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imaginaryelle · 5 years ago

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Thanks to @morphia-writes for beta help, and to @miyuki4s for all the brainstorming help that went into this chapter!

An excerpt:

There are some things Lan Wangji cannot doubt: Wei Ying’s love for his sister, and her children. His affection for Jiang Wanyin, and the Wens. His dedication to ensuring that Lan Wangji himself does not succumb to the curse he carries.

Every evening, he creates a fresh talisman to replaces the one on Lan Wangji’s arm. He brews one of three different medicinal teas from Wen Qing, in sequence, and serves it, sometimes drinking a portion or two himself. He invites Lan Wangji to play Rest as a duet for the suppressed, resentful souls they carry, and then other, less spiritually charged music, and asks after his core, after their evening meditations.

Every morning, Lan Wangji takes longer than he needs to to comb his hair, and tie it up, and dress. Wei Ying looks younger in the diffused dawnlight inside the tent. Softer, sprawled carelessly under blankets with his sleep robe twisted out of place to reveal the hollow of his elbow and the line of his collar bones.

It’s an indulgence Lan Wangji shouldn’t permit himself. A few moments, watching Wei Ying breathe and concentrating on the steady warmth of the soulbond under his own skin.

Read on tumblr under the cut!

It takes more than one day for a sect leader to prepare for the sort of journey they’re planning. Not because of the journey itself, Wei Ying is quick to point out, but because of all the things he has to make sure are done beforehand.

“Wen Qing is locking me in my study today,” he says over breakfast on the first day, “but Sizhui, Xiuying and Weixin are meeting with a tailor for new clothes and you should go.”

As he has been wearing borrowed or stolen clothes for several days now, Lan Wangji cannot bring himself to protest. He has no desire to wear extra infirmary underlayers while traveling, and the plain black outer layer Wen Qionglin had brought to his door was clearly intended to fit as many people as possible. Commissioning something new, or at least something altered to fit properly, is only reasonable.

Wei Ying insists that he’s already paid for the service, which Lan Wangji can only thank him for; he has no funds of his own, or reputation to call on.

“Get something you like,” Wei Ying tells him, even as Wen Qing looms over his shoulder. “Anything you want is fine.”

Lan Wangji assumes this event will take place within Yiling-Wei’s walls, as was generally the case in Cloud Recesses, but instead he finds himself following Wen Sizhui, Zhou Xiuying and Liu Weixin through a town that looks much more prosperous than the Yiling he visited thirteen years ago, and is almost certainly louder and more crowded than he remembers.

That impression may be influenced by his company. Certainly he had felt there were entirely too many people in the street when he was surrounded by onlookers with a toddler clutching at his leg, but if anything their small group draws even more attention now.

Everyone seems to know Wen Sizhui. There are street hawkers and shop owners who greet him by name, and press freshly steamed baozi and sticks of hawthorn candy into his hands, and it is clear from their comments that the townspeople of Yiling are close to their Sect in a way that is certainly not true of Cloud Recesses and Caiyi, or Jinlingtai and Lanling. One merchant is so insistent on thanking them for some past service that all four of them end up holding packages of lotus root, despite the fact that Lan Wangji can have had nothing to do with solving the woman’s problems.

The pattern continues inside the tailor’s shop—the young Wei cultivators are being fitted with new black outer yi and trousers designed to the Jiang Clan’s specifications for the upcoming archery tournament, but they are all clearly well-known to the staff. And Lan Wangji has come with the Sect Leader’s express instructions. And also the offer of his purse.

“Wei-zongzhu said you might prefer these,” one of the tailor’s assistants says, his hands full of fine-woven cream and blue fabrics, “but we do have other colors, of course.”

None of the fabrics on display are the shining, pure white of Gusu-Lan, but there is sun-bleached silk and cloud-white cotton and pale wool woven thinner than paper. It doesn’t seem to matter what he says, or how he responds: he is fussed over, and measured, and prodded. Silk and wool and brocade are draped over his shoulders and held up to his face for comparisons of shade and texture, and he leaves the shop—it is much later in the afternoon than he expected—with the black robe he arrived in newly altered and a sash of summerweight wool dyed the blue of a pale spring morning tied around his waist. Travel clothes, he is assured, will be delivered in the next few days.

He could not bring himself to commission a forehead ribbon, in any color; he is already quite certain these new robes will exceed any budget or social standing Liang Feihong could expect to claim. Wei Ying seems unconcerned.

“It’s a gift,” he insists after dinner. “Besides, you’re still a cultivator, and you’re traveling with a sect leader. It’d be weird if you looked like a fisherman.”

Lan Wangji is certain there are several measures of difference between the dress of a fisherman, a rogue cultivator, and the fabrics that were held before his face today.

“Look at this map with me,” Wei Ying says, the topic apparently closed. “I’m trying to figure out which roads are least likely to be blocked by mudslides. Wen Qing says if I get on a boat during the spring rains she’ll kill me now to save herself the trouble of burying me later.”

Lan Wangji may not have any formal responsibilities at Yiling-Wei, but Wen Qing makes it clear that she expects marked improvement in his spiritual power before he leaves her area of influence. He is given a list of meditation exercises and a schedule of daily training sessions for sword and unarmed work with her apprentices on hand to monitor his condition.

This is not a hardship. He had already planned to dedicate most of his time to this task, and the Wei cultivators have a unique style—not quite Yunmeng-Jiang, but not Qishan-Wen either. Wei Ying, of course, is the most practiced in it, and his version does not even involve a sword; Suibian is distinctly absent from their training sessions, but this does not seem to affect Wei Ying’s efficacy. Twice Lan Wangji is not fast enough to avoid the touch of a talisman to his shoulder, or his core.

He takes no actual damage from them—Wei Ying is careful in his craft, and these were written specifically for this purpose, but the failure drives him to train harder, even against other sparring opponents, until whatever apprentice is observing him steps in and orders a rest.

He spends this enforced downtime reading theory texts from Wen Qing’s library or at his guqin, picking out simple practice scores and more complex Lan melodies in the hope of re-training both his fingers and his core in the delicate language required for performing Inquiry. He works outside, in the scattered gardens, whenever the weather allows. A few hours spent alone in his shuttered room during a sudden storm proves detrimental to his focus, no matter how many handstands he does, or what other meditation techniques he tries. It is better to be out in the open air, where he can breathe more easily.

“Lan Zhan!” On the afternoon of the third day Wei Ying leans around the mulberry tree on the other side of a plot dedicated largely to cooking herbs. He looks around as if he thinks they’re being watched, and then all but runs over to crouch next to Lan Wangji. “I want to show you something,” he whispers. He tugs on Lan Wangji’s sleeve. “Come on, quick!”

“Something” turns out to be the paddock, where a 2-day-old foal is taking in the outside world for the first time under his mother’s watchful eyes. Wei Ying drapes himself over the fence and watches them both with a rapt expression Lan Wangji has never seen him wear before. Zhou Xiuying is also in attendance, alongside her wife—Feng Xinyi—who he learns is the one of the Wei Sect’s grooms.

“Xiaoying and Heitu are just one pasture over, if you wanted to meet them,” she says, which is how Lan Wangji learns that Wei Ying intends to travel by mule.

“Do you know how hard it is to feed a horse?” he says as they walk through tall grass flushed green with the rains. “Have you ever tried to train a horse for night hunting? In a Yunmeng summer? The heat is terrible for them. I think the only reason Jiang Cheng still has horses is his grandmother sent a whole caravan of grooms and breeding stock from Meishan when the war ended.” He produces two apples from his sleeve and holds one out to the nearest mule and the other to Lan Wangji. “Mules are better,” he says, his tone flippant as he pets Xiaoying’s long nose. “And almost as impressive.”

Xiaoying and Heitu are undeniably beautiful animals; good conformation, clearly healthy, and their dark bay coats shine red in the sunlight. And Lan Wangji knows that he will not be able to travel by sword for some time yet. Not alone. He cannot expect Wei Ying to transport them both, and walking will be too slow. Riding makes sense.

“Little Shadow?” he asks, of Wei Ying’s mount. “And … Black Rabbit?” They are hardly the sorts of names he is accustomed to hearing for a cultivator’s steed. There is little sense of speed, or power, or even luck in these names. Wei Ying shrugs.

“Xiaoying used to lie in the grass and pretend to be dead. Sizhui tripped over her all the time, and then she’d follow him for hours. And Heitu likes to jump, she hopped all over the place as a filly--ah! Lan Zhan!” He grins, gleeful, mischief in his face. “Do you remember the rabbits I gave you, all those years ago? And now I can give you another one! A bigger one!” Wei Ying laughs, just as he had laughed in Cloud Recesses, depositing two rabbits on the floor of the library, some sort of gift and joke and torment all in one, Lan Wangji had been sure.

Lan Wangji hadn’t known what to do then, with the boy who refused to leave him alone, who insisted on teasing him at every opportunity. Now, he stares at Wei Ying’s hands, at long sleeves pulled back to reveal his wrists, at his lips, and he knows what he wants to do.

He steps closer to Heitu, offers her his hands in a bowl instead of reaching out beyond her.

“I remember,” he says. It’s possible that his brother allowed his pets to stay, after his death.

Unlikely. But possible.

Heitu snuffles at his hands, all warm breath and soft nose in a way that is, in some small semblance, reminiscent of the soft warmth of his rabbits. She bears nothing like their fragility, but she takes the apple he offers delicately, and he keeps his fingers well clear of her teeth. Wei Ying strokes Xiaoying’s face and talks sweetly at her until she takes his sleeve in her mouth, at which point he switches over to annoyed admonishments. Lan Wangji has just stepped nearer to help him when Wen Qionglin appears at Wei Ying’s shoulder.

“Qing-jie wants to know if you finished that letter to Ouyang-zongzhu yet,” he says.

Wei Ying jerks, and there’s a sound of tearing cloth. He sighs.

“Feng-shimei told you to stop keeping food in your sleeves,” Wen Qionglin notes, even as he distracts Xiaoying with a hand on her neck. She drops Wei Ying’s sleeve and nudges her nose into Wen Qionglin’s chest. Both animals seem accustomed to his presence.

“I took it out as soon as we got here,” Wei Ying grumbles. “I wouldn’t have torn anything if I wasn’t surprised.” He sticks his fingers through the tear in his sleeve and wiggles them. The look on his face can only be described as a pout.

“I can fix it for you—” Wen Qionglin actually looks worried. Wei Ying just sighs and flaps his sleeve.

“I’ll fix it,” he says. “Why should you fix it? It’s fine.” He frowns at Xiaoying for a moment, then leans into Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

“I really can’t recommend becoming a sect leader,” he says, low-voiced, as if this will affect Wen Qionglin’s hearing. “The number of letters you have to respond to is too much work. I don’t think Ouyang-zongzhu even reads them, he just sends some new complaint every few weeks, as if I can control the weather, or the river, or how sleepy his cultivators get when they’re on tower duty.”

Lan Wangji has never heard his brother or his uncle make similar complaints, but they are Lans; they would not say such a thing even if it were true.

“Did you not choose the position?” he asks.

Wei Ying’s face scrunches up with displeasure. He shakes his head, though whether it is denial or dismissal is impossible to determine.

“I better get back to it,” he says instead of answering the question. “Before Wen Qing tells the kitchens to put radish in my food again.”

He sighs, and waves aside Lan Wangji’s bow. “I’ll see you both at dinner,” he says, and Wen Qionglin nods. Lan Wangji watches Wei Ying walk back up the hill towards the main compound until Heitu seems to take offense to his distraction and knocks her head against his shoulder, huffing at him.

“Does Liang-gongzi know how to ride?” Wen Qionglin asks. It’s a fair question: Lan Wangji does not actually know if Liang Feihong was trained in riding. He prevaricates. What is true for him is just as likely to be true for Liang Feihong as not.

“It has been a long time.”

“Would you like to practice?” Wen Qionglin asks, and Lan Wangji agrees without hesitation. Practice, and especially practice in caring for his mount without servants to help, can only improve the upcoming journey.

Wen Qionglin shows him to the tack room, and he manages to brush and saddle Heitu with a minimum of fuss. The main difference between outfitting a horse and a mule, he finds, is that Heitu’s tack includes two belly cinches, there is an extra strap that goes under her tail to stop the saddle moving too far forward, and he has to be especially gentle with her long ears while placing the bridle. Xiaoying is the more mischievous of the pair, Wen Qionglin tells him, and has to be watched carefully so she doesn’t puff out her stomach and make the cinches too loose.

Riding is initially awkward, but after a few slow circuits of the paddock he finds his seat and is able to push Heitu faster without losing his balance too badly. She takes direction well, has a steady, comfortable gait, and doesn’t startle as easily as some horses he’s ridden. He will almost certainly be sore later, especially without a dependable supply of spiritual power to speed healing, but the wind in his face and the simple pleasures of riding are more than worth that discomfort. He turns back toward the stables when they have both worked up a light sweat and sees Feng Xinyi speaking with Wen Qionglin. She smiles as he approaches, but doesn’t stay.

“I should get back to the little one,” she says. “But I’m glad to know Heitu will have a rider who knows what he’s doing.”

Wen Qionglin leads Heitu to a water trough and pets her cheek until Feng Xinyi is out of earshot.

“Wei-zongzhu trusts you,” he says. As if this is a fact.

Lan Wangji stares back at him. Wen Qionglin does not breathe, and he does not blink. He stands perfectly, unnaturally still, and waits. Apparently some response is required.

He settles on, “I trust him, also.”

Wen Qionglin watches him for a moment longer, and then nods. Then he says, “If he truly needs help, I will know. No matter where he is. And I am very fast.”

Oh.

This is probably intended as a threat.

Lan Wangji slides off Heitu’s back, so that they are eye to eye.

“I mean him no harm,” he says. In his current state of spiritual power it’s almost reassuring to know that someone else is concerned for Wei Ying's welfare. It should not be at all surprising, but he finds he is often surprised by Wen Qionglin, who has continued to move and talk and physically reside with his family for over a decade when everything Lan Wangji has been taught says he should not even exist.

Those same teachings would object to his own new existence as well; they are, both of them, supposed to be long dead.

“I will not let him come to harm,” he says, “if I can help it.”

He worries for a moment that this will be too revealing, but Wen Qionglin does not question him further. Perhaps he doesn’t need to. They are both well aware of the loyalty Wei Ying can inspire, under the right circumstances.

“I will show you where to find the saddle bags and travel rations,” Wen Qionglin decides, and he doesn’t speak of anything but Xiaoying and Heitu’s care and habits for the rest of the afternoon.

The evening before their planned departure, Wen Qing summons Lan Wangji once more to her study. Wei Ying arrives partway through her examination of his meridians and, surprisingly, sits quietly beside her desk until she’s finished. When she nods he joins them both behind the privacy screen and produces two cloth-wrapped packages—in one, two coiled lengths of red silk string, and in the other a pale jade carving of an endless panchang knot.

“Our hope is to give your spiritual power a new path through your meridians,” Wen Qing tells him as she inspects the strings. “One that minimizes the curse’s influence.” She blocks the meridians at his shoulder with her needles, and then ties one string to his arm, above the curse mark, and the other below it, each secured with a cloverleaf knot and sealed with a touch of spiritual power.

Wei Ying leans in close and presses two fingers to the talisman over the curse mark, but doesn’t touch either the silk or the jade. He keeps his silence. Lan Wangji watches his face and cannot read his thoughts.

“Just making sure this doesn’t interrupt us,” he says when he sees Lan Wangji watching. He holds up a second talisman in his other hand. “Wouldn’t want to have to start over in the middle.”

It’s a reasonable precaution: Tying the new charm is a long process, a progression of knots that covers most of his forearm. The jade panchang knot is tied in just above the curse mark, and another panchang knot of red silk tied below the wound. Wen Qing and Wei Ying both study it closely, and then she removes her needles and takes his wrist again, walking him through a slow meditation, cycling spiritual power through his body.

The flow of power is smoother, though it does perhaps take a little more time than he expects.

Wei Ying removes his fingers with a nod and a sigh. Wen Qing smiles, satisfied.

“The talisman will still need to be reapplied regularly,” she says, “but these charms together should be enough to minimize the curse’s effect on your meridians, so your core can begin to heal.”

It has already begun. He can feel the difference.

“Thank you.” The words seem inadequate, but he has little else to offer. Even this, she waves aside.

“I’m sure you don’t need my guidance for the proper exercises, but I do have many more theory texts, if you wish to read them.”

“We can bring some along,” Wei Ying promises. “Most of the best ones, we have more than one copy.”

Lan Wangji thinks of the library—of the many books that bear the same hand. Some copied by Wen Qing. Some by Wei Ying. Others in a clear, steady hand he doesn’t recognize. Of the single bound copy of the Lan Clan rules he’d found next to a copy of the Wen principles, and the books that he doubts his brother knows exist, copies of texts that were available to guest disciples studying at Cloud Recesses.

He wonders if his brother knew, when he was rebuilding the Library Pavilion, just how exact Wei Ying’s memory can be.

“Thank you,” he says again.

“Get some sleep,” Wen Qing says. “Both of you.” She stares hard at Wei Ying. “I’m not going to be the one dragging you out of your rooms in the morning. It’s no matter to me if you miss traveling during the coolest part of the day.”

Traveling with Wei Ying, and only with Wei Ying, is different from traveling alone, or with other Lan disciples, and different again from his memories of travel during the Sunshot Campaign. Then, Wei Ying had shifted through moods like ripples in water, sometimes predictable but more often not. A laugh like a clash of swords, a glare that pierced like needles. More than once Lan Wangji had found him alone but for the poor company the dead might provide, brooding under a shadow that seemed to cling to him even on the clearest of days. And then he would turn and ask if Lan Wangji knew this or that song, or if he wanted to spar, or if he’d eaten because surely it must be time for the next meal by now, and Lan Wangji would push aside his concern until hours later, when Wei Ying was just as likely to pull a prank as get in a fight with an ally. A fight with Lan Wangji himself, more often than not.

