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Post Apocalypse - Blog Posts
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I did this in a whoosh if you can’t read my handwriting just comment I’ll translate for ya
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Ah, the sweet joys of TAFE work you alter to whatever the hell you want. 16th March, 2021
消火器 | ＦｒｅｅＬａｎｃｅｒｓ
Hey just wanted to come out and say real quick that I think I've confirmed a new kintype. It actually falls under a whole new category of alterhumanity that I've never been in before.
I am Post Apocalyptic Survivor Conceptkin
Trying to figure this out was... certainly a challenge. Quite honestly I'm still not 1000% sure that is exactly what I'm experiencing, but for the time being it feels right.
This is an identity that is very deeply rooted in my sense of self and is a very personal experience. I struggle to even properly explain what this identity feels like, as there aren't really words in the english language (or any other language that I'm aware of) to describe the extremely abstract thoughts and emotions that come with it. The best way I can describe it is it just feels like something that's intertwined with the essence of my being, like I can just sense it all around me in the most subtle ways. I believe it's spiritual in nature, maybe stemming from a past (or future??) life. I think I have some vague memories of it, but it's hard to say because they don't feel like memories from a specific individual, hence why I use the conceptkin label. It's something I've sorta always felt with me, lingering in the background, dropping hints that there's something much bigger than myself out there. But it's grown more and more prevalent in my life as Ive gotten older, usually making itself most apparent in the spring and summer time. It's difficult to define, everytime I try to focus on it and make out any specifics it squirms out of my reach, like trying to remember a hazy dream from the previous night. Sometimes I'll see or hear something that strikes something familiar in me and I'll know Ive found another small piece to the puzzle, but I greatly struggle to make rational sense of it. But there are a few things I think I know for sure about it. Here are some things that remind of and make me feel more connected to it.
☣️🌿• TV Shows/Movies: Kipo and The Age of the Wonderbeasts, Ghostbusters II: Frozen Empire, I Am Legend, Love Death and Robots
☣️🌿• Video Games: The Last of Us
☣️🌿• Books: The 5th Wave
☣️🌿• Music: ACHE by emawk, Tumblr Girls (Christoph Andersson Remix Sped Up) by G-Eazy, Lady Killers II (Slowed Remix) by G-Eazy, Resonance (Sped Up) by Home
☣️🌿• Pics:
I don't see many other conceptkins around so if you're out there hiiiii :3 I'd love to be friends and hear about your experiences! Maybe it will help me to make sense of my own in some way. Also feel free to ask me any questions about it! ^^ I'd love to answer them and it'd probably be helpful for me to try learning to verbally express some of the things I experience lol, thank uuuu <3
some concepts for a TTRPG post apocalypse school project
Population is concentrated in quite barricaded cities, the land between being pretty much a wasteland, too dangerous because of the zombies roaming around. However, the recency of the apocalypse means there are plenty of useful things just laying around, perfectly usable.
One of the 4 characters written.
Hunter - Survivalist Man - ~30 years old
Had a complicated life that pushed him to find many different strategies to survive with almost nothing. Pretty cold and serious, quite solitary and wary of others but he feels deeply alone. He was independent, unaffiliated with the revolutionaries, but he does share the drive to help others by looking to synthetize the treatment. He doesn't hesitate to hurt others or even kill to achieve that goal, but it's not a method he enjoys, he's far from being bloodthirsty.
Shark zombie When a person takes a dose of the new drug engineered by the governments, their body goes through micro mutations very fast, giving them strength, endurance... But when the effects wear off, the backlash on the body is extreme and the person ends up very weakened. If they stay too long in that disminished state, their brain dysfunctions and starts producing the drug by itself, to the price of some essential faculties, both mental and physical. The person then starts to mutare, taking animal-ish traits and, while still being perfectly alive, starts to act more like a zombie than a human.
Day VII
It wasn't long before the humans died off and the machines built by them were the only survivors left. The robots and AI developed over a few centuries to recycle the accumulated trash, thus making them effectively immortal. The Earth cooled by a few degrees as the only water was in the atmosphere, keeping the ground usable for plants.
The seeds in the ground and those that blew around became saturated with radiation that escaped from decrepit power plants and silos and storage facilities. Mutations were catalyzed and metal and plastic started to grow out of the ground.
One of many big companies, Trash, Recycling, and IgnitioN Services by Electric and Gas-GuzzlerS, TRaINS by EGGS mass produced trash compaction robots, among others. These, like the rest, grouped up like families, like clans. It was almost human.
Boolean lifted a pile of scrap before turning it into a cube. Then he heard the telltale whistle of something flying through the air at high speed. He took the brunt of it and rolled it to the ground. He absorbed the scrap, bulking himself up, then went to investigate what had launched the projectile.
What he saw after a few minutes was the opposite of what he expected: a war machine curled up, doing the robotic equivalent of human crying. She lifted her head as he drew closer.
"何が欲しいですか?"
Boolean cocked his head in confusion. He recognized the language, but not what it meant.
"Qu'est-ce que tu veux?"
Not even the slightest clue.
"¿Qué deseas?"
So close yet so far away. So he went with the one he knew. "英語を話します?"
She snickered at that, then, in a much less irritated growl, said, "What do you want?"
"Oh, uh.... I just wondered if you throwing that crane at me was on purpose? Looking at you now, though, it doesn't seem like it." Now that he wasn't trying to process language or body language, he saw her factory silver plating which was covered in dust and rust flakes. She got up and some of the debris fell off of her.
"Sorry about that. Just alone and sad. I was sent here to find life, but aside from some weird molds and viruses, and you, I've found nothing."
"Well, if you're looking for humans or mammals you won't find any. They're all dead and gone. There aren't even any remains. But if you're looking at plant life, everything here came from carbon-based, photosynthesizing flora. Centuries back, but the DNA's still there, if you know where to look." He plucked a leaf from the ground. The rubber peeled apart easily when he opened it up.
"This is the most natural, well, most pre-apocalyptic, plant that grows now. One of the few carbon-based life forms here anymore." The silver robot looked at it, hunching to see and be less imposing. She analyzed it and, sure enough, nothing but hydrocarbons.
"Wait, what's your name? I'm Boolean."
"Evelyn."
Metro Exodus map
During the E3 2017 Announce Gameplay Trailer we can see what seems is going to replace the diary of the previus two games:
It shows us a map, so I decided to see what info could be found in it:
I tried translating the rest of the text in the map with no luck, so feel free to add info or corrections.
