#the layout took??? so friggin long??
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A new reference sheet of my sona! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
#i could finally decide on just a single fit lol!#the layout took??? so friggin long??#i'm not very good at layouts so this is the best i could do haha!#it's me!#my doodles#sona#sona ref#reference#i'm very happy with how this turned out and it's just in time for Gyftmas!!#i do have a rocking coat but that'll maybe come later
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Jack, Malleus: Beasts, us Both
Alright, TWST... you friggin' troll 😭 You got me good with those Jack frames... No wolf inspo reveal, I see how it is-- 😂
Because of the angle we're staring at the image from... that macaron Jack is holding looks like a massive GMO green grape… AM I JUST SEEING GRAPES EVERYWHERE BECAUSE OF R*LLO... This would mark the first Disney100 art with some notable changes (how he’s holding the macaron and the angle he’s bending at), most likely to make it look better for a card layout.
A Tale as Old as Time.
A young lion prince and his hornbill attendant were captured in a photo frame. With finger-like feathers, the bird had plucked a strand of fur from the large cat. He lacked amusement, beak poised in a manner that suggested a light telling-off. The cub, for his part, looked upset at the lecture.
That’s right, lions don’t grow their manes out until they’re older.
Jack sometimes forgot that—with his dorm leader prowling around, the most prominent image he had of a lion was that of Leona. Strong, cunning, and self-assured. Nothing like the prince in the painting.
“How cute,” a low voice drawled. “To think that Kingscholar too was once this small and helpless… Fufufu.”
Jack’s eyes cut to the tall, dark man next to him. With long limbs and regal horns protruding from his head, Malleus Draconia resembled a gazelle.
“It’s hard to imagine Leona-senpai like that,” Jack awkwardly confessed. “I met his nephew once, but that only took me more out of it. He was… energetic and bright.”
“Implying that Kingscholar is lacking in energy and a cheerful disposition?” Malleus smirked. “Ah, yes. Much change occurs between childhood and adulthood, some of it attributed to social influences. That child had best be cautious. Perhaps Kingscholar’s attitude will rub off on him, smothering that sunshine.”
“Leona-senpai has his good points too!” Jack blurted out. He didn’t catch himself in time—the words just came, a reverberating bark in the museum.
“Oh? You’re rather quick to defend him.”
The wolf beastman gasped and reeled himself back in. “Y-You don’t see it because you’re not in Savanaclaw, but I can tell… Leona-senpai cares about his students a lot. He’s looking out for us in his own way.”
“Such as when he attempted to have me trampled?” Malleus suggested, his tone quiet yet challenging. “I do so fondly remember that.”
“Urk!!” Jack’s ears flattened. “He does take it too far sometimes. I don’t agree with everything he does. The idea of doing everything you can to protect others, though… that’s something I can understand.”
"It is?”
The first year nodded firmly. “There are stories about wolves working together to chase off invaders who wandered into their snowy territory. Once, a wolf family even took in an orphaned kid. I have my own younger siblings to look after, too.”
“It appears as though you and your ancestors feel a strong sense of duty to your packs,” Malleus noted. Something akin to amusement danced in his eyes. It quickly flickered out, giving way to a deep melancholy. “Family… Hmm. I cannot say I can relate. I have no siblings to speak of. There is my grandmother, but she is my only living relative."
There was a shift—a small, imperceptible change in Jack's stoic face.
"... Sorry to hear that."
"Think nothing of it." Malleus waved a dismissive hand. "The circumstances are as they are. We cannot rewind the threads of fate, only weave new ones.
"Still, it is strange. I have not had the chance to meet my mother nor my father. They were already gone long before my hatching. I should feel no attachment to such strangers. Even so, I feel as though something is missing without them."
He gave a dark chuckle, curling fingers over his heart. "Perhaps there is a part of me that longs for that kind of a family, too."
Jack frowned. His chest throbbed with a dull pain.
“That's..."
Sad.
No brothers, no sisters. No parents, not even aunts or uncles or cousins. Just one big, empty castle, and the creature caged inside of it.
Pacing past ruined wings, furniture strewn about as if a mad beast had run through it in a frenzy. The space filled with loneliness, a hollow feeling that couldn't be fended off.
He shuffled his feet. Resolve slowly solidified. Jack reached for his voice.
"... I don't think you need to worry, Malleus-senpai. You still have people who care about you. Family isn’t all in the blood." Jack bashfully rubbed at the back of his neck, his eyes averted. "It's in the bonds too."
He gestured to the painting before them. "The lion prince lost his dad, the previous king. In grief, he ran away from home--but he still had friends that guided him when he was lost and scared. A warthog, a meerkat, a baboon, a hornbill, the lionesses in his pride. They all came together to show the prince he was loved and needed. Because of that, he was able to come home with his head held high."
Jack clenched a hand into a fist, offering a stiff smile. "Family's something that everyone has, one way or another. They're the ones who always have your back, blood or not.”
Malleus’s face momentarily lit up with surprise.
“My, I didn’t expect to hear such a motivational speech from you. I hear from Sebek that you’re quite standoffish.”
“D-Don’t get me wrong!!” he sputtered, face heating. “On any given day, I’d tackle things on my own. But doing that all the time is pointless.”
“Which is why you choose to follow Kingscholar’s leadership?” Malleus asked teasingly. “You seem to admire him a great deal and acknowledge him as the leader of your pack here at Night Raven College.”
“N-No!!” Jack snapped. “Th-There are just some things I’m not strong enough to do by myself, times when I have to team up with others for a common goal!! Until the day I have the strength to act completely on my own…!”
Malleus laughed softly, his lips lifting into a mysterious curve. "Be at ease, Howl. You needn’t be so defensive. I see your point with crystal clarity.”
“You… You do?”
“That is correct.” The dragon prince’s eyes creased. “You, who seeks strength, shall surely find it—and with that strength, you will not be daunted from protecting what is most precious to you, family and friends alike. You’ve helped me to realize the same. We are both the same kind of beast, fufu.”
Jack took one look at Malleus’s ominous smile and shuddered. It could have decimated the stars, wiping out all the light in the night sky in one fell swoop.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing…”
He glanced back at the painting of the lion prince and the hornbill advisor. The distress on the cub’s face suddenly resonated with him.
Jack groaned.
It looks like I still have a lot to learn.
#twst#Malleus Draconia#twisted wonderland#Jack Howl#twst imagines#twst scenarios#twisted wonderland scenarios#twisted wonderland imagines#Jack birthday takeover#something no one asked for#spoilers#disney twisted wonderland#Zazu#Simba
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I have a lot of thoughts on the WLF and the Seraphites, which means I think I'm going to break them down into smaller posts like I have been doing with my map posts.
So, this post is going to be about the Seraphite prophet. Specifically, I collected every picture of her that I knew of in game. I've also shared my thoughts about the depictions of her and her origins. If that is your sort of shit, click below.
This is probably the most common pose you see her in, whether it is a painting (like in this post) or carved into trees. She is also almost always depicted in a simple white shirt, and her hair is always braided. In most pictures she also appears to be middle aged.
The depictions of her do vary a bit, which makes me wonder if they have any actual pictures of her. One of the core beliefs she preached was the importance of moving away from modern technology and back to nature. Did she throw away any cameras, and all the pictures of herself?
She is often portrayed leading others, with the sun behind her head or behind her raised hand. Some real Holy Spirt stuff, basically. Or maybe I just think that because I was raised catholic...
"May she guide you" is a super common Seraphite saying, usually said when people part ways. One interesting thing is you often see these words before entering a dangerous area, whether that is the sky bridge or a contested area of Seattle (more on that later, but you can see my post about the layout of Seattle here).
This is one I almost missed, located on the building between the two sky bridges. The Seraphites sure lugged a bunch of stuff up there: all that wood for the bridge/structures/ladders, rope, nails, and paint. Not to mention food, weapons, and and stuff to sleep on. In another post I'll probably talk more about Seraphite society because it is just so interesting to me.
We don't know a whole lot about her. She was a prepper before the Outbreak, but she prepped enough to feed all the survivors from her community. This is all based of a scrap of a newspaper you can find in the tunnels. I wonder just how much food she hoarded though. There are four named areas in the NW part of Seattle that formed Scar Island: Queen Anne, Magnolia, and two other areas I can't quite read. Did she have enough to feed all these suburbs, because holy crap how big was her house? Did she have a warehouse of food somewhere?
Then again, she also preached reliance on nature and not machines, and her followers were quick to listen to her because she did so much for their community. She likely pushed them all to farm, and had enough food reserves to cover them until they could get things up and running. Also, a number of people probably fled or were killed in the early stages of the outbreak, so there probably wasn't as many people to feed as you would think.
Her followers choose to stick with her in the NW part of Seattle, which lead to some tension with FEDRA. Then, after the WLF took out FEDRA, the competition over land and resources lead to the on and off war with the WLF that was going on when Ellie got to Seattle. This was about 25 years after Outbreak Day, and it's not known how long FEDRA was in power, or how long this war with the WLF was going on. At some point, flooding turned NW Seattle into an island (which probably helped fuel the belief that she was a prophet even more), and it seems like that occurred before the WLF replaced FEDRA.
My guess is that FEDRA ran the QZ for anywhere from 5 to 15 years (based on what we know from the game). All the while, the Seraphites grew in size and power. It's not known when exactly she died, but we know she was executed by the WLF at Martyr's Gate, so she died once FEDRA was out of the picture.
Now, Seraphite soldiers make a pilgrimage to Martyr's Gate, and it's an area that is won and lost in battle relatively frequently. Seraphites can leave these prayers in any of their temples, but this seems like a special place that you only bring a prayer to once. For whatever reason, they focused on this truck for their shrine. They built a wooden structure over it (they friggin love wood), and they brought a fuck ton of white flowers (this is another common thing you see with her).
Lev states that she didn't teach violence, that it wasn't included in the scripture. Perhaps this is true, the little we know of her writings make them seem like more of a self-help book ("Only when weak may I carry my true strength"), and she also probably spoke a lot about the need to live free of machines and rid the world of "demons".
Regardless, and perhaps in response to violence from FEDRA and the WLF, she did turn to fighting. I guess that could fall under self-reliance though.
In some of these paintings she definitely seems more aged, which makes me thinks that she was around for many years. Someone like Lev or Yara were probably not born or too young to remember her, but she would be in the memories of many Seraphites (there are around 1,000 of them when Ellie gets to Seattle).
An interesting thing about these paintings is that they are all found outside of Seraphite territory. Granted, we only see the southern and northeastern parts of Seraphite Island, but I don't recall seeing any from the places we do visit. Instead, on the island you tend to see a lot of carvings of her in trees (more on this later).
The Seraphite religion is one of expansion. It's necessary to branch out in order to clear the land of the demons. She probably preached about saving people too, although that seems to have been corrupted by the Elders (more on them later too). Both this and the first picture from this post were from Capitol Hill, on the way to the TV station. Definitely WLF territory. In these cases, "Feel her love" is probably more of a threat than a call to conversion.
So, what do we know about the Seraphite prophet? We know she preached that the outbreak was a punishment for our reliance on machines, and the only way to get rid of this plague is to clear the world of demons and go back to living simply. We know that she lead her community, and was martyred by Issac during their still ongoing war with the WLF. We know that much of what she taught was then corrupted by the people who took power after she died. That's why when I talk about the Seraphites next, we'll be talking about the Elders.
#If you read this whole thing you are now my people#Was her name Sera or something?#I wonder if Lev still believes#Heygaymayday wrote some ficlets about Lev in the future and I sometimes think about those#the Elders are dicks just fyi#the cults of us#the last of us 2
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Tory Ranks the HP Films! [review]
Hi everybody! So I was chatting with a good friend of mine the other day about our favorite films in the Harry Potter series, and...well, the whole discussion got me thinking, so I decided to jot down my personal rankings!
I’ll just discuss the eight films based on the original books for this, but if you want my thoughts on the Fantastic Beasts series so far, you can read this FB-centric response and this review for CoG! These rankings are unique to me, but will be affected both by how much I personally enjoy the movie as well as how well it adapted its respective book. Hope you enjoy -- if you want, feel free to like and reblog, and of course reply/reblog with your own thoughts about the HP films!
8) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
I’ll be honest, I was torn between this film and the one just before it as my personal worst, but in the end, I had to acknowledge that this one, out of all of the films, was just the least interesting of the lot, not just from a story perspective but also in the visuals and music. Everything was so gray and murky and dark: the only faintly creative visuals I really remember from this film were the inky effects in the Pensieve scenes (which didn’t match up with the established continuity of previous Pensive scenes) and the juxtaposition of a bird’s cage in the corner of a shot where Draco is walking down the hallway, and the only music track I remember liking at all was the choral piece In Noctem. Plus the plot itself was pretty tedious, as the filmmakers apparently decided that the book’s romantic side-stories were more worthy of focus than the main villain’s entire backstory. I mean, come on -- Harry making goo-goo eyes at Ginny and Ron being a complete idiot when it comes to the girls in his life is somehow more interesting than Dumbledore and Harry learning about the Gaunt family, Tom Riddle’s past as a neglected, but vindictive bully, and Riddle turning objects that meant something to him into Horcruxes, which sets up the Golden Trio’s quest to find them in the next book/movie? Good call on that one. Speaking of Riddle, the two new actors that were cast to portray him in this movie are also easily the worst performers in the entire series, and the completely unsubtle, black-and-white characterization of Riddle in the script didn’t do them any favors. After how much Voldemort was built up in the films, Riddle being so ridiculously obvious in how evil he is makes everyone around him (like Dumbledore and Slughorn) look like an idiot for not seeing he was bad news from the start. This film makes me a lot less angry than the #7 slot, partly because HBP is my least favorite of the books, but it also prompts just about no positive feelings either, and if there’s anything Harry Potter has never been, it’s “boring.”
7) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
*dodges knives* LOOK. I know this is a lot of people’s favorite HP film, and I understand why. From a cinematography perspective, it’s easily one of the best. It’s very pretty to look at. The shot composition is excellent. The visuals are creative and striking. But all of that beauty is at the cost of the story and characters. Not only does Hermione become even more of an idealized Action Girl, losing even more of her wonderful, three-dimensional book characterization and flaws -- not only does the film break away from every bit of continuity established from the previous installments or even within its own film, from changing the layout of Hogwarts and the students’ uniforms to having Harry constantly light up his wand with magic no problem only ONE SCENE before getting punished for using magic outside of school -- not only does it make no sense unless you’ve read the book, given that the script just assumes that you’ll remember details like Lupin and Snape having seen the Marauder’s Map, which explains how they knew Sirius and the Golden Trio were in the Shrieking Shack -- not only does it add things that I don’t like and really don’t think fit in the established Wizarding World like the shrunken heads and a slide projector being used in Snape’s DADA class -- not only did this film depict its characters blatantly showing off their supposedly “secret” magical artifacts with no repercussions, such as Harry under his Invisibility Cloak stealing a lollypop from Neville and whamming through a crowd of people and Hermione not even trying to hide the Time Turner around her neck -- not only did Ron lose one of his best scenes in the entire series, where he stands on his broken leg yelling at Sirius that he’d have to kill him and Hermione to get to Harry, and was downgraded to the point that he pretty much became dead weight -- not only did Lupin’s werewolf form look more like a half-bald monkey than the hulking, terrifying mass I’d wanted to see -- not only did Lupin and Sirius talk to Harry about Lily almost exclusively and barely mention their best friend James -- not only was everything Crookshanks did except him chasing Scabbers left out -- not only did the script never explain that Lupin, Pettigrew, Sirius, and James were the Marauders and the reason behind the pen-names -- not only did the film originally MISSPELL “MOONY” WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN DOWN IN THE FRIGGIN’ BOOK -- but this film ruined the best part of the entire story. The descent into the Shrieking Shack and the revelation of who really betrayed the Potters took three whole chapters to unravel because of how much information was revealed and how many emotions were packed into it...yet the film decided to spend less than TEN MINUTES on that three-chapter-long plot twist. TEN. And most of the exposition dialogue was shouted haphazardly across the room in about five minutes of that time. It’s honestly little wonder to me that director Alfonso Cuaron originally hadn’t wanted to read the book before making the film and had to be convinced to do so -- he clearly was more interested in putting his own stamp on the story than respecting what was already there in the books or even in the previous films, and although yes, the darker tone and more unique visual style did help the series in the long run, I just wish that it hadn’t been done in the adaptation of my favorite book in the series. Azkaban deserved a more faithful adaptation than this.
6) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In a way I almost feel bad for the filmmakers trying to adapt this book. GoF is the longest in the entire series and arguably has the most subplots and tiny important details casually slipped into the text out of all of them, which would be difficult to adapt in a three-act feature film. I can’t help but feel it should’ve gotten the halfsies treatment the way Hallows did, given that it would’ve been difficult to fit every little important thing into one movie, even a long one. That being said, though...yeah, this film really is incoherent unless you’ve read the books. How do you even try to tell Goblet’s story if you’re going to cut out all of the Crouch family’s backstory? Answer: by revealing the twist ending in the first ten minutes by showing Crouch, Jr. is alive and turning him into an uninteresting, one-dimensional character, I guess. David Tenant is a wonderful actor and he could’ve been a wonderful Crouch, Jr., but in this adaptation he had just about nothing to work with. Then of course they also cut out Winky, Dobby, Hermione’s SPEW movement, the Quidditch World Cup game, Bertha Jorkins, Ludo Bagman, Percy Weasley joining the Ministry, the Weasley twins and Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, Rita Skeeter getting her comeuppance, and Crouch, Jr. getting Kissed by dementors before Fudge could hear his testimony about Voldemort’s return. I also wish they hadn’t turned Cedric, Viktor, and Fleur into such one-note, one-dimensional characters either -- Robert Pattinson got the most to work with out of the three actors, but the characters still seem very shallow compared to their book-originals, and considering Viktor and Fleur get no further development in later films, their characters pretty much start and end with the little material their actors get in this movie. Even Voldemort’s depiction I’m somewhat torn about: I like Ralph Fiennes as an actor, but I had sort of hoped he’d look a little scarier and that he’d have red eyes the way he had when he was attached to Quirrel’s head in Sorcerer/Philosopher and as described in the book. As much as I sympathize with how difficult the task was to adapt this story, Warner Bros. still could’ve made a longer movie and kept in more of the stuff needed to understand what was going on. Still, there are some good visuals in this film and I like a lot of the new music tracks, too.
5) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
The Hallows films overall I sort of just see as “okay,” mainly because they and Prince’s adaptation are so dark that at some points I think they forget what made the stories so likable in the first place -- namely, the characters. Sure, we can’t have as much humor here, but where’s the love? Where are the distinct personalities, where’s the friendship? And really, one of the few answers this film gave was in that OOC Harmione dance scene, which...yeah, not only did it have no romantic chemistry (which I suppose I should be glad of, as that would be even more OOC than the scene already is), but it also had very little friendship chemistry too. It was just awkward and stilted to watch. Even Ron’s return wasn’t as strong because the film adaptations went so far out of their way to marginalize Ron and not make him an important part of the trio...so yeah, contrasted to the book where Harry and Hermione mourned Ron’s absence, the awkward dance scene attempting joy and failing miserably just falls even more flat. There are some good moments, like Luna and Harry interacting at the wedding and the break-in at the Ministry, and there’s a lot less stuff cut from this film than in others, but there’s also a lot less that I can say I loved in this film than in others.
4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Part 2 is pretty even with Part 1 for me, as it doesn’t cut as much out but also left a lot to be desired. Because of the lack of explanation about what things Voldemort would turn his Horcruxes into, Harry has to rely solely on deux-ex-machina visions to tell him what to do next, Harry breaking the Elder Wand felt like such a cop-out, and the Battle of Hogwarts, although not bad exactly, really never showed off the scale of the damage and loss the way it could’ve. Fred’s death isn’t even given its proper screen time! But at the same time, I found more memorable scenes in this movie -- the Room of Requirement confrontation, McGonagall taking charge before the Battle of Hogwarts, the ending at Platform 9 3/4 that actually used the Leaving Hogwarts track from the first movie the way I’d dreamed that they would when I first read the book -- and of course every moment of Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. Yes, Rickman portrayed Snape as a much more likable, much less gray character than he was in the books, but he was still wonderful to watch every second he was on screen.
3) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone
I acknowledge nostalgia might play more of a role in my judgement of the first two films, given that I was a young teenager when they first came out...but I’m sorry, aesthetically, Columbus’s films were the most true to their source material. The darkness didn’t really start in the books until GoF, and since Cuaron jumped the gun on the darkness in Azkaban, we lost that gradual fading of the light from the original novels. And really, the Wizarding World was charming! It still is! And with the departure of Columbus, we kind of lost that charm in future films, even during the parts that were supposed to be less dark and gritty. We never got it back, and yes, one could see that as somewhat reminiscent of childhood innocence -- but I disagree, charm can be appreciated at any age. Even in my darkest days, I still could appreciate it. If anything, charm in the midst of despair and gloom became all the more precious. But regardless...Sorcerer/Philosopher is one of the most true to its subject matter -- it really does depict things almost exactly the way I’d imagined them while reading the book. The score John Williams wrote for the first two films in particular made everything feel just as magical as when I was first reading the first two books, and as the films went on, we lost that recurring score that favored the reuse of certain themes to instill various emotions: instead we just got individual themes for each film that were rarely used outside of that particular film. But I acknowledge Sorcerer/Philosopher doesn’t take nearly enough risks, the details cut so as to compress scenes sometimes create plot holes (like Snape protecting the Stone and supposedly bullying Quirrell to find out how to get past his defense, even though both their challenges were not included in the film), the CGI is pretty outdated, and a lot of the child actors were at the beginning of their learning curve. Really, the only stand-out performances among the child actors in my opinion were Tom Felton and Rupert Grint -- Dan had his moments, but Emma and a lot of the more minor actors like Devon Murray as Seamus at points sounded like they were acting in a school play. And when you placed those kids alongside great adult actors like Robbie Coltrane and Richard Harris, it could be a bit jarring. Still, I’d be lying if I said I don’t really enjoy watching this movie, almost as much as I did when I watched it as a kid so many times that after a while I could recite the entire script from memory.
2) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I was fortunate enough to see this film opening night with my mum and best friend at the time, and really, Chamber just built on Sorcerer/Philosopher’s cheesy yet charming, book-loyal formula. Like the previous film, there are some important details cut and not that many risks taken from a visual or film-making perspective and the CGI often doesn’t look that great (Dobby in particular hasn’t aged that well), plus some of the scenes aren’t that well-directed (i.e. the fight between the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch teams lacked any real anger or energy, and even the Dueling Club scene was oddly slow and lacked excitement)...but even so, I think the child performances are better here, and we got a lot more scenes with excellent adult actors like Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, Julie Walters as Molly Weasley, and Kenneth Branagh as Lockhart. I also laugh a lot watching this one! Lockhart gets a lot of his great, funny lines from the book, but young Rupert Grint also shows a great talent for comedy that, I must be honest, is kind of lost after Chamber, as he becomes less of a distinct character who happens to say funny things and more of just a wimpy, tag-along sidekick who’s often made the butt of a joke. Even now, my mum and I smile at the memory of watching the film in theaters and laughing and cheering with the rest of the audience when Lockhart cries, “Amazing! This is just like MAGIC!”
1) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
This film adaptation is based off my second favorite book in the series, and as much as it cut from that book, I think it overall captured the spirit of the book the best out of the series while also making a visually distinctive film. Yes, it cut out Marietta Edgecombe and the moral grayness her inclusion represented, Sirius’s passive-aggressiveness, pettiness, and cruelty toward Kreacher and the depth that it gave him as a flawed father figure, Harry’s lashing out at Dumbledore and how real it made both Sirius’s loss and Harry’s grief, Percy’s alienation of his family and the exploration of the cost of standing by one’s ideals, Neville and his family at St. Mungo’s and the pathos and complexity it gave his character, Umbridge running Hagrid out of Hogwarts and McGonagall being injured and how much that cut Harry off from the Order, and Umbridge’s revelation that she’d sent the dementors after Harry and how neatly it tied up all the loose ends. But at the same time, I hated Umbridge in this film just as much as I did in the books. I felt the sorrow of Sirius’s loss just as much as I did in the books. I felt the satisfaction at seeing Neville grow through joining the D.A. and becoming a more three-dimensional, heroic character despite his shortcomings just as I did in the books. I felt for Trelawney when she was being forcibly evicted from Hogwarts just as much as I had in the books. I felt the triumph of the Weasley twins’ rebellion against Umbridge just as much as I did in the books. I felt the camaraderie of Dumbledore’s Army just as much as I did in the books. I felt the love that Harry had for his friends and believed in both his hopelessness and his desire to fight for them just as much as I did in the books. And yet there were also film-only additions that I really liked -- the emphasis on Harry’s friends being the reason he resists Voldemort’s control, the montage of Umbridge sinking her Inquisitorial claws into Hogwarts, the music written to accompany the scenes at the Ministry and featuring Umbridge, Sirius punching Lucius Malfoy in the face and calling Harry “James” by accident. Even in a visual sense, it wasn’t too dark and gritty, but not too rosy and colorful either. Yes, this film had dark moments, but it never lost sight of what the original book series was about -- not the doom and gloom, not the action and thrills, not the drama and intrigue, not even the flights of fancy, but the love. What even are our heroes fighting for, if not the ones and things they love? Why do we even care? Why would we even watch any of these films at all, if not because of the love? In Order, I never forgot what Harry was fighting for. It balanced out the doubt and fear with kinship and nobility, just as I felt the books always had and the films often didn’t. So as many important details are shaved off, it at least still felt like Harry Potter. Not perfect, but hey, what adaptation is?
#oh boy here i go#analysis#reviews#opinion#harry potter#harry potter and the sorcerer's stone#harry potter and the philosopher's stone#harry potter and the chamber of secrets#harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban#harry potter and the goblet of fire#harry potter and the order of the phoenix#harry potter and the half-blood prince#harry potter and the deathly hallows#harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1#harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2
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Daily Doodle 251 – December 23, 2018
What a day, friggin 262 miles / 422 km traveled and 7 hours driving.. My poor butt xAx We saw a lot of neat stuff though!
We had a great day with friends, some from the west and some from the east at the end of the day!! <3
Today I woke up early and quickly got ready to go out to Pixie’s. While heading down I realized I forgot the cake candle and felt bad again..
Anyways, while driving through the city’s highway, I noticed the road ahead was covered in thick fog, it was all over this part of the city! I’ve never seen this happen and it was pretty crazy
I safely made it to Pixie’s where he got ready and we left to refuel my car to near max capacity, then stop at a friend’s house who wanted to gift Pixie something. Turns out she gifted him an Austin Powers Pop Figure! <3 This makes two Pop figures for Pixie now! We then ate breakfast at a nearby Burger King before heading out on the very long trip west of the island
I thought my GPS would route me through the north of the island, but it routed me through the south. I think this was better since there’s much less traffic along that route, no tolls after the first few ones and it was half an hour faster! Pixie mentioned he was already tired of going through the south since we took the same road twice in a week, but it was the faster option
We drove through the usual mountains but this time listening to the Forza Horizon 4 soundtrack, a racing game Pixie loves a LOT! This made the drive along the mountains feel a lot more rad too! We then drove through the south cities and towns before reaching more desolate and deserted areas of the road
We eventually arrived at the mall we would meet in, it took us an hour and a half of driving. There we just spent a bunch of time in the car waiting for one of Pixie’s friends who owned a Miata and eventually got tired of waiting and left walking. We then spotted the Miata driving away towards where our car was, so we left walking there again until we found it
We greeted the owner and started talking, Pixie also inspecting the Miata closely. I looked around it as we kept talking, even a security guard joining to talk as he had been a previous owner of a Miata. He also recognized Pixie cuz of the fursuit, he’s apparently known in the Miata group as basically the only one with a fursuit heh. Pix also got to drive this Miata too for a bit <3
After a short while, Zee and another fur friend showed up and we all talked together until we later split up. The Miata owner left while Zee, Pixie, our other fur friend and I left into the mall to hang out
We stopped at an arcade, then browsed a farmer’s market before leaving to this.. REALLY messed up Walmart with a really bad layout. It had cash registers in every corner! Every wall was occupied by something, aaaagh! It was crowded as heck and after a bit of browsing we left to this deserts shop
There, Pixie told me to get a hot chocolate, so I got that. I then asked if they could add whipped cream, which they did and surprised me by even sprinkling cinnamon on top as well as putting a cherry! Pixie tried it but didn’t like the whipped cream at all, I did too and it tasted pretty bad.. I believe it was cake frosting, it wasn’t good
We also watched Zee and our friend play Smash together on Zee’s Switch console, pretty neat little thing. Our friend had to leave a while later though, so we said our goodbyes and then later left to get food. Zee and I ate at this Chinese restaurant he recommended which was DELICIOUS!! Lots of noodles with lots of liquid, not dry <3
Pix wanted Taco Bell, so we took my leftovers and left to my car. We then drove off north to the nearest Taco Bell which was pretty far away.. Anyways, on the way there, we saw a bunch of sporty cars since the west of the island has a lot. We even spotted a Lamborghini!! I also think most of our passengers see Pix and I talk about cars 90% of the time, I’m learning from Pix aaaa!!
