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Lore Episode 9: The Devil on the Roof (Transcript) - 28th June 2015

tw: animal death

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

In March of 2014, a hiker in Lithuania stumbled upon a warm spring that was melting the ice on a frozen pond. It’s not unusual to find things like this, but he was curious. I would be too – the pond was frozen over, but there was a nice window into the still waters beneath. I have to think any one of us would have leaned in for a closer look. When he did, though, he witnessed something that his mind had trouble processing. It appeared to be a living creature, but it was unlike anything he had ever seen. Thankfully we live in a very connected, very digital age, and he used his phone to take a short video. I have no idea what the creature was, or if it even was a living thing at all, and I’m not going to discuss it today, or tell you more stories about similar sightings, because there aren’t any. It was a one off, a random occurrence that had never happened before, and would probably never happen again. Some stories are like that – sometimes we bump into something new, with no history or record of events to lend it pedigree or validity, and those stories frustrate me. Other stories, though, go deep. Some legends have been told for centuries. Some creatures have been sighted by hundreds of people over the years, and each new sighting lends credence to its story. And even if it’s all made up, or just one big misunderstanding, these layers upon layers of story seem to somehow give life to the creatures they describe. When we find these deep wells of folklore, our minds are presented with a challenge. Do the centuries of first-hand accounts serve as a proof, or do they highlight our incredible, cross-cultural, nearly genetic predisposition toward gullibility? Few places challenge us to such a degree as the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. Inside that wooded expanse, mystery runs far and wide. Mystery, and some say, the devil. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When we think of the east coast of the United States, we think of urban sprawl, of endless strings of bedroom communities, looping around massive metropolitan centres. New York City. Boston. Philadelphia. Washington DC. All of these places are symbols of humanity’s inability to leave an undeveloped area untouched. What most people don’t know, however, is that there is a huge expanse of forested land cutting through the southern part of New Jersey that simply boggles the mind. It’s called the Pine Barrens, and it’s the largest undeveloped area of land in the mid-Atlantic Seaboard. Seriously, this place is massive. There are 1.1 million acres of forest, and beneath it all are underground aquifers that are estimated to contain over 17 trillion gallons of the purest drinking water in the country. As you might imagine, such a massive area of untouched land comes with its own treasure chest of mythical creatures and frightening folklore. The local Lenape tribe of Native Americans tell stories of the Manetutetak, the wood dwarves who live in the forest, a local version of the global “little people” legend. There are other creatures rumoured to exist in the pines, including “Big Red Eye”, the “Hoboken Monkey Man”, undocumented species of large cats, the “Cape May Sea Serpent”, the “Lizard Man of Great Meadows”, and something called a Kim Kardashian. New Jersey, you see, is full of monsters.

But hovering over them all like a patriarch, perched at the top of an ornate family tree, is something that has haunted the Pines for nearly 300 years. The original story goes something like this: in 1735, one Mrs. Shroud of Leeds Point, New Jersey, became pregnant with her 13th child. According to the legend, Mrs. Shroud secretly wished that this child would be a devil or demon child. Sure enough, when the child was born, it was misshapen and malformed. Mrs. Shroud kept the deformed child in her home, sheltered from the curious eyes of the community. But on a dark and stormy night, because bad things only ever happen on dark and stormy nights, of course, the child’s arms turned to wings and it escaped, flying up and out through the chimney. Mrs Shroud never saw her devil child again. That’s the story - or at least one version of it. A more prominent version of the legend identifies the mother as Mrs. Leeds, not a Mrs. Shroud from Leeds, who was from the Burlington area of New Jersey. Mrs. Leeds, according to the legend, had dabbled in witchcraft despite her Quaker beliefs, and this hobby of hers made the old women attending her birth more than a little uneasy. To their relief, though, a handsome baby boy was born that stormy night, and he was quickly delivered to Mrs. Leeds’ arms. That’s when he transformed. His human features vanished, his body elongated and even his skin changed. The baby’s head became horse-like, and hooves replaced his feet. Bat-like wings sprouted from his shoulders and he grew to the size of a man. Other stories have persisted through the centuries as well. One claimed that the monster was the result of a treasonous relationship between a colonial Leeds Point girl and a British soldier, while another story tells of a gypsy curse. There seems to have been no town or county in the Pines area without its own version of the story. Many of them vary wildly. But one thing united them all: the description of the creature. In all the stories it was some sort of hybrid or mutation of a normal animal. Most of the stories describe it in the same terms: head like a horse, wings like a bat, clawed hands, long serpent tail, and legs like a deer. In some accounts, the creature is almost dragon-like. Coincidentally, the Lenape tribe refers to the Pines area as Popuessing which means “the place of the dragon”. Swedish explorers even named the area “Drake Kill”, kill being the Dutch word for river and drake meaning dragon. Whatever the truth is behind the origins behind this legend, and whatever its core features really are, the people of the Pines were united in what they called it: The Jersey Devil. And this devil was more than just a story that was passed from person to person. Over the centuries that followed, countless eyewitness reports surfaced that seemed to point to one overwhelming conclusion. The Jersey Devil… was real.

What makes the Jersey Devil so special is the quality of many of the sightings. Individuals with no need to make up stories, whether for political or professional reasons, all seem to have found the courage to report incidents that would normally be laughable. Stephen Decatur was a United States naval officer who was known for his many victories in the early 1800s. Decatur was, and still is today, a very well-respected figure in American history. There have been five warships named after him, he’s had his own stamp through the US postal service, and in the late 1800s, it was his face that graced the $20 bill rather than Andrew Jackson’s. According to the legend, Decatur visited the Hannover ironworks in Burlington, New Jersey in the early 1800s. The facility there manufactured cannonballs, something Decatur was very familiar with, and he had arrived to test some of the product. On this occasion, Decatur was said to have been on the firing range, operating the cannon. While there, he witnessed a strange creature flying overhead. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before and, like a true American, he aimed a cannon at it. He fired, and the shot was said to be true, striking the creature in mid-air. Mysteriously though, nothing happened. The creature continued on uninterrupted. Another early resident of New Jersey was Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon had appointed his brother King of Spain in 1808, but Joseph abdicated just five years later, before moving to the United States. He took up residence in a large estate called Breeze Point, near the Pine Barrens, and lived there for nearly two decades. One of his favourite past times was to go hunting in the Pines. On one of those hunting trips, the former King of Spain was in the woods near his home when he discovered some strange tracks in the snow. They looked like the tracks of a donkey but there were only two feet present, not four. Bonaparte commented on how one of the feet appeared slightly larger than the other, as if deformed in some way. He followed the tracks to a clearing, but stopped when the prints vanished. It was as if the animal had simply taken flight. As he was turning to leave, Bonaparte heard a strange hissing sound. He glanced back, only to find himself standing face to face with a large creature. He described it as having bat-like wings, the head of a horse, and it stood on thin hind legs. Before he could remember to use his rifle, the creature hissed one final time, flapped its wings, and flew off into the sky. He later described the events to a local friend, who simply smiled and congratulated the man. “You’ve just seen the famous Jersey Devil”, his friend told him.

