#the wiki says this game was originally meant to be a horror game. I see that.

[feathertailedcentipede]

ok the fourth boss pizza tower is like, my fav character-wise but Holy Shit I'm tryina fight him rn & it's So Fucking Scary. and/or intense. holy shit

[nixliz]

an introspective of the stagnation of creepypasta from the perspective of a creepypasta author since 2014

for the past couple of years due to the resurgence of creepypastas amongst a very young demographic, the meaning of 'creepypasta' has gotten so watered down it's effectively lost all meaning.

i've been writing creepypasta since 2014, using the genre as a cheesy way to become a better writer. all of my stories from back then are garbage, of course - what matters to me is the fact that i made them and improved as an artist in the process. if not for creepypastas, i wouldn't be nowhere near a good a writer as i am nowadays, and i honestly owe alot of it to how blunt the creepypasta fanbase was at the time. if a story sucked, you'd hear about it - while this was definitely not done in good faith, a side effect of this meant you ended up picking up on overdone cliches, bad writing and bad characterization just by reading these stories you're constantly told are "bad". by reading them with the foresight of KNOWING they aren't good, there's alot of information you can gleam. you pick up on parts of the story you can recognize as bad, and leave having a better knowledge of what Not to do when writing a story.

of course nowadays the creepypasta community's effectively died off and been replaced by children who care more about powerscaling their edgy sonic ocs than actually writing anything.

it'd be easy for me to just say that the creation and resurgence of sonic.exe is precisely what killed creepypasta as a whole, and in a sense it's not wrong, but i personally believe the thing that killed the genre is less about the story everyone idolizes and more about the culture that the story's appeal ended up cultivating.

sonic.exe fans have always existed. even back in 2014, there were tons of kids obsessed with it. i feel like that initial surge of popularity, while frustrating to many due to the poor quality of the original story, the community was ultimately harmless. they were just socially awkward kids being awkward and making their own stories. the part that i find admirable about the exe community back then is the key word, "Stories". if a kid back in the day liked sonic.exe, they'd download gamemaker and make their own game, or they'd go to the creepypasta/SOG wiki and write their own story. were they any good? more often than not, no. but the effort that went into creating media just out of an appreciation for a dumb story you liked is nothing short of admirable. of course there were stinkers - one of the first ever fan stories was a complete, beat-for-beat ripoff of a sonic creepypasta that came BEFORE exe, but regardless, there was alot of genuine effort behind these fanworks. for lack of better word, there was alot of soul - something the current community lacks.

sonic.exe recently got its second wind (in the form of an fnf mod of all things lol) and now everyone and their grandma knows about it. however, my hatred of the current community stems from something i never see brought up. if someone's bitching about sonic.exe it's only ever about the things you can actually hold people accountable for, like the massively rampant amount of abusers/pdfiles lurking around every corner (and yes, this is extremely prevalent in the community and needs to be addressed) but my problem lies in the lack of sincerety every recent piece of fanwork has. people nowadays don't care about making a story - and this is a problem that seems to infect a LOT of horror media, especially indie games - they care more about making a recognizable mascot.

look at any sonic.exe derivitive made after 2022 (most use the term horrorbrew, i don't know why they don't just use the term creepypasta or exe because there's nothing exactly making them stand out). nine times out of 10, you're not going to find any sort of game, or story, or any official media they're actually attached to. more often than not, they're just a *mascot* for a nonexistent story. that's where my problem lies - there's no more passion in writing creepypastas anymore. the part that people only seem to care about anymore is the recognizable mascot, the 'face' of a creepypasta, so they trim everything that isn't the mascot away, and i feel like doing this completely defeats the purpose of making creepypasta. if you don't believe me, every single creepypasta that people still talk about are ones that have a recognizable 'mascot' - squidward's suicide, suicidemouse, sonic.exe, i hate you, godzilla nes - while ones that don't have an overarcing antagonist or image (noend house, SAR woods) are basically forgotten. people don't care about the stories anymore, they only care about the antagonist. they see the scary, bloody-eyed sonic in the thumbnail of the story and think "i can do that". and when you see one of these nu-exe's actually try and make a story to pair with its mascot, it's either really contrived and tries to take itself way too seriously (needlemouse) or extremely derivitive of other media (sonic limited edition). this has also led to my least favorite trend of the nu creepypasta community, the trend of 'retaking' old pastas and cramming as many analog horror/exe tropes as possible into them. vibingleaf's content is the biggest offender - all he does is take old stories, slap a vhs filter on them, and (in the case of stories without an overarcing villain like the grieving) add some completely unfitting villain character who serves only to give the remake a marketable 'face' for the thumbnail. and people act like his remakes are the DEFINITIVE WAY TO ENJOY THESE STORIES! THEY AREN'T! STOP SAYING THEY'RE OBJECTIVELY BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL! in the case of these inoffensive creepypastas, there's probably nothing more disrespectful than trying to 'one up' the original story! you're just putting another indie artist down so you can soak up all the attention like a douchebag! make and enjoy remakes because YOU want to make them - don't make them just to drag your fellow artists through the mud, damnit!

of course as much of a grouch i am about the state of creepypasta today, there's stuff i've seen that falls into this sort of creepypasta umbrella that i'm actually quite a fan of, even if they commit some of the things i hate to see. my favorite example would be that fake spongebob broadcast interruption (i have no idea if this is the original video because it's gone through retake hell but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0DMBZmuf1Y ). it commits alot of the things i don't like in modern creepypastas - it has a scary spongebob in it that seems to only exist to give the story a mascot and i feel like having the interrupted footage be stereotypically 'scary' doesn't fit the whole 'mentally ill nickelodeon employee tampering with footage' vibe the ending gives off but, in my humble opinion, it stands on its own as an interesting little story and there's alot i enjoy about it despite its faults. i like it because someone had an IDEA - and while that idea may have been derivitive of other lost media stories, it stands on its own and is enjoyable. more creators need to strive to make content like this. care more about making an interesting STORY, not an interesting CHARACTER. someone from the exe community, if given the same prompt, would've instead just drew a scary spongebob, named him some shit like "The Poriferan" and had someone else make an fnf mod about it - this guy went through the effort of fleshing their prompt out, and i have nothing but respect for them for doing so.

rant over. creepypasta means alot to me as a person and i owe the community alot for indirectly teaching me how to write and how (not) to create horror content, so it genuinely hurts seeing how badly the community has fallen.

[cloverthirteen]

Was Ace Attorney made as a satire on Japan’s legal system? -- An analysis

I wouldn’t really call myself an Ace Attorney fan--I’ve never played any of the games, the closest I’ve come being watching other people’s let’s plays. I do like reading about the series on wikis and interacting with fan content for it, though, so I do know a fair amount about it.

One thing I see being said pretty often by fans is that the series was intended as a satire/parody of the Japanese legal system, which is why the courts are ridiculously biased towards the prosecution, prosecutors often care more about perfect win records more than putting actual guilty people behind bars, etc. If you’re familiar with this, you’ve probably heard of Japan’s 99% conviction rate. This interpretation of the games and the way they work definitely makes sense.

But after hearing this many times I eventually noticed something. There isn’t a single actual source (creator statement, interview, etc.) that backs up this claim. Every time I see someone online say “the series creator made Ace Attorney to parody Japan’s actual legal system” there is never a link to an interview or anything that proves their statement correct. If someone has an actual, verified source from Shu Takumi or someone else who had significant involvement with the series, please prove me wrong and show it to me. But according to all of the creator’s statement’s I’ve read, there’s no evidence of the series being an intentional parody.

So, what do we know about the creation of the Ace Attorney series? Well, it was created by Shu Takumi, who wrote and directed the first three games. After working on the dinosaur survival horror game Dino Crisis for Capcom, he was given the opportunity to make any kind of game he wanted. He really wanted to make mystery and adventure games, and from that came Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

MC: Before developing Ace Attorney you worked on Dino Crisis. How does one go from dinosaur survival horror to virtual courtrooms?

ST: Dino Crisis was the brainchild of my then boss, Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami. Working on his projects taught me not only how to make games, but also how to think about them. After Dino Crisis 2 wrapped, Mr Mikami gave me six months in which to create any kind of game I wanted.

I was still pretty wet behind the ears, but as I'd originally joined Capcom with a desire to create mystery and adventure games, this was a huge chance for me to make my mark as a creator. In the end it took a team of seven 10 months to produce the first GBA Ace Attorney title. Having the freedom to create exactly the kind of game I wanted was amazing and it was a real pleasure to work on that project.

MC: Can you remember when the idea of Ace Attorney first came to you? How did your bosses respond to the idea of a lawyer-based adventure game when you first described it to them?

ST: It was in 2000 when Mr Mikami said I could make my own game and my original idea was a fairly typical adventure with a detective as the main character. Most mystery adventures have the player choose from a number of different dialogue options for their character in order to progress the story, but I wanted a new gameplay style that enabled players to deduce for themselves what was happening, rather than just selecting canned responses. I developed this into the concept of facing off against the suspect in a crime and exposing the contradictions in their statements.

I was sure my new idea would be a fun and original take on the genre, so I started to revise the main character, since a detective would be too traditional for such an original concept. I asked myself, "What kind of professional would face off against a suspect and expose their contradictory statements?" The answer, of course, was a lawyer and so the Ace Attorney concept was born.

(source, from an interview on the making of the series)

Takumi’s original concept for the game involved Phoenix as not a defense lawyer, but as a detective. The gameplay was to consist of “facing off against the suspect of a crime and finding the contradictions in their statements.” However, Takumi eventually realized that taking apart contradictions wasn’t really a detective’s job, and decided to change the protagonist to a lawyer and the setting to a courtroom instead. And thus, the game’s concept was finalized.

Janet: As you know, “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy” is coming out world-wide this winter, and as I was brainstorming what to write about for this week’s blog, I remembered your tweets from 2010.

Takumi: Tweets from 2010?

Janet: …Well, it was a long time ago…

Takumi: ???

Janet: I-It’s OK if you don’t remember…

Takumi: …Oh, THOSE! Yes!

Janet: I remember reading them and being shocked by how different the original draft of the game’s story was – how Phoenix wasn’t even a lawyer, but a private eye!

Takumi: Yes, AA was originally supposed to be a detective game, so naturally, Phoenix was to be a private eye. But then, one day, I made a startling realization: the gameplay concept I was going for was for players to enjoy finding and taking contradictions apart, but that was hardly related to investigating or detective work at all. In that moment, I had it – I realized that the main setting for the game should be the courtroom.

Janet: That’s quite the jump, but you know, I can’t imagine this series being anything else at this point. 

(source, from an interview by Janet Hsu about the game’s early development)

During the development for the game, Takumi actually knew very little about the intricacies of the legal system--and in fact, he’s been very transparent about that fact in interviews. There’s even a story he talks about in a blog post where he was asked “shouldn’t we do some research on law before we make this game?” and agonized over it for a bit before deciding that being accurate about courtroom processes wasn’t important--what was important was that the game made the trials exciting and fun.

November, 2000. The characters were coming together, and I was working desperately on my first scenario (the current Turnabout Sisters). One day, I was asked about the one thing I didn’t want to be asked about.

“Mr. Takumi. Don’t we need to do some research on law?”

The knowledge I have about the law, pretty amounts to the one fact that in Japan we have the Roppō Zensho ('Complete Book of The Six Major Legal Codes').

“Don’t bother with that. This is a detective game. “

It should have been over with this one line, but…

“But this isn’t a detective game, it’s a lawyer game!”

“If it’s not going to be realistic, I don’t see why this should be about trials.”

“People who play this might get wrong knowledge from the game!”

“We might get sued by the Bar Association!”

“They’ll start complaining!”

…Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA) is simply a “mystery game.”　“Being realistic” is not what is important. What’s important is emphasizing, and recreating the unique “atmosphere” and “tension” of the courtroom. That is why the judge uses a gavel, even though no judge uses that, and why Naruhodō shouts "Objection!" even though nobody does that either.　This game does not need a “realistic courtroom”!

Chasing the true murderer down to the end, and then getting applauded for that in the courtroom. That feeling of thrill and excitement. It was only by February of the following year when we finally manage to recreate that in the game. The couple of months after this had happened, we looked around, got lost and troubled our minds in search for the answer of the big question of “How do we make a trial into a game?”.  Fall was passing by, and the cold winter was close upon us.

(source, from an archived blog post by Takumi)

So, realism and knowledge of law wasn’t important to Takumi during the development of the series. But there’s also the fact that Takumi has actually personally denied that the Ace Attorney series was an intentional satire or criticism of the court system at any point. In fact, according to a blog post (done as if Phoenix and Maya were reading the column and commenting on it), he actually dislikes people seeing his work this way, as he never intended the games to have any big political statements.

A major prerequisite for Gyakuten Saiban is it’s so simple “even my mother could play it”.  So there is only one point at the core of the game: “Seeing through lies”.

