural genocide perpetuated by the richest people who use others like pieces on a chessboard; built off of the original sin of America’s treatment of the Natives and continued through our unjust wars of today, finally providing the power structure for a few people to wield over the rest. Money in Eyes Wide Shut is equivalent to the axe in The Shining, the rifles in Full Metal Jacket. The first line in Eyes Wide Shut is, “Honey have you seen my wallet?”. This is no accident, it’s a seemingly insignificant line of dialog that immediately begins to beg you to pay attention to this theme. 

- From The Shining: ULLMAN: We had four presidents who stayed here, lots of movie stars. WENDY: Royalty? ULLMAN: All the best people.

See my post on “All the best people”

[all-hail-the-witcher]

cats the movie was created by the mafia and here's why

so since one (1) person said that they still wanna hear this theory imma post it

first, the reviews of cats are so mixed, it's confusing. im not even sure if everyone is talking about the same movie. lets look at some of the more wild ones:

but then i found these two:

both of these reviews (the second one especially) explicitly mention celebrities, which, made me think of a conspiracy theory

i once watched a video (i think it was a shane dawson one) where he discussed how people believe that it could be a possibility that the government uses celebrities and their scandals to distract the population from their wrongdoing and general mishaps. that being said, lets unpack what we know about cats:

-cats themselves (as in the animal) are generally very cute and people find them funny. it is commonly perceived by some that the internet - youtube specifically - is “that place with the cat videos” and people are very entertained by them (think about tik toks, twitter and tumblr threads, vines, and ig accounts) and even interact with cats if they happen to be allergic to them. it is safe to say that the human population has somewhat of an obsession with cats. 

-cats the musical is generally misunderstood by a lot of people. i have never actually seen it but from what i understand its a musical about cats competing to see who will die and theres one good song (memory). the internet has gone about about “what the heck is cats even about” for many years before the movie came out in the form of memes and other random internet jokes.

and now lets address the us government. right now most people agree that its plenty shitty for various reasons. even people in other countries Dont Get It. (im not going to get too into it because chances are if you have an internet connection you've heard about the shit the us government has done recently)

now. onto the movie itself. (hang onto your hats this is where it gets wild)

according to google, cats is a british american film. it is a well known fact that america was originally colonized by the british and we gained our freedom in 1776 (i really hope thats not news to you) but the war didnt end until the british surrendered at yorktown in 1781 and the treaty of paris wasn't signed until 1783. the british were notoriously salty afterwards, continuing to pirate american ships and do other generally annoying things which resulted in the war of 1812. it was not until after the war of 1812 (which officially ended in 1815) that the british recognized america was independent and actually started respecting them. britain and america were also allies and have famously teamed up to stop people from taking over the world (ie ww2 amongst others).

youre probably wondering what the hell this has to do with cats. stick with mw, we’re getting there.

in the weeks after the 2016 election, there were many memes circulating the internet along the lines of this:

needless to say, it was a wild time for america. 

now, admittedly, britain was Also in the midst of their own wild time because of brexit, but somehow the election results managed to kind of overshadow that (at least in america). 

so lets review some Important Dates:

-june 23, 2016 -> brexit is proposed

-november 8, 2016 -> 2016 election

-march 2017-> britain formally announces leaving the eu

additionally, in 2016 the worlds biggest superpowers were (in order) the us, russia, china, india, and the uk.

now, onto my theory.

the mafia has always notoriously been trying to be stopped by the government for their crime and is a strange organization with a lot of money. the mafia Does still exist although mostly in new england. since 2016 there has been a disconnect between the government and the people due to the staggering amounts that do not support the current president. the mafia may have seen this as an opportunity to overthrow the current government/president and cabinet and place their own person there so that they wouldn't get as much shit from the government. 

this theory does get a little bit complicated regarding the presidents suspected ties to the mafia. however, the mafia is very powerful and i have no doubt that they could have somehow blackmailed trump or implemented false records in order to depict the president falsely. or they could have tricked the president into working with them in order to gain secrets to help them overthrow him. the possibilities are endless. 

so in the time between the 2016 election and when britain formally announced leaving the eu, the mafia probably had some time to scheme a little, thinking up possible ways for them to overthrow the government. 

after britain announced leaving the eu, someone in the government must have realized that it was making britain widely unpopular and they should do something to clean up their image. so they take a peek around and happen to notice that america is royally fucked cause of the president and there are people threatening to move to canada cause of it.

