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September 2018

3 Ring Samurai: Part 2 The Space Between Worlds. Chapter 1 ‘Ice Cream’

Here I am to disappoint you once again haha.

So not really a surprise, I said I was doing this but you didn’t know I was cutting the chapters down haha. I just went over it and I was like ‘why is my fun punchy action comedy coming in these huge ass chapters and not acting as the filler I intended it to be?’ Probably to save on clown pictures haha.
So I cut it down shamelessly to better filler. But I think it makes it flow better, appeal more to audiences with a shorter attention span.
It’s a pretty fun romp, I had fun writing it. It came out a lot better than I thought in terms of getting in the anime backstory for a deeper build on the character still leaving in mystery.
I was actually thinking about the developing story last night in the shower (the place I do most of my thinking haha) and it sounded pretty good in my head, I have a strong back bone to the narrative but plenty of freedom and time to take it in any number of little side roads and alleys for fun.
That sounded bad haha.
Yeah so, not much to add, just wanted to get this chapter proofread and out there for you all, hope you like it.
See you…
–
 
“I don’t remember you” Pookie said.
 
“That hurts” Canard smiled through his words tilting his head slightly. “I’m your biggest fan”
 
Pookie wobbled a little and corrected himself with his hips. He cast a glance down at the rapid waters below bubbling with toxic waste and probably used needles from a century ago.
 
“You were always kind of weird, even for circus folk, liked to keep to yourself. But I mean most clans like to keep to themselves, clowns especially, guess you guys think you’re kinda special.” He laughed. “But I always liked you, in fact, you were the reason we joined, one of them anyway.”
 
“We?”
 
“Yeah my ‘friends’”
 
“The ones I killed?”
 
“We were more like ‘acquaintances’ really, you don’t choose your friends in this world, ya just kinda try to get by.” He sighed.
 
“We were orphans, our parents killed in the war, we had like a little gang stealing and scrounging to stay alive. One day the circus came to town and we snuck into one of your shows.” He laughed. “You couldn’t have been much older than us at the time, a boy really, but the way you fought, and how the crowd loved you.
 
“Right at that moment, we realised that life couldn’t get any better than that. We could never be kings or work a normal job like our parents. We’d never fall in love and have kids but if that crowd could cheer for us like it did for you. We could die with a smile on our face, ya know” He clicked his teeth under his mask.
 
“And then you go and do a stupid thing like kill your own master, why? He not pat you on the head and tell you you’re a good boy enough, run out of fortune cookies to read from, what was it?”
 
“…” Pookie stayed silent.
 
“Well whatever it was it’s my mission to bring your body back.” He laughed and gripped his spear tighter “I guess we should fight now”.
 
Pookie was getting his balance, getting used to the spring and using his toes to walk and cling to the rope mimicking the movement of the acrobat. He bounced on his heels and used his sword as a balance beam.
 
Canard took up a readied stance and Pookie leaned back into the rope. Suddenly springing forward he pulled the cord on his sheathe and the sword came roaring with laughter out to cut the air.
 
He was gone.
 
Pookie stood frozen for a moment feeling overextended and confused. There was nowhere to go, it seemed impossible for him to vanish right before his eyes.
 
There was a laughter and Pookie’s blood ran like ice water as the blade of a spear came up between his leg and nicked his foot playfully.
 
Canard was standing as he was before except upside down, gripping the rope with his feet.
 
“You dodged, just by falling.”
 
The spear came up again but Pookie bounced back and away. Canard stayed on him walking upside down gripping with his toes as if they were hands following Pookie’s movements.
 
Pookie barely able to keep his balance and block the incoming strikes with his blade.
 
Pookie jumped back and Canard tugged at the rope and swung himself the right way up.
 
“Impossible right? To just vanish right before your eyes” He laughed. “The others just ran to their deaths one after the other, I don’t fault them for that, they died exactly how they expected to but I watched you. I noticed there’s a split second, right when you pull that cord and the sparks fly, just a nano second – you close your eyes.” He said, an unseen grin creeping across his face
 
Pookie’s face soured and he got that cold feeling in his gut like when he needed to take a shit really bad.
 
Canard glided towards Pookie, weightlessly and effortlessly fast like the rope wasn’t even there, like he could fly. His spear flashing in the air he slashed down at Pookie’s head. Pookie barely managed to get his footing, turning side on to block the strike. But then a follow up and Pookie turned again stepping backwards barely dodging a thrust. The blade nicked his shoulder when the blade came back as he tried to regain his balance.
 
Pookie turned 180 degrees throwing his body weight forward. He launched a powerful strike holding his sheathe out to his side to act as a counterbalance. Canard was too close and overextended to block it so had to jump backwards gliding through the air and landing softly back on the rope a few feet away.
 
Pookie looked at the cut on his shoulder and the one on his leg and he felt all his exertion. His lungs burning, every muscle and sinew fighting to keep his balance and fight at the same time. How long could he last? He tried to quickly glance behind him to see how far he’d have to run to get back to the other side of the bridge. But he couldn’t turn far enough or fast enough without giving away his intention. And if he just turned and ran for it the much more experienced tight rope walker would undoubtedly catch up to him and strike him down like a coward.
 
No there was no other way, he couldn’t turn back, there was no other way but to keep going.
 
Canard looked down at the toxic rapids below “We were never afraid of death as kids. Death was all around us, it was in the streets and in our living rooms, in our kitchens, it was how we lived, how we – ate. But falling, the fear of falling that was something completely different, something we had to conquer. So we practiced, we climbed and ran and jumped and sometimes we fell but we didn’t die.
 
And in a way I guess she helped us conquer death.”
 
“She?”
 
“Our leader, she didn’t want to play our little game and she went on ahead”
 
“She’s your leader but you ignore her orders?”
 
“Geez, you really don’t know anything about us, someone doesn’t get out of the tent much. She’s the strongest but she’s also kind of a pain in the ass” He laughed. “And who are you to talk, you took a knife to your master in the dead of night, like a fucking pussy” He laughed.
 
“It wasn’t like that.”
 
“Then how was it?”
 
“…”
 
“Exactly, you’re no better than us, they followed their code and they died anyway, you broke yours and you’re still alive!”
 
Canard leapt forward again gliding across the rope and jumping launching a downward slash, his spear flashing. Pookie raised his sword and tried to keep his stance balanced.
 
Canard feinted a strike from above pulled away at the last second. He came in again from the side swiping upwards with the tip of his spear catching Pookie across the chest with a shallow but vicious cut. Pookie swirled around and swung his blade hard at nothing again as the lithe duck evaporated. Gliding up in the air back the few feet out of his reach, Pookie fought to get his balance, his frustration mingling with the searing new pain in his chest.
 
It was hopeless, Pookie could barely even move to launch at attack himself. Having to keep his balance made him a sitting duck only able to counter and each time he was getting more tired and losing more blood.
 
“We just wanted to have a little fun, what’s left in this life if you can’t have that before you die.” Canard said.
 
“Is that all there is?” Pookie looked down at the water again.
 
“Of course, can you think of anything else?” He laughed.
 
Pookie rested the blade of his sword against the rope. “Are we having fun yet?”
 
“You’re joking right?”
 
