#chris deserved to be able to save josh

[muxhroom-marx-markiplier]

au where chris is able to actually get to josh in the shed before josh gets dragged into the mines cuz its soooooo mean and rude and bs that he isnt able to in the actual game

[vanfleeter]

My Love II: Chapter 2

A/N: Adding a little more the suspense. Characters: Jake Kiszka, Josh Kiszka, Sam Kiszka, Sara, Vivianne. Warnings: 18+ || Gore. Vampires. Blood. Blood drinking. Murder. Death. Angst. Anger. Fear. Pain. Painful memories. Torture. Physical violence. Jealousy. Threats. Smut. Allusions to sex.

SAM’S POV

I didn’t feel a damn thing when I saw Jake again, chained to the wall and begging me to answer him as I dragged Ada from the room. I stood over her lifeless body as I recalled the look on his face. Confused, concerned, fearful. I’m sure I don’t look like the same old Sam. I sure don’t feel like I am. That Sam is guilty, remorseful. I cannot feel that right now. I must keep my emotions off in order to endure Vivanne’s torture in order to win–to survive. And if that means torturing my own brother, then so be it. Nothing matters at this point in time, not until Vivianne is finished. If Jake was able to end Chris, then I can end Vivianne.

I know turning my emotions back on will take a toll on me. I know the risks. I’ve done this before and I worked through it.

“Sam..”

I bring my attention back to my current situation and I lift my head to see Jake standing in front of me. His wrists are chained in front of him and he’s still looking at me with a look of concern mixed with fear. I simply stare back at him, not feeling an ounce of anything towards him.

“What happened to you?” He asks. “Why are you doing this?”

“Shut up..” I say, striking him across the face and sending him to the floor. “No more questions..” He lifts his head, spitting blood off to the side. I pull him back up to his feet and look him square in the eye. “Listen to me very carefully.. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have no choice.. She wants all of us dead, and I am trying to save us.. I had to flip, Jake. She’s made me into the ripper again, torturing me for the pain I put her through when I killed her husband. I had to flip so I could deal with the killings.” I take a step backwards and flex my fists. “Just take it.”

He inhales and straightens himself up. “Give me your worst..”

“I’m sorry..”

He scoffs and smirks. “No, you’re not.”

I chuckle and swing my fist at his jaw. “For once I can beat you up and you can’t do a thing,” I say as I grab his chin and force him to look at me again. “And man does it feel good.”

“Don’t worry,” He dry laughs. “When all is said and done, I’ll see to it that you get what you deserve, baby brother.”

“I’ll be waiting,” I smirk before swinging my fist and slamming it into the side of his face once more.

When the hour was up, and Jake was bloodied and bruised on the floor, Vivianne made her entrance with a pretty blonde by her side. I can hear her blood pumping through her veins as her heart beats wildly in her chest.

She’s scared.

Her eyes flicker down at Jake before coming to rest on me again. I can’t control the smirk on my face. She’s fearful that I might do to her that I did to Jake.

Oh how wrong she is.

“You know what to do..” Vivianne says as she shoves the girl forward and leaves the room.

“No! Please!” The girl shouts as she bangs on the door. She looks back at me as I slowly advance towards her. “Please let me out of here! Please!”

I reach my hand around her neck and she gasps, closing her eyes tightly.

“Sam..” I hear Jake from behind me. “Don’t do it..”

“I have to..” I say before sinking my teeth into her neck. I cover her mouth to silence her screams, I just can’t stand all of the screaming. But the thrashing of her body sends me into overdrive. It gives me a bit of a challenge, but I like challenges. Soon she starts to slow down, her screaming ceasing and instead becoming soft whimpers. Her body falls limp in my arms making me tighten my hold on her.

When I was finished with her, I dropped her body and her head to the ground before turning back around to face Jake. His back was to me as he breathed deeply, trying to control himself.

“I’m sorry, did you want a taste too?” I ask as I wipe the sleeve of my jacket across my face and clean off the blood. “I seem to have forgotten my manners.”

Jake scoffs before turning back to face me. I can see his fangs retract and he inhales deeply. “Seems you’ve forgotten a lot of things.”

Bending down to the girl’s body, I swipe my finger through a small pool of blood as I step up to Jake. He tries to move away but I’m much quicker than him. Pinning his back to the wall, I held his jaw in my hand, keeping him still even as he struggled against me.

“Don’t do it..”

“I never told you this, because I wanted to keep your psyche intact.. But remember when you fed on the poor woman to gain back your strength before we went after Chris and Michael?” I swipe my finger across his mouth before shoving off of him. “You killed her.. I simply told you no, played it off so you wouldn't freak out..” I can see him struggling against the temptation to taste the blood. He’s battling with himself but I know him. The longer the temptation goes, the more his will power diminishes.

“I didn't kill her..”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.” He says more firmly.

“You can deny it all you want, Jake.. But admit it, you’re the monster you’ve always feared. First you killed Sitovo, then you killed Chris, and the poor woman.. Shame, you never got her name.. Oh wait,” I chuckle, shaking my head. “Silly me.. You don't like to make it personal.”

“Stop..”

“Her name was Olive.. Thirty-two and mother of three children..”

“I said stop!” Jake shouts. He looks at me with fire in his eyes.

“Can’t touch me, Jake. Your powers are weak, you can't do anything..” I step closer again. “You killed an innocent woman–a mother no less.”

“Please, stop..” The images flash in his head as I feed him every memory of that night. “Please.. Please..” He drops to his knees in a fit of tears. “I didn't kill her.. I didn't kill her..”

I bend down to his level and lift his chin. His eyes filled with tears and grew irritated. “You are the monster, Jake. You killed three people, and felt no remorse..”

“Stop it!” He screams as fresh tears spill down his face. “Please!”

I grab his face in my hands and look him in the eyes. “Turn. It. Off.”

“No..”

“Turn it off, Jake. Come on, you’ve done it before.”

“I said no!”

“Come on, Jake.. It won’t be for long..”

“Please.. Please..” He mutters repeatedly as he clutches his head.

“Do you remember Edda?”

“Sam.. Please..”

“She loved you.. She trusted you.. And then you went and killed her..”

“Stop.. Just stop! Get out of my head!”

“And you’re telling everyone that I’m a ripper?” I chuckle and grab a fistful of his hair before yanking his head back. His chin shakes but he still has a small ounce of his will power to still fight me. “You were the ripper first.. Or did you forget to disclose that little detail? ‘Oh I killed once and it destroyed me and I vowed to never kill again’.. Pfft, please. Just wait until Sara finds out the truth about you. She knows you slept around a lot before you settled on Sitovo, but what about your ripper phase? How would she like it when she knows about that? She’d never look at you the same..”

JAKE’S POV

Images of Sara flashed through my head. Disappointment. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Her heart breaks as she looks at me differently. I try to reach for her but as my hand just barely holds hers, she’s pulling away.

Fight it, Jake.

Fight against Sam.

Don’t let him win. Don’t let him break you.

I’m struggling to keep my walls up. He knows everything, I can’t hide from him. He’s in every corner of my brain, pulling out all of the things that I have kept hidden for hundreds of years. Things that I have never told Sara.

“December 1545.. You tore through a little village in Spain. You spared no one.”

Images of that time period flash in my head. The screams of terror and people begging for their lives. All I could see was red. My hunger for human blood was too powerful for me to fight. I broke every rule known to the Onyx clan. I broke them all because I was lustful and couldn't control myself.

They tortured me for months after that. Kept me locked up in a cellar with little to no light and they starved me of blood until I was on the brink of death. Josh reasoned with them, promised them that he’d help me be better, teach me how to control myself.

Suddenly the images ceased and my head was clear, aside from the ringing from Sam’s prior blows. He’s pulling me back up to my feet and clutching the collar of my shirt in his hands. His eyes are focused on mine.

“I could kill you,” He says. “She wants us all dead, so really–it would work out well for her.”

“Then kill me..” I sputtered through the blood still lingering in my mouth. “I would rather be dead than to live with no humanity.”

“But it’s so freeing.” He grins.

“It won’t be easy coming back.. You will suffer..”

“That is something I will deal with when the time comes.. But for now, I’m trying to survive.. Which is what you need to do too.”

I spit in his face and his grin disappears. “As I said.. I would rather die..”

“Then so be it..” He throws me into the wall, my back slamming into the cement. He has one hand wrapped around my neck while the other one plunges into my chest. I can feel his fingers wrapping around my heart. “Don’t test me, Jake.”

“Do it..” I gasp. “Fucking… Do… It…”

His hand lets go of my heart and he removes it from my chest. His other hand loosens on my neck and he drops me to the floor.

“Your death would be the most painful to endure if I ever flip back.. I don’t think I’d ever survive that..”

After I catch my breath, I look up at him. He’s not fully switched. Sam is still there.

“But we have to fight, Jake.. We need to survive..”

I shake my head and struggle to get myself back up on my feet. “You know how hard it will be for me to turn it all back on.. I won’t want to..”

“I will make you,” He says. “I won’t let you repeat Spain.” A glimmer of hope sparks within me as I take in his words. He’s still in there.

“You might not, but I will..” Vivianne stands in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. She drops them to her sides and she makes her way over to the both of us. Suddenly she has me pinned to the wall again. “I still want you dead but keeping you as my little puppet would be so much better.. So.. Turn. It. Off.”

“Never..” I gasp beneath her hold.

“If you don't turn it off, I will have Sam rip Sara limb from limb.”

“She has done nothing..”

“She’s killed, Jake!” Vivianne shouts. “She became the monster that you feared she would be..”

“She was forced to..”

“And now I’m forcing you to turn off your emotions.. If you want her to live, then turn them off!”

I look over at Sam. He’s pleading with his eyes, begging me to switch. ‘We need to survive..’ His words echo in my head. I have to keep Sara safe. I have to protect her, even if that means turning it all off. I can only hope that she’ll forgive me.

SARA’S POV

Two days have gone and we still haven’t done anything. We know exactly where she’s keeping Sam and Jake, but Josh won’t make a move. We’ve been hiding out in this janky motel room and occasionally feeding off the staff and wiping their memories afterwards. But we can’t keep doing this. For all we know she could have killed them already and we’d be too late.

I don't know what I would do without Jake. I’m barely surviving still. Every day is a struggle and I don't have him to guide me–to help me. I can't do this on my own. Not yet. I’m not ready.

While being cooped up in this motel room, I’ve spent a lot of time reading through some of Jake’s journals. There was a lot that I still did not know about him, things that he still kept secret or fabricated.

Edda was his first kill, the one he struggled with. But then it only got worse after that. Sam, I learned, wasn't the original ripper.. Jake was. He tormented a village in Spain, covering the whole place in red. He knew what he was doing and he just didn't care. After his killing spree, and before the Onyx’s torture, he had went on a binge of feeding and sleeping with his victims. He was a menace, the side of him that he’s never admitted to nor has ever told me about.

According to his journals, that was over four hundred and seventy-nine years ago. He has been steady with his feeding–though his sleeping around was still the same. I read about his relationship with Sitovo. He wrote in such detail about her and the love that he had for her. It makes me wonder if he’ll ever write about me, but I know his journals stopped just before we met, and he hasn't written in one since.

I had been finishing Jake’s journal from 1903, how he met Vivianne and all of what she was to him. She was nothing but a woman he slept with a few times after he would feed. He chose her because he found her more pleasing than the woman he fed on. This was before she married Richard. He wrote about her not being anything like Sitovo. At the time, he and Sitovo were in the ‘off again’ of their relationship. He compared the two of them to each other, but he always spoke highly of Sitovo. I didn't realize how long they had been together before she disappeared in the seventies and left him with a broken heart.

They met in 1865, at the end of the Civil War where he fought alongside The Union. He and his brothers had lived in America from the time of the Revolutionary War, where he had met and fought against Chris, up until today. When he met Sitovo, she was fresh off a boat, first class, from London. Though he still loathed the British, he couldn't fight how he felt for her. There was no one like her. He described her as being a force of nature but also gentle and kind. She spoke with elegance and pride, and held herself in a manner that told people that even though she was a woman, they shouldn't mess with her. She was turned by the time they met so it made it easier for Jake to reveal who he was to her. He writes of how they fell in love, even of the first time they had slept together.

But when he reverts back to talking about Vivianne, it was quite the opposite. He only found her pleasing to his body, but not his soul. He never had feelings for her and he only used her for sex. He didn't stick around Louisiana for long and he ended up leaving to go back to Virginia where he reunited with Sitovo. Yet another detailed reunion.

“How many times do I have to tell you that jealousy just isn’t a good look for you?” I hear Josh say.

“And how many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my head?”

Josh chuckles and walks over to where I’m seated on the bed. “Look at you,” He says as he takes the journal. “You’re practically spewing steam from your ears like a train.” He closes the journal and sits on the nightstand beside the bed. “Come on, sharpen your fangs sweetheart. We’ve got to feed once more before we strike.”

@losfacedevil @writingcold @edgingthedarkness @i-love-gvf @katuschka @josh-iamyour-mama @sammysstolenbirks @asendingtothestarsasone @hollyco @musicislove3389 @its-interesting-van-kleep @katiegvf @tinydancer40 @gretavangroupie @lizzys-sunflower @fleetingjake @takenbythemadness @godly-sinsx @psychedelectable @dancingcarbon @oliverfuckingreed @cheersdannyx2 @piratejtk @katuschka @musicislove3389 @takenbythemadness

add yourself to the tag list in my master list!

[madametnt]

The Worst Possible Run of Until Dawn as Scientifically Calculated by Me

Sequel to this post aka Best Run(TM) can be found here

Many people have jokingly done “worst runs” of Until Dawn. Usually these are standard “everybody dies” runs where you kill every character as soon as possible, or you’re just trying to pick all the seemingly funny options. However, these runs are typically done without the absurd amount of game knowledge a loser like me possesses.

Armed with my awareness of Until Dawn’s intricacies, I sought something deeper than a simple all deaths run. My mission was to not only kill these characters in the most tragic way possible, but make them the worst possible versions of themselves while doing it. Fair warning, this guide will contain spoilers for the entirety of Until Dawn since it is best experienced after playing through the game at least once. You get to see a lot of dialogue exchanges that I haven’t been able to find documented anywhere on YouTube, so it’s very worth while if you are interested in that kind of thing. Here’s how I did it.

For this run we are only getting clues/interactables that are either mandatory, or give you the opportunity to lower a relationship with another character. The only exception to this is the hand you can touch as Mike in the asylum because it makes him look stupid. The characters have a tendency to discuss things they find and piece together clues, but not finding any change the cutscenes to make them look like confused and bumbling idiots completely oblivious to what’s going on.

Another thing that will make sense later is that you actually need to play some sections of the game correctly as to set up worse fates for the characters later down the line. Missing QTE’s for the most part only serves to slow the game down, but if you feel like doing so in the earlier sections of the game where the threat of danger is minimal then who am I to stop you?

Dr. Hill is kind of an odd ball and you can get kind of creative with these parts since they are mostly subjective. I personally recommend picking options that hate on animals, crowds, fearing women, etc. Pick the more selfish moral options, I recommend honesty since too much honesty can be seen as cruel. Just don’t pick charity, we hate giving to others here. When picking characters, pick Josh as your favorite since we wanna be a narcissist and Sam as your least favorite since she’s the most difficult to make a terrible person. The absolute must though is being completely unrepentant about the prank and suffering of the characters. Play it like Josh genuinely thinks they are getting what they deserve.

Anything labeled a “bonus” is something that doesn’t really effect anything, but add just that little extra flavor of awfulness. They aren’t mandatory and can be skipped if you feel they are a waste of time.

