#I have no idea what the layout of Arkham is supposed to be

[ailithnight]

*Whoops. Forgot to title and link previous chapters. Fight me, I just woke up.

A King in Arkham

Chapter 3

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

"Tim. Tim you have to get me copies of this footage." Tim is not surprised by the request. In fact, the 'Sure' is already on his tongue when he pauses, a thought creeping into his head, seeded by the notification Tim really hopes Jason isn't paying attention to in the bottom corner of the computer.

"One condition."

"Fuck you, I knew you'd want something. What? You want my cookies? Coffee? For Red Hood to go on camera singing praises for Red Robin? I'll fuckin do it. Just send me the god damn clips."

"Nope, nope, and tempting, but no."

"Name your price, Replacement. I'll pay it."

"Swear you aren't going to go rush in and extract the kid until we're done investigating him."

"What!? Fuck that! I told you was pulling him out next chance I get!" Tim lets himself groan in annoyance.

"Look, anyone that could do that-" Tim gestures to the part of the screen where they'd pulled up The Joker's medical reports following the incidents, showing pictures and descriptions of just how thoroughly Daniel had beat his ass 3 weeks in a row, "without getting so much as a scratch or fucking bruise in return, has got something going on. There may well be a reason they sent him to Arkham!"

Jason's eyes narrow at Tim as he all but growls, "No reason is good enough to put-"

"A fifteen year old in Arkham. I fucking know that, Hood. But we still need to know exactly who we're dealing with when we get him out. What his deal is. If his dangerous. What the hell was so wrong with him that someone thought it was a good idea to stick him in there to begin with."

"He could get hurt while we're sitting on our asses trying to satisfy fuckin Bat paranoia!"

"He took down the Joker! Clearly he can take care of himself."

"Then who has been hurting him!?"

"Maybe him fucking self!" Tim knew he was pushing it. The green growing stronger in Jason's eyes was proof. But he needed to buy them some time before Jason made thing exponentially harder by storming the castle. Still, now he needed to calm Jason down before he went into a full rage. So Tim held up his hands placatingly.

"A few days, Jay. Just give us a few more days. I'm already almost through the Arkham reports, and there are only a handful from Chicago and Oracle is probably going to announce any minute now that she got through the communications blackout around his home town. We just need a bit more time to sort out intel so that we actually know how to help him once we get him out."

Finally, after a tense 34 seconds, green fades back into blue and Jason let's out a heavy sigh.

"Fine. But I get to tell the Bat about Daniel's discipline slips. Wanna see his fuckin face when I do."

"Deal." Tim hurriedly puts a comm in as Jason watches with narrowed eyes.

Batman.

Red Robin. Ready to fill me in?

Not yet, you're about to be busy. I isolated a pattern earlier. Exactly 15 minutes before the locks malfunction, there's been a strange power surge. Always written off. But the surge doesn't seem to be coming from the grid. And like I said, exactly 15 minutes later is when the locks malfunction.

Jason huffs as he catches on. Apparently he hadn't thought to question why Tim was so desperate to buy time before.

Robin responds, since he's on stakeout with Bruce. Mostly because Bruce won't let him watch the asylum alone. Much as the kid hates it, the rest of the family agrees. It's only a matter of time before someone in max security manages to take advantage of theses malfunctions. So far Croc is the only one who had, though thankfully he's not one to start shit on his own. But with Joker, Scarecrow, and TwoFace all inside; any one of them, or god forbid all three, could make for a real bad situation.

Tt. So you can tell before a malfunction happens.

Think so. Last power surge was 8 minutes ago.

And you are only telling us now, why Drake?

Codenames.

Cause he spent those 8 convincing me not to go get our kid out yet.

6 minutes. See if you can stop things before they start.

I'm not far out. Want me to join you?

Tt. I doubt we'll need your assistance, Signal. We shall be done before you get here.

No wait. Signal, head in. See if you can get a read on 26B.

You think he might be meta?

Hood?

Jason glares at Tim betrayed.

"I wanted to see his fuckin face."

Tim just waves him off.

"They need to know. You tell them or I do."

Boys

Jason scowls, but relents.

He put the Joker in the infirmary on his 1st, 7th, and 15th days there. All 3 times took no damage himself. Feral child had to be pulled off and still didn't stop struggling till the clown was out of sight.

All 3 assaults followed by panic attacks, though whether about the Joker himself or what Daniel had done to him, we don't know yet.

The comms were silent for a moment.

A 15 year old...

Did what you've never had the balls to old man.

...I've fought the Joker.

Daniel hits first.

Hnn

I will admit, it is impressive that he can take the Joker down alone. Perhaps he will make for a worthy brother after all.

4 minutes.

We're moving in. Thank you Red Robin, Hood.

The fuck are you thanking me for?

For helping. And giving us time to work this out.

ETA 7 minutes out. Be with you shortly.

.

The advanced warning proved invaluable for Batman and Robin. After alerting the chief of security of their supposed pattern, he had guards already in motion when the doors swung open. Batman took a perch to watch for max security escapees while Robin assisted the guards in keeping inmates corralled. Many didn't even bother to leave their designated areas, having already seen the Bats in the building.

No sign of any max security inmates. Normally, Batman would find this concerning. And while he did file it away to ponder later why no one from max security ever seemed to make it out of that wing, for today he counted the blessing that he would not have to try to keep Robin safe while dealing with someone like the Joker.

Batman tracked motion through the crowds, watching as a black mop of hair moved, seemingly otherwise unnoticed, through the sea of people. He thought to move in to direct the person back towards where people were being herded to, but the small figure merely walked towards the B wing and entered one of the far cells. That gave Bruce a sneaking suspicion of which patient that was. He moved to get a closer look as Signal swooped in.

"Where is he?"

"I believe he just went into his cell. This way." Batman led Signal to the cell he'd seen that tiny person enter. It was indeed 26B and there was indeed a small, too small, frail looking boy lying on the bed there. A red blotch had appeared under his left eye even though Bruce was certain there had been no injury there as the boy had crossed the hall.

Signal froze beside him, breath stuttering. The boy briefly glanced at them through the corner of his eye, mouth twitching into a brief frown. Then his eyes turned back to the ceiling and his face smoothed out. Bruce couldn't help but reach out.

"Hello." The boy said nothing. Signal opened and closed his mouth, seeming to try to say something, but unable to get words out. Batman wondered what he must be seeing. "You seem hurt. Do you need help?" Eyes flickered back to him and away just as quickly.

"Nothing you can help with Mr. Batman." And oh, how Bruce hated the kid's voice. So quiet and so so hollow. Bruce's mind flashed to his children, imagining any them speaking with such emptiness. His heart clenched, wondering what could have happened to this boy to have snuffed the life out of him so young.

Duke found his voice again, just as the doors buzzed and swung shut again.

"What are you?" Bruce frowned, looking at his latest. Who was looking, as Bruce tracked his gaze, not at Daniel but at the space just above him. Daniel himself seemed to take interest all of a sudden, breaking away his upward gaze to roll his head and look at them. Confusion plain on his face, the first hint of life shining dimly in his eyes.

"Signal? Signal, what do you see?" Batman asked. Robin materialized beside them. The daytime hero stepped forward, then back, light sparking and fizzling around his fingertips.

"There's something in there with him."

Daniel looked back up, where Signal still had his gazed trained on something Batman couldn't see. Even Robin seemed confused, though he no doubt trusted Signal's meta sight.

"Don't worry," Daniel murmured, "S'just a ghost. She can't hurt you."

This 'ghost' seemed unhappy either with the teen's words or this turn of events. Daniel's head snapped back to the side again, causing Batman and Signal to wince while Robin watched stoically. 4 red scratches appeared on Daniel's right cheek, as though he had been backhanded by someone with clawlike nails. A light chill brushed through him and Signal tensed, then relaxed, his gaze finally turning from the emptiness above Daniel to the boy himself. Batman took that as a sign that the... entity, was gone.

Daniel did not react to the obvious abuse from an invisible assailant. He mechanically turned his head back, once more dead and glazed eyes returning to the cracks in the ceiling of his cell. "You should go now. The guards will come around soon to make sure I'm still here."

Bruce wanted so badly to say 'Don't worry, we'll get you out of here.' But Batman was more restrained than that. He would get the child out. But he would have a plan first. For now, Bruce placed a hand each on the shoulders of Duke and Damien, guiding them away. Only when they were back outside did Bruce let them go. Only when they were perched on a rooftop half a block away did Batman pause.

"Robin, report."

"No escaped inmates and no sign of any from maximum security."

"Good. Signal, any information on what you saw in there." Duke rubbed at his eyes.

"A ghost, I guess? I don't know. It was weird. She didn't really have an aura. It was more like, an absence of aura. Like she was a black hole, drawing all the light in."

Even behind the domino, Bruce could tell Damien rolled his eyes.

"And what of the patient, Thomas? Was he not the one you were sent to look at?" Batman bit back the reprimand for codenames, more interested in Signal's response. Signal seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head.

"He definitely had a pretty distinct aura. It... felt powerful. But it looked weak. Dim. When the ghost... struck him, it flared up a bit, but died back down almost instantly. I... I get the feeling he was holding it back. Almost like he was afraid of it. Of himself."

"Hnn. Good job Signal. Robin. You two are welcome to head back to the cave. I'll take the rest of this Arkham shift."

At that moment, the comms crackled to life.

Actually B, you may want to come in, also. Arkham should be fine. And I found why they sent the kid there.

[signed-yours-truly-the-whale]

Thoughts/Observations on Joker, part 1

AKA I Spent 7 Hours on This, I Will Die if it Gets Less Than Three Notes

I could rave for hours about this movie’s cinematography. Literal hours.

Nobody talks enough about Arthur’s full-fledged dedication to his clown craft. Man is working 60+ hours a week and does not break a sweat. I also fucking love this clowny face he pulls here. The first shot we see of Arthur in full. Holy shit is it beautiful. God bless Joaquin Phoenix.

These two shots together are incredibly important to me. In a split-second we see Arthur’s disbelief that he cannot control the whirlwind of emotions inside of his own head, not even being able to produce a smile, and then his resignation because it’s just another day. Heartbreaking.

Awwww shiiiiit

Gotham City is such a dump but I’d be bullshitting myself if I said I didn’t love the grimy aesthetic of it. It’s technicolor trash.

Arthur loves his job so much. He genuinely enjoys being Carnival. That hurts a lot to think about in hindsight.

This man just got his ass handed to him and he is STILL SPRAYING THE FAKE FLOWER ON HIS VEST

YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT DEDICATION

This opening card is so imposing. Not only does it take up the entire screen to the point of running off the edges, but it’s shielding Arthur from view. Arthur is invisible in light of Joker in Arthur’s own movie.

I screenshotted this by accident but I felt a need to put it here because he’s just so adorable. Even right before an episode.

E y e s s s s s

E Y E S S S S S

I desperately want to know what got Arthur sent to Arkham the first time. A suicide attempt? A public breakdown? I really want fanfics of it.

There’s a really, really good fanfiction on AO3 by Arthur_Fleck about Arthur slowly recovering and meeting a girl called In the Major and Minor Arcana

I highly, highly recommend it

Okay. Joaquin’s immersion into his characters -- all of them -- is absolutely incredible. But Arthur is just ... off the charts, man. No two of his characters are the same and he embeds himself so deeply in their skin, but Joaquin buried himself so deeply into Arthur’s brain that it is so hard for me to see any of Joaquin at all. God, he’s incredible and this shot makes me emotional because this just is Arthur.

ARTHUR WOULD BE A GREAT DAD AND I DO NOT ACCEPT ARGUMENTS

It really speaks to how shitty Gotham is that this man is having a full-fledged screaming/laughing breakdown on the bus and nobody is batting an eye

I adore how the cinematography paints Arthur as so small to his own environment. He’s a speck of dust. A fleck.

Babie is wincing :((((

I have been trying to figure out the layout of this apartment for months and my inability to, even with a floor plan, is driving me insane

I just found out that the Budweiser beer jingle Here Comes the King is on the soundtrack and plays when Arthur comes home and that made me go feral

I  A M  M U R R A Y , K I N G  O F  A S S H O L E S

It is second nature for me to do this stupid pose every time I watch this scene

Arthur blending into the crowd here makes me ... so happy. He looks so happy.

