#exhibit A for: 'we had a cool game mechanic idea so we forced the story to fit around it'

[presiding]

high chaos/low chaos/join the chaos in my dishonored 2 rewrite

[shurisneakers]

shut in [5]

Summary: When your high profile mission goes terribly wrong, you’re forced to hide in a safehouse with a man you’ve never met before. With seemingly nowhere else to go, you’re forced to work together to figure out who is trying to have you assassinated before it’s too late. (Sam Wilson x Reader, Hitman AU)

Warnings: cursing, threats, implied ptsd, violence

Word count: 2.9k

A/N: sam wilson nation how are we feeling after that trailer. only about a month to go for my two dumbasses to get the recognition they deserve!!

i also appreciate feedback so if you would like to, please consider dropping me an ask or comment ly guys!! also if you want to be on the taglist, it’s mentioned at the bottom of the chapter.

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Shut In Masterlist

“Where are they?”

“We don’t know, boss.”

Their eyes glossed over with rising anger, masking its earlier aloofness.

“I’m going to need more than ‘I don’t know’.” Their voice was acidic, dripping with faux politeness. A bad sign.

“Police say they pulled off the highway at one point and then they lost track of them because there were no cameras.” The agent looked at his partner who only nodded in confirmation.

“They could have ditched the car before going on foot,” the partner suggested rather unhelpfully,  “We have no idea where they could be”

They were silent, mouth pressed in a hard line, leaving everyone in silence.

“Have I told you about the time my dad hired someone to fix the sink here?” they finally asked, looking away from the agents. “Some drunk fuck got in a fistfight and absolutely decimated the thing. Dad got someone to fix the hole in the wall and the fitting.”

They turned away, facing the wall.

“He did an alright job, that guy. Fixed up the place, installed a new sink. But there was a problem that he said he’d be able to fix only the next day, something about water dripping through an unsealed pipe.”

The agents just sat there on their chairs, feet cold. They knew where the story was going. It was a myth at their organisation, a cautionary tale to everyone who joined.

“My dad, he agreed. Said ‘Yeah sure, come back tomorrow’. Guy packed up his bag and was on his way out when my dad called him back. Asked him to hold out his hand for the money and then he just,” they paused, “cut one of his fingers clean off. Told him that he’d get his payment and his finger when the job was done.”

“I loved my father,” They skipped a beat before whipping their head around to look at the two agents. “But he was a coward. I would have shot him in the head.”

The agents looked paler than what they were a few seconds ago.

“If I tell you to do something, either do it perfectly or don’t do it all because the next time you’re here and those two are still alive,” they sneered, lunging forward to grab one of their collars, “I’ll blow your fucking brains out. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes boss,” the partner was barely audible, speaking for the one who was breathing heavily, looking like he was on the verge of passing out.

“Go on then.” They smiled, letting go of the agent’s collar as he stayed frozen in his place. They dusted their hands off before straightening up. “Don’t return without good news.”

The frustration of not knowing something was not one you were used to.

You were used to knowing. The satisfaction of a puzzle. The ease of a predictable pattern.

So when this mystery wasn’t getting solved within twenty minutes, it was starting to affect you. You spent hours staring at the ceiling, replaying every detail for months leading up to the case. Every client you shook hands with. Every coworker you greeted with a nod. Every vile sicko you had killed.

And yet, no matter how much you thought and rethought and rethought again, it simply didn’t make sense. There was a piece missing. A hidden variable.

Sam helped wherever he could. He offered up arguments and rebuttals. If you had a theory, he’d find the flaw or the lack of proof. He was keeping it reasonable. Only snorted when you suggested that maybe the president was involved in a large scale extermination of underground mafias. A absurd theory that had no roots in reality.

“You could point out any official on the damn senate and they would have some connection to our gang that you can dig up with one Red Bull and twenty minutes on the internet,” he had said. “It’s too much of a liability if we get caught. They’ll just get exposed for all the nasty shit they’ve been hiding under the carpet.”

You knew this, of course, and it didn’t help to be reminded of it again because it also meant that one more theory was ruled out. And with each theory ruled out, the further away you were from your answer.

It was frustrating.

Sam was in front of the TV, lounging on the couch with the copy of Pride and Prejudice in his hands. You were working on plausible solutions, drawing up flow charts to see what could be connected.

If Pierce wasn’t the common link then it had to be something else. You couldn’t proceed with the other spies theory because no one else immediately sprung to mind. There was one... but you decided against writing it.

If Ransone was telling the truth, and there was no way of knowing he was, Sam and you were unrelated and his being there was coincidental. You just had to rely on the employee-employer relationship you shared, if you could even call it that.

“Fuck,” you cursed loudly, tearing up the piece of paper and crumpling it. You groaned, holding your head in your hands. Your eyes were burning from straining it for too long and your shoulders were in pain from slumping over the table all day. 

You took a deep breath, shaking your head before instinctively reaching for another sheet. Your hand came up short so you fumbled around the table blindly, trying to grab at a piece of paper without spending the extra effort of searching.

“You’re not getting another sheet,” Sam’s voice came from above you. “You’re going to watch some shitty movie, eat some soup and relax for today.”

“Give it back, Wilson,” you muttered, reaching out your hand.

“No. You can use your unhealthy coping mechanism when I’m not around to see it. Half of this is my mess too and I’m not going to watch you have a breakdown over it.”

He was going to be annoyingly persistent; somehow he had exhibited that magnificently over the last few days. You knew better than to argue with him over something that he had made his mind up about by now.

“I don’t want to watch a movie.” You let your head fall onto the table, wishing that the cool wood would do something for the headache you felt coming.