Last thing is anything marked with a * is just additional information

PROLOGUE

- Drop Hannah

Bonus: miss all QTE’s, take safe route, pick follow footprints, pick follow noise

CHAPTER 1

* You have to feed the squirrel or else you can’t progress

- Snoop in Chris’s bag as Sam to lower their relationship

- Shoot the squirrel as Chris to lower his relationship with Sam

- Explain as Jessica

* This will lower her relationship with Sam slightly while raising it with Chris, (vice versa if you pick demand) but between the two options I think explain comes off as sassier

- Threaten Mike as Matt to lower their relationship

- Protest Emily’s request to go back for her bag

* Despite it seeming sweet Matt is worried about his GF, threatening Mike actually raises his relationship with Emily so protesting will immediately put it back down

- Encourage Matt to look in the telescope as Ashley

* Snowball fight is mostly irrelevant except for this next step, deck Mike to your hearts content

- Hit the bird during the snowball fight

- Shove a snowball in Mike’s face

* The ice sickle QTE afterwards doesn’t matter as Mike will save Jess if she doesn’t push them out of the way first

Bonus: mislead Matt when he initially asks to look through the telescope before conceding afterwards, this basically lets Matt know that Ashley at least momentarily tried to deceive him and then proceeded to be a complete pushover after a little prodding

CHAPTER 2

- Gossip with Josh as Chris as worry raises their relationship

- Be unsettled when talking to Ashley as Chris since confident raises their relationship

- This is a bit hard to miss, but if you walk down (basically opposite of where Ashley is sitting) you can talk to Matt. Ask him how he Emily are doing. This will upset him since he looked through the telescope earlier.

- Basically keep telling Josh to stop being a creep when he talks to Chris about Ashley since agreeing with him raises their relationship

* Talking with Sam doesn’t have any dialogue choices

- Fight Mike as Matt (pick warn followed by attack) this will set Matt’s relationship with every character except Emily to almost zero

Now for a section I like to call Being a Horrible Boyfriend starring Michael Munroe: Part 1

- Jessica will ask Mike about Matt, I forgot what the exact option is called but you want to downplay what happened instead of being openly mad at Matt so Jessica can call bullshit on you

- Ask Jess what she remembers about the prank to be insensitive and lower their relationship

- When Jessica falls into the mineshaft, be as unhelpful and unheroic as possible, do not willingly jump down (Mike will eventually do so on his own after Jessica complains enough) to lower their relationship

- Be grumpy about the bird to lower their relationship

Back to our regularly scheduled programming

- Be mocking about Chris and Ashley as Sam to lower her relationship with Josh

- Tell Josh that “it’s weird to be back” when he tells Sam he’s glad she came

- Pick up the baseball bat while Josh is doing Josh things

- Select humorous, this causes Sam to bring up Josh’s daddy issues and lower their relationship

- Do not high five him. This doesn’t effect stats or anything but it’s about the disrespect.

* Choosing to prank him or not does not affect their relationship

- Choose to investigate the noise together since picking heroic raises their relationship

Bonus: intentionally fuck up the selfie as Mike with Jess

CHAPTER 3

- Be flippant about the spirit board as Ashley to lower her relationship with Josh

* Pick any options you want during the seance, just be sure you don’t apologize since we are unrepentant bitches

Being a Horrible Boyfriend starring Michael Munroe: Part 2

- Be angry about getting pranked

- Do not cross the bridge, instead walk down towards the camera until you discover a tree with E+M surrounded by a heart

- Interact with it, and then make Mike deny it was him and blame it on Emily in a display of toxic masculinity and lower his relationship with Jess

- Kill the deer as Mike because animal cruelty

- Go into the old shed and pick up the mask inside

- Choose scare to be an asshole (and lower their relationship)

- During the chase sequence, pick all the safe options (or let time run out prompting Jess to take the lead), and make sure not to help Jess and unlock the door instead

- Pick up the rifle near the front door and select scare to lower their relationship and be an even BIGGER asshole

- Dismiss Jessica’s insecurities, pick seduce to further ignore her emotional vulnerability, and just generally use your intuition to be an uncaring dick to lower their relationship

This ends our series of Being a Horrible Boyfriend starring Michael Munroe

- Show Ashley the letter as Chris, as being protective implies we care

CHAPTER 4

- For once we wanna be a good boyfriend as Mike and save Jessica during the chase (pick all the risky options, jump instead of shimmy, and get through the QTE’s)

* This is a setup so we can give her a sadder death with Matt in the caves

- Choose to save Ashley as Chris, this lowers his relationship with Josh and makes him bitter later on

CHAPTER 5

- Touch the waving hand. Let the intrusive thoughts win.

- Choose to pry free twice, before cutting off your fingers with the newly dulled blade to cause Mike more suffering

- Kick the dog :(

- Do not feed the dog :(

- Tell Emily to squeeze through the window as Matt, she will deny him since our relationship is low and choosing this lowers it further

- Disagree when Emily says to go to the radio tower to lower their relationship

- When Emily falls off the ledge you’re shimmying on, do nothing to help her (she’ll pull herself up on her own but be pissed)

- Get caught by the Psycho as Sam (literally just stand there)

CHAPTER 6

- Rebuke Emily as Matt to lower their relationship

- Kill the elk as Matt, but don’t let him fall off the cliff since we need him alive for now

* You cannot miss any quick time event as he’s climbing back up or he will fall to his death so be extra careful

- Do not give the flare gun to Matt as Emily to lower their relationship

- Immediately fire the flare gun so that we guarantee Emily gets bitten later (having the unused flare gun lets you avoid this)

- Be completely un-compliant with the man on the radio and do the opposite of what he tells you

- Confront Emily about her and Mike as Matt on the tower and be generally unhelpful

- Choose jump to safety both times and by this point Emily should despise Matt

- Insist you saw the ghost as Ashley to Chris to lower their relationship

- Look at the catalogue of lightbulbs in the basement to have Ashley pick up the scissors

- Have Ashley be dismissive towards the prank when talking to Chris to lower their relationship

- Be reluctant at continuing on because we hate our friends

- Enter the door which I believe is in the room with the hitlist, you’ll find a projector inside. Be sure to interact with it

- Be unrepentant about the prank when Chris comments on it to Ashley to lower their relationship

- Don’t follow Chris because splitting up is stupid and thus you want to do it

- Stab the psycho as Ashley, this makes Chris punch Josh later

- Aim the gun at Ashley first to distress her cause we’re evil

- Shoot her as Chris to lower their relationship to 0

CHAPTER 7

- Do not show concern for Mike or Jessica as Sam after getting rescued as this will raise her relationship with them, focus on factual choices like asking how he got there and such

- Play through Emily’s section normally, just be sure to continue not getting unnecessary clues

- Dismiss Josh as Chris to lower their relationship

- Be angry with Josh as Chris to lower their relationship

* Because we chose to save Ashley over Josh, he will antagonize Chris here and further lower their relationship

- Hit Josh and Chris with the plywood to lower his relationship with Josh and lose Mike’s respect

CHAPTER 8

- Survive the encounter with the wendigo as Emily so we can give her a more tragic death later on (just don’t fail too many QTE’s)

- Be confused as Chris when talking to Emily and do not show any concern for her or Matt

- As Chris, demand to have the pistol from Mike, he will deny you because you hit Josh earlier in the shed

- Survive the encounter with the wendigo as Chris all the way through, Ashley will refuse to let him in once he makes it to the house, letting the wendigo kill him

- Shoot Emily as Mike in the basement which puts his relationship with every character present at 0

- Hide the truth as Ashley from Sam since Sam will immediately figure out she is lying and their relationship will drop to zero

CHAPTER 9

- Once the action sequence as Mike starts, put your controller down and enjoy some relaxation as him (and the doggy :( ) get pummeled

- Investigate voice as Ashley

- Open the thumping trap door to get Ashley killed as you won’t have the opportunity to do so later

CHAPTER 10

- Let Matt get smacked by Jessica because funny

- Do not ask Jessica if she is alright as Matt since we do not want to show empathy

- Choose hide during the chase scene, make sure to catch Jessica before she falls

- Afterwards, choose abandon Jessica

* Running ahead could be seen as accidental where as abandoning Jessica implies Matt is knowingly leaving her to die which is much worse

- Fail to close the door in time to get Matt killed

- “Come on shake your body, baby, do the conga!“ AKA fail all the don’t moves

You did it! You made all these characters into the worst versions of themselves they could possibly be.

[love-fireflysong]

Oh man, so blame @sam-giddings completely for this, but ever since last night all I’ve been able to think of is my least favourite part whenever I play Until Dawn: that bit in chapter 9 when you’re playing as Ashley and your walking underneath the lodge.

That entire bit makes no sense character wise to me and I hate it. If you play it and you choose to leave Chris behind and walk on without him, then I get it. It’s a choice you made as Ashley, so that’s what she does in that instance. Whatever. It’s the bit right after when you decide that ‘hell no, I ain’t letting none of you out of my sight are you kidding me????’ that makes me so angry. You know, the one where Ashley stays behind to close the manhole in case a wendigo tries to follow them. And then Chris just leaves her behind too.

LIke are you kidding me? You expect me to believe that shit???? You expect me to believe that Chris, who up until that point has made it very clear that there’s no way he’s gonna be able to choose Ash in the gun choice or that he can’t stand the thought that he went and left Josh behind in the shed to die, is just gonna go on without her? Especially after she just told him that they’re not leaving anyone behind and that they’re all sticking together? You expect me to believe that Chris just up and leaves her behind after all that? Oh hell fucking no. No matter what your feelings on Ashley are, Chris deciding to go on without her isn’t even in-character for him at that point. It makes absolutely no sense and I hate it.

And I know I’ve mentioned once or twice that I find it real rude that Chris doesn’t even try to give her his sweater after the whole shed incident (it’s not even romantic at that point, she’s covered in blood and likely freezing!) but I can excuse it because of the extra amount of work that would have went into  character models to make it a reality. But the bit under the lodge isn’t even that, that was so Ash can hear Jessica’s voice and investigate the trap door and lazily writing Chris out so she can do it alone. And you know what? Fuck that, I’m fixing it and it’s super easy too. You don’t even have to change a whole lot.

Chris waits for her to close the manhole and then the two of them try to catch up to Sam (and Emily). They hear Jess’s voice as they get closer to the fork in the tunnel and you get the same choice of investigating or not. If you don’t investigate then you meet up with the others and there’s no change. But if you do, then Chris tries to maybe talk Ash out of it but she’s already moving ahead so he follows her because he’s not leaving her behind. You go on, pick up the totem, and then the two of them come to the trap door. Maybe you walk past it and catch it, or maybe you open it. If Ash opens the trap door, then Hanndigo comes out same as always.

Now this is where it can get fun. I think it would be fun to give Ashley a choice here: you can either RUN or DISTRACT.

RUN is exactly what it says on the tin. Ashley grabs Chris and tries to run but they both get caught and die for very obvious reasons, plus the fact that Chris is having problems even staying upright right now, much less walking or running. Plus it continues with the opening of the trap door being an absolutely stupid move where you deserve your death.

DISTRACT though? We know that Ashley has some roots in self-preservation, it’s shown when she doesn’t let Chris back in after he tries to shoot her and when she tries to force Emily out the safe room after finding the bite. Or when she’s screaming at Chris to save her when in the shed. She doesn’t want to die, and who can blame her? Not me that’s for sure. So in order to try and distract Hanndigo and try to get away Ashley inadvertently (or on purpose if that’s how you want to see it) pushes Chris towards her. Chris is dead no matter what here really, he has a bum leg and can’t run after all. And since he can die here anyways nothing changes either.

And then while Hanndigo is busy decapitating Chris as is her modus operandi, Ashley tries to make a break for it and hide. This gives the player a chance for a DON’T MOVE segment as well (and now that I think of it, I don’t think she gets one anyway? I think she and the nigh unplayable Washington sibs are the only one who don’t get one so this even fixes that lol!). If you fail, then Ash dies obviously. You opened the trap door like a moron so you can deal with the consequences of your actions. But if you pass, then Ash lives to see another day (well, an hour if you don’t mess up in the lodge with Sam lol) and she rejoins the group filled with the lovely knowledge and horrible guilt that she killed Chris. And while people can continue to cry that Ashley is even more horrible for killing Chris knowingly here, guess what bucko? YOU made the choice to distract after opening the trap door and sealing at least one of their fates. It was obvious that there was gonna be no way out of this one, but you decided to see if you could maybe survive it anyways.

(The rest of the game goes as normal, except with a maybe even more inconsolable Ashley in the ranger’s station then if Chris died outside. The same scene would easily work though.)

And THAT’S how supermassive should have played the tunnel bit in my opinion.

[queenofbaws]

Hey! 💛 I hope that as usual it's going well for you! Not too many problems at the moment? 💛 Personally I work a lot but before I go to bed I really wanted to write you like almost every weekend because your writings are always a gift and I love reading them all the time!

For this weekend I was looking forward to present you my ideas because I really liked the concept of "only one bed prompts". However instead of doing it with a couple, why not do it with our favorite trio, Ash, Josh and Chris! I've had to share a king size bed at a sleepover one time with two others persons and it was... well, an experience. Anyway, three different scenarios where you're totally free to choose the dialogues you want to use!

Either Ash sleeps between the boys because she is the smallest and therefore the most able to squeeze. And despite her embarrassment and her sulky air, we all know that it doesn't bother her because she feels safe like this, even in the dark.

Either it's Josh in the middle, who clearly acts as a wall between our two nerds because they are unable to even consider sleeping within inches of each other, and this amuses him as always.

Or it's Chris in the middle who is desperately trying to lighten the mood with his jokes because Ash and Josh had a fight in the evening. Nevertheless the anger never stays for long...

Anyway ! Personally I love the three ideas!They are all wonderful in their own way! But... I think that asking you for three different writings is really really too much, isn't it? So I'll leave you with this, Choose or do what you want! The goal is for you to have fun and enjoy what you do! I hope you have a great rest of weekend and I give you big hugs as usual because you deserve them! 💛

not quite) six sentence weekend

As he lay there in the partial dark, the ceiling and walls still dimly lit with the glow of a million LED devices, Chris wondered just what it was he’d done in a past life that had earned him this kind of torment. Maybe he’d been a political assassin, or…or the guy who’d taken too long to yell about the iceberg approaching the Titanic. Mmm, neither of those felt right, though, so it was probably something else…had he killed and/or eaten the last of some species, rendering it extinct? That one felt a little more likely. Not exactly worthy of this, but…more likely for sure.

“Do I also have to pretend like I’m asleep?” he asked, hands folded over his stomach like the world’s tallest otter, “Because if this is some new group bonding activity, don’t get me wrong, I’m down, I-I’d just appreciate a little feedback, is all.”

On either side of him, Josh and Ashley huffed; two distinctly different people pissed off for what he suspected were two distinctly different reasons, but boy oh boy was that the same sound they’d just made.

Yeah, no, he couldn’t actually think of anything his past lives could’ve done that would’ve earned him this kind of stupid karmic retribution. “That wasn’t a yes, and it wasn’t a no, so sorry guys, but I’m just not clear on whether or not I should be pretending to sleep. Guess I should just do something else entirely. Save myself the embarrassment of not faking in just the right way. Uh…hmm. Okay. What should I do instead…”

There was a quiet rustle of sheets as both of them braced—it was hardly the first time they’d weathered this particular storm, and God help them all, there was no chance in hell it would be the last.

Stuck smackdab in the middle of the bed, Chris continued to stare absently at the ceiling and its blotchy, blobby colors (his glasses were far out of his reach by then, set on the nightstand on Ashley’s side), head nodding slightly as he rummaged through his internal stores. True, he’d come in way too late on their argument to really know what it had been about, but he’d spent enough time around the both of them to suspect the general gist of it: Namely, nothing. In his experience, Josh and Ashley could—and would—fight about anything. Literally anything. He was pretty sure he’d heard them screaming at each other about the word ‘anything,’ once. It was just one of those minefields that came along with dating arty-farty blowhards like them.

Ah, but he had a secret weapon. A secret weapon the likes of which never failed. Not once. Not ever.

And Ashley curling up into a ball under her weighted blanket while Josh covered his own head with his pillow only went to prove that they knew what was coming.

Total. Utter. Annihilation.

Chris cleared his throat like an old-timey announcer, and proceeded to launch his own attack. “Did I ever tell you guys about the time I was hanging out with Will Smith and he got lost in the snow?” He paused for a second, maybe two, letting his gut tell him how long was long enough. “It was fine, though, I found him in the end. Just followed the fresh prints.”