This is Arthur’s best laugh of the movie, fuck you. I am incredulous that I was the only person laughing when I saw this in the theater opening night.

This is one of the few moments I really see Joaquin shine through Arthur. I don’t know why, but this lighting and his voice and his intensity gives me visceral flashbacks to watching a little boy Joaquin in Parenthood. God, I love this man.

It really is a testament to Penny’s (lack of) parenting that Arthur is day dreaming about receiving affection and validation from a parent figure when his own mother is literally right there

GOD DAMN THIS MAN IS GORGEOUS

But also big bruise :(

Yes, I shall trust you, man named Randall smiling down at me in low angle light

Why was Hoyt not informed that Arthur got his ass beat on the job? As Arthur’s employer he should’ve literally been the first person to know so he could make a note of it. Either he wasn’t told or he gave so little of a fuck that his consciousness astral projected to another plane of existence while he shoved the white powder down his throat and forgot Arthur existed at all.

Literally fuck Hoyt. I hate him even more that his office is the coolest shit in the world

ARTHUR KNOWS THE CUSTOMER SERVICE SMILE

Joaquin dislocated his knee in this scene, the poor boy

I could write a full damn essay about why the misleading advertising of Sophie as a prominent character was the greatest twist of the whole movie. Literally I am still speechless how the movie did that.

I am not kidding when I say my sister has this same color scheme in the bathroom of our house and realizing that made me werewolf

Also Arthur being the son Penny doesn’t deserve warms and breaks my heart

The complete lack of reaction to Penny’s “Don’t you have to be funny to be a comedian” makes me laugh and cry internally

This shot? Gorgeous. His face? Deadly. That jawline? Cutting diamonds. Hotel? Trivago.

I really, really want a Joker 2, but at the same time I do not want a Joker 2 because Joaquin Phoenix has a baby who needs him now and he cannot be pulling shit like losing 52 lbs for a role

Also I REALLY need to discuss how much this brass ballet reminds me so heavily of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Holy fuck, I got actually chills in the theater

Like holy fuck

And then this shot reminds me so heavily of the opening of Fedddy vs Jason with Freddy Krueger laughing over his newspaper collage of missing children. Holy fuck I love this cinematography.

Guys. G - Guys, his name tag says Dr. Carnival, can you hear me  s o b b i n g

This part is so Chaplinesque, the way he slides the gun into his coat again

These children look so afraid of him for dropping the gun and wowie, does that really hurt

Was this asshole supposed to be modeled after Eric Trump? Because I get really douchebaggy Eric Trump vibes (minus the jacked teeth) from this ringleader

I don’t have much to say here except I am in love with the way Artie’s hair sticks straight up in bottle curls when the clown wig slides off

Also if you decide it’s a good idea to mess with a man dressed as a clown laughing maniacally on the subway of one of the most dangerous cities in the world, you are asking him to shoot you and I will not feel sorry for you

I will never not be in love with this image. I fell in love with it in the teaser trailer and almost went feral in the middle of the mall when I saw this was the poster they used to advertise the movie with. My friend described this movie as “chaos, beautified,” and nothing sums it up as well as this picture.

JOAQUIN AND TODD MADE THIS ENTIRE SEQUENCE UP AND I AM IN LOVE

Hello, handsome

[charlottetomsfmp2]

Dave Mckean Comic Illustration:

Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth:

- What about the novel drew me in?

The novel follows batman and his interactions with his archenemies within the walls of Arkham Asylum. Keeping with the theme of insanity and mayhem, the art style of the graphic novel is quite hectic and all over the place. Some panels depict overexposed illustrations of the joker in a crazed poses and others show more detailed and gruesome scenes of the villains in action causing trouble. This effect drew me to the novel because of my fascination with gritty themes in comics and the creepy characters that go along with them. I find that this is a very clever tool in linking the illustration and story together by alluding to the  madness of the location, characters and their circumstances throughout the novel to keep the reader on their toes and expecting the unexpected.

Black Orchid:

- What about the novel drew me in?

There is a lot of contrast in the novel between the background and the characters. In an attempt to draw more attention to the characters and events in the novel the artist leaves less detail in the surrounding location and uses highly detailed features and bright colours across the characters face to emphasises the importance of pivotal moments in novel of important feelings the subject may have. Something about this technique is very effective and interests me as a possible concept for my final comic book draft. Personally, I think that the most important aspect of a graphic novel is the movement of the character and the  effectiveness of their emotions when portrayed on paper.

Sandman:

- What about the novel drew me in?

The panel layouts are very interesting and dynamic which is something I desperately need to work on in my own comic. However, I have an issue with the piece about, as I find it far too difficult to read which is the complete opposite point of the purpose of a graphic novel or comic book. Because they are intended for easy reading, I think that although the layout looks superb from an artistic perspective, the page as a whole is far too muddled and would be complex to read if tackled by someone with reading difficulty. After looking at the novel I have determined that although the artwork and panel layout looks lovely it is far too busy. This has helped me to understand what I look for in a graphic novel and how I may approach my own book after looking at Dave McKean’s artwork.

 Cages:

- What about the novel drew me in?

Cages is an interesting contrast to other illustration pieces by Dave McKean as it is drawn in black, grey and white, whereas his other comics have been in full colour. The comic follows characters living in the same apartment building and how their lives intertwine and effect one another's in unforeseeable ways. I think that this is a fun twist for McKean as he usually looks at semi-mystical themes in his graphic novels and so a more relatable story of ‘real people’ and their lives and how they mysteriously interlock and relate to the struggles of one another.

- Dave McKean art styles overall:

I found it very interesting to discover the array of art styles McKean uses in his various novels and how that are used with intention and purpose within each book. Cages is very rough and blocky because it is supposed to portray an unfiltered view into the lives of people, whereas Sandman is very detailed and mystical looking. Using dynamic panel layouts to contribute to the idea of riches, and how time interlocks with all things and his beyond any of our understanding. (the panels branch off like a wise tree, which is why I inferred the previous comments.

- How might I use this to further my work?

After looking at the outcomes of illustrator Dave McKean, I have identified elements of his artwork that I will not be including in my own comic. Dizzyingly busy panel layouts and blocky colour techniques. Looking at the illustrations made for Arkham Asylum and Black Orchid I have decided that I want for my artwork to be detailed and dynamic with small breadcrumb like clues that subtly imply elements of my characters personality and their backstory. Looking at if they are a traveler and how to hint at this without mentioning the word, are they a professional knife thrower? What elements of their costume hint at their backstory and why.

Website Links:

https://www.davemckean.com/

[fordarkisthesuede]

At the Brink of Midnight - Chapter 2

Sorry for the delay! I had some things to work out, Arkham;s layout among them...

<Previous> <Next> <All>

Important Spoiler Warning:  canon-typical ableism

(Read on Ao3 or continue below cut)

Chapter 2:  The Lines In-Between

Bruce had gotten used to driving up to Arkham’s squeaky iron gates and waiting patiently for his visitor call to go through the recently-upgraded intercom, but he had to admit it still felt strange to look at the place up close. It was tall and dark, with the spires and slanted roofs reminiscent of some kind of gothic mansion rather than a mental hospital. Many of the older buildings in Gotham seemed like it, with their gargoyles and weather-worn stonework, always giving the rest of the city the sort of grim storybook atmosphere despite the varying designs of the skyscrapers and apartments and storefronts.

Bruce knew he should have been used to seeing it, considering he had been visiting it multiple times a week for seven months, but somehow it always felt like he was going to a different plane of existence. It was a very different world inside, after all…

Like Gotham’s architecture, the cars in the lot behind the building varied in their states of wear and style and year, but somehow it all looked right, even with Bruce’s black Maserati Gran Turismo parked in the corner. He passed by a beaten Saab with what looked like several bullet holes in the passenger door and a plastic bag covering the window and felt guilt start to gnaw at him.

Crime rates had gone up since he hung up the cowl.

He knew one man couldn’t save the city. He knew the GCPD were better equipped, and knew that Gordon’s recent reinstatement as Commissioner was helping, albeit slowly.

It didn’t stop him second-guessing himself.

Bruce had to walk around to the front of the building to get to the entrance; what was once dull and – quite frankly – creepy was now more polished and bright. The electrical system had been difficult to upgrade, but the result had been worth it. The asylum was looking more like a proper institution every week.

The receptionist was talking with a young red-headed woman in a white lab coat. Bruce took a second to recognize her – the young doctor-in-training from last time he’d tried to visit John. She’d apparently decided to cut half of her hair off in the meantime, leaving it in a short bob.

“Good evening, Mr. Wayne. I.D. and signature please,” the receptionist said mid-sentence into her conversation with the trainee, sliding the clipboard towards Bruce, “-so I said, ‘Honey, you know I’ve seen crazier things at work!’”

The trainee gave a short laugh; it sounded like one of those polite ones that always seemed to signify the end of particular conversations at parties. “Oh, I bet he shut up after that…”

“He did, he did,” Deborah Flint replied, flashing a smile up at Bruce as she glanced over his I.D. “You’re just here to see Dr. Thompson today, Mr. Wayne?”

“I think I can wrap the meeting up with him before visiting hours are over – I’d like to see John afterwards, if that’s alright.” Bruce didn’t miss the appreciative once-over the trainee next to him was giving him, but decided to ignore it.

“I’ll have to check over the patient notes I got this afternoon to see if that’s clear.” Mrs. Flint squinted at her monitor. “That’s strange, Dr. Thompson’s schedule says he should be finishing up with a therapy session upstairs in a bit… Miss Lant, can you escort Mr. Wayne there?”

The trainee flashed him professional smile. “Of course. Follow me, please, Mr. Wayne.”

“Thank you, Miss Lant.”

“You can call me Jackie if you’d like,” she replied cheerfully. “Everyone does. Just, uh, not in front of other doctors.”

Bruce smiled back as they went through the security check. The guard (Tom Welker, who often worked the evening shifts) watched Bruce’s belt and shoes pass through monitor with a scrutiny, but barely ran the metal-detecting rod over him and Jackie. Bruce had half a mind to tell him to check better, but Bruce had passed through it clean so many times before that he wasn’t surprised the guard was getting relaxed with him. And if he did check him better, he might confiscate some of the harmless contraband Bruce sometimes brought to John. Getting a milkshake in had been hard enough…

“Clean as ever, Mr. Wayne. Hey, Jackie, you’re missing something.”

Jackie immediately tapped her badge, then started going through her pockets, patting her slacks as well. “What could I be…?”

“My number,” Tom grinned, handing her a slip of paper. “I’m free Sunday, if you wanna have dinner.”

Jackie took it, but gave Tom a very unimpressed look as she slid it into her coat pocket. “I’ll think about it.”

“I know a place that does great thai!” He called after her.

“I met you last time I visited, didn’t I? You look different,” Bruce commented as they stepped into the elevator. “Did you get your hair done?”

Jackie blushed slightly. “Oh, um, yes, you did. And yes, I did – I had to have an emergency haircut yesterday. I stood too close to one of the inmates doors,” she said with a disappointed frown. “I don’t even know where he got the knife from, but he cut off my whole ponytail…”

Bruce raised his brows. “I’m sorry to hear that… At least you make it look good,” he placated with a small smile.

She flashed him a slight grin as her cheeks turned a little pinker. “Thanks.”

The elevator stopped, letting on two orderlies who merely nodded at Bruce’s polite smile. One looked at the ‘5’ lit up and turned to Jackie – “Jackie, their fixing the fifth floor’s elevator doors. You’ll have to take the stairs up there.”

“What?! Ugh…” Jackie sighed, pressing the fourth-floor’s button. “Sorry about this, Mr. Wayne.”

“It’s alright,” he said with a slight shrug. “At least it’s just a problem with the doors.”

The fourth floor was better than it had been the first time Bruce had been on it. The tile hadn’t been fixed yet, but the lighting was much better, and things just seemed clearer and cleaner. A security camera’s lens gleamed from the wall, brand new and not yet operational. The old camera down the hall could barely see them as they made their way towards the staircase. The stairwell was always cast in a yellowish sort of light in comparison to the clean white florescent bulbs in the hallway. Emergency lights hanging high on the walls made Bruce feel like he was in more of a prison than anything.

