#yeah i’m in my cod era so what
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lowlypotatofarmer · 2 years ago
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some people only know how to draw men as twinks and it shows. if i see ghost drawn as a pretty boy twink one more time i’m going to go feral. that is big thigh erasure. that is a solid muscle man with thick thighs, thick arms, a solid waist, and you cannot forget the tiddies.
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brainrotcharacters · 1 year ago
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She Wasn’t Always Like That part 1 (It’s Not Enough)
ship: Ghost x reader
summary: Ghost knows you differently, but cares about you just as much. Maybe more. 
a/n: I’m relapsing into my cod era.
tags: sfw. angst comfort. reader is a member of 141. will they won’t they trope. reference to there’s only one bed trope. Ghost would rather die than acknowledge feeling feelings and honestly mood. 
part 2
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She wasn't always like that.
Ghost knew that people didn't believe him when he describes you this way. They could never imagine the only woman of the 141, trained in espionage and assassination, as anything but sunlight given human form when you're off duty. You told Ghost you didn't mind, but he found the need to mention it regardless.
"Why?" You ask him at some point, handing him another washed plate to towel off. When he only stared at you sidelong, you continued. "I mean, why do you want people to know what I was like... before?"
You always sounded so ashamed, so uncomfortable, when you spoke about 'before'. As if keeping other people at arm's length because the alternative meant you were in danger was such an embarrassing way of thinking.
Put that way, Ghost was guilty of being inspired by you. The world knows you, but they don't know you, and it makes his skin crawl. But the words got cut up on the way out his mouth. He finished drying off the plate in his hands, placing it on the nearby rack. "Do you want me to stop?"
You blinked once. Unguarded, but intelligent eyes― the only times Ghost saw fear in those eyes was through camera feeds when he was separated from you, or when you were in active spy work. "I want to understand.”
He took in a breath, shoulders lifting slightly. How to say it? Better yet, how to say it without you catching on to him? Knowing you, you'd be too fucking quick with it.
You only angled your head at him, waiting patiently. Kindly.
Fuckin' hell. "You're happy running around with the boys here, yeah? For all your whinin' about Johnny, you'd kill for the man." 
"I already have," you chuckle, reaching for a mug. 
Right. Ghost's eyes tracked the way your hand gripped the cup. Firmly. "You'd be a hell of a lot happier if they didn't take your performance at face value."
Your brows furrowed. "What do you mean?" 
"It's not enough, sweetheart.”
The tone of his voice was tense and unusual enough that you turned away from the sink to look at him. "They don't know what it takes for you to keep laughin' about with them. Fuck, they don't even know how much it takes you to get out of bed in the morning." 
Your eyes softened. As the person beside me in that bed, you'd know.
Ghost didn't look away. I do. "They rattle on and on about how good you are, how strong or how kind. I agree. Believe me, I'm with them. But..." 
Your thumbs slide over the now-scrubbed mug. Squeaky clean. You hand it to him, and he takes it, all too grateful for a reason to break eye contact. "Dude, I don't mind the opinions of the outside world. Yours is enough." 
Something in your mind clicked into place. It's not enough. I am not enough.
Ghost saw the realization flicker in your eyes, and rushed to speak before you managed to ask him about jealousy or self-pity or some bullshit like that. "I don't want to see you burn yourself out, is all." 
"Oh, I will." You laughed cynically. "And when I finally burn out―"
"Y/n, say if. Not when―" 
"Simon, when I burn out," you lift a serving spoon between you and him. Your hand visibly trembled. "I want you with me. The laughing and the jokes are nice, but I've been looking inward these days. Sooner than I'd like, I'm going to burn out. When that happens, I hope you're nearby." you twist the spoon in your fingers, handle facing Simon. "No pressure, but I don't know what I'll do if you aren't." 
Though he was still reeling at the sound of his name, he plucked the piece of cutlery from your grasp and toweled it off. "The thing about you and me: if I'm not with you, then it means one thing. I'm on my way." 
A small, affectionate smile lit up your face, or maybe that was the sunlight from the open window several feet behind him. The sky had the fucking audacity to have correct fucking timing― 
The door burst open, and a gaggle of your sisters-in-arms, plus Gaz, pushed through. "Y/N! Ghost, can we steal Y/N from you for a bit?" 
It was a rhetorical question; whatever you and him were, no one knew the entire story, and no one asked. Maybe Ghost was getting tired of people not understanding you the way he did, the same way they didn't understand what he was with you. Maybe not.
Simple as that, your practiced smile appeared, and you hollered. "LADIES! I told you not to bring goddamn Kyle into this." 
An outraged noise from the young man had you giggling. "Jokes, jokes. Let's go. Ah, hey Ghost?"
He turned.
"Thank you." you smiled, eyes shining. 
Ghost paused. Then nodded once. 
When the door closed behind you, and the noise of friends enjoying your performance faded away, the image and sound of you burned in his memory. 
God fucking damnit.  
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slasherbvnnie · 2 years ago
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Whatttt the parlor gives you the jewelry for free ?!? All the places I’ve been to make you pay for the jewelry and it’s all like- insanely priced ! But I hope you’re able to get your piercings done sometime soon, thats so exciting ! A Little ghostface wrist tattoo would be so cute though, lil guy can just be there for emotional support.
I love puzzle games so much, and I also grew up on Left for Dead and Resident Evil because of my older brother !! As well as other games like Fallout, COD and Halo. I also fucking lovedddd Animal Jam, I have no clue if you know that game, but I loved scamming people. Anyway- yeah college is a pain, at least this specific class I’m in right now is, which is…English. And see I usually enjoy English but this teacher has been dragging out this one assignment for over 3 weeks now and I’m losing my mind ! But it’s okay cause here in maybe 5 months or so I’m going to actually be taking classes I find interesting. I’m getting an Associates in IT, concentrating on Game Development. :D
My sincere apologies for talking so much, I’m a very lonely person so any opportunity I get I will gush about anything and everything 😭
-📫
yeah!!! piercings are 25 and jewelry is included (its super ugly tho but its good for the healing months ig)
older brothers attempting to traumatize us but ending up just making us like horror games 🤝 mine introduced me to saints row, gta, and sims. my main online games tho were fantage and build a bearville, i got scammed on build a bear 🧍🏻‍♀️buttt me and a friend made a small series on fantage and its still up! we arent friends anymore but i still watch sometimes to remember her, i hope shes doing well out there :)
also thats so cool?!??? im stuck between deciding to be a paralegal in an entertainment firm (mr loomis era?) or a highschool teacher for literature. idk what i want to do with my life so 🤷🏻‍♀️
also also no worries!!!! you could send a dm if you ever want but if youd like to stay anon thats fine!! i enjoy chatting to anyone so its fine. my friends are tired of hearing me simp for skeet or about the latest horror movie i watched 😭
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une-femme-de-lettres · 2 years ago
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Hi!! My ghost era has just begun and I’m already hooked like it’s not even a joke 💀💀💀 have I played a second of cod in my life? Hell no! But do I know ghosts entire backstory? Hell fucking yeah!!! I love what you’re writing so far and wondered if u had any recs for me?? I’ve consumed everything I can find so I need new ghost content ASAP 🤣
Thank youuu 🤍🤍
Hello!! We're in the same boat here! Never played before, just discovered Ghost, already know his whole life story! And I'm desperately in love with him 😩😩
I'm glad you like my stuff, thanks for dropping by!! ❤️❤️ I've just begun my journey through the fandom, though, so I don't have any recs for you unfortunately (not ones that you've probably already seen anyways)
But I'll keep the content coming, I promise!!
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missiridescent · 1 year ago
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MW3 spoilers below
I’m in my denial is a river in Egypt era
But like why did they tried their hardest to show that Soap was dead
Like price called a KIA on him
Laswell wrote the report, stressing on him being dead
and then the team was like putting their whole cunt during that scene where they spread his ashes
Like yeah I know he’s a main character, and all but soemthing isn’t right here
But don’t u guys think they’re trying WAYYYY too hard
Plus PLUS
I’m obviously being really delusional today
Alex ‘burnt’ to death during the explosion right
So did Graves, he supposedly died in a tank explosion, also ‘burnt’ to death
Like are y’all seeing what I’m trying to put down here??? Guys come on
A person or at least a ‘dead’ character in a COD franchise will come back if they were burnt—cremation requires the burning of the body right?!
ALSO Soap was cremated instead of buried in a casket, like I don’t know what’s the burial arrangements in Scotland is like but if u Google Scottish funeral tradition there’s something along the line of “the Catholic Church does allow cremation but its a seldom practice”
GUYS
THERES HOPE HE FAKED HIS DEATH (I’m insane btw)
I mean assuming he practice Christianity right? I know I know there’s a huge possibility of him requesting to get cremated because he’s a very funny man (also in retrospect it would mean his body would not end up in wrong hands because Makarov is an asshole)
He’s a demolitions expert, he would want to go out with a BANG AND FIRE (I’m sorry I’ll escort myself out)
There’s so many theories behind why he would need to fake his death too—from going deep undercover, to them needing someone skill full enough to infiltrate the enemy team, Them needing to look vulnerable so Makarov can target them and Soap being the eye of the team
PLUS FUCKING HELL
have y’all looked at Neil in the last couple of months?? Tell me that man isn’t preparing to become Captain Mactavish
Yes I know Neil himself confirmed Soap’s death—BUT—he also didn’t say he was going to leave the COD verse anytime soon (aside from not doing much advertising for the franchise I mean I would too Neil they did you dirty with that awful side character looking ass death scene)
His post could just be to throw us all off, I know neither Warren or Chad did this but it could just be because their characters aren’t main characters??
Anyway take everything with a grain of salt, there are characters who officially died and burnt alive too, this is just delusional speaking and I really am sad about Soap’s death and trying to cope xx
Edit: Soap probably got the idea after Grave made his comeback like Bitch was like if Graves can pull it off so can I
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duckymcdoorknob · 2 years ago
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Uh this is kinda just a vent post.
I feel like I’m too “old fashioned” to survive in this era.
I’m so disgusted by sex.
I’m disgusted by its value in society now.
I hate that I get called a “buzzkill” and “prude” when I express that sex jokes make me uncomfortable. I hate that people don’t listen to me/respect my boundaries when I do so.
I hate that a man is only deemed “sexy” if he’s got washboard abs, a sharp jawline, and a big dick. Not all men want to/have that body.
I hate that a woman is only deemed “wifeable” if she’s got big tits, big hips, big ass and small tummy. Not many women are naturally like that.
I hate the whole concept of sneaky links and side pieces.
I hate that people aren’t in relationships to fall in love or get married anymore. I hate that most relationships only function if the sex is good.
Modern couples make me ick. I hate the “overly obsessive girlfriend” cliche, who is constantly checking her man’s phone, going fucking insane over his location, camera roll, etc. Liking a fucking photo on Instagram is NOT cheating. And like, LET HIM PLAY HIS DAMN GAMES!!! Sure, a relationship goes both ways, but I’m so tired of seeing “OMg he doesn’t love me anymore bc he played his game for 5 minutes after spending 10 and a half hours with me 😥😥😥😥😥” it may be a joke but like gOD ITS SO CRINGEY.
I hate the “overly possessive boyfriend” cliche. Like yeah if you wanna make a joke about her outfit being revealing, go ahead. But don’t try to control what she wears. So what if she’s got her cleavage showing? So what if it’s a little too short for your liking? WHO CARES. Don’t try to keep your girlfriend from leaving home/controlling where she goes.
I FUCKING HATE 3/4 OF PETNAMES AND I FEEL LIKE I’M BROKEN BECAUSE OF IT. “Bae, babe, baby, kitten, baby cakes, babydoll, doll, princess, mamas.” I just hate them and they’re the most commonly used so yeah I am broke. Like there is only ONE instance i’ve seen in which I’m not uncomfortable by “mamas” and that’s it.
And it’s not everyone!! I know in my heart that there are so many good people out there who still believe in love. I just can’t seem to ever be exposed to people like that anymore.
I hate that alcohol and drugs have been so institutionalized, especially to underage individuals. I hate having to watch my 18 year old best friend slowly turn into an alcoholic. I hate having to babysit another friend when they’re high just to make sure that they don’t get behind the wheel. Medicinal purposes is different. If a person is partaking in a substance so to calm their anxiety, calm any other mental ailments, or any physical pain, please by all means do so.
My whole issue is, I feel all of these things but don’t want people to stop doing them because who am I to tell them how to live their lives?
I just don’t relate to anyone anymore. Moreover, I don’t relate to anyone my age anymore. Making friends is hard, finding a partner is hard. It’s 10x harder when I have to try to explain that I’m ace. It gets 50x harder when I have to continuously argue against the “well don’t knock it till you try it” or “when you get a partner, you’ll understand and start to feel those urges.”
No the fuck I won’t???
ALSO
I’m tired of victim blaming. If I hear one more person say “well what was she wearing?“ I’m gonna choke them.
I hate the fact that people hear I’m Catholic, and automatically assume I’m a piece of shit. Like bro I’m asexual, queer, and pro-choice. I’m constantly committing so many sins???
Like I said, it’s NOT ALL PEOPLE. But, a big chunk of society and my environment is like this.
I don’t like action movies, I don’t like many live action tv shows. I like anime and kids movies, baking shows and some TLC documentary series’.
I don’t like rap or country or modern pop. I like 60’s and Broadway and J-Pop.
I don’t like Valorant or COD too much. I like Genshin and Undertale, and stupid games like Untitled Goose Game or T.A.B.S.
People treat me different because of this. I hate that they do.
I don’t want to spend my weekend at a party. I want to spend my weekend perfecting my essay so I can get a good grade.
I don’t know if it’s because of my religious values, or my own values, but I think I’m just old fashioned.
Jesus I’m so sorry if you read all of this. If you did, just pretend you didn’t.