There was no response.

Which was fine. “No? Okay, shit. How about…oh, I read this really interesting article last night about glow worms. Did you know they can feel emotions? Seriously intriguing stuff—I mean totally enthralling. Know how you can make a glow worm happy? Turns out, all you gotta do is chop off their tail…then they’ll be delighted.”

He didn’t turn, didn’t need to; he could feel Ashley glaring at him from just under her blanket. No doubt if he looked her way, he’d see those big ol’ eyes of hers, narrowed and disapproving.

All according to plan.

“Hey, so, let’s say, hypothetically, there’s a manufacturing plant out there, and it’s like, okay at making what it makes, but it isn’t fantastic. Did you know there’s a specific name for that?” There was no answer, and he hadn’t expected one. He was on a roll now, baby, and there wasn’t anything that could’ve stopped him, even if they’d wanted to. “Mhm. Call that a satisfactory.”

The rustling was louder, then, as Josh pulled the pillow from off of his head, undoubtedly glaring daggers at him in much the same way Ashley was.

Chris didn’t even try to keep from grinning as he closed his own eyes. What was that saying about the enemy of your enemy? “Y’know, in this economy, I’ve been trying to find a side-hustle to fuel my rampant addiction to buying Robux. Found this really weird posting, gave it a try, but I think the guy was just some kinda psychopath, because he just made me eat stuff. D’you guys know the worst part of eating a clock, by the way? Shit’s time-consuming. Honestly, I think I learned a valuable lesson—sat down and made myself a new career plan. I decided I want a job cleaning mirrors. Know why? It’s something I can really see myself doing.”

He might’ve expected it, but it still came as something of a surprise when Josh brought his pillow down right on his head. He wasn’t pressing down on it like he was trying to suffocate him (not yet, anyway), but Chris found he did have to raise his voice quite a bit to be heard through the fluff.

“Either of you see that documentary on TLC last night? The one about the claustrophobic astronaut? Yeah, turned out he just needed some space!” He grabbed the pillow Josh had dropped on him, only for Ashley to immediately jam it right back over his face. “Also, I realized something about myself this morning…I’m only familiar with twenty-five letters of the alphabet! …I don’t know why.”

“Okay, all right,” Josh said, finally breaking his silence. “I just need you to know, Cochise, they’re not gonna convict me for your murder. I got a witness here, so I’m getting off on a self-defense plea, you just fucking watch.”

“Mhm,” Ashley hummed. “I’ll put my hand on the Bible and everything.”

He had to use both of his hands to peel the pillow from off of his face that time, what with both of them holding down either end of it, but when he did, it was to reveal the cheesiest grin he could manage. “Love to see you guys getting along.”

“Getting along?” Ashley scoffed, “Pretty sure Josh just said we’re planning your murder.”

“Eh. Same thing. More or less.”

[grigori77]

Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10.  WEREWOLVES WITHIN – definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic surprises so far, this darkly comic supernatural murder mystery from indie horror director Josh Ruben (Scare Me) is based on a video game, but you’d never know it – this bears so little resemblance to the original Ubisoft title that it’s a wonder anyone even bothered to make the connection, but even so, this is now notable for officially being the highest rated video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes history, with a Certified Fresh rating of 86%. Certainly it deserves that distinction, but there’s so much more to the film – this is an absolute blood-splattered joy, the title telling you everything you need to know about the story but belying the film’s pure, quirky genius.  Veep’s Sam Richardson is forest ranger Finn Wheeler, a gentle and socially awkward soul who arrives at his new post in the remote small town of Beaverton to discover the few, uniformly weird residents are divided over the oil pipeline proposition of forceful and abrasive businessman Sam Parker (The Hunt’s Wayne Duvall).  As he tries to fit in and find his feet, investigating the disappearance of a local dog while bonding with local mail carrier Cecily Moore (Other Space and This Is Us’ Milana Vayntrub), the discovery of a horribly mutilated human body leads to a standoff between the townsfolk and an enforced lockdown in the town’s ramshackle hotel as they try to work out who amongst them is the “werewolf” they suspect is responsible.  This is frequently hilarious, the offbeat script from appropriately named Mishna Wolff (I’m Down) dropping some absolutely zingers and crafting some enjoyably weird encounters and unexpected twists, while the uniformly excellent cast do much of the heavy-lifting to bring their rich, thoroughly oddball characters to vivid life – Richardson is thoroughly cuddly throughout, while Duvall is pleasingly loathsome, Casual’s Michaela Watkins is pleasingly grating as Trisha, flaky housewife to unrepentant local horn-dog Pete Anderton (Orange is the New Black’s Michael Chernus), and Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story) and Harry Guillen (best known, OF COURSE, as Guillermo in the TV version of What We Do In the Shadows) make an enjoyably spiky double-act as liberal gay couple Devon and Joaquim Wolfson; in the end, though, the film is roundly stolen by Vayntrub, who invests Cecily with a bubbly sweetness and snarky sass that makes it absolutely impossible to not fall completely in love with her (gods know I did).  This is a deeply funny film, packed with proper belly-laughs from start to finish, but like all the best horror comedies it takes its horror elements seriously, delivering some enjoyably effective scares and juicy gore, while the werewolf itself, when finally revealed, is realised through some top-notch prosthetics.  Altogether this was a most welcome under-the-radar surprise for the summer, and SO MUCH MORE than just an unusually great video game adaptation …

9.  THE TOMORROW WAR – although cinemas finally reopened in the UK in early summer, the bite of the COVID lockdown backlog was still very much in effect this blockbuster season, with several studios preferring to hedge their bets and wait for later release dates. Others turned to streaming services, including Paramount, who happily lined up a few heavyweight titles to open on major platforms in lieu of the big screen.  One of the biggest was this intended sci-fi action horror tentpole, meant to give Chris Pratt another potential franchise on top of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, which instead dropped in early July on Amazon Prime.  So, was it worth staying in on a Saturday night instead of heading out for something on the BIG screen?  Mostly yes, although it’s mainly a trashy, guilty pleasure big budget B-picture charm that makes this such a worthwhile experience – the film’s biggest influences are clearly Independence Day and Starship Troopers, two admirably clunky blockbusters that DEFINED prioritising big spectacle and overblown theatrics over intelligent writing and realistic storytelling.  It doesn’t help that the premise is pure bunk – in 2022, a wormhole opens from thirty years in the future, and a plea for help is sent back with a bunch of very young future soldiers.  Seems Earth will become overrun by an unstoppable swarm of nasty alien critters called Whitespikes in 25 years, and the desperate human counteroffensive have no choice but to bring soldiers from our present into the future to help them fight back and save the humanity from imminent extinction.  Less than a year later, the world’s standing armies have been decimated and a worldwide draft has been implemented, with normal everyday adults being sent through for a seven day tour from which very few return.  Pratt plays biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forrester, one of the latest batch of draftees to be sent into the future along with a selection of chefs, soccer moms and other average joes – his own training and experience serves him better than most when the shit hits the fan, but it soon becomes clear that he’s just as out of his depth as everyone else as the sheer enormity of the threat is revealed.  But when he becomes entangled with a desperate research outfit led by Muri (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski) who seem to be on the verge of a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, Dan realises there just might be a slender hope for humanity after all … this is every bit as over-the-top gung-ho bonkers as it sounds, and just as much fun.  Director Chris McKay may still be pretty fresh (with only The Lego Batman Movie under his belt to date), but he shows a lot of talent and potential for big budget blockbuster filmmaking here, delivering with guts and bravado on some major action sequences (a fraught ticking-clock SAR operation through a war-torn Miami is the film’s undeniable highlight, but a desperate battle to escape a blazing oil rig also really impresses), as well as handling some impressively complex visual effects work and wrangling some quality performances from his cast (altogether it bodes well for his future, which includes Nightwing and Johnny Quest as future projects).  Chris Pratt can do this kind of stuff in his sleep – Dan is his classic fallible and self-deprecating but ultimately solid and kind-hearted action hero fare, effortlessly likeable and easy to root for – and his supporting cast are equally solid, Strahovsky going toe-to-toe with him in the action sequences while also creating a rewardingly complex smart-woman/badass combo in Muri, while the other real standouts include Sam Richardson (Veep, Werewolves Within) and Edwin Hodge (The Purge movies) as fellow draftees Charlie and Dorian, the former a scared-out-of-his-mind tech geek while the latter is a seriously hardcore veteran serving his THIRD TOUR, and the ever brilliant J.K. Simmonds as Dan’s emotionally scarred estranged Vietnam-vet father, Jim.  Sure, it’s derivative as hell and thoroughly predictable (with more than one big twist you can see coming a mile away), but the pace is brisk, the atmosphere pregnant with a palpable doomed urgency, and the creatures themselves are a genuinely convincing world-ending threat, the design team and visual effects wizards creating genuine nightmare fuel in the feral and unrelenting Whitespikes.  Altogether this WAS an ideal way to spend a comfy Saturday night in, but I think it could have been JUST AS GOOD for a Saturday night OUT at the Pictures …

8.  ARMY OF THE DEAD – another high profile release that went straight to streaming was this genuine monster hit for Netflix from one of this century’s undeniable heavyweight action cinema masters, the indomitable Zack Snyder, who kicked off his career with an audience-dividing (but, as far as I’m concerned, ultimately MASSIVELY successful) remake of George Romero’s immortal Dawn of the Dead, and has finally returned to zombie horror after close to two decades away.  The end result is, undeniably, the biggest cinematic guilty pleasure of the entire summer, a bona fide outbreak horror EPIC in spite of its tightly focused story – Dave Bautista plays mercenary Scott Ward, leader a badass squad of soldiers of fortune who were among the few to escape a deadly outbreak of a zombie virus in the city of Las Vegas, enlisted to break into the vault of one of the Strip’s casinos by owner Bly Tanaka (a fantastically game turn from Hiroyuki Sanada) and rescue $200 million still locked away inside.  So what’s the catch?  Vegas remains ground zero for the outbreak, walled off from the outside world but still heavily infested within, and in less than three days the US military intends to sterilise the site with a tactical nuke.  Simple premise, down and dirty, trashy flick, right?  Wrong – Snyder has never believed in doing things small, having brought us unapologetically BIG cinema with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel and, most notably, his version of Justice League, so this is another MASSIVE undertaking, every scene shot for maximum thrills or emotional impact, each set-piece executed with his characteristic militaristic precision and explosive predilection (a harrowing fight for survival against a freshly-awakened zombie horde in tightly packed casino corridors is the film’s undeniable highlight), and the gauzy, dreamlike cinematography gives even simple scenes an intriguing and evocative edge that really does make you feel like you’re watching something BIG.  The characters all feel larger-than-life too – Bautista can seem somewhat cartoonish at times, and this role definitely plays that as a strength, making Scott a rock-hard alpha male in the classic Hollywood mould, but he’s such a great actor that of course he’s able to invest the character with real rewarding complexity beneath the surface; Ana de la Reguera (Eastbound & Down) and Nora Arnezeder (Zoo, Mozart in the Jungle), meanwhile, both bring a healthy dose of oestrogen-fuelled badassery to proceedings as, respectively, Scott’s regular second-in-command, Maria Cruz, and Lilly the Coyote, Power’s Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighofer (You Are Wanted) make for a fun odd-couple double act as circular-saw-wielding merc Vanderohe and Dieter, the nervous, nerdy German safecracker brought in to crack the vault, and Fear the Walking Dead’s Garrett Dillahunt channels spectacular scumbag energy as Tanaka’s sleazy former casino boss Martin, while latecomer Tig Notaro (Star Trek Discovery) effortlessly rises above her last-minute-casting controversy to deliver brilliantly as sassy and acerbic chopper pilot Peters.  I think it goes without saying that Snyder can do this in his sleep, but he definitely wasn’t napping here – he pulled out all the stops on this one, delivering a thrilling, darkly comic and endearingly CRACKERS zombie flick that not only compares favourably to his own Dawn but is, undeniably, his best film for AGES.  Netflix certainly seem to be pleased with the results – a spinoff prequel, Army of Thieves, starring Dieter in another heist thriller, is set to drop in October, with an animated series following in the Spring, and there’s already rumours of a sequel in development.  I’m certainly up for more …

7.  BLACK WIDOW – no major blockbuster property was hit harder by COVID than the MCU, which saw its ENTIRE SLATE for 2020 delayed for over a year in the face of Marvel Studios bowing to the inevitability of the Pandemic and unwilling to sacrifice those all-important box-office receipts by just sending their films straight to streaming.  The most frustrating part for hardcore fans of the series was the delay of a standalone film that was already criminally overdue – the solo headlining vehicle of founding Avenger and bona fide female superhero ICON Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow.  Equally frustratingly, then, this film seems set to be overshadowed by real life controversy as star and producer Scarlett Johansson goes head-to-head with Disney in civil court over their breach-of-contract after they hedged their bets by releasing the film simultaneously in cinemas and on their own streaming platform, which has led to poor box office as many of the film’s potential audience chose to watch it at home instead of risk movie theatres with the virus still very much remaining a threat (and Disney have clearly reacted AGAIN, now backtracking on their release policy by instigating a new 45-day cinematic exclusivity window on all their big releases for the immediate future). But what of the film itself?  Well Black Widow is an interesting piece of work, director Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) delivering a decidedly stripped-back, lean and intellectual beast that bears greater resemblance to the more cerebral work of the Russo Brothers on their Captain America films than the more classically bombastic likes of Iron Man, Thor or the Avengers flicks, concentrating on story and characters over action and spectacle as we wind back the clock to before the events of Infinity War and Endgame, when Romanoff was on the run after Civil War, hunted by the government-appointed forces of US Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after violating the Sokovia Accords.  Then a mysterious delivery throws her back into the fray as she finds herself targeted by a mysterious assassin, forcing her to team up with her estranged “sister” Yelena Belova (Midsommar’s Florence Pugh), another Black Widow who’s just gone rogue from the same Red Room Natasha escaped years ago, armed with a McGuffin capable of foiling a dastardly plot for world domination.  The reluctant duo need help in this endeavour though, enlisting the aid of their former “parents”, veteran Widow and scientist Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexie Shostakov (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), aka the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier intended to be their counterpart to Captain America, who’s been languishing in a Siberian gulag for the last twenty years. After the Earth-shaking, universe-changing events of recent MCU events, this film certainly feels like a much more self-contained, modest affair, playing for much smaller stakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of our attention – this is as precision-crafted as anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, but it also feels like a refreshing change of pace after all those enormous cosmic shenanigans, while the script is as tight as a drum, propelling a taut, suspense-filled thriller that certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action front.  Sure, the set-pieces are very much in service of the story here, but they’re still the pre-requisite MCU rollercoaster rides, a selection of breathless chases and bone-crunching fights that really do play to the strengths of one of our favourite Avengers, but this is definitely one of those films where the real fireworks come when the film focuses on the characters – Johansson is so comfortable with her character she’s basically BECOME Natasha Romanoff, kickass and ruthless and complex and sassy and still just desperate for a family (though she hides it well throughout the film), while Weisz delivers one of her best performances in years as a peerless professional who keeps her emotions tightly reigned in but slowly comes to realise that she was never more happy than when she was pretending to be a simple mother, and Ray Winstone does a genuinely fantastic job of taking a character who could have been one of the MCU’s most disappointingly bland villains, General Dreykov, master of the Red Room, and investing him with enough oily charisma and intense presence to craft something truly memorable (frustratingly, the same cannot be said for the film’s supposed main physical threat, Taskmaster, who performs well in their frustratingly brief appearances but ultimately gets Darth Maul levels of short service).  The true scene-stealers in the film, however, are Alexie and Yelena – Harbour’s clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a self-important, puffed-up peacock of a superhero who never got his shot and is clearly (rightly) decidedly bitter about it, preferring to relive the life he SHOULD have had instead of remembering the good in the one he got; Pugh, meanwhile, is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE MOVIE, easily matching Johanssen scene-for-scene in the action stakes but frequently out-performing her when it comes to acting, investing Yelena with a sweet naivety and innocence and a certain amount of quirky geekiness that makes for one of the year’s most endearing female protagonists (certainly one who, if the character goes the way I think she will, is thoroughly capable of carrying the torch for the foreseeable future).  In the end this is definitely one of the LEAST typical, by-the-numbers MCU films to date, and by delivering something a little different I think they’ve given us just the kind of leftfield swerve the series needs right now.  It’s certainly one of their most fascinating and rewarding films so far, and since it seems to be Johansson’s final tour of duty as the Black Widow, it’s also a most fitting farewell indeed.

