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Vampyr review – it doesn’t suck??

Is that a pun? a vampire game that doesn’t suck?

Its the damdest thing, I’ve been wanting to try this game for awhile I was just waiting for it to go on sale for the right price and it’s been yoyoing in sales for some time but my friends kept telling me not to get it. But I was tempted when it went for like 85% off but it was still over a tenner so I let it go, only for it to go on gamepass a couple of days later and what seems like a match made in heaven, I still had a week left of the gamepass trial I had.

Erm this one kinda caught me off guard, I saw some trailers for it and I thought it looked ok and then I heard it was made by Dontnod and I was like “err no”.
For those that don’t know anything about dontnod they’re the people who make the award winning millenial simulators ‘life is tumblr’ and the trumps america simulator life is strange 2. They’re basically not even games, they’re just a bunch of really autistic french people trying to make social justice passion plays with kids with magical powers for reasons in an america seen through cnn. They’re really bad and cringy. So bad I watch play throughs just to laugh at them but the idea of spending money on them is ridiculous.

I actually played dontnods first game with gameplay, at least I think it was their first game, which was Remember Me. And it was really bad, I dunno, it was just bleh, the world the characters the hook of the game, just bleh, then they release Life is Strange, it wins loads of awards and probably makes no money and that was that.

Vampyr is made by focus home interactive and they were behind the really bad call of cthulhu game and they hold the license. But they did such a hack job the studio they were working with split off with them and focus home released this shitty fps walking sim that was basically dark corners of the earth but shit. So the people that split off from them went to make the sinking city which is not licensed but it looks really good. But for legal reasons might not be able to be lovecraftian haha. I dunno, but it looks good, it actually has gameplay, so that already makes it better by comparison.

So this game did not have the best foot forward to me, it even has the voice actor who plays the main character in call of cthulhu as the main character. So it’s a really bad impression I’m getting which makes it all the more astonishing that this is probably my  game of the year.

I absolutely adored it despite all my friends telling me it was boring or commie propaganda haha. I loved every minute of it and I’m going to tell you exactly why, that’s the point of reviews I guess.

There’s so much I love about it and it’s so unique, it’s hard to align my thoughts because initially I look at games and I try to categorise them. Like ‘oh this is an Assassins creed clone’ or this is a ‘gta clone’ etc. But there’s nothing to compare this to, it’s totally it’s own thing, part walking simulator part action rpg.

My best comparison would probably be a crossover between the witcher and bloodborne but good haha. Trolling aside, I loved the witcher but it’s just too long for replay-ability purposes and the choices you makes don’t feel impactful enough for me to want to redo them (also it took me forever to get all the witcher gear and I can’t be arsed to do all that again) and I don’t want to meet the person who wants to replay bloodborne.

Vampyr is the perfect length of a game and the choices you make and the builds you can design make for a hell of a lot of replay-ability. Kid you not, I started a whole new playthrough the second I completed it the first time, the only other game I did that with was probably mgs four or dead rising maybe. It’s ten out of ten for replay-ability. There’s so many choices and angles you can come at something and the builds are really fun to tinker with. The whole time you’re talking to people investigating and trying to be an apex predator vampire. You know you’re loving a game when you’re playing it and already planning for your next play through.

The storyline is honestly great, you play Johnathon Reid a newborn vampire/doctor who has to find out who turned him and find the cause of the epidemic of the spanish flu in london. Lots of twists and turns and it did subvert my expectations and also kind of blew my mind because the end boss is basically the end boss in my Cur books. I know, it’s weird that celtic mythology would make it’s way into this but it does and its awesome haha. The characters are fantastic, of course they are, they’re like central to the game. Half the game is about the characters, who you choose to kill and who you choose to spare and the consequences of that. And it all carries this sort of depression/uplifting feel of people surviving and making the best of it, the british stiff upper lip. Like you feel sorry for them and may want to put them out of their misery or you may want to help them.

Gameplay is split into two sections, you have your combat free roam exploration like bloodborne where the streets are filled with mindless ghouls and vampire hunters both want to take a chunk out of your butt and the focus is on exploring the dingey streets of London claimed by this horrible disease.

You have a witcher-esque combat system, which I heard people complain about but I liked it, really responsive, lots of synergy with the powers. You feel like a god when you get the right mix of powers and tactics, it’s great. That’s exactly how you want to feel in a game about a vampire.

But the combat is just one half of the game the other half is the sections where you’re in a ‘safe zone’ where people aren’t being prayed upon by ghouls and there aren’t vampire hunters roaming the streets. The parts where people are just trying to survive the epidemic and as a vampiric doctor it’s your duty to cure the sick and also eat some of them.

How the game works basically is you can eat certain people based on your level of mesmerism, so some people you can’t eat until later in the game where your power has grown a little. And the reason they do that is obviously just to stop you from breaking the game by just devouring everyone you meet instantly. But you can eat pretty much everyone in the game eventually. One of my defences of this game when my friends were calling it social justice bait and having really sjwy characters in it was to say well yeah there are sort of cringy characters but you can eat them. It’s like when rdr2 has the suffragette in it but you can feed her to crocodiles if you want. But in this game it’s even better because the game never intended you to feed the suffragette to a crocodile, there’s also a suffragette in vampyr but the game fully intends and prepares for you to kill her and it affects the game and your ending. It’s a really great mechanic that has such a great synergy with the world.

And honestly now that I mention rdr2 this game actually stays more consistent with it’s morality and politics with its period. In rdr2 your belief is never suspended in regard to what time you’re in, it’s very tongue in cheek and it’s drenched in modern morality and modern racial politics and social commentary. I never really felt like it was in the time it was portraying it was just a pastiche. Whereas vampyr is a near perfect period piece that handles it’s politics and morality with a bit of a progressive bent but it’s consistent and it makes you feel like you’re in that gas light era. It’s really great and even when your character spouts progressive opinions on race and gender you don’t cringe because you can just eat that person. So it creates a weird dynamic where everything Jonathan Reid says is subjective, is he saying that because he really believes that and he supports women/gay rights or is he just saying that because he wants to lower their guard for him to sink his teeth into them? He’s played very much as a blank slate and the voice actor is great. Because you can see it in like one line how he goes from soft-hearted doctor to cold blooded killer. It’s done so well in a game where you can murder someone’s child and come back and ask the parents how it makes them feel all while you and the game knows you did it. It’s eerie in a way because he knows he’s a monster and the face he wears and the things he says are just a mask. Lots of people look at that and see inconsistency, that he’s super progressive and non-violent and wants to help people but also wants to eat them. But honestly I see a person who see pragmatism in sacrifice to his hunger and also just can’t help it. He tries to be good but he knows he’s a monster. There’s even a part where you kill this guys wife and he finds out that it was you and he has to explain his hunger. So it’s as if you’re not even playing Jonathan you’re actually playing his hunger and it’s really meta because he has no control over who he eats. It makes for a great role playing experience in my opinion.

It’s such a unique game in that respect and it sort of turns you into a monster. Because I would find myself later in the game, more so in my second play through killing people not for the XP but just to see how his friends and family would react. Sometimes I’d kill people because they were evil and sometimes I’d kill people because they were good. It was a weird experience. The game sort of turns you into a kid with a magnifying glass over an anthill and lets you run wild. It’s so much fun, criminally so, it’s almost sadistic and just tickles me in the right way. I found myself having to justify killing someone and there’s not many games that make you consider that. Not just killing someone but asking yourelf why you did it.

