#but it does get Robin to join the campaign for nothing else other than to gather blackmail to use against her dinguses later | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

adrianasunderworld · 6 months

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More Twst x Stardew things

The Royal Sword Corporation opened one of their stores in town years ago. Crowley hates it. He hates the manger, Ambrose, who wants him to sell the community center so they can open another Royal Sword Business in town.

Che'nya works at Royal Sword Mart. Neige actually got his big break from Royal Sword. He got cast in a commercial for it, and it did so well that he's the face of a whole ad campaign now. Vil is angry and jealous because he also auditioned for that role and Neige got picked over him.

Vil still acts and models, but it's on a much smaller scale compared to Neige. Like he gets hired a lot to do ads and commercials for businesses in town, and in all the neighboring towns, to the point he's kind of a local celebrity in the area. He keeps visiting the city to audition for theater, but so far nothing. He ideally would like to move to the city to pursue bigger roles, but it's just not in the cards now.

The witch that turns your eggs into void eggs at night is Malleus grandma. He gets embarrassed, and has tried convincing her to get a different hobby, to no avail.

Fellow and Giddel are event characters. They get hired to work at the county fair during the fall, and sometimes stop by on the Night Market. There's a quest where you can befriend them so they can move into town, and Giddel can join the other kids on their lessons.

Leonas family is very well off. After his father passed while Leona was still a minor, Falena took custody of him, and he still lives with Falena and his wife, Asha. The Kingscholars were successful in their careers and had plenty of money. Like the farmer, they wanted a change of pace from city life and bought a nice inn just outside of town. Falena runs the actual business while Asha still works as a lawyer. Leona is taking online courses while working at the inn. Ruggie also works there and often has to keep Leona on track.

Ace is a carpenter, and was like Robin, the first person in town to greet you and show you to Ramshackle Farm. And like Robin, he also called your grandpa's house crusty. He also has beef with your cat, Grim. Everytime he comes by to work on something, they have a stare off.

Jade is still interested in foraging, and often gives helpful tips, like what is in season and where to find it. His favorite gifts are any mushrooms.

The mermaid who does a show at the Night Market is Rielle.

Ortho, Najma, and Cheka are like the Jas and Vincent in town. They're the local kids you always see running around, along with everyone else's little siblings, like Jack's brother and sister.

Since there's more than two kids in town in this au, there is an actual school house in the area. It's right next to or is connected to the library, and Clara is the local teacher. Trein helps her out by doing the history lessons. Clara will give the older kids their lessons in the morning before doing their more independent study time and class work in the afternoon while she teaches the little ones. Trein usually keeps an eye on the older kids while they work in the library. It's hard though, Lucius keeps demanding their attention when they're supposed to be doing homework.

Ramshackle is still haunted. There's ghost all over the property, and they mostly show up at night. But they will sometime show up indoors, like in the house, sheds, and greenhouse.

If you marry Leona, he will nap in the greenhouse.

If you marry Deuce, he will work on his bike outside.

If you marry Vil, his post marriage heart event is him going away to work after taking a bigger role. Kinda like Elliot going on his book tour.

If you marry Cater, he will post about living on a farm. He will absolutely make vlog type videos going "My day in the life of a stay at home farm husband."

@mangacupcake @marrondrawsalot @writing-heiress @the-weirdos-mind

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jennamoran · 3 years

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The Art of Glitch (Part 10)

Glitch is available here!

(and for a limited time the 0th edition is still available here!)

Hi! We’re talking about Glitch art direction.

So previously,

we talked about the art in the pre-release;

and then a bit about the general set up for the 1st edition art!

and then covered some ways that example characters can die.

and then a bit about gender/ethnic balancing, plus details on a few pieces in particular!

and then about the first assignment to Elizabeth Sherry.

and then about the first assignment to Beatrice Pelagatti!

and then about the first assignment to Kam Moody!

and then the first assignment to Mel Uran!

and then about void flowers and Alexander Benekos!

Let’s move on!

Robin Scott

http://www.robinscottart.com/

I’d wound up contacting Robin long, long ago, on a friend’s recommendation, back when I was flailing around thinking about artists for Glitch. This was useful because it meant she’d actually had time to read the whole book before we got started. ^_^

What originally caught my interest, I think, were pieces in the vein of http://www.robinscottart.com/wp-content/gallery/illustration-bw/Pic2.jpg

But after all the trouble I’d had finding black women for 0th edition I liked that there was a good picture of one in her color pieces gallery, and also a wheelchair! Finding an artist who does wheelchairs is super rare.

(I mean, presumably, most of the artists that we’ve talked about above can, and Elizabeth Sherry threw one in for a background character at one point in Chuubo’s and that thrilled me, but, y’know.

It was nice just seeing it there!)

There was also the thing that Robin expanded my roster of “people doing photo-integration,” which ... like honestly I didn’t need that much of, but, like, as I said before, I wanted at least some of, and probably more than just one person’s art?

So that’s how she got on board.

Page 108

Piece style: stylized

Strategist: African-American, she/her

Description: an African-American Strategist curries or feeds their white horse against a stylized, simplified, or geometric background. Possibly in the fields outside a stable?

She’s wearing American casual clothing and probably a cowboy hat.

[and then the standard sensitivity note!]

Discussion

This was a piece slated for opposite the Campaign Suggestions, and as such needed to be fairly generic and also IMO fairly peaceful and ... inviting?

I guess?

And that was emphasized by the other thing with this piece, which was, I wanted at least one piece with a Strategist’s horse that had, like, horse-girl appeal, as opposed to whatever else I managed to get horse-wise, which I imagined would either be nothing or warlike stuff but which turned out, I think, to be one wild ride through Ninuan. ^_^

I was worried that it would be kind of dull, and also kind of worried that a horse would be awkward to feature in a portrait-orientation picture. My original theory on how to handle this was to try to find someone who did like ... fine art, touching on the abstract. And then they could have lots of sunlight and shadow and maybe just have the front half of the horse in the picture and get some mileage out of the simplicity and possible chiaroscuro of the piece.

Ultimately, though ...

This wasn’t the specialty of any of the artists I had experience working with, nor was it obvious from the galleries of the artists I was working with from the first time who would handle it well!

I did figure, though, that Robin Scott had a good sense of chiaroscuro, and could do black people in an appropriate way ...

So this piece went to her!

I left it up to her in the artist-specific note exactly how to approach it:

She wound up proposing a photomanip with the concept of a Strategist about to join the Chancery, soothing her war-mount one last time before setting it free to roam the Not.

Evaluating a rough draft like this is pretty hard, TBH.

Ultimately I decided it was good, though, because

I really liked the tree. I dunno. It was a really Glitchy tree.

There was also a photoset link that I can’t share with you because like there’s a real person in it and also a real pink stuffed unicorn, but there was one, and that helped. And, most importantly:

The abandoned sword on the beach was great. It was in fact so great that it would reappear as a motif in an art request, another art request, I would write later on. ^_^

So, approval given!

The piece would change form a little bit, later on, because the original photoshoot predated the art requests (Robin’d been inspired by reading Glitch) and so the model for it wasn’t a black woman. Once Robin found an appropriate model for the piece who was a black woman, the best poses and angles weren’t quite identical, so the piece layout was re-engineered a bit.

But, the general concept would stay the same!

Page 154

Piece Style: symbolism, semi-abstract

Strategist: Caucasian, they/them

Description: a Strategist in a dreamlike place stares in sheer shoulder-slumped resignation at the long set of (spiral? Regular?) stairs in front of them.

If you’re not confident conveying enough “why me?” through looking at stairs, maybe they’re looking waaay up with an aghast look, or maybe they’ve just come up a long set of stairs to a landing, like, it’s obvious that it’s behind them, maybe they’re leaving footprints, and they can see another staircase, and they’re just facepalming?

Formally, the setting for this piece is the Lands Beyond the World, where reality itself is only asserted in the loosest of senses, and everything is dream-like and indistinct. You could illustrate this by drawing the place as mist and geometric planes; or as something more Escheresque and impressionistic; or as a dark environment with water-type effects; or as dreamlike and real-world jumbled; or as something involving levels of sketching vs. completion.

My preference is somewhat realistic, like ... somewhat train-station-y? But also with the architecture a bit of a dream-like idealized and jumbled mess.

The Strategist themselves is real, although if there is enough “atmosphere” of unreality between the viewer and them that might not matter.

Discussion

This piece was originally designed to be the Ability 2 piece---

Like, look how hard function can be! You have to climb stairs.

It was kind of a weak concept, in all honesty, I don’t know that it really sang.

It might have worked as a New Yorker comic about Strategists, as just a scribbly kind of spotlight on the important bits and a sly not-very-funny caption, but would it work for a whole-page piece?

... I thought it could, though.

I thought that it could be salvaged, I thought it could be made to work, if the background was, if the stairs were, strong enough.

So it went to Robin because, well, because I liked the backgrounds that I saw in her gallery. They were realistic and neat.

As you can see, it came back with a pretty strong design, although again, this was a pretty hard style of rough to evaluate.

The Progression of the Piece

So Robin got a non-binary model for the piece, which is pretty great, and did the appropriate photoshoot.

This included a set of pictures with a COVID mask, and there was some discussion about whether to use those or not. It made the character less obviously nonbinary, but on the other hand, like:

It hadn’t even occurred to me before that point, but nobody in the book was masked, and like, that was weird. And maybe in a year, hopefully in a year, oh my god I hope in a year, being masked will be weird again, so I didn’t want to try to get everyone in the book masked or anything, but, like:

Here was a chance to have a COVID-masked character.

So ultimately, I went with that, because, like, that was, this was, the year that Glitch was being put together, and it deserved to have a COVID mask in it. Or something.

I dunno.

Anyway, so, we wound up with a first draft of:

I’m not sure if you’ll be able to tell on tumblr, but the main problem with this draft was that the piece only works at a certain level of magnification:

If you’re looking closely enough, you can tell that the character is not at all happy about all of these stairs that they have to climb.

If you pull back a bit, though?

It’s like ...

Hopeful. Joyous. Diligent.

It’s a climb towards the dream of salvation.

I really don’t know which level of magnification is going to leap out at your eyes in this post, editing suggests it’s closer to the “looking closely” part?

But, like, lean back, lean in, and pull back again, and you can probably see, I think, what I mean.

Also

It was this draft, also, that made me realize that this was definitely a “dying of stairs” piece, and not an Ability 2 piece. Which was fine; only ...

It did mean that i was stressed out of my mind for like an hour trying to come up with a name for the character in it, because I had to do that now, only, I also had to figure out something that wasn’t too masculine-sounding or too feminine-sounding in English but was still a valid Ninuanni name according to the construction rules in the book while not being too close either to any of the Ninuanni names I had earlier used.

Like, I couldn’t just be casual about it! There was a real nonbinary person who looks a lot like this character who was potentially being quasi-gendered by the name!