Naruhodō: It wasn’t even supposed to be a game about the trials at first. Mayoi: Eh! Really?! Naruhodō: “Simple” is basically all this game is about, according to TakuShū. Mayoi: What do you mean? Naruhodō: He didn’t want to add all kinds of elements for the player to think about, like alibis, tricks or about the culprit. It’d just confuse them. Mayoi: Really. Naruhodō: Basically, you can proceed in the game if you just think about where the contradiction is. He figured that with that, the controls of the game could also stay simple. Mayoi: But, but, why the trials then? Naruhodō: “A story about a detective seeing through lies” wouldn’t be any different from the other games out there. So that’s why he decided to have someone whose job is seeing through lies as the protagonist. Mayoi: So a defense attorney. Naruhodō: Occasionally  TakuShū sees magazines introducing the game as “a work that dared to take on the theme of trials”, and that actually hurts him. Mayoi: He never meant to be something as big as that…. 

(source, from the mentioned blog post)

Ultimately I see how easy it is, if you know a good amount about both Ace Attorney and Japan’s legal system, to come to the conclusion that the games were made as a dig against the latter. However, somewhere along the line, people apparently stopped seeing this as merely a theory and instead as a definite fact. Now, that doesn’t mean that the theory is entirely unfounded--given that Takumi focused only on making trials interesting and fun in the games, you could say that the games work as an light, comedic parody, not meant to make any political statements. And hey, maybe there’s something I missed--maybe there were other people working on the series who did have significant knowledge of law and wrote some parts of the games as intentional satire of the system. Again, if anyone has evidence of this, don’t hesitate to provide it. But with what I know, I don’t think going “well actually” to people who point out the ridiculousness and unfairness of Ace Attorney’s court system is necessary. It’s simply that way to make the games more fun.

[hungarianbee]

Way of the Witcher: bits of lore

Disclaimer:  Post contains spoilers to the Witcher games These things may be canon-typical, but the following trigger warnings apply if you want to check out the cards: gore, monster dismemberment, needles, body horror, insects and spiders

“In a world plagued by horrors and monstrosities humanity desperately needed a new type of weapon to turn back the tide. Created by ingenious Alzur, witchers — professional monster slayers of exceptional strength, speed, and agility were tasked to end the threat once and for all. Organized into different schools they honed their craft and passed their knowledge onto novices in training. Some of them were destined to become the legendary heroes and protectors of humanity. Others — the very thing they were supposed to fight…”

Since the gwent expansion was anounced I followed it with rapt attention; every bit of lore is a gem in my eyes. I decided to write down my thoughts of the cards and lore pieces revealed in a post. Share that knowledge around, amirite?

The post references Gwent cards which were leaked (2020 november-december). The theme is mutation and everything that comes with it; namely sweet-sweet lore of the lesser known witcher schools: the Bears, Cats, Vipers and Griffins.

Tucker in, under the cut there is 4.5k analysis of each card that came out.

We’re starting with a theme, then work our way throught the 4 schools (each contain the following:  a leader, a mentor, an adept, a general witcher, a specific job, an item, a school relevant monster, 2  known witchers and a location), then go through a Witcher 1 throwback, Salamandra, and round it with a few new monsters and neutral cards. 

While I describe most of the cards concisely and all the known witchers and locations are on my blog, you might want to look the cards in their (small) glory: [DO IT HERE]

Sounds good? Here we go!

Edit: [this source is better]

The theme is mutation - be it monsters created by transmutation, witchers or salamadra

If that is true, there are monster cards that seemingly stand out: the Succubus and the Phooca

If we are to believe that they do connect to the mutation theme, then

(1) we can conclude that Phoocas (a rare, and more dangerous form of Nekkers; they can pull your head off by sheer force, watch out) are a natural mutation of the original species,

(2) but we’re still left with the Succubi (an inherently demonic creature). They might have chosen it because of its appearance: succubi have horns and goat-like legs. (Note: in the graphic novel “House of Glass” the succubus character has wings, but lacks hooves. In that sense, she could be mutated.)

Breaking it down into factions/schools (some of the cards can be paired up; these cards are interpreted together):

School of the Viper: starting with the vipers, because they are my favourite

Viper Witcher Mentor & Viper Witcher Adept: the flavour text says that the Viper mentors are exceptionally cold and ruthless, and that’s underlined by the story the art tells: the mentor busies himself with sharpening a blade, and in the background we can see the adept attempting to kill his best friend goat, as was ordered. The mentor watches this from the corner of his eye. Young Vipers are to kill their pets (which they nurtured for years) before becoming a fully-fledged witcher. The latter could mean that the boy depicted on the card hasn’t even gone through the Trial of Grasses.

Viper Witcher: On the card we see an unknown Viper crouching over a royalty he killed. I feel like this type of card is meant to represent what we think a general Witcher of said school would be like. Apparently Vipers just like to slay the nobility *shrug*. The flavour text informs us, that Vipers call their two swords “fangs”, and that their style consists of fast and furious attack aimed to overwhelm the enemy.

Viper Witcher Alchemist: Every school has a specialty; Vipers are proficient in potion or poison making. The right side of the alchemist’s face seems to have healed burn marks; a blown up concoction might have caused it.

Ivar Evil-Eye: So far there’s little to know about Ivar. He was either the Master of the Viper Keep, or the founder himself (gwent suggests the latter). He’s described as heavily scarred (facial scars suggests burns and slash marks too), and each of them has a terrible story to tell.

Warritt the All-Seeing: Warritt is a (newly introduced) Viper with heavy disfiguration to the upper part of his face: his eyes are sealed shut (possibly by burn marks, though his hair remains intact). The art shows Warritt drawing a modified version of the Supirre sign in the air to help with his loss of sight. As the wiki says: “Supirre is a Sign used for eavesdropping. Drawn on a solid surface, it allows the people near this surface to listen nearby conversations which would be normally inaudible due to the distance or background noise.” It was only used in Sapkowsky’s second volume of the Hussite trilogy (not yet translated to English), which is entirely separate from the Witcher novels.

Kolgrim: Fate laughed at this Viper. As a kid he was swapped by a weeper, saved by a witcher, than rejected by his own mother who believed that the fake child was the real one. Later, as a grown witcher Ivar instructed him to find a lost weapon diagram. On his journey he was accused - ironically - in White Orchard of kidnapping a child. Invoking a Temerian law, Kolgrim was told to cleanse their crypt (as seen on the card) then he can go. The truth is revealed in Witcher 3 - Kolgrim was beheaded by the villagers before he could even step into the crypt. To add insult to injury: the child was eaten by a drowner. The gwent card therefore shows the optimistic outcome: that Kolgrim reached the crypt and passed in battle. And what’s up with a crypt full of wraiths anyway? White Orchard is shady, guys. (Lil’ trivia: Kolgrim’s eyes are yellow-green.)

Vypper: Basically an overgrown snake that likes damp marshes (they even fight the local kikimores for territory). They only relate to the mutation theme by their nature - they resemble the “school’s animal”.

Gorthur Gvaed: The Bloodgate Keep is located in the chasms of the Tir Tochair mountains. It’s built so high were you to look down from the bridge leading into the keep, you would only see fog (one could wonder how the vipers trained in these conditions). The bridge is made so that you’d have to cross the lookout tower - it might have served as a check in spot. The post itself is circled by the stone coils of a snake; the top is open and has a huge lit bonfire in the middle for warmth-keeping and possibly signaling. Unluckily, it didn’t stop the Usurper’s army from destroying the keep.

Coated Weapons: They leaned heavily into the alchemy and assassin side of the school. Vipers coat their blades with an acidic liquid, so they can kill a man with a nick of it.

School of the Cat:

Cat Witcher Mentor & Cat Witcher Adept: On the adept card we can see a young Cat walking the tightrope blindfolded (they start with close to the ground and slowly increase the distance with time); the mentor is looking up at him. Like the Vipers, Cat mentors are nonchalant about risking the kids as seen from the flavour text: “If you fall, it’s over. Your nine lives are up, kid.” Furthermore, the background of the Cat Witcher Adept card shows the not yet destroyed Stygga Citadel. The Cat Witcher Mentor is in the same scene and we can see lots of potatoes and cabbages; cats definitely eat their veggies.

Cat Witcher: The card shows a Cat in the heat of battle mid-jump; his hood is up, blood is flying everywhere. The flavour text emphasizes that cats are known for their mad bloodlust, not stopping killing even after the enemy capitulated.

Cat Witcher Saboteur: A Cat perches next to the window, a smoking bomb in hand, eavesdropping on nobles. A rope is hung from somewhere out of the pic, possibly for a quick exit. Vesemir comments that these are many-a deeds the cats did that taint the reputation of witchers.

Gezras of Leyda: Gezras is a not yet known redheaded Cat witcher. Following the pattern he seems to be the founder of the Cat School. His flavour text shows that even back then (when the mutagens made Cats emotionless) they were inclined to dislike humans: “Take a contract from Aen Seidhe over a dh’oine any day, as you’re far less likely to receive a knife between the ribs in place of coin.”

Brehen: Now this cat embodies the Cat madness. He’s known as the Cat of Iello because he massacred everyone there. He was consequently shunned by all the schools, and he was even convinced that Vesemir put a kill order on his head. He met Geralt later in the 1240s on his way to claim the bounty for the princess. Thinking that Geralt was there to rob him of his chance of the bounty, Brehen took a priestess as hostage (this is what we see on the gwent card). Geralt managed to convince him to put away the blade, and they parted without crossing blades. When meeting with the striga he scoffed into her face that “she won’t be his first royal”. But his luck ran out. The Temerians buried him and fabricated the story of a cowardly witcher stealing their coin. I’m halfway convinced we see Brehen in the netflix series.

Gaetan: This boy broke into the fandom like a bulldozer. After the folks in Honorton cheated him of his pay and tried to kill him, Gaetan flew into rage and killed everyone there except Millie, a girl who reminded him of his sister. That’s the scene we see on the card. And then Geralt robs/kills him.

Saber-Tooth Tiger (Stealth): Another huge animal/monster related to the school. It’s story is this: “The prized possession of royal menagerie, until a commando of Scoia’tael assaulted the exhibition, released the beast, and set it upon its cruel masters. Since that day, it has acquired a selective taste for human flesh.” Another cat turning against humans.

Stygga Castle: An outside view of what we already saw on the Cat Witcher Adept card. It’s located on a cliff, and the sun shines into it just right (so that the Cats can bask in the light). The walls form a circle where they shelter the inner grounds, and a bigger tower emerges in the middle. The Castle could be reached by the thin bridge connecting it to the mainland, or by the cliffs (if one is brave enough).

Making a Bomb: Cats seem to have a specialty in bombs. Guess where Lambert got his interest from *winkwink*

School of the Griffin: lots of pairs in this one

Griffin Witcher Mentor & Griffin Witcher Adept: Compared to the other schools, this pairing is tame - the adept is climbing a tree to retrieve a crossbow bolt. We can see the mentor in the background. On the mentor card the adept waves down with the retrieved crossbow bolt in hand. It shows a kind of comradeship that’s not present in the other 3 schools. The flavour text emphasizes the importance of knowledge. Students are afforded to choose their final Trial: recite the entire Liber Tenebrum (Book of Shadows; one of Keldar’s favourite books) or steal a griffin’s egg. Noone’s chosen the former.

Griffin Witcher: The witcher is shown shooting down a griffin. According to the flavour text they prefer hunting with silver-tipped arrowheads instead of swords.

Archgriffin & Griffin Witcher Ranger: On the Griffin Ranger card we see the witcher crouching over track marks. On the archgriffin card he found the albino (or very old) monster, who’s already killed someone (probably a lumberjack, judging by the axe). According to the flavour text, Griffin Witchers are trained to be professional trackers; nothing can stop them to reach their prey. Even though archgriffins are considered the embodiment of courage, loyalty and fighting spirit, the gwent card corrects the notion that the Griffin Witcher were named after the monster. In truth, they got the name in honour of their founder’s mentor, a knight named Gryphon.

Erland of Larvik: Continuing the trend, Erland is the founder of the Griffin School (one of the two that are confirmed 100%). He’s from the first generation of witcher, mutated by Alzur himself. After the Order began fracturing he had a confrontation with Arnaghan (who’ll be the founder of the bear school). Arnaghad almost killed one of his brothers, slashed Erland across the face then parted ways with the Order and left Morgraig Castle with his own group. Seeing that the the remaining witchers couldn’t go on like that, he grabbed his 13 best friend and left to Kaer Seren, where (after purging it from spectres) he founded the Griffin School which focused on magic, preparedness and flexibility. His teaching emphasized knightly values (mimicking his long-dead mentor, a knight named Gryphon) in hopes that it would make future witchers’ life easier. It didn’t.