6.  WRATH OF MAN – Guy Ritchie’s latest (regarded by many as a triumphant return to form, which I consider unfair since I don’t think he ever went away, especially after 2020’s spectacular The Gentlemen) is BY FAR his darkest film – let’s get this clear from the start.  Anyone who knows his work knows that Ritchie consistently maintains a near flawless balance and humour and seriousness in his films that gives them a welcome quirkiness that is one of his most distinctive trademarks, so for him to suddenly deliver a film which takes itself SO SERIOUSLY is one hell of a departure.  This is a film which almost REVELS in its darkness – Ritchie’s always loved bathing in man’s baser instincts, but Wrath of Man almost makes a kind of twisted VIRTUE out of wallowing in the genuine evils that men are capable of inflicting on each other.  The film certainly kicks off as it means to go on – In a tour-de-force single-shot opening, we watch a daring armoured car robbery on the streets of Los Angeles that goes horrifically wrong, an event which will have devastating consequences in the future.  Five months later, Fortico Security hires taciturn Brit Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) to work as a guard in one of their trucks, and on his first run he single-handedly foils another attempted robbery with genuinely uncanny combat skills. The company is thrilled, amazed by the sheer ability of their new hire, but Hill’s new colleagues are more concerned, wondering exactly what they’ve let themselves in for.  After a second foiled robbery, it becomes clear that Hill’s reputation has grown, but fellow guard Haiden (Holt McCallany), aka “Bullet”, begins to suspect there might be something darker going on … Ritchie is firing on all cylinders here, delivering a PERFECT slow-burn suspense thriller which plays its cards close to its chest and cranks up its piano wire tension with artful skill as it builds to a devastating, knuckle-whitening explosive heist that acts as a cathartic release for everything that’s built up over the past hour and a half.  In typical Ritchie style the narrative is non-linear, the story unfolding in four distinct parts told from clearly differentiated points of view, allowing the clues to be revealed at a trickle that effortlessly draws the viewer in as they fall deeper down the rabbit hole, leading to a harrowing but strangely poignant denouement which is perfectly in tune with everything that’s come before. It’s an immense pleasure finally getting to see Statham working with Ritchie again, and I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is here – he's always been a brilliantly understated actor, but there’s SO MUCH going on under Hill’s supposedly impenetrable calm that every little peek beneath the armour is a REVELATION; McCallany, meanwhile, has landed his best role since his short but VERY sweet supporting turn in Fight Club, seemingly likeable and fallible as the kind of easy-going co-worker anyone in the service industry would be THRILLED to have, but giving Bullet far more going on under the surface, while there are uniformly excellent performances from a top-shelf ensemble supporting cast which includes Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Sicario), Andy Garcia, Laz Alonso (The Boys), Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Darrell D’Silva (Informer, Domina), and a particularly edgy and intense turn from Scott Eastwood.  This is one of THE BEST thrillers of the year, by far, a masterpiece of mood, pace and plot that ensnares the viewer from its gripping opening and hooks them right up to the close, a triumph of the genre and EASILY Guy Ritchie’s best film since Snatch.  Regardless of whether or not it’s a RETURN to form, we can only hope he continues to deliver fare THIS GOOD in the future …

5.  FEAR STREET (PARTS 1-3) – Netflix have gotten increasingly ambitious with their original filmmaking over the years, and some of this years’ offerings have reached new heights of epic intention.  Their most exciting release of the summer was this adaptation of popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s popular book series, a truly gargantuan undertaking as the filmmakers set out to create an entire TRILOGY of films which were then released over three consecutive weekends.  Interestingly, these films are most definitely NOT for kids – this is proper, no-holds-barred supernatural slasher horror, delivering highly calibrated shocks and precision jump scares, a pervading atmosphere of insidious dread and a series of inventively gruesome kills.  The story revolves around two neighbouring small towns which have had vastly different fortunes over more than three centuries of existence – while the residents of Sunnyvale are unusually successful, living idyllic lives in peace and prosperity, luck has always been against the people of Shadyside, who languish in impoverishment, crime and misfortune, while the town has become known as the Murder Capital of the USA due to frequent spree killings.  Some attribute this to the supposed curse of a local urban legend, Sarah Fier, who became known as the Fier Witch after her execution for witchcraft in 1668, but others dismiss this as simple superstition.  Part 1 is set in 1994, as the latest outbreak of serial mayhem begins in Shadyside, dragging a small group of local teens – Deena Johnson (She Never Died’s Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), a young lesbian couple going through a difficult breakup, Deena’s little brother Josh (The Haunted Hathaways’ Benjamin Flores Jr.), a nerdy history geek who spends most of his time playing video games or frequenting violent crime-buff online chatrooms, and their delinquent friends Simon (Eight Grade’s Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald) – into the age-old ghostly conspiracy as they find themselves besieged by indestructible undead serial killers from the town’s past, reasoning that the only way they can escape with their lives is to solve the mystery and bring the Fier Witch some much needed closure.  Part 2, meanwhile, flashes back to a previous outbreak in 1977, in which local sisters Ziggy (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), together with future Sunnyvale sheriff Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland) were among the kids hunted by said killers during a summer camp “colour war”.  As for Part 3, that goes all the way back to 1668 to tell the story of what REALLY happened to Sarah Fier, before wrapping up events in 1994, culminating in a terrifying, adrenaline-fuelled showdown in the Shadyside Mall.  Throughout, the youthful cast are EXCEPTIONAL, Madeira, Welch, Flores Jr., Sink and Rudd particularly impressing, while there are equally strong turns from Ashley Zuckerman (The Code, Designated Survivor) and Community’s Gillian Jacobs as the grown-up versions of two key ’77 kids, and a fun cameo from Maya Hawke in Part 1.  This is most definitely retro horror in the Stranger Things mould, perfectly executed period detail bringing fun nostalgic flavour to all three of the timelines while the peerless direction from Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and wire-tight, sharp-witted screenplays from Janiak, Kyle Killen (Lone Star, The Beaver), Phil Graziadel, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry strike a perfect balance between knowing dark humour and knife-edged terror, as well as weaving an intriguingly complex narrative web that pulls the viewer in but never loses them to overcomplication.  The design, meanwhile, is evocative, the cinematography (from Stanger Things’ Caleb Heymann) is daring and magnificently moody, and the killers and other supernatural elements of the film are handled with skill through largely physical effects.  This is definitely not a standard, by-the-numbers slasher property, paying strong homage to the sub-genre’s rules but frequently subverting them with expert skill, and it’s as much fun as it is frightening.  Give us some more like this please, Netflix!

4.  THE SPARKS BROTHERS – those who’ve been following my reviews for a while will known that while I do sometimes shout about documentary films, they tend to show up in my runners-up lists – it’s a great rarity for one to land in one of my top tens.  This lovingly crafted deep-dive homage to cult band Sparks, from self-confessed rabid fanboy Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), is something VERY SPECIAL INDEED, then … there’s a vague possibility some of you may have heard the name before, and many of you will know at least one or two of their biggest hits without knowing it was them (their greatest hit of all time, This Town Ain��t Big Enough for the Both of Us, immediately springs to mind), but unless you’re REALLY serious about music it’s quite likely you have no idea who they are, namely two brothers from California, Russell and Ronald Mael, who formed a very sophisticated pop-rock band in the late 60s and then never really went away, having moments of fame but mostly working away in the background and influencing some of the greatest bands and musical artists that followed them, even if many never even knew where that influence originally came from. Wright’s film is an engrossing joy from start to finish (despite clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes), following their eclectic career from obscure inception as Halfnelson, through their first real big break with third album Kimono My Place, subsequent success and then fall from popularity in the mid-70s, through several subsequent revitalisations, all the way up to the present day with their long-awaited cinematic breakthrough, revolutionary musical feature Annette – throughout Wright keeps the tone light and the pace breezy, allowing a strong and endearing sense of irreverence to rule the day as fans, friends and the brothers themselves offer up fun anecdotes and wax lyrical about what is frequently a larger-than-life tragicomic soap opera, utilising fun, crappy animation and idiosyncratic stock footage inserts alongside talking-head interviews that were made with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek style – Mike Myers good-naturedly rants about how we can see his “damned mole” while 80s New Romantic icons Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, while shot together, are each individually labelled as “Duran”.  Ron and Russ themselves, meanwhile, are clearly having huge fun, gently ribbing each other and dropping some fun deadpan zingers throughout proceedings, easily playing to the band’s strong, idiosyncratic sense of hyper-intelligent humour, while the aforementioned celebrity talking-heads are just three amongst a whole wealth of famous faces that may surprise you – there’s even an appearance by Neil Gaiman, guys!  Altogether this is 2+ hours of bright and breezy fun chock full of great music and fascinating information, and even hardcore Sparks fans are likely to learn more than a little over the course of the film, while for those who have never heard of Sparks before it’s a FANTASTIC introduction to one of the greatest ever bands that you’ve never heard of.  With luck there might even be more than a few new fans before the year is out …

3.  GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ BEST offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS.  Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate side effects, leading her to take on a reparation job to retrieve some missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob.  The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the original thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process.  Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years.  The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly-reined and bursting with zingers.  Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen this year, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions.  Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father.  There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of found family and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing against the brutalities of toxic masculinity.  I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

2.  THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year is the long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the decidedly hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn has finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016.  That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely.  Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date.  Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kind of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls.  Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity that’s being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup.  Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re all almost universally definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned.  Gunn has already proven himself a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s certainly pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery for its most ridiculous Z-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling.  Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and thoroughly unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and thoroughly game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a thoroughly fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most idiotic DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled narrative chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers what has to be one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history).  Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT.  By far the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year, and if I’m honest this is the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (for me, only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

1.  A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Place was MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending.  Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain.  Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother.  Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a true heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already magnificently well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror.  The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat.  The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a hidden spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again.  This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds magnificently on the skilful foundations laid by the first film, as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow.  I definitely can’t wait.

[ziracona]

What do you see happening after Josh is being rescued? Does he meet everyone of his friend eventually or some of them keep their distance? I read one of your answers about them abandoning him and honestly I don't think they didn't care at all about him, but the events were so traumatic and scary that they probably had a hard time taking into consideration that small possibility of him being alive. Plus I guess it's also part of the smooth flow of the game if it makes sense, Mike doesn't go after Jess either after he sees her falling into the mines and accuses Josh of killing her without being 100% sure that she is dead and without seeing Josh around when shit happened to her. But if I were Josh maybe I would be upset knowing they didn't come for me at all. So how would a reunion go?

That’s valid! You can interpret the lack of an interest in rescuing Josh to multiple things—that they are very sure he’s dead, if you want to be as generous as possible to them. That they think he’s probably dead and are afraid of dying too more than willing to save him, that they’re (sans Chris) too mad about the prank he pulled, etc. And I can see why people would go for any number of them. I think to me it has always read like they think he is probably dead, and the whatever he has, 30%, 20% chance? Of still being alive just isn’t enough for them to feel motivated to face very likely death to go hunting for him, especially with flamethrower dude just dead doing the same. Which makes /me/ angry, because Mike went batshit after seeing Jess wounded and dragged through a window and more trying to save her, multiple characters can kill themselves trying to save the others in the finale, etc, and I just think if you /can/ save someone who is your friend—or like, you have a shot anyway—you don’t know it is too late. You should. (& true Jess can still be alive and Mike will assume she is dead, but in his defense, so do basically all blind playthroughs she looks like she falls four stories or something while already almost dead I can’t fault Mike for assuming that was a 100% death there. Boy really tried. Whereas Josh’s vanishing from the shed is much less confirmed. There is no ‘I watched him fall’ here. Just a neither he nor his dead body were still in the shed so /something/ happened). Like I do get it, that’s a terrifying situation and not helping doesn’t = not caring, but I will hold it against characters if they don’t risk themselves to save their friends and I will be unhappy with them. Loyalty is very important to me. But it is a truly terrifying situation.

But I also get why they’d be terrified to go out there. I don’t think it makes them evil to not want to risk it till they have to, it just makes me disappointed in them. I don’t think I said I think they didn’t care about him—typo if I did, because I certainly don’t think that at all! I think Chris was traumatized and felt very sure he was dead, Ashley didn’t care (she explicitly says she thinks he deserves it and tries to stop Chris from saving him the first time), Emily doesn’t care a lot one way or another and is mostly on her own trauma right now and thinking about Matt and the awful shit she saw, that Sam does care but thinks he is probably dead and is in team mom mode and cares more about trying to keep as many friends alive as possible right now than anything else and doesn’t want to lose the others, and Mike is still pissed but also feels very bad and would prefer for Josh to make it but is also more focused on group survival and not losing anyone else since he just lost someone he loves horribly (based largely on how his reaction to the safe room scenario is either to kill Emily and feel awful but do it because he very vocally and visibly doesn’t want the others to be killed and she won’t go peacefully, and he’s terrified of losing them, or to try but not be able to because he loves Emily, and instead give the gun to the others to try to save themselves with in the event she /does/ turn). And although he’s a right coward bastard for leaving Josh if Josh gets grabbed instead of killed, down in the mines, I do think he cared about Josh. He seems truly sorry to some extent when he finds him, and does /try/ to lead him out of the mines. At the point they make the decision to go for the cable car key, I don’t think they don’t care at all, except Ashley. I just think they should care more. Although I tend to give Chris a pass because he just watched a man get beheaded, has strong reason to think Josh is dead, is injured, and spends the entire rest of the game more or less in traumatized mode quiet in the corner.

But that said I can also see why people would interpret the reactions to mean they all believe he is very dead, and mean they’re going after his corpse! I can see lots of basis in-game to interpret in quite a number of ways. And be generous to the fool kids if you want to! I /super/ hold abandoning Josh in the mines wildly against Mike, but Mike is still one of my favorite characters in the whole game. I love how flawed the cast is and that you go in hating most of them and only slowly grow to care because you don’t want them dead-dead, which keeps you there long enough to see some of their good sides. *cheff’s kiss* the great ability of the horror genre. The bar to initially invest is so low, it lets you have such a multi-faceted cast.

Okay anyway, original question! What do I see happening after Josh gets rescued and exorcised.

I think he meets up with all of them again eventually. Interesting to think from Josh’s pov how he’s going to feel. I expect to some degree he does feel abandoned, and fairly, and in RoB it is very clear he is afraid to some extent of Mike and Chris after being dragged off and tied up and left in the shed, and the things they said to him. He also /definitely/ feels massively guilty and self-blaming about all of it. He’s telling himself through Hill that no one will come for him and it’s his own fault by the final chapter. And mostly he’s just afraid of Mike and in ptsd dissociating mode by the time Sam and Mike find him. So, mixed feelings on his part I expect. Lots of fear and pain and hurt at being abandoned and so universally believed capable of murder, hurt, left to die alone in the mines. Pretty damn betrayed, and that on top of the hurt from what happened to his sisters and the inherent paranoia of paranoid schizophrenia. Hurt that they just left him. Hurt they didn’t believe him. Hurt nobody came for him until it was too late. Hurt he got betrayed again. Probably pretty miserable overall. But with that, also feels really bad about going too far and hates and blames himself intensely for everything, and I expect is also kind of not just traumatized but ashamed of what happens to him, and everyone knowing about the possession and the cannibalism. Probably he wants to lock himself in a room in the corner of a big house and never come out. But also is intensely and miserably and hopelessly lonely. Probably feels all of his friendships are likely broken beyond repair.