Ultimately I wound up offering the model the choice between Valenside Drasda, Aurdetrix Drasda, and Guinevald Drasda, and apparently Valenside won. ^_^

Anyway

So Robin fixed the expression to be suitably pained at all distances from the page, and added a frame and a nametag and a dying-of and then we were good.

If you want to see the final, well: it’s in “Glitch: A Story of the Not,” on DriveThruRPG!

Page 169

“Semsenand Gettels, who the Forests will slay”

Piece Style: a “Strategist” dying of the thing, [...]

Strategist: Chinese, physically or sensorially disabled, she/her

Bane: Your choice, or “forests”

Examples:

she is rolling her wheelchair into a dark forest;

she is in a wheelchair, facing the camera, and her mouth is open, and there are trees growing on her tongue and vines hanging from the roof of her mouth;

she is blind, and using a long white stick, and has just opened her apartment door, and beyond it the apartment hallway fades into? Or is replaced by? Forest;

she is rolling her wheelchair down a pharmacy aisle and the root of a tree is coiling around to attack, with branches visible above the aisle;

she is doing bills at a table; behind her, through an open door, the laundry room is visible, and the stacked washer/dryer are growing tree-like limbs and roots;

she is doing bills at a table and trees are pushing their way in through the doorway behind her.

[standard sensitivity note]

Discussion

This one took Robin a bit longer to find a suitable model for, since she didn’t feel comfortable using an abled model for a disabled character, but “disabled Chinese woman model” is a relatively small demographic. Regardless! It all worked out, so that was all to the good.

(Meanwhile, I decided that it should be “whom” the forests should slay, but fortunately there was plenty of time for addressing that too!

Really, a lot more time, comparatively, to the scale of the issue at hand.

Weirdly, though, while “whom” would seem to always be the correct grammar in a case like this, it wasn’t always the “right” word:

There are a few cases where I felt like I had to use “who,” and, unlike for Semsenand, the “who” stuck to the end.

Just weird writer brain wiggles, I guess!)

Anyway!

This was the best of the three sketches, and wound up being the sketch closest to the final, so I don’t have much more to say. ^_^

Next Time

Maria Guarneri!

#patreon-supported posts #glitchrpg #the art of glitch

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gothamloveforever · 5 years

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This is the second article that Film Daily has published about Gotham.

Gotham is an innovative show based on DC Comics characters and produced by Warner Bros. Television. The Batman origin narrative helped us, as rapt viewers understand how our favorite heroes (Batman) and villains (The Joker, Penguin) came to be the way they are. It also cast a light on just how Gotham City became the wretched crime-filled cesspool we all know & love.

Despite general network issues (the old “being moved to a much worse timeslot” thing), Gotham’s fanbase managed to rally Fox into renewing the show for a fifth and final season – a whopping two seasons short of what the fanbase were promised.

Gotham certainly doesn’t have a shortage of fans or viewers but Fox, like many networks before, has been using the outdated Neilsen rating system to make decisions about shows’ popularity. Let’s be serious: who under the age of 70 actually watches live TV anymore?

Just because an episode gets a viewing figure below that of a series premiere or finale, that doesn’t mean the viewership has fallen considerably. Networks now have a responsibility to establish a dialogue with streaming platforms to consolidate more accurate figures and finally find out for themselves which are the best performers.

Because Gotham is a Warner Bros. production, not a Fox property, sadly the show was less lucrative and more expendable for the network. The show being packaged with the hot mess Lethal Weapon for advertising partnerships also didn’t do the show any favors.

We’ve got plenty of ideas on how Gotham could be saved, but today we’re focusing on what the fans think of the show. TV execs: prick up your ears. Don’t you want to help this incredibly passionate fandom with a continuation of the stories that they love? We would . . . .

These tweets have been edited and condensed for clarity. Join the campaign to #SaveGotham over on Twitter. (Tweets by Fans, under the cut.

Beatriz‏

“Gotham lost about 54 episodes of content, the character development and storylines were lost due to that, some characters had to be killed, others didn’t have the screen time they deserved. We fans were not happy about it.”

Bandi

“People say that Gotham doesn’t need saving because it’s getting an ending. This is true, but the ending we’re getting isn’t the planned one. The writers had plans for 7 seasons. That’s a lot of story left! We got 4.5 instead.”

#SaveGotham | #Gotham spoilers‏

“Gotham is such an original show. It the closest thing we got to a live action adaption of the Batman origin story universe and it’s so good!”

catherine haverty‏

“Gotham is The Coolest Show.”

Angela #SAVEGOTHAM‏

“This show has been mishandled for so many years by the network. Not only was there so little promotion,the use of a outdated & inaccurate rating system(Nielsen),but there was so much drama that went on with Warner Brothers & Fox. All this played a part in getting Gotham cancelled.”

#Gotham | Thursdays 8PM on FOX‏

“Gotham inspires such devotion! The fandom has been holding daily Power Hours on Twitter for an entire year, as of May; advocating for Gotham, writing letters and emails; utilizing other forms of social media. It’s all a labor of love! #SaveGotham”

#SaveGotham!‏

“Gotham is an exciting, daring sort of show with characters that no other show quite has. For lack of better explanation, Barbara Kean said it best on the show: It’s Gotham, baby. We’ve all got flair!”

Liz ‏

“Gotham is a show that truly deserves more than is has received. For years we’ve watched the early lives of beloved characters in the Batman universe grow into who we know they’ll become. Each of these characters are played by actors that pour their soul into their work.”

Mr. Millicent Cordelia‏

“Gotham’s provided a fresh take on the Batman mythos, created original characters of lasting merit, and re-worked minor comic characters to have major impact. #SaveGotham”

James Rankin‏

“For years, peeps have been denied a Batman TV show. Gotham was never that, but it had the makings of revealing all of the back stories. “

λουισα‏

“This show deserves better. The acting is incredible, the writing never cease to surprise, the atmosphere of the show is powerful, the fights are good, the costumes are great! It’s one of the best if not DC TV’s best show and it didn’t deserve to end like this.”

Gothambatcatfanspain‏

“We want to see development of the characters with the same actors. We love the cast, they deserve to continue.”

Svetlana‏

“Gotham is such an interesting show. I want this show to continue, I’m not ready to say goodbye to my favourite characters.”

#Gotham spoilers here | #SaveGotham‏

“Not giving the seven seasons they were contracted for…That’s unfair.”

Kate O’Riley Cosplay

“Fox and Warner Brothers were constantly fighting over because one owns the right to the characters and the other was broadcasting it and they all wanted the most out of it .”

Mr. Millicent Cordelia‏

“I never imagined Oswald Cobblepot as the most compelling character in the Bat-verse, but Robin Lord Taylor has brought him to life in such a way as to make him endearing, charismatic, terrifying, and endlessly fascinating.”

Destiny‏

“Gotham is a show that’s been pushed aside by the network one to many times and it needs to have a full story without cutting massive plot lines out, it’s insulting to the fans not to finish it off properly! #SaveGotham”

DONT LET GOTHAM END!! #SAVEGOTHAM‏

“Gotham has some of the most wonderful story telling and some amazing villains out there. Some great action too and I would love for it to continue its 7 season run like it was supposed to.”

MORDRED LLEWELYN JONES‏

“Gotham fully embraces everything that DC can offer in a way that films & even comics fail to do. The violence, grief, dark humour, love, struggle, psychology, charisma etc. It paints a beautiful picture & showcases just how much DC is capable of in a way which nothing else has.”

#Gotham | Thursdays 8PM on FOX‏

“Gotham’s production values, art direction, and cinematography are of a quality so high which is very unusual for TV. It rivals the quality that’s usually reserved for films.”

Ellen Sunden

“Gotham is a cleverly written and brilliantly acted show with top notch special effects and wardrobe designs.”

“Gotham’s Season 5 has an ultra-impressive 100% on Rotten Tomatoes…a score reserved only for the best of the best in film and TV shows!”

#SaveGotham | #Gotham spoilers‏

“Gotham is totally different from the other DCTV shows as it’s an origin story for characters of the Batman universe. It’s original, dark, funny, esgy, action-packed with some humor, exactly like the comic books. The cast is big and very talented especially Bruce and Selina.”

Tam Loves Kris

“Gotham is a home to so many quality characters that are played by a wonderful cast of people. The fans know what they want and we hope for what is right. #SaveGotham”

Angela #SAVEGOTHAM‏

“Gotham was treated unfairly, so fans have been campaigning to #SaveGotham, tweeting every single day for 10 months. We’re missing 2.5 seasons and we hope to recover them someday. The talent on this show is extraordinary to watch and hope a network can pick up the show ”

nicolle | GOTHAM SPOILERS‏

“This show is so unique and creative.”

Eoghan

“I believe it should be saved as there’s many more more stories to tell. Giving more development to Jeremiah, seeing Bruce as Batman and everyone in their future roles. I feel like Gotham is the perfect combination of The Dark Knight Trilogy And the 60’s Batman TV show. It’s great.”

#SaveGotham!‏

“Gotham is a creative take on traditional comic stories. The actors who portray their characters do so with passion and individually bring fresh, unique takes to the characters they obviously care so much about.”

shane nygmobs endgame now‏

“Gotham’s latest season currently scores 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a unique take on the Batman mythos that’s embraced the exploration and development of these iconic characters in a prequel, which has never been done before. And yet, there is still so much left to delve into.”

E. Nygma‏

“There hasn’t been a live action Batman TV series since 1966. Put aside the format of the original series. It was revolutionary and could easily fit in today’s market! Gotham may be a prequel show, but it’s absolutely a continuation of the original series! Let it go on!”

ᔕIEᖇᖇᗩ // Gᴏᴛ Hᴀᴍ?‏

“Gotham is one of the reasons I am still here today. The cast and the fans have helped me through so much. I used to be afraid to show my love for superhero’s but bc of this show I am happy to express it. One of the best tv series there is today. And that does not deserve to go.”

lee‏

“Speaking as a lifelong Batman/DC fan Gotham has put its own unique spin on the franchise that has brought new life to the franchise and new fans. The fans want the show to continue. The creators want it. The actors want it. Gotham deserves a second chance.”

ulia‏

“This show is outstanding and it’s absolutely incomprehensible how this show was cancelled.”

Kathryn ‏

“Gotham is the only modern Batman interpretation with constantly increasing ratings, an amazing cast and memorable characters. There isnt a single character thats lacks personality.”

Space_Invader/Spoilers!‏

“Gotham is unique in every way and you can tell the people that work on it, cast and crew, love working on it. It’s in every detail of the show, in every interview they do. The deserve to grow even more.”

KatsaysNo| Gothamit‏

“Gotham has a beautiful cast and great story arcs that can still be extended, so many characters that are fleshed out and amazing to see on tv!”

Beverly‏

“At this point, Gotham would be better off on a network or streaming channel that will give it the freedom to keep making the episodes that keeps fans so loyal. Each season has gotten better. Who knows what could happen if it continues.”

Aurea‏

“I love Gotham! well-acted, visually appealing show.”

