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Bright review (Medium level savagery)

Ok well while I try to stay active between working myself to death and recovering over the christmas period and getting ready for my trip I watched Bright on christmas day and it was alright.

Err ok well I wouldn’t even be writing this if I didn’t want to tear it apart and of course I do. I only really write about a movie if it does something so horrible it has to be recorded. Although we did watch Krampus after that and that was actually a great all round christmas movie. It looked great and was a lot of fun and had a hauntingly nice semi-happy ending. I thought it was the best movie I watched over christmas. For reference me and family, all we do over christmas is eat and drink starting as soon as we get up and watch movies christmassy or otherwise.

This year we watched Justice league (yawn), the snowman (we turned it off not even halfway through) Paddington 2 (through the magic of piracy) and Bright.

Now straight out of the gate I’m a semi-fan of Max Landis and David Ayer, that meaning I’ve enjoyed movies they’ve both done individually before. And I think I went over this in my suicide squad review, Ayer makes these tight tense little thrillers that really work and when he tries something big like with suicide squad it just gets away from him and blows up in his face.

But with Bright I thought because he wasn’t writing and directing it might be a little better, a little less scattered and since it wasn’t this huge cast of characters the narrative would have been less all over the place.

Honestly, I went into this movie ready to love it and right away I really did based on Will Smith alone really, he really carries this movie just by being Will Smith, I don’t know how else to put it. He’s just one of those guys who basically plays himself and that works and when he doesn’t a la suicide squad and after earth it kind of goes wrong.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, it’s basically lord of the rings two thousand years later. So it’s like a world where their creation myths are straight out of tolkien. So it’s modern day with faeries and elves and orcs and wizards. It’s basically end of watch meets the shire.

I honestly loved the premise, the characters were fun and funny, the action was great the world building was ok, there wasn’t really much of a story but what movie does these days?

Now for the criticism; first out the door, the racial narrative is kind of dumb honestly, I mean I like that it wasn’t too much in your face but orcs are black people I guess, but Will Smith is a black guy and there are hispanic gang members in it and centaurs that never show up and elves are basically your rich wasps/I dunno magic assassins I guess.

Other than that it’s handled ok, the problem really is with the world in general, it sets up this great big fantasy sandbox for them to play in but it doesn’t do anything with it really. You see a dragon flying over l.a and you never see it again. The whole movie is talking about the ‘dark lord’ and *spoilers* he never shows up, instead it reverts back to the standard buddy cop narrative of saving your partner from a burning building.

It just doesn’t really go anywhere or really take any risks. The reason end of watch and training day and harsh times are such gripping movies is because you realise the main character could and probably would die at the end or it could happen at any moment. But I never got that sense from this movie I knew exactly what was going to happen at the end. And if you didn’t well just fuck you haha. I mean it couldn’t be more obvious, an idiot M.Night Shymalan fan could have worked it out.

But I remember watching it and really enjoying it for the action and the one liners and Will Smith returning to his funny action stick, that was a lot of fun and I really liked the villains until I realised they were the only villains.

Because this whole time I’m watching these bad ass assassin elves tearing shit up like equilibrium or a pointy eared neo and I thought they were really cool but in the back of my mind I thought these were like enforcer villains building up to the dark lord…. who never shows up. So these villains were great as what I thought were just place holders, so I judged them as like mid level villains but then when I realised they were it and they were killed pretty easily I was like ‘Oh’.

It was just dissapointing, it builds up this great world and does all this forshadowing with Smith holding a sword and I was thinking, Will Smith is going to be sword fighting the dark lord by the end of this movie with a dragon and it’s going to be dope af but it just never happens , it just sort of fizzles out.

It has all this potentional it wasted. Basically I saw Ayer wanting to challenge himself but he didn’t rise to the challenge he just took his boiler plate movie template and added faerie tale shit. And all the time it lacks any tension because beat for beat it’s attempting to be a blockbuster and have sequels so I’m fully aware none of the main characters are allowed to die.

So all in all it was just this toothless mess of a fun movie.

After all that I would recommend this movie if you’re a Will Smith or Ayer fan and I probably will watch the sequel if and when it comes out to see if they can build on the world and actually have something interesting happen.

Seriously, why not just have the dark lord show up and kick their ass and escape. You get your ‘realistic’ ending and set it up for a sequel while having the pay off. The movie doesn’t even seem aware it blue balled us not having the dark lord show up in any form, it just ends like ‘Welp that was fun guys thanks for all that money’.

I heard there’s a sequel in the works but I don’t see why it should get one when we still haven’t gotten one for Dredd despite it holding a 78% on rotten tomatoes and this film only got a 30% but the audience seems to like it I guess, lord of the rings for people who wear their sunglasses on the back of their heads is pretty popular haha.

It’s kind of a silly tone deaf movie but it’s a fun ride, what more can you ask for these days honestly?

See you…

0

Gage Chapter One: Tupelo

And here it is, the insanity that is a steampunk western sci-fi alternative history about a dude that gets a railway spike lodged in his brain. It’s still rough as all fuck, I’ve been struggling recently with writing and my day job, I’ve just been exhausted or too scattered to do anything more productive than pick my nose and eat potatoes. So I’ve sort of just been muddling along trying to get the right amount of sleep and the right amount of food to function and sustain this odd balance of my work and personal life where I’m perpetually tired from work but also broke because I spent all my money already on airfare and a rented apartment in barbados for a week.
But I mean how can I complain, things are looking up for me in a lot of ways, got stuff to look forward to and people that love me or at the very least don’t want me dead. That’s something.
So I’m really struggling to get back into the groove of things and I probably won’t get fully back on track until sometime in January when I get back from my third trip there, must be something in the water haha. Until then don’t expect to hear too much from me because I’ll be working or generally trying not to swallow my own tongue while I play elite dangerous.
I put up the full chapter which is not something I usually do but honestly, right now I’m just like fuck inkitt, inkitt is dogshit haha. It looked nicer and there was the chance it might publish one of my books but all it puts out is slocky romance or porn books for middle age women to get moist over or even worse those fucking horrible tween novels that won’t go away written by the middle aged women who fap to the porn books haha. So now they’ve changed their review policy I just don’t really see a need to go back, I dunno, I might go back later but for now why not just keep it in house and I can shill for reviews later.
See you…
~ 
 
The following are scraps of news articles and the personal diary of one Alexander Ford a known associate and collaborator with the man known previously before the great war as Phineas Gage.
 
 
~

June 4th 1849
 
 
 
I remember I was working as a mopboy at the time in McClusky’s bar. It was in the middle of a nowhere. A border town called Tupelo. This was when I first met the man who would later be recorded in the news apparatus as a terrorist and a madman.
 
 
 
It was a fairly average late afternoon in a relatively sleepy little town all things considered. We’d heard talk of revolts and crime and violence from the rebels and real action and adventure in these parts. Mostly stories spun from wonder of the unknown. But it was rarely reported anywhere but the radial transmissions and the tubescopes placed throughout the town. But most of the time they were just playing music or displaying some kind of sports activity, or some event in the capitals. Usually award ceremonies where Cyclon dignitaries gave other Cyclon dignitaries awards for peace or love or some such thing.
 
 
 
It was before I was born that they actually came, supposedly they’d been amongst us for a long time moving around not having a home to call their own. According to the tubescope we weren’t very nice to them, hating and fearing them just because they were different so they say. And then there was a time when we, being humans, decided we wanted to kill them all. The history books didn’t really say why, but it was reckoned that we were just ruled by evil men.
 
 
 
Well after that people felt so sorry for them, using our technology and theirs we built them a home in the stars. My people felt so guilty we took them in with open arms and if we didn’t we wouldn’t even have radials or tubescopes or the sportsballs we have and we’ve lived in peace ever since then. Or so I had come to believe in my young mind at the time.
 
 
 
I’d never once questioned the way the world was, my world was what the tubescope told me it was. With it’s bright coloured and smiling faces and awards and sportsballs and dreams of a better tomorrow, love and peace. I couldn’t even conjure the words in my head to even contemplate the lingering feeling of unease until that day.
 
 
 
It was unusually hot and I remember it vividly as I write it now, despite it being almost twenty years ago. As I sit on my bunk writing this now going on possibly the last mission I will ever fly about to drop the bombs that’ll end this damn war and free my people forever. I still remember that feeling in my chest when he told his story and the look in his eye as he spoke, the look he gave me.
 
 
 
Nothing much had happened that day, just the usual morning drinkers drowning their various sorrows. There were some miners who were working up on a quarry on the ridge mining gold for shielding shuttles and circuitry. McClusky the barman was scratching his bald head and craning his neck to watch the recaps from the latest sportsball game. I remember there was a lot of controversy recently as the sportsball league had lost it’s last human player. An act was passed to allow Kaftas to play after that it was all downhill, the aliens being physically superior in everyway the human players just couldn’t compete with that and they became tokens in their own game, there only for the fans.
 