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
 
Canard looked at him and shrugged. “Well, yeah kinda”
 
Pookie flicked his wrist and cut the rope, plunging them into the toxic rapids below.
 
In the trees a heron mask watches the scene coldly surveying and then retracting back into the foliage.
 
–
 
Read the rest on inkitt by following this link Ice cream
0

Spiderman ‘Current year edition’ Review (Amazing savagery)

“It really makes you feel like spiderman’s wife’s black son”

-Ign

Newsflash webheads I hate it haha.

I dunno, I couldn’t get hyped for this one honestly, for a couple of reasons. Number one being it just looked like a milk toast Arkham copy and I haven’t liked an Arkham game since the first one so that lets you know where I’m at on that one. I mean I stopped playing origins after the first couple of missions because it was just tedious and predictable. Just a slog with room after room of the same uninspired combat and stealth mechanics.

The other reason was the studio behind this game have made nothing of note. The closest thing to spiderman they made was Sunset Overdrive, the most generic nothing game you could ever imagine. Kinda like crackdown and infamous for hipsters, trying for the comedy of gta or bully and just being a pointless game packed with filler. Another game I just didn’t feel like playing anymore after a couple of hours. I think they made a spyro game and some ratchet clank titles, in human speak that means games not many people give a shit about.

So those were the first red flags that I shouldn’t be hyped about this, the last one being there hasn’t been a decent entry in the spiderman videogame subset since spiderman 2 on the fucking gamecube. Every sequel botched or rushed for purpose of grabbing cash and running. Milking a popular franchise and then spending the profits in an non-extradition country.

And this game is no different folks, it just had a better pr team, i.e you idiots on the riding high on the hype train, moving too fast to see the forest for the trees.

So this game was more of a curiosity purchase if anything. I started off really enjoying. It looks great, it feels cinematic and quite immersive. The combat is really nice and the movement is pretty good.

It starts off with an older Peter Parker, skipping the origin story and getting straight into capturing Kingpin in the tutorial of the game but inadvertently creating a power vacuum that then triggers other villains to appear somehow. Yeah the kingpin thing is kind of just bullshit to have a boss battle at the start, it never really comes up again in any significant way.
Spiderman-Meme-8

So you have a pretty standard boss battle, dodge, web, zip to, punch a lot, rinse and repeat and get used to that because that’s basically every boss fight in this game, only the costumes change haha.
Then you get into Peter Parker’s life. When I first heard that there are segments you play as Peter I was like “Huh?”. But then I started to think this game would be more like an rpg where you play spiderman and you have to balance his normal life and his spidey stuff add to that an upgrade system and new costumes to unlock you have what is essentially an rpg.

But here’s where I was dead wrong since all you do as Peter Parker is walk around and look and use detective vision to find the next thing to interact with to move the plot. And if you’re not doing that you’re working for Otto Octavius in his lab doing shitty puzzles the game knows are shitty and gives you the option to skip entirely in between Otto dropping hints that he’s going to turn into doctor octopus at some point in the near future.
It just becomes a point and click adventure. You can’t walk the streets or like have special places to change into your costumes. It’s basically just a cutscene where you can walk around, in other words, totally pointless filler. And you’re strap yourself in because you’re gonna get a lot of that in this game, but I’ll save that for later haha.

Now the first issue with this game is the core mechanics, people dumping on it for copying Arkham or whatever. I’ve said before I don’t mind if games/movies/books borrow elements from other sources as long as they do them justice and add their own flare. Look at Shadow of Mordor, pretty much steals all Arkham’s gameplay and sprinkles in some Assassins creed but it adds it’s own skill tree and it crafts this awesome enemy hierarchy system. In which the orcs have their own politics you can manipulate and it’s a really fun mechanic.

Whereas spidey has the elements of a perfect spiderman game but then piles on a shit ton of other mechanics from other games implemented in the most half assed and stupid ways that just bog an otherwise decent game down.
For example the upgrade system is just totally useless and really only good for cosmetics. How it works is you have to get tokens to unlock new suits, suit mods and gadgets and you get tokens by grinding random crimes or looking for stupid collectables or clearing bases or completing challenges all basic shit. But the suits just look cool and have like a power that adds nothing really and I never ended up using them very. The suit mods too were pretty useless and I could see doing a playthrough without even buying a new suit or mod and just levelling the skill tree.
The suits don’t have their own stats, so the spider armour mk1 and the spider armour mk2 have the same stats but they have different powers and look different. And you change their stats with mods but newer more expensive suits have the same number of mod slots so the incentive to get them and grind for them is purely cosmetic. You’d think an armoured suit would give you more defence, no it just gives you a power that you’ll never use that gives you immunity to bullets for like ten seconds. Whoop de fucking doo.

Honestly, a game that forces you to look for collectables should be binned just for that. It’s just time wasting filler nonsense.

The first real red flag was when the game introduced ubisoft style towers. And at first I was like “erm I guess this is ok” towers you go to unlock side missions and collectable locations. They’re not hard to get to like farcry or AC because you’re spiderman so that’s ok I guess. But what’s the point in it other than just as a time wasting mechanic? Just to be like the bigger boys? It has no purpose in any game least of all a spiderman game.
And I don’t care if Peter has some kind of walk down memory lane when he picks up another collectible. One was a recipe for dumplings or curry or something, I don’t want to collect little pieces of “lore” someone at insomniac pulled out of their ass as filler ok. It’s just dumb.

The next red flag was the web swinging, something that’s core to any spiderman game, so if you fuck that up you’ve got a problem. At first I thought it was ok, it wasn’t webbing to the sky it looked over it felt intuitive but then I started to notice that I could never seem to get any faster, I could never build up momentum in a swing no matter how hard or deep I took the swing. And I also noticed how the web always shot out of the screen and you could mysteriously web swing on trees in central park. Not that I was complaining because its better than running through central park.

But that’s when I realised that the reason you can’t pick up speed is because the game doesn’t have a momentum system, or anyway to web swing faster. It’s just a stock animation repeated a couple of times, you’re just on a loop and the webs are sticking to the sky they’re just angled to make you think they’re webbing buildings or they have specific anchor points on buildings. So you never get the real sense that you’re web swinging or going fast and there’s no tension because you can jump off the highest building in this game and nothing happens, you can’t die from falling. So that’s spiderman simulator out of the way.  I don’t feel like spiderman I feel like someone playing a spiderman videogame.

Spiderman-Meme-4-e1366955465742

No to shred the basic gameplay, another thing they steal and fuck up is base assaults. So in like Assassins creed there are enemy strongholds you can infiltrate and conquer through stealthily taking everyone out or just barging in and killing everyone. And each one is a fun little mini map, a play ground. But how spiderman fucks it up is all of them are pretty much the same map and you can take them all out stealthily and then another wave of already alerted enemies shows up as one of like five waves you have to fight through making the stealth completely pointless. And why do they do this? Filler, it’s just padding, adding waves is just a way to artificially pad these base missions out and thus makes them a tedious slog that I skipped entirely. And this kind of thing happens in the main quests too, you complete a stealth section only to have more enemies burst in and you have to fight them.

I’m not saying I hate the combat system but eat icecream all day and tell me you want to do the same tomorrow. You can ruin even  good thing if you have too much of it too often.