Shae Anderson

“We need to #SaveGotham because the retelling of these stories that we are so familiar with has been done so beautifully.”

simplyandsanely‏

“I’m not going to lie: I started watching #Gotham just to see what they were going to do with the Joker. But as time went on, I grew to love this show that’s helped grow so many characters in such a unique way.”

☆ sam‏

“No one has ever done a story about young Bruce Wayne growing up, no one has ever seen the backstories of villains. The characters are amazing, the actors are amazing, the fans are worldwide and so extremely passionate about this show #SaveGotham”

ρнσєиιx ‏

“Gotham went down in viewership because of the networks handling.”

charlie sora | #SaveGotham‏

“We were originally promised 7 seasons. In 2 weeks we will reach the most anticipated moment of the whole series, the arrival of Joker and Batman. But we will only have a 45 minute episode to see this happen which is extremely sad for fans.”

“We still haven’t explored major characters. This is extremely sad considering how well the writers have done.”

Brooke Brown‏

“This show just keeps getting better and better. Gotham just has so much potential that was completely wasted on Fox.”

Ana‏

“Gotham quite literally breathed new life into me with its inspiring characters and plots. The takes on the familiar Batman characters are unique and interesting, the cast is superb, and this show has a lot more stories to tell – and fans who want to see them

#SaveGotham”

Anders‏

“Gotham’s a great drama show with dark humor & amazing visual. Plus it’s great to see several lgbt+ characters in the main cast.”

Mirela‏

“I think there are many reasons why the show shouldn’t end yet and I’m sure a lot of fans have already pointed it out before.”

Scheming Minor‏

“As a lifelong Batman fan, Gotham has meant new beginnings and creative new ways to wind the mythos of Batman’s beginnings and before. It’s hard to pick where to start, but this show make me jump back into the Batman fandom after watching from S1.”

Mariah Sturtevant‏

“The cast and crew both are absolutely amazing! Everything from set to costume to music to characters is breathtaking and it makes the show truly immersive. We care about the characters because the actors make them real. That’s why it should be saved.”

Sadame21‏

“It does not deserve to end this way, at least someone make Penguin a spinoff please!”

James Gordon’s Stan‏

“It’s a show filled with mystery, interesting topics, and many characters were under developed because of this cancelling.”

Batmanfan935‏

“It is the perfect take on the Batman universe.”

Reah #SAVEGOTHAM‏

“The style is dramatic, edgy, and thrilling in it’s exposition for a new age in the Batman timeline. We’re still starving for more. #SaveGotham”

#Gotham #SaveGotham #Film Daily #Gotham article

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foxydivaxx · 5 years

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Bad Blood Chapter 1

Originally, this was meant to be connected to Young Justice: Demigods Arising but I have decided to tweak it a bit and make it the true Demigods Arising story of sorts. This is connected to the Osiris fic and whilst it is kinda Cassie-centric, it also focuses on other characters too.

"Any news about Cassie?"

"Nah. No one has found her yet."

Tim sighs. It has been a month since Cassie disappeared after her humiliating defeat to Vanessa for the Wonder Girl title. Part of her regrets that decision to have said duel take place. She made that decision not considering what Cassie was going through then. The poor girl lost her then boyfriend Conner Kent and later got dumped by him. Sure, Conner returned but their relationship soon turned toxic to the point where the two engaged in a physical altercation in the School Hall that caused Cassie to get suspended for two weeks. As a result of this, Diana decided to punish her not taking into consideration Cassie’s physical and mental exhaustion at that point. According to Tatiana, Cassie overtrained herself and that led to Cassie’s humiliating defeat.

And now it is too late, Cassie has gone and would never return and if she ever returns, the girl would have joined the Dark Side which should not surprise anyone given her heritage and the negative influence of people like Ares. As if that wasn't bad enough, Cassie's younger twin sister Tatiana also followed suit.

Adding more to the Cassie mystery is that she immediately deleted all her social media accounts on the same day as her defeat. That alone alarmed everyone as it is a well-known fact that Cassie loved taking selfies and playing around on social media and often talks to fans on there. But now that her presence is no longer felt, many began to panic, feeling that the poor girl might have committed suicide. This naturally led to the #JusticeForCassie campaign and #WonderWomanCancelled movement.

Please let Cassie not be dead.

Meanwhile in her room, Barbara was going through some files that she managed to dig up about HIVE case. So far she had managed to find some leads. Heck she can even say that she is far more competent and smarter than the entire Team as they are all a bunch of little kids. What was Batman thinking of putting little kids on a superhero team? Ok they are young kids, but they still could qualify for a wannabe superhero team since they all wear stupid outlandish costumes and use silly codenames, themselves and the so-called adults that call themselves Justice League. Seriously, what the fuck is that fucked up shit? Worst of the bunch as far as she is concerned is none other than Wonder Woman's little sidekick Cassie Sandsmark better known as Wonder Girl.

That girl is such a tragic trainwreck and a bitch. What did Tim and Conner ever see in her? What really pisses her off about the brat is that the girl reminds her of the stupid alien that Dick dated years ago. What was her name again? Oh yes Starfire. More like Hofire. Both of them are disgustingly beautiful. Starfire is a bit better because at least she can kick some ass. Cassie is completely useless that one forgets that she is supposed to be a fucking demigoddess yet someone like Damian can whoop her ass. She should even be able to go toe to toe with Supergirl and give her a nasty beatdown but nope, she gets her ass handed to her. Plus she dared to steal her Dickie from her.

Where did Diana find this child again? Oh yes, Diana did not find her instead the child fucking inserted herself into the Wonder Woman narrative just like Damian forced his way into the Robin title and never once earned nor deserved a single shit till recently. When will those brats learn? No wonder some people wished for Vanessa to take over as Wonder Girl. Ironically said girl is now Wonder Girl now how hilarious.

And alas, poor Cassie has disappeared and is nowhere to be seen. Well GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE! Barbara cackles evilly as she still plays around on her system.

Meanwhile at Gateway city, Tatiana was in her room with tears in her eyes whilst Donna comforts her. Cassie disappeared immediately after that defeat. One could understand why because that sort of defeat is very humiliating especially when the very girl that caused most of the unneeded drama in your life is responsible for it.

Making matters worse is the fact that many thought that Cassie was an irresponsible person and therefore unworthy to be Wonder Girl. This has been an ongoing debate for the past couple years. Sure Cassie has a temper but she can actually control said temper for the most part. The only reason that said rage has become more pronounced is as a result of Ares’ evil manipulation of his sister; something Diana and Zeus himself warned Cassie about.

Cassie naturally took the bait since she had lost her powers during that time, not like anyone could blame her. Still the fact that many people bashed her for this, Diana included was horrible. Now after years of hypocrisy on the side of the heroes, no one should be surprised if Cassie suddenly and openly denounces them and exposes all their secrets or even goes all Superboy Prime on them or worse commit suicide.

Donna sighed. Sure Cassie has some shortcomings but Diana herself is a hypocrite, in fact everyone has been hypocritical when it comes to Cassie. A lot of the criticism being leveled upon the girl might as well be applied to other heroes as well like Conner or Tim for instance.

Ironically said hypocrisy has been thrown at Amon aka Osiris several times which is why said boy has distanced himself from the superhero community recently. Black Adam openly lambasted the League and everyone else for that and rightfully so.

I hope you find happiness and peace Cassie.

Just then Donna’s phone rings. She checks the phone and discovers that it is Kori calling her. She then answers the call. “Hi Kori.”

“Donna....you have to come down here quick!!”

A couple miles in New York, Cassie is standing on top of a rooftop, preparing to throw herself down and commit suicide. Now one would find it laughable since she is meant to be a demigoddess, until they realize one disturbing detailing: Cassie lost her powers yet again during the duel and has remained powerless ever since.

The rest of the Team bursts through the door. “CASSIE DON’T!!” Conner shouts. Cassie turns around with tears in her eyes. The others begin to feel guilty for making her feel that way.

“There is nothing left for me here. You have all made it clear that I do not belong here. So why waste my time when I can just elsewhere and find peace. Heck even Hell is more peaceful than here. I cannot stay with the gods because of they are going through their own drama and are killing each other anyway.”

She takes a couple steps back. “Cassie I understand why you are mad at us and you have every right to hate us. But I want you to know that there are people that still love you regardless.” Kori says in the most gentle way possible.

It was at that moment that Cassie literally explodes. “LIES!! PURE UTTER LIES!! IF YOU ALL REALLY CARED, YOU WOULD HAVE ALLOWED ME TO PROPERLY EXPLAINED MYSELF!! YOU WOULD NOT HAVE ENCOURAGED TIM OR ANYONE TO BE ABUSIVE TO ME!!! YOU WOULD HAVE STOPPED BABS WHEN YOU SPREAD HER FILTHY GOSSIP ABOUT ME AND ALL OF YOU JOINED IN TO SLUTSHAME ME FOR YOUR PLEASURE!! YOU ARE AS BAD AS THE MEDIA!! PURE UTTER HYPOCRITES WHO ONLY CARE ABOUT HOOTING THEIR HORNS!! NOW I CAN SEE WHY PEOPLE LIKE JASON TURNED THEIR BACKS ON HUMANITY AND CHOSE TO DO HARDCORE JUSTICE!! YOU MOTHERFUCKERS ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT FROM THE VERY FOOLS WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FROM YEARS!!”

Everyone keeps quiet. Cassie clearly had been waiting for this moment and she has now gotten an audience. “Oh and speaking of failures, how many times have we been supposedly, not I used supposedly in quotation marks here because that shows how stupid you all are, were ahead of the bad guys only for them to outsmart us and somehow win?”

Dick and Kaldur exchange looks. “You know, had it not been for my father, I would have rotted in jail. Oh and special shoutout to the Black Adam family, the only family that ever truly cared about me. Plus of course Donna and Tatiana. The rest of you can go fuck yourselves and leave me be!!” She turns her back to them and ignores them as she walks over to the edge.

“Cassie wait...”

She stops and turns around as Vanessa walks in. “Cassie, listen I know you are mad. If you want to lash out. Take it out on me.” she says calmly, hands raised. Before anyone could say anything, Cassie stomps towards her so-called rival and aims a punch at Vanessa who does nothing to stop her.

Fortunately for her, Cassie stops mid-punch and drops to her knees and begins to break down in tears. Vanessa bends down and hugs her predecessor. “Listen Cass. No matter what anyone else says, you will always be Wonder Girl. In fact you are way better than I am. I do not like the great divide that Diana has created. There are other ways this could have been done.” she says. Cassie simply sobs, feeling very bad for lashing out.

“I...I’m so sorry...”

Vanessa smiles softly. “You do not have to apologise. We are both victims in this. Besides, I told Diana that I quit.” Cassie stares at her in disbelief. ”You did not have to.”

“Yet I did.”

Cassie shakes her head. “No. You remain Wonder Girl.” Cassie then smiles. “Besides, you earned it anyways.” Vanessa giggles and hugs her back. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief.