Pix got his food and we all sat down to chat until it was getting late. We then drove back to the mall and dropped off Zee, obviously hugging him goodbye and leaving north again
The drive was much much longer than the south one considering all the traffic and traffic lights, it even became the night. We tried making a stop at one of Pixie’s friend’s house, but he wasn’t around, and it was controlled access, so we left. We admired the beautiful view of the moon reflecting on the waves at the beach next to us
At the end of the drive I was getting really tired and was considering switching with Pixie if he wasn’t sleepy, but we rolled down the windows and my sleepiness went away considerably.. I probably needed fresh air
We safely made it home and then left to one of Pixie’s friend’s house who gifted him yet ANOTHER Austin Powers pop! He also gifted me a weighted kunai which I was happy to spin around! I sadly realized it wasn’t that meant to be spun, so I’ll have to find a way to truly reinforce it
We then left to a nearby Burger King where this friend got food for us, we then all ate together. Some time later another friend of Pixie’s joined us and we spent the time chatting there until we were told to go out as they were gonna close the restaurant. We then just spent a good chunk of the night talking outside until we left to Pixie’s house
Once there, Pix and the guys drank some coquito and we then spent the rest of the midnight talking and having a good time. We even danced a few times.. as.. cringy as it can be.. We were noisy, oh dear
It was then late, so we left to drop off our friend, then arrive back at Pixie’s to hug and kiss goodbye for a few hours as I’d be back very soon. I then left home and quickly got to writing the doodle and sketching it, but it was then way too late to ink, so I went to bed to nap for a few hours..
This day was the longest in terms of driving I’ve EVER done.. So much time sitting and so much of the island traveled, phew
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Heads Held High,Touch The Sky, Our Hearts We Pledge To Thee
@miissbiianca @bernardnewhart
Previously on The Rescuers + Orville: Bianca warns Orville of what’s coming, Orville tries to run away, and The Rescuers find Orville had been taken, again.
And now, The Rescuers do some rescuing.
tw: blood, mentions of past torture, violence, implied death, guns.
ORVILLE
Above is the sky where the Sun it still pondering whether it should take its leave. The other side of the world beckons to it as it hasn’t seen it in a few hours. The Moon and stars, while not able to provide the light or warmth, will keep this side of Earth company until the Sun returns.
Below is a house, larger than those in the surrounding area, though the closest one is acres beyond it. What’s closest is the land surrounding it, flat and fenced. There grass there looks a little overgrown, weeds sprouting up all over.
In this house are men and women who speak in Russian to one another. Things are scattered everywhere. Old dust is either coating every surface or floating around in the air from where it had been scooped off or blown away by a quick harsh breath to the surface it had been quietly clinging to for months while the house had been empty.
Behind the house is a barn. It’s quite a large barn, two stories, with an open layout. Where it once held tools and stored many other things it now sits empty. For the most part because below this barn is another room. Hidden under hay that had been left behind and not cleaned out is the door to a staircase and a hall that leads to a door. Two men with guns sit outside of it, talking back and forth with one another easily in the same Russian as those above and beyond in the house.
It’s a nice summer evening. The sky turns a soft shade of pink as it says goodbye to the Sun and greets the Moon for their nightly conversation.
Orville can’t see any of this.
All he sees are four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. Empty shelves surrounded him.A door is in front of him. The chair he’s tied down to. His badge for PrideU was off to the side.
Blood.
There was blood everywhere. Down his front, on the rope, on the floor where he had spit it out over and over, after taking hit after hit to the face.
This all blurs as tears, fat and hot, fall over the brims of his eyes. He hates to cry, but he can’t seem to help it, and there’s no one there to see it, either. They’ve left him alone for now with the promise of picking up in a few hours. Where it had taken him months to cry before, it’s only a day now.
Orville looked up at the ceiling and pretended it was the sky for a moment, regretting letting his last few moments with her be occupied with fighting instead of drinking it all in. Stupid to think he would have gotten away. Stupid to think he had escaped at all. It was only a matter of time before they had found him, grabbed him, cramed him back into his cage. He sighed through his nose, the dried blood there itching and he couldn’t even move to scratch it.
His chair had been tipped over on his side when he had been trying to break it, and paid the price when the door had opened. They hadn’t even had the decency to set him back up right. Nothing had changed at all, it would seem.
BIANCA
It was taking too long.
They had drove through the night, but there was just too much land to cover. When dawn had broken, they had been mostly lost, and she had no idea where the hell they had gone. The trail had gone cold, and so she had turned to the RAS in London to help her out.
They had limited intel, though. They told them to check the farm houses, and so that was the only thing for it. Park down the driveway, work upwards. Most were occupied, funnily enough, by farmers, going about their daily business. None of them seemed suspicious. None of them seemed to be hiding something.
It was as the sun was setting that Bianca found it.
She had procured a pair of binoculars, taking from the front seat of a truck she had passed on one farm; she hated to steal, but she convinced herself that she was only borrowing them. She would take them back as soon as she could. She pulled the car over at the bottom of the long driveway, and looked through the binoculars at the house, filled with people, lights on and moving around, though the farm itself looked abandoned. There was a barn behind it, and Bianca handed the binoculars to Bernard. There was no other farm for quite some distance around.
“What do you think?” She asked. It was already dark out, and so she could spot the lights on the horizon. “I don’t think it’s just a family. I think we’ve found where we need to go.”
BERNARD
After leaving Orville’s house Bernard had little to no idea what is was they were supposed to do. He was gone, the people who had taken him probably weren’t planning on shooting up a flare gone and hoisting a sign up in the air with an arrow pointing to his location. Bianca had said she didn’t know why they were here, but now it seemed pretty obvious.
The only thing they had, had to go on was the picture that Bianca had been sent of the people who had supposedly taken Orville, but that gave no indication as to where they were hiding out. If they were even hiding out. If they weren’t all the way in friggin’...where were they from again, Russia, right?
Although he’d been assured that if they made a move to get out of the UK the RAS would have known about it, so that really wasn’t the problem. The problem was the two of them trying to find a needle in a haystack. Out there in the farmlands with large stretches of land and plenty of places to be hiding.
And then when the found them? What then? He kept thinking about how the two of them could possibly take on however many of them there were.
That’s what was running over in his mind as he squinted through the binoculars, his glasses pressed against the lenses. She was right. Usually these houses had small amounts of people but he could make out more, all roughly adult looking figures. He shrugged, lowering the binoculars down to look at it from a distance as if that would help him. Could just be a family reunion. Or a party.
“I-I think it’s worth a shot,” he said, pulling his eyes away to face her.
BIANCA
She didn’t exactly want to go in, but she didn’t think that they had a choice.
In fact, she knew that they didn’t. Orville could be in there, and if he was, she was going to get him out. She was going to keep looking - she would search every farm house, she’d search every inch of land, she’d follow the, back to whatever Russian hole they had crawled out of, but she wasn’t returning to Swynlake without Orville in tow.
And Bernard would be coming with her, because Bianca was long past worrying about whether or not he still wanted to be here. She needed a partner for this mission; someone to have her back. She trusted him to be that person.
“Alright,” She said, taking the binoculars back and peering through them again. “We can start with the barn - there seems to be less people there. If it is them, then we want to go as unnoticed as we can, for as long as we can. Don’t shoot unless it’s an absolute necessity.”
She left the keys in the ignition, and the doors unlocked as she slipped out of the vehicle, keeping hold of the binoculars for now. “We’ll go around the back. There might be another way in. If not… we’ll need to take out the guards.” Probably not too hard - so long as they didn’t know they were coming. “Follow me.” She hissed, dropping her voice to a whisper as she climbed over the fence and into the field behind the barn, moving forwards through the overgrown grass.
BERNARD
He listened to her intently, trying to ignore the sound of his heart as it sped up in his chest. It was distracting and not what he needed to be paying attention to right now. He glanced back and forth between her and the house, the barn, the scene just beyond the windows surrounding them. Bernard made a face at the don’t shoot comment because no, he didn’t want to shoot unless there was no other choice. That hadn’t even crossed his mind until she had handed it to him hours earlier but. Oh hell.
Bianca was opening up the door and-.
This was it. They were getting out of the car. They were going to go look around. The mission was in motion and Bernard was there for it because someone, a sort of friend of his and friend to Bianca, was in danger. As was the rest of the town, potentially, if they didn’t stop them. There was no turning back, this is what he had signed on for.
With one final breath in an attempt to put himself at ease he pushed open the door on his side, and quietly shut it behind him so it didn’t make too much commotion. Bernard followed after Bianca, as she instructed, pausing as he watched her gracefully clear the fence. While he knew he couldn’t do that he also knew he couldn’t just stand there because they’d get separated in the dark so Bernard moved forwards.
It was not as graceful or quick but he did land on his feet instead of his face so he was going to call it a win. He adjusted his glasses when he stood up straight, looked back to the barn in a very, that wasn’t so bad, fashion, and then jogged to catch up to his partner with his back bent a little as he went.
BIANCA
It was like stretching a muscle she hadn’t exercised in a while; the memories of how to do this were still there, but it had taken her a little while to truly get into the swing of it. Now, though, as she moved through the grass towards the barn, crouched down low to avoid being spotted, she felt… oddly comfortable. She was worried about Orville, about the town, she was angry that the VTM were there, but it was sort of exhilarating. After almost a year of mostly sitting behind a desk, it felt good to stretch.
The barn wasn’t too far, but it still felt like it took forever to reach it. She flattened herself against the wall, the wood rough against the back of her neck, but that wasn’t what was on her mind. She waved Bernard forward, and after a moment, she looked around the corner.
“Two guards this side - I don’t know about the other.” She said. “Looks like most of them are still in the house. We sneak round, we incapacitate them - I’ll take the left, you take the right. Okay?”
BERNARD
This was kinda weird for Bernard because normally his eyes would be looking down, thinking too much about what they could be stepping on, what could be hidden in the grass that could potentially trip them over. Thinking about how he was getting his trousers and shoes dirty, about the grass brushing against the backs of his legs like slithery creepy creatures. Instead he was thinking about what was ahead of them, about keeping up with Bianca, not the little things that might kill him but more of the big picture.
He held back once they got closer to the barn until she motioned for him to join her. He closed the distance again, stepping up beside her against the barn’s side while trying to stay as small as possible to not draw attention to them.
Bianca’s plan was sound. It would all come down to the execution of it, but he knew if he hesitated or back tracked or over thought it then he was going to fail and all this would be done before it even began. And that just was not an option for anyone here.
“Okay, I’ll see you on the other side,” he said, nodding, and moving around to the other corner as he was having to go the long way around. Bernard looked back to her for a moment, and then disappeared around the barn.
BIANCA
Bianca had considered the notion that what they might be scurrying up to was just a normal farm. She had considered it, and then immediately dismissed it; the people lingering outside looked too much like your stereotypical Russian gang for them to be any old farming family. The two outside the barn, the two she had plans to incapacitate, were prime examples: tall, broad, crew cuts, wearing all black.
Bianca was quite pleased at having the opportunity to knock them out.
And that was what she did; moving around the wall of the barn she shifted to keep in the shadows. She could only hope that Bernard would be careful, that he would be fast; they would need to do this seamlessly to avoid alerting the others.
She snuck up on the guard, digging her knees into the backs of his to buckle him, and then using the butt of her gun, she smacked him over the head, smiling just a little at the thud he made as he hit the dirt.
She waited a second before appearing from the shadows, only emerging once she had heard another dull thud. “Nice work,” She said to Bernard, smiling ever so slightly still. “Inside,” she hissed, nodding for him to follow as she flicked on her torch. “See anything?”
BERNARD
He stood at the corner of the barn for a few seconds, swearing to himself under his breath as they were facing in a direction that if he were to step out they would see him coming and all Bernard had was the element of surprise on this guy. He wasn’t sure what to do, willing to just take the risk of getting shot or the guard to yell out for help and expose them but there was a small sound of something hitting dirt that caught the guard’s attention.
Bernard didn’t question it, didn’t think about it. He crept forwards and caught the man around the neck. It wasn’t the most perfect technique on a headlock, but he did manage to get his other hand around the man’s mouth and nose and hold on for dear life as the guard struggled against him.
There was a little bit of a fight, the guard pushing them both back into the wall of the barn so Bernard’s back hit against the side, his arms coming up to hit at Bernard’s arm, his face, bumping his glasses out of place.
When Bianca found them the guard was knocked out due to oxygen deprivation, slumped up against the wall, and Bernard was breathing heavily as he re-adjusted his glasses. Unable to speak, he tiredly pointed at the guard, blinking at him as if he couldn’t believe he just did that by himself, then looked up at Bianca again. But she was already gone. He sighed and followed in after her.
“Uh,” he squinted, trying to get his eyes to adjust the much darker air under the barn’s roof. “No. You?”
BIANCA
She was proud of him, as it happened. She just didn’t have the time now to tell him, to really let him know; she would tell him later, once all of this was over, and her friend and the town were safe again.
Looking into the barn, Bianca shone the torch around, looking for something — what, she wasn’t entirely sure, but something. She shook her head, her frown deepening. “No.” She said. “Nothing.”
The barn looked the same inside as it appeared from the outside: abandoned. Sort of dilapidated. Nothing special, and thus, the perfect place to hide a victim.
“Look around,” She said, “There has to be another door, a hatch, maybe. They wouldn’t send guards to look at stand by an empty building - there has to be something here.”