BOOM RATATATA
Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Rating: 9.0 of 10
First and foremost, I might be the only person in the world who were torn between Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road. You see, I loved Pitch Perfect. I had been waiting for the sequel for a while and Anna Kendrick is kind of my spirit animal. I have never even seen any of the Mad Max movies and know practically nothing about it except the broadest overview (I know, I'm a bad geek) and the trailers for Mad Max: Fury Road didn't quite move me. BUT then everyone and their grandfather started raving about Fury Road up to the point where I can't ignore it. As you might have guessed, after a brief moment of soul searching, I decided on Fury Road.
And really, I basically dropped my jaw to floor for the whole 2 hours, it was insane. In a world where action movies (or even non action movies) are frequently big and loud, Fury Road was BIG and LOUD. Fury Road was non-stop—it was basically 2 hours of Max's (Tom Hardy) life, and that life ain't quiet. But most importantly, it was also beautiful. A lot of movies are beautifully shot (heck, if nothing else, even the Transformers movies are beautifully shot) but Fury Road brought everything to the next level. Every scene is like a painting. The movie didn't even have proper script for its shooting, it had a mountain of storyboards instead, and it shows. Basically, Fury Road was an artwork. It wasn't just pretty, it was poetry—if poetry can be made of gasoline, greased wheels, and dirt, that can only brought upon by George Miller, the original creator of Mad Max.
In Mad Max's world, the world had ended and the ones left were living under tyrant named Immortan Joe. I honestly don't know if he were supposed to have backstory in the previous movies or not, but I know jackshit about him and the War Boys, and I loved it. Fury Road has this enormous, enormously rich world where everything is crazy and nothing is explained, and actually I love that about the movie. It made me feel like we literally have only seen one second worth of glimpse at its madness—and looking at the amount of creativity in it, we definitely only have seen so little of its world. Every inch of its character designs told a story, and there were plenty of story to tell: Citadel, War Boys and War Pups, Breeders, Gas Town, Bullet Farm, Many Mothers, we really are just scratching the surface.
But the main spectacle were definitely the fights and chases, and boy, what a spectacle it was. Almost everything were done with practical effects instead of CGI and you just can see the effort and detail that went into it. The cars were rigged with spikes, poles, and grenades, and you have never seen anything more beautiful than them. The chases were batshit crazy and complicated, that it made Fast & Furious 7's scenes looked like they were made with your niece's toy LEGO cars. But honestly, as R-rated and artful as it is, we can't really deny that Fury Road is basically a 13 year old's wet dream in which cars explode randomly on contact, and rock music during battle is the pinnacle of coolness. In short, it was nothing but full-on gloriousness.
One thing, though: Charlize Theron was a capital-B, bold letter Badass. With a buzzcut and a warpaint, Charlizes Theron's Imperator Furiosa was a heroine worthy of Sigourney Weavers's Ripley status. Tom Hardy, who played the titular character, has always had enormous presence and he was perfect as the wild-but-strangely-rarely-speaking Max. But it was Imperator Furiosa who moved the story forward. Trapped within action sequence after sequences, Theron was able to bring depth to her character, just enough to make we love her and want her to succeed. I also need to have a little shoutout for Nicholas Hoult who played Nux. Being a fan from his Skins days, I was always delighted to see him taking on a new, interesting character and he did a marvellous job. We witness you, Nicholas Hoult, and we welcome you.
It was really hard for me to remind myself that the original Mad Max, a cult favorite, is a 36-year-old property. TL;DR Somehow, Mad Max: Fury Road felt so fresh, so breathtaking, and had eased itself to the cracks of today's filmmaking so completely that you know it wasn't a miracle, it wasn't luck; it was the work of a seasoned filmmaker who knew exactly what he's doing, doing what he does best.
Lately have been obsessed with zombie survival
Survival tactics for the Apocalypse I just happen to know. Keep in mind, these apply for zombies and just a good old social collapse.
Wear denim and leather, or some types of strong military fabrics. Strong, alive human teeth can’t bite through those materials, so I doubt a zombie with rotting, dead teeth can.
Gas.Goes.Bad. I don’t understand how people are using cars like 10 years into the apocalypse, when gas will go bad after about 3-6 months, and diesel will last roughly a year.
Medicine expires! It doesn’t last for all eternity. It does remain usable, but gets weaker the longer it expires.
BRACES. If you have them, I’m sorry, but unless you find someone, somehow, to get them off, You’re pretty much screwed.
You won’t always be able to brush your teeth, sorry :,)
Your clothes will stink. You will stink. Everything will stink. Even if there aren’t zombies, there will be dead animals and people everywhere.
If you need insulin or any other type of refrigerated medicines, I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck.
Asthmatic people, including myself, will have to be super careful when it comes to losing our breath, literally.
If you need any type of blood pressure pills, or heart medicines, you’re also out of luck.
PERIODS! Blood attracts the zombies, so you’re screwed while you have pads and tampons, and even more screwed when you run out.
Guns jam and misfire, especially when not cared for properly.
Swinging a bat or a sword takes a lot of energy and stamina, and you won’t always get a one hit kill.
Canned food expires.
You want to hunt? Each time you’ll have to go out further due to exhausting the game in your area.
Never use a knife with a serrated edge on a zombie. It’ll get stuck in the bone.
Never use a knife with a serrated edge for a rib cut, cause it’ll get lodged between the bones.
Don’t pull your gun on someone who’s ready. You won’t be able to ready, aim, fire before the person shoots you first.
If you can’t hit the head, aim for the neck as well, especially if using a shotgun or high power rifle. You might be able to take off the head that way.
Human kills don’t always have to be headshots. Center mass works well.
If you’re dealing with 28 days later zombies, or The Last of Us infected, multiple body shots will take them down, as they are still alive, but a headshot will work best, and wastes less ammo.
If you’re dealing with The Walking Dead’s walkers, a headshot is the only way to put them down.
For all living things: Kill the head, the body will die.
You will not get a headshot every time. You’ll miss a lot, especially when you first start learning to shoot.
Your femoral artery is located in your upper thigh, near the groin. Try not to nick it, you’ll bleed out before anyone can even think of the proper medical response.
Remember when using knives, get one with a grip. When blood pours down the handle, the knife will become slippery and you will drop it or be unable to retrieve it.
Not all handguns use the same ammo! If you want an easily accessible gun, go for a Ruger SR22. You should be able to find them at Walmart, and their ammo is also sold at Walmart.
Keep in mind, ammo, canned foods, medicines, gas and guns are gonna be the first things to go, ergo the hardest to find.
If you have zip ties around your wrists, try to move your arms up, then jerk down and out. Repeat a couple times and they should snap.
