#side note. The way that its easier to refer to them by their villain names because they havent been referred to by their civvie names in so

[suckinitup]

i was genuinely surprised when their hug while grue was having a hard time was easily understood by them Both to be “lets get together and be a couple.” now how is skitter asking bitch to come hang out after the confirming date thing NOT asking her to throuple. do i not socialize enough what the fuck are these signals

[slashingdisneypasta]

Horror Villain Headcanons

Topic: This is an extension of the last Jason Oneshot ^^ The rest of the horror movie villains react to their S/O telling them someone at work asked them out and she thought about saying yes.

Warnings: Seriously bad language in some reactions. Like, disgusting. Also some M rated suggestions 

Notes:

I’m feeling like Jason took it extremely well for a Slasher… aha

I’m so sad that our boys Buckman, Drayton and Hoyt don't have gifs!!

~~~

Billy Loomis: 

·         Well, Billy’s a bit of a hot head… or a lot.

·         The guy who asked you out will probably be dead. Most likely.

·         And you’ll get the cold shoulder for an hour or two, because man. He’s hurt, that you would consider leaving him for some better life. You’re just like his mother, and this asshole who asked you out is just like Maureen Prescott. In his head, this just legitimises his murderous actions even more and makes him even worse.

·         In this scenario, keeping it to yourself would have probably bene better.

·         Eventually though, the fog will lift and he’ll remember that he needs you. He’ll come over and wrap his arm around you, nuzzling your face, and threaten you that if you ever do anything like that to him again, or even look in the direction of another man they will be cut down and he will make you watch.

·         Boy’s a little bit yandere.

Bubba Sawyer: 

·         Bubba’s mind flies right over the part where another guy asked you out and sticks to the part here you thought about saying yes. He doesn’t care about this other guy, he doesn’t know him. He cares about his people, and you are his person. He wonders, why would you do that? Why aren’t you totally happy with him and his brothers and grandpa?

·         His eyes will get watery, and he’ll just watch you and listen to you holding onto every word that comes out of your mouth until you’re done. Imagine that, for a moment. Telling Bubba, with his big, teary brown eyes (I’m assuming their brown, I can’t tell) that another man asked you on a date and you nearly said yes and left him. Imagine that, and tell me, could you do it???

·         Hell no. With his little fidgeting, and his fat bottom lip sticking out, and his whines? No! No! No, no, no, no!

·         So, quickly, bundle him up in a hug and tell him you were being silly, and you love him!

(Mayor) Buckman: 

·         Depends, was it a citizen of pleasant Valley? Or was it a passing stranger? Because if its one of their victims then there won’t be as many long-term consequences like their will be if it were one of his residents. His family.

·         See, if you’re dating the mayor, everyone will know. Especially this mayor, because he has a taste for flare and he sure as hell introduces you as his consort every chance he gets. Which means passers by and residents alike are well aware who you are and who you ‘belong to’ (He wouldn’t put it that way, but its clear.).

·         If it was a victim, he’ll make a show of their death- even more then usual. If it was a resident, they’ll get a warning and he’ll never entirely trust them again. He’ll always bring it up from then on, too. Embarrassing you, and them. Refers to them as an almost-thief and whatever other nasty insulting name that he feels at the time.

·         But either way, he’ll be the same about your part in his heartbreak. Betrayed, but willing to forgive because you’re ‘Just so darn cute!’.

·         He will guilt trip you a lot though when its mentioned, but if you’re able to sit him down and talk about it maturely with him, and explain your side of the story, then he’ll calm down and forgive you. ‘It’s forgotten, darlin’. I’m sorry for acting immaturely.’

Carrie White:

·         Surprisingly, Carrie doesn’t immediately get upset and act like Bubba did. I mean, of course she feels bad. Its not a nice thing to hear from the person you’re in love with, that they nearly left you for something else! But, she thinks about your side of this as well.

·         She guesses, she understands where you came from. It would be easier for you to love someone normal… not like her… It would be nicer for you. She gets it.

·         She keeps the wounded look off her face, for your benefit.

·         “But… “She’ll say then. And explain her side of this. That she loves you so much, and understands that it would be easier for you and just wants you happy. But she would be really happy herself, if what would make you happy is to be with her.

·         It’ll be such a relief for her if you take her hands say that’s the conclusion you came to. One of those adorable, real smiles will grace her face.

Chop Top Sawyer: 

·         “WhhhaaaaaaaAAaAaaat???”

·         “Let me at him! Let! Me! At! HIM! Show me where he’s at, I should- “

·         You will need to stop him from storming your place of work with a face on a stick that’s on fire (Bubba balling behind him, because that’s his face!!), fists blazing and bouncing all over the place if you want to explain. Goddamnit, Chop Top’s gotta stand up for himself, and his woman! This will not do??!!

·         “Chop Top- Chop! Stop it a second, I- Chooop! I nearly said yes!”

·         That make shim halt in place. Only for a second though, before he drops his fists and turns to you in confusion. “Wat?”

·         “But… then… I realise, I love you. And I was being stupid, and- well, that’s it. I love you.”

·         “Awww, I love you too! That’s okay then!!”

·         Prepare yourself, because otherwise the force of Chop’s lung cuddle will send you both crashing into one of Nubbins bone sculptures.

·         Chop Top is pretty light hearted about the whole thing XD

Chucky/Charles Lee Ray (We’re assuming he’s human in this. Whether that be in man or woman form. And I’m sorry if I overuse this gif, I just love it XD): 

·         Some stupid guy asking you out is one thing, but you considering it??? That’s a direct attack on him and will be treated with prejudice.

·         “I must not be hearing right these days, doll, because I swear I just heard come out of your pretty little mouth that you considered leaving me for some castrated turd- or, he will be castrated, at least. Stay here.”  

·         I suggest you stay where you are because if you leave and he comes back to that after killing this to find you gone, he will find you, and he’ll be even more pissed. He’ll take that as an admission that you’re not in love with him anymore, and the situation will be handled much worse.

·         When he gets back, he will have the penis of the man who asked you out in a plastic zip lock bag and he’ll give it to you. Then hook a hand around the back of your neck and hold you firmly in place so that he can look down at you darkly and say: “Keep that as a reminder that I take great pleasure in sawing off any limb or body part off a person who tries to steal from me. I want you to be happy, sure, but having you is the point.”

·         For the rest of the night he’ll be pretty stiff and stay off to himself instead of hanging with you because, he didn’t say it but his feelings were hurt by this betrayal, but by the time the sun rises the next day he will have gotten over it, comforted by the fact that he has you for better or for worse now.

Drayton Sawyer: 

·         Drayton takes all this news in one gulp and just kinda… nods, says okay then, and leaves to continue his work. Out of it. Off with the fairies.

·         He doesn’t quite know what he could do about that. I mean, it’s good that you love him and you didn’t leave, but the fact that you thought about it still feels terrible. Especially since he doesn’t kill. He feels like he has no way of one upping you, or becoming even. He feels like the weaker part of the relationship, the one that has more to lose. Because clearly, you have options! He has… you.

·         He’ll be pretty quiet for the rest of the night and for a while after tat day he’ll act a bit off. Normal, you know. Doing things with you, and talking with you, and just being normal. But he’ll just a be a biiiiit off, because he knows he has so much more to lose, and he hates that feeling.

·         Eventually he’ll get over it, and feel better. But this has opened his eyes to that fact and its new to him! I mean, its not nice for anyone. But in his family, they all need each other They all play an equal part and even without that theirs blind loyalty involved. Here, he has to earn it and he suddenly feels very powerless, and in danger of losing you if one day you decide he isn’t enough.

Freddy Krueger: 

·         Similar to Chucky, he ‘wants you to be happy, but having you is the point’. He’s not above causing you an accident that puts you in a coma, so you stay with him all the time and you don’t have any other choices. Your smile is cute, but being with you trumps it all.

·         But this is only the first time, and you’ve told him that you realised you didn’t want that. You want him so his little perverted heart may give out, so he’ll let it go this once. He wont hold onto it and throw it in your face later or even use it to his advantage now.

·         He will kill the guy, though. There’s no way he won’t take the opportunity to kill someone.

Jennifer Check: 

·         “Well fuck you too then, bitch!”

·         Yeah… she may need a bit of time to cool down. She is hot. She graces you with her presence. How dare you stab her in the back like this. She thinks all this, and then she thinks that she should kill you. That no fuck buddy should be able to hurt her like this, but after she looks at you and assesses you… she knows she couldn’t.

·         But you don’t know that, and she’ll work with that.

·         Storming out, she’ll make you think that she’s so mad that she would kill you. Just so you’ll feel the fear for a time, which she’ll prolong as much as possible, going do her nails and toes and then get a delicious, boy flavoured meal as self-care.

·         Then, finally she’ll come back, and roll her eyes like she doesn’t know you took it seriously. Like it wasn’t her plan at all. “You really thought I would kill you? Don’t be dumb, come on! Let’s watch a movie- I pick, cuz you’re slutty ass hurt my feelings, k?”

(Sheriff) Hoyt/Charlie Hewitt: 

·         When he looks at you, slightly squinting like he does when he’s thinking, you think he’s going to kill you. That you never meant much to him and he’s going to turn you into dinner without blinking an eye for your betrayal- because what’s more important to Hewitt’s, then loyalty? Not much.

·         Also, Hoyts a twisted, backstabbing traitor himself so that also worries you a bit.

·         But then he just leaves the room, attitude in his eyes as he calls for Thomas to lock you away in your room and that he’s going to get dinner.

·         For a few stupid hours after that, hidden away in your room without your phone or laptop, you foolishly thing he’s going to withhold dinner from you as punishment.

·         But when he brings you in stew with a suspiciously familiar coloured eye as a sloppy garnish, and a tricky, twisted look on his face, you know what your punishment really is.

Michael Myers: 

·         Ohhh, no.

·         Boy’s dead.

·         That’s it.

·         You get no punishment, but this boy who asked you out is so dead. You just tell him what happened, and then he turns and leaves to get his new job done.

Patrick Bateman: 

·         It may be smart to tell him at work, so he can’t really flip out… trap him in the confines of social standards.

·         It won’t stop him from freaking out on you later, in the safety of your own home, but it will allow you a few more hours of crippling worry- or enough time to leave the country. You know, depending on how you word the whole thing to him.

·         A deep breath in through his nose, teeth grit. “I’ll cancel our dinner reservations.” His eyes flicker from yours, to everyone else in the office. He steps closer to you, and whispers. “Go home, don’t you dare eat anything or turn on the TV. Tie yourself up, and wait for me. And don’t let me catch you dressed, fucking whore.”

·         See, he’s had to come up with different ways to punish you when he’s mad, seeing as he cares for you. So really kinky, borderline (Sometimes not even borderline.) torturous sex will have to do. You never get to finish. And the rope is not safe, sex shop brand rope.

Pennywise (OG): 

·         I’m sorry, why should he care that a weak, unimportant mortal man asked you out? Its not like he would ever have succeeded, even if you hadn’t made the right decision and said no. He would have found you and gotten you back, no matter what.

·         You are his adorable little human, who he is prepared to fight for -not that that is what would ever happen here. He’s not going to waste energy fighting a mortal man when he can just take you back, easy, - and you will not get away so easily.

·         Basically, in this relationship, freewill is a fantasy. You are entirely and utterly owned by him. Like a pet.

Stu Macher: 

·         “You, what… really??”

·         Well, first of all, he would fight this boy. Killing him doesn’t really occur to him, because he likes to keep his romantic life and his murder life separate but he definitely wants to throw a punch or two!

·         Second of all, why would you want that!???

·         “Do you not like me, anymore?? Babe, baby, come on! What’d I do to deserve that!”

·         Honestly, he makes it out like it would have been better if you hadn’t told him. He thinks you’re mad at him and are trying to tell him you have options, by being honest and telling him this. No one has ever claimed he’s the sharpest knife in the drawer.

·         You’ll get lots of cuddles and snuggles because he wants you to know how much he loves you. But that’s not really new.

Thomas Hewitt: 

·         Deep breaths. Watch his chest rise and fall like he’s trying really hard not to get mad, which he is.

·         But, mostly, he reacts like Jason. Hears you out, because what else can he do? Luda taught him not to walk away from a person in the middle of a conversation.

·         Once you’re done, he thinks. Still with the very deep breaths.

·         He thinks how he trusts you, and what you say must be true. But then if you thought about leaving, then something has to be wrong, right?

·         As you continue to explain to him, slightly more panickily, that you love him and it was a momentary lapse in judgement that didn’t even really do anything but you’re telling him anyway, because you love him and you want him to trust you, he slowly starts to clam down.

·         Eventually, her brings you into a hug to stop your panicking. His breaths have returned to a normal rate, and he vows to try and forget it.

[kyndaris]

A Vikingr Saga for the Ages

Ever since the first game in the franchise, I was enraptured by the idea of stalking my prey on the rooftops of Renaissance Italy and then leaping down - slaying them with a flourish. I didn’t know it yet but the marriage between history and stealthy parkour had me hooked from the very first trailer for Assassin’s Creed. When the series pivoted towards mythology and set further in history than ever before, I eagerly followed. From Ptolemaic Egypt to Ancient Greece. It should come as no surprise that I devoured, then, that I devoured as much of the world that I could in the latest entry: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. And after clocking in just under 150 hours, there is much for me to unpack in Ubisoft’s latest entry into the Assassin’s Creed franchise. That, and a fierce desire to finally start watching Vikings. 

When I initially booted up Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (AC:V), I will admit that I was a little disappointed with the control scheme. Once again, Ubisoft had made it a confusing mess with trigger buttons instead of face buttons used to attack. Since I had just come from Spider-Man: Miles Morales, it took a good long while for me to adjust. Several hours later, after fumbling through my first battle with a lost drengr (I actually dumbed down the difficulty a litte), I finally managed to find my footing and was on my way to England to scrape out a place for the Raven Clan.

As for stealth...well, the less said about it the better. I never found it effective. It was much easier to smash my way through, axe in hand (or greatsword) and lay waste to their paltry resistance with a mixture of heavy attacks and parrying. I also, hardly used the bow (one of my favourite weapons to being stealthy in Origins and Odyssey). 

The story in AC: V is a little messy. Most of it is done through a separate arcs for each territory Eivor ventures through: from East Anglia to Snotinghamscire, with little to link it all together except the main character. Were it not for the very loose story threat surrounding Sigurd and the conquering of Mercia to establish a firm foothold in this new land of England, many of the storylines could be regarded as standalone adventures in Eivor’s epic saga of conquest.

That doesn’t, of course, mean it’s bad. Merely disjointed. Particularly when I went from Jorvik and its Yule Tide celebrations to Glowecestrescire that was right in the midst of Samhain right after each other. Did I go back in time? Or did almost an entire year fly past Eivor with none the wiser?

Still, even though they were mostly standalone storylines, I still very much liked all the characters I met along the way. My favourites were the earnest Hunwald, noble Ceolbert (his death was almost as bad as all the horse deaths I’ve encountered in video games) and fun-loving Twydwr (particularly when he and Eivor were drunk, and messing with the local chickens) On the Norse side, I very much enjoyed the banter between Eivor and her childhood friend Vili. But the one that I admisted most was Soma. She was the jarlskona of Grantebridgescire - the first place I explored after landing in England. And one, I hoped I could romance to some degree. Alas, my hopes were dashed on that end.

What I did find a little intriguing were how Sigurd and Eivor were sages for the Isus: Odin and Tyr. And in their little Raven Clan, revealed much later, was also Freyr. It seemed strange that so many of the reincarnated Isu were all incredibly close at hand.

In this title, Ubisoft was able to focus again a little more on their complex lore that was seeded throughout the first few games. And while some questions were answered, it still left plenty of mysteries of where the games go from here - particularly from a modern-day standpoint. Though I am reluctant to see the franchise go, it does feel like Ubisoft is finally coming to a close on the grand story that they are trying to tell. What the end result turns out to be is still to be determined, but more emphasis needs to be focused on the central conflict.

For a game that still has Assassin’s Creed in the title, Eivor’s connection with the order and their enemies seemed very tangential. While I killed many Order of the Ancient members, there was no sense of personal investiture, like, say with Ezio’s quest. The only ones that I felt motivated to put an end to were Fulke and Kjotve the Cruel. Unfortunately, all the build-up in the first scenes with Eivor were quickly resolves within the first two to three hours of the game, and Fulke’s arc was all but over in the half-way point.

I suppose the main reason for my discontent with the narrative of AC: V is the fact that there is no Big Bad for Eivor and her Raven Clan. Yes, Aelfred of Wessex is a ‘villain’ that hinders our protagonist, but he never felt like an oppressive threat. 

Basim’s reveal, somewhat late in the game, was also a little underwhelming. Yes, he did look an awful lot like Loki, but how did he manage to get to Norway? He hadn’t accompanied Sigurd and Eivor. Did he travel with a third party? How did he know that Sigurd and Eivor would be in the ruins of an Isu temple? So many questions, so little time.

Then there was the whole ‘Heir of Memories’ and the fact that Layla seemed so worn. After finishing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, my last impression of her was receiving the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus from Kassandra and being hopeful for the future. Fast forward to AC: V and Layla is tired. The world is on the edge of destruction once again and she’s now paired up with married couple: Rebecca Crane and Shaun Hastings (the two last appearing undercover in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag). 

On a side note, why are their adventures all done in the comics or some other media? AND WHY DO I NOT HAVE ACCESS TO ANY OF THIS?

And because I didn’t play the expansions for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, I knew too little regarding the modern-day struggles with Layla. In fact, I basically resorted to the Assassin’s Creed wiki to bring me up to date. Honestly, DLC should never be story-related. Or, if it is, should be more tangential rather than major. It’s a terrible practice that quite a few publishers do, and which leaves players such as myself playing catch-up.

The only one that landed with any oomph (at least for me) were the Asgard and Jotunheim arcs. These were connected and told the story of Havi as he struggled to find a way to avert his fate. The final battle also proved challenging and climactic. A far cry from the ‘endings’ that the main story provided. In all honesty, I probably should have left that to last while completing everything else first. But the temptation was too great and I was vastly overlevelled.

I also enjoyed the play on the Norse myths. The only downside with the Builder was that there was no horse to help him. And so, there was no sexy mare Loki to tempt away the Builder’s horse - giving birth to Sleipnir. The other stuff, though, was clever. And I liked the references made to other myths, such as fighting against ‘old age’ and Thrym’s disastrous marriage to ‘Thor dressed as Freyr.’

What was also a little odd, at least for me, was that there was no definitive part where the credits rolled. Much like in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Assassin’s Creedy: Origins. Personally, I hate it. Credits give closure and tell gamers that the narrative that they were pursuing has come to an end. It lets me reflect on everything that I experienced and is an indication that I can finally set the controller down.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla also came with its fair share of bugs and glitches. Many, after reading up on them, made me frightened to continue. One, in particular, took me a while to figure out an alternative to: entering Lunden. I didn’t help that the more I read, the more I worried about encountering a game-breaking bug. Thankfully, most were simply treasure hoards not loading, late texture pop-ins that were a little frightening, and the drunk Eivor every time I loaded up the game. 

Despite its many faults, I still very much enjoyed my time roaming around England, Vinland and Norway as I worked to build up Eivor’s reputation and to ensure her name would be sung for ages to come. Like a true Vikingr, I played copious amounts of orlog, drank mead and tore up the battlefield to create a home for my people.

Even better, at Gunnar’s wedding, I managed to finally woo Randvi (who I abstained from bedding down with earlier on in the game)! That, perhaps, elevated the game for me and I can be happy knowing that all my hard work paid off.

(As an additional aside, I also love how many of the side quests or ‘mysteries’ in AC: Valhalla made references to popular culture. From Winnie the Pooh to Alice in Wonderland. AND ROBIN HOOD! THE NPC CALLED LITTLE JOHN HAD ME GUFFAWING!)

[queenangst]

I am TRYING to pick a scene from Secondhand for the commentary ask but there are just. All of it is my favorite. But I think maybe...the scene where Midoriya and Nana talk about going to fight villains, and the USJ attack?

me, rereading secondhand for this: wow i love this

i was going to start with just nana & izuku, but i’m so soft for nana & gran, so i included fighting villains like you asked with a little bit of that dynamic! so of course this is going to be a long one i hope no one minds, i couldn’t help myself.

let’s go

[Sorahiko] paused to look at Nana. "And you'll come, of course," he said, but it was half a question. From here, Midoriya couldn't see Sorahiko's face—almost pleading.

"I'll come, of course," Nana said softly to her friend. She turned back to smile at Midoriya. "Don't worry."

Nana and Sorahiko were partners, so this part is Sorahiko tentatively reaching out in this familiar-unfamiliar relationship. But of course Nana will go with them. The “don’t worry” is directed at both him and Izuku.

Midoriya finally started working again as they stepped through the door, and ran to catch up, bursting between the two of them. He apologized hastily, and then looked at both of them with wide eyes.

"Don't- worry?" He looked at Sorahiko, flippant, and Nana, who was used to this kind of thing. "Wait, wait, what do you mean, don't worry? We're going to, you're taking me to fight, villains?"

I thought the first line here was a little bit funny, like Izuku.exe had stopped working once he heard they were going to go seek out and fight villains. Obviously, as we see upcoming in this scene, Izuku has a very different definition of villains, so he sort of shut down for a second. 

He’s super incredulous, while Nana knows Sorahiko is just Like That. She’s not fazed at all, because they’ve known each other for years, and it’s certainly something he made Toshinori do.

His voice grew small on the word villains. He was scared.

Nana frowned at the look on his face.

"Have a little more courage than that," she said, patting him on the shoulder. He flinched, and she pulled back. "I mean— Sorahiko used to make Toshinori do it all the time, when they were training without me. And I used to take Toshinori on patrol with me when I could. It's good experience."

Here’s the part where Nana almost-disapproves a little bit. It’s okay to be scared as a hero, but because a large part of it is fighting villains, she doesn’t understand why Izuku has such a strong reaction. It actually concerns her, because right now it seems like he might not be brave enough. They don’t know each other very well, so I thought this was a reasonable reaction, especially with how important One for All is.

But Nana is also very attentive. 

"Villains?" Midoriya said again. It was like he'd gotten stuck on the word and was now circling it, tethered by a line. "Don't you think that's a little— I hardly have any control over— I mean..."

"That's why we're going with you," Nana said soothingly. "We'll make sure nothing goes disastrously wrong. Chin up."

On the other side, Nana knows a scared child when she sees one. She’s definitely a mom, and someone who cares, so after she tells him he shouldn’t be scared she also tries to reassure him that she and Sorahiko both will be there.

And a little peek of Izuku’s inner thoughts, as best as I can show them through Nana’s perspective. He’s freaking out a little.

"Villains," Midoriya mumbled. He wrung his hands together; he looked a little reassured by Nana's offer of safety, but not by much.

"Oh, get that look off your face," Sorahiko said, spinning around. "It won't be as bad as you think. You'll be fine—you might not be able to take me, but you can handle a crook or two. It's not like we're facing S-Rank villains."

Color returned to Midoriya's face. "Okay," he said quietly, and that was that.

Now, Sorahiko does know about USJ (of course), so after Nana only semi-succeeded at reassuring Izuku he finally gives up and just tells Izuku it’ll all be fine. No S-Ranks here. It’s the reassurance that he really needs. ‘Course, Sorahiko has to sound grumpy-old-man while doing it. 

She'd seen the way his brow had creased when Sorahiko had mentioned the villain classification ranks they all followed. Most villains, of course, tended to be on the lesser scale—petty crime using Quirks was much easier, but there was always going to be the villains lurking in the shadows. All for One, looming, the puppetmaster of a whole organization of crime that haunted the streets and back alleys of Japan. That crept its roots of corruption into every crack it could squeeze through.

She bit the inside of her cheek and closed off her expression.

A tiny bit of “worldbuilding” to slip in there, though this is more-so based off of what we already have in canon with the classification. Also, it makes sense to me that it would be common to have a lot of petty crime, such as the bag-snatcher or the thugs the League hired. People who don’t get to use their Quirks in the system and resort to crime, etc, etc, because the definition of villain is so loose. 