Now about the stealth, it’s bog standard arkham but as spiderman; perch and isolate and web people up rinse and repeat. Oh no two people together, distract and isolate then web them up, or just use a gadget and web them both up. It’s really simple but I enjoyed the parts of the game where it actually let you do it before ending always in the obligatory fight.

I just think it’s another one of those things, they have a stealth system only because every other game has one but they’ve implemented it in a way that makes it pointless, it’d just be quicker and easier to fight in every encounter.

Another thing I noticed is the world is really lifeless, it’s really not even a sandbox game, it’s a linear game with a really really short even with all the padding campaign with skyboxes you swing through. The world is there but you can barely interact with it in any meaningful way. I get the feeling a lot of the sub mission content was cut for dlc and the stuff us peasants are left with is just the scraps. It looks pretty but it’s just hollow and really this game is a linear game but has to pretend to be open world to be let into the big boy club.

Now I saved by biggest gripe for last, the rabbit pellet on the shit sunday. Now this I couldn’t believe when I heard it and I don’t think this was in any of the marketing I saw. For some reason the game gets the genius idea that for ‘variety’ they sprinkle in these little missions where you don’t play as spiderman. And you may ask yourself am I playing another superhero? Maybe Daredevil? Or the Punisher??? Nope you play Mary- jane and Miles Morales in these shitty forced stealth sections with instant death fail states.
And now you’re thinking ‘surely they’ll just be in submissions and side quests and they’re be really short, they won’t be in the main campaign.’
That’s where you’ll be wrong, they’re in submissions and in pretty much every mission in the main campaign and they get longer and more annoying each time.
When I first encountered this I was like ‘is this a spiderman game, or is this spiderman and pals?’ Why am I playing people that aren’t spiderman in a spiderman game?
What is the purpose of these missions? Why can’t I play as spiderman or at-least Peter Parker for these missions?
I wouldn’t have minded them if I felt they had a purpose or were fun and interesting and relevant to the plot but they’re not and the game makes some lame justification why only MJ can do it and it’s somehow beyond spiderman. Spiderman couldn’t sneak into a gang hideout and take pictures, nah that’s something only MJ could do.

It got to a point where I would buy a new suit for a story quest and then have to stare at the back of Mj’s head while she went on a tour of chest high wall inspections. And to really take the piss in this one mission you see spiderman sneaking around and taking out guards and you have to help him by throwing distraction items to isolate guards so he can pick them off. My jaw at this point was on the floor with how fucking dumb this was.
I paid fifty quid to watch spiderman do spiderman stuff as his annoying girlfriend. And then by the time you’re spiderman again you almost feel relieved like you’ve just been let out of a gulag for white privilege. The relief you get when someone stops hitting your balls with a hammer.

9205260

Is that how fun works? I’m confused, so this game thought it would be good to break up the gameplay with pointless tedious missions where you play spiderman’s mates and this is a triple a game?
On top of that you do pretty much the exact same thing as Miles Morales and his missions are even more pointless. So pointless I’ve forgotten what most of them were even about. Like one was just there because he didn’t want to wait in line. One was like he needed medicine for some random person and he had to steal it and then rhino appears and it’s meant to be scary. You’re meant to be scared of a guy dressed in a rhino suit who sounds like Colossus in the deadpool movies. It’s like ‘ooh look how deadly and powerful he is, don’t you feel scared being a powerless non-super powered human faced with this amazing enemy who can be beaten by hacking into a light to distract him and just walking behind him as he stares at it intently for like five minutes’.
And every time I completed one of these missions I was like ‘what was the point of that?’ I couldn’t understand what it added and why it couldn’t have just been a cut scene or even just a line of dialogue. Instead of playing Miles sneaking past the line he could just say “I didn’t want to wait in line blah blah blah”. The reason these missions exist is to pad out the ridiculously short campaign, that’s the purpose for almost every mechanic in the game. It’s like they crafted the main quest and it’s not awful, the characters and writing is ok and then they were like, ‘shit this is a little short, let’s just cram it with collectables and pointless side quests and forced stealth missions and crafting, that’ll fix it, people love that garbage.’

And you know what’s really sad? They’re not wrong because this money is making more money than god of war. But that’s usually what people say when defending shitty games like this ‘well it made lots of money so it must be good’. Well cancer raises a lot of money but I can’t say the juice is worth the squeeze.
This is what sony does now, they make flashy nice looking movies with a bit of gameplay and hype the shit out of people with paid reviews and get people too drunk on hype to realise how bad the game really is below all the shiny baubles. And by the time they realise the developer is already making a sequel and when that one comes out you’ll have forgotten how shitty the other one really was.

One final thing that really pissed me off, like really made me cringe is they set up Miles to be the next spiderman in this game. We’re not even two games in and they’re already planning to replace Peter Parker. So either you play Miles in the dlc which would be tolerable but I won’t play it because I already returned this game haha. Or the sequel will be playing as Miles, the ultimate sjw commie wet dream haha. And Peter will be relegated to force stealth missions where he sniffs Mjs pants.
Because you know the sjws at marvel and everywhere else is chomping at the bit to make spiderman black. They can’t do it in the movies even though they tried and made references to him as well as replacing almost every other white role in homecoming with another race. I mean they made flash thompson some geeky looking indian gay, it was just silly. When not even the jock bully can be white you’ve reached levels of diversity that shouldn’t even be possible haha.

Overall what’s really sad about this game is that it has potential, underneathe all the shit and padding there beats the heart of a half decent spiderman game that we’ll never see and that’s what makes this game especially triggering to me. Because it could have been amazing but it just isn’t, it’s painfully average and bland.

Save your money on this one. Or buy a gamecube haha.

0

Cur Chapter 8 ‘Thick as thieves’

Bit of a chill one today, its raining outside and I’m feeling gently melancholic – but in a good way haha.

I really do love the rain, sometimes I can’t sleep without hearing it. Don’t know what I’d do if I left the country to some hotter climb. I think I’ll only truly be happy when I move somewhere where it rains all the time haha.

It really doesn’t rain in England as much as people think.

I dunno, I don’t like going out in it but I could spend hours just watching it. Something about knowing that someone else is doing the exact same thing somewhere. Or that outside the world is bare of people, just all huddled around inside watching as it comes down. The steady rhythmic metronome of the rain hitting the ground and trees. Something about that really gets me.

I don’t have much to say other than that, not been up to much except proofreading. I think I really need to go over Cur a couple of times because it’s just too big of a project not to. It only worked out around 50k words but when I say big I’, referring to the scope. I tried to make a little fantasy story but the source material is unrestrainably epic.

I did borrow my brothers ps4 to try out the new spiderman game, I think the last spiderman game I played might have been spiderman 2 haha. It’s pretty good but it has some serious flaws, I might write a review when I finish it.

Down to this latest chapter of Cur, probably the most pivotal chapter up to now in terms of the lore and the backstory for the characters as well as the main themes for the story overall. No action unfortunately but *in Bain voice* ‘That comes later’.

This is sort of where the main story really takes off in terms of an actual quest and some epic duels will follow on from this. This is basically the end of this part and the next will all be about the actual task that Birog is to be given. The main story is of course about Cur but Birog is the character that carries the driving force of the plot.