Cold weather should stop zombies quickly, as they have no pumping/flowing blood to keep them moving.
Libraries will have books and manuals about agriculture, carpentry, mechanics, fishing, hunting, butchering and other survival things. USE THEM!
If you’re going to loot, don’t only check the obvious places. Check everywhere. A sales executive’s office may reward you with a bottle of Tylenol. A soccer mom’s van can wield granola and water bottles. A gym rat’s locker can give you protein.
Peanut butter. That’s all.
Don’t use them same knife you use to kill zombies to open your canned food. That’s gross as hell man :/
Some household cleaning products have explosive reactions when mixed together.
If you melt styrofoam it becomes homemade napalm.
High schools and colleges will not only have fully stocked pantries and nurse’s offices, but check their chemistry labs. You might find chemicals that can be made into explosives. If not, you can look at textbooks and find out which chemicals react in which ways.
If you find a school that has fences, use it! Football fields can be turned into gardens and livestock areas. The roof becomes a watchtower. The classrooms all lock, and there should be keys to all of them in the principals office or janitors closet. personal apartments, safety for the group. And no one really ever thinks to go to a school.
First place people think to go when a virus breaks out? the hospital, grocery stores, or highways to get the hell out of dodge. Avoid these places like the plague, literally. Wait for a few months until the elements and time have taken a toll on the corpses that most likely infest these places. Then try to scope them out. Never go alone, and never go in blind.
Museums should have seeds and such, especially if they have a horticultural division. Find these seeds, and use them.
A crossbow is not a good weapon. While it helps with the stealth option, it takes far too long to reload your bolts. That, along with the fact that a crossbow is so powerful, the bolt will most likely go straight through a rotted skull and lodge in the wall behind, or just get lodged in a fresh enough skull.
Farms. If the owners are dead? Oh no, its sad, yes, but now you have a farm to your advantage. Most farmers will have home canned goods, backup generators, gas stored in the barn, animals like cows (milk and beef are two different types, keep that in mind) Chickens (Try only eating designated meat chickens, as they will have more meat on them and you need layers for eggs) goats (again, meat and milk are two different types, and make sure to keep bucks and does separate or the milk will come out tasting like male goats, yuck.) Pigs, and more. They will also have crops and other things you may find helpful, especially their tractors when it comes time to plant new crops.
Corn can be used to make Ethanol.
Farms also have the luxury of being fenced in. Reinforce these fences if you can.
Dig pits for zombies to fall into, and go out regularly to dispose of them so they don’t stink up the place.
The Amish will most likely have no idea whats going on until its too late, due to their lack of technology. This is horribly sad, as most Amish families consist of the parents, their elderly parents, and anywhere from 1-15 kids. While sad, this also means these house will be stocked with food and medical supplies. And while you wont have the luxury of using a generator for electricity, All Amish homes have access to kerosene for lamps, along with access to a Well and Outhouses.
While you may have access to a generator, only use it sparingly and only if you’re isolated. Noise attracts zombies and worse, other people.
Don’t use your gun on group of zombies less than 5. They’re slow, and clumsy, and the sound of a gun will only attract more. Again, sound=bad. Wrap duct tape around your ankles, so no crawlers can get you.
Wrap duct tape around your arms. Nothing can bite you as you hold it off.
BE careful at night. Most zoos will let all of their animals free if something like this happens so they have a fair chance of survival. Lions, bears, hyenas, cheetahs, and more just got added to your ever growing list of enemies.
Stay away from Military sites unless you scope them out. Most will shoot on sight, as they do not want the infection to spread.
If the Site is abandoned, check it out before sending people in. I know the idea of seemingly endless MRE’s, Medications, Guns, and ammo seems like a dream come true, but these places will most likely be infested.
If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
Sneak around. Don’t attack zombies or people unless you absolutely have to.
Try going to Military academies. Most times, the cadets will be called to become a line of defense for the nearest city, town, etc. They should still have plenty of guns, ammo, food, and gear that can aid you, along with the bonus of most of them having tall walls.
Try not to use riot gear. I’m not saying don’t, but limit your usage of it, especially if where you’re located is hot. The gear, while extremely beneficial on terms of safety, makes you slower, less articulate, and you will overheat fast.
Black clothing attracts the sun, white reflects it.
This isnt a movie. You aren’t going to waltz around in booty shorts and tank tops and look all sexy while you survive. The first time you stick your arm out first as your turn a corner a zombie will grab you and take a bite out of your uncovered arm. Same goes for you, guys. Wear a belt, don’t sag your jeans. You’ll trip. Don’t wear anything that leaves you revealed to snappy jaws or wandering hands.
Cut your hair short, dont wear loose clothing, and dont wear jewelry. You will get snagged or grabbed, then boom, game over.
If you find a multitude of supplies, don’t take it all. Someone else may need something too.
Don’t trust little kids right off the bat, they could be being used as bait.
You aren’t gonna have a curvy, model body, sorry to disappoint women out there. You’re mostly likely gonna look like an anorexic person, due to your lack of constant food supply.
You can go 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.
Stay away from carbs, they only give short busts of energy.
After roughly 72 hours without sleep, you will begin to hallucinate. Try to catch a few hours whenever you can.
Stay away from densely populated areas, including the suburbs, sixties, large towns, and highways. Smaller towns and isolated shops/gas stations should be on the safer side.
Your car will need work, and will probably need its oil changed. While it’s still working, that is.
Crotch shots work for women just as much as they do for men.
If hitting a deer or raccoon messes up your car, imagine the damage hitting a full grown zombie or human will do.
belt yourself into a tree. It’s not comfortable, but you won’t be zombie bait. On that note, try to conceal yourself in branches so wandering zombies or people dont group around your tree for a surprise party when you wake up.
!!!A HUMAN BITE IS JUST AS DEADLY AS A ZOMBIE BITE!!!
Head wounds bleed more than any other small wounds.
Don’t let your wounds get infected. It will mostly likely kill you.
People are worse than the undead. They can think, and plan ahead. They can do coordinated attacks, and they can trick you if you let your guard down. Remember, Trust no one, suspect everyone.
Sincerely, a 19 year old girl who is obsessed with zombie movies/shows and survival.
Botw is such an interesting take on post apocalypse, because it isn't really dystopian. It is a wound healed over, a world that has forgotten the end of itself, and in that, has begun anew. Grandparents whisper their nightmares into the wind, and smile at their kin. The garrisons that remain are sodden ashes in the dirt, a burial ground, and the most fertile soil for miles. You do not know the past that your body remembers. You do not know the voices that linger, and yet you follow. You follow, because the world has forgotten you, and you have nothing that is yours to remember.