But that was the war. Decades ago, now, for everyone but Lan Wangji himself.

Now, Wei Ying laughs with more humor, and the cant of his eyes is merely sly rather than cutting. He grumbles through his breakfast and morning tea. He bickers with Xiaoying while saddling her and slouches through the morning hours until some unknown precondition is met, and then he begins talking aloud about whatever is on his mind at the moment: the weather, which continues to be wet, with cool mornings and steamy afternoons, or theories on their two investigations, or tales of past night hunts, which quickly shift into stories of Wen Sizhui, or Jiang Wanyin and Jin Rulan, and from there to the other members of Yiling-Wei, and Yunmeng-Jiang, and Lanling-Jin. Once, when they stop and take shelter under a half-repaired watchtower to wait out a storm, Wei Ying says, “Ah, Lan Zhan, do you remember that week we had rain every day, in Gusu?” and he speaks of Lan Xichen, and the Lan Sect, and what little he knows of its current status.

Cloud Recesses has been rebuilt, reportedly exactly as it was before the Wens attacked. Lan Qiren still teaches, and Lan Wangji feels a swell of relief to know his uncle still breathes. The Sect still hosts a year-long seminar for young disciples of any sect, every few years. Wen Sizhui, Liu Weixin and Zhou Xiuying have attended it, and returned with reports of young Lan cultivators who Wen Sizhui described as friendly, Liu Weixin called unbearably rigid, and Zhou Xiuying pronounced worthy sparring opponents. Lan Xichen has, unsurprisingly, built a widely-spoken reputation for even-mindedness that Lan Wangji knows he himself could never hope to match.

There is no bitterness to any of Wei Ying’s tales. No mention of hardship or enmity, over a span of more than a decade that Lan Wangji knows cannot have been easy, especially near its start. But then, Lan Wangji has long known that Wei Ying lies more easily than he tells the truth, omits more than he ever says openly. Even when he was living among the Mass Graves, quite obviously short on food, the only hardship Wei Ying would admit to was a lack of visitors, and news.

Still, there are some things he cannot doubt: Wei Ying’s love for his sister, and her children. His affection for Jiang Wanyin, and the Wens. His dedication to ensuring that Lan Wangji himself does not succumb to the curse he carries.

It’s an indulgence Lan Wangji shouldn’t permit himself. A few moments, watching Wei Ying breathe and concentrating on the steady warmth of the soulbond under his own skin.

He turns away. Steps outside. Rekindles the fire for breakfast.

During the long afternoon of the fourth day, after they have shared a quick lunch beside a clear-flowing stream and are letting Xiaoying and Heitu forage their own meal, Wei Ying draws out Chenqing and plays songs that seem to be purely for personal entertainment; there is no spiritual power behind them at all. Some, Lan Wangji recognizes as common to drinking houses and inns. Others he doesn’t recognize at all. He is considering unwrapping the guqin when Wei Ying’s somewhat random little melodies turn suddenly familiar.

Not just familiar.

Every note is etched into Lan Wangji’s soul.

Wei Ying catches him staring. He’s not certain what expression his own face is making, but Wei Ying looks suddenly defensive. His hands drop to his lap, wrapping around Chenqing as if Lan Wangji will try to tear the flute away from him.

“What?”

“You remember.” Lan Wangji shouldn’t be surprised—Wei Ying has remembered enough of his brief time at Cloud Recesses to reproduce the Lan Sect’s rules and three different treatises, and that’s only what Lan Wangji found. But it had been only once, in the Xuanwu’s cave. That song has only ever had an audience of one.

Wei Ying frowns at him.

“What ...” his eyebrows rise high on his forehead, his mouth forming a perfect circle. “Lan Zhan.” He leans forward, suddenly eager. “Lan Zhan, you know this song?”

Of course he knows it. How could he not?

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying continues. “No one knows this song. How do you know it? Is it a Lan Clan song? What’s its name?”

Words stick in Lan Wangji’s throat. Wei Ying doesn’t remember. Not really. He looks away. At the play of light on water. The swirl of shadowy fish, underneath.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says again, moving closer. “I can never remember where I heard it, and no one ever recognizes it. How do you know it?”

No one ever recognizes it, he says. Which means Wei Ying has been playing it. For other people. For thirteen years. And he doesn’t know.

Lan Wangji swallows back his foolish hopes. The words he might have said.

“I wrote it,” he admits, to the low rush of the spring and the whisper of reeds in the light breeze.

“What?”

When he risks a glance back, Wei Ying is staring. He looks utterly shocked.

“What do you mean, you wrote it?”

Lan Wangji does not want to have this conversation. Not now. Not if Wei Ying doesn’t remember something so important.

At least, it had been important to Lan Wangji.

“We should keep moving,” he says, and stands. Heitu is drinking from the stream, but she only flicks her ears when he touches her shoulder, and doesn’t offer any more protest than a shift of her weight as he unties her hobble and mounts.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying is frowning at him.

“We are wasting daylight,” Lan Wangji tells him. It’s true enough. This break is no shorter than any other.

Wei Ying grumbles. Retrieves his things.

“What’s its name?” he asks as he settles on Xiaoying.

I have already told you. Lan Wangji locks the words behind his teeth. Wei Ying does not speak of the soul bond, never broaches the topic of their battle with the Xuanwu or anything else from their lives that occurred after he left Cloud Recesses months before any other disciple, does not remember this, despite Lan Wangji telling him, despite his clear memory of the music itself and his perfect recall of texts long burnt to ashes.

“Think about it.” He says instead, and urges Heitu into a quicker pace, too fast for easy conversation.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying calls after him, but Lan Wangji does not look back.

When Wei Ying catches up he speaks of other things, and does not mention the song again.

Notes:

For the curious, Xiaoying and Heitu are named as references to famous horses from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. 絶影 (sometimes translated as "Suppressing Shadow" or "Shadow Runner") was one of the horses of Cao Cao, head of the state of Wei. He famously kept running despite taking three arrows, and thus saved his rider from enemies. 赤兔 (Red Hare) was described as "the best of horses" and within the tale people considered him to be too good for his original master. After that master died he was given to a new, more virtuous hero (Guan Yu, sometimes described as an ideal incarnation of loyalty and righteousness), who he was extremely loyal to.

(on to part 11)

#wangxian #mo dao zu shi #lan wangji #wei wuxian #mdzs #mdzs fic #wangxian fic #role reversal soulmate au #turnabout verse #alex writes #the yearning goes on #as ever

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carrollstreetstation · 5 years ago

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WW2GI and the saving private ryan TC for duke nukem 3D: a level-by-level breakdown

EPISODE 1: D-DAY

the first half of the game starts off with a bang as you're dropped right into it with the omaha beach landings; from there you'll go on through the hedgerows and villages of normandy, killing nazis left and right and dying... again... and again... and again. according to the credits, we can thank tuoma "tuco" korva and lado "icebreaker" crnologar for the level design, but i've no way of telling you who did which.

E1L1: d-day what's more iconic in united states military history during WW2 than omaha beach? this recreation of the bloody battle might not be as lethal as the real thing, but it sure is nearly as nightmarish. the game throws you in deep real fast and you're forced to learn, through trial and error, the basics of the game, all the while random explosions and bullets out of nowhere will cut your gameplay short. you'd think they'd at least give us some basic training... even medal of honor frontline was more forgiving.

E1L2: atlantic wall omaha beach, part 2. you're alone for this one, you and several dozen enemy troops as you work your way through a complex of shattered bunkers and rail lines. not much sense to the layout on this one, though cool carnage as a row of parked trucks are annihilated in an artillery explosion -- along with all the nazi goons hiding behind them.

E1L3: defend you meet up with some friendlies just in time for a panicked radio message -- a squad is pinned down under enemy fire and need help. working your way through a flooded village and a forest infested with nazis, you eventually come upon the squad, hiding in some foxholes as a couple dozen enemy mysteriously teleport in by a hedgerow on the far end of the field. aside from some extra ammo, you also get access to an artillery strike via radio and a mortar launcher. hold out long enough and a gate will open with reinforcements behind, and the exit beyond.

E1L4: hunt for the 88s jesus christ. if you managed to get through the d-day map without getting too frustrated you may wind up throwing in the towel on this one, an extremely dark night mission in the woods where the enemy can see you but you can't see them, and they always have insanely good aim. the one thing it has going for it is a pretty cool scripted sequence where you and a squad of guys traverse a bit of forest, exchanging some bad banter -- very cool for the build engine! and then they all die in an ambush, leaving you to play audie murphy -- again.

E1L5: finding private mccurkee first of all, lol. second of all, this mission is actually almost fun. a ruined little town teeming with enemy, you'll have an opportunity to use a rifle to pop enemies from a distance, which will be useful as there's plenty of snipers. a mortar team will make your life hell near the end. it's fun working your way through the ruined buildings and finding ways to climb up into otherwise inaccessible rooms.

E1L6: saving private mccurkee did you like e1l5? how would you like to do it again, only this time in reverse, in the dark, and with an NPC in tow that you have to babysit -- assuming he doesn't get his dumb ass stuck in the foxhole right at the beginning of the level and then you don't notice he's done it so you save your game like a dumbass and now you have to noclip through the gate at the end because the idiot doesn't know how to climb?

yeah. i didn't like e1l6.

E1L7: mop up the final mission of the d-day episode is a mercifully daytime shootout across a semi-detatched military complex in which you shoot a bunch of nazis, blow up some tanks, dodge some artillery fire and, in the end, lay waste to a small, fenced-in compound guarded by SS, who distinguish themselves from regular grunts by their distinctive black uniforms and red nazi armbands. just hanging around them lowers your morale; ignoring the fact that the morale system makes no sense, this does amusingly give rise to the idea that the SS are so evil that they can sap you on a psychic level.

i mean, that's true of nazis today.

final thoughts: not a good first half. maybe three or four of the levels are salvageable; the rest are unmitigated shit, especially e1l4. while this is very likely the first-ever WW2 FPS to feature the omaha beach landings and the normandy invasion at large, it's a novelty at best, an exercise in frustration that shows the limits both of the engine and the designers' talents.

EPISODE 2: FRANCE

not sure what exactly distinguishes this episode from the previous, except that it's perhaps a continuation of the battle of normandy? who knows. regardless, it's another 7 levels of this shit, because they couldn't see what they did in episode 1 and think "we've done enough damage."

E2L1: hell from above a much more sensible first level, this is essentially a sweep-and-clear mission as you work your way (alone, of course) through a cute little village along a river. lots of wide open space means little cover for you, but it also makes combat a bit of a turkey shoot (especially with auto-aim on.) oddly you get tons of MP40 ammo -- even maxing it out -- before you ever actually get the MP40.

E2L2: seaside sweep a quick jaunt through a seaport. lots of nazis, and lots of BAR ammo to perforate them with. would actually be a decent level if not for an issue i ran into -- i don't know if it's endemic to the game or if it's a bug introduced by eduke32 -- that placed two very large wall texture sprites in the map that blocked my view of the final building, forcing me to god mode just to be able to approach the place.

E2L3: under fire similar to "defend" from the first episode, the first half of this mission involves you facing off against endlessly respawning waves of germans until such time that you're called to retreat through the village, which is swarming with germans. clear your way through it and you're treated to a grisly scene of SS troops forming a firing squad to execute captured allied prisoners. definitely feels like a precursor to the early call of duty levels. it's not *too* bad a level i guess.

E2L4: paperwork it's time to attack an SS-occupied chateau in this quick little mission. it starts off surprisingly easy with a short, linear path that takes you through some countryside. a heavily fortified bridge serves as the main defense of the chateau and every window bristles with guns. get inside the chateau walls and it's wall-to-wall SS, draining your morale with every burst of their MP40s and having the infuriating tendency to have your shots (especially your BAR) go right through them.

E2L5: railroad typhoon you've been tasked with rescuing a bunch of captured allied troops who've been put on a train, which means storming a trainyard. it's mostly wide open spaces here, though there is a cool part in a connecting tunnel where you're checking train cars. the trainyard itself is comparatively vast, and enemy fire comes from all directions. relatively fun map.

E2L6: a game of bridge like the name suggests, the key feature of this level is a bridge, currently occupied by a tank and a large contingent of nazis. to get there you'll have to fight your way through the town; across the river are rows of windows from which the enemy shoots at you (a common feature in this episode that i'm starting to suspect may be a favorite feature of one of the mappers.)

E2L7: urban rush the finale of WW2GI involves fighting your way through a massive urban area to rescue a captured general. this is probably the largest level in the episode; with an enemy around every corner. while it's otherwise an interesting, intense level (a small legion of semi-invincible SS notwithstanding) there's a frustrating bit where you must go through a no-man's-land of sorts that's constantly being bombarded by artillery.

final thoughts: a significantly better second half, but the problem is, that's not saying much. it still suffers from issues endemic to the game, like the insane reaction times of the enemy, the massive damage they do to you, and so on. however, the gameplay is much more straightforward for the most part, with no NPCs to babysit, no weird trial-and-error "wtf do i do next" issues, just pure nazi slaughter. now if only the game didn't suck.

PLATOON LEADER

platoon leader is a free expansion for WW2GI that adds three more levels to the game and several additional features. two of these, inexplicably, are set during the vietnam war, a throwback to TNT team's earlier outing NAM (which itself was a sequel to their earlier free mod for duke nukem 3D 'platoon,' based on the movie of the same name.) the remaining level, however, is set in the pacific theater of world war 2. the result is that the armory is a mix of WW2 and vietnam war-era weaponry, with the level design such that you won't receive weapons that don't belong in the era you're playing. speaking of level design, no clue who did this one, but i want to punch them.

PLT_E1L1: hill 41 eeeuuugh. you start at the base of a hill. while you have a radio that can call in both a tank assault as well as an air strike, your main strategy is going to be charging up a hill swarming with IJA troops. while the hill is actually rather realistically constructed, with varying slopes and flat planes, this is about the only interesting facet of the level design as the entire hill is covered in invisible land mines and enemy shooting at you. making matters worse is that the game seemingly arbitrarily will declare the mission a failure and cover the screen with a failure notice, forcing you to restart. i even god-moded my way up to the top, killed everything i could, blew up the tunnel entrance, and still failed. this level sucks.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN TC* FOR DUKE NUKEM 3D

"saving private ryan" is a landmark war film that changed how war movies were made and inflamed the imaginations of game designers everywhere. imagine storming omaha beach from the comfort of your own home; imagine fighting through the hedgerows. while the commercial game "WW2GI" was the very first world war II-themed FPS that wasn't wolfenstein with its abstract mazes and mad science, "saving private ryan TC," released a few months after WW2GI (and using some stolen assets from it), was an attempt by a small group of duke 3d fans to recreate their favorite war movie. in this mod for duke nukem 3D are five levels, each one representing a key scene from the film. an archived version of the mod's website lists two people as level designers: jeff (using the name eXtreme-Rush) and jody (using the name kissle.) i couldn't tell you who did which maps, not that it terribly matters.

* note: TC stands for total conversion, an older term for what we'd now simply call a mod

SPRL1: ohmaha beach yes, that's how it's spelled. basically a worse version of ww2gi's d-day map, it can be done in a matter of seconds. once you blow the shingle and get up onto the ridge it's just nazi city in the trenches beyond, and ammo is scarce -- you're better off just running towards the crater with the movie poster in it.

SPRL2: vierville very short little jaunt through a war-torn village, with a squad of useless soldiers following you. the ruined applecart from the movie is here, as is the half-blown out house; a lone enemy up in a tower is easily dispatched, but figuring out how to get past the invisible wall blocking your further progress is tougher.

SPRL3: bunker another short level, a charge up a hill with the enemy already firing at you. the bunker itself with the radar is cool-looking, at least.

SPRL4: the fields basically "bunker" but with tall, semi-transparent grass sprites everywhere. kill all the nazis and then go talk to the US soldiers hiding near the burning halftrack, and you're on to the finale.

SPRL5: last battle probably the closest this thing gets to a real level, and it sucks ass. you'll not hurt for ammo, and health items actually show up here, but the place is teeming with enemy and cover is light. get across the bridge and you're done.

final thoughts: whoof. while it's true they recreated the setpieces, it comes at the expense of gameplay. the levels are, in a word, ugly and simple, with little in the way of anything distinctive. the whole thing can be gotten through in about 10-15 minutes; wouldn't it have been more fun to simply mix the movie's story beats into a broader game that more closely resembles WW2GI? sometimes i wonder what happened to the mod team; it's clear they were young when they made this (weren't we all, back then...) i guess in the end i admire what they were trying to do, and i appreciate that they were young and didn't really think this through. but it just doesn't work.

#ww2 fps #ww2 #saving private ryan #ww2gi #duke nukem 3d #game modding #shovelware #classic gaming #classic fps

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clinioelerrante · 5 years ago

Text

To be fainthearted…

That a student of Hogwarts was prowling the corridors of the castle in the wee hours of the morning was not uncommon.

The fact that this student belonged to Gryffindor House was even less so.

That such a student had hair that was red as hellfire could almost be considered normal.

The fact that this particular student was mumbling curses and oaths about a certain frizzy-haired which, it had been part of the regular school scene for more than 4 years.

But for such a student, at the height of Dolores Umbridge's reign of terror, to wander aimlessly, alone, under a disillusioning spell, with the marauder's map in hand and risking exemplary punishment or even expulsion from school, was decidedly atypical.

“A fucking wart? Mmm-hmm. A fucking wart and a fucking teaspoon?...” He mumbled as he took long strides through the corridors, almost oblivious to everything else. “My arse!”

Everything had started after the DA meeting. Cho Chang had accosted Harry in room of requirement while the rest of the group had dispersed. Hermione and he had gone to Gryffindor common room at and were having a relaxed conversation until she insisted that he complete his task while she wrote a letter. Hermione's parchment was already over the edge of the table and hanging dangerously close to the floor, when Harry came through the hole behind the portrait.