Coen & Keldar: The cards are mainly connected by background. Coen is finished killing what appears to be an albino arachas (but it’s definitely an insectoid), while Keldar’s taking notes. We can rightly assume that he’s updating their bestiary, since he’s one of the teachers/mentors who focus on gathering and sharing knowledge. Coen’s flexibility shows in the flavour text: “There is no such thing as a fair fight. Every advantage and every opportunity that arises is used in combat.” Not very knightly, is it?

Kaer Seren: The “Star Keep” Erland and his friends fled to. It was used by the Order’s mages to mutate witchers (that’s why it was haunted by spectres). It’s located at the edge of the Dragon mountains by the sea between Poviss and Kovir. It’s said to possess the great library, which later mages tried to get for themselves. They messed up: by bringing down an avalanche on the Keep, that knowledge was destroyed. The keep was badly damaged and many witchers died.

Target Practice: The Griffin School’s specialty is their precise aim - they “can split an apple in two from a hundred paces”.

School of the Bear:

Bear Witcher Mentor & Bear Witcher Adept: The adept card shows that young witcher are taught to catch fish by hand (just like their school relevant animal). On the mentor card the elder witcher leads a group of younglings in the mountains; possibly out to teach tracking. The cards are connected by flavour text. The young Bear witcher-would-be’s need to complete the Trial of the Mountain, which consists of them climbing Mount Gorgon (also known as the Devil Mountain; it is the highest peak of the Amell range) to retrieve a runestone. The Trial often ends with the kids frozen to death. The Bear Mentor card’s flavour confirms it: “If you’re unsure of the way, just keep a lookout for markers - the frozen corpses of would-be witchers.” This sounds ominous - don’t they collect their fallen?

Bear Witcher: Bears are solitary hunters as seen in the flavour text: “life alone can be tough”. The witcher in the pic just dismembered what looks like a ghoul (with a tail?).

Bear Witcher Quartermaster: This one I like. The Quartermaster is an amputee (missing one of his arms, which was taken by a bear; must have won that fight one-handed), yet they still found a job for him where he can be useful. His flavour text suggest he likes Mahakam mead.

Arnaghad: The founder of the Bear School, he never felt kinship with his fellow witchers. After attacking a witcher named Rhys over a contract, wounding him deeply from shoulder to waist, he returned to Morgraig, attacked Erland then left with his possé to found the Bear School - Haern Caduch - in the Amell Mountains. Later he almost died in a betrayal, which resulted in another schism and the foundation of the Viper School.

Gerd: Gerd’s a legendary witcher who fled to Skellige after allying with a Usurper instead of his daughter, who later issued a warrant for his arrest. He has a busy time in Skellige: first slaying a dragon, befriending the Jarl Torgeir, killing a bunch of sirens, losing so many weapon diagrams you wouldn’t believe, losing half his pay and silver sword on gwent, escaping Nilfgaard and managing to slay a striga, killing some of his pursuers, only to be caught up in the siege of Torgeir’s castle, where he died in the ruins. On the card he’s showing Bear-typical strength: he’s tearing apart a siren with his bear hands.

Junod of Belhaven: Junod had a dubious background, but was thought to be the child of a brave dwarf and a giantess. He’s a huge man, with a big bushy beard and bald head. His sobriquet is false; he took it after Ivo, because he liked the ring of it. He was known as a strict haggler and a bit of a gambler. In 1243 he took a contract in hopes of cash (he wanted to forge the Grandmaster Ursine Armour). The subterranean monster was said to live in the caverns. Junod drew bear signs and wrote a warning on the wall (this is the scene we see on the card). He was however ill-prepared; the beast turned out to be a shaelmaar (a type of relic Gaetan slew once) that killed him in that very cavern.

Dire Bear: Once again related to the school in question, the Dire Bear is stuck with so much weaponry that it looks like a walking armory. Lots of witchers must have tried to slay it, yet it still kicks - just like Bear Witchers, it’s resilient till the very end.

Haern Caduch: Built into the side of the Amell Mountains, it’s the coldest environment of all the schools. As with the other schools, the Bears were forced out of it due to folk riots. It was left in disrepair to be buried under snow and ice (as seen on the card). It’s name could be translated as “Piercing Whiskers”.

Armor Up: As Bear’s are more likely to stand in the way of attack than dodge, they need to wear a heavy armour at all times.

Salamandra:

Roland Bleinheim & Gellert Bleinheim: Witcher 1 characters. They are thought to be brothers, leading the Salamandra organization. As drug lords one heads the fisstech operation in Vizima’s sewers (Roland), the other in the swamps (Gellert). The flavour text pretty much matches: both of them wondering what the other one is doing.

Salamandra Mage: The art itself was already leaked in China around 2 years back, and there were a few theories. One of them was that the man depicted is Zerrikanian, and I think that’s correct. Both the facial tattoo, darker skin, thinly braided hair and fire magic points in that direction. Azar Javed (a known Salamandra fire mage) happens to be a Zerrikanian escapee too.

Salamandra Lackey: A girl with the Salamandra-stapled mask runs from a city guard. The flavour text says the following: “Lackeys are expected to perform their first five jobs for no pay, demonstrating their passion for the gig.” The organization monitors from the beginning that only those remain who are extremely loyal to their cause.

Fallen Rayla: A little background for those who are unfamiliar with her: Rayla of Lyria was a veteran of the Nilgaardian Wars. She harbours anti-nonhuman sentiments after she was captured by Scoia’taels and severely maimed. The Rayla we see on the card is a mutant - in Witcher 1 she was supposedly shot down by Scoia’tael, and Salamandra found her close to death, subjected her to mutation. She was killed by Geralt.

Salamander: The card shows a bright blue spotted salamander. It has two tails and heads (possibly grown together?). The Salamander is a symbol of the organization. Metaphorically speaking it could mean, that Salamandra thought of itself as something untouchable: “best to avoid petting them, as the salamander, when threatened, secretes a deadly toxin”.

Failed Experiment: The card - ironically - thrives when it’s poisoned. The “experiment” only resembles a human in shape. It’s clutching the table ends, as if trying to escape still.  It’s fair to assume that they later dissected it: “even failed experiments can serve a purpose”.

Salamandra Abomination: A step further from the failed experiment - we see the results of pushing science’s boundaries. Only the skull is left intact, everything else of the body is covered with insectoid-like growths.

Stolen Mutagens: Gruesome organ harvesting. The witcher heart (?) glows, which is either an artistic decision (probable) or the mages sent magic into the body, and the mutagens light up (like angiographia). Three types of mutagens can be harvested: red (strength), blue (magic) or green (resilience). I headcanon that the amount they inject of the three types can vary - that’s how you get strength inclined witchers like the wolves (red), or big ass mothers like the bears (green).

Salamandra Hideout: There are multiple hideouts in Witcher 1 (outskirt of Visima, crypt in sewers and one in the trade quarters). The one depicted here is the fisstech lab in the sewers. It shows a dimly lit, cobwebbed room. There’s an elevation where a body lays on the table. The elevation’s floor is gridded, so the blood and other fluids can freely flow down into the sewer water, where many bodies are already discarded recklessly.

Neutral:

Alzur & Viy & Koshchey: Alzur was a charismatic mage and spell inventor, who created many horrible monsters, like the koshchey (with the spell: Alzur’s Double Cross) and the Viy (a huge centipede-like insectoid). He was also the one who did the lion’s share of work with the witcher’s mutation.

Cosimo Malaspina: Cosimo was the teacher of Alzur. He was known for his knowledge in hybridization and genetic modification. Him and Alzur were the true creators of the witchers sect. On the gwent card, three man are shown prodding at a mutated body. Cosimo (the old dude) is in the middle, Alzur might be the one on the left and that leaves Idarran on the right. His flavour text paints him as cold and clinical, someone without empathy: “Children keep asking him for gifts. He doesn’t know why, but it really helps with finding subjects for his experiments.”

Idarran of Ulivo & Idr & Wererat: Idarran was one of the contributers of the witcher experiments. He’s an expert in hybridization and genetic modification, whose teacher was Alzur. He was a pale kid who lived in the canals of Vizima and experimented on rats at the age of 5. He found beauty in gruesome creations, like the Wererat (a human-sized rat on roids) and the Idr (a big centipede-like insectoid). He’s disdained by Geralt for his many monsters.

Triangle within a Triangle: It’s a magic spell used to introduce a series of mutations and to greatly increase the mass of a given body. That way they can create huge monstrosities, like the koshchey. Adepts often confuse it with a pentagram which can lead to infernal disasters.

Selective mutation: The card shows a close up of a young man’s eyes - one mutated (catlike) one human. His skin shows his high toxicity level, ashen with prominent veins. He’s held down as alchemists prepare to inject a yellow concoction into the human eye. It’s possible that after the success of witchers the mages tried to recreate the changes in smaller scale, then unmake it in turn, unsuccessfully.

Witcher Student: This is not really a card, but I included it anyway. The card’s ability is - ironically - doomed, and to add insult to injury, its flavour text is the following well-known fact: “Four out of ten boys survive… at most.” It’s also a point for black humour that the gwent commentators added: the Trial of Grasses card boosts this unit significantly.

Berengar: He’s a Wolf School Witcher who blamed his school for denying him a normal life and consequently abandoned them. In Witcher 1 Geralt can decide to kill or spare him. In a letter he admits that he was a coward because he betrayed Kaer Morhen and worked with Salamadra in hope that they can undo his mutation. His card references a questline in Witcher 1, where he tried to reason with the vodyanoi (~lovecraftian fish people) to spare the village’s prize-winning cow, named Strawberry. This is non-canon; in the game Geralt takes over the quest to do this instead.

Leo: Another Witcher 1 character. He was an orphan taken in by Vesemir. He was a kind-hearted but hot-headed man, who had all the training but not the mutations and the experience - he never killed a man. The flavour text of his gwent card kind of mocks his death: “He would have caught the arrow if he only had some heads-up.” He’s burned on a pyre and his cenotaph can be found south of Kaer Morhen.

Geralt: Quen: The last classical sign that wasn’t yet a card. In the art, Geralt is wearing the Manticore armour

Snowdrop: She’s a not yet seen character; impish looking female bard with light blond hair (flowers braided on the side) who plays a medieval version of the fiddle to a rooster. There’s a horseshoe hanging from the hem of his pants. She’s also seen in the gwent: journey #3 launch trailer. She’s narrating that she was saved by Alzur. Alzur told her about his plans of creating witchers to fight the beasts of the Continent, and she admired him so much she spread his story (”let me tell you about the greatest sorceress to ever lived”). Their story will unveil in the next week, I’ll probably update accordingly. It’s also interesting that Alzur says in the gwent intro (regarding witchers): “Bards will toil to do justice to their feats.” As if his own successes and experiences will be mirrored in his creations. Projecting much?

Monsters:

Viy & Idr: both of them are centipede-like insectoids conjured by infamous mages (see: Alzur and Idarran)

Wererat: same can be said about this one. Idarran experimented on Vizima’s sewer rats since the age of 5. This human sized abomination was the end result.

Succubus: We already discussed how the “Succubus” doesn’t fit the theme. Other interesting thing is the surrounding of her - in the background we can see a skull full of some kinda of dark liquid; she’s also holding a goblet. I’m not saying she’s drinking blood, but if she does, it would shed some questions as succubi don’t need to drink blood at all.

Phooca: As nekkers’ rare big brother, phoocas are ogroids that have the strength to rip a man’s head off with their bear hands. According to the wiki, in Celtic folklore they are regarded as shapeshifting fairies.

Koshchey: A witcher 1 boss, koshcheys are spider-like abominations summoned by mages. The woman standing her ground in the picture is Visenna (Geralt’s druid mom). In the story she’s the one to kill the first koshchey ever created.

Spontaneous Evolution: Under the Red Moon the wolf mutated into an amalgamation of eyes and teeth. Malaspina possibly added something to the mix that proved unstable. The card’s name is kind of ironic - this change is not spontaneous (it was induced) but could be related to evolution (it would imply that this form is somehow advantageous to the current environment and helps adaptation). (Note: in my opinion spontaneous generation would be a better term: it’s the thought that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter.)

Hybrid: the card shows a two-headed wolf or dog. Pretty straight-forward.

Chimera: A creature created my Cosimo Malaspina. He combines the genes of a fiend and griffin, then added a trace of insectoid and wyvern. It kind of looks like a furred wyvern with antlers. Interestingly the frightener (an insectoid; a rare result of magical experiment) is also called a chimera.

Dol Dhu Lokke: a new monster lair location. The depending on how you translate “lokke” the Elder can be read as “black valley place” or “alluring black valley”. It’s so dangerous - housing many-a horrors - that even a witcher thinks twice before going near it.

Interesting tidbits

Coen has hair, which is weird because so far he was described in all sources as bald.