Why Abby never redeemed herself (and what that means for the story)
As divisive as the discourse surrounding Abby as a character and The Last of Us Part 2’s story as a whole is, I have felt the need for quite some time now to properly put into words why much of the intended effect the highly ambitious narrative attempted to achieve has unfortunately never occurred for me. This is due to a single central problem: Abby does not have a redemption arc. A redemption arc consists of two equally crucial aspects: a) the character undergoing the arc realizes that they made a mistake/have been acting morally reprehensible b) they make the conscious decision to do/be better Abby doesn’t do either of those things. Regarding the first aspect, the only instance where Abby alludes to feeling some type of guilt or shame or regret regarding any of her actions (both in terms of what happened in Jackson and what’s going on in Seattle) is on day 2, while she descends the hotel with Lev. When asked by him why she’s helping them, Abby says she “needed to lighten the load a bit”. This is most commonly interpreted as her feeling guilty. This one sentence, however, is so incredibly vague that it’s impossible to determine definitively what she’s talking about here. More than likely, she is referring to having slept with Owen. Not only did that happen mere hours ago, meaning it would still be on her mind, but additionally, Abby has remained consistently defensive, almost aggressively so, when being questioned or challenged in the slightest about Jackson (nearly all her conversations with Mel and Manny during the first day showcase this), so why would she out of nowhere admit any feeling of guilt concerning Joel? Furthermore, nothing occurred that could have acted as a trigger for Abby to start looking back on her actions with self-reflection/self-criticism. And for precisely these reasons I didn’t take that line as an allusion to Joel. (Again, it is possible to interpret it this way, I’m just illustrating why I deem it unlikely.)
Her decision to save Lev and Yara, as is implied by the narrative, is motivated by her feeling like she owes them for having saved her life. And thus (since they would likely die otherwise) she felt somewhat obligated – against her better judgement – to help them in return. Abby doesn't feel the need to change her mind about the Seraphites, she merely makes an exception for these two. Even when interacting with Lev and Yara, she continues to be reluctant, judgmental, and condescending throughout the majority of the first two days (we can spontaneously think of snide, condescending comments Abby makes toward Lev whenever he is talking about his faith), again showcasing that she clearly has no desire or intention to change her mind about their faction, as well as continuously refusing to take them seriously/treat them respect. And while on the subject of Lev and his faith, we do see Abby learning quite a bit about the Seraphites’ religion, but it’s always through the lens of Lev, who makes an effort to distance himself from the rest of his people. When explaining himself to Abby, he makes it clear that this is his belief, and that the Seraphites deviated from their original beliefs/teachings some time ago, thus only reinforcing Abby’s previously held beliefs. She is given no reason to look at the conflict between the two factions from an objective/distant perspective, possibly realizing that misunderstandings, prejudices and year-long, one-sided, vicious rhetoric might have blown the conflict out of proportion (and that she may have been complicit in that). As a result, Abby continues to have no qualms with slaughtering Seraphites. On the morning of the first day, Abby doesn’t hesitate because they're all just religious lunatics to her, and she continues to have this attitude at the end of the third day, Lev being the only exception. There's complete absence of self-reflection, admittance of fault, or desire to change her way of thinking from Abby's side, so where exactly is her supposed character growth? Ultimately, Abby believes to be 100% justified and her enemies to be 100% at fault (this goes for both the Seraphites and Ellie). But there is another problem. Even if Abby had undergone a decent arc, learning the error of her ways, or at the very least realizing how her years of blind loyalty and narrow-mindedness led to unjust, meaningless bloodshed, it would ultimately be irrelevant unless she also drew a connection to her misdeeds against Joel and Ellie. Her supposed “redemption arc” during the three days in Seattle is entirely removed from what she did in Jackson. Thus, even if her arc was well-written and brilliantly executed, she would have at most redeemed herself with regard to the WLF/Seraphite conflict. Let me quickly illustrate why: in a hypothetical situation where I set your house on fire and then immediately afterwards cross the street to give a homeless person 100 dollars, would I have repented myself in your eyes? Would you absolve me of my crimes against you? No, because these two acts are entirely independent of each other. I have not shown repentance towards you or made amends for the injustice you suffered because of my actions. Similarly, Abby has not redeemed herself in my eyes, even in the hypothetical best-case scenario where she undergoes a well-crafted and fantastically executed redemption arc in Seattle (which would give me something to work with at least). Unless she makes the connection and expresses some sort of regret or remorse for what she’s put Ellie through, it is impossible for her to redeem herself regarding this offense and that’s the redemption I was interested in seeing. Some players seem to hold the belief that Abby doesn't need to redeem herself for killing Joel. I cannot argue with that. All I can do is illustrate my position, I believe that her actions were wrong, particularly regarding Ellie who had absolutely no part in killing her father. Hence, I expected – in some way even demanded – a redemption arc, at least if I was ever expected to come around to Abby.
I went into her section looking forward to seeing things from her perspective, wanting to latch onto her personality and get engrossed in her arc, but was ultimately let down. And I wanna make this absolutely clear: Abby does not need to regret having killed Joel in order to redeem herself (both in the audience's and in Ellie's eyes). Her motivation is after all understandable, much like Ellie's is. Still, I would have liked to see her feeling regret for having killed Joel in such an exceptionally and unnecessarily brutal and sadistic way. Perhaps Abby could realize that Isaac's years of training turned her into a heartless, unfeeling killing machine, and that this “darker side” of her came even more to the forefront during that highly emotional moment in the ski lodge. Perhaps, in retrospect, the fact that, despite Ellie's repeated crying and pleading, Abby still went through with killing Ellie’s father figure right in front of her eyes, is slowly starting to gnaw at her conscience (since Abby has been in a similar situation). Just imagine a confrontation between these two women where they actually get to have a conversation with each other. Imagine Abby eventually expressing regret, apologizing to Ellie for having caused her so much suffering. How would that effect Ellie who has been desperate to kill this woman up until this point (in this alternative, hypothetical story)? I cannot express how much potential for compelling dialogue and really powerful drama lies in this alternative scenario. In this version, Abby, who gave into her darkest impulses due to her anger and sadness and insatiable need for vengeance, could ultimately, through self-reflection, realization and asking for forgiveness (a.k.a. actual character growth), prevent Ellie from going down a similarly dark path. And I am in no way implying that this is the only direction this story could have gone that I would have accepted, but I needed to be given something at least. But we were denied all of this. No critical self-assessment, no admission of guilt, no want to redeem herself in the eyes of the people whom she wronged. And thus, Abby's potential redemption arc turns to dust. Now I feel the need to address another incredibly large issue I have with Abby, not as a character within a story, but as a person within the universe. Because unfortunately I am not convinced that I’d be capable of coming around to her even if all these major issues were fixed. And the reason for this being numerous independent acts which I am not able to overlook or excuse. Beginning with her sleeping with Owen. Completely ignoring the fact that him and Abby talk about torturing someone only to 5 seconds later do the devil’s tango (which is quite frankly one the most disturbing things I’ve ever had to witness), I personally find infidelity an inexcusable offense. There is not a single good reason not to be honest with your partner, not to resist your impulses, not to do the right thing. The fact that Mel is about to bring Owen’s child into this world is not exactly helping either. And with this one act (of which I’m to this day unsure why it was included in the game at all? What purpose did that sex scene serve apart from traumatizing me for life?) the writers pretty much sealed the deal for me regarding my opinion of Abby, all the goodwill that might have been left completely eradicated. But I had no idea what profoundly disturbing and repellent things were yet to come. On Day 3, after Abby followed Lev onto the island and he just lost his sister, Abby, in order to ensure they escape the island together, goes on to mow down WLFs and Seraphites alike. For one, the matter of fact is that there would have been plenty other ways to get out of that situation, for instance: a) Why do they not return to the boat with which they came (and landed on a very remote part of the island with)? I know they offer some bs throw-away line from Yara about hearing gunshots coming from there, but honestly anything would be smarter than going through the main battle that’s going on in Haven.