It had been perfectly obvious that something had happened. While one could not say that Harry had arrived with a completely dumb face, it was no less true that he was the closest thing to the face of someone who had been struck by a stunning spell.

With Harry’s apparent inability to explain what had happened, Hermione had taken the initiative in the conversation until he blew up the cauldron:

“Have you kissed?”

Wait... What? Harry would have kissed Cho or maybe it was Cho who kissed Harry? After the initial surprise, he was enthusiastic about his friend and wished he did it.

Of course! He'd been aware of Hurry’s crush on Cho since last year. One would have to be blind not to see him with that deer's eyes accompanied by a slight drooling every time Cho entered the scene! But following the usual pattern of shitty luck in Harry Potter's life that was the time when the bird was dating Cedric Diggory.

The memory of the partner killed by Peter Pettigrew overshadowed Ron's memories. Cedric was a good guy and his end had been unexpected, unjust and one more to add to the long list of Wormtail's coward crimes. Top of them, the betrayal of Harry's parents: Lily and James Potter.

“You filthy rat!" he swore. “If I had known, I personally would have left you alone with Crookshanks in a nice little room without a single hole in its walls and an undisturbed spell on the door.

The point was that Harry was still attached to Cho, if not more so, and it seemed that she had begun to notice Harry. There was no doubt that he had turned out to be a brilliant teacher in the DA meetings, added to his perpetual challenge to the pink toad and the legendary fight at the quidditch pitch had contributed enormously, to increase his sex appeal according to some whispered comments that he had heard between the women of the DA and some boys.

Ron wished with all his heart that, “For once!”, Harry's bad luck changed and like any normal teenager, he could live a normal life enjoying the intimate affection of a hot girl who she like him, although in his opinion ...a Tornado fan was not good enough for Harry. . . One flash of a long red hair burst into his mind making him shake his head to free himself from such disturbing vision.

But as usual, Harry hadn't had any luck with it either.

Instead of the first-time nervous or inexperienced teenager's kiss, it had resulted in little more than a disaster that had trapped Harry in the pit of insecurity in his ability to kiss properly a girl and later, with Hermione's invaluable assistance and her detailed talk about Cho Chang's state of emotional turmoil, he guessed in Harry, the doubt about the appropriateness of attempting any kind of relationship with such an emotionally damaged girl and, knowing Harry's legendary hero complex, he would be able to give up the girl if he thought it was sparing him any further pain. A massive Dragon’s dung in Ron's opinion, so he had used his best weapon to pull Harry out of his stupefaction and keep him from falling into his usual melancholy self-isolation; a joke:

“No one can feel so many things at once. It would explode!”

Ron doubted that anyone could explode because of it. If himself hadn't exploded with everything that's happened in the last year, it would be strange if someone else did. “Okay. Maybe Neville would go into a coma or pass out, but I don't think so. Dealing with Mrs. Longbottom for so many years had given him much more courage than many would give him credit for.”

In any case, Hermione's words had unleashed an emotional storm inside Ron, and the problem was that he saw no way to refute the logical sequence of events that had been linked together and seemed to form the links of a chain that wrapped around his neck.

Harry was diligent, brilliant, and handsome, he was not. Harry would have deserved to be prefect of Gryffindor, he didn't. Harry was extraordinary in Quidditch, he wasn't. . . “But Victor fucking pumpkin head Krum is too. So rich. Could be richer as Harry even and. . . . and I'm sure he's experienced enough to know how to kiss a woman properly and. . . Oh God! How does Hermione know Harry is a good kisser and who has she been able to compare him to. . . ?”

He couldn't help it. His mind was filled with the slow motion image of Hermione kissing Krum torridly, trapping his ridiculously short hair between her thin fingers and taking his lips as if from them she extracted the air she needed to breathe, while one of his hands remained on her delicate waist and the other slowly ascended from her hip to caress her entire chest, provoking a lustful moan in her.

Ron felt the periphery of his vision turn red and his fists instinctively clenched so tightly that he felt his own nails sink into his flesh. He felt the need to rip the bastard's head off and when he looked up to face him, his mind was filled with Harry's gaze as he kissed Hermione passionately.

A familiar black claw wrapped around Ron's heart and squeezed it empty until it was breathless. He had never felt such pain or such overwhelming despair. Without being able to avoid it, from the depths of his being, a cry of impotence burst out, which ascended through his throat and escaped from him like the roar of the mortally wounded lion that intends to take his killer away with his last breath. . .

“Who's there? Don't try to escape. Inquisitorial Squad, with me!”

Ron cursed himself. He was so overwhelmed by the pain his own mind had generated that he had forgotten about bloody Umbridge and its band of mangy snakes patrolling the school corridors. Without thinking too much, he rushed to the double-leafed doors in front of him and entered.

“Professor Umbridge. Here!”

Blood seemed to be boiling in Ronald Weasley's veins. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. It was like the Malfoy and Weasley families had some sort of bond in destiny that would inevitably lead them to confront each other. The bloody bouncing ferret was on the other side of the door blocking the exit and calling for the great inquisitor to fall on him. Ron could hardly have imagined the satisfaction it would cause the flathead to discover that the student who violated the curfew was a Weasley and, among them, Harry Potter's best friend, no less! Nothing would make him happier than to witness another humiliation by Ronald Weasley. He was in these thoughts when another, much more disturbing, one made its way into his mind.

Umbridge! This would be like an early Christmas present for her. She would take advantage of the fact that it was him to provoke Harry and that would give her the perfect excuse to expel him.

Shit! You bloody fool couldn't have held back yourself, he thought to himself. No wonder Hermione can't see you as anything but a good-for-nothing. . . Hermione! Oh my God! If neither Harry or I are here, the ferret and the fucking toad are going to torment her to death. They're going to beat her and provoke her mercilessly until she quits or explodes and they can finally expel her. This would kill her. Shit, shit, shit, I'm the biggest asshole on the face of the earth. . .

“Grand Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge here". The voice of the disgusting toad was heard on the other side of the door. “I order you to leave that room.”

Ron, not breathing, stood three feet from the door waiting for the fatal decay.

“There's nothing to be afraid of"; he said with false sweetness. “All of us here are friends and we care about the safety of the students at the school. The Ministry only wants the best for all the magical children in the UK...” Ron thought that sounded suspiciously similar to a certain muggle story Hermione had once told him about a witch, one stupid girl and a poisoned apple...

“I'm absolutely sure is not your fault"; and this time there seemed to be some poison in her voice. “No doubt you'd be following the horrible example of Mr. Potter and his friends about how much fun it is to walk around the castle at this hour, but they don't have the good breeding of those born into completely magical families". She said scornfully, “And they can't understand how dangerous it can be to prowl around the castle at these hours, without the supervision of someone fully versed in the ins and outs of true magic society”. Ron swore he heard a chuckle from the silver ferret. “I'm begging you to come out. I promise that you will only receive one warning and we will accompany you to your common room so that you can rest until tomorrow's class”.

That's not what you've been saying publicly so far, you bloody cow. Always promising magic world perfectly safe thanks to the ministry and your “beloved” Fudge, old hag, he thought, trembling with anger. SHE knows more about the magic world, its traditions and its miseries than you will ever know in your entire fucking life. In an ideal world, you wouldn't even be worthy of breathing the same air that she breathes. Instinctively, his magic channelled all his anger into his own hand that seemed to sizzle, longing to meet the wand that waited expectantly in his back pocket.

“Very well”, this time Umbridge's voice was definitely loaded with contempt. “I understand that if you are unable to understand the delicate complexities of the magical world and my desire to ensure your safety is because you have not had the proper education in your born-home. Nothing that a proper punishment can't solve, so, you´ll understand your place”.

This did it. Ron took three steps behind leaving its good fifteen feet with the door.

This sadist thinks it's not pureblood who is here and she's going to take advantage of it to make an example of it. His hand finally met his wand that seemed to emit a buzz of satisfaction to his contact. She will be stunned when she sees that the marauder is one of the “twenty-eight sacred". He thought this one with really loathe, like if bitter gall touched his lips at the memory. If I were anyone else I might be able to escape from this by sounding sorry, but being who I am, she's going to take advantage of it to go against both of them and if she doesn't go against Hermione, Draco will. For a moment a smile escaped his lips as he thought of what Hermione would do to Draco if he openly fought against her while remembering the superb punch the ferret had received in third year. But Malfoy will never attack her openly. He would seek a moment of solitude and would be accompanied by his two gorillas and possibly some Slytherin Deatheater apprentice and, God knows! What they would be capable of doing to her.

As his last smile died on his face, his wand was raised in his arm in a duelling position. Ron knew his fate was already decided. He knew that with him expelled, he would no longer be able to protect Harry and Hermione within the walls of Hogwarts, but nothing would stop him from defending them outside or making a last stand inside. When he confronted Umbridge and her henchmen, he would make his argument clear by giving them a hell of a wand, to make them understand that, just in the moment any of them tried to harm any of their friends, there would be no place under the sun where they could hide from him. So that miserable crew on the other side of the door would get the message and refrain from really drastic actions against his two friends.

Being Ron under age, he would not end up in Azkaban, and the fact that this stinking band knew that he would be free to show up at Hogsmeade from time to time would help reinforce the message. That would give Dumbledore and McGonagall time to regain control of the school and protect both of them. The image of a knight being taken by the queen on a gigantic chessboard gave him a crooked smile meanwhile he faced, wand in hand, his fate. Checkmate, pal.

“Alohomora!”

Alohowhat? What in the h. . .; Ron didn't have time to complete the question that popped into his mind while his frown frowned in shock when he heard the spell on the other side of the door. But, if the door's not locked, why are they. . . ? For the second time, the idea died in his mind as he watched as the doorknob seemed to turn repeatedly in the attempt of someone trying to open the door, apparently in vain.

“ALOHOMORA!” It was heard again from the other side.” What's wrong with the damn door?” Again the voice of Umbridge was heard, this time in an unmistakable tone of irritation, as the doorknob was shaken more and more violently without the door giving way by a single millimetre.

-Get out of the way! This time there was real rage in the voice of the great inquisitor. On the other side of the door, Ron heard her to perform, one after the other, no less than 10 different spells trying to unlock the door and the paroxysmal movement of the doorknob had also given way to the incensed knocking of the door, as if in a primary resource and having failed magic, brute force was being used to force entry. It was then that he realized that his wand seemed to be emitting a dull buzzing sound that made her hand tremble.

“That's enough! I'm sure this is a joke of that brazen poltergeist”. Ron smiled. The toad's voice sounded more like a big walrus's breathing down from too much exercise. “Sure. He must have let out the scream and bewitched the door so that it could not be opened"; she continued, between gasping and panting.

“But professor”, Ron shuddered again at the sound of Malfoy's voice and to realize that his wand was shaking more intensely. “We've known Peeves since the first year, and that's certainly not his voice, nor is this the style of his jokes. He tends to be cruder and coarser by throwing stink bombs or buckets of ice water on the backs of the students. . .” The ferret's peroration was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a slap on the back of his neck particularly hard.

“Stupid”. Umbridge's voice sounded particularly annoying. “Do you dare to discuss a teacher's judgment? I tell you that all this is the work of that nasty spirit and, if all of you had been properly versed in the magical arts, you would have realized it right away as well”. Ron could not help but have a panting laugh. The toad had just beaten the insufferable presumptuous, frustrated by her inability to open the door and, trying to avoid looking bad in front of her acolytes, she had diverted attention and blame onto the asshole. My word. He would have gladly paid two months' pay for being able to see the ferret's face.

“This only proves the ministry right. The quality of teaching in this place has tragically declined and it is imperative that the ministry take control of it in order to instruct the young wizards and witches in the mastery of their skills. “With me!” It was heard like a whimper and then, the unmistakable tapping of a few steps away.

Ron stood waiting for an invisible trap to fall on him; meanwhile, his wand continued vibrating in his hand, though ever more faintly, until it stopped completely. He remained motionless and almost breathless for a few more minutes, hoping to believe in his good fortune and that he really had escaped from a more than complicated situation. Finally, he decided it was time to take a chance and averted his eyes from the door and consulted the marauder's map. He couldn't believe it! On the map it could clearly read “Ronald Weasley”, but on the other side of the door the map did not reflect the presence of anyone. Even in his surroundings there doesn't seem to be a soul.

Now or never, pal; he said to himself in encouragement and then, he set about turning the doorknob which. As before, it pivoted on its axis smoothly and pulled it, the door to stay locked.

“Shit”, he mumbled, but refrained from further attempts. In a sad irony, it seemed that the same mystery that had saved his freckled arse was keeping him prisoner of the room. “Well", he closed his eyes and as he concentrated he muttered. “Whatever it is, I really appreciate you helping me out, but I'd really like to get out, get to my room and forget about tonight. I swear I've learned the fucking lesson not to wander around the castle after curfew, or at least, not to be such an asshole as to scream in the hallway after curfew”. He looked at the door again and tried to open it, and again this one remained unmoved.

“Bloody hell!” This time the tone of his voice was noticeably louder. He turned in frustration on himself and looking up at the ceiling dropped himself over the door and, leaned on the back of his head as it tapped repeatedly against the wood in an attempt to alleviate his disappointment.

“Okay! It's all right. If the price I have to pay for escaping the damn pink toad is to spend the night in this room, I'll gladly take it. Tomorrow someone will come, open the door, cast the disillusioning spell on me, sneak out and I'll manage to find a way to justify my. . .

He jumped upright as he opened his eyes wide, realizing that he had no idea where he was! It had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly that all he could remember was walking through the door that was closest to him at the time. Once the surprise was over, he began to inspect the room, hoping to recognize it.

“I should've known better”. The sad whisper escaped his lips as if it were the sigh of a condemned man whose last chance for freedom is slipping away.

The shelves followed one another in countless rows . . . “Well, surely not countless. I'll bet Hermione knows “exactly"; the number of them, as well as the number of every damn book inside each and every one of them"; he moaned.

Still, he had to admit. Empty of students, under the twilight of the moonlight filtering through the large windows, the Hogwarts Library was magnificent. Magnificent and intimidating.

“As always, she is able to see things at first sight, which takes the rest of us years"; he sighed. “No wonder I am not even able to keep up with her thoughts when that adorable head of her gets going”. And that was precisely what was bothering him most at this time and had led him to wander aimlessly through the school corridors. That with all her brilliance, all her knowledge, all her fucking logic, she wouldn't have been able to see everything that was bubbling up inside him. . .

Ron had not been aware at first, but gradually he became aware of the presence of candlelight behind some library shelves. Initially he feared that it might be because of the presence of another person in the library, whether it was a student, a teacher or, at worst, Filch and his mangy cat. So he remained quiet, but since the light seemed to be steady, no noise was heard, and the memory that the marauder's map had shown no one in the vicinity, he ventured quietly behind the bookshelf to find out what it was.

It didn't take him long to discover that it was one of the candlesticks that supplied light to the library users, but what was really curious was that it was the only candlestick that seemed to burn in the whole library. He approached it with the aim of extinguishing the candles when they went out by themselves while at the other end of the shelf the candles of another candleholder began to burn expontaneously.

Having grown up in the magic world, these kinds of situations were no surprise to him. They were fascinating, no doubt, but not at all a complete surprise.

He had long known that in one way or another, every wizard, every witch, had left the magical sight of his existence on the world. He knew many examples of them:

The essences of the four founders who died long ago, in the sorting hat. Those of his twin uncles Gideon and Fabian also killed in the first war against Voldemort, in the house clock. The Marauder’s Map, with the essence of James Potter, and his friends. Even, according to Harry's story, who-you-know-who left part of him in the diary that possessed Ginny in her first year.

With more than a thousand years of existence, it was practically impossible to know how many wizards and witches walked, studied and lived among these old stones, and each one of them left his own mark. Some would leave a barely perceptible trace, but others performed such intense episodes of magic that the traces they left behind, seemed to have a will of their own.

The hat was left with the mission of continuing to sort the students by the time the founders were gone.

The house clock, to know the status of each family member and to be able to come to their aid if necessary.

The map conspired so that the big troublemakers could keep up their mischief at school and, the diary, somehow, tried to bring Voldemort back.

This last thought plunged her spirit back into sadness and melancholy bringing back the thoughts that had made her leaves the safety of the tower of Gryffindor:

Is that really all she thinks of me? Does she really think I don't know what Cho Chang is feeling?

Like answering that question, another group of candles went out to be immediately replaced.

I can't really blame her, can I? I've never been good at expressing myself, let alone how I feel, but then again, how could I? How do you tell the most wonderful woman in the world that you're crazy for her? That you regret terribly to be a clumsy, mindless, worthless lout. Which you know you don't deserve her. That you know that you shouldn't even notice me but that you can't help but love her more than my own family, more than Harry, more than the blood that runs through my veins, more than my life itself and that knowing and feeling all that is eating me up inside. How do you tell her you feel all this and more, ‘only’, because you love her?

Ron feels that dull pain in his chest again. A veil of tears struggles to leave his eyes as he rolls his shirt sleeve over them to prevent his vision from becoming blurred, and it is when he refocuses them that he sees it. The candlestick he approaches is no longer extinguished, but seems to beat as if prompting him to approach it, and as he does so, the booklet seems to slowly separate from the rest of his companions on the shelf, prompting him to pick it up.

When Ron takes it, he feels comforting warmth in his fingers, like if the worn book is meant to convey a feeling of friendship and comfort, like if it is telling him in a mute way that everything will be all right after all. A feeling that brings back memories of the day he got his wand. Not his brother's, but his real wand.

“What do you got for me, buddy?”

There's tenderness in Ron's whisper. Any of those familiar with Hogwarts' worst-kept secret would think that the redhead is pouring out in that act and onto an object so intrinsically linked to the image of his beloved, all the love and all the delicacy that he seems unable to show her as a victim of his own inferiority complex, while unwittingly moving towards Hermione's favourite place in the library.