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borisbubbles · 4 years ago
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17. CZECH REPUBLIC
Benny Christo - “Kemama”
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So first off, thank you for the nice commens. 😇The past few months haven’t been the happiest time for me, so thank you for your patience as I scraped my bearings together for another post! 😁
So I will now extend that same sympathy to Benny Christo, whom I think I damn fucking underrated. Let’s jump in~
ENTRY ANALYSIS
As one may expect i INSTANTLY liked “Kemama” because you know, it’s a fun, laid-back, tropical afro-breeze, completely different from anything else we would see in NFs and the year. EXACTLY the type of song I was hoping the Czech NF would deliver (and deliver they did, see NF Corner). This level of mild like swung into strong unironic like upon realizing that the title is a contraction of “Okay Mother” 😍 and the song deals with the subject of overcoming racially-tinged discrimination and rising above the hate. That just feels very poetic and apt? “Kemama” felt like the entry that had to overcome the highest odds in order to earn the respect it so fully deserves, and still hasn’t fully reached it.
.In our Western European bubble, comprised mostly of gays and left-liberal straights, we have a very grateful and universal acceptance of many different kinds of [lizard] people that make up Eurovision casts. Yet with “Kemama” we may have reached  an unusually grimy undercurrent of coded racism. 
Of course nothing I read was outrageously rancid, than Cod for that. The worst statement I read was a double-whammy of “EWW THIS ISN’T CARIBBEANVISION” and “WHY WOULD SOMEONE FROM *KENYA* WANT TO REP CZECHIA IN EUROVISION?”, and yes they first got the continent wrong and then *also* got the country wrong in the follow-up post and then they were torn limb from limb by a pack of aformentioned left-liberals. I’m sorry but i can’t not have any other response than laughter in the face of yet another fucking MORON faceplanting themselves with words like a... racist JK Rowling if you will?
Still, while I never read something outright vile about Benny doesn’t mean I found his deniers really annoying and they were! Think “Ew Solovey is ‘Too Aggressive’ it will NEVER DO WELL IN ESC”, a statement that isn’t coded nor racist (and yet extremely false and misguided), functioned as a similar idea by the same minds. A statement borne from the same breed of narrow-minded stubbornness which has caused elitist morons to be all “there is **SOMETHING** about “Kemama” i do *NOT* like and I cannot lay my finger on it... but I **DO NOT** like it at ALL. It won’t ever qualify because everyone will think the same way I do” -- Eurovision snobs, tiptoeing around racial coda in January 2020.
 They would also insist that Benny was “arrogant” because he was seemingly impervious to their (de)constructive criticism. Like, if you were a biracial butterfly living in a slavic country who had to deal with statements such as the above on a regular basis, you WOULD block out the noise. And if you heard them often enough you will start to block them out pre-emptively. DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW COPING MECHANISMS WORK?? (oh wait you’re white-privileged. Nevermind 🙄)
 So naturally, when Benny decided that he would revamp “Okay Mother” by adding in MORE African elements it only made me love him even more lol. 😍 Was it a bull-headed, contrarian and possibly really stupid decision? Yes, yes and absolutely yes. Was it worth it? Well he managed to incite even more meltdowns in a group of people I feel nothing but contempt for, so hell yeah? Eurovision was cancelled anyway so who cares how much ‘worse’ “Kemama” actually got. 
Okay, so we’ve arrived at the revamp.
Granted, it wasn’t the best ‘vamp, I’d be a fool to deny it. The new elements threw a wrench in the melodic balance of the song. Out went tropical laid-back fun, IN went that fucking guitar oh my god this is some Hotel FM piano levels of overbearing I swear. (nb: this still didn’t stop me from ironically stanning Hotel FM’s lame asses anyway 😍). However, it made the personal backstory that I loved and savoured take a backseat to the now inferior composition. 😭
Regardless, New Kemama was fundamentally the same song, and I fundamentally liked Old Kemama, so whatevs, it made no different to me. In the eyes of many Eurovision diehards we were experiencing WORST PRESHOW SEASON EVER (after three songs... lol) and nothing clinches this brainworm more than a revamp announcement. “OH MY GOD HE WILL RUIN IT! I CAN GUARANTEE YOU I *WON’T* LIKE IT”. Self-fulfilling prophecies, ya know? It certainly didn’t help when the official channel accidentally uploaded a vid with broken soundmixing (‘OMG HORRIBLE LAST IN THE SEMI!!!!’ calm the ever-loving HELL down) and took another FULL WEEK to upload the correct vid. The damage had already been done. Typing "SEE I TOLD YOU THE REVAMP WOULD BE SHITE HA HA HA” in the Kemama comment box really just is the ESC equivalent of reponding with “Actually, *all* lives matter :smug:” to a BLM support pamphlet, isn’t it?
NF CORNER
While not my favourite NF of the bunch, I found the Czech NF to be lowkey epic. Not epic enough to remember its name but regardless Czechvision or whatever marked the end of an era because it was also the last selection spearheaded by Jan Bors :o
I think I’ve made it clear enough in the past that I’m somewhat mixed on Bors Era Czechia - Lake Malawi were a toetapping good, Ickolas was a pockmarked, skin-crawling evil and the other three inhibit a purgatory somewhere between “moderately nice” and “moderate timewaste.”
Still, I have great respect for the man who orchestrated Czech’s comeback after scoring NINE POINTS TOTAL across three years with the mindset of “So what? Why says we can’t win?” so ofc I was all into the idea of the “EIGHT INDIE ANGELS, HAND-PICKED BY BORS HIMSELF” NF that would serve as his swan song.
Naturally things went down the drain the second Bors left, with one of the eight peacing and his successor cancelling the live broadcast (does anyone remember what exactly happened? I vaguely recall one was the cause of the other but lol it’s July can’t be bothered to factscheck (Factsczeck?) anymore, bitches.
Anyway, ON TO THE GOOD STUFF, and yes, there was plenty.
We All Poop - “ All the Blood (Positive Song Actually)”
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Yes, as you can imagine I ofc IMMEDIATELY fell into like when I saw that chyron and invisioned the inevitability of the Czech Rep’s Rep immediately alienating every parent just based on their name alone <3 😍 w/e WAP quickly became that “Good but not great” song you find in every NF that everyone gushes over because it’s the whitest option available. Like, yes, “All the blood” is good, but musically it’s identical to Green Day and Twenty-One Pilots and god name ANY 90s-early00′s American Punk Rock band. For me the enjoyment came from the fact that WAP were openly crazy vegan fundamentalists and the VC clip actively condemns the use ANY animal protein by replacing the cattle and game with LITERAL HUMAN BEINGS. 😍 :fusedmarcintensifies: :kasiamosage:
Pam Rabbit - “Get up”
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Ohhhh YES a glorious experimental Synth-Trap song only I could love and ofc I did. God what is there even to say; the provocative darkness of the verses combined with the swirling amorphousness of the chorus gives me LIFE. LUFF THIS SHIT <3333 Ftr, this was also the fave of Slovene Juror duo / synth angels / Boris faves ZALAGASPER, further proving their pathetic naysayers that they own all things music and the haters can suck a series of-
Barbora Mochowa - “White and Black Holes“
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Lol, yes even with a “Get up” existing, there was a song I liked even more. Barbora proved a very competent Lana del Gay last year, but I was a YUGE fan of this year’s... Kate Bush-Björk blend of ethereal awesome. It is so soothingly beautiful and the rare example of a song that I find completely free of flaws. Were the competition not such a hard place, I’d be pissed she didnt win (at least she won the jury vote MASSIVE KUDOS to every alum on that) but w/e this selection had opions and I’m rather robbed of a “Kemama” than I am of a BRILLIANT IRREPLICABLE AETHERBALLAD. ~Danse balance sûr les white and black holes~
Elis Mraz & Cis T - “Wanna be like”
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I *VERY* strongly felt that if the Czech Republic wanted to win ESC, they should have picked Elis and even now I STILL believe she could have won. That isn’t to say I gushed over “Wanna be like” because I find it kind of annoying lol. Yes, I LOVE an annoying female voice (:Tones&Icackle:) but Elis’s reaches a Camilla Cabello sort of place for me (good lord get Senorita OFF the fucking radio) and the Scat + White Guy Rapping middle-eight. 😬. However, the second I opened up the video clip for this paragraph and was immediately BLASTED by Elis murdering a ukelele and wearing a  “schoolgirl” outfit straight from a Japanese tentacle porn movie and OH MY GOD THE AGGRESSIVE TWERKING made me reconsider that hey, this min-sized Meghan Traynor actually kinda highkey owns, yo!  Yet, I’m not at all bothered we lost her in the Czech NF because we got UNO DOS QUATRO CINCO SEIS :fatmansplit: fill up the megameme slot instead, so...
Eurovision 2020 vs Eurovision 2021
BENNY RUINED HIS SONG AND NEVER WOULD HAVE QUALIFIED. jk I’m not a moron. Sure, “Kemama” wasn’t an easy sell because you know AFROBEAT in a contest where half of the people watching are fash (ie: all of Eastern Europe, who watch out of ~Nationalistic Sentiment~ 😬), but there are Kemama live renditions out there and he owns them SO hard lol. A few soundmixing issues really would not have stopped Benny from qualifying in that RIDICULOUSLY WEAKSAUCE SEMIFINAL are you fucking kidding me. He probably would’ve bombed in the Grand Final, but I mean it’s Czech and it’s not Ickolas so ofc it would have.
And Czech renewed him for 2021 regardless of the sceptics, woohoo! I think part of it was due the Czech not wanting to re-organize an ENTIRE NF from scratch without Jan Bors, but probably also because Benny owns live when he isn’t engaged in psychological trench warfare with actual human detritus <3 and also because the Czech fucking CARE about their artists and don’t drop them like a sack of rotten potatoes wtfshitprus.
Can’t wait for the moment when he qualifies and Efendi does not, etc, etc. 
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FREAKY! FRIDAY! FACTOR!
I’d say that the core around which the Ben Drama spun was pretty standard fare: niche fave beats out the concensus fave, meltdowns ensue, people convince themselves it was the WRONG decision because it wasn the result they wanted, try to disown the song and make a fool of themselves because the song slaps, sorry. Even the revamp drama felt more of less generic for me, because yawn fantards melting down over a revamp of a song they don’t even like what else is new.  
However, what I do take away that the revamp was ENTIRELY Benny’s idea which he told no one about (cue to JAN BORS having a social media meltdown like he’s Caesar at the Ides of March 💔) added MORE afrobeat just to troll his haters even more <3  God, I’d say it was bad from a musical perspective but this level of in-your-face defiance is fucking iconic and hilarious, sorry. This entire this year is so batshit bonkers that the concept of a someone potentially shooting themselves in the foot and “torpedo’ing” their qualification chances  (not rly, he would’ve Q’d anyway lol) JUST to take the moral high ground in a racially coded argument only HE took seriously may not even be the craziest concept in the year! (lol it definitely isn’t. Look at the pics I haven’t greyed out yet)
This and more yield Benny some well-earned Senheads! Yay!! 
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Score: 3 Senhits out of 5.
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aqours-remade-again · 5 years ago
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alright this is gonna be longer than the rest and isnt even really abt heartbeat its about this kind of discourse in general
now im not saying this stuff to insult or belittle anyone; i dont think playing this game makes you inherently a shitty person (although i will be, like many, incredibly suspicious if you at this point) or anything like that, but if nothing else i feel like we've an incredibly low point in discourse about being critical of interests.
being critical about things you like isn’t something new: we've been doing it out entire lives. think back before you were really online and younger. weren’t there moments in games, shows, books, where you were like “eh that part was shitty but i still liked it?” but as we’ve entered the digital age we’ve entered new ways of communicating and expressing thoughts and philosophy, and the subject of being critical of your interests is a product of this new era; this isn’t anything bad at all, but i feel like we’ve really reached a rock bottom with the miku meme. it was fun for two weeks or something but now shit’s getting really old
because at its heart its really just an incredible over reliance on the death of the author (an actual thing in literature theory from an essay older than pretty much all of us and something you can see elements of in works of things like the new critics who didn’t give a shit about the author’s intents or beliefs at all) to be less critical and more like “i just want to ignore every last thing about it to enjoy it”
and if you’re going to be like that, honestly? like legitimately? just go play Call of Duty or something. just play a FPS like that and just admit out loud “yeah i know it isn’t good i just like playing a FPS with multiplayer and shooting things in a game” and ignore that its made by one of the absolute worst publishers in the industry with an glamorization of the US military. this is why i said “hell play CoD for all i care-” just acknowledge you only care about having fun and don’t really care much about lesbophobia or transphobia or anything like that, and, i can’t believe i’m actually typing it, just gave your money to something else more accepted by the masses at this point. go watch south park or family guy for all i care. i don’t care about that. just acknowledge the fact you like these pieces of media that have outright set political discourse in the real world back years; just have the decency to stop saying “Miku made it :))))))” when its very clear to everyone who sees you doing that you don’t actually care about such things relating to being socially conscious or critical of your interests; you’re just looking for a way out to enjoy it without feeling like you’re gonna be jumped for it. so if you’re going to be like that? yeah go play the military FPS game. why? because at least you’re going to be playing a game that’s already been embraced by the masses as a whole even as Activision releases shitty pay 2 win games every year that go after your wallet that, with their story modes not even being a thing (i think? i don’t. keep up with those games to say the least) have devolved from even something pretending to be a moral to a blatant soulless cash grab that doesn’t even care about shoving American patriotism in your face.
because if you need to say “Miku made this :))))” to feel like you can enjoy it, then to me at least, my immediate judgment is that you don’t care about potential harm or themes in the story at all and what you’re REALLY scared about is people judging you for playing it; so yeah, just go play some military FPS game that already has made its cement in culture and solidified its identity as a rated M micotransaction game targeted at 16 year olds that’s exposing them to a terrible culture that is setting back an entire industry -and arguably our culture- with its existence alone, unfortunate as it may be, as opposed to this brand new intellectual property that is currently being embraced by neo-nazis, by transphobes, that has solidified its identity as a game for transmisogynists and neo-nazis. just acknowledge you don’t really care and go play a thing that’s already made its mark in society, instead of letting something new make its mark in society. would i hope you play a game like Undertale, Hollow Knight, or ANYTHING else? A BILLION TIMES YES. but if this is how you’re going to be towards a game like HEARTBEAT, just go enjoy something else that’s already shitty instead of letting this new IP take hold. if you truly, genuinely care about being critical of your interests, play ANYTHING else at this point, even things that are already shitty.
and if you do play it? just be fucking honest about the reality you don’t give a shit about anything related to this discourse of being critical about your interests at all and just want to play your game. just be honest about it instead of hiding behind “miku made it” and covering up the reality behind it; i promise its a lot less embarrassing.