Ok so enough rambling about that haha. I’ve been too knackered to finish Plunder Squad recently, that’s the name of the Parker book I’m reading, please don’t judge them by the titles haha. Thankfully kept away from the witcher. Not sure I’ll return to that honestly, just a chore to read.

That’s all for now, hope you like this excerpt and if you do, head on over to inkitt to read the rest and my other stories.

See you…

–

Hear- could hear nothing but the sound of the lapping sea and the gulls circling overhead with their monotonous chatter. The sea roared at his feet, the sky swirling with black and grey clouds. His mouth was open and dry and he could feel the sand under him but nothing else and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

 

He stared up at the clouds unable to move his head or close his eyes or feel any of his extremities whatsoever. Not the cold of the wind, nor the spray of the sea, only the sand below him shifting and the little things crawling beneath it.

 

There was no pain, or pleasure, or sense at all, just the sea’s endless roar.

 

Underneath him and he could feel his hair knotting in the sand, damp and being pulled by something. His feet too were being tugged by something out of his line of sight.

 

“We want the dead one’s boots” A little guttural voice said.

 

“We wants his eyes” The harsh voice tugging at his hair said. “Whats you need boots for under the waters anyways?”

 

“To trade” The affronted one said.

 

“You already have your trophy for the king of the deep, begone with you!”

 

“No you!”

 

The two figures continued to bicker and pull at the dead man lying on the beach.

 

“What’s that?” One of them said.

 

“Leg it!” The other said accompanied by the sound of skittering little feet.

 

And then by his feet a splashing sploshing noise as the waves swallowed one of the little things pulling at him and the other darted into a bush.

 

“What do we have here?” A new voice said, one that sounded like a bear and a bird talking at once. “There is life left in this one yet”

 

Time passed as the dead man watched the sky roll over him without care. The sun seen through the clouds turning orange as he felt himself being dragged on what sounded like wooden plank along the ground.

 

The sounds of the waves then replaced with the sound of a campfire and the blanket of clouds replaced by the blanket of night. The stars like pin pricks in the roof of the sky beaming down on his lifeless inert form. Only remnants of his consciousness left to stare out of a blank face for eternity as the rest fell away.

 

Cur awoke from his dream, his neck feeling stiff after being trampled by the black mare. He hushed himself as he heard quiet conversation and the melodious playing of a harp and the light of another fire.

 

“It’s quite alright, I’d probably rob me too if I met me” The druidess laughed.

 

“Our time on the road has hardened us, I beg forgiveness my lady” Tuan tittered like a bard.

 

“And the other one?”

 

“He fell out of his mother hard as a rock” Tuan chuckled.

 

The druidess giggled “However did you meet him?”

 

“It’s a long and very embarrassing story.” Tuan said.

 

“Well? Do tell shapeshifter” She fawned

 

“You see I was caught short, let’s say, a mating ritual -interrupted.” He smiled and waited for a response.

 

“I see”

 

“I was, how do you say, conducting myself in an indecent manor when some loutish fishermen caught me with my trousers around my ankles should we say. They bound me before I could change into something more formidable. There was nothing I could do, I was at a loss” Tuan said with a waiffish arrogance.

 

“Fisherman, in their nets, I’m sorry I’m not following.” The druidess balked as she talked into her cup.

 “Forgive me, I forgot to mention I was transformed into a salmon at the time.” Tuan said absentmindedly staring off into space.

 

“Oh I see, Oh I see” She giggled.

 

“Yes, so these idiots were planning on cooking and eating me, I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t have any of it. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a fish but that just made it worse. You see they were convinced for some damned reason that eating me would give them all the knowledge in the world. I have no idea why.” He said as he took a sip from his cup.

 

“Why didn’t you change into a Wyvern or a crocodile?” Birog said wide eyed, listening intently.

 

“I was already confined in the pot, and I couldn’t think of anything, I get terrible stage fright, all animals fall out of my head when pressed.”

 

“So what happened then?” She said shaking her as if the drink was getting to her a little bit.

 

“Well all the noise of me shouting and arguing with the fishermen drew out the ogre. Who I suspect was trying to take a shit in the woods at the time and he came out and scared them off.”

 

The druidess burst into laughter spilling her wine over her shoulder.

 

“I only suggest that as his trousers were around his ankles as he chased them.”

 

She tried to catch her breath and sputtered “What happened after that?”

 “Well I pledged my life to him as he inadvertently saved it. But of course sour one as he is, he didn’t take kindly to it at first but I was sure to follow him to one day return the favor. But as you might have guessed saving the life of a dead man is quite impossible.”

 

“What an interesting story, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it in all my life.” Birog gaped. “But can I ask- why is he so-?”

 

“Cruel?”

 

“I’m not sure that’s the right word for it, I’m not sure a word exists to describe what he is. He’s cold but inside burns something truly- monstrous, something I couldn’t envision even in my dreams”.

 

“I know little of him but of his people, I have seen much.”

“What have you seen?” She said intently as bit from a leg of succulent roast pork which turned on a spit over the fire.

 

“I have seen Connacht in ruins as a crow sees it.”

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Thick as thieves

 

 

0

Plastic love

I hear the ocean,

The wind blowing through the trees,

The world looks empty.

 

Your face a shadow-

In my head – what could have been,

Is there something else?

 

You’re there but you’re not,

I’m a screen and I smile but-

There’s something missing.

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I’m back and kind of a Han Solo review I guess. (Not very savage)

Yeah so that day job kaffufle is over and I can get back to my one true love, writing about weird shit and complaining about various forms of media for no money haha.

Just gonna blog about stuff today, I have some content but I’ll put it out tomorrow so just typing this thinking about what I need to do today and also trying to think of things to say about the Han Solo movie that haven’t already been said. Probably the most surprising of all the fact I didn’t hate it, in fact I rather liked it.

I know right, that is pretty shocking. I think maybe it’s because I had such low expectations of it, but I also had really low expectations of last jedi and rogue one and I still thought they sucked.

Anyway this is gonna be laden with spoilers because this movie has been out for awhile so if you’re reading this I’m assuming you’ve already seen it or don’t care.

The first scenes aren’t great and I feel like some of the references and jokes fell flat but on a whole I found the movie fun and inoffensive. And what’s more some of the things people complained about in the movie seemed kind of trite in the context of the film.

The first thing that comes to mind is Donglover’s Billy Dee impression, which was a little cheesey at times but didn’t ruin the movie on the whole. His character was ok, all the characters were pretty likeable and fun. I liked Alden Errenreich’s Han, I thought it was very accurate without trying too hard. Another complaint was the annoying robot side kick L337 who reviewers hated because she’s like an sjw robot. But I felt the way she was presented was for comedy. I didn’t feel like the movie was putting her up as a character to be taken seriously. And it made me think the people complaining just didn’t get the joke, or it was too subtle.

I actually think L3 is mocking sjws, not glorifying them. She’s kind of a C3PO type character, just a silly robot extra who’s not meant to be taken seriously. Just a wacky broken robot who thinks its a person. We’re never meant to take anything 3PO says seriously or see him as a representation of a thing or an idea. So I don’t get why L3 is taken as that. Maybe some of her scenes were cut but she isn’t even in it very long so I think the hate for her is totally overblown as she was never given enough screen time to get annoying. I just think people are overreacting because of the subject matter and it was just a harmless joke, not meant to be taken seriously.