It's magic.

It's part of the magic that resides in every corner of Hogwarts. It is the magic trace that perhaps a long time ago, someone left to help a heart desperate to find an answer to its silent prayer and, just like it should have been long ago, when the mortified Ronald Weasley opens the book, a magic wind stirs the pages of the book showing him one of them in particular, like the old friend who gives you good advice. That's why Ron reads. He reads with such intensity that his eyes devour the words written centuries ago and as he does so his gaze gets wet. Each line is like a balm on the wounds of his tormented heart while a bright smile appears on his face. Now, Ron knows.

And when he looks up, his heart is not only filled with love for the frizzy-haired know-it-all witch, but with infinite gratitude.

Gratitude for whoever put the book on the shelf at Muggle Studies. Gratitude for the wizard or witch whose essence left such a deep mark on the old magic of the school, that it reacted to his agony and gratitude to the one who wrote the words he has just read. Words that today give him the knowledge of knowing that he is not alone, that he has never been alone. That before him, millions of men and women, wizards and witches, magicians and muggles have experienced the same feelings, confusion and agony as him, with the fortune that some of them have been so daring, so privileged in their intelligence and endowed with the gift as to be able to express them in words, and guided simply by their instinct, Ron look for parchment and quill as he begins to copy furiously. . .

Hermione Granger seemed to be sleepwalking after leaving Professor McGonagall's office. The accumulation of events that had occurred in the last few hours that she had referred, to still seemed to be getting through to her.

Mr. Weasley had been attacked in the Ministry by Voldemort's snake! And he had only escaped death because of the early warning that Harry had given.

When she woke up this morning, she was surprised not to find Harry or any of the Weasleys in the dining room, which had led to an unpleasant feeling on her chest, but what had set off all her alarms was the story from Ron and Harry's roommates. She had immediately rushed to the teachers' table, when a simple gesture from McGonagall had instructed her that this was neither the place nor the time. Something that was confirmed moments later, with the appearance of Professor Umbridge demanding to know the whereabouts of the Weasley brothers.

In her mind, she could recreate the scene as if she had been there. She was about to bet that at this moment, Harry would be oblivious to the fact that he was the one who allowed Mr. Weasley with his warning. What's more, she would bet one of her O.W.L.s marks that at this same moment Harry would be blaming himself for what happened, convinced that Arthur had been attacked simply because he was the father of his best friend and so, he would be ruminating that feeling inside himself without letting anyone penetrate the shell of isolation he would have built around him, preventing anyone from making him see the absurdity of his reasoning.

Along with this feeling, her other concern was to imagine the state of Mr. Weasley and how the rest of the family would be passing the hours.

She could imagine their reactions and the visceral fear they must have felt in their hearts, when they were woken up in the middle of the night to inform them that, their father, was struggling between life and death, the victim of a Voldemort attack.

She imagined Mrs. Weasley tried to appear strong and confident so his family wouldn't break up. To the twins, whose jokes for once could not insulate them from the merciless reality of war. To Ginny in whose mind she'd be spending her ordeal in the Chamber of Secrets, to. . .

“Ron!” The moan escaped from between her lips and her whole mind was focused on him.

Hermione knew of the particular connection between Mr. Weasley and his youngest son. That one that not only covered the physical aspects that he also shared with his brother Bill, but also on other much deeper levels.

She knew that his father, in an effort to raise a progeny that seemed to have been gifted with a stomach that was as voracious as a black hole, had been forced not to devote as much time to it as he would have liked, and so, Ron had been raised basically by his mother, Percy and the twins. . .

"If the way they are used to behaving with him could be called raising," she snorted under her breath as she thought, how much of Ron's insecure and explosive personality was the responsibility of that pair of troublemakers. The point was, when Mr. Weasley was partially relieved of that burden after the emancipation of the two older sons, he had tried to make up for that loss of attention by devoting more of his scarce free time, and had taken him to watch his first quidditch match with the Cannons, from which the redhead's eternal love for the lousy team, emerged.

But Hermione had found many other similarities. Both were brave, though they tried to avoid direct confrontation, noting in common to evil or any temptation to try to abuse any situation of privilege, nevertheless they were fierce when it came to defending what they understood to be right.

Immersed in her thoughts, her legs led her to her sanctuary, that corner of the library that took her away from the usual hustle and bustle and allowed her to concentrate on her readings and the writing of her complex essays. The same corner whose window overlooked the quidditch pitch, from which, she furtively observed the training sessions of Gryffindor's team or, perhaps it would be better to say, the developments of one of the team's newest members.

As the smile insinuated itself on her face, Hermione could not help but reflect on how extraordinarily complex it was to understand Ronald Weasley.

Ron, sighed to herself. She really couldn't understand him! There seemed to be two of them and they alternated with each other in an unpredictable way.

Ron was loyal to a fault, but sometimes he seemed a little jealous of Harry's reputation. Most of the time he behaved like an insensitive fool and yet sometimes he surprised her with gestures of infinite tenderness. She could have the funniest talk with him and tell him all the places she planned to travel when she finished school, but it was mentioning Bulgaria and Ron seemed to turn into a manticore.

When he flew over the grounds of The Burrow, he seemed to be in perfect communion with his broom. She had been surprised to discover that sometimes the twins had suddenly thrown some quaffles at him and he would alter his flight to intercept them with an almost feline grace, but it was flying over the school pitch and he becoming into a nervous mess of hands and feet struggling to hold onto his broom, with an unsettling shade of green on his face.

For the most of the people, Ron was what could be defined like a lazy who was always behind in his schoolwork and unable to perform a spell correctly during class, but, the day after she helped him complete his homework or gave him a practical demonstration on it, he seemed to be able to perform it almost perfectly and, not even then! He seems to have a consistent line of behaviour at this point. Ron didn't seem to have the slightest interest in learning basic glamour spells, how transfiguring a rat into a chalice or making a potion to cure warts, and yet, he was perfectly capable during DA’s training, of transfiguring a cushion of The Room of Requirement into a solid block of solid stone to ward off a spell cast by Harry, while he counter-attacking him by throwing impedimenta spell that caused Harry to retreat ten yards.

And in spite of all that crazy, absurd, unrealistic and incomprehensible double personality she loved him. Oh my God, how she loved him! She couldn't understand it, but it was the truth and she knew it wasn't a young girl's crush, it was something else. She could see his faults and the weaknesses of his personality that he should try to correct, such as insecurity in himself and eternal self-comparison with his brothers and in spite of everything. . . there it was. The blurred sketch of the formidable man he was destined to become just by trying it from the bottom of her heart. A man who would make any woman's heart tremble like, he already did her own.

She was deep in thought about the irritating redhead when she discovered a parchment note carelessly folded in front of the seat she used to occupy in the library.

She opened it out of curiosity, recognizing the sloppy handwriting of the object of her tribulations as she began to read it. . .

"So, what's a teaspoon?"

As they moved along the lines of the writing, her eyes widened meanwhile one of her hands went over her chest in an unconscious attempt to calm the rampant galloping of her heart that seemed to have gone mad with the careless lines of writing.

“...To seem happy, sad, haughty, understated,

emboldened, fugitive, exasperated...”

It seemed that the world had been turned upside down and where once there was a mindless lout with the same sensitivity as a teaspoon, now there was someone who had been able to correctly interpret the verses her mind was slipping on. But that was inconceivable to Ron.

He... he really can't have been able to show me this, she thought as she began to reread thinking that she was being part of some kind of joke or enchantment the twins had left behind. A joke or a spell that should perhaps be called cruel because of all it was doing to feel to her.

To be fainthearted, to be bold, possessed, abrasive, tender, open, isolated, spirited, dying, dead, invigorated, loyal, treacherous, venturesome, repressed.

Not to find, without your lover, rest. To seem happy, sad, haughty, understated, emboldened, fugitive, exasperated, satisfied, offended, doubt-obsessed.

To face away from disillusionment, to swallow venom like liqueur, and quell all thoughts of gain, embracing discontent;

to believe a heaven lies within a hell, to give your soul to disillusionment; that’s love, as all who’ve tasted know too well.

“Ro... Ron!” The exclamation escaped like a whisper from her lips while her legs seemed to waver when she completed the last line. . .

“I do”

Hermione dropped into the chair at the impending failure of her legs to hold her as the crying made its way through her chest to replace her breath with an incoherent set of hiccups and sobs meanwhile she pressed the parchment to her chest.

No. Ron Weasley was not the callous wart she had said, nor was the imbecile with the emotional range of a teaspoon. No, Ron was just a normal teenager in constant confusion because of the tide of hormones circulating in his blood, the emotional overload of facing feelings whose intensity she herself knew very well, the recognition of the darkness that was approaching, and right now, the boy who feared for his father's life and who would put under a thick shell all the pain and all the terror that his heart harboured for, with an apparent indifference to avoid further anguish to his family during these times of tribulation, just as he did in the second year, when he went into the forbidden forest with Harry.

But, above all, Ron was her friend. The friend who needed her now more than ever, and as she began to write a letter to her parents explaining why she couldn't stay with them for the Christmas break, she couldn't help but notice the tremor in her hand and how her knuckles went white clutching her quill when one simple question seeped into her head:

Who- the hell- had taught Ronald Bilius Weasley what love was?

Notes: My infinite and sincere thanks and affection to @headcanonsandmore. Without their help, it would have been impossible for me to write this text in understandable English.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25219924/chapters/61129561

I would like to say, the inspiration for this work came after having a delicious chat with the author of the fic "Books" by @fightfortherightsofhouseelves ( You can find her work here in AO3).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14771213

Obviously, the reference poem is not mine. I wish! The author is the Spanish poet Lope de Vega. Possibly the quill who has best expressed the feelings of love through its verses in universal poetry. The English translation was done by David Rosenthal.

#romione #ron/hermione #ron weasley #hermione granger #@headcanonsandmore #@fightfortherightsofhouseelves

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thedeaditeslayer · 5 years ago

Photo

Running Time Restored Interview: 1997 Josh Becker and Bruce Campbell Indie Gets a New Life in 2K.

You can read the full interview on the upcoming release With Josh Becker, Bruce Campbell, and Don May Jr. from Diabolik Magazine below.

In 1995 on New Year’s Eve, Josh Becker had an idea. Born out of a session pondering Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary, true crime classic, Rope, he decided that he was going to improve upon the master of suspense’s legendary concept of shooting a film in real time. A daunting task but Becker was up to the challenge.

What resulted was perhaps one of the most ambitious efforts to ever grace the silver screen, Running Time. This neo-noir thriller about a heist gone wrong and a small-time criminal who rekindles his love affair with his high-school sweetheart was a hidden gem that didn’t get the recognition that it deserved. Written expressly for Becker’s childhood friend and Super 8 cohort, Bruce Campbell, the pair were once again, doing gonzo-style filmmaking just like when they were growing up in Michigan with the likes of Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.

Josh Becker was and is an adventurous soul who does things his way, just like the director gods of old. When I think of his work, the names of John Ford, William Wyler and John Huston readily spring to mind. There is something admirable about his driven determination that was the heart and soul of this black and white throwback to another era which is ultimately endearing. Yes, I have a special place in my heart for Running Time because it is honest and not filled with “tentpole” tendencies. At the core of it is the written word. The end result is one of the most overlooked masterpieces of both Becker’s and Campbell’s careers.

What is truly amazing is that this flick was shot in two weeks and that everyone went home early. It was like having a 9 to 5 job. No 18-hour-days, just fast, efficient, run and gun style filmmaking that resulted in a production that could stand toe to toe with noir classics from a bygone era like The Petrified Forest and Desperate Hours.

Prior to Running Time, Bruce was known predominantly for his work in the horror and science fiction genres which can sometimes be limiting for an actor. Becker gave him an incredible script to work with that really showcased his range as a thespian. Behind the smart-ass quips and bravado lies a talented individual who takes his craft seriously. He is capable of creating complex characters and he is most assuredly fit to be a romantic lead.

I had the chance to sit down with the major players in the restoration of Running Time (Josh Becker, Bruce Campbell, Don May, Jr. and Gerry Kissell) to reminisce about the journey of this film from its humble beginnings to preserving this indie classic for future generations.

The Director and His Muse

Diabolique: Bruce, I have to start off by telling you that Running Time is my favorite out of all of your films.

Bruce Campbell: It’s a cool, little flick. Too bad it sort of escaped, it wasn’t released as the old joke goes.

Diabolique: What I like so much about it is the neo-noir aspect. It’s a throwback to the 40’s and 50’s. In Josh’s book, Rushes, he talks about how he convinced you to be in the film. You weren’t getting paid and you invested in it. What was his pitch, how did he sell the concept to you?

BC: The pitch was that it was NOT McHale’s Navy. I just spent 11 weeks in Mexico just sort of bullshitting our way through that film where we would make up our lines of dialogue because there was nothing written for us. In the script it would say things like, “McHale and his guys get off the boat,” “McHale and his men go to Cuba.” Which means they hadn’t thought anything up for you. I did it because I liked the show as a kid. It was a very popular thing; it was from Universal. It made sense at the time. It was just a case of when something is underwritten, the problem that it causes actors. I had just come off of that, and Running Time was very ambitious, low budget it was meant to be this conceit of being done in one shot so it was cinematic. So, I was like, okay, yeah. It was like the anti-studio movie, small crew, fast moving and yet no money. Basically, I invested the money that I was paid back into the movie in order for them to make it. It was definitely for a love of the movie type deal.

Josh Becker: I’ve known Bruce since we were twelve and I’d seen him in a number of plays. I knew that he had a much bigger range as an actor than he’d had a chance to show at that point. Plus, he’s a pleasure to work with. Once I pitched him the idea, he was all for it, partially because the long takes are a way for an actor to really show their ability.

Diabolique: Thinking about your filmography, Bruce, you haven’t played a traditional romantic lead. Do you see Running Time as a love story of sorts?

BC: What’s funny is Josh had Carl come back. In a proper film noir, he would have gone, you would have heard the tires squeal and she would be sitting there crying and the credits would roll and that would be it. It would be bleak, but Josh deep down is a sentimentalist and I think I am too. We had no issue with the happy ending. We wanted to make the audiences think for quite a long period of time that it’s going to be a sad ending. She packs her bag and then she unpacks it. The whole thing is quite an extended piece but I thought it was well worth playing just to kind of throw a little wrinkle in it. Maybe even in a criminal story you can have a happy ending.

Diabolique: In terms of the storyline, Josh, we all know that Rope was the blueprint for Running Time. You hadn’t made a film in 7 years. What was it about that production that captured your imagination besides the challenge of the “long take”?

JB: Part of my inspiration was simply getting another feature film made after seven years of working in television, which was never my goal. But as I thought about Rope, I wondered why the continuous, real-time concept didn’t really have any impact on the story. Then it occurred to me that there was no time element involved. Two young men—ostensibly Leopold and Loeb—have killed another young man for the fun of it, put the body in a chest, then invited people over for a party, including a cop. Well, if the chest was spring loaded and had a timer on it so that at some point it would pop open and reveal the corpse, that would be a time element. So, I thought, how do you use the real time technique and add a ticking clock? The first story that came to mind was a heist which generally has a time element��we’ve got to get the money and get out of here before we’re caught.

Diabolique: Running Time was shot in sequence like a play. Did it pose any challenges for you as an actor?

BC: I liked what Josh was trying to do. These long uninterrupted takes from an actor’s point of view, you know stuff can get really choppy these days. My complaint from Burn Notice is they wouldn’t let a full sentence stay on camera; they would have to cut away to somebody else. It felt like they had to keep cutting, cutting and cutting. This movie was no cutting for like ten minutes at a time. It’s great from an actor’s perspective because you can feel the juices flowing. It’s like a play. You can work on the pacing; you can have something build over a period of time and minutes to play out in literally real time. It’s a real time crime drama. I liked it conceptually and it was challenging. There was a fair amount of dialogue because my guy, Carl is calling the shots. I thought it was a good premise. Guy gets out of prison turns right around and robs the prison because he knows how the prison laundry system works. I thought that was pretty sound. I am always sympathetic for the low budget independent movie. I always will be.

Diabolique: Were there any other films that influenced you and your writing partner, Peter Choi? The entire concept is very noir and the desperate situation that Carl finds himself in is reminiscent of any number of films from the 1940s.

JB: My main inspiration was Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, an overlooked movie from 1978. And though I didn’t think of it at the time, several folks brought up Joseph Lewis’s Gun Crazy after it came out, and I do see that. The film has one long take in it during a bank robbery, and even though the camera stays in the backseat of a car, it has that same feeling of a real time event.

Diabolique: I know you are a fan of classic movies, Bruce and in a sense Running Time reminds me of Desperate Hours or The Petrified Forest especially when the robbery is botched and the situation is escalating in the enclosed office. Did you find any inspiration from the noir genre for your portrayal of Carl?

BC: No, but the classic tough guys were always awesome. We loved them all, Bogart and Robert Mitchum…the fact that Josh shot the film in black and white was perfect. Because it really helped lend itself to a look of that time period when Jack Palance was a leading man.

Diabolique: In your book Rushes, you talked about your decision to shoot in 16 mm Kodak ASA 64 black and white stock. You get sharper images due to the finer grain of the film, but did that pose any problems in terms of showcasing your work at that time since most people weren’t shooting in black and white?

JB: I didn’t think of it regarding showcasing my work. I thought it was appropriate for the subject matter and that it would be visually striking. Also, moving the camera from inside to outside in color posed the problem of adding or removing filters which would not be an issue with black and white.

Diabolique: You shot over a period of 10 days which was unheard of even back in the 90’s. How were you able to keep things moving along?

JB: It was based on pre-planning. I knew exactly what I wanted. We rehearsed the film and the actors were all very comfortable with the dialogue. Then it was just an issue of getting the complicated camera moves in regard to the actor’s blocking to work right, and that didn’t turn out to be all that difficult.

Diabolique: As an actor, did you enjoy working on an accelerated timetable?