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buttercupsfrocks · 5 years ago
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Another week, another fatphobic shitstorm, Tumblr, this time in the form of an exercise in projected self-loathing courtesy of Torygraph journalist Tanya Gold. You can find it here if you’re curious, or you can just look at the pictures of my bargain Zara ranty pants plissé culottes; either way I’m afraid I’m going to vent.
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For those hitherto unfamiliar with Ms Gold, she’s a self-identified fat woman who has previously written about the pervasiveness of fat discrimination and prejudice; the tyranny of fashion and its fixation with excessively thin models; her serial dieting career; and her struggles with bulimia and alcoholism. Consequently I was a mite puzzled to learn she was appalled at Nike’s recent decision to include a plus-sized mannequin in their London flagship store. This they have done in the spirit of “celebrating the diversity and inclusivity of sport” – and presumably to promote that, unlike exclusionary trend led brands such as Sweaty Betty and Lulu Lemon, Nike supplies workout gear to accommodate those of us at the larger end of the bell curve. Much in the manner of the ground breakingly diverse This Girl Can campaign launched four years ago by Sport England, the message is clear enough: encourage as many women as possible to exercise, thereby improving the health of as many women as possible; everybody wins, GIRL POWAH!
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It’s not the first time I’ve used the phrase cognitive dissonance on this blog and it certainly won’t be the last. Unfortunately we live in an era where health has become so synonymous with thinness that even a supposedly whipsmart broadsheet journalist can’t discern they are two different things that aren’t mutually exclusive. “The new Nike mannequin is not size 12, which is healthy,” Gold observes, “or even 16 – a hefty weight, yes, but not one to kill a woman. She is immense, gargantuan, vast. She heaves with fat.” Well of course she does. As I’ve noted before those who hate fat people, including fat people who hate themselves, have a tendency to luxuriate in baroque prose when describing adipose tissue. Personally speaking, my fat does a lot of things but heave isn’t generally one of them unless there’s stewed rhubarb involved. But let’s just back-track a second, shall we? Ms Gold herself is a size 16, or was when she shared this heart rending tale of how she was unable to find a single thousand quid frock to accommodate her UK average-sized arse in Prada. But hey, at least she’s not hefty enough to be dying any time soon. That’s something only fatter fat women do, women who heave, not borderline, amateur chubs like her. Man, if there was ever a women for whom Body Positivity – aka Fat Acceptance Lite® – was invented, it’s Tanya fucking Gold. She even employs the eternal whinge of the aspiration-deprived inbetweenie, “where is the body shape between the tiny and the immense, which is where true health lives? Where is the ordinary, medium, contented woman? Where, oh where, is the middle ground?” In other words, “What about Meeeeeeee?!”
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While Gold’s got a point in that it can be highly detrimental to a woman’s self esteem to rarely see her body type represented by the media she consumes, Meeeeeeee! is nonetheless catered to by every single non-couture clothing chain in the country. And while having to be forced to buy from lesser emporia might disappoint, (House of Fraser; the horror), imagine being excluded by the entire fucking high street. Then ask yourself, if that were your reality, how you might be expected to know that a mainstream manufacturer caters to your needs if they don’t advertise it? Call me dim if you must but a display featuring a showroom dummy five sizes smaller than I am would not alert me to this fact. Of the offending mannequin she describes as “in every measure obese”, Gold laments, “She cannot run. She is, more likely, pre-diabetic and on her way to a hip replacement”. Hello? She’s made of sodding fibreglass and weighs approximately 25lbs. Unlike the multitude of actual fat human beings who do indeed run, practice team sports, swim, teach yoga, shot-put and weightlift, as well as attend dance and exercise classes, Nike’s blank canvas can’t do bugger all except encourage other fat women to follow suit which somehow, according to Gold’s bizarre convoluted logic, is a one way ticket to a tragic early death. I know; it’s like falling down a rabbit hole of WTFF. No wonder it’s kicked off such a backlash.
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I’ve been sparring with concern trolls like Gold for yonks and they invariably trot out the same old lies, either out of fear, spite or sheer pig ignorance. Gold is no exception; the Fat Acceptance Movement, she opines, “says any weight is healthy if it’s yours”. Yeah, no. In actuality the Fat Acceptance Movement is a fifty year old political initiative born of grass roots feminism, that seeks to highlight and challenge weight based prejudice and discrimination – be that in the classroom, the workplace, the doctor’s office, the fashion industry, mainstream media, (an advertising campaign that portrays the public as abject morons and further stigmatises fat people would seem to fit the bill), local or national government, or anywhere else it has the power to negatively impact the lives of those subject to it. Many detractors confuse Fat Acceptance with Health At Every Size which is an internationally recognised, medically supported programme dedicated to the pursuit of healthful habits without a focus on weight loss. It is, for instance, a useful tool for those in recovery for eating disorders. While many Fat Acceptance advocates practice HAES, just as many don’t; likewise there are those involved in HAES who are neither fat nor politicised about fat. 
Gold’s assertion that the War On Obesity® (aka fat people) has been beaten into submission by political correctness is risible, as evidenced by her own poisonous prose, which – pardon my plagiarism – fairly heaves with internalised negative stereotypes: the Fat Acceptance advocate as deluded and self-deceiving; the fat athlete as a myth. We are self piteous, unreliable narrators of our own lived experience; sugar-guzzling runaway trains on a surefire collision with death; we’re narcissistic, (yet self-hating), sick by default, entirely unacquainted with the diseases correlated with obesity, (all incidentally correlated with age and heredity too); in denial about our physical appearance; feckless, and – because no anti-fat screed would be complete without it – lacking in Personal Responsibility. But she would “never want a woman to hate herself for what she finds in the mirror”, perish the thought.
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The War on Obesity, despite being ramped up a hundredfold since I was a was first indoctrinated into – and lastingly damaged by – diet culture as an eleven year old child, has not resulted in a healthier populace. Western society is collectively mired up to the lugholes in mass neurosis around issues of food and weight; eating disorders are on the rise across the gender spectrum, in some instances developing in kindergarten, so Gold can fucking bite me with her cod “what about the children?!” shtick. Mental health is a key component of overall wellbeing, and shame is not conducive to mental health. Meanwhile society is getting fatter – along with the wallets of bariatric surgeons and all the other opportunist outfits in "partnership” with the National Obesity Forum, (Canderel, LighterLife, SlimFast, Roche, Glaxo Smith Kline, et al; all organisations whose revenue is dependent on as many people as possible fearing, hating, and being fat).
It’s time to try something else, like recognising that body diversity, along with death and disease, are simple facts of life; that healthful practices are beneficial to all regardless of the size of the body practicing them; and that weight is not an indicator of health or moral character. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to grips with the reams of documentary evidence confirming there is no reliable way to make a body naturally inclined to fatness lastingly thin, and move the fuck forward already. 
I’ll shut up now.
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luminisvii · 5 years ago
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Am I losing my shit about fanfiction again? You BET! It’s time for Tell to lose her goddamn mind about some truly awful fanfic! It’s my blog, I get to do what I want! And that’s to talk about how people are more blessed than they believe since they didn’t read this!
Today I’m going to talk about Super Smash Sisters: Damsel to Hero. Given the title uses a word like Damsel in it and it’s rated M, this is going to be GREAT
content warning for well what do you think a horny man on the internet would write ie: cheating, incest, terrible depictions of women being horny, violence (I don’t explain any of this in detail so you’re welcome. but it is mentioned) I’m not linking this thing because you guys don’t deserve this.
It took me forever to finish the entire fic, and I actually wrote most of this before finishing. You may say “Wait a second Tell, you need to fully read the work in order to discuss it!” No I do NOT. Trust me, this doesn’t need to be finished to understand. I needed moral support for this, I couldn’t have possibly read this by myself. I feel really sorry for my poor friends that have to deal with this horse shit with me because it’s kind of got a bit of je ne sai completely godawful. I’m semi tough and can stomach some senseless nonsense pretty nicely, but the real heroes here are my friends for toughing out the rampant sex and terrible female character writing all mixed with Call of Duty plot and characters. You thought this was about Smash Bros? WRONG! 
I know exactly jack about the author, Yamagata, other than they are probably some poor horny straight guy in high school or maybe a genius troll. We just don’t know. Either way they were pretty dedicated. The fic itself is 91,621 words and 45 chapters, and apparently on hiatus but we all know hiatus is just another word for dead. It’s better off that way. All good awful fics end on a cliffhanger.
The premise, as the title implies, is that all the men of Smash are kidnapped by nazis or some shit after a failed drug raid and it’s up to all the women to save them of which there are Zelda, Peach, and Samus because this was written in the Brawl era. You might think “Wait, isn’t that not a lot of female characters?” right you are! The author decides to bring in tons of female characters from all sorts of video games and anime. A personal favorite is a major character in this fic is Bright Noah from Gundam, notably not a woman. I love him! I’m disappointed he hasn’t slapped anyone yet! What’s the point of importing Bright Noah into a fanfic if he isn’t going to deliver a Bright Slap? Sorry folks, there’s gonna be me getting distracted about Gundam once in a while.
I can’t remember exactly what happens because the chapters really blur together quickly. They’re almost always first half violence in COD land and second half really bad lesbian sex scenes. See, the title is a misnomer. The women don’t actually do a lot of hero work. It’s still handled by men. Ones who aren’t even from Smash Bros. Bright Noah and another guy called Hargrove who I’m not familiar with are constantly telling the women what to do and while the women sometimes go on missions to fight Nazis or whatever, half the time we’re following some random male characters. A good friend had no idea one of them was Tuxedo Mask because they used his dub name and we spent like ten chapters with this idiot before realizing it was him. They just spend their time fighting different various enemies from real life as opposed to smash. So the guys fight and then the women all fuck because when your boyfriend is missing you have to immediately bang the nearest female out of grief. It’s not cheating if it’s gay! Even worse is there’s a lot of incest because apparently that’s how women act, too. Also for some reason when the women DO fight it plays exactly like the men’s side but with Bright Noah just telling them what to do. Also for some reason Peach just fucking kills people and I’m not really sure how to deal with that. Like, yeah, I guess.
Let’s try to do a plot recap but that’s going to be difficult because I’m not sure what the plot is. Okay, in theory, I do. But we’re just circling around and doing the same thing so many times that I’m plain lost. 
In theory, the plot is as mentioned before. The men of Smash get kidnapped and turned to trophies by Nazis. I’m noting that besides Nazis the men are all brutally murdered in order to turn them into trophies. Then it turns out that Samus, Peach, and Zelda are safe because they were at the Smash Mansion cleaning and having sex as princesses and bounty hunters are known to do. Then they find out from Bright that the men have been kidnapped so they have to form a task force against them. So there’s a long ass paragraph of characters, many of which do not have speaking lines until much later anyway, but they’re all female characters from other games or anime. I’m really into Fire Emblem and there’s a bunch of those so time to cry. Bright has to tell these women to stop being so damn emotional and be ready to start murdering. 
Also in the first chapter, we have the reveal of the villain, some Tabuu knock-off named Emerald. She too recruits a ton of villainous characters who all introduce themselves AFTER THEY’VE BEEN RATTLED OFF IN PARAGRAPH FORM. You didn’t get it the first time? They’re all going to painstakingly state their name and identity. Admittedly it’s kind of funny to have Cell in a room with Liquid Snake and Ashnard. Also who invited Valtome? They didn’t even invite Zelgius. Maybe our favorite Begnion General figured out that a certain thirsty ass senator was gonna be there and stayed in bed today. Okay, fewer tangents, I promise. 
With the establishing of all the villains and heroes, everything instantly turns to shit. Half the time we’re not even following a group who’s connected to the main characters and when we are with the main characters they are either having terrible sex or shooting nazis. This sounds like it’d be funnier than it is but it’s really Grade A Depressing. I can’t tell what’s going on or why and since I have exactly no knowledge of Call of Duty I’m afraid I don’t know anything about our actual protagonists either. Every chapter starts with some pretentious usually WWII related quote and involves some guys dying and then some ladies bonking. It’s the same format every time and after a while I feel like this is some advanced torture method. 
Among the bad sex is for some reason moms are banging their elementary school age daughters because their husbands are out. Women are so horny they’d rather fuck their children than wait long enough for their husbands. It’s so messed up. My eyes naturally glaze over on the sex scenes because they’re kind of clinically written and something about cute pussies or whatever. I feel bad for Bright Noah, he has to break up these badly written orgies to talk more about the nonexistent plot. Bright Noah needs a raise. All in all the sex is something that maybe a 13 year old boy might find hot if he hasn’t managed to read all the other way better smut fics out there. If 13 year old boys even do things like that. 
Since there’s no way for me to coherently walk through the plot since each scene hardly seems to amount to anything besides either violence or a roll in the hay, I’ll just have to start briefly talking about the few notable things that happen, probably out of order. Who the fuck even knows what chapters these happened in? I sure don’t! 
First off, a lot of the women conscripted into the task force have supernatural powers but they’re just given guns. I also think the author has something for Krystal or whatever since we focus on her a lot for no good reason. The women are also often infiltrating secret bases to nazis or other bad guys that I’m not as well versed in because admittedly I’m not that interested in the history of warfare, modern or old. I just assume this is a COD thing. But in order to infiltrate the bases, they just wave papers at literally every guy they come across and that does it somehow. I started going ballistic and every time they mentioned papers I would start screeching again. They get stopped by some dude and he’s always like “Where are your papers?” and they ALWAYS have the papers and then they go past but the author FEELS THE NEED TO KEEP BRINGING IT UP. It’s like The Black Fucking Mountains again. Something I’ve learned about myself is that I do poorly with overly repetitive writing, so I wonder why I’m reading world’s most repetitive piece ever penned for fun. I can’t recall anything that happens in any chapters.
Somewhere in the mix they actually save Ike, Marth, and Roy. Somehow the most in character thing in the entire fic happens with them when it’s offhandedly mentioned that they sometimes dogpile into the same bed as a joke. What was more shocking to me is that suddenly Ike is a total nuclear bomb genius out of nowhere. Sure, he’s from a medieval fantasy setting, he knows what nukes are. We finally get some more plot. Apparently Emerald is trying to develop some insanely powerful nuke in order to destroy the trophies of the remaining captured heroes. See, she’s holding them ransom so she can get… money? Power? Fame?
