#the fall: skydive murder plot

[troiings]

More of MyAnna Buring in The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot

[mst3kproject]

419: The Rebel Set

 I’ve got two off-topic intro stories I can tell here and neither one is worth it so I’ll tell them both.  One is that I did in fact have a four-hour layover in Chicago once.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough time to do anything but wander around the airport, eat soft pretzels, and be mildly impressed that they have an entire dinosaur skeleton in Terminal C.  No way I could have fit robbing an armored car in there.  Also, although I am from Canada I have never been to the Canadian Exhibition – but my grandmother once had a vision of Jesus there, so I guess it is a great place to meet celebrities.

Master Criminal Mr. Tucker hires three nobodies – an out-of-work actor, an unpublished writer, and a guy whose mom was famous for something – to commit a robbery for him.  Then, when they’re all stuck on a train with him, he sets about murdering them one by one so that he won’t have to share the money.  It worked for the Joker, right?  He stages Famous Jr’s suicide and throws Writer off the train, but Actor (a guy named Johnny, married to a woman named Jeannie) gets wise and tries to turn himself in to the police.  Somehow or other it all ends in a drawn-out foot chase through a train yard in which Tucker kicks Johnny’s ass repeatedly, until finally electrocuting himself to death. Johnny goes to jail.

Did this movie somehow switch titles with The Beatniks by accident?  There are beatniks in this one, whereas there were none in that film, and there were rebels in The Beatniks, while the protagonists of The Rebel Set don’t seem very rebellious.  Weird.

In many ways, The Rebel Set reminds me of a Coleman Francis film.  For starters, there’s the dreariness of the sets and photography.  The Beatnik Bar looks like it’s in somebody’s basement, it’s probably dim and chilly and the poetry is bad, and it just isn’t somewhere we want to hang out.  The train never looks like a train, mostly because nobody bothers to pretend it’s moving – anybody who’s been on a train knows it’s never a smooth ride. The roadside where they stage the accident doesn’t look like it’s anywhere near Chicago (unless this is set in the same universe as The Beginning of the End).  The railway yard looks like John Carradine is just around the corner singing Night Train to Mundo Fine.

For another thing, The Rebel Set is full of little moments that make no sense at all.  Like the rich couple who decide to slum in the beatnik bar, where the husband heckles the one-eyed poet until they get thrown out. What the hell was that?  It had nothing to do with the plot.  Why were they even in there?  Or how about the two ditzy old ladies on the train who sit around and have strange conversations with Tucker and the conductor?  There was a moment when I honestly wondered if they were undercover cops but they were just… there, like the kids in The Beast of Yucca Flats feeding soda pop to the pigs.  I think they were comic relief, but it’s kind of hard to say when they were so conspicuously not funny.

How about the conductor wanting the Writer to help him with his memoirs? The Writer takes his card but obviously doesn’t mean to call him, because he considers the material beneath him. Again, I think this is supposed to be funny, but it’s not.  The conductor (who is later insulted again by the old women when he won’t stay and listen to them yammer) doesn’t seem like somebody whose life story is likely to be as interesting as he thinks, but the rude brush-off he gets does not make us like the Writer, either.  I’m honestly not sure we’re supposed to like any of these guys.

Who is this stuff for, anyway?  Is the scene with the rich couple intended for the ‘creeps’ or the ‘squares’?  The couple are presented as pompous and patronizing, even the wife, but the beatniks are a bunch of fatalistic losers who are nearly incomprehensible.  The one-eyed poet is clearly meant to be an object of fun, as is the ditzy waitress. The scene seems to be trying to have it both ways, going ‘lol, stupid rich people!’ and ‘lol, weirdos!’ at the same time, and therefore alienates both.

Also like a Coleman Francis film, The Rebel Set manages to squeeze all the excitement out of things that should constitute action and suspense.  Red Zone Cuba had us confused during an invasion and falling asleep over daring escapes.  The Rebel Set tries to have chase scenes, daring heists, and murders, but it mostly just makes us go, “huh?” The heist proceeds according to plan, with no real feeling that the criminals are at risk of discovery.  The fight between Johnny and Famous Jr. on the train is predictable dialogue followed by clumsy fisticuffs.  The chase at the railway yard goes on, and on, and on, while Johnny gets repeatedly beat up by an old guy dressed as a priest.

The only scene that comes near working the way it’s supposed to is when Tucker throws Writer off the train.  We knew it was coming, of course, but Writer declaring “I don’t want any of your damn money!” and then the cut to the train going by, with the blare of the horn to drown out his scream, isn’t bad.

Yet another thing that makes me think of Coleman Francis is how, despite its bizarre attempts at humour, The Rebel Set as a whole is a No Joy Allowed movie.  Nobody gets a happy ending.  Tucker dies, but so do Writer and Famous Jr.  Johnny survives, just barely, but he’s definitely going to serve time no matter that he confessed and helped catch Tucker – since nobody saw Tucker’s death, for all they know Johnny murdered him, too.  Jeannie just wanders off alone in a strange city, having lost everything.

In fact, The Rebel Set is so Colemany-Francisy that I was surprised Johnny survived.  I really expected him to be gunned down by the cops in the railway yard, no questions asked.  I figured Tucker would get caught and brought to justice, since he was obviously the villain of the movie, but I thought all three of his stooges would be killed first, victims of his hubris or something.  Instead, The Rebel Set hammers home how tragic the situation is by having Famous Mom show up at the end to tell reporters she is going home to her son, unaware that he’s in the casket being carried by.  This tries so hard to pull on the heartstrings that, like Last Clear Chance, it loops past infinity and earns snickers instead of tears.