BC: It was exciting to do and so different. The toughest thing was the technical demands. It wasn’t like there were explosions and stuff like that. But in order to do blocking inside of an apartment, the camera is moving in circles, well, the crew had to move every object behind the camera before it got there and then had to put it back before the camera saw it again. So, there was a lot of voodoo, a lot of magic. We would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and we could never get it right. Finally, we were like fuck it. Let’s just start shooting because everyone gets a little more alert when you shoot. That did it. That allowed us to conquer the impossible. After 3 or 4 takes if we got it, we were done even if it was 10:30 in the morning. I don’t think we spent more than two thirds of a day getting that particular shot. The end result is cool. I’ve seen the cleaned-up version without all the scratches and the dust marks. You can’t even tell what year it is. It almost seems like its videotape transferred like those teledramas of the 60’s that were done on TV. There were moments in the film that weren’t perfect, and that’s okay.

Diabolique: When I revisited Running Time recently, I was impressed with how well it holds up because some efforts don’t. With the 2K restoration, Bruce, this will give your fans a chance to see it. For some, it might be their first time. Do you have a scene that you are particularly fond of?

BC: There’s some scenes that are fun to do. After I get shot, I am in Janie’s apartment and she’s trying to put me together, that fainting on the toilet while she’s trying to patch me together it felt kind of real, playing shot and being delirious. Stuff like that. Just fun to be able to take the moment to do it.

Diabolique: Josh, do you feel shooting in black and white made the 2K restoration more challenging?

JB: Slow speed black and white film stock has a lot of silver in it which creates an inordinate amount of static electricity. When I did the initial film transfer back in 1997, the negative kept getting covered with dust, causing us to have to stop and clean the film every 30-60 minutes. Since the transfer was $375 an hour—in 1997 dollars—I could only stop so many times before it became financially prohibitive. Dust on a black and white negative shows up as white dots. Using the newest technology, Don May was able to remove all of the dust digitally. Therefore, the film has never looked as good as it does now.

Diabolique: What excites you the most about Running Time getting restored, Bruce?

BC: I am always happy when something gets re-released which means in this case, it gets preserved. It will look fantastic in 2K. That’s why with all these reissues fans are like, “Why should we care?” Like well, if you care about preservation, this means it will be the latest version of a movie that is fairly obscure. Sometimes a movie can die on the vine because no one will pay the money to keep it current. Now, we can show the sucker, hopefully, anywhere.

Diabolique: Josh, do you have any plans to showcase Running Time once the restoration is completed? This is a great film that fans should definitely see.

JB: We have no plans at the moment, but then the film isn’t out yet. When it’s done, we’ll see what happens.

Breathing New Life into Running Time: The Art of Restoration

Don May, Jr. along with Jerry Chandler and Charles Fiedler created Synapse Films in 1997. Known for their work in preserving unique genre classics, May had previously collaborated with Josh Becker when his company restored the director’s 1985 production, Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except.

Gerry Kissell was the official artist on Running Time and will be reprising his role for the 2K restoration. He has been friends with Josh since the Freaky Film Festival where he and Bruce premiered the film on the University of Illinois campus.

Both gentlemen were kind enough to take time out of their busy schedules to talk to us.

Diabolique: Were you able to obtain the original negative for Running Time?

Don May, Jr: Yes, thankfully. Josh Becker is a true movie fan and loves the filmmaking process, so we were fortunate to work with him. He kept everything stored properly in a climate-controlled vault, as a man who cares about his movies should.

Diabolique: Can you talk about the scanning process for 2K?

DMJ: The 16mm negative was separated into A/B rolls, so we had to scan a lot of reels separately at Prasad in Burbank, CA. Luckily, because of the actual nature of the “one-take” aesthetic Josh utilized, there were only a total of about 30 cuts in the entire film… hidden in editing, of course. So, we basically scanned the 30 separate shots, and then assembled them digitally using DaVinci Resolve. We had to be VERY careful the way we put the 30 cuts back together, making sure the shots were frame accurate and of the proper length. Unlike a film that has a conformed negative separated into 10- or 20-minute reels, Running Time was all in separate pieces, with each shot edited on separate reels. It was a challenge, but we were able to use a previous master as a reference and most of it went together without a hitch. Being shot in B&W also helped in color correction to hide the edits properly to make the real-time aspect as seamless as possible. Once the film was properly assembled, we were able to ship everything off to India for restoration. Because Josh had everything stored properly for decades, the negative itself was fairly free of a lot of dirt and scratches, but we did carefully sonically clean all the pieces before scanning commenced.

Diabolique: How long does it take the digital artists to fix debris or scratches on the original negatives?

DMJ: There’s a lot of data wrangling involved. Copying data for safety. Making backups, etc. But we have a great working relationship with Prasad. They have worked on such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, How the West Was Won, A Fistful of Dollars, Gandhi, The Red Shoes, etc. They do the lion’s share of my output, and I put a lot of trust in them. They’ve never failed me. We do ship the film scans to India and that takes time. I think Running Time took about 4-5 months. I let them take their time, though, because I don’t want to have to keep sending things back for fixes. With Running Time, they did an excellent job, right from my first restoration test reels. But, again, Josh had taken very good care of his materials, so it wasn’t much of a challenge.

Diabolique: Gerry, what artwork did you originally provide for Running Time and what can we expect from you for the 2K restoration?

Gerry Kissell: I did promotional art that ended up on tee-shirts. It included the shot of the three main characters, which I called Tres Hombres, on one, Jeremy Roberts aiming the pistol at the camera on another, and the last, which you’ve seen of Bruce’s mug all heroic and chinny. All of the art was done on Bristol cold press illustration board. The new painting for the Synapse release is me, 20+ years later, a tad bit better at drawing and painting, lol.

Diabolique: Besides the idea of preserving Running Time, Don, what attracted you to the project?

DMJ: We had worked previously with Josh on Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except, and we had a lot of fun with that one. I like working with Josh. He’s a great guy, and I love that he’s so passionate about film. He loves movies, and he loves MAKING movies. It’s so great to see people like Josh doing things like Running Time, back when using computers to do a “one take” approach was non-existent. You see things today like the film 1917, which is a fine film in its own right, but they cheated a lot of its “one take” aspect using computers. Josh did Running Time, but used his brain, and actual organic film splicing and editing to achieve the same result. He’s smart, funny, talented and I love working with people like him. It also doesn’t hurt that Running Time stars Bruce Campbell, so… yeah… of course, we jumped at the chance to do it.

Diabolique: When can fans expect to see the Running Time 2K restoration?

DMJ: I would imagine late summer/early fall 2020. We’re wrapping up extras and artwork now.

#Running Time #Bruce Campbell #Josh Becker

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cowboykoschei · 6 years ago

Text

This was not the first time Rex found himself glad he wasn’t a CC series clone.

That their genetics were fekked with was a given. The Kaminoans took Jango Fett’s gene sequence and tweaked it in a thousand different ways so that from one man could come a multi-disciplined army. From the humblest Private to the most decorated Marshall Commander, none of them escaped being tampered with a little bit. No one could deny that the cloners knew what they were doing. Hardly a defect to be found among them.

But those CCs, those command clones...

To a clone, they were obsessively dedicated to their Jedi. It was more than duty, more than training m, or prose in a job well done, a mission gone well. Rex could understand the allure: the headiness of being treated like a real person who mattered by someone other than vode, the bond that inevitably formed after so many battles together, the private jokes, the looks. He was sure, at first, that he was blowing it out of proportion; after all, Toby was a CC, and he went through three Jedi before he found one he could stand and who could tolerate him for more than five minutes at a time, and it was almost legendary how Commander Faie and General Vos were constantly at each other’s throats. Maybe he was reading too much into things.

And then General Kenobi died.

Cody was the steadiest brother Rex knew. Nothing phased him or upset his calm. He never sounded panicked, never scared even when hell was raining down around them. His eyes always held the slight glint of the mischievous spirit ARC training and the rigors of command only succeeded in tampering but not destroying, and his smiles and laughter were easy to rouse. He was in every respect a perfect companion for a Jedi who’s outward demeanor hid a playful spirit.

The night after General Kenobi’s funeral, Rex waited up in the officer’s barracks while Fox tracked down Cody. Afterwards, he could never remember much of that night. It was all impressions, snatches of crystal clear images and bites of half heard conversations: Toby on the bunk next to him, bright pink hair clenched between white knuckled hands as he tried and failed to have a quiet panic attack; the harsh hiss of the door opening seconds before Fox stumbled in with Cody; haggard eyes, who’s he couldn’t quite recall; whispered Clone Speak, that bastard language of cobbled together Mando’a, Basic, Kaminoan, and words that were their own, barely concealing the snap and chink of armor being removed; Cody’s armor, the paint garishly cheerful beneath unforgiving lights. There was more. The coolness of the barracks air as he and Fox manhandled Cody our of his bodysuit and dragged him into the fresher. His brother was a dead weight in his arms, his skin cool, and the water a shockingly hot contrast as he held him while Fox cleaned the day’s grime from Cody’s unresponsive body. Rex doesn’t remember leaving the fresher, but the way the three of them somehow squeezed into a bunk designed for one was clear in his mind, even decades later. So, too, was the way Cody, face tucked securely in the crook of Fox’s neck and Rex a solid weight behind him, began to cry, his pain so visceral and so raw that it left Rex shaken.

He couldn’t imagine feeling that deeply for someone who wasn’t a brother. He didn’t want to.

——

Obi-Wan realized he was more like his Master than he would like to think, and it was not in the ways he wanted it to be.

It was only natural that a Padawan would pick up at least one of their Master’s bad traits, Force knew Anakin had more than a few of his less desirable tendencies knocking around, but Obi-Wan really thought he had grown past them.

He was wrong, of course, and his error hurt someone he never intended to so much as mildly annoy.

Cody’s pain was immediately evident to him, the wave of shock and grief like a punch in the chest. At the time, he could do nothing about it but do his best to block it out and focus on completing his task as quickly as possible, but the entire time he could feel it, a yawning chasm of heartbreak that seemed to grow with each rotation, and Obi-Wan marveled at it even as it urged him to finish and quickly. How was it possible that anyone, let alone someone like Cody who could have any being he set his gorgeous eyes on, could care so deeply for someone like him? He was a Jedi. He was nothing, had nothing, could give nothing no matter how badly he might want to. His life was one of service, to the Force and the greater good. He couldn’t be selfish, no matter how much he wanted to monopolize Cody’s smiles and his laughter and the warmth of that gloved hand on his shoulder.

He just didn’t think faking his death would affect Cody all that much. That was his problem: his recklessness in regards to himself. It was almost arrogant, and he wondered what his Master would think of him now.

The relief Cody felt when he saw him was followed closely by a deep sense of hurt and betrayal. None of it showed on his face of course, and Obi-Wan could do little more than apologize to his Commander.

Things were awkward between them. Cody held himself apart, and though they continued to work well together and accomplish their objectives as though nothing was wrong, the gap between them hurt keenly. What could he do to mend the broken trust between them?

At his wit’s end, he asked Rex.

“You need to show him that he isn’t just some clone to you, sir,” Rex said, not meeting his eyes even through the holo. Obi-Wan was not surprised that Rex was upset with him. He knew how much the blond cared and looked up to his older brother.

“How can I do that, Captain? I’ve tried talking to him, and yet...” Obi-Wan sighed and rubbed his beard, tired and incredibly unhappy.

“It’s not something you can Jedi your way into, sir. Just...try and feel for once, yeah?” Rex said, and Obi-Wan found himself laughing softly. Try and feel, hm? He thanked the Captain and disconnected the transmission.

Finding Cody was not difficult. This late in their ship’s cycle, he was sure to be in his quarters either asleep or trying to get there. Obi-Wan slipped into his room silently and stood in the darkness, considering. Just feel, that’s what Rex said. He undressed to his underclothes and slid into the bunk beside Cody. His Commander woke, sucked in a breath when he realized who was with him. Obi-Wan carefully touched his bare chest.

“I’m so sorry, Cody. I will never again let you think I’m dead when I am not, you have my word as your Knight and your friend on that,” Obi-Wan said softly into the quiet room. Cody was still, not even breathing, for a long moment before he sighed and placed his hand over the one on his chest.

“I’ll hold you to that, sir.”

Of all the promises Obi-Wan failed to keep in his life, this was not one of them.

Some weeks after the Battlwnof Utapau and the rise of the Empire, Commander Cody of the Imperial Army received a highly encrypted message from an untraceable source.

I told you those tanker troopers needed to work on their aim, didn’t I, Commander?

#star wars #commander cody #obiwan kenobi #obi wan kenobi #codywan #captain rex #commander fox #captain toby #commander faie #tcw #sw tcw

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mobius-prime · 5 years ago

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120. Sonic the Hedgehog #70

Saving Nate Morgan

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Frank Gagliardo

So about that grenade from last issue! Everyone's okay, Sonic tossed it up through the juice bar's skylight before it could explode on top of them. Sally has come back around from her bout of unconsciousness, and everyone is pissed that Nate has been kidnapped - especially Bunnie, whose pride has been severely bruised by losing in the fight. Together they rush to Castle Acorn, where the king and Geoffrey are still discussing the fact that the escaped prisoners are probably super dead.

Yeah, they're not dead. Geoffrey is irritated at Sonic for calling his information faulty, but Dr. Quack emerges at the perfect moment to inform everyone that one of the guards rescued from the island has reported a third missing shuttlecraft, one that didn't crash into the ocean. Elias suggests that they may simply be hiding out on the closest landmass to the Devil's Gulag, which just so happens to be Big Kahuna Island where we've seen them before, and Sonic readies himself to muster the fighting force of the Freedom Fighters when…

…*sigh*

This king, man. Every move he makes has me questioning his fitness to actually rule more and more. See, I get it. You don't necessarily want to breed a future of child soldiers solving every problem in the kingdom when they're supposed to be enjoying their, well, childhood. You want trained adults to handle the dangerous situations. But it's like he doesn't even want to recognize that these individuals all worked together not only to free the entire world of Robotnik's rule, but that they put in the effort specifically to rescue the king's sorry ass as well. Has he given them a single award? Any public recognition of their efforts in the war? He was certainly eager to put them on the task of helping rebuild the city before, but carelessly dismissed Sonic and Tails' success in hunting down a known enemy of the kingdom just a few issues before, and now that their friend has been captured - by people they have direct experience fighting from before, I might add - he's suddenly being a hard-ass. No, not only that - he's unceremoniously disbanding the very group that freed the kingdom and the entire world, without so much as a final thank-you ceremony or anything. Does he not care how crushing such an order would feel to the ones within that group? Just, ugh.

Hours later, the Secret Service approaches the island in a scrap submarine, ready to unleash their tactical strike and rescue the Overlander scientist… but of course, submarines are slow, and someone had a much better idea.

Seems everyone forgot that Sonic is A. stubborn as hell, and B. has a freakin' biplane. As he insists on coming along, the villains inside an abandoned courthouse (though why Robotnik would include a house of law in one of his cities given that he was a pure despot, I can't imagine) have stuck Nate into a very uncomfortable-looking stockade and are trying to force him to agree to provide his scientific services to them. Shockingly, he's not very interested in this generous offer. Outside, Geoffrey keeps trying to order Sonic around, with Sonic really not having it, and when Geoffrey tries to position his troops around the building to try to force the crooks to come out and surrender Sonic challenges him, saying that that will only encourage the group to use Nate as a hostage. Geoffrey shows his racist side by saying he doesn't care what happens to an Overlander, and Sonic, who's obviously here more to save his friend than re-apprehend the criminals, gets up in his face about it. As they get ready to start throwing punches, a nearby soldier yells at them to stop fighting.

How do you like your chain of command now, Geoffrey? Inside, Kodos, infuriated by Nate's continued refusal to cooperate, just straight up gets ready to behead him with his giant axe, because there's no kill like overkill, but at that moment Bomb rolls himself in, getting everyone's attention. He tries, and fails for some reason, to explode, but the distraction works, and at that moment the rest of the fighting force rushes in to rescue Nate.

And then we find ourselves in the middle of our fifth satellite sequence high above the planet. This one doesn't redirect any asteroids, but the mysterious hand that commands the satellite puts down a drink once it's finished with its work, a drink labeled "Robo Cola…" Geeeeeee, I wonder who this could be? I mean, okay, let's break it down. We know that Robotnik got straight up erased from existence in the Endgame finale, no doubts, no maybes, he's gone. But we also know that wasn't the first time he got zapped into another dimension and managed to make a comeback, either. The hand that's been directing all these mysterious orbital goings-on certainly looks like his hand, and with this unit being labeled R-SAT we're rapidly approaching all the letters we need to spell out Robotnik's name. But with how dramatic and intense his demise was in Endgame, I'd wager we're dealing with a situation that's a little more complex than a simple "he survived the explosion." I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

As the battle begins inside the abandoned courthouse, Sonic frees Nate and hands him off to Elias to carry him to safety while he rejoins the fight, but before much else can happen, the building suddenly crumbles around them as a giant mutate squid with a robotic body emerges from the ground beneath them. See, West Robotropolis was once used by Robotnik as a staging ground for all sorts of weird experiments and research, and we're looking at one of the leftovers of that! Snively is caught in one of the monster's tentacles and starts screaming for Sonic to rescue him, and while Sonic considers this, Bomb, who has also been caught by the monster, this time manages to get his fuse to go off properly, blowing the squid up.

Ouch indeed. Snively, interestingly, is nowhere to be seen after the explosion, either among the recaptured prisoners or the escapees in the biplane. I wonder if he's actually…? Naaaahhh, I'm sure he's fine!