But then of course there are villains like All for One. Nana hates him. Deeply. So much that sometimes it frightens even her how angry she is, but she doesn’t want to show it in front of Izuku right now, so she closes herself off.

"I don't know about you," Sorahiko started, "well. I don't care what you do, but leave me alone."

He glanced at the time, then nodded to himself and disappeared. Nana laughed.

"I don't suppose you’re leaving me alone, too?" Midoriya asked, a little sullen, and Nana shook her head. She'd hardly done anything all morning.

Sorahiko just doesn’t care. He’s done with people younger than twenty for now. In case anyone was wondering, he went off to take a nap, leaving Izuku and Nana to their own devices. 

I just thought it would be a small light-hearted break in the somber tone of the conversation, before we go back to it.

"Would you," Midoriya began, then dropped his gaze. "Would you spar with me then?"

Nana shook her head.

"I shouldn't." She shrugged at his pleading look. "Sorahiko's right. You need a break before we go out tonight. You don't want to be in a real fight and be dead on your feet."

When Izuku asks, Nana doesn’t agree to spar with him. Here, it’s because she believes she’s not his teacher. His training should be Toshinori’s responsibility, and then Gran Torino because of the internship. Nana will help eventually, but to her, it’s not her main role in the relationship with Izuku. 

They walked to the kitchen together. "I still don't understand why we're going to go fight some villains," Midoriya said offhandedly. "I mean, getting experience, sure—all my other friends are doing some light patrols, I think, but seeking out a fight?"

"Sorahiko can't just train you for the rest of the, what is it, the week? You'll get too used to his fighting style, and you'll get stuck. It's better if you're out there experiencing things yourself."

"If you say so," Midoriya said. She didn't think she was meant to hear that.

A little more slight disagreement, though of course from misunderstanding. Izuku’s a little disrespectful at the end there (and even, a little hypocritical considering the way he gets himself into things) but his point stands - that he’s concerned about a pro hero sanctioning him to go seek out villains, rather than how other pro heroes might work by assigning interns to light patrol, learning about agencies, etc.

"Can I ask you something?" Nana leaned back against the counter and watched Midoriya fill a glass of water. He handed it to her, then took another one out, and she nodded in thanks.

"Uh-huh," Midoriya said, filling his own glass.

"Why did you react like that?" Nana asked. "When we were talking about villains earlier."

Midoriya's face darkened. He stared into his glass, like he was looking for an answer in the way the water distorted his vision.

"You don't have to say," Nana said. "I understand being scared of villains. Everyone's scared. But you seemed to have a..."

She didn't know how to describe it. But she'd seen that look before on a few faces—and she'd seen it on Shinroku's face, struck pale.

Like I said, Nana gets that villains are scary. Of course they are, but it is a hero’s job to face them. So she still doesn’t get why Izuku is acting like this, and why he’s so scared, to the point where it reminds her of her own mentor facing All for One. (Haha, fun reference, yeah? Successor facing successor and predecessor facing predecessor.) 

"I don't think you know much about Class 1-A, do you?" He peeked at her face. "I guess you wouldn't know. Er, well... earlier this year, when we- when we went to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, for training... the League of Villains attacked us. It was— bad."

"The League of Villains?"

The League didn’t exist, to Nana’s knowledge, and she’s basically been given the Cliff Notes on everything happening. So here’s the start of the explanation... she hasn’t had a chance to learn much about 1-A or USJ or the League.

"That's.. yes," Midoriya said, "and they weren't just a— I mean, it was planned. They targeted us specifically. And the Nomu... Shigaraki..."

"Shigaraki," Nana said. She couldn't say she'd heard the name before; actually it was entirely unfamiliar to her. "He's a villain?"

God, I’m terrible, truly. Haha. The mention of Shigaraki... just a little bit of dramatic irony here where we’re all like “he’s your grandson!!!! He’s your grandson!” and Nana does not recognize the name at all. And this sets up for later: the only identity Nana knows of Shigaraki is that he’s a villain.  

"The leader, I think," Midoriya said. He tugged his lip between his teeth. "He was directing the others. He gave orders. And he hurt— it was re- really bad."

What Izuku was going to say here was how badly Shigaraki and the Nomu hurt Aizawa, but he couldn’t get the words out. It was really bad. I mean, timeline wise, Aizawa only got his bandages off basically after the Sports Festival, so the memories are still very fresh.

He tipped his head back and drank from his water deeply so that he wouldn't have to keep talking. Nana paused. She hadn't expected that.

"You're a first-year student," she said. "You..."

And now Nana is absolutely horrified because he is a Baby, U.A. He’s a baby!

"They want to kill All Might," Midoriya said suddenly. He set down the glass, and it rang dully. Water sloshed against the side. He gripped the edge of the counter with both hands. "And they— it wasn't human, it was- it was- strong... I couldn't do anything!"

A chill ran down her spine as more and more of the story unraveled. A creature, barely human if at all, that Midoriya referred to as a Nomu. A creature that had been built to kill All Might.

And she’s even more horrified because that’s Her Baby. It does not matter that Toshinori is like, four decades older or so, because he’s still her boy and they were trying to kill him. Specifically. 

Good day slowly turning to bad day.

"He beat it," Midoriya told her, but he seemed less happy about it than she would have assumed. "But... it was a real threat. It withstood him at a hundred percent of One for All.

“And that- that leader, Shigaraki, he would have killed… ”

Nana set down her empty glass. She lifted a hand, then remembered the way he had flinched when she had put it to his shoulder earlier and dropped it again.

Shigaraki would have killed Aizawa, and Tsuyu, and probably him and his classmates, and All Might. 

Here, Nana assumes Izuku would be happier because of the victory, but Izuku really isn’t. All Might won but the Nomu was a real threat to him, and his time limit was already so dangerously low. Izuku remembers All Might pushing himself past his limit. 

And back to earlier, Nana notices Izuku’s reaction. She wants to comfort him, but she thinks he might flinch away if she does.

“I’m sorry,” she said, though it didn’t quite feel like enough. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

He was a kid. Strong, yes. Smart, yes. But in the end, Midoriya was at most fourteen or fifteen—no one his age should have encountered and seen what he had just earlier this year. He was already carrying enough of a burden, she thought, the legacy of the number one hero and the heroes before him.

Not much to say about this part besides it reads as it is on the tin, you know?

Midoriya shrugged uncomfortably. “Anyway, that’s all.”

That's all, like it was fiction, just a tale recounted. Nana didn't feel it. Horror was coursing through her veins. She couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for him.

It was true Nana had lived a rough life, but she had never faced anything like that so young and almost alone.

Nana adopts a child again. I think USJ was a really sad event, too, of course it shouldn’t have happened. And it was a bunch of kids who wanted to be heroes suddenly thrust into an extremely dangerous and traumatizing situation, their teachers were dying, and they were split up and scared and very much in danger. 

I tried to express that too, how horrifying it is as someone who is older than Izuku, to try and treat such an event so casually as a way of dealing with it. Like it’s over, it’s done. But it’s really not.

She certainly has a hard time in life, but Nana sympathizes a lot because she’s never lived something like USJ. No one should have to.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"It's over," Midoriya said. "Everyone lived, and recovered. So I'm grateful."

"It's good to be grateful," Nana murmured, bowing her head. Not everyone lived. Not everyone recovered.

And cut, here at least. Izuku doesn’t really want to talk about it too much more. He’s ready to move on from USJ, and get stronger... for himself, his classmates, and especially for All Might. And he really is grateful everyone came out alive though not unscathed. 

Not everyone lived, not everyone recovered. Tadao didn’t live, and Nana hasn’t recovered. 

send me your favorite scene/chapter from one of my works + i’ll write commentary on it!

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. ix

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt ix: heartlines

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~7.3k (yes I am a clown)

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Language, some “light” religious blasphemy (it’s Far Cry 5). Strong canon deviance.

Notes: I have nothing to say for myself, except: thank you thank you thank you! Everyone's comments really just got me through the real brunt of this chapter and it's a long one, oh boy. I cannot reiterate enough how much the hopeless romantic in me desperately wants them to just live happily ever after, and also how MUCH it really means to me to see your guys' feedback, but alas alack, here we are; I, with my long-winded author's notes saying the same thing every time, but I am just as grateful each time it happens.

As always, I have the best, sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful and wonderful proof-reader but most importantly friend who helped me block out this chapter because I was really, really struggling with it. @starcrier, my lover my life my shawty my wife, she is Elliot's number one stan and also an incredible writer so please go check out her stuff!!

On a brief tangent, I have some beautiful artwork made the artist @raviollies​ on tumblr, which you can find here! I definitely did cry a little tiny bit over it.

It’s your fucking fault.

Elliot’s words, venomous little baby snakes spitting their venom, crawled around the bone arena of his skull. John could not stop replaying them in his head, even though he desperately wanted to; the idea that the rookie deputy might now well and truly hate him—really hate him, more than she maybe ever had before—was an unsettling one. He liked to think that it was because he was worried what Joseph would think if they no longer had her cooperation, her good behavior, but—

But there was something else that dug at him. There was something else squirming in the cavity of his chest, sinking its nails right into him, but he couldn’t pick it out, couldn’t pull it apart.

(Or maybe he didn’t want to; maybe the idea of identifying what this strange and unknowable beast inside of him was kept him from trying too hard, a good enough reason to throw up his hands and say, sorry, I just can’t.)

He pushed the door to the church open, stepping back inside to the cool, dim quiet. Jacob had pulled a map out and spread it over the table, the radio set aside; Joseph sat in a front-row pew, one leg crossed over his knee and his expression mild.

“Did you get the opportunity to chat?” he asked, without looking at John, as though he just knew that it was him and not someone else coming in. “She seemed…” Joseph’s head tilted, just a little. “... Unseated.”

John hesitated, and then began walking down the aisle. “Yes,” he replied. “Although, I don’t know if chat is the proper word for it, considering that she all but put her teeth in my neck.”

“I thought you liked that kind of thing?” Jacob supplied without a hint of a humorous inflection in his voice, and John shot him a dirty look.

“Bleeding out to death? Not particularly.”

Joseph nodded, the gesture gentle, ignoring the bickering. “It does appear as though our deputy is not a damsel in distress, but rather a damsel under duress.” He turned to look at the youngest Seed brother when he reached the front of the church. “But it is nice to see the foundation you’ve put down, John. You’re taking my advice, and it isn’t going unnoticed.”

He felt something pleasant and warm bloom in his chest, billowing up into his head until it almost completely gassed out the venomous little vipers Elliot had planted in his mind. “I did have an idea about that,” he added, feeling more emboldened by Joseph’s praise as he walked past the table. “About endearing the deputy to us.”

“Oh? Well, I’m all ears.”

John’s gaze flickered across the space between his two brothers. Jacob had said nothing; he was bent over the map, dog tags glinting in the single beam of light that hit them from the window, one veiny hand clenched into a fist as it held the map in place.

“Maybe,” John continued, “our dear brother could try to stop antagonizing her.”

“Why?” the red-headed deadpanned, not looking up from the map. The fact that Jacob didn’t even deign to make eye-contact with him was enough to make irritation prickle in his chest, raise his proverbial hackles.

“Why?” John reiterated. “Perhaps because each time you open your mouth, you incriminate yourself as a villain—and us too, by proxy.”

“You can drop the attorney lingo,” Jacob said dryly, finally lifting his head to look at John—and John wished that he hadn’t, because the half-lidded, arrogant gaze of his eldest brother only served to stoke the fires of anger inside of him.

“It’s just my vocabulary, Jacob, and you missed the entire point, by the way, so in the interest of making sure we’re all on the same page—”

“—not an idiot, little brother, so you don’t need to—”

“I think John is right,” Joseph interrupted, effectively silencing the argument that was brewing. “He’s done exactly as I asked of him. Think of a stray dog, Jacob; you don’t beat it into submission. You feed it, nurture it, gain its trust, and then it becomes a lifelong companion.” The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “A loyal companion.”

“This is an age-old philosophical debate.” Jacob’s brows furrowed together; a deep-set frown sat on his face. “A classic: is it better to be feared than to be loved? I think that we’re going to disagree fundamentally on this one.”

“Well,” Joseph replied mildly, “aren’t we lucky that there’s only one of us in charge of how our deputy is treated, then?”

John’s breath flickered out of his chest in a single blink at Joseph’s words. Casual and ever-so-patient, as though Jacob’s jaw weren’t setting in preparation to argue, as though it didn’t strike John right in his gut to hear Joseph say, there’s only one of us in charge of how our deputy is treated, as though it didn’t twist the knife right between his ribs to hear Joseph refer to Elliot as their deputy, over and over again.

A stamp. A brand. Joseph claimed, like he always did, the things that he thought rightfully belonged to him.

“Someone’s lucky,” Jacob said at last, a final and reluctant acquiescence.

Joseph’s small smile did not disappear. In fact, it seemed only to root itself more firmly on his face, as though he were pleased at Jacob’s unease. Joseph’s gaze flickered back to John, settling on him and then beckoning him forward.

He did as Joseph bid, coming and sitting beside his older brother and clearing his throat. He wanted to stop thinking about the way that Joseph had said our deputy, like he had any claim on Elliot—and that shouldn’t have bothered John, but it did, wriggled its way through the spaces between his ribs and squeezed, nice and tight.

“She was upset,” Joseph said, when John had settled next to him; it was not a question, but a statement, an assertion of what Joseph knew to be true. Their eldest brother scoffed from his spot at the table, bent back over the map, tracing and re-tracing the topography lines. John shifted in his seat a little.

“I think Jacob might have ruined any chance at a merciful conversion when he mentioned that her friends would deserve it if they didn’t make it out.” John’s voice was hard when he shot the red-head a stinging look, but unsatisfyingly, Jacob did not lift his head this time. John felt the strain of his brows furrowing at the center of his head, and then Joseph’s hand was on the side of his face, fingers spreading against his hair, primed and comfortable to grip.

“Grief,” Joseph said, his voice low and soothing, “is a part of change. Like shedding a skin.”

“It’s not—she was furious with me,” John replied, grimacing. “She just kept saying she hated me, and us. Joseph, I think—it would be beneficial to let me do things my way—”

“Our deputy is killing the person she used to be, John.” Joseph’s gaze was steady, piercing, a venomous yellow. His other hand came to the right side of John’s face, cradling him. “Strangling her old self, with her own hands. People like us, we’re lucky; we’ve always known who we were meant to be.” He leaned against the wooden backing of the pew again. “You’ve guided her here. Give her a while to grieve that girl from before. Patience is a virtue.”

John’s throat felt tight. He thought the Elliot in the bar those years ago—flushing and soft, breathless when he leaned into her—and the Elliot threatening to choke a man to death in front of him if he didn’t beg for his life, and the Elliot who played baseball with a shovel and a man’s head, and the Elliot that smoked a cigarette down to nothing while she cranked Welcome To The Jungle up on a van stolen from a group of crazy Swedish cultists.

He was not convinced she had not already killed the girl she used to be.

“You have got to have faith.” Joseph’s voice broke him out of his reverie. When John looked over to his brother, Joseph was absently dragging his thumb along his lower lip, his eyes fixed on the Eden’s Gate emblem glowing above them in the afternoon light. “Remember what I said; you have to love them. I know you can do this for me.”

His throat felt tight. This would be easier, he thought, if he could have just done everything this way. Wrath, he thought, would look perfect on her. But that wasn’t right; wrath already fit her. There was no skin to be shed. It was already on.

“John.”

He dragged his gaze from the white collar of Joseph’s shirt to his brother’s gaze, meeting it.

“Tell me you can do this,” Joseph said, his voice lower now, softer. It was not his counseling voice; this was Joseph asking him, his brother, not the man who led the masses. Asking, demanding, but waiting patiently for it to be given, never taking before it was time.

He was no longer thinking about Elliot at her fiercest, but rather the way she had softened for him, on occasion. Pressed against him for warmth, lashes wet with tears, unwilling to let go of his arm.

“I can,” John replied, “for you.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot didn’t know for how long she slept. When she woke, the sun was still in the sky, the air felt sticky and wet with late-summer humidity, and while she slept sweat had gathered at the nape of her neck and in the hollows and dips of her body. For a second, panic filled her—she couldn’t remember where she was, or how she got there, confusion twisting and knotting its way through her.

And then she remembered. She was in Joseph’s compound, in a bunkhouse that served as a home to Eden’s Gate members, dressed in Eden’s Gate clothes sans her boots and underclothes. Elliot wiped the sweat from her forehead and pulled her hair out of the ponytail. Standing proved dizzying, and she felt the dehydration twisting around in her stomach like a scorpion; stinging, and unkind.

“Fuck,” she said, pressing the heel of her palm to her eye. The gesture reminded her that she had done it just recently; just before she screamed at John, just before she told him that she hated him. Oh, yes. That.

Grief still squirmed around inside of her, but it had been abated, for now, and she thought that she almost—

“No.” Elliot’s voice was firm, but still wobbled on its legs, when she spoke to herself. “I don’t feel bad about what I said.”

“Good to know.” It was John’s voice from the doorway, bringing with him a hot breeze that should have felt good being that they were on an island, but it just added to the humidity. Elliot’s stomach twisted violently at the sound of his voice. It wasn’t anger that populated her mind, now, but embarrassment: that she’d let him get under her skin, that she’d let him see her without her veneer, that he’d been there and endured it and now he stood here again, undeterred, as though John Seed were someone with a moral high ground that allowed him to endure verbal attacks and return as though nothing had happened.

I hate you. Elliot willed the words to her mouth, tried to muster the venom, but she couldn’t. She fixed her eyes instead on the knot of a wooden floor panel, trying to ignore the sight of John moving in the corner of her eyes, closing the space between them. He did this, always—invaded her space, overwhelmed her, until saying things like I hate you became harder.

He smelled like sweat, and day-old cologne, and heat and dust and outside, and when he put his hand on her arm she opened her mouth to say something—anything, any of the venom that might come to her in the heat-addled and perspiring confusion—but he put a cold water bottle, slick with condensation, in her hand.

Her eyes went to find the bloodstain on his shirt when she realized that he wasn’t wearing that shirt anymore. He was in a white shirt, the same kind that Joseph wore.

“Drink,” he said. “I promise it isn’t poisoned.”

Elliot turned the cap of the bottle. It cracked, promising that the seal was freshly broken, and she brought it to her mouth and took one heavy swig before she pulled it away. Her nerve-endings immediately screamed in relief at the water in her mouth, but her stomach lurched—she knew she’d need to pace herself, or she’d be puking it up in a few minutes.

“Did you sleep?” John asked when she didn’t say anything. Elliot sucked her teeth.

“I don’t think we should play at being friends,” she said, her voice wicked with a dry, crackling, wildfire-in-the-making heat. John’s gaze was steady, though, once again unfettered by her words and remaining in her space. She was more aware of it than ever, now: as though resting, and having basic necessities like shower and drinking water also made her all the more aware of John’s presence, the heat radiating off of his body and the way he was watching her—

(like he couldn’t get enough of her)

—like he wanted to make sure that nothing she did escaped him.

“We’re not playing at being friends, deputy,” John drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and rocking back on his heels a bit as he looked at her. “Whether you like it or not, you and I are on the same side.”

“For now,” Elliot bit out.

“For now,” he acquiesced, as gracious as ever.

Her eyes narrowed. John was not the kind of person who forgave and forgot the sorts of things that she’d said to him. Elliot felt the suspicion rising up in her throat. She kept waiting for the punchline; for John to say something stupid like, and when this is over you’ll be begging for me to absolve your sins, or something equally driven by ego and his desire to have Joseph’s approval.

“So,” John began again, arms unfolding elegantly to be held out in a gesture of harmlessness, “did you sleep?”

Elliot took another swallow of her water bottle, stepping around John. Her body instantly braced itself—as though she expected him to try and stop her—but he didn’t; merely turned with her, a planet trapped in her orbit.

“Briefly.” She kept her voice short and clipped as she headed towards the door. “Are your friends back?”

“Jacob’s ready whenever you are.”

Her face scrunched up at the mention of the eldest Seed brother. She was now unsure which of them was the most unpleasant to be around; they all found their own special ways to get under her skin. John, perhaps, was the worst; Joseph and Jacob, she could handle their particular brand of crazy, but John—he was harder for her to read, because all of the time spent with him had started to cloud her brain.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she demanded, turning suddenly to find that he’d crossed the bunkhouse again, as though to follow her outside. Because she hadn’t quite gone out, yet, he now stood nearly nose to nose with her, even with her back pressed against the door of the bunkhouse.

John’s gaze swept over her. “Does it bother you?”

The plastic of the water bottle crunched in her hand. Her jaw set, painfully tight, holding back her gut reaction—to tell him that yes, it did bother her—and instead swallowed thickly. It would be just like John, to go out of his way to be nice to her because he thought it would unsettle her. But then, wasn’t John all about bending and cracking someone to his will, no gentleness required?

A headache splintered behind her eyes, throbbing painfully. She was spending too much time trying to parse John Seed out, and that was her first mistake.

“I’m just surprised you know how,” Elliot snipped, watching the way her words ticked the corner of his mouth upward in that easy, boyish smile.

“I can be nice,” John offered, “if someone isn’t spitting venom at me nonstop, calling me pathetic.”

“Fucking pathetic,” she pointed out, ignoring the way John’s eyes flickered down to her mouth and then back up to meet her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that—”

“—no need to apologize after the fact, deputy—”

“—because I know how sensitive you are,” Elliot finished, wiping the smile off of John’s face, “and since we’re on the same side, I suppose I can’t afford to have you down and out.”

John’s eyes narrowed. His hand found the doorknob, and he was very close, so close all of a sudden that for a brief moment Elliot’s brain short-circuited and all she could think about was how unjust it was that a man so deserving of her venom could make cologne smell so good.

And then he said, “No, I suppose you can’t,” and opened the door behind her, the heat of the afternoon sun sunk into her skin, sticky and hot. “I work best when my partner isn’t trying to fight me the entire time.”

She turned and stepped out of the bunkhouse, clutching the water bottle in her fist and putting as much distance between herself and John as she said, “And I work the best if you stay the fuck out of my way, John.”

No more, she thought, decisively, no more of that.

Images of Eden’s Gate members scattered in her periphery; they were eager to look, but not eager to be seen, so that when she turned her head to find them they were already disappearing behind a corner or into a building. The heat was no more bearable if she was moving, either, the sun high in the sky and threatening to burn any exposed skin.

John fell into step beside her, his hand landing on the doorknob to the church before she could open it, holding it closed while she stopped on the landing.

“Jacob likes when he gets under your skin,” he said to her, the words sounding a little different than before. “He might say whatever he can to rile you up, and make you look unreliable to Joseph.”

Elliot hesitated. She didn’t know why John was giving her this information; not only because she already knew that—because of course Jacob enjoyed pushing her—but she didn’t understand why John was trying to be helpful. It was always going to be the Seed brothers against her, wasn’t it?

She thought of the way they had been bickering, the two brothers, while she tried to gather herself after her call with Jerome. She wished she’d been paying attention so that she could know what it was they had been arguing about.

John waited expectantly. He said, “You want to get Joey out of there, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Her brows furrowed. “What kind of—”

“And I want Faith out of there, with as little risk as possible,” he plunged on, keeping the door in place, “so we can’t get outvoted in there. Joseph does take you seriously, though who can imagine why—”

“If you’re trying to convince me we’re actually partners,” Elliot deadpanned, “you’re doing a shit job of it.”

“All I’m saying,” John continued irritably, “is that if we present a unified front in there, we have a better chance of us both getting what we want.”

Elliot didn’t want to admit that he was right. The last thing she ever wanted to do was tell John Seed that he was right about something. But if she had to weigh her options, she’d rather tell John he was right than do whatever the fuck it was that Jacob and Joseph wanted her to do. One Seed brother she could handle.

So, she relented, “Fine.”

John stuck out his free hand to her, grinning. “Shake on it, partner?”