Trying to do this from memory is so hard. I did My Inner Life practically all from memory, only going in there for the copy and pasted quotes! What the heck? This fic just slides off my brain. I don’t know if finishing it is even worth it since it’s not like I’m reading any of the sex scenes in detail (I mean why would I, a woman with decent taste, want to read about usagi feeling up chibi usa) and I sure as hell can’t understand the Call of Duty parts so in conclusion this fic really wasn’t targeted at me. 
But whatever. So now the main crew has to slaughter their way to bomb storage or development or something. Some of the COD guys died and I didn’t notice, some of the villains died (tragically Valtome was K.I.A.) and all in all too much sex was happening. Seriously, Mist has sex on her brother’s bed, that’s kind of nasty. I don’t know why I’m so hung up on all of that. It’s like the piss drinking thing, it’s a minor offense in a long line of “HOLY FUCKING SHIT” but here’s where I get derailed. 
How many times can I say that this fic is terrible? Because it is. I don’t understand who a lot of these characters are and why they’re here or what they’re doing. I managed to read to the end and all that I learned was Shadow the Hedgehog apparently cheated on Rouge with some guy called Makarov who is another major villain. What, so when Rouge cheats on him with another woman it’s fine, but when he cheats on her with a man he gets killed for it? I smell double standard! Don’t worry, I’m a feminist, I support equal rights of everyone getting punished for their perpetual horniness. Still, there’s this shocking turn of events where the men are somehow the ones who aren’t constantly obsessed with sex and the women are going around topless and banging each other constantly while homosexuality in men is seen as evil and wrong. For some reason I think the person who wrote this might be a man. He feels the need to remind us, 40 chapters in, that there will be No Yaoi scenes but plenty of Yuri. No shit dude, like, fuck! I didn’t know! 
Towards the end, Washington DC gets overrun by Colombians and the team has to kill them. There’s some drawn out attack sequence where everything is described in monotonous detail with military terms I don’t understand. I have a general revulsion to military weeaboos as they are sometimes called, so this stuff turns my stomach. It also features Kenichi, the main character of the animated Metropolis adaptation, which I DID see a long time ago! This little boy is killing people! It’s fine! Also it mentions Frau Bow from Gundam and discusses that she’s training to fight in a mobile suit to help support, but Peach and Samus are the ones who actually use the mobile suits. Peach kills people in the RX-78-2. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Another aside is King Boo is in the mix and he dies. How do ghosts die? Asking for a friend. 
There’s also some weird aside of the COD guys doing an arrest in Disneyland. Gaz, Soap, and Price all go there guns akimbo and chase down some dudes and some people die. I don’t think Disney would like that. This also comes out of nowhere, Gaz was playing fucking Go with this dude called Katsuie and it was practically a smash cut transition of “well I arrested a guy in Disneyland once wanna HEAR about it?” and it was. Something. I don’t understand why we did this.
We end with Krystal and Fox discussing that she’s breaking up with him because while he was held hostage, she got engaged to a woman and is unceremoniously dumping him. The scene was honestly kind of funny for the fact that she was having a lesbian three way in his fucking bathroom and then was like “Yeah we’re not dating anymore. I’m engaged. Later idiot!” while naked. Shortly after it’s decided that they need to bomb some German base, I think. So Bright Noah tells the crew to suit up and get ready, and so Krystal and her Lesbians fly off to go fight. Krystal ends up in a one on one with a dude called Scales who I’m unfamiliar with since I don’t know Star Fox lore but I’m sure it’s super important to Krystal. The duel ends so badly that Fox needs to jump in and he and Scales end up plummeting to their death out a window and also getting blown up by grenades. Fox just fucking died for the girlfriend that cheated on him the second he wasn’t home. Honey, you deserve more than this, and Krystal deserves to be treated better by the narrative as well. He gives his blessing as he’s dying, though, so it’s fine. 
The whole thing ends shortly after that. It was never completed, not that I think it could be, since I read all 91k words and I still don’t understand who is who, what’s going on, or why things are happening. Even if I did know all the characters featured I don’t think it’d help. I know about 50% of them and it’s not helpful at all. I completely forgot that Emerald is a thing. She’s the main villain! She’s hardly in it! The guy should have cut the shit and just written 
Tell’s recommendation? Don’t read this unless you’re really, truly a masochist. It’s not funny enough most of the time to justify the insanity. It’s sexist and racist. Chapters monotonously drone on with the same things happening almost every time. The bad sex isn’t even funny. Save yourself the trouble and if you really must know, check out the first few chapters only and then call it. The author has other works that I haven’t read but I’m not sure that I will based on the quality of this work, and they also published something as recently as 2017 meaning they could probably rise from the hiatus grave and kick my ass for trash talking them. 
One Sentence Review: Bright Noah doesn’t slap anyone. 
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grimmpublications · 5 years ago
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Men of The North
Chapter 1: A Colorless Existence 
The air in front of my face turns into a thick mist as the heat from my breath grapples with the unrelenting cold that ambushes my village.  Even with my furs bundled around me, the cold finding small gaps in my thermic armor as it slithers in to sink deep in my bones. I’m no stranger to the cold or to the frost but even as I stand here and squint against the intense snowfall that hasn’t ceased in over a week I feel as I did when I was a young man and first encountering a true winter. I shuffle from foot to foot with a grimace as I await to see a minuscule bobbing light in the distance that’d alert me of the messenger that was supposed to arrive.  I uncork a water skin and take a deep drought and feel the warmth of ale travel down my throat, my grimace growing as I had little more than a quarter of a water skin left. 
“What importance does that messenger carry upon the haunches of his horse?” I ask myself slowly as I try to occupy my time, theorizing what message would arrive.  I believe, or rather hoped that the messenger would carry a promise of battle. It had been more than two years since his or any of the surrounding villages had taken part in a raid campaign. A little bloodshed would go a long way this grueling winter season.  It was amidst my reverie of potential future combat that I see the smallest flicker or movement amongst the fury of the blizzard. I cup my hands around my eyes to block snowfall as much as I could as I watch a  small blip of light bob up and down within the storm. With my hand resting on my sword that is holstered at my side.  After a couple of minutes I hear a familiar voice scrambling over the noise of the whipping wind. 
“It’s Jrogmund!” The voice booms from the other side of the gate. 
I grunt as go about pulling open the large wooden gates barring him from the interior of the town, snowy gusts of wind lashing through the small opening as Jrogmund enters the town and without a single word with me, rides past with haste. 
I nod my head with a small smile as I strain lightly as I push the gate closed once more, the wind objecting to its rejection into the city.  With a tired sigh, I lift up my battle-ax that’s leaning against the log that I had been sitting on for the hours I waited for the messenger to arrive.  As any true Northman, the feeling of my weapon in my hands bringing a smile to my face as I make my way back home. 
The door to my home swings open, the hearth still holding coals that are slightly alive with the life of fire, with a stick sitting near the hearth I stir the coals and place more firewood on top and watch as the flames slowly gnaw away at the firewood.  I sit down on the edge of my bed as I clasp my hands over my face, the flakes of snow hiding amongst the hair in my beard melt against my hands I try and silence the deafening thoughts that begin circling me. “Welcome home, love” a voice echoes into my ears and I feel soft hands lay over mine as my head is lifted up “Tough day?” my wife says with an empathetic smile. 
I nod my head, feeling a knot beginning to tie within my throat as my eyes lock with hers, her blue eyes shining against the light fire and her blonde hair cascading down past her shoulders. My hands lower within hers and as her empathetic smile deepens she leans in for a kiss. My heart soars as I lean forward to kiss her. Then the cold of the present sweeps away the warmth of the past as I reopen my eyes to an empty home. My head dips as my fingers run through my tangled brown hair.  It was the first real epiphany after my wife’s disappearance, how cold and colorless life can become.  It was a surreal experience as I watched the color and warmth from my home disappear just as quickly and mysteriously as my wife.  I shake my head, ashamed of the weakness I was displaying, so with a breath I lay back in my bed as I allow my eyes to close.  I knew that sleep wouldn’t find me on this night.  
“Hard work is an ailment for a broken spirit” were the first words to leave Ghaled’s mouth, the eldest warrior in the village, when everything in my life fell apart. The man’s words were truer than any shaman’s story, adding to the work of maintaining my farm I added the job of helping on the docks. The arduous labor kept my mind distant from the troubles of reality and benefited the others in the village. I take a small breath as I continue to wrangle in another net, hoping for a series of good catches as the waters have seemed to be barren the past couple of weeks.  As had become a trend as I pull the last net in from the water I only see a single cod flopping within the net, the fish an adolescent and a small adolescent at that. I shake my head disappointedly as I throw the fish into the practically empty basket next to me. 
“Something is better than nothing.” A weathered elderly man says just at my back,
I turn to see Dag striding up behind me as he examines the contents of my basket “No lie there, but not sure three will feed much.” 
“We’ll make due,” Dag says with a care-free shrug “We always do”
I nod my head as he accompanies me further down the docks to check on the traps at the southern end of the dock “We are a resilient bunch, aren’t we?”  I say with a chuckle as I pull loose the first couple of traps laid on the bottom side of the docks. 
I ask  with an ushered voice as I pull loose two traps with nothing more than algae swept between the knots in the net “You find out what the messenger had to say to the drott?” 
Dag laughs awkwardly “My ears may still have some listening left to do” Dag finishes with a shrug as he goes about assisting me with pulling up the other traps “An old warrior rarely is cut in on the royal secrets.” 
I nod understandingly “I figured as much, was just curious” I say simply, pulling loose yet another empty trap “The messenger rode in like Hell was on his heels.” 
Dag shrugs his shoulders, knowing that he’d never been one for gossip, even at his older age “As a messenger should ride.” 
It was as Dag went further into the stories of how his era of men were, my mind drifted far from his words as I stand at the edge of the last dock and stare off at the opposite bank where I thought a flicker of movement had crossed my vision. One of my eyebrow raises at the ominous feeling that migrated into my being, my hazel eyes scanning the forest line just beyond the other side of the river.  My attention was about to return to Dag’s rambling when I see something standing just within the treeline.  Many of the details of the figures were hard to make out from the distance, but despite the distance I could see that whatever was over there stood on two legs. Our gazes locked after a moment of my stare.  I can’t explain the feeling but my whole body locked as our gazes met. I wanted to roar a warning to Dag, to anyone but as I stand at the edge of the dock it feels as if a powerful, invisible grip was latched around my throat. Slowly the person’s hand raises into the air, once his arm is parallel, the creature motions me towards it. I want to protest physically or verbally but the moment the thing, I refuse to call it a person at this point, motions me forward I begin taking steps towards the water. Even though I couldn’t see any of the small details of the creature,  yet as one of my feet hovers over the edge of the dock I can feel a smile grow across the creature’s face. 
“Whoa!” I feel a surprisingly strong grip on my shoulder as I’m pulled onto my backside and suddenly the world comes washing back over me in a heap of sound, color, and deep breaths “You alright, Umbercht?” I hear Dag’s voice as he pulls me back to my feet and I try and wrestle sanity back into focus. 
I nod my head as my eyes scan the area across the river in a panic “Yeah…” The figure now gone, but the lingering feeling it gave still hovering over my shoulder “I think so” 
Dag stares at me with a worried expression “Well, alright..” Dag’s eyes scanning me carefully before saying with as much respect and care he could “I think you should head home and try to get some rest.” 
The advice wasn’t unwarranted, I knew how I must look but I know more than anyone that being alone in that home  is the last thing I needed so I just nod, trying to mask my true feelings. 
Dag insisted that he finish the work on the docks but knowing the torment of my lifeless home awaits, I ignore his suggestions and finish the work on the docks. Even after all the nets were pulled and the boats waxed I find myself straying towards the edge of town instead of home. My feet stopped at the forest line, for the first time in my life I found my heart racing at the idea of entering the forest, despite it being one of my favorite places. The strange encounter with that thing still resting on my shoulders. I hear the sound of laughter coming from the drinking hall near the edge of town and that’s the motivation I needed to step forward into the forest.  
It’s as though I stepped through a portal as I enter the forest, small beams of sunlight dancing through the gaps in the leaves of the trees and bouncing across the  and the sound of nature growing to a peak once within the thicket of brush and trees. The soft singing from the birds perched above me instantly causes tingles to roam down my back as tension falls away. I have always loved forests but after recent events my love for them only deepened. The wall of trees and brush surrounding me seemed to drape a curtain over the rest of the world. I walk through the brush with light steps as I go about checking the traps I had placed the day before, hoping for at least one success.  I smile as I see an exhausted rabbit struggling within one of my traps. I rush to the trap, not wanting the creature to have to suffer more than it already has. I smile at the effectiveness of my trap as I unsheathe my knife to cut the rope of the snare trap, the trap having tightened around the hind legs of the rabbit. My whole body freezes as I place my hand on top of the rabbit to stop the frantic movement of the creature; it’s when my hand touches the creature that I feel how cold its skin is against my hand. I stare at the rabbit for a short moment as I feel the ice-cold body of the rabbit, then with a shrug I pick up the rabbit and quickly slit the throat as I allow the blood to let out.  It’s as the blood drips from my kill that my stomach turns over. The blood dripping onto the ground is dark red, the color only distinguishable from black when sunlight passes through it.  I drop the carcass with haste as I go about gutting the creature. I slowly cut the stomach open and the moment the incision is made, maggots spilled through the cut and onto my hands. Vomit creeps up my throat as my hands recoil away from the body. I shake my head in disbelief as I go back to the corpse and with a deep breath, begin scooping out the contents of the rabbit. After a pile of maggots sits on the ground I finally reach the guts of the creature and as I pull them out I see that the organs are as close to black as they can get and a good portion of each organ was covered in a strange decay that seemed to eat holes through the tissue.  “What is going on?” I ask myself in a hushed whisper, unsure if I really did want to know what is going on. 
“Umbercht?” The voice spills from the trees behind me, the voice sounded truly terrified. I whirl around quickly and see a young worker by the name of Aiden staring at me with wide eyes “What are you doing?” 