The story is kind of meh and it feels more like Dredd as in a day in the life biopic instead of an epic story. The action is serviceable but I feel like so much is held back as sequel bait which weakens the film. It references Bosque but never shows him, why not? Is Bosque such an important character he can’t be in another star wars movie? What about Boba Fett? And yes spoilers, darth Maul is in it very briefly and I couldn’t help thinking why he wasn’t just in it. Like what is so special about these characters they can’t just be in the movie but have to be hinted at and shoved to the side? I really hate that shit, sequel bait nonsense, just put them in the fucking movie or don’t mention them. Its not clever, its just irritating.

I just really wish they would stop making movies already thinking they’re gonna get a sequel. You should make a movie like it’s the only one and throw everything at it, put all your ideas into it and make it work. Because as it stands the biggest problem in this movie is it has no real villains. And the only villain we really get is Draydon Voss I think his name was which is Paul Bettany’s character but he’s literally only in it for like two scenes.

He’s in it for his introduction scene and then again for his death scene. And that’s one of the things that really lets this movie down, it’s pacing. It just seems too fast, you’re never quite out of one scene or plot point and you’re already in another and I think there needed to be more breathing room and more building of characters definitely of the villains.
Because the other would be villain is Emfiss ness, however you spell that and again she’s only in it for a handful of scenes and then is revealed to not be the bad guy after all and it’s all sort of anticlimactic.

I really wanted there to be some lightsaber action, if not from darth maul himself then from an apprentice with like a lightsaber knife and you basically get that with Draydon Voss. He’s a decent villain, I just wish he was a little more fleshed out.

But in the same breath I can sort of justify this movie not having a villain relation to it not having a hero. Han out right tells us that he’s not a hero, he’s not the good guy. So it stands to reason that a movie about grey areas has no moustache twirling villain. It’s not a typical star wars movie about good and evil black and white, it’s sitting comfortably in the middle and in some regards that can feel a little unsatisfying but I guess it works.

Overrall I liked the movie, it looks nice, the acting was good, the action was decent, the ending was pretty cool. I expected it to be a lot cheesier and unbearable to watch but it really wasn’t. It was kind of like rogue one but good. Rogue one if it had any sense of fun and interesting characters and wasn’t just a dull gloomy slog that tried to trick you with a a stupid darth vader scene that got idiots clapping like trained seals despite ruining the cannon entrance of the original film.

The weaknesses of the movie I could see were that Han didn’t really have an arc he was pretty much the same character throughout. It kind of hints at a change towards the end, or well maybe it has a subtle arc because he’s sort of more trusting and happy go lucky at the start but learns not to trust people and shoots down his mentor in a reference to the Guido shooting first scene.

So I guess it did have an arc just not one that was particularly groundbreaking and sort of didn’t feel earned.

I honestly think it might have made a better tv show than a film because it has a lot of potential but a movie didn’t give it a lot of room to explore that. It could have been decent if it stayed away from netflix, maybe amc or amazon could have made it work.
I think the main reason people didn’t like this movie or weren’t excited for it is because no one really asked for it. I think if this movie came out and it wasn’t a star wars movie like it was just a standalone sci fi movie called Dan Solo space guy it probably wouldn’t have been released because it’s not really that special or mindblowing. It basically rides the coat tails of the films and also doesn’t stack up well against them so it’s like a double edged sword. It wouldn’t exist without the originals but is also measured by them.
I think when you’re making a movie you have to ask yourself ‘does this story really need to be told?’ and in regards to this movie I don’t really think it did. People would have loved Han whether this movie existed or not, whether we knew how he met Chewie or not whether we knew how he got his name/blaster/waist coat or not. So without that necessity it just boils down to a movie that’s made just to make disney lots of money on action figures and really nothing else. Just a paint by numbers, mildly entertaining movie.

It’s kinda just seen as a movie that didn’t need to exist but what movie really does? Maybe my standards are slipping (fat chance haha) but I thought it was a fun popcorn movie just to turn your brain off to, maybe take the kids too. It wasn’t spectacular but it was serviceable and nice looking and fun and really that’s all you can ask for these days.

It makes me a little sad that these star wars movies aren’t going well because I can see the potential there. It’s a world too tempting not to mine but they’re just consistently coming at it from the wrong directions and milking it like a weird alien cow with blue green milk udders. And it’s reaching a point where its like they should have just left well enough alone because now Star wars is a franchise with more bad movies than good, more bad games than good. It’s a franchise that has been ground into the dirt by greedy feckless ideologues and there’s no real coming back from that. It’s like if someone asked me what I would do with the dcu right now I’d tell them to scrap it and start again. That’s all you can do at this point. But maybe don’t start it again haha.

That’s pretty much my full take on it, I probably wouldn’t watch it again but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. It was a fun romp, it was a long movie but I never felt bored or irritated and it ended in a satisfactory way. But herein lies the problem, should a star wars movie be just ‘satisfactory?

Anyway that’s enough from me, spent way too long on this already and just faffing about in general, trying to reset my body clock again to get my sleeping schedule back on point and thus I feel like death right now and just want to nap until doomsday.

See you…

 

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GS2 Chapter 24 ‘Kinda outta luck’

Hey ho fellow humanoids,

This sadly will be the only blog for this week because my day job is about to get especially hectic over the following week and I’ll have absolutely zero time to work on that or anything else for that matter. I just have time today to do a little proofreading, maybe some spamming then hi ho hi ho it’s off to work I go.

What have I been up to, none other than revisiting everyone’s favourite (and only) clown samurai; Pookie Pookerson (not cannon last name).

Yep so I started the next part of three ring like ‘how do I do this again? What’s the backstory?’ haha and weirdly it went pretty well, I mean I’m not churning it out but what I put out was pretty good I thought. I kinda wanted it to be like an anime that skirts a fine line between serious and comedy. So you have this completely ridiculous world full of ridiculous people but the humour comes from them all taking it really seriously until they don’t.

So I think the opening I did for the second part captured that pretty well, had some wry humor but mostly kept it straight and focused on the action and the story… of which there is one haha. I have some idea where I want to go with it but I’m not taking it too seriously, I’m just trying to have fun with it and work on it as a break that’s not a break haha. Because I can’t actually stop writing, I can just take it less seriously haha.

The next few days are gonna suck for multiple reasons but maybe I’ll get some reading done in between unspeakable horror. Might finish that Parker novel which is shaping up to be really good. It kind of has a weird structure because its sort of gone off on a tangent but has such good tension that it doesn’t matter that it’s not directly attached to the job. He’s basically had his cake and eaten it here because you have the autistic planning and setup phase interspersed with this tense action set piece which is also drawn out really well. And all the characters are great and Parker feels like Parker again when he kind of felt like Joe blow in the last couple of books. 

But this book makes me happy because I started to feel after the witcher and these last two Parker books that I was falling out of love with reading as a result of playing too many video games and watching too many films. But it’s not the case I’m as eager as before to really get into this book. Not as much as I was when reading Dexter but that’s Dexter for you haha.

Now that I mention the witcher I heard rumours that ciri is supposed to be black in the netflix show. And I could have maybe seen how Geralt the white wolf could have been black maybe because his origins are sort of a mystery so you can just rewrite and say he came from Kovir. Same could be done with Dandelion because they don’t really have firm backstories in the books or the games. But Ciri has a really firm backstory which is tied directly to the plot.