Also it’s a little thing but another thing that makes this game so replayable is the save system, that is, it doesn’t have one. There is no save scumming in this game, you kill someone they’re dead until you start the game over, you make a decision, that’s set until you hit new game. So it adds this sense of finality and consequence. In rdr2 and witcher 3 you can load a different save in Vampyr that’s impossible, you made that decision now justify it, live with it. A little thing like that adds so much weight to your choices, it amazes me more games don’t do that. And in the second playthrough I was shocked by some of the changes to the cut scenes because some of them turned out completely differently depending on how many people I killed and who I killed, it really caught me off guard and I loved it.

Graphics are of course great, the game looks great, its atmospheric af haha. The only cons of this game I can think that jump out at me right off the bat are the fucking loading times. Oh goly gee those loading times are a fucking crime, specifically in a game where the difficulty can be punishing especially if you do a pacifist run. But that’s a minor gripe. Some weird racial choices for characters are the only weird sjwy elements and all the black people are voiced by the same dude haha. Like he doesn’t even try to do a different voice, it’s just the same guy wearing a different hat haha. I mean I don’t care but how many black journalists were living and working in London around the nineteen hundreds? Were there even any black people here at all at that time? England didn’t really do the whole slave thing compared to the U.S and when we did we put them in plantations in the Caribbean, they didn’t come to work in England as far as I know. The blacks here now are descendants of migrants who came over after world war two I think. But the french people that made this game, I guess they don’t know that haha.

So it’s really a minor gripe, it’s not really harped on, there are some indian people and that makes some sense, we’ve always had a close relationship with india. Some people were harping on the gay relationship in the game, like it was shoved in your face. Yeah I guess ‘shoved in your face’ translates to; a hidden cutscene where you have to wait and watch their heartbeats and follow them to a secluded location to spy on them. Really shoved it in my face there dontnod haha. It was so shoved in my face I had to look at a guide to get the cutscene on my second playthrough because I wanted to kill on of them to get his sword.

That’s another gameplay element, some characters have signature weapons that are more powerful versions of standard weapons, so you can plan your killing map based on what weapons you want to pilfer. Funny thing I actually got banned on facebook recently saying I was gonna kill the gay character because he has a cool sword haha. Thirty day ban for saying I want to kill a gay videogame character haha. Facebook is a joke.

Yeah so I loved it, the gameplay, the story, the characters, the world. The only things I would change is the ability to cut off that lame ass hipster beard he has haha. If you’re gonna copy witcher at least let us get a haircut but I guess barbers aren’t willing to work at night haha.

Oh yeah that’s how the game works btw. You fight and drink people for XP and then sleep to use the blood you gained and wake up the next night but during the day people can get sick and basically the consequences of what you did the night before take effect. And if you kill too many people a district can become unstable and overrun with ghouls killing everyone. So it’s a lot like a sim in a lot of ways. You really have to pick people off selectively and think about who you want to kill and who you want to spare. And you have to heal the people to keep the district healthy, another comparison to the witcher where you mix up potions to fight harder or whatever in this you make cures to help people.

Or you can just wipe everyone out and become a naughty vampire god haha. I also forgot to mention that the amount of XP you get depends on how much you know about them. Their blood gets more delicious depending on how many of their secrets you uncover, doesn’t make much sense but its really cool. Basically you have to talk to them and other people to probe them for secrets and then look around their house maybe or do a mission for them or follow them when their heartbeat raises, when they’re doing something shifty.

It’s a lot of fun, and yeah I cheated a lot looking at youtube for hints haha.

I loved this game, I might buy it when it comes off gamepass or goes on sale again. I really hope they do a sequel, I know it won a lot of awards, which it deserves. Weird thing, it’s the first game where I was playing it and listening to the music and thought ‘damn this music is good’ and yeah it won an award for it’s soundtrack. I think it made a fair bit of money too, so I hope it gets a sequel but in all honesty I’d much prefer a prequel where you play a vampire knight in the sixteen hundreds fighting the first outbreak, that would be awesome. Like the Witcher but more historically accurate but with vampires and werewolves. Or maybe they could make a spin off where you play a werewolf, that would be awesome, has anyone ever made a wereolf game not counting that morrowind expansion pack? The worst possible scenario would be just a bog standard sequel where you play Jonathan Reid again.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Jonathan Reid, the voice actor made the game, but I hate sequels where you trip over a rock and lose all the powers you gain in the first game. I hate that, it’s such lazy writing and it’s why I couldn’t get hyped for Deus Ex mankind divided, it’s just too contrived, you’re gonna tell me that Adam Jensen is such an amazing character he can’t be replaced by anyone else?

Just make a new character, Jonathan can still be in it, he could even be your maker, that would be awesome. Maybe set it in present day a hundred years later or even during world war 2, nazi vampires and werewolves, holy shit, there’s your fucking sequel haha. So those are my perfect sequels, a hundred years in the future or like four hundred years in the past or nazi werewolves haha.

Get cracking dontnod and focus home interactive, respectfully haha.

But in my opinion, this game is better than Red dead redemption 2 in almost every way. Sure it wont waste hundreds of hours of your time horse riding through empty plains and you can’t go fishing or play poker but the story and characters and gameplay are great and more importantly they serve the narrative. This game is a piece of art, it’s not just a collection of popular nonsense and pointless gimmicks. It’s totally it’s own thing and it’s great, go out and play it.

 

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Cur 2 Chapter 1 ‘Rise up dirty waters’

So here it is I guess.
As I said before I kinda wanted to go understated because I could, I wanted to play it slow. I went hard in the first chapter of the first book because you really need to do that, and it was sort of to pay homage to berserk and the parts of the witcher I like. Sort of my interpretation of that iconic bar fight scene where Guts cuts a mofo clean in half with one strike. 
You think I feel bad about that? Not really, it was probably ripped off of Conan first, I just haven’t read that far. But I am reading it and it’s way more interesting than the Shadow even though the stories are so much more simple and really the whole thing is plot. You just get a story and it’s like ‘Conan wants to steal thing’ so he does that and even though it’s just that simple it really works because it’s just well written and fun and you want to see what happens and how does it.
I was listening to a podcast comparing Howard to Tolkien, and how they were sort of around the same time but Tolkien was bigger because he had all this lore and he invented his own language and Howard seems to be inventing it on the fly, it only has as much lore as it needs. 
I don’t really know about that because the first chapter of Conan the Cimmerian is literally all lore dating back centuries of all the different peoples leading up to the present with Conan and it was just so long that I was just like ‘fuck this’. I mean do I need to know the entire history of this fictional land to enjoy this? Is there going to be a test on this? I don’t even know most of my own history and I’m fine with that.
And it gave me the natural ‘fuck me’ sweats like ‘what if my story doesn’t have enough lore?’ I mean what more can there be? I’m adapting actual Celtic mythology and this story is sort of the dawn of the lore of their myths. The conflict between the tuatha de and the firbolg and the fomorians is the basis of their folklore and then obviously there’s more to come after.
But there’s literally only a few people that come before them and they’re all wiped out essentially so I’ve set my story at the dawn of their myths, there can be no lore because this is it. There’s nothing before this. I mean there is but it’s not lore, it’s a mystery to be uncovered in the last book.
One question that is never answered in the folklore is the origin of the Fomorians and that is a question I endeavor to answer with these books. That’s sort of the crux of the entire series, giving this mysterious race the fomorians an origin that fits with the christian historicity the stories are rooted in.
If you want a lesson on the folklore, I suggest googling it because I compiled like eighty pages of note on it and I can’t be bothered to pull it up haha.
Ok so I did the glass review and I talked about this. I liked it, building up a new character because Manannan is pretty important in the folklore he’s one of those connecting tissue characters, a little mystery a little reveal and in the next chapter I’ll be bringing back some of that bloody violent action for all that love that, me included haha.
See you and enjoy the chapter.
–
 
A heavy foot fell sploshing a muddy puddle, thick like drying cold blood. The rainfall a monotonous droning metronome to the drumbeat of padding heavy feet. So torrential it was it almost drowned out the sound of the sea crashing and cresting behind the ragged figure. The man wrapped clung tightly to himself and trudged his way through the downpour up the hill.
 