“Okay, patient 904’s room should be down there, so Dr. Thompson should be near there…” Jackie looked over her clipboard’s notes, eyes roaming over some kind of floor map as they walked up the stairs. “I swear, this place has the most ridiculous layout…”

Bruce said nothing. He honestly hoped they’d pass John’s room up there. He almost didn’t care if it was even occupied… Somehow, just the idea of seeing his space was oddly reassuring.

The heavy metal door opened to the slightly grayer hallway of the fifth floor. The red light above the open doors leading to the rec room area was blaring at him. How strange…

Then again, so was the fact that Dr. Thompson’s schedule had him with a patient at the time that Bruce was supposed to be meeting him. So was the real reason Bruce had picked now to check up on the place. Sizing up Crane in person and addressing John's concerns came first.

"Bruce?"

One simple word in the voice that Bruce knew he would never forget in a hundred years, and things suddenly seemed a little brighter in the dismal world of Arkham.

Bruce practically snapped his head towards the sound, and found John moving to lean against the bars of the Rec Room, a glowing look on his face like he had glimpsed something more than just a man. Like their argument two weeks ago was just water under the bridge. Bruce was drawn in, even as the trainee blubbered.

"Uh, Mr. Wayne, you -"

"I'm sorry, Jackie, can you... I dunno, give me a minute? I didn't get to see him last time I visited."

The trainee seemed to scan him, her dark brown eyes searching his face for a moment. She sighed, a sympathetic smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Two minutes," she said with a light kind of finality.

"Thank you," Bruce said as she walked to the corner and leaned against it, her back turned to them as she flipped through the notes on her clipboard.

"Still using that old Wayne charm, huh?" John smiled, his eyes gleaming for a moment before turning softer, his voice quiet. "Good to see you again, Bruce."

The orderly sitting behind the nurse’s station wasn't paying attention in the slightest.

"John," Bruce started, keeping his voice low, wondering exactly what he should say, "How did you...?"

John's smile widened as he gave a small excited chortle. "Don't worry, Bruce, I didn't do anything extreme," he emphasized with a look. "Swiped a few keys, locked the guards behind me, dialed the numbers I've had memorized for ages... And it worked! Here you are, in the flesh!" His hands, which had been grasping the bars like he could somehow pull them apart, raised palm-up at him, as if he was showing Bruce off like a prize. Bruce couldn't help but glance at them as they went back to holding the bars. "Can't say I didn't wish I had a Jokerang or two on me that day, but -"

"John -"

"I know, I know," John huffed with a frown, his thin arms sliding through the gaps to rest an elbow on the flat lock of the frame and putting the other hand on the very edge of the flat bar. They were close - it would be easy, really, for John to grasp his collar to pull him forward. Into what, Bruce wasn't sure. "Still," he said with a shrug and a sigh, his vibrant green eyes going back to stare into Bruce with something too soft and too knowing to make Bruce entirely comfortable.

"John, I tried to visit," Bruce began, feeling like all he wanted was to spill everything out at once. That he was sorry, that he kept coming at the wrong times for two weeks, that of course he would be there, that he’d always have John’s back -

John reached up, swiftly and softly, to put his finger to Bruce's lips. The skin was dry, but warm, and Bruce felt an awful urge to lean into it. "Shh. You're here now, and that's all that matters." There was no room for dishonesty there; John really meant that. The hand lowered slowly, the tip of it just brushing against Bruce's chin until it pulled away entirely, the residual heat burning his skin in the stifling air. "Just do me a favor, okay?"

There was something about the image of John leaning against the thing that separated their worlds only just, of hands reaching out to him through the gap in the bars, blurring the line that divided them, while John gave him that begging, vulnerable look so like the night the dream ended that it sent a jolt through Bruce’s heart. They might as well have been back in the control room.

"Don't ignore it. Don't shove the feeling in your gut aside and pretend it's not there, Bruce. I saw it written on your face the moment you rounded the corner." Bruce's heart thudded in his ears, the arms in his muscles tightening, his eyes wider than what he wanted them to be.

Bruce wasn’t sure what gut-feeling he was alluding to – did he mean the unusually strong attachment for him that throbbed and squirmed in a way that made Bruce feel uncomfortable putting a label to it, or did he mean the Bat still lurking beneath the surface, wanting to run, wanting to let everything out, scrambling to put all the pieces together before it was too late? Both things were the reason he stood there. He feared neither would fade away any time soon.

“Good thing I felt like pacing over here,” John (Joker) added with a painfully gentle grin, “or I would’ve missed you.”

He didn’t know what to say. He almost wanted to tell him how much he missed him. He could almost make a joke out of it.

"Mr. Wayne?"

The spell on Bruce snapped like a trodden-upon twig and he turned to see the trainee a few feet away, an eyebrow raised slightly at him.

"Hey, Jackie," John greeted with a little wave of his hand, a more casual smile playing on his face. "Showing our favorite billionaire the corners they allow you in?"

"John," Jackie replied cautiously, "you know I'm not even supposed to talk to you without supervision."

"I think Bruce counts," John said with a sly smile at him. Bruce felt the corner of his mouth twitch up on one side and hurried to keep it down.

"Mister Wayne," Jackie said with a more determined air, "Follow me, please."

"Thanks for stopping by, buddy," John said, his smooth mouth curved into a secretive smile. "Do me a favor and look up art for me, okay, pal? Walls are a little too bare here."

Bruce's mind raced as he fought to keep a straight face. Art - not artwork, but a name, short for Arthur. There were no Arthurs on the list of doctors, so he had to have been a patient or a guard. The smile tugging on Bruce's lips didn't have to be fought down this time. "I'll pick out something good for you."

"I know you will," John added with a knowing grin, withdrawing his arms entirely and stepping back from the bars. "Come back soon," he added with an affectionate tone and a much softer smile.

Bruce began to follow Jackie down the hall, glancing back just once to see bright green eyes still watching him, the smile on John’s face replaced with something that was anxious and contemplative at the same time. It made Bruce want to turn around, to ask what precisely it was that made John so desperate to risk the call in the first place, to tell him that he wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

Instead, he tore his gaze away and refocused on the task at hand:  finding out what exactly Arkham had used the funds he'd so generously given them for, and seeing if he could get a better grasp of this Dr. Crane.

Jackie tapped a plastic pen in the air as they passed by mostly-empty patient rooms; they came to a stop in front of an open one, the 904 card in the room plate. “Wait…” The trainee took another glance at the paper on her clipboard, and then back at the room. “Damn it. I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne.” She turned, giving a sigh and a look reminiscent of a lost puppy. “He must be back down in his office. I think we got the old schedule… I should’ve known he wouldn’t be up here if you’d made an appointment so close to a therapy session…”

It was true, but Bruce wasn’t going to complain. At least he got to see John for the first time in weeks, and since he was up and around, that meant he could visit properly later.

“As long as you know where his office is, I’m sure he won’t mind if I’m a little late.”

“…thanks.” Jackie shot a look down at her shoes. “It’d probably be faster to take the stairs the whole way.”

“That’d be fine.”

He followed Jackie down the aging concrete steps, noticing that she was looking a lot more contemplative than before. “I’m really sorry for dragging you all this way."

Bruce eyed the trainee carefully. She did seem frustrated at herself. “I imagine there’s always going to be hiccups in a place like this. Hospitals always have emergencies; I don’t doubt this place has its fair share of those, too.”

“I just wish they’d update this stuff so I wouldn’t feel left out of the loop like this. I guess most of that’s budgeting and priority, though, isn’t it…?” Jackie sighed slightly as they passed a security guard who gave a curt nod to Bruce’s civil smile. “At least his new office is easy to find. It’s right past the research bay – you ever see it?”

The heavy metal door marked 2 – WEST squealed as she opened it for him, holding it so he could pass.

“I…haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Oh, well, I’ll show you! We do medical tests there – it’s perfectly safe,” she added at Bruce’s wince, letting the door close by itself, “The patients are prescreened for the new medicines, and the bay only acts as an extra measure in case something goes wrong. The upgrades have really helped.” Jackie shot him a warm smile.

“Good to know.”

They passed an orderly escorting a patient alongside a doctor, but other than that the hall seemed empty and quiet until they turned the corner.

Five rooms, side-by-side, all had large glass windows showing in. Three of them were dark, but showed beds and monitoring equipment, like makeshift hospital rooms. One of them had the blinds drawn.

The last was lit bright, and a thin, tall man in a lab coat was seeming to look inside, tapping a pen against his mouth.

"Oh, Dr. Crane! I didn't expect to see you here today."

The stick of a man turned towards Jackie, the light reflecting off one of the lenses in his half-rimmed glasses as a hazel eye looked out at them through the other. It was a blank look that spoke nothing of the man's intensions - it was startlingly dull and lifeless for a forty-two-year-old man whose face looked like it could've been on the cover of GQ. For a horrible moment, Bruce wondered if the man was actually alive.

"Just finishing up some observations," Dr. Crane said simply, his high voice steady and relaxed. His eyes flickered down at the paper visitor’s badge sticking to Bruce's breast pocket. "I see you’re escorting Mr. Wayne around the premises."

"Oh, I was just leading him to the boss' office - I just thought I'd show him around a bit on the way. You know, showing him a bit of what all his donations have done for us so far," Jackie said, a nervous kind of excitement in her voice. "He never got to see down here before."

Dr. Crane stared him down, bits of curiosity breaking his blank expression. "I was under the impression that Mr. Wayne was a regular visitor to our humble asylum."

"I've only been allowed in a few areas," Bruce began, flashing his charming-host-smile at the doctor. "And I've been escorted every time; this place is like a maze."

"Even as your time as a patient?" Dr. Crane asked, curiosity growing steady in his pitch and sparking for the briefest of moments on his features before he returned to looking through the glass window of the observation bay, his expression flat once more. "But I suppose you wouldn't have come down here, you were only here for thirty-six hours, weren't you..."

Bruce filed away the thought that Dr. Crane had clearly looked through his old patient file for a later time. "Can I ask what exactly it is that you're observing, Doctor?"

"Drug tests."

“Um…” Jackie waited a beat, looking at the doctor curiously. "What kind, Pro-," she caught herself, "Doctor Crane?"

"For anxiety," the doctor responded, his eyes not leaving the patient lying on the bed. Bruce peeked over Jackie's shoulder, seeing the patient quake visibly in their restraints. The lights made the tears on her cheeks glisten, and Bruce felt a sharp pang of empathy. His fingers stiffened, wanting to clench into fists.

"Isn't that Claire? Why is she restrained?" Jackie asked, worry etching over her face. "I thought she was marinthrophobic."

"We don't discuss patients' histories with guests, child," Dr. Crane said with the patient air of an elementary school teacher. "I suppose the damage is done," he continued, a flash of distaste in his voice before turning to Jackie with a professional tone. "I can't study the effects properly otherwise; this will give me a window into seeing if the medication overtakes the fear of the restraints."

"Oh... Makes sense," Jackie agreed half-heartedly with a nod. "Well, um, I won't take up more of your time, Dr. Crane."

"Yes, it's best you don't keep Dr. Thompson waiting, Miss Lant. He’s quite a stickler for time-keeping. Nice meeting you, Mr. Wayne," the doctor said, extending his bony hand.

Bruce shook it, feeling a pathetic attempt at a business-squeeze on his knuckles. It wouldn't take much for Bruce to break his hand, and he felt the horrible rush of temptation to do just that. For John's safety or his own discomfort, Bruce wasn't sure. "Nice to meet you, too, doctor."

"If you decide you want to return to therapy, Mr. Wayne, I'd be delighted to give you a spot on my couch here," the doctor offered, a flicker of a smile on his face accompanying the rise in his tone. There was something about it all that made Bruce uncomfortable.

"I'll...make a note of that," Bruce replied awkwardly as the trainee began to lead the way down the hall. Once they were far away enough, he muttered, "Is he always like that?"

"Dr. Crane? Yeah, but you get used to it. I had his course my senior year at Gotham University, before he left - he's brilliant, but he doesn't exactly open up to other people a lot. I figured it's his upbringing." Jackie smiled innocently up at him. "The formative years usually play a lot into your psyche."

Bruce decided not to say anything else to that. He didn’t want to think about exactly what his youth did to his mental state.