For Ciri to be black literally all of Cintra of which she’s the princess of has to be wakanda haha. The entire royal line would have to be black, the elves too because she’s the spawn of the elder blood. She has elven blood running through her veins. So the elves have to be black too. I mean maybe she could be mullatto because her father is sort of this cursed outcast who had to basically trick Queen Calanthe into marrying her daughter Princess Pavetta. Which Geralt helped him to do in exchange for the right of surprise on Ciri. So you could just make her father from Kovir I guess but that adds another layer of politics to an already politics heavy story and not to mention Kovir I don’t think is even in the books.

Essentially I think this show is going to be a glorious trainwreck too concerned with diversity quotas and virtue signalling to actually tell a decent compelling story, it’s the type of shit we see everyday. This isn’t new, so it’s probably going to flop, I mean you’ve alienated the majority of the fanbase even saying you’re basing it off the books because the people that play the games have no idea how shit the books are in comparison haha. So they’ll watch the first episode and be like “What is this shit?” and they’ll turn it off haha. Add to that the new wakanda plotline and you’re making a show for like three people two of which are in the writing staff haha.

I just think this is really funny. It just sounds like it’s going to be a colossal disaster and I’m just getting my popcorn ready, while also eagerly awaited CD projeckt red to wow us Cyberpunk which looks amazing. I can’t wait for that, still not going to preorder haha. Unless they make me an offer I can’t refuse haha. Some people are still shitting on it saying it looks like shitty Deus ex and I don’t know what they’re talking about it, I think it looks like the complete fucking opposite. It looks like Deus ex with some balls and real grit and a living huge world not a tiny sandbox to mess about in, but a gta sized world with cars and people.

What I hope is it finds a balance between deus ex with it’s well crafted little sandboxes and gta’s huge open world because there are trade offs to both. With deus ex you get less room to play and explore and no vehicles but every set piece is hand crafted and every room feels kind of lived in and real. Whereas in gta it’s sort of lots of nothing in some cases. It’s bigger and has more vehicles but you can’t actually explore all the buildings or what not, so there are trade offs. 
The bar I’m setting for Cyberpunk is a middle ground between these two. Because I love Deus ex but I always felt like it was holding back, not giving me enough, sort of just giving me bite size chunks of this world to sell me the rest as dlc. Whereas in gta you almost get too much and it deters replay value. And once upon a time we had a perfect blend of both. 
We once had games that were full satisfying experiences that weren’t just dlc/sequel bait but also left you wanting to play them again to experience things you might’ve missed.

It’s the kind of oldschool mentality and feel you only get from these eastern european developers like cd projekt and warhorse because their ethos is stuck in the 90’s but their tech is modern. They have passion and grit and love of their games without trying to squeeze every cent out of them or push some political narrative. They’re at this perfect stage where they’re big enough to make triple a titles that rival the big boys but small enough to not have focus groups or investors breathing down their necks and imposing their will on the games like we’re seeing from EA and Besthesda. Two companies that were once heroes now living long enough to become villains. Due alone to their business practices and their churning out of these lazy subpar games used to push lazy political narratives.
But that’s just the way it is I guess. I mean if multi-billion dollar companies can’t bring out a decent series of star wars movies then what hope does netflix and videogame companies have?

Anyway that’s enough ranting for today, gone on way too long already. Gonna see if I can’t get some proofreading in before I crash, got a big week of constant sorrow ahead of me haha. But that come down is sweet, on sunday I promise to do little more than feed myself and I might not even do that haha. Might be too lazy and just learn to photosynthesize haha.

Legit running out of content now haha. Green Sunday is almost done, Gage is toast, gotta get cranking out those Proofs on Cur and write some more samurai clown goodness haha.

See you..

–

“ADAM WAIT!” A ghostly voice cried out.

A deathly pause, a black echo, the sound of shaking metal and a robotic response; “That name.”

TJ opened his eyes slowly, the metal foot hovering an inch in front of his face about to curb stomp him against the ice. The foot was stopped, frozen with hesitation. The Lancer paused, he shook his head and pretended he didn’t hear it. A mistake, a ghost in the machine and pressed his foot against TJ’s skull pinning it to the ice. Put pressure on it a pound at a time of crushing pressure.

“ADAM STOP!” A shrill voice cried.

The Lancer stopped again and took the pressure off. The hair on the back of his neck raised like he was a kid caught playing with his mothers high heels. He breathed in and out but didn’t turn his head. He shook his head again and put his foot back.

TJ closed his eyes. The cold metal foot was still stopped and all he could hear was the drone of the furry horde. The Lancer’s foot came completely off TJ’s head and he stumbled backwards weighed down by something. White tentacles wrapped around his throat and his legs and his arms and his waist. More and more latching on until he was almost covered in these white appendages.

TJ rolled onto his back and he rubbed his eyes trying to focus on the ghostly arms that had hold of the chrome knight.

‘Arm…s’ plural, the Lancer was locked down by a series of thin naked white arms.

A straight jacket of porcelain flesh constricting around all his joints stopping him like quicksand. His movements grinding to a halt as more and more arms began to wrap around him.

“What the fuck?” TJ whispered.

–

Carpenter looked down at the sea of furry faces. All cheery and colourful and hungry for flesh and probably the juice inside eyeballs. He lost his balance for a second wobbling the plank. He darted his head back and kept his cutlass high locking eyes with the Frenchman who was still and silent.

“Are you ready?” The Frenchman said. His voice ringing with a gleeful tone of completion. Of fate reaches out a warm hand and patting him on the small of his back.

Carpenter said nothing. He smiled broadly and started to rock back and forth and then bounce slightly up and down like he was a on a trampoline. Getting deeper into the bounce each time.

The Frenchman lost some composure as he felt the board shaking. Heard it creaking and groaning, wood fibres splitting and giving way. “What are you doing?” He shrieked as he could feel it giving way.

Carpenter fed on his fear, his smile growing wider. His lips parting showing those sharp teeth and he said; “Whatever it takes.”

–

Read the full chapter on inkitt by following this link kinda outta luck.

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Cur chapter 7 ‘Sore eyes’

Hello there,

Back again with some special content, now I’m finished writing it I’m barrelling away with the proofreading and hope to get it edited soon. I like how it turned out. It’s small but it’s like a stepping stone to how epic the plan is for it going forward. I want people to read the last book and see how it compares to this one in terms of how the scope gets grander and grander as there was no way in hell this can’t turn into epic fantasy based on the source material. 
The mythology I’m working with is probably the basis for a lot of Tolkien, hopefully that gives you some window into what I’m processing in terms of the actual lore.

Didn’t do much yesterday, spent a nice chunk of time with the most special people on the earth to me in digital form then I ate a lot of meat and pasta and fought to stay awake while proofreading this chapter. Quick tip, don’t eat pasta in the middle of the day haha.

