It's interesting that while the creators said they were trying to go for a John Hughes film in the 90s (and that certainly is evident in the central story of Ethan Embry pursuing Jennifer Love Hewitt), this film ends up being far more like "American Graffiti", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Dazed and Confused"; an ensemble film with a mix of characters who weave in and out of each others' subplot (and like "Graffiti" and "Dazed", taking place in 24 hours), complete with a killer soundtrack and a sprawling cast of familiar faces, some before they were well known. Rewatching it, it's impressive to see how many names are there, even for one scene. Selma Blair gets ineffectively hit on by the main jock (aside; major props for Peter Facinelli in making Mike Dexter the ultimate high school asshole). Sarah Rue calls everyone "sheep." Jason Segal (!) is doing something with that watermelon. And so on, as there's always something going on in the background of this and some minor character to provide a laugh. (My personal favorite; Chris "Shermanator" Owens as "Klepto Kid" stealing everything he sees.) For a film that didn't do much business when it came out, it's great to see how well it holds up as a ensemble showcase and a time capsule of its era (nothing like having a pay phone being a key plot point to date a film).
Added note; I love how aside from the six main characters (Embry, Hewitt, Facinelli, Charlie Korsmo, Lauren Ambrose and Seth Green), nearly all of the characters are given no names. Even in the credits, they're referred to as "Klepto Kid", "Girl Whose Party It Is", "Yearbook Girl" and so on. Because they're not the main characters, they're just the colorful background.

Hi I just came across a novel, chosen by the moon novel by izabella W. Its on pay by chapter websites, I've opened and read a few chapters but I can't seem to find any free version or chapter version anywhere. Please help. If anyone has read it I'm willing to take spoilers. Here's the advert I found below of it on Facebook.
Lycanthrope species is a disgusting race. And I, Delan Riley, am nothing more than a human scum in their eyes never expected those species would turn my world upside down. Since when the lycans managed to penetrate our town, like in the early 1900's we have a hierarchy, upper class = the lycans, middle class = mated humans, and lower class = the normal humans, who were basically considered scum. I endured their torment day after day, vowing to run away from them one day, until that day came and everything changed.
Dylan POV "Humans," I scowled at the principal's words from tannoy. "The Alpha twins will be celebrating their birthday tomorrow, as such, festivities are in order." Oh great, the Alphas twin children. Adrian and Arya are the worst lycans alive. I swear just because they are the alphas kids they literally get away with everything. If their birthday is tomorrow, then the wolves are going to be worse than ever. "All students will be present to greet them, two lines will be made, with humans on the left and the lycanthrope on the right. Any mated human will be at the front of the line for their year, you will all also be in order of your school year. That is all." Chat broke out the minute the tannoy was finished. "We haven't had a school gathering since the alpha king visited three years ago, before his sons coronation." Nick was right, the last time we all gathered like that was for the king and queens visit, when he decided to let the world know that he was to renounce his title to his only child, son Josh. "That sick bestard, he wants to make sure everyone is there so those idiot twins can find their mates." Yes I was mad, my fists connected with the table in front of me once more as I thought about how disgusting the situation was. You see the twins will be turning 17, so it's very possible someone in our school could be their mate, finding a mate is sacred to a wolf, the minute they say that one word your fate is sealed. They will turn your mind, morph you into being a lover of their kind, and then you'll give in.

That won't happen to me, I'm growing old to see the world as it once was, and I'm going to choose who I'll be with. No one will take that dream away from me.