 
 
But eventually they were gotten rid of entirely and after some slight protest from the fans it went on as usual. Any hold outs were ususally shut up by someone calling them speciesest or a bigot and reminded about the constitution and meritocracy. That the aliens should replace the humans if they do a better job. They had no real argument against that, only that it was their game despite most of the owners of the teams being aliens themselves we clung to it with some ancestral memory of it being ours.
 
 
 
I was never interested in sports being a skinny lad of around fourteen. As I said it was a boring day which made the appearance of a stranger all the more memorable.
 
 
 
He was a stout scholarly looking gentlemen with a bowler hat and an expensive looking suit, a city man no doubt accompanied by two anthropoid non-humans cloaked in human garb. These were not the same stock as the ruling Cyclon but a mutt-like hybrid of human and alien, not quite human but not quite alien, the stock of which made up the majority of the sportsball teams now. Although some had speculated that they weren’t from this world at all. They were much larger than humans with darker thicker skin like that of a rhino or elephant but had a vaguely simian appearance equating somewhat to a human face but far less expressive and desirest of empathy or any such human emotions. And although the face was ape like it had an elongated quality akin to a dog’s snout. The aliens commonly used them as security or bodyguards and they made up a great deal of the cities new police force. As they could take orders without question and follow them through with fearful brutality and they were moreover entirely expendable. Another could be plucked out of circulation within a day as they were so easily bred and they aged faster than humans so as these hulking monsters could in fact have the same number of years as I had then. In fact it was probably preferable for them to have the minds of children, not as to say the adults were much smarter. They were definitely stronger and faster with heightened senses of smell and sight. They could tear a human apart if ordered to do so but their intelligence and resolve was somewhat lacking in respect to a humans but I imagine now that was precisely the point, making them more pliable to the mind control the Cyclon used.
 
 
 
In their native tongues, they were known as Kaftas but we colloquially called them ‘Luggers’ or ‘Lugs’ as they were most commonly used in these parts for manual labour. But in recent times it had become impolite or not politically correct or speciesist to use these terms.
 
 
 
They wore human clothes but that just furthermore outlined the inhuman nature of their aspect. Seeming almost a parody of humanity as they stood so huge and hunched. Monsters wearing the clothes of men, their faces ridged and apelike as they gaped their mouths thoughtlessly.
 
 
 
The man leading them was a jovial looking sort, with a fat neck and small greasy looking mustache which was pruned and neat and leapt about his face as he spoke like a tick.
 
 
 
I couldn’t rightly hear what he was saying but he smiled and tipped his hat as McClusky looked at his huge bodyguards and got a squirrelly look about him like he wanted to crawl under a giant mouse trap.
 
 
 
McClusky didn’t say much but I could see his throat swallowing and his head nodding furiously as he was listening waiting to give up his own mother. As soon as he was prompted he pointed a fat sweaty finger at a darkened table in the corner hidden as it was behind a shaft of light from the window.
 
 
 
The stranger smiled and tipped his hat before tossing him a gold coin McClusky fumbled and stared at intently as the strange city folk passed under the shaft of light and sat down at the table in the corner.
 
 
 
The bar was small with few hiding spots, so how I’d failed to notice the other stranger was just due to my own uncurious nature at the time or quite simply because at that time the stranger did not want to be noticed.
 
 
 
The inside was dark as a rule, as most of the people in the bar were just trying to get out of the sun or sleeping off the drunk they had from the night before. Or just old timers with no better place to be.
 
 
 
But I remember even Mr Rickers the pianist hit a bum note as he saw the new faces, he sat on his stool at the piano tucked under the stairs. Madame Gertrude the old whore that worked upstairs stood in the middle of the stairs balancing on the banister watching them go with a wrinkled suspicious gaze and then shot me a school teacher sneer as she noticed me watching her. Mary Sue, I suppose she was a waitress although Madame Gertrude wanted to train her up as a whore but from what I heard she wasn’t much good at it stood open mouth gawping holding up a tray of nothing.
 
 
 
The human of the group sat down at the table in the corner with a smile in the back of his head, taking off his bowler hat and placing it on the table. Without saying a word he took out an ornate pipe and lit it taking big bellowing puffs from it as his non-human compatriots stood off to his side looking out the slats in the window standing as if they were children waiting for their mothers to be done browsing in a hat shop.
 
 
 
He cleared his throat and I edged a little closer to hear what he was saying.
 
 
 
“Is your name Phineas Gage?” The strange fat man said.
 
 
 
Noticing only the slightest movement, so slight it could have been imaginary, the figure he was talking to suddenly became visible. Siting still as he was in the shade, it was as if my eyes adjusted at that minute and I suddenly had that unusual face burned into my memory. To say he was grotesque would have been an exaggeration but under the hideous scar on his face was the face of a handsome man in his late twenties with a strong jaw and dark black hair cut neatly.
 
 
 
But his face, my god his face was a monstrous mess, as if he was half demon and how I did not notice him instantly upon his appearance has been blotted out from my memory. As how I could ever forget that face seems impossible. For if it were not the face of such as I know now, a monumental figure, I would think it the face of the devil himself.
 
 
 
And that’s how I felt at that moment, and a few after as I stood frozen thinking I was half in a dream as I looked upon his waxen features. Half his face looked like it had been chewed by Cerberus himself, his left eye closed, blinded and gone although he wore no patch. Which made his appearance all the more horrifying as half his face was handsome and strong and the other looked like that of a mangled corpse.
 
 
 
I might have pissed myself right then and there if I hadn’t just come back come back from writing my name in the dust outside.
 
 
 
The stranger with the horrific face looked up from his meal which consisted of a steak and some mashed potatoes and a glass of milk, with his one good eye. His jaw was locked and strong and he took up the glass of milk with one hand, his other out of sight and unmoving as if he had no use of it and he took a long gulping drink of it like it was a magic elixir and then hit the glass down hard and licked his lips of the white liquid gasping and sighing.
 
 
 
The fat man in the chair still smiling trying to look as casual and powerful as possible. Trying not to cross his legs and look anymore than a plucked peacock.
 
 
 
“I ask again sir” he said in a city accent. “Is your name Phineas Gage”
 
 
 
“What of it?” The stranger said. He looked at them stonily as he took the fork that rested on his plate and scooped up mouthful of mash potatoes and forced it into his misshapen mouth with his good hand. Then following it up by picking up the steak he evidently couldn’t cut with his good hand and taking animalistic bites from it. The fact it was larvae steak and not beef as cows had gone instinct from over farming a decade prior made it an especially grotesque sight as the thing was essentially a giant maggot. He ripped at it and it burst with a vile grey green liquid dripping down his chin. He wiped it away with the sleeve of his good hand while his other arm was rigid and seemingly useless.
 
 
 
I wondered if he hadn’t been in some kind train accident or mine collapse which had left his body mangled. I let my eyes adjust and get a better look at him and at first he had seemed of an average size as I compared him to the gargantuan monstrous nature of the Lugs accompanying the relatively dimunuitive stranger. But now maybe just from my memory, he seemed too a giant of a man, with broad mountainous shoulders and thick long arms like a gorilla with hands that were calloused and looked as if they’d worked everyday from birth. Hard back breaking soul crushing work, from tit to shovel to pickaxe to grave. He wore a thick brown woollen coat and a dirty dusty white shirt underneath.
 
 
 
“There a bounty on my head?” The man I now know as Gage said in an uncaring way as he continued to eat in this strange savage way not looking at these city folk.
 
 
 
“Quite a sizeable one” The man tutted. He crossed his legs finally as he was accustomed moving onto the next stage of his persona. “But I’m not a bounty hunter Mr Gage, I am a medical doctor of a new field entirely, a psychiatrist sent from the city, I’m not here to hurt you, I’d just like to study you.” He said it deflating, as if it was a magic tune everyone was supposed to dance to. “Doctor Herbert Westwood at your service” He said reaching out a pudgy hand only to hold it there for a few awkward moments. Getting heavier with every second to eventually drop it with a hurt twitching of his little neat mustache.
 
 
 
Gage snorted and spat out a piece of grubby sinew and continued to eat.
 
 
 
“I’ve heard about your case and I’ve been given permission to take you in under my care, in return all your past crimes will be forgiven.”
 
 
 
“Crimes, what would they be?”
 
 
 
“Murder”
 
 
 
Gage twisted his hideous face and looked up with his one good sharp eye and said “And what if I tell you to take your alien mutts outside and fuck eachother?” He spat, his voice slaked in a cool simmering rage as he chewed.
 
 
 
“Well then I’d have no choice but to…” His voice trailed off as he clicked his fingers and the misshapen creatures poorly cloaked in human clothes lumbered forward like animals. Such a stark viciousness emitting an ape like cry to battle bulging through their clothes with grotesque muscles and sharp canine teeth bared, their backs raised in a threatening gesture like a dog or a wolf.
 