Still really digging the latest Parker book, still in austistic planning phases and I’m loving it. No news on the witcher front except about the TV show casting Henry Caville to be Geralt which is a weird choice. I guess its just because he wanted it haha. Honestly I don’t hold out much hope for the show because netflix is garbage, and the writing team they have seem like millenial douchnozzles and it’s supposedly going to be based on the books and I think I’ve made my opinions on the books apparent. I think the books are a dumpster fire and the games are only good because they use the characters and build an interesting world to interact with. CD projekt red did the impossible and polished a turd and made it sparkle. Now do I think netfux can do that? Nah.

The witcher is only popular because of the games, no one ever heard of it before that and for good reason, the books are objectively bad/boring/derivative only a bunch of sycophantic hipsters pretend to like it for whatever reason. So if you’re basing it off the books in which Geralt slays like three monsters, we’ve got problems. Whereas if they make it like a freak of the week show akin to supernatural where’s there’s a new monster every episode and a vein of story running through it, it could work. But do I think they’ll do that or go with game of thrones shit?

I don’t think Caville will do a bad job and I’m glad it’s an english guy, although I would have preferred Mads Mikkelson, that dude was born to be Geralt. But maybe now he can be Cur haha.

Actually thinking about it who would I cast as Cur if I had the choice of anyone, Tom Hardy pops out for Bane. I could see that, use camera trickery to make everyone shorter than him and hey presto got a giant.
Of course if I could choose anyone and age didn’t matter it would definitely hands down be Mr Krabs himself, Clancy Brown, the basis for the character of Cur from the Kurgan in highlander. I just saw him in Detroit become human and he doesn’t look too old but I don’t know if he’s in shape but if I could choose anyone it would be him. Tom Hardy would be a bigger draw and he’s a better actor. And he’s yet to have like a solid action type movie where he’s the center.

Like he stars in all these thrillery actiony movies but is never ‘that guy’ like bond or Ethan Hunt. I think maybe that’s why he wanted to do venom so he could do that. But I hear it’s gonna suck because they pussed out and made it a 12a when originally they were gonna go the deadpool route and push for an adult rating. Which would have been awesome because the first trailer was dumb but the second trailer looked pretty good and that plus venom biting people’s heads off with maximum gore seemed like a winner but neutered 12a venom makes me think of ghost rider and I get a full body cringe.

I think certainly after seeing him as Bane and Bronson, he has the screen presence to pull that off.

But young Clancy Brown is who’s in my head when I write Cur, he’s the guy. I sometimes have to watch the ‘Gimme the prize’ music video from the highlander movie and see the Kurgan in action to really get into the mood of the character and put them into my story. To get that raw visceral ambivalence and chaotic evil nature and put it up on the page.

Talking about Detroit become human actually, makes me think about gaming before youtube. Because Detroit is one of those games I would have played and written an angry review about which is what I desperately want to do with a game that just came out that’s called ‘We happy few’. But I haven’t actually played either I just watched a full playthrough on youtube while doing something else haha.

So I don’t feel good about reviewing something I haven’t spent any money on (apart from movies haha),like I don’t feel that mad or invested. I just feel relieved that I saved forty quid haha. Because those games were interesting to watch on a stream but if I paid for them I would be spitting mad with those two garbage fires haha.

Detroit is basically the least subtle movie about social justice race/gender politics I’ve ever seen. It’s so on the nose with the holocaust stuff it’s was almost unbearable to watch it’s complete lack of subtlety and nuance. It just made me wonder if David Cage needs someone to chew his food for him. I half expected Trump to be in it and personally throw a black jewish drag queen into an oven while reciting passages of mein kampf.

And we happy few is basically a game made by someone in canada who liked bioshock and overheard someone talking about 1984 and brave new world and thought that would be good as a game. Because the only real parallel between 1984 is the fact the first character you play edits newspapers, once at the beginning of the game and never does it again, wow, much reference such inspired. I haven’t actually read brave new world but I’m assuming it’s not about hiding in bushes and engaging in really shitty combat with an umbrella.

It started life as just a survival game then some bright spot thought it would be good to have a story and then just made a series of fetch quests and called it a story. Its basically a glorified hidden item/phone game like granny but on a larger scale with less good stealth mechanics and much more filler. The difference is granny is free and this is basically an indie kickstarter game asking AAA prices. Kill yourself haha. Mainly what I hate about it is it’s essentially bioshock but instead of playing someone coming from outside discovering the world for the first time, you’re just a splicer with no powers who whines constantly about everything in the most annoying voice ever haha.

 My one line review would be “It’s bioshock but you can’t shoot bees from your fist” End. That’s all you need to know, it’s totally derivative and seems to take the wackiness of bioshock to a point where you can’t take it seriously. But it also fails to juxtapose that with the oppressive atmosphere to create any tension. It’s like it takes the wackiness to a point of idiocy but also deals with the serious stuff in a way that is just boring and depressing. It’s the worst of two worlds, it’s not serious enough to be ground but too depressing and boring to be fun.

Ok enough rambling, actually I have nothing better to do today haha. I spent too much time setting things up now I have 14 minutes to do some more proofreading, well whatever. I guess I’ll just do some spamming and take a nap, fuck me haha.

I think I’m gonna make a start on the next three ring instalment, just take a poke at it. I started doing the real shit workout again and I feel so sluggish, feels like I’ve been sleeping covered in sandbags. So until I get used to that again I’m gonna be basically useless at everything except holding up mugs full of green tea and yawning and it’s about to get crazy at work next week, somebody kill me.

This is a pretty fun chapter, not as fun as the last one but close.

See you…

–

The crow watched dispassionately from it’s perch in high Tallaght. It cawed loudly and ruffled it’s feathers and took off in the direction of the woods.

Down below the girl ran desperately through the streets, her lungs burning. All thoughts of using her magic chased out of her brain by a shrieking fear of the eternal. And what could she do without her torque or the sword? All she could do was run and hide and prey to the goddess that birthed her. The sounds of the black hooves and the devil whinney of that black mare grew faster and closer and louder and shook the earth with terrible fury.

–

“Wake up you big bastard” A strange small voice said. “You’ve got no time to be laying about”

Cur’s eyes fluttered and then opened wide. His eyes bulging as he stared at the sky seeing nothing but a blinding bright light and then closing them again tightly.

He rose and hunched forward in a sitting position and rubbed them with the large palm of his hand.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know” The little bird said. “It’d didn’t take me long to find you, a naked giant lying in the forest is hard to miss from above.”

“You were supposed to be watching” Cur groaned and looked at bird in the form of the bird bobbing around on the ground.

“I was watching but something more interesting caught my eye.” The bird seemed to cock a cheeky grin and wink.

“A wench is it?” Cur growled scanning the grove which was now empty and placid and looked like it had never been home to a cottage of any kind.

“Aye, a cumbly wench, a familiar one at that.”

Cur spat on the ground “The fool.”

“Quite right, she must really want her sword back, good thing you didn’t take anything else” The bird laughed.

“Should have let me kill her” He said as he found his clothes lying in a heap in the grass under a birch. He dressed as quickly as one can with a single arm.

“Ah but if you’d killed her you’d have lost your chance at reprisal”

“What talk is this?”

“It seems our little lark has earned the ayer of none other than the black knight of Dun Bresse.”

“Dullahan is here? Why?”

“For the girl I can only assume.”

“What could he want with that scrawny wench?” Cur scoffed.

“Her head perhaps”

Cur seethed angrily rubbing his neck as if there was a faint scar there.