Once dinner was finished, I just wanted to sleep. I'd had a very long tiring day, I quickly sat down on a small stool my mother kept in the storage closet and removed my shirt while my brother Freddy sat at the table to do his simple homework. It wasn't long before my mother came in with a large bowl of warm salt water and some cotton, this was going to sting I just knew it. She was here to help me with the wounds caused by wolves yesterday. She slowly began to unwrap the bandage from around my torso and slowed down drastically when it came to the final layer, I felt it peel off every wound and my fists clenched in pain. "Jesus!" I heard my mom exclaim once the dressing was completely removed. The air on my back was nice though and I sighed as my arm covered my once again exposed brests. "This is more than 15!" I began to hear sniffles coming from her and sighed turning round to look at her face, only to notice tears streaming down it. "Mom I'm fine, it's alright." She shook her head. "It's not alright, I'm your mother I shouldn't let these things happen. I'm so sorry. Your father would have..." here she goes again. Every single time something happened she'd always bring up dad, it really annoyed me because no matter how much we all wish he was here, he just isn't. My father was kiled by THEIR kind, almost 5 years ago when they actually managed to take over. When the lycans managed to penetrate our town my father rose up with some people from the neighborhood, to defend our livelihood, it was futile to say the least. We lost many people and I watched as my dad was ripped apart by two fully shifted wolves, I ended up shoting him to stop his suffering before they dragged me to the courtyard, i was the person to receive the first lashing of the town when I was 12! The wolves have been pretty strict with me since that day. "Stop being stvpid!" Was I harsh? Definitely! Did she need to hear it again, absolutely. "Dad is dead, we don't know what he'd do because he never knew this life. He never knew this world." I know what he'd have done, most likely attacked the guy who held the whip and got himself kiled in the process. "The best thing you can do for me, is stop crying and help me, next time don't insist on helping if you can't handle it." She began to wash my open wounds with the warm salt water causing loud winces to leave me, I knew it was necessary to prevent infection, but my god it hurt like a betch. "Some of these are really deep Dylan!" She sniffed again and my eyes rolled in my head. "I told you, I'm fine, just wrap me back up so I can get to bed." My mom was obviously more impacted by my injuries than I was, I suppose that always the case though. When it's happening to you, you've just got to get through it but when it's happening to someone you love, you just want to take their pain away. She quickly placed a fresh bandage around my waist and chest and wrapped it tightly for compression. The bowl of water that was used was now red in color, I guess from the blood my back was dripping with. "Can you keep your head down please? At least just this week. You can't take any more lashings." I simply nodded before standing up away from the stool, I walked over to Freddie and ruffled his hair in affection. "Good night squirt." He giggled and fixed his hair slightly. "Night Dilly." I smiled walking upstairs to my little bedroom, as soon as I was inside i shut the door and flopped down on to my bed on my stomach and I took a minute to cry to myself at the pain in my back, what my mom did was important but it hurt, not that I'd ever tell her. My hand covered my mouth quickly to muffle any noise I might be making. I couldn't tell anyone, I had to be strong because more and more people were crumpling these days, and my mom would break if she knew how much I was suffering. Sleep followed me shortly after, she was right though about me needing to keep my head down for the time being, I could not take another lashing! After a long night and an even longer morning, we were all finally stood in the hallway at school waiting for the twins to arrive. "Mine!" Everyone that was stood in the hallway tensed up, as we were seniors, me and Nick were stood towards the very back of the human line. All the mated people were situated directly opposite their wolf mates in their years. We stayed silent and still as Arya walked down the hall and stopped directly in front of Nick. His eyes widened in fear, unsure of wether to look up or keep his head lowered. "Look me in the eye, mate." He glanced at me slightly as if asking what he should do. "I said, look me in the eye." He slowly moved his eye line up to look at her face. I took a glance myself to see her eyes pitch black with lust. "I... can't... I mean... erm." Before he was able to mutter anything else, two wolves from opposite, grabbed him out of the line and dragged him behind Arya. "Hey!" My head shot up before I could stop myself. My mouth also forgot its place as I jumped out of line. Everyone's head shot to me as my eyes widened in