They stopped in front of a door with a paper sign saying ‘SUPERINTENDENT DR. THOMPSON’ in large font. "Well, here you are, Mr. Wayne. I'm sure Dr. Thompson will escort you back downstairs."

"Thanks, Jackie," Bruce smiled as the young woman fluttered her lashes once and brushed past him, the reddish-orange of her short curly hair the only colorful thing in the hall.

Dr. Thompson may have been a practicing psychiatrist, but there was no mistaking the businessman underneath, springing to the surface when he looked up from his screen. You didn't get to run an asylum without being both.

"Mr. Wayne! How nice to see you again." It was difficult to pinpoint his age exactly, but he must have been twice the age of Bruce at least.

"Doctor Thompson," Bruce said as he returned the polite handshake. "You look well."

"I don't exactly feel like it, Mr. Wayne, but thank you. I can't say I'm surprised to see you, but I am surprised that it's been a while since you've come purely to check up on your contributions."

Bruce fought down the blush wanting to creep up his face. He'd been coming every week, but every time he split his time seeing John and doing a casual check of the various new improvements, and meeting a few members of the board. His generous contributions on behalf of Wayne Enterprise made them all sit up and give him a bit of a word in here and there, but his father's abhorrent past made them keep a close eye on him. "Well, Wayne Enterprise is a pretty harsh mistress - I have to split my time carefully these days, regardless of what I want."

Dr. Thompson searched him for the quickest moment, but an understanding smile played on his face. "Yes, it's like juggling two jobs, isn't it? Business and friendships - both hard to maintain, especially together."

Bruce was grateful he no longer had the mantle of Batman to uphold, too. It made agreeing with Dr. Thompson a lot easier.

"So, you've seen the new additions to the medical bay and the basement restoration - how about I show you some of the new surveillance equipment we're installing?"

"I'd love to."

"Great, we'll talk on the way." Dr. Thompson gently steered Bruce out the door.

Bruce let his mind run through different questions to ask. Dr. Crane, the medical testing, Jackie Lant...

"So, do you always stay so close to the medical testing facility?" Dr. Thompson raised an eyebrow at him. "Miss Lant showed me on the way. I could've sworn your office wasn't in this part of the building last time."

"This is just temporary; my real office was infiltrated last week," Dr. Thompson's smile turned into a serious line. "Nothing taken, thankfully, but they seemed to have left in a hurry."

"Any idea what they were looking for?"

"Files, but there was no prints on the open cabinet and the camera in the hall was conveniently turned away from the door the night we had a new guard on duty."

Someone who knew the inner workings of Arkham, then. Security and staff were high on that suspect list. And John, a nagging voice at the back of his head said. But that would've been very difficult for John to pull off, considering he was kept a firm watch on since the Joker incident. "What were they, patient files or something? I thought those would've been kept in their own room, with how old this place is," Bruce said with a practiced look of concern.

"They are," the doctor answered, glancing at him. "They were facility records. Finances and the like. They were shuffled to the patient records and my computer was securely transferred down here while we're reconfiguring the security measures upstairs. The new cameras are going live tomorrow evening."

"Good to know it's sooner rather than later," Bruce replied, offering a kind smile as they continued to the monitoring station two floors below.

Whether he needed it for later or not, Bruce would remember that.

Bruce clung to the steering wheel as he glared out the traffic in front of him.

Once again, he was prevented from seeing John. The receptionist at the front said there was some new medication he was being put on at that hour that would make him too drowsy to hold any kind of conversation until he got used to it. The orderly hadn't known the name of the new drug, just got passed a note saying as much that morning.

Something was definitely wrong. He didn't care if it was just an excuse to punish John for the phone call or anything else he might have done; not seeing him for almost three weeks except for a chance encounter in the hall wasn't right.

He knew he could argue with himself all day about how it might have just been coincidence, might have just been him almost desperately wanting to see John again and getting angry about being denied it. He knew Alfred would say as much.

But Alfred wasn't here. He hadn't heard John asking for help. Hadn't met the unnerving Dr. Crane for himself.

He had to find out who Art was.

Bruce breathed deep. He couldn't go back and look through the filing cabinet himself, it was too risky, mask or no mask.

He willed himself to calm down. He had to be rational.

Traffic wasn't going to be moving very fast for very long… He had things he needed to learn.

Bruce dialed Tiffany.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Tiffany," he started, quieter than he thought he would be. "You got a minute?"

"...you need a favor?"

"Well, yeah - I mean, if that's okay."

"You didn't break one of my toys, did you?"

Bruce smiled slightly. Tiffany was still Lucious' daughter. "No, don't worry, it's not a repair I need."

"Well, I figured, but... Just checking. So, what’s up?"

"I need you to find a name for me. Think you can break into Arkham's database?"

"...into Arkham?" He practically heard her narrowing her eyes. "Why?"

"I'm just checking up something." He was starting to feel flustered. "For a friend," he added.

"A friend, huh?" Bruce felt the doubt in her voice. He was sure she knew exactly which friend he was referring to, and he was sure she was judging him. "Alright. Which names?"

"A Dr. Jonathan Crane, no 'h', and any patient named Art or Arthur."

"I'm guessing the doctor isn't a patient?"

"No, practicing at Arkham."

"Right. It could take a while. I'm guessing you called me because you didn't want to boot up your old gear?"

Bruce swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. "Yeah."

"...I'll call you when I find something. About an hour?"

"Sure, fine. Thanks, Tiffany. I mean it."

"Don't thank me yet, Bruce. I still need to find you something," she added lightly.

Bruce cursed Gotham's twisting, crowded roads as he drove the rest of the way with the classical station on loud, trying to drown himself in the orchestra filling his ears as he tried not to think about how much easier this entire thing would be if he could just put on the batsuit.

The mansion felt huge and empty when Bruce finally walked in.

In truth, it always felt that way. Too big, too open, too quiet. It would be too long before Alfred's next Skype call, and longer until Alfred decided to take a break from his long and well-deserved vacation.

The moment Bruce had started driving John to the bridge, he entertained the thought of bringing him here. To his house, to the Batcave, to show everything he had to the one person who would actually see everything. He had no doubt John would know exactly what was Bruce's and what wasn't.

Even after everything that happened, Bruce liked the idea of him here, despite the bittersweet flavor it seemed to leave. Taking up space, breaking the silence, sneaking in everywhere he could get, potentially breaking something expensive by accident that Alfred would later mutter about but Bruce would secretly smile at.

Heirlooms were one thing, photos another, but the expensive furniture and modern art Bruce only kept for show - for the billionaire playboy with too much money and time on his hands - he always wanted to treat like the garbage it was.

He turned on the billiard room's fire and sank into the armchair, watching the flames dance as he tried to breathe. It was so hard to think about anything else but the case.

What did he even suspect Dr. Crane of doing? Treating his patients with unusual and unkind methods? Giving off a creepy vibe?

All he had was John's word that something was wrong. John's word and Bruce's gut.

Just how much faith did he want to put into both?

The synthesized jingle of his phone buzzing away almost jolted him out of his thoughts.

"Tiffany?"

"Bruce, I've found something. Are you sitting down?" Without waiting to hear his response, she continued. "What do you want to hear first:  Crane, or Arthur?"

"Crane."

"Right," she continued, sounding a bit more normal, "Well, Dr. Crane has been working in Arkham for a little over a year, has a relatively normal file, worked at Gotham U. for years - but his proclaimed area of expertise is a little weird."

"Fear?"

"...did you look him up already?"

"He's written three papers on the subject alone. All open to the public."

"Yeah, well, they're all listed on his references. They all as creepy as they sound? The Working Through Grief article he has sounds pretty normal."

"Fear is unnatural, fear is a byproduct of primitive impulse, fear is conquered best with constant exposure - pretty much all like that. I haven't read the Working Through Grief one yet."

"Yikes, glad I don't have to actually read those. Don't know how I'd sleep..." Bruce felt a smile lift a bit at her tone. "He was basically on the wait list until Arkham gave in and hired him. Seemed the last five years shifted out a few doctors from there and he wasn't chosen until a year ago. The last two seemed to just drop off the face of the Earth."

Probably at the bottom of the Gotham River, if not buried in concrete somewhere. "Missing persons?"

"You got it. Both of them specialized in the sort of...research section, I guess?"

Bruce could see the terrified woman on the table. See Dr. Crane staring at her through the window with a blank face, like it was just something that happened every day. "Medicinal testing wing. I've seen it."

"You've seen it? How?"

"I went to check up on what my contributions were going to, got a bit of a tour - what about Arthur?"

"Right:  I found two Arthurs, one's a guard on morning duty, the other a patient. Or...was a patient, actually. Arthur Mooney passed away almost three weeks ago."

"How?"

"Suicide's what's listed, but I couldn't find the details. Guy had a whole list of problems on here. I think it's safe to say he was a total whacko."

Bruce set his jaw, half a mind to tell Tiffany that that sort of casual dismissal of mental issues was as unhealthy as it was disrespectful, but he didn't have the energy to go through a full argument like that. He allowed a sigh through his nostrils instead. "Anything on the guard?"

"Arthur West; nothing special. Forty-four, average height, decent references, no misbehavior on record."

"What floor does he frequent?"

"Uh, I don't think that kind of thing is set in stone, but I'm pretty sure it's the first floor, judging by the crude map I got. Why?"

First floor was for the quieter, better-behaved patients, as well as a slightly larger nurse's station. Despite him going along quietly and being on fairly good behavior, John was stationed on the fifth. "I wanted to see if the two ever came into contact with one another. If the guard doesn't circulate regularly, it's a pretty slim chance. What floor was the patient stationed on?"

"...five. And you'll never guess who the last doctor on his list is."

A patient suicide on the same floor as John. A patient of Crane's.

Bruce pictured the medical testing room, with John strapped inside, and Crane watching through the window.

He felt like he wanted to throw up and hit something at the same time. He breathed deep, trying to calm his racing heart and force the image away.

"Bruce?"

"Tiffany...thank you. Good work."

"...Bruce," she started hesitantly, "What are you going to do?"

He wasn't sure yet. It would be easy - so, so easy - to put on his old suit and sneak into Arkham, do a search before making Crane talk.

Or, he could try to find the coroner's report on Art. Go back to Arkham like nothing happened, force his way into talking with John, see if he knew anything else.

"Tiffany, can you find what exactly it is that Dr. Crane is using on his patients? What he's prescribing them?"

"Probably, but it'll take a bit to get back in. It's too risky to stay on the phone and search at the same time, even if the line's secure."

"Great. If you happen to find the coroner's report on Mooney -"

"I'll send it your way, too, Bruce. I'm guessing you're doing this the more...Wayne sort of way?"

"I hung up the suit, Tiff'. I'm not taking it back out unless I know I need to."

"...your call. I'll send you stuff when I get it."

"Thanks, Tiffany."

"I'm doing this for you, you know," she interjected. "Not him."

Bruce felt his heart sink. He knew it, but he didn't want to hear it. "You know I appreciate it, Tiff'."

"Bye, Bruce."

The call ended with a beep, and Bruce sat there staring at the colorful stripes that made up his lock-screen, thinking too much about everything.

[asiplaythem]

Devil May Cry: Series Retrospective- "DmC: Devil May Cry"

At long last, I sat down and played DmC: Devil May Cry. Well and truly, the dust has settled, the dead horse has been beaten into compost, and the reactionary rages and defenses have died down. And, for myself, I think my fanboy passion for the series has subsided.

A weak Special Edition, a pachinko machine and a bad MvC model later, I hold out no honest hope for the Devil May Cry franchise now. We’ll always have the Temen-ni-Gru Dante...but we’re not getting back together, lets face it.

So now, when I look at Ninja Theory’s protagonist, who I will still refer to as Donte, the fresh insult that he used to be is now replaced with a genuine, tryhard, grittiness that just seems cute in an “ah, bless” kind of way. He’s no longer the sour white whale that ate my favourite character and franchise, he’s just a little fish who flops around in a harmlessly funny way.

....before the massive flaws of the game come forth.

This review is based on the PS3 launch version and does its best to criticize it on its own merits/failings, not merely on fan insult or in comparison to the previous games. But it is after all called “Devil may Cry”, so its existence as part of a wider franchise isn’t ignored either.