You heard him set the paper back down, not saying a word. Your head was throbbing and all you wanted was the frustration to ease. It was killing you.

“Come on. We’re going outside.” That piqued your interest. Sam had never invited you anywhere before.

“Where?”

“Y’know; the outside. I know you haven’t seen it in a while but see if these words jog your memory. Sun. Grass. Win-”

“I know what the outdoors is, Wilson.” You smiled against the table, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing it. “I’m asking where exactly we’re going.”

“You’ll see. Put some shoes on.”

By the time you looked up he was already walking away from the table, leaving you to follow.

You sighed. He sounded too determined and you didn’t have many other options.

Pushing your chair away from the table, you went to go put on your shoes. __

“If in care you were planning to, I’m just going to tell you right now that you can’t kill me.”

The both of you had been wandering along the path for a while. When you met him by the backdoor, he had a bag with him filled with who knows what.

He declined to tell you what was in it either, despite you asking thrice.

“Calm down, Keanu Reeves. That’s not what I was going to do.” Sam gave a short laugh.

“I’m serious. I know karate.”

“So do I.”

“Krav Maga.”

He hummed in agreement. 

“Kickboxing.”

“Now you’re just insulting me. That’s level one.”

The path was littered with tree roots that stuck out of the soil, stray branches and leaves that crunched satisfactorily under your feet. One second of distraction and you were sure you’d fall flat to the ground. 

You both continued for a few more minutes before he finally came to a stop.

It didn't look very different from the rest of the woods until something caught your eye. In front of you, one of the trees stood out. The bark had large concentric circles, resembling a large dart board. A few indentations were already made in it; clearly it was being used for practice regularly.

“Here you go,” he spoke from beside you, handing you a tomahawk. “Go ahead, throw it at it.”

You looked at the tiny axe in his hand.

“Think of it as adult darts,” he encouraged, “Here, I’ll throw the first one.”

He extended his arm in front of him, pulling his wrist back before effortlessly throwing it at his makeshift board. It was two circles away from the bullseye he had carved out. It must have taken a while to make.

“This doesn’t look very safe,” you commented as he picked up another one, launching it at the tree. You followed its trajectory, watching it embed itself into the bark closer to the centre than the previous turn.

“That’s what makes it fun.” This man had no regard for safety protocols. Given, these were things that came with the job but it didn’t mean you did it in your free time. “It helps, just try.”

“Why are you doing this?” you asked curiously, trying to assess his reaction. Pulling you out of the house for a bar game wasn’t exactly the type of thing people generally did for you.

“Because I wanted to.” He shrugged, not giving you any further explanation. “Try one.”

“Okay.” You followed his example, watching as it glided smoothly before landing close to his initial throw.

“Nice shot.”

A smile made its way to your face automatically as he handed you another one. You repeated your action, an unusual sense of pride establishing itself in you when it came closer to the middle.

“Now what?”

“Now we collect and do the whole thing again till you feel better,” Sam replied, making his way towards the tree and plucking the small axes out easily. His back muscles tightened against the material of his shirt in the process. It wasn’t a bad sight at all. “Endorphins and all that.

“Is this where you keep disappearing to?” you inquired, taking two of them from him when he returned.

“Sometimes.” He took aim before throwing it at the board. “There’s a few things you can do around here.”

“Your coping mechanism is extreme sports without proper guidelines.”

“You gotta do what you gotta do.” Sam took a step to the side, giving you space to take your turn.

“Have you always been this wise, or?” you teased, concentrating on the circles in front of you. Your shot came pretty close. 

When you didn’t receive a reply, you glanced at him through your peripheral vision. He wasn’t moving, a thousand yard stare in his eyes.

“Hit it.”

“I can’t.” His fists were bleeding through the bandages wound around them. He could feel the tear in his skin, the burn of flesh against sweat soaked clothes.

“I said, hit it,” Emil commanded once more. Sam could feel his chest rising and falling steadily from beside him, his putrid breath making him want to vomit.

“I can’t.” He could barely stand up. Exhaustion seeped through every muscle in his body.

“You’re weak,” his trainer spat. “Nothing but a fucking child.”

“He’ll die.” Sam looks down at the boy, bloody and mangled on the floor. He had passed out ages ago but that did nothing to stop them from forcing Sam to continue relentlessly.

“It doesn’t deserve mercy. You hear that Wilson?” He leered right into his ear. “Do you fucking hear that?”

Sam flinched, nodding his head. The saltiness of his sweat was fresh on his tongue, burning where it dripped onto his busted lip from his forehead.

“So fucking finish it.” He knew that if he didn’t listen this time, there would be consequences. He didn’t want to find out what it was because he had no doubt it would pain a hell of a lot more than bruised knuckles.

“No,” he whispered, eyes wandering over the body on the floor. “I won’t.”

“What’d you say?” Emil straightened up, taking a step towards him.

“I said no.” Sam turned around on his heel. He could barely stand straight but the spite running through his veins was driving him, giving him enough energy to not collapse right there on the spot.

“He said no,” his trainer repeated, leaning away from Sam. “He said no.”

He turned to look at Ransone. Sam had forgotten he was there in the darkness of the room, observing the fight for the past two hours.

“He said no.” He started chuckling. His chuckles soon gave way to hideous laughter. Stomach clutching, tear inducing laughter.

Before Sam could even realise the change in attitude, Emil’s entire demeanour shifted. He stepped forward, forcefully gripping Sam’s neck. He shoved him backward until his back was pressed against the wall, no doubt bruising his spine further than what it was.

“Say that again, you fucking idiot,” he growled. But Sam couldn’t say anything. He could barely breathe. He was terrified, but determined not to let it show on his face. “When I say something, you better fucking listen.”