Osiris who had just arrived makes a slow descent next to them. “Cass, I understand you hate everyone and whatnot but if you throw yourself down there, chances are you might end up worse than Todd the moment they choose to bring you back from the dead. Or if you choose down a dark path now, you might end up the way Adam did years ago.”

The girl simply nods. “ I might as well go clear my mind of things for a while.”

He comes closer to her. “You know, you could have simply asked and I would gladly take you home with me so that you can get some breathing space since quite frankly, you need some of that.’ She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Let’s go.’ She wraps her arms around his neck with him wrapping his arms aorund her securely and together they fly away.

“Wait....that was it?“ says Garfield, earning a smack across the head from Raven. “Oww!!” he grumbles. Tim meanwhile stares up at the sky with jealousy in his eyes which is funny considering his relationship with Stephanie.

So she has choosen him hm? This whole shit was a setup to make that announcement.

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zombiewerewolfqueen · 5 years

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This video needs more awareness btw y'all. It was sad but also really made me happy. Good on Sprite for raising awareness about bullying! I don't think people realize how much bullying affects somebody.

And if you think that it is 'just kidding' or 'just joking around' because you are doing it to your family member, you are absolutely wrong! My family bullies me all the time and then says I just "Need to get thicker skin." No how about you learn how to not be jerk? My Dad will bully me and so does my Nana (Great Aunt Robin really). They are like 49 and 79 respectively. Learn how to be a grown up. You have no excuse.

My Dad saying he was "Just messing around" when he makes fun of my southern accent is not ok. I hope he realizes that is the reason why I learned to hide my accent. Was because not only would he do it, but my brother Bradley (younger than me by two years) started to do it too. And they do it any time I slip up.

I have literally had to hide the WAY I TALK! Because they bullied me about it. I have to stop myself from crying any time a word trips me up and makes my accent come out because they make fun of me for it. My own Dad bullies me, and allows my brother to join in.

You might think I am overreacting. Well how would you feel if you had no Mom to come to your defense and everyone in your family that lives with you is constantly ganging up on you. Criticizing the way you talk among other things.

My Dad will make fun of the way I dress. I don't dress in pretty skirts or dresses normally. I wear graphic tees and shorts or jeans or black pants. And he jokes about me not having a boyfriend. And My Nana flat out insults me about it. Then will make a comment about how I should get rid of a dress because it "Hugs you too tight and shows off your fat." She will constantly tell me to suck in my stomach. That I would be prettier if I tried harder.

And let's not get started about my family's homophobia. My Nana and Dad said I was a sinner and I was going to hell because I didn't think there was anything wrong with being Gay. Keep in mind they have no clue I am bisexual. They condemned me just for thinking that it isn't wrong.

I have to hide who I am because my family bullies me and others. I have severe depression and a few years ago I wanted to kill myself. And I was planning on doing it. All because of the way my family treated and still treats me. Nothing has changed, besides the fact that my life was saved by the Always Keep Fighting campaign.

I was so upset about Supernatural. I was crying about it. Do you know what my Dad said when he saw me crying? "Well you knew I was gonna end at some point so there is no reason to be crying. You're overreacting." Followed by my brother saying "I told you there wasn't much else they could do with the show. Stop crying. I warmed you." They ignored my feelings and treated them like they meant nothing. Like there was no reason for me to be crying about Supernatural ending. Like I haven't been watching the show for fourteen years. Like that show hasn't saved my life, literally.

If you are 'joking' around with your family member and you see them get quiet and start to distance themselves don't kid yourself. You are a bully. You are bullying them. You are abusing them. And you need to stop because depression is real, and fun fact what you say, can make or break somebody's mood. You can do permanent damage to them and their mental health.

Don't tell them to "Get thicker skin". How about you get some sense and show kindness. How about yourself a therapist or someone to address the hate that is in your heart.

#psa #stop bullying #bullying is abuse #family members can bully you too #sprite

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souridealist · 5 years

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D&D Characters Discussed In My Tags, Part II

Campaign I Am Running: Also Pathfinder, set in a custom setting of my own design where the continent is ruled by families of hereditary sorcerers and social status is inherently tied up in one’s use of magic. It began at level one and is planned out through the early teens; they’re currently level five. The party were strangers to each other until they each received a letter: a mysterious elven wizard named Yindrella Mayarandel had recently died, and even though none of them had ever yeard of her, they had inherited her estate. Since then they’ve been trying to deal with her very complicated legacy plus a few issues of their very own, and maybe figure out what the hell Yindrella had to do with any of them.

(The other group is a much more old-school D&D group; it’s half cis guys and I think I’m technically the newest player having picked up the game in 2012, though I’ve been playing more consistently than some of the others. This group, by contrast, is very much from the Big Queer D&D Boom of the late 2010s, and most of them are My Newbies Who I Taught. It has been frankly God damn fascinating to play with both groups and compare the two.)

Bellis Briarthorn, halfling cleric of Erastil, Pathfinder’s god of farming and community. She’s a farm girl at heart, and had never really left her tiny hometown until the campaign began. She’s upbeat and friendly to everyone (and has an adorable Southern accent that I absolutely did not successfully imitate while playing her relatives), but she can be brutally ruthless when she’s angry. She also has a not-insignificant greedy streak, which cracked the rest of the party up for months until they realized she was planning to send all the money home. The party had to save her hometown from several hags and a witch who bore a serious grudge because their foremothers had been driven away from town generations ago -- by Yindrella Mayarandel.

Lahi Sea-Hell, undine bard, played by @reyssamidalass. (In 5E she’d be a water genasi). Lahi is an unusually quiet, extremely nervous bard -- probably because she woke up the same morning the campaign began with not a single memory of a damn thing that happened to her beforehand. She has a unique gift for rolling ridiculously high for HP and then never getting hurt anyway. A recent brush with the criminal underworld led the party stumbling into the discovery that before the loss of her memories, she was a petty criminal by the name of Charming Blue, partners-in-crime (and possibly more) with a shy halfling thief by the name of Silent Black. Her amnesia stems from a curse placed on her by a man she robbed, who the party promptly hunted down and killed.

(Even though he was seven levels higher than they were). (They perhaps skipped ahead several plot points.) (I’m a little bitter but honestly I’m mostly impressed.)

Nikolai “Kolya” Valeska, also known as Nikolai Ryder, dhampir rogue played by @reijys. Kolya is the disappointingly nonmagical child of the reclusive Valeska noble line. Kolya does not discuss their family very much, and for those of you playing along at home, dhampir are half-vampires. (There is, of course, no way this will come up in the future.)

Kolya is uncomfortably casual about dealing out death but deeply shaken by any reminder of their friends’ mortality. They treat sleeping on the ground as mortal suffering, but a persistent Constitution-penalizing curse is a problem best endured in silence. They’re barely more than a teenager, with all the dramatics that implies, and they have the easily-affronted pride of a cat. Their attempts to act cool and detached are not fooling a single god damned soul.

Dori Brissot, human gunslinger, actually can pull off cool and detached, though that should never be mistaken for uncaring; she’s clearly fond of the rest of the party. Dori is a practical soul and the closest thing this party has to a reasonable adult; she’s often referred to as the group’s big sister. Like Bellis, she had an actual job prior to the campaign’s beginning; she was a seagoing representative of a merchant firm. Through no fault of her own, she currently has a dangerous artifact from Yindrella’s vaults embedded in the flesh of their arm, causing her to destroy any plant life that she touches. The group is undertaking a pilgrimage to a druidic holy site in an attempt to get that problem resolved; as of last session, it’s brought them in contact with one of Dori’s old sailor friends -- who might (or might not) give the group a new perspective on their big sister. The druidic holy site, meanwhile, was the idea of...

Ardullay Vallirlyn, aasimar druid, played by @acecampbellsaunders. Though for nearly all mechanical purposes she is an aasimar, Ardullay was born to a family of drow, and most people take her for a drow until they notice the vestigial wings. (In this setting, the drow lost a war with the surface several centuries ago; one of several results is the existence of a scattered, semi-integrated population of surface drow.) Ardullay is a bright-eyed idealist who believes fiercely in everyone’s capacity to choose their own lives, which principle is how an angel-blooded drow joined a druidic order in the first God damn place. Ardullay is awkward, tends to the impulsive, maybe a little naive, and hasn’t actually said she had an isolated childhood, but she doesn’t need to -- it’s written on her forehead. And if Dori is the group’s common sense, Ardullay is probably its heart: she has enough heart for the whole world, and no one else takes kindly to seeing her hurt.

Ardullay is accompanied by a giant spike-tailed silver cat called Molly who does nothing but kill Ardullay’s enemies and cause problems. Molly and Ardullay, between them, are what this group has for a tank.

And last and newest, picked up just last session, there is:

Amelerin, better known as Amy, elf wizard, played by @fleetingmadness. Amy is not one of Yindrella’s heirs; rather, she was Yindrella’s maid for several decades, and, being out of work at the time, decided to consider herself part of the group’s inheritance. (To the significant exhaustion of the barrister executing the will). They don’t know her very well yet, but she’s bubbly, faintly Cockney, and determined to be useful. She is accompanied by her familiar, a robin named Cobweb who does not like Molly very much.

This can, of course, only end well.

(Dori’s and Bellis’s players don’t have active tumblrs; they were not forgotten.)

