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innuendostudios · 3 years

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Thoughts on... some funny games

[no spoilers to speak of]

Thoughts on Lair of the Clockwork God

The wisdom of the gaming cognoscenti insists that comedy is hard to do in video games. Having grown up with Monkey Island and Zork, I've never found this convincing. But one true thing is this: it's hard to write about comedic games. The ineffability of humor is hard enough to describe in less-interactive media; I can't even explain to my partner why Gretchen saying "I met January Jones once!" on You're the Worst busted me up, and they were sitting right next to me when she said it. Throw in the "you had to be there" nature of the player's active participation and I lose myself in a cornfield. The thing I found hilarious might come a beat to early for you, or not at all, or not be funny in text like it is in gameplay.

Why did I like Lair of the Clockwork God? It made me laugh.

The premise and particulars are a lot of "that could go either way." Ben and Dan - stars of Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentleman, Please! - have returned. Ben is still an adventure game star, but Dan has adopted platforming mechanics in an attempt to get with the times. So playing the game involves switching back and forth between a character who can leap across canyons but can't pick up items or talk to people, and one who can combine inventory but can't climb over a 3-pixel rock.

Does that sound potentially funny? Potentially grating? Yes to both!

The plot centers around our heroes trying to save the world from several simultaneous apocalypses and having to teach human emotions to a supercomputer in order to do so. (Don't ask.) These means, rather like Ben There, Dan That, traipsing through a number of fantasy worlds (read: computer simulations) until the correct emotion is provoked. This requires cross-genre cooperation: finding ways to get Ben to areas only Dan can access, getting Dan new power ups by combining objects in Ben's inventory (an act Dan insists on calling "crafting").

The best bits are at these intersections, when Dan's platforming is the puzzliest and Ben's puzzles take advantage of Dan's skills. Periodically the game gives you a Dan-centric platforming gauntlet the controls are NOT precise nor pleasant enough for, or a Ben-only moon logic puzzle that leaves you googling the walkthrough.

But I liked it! A lot. The genre-hopping seems to have invigorated the developers, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall. I discussed my favorite joke in Ben There, Dan That (in what is probably the least popular video I've ever made that wasn't asking for money), but was also dismayed that the game was never that clever again. But this one is, several times over! Progression here involves cheating your way to a better respawn zone, goofing around in game menus, exploiting "glitches," exiting out and loading up entirely other games. There is a lot of poking and prodding at what a game of this nature can or should be.

But, honestly? The only real selling point is... it was funny. The humor is as anarchic and metatextual as in previous titles, but it feels good-natured in a way BT,DT didn't. And there are, here and there, little bits of meat on its bones - the characters wondering if, as a couple thirtysomething white guys, the world hasn't left them behind, no longer comfortable with the juvenile humor of their youth but not really understanding the youth of today, but having not yet fully escaped the mentalities they used to hold. (There's an unspoken humor to Dan's idea of "modern" gameplay being 2D platforming mechanics, especially at a time when adventure games are significantly more popular than on his last outing; this is a good joke whether or not it's intentional.)

Also: this game contains the most poignant urinating-on-a-grave puzzle in gaming history, and you may quote me on that.

Having finished it months ago, I can't even remember what all the gags were that tickled me at the time. Comedy fades from memory faster than drama or frustration. Mostly I just remember having a good time.

Thoughts on The Darkside Detective

Here's a hook: sometime after the mayhem ends in Ghostbusters, The Exorcist, Evil Dead 2, or some other paranormal blockbuster that you watched over and over in the 90's until the VHS wore out, some overworked detective has to come into your town and piece together what the hell happened.

This is his story.

It's a good gag, and the devs wring every drop from it. Existing in a world where these things are commonplace and you have to fit them into some notion of "police procedure" is just funny. Like, it's one thing to have a running gag where you keep observing the moon in outdoor scenes, commenting, with increasing hostility, that its behavior is suspicious (it has been present at multiple crime scenes); it's a slightly different thing when, given the things you've encountered, the moon being the Big Bad is actually somewhat possible.

The game is divided into six main cases and three bonus DLC missions (which come included in the base game now, and the third of which is the proper ending/setup for the sequel). You are the cop tasked to deal with The Other Side - and, when The Other Side bleeds into our own world, its cops have to deal with you. You have a sidekick with a mental maturity of about 6, which I guess makes you the straight man. (You have to grade on a curve to find a straight man in this game.) And you solve tasks like rounding up escaped gremlins or finding an AWOL lake monster all juxtaposed with mundane problems like inter-office squabbles and having not bought your Christmas presents early enough. It's (pleasantly) lo-res and sparsely isolated, so the dialogue and premise do most of the work, but they are ably up to the task.

The gameplay... not so much. I'm an adventure game lifer, so I can put up with a lot of nonsense. It's mostly straightforward inventory puzzles and occasional minigames. Most of the puzzles are fine enough. As the cases progress, things get more involved, and the DLCs especially involve some awful moon logic. And the minigames are not above using that same jumping peg puzzle you've solved in a dozen other games already. So gameplay ranges from serviceable to irritating, but it mostly exists to string together funny lines and silly images. (Christmas mall elves being secretly in service to Krampus - that's the kind of thing we're talking about here.) You won't feel much guilt for opening up a walkthrough; the puzzles aren't why you're here.

The sequel has just been released, and both games are cheap, so check them out if you feel like smiling.

Thoughts on The Procession to Calvary

It's rare for a game to be hilarious to look at.

The Procession to Calvary takes its name from the Bruegel painting. It also takes all it's graphics from Renaissance oil paintings, and the designer delights in making famously rendered heroes and religious icons steal, stab, fart, and swear.

A strong Terry-Gilliam-with-After-Effects vibe is what we're describing.

You play as a lady knight from a war that's just ended, which sucks for you because, in this age of peace, you're no longer authorized to kill. And killing's, like, you're whole thing. But the one person your new, pacifist king wouldn't stop you from killing is the warlord you just deposed, who fled to the South. So you embark on a nonsensical journey to seek out the one human on Earth you are authorized to kill, because killing is just The. Best. Ever.

Of the three games we're discussing, this is the most overtly cheeky, and, at times, the most scatological. I could've done with a bit less scatology, if I'm being honest, but the cheekiness is very winning. As with Lair of the Clockwork God, a lot of jokes could go either way - a field of people being tortured and a woman on a blanket selling commemorative torture merch could be painfully try-hard. But something about the victims being seemingly everyone ever crucified or broken on the wheel in a famous painting, and having them writhe on their crosses in a way that is both gruesome and goofy, and having a cacophonous soundtrack of their screams and moans that you will now imagine every time you look at one of those elegantly elegiac paintings from now on... it works. That the music score is being played by an extremely jaunty piper who dances behind you just out of sword's reach as you traverse the field pushes it over the top.

Oh, and the puzzles, while never hair-pullingly obtuse, will leave you stumped at times. Push past that to get the proper ending, but, if you're sick of trying, you can, at any point, just start stabbing your way through problems. Which, again: it takes a very deft touch to make "protagonist resorts to violence" actually funny rather than lazy and obvious. And maybe, in another game, the perfect timing of every animation, the clever quips, the careful contrast of cathedrals and high-society music halls with gleeful sword-swinging wouldn't be enough. But something about it being frickin' Renaissance paintings carries it the last mile.

This is probably the basest game of the three, but it's also the one that made me giggle the most. Having a BFA that required several art history classes may have something to do with it. But check this thing out.

#capsule review #darkside detective #lair of the clockwork god #procession to calvary

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hyrule-kingdom-updates · 3 years

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OOC; To Mod - hello! I’m doing a fun thing where I hop into the askboxes of different writers and ask them about their favorite works! This specific blog is like. A huge undertaking, so if you wanna geek out about it, go for it! This can include anything, from arc development shit to fun facts about the blog and how it operates. This is such a cool idea anyways, and I’m sure people would love to hear about it. :)

I am going to geek out about this so hard that you’ll regret ever talking to me.