but why is any of this of importance to britain?

well, britain used to be the top world superpower before ww2, but then were beat out by america both after the war and when they announced nsc 68, a plan to make amerias military stronger and provide aid to american allies being threatened by communism. although britain and america stayed allies, it is likely that britain may have been a bit salty about this. and, if they could somehow get rid of trump and weaken the country this may bump the us from the lead world superpower and (if they were lucky) also russia and china who the president was more or less involved with.

low and behold who has the same desires? the mafia.

so the mafia and britain team up to defeat the us government. but how will they do it?

my friends, that is where cats comes in. 

as stated, the government has previously used celebrity scandals to cover up and distract from their own. the mafia and britain would not have wanted to make this seem like anything out of the ordinary, so they decided to implement this form of distraction, but twisted it into grotesque exposure. but they needed a vehicle in which to use this

if you refer to my information on cats from before, american people love cats and cats the musical is a somewhat loved classic that makes little to no sense. additionally, theater fans have recently been calling for screen filmed shows so they dont have to spend lots of money on tickets (see newsies live and bandstand) so in order to pass this off as normal they chose to use cats.

howmst ever, they needed to make the american people not like cats anymore so that they wouldn't be easily distracted by them. how to accomplish this? make the cats in the movie cgi celebrities. 

the celebrity lineup of the movie is quite impressive, containing the following:

james corden, judi dench, jason derulo, idris elba, jennifer husdon, ian mckellan, taylor swift, and rebel wilson. 

these celebrities were all chosen for the type of audience they would draw in so that it would be as vast as possible. (old people, young people, middle aged people, etc).

the mafia paid these celebrities handsomely and coerced them into being in the movie. 

now, lets discuss the timeline. 

the movie itself premiered on december 20th and the mafia and britain would have begun creating it as soon as march of 2017. scripts take up to 12 weeks to write, putting them at june of 2017. pre production takes 10 weeks, putting them at about halfway through september 2017. it takes about an average of 10 weeks to film, putting them at december 2017. and, according to pixar, animating a movie can take between 4 and 7 years, however, the reviews have stated that cats only took about a year to animate the movie, putting it at about december 2018. this would give the mafia about 7 extra months for any needed editing or fixing between when they could have hypothetically started and ended the movie itself because the trailer came out in july of 2019.

they would have wanted to release the movie just before 2020 because that is when the next election takes place and they would need everyone to be immune to propaganda. 

the mafia and britain creating cats explains a lot of things such as:

-why james corden has not gone to see the movie

-why the animation is so horrifying

-why the movie was made in such little time

-why the celebrities in the movie are actually in the movie

-why the budget was able to be so large if it was an epic flop

-peoples general confusion as to why the movie was even made

see, they would have known that even if not a lot of people saw the movie, it would have made headlines just because of how bad it is, terrifying people of both the celebrities in it (remember this includes james corden, a prominent talk show host and taylor swift, one of the top song writers) and of cats themselves.

in conclusion, cats was filmed by the mafia and great britain in an attempt to overthrow the us government.

be careful who you vote for in 2020.

[oblivianclassic]

Game Ramble: Helldivers is Other People

Helldivers, developed by Arrowhead Studios, published by Playstation Mobile, Inc. Available on PS4 and Windows (Steam).

It’s interesting how I started playing Helldivers just this year, as the climate of North American politics becomes ever more absurd. Interesting because Helldivers is “Starship Troopers: The Game” in all but name. Not Starship Troopers, the novel, but rather the Verhoeven movie which satirized everything from fascist ideology to Hollywood’s idea of battle strategy to military propaganda films. Like all good satire a good many people failed to see the joke, but that’s another story. Luckily for us, Helldivers’ satire is very on-the-nose with its vainglorious musical themes, the defense of Democracy for Super Earth™, and various Helldiver vocal barks such as “How d’you like the taste of democracy?!”, “Freedom delivery!” and “Have a nice cup of liber-TEA!”. Taking Helldivers seriously is like taking any aspect of the Warhammer 40000 setting seriously. Indeed Helldivers does seem to have some 40k in its rather Imperial Guard skulls-and-fascism aesthetic.