There used to be a card  that was also called Viper Witcher, which is now referred to as “Kingslayer”

The Bear Witcher’s face was drawn after one of CDPR’s employee.

The Koshchey’s card title has a typo: “Koschchey”.

Easter eggs (mainly in flavour text)

The Spontaneous Evolution card references The Powerpuff Girls intro: “Professor Malaspina accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction - compound X.”

The Bear Witcher card might reference a song of Baloo from the Jungle Book (The Bare Necessities): “Life alone on the road can be tough - be sure to bring all the bare necessities.”

[bluerosesonata]

The Legacy of Aika Village

[This will be the first of a few mini-articles I plan to post here, just about different things I’m passionate about. Please indulge me.]

This article originally was written back in early April- since then, Nintendo announced that the “Dream Suites” would be coming to the latest update of ACNH, as “Dream Islands.” As such, I thought it would be timely to finally post this.

Update: On July 2nd, the original creator of Aika Village made a tweet announcing their plans to remake Aika for Dream Islands in New Horizons! The legend lives on!

Image Credit: thumbnail from chuggaconroy’s playthrough of Aika Village on Youtube.

Animal Crossing And Horror: The Legacy of Aika Village

With a lot of the world in lockdown, Animal Crossing New Horizons has become a creative and social outlet for many, leading to a lot of people who never played Animal Crossing to engage with it for the first time. I’m sure most of you have encountered the various types of people present in the Animal Crossing community by now, but there’s a type of Animal Crossing players that a lot of people didn’t realize exist, and have existed, for a while now: The Horror Town Creators.

These players were the subject of a brief write up on Polygon by Patricia Hernandez [Hernandez, Patricia. “Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now a horror game, thanks to fans.” Polygon, 24 Mar. 2020. https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/24/21190826/animal-crossing-new-horizons-horror-game-decorations-scary-nintendo-switch-blood-spatter-pattern.], who posted an article featuring quotes and pictures of people creating horror themed towns and rooms in New Horizons, but only made a brief mention of the legacy of horror that many of these players are striving to recreate: The Nightmare Suites of Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

(These next few paragraphs are a bit of a self-indulgent aside, so feel feel to skip ahead.)

Horror gets a bad rap. Horror artists get comments like “lmao what SCP is this,”  “that’s fucked up,” or get flippant remarks about it all “looking the same.” Horror writers get made fun of for only writing “three types of stories.” Even the term “creepypasta,” which has evolved into shorthand for “horror stories independently published online,” still carries the stink of derision from the typo-filled, often poorly-written shock stories the term originated from. Despite this derision, horror, as a genre, is MASSIVELY popular (and profitable as well!). There’s an undeniable appeal to it.

More importantly, horror always finds a way to adapt itself to different mediums. As one can easily see by the success of horror podcasts like the NoSleep Podcast and The Magnus Archives, it isn’t even limited to a visual format! Like fear and dread itself, the horror genre crawls on, inexhaustible, undying, and ever-present, always returning to us in ways both novel and familiar.

Horror lovers are a tight knit, but welcoming, community, and that’s one of its biggest strengths and weaknesses.The biggest drawback is that a lot of really cool stuff produced will never be experienced, let alone documented, by people outside the community. And that’s what prompted this post. I was trying to explain the Dream Suite horror movement to my cousin, and despite my best efforts, didn’t find a lot of coverage about them, beyond the fact they existed. Worse, most of those were articles written five years ago. Even so, I’ll link to a few of them at the end of this post, as they’re definitely worth reading.

For me, I wanted to share my experience of the horror town phenomena with people outside the community. The Nightmare Suites movement was really something magical, and I know that I, personally, am still trying to recreate that magic in New Horizons. And hey, maybe once you’re finished reading this, you will too.

The Dream Suite

Before we can talk about Aika Village, we need to explain the feature that made this whole movement possible. In the 2012/2013 3DS game, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, there were two areas in every town: The village, and Main Street, which laid beyond the train tracks that ran across to the north of every town. Main Street was home several important structures, including the town shop, the Happy Home Academy, and the Post Office. Later on, more structures could be unlocked and built as public works projects, one of which was the Dream Suite.[“Dream Suite.” Nookipedia, 25 Apr. 2013, nookipedia.com/wiki/Dream_Suite.] 

As for how it worked, Nookipedia explains it best:

To begin a dream, the player must lie down on the bed and pay Luna 500 Bells. They may then choose to visit a random town, input the Dream Address of a specific town to visit, or search for a town. They may then choose to visit a previously visited town or a random town, or to input the dream address of a new town to visit. While dreaming, the player may walk around the town and perform actions just as they would in the real world, but their actions will have no effect on the town.

While dreaming, the bed will be on the dream town's plaza. Luna and Lloid stand near it until the player decides to wake up. Players can borrow tools like a shovel and axe from Lloid to use within the dream. If the player lies on the bed a second time, they will leave the dream and anything they have in their pockets will be lost.

The player cannot go to Main Street or enter any buildings with doors besides homes. Additionally, messages left on the bulletin board cannot be read; instead, the board displays the town's name and Dream Address…custom designs on display in the town, such as on the ground and in houses, will be visible. The player who uploaded the town can also be found walking about. When spoken to, they will say their recorded greeting.

In essence, the Dream Suite takes a snapshot of your town at the moment you ask Luna, the NPC running the Dream Suite, to share a dream- this includes your outfit, the way  you decorated your home, the items laying around town, etc.

The most important aspect of this feature, and the one that I feel had the most impact on the Nightmare Suite creation movement, was the method of discovery. If you didn’t know someone’s code, you would be sent to a random dream of a random town, from anywhere in the world- and this is where I feel my personal experience of being in the community departs from the articles that have already been written about the Nightmare Suites.

The Urban Legend of Aika

In the years leading to 2013, I was going through some rough shit. I won’t go into details here, but video games had become my entire life. Coming into the summer of 2013, I didn’t have any friends I kept in touch with, and I was “starting over” in a city where I knew nobody- things were looking up, but outside of tumblr, I didn’t have anything even resembling a social life. Animal Crossing: New Leaf was a stabilizing force of my life during this time, and really helped me. I had the Shampoodle haircut guide saved to the camera roll on my phone, for pete’s sake.

It was in the beginnings of my friendship with a group of girls (whom I sadly no longer even have contact with), where a lot of our initial bonding happened because of anime and RPGmaker horror games. We were sitting together in the campus dining area, me playing on my 3DS, when I first learned about the Nightmare Suites.

“Have you heard about Aika Village?”

I hadn’t.

“It’s this really creepy town in dream suites, I heard about it from a friend online.” Later that day, she linked me to a tumblr post compiling a series of codes leading to different “creepy dream towns,” the first one being simply labeled as “Aika Village.”

That dream village became a phenomenon: people would write up their interpretations and theories about it, and even lead to a few articles and videos on gaming sites like IGN and Killscreen, which is why I’m not gonna even bother going into the content of the village itself.

And So, The Dream Begins…

This, in my opinion, was the draw of the Nightmare Suites. Without a way to directly share codes from your 3DS to your social media, the discovery and sharing of Dream Towns was like that of urban legends- like virtually passing notes in class, or sharing scary stories that “totally happened to a friend of my cousin’s sister” at a campfire. It felt like a cool discovery- something exclusive and scary and weirdly intimate. They had a mystique to them, a mystery of who their creators were and what they “really meant.” But above all that? They were cool as hell.

The Nightmare Suites used the limitations of the game to try and create an unnerving atmosphere in ways that were reminiscent to me of the RPGmaker horror game subgenre, and for me, created a lot of memories of excitedly typing in my once a day dream suite visit late at night in my dorm. I never lacked variety- there were so many people either influenced or inspired by Aika to make a horror town that there are entire lists and tumblrs dedicated to collecting those codes. (I even played around with the idea of making my own horror town, but never found the right inspiration, instead dedicating my time to making themed homes and custom outfits based on different anime characters.)

The sad fact that so many of these towns have been altered or overwritten, if they’re available or accessible at all, is in itself, a part of their urban legend-like appeal. While many of us may never get to experience these towns, the stories about them endure, in lists on long-abandoned blogs and youtube videos from people’s playthroughs.

And that mystique is the real legacy of Aika; While the Nightmare Suites may be gone, the wonder and dreamlike memories many of us hold from our chance encounter with it will never fade. You could even say we’re a bit…haunted by it.

[knadire]

Art Theft Committed by CreepypastaDotCom and Chilling Tales for Dark Nights

Hey everybody. I just wanted to tell an important story to anyone out there that’s an artist or a fan of horror media. In the wake of the mess last weekend surrounding Twitter account @RareHorror failing to attribute art they reposted to the creator and having a massive and embarrassing meltdown (which you can read more about here, language warning: http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/rare-horrors-twitter-meltdown-ignites-debate-over-artist-rights.php), I want to share a similar experience I’ve been having. It’s going to contain some disturbing (but fake) Photoshops and paintings so I’m sorry in advance if this sort of thing upsets you.

 So about a month ago, while talking with some friends, one of them drew my attention to how the Twitter page for CreepypastaDotCom was tweeting out about a story on their main website using an image that looked a little familiar. There was no credit to be found. After a little digging we realized that it was the work of a rather well known, found footage-style artist who goes by SlimeySwampGhost, which many of us were familiar with. After discovering this, we collectively began filling their comments section with remarks about this lack of attribution. SlimeySwampGhost himself eventually asked for credit.

After a full day with no further response from CreepypastaDotCom, I decided to scroll deeper. I discovered that for the past few months, ALL their Twitter content was made up of uncredited artwork. Every post contained an excerpt, a link to the story it was from, a handful of hashtags, and an uncredited piece of artwork. Through this, I found another account called Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. They themselves are a horror audio drama/narration channel I’ve known about for a while. Not only did they have posts identical to those made on CreepypastaDotCom’s Twitter page, but they had made even MORE promoting their podcasts, audio recordings, and YouTube videos, still using artwork that they had no ownership of.

I want to put it into perspective how much of a profit these websites are making. If you visit CreepypastaDotCom (which I do not recommend), it is filled to bursting with ads. Their most recent story, which is only 1500 words long, contains four standard and one video ad to the right, a banner across the side and bottom, and three built right into the story, between every four paragraphs or so. I have seen an even higher number on longer stories. Though not an exact number, the site Worth of Web estimates that nearly 10 000 people visit CreepypastaDotCom and it earns nearly $150 USD daily. Though their site’s lack of ads is a little less apparent in its source of income, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights offers a subscription service starting at $5 USD a month and capping at $79.99 a year, locking many of their stories and recordings behind a paywall . On top of this, Social Blade estimates their channel earning between $144 and $2.3K USD monthly. These are not small groups making a mistake; these are large companies making the active decision to omit credit, at times going out of their way to do so.

So, I decided to spend a free afternoon going on a little crusade of using a combination of Google Images and other backwards image searching services to find and credit nearly ALL of the art they reposted in their respective comments section.

The most disturbing cases I’ve seen are:

-a few artists that I was able to tag directly that stated that they hadn’t permitted them to use their art nor was it free for anyone to repost or use (at bare minimum without credit)

-multiple artists who were selling the piece they used or others as a print

-several drawings that had logos, names, signatures or watermarks cropped out of the image to even further remove credit

-a handful of concept art from indie games

The most disgusting one I found was an advertisement featured on both Twitter feeds for a book on Amazon by K Banning Kellum. Attached to this was a piece that I discovered was hand painted by François Baranger for a crowdfunded book, cropping out the full resolution to hide the space where the text was meant to be placed. They were using art from an unrelated book to advertise another. Both Banning and Baranger have made statements asking that the advert be taken down.

It took a few hours before I heard any word from either of them. CreepypastaDotCom initially excused all this to Twitter’s word count, citing that their Facebook page properly attributed the specific artist I was referring to (which they mentioned was a “friend” of theirs). I pointed out that though yes, they did credit that very specific artist on that other social media, they failed to do so with a good majority of the art they were sharing, and that they had no issue adding an additional tweet to that chain after I mentioned it but still to none of the others.

Both pages did eventually remove all of the incriminating posts, but not before blocking me immediately after this interaction.

I had this on the back of my mind until a month later, when I decided to check up on both of them after the RareHorror incident occurred. When plugging their most recent text-based stories they began using (what I hope to be) stock photographs, and most of CreepypastaDotCom’s Facebook feed now consists of memes. But all of the images that they had removed on Twitter had not ben touched on this social media page, and I also discovered an Instagram page for Chilling Tales doing the same thing. While going about making similar remarks on these respective pages, I recognized the watermark of Omega Black, who’s work was stolen by them before, directly used in a thumbnail for their podcast, which is one of the ones currently hidden behind their paywall. In fact, a majority of their recent thumbnails on their website, as well as on YouTube, have art done by other people that they have not credited. They only credit the artists that they commission art from, which they can, have, and CONTINUE to do. I have made efforts to properly attribute and ask that they remove these images as many places as I have been able.