The figure was tall and dressed in a long drab coat a mutt nipping at his sodden heals.
 
“Aye steady on boy” A booming voice said. “We’re almost home now”. The figure said with a covetous smile as he clutched a wrapped item to his breast. The figure’s eyes were furtive for a moment to gaze over the hill and back along the shoreline at his boat resting, slowly filling with rain. When he was sure he was alone he continued up the hill to a small fisherman shack on the edge of the cliff looking out at the sea. It was a lonely shack surrounded by empty hills and valleys and flat lands lain with wet grass. The greenest grass you’ve ever seen and below churned a grey frothy sea that leapt and lapped at the land.
 
The shack was tiny and isolated on the edge Meenlaragh, a small fishing village on the northern coast of Ulster. The shack itself seemed to be constructed from a portion of a large ships keel. The roof of which sloped on either side to make point coming together on top forming a shape almost like a bow. The wood was dark and weathered with barnacles clinging to the sides, all manner of nets and ropes hanging outside. The door was a simple barn door bolted with heavy rusted rivets of iron.
 
There was a warm glow coming from it and a horse whineying.
 
“I’m coming Enbarr, I’m home girl” The figure shouted.
 
The ragged figure opened the door quickly and bundled himself inside, the dog following after shaking off the rain. The man closed and bolted his door and hurriedly threw his coat off one arm at a time so as to not let the package out of his grasp.
 
The man was a large and ruddy common elf with a big bushy beard, red of cheek. He was of a middle age with a barrelled chest and round gut but he held a spryness of step and a child-like twinkle in his eye. His arms were ropey and strong with large gnarled sea beaten hands. His back was broad and sloped and he walked with a creaking sound in his knee and a slight limping hop as if he was accustomed more to swimming than walking.
 
The merry figure beamed and almost leapt to a small cluttered reading table by his bed. The inside of the shack was simple, a firepit in the centre crackled with a blackened pot over it, bubbling with a foul smelling fishy stew. The furniture appeared to be crafted from similar driftwood as fit the shacks construction. His bed was a large but simple hammock made of nets and furs. The lack of windows and the rain beating on the roof and the sound of the sea churning made it feel like a ship out of port.
 
The large ruddy faced man carelessly swept away the clutter and debris that lay scattered on his table. He then carefully placed the wrapped package on down as if it were a swaddling babe. He took another furtive glance about himself as if the walls of the shack might betray him. Some crack or hollowed knot might hide an eye that spied him.
 
He looked at the dog who panted at his side seeming to share his curiosity and excitement.
 
The man licked his bearded chop and breathed deeply as he began to slowly unwrap the mysterious package. The bearded man sighed after a moment as if forgetting how to breathe. As if he feared his breath might disturb the package somehow or alert some shrouded watcher.
 
Carefully he unwrapped the object, and finally as it lay naked on his work table, the meagre light from the firepit glinting off of it. His eyes widened and appeared to turn bright and silver. His mouth hanging open, almost salivating at the sight of the object as it seemed to glow and hum with potential.
 
“Beautiful” He gasped.
 
–
If you want to read the rest of the chapter head on over to inkitt. Rise up dirty waters
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Glass – review

I, like everyone who watched split thought it was ok I guess, some people were blown away by James Mcavoy’s drama schoolkid impressionfest, I just thought it was lame and silly. I never really had my belief suspended, I never found him creepy or felt like he was becoming different people. I just saw silly James Mcavoy doing a bunch of silly voices and faces and it felt dumb and forced.

And he does a lot more of that in this movie and it seems to be the focus since the other characters are in a coma at least one is pretending to be in a coma. I watched this and the death wish remake with my brother and for those that haven’t seen it, the death wish remake is probably the most phoned in performance from Bruce Willis in recent memory. And when this movie started I asked him ‘do you think his performance will be less or more phoned in for this movie?’ and understandably he said less because it’s not a remake it’s a sequel to one of his best movies, arguably.

Oh how wrong he was. I mean it’s weird to harp on the performances of a movie as dumb as this, but it’s just the thing that pops out at me the most, and it’s not just Bruce Willis, they’re all terrible, it’s like no one but the kid who played his son in the original movie took this seriously.

Because you have Bruce Willis who literally spends most of the movie sitting down who just looks like he wants to take his check and go home, he does so little in this movie and he’s supposed to be the hero, I wondered if they just had him for the day. You have Mcavoy doing his silly impressions which got old in split and you have Samuel L Jackson doing his half hearted mastermind bit. But for the most of the movie he’s just pretending he’s in a coma. So essentially two of the main characters are old guys who are getting paid to sit down a lot.

And then you have Sarah Paulson being Sarah Paulson. She has no acting range whatsoever, she plays the same fucking character in everything. I know this from watching every season of american horror story, where she plays multiple different characters sometimes in the same season. She must have played like ten or so different characters in American horror story and they’re all the same, pathetic whiney people or smug whiney people. All she can do is sad or smug with an air of unearned authority, and that’s what she brings to this.

I really think it would have been a much stronger movie if it took her character and had a real movie actress play that role and make her the centre of the movie. Like she’s a psychiatrist hired to debunk superheroes but then the more she learns about them, the more she begins to believe. It could’ve been like a weird superhero version of silence of the lambs. But no, the movie just spends so much time dicking around with these pointless characters.

I had this movie spoiled for me so I knew it had no range and probably no budget because there’s a cool sequence at the start not the very start because that’s dumb as shit. Where Willis as a superhero is taking on the massive evil of white kids punching old asian people for viral video purposes, we really needed a superhero for that, it’s not like the police could’ve done something about that. There’s no way the police could’ve just watched their videos and then Willis could just tell them where they live. It’s like superman decides to beat the shit out of someone for speeding or spitting on the sidewalk.
I mean in the first movie he takes on a serial killer kidnapper and a terrorist but in this he’s stopping violent pranksters from going viral gee wizz. And they make a salt bae joke just to date the movie, salt bae is a meme that’s old now, people reading this now will have no idea what that meme is about because its just about a guy who salts beef in a weird way.

Why put that in your movie? Why put yourself in your movie? Every M. Night movie he makes a weird awkward pointless cameo. When Hitchcock did this it was very minor, in some cases other films would put a cut out of him in the background as a silhouette. I’m not sure he had speaking parts. But this was a guy who was very engaged with his audience, the trailer to Psycho is just him talking about it on the set and people went to watch it based on that. It was Alfred Fucking Hitchcock, M. Night is no Hitchcock and no one thinks it’s clever or funny to see him appear in his own movies, it’s just weird and sad.

Yeah so he has this weird pointless cameos where maybe three people would be ‘oh he’s playing the same character as he did in unbreakable – a movie that came out almost twenty fucking years ago!’

The ego on this guy, I can barely fathom it. I have to imagine the impetus to the movie being like him sitting and watching the marvel movies and their success with the cinematic universe and being like “I can do that.”

No, no you can’t please stop.

My brother was psyched when he saw the after credit like twist bit at the end of Split where it was in the same universe as unbreakable, I groaned and now he knows why.

Because he was thinking that this was something twenty years in the making and it would be totally epic, packed with awesome ideas, culminating in this amazing completion of the franchise.