The following decades were filled with more and more sightings and reports. In the early 1840s, a handful of farmers began to report the death of livestock on their land. In most cases, tracks were found but they could not be identified. Others claimed to have heard high-pitched screams in the Pines, a sound that would forever be connected with the Jersey Devil. By 1900, belief in the Jersey Devil was widespread and stronger than ever. Nearly everyone in the area believed that something otherworldly lived inside the Pines. Anytime disaster or death entered their lives, they cast blame on this creature, but some had also begun to do the math. If this creature really was the child of Mrs. Shroud and was born in 1735, then it was very, very old. Folklorist Charles B. Skinner commented on this in a 1903 publication. “It is said that its life has nearly run its course”, he wrote, “and with the advent of the new century many worshipful commoners of Jersey have dismissed, for good and all, the fear of the monster from their mind”. Skinner, you see, thought that it was gone - that the Jersey Devil was too old to carry on terrorising the people of the Pines. But when the events of 1909 unfolded, just six years later, one thing became very clear: Skinner couldn’t have been more wrong.

January 1909 was a busy month for thpe Jersey Devil. In the early morning hours of January 16th, a man named Thack Cozzens was out for a walk under the stars in Woodbury, New Jersey. A sound caught his attention, and he glanced up, only to see a large, dark shape fly past. Cozzens recalled noticing that the creature’s eye glowed bright red. 26 miles away that same early morning, in the town of Bristol, Pennsylvania, a number of people reported seeing a similar creature. One eyewitness, a police officer named James Sackville, actually fired his handgun at it, without effect. E. W. Minster, the town postmaster, also saw the flying thing, and according to him, it also unleashed a high-pitched scream. When the sun rose that morning, several people reported finding strange hoof prints in the snow. No one could identify the kind of creature who would leave such tracks. And just one day later, on the 17th, unusual hoof prints were found in the snow outside the home of the Lowdens in Burlington, New Jersey. The tracks surrounded their trashcan, which had been knocked over and rummaged through. Other people found tracks on their rooftops. Trails were followed into streets, where the tracks would simply vanish. The Burlington police tried tracking the creature with the help of hunting dogs, but the dogs refused to follow the trails. At 2:30 in the morning on Tuesday the 19th, a Mr. and Mrs. Evans were asleep in bed in Gloucester, New Jersey, when a scream awoke them. They both climbed out of bed and approached their window, and then stopped, paralysed by fear. There on the roof of their shed stood a creature unlike anything they had ever laid eyes on. According to Mr. Evans, it was roughly 3ft tall and had the head of a horse. It walked on two legs and held smaller, claw-like hands against its chest. The leathery wings were still present, as was the long, serpentine tail. The couple managed to frighten the creature away after watching it for nearly 10 minutes. Later that day, professional hunters were called in to attempt to track the creature, but they had no success. The following day brought more of the same. A Burlington police officer was the first to see the creature, followed by a local minister. A hunting party that was formed to track the beast claimed they watched it fly towards Moorestown, and in Moorestown, it was seen at Mount Carmel Cemetery. From there, it was seen to fly toward Riverside, and there, hoof prints were found in a cluster around a dead puppy. A day later, an entire trolley full of passengers in Clementon watched a winged creature circle above them. The Black Hawk Social Club reported their own sighting, and when a Collingswood fireman saw one up close, he turned his hose on the creature, chasing it off. Later that night, a woman named Mrs. Sorbinski of Camden heard a noise outside in the dark. She grabbed her broom and stepped out, only to find the mysterious beast trying to catch her dog. Mrs. Sorbinski beat at the creature with her broom until it released the dog and flew away. When a crowd gathered as a result of her screaming, they all claimed to see the creature off in the distance. The mob charged toward the thing, then a police officer even fired shots, but whatever the creature was, it had managed to escape into the sky. The creature made a few more random appearances across New Jersey during late January of that year, but it was one final sighting in February that leaves many questions to be answered. An employee of a local electric railroad was out working on the tracks when he saw what he later described as the Jersey Devil flying overhead. He claimed to have watched the creature fly into one of the overhead electrical wires, generating an explosion large enough to melt the metal tracks directly underneath. A search was made, but no body was found.

Maybe the stories of the Jersey Devil are about something else. Maybe they’re really about fear - fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, a fear of what might be lurking out there in the trees. Humanity has feared these things for millennia, but perhaps the people of the Pines feared something more basic, more fundamental than whatever might be waiting for them in the darkness. Perhaps they simply feared being alone. There’s nothing worse than experiencing a loss you can’t seem to explain, or noises you can’t identify, especially if you are in a new and strange place. The sources might very well be real and normal, but in the setting and culture of their day, the unexplainable only served to highlight the loneliness of the early settlers of New Jersey. The Barrens had a way of giving permission to fear the unknown. They still do to this day. When settlers discovered rare or unusual plants and animals inside these woods, it became easy to take it one step further. Demon children, creatures dancing on rooftops, livestock and pets being attacked – we explain our existence with fantasy, because sometimes that’s the only thing that can help us cope. In 1957, some employees from the New Jersey Department of Conservation found a partial animal corpse in the Pines. It was a mangled collection of feathers, mammal bones ad long hind legs that appeared to have been burnt or scorched. It might be logical to assume that the creature that flew into the electrical wires in 1909 had literally crashed and burnt, only to be discovered decades later. It might, in fact, sound like the creature was gone for good. But in 1987, an unidentified woman in Vinland, New Jersey, reported that her German Shepherd had been killed during the night. The dog had been torn to pieces and dragged over 25ft from the end of its chain. The only evidence the authorities could find around the body were hoof prints.

This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. Learn more about me and the show over at lorepodcast.com, and be sure to follow along on Twitter and Facebook @lorepodcast. This episode of Lore was made possible by you, our amazing listeners, [insert sponsor break here]. To find out how you can support Lore, visit lorepodcast.com/support. You’ll find links to help you leave a review on iTunes, support Lore on Patreon for some awesome rewards, and find a list of my supernatural thrillers, available in both paperback and ebook formats. I couldn’t do this show without you, and I’m thankful to each and every one of you. Thanks for listening.

Notes

Most of the sightings mentioned by Aaron seem to come from Monsters of New Jersey by Loren Coleman, which has no public access

#lore podcast #podcasts #aaron mahnke #jersey devil #new jersey #cryptozoology #folklore #transcripts #9

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pokeasleepingsmaug · 7 years ago

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Slow Hands: Part 2

Ubbe was supposed to pick you up for your first date any second, and so of course you were chasing four escaped mules down the road, praying they wouldn't get hit by cars. You cursed as you tripped over the lace of your untied boot. Leave it to the damn mules to walk right through a fence like it wasn't even there. Your boss, Sharon, was rounding up the three that had stayed on the farm. You heard the whine of an approaching car from around the bend in the road and desperately shook the bucket of grain in your hand. Not to be tricked, the mules kept on their merry way.

You heaved a sigh of relief as Ubbe's green truck rounded the corner and immediately slowed down. He was jumping out of the truck in a flash, striding toward the mules with his hands outstretched. The small herd screeched to a halt, large ears flicking back and forth as they decided what to do. Ubbe kept coming at them, motioning towards you, raising his voice to gently scold them in Swedish. “Lead them back, I will herd them,” Ubbe switched abruptly to heavily-accented English.

He raised his voice in a shrill, melancholy call that had you shivering. It was halfway between a song and a call, the ancient sound of a herder summoning his animals to safety as night fell. The sound was warmth and safety, food and fire. It was sad and sweet, the bittersweet mourning of summer drawing to an end, of winter coming quickly with its icy breath.

You grabbed hold of Dolly's forelock to steady yourself and used it to lead her to the farm, followed by the sounds of clopping hooves and Ubbe's haunting, beautiful voice. . Luckily they hadn't made it too far, maybe a half-mile down the road before Sharon looked out her window and saw the broken fence.