#dnd #chitchat #pathfinder #anyone who comes at me about unconventional drow is going to get a Lengthy Response

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tkmedia · 3 years

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Robin Fraser identifies how Cole Bassett can further develop at Colorado Rapids

Exclusive - Going against the current trend, Colorado Rapids midfielder Cole Bassett rejected a move to Europe during the most recent transfer window. The 20-year-old has long been on the radar of teams across the pond following his emergence in 2018 and a trial spell at Arsenal in 2019. After a strong start to the 2021 campaign, Bassett was linked to a number of clubs and in August, the Rapids rejected an offer from an unnamed Dutch club. But the midfielder remained in talks with a Portuguese side, later confirmed by 90min to be Benfica.In the end, while teammate Sam Vines joined Antwerp in Belgium and fellow United States prospects Gianluca Busio and Tanner Tessmann moved to Venezia in Serie A, Bassett stayed put. His reasoning was that he still had more to learn and wanted to help the Rapids win MLS Cup.“It was a tough decision because of the stature of the club,” Bassett said (via Burgundy Wave). “They are a Champions League club and are one of the best clubs of all time. It was just not the best step for me at the moment. I feel I am in a good place here. I see the team that we have and it has the best chance to win a trophy, whether it is Supporters’ Shield or MLS Cup.“For me, I was not 100% on it, I felt I should just stay the year out, try to do my best for the team, and hopefully in the winter everything else happens.”90min recently caught up with Colorado head coach Robin Fraser to assess Bassett's growth and skillset, as well as where he still needs to improve to take that all-important step to Europe in the future."I think Cole is an interesting young player because when you first look at him, you think 'what is it about him?' because nothing necessarily stands out about him - or so it didn't when I first got here," said Fraser."But I feel like, what he has developed over the last number of years are a couple of things. His positional play and his understanding of how his movement can affect the opposition, that helps him create and open opportunities for us and for himself. And he has worked relentlessly at finishing since I've been here. Two years now, he's the last guy off the field, always doing finishing, working on different types of finishing."Bassett's attacking instincts and technical ability are now there for all to see. His three goals and two assists this season are just two shy of career highs for both metrics with plenty of time to go. And the 20-year-old has been unlucky not to score more, hitting the woodwork seven times - at least three more occasions than any other player in the league. It's the physical side of his game in which Fraser has urged Bassett to make more gains.Level at 2-2! ?Cole Bassett ties the game! #COLvMIN pic.twitter.com/1ngIujunzw— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 9, 2021Hardly surprising for a player who only left his teenage years behind in July, but something Fraser believes is the "last piece of his game" that'll tie everything else together."Where he still needs to mature is kind of in the trenches," Fraser continued. "When things get rough and physical, how does he handle himself there? As a young player, that's not entirely unusual, but obviously the jump from youth soccer to professional soccer, there's so much to it. "It's so much faster and so much more physical. And I think that's the last piece of his game that, if he gets comfortable in the physical part of it, then I think he'll be ready to go and do his thing because when he's facing forward, in and around the goal, he can be as dangerous as anyone. "He has that many different types of strikes that he can be very dangerous going forward. But the part of his game that he needs to continue to improve is the physical part - as he deals with the physical part, he will improve leaps and bounds."You know he's, he's worked in the gym, he's gotten stronger. And now it's about the confidence and the wherewithal to deal with pressure - and where to put the ball when he's under pressure. I think if he continues to grow at the rate in which he has been the last two years, in terms of dealing with the physical play, then I think he'll be really ready quite soon."Though Bassett has managed just one assist in his last 11 appearances, he has still averaged 3.34 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes in MLS this season. On the other side of the ball, no player has applied more pressure to the opposition than Bassett who, on 582, sits 267 clear of any other Rapids player for that particular metric.As Fraser says, marrying that endeavour with the physical ability to mix it with any kind of opponent may well be the last piece of the jigsaw. Read the full article

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banjokazooie64 · 7 years

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Injustice 2 Review

Injustice: Gods Among Us was the first fighting game to feature DC characters battling it out in a Mortal Kombat style.

But what about Mortal Kombat VS DC?

We don’t talk about that game around here.

Injustice 2 is the follow up to Injustice: Gods Among Us and takes place after the events that shook this version of the DC Universe. In summary, Earth 1 heroes are transported to the Injustice Earth where Superman kills Lois because of the Joker. He then proceeds to kill the Joker and form a new ‘regime’ to rule all of Earth along with other heroes. So the Earth 1 heroes work with the Insurgents, run by Batman and Lex Luthor, to take down Superman. Injustice 2 is based completely on the Injustice Earth so if things seem odd to you it may be because a lot of the heroes from the Comics are now villains and vice versa. Injustice 2 starts with some back story on how Damian Wayne became Superman’s #1 fan showing how he took Superman’s side during the Arkham Asylum executions. Fast forward to the present and Superman is in a red sun prison, which negates his abilities. Gorilla Grodd along with a slew of villains take the opportunity of a shattered government to rise up and join forces to take down the remaining regime members (even if they are turned good); oh yeah and brainiac attacks. I won’t give too much else away but it is an excellent campaign that gives you some interesting dialogue along with some nice Easter eggs. Throughout the campaign you can choose between two fighters for a battle, this gives you some control over new dialogue I would have rather had it be like Mortal Kombat 9 where your second fighter would be on deck and you would simply fight two enemies as well. Although, they could make it like that Raiden fight in Hell where you have to fight at least 10 opponents. Never-the-less, I do believe they should have done something like that whether it be a tournament mode like Soul Caliber or just an extra fighter like in Mortal Kombat 9.

The graphics are quite nice in this game, the environments are the best of course. They put a lot of detail into the back ground along with plenty of new transitions, intractable objects, and the like. There is one intractable that is a dude sitting at a bar that you can grab and throw at your opponent, I did feel like this was a bit off the wall as most of the characters would not grab this guy and throw him like Blanche from Mortal Kombat X. Other than that, the new areas you fight in are both unique and well detailed. The characters designs are also pretty well done with only two that I think should have been re-done; catwoman and Gorilla Grodd both needed more work but for different reasons. Gorilla Grodd’s face seems out of place with the rest of his hairy body, making him look like a Planet of the Apes actor. Catwoman just has a strange face that doesn’t look right, I don’t know if it’s the big eyes or the cleft chin. Everyone else I do like the new designs, especially Scarecrow, Dr. Fate, and Harley Quinn. What about The Joker? I think they did a good job with the Joker in this game, even though I think he should have been DLC the new design he has is both better and more realistic than the last installment. The voice actor also does fine work with the Joker from the puns to the laughter, it’s all there. They did bring back Premier skins which will change a character completely. A good example is Reverse Flash, he is a skin you can purchase (with in-game crystals) and use. The premier skins offer new dialogue and a new look for your character while keeping your gear stats on them. I rather would have had Reverse Flash in the game as a separate character but I am fine with this too. Other characters you can get include Power Girl, John Stewart, Mr. Freeze, and Vixen.

If you are familiar with the first game’s characters then all the returning characters will feel very familiar to you. Besides from the odd move taken out (or placed in a Motherbox to unlock) they all play and feel relatively the same. So, if you were really good with Batman you can still be really good with Batman. I think this was a good idea, especially since I had gotten most of the moves\combos down for my favorite characters like Bane, Catwoman, and Green Lantern. The new characters all have a nice feel to them as well, some are better than others of course but I personally am quite enjoying using Captain Cold, Robin, and Scarecrow. Some characters I personally don’t like? Supergirl, Swamp Thing, and Gorilla Grodd all for different reasons. I feel like Grodd doesn’t have enough hitting power while Swamp Thing has too many moves that can’t be chained with a combo. I just don’t like Supergirl’s move set but what are you gonna do? Each character has their own unique gear that you can get by winning matches or opening box’s, it’s all random so you could get gear for Dr. Fate while playing as Firestorm. You can turn off your gear modifiers for online matches if you want (which is a huge plus from me) and you can sell gear for coins to purchase more box’s.

I mentioned Motherbox’s before so I will go over them. Motherbox’s are the random generated gear you can get along with Shaders (new colors), new moves, and you can get new Calling Card backgrounds\emblems. There are five different version of the Motherbox, each one holding better items as you go up. There is Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. You can get anything you get from a gold in a bronze but it will take some time. Along with regular motherbox’s there are also Guild box’s which are unlocked by completing guild events. The Guilds work pretty well and there are more than enough active guilds to chose from. You can even chose to create your own if you want. Once you join a guild you can trade gear, battle guild bosses, and chat with other guild members. Completing guild challenges will net you guild box’s which are better than normal box’s. You can also get Regen coins from box’s and selling gear. Regen coins will take any piece of gear your choose and re-roll it’s numbers for the four main categories Strength, ability, Defense, and health to match your current rank. This is nice for when you have a level 9 pair of pants but you are level 20 and can’t seem to get anything better or it is part of a set which gives you a boost and you need it leveled up to match your level. All in all, mother box’s are a nice way of getting new gear but putting your new abilities into these box’s is not a good call. I’d rather just buy new abilities with coins or earn them while leveling up my characters, randomly getting any characters abilities in box’s is nothing short of annoying.

Online works pretty well in this game and shares the same game modes as other Kombat and Injustice games, Ranked matches, Player Matches, and king of the hill. What IS new in the Online is the new Multiverse mode which is the replacement for the S.T.A.R. labs challenges. The Multiverse randomly generates six planets that will stick around from 15 minutes to 7 days and contain different challenges for you to complete which will give you coins, regen coins, box’s, and gear. I felt like this was an excellent idea since I didn’t really enjoy the Challenges from the last game, this one gives you a much more varied and fair system of challenges. They range from easy to hard with rewards mirroring the difficulty.

In conclusion, Injustice 2 is a great fighting game with some new enhancements but some new flaws as well. The roster is great except for a few that I don’t like and the new places to fight in are very detailed and fun. Character designs are mostly on point along with the new multiverse and gear system. Motherbox’s provide new headaches if you are looking for certain gear\new moves but are nice for when you are looking for better gear to equip. Online works well and matches can be set to ignore boosts in stats due to gear equipped. The DLC line up is looking good but having Darksied be day 1 DLC was a pretty low blow, no one liked Goro being Day 1 DLC and you bet your ass I didn’t appreciate Darksied doing the same thing. I feel like they only want to put characters into these games that will appear in the campaign which is kinda dumb but what ever. I would have rather had Reverse Flash in the game but premier skins are welcome anyway. All in all, Injustice 2 is a near perfect sequel to a successful game and comic series. If you like DC comics or fighting games in general this is the game for you!

I gave Injustice 2 an 8\10

#Injustice 2 #Injustice #Video Game #Review #Gods among us #Batman #Superman #The Flash #Harley Quinn

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kevinwillpkgd · 5 years

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this was (a missing?) link on my cartoon page.

Christmas 06: The media bread+circus. Clowns, acrobats and animals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2E8ddvbP3E (todays edit, 2019)

(Well, this is mostly snivelling I'm not rich yet, really. Or how I rec'd the 'be yourself' , 'meet the market' , 'do as you're told' life-style multiple-choice thing. Like man = muscle, hustle, brains, OK?)

Money, power and fame. FYI, Nothing says MPF like the CRTC. OK?

Culture. This, here and now (today), is the valley of the vanities; we that seek vengeance. Our tribe, surrounded by those living vi-care-iously thru us. Into the valley of death rode the $600!

Revenge; it's the new macho. Get your forehead (VENGEANCE!) tattoo today and go ahead, rev on things that make u feel bad. Personality-cases (screwups) unlimited... R us.

You wanna survive in this cess-pool? Learn the tools of the trade first. Hey, we have lots more than psychotic jocks making a dirty run for the top here. Bitches do more than screw(up), whine and borrow money, too.

Whassup? People. OK, for instance, there's the fraud (black)con-spree type 419: (Web-works. Purse-snatching on the (greyhound) bus, car-jacking and other smash+grabs. Hack+crack. How long+far can ya run it (float) before a crash and burn collects ya?). 2: The blue-blood hot-wire connection team (Anything you can beg, borrow or steal. (BBS WIM FRE) They do have to prove you stole it, um? Also called the Micky-soft corp method or divine rite of cannibalism management. (as compared to 3: the 'Orifice of your choice' management.) It's recommended you have $4 billion a year for payouts and 15 extra years for the lawsuits it generates.)