Statue of Limitations

Writer: Paul Castiglia Pencils: Chris Allan and Jim Amash Colors: Vickie Williams

So it appears that ever since he and Tails escaped Sand-Blast City, Sonic's been plagued by a strange nightmare. He dreams that he's flying over the city when his plane disintegrates, and he falls toward the statue of himself that he destroyed to escape, which is laughing at him. Every night he wakes up before he can fall into the mouth of the statue, but he recognizes eventually that it's a mental block of his own creation, and so this time, he keeps the dream going, falling through the statue's mouth to find out what's on the other side. And what's on the other side is… incredibly bizarre.

Even the clouds start forming in the shape of his face. He demands to know what's going on, and his fan up there, still somewhat starstruck, leads him through a crowd of Sonic worshippers and through a golden door to the hall of the Sonic Adventure Archivists, a group of people who chronicle his every heroic venture and obsess over the meaning of them.

This is actually a pretty funny nod to the whole thing where Sally was indeed supposed to die and become a martyr in the Endgame arc, as well as the whole will-they-won't-they the comic likes to set up between her and Sonic. Sonic wakes up from this dream in a cold sweat, and calls Tails to his room to have a chat, because if there's anyone who can help you face your inner demons in the middle of the night, it's a ten year old. Sonic admits that he's been feeling guilty over how he rushed out of Sand-Blast City before, leaving it open to attack from the Robians without bothering to try and save the inhabitants. The weight of being a hero is starting to become a little too heavy for him to bear alone, as he's not perfect and can't save everyone. Tails tells him that he doesn't have to be perfect, he just has to do the best he can, and cites Sonic's positive effects on his own life. Sonic, cheered somewhat, says that maybe he "can get used to being gray," a rather unexpectedly deep look on the whole hero thing if you ask me, especially for a comic of this caliber. Certainly Sonic has always been a gray hero - Chaotic Good, if you will - who while devoted to saving people and helping the world, can oftentimes act in selfishness and be a bit of a jerk to those who rub him the wrong way. It's interesting to see how his conflicting personality traits balance themselves out in situations like the one in Sand-Blast City, where the only way for him to escape confinement was to put everyone else in danger. He definitely experiences a lot more shades of gray as well as the comic continues on.

Anyway, the previous story's ending promised an especially bizarre issue coming up next, and while the next issue of this comic is certainly a weird one, we still have an arc of KtE to get through first! This one is particularly intense, and introduces one of my favorite villains in the comic, though not named yet…

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 70 #writer: karl bollers #writer: paul castiglia #pencils: steven butler #pencils: chris allan #pencils: jim amash #colors: frank gagliardo #colors: vickie williams

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judgestarling · 6 years ago

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Driving Professor Sydney Brenner

One of my scientific idols, Sydney Brenner (1927–2019), who helped determine the nature of the genetic code—he discovered two termination codons—who co-discovered mRNA, and who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2002 for deciphering the sequence of events leading to the development of a multicellular organism from a fertilized egg into an adult nematode, died on April 5, 2019. He was 92. In my only face-to-face (actually face-to-back) conversation with him, many years ago, I told him that his cigarettes will kill him. And, indeed, they did… at 92.

I met Professor Brenner in 2002 when he was awarded the Dan David Prize in Israel, had a brief correspondence with him via email in 2013, and throughout my entire scientific life, I devoured his papers and commentaries.

The Dan David Prize is a weird institution. It is governed by my former employer, Tel Aviv University, and the Dan David Foundation, a somewhat secretive private charity that supports a variety of academic causes, with a heavy emphasis on archeology. Every year the Dan David Prize grants three awards of $1 million each for outstanding achievements in three categories: Past, Present, and Future. Each year, an academic committee decides the specific topics for each of the categories to be recognized the following year. (The selected fields for 2019, for instance, were Past: Macrohistory, Present: Defending Democracy, and Future: Combating Climate Change).

Prize laureates have to donate 10% of their prize money to doctoral scholarships for outstanding Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholarships for outstanding researchers in their own field from Israel and around the world.

The first awards ceremony took place at Tel Aviv University on May 2002. The theme for the first Future prize was Life Sciences and the prize was split among three laureates: Sydney Brenner, John Sulston, Robert Waterston. (Seven month later, in December 2002, we learned that that Brenner and Sulston were awarded the Nobel Prize together with H. Robert Horvitz for “for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.”)

As expected, the novelty of the million-dollar prizes attracted a lot of attention from the Israeli press. Most of the journalists, however, focused on John Sulston, who had the courage to insist that some scholarships be awarded to Palestinian scholars.

In 2002, I was the “Gordon Professor of Life Sciences” at Tel Aviv University—a grand title accompanied by no endowment—but in May 2002, for two days, I had an even more impressive title, I was Sydney Brenner’s chauffeur. His assigned chauffeur for the series of lectures and ceremonies simply stood him up, and I volunteered to drive him from the hotel to the University for his scientific lecture to faculty and students. Professor Brenner was not very impressed with my miniature Honda, but he was happy that I did not raised any objections to his chain smoking in my car. My ride with him constituted the first and last time that I enjoyed the traffic congestion in Tel Aviv, as it meant having a long conversation with Prof. Brenner.

Brenner first asked me if I knew Francis Crick. I told him that Crick was a scientific hero of mine, but that I think that his “reverse learning theory of dreams” was an unworthy detour.

“That’s what I think too,” he replied, “but since Crick was always right in the past, I’ll withhold judgement. People didn’t believe his tRNA, his selfish DNA, and his Central Dogma, but he was always right. I have the nagging feeling that his theory on dreams will also turn out to be true” (1).

“And what about Jim Watson,” I asked.

“Don’t want to talk about that racist arse,” was his quick reply.

When we arrived at the place where he was supposed to give his first talk, I asked him about the slides.

“I’ll be careful,” I said, “I promise not to drop the slide tray.”

“What slides?” he muttered and rushed to the podium.

He then proceeded to deliver one of the most fascinating lectures I’ve ever listened to. No slides, no notes, just a stream of consciousness by a feverish brilliant mind, who demolished every logical distortion, every sign of mental laziness, and every methodological shortcut.

Genomics? “Enormous factories for generating billions of data points that are a poor substitute for thinking.”

All other -omics? “Forget about them. It’s biochemistry, stupid.”

Universities? “Places where students can Xerox themselves to death” (2)

The human genome project? “A billion-dollar generator of junk-DNA sequences.”

He then proceeded to tell us how he reached the conclusion that sequencing the human genome in its entirety is not the only way to gain insight into the workings of human genetics.

It was the middle 1980s and several people, including Robert Sinsheimer and Renato Dulbecco started pushing for the establishment of a mega project to sequence the human genome. Given the speed of the sequencing technology at the time, a major stumbling block was finding people who would be willing to do such a seemingly boring and tedious task as sequencing the genome. Walter Gilbert advocated a large center, highly integrated, and organized along industrial lines. Sydney Brenner half-jokingly suggested establishing “a penal colony where sentences consisting of large-scale sequencing projects would be carried out.”

The prospect of becoming involved in an industrial project did not appeal to Brenner. There must be a way to get results without sequencing every piece of junk in the human genome. He came up with two alternatives: sequencing the human exome, i.e., about the 1% of the human genome that was known to perform a selected-effect function, or find a Readers Digest version of the human genome that could be sequenced faster and more cheaply than the human genome, yet would be as scientifically meaningful and rewarding.

Someone—Sydney Brenner did not remember whom—suggested he look into a paper published in the late 1960s in American Naturalist.

“What, I’ll find my answer in a nudie magazine?” said Brenner, playing on the difference between “naturalist” and “naturist.”

And there it was, in a paper by Ralph Hinegardner (Evolution of cellular DNA content in teleost fishes. 1968. Am. Nat. 102:517-523) at the end of Table 1: Tetraodon fluviatilis (green pufferfish) with 0.40 picograms DNA.

A congeneric species with a smaller genome was subsequently found, Tetraodon nigroviridis (green spotted pufferfish) with 0.35 picograms. For reasons that most probably concerned availability of tissues, Brenner’s choice was another pufferfish, the famous, poisonous, and exorbitantly expensive Japanese delicacy, the fugu (Fugu rubripes) (3).

In 1993, he reported the initial characterization of the fugu genome (Brenner S, Elgar G, Sanford R, Macrae A, Venkatesh B, Aparicio S. 1993. Characterization of the pufferfish (Fugu) genome as a compact model vertebrate genome. Nature 366:265–268). He found that the fugu haploid genome was 7.5 times smaller than the human genome of which more that 90% was unique. The fugu genome had a similar gene repertoire as the human genome, and according to Brenner and colleagues, “it is the best model genome for the discovery of human genes.”

Sadly, his suggestion to completely sequence Fugu and only sequence the human exome did not convince the granting agencies, which at this point in time were desperate to find the next “moonshot,” the next big project, that could be sold to the masses as a cure-all for all humanity’s ailments (4).

A partial fugu genome was published in 2002 with Sydney Brenner as the last author one year after the publication of the human genome. The genome of Tetraodon nigroviridis was published in 2004, three years after the first draft of the human genome. Brenner was not an author on this paper.

After Brenner’s lecture in 2002, I started reading everything Professor Brenner had ever written… with one exception—a seventy-four page methodology paper (Barnett L, Brenner S, Crick FHC, Shulman RG, Watts-Tobin RJ. 1967. Phase-shift and other mutants in the first part of the rII B cistron of bacteriophage T4. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 252:487-560) that Francis Crick predicted no one will read. As far as I am concerned, Crick was right again.

The second time I communicated with Prof. Brenner was eleven years later.

In 2013, as I was fighting the obscene conclusions by the equally obscene ENCODE Project, I discovered that the accepted historical narrative according to which the term “junk DNA” was coined in 1972 by Susumu Ohno as part of his work on the role of gene and genome duplication was inaccurate (see here). The term was used in the literature at least 12 years before Ohno used it. The trail of clues led me to Cambridge in the late 1950s, and following a suggestion by Tim Hunt, another Nobel Prize Laureate, who used the term “junk DNA” independently of Ohno, I contacted Dr. Brenner.

Dr. Brenner was very generous in his answer

October 7, 2013

Dear Dr. Graur

I can confirm that we were using the idea of junk in the genome in the sixties in Cambridge. Indeed in the late fifties we were very much concerned with this big puzzle: Analyses of the nucleotide composition of bacteria showed that the ratios of AT to GC varied in different bacteria from 1:3 to 3:1, whereas the composition of ribosomal RNA (which we thought at the time was the information intermediate) was constant. One possibility was that the coding information only occupied a small fraction of the DNA the rest being junk. [Noboru] Sueoka killed this idea when he showed that the composition of the DNA could be measured by equilibrium sedimentation and that when he sheared the DNA to smaller sizes separation of two kinds of DNA did not occur and the composition was maintained down to small pieces. It was the discovery of messenger and understanding the degeneracy of the code that solved this problem.

All through the sixties we were concerned with the problem of the C paradox in higher organisms. DNA contents varied over enormous amounts which had no relation to biological properties. The development of CoT analysis by Roy Britten revealed that this could be explained by the fact that "single copy" DNA represented only a minor fraction of the DNA and that large and variable fractions could be represented by repetitive DNA with different annealing rates.

We also had to contend with the fact that the heterogeneous RNA in animal cells (which was the messenger) had a very high molecular weight suggesting that the genes of higher organisms were very large - of course we did not know that there were introns at the time. It was very natural to use the term junk to describe this useless DNA and I was using in Cambridge in the sixties and I gave lectures on this in the Woods Hole Physiology course in 1968 and 1969, where incidentally I read the papers which showed the small DNA content of the puffer fish. Of course we had a lot of difficulty to explain to people why this useless DNA was being maintained and had not already disappeared. This type of “logic” is still part of the psychology of most people and especially of the ENCODE gang.

My distinction between two kinds of rubbish - junk and garbage - which you quoted in your paper, came much later when I discovered that most languages made a distinction between the rubbish you keep and the rubbish you throw away.

I was interested very much in your [ENCODE] paper (could you send me a copy please) and I am still working on the problem.

I think the key is to understand that there are two processes going on in our genomes. One is change in the DNA by mutation or transposition and other is its fixation. I think that the assumption that selection does not work for neutral changes and that they can only be fixed by random drift is wrong. The big driver for fixation of neutral changes is linkage to selected genes - the hitchhiking effect.

You may also be amused by the story that when micro RNAs were discovered somebody wrote to me demanding that I withdraw a statement I had made that 97% of the human genome was junk. I replied saying I was willing to change this figure to 96.8% And another one: when asked what the function of all this extra DNA was our reply was it was there to maintain the viscosity of the nucleus.

Thank you for being so patient.

Sydney Brenner

In December, I got permission to quote his email

I feel most remiss in not replying to your letter more promptly. You are welcome to quote from the letter.

Sydney

Sadly, that’s where the correspondence ended. My follow-up emails went unanswered and his colleague in Singapore, Dr. Byrappa Venkatesh, wrote to inform me that Prof. Brenner “has not been well,” and may not have seen my emails.

Notes

(1) Crick’s publication on the reverse theory of dreams has been cited over a thousand times in the literature, but did not prove popular with psychologists. It did, however, reinforce modern post-Freudian ideas that dreams are meaningless, and the paper by Crick and Graeme Mitchison on reverse learning contributed to the marginalization of dreams in clinical psychological practice.

(2) Brenner was known for his legendary love of wordplay. For example, he instructed students to “neurox” (copy from paper to brain) rather than Xerox (copy from paper to paper. He also invented “Occam’s broom” to complement “Occam’s razor.” The function of Occam’s broom was “to sweep under the carpet what one must in order to leave your hypotheses consistent.”

(3) In 2013, Tetraodon fluviatilis and Tetraodon nigroviridis were found to be misclassified, and were subsumed into genus Dichotomyctere. As expected, molecular biologists didn’t give a shit about the proper biological nomenclature; since 2014 the name Dichotomyctere nigroviridis was only used 30 times, whereas the invalid name Tetraodon nigroviridis was used more than 4,000 times. The genus Fugu is actually a minor synonym of the valid name Takifugu. The valid name in this case fared better than Dichotomyctere. In the last 10 years, Fugu has been used 3,960 times, while Takifugu was used 9,430 times.

(4) All subsequent wasteful and boastful megaprojects from ENCODE to the Brain Project can be traced to the decision to reject Brenner’s proposal. And as we all know, the Human Genome Project has indeed eradicated all disease, ended world hunger, stopped global warming, and put an end to the use of Comic Sans in PowerPoint presentations.

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ernest-henley · 3 years ago

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Journal #4

Module 4: Strings and Arrays

-How’s my experience?

The enormous shift in how C mandates strings and arrays in comparison to Python gave me the biggest challenge for the entire course of Module 4. As opposed to having the option to utilize built-in functions in almost any task we want to perform in Python, C requires a bit more expertise and dedication in order to accomplish our intended goal when we are to use arrays in a complex program. In simple terms, C is a bit more hands-on and component-heavy type of programming language when it comes to providing programmers with the tools necessary to construct programs more efficiently. The most important concept I’ve acquired I reckon is the utilization of multi-dimensional arrays and dynamic memory allocation both of which are essential in future endeavors, particularly when developing an interactive program where static data types will not suffice. Furthermore, I have concurred how one element stored in a single index in an array does not necessarily occupy the same amount of space (in bytes) as the others.

-Problems and how I solved them

Honestly speaking, I've encountered a number of mistakes for which I have little to no understanding of the root cause. More often than not, I have difficulties in inadvertently arriving at a code that results in a segmentation fault. Since it is a very broad and intricate error, it is very troublesome to troubleshoot and determine where and what went wrong. Aside from that, a minor issue that I immediately resolved with the help of my instructor was passing an array to another function alongside an integer as another parameter for the purpose of it serving as the discrete size of the array as they initially give me casting errors for (integer without a cast something I forgot the specific error message).

-When should we use arrays?

As per its definition, arrays are a sequence consisting of the same data type, they are most ideal to utilize when you are in need of collecting multiple variables (strictly of the same data type) compared to a single variable limited to only itself. One of the finest examples is keeping track of students' grades, listing tourist destinations, and, like in our exercise, determining whether or not user input is a palindrome.

-How are they stored in memory?

Though the specific values and amount of those completely vary depending on the programmer’s goal, they are generally stored chronologically as blocks of elements theoretically arranged in a horizontal manner as to how we generally perceive it and vertically in the RAM memory. All of the elements stored are of course of the same data type confined in a consecutive memory location even when we are to put multi-dimensional arrays in the table. They are accessed using the specific index they are stored to where the first index (0) plays an important role in passing and accessing the entirety of the array. Refer to the image above. As you may also notice, ‘\0’ is always stored at the last index as they are the ones to denote the terminating point of the array and likewise require allocated memory for itself. Thus, explaining why it is necessary to always increase the supposed sizes of the array by 1 to store the aforementioned element.

-Documentations

See images above.

-References

Sir Koy’s Youtube channel and Facebook page:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCExYInunCMZ5nF0eudCBFrw

https://www.facebook.com/sirkoylapitan

-About the author

Ernest Henley L. Tabilas

CMSC 21 - ST & ST1L

Freshman Student

Gmail: [email protected]

Contact No: 09506177177

University of the Philippines Los Baños

Follow and like our page and posts for more journals and experience as a freshman programmer!

#ComputerScience21 #ComputerProgramming #FreshmanProgrammer #CProgrammingLanguage #PalindromeChecker

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zippdementia · 7 years ago

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The Main Resident Evil Games, Ranked

I’ve been playing Resident Evil games since Resident Evil 2 first terrified me as a 14 year old. I have fond memories of having to have my friend play through the sewer sections in that game, the ones involving giant spiders... and I also have fond memories of eventually overcoming those fears to achieve the coveted A Rank on the game and unlocking Hunk and Tofu (God, I had way more time back then). Since those early days, I’ve played through every main game in the series and have mostly kept up with the lore of the side games. It remains one of my favorite go-to franchises for its atmosphere and fun mix of horror and action, not to mention its over-the-top story, which always feels a little bit like Capcom browsed Reddit for its favorite fan fiction than turned it into an official game.