Also, fair warning, this is going to be long as hell. Which is suitable, because it feels like hell sometimes...

Technical Qualities

The engine/optimization is dogshit.

Ninja Theory infamously rejected Capcom’s offer to translate their wunderengine, MT Framework, into English so that they could use it. Instead the team built DmC: Devil May Cry using Unreal Engine 3, which was already starting to look dated by 2010 when the game was announced. For perspective, Unreal Engine 4 was revealed to the public before DmC even came out. The likely reason Ninja Theory chose to stick with Unreal was because of a  developer kit popular with young game creators. Unreal 3 was a ubiquitous engine in the last gen of consoles, being the backbone of games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Batman: Arkham series. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any games using it that were as fast paced as the Devil May Cry series.

Off the top of my head, games that use Unreal 3 usually have collision and texture pop-in problems. This is less of an issue in first person or isometric games when player movement and camera angles/viewable space are restrained, but it’s disastrous for something like DmC with its wide angle camera, large open areas, dense enemy count and fast player movement.

On the very first mission, in no more than 2 minutes of having control, Donte got stuck in a wall as I tried to go through the level like a normal player. This was followed by hideous amount of texture pop-in, audio glitches that muted parts of the soundscape, a couple of attacks that didn’t connect with enemies when they should have, and loading times out the arse.

A nasty little secret I only found out from replaying it first hand was that many of the mini-cutscenes (like when Donte looks at the Hunter demon hop around buildings, or does a backflip as he collects his guns) are secretly loading screens, unskippable until the loading operation is completed. All of which are frustrating to have to sit through in such a fast paced game. The way they make such a deal out of the same, generic enemy spawning in by giving it a dramatic close-up every time feels patronizing on repeat fights. “OOOH look! It’s a flying thing again!”. Yeah, no game, these things are easy to kill and I know you’re covering up something with this. Nice try.

Without seeing the development build firsthand, I can’t say for certain why it ran so badly. The release of the Definitive Edition for PS4/XBONE implies that it was a hardware limitation...but....like....that’s what optimization is for; making games run well on older hardware. More on this later, but design choices in level layouts, for instance, can remedy this. You can, for instance, segment levels in a way that stops you from seeing large areas at a single moment, reducing how much the consoles needs to render and thus cutting down load times.

Instead, what we largely got were huge foggy rooms and camera lens flares there to hide unloaded textures. The problem then is that it just, in my opinion at least, doesn’t look very good. Think of how Silent Hill 2 and 3 manage to still look so good due to how they segment rooms with doors you can’t see beyond. Or how the use of fog doesn’t cover up anything that you’re supposed to be looking at. And how they manage to have shorter loading times for it, a whole generation of consoles in the past.

Another trick is to “hard bake” lighting effects into the level’s textures themselves, rather than relying on extra shader operations. It’s more taxing on hardware to emulate, say, the actual light physics of a red spotlight instead of just making the textures of the walls and floor red, using trickery to make it seem like there’s a functioning red light there. Open world games generally don’t have this option, but with Devil May Cry, which is a linear series with rarely changing environments, you can use trickery like this effectively. Instead, DmC has more shaders -many of which look terrible in cutscenes- than it can handle.

Ninja Theory did a bad job of optimizing their game for their primary hardware. Even with the update there were visual problems, audio glitches and collision bugs throughout the entire game. It’s far from unplayable, but it’s ropey for a AAA game.

Level Design

Before I get into the artistic choices, I want to take a moment to look at the more technical, grounded aspects of how Ninja Theory designed levels.

Most of the previous Devil May Cry games are economic with their level design, reusing areas multiple times over with remixed enemy layouts and the occasional change in lighting, music and even textures. This cuts down on development time, saves disc space, and allows the designers to really put care into each individual location. Resident Evil, the Souls games, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are other good examples.

DmC had potential for this with its “living city” concept. The best use of this concept is with Mission 2: Home Truths, where Donte visits his and Vurgil’s gigantic childhood home. As you backtrack into familiar hallways and foyers, the corruption of Mundus’ influence causes walls to crack open, pathways to change shape and different enemies to spawn. It’s a great (re)use of assets that trip up your expectations as a player the first time around. It also uses some Metroidvania style locked doors and obstacles which you need certain abilities/weapons to traverse. The unfortunate limitation of that is that you can literally fly through some levels and skip entire sections of the game upon a replay; Mission 3 requires you to unlock the Air Dash move in order to clear a gap that appears early on, but you’ll already have it on a replay, turning a 20~ minute level into a 3~ minute one.

Sequence breaking like this doesn’t happen in any huge way though, due to how each level is an entirely separate area of its own. Likewise, most of these ability/weapon barriers lead to optional bonus areas that are slightly off the beaten path.

Linear level design isn’t inherently bad, but in this case I think it was a huge missed opportunity. Not only is there a parallel real world vs Limbo premise that has Donte shift from a greyscale, mundane city into a colourful, chaotic image of itself, that Limbo dimension has the ability to change in real time. If the level designers allowed players to shift from dimension to dimension in-game, a la Soul Reaver, or if they had just played up the “living city” concept in a more interactive way, the city would have been much more interesting and, ironically, feel much more alive than it does. Instead we got a linear, albeit pretty, collection of corridors with very little off the beaten path. DmC incentivizes exploration by hiding collectables, but “exploration” ultimately means turning left where you should turn right to find a Lost Soul behind a bin.

One place where they ALMOST got it right is the first Slurm Virility factory level. After a cutscene showing a mixing room, Donte and Kat break from the tour, slowly jog down some empty, boring hallways in to an equally empty and boring warehouse. Dante can’t attack or jump in this section, and there is absolutely nothing to interact with. It’s an unfortunately uninteresting forced walking section, only one small step above being an unskippable cutscene. Kat then sprays her squirrel jizz magic circle on the ground, Donte enters the Limbo version of the level, the room expands and the crates become platforms, and the level really begins from there. For reasons I never understood, Donte then has to take a huge route up sets of boxes and across dozens of different rooms to circle back on the way he came in. On the way back, he backtracks down the Limbo version of the boring hallways of before, except now they’re slightly less boring, with a few enemies to fight and moving walls and floors. Then you get to the mixing room (which is only shown in a cutscene) for a brawl, before moving on.

The reason this didn’t work as well as it could have are twofold. 1: You only see the real world version of a tiny portion of the level, and 2: said portion is boring as fuck and you don’t interact with it in any meaningful way. But hey, at least the idea was there.

Moments where the living city concept is pushed to the side for more one-off but more effectively done ideas can be found in the upside-down prison, the short prelude to the Bob Barbas fight and Lilith’s rave.

The upside-down prison starts off fairly strong, tapping into one of those childhood ideas we all idly wondered about; what if gravity suddenly shifted? The level starts off strong and has moments throughout that give a trippy sense of vertigo. Mostly this is with car and train bridges, but unfortunately loses the point as it progresses. Because the prison isn’t just upside-down, but is also in Limbo, gravity is already unreliable and the bottomless pit below the floor already looks like the sky. Similarly with the lead up to the boss fight with Poison that has you run “down” a vertical pipe, it all looks floaty and weird by default, making further attempts to be floaty and weird just seem...normal. Likewise, the prison is mostly comprised of bland, urban and industrial textures, completely interchangeable with any old warehouse. You quickly forget that you’re upside-down at all.

The setting also well outstays it’s welcome, taking up 4 entire levels to itself with not enough ideas to justify it. There’s even one moment where, after meeting Fineas, you’re told you need to follow a flock of harpies to find their lair....even though their lair is a completely linear set of halls...That says it all really; there was a fun idea in here, but it was executed without the same creativity.

Following that is the tragically short Bob Barbas prelude. THIS is one of the single most interesting concepts in level design I have ever seen. Seriously. I cannot think of any other game that took news graphics and idents and turned them into platforming sections. Even moments during the fight where Donte is dropped into news chopper footage manage to do something brilliantly original, stylish and funny. But as quickly as it came, it’s gone before you know it. It’s a fucking crime that the previous 4 levels didn’t use the same concept to break up the monotony of their urban corridors. They could have had Donte teleport around chunks of the level using the various TV screens with Bob Barbas propaganda on them, hopping across idents until he got to the other side. Shame.

Next up, almost in a moment of clarity from the designers when they realized that could do digital environments and cheesy tv show graphics in their game more than once, we have Lilith’s nightclub. Again, much more interesting than the living city stuff, albeit a bit harsh on the eyes with its lighting effects. There’s not much to say about it beyond “it looks cool”, but it’s worth mentioning that it feels much more focused and fully utilized than the upside-down prison. All in all. the level design in DmC is at odds with itself, marked by its lost potential. The concepts are interesting, but the execution is almost always lackluster, favouring hand-holdy linear hallways with “cinematic” qualities over more interactive, open spaces with a sense of place. For a game that, pre-release, seemed to want to show us a more fleshed out world than previous games, it winds up as little more than a flat backdrop.

But oh well, DMC is all about the action happening center stage, right?

Combat

Combat in DmC is a mix bag.

The number of different attacks available and Donte’s versatility at chaining moves across 5 different weapons is pretty great. I’m a fan of how you can swap special pause combos across your alternate weapons; two quick hits with Rebellion, a pause, then a final triple smash with Arbiter takes a little extra skill to pull off but rewards you with a faster combo than if you just used Arbiter alone. Likewise, little tweaks like how fast Drive can charge now and how it does actual damage unlike Quick Drive in DMC4, or how you can hold Million Stab for longer, are all mostly fun changes. I tend to have a lot of fun with Osiris and find it to be the most versatile weapon for pulling off different combos. Its ability to charge up the more hits it delivers is a good incentive to hook in as many enemies as possible too, even if it means its uncharged state doesn’t do enough damage. Aquila is a fun supplementary weapon, mostly good for distracting one enemy with the circle attack and pulling the rest into range for Osiris. Eryx, however, is rubbish. Its incredibly short range, long charge times and weak damage output really throw it onto the trash pile when Arbiter is right beside it. Also, personal taste, but it just looks stupid. It’s like a slimy set of Hulk Hands. And they don’t even yell “HULK SMASH” when you attack. Previous DMC gauntlets all include a gap-closing dive attack to put you in enemy range, but the Demon Grapple doesn’t work the large enemies you’ll want to use it against. More on that in a bit.

Guns are mostly pointless. Donte can move laterally so much easier than before that long range combat is redundant. Charge shots with Ebony & Ivory are like Eryx in that they take too long to charge and don’t do enough damage to be worth the wait. Also, because you need to be in a neutral, non-demon non-angel, state to fire them, charging them up while you wail on someone only works if you limit yourself to Rebellion. Switching to Demon or Angel weapons resets the charge and limits you to a grapple move.

Which leads to another problem; 4 of your 5 weapons disable the use of guns. I mean, you’re not missing out on much by the end anyway because the guns are boring and ineffectual to use against all but one enemy (the Harpy), but it feels like a mistake. They literally give you guns in cutscenes as an afterthought. Like when Vurgil goes “oh yeah, have this, it’ll kill the next few enemies really quickly then sit in your back pocket for all eternity thereafter”. Donte never feels like he’s earning these guns like he earns the melee weapons, and they never seem to be worth a damn in gameplay.

The grapples are more useful but, again, having two different types feels redundant in combat. Large enemies can’t be pulled towards you, so why not do what DMC4 did and have one grapple that does both jobs; pull small enemies towards you, pull yourself towards larger enemies? The end result in either scenario is to get in melee range, so it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Considering Aquila has a special attack to pull enemies in, why not offload those moves to the other weapons too? If you want to keep both pull-in and pull-towards moves in combat, why not give, say, Eryx a special pull-in attack so you can swap back to guns easier?

In short; while the combat is versatile and very satisfying to pull off combos with, large parts of it feel badly thought out. The moves and weapons that end up being useless most of the time have enemies spawn after you unlock them, just as an excuse to show how they work.

The infamous “demon attacks for red enemies, angel attacks for blue enemies” gimmick actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Until I had to fight a Blood Rage and a Ghost Rage at the same fucking time. I don’t think I need to get into it due to how many other people have complained, but it was just fucking infuriating to say the least.