I don’t think they are though. Chris “I’m not your bro” six seconds later “bro are you for real?” Hartley almost dies trying to save him and wouldn’t care about the possession stuff except to be worried about him. Sam is angry and harboring some resentment, but clearly reacts to Mike reporting he is gone with regret. Mike would probably feel very guilty for leaving him and be hesitant to reconnect and then defensive doing it, but I think he cares. Jess wasn’t even there for this shit so probably she does. Same for Matt maybe? Ashley and Emily are harder to guess for. I think Ashley would be incredibly angry and resentful—I mean she wants him dead in-game, but might eventually join the others if the others got over stuff? Bc she’s also kinda a joiner? Really it’s hard to say she is a very...hair-trigger character. Volatile and intensely and massively changeable. Probably the least predictable of all. That kind of person scares me deeply in real life because I have been very backstabbed by them before. >.> But anyway hard to say. Also a lot of this depends on what ending, even assuming they all live. But I usually assume that like, Mike almost shot Em, didn’t, Matt tried to save her, Sam saw the workshop, etc ending. Emily I really don’t know. She’s a very self-reliant and hard person. She didn’t have anything very specifically for or against Josh with her experience, but wasn’t that close to him before, so I think she just kinda falls wherever she falls.

I think mostly though that they’d reconnect. Definitely Chris would jump to it, and I think Sam would too—she’s a well educated, empathetic and understanding person. She’d know he needs her. And Chris is his childhood best friend and cares the whole game. I think Mike would try to go too because of guilt, and because he’s a decent guy. Probably so would after not much time those least effected by what Josh did. I think Josh would be alone while being exorcised and probably reocvering in a hospital some after, and Chris would be the first, or Chris and Sam possibly. I think he’d be afraid to see them, and it would be complicated and messy and painful for them all, but it would be okay and sort itself out and they’d find old ground quickly. And having them there would be /incredibly/ vital to helping him recover. I think eventually he’d get back on his feet, and a lot of his old friends would be around and stay in his life. I think things would get better. I’d say the OG ExorJosh comic writer I think did a good job of guessing about what a lot of it would be like. Hard, and slow, and messy. But a lot of them care for him, and I think that would matter enough to help things get okay between them again.

[irrcverence]

🤝 Hold my muse’s hand ( pls give me all the soft matt & jess vibes )

SHE’S ALIVE BECAUSE OF him. because he RISKED his life to help her escape those god awful mines, despite her CHILDISH argument with emily & the venomous words that spewed from her lips when all matt tried to do was defend his girlfriend. why did he HELP someone as shitty as her? why didn’t he just LEAVE her in the dust & save himself? wouldn’t it have been EASIER? she had one foot in the grave by the time they found one another : she was a LIABILITY, they both knew it. he was just too nice to ADMIT it. too nice to ABANDON her like emily probably would’ve. & yet, they both made it out. they were ALIVE, but unfortunately, that couldn’t be said for the others. the police officers had expressed TENACITY in their search for the other survivors, but jessica couldn’t help but fear the WORST.

matt had been the only CONSTANT for the past couple of days since she’d been admitted to the hospital. no updates on the others, no news about finding anything in the mines, just complete & UTTER radio silence. they kept each other company & she didn’t think matt realized how APPRECIATED his efforts were, even if she hadn’t been outwardly EXPRESSIVE since that night. they had each other. they were the only survivors. it was.. hard to live with : the HEARTBREAKING realization she wouldn’t be able to apologize to emily ever again, wouldn’t hear chris’ dumb jokes, wouldn’t witness sam smelling flowers & regarding nature in awe, wouldn’t drink with josh, wouldn’t tease ashley for buying yet another beanie, wouldn’t be held in michael’s arms. they were all GONE. just like that. their causes of death had yet to be revealed, but when one of the officers had visited her, he let it slip that they recovered CHARRED corpses. she missed how many he had stated, but it was more than enough for the reality of it all to SINK in. matt returned later that day, RELUCTANTLY sharing the news of their friends’ fates. she felt like she couldn’t BREATHE. that her heart was going to split in two at any given moment. tears WELLED up in her eyes, in spite of her fruitless attempts at blinking them AWAY. ❛ matt.. it’s my FAULT.  it’s because of ME that they’re gone. ❜ she FAILED at keeping her voice even, just as she failed at keeping the tears at BAY.  before she knew it, she felt a WARM hand taking hers, accompanied by a TENDER squeeze. more KINDNESS shown to her than she deserved.  nonverbal rp starters. | ACCEPTING.

[imyourbuddie]

3X12 Fools - Summary

I am so torn over this episode. First, though, is it just me or are the way they name the episodes more and more on the nose XD? Or was it always this way? In all honesty, I binged through seasons 1 and 2 in like 5 days so I can’t remember if the names were mentioned in every episode so much haha. 

The first love, first date, looking for love, being single theme of this episode is interesting, but it hurt my little Buddie shipping heart. They’re obviously establishing Buck and Eddie’s love lives separately, with the opening iterating over and over how single Buck is, and then bringing in the English teacher who caught Eddie’s eye as soon as she walked into the classroom. 

If I take off the Buddie glasses, I really enjoyed this episode. They touched on some very human interpretations of Fools. Fools in love, fools in life, fools in the choices they make. I love that, just like always, they show the good and bad side of something, and that sometimes being a fool isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just...silly (aka lady who pooped and plugged the toilet then tried to clean it and throw the tower out the window and ending up getting stuck XD!) 

What really really really killed me this episode is actually Eddie and his relationship with Christopher. As a parent, every minute of that hurt me because I feel like that’s something I’m going to have to confront as well as my own kid gets older. Not bout CP, and so far, as far as I know, my kid doesn’t have any learning disabilities, but he is a boy who loves dresses and all things princess. And I don’t now how and when it’ll come to that point where I have to face the music: To deny him the dresses or to teach him how to handle the consequences. 

Watching Eddie struggle with making the right decision, finding the right words to communicate with Christopher and have him understand his situation without despair and hopelessness actually made me cry. I hope when the time comes, I’ll be able to do what Eddie did. 

The other thing that really fucking hurt was poor Josh. The guy just wanted to find someone to love, and it’s so fucking disgusting that there are people out there exploiting this most basic human need. I’m sure it’s not meant to have been this way, but it really reflected our world today while we deal with the threat of Covid-19, where some human trash out there is taking advantage our our fears and uncertainty and hoarding antibacterial wipes and masks and hand sanitizers and selling them for 10x-100x the price. People who exploit human emotions for selfish gains deserve a new layer in hell, and they’re the sort of people I wouldn’t piss one if they were on fire. 

And then, there’s THE BUDDIE. This episode really hurt my little Buddie shipping heart. Like, so much that I had a hard time looking past it to enjoy the episode, but we did still get bits and pieces. The obvious fact that Eddie and Buck talk A LOT and just about EVERYTHING really warms my heart. I love how vulnerable Eddie is with Buck, how he doesn’t hold back and he doesn’t mind that Buck can see that he’s hurting. I also love that Buck is so good at giving advice without being pigheaded or patronizing. He really is a sweet bean who defies all stereotypes of what an alpha male is like. 

AND LASTLY. CAN WE TALK ABOUT ALL THE FANFIC MOMENTS IN THIS. Carla going to parent teacher night with Eddie. Carla being SO INVOLVED with their lives that she can read Eddie like a book and is around all the time to watch Chris. Carla being called to the school while Eddie is at work. 

THE SKATEBOARD. It’s like they read the fics and thought THIS IS FANTASTIC and just ran with it. And Buck helping push Chris is BASICALLY EVERY FANFIC EVER. 

AND THEN THERE’S THE PERSONAL HEADCANON CONFIRMATIONS! That Eddie CANNOT COOK TO SAVE HIS LIFE and that he has a black thumb. I am so smug about this right now because both of these things, and especially the cooking thing, is a major component of my current long WIP fic, We Fell In Love Dancing Kizomba, so I’m just going to preen into the sunset now :’)!!!!! 

[withallthingslove]

avengers endgame spoiler-filled review

below the cut bc spoilers obviously

even after two viewings this movie is super overwhelming so I’m just gonna jump right in

- clint’s family disappearing was so haunting and traumatic omg

- i didn’t like the music choice over the marvel opening crawl

- nebula was so adorably intense when tony playing footbal with her

- carol is such a bad bitch she just carried an entire fucking ship through space

- steve running up to tony and holding on to him... that was content I didn’t know I needed

- the pepperony hug ughhh I’m not a huge gwenyth paltrow fan but she was so good as pepper in this

- honestly I get tony has been through a lot but he was such a dick back at the avengers compound. I’ve always preferred steve to tony and that scene really displayed why. Yes tony was right something bigger was coming, but his way of going about preventing it was proven wrong both times. I don’t consider ultron to be super canon because joss whedon sucks but tony’s first idea to try and solve it failed, and then the accords also failed and even rhodey regretted it. Infinity war was basically “hey yeah the accords was dumb af and steve was right and now the avengers are scattered.” Both tony and steve were selfish and made mistakes in civil war but the fact that it had been over three years and tony was still soooo angry with steve and holding a grudge just rubbed me the wrong way.

- I really felt for thor when they went to get thanos. Chris hemsworth’s acting in that scene was so good when he realized they had failed

- again who on earth put steve in charge of a support group. And while yes its nice to have some lgbtq representation marvel is way behind on that so to me it did not feel like enough

- paul rudd did so well in this movie and scott is such a good dad ugh

- 10/10 would die for morgan stark. She is soooo cute and it was hilarious when she was like “mom told me to come rescue you”

- i know a lot of people are mad at tony dying bc he could have “retired” but that scene with his daughter before steve, nat, and scott show up shows he could not. He still had a garage where he built iron man suits and suits for pepper. That’s not what someone does when they are out of a fight. That’s why he fell back into it so fast because he never left it. He was still tinkering and preparing and even when he retired he was still fully ready to go back

- i like professor hulk but at the same time i miss bruce

- tony and steve love each other so much it made me so happy when tony showed up at the compound. they’ve had their differences but there is real love there

- speaking of real love I will still never forgive joss whedon for taking clintasha away from us like yes their platonic friendship is great but UGH. They love each other SOOOOOOO much 

- tom hiddleston as loki always steals the show and i miss him so much. I was convinced he wasnt dead so I’m sad that he was still dead in the current timeline. But maybe since there is now an alternate dimension with loki and the tesseract he will show up again

- him impersonating steve, his side eye, just... *chefs kiss*

- the america’s ass comment... amazing, iconic, beautiful. And then steve’s “yeah I know” comment to his 2012 self. I’m so glad the russos let steve be funny

- I love how much winter soldier played into this one especially since it was the russo’s first mcu movie. The elevator scene... steve outsmarting the hydra agents. Secretary pierce showing up... and then steve fighting his past self was just *chefs kiss* again. The fact that he knows his own weakness is bucky and uses it against himself 

- not excited to see tilda swinton’s character because its just a reminder of marvel’s whitewashing but I appreciated it trying to explain the timeline/dimension stuff

- i also loved that at the army compound tony was able to get closure with his dad, something he deserved for a long time. I think that was another hint he was going to die because his arc was completing while steve’s.... the look on steve’s face when he saw peggy just broke me. absolutely broke me. Steggy was my first ship in the mcu and so steve and peggy hold a special place in my heart. The fact she still keeps the picture of tiny steve after all these years (a reference to agent carter)... they both moved on enough to enjoy life but never truly moved on enough to leave the other behind. And so while tony was getting closure, steve was being reminded of what he wanted most and couldn’t have. I also loved the tie in with agent carter and showing Jarvis this movie was truly a fan service to us all

- okay so rhodey/nebula: so ive never been a huge nebula person but i really liked her in this movie. I loved rhodey’s line about “you work with what you got” as far as their disabilities. I felt so bad for new nebula because old nebula SUCKKSSS and I hate she had to face her. I loved that in this movie thanos was wearing his armor because 2014 thanos was not as strong or secure with himself. His energy was SO different compared to the thanos we saw in infinity war so props to josh brolin

- natasha/clint: Well go ahead and rip my heart out. The audience knows only one of them is coming back but they have no idea. And they love each other SO FUCKING MUCH they both tried to sacrifice themselves to save the other person. That is true love. Jeremy renner is such an underrated actor and his reaction to natasha dying just killed me. But so did scarlett johansson’s acting as much as I hate to admit it because I’ve really stopped liking her as much due to her recent acting choices but she played that scene so well. And I will miss natasha romanoff forever. She deserved so much more and paved the way for all the other female superheroes in the mcu

- everyone crying over nat and especially steve broke me. They had such a special friendship, almost as strong as her and clint and I feel so many people forget that because of how natural they were together. And her last words to him were that she would see him in a minute and then she didn’t come back..

- i just realized i havent talked about thor and thats honestly because my brain blocked it out. I like that they explored his depression but dont like that he was made the joke of the avengers and I don’t think it was handled well. I did enjoy his conversation with frigga and by that I mean it made me cry. (also loki deserves a conversation like that too don’t @ me)

- STEVE WIELDS MJOLNIR!!! IT WAS SO BADASS AND MY DREAM COME TRUE I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE EXCITED IN A MOVIE. To me that was the absolute highlight of the movie

- And then sam says “on your left” and all the characters come and the music... poetic cinema

- thanos is a weak little bitch and as soon as wanda was beating him he was fine with his own troops dying just so he could get away

- TONY AND PETER REUNITING CURED MY DEPRESSION AND THEN GAVE IT RIGHT BACK

- CAROL IS SO POWERFUL MY LESBIAN QUEEN

- sebastian stan has no business looking this good my god

- I forgot how much I missed peter parker

- I didn’t notice mbaku until my second viewing and honestly the wakandan characters were shafted like poor shuri we didn’t even know she was dusted until a few weeks before the movie

- I know everyone loves the scene of all the women characters carrying the gauntlet but honestly marvel has a long way to go before they reach equality and it honestly wasn’t enough for me

- side note pepper fighting back to back with tony was awesome

- ugh tony’s face when he realizes what he has to do and he looks at strange for confirmation... give rdj an oscar like my god. He knows that the past few years have led up to this moment and he is absolutely terrified and determined and I am tearing up while writing this because I am remembering it so vividly

- peter parkers goodbye had me crying why is tom holland such a good actor

- pepper’s goodbye BROKE ME... “you can rest now” I think that is the epitome of tony’s arc. For his entire storyline he has been trying to right his wrongs and save his friends and the world and that is so much for one man to carry on his shoulders and everyone knew it would be the death of him. I know tony stans are pissed off that he died, but I don’t see him just being able to retire. Obviously I didn’t want him to die, but his whole storyline has been leading up to this. He truly got a hero’s sendoff and was solidified as THE hero of the mcu. This era started with him and it ended with him. It was a beautiful sendoff for the character that started it all. And I don’t think rdj would go along with it if he didn’t approve

- Steve’s ending.... so I knew from spoilers what would happen and while it was something I wanted in theory I was pissed when I first found out. But it somehow worked. If you look at steve’s arc, he has always been a man out of time. For everyone getting mad he was hung up on a girl he kissed once, it’s pretty much confirmed in agent carter that he and peggy were on the DL for 3 years. she wasnt just a crush he knew for a few months. They loved each other and fought side by side for three years and time took him too soon. In age of ultron the only part I liked was steve’s vision where he gets a dance with peggy. As much as he moved on in the present, the possibility he missed with her always haunted him. You can tell in peggy’s video in the winter solider that even though she married and had kids, the thought of steve still gets her choked up. When she sees him as an old woman she immediately crumbles. They both have referred to each other as the loves of their lives. 

- So with that said, I don’t think it’s weird or out of the blue that he would suddenly decide to try and go back to peggy. They won, bucky is back and safe, sam is back and safe, he can finally rest, and he has the tools to go back in time. The way I interpreted it, Bucky 100% knew what he was going to do. The look on his face, the tone of his voice. He knew Steve was not coming back, and he also knew he deserved to have that happy ending. So while sam and bruce thought it would only be 5 seconds, bucky turned away from the machine, knowing steve wouldn’t show up there. I ship stucky too because I just want steve happy so while at first I was like “how could he leave bucky??” watching it on screen it made sense. Bucky approved of his choice, and while he was saddened by it, he understood it. 