I nod my head understandingly, knowing that upon first glance it would look like a real problem of sanity.  “I know it doesn’t look good, but come see this” I say with a worried tone as I look down at the rabbit to begin showing him the strange findings and then I truly do freeze in place as sitting before me are torn apart organs and a rabbit that could no longer be recognized as such as the rest of the carcass is pulled apart into bloody scraps. Worst part about all of this, that the remains looked as normal as they could given the current circumstances. No decaying organs, no wriggling maggots, just a torn apart rabbit and a man covered in blood… 
Aiden backs away slowly, nodding his head cautiously as I stand to my feet. I put up a defensive hand as I sense the fear in Aiden grow. 
“Aiden--” I begin, but the moment his name leaves my lips he turns on his heels and darts off in the direction of our town.  Once the sound of the boys footfalls fade away to silence, I collapse onto my back side and begin running my fingers through my hair as I grapple with the events that just transpired and of the consequences to follow. 
The knocking came thundering into my home, snatching me away from whatever nightmare had been tormenting my sleep. Consciousness slowly replaced the grogginess sitting as a veil over me. I stumble over to the door. Once the door swings open I see a snow-covered Erik Audur, the chief of my village.  Erik had a grimace on his face as he steps past me into my home, a frown growing to dominate his features once entering. 
“You’ve let things fall apart here, Umbercht.” Erik’s stone-cut voice says simply as he examines my home more closely, a finger running across the surface of my table, a film of dust quickly building onto his finger “Your wife would beat you to a pulp if she saw the place like this.” 
The mention of her stabbed me at my core and if it were any other person saying such a thing, I would have belted them into the next life but I owe Erik more than I can ever repay; so I numbly bow my head, knowing that he wasn’t wrong. Once I lift my head I see Erik standing before me with a sympathetic look. I turn away from him as he places a hand on my shoulder “Aiden came to Leland last night” his tone told me what Aiden had to say. 
I begin to explain until he silences me with the raising of one of his hands “Umbercht, I know sorrow better than most” Erik says slowly as he grabs my coat from the chair it was hanging on and tosses it into my arms “Come with me.” 
“Once your wife disappeared, I was scared that you’d get this way” Erik says thoughtfully as he leads me to the backside of his home, the forest sitting just beyond his property “People like us,” Erik begins, stopping for a moment as he arranges his words in his mind “We don’t handle loss the way others do. No, loss hits us straight into our being, cuts us deeper than the sharpest blade.”  Erik’s words flowing as he delves into his thoughts.  Snow began falling heavily, our vision quickly becoming restricted. 
“Not many know this, but my first child wasn’t Raila” Erik says suddenly, the news hitting me like a brick “No, my first child was a boy” The words seemed to have sprung memories as an expression that was stuck between a grimace and a smile sits on his face “Before I met my wife, I had bore a child with a simple girl from a small property to the east.”  Erik pushes his way through a thicker part of the brush and once we emerged from the other side of the brush we find ourselves in a clearing in the forest with seven standing stones placed in a ring around the clearing. I can’t tell if I’m slipping further into insanity or if the slight buzz of energy I felt upon entering the clearing was real.  I barely manage to avoid getting my nose busted open as I catch a sword that Erik threw. 
I see him grab a second sword out of the bag that was slung around his shoulders. 
“Take off your coat and shirt.” Erik says with a simple tone, as if his request weren’t strange at all. 
The request is strange, but I trust this man with my life so I do as he says without question, the cold air and flakes of snow instantly cutting down to the bone. Erik also removes his coat and shirt, revealing a scarred and muscular body that can only be attained through years of battle. I resist the urge to shiver as I see Erik handle the cold as if it were just a summer morning. 
“Embrace it” Erik says with a small smile as he unsheathes his sword and gives it a twirl to test the weight against his hand “The cold will help.”
I have no idea how that would make any sense but I nod my head, willing to try anything at this point.
I open my mouth to ask a question as I also unsheathe my sword, but Erik is in my face before the words can leave my lips and I feel the cold of the snow on my back as I narrowly avoid getting my face split open by rolling backwards. I have no time to contemplate the cold or why my chieftain would be attacking me, I only have time to defend.  My sword bounces around my grip as the weight of Erik’s attacks rattle the entire weapon on each strike. A look of a predator has covered Erik’s features as he pursues me. I dodge and weave as he pushes me to edge of the clearing, trying to corner me against one of the standing stones. Our blades clash once more and as we both push against each other as our blades lock together. I feel Erik quickly overpowering me as my feet begin to slide backwards. A molten-hot flame bubbles in my stomach as a roar jumps from me as I collapse the lock on our swords and drive my head forward in a headbutt. I feel Erik’s nose bust against my forehead. I expect him to take a step backwards from the strike but it only drives Erik forward who begins swinging with less discipline, the discipline being replaced by brute strength and intensity. I couldn’t tell if it was the constant attacks I’d been blocking or the cold but my hands were numb at this point as I try to stave Erik off.  Erik bellows as he raises his sword over his head and with both hands drives the blade down. I knew that even if I used all my strength, there’s no way that I could block the attack with my body as numb and weak as it is so instead I bound backwards. The loose snowfall beneath my feet forsake me as I fall backwards onto my rear end. I roll backwards to try and get to my feet but before I could make it back up my head is whipped to the side as Erik’s boot connects with the side of my head.  My head rings louder than any bell as I try to recollect myself but before I could even lift myself off my back Erik hops on top of me and presses the tip of his sword into my neck. I thought that my days might be numbered as Erik’s face goes red as he roars at me, pressing his sword a little deeper into my neck. I can’t tell you what caused me to do so but it leapt out of my mouth as I return his roar and  push my neck a little further into the sword-point, my mind swept away in the storm of emotion.  Erik’s face then contorts to a large, beaming smile as he takes his sword away and offers a hand to me. Erik pulls me to my feet. I stare into his eyes for a short moment, both of us were beaten and bloody. I couldn’t help it and neither could he as we both burst into laughter. 
 “The boy I had.” Erik says suddenly as he passes me a skin filled with mead “He would’ve been a legend”. I drape my coat over my shoulders as I take a seat in the snow next to Erik, taking a sip of the mead, the mead feels like liquid fire as it warms my body. I nod my head as I wait for him to continue, if he even wanted to. 
“But there was something terribly wrong with the boy.” he says with a grimace, his eyes becoming glazed with distance as he relives the memory “He would kill anything that moved, attacking his mother often and even trying to take my life on a couple occasions.” Erik’s grimace turns into a small smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth “But he became more vile as the years rolled on”  Erik snatches the mead from me as he takes a long draught from it before continuing “He would have visions of the future, of terrible creatures and began to mutter about ways to ‘fix’ the world he lived in”. Silence built after that as we both stared into the tree line as the snowfall began to intensify until he finally bows his head “But after seeing what he did to his mother,” his head shaking as he speaks “I had to put him down before he became too much of a problem.” Erik’s head raises to see glazed eyes as he tries to hold back his tears, raising his hands into a choking motion “I strangled the life from him, his last moments were filled with my rage.” Erik pauses once more, the story having my mind reeling.
“Afterward, I was crippled by guilt and grief. It broke me” Erik turns to face me as he speaks, the point of story now dawning on me “I became a very bitter man, a violent man. I drank myself belligerent every day and would lash out for the most trivial reasons; I was on a path of destruction” Erik motions around him “Then one day, after a particularly violent outburst, Leland located a shaman who claimed he could quell the doom within me. The shaman created this place and took me here without a warning of what would come.” Erik flashed a smile at me as he continues “The shaman attacked me before I had a chance to even know what was happening. I initially thought the shaman was trying to usurp my rule. We fought viciously, as violent as cornered beasts” His hand runs over a few gruesome scars on his arms “But when the fighting ended, the storm inside of me seemed to be calmed.”  Erik takes a deep breath “What I’m trying to say is that this place saved my life and if you ever need to use it, come to me.”
Chapter 2:  One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
My eyes open to the sound of birds chirping just outside my home, the open windows allowing the symphony to dance in easily. I sit up against the furs on my bed, the gentle sunlight feeling incredible as I stretch, wringing the stiffness of sleep from my body. I look around the home and see it for what it has become over the last few weeks. The entire place was trashed, had I been living amongst this mess? I shake my head in dismay as I climb out of bed to find a long-sleeved shirt to slip on as I go about cleaning up the mess my grief made. As the straw bristles of my broom run along the stone floor I realize how consumed with rage I had been. The scariest feature of this rage is that I don’t remember participating. It takes about half of an hour to finish cleaning up all the broken dishes and other items off of the ground and collect clothes to take to the river to wash. 
Life had become so muffled and I hadn’t noticed. As I hear the ambiance of nature around me, my feet stopped almost of their own volition as my eyes close for a long moment, allowing the rare and mild weather to seep into my memory. I open my eyes once more as I step forward towards the forest to reach the part of the river I like to do laundry at. My boots crunch against the snow as I make my way down a bank. I lay down my wash basket and then go about dipping my clothes into the ice-cold water and pressing them against the washboard. It’s as I press an article of clothing against the washboard that the sounds of birds chirping began to clang in my ears. As I dunk another article of clothing into the water and pull it out to begin washing that the chirping becomes even louder, the noise bouncing around in my mind. I shake my head with a frown as I continue to press against the washboard. 
Louder. It keeps getting louder until I find myself unable to focus on my task as my body feels disoriented from the noise. I step up to stumble away from the wash basket, my knees tempting to buckle as I press my hands over my ears.  The noise doesn’t relent even at my desperate clasp on my ears, my eyes scan the area dizzily before I spot the rocks sitting on the ground. I scramble down to grab a handful and begin throwing them wildly at the tops of the trees. “Shut up, damn it!” I roar, as my eardrums tempt to pop under the duress. I continue to throw rocks wildly, snow and clumps of dirt flying around me as I desperately try to stop the birds relentless torment. My violent attempts to stop them are all in vain, I begin to slam my fists against the ground. My teeth gritted as I feel my mind slipping from the excruciating pain in my ears. Doing anything to try and stop this. And then silence.  The chirping stops and then the only sound I could hear is the sound of my heartbeat slamming in my ears.  I collapse onto my back, a frown dominating my features as my fantasy of recovery starting to become a distant joke. 
The joke only became more apparent as I enter town to do work in the docks as I do every morning and I immediately cross paths with Aiden. The young man avoids eye contact with me and tries his best to appear completely focused on pulling out the nets. I couldn’t blame him. I would be scared too. Hell, I’m probably more frightened than he is. “Hard work is the ailment for a broken spirit” I mutter under my breath, almost as a mantra as I go to helping Aiden with the nets. The nets actually had some good catches in them this morning, causing a small ember of happiness to burn. 
“Are you alright?” I suddenly hear Aiden’s voice from my side as I see him grab the other line to help with the larger net. 
I look up, the boy’s literally shaking as he asks. I nod my head wearily “I am just trying to work through my grief” I meet eyes with him as I throw the fish into the lidded basket at my side “I am sorry for scaring ye, Aiden” 
Aiden relaxes as he pats me on the shoulder “Don’t get ahead of yourself, I just don’t want to be the one that has to put you down” Aiden smiles, trying to make light of the incident. 
I return a smile as I nodded my head “I’d better be careful around you then, aye?” 
There are few things that can get a Northman to stop amidst labor but the deep groan of the gathering horn was among that small list. The moment we hear the horn signal we speed walk to the Chieftain’s home. Erik stands at the front of his home, on the porch where he can oversee most of us that have gathered around. “This winter has been harsh.” Erik bellows, his words reaching even the people at the back of the crowd and his eyes meet with mine as he speaks “It has stolen from us, injured us” Erik raises his arms, even under his furs you can see the curves of his muscled arms “But the Gods have made us a strong people and when winter hits us”
“We only become stronger!” the crowd roars out, knowing this speech well.
The crowd’s eagerness feeds Erik’s as he smiles viciously “Aye!’ his eyes wild with excitement as were ours as he bellows “We’ll take the hatred of the winter and shove it down the gullets of our enemies!” 
“The southerners will shudder!” the crowd around me bellows, their calls loud and passionate and if any chorus could reach the divine, it’d be ours. 
“The southerners will shudder!” the crowd continues to bellow as they amp themselves up for raiding season. 
I raise an eyebrow as I hear a knock on my door.  I stride over to my door and open as the snow-peppered winds tear through the night. Erik is covered with snow as he stands at my door “Come in,” I say immediately as I usher Erik into my home.  Erik smiles as he looks around the place “You’ve cleaned up the place” 
I nod my head, now embarrassed that my Chieftain saw the place in that state. Erik immediately waves away my embarrassment “Trivial things go to the wind once grief gets its grips on ye”  Erik takes a seat at one of the benches at my table. I pour a horn of ale as I take a seat across from him and take a deep gulp before passing it to him. 
Erik nods with appreciation as he takes it in his hand and takes a long draught.
“What brings you here?” I ask, worried that he didn’t want me to go on the raiding campaign. 
“Wanted to check up on you before we head out.” Erik says as he eyes me closely “Wanted to know that you’re ready”
I nod my head confidently “There’s nothing that could stop me from getting on that ship” my tone passionate as I continue “I think getting away from here for a while will be good for me, anyhow”
Erik nods his head, having considered that as well then flashes a smile and offers a hand “That’s what I was hoping to hear.” I grasp his arm in mine as I give him a confident nod.  We spoke of less serious matters for an hour or so before I walked him out.  Only a couple of minutes had passed when another knock echoes from my door. I step out of bed as I open the door, figuring Erik had forgotten to mention something but no one was there.  Only the howling wind and snow greeted me as I open the door. I shudder as the snow whips against my bare chest as I lean out of my threshold to try and see if someone was leaning against the side or if someone had run off. Still nothing but wind and snow. I step back inside and close the door, rubbing warmth back into my arms as I step closer to the hearth.  
Knock, knock. Another echo of a knock hits my back before I even get to the warmth of the fire. I feel anger bubble in my stomach as I storm over to the door and tear it open. No one to be seen. Then I hear the faintest sound of laughter within the storm outside. I grind my teeth together as I ignore the nip of the cold against my skin as I charge outside to catch the damned trickster. The wind was whipping against me, even with my large size the wind so strong that I had to step forward. As quiet as a whisper but the implication rang as loud as a ten-foot bell, the sound of laughter coming within my home. I whirl around and charge towards my door when I see it shut before I get to it. The laughter hits a climax as I slam my fists against my door. “I’m gon’ rip ye damned heads off!” I yell to the multiple voices of laughter as I feel my door give and as I go for one last charge with my shoulder, the door opens and I fall through. I pull myself to my feet and the door creaks closed behind me and the energy in the air caused all the hairs on my body to stand and chills continuously travelling down my back and into my arms. 