Does this movie have a message?  I have some trouble with that.  There are a couple of ideas that could count as a theme, but none of them work, and they certainly don’t unify the film. The most obvious is crime doesn’t pay, which is another thing that makes this feel like a Coleman Francis film.  Both Red Zone Cuba and The Skydivers had criminals being punished for their deeds, along with everybody else around them.  The only thing missing from The Rebel Set is the airplane.

The ending, with Famous Mom’s sudden appearance, suggests that there’s a side of Appreciate What You Have: Famous Mom didn’t take time to be a mother to her son when he needed her, and now that she’s decided it’s time, it’s actually too late.  This could apply to Johnny, too, since it could be argued that he didn’t appreciate Jeannie and how hard she worked to support him.  He lies about what he’s doing, both to protect her and so that she won’t try to talk him out of it – but he would have been protecting her far better if he’d just refused to get involved.  At the end, he’s ruined her life as well as his own.

How does this apply to the others, though?  I guess you could say that Famous Jr. didn’t appreciate that his mother loved him, but the point was that she was never around.  Writer certainly isn’t presented as a guy with anything to appreciate, since the only thing we find out about him was that he spent years writing the Great American Novel only to be told it was unpublishable.  I think we’re supposed to see these guys as men who lose everything, but they don’t seem like they had much worth losing.

The third possible theme is don’t get distracted from chasing your dream.  All three of the guys Tucker hires have some kind of goal going on that they might have realized if they hadn’t ended up dead or prison.  Famous Jr. wanted his mother to love him – and it is revealed at the end that if he’d stayed home, he would have gotten his wish. Perhaps this is meant to imply that Johnny could have made it on Broadway, and Writer could have been a New York Times best-seller, if they’d only kept trying.  Rather than work for fame and fortune, they got distracted by an apparent shortcut, and it destroyed them.

Besides the ending, there are a couple of places where The Rebel Set is slightly less dreary than the Coleman Francis Trilogy of Tedium.  We mostly know what’s going on, at least, and it tries to be funny even if it doesn’t succeed.  Johnny and Jeannie are allowed to actually love and support one another, whereas onscreen couples in Coleman Francis films are usually bitter and distant.  There are actual location shoots that aren’t in a desert somewhere and occasionally there’s music.  Even when it’s not being as nihilistic as Francis, it’s still pretty bleak and dull, and I get the idea it was also made by somebody who thought tragedy was automatically art just because it’s tragic.  It sucks, and I have no interest in watching it again without Joel, Crow, and Tom to lighten things up.

[chxseungyoun]

MASTERLIST

♡ Stories

Nine Percent

Cai Xukun - Detention - a bulleted scenario in which Xukun causes you to get detention for something he has caused.

Cai Xukun - The Boss - a bulleted scenario in which Xukun is your boss and he wants you to get that into your head; smut

Cai Xukun- Hogwarts Special!

Cai Xukun - Cold Heart, Warm Smile - a bulleted scenario where Xukun starts losing his life as a celebrity but begins with a new.

Lin Yanjun - Ms.Matchmaker - Mister flirt wants to flirt with you, the owner of a matchmaking agency. ; bulleted

Lin Yanjun - Little [Rated] - Yanjun is used to little gestures with you but there’s one thing about him that isn’t so little; written.

Lin Yanjun - Zipped Up - Why is the school director’s son mute? Is it a disability or something else? ; bulleted

Lin Yanjun - High in the Sky - Your daredevil best friend suddenly asked you to go skydiving with him; bulleted

You Zhangjing - FMY - There are three things Zhangjing loves. Can you think of all three? ; bulleted

You Zhangjing - Rule #1: Don’t fall in love - There is one rule you had with Zhangjing and Yanjun. Are you meant to break it?; bulleted

Dorm Life: 9% Status [SERIES] - you end up living in a frat house with one of the notorious squads in the campus?

Ms. Matchmaker - Lin Yanjun [SERIES] - a series requested from the bulleted scenario.

Huang Minghao - Goal! - In socces, Justin never misses his goal. Does this go for his love life too?; bulleted.

Huang Minghao - Clear as Day - You just broke your glasses and you need to get a new prescription! A love prescription, maybe?; bulleted

Huang Minghao - Hogwarts Special!

Fan Chengcheng - Story to Reality - your best friend just doesn’t understand why you keep reading scenarios about his bandmates ; bulleted

Fan Chengcheng - Why can’t I? - There is one thing Chengcheng wants to do but Zhengting keeps getting in the way?; bulleted

Fan Chengcheng - Misfit Union - A vampire in a bond with a hunter? ; bulleted

Fan Chengcheng - Hogwarts Special!

Zhu Zhengting - Only Me [Rated] - Zhengting loves you but he he doesn’t love you looking at other men ; bulleted

Zhu Zhengting - Unforseen Vow - The first son of the Yuehua coven is bonded with a what?! ; Bulleted

Wang Ziyi - Uncle to Daddy? - You’re babysitting with one of the delinquents from school ; Bulleted

Wang Ziyi - Escape the Maze - You are trapped within your dream. Escape with Ziyi!; bulleted

Wang Ziyi - Milkshakes at Midnight - You always get hurt and whenever you do, Ziyi takes you out for milkshakes ; Bulleted

Wang Linkai - Magical Debt - You need a wish to be granted but wizard’s have fees to grant them? Are you willing to take on that? ; Bulleted

Chen Linong - The Keeper - You don’t really think you’re the fairest of the land? Would a dragon tamer think differently?; Bulleted

Chen Linong - Hogwarts Special!

Chen Linong - Ataraxy - Soulmates who were cursed to be together for 2000 lives--kill or love?; bulleted

Nine Percent as dads - 1/ 2/ 3 - This goes for the future, alright? No sexualizing or anything, get out.