BERNARD
Bernard had really been banking on Orville being in the barn so it was disappointing to find the place empty. And by empty, it was really and truly empty. Nothing but the structure itself and the air that hung around inside it growing old. No kidnapped janitor tied up somewhere like some kind of horror movie. Which was both a bad and a good thing. Mostly bad, considering they hadn’t found him and the odd of him being in the house with the rest of these people was growing in size.
But Bianca was right, it wouldn’t make any sense sense for them to just be hanging out by the barn standing watch over the exit if there was nothing to be guarding inside. Or maybe they were keeping something from getting out.
His head was tilted upwards trying to see upwards at the upper level of the barn. Bernard had to take a few steps back in order to see over the edge of the balcony. Maybe they were hiding some kind of weapons up there, or-.
Not looking where he was going Bernard tripped over several pieces of discarded wood. He fell hard on to his back, his hands reacting and sticking out behind him to try and catch on something but there was nothing but the solid ground.
So solid, in fact, that it gave of a more metallic sound that echoed instead of the grass and pact dirt that only gave off soft reverberance. He winced, shutting his eyes tightly against the sound until it faded away with the rest of the evening’s sounds. Bernard cracked one eye open and looked around, waiting for some kind of negative consequence, but when none came he turned himself over in order to push himself to his feet via the help of his knees and hands.
“Sorry,” he whispered, “my bad. I didn’t know they uh, made barns with met-metal floors.”
BIANCA
She had been turned away when she heard the noise, and she had about jumped out of her skin, whirling round to see what the help was going on, already reaching for her gun—
And then her eyes landed on Bernard getting to his feet, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
She quickly looked out of the barn, but the noise had seemingly gone unnoticed; Bianca came back inside, narrowing her eyes a little, shaking her head. “They don’t.” She answered, moving closer, setting the torch between her teeth so she could look.
She had to sweep away some dirt and dust, but the metal glinted beneath her palm once it was clear. She looked at Bernard for a moment, and then looked back at the hatch, setting the torch on the ground now so that she could fiddle with the latch. It was old, rusted, but not locked.
Bianca lifted it, slowly, the hinges creaking as she did so. She looked briefly behind her, to make sure no one had heard, but at this point she wasn’t sure she cared.
The inside was dark, and even dustier than the door had been; when she shone her eyes torch down into it she could see steps, stairs leading down to… something.
Orville, maybe. Probably. Hopefully.
Bianca looked once more to Bernard, and then began to descend, torch clasped in one hand and gun in the other.
BERNARD
Bernard looked at her in confusion because, well what else could it have been? Just a sheet of metal lying on the ground? Maybe from marking the roof or something the owners had just forgotten?
He watched carefully from off to the side where he had moved to get out of her way. Her hands brushed off the debris and he wasn’t even thinking about how dirty it was, just about how there was a trap door in the ground. When she looked up at him Bernard gave her a little shrug and frown as if to say, ‘I dunno.’
It could have been nothing, it could have been a coincidence, but as Bianca set down her flashlight so its light was less concentrated he could see around the door where it had been in use as of recently. The indentations in the dirt, where the excess hay had been moved around from where the door had rested back.
His eyebrows rose when it opened to reveal stairs. Bernard didn’t even think about protesting when she started down them into the dark and scary nothingness down below. He followed instead. Hand touching the wall as he went in order to keep his balance. Expecting dirt when what he got felt smooth, almost like concrete.
When they touched down from the stairs the ceiling was a whole lost closer to his head but the width of it was enough to where he could stand next to her and not be touching. A little ways in was another door, this time standing up right. He moved forwards first, her hands both occupied, and took hold of the padlock that was keeping an obviously newly installed latch closed, its metallic shine was far brighter in comparison to the rest of the door. Bernard looked back at Bianca, the question of what now? on his face.
BIANCA
She was surprised to hit another door, and Bianca brought her free hand up to touch her, her brow furrowed ever so slightly. It had been used lately, she could tell by the way it glinted in the light, and the tracks through the dust on the floor. This is what they had been guarding - there would be something behind this door that was valuable, or illegal, or both.
She waited for Bernard to open it, and then looked at the padlock with a sigh.
Further proof that the door had been used recently, but a hindrance to them both. She thought about it for a moment, weighed their options, and then handed him the torch, shifting the gun in her hands. “Keep the light on the lock,” she instructed. “And I’m sorry about your ears.”
Bianca took a deep breath in, aimed, and then exhaled, squeezing the trigger. The small chamber exploded with noise, a noise Bianca could only hope hadn’t been heard by the people in the house, but when she stepped forward, ears ringing, she found the padlock broken in two.
Hanging onto the gun, she reached out one hand to push the door open, slowly and carefully. If there was anyone in there, they could be about to rush them - she kept her arms locked, gun pointed in front of her as she edged into the room.
There was only one person waiting, though.
“Orville!”
ORVILLE
The sounds just outside the door had not been lost on Orville. He had been trying, and failing to sleep when he heard the creaking that usually meant they were coming. He had watched on in anxious anticipation from where he was, tossed over onto the ground. His breathing had sped up, his chest straining against the ropes tied there as he tried to get his lungs to full capacity, gearing himself up for either finally being moved or for another session of torture and pain. There were footsteps, and had he been in the right state of mind he might have noticed how they weren’t as heavy as the ones that usually trampled down the stairs and the little hall to get to him. They were softer, like they didn’t want to be heard at all.
He flinched violently at the sound that he knew to be gunfire, shutting his eyes against it. Orville struggled against his bindings again, his wrists raw, his legs barely able to move at all. He couldn’t really feel his feet as the ropes were so tight they were almost cutting off the circulation. Why they were shooting in the hallway he didn’t know. Could only guess they were here to kill him. Or put a bullet somewhere they knew wouldn’t and leave him down here until he did while they made their escape.
And then the door was opening, and someone said his name. It sounded familiar, but--
His eyes opened, squinting against the bright light as they kept him in the dark until they’d bring in lamps to see what they were doing to him, so all he could really make out was two dark figures. He tried to scramble back, the foot closer to the ground kicking to get away. Though he knew it was pointless. He wasn’t going to escape them. He was never going to escape them.
BERNARD
He took the flashlight from her, but didn’t catch on to her meaning until she was cocking the gun. Bernard jumped out of the way and held the light on the lock, looking back and forth between it and her. He shot her a confused look because? What? His ears? Why would he-?
Then she pulled the trigger and his eyes closed, shoulders tensing up. He blinked after a moment, opening his mouth slightly to move his jaw round as his ears rang. Right. He had forgotten about how loud that was since he usually wore the ear muffs that blocked it out for the most part.
Bernard followed in after her, letting out a relieved breath when he, too, saw Orville. He shined the light on him, bringing his other hand to clap over his mouth at the sight of the other man. Tied up in a chair looking like he’d had the life kicked out of him. Even more so when he tried to shrink back away from them. Just to see what kind of pain these people had inflicted was horrifying. They needed to get him out of here, get him some medical help because there was blood all over his face.
Only he didn’t look like he was happy to see them, and he didn’t know how to approach something like that. With him struggling he didn’t want to go cutting at his binds. He glanced at Bianca, unsure of how to approach without anyone getting hurt.
BIANCA
There were many things that flashed through her mind in that split second, the light turning to Orville, illuminating him in the darkness.
The first was the mere fact that he was there. That they had found him. She hadn’t left him this time, she hadn’t let him go so easily. Then, of course, there was the blood. And the blood was everywhere - the smell of it, metallic, copper-like, mingled with the smell of the mold from the walls and the dust in the air. It was down his front, on the floor— but he was alive, squinting through the light, and that was enough.
“Don’t point the torch directly at him,” she told Bernard, moving forward slowly. “And keep a look out for anyone coming - they might’ve heard the shot.”
In all likelihood they had, and that meant that Bianca needed to move quickly. She moved over to Orville, at first kneeling beside him, careful and gentle as her hand met his shoulder. “Orville, it’s me. It’s Bianca. I’m going to untie you, okay? Then we’re going to get out of here. No hanging around today.”
She made no false promises, didn’t tell him that it would be okay, or that they would all get out just fine. Orville wasn’t stupid, and neither was she, nor Bernard; all three knew that this was going to be ugly. But getting Orville untied, getting him to his feet - that was a good start, at least.
Bianca took the Swiss Army knife from her pocket, flicked the blade into place, and got to work cutting the ropes.
ORVILLE
The light moved away, blue and black dots blinking in his vision instead. His hands had curled into fists, trying to wriggle away from the chair’s arms, his feet doing the same where they were pinned against the legs. Why he still continued to fight was always a mystery. Even to himself, he wished he had the self awareness to just stop. Yet no matter how many times he told himself to give up, that this was his life now, he always tried to fight back. As if he had to prove he wasn’t going to go down so easily.
Didn’t really matter though. In the end, he was already dead.
His eyes were still adjusting to the change in light so when someone touched his shoulder he reacted violently, jerking his shoulder at much as the restraints would allow him to try and get away. He didn’t want it dislocated, he didn’t want it impaled with anything, didn’t want the barrel of a gun pointed into it to tear it apart by a bullet. His breathing was still heavy, coming in and out through gritted teeth.
Then the voice came again, and he turned his head to look at who was speaking to figure out why they sounded so familiar. Finally his vision stopped swimming, he was sure they’d given him a concussion within the second hour he’d been here, and he focused in on their face.
“Bianca?” he whispered, because his throat had been scratched up from all his screaming and attempts to silence his wounded noises. He didn’t believe in what he was seeing, hearing, because it couldn’t be her. He had told her he was leaving. That she shouldn’t look for him after, and that had been the end of that. For a moment he thought he had finally gone mad. Dreaming of escaping shouldn’t have been until a few weeks had passed by, at the least.
It wasn’t until he felt the ropes give under her knife did it click that this was really happening because it hurt for the ropes to let go of him, for his limbs to move out of the positions they had been forced into for hours. Normally in dreams he couldn’t feel the pain.
BERNARD
As soon as Bianca said something he moved the light, feeling terrible for having probably blinded the guy. It was just such a shocking sight to see someone like that, hear the ragged breathing. No amount of training or reading or research could have prepared him for it. He knew the risks, and he had heard stories of past missions, but it was something entirely different to see it with his own eyes. Especially when the only other times he had seen the man had been when he was smiling, or scowling, or poking fun. Not tied up to a chair with blood and sweat and dirt stuck to his face.
But he couldn’t get emotional right now, couldn’t get too into his own head right now, there would be plenty of time for that later when they made it out of there.
Bianca was a sobering presence. He took a breath, nodding, and turned back to keep look out from the doorway. He kept the light just above his head tilted down to imitate what a lamp would do for the room, casting a wider net so he could see while also allowing Bianca and Orville that luxury, too. Bernard glanced back and forth between the two scenes, cursing the people with how much rope she was having to cut through.
He had known going in that these people were bad, it was only now that it clicked just how ruthless they were. It fueled him with anger, with the need to take these people down once and for all. He may not have had as big a stake in this as the two agents in front of him, but Bernard didn’t like bullies. People who thought they could get away with hurting someone else for their own gain, whatever it may be, and that’s all these people were.
BIANCA
Bianca cut him free, removing the bits of rope and tossing them aside. “I’m going to help you up now, okay? It’s going to be hard, but we have to go. We have to go right now.”
She knew he would know that already, but as if to punctuate her statement, there was a yell from outside, garbled, gruff Russian that she couldn’t decipher. “We need to get out of the room.” She said, looking to the stairs and back again. She could let Bernard handle it, but she would feel a lot better if she did it herself.
“Bernard,” She called, a little more hushed than usual. “Help him out. I’ll go first.”
ORVILLE
When the tension on the ropes released he flopped with a lack of grace, his jaw clenched as he pushed out air at the pain from moving unexpectedly. He just wanted to press his face back down into the dirt and sleep for the rest of his life. There was no end to his exhaustion, no relief came immediately. It was only more anxiety, more nerves. He felt like he was going to be sick, surprised he hadn’t been already.
He wanted to leave, he did, and he was screaming internally at his limbs to move, god dammit, move already. But they only did so in a sluggish fashion, stiff muscles trying to come back to life while the flair of pain kept other parts from wanting to be quick about it. His skin didn’t even feel right, warmed to an uncomfortable temperature without relief and tight. Dried blood had crusted over, making even his facial movements uncomfortable. Orville sat up, moving out of the chair. He was leaning to one side heavily as his muddied brain tried to catch up with the rest of him.
The sounds of the people who had done this to him gave him a sudden jump start, adrenaline kicking into his system once more. Using the chair he got himself to his feet, an arm coming up wrap around his middle.
“Bernard?” he repeated because, he knew that name, too. He followed Bianca as she went until it passed over to the other man’s movements, squinting at him as he came closer. “Hey, aren’t you--?”
BERNARD
His eyes shot up at the sound of people approaching. Their time was up, they needed to move. Now.
Bernard was already moving before Bianca could finish her suggestion. It only made sense, she was the better shot, the better fighter, and Bernard was more cushioned for someone to lean on. He gripped the flashlight with one hand, moving around to Orville’s side so he could get his arm wrapped around the man’s back, and get Orville’s arm draped around Bernard’s shoulders so he could take most of the weight off of him. Ideally he would have just thrown Orville over his shoulders and carried him out of here like all the heroes in the movies but he didn’t have that kind of strength. Instead he held on tightly to Orville’s wrist with the hand still holding the flashlight. He glanced up from what he was doing as Orville looked at him in confusion and held his stare.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, already knowing what Orville was thinking despite the words not coming out quite yet. “No time to explain, come on.”
Using his legs for the most part he pushed both his weight and Orville’s up, having to bend his back forwards slightly to compensate for the other. He walked forwards in short and choppy steps to keep them from tripping over one another.
BIANCA
Bianca was more than ready for a fight.
And she had the advantage of surprise; the man who had yelled was the first to come looking, and by hiding in the shadow the staircase Bianca managed to punch him in the nose and knock him back against the wall, which was all well and good, if he had been the only one.
As it happened, he was just one of many.
“Follow me,” Bianca called behind her, expecting Bernard and Orville, by extension, to do what she said. “And stay close.”
It was the last thing she said before she charged up the staircase, tossing up the lamp the Russian had been carrying to illuminate the dark and dusty barn. There was someone just in the doorway, half-lit by the lamp he carried, too, and Bianca grit her teeth. It was always going to end in a fight, wasn’t it?