Hmm...What to talk about that won’t spoil the future of HKU...Oh I know! How about I ramble about

HKU and the Long and Arduous Process of Making Characters and Themes

I will try to avoid details when I can, but I will be discussing the latest developments with Siv, Larc, and Astor, so consider yourself warned for spoilers and catch up if you haven't yet! :3

Waste not, want not: Why I find it important to not waste characters and time

In Hyrule Kingdom Updates, Asivus "Siv" Hartell is the protagonist. Zelda(Mallory) is the deuteragonist. Then finally, LinkLink is the tritagonist. They are the perspectives that I would find most important. However, all in all, I would consider there to be six really important characters in order for HKU to work, that being: Siv, Zelda, Link, Larc, Astor, and Zavis.

Now, I say "really" important for demonstrative purposes because really, all characters are important. Every single one of them. Characters are the lifeblood of HKU, and I spend a lot of time making sure that they don't give off the impression of being self-inserts or just there for fun. I mean they are, but I spend a lot of time making sure they don't seem like that *wink wink*

This is what I define as the essentials for any "good" character:

Someone who provides an interesting/new perspective on the themes of the story

Someone whose wants and needs enhance the plot

Someone that can be understood as an individual

Yet someone that wouldn't be important to the story, without their bonds and relationships to the other characters

I don't really care about how likable a character is, or relatable, or how funny or badass they are; that's all secondary. Third-endary, even. If a character doesn't do enough to serve my story, I cut them, and merge their ideas with an existing characters. Caricautures are for comic relief, and in order to maintain a reader's interest an immersion into my story, I want to consistently give them characters that are well thought out and important. Whenever there's a new face, or an unexpected appearance, I want it to be wordlessly understood that I'm not wasting their time, that there is something this character has to offer.

A reader finding value in something/someone is one of the most important things a writer can have, because it is that particular investment that drives the story, or at least, my story. I cannot stress enough how vital characters are to HKU because this quite literally wouldn't work if you removed even one person from the plot. If you don't find these people important and interesting then EVERYTHING'S ruined. Everything. Every post is a battle for your attention and time, every piece of dialogue is a line I cast into the sea just hoping that there's someone swimming in the ocean because at any MOMENT you could click away, and I know this because I AM a reader, and I WOULD click away if I found something boring. So every plot point is just a battle between the writer me, wanting to spew everything, and reader me, who knows what the essentials are, and what to do to keep a person's investment.

This cycle of writing the story and characters, and understand what is essential and interesting to a reader is what led to me cutting over 20 characters and arcs from HKU.

That's how much time I spend on these fictional fuckers, no one is wasted or expendable. I think the only character that I could write out if I wanted to would be Hestu, and that's mainly because I did actually forget they existed until the Lost Wood's arc rolled around.

So with those points in mind, let's look at some of the characters that I spent a lot of time writing for, that is Siv, Larc, and Astor.

Welcome to the shitpost blog: First Impressions and Establishing...Everything

Welcome to @hyrule-kingdom-updates, and thank you for following! This is just a little comedic blog featuring funny posts from characters who live within Breath of the Wild Hyrule.

Hook, line, and sinker.

There's a lot of reasons why I started HKU this way, (one of them mainly being that I knew no one would read it if I opened immediately with the plot) but the main reason being I believe it was the fastest way to get you interested in the world and the protagonist.

The theme of HKU centers around trauma, and asking the question of what's the right way to deal with the malice(not the goop but like, real-life malicious things) of the world.

So if you want to move a story into a direction that plunges a fictional fairytale kingdom into the realities of life, you first have to establish that fictional fairytale kingdom and it's characters,

Even from the very first post I am working to establish character.

Now, it might seem silly, but there's actually a lot of information that you automatically take in from these two posts alone.

The diction and lack of proper punctuation implies that the narrator is more casual and down to earth

The narrator is aware that people are reading these "updates"

The immediate contrast between the "professional" introduction and humerous shitpost provides insight as to the sense of humour present

The orator is new at their job, and perhaps wants to keep their position

The narrators updates are under the influence of the Royal Family, perhaps more specifically, King Rhoam.

The establishment of Rhoam being in power and Urbosa being alive tells as to when in the timeline of Hyrule we are

Addressments like "don't worry" and "wish me luck" imply that there is value in the reader's opinion and perspective

The goal of the shit post says was basically to establish the world, and what kind of person Siv is. On a meta level, I want you to laugh at the shit posts because that's what Siv is doing. I KNOW you're enjoying the shitposts, therefore it more believable for you to understand that this is something Siv does as well. There's an unspoken distance between you and the world, even if your asks impact it. For you, this is just another funny day in the life, and the same can be said for Siv, but the difference is that for him, it actually IS a reality.

That's why I really enjoyed these days because I was just schemeing behind the scenes, knowing how I was going to turn this all over your heads.

So, you know how he is at the start. Siv is an apathetic individual, he laughs off whatever shit comes his way, and cares only for himself. His view of the world of Hyrule is through the lens of someone who seems to have accept that he has no control over his life, his very job is dictated by royals.

And though he has no respect for authority, and has been deemed a lowly criminal by most people, he still seems like a pretty decent guy. Human. It seems pretty apparant that even though he pretends to not care about the world, he obviously has human morals and wants, and would more than anything like to have control over his life, but he seems to have accepted that's not going to happen.

Siv isn't just sarcastic, or just apathetic to everything, or just a rebellious person. There's a subtle layer to everything, but it's all wrapped in a clearly understandable line of logic. Therefore he is

Someone that can be understood as an individual

At this point in time, if you asked him how to deal with the woes of the world, he would probably shrug his shoulders and say, "laugh it off. Sometimes that's how it is." Whether this idea is something he will main remains to be seen. Therefore as our protagonist, he is

Someone who provides an interesting/new perspective on the themes of the story

Oh brother, it's time to go on a journey: Change and motivation

Now, another way that I break down characters is like this

Want - what they want on the surface

Lie - the belief that they have that prevents them from obtaining their need

Need - what they need to do in order to become better

So, let's break down Siv at this point.

Want: Siv wants to have control over his life, and to do what he wants in order to be happy

Lie: Siv tells himself that there's nothing he can do about his situation, and to just accept the world as it is

Need: Siv needs to learn to give a shit. About himself, and others. He needs to understand that while not everything in life can be controlled, the aspects that we do have power over, like our actions and relationships with others, are important.

Now, Siv doesn't actually go our searching or acting towards his want OR his need, as his lie tells him that he should just take what he can get, and dig in. So far in the story, there is still a distance between him and the reader and the world, because he can choose when to answer asks. He can choose when to confront questions.

So in order to really kick off the story, we have to take that choice away from him.

Enter: The Quill of Roost. Well, more like the quill enters Siv, as he eats it, and we soon discover that now, he can't really escape the questioning voices. Notice that Siv only did this in an effort to do something good, to be a hero. Maybe we'll come back to that later.

So now that we've forced Siv to leave his comfortable apathetic lifestyle, we can start to poke and probe him into a new person. He now has to listen to people more, both literally and metaphorically.

Siv's brother, Arcadius (also known as Larc, by Siv) is a foil, in that he's his opposite. He's not a criminal, he's the respected Captain of the Royal Guard. He's the golden boy, a hero in his own right. He generally respects authority and likes order. I mean, the first time you meet him, he talks like a "how do you do fellow kids" school teacher.

AHe's adored (and simped over) and has a loving family, and lives society's definition of a perfect life.

Yet, despite all of this, there is a deep saddness to Larc that is ever present. He seems to greatly sympathize with Asivus, and has a lot of (yet unseen) regret and guilt. Simiarlly to Siv, he constantly thinks about the unfairness/malice of life, but since Larc seems to have gotten the good end of the stick in life, Larc just convinces himself that any malice or negative emotions he might feel are unjustified, that they don't exist. That he's pathetic to think as such.

But of course, ignoring it doesn't make it go away, Larc still has these emotions, he's still not happy, but he's become to accustomed to them being there and not dealing with them, that's he's almost apathetic about it, similarlly to Siv.

He attempts to find happiness and satisfaction in authority, the the order the kingdom has to offer. He believes that the best thing he can do is be autonomous to whatever the world hands you, whether orders from a king or a father.