His trainer observed his expression for a few more seconds. Sam didn’t open his mouth.

His trainer finally loosened his grip, letting go of his neck.

Sam’s knees nearly buckled but he kept his balance, coughs racking through his body. He felt lightheaded, swollen eyes watching Emil walk towards the body on the floor. The only friend he had.

“Maybe this oughta teach you a lesson.” Emil flashed a quick smirk at Sam before raising his fist above Riley’s face.

Within a split second a guttural cry escaped his throat as he launched himself at the much larger trainer, taking him by surprise. The pure rage he was feeling had him seeing only red, the adrenaline steering his body on autopilot.  

With their position suddenly switched, Sam found himself on top of Emil, bloody fists beating down on his face without a break. The pain didn’t even matter anymore.

“Fuck you,” he screamed, not giving him even a second to defend himself. “Fuck you, you fucking dickhead.”

When he could feel his trainer raising his arm to grab from behind, he took a pause from pummelling his face to grab his arm, twisting sharply it till he heard a crack. The roar escaping Emil’s throat didn’t dissuade him from finishing what he started, returning to landing a punch wherever he could.

He didn’t even know how long had passed before his body was being pulled away, kicking and cursing.

“You see how good it feels Wilson? You feel that relief?” Ransone held him tightly as he squirmed furiously trying to get back to beating the shit out of that asshole on the ground. “Next time you’re angry, remember that’s the only way to feel good. If you’re in pain, you cause pain.”

Sam’s flailing was reducing as the adrenaline wore off. The exhaustion was beginning to take hold of his body as he looked at the onslaught of blood splatter everywhere, two bodies side by side on the ground. He did this to both of them.

“Violence is your only friend. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Ransone let go of him. His feet gave out beneath him, chest rising and falling heavily. His shoulders ached as he dragged his body towards Riley, praying to every force in the universe that he wasn’t dead.

He was still breathing. Sam nearly cried out of relief, collapsing next to him. Ready to defend him if Emil woke up.

“Next time you want to let out some anger, come find me,” Ransone called out. “I’ll find you your next victim.”

“You okay?” You waved your hand in front of his face. “Earth to Wilson.”

It seemed to work as he snapped back, blinking rapidly.

“You zoned out a little there. Everything alright?” you asked. He looked at you blankly for a second before realising what you asked.

“Yeah.” He gave you a half smile. “Yeah, I’m good. You done with your turn?”

The light that was there behind his eyes a few minutes ago had dimmed considerably. He looked weary. You recognised what had happened, what he was probably thinking of. You didn’t bring it up, not risking the chance of him reliving it.

“Kinda.” You pointed towards the target where a tomahawk was sticking out of the centre.

“Damn,” he whistled, resting his hands on his waist. “Best of three?”

“Didn’t know it was a competition.” You went to collect it. It was harder to pull out than you thought. You wondered how many times Sam had practiced it to make it look so effortless.

“Only if you want it to be.”

“Nah.” You walked towards him, handing two of them back to him. “Maybe next time.”

“Next time, huh.” He tested his throw before letting go of the handle. Bullseye. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

You only smiled.

Next part

[blindrapture]

a union-mandated break post

(okay, let’s see if I can type this all over again after losing the post. gotta remember how it all went.)

Hey there, the few mutuals who Like all of my posts, the lurkers who occasionally make their presence known, the lurkers who I also hope are there, and all you folks who come across this post naturally before scrolling on (that’s fine too, please have a nice day! remember to take a deep breath and unclench!). I wanted to make a post giving a casual update.

Things have been going. You know how it is. Time proceeds onwards at a pace that is a crawl to some and fleeting to others, depending on relative perspective. The average of all these observations may be Objective Truth, a hazy mythical and abstract prospect which to this day no living human has ever known (due to the nature of perspective). We still try to know it for some reason, an endeavour which may be “a good thing” or “a condemnation of our species,” but that’s relative too. See above. Still, it is possible to take an approximation of what we figure this average to be and find ourselves (mis)balanced on a knife-edge in between all perspectives. This narrow path, the knife-edge between fast and slow, between good and bad, between ecstasy and despair, seems precarious at times, yet at other times is like a garden, wide and spacious enough to sit awhile. Our perspectives cover this garden from us with the shrubbery of Can’ts and Shouldn’ts, and the way to the garden is fraught with the misty cloud of Look-Like. And yet, ultimately, these shrubs and mists are but prismatic scenery colouring our time on this Earth, a perspective which is easy to see from within the garden. The Earth is brown and grey and immortal, though wearing an impermanent coat of blue and green. One day, we will slip out of our perspectives and return to the Earth, join her mounding’s mass, and that will be death.

So that’s the weather. Sometimes cold, sometimes mild, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes bothersome and sometimes the only backdrop I could ever want. I’ve been up to the usual, cycling between interests like a bat between haunts.

- The other day I got around to playing Smile For Me, an experience which took me about three hours to more-or-less complete 100%. Really cute game, I fell in love with all the characters, and the budding horror elements made me excited to see where it’d go.

- Currently I’m playing A Monster’s Expedition Through Puzzling Exhibitions, a game often cited in the same breath as Baba Is You and Stephen’s Sausage Roll. I think those two games are puzzle masterpieces, and A Monster’s Expedition is hitting me in the right spot. It frequently fills me with awe, which is impressive considering the game is just a long series of oblong block-pushing puzzles. It has scope, though, and it has the guts to hide that scope from you until you’re able to discover it for yourself. I’ve played for about 10 hours so far, beaten over 200 islands, and yet I feel I’m only getting further away from the end goal. Hard to describe. It’s a good game.