The fact that I’ve only begun to play Helldivers in the recent few months is also interesting because the game is extremely focused on cooperative multiplayer, and my friends are three time zones away from me. I’ve had to mostly play Helldivers with random strangers, and while I’ve had some great moments of team triumph and disaster, it’s really not the same as experiencing those kinds of moments with friends. Helldivers’ co-op nature won’t be a surprise to anyone who has played Arrowhead Studios’ claim to fame: a little game called Magicka, in which a team of between one and four incompetent wizards try to save the world. Part of what made that game tick was the spell casting system; you controlled your wizard using a top-down Diablo-like control scheme, and you could combine eight different magical elements on the fly in various quantities and combinations to create spells. Learning various spell combinations and unleashing over-the-top displays of elemental death was a big portion of the game. Either that, or you’d accidentally leave a crucial element out of a spell and set yourself on fire, or electrocute yourself, or heal an enemy instead of disintegrate them, or... well, let’s just say that there’s a reason Magicka is known to many as the Mage Suicide Simulator.

The other thing that made the game tick was other players, since spells could interact with other spells, and there was no option to turn friendly fire off. Fire a beam of healing energy and if it accidentally touched your friend’s arcane death beam it would create an explosion, probably hurling your friend off a cliff. Cast a bubble shield to keep everyone safe while your friend is firing a blast of electricity and the energy would ricochet around inside the bubble, zapping everyone. What kept it from turning into a rage-fest were a couple of things. Firstly, the revive spell was very easy to cast even while you were being mobbed by enemies and it would bring all your dead friends back to life immediately. Secondly, a team of wizards who knew what they were doing would become a force of nature, combining elemental effects to devastating effect. Occasionally even a competent team of wizards would self-destruct in spectacular fashion (my “favorite” is “exploding circle of electrified arcane ice walls”. That’s right, Thegiant, I’m talking to you), but the results are generally as hilarious as they are explosive.

Helldivers, then, is a decent if finicky top-down shooter when played solo, but truly shines when you start playing it with others. It takes a little more nuance to play than you might expect from the seemingly standard twin-stick shooter template. Weapons have a fairly small amount of ammunition per magazine, the number of magazines you can carry is limited, reloading takes a long time, and whatever ammunition was left in your magazine when you reload is dropped forever. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a simulation-focused game like ARMA, not from a twin-stick shooter. On top of this, your character can equip four “stratagems” -  air support and special equipment dropped from orbit. These are called in by pressing a sequence of direction keys, a system which is a little reminiscent of the famous Konami code. Completing the sequence correctly gives your character a beacon which they then throw like a grenade. The stratagem will then arrive at the beacon’s location: generally a pod containing the requested equipment, landing at terminal velocity from space. As this is a game from the people who made Magicka, the pod (or airstrike, or vehicle) will kill anything it lands on. The contents of the stratagem usually need to be treated with care as well, since things like turrets and airstrikes will not care if you happen to be in the way. They won’t deliberately target you, but a turret can and will shoot anything that’s between itself and its target. All in all, at this point Helldivers is a game that requires some finesse to play, but doesn’t seem all that special. In fact, a lot of the things it does seem like small inconveniences for the sake of inconveniencing the player.

And then comes the point at which you call in some friends or strangers, or join someone else’s mission in progress. On the easier missions, what usually happens next is pure chaos. Friendly fire is once again a reality of life, not an option to be turned off. It’s easy enough to call in dead friends as reinforcements from orbit, but the stratagem beacon is damnably imprecise, and its resemblance to a grenade means that all too many people will throw it at a mob of enemies. Then again, the pod you arrive in will kill anything it lands on, but that can also include the guy who dropped the respawn beacon in the first place. Being killed by your own friends is a reality in Helldivers, even by complete accident. Even something as simple as waiting for the shuttle to pick you up at the end of the mission can become deadly as people start calling in spare mech suits, extra turrets, landmines and airstrikes whether they’re actually needed or not. The shuttle itself will crush anyone incautious enough to be standing under it when it arrives.

But then you play enough games with the same group or with your friends, you start playing harder missions, and something magical happens: everyone starts working as a team. You start noticing how entire systems of the game are built to encourage, nay, require cooperative play. The camera itself, locked into a top-down view which forces all four players to be on the screen at once, ensures that everyone is always moving as a team. The risk of friendly fire means that everyone instinctively starts moving in staggered formations and will maintain clear cones of fire. Simply calling in an essential stratagem can take time and attention away from incoming enemies, and having friends to cover you when you’re stratagem-ing and reloading your gun is enormously helpful. Since each player can only bring four stratagems into a mission, this encourages specialization. One player might use two slots for mech suits so she has a spare if one is destroyed or runs out of ammo. Another player brings a personal shield generator and a repair gun to act as the engineer. Another one brings turrets and barbed wire. The fourth brings a variety of heavy weapon options.