realization at what I'd done. Adrian, the other twin, walked up to me before punching me right in the stomach, I doubled over instantly. Feeling the sting in my slightly healed back. "I know you... You were publicly flogged only two days ago." God I hate this guy. "I also have it on good authority, that you openly spoke out against our rules and regulations in yesterday's class." My head shot down the line slightly to see Erin, looking a little frightened, her mate, the beta to be was looking at her, nodding his head in reassurance. "You traitor, you grassed on your own kind?" I yelled at her before feeling a fist connect with my cheek. My head whipped to the side from the force, while my class members gasped. I'm so done with this treatment, right then, I wasn't in charge of my actions. My fists curled up and my stance became a lot more defensive. My head snapped up to the alpha to be, and I looked him in the eye. "You don't know the meaning of the word disrespect." I suddenly hurled my fist towards his head, which he easily dodged, but my foot came up and kicked him instead. He stumbled backwards from the force with wide eyes. "You... you Actually hit me!" He didn't even sound annoyed, more shocked. Everyone in the hallway was watching, waiting for the alpha to do something but instead he simply stood up straight, regaining his composure. "I think everyone should get back to class." He began to walk away, following his sister when I called him back. "What about Nick?!" "Simple, He's my sisters mate. He now belongs to her." Argh, he's not an object. "He's not her property." A chuckle left his mouth, before turning his back to me again. "All humans are property." A short while later everyone made it to science class, our teacher Mrs Mathews is mated to the lycans pack doctor, she also now has a four and two year old with him. She was one of the first humans to be cohered into a false relationship. "What were you thinking young lady?" I rolled my head at her before looking at the empty seat next to mine. Nick was with that stvpid wolf girl right now. Being changed, I'm so angry it's ridiculous. "I was thinking, this guy is being a prick. Did you hear him? 'All humans are property.' It's bull shet." I looked up and the whole class looked at me like I had three heads. Talking shet about wolves is one thing, but talking about an alpha is punishable by death, attacking an alpha is an even worse offense. There was then a knock at the door and in walked Erin and her band of mated bestards. "Sorry we're late Mrs." "Erin, how are things between you and bata Monroe?" She blushed, the traitor actually blushed at the mention of his name. "He spoke to me last night about trying for a baby. We need a good strong boy to take over as beta." I scoffed looking at her as she took her seat. "You guys are actually pathetic, why can't it be a girl? Those mutts are basically Neanderthals" I voiced my opinion and saw all the shocked faces around me. Calling the lycans mutts, is the same as them calling us scum. After lesson had ended the entire school was called into the hall for assembly. This is where any human who has been found to have broken the rules were punished, usually 10 lashings were goven out or something similar. "Welcome to the school assembly, congratulations to the alpha twins for finding both your mates. Now on to the business at hand, as the 5 year anniversary of the new world is coming up, we have been informed that the alpha king will be visiting our district next week, this is very exciting news. We want you all to look your absolute best, she wolves and mated females will wear exemplary dresses made by seamstress. Male wolves and mated men will wear tailored suits. Anyone who doesn't comply will be reprimanded." The Alpha King?! No one has met him yet, he took over the throne three years ago when he turned 18. He really didn't make any appearances though, great, this month is going to be a nightmare. "As for the humans, you will be given a new uniform to wear for the visit, these are to be neatly ironed and worn to the highest standard. As for the following humans, based on your attitude this past week, you will be coming to the front and facing punishment. Tony summerset?!" Tony's head shot up as he looked around, he was in the year below but he shared my views when it came to the lycans. He slowly walked up to the front of assembly, almost instantly his top was t0rn in two and he received 10 lashings. A girl named Kara was next and she too received 10 lashings. A few more people went up slowly accepting their fate then suddenly my name was called. "Dylan Riley." Inside I was terrified but I simply shrugged my shoulders, I guess I did kind of expect this. Although I'm not sure if my back can take any more damage. "You attacked an alpha, correct!" His eyes bored into mine as I bowed my head submitting to his authority. "Technically, no." Everyone in the school gym looked on in fear, as my head moved to the front row of the wolf side. Adrian sat, with a werewolf girl in