 
 
The whole bar froze instinctually like rabbits hearing the roar of a lion. The women let out tiny squeaks of fear their bodies locked tight and their eyes unshakeably focused on these creaures suddenly shedding their human façade and revealing themselves as the monsters they undoubtedly were. I too froze unable to look away from some far flung cave man instinct passed down, staring and waiting.
 
 
 
I was just a boy and I knew if it was inclined, these beasts could devour me and everyone here if allowed to do so.
 
 
 
“Ah ah” The man tutted. The beasts heeled breathing deeply and heavily their huge grotesque frames rising and falling as they seethed with a vicious vulgarity. A vile steam coming out of their nostrils.
 
 
 
“We kill dreg nuh?” One of the beasts asked without turning his dog like head.
 
 
 
“No, they want him alive.” The man straightened his mustache, his eyes making two sharp points on his round face and he said. “They’ll want to make an example of him.”
 
 
 
Gage continued eating and didn’t even look at the man anymore. He hadn’t moved a muscle since it all started except to eat. He didn’t even look at the Luggers, like they weren’t there.
 
 
 
“I’ll give you one last chance to come peacefully, it won’t end well for you any other way.” The man was sincere now, but a condescending sincerity that got a piercing icey look from Gage with his one good eye.
 
 
 
The man knew exactly what that meant and he slowly stood putting his hat back on his head, his pipe still in his mouth.
 
 
 
He sighed and said “You’re a sick man Mr Gage, I can help you.” He looked at Gage but his face hadn’t changed, he sighed again and said “Very well Mr. Gage, have it your way. Luntz, Kurbt schnell! The fat man clicked his fingers again and stepped back as the fiends fell on all fours and circled left and right from Gage’s table in what little space they had. Seemingly weaving or attempting to strike from different angles
 
 
 
The entire bar was still frozen, unable to look away as the creatures surveyed their prey. Gage looked up with his one good eye and followed them as they sized him up. Their clawed feet on all fours making a sharp clacking scratching sound on the wooden floor. The first creature sniffed and made a growling sound in his throat and said “This one not so-“ The things head suddenly exploded with a cacophonous booming noise that sounded like god clearing his throat. The shards of it’s brain and bone matter pulping against the base of the stairs spattering slightly on the Madame’s slippers, although she managed to stifle a scream. The second reacting instantly throwing the table aside and pouncing on Gage snapping at the air. It’s powerful jaws trying to bite at his face but the thing was held there by Gage’s good arm as the thing slobbered all over him. Then a another booming cracking noise shook the entire place. I could hear the glass on the bar shake and could almost feel my bones shudder at the terrible noise and the sight of the things back erupt in bone and innard debris all over the tossed table with the remnants of Gage’s dinner on the floor.
 
 
 
I managed to keep my breakfast down, although the smell alone was hard to bear. I had thought when they came in it was strong, but now, in their current state they smelled even worse.
 
 
 
Gage finally stood and I could hardly believe my eyes, he must have been seven or eight feet tall as I remember it now. It could be just that I was so small but thinking back he was a freakishly large man with hands the size of a horses head. It could also have been that he picked a table that was in the corner beside the stairs where the roof was a little lower. But at the time I was lacking the education the rebellion had given me, otherwise the sight of him would have conjured images of Zeus and Atlas towering over man.
 
 
 
There was a muted hissing wimpering noise and I could see that the second creature was still alive spilling it’s innards on the dirty wooden floor I had yet to sweep.
 
 
 
Gage towered over it now, tucking something under his good arm he reached down grabbing with both hands the top and bottom of the lugs jaws and with a quick powerful jarring motion snapped them apart. I remember the women in the bar letting out another little squeaking noise as he put the other creature out of it’s misery, the sound of it’s whimpering hissing ending almost instantaneously.
 
 
 
That was the point that my breakfast made a return journey on the bar floor and down the side of the counter, ham and eggs.
 
 
 
Then the sound of small pieces of metal hitting the wooden floor and rolling, rolling through the blood and brain and bile.
 
 
 
The fat man nervously loaded small bullets into a travelling revolver his pipe nervously bobbing in his mouth as he bit down on it. His fat swollen fingers dropping the occasional bullet as he frantically tried to load the gun a bullet at a time. His face red and hot and wet.
 
 
 
Gage rose again to his full height and the man tried to smile cockily relying on the small gun in his hand, a streak of doubt crossing his nerve struck mind, would that gun even kill such a man or just make him angrier.
 
 
 
Gage took the thing he had tucked under his arm back into his left hand and let it hang by his side and I could see it clearly as a big custom hog leg made for his giant mits. It was shocking to me having only at that time seen guns in picture as they had been banned for civilian use.
 
 
 
*note to the reader – a Hog leg in the old era was what was used to refer to a fire arm that was sawed off at both ends and fired a sort of shot dispersal projectile which proved very effective as a close range weapon.
 
 
 
Westwood saw the gun hanging at his side and his mustache twitched into something resembling a nervous smile.
 
 
 
“A sawn off shotgun” He smirked. “I do believe you’re out of rounds my goodfriend.” A certain air of shakey confidence was returning now as his mustache bounced off his fat cheeks and his fat fingers danced and drummed happily on the pearl handle of the small revolver in his hand. “Now why don’t we just come along quietly-“
 
 
 
“Count again” Gage said as he raised the gun and pointed the lead chucker in Westwood’s general direction at which point he and I and McClusky all could see quite clearly it in fact had three barrels.
 
*Note to the reader weapons such as the shotgun commonly only had two barrels although some had three or even four but were for specialised use.
 
“Three?” Westwood’s smile fell off his face like dung from a donkey’s ass and he went white and waxy losing all tension, allowing his pipe to fall from his wet lips and onto the dirty floor.
 
 
 
Gage’s face stayed hard and evil and gestured with the huge gun and in an instant Westwood had dropped his gun as if it was hot coal or a venomous snake.
 
 
 
Gage walked slowly back to his seat which lay on its side keeping the gun partially raised although he didn’t have to. Westwood knew as well as anyone a man like him used a gun only to spare his bare hands.
 
 
 
He lifted the table and chair back on it’s legs and dusted the seat of his chair off and sat placing the gun in his lap and sat silently waiting.
 
 
 
Westwood stood silently, forgetting to breath in intervals, holding his breathing and swelling and swallowing and gasping like some snuffling pig looking at a man in a butchers apron.
 
 
 
Gage nodded at him and he took his seat back up and slowly Westwood did the same. Then there was a moment where an eternity of silence passed before someone spoke and of course it was Westwood.
 
 
 
“How did you know I was coming?”
 
 
 
“Didn’t.”
 
 
 
“But the gun, you always eat with it on your lap?”
 
 
 
Gage nodded slightly.
 
 
 
“And what if there’d been four of us, what then, what would you have done?”
 
 
 
“Reloaded.”
 
 
 
“I see” Westwood had put his white face in his hand and was shaking uncontrollably and searching for his pipe forgetting that he dropped it looking down the barrel of the gun. Coming up empty he found a the courage of the damned and sputtered “Dammit, what is it now?”
 
 
 
“You wanted to know.”
 
 
 
“Know what?”
 
 
 
“How I got this face”.
3

GS2 Chapter 10 ‘Pierrot le Fou’

Wassup my dank homies and homettes.

Chilling out maxing, shooting some b-ball outside of school, you know the usual. Not really been doing much but doing fetch quests on elite dangerous and almost breaking shit and quitting bloodborne haha. I literally hate that game but it hated me first so I feel justified. I’ve never played a game with game design that had more clear disdain for it’s player base, like every level is designed to piss you off and just be a big fuck you to the player.

This coming from someone who has played and completed all the souls games the first two without even needing any co-op, and it was savage as fuck. But I dunno, just playing bloodborne it felt different, it wasn’t as fun, I actually stopped playing DS3 because it was kind of boring despite the fact I made the most OP sunbro miracle knight ever. I could annihilate people in pvp, I could just shoot fucking lighting from my hands like a sith lord, a giant great sword can’t compete with that. But I dunno, the tone and the gameplay of bloodborne just seems much more hateful and less fun and I was sick of grinding through those boring ass chalice dungeons. They’re stupidly hard and boring to look at, I just couldn’t see the point of them. It’s basically just the same dungeon over and over again and the same recycled bosses, just seems like artificial padding in a game that already seems pretty big and padded with difficulty.

Also the ‘Lovecraftian’ themes are stretched unbelievably thin, I mean to a point where you can’t even tell me what’s defined as Lovecraftian anymore, I mean is a giant eye monster lovecraftian, does it have tentacles? It’s much more gothic really and Lovecraft was essentially trying to divert from gothic horror. I would love it if there over Lovercraft themes but I can’t see them, Lovecraftian has just become a label to help sell horror shit to people that haven’t read any Lovecraft.