The crow laughed “He took your head once before and you still bear a grudge.”

“What of it?”

“A man took your head only a few nights since”

Cur grimaced growing silent and solemn, He tightened his jaws until his face looked hard and skeletal white.

“He was the first.”

–

The girl, frantic, tossed her light body about the streets, like a leaf in an errant and erratic wind looking for any nook to hide herself in. She fought not to stumble over herself as she heard the horse’s whine and the hooves resonating through the tight streets.

She stopped dead, her breath burning in her throat almost drooling with fear, mad with it. Her eyes wide and shaking and leaking. She looked up and saw the high stone wall of the guardhouse, one of the only two story buildings in the village. Penned in on all sides but one by the little round house huts and their thatched rooves.

She rattled for the handle and it opened easily with a yawing creak and she fumbled into a large square eating hall. Looking around goggle eyed she spotted a stair case and fell up it as she heard the horse’s cry all around her now.

Hiding in here was her best course of action. He’d have to get off the horse if he would pursue her any further and then she’d at least have some chance at escape. Or enough where with all to use some sort of spell on him.

She waited holding her breath perched on the edge of the wood and stone staircase. Looking down at the only entrance of which she didn’t take the time to barricade. Now regretting it, looking around at all the heavy wooden chairs and tables in the canteen. She cursed herself and thought to go down and hurriedly construct some edifice to slow his pace. But then what? Wait to die?

It was too late, a dull slow almost disinterested pounding on the door shook the whole building. Within no more than three strikes the door gave up the ghost and fell open like a whore’s legs.

–

Read the rest of this chapter on inkitt Sore eyes

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Picture in a frame.

Winter draws closer,

I don’t know if I can wait.

It’s never enough.

 

To see your image,

To know you’re looking at me.

To know I love you.

 

I’m not a picture,

I don’t want to fade away,

Into the background.

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GS2 Chapter 23 ‘A tooth for an eye’

Yo yo yo fine folks of the interwebs!

Been a fairly interesting week, namely because I completed the first and pivotal stage in my epic fantasy saga. That’s right book one is done and with some fanfare. Just going over it now with a fine tooth comb, proofreading, making some changes as I usually do. Came in just over 50k. It would have been longer but I took out some filler I thought just slowed down the narrative. I mean it was just filler, you don’t need filler haha.

It turned out pretty interesting, solved some of the problems I had in my head, I think I wrapped things up in a nice way that makes the ending seem final but also have a lot of things left up in the air. It has a satisfying conclusion but not satisfying enough to feel like it’s all over. Because it’s sure as shit not, I have four more books already planned out haha.

So starting friday I guess it’s back to clownworld for me haha. Gonna start up where I left off of three ring until I work up the nerve to start Diana two, so that should be a lot of fun. Be a nice break from all the gore and seriousness, actually probably not from the gore haha. What am I saying? Definitely not from the gore haha.

On an even better note the new Parker book seems to be a total return to form tossing out the quick easy action and small frame of the last two books and returning to the autistic planning and arguing I love haha. Almost to a level that seemed impossible haha. I love the scope of this book because he already turns down like two jobs and he’s working on the third now and it’s great. On top of that there’s his fight with this elusive enemy who he let go before so it’s got some nice layers and all the planning and build up and characters are really satisfying. We just have to see if the action and heist side can live up to that now and seal the whole thing. Because you can’t have all this build up without some pay off and I’m really looking forward to see how it develops along both lines.

I just love how grounded this one is with how he’s hopping from job to job, like some kind of criminal goldie locks; “Oops some asshole from my past loused this one up and shot someone, oh now this job is full of unreliable emotionally unstable people, ah this one seems just right, now down to haggling” I really like it so far.

Also in recent news I watch oceans 8 that sequel to a movie franchise no one asked for and surprisingly enough I thought it was ok. I think it’s just because I thought it was going to be as terrible as the ghostbusters remake but with loads more identity politics as I’m well aware of the politics of the people involved. But it was actually fairly competent at sticking to the style and structure of the previous films so it was alright. Not amazing, but I was never a fan of the George Clooney ones really. They’re sort of just popcorn movies on you put on in the background, they’re like the type of movies that make dumb people feel smart.

And this movie doesn’t really bring anything new to the table or elevate the others really so no wonder it did so poorly but I thought it was watchable. No review necessary as I had no strong feelings for it either way really.

As far as the witcher books are concerned they’ve sort of just become background noise to me, I just cant be bothered with them.

Well that’s that, more zombie nonsense for you haha. I can’t believe how long this book is haha. When I’m using actual mythology I can only do around 50k but when I’m pulling zombie nonsense out of my ass and anime it just never ends haha.

Anyway gotta do something more constructive today. Gotta proofread Cur so I can send it off to my editor when she finishes up Diana, which she very nearly is.

Cheery bye.

See you…

–

A deathly silence filled the mall. Drowning out even the din of the hordes of furries banging sofly on the glass of the icerink. The sporadic bursts of gunfire from the mercs.

Carpenter and the French assassin hired to kill him locked swords again but stopped for a moment. Frozen like the skeleton crew on whose ship they were stowaways. It was as if they’d both realised they were interrupting some pantomime on a stage. An audience of people watching them in stunned silence.

They both felt naked and out of place for a second.

Carpenter looked over at the icerink. The Frenchman who’s eyes were still sealed blood opened one corner of an eye to look over to see what he was looking at.

Carpenter let out a sad laugh and a sadder smirk and said “I guess there goes the star of the show”.

–

Evergreen watched in silence, his face wooden but lined like an armrest on an old bench.

“Sir, we need to go”

“Wait.”

“The shows over” Rigby said.

He sighed in agreement and squeezed the hand rail on the second floor balcony. Then released it and turned to walk over to Rigby. “You’re right”.

“YOU WILL DIE BY THE TIP OF MY SWORD THIS DAY!!!!”

“What the fuck?” Evergreen mouthed.

–

TJ drew his sword slow, the cold made it stick but it didn’t matter. Soon it would be warm with blood and it would rust and then it would never go back in the sheathe ever again.

His face was a mask of cold angry tears. A well of loss and desolation poured from the deepest pit of his self loathing. Filling every inch of his body with tremulous rage.

He felt light but strong, like he was vibrating, like every cell was awake and a sleep at the same time. Existing in the spaces between this world and the next. Ready for death and for life and for everything in between.

The sword glistened over his head, his eyes closed, his feet rooted in the ice. He looked like a statue. Like a weathervain, like the world would freeze over and he’d still be standing there just like that. Waiting for lightning to strike him and the ragnarok to begin.

“I’m gonna cut off your arm.” He said calmly like he wasn’t even in the room like he was talking to someone on the phone. He readied his sword in front of him and took a mountainlike stance. Were those his words, or someone else’s, did it matter?

The eviscergrator shrieked like a ghoul and started it’s blades whirring again. Those pumps and shafts and pistons firing building up heat. He was drenched in her, there was nothing left, nothing recognisable. She was in a thousand pieces, never to be put back together again.

He sniffed and closed his eyes and listened, darkness, whirring. The smell of coppery blood on steel.

“Are you ready?”

–

Read the rest of the chapter by clicking on this link and heading over to inkitt. A tooth for an eye

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