I looked at it and saw a guy thinking he could get in on that sweet cinematic universe money like a fucking scammer by dredging up twenty year old characters like dusty Halloween skeletons. So where he saw pragmatism and culmination of twenty years of ideas I saw the true raw cynicism of this movie. All his movies are pg-13’s or 12A if you’re like me and have the misfortune of being in the UK. So Split, a horror movie about a serial killer multiple personality person is made in a way that children can watch it. I looked it up and I think all his movies are pg-13’s. This isn’t a style thing, this is a fucking marketing strategy, he sacrifices tone and any artistic integrity to mass market all his films. It’s like reverse sleaze, he makes his movies wholesome to make as much money possible. It’s smart but also I’m watching a movie where a guy is strong enough to rip people in half and you can’t show any blood or murder at all. Like what’s the point?

As I said I watched the red letter media review of this so I already knew what happened in the movie, I don’t care about it being spoiled because I didn’t care and you shouldn’t care about spoilers either because you’ve either seen it or you shouldn’t bother. And to be fair if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve see the whole movie anyway.

But the most frustrating thing about this movie is it could’ve been ok, to get back to the point I was trying to make earlier, it starts off pretty fun. You have a set up where Willis is a superhero vigilante who stops pranksters for some reason and doesn’t wear a mask in the age of smart phones and is then surprised when he gets caught.

He and the beast have a cool fight at the start and you can be forgiven for thinking this is cool to see the beast square off against Willis, and it really should’ve been the movie. Willis tracking down the Beast and then an epic showdown.

But no, what happens instead is they get captured and for some reason taken to the place Jackson’s character has been held for twenty years to be convinced they’re not actually super heroes by Sarah Paulson in these really boring therapy sessions.

That’s when you realise this movie isn’t leaving this one building. So you have this guy trying to do a little marvel universe but he doesn’t want to spend marvel money or the effort that goes into that type of movie. So his epic conclusion literally takes place in the parking lot of this one building the whole movie is shot in.

Literally half the movie is set up. It actually starts around the one hour mark and at that point I was actually sort of enjoying it. Because what you expect from this movie is that the previous two movies handle the set up and this movie can be just one long pay off, one epic third act. But no it takes a really long boring hour of people talking and the pointless side characters from the other movies coming back to do basically nothing. Like Willis’ son from the first movie comes back and it’s the same actor and his whole point in the movie is that he googles Kevin (splitguy). The girl from split does the hulk thing of calming the beast so he can be murdered and Jackson’s mother doesn’t do anything except wear terrible ageing makeup because it’s the same actress from unbreakable and she’s actually younger than Jackson.

After they’re captured nothing happens for the first hour. Bruce Willis is sitting down for ninety percent of this movie, he basically does nothing in a movie that should be about him and then he dies in a puddle. I’m not kidding.

He’s fighting the beast and then this super secret organisation that for some reason meets in restaurants and just waits for people that aren’t in the organisation to leave so they can talk about their plans. Apparently the wait staff in the restaurants are in the secret organisation too because they heard everything. So they show up like at the end of the movie and they just shoot the beast when he’s distracted by budget Alita Battle angel. Jackson is killed by the beast and the Bruce Willis is just drowned in a puddle.

My brother was like ‘this is when he fights back and beats all their asses’ and I knew what would happen so I just shook my head as they just dragged this old tired man who just wanted to sit down and get a check so he could buy booze and go home over a puddle and then drown him as he doesn’t even attempt to fight back.

The whole time I was watching this I was thinking ‘this is what M. Night deserves for making this movie’.

So they all die and the twist is there’s a secret group that kills superheroes for the sake of balance but then the peripheral characters from the other movies get together to expose super heroes to the world. Because Mr Glass’ real master plan was to die and expose the world to superheroes. Which is just dumb because we only find out they’re being suppressed at the end. The secret organisation plot line could’ve been good if M. Night wasn’t such a crack addict for twists and actually established their existence at the start of the movie. Because during the entire course of the movie there’s no threat. All you’re expecting is Splitguy to escape and do some splitguy stuff, but if you established this organisation from the start and didn’t hold it back as a twist like a retard it could’ve been a decent plot point not just seem like something you pulled out of your ass to ruin your movie.

Oh also double twist, Kevin’s (splitguy) dad was on the same train as Willis in the first movie so that train crash created both the Beast and Willis. Oooohh OMG Wow much epic such twist, it’s not like you totally just pulled that out of your ass. No this was the plan all along and it’s just genius and it comes full circle, such wow much genius.

It’s not even clever, it’s just bleh. I just didn’t care, there’s so much about this movie that’s just like ‘so what’. Like how long it takes to try and convince us that them being superheroes is all in their minds when we don’t care. We just want something to happen. I just sat there watching people sitting down talking about stuff I didn’t care about expecting a film to happen and it never did.

A weird shirtless sperg and an old man sort of had an uncomfortable wrestle in a parking lot and then they were killed. It’s less like a movie plot and more like a headline in a florida newspaper.

I mean the problem with this movie of which there are many is it has some decent ideas but they’re just so badly handled it’s not even funny. This movie isn’t so bad it’s good, it’s just shit.

And don’t look at this as a twenty year build up to this. This is just a bunch of people who are so desperate for attention and money they’re willing to dig up a movie that was pretty good just to suck the marrow from it’s bones for a sequel. It’s sad. People don’t think you can retroactively ruin movies but you really can, I’m sorry. A shitty movie doesn’t hurt a good book but a shitty sequel makes the previous movies look like shit. They don’t look better in comparison, especially if it’s made by all the same people like this. It just makes that good movie look like a fluke, or it makes you feel stupid for liking it in the first place.

With the star wars movies you can kind of say “well George Lucas had nothing to do with these movie” yeah but he did the prequels and they were panned, I didn’t think they were that bad and compared to last jedi and force awakens they’re masterpieces. But it doesn’t change the fact that there are officially more bad star wars movies/games/tv shows than good now. The franchise soured, the cow was milked so hard it started squirting blood.

So yeah that’s that, I knew it was going to be bad but I had to see it to know just how bad and I did and it was, please don’t watch it or do, who cares?

0

Diana in the dark Chapter 13 ‘Daddy’s little darlings’ (Remurdered)

Ok, well I started it I guess.

Yeah started Cur 2 and it went about as well as it can be expected barely at half my usual output but it’s there. I can’t say it’s as good as Cur 1 for an opening by that I mean it’s boring-er and by that I mean Cur isn’t hacking people to pieces within the first few paragraphs. 

I wanted to go for a more slow build, actually I have no idea why I’m talking about this now I should wait until I finish proofreading it, gonna shelve this now and talk about something else, save that for another blog.

So I saw that new M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie glass and it fucking sucked. Why is anyone surprised by this?

Actually nevermind, I’ll save that for a review. Translation; I started talking about it not wanting to do a full review – which then turned into a full review I cut out for another blog haha.

So other than writing Cur which I can’t talk about and watching Glass which I also can’t talk about I’ve been playing Vampyr by dontnod, prolific developer of the award winning millennial walking simulator Life is strange. And honestly I… actually never mind, I’ll save that for it’s own blog haha.

Yeah so.. bye! X’D

–

When the darkness faded, I opened my eyes. He was there.

“Come on, I wanna show you something.” A little boy with a bowl cut hairstyle was leading me down a tight white hallway.

There was a door; he wanted me to go through.

What was on the other side?

The door was huge; I could barely reach the handle. It was turning red, the door, it was melting.

What’s in there?

“A surprise. I did it for you.”

Shapes appeared in the red goo the door was turning into. A face was pushing through the malleable material.

It’s my face, it’s a mirror.

A sudden jolt and my face hit something hard and flat. I was thrust back into the land of the living rather unceremoniously.

My head hurt, I was still seeing spots, but that was all. There was something over my eyes. I could almost feel the veins in my neck; my brain hurt like someone had slam dunked it through a stained glass window.

There was something wet and warm on my face, getting colder. Shit, blood, it had to be blood. “I’m bleeding” I cried out to the dark, to no one in particular.