the year below, her name was Jana, I guess he found his mate. Nick and Arya were no where to be seen though. Adrian gave me a shrug as if to say he didn't tell, before smirking at my comment. "He hasn't officially taken the alpha title yet, so he's just..." i looked at the principle and noticed his eyes black and his claws out, he was in what lycans call a half shift, triggered when the subject has become angered. He turned to two security wolves and gave them a nod, Almost immediately i was forced onto my knees, my arm was slammed on a table and held in place by one wolf, while my body was held in place by the other. "Ok, I don't think this is needed, I have alpha blood, a stvpid human girl can't hurt me." My head snapped to Adrian who had stood up in front of the school to stop what was happening. "Nevertheless, humans need to know their place." With that the pressure on my arm increased as our principals hand pulled my sleeve up before a long claw punctured my skin. The searing pain shoting from the fresh wound had my eyes scrunched and my fist clenched, I bit the inside of my cheek hard instantly tasting blood, however no sound left my mouth. He continued to write, using my skin as a canvas and his claws as a marker, it went on forever, my vision blurred slightly at one point as I turned my head away. After minutes of torture, he was done and the pressure on my arm eased, instantly I snatched my arm away, hissing through my teeth at the pain. I was about to scurry off stage, when I was roughly grabbed yet again, my arm being held in the air by the principal while my feet were inches off the floor, blood dripped from the wound and the pattern he had made was on show for everyone to see. Loads of people gasped, even the wolves looked slightly horrified at what had happened. "This is what happens when a human decides to speak out. I can promise, anyone who so much as says one word about our way of life, will have the same punishment." My arm was starting to seriously ache from being held in the air for so long, and the lack of blood flow to my suspended arm was causing me pins and needles, still I refused to make a sound. I held the tears back and I bit my cheek harder causing more blood to fill my mouth. "That's enough Bradley!" Adrian growled, he was still stood up and looking at the scene in front of him. His eyes hard as he stared at the principal a low warning growl erupted from his chest which had the head teacher gulping, he quickly let go of my arm causing me to crash to the floor. A small cry left my mouth as I hit the hard floor. Immediately I scrambled away, my foot just missed the high step leading to the stage and I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, but it never came. Two strong arms wrapped around me catching my weak body causing me to look up, my eyes widened as I noticed Adrian had caught my falling form. "This isn't part of the human punishment program!" Adrian growled causing me to tense in his grip, I pushed him away from me before fixing my uniform top. The room was deadly silent, taking in the scene in front of them, while I stole a glance at my forearm. Carved into my skin by his devastating claws were two words, words that would most definitely scar my body for life. 'Human scum' "Lessons must be learned, she received lashing merely two days ago, and clearly it had no effect on her." Another growl left Adrian's chest as he stepped on to the stage, I wasn't bothered though, you would think I'd be ashamed but I simply smiled slightly. I fixed my sleeve a little so it wouldn't rub on the fresh wound before speaking. "It doesn't matter," the whole room looked at me shocked by my attitude. "I would rather be labeled human scum, than have any resemblance to your kind. I'm proud of what I am, how many of you can say that?" After my amazing little speech, I walked right down the middle between the humans and lycans and out the door. No more compliance, I'm going to get away with as much as I can without getting into too much bother. There will come a day when the lycans power will fizzle out. When it does I'll be ready, I'll be waiting for the day we take our world back. As for the best part about my plan...

No one can stop me.

"Ouch, not so hard." I seethed as the school nurse cleaned my new wound with antiseptic. "If you had of just kept your mouth shut, this wouldn't have happened." I turned to my right looking out the window at the few clouds that were floating in the blue sky. "Like I said, I'm proud to be human, and now everyone knows what I am." I clenched my fist together as the nurse began wrapping a bandage around my forearm. It had been a good few hours since the incident in the hall, and I had been forced to come to the nurces office after I had tried to clean my wound by splashing it with water from the tap, it also refused to stop bleeding. "You are impossible. Can you please just try and stay out of trouble? For one day, that's all I ask." Our school nurse is a wolf, she's one of them. However she hates the way they treat us mere humans, she thinks we should all just live in peace with equal rights. Like that would ever happen. "All I've done is stay out of trouble, but you are just going to humiliate me anyway, so what's the actual point?" "The pack were discussing a public execution, Dylan. You need to walk on egg shells from now on, not just for you but for your family as well." No ones been publicly executed in over 4 months, I'm flattered they're considering it. They only execute people who they believe are the biggest problems to society. "Well then... I'm flattered." I chuckled, before looking at the patch job. 