By the time you made it back, the other three mules had been rounded up and turned out with the donkeys. “We'll put them out with their mamas for the night,” Sharon told you. You followed her to the pasture behind the barn where the draft horses stayed. Most of the mules and draft horses had come from Amish farms. Usually, the draft mares were nursing mule foals when they arrived. Sharon opened the gate and you led Dolly in, quick to let go of her forelock and back out of her way.

She kicked up her large hooves playfully, squealing in excitement as she chased one of the large Belgian mares toward the fence. You felt the other three rush past you and closed the gate quickly before brushing your sweaty hair off your neck. Sharon shook her head as she watched the newly-caught mules play. “Thank you for your help, Ubbe. I didn't know you were coming by today,” Sharon greeted him with a knowing glance at you—untied boots, sweaty half-done hair, sundress hanging slightly askance.

You could feel the blush painting itself up your cheeks as Ubbe smiled warmly at you. “I'm not here on business.” He let the implications hang heavy in the air for a moment before Sharon laughed, waving the two of you away with a laugh.

“Alright, get going. I'll handle any more escapades.” You took the easy out and fled, tripping over the untied laces in your hurry. Ubbe's hand at your elbow was quick to steady you, and he linked his arm with yours as you walked toward your apartment above the barn.

“It looks like you had a busy day,” he began lightly, tugging you close against his side.

“It was quiet until I was getting ready to leave,” you answered, turning to look at him and tilting your head in curiosity. “What was that noise you made? With the mules?”

“Oh.” He smiled sheepishly, and he ducked his head self-consciously. “It's called kulning, it's an old Swedish herding call. Usually it's done to call cattle or goats, and usually it's done by women, but,” he shrugged, “I use it to call my own horses. It works.”

You perked up. “I didn't know you had horses.”

He nodded, grinning down at you. “I live on a small farm. Just a few chickens, one grumpy goat, a garden, and four horses. You're welcome to come over, if you want to.”

You nodded eagerly, insanely curious to see where he lived. “I would love to. Tonight, after dinner, can we go?”

“Of course. I wanted to take you there tonight, but thought you might be more comfortable at your own place.” He followed you up the stairs and into your apartment. He settled on the couch, motioning to his lap. “Come here. I want to braid your hair.” You perched on Ubbe's knees. With a warm chuckle he pulled you closer to his chest, leaning back against the couch. His gentle hands gathered your hair; clever fingers working through the few snarls he found. He scratched your scalp lightly and you sighed, melting into his touch. He grabbed a section of hair from the crown of your head and separated it into three sections. He wove the strands together slowly, pulling more hair into the braid as he continued. He tied off the braid with a leather thong he took from around his wrist, sitting back to inspect his handiwork. He nodded in approval.

You reached back to touch your hair, the braid neat but not too tight. You grinned back at him over your shoulder. “Now we match,” you stated, motioning to his long braid. He laughed, bending forward to press a soft, suckling kiss into your tender neck. You gasped as he pulled back, gentle hands on your hips pushing you to your feet.

“Ready to go?” You nodded as you slipped on your shoes, eyes raking over him in appreciation. You'd been so distracted by the mules and then him playing with your hair, you'd barely noticed what he wore. He cleaned up nicely in black slacks and a simple blue button-down that was just a few shades brighter than his eyes. It hugged his broad shoulders and tapered down to his lean, sculpted waist, where it tucked into his pants, held up by a black leather belt. His long light brown hair was pulled back into a neat braid, short beard freshly trimmed.

Your mouth felt suddenly dry. How could he be so handsome all the time? It didn't matter if he was sweaty and shoeing horses or dressed to take you to dinner, no man should look that flawless all the time. It simply wasn't fair. Ubbe opened the door for you and followed you onto the landing at the top of the stairs. You started down, Ubbe following you. “So where are we going?”

“Do you like sushi?” You nodded, and he smiled. “For sushi.”

“What if I didn't?” You challenged, returning his smile.

“I had four options picked out,” he admitted, not at all sheepish. “I wanted to be sure you would enjoy it.” He opened the door of his truck for you, holding a hand out to help you up, and closed the door behind you. He climbed in himself and backed down the driveway. The nearest town of any notable size was only about ten minutes away, but you had no idea where he was taking you. The radio was playing quietly in the background, but with a little cry of joy you turned it up.

Slow Hands blared through the speakers and Ubbe laughed, looking over as you shimmied in your seat, singing along and pretending to trace a voluptuous body with your hands. “Will you be disappointed if my body isn't that curvy?” He teased, brows raised. You laughed, too, shaking your head as you sang along.

Suddenly you turned the radio down. “How is sweat dripping down dirty laundry sexy? I mean, just saying, that's what you get when you let guys try to talk sexy.”

“You don't think I can talk sexy?” Ubbe asked, tilting his head as he parked the truck. “I think I can have you squirming by the end of dinner.” He opened the door to the restaurant for you and followed you in. The hostess was quick to seat you in a corner booth. The waitress bustled off to get you a couple waters as you perused the menus.

“How was your day? Any horses as interesting as Bucky?” You looked at him over the top of your menu.

“It got a lot better once I saw this beautiful girl chasing some mules down the road. All I could think was how soft her skin would be under my hands.”

“That was weak,” you informed him, nonchalant. He furrowed his brows a little, then shrugged.

“I have all of dinner to get you squirming. Believe me, when I'm done you'll leave a puddle on your seat.”

“Is that seriously the best you can do?”

His grin was slow and hungry as his clear blue eyes raked over the top half of your body. He shook his head. “Of course not, Y/n, but I have to start off slow, make sure you can handle me.”

You opened your mouth to reply but Ubbe's gaze shifted over your shoulder, his smile went from smoldering to businesslike. You placed your orders and the waitress left. “So you think I can't handle you?” You challenged him, meeting his shimmering blue eyes.

“I think you'll find I'm full of surprises.”

“So surprise me.”

“If you insist. Tonight, I'm going to make love to you. But first, I'm going to play with that beautiful body of yours, explore every single inch of it. How do you feel about being tied up?” His voice was like honey, sweet and smooth, but the question was almost abrupt. He tilted his head, waiting. Your heart pounded, but you tried to play it off like he hadn't just hit on something that intrigued you.

You shrugged. “It's fine.”

“The way I do it will be more than fine, I promise. I'm going to tie your hands above your head, have you standing in the middle of my room in only your high heels and a blindfold. You are going to be at my mercy as I learn your body. I'm going to touch every inch of you, to taste you everywhere.” He flicked his tongue at you in a deliciously obscene gesture. “There's a reason they call it a Swedish kiss.” The wink Ubbe sent your way zapped like lightning to your sex. You tried to keep your face neutral but you were biting back a moan, and a knowing smile was curving up the corners of Ubbe's full, soft lips.

“Maybe I'll make love to you for the first time just like that, tied standing and blindfolded, or maybe I'll take you to my bed. I know it'll probably be uncomfortable for you to be tied with your hands over your head for too long, so we'll see how you're feeling and take it from there.” His smile is tender now as he continues. “And of course at any point if you want me to stop, just say stop.”

You're practically panting by now, and the waitress raises her eyebrows at you as she sets several plates of sushi on the table. Ubbe looks smug as he pops a California roll into his mouth. He smirks as he finishes chewing. “I win our bet.”

“You won't be smirking like that by the time I'm finished with you tonight, Ubbe.” He doesn't even bother trying to stop the low, throaty moan as you take a sip of water, smirking. Dinner is much less interesting than dessert promises to be.