Speaking of Lovecraft, been cracking on with my own little Lovecraft story and I had some difficulty with it at first, it wasn’t really flowing well and I struggled to meet even a 1k word quota but recently it’s been getting easier because I’ve been breaking down the style a lot more.

It starts thick with the Lovecraft style and then flows into a more noir action story telling thriller style which was what I was going for. I didn’t really want to a Lovecraftian horror story as much as I wanted to do almost like a noir-thriller, superhero story like the Crow. So like a Lovecraftian supernatural revenge thriller, and it’s made the transition quite well, it’s pretty fun to write and it actually really portrays how far I’ve come as a writer because the action shows a lot of restraint a younger me would not have shown.

You can really tell when someone is having too much fun with action and just let’s it run away with its self and it gets self indulgent and slocky and drags down the story. Subtlety and simplicity is the best way, keep it clean and concise and to the point.

Well regardless, it’s fun, I’m kind of just writing it to keep busy and sharp until some bigger inspiration hits me. Waiting for lighting to strike or atleast until I can scrape together enough cash to have DDD edited so I can start sending it to lit agents, which is gonna take even longer now that my editor quit editing, which was nothing to do with me. I guess she just prefers writing eulogies, but she let me off the final bill for TOTCB saving me like seventy quid that I don’t have but I can’t say when she’ll be done with it. So just have to wait and see.

See you…

–

“She’s not infected!” TJ cried

“Ok she’s not infected” Jimmy said, Carpenter forced a laugh and Jimmy said “We can’t deal with this shit now, we need a plan to get out of here.” He paced the room and added “I don’t, I don’t like enclosed spaces”. He swallowed.

TJ got a far away look and tossed spit around his mouth. His eyes and his mouth were a awash with excess fluid as he cradled the seemingly comatose Sunday, her eyes half open.

“My dad” Jimmy’s voice got wobbly and he stopped. “He thought we could hole up in some little bookstore the last time, thought we’d be safe. You know wait for the army or the national guard or the cops, someone, anyone.” He paced up and down and looking at nothing. “But no one came and then all that shit started falling out of the sky and some fucking freak swallowed him whole, like nothing.”

“Hahahahahahaha” Carpenter laughed and said “Daddy issues”

“FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, YOU OLD CRAZY FUCK” Jimmy schreeched almost foaming at the mouth.

“Jeezus and I thought I had problems” BJ said.

“I’m ok” A little far away voice said. “TJ, I’m ok” Sunday opened her eyes, they were bloodshot, she was paler than usual, but she looked up at him and propped up a weak smile. She rolled out of his lap into a sitting position putting her hand on her head as she felt the liquid in her brain shifting hitting her like a hangover. “Oww, how long was I out?”

“Hour maybe” Jimmy said pouting, arms folded seething with rage.

“Where are we?” She said looking around.

“The pokey” A hoarse voice said.

“So you found him? Figures he’d be in a place like this” Sunday said looking through the bars at the king in rags himself lying on his bench on his back. “Has a problem with authority”. She said smiling.

Carpenter laughed and said “That’s rich.”

She turned to TJ who seemed to be breathing steady, like he was seeing her rise from the dead again. “So what now?”

“You’re asking me” He scoffed.

“Where’d they take our stuff?”

“Ergh evidence locker most like” BJ piped up again in the cell on the other side.

“Who’s this guy now?” Sunday said still holding her head.

“It’s a long story” TJ flustered.

“No it aint” BJ said.

“Let’s change the subject” TJ said.

“If you say so”. Sunday said.

Sunday rocked forward and took in a deep breath and said “So we get out of here, get our stuff and then move on until that guy calls us again?”

“But how do we get out, dp said Carpenter could help us escape”. TJ said.

“Escape?” Carpenter said almost to himself. “That’s your ‘escape’ right there.” He said laughing nodding at Bobby’s cold corpse, stiff in a puddle of his own blood and brain matter. He laughed, a cold pitiless laugh, the laugh of a pirate skeleton guarding a cursed treasure in a dark dank cave.

Sunday let out a breathy laugh like she got the joke.

“What?” TJ said.

“He’s fucking with us, if he’s here it’s because he wants to be. He’s got a way out he just wants to hear us say ‘pretty please with cherries on top’ isn’t that right old man?”

He said nothing, lying motionless on the bench.

“Look at this guy, does he look like he has any plan? Is Carpenter even his name? Does he remember what he had for breakfast?” Jimmy yelled.

“Mr badman, when are you gonna come and play with me?” The little girl’s voice whined. “If you don’t come out and play the monsters will get you.” She offered her threat but he remained silent. “There’s someone coming”.

–

The funny little Frenchman walked into the lobby of whitefish police department. He was doddering like an a lost old woman in the warmth of the lobby. He approached the counter with the bullet proof glass dropping his duffel bag on the floor smiling.

“Good evening mademoiselle” He said jovially like he was birthday party clown.

Maria didn’t even lift her head to look at the funny man.

He cleared his throat and continued on despite being ignored. “Err yes, I’m in search of a man I believe you may have him here.”

“Visiting hours are over, come back tomorrow.” Maria said out of the side of her mouth without looking up.

The frenchman looked up and through the bullet proof glass on the balls of his feet and came back on his heels and said “Ah qui.” He smiled and said “I’ll be back”.

He picked up his duffel bag and walked back out through the frosted glass front doors.

Maria turned the page of the romance novel she was reading and sighed like she couldn’t believe the night she was having.

Out of nowhere a burning toilet roll hit the bullet proof glass making a dull thudding sound. She jumped out of her skin as the toilet roll rolled on the tiled floor. Fear suddenly boiling into rage as she leapt up from her seat said “Fucking gringo kids!” under her breath. She hurriedly unlocked the office outer door and came out into the lobby. “Fucking little pinche’ sons of bitches!” she said as she stomped out the flames on the toilet roll, her half heels clicking on the tiles. She stomped missing, hitting the edges as the roll moved with her blows, dancing away from her foot taunting her. She got gradually more mad, the toilet roll was light but had an odd weigh to it and her anger didn’t help her aim. She squealed as she tried to stamp out the flames. She bit her lip and almost screamed as she lifted her foot above the roll and brought it down with a tight crunch. The force of the blow and the fire disintegrated the roll. A springing clicking noise came out of nowhere as the pressure from the cardboard roll was no longer there. Releasing the firing pin of the grenade inside and launched it into the corner of the room skitting across the tiled floor.

“Oh no” Maria said.

–

0

Split Review – Beast level savagery

Ok so I’m of two minds, get it, because this story is about a dude with more than one personality?? Hahaha so big brained, hit me with a rock why don’t you? I’m not even of two minds, I actually just thought it was shitty haha, I just said that for the pun.

I watched this movie because my brother is the big pirate and he had it and I idly watched it while I was working out as I usually do. My brother really liked it but his tastes vary and we don’t always see eye to eye. So I went into it with a lot of scepticism because I’m a contrarian douche and anything he really likes or is really popular I usually hate or try to hate but I sometimes fail at hating those things, like I really tried hard to hate James Cameron’s avatar but I still like it. So sometimes movies are just good and fun and even the grump that I am can’t deny that.

But this wasn’t one of them and I’m writing this for myself as usual trying to decipher what specifically about it I hated.

Now for context I’m not one of these guys that shits on M.Night just because, I actually haven’t seen any of the movies people taut as his shit ones, like avatar and after earth. I’ve only seen the decent ones, sixth sense, unbreakable, the happening (kinda). So I’m not a hater and in fact, I didn’t even know he directed this movie until I saw his cameo, which I’ll get into later.

So I didn’t really enter this with any preconceptions other than my usual disposition to hate popular things like twilight and fidget spinners.

Ok actually gotta start the fucking review now

First thing I noticed because it’s pretty hard to ignore; it’s a pretty fucking boring ass movie. Like seriously, the first hour plus is just talking to this really retarded old woman about bullshit psychobabble and fashion. It’s trying to build tension and failing miserably and the way the twist is set up is so predictable it ruined the whole fucking movie. It’s like Night is more interested in having twists than them actually being good. Like he expects you to see his twists and be like “OMG NIBBA DIS SOME BIG BRAINED SHEEEIIITTT I NEED TO HIT IT WITH A ROCK YO!”

But as soon as they start talking about the 24th personality you know it’s going to appear, it’s a movie, so as soon as you start describing him we know we’re going to see it so how is it a twist when it eventually appears? You’re basically just telling us what’s going to happen at the end of the movie, that’s not a twist. It’s funny because I also watched the visit (Which I thought was ok but pretty unremarkable, I’ve seen indie found footage movies ten times better) by him recently and it does the same thing, the twist happens and it’s so predictable it seems like Night assumes his audience is just mouth breathing idiots in the way its delivered.