- In my interpretation, I don’t think steve stayed in the main timeline. I think him going back created an alternate timeline where he married peggy, dissolved hydra earlier, and freed bucky earlier. At some point, those two timelines merged, and he wandered over to where he knew they would be. OR after peggy died, he used the technology to travel back to that timeline when he was old. Or my friend suggested he could have met tony stark in his alternate timeline and asked for his help. Who knows. He literally came back with a shield, meaning he was at one point captain america again in that timeline. I don’t think there is anyway he could just stay quiet for 70 years about bucky being tortured and peggy running shield that was secretly hydra. I refuse to believe that. If the russos come out and say that’s what he did, then I’ll backtrack and say I don’t approve of steve’s ending. But as of right now I’m okay with it. 

[justgenlockthings]

gen:VIEW Episode 2, “There’s Always Tomorrow”

Rooster Teeth knows how to make a premiere that packs a punch when it comes to their serialized dramas (yes, I’m including Red vs. Blue in that category). But it’s the non-premiere episodes that generally give you a better idea of if the show’s gonna be good or not.

Or maybe you’re someone like TheFloofArtist and you were predisposed to hate the show long before you even saw it and so found literally every possible reason to hate it from the 2nd episode and dramatically “dropped it” despite the fact that if you hated the show so much you were shitting on it without having seen a single episode your opinion was never gonna be considered valid.

(Why do grown men throw hissy fits about TV shows?)

Ahem...so. Episode 2 of gen:LOCK...

Let’s Get Down To Business

Where episode 1 was about establishing the relationship between Chase and Miranda, this episode seems to be about establishing the gen:LOCK program itself: how it works and who’s gonna be in it. For that reason, at least for the first half, it’s very expository, but not in a way that ever feels boring. Honestly, the longer episode lengths means the amount of time they spend standing around and talking doesn’t feel like vital time wasted, unlike RWBY which has often made that terrible mistake. This is information we need to get a basic understanding of how this program works, and we also get a chance to hear Dr. Weller passionately talking about his life’s work. Jesus christ, David Tennant gives such a good performance. He really sells the good guy mad scientist voice you expect from Dr. Weller.

I wasn’t entirely sold on Michael B. Jordan as a voice actor the previous episode, but even if at certain points it was clear we were watching a scene that hadn’t been initially animated to his voice, this episode convinced me things were gonna be fine. I loved his performance in the scene of Julian in the tank chatting with Migas: the sort of bittersweetness of the reunion between the two after all that had happened to them, but they were still glad to finally see each other again. Miles Luna deserves some praise too for helping sell the fact that this is a reunion. After all, even though we caught a brief moment of them interacting and joking around in Episode 1, we didn’t really have a chance to establish they were close friends. This scene does well to convince us that yes, they were friends, and they are relieved to see each other again.

Chase and Miranda’s situation was very well-handled in this episode. It was always going to be painful for Miranda to find out Chase was still alive, and even though it’s perfectly logical that Chase wasn’t able to reach out to her in the intervening years, it still isn’t something she can just brush over. She didn’t immediately jump at the chance to see him in-person, and actively avoided him for a day. It would have been a major mistake for her to be the first one who went to visit him. I love this whole situation with Miranda: the way the marketing was going you kind of expected just a bland character defined by her relationship with Chase, and, well, I guess what she does in this episode is sort of defined by the relationship, but it’s done in a way that’s actually interesting, where you actually care about how she feels about all this. Dakota Fanning does a great job conveying the hurt Miranda feels seeing someone she loved after so long who she’d given up for dead. I think she might easily be the third best voice actor we’ve heard so far, behind Monica Rial and David Tennant.

Here’s another case where one of my few pre-show expectations got subverted. From the character teasers I’d sort of expected us to get a depiction of the formation of the gen:LOCK program from the start: presumably that path would have followed Chase and Yasamin’s initial training and the early mech designs we saw in the early posters and the first two teasers. Of course, this was before I had known what they were planning with Chase’s crash, a path in the story that I could not have possibly predicted. And now I’m realizing why they didn’t do that: 1) it would have been too similar to RWBY and probably have made for a very slow show otherwise, and 2) they wanted to get right into the giant mechs fighting things. Sure, it sort of robs us of seeing some cool stuff about what it was like for Chase to join the program, but I figure we’ll get that depicted in flashbacks or in the comics.

One of the accusations regarding Kazu Iida was that having him speak Japanese while everyone else was speaking English would create “The Lopez Effect.” For those unaware, Lopez is a robot on Rooster Teeth’s show Red vs. Blue who speaks “Spanish” (really sentences run through Google Translate) that is translated for the audience via subtitles but no one else can understand. Now, for what the complain actually entails, I think “Lopez effect” is a bad term for it because Lopez’s situation is played for laughs while in gen:LOCK everyone understands Iida and doesn’t bat an eye. The complaint is more that it creates a tonal dissonance in what’s designed as a dramatic show: while everyone’s speaking English Kazu’s saying all his lines in Japanese with subtitles. Now, I can understand why that could all sound a little weird, but the thing is the way they set things up in the episode I really don’t think Iida speaking English is gonna be as distracting as one might think: they set it up where the characters can understand what he’s saying thanks to the augmented reality gear everyone seems equipped with, so that already established a method of communication, and I just didn’t give any thought to the fact he’s speaking Japanese for the rest of the episode. I would honestly be more bothered if he just spoke English all the time.

The other accusation is that the fact that he is the only character who speaks a foreign language was they’d have an excuse to get the voice of Spike Spiegel, which apparently is bad because it’s “weeb-baiting.” I’m sorry, I didn’t realize they were trying to draw audiences in with who they were casting...

As far as the new gen:LOCK recruits go, we didn’t get too much information about them, and this is probably the only issue I have with this episode. Still, there was a lot going on here, so I can forgive not learning everything about them in their first appearance. And the thing is, the sequence with the imposter Sinclair (bravo to Blaine Gibson for being able to flip a coin––heheh––from friendly recruit Sinclair to Evil!Sinclair) offered us a good glimpse into who they are as fighters. Especially in recent years, Rooster Teeth fights are a chance to really get an idea for the character (and for that I wholeheartedly thank Monty Oum) and how they handle dangerous situations. Yasamin is clearly someone who can jump into a fight and hold her own without hesitation, Iida is someone who will jump right into a fight, Valentina will keep her distance but can still be quite deadly, and Cammie is a scared little bean...who with a little encouragement can still be helpful.

Now, the Sinclair reveal was a slight bit predictable if you picked up the hints in Character Reveal Teaser 4 (which I hadn’t, and in retrospect was blatantly obvious). The fact that it was predictable was the source of derision by some of the more gen:CRIT crowd, but honestly? I don’t see predictability as a sign of whether something’s good or not. Things can be predictable and still be fun to watch, so long as it’s delivered in an entertaining manner. And we got a pretty awesome fight sequence out of it.

I’ve seen a few people say that the jokes in this show feel forced. I’m inclined to disagree. The type of humor Gray and Evan are employing in the writing is more grounded than the kind you see in RWBY or Red vs. Blue or Camp Camp: it’s designed to feel more natural to the conversations these characters are having, while also not taking attention away from the more serious aspects of the story. Most of Rooster Teeth’s core group (more recent additions less-so) know how to create an engaging story based in serious tones, but they never really stray from their comedy roots––Day 5, their most dramatic venture to date, was a lot funnier than the concept would’ve implied because Josh and Chris knew where to inject humor when it would be desperately needed. This episode isn’t very different: the drama of Chase basically coming back from the dead gets natural moments of levity from his and Migas brief Siege mention and Dr. Weller being disappointed that he couldn’t participate in the reveal; the tension between Chase and Miranda gets a moment where Miranda refuses to hear out Migas on visiting Chase, a moment that can draw laughs while also being realistic to her and Chase’s actual situation; Chase popping up behind Fake!Sinclair and saying “Boo,” which...actually that was more a legit joke, but I laughed really hard. What I mean to say is gen:LOCK is not trying to be a comedy, but Rooster Teeth knows how and when to make its audience laugh.

(save for Red vs. Blue Season 16 of course...)

Conclusions

Another solid episode of gen:LOCK, and a little more interesting one than “The Pilot” because it delves into the meatier stuff that this series is going to follow. Stellar vocal performances by the cast give us a sense of the relationships that need to be picked up in the four years since the war began, and some amazing fighting shows us gen:LOCK means business as an action series.

My only concern is that the way this episode is formatted it doesn’t quite stand on its own in the way “The Pilot” did, but the fact that it was released alongside “The Pilot” worked in its favor, since both episodes give us a good ground to establish what this show is looking to do, and hopefully further episodes will follow on that.

I’ve said enough about people who were predisposed to hate the show commenting on this episode, but I wanna say this also: people. We are two episodes in. The show premiered less than a week ago. There isn’t a whole lot of content to draw from to know where it’s going. Be a little more patient.

[rebelsofshield]

Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 5/15/19

Scoundrels, pilots, and rebels take the spotlight in a solid week of Star Wars comics from Marvel.

Star Wars #66 written by Kieron Gillen and art by Angel Unzueta

Kieron Gillen has only two issues left on Star Wars for the forseeable future and fittinglyt he is closing the door on many of his longest running stories. The penultimate chapter of “The Scourging of Sho-Torun” not only functions as a set up for what looks to be an overstuffed conclusion but also closes the book on some long running characters and themes.

In particular, Queen Trios shines here. Next to Doctor Aphra and Triple Zero, Trios may be the best original creation to come out of Gillen’s four year run on Marvel’s Star Wars titles. Her dark pragmatism and shifting loyalties made her an interesting foil to both Darth Vader and later to Leia and the way her story wraps up here is fitting and suitably tragic for such a tortured character. One can’t help but wish that Gillen had given her more time to bounce of Leia in recent issues as their dynamic was one of the dramatic highlights of this run of stories. Trios and Leia represent sort of cautionary tales to one another. Trios sees Leia as a leader who failed her people and is floundering for a purpose in the wake of calamity and Leia sees Trios as a twisted version of what she could be if she abandoned her morals. There is an unspoken question in the air of if Leia could have saved Alderaan with a dash of Trios-inspired cynicism and Gillen’s script is at his best when he forces both characters to confront this. Where the story goes from here could have disastrous results for our princess and it will be interesting to see Gillen or follow up writer Greg Pak explore the fall out.

Leia and Trios may be the standouts but that doesn’t mean that Luke also doesn’t have his hands full. Luke’s Captain America-like “aw shucks” idealism is pushed to its limits here as he is forced to find a way to save Sho-Torun from his former allies. Cornering Luke with the sort of moral conundrum of having to save innocents or kill other rebels is a brutal twist and Gillen handles it in a manner that doesn’t betray the young hero’s pre-Empire Strikes Back naiveté. It could’ve used more breathing room but it adds another thrilling wrinkle to this jam-packed issue.

However this leads to what is ultimately the biggest let down when it comes to how “The Scourging of Sho-Torun” is concluding. While early issues saw lots of stage setting and playful heists, we have rapidly upped the stakes and introduced new complications to Leia’s scheme and not all of them get the time they deserve. The Empire’s intervention here feels a little half-baked and even flippant and how exactly this plays out with Trios and the larger culture of Sho-Torun could’ve been further explored. It’s hard to tell if this is a problem that could have been alleviated with another issue of runtime or whether some of the attention in past chapters could have been diverted. Regardless, we find ourselves running out of time with a lot of plates spinning in the air.

Angel Unzueta’s art is for the most part solid here. His facial expressions can still feel oddly exaggerated and unnatural on his characters but he is for the most part able to nail the bigger moments. The final showdown between Leia and Trios in particular is a standout and Unzueta not only nails the choreography but sells the complicated emotions of this clash as well.

One to go. Let’s get scourging.

Score: B+

Star Wars Age of Rebellion: Lando Calrissian #1 written by Greg Pak and art by Matteo Buffagni

Unlike past hero issues of Age of Rebellion, Lando Calrissian isn’t concerned with filling in the blanks of Lando’s story. Instead, Greg Pak attempts to tell a holistic Lando tale. “Cloud City Blues” tries its best to not only show us Lando the scoundrel and swindler but also Lando the leader and Lando the bleeding heart and Lando the loyal friend. Surprisingly, it works, if not perfectly.

Cloud City is proving to be a costly investment. Despite his new position of power, Lando Calrissian finds himself routinely having to dig into his own resources to keep the floating city running and to placate its overtaxed work force. However, when a wealthy off worlder approaches Lando with a business proposition that seems too good to be true, his financial worries may have found a solution. Of course though, not everything is at it seems.

We have seen a lot of Lando as a smuggler and a gambler as of late. Much of his recent portrayal in Star Wars media has built off his scene stealing charisma in Solo: A Star Wars Story and has delved deep into his ties to the criminal underworld or his moral fluidity. It’s refreshing then to see Greg Pak take the time to explore Lando as a responsibility driven leader. While it is easy to get caught up in his betrayal of Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, Lando did in fact do it to protect a city of people he was responsible for. Pak’s ability to blend Lando’s sense of duty to his people into a story that also allows him to smuggle, gamble, and brush shoulders with criminals is commendable and a refreshingly rare take on the character.

That being said, the narrative itself is fairly predictable. As soon as Lando takes the job that will supposedly solve all of his problems it is clear that things will eventually take a turn for the worse. It is undeniably told well and filled with some great character beats, but its various twists and turns are clear from the outset.

Matteo Buffagni fills in for Chris Sprouse here and luckily their styles prove similar enough to avoid any large sense of creative dysphoria. That being said Buffagni’s art is largely unremarkable. Outside some clever creature designs for Lando’s benefactors (they are drawn as cape wearing dinosaur-mantises), Buffagni fails to leave much of an impression.

Score: B

Star Wars Tie Fighter #2 written by Jody Houser and art by Roge Antonio and Josh Cassara

Between Age of Republic and TIE Fighter, it is clear that Jody Houser is most at home when she is given a taste of the dark side. While this glimpse into the origins of Shadow Wing may not have the delightfully demented twists of some of her best work over in the prequel era, Houser does a great job at humanizing the Empire better than most other contemporary Star Wars media.

There is a frustrating tendency in Star Wars media where complex Imperial characters tend to flip sides to the side of the heroes. In a way, this makes sense. You don’t really want to populate much of your fictional fascist dictatorship with many heroes or even misguided regular people. Part of Star Wars’ myth has always been the stark binary of its morality and muddying that too much runs the risk of losing sight of what makes this universe so appealing. The hidden gem of a Star Wars story appears to be one that stars an Imperial lead that isn’t a full on anti-hero but also doesn’t end their arc as a rebel defector. 

Houser manages to balance this mostly by allowing us glimpses into the various characters’ interiority and framing their mission as one of misguided loyalty and war weariness. Having the pilots of Shadow Wing face off against an enemy that isn’t tied to the Rebellion also adds a nice bite to the story and offers some unexpected moments of self-awareness to the cast and their place in this galactic war. It may not be a truly gripping narrative in its own right at this point, but that doesn’t seem to be Houser’s main priority.

The strength of this series to date has been its rather arresting ensemble and that continues here. It is impressive just how organic this cast feels so quickly. The decision to end each issue with a sort of mini-story centering on one individual cast member is an inspired one and it adds a larger humanizing affect to the narrative and its action. (This issue centers on a carryover member from Han Solo: Imperial Cadet and in the process actually helps elevate what was mostly a clumsy and disposable series.)

The shared art effort by Roge Antonio and Jose Cassara also works rather well here. Antonio finds clever ways to help us keep track of our protagonists in the various dogfights and action that Houser’s script throws at us. Whether it’s by offering us glimpses of the characters beneath their helmets or showcasing talking head like call signs for dialogue, the action is clear, well-paced, and adds a personal bite that avoids any confusion that might have resulted from the Empire’s infamous homogeny.

I may not be anxiously awaiting the conclusion to Shadow Wing’s particular mission here, but just getting to know these flawed and human pilots continues to be an unexpected source of intrigue and disarming empathy for one of pop culture’s most infamous villainous organizations.