ORVILLE
Orville starred at the other man in complete disbelief, wanting to ask how he got wrapped up in all of this, and a few other million questions, but then Bernard was moving them forwards and he could do nothing but follow along beside him. They’d left his legs alone at the least, having paid too much attention to smashing his hands and trying to get his face into something that wouldn’t be recognized.
He watched on as one of the men came down the stairs, as Bianca made contact. An unexpected, ‘oof,’ came out of his mouth as he heard the sound the man’s nose made, his own scrunching up to which he regretted because it had taken several hits now. Orville hadn’t seen her in action in years, and not that he doubted her abilities, but she was just as impressive as he remembered. Himself on the other hand…
As they followed her up the stairs he was coming to terms with the fact that they weren’t going to make it out of here alive. Not like this. One person fighting who knew how many men and women while the other two were sat back watching her do it.
Didn’t matter how hurt he was or how much his brain was reacting as if it were made of scrambled eggs, the only way they’d make it was if they all held their own.
“Us, too, then,” he said, patting a hand at Bernard’s chest to indicated that he should let him go. “Can’t let the lass take all the credit should we somehow make it out of here in one piece.”
BERNARD
He only had time to blink before Bianca had the guy who came looking for them was knocked into the wall. There wasn’t any time for him to stare in awe because he was having to carry himself and Orville up the stairs after Bianca.
Orville’s thinking was similar to Bernard’s. There was no way they were going to be able to outrun these people. They couldn’t even make it out the door because of the whole scary group of trained kidnappers and killers standing in their way. And because he was having to keep Orville standing he couldn’t help his partner.
It was a terrible situation, one he didn’t know what to do in. Orville, though, made the call for him with the hits to Bernard’s chest. He turned to look at him, feeling the other start to pull away.
He didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to put him in danger again after all he had just been through, but Orville was right. If he wanted to help Bianca, and if they wanted to make it out of this barn tonight they were going to have to work together.
“Do we have a plan?” he asked, stepping up next to Bianca with his eyes focused on the people at the door..
BIANCA
Her fist was aching, but she was doing her best to not to show it.
Did they have a plan? She was thinking about it. Calculating it just as she stood there, looking at the door, at the mob gathering behind it. There was only really one plan: fight.
“Give Orville your gun,” she said, her voice low and her words fast. “We’re all going to need to fight. Just keep pushing forward - make it to the long grass and keep running. And if you see Evgeniya?” She paused, looking between the two of them. “You leave her to me.”
ORVILLE
He shuffled forwards to Bianca’s other side, looking between her and Bernard. He was right there with her, there was no time ta sit around the table and work out a plan. Sometimes the only thing you could do in this line of work was grit your teeth, throw a punch, and hope to God it landed.
Orville kept his gaze on Bianca when she said that name, eyes narrowing as she let it linger in the air against the movements going on outside. Her finishing statement caught him by surprise, eyebrows pulling together.
“Bianca,” he said before she started off he grabbed onto her elbow, pulling her back. He paused, too, letting out a breath. There were a million things he wanted to say to her, but they’d run out of time for any of it. So he settled on what mattered the most, “Thank you.”
BERNARD
Bianca gave instructions and, you know, Bernard wasn’t really the one to question her since this wasn’t her first rodeo. No pun intended. But trying to fight their way out seemed like a terrible idea. He looked around for a moment, trying to see if there was any other exit from the barn, while Orville spoke to Bianca.
When he saw no alternative, as the other two had already long figured out, he pulled the gun from the back of his pants and then moved forwards, holding it out for Orville to take.
Not even a second after the gun was out of his hand someone yelled something and several men ran in. Bernard, not really thinking passed the whole we’re all going to need to fight moved first, turning to meet him before he could get to the other two, his arms coming up to wrap around him, dipping his shoulder into the guy’s middle and pushing him into a wooden beam. Both of them let out grunts upon impact.
BIANCA
It would probably take a lot for them to bring the ring leader out amongst the rabble, but Bianca meant it - if they saw Evgeniya, she was going to be the one to engage. She was going to be the one to put an end to her, lock her up or take her down, whichever. It was entirely personal, for many different reasons, most of them selfish in some way.
Yet, when Orville say thank you, it didn’t feel too selfish. She gave him a small smile, a nod, but she didn’t have time to speak; their time was well and truly up, as it happened.
With Bernard taking out the first goon that had ran after them, Bianca moved for the next one, grabbing his wrist and twisting until their gun skittered to the ground and she could bring her other elbow up, into his face. She had seen Bernard fall, but she had no time to react; just as soon as she’d dropped the first man to attack her another one charged, and Bianca reached for her gun - she didn’t want to use it, no, but she didn’t seem to have much choice.
ORVILLE
He turned to Bernard, his hand on the barrel of the gun at the same time Bernard had his on the grip to exchange it when the fighting started. It seemed as though the opposition had made the decision to fight, too. Orville watched on, as he was a bit stunned as the man, who was usually a soft spoken, took the first hit, followed quickly Bianca. When he looked up there was someone running at him, too. He was slow to his reaction time, the only thing he was able to do in the split second was raise his arm up in defense, bending down behind it to protect his head as the man tackled him around the waist
Being smashed to the ground and a large weight landing on top of him wasn’t the most pleasant of things, especially with his torso was already in enough pain from prior damage. He brought the hand up that he’d gripped the gun with up to take aim but the man was already sitting up. Seeing the movement from the corner of his eye he knocked the gun from Orville’s hand sending it sliding across the barn floor out of range
The man landed a few hits to Orville’s chest and face, and he yelled out at the pain. Knowing he couldn’t take much more of it, his brain getting antsy from being pinned down by the weight, Orville waited until the man pulled back to wind up for another punch. When he saw it coming back down he moved his head at the last second letting the man’s hand come down into the ground at full force next to his ear. The man pulled back, clutching his hand to his chest, and Orville rolled them over. They landed and Orville moved until he was on his back so he could smash his elbow into the man’s face.
The man went limp and Orville got to one knee, looking in the direction the gun had went off to. When he went to stand someone was grabbing him by his hair and pulled him backward to throw on to his back against the ground.
BERNARD
Bernard and the guy he’d pushed into the wooden beam slid to the ground. The man because the back of his head and spine had taken a hard hit to the wood and Bernard because his weight had been depending on the other guy to hold him up.
Both of them had a moment to pause, taking panting breaths as they rolled away from one another, groaning. Bernard looked up at the commotion behind him, both Orville and Bianca in their own altercations. He pushed himself back to his feet in order to help.
But only got as far as one step in their direction, mainly in Orville’s because he looked like he was having far more trouble than Miss Bianca, before someone caught him by the ankle and pulled his leg out from under him. He fell onto his stomach, his chin bouncing off the dirt. Bernard looked back to find the Russian he’d grinning at him. Then he reached forwards for Bernard’s calf, yanking him back. In a panic Bernard’s other leg came up and he kicked at the man’s face. His heel landed hard on the man’s nose, making his head snap back and hand let go of Bernard’s foot. Bernard rolled over onto his back and kicked again, getting him in the throat.
BIANCA
A shot in the knee, not lethal by most standards but hopefully enough to keep him down - or maybe not. As he fell he lunged at Bianca, fists flying, catching her as she dove to the side and landed heavily on the concrete floor. The punch to her ribs and the impact jarred her right down to her bones, and the hesitation that followed gave him ample time to reach for her ankle, trying to pull her along the ground towards him.
Thank god for the jacket; without the leather she knew her skin would have been raw, something else to distract her. Bianca twisted at the waist, bringing her other leg up to kick at him, hitting first his shoulder and then his ribs as she was drawn closer. She had dropped the gun when she fell, and she was too far too reach it now; she flipped herself over, his grip on her ankle slackening as she knocked her knees into his chest to wind him.
She wrenched herself free as soon as she could, head turning to assess what was going on - more people coming, Bernard seemingly handling himself, and Orville being dragged to the ground. Bianca went to help but there was that hand on her ankle again, pulling her down. She only narrowly managed to avoid smacking her face off the concrete before she was being turned over, hands grappling at her face, and then at her neck, squeezing…
ORVILLE
His hands came up in reflex, trying to claw away the hand pulling him by his hair and keep the tension on it loose so it didn’t rip the chunk they had ahold of from his scalp. They didn’t let go at his nails digging into their skin or the heel of his hand driving into their wrist over and over. He went about thrashing around, kicking his legs, tilting himself from side to side as he was dragged along the ground. Nothing was working, and he was panicking.
He looked around in his frantic state, one hand darting out to snag on one of those wooden beams, clutching onto the corner of it. The man pulling him jerked to a stop, releasing his grip on Orville’s hair. He turned around, getting up to face the man. Orville shoved his had under the man’s chin so his head was forced to tilt back as Orville moved forwards, making him stumble back in sync. The man reached around to get his gun from its holster at his waist. And Orville latched onto his wrist as he pulled the gun out. Seeing no other option, both hands occupied, he head butted the man’s hand which forced him to drop the gun. Then came back up to land a firm punch to the side of his head.
The man fell limp to the floor, and Orville turned back, seeing the man on top of Bianca. He moved forwards, but was caught around his shoulder and chest. Orville used the momentum to turn the both of them and drive the person into the ground with his shoulder digging into their sternum, something cracking loudly in the person’s chest when they landed.
BERNARD
Finally the man let go of him and Bernard turned over to get up. One knee pressed into the ground as the other was bent, his foot ready to push him up so he could be standing on his feet once more. But he was panting, trying to get his breathing back to something normal and had to pause for a moment, his elbow against his thigh and looked ahead of him.
His eyes locked in on a man looking down at Bianca, his hands wrapped around her neck. Before he knew it he was on his feet, running full force into the man on top of her. It was nothing graceful or with any technique, just Bernard throwing himself at the guy. His hands grabbed at the fabric of his clothing as he made contact to ensure that he would come with him as he kept moving.
They landed on the ground, Bernard on top of him. The pair paused at the initial pain, then the man looked to the side. Bernard followed his eyes to find the gun that had been knocked from Bianca’s grasp. They looked back at one another, thinking the same thing, and reached at the same time. The man grabbed a hold of it first and Bernard took hold of his wrist, knocking it into the ground to make him let go. They both tried again, reaching for it, fingers only just brushing against the handle now.
BIANCA
She just needed to get her knees up. Knees up and push them into his chest, sending him sailing backwards. Hopefully that would be the end of it, and she could go, help whoever needed helping, but it was a lot easier said than done. She pushed at his face, fingers scrabbling at his eyes, at his neck, trying to gain some distance—
And just like that he was gone, and Bianca lay back against the concrete for just a moment, catching her breath. “Az istenit,” she groaned, pushing herself first to her knees and then to her feet. She looked at Bernard and the stubborn bastard who wouldn’t leave them alone, and then snatched the gun from both their reaching hands. A second to aim and another to pull the trigger; Bianca really, really had wanted to do this without the guns, but he hadn’t given her much choice.
She glanced to the entrance of the barn. there seemed to be a gap, a sudden stop in the flow of people coming in from the house. Now was their chance - it had to be now, and they had to be fast.
“We have to go,” she called, looking back at the two of them, lit dully by the lamps inside the barn. “Now! Come on!”
ORVILLE
He rolled off the man when he was sure there were no sign of the man getting back up to fight since he was too busy groaning at the pain that consumed him with every breath he took. Orville wanted to lay there and do the same, let the aching and the sharp jabs take over until he passed out. But it wasn’t an option. He knew as soon as he gave into feeling it that he wouldn’t be able to get back up.
The gunshot that fired off and it was the wake up call he needed. As was Bianca’s voice that sliced through the ringing in his ears. It sounded like she was talking behind a thick layer of glass but he got the gist of it. Go and Now. He got to his feet, swaying until his shoulder bumped into the beam to keep him on him up right. Orville blinked widely to get the black dots coming in and out of his vision to stop.
He pushed himself away from the beam, touching it until it was out of range, and started off towards the exit of the barn. At first at a slow, limping walk, until he worked his way up to an alright running speed.
BERNARD
Just as Bernard watched the other man’s finger catch hold of the gun the shot rang out making him flinch, eyes shutting tight. Below him the man went limp which made Bernard open his eyes slowly, turning his head to look down at him. Blood was pooling around him and he paused for a second before standing up slowly. His chest rose and fell in large movements as he breathed in deeply. A hand came up to brush against his forehead to wipe the sweat that had formed. He kept his eyes on the body for another moment until Bianca said they’d better get going because, yeah, he wasn’t arguing there.
Bernard searched the barn with his eyes, relieved to see that Bianca on her feet again and that Orville was alright. With one last glance down at the man he followed the other two to the doors.
BIANCA
Bianca took the lead, pushing through the overgrown grass. It would be easy to trip, to fall, but she kept her sight set dead ahead, on the car that subtly glistened in the waning moonlight.
Thank god no one had noticed it. Of course, maybe they had - they could have slashed the tires, taken the keys, and she would never have known from that far away.
But once she got there, tearing the door open and looking inside, she found the key just where she had left it. There were shouts from the barn, far-away sounding now that they had put some distance between them and it, and they only increased Bianca’s sense of urgency. “Come on - get in. Before they notice the car!”
ORVILLE
The first thing Orville did when he got out from underneath the roof of the barn was look up. The sky was dark, a few clouds running by, and it was possibly the most gorgeous version of it he had ever seen. The fresh air going in and out of his lungs ached yet he couldn’t seem to get enough.
He had no idea where they were going, he was just following behind the other two blindly in the hopes that they still knew what they were doing. They had gotten him this far and that voice in the back of his mind that usually told him to not trust anyone, especially those involved with the RAS, was quiet. Silenced by the louder voices trying to tell him to not look back, keep running, just a little further, almost, almost.
Orville, clumsy man that he was in his right mind, couldn’t come to a halt when they led him to the car, so he allowed it to do that for him. He hit the back door, grabbing hold of the handle as he bounced off so it would open with his movements. It slammed shut behind him.
BERNARD
He only managed to trip the once half way back to the car, but he’d kept his feet. Just a little stumble through the tall grass, up and over the fence, and there it was. Waiting for them to get back so it could drive them back to town and away from this place.
After a little bit of struggle against the door handle, because his hands were shaking and sweating and all of a sudden a very simple task of opening the car door turned into the most difficult thing he could possibly be doing in that moment. But, finally, despite the shouting and the sounds of grass moving against the people surely chasing after them, he got it open and sat down in the passenger seat.