And I think that’s a lot of the problem with his film making, he thinks hes really smart but his audience is really dumb. So all that happens is that his movies sound dumb but are also really pretentious.
This is a movie for dumb people who think they’re smart (GOT fans basically haha) so that’s probably why it made so much money and people seem to like it, they don’t want people to think they don’t get it when there’s nothing to get, it’s just a silly campy kinda sorta thriller movie I guess.
For awhile I was just listening to this dialogue and the way it was shot and I couldn’t help thinking I was watching a movie within a movie, like how in movies there’s a parody of a movie within a movie and it’s just so over the top and ridiculous mocking movies. That’s this whole movie.

Another flaw in the movie is none of the characters are really very well developed or likeable and he even tries to have a backstory for one of the girls but it’s sort of pointless. I remember watching the scenes of her traumatic past and thinking about how the movie would have been pretty much unchanged if they just left them out.

They had no real impact on the plot and didn’t really make me feel any connection to her. I think if you just left them out she would have been more of a mystery and it would have been more like a traditional horror movie. Or even if you had her reveal her past in conversations with the other girls they could have had some character development. But you don’t need to know the teen counsellors tragic backstory to feel scared for them when Jason comes in friday the 13th, it’s just not relevant.

Another big thing I couldn’t stand in this movie is McAvoy, bless him, he tries, I like him but this was like watching him do GCSE drama and it was just a cringefest. He wasn’t scary or intimidating he was a cringe machine. The only time I cringed harder was at the ending but I’ll get to that.

He’s just trying too hard and the personalities seem less like personalities and more like funny voices he practised in front of a mirror, like Jim Carrey could have been more convincing. It was just silly and I couldn’t take the movie seriously, it just took me out of it.

The old lady I think pissed me off the most because she seemed like she got it, and it looked like she was smart enough to stay off the path of horror movie tropes, but no she asks to go to the bathroom and is discovered witnessing something she shouldn’t have and her fate is sealed and I have zero sympathy for her. You play stupid games you get stupid prizes, she knew this guy was dangerous and went to his house anyway and suffered for her arrogance.

Now about Night’s cameo, I don’t get why this guy thinks we want to see his face, the guy looks like a brown Phil Spector, he looks like a tall umpa lumpa from the shitty remake of Charlie and Chocolate factory. Like when Stan Lee does a cameo everyone goes ‘Hey it’s Stan Lee’ and don’t get me wrong it’s getting really old at this point. Honestly I think I might be relieved as well as saddened when he finally pops his clogs. But when you see Night it’s just like “Hey who’s that brown dude – oh it’s the director, uh huh”. Dude no one cares, you’re not some beloved figure like everyone’s grand dad or uncle like Stan Lee. You’re just some guy that makes shitty b movies that nevertheless have stupidly higher budgets than they deserve.

You’re like Tarantino you make high quality garbage movies, they’re trashy sometimes fun movies that are high spec and high budget but nevertheless no one gives a shit. I mean even mentioning Tarantino his cameos are at least funny or he dies somehow or says something dumb or memorable but in this movie Night’s cameo is just some guy the old lady talks to about hooters. It’s dumb. She could have just been on her own and the scene would have been unchanged.

Oh shit, hit the 1k mark gotta wrap this up haha.

Ok the ending, the ending was the most cringe inducing thing in the movie and it sort makes me question not only Night’s intelligence but his actual sanity. Because at the end of the movie it’s revealed, really hamily that this is set in the same universe as Unbreakable… a movie that was made in 2000 so that just gives you some perspective, this a is follow up to a movie that’s 17 years old. This is when this guy was talented, 17 years ago he made a cool movie people liked and now I just picture him watching the marvel universe and dc universe and universal trying to make a monster movie universe and he’s just like “I can do that.”

No, no you can’t you delusional idiot. He thinks he can make a movie universe with a movie he made 17 years ago and people are just gonna be like ‘Oh boy, can’t wait to see that.’

So in his mind this is a sequel to Unbreakable that will open up an avenue to a cross over sequel where Mcavoy will be the villain and Willis will be the hero again but how the fuck is that going to work? Can anyone imagine how that movie would go in their heads because this movie was bad enough as it was in terms of story.
My brother told me that the split character was actually cut from unbreakable but I dunno, honestly I am actually in two minds because half of me thinks ‘God why, oh god why? Just stop’ and the other half is actually intrigued how he might pull it off. I’m sitting at the side of the road thinking ‘How is this car accident going to look exactly?’

Oh jesus and not to mention how badly it was tied in to unbreakable and the tone is just all wrong. The one of unbreakable was sombre and serious and there was actually a lot of suspension of disbelief because you didn’t actually know if he had powers or not but in this you can see Mcavoy take a 12 gauge to the chest. It lacked all the subtlety and had a much sillier tone. It just wasn’t on the same level as Unbreakable, it was a joke honestly.

It failed at everything it tried to be, it’s not scary or gory enough to be horror, not enough happens for it to be a thriller, like there’s no real story, nothing that thrilling happens. And it’s not interesting in enough to be a drama or character piece, it’s just a steaming pile of wasted potential and sure smells a lot like bullshit and again I’m glad I didn’t waste any of my money on this emperors new clothes horseshit.

Oh yeah and the credits were split into multiples, get the fuck over yourself.

Yeah so no strong feelings at all haha.

See you…

0

TOTCB Chapter One ‘A Little Rain’ (edited)

Ok, being a little lazy.

Just rereleasing the first chapter because people kept bitching at me for showing off DDD when it hasn’t been edited but it’s hard not to want to show my latest work to people when I’m the most excited about it but I have to wait until its more polished and in the mean time I have the first three chapters of this book edited and ready to go and will be releasing it for free on my my site for everyone on my mailing list as soon as it’s completed which is looking to be sometime next month.

Otherwise everything is good, still feeling a little uninspired recently but I’m enjoying doing the lovecraft inspired story and relistening to all his stories for inspiration. Despite that it’s still coming along quite slowly and I’ll release some of it on here when I can be bothered to proofread it. So keep your head on a swizel for that.

Anyway, here’s the remastered first chapter of The One That Came Back for your rereading pleasure.
Don’t forget a free e-copy of this and my last novella ‘Ladies Close Your Eyes’ will be winging it’s way to all the nice folks on my mailing lists so stay tuned for that and peace out.

~

Chapter 1 A little rain

 

“Police, go ahead.”

“My wife and I are here as tourists-”

“-We’ve found a kid.”

“He’s about fourteen or fifteen years old-”

“- No ID, no documents on him.”

“He’s very scared.”

It was raining.

The rain beat down, getting in all the cracks on the sidewalk. It dashed cars and made those little muted tapping sounds as it hit people’s coats as they walked by.

Neon lights of a sign, car headlights, streaked in the rain as if they were melting.

The soothing sound of the rain falling muted the sounds of thunder.

A boy tried to make himself as small as possible in the bottom of a phone booth. The rain beat down, tapping on the glass, trying to get in.

He wore a hooded coat with a cap, and a pair of running bottoms with white stripes up the sides. He sat curled up, with his head in his knees, breathing steadily, the receiver hanging by his head.

The phone booth stood alone in the centre of a cobbled town square, lined with caged trees. European-style lampposts, dotted throughout the square, cast sickly yellow pools of light. There was a square-roofed totem, plastered with ageing posters, advertising bands in Spanish; stark bushes behind it, all their leaves long gone, left with only bony finger twigs stretching out in all directions.

Distant sirens.

The boy in the booth peeled back the sleeve of his jacket and looked at a digital watch. The time was ‘9:58pm’.

The bottom of the phone booth was made of some cheap plastic, like a black shower mat, curling at the corners. It was wet with people’s footprints and the rain getting in through the cracks. Dirty cigarette butts were mashed into it, little pink pieces of paper, fliers with girls on them, soaking up muddy water, and a boy.

A police car pulled up in front of the totem with its lights off. The headlights filled up the phone booth. They stopped the car and put the lights on, red and blue flashing. They got out of the car.

Two cops with their hoods down. On the passenger side, the bald cop approached the phone booth speaking Spanish, reaching out his hand as if he was trying to feed a small animal.

The boy lifted his head to look at the light through the crack in the phone booth door. He shivered as the cold damp started to get to him. The man approached, slow and low, and the boy made himself even smaller. He shrank into his big rain coat and tried to get away from himself. But he was in a corner.

The policeman opened the door of the phone booth and asked him if he was alright. The cop was average build, in his forties with a greying beard. The concern lines on his forehead painted a vivid picture of a man with his own problems; he didn’t need to be out here.

The rain poured down on him as he spoke, trying to be heard over the constant beating of water around his head. The boy lifted his head an inch, hiding his eyes behind the lip of a cap pulled down low on his head. He cowered with his hands in front of his face.

The cop lost his patience for a moment and reached out for the boy. The boy pulled back. He was shaking.