_91% _

Zhou Yanchen - Kismet - Sometimes fate goes by the name of kismet, sometimes it’s Zeren. ; written

Jing Peiyao - Peculiar - Weird is attractive sometimes, you know? ; written

Lu Dinghao - Plot twist - You’re in a school play as snow white but the prince is not your love interest ; bulleted

Lu Dinghao- Soulmate Disaster - Soulmates with your brother’s friend?; bulleted

Han Mubo - She hates the cold - The school president finds out your secret. When will you find out his? ; bulleted

Han Mubo - The Landlord's Son - You wished you did not have to deal with an arrogant man but he wasn’t that bad either; bulleted

Li Yingchao - Wifi Disconnected - You met the most unexpected person on an online forum. Is it time to delete that site from your history?; bulleted

Li Yingchao - Balcony Romance - New neighbor came while you were at your downest moment, how will that be?; bulleted

Zhu Yuntian - Exchange of Favors - You happened to be in trouble and you asked for Yunyi’s help? Yuntian comes to the rescue instead! ; written

Zhu Yuntian - Exchange of Favors [SERIES] - Why am I making another series that I take too long to update. Anyway, I love the Zhu twins.

Ding Zeren - Precision Zero - Zeren is pretty mucplans with precision and accuracy, except when it comes to you; bulleted

Hu Zhibang - Loud Thoughts - Sometimes the quietest people have the loudest minds; written.

Li Xikan - The Lady Killer - Is there a murdered on the loose or is it something else?; written

Qin Fen - My Shy Fiance - Being arranged to marry a complete stranger sucks! Or does it?; bulleted

Zheng Ruibin - Death’s Heir - Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 - Death has a son? He’s against his own father?! ; written trilogy.

Zhu Xingjie - It takes 4 hours to bake a cake - Xingjie wants you to go out on a date with him..but with one codition!; bulleted drabble

Huang Xinchun - My Chinese Boyfriend - The shy member of NEX7 is in a relationship with a foreign girl?; bulleted

Bi Wenjun - The Best Man - You have to attend the weding and the best man just happened to be really attractive; bulleted

Bei Honglin - Unplayed Melody - Your heated competition with Honglin has a reason behind it; bulleted

Zhou Rui - Exigent - You get recruited as a model by a high fashion designed!; bulleted

Yue Yue - Love Tour - Your on a trip to scotland? or are you taking a trip to Yue Yue’s heart?; bulleted

Jeffrey Tung - Heart Jockey - You don’t think being a disc jockey requires much skill. Jeffrey proves you otherwise; bulleted

Li Rang - His Tinkerbell - You recently got haircut and is nervous about your boyfriend reacting to it; bulleted

Lou Zibo - The Harvest - It’s harvest season and there is a competition between you and Zibo!; bulleted

Wang Yilong - Soul Catcher - You’re an aspiring reaper but can you handle the stress that comes with it?; bulleted

Bu Fan - Wines and Truths - They say a drunk person can be truthful? Are you sure?; bulleted

Lou Zheng - Incognito - You had to pretend to be someone else because of some reason. What could that be?; bulleted

Lin Chaoze - Greatest Gift - It’s your birthday and your boyfriend is in panic!; bulleted

Mu Ziyang  - Stay in Tune - Why does teacher Ziyang have such a bad reputation?; bulleted

Mu Ziyang - Hiemal- Where you try to fix your doings in the past life and you meet a prince ; bulleted

Li Quanzhe - A Cute Curse - There are just some cute things he deserves; bulleted

Gao Maotong - Nictitate - Somethings just start with a simple wink; bulleted

Zhu Xingjie - Pink Plethora - In which Xingjie unexpectedly likes the same color as you; bulleted

**_

_**

K-POP

Stray Kids

Minho - Did you predict that? - Your best friend Minho is second guessing your intuition, was he right all along? ; bulleted

Minho - It's snowing - Part two of did you predict that? Some things have changed between the two of you; bulleted

_ _

NCT

soon

_ _

X1 + Produce X 101

**

Kim Yohan - 7 Minute Halloween - You got dragged into going into a halloween party by your best friends? Wait, we’re playing a game? This can’t be good..

**

♡ Games

Fate Game - Nine Percent as Boyfriends

Nine Percent - Screenshot Game - School Edition - Part 1 (epilepsy trigger warning)

Nine Percent - Screenshot Game - School Edition - Part 2 (epilepsy trigger warning)

Nine Percent - Screenshot Game - Boyfriend Things (epilepsy trigger warning)

Idol Producer - Birthday Chart - Top 35 Mix

Astrology Compatibility - Idol Producer

Nine Percent Fortune - Screenshot Game (epilepsy trigger warning)

Awaken-F Screenshot Game (epilepsy trigger warning)

NEX7 - Screenshot Game  (epilepsy trigger warning)

ONER - Screenshot Game  (epilepsy trigger warning)

Gramarie Boys - Screenshot Game (epilepsy trigger warning)

Christmas with Nine Percent - Screenshot Game  (epilepsy trigger warning)

[entergamingxp]

Celebrating Blackness in Gaming’s Past, Present, and Future

June 9, 2020 2:30 PM EST

During times like this, it’s especially important to highlight and celebrate black heroes, casts, and developers themselves in video games.

With what’s been happening in the past and especially in light of current events, it’s important to reflect on the video games that have centered or been inclusive of black characters, as well as games led by black developers. Representation has been an ongoing conversation in video games (and other forms of media), and the desire for new stories told from the perspectives of diverse voices and backgrounds has only continued to grow.

In recent years, more games have been releasing that highlight black characters or have been created by black developers. A large chunk of those games are created by independent developers, who have far more creative freedom to craft the kinds of characters they would like to see in games. Even rarer are games led and published by black developers, with many of these narratives still being told by white creators.

But compared with the amount of white protagonists (and all or mostly white casts) that we often see in video games, there’s still so much work to be done. As we’ve been seeing in the past week, plenty of black creatives have been given the long-due spotlight to showcase their talents as opportunities from companies are finally opening up. I truly hope this will lead seeing more blackness reflected in both the games that we play and their internal development talent.