'Huh, not too shabby.' I quickly stood up from the human nursing station and pulled the sleeve of my shirt down covering the evidence of ever being hurt. "This is serious!" I just gave her a blank look before leaving the room. On the way out I heard her call back to me. "Please just think about it." I gave a clipped nod as I walked away wondering how I'm going to tell my mom about this. Later in the evening... "Dilly why you say that?" Freddie looked up at me with a mouth full of bread. "Don't speak with your mouthful!" My mom scolded him as a bashful blush made its way to his cheeks. "Sowwy mommy." His reply was muffled as he swallowed the last chunk of food. "I said it Freddie, because it's the truth. The wolf race are a pathetic excuse for..." my mom cut me off with an extremely stern look. "Dylan! They have ears everywhere, one more word out of you and it's your room." I scowled, my hatred for the Lycan kind growing stronger as each day passes. "What more can they do to me, lash me? Beat me? Brand me? They've ran out of options." I stated slamming my hands down, then severely regretting it as sharp pain shot though my wound. "What was that?" My head shot to regard my mothers worried expression. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were dull and judging as she looked at me. "Nothing, it was nothing." I quickly took my plate in my hand and began to walk to the kitchen. "I'm not really hungry, and I have homework to do!" My mom caught hold of my forearm causing me to drop my plate suddenly, I watched it slowly fall before shattering on the floor. I retracted my arm quickly and turned to Freddie. "Stay there and don't move until it's cleaned up ok sport?" He just nodded with wide eyes, I turned back to my mom and noticed her curious stare on my arm. Her grip shifted to the other side as she turned it around before pulling my sleeve up. The bandage was showing and a bit of blood was seeping though after the wound had been disturbed. "What the hel happened?" My moms eyes widened as she began to fumble with the bandage. Before she could unravel any of it I snatched my arm away. "I had an accident at school. No big." I began to gather the large pieces of the broken plate up ready to put them in the bin. "What did you do Dylan?" She looked at me with pure worry and only then did I realize what the wound must look like to someone who didn't know. "For gods sake! I didn't do it to myself! I got publicly punished at the assembly alright? It's no big deal." Her face dropped instantly and she stepped towards me, causing me to step backwards. "Mom, I'm ok. So back off will you." "What did you do? I've never known them to cut someone's arm as a punishment." Her shock and accusation was evident in her voice and I sighed heavily. "I spoke against the alphas son." I may have hit him too, but I wasn't going to divulge that part to her. "It's not one big cut, mom, it's a brand, 'human scum' carved onto my arm." "They've branded you now too?!" My eyes rolled at her hurt tone as I went to get the dustpan and brush. "You're so much like your father." A sigh left her mouth as she spoke, running a hand through her hair, while I quickly swept up the little pieces of the broken plate. "You've had a new uniform delivered. It's laid out on your bed. Dylan, Please just try and stay respectful in the future, I don't want my daughter to be completely mutilated. Although you're not far off." "Gee, Thanks." I then walked over to my little brother Freddy before blowing a kiss into his neck and hearing him giggle. "So sport, how's school going?" "It's ok." He shrugged before going back to coloring a dinosaur picture in. "Well that's good, stay out of trouble, ok little man?" Heading upstairs and into my room, my thoughts wandered to the permanent graffiti scar very slowly healing on my arm. Disgusting beasts. Think they own the world because they're faster, stronger and can shift. Pah. If you ask me they are not all that.

The second I walked into my room my mouth dropped open. On my bed was some grey pants laid out neatly, which wasn't the surprising part, no, what shocked me was the grey high neck no sleeved button down shirt, every single set of uniform had sleeves except this one. They've done this on purpose those, mutts. They want the world to see my arm and know what a disgusting creature I am. They want the world to know that I, Dylan Riley, am nothing more than 'human scum'.