But despite this, he understands that deep down, this isn't making him happy. He still hasn't directly dealt with the regrets and guilts he has, even though he tries to hide it under "orders" and the like. He's too much of a coward to do so. Thus, he just concludes that he doesn't deserve to be happy.

Want: Larc wants someone to tell him what to do to be happy. He doesn't want conflict or confrontation, just peace.

Lie: When the life Larc lives doesn't clear his regrets, Larc tells himself that it's because he doesn't deserve to be happy. Thus the very least he could do is do as he's told, and someone like him doesn't deserve to talk back

Need: Larc needs to learn that he does deserve to be happy, but the road to doing so isn't smooth. He needs to learn to care about himself, and actually confront and deal with the problems in his life, instead of running away and being autonomous.

Therefore, Siv and Larc's outlooks on life have contridictions, theirfore their actions also oppose each other at times, and that conflict helps move the story, and make things more fun to watch.

Overtime, we can see their lies start to break down, based on their interactions with other characters, and in their attempt to even help themselves and each other. The autonomous nature and apathy they have starts to break down, whether despite, or because, of their wants and desires.

Now, Siv and Larc just on their own are cool, but with the way they're designed to highlight the theme, and affect the story based on their character driven actions, it makes them both interesting and perhaps even relatable characters, as they are

Someone whose wants and needs enhance the plot

And of course, this pattern isn't just present in the Hartell bros, but in pretty much every character (Except Hestu)

Hey what's that?/We have an older brother/You thought there were two but there is another: Character interaction is pretty cool

So. Siv has allowed himself to open up a little. He dares to be vulnerable for the sake of being happy. He's actually started to rekindle and create bonds, with characters like Larc, Zelda, Link, and Zavis.

But the thing about being open to change and love, can inevitably lead to pain. It's just a reality of life.

Enter: Didymos Astor. Just as the Champion gang comes together, Astor comes along to fuck things up.

On a meta level, Astor is an intriguing character simply because the expectation for him didn't amount to much to begin with. Age of Calamity Astor was just evil for....unstated evil reasons. Therefore writing him was practically just creating an entirely new oc.

So playing with the meta-ness of Astor, there's a lot of mystery to him that I maintained, but in such a way were I actually made sure to eventually answer those mysteries.

At first you don't know why he does what he does, but you do understand that his goal is to help Calamity Ganon rise. He also seemed absolutely confident in his decisions, he believes that his path is the best one.

Then slowly, information is revealed that allows you to understand Astor. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I purposefully did this in parallel with Siv slowly being hurt and betrayed by the people he once let himself be vulnerable with. The understanding of Astor comes with Siv's lack of understanding of the world around him.

Astor at this point in time, is basically a representation of listening to that little voice in your head. Both metaphorically, and quite literally. An "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude.

And of course, because this is HKU, he's not purely an evil villain, and he has an understandble line of logic in his actions, and even morals, as...different as they may be. I try to be very precise with my characters as I don't want to use backstory as an excuse for their actions, I fully intend to let their consequences play out, but at the same time I do want you to understand why someone does something besides just "he evil."

Astor used to have a close relationship with the old Queen of Hyrule, a literal symbol of hope for the kingdom given she possessed the power of Hylia. He himself wasn't a very important person, just some random orphan that probably only got a place at the castle because he was friends with the queen. But when she died, and the fate of Hyrule was apparantly sealed, so too did his hope. A much more depressing outcome of the "you can't control life so be apathetic" view that Astor shares with his brother.

He tried to apply logic to his situation, whether by trying to justify the end by saying that everyone in Hyrule is a fool, or a bad person, or by twisting the memories of his better days into something worse so that he doesn't have to feel as bad.

But of course, the TRUE and absolute reason he does all this, is to save Zelda, because as much as he would loathe to admit it, there's a part of him that still cares. If siding with the Calamity is the only way to save the last connection to the light of your life, then so be it. In a cruel world like Hyrule, why should he be able to enact just a sliver of justice in it.

And honestly he might be right. In the hundreds and thousands of timelines out there, I think there's only two were Zelda actually survives. Not very good chances *wink wink*

He couldn't care less if he looks like a villain as he does this. In fact, he would probably want to. He's been ignored his whole life, so some dramatic time in the spotlight to prove everyone wrong would be euphoric.

Want: Astor wants power over his life, even just a little bit. Just enough to rid the world's vermin, and save Zelda.

Lie: Hope is a lie and everything is doomed. We deserve to lose

Need: If Astor wants to be an actually good person, he needs to learn there are aspects and realities of life that you can't predict or control or assign logic to, yet despite that life is good anyways. Hope isn't always about winning, but about letting yourself live as best you can, and persevere.

Astor is a blast to write, because sometimes he's a stupid emo teen that you can bully for being called "Didymos," and then two minutes later he's a genuinely terrifying villain, and then two minutes after that you're feeling just even the slightest bit of sympathy for him. He's a cunning, cucking, emo bastard and if Larc didn't exist he might just be my favourtie character.

But another thing I love about writing Astor has to do with my fourth point on how I craft characters:

Someone that wouldn't be important to the story, without their bonds and relationships to the other characters

People being enjoyable on their own is great, but I think the best part about writing different characters is seeing how they fit together, like puzzle pieces. This again goes to my point about how no character is wasted, because a complete puzzle doesn't have extra pieces (except Hestu)

So let me just talk about my themes of trauma and how I use malice in HKU

I made this venn diagram awhile ago, but it's kinda....bad. Lmao. So let me summarize in a way that's coherant.

When you get traumatized by something, or something terrible happens to you, even if that experience gets solved, you will probably still have that memory for the rest of your life. That experience, and the consequences that it had, will be something you have with you for a long, long time, and the reality is that sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.

And so the question of HKU becomes...well what exactly do you do with it? Is it a strength, or a weakness, or do you pretend it doesn't exist?

Asivus is the protagonist of the story because it is from his perspective that we explore the most viewpoints and angles of the stories theme, not just through Siv himself, but from his perspective of those around him, and his relationships with them. Again, per the "no character wasted," because quite literally everyone has an opinion on the subject.

For now, let's just focus on Siv, Larc, and Astor.

Hartell Bros and using pictures to appeal to the neurodivergent asshat (AKA myself): The Journey to find your need

This is pretty much where these characters stand at the start of HKU.

Through the beginning arc, Siv becomes less apathetic and actually starts to care, about others, and himself. And eventually, he even follows the hope (ambition) to help Zelda save Hyrule. Now, at this point, Siv doesn't respect Astor, and he envies Larc, so he moves further away from their respective "places" and values. He allows himself to be vulnerable.

Meanwhile, circumstances threaten the most important thing in Larc's life, his family. These circimstances force Larc to go against his usually autonomous lifestyle, and actually act out of personal ambition, and try to take the helm on his life.

Finally, Astor has been in his spot for awhile, ever since he became set on helping to revive the Calamity. And over the first few arcs, nothing happens to him that forces him to change. He stays in his place, because his brother's relationships to him basically make him a moral compass of what they DON'T want to be. (Almost like...getting bad advice, and not taking it.) Astor at the moment is a stationary catalyst who tries to convince Siv to share his viewpoint. And this doesn't happen yet.

So its because of their interactions and relationships that their characters move to here:

HBut the thing about letting yourself be more autonomous, or vulnerable to other people, is that while it does have great benefits, you still might get hurt by other people, so you need to learn how to handle these situations properly.

Asivus does not handle this properly.

When Zavis betrays him, and makes him look like a fool, Siv books it out of the vulnerability department as fast as he can. When Link seemingly shows Siv that the future is broken, and that the world is unfair and out to get him, Siv detaches himself completely from being content (apathetic) and when Siv see he can't rely on anyone to save him, even Zelda, then he moves further into control.

So yeah, Siv's character quite literally wouldn't exist without his relationship to others, and they, him.

Meanwhile, Larc is forces even further into the control and ambition department by being turned into the literal emodiment of ambition and power: a Hollow. Thanks Astor! So for a brief amount of time, he lives at the extreme ends of purple and red, and once he recovers, he desperately wants to move back towards the blue and yellow areas because it wasn't exactly the best of experiences for him.