“Tranquilo, tranquilo,” the cop said slow, as he put his hands up and backed off just a little. He signalled for the boy to come: “Vamos.”

The boy was ashen, shaking. He looked lost and frightened.

The cop took his arm and gingerly helped him to his feet.

He led the boy, hunched like a refugee, towards the brightly lit police car.

The boy’s legs seemed weak. His knees buckled and the second cop swam through the rain to prop him up on his other side. They carried him, arm in arm, to the waiting police car, the sound of the windshield wipers screeching.

They put him in the back seat and shut the door. He ducked his head and listened to the rain.

–

“What is your name?” a woman said in a robotic tone. “Tell us your name,” she asked again. They watched the boy’s face, even as he tried to hide, on the monitors. His cap was pulled way down and he had a scarf covering the other half of his face. “Where do you live?” she kept asking.

The pixelated camera zoomed out as he said nothing. He hung his head like a frightened animal. “Do you live with your parents? Did they hurt you?”

It looked more like an office than an interview room. It was wood panelled with a wall of  opaque glass.. The boy looked out the door and saw people at desks, lit by old fashioned lamps, sifting through papers. Phones ringing, people talking, clattering of chairs and hushed breath.

His hands were deep down in the pockets of his coat. He got comfortable in the chair, sinking further and further down into it.

It smelled like cigarettes and heady perfume in the office. Sweet and bitter smells.

He sat at a wooden table. There were loose pieces of paper in Spanish tacked onto the wall: notices, pictures of people.

The woman across the desk was pretty, in her mid to early thirties, but with a strain of concern on her face that looked like it had always been there. Her sandy hair was tied back in a tight plait littered with split ends. She was in a blue uniform adorned with shiny gold buttons. She continued to talk and he watched her lips move.

He looked behind her. On the wall were more posters. A laminated one, behind her head, had large pictures of people and said “MUY PELIGROSOS” in bold letters. There was a book shelf packed with hastily tidied files, binders and large books that looked like phone books piled on top of each other, in no particular order.

In the outer office people were smoking and tapping away at old computers. The bald policeman who had picked him up was on the phone, looking at him through the crack in the door. He nodded, putting out his cigarette and hanging up the phone.-

–

The boy sat in a waiting room, on a long leather couch that looked like the backseat of an old car. A hand-painted mural behind his head looked like storm clouds. He sat with his head down. A woman at a desk was speaking Spanish into a telephone.

She put the phone down with a surly click and got up, walked around her desk and sat on the front with her hands in her lap.

“Please tell us who you are. Why don’t you have any ID? Are you from Spain?”

He was in the office of a children’s home. It was a large room filled with desks and computers. On the wall, behind the director’s head, was a large map of the world and pictures, of her family, a holiday, a mossy cave, a beach somewhere, school pictures, children sitting in rows, children’s drawings.

She dipped her head as if to implore him. “If you can’t prove to us who you are, we’ll be left with no choice but to fingerprint and photograph you right now and pass them on to the police. Do you understand?”

He looked up, his eyes searching her face. She looked like she was trying to comfort him but she was also disappointed that he didn’t exist.

–

“Peggy, it’s your mother, are you sitting down? You’re not going to believe this.” An old woman’s whiskey-soaked voice rattled down the phone line.

“Mom, what is it?” The girl on the other end sounded startled; it was late.

“They found your brother, Johnny. They found Johnny in Linares!”

“Oh my God! What part of Texas is Linares in?”

“No, it’s not in Texas. Linares, Spain!” Peggy’s mother, Angela, coughed.

“Spain? Isn’t that on the other side of the country? When can we see him? When can we get him back?” Peggy was rushing now, almost slurring her words, her heart jumping up and down like it was on a pogo stick.

“They gave me a number of the shelter he’s in. Peggy, can you call? You have to be the one that goes and gets him. You have to go get your brother, do you understand?” Her mother was begging now; there was no one else she could rely on.

“OK.”

Peggy’s mother quickly rattled off the number and Peggy jotted it down on a piece of note paper by the phone.

She hung up the phone without saying goodbye, or even thinking, and let it sit in the dark spot of her mind for a moment. She took a few hurried breaths, feeling a little light-headed. The room felt like it was getting smaller. Finally she took the phone out of the cradle, an old-fashioned grey phone with big buttons. She put it to her ear and dialled the number.

The phone rang for a moment and then a man with a European accent answered.

“Hello, this is Peggy Carson. I was told to phone this number.” She paused with a sudden shortness of breath. “Johnny, Johnathan Bartlett.” She sucked her bottom lip. “Do you have him?” An eternity passed as she waited for a response. “Hello?”

“Yes, we have him, Johnathan Bartlett. He’s sitting right here next to me. I am Joan Dorian. I work at the children’s centre and we are sure it is him. You must understand, he is very scared. He has been through a traumatic experience, do you understand?”

“Please, can I talk to him, just for a moment?” The concern in Peggy’s voice rose. She’d begun twiddling the phone cord between her two fingers.

“I’m sorry, Mrs Carson, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone, as of this moment. He’s been through a very hard time. We believe he may have been abused by whomever abducted him and he’s not in the right frame of mind to talk to anyone.”

“I can’t talk to him at all? He’s my little brother!”

“Please, Mrs Carson, understand, this is not the same boy you knew. He’s been through a hell of a lot. He’s going to need a lot of time to come to terms with what happened to him. He’s going to need a lot of love and understanding and patience right now, OK?”

“Alright, please give him my love.” She stopped to take a breath. “Does he remember us? Does he remember his family?” Her voice croaked and shook, as if she was scared to ask.

“He doesn’t remember much. He remembers you, but not a lot else, I believe.”

“Please just let me hear his voice.” She was desperate.

Another eternity passed, before a strained child’s voice came on the line.

“Hello?” it said.

Peggy welled up and burst into tears.

“Hello, Johnny? Johnny, is that you? We missed you, baby. We’re going to get you back soon. Don’t worry, we’re coming. I love you.”

“I love you,” the voice said.

~

0

TOTCB Chapter 13 ‘Red Right Hand’

Heyo,

Back again with another chapter, got some interest in this actually, had a few literary agents ask for the completed manuscript but I’m still waiting on my editor to reply to my fucking emails haha!

But it’s a good feeling, it feels like with every step I take it’s a step further and although I didn’t really hold much stock in this book well not as much as I do with Diana in the Dark, it’s nice to know I’m getting closer to my goal. That this wasn’t all in vain and one day I’ll be where I want to be and it will have meant something.

Despite all that’s happened along the way, I can’t say I’d change a thing, happiness and misery only waiting over the horizon.

Still feel a little in a rut recently, victory or the chance of victory has defeated me for a time and I’ve been trying to write a lovecraftian story this last week but it’s proving trickier to manage my time with so many distractions. But I’m steadfast and I’ve been reingesting a steady diet of Lovecraft and bloodborne to try and get in the right frame of mind.
Don’t get your hopes up though, it’s not really meant to be scary, I’m writing something that’s a little like a Lovecraftian superhero origin story hence the title ‘Loverman’. It’s basically call of cthulhu meets the crow.

It should be a lot of fun once I get to the knitty gritty of it.

Anyway, back to the day to day grind.

See you…

Red Right Hand

–

Johnny was being held in Bexar county sheriff’s department in the centre of town. Con and Nancy were watching him through two way glass as he sat in an interrogation room. They were waiting for someone to brief them on what happened.

Johnny looked nervous, lost. Like he was searching for something, lost in his own head and he didn’t know where to start. He was pale with white bandages over portions of his face.

A sheriff’s deputy breezed in with a report in his hand, he was a short man with a beer gut and greying beard.

“Are you the fbi people?” He said without a hint of irony, chewing some kind of blue gum that made his breath smell like popcorn.

“That’s us” Con said, standing with hands in his pockets.

Nancy was still watching the kid, transfixed, her arms folded.

“Well I’ve got the report here signed by his mother. We’ve got her in a separate room waiting for the warrant to come through on the blood samples. But we should have that soon. We already have the boy’s DNA, fingerprint, palm print, photophraghed, the whole shebang”

“That’s great, forward it to our office and we’ll put it through our database and send it on over to Interpol.” Con said without removing his hands from his pockets, furrowing his all too handsome brow.

“Interpol, wow, this is some serious stuff huh?” The man smiled and swapped glances with Con and the back of Nancy’s head. He almost bowed and started to take the gum out which he now realised he’d been chewing loud. “Oh sorry, trying to quit smoking. I can leave the incident report here for you take a look at or I can give you the hightlights.”

“Highlights are good” Con said forcing a smile.