Elliot groaned and swatted his hand away. “Don’t push it, buck,” she replied, pushing the door open—and this time, John let her, trailing in after her. Jacob and Joseph were in their spots at the front of the chapel, waiting ever-so-patiently. She reminded herself of what John had confirmed; that Jacob liked to see her on the brink of a meltdown, that he was a pusher.

It did not escape her that John had not offered any insight into Joseph.

“Have a nice nap?” Jacob asked as she came up to the table with the map.

“Funny, John asked me the same thing.” Elliot kept her voice even and took a drink of her water before she started tying her hair back into a ponytail. “So, where are they? Where are Joey and Faith?”

“South of here, the faithful say,” Joseph said before Jacob could speak again. “At Sacred Skies Lake. Just past Angel’s Peak. It sounds like they don’t go by any name, and just call themselves a family.”

“And do the faithful say what they’ve been doing?” she asked tartly. She had an idea of where they had made their home; probably at the abandoned youth camp, though as far as she last remembered that had been occupied by Joseph’s own.

Well, probably not for very long. There was no way Joseph’s little rednecks could hold up to the precision that these crazies had.

“Living,” Jacob replied, his gaze hard and his jaw set. “They’re not doing anything. They’re just—there. Like they’re waiting for something.” 

Elliot’s stomach plummeted at Jacob’s words. There was no way he could have known, surely; she hadn’t told John, and she hadn’t said anything to them in the car, about the way Ase had cradled her face, and called her mor, and had said, I know that you will always come back to us.

Fuck. There’s no fucking way.

But there was. If Ase didn’t have absolute confidence that Elliot would seek them out, why would she have let them go? Why would they have been mostly unscathed? They were playing with their food—a sick, drawn-out catch-and-release.

The brothers had started speaking again. The aqua curve of Sacred Skies on the map burned into her retinas the longer she stared at it without blinking.

“Waiting for me,” Elliot mustered up after a moment, her mouth feeling very dry. “They’re waiting for me.”

Three pairs of eyes fixed on her, all with the same uncanny precision. There was no time for it to bother her; her stomach was already rolling with nausea.

And then Jacob barked out, “Explain,” and she thought she might punch him in the face if he didn’t shut up. Elliot took in a deep breath, mustering all of the composure she could manage, and focused herself on the map.

“When John and I got—when we had our run-in with the family,” she began, “we were separated, and—they drugged me, with something. But their leader, Ase, she was there for a little while—”

“What?” John demanded. So much for presenting a unified front, she thought ruefully. She shot him a look, willing him to be quiet, to just let her gather her thoughts; blissfully, he did.

“She kept calling me something in Swedish,” Elliot explained, “and she kept saying all of this weird stuff, like—like that she saw my color, that she saw me, and then…”

The Seeds all stared at her, waiting expectantly. Even Jacob remained silent.

“And then she said something like… Like that she was going to let me go, but only because she knew I was always going to come back to her.”

A moment of silence stretched in front of her, endless and dizzying, where no one in the room said anything and all Elliot could think about were all the things that Ase had said.

And then, as though these words had almost no impact on him, Jacob said, “Well, at least we have proper bait.”

“Absolutely not,” John cut in immediately, angrily. “You’re not putting Elliot out there to try and lure them here—”

“—they want her, I don’t see why we wouldn’t—”

“Brothers,” Joseph interrupted, his voice effectively bringing both John and Jacob to heel. Like before, he stood directly across from Elliot; her gaze was fixed on him now, tumbling Ase’s words around in her head while the Seeds argued about whether or not she was shark bait or not. “What do you think, deputy?”

The words were gentle. Elliot knew what they were; certainly, Joseph knew how long it had been since someone had asked her opinion, rather than her having to fight tooth and nail for someone even to consider it.

“I think—we could get Ase to come out of the youth camp, which is probably where they’re holed up,” she said after a moment, willing the charm of Joseph’s attentiveness away. Her gaze slid to John for a moment. “If we used me as bait.”

“Are you serious?” John demanded. He took her arm in his hand, pulling her from the table and hissing, “When I said present a unified front—”

“If we’re partners, you have to trust me,” Elliot insisted tersely. His expression hardened. A part of her hoped that he regretted suggesting they be anything remotely close to on the same team, and a part of her was glad that he had, or he wouldn’t look like the words you’re right were sitting right on his tongue.

Finally, at last, he said, “Fine.”

Elliot turned back to Jacob and Joseph, with the brunette’s hand still on her arm, and asked, “Are you any good with a sniper rifle?” 

“The best.” Jacob’s voice was clipped, insistent. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“So if I can get Ase out to meet me,” she continued, “can you not shoot me?”

His eyes narrowed, but there was a tiny, tiny smile pulling at his lips. “Scout’s honor.”

John exhaled a sharp, short breath. “This is ridiculous—”

But before he could plunge onward, Joseph held up his hand to stop him. He turned his gaze to her, now, studying her for a few long heartbeats before he said, “Do you think they won’t kill Faith if we kill their leader?”

Elliot shrugged his hand off of her arm and walked back to the table, setting her water bottle on the table and crossing her arms over her chest. “I think like any snake,” she replied, “the body won’t function if you cut the head off.”

“At any rate,” Jacob interjected, “push comes to shove and you can get in without a firefight to get Faith out of there.”

“And Joey,” Elliot replied firmly, and stifled down the absolute fury when Jacob shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“We’ll start making the preparations immediately.” Joseph sounded pleased. It took everything in her power not to say something just spite that, to remember that even though she didn’t want to be, she supposed that she was on their side, too.

Jacob gathered up the map from the table and immediately set off after Joseph, who had stepped down from the small stage and gone to the side door. Elliot picked up her water bottle and took one more heavy drink to finish it off before she turned and looked at John.

His brows knitted together at the center of his forehead. He looked troubled. It was not an expression that she was used to seeing on John Seed’s face; it might have been endearing, if she didn’t know that he was troubled by her, and not in the fun way.

“Spit it out, then,” Elliot prompted. John heaved a loud, impatient sigh.

“This is a stupid idea,” John said abruptly, angrily. It was a change of pace from the cocky asshole he normally liked to be. “There’s no way that they know they aren’t waiting for you to show up so they can skin and gut you, and—”

She waited, patiently, for him to get the words out. Whatever they were, they stuck in his throat.

“—and what use would you be then?” he finished, his lip curling up in clear distaste. Ah, there he is, Elliot thought absently. Almost thought I’d lost you, John.

“Don’t worry,” she said lightly. When she had capped her water bottle again, she headed to the back of the church. It feels good, she thought, pushing on the door, to have a plan again. “I’ll far outlive my use to you, Seed.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The plan was simple.

Elliot was going to walk herself—unarmed, much to her personal chagrin—out to the Sacred Skies Youth Camp, once they dropped her off. Jacob would already be in a position where he could get a good look at what was going on, and when he got a clear shot at Ase, he was going to take it.

And they were banking on the woman coming out to get Elliot herself, based on what Elliot had told them. John was not convinced, but he had been overruled; it was no longer his choice, and instead of going in and being on the same team as Elliot, he had found himself on the opposite of the playing board from all three of them—his brothers and the deputy.

Not ideal.

But now, as John parked the truck at the bottom of the hill leading up to the youth camp, all he could feel was dread knotting his stomach. The plan was supposed to be simple, but John remained unconvinced that it would be executed as easily as everyone seemed to think it would.

Elliot seemed in perfect spirits; she’d eaten a handful of granola bars, finished off two other water bottles, and her coughing had become less frequent. Not once had he seen her reach for a cigarette, either. It was like the second she had an actionable plan, she no longer stressed: there was nothing for her to worry about, beyond getting the job done.

John met her gaze through the rearview mirror. “You’re sure?” he prompted, and ignored the way Joseph’s head gently cocked to the side. Elliot flashed him a smile.

“Just focus on making sure Jacob doesn’t shoot me in the head,” she replied, “okay? And I’ll focus on getting Joey and Faith out of there.”

Joseph said, lightly, “That’s all we could ever hope for, deputy,” and when he did Elliot shot John a look through the mirror, a look that said, can you fucking believe this guy? And for one, brief second it felt like they shared a joke only between the two of them.

Then she pushed the back door of the truck open and kicked her legs out, landing on the dirt road with a soft thump. The blonde closed the truck door and then came up to John’s window, which had been rolled down, and said, “You’re sure you don’t want to give me a weapon?”

It would blow the whole fucking thing if they caught her with a gun or a knife, Jacob had said; if by some strange happenstance he didn’t snipe the shit out of the crazy fucking Swedish woman, and Elliot wound up getting dragged into the belly of the beast, having a weapon on her would out her immediately. They would know that she hadn’t come willingly, but that she had come with the intent to harm.

At least in the instance that they somehow avoided Jacob, she could lie her way out of it. Maybe.

“I have absolute faith,” John said, mimicking Joseph’s veneer of confidence, “that you can make a weapon out of just about anything if you need to.” She patted the side of the truck and took one centering breath, but before she could set off up the hill John said, “Elliot—”

The blonde turned back around to look at him, life and vigor back in her face and one brow arched loftily at him.

Be careful, he thought to say, the words sticking in his throat. That’s what he should have been saying, if they were actually partners—even fake partners, even tenuous partners, partners-by-proxy because John insisted for the sake of feeling like he had some control over the situation and Elliot because there was no one better that she had the chance to pick. Not exactly setting the bar very high, were they?

“Any day now, John.” Elliot’s voice snapped his attention back to reality. She was waiting expectantly, but there wasn’t impatience in her voice; she was content, at last, to have motion. He cleared his throat.

“Don’t start going yet,” he said, instead of the things he thought would matter, like, don’t forget to breathe. “Give Joseph and I a chance to get up to where Jacob is.”

She gave him a two-finger salute, wisps of hair fluttering into her face from a late-afternoon breeze. “Yes, boss.”

John threw the truck into reverse, pulling back and then into a u-turn to head off down the road. The car was silent for a moment, blissfully, with the golden-hour light drenching the two of them in a warm glow. If he didn’t know what was going on just out of reach, he might have felt like he was transplanted into a different time and place entirely.

“You don’t need to worry about her, John,” Joseph said lightly.

“I’m not,” John replied, pulling the truck off of the road. Dry brush crunched and snapped beneath the weight of the tires. “She’s perfectly capable of handling herself with three granola bars in her system and healthy bout pneumonia.”

“You sound frustrated.”

“I just think that maybe we could have picked someone that’s not—” John inhaled. He parked the truck deep into a grove; to the right of them, a small trail would lead up to where Jacob waited with his perfect vantage point to see Ase come out and collect Elliot. “—Sick,” he finished, after a moment, “and not such a wildcard. You know she tried to kill one of the guards when I had her at the ranch? She was going to choke him to death, right then and there. For—touching her, or something.”

Joseph looked unaffected as he stepped out of the truck. “I’m unsurprised, if that’s what you’re looking for.” And he paused, looking thoughtful for a moment, before he said, "Touching her, you said?"

John ignored the question. “Well, then maybe that should speak to the level of reliability Elliot displays.”

“I think you’re underestimating the power of a positively-reinforced bond.” As Joseph spoke, John fell into step beside him, climbing up the slope. Behind them, he heard the distant sound of voices; the members of Eden’s Gate that weren’t holed up would be waiting for Jacob’s signal to swarm, if things looked grim. “Didn’t she say she hated you, and us? And yet today, here she is. In a good mood, no longer frothing at the mouth, rabid and dangerous.”

“She’s still dangerous,” John started, but Joseph stopped him by pressing his hands to his shoulders.

“You’ve done exactly as I asked,” he said, a mirror of the words he’d said before. “Remember? You haven’t beaten your stray into submission. This—” Joseph gestured with his hand in the general direction of where they had dropped Elliot off. “—is all only possible because of the work that you have put in, John. And when we bring Faith home, and return to our followers, that is what they’ll remember. Not the person the deputy used to be.”

John’s felt something hot and painful twist in his chest, prickling pain squirming up his spinal cord. He should have been pleased to hear Joseph refer to Elliot as something that belonged to them and instead was giving him some ownership—but he realized too late that it wasn’t what he had been wanting from his brother. This wasn’t what he wanted from Elliot.

He swallowed and said, thickly, “Yes, Joseph.”

“Good boy.” Joseph held him in a tight hug, the pressure of the gesture relieving some of the stress in his shoulders like muscle memory pulling it right out of him, and then he pulled back. “Now, let’s go and get our sister back, yes?”

His brother stepped up the last stretch of the slope, and he followed obediently behind. Jacob was perched carefully, eyeing the scope and muttering to himself; as John crouched beside him, and Joseph on the other side, the redhead breathed out a little swear.

“Stupid piece of shit,” he sighed. “Remind me to get these upgraded next chance we get.”

“What’s wrong?” John asked, already on edge.

“Nothing’s wrong—the gun’s perfectly functional, it’s just not as stealthy as a rifle should be,” Jacob explained. “It’s got a red dot sight on it.”

John’s eyes narrowed, his teeth clenching. “So they’ll see it the second you get it on that woman.”

“They might,” Jacob protested, “I’ll just have to be fast.”

“Where’s your rifle?”

“It’s back at the center,” his brother snapped. “I didn't have the opportunity to grab it before I went on a wild hunt for you across the Montana countryside. Anything else I can help you with today, little brother?”

“There’s no time for arguing,” Joseph interjected, sounding almost tired now. “Quiet, now.”

From their vantage point, they had a clear view of Elliot. The blonde was yelling something to garner attention, to lure people out, and there was some movement through the trees that blocked off the camp up the road. He could see her start to walk farther up, and then stop, hesitating.

“Someone’s coming,” Jacob said, peering carefully through the scope.

Tentative bodies drifted down the road, breaking the treeline: though John could not see Ase’s strange, lithe form anywhere among them, he could hear what he thought was certainly her voice, saying something to Elliot, who had her hands up carefully to show that she was weapon-free as best she could.

The movement that he thought might be the Swedish woman stopped just before the treeline. Come on, John thought, taking in a breath, come on, you fucking bitch, come out here.

It was someone else that stepped forward from the protection of the tree line. It was Ase’s man, the tall, broad-shouldered ginger, though he too looked unarmed. John tried not to think about how easily he had nearly disposed of them with only his hands, last time.

The man made it to Elliot, gesturing for her to come forward, to close the last foot of distance between them herself; she did as he bid, straying to her right, feigning innocence. John knew what she was doing: leaving room for Jacob to make a shot.

“That’s not her,” John hissed. 

“Yes, I’m not fucking blind.” Jacob’s voice was sharp but steady. “She’s leaning for me. Who is he?”

“Her—right-hand man, or something. I don’t think you should take...”

John’s voice trailed off. The man had stopped Elliot, snagging her wrist—which looked tiny in his hand—and said something to her that did not look pleasant.

“I think I should,” Jacob muttered, shifting the rifle.

“Jacob—” John began, sensing the way his eldest brother’s muscles tensed, ready.

Elliot was saying something to him. She paused, just briefly, and John saw her head tilt down; she saw it, first, and then the ginger looked down at his chest just as Jacob was lining up his shot. 

The incriminating red dot gave it away. The man’s head shot up and locked on them instantly, and before Jacob could pull the trigger, he’d twisted Elliot around and pulled her right against his chest, his hand gripping the pillar of her throat.

John’s stomach plummeted. He heard, as though in a last-ditch effort, Elliot shout his name: and he didn’t know if it was because she wanted help or if she wanted someone to take the shot anyway. He didn’t know if either of those options was more comforting than the other. 

The man had shifted her so that the red dot now lay directly over her chest, pinning her, and Jacob did not pull away from the scope. Even from this distance, John could see the wicked grin splitting across his expression.

“Do not fucking shoot,” John hissed, “Jacob—do not fucking shoot—”

For sure, now, he heard her voice. "John," she said, desperately, his name choked in her throat by the grip of the Swedish man bruising her skin.

“There’s a good chance it would hit him and kill him,” Jacob insisted, his finger hovering over the trigger. “They’re goading us. This is the perfect opportunity to—”

“You fuck,” John seethed. “Joseph, tell him not to shoot!”

Joseph was silent, his jaw set lightly and his gaze fixed on the scene before them; Elliot, struggling to breathe, while the man began to make his way back to the treeline with her body shielding him. For the first time since Elliot had become a problem of theirs, John saw his older brother take time to consider whether or not he really needed her alive or not.

“Killing a right-hand man would be—”

“The plan was to let her get taken in,” John snapped. “Not to fucking shoot through her to get to some nobody!”

“That was before they knew we tried to trick them,” Jacob insisted. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, little brother—”

“Leave it.” Joseph’s voice was final, and sharp. It seemed his brother was bringing an end to fights like this more and more often. “They won’t kill her, or the others. They want her for something. If you shoot through her, we’ll lose our one person on the inside.”

Jacob looked, for one split second, like he might willfully disobey Joseph’s final ruling on the matter. The hard lines of the eldest Seed’s face sharpened, steeling, before he finally flipped the safety on the rifle and straightened up.

A swift, hot breeze drifted through, picking up dust along the dirt road, and right as the shade of the treeline began, the man stopped. John could see Elliot squirming against his grip, her fingers grasping at his wrist and hands, scratching as she gasped for air: but he was immovable, and his attention wasn’t on her, anyway.

It was on them—where he thought they might be. He lifted his hand, thumb up, and two fingers out in the shape of a gun, pointed it at them, and mimicked a single gunshot.

Jacob was seething, the emotion rolling off of him in waves. “The fucking gall—”

But John wasn’t listening anymore. He felt like he was going to throw up. This was exactly what he’d been worried about happening—and here it was, laid out before him, a feast spoiled rotten by reality. He couldn’t get the sound of the way she’d called for him, desperately, like he was the last safeguard she had left.

And yet again, he had failed her. Her, and Faith, and sure, while he was at it, he could stick Joey Hudson’s name on the list; and didn't that mean he'd failed Joseph, too?

John came to a stand. “I have to go in,” he said, assertively, drawing both sets of eyes from his brothers now. “They know, now, and—they think Elliot is a big threat, so if there’s a chance she’ll put up a fight they’ll drug the fuck out of her. I should go in, and Jacob can watch my back, because—”

Because I don’t trust anyone else to get this done the way it needs to be. The thought auto-completed itself in his brain, but the words didn’t come, and it didn’t look like Jacob nor Joseph expected it out of him.

“John,” Joseph said, “are you sure you want to do that?”

“Faith is our sister,” John replied, “and didn’t you say that’s who I was? Ever-giving?”

The man hesitated, just for a second; the sound of chatter below, and Elliot’s furious voice rising as she presumably was given more room to breathe, echoed in the air.

“Yes,” Joseph said at last, relenting. “We did.”

John nodded, turning and making his way down the slope. He kept thinking of the way Elliot had said his name, because it wasn’t the first time she had done that; in the van, too, his had been the first she’d said.

And he couldn’t stop thinking of Ase’s man, either, and the way he’d wielded her with ease, the way he’d grinned when he’d spotted them, the way his hand gripped Elliot’s throat like he’d choke her to death right there if he’d gotten the chance.

No, John thought furiously as the truck came into sight, that won’t do at all.

[gemstoneconstellations]

I love your fanfics! And I was wondering do you have any tips for original fanfic writing or just writing fics in general?

wow this actually ended up a lot longer than i thought it would, but here we go!

Original fanfics, hmmmmmm....

What I generally do is base things off of my own personal experience. Like all my iida fics are stuff that happened between me and my husband before we got married. Can’t help falling in love fic with bakugo, that was a previous relationship i had (which there is more to that story). Caught with todoroki..... thats how i got out of a ticket with a cop and how i learned that when i half check someone out and half start thinking about what i would do to that fine man in uniform (curse my uniform kink) that i glare/make a suspicious face. and when he confronted me about what i was doing, ready to write some kind of ticket for whatever i was doing wrong, i was so embarrassed that i blurted out that i found him very attractive and what exactly was on my mind and how i wanted to take that uniform off him.... that has happened with a emt too, i missed the green light looking at his bulging biceps after he rolled up his sleeves to write on a clip board.... he waved and i proceeded to squat in my seat and slam my face against the stirring wheel. escape artist cat was actually a dream i had, someone was taking off my cat’s pretty ribbon collars and putting ugly ones on her and i woke up sooooo mad, but i turned that dream into a romance story (reality kuiper was taking her collars off herself cause she was a brat) Stories about yourself, no matter how small you think it is actually has great potential to become a fic.

its also okay to borrow ideas from other forms of media. I do. example, Silk Maiden, based off of  an old batman episode from the early 2000s. its completely okay to do that. I’m not saying copy and paste the exact scenes. Just take the premises and then change it. some examples, like the movie Brave is the Scottish version of Aladdin. the princess who wants to be free and live her life beyond her princess duties needs to get married and she is not having it and wants to change the rules and runs away to find something new. premise is the same but how the story is told is different, one denies every prince and find her own prince in the streets of her kingdom and the other finds a cake that turns her mom into a bear that helps them understand each other and appreciate each other more. a weeb example is isekais. There are sooooo many isekais. japan, Korea, and china are all mass producing isekais right now. the premises are all the same, someone from one world now in another world primarily thanks to magical truck-kun who is probably could be branded as a mass serial killer at this point. I read a lot and i love korean isekai romance novels. I have read an isekai where the character was a villain who then was reincarnated with the memories of her villainous previous life who decided to live her new life by repenting by helping others but guess what? truck-kun came in the form of a airplane crash and she wakes up again in her first life’s preteen body before she became a villain. I’m reading an isekai isekai, author of an isekai met truck-kun and woke up inside the body of one of her characters in her isekai novel. all the same premise but told in a different way. i want to write an isekai for bnha! take a premise and write what you wanted to see happen between those characters if they were in that situation.

same for some fanfics, like you read a fanfic and you like the story that you read but you wished for something more. You like the idea but you wished that it went in this direction or you wanted different  types of interaction, its okay to write your own fic with the same premises. i’ve done that. (side note: but if you are gonna base off of it where a lot of the stuff is the same the give the proper credit where it deserves. no stealing peoples hard work) thats what fanfic was originally made for, fans wanted something more from their favorite works or wants something different (Thank you star trek fandom who started all this). I’ve read a lot of villain deku fics and i was craving a specific type of villain fic where “he really isnt a villain but is one but there is a reason why hes being evil cause it is for the greater good cause of deku’s savior complex and border line martyr complex he’s had since he was a child” with a side of “hero/villain romance”, “surprise quirk” and “badass” and a healthy scoop of “bakugo becomes a better person on his own without deku at UA through the power of friendship cause he has that potential without deku’s constant interference”. no one had what i wanted, so i started writing it myself.

also dont worry about being original. you can write a common idea that everyone sees a thousand times a day, like isekai, and people will love it. focus on how you are telling your story, dont put so much effort in being different. actually, common or typical tropes/ideas help make the story more relatable. two books can be equally as good but one person can like book A over book B because they felt more connected to the characters in it. they could relate to the emotions that were being conveyed. 

now writing tips....hmmmmm well not everything works for everyone but this is what i do

I write notes down, lots of them. I have notebooks full of notes for my fics. some people can just sit there and start writing, but i like notes to keep me on track and remind me of stuff i wanted to add. Writing it down makes it easier not to forget, cause you are just lying to yourself if you think you’ll remember the idea for later. i got dialogue, scenes, plots, random quirk ideas, diagrams, (12) oc profiles, outlines, lists, and a event idea that i have that i want to do some day, all in my notebook. If you are going to write a long fic i strongly encourage that you do this. Outlines are your friend, they are bones of the story Ex:

Hero By Another Name original outline:

meet at a fire, firefighter impresses kiri who will later seek her out

kiri is becoming popular and wants to share the fame

they bond some how(?)

firefighter kiri, kirishima needs to wear a firefighter uniform

firefighter turns out to be a mega fan of red riot

photoshoot

kirishima finds out shes a nerd and is cool with it

firefighter is now popular

camping with baku or bakusquad?

miscommunication

kirishima does a big confession

I always start off with the key things i want for sure to happen. then i start adding to it. I write out the scene i definitely want to see or i can see clearly in my head. i just keep adding to it till its at least three pages long of just outline that has some images, random dialogue i want someone to say or little summaries of the scene i want.