And then he began the struggle with the seat belt as he watched the beams from flashlights moving through the grass towards them.
BIANCA
She didn’t wait for car doors to shut or for seat belts to click into place; as soon as everyone was in the car Bianca threw it into gear and pulled away, leaving the shouting and the flashlights in the rear view mirror.
She didn’t have a plan from here on out; drive until they could lose them, and then return to Swynlake, maybe. Get in touch with the RAS in London, tell them to go and investigate the farm - it was the beginning of a plan. She glanced across at Bernard, and then in the mirror at Orville. “Is anyone hurt? Besides the obvious?”
ORVILLE
For the most part, Orville still really didn’t believe that he was free. And he wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. Not until the VTM were permanently disbanded or he was actually dead. But for now he guessed he would be alright. The tight confines of the car weren’t even enough to stress him. Then again, maybe he was just too tired to notice.
Finally it seemed like he was in the presence of people who didn’t make his heart spike in paranoia or fear. He felt settled. Safe, almost. Something he hadn’t felt in...years. Orville smiled tiredly at her question, chuckled even though it hurt like hell. But everything hurt so it didn’t make all that much of a difference. Leaning into the door heavily with his head propped up by the window, his eyes closed. All the exhaustion and pain muddied up his mind, got caught in the gears to make them come to a slow crawl. Didn’t matter, he was fading too fast to be thinking about anything.
BERNARD
Bernard finally got the seat belt to click and sat back against the seat and just breathed, eyes closed, arms laying limply wherever they fell at his sides. One eye opened to look at her sideways as she asked that. He heard Orville’s laugh and, after a second of looking at him over his shoulder and then resettling facing forwards, Bernard smiled, too, because, hey. They did it. They actually did it. They were riding in a car, not dead, and with Orville in the back seat. A bit battered, but still kicking.
“I’m okay,” he nodded, pushing himself up in his seat and turning to look at her. “Are you okay? I mean is your-?”
He squinted at her neck, touching his own out of sympathy.
BIANCA
She quietly cataloged her own bruised, her own injuries. She had been hit a fair few times, her ribs protesting when she reached for the gearbox - maybe fractured, maybe just badly bruised. She wasn’t sure.
Her neck— it was dark in the car, but Bianca could already see the bruises forming. Thick, long bruised which would no doubt be bright purple in an hour or two.
“I’m okay.” She assured Bernard, giving him a small smile. “I’ll drive until I’m sure they aren’t following, and then I’ll take us home.”
#heads held high touch the sky our hearts we pledge to thee#bdrpbianca#bdrpbernard#red light runners#pilot and precious cargo#the janitors#the rescuers#the RAS gang#tw blood#tw mentions of torture#tw death#tw violence#tw guns#woo!! finally!
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New York City: United Nations New York
Overview and HistoryNew York was invented by time-traveling punks from across the galaxy so they could show up there in 1977, smash some guitars and then overdose on heroin to die in the East Village, according to prophecy.The historic origins of the city go back to long before the American Revolution. Let's take a quick look at what it is before we look at what it looks like in panoramas.New York City sits on the island of Manhattan. Manhattan, you will notice, is not only an island situated between two rivers perfect for easy transportation to the Atlantic Ocean -- it's also an Indian word!Like lots of New England states and towns, its lineage comes from the "Indians" who lived there first. White people learned those names and kept them, for example Massachusetts, Connecticut, Manhattan, Chesapeake. Go out to the small towns in the greater New York or Tri-State area and you'll find even more names like Massapequa, Hammonasset, Ronkonkoma, Montauk, Quinnipiac, etc. And of course Mohawk, which comes into play later around 1977.So, let's keep it sanitized for posterity. The white people came and the Indians left. How do you like that? Legend has it that white settlers bought the island of Manhattan for $26; obviously the contracting party on the other end had no idea what real estate connections were all about. Early pilgrims cited the Bible as their mandate for taking over what lands they found in "the new world". (They decided that, since "the Indians" had not subdued the land, it was free for the taking. File this away in the "karmic repurcussions" folder.)The point is, New York City sits on a bunch of islands. An archipelago, if you will. An island just off the coast of Europe, if you want to comment on how different NYC is from the rest of the United States. Bird's eye view: you've got Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island, which hosts both Brooklyn and Queens.The south end of Manhattan is where New York City started. Once upon a time there were deer, owls, hawks and trees covering the entire island. Gradually it filled in with farms and, much later, low-income apartment buildings. Manhattan is now bridged to the western end of Long Island by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Take the Williamsburg bridge across from the east village to find where the artists went after the East Village got to be too. friggin. expensive. for. anybody. to. really. live. here. dammit. Go ahead!, check out the cost of living in New York yourself if you want.Anyway, as European settlers filled in the space, New York City grew up and took over the entire Hudson Bay area including Connecticut and New Jersey (Tri-State area).Contrary to intuitive belief, NYC is not the capital of New York State. Albany is the capital but nobody ever goes there except to do realllly big deals, so don't worry about it. New York's nickname is "The Empire State" and for all purposes, NYC is the jewel in the Empire's crown.Back to downtown in Tribeca (Triangle Below Canal Street) -- you will find two distinctly different layouts. One side of this southern tip of the island was built by the Dutch, the other half by the English.The Dutch side has twisting streets with lots of triangular central, um, squares that are hell on the novice bike messenger to find. The English side sports long avenues connecting evenly spaced parallel streets, a grid like what you see in midtown among the "number streets." What does that say about the worldview of these two groups at the time? See, already New York is intriguing. What else is going on there?Here are the essential neighborhoods to cover, if you want to have even the most awkwardly cursory view of the city. This is going from south to north. For scale, it's about five miles from the southern tip to the south edge of Central Park at 59th street.The financial district (Wall Street, etc), Tribeca, Chinatown.SoHo, Greenwich Village, East Village, Meat Packing District.Flatiron and Murray Hill merge upwards into Hell's Kitchen (best food in midtown), and Times Square and then Central Park.From there it's all Upper East Side and Upper West Side until you get to Spanish Harlem, Harlem, and The Bronx.Off to the East of Manhattan there's Brooklyn and Queens, both of which could take up a thousand pictures, and to the west side there's New Jersey. The East River and Hudson River border Manhattan to either side and if you can't figure out which side the Hudson is on, I can't help you.If you just go to New York City and eat one meal in each of the above neighborhoods, you will have done an excellent job of seeing what this megalopolis has to offer. Many people make the mistake of going to NYC for a week and spending five days in Times Square. Don't let this be you. You can find food from anywhere in the world in New York and it's a crime against modern civilization not to do so.Getting ThereOh boy. Three airports, which are all connected to a greater or lesser degree by taxi drivers who are completely cool and professional on the inside, and you can't tell that by looking. It's a yellow river of taxis but you are not at their mercy if you can afford a helicopter ride to where you're going! Ha ha! You can't! And get used to it!!!Everything about NYC is either a celebration of your wealth, or a celebration of not having any. Not to worry, there's an equal amount of fun to be had regardless of which end of the spectrum you're on. (That amount=MORE THAN YOU HAVE TIME FOR...)Okay, the airports are JFK (John F. Kennedy International), LaGuardia and Newark International. Getting between Manhattan and JFK airport usually means a private limousine or a taxi, because the public transportation is not so hot there. There is the Airtrain on the subway line that goes there, just make sure you get on the right train.LaGuardia airport is closer to the city center and you can get there on a bus without much trouble, if you have learned how to move around on the subway system and you don't mind standing on the street up in Harlem with all your stuff.Newark International Airport is the easiest to get to because you can take a train right from the subway system at 34th Street in Manhattan and get off inside the airport at your departure terminal, and it looks high-tech the whole way. Check here for prices and schedules.TransportationThe subway (MTA) is a great way to get around New York when you're on foot for day trips, commuting, whatever.The only caution is to remember that you can walk ten blocks a lot more easily than waiting underground. One ride costs $2 with the mandatory Metrocard. Tokens are in the museum now, next to the dinosaur teeth. No more tokens. Here's a subway map, have fun!People and CultureAre you kidding? People and Culture in New York might as well be "People and Culture of Planet Earth". Somebody from everywhere lives here and they all keep their native languages and recipes, then learn English so they can open a restaurant, all to YOUR benefit as soon as you figure out which neighborhood you want to go explore tonight.There are a few sayings about people in NYC. First, "people in new york are either 100% real or 100% fake." This might be true, depending who you ask.Second, "New Yorkers are the nicest people in the world.. you just have to force them to be nice." (because they're always in a hurry). This is definitely true.Culture here? You've got film, fashion, music, food, fine art, dance, theater, you name it. Every art form you can think of, including the art of making lots of money, is flaunted on the city streets. Also fun stuff like sex, drugs, arson, murder and stealing are thriving here at the apex of their popularity. Think class division and you'll be standing tip-toe on the ice berg's lurking point.Things to do & RecommendationsNo swimming buddy, not in the rivers. Check out the beaches on Long Island for that, get there by train LIRR. Robert Moses State Park is my recommendation.A great "new yorky" thing to do is to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and get an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn.There's really no way to encapsulate the life of this city in a few recommendations but I'll try.Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood: Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Go there. Eat pizza. Die happy.3rd Ward Art Space for Brooklyn wareouse type parties and also studio space.In Times Square, take a bicycle taxi to get around, see things and hear a real insider's report on where to go not to get ripped off.Meat Packing District for nightlife, start here.Curry In A HurryMiss Mamie's Spoonbread TooIt's abominable how much I am leaving out. Please forgive me, New York!!! Text by Steve Smith.
Source: http://www.360cities.net/image/united-nations-new-york-new-york-city
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Developer Codemasters has unleashed its latest racing title upon the world. Is GRID race ready and worthy of your hard earned cash, or should this one be left in the garage?
Read on to find out
Developer Codemasters has been making games since 1986 and created their first Touring Car Championship game in 1997. Since then, they have released 9 more racing titles in the series, expanding to not only have touring cars but Formula 1, GT, and muscle cars as well. They turned to two-time Formula 1 World Champion driver Fernando Alonso to act as a Racing Consultant to assist them in creating a truly authentic racing experience, and that was a smart choice.
The Long and Windy Career Road
The career mode is where you’ll find the meat and potatoes of the game. In order to reach the GRID World Series, you are going to have to spend a lot of track time, and hard earned GRID bucks, just to unlock that final series of races. The career is split up between four different categories of racing types, and six different collections of series of events. In order to unlock the category finale, called a Showdown, you’ll need to complete a set number of events or defeat a set series within a category. Some of these events consist of just one race, but most have 2, 3, or 4 races in an event. That translates into a lot of racing just to unlock the final set of races. For example, the touring category requires 10 events won which is a minimum of 24 races in order to unlock that showdown while the Tuner category will have you racing a minimum of 26 races to unlock that showdown.
Actual racing is split into a couple of basic types. You have a time attack mode where whoever has the fastest lap time after three laps wins and then you have the standard race type. A standard race will allow you to either run a flying qualifying lap to determine your GRID placement or start at the rear of the pack. Depending on your skill level and difficulty setting, that qualifying lap might be pretty important, or it just may be a waste of time. You’ll have to run through a few courses and see where you fall on your skill level to determine that. There’s also a team aspect to an event and you’ll have to hire another driver in order to compete as a team. Drivers have specific skill sets and skill levels, so be sure to choose the best driver for your current event.
Nemesis System
In order to create a more authentic, and sometimes hostile, race environment Codemasters created the Nemesis System. This is a system where certain drivers can easily get pissed off at you and do whatever it takes to either take you out, or finish ahead of you. It really doesn’t take much to piss one of these folks off, as we barely brushed up against one guy and he proceeded to play crash-em-derby with us. Just because some other driver isn’t marked as being borderline aggressive doesn’t mean you can’t piss them off. We intentionally started at the back of the pack and tried our best to see how many other drivers we could offend by violently rear ending them, and we ended up with six pissed off peeps chasing us down and trying their best to take us out. Fun times as long as Terminal Damage is disabled and the Damage Level is set to visual only. Otherwise those folks would have left us waiting for a tow truck trackside.
It’s a great system but did have its shortcomings. Some of the driver’s anger would carry over to the next race in an event, but not all of the folks you pissed off cared anymore. Once you completed an event, all of the anger seems to dissipate and none of the drivers care anymore that you violently (intentionally?) tried to take them out. This short term memory takes away from the drama that could have followed you through your career and it really feels like Codemasters dropped the ball somewhat. Maybe these other drivers have a impressive anger management coach, but human nature says some of these people should hold a grudge, at least a little bit. Each AI driver races a little bit different, and each driver seems to have their own breaking point when it comes to pissing them off, but they all forgive you at the end of the event.
Each AI Driver Feels Unique
It’s really interesting to sit back in 4th or 5th place and watch the AI front runners battle it out for position. Every AI driver has their own skill level and traits, and watching an AI driver go from 1st to 4th because they took a corner too hot is not what you expect to see from an AI in a video game. It’s also odd to see 3rd place spin out because 4th bumped their rear end just right. It’s honestly not what we have come to expect from a video game. The AI is almost human in that they can commit errors just like the rest of us, and lose positioning or crash out and have to call it a day due to their own stupidity. The computer has always been flawless up to now, and it was paramount that we were flawless in order to defeat them. Of course there are highly skilled drivers in this game that require near perfection to defeat, but it’s not every car on the friggin track even if the difficulty is set to Very Hard.
Adaptive Damage and Control System
The Damage Level for the game can be set to Full or Visual Only and your vehicle will slowly get beat up if you aren’t careful. You can also turn Terminal Damage on and off. If you are new to racing, stick to visual only to start out with as the damage can really slow your vehicle down if you have enough of it. When set to full, we noticed that not only did we lose power if we hurt the engine area or transmission, but the body damage makes a difference with the fast cars at high speeds. We were in a car that could go 230+ MPH at Indy and we had hit the straight once already. The car felt almost glued to the track as we got up over that 230 mark. We were subsequently rear ended going into a corner by someone we had pissed off and our back spoiler was damaged. When we hit that straight on the next lap, the car felt like it was going to fly off of the track, it got loose as a goose and squirrelly as hell. That damaged spoiler clearly made a noticeable difference. As for Terminal Damage, your vehicle can be totaled and your race day would be done.