The figure stands at the front of my home, in front of the fire of the hearth. The creature stood taller than even I. It’s head would be scraping the top of the ten foot ceiling if it’s head weren’t drooped as it looks at the fire in silence. Every time my eyes try to focus on the appearance of the figure my mouth would fill with the taste of copper. I could feel my body shaking. The figure was definitely humanoid, but the grayish silhouette was thin and it’s limbs gangly, it’s fingers nearly touching the floor. “Northmen fear naught” My mind echoes the lessons of my father. I step forward, my eyes spotting my sword that’s leaning against my bed, just a few feet from the figure. I begin to plan my attack. Another step forward, I can do this. It’s body slowly begins to turn, as it’s body rotates towards me, a feeling of nausea grows to conquer me. It’s that thing from the day before at the docks. The waving creature.  “Get out!” My voice booms as I point towards my door, my whole body quivering under the moment. 
The creature had no face but as the creature looks at me, features begin to grow on the creature’s face, seeming to be pressed up against the skin as if a person were trapped inside. The features had no definition just an outline of human features but even with such strange features as I eye my sword once more it’s lips twitch into what had to be a smile.  My legs won’t move. I use every bit of might my frozen body can emit but no movement happens, save that of the increase in heartbeats as the creature takes slow steps towards me.  The flames of the hearth begin to flicker in and out with each step of the creature. Everytime the flames emit light, the creature is inched closer.
“GET OUT!” My voice tempts to disappear forever as my throat tears from the desperate scream as the creature somehow keeps me locked in place, prowling to stand face to face, it’s body stooped low as it’s hands start to run across my skin and then the flame flickers out. I feel its hands on me, its clammy skin running along mine. I couldn’t even vomit from the smell of sulfur and decay. I’m surprised my eyes retained their ability to see as white flashes of light begin to emit from small orbs of light that surround us. The creature’s face directly in front of mine as the lights strobe. The creature’s smile hasn’t wavered as it continues to stare at me. It presses its face closer to mine, its cold, clammy flesh touching my nose now. My vision begins to tunnel vision into absolute white as the lights continue to strobe. 
My eyes snapped open to the sound of intense knocking “Umbercht, let’s go!” I hear multiple voices yell. I shake my head, no time for thoughts on troubling dreams because it’s raiding season!  I take no time to think and grab all of the gear I’d prepared last night and then throw on my furs, grabbing my sword and ax as I step out into the snow-swept morning. Spirits were high and you could feel it the moment I left my home as a man drapes his arm over my shoulder as we walk towards the gates of the city to get ready to travel to the neighboring village of Reylling.  “To the gods above and below,  it will sound as a bear’s bellow when the Northmen come to your shores, rest assured!” The drunken warrior sings as he shoves a waterskin into my chest. The ale was warm as it went down as I smile chimed in with the singing as we begin to load the carts with bags.  After an hour of preparation all the carts were loaded and we were on our way to Reylling. As i walk beside a cart being pulled. I pull out my yew comb as I go about untangling the mess that is my hair. As I finish combing my hair and go to put the comb away I stop to appreciate the craftsmanship, the intricate design of runes and the detail of the two dragon heads carved at the top. 
I see another waterskin pushed into my chest and I look up to see a bearded man with tattoos from the top of his head that go down further into his furs. Olfson Fhore, a good man. He watches me staring at the gift I’d received from my wife.  “Let’s do her memory honor this campaign.” he says as I take a swig of his ale and give him a small smile. Olfson pats me on the back as we see the smoke billowing from the top of a hill, signaling our arrival to Reylling.    
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authoradj · 3 years ago
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Welcome to the Current Binge!
So you may be wondering what is the first show I will be reviewing. Well, I’m not gonna lie, I love a lot of TV shows. And there’s a lot of shows I love to re-watch at nauseam. So much so my husband likes to make a face when he sees I’m watching another TV show I’ve already seen twenty times before.
Well what can I say, I watch what I like, over and over again.
So with that being said, this is how it’s going to work. Each week I’ll binge-watch a season of a show. Usually, that will include binge-watching the entire series, but hey isn’t that the point. With that season I’ll give you an overview of the season and my opinion on it, and I’ll do an actual review of what I think is a stand-out episode of that season, along with giving you a score, usually a number out of ten. Depending on the show, I could be spending my main focus on that one series for several weeks. But you know how good Television goes.
Now let's find out what the first TV series binge is… drum roll, please…
It’s the X-Files!
Now most of my 80’s babies and older are very well acquainted with this show, along with some 90’s babies and younger. However, I never watched this show back in the ’90s.
I remember the whole trope, ‘The Truth is out There’ and ‘Don’t watch this show alone’, but I just never really got into it.
Well recently with the state of how everything is in the world, it made me nostalgic for what I firmly believe was the best decades of our time, the 1990’s.
And while I was looking for a show that brought me back to that amazing era that I in all honestly miss way too damn much, I wasn’t really feeling the same old shows that I’ve watched before. For example, Friends, The Simpsons, Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210. I wanted the 90’s but I didn’t want that version of the ’90s, I wanted something I never bothered with, so I decided to look for something that was new for me.
It didn’t take long, thanks to Hulu, before I found the X-Files and remembered what a smash hit was when I was a kid growing up. So I figured, heh, why not, give it a shot.
So I watched the first season, and while the first couple of episodes did stand out for me, I found the rest of the season to be insanely boring. I’m not sure if it was Moulders droned out monotone voice, the fact that Scully goes on and on about not being a believer, even though the evidence is right freaking there, or all the damn tech speak about all the crap that goes on. Either way, for me the first season was quite the bore, except for one, solitary episode.
Another drum roll, please.
Season 1: Episode 12, ‘Fire’
This episode is especially noteworthy because it has the one and only Mark Shepard.
For those of you who don’t know who Mark is, he is a god among nerds showing up just about everywhere. He’s been in Doctor Who, Firefly, and not to mention he’s the King of Hell in the very popular series, Supernatural.
I recently got the honor to meet Mark at a horror convention not too long ago, and can not express enough about what a sweet guy the man is. Love you, Mark.
Back to the episode.
Now, for those of you that don’t know what the X-Files is all about, it’s basically about two FBI agents investigating the spooky and the unknown. They find out whatever the facts are about the case and try to speculate what they can’t figure out into fact.
Growing up I thought it was always about chasing after space aliens, but it wasn’t until you actually watch the series that you find out it’s about a lot more than that.
In the episode ‘Fire’ you meet a Pyromaniac that takes his love of ‘Fire’ to the utmost extreme.
It starts off as just a regular day with a man going off to work and saying goodbye to his family. As he says goodbye he somehow catches on fire, which appears to be a case of spontaneous human combustion. In translation, he catches on fire for no apparent reason. His family looks at him in complete horror except for one little innocent PyroManiac, Cecil L'ively, who happens to be the family’s gardener. Cecil just looks on, kinda looks aroused as everyone looks in horror.
Oh yeah, it gets better.
From there we meet our stars, Moulder and Scully who meet up with Phoebe Green, a detective from London and Moulder’s former main squeeze. She tells them about an arsonist after the British aristocracy and loves to use Fire as his weapon of choice, allowing him to burn his victims alive. This guy is increasingly hard to catch because he manages to leave no trace evidence.
The guy uses fire, I would think that would be the point.
His current target is Sir Malcolm Marsden, an Englishman who’s with his family in Cape Cod trying to stay safe from our little Pyromaniac. However, he’s not as safe as he may think.
Cecil, of course, being the devious villain that he is, already knows where his target is, takes out the current caretaker of the home where our victims are planning on staying, and makes himself out to be an all-American boy. Not only that, he calls himself Bob. How much more American can you get?
This guy is so far gone that he even burns down a bar for no apparent reason, other than the fact he loves to watch shit burn. Burn baby burn.
After learning about this Bar Fire, Moulder and Scully interview one of the victims and find out that our little PyroManic is somehow able to will fire into existence. He can literally make something burn out of mid-air.
Meanwhile, our victim's driver is sick with a pretty bad cough and no one really knows why, how convenient, wouldn’t you say. So they ask Bob to be the good standing American that he is and drive our Victims family to an important social function in Boston.
Moulder joins the party, while Scully stays behind to do some extra work, But she eventually joins the party. Upon her arrival, she spots our PyroManiac who has a curious eye on her when the Fire Alarm goes off. The Fire seems to be coming from our victim’s room where his children are sleeping peacefully, or at least they were. Moulder tries to be the hero but ends up choking and the kids end up being saved by Bob, again how convenient.
Moulder goes to the hospital for smoke inhalation and Scully joins him, mostly to talk about the case. Scully is convinced that Bob is our Fire lover based on the accounts that happened at the bar, not to mention the police sketch that was done by one of the witnesses.
Heading back to the house where the victims are staying, they find the sick driver having literally burned from the inside out, hovering over a bathroom toilet.
Eep!
Upon finding the driver's body the house catches on fire and the kids need to be saved again, only this time Moulder is the hero.
Took him long enough!
Scully finds our beloved PyroManiac and holds him at gunpoint, but unfortunately can’t fire when she finds out there’s rocket fuel painted on the house. But our little English detective comes in and throws a can of rocket fuel at his face, making him catch fire.
The episode ends with our beloved PyroManiac awaiting trial in a medical facility while healing from his massive wounds. He graciously tells his nurse that he’s dying for a cigarette.
Now there are many reasons this is a stand-out episode, but the main reason is Mark Shepard. His constantly walking around with a cigarette in his mouth looking like James Dean makes him positively swoon-worthy.
Not to mention those eyes.
Oh, those eyes.
Those eyes I swear belonged to the devil himself, there is just no other way to describe what you see when you look into the PyroManiac's eyes. It makes him just that more sinister and awesome at the same time. I swear every time I looked at them, I saw the evil lord of hell. Which is funny because he ends up becoming just that in another little show that I’ll probably end up bingeing at a later date.
*Wink, Wink*
Overall I gave this episode a solid 10 out of 10, while the rest of the season was a 5 out of 10.
While this episode was just plain fantastic, the rest of the season as I said before was just plain boring. Too much mumbo jumbo talk if you ask me, with not enough suspense to really grab the attention of the audience. Of course, this is my opinion. I’m sure there are plenty of X-File fans going:
‘Is she serious, the first season is awesome.’
*Shrugs Shoulders*
Hopefully, the rest of the series will stand out as I’ve heard that it has.
See ya next season.
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dont-doubt-dopple · 7 years ago
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Do you take requests for poly? If so, could you do Delirious X Vanoss X Cartoonz X Ohm?
If you asked anyone who the dynamic trio on campus was, it was Ohmwrecker, Delirious, and CaRtOoNz. The three of them were inseparable, and their personalities made allowed them to function like a well oiled machine. Ohm was this big heart, Toonz was the muscle, and Del was the wildcard of the whole thing. Nobody could be better made for each other than those three.
Oh, and Vanoss was there as well but nobody really cared.
Except Evan. He was this lost and forgotten 4th musketeer that nobody acknowledged. He was supposed to be a part of this relationship too, but often he felt left out. The others had inside jokes he never understood, had a airtight dynamic that he couldn’t work into, had a bond that Vanoss probably wasn’t made to be a part of.
It wasn’t that that irked him. It was the fact that even after all this time he still had no idea what their real names were. He only knew them as Ohm, Del, and Toonz. Their parents didn’t name them that, so the real them was still hidden behind the mask those face names held. It was frustrating to say the least, considering he was supposed to be a part of this relationship as well.
It came as no surprise when he found out Delirious’s name first. After all, he was the one that brought Evan into the relationship. It was late, and Evan was cuddling Delirious in his bed. The latter was curled up against Evan, the storms outside causing him to curl up even tighter.
“Thank You again.” Delirious said, more so into Evan’s chest than at his face. “Toonz and Ohm always seem reluctant to do this.”
“Anytime. You know I love you, right Delirious?”
“Jonathan.”
“That you?” Evan asked, surprised. He could feel Del, no Jon, nodding against his chest. Evan smiled, and kissed his boyfriend’s forehead. “Love you Jonathan.”
“I love you, Evan.” Jon said, before adding, “More than the others at least.” That made Evan laughed, and gave him something to tide him over until sleep came.
Ohm was next. Evan has practically given up one day, deciding laying down across the entire couch was a productive use of his time. He was home alone though, so it’s not like anyone would ever judge him for it. That was until he heard the door unlock and someone walk in before freezing.
“Nice.” Ohm commented, probably on Evan’s pants deprived ass. “You alive there?”
“If this US History Essay doesn’t kill me first.” He replied, rising to go put on a set of pants. “First off, screw contextualization. I have absolutely no idea what other era causes increased sectionalism. Second, I can’t figure out which document has a significant audience to use to support my argument. And third, I don’t understand half these documents and the outline is due tomorrow and I’ve got about three words on my paper.”
“Need help?”
“Yes please.” Ohm laughed, before sitting down with Evan to do a 1 on 1 study session. He was, surprisingly, a good teacher and made the confusing documents seem easy. Ohm was willing to work at Evan’s pace and managed to deal with the reparative questions in order to make sure he understood the material.
“So, Documents 1 and 4 are from the view of the North?”
“Yeah. See, the South wanted internal improvements, such as roads and canals to better transport the raw materials they produced. That’s why they supported the National Bank.” Ohm explained. “The North liked the IDEA of a National Bank, but not how the Bank was implemented. That’s what the McCullock v. Maryland case is about is in Document 4 is about: whether the Bank is constitutional.”
“Thanks, Ohm.” The aforementioned hesitated before responding to Evan.
“I think you’ve earned the right to call me Ryan.” Evan’s mood perked up greatly at this, and stayed that way throughout the day.