#ubbe ragnarsson #ubbe lothbrok #ubbe #ubbabe #the sinnamon roll #the quiet beast #ubbe imagine #ubbe x reader #reader insert #vikings fic #ubbe fic #vikings fanfic #vkubbe

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johnhardinsawyer · 5 years ago

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“Who is This?”

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 5 / 20 – Palm/Passion Sunday[1]

Philippians 2:5-11

Matthew 21:1-11

“Who is This?”

(The Inevitable Wilderness)

We’ve all been there. There is some movie or TV show we haven’t seen, some book we have not read, but we’re looking forward to watching it or reading it really soon, and then someone comes along and spoils the ending. “Spoiler Alert: so-and-so was dead the whole time,” they say, or “Spoiler Alert: that good character is really the son of that bad character.” You get the idea. . . You think the story is going to go one way, but in a surprise twist, it goes another way, but if you already know what the twist is, then it spoils the surprise.

I was not there the day that Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey and colt – the day that crowds of people cut branches from the trees and waved them in the air, shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9) But I am wondering about that one guy, straight out of central casting for “Snarky Man in the Crowd,” who watches the whole big parade and people shouting and waving branches and then turns to the camera while Jesus rides by and says, “Spoiler Alert: Jesus of Nazareth? He’ll be dead in a week.”

To be clear: the Bible never actually says that there was a man like that in the crowd. Other versions of today’s story from Matthew, have slightly different details, but none of them say anything about the “Spoiler Alert Guy.”

I really don’t know if there was such a guy, two thousand years ago on a warm spring Sunday by the city gates of Jerusalem, but I imagine that he would speak for most of us who know the story of Palm Sunday and what comes after it. Because, Spoiler Alert: Jesus does go into the city to great fanfare, and, by Friday afternoon, he is betrayed and arrested and killed. For those of you new to this story, sorry to spoil it for you. . .

The strange thing about today’s story and the story of what happens after it, is that Jesus has been “spoiling” it for his disciples for weeks – maybe even longer. In the Gospel of Matthew, alone, Jesus has been telling his friends – Peter, James, and John, and the rest – that he will “go to Jerusalem, and undergo great suffering. . . and be killed,” (16:21) and that “the Son of Man [which is how Jesus sometimes refers to himself] is about to suffer. . .” (17:12), and that “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed. . . and they will kill him. . .” (17:22-23). And then, just a few days before arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus tells them, in very specific language,

We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. . . (20:18-19)

“It’s not going to be pretty, friends,” Jesus is saying, but this is what is really going to happen to me. It is inevitable.” Of course, the disciples are distressed to hear this. How could their friend and teacher be talking in this way? At one point, Peter even says, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” (16:22) To which Jesus says – and I’m paraphrasing, here – “Peter, don’t tempt me into taking the easy path. That’s not the path that God has chosen for me.”[2]

And so, when Jesus rides into the city of Jerusalem, there are plenty of people in the crowd who are genuine in their joy and praise and loud “Hosannas,” who can’t look away because they’re so excited. And then there’s the rest of us, and Peter and the other disciples, and maybe even Jesus, himself, who can’t look away, either, but for other reasons. It’s like watching a slow-moving train crash, or someone making some kind of mistake that we can see coming from a mile away, or, even seeing a line graph of COVID-19 coronavirus cases going up and up with experts telling us that the worst is yet to come. . . By all appearances, this Hosanna parade is not going to end well for everyone. Someone is going to get hurt – maybe even killed.

And yet, despite all of this, Jesus gets on his colt and donkey and rides into the city, just the same. In the original language, the whole city is “stirred up [and] set in motion”[3] by Jesus and everyone is asking, “Who is this?” (21:10) Most of us are, likely, asking that same question about Jesus. For the people who are just hearing about Jesus for the first time, there is some genuine curiosity. “What’s the buzz?” “Why is everyone so excited?” “What’s going on, here?” “Who is this that is stirring our city up?”

For the rest of us, who have been hearing for two thousand years that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, when we ask the question, “Who is this?” about Jesus, we are wondering about how and why someone who knew what was going to happen to him and still got up and went. “Who is this good person that rode into the city, knowing he would likely be dead before the week was out?”

In the early church, when people talked about Jesus, they would often refer to the strange sacrificial nature of who he was and what he did. When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, he encapsulated this thought by writing a hymn about it. Now, no one knows how the hymn tune went, but Paul’s lyrics are still beautiful and challenging. Eugene Peterson translates them in this way:

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.[4]

Now, I know that these words might not rhyme, but in essence this ancient song is telling us that not only was Jesus God, but that Jesus became humble and obedient – not so that he could serve himself, but that he might serve others.

Right before today’s passage from Philippians, Paul urges all of us who read his words to follow after the example of Jesus. As Paul writes, “Let each of you not look to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:4) Or, as Peterson translates,

Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. . .[5]

In this time of global pandemic, you and I have likely seen plenty of examples of those who think of themselves and their families and their stock portfolios and political fortunes first and those who set their personal needs and desires aside long enough to lend a helping hand – long enough to help others get ahead.

When I think of health care workers – from doctors and nurses, technicians and therapists to people who clean hospital rooms and home health aides – willingly donning their scrubs and going to work, knowing all of the risks that the simple act of going to work might bring, it causes me to tremble with awe. The same can be said of grocery store and pharmacy employees – people who deliver essential items, and others who ride or drive in to work every day, because they know that what they are doing is crucial for the rest of us. They willingly enter the wilderness with all of its inevitable risks and fears and uncertainties, because they know that it is the right thing to do. As Scott Simon said, yesterday, on NPR’s Weekend Edition, “These days, we are surrounded by essential, extraordinary people.”[6] How true. . .

When it comes to Jesus, though, I wonder: how essential and extraordinary is he for you and me? Yes, there are some spoilers out there. Maybe there are times when we, ourselves, are tempted to spoil the parade and the party. But there is something that I still find so beautiful and compelling and essential and extraordinary about this person riding on a donkey – down the steep hill of the Mount of Olives and up into the cobblestone streets of Jerusalem.

In today’s text from Matthew, there is a part where we can hear a snippet from the book of Zechariah in the Hebrew Bible. Zechariah, who was writing in a time of captivity and exile – far away from his homeland – paints a picture of a king who would one day come:

Rejoice greatly. . . Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Look, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey. . . He will cut off the chariots and war horses and the weapons of war, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.[7]

Who is Jesus, really? This is who Jesus is: the One who humbly rides into the wilderness places and times of turmoil and strife and death and fear and uncertainty, and offers peace to those who need it most – peace to our hearts and, if we’re willing, peace to the ends of the earth. He does this, not through an outward show of power as we would understand power. No, he offers us peace – he offers peace to the world – in the simple and humble act of giving himself away, to us and for us. And, whether the cheering and chanting people of the city know it or not – whether we know it or not – this is what triumph and victory look like: the triumph and victory of loving servanthood and self-sacrifice over and above everything else. . . even death, itself.

If there is anything that will get us through these dark days, it just might be the story and example of someone who did the difficult thing because he knew it was the right thing to do. And, it might just be the story and example of others who are willing to follow in his footsteps – maybe even you and me.

Yes, Jesus might be dead by the end of the week, but Spoiler Alert: this is not the end of the story. Yes, he might be dead by the end of the week, but death doesn’t last. Resurrection is coming.

Look, friends, your king is coming – humble. . . riding on a borrowed donkey, riding to give himself away for us, riding to set us free from sin and death, riding to offer his life so that we might live.