That said, this list looks at only the nine main games in the series (that’s Resident Evil 0 through 7, plus Code Veronica) as those are the only ones I’ve played, outside of obsessing for a month or two on Umbrella Chronicles... oh, and a brief, extremely un-fun run through Outbreak.

Because I started the series so long ago, I have a love in my heart for the old school fixed camera games and those that give us a healthy dose of survival horror over action, but I’ve tried to be as objective as possible in creating this list, keeping in mind that of course such things can never stray too far from the subjective. Also, as an added bonus, I’ve included a “scariness” ranking for each game separate from the main ranking. This, of course, is COMPLETELY subjective.

And with that, let’s do *assumes dark growly voice* RESIDENT EVIL: RANKING.

#9: Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil 6 is a mess of ideas and intentions. From the beginning, its development was hampered by too many cooks in the kitchen as various directors and producers continually changed their mind as to what the game should be. Eventually they settled on making it everything by breaking up the game into three extremely different short games, one that relies heavily on horror aspects, one on action aspects, and one on shooting aspects (including heavy use of a widely panned cover system). Unfortunately, these three approaches are intrinsically opposed to each other in terms of genre, gameplay, and aesthetic. Instead of pleasing all fans, this approach guaranteed that no matter who you are, you are going to like exactly one third of Resident Evil 6 and hate two thirds of it. It also highlighted for fans that Capcom no longer knew what its series wanted to be. The asinine story which arguably jumped the shark as far back as Code Veronica now captured that shark, put a saddle on it, and rode it around an arena while Chris Redfield did steroids. In short: the story was so nonsensical, it seemed to leave nowhere else for the series to go (a problem they just sort’ve ignored in Resident Evil 7). Resident Evil 6 has some fun elements to it, and it fixed many of the problems people had with bad companion AI and clunky run and gun mechanics, but it wasn’t enough to make the experience a good one.

Scary rank #9: In addition to being a poor game, Resident Evil 6 almost completely moves away from the game’s horror routes. Leon’s campaign has some nice tip of the hats to the old series, but the game never becomes scary. The fact that you run around with a partner for the entire thing and that those partners quip ridiculous lines like “it’s really powerful, especially against living things” means you’ll be cringing in embarrassment more than fear from this title.

#8: Resident Evil 0

Released in 2002, Resident Evil 0 feels like the final evolution of the old school style and systems of Resident Evil’s fixed camera games. The controls are smoother, the use of weapons easier, you can drop items directly on the floor and the game will keep them there for later retrieval, and there is the buddy system which represents a very early attempt at cooperative AI. Unfortunately, despite all of these improvements to the mechanics, the experience itself feels too well worn by this point to be very exciting. You can tell that the developers themselves were growing tired of the formula as they start to move away from zombies to other monsters... like, er, frogs. Yes, unfortunately the replacements aren’t very interesting: frogs, baboons, a giant bat, and an operatic villain feel like weak additions to the series and make it seem like the developers were out of ideas. The story fills in some of the backstory of the mansion incident but ultimately doesn’t push us forward towards anything new (which is what fans really wanted and wouldn’t get until RE4). Aside from an incredible opening sequence on a train and the criminally underused character of Billy, Resident Evil 0 is a very polished but very bland experience.

Scary Rank #6: The scariest thing about Resident Evil 0 is managing two characters. Trying to gather enough supplies for one person in Raccoon City is a trick in itself. Having to keep both members of your team well equipped, well healed, and ready to deal with the plethora of enemies they will face can be harrowing. It’s the rare occasion where having two does not feel better than having one. And then there’s the leechmen. I don’t know if it’s because they are sturdy or seem to pop up whenever you least expect it, or maybe it’s that music that plays when they attack, but the leechmen will freak me out and leave me with the jitters every time they show up. None of the other enemies are very frightening, though, and anytime I get too scared I just think back to that cinema scene of Markus singing opera to his leeches... and burst out laughing.

#7: Resident Evil Code Veronica

After the events of Resident Evil: Nemesis, no one was sure where Capcom could take the story next. Raccoon City had been destroyed, Umbrella Corps had fallen, and all of our heroes had been given somewhat happy endings. Enter Code Veronica, which blew open the possibilities again by reintroducing Albert Wesker. By now, Wesker is so well associated with Resident Evil as to be a cliche, but it was a huge surprise in 2000 when he was revived, green lizard eyes and all, to take on Chris Redfield once again. Suddenly people were talking about Resident Evil again and where it might go in the future. This success, however, is less impressive now that that future has arrived and there are better games to play in the series. Code Veronica always favored innovation over polish and it has not aged well as a result. Most notably, the game seems to demand more speed and fighting ability of its player than previous entries, pitting Claire and Chris against such fast moving villains as the Matrix-inspired Wesker and his pack of lightning quick hunter beasts. Combats tend to be fought in tighter quarters, sometimes to extremely frustrating effect, such as the infamous “Steve” battle (also, I hate Steve), or the Tyrant fight in the back of an airplane. Players who have not properly kept up their inventory with powerful weapons and healing items can find themselves stuck in these places, struggling with the clunky controls to try and dodge extremely damaging attacks. The atmosphere and story make Code Veronica worth the experience... but only barely.

Scary Rank #4: A lot of Code Veronica’s scares are due to the feeling that you can’t handle what the game is throwing at you. This is, as described above, a mixture of awful controls and enemies that are far too fast and resilient for most players to be able to take on with that control scheme. Still, it does make the experience harrowing. More legitimate scares come from the creepy gothic atmosphere and the bizarre nature of the Ashford twins. Alex is... ridiculous. But his sister Alexia brings to bear all the things we all hate about creepy little girls and then throws in some incest and patricide to boot. Alexia is a genuinely disturbing addition to the Resident Evil roster.

#6: Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 had the Herculean task of redeeming Resident Evil as a series after the missteps of Resident Evil 6. And, for the most part, it succeeded at this. Choosing to return to the series’ horror routes, RE7 draws upon the influences of other games in the genre, most notably Alien Isolation and Outlast, to craft an experience that feels modernized and on par, atmospherically, with some of the best Resident Evil titles. There are moments that are absolutely terrifying and the game doesn’t stop feeling tense until very near the end. Gamers like myself who grew up with RE1 and RE2 love this return to form and find that the first-person perspective retains the feel of the old fixed camera without being as restrictive, creating a horror experience where you are constantly wondering what’s behind you (but at least have the ability to turn around and check). Even fans who are newer to the series seemed to collectively breath a sigh of relief when they played the game. Reading forums and Reddit threads reveals that most gamers find the game to be fresh and smart, and are happy that it lacked the emphasis on lore and the over the top mustache-twirling villains that dominated previous titles. Objectively, though, there are flaws that I think will not be looked on favorably the more it ages. The blocking system, for instance, feels shoehorned in as a quick fix to disguise the fact that you can’t dodge or easily slow an approaching enemy down. Then, too, the game tries to be an action game near the end and utterly fails at it, only highlighting its unsatisfying shooting mechanics. The Molded are scary but overall a let down as enemies, with little variety between their forms, and the boss fights are the worst in the entire series, being clumsy and frustrating and a weird tonal break from the rest of the game. So for as much as it gets right, Resident Evil 7 is hopefully a stepping stone to something better.

Scary Rank #3: For the most part, RE7 does stop being scary after the first couple of hours, but holy shit those first couple of hours. There is more terror crammed into the initial exploration of the Baker house than in the entirety of most of the other games in the series. I was actually glad when the scares let up a bit to give me a breather, but it never quite reaches the same “heart attack” level again. That doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of terror sprinkled throughout: the wrecked ship has wonderful atmosphere, and despite having terrible boss fights, the battle against Margueritte is a stand out experience, making you constantly spin around to see if that creepy woman is crawling around behind you. More often than not, just as you turn, she’ll drop on you from above. Seriously, I don’t know how people play this on VR.

#5: Resident Evil 5

As the game that introduced functional multiplayer into the series, Resident Evil 5 remains popular to this day. As I type this, there are probably at least a dozen people live-streaming the game on twitch for the billionth time, and people are still tuning in to watch. Resident Evil 5′s lasting power comes from an absolutely incredible campaign that takes players through a wealth of diverse environments. Its combat situations are well crafted and each one feels a little different from the last, demanding different things of its players in each new area. Whether it’s fighting your way out of a crowd or solving puzzles while keeping back hordes of enemies, Resident Evil 5 keeps throwing new things at the player to ensure they don’t get bored. Its boss fights are similarly diverse and well paced (with a couple exceptions... that stupid jeep fight key among them). Graphically, it still looks good and mechanically some people think (myself included) that it actually plays a little smoother than its successor, Resident Evil 6 (some people say it looks better, too). The game’s main failings come from the fact that it is about 100% less fun to play as a single player experience and from the fact that the game let go of pretty much any horror elements, opting instead for pure action. The result is a game that is one of the most fun to play in the entire series even while it is also the furthest removed from the roots of the series and probably feels the least like a Resident Evil game.

Scary Rank #8: Resident Evil 5 traded in dark nights for African sunshine and switched out zombies for... tribal warriors? No matter what RE5 does, it just seems to be less scary then when it was done before. The Lickers make a triumphant return... but aren’t as scary as they were in Resident Evil 2. The El Gigante fight in the jeep is frustrating and feels like a weird arcade game. Only the fight against Jill and Wesker manages to be tense and even there tension is somewhat broken by Wesker’s drawling accent and ridiculous dialog. Resident Evil 5 is an action game first and foremost, which does little to sell it in the scariness department.

#4: Resident Evil 1 (REmake)

Resident Evil 1 (even before being remade in all its graphical and mechanical glory on the Nintendo Gamecube in 2002) had all of the right elements to create a lasting franchise. It featured incredible sound design and cinematic camera angles, designed not only to keep you guessing what was around the corner but to emulate camera shots used in actual horror movies. For the time it was released, it was mind blowing, unlike anything else on the market in terms of both ambition and quality. More than anything, it was its precise timing that was so impressive. For a horror experience to be good, the timing has to be perfect. That’s easier to do in a film, where the director has control over what the audience experiences and when they experience it. But in an interactive game it’s very difficult. There has to be just enough breathing room to get the player comfortable. Musical cues have to be spot on. That jump scare has to happen at exactly the right moment to have its full impact. And for all of this to work the director has to be able to anticipate what the player will do and where they will go and when they will do it. Resident Evil understood these barriers and crushed them with a key understanding of how gamers play. REmake only improved on this with added enemies (like the infamous Crimson Heads and Lisa Trevor) and new jump scares. The result? Very few of the Resident Evil games since REmake have felt quite so well made. Some took bigger risks, and some are more memorable, but the one that started it all established a formula so good that everything else the series does has been informed by it. Wesker, the Tyrant, creepy mansions... they are all here and as good as ever they will get.

Scary Rank #1: Resident Evil 1 never stops being tense. You never seem to have enough ammo, never enough healing items. You always wonder if this time through the hallway will be the time something jumps out at you. The remake makes this worse with the inclusion of Crimson Heads, which make zombies rise from the dead faster and more resilient (and with a heck of a scary growl), but even the original kept the mansion scary by throwing in those damnable Hunters just when you thought you’d cleared the place out. Speaking of the Remake, can anyone say Lisa Trevor? Dear lord, she alone gives this the number one spot on the list. It may never make your heart pound as hard as Resident Evil 7 does in its most intense moments, but Resident Evil 1 keeps the pressure on for longer and it truly is a sigh of relief when you get picked up by Brad’s helicopter at the end of the game. The first is still the best when it comes to putting your heart in your throat.

#3: Resident Evil Nemesis

Resident Evil Nemesis is a roller-coaster from start to finish, packed with so much action that it is hard to remember that it is possibly the shortest game in the main series. Nemesis doesn’t waste space, transforming Raccoon City into a constantly changing arena. Running around the ruins of Raccoon City as the zombie invasion hits full swing, you witness the city fall further and further into destruction as the streets gradually fill up with harder and harder enemies. No area feels safe in Nemesis, as even spots you’ve cleared previously can repopulate with new enemies. I say “can” because Nemesis keeps players on their toes with a randomly generating enemy system that changes where and when certain enemies appear, meaning you can’t get too comfortable in Raccoon City, even on subsequent playthroughs. And any time you do finally get some breathing room, the quiet is interrupted by a deep voice growling out “STARS...” Originally intended to be only a side story, Nemesis earns its rightful place among the main series mostly due to its titular villain, who is the most impressive of all of Resident Evil’s monsters. Years before Papa Baker would chase you through the halls of his bayou home, the nearly unstoppable Nemesis was already terrifying players by breaking all the old rules of where an enemy would go, chasing players around huge portions of the game’s map, breaking through doors and walls to continue the chase and even equipping a rocket launcher to target players at a distance. There are other innovations that shouldn’t go unnoticed here, either, such as a last-second dodge feature that encourages players to be more aggressive and get up close with enemies. There’s also the “choose your own adventure” timed choices that pop up in intense moments, like when the Nemesis is bearing down on you and you have to choose to jump out of a window or try and blow him up. Sometimes one option is better than another, and sometimes the option changes the story, leading to high replayability. And if you ever get tired of the main game, there is the unlocked Mercenaries mode. That’s right, it wasn’t Resident Evil 4 that started that. Like so many things, Nemesis did it first. All of these quirks and innovations, alongside the incredible non-stop pace, make Nemesis still a blast to play today and one heck of a send off to Raccoon City.

Scary Rank #2: Because the action moves so fast in Nemesis, you will never get a chance to calm down. Not to mention Nemesis himself is a walking jump scare. If Resident Evil 7 proves that being chased makes for some of the scariest moments in a video game, then Nemesis makes you feel chased for the entire game. The only thing that keeps it from being as scary as Resident Evil 1 is that it is over sooner.

#2: Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 represented a revolution in the series, ushering it from its old-school fixed camera routes into a more modern over the shoulder style of play. I struggled with this change throughout my entire first playthrough, upset with the fact that it abandoned the old formulas. Gone were zombies, gone were most of the scares, gone were most aspects of survival horror. But then I also found myself dreaming of it, saying “heheh, what are you buying?” until my girlfriend asked me to stop, and starting over and playing it over from the beginning as soon as I had beaten it. Despite the change in direction, it was a game I didn’t want to end, and I’ve gone on to purchase it on nearly every system its been released on. I’m not alone in this: Resident Evil 4 is one of the most successful games in the franchise and indeed one of the most influential video games of all time. It didn’t only redefine what Resident Evil was for an entire new generation of gamers, it also redefined how people thought of third person shooters, opening the doors for everything from Gears of War to Uncharted. If you load it up today, you’ll find it takes an hour or so to get used to the older controls, but the game was so well designed that once you do you’ll see how everything in the game caters to those controls, creating an enticing run, stop, aim, shoot cycle that is addictive and never stretches beyond its limitations. Of the over the shoulder Resident Evil games, Resident Evil 4 feels the most complete, not requiring a co-op experience to make it good nor relying on years of lore to understand and care about its story and characters. Resident Evil 5 may have been fun, but it never got quite this good again.

Scary Rank #7: Resident Evil 4 is often tense, because of the nature of its gameplay, which forces you to stand still while shakily aiming at oncoming enemies. It never really gets scary, though. Enemies are too slow and your bullets too numerous, your spin kicks too awesome, to make you truly feel vulnerable. It does get props for a certain boss that chases you relentlessly through a certain caged area... oh, and for the Regeneradors. The Regeneradors, with their constant snuffling sound and their twitchy gait, are among the scariest enemies ever in Resident Evil. But a few minutes of pure terror isn’t enough to ignore the heavy focus on action and the fact that Leon carries enough firepower to wage his own war.

#1: Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 1 may have started the franchise but it was Resident Evil 2 which jumpstarted the fan base. Resident Evil 2 had a lot to prove, mainly that this series could survive (pun intended) more than a single outing, that it could expand its scope, grow its cast of characters, and build on its setting. And boy did it deliver. If Resident Evil 1 broke ground when it came out, then Resident Evil 2 dug deeper. One mansion became a city. The two selectable characters did more than have different items and slightly change the order of events. Now, you had to play both characters one after the other to experience the full story. As if that wasn’t enough, the game changed depending on which character you played first, and in order to see everything the game had to offer, you had to play four times. Granted, two of those times would feel awfully similar, but the A&B scenarios changed just enough about the story and scenarios to make it well worth every second. The scares of the first game remained mostly intact but now a healthy dose of video game action was thrown in and boss fights became more numerous and dynamic, creating what remain the series’ best and most diverse boss fights. Simply put, Resident Evil 2 is a masterpiece of realized ambition that hasn't been matched by any other game in the series. It’s one failing now is that it is old, both graphically and in terms of controls. There’s a reason that fans have been clamoring for a remake of this for so long! But I’m glad Capcom waited so long to do it. Resident Evil 2 needs more than a new coat of paint. It is a carefully constructed experience and care is going to be required to give it a second life on par with the original experience. Here's hoping 2019 delivers on that.

Scary Rank #5: One of the best things about Resident Evil 2 is that you aren’t playing special forces this time around. Claire Redfield is a simple citizen and Leon Kennedy a rookie cop. They feel, from the opening cutscenes, completely out of their element which added a wonderful connection between them and the player. Unlike the first game, you don’t start off in a safe situation that grows worse the longer you explore. No, you start off in a goddamned car wreck, surrounded by zombies and not nearly enough bullets to fight them. From the beginning, Resident Evil 2 highlights that you need to run to survive. Then it introduces Lickers, which add a whole new element to jump scares and you think that the game may be too frightening to keep playing. But also around this time it introduces you to grenade launchers and shotguns and lots of ammo for both of them. This makes the Resident Evil 2 scares manageable because the reaction to anything that moves in that game is to scream and then douse it with either buckshot or acid rounds.

#Resident Evil #Frightening #Scary

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a-muse · 5 years ago

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FVD - Week 4

The module was building up at a faster pace now. Kuntal was keeping us engaged with his stories from around the world. Carmina and Shilpa had already joined us during our 3rd week but we missed out Suman, Shiva and Probal.