In the middle of writing this, CreepypastaDotCom has removed ONLY the post about post about K Banning’s book, leaving up everything else, and has banned me from commenting on their Facebook page any further. Chilling Tales yet to make any sort of statement about this behaviour. Since posting this to Facebook, I have now been officially blocked on both Chilling Tales for Dark Nights and CreepypastaDotCom on there, as well as CTFDN's Instagram. The posts that got the most negative feedback over theft (belong to Francois and OmegaBlack respectively) have all been completely removed, BUT all the others are still there. All my comments linking back to their respective portfolios, ArtStations and DeviantART profiles have been wiped clean and they are left uncredited once more.

In the end I just want this sort of thing to end. It’s not right that these pages are piggybacking off of the artwork of others to generate more interest and clicks, to earn a profit that the original creators will not see a cent of. As an artist myself who has had their art mistaken for free clipart in the past I can’t image what it must be like to have your work used on a much larger scale. So if anyone from the CreepypastaDotCom or Chilling Tales for Dark Nights team is reading this, please consider removing all these. It’s neither legally nor morally right.

If anyone following me is able to, I ask that you consider addressing all this yourselves on your social media of choice. I don’t want any outright harassment, but it seems like as with most large corporations, a large group of people expressing their dissatisfaction is the only way to incite any change. As only one person there’s only so much I’ve been able to do.

Any artists following me should be extremely cautious of who is using your art and for what purpose. If this is happening to anyone I know personally I’ve got your back and I’ll do everything I can to get it removed or appropriately attributed.

If you intend on doing anything like Chilling Tales in the future, even tangentially related, the Creepypasta Wiki is a better while still expansive resource for stories. Here are also some resources you can use for royalty free or public domain photographs and images:

https://pixabay.com/

https://unsplash.com/

https://stocksnap.io/

https://www.pexels.com/

If you want to use art that you like, at least ask permission first. The worst they can say is no, and no response is NOT approval. Credit the artist, and Google Images is not a source.

Below is a list of all the artists I was able to find who’s work has been stolen and left unattributed. It is not completely comprehensive since backwards image searching only goes so far, and as only one person I have only been able to track their posts back to the beginning of January due to their absolutely massive backlog of images.

https://www.deviantart.com/drfaustusau

https://www.facebook.com/creepypastadotcom/photos/a.1890769041170011/2331644373749140/?type=3&theater

 Gary Pullin

https://www.facebook.com/creepypastadotcom/photos/a.1890769041170011/2330164767230434/?type=3&theater

 Joe Webb

https://www.facebook.com/creepypastadotcom/photos/a.1890769041170011/2329562920623952/?type=3&theater

 https://www.deviantart.com/jflaxman

https://www.facebook.com/creepypastadotcom/photos/a.1890769041170011/2328831980697046/?type=3&theater

 *https://www.deviantart.com/koidl

https://www.facebook.com/creepypastadotcom/photos/a.1890769041170011/2326650480915196/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/creepypastadotcom/photos/a.1890769041170011/2326647174248860/?type=3&theater

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsnqEW_lpsc/

  https://www.deviantart.com/almanegra

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 Masahiro Sawada

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 Emil Melmoth

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 Ares Dragonis

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 Matteo Ascente

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 Klaus Wittmann

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 Miklós Ligeti

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 Eric Felten

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 Jay Zhou

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 Alex Monge

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 OmegaBlack

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 Fernando Acosta

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 Pedro Silvia

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 Blaz Porenta

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[geek-gem]

Rampage 2 Monster Ideas Or Possibilities

Because this is something well I wanted to make a joke at first of how Davis would react in the situation I’ve thought of for a sequel to Rampage 2018. But over time I started to think more. Basically more details, and changes to my ideas. Spoilers from the 2018 film just in case.

Including I wanted to make this list of ideal monsters. Because the video games have a huge roster that a franchise can use for the games. Along with I wanted to write my own twist on them. Considering the direction the movie took with George, Ralph, and Lizzie. If your a fan of the games you might like these ideas. But give me your thoughts on these. Especially I intend to some how Ralph and Lizzie back. Because along with George are the main trio of the franchise.

This isn’t all for one movie. But again I’m just giving out ideas. In fact I decided to study and look into stuff. Mostly about wolves because I’ve thought more in depth about Ralph 2.0. Including looked up some stuff on Crocodiles, but mostly looked up stuff about wolves. Along with I looked on the Rampage wiki on some characters. Again give me your thoughts, this is all fan fiction. Especially it seems weird with the Ralph one.

1. Ralph or humorously called Ralph 2.0 by Harvey Russell. A 7 month old Grey Wolf taken in by the Wolf Watch UK. Named Ralph by a woman who works there after she found him as a pup laying next to his dead mother who was killed by poachers. Ever since then, even being a wild animal he’s looked towards the woman as sort of mother after his died.  

Actually considered a, “Sweetheart” despite his protective nature of the woman. Especially is rather good at protecting itself when aggressive or threatened. After being affected by the same pathogen some how that affected the other animals. Growing in size, and gaining certain abilities. But compared to the original Ralph in 2018, Ralph 2.0 while aggressive, seems to be less violent than the original. Mostly because of being taken care of by humans, and his relationship with the woman who rescued him. Especially he still retains his memories.

But growing in size and other symptoms have caused him to become scared, confused, and angry. Only listening to the woman who saved him, and eventually Davis as well. He’s in a weird way a giant dog. Yet he will become violent and attack who hurts the woman who nurtured him growing up.

Is able to fly like the original Ralph, and use the needles it grew on it’s back. 

Notes: Originally I wanted this new character this woman to be played by Karen Gillian, but decided Emilia Clarke. Especially I want a joke where Harvey calls her the, “Mother Of Wolves”. Including Ralph 2.0 has a relationship to this woman similar to Davis and George. But with the woman even calling Ralph that he’s kind of like her son. Along with this Ralph is supposedly the youngest of the trio. 

2. Lizzie or humorously called Lizzie 2.0 by Harvey Russell as well. Including actually named Lizzie by Davis. A 5 year old American Crocodile that resides in the San Diego Wild Life Sanctuary, that Davis saved as well. While she doesn’t mind Davis at all. She would rather be left alone. While the American Crocodile may not be as aggressive as other species, Lizzie can be aggressive if agitated.

Affected by the pathogen that made it’s way to the sanctuary, she gained similar abilities like the original Lizzie. She’s the biggest of the three, able to breathe underwater, and has the tusks and more teeth. Especially in a similar situation as Ralph 2.0, confused, and some what scared, but angry as well.

Yet still even growing bigger, she still retained that loner behavior. Even though she’ll follow Davis because he’s the only one she can trust. Later during the film while still aggressive, realizes that her help is needed offers to help the other two against a bigger threat. Especially it’s to protect Davis from harm or any monsters threating to hurt him. Including can get very violent as well.

Notes: There’s this theme for the movie while it sounds ridiculous. Considering the situations with Ralph 2.0 and Lizzie 2.0, especially Ralph 2.0. Davis tries to convince George even if they are different species, and they may not get along. But Davis tells him that Ralph and Lizzie are not like the other two he faced. Along with the fact they are in the same situation they were in 2018. With Davis asking George to see them as like a younger brother and sister or friends, that they are part of his troop, his family, to protect them like they were one of his own. Over the film George understands and risks his life for the other two. Following this, the other two especially Ralph do the same.

Including have a cute scene of George petting Ralph 2.0 or something.

3: V.E.R.N. considered an abomination. A monster that absorbs radiation. Originally a uncomplete monster that was mixed with bat DNA and other animals before Claire was killed by George. But it was mainly top secret and but kept close to the Rampage project. Yet it was stolen by some sort of company who’s name when shortened was titled SCUM. They tried to complete it. But realized there was a reason it was never completed. It was too out of control, It couldn’t be controlled. Especially what’s more shocking and twisted.

The surprise came from the fact during the process of discovering what was in the blood of the abomination. Some how Claire Wyden’s blood was in it. The reveal was possibly one of the parts of DNA was human blood, which was Claire herself. As if VERN could of been a clone. But later revealed Claire wanted to make the ultimate weapon she could sell. But the results were too unstable. Which was possibly the reason why Claire didn’t bother continuing with it. Because it would of proved disastrous, worse than what happened with Project Rampage. While Claire was pleased with how that project went. Vern was something else. 

Including the name V.E.R.N. meant “Violently Enraged Radioactive Nemesis”.

A angry and diabolical monster, a creature that’s very feral and seems to enjoy what it’s doing. It’s as VERN if she was a clone of Claire, this would of been her after she had been killed. Angry after everything that happened. Especially Vern actually being intelligent and understanding what humans can say. That human blood was used to make it more smarter, a terrible choice indeed. Learning of the original Claire’s death, realizing they were almost the same.

Vern is the embodiment of animalistic evil. If Claire was even more unleashed in her wrong doing, proud of her work, and willing to kill anyone to get in her way. It was almost like the original Claire came back from the dead but more worse, as a giant monster. Including with her size and power, she’s a challenge for any monster.

Notes: I kind of went too far with Vern. Because Vern didn’t have more personal info. Especially last year I thought of this idea of I would of liked it if Claire had become this Bat like creature like Vern. As if this final boss so she get her ass kicked by George. Honestly Claire’s fate was well deserved. Including I understand why they didn’t take the human turning into the monster direction.

But yeah I took the route that Vern is some how Claire 2.0. But as some sort of monstrous clone mixed with a lot of animal DNA. Including as a callback Vern is female in Total Destruction. I know Claire isn’t a very good villain, or whatever she was an asshole. I guess I wanted to make a more in depth monster.

I wanted to make the, “King Ghidorah” and I thought now, “Black Hat(From Villainous)” of Rampage. Even though Vern didn’t have like this huge role in the games. But I decided to add more depth to the character. You can be critical of me if you want.

4. Myukus, a one eyed alien monster. For many years has been kept at Area 51 for many decades ever since the 1950′s. Been kept asleep and experimented on. Now with his alien superiors returning to invade the Earth. He is released by them. Angered by the American government capturing him, and keeping his on Earth for many decades. He decides to take vengeance on Earth, by destroying everything he possibly can, while aiding the aliens who freed him.

Originally a monster created by the aliens to take over the Earth. But crashing down towards the Earth weakened him and put him into a coma. Including the American government made sure he couldn’t wake up. Which fueled Myukus with rage even more. Now free, he can do what he was made for again, now with his people.

Notes: I still feel I wanna do the aliens storyline first but I liked what I did with Vern. No wait Vern came first but you can do a trilogy with so many monsters and other shit man.

5: Cal, a giant squid, born in the Florida Keys in what was considered the safest reef in the world. Transformed by massive amounts of the pathogen on the Athena-1. At first he was a small squid now, but now he’s a massive and angry squid, able to take down boats, eat people, and doing much more damage. Literally a horror underwater come to life. 

Including to make it worse, he is able to breathe air for an hour. But still needing to breathe underwater. Making him a threat not to be messed with.

Notes: Yes I’m keeping the end with the squid canon because that was amazing.

6: Larry, a large rat. Including funny enough, the same rat Harvey got from Brett Wyden. Some how the rat got into contact with the pathogen, making it grow larger and more aggressive. Especially with more time, larger than the rat on the Athena-1.

But what’s rather strange about Larry, he has a huge fondness for Harvey. Honestly a good thing. After getting the rat back from the solider later. He took care of the rat as his own. Especially Larry is mainly a annoyance rather than dangerous. 

Yet he can still fight as he’s gotten bigger near George’s size.

Notes: It’s not Curtis but found out from Brad Peyton if there was a sequel, he’ll use that name. So I decided to do just that. :)

7: Ruby, a giant lobster, it’s strangely funny in a way. How does something like a lobster that’s very small, get so big? In a similar situation to Cal, tons of the pathogen got in the water, and she got a huge dose of it. Able to snap metal with her claws, and also pretty strong for a creature like her.

She’s a big nasty bugger that gets pissed real easily if angered. 

Notes: I weirdly wanna see a giant mutated lobster, it be amazing looking to me personally.

8: Boris, a giant rhino, originally a Africian Rhinoceros, again affected by the pathogen. Becoming very large and hostile. Yet after being captured by the government and Davis trying to help. He’s gotten less aggressive over time. But still he’ll get pissed if someone attacks him, and he’ll use his giant body and horns to kill any human or monster. Basically a giant batting ram.

Notes: Not much on Boris, I’ll have him more chill when shit is doesn’t need to be done.