Ride on, King Jesus. Ride on!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

--------

[1] And the third Sunday of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic “remote worship” services from BPC, using Bedford Community Television and SoundCloud.

[2] See Matthew 16:23.

[3] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 746.

[4] Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1621-1622.

[5] Peterson, ibid.

[6] https://www.npr.org/2020/04/04/827110608/opinion-seen-and-remembered-our-essential-workers.

[7] Zechariah 9:9-10, paraphrased, JHS.

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onett199x · 7 years ago

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Yes, video games are art, but are they artistic?

This is another essay I wrote - I don’t do this super often, but I was feeling particularly inspired on this topic tonight, so here it is.

A question I often see asked, usually by someone with an obvious bias or conflict of interest, is this: Are video games art? These days, the prevailing attitude towards that idea seems to be that they are, although that could easily just seem to be the prevailing attitude from my perspective because most people I know have a generally favorable attitude towards video games. At least from where I'm sitting, it seems like a tired, silly question - I imagine a college freshman pointedly answering "VIDEO GAMES!" when his Introduction to Art teacher asks about different mediums of art, and then being slightly disappointed when that professor doesn't try to argue with him about it. Of course, there are different definitions of what 'art' is and isn't, so I'll start by defining my own terms. To me, personally, there is no threshold of quality in art. In other words, anything made by anybody can be art, whether that person has a talented bone in their body or not - macaroni glued to construction paper by kindergartners is art, and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes are art. By my definition, then, of course video games are art - they have design and controls, they have images designed by visual artists, and they have music composed by musicians. Any and all video games are art - it didn't just happen when presenters at E3 started trying to target the Self-Important College Freshmen demographic. So Asteroids is art, Custer's Revenge is art, those battery-operated Game And Watch handhelds are art, and Flappy Bird, Neko Atsume, and Pokemon Go are art. Some of those are art in the same way that Tijuana Bibles or 'Spot the Difference' games in the funny papers are art, but by my definition, they're still art. In my mind, at least, that much is simple.

Where this discussion gets instantly a thousand times more complicated is whether they are artistic. This is what I think many people mean when they have conversations about whether video games are art - the implied question is not 'Is this something humans made to express themselves', but 'What is the value of this expression?' and, underneath that, 'Can we say it is as valuable as, for example, books, film, or visual art?' And THAT is a hairy, complicated question with a lot of different arguments to unpack and address.

I think, to take the previous thought just a little further, many people really want to discuss whether video games can teach us something about the human condition the way that literature or some movies or television can. This is what makes it a fun debate for people, because when video games were first invented and popularized, that answer was almost universally a resounding 'No'. At their inception, video games largely served the societal purpose of relieving children and older nerds of their pocket change - Jumpman's plight to rescue Paulina from Donkey Kong had no metaphor, allegory, or social/political commentary. Everything about its premise, down to Jumpan's mustache and large nose, was the direct result of working within the limitations of primitive hardware. As video games moved into the home market, they were still primarily targeted towards children (and nerds), with mostly bright, colorful mascots and cartoony aesthetics. So while they still met my (admittedly generous) standards for the definition of 'art' listed above, they did not pretend to probe the depths of the human soul. I imagine that changed sometime in the decade that saw the advent of text-heavy role playing games and the transition from two dimensions to three within the game space. In Search Of Lost Time these games were not, however - the closest analogue I could provide would be a Saturday morning cartoon show with action figure marketing tie-ins. It's only been in the last ten years or so that it seems like some people have really started to push that particular envelope, and, in my eyes, a lot of these efforts are pretentious or heavy-handed. I'm sure somewhere, someone has written a Thinkpiece on how those games with ~serious moral choices~ (see: Bioshock's decidedly unsubtle 'Will you rescue this innocent child or harvest their organs?') are advancing the artistic merit of the medium, and I hate that thinkpiece. Attempts to be more subtle with these ideas have certainly surfaced since the whole 'Would you kindly...?' thing, and some of those have, admittedly, presented much more interesting questions for debate. Much of these more interesting ideas in the 'commentary on the human condition' wheelhouse of video game design comes from indie developers who are setting out specifically to make us ask those questions. Just to name a few, Papers, Please puts us in the role of a government official in a bureaucratic dystopia and encodes its morality-based commentary in the actual gameplay; Undertale takes Bioshock's simple 'this or that' morality and flips it 180 degrees to be about how we consume video games. In fact, many of these games ask us what we can learn about ourselves based on the choices we make when we play video games, which makes for fun conversations but, in my mind, they lose a lot of their academic merit as soon as you try to apply those lessons to just about any other scenario. As much as I loved and bought into Undertale's unique take on video game morality, it has almost no real-world application. Outside of these examples, the bigger, more mainstream games have certainly become more cinematic, or, to perhaps narrow it down a bit, more like blockbuster films. Naughty Dog's Uncharted series has all of the genre hallmarks, snarky witticisms, and epic symphonic soundtracks of Marvel's Cinematic Universe, while their critically-acclaimed The Last Of Us puts us in approximately the same head space as AMC's The Walking Dead television adaptation. It's work that engages us mentally, in other words - we don't simply sit and absorb it, because it isn't so much statements as questions. Something that engages us, though, isn’t necessarily high art just for that fact. The works that are the most discussed and revered among narrative-driven mediums frequently have stories that affect many people on a deep, personal level, perhaps even altering their world view. To contextualize it, I’d put the artistic merit of most video game storylines/premises/scenarios somewhere in the middle of the scale that ranges from Antonio Banderas's performance as the Nasonex bee to Brian Cranston's performance as Walter White on the scale of 'what does this teach me about myself' - they're fun to think about and talk about, but I'm not expecting many academic texts on the intricate socio-political subtexts of Mass Effect 2.

That's my admittedly complicated answer to the question of whether video game storylines/scenarios can pose powerful existential questions - you might unsatisfyingly condense it down to 'sometimes, I guess'. I think even the most artistic video games have a hard time truly transcending the threshold of 'high art' because, at some point in almost any game with a serious message to it, that message is encoded in the game's very gameplay, even if it's not as obvious as 'X to save, Y to harvest'. It is a message that you cannot complete the game without at least hearing, even if you aren't thinking about it as hard as perhaps those game developers wanted you to.