- When I’m done with that game, next I’ll be checking out Spelunky 2. I’ve wanted to try the original for a long time but never got around to it; I picked up the sequel. I know very little about the games (with a rough idea of what gameplay is like), and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can. I like games that rely on discovery.

- Book-wise, I’m, y’know, reading Finnegans Wake as I fall asleep, occasionally inching through other books too, but my main reading focus at the moment is The Familiar. I went and picked up a new copy of Volume 5, and I found the Volume 3 I had kinda lost for a while, so now I have the full Season 1 again. And it’s been long enough since I read any of them that it’s finally time to reread them. As a unit this time. I am... so happy to be in their headspace. I’m currently in the second act of Volume 1, taking in a lot more details this time (and I do still remember a sense of where the whole plot goes), really cherishing the commitment to physicality and aesthetic. There’s not many authors out there like Danielewski. House of Leaves kickstarted my book obsession, y’know. And The Familiar is about as grand as a project can be. It’s supposed to be 27 volumes, each one 900 pages long, and the design of these books is goddamn sublime. The publisher only let him do the first 5 volumes, which is sad, but luckily those 5 volumes make up a “Season,” so they’re still a whole thing, a complete story arc for each of the nine protagonists, and plenty of secrets and details that give a good sense of the true scope. And did I mention the series is fucking scary? Profoundly so, each new volume weaving you deeper into its conspiratorial web of eldritch coincidences and patterns. The story is full of cats, immortal cats, God-cats. There’s a scientist who keeps a freaky magic orb and is known as Wizard. There’s an Armenian taxi driver who’s one of my favourite characters. And you can probably get all the volumes Used for fairly cheap on Amazon now. ........please, somebody join me in loving this series.

- Creative-wise, I’m working on music as always, putting notes next to each other until I get a result I can do something with. There is one piece that’s definitely done, a collaboration between Lindsay and I, but it’s going into Nine Is God so you won’t hear it just yet. Speaking of, that’s coming along. I haven’t even started making any codes or cool connections yet; I want to finish the... Core of this update first. Let’s be deceptive and call it the Main Blog. I have proven to myself that I definitely can do this; I keep stumbling on new mechanisms I can add, and I have a pretty vivid idea of what the whole thing will look like. It’s gonna be maybe a decent size for a Blog, all told, but it’s the form of the thing that mandates a lot of care. Luckily I have made Viceking’s Graab, so this isn’t the first time I’ve done something this mechanically ambitious. ...look, just. Of course I’m excited to Actually Talk about this thing, but like with the Graab, its nature requires me to keep it secret until players finally discover it for themselves. I like making that kind of thing, I want the sense of discovery, of climbing up a hill only to reach the summit and see an even bigger mountain looming over you that you hadn’t realized was there. Like Frog Fractions, or its sequel, even if you know there will be more than meets the eye you still get surprised and filled with delight. This concept fits neatly into an ARG format.

- Oh, also, I’m super excited for the Braid remake. It’s gonna have a comically thorough amount of developer commentary, and that’s all I want from this world. It’s even coming to Switch!

Media can be used as a tool to assist with the experience of life, and that is the way I want to approach things. I have spent time adapting myself to feel comfortable in these boring aesthetics (of understated puzzle games, thoughtful pretty books, blogs as art) because this means I am less susceptible to getting burned out during contemplation and self-examination. It may seem like a matter of taste, but taste is relative too; it’s not hard-wired, it can be adjusted, it does adjust all the time under the hood. ...I don’t know where to go with this one, other than that I should be careful not to condescend. I am not above anyone, I am confused too. I just.. like confusion and mazes, and I try to speak these aesthetics in an approximation of how I see others talk about theirs.

Right. I think that’s the bulk of it, that’s what I wanted to say today. I hope you are holding on, reader. It’s a wild and lonely world out there, and it’s our world; it’s yours just as much as it’s anyone else’s. You are important to it.

I leave you, mysteriously, with an old Genesis song. It’s called “Can-Utility and the Coastliners,” which is a silly way of saying it’s a song about the myth of King Canute. Sick of flatterers claiming he was equal to God, he went to the sea shore and said “If I truly am equal to God, then let the waves halt at my feet!” They didn’t. An astute demonstration, but it just prompted his flatterers to praise his ingenuity. “But he forced a smile, even though his hopes lay dashed where offerings fell.” I’m not really sure how the story ends. But it’s a wonderful song, starts off very folks-y but quickly takes a left turn down Mystery and Beauty. And it’s freaking Genesis.

See ya.

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways Jax Got His Metal Arms

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When Jackson “Jax” Briggs was introduced in Mortal Kombat II, he was Sonya Blade’s shirtless muscleman CO and, for the game, roster replacement. For Mortal Kombat 3, Midway decided to give him an upgrade, fitting the character with metal arms, but gave little explanation for the change within the story. Those bionic arms just looked cool, and if his nemesis Kano could have a cybernetic eye, why couldn’t Jax get his own gimmick?

Originally, the story behind his new arms was that Jax chose to get the cybernetic enhancements in order to better protect Earthrealm from Shao Kahn’s impending invasion. The unfortunate Mortal Kombat: Special Forces prequel also explained that Jax had experimented with prototypes over his arms to make it easier to knock out Kano’s teeth, a trial run for what would one day become a permanent upgrade.

Little did his co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias know that a simple visual upgrade would turn into something much worse for Jax, who was doomed to lose his human arms in increasingly gruesome ways for all eternity, including in the film reboot, which is set to explain once again how Jax ended up armless.