its okay to jump around when you write. there are some parts that you know you need in a story to help it move a long but it can be boring. so i write one scene that i want to happen next and then i think of what needs to happen to get to that point. like how in hero another name where kirishima shows up unannounced to her apartment  and finds out she hoards all his hero merch while not wearing pants.  how do you make that not sound creepy and have kirishima be okay with it? by adding bits of how much of a fan she is through out the story! when they first have dinner together i threw in that red riot shirt to help break the ice and that he would then know that she was a big enough fan to buy his merch and that she admires him and that he is an inspiration for her. then later adding that interview where she talks about how she became his fan shows that she has years of dedication to him as a hero. so when he sees all the merch she has, it would make sense to him that she had all of that and not go “huh, will i be able to leave this place if i enter?”

if you dont know it, look it up. research. i wrote a fic before where the reader was pregnant the entire time, i started at two months to birth. I knew nothing about pregnancy on how it can affect your daily life and what it feels like beyond what health class and child development class taught me. So i looked it up. there is seriously so much that doctors look for during those many ultrasounds cause there are so many things that can affect your health and the baby’s and did you know there is pregnancy diabetes? you can become diabetic only during pregnancy, like after you give birth it can go away or stay, the human body is just tripy. but thanks to that research, people who have had children before left comments going “yessss, i remember feeling that” or “god, this was my sister in this scene, it sucks”. Its that relatability i mentioned before that really helps and it makes the story more believable.

(this is just my personal opinion mainly here feel free to ignore) when it comes to smut, write what you know and not what you fantasize about. im not calling anyone out but i can tell from how someone writes sex that they never had it and they are most likely younger than me. i’ve experimented a lot in my 25 years of life and i find myself going “oh sweetie, thats not how the vagina/anus works” when i read fics sometimes. there are guides online that are very informative and tell you what the feelings are like that you would expect. dont rely on porn too much on how sex works physically, maybe for dialogue. (i think of porn as just live action fanfics for the human mating ritual fandom). its okay to use other smuts as reference tools as well, especially if you dont know anything of the bdsm lifestyle.

beta readers help a lot. if you are unsure of ideas that you have, talk it out with a friend. I sometimes do this for myself or help others with their fics. its actually a lot of fun with a group of people where you just keep shooting off ideas together about stuff and just go all out fangirlling to the point you are rolling on the ground smiling. this can help with writers block or motivate you to keep writing. also having another pair of eyes to look at your fics, not just for corrections but for input on the story can help make it better. someone can see things from a different angle and point stuff out to you, plot holes or things that you can add.

im not sure what else to say other than stuff like format and spacing. sometimes i see people who write too long of paragraphs or there is no clear separation between them. thats killer on the eyes and makes me not want to read at all cause all i see is this wall of text thats just overwhelming. i want to call who ever formatted textbooks cause thats how they do it and it makes it so hard to concentrate on reading and absorbing the info. if i see fics with no clear breaks or long running paragraphs, i usually give up half way cause i just cant do it. its hard to keep track where you are reading and you start trying to focus on it too much that the story is just lost on me. it is hard on people like me who have dyslexia (who ever called it that is just cruel to people who have it cause you can never spell it without spell check and pronouncing it is just ugggh) 

i hope this helps

[dippedanddripped]

It has been a prolonged period of retail carnage: storied names declaring bankruptcy, mass market brands closing thousands of stores, tens of thousands of shop employees furloughed or laid off, garment workers in dire straits. More ominous still are the predictions that we will never shop the same way again.

For Jamie Salter and David Simon, however, it has been a time of great opportunity.

Mr. Salter is the founder and chief executive of the Authentic Brands Group, a company known for buying the intellectual property of famous brands at discount prices and then striking licensing deals with other companies that want to stick those well-known names on their products. Mr. Simon is the chief executive of the Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States with more than 100 properties. Together, they are reshaping the American retail landscape.

Last week, they closed a deal to buy the bankrupt Brooks Brothers, the 202-year-old American fashion brand and retailer, for $325 million. Last month, they acquired Lucky Brand denim, and in February, they bought Forever 21.

Together, the acquisitions will bring the global revenue generated by the company’s brands — a sprawling mix that includes Sports Illustrated and rights tied to Marilyn Monroe’s likeness — to $15 billion annually. And Mr. Salter is hunting for more.

“Look, if the world ends, which I don’t think it’s going to, then there’s no doubt about it, I’m not so smart,” Mr. Salter, a 57-year-old Toronto native, said in a phone interview. “But I don’t believe the world’s going to end.”

“Last year, we said within five years, we want to be at $20 billion,” he added, referring to the overall revenue generated from brands owned or jointly owned by Authentic Brands. “Another two to three deals could get us there.”

Many of the acquisitions are being made through a joint venture with Mr. Simon called SPARC, for Simon Properties Authentic Retail Concepts. Its roots go back to 2016, but it was created in its present form in January as a vehicle that turned out to be almost perfectly positioned to take advantage of the current state of the industry.

By teaming up, Mr. Simon, a press-averse Indianapolis real estate scion who declined to comment for this article, gets assurance that bankrupt chains and other tenants will remain in his shopping centers, while Mr. Salter gets a friendly landlord for his brands at a time when rent costs are crushing retailers, plus the chance to earn money by licensing the well-known names. Together, they own and operate 1,500 stores through their deals, which sometimes include Brookfield Properties, another mall giant.

The purchase of Brooks Brothers, where layoff notices have already started going out, has put a spotlight on this arrangement — and invited new scrutiny. Supporters say SPARC is saving the businesses it’s buying. Critics say it’s simply exploiting their traumas for fast profits in ways that cheapen the brands’ legacies. They say the SPARC strategy treats brands and stores less like hothouses of creativity that need careful tending, and more like chess pieces to be moved around for maximum, if momentary, gain.

That suspicion has been hard to shake for Mr. Salter. Authentic Brands’ purchase of the Sports Illustrated brand last year is viewed as a prime example of the company’s bottom-line approach to licensing. It sold the rights to operate the magazine and website to another company, which gutted the staff, while simultaneously putting the Sports Illustrated name on protein powder, CBD cream and swimsuits. And Authentic Brands’ purchase of Barneys New York’s intellectual property last year was fiercely contested by a group of investors who waged a “Save Barneys” social media campaign to avert liquidations and the licensing of the name, painting Mr. Salter as a villain who sought to dismantle a cultural institution.

“It’s not a long-term quality play,” said one retail executive who asked not to be identified because the executive had been approached about the Brooks Brothers deal. “It’s not about a love of the brand or the goods. It’s predatory and opportunistic.”

Understanding Authentic Brands’ business is crucial to understanding the tides of retail today.

The company, founded by Mr. Salter in 2010, bets on famous names in fashion and entertainment, often buying their intellectual property with the aim of striking licensing deals with those who want to use the brand names internationally or on new products. Authentic Brands tends to earn an estimated 4 to 6 percent in royalties through this model.

“History,” was one of the answers Mr. Salter gave when asked what he looks for in a brand. “Does it have good archives we can bring back, because the world repeats itself all the time. The longer the history, the better.” The potential to cut costs was another.

For years, Mr. Salter led a division of Hilco, a financial firm, as it snapped up the intellectual property of bankrupt retailers like Sharper Image. While the retailer’s stores closed, Hilco was involved with deals that put Sharper Image’s name on products like garment steamers that were cheaper than wares at the original retailer and then sold in chains like Bed Bath & Beyond.

At Authentic Brands, Mr. Salter pulled off an early coup by acquiring the exclusive rights tied to Marilyn Monroe, whose likeness drew the interest of everyone from Dolce & Gabbana to Walmart. His stable of 50 brands now includes Juicy Couture, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali and Frederick’s of Hollywood.

The Juicy acquisition in 2013, where Mr. Salter bought the brand but couldn’t secure its locations, made him realize the value of physical stores. Losing the stores, he said, hurt Juicy. “I can tell you unequivocally it’s easier to build brands with a retail footprint — touch, feel, try on,” he said.

Though Authentic Brands does not own the types of luxury retailers and labels as European conglomerates like Kering and LVMH, Mr. Salter said that LVMH served as “inspiration” and that they shared “similar ambitions.” He thinks of his company, where his four sons are also among the 200 employees (his eldest, Corey, is chief operating officer) as a family enterprise despite a roster of investors including BlackRock, Leonard Green & Partners and General Atlantic. The biggest individual investor after Mr. Salter, whose family owns about 20 percent, is Shaquille O’Neal, whose brand is managed by the Authentic Brands. Mr. Salter said that he has considered an initial public offering of stock but that the company has plenty of money and he doesn’t want to exit.

“Other people do want in,” he said. But, he added, “It’s a lot easier when you have two guys, and if there’s a problem, you pick up the phone and work it out in 10 minutes.”

Simon Property also holds about 7 percent after an investment in January, when it also increased its interest in SPARC to 50 percent, according to filings.

Four years ago, Mr. Salter said, “David came to me and said, ‘Why do you always close the stores when you buy the company?’” Mr. Salter replied that he was too nervous to operate the stores, worrying that the leases could become too expensive. Mr. Simon proposed teaming up with Brookfield to buy Aéropostale, which led to the formation of a venture called Aero OpCo. Mr. Salter owned 20 percent, and Brookfield and Simon the rest. (Brookfield, which is not part of SPARC, declined to comment.)

The mall operators wanted their tenants to stay and ideally resume making money. They were also interested in Mr. Salter’s marketing prowess and his brands, which they figured could eventually turn into stores at their malls.

“At the beginning, Simon just wanted ‘get my rent,’” Mr. Salter said. “But we started turning profits very quickly, and it started to be about building a business.”

Each side benefits. Mr. Salter’s brands have “variable rent” contracts with Mr. Simon’s malls, meaning their rent goes up and down with their sales and, in a lucrative arrangement, most don’t have minimums. Mr. Simon also receives a percentage of royalties from sales associated with the brand names. In January, Mr. Salter bought out Brookfield’s interest and the venture was renamed SPARC.

“Covid is a good lesson for all of us because thank God we had percentage rent,” Mr. Salter said. “We furloughed whatever number we had to furlough in Forever 21, and you’re only paying rent on a percentage of sales. It hurts a lot less.”

Still, some analysts say it isn’t good to see mall operators buying their own tenants out of bankruptcy at this pace.

There may be few options. As long as large retailers or hedge funds are unwilling to buy bankrupt chains like J.C. Penney, which could ultimately liquidate, “mall owners are the only viable acquirers,” analysts at Coresight Research, an advisory and research firm, wrote in a recent note. The firm estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 U.S. retail stores would close this year, and at least 50 percent are mall-based.

“Acquiring retailers raises questions about mall owners’ long-term viability,” they wrote. “Mall owners cannot buy every anchor retailer in their malls, and often they will have to let stores fail instead of propping them up,” the analysts wrote.

Mr. Simon bristled on a recent earnings call at the notion that he was buying retailers for rent. “We believe in the brand and we think we can make money,” he said. He compared critics of the venture to those who told Amazon to remain in the book business.

Still, rent is no small concern. In filings, Forever 21, a top tenant at Brookfield and Simon malls in the year before its bankruptcy, said the aggregate occupancy cost for its stores was $450 million annually. Lucky listed $66 million in rent and occupancy costs last year. Brooks Brothers said its 187 store leases and other corporate property leases cost about $86 million a year. On top of that, there are co-tenancy agreements, which can allow other tenants to break leases or demand rent reductions based on vacancy rates or the exit of certain retailers.

“I do believe that the strategy by Simon and Brookfield is to protect their co-tenancy in a lot of cases, but I think it’s a Band-Aid,” said Jackie Levy, chief business officer of Caruso, the real estate firm that owns California open-air shopping centers like the Grove. “It might solve the immediate issue of keeping some of their smaller retailers or shops in the malls, but long-term, those leases are going to expire at some point and there’s going to be a flight to quality.”

For his part, Mr. Salter sees opportunities to meld the brands that go beyond reducing corporate staff and sharing e-commerce capabilities. He can imagine, for example, Brooks Brothers teaming up with Spyder to make performance outerwear, and with Volcom for swim trunks. Saks Fifth Avenue still plans to introduce Barneys New York shops within its New York flagship and Connecticut stores.

“If I could buy anything, I’d buy Reebok,” he said. “Hanna Barbera. I like the Flintstones, Yogi Bear. Got big ideas for Yogi Bear. I love the Jetsons. They should be the delivery system for Amazon. Just call the Jetsons, they’ll deliver it to you in two seconds!”

Though Mr. Salter said he wasn’t joining a bid by Simon and Brookfield for J.C. Penney, he can envision pursuing a similar chain in the future.

“There’s no doubt about it that Jamie Salter’s dream is to have an A.B.G. department store,” Mr. Salter said. “And as David Simon says, maybe one day you’ll have your own mall.”

[iamcinema]

IAC Reviews #011: Bloodstream (1985)

Let’s go back a few years close to when I made this blog, roughly 2013 or 2014.

Around this point, I was looking for some unique, weird, and obscure titles to share for the horror forums I was apart of and to make notes of to eventually add to my collection. If I was able to find names that had little to no available information on them, then I knew I was onto something special. This would often bring me to sites like TwistedAnger that sold copies and transfers of horror, exploitation, and mondo films to fill me in on elusive material that were often times obscure and never got an official release. This little search would bring me to find Bloodstream, and with the interesting cover art, I knew I had to find more about it - but much to my dismay, there was very little to be had or known about it.

Bloodstream is 1985 low-budget slasher film directed by Michael J. Murphy, whom A Slash Above has dubbed the Ted V. Mikels of the UK, which is quite the comparison. Given that there was very little to go off of with this beyond the site’s review, I was left to scratch my head a bit as to whether or not I’d be able to find the film in its entirety beyond a few clips, which only made me hungerier for more after reading the synopsis.

Our story centers on Alistair Bailey, an up and coming filmmaker who is suddenly fired from a project he’s working on by a sleazy VHS distributor named William King. Instead of the film being scraped like he thought, he later finds out that King plans on distributing the film globally and it becomes a critical hit with the home video market. Rightfully pissed by this, Bailey seeks revenge and conspires to go on a killing spree with vengeful employee in a similar manner as the deaths in his movie - only this time, the effects will be real.

This got me pretty excited to check this out, and once the film got added to Youtube a few years ago, I was quick to jump at this. As a full disclosure, I did see and review this for UTA several years ago, but the details of my experience are on the hazy side. So, I won’t count this as a retrospective review this time around, but I’ll reflect on what I can if it’s as good or bad as I remember it being all those years ago.

Bloodstream in One Gif:

So, let’s dip our toes into this one.

________________________________________

But first, a little backstory about the film and what I was able to find. Going off the premise and opening alone, this one has a certain kind of tone to it, dare I say very pointed and self-aware. According to Murphy, the film was his response to distribution companies and presumably bad business experiences he’s had. Unfortunately, the film failed to be picked up for distribution before falling into total obscurity. I’ll return to this again towards the end to help wrap things up. The budget is also very low as one could expect; roughly £400 in 1985, or £1,053.02 in February 2020 (I’m not to sure what that comes out to in USD or CAD). Given the limited budget, I’m a bit surprised with what they were able to accomplish, and for that I’ll give it that much.

As far as our characters go, they were quite forgettable and the first time around I couldn’t remember who was who or what purpose they served. So, coming back into things with a fresh slate was helpful. Aside from our two focuses being Alistair and William, we have a couple others that will become topics of interest.

We have Judy, an actress brought into the flock by William whom he’s having an affair with to help advance her career. We also have Greg, a former pornstar who was brought in like Judy was to work under William. There’s also the matter of William’s family; his brother Simon, a misogynistic sleaze who has a thing for power while also being held under financial ransom by William at the company, his wife Sally, and his daughter Lisa - both of which whose dreams of being in the industry are held under William. All of this becomes important later on, which is why I brought this up. There’s also another focal character that ties this all together, that being Nikki, William’s secretary who acts as a mole and accomplice to helping Alistair get his revenge by adding fuel to the fire with her own hidden motives and intentions.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

________________________________________

As far as the story goes, it’s not all that bad, and in a way it reminds me of some tellings of Phantom of the Opera where our masked antihero seeks to get revenge on the Opera house owners who did him wrong by stealing credit for his work after being presumed dead. In a simialr fashion as the Phantom, there’s a lot of anger and malice behind the premeditated violence, and each of the murders was dragged out with a purpose in mind to send a message.

The plot moves along fast, as we’re immedately dropped into the action from the jump and the revenge scheme starts to take off within the 30 minute mark in a 73-minute film. However, it can feel like a log jam a bit with things being slowed down or padded out in the form of Alistair watching either his own movies or those from William’s distribution company. The quality of those films is pretty damn atrocious, playing on various horror film tropes and references like vampires, cannibalism, the occult, body horror, zombies, and Exorcist II: The Heretic - yeah, that happens. While it’s quite clear why these scenes are here in the first place, the run time could be shaved down to at least 65 minutes of these weren’t here.

From a technical standpoint, it’s not all that great and is overall uninteresting. The lighting is fairly poor, though I’ve seen worse. Some shots are overlit and others don’t seem to have enough, and while it doesn’t make it hard to see what’s going on, it adds to the overall cheapness. Speaking of which, the sets themselves aren’t all that remarkable either and it shows that they did their best to work with whatever they had with the budget since some of the locations feel like sound stages with black walls if it wasn’t places the crew likely had easier access to like their homes or a basic office space to rent out. There’s also a weird flickering problem where it will go from color to black and white briefly, which is a bit annoying as well.

The sound is probably it’s weakest point of everything else stacked against it, as some moments will be decently clear and others you’ll need to rewind it and try to figure out what was going on. I had to do this three times with finding Greg’s name, because I thought they were saying “Burke” for some reason. There’s also a fair amount of bad ADR going on, which is a bit laughable when it comes up. The sound quality in general just makes for a bad time with figuring out what’s going on, particularly in crowded areas where you have the background noise to deal with on top of it sounding like the actors are on the other side of the room when they’re in front of the camera. So, unless you have a good ear, you might be a tad bit lost, but it’s not on levels of Ax’Em bad.

On that note, how about the gore and deaths? While they aren’t perfect and are on the hammy side, I’ll at least give them some credit for having memorable death scenes and succeeding in what they could do for a microbudget. Some of them give me similar vibes to other slasher movies of the decade like Final Exam, Woodchipper Massacre, and Cannibal Campout, which I think helps me to enjoy them a bit more in a way. It tried, so I guess an A for effort is fair enough - especially with a particular implied off-screen death that’s quite brutal and Murphy apparently got a lot of e-mails and letters about it.

The acting is a fairly mixed bag as well, with it being mostly meh or average for the type of low budget flick where none of the actors went on to do anything else. When it comes to Judy, Greg, Simon, and the rest of William’s family, they aren’t there much to land a solid impact. So, when they get their own individual scenes where they’re on their own, there isn’t a whole lot to see to comment on about how well they hold up. They’re okay, nothing truly dreadful though. When it comes to Alistair, Nikki, and William though, that’s a different story.

While I found Alistair (and to an extent, Nikki) to be sympathetic, they didn’t do much to pull at my heart strings to get me totally revved up for the revenge sequences. The same can be said for William as well. Yeah, he’s a total sleazy, swindling bastard, but that’s about it. As a villain, he’s sort of forgettable. The writing itself is fine, which is surprising for this type of film, but the acting is stiff and doesn’t feel natural or right. I don’t know if any of the actors had prior experience given that they haven’t shown up in any other productions that I’m aware of or if a lot of the fault could be placed on poor direction. It’s a damn shame too since this could have been much better if one or both of those things could have been resolved. Plus, it could have been much darker too by pulling out all the stops since it already took plenty of risks with the aformentioned death scene and the social commentary it addressed. But we’re 35 years too late for that now.

To return to something I said at the start regarding Murphy’s intentions behind the film, much of this is heavily reflected in Alistair’s characterization where he brushes off the films produced by William’s company as “garbage”, and rambles about censorship, on-screen violence, and belittling distribution companies during the final showdown between him and William. Subtlety isn’t in this film’s dictionary, even more so towards the end where it raises the question about whether or not horror movies and the media contribute to real-life violence; much akin to other later films like Video Violence and Woodchipper Massacre. Yeah, it’s not an original concept at all and it’s been no stranger to us since the turn of the century or even for the time when the Satanic Panic and PMRC Senate case was going on, but it’s nonetheless fun to see how different artists handle the topic at hand.

________________________________________

So, what are my thoughts on this one? Well, I’m torn.

Back when I reviewed this in 2015, I was rather harsh on it for how low the quality was and that the acting was subpar at best. It left so much to be desired, as it could have been much bigger if it was given better resources to shine. I’d like to think there’s some other timeline where this could have been the success that Murphy wanted it to be, rather than his least favorite film he’s directed and ultimately faded away into obscurity - fulfilling its own prophecy in a way to become Bloodstream decades later.

With that being said, I think my old rating of 3/10 was a bit much. It’s no gem or masterpiece in any way, which again, is the sad part. But, it’s also not a total disasterpiece. If all the pieces fell in the right spot, this would be an easy 7.5/10 for me at the very least. However, with the technical issues and wooden acting, I’d give this a 4.5/10 to be on the generous side. If a day ever comes where someone wanted to do a faithful remake of this to show what we could have had, that would make for a fun night. If you want to give it a watch some time, it’s up on Youtube and it makes for a decent popcorn flick.

Rating: 4.5/10

[rahimaldemir]

Dying Light 2 - Q&A

In the official Dying Light discord one of the representatives, Uncy, from Techland held a q&a session during E3 2019 and I took the time to copy everything down. There were a lot of questions asked, but I only copied down the ones that were answered.

Uncy said they were going to post a FAQ with all of these questions and I’ll make sure to link it when they do. As of right now, I don’t think it has been released.

A lot of people were typing during the session and unfortunately a lot of questions got repeated. There is also a decent amount of typos in these questions, but it felt important to keep the Q&A session in an honest a form as possible, so I have not corrected any typos or omitted any duplicate questions.

I did add a “Q” and “A” to the beginning of every question and answer for clarity. Uncy used emojis sometimes in their answers, but I did not copy those over if they weren’t text emojis.

I have put my own notes in [italicized brackets].

WARNING: There are huge spoilers for The Following in these questions, they are marked to make them easier to avoid, but please be wary.

@tafferfield I know you got a pretty wicked master list of DL2 stuff, so if any of this helps you feel free to grab it and add it.

Putting under a read more because this is long:

Q: Are all current zombies considered volatiles? A: Not really, there are still regular zombies and volatiles

Q: Zombies only exit the night? A: now that's a hard one, zombies can stay outside for some time during the day but they get weak IN THE SUN

Q: How much diffrent endings are there? A: About endings - more than one, don't want to spoil it

Q: Battle royale mode? A: no BR mode

Q: Are you able to clear the city of zombies? A: Basically human learned how to deal with infection, so the more humans the less zombies

Q: how does Aiden stop from turning? does he use antizin or something else A: antizine is finished but human discovered that strong UV light weakens the infection, that's why you have the biomarker

Q: Is Aiden a foreigner to the land like Crane? A: Aiden doesn't even know Crane exists Q: I meant is Aiden from around there or did he come from somewhere else A: he's not from the city, he's an outsider

Q: What are future plans for multiplayer? A: multiplayer wise - we have some stuff coming apart from co-op, but I can't really share multiplayer details now

Q: Will there be a fallout kind of karma system? A: karma system? nope but your choices and actions will affect how people see you

Q: How long will one playthrough of the game be? A: hard to tell, but i know that dl2 will be a game for a long time

Q: Will dying light 2 feature the same great ragdoll physics as the first. A: upgraded ones

Q: Will the game be translated into Brazilian Portuguese as the first? A: more languages will come, cant really tell for now

Q: Can we expect to see actual time sensitive activities within the game? (IE: Do this now or forever lose the chance) A: Yes, but its more like choice wise, like do one thing and u will never be able to do another

Q: Will you play Dying Light 2 with me on release ;d? A: why not

Q: Will Aiden be customizable (e.g. hair, individual clothing pieces,etc) A: yup there will be customization

Q: Is there a weapon combo system? A: what do you mean by that? Q: Like a combo like last game you could spam attack and hold it for a more powerful attack, I'm asking if you can combo attacks like 2 quick attacks and then a charged attack or stuff like that [This question never actually got fully answered]

Q: Did anything replace the grappling hook. Did it change in anyway? A: there's a grappling hook - and some more options to travel cause the city is huge {you will be able to upgrade them}

[SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING]

Q:if the vial ending from the following is canon (if the following is canon) is crane a Volatile?