Oh, and lawsuits? It costs $6000 to recover $500... or $200 to have the dumb f*ck killed instead. Welcome to (just another brick in the)wall street. Plus traditional isolate, sabotage, cover-up and mudball gossip types. Overt, covert subterfuge and clandestine operations.

Super-star personality cults, team-jams (pun intended) and formula (propaganda) works, basically.

(I *REALLY* want to include a link to the wiki on me here. Go look it up instead.)

First things first. Any good war-lord robin-hood has a low-rental ghetto to stash his gang (+recruits) in. That's the hood. Don't go there. Don't work that department unless pillage, loot and rape is first, second and third nature to ya. And not getting caught is fairly instinctive. Win.

Survival is for psychotic sociopaths... Unless you're a magically brilliant super-star. Grinding just digs a bigger and better hole-trap.

Oh, have your (team) loyalties straight first. (via alcohol addiction? History, character and impact is better.)

What's a dirty run-up? A functional (corp) team plays politics, not performance. Win, right? Not win, succeed, correct. Give 'em what they need, what works, what helps you; in the order of your choice. Gossip is the least of it. Winners turned loose in a candy store, got it?

Burn, humiliation or waste of time. How many parachuted soups (supervisors. Or dates.) are that way? The suggestion box feeds the (drinking) team, not you, remember.

Anyway, vanity. Paranoid skits and instant personality collapse: how real news unhinges cement-heads and makes entertainment-art = life.

Paranoids have real enemies too. Bad news doesn't make people feel good. Ideas don't either, so they vanity-rage, make it their own, then point in the great game.

After shooting the messenger, naturally. We didn't say they were bright. As a matter of fact, soups are know for loyalty, not IQ. Managers! Ignore, repress, develop. The odds of them developing you, as compared to furthering their politics? Not good, if you even get that far.

A sense of humor is first to go. That's not funny, that's filthy, mean and cruel. Instant rage! Like ufos. (A true cement-head has believed, at one time or another in his life, that he is the only real person in the world. Ego-centric retards in a pre-sociopath state. The only real people in the world usually don't believe in UFOs, or like to think about how many stars are out there; or that our sun is a third generation son.)

Considering any other ego out there just confuses the issues and any good cop know the issues are money, sex and revenge. We're only telling you it's money, power and fame. Sex, violence and humor sells, thou.

Sex is for the easily distracted. (ie, most of us. Oooh, tasty jingly glitter! wow!)

Ignorance is safer for ya, so the press shoots blanks. So do retards and other winners are just targets. Today's news and weather as reported by the people who denied smoking causes cancer for 50 years. Or golbal warming does storm season.

And they like lynching terrorists. Well, you *MIGHT* be terrible! A hate campaign is a simple campaign, anyone can join in. Perfection! Miracle-cure dept! Bad reporting is good business, OK? It makes for self-serving bullshit and an entertainment society? So? It works for BB!

Edutainment, propaganda and merchandising make Big-Brother fat and happy. Don't expect anything else from or for Valley-girls.

Bread and media circuses: nothing says money, power and fame like the CRTC, unless it's a corp-censor sitting on the pipe-line. Sharks, piranha and drowning (management) men; all the same thing, right? Everybody into the pool. When you have 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. So goes the money, power and fame of a media circus (ball).

Universities put con in connections nowadays. Commercial-Connect U. means bull, bitch + backstab... with a big grin. Cheerleaders, mass-produced. They don't worry about drug tests, they worry about IQ tests.

Content, copyright and control, today's CCC. Control-freaks out of stuff to steal mean trouble, by the way. Example? China and Russia eventually went tits-up. AGT= traditional, stereotyped societies. Just like graphics. (Or the movies.) That's typical of cheerleaders.

NB: If you can't sell 10 copies (of whatever) at a con anyway, you suck. Get over it.

So, dating by hustle: How to the building and use of a gunpoint-recruited team. Asked out, going out, working the crowd. Recruited, recommended, accepted.

Stalking millionaires, in a word. (Or at least a score. Http://packrat.comicgenesis.com My cartoon-connection stuff.)

Me? I'm not going to con you into anything, hustle you into it, compliment, hornswoggle or bully you. So please stop doing that to me!

Yell, maybe. bludgeon, maybe occasionally. I AM Irish, after all.

Lordy, she's talking again; I can feel my IQ dropping fast. Worse yet, my spider-sense is tingling now (along with a few other things) and part of me likes it big-time.

Finished. Rant-mode off.

You don't understand? From the shit-pit to weasel-world to cursing candles? Sigh. I am so dead. I'll do the necessary, sufficient, conditions of produce, connect, popular for sometime instead.

(for mike Becker of the Becker Bros (jazz sax player) jan 14th07

NEXT UP. Satire, (name dropping), parody, sarcasm, and mockery. Imitative, churlish, buffoonery and self-dep modes.

#blog rant incoherent. I didn;t know I HAD this on the page. checked some links... TH*IS was there.'

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omginstantpaperbouquetblr · 6 years

Link

By Andrew Levine / Counterpunch.

Photo by Steve Snodgrass | CC BY 2.0

It was clear from the moment Donald Trump was elected president that 2017 would go down in history as one of the worst years ever in American politics.

It is now ending on an even worse note: with the president wandering off into dangerous non compos mentis territory as the consequences of his incompetence become increasingly manifest, and as the law closes in on him, his family, and the scoundrels who run the government for him.

Then there are the House and Senate Republicans outdoing even themselves in depraved indifference to the public good.

And there are their Democratic rivals, pusillanimous as ever, self-righteously rebranding themselves as defenders of sexual propriety and virtue.

Their idea, it seems, is to enhance their electoral prospects in next year’s midterm elections. For that, they would be better off — not morally, of course, but in the narrow, political sense that matters to them – learning a thing or two from Trump and the Republicans.

Both teach essentially the same lesson: that only losers care about “truth, justice, and the American way”; that it’s every man for himself; that common decency is for sissies; that real men revel in ignorance; and that, unless there is some percentage in it, only a fool would give a sucker an even break. The aggressively masculine idiom is appropriate because, while women are included in the Trump-Republican worldview, they are basically just along for the ride.

There is no doubt about it: they are an odious lot. Nevertheless, they have won a lot of elections lately; evidently, they are on to something.

Needless to say, Democrats and Republicans are already on the same page ideologically. But where Republicans are mean sons of bitches (with the occasional bitch thrown in), Democrats are goody-goodies. This wouldn’t matter so much if they were on a sounder, more progressive page ideologically. But until that day comes, they would be well advised to adopt personae more in the Trump-Republican mold.

Nearly two-thirds of the electorate loathes Trump and the Republicans and many of those who don’t realize, at some level, that they are being played. Therefore, in a country that holds generally “free and fair” competitive elections, Trump and the party he nominally leads are playing with a weak hand.

They are also on the wrong side of demography, and their altright and pseudo-intellectual ideas men (on this too, gendered language is appropriate) are pathetic. But with opponents determined to be prim and proper and to stay on what they consider the high road, they will remain able to do impressively well for themselves.

Republican vileness is by no means all Trump’s fault. One would have to be middle aged or older to recall a time when there were even just a few Republicans in the House or Senate who weren’t vile. During the Obama years, the party ratcheted up its vileness quotient by perfecting an obstructionist style so extreme as to be almost sublime. There was little room to degenerate further, but somehow they have managed to become worse still by cozying up to Trump. The Donald has that effect.

Following his lead, they now unabashedly appeal to all that is dark and base in human nature as they deepen their determination to serve the fraction of “the donor class” that is most in thrall to the cardinal sin of greed.

This works for them; they get their way more often than not. We have an increasingly rightwing judiciary and an increasingly enfeebled regulatory system to prove it.

If they get their tax scam through, we may soon be able to add yet more economic inequality and its inevitable consequence, the decline or demise of some of the most cherished remnants of the New Deal – Great Society settlement to the list.

No wonder Republican donors’ hearts are a flutter. Unless the handful of “moderate” Republican Senators who kept Trump and the others from finishing off Obamacare wise up in time, those donors will soon be even more egregiously enriched than they already are, while the rest of us will be saying adieu to the few state institutions we have that make peoples’ lives better

Republican politicians who do the donors’ bidding are Robin Hoods in reverse – stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

Because I grew up listening to Mel Brooks’ two thousand year old man, I cannot resist saying, at this point, that Robin Hood did nothing of the sort; that his story was public relations hype. The two thousand year old man knows, he was there, and he says that Robin Hood stole from everybody and kept everything. That would be a suitable inscription for Donald Trump’s tombstone.

One would think that, in a duopoly party system like ours, Democrats, being ostensibly less hostile to the interests of the vast majority of voters, would be wiping the floor with Republicans. That could happen in 2018. If it does, though, chances are that Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors will have more to do with it than revulsion at GOP policies.

Rightwing media that misinform and dumb down are part of the reason why. They do their foul work well.

But the best efforts of even the most despicable promoters of ignorance would amount to very little if Democrats would fight back with anything like the obduracy that has become second nature to the GOP.

The problem is not just that Democrats are fraidy cats who, as Robert Frost said of liberals generally, won’t take their own side in an argument. An arguably greater problem is that they evince an air of fatuous goody-goodyness that serves only to distract attention away from the harms caused by the nefarious policies both parties favor.

Thus, in 2016, they presented themselves as the party of everyone not white and heterosexual, or young and feminist.

To be sure, the leaders of what remains of the labor movement were behind them, supplying Democrats with campaign foot soldiers and with all the money they could spare – in return for vague and worthless promises. But few, if any, working class people, black, brown, or white, unionized or not, were able to work up any enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton or for most other down-ticket Democrats.

On the other hand, lots of people had no problem working up hostility to Clinton and others like her – not just in so-called “red” states, but throughout most of the country’s rural, urban and suburban areas.

The feeling was mutual. And so the election came down to a contest between goody-goodies and “deplorables.” Look where that got us!

With the 2018 midterm election season now gearing up, the words of the villainous Ronald Reagan again ring true: “here we go again.”

There may still be a chance that Democrats will wise up in time. The way their leaders dumped Al Franken without even a semblance of due process for – allegedly – acting like a jerk with several women not in his employ could be the final straw. If Democrats weren’t jerks themselves, it surely would be.

It might even dawn on them that being a jerk was part of Franken’s shtick in his comedian days; that it may also be part of his personality; and that even in this “me too” moment, it would not be unreasonable to view these factors as mitigating circumstances. Even those who deem his misbehavior inexcusable ought at least to demand due process for him and for everyone else. Don’t count on it, though. It is more likely that the way leading Democrats turned on him is a harbinger of where “the Chuck (Schumer) and Nancy (Pelosi) show” would like to take us from here.

If it is, even without Hillary leading the charge, and with Trump and the vilest of the vile in the House and Senate for opponents, the Democratic Party might just somehow manage to defeat itself again.

***

In short, Schumer and Pelosi and the rest could learn a lot from Trump and the Republicans — about how to stick up for themselves and how, by doing so, to get their way. They could learn that it can be wise sometimes to take to heart the old adage: that nice guys finish last.