So now Larc is no longer autonomous to the world around him, and after he is truly revealed as a traitor thanks to being kidnapped and almost dying and the world finding out about everything the gang's been up to, Larc really cannot return to his "following orders" lifestyle. He's on the edge of being where he needs to be, but he still is of the mindset that he doesn't deserve to be happy. So while he allows himself to be in control of his choices, and to follow and protect his family, he rejects hope for himself, and dips into just not caring about himself.

Finally, Astor. His change starts small, but the fact they he shifted at all when he's spent so much of the story as immovable is significant. In a combination of not liking Siv's extremes, and actually expressing hesitation the more he interacts with Zelda, Astor moves out of the yellow and just barely dips into the side of ambition, and the desire to actually change a seemingly unchangeable situation. But it's just barely, and he still sides with Ganon.

So thus, after all those interactions, the Hartell Bros stand around here:

And where will they go from here? Who knows! I'll give you a hint thought...things are really looking Up for Siv (wink wink).

The beauty is that you don't even know if anyone will ever truly live in that perfect harmony that the middle offers, because let me assure you, the people that DO live in that perfect middle, are currently dead. The movement toward that center is a positive character arc, but will everyone achieve a positive character arc? People can enter there sure, but the hard part is staying, of keeping those ideals. And Hylia...don't even get me start on how Link, Zelda, Zavis, and everyone else fits into this, I'd be at here for another six hours.

And also, I think my little graph is a good example of my other themes on mortality and how it's not black and white. There's no extreme good end, and extreme bad end; being a good person is a harmony of the different difficulties every day has to offer.

And then ALL OF THIS, I hide under the guise of mystery, and plot, and humour, and shitposts; evil soup, hot sword people, disaster gays, giant robots, cucking, ninjas, knights, musicians and seers...Just a constantly battle between not being too preachy and not going too off the rails, I myself am constantly trying to find that center harmony as I write HKU.

But make no mistake, this is probably the most fun thing I've written...ever. It kicks my ass sometimes, but it's so....I don't even know how to describe it, it's just great. There just so many things that I have to think about to deal with the story and the characters and it's work but I'm really passionate about it so it's FUN and I love it and I will ramble about it again one day because, fuck man...

Writing is badass.

#consider this my gift of content in these Launo-less days #not that he's dead #well. not that he's NOT dead #but uhhh #yeah #out of character

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robinskey · 5 years

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In My Mind (Steve x Hopper! Reader)

Request: Steve Harrington x hopper!reader where the reader has mind reading powers?

A/N: I was trying to find a way to connect the reader to the MKUltra experiments (like maybe her mom was an unknowingly pregnant test subject, like Terry Ives), but the timelines didn’t add up. So the reader is the daughter of Hopper and his ex-wife and older sister of the late Sara Hopper. I like the way it turned out, so hopefully you do, too! Thanks for requesting, anon. :)

Any text in italics are the thoughts of others.

Warnings: Some language (it’s all Stevie Babey’s fault, though, so you can’t be too mad about it)

“Are you excited for your first day of high school?”

The words are spoken by your father, who’s driving with the wheel in one hand a cigarette in the other. A thin haze of smoke clouds both the air and your esophagus. Usually, you’d chide him for his unhealthy vice. This time, however, you let it slide; he needed the nicotine to calm his nerves.

When your dad initially offered to drop you off on the first day of the new semester, you resisted. After all, you had your own car, and, considering you’d been able to navigate the big city for most of your life without incident, you were pretty sure you could find your way to Hawkins High. (Besides, as you’d told your father, “the new kid already starts at the bottom of the food chain, even without her daddy dropping her off.”)

If you were any other moody teenager, you probably would have insisted on driving yourself. In fact, that’s what you were about to do when you felt an overwhelming wave of guilt and disappointment wash over you. The emotions weren’t your own; they belonged to your father. Yet, the feeling was strong enough for you to sense without even trying. Dad plastered a fake smile on his face, but his disheartened thoughts bounced around your head.

God, you idiot, she’s a senior in high school. Of course she doesn’t want her old man around when she’s trying to make new friends. You’ve already missed your opportunity to be there for all her “firsts”.

“Actually, you know what? It might be nice to have a chauffeur,” you said.

You’ll never forget how wide he beamed.

Thus, when he refers to the start of your eighth semester of high school as your “first day,” you happily play along.

“I’m excited for a fresh start,” you say, watching as the car passes by a frost-covered field. Despite the bitter cold, the sun shines down on the earth. Bright white patches of snow glitter in the light.

“Me, too, kid.”

Your father’s uncharacteristically quiet tone draws your attention to him. He stares back at you with glimmering irises. You don’t need to tap into this mind to know exactly what he’s thinking-or, more precisely, what he’s thinking about.

***

Once upon a time, you had been relatively close with your father. Your mother worked long hours at the office, trying to climb the corporate ladder, so you saw him a lot more often than you did her. He helped you and Sara with your homework and coached your softball team; the two of you were certified daddy’s girls.

Then, tragedy struck: Your sweet little sister was diagnosed with cancer. Despite their best efforts, the doctors couldn’t save her. Sara’s death wounded your mother deeply, but it destroyed your father. The deep depression into which he fell led to the dissolution of their marriage.

Because your father was barely in a state of mind to take care of himself, let alone another human being, your mother received full custody in the divorce. You stayed in New York with your mother, and your father moved back to his hometown of Hawkins, Indiana. His decision to leave felt like abandonment when you needed him most.

The two of you spent five years without seeing each other in person. You rarely even spoke over the phone, unless he drunkenly dialed you or you called him-which, after he repeatedly answered with slurred speech, you eventually stopped doing. He missed holidays and birthdays, only occasionally sending a card in the mail, which often arrived several months late, and never invited you to visit.

All that changed in the fall of 1984, when your father invited you “home” for Thanksgiving break. He even offered to pay for your flight to Indiana. Hoping to mend your relationship, you agreed, headed to the airport after school, and arrived in Indiana that same day. Your father was waiting for you at the gate with a cheesy grin and a container of your favorite candy. After a tight embrace and a waterfall of shared tears, you spent the next few days catching up on five years of lost time. He introduced you to El, showed you around Hawkins, and took you to all his favorite places to get a bite to eat. You quickly understood why your dad had wanted to return to this little town; at the end of the trip, you didn’t want to leave it.

“I want to move here,” you told your father on your last night in Hawkins.

“You can always stay with me.”

He didn’t realize you were seriously you took that offer until you called him a few weeks later.

“You actually want to come live with me?” he asked, shock evident in his tone.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Don’t you want to wait until graduation?”

It sounded like your father didn’t want you to move. But, as Dad later told you, he wanted you to come to Hawkins more than anything. He just wanted to make sure you were thinking things through-that this was actually what you wanted, not what you thought you should do.

“I’ll stay here until the end of the semester,” you said, “but I don’t want to miss out on another six months of time I could spend with you. I can finish my senior year in Indiana.”

“If that’s what you want.”

It was what you wanted.

***

At least, it’s what you thought you wanted. The way your stomach twists into a pretzel shape as you pull up to the school makes you doubt your conviction. You ramble about your fears of being accepted as you gather your belongings.

That’s when a firm hand lands on your shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“You’re going to kill it today, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Dad.” You press a quick kiss to his cheek, then hop out of the car.

“And remember,” he says with a pointed finger, “if anyone treats you poorly, take note of their name. They may need to receive a visit from the Hawkins Chief of Police sometime down the road.”

You roll your eyes, but a small smirk tugs at your lips.

“Bye, Sheriff!” you call over your shoulder.

As you walk into the school, you swear you can feel a hundred sets of eyes boring into your soul. Anyone else would have been be able to dismiss it as their own paranoia. However, you could hear the thoughts of your peers even louder than their whispers.

Who is that?

Was that the Sheriff’s car?

Where did she come from?

The rapid-fire unspoken questions continue for the rest of the day. When the bell rings for lunch, you start to panic. If there’s one thing more terrifying than starting in a new school where you know no one, it’s walking into a high school cafeteria when you have no one to sit with.