We started with Gestalt laws and theory and their significance. We got to know about Similarity, Continuity, Figure and Ground, Closure and Proximity. There was also another principle of Pragnanz which talks about how we perceive our environment and things around us in terms of simpler shapes and patterns.

So, we got into more examples as we went along. A short recap of my understandings.

Similarity- Elements which are similar to each other in colour, form, texture, size or motion are perceived to be one group.

Continuity- When viewing objects together, human eyes sometimes perceive objects moving in a straight or curved line if they are arranged in such a way.

Figure and Ground - Our brain sometimes divide elements and their spaces, both negative and positive as foreground and background and look at them in such a way to create that distinction.

Closure- Even if objects do not join together to form a recognisable shape, our brain draws parallels between them and perceive those elements as one single comprehensible entity, shape or form.

Proximity- Objects arranged together start forming shapes or patterns of their own when they are close or far away from each other based on their proximity.

Pragnanz- Human eyes and brains have a tendency to divide and look at environments and things around us in terms of simpler patterns and shapes.

Gestalt Photo Diary

The first assignment of this week was to click photographs which would showcase gestalt principles. These photo may have multiple principles in them but there should be one dominating principle in all of them.

Initially, I had problems with finding the right subjects but as I started reading and researching more on this topic, I started to notice the principles all around me but next the task was to single out the dominating elements in them. Following ones are few of the pictures I clicked.

Proximity- How the squares have come together to create a pentagon like shape. It also somehow has a hint of closure as well.

Continuity- The curved lines moving up and down the wooden blocks.

Figure and Ground

Similarity

Continuity- How the electrical cables continue in the dark BG making our eyes follow them.

Happy Durga Puja btw everyone.

Similarity

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ok a small break. Umm.. let me show what I have filled up in my colour journal this week.

Kaashful. Durga Puja -can’t really keep calm.

TV and childhood

Experiments with textures

This is very interesting as this has been done with plastic crumpled on acrylic white solution with water and left to dry. Some interesting thin ice like patterns.

Emotions

Mahisasuramardini. Ok last one about Durga Maa, I promise.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Music Video with colours

This was the highlight of the week. We were both excited and kind of taken aback with the brief that was provided to us and plus we had to work within random groups of 4 or 5 people, create our own music and patch them with the visuals... Ok phewww..

I meet with my group which consisted of Dikshita, Ranjana and Subhadeep on call and discussed multiple ideas and how to implement them. We looked into some very interesting links and videos and articles. Let me share a few with you right here right now.

Neil Harbisson: I listen to Colour. It was very fascinating to learn about the different types Synesthesia. The video link for you here.

Kandinsky and his paintings. How he turned music and sounds into colours and finally into beautiful elaborate abstract paintings. The video link.

Look into these. I am sure you will enjoy them. Now for the initial ideas, let me share some of them in here for you to see.

Initial Ideas:

Idea 1: Play with Rasas and their colors along with their corresponding raga patterns as bg music.

Idea 2: How a blind person might sense color through music or sounds with very faint interaction of colors. Just enough to understand the ambience outside

Idea 3: How we can see different colours throughout the day right from the time sun rises to the time it sets and then through the night and till the next morning whenever it rises again. We can use corresponding ragas which run through the timings of the day.

Idea 4: Colors as thoughts in our brain. How unrest, peace, insights, ideas popping in our minds and other things might be working in our minds. Like how a jumbled train of thoughts arriving at a point of insight.

There were multiple brainstorming sessions which helped in moulding the ideas and finally zeroing in on one. Let me take you through the flow of the final idea.

Final Idea

1. When the project is announced:

That AHA moment. Excitement runs through our mind. The project seems to be one of a kind and challenge gives a sudden adrenaline boost.

2. When reality sets in:

We start to question the reality. How do we go about this?

Ok we have groups now. Random, whattt? Ok, do I know this person?

3. When discussions start:

A little bit of icebreaking is required.

Brainstorm, Brainstorm, Brainstorm.

A lot of ideas are coming to me but how do I put those into words? Are the other team members able to understand my idea.

The ideas seem very vague. Actually all of them

Wait, that sounds like a good one. Oh ok how about we do this with that? Now, things are starting to take shape.

4. Reality strikes once again:

The idea seemed very interesting at first but I do not have any clue about how do I take this forward.

Gloominess sets in. Trying to carve time out of busy schedule to do some explorations.

Fail. Do again. Fail Do again. This is getting tiring.

Procrastination overpowers.

Some of the explorations work well.

5. Penultimate stage:

The lethargy is contagious. Everyone seems to be slacking off.

The date and time splashes on the mobile screen. WE HAVE NO TIME LEFT AT ALL.

Panic sets in. Try to do everything to finish off the project somehow. By hook or by crook.

Although the project that you are working on right now seems to be very enjoyable but you just cannot relish the process anymore. Aaaaaghh, this is exhausting.

6. The final deliverable:

Ok the project is done now. (sigh of relief)

You skim through the entire thing once more and find some of the things very roughly done.

Things could have been done better

Blaming ourselves for not taking it seriously the first time.

Showcasing of work. Other people seem to have done a marvellous job.

Ok now that we are done, there is nothing left to do. Only promise ourselves to manage our time better for the next project.

Behind the scenes:

Had some fun with refined oil, water, colours and guess what, PepFizz

Ink in Water

Milk, water, paint and washing powder

Creation of the BG Track and final video:

We recorded different sounds from around us ranging from washing machines, void sounds from washrooms, voices, metal clanking of glasses and spoons, rattling pf crockery. Then, I further took them to FL Studio, digitally remastered them and created the entire BG track.

Creating the progressions and melodies on FL Studio

Layering tracks to make the final score on FL Studio

Editing the clips and merging the sequences with sounds to create the final video on After Effects

Let’s see the final video now, shall we?

The journey of Anticipation

youtube

Ok, wow. This was done in a very short period of time with half of our group not well. Pulling this off was a task in itself but the explorations and everything made it worth it. I also tried my hands on FL Studio after a long long time and I plan on continuing composing some scores and music in my spare time from now on.

But although the explorations were fun, it was insightful as well. Many properties of colour, composition and whole treatment of these things came in as hoardes of information as we went along. And making the connections between each shots and relating them to the stages of our narration while thinking in a abstract way of how colours and music would narrate that same thing. It was tough at first but then it seemed very natural.

But.. But... Ummm.... this whole assignment made my mother pretty angry because the room was a total mess and I was too lazy. But worth taking the risk for assignments this interesting.

Ok that was the end to Week 4. A very fruitful one indeed. Catch up on Week 5 soon.

Alvida, Adios, Tata, Bye Bye, Hasta la Vista and Sayonara till next time.

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archergabriella · 5 years ago

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maiji · 7 years ago

Photo

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs

You can read the pages for part 1 here (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post whenever it’s done.)

Every so often I get questions about how I work, and I also enjoy reading about how other creators make things, so perhaps this might be interesting and useful to somebody out there too. I’ve talked about my process before but never really documented and shared it WHILE working on a project, so here you can see some of my thinking and decision-making (and poor habits lol) a bit more immediately, alongside screenshots, photos and scans.

Very long, everything is below the cut, and apologies to people on mobile and anywhere else this goofs up.

One question I get a lot is “do you start with words or pictures when creating a comic?” I jump between both a lot. That said, I tend to lean more heavily on words when documenting ideas in the early stages of a project. This is because, for me:

Words pack a lot of punch in conveying detail quickly. They work better when I need to quickly communicate something extremely specific to future me. I’m a sloppy drawer, so my sketches tend to make future me squint and go, “What the hell was this supposed to be?!”

A great deal of my thinking and planning is done during crowded commutes. It’s more convenient to jot notes on my phone than to whip out my sketchbook and a pen.

(For a while I thought it’d be awesome to have some sort of app where I can type notes AND have an accompanying thumbnail sketch, and be able to drag them around or break them out into more or fewer pages. At one point years ago I thought about creating a custom app... but ultimately too lazy/busy and my current process works well enough. If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, please feel free to do so and just let me know about it so I can try it haha.)

I usually start with a few lines summarizing the gist of the idea, enough that’s recognizable and I don’t forget the important things to build off from. From there, I start point-form outlining the stuff that needs to happen, structuring them into key scenes/parts. These scenes are not always fleshed out in order - I just add to them whenever I have ideas for that part.

Long Limbs, for example, had a progression like this:

Overall story idea: “horror story with rokurokubi, key plot point(s) happens, the end.” (There was a bit more detail than this, obviously, but we’re avoiding spoilers here.)

Initial description for Part 1 of the story: “Hokushin lured to go to somewhere. Separated from Raizen. HOW??????”

After letting it simmer for while, a solution: “Hokushin annoyed at Raizen. Opportunity for him to get away and go do his own thing.”

Gradually more detail: “Stranger invites him to go to this place to look into something/maybe has a paid job that needs to be done and Raizen is busy goofing off or whatever.”

Problem. I couldn’t resolve this chain of thought to my satisfaction. What kind of task/job can someone convince Hokushin to do on his own when he doesn’t know this person/it seems questionable? And how long will the conversation need to run to establish this as believable?

This was starting to get convoluted and I was getting annoyed because it was turning into a burden in being able to continue the story AND IT WASN’T EVEN THAT IMPORTANT. I decided to abandon this path of thinking, and left the entire story for a while.

Much later (like months?), I had an idea: “Mysterious person drops something, piques Hokushin’s curiosity.” Aha! Hokushin’s own initiative. Simple and plausible enough. HOORAY NO MORE THINKING. LET’S DRAW.

Then I realized, oh shoot, I need to figure out who this mysterious person is and what they dropped. More time passes. And so on… in between I’m always working on other things, so there’s no real creator’s block - at some point I start thinking about this comic again, and ideas work themselves out to some decent level of satisfaction and link together. Thanks subconscious!

Eventually, enough key scenes are fleshed out that I feel confident enough to turn this into a real thing. At present, for example, not all scenes in Long Limbs are totally worked out, but I’ve got enough that I ran ahead with Part 1.

Screenshot of the Google Docs notes/script for Part 1:

This is a close-to-final version. The === on top is just to separate this from notes on other stories or ideas. This is the beginning of the document, but this document actually includes many other notes and stories for North Bound. I delete them as I finish and post the pages. Every so often I wonder if I should bother keeping them, but they’ve been refined throughout the process and usually don’t bear much resemblance to the original jotted notes anymore. Long Limbs was originally planned to be a later story in North Bound, but I got especially excited about it and fleshed it out further than the others. When I reviewed the earlier stories, I didn’t think there’d be a big continuity or reader experience issue if this was finished and posted first. So I moved the messy notes for this story to the top of the document.

The page breakdown for the script is done by me generally picturing in my head how I might want the scene to go and how much action I might be able to fit on the page for good effect. I’ll sometimes start paginating without thumbnails, and sometimes will do both side by side (thumbnail and update pagination in tandem).

As you might imagine, pagination frequently changes. For example, you’ll see the script above is 9 pages instead of 10.

The original script for this section was broken up into maybe 4-6 pages, with 5-7 being more condensed.

When I started thumbnailing, I found it felt too cluttered and moved too fast.

So I stretched out the part of Hokushin and the mystery girl exchanging glances, and added pages to be able to create a (hopefully) more cinematic feel and really focus on the reason they catch each other’s eye - the bandages on their necks.

I then went back to the Google Doc and updated the script to line it up better.

I was also tweaking the dialogue at the same time and didn’t want to forget any key phrasing I liked. Dialogue is another thing I get really hung up over, often changing words up to the last second. (Sometimes this is because I messed up the size of the speech bubble, if I’m lettering on the computer...)

Thumbnails:

Pretty close to the final in this case - mainly because the sequence is pretty simple and straightforward and not many people are involved. I keep my thumbnails very crappy and rough so that I don’t get upset later when I can’t redraw something as good as the thumbnail. Bottom right was a quick attempt at designing the mystery girl.

Once I think the thumbnails are good enough - translation: I get impatient and just want to start drawing - I proceed to pencils for the actual page.

Throughout all this, I’m repeatedly reviewing script and thumbnail and playing sequences out in my head and then trying to figure out how to better direct the “camera” and the action. I may go back to the script and the thumbnails even as I’m finetuning the actual page if I encounter issues. You can see in both the script and the thumbnails that there are still deviations in the dialogue and the art from the final. Here are a few examples:

Page 3: The panels were originally 1) the setting, 2) Hokushin with his arms folded, 3) Raizen laughing, 4) we see that Hokushin is watching Raizen. After reviewing the thumbnail, I felt it’d be a better setup to flow into the scene if I switched panels 2 and 3. That’s closer to how you’d experience it in real life, or how it might be directed in a shot sequence: you enter an area/place, you hear the sound of some guy’s loud laughter filling the air, then the camera zooms up to the annoyed expression of this one particular dude and you see he’s staring at the laughing guy. Moving from bigger ambience to smaller details around the room.

Page 7: The girl was originally turning in the other direction (hard to tell because I redrew it right on top of the original sketch lol). However, this meant all the directional action would be pointing to the right - Hokushin is facing the right, and when he leaves the bar he’s angling towards the right side of the page. Facing the direction that readers will read in gives a sense of driving the action forward, while facing the opposite direction provides a bit of a mental stop. (This is something from Scott McCloud that always stuck with me.) So, I flipped the girl around.

Page 8: Script has Hokushin going “What’s this?”. When thumbnailing, I thought, “obviously it’s self-evident he’s wondering what this is when he picks it up”. It added nothing to the panel, and the speech or thought bubble would have interrupted the smooth action of him picking up the paper. So, axed.

The damn friggin’ bar and gambling: You’ll see the script mention this, and at one point I actually had the guy standing across from Raizen saying “Is this guy drunk?” I’m actually not sure if they’re in a bar or if Raizen is drinking, but neither were important to the actual story because I just needed Raizen and Hokushin to be in a place where Raizen could hang out with humans and be stupid. So I dropped these details. This is mainly because I ran into historical research problems about bars and alcohol during the Kamakura period (more on that near the end of this post), and this was the only way to stop myself from getting hung up on trying to make it “perfect” and “correct” and just get it done.

Drawing the actual pages. This part is fun!

Inking the actual pages. THIS PART IS NOT FUN :(

I don’t have very steady hands and I get very anxious about messing things up, so inking always takes me the longest. (I also get distracted easily, e.g., ink two lines and then surf tumblr for ten minutes lol). I’ve improved a lot since I started drawing comics much more frequently a couple years ago, and my choice of tools and style has helped a lot (I lean to variable lines and sketchy style, which is more forgiving than, say, a very precise art style with fixed-width pens) but I still get nervous at this stage.

I’m very lazy so I usually stick with one tool for inking. For Long Limbs I tried to effort more and actually used three. Right to left: Sailor fude de mannen for panel borders and text, Muji pen for artwork (0.4 because that was the only size available at the store when I went to get my refill), Pentel pocket brush for filling in blacks. I refill the fude de mannen and the pocket brush with fountain pen inks.

I usually ink panel borders first, then speech bubbles, then everything else. I hop all over the place and pages are generally in varying stages of completion. I also sometimes add in some more text lines because it seems like a good idea at the time - Hokushin’s complaint on page 3 about how he should have left Raizen when he got into a fight with a fish-seller in a previous story, for example. Sometimes these work, sometimes I regret it later and edit it on the computer.

Cover thumbnails and pencil sketch:

The one in the page thumbnails was the original idea, but then I thought, “seems kinda cliched. Can I get a more interesting angle where he’s not looking straight at the viewer?” (OK, his eyes are covered, but you know what I mean.) I quickly tried a few other angles and compositions, didn’t like them and ended up going with pretty much the original idea, but more zoomed in.

In the thumbnails, you can see all my little x’s indicating “ehhhh I don’t like this”. I wanted something with a particular mood/atmosphere especially with all the hands and arms, and I was conflicted between zooming out (for more environment and more arms, and the focus on the “long limbs” part of the title) or having a tighter, more close up shot. Ultimately I think the latter works better as it conveys a sense of claustrophobia, and it’s more intimate which supports the idea of psychological horror. ALSO IT’S SEXY (maybe???). The end.

Other random thoughts:

I took a lot of heart/inspiration/motivation from Togashi’s last few volumes of Yu Yu Hakusho to keep the backgrounds as lazy - I mean sparse - as possible and also speech bubbles over plain backgrounds lmao. I think it takes a lot of confidence (or maybe laziness) to be so minimalist and restrained, and it’s an impressive and economical way of working. I was always impressed that when reading those pages of his for the first time, the lack of detail never really bothered me - you had everything you needed for your brain to comfortably fill in the gaps and complete the sense of narrative and story progression, and there are still visual flourishes when the situation calls for it. So I’m trying to bring a bit of that tighter philosophy in.

Research. I struggle a LOT with not getting bogged down by details, especially when it’s something “just” for fun or “just” a fancomic. I have very lovely and helpful friends and family who every so often patiently allow me to whine and bounce things off of them, help me look things up, and/or tell me when I’m getting myopic about stuff. For all the North Bound comics, finding quick and useful historical references for the time period has been a challenge. There’s a ton about aristocracy and warriors but very little about the ordinary/common people, not surprisingly. I frequently question my instincts about what makes sense because I tend to automatically draw on similar/equivalent Chinese culture (there was certainly lots of cross-over, but not always appropriate/relevant) or Edo period references (wrong time frame! Too far in the future). I often end up losing a ton of time trying to find something with roundabout searches, and then give up and look at other comics I have close enough to the time period. And then referencing those and compounding whatever historical errors they have in them. (e.g., “Well if it was good enough for Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix it’s good enough for this rando fancomic!”) I just would like historical/subject matter experts to know I did try...

#yu yu hakusho #comics #hokushin #raizen #fanart #process #wip #art by Maiji/Mary Huang #sketches #art supplies #yyh north bound

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