Okay, so.....Devil May Cry 3 did it better. Most people don’t seem to know this, but DMC3 gave you damage bonuses if you used the right weapon against the right enemies, signified by a subtle particle effect. Nowhere in the enemy or weapon descriptions does it explain this, but if you use your head (or just experiment) you can generally figure it out. Beowulf is a light weapon, Doppelganger is a shadow monster, using light on it does extra elemental damage signified by a flash effect with each hit. Cerberus is an ice weapon, Abysses are liquidy enemies, so using ice on it freezes them, signified by an icicle effect. etc But most importantly; it never STOPS you from using the “wrong” weapon against enemies. I don’t think I need to go into how annoying it is when your combat flow is interrupted by your angel weapon PINGing off a red enemy, but god damn it.

Credit where credit is due; Ninja Theory did emphasize the right part of DMC’s combat when they opted to focus on combos over balance. Both 3 and 4 had broken combos and attacks that skilled players could easily pull off, but they would make combat boring and the games all emphasized an honour system to prevent abuse. If you were good enough to use Pandora to break enemy shields in 4, you were good enough to not abuse it.

Then again, a games combat is only as good as its enemies.

Enemies/Bosses

So it’s a real shame then that enemies and bosses don’t push you hard enough.

The AI is atrocious. NO hack n’ slash should have two hardcore enemies accidentally kill each other without you noticing. The mixing room in the Slurm levels pits you against two Tyrants/the big fat dudes who charge at you. There’s an easy-to-avoid pitfall in the middle of this room. Once, on hard mode no less, they spawned in as usual and one accidentally nudged the other into the pit, insta-killing him while I literally stood still and watched...

Most regular man-sized enemies (Stygians, Death Knights, and their variations) have a common problem of just not attacking first, opting to side step around you forever until you run at them. Luckily there usually is one aggressive enemy mixed in there, like the flying guys with guns or the screamy-chainsaw men, so you’ll be forced to dodge into their range, but it’s embarrassing when they’re isolated. You’re left standing there, charging a finishing attack with Eryx like you have your dick in your hand, and these things are just strafing around you, doing nothing. So you miss with Eryx, step forward, and anti-climatically twat them about with Rebellion just to get it over with.

At first I thought this combat shyness was a design choice, but then it happened with the final boss, revealing it to be a pathfinding bug. But more on that later...

So yes, the red/blue enemy gimmick is bullshit and breaks the flow of a room-sweeping combo you have going, but it actually works really well with the Witch enemy who hangs back, projecting shields onto other enemies while she snipes at you from a distance. She’s annoying to hunt down when you’re dealing with 10 other enemies, so you have to prioritize whether you want to plough through them first or clumsily chase her down first. It’s a nice dynamic to fights, adding that extra layer of strategy to mix things up in a less punishing way.

The main difference with the Witch and the other colour coded enemies is that the Witch gives you options. Blood/Ghost Rages do not, and make fights involving them feel like complete chores. You’ll find the one tactic that works, then rely on it every time.

No, the most egregious enemies were the bosses.

All of them, every single one, was terrible. Not including the Dream Runner mini-bosses, there was a total of 6, less than any of the other DMCs, which makes how sloppily designed they were all the more horrendous. Every single boss is formulaic, partitioned out into “segments” cut up by mini cutscenes that have Donte do something sassy when he works them down enough. But each of those segments tend to have Donte repeat the same, boring, tired tactic until the fight is over. Bob Barbas is the worst example; jump over his beams, use that one Eryx attack to slam into the nonsensical floor buttons, wail on him for a third of his health bar, kill 10 minor enemies in his news world, repeat two more times.

No matter what difficulty you’re on, these bosses never manage to be a challenge due to how placid they are. They will always accommodate their little “formula” you need to solve to beat them.

It’s baffling, because the previously mentioned Dream Runner mini-bosses are great. They’re aggressive, reactive, open to almost any combo you can outwit them with, and don’t force you to repeat the same set of steps in every encounter.

Vurgil on the other hand....

So, here we are, the grand finale. The ultimate evil has revealed itself, and it’s your own brother! You’re clearly a badass because you just took down Satan himself along with his army, so surely the only thing left that could challenge you is your more experienced twin.

Well, he would, if his AI didn’t start the show by consistently suffering from that same pathfinding bug that makes minor enemies interminably strafe around you. So far so good for my first playthrough. So I attack him, maybe hit him 5 times before a min-cutscene rears its head because I’ve suddenly made it into the next stage. Same thing happens once or twice. Then, somehow, Vurgil’s model freezes in the air during one of his attacks. He hangs there indefinitely until I attack him again. Then, at the end of the fight where he’s summoned a clone (because he can do that apparently, not that he’s ever so much as referenced the fact) so his real self can take a knee and heal, I’m supposed to use Devil Trigger to move him out of the way and finish the job (though, I don’t understand why the real Vurgil isn’t also thrown into the air). I do so, but the clone lingers on the ground for a moment, trying to attack me before just zipping into the sky; another bug. I attack the real Vurgil, but nothing happens at first. I keep wailing on him, hoping that one of my attacks will eventually collide and then, -Scene Missing-, the final cutscene of the battle plays.

Do I need to say any more? Do you see what a fucking mess the boss fights are? The final battle for humanity, the emotional crux of the story, the update to the final unsurpassed boss fight of DMC3, reduced to a buggy, embarrassing slap fight that gave me four glitches on my first playthrough.

The whole thing bungled the climax of its story. But, then again, was the story really that sacred to begin with....

Concept and Story

I promise I will not use the word “edgy” here.

Satire and social commentary, no matter how cartoonish, is a weird fit in a Devil May Cry game. DMC2 had an evil businessman too, and 4 ended with you punching the Pope in the face, but neither seemed to say anything substantial against capitalism or religion. They existed in a much more fantastical place, where any sort of commentary was aimed at a more philosophical target. “What makes us human? What makes us into demons? What is hell like? Is family more important than what you feel is right?” The previous games are all centered around a much more personal, individualistic identity crisis, and not any sort of populist, society-wide problems.

DmC brings up surveillance states, the most recent economic crisis and late-capitalism, soft drink addiction/declining nutrition, news manipulation, the prison industrial complex, conspiracy culture, populous revolt, some scant mentions of mental institutions, hacktivism, and the Occupy Movement. These topics, all of which are pretty damn serious and warrant long discussions, are simply decoration for a story about fantasy demons secretly running the world They Live style. Hell, it basically IS They Live, only the aliens are demons and the tools of control are more contemporary. (somehow there’s nothing about the internet in there though...)

All in all, its treatment of modern issues is childishly simple at best and cynical at worst. Sure, the game presents itself as defying capitalism and social engineering via advertising, but it then goes on to launch an ad and hype campaign bigger than any of the previous games, spanning across billboards, phone apps, social media promotion, the usual games media rounds and expensive pre-rendered television commercials. Hell, they even had an ad for their ad! All of this amid a gigantic fan backlash and in-fighting with games journalists on whether people were mad about Donte’s hair colour of if they were just outrightly entitled.

The fact that lead designer and writer Tameem Antoniades responded to this backlash and feedback by tweeking Donte’s design and adding in a random moment were a wig literally drops out of the sky onto Donte’s head for a jab at this “controversy” says something about the intent he had with his story; There is no real political statement behind DmC, it simply pulls from what was in the news at the time, and uses it as fodder for an otherwise archetypal plot.

The problem is that it tries to do this while also talking about hellish demons, heavenly angels and earthly humans. Well, mostly demons, because the angels are absent from the plot and Donte doesn’t seem to have any sort of Angel Trigger, and the only named human character is Kat, who doesn’t have much ploy within the story; she’s there to be rescued, and provide minimal help with a pat on the back from Donte. So demons rule the world, the angels are absent, and the people who suffer are us lowly humans. But it’s a half-demon, half-angel who “saves” us all/reduces the city to rubble, while all us humans can do is post about it on Twitter. Doesn’t sound very empowering to me.

The main villain should say it all. He’s some sort of businessman/oligarch/banker/economist/military commander/mayor/Satan, but he makes the undeniable point that he gave human civilization it’s structure. He has a wife he at least somewhat cares about, and a child he has high hopes for. He (and his wife) shows more emotion than any of our protagonists, and they have more at stake than anyone else, with a genuine vision for the future no less. So, when he very reasonably asks Donte what his goal is, all Donte can say is “freedom” and “revenge”, then continue to childishly taunt him when pressed further. I could go on about how unhealthy the obsession with the post-apocalypse our generation has is, but suffice to say; Donte is not someone to look up to.

Donte himself, and by extent his story, has no real ideological motivation behind him despite being dressed up as an anarchist. His motivations and arch as a character are no less two dimensional than the original Dante, but now manage to be over-stated and hamfisted, with an added veneer of “politics”. Vurgil points how much he’s supposedly changed right before the final boss fight, but how he changes doesn’t include a strong statement of intent. What does Donte want? Fucked if I know! Fucked if he knows.

All of this says nothing about how...well....plain bad the writing is. The dialogue is famously cringeworthy and the plot has more holes than a sponge.

If Mundus was hunting Donte to kill him this whole time, why can’t he find him despite having multiple cameras aimed directly at this house? Why didn’t he just kill him when Donte was in the orphanage run by “demon scum”? Where was Vurgil this whole time? Why does Kat need to hit the Hunter with a molotov? Actually, what the fuck is she doing in the real world while this is happening? Are people just ignoring this pixie girl throwing bottles around a pier? What’s that weird dimension Donte goes into to unlock new powers? If it’s his own head, why are Mundus’ demons in it? And why would it change his weapons? Why doesn’t he have an Angel Trigger? If Vurgil can do all that cool shit he does in his boss fight at the end, including opening a fucking portal to another dimension, why does he need to rely on Kat to hop dimensions earlier on? Or rely on anyone for that matter? Why does he have white hair when he’s born, but Donte has black hair until the end? If Mundus is immortal, why does he need an heir? Why does time randomly slow down after Vurgil shoots Lilith? How did Kat know the layout of so many floors in Mundus’ tower? Surely he didn’t give her a tour of the whole building, right? Did Donte and Vurgil fuck the entire planet by releasing demons into earth and destroying world economics and governments? Or are there pre-existing governments anyway?

Seriously, I could go on forever.

Beyond basic plot, logic and diegetic continuity (the rules of DmC’s world, and how it suspends your disbelief), you get into more subjective questions like “is Donte a likable character?”

I, perhaps surprisingly, think he is. He’s such a tryhard asshole for the majority of his game, never stopping to think about what he’s doing or to engage with the They Live world he lives in that he is, honestly, a bit adorable. He’s not someone I’d ever have the patience to hang out with in real life, but he is at least consistent. He’s a total lughead and he almost blows up the planet, but it makes sense that a nihilistic, “act first, think later” bro would do that.

And I think that sums up his story too; dumber than it thinks, but entertaining all the same. It’s a different kind of dumb than the original games, a kind of dumb that stares at the camera wall-eyed instead of with a sideways wink.

Conclusion

As of writing, I consider Devil May Cry to be dead as a series. With no solid news from Capcom on further projects for 7 years now, DmC: Devil may Cry is the swansong of the entire franchise. Well, beyond shitty cameo costumes in Dead Rising 4, or pachinko machines or whatever.

Likewise, more recent hack n slash series like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Nier: Automata have risen to challenge Devil May Cry for its crown, and without something better than Ninja Theory’s efforts to stop them, they’ll probably get it.

DmC is not a complete trainwreck. It’s enjoyable, worth the second hand price and 10+ hours of your time. It’s entertaining in a similar way a bad film is; so long as you don’t expect too much from it, you’ll have a laugh. Let go of your bitterness with Ninja Theory and Tameem and you’ll poke fun at it in a less mean-spirited way then your fan rage wants you to. DMC deserved to end on a better note than this, but.....honestly....fuck it. Capcom probably couldn’t make anything much better themselves these days anyway.

Treat DmC like a pug; malformed and lumpy, probably should have been neutered a generation ago, but funny to look at and play with, even though it’s covered in its own slobber.

[ladyfogg]

Sick Like Me - Part 17/20

Sick Like Me - Part 17/20

Fic Summary: With unfinished business hanging over your head, being locked up in Arkham is holding you back. However, you have your eye on a certain red-haired maniac, who may be just the person to help you escape and realize your true potential.  Fic Song. Fic Playlist. Fic Masterpost.