Thankfully, a curly-haired girl from your homeroom spots you in the hallway. She invites you to her table with a friendly grin that makes you feel instantly at ease. You chat as you make your way through the lunch line.

After you get your trays, Nancy leads you to a corner of the cafeteria where two guys are already sitting across from each other, making casual conversation. The one facing you has pale skin and terrible posture. He greets Nancy warmly and smiles at you politely. After his initial reaction of who the hell is this, his thoughts turn more positive: Another girl for Nancy to befriend. That could be good for her.

“Y/N, this is my boyfriend, Jonathan,” Nancy says, taking a seat next to him.

That’s when the second boy finally turns around.

Big, brown eyes lock onto yours. They’re framed by thick, dark lashes. Other than a few freckles, his rosy complexion is blemish-free. And that hair-his mane is composed of fluffy brunette curls that simply defy gravity.

You’re really glad he can’t read your mind because you can’t stop thinking about how you’ve never seen a human so...pretty.

Luckily for you, he’s thinking the same thing.

Damn, she’s gorgeous. Why have I never seen her before? Oh, shit-I’m staring. Come on, Steve get it together. It’s just a girl, and you’re-you’re King Steve Harrington.

“King Steve Harrington”? Does this guy really call himself that? You chew on the inside of your cheek to keep from bursting out laughing. Steve licks his cotton-candy pink lips nervously.

God, how is she that beautiful?

“I’m Steve,” he says. “Steve Harrington.”

“I know,” you blurt out.

Steve tilts his head at a slight angle, confused as an untrained dog being told to sit.

“I, uh-I know your name’s Steve,” you say, which is true. “Nancy told me.”

Did I?

Before Nancy can ask her question out loud, you gesture to the empty spot next to Steve.

“Can I sit?”

Steve nods, scooting over a bit to make room. Your arm brushes his as you slide onto the bench. Your skin burns, and you’re not sure if it’s due to your own flustered attitude or the heat radiating from Steve. There’s half a beat of silence; even the internal dialogue dies down for a moment. Then, Nancy and Jonathan launch into a discussion about the fourth-period pop quiz. You quickly tune out of their conversation and into the thoughts of the boy next to you.

How long do you have to know a girl before you ask her out?

While no bullies will be receiving a visit from your father, you have a sinking feeling that the sheriff will be having words with a particular student at Hawkins High in the near future.

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solasan · 4 years

Note

15-25 for ced and alistair!

15. how adventurous are they?

oh, super adventurous. in any way u could possibly take that. out in the world, they’re both stupid and curious (truly some bimbo/himbo solidarity here) — cedany a little more so, because she’s obviously not seen much of the world, so she’ll often get distracted by something shiny or interesting in the wilderness and everyone (bar zev and leliana, who couldn’t lose her if they tried) has to take a few minutes to try and find her again.

in more, uh, intimate settings, cedany’s down for basically anything, and alistair wants to learn all he can. they’re both very careful abt making sure consent is a Big Thing between them, because of cedany’s unspoken issues there, but as long as they’re both interested in trying something new, they’re good. they’re a little less adventurous once they get back together, ‘cause they’re both in their mid-forties and have lived a lot more and have very little time left to be together, since they’re, y’know, on their calling, so they’re more concerned with just having each other, but they stay being horny so props to them i guess

16. do they keep secrets? lie? cheat?

alistair is less prone to secrets — he’s big on honesty — but given that most of cedany’s are very personal, trauma-based ones, ones she refuses to even acknowledge exist, he doesn’t often push for more from her on that front. neither of them are big liars, at least not with each other.

cheating is— a little more complicated. during his marriage, alistair kinda cheats on gwenore with cedany once or twice, but given that gwenore’s aware of these dalliances (after the first one, which was a shock) things get a little murky there. there’s also the issue of him Being Married that means he’s probably Technically cheating on cedany, but it’s, again, super complicated. she also takes other lovers over the years, but they’re technically broken up for most of those. by the end, though, there’s none of that. again, they’re desperate to just have each other again lmao

17. what would make them break up? would it be permanent?

in canon, they break up bcos of the whole ‘im a king and i cant marry a warden or a mage’ bullshit schtick, but that’s not permanent. they actually give their relationship a try more than once in the following years, but it just never works out — the timing is bad, or things are too difficult for them, or he has a family and can’t bear to disappoint his son. they do eventually reunite for their calling and remember why they loved each other and just say fuck it, let’s be in love before we die

outside of canon— they might near a breakup when kids became a topic of conversation, but idk. homeboy has that dialogue abt wanting any future at all with the warden, so ???

18. what are their dates like? how long do/did they date? do they ever feel the need to take a break from each other?

they don’t rly have ‘dates’. unless like… sharing a bowl of stew on a log by the fire together during a night watch and then sneaking off to shag in their tent counts? which is a shame bcos i rly do think alistair would pull out all the fucking stops for that shit — dinner, roses, the whole shebang.

they date technically for only like ??? six or seven months ?? but there’s a lot of tension leading up to that, and then they have a whole angsty entanglement for literally 25 years after that so…… it dont make cents luv x

during those 25 years they need to take breaks from each other all the time, bcos it’s painful to be around each other. but when they’re together during the blight ? could not pry them away from each other if u tried. they’re like halves of a whole, as cheesy and disgostang as that is

19. what do they fight about? what are their arguments like? how do they make up?

arguments between these two are loud and often involve cedany turning into a swarm of flies to chase him when her throat gets sore from yelling. they’ve fought abt a lot of shit over the years, too — in the beginning, she was pretty certain he was an actual, certified, mage-killing templar, so she picked on him relentlessly over the pettiest, tiniest things. then things were cool between them when they were dating, and then the messy breakup happened, and then cedany burned amaranthine to the ground and alistair was fucking pissed at her, and then he got married, and—

yeah. they’ve fought over a lot of stuff. they made up grudgingly in the early days, usually pushed to do it by leliana or wynne, but later on they don’t even rly apologise ??? they just kinda act like nothing happened, which is somehow almost worse, but neither of them rly knows how to cut through all the bullshit and hurt surrounding their relationship to be honest with each other

20. what does their home look like? their room?

:((( it’s just their tent during the blight. after that, they never share space again

21. do they share any interests or hobbies?

they share an interest in running at things with war-cries ??? shdkfhsk no they share other interests too; they’re both funny and like prodding at their companions for entertainment, and they could also both play with max (ced’s mabari) for fucking hours. alistair always lets cedany loop her flower crowns around his head or neck too, like a proper supportive boyfriend

22. does their work ever interfere with the relationship?

does his being king count as work ???? probably. so yes

23. how do they hug? kiss? tease? flirt? comfort?

hoo boy let’s go

hug: long, big bear hugs. like, spine-crushing ones. they’re both super duper touch-starved, so they sorta cling to each other. she’ll tuck her head into his neck or under his chin, and he’ll bury his face in her hair or shoulder or rly anywhere he can reach. they cuddle all the time when they’re Together together, genuinely

kiss: tentatively, at first, bcos alistair has no idea what he’s doing. after he’s gotten the hang of it, though, it’s usually passionate af — biting, tongues, everything. alistair is usually the one to soften the kisses, because he’s a big ole’ romantic, in which case they’re that gross couple just pulling back and leaning in to kiss each other again and again. by the end, though, they only have a couple of soft kisses — they’re mostly desperate, by that point, and they’re crying during a couple of ‘em, because who’s to know but them, right ??

tease: alistair teases clumsily. he once did a strip-tease for cedany and then got stuck inside his own shirt. cedany was laughing so hard she couldn’t help him for a good five minutes. cedany’s much more proficient at teasing him. he hates her for it — he’s always bright red by the time she’s done

comfort: quietly, surprisingly. neither of them are good at dealing with real, deep, emotions. they’re both very tactile people, so generally comfort will just involve sitting right beside the other, pressed close, so it’s not technically a hug — bcos cedany especially will never accept comfort outright, for fear of looking weak — but they know the other is there. if one is crying, though, the other will hold them; stroke their hair, their back, that kinda thing

24. any doubts about the relationship?

yea for obvious reasons shdkfhsjkd this is getting so long im just gonna rapid-fire move on u kno theyre messed up

25. how much time do they spend together? do they share their feelings, or hold things in?

in the blight, loads. after, very little. they’ll go years without seeing each other, honestly. alistair tries to share his feelings a couple times over the years but ced shuts that shit down bcos she just CANT. queen of holding things in. ok this is done im sorry emily ily

#this is 1.3k. i have a fucking problem #IM SORRY FOR GOING ON ABT THEM ILY #thank u for asking emily ur a babe 💖💖💖#ch: cedany amell #denerims #answered

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cchellacat · 5 years

Text

Game of Thrones Finale

Here be spoilers for the last season of GoT. Turn back now or forever hold you peace. Trust me, I am not holding my peace, I feel like going to war and breaking a bloody wheel over the back of D&D’s heads.