During the last week, I've been horrible, in class I've been loud in voicing my views, I've insulted at least everyone to some degree, I didn't care about the consequences, and I certainly didn't think about them. I haven't seen Nick at all since he was claimed, and to make matters worse today was the royal visit. Oh yes, werewolves and mated humans alike were spending every waking minute preparing themselves to meet his royal majesty, king of the wolves. Unclaimed Humans however would rather stick pins in their eyes. "Dylan, get down now... you're going to be late." She was right, I was dawdling this morning, I really couldn't be bothered today, I gave myself one last look in the small mirror and sighed when my eyes met my newly uncovered brand. It had bad bruising around the letters, and was still extremely tender to touch, it was definitely healing now though. I made my way down the stairs and came face to face with my mother who was seeing to Freddie, she was helping my brother get his coat on when she turned to me. "You ready sport?" Freddie nodded his little head at me and smiled while I quickly slid my shoes on. "Just Remember, the alpha is bad enough, Dylan, please, please don't do anything to anger the king." My mother stopped us from walking out the door to tell me something she had been telling me continuously for the last couple of days, it was almost as if the entire human population of our district was expecting me to do something stvpid. "Try and have a good day." I rolled my eyes but nodded, even I know not to push the king, he could kil me in the hallway like it was nothing. In fact I plan on staying out of his way for the entirety of the day. "We will see you tonight mom." I stated before me and my brother began our walk to school, his little hand clutched my own tightly as we went. Usually Nick would be with us, as he lives next door, well he used to, now he's residing in the main pack house. I quickly dropped Freddie off at his school and watched him get the wolfsbane neutralizer before walking into him building giving me a small wave before he went in. With my new scar on complete show, and my figure being complimented by the skin tight shirt I was wearing, I sauntered down the street to school, I gave my name and year in and took the wolf's bane neutralizer injection with no problems at all. It was finally getting into school that the problem occurred. Walking through the halls I was met by many looks, some of pity some of disgust. You see every single non mated human in the school was wearing a long sleeved version of the uniform I was given. All the Wolves and mated couples were scattered around in fancy floor length dresses or tailored suits. As I turned the corner I noticed a couple, now this couple happened to catch my eye the most out of all of them because it consisted of Arya and Nick, eating each other's faces off. "What the hel!" Nicks head shot to me as his eyes widened. He too was dressed in a tailored suit, a navy blue tie hung on his neck to match Aryas dress. Why was this happening all the time? It's always my friends that get completely brain washed. I shook my head in disbelief before turning my back on him. I heard his fast footsteps behind me as I rounded the corner. "Dylan?!" He ran right in front of me, stopping me in my tracks, making me drop my bag off my shoulder and almost causing me to bump into him. "Let me just explain..." "Has she marked you?" I mean you could almost see it in his eyes, she had marked him, and knowing the way life goes he's probably even mated with her. "Actually... Don't even answer that." I aggressively picked my bag up off of the floor and stormed off down the hall. "Dylan, just listen to me, Erin was right, it's so hard to resist your soulmate, and Arya is actually ok once you get to know her." I just kept walking, he caught up to me walking beside me but it didn't matter, I completely ignored everything and everyone. 'I'm so not in the mood today' getting into class was good though, I said hello to Mr Foley and took my usual seat. Nick sighed then took his bag off ready to sit next to me, but I snapped before he had the chance. "Traitors and mated idiots sit on that side of the room." I didn't look him in the eye as I pointed to a seat right at the front of the classroom on the opposite side. His eyes widened as he turned his attention back to me. "You can't be serious Dylan." I gave him a blank look before grabbing my book out of my backpack, I placed it on the desk then began to write the date on the top line. "I've sat in this seat for as long as I can remember." I ignored him, his voice sounded sad and shocked. "Dylan? Wait! What is that?!" Before I could react Nick had grabbed hold of my branded arm and turned it to see the letters. "Oh my God! What happened?" I snatched my arm away from him and shrugged as I continued to write in my book before grabbing my water bottle out of my bag. "The principal happened, it was my punishment for speaking out against Adrian and Arya. I wear it with pride." He just held a complete look of disbelief. "You spoke out against them?" I shrugged, what did he think I'd do. "It's no secret