Depending on your skill level, you may want to turn on the Flashback feature, which allows you to rewind a race a small amount of time. Take a corner too fast, too wide, or get pushed off the track? On the PS4 you just have to press the triangle button to back the race up to right before the mishap. You can set this to infinite or to a set number of flashbacks per race, again your skill level should determine that. You can also adjust the ABS, Traction Control, and Stability Control. GRID uses a 3D racing line that can be turned on or off or just be on at the corners. The racing line in the game has to be one of the best we’ve used, as it not only changes colors, but also raises like a flap when you need to slow down, and raises and turns red when you need to break. It’s very informational and can help new drivers learn proper breaking and cornering techniques.
Impressive Graphics and Track Recreations
When playing the game on a PS4 Pro, the graphics are impressive. Well detailed cars, inside and out, with damage stripping them down to chassis and frames, gives the game a realistic feel. Whether you are racing in Havana Cuba or Brands Hatch in England, the tracks look just as impressive. There are 13 different locations, with multiple layouts at each, which add up to 82 different tracks you can race. Weather is also nicely recreated with puddles slowing down your car on a rainy day or a beautiful sunset blinding you as fly into a corner at 90 MPH. GRID really is a gorgeous game on a PS4 Pro.
This being developer Codemasters first foray into this generation of gaming, they did a decent job of creating a graphical beast that outshines all of their previous installments in the GRID series, and allows the gamer to create a set-up that is either a fun arcade racer, or somewhat more of a difficult racing simulator, all determined by the difficulty settings. Anyway you decide to play it, just know it’ll be a fun time.
8
GRID review code provided by publisher and reviewed on a PS4 Pro. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.
GRID Review - Pissing Off Other Drivers is a Bad Thing @gridgame @Codemasters @CMRaceNet @PlayStation Developer Codemasters has unleashed its latest racing title upon the world. Is GRID race ready and worthy of your hard earned cash, or should this one be left in the garage?
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New York City: Times Square Bench 9am 5 25
Overview and HistoryNew York was invented by time-traveling punks from across the galaxy so they could show up there in 1977, smash some guitars and then overdose on heroin to die in the East Village, according to prophecy.The historic origins of the city go back to long before the American Revolution. Let's take a quick look at what it is before we look at what it looks like in panoramas.New York City sits on the island of Manhattan. Manhattan, you will notice, is not only an island situated between two rivers perfect for easy transportation to the Atlantic Ocean -- it's also an Indian word!Like lots of New England states and towns, its lineage comes from the "Indians" who lived there first. White people learned those names and kept them, for example Massachusetts, Connecticut, Manhattan, Chesapeake. Go out to the small towns in the greater New York or Tri-State area and you'll find even more names like Massapequa, Hammonasset, Ronkonkoma, Montauk, Quinnipiac, etc. And of course Mohawk, which comes into play later around 1977.So, let's keep it sanitized for posterity. The white people came and the Indians left. How do you like that? Legend has it that white settlers bought the island of Manhattan for $26; obviously the contracting party on the other end had no idea what real estate connections were all about. Early pilgrims cited the Bible as their mandate for taking over what lands they found in "the new world". (They decided that, since "the Indians" had not subdued the land, it was free for the taking. File this away in the "karmic repurcussions" folder.)The point is, New York City sits on a bunch of islands. An archipelago, if you will. An island just off the coast of Europe, if you want to comment on how different NYC is from the rest of the United States. Bird's eye view: you've got Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island, which hosts both Brooklyn and Queens.The south end of Manhattan is where New York City started. Once upon a time there were deer, owls, hawks and trees covering the entire island. Gradually it filled in with farms and, much later, low-income apartment buildings. Manhattan is now bridged to the western end of Long Island by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Take the Williamsburg bridge across from the east village to find where the artists went after the East Village got to be too. friggin. expensive. for. anybody. to. really. live. here. dammit. Go ahead!, check out the cost of living in New York yourself if you want.Anyway, as European settlers filled in the space, New York City grew up and took over the entire Hudson Bay area including Connecticut and New Jersey (Tri-State area).Contrary to intuitive belief, NYC is not the capital of New York State. Albany is the capital but nobody ever goes there except to do realllly big deals, so don't worry about it. New York's nickname is "The Empire State" and for all purposes, NYC is the jewel in the Empire's crown.Back to downtown in Tribeca (Triangle Below Canal Street) -- you will find two distinctly different layouts. One side of this southern tip of the island was built by the Dutch, the other half by the English.The Dutch side has twisting streets with lots of triangular central, um, squares that are hell on the novice bike messenger to find. The English side sports long avenues connecting evenly spaced parallel streets, a grid like what you see in midtown among the "number streets." What does that say about the worldview of these two groups at the time? See, already New York is intriguing. What else is going on there?Here are the essential neighborhoods to cover, if you want to have even the most awkwardly cursory view of the city. This is going from south to north. For scale, it's about five miles from the southern tip to the south edge of Central Park at 59th street.The financial district (Wall Street, etc), Tribeca, Chinatown.SoHo, Greenwich Village, East Village, Meat Packing District.Flatiron and Murray Hill merge upwards into Hell's Kitchen (best food in midtown), and Times Square and then Central Park.From there it's all Upper East Side and Upper West Side until you get to Spanish Harlem, Harlem, and The Bronx.Off to the East of Manhattan there's Brooklyn and Queens, both of which could take up a thousand pictures, and to the west side there's New Jersey. The East River and Hudson River border Manhattan to either side and if you can't figure out which side the Hudson is on, I can't help you.If you just go to New York City and eat one meal in each of the above neighborhoods, you will have done an excellent job of seeing what this megalopolis has to offer. Many people make the mistake of going to NYC for a week and spending five days in Times Square. Don't let this be you. You can find food from anywhere in the world in New York and it's a crime against modern civilization not to do so.Getting ThereOh boy. Three airports, which are all connected to a greater or lesser degree by taxi drivers who are completely cool and professional on the inside, and you can't tell that by looking. It's a yellow river of taxis but you are not at their mercy if you can afford a helicopter ride to where you're going! Ha ha! You can't! And get used to it!!!Everything about NYC is either a celebration of your wealth, or a celebration of not having any. Not to worry, there's an equal amount of fun to be had regardless of which end of the spectrum you're on. (That amount=MORE THAN YOU HAVE TIME FOR...)Okay, the airports are JFK (John F. Kennedy International), LaGuardia and Newark International. Getting between Manhattan and JFK airport usually means a private limousine or a taxi, because the public transportation is not so hot there. There is the Airtrain on the subway line that goes there, just make sure you get on the right train.LaGuardia airport is closer to the city center and you can get there on a bus without much trouble, if you have learned how to move around on the subway system and you don't mind standing on the street up in Harlem with all your stuff.Newark International Airport is the easiest to get to because you can take a train right from the subway system at 34th Street in Manhattan and get off inside the airport at your departure terminal, and it looks high-tech the whole way. Check here for prices and schedules.TransportationThe subway (MTA) is a great way to get around New York when you're on foot for day trips, commuting, whatever.The only caution is to remember that you can walk ten blocks a lot more easily than waiting underground. One ride costs $2 with the mandatory Metrocard. Tokens are in the museum now, next to the dinosaur teeth. No more tokens. Here's a subway map, have fun!People and CultureAre you kidding? People and Culture in New York might as well be "People and Culture of Planet Earth". Somebody from everywhere lives here and they all keep their native languages and recipes, then learn English so they can open a restaurant, all to YOUR benefit as soon as you figure out which neighborhood you want to go explore tonight.There are a few sayings about people in NYC. First, "people in new york are either 100% real or 100% fake." This might be true, depending who you ask.Second, "New Yorkers are the nicest people in the world.. you just have to force them to be nice." (because they're always in a hurry). This is definitely true.Culture here? You've got film, fashion, music, food, fine art, dance, theater, you name it. Every art form you can think of, including the art of making lots of money, is flaunted on the city streets. Also fun stuff like sex, drugs, arson, murder and stealing are thriving here at the apex of their popularity. Think class division and you'll be standing tip-toe on the ice berg's lurking point.Things to do & RecommendationsNo swimming buddy, not in the rivers. Check out the beaches on Long Island for that, get there by train LIRR. Robert Moses State Park is my recommendation.A great "new yorky" thing to do is to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and get an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn.There's really no way to encapsulate the life of this city in a few recommendations but I'll try.Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood: Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Go there. Eat pizza. Die happy.3rd Ward Art Space for Brooklyn wareouse type parties and also studio space.In Times Square, take a bicycle taxi to get around, see things and hear a real insider's report on where to go not to get ripped off.Meat Packing District for nightlife, start here.Curry In A HurryMiss Mamie's Spoonbread TooIt's abominable how much I am leaving out. Please forgive me, New York!!! Text by Steve Smith.
Source: http://www.360cities.net/image/times-square-bench-9am-5-25
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New York City: Intrepid Aircraft Carrier
Overview and HistoryNew York was invented by time-traveling punks from across the galaxy so they could show up there in 1977, smash some guitars and then overdose on heroin to die in the East Village, according to prophecy.The historic origins of the city go back to long before the American Revolution. Let's take a quick look at what it is before we look at what it looks like in panoramas.New York City sits on the island of Manhattan. Manhattan, you will notice, is not only an island situated between two rivers perfect for easy transportation to the Atlantic Ocean -- it's also an Indian word!Like lots of New England states and towns, its lineage comes from the "Indians" who lived there first. White people learned those names and kept them, for example Massachusetts, Connecticut, Manhattan, Chesapeake. Go out to the small towns in the greater New York or Tri-State area and you'll find even more names like Massapequa, Hammonasset, Ronkonkoma, Montauk, Quinnipiac, etc. And of course Mohawk, which comes into play later around 1977.So, let's keep it sanitized for posterity. The white people came and the Indians left. How do you like that? Legend has it that white settlers bought the island of Manhattan for $26; obviously the contracting party on the other end had no idea what real estate connections were all about. Early pilgrims cited the Bible as their mandate for taking over what lands they found in "the new world". (They decided that, since "the Indians" had not subdued the land, it was free for the taking. File this away in the "karmic repurcussions" folder.)The point is, New York City sits on a bunch of islands. An archipelago, if you will. An island just off the coast of Europe, if you want to comment on how different NYC is from the rest of the United States. Bird's eye view: you've got Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island, which hosts both Brooklyn and Queens.The south end of Manhattan is where New York City started. Once upon a time there were deer, owls, hawks and trees covering the entire island. Gradually it filled in with farms and, much later, low-income apartment buildings. Manhattan is now bridged to the western end of Long Island by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Take the Williamsburg bridge across from the east village to find where the artists went after the East Village got to be too. friggin. expensive. for. anybody. to. really. live. here. dammit. Go ahead!, check out the cost of living in New York yourself if you want.Anyway, as European settlers filled in the space, New York City grew up and took over the entire Hudson Bay area including Connecticut and New Jersey (Tri-State area).Contrary to intuitive belief, NYC is not the capital of New York State. Albany is the capital but nobody ever goes there except to do realllly big deals, so don't worry about it. New York's nickname is "The Empire State" and for all purposes, NYC is the jewel in the Empire's crown.Back to downtown in Tribeca (Triangle Below Canal Street) -- you will find two distinctly different layouts. One side of this southern tip of the island was built by the Dutch, the other half by the English.The Dutch side has twisting streets with lots of triangular central, um, squares that are hell on the novice bike messenger to find. The English side sports long avenues connecting evenly spaced parallel streets, a grid like what you see in midtown among the "number streets." What does that say about the worldview of these two groups at the time? See, already New York is intriguing. What else is going on there?Here are the essential neighborhoods to cover, if you want to have even the most awkwardly cursory view of the city. This is going from south to north. For scale, it's about five miles from the southern tip to the south edge of Central Park at 59th street.The financial district (Wall Street, etc), Tribeca, Chinatown.SoHo, Greenwich Village, East Village, Meat Packing District.Flatiron and Murray Hill merge upwards into Hell's Kitchen (best food in midtown), and Times Square and then Central Park.From there it's all Upper East Side and Upper West Side until you get to Spanish Harlem, Harlem, and The Bronx.Off to the East of Manhattan there's Brooklyn and Queens, both of which could take up a thousand pictures, and to the west side there's New Jersey. The East River and Hudson River border Manhattan to either side and if you can't figure out which side the Hudson is on, I can't help you.If you just go to New York City and eat one meal in each of the above neighborhoods, you will have done an excellent job of seeing what this megalopolis has to offer. Many people make the mistake of going to NYC for a week and spending five days in Times Square. Don't let this be you. You can find food from anywhere in the world in New York and it's a crime against modern civilization not to do so.Getting ThereOh boy. Three airports, which are all connected to a greater or lesser degree by taxi drivers who are completely cool and professional on the inside, and you can't tell that by looking. It's a yellow river of taxis but you are not at their mercy if you can afford a helicopter ride to where you're going! Ha ha! You can't! And get used to it!!!Everything about NYC is either a celebration of your wealth, or a celebration of not having any. Not to worry, there's an equal amount of fun to be had regardless of which end of the spectrum you're on. (That amount=MORE THAN YOU HAVE TIME FOR...)Okay, the airports are JFK (John F. Kennedy International), LaGuardia and Newark International. Getting between Manhattan and JFK airport usually means a private limousine or a taxi, because the public transportation is not so hot there. There is the Airtrain on the subway line that goes there, just make sure you get on the right train.LaGuardia airport is closer to the city center and you can get there on a bus without much trouble, if you have learned how to move around on the subway system and you don't mind standing on the street up in Harlem with all your stuff.Newark International Airport is the easiest to get to because you can take a train right from the subway system at 34th Street in Manhattan and get off inside the airport at your departure terminal, and it looks high-tech the whole way. Check here for prices and schedules.TransportationThe subway (MTA) is a great way to get around New York when you're on foot for day trips, commuting, whatever.The only caution is to remember that you can walk ten blocks a lot more easily than waiting underground. One ride costs $2 with the mandatory Metrocard. Tokens are in the museum now, next to the dinosaur teeth. No more tokens. Here's a subway map, have fun!People and CultureAre you kidding? People and Culture in New York might as well be "People and Culture of Planet Earth". Somebody from everywhere lives here and they all keep their native languages and recipes, then learn English so they can open a restaurant, all to YOUR benefit as soon as you figure out which neighborhood you want to go explore tonight.There are a few sayings about people in NYC. First, "people in new york are either 100% real or 100% fake." This might be true, depending who you ask.Second, "New Yorkers are the nicest people in the world.. you just have to force them to be nice." (because they're always in a hurry). This is definitely true.Culture here? You've got film, fashion, music, food, fine art, dance, theater, you name it. Every art form you can think of, including the art of making lots of money, is flaunted on the city streets. Also fun stuff like sex, drugs, arson, murder and stealing are thriving here at the apex of their popularity. Think class division and you'll be standing tip-toe on the ice berg's lurking point.Things to do & RecommendationsNo swimming buddy, not in the rivers. Check out the beaches on Long Island for that, get there by train LIRR. Robert Moses State Park is my recommendation.A great "new yorky" thing to do is to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and get an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn.There's really no way to encapsulate the life of this city in a few recommendations but I'll try.Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood: Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Go there. Eat pizza. Die happy.3rd Ward Art Space for Brooklyn wareouse type parties and also studio space.In Times Square, take a bicycle taxi to get around, see things and hear a real insider's report on where to go not to get ripped off.Meat Packing District for nightlife, start here.Curry In A HurryMiss Mamie's Spoonbread TooIt's abominable how much I am leaving out. Please forgive me, New York!!! Text by Steve Smith.