This is my caveat to all of this, though - I don't think all art has to ask us deep, probing questions about humanity, society, politics, or history. Even high art does not need to ask us that. When people frame the debate of The Artistic Merit of Video Games, they often use literature, film, or television as a reference point, all of which are art forms that almost universally present a narrative, the presentation of which provides a message of some kind. It seems, on a surface level, that these mediums are the most relevant comparisons to video games, because a very sizeable chunk of video games also present a narrative, and maybe even a message. To imply that something must have a narrative to it in order to qualify as art, though, is to discount work like J. S. Bach's keyboard music or the paintings of Piet Mondrian from a discussion of what is and isn't art. Obviously, then, that definition is not a functioning definition of art. Even film and books are not solely artistic because of their narrative or because of their underlying message. Many of cinemas great auteurs are considered great not solely because of the stories they told, but because of their innovation with finding new ways to tell those stories through the use of cameras, lenses, lights, sets, props, and actors. Alfred Hitchcock told compelling thriller stories, but he also once presented an entire movie in what appeared to be a single unbroken shot. William Faulkner presented the history of a troubled Louisiana family by telling it through the eyes of a mentally-handicapped character with no concept of the passage of time. These are not just compelling stories, but compelling stories that could not have been told to us any other way. In the 'uniqueness of presentation' discussion, video games certainly have a strong horse. I am surely not the first, second, or hundredth person to point out that video games are special because we must actively participate in them. More so than a stage drama with audience participation or a music performance where the crowd claps and sings along, video games cannot and will not engage us without our input. They even prevent us from experiencing them if we aren't skilled enough, a subject that has come more into debate in recent years with the rise in popularity of extremely challenging games like Dark Souls. In that (admittedly somewhat extreme) circumstance, we must learn the language, dynamics, and flow of the game in order to experience it. Any person can listen to Liszt or Chopin and enjoy themselves without understanding the complex music theory that went into the composition of their music, and anyone can watch Mulholland Drive without grasping its experiments with narrative structure, but to play a video game requires a base level of comprehension. Where the bar of that comprehension is set and the ways the video game works to impress that comprehension upon us is an artistic choice on the part of its creator. I've heard it said that people learn best by teaching themselves, and that great teachers excel because they identify well the methods their students learn by, and are better equipped by that to provide the students with the tools they need to teach themselves. Video games are a potent example of this principle - there are some excellent YouTube videos of people breaking down the ways in which video games allow us to teach ourselves how to interact with them. It's through careful attention to this instruction that even punishingly difficult games like Dark Souls can be enjoyed by a large community of fans - I would contrast it with games whose difficulty is based purely in muscle memory or in trial and error.

To delve into this a little further, a commonly discussed element of game design that is hard to put exactly into words is called the feel. My best definition I can give is how well the game gives the player the impression that they are in direct control of their avatar on the screen - a game with good feel can be as effortless to play as it is to move one's own body, and a game with bad feel can completely ruin the immersion, like bad acting or an out-of-tune musician. To me, game feel is another of the more important facets by which a game's artistic value can be judged. Video games are, like I said, unique for their symbiotic relationship with their audience/consumer, and the games that do the best job of immersing their audience do it by feeling the most natural. I think perhaps the ur-example of this connection is with that omnipresent man, Super Mario (who I mentioned above in his previous identity as Jumpman). As his original moniker implies, Mario is a guy who jumps, and he jumps in many different ways (exponentially more since his transition to 3D). This concept is so simple it can be reduced to two words. It works so powerfully and connects to so many people, though, for two reasons: first, that it feels very natural and responsive to do, and second, that it can be done however the individual consumer wants to do it. Mario can jump everywhere all the time, or only as often as he needs to. He can do a regular jump, or a long jump, or a backflip, or kick off of walls. Game Maker's Toolkit's Mark Brown describes this as 'player expression' - I don't know whether he came up with that term or if it was someone else, but it perfectly illustrates that element of video gaming. The ability to bring such a versatile array of experiences from so simple an action demonstrates the technique of video game design that is there just as surely as there is film technique, writing technique, or music technique. Regardless of the message of what is on the screen, we can tell a well-shot film from a poorly-shot one, even if we don't necessarily know the terminology to explain to someone else what the difference is between the two. We can also instantly tell the difference between trying to control Mario and trying to control Superman in Superman 64. While it might seem strange out of context to say that, in this sense, Mario games are an example of an exceedingly technical, artistic accomplishment in video games, that is absolutely a point I will stand by, much the same as Dark Souls or Half-Life 2.

There are other common points of comparison between video games and other mediums in the debate about artistic merit, but I think what my general argument is boils down simply to the fact that video games can do the most for us artistically when they do for us what nothing else can. I think using interactivity in an artistic medium to push the boundaries of narrative is one powerful way that artists can do that, but the very most basic idea of what a video game is - a world you can interact with - presents the widest possibility for artistic expression, narrative be damned. Almost all of the truest artists in video games - whether they are Shigeru Miyamoto creating games that any preschooler or retiree can pick up and play, or whether they're Hideo Kojima crafting an experience that demands a comprehensive understanding of a detailed game world - exceed at what they do not because they ask themselves how they can tell a great story. They exceed at it because they ask themselves what can be done in a video game, and the artistic merit of the medium grows and expands best with the exploration of new ideas. Like blockbuster film franchises and copycat musicians, there's certainly money to be made and entertainment to be had from presenting another angle on something familiar and comfortable, and like those mediums, innovation isn't always world-changing or popular. Any form of art succeeds by connecting in some way with its audience, and it's so exciting to think about the ways we still haven't yet discovered to connect with art - when a good book or film truly engages us, it's nothing short of a revelation, and to me, the surest sign of artistic merit in video games is that I can feel that revelation from them, too.

#video games #video games as art #art #essay #text post

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pull-them-out · 8 years ago

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@thematticus thought you might enjoy this

In 2011, I left the United States for perhaps the 200th time in my life on a plane. I’ve come and gone and come and gone so many times I’ve lost count. This time, I was headed for Kabul. The capital city of war-torn Afghanistan. A place where (so they tell me) the dust in the air is 15% animal and human feces. Fun pseudo-fact. You are quite welcome to look it up and challenge my second-hand information.

Grammar is important in some places. Kabul, generally speaking, is not one of those places. I plan to write extensively about my time there (due to the ghosts that haunt my dreams). This story is about the crab boy of Kabul.

We, being NATO contractors paid ungodly amounts of money to pretend that we were making better officers out of Afghanistan’s national police force, lived in a “first-class hotel.” That, in and of itself, is another story. I intend to tell it too.

The camp was strategically positioned only 25 or so kilometers from our daily post at the Afghanistan National Police Training General Command, or ANPTGC for short. The place known as ANPTGC is, of and in itself, worth several of my fascinating anecdotes. Let’s set the scene for those of you who have not have the privilege of visiting or living in the city of Kabul:

Kabul smells like a mixture of burning things and offal

It is a maelstrom of chaotic activity. Situated at a relatively high elevation in a semi-arid climate and populated by about 3.5 million souls (give or take a few thousand a day), Kabul is 3,500 years old. And no smell has ever blown away from the city since it became one. Imagine a mixture of burning things, dead things, sweating things and shitting things. That will, perhaps, give you a 10% idea of the amount of nose crinkling I did during my time as a resident.

The streets are paved, sometimes. The motorcycles winding their way recklessly past donkeys, running children, roaming packs of mangy dogs, caravans of paranoid, egotistic, armed elites, and all other manners of roaming life careening wildly through what passes for avenues of transport are a cacophony of suicidal carelessness. The streets are not paved, sometimes. In less than two years I saw more than two dozen human traffic fatalities, an uncountable number of dead dogs, and one horse that dropped dead in the middle of what passes for a road in that particular place.

I’m coming around to the crab boy. Bear with me.

There are no traffic lights in Kabul. Only roundabouts. Some routes are two lanes. Some are twelve. The veins and arteries converge without warning. When there is a traffic jam on one side, drivers immediately begin to use the opposing lanes in a fashion that, if employed in the West, would result in dozens of fatalities per mile of road (do you like how I switched units of measurement?). That doesn’t happen in Kabul.

There are accidents, to be sure. But the beggars that sit in between lanes, combined with the other flotsam and jetsam everywhere, conspire to keep maximum speeds well below a catastrophic situation. Traffic in Kabul is tense. Especially inside an armored Chevy 2500+. But it isn’t suicidal. Not for us contractors, in any case. It’s just asshole tightening. Sweat inducing. Shoulder knotting intensity.