“Relax,” a woman’s voice said. “It’s just drool—you can wipe it off when we get there.”

“Get where?” I asked.

“Prom, of course,” Wendy said.

I tried to move but my hands were strapped to something at my side. But I could feel the car plaining over wet roads, felt it turning, stopping. We were moving.

“Don’t move, don’t be dumb.” Her voice was tight, stern with a bitter frosty bite. “Don’t bother screaming, we’ll just crank the radio up, the windows are tinted no one can see us in here.” There was a cool commanding calm in her voice.

“Wendy, what’s going on?”

She laughed. “What’s going on? We’re going to prom, didn’t I just say that?”

The car slowly ground to a halt and I heard the driver get out.

“Just gotta make a little stop along the way,” She added.

“Wendy I—”

“I should’ve known it was you. My mom warned me about you; you’ve always been jealous of me. How did you know?” The jewelry on her arm jangled as she talked, no doubt gesturing to someone blindfolded. “I bet you felt really fucking clever, sending me those little notes… How clever do you feel now, huh?”

The passenger side door to my left opened and something big and heavy was slung at my side.

“Don’t make a fucking noise, puto, don’t make me shoot you!” a man’s voice said.

The door shut again and the large sack of potatoes started to writhe and make groaning grunting noises in the seat next to me.

“What the fuck Denny? I told you not to hurt him, he’s fucking bleeding!”

“I had to hit him with the gun, big white boy wouldn’t come on his own, thought he was a tough guy.”

“Now I’m gonna have to clean him up, you better not have got blood on his tux,” she screeched.

“What the hell’s going on? Is this a prank? It’s not very funny,” the potato sack said in between pained groans.

“Paul! Is that you?” I said.

“Diana? Are you—?” he said groggily.

“Just stay cool,” I said.

“What the hell, Di?” my boyfriend groaned.

“What’s going on is, I’m not going to let you white trash pieces of shit ruin my senior prom.” Wendy’s voice got fast and high pitch. “Already close to ruined; having it in that fucking laser arcade. I wanted it at the beach club, but noooo that wasn’t cool enough for little miss ‘ooh look at me I’m so quirky and interesting!” She made a clucking noise in her throat, as if trying to get more spit in her mouth. “Me being the great friend I am, let it slide, but no you gotta stab me in the back and try to ruin it with your little knife in the dark Marco polo horror movie bullshit!” She tutted “I wasn’t taking any chances after getting that second corny note so I had Denny camp out in my closet just in case and look who happened by.”

“Wendy?” Paul asked. “What’s she talking about? What’s going?”

“Would you just shut up, you fucking meat head daddy’s boy retard!” She sucked her gums “It was probably you who sent me that weird video at school trying to freak me out” She scoffed “and what a coincidence yours was the only locker without a head—I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now” She took a deep breath and filled herself with sweetness and light and said. “We’re gonna be there soon, and we’re all gonna dance and have a great time; and then me and Brody are going to be crowned prom king and queen and then—”

“Then what?” I asked.

She laughed and I could feel her shifting closer to me, the leather creaking under her toned brown buns.

Wendy took the sleep mask off my face and put a small gun to my head, my small James Bond-type weapon, to be precise. She looked over at Paul and squeezed her thin spider leg eyebrows as tight as they would go. “Oh, for fucks sake!” She tutted as she pulled a tissue from her purse She spat in it rubbing furiously at the small nick at the side of Paul’s head where Denny had hit him. She stepped back after she was done, to get a good look at him. “There, you look great” She sat back in her seat in the front of the limo, with the small purse pistol trained on us. Wendy was in a gold taffeta dress, looking like a real princess.

Paul was in the tux my ‘aunt’ had picked out for him, tied to one of the arm rests with a plastic zip tie, the same as I was. He was slowly fading in and out of consciousness, like he’d taken a hit of Nyquil and whiskey.

The interior of the limo was huge. The ceiling was much higher than I’d expect, and coming in at a cool five-three I could probably comfortably stand up inside. It was almost as wide as a standard bus, with black leather couches on all sides, and a large bar-like table with cushioned corners all the way around, stretching across the length of the interior. To top it off, there were blue strobe lights around the ceiling, making it look almost like a mini-traveling strip club. It was missing the stripper pole though. No fog machine either.

I was wearing one of Wendy’s hand-me down-dresses she’d worn to the homecoming dance last year. It was a mess of pink lace that looked like an explosion in a cotton candy factory. Insult to injury received. Pretty in pink my ass.

“You two make such a cute couple.” She smirked. She tapped the glass between the passenger compartment and the driver’s cab. “Denny, you’re driving like an old lady, are we there yet?”

–

Yeah well you can’t read this version because I said so, maybe I’ll give it away at the end of the year but only for people on my mailing list so there haha. But you can read the raw free version right here but don’t because it sucks.

0

Loverman Chapter 9 “Night of the lotus eaters”