That said, there have been notable black characters and stories told through video games that are worth highlighting. Below, here are some of the most prominent games of the past several years that either star a black character, have a significant (as in mostly) black cast, or were made by black developers.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead

Many fans were enraptured by the first season of The Walking Dead, which introduced two lead black characters: Lee Everett and Clementine. Their relationship and overall story arc–backed by some seriously powerful writing–gave birth to one of the greatest narratives in gaming I have ever witnessed. After Lee’s death, seeing Clementine grow far too fast as she fights for survival while reconciling her perceived role in her father figure’s death is moving and harrowing. Most of all, Telltale’s The Walking Dead creates a sense of constant urgency and dread that completely sucks in the player and doesn’t let go until the very end.

Mafia III

Set in 1968 New Orleans, Mafia III follows the exploits of Lincoln Clay, a war veteran who aims to build a new criminal organization while seeking revenge on the Italian mob. The game holds an extremely uncompromising gaze at systematic racism while allowing for the black protagonist to empower himself and take back power from those who would strive to oppress him. The characters are compelling, and the setting and story of Mafia III offers a rare gaming experience that interweaves the experience of actual blackness in its narrative.

Chromatose

Chromatose is an upcoming indie title by a black lead developer going by the moniker Akabaka. A visual novel and JRPG blend influenced by Persona 3, it follows the protagonist as he awakens in a strange nightmare after a fall that should have ended his life. Amnesiac strangers are also trapped in this world for their own unique reasons. The haunting visuals filled with strong color contrast convey a tale filled with danger at every turn. Between a captivating and diverse cast, excellent monster designs, and a fast-paced battle system, Chromatose seems to be shaping up to be a gem of an indie game.

Watch Dogs 2

Watch Dogs 2 takes place in a fictionalized version of the San Francisco Bay Area and stars Marcus Holloway, a hacker who works with the hacking group DedSec to take down the city’s advanced surveillance system known as ctOS. Having the black hacker Marcus taking the lead role in this game adds a unique perspective on the plot that deals with fighting back in a system designed to strip away power and silence its citizens. Seeing him fight tirelessly and slowly gain traction against the city government is incredibly empowering and strengthens the overall narrative even more.

Murder By Numbers

For fans of the excellent Ace Attorney series comes an indie game with a similar approach to storytelling, over-the-top characters, and investigative gameplay. Murder By Numbers takes place in 1996 Los Angeles and stars Honor Mizrahi, an actress on a hit TV detective show. Unfortunately, her boss winds up dead just moments after he fires her and she finds herself forced to investigate his murder in order to secure her own innocence. Putting aside the harsh reality of black women being kicked out of their own careers, the game does well in emulating the fun and often ridiculous style of Ace Attorney while establishing its own charm. Much of that charm is attributed to Honor herself, who’s plucky, determined, and resourceful, as well as her interactions with her robot sidekick SCOUT. Murder By Numbers is a fun and lighthearted foray complimented by Picross-style puzzles that’s worth checking out.

Apex Legends

Seemingly (but officially unconfirmed) in response to the Overwatch controversy surrounding its lack of playable black women, the free-to-play Battle Royale game launched with two black women characters: Anita Williams and Ajay Che. Not only that, but these two were and still are front and center in the marketing of Apex Legends, which is very notable. While the game is light on lore (as games in this genre tend to be), both of them have very separate upbringings, personalities, and combat proficiencies. From what we know of them, they have well-fleshed-out motivations for why they fight. And I really love the touch that Ajay is a healer, an archetype you don’t tend to see associated with black women characters.

She Dreams Elsewhere

This indie title is a true rarity in that the entire party is black and stars a black woman protagonist. She Dreams Elsewhere is a surrealist adventure RPG where you traverse protagonist Thalia’s dreamscape along with her friends. She must come to grips with and confront her mental health conditions, and escape from a never-ending coma. One part Undertale, one part Persona, it’s a game made beautiful through its retro simplicity and haunting soundtrack that combines black music such as R&B, funk, and jazz. Not only do we have that level of diversity and culture, but the characters themselves–especially Thalia–are fleshed out and fully-developed. When pitted against the well-designed monsters using abilities grounded in reality, She Dreams Elsewhere truly ups the surrealism surrounding its setting and atmosphere.

EQQO

EQQO is a unique title, in terms of both its passive storytelling and gameplay, as well as the fact that it’s inspired by Ethiopian mythology. This game is the tale of a mother as she weaves a great story of her son born blind yet full of life and love. The puzzle-based exploration and gameplay is presented as a mythological legend slowly unfolding as the mother, playing as the narrator, tells it. Gorgeous orchestrated music complements the visuals in a harmony that gives even more depth to the narrative. Seeing this level of care and detail with a mythology that is rarely represented in gaming gives me hope that the future will bring more games like this one being created and given proper attention.

Cyberpunk 2077

It’s exceedingly rare to find a triple A title’s universe created by a black person, and yet the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 is just that exception. Mike Pondsmith is best known for his work for the publisher R. Talsorian Games, where he developed a majority of the company’s roleplaying game lines. His most recent project is the collaboration between himself and CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077, which takes place in his own Cyberpunk RPG universe. Pondsmith’s involvement in the video game’s development mostly focuses on the game world aspect and mechanics as well as his general input, such as shooting a bulletproof backpack to test just how a bullet would react with it; for implementing in the game properly, of course.

Streets of Rage 4

The triumphant return of the wildly popular 2D side scrolling beat-em-up franchise, Streets of Rage 4 stars a cast almost entirely of black/POC fighters including newcomer Cherry Hunter. Wood Oak City falls under the control of a new crime syndicate led by Mr. X’s children, the Y Twins, who are planning on brainwashing the city with the use of hypnotic music. The plot, while simple, is a great excuse to beat up some mooks and the character designs, animation, and music are phenomenal. Also that’s not to mention that Cherry, Floyd Iraia, and Cherry’s father Adam Hunter are featured very prominently on the cover and the general advertising. It’s great to see a beat-em-up starring so many cool black characters.