Fic Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Jerome Valeska/Female Reader

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, for a complete list of warnings, visit AO3.

Jerome is different after the GCPD attack and killing his father.

It's like a switch has been flipped. Now that he’s in the spotlight, now that everyone in Gotham knows his face, his confidence skyrockets.

You allow him to take the lead, smitten by this new, commanding man who knows exactly what he wants. It's arousing. To hear that demanding voice spitting orders to Aaron and the servants. To watch that glint in his eyes as he lays out his plans for the benefit dinner.

It takes all your self control not to jump him every time he opens his mouth. He, however, lacks any and all self control.

Which is how you find yourself flat on your stomach, face-first in the mattress, Jerome fucking you like his life depends on it. The door was still open. He hadn't even bothered to close it before he was all over you. On the end table, the red light flashes on the camera as it records your every movement.

“What has gotten into you?” you groan, gripping the edge of the bed.

Jerome laughs, fingers digging into your hips. “You, Queenie. This is all your fault,” he grunts. “You encouraged me the entire way. And now we've got this city terrified of us.”

He reaches around and presses hard on your sensitive nub, making you cry out at the over-stimulation.

“Of you,” you pant. “It's all you, baby. They're running scared because of you. What you did to the Commissioner and your father were beautiful.”

His hand yanks your shirt down over your shoulder before he sinks his teeth into the bruised flesh. You come a second later, moaning so loud your voice cracks. Jerome finishes inside you, chest lined along your back as he pants in your ear.

It's like you've merged into one person now. You have to be with each other. No matter how many times you fuck him, it's never enough for either of you. Pure need is the only way to describe it. You need each other to survive.

Jerome slips out, his seed dripping onto the bedspread. “We have to move fast to beat the GCPD,” he says, giving your bottom loud smack.

You wince, still sore from yesterday. “I told you, my ass is off limits,” you remind him, pushing yourself up with a wince. “And we go after my stepmother tonight.”

“We sure she hasn't been moved?” Jerome asks, standing and pulling his pants up.

“They lost too many cops,” you say, rolling onto your back to face him. “They don't have the manpower to do it. Plus, I've got people watching the place. If she moves, they know what to do.”

Jerome grins, zipping his pants. “Perfect,” he purrs. “What do you need from me?”

“Pack our clothes,” you instruct. “Send the servants away. We need to make sure this place is cleared out within the hour.”

“Why?”

“It's a surprise.”

Jerome takes your ankles and spreads your legs, dark eyes taking in the sight of your used cunt. “I'll get started in a minute,” he says, kneeling on the bed.

However, when he tries to put his head between your legs, you dig your knees into his temples, stopping him.

“Now!” you order. “Time is our enemy and I've given you more than enough of my body today. And enough footage.”

Jerome pouts, drawing back. “Fine,” he grunts. “But only because I'm eager to kill your stepmom.”

He slides off the bed, turning off the camera, while you move to clean up. Once you're refreshed, you head to the weapons room to grab a few things.

You're scarily calm, considering. Maybe it was the series of orgasms you've had over the last several hours, or because you have a way to handle Jim Gordon, but you find yourself level-headed and determined.  

Jerome enters the room some time later, pulling you out of your musings. “Car is ready,” he announces, sliding up next to you. “Ooo so many things to play with. What are you going to do first?” He gasps and pulls out a hatchet. “This one, this one!”

“You can't bust out the big guns right away,” you tell him, taking the hatchet and putting it back into the duffel bag. “Sometimes you need the foreplay. It's not always fun to go in dry.”

“Most of the time you don't need foreplay,” Jerome giggles, leaning in to nuzzle your neck. “You're always so wet when I take you.”

Grinning, you shove him away. “Not always, but I like a little pain,” you say, zipping the bag. “The arrangements all set?”

Jerome nods, grabbing the bag and slinging the strap over his shoulder. “I'm warning you,” he says. “Seeing you torture and kill the bitch is going to give me a massive hard-on.”

“If all goes according to plan, me too,” you smirk, walking toward the door. “Be prepared for a long night and not being able to walk tomorrow.”

Jerome halts his steps but you keep going, your smirk widening.

“Come on, let me show you what I've been working on,” you say over your shoulder. “Shultz can wait.”

The penthouse has many rooms, and up until that point, you had kept this particular space for yourself. It originally was intended to be a ballroom, though lacked the gravitas. You had personally remodeled it into the perfect torture chamber.

Too small for an actual ballroom, the circular layout throws you off when you enter, which was the first thing you liked about it. The large windows are covered with wooden boards painted black, blocking out any and all natural light. In the center of the room sits an examination table you had stolen, surrounded by mirrors and various sized television screens.

Jerome practically squeals with excitement when you lead him through the door, stepping over wires as you approach the table.

“Queenie,” he gushes, sounding impressed. “You've been busy!”

“Of course I have!” you say, placing your bag of tools on a nearby tray, then rolling it into the circle. “What, you think I just sit around looking pretty and waiting for you to fuck me?”

Jerome laughs and hops up on the table. “What's your plan, doll face?” he asks.

“To scare that woman as much as she used to scare me when I was a child,” you say. “I want her crying and whimpering before I even start to use my special toys.”

“Once we snatch her, we'll be on a timer,” Jerome points out.

“We know Detective Gordon is relentless,” you say. “So, I say we bring him here.”

Jerome's eyes light up and he leans forward. “Go on,” he grins.

Unbeknownst to Jerome, you had slowly bought the bottom floors under the penthouse, until you owned the whole  building. It was expensive, and you had to dip into one of your secret accounts to do it, but you're hoping it'll be worth the expense.

“All the floors below this one are, let's say, booby-trapped or swarming with our lovely hired help,” you explain. “It's the best death-trap money can buy. And if Gordon can get through those floors then he deserves to catch us, because that would be impressive.”

“How should we lure him here?” Jerome asks. “We can call him. Ooo, no! Make another video! You know how much I love taunting the police.”

“I have a better idea,” you say, turning from the chair. “Come on, I'll buy you a drink.”

Oswald’s isn't very full when you stroll in, flanked by Jerome and Aaron. You find this interesting, given the fact the place was usually pact when Fish owned it.

Oswald himself is sitting at one of the tables and when he sees you, his face hardens. “Queenie,” he says stiffly, getting to his feet. “Wasn't expecting a visit, considering the circumstances.”

He motions for his bodyguards to let you pass and you order Aaron to hang back, before smiling charmingly as you cross to Oswald.

“Desperate times, Oswald,” you say, offering your cheek. He gives you the obligatory air kiss, and you feel Jerome tense behind you. “This is Jerome. Jerome, sweetie, Oswald Cobblepot.”

“King of Gotham,” Oswald adds. “Mr. Valeska, it's a pleasure to finally meet.”

Jerome steps up next to you and offers one of his wide smiles. “Likewise,” he says. “Any friend of Queenie is a friend of mine.”

“Are we friends, Queenie?” Oswald questions. “Because I had an interesting visit from Jim Gordon accusing me of conspiring with you. Now, why would he think that?”

“Okay, funny story,” you say. “I’d love to tell you all about it, if we could speak somewhere private, of course.”

Oswald regards you suspiciously, gaze lingering on Jerome. “Right this way,” he eventually says, motioning to a secluded booth in the corner.

The three of you tuck yourselves in and a waiter comes over, placing a drink in front of Oswald.

“Rum and coke for the pair of us,” you order.

Oswald holds his hand up to stop the waiter. “Don't bother,” he says. “They're not even old enough to drink.”

You pout and draw out a wad of cash. “I promised my puddin’ a drink,” you say. “Come on, Ozzy.”

Oswald's jaw clenches at the nickname. The money does the trick however, and he nods to the waiter, who takes the payment and slinks away.

Knowing you're already on thin ice, you get right into it. “To be blunt, Oswald, I thought you betrayed me,” you explain. “Gordon and Thompkins were waiting for us. We were ambushed and my brain immediately went there.”

At this Oswald considers your words, nodding with acknowledgement. “That's understandable, I suppose,” he says. “But I didn't. And our confidentiality agreement was betrayed.”

“And for that I am truly sorry,” you say. “I have very few allies in Gotham and it was not my intention to sully our partnership.”

It's hard to tell if Oswald believes you. His eyes slide over to Jerome and the two study each other. Jerome with that ever present smirk that makes it difficult to tell his mood, Oswald with his passive poker face.

The waiter returns with your drinks, placing the glasses in front of you and Jerome.

“Your words are nice, as always, Queenie,” Oswald says, folding his hands and placing them on the table. “Unfortunately, we're discussing your actions. So, where does this leave us?”

“I have an offer,” you say, taking a sip of your drink.

Oswald looks unamused. “Not interested,” he says.

He moves to stand but Jerome does as well, grabbing his upper arm to keep him from leaving. The room goes dead silent, except for a series of clicks as Oswald’s bodyguards cock their guns.

“The least you can do is hear what she has to say,” Jerome smiles.

Oswald gives him a bored look and yanks his arm out of Jerome's grasp. “Give me one good reason why I should,” he orders.

“Payback,” you answer. “Jim Gordon comes to you for help, doesn't he? He practically admitted so the last time we chatted. Seems I'm not the only one blabbing about our relationship.”

Oswald slowly sits back down, and Jerome follows, eyes trained on him.

“On occasion,” Oswald admits, picking up his drink. “Only when he's exhausted all other leads.”

“Perfect,” you say excitedly. “Then chances are he's going to come to you asking where I am. Actually, I'm sure he has already. Given the fact no cops have shown up at my door, I take it you didn't tell him.”

“I had a mask on when your thugs picked me up. Remember?” Oswald says.

“True,” you say. “But the more I thought about it, the more I noticed how comfortable you were. Which means, you had your men follow you just in case something happened. So, you know where I live.”

Oswald smiles. “I'd be stupid to go into your home without an exit strategy,” he says. “Alright then, Queenie, what should I tell Detective Gordon?”

“The truth,” Jerome answers, sipping his drink and draping his arm around your shoulders.

Oswald raises his eyebrow. “You want me to tell him where your penthouse is?”

“Exactly,” you say excitedly.

Oswald looks between the two of you. “Why do you want him to know?” he asks.

His tone is guarded, as if he knows exactly why. It's not that much of a stretch. There's only one reason why you would want Gordon there.

“I think you already have that answer,” you say.

Oswald stares at you for a long time, barely blinking. It's to the point where you begin to worry. You don't know why he wouldn't give up Gordon, especially after agreeing about the man being trouble. Does Oswald have something over him? Did Gordon lie to you? Is he really in Oswald’s pocket?

“So are you going to do it or what?” Jerome's sharp voice cuts through your thoughts.

After a moment, Oswald smiles and gives you a nod. “Alright, I can do that,” he says. “It'll make up for you both ratting me out to each other.”

“Excellent!” you exclaim.

You raise your glass, offering it to toast. Oswald lifts his to do the same, withdrawing right before they clink.

“But…” Oswald adds, leaning forward. “You owe me a favor.”

“Nothing sexual,” Jerome interjects.

Oswald rolls his eyes and makes a face. “She's not my type,” he says. “Besides, that's not how I handle favors.”

“Oswald gets all the favors he wants,” you say, placing your hand on Jerome's thigh to calm him. You tap your glass to Oswald's.

Jerome relaxes a little under the touch, but you can still feel the tension coming off him in waves. He drains the rest of his drink, still obviously jealous. Which is hilarious considering this is Oswald. You're pretty sure no woman is his type. Or at least, very few. You've never asked.

The Penguin smiles wider. “Glad to hear it,” he says. “We have deal. Now please, leave my club.”

He is the last person you want to push your luck with, so you don't argue. You finish your drink and slam the cup down.

“Thank you, Oswald,” you say. “I can always count on you.”

Jerome slides out of the booth, offering his hand. You take it and allow him to help you to his feet.

“This is the one time I'll forgive the slip up,” Oswald calls. “Next time, no favor will help you.”

“Don't worry, Ozzy. There won't be a next time,” you promise.

---

Sitting in the limo across from Wayne Enterprise, you never in a million years thought you would be nervous. That feeling of calmness is completely gone now, and you feel twitchy. The apartment complex is the most unassuming thing you've ever seen. Which is probably why they picked it.