A: in some way - both are canon. It's up to the player to choose it Q: will Crane make an appearance or not. If you cant answer then atleast say which ending is canon A: not really

[END SPOILERS]

Q: Will the game launch with any DLC's? A: i dont think it will launch with dlc's but post release support is planned

Q: The last trailer showed working vehicles, will we be able to use some? A: Yes

Q: How many different kinds weapons are there (number) A: too many to mention, we're still adding more weapons

Q: is it sticking with the old crafting system or are y'all switching it up A: crafting system is upgraded a little

Q: are in dying light 2 developer tools having the chance to make custom movements and animations? A: I don't really have info about dev tools right now

Q: Are firearms coming back ? A: No guns, no firearms - but there will be distance weapons like crossbows

Q: do we gain strength or anything when nighs fall? since we are infected A: during the night you need to use UV lights to stop the infection, you wont get stronger

Q: is the choices you make permanant (one save only) or can you save and go back? A: you can save and go back on some difficulties

Q: Czy będzie drzewko umiejetnosci tak jak w 1 ? A: tak

Q: Is the max number in a party still going to be 4 or will more team members be able to join in co-op multiplayer, if there is any. A: 4 player coop

Q: is there a system where our beard can grow out and cut it same with hair like rdr2 asked a few times chat just to fast lol A: hmm, i don't think so

Q: Can you turn into a zombie if you dont pay enough attention to your wristband? A: that's still under discussion, i don't think you will be able to play as a zombier tho

Q: When the game releases, are you able to link your old account from DL1 to get rewards? A: we wont forget about dl1 owners

Q: will you be able to upgrade/modify tools like grappling hook and the UV flashlight? A: yes, tools will be upgradeables

Q: are we going to have trading cards to craft badges on steam with dying light 2? A: Yup

Q: Will the UI be changed completely, both in-game, etc? A: there will be some changes for sure, i dont know how hard tho

Q: How many skill trees are there, and are they any more complex? A: you can upgrade a lot of stuff now

Q: Are ranged weapons going to be as powerful as they were in DL1 or is it a bit more balanced A: there are no guns, so its balanced

Q: I wonder if we will see some more gameplay (apart from the trailer) from E3? A: something will come this month

Q: what are the main factions in dying light 2? A: Peacekeepers and scavengers - those are two main factions, but there are more

Q: Who is the girl in the trailer? A: that's actually one of our employees but for now all I can say that she's singing in one of the bars in the city

Q: Has the infection gone worldwide A: yup

[SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING]

Q: What happened to kyle crane? Will he have anything to do with the game

A: he ded

[END SPOILERS]

Q: will there be an enhanced edition or any other editions or just the normal one? A:there will be different editions - more details coming soon

Q: Will some weapons from Dying Light 2 (before release) be added in Dying Light? A: watch the trailer closely

Q: Are you taking in any alpha testers any time soon? If so I would like to be the first volunteer. A: there are no tests planned for now

Q: Referencing the Trailer, will we have the ability to choose our siding, survivor or what seem to be the "law"? A: its all up to you and your decisions!

Q: during the first game the side quests were some of the most amazing in the whole game, my question is, will those little side quests be present in the second game as well and will they also impact the game A: Yeah! side quests will be there and there wont be just easy fetch quests, but rather a small stories on their own

Q:There's a post. On twitter(?) That mentions something like "as Aiden you can do things no one elese can" Does that mean there will be benefits in having your infected level reach a certain level? A: Aiden is simply well prepared to live in The City - that's all I can tell right now

Q: Will there be new skill trees or the same ones? A: would be weird to put in the same skill trees

Q: can you upgrade parts of the town? and is roger smith coming back for Voice acting A: depends what do you mean, if you help certain people by your actions or choices, they will start to build stuff like bridges, farms etc which will help you, they will also get rid of the zombies from buildings etc

Q: Is it possible, that BTZ will be in Dying Light 2? A: possible but not confirmed

Q: can we get the song from the trailer? its sick A: I think i got the name somewhere, ill add it to faq [Couldn’t find Uncy’s link, but I was able to find two of the three soundtracks featured in trailers on youtube: Help I’m Alive and Crimson Blaze & Battlefields]

Q: Please dont add lootboxes A: Cmon

Q: Why can't we pre-order A: cause we don't have all the editions ready yet

Q: got 2 questions: - Will we have a season pass for a limited time just like in Dying Light so we can get the DLCs for free? - can us console players please get a fov slider A: 1.There will be a season pass 2. I'll let the devs know about fov slider

Q: Will there be a new type of villain like Rais? A: nothing is white or black in The City

Q: Will it be the same loot system or a loot system at all? A: what do you mean by loot system? like those crates etc? Q: I'm referring to weapons and stuff like that. A: then I don't really know, afaik it got changed a little

Q: Can we expect to see a different climbing mechanic, same with the grapple? A: parkour system is upgraded a lot, grapple is coming back ofc

Q: 1. are there gonna be volatiles in dl2? and are the zombies in dl2 more faster, brutal and better in movement to chase u down? A: There are new and old zombies, can't tell more atm

Q:Will some of the old zombie mutations be returning? A: yup

Q: Distance weapons are mentioned, does that mean a weapon smith we can get distanve weapon blueprints from? A: you can created your own weapons

Q: Are there other zombie types than the ones mentioned in the interviews? If so can we know a bit about them? A: there will be more, no info now tho

Q: On the topic of Grapple, is it expected to behave the same as DL1, or will it have a different mechanic, such as a swing? A: grapple is different now and you can upgrade it

Q: an we drop kick zombies and humans from sky scrapers? A: Yup

Q: Will the grappling hook operate the same as in DL1? I think it was overpowered and needed bigger cool down, it took away from parkour element a lot for me. A: as I said later, it's reworked a little - not OP now

Q: Is Brecken alive in Dying Light 2? Or is he maybe related to protagonist? A: no one from DL1 comes back

Q: Does no ranged mean guns or are we also losing the bow/crossbow A: never said no ranged, i said no firearms, ranged weapons will be there

Q: Will the gore be overhauled or different in Dying Light 2? A: it will be upgraded, there are also new finishers coming in

Q: Will quarantine zones come back? A: dark zones will be in the buiuldiings

Q: what happen to the cure A: gone

Q: will there be more weapon upgrades than in the first DL? A: a lot more

Q: can we put miniguns on vehicles or weaponize them like the buggy from The Following? A: I don't think so - nothing for now at least

Q:What happend to the GRE? A: They were there when the infection started - they are the ones that gave away the biomarkers - no sight of them in the city now

Q: If there's a co-op mode, what is the max amount of players in 1 lobby? A: 4 players max

Q: Will there be more end game content then dl1? A: yup, first of all you will have to finish the game multiple times to experience the game fully, end game will also be improved

Q: What do you think will be there an epic crossover mission when we meet kyle but he's turned A: I don't think he will come back

Q: Infected animals? A: animals will be there, you can hunt them, dunno about infected ones tho

Q: Are there children in DL2? If so, can we kill them? A: Brutal

Q: Referencing the ease of combat in DL1, can we expect to see actual struggle when going against enemies? Will we have the feeling of should I fight or run? A: Ups [???] depends on the difficulty for sure, some of the fights will be hard, for example - you fight some guys near to the building and then zombies hear it and come out for few minutes, and you have XvXvX fight to go trough

Q: Kiedy pre order? A: Niedługo

Q: are the voliatile hive quests coming back? A: you will be cleaning some mess for sure, I don't know if those particular quests will go back

Q: Alright. I asked if we'll get skin to customize our weapons as in we keep them forever as blueprints and we can apply them to any weapon? A: customization will be upgraded, that's for sure, I believe we will actually share more details about it in the future

Q: Will there be brutal finishers after stun, like in old Dying Light version where Kyle pulls out smth from the chest? A: yup, we're still adding more and more finishers

Q: Are safezones upgradable in any way? A: you can't upgrade them as in "click a button and its happening" it changes when you do something for the city or you act in some way

Q: is there gonna be a volatile chase mission in the sewer like dl1? "extraction" with more running action? A: that's a really gameplay-detailed question, I don't think i have answer for it now

Q: Will there be weapons rarities? A: some weapons will be stronger than other - don't know about how will we deal with rarities

Q: can we do farming? A: i think that other people are meant for farming, not Aiden

Q: Is dl2 going to have the same docket system like dl1 if not please explain A: dockets are cool, would be good to have them back

Q: Will zombies give a fight for your life feel, or will it be light DL1 where they are primarily just nuisances? A: try going to dark zone during the day, you wont get out of there alive

Q: do we have a different type of vehicles or just one like dl the following we only had the buggy + we are going to have horses and motorbikes or no ? A: there will be some vehicles - more about that coming soon

Q: is there going to be any refrences from dl1??? A: yup, there will be differences [I’m assuming the question was misread]

Q: you said that there wont be any firearms in DL2, but can you maybe tell what's going on in here, as a game dev? It confuses me quite a lot [pic of peacekeeper with what looks like a gun] A: concept arts are not 1:1 gameplay

Q: Is there gonna be something that can make you even stronger if you maxed out all skill trees? (Like the Legend in DL1.) A: that's a really late-game stuff, i believe something like that will come

Q: will the hostile factions attack you if you go into certain areas (i.e if you take a safe zone for a scavenger will the peackeepers attack you in an office building A: yup

Q: how much is pre order and when will it go live A: we are still taking care of different editions and prices

Q: Are the weapons going to become more modern as you level up ? A: nope, weapons are really "hand made" but they all look cool

Q: Will there be any stational turrets, which you can craft/use in some safezones to clear hordes? A: people are dealing with the infected, turrets are too modern

Q: we can pre-order the game soon ? i mean like next month maybe or after a while ? A: yup, preorders will go live when we will figure out the versions etc

Q: Will multiplayer/coop loot be instance based, or client base? (DL1 uses a client base, as each player gets their own drops/items from chests/zombies) Instance based would be there's only 1 item for all players, first to grab gets. A: We still need to figure that out, I believe we will check which one is better

Q: any cool easter eggs coming? A: a lot of them

Q: Will there be any missions that require 4 players, and can more people join you for the final boss? A: 4 people is max

Q: will there be any more presentations or info about DL2 at e3? A: there will be more + new s this month

Q: Will there be boss fights and if there is at the last story mission do we have to be alone? A: don't ask about last mission when the game is not out

Q: we can play with animals like far cry ? i mean like u send animals to attack zombies or something like that, and will there be infected animals too or no ? A: you will be able to hunt animals for resources, i dont think you will be able to tame them

Q: what your prediction about the pc spec? A: i think you will be fine if you can run modern games, We go for FPS over resolution and we aim for 60 at ps4 and xone, its not confirmed tho

Q: so is there going to be some sick loot if we have dl1 and bad blood?? A: there will be something for DL owners

Q: Are there gonna be hunger and thirst bars, and food and drinks you can loot around the world or get from faction cities and safe zones? A: that's still under discussion, its not confirmed

Q: Will we see random wildlife throughout our explorations? (Not those of zombies.) A: yup and you can hunt them

Q: Will we be able to use the dying light companion app in Dying Light 2 A: probably yes

Q: so is there infected animals or no ? A: I dont think so, it's not really confirmed, so we will see

Q: Can we get a confirmation that the dev tools will be available eventually considering it massively increase the longevity of the game and wasnt a total fuckup of a decision like bad blood was? A: about dev tools - im still waiting for confirmation

Q: sorry for the torture but will there be a PVP gamemode or any special gamemode for DL2? A: we will have multiplayer based discussion, for now there are no details to tell about mp

Q: will DL2 get better mod support ? Something like Fallout 4 so we can add more stuff to the game A: i hope so

Q: asking again, will there be seasons? like winter and summer with weather changes? A: I don't think so

Q: Do i have to side with 1 faction completely? Do certain factions control certain safe zones or are safe zones neutral territory? A: nope, you don't have to side with 1 faction

Q: limitation (character inventory)? Like we can no longer have unlimited or 99x items in stacks - including crafting materials. A: I think there wont be limits to crafting materials, like 99x, i need to confirm that with devs tho

Q: Will there be walking zombie hordes, which will try to destroy safe zone's gates? And will it be like event? (is it really possible)? A: people's safe zones are protected with UV lights, zombies wont cross them

Q: Can I sleep in Dying Light 2 to skip night? A: the whole day-night cycle is changed in DL2, more details coming soon

Q1: will there be xray like in the old game A: what x ray Q2: Survivor sense, he meant I think Q3: the critical blue hit, when u hit a zombie, thats what he means A: oh, survivor sense is coming back

Q: Will duplications be patched frequently? As in DL1 there are still many that can occur. A: well i hope there wont be any dupe glitches

Q: Around how long would it take to playthrough the game once? A: quests etc are still coming so i cant really tell how long it will be right now

Q: Btw every pre-order got a bonus content so ofc dl2 got bonus content so when i buy the game after the release i can get this content even if i buy higher edition or its for pre-orders only ? A: i dont think we will have any preorder exclusives, time will tell tho

Q: How many quests Will there be? A: a lot

Q: how many or which of the zombie types from the first game will we see again in DL2? A: everyone from DL1 is coming back (zombie wise) wise some cool additions and upgrades

Q: How many factions are confirmed so far or at least under disussion? A: 2 main ones are confirmed, and there will be more side ones

Q: will there be any sort of vehicles we can drive in DL2? A: yup there will be vehicles

Q: Will there be shields and (fast?) counterattacks after blocking? A: ripostes will be there, im not sure about the shields but u can block without it

Q: The map takes place in a City, is this city based on a real life counterpart? A: it's a fictional city based on european cities

Q: what happened to the firearms i mean why they are removed from the game ? A: they are very rare commodity 15 years after diseaster

Q: can we drive vehicles? A: yes

Q: When does the Q&A end? A: in around 10 minutes

Q: I don't know if this was asked. But Will we be able to explore more then the city? A: the city alone is 4 times bigger than the first DL, there is a lot to explore, dunno about going outside tho

Q: Will there be some type of pvp in the game? A: more info about multiplayer modes will come very soon

Q: Who is the voice actor for aiden A: dunno to be honest xD not the kyle voice actors and that what matters [This has been released. Aiden’s voice actor is Jonah Scott.]

Q: So there is firearms in the game but they are very rare and hard to find ? i mean u can still find them but its hard right ? A: i mean that they are so rare that you wont find one, but as i said, there are still ranged weapons, and some you can craft on your own

Q: Will it be a new Be The Zomby ? Or Human player invading other world like DS3 ? A: as i said, no details for multiplayer this time, sorry! :x

Q: Will the implemented day/night cycle have any special amendments? (Can we expect to see random encounters/anomalies on random nights/days?) A: would be cool, ill ask devs

Q: In the trailer we saw bracelet and how "charges go down". What will happen if it goes down and will we have "antizin"? Can we buy or trade it? A: there is no antizine, strong UV lights weakens the infection, its still under discussion what will happen when it will go to 0, most possible outcome is simply dying and having to restart the game

Q: Hold up. "No guns" or "very rare guns"? I saw both those answers from Uncy A: its pretty much the same, like, they're all pretty much gone

Q: what about invasions? Be the zombie A: no multiplayer details now

Q: Is the game 4 times bigger then just the slums? Or the WHOLE game A: the whole game without the following

Q: Will there be more interactions within the game? (IE: Fishing, skinning the animals we hunt, cooking, etc) A: yup, there will be a lot to do in the city

Q: Will DL2 be on next gen xbox as it just got announced? A: right now we plan ps4 xone and pc release

Q: Will it be possible to take (offline) single-player saved games online, and if so, what proactive measures will Techland take to prevent game-save mods from disrupting the online multiplayer experience? A: as i said, multiplayer details will come in the future, those things are still under discussion

Q: Can we go and roam outside the city? A: Aiden wants to stay in the city

Q: my final question what is the virus called is it still called the harran virus A: well it's not in harran only anymore

Q: Is there some way to calculate just how many final outcomes you can get out of the game? Like in Detroit Become Human for example A: not really, not right now at least

Q: will screamers have more of a purpose then obstacle you have to get around A: they will be different this time

Q: Legend levels made the first game really easy so are they in dl2 or no ? and if they are there so is it balanced now or it will still make the game so easy ? A: legends levels are still under discussion as well

Q: Still another question about that charges... Will there be some visual and sensitive effects (like in Dying Light where the screens goes green and we dont have stamina)? A: yup, i think so at least

Q: Will there be more detailed animations for each thing we do? (If we activate our flashlight, Aiden would reach to his shoulder to turn it on) A: some things are speed up of course to not be annoying, but there will be more animations, like imagine having to reach the uv light for a 10000 time when volatile is at your face

Q: Will this channel remain so we can review all the previously stated questions? A: it will be closed but it will remain (i need to make QA out of it)

Q: Will it be possible to take (offline) single-player saved games online, and if so, what proactive measures will Techland take to prevent game-save mods from disrupting the online multiplayer experience? A: i responded to that with - no multiplayer details for now, I really don't have any info about it

Q: Can we ride horses ? A: nope

Q: Is korek in dl2? A: i dont think so

Q: anything to mention about Night hunters? A: night runners you mean? actually Aiden is the only man capable of reviving hte nightrunners caste

Q: wingsuit? A: maybe this will be one of the things we will be talking about - i mean, new traversal options

Q: Will we have the ability to pursue affections of NPC? Such as a friend meter, or even a lover? A: you will be able to interact with every single npc in the game - how? you will see

Q: Any building destruction in ds2? Like walls collapsing when you use explosives, would be cool A: just the last one - yes environment is destructible in some cases

[theartofmedia]

Game Theory and the Art of Persuasion

Full disclosure from the start: I don’t like Game Theory. (I enjoy MatPat when he’s in other things (like the Random Encounters musicals, I think he’s wonderful there), but just not Game Theory.) I’ve heard a lot of other people not like Game Theory either, both personal friends and strangers on the internet, for a variety of different reasons--namely, inaccurate research, twisting of facts, and allegations of art-stealing (but we’re not going to talk about that last one for the sake of staying on topic).

Yet, it remains incredibly successful, and its fans are loyal. Many people believe the theories, or at least parts of them. Even when the top comments of the videos are critical (or even hateful) in nature, the videos still do well.

So, why?

Well, there’s no denying that a good portion of GT’s audience is young. I think we’ve all had that one creator or piece of media that we wanted to defend because we loved it, only to realize later that it wasn’t that good. (And many people still enjoy these things and recognize that they aren’t good.) Younger teens have a strong need to defend what’s important to them, regardless of however valid the criticism is--in fact, giving any negative criticism at all often just spurs them on further. Young teens just don’t have that reasoning ability (and let’s face it, we were all like this when we were that young, whether we like to admit it or not). GT is going to be successful as long as that loyal fanbase continues to thrive.

So why do people believe the theories?

I believe I have my own little “theory”--MatPat, to some, is very persuasive.

Not with well-structured arguments, but with his rhetoric. It’s in what language he uses, the visuals he puts up, his tone of voice, and how he subtly tweaks the facts in order to slant the information in favor of his argument.

(Note: I am aware that MatPat not only has editors but script-writers as well, but he has to approve all of it and read out the script. So while I’ll use GT and MatPat himself as sort of umbrella term, I do know that he is not responsible for everything.)

Let’s use the video “Game Theory: Kirby...Dream Land’s Biggest THREAT! pt.1″ and break down some of the major points. (I’ll be putting timestamps so you can check for yourself or follow along.)

Whether intentional or not, MatPat uses a lot of strong, slanted language in his arguments. At 2:14, he states “So what is Kirby? Is he hero of Popstar, or world-consuming villain? A pink puffball for good, or a fiery god of evil?” This sets up a dichotomy--good and evil, right and wrong. People are naturally drawn to definitive, clean choices. They’re easier to understand and easier to grasp. Setting up this dichotomy sets up two sides: Kirby is good, or Kirby is evil. No room for other nuances and small details that add depth, or room for any explanations of the circumstances that could lead Kirby to act the way he does.

2:22--”Surprisingly, Kirby lore does have an answer.”

2:25-2:29--”The Kirby games have slowly been revealing more and more of what the true nature of Kirby is.”

3:09--”... what the designers are intending to do with his character.”

These three statements encapsulate a common criticism of GT: MatPat exerts his theories as truth. “Have an answer,” “true nature,” and “intending to do” are all statements that present his argument as factual, as truth. He even pushes that onto the Kirby writers, saying that it’s what they were ‘intending to do’ with Kirby’s character. Now one could make the argument of him just making blanket statements and that these aren’t all calculated instances, and you’re probably right--however, regardless if intentional or not, it still plants a sort of subliminal idea in the viewer’s head that ‘what I’m going to tell you is accurate and true.’

(Also, at 3:09, he shows a visual of “kirby lore” books connected by a pentagram. Very subtle use of imagery to send a message, which once more ties back to the binary he set up earlier. It’s pretty clear what he wants you to believe.)

2:30--”And the answers they’re starting to give are shocking.”

3:16--”... after this two-part theory, I don’t think you’ll be able to look at Kirby the same way again.”

This, along with the Satanic visuals presented previously, are priming the viewer to think that Kirby is evil. It’s setting up for that assertion, easing the viewer into it so that it’s easier for them to think “oh yeah that makes sense.”

And that’s just at the beginning of the video!

Now probably the biggest criticism of GT is that he spins the facts and intentionally leaves out information, inadvertently giving inaccurate information in order to support his argument. Well--he’s basically flat-out admitted to doing so in his emails to potential script writers (as shown by this video from Inside A Mind (timestamped for convenience), where MatPat actually commented on it and talked about the incident that IAM was referring to and never outright stating that the contents of those guidelines for script writing were false.)

I feel like we don’t talk about this enough: the Game Theory script writers are actually told to omit information that contradicts the theory. Now this makes sense on the surface--omitting information that would weaken your argument--but thinking about it even a bit makes it confusing and even a bit shady. GT frames its theories as though they were scientific theories, and intentionally leaving out information that contradicts what you’re trying to say isn’t how you make a scientific theory, especially if it heavily disproves what you are trying to prove. You would acknowledge that there is contradictory information and either try to provide a counterargument, or just admit ‘yeah this exists and we don’t have an explanation for it.’ It’s okay to have holes in your argument, no argument is perfect! However, GT flat-out ignores this contradictory information, and in doing so, it actually twists the facts. (Honestly, in my opinion, him acknowledging the contradictory information would make his theories more credible.)

For example, in the Kirby video, he discusses Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star/Super Star Ultra, and how the main objective is to stop the sun and moon from fighting by summoning Nova, who can grant wishes, with the help of a jester named Marx. Marx, however, betrays Kirby to get his own wish granted because he wants to take over Popstar. Kirby has to destroy Nova in order to save Popstar and possibly the rest of the universe.

Now the way MatPat explains it...

(starting at) 6:19--“When the sun and moon are fighting up in the sky, one civilian speaks up with a solution: Marx. His proposed answer to this literal star war is to summon Nova, a giant space watch that grants wishes. [something something dragonball joke] Kirby travels planet to planet to harness each one’s star power, making him quite literally an alien invading army to the locals of that area. After decimating seven planets’ worth of creatures [something something metroid joke], Kirby successfully summons Nova. But before he can make his wish and justify all the damage he just caused across the galaxy, he is betrayed by Marx, who wishes to take over Popstar. [...] Kirby goes on to defeat Marx, but also has to destroy Nova in the process, leaving the universe one step back from where this quest first started, and ultimately invalidating all the bloodshed from all the planets he just visited.”