CaRtOoNz was the last one who told Evan his birth name, and the reasoning behind the other names. Evan was sick, 101.3 F (38.5 C) fever and was bed ridden. Or more accurately, couch ridden so he could watch TV and play COD on the Xbox. Jon and Ryan both had classes, so it just left the mysterious CaRtOoNz to watch over him for the time being. Right now, he was working on coffee for himself and chicken noodle soup for Evan.
“How long do you think until Del gets home?” Evan asked. He promised Jon that he would only call him Jon in private. Same went for Ohm being called Ryan.
“Don’t know. Why? He your favorite?” CaRtOoNz asked straightforwardly, and Evan answered equally as straightforward.
“Yes.” He could hear coffee being spit out of Toonz’s mouth.
“You’re not supposed to have favorites. This is supposed an equal, poly relationship.”
“Like you’re one to talk. Pretty sure Ohm is your favorite.” Neither man spoke for a good few seconds.
“Keep talking like that and I’m not giving you your soup.” Toonz threatened.
“No, please?”
“Oh? Butt kissing now are we?”
“Only since you have threaten my food.” Evan whined, before starting to cough again. This always happened when he got too dehydrated, so he made sure to drink from the glass next to him. “Now can the dying man please have some of that chicken noodle soup? I can smell the Campbell Goodness from here?”
“I believe the correct phrasing is ‘Luke, can I please have some chicken noodle soup?’” Evan perked up at the last comment.
“That your real name?” He asked, still scared to move and see Toonz’s reaction.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Hey, I’ve meaning to ask as well, why do you guys hide behind fake names?”
“Well,” Luke began. “We were bullied, tossed around as kids because were the gay ones. Me and Del at least. So when we entered middle school, brand new one that we called each other by our online names and it just stuck. I actually met Ohm and developed a friendship with him online, so when we came together in person we never stopped calling him Ohm.”
“Why keep the names then? After all these years?”
“Names have power. And we made a pact that we’d only give names to those we trusted. That that power was never to be given to everyone to use as they please.” Evan smiled at the answer. Maybe he was part of this relationship after all.
“One more question.” He said, going back from trying to see over the couch to contently staring at the ceiling.
“Which is?”
“Why do I still not have chicken soup?”
~•~
Sorry it took so long, Anon! School and track, while I love them, can suck my nonexistent dick. Ugh, I felt like I had absolutely no time for breaks this week. But finally, a slightly longer poly fic to tide you over.
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All for the video game ask. (do I need to mention only if u r comfy w/ it at this point). Love you!!
alright u done done it now bitchhhhhhhh are u READY 4 THIS SHIT (dshfa;lkj thamk i am so pumped ur my biggest enabler) i already answered a couple of these for anon but i’ll go ahead and answer them here as well
1. First game you played obsessively?hmmmm i wanna say the legend of spyro the eternal night? i played it so much i could beat the whole game in four hours. i’ve heard lots of ppl actually hated the legend of spyro trilogy but honestly they can suck my ass i loved them
2. A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc.uh besides my answer for anon of skyrim not many games have actually just straight up influenced my art style but i’ve been playing this game called Fe (not fire emblem just Fe) and i really want to draw fanart for it bc it’s super cute if that Counts as influence?
3. Who did you play with as a kid?if this is meant in terms of co-op games nobody bc we didn’t have anyif just in general, my sister for the most part. i’d watch her play things like resident evil and she’d help me with the hard parts in medievil and crash bandicoot warped (read: racing levels)
4. Who do you play with now?myself lmao i don’t rly like co-op and multiplayer games and i prefer to play most games by myself
5. Ever use cheat codes?like i told anon, no bc i don’t know how they work and i’d probably only use them for the sims anyways
6. Ever buy strategy guides?not really? once we bought the collectors edition for diablo II when i was little and it included the strategy guide which i stayed up all night to read (bc i had run out of other reading materials in the house) but like i don’t really use them idk
7. Any games you have multiple copies of?the sims three and i know you know the reason why but in case anybody else wants to know: i didn’t know they had actually completely changed the game since i had played it last probably a decade ago so i bought it @ walmart this year and then i got mad bc it apparently SUCKS ASS now so in search of a copy of the original version i bought a second one from amazon bc the Image being used WAS of the original case but it really was the new version so now i have two SHITTY SHITTY VERSIONS of a game i used to love that i will never play bc it’s shit except maybe i will bc apparently it has real life music in it just replaced with sims language which is amazing and this response is far too long for the question but i asked u if u were ready so u signed up 4 thisi also have an xbox version of it tht i got for like christmas or smth years ago and a,,,,,, ds version??? that i got last year bc somebody was selling “the original version of the game including every expansion pack” for only like $30 and it definitely said disk version but when i got it it was this Pre-owned Dirty Ds Cartridge Covered In What Looked Like Strawberry Jelly and when i tried to contact them they shut their page down so there’s that which equals four shitty shitty copies of the sims three and i will never be more mad about anything than i am about this
8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection?uh well back when i had a job i spent A Lot of money (to me it was a lot) to get the collectors edition of the last guardian so that would be my most expensive. other than that i would have to say one of the hardest to find (maybe not rare but not common)games i have currently is medievil for ps1 bc it took me like a week of searching to find a copy in good condition online for sale bc i rly wanted to own it again since we had to sell all my old games when we moved to oregon which sucked bc we had a Bunch of cool games (mostly early ps era)
9. Most regrettable purchase?did you see my rant about the sims three for answer 7? yeah
10. Ever go to a midnight game release or stand in line for hours?never lived in an area where that is A Thing
11. Have you ever made new friends from playing video games?i wanna make a homestuck joke here (srsly probably not like i said i don’t rly do any type of co-op or multiplayer games so)
12. Ever get picked on for liking games?not really?? is that a Thing?
13. A game you’ve never played that everyone else has?uh idk literally any COD game, basketball games, Fallout games, overwatch, anything that’s co-op, shooter games or sports related etc idk i’m a simple fellow these types of games don’t appeal to me
14. Favorite game music?idk what this means? like genre-wise??? idk abt stuff like that i just like good game music but i’ll tell you the fuck what, hiveswap music fuckin SLAPPED
15. If it was a requirement to get a game related tattoo, what would you pick?fuck shit idk man i don’t rly want a tattoo maybe uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh smth that could be vague
16. Favorite game to play with your friends IRL?idk rip lmao
17. Ever lose a friend over a game?Nah man i can’t even imagine smth as dumb as that unless they’re screaming racist or sexist slurs bc then friendship is terminated but otherwise like wtf it’s just a game,,,
18. Would you date someone that hates gaming?i mean?????? sure????????????? they don’t have to game with me??????????? unless they tell me I can’t game bc they don’t like it in which case Bye u controlling piece of shit
19. Favorite handheld console?u kno those games that used to come in sonic happy meals? yah (jk uh i don’t have much experience w/ handheld consoles besides nintendo ds-es and they’re cool)
20. Game that you know like the back of your hand?like i said i played spyro the eternal night so often i could beat it in four hours so probably that one.
21. Game that you didn’t like or understand as a kid but love now?the only games i didn’t like as a kid i p much still don’t like now
22. Do you wear game related clothing/accessories?i am Poor
23. The game that you’ve logged the most hours into?currently skyrim or stardew valley
24. First Pokemon game?I didn’t get to play any pokemon games until this year actually but i got myself pokemon y and ultra sun so those are my first two! although you Could technically say pokemon go bc i played that for the first time like One month before i got y and ultra sun but like idk if tht counts so *shrug emoji*
25. Were you ever an arcade game player?i never lived where arcades were a thing tbh
26. Ever form any gaming rivalries?Why
27. Game that makes you rage?there’s this absolutely adorable and INFURIATING game called so many me that’s a puzzle platformer but the controls are so ridiculously precise that it’s absolutely the WORST to play bc unless you do it just right at just the right millisecond you will die over and over and over
28. Ever play in a tournament?nah
29. What is your gaming set up?the livingroom tv and my mom’s xbox one or my bedroom with my ps4 i got for my birthday and my xbox 360 that i got like 7 years ago
30. How many consoles do you own?alright so If ds-es count i own,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, roughly seven? i have my new ps4 i got for my birthday last year, my 7 year old xbox 360, another xbox 360 i bought from a kid @ school, a ps1 i bought last year for the Nostalgia that’s in rly good condition, a rly old ds lite a rly old 3ds and my new pokeball 2dsxl. i would also say that the ps3 my aunt left when she died is mine bc my mom never used it and she had bought most of the games For Me and Her to play together anyways so the idea that she left it to my mom is,,,, Weird but my mom claims it was left to her so Shrug emoji
31. Does the 3DS and/or Virtual Boy hurt your eyes or give you headaches?“virtual boy” i love it omg. uh not really i don’t use my ds-es that often bc i don’t have a just wild amount of games but when i do use them it doesn’t rly mess w/ my brain or eyes too much
32. Did you ever play a game based on your favorite show/cartoon/movie/comic?probably not?
33. Did you ever have any bootleg games or plug-n-play games?i don’t think so tbh
34. Do either of your parents play video games?my mom does but she really only plays like three games (the newest assassins creed, skyrim, and stardew valley)
35. Ever work in a game store? Or do you have a favorite game shop?nope
36. Have you ever shed actual blood, sweat or tears over a game?man have u ever heard of brotherhood a tale of two sons? mom told me abt it and she didn’t warn me abt how it ended and i had to leave the room and cry bc it broke my heart
37. Have you played E.T. for the Atari 2600? Do you think that’s the worst game ever, or do you have another nomination?i didn’t know that was a thing
38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like?i can’t think of any tbh. oh wait i take that back sonic unleashed it’s terrible but i love it
39. A sequel that you would die for them to make?maybe not a sequel but they rly need to come out with another stardew valley type thing or maybe expansions or smth so that you can talk to and befriend more ppl and stuff
40. What to you think of virtual reality headsets or motion controls?never been able to try them but they look super fun and i can’t wait to see how they improve the technology
41. A genre that you just can’t get into?multi-player games period. also first person shooters and sports games. there’s more but i can’t remember the title of the game bc i don’t know what genre it would be lmao
42. Maybe it wasn’t your first game, but what was the game that started you on your path to nerdiness?i assume this means game related nerdiness not just my inherent nerdiness in general so probably the very first spyro game
43. Ever play games when you really should have been concentrating on something else?all the time my dude
44. Arcade machine that has consumed the most of your quarters?none
45. How are you at Mario Kart?probably shit i’m not good @ steering in games
46. Do you like relaxing games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon?i love them! i have like 100+ hours logged into stardew valley and i only got it in like november of last year
47. Do you like competitive games?not really
48. How long does it take your to customize your player character?so long. i either have to make them gorgeous or beautifully hideous
49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go for the same type of character?yah tbh lmao. i have like eight thief stone khajits in skyrim rn
50. If you were a game designer, what masterpiece would you create?i have a Lot of ideas and not all of them are good
51. Have you ever played a game for so long that you forgot to eat or sleep?forgetting to sleep, yes. forgetting to eat? no 
52. A game that you begged your parents for as a kid?i was a very sheltered kid i didn’t know about new games coming out when i was little bc we didn’t have any way for me to find out About Them. i’m making up for it by begging as an adult for ni-no-kuni II and the new spyro trilogy remastered
53. What’s your opinion on DLC these days?depends on the game tbh some of it is good and a lot of ppl who make mods are rly talented but sometimes the big companies just make dlc to make more money so it can be rly shitty so it’s kinda a 50/50
54. Do you give in to Steam sales?heck yes rn i’m waiting for house flipper to go on sale bc i’ve been waiting for it to come out since i found out abt it
55. Did you ever make someone you hated in the Sims and did mean stuff to them?no my style of playing the sims was more along the lines of make a hundred houses that are all P Much The Same House and making a hundred familys and never playing literally any of them hadflskja;sdfjdslkhja i just liked building stuff and that’s why i’m pissed abt how much they changed the sims three bc it used to be Way Better
56. Did you ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon and kill off your guests?we didn’t have it but i did have zoo tycoon and i’d release the dinosaurs sometimes
57. Did you ever play a game to 100% or get all of the achievements?legend of spyro the eternal night
58. If you can only play 3 games for the rest of your life, which ones do you pick?uh!!! that’s too much pressure and i would get so bored playing them for the rest of my life even if i loved them so i will not choose
59. Do you play any cell phone games?sort of? i’m big into abyssrium and i like viridi if those Count?
60. Do you know the Konami Code???????????????????????? guess not
61. Do you trade in your games or keep them forever?keep them forever!
62. Ever buy a console specifically to play one game?i got the last guardian before getting the ps4 does that answer ur question? (jk that is not the only reason i wanted and got the ps4 but it was One big reason)
63. Ever go to a gaming convention or tournament? nah
64. Ever make a TV or monitor purchase based on what would be best for gaming?not really? i just use whatever i currently have bc i am lame
65. Ever have a Game Genie, Game Shark or Action Replay? Did it ever mess up your game’s save file?nope
66. Did you ever have have an old Nokia with Snake on it?not a nokia but we had this one handheld thing that had a bunch of games in it that included snake i just can’t remember what it was it had like letters and numbers and it needed like regular batteries and you could only play the games that came programmed on it 
67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?i cannot think of any right off the top of my head even though i know i played a lot of video games and loved them when i was little. hm it might not count as like a gaming-related childhood memory and more of just a memory of a game but we did have one really interesting little game that i absolutely loved i think we only rented it but u were a scientist who could turn into a mouse and it was absolutely amazing i loved it i have no idea what it was called hm
68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool?not really we didn’t have arcades around where i grew up
69. In your opinion, best game ever made? there are a lot of rly good ones i can’t choose a best game
70. Very first game you ever beat? like i told anon i’m p sure it was crash bandicoot warped
WHEW this was rly fun thank u for enabling me it took me like two hours to answer this i’m so happy. ilu 2 man hope ur day has been rad!
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geek-gem · 7 years ago
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Well had to click on this part three times. Almost put so first but....no title and this is gonna be a weird post. Yet one that's interesting. Including I felt more inspired when walking towards this Target I'm in after I ate at Round Table now having a small popcorn worth a large Dr. Pepper.
But the thought process was what surprises me out of all the fandoms or franchises that would be on my blog....is Call Of Duty.
Be please warned. In a way this is me talking about my thoughts on the series and in a weird way shitting on it yet also liking it. I didn't wanna say praise but I'm gonna get to the point.