Hey there,
Whenever I start one of these I always have no idea what to talk about then I end up waffling for like an hour.
So tomorrow I start Cur 2 I guess, I’m not that psyched for it for some reason which is bad because I really enjoyed writing the plan for it but now it’s time to pay the piper and I’m just dreading it being shit. I dunno, I think I just need to get back on the horse and I’ll feel better, I always feel better when I’m writing. I really just need some feedback, I need someone to believe in me and there aren’t enough of those people around.
What have I been doing in the mean time, surprising yesterday was a pretty busy day, the poem was sort of prepacked honestly but I got this proofread and I managed to clean up a lot of the pitch for Cur and send it to a couple of places that might accept it. But who knows.
In other news my gamepass subscription is almost up but what should pop up within a week or two of it running out but Vampyr, a game I’ve sort of been eyeing for a while but people kept telling me was shitty and full of political nonsense. Which I believed because dontnod is famous for having these really social justicey liberal games like life is strange and life is strange 2 which is hilarious to watch lets plays of because it’s almost as cringe and on the nose as a David Cage game. They’re not subtle.
But honestly this just seems like a good game and I don’t feel like a narrative is being forced down my throat, it just feels like a solid rpg with good mechanics and I’m really enjoying it.
I think I’ll definitely do a review of it and possibly another playthrough, it kinda feels like bloodborne meets the witcher 3, but we’ll see how it pans out.
That’s about it for today I guess, no big rant planned. I think I’ll spend the rest of my day looking for reviews of Cur, maybe find some more publishers
–
Of course I had no idea what was on the piece of paper only that it seemed to spur Ericcson into a fit of furious action. He drove in almost a trance like state, gripping the wheel so hard I could hear the plastic and leather creaking. I was perturbed to try and wake him from it. I caught a glimpse of the paper and it appeared to be some kind of flyer advertising an event of some sort. I hadn’t the faintest idea what possessed him to kill those men at the gas station. And even less of an idea why a piece of paper they were carrying would cause him to act like this. It made no sense at all, well it made as much sense as it would in a dream. I didn’t want to think about that, I didn’t want to put into any conceptual process to discern whom was the dreamer and whom was the dream.
My reeling thoughts were rudely interrupted by the screeching of the well worn brakes of my mother’s long suffering Crysler. The bag I was in lurched forward and fell into the passenger side foot well.
From there I couldn’t see anything, just hear him getting out of the driver’s side and slamming the door shut behind him. Then more muffled fumblings until he opened the passenger side door and retrieved the bag I was in.
From my low angle it was too dark to make out the shape of the building he was taking me towards. There were no streetlights at all, just the sickly moon hanging half cast in the sky. There were no stars to speak of and the building seemingly had no lights or discernable activity going on outside.
But as Ericcson got closer it started to look familiar and I saw the patches of the burnt sickly pink stucco and I knew he’d taken us back. Back to the accursed place where I had died and he had fallen into this madness.
The pink bird mental institute.
Or what was left of it at least.
The building was a burnt out carcass of it’s former self, funny, I couldn’t recall a fire but it’s charred remains defied my recollection. It all happened so fast.
But why, why had he come back to this wicked place?
Then we both heard it, music, a low bass beat looped over and over.
Investigating the noise lead us around the side of the building. There was a door which seemed blackened from fire.
We approached it cautiously and as we did, the music increased in volume.
Ericcson pushed the door and it swung inward and we were assaulted by the loud bassy music blaring at us from below. Through the door was a darkened concrete stairwell leading down we assumed to the basement or some sublevel I hadn’t been privy to during the tour.
We descended the stairs following the loud ungodly music.
The basement level was fairly unremarkable service level. It housed mainly industrial size washers and driers, which seemed old and in disrepair. But they were not the source of the noise, that was deeper.
We followed a trail of shadeless hanging bulbs swaying in the complete darkness of the basement. They moved with what seemed like sentience, like the lights of an angler fish luring its prey into the crushing depths.
The darkness conjuring up such shapes in my head that would make what I had seen up to now seem like a harmless daydream. The shadows pulsed with the throbbing music, the lights swaying faster as we passed under them. At the end of this semi-dark hallway was a single green door.
There was no doubt that it was the source of the heart pounding music.
Ericcson opened the door but a crack, the music spilling out and assaulting my eardrums. With no hands to cover my ears I had no choice but to allow the din to dull and kill any sense I had until the noise became a ceaseless drone.
Although the music and the damage done to their ear drums didn’t seem to bother the shivering throngs of sallow cow eyed people dancing to it.
By my count there were at least a hundred strangely dressed people, young and old dancing in what seemed to be a large generator room. The lights strobing back and forth in time with the hypnotic drumming of the music.
Ericcson evidently saw something as he began to push his way through the crowd in the direction of the back wall. There was something, a fluttering of wings, black feathers floating to the ground. Coal black eyes looking at me from the far end of the room and then they were gone again.
I looked back at Ericcson and he was being lead through the room like a child by a woman, I could only see the back of her head. Her hair plaited down her back, she was wearing a black backless gown, her skin was pale and freckled. Looking her up and down I could see in her other hand she held a crow mask.
Ericcson was saying something to her but I couldn’t make it out over the music.
She turned and I could immediately see it was Jane, impossible, how could she have survived? But it was her, her glasses gone and her green eyes and red lips. She said something to Ericcson but I couldn’t read her lips. She smiled and turned away to lead him into the centre of the room.
He followed dutifully and I couldn’t fathom why until the crowd parted and I saw a little boy in his pyjamas standing alone in the crowd. He wasn’t crying, his face was placid and expressionless like he was sleep walking. He looked exactly like he did in my hallucination, like he’d been plucked right from it.
Ericcson dropped the duffel bag I was in and picked up his child, that’s when I noticed the strange symbol on the floor. It looked almost like a malformed five pointed star in a circle. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before except maybe through the gaps in my fingers. Or in feverish nightmares at the time I spent at that auspicious university in arkham.
I looked back at Jane, she was smiling and she held up her hand and showed him the ring. For a moment it was a parody postcard of a perfect family. She held his hand and then walked out of the circle leaving his hand to fall by his side. I watched her go, her smile turning it into a grotesque mask, a grin that seemed waxen, then she slipped the crow mask on.
–
If you want to read the rest of this weird shit, head on over to inkitt. Night of the lotus eaters
0

Creep

I don’t belong here

What the hell am I doing

I should be with you.

 

I want you to notice

I want you to think of me

When I’m not around

 

I’m here and nowhere

Whatever makes you happy.

Whatever you want.

0

Starship troopers pilot scene 5

Hey,

Not really feeling my usual high energy self today so I’ll keep it brief. Haven’t been doing much this week except working my day job which was ok. Didn’t really get around to doing any Cur, so I’ll start friday and hopefully not have any excuses to avoid it.

Vampyr came on gamepass this week so I’ve been playing that. I bought a month of gamepass because it was on sale and I mostly feel ripped off because most of the games are pretty bleh. Only three really stuck out, but three games for two quid is ok I guess, but Vampyr is pretty good. I’ve been waiting for it come down in price, it was 85% off last week and I thought about getting it but it was still over a tenner so I thought I’d just wait and boy am I glad I did haha. So far it’s pretty good, not amazing but not generic either, it feels like it’s own thing instead of a clone of something else.

I tried to watch a Cronenberg movie I hadn’t seen before called ‘Naked Lunch’ and I got about halfway through before I decided I had better things to do than watch that utter nonsense.

It had no story really, and it was just gross, which is normal for Cronenberg movies but the grossness had no context or plot, it was just there. Which made it totally boring, the whole movie was just really boring and about nothing. It reminded me a lot of Brazil but not fun or interesting. It was surreal but not in a  fun or interesting way either.

It was like if David Lynch had no sense of humor whatsoever and was just a pretentious douchnozzle. Which some probably think he is but it couldn’t be further from the truth and it’s why I love his movies and music, he’s like anti-pretentious. He’s the guy who isn’t afraid of being called an idiot, his movies couldn’t be less pretentious. They’re just fun and weird and any deeper meaning is left ambiguous.

But the reviews for naked lunch perfectly illustrate the nature of this sort of emperor’s new clothes mentality in media. All the reviews are either 10/10 praising it for being super artistic and having all this deep meaningful context about heroin addiction and the other half are people without their heads jammed up their asses giving it 1/10 because it was boring and nothing really happens. The movie has no inciting incident, there’s no structure or goal, and I see people calling it funny in the reviews, it’s not funny, not at all. Unless you think bugs with talking buttholes is funny, which I don’t.

It was just weird for the sake of being weird it had no relevance to the plot of which there wasn’t any. Brazil is funny and cartoony and weird and it works, it builds its world really nicely, this movie doesn’t even try to do that. It was written by a heroine addict writing about a self insert character failed writer drug addict and it’s only famous because he was friends with a bunch of other famous drug addicts.

It’s just one of those movies that’s obscene and is just trash but the right people have convinced themselves that it’s art and not a movie that should end up on the sci-fi channel. I dare someone to watch this movie and then compare it to silent night deadly night 2. At least that movie had a story and was kind of funny. Naked lunch isn’t even funny bad, and all the reviews are telling me to watch it over and over when I couldn’t get through it once.

It’s just two hours of total pretentious nonsense. It has some cool effects but they’re sort of contextless, they’re just there. It doesn’t really help that I guess it’s inspired heavily by Kafka and I also haven’t made it through a Kafka book. I just find them too dry and boring. Like 1984 is a really amazing and serious and vital book but it’s also really interesting and genuinely entertaining. It’s not just a boring book you need to read for whatever mind expanding experience. I enjoyed it thoroughly, it’s actually a good read.

This is like if Hunter S Thompson was just really boring and instead of going on a crazy drug binge road trip he just stayed in his hotel room and had weird sexual conversations with his bug type writer’s butthole. I honestly can’t for the life of me pull anything worthwhile out of this movie and any one that can is for lack of a better word a total moron high on the smell of their own farts.

I guess this can’t really be called a review since I didn’t watch it all the way through but I didn’t really hate it, it just did nothing for me and sort of repulsed me. It wasn’t funny or fun or entertaining like it could have been, like brazil or fear and loathing. It was just bleh and I decided it had wasted enough of my time, it hadn’t done anything or gone anywhere with the story for the first hour and I didn’t expect it to go anywhere in the second.