They could also benefit from following another odious example — the one set by the government of Israel and the larger Zionist movement. Israel really does meddle in our elections; and Congress and the mainstream media are, for all practical purposes, in its thrall. Moreover, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is easily as apt a target for demonization as Vladimir Putin.

But there is something to be learned from them even so: that, if you want to get your way – the jury is out on whether Democrats actually do – you can’t be too picky about the people you work with. By enlisting Christian Zionists to their cause, Jewish Zionists have been demonstrating the efficacy of this teaching for four decades or more.

Were it not for Christian Zionists in the British government, the rulers of Mandate Palestine would not have been nearly as friendly to the idea of Jewish settlement in Palestine as they were throughout most of the inter-war period.

But it was not until some three decades after the founding of the state of Israel that the Israeli Right, during the premiership of Menachem Begin, fully embraced Christian Zionism, bringing the rest of the Zionist movement, more or less reluctantly, on board.

For the most part, Zionism used to be a secular cultural and political movement. Many of the founders of the state of Israel were not even privately religious.

But to forge the national identity they aimed to establish, they could not dispense with Judaism altogether. Inasmuch as the world’s Jews were joined together by their religion and little else, there was no other remotely suitable basis for forging a Jewish national community.

This was a problem at first because the Jewish religion, in both its orthodox and Reform versions, opposed political Zionism. Most orthodox Jews accepted the Talmudic injunction, that there should be no mass “return” to the Promised Land until the Messiah comes to deliver on that promise. Reform Jews, being proponents of liberal religion, regarded matters of faith and practice, for themselves and others, as matters of private conscience only.

These convictions were never universally accepted – in the United States, for example, Conservative Judaism has always had a Zionist inflection — and even in orthodox and Reform circles, doctrinal commitments of a non- or anti-Zionist nature were wearing thin long before the establishment of the Jewish state.

This was happening, moreover, at a time when God seemed to be in His (again, the pronoun is apt) death throes. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that, outside hopelessly benighted circles, Jewish identity came to have more to do with nationalism than with Judaism itself. Zionism hijacked Judaism.

But even in well-educated and comparatively enlightened circles, you can’t keep an old time religion down. Thus, in the aftermath of the 1967 War, when the entirety of Mandate Palestine and then some fell into Israeli hands, the modus vivendi that had existed between Jewish nationalism and the Jewish religion began to turn into a more open embrace.

Reform Jews effectively dropped their principled objections to the Zionist project, and many orthodox Jews threw in the towel as well. Some of them did more than that. Before the seventies, only marginal orthodox communities endorsed secular Zionist goals; nowadays, among the settlers and in large swathes of Jewish Israeli society, a multi-faceted “national religious” movement has become a major political force.

The American equivalent is the “modern orthodoxy” of Jared Kushner and the observant Trump cronies currently charged by the Donald with getting Israelis and Palestinians to make an “artful” deal. The likelihood that those ignoramuses can do anything like that is is about the same as the likelihood that the Trump-Republican tax cut will “make America great again.”

What is likely is that Israel will accelerate the ethnic cleansing of Palestine – completing the transformation of a Herrenvolk democracy into a full-fledged Apartheid state. To do that, they will need the unbridled support of the United States. Therefore, as Begin realized decades ago, they need to humor Christian Zionists; to make nice with them.

No matter that those godly folk believe that the Zionist project is part of an End Times scenario in which Christians like them are raptured away, while Jews (and Muslims and everybody else) are cast into Hell for all eternity. Christian Zionists are an important part of the Trump base. In the view of most Jewish Zionists, this makes them more important than ever for advancing the Zionist cause.

That cause remains as nationalistic, and therefore as secular, as ever. The goal is to rule over as much of Mandate Palestine as they can get away with, ideally all of it, and to populate it as much as possible with Jews.

Religious Jews don’t much like it, but, insofar as they accept Zionist goals, even they don’t insist that religious convictions are necessary for membership in the Jewish nation. For all Zionists, Jews don’t have to hold any particular beliefs, even atheists are OK, and they don’t have to observe Jewish law. For anti-Semites and Zionists alike, “Jew” is an ethnic designation first and foremost, not a religious one.

Thus theological affinities have almost nothing to do with the fondness Jewish Zionists evince towards their Christian counterparts. What explains that is sheer, unadulterated opportunism.

Even so, Zionists of all stripes – before, during and after the Begin era – have always thought, just as everyone with even a smidgen of common sense cannot help but think, that Christian Zionists give hokum a bad name.

However, if some good can come to Israel from it, they are fine with it. Amen.

From where they stand, some good does come from it – now more than ever — because in Trump’s America, on matters pertaining to Israel and Palestine, Christian Zionists call the shots.

Thus Christian Zionists seemingly had more to do with the timing of Trump’s untimely, and recklessly dangerous, “proclamation” about moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, than Jewish Zionists did.

It is not that American Jews don’t care; many, though probably not most, do. And among those who do care, there are alarmingly many plutocrats who are not shy about pouring serious money into the cause – people like the Kushners and, of course, Sheldon Adelson. But, on this one, Christian Zionists were the driving force.

Netanyahu doesn’t mind. To a degree that Begin would never have countenanced, the man has no shame. Neither do most Israeli politicians these days.

Christian Zionists want to bring on Armageddon; Netanyahu’s goals are nominally less insane. But if to achieve them, he has to make common cause with people who long for the day when Jews – along with Muslims and everyone else who does not accept Jesus — are cast forever into Hell, it hardly matters whose thinking is more unsound.

Even so, it would not be an entirely bad thing, in this case too, were the vile to lead the less vile; in other words, for Democrats, like contemporary Zionists, to be less persnickety about whom they welcome on board.

***

In a better possible world, the Democratic Party would long ago have been given the boot with the full support not just of left-leaning Democratic voters, but of everyone less retrograde than Marco Rubio or Lindsey Graham and less loathsome than Ted Cruz.

In the actual world, however, it may be that the only alternative to hopelessness is to struggle within the carapace of that wretched party – trying, perhaps in vain, to make it a less hopeless case.

To that end, it can’t hurt to learn from the odious – not by showing sympathy for the devil, but by sometimes following the lead of those that do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson called “a foolish consistency…the hobgoblin of little minds.” A foolish moral fastidiousness is the hobgoblin of the little minds of feckless Democrats.

For all their moral and intellectual failings, even Trump and his Republican minions, and Netanyahu and his co-thinkers, are better opportunists than that.

ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

from Home http://ift.tt/2zgUz8B

#NEWS

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mysteryshelf · 7 years

Text

BLOG TOUR - Mind Virus

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Roger Charlie Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

About the Book

Robin Fox is a peace-loving professor of world religions, trying to atone for his crimes as a U.S. Army interrogator. But at a Washington prayer rally, a suspect is caught trying to disperse a rare encephalitis virus, the same one used in an attack in Iraq that Fox once foiled. A CIA agent, John Adler, asks Fox for help.

Troubled by this request, Fox consults Emily Hart, his colleague at the United States Peace Research Institute and wife of its strongest supporter in Congress. She, however, has her own troubles. Leila Halabi, a Palestinian peace educator, has disappeared on the way to Washington for a lecture tour. Fox accepts Adler’s request, in exchange for the CIA’s help in finding Leila.

Fox works with a joint FBI-CIA interrogation team, and worries that Adler’s prejudice against Muslims is clouding his judgment. The suspect eventually reveals that he is part of an international conspiracy to eradicate religion, “using one virus to cure another”.

Fox deduces that the next attack is planned for Israel during Passover. Meanwhile, Emily learns that Leila has been imprisoned in Israel, and travels there to campaign for her release. Spurred by danger to the woman he loves – although he could never admit it, even to himself – Fox boards a plane that will reach Tel Aviv before her.

By careful observation, Fox catches another suspect at Ben-Gurion Airport. Now a hero to Israel, he persuades the head of Shin Bet to release Leila and let him interrogate the suspect.

He infers that the next attack is planned for Jerusalem on Holy Saturday. Joined by Adler, he sets up surveillance at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but fails to prevent an explosion.

Suspecting that this attack was a diversion, Fox reinterprets his clues and concludes that the real target is the Vatican. He and Adler fly to Rome in time to catch a suspect in the act of planting an aerosol device in the dome of St. Peter’s during Easter Vigil Mass. Fox breaks her silence by intimating that her love for the group’s mastermind has been betrayed. She reveals the name by which she knows him, and gives up enough information to identify the next target: Westminster Abbey, at an Easter service with the Royal Family attending. But at the same time, he receives a menacing message: Emily has been abducted by the mastermind, who threatens to kill her if any cameras catch Fox there.

Fox goes to London, enters the Abbey in disguise, and uncovers the most elaborate strategy yet: a sleeper agent in the Abbey choir planted the virus in a fire extinguisher, and used a time-release flammable agent to make the Archbishop’s vestments spontaneously combust.

After stopping the attack, Fox roughs up the suspect but learns nothing. His escort from the Security Service takes him to question the mastermind’s mentor at Oxford. Shocked to hear how his teachings have been twisted, he gives up a name: Theodore Gottlieb. They go to Gottlieb’s house, to find him calmly awaiting them with high tea and high explosives.

After a standoff, the bombs detonate and set fire to the house. Fox, cut off from the police, has to chase Gottlieb to the room where Emily is being held hostage. Using his military training, he succeeds in seizing Gottlieb’s pistol, but his principles of nonviolence will not allow him to shoot. They struggle, Gottlieb falls, and the firefighters rescue Fox and Emily in time.

They return to Washington. Adler has promised to tell the Saudis about the final target, Mecca during the Hajj, but Fox suspects he is lying and goes to the Saudi embassy himself. A furious phone call from Adler confirms his suspicions: the CIA was planning to let the attack proceed, and use an Army-designed antiserum to blackmail the entire Muslim world.

After launching Leila’s tour, Fox and Emily walk together through the GWU campus. He yearns to tell her that, when he was sure his life was over, his only thought was of her. But discretion trumps valor, and when they say goodnight, his true feelings for her are still a secret.

Interview with the Author

What initially got you interested in writing?

I’d have to go back in time and ask my 6-year-old self; he’s the one who got me hooked on writing stories, and I haven’t been able to stop since. I finished my first novel-length manuscript in high school, and after a slight detour when I was led astray by the siren song suggesting that publishing academic papers in peer-reviewed journals would be a more prudent channel for my literary ambitions, I’m happily back on track with creative writing.

How did you decide to make the move into becoming a published author?

The time was right. I had a story inside me that wouldn’t let me rest until I shared it with the world. Did I tell it well? You can judge for yourself.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

I hope they’ll take away a new perspective. This book has a religious theme, and religion, whether you’re a believer or not, affects everyone and everyone has an opinion about it. And for most people, these opinions are so strongly entrenched that you could hurl arguments at them until doomsday and never move the needle; the only chance you have of getting anyone to see an alternate point of view is through story. Wherever you fall on the scale, from firebrand evangelical to firebrand atheist, you’ll probably find something in this book to challenge you. Judging from the reviews, it will make your heart beat faster – and it might raise your blood pressure, too!