... he frames it as though nothing was accomplished, planets were destroyed, and everything was ultimately for naught.

Conveniently leaving out that the sun and moon stopped fighting--you know, what caused all of this in the first place--in order to work together and help Kirby stop Nova. And again, his wording frames Kirby as this monster, while also conveniently forgetting about player choice. One can choose to not hurt the enemies--and the enemies are enemies for a reason, because they hurt Kirby.

So in the end, while Marx was stopped and Nova was unfortunately destroyed, the problem that Kirby set out to solve was, in fact, solved, and peace was restored. Putting back these facts completely changes the meaning of what MatPat is trying to say, and omitting them makes them inaccurate information. He does this frequently in order to support his arguments--and the very fact that he has to twist the narrative in order to make it fit how he wants to at all implies that said arguments don’t have much to stand on to begin with.

However, if you didn’t play the game or didn’t just do a quick google search like I did it sounds plausible, because there aren’t many missing pieces there (unless you think about ‘what happened to the sun and moon?’). It seems that GT is trying to reach the people who don’t know about these games, as they would be the ones who would most readily believe it. Kirby fans would be skeptical or outright against what the theory says, but if you didn’t know about what the games actually were, then it would make perfect sense.

(I’d also like to mention how he says that Kirby’s Avalanche isn’t canon and then uses it for a full minute to support his argument it’s not entirely relevant to this but it just Grinds My Gears)

15:51--”And again, if you think all of this is a stretch, and I’m reading too much into these details, I’m not.” 

And at the very end, he once again asserts the idea that the information he just presented you with is true. It’s repetition; many times if you repeat something enough, people will start to believe it. It’s similar to repeating the thesis statement at the end of an essay so that it all ties together nicely.

To the average viewer, the Game Theory videos may sound very persuasive, especially with MatPat’s charismatic voice and assured tone, the editors very snappy and visually interesting editing, and the enticing words and phrases he uses in order to grab attention and prime the viewer for what he’s about to say. However, knowing even a little bit about the source material of what he’s talking about can make the theory videos fall apart, because in all honesty, the videos don’t have much actual substance. It’s like a house of cards; one light breeze and the whole thing topples.

Despite all of this, I still have hope that, someday, Game Theory’s content will improve, and these types of criticisms will be addressed. Until then, we can only wait.

[moistwithgender]

Media Roundup (February 2019)

I wanted to try and squeeze in one last finished show into the last day but I ended up having a really bad sleep schedule hiccup. Anyway, here’s what I finished this month:

Games:

This is actually the shortest list this month, on account of me mostly playing through a single game somewhat slowly. If you follow my posts, you might be able to guess what series it’s a part of.

Super Robot Wars EX (SNES): At the end of the previous post I warned that if you want to get into SRW, SRW2 is an extremely rough starting point, even though it’s canon to the four or five original SRW canon games mostly on the SNES. Thankfully, there is a youtube video that shows you all the dialogue and combat snippets from SRW2. That said... if I wanted to stick hard to canon, I would have either played SRW3 first, or waited for the incoming re-fan-translation that will drop probably at the end of March. BUT, I wanted to play SRW and not jump to a game so far ahead that the mechanics alienate me to the earlier games, so I started EX. EX is largely a contained side story that takes place in and revolving around the original properties of SRW canon. Said original properties involve La Gias, the world that exists inside of planet Earth, and a three-sided war involving mechs that run on magic. There’s a lot of politics and strategic talk and fantasy worldbuilding grounded in fantasy science and it’s actually really fucking cool. They take the time to explain how due to a (magical) scientific phenomena, prophecies are always accurate in La Gias (yet preventable with the right effort), which is exactly the kind of bullshit I love.

However, due to summoning rituals, the setting is also flooded with “Surface Dwellers”, AKA people from different mecha anime who have been written into a melting pot setting that contains all their narratives (sometimes cleverly tweaked to allow and complement each other). This isn’t just a hand wave, but worked into big plot points. It is genuinely stunning how much the creators of these games actually tend to give a shit about making these narratives believable and interesting. I say “believable”, though it’s also worth noting that, as with manipulated inclusion of various IPs, canon is general is somewhat malleable in SRW. There are usually multiple plot options in the games, and EX features a unique system with three separate campaigns that, depending on the order you play them, and also depending on the choices you make and how well you play, change the sequence of events in other campaigns as they weave into each other. It’s not handled amazingly, and to see everything, you may play the campaigns some three times each. I don’t really have that kind of patience, because these early SRW games are also sufficiently challenging games. While not nearly as bullshit as SRW2, EX features a fair amount of incentive to save and reset for better RNG, and you might spend an hour or longer on later maps because situations get really tight. EX is also considered one of the easier early games (phew). Despite that, the maps are almost all really enjoyable, you just have to be willing to work for your victory at times.

The writing, with much credit going to the stellar fan translation imo, is also a compelling read, and dialogue is frequently hilarious despite how much it also focuses on political intrigue and fatal drama. The “hard” campaign (at times equally or less difficult than the “intermediate” campaign) has you playing one of the main series antagonists, whose right hand minions include an oujosama who openly talks about how horny she is, a princess with hardcore stockholm syndrome (or is it?), and a semi incompetent little blue bird as a psychic familiar. A running gag is them chastising each other for using rude words. These characters have apparently been popular enough to reappear even in the modern titles, which largely are self-contained timelines of their own, with their own canonical tweaks.

Last point I want to touch on (this single game just has so much to it) is that playing this game out of order is interesting in how canon is referenced. In most self-contained-stories-in-greater-narratives, you’ll get somewhat forced exposition drops when a character is (re-)introduced. Most of these games so far tend to treat pre-existing characters on the same ground as OCs, where a character doesn’t say, for example “yo I’m goku I come from earth and I’m a super saiyan”, but kind of just realistically reacts to the scenario as per their characterization. If you learn more about them, it’s mostly via seeing them interact with other heroes or villains from their own canon (though later games include library bios to catch you up if you want). While this creates an interesting experience where, if you don’t know a series, you get that curious feeling of walking in on the middle of something, but instead from the beginning. The most interesting aspect of this, and what I consider the defining aspect of the game’s storytelling, is that the same delivery is used with the original characters. From the get-go, the original characters in SRW EX talk about other elements the way real people do, without vaguely audience-oriented exposition. Some people won’t like this, but it makes it feel much more real to me, and complements my recent exploration of the breadth of mecha, where I know a ton of names and have very little context, and slowly accumulate context as I go along. It’s a lot of little micro-mysteries. EX didn’t start this, either. SRW2, which is both the first SRW with a plot or even dialogue, introduces the main OC of SRW, Masaki and his Cybuster, who has a lot of his own lore, and tells almost none of it. You are left for the entirety of SRW2 to only grasp the fringes of what Masaki’s story is, and when he says “hey I’m actually leaving now in the middle of the game because I have my own plot bye” you just deal with that. SRW establishes that the world is way bigger than you, even though the core concept of the series is rooted in fanservice. Now, part of this is that Banpresto and Winkysoft probably had a big MCU-style plan from the beginning (cough most ambitious crossover in history cough), because, well, look at this release timeline and associated narrative chronology:

-Super Robot Wars (Game Boy, April 1991) No plot, or dialogue, but establishes the Big Three (Gundam, Getter, Mazinger) as playable characters and has the kaiju villain from an old 70s Getter+Mazinger crossover movie as the final boss. The pilots don’t exist, the robots are all apparently sentient beings. -The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES, December 1991) Beginning of plot, introduces a proper antagonist (Bian Zoldak), an antagonist force he leads (Divine Crusaders), light political intrigue, Masaki Andoh and his nemesis Shu Shirakawa are established vaguely while having a separate plot that is not explained. IMAGINE juking your audience with your own main character like that. He doesn’t serve as protagonist yet but is clearly, like, the most important OC? Bian and Shu even serve as the final bosses and you don’t even know who Shu really is. The kaiju villain from before comes back for a single map and evolves into a stronger form unique to the game. The heroes from SRW1 also all acknowledge that SRW1 happened and they know each other. This establishes that you cannot rely on canon. -The 3rd Super Robot Wars (SNES, July 1993) Haven’t played yet but I hear this is where they really started playing with canon. Mixes the Divine Crusaders plot with the plot of the original Gundam series. Multiple endings exist now, and plot regularly splits into dual branches. -Super Robot Wars EX (SNES, March 1994) Here’s where it starts to get complicated. This focuses on Masaki’s setting, while continuing off of SRW3′s plot. Elements introduced here will continue to be referenced in SRW4 (the ending screen even explicitly states that, which reinforces my idea they planned this all years in advance). Multiple campaigns with malleable canon means nothing is concrete ever again. -The 4th Super Robot Wars (SNES, March 1995) Campaign now splits into Super Robot (Getter, Mazinger) and Real Robot (Gundam) routes, which is easier to handle. This game finishes up the “Classic” SRW timeline, but would also canonically be replaced by two remakes on the PS1 (SRW F (1997) and F Final (1998). However... -Super Robot Wars Gaiden: Masoukishin - The Elemental Lords (SNES, March 1996) Masaki gets his own game five years later, beginning his narrative. This game has no mecha IPs, and is exclusively OCs. The most complicated aspect is that this game is split into two chapters: the first, at the start of Masaki’s story, and the second, which... if I have this correct, follows after EX and SRW4. The previous games have, supposedly, been referencing this game that has not existed until now, and this game references what has come before. Playing SRW feels like being lost in linear time. This game starts off its own timeline of games that, I hope, stay confined to the OC-centric games. 

So here’s the timeline:

First half of SRW Gaiden SRW2 (loosely referencing SRW1) SRW3 SRW EX SRW4 Second half of SRW Gaiden

As a result...I can never be comfortable writing a suggested order of play. In playing these games, you simply must accept that the world is bigger than you, and at all times you will be an outsider to some degree. You know, until you’ve played all of them. Which you can’t yet, because they aren’t all translated yet.

Phew! That’s a lot of words about Classic Timeline SRW, and I’ve only played through two games. Thanks for reading all of that, I hope it kept your interest. Despite how complicated that got, EX is a great game and easily in my top SNES RPGs now, up there with Live A Live and Dragon Quest V. Let’s move on for god sake!

Oh, right. Almost forgot: (SRW EX: Masaki’s Chapter: Beaten 2/9/19) (SRW EX: (One of the two versions of) Lune’s Chapter: Beaten 2/15/19) (SRW EX: Shu’s Chapter: Beaten 2/20/19)

Fun fact: In EX, if you use a cheat code on the title screen to play through Shu’s route with a suped-up absurd final boss-strength version of his mech, and run into one of the other protagonists, then when you later play as that other protagonist, you’ll have to fight the cheat version of that mech as a boss.

Orbital Paladin Melchior Y (PC): I had to play something else this month, and because I’m trapped in a fugue state, I made it something mecha related. Melchior Y is a small, hour-long visual novel/shoot em up made by John D. Moore, who I know mostly as a_new_duck from the selectbutton.net forums. I’m... not gonna have as many paragraphs to talk about this, or anything, as I did with SRW EX, so if he sees this I hope he doesn’t take that as a negative. Reportedly, this has multiple routes, though as of this writing I’ve only played one of those. I don’t know if that means multiple endings! I liked it for the small gamejam game it is, though. John is an academic and a mecha fan (and did his thesis on mecha, iirc) and so this is reasonably an introspective mecha story focused on children conscripted for space war purely for their utility, and adults who boss them around despite no longer being allowed to pilot once they hit the very beginnings of adulthood. It gets dark! A smaller positive about it is the matter-of-fact inclusion of queer identity, comfortably existing alongside religion without having to immediately make the plot about the conflict between those (at least in the route I played). I enjoyed it, and if you have the patience to explore artier games that aren’t polished AAA cash houses, you might gain something from it too. Here’s a link if you’re curious, it’s currently free.

Anime:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai: I already wrote about this last time, oops! Still, despite a couple stumbling points, this is fun character-driven supernatural lit, and if you’re mad at Persona games for bad political takes, then this... at least this doesn’t have those! The funniest thing about the series is that the bunny outfit is easily removable from the plot and barely relevant past the first couple episodes. (13 episodes, finished 2/5/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu)

Punch Line: I actually went in expecting something akin to the sort of wackiness I remember way back when FLCL was fresh. I didn’t get that, necessarily. What I did get was (as I would discover after I wiki’d it later) a fucking Kotaro Uchikoshi story. That’s not a bad thing, but if I had gone in knowing that, I would have been prepared. Uchikoshi writes light novels. Extremely convoluted, mysterious, non-linear light novels. As I was watching this show, I actually thought the whole time “is this a fucking light novel adaptation?” It wasn’t, but it was by the guy who wrote Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (one of my favorite DS games), and Ever17: The Out of Infinity (probably one of the most miserable game experiences I’ve ever had), and I was easily identifying his particular brand of storytelling. There is a LOT that can be said about his style, but I’ll try to keep it short with a paraphrased example (don’t @ me if this doesn’t explicitly describe any one of his plots, it’s close enough). He likes to tell stories that start as quirky or high-concept, but somewhat mundane, skip a scene at one point, and then progress until you suddenly hit a big plot point that turns everything on its head and, in my experiences, causes things to immediately end tragically. Then you see the scene you missed. The scene held a plot point literally so important that it completely changes what the story was ever about. From then on you are fed a trickle of left-field plot twists until eventually the plot is unrecognizable from how it started. His work is as stupid as it is clever, and he’s got the strongest grasp of continuity I’ve ever seen a human being have. This is the polar opposite of SRW’s “fuck canon” philosophy, and that’s not for the worse on either account. Punch Line starts as a story about a boy who dies, becomes a ghost, and then has to figure out... something? (I should clarify I watched all of this overnight while not sleeping as as the story built more and more upon itself I had to fight to keep following it) BUT ALSO, if he sees panties twice, he’ll accidentally destroy the earth. Those details are, like, one percent of the secret plot that the show is built upon, and by the end when the wacky dorm sitcom has become a full blown world war with government conspiracies, I was like “wait why is that girl a superhero again?” Everybody deserves to experience an Uchikoshi story once, just for the wild novelty of it. I don’t think this is his best work (I think 999 is better), but it perfectly exemplifies his style.

Also, I spent the full binge watch (which I rarely do) thinking it was a visual novel adaptation. Absolutely convinced. But, it turns out that, no, he just writes like he’s making a VN game. The “panties = genocide” concept is so obviously a choose-your-own adventure mechanic that I thought it had to be. On the bright side, an actual VN adaptation later came out, and even came out in English on the PS4. And they added in apparently ten episodes’ worth of significant extra plot, so I might play that.

Also, it’s called Punch Line because in Japanese it sounds like “panty line.” That’s it. Also maybe it’s referencing plot twists, or mortality, idk. (12 eps, finished 2/6/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu/HIDIVE)

Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow (Movie): A month later, I finally got around to the rest of Gundam 0079. I think I might like this movie best of the three, even if it does feature a lot of character death is kind of a downer at times (granted, that’s kind of most of Tomino’s work isn’t it). This movie is where most of Kai Shiden’s character development occurs, and it’s nice to see his go from a bastard to a sympathetic, uh, bastard. He’s terrible and my son. (Finished 2/9/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space (Movie): You know I really like the original Gundam in concept, and even execution, but sometimes I’m chewing through it. Even when boiled down to the compilation episodes I’m just pushing through at times. I mean, I think part of that is my burnout and executive dysfunction issues preventing me from fully enjoying things, but it could also just be that I’m baby. This was the movie I liked the least, despite having some of the best moments in the series. The final showdown is genuinely incredible, and there’s probably a lot of essays out there discussing the recurring theme in Gundam of invoking the figure of Newtypes, while also regularly denying being one (even to oneself!) after engaging in a lot of telepathy. My problem with MSG3 is that they packed the most plot points into this one, and it gets to a point where it was hard for me to follow. Mirai goes through two separate love triangles, and a huge tactic (bordering on the severity of a war crime) happens and then is iterated on in such a small amount of time that I actually lost track of who had it and how I was supposed to feel about it. If I were to rewatch it, I might grasp it better. I spent this movie feeling like I should have just watched the 50 odd episodes instead, for the sake of comprehension. Idk! Hate to end this on a negative note, because this series has layered characterization, complex examinations of war, the things people do in war, and the ways that war changes people, and also cool robots. It’s probably something you can revisit multiple times and gain new value from each time. (2/15/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: Guess who watched this on Adult Swim a long time ago and almost totally forgot! This series is amazing and probably going to stay my favorite Gundam series. The animation is consistently beautiful and consistently had me comparing it stylistically to Cowboy Bebop, from the body language to the lavish mechanical displays to the character writing to the excellent english dub. The US got it ater it was complete, but the original airing of it was spread out over three and a half years, and given how flawless it is, I can understand why. If you’ve have a spot in your heart specifically for watching the switch axe change shape in Monster Hunter, you’re gonna lose it watching them do maintenance in this show. Character-wise, while 0079 was about watching whiny teens complain and break protocol on a regular basis, 08th MS Team is as much about living army life as it is about going on missions. There’s soldier superstition, there’s writing to girlfriends back home, there’s complaining about staking out in the desert for five days. I haven’t watched MASH, but the things I have heard about it make me link the two. 08th MS Team is also about a super unfortunate star-crossed love between people on opposite sides of the war. This plot element is a recurring one even back in 0079, but here it feels the most heart-wrenching, and with the very weighty and believable mech combat (it’s so pretty, good god), I was constantly worried about the well-being of all the characters, Fed and Zeon (except for Ginias). If you have any interest in anything, you have to watch this. I’m not good at selling things.

I watched all of this when Hulu was threatening to remove it, but now it appears to still be up? Uh, so go watch it I guess. Oh fuck, right, I almost forgot. The last episode of this is so bad they didn’t even air it on TV in the US. It’s tangentially related to the plot, claims to be about the main characters but instead centers on two side characters and like six new ones, has zero character development, has comparatively/definitively awful animation, relies entirely on misdirection towards the viewer to keep the plot barely hanging together, and has no satisfying payoff. Thankfully, it’s sort of an omake episode, and you can completely skip it. (12 eps (minus 1), finished 2/20/19, Hulu)

I can’t find a decent HQ poster so have this you filthy animal.

A Place Further Than The Universe: It’s not about robots! Wait. Is it about robo--it’s not about robots! I had heard about this show for a while, it was almost universally agreed upon by everyone that follows seasonal anime to be easily the best show of all of 2018. And wow they were not kidding around about that. APFTTU (oh god that acronym) is about four high school girls who decide to go to Antarctica. It is a feelgood comedy with occasional ventures into very real drama, and is rooted very realistically. The show is semi(?)-educational with the attention it gives to showing how real life expeditions work, while also liberally flowing into the poetry of the concept and experience of such a thing. The four girls are all hilarious and innocent without being cloying and, and this is the most important part, without being written with voyeuristic appeal. It is not off-base to have concern for the ways in which a significant number of female cast anime are written with intent to appeal to lonely men who want to feel a safe ownership of something innocent and attractive. It’s not all of them, but it’s a significant amount. Male gaze exists even in the lesbian shows, it’s something you sometimes have to roll with. Here, however, these girls are fully realized and believable, it is obvious that they are developing people, and that is treated as its own value, not as something to covet. If you’re lookin’ at thighs in here, that is your problem, and I’m calling God. A subplot that comes up involves a guy who gets a crush on one of the older women, and he tries to make it about his narrative and is immediately shot down by the whole cast, because this isn’t a vehicle for his romantic conquest. This isn’t anyone’s romantic conquest, really. It is significant to me to say, “this is an anime I could show to my mom and not be worried about.” I know I just said 08th MS Team was required watching for everyone, but A Place Further Than The Universe is required watching. (13 eps, finished 2/26/19, Crunchyroll)

Giant Gorg: At some point I picked this out to watch on CR without any prompting. Wait, I had one prompt. I knew nothing about this show except I think for seeing it on a short list of tumblr user @lightningclone’s favorite anime. It kind of floors me that this came out a year before Zeta Gundam and has way way better animation. Granted, Zeta has twice the episodes, which might be a big factor. The defining trait of this show is probably way it unravels itself, focusing for multiple episodes on exploring what of the great mystery of Austral Island and Gorg has been established to the audience, before revealing something more an deliberately taking it’s time as it takes you to the next reveal. The reveals don’t feel like twists, because a twist comes out of nowhere and sidelines you. The reveals here feel organic, and expected, but all the same compelling. Another good trait of the show is the characterization. Everyone fits into a very different role both in terms of personality and function, they all have their own motivations, and they all complement each other in unique ways. Also, this show has an Usopp. Back before Usopp was a thing. He’s Dr. Wave, and he’s the best character. 

If I have any criticism for the show, it all comes at the end. Near the end a character does a heel turn that, while a little twisty, is hinted in the beginning of the show, and in his heel turn the writers go a bit overboard and have him commit some sexual violence that goes on for an intentionally uncomfortable amount of time, and features frontal nudity. I know we’re supposed to think “oh god he’s a horrible person actually,” but 1) the main character is a child, I kind of expected this to lean family friendly with the occasional dark element (ignoring all the hilarious New York graffiti at the start that says FUCK in several places because America), but... okay! And 2) the stakes rise to a point by the next episode that the characters, including the victim of that violence, all just shrug it off, like whatever! The character is even redeemed by the end, which I wouldn’t mind if the betrayal itself was less physical. It’s a bit much for me, and I wish they hadn’t done it. Aside from that, I feel like the ending itself is a bit anticlimactic, but everything up to these two points had been so solid that I still think it was worth the watch. Worth it if you like mystery, adventure, and big robots, but worth bearing in mind the trigger warning for near the end. (26 eps, finished 2/27/19, Crunchyroll)

Manga:

Shin Mazinger Zero Vols 1-3:

[Serious Content Warning For Everything]

Shin Mazinger Zero is reprehensible garbage and I hate it. While inspired by Go Nagai and intentionally over-the-top, the absurdity is juvenile, offensive, and often just empty. Now, it may seem hypocritical of me to complain about transgression in something based on Nagai’s works, but I genuinely don’t find this transgressive, just extremely self-indulgent of toxic masculine fantasies, both sexual and violent. It has interesting ideas, about how Mazinger is both a tool possible of great good or great evil (literally the mission statement in every Mazinger work), and it wants to explore alternate timelines to see how characters can be corrupted or overcome corruption. The visual of a demonic Mazinger is genuinely pretty rad.

...Okay maybe he’s not, he’s kind of overdesigned. I like the toothy grill, though.

The problem with that exploration of corruption is that sometimes a character is just a horrible monster for no reason, without much explanation (so far?) for how that comes to be. Maybe in volume 4 they’ll get more into that, since they are currently in flashback mode, so there’s no undoing the damage.

Anyway, female characters so far are hypersexualized and submissive or motherly, or hypersexualized and, like, totally unreasonable. The hot robot girl sat on my lap in her underwear and did sex moans, why are you mad, main love interest? Men are testosterone as FUCK. The hero is constantly yelling to the point of visual distortion, no matter how the drama of the scene is being portrayed. The old man villain Dr. Hell is, for some reason, jacked as hell, and in the backstory to the main timeline (it’s all post-apoc) he shows his superiority over everyone by crushing Not Obama’s balls in his grip. I know exactly the kind of dude that would find this appealing and that’s the kind of person I avoid.

Honestly I knew this series was going to be a trashfire from square one and just kept reading out of morbid curiosity. The story starts in media res at the end of the world, with sexy girl robot disintegrating the hero so his soul can go back in time and try the timeline again. Okay, sure, I’m on board. Immediately next we’re shown what I would assume is The One Timeline To Get It Right, after establishing that there have been thousands of timelines where the hero is corrupted by evil. Pretty normal storytelling. And then, uh, the hero’s grandfather molests and murders the hero’s girlfriend, because the hero might become evil. My face is in my hands at this point. The incomprehensible shame. The hero is then corrupted and goes on a killing spree and humanity’s caught in the crossfire and the world ends. After *that* we get the One Timeline. Why? Why say things have always been bad (and I guess imply that bad things are the default) and then waste my time with the worst shock value trash that comes after for a full volume before actually starting the story? It’s edgy garbage! Why is this an official Mazinger work? Stuff like this is what makes me stop and think “wait are all Nagai’s works like this and I’ve been lying to myself when I like it?” Christ, this turned into a rant. Moving on.