that I despise this stvpid new world and the mutts that control it. You were my friend, I wasn't going to let them just take you without saying something, although that is exactly what you seem to have done. Enjoy the view from your new seat!" "Don't be like that, Dylan, I'm your best friend, I'm sorry about your arm, but..." my eyes rolled inside my head at my friends words. "Anything with the word 'but' in, isn't an apology, it's a rationalization." I took a drink of water from my bottle and kept my eyes facing forward, ignoring his every attempt to try and talk to me. "Dylan?.. Dylan?... Do you know what? Erin is right, if you push us all away you won't have any friends left." He huffed before walking over to the empty seat and sitting down, I could feel him glancing up at me every now and again but I didn't respond. "Good morning class, please settle down." He looked at me then at Nick and frowned, we've never sat apart, we were friends before the new world even began. I just shook my head telling him to forget it. "So... as you know the king will be arriving in a short while, but until then lessons will go on as normal." Its funny seeing teachers in the same uniform your wearing, mr Foley and his wife are the coolest. Human teachers and doctors only have slightly more respect than we do. Because of Mr Foley's status him and his wife have better access to food and drink, Mrs Foley is cool, sometimes she even makes sure mr Foley brings some in for me. Ya know, coz I'm their favorite student. It's not in a weird way, it's just they were friends of the family before the new wold took effect. Mr Foley and my dad were buddies from high school, so it goes without sayin really. "All the mated humans will be at the front of each years line again, after that you will all be placed in status, Nick, as your mated to Alpha Arya, you'll be at the front of your line. Dylan as you have been branded..." his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Yeah yeah, I'll be at the back of the line behind everyone. I get it." I huffed, moving my sight towards the window once more. "I am sorry." I turned to face Mr Foley again, he looked genuinely upset and that look of pity wasn't something I wanted to see. I gave him a clipped nod then turned away again. "Anyway, on to the subject matter, 'Of Mice and Men, page 64, Nick why don't you start us off with the reading."

"Of course sir." Nick began reading the book but I switched off, today is going to be a long day. After almost an hour and a half of reading comprehension, the bell chimed signaling lunch. I shot up and out of the classroom before anyone could say anything. Today, I was avoiding drama like the plague.

I wandered the corridors straight to the lunch hall. All the people I would normally hang out with we're all mated so I grabbed my lunch quickly, and sat down at the end of the human table. Let me lay the lunch hall out for you. On one side of the room you have two long rows of tables, with simple benches that make it look like prison, on the other side of the room you have multiple round tables with fancy chairs. Yup you get it. The humans sit at the prison tables and the wolves and traitors sit on the fancy tables, they get fancy food, fancy drink and most importantly they get pudding. what I would give to have some pudding. "Dylan can we just talk?" Nick quickly took the spot next to me as he set his lunch tray down. I looked at his food which had been placed on a ceramic, circular white plate. God that looked good. I sighed knowing he was going to talk anyway. "Fine, you have two minutes." I used my fork to take a bit of pasta off his plate and shoved it into my mouth. God that was good. "After I left school, I was taken to the pack house with Arya, and I really got to know her. It took a few days for me to finally accept being with her, but ever since life has been ok, and the sax... well that's a whole other story." Eww, I didn't need that mental image in my head. "I'm glad your happy." I stated before deciding I had no appetite. His face held shock before he sighed in relief. "That means a lot Dylan, I mean you know that your opinion matters to me." I cut him off before he could say anything else. "I said I was glad your happy. I didn't say I approved of what you've done. You've basically turned into one of THEM, I can't ever forgive you for that." He looked hurt, but I couldn't care less about his feelings. He placed his hand gently on my arm and went to open his mouth when a growl sounded out. All heads whipped to where it came from, Arya was stood holding a glass of soda and a plate, she was looking right at me and Nick and I would totally be dead if looks could kil. Nick quickly retracted his hand, his whole face fell and you could see sorrow flood his irises. "You sit with me now, get away from that, that... scum!" Wow, Nick was such a lucky guy. NOT. "You heard her. Get away from me, go sit with your new friends. I'm happy for you, and I understand where your coming from, but don't come up to me again and pretend you didn't betray your own kind. Don't pretend you didn't betray me." I shoved a little bit of food into my mouth