But no, we can’t have characters make rational decisions, we need another cool action set piece, goddammit. b) In that confrontation with Isaac (I still can’t get over how they actually ran into him, like what are the odds of this) why wouldn't Abby just tell Isaac that she wants Lev to herself, that she wants to take her sweet time torturing him? Don’t tell me Isaac wouldn’t be on board with that. But then Abby and Lev would be able to escape the island no problem, and we need to show how much Abby cares about Lev (who she met 24 hours ago btw) by having her willingly accept getting shot to protect him. We can’t have Abby making rational decisions that would ensure both her own and the kid’s survival she apparently so desperately cares for, we need another cool action set piece, goddammit. What I am trying to illustrate is that there would have been more than one alternative to avoid having to kill her own comrades. But no, Abby instead opts for the way that not only takes longer and is much riskier but is also the one that forces her to kill her own comrades/friends. (Me criticizing the stupidity of the character's actions is obviously by extension a critique of the poor writing, since a more creative/more talented writer would have come up with logical, sensical ways to get to this plot point/action set piece. I'm not criticizing the fact they prioritize a certain plot point, but there's ways to reach those in more organic, logical, non-contrived ways.) And what does Abby have to say when Lev asks her about just having killed dozens of her own people? “It doesn’t matter.”. Mind you, these are the people she has spent the past four years with, the family and the home she was granted after having lost that in Salt Lake City (keep in mind how much effort they put into showing us how chummy Abby was with literally everyone during Day 1 too). And she ploughs through them with absolute apathy. No hesitation, no moral dilemma, no inner conflict, nothing. This woman is a literal sociopath. And I know it sounds like it couldn’t get any worse, and yet. I think my absolute favorite thing about Abby has to be how selfless and empathic she is. Only take the scene at the end of day three where she finds Owen and Mel dead in the aquarium. What is the next thing Abby does? She drags a 13-year-old child into a combat situation, a child who has recently been through five – count them five!!! – severe traumatic events within the last three days. a) He was excommunicated from his community, whose members then went on to hunt him and his sister down for sport. b) His sister lost her arm trying to protect him, nearly dying in the process. c) He had to kill his mother in self-defense because she was so unable to accept him for who he is to the point of attempting to kill him. d) He lost his sister whose last act was saving his life once again. e) He watched the community he’s been a part of his entire life being slaughtered in front of his eyes while his home and the physical manifestation of his faith, their place of worship, burned and razed to the ground. This 13-year-old child needs all the affection, attention, compassion, support and time in the world to be able to cope with all this. But unfortunately, Lev is stuck with Abby, who couldn’t care less. As soon as she finds her two friends dead, Lev’s struggles are immediately brushed aside. So much so that she drags him along, willingly putting his life at risk again while also expecting him to be capable of focusing enough to assist/aid her. “I know you – a literal child – just lost everything that made up your sense of identity and belonging, but I really liked my two friends, so shut up, we need to focus on me first.” And people expect me to like this person? Of all the things Abby did that make her the most psychotic, despicable, and morally reprehensible person, this one might take the cake for me personally. How far up your own a**, how far removed from any capability of showing empathy do you have to be to act this way?