Which brings me to the crab boy of Kabul

As the armed driver of an armored pickup truck in Kabul, commuting up to 60km a day round trip six days a week, I saw many notable things. One of the most memorable, and spotted on more than one occasion, was the crab boy. The city of Kabul is full of dysfunction, disease, pestilence, and poverty. And it’s the capital. He was one of its many lesser citizens.

No armed convoy to convey him to important meetings with egotistical officials wanting bribes. No donkey to take him to market to sell vegetables honestly farmed. Not even a stolen bicycle to get him to the bread vendor so his stomach would not feel empty.

What I remember most is his smile. The kid with the twisted spine who couldn’t stand up. He had to scuttle along like a crab, begging. But his smile. It was like the sun in his brown face. He made me feel things I don’t know how to describe. He was the sun, the life giver. That smile was so genuine.

There I was, inside an armored steel and glass mechanism that probably cost ten times the money that boy will ever touch. Sweating, bitching and arguing with my fellow contractors about banalities that mattered so very little.

The crab boy was happier than I. I made more than 10,000 dollars a month. Tax-free.

He scuttled around with his bent spine, unable to stand up, seeing the world from the dust clouds kicked up by that bustling, insane place. I don’t know how much his begging earned, but I gave him one hundred dollars every time I got the chance. I hope it made something better. For him. For his mother. For whoever his caregiver was.

Every time I unlocked the door of my armored bubble, I was breaking a rule. Every time I broke a rule, his smile was worth any punishment that could have been inflicted on me. Some rules aren’t worth following.

Some smiles are worth handing out whatever hope I have to give.

I hope that he’s still smiling, and I hope his belly is full tonight. I dream of him sometimes and wish the world was different. If I see him again, and I can, I’ll give him another hundred dollars. Or a million.

I wish I could let him see the world from a higher vantage point. I try to switch places with him. Sometimes. When I’m dreaming.

I know I can’t.

Thank you for reading this. If you have a hundred dollars, give it to someone who needs it. If you can spare it.

#crab boy

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atruefanofnothingreally · 5 years ago

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What my fantasy video game would be like. (With references of popular modern games)

I am a huge fan of cinema. Cinematics are probably my favorite part of a videogame. The feeling of being a part of a grander reality really comes to fruition when you see the cut-scene.

Much like the intro to Warcraft 3. This scene begins after Warcraft 2 where you build yourself as Arthas the pure Prince of Lorderon. The now corrupt Prince Arthas, tainted by demonic energy from his sword Shadowmourne walks dramatically up to his father the king, and beheads him. Signifying the beginning of the Lich Kings Reign.

My dream video game will be spawn of a long lore before it. I think that's perhaps where many MMORPGs failed when compared to World of Warcraft.

In World of Warcraft you enter into a world of hero's. Entire cities like in Stormwind decorated with giant statues of Hero’s that come before you. In any other MMORPG you are the decisive hero. No predecessor before you made enough of an impact that it called for much adoration of the player base. Kings are as important as pawns in this sense.

My dream videogame is an MMORPG. This is because, I find great joy in the responsibility over a unique personalized character. I want the player to feel a connection to their creation and the world it exists in.

Naturally that world is a mystery and the beginning, but it should be smooth and interactive. I think the newer RPG Outward executed this perfectly.

However I think there is a design point to be made in the scaling of the world, and how the players camera is positioned.

I grew up playing pretty much all the MMORPGs. Started with Runescape in 5th grade. This game is still one of the most popular online games. I am a fan of how they executed the player view points. In Runescape you look over your character and the world like and angel sitting upon a throne. Every command you enter your character, interface, and environment responds.

Another game that accomplishes this “angelic” distance is Grand Theft Auto. In Grand Theft Auto you play a semi street thug, vigilante type character. The entire time you play, the camera has a tendency to draw back and show you more of the world as it reacts to you. For example car chases in GTA. After you are running for a few minutes the world send more units to capture you, but it also pans the Camera out giving you more perspective on how to escape.

In Runescape you are in a world that actually dangerous, with goblins, giants, dragons, and barbarians so the camera is fixed on this widened lens capacity. But In Grand Theft Auto you are in a civilized modern world and the players lens only widens as danger draws nearer.

I feel the need to specify further what this distance is by using a counter example. Lets take the game Elder Scrolls Online. In ESO the camera is sort of like the player is sitting on an Invisible horse a few steps behind the in game character. This to me takes away an element of Alertness that I desire in my game.

In Runescape you can see a dangerous enemy from 30 or 40 paces away.

In GTA you can calculate with your expanded mini map how to escape the police.

In these games this element of alertness and your capacity to respond to new information determines your success.

If as a player you can only view and respond to a distance of 10 to 20 paces all around you, the amount of plays you can make is halved and the amount of unprecedented threats is expounded.

The scaling of the world plays a huge part of this. You must consider that when you position the camera just so, the played character will only take up just so much space on the screen. . . God bless the capacity to zoom in and out and also cinematic view mode so you can screen shot your newest armor set.

Earlier I talked about the world being interactive. I mentioned the new game Outward. Well honestly, I think its pretty close to perfect. In any adventure fantasy - regardless of story, you need a crafting system. I want to give people a real reason to explore the world. Crafting that levels up and requires investment in time and money and energy to master.

Don't get me wrong, I think the world itself should have a bountiful reward following successful exploration and domination.

For instance an extremely rare item that can be found on any monster any where in the world. Or a frequent rare item that can be found from only a specific enemy character. Or a guaranteed reward for a truly heroic deed or role in an event. These are all for sure necessary in my fantasy game.

However, I want to instill a crafting system that is challenging and rewarding. The challenge should lie where the materials and recipes are unlocked. Recipes as reward to key questlines, materials only found in dangerous terrain. The reward should be a blend of dynamic and static improvements. Like an endgame set that has similar stats but a unique appearance. Or a midgame set that has fantastic stat bonuses, helping you level up to towards the late game. Or items that can be used to enhance something you already have, giving you the just that much more edge on the competition.

The materials should be reasonable and challenging. Recipes should call for an amount of the materials just so that you would go broke buying all of them. Yet, useful enough to be worth spending some time on the grind. I believe that most powerful items should come from defeating end game enemies, finishing key quest lines, and players crafting equipment.

There should be a separation in the players at some point. Players must choose at a certain point where they stand in the politics in the game. I want players to commit to their stance, feel pride in their selection, and passion towards that factions agenda.

The idea of “Us. vs Them” is the driving force in games. Games is but a competition in this way. From Mario jumping over barrels to save Princess Peach from Donkey Kong - to saving the mothership from the invading aliens in Halo. Games put you the adventurer apposed to the threat defeat of failure.

In my game the “US” you get to decide.

The typical method is factions. Like in World of Warcraft two apposed factions the Horde and the Alliance war over the majority domination over the world. The horde practice slavery and the alliance practice pollution. One simply selects the lesser of two evils.

In Runescape they use the factions to symbolize three gods and the players then war over one centralized holy site in the castle wars battle ground.

My philosophy in player stance competition is inspired by Civilization VI. This game automatically separates players because it acts as a sort of free for all. However in playing the game the play has a responsibility to co-operate with the enemy before all out war ensues.

In my game I want there to be a variety of ways for players to compete.

There should be a free for all arena area or territory. There should be a games area for teams or individuals to compete over and objective. And there should be a territory designed for large group battles.

The separation of players will come towards the late middle of the story and the factions can be based off of positive yet perhaps opposed ideals or maybe even opposing heroic story characters.

Economy is an aspect of MMORPGs that needs perfecting. In all the later games, the economy is propelled by a robotic auction house. How the program is set up varies on the tittle.