Earthnight

A love letter to classic fast-paced 2D platformers (think Sonic the Hedgehog), Earthnight uses the genre to tell a tale of a bleak dragon apocalypse where humans have been exiled to space, forced to live in orbit above the planet. Protagonists Sydney and Stanley team up one day and decide to skydive back to Earth, taking out as many dragons as they can along the way. The 2D animations are breathtaking; everything from the ripples in their clothing, to the fluidity of their general movements, to the colorful and insane monsters that can take up nearly the entire screen are stunning. It’s clear there was a lot of love and effort put into this game. I also need to mention how much I love Sydney’s design and the way she’s front and center in the trailers. How can you beat a game that lets you fight dragons because a little girl and a dude had enough?

Broken Age

Broken Age released back in 2014 and 2015 as two separate acts by Double Fine and starred protagonists Vella Tartine and Shay Volta (played by Masasa Moyo and Elijah Wood, respectively). While initially their narratives are completely separate from each other, as the story unfolds you realize how intertwined they really are. What makes the storytelling so satisfying is that because the protagonists are kept separate for so long, their individual character arcs can develop in a satisfying way without interfering in the overall story. Vella, the young black girl, in particular had a very strong and compelling story worth experiencing. In Broken Age, seeing her deal with traumatic events as she fought back against a seemingly unavoidable force of destruction made for an excellent real-life comparison to black struggle.

Here are some honorable mentions of other games featuring black/POC characters that, though they didn’t make my list, are worth checking out:

Assassin’s Creed Origins

Half-Life: Alyx

Afterparty

Treachery in Beatdown City

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Beyond Good and Evil

Remember Me

If you’re looking for more black indie talent, check out this Twitter thread as well as this one. For a huge directory of black game developers and their projects, check out the Black Game Developers website and consider supporting them.

And finally if you’re a Black, Asian, and/or Ethnic minority, Code Coven is offering scholarships for their Intro to Game Making Course, which will be open until June 10, 2020.

Are there any games or developers you know of that deserve a mention? Feel free to sound off in the comments!

June 9, 2020 2:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/celebrating-blackness-in-gamings-past-present-and-future/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=celebrating-blackness-in-gamings-past-present-and-future

[daefsoulmate-blog]

a daejae fic recommendation please! :)

[ send me ask for a ff rec (bxb only) based on this list ]

this is going to be really fun because daejae is one of my ultimate otp #daejaeftw (all completed)

MERCY (10 minutes) - mafia!au PLEASE READ THIS. no matter if you ship daejae or not just read this. this fanfic fucked me up for a few days and that says a lot. i even download the pdf so i can read it whenever i want. idk what everyone thinks but i consider this as fandom classic. just to summarize: youngjae is a spy and his job is to bring down daehyun, a murderer and drug dealer. what happens when youngjae falls in love? the ending has me on the floor crying (chaptered)

A Thousand Paper Cranes - fluff daejae wherein dae gets a secret admirer who send him paper cranes everyday. this story is slow-build and might gets you boring in the middle but the ending totally makes up for it! personally i really love the ending :D (chaptered)

Start Game - a mix of One Shot and Skydive i think you can guess how this ff is. anyway this is kinda mafia!au too wherein youngjae is a spy for police and daehyun has a secret mission (just like in both mv) the ending is totally fucked up my mind okay i just want to lay on bed and cry (oneshot)

Occupational Hazards- this is a really good daejae ff okay. so daehyun is assigned to be youngjae’s manager. from what he sees on the tv youngjae is a really kind actor, sweet and lovely. what he doesn’t know is youngjae completely different from what he portrays for the media. there’s some funny scene and of course a really painful conflict! jb is an asshole in this lol. i laughed a lot reading this when i had a bad day (chaptered)

A Prince and His Knight - royal!au. what you get when you put romance, angst and daejae in one ff. daehyun is knight for prince youngjae and they swear to stay together no matter what but oh no! youngjae’s parents already arrange his marriage with asshole prince yongguk :

Symbiosis - daehyun is a freeloader and his roommate youngjae cannot take this anymore but when jae confronts about this dae will satisfy his sexual needs so oh kay (oneshot)

your name on my skin - daehyun tattoos youngjae. youngjae is daehyun’s inspiration. this fanfic is very romantic and they being lovey dovey and so in love. OMG what a time to be alive. (oneshot)

Perfectly Imperfect - daehyun proposes youngjae thrice. THRICE OKAY. and he never gives up until youngjae says yes. a very heart-warming fanfic. (oneshot)

Yes Sir! - millitary!au sign me tf up. youngjae joins the army and sergeant jung just loves torturing him a bit. can you guys imagine how hot soldiers daejae are?! smut ahead! and the ending omg… (oneshot)

Time’s Winged Chariot - tw: suicidal thought. a really beautiful story on how you should never give up on your life because universe always have a surprise for you. really love the way the write wrote this. (oneshot)

The Next Time - 10 years is a really long time to love and to stay in love. as time goes by youngjae always doubts daehyun’s love for him. ohh so angsty but i guess the ending kinda make up for it?? huhu.. (oneshot)

This Is The N.O.W - this kinda sci-fi/future(?)!au lol idk. anyway youngjae is a rebel and fights for the rights against the princes (one of them is daehyun) but he loses so he has to be under daehyun. this gets sad at some points but i totally love the ending. (oneshot)

A Trip to the Store - youngjae gets boring with their vanilla sex and drags daehyun to the sex store to spice their bedroom activities but dae is not interested with the idea so they go home. ho ho ho youngjae totally has no idea what dom!daehyun has in mind lmao. dom-sub smut (oneshot)