Many weapons and vehicles themselves flat out work better if you’re playing with a team. Simply wielding a lot of the heavy weapons keeps you stationary, so you’re relying on teammates to watch your back. Mech suits turn slowly and have a weak point in the rear, so it’s a good idea for other players to keep enemies off of the flanks. The APC has huge blind spots in its firing angles unless a full team of four are manning all the turrets. The rocket launchers in Helldivers come with a support pack which carries all the spare ammunition. The player using the rocket launcher can carry the support pack themselves and reload their weapon solo, but this takes several seconds during which they’re immobile. If another player carries the support pack and reloads the launcher for their friend when prompted, however, this only takes about half a second. A team of players who know what they’re doing can bring a truly impressive amount of firepower to bear, and are all the more impressive for the fact that this represents a lot of trust, communication and genuine teamwork between them.

The final thing that makes Helldivers a blast to play is the way that the game throws in small bits of chaos. Mainly these involve the inherent lack of precision when tossing out stratagem beacons crossed with the abundance and power of friendly fire. The finicky nature of a lot of this game’s mechanics at this point become points of failure, things that can and do go wrong when you’re under attack and just want to call in some more ammo, dammit!  Small crises can cascade into larger crises, leading to panic and improvisation and the moments of triumph or disaster which make a good co-op action game shine. Two people reload at the same time, and suddenly cyborg dogs are eating your faces off. A stratagem beacon, thrown in the middle of a pitched fight, might bounce off a rock. Seconds later, your respawning friend arrives in a pod dropped from orbit and flattens your team’s APC. The guy piloting a mech suit might step backwards at the wrong moment and take off most of your health. One enemy patrol might wander in while you were dealing with a persistent tank, extending the engagement long enough for two more patrols to wander in, and then what was only a small, controlled engagement becomes a full on brawl. A turret might get placed just a few feet short of where you had meant to put it, and your friends were paying too much attention to the incoming wave of enemies to notice that they were between the turret and its targets. Like Magicka, the ease with which dead friends can be brought back means that death is mainly a source of comedy rather than a major setback. Like Magicka, it is when you’re teetering right at the edge of triumph or disaster with a dozen small things that could tip you either way that the game is really at its best.

A knife’s-edge of tension and a lot of balls to juggle isn’t required for all cooperative multiplayer games, but it certainly seems to be an important element of the shooter ones at least. Left 4 Dead’s Director AI was designed explicitly to keep players constantly on their toes, and the composition of later waves in Killing Floor is tuned to overwhelm the players unless they prioritize targets properly. The famous Nazi Zombies mode of the later Call Of Dutys kept players running around performing damage control by putting up barricades to keep the horde at a manageable level. Helldivers accomplishes the same thing by giving everyone a dozen things to do and get wrong at the same time, but compensates by keeping the price for each individual failure fairly small. A great mission in Helldivers is one in which each small crisis leads into another just as the previous one is resolved, and you don’t quite get the opportunity to recover and brace yourself for the next one. A great mission in Helldivers ends when the extraction shuttle lands on top of a giant alien bug and narrowly avoids crushing the player that the bug was about to eat. That player piles in just as another player dives out of the way of a badly placed strafing run and the third player sprints over from where he’d been taking cover next to his minigun turret and a pile of bug corpses. Finally, the shuttle takes off moments before the explosion of a nuclear bomb stratagem someone dropped just for the hell of it.

Tune in next time when Taihus thumps a rhythm somewhere out beyond the limits of sanity.

-Taihus “How about a nice cup of liber-TEA?!” @raincoastgamer

[jvonirsik-blog]

Falling for a Trap

Falling for a Trap is something that we all do from time to time. Some times we get caught up in an unsuspecting glitch in our own discernment.  This country has hundreds of issues pressed against our brains on any given day and it would be easy to fall for a trap if the trapper was inclined to get you into a position of vulnerability. 