I wrote a lot I apologize, but for anyone interested in ideas for a sequels. We can talk and I hope you enjoy reading this. Again and I’m sorry that I keep repeating this, I want a sequel to Rampage 2018, whatever direction they go with, I’ll probably be happy. But again these are ideas because they have a lot of material mainly monsters they can use. Along with the fact the Rampage games aren’t very lore based so they can do what they want or whatever. Just hope it’s an enjoyable movie like the first one too. 

[elytrafemme]

hi! :D

8, 10, and 17

HI!

8. Name an older game that would you most like to see redone on today’s technology.

okay i wanted to answer soul calibur III for this one too but i think i've already talked WAY too much about that so i'll settle for a different game.

i think the elder scrolls IV: oblivion. simply because the way that the AI works and how the characters randomly spark conversations with each other is kind of fucking hilarious and i want to see more modern games like that. like what the hell is even happening there you know what i mean

then again new technology means it might lose it's sort of messy charm and i don't know if i can compromise that. the characters look so silly it's great. i love it.

edit: okay as i was typing my answer later i thought of a way better answer to this one but because this is long i'll put it under the cut, along with the other answers.

HONORARY SECOND CHOICE: child of light.

honestly i am not going to explain child of light fully but what i will say is it had a fantastic concept and really lovely execution, the only problem was that it was too ambitious at the time so it came out somewhat incomplete. in the sense that like, there are subplots that never really get resolved, etc. so i want to see it remade and keep the same sort of art style (which is gorgeous) and everything, just remake it so that we can at least have a little more completion for it, if that makes sense?

10. Name a favorite obscure video game.

... pocket mirror?

see i feel like pocket mirror isn't THAT obscure but i'm struggling to settle on one that's lesser known than it

instead of attempting to explain this myself i'm going to just get the actual description from the wiki page:

"Pocket Mirror is an original mystery horror adventure game, created by AstralShift, made using RPG MAKER VX ACE. ... The events of Pocket Mirror take place in a mysterious world where the player has to guide the main character in her journey to find her true identity."

confession: i have... a couple of qualms about pocket mirror and its portrayal of things however i do think that some of the concepts were sort of interesting and it meant a lot to me when i was younger. and by meant a lot i think i mean that it helped me realize that i was gay, so, yeah.

i feel like i have a way better answer to this one because i'm not very crazy over pocket mirror but i think it's interesting enough that it'll do.

17. If you could have everyone in the world get a copy of one game, what game would it be?

minecraft.

genuinely, i think people just need a little minecraft in their lives. a little bit of creative world building and crop farming. it helps build spirit you know? it's good for the mental health

ask game

[shirlleycoyle]

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited

In November 2007, an entirely contextless video of me being punched in the face went viral. You might have seen it. It still does the rounds every couple of months, often when something notably bad happens that warrants a response of disbelief. In these strange times, it’s managed to remain endlessly prescient.

For the uninitiated, the video in question is an 11-second clip in which, aged 16, I appear wearing a dressing gown cord around my head, a chain necklace, some children’s sunglasses and a black T-shirt. I sit down and address the camera, ostensibly about to tell the viewer what I was thinking. I am immediately interrupted by my friend Tim, who appears stage left and lamps me. Rather than react in pain or anger, I err more towards disappointment and dismay, bewildered that something like this could happen. “Ah fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this,” I said. End scene.

It’s been nearly 14 years since I uploaded the original video and to this day it still prompts questions. Who was the guy who got punched? Why did he get punched? Who punched him? What was he thinking? Why did he react that way? Why did he leave YouTube?

In recent years I’ve come to appreciate and even enjoy its bizarre status as an enduring piece of internet history, but my relationship with the clip in the decade that followed its inexorable rise hasn’t always been easy. To understand why, it’s useful to remember that the internet in 2007 was, for better or worse, a very different place.

Having spent the best part of my school years filming stupid skits with mates instead of studying, there was something semi-appealing about the prospect of being able to put videos online to share with friends. It began in mid-2003, when myself and a group of friends would have been in our early teens. Inspired by the likes of Jackass and Bam Margera’s CKY movies, our impressionable young selves set about ignoring all relevant safety warnings, hurling ourselves out of trees, riding scooters into curbs, and racing tyres down hills on skateboards.

At the age of 14 or so, I had envisaged cutting the footage into a chaotic feature-length video of “stunts.” I’d probably have soundtracked it with music from the Tony Hawk games, alongside countless other homemade skate videos people made circa 2003 that probably featured a mix of Ace of Spades or Guerilla Radio. I still have a box full of VHS-C tapes kicking around somewhere, which can only be viewed on one of those absolutely insane VHS adapters. Having not watched any of it in well over a decade, I can safely say that the content contained within those tapes is unequivocally shit.

All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in.

Looking back, the whole endeavour was entirely aimless, but aside from coming away with mild head injuries from time to time it was an innocuous way to spend my childhood. At the very least it also means I have a bizarre, tangible record of my youth that I’ll be able to laugh at one day when I’m old and wizened.

By summer 2004, we had started filming on Mini-DV, which opened up a whole new world of editing possibilities. Plugging a video camera into a computer and capturing footage directly to editing software is pretty much a given for today’s generation of content creators, but back in the early 2000s, this was revolutionary.

We’d eventually gravitate away from ‘stunts’ towards more structured skits and sketches. Nothing was ever scripted per se, but we’d usually start out with a rough idea of something and see how it played out.

There was an ambitiously misguided 'silent horror' short, soundtracked by Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, in which someone chopped off ‘my cock’ (a banana) with a garden shear. We considered this to be the absolute pinnacle of comedy.

There was an ill-advised 'Ballers' skit in which we ventured out in sports gear to make a mock training video taking the piss out of a guy at school who fancied himself as a bit of a gangster; this painfully middle-class white kid who listened to rap metal and liked basketball. He obviously never saw it and there's no question that we looked like idiots filming it at the local park. It’s probably quite offensive in hindsight.

The author at the Bristol Climate Change Protests in September 2019. Image: Shanya Buultjens

There was a James Bond 'spoof' that involved misquoting portions of dialogue from that scene in GoldenEye where Q gives Bond an exploding pen. It was funny to about three people. One of them was my mum.

One time a mate of mine fell out of a tree when he tried to swing from a branch. He landed on his back and ended up coughing up blood. He didn’t go to the hospital even though he probably should have. He’s now a doctor and a father.

Mercifully, none of this stuff ever made it online, but I did sell a couple of DVDs to people at school who rightly/probably/hopefully never watched them. In an ideal world, I'd own the only copies. I'm also fully aware that writing about this now only makes it more likely that one of the four people that still have a copy will dig theirs out. Please do not do that.

In 2005 and 2006, YouTube was very much in its infancy. This was the time when clips were limited to about 100mb and you could only upload about 30 seconds worth of footage at a time, which basically made it perfect for bursts of frenetic, inane content. As the platform grew, it became a dumping ground for skits and footage that we’d accumulated over the preceding years. Much of it went completely unnoticed until late 2007, at which point things started to get a bit weird.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it.

The clip that people have come to know started out as an aimless skit filmed in Summer 2006. We hadn’t planned anything, least of all me being punched. In the footage building up to the event, I pushed Tim off the chair, he fell and hit his head on a filing cabinet off-camera. Rather than react to Tim, I sat down and proceeded to ad lib something that I’d venture to guess would have been considerably less funny than the act of violence that followed. Unprompted, Tim upsided me and I reacted with an inexplicable, completely incredulous response, which has followed me online ever since.

The footage sat on a tape until July 2007 when I decided to upload a brief segment under an ambiguous title. Fast forward to November and the video had somehow blown up, had its comments section relentlessly spammed, been ripped countless times and had offensive Wiki pages written about it. I also received a few direct messages which could at best have been described as ‘worrying’ and at worst ‘threatening,’ which was nice.

To this day, I’m none the wiser as to how it blew up in the way it did. I originally uploaded the video under the title ‘ ___________’ but the video somehow found its way onto 4chan where it spread like wildfire. The earliest mirrored link I could find was from January 2008, by which time it had been re-uploaded by multiple accounts, the most prominent of which had already clocked up almost double the number of views compared to my original upload.

At the time, going viral wasn't really comparable to any other experience and it certainly wasn't something I could discuss in solidarity with my friends. All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in. After yanking down several other videos on my YouTube channel, I opted for the latter.

When the video blew up, I got a call from a friend who informed me that the video had made the front page of Break.com. I peripherally knew what that meant: they offered a buyout scheme for videos that made the front page, which meant that I could make some money from it.

As it transpired, this wasn’t such a great idea. After signing a release form with some pretty appalling terms, over the following months I had several unnerving interactions with researchers for various TV shows looking to license the clip. Each offered far more favourable terms than those of Break. One of them harassed a bunch of my mates on Facebook. I think he even offered to pay one of them for my contact details.

By that point, it was all too apparent that I had completely fucked it. Break had the rights and I couldn't do anything with it even if I wanted to. At just 18 years old, I had sold out. In the short term, I used the money to buy a TV, which was great, but I soon started to get the creeping feeling that this was a decision that would come to haunt me. At that point, it was easier to disassociate myself from the clip, abandon YouTube, and move on with my life.

And yet, for the best part of 14 years the questions have kept coming: no, it wasn’t staged or scripted, it wasn’t a set-up, I didn’t know it was coming and, yes, it hurt. It was also very funny, which is presumably why I felt the need to upload it in isolation in the first place. Incidentally, Tim and I are still friends and contrary to some of the absolutely insane comments people leave on YouTube I can confirm that neither of us are in prison, the punch wasn’t a reaction to some sort of disagreement and he’s a lovely bloke.

To be clear, the lack of context wasn’t a deliberate choice to add intrigue either. I’d never even considered the possibility that anyone outside my circle of friends would see it. To me it was just another daft clip that a few mates would find funny.

Around the time I’d started to make peace with the issues around ownership, in 2018 it came to my attention that Break had shut down and its owner Defy Media had gone bust. The site was subsequently purchased by Yeah1 Network, but to this day I have no clarity whatsoever on my legal rights to the video. Any attempts to receive guidance have either turned up dead ends, or led to suggestions that I speak to IP lawyers, whom I have neither the means nor the time to deal with. Incidentally, if anyone has any insights in that area, I’d love to hear them.

Having said this, there’s something quite empowering in taking something embarrassing and admitting to it before someone else can point it out to you—a bit like taking ownership of an amusing surname. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what gags can be made from the name ‘Weedon,’ but I learned quite early on that if you make the jokes yourself and beat others to it, no one can fucking touch you. It’s much easier nowadays to hold my hands up and admit that I shouldn’t have sold the rights, make a joke of it and move on. At the very least, it makes for a good anecdote at parties.

As I suspect is probably the case for old content creators, if you can even call us that, the real story about I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This isn’t in how it’s aged and endured, or even how it’s impacted my life. For me, it’s tied up in issues of rights, ownership, and monetisation. As mercenary as it might be, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t regret missing out on a slice of the pie when it came to YouTubers being able to monetise their content sooner. On the one hand, that's probably a very cynical view for something that was created by a bunch of teenagers who were fooling around making videos for fun in the noughties, but on the other, that's just the world we live in now.

Perhaps the strangest thing about my experience with it nowadays is the way people engage with it on a day-to-day basis. The comments vary from young people discovering its origins for the first time, surprised to discover that it is in fact a 14 year old video and not a recent creation filmed for Vine or TikTok. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are incredulous that someone with a video that has 9.2 million views and an account that’s amassed over 15,000 followers without really trying would step away from the platform and not want to make content.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it. I love seeing how it’s been re-interpreted in modern mediums and that positive association has made it easier to accept. Charles Cornell turned it into a sad song. It got sampled in a KIll The Noise track. I had a nice interaction with The Sidemen about it. Will Smith even featured it in an insane Instagram post during the pandemic. I DM’d him to say thanks and he obviously didn’t reply.

To that end, a small group of us have recently started work on a film project exploring the nature of the meme, how it grew, its impact on my life and my relationship with the internet at large. In doing so, the hope is that, while answering some of the burning questions that other people still seem to have, I’ll ultimately be able to make peace with the whole thing.

@Twotafkap

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[rewindfrequency]

Manhunt 2 Review

https://wordpress.com/posts/rewindfrequency.wordpress.com

Manhunt 2 Review

Developed and Published by Rockstar Games

Played on: PSP/PS VITA

Also Available on: PS2, Wii, and Microsoft Windows

Daniel Lamb and Leo Kasper have been imprisoned in the Dixmor Asylum for six years under the brutal conditions of the Pickman Project. But today they finally have a chance to escape. The patients of the asylum revolt, throwing the place into chaos. The cell door is open for Daniel Lamb, and his former partner Leo Kasper eggs him on to leave. This is Daniel’s chance to finally uncover what the Pickman Project did to him and what it plans to do to others. You will have to jump between time periods in Daniel’s memory and play as both him and Leo Kasper to uncover the truth.