“Well alright then” The man said as he straightened up. “Well this is all from his mother and the boy doesn’t contest it. The subject, that is the young man, found what we’ve determined to be a flare gun. His mother said was out in the garage, she doesn’t have any idea how it got there. Possibly bought by her husband and put in storage”. He looked up for minute to check they were still there and he went on. “The subject took said flare gun and discharged it into the refrigerator, accidentally.” He said that last part looking at Con.

Nancy sneered as she kept looking through the glass. “What about his face?”

“He did that himself, the mother says it was an accident too. Boys will be boys and all that and she doesn’t want to press charges. After we’ve executed the search warrants we have no cause to hold them any longer”

“Is that everything?” Con said.

“Pretty much, I’ll leave you folks to it. We’ll keep you informed on the state of the warrant and forward any samples to your office.”

“Thanks deputy?”

“Kline, good to meet you folks, I heard you were from out of town, I hope its treating you well, you two have a good one ok.” The deputy closed the door behind him and left them alone in the cold darkened room. Watching Johnny squirm.

Nancy seemed to quiver from a draft as the door closed. She’d been standing with her arms folded facing the glass. Now she started to rub her arms as an almost nervous reaction. Con could tell something was wrong, he walked a few steps closer.

“You ok?”

“Mmm”

“What is it?”

“Just a feeling” Her mind was somewhere else.

“A feeling?”

“Like someone’s moonwalking on my grave” She was looking at her reflection in the glass now.

“The kid’s got you spooked?”

“It’s not just the kid, it’s the whole family, and the kid. I knew there was something off about him the minute I saw him.”

“Selection bias at it’s finest, you’re just remembering it that way to make sense of how you feel now”. He smiled knowing that would rile her in the right way.

She scowled at him and chupsed.

“There’s something wrong, it’s like he doesn’t exist. Like everything he does is out of time, out of rhythm. I can look at someone usually and see what they’re gonna do, or what they’re thinking. When I look at him it’s like static, cold white static.”

“What about the family”.

“They’re hiding something, but everytime I think I know what it is it just falls away. It’s not just that I feel like we’re taking one step forward and two steps back. It’s like we’re not moving at all or even if we find out what happened we’ll never quite know the whole truth.”

“That’s always how it is, only an idiot convinces themselves they ever have the whole truth of anything.” He was getting maudlin for a change. As soon as he said it he got that cold feeling like it was contagious.

“But it’s like even they don’t know the whole truth, like they’ve hidden it even from themselves, every one of them.”

“It shouldn’t take too long to have the test’s analysed, and once we send them on to Interpol we can put this to bed.” Part of him wanted to pat her shoulder but he knew how that would go so he kept his hands in pockets.

–

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Star Wars Rogue Y Tho?

Ok so evidently I wasn’t too hyped about this moving leaving it until now to actually watch and not spending any money to do so. And really my first thoughts are just; Why? Why does this exist?

Like seriously, I think this is the first time I’ve been watching a film and been like ‘Why am I watching this? Why would someone make this?’

The answer is obvious to anyone, it’s just money, but that makes me really sad.

The fact that this movie even exists is just so cynical and I can’t help watching it and thinking about how it feels like it was literally constructed in a board room. Even before I get down to the bare bones of why I didn’t like it, I just think it didn’t need to exist. The movie is soulless and aimless. It just exists for the sake of it. With it’s beniton advert cast with it’s token chinese person, gotta grab that chinese market there and it’s token evil white guys and cg Tarkin which was also needless.

I mean that should be your first red flag, if you need to revive not one but two people with tv voodoo you probably should just leave it alone. I know people made excuses for it but come on, it looked like crap. They could have just left him out of the movie or replaced him with a guy who just never turned around and it would have looked better than this videogame character/animated corpse. It was just wrong and anyone that says otherwise is just making excuses.

Honestly I went into this movie wanting to hate it, I really did, but any hate I could have had was overshadowed by my supreme indifference towards it. I can’t hate it because there’s nothing really substantive enough in it to hate, it’s sort of a nothing burger of a film, it’s not even really there. The characters that you’re supposed to like and care about *spoilers* and subsequently watch die are bland and uninteresting.

I couldn’t help comparing it to the magnificent seven trying to work out why that worked and this didn’t because in a way I felt it could be compared. Because you have this rag tag band of people drawn together and each person gets their own little bit where they do something brave and then die, like in magnificent seven (despite some living). But the thing about the magnificent seven is it uses it’s two hour plus screen time to build up these characters and make them distinct enough to care about them in varying degrees. I know I was more upset when Charles Bronson’s character died than I was when Red died despite the fact I liked Red but they both had their moments, their own little arcs and to see it close was meaningful and significant. It felt like a whole person died as apposed to a character or in this case a market, a buying demographic.

You don’t get that in this and what really pissed me off the most I have to say and it’s not the boring fights or the sort of stunted lame story but it’s the fact your biggest grossing actors in this case Forrest Whitaker and Mads Mikkelsen are literally in it for about two minutes collectively. And this is despite Whitaker being on the box art and promotional material.

This genuinely pissed me off because first off you see him for like a second younger when he finds, shit I was about call her Rey haha. Shows how distinctive and memorable she was as a character. Gin, he find gin and then he comes back years later with metal legs and looks like a total badass but does he get in a fight? Does he fuck, he literally gets vapourized by the death after like a minute of exposition. So that was my first red flag.

Actually no, my first red flag was why is Mads Mikkelsen in this film and why is he playing a mild mannered scientist and not some bad ass villain or sith? I mean you get one chance to use this actor, the guy who literally played hannibal and a bond villain and you use him to play some nothing character that gets killed off pointlessly and spends his like two minutes of screen time cooing over the daughter he spends all of like two seconds with.

What a waste of two great actors. You can never use either of them again now, they could have been awesome bounty hunters or assassins but no, now they’re just two dead boring guys unless they’re gonna make a prequel to this shitty movie, which I hope to christ they don’t.

That’s the main thing that really annoyed me. The casting choices just seemed to be token, just trying to find the biggest names they could get and casting them as anyone.

The other characters are ultimately forgettable even the guy who played ipman, he’s just a sort of boiled down version of any character from any kung fu movie really and he’s only there to try and make money on the chinese market. (Which they failed to do)

I didn’t care about their deaths and this is a long movie, so you had all this time to make me care about these characters and I still don’t. And this movie is actually longer than magnificent seven.

Ok onto the main character, of which her backstory fits into all of the two minutes before Forest whitaker is vapourized. So she’s the daughter of this science guy and then spends sometime off screen where she becomes the best of this guys soldiers at sixteen. Which says a lot about the rebel alliance, if their best soldier is a sixteen year old girl, you’ve got problems.

So instant Mary sue badass that everyone loves and respects and would die for check. There’s not much more I can say really, the movie is just sort of bleh, it’s cookie cutter and it was made in a board room not someone’s heart.

Gonna rant a little about the ending and the decline of hollywood and I’m out.

Right so one thing I’ve noticing about hollywood and it’s painfully obvious in this movie is the step away from moral story telling and romantic plot lines. Don’t get me wrong the romance in the prequels was cringey as fuck but to not have one in this movie was a little glaring, like why not? It’s a movie. I mean that sounds dumb, I mean just because there’s a hot guy and a hot girl in a movie doesn’t mean they should hook up. But I dunno it just made it sort of awkward at the end when they’re about to be obliterated by an orbital death lazer for them to have  a platonic hug. I was like, dude got friendzoned hard #Deathstarred.

I mean it was so odd my brother swears he remembers them kissing but they did not. It just strikes a queer note. That it would have been relatively easy to inject a moral or romantic plotline but it was purposefully left out. So this movie was more preoccupied with making a bad ass woman getting money from chinese people and signalling to fans of the original franchise than having a romance or making the female character human in anyway.

Now onto the signalling, a lot of memes I see and even my brother made a big deal about this and what we’re talking about is the end sequence when Darth Vader has a bit of a fight. I say he has a fight when it’s really just him murdering a bunch of dudes in a cool way. And yeah it was cool and I spent those brief seconds of that action thinking “Wouldn’t it be cool if the other two hours of this movie was like this?”. It was a nice little treat, like a cherry on top of a bland creampie full of empty calories.

That’s whats so bad about this movie, because it hints at the other films, you get to see the pigfaced guy from the bar scene before he gets his arm cut off and it has a little cameo from r2 and 3po and vader and tarkin but they’re not actually in the film. They don’t have an impact on the story, they’re just little extras, little titbits, window dressing, little reminders of the film you actually liked, which isn’t this.

It’s just so pathetically try hard, it’s like I’m watching a sad fan film. This is the movie equivalent of halloween harley quinn cosplayer. “Hey look at me, I’m that thing you like”. But there’s a difference between those films we liked and this film that takes the time to vaguely reference those films without having any of the memorable characters or action or story. “Hey remember those films you liked, I’m pointing at some of the characters that were in that, like me please!”