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

I love the way the story takes on a life of its own. I think writing, as an art form, is less like painting or sculpture and more like growing bonsai: you may start with a clear image of the finished product, and you can twist and trim your material into the shape you want, but it’s still a living thing, and it sometimes wants to grow in a different direction from the one you had in mind, so you have to be flexible and acknowledge that it might know better than you. There are times when a character seems to be speaking to me, suggesting something I hadn’t previously thought of. I love those moments, because it feels not so much as though I’m creating the story out of nothing, as that it’s telling itself through me.

What do you find most challenging about writing?

The difficulty of getting Time, Energy and Inspiration in the room together: they all seem to have such crazy schedules and I can rarely get more than two of them to sit down with me. Sometimes I wake up bursting with ideas, but can’t get a moment to write them down until late at night when I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone remember what the muse was whispering in my ear that morning. Other times, I’m well rested and have a rare block of free time, but the well is dry. I often resort to stealing moments throughout the day for writing – and if you piece together enough stolen moments, eventually you have a book.

What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

There’s a Japanese saying: “Do the best you can and await orders from heaven.” If you have a story inside you fighting to get out, then write it, and polish it, to the best of your ability. Then, when the time is right, it will find its audience. It took years of pounding the pavement before I found my editor, but in light of world events during that time, I’ve come to feel that perhaps the story was waiting until a time when it would be most relevant. So if you ever have moments when you start to doubt your story will ever see the light of day – and I suppose every aspiring author does – don’t be discouraged. It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

I’ve lived most of my adult life in Japan. How I got there, and what I’ve been doing there, would be the subject for a whole different interview, but in large part, I have my life in Japan to thank for this book. Living in a very secularized society helped give me the inspiration for the story, and the desire to keep some kind of connection with my homeland helped light a fire under me to write it.

What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

You can find out more about Mind Virus and my other works on my website: charleskowalski.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!

About the Author

Charles Kowalski currently divides his time between Japan, where he teaches English at a university, and his family home in Maine.

His previously unpublished debut novel, Mind Virus, won the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Colorado Gold Award and was a finalist for the Adventure Writers’ Competition, the Killer Nashville Claymore Award, and the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association literary award.

Other novels and short stories by Charles Kowalski:

“Let This Cup Pass From Me” (Finalist, American Fiction Short Story Award (New Rivers Press); Honorable Mention, The Maine Review Short Story Competition)

“Arise, My Love”

“The Evil I Do Not Mean To Do”

Charles can be found at his website, and on Facebook and Twitter (@CharlesKowalski).

About the Publisher

About Literary Wanderlust

Literary Wanderlust publishes well-written novels and short story anthologies in the romance, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and thriller genres, as well as obscure history and research topics. Visit us at www.literarywanderlust.com

BLOG TOUR – Mind Virus was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

#shannon muir #pulp and mystery shelf

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sueboohscorner · 7 years

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"The Primal Riddle" S3 Ep. 17 #Gotham Recap, Review, and Spoilers

When Penguin gets his way, the freaks come to play! Hello all. This is a spoiler, recap, and review of the seventeenth episode of the third season of Gotham. Let’s jump right in to it.

The first scene we see is rather a chilly one because Oswald (Robin Lord Taylor) and Ivy (Maggie Geha) are wrapped up in heavy winter wear in order to find the first freak for their army: Victor Fries (Nathan Darrow). He’s not exactly welcoming when he sees Oswald because during his candidacy for mayor, Pengy kinda sorta drove out many of the freaks that escaped from Indian Hill. Things get a tad awkward at first, but with Ivy’s perspective, Oswald’s persistence, and Fries’ recovered ice suit, Victor agrees to join them.

Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), after that whole spat with his uncle, has a meeting with Kathryn (Leslie Handrix). Jim manages to convince that he wants to join the court under the false pretense that he killed his uncle Frank out of revenge for his father. Of course the Court and all their creepiness want to see if Jim is truly loyal.

Back at the GCPD, the police report of Frank’s “murdered” body ends up in the hands of Lee Thompkins (Morena Baccarin). Instead of acting concerned, Jim acts somewhat aloof towards his uncle’s death. Since Lee has to say something about everything, she takes notice of Jim’s behavior and call him on it. When he denies what’s really going on, Lee goes on a tangent about Jim’s destructive behavior, blah, blah, blah, and how she can’t wait to see it blow up in his face, blah, blah, blah, don’t care.

Jim and Harvey (Donal Logue) become aware of Edward Nygma (Corey Michael Smith) is now being called the Riddler in the newspapers and apparently is causing some more trouble.

Speaking of Ed, Barbara (Erin Richards) takes a little visit to his lair. She wants information about the group of people who really control Gotham for, what else, personal gain. Edward is reminded about how Dr. Hugo Strange said something to him about that very same subject. Needless to say, his interest is piqued; and it stirs the theater bug in him.

During a packed house of a production of Hamlet, the Riddler takes the stage! He announces that he wants to know who really runs the city…and then he runs another actor through. But he doesn’t depart without leaving a riddle for the GCPD to decipher and his boss like ability to roll his R’s.

Let’s see what Bruce’s clone, Five, is doing. Shall we?

While playing a game of chess with Alfred (Sean Pertwee), Five (David Mazouz) seems to be getting kind of attached to him; but Alfred is still suspicious of “Bruce’s” behavior as of late, but he does not let on. After the game, Five’s nose begins to bleed. He makes a quick visit to Kathryn and the Court. We are informed that the process that brought Five to life was somewhat ineffective and that Five has a short amount of time to live; although Five does seem to be grateful towards the Court for all they’ve done for him.

Back at the theater, Gordon and Bullock investigate Edward’s riddle left behind after his performance. Oh, wait, sorry. PERFORMANCE! They find a box mentioning a “two-faced politician”.

No, not that one yet.

The riddle was talking about Mayor James. Jim and Harvey arrive at his office and see him eating Danishes sent to him by a “concerned citizen”. Sudden tummy troubles make James take some pills for his pain. Upon further inspection, the little, white pills have little, green question marks on them. It could only be the work of………Man Bat! Nah, it’s from the Riddler.

Mayor James is immediately escorted to the hospital. Unfortunately, the emergency room is overrun by a bunch of bikers due to a bomb that Riddler used in their bar. Jim tries to keep an eye on James, but the ruckus caused by the biker gangs gets out of hand and the Mayor is kidnapped amongst the commotion.

Things get heated up when Oswald and Ivy come to recruit Firefly (Camila Perez) who works at some industrial factory. It doesn’t take long to convince Bridget to quit her job and join the army of freaks. Not before throwing smoldering liquid in her boss’ face of course.

Riddler and Barbara interrogate the Mayor. The only information that he can give up is that there IS a group of people running Gotham and that they go by the Court. Babby-K is still bitter about the whole situation, but that doesn’t stop Edward from broadcasting him holding James hostage for information about the Court on live TV.

This provides an opportunity for Jim to prove his loyalty to the Court. He manages to convince Nygma to come down to the GCPD with Mayor James with a bomb attached to his neck. Jim play it cool, even when Ed presses a button on a device that activates the bomb. However the signal on the device was jammed due to a little favor from Tabitha (Jessica Lucas). Edward agrees to leave the GCPD with Jim because Jim said that he knows about the Court.

Meanwhile, Five visits Selina’s (Camren Bicondova) place. Surprisingly, he comes clean about who he really is and about the weapon that the Court plans to use on the city. Selina asks why he would tell her all this and he says it’s because he cares about her. Selina scoffs and says that he is nothing at all like Bruce. She knows that Bruce would try to save everyone rather than just one person. She goes on a tangent that Five will never be like Bruce because he is nothing. Insignificant. Five tells her to stop saying things like that, but Selina continues her taunt until he PUSHES HER OUT OF THE DAMN WINDOW! Holy crap on a cracker, Batman! Five killed her!

The last we see of Selina is her body contorted on pavement; her eyes wide open and stock still. One cat comes to check out what happened. Then two. Then five. Then ten….

Jim and Edward meet in the location Kathryn told Jim. Heavy nostalgia fills the car as Jim reminds Ed about the dinner that he and Lee had with Edward and Kristen. The moment of cynical friendship is dashed when Kathryn’s car approaches. She welcomes Edward and tells him that she will tell him everything about the Court.

Barbara Queen enters her club in a fury when she asks Tabitha and Butch (Drew Powell) about the device that was supposed to off around the Mayor’s neck. Apparently, Bab and Tab’s relationship is a bit rocky and it doesn’t help when Barbara herself wants full control of Gotham.

The last thing we see is Kathryn inducting Jim into the Court of Owls with a really cool owl mask sunglasses thing.

This episode was quite entertaining. I liked that there wasn’t just two storylines that were followed. I enjoyed the little homage to the “Batman Returns” film when we see Selina on the ground after being pushed out a window. The army of freaks and company scene I especially like because we got to see the dynamic of Oswald dealing with people he usually doesn’t waste his time on.

Things I liked:

The. Absolute. Haminess. Of Edward Nygma. Actor Corey Michael Smith clearly had so much delight while delving into the Riddler’s character. And for those of you who might not like his performance, the Riddler is very intelligent, yes. But he is also showy, campy, and very insecure. Come on, it’s probably a little tricky making someone who tells riddles and puzzles threatening. Smith captures the giddiness and homicidal nature of Edward Nygma.

Seeing Oswald handle himself with the “freaks”. Normally Oswald wouldn’t look twice at someone like Ivy or Firefly, but I think he’s learning to embrace his more monster side of himself. He’s learning and leading the people that his mayoral campaign tried to run out.

Seeing Tabitha get a little wiser towards Barbara.

BUTCH! I love that guy.

The absolutely stunning work from makeup and costume for Victor Fries and FIrefly.

WOAH! Selina being pushed out a window by Five?! I mean, I saw her image on the pavement in several promos and trailers, but I was still stunned. I’m not happy that Selina got pushed to her death, but THAT. SCENE. THOUGH.

Things I didn’t like:

Lee and her stupid grudge against Jim. Yeah, yeah, Jim shot her husband on their wedding day, but only because he was infected with the Tetch virus. AND SHE KNOWS THAT. But nooooo. She still won’t shut up about her salty-ness towards Jim. I know there are some fans who like her, and I got nothing against the actress, far from it. I just never liked her or thought she added anything else other than being a doctor and some love interest. I’m at the point where I just want to kick her in the throat whenever I see her now. *gets down from soap box* I’m done.

Overall, I’d give this episode a good 8.5 out of ten.

As always, stay weird.

(If the title of the episode, “The Primal Riddle” sounds familiar, that’s because there’s a comic book arc with the same name. The plot is basically where Batman’s soul is inside the Riddler’s body.)

#Gotham #Gotham (TV series)#Gotham Recap

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