During the drive you've changed into police uniforms, knowing it's the quickest way into the building. As long as you have your hat pulled down low, nobody will notice who you are.

You suppose the nerves come from what happened last time. But as far as you know Gordon is still at the precinct, trying to handle the lack of authority.

The front door is easy enough to get through. You're buzzed in by the doorman, and as soon as you pass into the building, Jerome takes him out with a single bullet.

Essen had said your stepmother is being kept on the third floor. Upon further investigation, there are no stairs in the lobby, so you're forced to use the elevator. The entire ride up you're fidgeting, and Jerome notices.

“You ready for this, doll face?” he asks.

Grinning despite the nerves, you wink. “You ready to take it from me later? Because once the bitch is dead I'm going to be all kinds of worked up,” you vow.

Jerome hooks an arm around your waist, drawing you in. “Counting on it,” he says, before he kisses you.

His lips and tongue keep you grounded,  you lose yourself in the taste and sensation. The nerves start to melt away, replaced by eagerness. You're so ready for this.  

The doors open, revealing a long hallway and you pull apart, slapping Jerome on the ass as he walks ahead. You follow the corridor all the way, only to find that it ends in a turn. Around the corner, two officers stand beside a door, looking bored.

Jerome whistles to himself as he pulls one of your smaller smoke grenades out of his pocket. He yanks the pin and tosses the canister, which bounces and rolls across the floor. The radius on that particular grenade isn't very big, but it's just enough to hit the intended targets.

Seconds later you hear two thuds and by the time you turn the corner, the men are down and the small amount of gas is already dissipating. You give it another minute before it's safe to get closer.

Aaron moves to stand on one side of the door while you stand on the other, leaving Jerome to knock.

The sound of someone undoing the locks makes your heart beat wildly, and you curl your fingers around the pistol on your hip, ready for a fight. The door finally opens, and another officer pokes his head out.

“Hi!” Jerome greets, then shoots him.

Jerome and Aaron kick the door open, and from inside the apartment you hear gunshots and screaming.

Screaming you've heard before.

After a few seconds, Jerome calls, “All clear, gorgeous,”

Ditching the cop's hat, you casually slink into the room. Several bodies lay bleeding out on the floor, and you watch as Jerome shoots one that's still twitching. Turning towards the person sobbing, your heart soars.

She's there. She's actually there. Her eyes are wide with terror and she's cowering in a corner as Jerome and Aaron advance.

“Yeah, screaming isn't going to really get you anything,” Jerome giggles.

Aaron is grinning and reaches out for the woman.

“Boys!” you say sharply. “She's my toy, remember?”

Jerome and Aaron immediately stop advancing, stepping apart to let you pass between them. As soon as she sees your face, your stepmother screams again.

“Hi, Mom,” you purr, slowly stepping closer. “You didn't think I'd forget about you, did you?”

“Please, please just let me live!” she begs. “I'll do anything! You can have all of it! The house, the money, everything!”

“Great, except I don't give a shit about any of that,” you say, backing her into a corner. “See, that was one of your problems. You never knew me as well as you thought you did.”

“Then what do you want? Please just tell me!” she pleads.

“Honestly, I want to see you suffer,” you shrug.

She tries to run. It's her only choice and she takes it, barreling into you so hard you nearly fall backward. But Aaron seizes her as Jerome catches you.

Aaron looks amused as she tries to fight him. He simply wraps his arms around her and crushes her to his chest.

“I love it when they try to run,” Jerome grins.

“You know, Mom, when I was in Arkham they used to force us to go to therapy,” you say, moving to stand in front of her. From your pocket you draw out a syringe filled with clear liquid. “And there were so many things I discovered about our relationship that I want to share with you. We're going to take a little trip.”

“You'll have to kill me first!” your stepmom snarls.

You tut and grab her chin, forcing her to look you in the eye. “Trust me, you're not getting off that easy.”

You stab the syringe in her neck, injecting her with a powerful knock drug, and watching as her eyes immediately droop. She goes limp in Aaron's arms.

Elated and eager to get back home, you toss the syringe to the side and snap your fingers at Aaron. He slings the woman over his shoulder and the three of you head for the exit.

“By the way, Queenie, you never said how we're going to scare her,” Jerome comments, wrapping his arm around your waist.

“There's only one thing she fears more than being broke,” you tell him.

“And that is…?”

You grin. “Clowns.”

[dapperkobold]

Review at Random: Dawn of War 2

Dawn of War was a competent game desperately in need of a quality of life update. Dawn of War 2 is... different. The quality of life improved, but it’s still subject to some troublesome issues that make me frown. Also, bad replayability.

(I already did Dawn of War)

Graphics-wise, it’s fine. Move along. Sure, people who are picky about graphics will no doubt frown, butt they’re rather nice, effective, and not disruptive. Sound quality was similar.

Gameplay, however...

Let me open with a bald-faced admittance that I’m not a multiplayer player. I don’t do the PVP thing. It’s not an interest of mine. I play campaigns, I like plot and campaign missions. As a result, I have no idea how the multiplayer in this game works. The campaign is doing its own thing with its own rules.

The base campaign is really closer to a... let’s call it RTRPS: Real Time Role-Playing Strategy. You have your space marines, they level up, you equip gear that the enemies drop, you gain more stats and abilities as things go on. At the same time, the control scheme and setup means that you’re really playing an RTS game. The resulting hybrid system is... well, it’s not amazing, but I’d love to see it refined until it was. It works, certainly, it’s even good, but it could use some fine-tuning.

You level up, you invest points in stats, you get abilities. Usually I’m hard on stats in video games (especially MMOs, but that’s a line for another time), but this time they’re really straightforward. Health, energy, ranged damage, melee damage. Nice. You unlock abilities in the stats as you level them up, and those abilities are the real power behind your units.

In missions, you get equipment (called wargear as per the Warhammer tradition) and you slap those on your guys. There’s no money or stores, only what you pick up in the wild. Extra gear you can throw in the hopper for extra EXP. Not bad, I suppose, but I’ve become disenfranchised with gear systems in general and especially leveled ones. Oh yes, gear items have levels and if you’re not that level you don’t get to use that gear.

Thankfully, the gear in this game isn’t too bad. It’s mostly linear progression, but there’s occasionally the difficult choice. If this game did have a store, however, I’m pretty sure that would foul it all up, so I’m very glad it does not.

Story-wise, it’s not bad. Not amazing, but I’ll take it and be happy. The characters are fairly compelling, the voice acting is good enough, and the overall plot is really good except for the Eldar.

It’s no wonder that the Eldar are a dying people. How did they get a successful civilization in the first place with such terrible communication skills? And for being ‘master manipulators’ they... really are not. They can’t even manipulate Orks right. They aren’t smart, they don’t seem to have a solid tactical or strategic understanding, much less the social skills to really manipulate people, and they aren’t good at their jobs. 

B- to B+ story, but I’m leaning towards -.

Level design I’m going to be harsher on. You’re on every single map at least twice, and I think it’s sometimes three or more times. none of the levels are super memorable, and it’s sometimes downright frustrating. Bosses are fairly common, and they’re more a drag than anything else. I was never in serious danger in a boss fight, partially due to the boss’ bad AI.

That’s not too say that the game was too easy. No, the game as a whole wasn’t too easy, just most of it was. But then some parts of it are way too hard.

I wound up playing on easy mode because the entire game has a bad case of Jekyll and Hyde. You can breeze through most of a mission, and then 3 of 4 guys are dead and the last one has a giant tank bearing down on him. By the same nature, you fight smart and bypass most of one area, and then just breeze through the rest because you just bypassed the hard part of the mission.

That said, if I could turn up the difficulty mid-game, I would have before the end. Once you get into mid- and late- game, you can blow through most anything with no trouble. You can go look up build guides for your marines if you want, but let me tell you a little secret:

There’s no doubt that you’re going to wind up overpowered. The question is how overpowered you’re going to be.

I don’t know how it is on higher difficulties (I’ve heard some horror stories) but on lower difficulties you’ll likely be fine as long as you don’t specifically hamstring yourself. Once you get past that initial hump, do the extra missions, give all your extra gear away to charity... you’ll be fine. Trust me.

However, I’ve saved the best for last: The game still has some interface issues from the first Dawn of War. The Escape key still does nothing, the hotkeys are better but still a mess, and there’s no grid layout.

Pathfinding has improved, though, barring a few MASSIVE bugs. I think there’s something wrong with Avitus’ AI that doesn’t like rocket launchers, but at least there’s no need to call down an artillery strike on your own men.

Overall, I’m not going to play through it again any time soon, but it was fairly fun.

But wait! I didn’t just get Dawn of War 2, I got ALL of it. That means I got Chaos rising and Retribution, too!

Chaos rising is more of the same. Same quality of plot, same unneeded Eldar, same quality of gameplay, same quality of RPG elements, and a slightly improved difficulty curve. You can import old saves, too, permitting you to go from ‘overpowered’ to ‘hilariously overpowered’.

That said, I’d like to go into detail on that improved curve. It no longer has harsh changes mid-mission, it now changes between Jekyll and Hyde between missions. Also, free advice: the first Eldar mission is a Hyde mission. PUT THE JUMP PACK ON YOUR FORCE COMMANDER AND BRING THADDEUS. BE READY TO LEAVE THE GROUND-POUNDERS BEHIND.

Trust me.

Really, that’s my thoughts on it. If you liked the first Dawn of War 2 campaign, you’ll likely like Chaos Rising. If you didn’t like the first one, I don’t see this one changing your mind. It has the same system, the same hotkeys, the same characters, and Avitus still doesn’t like rocket launchers, just use a heavy plasma gun or a lascannon, trust me.

Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising: second verse, same verse as the first verse.

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is quite different, though.

The RPG elements have been streamlined, the stat points now buy abilities directly and equipment has been made into more of a suite of options instead of a mostly-linear progression. I found myself actually considering my loadout and changing it instead of just rolling with the best everything, something that had only barely happened in the first two campaigns.

In addition, you can get more units, like vehicles and infantry, like it’s an RTS game! Woah! However, the level design still feels very much like it’s made for a group of four heroes instead of an army, and I found managing a large group of infantry to be tiresome, so I just wound up using elites and tanks and occasionally melee units when I felt I needed more melee presence. It worked, though.

The story stays at about the same rate, though, maybe lowering a bit. Not complaining much, it’s still not bad. Eldar are still superfluous.

The space marines campaign does lose a few points for me for benching the force commander, though. With the smaller cast and having already explored the character depth in the previous campaigns, lacking Mr. ALIEN BEANS for me to laugh at made me a little sad. Diomedes does have his moments, but that force commander and I had a good time together.

In addition, each map is surprisingly well-made, with a solid deign and no repeating. It went over well enough I wouldn’t be against re-playing it at some point. Which is a good thing, since that’s what I’ll be doing if I want to try other factions.

Yes, the other factions all have campaigns too! No, wait, it’s just the space marine one with less cohesiveness. Well... I’m not surprised, actually. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. And while the campaign is good, it’s not so good as to make me want to play it again back-to-back.

There’s a few bugs that Retribution adds, much to everyone’s chagrin, including a sound bug that crashes the game and a few other things, but they added in a option for grid hotkeys! Yay!

It turns out that’s not as great as it could be. The order of abilities does not appear to be based on the kind of ability or the placing of the accessory in the slot, but some kind of internal counter. As a result, the hotkey that corresponds to a given ability (especially from accessories) can change every mission sometimes. It’s better than the old set up, but still aggravating.

Overall, Retribution is pretty good, yeah, but it could use more polish, except for the non-space marine campaigns, which are honestly pretty vestigial.

EDIT: I missed a few things! The below conclusion is still accurate, but maybe read the add-on.

So... after all that, I don’t know how to feel. It was a fun romp, but nothing to write home about. I might play it again, eventually, but not anytime soon, and certainly not as much as I play Starcraft 2 or the Arkham games. It’s not an amazing game. I won’t kick it, but I will say it’s not for everyone, and if you want to full experience, you should wait for a sale.

I’d say that on number scores I’d put it above half, on a tier ranking I’d call it a B maybe C, on up or down I’d give it a up, and on a grade sheet I’d give it a B-. Could use some work, but I’m not going to ask you to go back and do it again.