When Fluffy Fails a Test = OH KAY so youngjae is stressed with the upcoming exam and his boyfriend daehyun calms him down *wink wink* a well-written smut with a hilarious plot-twist at the end lol (oneshot)

Secret Love - incest. so youngjae and daehyun are bothers (not by blood) and they love each other they would do anything. what happen when their parents find out??!!! smut ahead! (chaptered)

Seducing the Busboy - youngjae takes the bet and now he has to seduce the hot busboy which is daehyun. lots of things happen at once in this ff; youngjae pole dancing, jonglo being spies and banghim shenanigans. a really good fanfic to read after reading all those angsty ones. smut ahead! (chaptered)

i think these are all daejae ff i read and love. thanks for sending me the ask and enjoy reading :D

[charnamefic]

I really need TFP to sweep the rug out from under me.

I don't tend to leave fandoms. I think I'm into Sherlock for life. But I'm also thinking that I'm going to be one of those people who ignores canon after TRF.

I know that many viewers don't take what we're shown at face value. I know that the writers love to be clever and play tricks on their viewers. Still, I think it's important to always consider multiple perspectives and possibilities, so I have been entertaining the idea that we're seeing on screen is intended to be accepted exactly as shown. If that is right, I find the show heartbreaking in ways that have nothing to do with any shipping theories or arguments.

The events we have seen so far in series 4 -- if taken at face value -- have shown that this Sherlock Holmes and John Watson have become bad for each other. It's an interpretation that I'm distressed by, but can't put out of my mind. In full disclosure, I'm posting this partly because I want to be convinced that this interpretation is wrong.

When this show started, I loved the relationship between Sherlock and John. The way I saw it, they made each other's lives exponentially better. I think they each thought the other was amazing and cared for each other deeply. They were always both difficult, messed up, not necessarily good men, but they gave each other what they needed to be better and happier than they could have been.

Back when they were promoting the first series, we were told that John would humanize Sherlock and help him develop a softer side. I'm not sure whether or not this has happened. Yes, we have seen far more sweetness from Sherlock over series 3 and 4, but I believe we have also had a PoV switch. If the first two series were from John's perspective, then what we saw of Sherlock was what he was permitted to see. Perhaps these soft asides have always been there and we simply didn't have a chance to know about them. I think that if our perceptions of Sherlock in S3 and S4 were from John's point of view we would be seeing Sherlock very, very differently. He is still the sort of man who has so little consideration for the pain of others that he'd speak to a pair of grieving parents about their daughter under the conceit that their dead son wasn't important enough to deserve having his gender remembered. He still hurts people who aren't useful to him, or whose hurt may be convenient. I think it's entirely possible that exposure to John hasn't made a significant difference on Sherlock's humanity. I’m really not overly concerned about whether Sherlock has changed. In the end, I’m not sure he needs to. I bring the matter to attention to illustrate that these characters are meant to influence each other, and that sometimes those influences are more clear than others.

Since the Reichenbach fall, Sherlock has had at least two major drug relapses. One after the Watson wedding (which I thought was fair enough in reference to Holmes' drug use in The Sign of the Four) and one in response to Mary's death and John's reaction. Sherlock is miserable -- I believe suicidal -- without John, and I suspect that he's still better with John regardless of any "humanizing" or lack thereof, but I am no longer sure that John is better off with Sherlock.

I think it's reasonable to assume that believing that he had watched Sherlock kill himself all but destroyed John. I say this because of the acting choices made in that and the following scenes, and because John described Mary as the second person who saved his life. Mary was there to pick up the pieces of John after Sherlock fell. She did help him. In the wake of her death, he was left so broken that he started hallucinating her. If we take that at face value, I think it is only reasonable to conclude that he truly, deeply loved her. From what we've seen, the hallucinations would indicate that John grieved her far more intensely than he had Sherlock.

Mary helped John through his grieving process. He grieved for Sherlock, then he began to build a new life with her.

If Sherlock hadn't returned after The Reichenbach Fall, John would have lived in blissful ignorance of his wife's past. If he ever found out, it would likely have been through an event far less traumatizing than having her (temporarily) kill his best friend, which put a certain sort of spin on the information. He never would have felt inadequate in the face of Sherlock preferring her as a mystery-solving companion who was "better" at it than him. Without that trauma and those feelings of inadequacy, I don't believe he would have seriously considered an affair.

It was Sherlock who told Ajay who (Rosamund) Mary Watson was. He may have had information about her old identities on his flash drive, but since this new one was such a good disguise that -- again taking all of this at face value -- even Mycroft Holmes (who kept such close tabs on his little brother's companions that he abducted John immediately and confronted him with his therapist's notes, who had known that Sherlock was coming into extremely close contact with Mary, and who had worked with A.G.R.A. before) couldn't detect that she wasn't who she claimed she was, Ajay (with his fixation on his mysterious decision that she was the "English woman") would likely never have found her. If he had -- as we saw -- she could still take care of herself. It was Sherlock who led Ajay to Mary, and then Mary to her killer. Without Sherlock, Ajay would not have had the information he would need to go after the Watsons. Norbury would never have had any reason to encounter Mary. Mary's past was certainly a problem, but it was Sherlock who made it a dangerous one. John was wrong to blame Sherlock for Mary's death as he did. Sherlock did not force Mary to jump in front of a speeding bullet. Sherlock told John to come to the aquarium and sent Mary a text about curtains. Taking what we saw at face value, Mary's own actions were instrumental in her demise.

Even so, without Sherlock, we have every indication that Mary would still be alive.