It seems to me that she does not care about Lev after all (only when we need a cool action set piece where she kills all her friends – she does it out of love for this random kid though, so it’s okay). And yet there remains one final moment, one decision, one act that we need to talk about – when Abby reacts with glee upon hearing she is about to slit a pregnant woman’s throat. And once again, if it wasn’t for the presence of a literal child, she would have gone through with it. I've heard claims in defense of this heinous act such as she deems it retribution for Mel's death. And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get the impression she liked Mel all that much, especially considering she barely bestows a glance at Mel’s lifeless body, she instead cries over Owen. Let's compare her to Ellie for a moment, as people often tend to, thinking it would benefit their defense of Abby: When Ellie confronts Mel and Owen in the aquarium, she makes it clear from the very first second that she is not interested in them, but in Abby (prioritizing the actual perpetrator as opposed to mere (somewhat innocent) bystanders). And I’m gonna have to rant for a second about how utterly dumb and contrived this whole scene is: a) Why exactly is Mel there to begin with? Why is a woman as heavily pregnant as she is even allowed outside the base, much less in a combat situation? (It almost seems like the writers needed to make sure there’s a pregnant woman around for Ellie to kill, no matter how nonsensical and contrived it might be, especially considering we’re in a post-apocalyptic world where pregnant women would be the most valued (and thus most protected) members of society, seeing how they literally ensure the survival of humankind.) b) Mel conveniently wears a big ass coat that hides her belly, when every other second we see her throughout the game she has it on full display so that everyone can immediately tell how heavily pregnant she is. c) Why in the world would the first thing out of Mel’s mouth not be that she’s pregnant? Someone’s holding a pistol to her face and she doesn’t even consider pleading to Ellie to spare her and her child? That Owen doesn’t say anything is even funnier, but we already knew that he doesn’t care about Mel and his own child, so. d) Why would they refuse to give Ellie the information? Not only has it been established that Mel doesn’t care too much about Abby, there should be no dilemma for her when it comes to choosing between protecting her own child and ratting Abby out. But also: Abby is on the Seraphite island where an attck is currently taking place? What are the odds of a) Abby surviving that in the first place, b) Ellie actually managing to get there, and c) Ellie surviving, finding and killing Abby? You have absolutely no good reason to not give up Abby's location, you have nothing to lose and only your own and your child’s life to save. e) Why the hell would Owen approach Ellie who is holding a gun to his pregnant girlfriend’s face? Yeah, sure, don’t comply with her, she can only kill the three of you within milliseconds. (Like, I want so badly to empathize with these people, but it’s really difficult when they continue to be so utterly stupid and incompetent.) f) Ellie, if you threaten someone with a gun, you make sure they don’t come within a two-meter radius of you. And if they don’t back the f*ck up, you shoot them in the kneecap. Then you point the gun at the preggo lady and tell her you’re gonna kill Owen unless she gives you the information you want. Why are you suddenly the most idiotic and incompetent human being? You see, we can’t have characters make rational decisions, we need to show that Ellie is the evilest person to ever exist, no matter how contrived and nonsensical all the events leading up to it are (including discarding Ellie of her core characteristics and skills). Look, she killed an unborn child! Yeah, sounds fine in theory, only problem being:
a) Ellie didn’t know Mel was pregnant b) they attacked her first, she killed them in self-defense c) she had a complete mental breakdown when she found out Kinda the exact opposite of Abby, wouldn’t you agree? Abby knew Dina was pregnant, neither Ellie nor Dina was a threat to her any longer, and she was thrilled to take Dina’s (and her baby’s) life. You can try however hard you like to convince me that Abby is somehow justified here or that she’s a morally grey character, but no matter how you slice it, chief, that is not morally grey, that is repellent and disturbing. I have now done everything in my power to illustrate as detailed and thorough as I was able to why Abby did not have a redemption arc and why both the absence of her arc as well as her deeds independent of it led me to have as strong a negative opinion of her as I do, both as a character within a story and a person within the universe the story is set in. Another question that could be posed, however, and the final thing I wanna address, is whether Abby even needs a redemption arc. After all, there’s a plethora of despicable, morally reprehensible, detestable, and downright loathsome characters in popular media who are widely beloved regardless (we collectively have a soft spot for villains it seems). And I think I’d be much more forgiving if the overall consensus was that yes, Abby is a horrible person, but some people enjoy her regardless because she’s still a well-written character. And if that is your personal stance I would never bash you for that. It only gets exceptionally annoying when the game itself seems to imply that I am a bad person if I do not end up liking Abby. And not for their lack of trying, no, they really tried to a comical degree. This essay is way too long already so I will just quickly outline a fraction of all the cheap and manipulative tactics this game uses to trick us into siding with Abby. a) Play fetch with the dogs that you were forced to kill in earlier parts of the game, don’t you feel bad? No, I do not. The alternative was dying, I did what anyone in that situation would have done. I do not feel bad for protecting Ellie's life. b) Do you hear that sweet Gustavo soundtrack? The one that so many players associate with all the good feelings the first game elicited in them? The one that so well encompasses the “The Last of Us” experience? Yeah, we’ll play it mostly during Abby’s parts of the story and leave it out of Ellie’s (except for the prologue/epilogue), so you feel more inclined to sympathize with Abby. c) Look at how precious Abby is with her kid side character, it’s such a lovely and heartwarming dynamic, reminds me of someone else but I can’t quite put my finger on it. No, we couldn’t have possibly written a different dynamic that doesn’t play on the player’s preexisting emotional associations. How could the audience possibly empathize/connect to a dynamic that isn’t a replica of Joel’s and Ellie’s? d) Look at all those mechanics and weapons in Abby’s gameplay, the strangling people, the shivs, the ladders, the flamethrower/hunting pistol (El Diablo), isn’t it reminiscent of playing as Joel in the first game? Yes, we will continue to shamelessly exploit your emotional investment in characters from the first game (while simultaneously doing everything to thoroughly obliterate said characters you have such a strong connection to). e) Who would have thought? Abby had a dad who was such a good guy, saving Zebras in his spare time (which by the way is so laughable, that’s something a 10-year-old would come up with to make his character sympathetic). Doesn’t really cancel out the fact that he got a hard-on at the chance of killing a 14-year-old child, but he was such a good guy though.
And don’t you love how we once again feel the need to replicate Ellie’s and Joel’s relationship to such a comical degree? Collecting artefacts (cards/coins), bonding over an exotic animal (giraffe/zebra), teasing my daughter about her potential boyfriend (Jesse/Owen), the day trip to a place that becomes like a safe haven to us (museum/aquarium). The main problem I have with these tactics/parallels is that they do not serve any narrative function. They never amount or lead to anything, never play a part in a character’s arc (e.g.: one them reevaluating their opinion of the other because they share similar origins/motivations) or serve to elevate the themes/message during a crucial emotional pay-off. None of these things ever influence the plot, influence a character’s motivation/goals, heightens/showcases/elevates the themes of the story, meaning they do not serve any narrative purpose. And thus, their only remaining function is to manipulate the audience. All these framing devices ultimately reveal that the writers were clearly biased towards one of our two protagonists. They do not hold Ellie and Abby to the same standard. Abby gets her revenge, never aims to forgive Ellie or be the bigger person, and still gets off nearly scott-free, with her life, Lev by her side and the promise of finding the Fireflies. Compared to Ellie who doesn't get her revenge, is expected to be the bigger person by forgiving Abby and still loses everything in the process. Pretty biased for a story that is supposedly about how there's no good or bad side – the writers clearly seem to think there is. Compare this to our introduction to Joel in the first game. One of the first character defining actions we see him take is abandon another family on the side of the road because Joel is the kind of guy that prioritizes taking care of his own. That is who he is. And the game simply presents this to us, never telling us how to feel about it. Similarly, I think it would have worked much better if they made Abby a character defined by clearly setting herself apart from Ellie (instead of ham-fisting all these not-so-subtle parallels in) and letting me make up my own mind about her, instead of constantly and patronizingly forcing me to feel a certain way. If you write a complex, multi-dimensional, compelling character, chances are I will be able to connect to or at least appreciate that character, no matter how villainous, despicable, and loathsome they might be. I personally adore Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones. And she is an absolute c*nt. I actively despise her within the confines of the story because she continuously tears down my other favourite characters in the most horrific ways. Yet I absolutely adore the artistry, talent and creativity put into creating such a complex and intriguing character, so much so that she is my all-time favourite character. I know the difference between liking a character because they're well-written and liking a character because they're a good person. However, “I don’t like this character because they’re a shitty person, no matter how well-written they might be” is a strong enough argument regardless. A character being a horrible person is justification enough for someone to not like that character. If Abby were well-written, the writers would not have felt the need to resort to blatant and transparent emotional manipulation to force us to feel a certain way about her. The fact that such a large portion of the audience still failed to connect to Abby is not a reflection of the audience’s inability to feel empathy for morally grey characters (again, even the most horrendous villains are often beloved, as long as they are well-written), but instead a reflection of how much the writers failed to create a complex, compelling character we would want to root for.