So anyway, starship troopers haha. That reminds me I couldn’t really get through the animated tv show either, I was watching it while I worked out for the last week or two an it’s not that it’s bad, it actually has a lot of good ideas, it’ just sort of substance less in terms of actual story. It’s basically a kids show it’s a lot like eating a big fast food burger, it’s like you’re eating real food but it’s just empty calories, you don’t really feel full because there’s not much to it.

But I was just watching it mainly for ideas and in that regard it’s been really good, it expands on the mythos really nicely borrowing from the book and the movie. But it’s just a kids show, an excuse for cheesy jokes and mindless action. It’s as shallow as a puddle.

Anyhoo, gotta get back to proofreading the final chapter of Loverman for thursday.

See you…

–

EXT. an open dance floor on a terrace garden. Night

 

 

 

 

 

Rico is walking back after getting some punch for Carmen and he finds her deep in discussion with another guy.

 

 

Dizzy sees this and intercepts him taking one of the drinks.

 

 

DiZZY

 

 

Thanks

loverboy

.

 

 

RiCO

 

 

Hey, that was…

nevermind

.

 

 

Karl walks over to join them.

 

 

KARL

 

 

To

Diz

; May I have this dance.

 

 

DiZZY

 

 

Wait in line, me and Rico are up next.

 

 

KARL

 

 

Is that right?

 

 

Carmen comes over smiling. Rico gives her his drink.

 

 

CarMEN

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

CARMEN (

CONT’D

)

 

 

I was just talking to Steve, his sister made fleet, can you believe that?

 

 

CarMEN (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Can you imagine what is must be like to fly one of those

starships

?

 

 

RicO

 

 

You should try out for it.

 

 

CARMEN

 

 

Well that’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you.

 

 

CARMEN (

CONT’D

)

 

 

I’m

gonna

sign up the day after my birthday.

 

 

KARL

 

 

That’s great, me and Rico were thinking of doing it ourselves. We’ll go with you.

 

 

CARMEN

 

 

You both wanna go fleet too? That’s amazing.

 

 

KaRL

 

 

Me, be a space truck driver, no thanks, I’m going

starship

R & D. Electronics.

 

 

CaRMEN

 

 

Space truck driver? I hope they drop you off on Pluto and let you freeze.

 

 

CaRMEN (

CONT’D

)

 

 

And Johnny what were planning on doing?

 

 

RICO

 

 

I think I’ll buck for space pilot too.

 

 

CARMEN

 

 

That’s great! Maybe we’ll bump into

eachother

in training.

 

 

KaRL

 

 

A collision course.

 

 

RicO

 

 

(Seeing Mr.

Duboi

) Hey there’s Mr.

Duboi

, I just wanted to go talk to him.

 

 

Dizzy watches him go and decides to go dance with Karl instead.

 

 

Rico greets Mr. Dubois.

 

 

RICO (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Hey Mr.

Duboi

, I just wanted to tell you that your class was the best I had all year.

 

 

  1. DUBOIS

 

 

That’s great to hear son, I just hope you learned something.

 

 

RicO

 

 

I did, I think I did, I just wanted to ask you.

 

 

  1. DUBOIS

 

 

What is it Rico?

 

 

RiCO

 

 

I was thinking of joining up for federal service.

 

 

Mr. DUBOIS

 

 

That’s great Rico.

 

 

RiCO

 

 

My parents are against, but it’s my choice.

 

 

RiCO (

CONT’D

)

 

 

I just don’t know what I should do.

 

 

Mr. DUBOIS

 

 

Part of growing up is learning to make your own decisions. That’s what it means to be a man.

 

 

Mr. DUBOIS (

CONT’D

)

 

 

I can’t tell you what’s best for you.

 

 

Mr. DUBOIS (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Only you can do that.

 

 

Rico nods and Mr. Dubois shakes his hand.

 

 

Mr. DUBOIS (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Maybe one day we’ll meet under better circumstances.

 

 

Rico goes back to dance with Carmen.

 

0

Diana after dark Chapter 12 ‘Wandering limbs’ (remurdered)

Yoyoyo

Gonna be a tight one today because I’m being chased by the black dog and I have other things I need to do.

I really don’t have anything to say today I just feel so shitty and I have no one to talk to. I just feel like this is the end, I’ve been holding on for a long time and I just don’t think I can hold on anymore. All I’m doing is trying to forget and medicate with video games and writing (mostly video games) and I don’t think I can keep doing this. There’s just something wrong with me and I’ll never be who I want to be, I’ll just fade away.

That’s all.

–

“You can’t do that to me, I was worried sick,” my ‘aunt’ said as she squeezed the cheap plastic steering wheel of her overgrown roller-skate car. Shouting but in a hushed voice like we were in a crowded place. “You can’t stay out late like that without telling me, I must’ve called you a hundred times.”

I counted twenty two missed calls, actually.

I would much rather not have had this one-way conversation. I also would much rather not have had to wait the four or five hours it took for Wendy to go to sleep before I could slip out and get on a bus home. Lastly, I would much rather have avoided the various California-natives who frequented the late night buses. Talk about dick pics. Surely not as distressing as seeing someone in person, urinating on the floor of a moving bus, while singing Waltzing Mathilda in a sequin dress.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean it. The word ‘sorry’ was sort of meaningless. If someone was truly sorry, they’d never do what they were sorry for ever again—or in the first place, for that matter. That wasn’t possible. It was a ritual that was obviously necessary for polite society to function. Despite the fact it seemed completely ineffectual—on women especially. The word was never enough; to be sorry and say sorry were two different things.

“I was sure—I was so worried.”

No effect, Dharma was still just as miserable as she’d been a moment ago, no magic word was going to change that, no vague promises I couldn’t keep. “Did you—?”

A moment of stunned silence passed.

Maybe I should’ve said I was sorry again, maybe I should’ve repeated it over and over again until she stopped talking. We were on our way to pick up my dress and shoes for the prom, which seemed fast-approaching.

I’d soon have to get my hair done, and put on lots of makeup. Pretend to be having the time of my life dancing to eighties music and drinking punch. I’d much rather be out in the dim darkness, making other people drink cool aid, a bit of an outdated reference.

“I could’ve said I was your mother,” she blurted.

“You could’ve lied to me, but instead you lied to me.” I feigned indignation. In actuality, my capacity for disdain, lies and half-truths was very little. A soul was required to feel pangs of sorrow and betrayal. Most of what made up my ‘normal’ existence was a lie, and it seemed petty by comparison. “What difference does it make?” Teenage aloofness was my staple.

“I just thought I could help you.” Her face contorted into something like a grim mask that might summon tears, but none came.

“Help me?” I asked, almost to myself. I didn’t even know I needed help.

“Guide you, give you a normal life, I thought you forgot. I tried so hard to forget, everything.” Dharma cut herself off, stuttering, making a wry almost wrenching noise, like she wanted to cry but nobody taught her how.

“Forget? Forget what?” I made my eyes wide, but I wasn’t sure what I was staring at anymore. If she told me she had had three heads, I would’ve believed her.

“He promised he’d guide us; he promised, but he, never got around to it.” My ‘aunt’ shrugged with a little ‘that’s life’ sad smile, trailing off at the end like it didn’t really matter.

“And then what?” I looked forward as we stopped to let a couple of meth heads cross the street. For a moment I thought I recognized one of them from the bus last night, but I couldn’t tell because this time, he was wearing pants.

“He was gone.” She’d said it like she was talking about the phantom of the opera or something.

“Tell me…about him. Dad,” I said as I studied the palm trees swiping past the window.

“He was—special. He was going to help us get ‘squared away,’ that’s what he said.” Her eyes got a little misty, and her face slackened, like she was reading me a bedtime story. “His father did the same for him.”