Bad things would still have happened. Maybe the underground plot would have succeeded. Maybe Sholto would have died after the Watson wedding. Maybe Magnussen would have still tracked down and blackmailed Mary. Maybe someone else who was also apparently more competent than the man we're told acts as the British government would have. But if we take what the show has given us at face value, Mary could have solved that on her own. She could have shot Magnussen without being interrupted. The only consequences of his death came about because he was murdered in front of others while being filmed. Without Sherlock, he would have died without affecting John at all.

Would the Watsons be bored without regular adrenaline fixes? I think so. I think that would cause conflict. But I think they could raise their daughter happily enough together. Maybe they would need to occasionally go skydiving and participate in particularly intense paintball matches. Maybe activities like that wouldn't be enough. Maybe they'd find something else that would be; they're competent enough. The point is that Rosamund would have a living mother. John wouldn't be a single father passing his daughter off to friends while mourning. John wouldn't be hallucinating his dead wife from grief.

Sherlock came back, and his actions led to unbelievable pain for John. First through John's conception of how Sherlock had treated him (especially if we take the explanation that they told us was correct -- the one we saw given to Anderson -- as true) and then through the discovery that his wife's very identity was a lie. He started out with trust issues. His fears were justified. Betrayal was stacked upon betrayal by the people closest to him. Then the woman he loved died under his hands. I find it horrifying, but not at all inconceivable, that he ended up fucked up enough to do what he did in the morgue. He was entirely responsible for his own actions, no matter what state of mind he was in; I’m simply trying to convey that I found the outcome tragically believable.

If we are meant to interpret Mary the way they are telling us to, as a super competent ex-spy who did bad things but felt regret and wanted more than anything a domestic life with her loving husband and child, then our interpretations of everything else have to account for that. I know that many people in this fandom prefer -- for various reasons -- to interpret her as a villain. Due to the conclusion of this meta, I'll count myself among them. But, unless The Final Problem is going to retcon the last few episodes -- which I suspect is highly unlikely -- then she is the complicated, lovely woman that they have been telling us she is. And she's dead due to her association with Sherlock.

If we take everything we are seeing at face value (and I see why many people don't, but I dwell on it myself) then this John Watson would have been better off if Sherlock Holmes had died in The Reichenbach Fall. That is what I'm finding heartbreaking about this series.

I want this meta to be wrong. I keep reminding myself that no matter what, Thompson is writing The Final Problem and I usually love the way he writes Sherlock and John together. But even so, at this moment, I think BBC’s Sherlock is shaping up to be one of the most depressing Sherlock Holmes adaptations ever. It is what it is, but I know what I don’t want it to be.

Show me this is wrong. Please.

[digitaltariq]

Skydive murder plot wife's new hunky Royal Marine lover

Skydive murder plot wife’s new hunky Royal Marine lover

[ad_1]

This is the new love interest of a woman who survived a 3,000ft fall after her cheating husband tried to kill her by tampering with her parachute, MailOnline can reveal.

Victoria Cilliers, 44, looked blissfully happy as she strolled along with Simon Goodman, a Royal Marines Commando whom she has known for nine years.

The couple has grown close over the last 18 months – since Ms Cilliers’…

[newsini]

When Victoria Cilliers, an experienced skydiver, jumped from a plane in 2015, her life changed forever. After her parachute malfunctioned and her reserve failed, she started plummeting towards the Earth to meet an almost certain death. However, she miracu

[troiings]

MyAnna Buring as Victoria Cilliers (The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot)

[mst3kproject]

609: The Skydivers

I kind of wanted to start out by saying something about how this is the long-awaited third installment in the Coleman Francis Trilogy of Tedium, but that doesn't work.  First of all, The Skydivers is actually Francis' middle movie, made in 1963 (The Beast of Yucca Flats was first, in 1961, and Red Zone Cuba third, in 1966).  Second, that would make me sound like an Argento fan waiting twenty-seven years for The Third Mother, when actually my reaction to seeing The Skydivers pop up in my randomizer was “oh, right.  There's another fucking Coleman Francis movie.”

Like its two sisters, The Skydivers is a bleak and disjointed experience.  A married couple, Harry and Beth, run a skydiving school.  Harry is having an affair with a woman named Suzy (if the name of her boat is anything to go by, the 'z' is supposed to be backwards).  Beth retaliates by almost having an affair with Joe, the airfield's new mechanic.  Joe was hired to replace Franky, who was fired for being drunk and now wants revenge on his former employer.  When Harry spurns Suzy, she and Franky sabotage his parachute, and Harry goes splat.  Suzy and Franky are gunned down by the FAA(?!).  Beth feels guilty and breaks up with Joe before leaving the skydiving school to do something else that probably won't involve airplanes.  Crow gets destroyed a lot, and I conclude that people whose names end in 'y' probably shouldn't get involved with skydiving.

If anyone's interested, there is at least one recorded case of a skydiver being murdered by sabotaging his parachute, that of Steve Hilder in 2003.  The saboteur was never found and the case remains unsolved.

As for the movie itself, there's very little in The Skydivers that would be of interest to... anybody, really.  The movie is dull and badly-lit, featuring boring people in awkward situations.  About the only thing that really caught my attention at any point was the fact that there is some actual footage of skydiving, although you can never see the jumpers' faces up close and I suspect Coleman Francis borrowed it from some other film ('parachuting' footage featuring recognizable characters appears to involve actors hanging from the rafters by a backpack, which I can only imagine as being terribly uncomfortable).  The closest thing to a theme I can find in this celluloid coma is the idea of thrill-seeking. Various characters search for a way to brighten up their colourless lives, and end up suffering for it.

The character Pete seeks thrills by skydiving – he claims it's the only thing that makes him feel alive and free, and he tries ever more dangerous stunts until finally he is unable to pull his parachute cord and falls to his death.  In terms of the actual plot, however, Pete's fate serves no purpose except to ensure the FAA are on hand to witness Harry's murder later.  It seems to have inspired Suzy's revenge plot, but sabotaging a skydiver's parachute is such an obvious idea that this wouldn't be necessary.  His death feels ultimately pointless, not even Grist for the Wheels of Progress.