[Content Warning Over]

Dumbbell Nan-Kilo Moteru? Vol 1: Idk if talking about horny manga after that mental breakdown is gonna make me look weird but hear me out.

Hot girls lifting weights.

You still here? Okay, good. I started this on a mutual’s recommendation and while it’s not regularly engaging with my own things (I’m more of a “watching fit woman deadlift and hoping she drops it on me and I disintegrate like so many dead leaves” person), and with the two main girls being high schoolers, I try to avoid engaging with that in that way. Luckily, there’s a teacher my age with a bob cut, so we’re good! More interesting, though, this is in the same genre as that Skullface Bookseller Honda-san anime (though less biographical), where the author just wants to explain their job or hobby while also using likable comedy characters as the vehicle. Anime made edutainment work.

I’m starting to get tired and I wanna wrap this up but unfortunately I have a bit to talk about regarding the last manga I read in Feb.

Tokyo Ghoul Vols 10-12: I’ve been reading this for the past, uh. I read it a lot last year, I don’t know when I started, though. Around 8 books in I started slowing down and taking long breaks because phew! I’d hit the end of the series’ big bad story arc and was having trouble picking up from there. I’m glad I did, though, because the story is still getting good. Here’s hoping I can handle the sequel series, because Tokyo Ghoul itself only has two books to go.

I’ve talked about TG a few times before, maybe just on Twitter. It’s very intelligent “vampire” lit that ramps up the stakes of transition by saying “you can’t just suck their blood and let them go! Human meat is your food and you’ll suffer without it.” At first, I was like “oh wow lol this is edgy” but the last twelve books have talked about trauma, alienation, and most importantly loss of innocence. It’s also about the importance of the bonds between people. The main character is perpetually at odds with himself, trying to be a good person in spite of the fact that being a ghoul is literally and figuratively being a monster. It could easily be an overwrought story of self-indulgence and angst but everything in it has been careful and effective. Ghoul culture is thoroughly built up and balances concepts of territory and posture along with careful deception for the purpose of staying a part of, and hiding from, human culture. It’s about predators who cannot remove themselves from their predatory nature, even if they want to be people with families and educations. There’s an organization that wears white and hunts ghouls with weapons crafted from ghoul bodies and functionally I can’t fully argue with them, sort of, but hey we’re starting to discover that corporations are corrupt (who knew?) and that’ll be fun.

But forget the poetry and human condition, the best thing this series does is that unashamedly works the Hot Topic aesthetic. The main character likes reading books and wears an eyepatch to hide his heterochromia and works as a barista. He wears a mask that evokes an S&M lifestyle. Ghouls can only eat people and all other food taste rotten. Except for black coffee. There’s also a number of ghouls with black nails and eyeshadow, and very heavily coded queer male characters (some more flatteringly portrayed than others but that’s a whole other thing). If Sui Ishida never listened to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, I’ll eat my fucking feet.

@sun-eater-official I think this might be up your alley. Or maybe not! But these aesthetics sound like you. Actually, you should probably watch 08th MS Team too, for the Bebop vibes.

So that’s everything! I thought I had a short list but apparently it was all things I had a lot to say about. Again, if you read all of this, thanks a lot, I hope I end up introducing you to a new favorite. In the future, I may have to split these into separate posts for each category. I have a lot of free time to write these lately. Writing two roundup posts back to back is a bit tiring, but I don’t have to do another until April starts.

[mst3kproject]

108: Project Moon Base

Saying ‘fuck this movie’ doesn’t seem like enough, really.  Please take a moment and picture the full Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing it to the tune of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.  That should about do it.  I’m gonna say ‘fuck’ an awful lot in this review, like even more than I usually do. I really hate this movie.

This was a very moon episode.  After a couple of dull and suspenseless episodes of Radar Men from the Moon, we get on to Project Moon Base.  In the far future year of 1970, the Enemies of Freedom are working to destroy the UN’s space program.  To do this, they kidnap a Dr. Wernher and replace him with a lookalike, who is ordered to go to the atomic-armed space station and destroy it in a suicide mission. He’ll have crew-mates on his rocket, though – and Major Moore and space program legend Colonel Briteis aren’t going to let him complete his mission without a fight.

Wow, space spy capers and secret plots!  It sounds so exciting when I write it down!  Too bad this movie is actually so dismally fucking cheap and boring.  The KGB apparently works out of a nicely decorated living room somewhere, and the Spacom offices aren’t much better.  Everything is bare walls, clean tables and desks, and giant clocks on the walls, and none of it resembles a place people actually work in.  The actors all look like they’d really prefer to be anywhere else and recite their lines at a fast clip that suggests they’re just trying to get this ordeal over with. Given the characters they were being asked to play, I feel for them.

And then there’s the stuff that’s just fucking surreal, like the skullcaps or propane-tank-headed spacesuits that wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of Rocky Jones: Space Ranger. Or the fact that the first ‘suspicious’ thing the fake Dr. Wernher does is support the wrong baseball team.  Or the annoying reporter whose name is Polly Prattles (I guess to imply that she endlessly ‘parrots’ everything she’s told?) and who dresses like a disco ball!

About the only thing that really earns any points is that the effects people made a commendable effort to be realistic.  Stuff like the lunar rocket and the frisbee-shaped space station are intended to look practical rather than future-y, and there’s a discussion of orbital mechanics (though it’s confusing and useless to the plot).  Navigation information refers to bright stars like Fomalhaut and Polaris.  Microgravity is mentioned and there’s even a pretty neat shot where characters walk on the ceilings with magnetic-soled boots!  I’m also impressed that they actually filmed some miniatures for their rocket takeoff scene, instead of using the same stock footage we’ve seen in fifty other films.

That’s only a fraction of the movie, though.  The other ninety-eight percent or so I absolutely despise from the very bottom of whatever twisted black abomination remains of my soul, and the reason why is the fucking characters.

The first characters we meet are the villains, although calling them ‘characters’ seems like a stretch.  I’m not entirely sure who any of these people are or who they’re working for… I’m gonna keep calling them the KGB for lack of a better descriptor.  They’re bland men in bland suits who behave as if destroying the capitalist west is just their day job – the bald bellhop guy may say it’s a twenty-four-hour job, but I bet these guys are out of that hotel room the moment the clock clicks to five pm.  Even the guy posing as Dr. Wernher isn’t very interesting.  Shouldn’t at least one of these people have some kind of motivation besides getting paid to do this?  What happened to revenge, or fanatical loyalty to an ideal, or desperation to protect a family who’ll be killed if you don’t comply?

Weirdly, it’s the fake Dr. Wernher who is the closest thing we’re given to a POV character!  We follow him into the hotel to take over from the real scientist, and them learn about the space program in tandem with him.  If not for the opening crawl I’d be wondering if we’re supposed to root for this guy.

Our so-called ‘heroes’ have some more personality, but those personalities are the furthest thing from likable. First there’s Major Moore, a big sulky baby whose masculinity is threatened by Briteis outranking him.  When he finds out he’s been cut from the mission in her favour he whines, and when he finds out he’s been assigned as her co-pilot he whines more because now he’s got to take orders from her.  At the end when they marry, he is promoted to Brigadier General mostly so that he’ll outrank his wife!

Briteis herself is no better – we see a few sides of her and they’re all terrible.  She pisses and moans about not wanting to interact with Moore, either, and then engages in passive-aggressive dick-measuring contests with him while the two of them are supposed to be flying a spacecraft and saving the free world.  You almost can’t blame him for his jealousy when she takes every possible opportunity to rub things in his face.  When things go wrong she manages to land on the moon, but then becomes a breathless damsel in distress, leaving Moore to make all the decisions… and then when they’re saved, she reverts right back to whining.

(Yes, by the way, the non-MST3K edit does show them actually landing, and no, it's not very exciting.)

The General in charge of these two is an ass, as well.  He basically guilts Moore into accepting an assignment he doesn’t want, and when Briteis protests it as well, he tells her to shut up and then threatens to spank her.  These people are supposed to be members of the military, an organization that is associated with rigid discipline, efficient organization, and a strict chain of command, and yet they display less professionalism than kids at a lemonade stand.  Jesus Christ, how about we just let the bad guys take over the world?  They at least have some fucking dignity.

The moment we discover Briteis is a woman is supposed to be a big surprise, since the characters have carefully avoided any gendered language so far – this seems to hint that we are looking at a future where equality of the sexes has been achieved, but what we see after that quickly disabuses us of the notion.  Not only is Colonel Briteis treated like a misbehaving child in spite of her rank, but we’re told that the only reason women are allowed in the space program is to save weight – though not in the case of Prattles, who is told to her face that she’s too fat to go!

In questioning Briteis about how she pilots the spacecraft, Wernher actually treats her with more respect in her expertise than any other character.  Are we sure we’re not rooting for this guy?

Of course the idea of Moore taking Briteis with him to set up the communications relay instead of Wernher never even comes up, despite the fact that she must be infinitely more qualified and much less likely to try to kill him.  This whole sequence is weirdly mis-used.  We’re expecting Wernher to either try to sabotage things somehow, or for Moore to believe he will do so and a fight to result.  I guess it’s more realistic, seeing as how the survival of both men depends on the relay, that they cooperate successfully – but if that were supposed to be the case, then why does Wernher die in a total accident, falling from a rock and cracking his helmet open?  It doesn’t resolve anything, it’s just a quick and lazy way of getting rid of the character so we can focus on Moore and Briteis and I don’t wanna focus on them.

Wernher’s death also leaves the audience sitting through the last part of the movie without any idea why we’re still watching this.  The villain’s dead, so why isn’t the movie over?  Even if we didn’t hate Moore and Briteis, we’ve actually known Wernher for longer and the movie was set up as if his mission and its defeat were the main storyline.  If he’d been dealt with in a more satisfying manner, either by changing loyalties, or by being killed or recaptured in a way that felt like a victory, it would be easier to move on with the rest of the story.

The final ‘fuck you’ from this movie’s sexual politics is the revelation at the end that the President of the United States is also a woman.  You know what that means?  That means the writers thought they really were showing us a gender-equal future!  They honestly believe that women in positions of power really will freak out and automatically turn to the men for help when things go wrong.  They seriously think that women holding high ranks in the military will be threatened with spankings by their superior officers and that’s completely okay.  And then when you watch the movie again, the scene where Briteis tells the General that the President has ordered Polly Prattles be admitted just looks like a bunch of girls ganging up on a boy they don't like.

Quite a bit of effort went into the effects in Project Moon Base and into its idea of the future (note how they predicted cordless phones!), but it was all wasted on bad actors, shitty sets, and a script that feels like a first draft.  Nothing in the film comes across as properly concluded – not the space mission, not Wernher, and certainly not the love story between Moore and Briteis.  Fuck this movie.  Fuck, fuck, fuck this fucking movie.  Fuck everyone who made it, fuck MST3K for bringing it to my attention, and fuck me for watching it again!  Fuck.

[kiederen]

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE review

I said I would give my impressions on #FE and I neglected to do so till now, but better late than never.

I’ll be talking about:

Story

Setting/Theme

Characters

Gameplay

1. Story

The story is nothing special - I enjoyed it, but it's a fairly typical jrpg "power of friendship and bonds" deal that is only made unique in any capacity by the idol culture that frames it. It's not bad, but it's not groundbreaking either. I wish the story were a bit longer to give more of a build up into the final confrontation. The earlier stages slowly start to set things up but even just one more dedicated chapter to ease into the final arc would have probably made the ending feel less rushed. That and I just enjoyed playing it overall and would liked more content.

The distinct chapters format to the flow may have been meant to simulate FE chapters while still also representing how persona stories often have noticeable breaks between dungeon arcs. In TMS though, it felt a bit more artificial, not damningly so, but I think the plot momentum was a bit worse for it. 

The set up for each chapter break also revolves around Itsuki himself improving as an entertainer, even though he doesn’t know what direction he wants to focus on, and while it’s most emphasized early on, this aspect of Itsuki’s development himself feels almost abandoned or ignored through the mid and late game until the very end. The solution does make some sense, but some of the details that enable it to happen are a bit questionably contrived, and like the overall story, it felt a bit rushed in the final hour, based on what I remember.

Otherwise, the story did a good job of setting itself up, providing the characters with adequate motivation and means to seek the goals they set and each dungeon gave reasonable purpose for the main characters to tackle it.

The final chapter seemed to be trying to make up for the lack of build up by twisting and turning a bit more than usual, but most of its attempted twists were fairly standard fair for trying to draw out suspense and unfortunately were somewhat predictable for it. I was a little surprised at the host for the big bad, but mostly because I hadn’t been paying close enough attention so that was on me.

2. Setting/Theme

The Tokyo idol scene setting is the most interesting aspect of the story and while I can see it being polarizing, I found it novel myself. Mechanically, it does a good job of unifying the dungeons under a common theme of "things idols do" - such as posing for photo shoots or acting on TV.

Beyond dungeon design, the idol theme also naturally informed character designs and the multitude of costumes that appear throughout.

You can even see this thematic flair in the way that spell casting involves a character signing their autograph as a glyph!

If there’s one oddity that stands out to me about the aesthetics of the game, it’s that the monster designs seem to be unable to decide whether they should be FE inspired or SMT inspired or neither, but even in the latter case most don’t seem to fit in with the idol theme in any capacity.

Even when enemies are FE inspired, they seem to have gone through a similar (if not more extreme) filter that the Mirage characters went through - becoming dramatically stylized and the only real purpose I can conceive for it is to make enemy classes that were definitely human in FE appear non-human here. For instance, the middle and right monsters above are myrmidon class enemies - unpromoted swordmasters from the FE universe.

Not to mention: Why do their out-of-combat sprites look like Organization XIII members!?

3. Characters

Like the story, the characters are good if nothing particularly revolutionary. Most seem built around one or two tropes but then are fleshed out beyond that which is fine. You learn more about them as you do their individual side quests (social links) and these do a good job of giving the feeling of evolving your bond with that character. The pacing of the side stories is mostly okay, though the gameplay reward for those that are plot locked to be very late doesn't always feel equal to how long you had to wait to do them. There's a bit of persona syndrome wherein all the chars get plenty of opportunities to interact with the MC, but would benefit from more time interacting with each other as well.

I liked all the characters in the end. There's a good variety between both the girls and boys, though because of join times some chars got more focused screen time than others. Again, I think a longer late game with more story side quests (instead of fetch quests) would have helped balance things out. 

If I had to be as base as to rank the girls in terms of waifu ratings: 1. Eleonora 2. Tsubasa 3. Kiria 4. Maiko 5. Mamori = Tiki Though it's worth noting that top four are all really close, and each slot only wins out over their competition by a small margin. I don’t dislike Mamori or Tiki, I just am not into the little sister appeal.

I suppose Barry Goodman is worth mentioning as well. Barry is a foreigner who settled in Japan and behaviorally embodies the most cringe-worthy aspects of otaku culture. He’s heavy-set, roughly groomed, and somewhat aggressive/abrasive about his passions. I’m not one to judge him for the subject of his passions, but the way he interacts with them would make me uncomfortable around him had he been a real person. Ultimately he is a good person at heart, but his poor people skills are unlikely to endear him to anyone on first impressions, and the fact that he doesn’t care only exacerbates his problems.

Finally, and predictably most disappointingly, the FE chars (heroes and villains) are barely developed and could be replaced with persona or persona like motifs without changing the overall plot. The FE aspect is little more than a coat of paint that gives secondary theme to the invading 'otherworld,' and it's a real shame and waste of potential.

Aside from the Mirage characters and Tiki themselves, there are however a few unmarked references that are at least self aware enough to be welcome Easter eggs for fire emblem fans:

Anna is your convenience store shopkeeper, and there’s even a ‘shadow anna’ who will sell you more dubious dungeon consumables that a normal convenience store wouldn’t stock.

Ilyana works at the cafe, keeping close to her beloved food.

Aimee runs the jewelry store as she was the item store merchant in FE9 and 10

And Cath runs the costume shop. She’s a thief in FE6 with a distinct affinity for money, not unlike Anna, though not as extreme either. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve read over her supports though.

I saw an npc employee at one of the random background shops in Shibuya central street that could also be Brady from FE Awakening, but the camera never got close enough to see him clearly enough to make a positive ID.

Finally, I found it amusing that all the playable chars' names are class puns/references 

蒼井樹 = Aoi Itsuki > Aoi means blue in reference to FE lords typically having blue hair

織部つばさ = Oribe Tsubasa > Tsubasa in reference to her peg knight class

赤城斗馬 = Akagi Touma >  赤 (Aka) gives us “red” while  馬(uma) is “horse.” Red cavalier (partnered with a green cavalier) is a reoccurring archetype in FE. The Red cav tends to be the hot-headed one.

I can break down the others if desired, but these will do for examples.

4. Gameplay

Going to break this into a few parts:

General

Combat

Dungeons

1. General

The real reason this game is compared to Persona; gameplay mirrors a lot of persona's elements and it's almost easier to describe how it deviates from the Persona format than spend time detailing how they're the same. That said, if you like the persona formula (as I do), you'd probably enjoy TMS's gameplay flow as well.

While the lack of daily life and day limits for dungeons removes a lot of the tension of time management for them, I think it's fine since a lot of persona players rush dungeons in 1-2 days anyway and in TMS, once the dungeon is done, you don't have to worry about doing busy work to tick off the days until the plot is allowed to move forward again. The lack of social stats is an element of depth removed, but without a time cost element to activities, it makes sense and is probably a good thing for it to be absent from TMS (even if story wise it could have actually be viable as Aoi and the others grow their skills as performers).

Using the WiiU game pad as a smartphone screen to facilitate off-screen character interactions as well as display more detailed enemy information was clever if perhaps unnecessary (as persona 5 showed). Having the only map on the game pad actually made it a little disorienting to reference for me since my eyes had to leave my tv entirely, leading to me either holding my game pad up or bobbing my head up and down to compare my map with my surroundings. On the DS, the two screens are at least close by. I’d like to say there may have been a better use for the game pad, I’m not thinking of anything off the top of my head, so it may have been wise to minimize its use as a gimmick anyway.

This is already in your phone history when you start the game, but it’s still probably my favorite moment from the text message logs:

#relatable.

Replacing persona fusion is a more straightforward crafting system that is the source for your weapons and passive skills, and in turn, much like Tales of Vesperia, your weapons are the source of your skills, both active and passive. The system sounds more grindy than it is in practice though. Simply advancing through the dungeons and fighting 70-80% of the monsters you encounter naturally will provide you with enough materials to forge most weapons as they become available. In fact there were a number of times when I ran out of new weapons to forge and had to push on with already mastered weapons equipped. I liked that bosses and some savage encounters would drop mats of a higher tier than what was readily available from current monsters, and you had to spend them wisely before advancing the plot to the point where those mats became common. It let you preview the next tier of weapons and abilities for select characters but who you gave those weapons to was never overly stressful since you could get the other weapons you passed on later anyway.

Rare monsters drop unique mats that can make weapons that give unusual or otherwise off-type skills to characters and it makes catching rare monsters that flee rather than engage the player rewarding. IIRC, I encountered fewer than ten rare monsters in my entire play through though, so I did not feel it worth the time to actively hunt them unless there was some trick to make them appear more reliably (and catching them was also a bit dependent on the surroundings). Like treasure monsters in P5, they usually had some kind of gimmick where they were only weak to one thing if they had any weakness and the latter ones also came with dodge [weakness] passive and had a chance of just up and running from battle.

2. Combat

The one-more mechanic is replaced by "Sessions" which are not unlike self contained one-more combos anyway. The tag in attacking animations were pretty fun and though late game sessions can get quite long, there’s no way to speed up or skip session animations, possibly in part because of the existence of duo arts which use the session animations as a timer. They could have prohibited skipping prior to deciding on a duo art and then allow skipping or speed up after, though. Long session animations didn’t bother me, personally though, as session attack animations were varied and interesting enough that I never got tired of even the early basic ones (most of which were replaced by late game).

Openly displayed turn order, plus some late game skills that can actually influence turn order were both welcome features as well. 

Beyond sessions, specials, duo arts, and ad-lib performances were great at providing extra variety and changing the pace of what might otherwise be rote combat. While duo arts and ad-lib performances were rng bonuses that you mostly just take whatever you can get and be grateful, specials were more deliberate, needing a resource that builds slowly at first. Later on, with longer sessions and meter boosting passives, the sp gauge builds up much faster, but even then specials usually should be selected carefully, especially within boss battles where recovering lost sp is a bit trickier. 

That said, special skills were not created equal. Even though buffs and debuffs are powerful, some of the later buffing and debuffing specials came late, at a point where I already had normal skills that could buff or debuff at almost if not the same potency without spending SP. Similarly, as my repertoire of skills grew, my ability to hit weaknesses improved and using specials to break through resistances became less necessary, even as monsters began appearing with more resistances. 

Finally, Itsuki’s second special - “Strike A Pose,” was absurdly good and only got better as my session combos grew longer late game. The ability to give everyone twice the actions in a turn opens up so many other combos that often times, there was little reason to use offensive specials in favor of either two individual sessions or a concentrate/charge boosted session. 

Inversely, I found myself using healing specials a lot less, and perhaps it was because I used Tsubasa a lot less late game - I made Chrom a great lord which gave Itsuki healing and support which was kinda Tsubasa’s niche previously, so with Touma able to out damage Tsubasa and Elly covering flying enemies, Tsubasa just wasn’t out in combat all that often, which meant Mamori was the only one with healing specials (which were helpful on occasion) but in the end using Strike A Pose allowed me to get normal heals out in extra abundance while still enabling attackers to make a play to help clear troublesome enemies.

The FE weapon triangle’s representation in strengths and weaknesses among weapon types (not extending to magic though) gave a welcome way to predict weaknesses for enemies I had not encountered yet. One of the frustrating things about persona had always been that weakness/strength attributes for new monsters were difficult to predict and late game could cause you to walk into a bad situation that was never really your fault. Not only did the weapon triangle help mitigate some of the arbitrary mystery, but weaknesses were frequently consistent across similar enemy types at different levels even outside of the sword/lance/axe trinity. For example mage type enemies were, with few exceptions, all weak to swords and fire. Skills that deal effective damage (i.e. horseslayer/armorslayer) were also a great addition that gave characters tools to start session combos on enemies that they might otherwise be powerless against. The player also gets other ways to work around pesky resistances, features that are both welcome and necessary because...

If I have one glaring critic of the battle system it’s that Itsuki, like persona protags is mandatory. However, unlike persona protags, Itsuki has static combat tools and extremely limited ability to influence his own strength and weakness attributes. He’s always weak to fire and lances and since you can’t remove him from the front line, you always have someone in combat weak to those elements. Fortunately this is less deal breaking for the fact that Itsuki dying in combat doesn’t immediately game over (hallelujah!). In addition, later in the game most chars get passive skills that greatly increase their avoid against elements they’re weak to, Itsuki included. Still, being able to remove Itsuki from the front line would greatly increase your party diversity and flexibility. For a while after recruiting a second sword character, I had difficulty justifying putting him in the active party because Itsuki already filled the sword role. Eventually, I promoted Itsuki to a more support role and let the other char handle offensive sword plays. 

One more minor complaint I have is the inability to swap out fallen allies. Having only three party members means that even one of them dying can be crippling, especially later on and on harder difficulties. I’ve wasted turns reviving downed allies and trying to heal back only for enemies to just repeat what killed someone in the first place and put me exactly where I was last turn with less healing items or sometimes in an even worse situation. While the boss dichotomy of easy/impossible with little in between that some persona bosses suffer from is present here, the existence of specials, ad-lib performances and duo performances that heal or revive greatly alleviate some of the comeback struggle that has a tendency to snowball in this combat system. As the only active non-rng option, specials in particular are important to the system. The severity of boss gimmicks isn’t quite as punishing in TMS compared to persona, but TMS’s smaller party size, can still cause a bad situation to cascade into unsalvageable territory.

3. Dungeons

The dungeon design of TMS is interesting in that it departs from persona 3/4′s formula of randomly generated floors in favor of deliberately organized floor plans with usually only one correct path to the end. The linearity is sometimes broken up by treasures that you’ll have to backtrack for, but aside from that, there’s little mandatory backtracking within a dungeon. Dungeons stick around even after you clear them, allowing side stories to ask you to venture back over familiar ground for one task or another.