Here are the many origin stories of Jax’s metal arms…

The Movie’s Sequels

While Jax only had a cameo in the first Mortal Kombat movie, he was featured much more prominently in two tangential follow-ups. The live-action sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm both followed the idea that Jax’s metal arms were simply add-ons. There was nothing actually wrong with his regular arms.

Interestingly enough, both of these early adaptations featured moments where Jax actually ditched his metal arms to find the strength within himself. On the cartoon, there was an episode where a member of Reptile’s race spit acid onto the arms, screwing them up for a bit and forcing Jax to rely on his own strength for the rest of the episode. In the movie, he was practically goaded into removing them by peer pressure. Raiden – an outright god – criticized Jax’s choice to use enhancements, leading to Jax later beating up Motaro with his bare hands.

Other versions of the character were not so lucky.

The Malibu Comic

When Malibu Comics adapted Mortal Kombat in 1994, the video game sequel was brand new, with Mortal Kombat 3 just on the horizon by the time the run was over. It makes sense that the comic went with the MK2 version of Jax.

The comic book series featured very weird adaptations of the games’ stories, mainly in the way they discarded the tournament concept as soon as possible and turned everything into MacGuffin chases. This culminated in Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition 2, where Shao Kahn split the characters into the good guys and bad guys and had them play what was essentially Capture the Flag with Earthrealm on the line.

Jax was taken off the board early on in the run. Baraka was, for whatever reason, an ally and part of his team, but unfortunately for Jax, Baraka was still a savage beast and snapped due to his innate bloodlust. He turned on Jax and slashed up his arms. They remained attached, but were cut up pretty badly. Sonya suggested the possibility of mechanical replacements, which became an established part of the comics’ canon for the Special Forces crew.

The Alternate Timeline

Mortal Kombat 9 was both a sequel and reboot. Facing final defeat at the hands of Shao Kahn, Raiden sends his past self a message via time travel in order to prevent the emperor of Outworld from taking over all of the realms. This resulted in a detailed, alternate retelling of the first three games that turned out even worse for Raiden and friends.

In the Mortal Kombat II portion of the game, Jax wandered through Outworld and came across Ermac, the mystical, telekinetic ninja made of thousands of warrior souls. Jax made a go at him and was easily overwhelmed. Using his mind powers, Ermac straight-up blew up Jax’s arms. Sonya ran over to cauterize the wounds with her wrist lasers and took Jax back to Earthrealm for medical attention.

Later on, Jax wondered aloud whether Raiden’s actions had caused this to happen via butterfly effect. As it stands, we don’t know for sure if Ermac destroying Jax’s arms was a change in the timeline or if this was retconned into being the canon reason Jax ended up with his enhancements.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy

Released as a more grounded take on the Mortal Kombat mythos, Mortal Kombat: Legacy was a web series that lasted two seasons. Even though the show featured Michael Jai White as Jax, he only actually appeared in the first two episodes of the series.

In these episodes, Jax was depicted as a police officer out to catch Kano and his Black Dragon cartel. Along with Stryker and Sonya, Jax infiltrated a warehouse full of “Cyber Initiative” tech, a nod at Mortal Kombat 3‘s robot ninja subplot. Jax eventually got his hands on Kano and beat him so severely that he permanently dislodged Kano’s eyeball.

As Sonya took care of Kano’s henchmen, one of them tossed a grenade out of desperation. Jax heroically sacrificed his body by shielding Sonya from the blast. The explosion severely wounded Jax’s arms. Fortunately for him, Department of Defense had a plan to help him out on that front…

Too bad we never actually got to see White with the metal arms.

Scorpion’s Revenge

The animated film Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge was another retelling of the first game’s story, only with Scorpion as the protagonist. Prior to the tournament, Shang Tsung decided to entertain the contestants by giving them an exhibition featuring the returning champion Goro.

His opponent was Jax, who was captured while searching for Kano. With Sonya powerless to do anything but watch in horror, Jax got his ass absolutely handed to him by the four-armed giant. Playing with his prey, Goro used his four hands to grasp Jax by the wrists and ankles before tugging at the limbs. All of Jax’s arms were torn off!

Only then did Raiden step in to stop further damage. Great timing, dude.

The New Film

Now we have the trailer to the new Mortal Kombat film, and from the very beginning we see how violent this one’s going to be. Jax, played by Mehcad Brooks, picks a fight with Sub-Zero. Little does our poor Jax know that he’s messing with Bi-Han, the older Sub-Zero. In other words, he’s the no-nonsense asshole Sub-Zero who will one day be reborn as the sinister Noob Saibot.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

After using his ice powers to negate Jax’s bullets, Sub-Zero freezes Jax’s arms and shatters them. This might very well be the most gruesome origin story for Jax’s metal arms yet. It likely won’t be the last.

The new Mortal Kombat movie is out on April 16 on HBO Max.

The post Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways Jax Got His Metal Arms appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[reactingtosomething]

Does My Sexiness Upset You? And Other Questions Spurred by SHOTS FIRED

The Setup: Between everyone’s different professional and personal commitments in two different cities, it can be hard to schedule as many Reactions as we’d like, as often as we’d like. But we all have Plenty of Opinions that don’t fit into those posts anyway, and we’d like to make sure this blog is worth your while. To that end, we’ll occasionally run solo essays. Here’s Marchae with the first, on Fox’s recently concluded miniseries Shots Fired. 