Joel did not doom humanity (no matter how much the second game wants you to believe that)
To demonize Joel’s decision at the end of the first game (saving his surrogate daughter’s life) you need to bend over backwards and ignore any and all context the first game gave us with regards to who the Fireflies truly are. Because the truth of the matter is: a) they knocked Joel unconscious while he was trying to revive a young girl b) they drugged Ellie immediately to tear her body apart for their needs c) THEY DID NOT ASK ELLIE FOR PERMISSION to give her life for their cause, they didn’t even tell her she would have to die (Ellie was making plans with Joel after the giraffe scene, “Once we're done, we'll go wherever you want. Okay?”, clearly indicating she had no idea she would have to die) d) they did not let Ellie and Joel see each other to say their goodbyes e) they were about to walk Joel out into the wilderness without any of his gear/resources, which during the zombie apocalypse is a certain death sentence f) they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain (remember how Marlene promised Joel guns in return for delivering Ellie?) So even if you show them as much goodwill as possible, the Fireflies are still a bunch of assholes. If the exact opposite had happened, they let Joel go all on good terms and then he suddenly decided to turn around and murder everyone I would have called him a terrible person, but that is not what happened. As it stands, the Fireflies are shady and questionable at best. But it actually gets worse:
a) the procedure that would 100% kill Ellie had an incredibly low success rate (the doctor mentioned in his recording that every previous operation with other test subjects had failed) b) the same recording mentions cerebrospinal fluid having been extracted, meaning they were capable of performing a non-lethal spinal tab, but they’re unable to perform a non-lethal biopsy or craniotomy on Ellie? (this may seem like nit-picking, but actually further solidifies my point about how incompetent the Fireflies/Abby’s dad were/was) c) to add to their immense incompetence, mere hours after receiving Ellie they decide to IMMEDIATELY KILL THE ONLY PERSON KNOWN TO BE IMMUNE as oppose to keeping her alive for as long as possible to run every single test in existence on her. But let's paint a picture of the best case scenario, which is Jerry, the absolute legend that he is, actually manages to get a vaccine out of Ellie, what happens then? a) How are the Fireflies, who are nearly extinct at this point, supposed to MASS PRODUCE and NATIONWIDE DISTRIBUTE a vaccine? That is logistically impossible. b) More than likely, they would use the vaccine as a bargaining chip against FEDRA (granted, this is more a guess than a fact, but to believe they wouldn’t take advantage of the vaccine in the fight for political power against the government they’ve been fighting for years is beyond naïve). But let’s be even more generous: turns out the Fireflies are the most altruistic resistance group to have ever existed, they actually manage to produce and distribute the vaccine into every last corner of the country, everyone is immune. What now? a) You might be immune to spores and bites, but your immunity doesn’t help you when a clicker rips your throat out or a bloater crushes you to death, the infected can still kill you in numerous other ways. b) The faction wars going on are not gonna disappear overnight. WLF and Seraphites will continue to kill each other by the dozens every day, one could even argue that introducing a vaccine into the conflict would only cause things to escalate further. c) Numerous cannibals, hunters and bandits still roam the country, they will not abandon their practices overnight and they are arguably a much bigger threat than the infected to begin with. Just because everyone is immune does not mean that the world returns to sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. To imply that it would, means being simplistic and naive beyond reason. It should be obvious by now that Ellie’s death WOULD NOT HAVE IMPROVED ANYTHING. The chances of actually getting a vaccine are slim to none, the chances of vaccinating everyone are even more dour, and even then the overall situation would not improve much. With such bad prospects I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice my child either. (I am aware that an argument can be made that none of these factors had an impact on Joel’s decision to save Ellie, yet they’re still crucial when making a judgement about the Fireflies/Abby’s dad). To summarize: a) Abby’s dad was incompetent and a horrible person (his conversation with Abby in the second game tells us that he would not be willing to sacrifice his own child, but if it’s someone else’s it’s a-okay for him). b) The Fireflies were a malicious and incompetent terrorist group with messed up morals. c) No, Joel did not doom humanity. Subsequently, Abby’s quest for revenge was not justified because the Fireflies and her dad were never justified in their actions to begin with. And this is only solidified by the second game having to retcon the hell out of all these arguments I just painstakingly illustrated and explained in order to even attempt to have Abby’s motivation be seen as justified. Only one example being how it was clearly established in the first game that they had MULTIPLE doctors in Salt Lake City (Marlene: “The doctors tell me that the cordyceps, the growth inside her, has somehow mutated.”; Ellie: “She said that they have their own little quarantine zone. With doctors there still trying to find a cure.”). Yet in the second game we are told by
Abby that actually no, turns out her dad was the only doctor that could have developed vaccine. And it doesn't take mental gymnastics to see why the second game takes it upon itself to alter most of the context of the first one: to (retroactively!) condemn Joel. HOWEVER, a sequel doesn’t get to pick and choose which established facts from the first entry it builds upon or what it gets to retroactively declare as non-canon only to have it fit their preferred narrative. Quite frankly, that’s bad writing. A sequel, in order to be considered well-written, has to not only be a natural continuation of the events, but has to stay consistent with the characters and the world that were previously set up. And if you have to alter much of the context to make it look like Joel condemned the world, isn't that the most obvious sign that he never actually did? And all of this effort for just one goal: to justify Abby’s quest for revenge and yet it still wasn’t and here’s why: Joel killed her dad in order to PREVENT HIM FROM KILLING HIS DAUGHTER. Abby on the other hand WILFULLY SLOW TORTURED Joel for what appears to be hours, prolonging his death for as long as possible, all for her own gratification (and we won't mention how she went through with it despite Ellie's crying and pleading). And don’t even try to make the argument about Abby wanting “justice”, Joel didn’t torture her dad out of revenge or for his own gratification - this is not justice, this is simply sadistic. A man killing someone who is about to murder their child in semi-self-defense cannot be compared to someone wilfully slow torturing someone to death for their own gratification, like Jesus, I didn’t think I’d have to spell that one out. I am aware that the second game tries to do whatever it can, including retconning their own original story, to paint Ellie and (especially!) Joel as evil. And for a considerable amount of the player base this actually worked, and while I cannot find it in me to condemn them (we all experience stories differently after all), I reserve the right to reject arguments in defense of Abby such as “all people are forced to do bad things during the apocalypse” and “does context even matter?”. If the only way you can defend/justify Abby's actions is to remove all context and nuance, then your reasoning is built on quicksand.