That said, the linear nature isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In TMS’s case, it allows the developers to give the player a learning curve for the dungeon’s mechanics and then challenge how well the player understood the earlier lessons, because the devs can guarantee that the player experienced the earlier sections before the later ones. It may sound obvious on paper, but it means that the developers can have a better awareness of the player’s competency at any given point in any dungeon, which is something that can’t be tracked when the player can go multiple routes at any given time. But I digress.

Another mechanical difference of note is how the player, Itsuki interacts with enemies pre-battle. In persona 3 and later, you could swing your weapon to hit an enemy in the field and that would start combat (at an advantage if they didn’t notice you), but in TMS, striking an opponent on the field knocks them back and stuns them, giving you the choice to then get closer and touch them to begin combat at an advantage or to avoid combat entirely. I like this greater degree of choice and it fits within the philosophy that TMS dungeons are made to be less stressful - less about meticulous resource management - than persona games. There’s still an incentive to engage in combat: you need to keep up a certain amount of level growth just to have the raw stats to beat bosses, but if you’re low on health and/or healing items or just plain short on available play time and you think or know there’s a checkpoint up ahead so you just want to make a push to reach it, you aren’t forced into battles you don’t want to engage in... with the exception of “Savage Encounters,” which are challenge monsters that seem to just exist to screw with you anyway. I think there was only one area prior to the last or second to last dungeons that had savage enemies I could actually beat albeit with great effort.

Playing TMS after Persona 5, it was also apparent that TMS’s idolaspheres were prototype palaces, from the set floor layouts and linear progression to the overarching themes of the dungeon informing its aesthetic and unique mechanics. In fact there are a number of things that TMS pinoeered for Atlus that then went on to feature in P5. You can read about some others here.

Puzzles were almost entirely navigation in nature - that is, how to use the dungeon mechanics and infrastructure to get from your start to your goal. It may be because it’s been a little over a month now, but none particularly stand out in my memory as being exceptionally good, while one or two I remember for being somewhat arduous or tiring. I’m still of the opinion that areas that the player is trying to solve puzzles in should have lower if not 0 encounter rate with random enemies, as battles, especially turn based ones that don’t tend to resolve in a single turn, can disrupt problem solving trains of thought.

Overall the dungeons are good though, and that’s important as they’re the meat of the gameplay. They are generally well paced with plenty to do and some minor stuff to find on your way to your target goal. Each dungeon’s unique mechanics fit with the dungeon theme and aside from a few exceptions the enemies are fairly distributed.

5. Conclusion

It has its flaws but I think, in the end, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE gets more right than it gets wrong. Even though the story was standard fair for this genre, I thoroughly enjoyed it and wished it had more content to its core for me to experience. I know there’s dlc, but the nature of dlc means that it’s nothing integral to the story and I’m not sure it would scratch the itch the way I want.

The setting is unique and the game fully embraces the themes it sets up and the themes in turn inform and affect almost every aspect of the game, giving it a unified appeal.

The combat is arguably more interesting than persona. It takes the same core formula of targeting weak points for massive damage but allows players more tools and freedom to circumvent bad matchups, make carefully planned strategic plays, or simply style on enemies with flashy satisfying attacks.

[aion-rsa]

Rick and Morty Season 5 Finale Review

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This RICK AND MORTY review contains spoilers.

Rick and Morty Season 5 Finale

It’s been a while, so let’s first recap the consistent problems with season five of Rick and Morty. Problem one is that characterization feels like it’s either pushed aside in favor of crazy, silly sci-fi nonsense or lost in a muddle of convoluted sci-fi nonsense. Problem two is that episodes are so overloaded with plot and dialogue delivered at such breakneck speed that there’s either no time for jokes or, packed in with everything else going on in these overstuffed episodes, they just don’t land. The missing characterization issue isn’t exclusive to season five, but the lack of laughs is; this has easily been the least-funny season yet.

Now, finally, after a month’s wait, we get the two-part season finale! Does it manage to avoid the problems that have haunted this season until now?

Not really! But some of it certainly looked cool.

“Forgetting Sarick Mortshall”

Though they’re both about testing the strength of Rick and Morty’s relationship and the first does directly lead into the next by virtue of… crows… these really are two separate episodes with two different focuses and tones. This first one is closer to a “normal” season five episode. Sure, it’s got Rick pissing Morty off so much that he goes off on his own anti-Rick adventure (with a dude fittingly named Nick), but, for the majority of the runtime, it’s not handled like it’s all that big of a deal.

Regardless, the inciting incident here of Morty accidentally getting portal juice on his hand, thus creating a portal in his hand that connects to Nick’s thigh is a really clever one. It’s unfortunate that an odd side effect of a series with a premise that allows for infinite sci-fi possibilities is that many concepts, no matter how much creative effort is put behind them, feel like retreads that fall into a similar category (e.g., the season premiere with its Narnia world that evolved at hyper-speed felt not entirely dissimilar from the sequence of Morty living an entire life in “The Vat of Acid Episode” which, in turn, felt not so dissimilar from that time he played Roy: A Life Well Lived). However, this portal in the hand thing feels totally new and fresh.

They get some good mileage out of it too, with some cool action sequences (like Jackie Chan!) and inspired moments like Morty making a dude eat shit, literally, by transferring the contents of a chamber pot by way of the hand/thigh portal system or when Nick takes control of the car Morty’s driving by sticking his hand through Morty’s portal hand. It’s also used smartly in the most effective dramatic moment in “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall” when Morty chooses to destroy his portal connection to Rick by placing his hand on a train track so that it’s severed off, and then drops the hand-portal into Nick’s thigh-portal to kill him. It’s all very clever, well-executed stuff, though, typing it out, it sure sounds weird.

How Morty comes to the decision to sever his hand and connection to Nick is less well-executed. It unfortunately brought to mind the episode with Planetina, perhaps the worst of season five, as in both episodes Morty realizes the person he’s spending time with ain’t so great because—shock horror—they’re cool with killing innocent people! Yes, Morty has a moral core, so it’s not like it doesn’t make some sense, but it’s just that, with the amount of people he and Rick murder out of petty anger or just by happenstance all the time, it feels like they need to sell his change of heart a little more.

The other half of this episode is about Rick replacing Morty with two crows, at first as a joke, but then he gradually comes to realize crows are actually cool and can teach him about empathy. The idea of it is that this “two crows” thing is engineered to be a silly, one-off inanity, but then the joke becomes so much more as the writers sincerely explore the concept. However, it never really successfully elevates itself above its initial inane premise. I still just found myself thinking “What is this crow bullshit? Why crows?”

It’s also becoming a bit of a predictable Rick and Morty staple that characters that appear incidental at first actually have a whole society and way of life we get to learn all about (the face-huggers, the Narnia people, the Chuds). It’s an obvious plot device to return to seeing as this is a sci-fi series about visiting new universes and alien worlds all the time, so it would be irrational to suggest they stop doing it altogether, but did this particular plot really need to go in that direction? The introduction of the crow society comes out of nowhere and it isn’t convincing that Rick decides to follow a path of empathy with his two crows right after he just killed a whole bunch of other crows. Anyway, the only thing that makes the crow plot “interesting” is that the writers commit to it so hard it carries into the next episode.

Season five style, “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall,” is not funny. I chuckled at the very last moment in the tag when Garbage Goober said “Mmm, trash, I love trash” and I smiled at Rick’s (possibly improv’d) rant about watching sitcoms on your shoes, but that was about it. Still, at least there were the aforementioned clever moments and it got a tiny bit emotional when Morty told Rick “I miss you, man” and when Rick admitted their relationship was abusive.

“Rickmurai Jack”

Lore, lore, lore! How do you like it? Hopefully you like it lots because “Rickmurai Jack” is chock full of the stuff!

The Rick and Morty team, however, absolutely hate it! Well, they can’t totally hate it, or they wouldn’t have bothered to make this episode, but they definitely have an acrimonious relationship with continuity and canon. Dan Harmon has stated before that giving Rick a tragic backstory would ruin the character and Rick himself reaffirms that opinion in the episode. In fact, the writers can’t help themselves in breaking the fourth wall throughout to remind us how much Rick hates canon and how it’s better to “keep it episodic.”

It’s understandable why they resent canon. It’s got to be much easier to write one-off, funny sci-fi adventures than to sustain serialized plots told over multiple episodes. Unfortunately for them, way the hell back in season one Rick and Morty destroyed their universe, killed alternate universe versions of themselves, and took their places. The series kept this plot point intact, referencing it later, and also gradually made Morty’s character more jaded in response to this, as well as the many other horrors he witnessed. In other words, they made this canon bed and now they have to have adventures in it (I know how this sounds and I’m fine with it).

Before it gets to all that serious canon, however, “Rickmurai Jack” has to honor the continuity of the previous episode by tidying away the stupid crow plot. The continuity is certainly sound: the crows weren’t funny in the last episode and they’re not funny in this one either! There’s an anime intro. There are villains whose names flash on the screen in big letters. There’s an arch-villain named CrowScare who has sex with Rick’s crows. Yeah. Fine. At least this part is done away with relatively quickly. (Side note: Odd that Rick becomes a bird-based superhero and yet there is nary a reference to Bird Person.)

Read more

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After this, the episode maintains the season five status quo by continuing to be unfunny. I don’t believe I laughed at this one at all, although I liked Evil Morty’s line, “I lied. That second seat’s a toilet.” The lack of comedy is a bit more forgivable, however, as “Rickmurai Jack” isn’t trying as hard to be funny. This really is the loreiest lorepisode they’ve ever done and so the focus is on backstory and continuity to do with Evil Morty’s long-gestating plan.

As one of the annoying nerds constantly complaining that this show doesn’t do enough character development anymore, I know I’m supposed to be thankful for this episode (Rick angrily says as much) and I am, somewhat. It’s cool to see Evil Morty again and to hear his awesome theme music. Personally, I was never asking for Rick backstory and I’m a bit surprised his origins more or less are just the easy answer of “dead wife” after all, but sure, that’s fine. More profound and fucked up is the origin of all the Mortys in the multiverse, engineered by Ricks to be the perfect sidekick.

I just wish all this development hadn’t been given to me, season five style, in such volume at such speed. The fact of the matter is I was straight-up confused about what the hell was going on sometimes. I understood Evil Morty’s plan enough to get that he’s extricating himself from the cycle of Ricks and Mortys (and maybe ending the cycle forever?), but where did he fly to? Did he kill every Rick and Morty ever except our protagonists and whoever they escaped with or just everyone in the Citadel for some reason? Did he remove all portal fluid from the multiverse? I also lost the plot of Rick’s backstory, not understanding why he was going around killing all these other Ricks until I watched it back and realized he was going after the Rick who had killed his wife and kid Beth; I still feel it could’ve been more clearly presented though. Also confusing was the sequence in Rick uses some of his blood to create Big Boy(?) who… transfers power to Rick when he’s attacked… or something?

Look, I know how this goes. I’m a stupid moron and the nerds in the comments will be more than ready to let me know that everything that was confusing to me was, in fact, completely obvious, duh-doy, and here’s why and I should stop watching the series, and so on, and so forth. However, something I’ve always marveled at (as I did only two episodes ago) with Rick and Morty is, despite how crazy and layered its ambitious plotting gets, I never lose track of what’s happening. So, either my very high IQ is dropping points or this shit was kind of confusing.

Regardless, it’s appreciated the creators of this show finally gave in and threw a bunch of continuity and canon in my whining face. It just would’ve been nicer if it had been delivered in a clearer way that was easier to process and to feel something about. Like, every time Evil Morty has appeared in the series, he’s been an intimidating and chilling presence. I did get chills when his theme song kicked in this time, but that was more of a Pavlovian response earned from his previous appearances. Otherwise, I was just bewildered by all the information being chucked at me. Still, if nothing else, it was certainly a cool-looking spectacle.

What’s best about this episode is what it sets up for the next season. Who knows how long they’ll stick with this, but it’s implied that Rick is out of portal juice, which makes him that much less god-like and which could maybe, finally, reintroduce some actual stakes into Rick and Morty instead of every episode being about a sarcastic unstoppable murderous sci-fi family. I truly do look forward to that.

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

The other best thing is Mr. Poopybutthole’s profound advice that we should be brave enough to love the people who love us back. Thank you for your wisdom, Mr. Poopybutthole.

The post Rick and Morty Season 5 Finale Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[readygamerone]

Chapter 38 - Now I Am Become Death, Gunter of Worlds

Wade is at last faced with what appears to be the final puzzle required to get the coveted Easter Egg. However, he has no idea what to do. Alone in the virtual recreation of Halliday's office, he can't even voice chat with his friends on the outside. The link was seemingly severed by the OASIS automatically once Wade reached this stage of the challenge. Why it was possible to receive tips, tricks and movie lines to help him through the previous sections is a mystery.

Wade spends several minutes trying to turn on every TV, game console and computer in the room but none respond. Finally, he finds one that does power on: the same computer Matthew Broderick's character uses in WarGames. It is password-protected, however. Wade runs through several names, on the brave assumption that Halliday had used the same password convention as the character who designed the supercomputer in the film: naming it after "The person he’d loved most in the world." He tries inputting the names of Halliday himself (not a bad first guess, from what we know), Ogden Morrow and Morrow's deceased wife Kira, for whom Halliday harbored a one-sided obsession. Wade even tries typing in the names of a few of Halliday's childhood pets. None of it works.

It's not until Wade remembers that Halliday only felt comfortable talking to Kira while gaming that he tries inputting her D&D name: Leucosia. This turns out to be the correct password, as every other piece of electronics surrounding Wade immediately powers up after it's entered. I'm going to note here that "Leucosia" is also the name of one of the Sirens from Greek mythology. You know, the woman-bird hybrids who led men to their doom with their sweet voices and songs? The sexual pathology at work here couldn't possibly be more surface-level. Keep that connection in mind for a few paragraphs from now.

With the power on, all doubt as to the next step has been washed from Wade's mind. He scrambles over to the Atari 2600 and starts up the game Adventure. This isn't too much of a reach for people who know the history of the term Easter Egg in the world of video games, as the concept of a hidden feature was popularized by this particular title. By playing through the game in a particular way, the player can enter a room where the sole designer, Warren Robinett, had written his name on the floor. The funny thing is that this original "Egg" was included in Adventure as a way for Robinett to, in some way, get credit for his labor. At the time, Atari didn't allow its programmers to have their names on or in their games out of fear that competitors would lure away their staff. Coveniently, this also made it easier for the company to deny their employees any royalty payments they would've been owed. So it's extremely fitting that Wade finds, in the place of Robinett's name, only an Atari-rendered Easter Egg graphic. As is their way, a billionaire nullified the contribution of a worker yet again.

Immediately after finding the Easter Egg in the Atari game, Wade finds that his OASIS avatar is now holding the Egg as well. He places it in a jeweled chalice nearby and, unceremoniously, wins the Egg Hunt. It turns out that the villains weren't able to compete with Wade's extra life head start and had no further effect on the proceedings.

“You win,” I heard a voice say. I turned and saw that Anorak was standing right behind me. His obsidian black robes seemed to pull most of the sunlight out of the room. “Congratulations,” he said, stretching out his long-fingered hand.

I hesitated, wondering if this was another trick. Or perhaps one final test . . .

“The game is over,” Anorak said, as if he’d read my mind. “It’s time for you to receive your prize.”

Wade takes the hand of Halliday's automated avatar and suddenly, his avatar was dressed in black wizard's robes instead. Along with a seemingly neverending list of abilities and items, Wade gains Halliday's twelve digit fortune. Now a multibillionaire, Wade also has supreme control over everything and everyone in the OASIS. He was already the coolest and most beloved gunter around, now he's got the power to back it up.

Wade is also the only person that can enter the study within Castle Anorak, as it contains a button that can delete the entire OASIS and every bit of data on it forever. E-Halliday says things to Wade like "try to use your powers for good" and "I trust your judgment" but these are only automated lines he would've delivered to anyone who won his contest. Good character and judgment aren't requisite for being good at games and memorizing trivia. Half of the OASIS dying and losing everything they had in the battle a few chapters ago already had troubling economic implications. But the entire planet functions via the OASIS, meaning that pressing this button would crash not only the world's economies but its education systems, governments (remember that we were told that the US's electoral voting flows through this thing) and more.

Of course, Wade displays no interest in the button, which would take from him everything that he had just received. Halliday felt he had to justify its inclusion anyway, via what might be the most preposterous bit of dialogue in the entire book.

“Listen,” he said, adopting a confidential tone. “I need to tell you one last thing before I go. Something I didn’t figure out for myself until it was already too late.” He led me over to the window and motioned out at the landscape stretching out beyond it. “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I do.”

“Good,” he said, giving me a wink. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t hide in here forever.”

Hey, you dumb asshole. Your stupid contest created an entire generation of people who do nothing but hide online forever, worshiping movies and video games made decades before they were born. Not to mention that everyone is too broke to want to live in the hellish dystopia that the real world has become. And they only became that way because you, as the richest person around, siphoned off all the profit your all-encompassing network built up with its endless microtransactions. But maybe he's right, everyone should log off and fight the wasteland marauders that wait outside all of the major cities instead.

This also comes across as disingenuous because Halliday only had two barely-functional relationships with other people before he died. One was with his childhood best friend, Ogden Morrow. The other was with Morrow's wife, to the extent that he was in love with her to the point of damaging his only other relationship. We never find out what Kira, a character who died before the start of Wade's story, felt about Halliday putting her up on this pedestal. No one seems interested in her perspective but I can't imagine she would be comfortable with all this, despite naming herself after a Greek man-killer. It's painfully obvious that Cline wanted to cap the story off with a moral about the beauty you can find in living offline but nothing about the rest of the narrative or world he's clumsily built backs it up. The "lesson" is completely flattened under the weight of so many contradictions.

Humbled by these empty platitudes, Wade takes a few minutes to collect himself and then calls up his buddies. They're pretty excited that they're friends with the most powerful person alive, especially after Wade uses his new authority to completely resurrect their deceased avatars. However, he only does this for Aech, Art3mis and Shoto (who delivers yet another "Arigato, Parzival-san" and deep bow in response). I guess the millions of other people whose digital bones are rotting outside the castle are out of luck. To further flex his new powers, Wade kills the remaining Sixer avatars, who were unable to reach the Egg before he did, with a wave of his hand. Art3mis hadn't logged back in to the OASIS to congratulate Wade though. Wade is told that she's waiting in the real world to meet him face to face for the first time. If anything can still outdo that Halliday lecture, it's going to be this unearned romance scene. But that'll have to wait for the last chapter.

Almost as an afterthought before he goes to meet up with his crush, Wade is told to pull up a breaking newsfeed. He sees that Nathan Sorrento, the dreaded leader of the Sixers, has been arrested by federal authorities for the multitude of crimes that the stolen IOI data implicated him in. It was very kind of the FBI to wait until right after the plot was resolved to step in, it would've really sapped the already small amount of dramatic tension if they hadn't. It's also lucky for them that Sorrento didn't win, as he would've brought about Armageddon if the feds had still tried to put the cuffs on. Although, depending on how the last chapter ends, it might've been for the best.

Pop Culture References 29 (3.2 per page)

Video Games Atari 2600 IIIII I Adventure IIIII IIIII Space Invaders I

Television Star Trek I

Movies WarGames IIIII I

Computers Apple I IMSAI 8080 I

Books The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I

General Nerddom Dungeons and Dragons I

Brands Zenith I

[lj-writes]

Thoughts on The Get Down Part 2

This show is definitely NOT afraid to shake things up create seismic change, is it? I love it!! No pussyfooting around here, TGD actually goes there with the consequences. The rest under the cut for spoilers.

- And here I thought, was hoping in fact, that Boo-Boo’s drug dealing was the one plot point that was going to end without consequence and hoo boy... I thought, didn’t I. They sure showed me.

One interesting thing about Cadillac is that, evil as he is, he's a genuine believer in disco and its culture. It isn’t a combination I’ve often seen, the overlap of murderous crime lord and fanatic for his art. Both sides are genuine aspects of his character, making for a complex and layered characterization.

- After seeing the Season 1 finale (I refuse to call it the show finale, okay?) I can see that this was actually a conflict within the character, the part that wanted to break free.

- I am naming “You find something melodic about this situation?/The whole thing’s off-key to me” the best villainous exchange of all time.

Who would have thought the character crossing their Rubicon would be Lydia even more than Mylene? If I had any doubts about Ramon being an abusive piece of shit (I didn’t), his violence toward his wife and daughter sealed it. I mean, when people think of abuse they usually think of violence, but that’s not always true. A lot of abusers use violence as a last resort, when they feel their control slipping.

On a related note, I love that this show doesn’t shrink back from the complexities of freedom--criminality, objectification, commercialization, drugs, it’s all presented without sanitization. The Get Down Brothers and the Soul Madonnas each fought in their own ways to be free without selling out, to succeed without compromising who they were as people.

- I squealed when, backstage at the Ruby Con, Zeke gave Mylene pretty much the exact speech she game him in Part 1--that he could not be with her if she did not fight for her ambitions, that he loved her too much to watch her give up on herself. These two support each other and hold each other up so much, my heart melts every time I see them together.

- Some, of course, didn’t make it out. It was gutwrenching when Shaolin, who convinced Cadillac to break free by confronting his own history of abuse at Annie’s hands, himself ultimately went back to Annie to save his friends. This, when we already knew how he was affected by the abuse in the way his rage at Annie found its outlet in violence... just... no words.

- They were missing part of the footage in Mr. Books’s show, all right? They didn’t get to the part where the lights shone on the other side of the stage and there was Shao behind his turntable. I refuse to believe otherwise.

I think Jackie’s learned something about himself and his creative process from writing “Set Me Free.” Creative isolation is out, big, communal, spiritual party is in. It also looks like he’s kicked his addiction, or at least cut down/switched to less hard drugs? It may be amusing to think of the assortment of drag queens and musicians holed up in his hotel room as his church, but I think it serves pretty much the same function as Jackie himself told Ramon.

Papa Fuerte’s fall was an understated epic. He was used, betrayed, and discarded, a visionary whose ambition came smack up against capitalistic greed and systematic racism. He has a lot to say, indeed. He is called a criminal but I understand him more as a big man, a leader who takes responsibility for his constituents and allocates resources. Look at the way he provided for the community when the blackout happened. A lot of criminality in underserved areas can be understood as filling the void left by governments, I think.

Hearing the man moan like a wounded wolf at the sight of Lydia’s wounds may have been one of the most emotional moments of the show for me. The good-bye in her kitchen, her telling him she loved him, it was so heartrending and perfect.

- So like was anyone surprised at Mylene’s parentage reveal? ...Anyone? No hands, I see. It was obvious from the moment her mother’s relationship with Papa Fuerte was shown and should have been obvious sooner, she really is a mix of them.

- I remember wondering more than once what the attraction to Ramon was and why Lydia couldn’t have been with the guy she loved in the first place. Ramon probably convinced her that she was a sinner who needed him to save her, and he can be very charming when things are going his way, i.e. when she was suitably submissive. The stability he represented, emotionally and socially if not financially, may have been a draw, too. And of course, if she was already committed to Ramon before she met his hot brother that would have presented impossibilities of its own.

- It was probably for the best anyway, she would have been put through unimaginably more shit as Papa Fuerte’s wife rather than his sister-in-law. Maybe that’s why he didn’t press the issue, he knew this would happen sooner or later.

- This is terrible of me but “pillaged my nest” may be the hottest euphemism for cheating I have heard.

Ra-Ra is autistic, right? I mean, I thought so from Part 1 but it became even clearer in Part 2. Watched Star Wars 57 times? (And I thought my watching Crimson Tide 17 times was a lot...) Finds it easier to explain concepts through pop culture? Talking sounds stilted, as though he’s taking the wording from books and movies which he’s all but memorized as references? Like, it’s so obvious. I’m pretty sure Dizzee is on the spectrum too.

I wish we’d seen more of the Zulu Queens because we did not see nearly enough female MCs and b-girls. I wish there was more of everything from this show, basically.