It’s just pathetic honestly. And I don’t know what’s sadder the fact the movie industry is cynical and greedy enough to roll the corpse of this franchise out into this boring nothing of a film or that audiences nevertheless pay money to watch it and will defend just because it vaguely reminds them of the films they liked but in a way that’s akin to the murderer of their grandmother wearing her skin and making you peanut butter sandwiches. It’s not your grandmother, it just looks like her sort of and that isn’t peanut butter.

I mean honestly, what next? Are they going to make a movie about c3po working on jabbas pleasure barge? Are we going to get a movie about guido shooting first? If this is the standard what can’t they make a movie about at this point?

I’d heard that these guys would be recurring as the knights of ren, this order of non-force using villains which would have been awesome. If the tone of the movie was to set up a band of villains for Rey and the gang to fight in the new movies that would have given the movie purpose and gravitas, but that seems unlikely.

It genuinely adds nothing to the star wars universe, it creates characters we don’t care about only to then kill them off with no overarching moral message or parable that makes the whole message hollow. The movie doesn’t need to exist. I mean I could understand if some of them recurred in the main arch but they all die, so what was the point? Oh right, money. I mean all my gripes with the force awakens it atleast adds new characters and plots lines to the franchise. I only really like one of them but at least it added something, this is just a completely pointless film that serves only to waylay you of your time and money in exchange for one decent Darth Vader scene.

Ok rant over haha.

 

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What Lies Beyond Smoke by Ben Burns

 Not really much I can say about it, kind of just went over my eyes. Its basically a really drawn out creepy pasta and thus I think it’s pretty diluted. But at the same time the story is sort of ethereal and just dropped into our laps without any real ceremony, boom dead sister, boom cigarettes summon a magic cheesy anime slenderman. It’s not so much a story as just a bunch of stuff happening in quick succession.

The chapters are pretty short and they’re fairly easy to read, if a little mechanical in their delivery. It reads almost like a journal because it’s very matter of fact and even when he’s talking about falling down the stairs it sounds like he’s describing tying his shoes. some spelling and grammar errors but that’s pretty irrelevant when it comes to inkitt, 99% of people don’t have the professional editors to pick over their work.

It’s not bad, just kind of middle of the road, I don’t know how old you are but it seems like something a teen would write and if that’s the case it’s a solid effort, it has the makings of something fairly interesting. It kind of reminded me of like death note or silent hill. I don’t know if that was your intention or if you’ve seen that show or played that game but it might be worth checking them out because they could have the elements you’re missing to really nail the atmosphere down.

What Lies Beyond Smoke by Ben Burns

 

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GS2 Chapter 9 Dreams Come True Girl

Bonjour, short and sweet is the name of the game, in and out and all that.

Been wage cucked for the last week so no content of meat was possible. I just got the wordpress app on my phone so I could only lie awake in bed writing haikus as I dreamed about … something.

But they seemed to go down quite well.

Dreams Come True Girl

–

“We have to keep moving Sparkles” Mr fuzzles said panting like a dog.

They were on the cold streets, it was dark and quiet, snowing calmly. The lack of noise made them feel like they were in a snowglobe, the sky an open vacuum of stars staring down with bleak ambivalence. A building cacophony of silence following them, whispers, whispers, moans, bones creaking. Squelching noises, hungry breath and padded feet crunching up the snow.

“They’re coming Mr Fuzzles, we can’t outrun them forever, we need to go somewhere, find a place we can hide.” Sparkles said, fighting for breath as Fuzzles pulled her along.

“Hmm” He said putting his paw to his purple chin.

It was dark, pitch, the streetlights waned, the moon was the only one on their side and it was known to play both sides when it was full. Figures moving slow but resolute under the glow of the orb floating in the sky, the glow from it’s teeth touching only their outlines. So many outlines and the sparkly one stood out the most, all those sequins. Leading his army of beasts, beasts of the new world. All those mascots climbing out of the murk like ghosts from a Saturday morning cartoon coming to claim the town.

Muffled screams, glass breaking, the slow roll of furry death unfurling on the sleepy town.

“I think we should go to the police Mr Fuzzles”. Sparkles whispered.

–

“Cut it”

The sound of bolt cutters biting on the hanging lock on the back of the building. The shaded figures pushed passed her into the building through the back.

“Put her down on the counter”

“I don’t think we can lift her”

“And what do we do with her head?”

A fat but well manicured hand flipped on the lights, they popped and croaked into life. First the kitchen, stainless steel everywhere, deep fat friars, fly buzzers buzzing in the corners. The smell of cinnamon and cold chiros.

“Why did you pick a donut shop of all places?” Roch said.

Juanita turned her head and looked her up and down and said “I don’t need to answer that.” She marched through to the front of the store. The lights were all on but blinds were tightly shut and there was a steel rolltop door protecting the glass storefront.

The donut shop was standard in a small diner feel, but tighter and more like a dispensary for a bake shop than an actual restaurant. A few stools up against outcroppings from the wall functioning as small tables. The floor space had a handful of small circular tables with tall backless chairs dotted around them. Very modern. Pictures of happy donuts on the walls.

Juanita could have found it by the smell alone but she couldn’t mistake, even in the dark, the giant metal donut sitting on the roof of the shop, beckoning her.

“Fuck this bitch is heavy” Kat said.

“Don’t body shame her, she’s a stunning and brave larger woman” Jaclyn said as she cleared a place for her on the counter. “Can you get her up here?”

Roch and Kat strained as they pressed the lifeless body of Garylynn against the counter and struggled to leverage her up onto the wide counter top. “Why are we even doing this? Her fucking head is off!” Roch screeched as she lifted one side of the giant woman, straining, her neck getting as veiny as a weighlifters stool.

Jaclyn passed them and put her laptop down on a circular table in the middle of the restaurant floor and took a seat in front of it and started taping away.

Roch and Kat got Garylynn’s body hoisted onto the counter, Kat reached down and dropped her misshapen soggy head on her chest. Roch was hot and bothered, her frustration apparent physically and mentally. Panting, she said “Jace are you hearing me, I’m talking to you.”

Jace spoke without looking up continuing to tap away at her laptop “I’m working on it, I just need to tap into the satellite and we can get some help.”

“I thought the phones were down?” Kat said leaning on the giant’s corpse.

“Phones are but we’ve got our satellite to play with.” Jaclyn smiled looking up briefly, the light of her laptop illuminating a set of adult braces.

“But he’s not here, what can he possibly do?” Roch said.

“I wont know until we get him on the line and we can do a full diagnostic”. She turned and looked at the body and squinted. “Err, can you, erm, pass me the head please?”

Roch looked at Kat and shrugged, lifting up the head with a straining noise, it was like a big medicine ball, deceptively heavy and bulky. She dropped it heavy on the small round table, looking at her hand and grimacing wiping a thick goop onto her tank top. “Gross”.

“O-k” Jace said as she pulled a cable out of her laptop and thumbed the misshapen ball of a head, moving the hair looking for something particular. “Aha” She said as she pulled back what must have been a horribly deformed ear. She plugged in the cable and sat back down in front of her laptop and started typing. The screen was blue and blank, a bar climbing that said ‘Establishing connection’ a picture of a floating satellite with a smiley face on it.

“Oh no no no, this isn’t right.” A nasally effiminite voice came out of the speakers, a feed of some dark room. A close up on a man’s head moving and then the camera being fixed in place, a close up on a man’s face. “What have you done to it?” Macintosh Lysander said as he looked down at his feed of the diagnostics report.

“Erm well” Jace said.

“Is she alright” Juanita came around the counter.

“Where were you just now?” Kat said as she pushed past her into the restaurant.

Juanita dusted icing sugar off her face and shirt and said “I was just checking we were secure”. Quickly changing subject she said “You contacted Lysander without me?”

“Well, I needed to send him th-“

“I’m the leader of this fucking team, you got it???” She said as she bounced her fat ass at Jaclyn knocking her off the high stool and taking her place in front of the laptop. “Hey Maccy darling, its me, she just had a little accident.” Her voice was sweet but then switched on a dime “It was that transphobic bigot Sunday. She cut off her head, but its no biggy right you can fix her, can’t you?”

“Nita that is a one of a kind prototype, do you have any idea the strings I had to pull to get that out of dad’s lab without him knowing?” He breathed in making that cloying sucking noise that he does. “If he finds out its missing, he’ll kill all of us. I’m not kidding.” His voice dipped in and out of the effeminate voice. He realised this paused and did that annoying clicking tutting noise reseting his voice to max effeminate swagger. “I can reboot the system from here but you need to reattach the head yourselves. I can walk you through it, but first I need an update on the mission, did you get the samples I asked for?”

“Maccy it doesn’t start til tomorrow, we’re early. We’ll get them, don’t you worry. These animist assholes wont continue their sick oppression any longer than they have to. We can put a stop to the whole fucked up Animarchy.” She said raising a fist doing a cringeworthy rosie the riveter pose.

–

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