Lacrimosa
A short story about a dystopian and post-apocalyptic future, a red sea and devastated sky, saturated in solitude, a protagonist wondering why all this.
The reason for that creature that she baptized as "the final angel" was there, the reflection of human errors made flesh and bone.
tw: philosophical crises, post-apocalyptic world, the main character questions existence, religion.
Year [Unreadable... The number is corrupted...] Date [Corrupted] Time [Corrupted] Location [Imprecise]
The sky is red, and the water looks like pure wine.
There were no signs of life; it's been a long time since I last saw a dog, a fish, a bird, or even an insect. Everything seemed to have vanished.
The only things left were cities flooded with red water, destroyed and submerged cities, scarce patches of dry land that could be found.
And if there was still a part of the land that the water hadn't destroyed yet, those things would do it – those tornadoes coming straight from the sky that seemed to have a life of their own, knowing exactly when to appear. They would destroy whatever was left there, and the land that couldn't be submerged was dry, as dry as a desert.
Sheets of metal abandoned in those deserts, the catastrophe of Black Sunday, it could have been avoided, but they chose this, they chose to condemn us all. Those who were supposed to protect us used us as lab rats.
Only solitude and pain were left behind.
The strong wind from the whirlwinds, gently tugging at the tail of my scarf, the pull of my hair being drawn by the wind. I watch as once again, those whirlwinds sweep through.
All I could do was watch, what else can I do besides crying?
There was nothing else to do, all hope was gone. Was there even hope to begin with? Was there ever hope from the start?
God, are you there? Do we even matter to you? I can guess not, you don't even exist, you're not real.
Just an invention of humanity to give an origin to our existence.
And if you ever were real, God, then you hated us
Hatred, I feel hatred for that nonexistent being, hatred for those who condemned us, hatred for this civilization that sealed its own end. Words will never be enough to express all the hatred I feel right now, there are no words to explain the hatred I feel every attosecond.
When the whirlwind finally disappears, I can see the hole in the clouds, the red sky rumbling, strange cables slowly emerge from the cloud hole, slowly approaching the earth; or perhaps from my point of view, they move slowly. They slowly pierce through the dry earth, I don't know if they simply "connected" or if they are drilling into the interior of the earth. Perhaps it's responsible for the deserts?
A white light illuminates from above down to the cables until the light finally fades upon reaching the earth.
Perhaps hours passed or maybe minutes, I couldn't say, I haven't seen the sun for a long time, its brightness and warmth overshadowed by the reddish sky.
By the time the light disappeared, the cables slowly moved away and returned to the sky, the clouds closed, and the tornadoes disappeared.
Descending from the large stone tube, the sound of my worn-out boots against the dry ground, with each step, the sound of the earth crawling could be heard.
Now I knew what those cables were doing, they were drills, drilling into the earth for reasons unknown to me, but at this point, it was the last thing or perhaps absolutely nothing that mattered to me.
I still remember, I remember the day, Black Sunday.
I was at school when it happened, suddenly the sky lit up in pure white blinding us and then the sky turned red, the ground shook, and a strong dust cloud that wiped out houses was approaching us, and large pillars of light rose behind, we didn't have time to react when it hit, the screams, their bodies imploded and so did mine, cascades of blood and the remains of clothing and bone left behind.
When I opened my eyes again, I only saw a large sphere with different colors, I was part of that, and we were being sucked into a black hole that seemed to come out of something white.
I don't remember what happened in there or what happened outside for us to escape, sometimes, I see those lights again. It took me a while to realize that those spherical lights were the remains of what was once the physical form of a human being, that's how I used to be before, my body had been destroyed, and what was left became part of the red, and the rest was taken by that thing.
Those black holes belonged to that, they weren't black holes; they were more like mouths, we were being devoured. It spat us out after a certain event outside, our remains returned to our reddish waste, and we regained physical form.
I prefer to call that thing "The Final Angel", the Angel so immense, larger than the earth, maybe even two or three times larger, soaring through space with the sound of flapping in the muffled noise of space.
I look towards the horizon, the red sky turns white, and the reddish is engulfed in cobwebs that snake, changing shapes, the horrible white iris, black lines snaking through its eyes, the pallor of its skin, and its horrible smile. It smiles, smiles as it left us, it was a smile of victory and fun; she smiles at seeing our destruction. But there's something more in its eyes, there was pain, it wasn't an "Angel", not a "Demon" or a "God", it's a human.
With a final look at the gracious being, its gaze melts away, leaving the horrifying gaze, bony face, and sunken eyes that flicker with darkness.
The pillars of light that had lost their shine regained it forcefully as they ascended slowly into the sky. The dust rose in large clouds of dirt where the pillars once stood, the fresh air hit my face, my scarf dancing to the slow rhythm, and I could feel my hair gently swaying.
I half close my eyes; I can't see myself, but I know in this moment, my face must have a grimace; everything was going to happen again, right?
S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Metro, and Redsquare I finally made a Shambler via file kitbashing, printed an AN-94, and made a custom metro/stalker inspired ak.
Kugelstahl, an alternative history WW3 setting I'm creating. - The nightmare demon werewolf is a stand in for abominations that the reich created in my universe, and the knights are American supersoldiers.
More Acid Rain World, and some Lost Planet, I think they go well together. As well as some other 1:18 stuff. The Tremors pic I took in Santa Fe after Tremors Fest.
Section V. Conflict Resolution Tried to recreate a cool shot from the original Fallout manual
Random cool pics vol. 1 For my bday
Acid Rain World
Coming to spill my imagination juice onto y'all
Sooo there's this game that I've randomly thought of where you play as an alien where you are tasked with going on an expedition on a post-apocalyptic Earth. But when you get there, it's nothing but an uninhabitable wasteland for humans, and the only life on there is just regular animals and robots in an underground bunker. And from what I've thought of as of now, you can ACTUALLY date some of the machines there. And yes, you can date an old CRT computer there. This thought was inspired by this beautiful animation right here. And you can ACTUALLY sing with the robots too!