“Get squared away?” I watched the scenery fly by, the small sad houses of Santa Ana, baking. A couple of Hispanic women rolled past with double strollers with gold wheels.

“We weren’t born like this. When he was gone, and there was no one. No one to keep us on the straight path.” Dharma’s face became a confusion of worry-lines, like she was trying to unravel a ball of headphone wires with can openers for hands.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“We’re here.” She parked outside the dress shop in Santa Ana, where I’d been measured and ambushed all in the same day.

“Is that why you sicked Captain Claw on me?” I called after her as she’d hopped out. “To get me squared away?”

–

If you want to pick up the rest of this bad girl you’ll have to wait until its released or if you’re on my mailing to get an e-copy at some point in the near future.

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Diana in the dark Chapter 11 ‘Dark lines’ (remurdered)

Here I go again recycling material. Well hey there, that wont be too long because I just finished furiously beating out the plan for Cur 2 and it turned out pretty nice and easy.

Although my plan to turn it into a five part series was sort of torpedoed because I basically decided that the structured would be better if I mashed two of my book ideas together. Otherwise I’d have had to come up with a bunch of filler to water down each concept and I didn’t want to make this middling story full of filler unconnected to the lore and plot.

Also laziness, pulling unconnected story out of your ass is hard and all I’m really doing with this is taking the actual mythology and give it connective tissue so it seems like a story and not just a bunch of stuff happening. So it’s not just X god did this, you understand their motivations, you know why they did it and how they feel about it.

So I’m just reciting mythology, I’m giving it life and taking a hell of a lot of liberties to do it. So I could insert huge swaths of unrelated story from different sources for instance some of what I added was from Arthurian legend and I added a tiny bit of Lovecraft because that’s just fun and forgive me for thinking a race of evil fish people should be a little lovecraftian haha.

But I didn’t want to take away from the plot and just have this little padded book, I want to write something I would read, I want adventure, I want a journey. I don’t want my characters to go to one place and be there the whole time, I want them to feel like I’ve gone with them. So to give it more scope I scraped two books and made one cohesive story.

It’s set to be a trilogy and I might just write them concurrently with clown shit in between haha. I basically don’t want to drip feed people this story or try and stretch it out like this is just a middle book, I want it to stand on it’s own and surpass the first which this definitely will. This book will make the first look a tiny in comparison by it’s scope. And then by the third book it will make the leap to epic fantasy, this second book is like the bridge from tight sword and sorcery pulp fantasy to epic sprawling huge battles fantasy.

Yeah so probably gonna start that next week but I feel like I should finish Loverman first just for the sake of my sanity. I’m imagining one person out there just ripping their hair out longing for a conclusion lurking just around the corner. Of course this person doesn’t exist or is more or less me. I’m just sort of feeling fantasy right now, sword and sorcery, also want to finish this boring red scare Shadow book so I can get back into Conan, which I’ve been really looking forward to.

Anyway that’s about all, just gonna be looking into more places I can send Cur to, maybe try and get more feedback on it because I think it sags a little towards the end. I dunno, I’ll wait for some objective opinions.

See you…

–

Locking doors was obviously for poor people who weren’t literally encircled by a small army of trigger happy ex-cops. Because Wendy was out prepping for the prom, it was certain she wouldn’t be here. I knew she had a brother but he was rarely home in the day, myths of an expensive heroin habit abounded. He’d probably stumble home much later, if at all.

The house should be empty but for an annoying little yappy dog she was banned from taking into school in her purse. Hopefully since the prom wasn’t at school, she’d probably have the annoying little rat with her, and I wouldn’t be tempted to pulp its head into an eight hundred dollar Persian rug.

I loved animals, but not that particular one.

I took a quick precautionary glance across the street, but thankfully aside from a team of illegals gardening two houses over, they were quiet. I guessed everyone was out living the good life, lounging around a golf course or a yacht or something. Aside from one guy eating noodles in his underwear and crying in a house he soon wouldn’t be able to afford.

I slipped into the house and closed the door firmly behind me. As I stood in the cool, sweet-smelling foyer, I felt okay. I was just a pretty rich girl coming home from yogalates, walking into her own home—no big deal. Nobody could call the cops over that. It wasn’t like I’d used a grappling hook and scaled the wall garden.

The interior was fresh and clean, cream interior walls with off-white, eggshell tiles on the floor. A staircase, carpeted in a darker cream snaked off from the oddly angled front door up to the bedrooms on the right. A big curtain-less window at the turn of the stairs let in lots of light.

I stopped in the hall and listened to the steady creak of silence. This confirmed the house was empty, so I let go of my breath and padded the tiles and dust off this new set of leathery predator wings.

The entryway opened up into a huge but very minimalist carpeted living room, it seemed to take up a whole corner of the house. It was very eighties deco, devoid of color, with a high ceiling that spanned both floors cut off by a balcony onto the second floor. There was a door off to the left, leading into a relatively small galley kitchen which was nevertheless very nice.

I wasn’t there for the tour, so it wasn’t like it mattered. I doubled back to the front door and started a slow ascent up the stairs. Looked outside the huge window at the turn, hoping not to see some nosey old woman staring at me and memorizing my face for a sketch artist to reproduce.

I figured if I was going to find any evidence at all of Wendy’s guilt, it wouldn’t be lying between the pages of a copy of Teen Vogue on the coffee table.

“Hey remember when I poisoned my dad and framed my mom for the money? Lol smiley face smile face xoxox.”

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but seemed unlikely. But who knew. She wasn’t like me, not the same kind of monster; a normal killer for a normal reason, a sane reason to do something insane, money was the root of all this.

So there was a chance Wendy wasn’t like me at all; there was a chance she had emotions. One of those possibly being guilt, and if that was true, she’d leave some trace of it behind.

My best bet was finding her computer and working a little slack hack magic on it, basically shake it and see what fell out.

I turned the corner, checking the window, but it was just the bare windowless face of the neighboring house staring back at me. I continued on up the second flight, noting an open bathroom off the stairs—seemed an odd place to put a bathroom.

The second floor split off in two directions, leading to the bedrooms. As far as I could remember, Wendy’s bedroom was off to the left, and her parent’s en suite was off to the right. Considering her parents weren’t in the picture anymore, it made little sense to not occupy the empty en suite.

It’s what I’d do, would have to be crazy to let all that closet space go to waste because of what? Sentimentality? Ghosts maybe?

I padded the carpeted floor delicately, hoping my light frame wouldn’t leave any telling footprints. Thankfully I’d remembered to not wear heels, and had opted for a set of flat treadless pumps.

I took the right, peering over the second floor balcony down at the living room and the large windows. It seemed like an average sleepy day in the neighborhood, not a curious dog walker in sight. Just sun shining and birds chirping.

Oh how I longed for the huge savage moon, and that black canvas of night to paint red.  ‘Soon,’ it hissed, and I knew it was right.

Soon I’d have my starry night and my bloody moon.

There was no rush; I’d started as early as I could. They’d be at the preparations until late into the afternoon. Factoring in Frappuccino and pastelito breaks, maybe some California tuna rolls. Skipping breakfast had been a mistake.

New rule; never break and enter on an empty stomach.

The hallway got a little narrower, I passed an airing cupboard and I could smell signs of a lived-in nature. More specifically, Wendy’s perfume; it seemed my estimation of her and our shared desire for closet space was on-point.

I entered, and was sort of surprised that the room was so small. Then I turned my head. I’d stepped into her closet.

I opened the door to her actual room and was instantly taken aback.

It was so… so…

Neat.

–

If you want to read more of this lovely book I’m probably going to be giving it away to people on my mailing list by the end of the year so join that and hold on to your butts. If you can’t wait that long just head on over to my inkitt page and read the raw version. It’s not all prim and proper but you’ll get the thrust.

 

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