If you follow any of the recent allegations of Hollywood stars being accused of sick sadistic acts against other humans, mainly our youth you too will be susceptible to falling for at least one trap.  I have been following the unveiling of a laundry list of famous names those include the likes of Seth Green and his wife, James Gunn, Dan Harmond, and some extremely well known stars such as Tom Hanks, Stephen Spielberg, Sara Silverman, just to name a few. 

This list has grown exponentially in the recent months with what seems to be new revelations coming in daily. These people as far as I can tell have not yet made claims to the allegations. I would think that if I was being accused as a Pedophile, that I would come out with as many attorneys as I could afford and I would have the accuser in jail. But with all that they lay quiet, acting as if nothing has been said.  The other day I seen a short video where a man lashes out at Kathy Griffin asking about her brother being a Pedophile.  The crowd slowly began gasping and instead of taking the heckler serious they began to lash out in arrogant behavior, maybe in an attempt to garner a cool autograph for the kids back home, at least we hope no one would bring their kids to a performance of hers.  

After posing with our current POTUS’s head covered in blood and detached from his body Kathy received a backlash and rightly so.  Not one person would have been able to pull a stunt like that off with the previous administration.  No, they would have been treated like the UK army recruits who stopped and recently posed for a photo op with Britain's Truther Tommy Robinson. As we are witnessing over across the pond women are being violently rapped and beaten, some to death. All the while the Islamic council in the UK bark orders to the military and expect results. Well it seems as though its true, they will not allow anyone to speak out against their predominantly violent followers.  

Not to stray too far from the subject but we watch as Christianity has been all but burnt to the ground, and no thanks to some of the most prolific false teachers of the Gospels of Christ to ever exist in human history. The so called leaders seem to forget that they are not supposed to be leaders but be representatives of Christ. They are only as powerful as the people who sit idly by with itching ears acting as if its their first time hearing the gospels. Christian churches are using their freedoms to perpetuate a culture of lies and propaganda designed to destroy itself and create a fantasy around Christ. 

I will refrain from naming names in this post but in weeks to come I will be rebuking figure heads of these so called “Mega Churches” I expect a brutal attack in return as the congregation fears facing the truth. Too many people are being led astray from the real words and meanings of the Gospel that many believe this world is owned by God. As much as I would love to be living under the full reign of Gods Law Lucifer is the owner of the current world we live in.

Back to my initial entry. Hollywood and its demonic oppressors are mounting up and will set out to completely destroy anyone who takes a stand against their sick twisted power hungry motives. Kevin Spacey didn’t just run because he was falsely accused, no, he ran because he has fear of discovery. I hated hearing that news. As a long time fan of the movies that Spacey worked in I now feel sick to my stomach that while we were all duped into supporting this man who from accounts was the sickest visitor of Epstein Island. There is so much evidence against these crimes against Humanity that if nothing is done about it, no matter how great our govt. is portrayed the next generations of humans to rule the country will inevitably become more and more sick with time. 

The time for action is now. We must unite and eradicate the power hungry Hollywood elites who intentionally destroy the innocence of children. We should have focused more resources against Child and Human trafficking rather than spending the funds on drug trafficking. The world has made it “Taboo” thus making it easier for these ppl to get away with their sickness for far too long. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I will not rest until those who are know or have ties to Satanic Pedophilia in the world are all taken out and based off of their crimes faced with the death penalty and nothing less than life in prison. 

I pray that our current president will take this case as serious as the business world takes profit margins. If we have to shut down Hollywood completely so be it. If people want entertainment over the saving of Children then they too must be dealt with. Those who are current content providers to the platform YouTube who are posing as truthers and not taking the accounts of survivors seriously are just as guilty, and will be added to the list of people who should be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We must all become unified and stand firm in the dissolvement of power hungry Actors who are trained to be someone other than who they are. 

Thank you for reading this if you made it this far. There are many issues our country faces that stretch far beyond our borders and we must send a strong message that our children and the children of those who are less fortunate than us Americans will be protected at any cost. Any parent who knowingly puts their children in harms way will receive the penalty of Life in prison without the possibility of parole. I am a father and have lost two children because it has taken me this long to deal with my own survivor story. I realized that I would more than likely harm my children's life than do them any justice. They never knew the truth, but that is about to change as I make a move to stand up and be counted. No more running from my fear, those days are long gone and I will not be silenced or intimidated for speaking out against the evil in this world and giving a voice of reason to those like me whos lives were ruined indefinitely by the desires of sick individuals.