I knew going in, this wasn’t the ending I had been hoping for, or even expecting for nine years. After the penultimate episode the writing was clearly on the wall, so I watched this final chapter, ready for crushing disappointment and grief. D&D did not let me down.

They completed their character assassination of Daenerys with all the clumsy, lazy, pretension and dreadfully written dialogue as one might have come to expect, if they had been paying attention since the start of the season.

When left to flounder in the seas of uncertainty without the masterfully crafted scaffolding of GRRM’s books to hold them afloat, the writers sunk the whole thing gleefully. I’m absolutely certain they took great pleasure in destroying every logical expectation.

This constant need to justify their own twisted ending and eradicate certain characters development and arcs, left me feeling bewildered and horrified. The beautiful woven foreshadowing that had been building since season one seemed to be cast aside at the last and replaced with some Frankenstein monster, cobbled together from a need to be “different” to “surprise”, to be “edgy” and “subversive”.

This isn’t how good writing is done. You don’t change the track of a story just because it’s deemed predictable or because fans guessed the ending.

The onus then, is on the writer, to follow through and complete the story while still making it enjoyable and intriguing. It isn’t to upturn the apple-cart and refill with limes. It’s to take the damn apples and make pie. Make it interesting, draw the audience in, there is nothing wrong with giving the audience what they want. There is nothing wrong with delivering a satisfying and sensible conclusion. There is nothing wrong with giving the main character/s a happy ending.

Their fear of cliche, lead them straight into trope hell. The “face heel turn” of Daenerys from Liberator and Mother to Tyrant and Murderer was sloppy, poorly written and did not have a justifiable history to back it up.

Do not even get me started on how they killed her. JFC. Could they have been anymore obvious about how that was gong to go down? Talk about cliche.

Murdered by the man she loves, who loves her and who is also her only family. We’ll talk later about what they did to poor Jon. Just for reminders sake though, here she is, held in the arms of the man she loves as he promises her she will always be his queen, kisses her and stabs her right in the heart. **blood boiling**

Turing Sansa into Littlefinger 2.0 made my inner rage monster scream. Her transformation from the “The High Queen” to “The Chess-master” makes me think the North isn’t in any better hands than it would have been with Littlefinger in charge. How convenient that none of her siblings will be nearby to notice. Bran in the south, Jon in the True North and for some inexplicable reason, the girl who spent eight season finding her way home, decides to go gallivanting off into the west on some LotR, knock off elf quest.

Arya’s end is as unsatisfying as every other one. She spent years growing stronger, learning to kill, striving to be No-one. Her whole character arc was about her coming to terms with her loss and recognising that no matter how far she ran, she would always be Arya Stark.

Then is was her journey home, learning that she could go back, that even changed by war and blood, family meant everything. Her clarion call, that the “lone wolf dies but the pack survives” has been with her every step. It’s the message her father taught her, one she held too. Why on earth would she leave her pack behind?

What even was the point of having her and Gendry meet again and come together if she was just going to walk away? I’m not saying a character has to be defined by a romantic relationship, but why bother giving the fans a few crumbs just to spit on it an episode later? This is clearly baiting of the worst kind. I’d rather they met as friends and parted as friends than the shit show of having Gendry propose, only for her turn him down. I mean, she could have learned another lesson with the Hound, that defining your life by revenge and forgetting to live only ends in death. Her returning to Gendry after that would have made sense. It would have made sense for her to go build a pack of her own. But no, that would be too easy. What shall we do with Arya? Lets put her on a bus!

He did love her. Jon was crazy about Dany. She was crazy about him. This is the man who puts family first, who lives by his honour. He is his Uncle Ned come again. Ned, who lived and died by his oaths. The only time he broke them was to protect his sisters son, to protect Jon, his family.

This is why they had to destroy Daenery’s character so completely. They had to make her the worst villain imaginable to make it look even remotely plausible that Jon would;

1. Break his oath of fealty

2. Murder his own blood.

3. Betray the love of his life.

They had to preserve Jon’s good name, oh yes, because Jon wouldn’t kill her for power or because she lost her temper and disagreed with him. No. They destroyed both Jon and Dany with this plot.

Jon is now Queen Slayer and Kin Slayer and he has broken his word, his oaths of loyalty, his unspoken oaths of love and protection, which she rightly expected from him as her blood and her lover and has been reduced to a shadow of the man he was meant to be, the king he could have been.

He is cursed by the gods in the eyes of most Westerosi, or he would be if they knew the truth. After all, look at how the nobility treated Jaimie after he killed the Mad King. It didn’t matter to them that the King was evil, no, what mattered was that he broke his oath.

Oath breakers are anathema in Westeros.

So much for a Targaryen Restoration. Goodbye Iron Throne. The whole point of Jon’s character was just erased. Did he defeat some great evil? No. Did he overcome war and death and end triumphant on the throne as the last dragon? No. There was no point in bringing him back after his death in season six. Anyone could have went to bargain with Dany and the outcome would have been the same. Ugh!

Jaime and Brienne. The love story/redemption arc I was so invested in. One hand gives and the other takes away. In the end it seems that Jaime learned nothing, according to the writers that is. I call bullshit. Jaime had redeemed himself. If he had to die, it should have bee while killing Cersei. The foreshadowing of him being Cersei’s death has been around for years. Cersi didn’t love Jaime, she loved controlling him. Cersei loved no one but herself. That was the lesson Jaime was meant to learn. Thanks so much for taking away eight season of character development and self realisation.

Tyrion got shafted too. His speech near the end, it was a load of cow dung. In the end they left Tyrion to be Westeros’ own comic relief. The Small Council was a bloody farce. All that scene did was reinforce my belief that nothing in Westeros has really changed. It doesn’t matter what title you give someone, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Give it ten years and Bron will be the power in Westeros in all but name.

Now who have I forgotten? Ah yes. My Special Mention.

Sandor went out the way he meant to, bringing an end to his brother. But not before the writers gave him a brief moment with Sansa. There you go Sansan fans, he called her little bird! Now shut up and let us kill him in a fiery fall of doom.

Death by fire, the worst death they could give this man. He wasn’t a good man, it’s arguable that none of the characters were good people. However, Sandor Clegane suffered more than most. He spent his life, angry and bitter, seeking revenge for himself and his sister and father. I think, if they had to kill him, they could have given the man a better exit than him tossing both himself and his brother into the flames. It was cruel to make that the only way out, the only triumph he could claim. I think Sandor should have lived. He deserved to find a life of peace after all the fighting he did. It is not poetic or clever to kill a character off with the object of their own fear. It’s not clever when they do it to a villain, it’s doubly unfair to do it to a hero. He was a hero by the end. Sandor deserved better.

Now look, I‘m not saying that in a show like this, that everybody should live or necessarily get the end they deserve, but, they went too far in the name of shock value, leaving no one happy, well, virtually no one. I guess the rabid Sansa fans who loathed Dany are feeling pretty good about now.

(Yes, okay that was mean, but I got sick of seeing it in my timeline and unfollowed a few people.)

I was always very much of the belief that Sansa and Dany had more in common than would drive them apart. I didn’t expect an easy friendship or alliance, but I did expect them to find common ground and be able to build a relationship over time. Strong women supporting each other is what we need more of on TV. Not this misogynistic desire to see two strong women fight over a man, which is essentially what they reduced Sansa and Dany too with poor Jon caught in the middle.