I heard about Shots Fired when it was in just an idea being kicked around and I have to say I was BEYOND EXCITED that one of my favorite writer/directors, Gina Prince-Bythewood was going to be sharing with the universe her talent on primetime TV. This is significant for several reasons: First, the show aired on the same night as three other primetime network/cable TV shows that featured predominately African-American casts. I was giddy each week as I had to choose whether to watch Greenleaf, Underground or Shots Fired!!!! The choices, the #firstworldproblems as I CHOSE who I was going to support!! Second, Prince-Bythewood, at the helm of the show’s creation, was not only taking her storylines from the headlines, but also from her own life. As a writer myself this is incredibly interesting to study, as it demonstrates the many possible sources writers might adapt into what eventually is seen on the screen. Third (and probably of greatest importance) this show tapped into my most deeply rooted fear: Living While Black and finally, forced me to contemplate the representation of the African-American female’s sexuality on screen.

To be transparent, I didn’t always have a chance to watch Shots Fired as it aired so I purchased the season pass so that I would have the privilege of rewinding when something struck me or pausing to cry or reflect when I needed to (and there were many tears). I got to relish in all the things I love about the writer/director. See, when we watch a work by Prince-Bythewood we know what we are going to get: Incredibly character driven work that will essentially prove to be a character study, work that is very naturalistic in visual aesthetic and that plays with symbolism through the use of light, color and milieu. We also know that her tone is always very rooted in reality, and that the work will almost always touch on a relevant social issues, thus providing a social commentary for the world around us. I initially thought that I would take a more creative approach to this reaction and set it up similar to the show, evaluating each hour and picking out key themes to react to - but that would be easy and I feared I would just end up recapping the show.  However, after more thought there was one thing I wanted to dig a little deeper into and challenge myself to analyze because as the kids say: I was ALL up in MY FEELINGS!

Ashe Akino, portrayed by Sanaa Lathan, has worked with Prince-Bythewood on other projects, most notably Love and Basketball. I was excited for these two to bring their magic to the screen again. This time around we get Lathan portraying an incredibly savvy hard ass cop who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth. This comes at a price for Ashe. Her personal life is in shambles, she’s watching her ex-husband re-marry and she’s at risk of losing her daughter, Kai, in a custody battle. AND as if things couldn’t get any worse for Ashe, she is suffering from PTSD and has anger issues as a result of having shot and killed someone while on duty (this is the reason the stakes are so high for Kai). I don’t know that you always like Ashe (which is fine, we don’t always have to LIKE the protagonists!!!) but you do sympathize with her and root for her all while we are asking WHY SHE’S CHOOSING TO MAKE RECKLESS CHOICES?!?! I keep turning over in my mind the way in which she uses sex as a coping mechanism and also how she uses it as a tool for blackmail (to potentially win Kai back). However, I also had to ask myself why I was okay watching this character use her sexuality in this way and so turned off by other shows in which women are expressing themselves and their emotions through their sexuality. I toiled with this as I tried to figure out how to formulate this essay.

In Shots Fired we have this strong African-American female character exhibiting what we would typically consider male behaviors. Ashe is unapologetic (at first) about sleeping with her partner’s brother. She sleeps with this man to “feel” something and maybe to feel “nothing” simultaneously (numbing her emotional pain). To her it is almost as if sex is something to do, an itch she has to scratch in order to prove she can feel something. We later see her use sex as a means of seduction, a very stereotypically feminine behavior, to blackmail her ex-husband in order to ensure he doesn’t move forward in what is shaping to become a nasty custody battle. On the one hand you are AGAIN screaming NO! GET YOUR LIFE, ASHE!! As you watch her careen down a tangled web of no-goodness (remember we want her to KEEP Kai and blackmail will surely LOSE Kai). However, I was  excited to see a single female character embody the duality of her sexuality. Ultimately, my commentary isn’t on the rightness or wrongness of her behavior, but a note on the empowerment she’s allowed to unapologetically exhibit. The masculine behaviors she’s allowed to exhibit: hitting it and quitting it and frankly not giving a care how her sexual partner felt about her walking out after being satisfied. Conversely, we see her simultaneously being fully aware of the seductive power her femininity possesses. So we’re cool right! Wrong. Something was really bugging me about this. If I was cool with the fact that Ashe had sexual power, why was I annoyed when I had watch other African-American female characters in other shows exhibiting this same kind of sexual autonomy.

So go with me because I am going down the racial representation rabbit hole for a moment. I get that everything isn’t about being black, but sometimes it is. So in this day and age we have a long list of strong black women represented on primetime television: Olivia Pope, Mary Jane, Grace Greenleaf, Nova and Charlotte Bordelon, Candace Young and the list goes on and on and on, and it is FREAKING EXCITING that we get to see all of who we are represented. However, unfortunately the number of shows I have FLAT STOPPED WATCHING goes on and on and on for one reason and one reason alone. Black women are often seen as having all of their professional life together, like all of it. They are at the top of their game, calling the shots, seeming 100 percent in control AT WORK, and it is almost as if a curtain is pulled back and we are thrusted into the personal lives of the female protagonists and it leads us down this nasty path of making bad decisions. Their stories become more about the toxic romantic relationships that continue to send them down a spiral of emotional descent. Send them straight to a place where their WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE is at risk of being in shambles because of that one man they can’t seem to get from up under. It drives me insane because then the conversation we have standing around the water cooler or copier becomes not about the woman who is taking names and kicking-ass, but instead about who she’s sleeping with. The woman is now reduced to her sexual partners (I get it, it’s what we tune in for because… TV). But TV often forgets that not only adults are tuning into primetime and that the young people are clocking the Mary Janes and the Olivia Popes and the Bordelons and the Greenleafs because they indicate possibility.