When I first started playing in 2005, on Runescape. Players would sit at a high density area and manually advertise in the chat, their products they either pillaged or created.

I thought this was the closest a game could get to a realistic economy in a fantasy world.

Later they put in the robotic auction house called the Grand Exchange which purchases and sells items at a standardized price based off supply and demand. Yea you can buy a stack of iron ore at 25gp per but it might take an hour because of the player supply chain. Unlike, reality it is difficult to track and manage supply chains in game. Making this a less realistic version of a functioning economic process.

My game will include in game player forums that will help players advertise merchandise and find items they need to be effective in the world. It might take more time for trades to take place, but as a player meets more clients and generates leads on sources it will become more smooth out for them.

Even though my dream video game is life like, it is not realistic. It is very fantasy based, with magic, and hyper futuristic technology, and ancient rituals traditions and cultures. I want to utilized the long list of documented mythological ideas such as potions that can heal your wounds instantly or a specially charged item needed to unlock the door that the final boss hides behind.

I believe that videogames are meant to be real enough to keep you distracted from what’s really real.

“My mom has cancer, I’m 13. There's nothing I can do.”

Well here is something for you to believe in, because sometimes real life leaves you without a significant and effective option. . .

Thank you.

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roseqaz · 7 years ago

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Dragons Existed (and summary of Job)

Once upon a time there was a man called Job. Strange name, I know, but I for one have always imagined it to be pronounced as “Jobe“. Anyway, back to the story, Job had a pretty good life. Wealthy, eight kids. He lived a long time ago so when I say wealth I mean 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 oxen (basically cows that were used like work horses), 500 donkeys and a large number of servants.

Now, there was a reason behind his wealth and overall wonderful life. He feared the Lord. Now, fear is probably a strong word, but it is accurate. Let me put this into context for you: If I go to a zoo and look at the tigers, I’ll admire them and watch them prowl through the grass thinking ‘What a magnificent creature‘, and I’ll do all of that most likely in a state of mystified wonder.

At a distance.

I am not going to jump the fence and risk life and limb to pet the ‘adorable kitty‘. How much more terrifying (and I mean this word wholeheartedly) is the Creator of the Entire world?

Before you started panicking and/or getting upset, I don’t mean you should start shaking in your boots. I just mean that God is awesome. I’m not talking about awesome as in the word we use now as a upgraded version of ‘cool’ or ‘sweet‘, I mean awesome as in the original definition, like, ‘adjective: causing or inducing awe; inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear‘.

You know, that feeling when you see the world around you and realise that everyone else has thoughts and feelings just like you, people that they care about(or people they don’t), jobs, a home, a life just as incredibly vibrant and intricate as your own. That feeling when you realise how very small you are, in this big, big world, so small and insignificant like all the people who never turned up in the history books, who lived and died and who no one remembered. You know what feeling I’m talking about, right? That one. That’s awe.

That feeling is what people mean when they say the fear of the Lord. Like an insect standing next to a mountain. It’s humbling.

Anyway, tangent over and context established, let’s get back to the story. So, Job feared the Lord, and his life was blessed for it. One day, Satan came before the Lord and challenged him, basically saying, “Of course Job fears God, after all, you’ve given him everything, protected him and showered him with riches. Why wouldn’t he praise you? But if you were to wipe out everything he has and destroy it, leaving him with nothing, he’ll turn his back on you and curse you to your face.“ God considered this, and said to the devil, “Very well, then. All he has in is your hands, but do not touch the man himself.“ (Job 1:12)

Challenged accepted.

On one, miserable day, Job proceeded to lose all his sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, many of his servants and all eight of his children, his 5 sons and 3 daughters. This happened in mere minutes. It’s said that Job fell to the ground, saying:

”Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.“

Job 1:21

May the name of the Lord be praised. That sound like he was cursing God to you? Cause it sure doesn’t sound like it to me.

God:1 --- Satan:0

So the devil went of in a huff and decided to do some more scheming. He came back before the Lord again, the Lord saying to him:

“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.“

“Skin for skin!“ Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.“ (Job 2:3-4)

So, the Lord accepted his second challenge, and Satan left to pay poor Job a visit. You know what smallpox is? If not, go look up a picture. Though I’ll warn you, it’s not pretty. It’s said that Job was covered with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. So imagine smallpox, maybe some eczema, as well as almost every skin condition known to man mixed together covering his entire body.

Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

Even his wife said to him as he sat in the ashes, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!“. His reply was something along the lines of, “Don’t be stupid. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?“

Again, it doesn’t really sound like he’s turned his back on God, or like he’s cursing him.

God:2 --- Satan:0

Job then heads into some pretty deep depression, wishing that he had never been born, or that he had died at birth as a stillborn, etc, etc. His three friends came to sit with him, and starting talking. They said that he must have done something wrong and that God was punishing him for it, that he needed to repent, while Job was adamant that he didn’t do anything worthy of this.

So that conversation continued for a while, and I mean a while, when all of a sudden, they get interrupted. By God. Cause he is sick and tired of hearing these guys speak for him. So he decides to speak for himself, asking them where they were when he laid the earth’s foundation, when he created all living things. (Word of advice, unless you can be God and do his job, don’t argue with him.)

This goes on for a fair while. However, there is a section in God’s speech that catches my eye, at ‘Job 41:1-34′, when he speaks of the ‘Leviathan’, a sea-dwelling creature that is so fierce and terrifying that none dare go near. Its back is described as a row of shields, tightly sealed together. Honestly just sounds like scales to me. He talks of its strength and graceful form, its mouth ringed with fearsome teeth. So, crocodile maybe? At least you think so, until this next bit:

“Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn. Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth.” (Job 41:18-21)

Flashes of light, sparks of fire, smoke? Its breath sets coals ablaze? Flames dart from its mouth? Does that sound like a crocodile to you?

I didn’t think so.

And that’s not even considering the next parts, which talks about how swords can’t pierce its skin, nor can spears or arrows or javelins. Iron is like straw to it, and bronze like rotten wood. I can snap rotten wood. I can not snap bronze. Arrows are more of an annoyance to it, and let’s not even talk about slingstones. And if you want an idea of it’s size:

“He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair.”

“Nothing on earth is his equal - a creature without fear.” (Job 41:31-33)

So, yeah. Its a big, sea-dwelling reptile. A scary one. That shoots fire from its mouth. Conclusion?

It’s a sea dragon.

An actual dragon that breathes fire. Documented in the Bible. Well, unless you think crocodiles really are that terrifying, which, in case you didn’t know, they’re not. And if you’re wondering why we never found any fossils or evidence of them, the simple answer is, we have.

We just call them dinosaurs. Dinosaur as a word is actually only a few centuries old. Before that, they were just called dragons (Which means big lizards).

And if I say that dinosaurs breathed fire, who is here that can tell me I’m wrong? Were you there? Did you see them walk the earth? No, you didn’t.

But God did.

Dragons existed. You might know them by a different name, but, to quote Shakespeare, “that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet”.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what happened to poor Job, Satan gave up and God gave him everything he had back, and blessed the latter part of his life more then the first, doubling what he had before. So, Job ended up with 1400 sheep, 6000 camels, 1000 oxen and a 1000 donkeys. He also had 10 more children, seven sons and three daughters. It was even said that nowhere in the land were women as beautiful as Job’s daughters.

He lived 140 years, and saw his children and their children all the way to the fourth generation.

And that’s the Story of Job.

#bible #book of job #dragons #dragons are real

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