In conclusion...

I feel as though the writers went into season eight with a clear idea of where they had been building and then someone get a bee in their bonnet and posed the question, “Who is the least likely to end up ruling Westeros?”

The answer of course is Bran. Bran the Broken, how fucking ignorant is that? How about Bran the Burdened or Bran the Broker or Bran the Benevolent, if you’ve really got such a hard on for alliteration?

So now Bran, who is so disconnected from feeling that he can’t love anyone, sits the Iron Throne and is somehow meant to be a good ruler.

All that’s needed to achieve this happy ending for the writers?

Goodbye Character development and epic love stories, hello smear campaign, death, destruction and the end of one of my favourite canon ships to ever sail.

Rest in Peace Jonarys. I believed in you.

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newtonrants · 7 years

Text

Kwentong Barbero

It was too hot.

Yes, I know that every day has been uncomfortably so. But it’s definitely worse today. I tug at the mess I call my hair, slick with sweat, and decide to hijack every electric fan at the house.

By the time I had two electric fans, one in each hand, my mom calls my attention - she had a newspaper and a steaming cup of coffee in hers - and tells me to go head to the barbershop before it becomes too hot outside.

I check the clock: 12:02 pm. The sun has long pounded on the hard concrete, basically transforming them into burning charcoal. It wasn’t a pretty prospect.

But not unlike elementary school where the regulation haircut is part and parcel of the code of conduct, keeping one’s locks in check remains a prime directive. It is for that reason that I found myself pedaling my old, beat-up bike towards the nearby subdivision at 12 o clock in the afternoon.

Haircuts, Manny Pacquiao and Rocky Balboa

After 15 minutes of biking underneath the now-cancerous rays of the sun, I arrived at Roland’s barbershop. Set between a butcher’s shop and a burger joint, Roland’s has been my go-to for haircuts for almost a decade.

His shop looked nothing out of the ordinary for a barbershop: two barber’s chairs, a long, rectangular mirror and a desk containing enough scissors and blades to make Freddy Krueger giggle with delight. Lest I forget, there are the standard FHM posters and calendars plastered on walls featuring scantily clad women that everyone in the shop take turns looking at like an unspoken contract.

As I lay down my bike in front of the dingy shop, Roland calls me in and bids me to sit on one of the open chairs. It was a slow day, as the middle of the month isn’t peak season for barbers. I settled into my fugue state reserved for haircuts, boring class lectures and listening to Mike Enriquez over the radio at ten in the morning.

“Alam mo p’re, napanuod ko kanina yung Rocky. Ang lupit,” said one of the regulars, engrossed in a chess match with one of the other barbershop tambays. He was playing the white pieces, and his king was currently exposed with only a couple of pawns to keep it company. The end was nigh for thy royalty - probably what triggered this sudden verbal expression.

“Ayos diba? Idol ko yun. Lupit ng katawan ni Sylvester Stallone dun. Batak, parang si Pacquiao,” said Roland.

“Sino kaya mananalo dun,” said another fellow, smugly taking the white king off of play. “Checkmate, brad. Atsaka feeling ko si Rocky. Mas matangkad yun. Mas mahaba yung abot.”

“Pacquiao pa din. Madami nang nakalaban yun na mas matangkad sakanya, dinadaan lang sa bilis,” said Whitey, named for the chess pieces he played.

This particular debate went on for several more minutes. All the while my head resembling more and more a rather steamy siopao, for the shop only had one electric fan, and it was broken.

“Si Rocky mas mabilis gumalaw, p’re. Mas kaya niyang tumakbo. Puro yun ginawa niya sa pelikula. Hindi tulad ni Pacquiao, puro takbo sa pulitika nalang ang inaatupag,” said Roland, to everyone’s laughter.

As the last few snips chopped off what remained of my uneven hair, Whitey and Blacky chimed in on why Pacquiao have not won any of his recent matches: him losing himself completely in Duterte’s politics, his convoluted stances on religion and LGBT rights, and his race to build political capital.

In this manner, Pacquiao can learn a lot from what happened with Rocky. The first Rocky movie was good - it was an inspiring story of a boxer fighting for the underdog with his own sweat and blood. It stands today as one of the greatest boxing movies in history.

But the rest? The five sequels that had the misfortune of being produced? Utter crap. Convoluted plots, poorly written characters, ridiculous dialogue served as the perfect recipe to ruin a perfectly good movie.

From hometown hero to hated politician, the parallel runs deep in Pacquiao’s narrative. He should have learned to take the hint: quit while you’re ahead.

*cue in Gotta Fly Now*

Shaving, Duterte and Marawi

With my hair all butchered, Roland eased my head backwards for the shave - the final part of this monthly ritual. He pulled from his cabinet a bottle of shaving cream and a box of blades that put the fear of god in me. See I’ve never been a fan of blades, blood and gore, especially during my high school days when having watched the movies Saw and Final Destination marked your journey into “manhood.”

Snapping out of that particular trip down memory lane, the shop’s old, dusty radio piped up, delivering a news report in that perennial radio voice we’ve all come to hate - most likely one of the numerous Mike Enriquez clones clogging the AM airwaves. The news report was on Marawi and its liberation from the Maute fighters.

“Alam mo, pasalamat talaga kay Duterte patay na yang mga terorista na yan,” exclaimed Roland, with that patriotic fervor you only see in war movies where the good guys kick Nazi butt. “At dun sa drug war, ngayon wala nang drug addict sa subdivision. Buti nalang talaga binoto ko siya.”

I had a dilemma on my hands. On one hand, there were some corrections to be made about Duterte’s so-called “success” in Marawi. On the other, Roland had something extremely sharp gliding across my neck. I was - quite literally - on a razor’s edge.

As my budding double chin quivered in fear and indecision, I blurted out: “Paano po ang mga taga-Marawi? Yung mga binomba ang tirahan at nadamay sa crossfire na tinatawag nating collateral damage?”

The silence was deafening. I felt blood on my throat as Roland’s razor slipped. It was a small scratch, but it was all I needed.

“Hindi po mesiyas si Duterte.”

Marawi is in such a state of destruction that who knows when they’ll ever get some semblance of normalcy. Yolanda happened years ago, and yet things are still far from normal, why would Marawi be any different? Years in the future we’ll most likely see the same stories, the same news reports: backlogs in delivering relief aid, corruption in the selection of private contractors.

History repeats itself, nothing is ever new.

This self-inflicted catastrophe brought by gunfire and fusilade, through constant bombing operations over civilian spaces has left nothing but destruction. I see no victory here.

“Hindi po mesiyas si Duterte”

Thousands lay six feet under following Duterte’s massive war against drugs - his words - with the drug cartels still in force. Three months turned into six. It’s well over a year, and despite several high-profile deaths and cases of abuse by our national police, there remains no justice to be gained for all the victims.

Roland stared at the me plastered on the glass panel. There was confusion in his eyes, but somehow also measured understanding. He flashed that smug grin, and did something that caught me by surprise: he laughed.

“Ang laki mo na, Allan. Hindi ka na yung dating pumipikit kapag ginugupitan. Inom nga tayo minsan tapos dun natin ‘to pagusapan,” Roland said, brushing off the hair from my neck. “Yan okay na. Wala ka namang bigote o balbas eh.”

I handed him P70 for the haircut and the shave. He waved it away. “Sa susunod na. Ikaw na bahala sa pulutan,” he said. I said thank you and waved goodbye, picking up my bike from the pavement

It was still too hot.

But it wasn’t because of my hair. It was because for the first time after starting to work at corporate, I felt alive. Who knew that Roland’s would be a one-stop shop for all my existential crisis needs?

I pedal away.

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inhumansforever · 7 years

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Uncanny Inhumans #19 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The penultimate issue of Uncanny Inhumans and a continuation of the IvX tie-in from the creative team of Charles Soule, Ario Anindito, Kim Jacinto and Java Tartaglia (with another awesome cover from Fraizer Irving). Full recap and review following the jump.