Basically and remembering it's surprising seeing this or having this kind of franchise on my blog. Including how the reception seems mixed at times. Along with remember their are at times I feel like with all the cartoons my blog I feel could be considered a lover of video games. Including reblogging ones of games I've haven't played or have played.
Yet Call Of Duty seems surprising because it's a franchise at this point when it became even more of a juggernaut it is today or some what. I wanted to talk about this in a way a video or just speaking of it. Because of the popularity and success of games like the Modern Warfare series and even Treyarch's game like World At War but Black Ops was probably their biggest money maker.
Because and I remember searching up reasons but didn't find much on Google of why was Black Ops so hyped. Yet when it makes sense, it came a year after Modern Warfare 2 a very big release for the franchise. Also the concept and other things possibly of the game talking place during the cold war and the whole Black Ops angle. Also I guess that marketing too because I remember I don't know what movie yet even a trailer was appearing in some movies trailers on dvd.
Because of how so successful the series had become and still going. The popularity of realistic type shooters like Call Of Duty was horzioning over other games that took a different approach. Including thenl affect it seemed to have an affect on the industry had to Google or look in the search bar for that word.
Is that also just put affect it seriously did that. Where now these days Call Of Duty is considered and stereotyped in a way and is basically one of the biggest video game entertainnent franchises in the world now.
Including surprisingly months ago remembering I found out Call Of Duty mainly Modern Warfare 1 was the game that basically destroyed Halo in a way or become that one big shooter everyone needs to look out for. Basically being quote on quote the supposed Halo killer I had talked about in other posts before.
I should get to the point sorry. Call Of Duty over the years became a fucking juggernaut in the video game industry and at first it seemed very okay maybe. But over time people have gotten tired of it and now they look at the franchise in a different light because when other first person shooters want to be different, they don't want to be Call Of Duty.
Along with I think I have admitted this on here and even in real life. Is that Call Of Duty basically what M3RKMUS1C has said is an arcade shooter forgot which video. He talks about Battlefield and Counter Strike too.
It's an arcade shooter that anyone could pick up and play.
What I've said and the shitting on part.
It's for I think in a way the words fifthly fucking causals. It's in a way a casual shooter compared to the likes of Doom, Battlefield, Halo, Titanfall, or any others.
Unless played on higher difficulties and people can get very skilled on that game and it's amazing. It's basically a casuals game.
Yet it's interesting why I like it.
Let me tell your this. Theirs nothing like with liking a series like Call Of Duty. While the franchise continues in new games I'm still so interested in games like the Modern Warfare series, World At War, Black Ops 1, haven't played Black Ops 2 in a long time, and other shit. Even Ghosts which at first I really despised but over time realized I think I was a bit harsh and this the game is pretty alright.
Including I have played games like the first two. Along with I feel I should share and mainly okay got a message from a friend I'm gonna mention in here. But learned this from The Act Man of how the original Call Of Duty games were made in the honor of world war 2 vetarans.
I know I don't mention 3 because that isn't on Steam and worried it's Xbox 360 exclusive only or some other shit.
It makes me think of how far the series has come. Honestly it's not a bad thing. That it went out of it's routes to do new things. I've mentioned Modern Warfare 1 and 2 are in a tie as my favorite Call Of Duty games of all time. With World At War in 2nd or whatever 3rd because those two games are a tie. But on Friday night I finished Black Ops 1 and it was really late at night and my feelings towards that game are a lot more positive.
Including on a random note. While the multiplayer could be fun. I always prefered the campigan. Along with that was the original purpose and I feel that with the games from I'm gonna count the first years 2003 to 2012. But 2013 I don't wanna be rude and my mom just texted she fed Jojo our dog. Yet okay the campigan for Ghosts was alright.
Really it's the characters and stories that always got me to remember the games. Mostly the campigans including another reason this was before getting the likes of PlayStation Network and having my own gaming computer.
I'm sorry if I'm rambling. Yet again theirs nothing wrong with in a way a weird more causal had to fix casuals in the fifthly fucking casuals part. Including we're in a era of games where we ask for more detail. Such as open world games, more creative games, and so much detail it's crazy. Including customizing shit and stuff.
I'll be honest on Friday when seeing my friend before I went to the movies. In my post about Pacific Rim Uprising and I went there to return his water bottle or whatever to him. I watched him play Dragon Age Inquisition had to check three times on that word in the Google search Inquisition and I think he finished the final part of the game and he told he's been through other epilogues.
But God damn that was....a lot to me thinking of....it's this epilogue shit and it's by Bioware and even EA I don't say much nice things of EA. Yet my friend telling me of the game and this...so many choices. It felt weirdly a lot for me because I'm so used to a bit more simpler stuff. Or just the idea I play games where you don't make choices most of the time or just your playing a story where you don't choose the outcome or whatever. I remember now the word is.... overwhelming.
Honestly sorry to be repeative. But theirs nothing wrong with liking games like Call Of Duty because they do offer some unique things. Just remember theirs other games sorry to sound rude but other games that deliver other experiences. Exuse me burp in mouth, and wanna know something. Including I've talked about this before.
It's interesting I came back to the franchise because when up in the snow in the mountains for three days before I was brought back home for the week to be by myself. The only game I played on my brothers PlayStation 4 was Black Ops 3. Including playing that over and over made me realize some stuff.
Along with I was going through something where I was disliking the COD franchise or something and leaning towards to games like Doom, Titanfall, and other forms of games. But when playing Black Ops 3 and trying to be fast and use a shotgun like Doomguy and just other ways of making it seem like Doom 2016. Yeah I remembered some things I guess. While I've talked about it in my getting back at home post.
While I have said Doom in a way changed my life and how I see first person shooters. I do remember of how I feel the COD franchise might of been the one for me to appreciate first person shooters and how certain games like Modern Warfare 2 honestly influenced me as a person and other shit. Basically in fiction.
I just find it awesome and have called her friend and seems like we are it's nice to have someone like @simonxriley in this fandom to talk about all sorts of crap in this franchise whether it's characters we like, stupid jokes, or praise the hell out of things or other shit
So here's to just hoping Black Ops 4 is a good one like the others.
Tags done just sorry difficult because of ticks whatever
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supercultshow · 5 years ago
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Howdy all you Supercultists out there on the interwebz! I’m Bad Movie Professor Cameron Coker (BS in “Bat Nipples” with a minor in “Ice Puns”) and I’ll be posting my hype-tacular speeches every week along with some long lost speeches from past Supercult Shows!
This week winter has come at last to Supercult in the form of one of the greatest cinematic blunders in all of history: Batman and Robin!
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Batman and Robin are back in the fourth film in the Batman superhero series and the second film in the series directed by Joel Schumacher. George Clooney stars as Bruce Wayne/Batman while Chris O’Donnell and Michael Gough return as Dick Grayson/Robin and Alfred Pennyworth, respectively. The dynamic duo are back to protect Gotham City from villainy, but when the cold-hearted Mr. Freeze and the enticingly toxic Poison Ivy attack tensions rise between the two heroes. Can the Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder resolve their differences and save the city from certain destruction? Strength Now. Courage Always. Family, Above All. Batman & Robin!
As of 2019, this is the first and only appearance of Batgirl in a live-action Batman feature film.
According to a makeup artist, Arnold had potentially deadly costume effects. The battery for the LED lights in his mouth would start to dissolve in his saliva and leak battery acid into his mouth.
“Curses!” -an actual line from this already silly film.
Michael Gough: one of the only person to survive all 4 original Batman films (the other being Pat Hingle who played Commissioner Gordon). What a bad ass.
Someone please tell me how all these diamonds somehow combine into a fuel source for a freeze laser.
George Clooney and his stunt doubles went through 50 rubber Batsuits.
After the film’s negative reception, plans for Tim Burton’s “Superman Lives” have been shut down. The movie would’ve been a first attempt to have a shared universe between Batman and Superman, with George Clooney reprising his role as Batman, and with Nicolas Cage as Superman.
Is this a miniature? Is this an overly indulgent set? Does the audience care?? Do the ACTORS??
You want to have plants take over the earth and I want to freeze the planet. Sounds like we should work together!
Two Words: Bat Nips.
This gang is apparently called the Golums, but we all know they’re really called the ‘We Love Neon and Blacklight Club’.
The Batman costume was a 50 lbs. (22.6 kg.) rubber body suit with a 40 lb. rubber cape attached to the headpiece. Batgirl’s and Robin’s costumes weighed 50 lbs each. Mr. Freeze’s weighed 75 lbs.
Oh Bane…it would take 15 years before films did you justice.
I mean, yeah, this movie is bad. But Arnold looks pretty snazzy in his polar bear slippers.
Did we mention that Coolio is in this film? Well…he is. It doesn’t make the film any better or worse. It’s just…a thing that is.
From the opening frames of this film you know it’s going to be a treat. The foam latex laden suit-up scene seems to linger just a bit too long on expertly modeled bird buttocks, bat nipples, and caped crusader cod pieces. The opening would fit just as well in a high-budget Batman burlesque show. Oh, how optimistic the 90s were. The original Batman directed by Tim Burton seemed like such a long shot and paid off spectacularly. Burton discarded the camp of the 1960s Adam West TV series and adapted the atmospheric gothic noir of the 1940s…which is apparently an era when Batman couldn’t turn his head and has no problem with just straight up murdering people. Tim Burton’s version of batman was so iconic that it defined the tone, color, music, and even dialogue choices for the entire character for the next 2 decades. The next three sequels, Batman Returns and Batman Forever, stuck to the formula of the 1989 original for the most part. In each the level of camp was slowly cranked up:
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Batman Returns: Let’s take up half the Warner Brothers lot with expansive water-filled Gotham City sets! Let’s focus even more on the villains and really hammer home the tragedy and the childhood pain festering into megalomania! Not only that, let’s have TWO villains instead of just one! Let’s get a combination of real penguins, actors in fiberglass penguin suits, and puppets for the villain’s evil missile-toting penguin army! DID I MENTION THE PENGUIN ARMY??
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Batman Forever: They liked the two-villain thing, so let’s do that again. We’ll get another two actors at the top of their game to play ridiculous, over-the-top, gothic cartoon characters! Let’s go with Tommy Lee Jones, still riding off the high of his starring role in the Fugitive, and then Jim Carrey at his comedic height just a year after the release of not one but three of his most iconic films: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber! Oh yeah and let’s swap out the director, the lead, the love interest, and paint the whole film in neon. These things aren’t meant to be dark, gritty, adult films! They’re comic book films for god’s sakes! We gotta sell toys to kids!
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But here’s the thing Supercultists: If you’re going to be this campy you have to be either funny or endearing. Carrey carried Batman Forever and killed it as a genuinely funny and threatening adaptation of the Riddler. Danny DeVito, in his own gruesome way, made us feel for a Batman villain in a way that the batman animated series later sought to emulate with their reimagining of Mr. Freeze and the creation of Harley Quinn.
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So, what happened? Was it overindulgence? Sure, scenes are campier and there are now not 2 but 3 villains: Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and a neutered version of Bane who serves as a glorified mook for Ivy. Perhaps the concept of pushing the art style even further strained the bounds of reality? Sure, Gotham was larger than life in 19889, but the 1997 version has gigantic futurist statues holding up the buildings as if Gotham was constructed on the corpses of a race of colossi. Perhaps the film lost some of the comedic charm of its predecessors. At last count Mr. Freeze utters something like 27 ice puns throughout the film and at times it can be difficult to discern whether or not the film is being ridiculous on purpose. The opening fight scene looks like Batman on Ice with the heroes literally clicking their heels together to activate ice skate boots.
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Perhaps the problem is higher up than that… Was it the studio pressure to make the film more “toyetic”? The film’s design seems catered to the toy market with every character having a wacky light-up vehicle, set piece, or gadget that could function as an action figure. Batman’s new car features a transparent hood so that audiences can see the colorful spinning bat-engine as if hypnotizing children and adults alike into emptying their wallets at the nearest department store this Christmas. For crying out loud Poison Ivy even has a line “I’m a lover, not a fighter That’s why every Poison Ivy action figure comes complete with him!” *points to Bane* Perhaps it was simply cost? In their bid to get even more top-billed Hollywood names for the latest and greatest (read: only, unless you count things like Spawn) comic book film, Arnold Schwarzenegger was reputed to have earned $25 million for his approximate 25 minute on-screen role as Mr. Freeze, basically a million a minute. Not to mention Uma Thurman, the poster girl for Pulp Fiction, and the, at the time, up and coming George Clooney.
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The whole film cost an estimated $125 million and was a modest commercial success but was a spectacular critical flop. With a 3.7 on IMDB and an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s no surprise that the film killed the batman film series and nearly killed the entire superhero film genre. The film was voted #1 in Empire magazine’s “50 Worst Movies Ever”, #5 in Entertainment Weekly’s Top 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made, and won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress for Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl (as well as 10 other Razzie nominations for everything from Worst Picture and Worst Director to Worst Screen Couple and Worst Original Song). Not Joel Schumacher or George Clooney defend the film anymore. When filming was over, George Clooney reportedly quipped, “I think we just killed the series.” He’s even been known to refund people who saw the film and has called the film a “waste of money” in spite of his admittance that it was the biggest break he ever had as a then TV star making the jump to Hollywood.
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But we here at Supercult know it’s not the worst film (we’ve seen A LOT worse). At the very least it’s entertaining at times, hilarious at others, and always a feast for the eyes. Even now we can see the 90s superhero film influence on modern pop culture. The next few superhero films such as Sam Rami’s Spider-Man series still attempted to recreate the earnest wackiness of Tim Burton’s series while attempting to avoid the cautionary tale of Batman and Robin. Grittier remakes of batman still pay homage to Tim Burton’s Batman in their aesthetics, their music, and their tone.
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Batman and Robin may be the worst batman film ever, but that makes it the best Supercult Batman film ever, bat nipples and all.
This is why Superman works alone! The Supercult show is proud to present Batman and Robin!
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    Batman & Robin Howdy all you Supercultists out there on the interwebz! I’m Bad Movie Professor Cameron Coker (BS in “Bat Nipples” with a minor in “Ice Puns”) and I’ll be posting my hype-tacular speeches every week along with some long lost speeches from past Supercult Shows!
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