Score: B

[toonatic92]

[Image description: A pencil drawing of four of my alien characters. 1. Malley, a tall reptilian alien with curly hair tied in a ponytail. She is wearing a long sleeveless coat, a tank top, shorts and high-heeled boots. She has her arms folded and is rolling her eyes. 2. Angel, a short, fat bird alien with messy hair. She is wearing goggles, a leotard, a belt, fingerless gloves and knee-high socks. She is smiling and waving at the audience. 3. Nera, a squid alien with a long braid. She is naked and has gems embedded in her body that correspond to chakra points. She is floating in the air, cross-legged and meditating. 4. Chris, a blob alien with tentacle arms. He is clasping his tentacles together with a happy expression.]

I decided to draw my alien characters. I don't have that many because most of my stories aren't sci-fi, but I try to work them in wherever I can.

1. Mala 'Malley' Consaria (left) - An Akraskree (dinosaur alien) from a tropical jungle planet, where the carnivores are the elite and the herbivores are enslaved or farmed for their meat. Malley used to be part of the herbivore resistance until their leader died and a new, more brutal leader took over. Malley stole their supplies and fled the planet on a small and very beat up spacecraft, but ended up crash landing on Earth. She was discovered by the dictator of New Britain, Calleigh Campbell, who put her to work in the science division of her operation. After the suspicious death of a beloved colleague, Malley blamed Calleigh for his death and decided to take revenge by planting a bomb in Calleigh's HQ. The bomb did a massive amount of damage, but Malley fled to the ruins of Old Britain before anyone could catch her. She lived there in solitude until a chance encounter with an escaped psychiatric patient with revolutionary ideas led to the formation of the Torchbearer Society, a misfit group of rebels fighting against the tyranny of Calleigh Campbell. Malley is the chemical weapons expert of the team and loyal second-in-command to their leader, Josh. She has had a lot of time to ruminate over the past and the mistakes she's made. She is convinced that she doesn't deserve happiness and keeps the other Torchbearers at arms length, so she won't be sad when they die, which she's sure that they will.

2. 'Angel' (centre) - A Salaaran (bird alien) from a cloudy forest planet, where her people live on the clouds and descend to hunt the dangerous creatures in the forest. Angel doesn't remember any of this because she was dropped onto Earth from a great height and the trauma to her head caused amnesia. She was found by the Torchbearers, who saved her life and when she was better, gave her a job as their mechanic when it tuned out she had those skills despite not being able to remember how she got them. Angel is sweet and friendly, but she is desperate to know about her past and her people. All she knows is that they sometimes fly over Earth, where they are seen by telescopes, and they are called Starbirds by humans. This lack of connection to her past leads her to try and bond with Malley, the only other alien on Earth, but Malley is not here to make friends and finds Angel deeply irritating, which Angel is cheerfully oblivious to.

3. Nera'nia Bri'kaska (upper right) - A Nirvanian (squid alien) from a watery mineral-rich planet, where her species is constantly telepathically linked to prevent their thoughts and emotions from getting out of control. Nera is a sweet and gentle soul who has frequent absence seizures that disrupt the telepathic link, so she was sent on a small spacecraft to get as far away as possible. When she was flying over Earth, an absence seizure caused her to lose control of the ship and crash land on Earth. She was broken by the loss of her home and terrified of hostile aliens, so she used her powers to burrow into the earth, creating a cave where she could die alone. But her injuries turned out to be worse than she thought and her agony and fear ended up being transmitted into the minds of nearby humans. The chaos attracted the local superhero team, who ventured into the cave and rescued her. She now lives with them, in disguise as a human schoolgirl, and they're helping her adjust to her new life.

4. Kurzak/'Chris' (bottom right) - A Protean (blob alien) from a planet with very dangerous wildlife. Chris is part of their space program and has been sent to Earth on a scouting mission. Despite having access to all the information from previous scouting missions, they end up wandering into a nightclub and accidentally picking up a very drunk woman, without understanding anything that was happening. She took them back to her flat and Chris finally understood that she was trying to mate with them, but Protean mating involves permanently merging together. When the woman woke up and found herself fused at the hip to an alien, she freaked out. Chris freaked out too when she told him what alcohol was and how it made her unable to consent and that humans weren't okay with being permanently absorbed by another being. Now the two of them are stuck together until they can find a way to separate themselves.

Medium: Pencil on paper.

Links to other versions: DeviantART

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[love-fireflysong]

Day 6: Meeting

Fandom: Until Dawn Character(s): Ashley Brown, Josh Washington, Hannah Washington, Beth Washington Words: 1852 Rating: General Author’s Notes: Until Dawn babies time! And by babies, I mean like they’re like, 12 or so. Looking back, I think this is the first UD fanfiction I wanted to write, I’m pretty sure I came up with the rough plot for this one not long after I played the game for the first time back in 2016. So this is a 4 year old idea finally breaking free! And in keeping with the theme I’ve apparently been starting, I have also never read Murder on the Orient Express. Maybe one day I will actually have a side plot revolving around something I have actual experience with.

Ashley had always loved the library. And today didn’t change that thought, no sir it did not. And just like any other day she visited, she pushed open the door and breathed a sigh of relief at the air conditioned air that felt so jarring against the mid-afternoon heat of July’s summer at her back. Greeting Miss Jennings who was sitting at the check-out desk by the door, she walked further into the building, past the children’s section where they were doing a craft of some sort with Mr Harper. Cut pieces of construction paper and glue were scattered across the table, and the hands of little kids were eagerly reaching to try and beat the others from grabbing their favourite colors.

Further in she reached the stairs that would lead into the more sophisticated, at least in her opinion, reaches of the building. In its deeper depths, she would find the tables and desks set up for people studying and working on projects. Ashley couldn’t wait until the day she was old enough to have a reason to go downstairs, to be able to go down there everyday. She imagined that once down there, she would never want to leave the peace and solitude that the desks with it’s high privacy partitions would provide. Instead, she headed into the higher reaches of the building. Her hand grabbing onto the stair’s rails, feeling the chipping paint beneath her hand as it glided up the bar, already bracing herself for the wonder she knew would greet her upstairs.

Reaching the top floor, she felt the large smile come to to her face at the sight before her as it always did. Green eyes brightening as she took in the seemingly unending rows of shelves, packed so full of books that they threatened to spill out sometimes, and so tall and high that the tops almost brushed the ceiling. Ashley took a deep breathe through her nose and let it out in a happy exhale. As always, the room carried in it both the hint of paper and ink from the newer books recently added to the library’s extensive collection, but it was the overlying sweeter, muskier scent of books that had been here longer than she had been alive that felt like coming home.

She stepped in further, already knowing exactly where to go. Any other time, she would peruse each and every one of the shelves, fingers brushing across the well-worn and cracked spines of favorites and the unblemished spines of treasures yet to be discovered, wondering what adventures—what knowledge—she would find within its pages. But not today.  No, today Ashley Brown was on a mission. In fact, one could say that she was on a case: the case of the Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Eagerly, she rushed to the mystery/thriller side of the floor and gave a cry of victory when she managed to find the well-loved spine of the book, thankfully not needing a stepladder to reach it, and rushed towards her favorite chair in the corner. Finding it thankfully unoccupied, she sank down into it’s extremely worn and frayed depths.

Around her was silence, the only thing interrupting it was the occasional turning of pages and the shocked gasps when the two darker haired girls pouring over a book on the table nearby found something particularly exciting. It was the best kind of silence, the best kind of noise. Ashley let herself curl up deeper into the armchair and opened the book and began to read.

Finally. Finally. She was home.

ONE: AN IMPORTANT PASSENGER ON THE TAURUS EXPRESS

It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express. It consisted of—

“Hey.”

—a kitchen and dining car,—

“Hello?”

—a sleeping car and two local coaches.

“Hey!”

With an angry sigh, Ashley reluctantly lowered her book to glare at the boy sitting in the chair across from her with all the hatred her tiny twelve year-old body could muster. Only to have it flag in dulled surprise when she realized that she had in fact been glaring at his legs crossed over the back of the chair. His head was actually hanging upside down, dark hair hanging straight down, and a wide, cocky grin on his face.

“Yo.”

Rolling her eyes in annoyance, Ashley returned his greeting with an extremely terse ‘Hi’ and continued reading.

By the step leading up into the sleeping car stood a young French lieutenant,resplendent in uniform, conversing—

“So, what are you in for?”

She wordlessly lifted her book higher and continued to read.

—conversing with a small, lean man, muffled up to the ears, of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upturned curled moustache.

“I mean, what crime did you commit?”

Ashley wanted desperately to ignore the boy but somehow knew even now that it was a lost cause. So instead, she hesitantly lowered her book with a tired sigh. “Crime? What are you even talking about?”

Still upside down on the chair, the boy shrugged, the movement doing little to jostle the hands laced over his stomach. “You know, what you did in order for this to be your punishment.”

If he thought that this clarified the earlier question, the he was very wrong. It had only left her more confused then before. “Punishment? Are you talking about the library? Or the book?”

“I dunno, both I guess?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Wait. Are you saying that you’re here by choice?”

“Yes?”

“And reading by choice?”

“Yes?”

“Oh I can’t believe this.” With a grunt of effort, the boy pulled himself up so he could, very clumsily, maneuver his way on the chair so he was sitting in it properly. Now right side up, and the red in his face lessening as the blood in it returned to the rest of his body, Ashley was able to see that the boy was around her age, if not a year or two older. “You mean to tell me that you not only came here—for fun—but to read a book—for fun?”

“Well, yeah. What else would I rather be doing?”

He looked at her like she was insane, which she found to be very rude when they didn’t even know each other. “Oh, I don’t know, playing outside? Hanging out with friends? Playing video games? Pulling pranks? Cleaning your room? Literally anything else?”

Ashley bristled. “Why are you here then? If you don’t want to be here then just leave!” She pointed towards the stairs behind him. “The stairs are right there, no ones stopping you! So if you could go and let me get back to my book, I would really appreciate it.”

The boy snorted. “Would if I could, Red. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m currently being punished.” The boy stood up and walked behind Ashley to look down at her book and began to read aloud from the page she was open on. “’You have saved us mon cher—’” Ashley couldn’t help but wince at the worst approximation of a french accent that she had ever heard “—said the the General emotionally, his great white mustache trembling as he spoke. Wow. This is what you read for fun? This? It’s so boring.”

Ashley closed her book as she glared back up into the boys face. “What did I do exactly to deserve you bugging me like this?”

He snorted as he looked at her. “Don’t know what you did, but sure know what I did. Me and my best friend got caught pulling a prank on old man Zimmerman next door. He’s at home grounded, and I’m on baby-sitting duty for the foreseeable future.” He pointed with his thumb towards the two dark haired girls reading at the nearby table. 

One of the girls turned to speak. “Not our fault that you decided to play ding-dong-ditch with Chris.”

The other girl, this one wearing a pair of glasses, joined in. “Yeah Josh. And leave the poor girl alone. She would clearly much rather be reading then dealing with your sorry butt.”

The boy (Josh, Ashley reminded herself, not that she really cared though) turned to better respond to the girls, who she was able to identify as his sisters by the same dark hair and nose that they all shared. “Say’s you Hannah. I will have you know that she is probably vastly preferring my company to that musty old book she’s reading.”

“I’m really not. In fact, the quicker you shut up, the quicker I can get back to it.”

The look of outrage on his face was so comically over-exaggerated that she couldn’t help but laugh. “I can’t believe this. Hannah and Beth I can understand, but you don’t even know me? And you’re already dissing me like this?”

“Oh I think I’ve learned all I need.” Ashley closed her book finally, and started to tick off her fingers with each point made. “You’re an annoying, egotistical, cocky prankster who loves the sound of his own voice. And who is also being a pain in my butt right now.”

The silence in the library was now far heavier than it normally was, and Ashley put her hands over her mouth as she realized in shock what it was she had just said. She had never been this sassy before, especially to a stranger, but something about Josh had just brought out the, well, sass in her.

Hannah, at least she thinks Hannah’s the one with glasses, reacts first by throwing her hands over her face to muffle what could possibly, though there is no way that’s what they are, be giggles. The one she thinks is Beth glares at her. “I don’t know who you think you are, but how dare you talk to my brother—”

The sound that interrupts her is one that Ashley never expected. It’s Josh, who’s holding his gut as he cries tears of laughter, going so far as grabbing onto the back of her chair to keep himself upright. Somehow, he manages to squeeze out what he says next in-between huge, gaping breaths of laughter.“Oh man, you really have my number don’t you?” Eventually, Ashley starts to smile and hesitantly laugh along with him, having no clue what just happened.

It’s takes one of the other library patrons on the floor with them, an older white-haired man Ashley vaguely recognizes from her visits here, shushing them sternly, and her hiding her rapidly reddening face behind her book, for Josh to finally settle down.

“Oooh, I like you. What’s your name, Red?”

“Oh, um, Ashley.”

“Well, Ash—”

“Ashley.”

He ignores her correction and sticks out his hand to her, smiling with the same wide grin he had on when he had been hanging from the chair. “I think we’re gonna be great friends, Ash.”

And god help her, Ash agrees with him as she tentatively grabs the hand offered to her and shakes it.

[reifromrfa]

RFA guys + Minor Trio play Until Dawn with MC

written with @rainydayswriter

So lucky to have met this girl and to have written this with her!!! I had so much fun writing these hcs that I was literally laughing out loud alone :)) Check out her blog too!!! :D She’s brilliant! Hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it! :)

Yoosung

This poor boy, how you convinced him to play a horror game is beyond anyone

All the lights stay ON whether it’s the middle of the day or not

But he really enjoys this game and tries to make the best decisions and tries to save everyone

Specially the wolf (makes you Google how to save it)

Gushes about the graphics half the time

Horrified that there’s even a choice to harm animals

Screams his head off when the wendigo first makes its appearance

And also screams when the flamethrower guy appears in the mines

Practically THROWS the controller at every scare, you’ll have to play through some high-tension spots for him

What is he more afraid of: gore or needles? BOTH, apparently ;;;

He answers Dr Hill’s tests truthfully so the game is 1000x scarier for him now ;;;

Explores the most, probably to stall but also finds most of the clues and totems

Unfortunately he gets a little too curious about every single item, and ends up getting Mike’s fingers caught in the bear trap

Makes you decide what to do because he can’t watch

You decide to just hack off Mike’s fingers

Yoosung flees for the bathroom

He couldn’t save everyone and he feels really really bad about it; you have to console him when he accidentally kills Chris and Ashley gets upset

“Yoosung, you can just replay it later-”

“NO, they deserve to be together now!!”

Restarts the game and still falls for the same jumpscares

What a (lovable) dork

After finishing up the game, he will need to watch no less than four romcoms to calm down

Throw in plenty of cuddles and praising his bravery and he’ll be so happy

Zen

Mike is his favorite character: buff hero on a mission to save his girlfriend, befriends a wolf, kicks Wendigo ass? He’s so there

All those innuendos at the beginning of the game?? He’s wiggling his brows at you the whole time

“A romantic getaway in the mountains sounds nice, huh babe~?”

“Yeah Zen nothing like a crazy flamethrower murderer to set the mood.”

Definitely gets Jess to take off all her clothes and gets flustered when you tease him about it

That part where Matt climbs the fire tower and leaves the axe? You can bet Zen is swearing profusely at the screen

High key makes fun of the horror-movie acting

Pauses the game to debate almost every decision

Sorry Josh, he’s saving Ashley no ifs ands or buts

Protects your precious eyes from any gore (almost smacks you in the face with the controller in his hurry)

The first Wendigo scares the hell out of him and he lets out the most high-pitched screech

I didn’t know you had such a ladylike scream, Hyun~

Tries to save everyone because he’s ZEN THE KNIGHT

Not a big fan of Emily because she’s such a bully but still saves her because he wouldn’t kill anyone just because they were mean

Sucks at quick time events, though, and probably curses the entire time

Both of you are yelling when someone’s getting chased, there is arm slapping involved

Manages to kill off a few people, including Emily

But of course he saves Ashley and Chris, Sam, Mike and Jess

Jaehee

Isn’t much of a gamer to begin with, but is willing to play with you for moral support

So done with all of these kids already, where are their parents, why are they on an isolated mountain after two girls died due to a prank they played??