There’s nothing good ol’ Maximus loves more than chaos. And with his fellow Inhumans embroiled in a war with The X-Men, Max has found the perfect opportunity to stir the pot and sew further mayhem. It’s not yet entirely clear what the mad prince has up his sleeve, but it’s certain to entail a good deal of hurt feelings and and property damage.

Utilizing Lineage’s powers to commune with the sentience of ancient Inhumans, Maximus has learned the secrets of engineering artificial Terrigen Crystals. It is the shortage of Terrigen, coupled with the fact that The Terrigen Cloud has proven poisonous to Mutants, that has led to the Inhuman/Mutant war. Maximus’ plot to create a new source of Terrigen may, in concept, bring about an end to the conflict… at least that is what he has told Triton in recruiting the banished Inhuman into his schemes. What exactly Maximus has in mind, his ulterior motives, however, remain to be seen.

The issue begins off the coast of Vietnam where the unlikely team of Max, Triton, Lineage and The Unspoken begin their venture to collect the various components and ingredients necessary for engineering Terrigen Crystals.

Maximus presents it all as some sort of heroic journey, yet the endeavor does not seem to have anything to do with heroism. Triton is there because he seeks redemption for his crimes; The Unspoken is seeking Terrigen because of the awesome powers it endows in him; Lineage is merely looking for the opportunity to stab Maximus in the back and seize power; and Maximus appears to be simply interested in it all for kicks.

Plunging far into the depths of the South China Sea, the team comes across a gapping maw on the seafloor that is actually a mouth leading to hidden kingdom of undersea creatures. Triton and the others have to fight off an army of these monstrous crustaceans as they proceed further on.

The Unspoken grows increasingly bemused by the situation. It’s not only that the affair has ruined his six thousand dollar Ferragamo loafers, but Maximus’ continued disrespect rankles The Unspoken as an effrontery to his status as royalty. He reminds Maximus that he had been the King of The Inhumans and demands that he be treated as such. Maximus is unmoved by the threat, yet acknowledges that he is quite aware that The Unspoken is indeed a king.

The team makes it further into this strange realm and eventually come across the court of the creatures’ queen. It turns out that the roe this queen produces, her eggs, are a key ingredient in creating Terrigen and Maximus has come to bargain for a cache of this roe.

The Queen (who oddly enough speaks English) is suspicious of Maximus’ intentions. What could he possibly have to offer that would incline her to trade away her precious roe? Well, it proves that Max does indeed have something she wants... something every queen needs, a king. Maximus offers The Unspoken, a true king, as the queen consort in exchange for the roe.

It’s not clear if Maximus is using his psychic powers for manipulation, but the queen accepts his offer. What is clear, however, is that Max very much has to use his powers to coerce The Unspoken to accept the bargain as well…

The Unspoken is left behind to a fate befitting his lousy character and the others leave with their prize in toe.

The ‘heroic journey’ continues on, taking them all over the globe as Maximus collects more of the rare components needed to create Terrigen. It turns out that a good third of these ingredients are unnecessary and Maximus has had the squad collect them simply to keep them guessing and maintain his being the only one who knows the recipe for Terrigen.

They end up in Mumbai, where Maximus procures the final ingredient. They are met there by Banyan, an Inhuman villain Maximus had reached out to in the previous issue. Max has instructed Banyan to make preparations, assemble some sort of machine that can be used to combine the ingredients they’ve collected and transfer it all into Terrigen.

Maximus asks Banyan for word of the Inhuman/X-Men War and Banyan replies that it has been waging on worse than ever. “Excellent,” Maximus says. “For you see, my friends, it is times of greatest adversity that gives rise to the greatest of heroes.”

He then goes on to add, “for example…” At which point the scene shifts back to the shores of the South China Sea where a large prawn-like monster arises from the depths and makes its way to land…

And it’s with this bizarre, unexpected and unexplained turn that the issue comes to an end with the promise of being concluded in the next (and final) installment of The Uncanny Inhumans.

Well, that was different… A fun albeit silly ride. And the silliness of it all leads me to believe this arc will not have a significant impact on the overarching storyline of IvX; that rather it’ll be self-contained and not a central element to the conclusion and resolution of the Inhuman/X-Men War. But that’s not to say it isn’t worth reading. Writer, Charles Soule, really excels at scripting Maximus; offering the character an irreverent and manic charm that is terrific fun to read. And there are a number of especially funny scenes… though it is Lineage who gets the best line of dialogue.

Laughs aside, I’m growing increasingly concerned over Triton’s fate as this chapter of the Inhumans mythos comes to an end. His quest for redemption has a strong tragic air to it, offering credence to the notion that he may be heading toward some sort of heroic, self-sacrifice in order to finally redeem himself.

I kind of hope this is the last we see of The Unspoken. He never clicked for me as a satisfactory villain for The Inhumans. The fate that befalls him in this issue, married off to the grotesque prawn queen, is rather befitting and I kind of hope this proves to be his ultimate fate (although I doubt it).

Really no idea what to make of the last scene. Has the Crustacea Kingdom sent some sort of monster to bedevil the land-living world? Is this related to the Monsters Unleashed event? Is it all a promotion for the restaurant chain, Red Lobster’s never-ending shrimp offer? Time will tell…

It’s mere speculation, but I wonder if the undercurrent of Maximus’ yammering on about the ‘hero’s journey’ is something of a commentary of how The Inhumans have ended up in this terrible conflict with The X-Men. The prevailing theory among many fans and readers is that The Inhumans have been tethered to the X-Men as a means to further propel The Inhumans into the spotlight. In truth, however, the event hasn’t done The Inhumans a whole lot of favors... it’s hard to not see them as the bad guys in IvX. I’m as big of a fan of The Inhumans as it gets and even I cannot really root for them it their victory would entail the demise of the entire Mutant race.

Maximus states, “times of greatest adversity that gives rise to the greatest of heroes,” and it seems as though there may be some meta-commentary to the line. Heroism in the face of adversity has been the guiding principle of the X-Men tales... and the stories has had to manufacture a near endless stream of backs-against-the-wall threats to keep this thematic moving forward. The Terrigen Cloud proving deadly to The Mutants was a retcon that kind of came out of nowhere. It offered up the latest in a long list of adversities needed maintain the X-Men’s constant thematic of being on the edge of extinction. And it’s kind of a pain in the ass because Uncanny Inhumans was trucking along just fine prior to getting tangled up in the whole ordeal of IvX. The cool stories and evolving plot-lines that Soule had been building all got sort of hijacked by this need to provide the X-Men with their latest extinction-level adversity.

The Inhumans will never be as popular as The X-Men. They are simply too weird to garner such a mainstream appeal. If there ever was a secret plot at Marvel to replace The X-Men with the Inhumans, the conspiracy has surely has been abandoned by now. The X-Men will get a whole new initiative following IvX... a large scale relaunch of their various titles that should put to rest the ridiculous notion that Marvel has been secretly trying to kill the X-franchise.

And The Inhumans will be getting a relaunch as well (albeit a considerably smaller one). Uncanny Inhumans will end and be replaced by The Royals. As sad as I am to see Uncanny Inhumans end, The Royals is looking like it’s going to be quite good. Furthermore, it appears as though the effort to make the Royal Inhumans into more standard-fare superheroes will be loosened and the squad will be allowed to re-embrace it’s more fitting science fiction roots.

As for the X-men, hopefully their ResurrXion titles will be good. And hopefully the franchise’s overarching thematic will evolve and innovate. The constant need of ‘great adversity so to give rise to great heroism’ has been overused and become stale. If not, then I feel sorry for the fans of the next group who gets caught up in the X-Men’s orbit... the next sacrificial lamb offered up to provide an extinction-level threat.

right... that went a little darker and more cantankerous than I had intended...

Anyways, the weird cliffhanger ending notwithstanding, Uncanny Inhumans #19 is a madcap romp and very fun read. The art by Ario Anindito, Kim Jacinto and Java Tartaglia is extremely well done.

Definitely recommended. Three out of Five Lockjaws.

#Inhumans #Uncanny Inhumans #IvX #Spoilers #Charles Soule #Ario Anindito #Kim Jacinto #Java Tartaglia #review

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