I’ll share an anecdote to further demonstrate the point. I used to work for an after school program that attracted students from a variety of schools. One of my students, at his school had participated in a Dress as Your Favorite Professional day (or something to that effect) and he came dressed as the fictional Olivia Pope. He was cute, he had a wig, high-heeled shoes and wait for it: A peplum SHOULDER PADDED blazer and STOCKINGS. While everyone else was telling him to “work it!!!” I asked why he chose the fictional Pope. His response: “Because she has all the money, her apartment is cute, her clothes are cute and she gets to sleep with the President and she gets Jake!” Missed on him was the fact that Oliva was a renowned fixer (inspired by a real life person), hired to solve problems, that she was at the top of her game at work and that neither relationship was healthy. I tried reasoning with the pre-teen by saying: “but she’s cheating with someone’s husband and she’s a wreck when the president wasn’t around!” His response: “she’s still rich and she still sleeping with the President and he’s still fine!” His affinity for Pope had nothing to do with her profession and everything to do with her relationships.  

 So to go back to the original question, what makes Ashe feel different? Ashe feels different because her sexual escapades always felt like a subplot of a subplot. We stayed focused on the work and the business of the character. There was always something bigger at stake in this story and the character stayed true to herself learning from every encounter she had with her partners. With Ashe it was never F***ing for F***’s sake there was always a means to an end no matter how inconsequential. While it may be easy to say oh it’s just TV and let it ride, enjoy the show, these character choices become more and more important in a space where representation is everything, and the African-American face/ body are so new to the primetime drama landscape.

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Nintendo Switch review: a brave and fascinating new console

At 280 the Switch is a gamble, but Nintendo has again done its idiosyncratic best to challenge the way we think about games hardware

Nintendo remains a puzzling phenomenon for a lot of modern gamers. The company never makes powerful consoles, or cool consoles; it never pushes the processing envelope, and it always seems a little eccentric when it comes to online infrastructure. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, it isnt trying to make gaming PCs designed to resemble dedicated games machines it just makes games machines.

The Switch is the latest evolution of an idea Nintendo has been playing with since the arrival of the Wii in 2006 a console for everyone, with an interesting, accessible and flexible interface. The console itself is basically a tablet, and completely portable, but plug it into the stand and the action immediately appears on your TV. It is a weird hybrid, a new mid-point between home and handheld.

The big question is is it fun?

The basics

Priced at 280, the Nintendo Switch is a hybrid system a cross between a home console and a handheld. When you buy one, you get the console itself, as well as the two JoyCon controllers, the stand for plugging the device into your TV, and a controller grip. HDMI and power cables come too.

Nintendo Switch whats in the box. Photograph: Nintendo

Games are on small cartridges (that rattle rather suspiciously) and they slot into a port at the top of the console. Unlike with PS4 and Xbox One, you dont need to install the software on to your hard drive, which is just as well as the Switch drive is a measly 32GB. Theres a Micro SD slot at the rear of the Switch, which adds additional storage capacity.

Optional accessories include a wired LAN adaptor and pro controller which offers a more refined and traditional interface for 65. Extra Joy-Con controllers (necessary for multiplayer games like Arms) cost 75.

Specifications

Size: 10cm x 24cm x 1.4cm (with Joy-Con attached)

Screen: 6.2-inch LCD Screen, 1280 x 720 resolution

Processor: Nvidia Custom Tegra processor

Storage: 32GB (with Micro SD card slot for additional space)

Connectivity: wifi (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) and Bluetooth 4.1

Weight: 300g (400g with Joy-Con attached)

A design of two halves

The Nintendo Switch looks like a very small, budget-conscious tablet, with the same sort of build quality (ie solid and kind of sleek). The capacitive touchscreen is not as precise as youll find on your new smartphone, but its a definite step up from the spongy Wii U GamePad and reacts to the slightest touch rather than a frustrated jab. The experience really does merge the accessibility of playing on a tablet with the added controller accuracy of a handheld. Its like a modern take on the multifaceted approach of the DS and 3DS, but with a larger screen and much more granular control.

When you want to plug it into into your TV, you slide the Switch into the dock, until it clicks into the port. This is a smooth, seamless procedure, but the console does rattle a little in its toaster-like home. The dock has HDMI, three USB ports and a power socket but thats all. Its just a hunk of plastic.

Nintendo Switch compared with a Wii U GamePad. Photograph: Keith Stuart for the Guardian

The Switchs built-in 6.2-inch display is 720p HD, and the picture quality is usually very good, with rich colours and a nice sharpness. When you plug the console in to your TV, Switch can output in full 1080p (though not 4K). On a larger display, its very clear this console is far behind Xbox One and PS4 in terms of visual fidelity the graphics have that familiar Nintendo look; cartoony, slightly hazy, but also artful. Titles like Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart and, later, Super Mario Odyssey do look beautiful, but in a more stylised way than the photorealistic aspirations of the other consoles.

Shared pleasures

Once charged, the Switch can be taken wherever you go and this is a key feature. With this console, you can put the screen down wherever you are, slide the Joy-Con off, hand them out and start multiplayer sessions with friends. The fact that the controllers can be used independently means Mario Kart, Bomberman, Just Dance and SnipperClips can all be played without the need to buy extra pads. Its the whole games-for-everyone philosophy of the Wii, joyously emancipated from the home.

On top of this, the console offers ad-hoc local networking for up to eight Switches. The idea of being able to meet up with pals wherever you are and play Mario Kart or Splatoon 2 together in big team sessions is an enticing one and the concept becomes even more interesting if/when we start seeing community-focused titles like Monster Hunter and Pokemon coming along. It was the former that more or less kept the Sony PSP alive, exploiting the machines ad-hoc connectivity; and we saw how powerful Pokemon Go was as a roving social experience. If Nintendo can harness this potential, it would be a major plus for the console. Sitting in a park with a whole bunch of people playing Mario Kart is a really fun proposition.