Source: http://www.360cities.net/image/intrepid-aircraft-carrier
0 notes
Text
New York City: Times Square NYC 3/30/2018
Overview and HistoryNew York was invented by time-traveling punks from across the galaxy so they could show up there in 1977, smash some guitars and then overdose on heroin to die in the East Village, according to prophecy.The historic origins of the city go back to long before the American Revolution. Let's take a quick look at what it is before we look at what it looks like in panoramas.New York City sits on the island of Manhattan. Manhattan, you will notice, is not only an island situated between two rivers perfect for easy transportation to the Atlantic Ocean -- it's also an Indian word!Like lots of New England states and towns, its lineage comes from the "Indians" who lived there first. White people learned those names and kept them, for example Massachusetts, Connecticut, Manhattan, Chesapeake. Go out to the small towns in the greater New York or Tri-State area and you'll find even more names like Massapequa, Hammonasset, Ronkonkoma, Montauk, Quinnipiac, etc. And of course Mohawk, which comes into play later around 1977.So, let's keep it sanitized for posterity. The white people came and the Indians left. How do you like that? Legend has it that white settlers bought the island of Manhattan for $26; obviously the contracting party on the other end had no idea what real estate connections were all about. Early pilgrims cited the Bible as their mandate for taking over what lands they found in "the new world". (They decided that, since "the Indians" had not subdued the land, it was free for the taking. File this away in the "karmic repurcussions" folder.)The point is, New York City sits on a bunch of islands. An archipelago, if you will. An island just off the coast of Europe, if you want to comment on how different NYC is from the rest of the United States. Bird's eye view: you've got Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island, which hosts both Brooklyn and Queens.The south end of Manhattan is where New York City started. Once upon a time there were deer, owls, hawks and trees covering the entire island. Gradually it filled in with farms and, much later, low-income apartment buildings. Manhattan is now bridged to the western end of Long Island by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Take the Williamsburg bridge across from the east village to find where the artists went after the East Village got to be too. friggin. expensive. for. anybody. to. really. live. here. dammit. Go ahead!, check out the cost of living in New York yourself if you want.Anyway, as European settlers filled in the space, New York City grew up and took over the entire Hudson Bay area including Connecticut and New Jersey (Tri-State area).Contrary to intuitive belief, NYC is not the capital of New York State. Albany is the capital but nobody ever goes there except to do realllly big deals, so don't worry about it. New York's nickname is "The Empire State" and for all purposes, NYC is the jewel in the Empire's crown.Back to downtown in Tribeca (Triangle Below Canal Street) -- you will find two distinctly different layouts. One side of this southern tip of the island was built by the Dutch, the other half by the English.The Dutch side has twisting streets with lots of triangular central, um, squares that are hell on the novice bike messenger to find. The English side sports long avenues connecting evenly spaced parallel streets, a grid like what you see in midtown among the "number streets." What does that say about the worldview of these two groups at the time? See, already New York is intriguing. What else is going on there?Here are the essential neighborhoods to cover, if you want to have even the most awkwardly cursory view of the city. This is going from south to north. For scale, it's about five miles from the southern tip to the south edge of Central Park at 59th street.The financial district (Wall Street, etc), Tribeca, Chinatown.SoHo, Greenwich Village, East Village, Meat Packing District.Flatiron and Murray Hill merge upwards into Hell's Kitchen (best food in midtown), and Times Square and then Central Park.From there it's all Upper East Side and Upper West Side until you get to Spanish Harlem, Harlem, and The Bronx.Off to the East of Manhattan there's Brooklyn and Queens, both of which could take up a thousand pictures, and to the west side there's New Jersey. The East River and Hudson River border Manhattan to either side and if you can't figure out which side the Hudson is on, I can't help you.If you just go to New York City and eat one meal in each of the above neighborhoods, you will have done an excellent job of seeing what this megalopolis has to offer. Many people make the mistake of going to NYC for a week and spending five days in Times Square. Don't let this be you. You can find food from anywhere in the world in New York and it's a crime against modern civilization not to do so.Getting ThereOh boy. Three airports, which are all connected to a greater or lesser degree by taxi drivers who are completely cool and professional on the inside, and you can't tell that by looking. It's a yellow river of taxis but you are not at their mercy if you can afford a helicopter ride to where you're going! Ha ha! You can't! And get used to it!!!Everything about NYC is either a celebration of your wealth, or a celebration of not having any. Not to worry, there's an equal amount of fun to be had regardless of which end of the spectrum you're on. (That amount=MORE THAN YOU HAVE TIME FOR...)Okay, the airports are JFK (John F. Kennedy International), LaGuardia and Newark International. Getting between Manhattan and JFK airport usually means a private limousine or a taxi, because the public transportation is not so hot there. There is the Airtrain on the subway line that goes there, just make sure you get on the right train.LaGuardia airport is closer to the city center and you can get there on a bus without much trouble, if you have learned how to move around on the subway system and you don't mind standing on the street up in Harlem with all your stuff.Newark International Airport is the easiest to get to because you can take a train right from the subway system at 34th Street in Manhattan and get off inside the airport at your departure terminal, and it looks high-tech the whole way. Check here for prices and schedules.TransportationThe subway (MTA) is a great way to get around New York when you're on foot for day trips, commuting, whatever.The only caution is to remember that you can walk ten blocks a lot more easily than waiting underground. One ride costs $2 with the mandatory Metrocard. Tokens are in the museum now, next to the dinosaur teeth. No more tokens. Here's a subway map, have fun!People and CultureAre you kidding? People and Culture in New York might as well be "People and Culture of Planet Earth". Somebody from everywhere lives here and they all keep their native languages and recipes, then learn English so they can open a restaurant, all to YOUR benefit as soon as you figure out which neighborhood you want to go explore tonight.There are a few sayings about people in NYC. First, "people in new york are either 100% real or 100% fake." This might be true, depending who you ask.Second, "New Yorkers are the nicest people in the world.. you just have to force them to be nice." (because they're always in a hurry). This is definitely true.Culture here? You've got film, fashion, music, food, fine art, dance, theater, you name it. Every art form you can think of, including the art of making lots of money, is flaunted on the city streets. Also fun stuff like sex, drugs, arson, murder and stealing are thriving here at the apex of their popularity. Think class division and you'll be standing tip-toe on the ice berg's lurking point.Things to do & RecommendationsNo swimming buddy, not in the rivers. Check out the beaches on Long Island for that, get there by train LIRR. Robert Moses State Park is my recommendation.A great "new yorky" thing to do is to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and get an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn.There's really no way to encapsulate the life of this city in a few recommendations but I'll try.Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood: Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Go there. Eat pizza. Die happy.3rd Ward Art Space for Brooklyn wareouse type parties and also studio space.In Times Square, take a bicycle taxi to get around, see things and hear a real insider's report on where to go not to get ripped off.Meat Packing District for nightlife, start here.Curry In A HurryMiss Mamie's Spoonbread TooIt's abominable how much I am leaving out. Please forgive me, New York!!! Text by Steve Smith.
Source: http://www.360cities.net/image/times-square-nyc-3-30-2018
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Fails of the Yawning Portal
Ok, so it’s not really that bad, however...
This past weekend I got my hands on my copy of the eagerly anticipated Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition hard cover adventure compilation, Tales from the Yawning Portal. It is a collection of 7 “classic” adventure (dungeon romp) modules, modified/converted/streamlined for D&D 5e, and is published by Wizards of the Coast.
I recommend searching for reviews online, as this is not my review. The purpose of this post is to document some of the shortcomings of the layout and design elements of this otherwise great book. I’ll say this now before I forget: Ultimately, it’s things like this that have me concerned for what’s to come with future WotC products (not to mention D&D Beyond... that’s a whole other can of worms for another day).
Item 1: The introduction to The Yawning Portal, and complete lack of map/layout of this legendary establishment.
I remember plenty of classic (1e and 2e) source books and modules that always had amazing, detailed maps that really gave you a sense of adventure and excitement back in the day. You could easily have a picture painted in your mind of where you were, what magnificent place you were presenting to your players. Why is it that over the years, maps and artwork have declined in quality and presentation? Is it to make room for more words or something? Lame, if so. The same can be said for D&D’s artwork in general I guess, although I found that the majority of 4e artwork was pretty cool. Not that 5e artwork is awful, it’s just not very epic I find. Where are the Parkinsons and Easleys and Elmores of today hiding?
Getting back on topic here, there is a complete absence of a map of The Yawning Portal in the introduction section of this book. I suppose, one could say “So what? Go Google it and I’m sure you’ll find one.” Example:
That’s great, however I believe in having an essential piece of art like this in the book proper. Or, at least the damn sign for the place, seen in at least a couple of classic pieces of art (the cover of the Avatar Trilogy’s third book, Waterdeep for instance, the classic cover with Midnight and Kelemvor in the scene):
I know that none of the adventures in this book have anything to do with Undermountain and The Yawning Portal, but it would have helped for newcomers not familiar with this great building to see something of its unique layout and that huge 40 foot well that so many have descended down and never returned from. The written description is... okay, I suppose. Here are some photos of the intro in the book (starts halfway down on the right side page). Pretty conservative if you ask me.
Item 2: Teeny, tiny maps - Was there supposed to be a magnifying glass included with the book purchase?
I was starting to enjoy reading through this book, and I stopped reading page for page somewhere half way through The Sunless Citadel adventure, and proceeded to flip through to check out the rest of the book at a glance.
What I saw as I perused through the book made me throw up a little. Just a little. Nothing major, no worries... I’m ok.
Now, before I continue, I want to share that my career is based around helping run and manage a print shop. It’s my industry, my trade, my craft. I notice things in print products that others tend not to spot and call them quality issues. Most times I am being very picky, because I tend to demand that my shop’s work is the best it can be. That goes for layout, source image quality, final printed quality and any bindery finishing work done on a piece.
Tales from the Yawning Portal, as I have said before, is a decent book. I’m very happy it was released and I have some “new” content to implement into my campaigns. I very rarely play anything out “by the book” and just borrow sections or bits and pieces and tear them apart to suit my needs.
However... the maps in this book in particular are absolutely, mindblowingly, godawfully some of the worst presented maps in a printed publication. Team Voltron or whatever they’re called (check out a recent video about them here) need someone to tell them that what they’re doing is... not good. I am not sure where they get the encouragement and approval from supporting what they think is good design and layout. It’s evident in most of the 5e books to date (I own most of them) that in each I can say that they spend far too much time with long, drawn out story and area descriptions, and less time on visual aids for running the game such as decent sized maps, and more relevant artwork.
While 4e was a really bad iteration of Dungeons & Dragons, what they did right (from what I can see in the few books and several Dungeon magazines from that era that I read), is they had artwork down, maps nice and easy to read and were clear and concise, and the writing of the adventures and source books was not only superior in terms of typeface choice and layout, but it didn’t seem drag on and make me wonder “when is this section was done, how much more of this do I have to endure...”
Notice I have not stated that the maps themselves are awful. The maps are really good. I like Mike Schley’s style, although I wish it was darker/more evil looking at times and not so... cartoonish I suppose would be the word for it. But the colour selection is not optimal in this case, as when they are reduced so drastically, everything gets super muddy. Here are some photos of just some of the offending map sizes printed in this book (standard size d20 show for scale):
Pretty tiny for such detailed environments, right? Now, check this out:
I believe this is the only map in the book that is afforded such vast real estate on the pages. I find it extremely odd why Team Voltron (I’m holding them mostly accountable since they are responsible for final edits in layout and content presentation) didn’t opt to do this for all of the major maps, and at least take up a good portion of one full page for the smaller maps so people can read them. BUT OH WAIT. It dawned on me after thinking about this most of the day today. Let’s go check out Mike Schley’s "Prints” store website. Ah ha! This makes perfect sense I suppose. Why give customers who paid $50 USD ($66 CDN dollars where I live) decent, readable sized maps in the book itself - let’s let them figure it out for themselves and they can just buy digital files from Mike’s site for $15 USD and print them out however they see fit.
That’s cool I suppose, but just doesn’t justify to me why Team Voltron put these in the final printed book. Also, Perkins! Mearls! Didn’t you guys see the final draft of the book before it went to print? Storm King’s Thunder also contained smaller size maps, but it was done well, combining the choice of very high contrast colour combinations in the printed maps with the brighter white paper than is usually found in most of the other 5e WotC hard covers. Really helps that stuff pop, and looks to be far better for imaging. Anyhow, I’ve spent more than I wanted to on this post, enjoy the rest of the map shots I took:
Oh! I almost forgot! This one bit is definitely classified as a rant: The map for the friggin’ DOOMVAULT - ONE PAGE DEVOTED TO THIS? The biggest, baddest assed map in the whole book and it gets one single page? If someone can make out the legend, let me know what it says please.
I love D&D, I love WotC (for the most part... Team Voltron... smarten up for your future releases!), and I hope this is one of the few posts I have to make about stuff like this.
-runDMsteve
#dungeons and dragons#tales from the yawning portal#wizards of the coast#dnd 5e#chris perkins#mike mearls#jeremy crawford#team voltron#waterdeep#d&d
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