Almost as jumpy as Yoosung, and tries to play it off but at one point spills her coffee all over the couch

“Why do you enjoy this?!”

She can’t understand who would willingly put themselves in stressful situations for fun?

Surprisingly sarcastic at times, as a defense tactic against the fear

If one more person mentions the butterfly effect

“Worst fear? Bad Zen fanfiction.” Jumin in a cat suit

Criticizes the characters ruthlessly

Sam running around in a towel -- “How is she still alive and not freezing to death?”

Doesn’t want anyone to die, but you swear she smirked when the revenge plot was revealed

“This story is so cliche-wait what the hell is that thing?!”

MUTE TERROR as the wendigo screams at your character

Needs to take frequent breaks to calm her poor heart

Clinging to you for dear life

Jaehee please I can’t feel my arm

How can any of these kids be sane???

Sam is her favorite character. Takes a bath for hours and then saves everyone at the end. If you end up killing her, Jaehee will be salty af

Jumin

At first glance you wouldn’t expect him to be the type to play video games, but he owns a Gray Station and a ZetBox so

The lodge in the mountains looks nice and he considers investing in a ski resort

But comments on Josh’s poor planning skills and says he’s a terrible host ;;;

Jumin honey it’s just a game ;;;

You’ve seen his attempts at taking pictures. The parts where you’re supposed to keep the controller still? Better snatch that controller from him and set it on the table or you’re DEAD.

He’s so focused when he plays, and he manages to keep a straight face through most of the game. Hardly even flinches

How

Unfortunately, he isn’t too keen on lingering or searching each and every room, so he misses unobvious clues and totems

But will definitely replay the game until it says he’s completed it 100%

Refuses to read any walkthroughs or accept Seven’s “help”

Jumin no you can’t skip work for this

Ashley or Josh? That decision was tough since it made him think about you and V

He saves Ashley but you can see it bothered him

How can a game make me feel such things?

This guy may be cold and calculating to other people, but he’s fiercely loyal and protective so he tries to save as many characters as he can and you find yourself more attracted to him

When he learns about Josh and the whole revenge thing, he still fights to save Josh because that’s just what friends do and he understands how Josh was going through a tough time because of his sisters

Finds himself addicted to these types of games and buys similar games for you two to play

Saeyoung

LOLOL a game where he can decide the fate of 8 teenagers? LOLOLOL

Turns all the lights off for ~atmosphere~ and yells at tense moments to try and scare you

Guesses who the Psycho is right away

Laughs at all the lame puns and jokes

Won’t stop quoting the game for days (“Hello, friends and fans!” “Ugh, unfollow.” “It’s mammoth!” “You know what else is mammoth, MC? Me.” wiggles eyebrows suggestively)

Fear: cockroaches

Jokingly shoves the controller into your hands at the worst moments

Makes THE MOST RANDOM decisions ever: “I wonder what will happen if I FOLLOW JESS’S VOICE?”

“Saeyoung you know that isn’t Jess!”

“So are you saying I shouldn’t open the trapdoor? The one right here?”

Good luck prying him away at any point, he’s not leaving till he’s found all the clues and unlocks as many endings as possible

Not above trying to distract you when it’s your turn to play

“Saeyoung if you poke me one more time-”

Chris gets beheaded by the wendigo

“FA;DFKLDJS SAEYOUNG!”

He’d just laugh ;;; Seriously this man :)))

Sam’s “Don’t move” parts?

HE POKES YOU

AND SAM DIES

“OH MY GOD SAEYOUNG CHOI”

“MC, it’s just a game, we can always replay it~”

Just like you keep replaying my route~

Never playing this with him ever again ;;; He’s more stressful than the game ;;;;

V

Never really had much interest in video games, but if you want to play it he’ll be right there beside you

He’ll get surprised at jumpscares but wouldn’t make a sound

He’ll immediately hold you when you get scared or scream though

Makes all the righteous choices and even though Emily’s such a horrible person, still makes it a point to save her

Protect this man

What do you fear most? Gore. This cutie apparently hates gore and he closes his eyes when Matt dies coz he tried to save Emily

That photo with the scarecrow? He felt calm looking at it, probably because he usually went on hiking trips alone for his photography thing

This guy is good with the “don’t move” scenes too, since he’s used to staying still when taking photos

Sucks at quick time events though ;;; He panics too easily and misses the buttons but thank God you learned about this early on in the game ;;;

Same as Jumin, he has a hard time choosing between Ashley and Josh

“I would give my life instead, why can’t that be an option?”

But he also chooses to save Ashley and also feels bad about it afterwards

Ashley or Chris? You already know this man will choose to kill himself than hurt the people he loves

And then he finds out that it was all a revenge scheme by Josh and he’s so surprised because how can someone do that to their friends?

He’s on the edge of his seat during Emily’s trip down the mines part

Super invested in the mystery aspect, ends up talking and theorizing through some cutscenes

V there are Wendigos PAY ATTENTION

Will make you look for all the clues and totems because he’s so invested in this game and really wants to save everyone

And he feels terrible when the flamethrower guy dies even though there was really no way to save him

When he finds out what really happens to the twins, oh my God, he’s so done with this game

Why would you make Hannah eat her sister??? And how come nobody searched the mines? Surely someone must have known about it?

If horny teenagers can find this mine in the middle of a snowstorm HOW COME THE SEARCH PARTIES WEREN’T ABLE TO SAVE THEM???

Surprisingly saves everyone except Matt because he was so stubborn about trying to save Emily

Saeran

Let’s face it, this guy would probably kill all the characters

You see his face change when he sees the twins in the beginning of the game though, and he totally chooses the option to let go and fall together instead of letting the other twin die alone

Hates the other characters because they were mean to the twins

Yup, he kills all of them

Except Sam, Chris and Josh because they weren’t involved in the prank

And also, the wolf

Fair enough, you roll with it

He decided he would save Chris but when he finds out Chris likes Ashley, chooses to shoot himself

Marry him

Then he finds out Josh tried to get revenge for his sisters

Is now super determined to save him

Unlike Saeyoung he’s kind of impatient but he reads through the stuff

Still shoots Emily because she was such a bitch

Kills Mike as well, because he was seriously a jerk to Hannah but everyone sees him as the hero --not Saeran though, so bye bye Mike

Matt finds Jessica and he’s considerate of her and chooses to hide instead, saving both of them

It wasn’t really his intention since he wanted to kill everyone, but you kiss his cheek saying how cool he is and he blushes

So upset when he finds out Hannah became a wendigo because how could she eat her sister? That’s really really messed up

And when he finds Hannah’s diary in the mines? You hug him because he goes silent and stares at the screen blankly

Saves Sam as well and he never plays the game again ;A;

Next time you’re playing Tekken

Vanderwood

Ha? What’s this game you want to play?

Pretends he’s bored with the game but deep down he’s LOVING it

Kills the quicktime events

“This is so easy.”

Gets so annoyed like wtf is wrong with these kids??? Why are they so horny???

He doesn’t always make the right decisions though and ends up killing a few characters

Swears a lot

Devastated when the wolf dies but he wouldn’t show it

So when you gently squeeze his arm and tell him it’s alright, you see him purse his lips

He’s crying inside

Oh it was all an elaborate prank by Josh?

FUCK YOU JOSH YOU DEAD

Wendigos are after him? Has no problem staying still and doesn’t miss a shot during Mike’s chapter

Hates Dr. Hill’s character because he felt like someone was probing into his brain and he doesn’t like it

Chris and Ashley are his OTP so he definitely saves those two

He finishes the game and tells you he’s done playing it, but you’ll catch him playing it late into the night when he can’t sleep, trying to get all collectibles and save everyone

[thosepeskysens]

Ottawa Senators Week in review: Feb. 1- Feb. 7 Keep moving forward.

Just a note on what these reviews are kind of going to look like, as I’m hoping to do these for at least the rest of the season. I’m basically doing this because I can’t really watch games because with my schedule it doesn’t make sense to get an NHL.tv subscription, but there’s really no other way to watch games since I live in the US, since I don’t have cable. So I listen on the radio when I can, but otherwise this is just a way for me to keep track of what is happening on the team, and a way to hopefully engage with other Sens fans!

*Game Recaps*

2/2 @ Edmonton 4-2 L

So this game was one I wasn’t able to listen to most of because of work, but it doesn’t sound like it was a real fun one to watch anyways. Edmonton scores 3 goals in the first period. Has Ottawa scored first in a single game this season? I honestly don’t know. 

In the second period, Cedric Paquette gets the Sens on the board with assists from Thomas Chabot and Tim Stützle.

 Stützle picks up the lone goal in the third period, but in the end the Sens fall 4-2. Despite Paquette getting one of the Sens’ two goals of the game, he and most of the other vets continue to not play well. Certainly not well enough to justify keeping them on the team over young players who need the experience. TAKEAWAYS: If you’re going to suck either way, I say just play the kids. 

2/4 @ Montreal 3-2 W

I actually managed to listen to this entire game! Hooray! And, we actually managed to win! Holy shit!! 

Thankfully, it seemed that DJ Smith finally got with the program and switched out vets like Coburn and Paquette with younger players like Erik Brännström and Artyom Zub. Alex Galchenyuk was also in the line up, as was Colin White for the second game in a row, after being a healthy scratch for a while. It’s not totally clear why these players weren’t in the lineup from the beginning, though rumor has it that DJ just straight up didn’t like Brännström’s playing last year. But whatever the reasons, they definitely proved that they should have a spot on the team. Both Zub and Brännström played very solidly all night, and the defense was a completely different story compared to the rest of the season so far. White also seemed very competent; it’s nice to see him getting time in the top 6. 

Montreal started the scoring (of course) with Gallagher, which was a very unfortunate goal that definitely was not Matt Murray’s fault. Derek Stepan lost his man in front of the net, causing Montreal to go up 1-0. In the same period, thanks to a beautiful pass from Stützle to Tierney to Chabot, Chabot gets a goal and it’s tied 1-1. Then, on the PP, Stützle, finally getting some time on the first power play unit, gets a goal to get the Sens up 2-1 with just twenty seconds left in the first period.

In the second period, Connor Brown scores with Brännström and Stützle both getting an assist, which gives Stützle three points on the night, and Brännström’s first of the season! However, it is pretty quickly followed up by Brown taking a very, very stupid penalty for holding the puck, but thankfully the PK holds it together. Which is good, because the Sens spent a lot of time on the PK this game. 

In the third, Brady Tkachuk takes a stick to the face and Ottawa goes to the PP, only for Montreal to score short handed, shortening Ottawa’s lead to 3-2. In the last minutes of the game, Ottawa is on the PP, 5 on 3, and DJ calls a late timeout, which I think was totally valid, considering we had just given up a shorthanded goal. In the end, we managed to hold on to the lead and win our first game since opening night. While the Sens definitely did not play complicated hockey, they did play competent hockey, which sometimes is all you can ask for. TAKEAWAY: the kids are alright. 

2/6 vs. Montreal 2-1 L

I was able to listen to the first two periods of this game, both of which seemed fairly promising for then Sens, but I wasn’t able to watch the final period, which I think means the loss was on me this time guys. My bad. 

The first period wasn’t awesome for the Sens. Montreal had a lot of momentum that the Sens weren’t able to really match. A Brännström penalty (which people mostly seemed to agree was a bad call) led to a Montreal goal. The Sens really need to learn how to start scoring first, guys. Colin White manages to tie it up on the PP. The Sens were outshot 19-8 in this period, so all in all, not bad results. Murray continues to look much better. 

The second period is scoreless, but the Sens definitely dominate this period. Unfortunately, they aren’t able to get anything past Jake Allen, who started in goal for Montreal. The Sens outshoot Montreal 13-7. 

In the final period, Montreal’s Josh Anderson gets the GWG on the third attempt. Murray is able to make the save, then saves the rebound, but isn’t able to make that third save, which is honestly more on his teammates than on him. Sens lose, but honestly they played well, and weren’t blown out. They continued to play competent hockey, the kids continued to be alright, and we managed to spend way less time on the PK. TAKEAWAYS: I think the Sens are finally heading in the right direction; they just need to keep building on what they have. 

*Lineup Changes*

2/1 Abramov sent to Belleville 

2/2 Hogberg gets the start in goal, Chabot still injured (day to day), Wolanin still injured, not skating today.

2/3 Jonathan Aspirot sent down from the taxi squad to the B Sens. Erik Brännström has been recalled from B Sens to the taxi squad. 

2/4 White is still in the lineup, Brannstrom is HERE, Galchenyuk is back, and so is Chabot (thank god). Paquette is out (thank god), Coburn is assigned to the taxi squad.

Line in practice: 

Tkachuk - Norris - Dadonov

Paul - White - Batherson

Stützle - Stepan - C. Brown

Galchenyuk- Tierney - Watson

Paquette - Anisimov - Haley

Chabot -Zaitsev

Reilly- Zub

Brannstrom - Gubranson

Coburn- J. Brown

2/5 Derek Stepan changes numbers from 15 to 21 for some reason. Logan Brown gets changed to 27. Which is weird because he specifically said when he got here that LB should keep it????? Wtf??

2/6- no line up changes going into the game 

2/7- Filip Chlapik and Matthew Peca moved from the taxi squad to the B Sens. Logan Brown is moved up from the B Sens to the taxi squad. HALLELUJAH 

*Highs of the weeks*

-Not claiming Tony DeAngleo off waivers. Thank god. As always, there was some chatter about it on twitter, but thankfully nothing came of it. 

-Thomas Chabot shows up to optional skate and gives hugs. This team just has such a fun vibe; I just love it. 

-Tim’s 3 point game!!! Amazing! And his 3 game point streak!!! 

-Winning a goddamn game. I was so happy I was literally floating through work the next day. Is it bad to have your emotions so dependent on a hockey team? Asking for me. 

*What is going on?*

In the Sens fandom:

I would say that right now, Sens Twitter’s favorite players are Stützle, Brännström, and Zub, all with good reasons. They had a good week, and we only hope they continue to be utilized. DJ Smith did talk about how much Brännström has improved from last year, so fingers crossed. 

The mood on twitter after winning Thursday’s game was absolutely euphoric. You’d have thought we clinched a playoff spot. And honestly, even after losing on Saturday, the general consensus was that the Sens hadn’t played terribly, and that they continue to improve with every game.

In the rest of the hockey world:

The main things that happened this week were a) the Tony DeAngelo drama and b) the NWHL cancelling the rest of their playoffs. 

If you weren’t following it, Tony DeAngelo is a fairly infamously racist player on the NYR who has been spouting MAGA bullshit like crazy this year. This past week, after a loss to the Penguins, he blew up on his own goalie, who is very vocally anti-racist, and then he got punched by Chris Kreider. He was then put on waivers, and subsequently cleared waivers. It looks like he has *finally* played his last game as a Ranger, and now we can only hope that no one trades for him. The whole situation was sad, because it took this for the Rangers to actually do something about him, and hilarious, because, well, the man got punched and then basically fired for it. And he deserved it. 

If you haven’t been following the NWHL, they had been playing a shortened “bubble” season/playoffs, which was very unfortunately cancelled this week after players on basically every team tested positive for covid. It’s pretty unfortunate that this amazing group of players weren’t able to finish their season, but in my opinion, it’s even more unfortunate that the health and safety of these players was put at risk without adequate compensation. 

*Looking  forward:*

-2/8 vs. Edmonton

-2/9 vs. Edmonton

-2/11 @ Winnipeg

-2/13 @ Winnipeg

Frankly, with two games against Edmonton on consecutive nights, with only one day’s break before travelling to Winnipeg, I’m not feeling *super* optimistic about the week, but hey as long as the kids keep getting ice time I’ll be happy. Here’s to hoping we get to see some of the Paul-Brown-Batherson line that worked so well in the AHL. 

Go Sens go!