Joy or con?

Perhaps the most intriguing element of the Switch is its two Joy-Con controllers, which can be used separately, or snapped either side of a plastic grip to make a standard pad. Each Joy-Con has an analogue stick, a button array on the front, and four shoulder buttons along the edges. They also have built-in accelerometers and gyroscopes for motion control, while the right Joy-Con has a motion-sensitive IR camera, which can sense movement in front of it. Theres also a Capture button which lets you take, store and share in-game screenshots (but not video just yet).

The Switch Joy-Cons, close up. Photograph: Nintendo

The Joy-Con are small, but theyre very comfortable in the hand and the plastic is good quality. To make them more sturdy, there are wrist strap sections that slide on to the side of each controller, clipping into place. Theyre easy to get on, but removing them is an unnecessarily fiddly process of lifting a small locking mechanism, pressing a tiny black button then sliding them off it takes some practice (and brute force) and if anyone accidentally puts one on the wrong way round which really shouldnt be possible they become wedged pretty fast. It doesnt really feel like the neat, graceful, child-friendly industrial design were used to from Nintendo.

But theyre definitely good fun to use. Gripped in your hands they become almost invisible facilitators of ridiculous interactions. Whether thats milking a cow or pretending to scoff sandwiches in 1-2 Switch, or cutting out shapes in Snipperclips they take on the forms that each game requires; like the computer mouse, they simply become extensions of your own movements. This could (and in Nintendos hands should) lead to whole new interactive experiences

The Zelda box?

The Switch is launching with eleven games, but many of these are updates of already released titles like I Am Setsuna, World of Goo, Skylanders Imaginators and Just Dance 2017. One exception is Super Bomberman R, a re-invention of the classic multiplayer maze battler.

Of the two major Nintendo titles, 1-2 Switch really should be bundled with the hardware. This collection of competitive mini-games is fun for a while, but its purpose is to exhibit the capabilities of the console and with no lasting challenge to any of the 28 tasks, youll soon tire of it. Even a limited demo of the game would have been a welcome addition to the console package.

The key draw right now is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and honestly, what a draw it is. Expansive, refined and exciting, it could well be one of the greatest launch titles ever released.

Later in the year, well get Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey, Arms and Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which all look wonderful; then there will be Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and a Fire Emblem title, pretty much capturing the RPG market. Nintendo claims there are 100 games in development from 70 publishers highlights include the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim conversion, a Dragon Quest, a Sonic game, Ultra Street Fighter II, and follow-ups to cult titles like No More Heroes and Shin Megami Tensei. Thats a lot of fun to be had.

The big draw The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Photograph: Nintendo

Nintendo has announced 60 indie titles as well: successful releases like Stardew Valley, Shovel Knight, Cave Story and Overcooked are on the slate, as are newcomers Yooka-Laylee, Snake Pass and Wargroove.

The big test of course is whether the big hitting franchises will come over. We know EA is making a Switch version of Fifa, and theres a Switch Minecraft, but will there be a Switch Call of Duty (and if the series goes back to WWII this will really matter), a Switch Red Dead Redemption?

So far it feels like theres more industry positivity around Switch than there ever was around Wii U. If Zelda starts shifting machines, the big publishers will want a part of that especially with the costs of producing high-end Xbox and PlayStation titles exploding with every new hardware iteration.

The end of the Miiverse

One disappointing aspect is that two favourite connected services Street Pass from the 3DS and Wiiverse from the Wii U will not be returning on Switch. Instead were getting a more conventional online subscription service offering multiplayer gaming and other content including monthly free titles.

At the same time, online lobbies and a voice chat app will replace the community hub that made your Wii U desktop feel like a thriving virtual town rather than a staid menu system. Indeed, the Switch desktop is rather sparse, so far consisting of large icons for any games youve played, as well as smaller options for the eShop, photo album and controller settings. Youll be able to import your Nintendo Account ID, make your own Mii character and set up friends lists, of course but currently the UI is very bare and uninspiring (although you could also see its simplicity as a bonus, especially as it also has to function on a smaller, portable display).

In many ways, Switch is going to be a lot more like Xbox and PS4 in its connected philosophy and thats a shame. And whats missing from this more conventional set-up is apps: currently there are no video-on-demand options like YouTube or Netflix, though Nintendo has said its considering them. Furthermore, we still dont know how much the subscription will cost, but it will be free until the autumn. On a more positive note, the eShop looks to be getting some excellent support from indie developers who are looking to support and explore the unique feature-set of the console.

Verdict

The Nintendo Switch is a brave and fascinating prospect. While the Wii U hinted at a dual screen future (and provided some truly brilliant games), this update truly gives us a strong standalone handheld platform as well as a home console that produces beautiful visuals and trademark Nintendo experiences. Those who well say buy a PC/Xbox/PS4 instead are too entrenched in conventional wisdom to understand the appeal of Nintendo hardware, which has always stood slightly to the side of the industry product pipeline. The Switch is playing in a very different space, a space of its own, and we now need to see if the rest of the industry, and a large enough audience of casual gamers, will join it.

Whatever happens, Nintendo has once again done its idiosyncratic best to challenge the way we think about games hardware. Right now, it has the best launch game in at least a decade, and enough compelling possibilities on the horizon to warrant enthusiasm and hope. At 280 it is a gamble; when the price drops, as it inevitably will before Christmas, it may prove irresistible.

Pros: fascinating hybrid concept; interesting controls; good quality screen; some excellent games on the way

Cons: areas of fiddly and below-par hardware design; limited launch line-up; unclear digital strategy

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