Harry and Beth each seek a thrill in the form of an illicit affair, but the results are very different because their partners respond differently to their ultimate rejections.  Joe respects Beth enough to accept her rejection, not once but twice: when she initially tells him this can go no further and they must be content to be friends, he accepts it with grace.  At the end, when she tells him she can't stay at the skydiving school, he accepts that too, even though it means he will probably never see her again.

Suzy, on the other hand, has no respect for anybody, even as she expects other people to respect her – witness how she attacks Harry when he calls her a 'broad'.  She was spoiled as a child, and never learned to see other people as anything but a way to get what she wants.  When she can no longer get the sexual excitement she wants from Harry, she kills him.  Franky is nothing but a tool she uses to exact this revenge.  Beth, who has nothing to offer, means nothing to her.

I guess it's mildly noteworthy that The Skydivers is the only Coleman Francis movie in which more than one woman has lines.  In The Beast of Yucca Flats the only woman who talked was the mother of the vacation family, and she didn't have a whole lot to say.  In Red Zone Cuba I think Chastain's wife had a line or two, but I can't remember a word of them.  In The Skydivers, both Beth and Suzy have a fair amount of actual dialogue, and manifest distinctly different personalities.  They are stereotypes, being the 'femmy fattily' and the long-suffering wife, but they make decisions as individuals rather than as 'women', with comprehensible reasons for doing so.  So, uh, that makes Coleman Francis better at writing women than Tommy Wiseau, I guess.

I feel like the universe owes me a cookie for putting me in a position to write that sentence.

I really don't think the consequences of thrill-seeking are the point of the movie, though – the fates of Harry and Beth have more to do with their partners than with the actual illicit sex, and Pete's death seems far too pointless.  The whole movie seems pointless, really – as Beth leaves the airfield at the end, we have no idea why we were just told that story, and what, if anything, we were supposed to take from it.  That seems to be a theme of Coleman Francis movies in general: nobody gets a happy ending and when all's said and done there's no point to any of it.

Consider The Beast of Yucca Flats.  At the end the monster is dead, but a family has perhaps been destroyed.  Or Red Zone Cuba. The villains don't get what they want, but neither do the good guys, and a half dozen other lives have been ruined along the way.  Life is nothing but a series of misfortunes.  Happiness is fleeting when it appears at all, and death is neither release nor justice, it is merely death.  The bare, inhospitable landscapes of the American southwest where Francis filmed seem to underscore the idea: the world is not an inviting place, and does not differentiate between the guilty and the innocent.  All of us, sinners and saints, are equally likely to be gunned down by a guy in a plane for no goddamn reason.

This is where we start to see glimmers of a personal philosophy through the cracks of these movies.  Coleman Francis' work suggests he believed that humans and our institutions are all basically chaotic neutral, doing whatever will benefit us at the moment without much thought for how it affects those around us.  Even Beth, when she rejects Joe's advances, does so for selfish reasons: she believes she will be happier as Harry's wife than Joe's mistress.  'Justice' is arbitrary and cruel.  Doing evil rarely avails us anything, but neither does doing good, and at the end of the day we're all just brief candles in the void.  This is a really depressing way to live your life and makes for some really depressing movies, and I doubt Francis actually thought like this.  Rather, I think he made this kind of movie because he thought that's what important movies should be.

Our entertainment culture seems to believe that tragedy is somehow 'more important' than comedy.  Quick, name three Shakespeare plays! I bet two of them were Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, right?  Even if those aren't the ones you came up with, I bet at least two, if not all three, were tragedies.  Shakespeare wrote nearly twice as many comedies as he did tragedies (eighteen to ten, by most scholars' counts), but it's his tragedies that are endlessly studied and analyzed, that attract big-name actors and win awards to this day, because they're considered more meaningful than the lighthearted comedies.

This is strange, because comedy is important, too.  I think Dustin Hoffman's character in Stranger than Fiction had the best explanation of why: it is by affirming the continuance of life (comedy) that we deal with the unavoidable certainty of death (tragedy).  The ancient Greeks knew this, and would finish up an afternoon of tragedies with a comedic performance called a Satyr Play, so that the audience wouldn't leave the theatre depressed.  Shakespeare knew it, too.  Even Hamlet has jokes, and Horatio is left at the end (continuance of life) to pass on the moral of the story (don't wander around making long-winded speeches like Hamlet – get off your butt and overthrow your evil uncle the way your father's ghost told you to... like Simba!)

Stories can accomplish a lot of things.  They teach us to deal with hypothetical situations and our own emotions, give us information about places we've never been and people we've never met.  One thing that they really shouldn't do, however, is make us feel terrible for no reason, but that's exactly what Coleman Francis' movies do.  That's what you get when people are taught that tragedy is somehow meaningful just because it's tragic.  It might be sad, but unless it has characters we identify with and situations that are somehow significant, it's still not good.

If you haven't seen Stranger than Fiction, you're missing out.  It's a very funny movie about coping with one's own mortality and might just make you cry over the death of Will Ferrell.  If you haven't seen The Skydivers... you're good.  Don't bother.

[digitaltariq]

First pictures of skydive murder plot wife's new hunky Royal Marine lockdown lover

First pictures of skydive murder plot wife’s new hunky Royal Marine lockdown lover

[ad_1]

This is the new love interest of a woman who survived a 3,000ft fall after her cheating husband tried to kill her by tampering with her parachute, MailOnline can reveal.

Victoria Cilliers, 44, looked blissfully happy as she strolled along with Simon Goodman, a Royal Marines Commando whom she has known for nine years.

The couple has grown close over the last 18 months – since Ms Cilliers’…