The first thing I have to say about this game is that the story is great. It explores the human mind and how it can be manipulated and controlled. This game has no story connection with the first Manhunt. Manhunt 2 is considered a psychological stealth horror game. I have to disagree with this categorization. After playing through the entire game it’s more like an action game with stealth elements thrown in. There are two types of gameplay styles. Stealth exploration is the first. This form of gameplay dominates the first few levels. You sneak from the shadows, which are large dark spots of the level that enemies can’t see you in, and kill the hunters (the people looking for you) one by one. This is by far the best part of the experience gameplay-wise. In these levels most of the time you're only given one use weapons such as a pen or a shiv. You use these weapons to take down sometimes as many as five foes. The items respawn in certain areas so don’t worry about running out. When in the stealth levels you don’t have to sneak. You can actually walk right behind the enemy and kill them. But this is only for the handheld version. As you take down enemies you get their weapons and have more fighting power over your opponents. These levels are often in tight spaces and force you to isolate and distract your hunters to prevail.

The rest of the game is a mix of stealth and cover-based shooting with some levels being entirely cover-based action sections. Now, I’m a big fan of cover based shooters, but this one is just bad. The game will boil down to shooting galleries where you use a lock-on aim mechanic to tear your hunters to pieces.  I rarely died or took heavy damage in these levels because they’re just to easy. This part of the game is downright boring. The cover system is clunky, not allowing you to move back and forth quickly. To vault over cover is painfully slow. This game tries to be like Gears of War and fails miserably. Speaking of that lock-on aim, it not only makes the game too easy in some sections, but makes it harder in others. When using a shotgun, for example, you will fire at the nearest enemy. But in some cases depending on the height of your cover, the lock-on aim will fire at enemies far away. I can’t hit those enemies with a shotgun. Even worse is that since the game wants to be fair, they make you miss shots. And with some guns you can miss dozens of times. The pistol is complete garbage. It takes forever to have the firing reticle on a hunter and once you do, you miss a few more times before landing a hit that does little to no damage unless they’re two feet away. This is by far the worst part of the game and it’s the majority of the gameplay. This is why I don’t consider this to be a stealth psychological horror game. If stealth is a secondary feature and shooting dudes while behind cover isn’t scary, then it fails to meet its own classification.

But don’t worry, there is more gameplay to be had. If you are in a stealth section and get caught, you can fight your opponent hand to hand or use a melee weapon. This is terrible. Your character moves slowly and throws their punches even slower. Want to block after throwing a punch? Too bad. The game won’t let you. You have to sit there and take a beating. In hand-to-hand combat expect to lose at least half of your health. There is no justification for how sluggish it is. In later levels of the game, you can get a weapon like a shovel or crowbar and completely dominate your opponent. Even though the combat is still slow, now you can actually get out alive.

All the gameplay I mentioned above it severely hindered by the game's controls. Even when playing on the VITA you are still only allowed to use one analog stick. This makes the game almost impossible to play. That’s why you need the aggressive lock-on aim system. How can I make tight turns to avoid being spotted when I only have one analog stick to move my character and adjust their field of view? How can I move quickly from cover to cover in the shooting sections when I only have one analog stick to do it? This right here makes the game extremely frustrating and at one point almost unplayable. In Level 11, “Origins,” you have to shoot targets that are immune to lock-on aim. So you have to enter free-aim mode. This is awful when you only have one analog stick, especially when you have guys shooting at you and there is an incredibly short time limit to shoot the damn thing. The “boss battle” later in the level is impossible to beat without exploiting a glitch. You can’t shoot a scientist that you need information from so you have to pick up a tranquilizer gun to subdue them. But the scientist shoots you with his tranquilizer gun while you try to get the other tranquilizer. You can’t pick up items while tranquilized. Oh, and you have a very short amount of time before the boss instantly kills you and the level goes back to one of its poorly placed checkpoints. The only way I even beat this boss battle is by exploiting a glitch. I stood in a corner where the scientist couldn’t see me. Then I ran out and grabbed the gun before his AI could react. I shot him from the corner and then I won. The corner wasn’t even a shadow. And even if it was he saw me run to the corner. The controls in this game are ridiculously bad and ruin the entire expirience.

Now let's talk about the atmosphere. Like the first Manhunt, this game is meant to be gritty, dark, and over-the-top violent. Like I said before, the first four levels get it spot on. From the asylum, to Daniel’s burned down house, to the red light district, this game gets dark and gritty right. But the rest of the game is just running through neighborhoods shooting the cops. This is a very strange game because of its wishy-washy level and game layout. Why would you ruin your gritty atmosphere with random shooting in a brightly lit test lab or residential street. Overall I feel it fails in this respect because it throws away its gritty roots for more mainstream shooting galleries. As far as violence goes for the console versions, most of the brutal executions are blurred or taken out completely with the scoring system for how brutal you are taken out entirely. This was due to the ESRB originally giving the game an A for adult rating which would have technically banned the game because no major console manufacturer allows adult only games. But the PC version has all of the content in it.

Glitches are another common occurrence. There were many cases I would try to pick up a new weapon and it wouldn’t work or I would try to pick up a body and that wouldn’t work. But there were two glitches that really pissed me off. The first is that enemies wouldn’t spawn in immediately. They would randomly appear while I was sneaking and I would have to restart the checkpoint after they ganged up on me. And I know they randomly appeared because the mini-map tells you where the enemies are and there icons came into existence out of nowhere. The other is taking cover. If you can even get your character to get into cover. Sometimes the enemy bullets will phase through objects and hit you anyway. This really shocked me because this looked like a competently made game. The graphics and sound are of PS2 quality which is amazing for a PSP game. There are times, mainly during the shooting sections, that there are ten enemies on the screen with no slowdown whatsoever. This is definitely a strange game.  

Overall I feel that my experience with Manhunt 2 was soiled due to the device I was playing on. But even when you take that into consideration, I still feel that the game isn’t very good. If the game advertised itself as a stealth action game or an action game with stealth elements then I wouldn’t mind the constant shootouts and gunrunning. But that’s the problem. It advertises itself as a stealth horror game and uses the Manhunt name to attract gamers into buying it. While the story is great, you can always just read the Wiki and not have to spend a dime on the actual game. The controls on the handheld versions make the experience unplayable in many respects and makes this the worst platform to play on. But I hate saying that because even with its piss poor controls and various glitches the game looks incredible for a PSP game and can handle a great deal of processing stress with the wide open environments and enemies. I don’t feel good about hating on this game, but I have to judge it based on what it is. If you want a gritty game on your Wii or you want to complete your PS2 collection and see this game at a low price, give it a shot because it is going to be far superior to the PSP/VITA version.

I am giving Manhunt 2 on the PSP/VITA a 3 out of 10

Pros:

A gripping story about manipulating the human brain

PS2 quality graphics and sound design on a handheld

Cons:

Terrible controls

Boring shooting galleries

Painfully slow melee combat

Glitches galore

A boss battle that can only be won by luck or glitch exploit

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[4ourleafclover]

‘"Consider this a privilege. You have been chosen. You are going to participate in a game. The Nonary Game. It is a game... where you will put your life on the line." 

First, what this is: for my third anniversary of tumblr RP, I’m giving away one digital copy of The Nonary Games, which is a double pack featuring 9 hours 9 persons 9 doors, and Virtue’s Last Reward. This will be a steam copy of the game only.

Rules:

-Must be 18+ to enter! -Please be aware of the content of these games: they contain swearing, gore (both visually and graphic descriptions of it), suicide, murder, manipulation, and psychological horror, as well as sexual innuendo -Must be following one of my RP blogs (full list under the cut) -Maximum one like and two reblogs per person -we don’t have to have interacted in the past for you to enter -There will be one winner only, who gets a steam copy of The Nonary Games

Start date: March 5th, 2017 End date: March 24th, 2017

Under the cut: included blogs, as well as a bit of a blurb.

Qualifying blogs: @4ourleafclover, @ninthextrication, @frozenheartedvalkyrie, @aspiring-starlight, @parasolseraphim, @spacedaydreamers, @detectivenoire​

First thing I have to say, is thank you. I’ve been a part of tumblr roleplay since march of 2014, back on my Emil blog. I’ll have been roleplaying on tumblr for three years now- honestly, I can’t even believe it. It’s a hobby that’s led to me meeting some of my best friends, and I’m eternally grateful to everything that’s happened over these years. There’s been ups and downs, blogs have come and gone, but I wouldn’t take it back for the world.

I’ve been planning this giveaway ever since the remake was announced summer last year, because Zero Escape means a lot to me. It’s a series that I am endlessly fond of- as you might have guessed, considering I now have 2 zero escape RP blogs. But in all seriousness, they mean a lot to me. They’re dark, but despite everything, they still resonate with messages about hope, trust, and what it really means to be a human.

Being human is about fighting even when it seems hopeless, and finding happiness even in a world that hates it.

That quote in particular means a lot to me. I won’t spoil where it comes from, but the person who’s said it, much like every nonary game participant, went through hell. Even still though, they didn’t give up. They fought to make it through the game alive not just for themselves, but for everyone. They truly believed that a happy ending was possible. Despite their cynicism, despite life being unfair to them, they still had hope.

And to me, that’s the biggest reason I love these games, and I want to share them with more people. Zero Escape is a series of games about death, murder, and betrayal- but also about trust, and the belief that you can find a better way out. 999 is my absolute favourite game of all time- it is the closest I could think of to a masterpiece, and I can recommend every Zero Escape game without hesitation. I always like to say thank you to the people who follow me and interact with me, and this feels very fitting for what’s essentially my three year anniversary. I figure I can share at least a little bit of the love you’ve all given me back at you. I say this every time I do one of these things, but that’s because I mean it every time. I really do love you guys.

This is the main ending of my really sappy blub part, the bit below is a few recommendations for anyone who’s planning on playing The Nonary Games for the first time. Obviously, these are only recommendations- you can completely ignore them, they’re just a couple of heads ups that i consider worthwhile sharing.

Blacklist, blacklist, blacklist! Don’t go into any of the tumblr tags, and avoid the wiki with a passion. Almost every character has spoilers in their first google result, and the wiki pages are all spoilers. Especially for 999, where most character’s names are a spoiler. (heck, you can even softblock me here, and if you’re worried about spoilers in RP just shoot me a message!)

when playing 999, consider not using the flowchart until you’ve finished an ending. It’s handy as all hell for later on/completion because you don’t need to replay puzzle rooms you’ve already completed, but the story flows much more naturally if you take things one ending at a time.

Beware saving in puzzle rooms- in the original retail version of VLR, there was a game-breaking glitch that could corrupt your save file if you saved in a couple of the puzzle segments (the PEC in particular I remember, not sure about the others). This will probably have been fixed (i see no reason why it wouldn’t have been), but keep an eye out for reports.

Don’t read the gold files! You need to collect them for VLR, but I recommend waiting until you’ve finished the game to go through them. They sometimes spoil things that are going to happen shortly afterwards in the plot. (why, i’ve never been able to figure out.)

And most importantly, have fun! Video games are meant to be enjoyed, and Zero Escape is no different. The games have a wonderful sense of humor, ranging from dumb puns to heavy innuendo to innocent pipe jokes.

Also, totally liveblog this shit to me. Show me your reactions. Nothing makes me happier than watching people react to Zero Escape for the first time. Trust me, it’s a good time. I’ll be going through the games myself, so we can scream together.

[bootycallofcthulhu]

thoughts on RE7 (very minor spoilers ahead):

First off, since I wasn’t allowed to play M rated games until I was like 15 (I grew up in a really strict household) my experiences with Resident Evil are basically: five year old me watching a neighbor playing RE2 thinking it was the funniest thing you could punt a zombies head, excessively reading the wikis because I was really into zombies in my teenage years and looking to write my own zombie-based story, borrowing RE5 from a friend, beating the shit out of Wesker with only a knife, playing the remake of the first game on PS4 (or rather, watching my roommates play it because they were better than me and I wasn’t used to the backtracking), then finally playing Resident Evil 7 yesterday. 

I’ve beat it twice in two days. This isn’t because I was in love with the game, but rather I had originally beaten it on my friend’s PS4 and was afraid one of my old friends from back home would look at my PSN profile and give me crap for not finishing it b/c I was too scared or something (it should be noted I was basically afraid of everything except horror movies in high school). 

So here are my thoughts on the game now that I’ve beaten it twice:

As far as survival horror goes, it definitely does do a decent job at fufilling the genre. Whether or not this is what the genre needed I can’t really say (I personally consider Bloodborne to be a great survival horror but that really depends on how you wanna define the genre). A lot of the game’s elements do capture the spirit of the first game in terms of atmosphere. In the transition from fixed-camera third person to first person shooter (one of my least favorite genres minus a few key exceptions) the game manages to retain the same suspenseful atmosphere the first game had. 

At least for like the first half. Which isn’t a bad thing (I’ll touch on this later). 

The first half of the game is spent exploring the Baker family’s plantation in the middle of a Louisiana bayou. The extremely large house with its various passages probably at one point looked really nice, but in its current state, is broken down and lifeless, minus the antagonists of the game. Its dimily lit, trashed, and overall 3 spoopy 5 me. 

The game utilizes this environment to its fullest. Most of the tension comes from the lighting. Most of the house, as said above, is not well lit, with a lot of the lighting coming from lamps or randomly better lights compared to the rest. Using these lights, the game generates a lot of the tension through the shadows cast. I definitely prepped my guns more towards shadows I or other objects such as desk fans than anything else in the game. 

The house is also pretty empty and as a result, quiet. There isn’t a lot of music in the game except maybe towards the end. Most of the game’s sound is voices, footsteps, or random bangs from either plot devices or the house just falling apart (this last part had me jumping a lot during my first play-through, and occasionally during my second). 

The other element of horror is the Baker family. Now I’ve jokingly described them to my friends that the Baker family is basically the American Horror Story version of the Simpson’s. The primary family members in the household are: 

Jack: The balding father

Marguerite: The wife 

Lucas: Actual piece of shit son

Zoe: The level headed daughter. 

Other than Zoe being a major character, you’ll find out why I think that of Lucas if you read the files and YOU SHOULD. The files in the game are how you get any semblance of who these characters were. This is pretty standard for RE games but read them files. 

I’ll also note right here: I don’t like the major antagonist as I feel its a bit of an annoying trope. This is purely me being picky but if you play it just know I hate this trope. Otherwise, I do like the direction taken with the major antagonist and the Baker family as a whole and I felt they were what made the story great when you combine it with the files. 

Now while you do get some development on the first three Bakers, characters like Zoe, Mia (your wife), yourself, and the major antagonist of the game don’t really get a lot of explanation as to who they were prior to the major events of Biohazard. Well, Mia sort of does but personally as a guy who likes character driven stories, I would have liked to know more on Ethan (you) and Mia’s relationship other than “they were married” to explain why this guy would brave through this entire house for his presumably dead wife and not say “yeah fuck that” as soon as he saw the first corpse. There was also a lot left to be desired when it came to the baker’s such as why their plantation has a morgue complete with an incinerator room. Like I think all I know is their grandma once went to the doctor but I’m still not too sure if that was their grandma or the mom and I like these things answered. Lucas does get a little fleshed out, but thats the most you see outside of the tapes.

Now the tapes get their own paragraph because I thought this was one of the cooler features of the game. As far as exposition goes, the game uses VHS tapes and by watching those, you can assume the roles of two other characters besides Ethan: Clancy, a camera man for a web-series about haunted houses, and Mia prior to Ethan’s arrival. While these don’t give you a lot of insight into the characters themselves, they tell you a little more about the happenings of RE7, as well as give a little more detail to the major antagonists. Not only that, but by taking the time to actually watch the tapes, you can basically give yourself clues as to what to look for/do in upcoming areas (basically answers to puzzles). 

I won’t spoil the story, but I will say I really enjoyed it, but the game is at most 8 hours long pending your difficulty. 

In terms of combat, I thought overall it was very well done. The guns felt nice to use, the enemies posed a threat, but were manageable and the bosses were fun. Granted, this is from a guy who played easy, as I’ve heard the bosses tend to have a little too much health. Minus one particular boss, I thought they were fun, but I can see the complaint that there are times where you just don’t know what to do, and the boss fight is basically a puzzle. They can also take away from the tension of the game with the one-liners used (an example being one of the characters picks up a chainsaw and says “groovy,” a throwback to Evil Dead that had me laughing pretty hard during what was supposed to be a tense situation). 

Now the cheeky one-liners, combined with Ethan’s kinda character development is what leads to the game being a lot less spooky during the second half. The game almost stops doing things to scare you, and instead seems to encourage you to go in guns-a-blazing (which is a dumb idea given how limited ammo is). The tension is still there, but most of it is replaced by a burning hate-fire. I really liked this, for the most part. It felt a lot more personal in the sense you weren’t playing as a person named Ethan, but rather you WERE Ethan, and you sort of feel this anger with him. At the same time, the game’s scare factor going down this way also means some of the late-game things that are meant to scare you feel really forced (that and some kinda poor voice acting but that might just be me being picky). 

As a whole, I really enjoyed the game and its story. Aside from wanting to learn more about the characters (which I hope to see in the DLC), my only big complaint is that

and it should be noted this might be a bit spoilery

 the ending sort of sets it up to cycle back into games like Resident Evil 5 and 6, where its more action focused. Given the ending, I can’t see something similar done unless they scrap these existing characters and keep coming out with new scenarios that tie together somehow. 

[purplestar2442]

The movie LIFE

This is my review of the movie “LIFE”. I was excited for this movie. I didn't watch any previews and, I waited several months after it came out to watch it. The minute I heard about it I instantly knew it could be and awesome sifi-horror movie mashup of some sort.

While I was waiting to watch the movie my friend suggested I play or watch game play of the game called “Prey”. I bet you are wondering what that has to really do with this movie. I was wondering the same thing. So of course out of curiosity I checked it out, I looked everywhere then I found someone did a 100% gameplay and put it on their youtube, I was so curious.

When I was watching the 100% gameplay viewers were asking the player if he had see the movie “Life”. He said that he had not seen the movie. The viewer said there are similar components to the movie and this game. I was excited and continued to watch.

“ Prey is a first-person shooter with role-playing and stealth elements with strong narrative set in an open world environment. The player takes the role of Morgan Yu, a human aboard a space station with numerous species of hostile aliens known collectively as the Typhon. The player is able to select certain attributes of Morgan, including gender, and decisions made by the player that affects elements of the game's story. To survive, the player must collect and use weapons and resources aboard the station to fend off and defeat the aliens. According to creative director Raphaël Colantonio, the station is completely continuous rather than having separate levels or missions, at times requiring the player to return to areas they previously explored. The player is also able to venture outside of the station in zero gravity and find shortcuts connecting parts of the station. Colantonio also stated that the aliens have an array of different powers that the player character can gain over time; one such alien has the ability to mimic everyday items such as a chair.The game has multiple endings, according to lead designer Ricardo Bare; the endings fall into three major narrative structures depending on how the player broadly interacted with the station and surviving humans, but Bare said there are "tons of little permutations" based on specific events.”

I was so involved with this game play I was jumping, gasping and reacting with the player. I was enjoying myself and I thought to myself “if the movie is anything like this I’m going to love it.” The gameplay and gamer where so good I was hooked and addicted. I'll give you a quick example when I was watching one of the episodes of the game play my fan flipped over a tissue (and because of the wind) it was slowly crawling on the floor. I got a quick glimpse of it in my side eye and I flipped, I screamed and stomped on the tissue with my foot. That was how enthralled, involved, and addicted I was. Being so into this game and game play I found myself so excited for the movie. When the gamer had finished playing and reached the end of his 100%. I was so sad I wanted more I was craving more like a drug I couldn't get enough. I looked to find other gamers play but no one could give me that same in-depth enthrallment and entertainment. Overall this game got me really excited for this movie.

When I heard Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal where in the movie my hopes dropped a little bit. I had a feeling it would be ok, predictable or horrible and a waste of my time. But because I watched this gameplay of “Prey” the possibility of similar components for horror in the movie. Being scared by a single tissue,  jumping, gasping, and enthrallment. Is what gave me hope in the first place and is what made me wait so long to see the movie.

When I finally got the movie from Netflix I waited a few days till there was nothing on tv. (AKA) had to wait till night-time so my kiddo wouldn't see anything. With “Prey” in the back of my mind I was trying to stay level-headed. Pop in the movie here we go.

(To the good bits) (SPOILERS)

Once Hugh “revives” the alien that they named Calvin. I said out loud “you’re an idiot and you’re going to die”. I was close but a little off, this surprised me. Calvin brakes Hugh’s hand finger by finger till he passes out.

(My hopes for this being a good movie kick in. I didn’t see that coming.)

Once Hugh is passed out, [you figure oh it’s fine Calvin is in a sealed box] but then like all good horror movies the alien Calvin gets out using the electric stick. In another box they have a rat, Calvin slips in to the rat's box and you see him consume the rat into nothing. The Engineer Roy used this opportunity to save his coworker Hugh. They got Hugh out but then Calvin latched onto Roy’s leg. His coworkers basically lock the door and seal it shut.

(I was right about the dieing just not the right character.) (Now the movie starts getting a little predictable.)

Roy tried to use some sort of mini flamethrower to attempt to kill Calvin. Flamethrower goes out of fuel, Calvin kills Roy, flamethrower set’s off some type of space fire alarm, Calvin escape in to the space station, all sorts of hell commence.

(Skipping around the boring bits, To the end)

I'm not going to lie, I watched the ended like 4 times before understanding what exactly happens, and how it happened.

Two people are left alive David and Miranda. There are two Escape pods, David leads Calvin into one pod to eject into deep space. While Miranda will use the other escape pod to go back to earth and worn everyone.

If you think it's a happy ending it's not, not really anyways. The writers from the looks of it thought that the ending was a great plot twist. In my eyes it was ridiculous and predictable. Of course the alien Calvin will get to earth. From my eyes they made the near ending confusing to keep you guessing. It's supposedly a horror movie there was no need for it really. You’d have to be a real idiot to think that the ending would be happy. So why bother with the smoke and mirrors?

Anyways…

So Calvin reaches earth in the pod near Vietnam, a Vietnamese fisher goes to rescue the pod. You see Roy’s face yelling “NO” as the fisherman pop’s open the pod. Then the camera pans out for you to see two more boats go to investigate the pod. Then The End

Seeing that was the ending, that was it? I was mad! I went online in hopes to read more about the ending. I was hoping to find a better understanding of the ending.

Screenwriter Rhett Reese said: “An ending doesn’t have to be happy to be satisfying. As long as it’s a satisfying ending that logically makes sense within the confines of the story then it should work. For life to flourish, other life had to be destroyed. That’s the cruel paradox we really wanted to end on.”  

The ending is apparently meant to be confusing. The ending was meant to set up a possible sequel. I was immediately appalled and discussed over the idea of a sequel. Typical Hollywood never knowing when to quit, and to greedy to realize a dead end when they hit one. (That’s a rant for a different day.)

I keep reading the link i found to see a rumor. "What about it being a prequel? As for the recent internet rumor that Life supposedly sets up a Venom franchise in the Spider-Man universe."

(From the looks of it that does not seem to be the way they are going) not going to lie that would have been really cool.

“Venom is a Symbiote, a sentient alien, with a gooey, almost liquid-like form. As with real-world symbiotes, it requires a host, usually human, to bond with for its survival. After bonding, the Symbiote endows its enhanced powers upon the host. When the Venom Symbiote bonds with a human, that new dual-life form refers to itself as “Venom”.”

“After Spider-Man’s costume is ruined from battles with the villains, he is directed by Thor and the Hulk to a room at the heroes’ base where they inform him a machine can read his thoughts and instantly fabricate any type of clothing. Choosing a machine he believes to be the correct one, Spider-Man causes a black sphere to appear before him, which spreads over his body, dissolving the tattered old costume and covering his body to form a new black and white costume.”

Ergo in the original Spider-Man comic book you don’t know exactly where that black sphere really comes from. Calvin is supposedly smart. Who’s to say the alien Calvin doesn’t get caught by the military, wises up and figures out how to hid. Hides for a few years, and becomes the black sphere that becomes venom.

To use a horror movie as a starter for a venom origin, or a villain origin story that would have been, I think beyond so cool. This would have been awesome to break that glass and create a villain origin story.

Alas it doesn’t look like that's the way they are going and that's a real shame. We see a lot of superhero movies and some of their origin stories. Superheroes had their time, ani-superheroes had their time. When will it be villain time? I don’t mean main villain’s I know how the different types of the “joker” was made or shown, same for catwoman, The Green Goblin , etc. and many others. Show me a villain origin story that's not high established.

*grown* (grrrraaahh)

This was a perfectly missed opportunity if you ask me.

If they do turn it into a prequel venom origin story (they won’t). If they did I can forgive this predictable wannabe mess of a so called sifi-horror movie. If they don’t turn it into a prequel (they won’t) and they do a sequel (they will) I’ll give it one star out of six. If they leave it as is and don't do either (highly unlikely but possible) three stars out of six. When netflix asks me to rate this movie with their star system right now I'll give it a three stars For Now! The minute I hear about a sequel is the minute I change my rating to one star.

Here is the links I quoted from.

https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/life-movie-ending-explained-twist-spoilers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom_(comics)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2017_video_game)

If you are also curious about the 100% gameplay here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN39y5i_H0FnsVtl3KM00XFD4e1NBmwKg

This was my review thanks for reading,

~Purplestar💜