before standing up and walking out of the cafeteria, leaving my tray on the table. I was walking through the hallway to the classroom, you see I decided to spend lunch with Mr Foley in his room, when I happened to hear voices in the corridor. "Is it wise for her to actually be present when the king arrives? Surely she could be placed in the dungeons, it might actually teach her some respect?" My principal was speaking to the alpha of our district, huh, if I stayed and listened do you think they'd notice, maybe they could smell me?! "Everyone is to be present, if the Riley girl does one thing out of line she will be dealt with severely, child or not. That girl has been a blight to the district since day one, she's dangerous, if she puts one hair out of place I will personally break her into submission." Oh shet, they were talking about me specifically, and they mentioned the dungeon, that's not been used in months. Normally I would have listened in more but something about the entire situation didn't sit right with me, all of a sudden, I was on edge, and simply wasn't interested in the slightest in hearing how my misery was to be enhanced. I backed up slightly before turning around and bumping head first into one of the hottest man I had ever seen. I lost my balance immediately and fell straight on to the floor letting out a small grumble in the process. His eyebrows knitted together quickly and his breath hitched in his throat as he looked upon my fallen state and gasped. "Mate!" He whispered, his eyes fixated on mine. Now, I had seen and heard that many times to know what that means, I gasped before taking a step back. 'No, no, no, no, no. This can not be happening.' He growled slightly before stepping towards me. Oh Shet!

5-4/5-5 and G2-4/G2-5, even if they're arbitrarily separated into two chapters (I think because people complain if the main campaign doesn't reach 5 chapters), are just 1 case. Same victims, same culprits, same evidence.
"But in 5-4 you clear Starbuck's name and another character gets arrested so it's technically a different trial" So? 1-2 also changes the defendant halfway-through, 3-2 also has you winning the trial halfway-through before you're thrust into another, but everyone can see it's the same case. Same victim, same culprit, same evidence.
"But in 5-5 they do change the victim" But it's not a separate case, it's the same old "the killer also committed another murder X years ago and they're both connected" that Ace Attorney always does. The evidence doesn't change from chapter to chapter for a reason.
(I don't even know how people would justify the G2-4/G2-5 split honestly, but I'd argue the same way that they're the same case)
But then I think... What about 6-5? This case really does feel like two cases in one, like they wrote 6-4 in the last minute because they forgot to give Athena a case, but they also didn't want to break the 5-chapter tradition with 6 cases so they put them together with duct tape.
(From here on to avoid confusion, I'll refer to the first half of 6-5 as "The Civil Turnabout", an unofficial name I've heard for it which isn't the coolest or most original but it will do for now, and the second half as "Turnabout Revolution")
When people say they like or dislike 6-5, this alone tells me nothing. I've seen people like both Civil and Revolution, dislike both, or like one but dislike the other, for different reasons. Because they're two different cases that it makes no sense to group together. It's like if I'm ranking cases and I say "the best case of Trials and Tribulations is the second half" and you know I'm talking about Beginnings and Bridge but you don't know if I prefer one over the other or if I don't really like one of them but my love for the other is so big that it cancels it out. And I could rank them separately but they both have Dahlia and Godot and they take place in the same bridge so it must be one single case!!!!
That's my problem with Civil and Revolution. Civil is one incident, Revolution is another unrelated incident, with its own whole "incident that happened X years ago" which, you guessed it, also has no relation to Civil. The victims are different, the culprits are different, the prosecutor is different the COUNTRY is different, Civil even gets its own Revisualization minigame which are always the climax of the case! These are so very clearly different cases, that when Civil ends Apollo says "oops let me clean my court record haha" and gets rid of all the evidence because they're that irrelevant to Revolution. I think the only relation they have are... Dhurke, the orb, and Inga pulling the strings behind the curtain? You could make a more convincing argument for I2-4 and I2-5 being more connected and therefore being the same case! (please don't)
Well, I'm not good at conclusions. If you agree then please next time you rank cases or whatever try to count both halves of 6-5 as different cases, my autism will thank you. If you don't then idk argue in the comments, I can't promise that I'll have the energy to argue back

Last week, I visited Oahu and rode the Skyline rail from West Loch to the stadium, here is my review.
The good:

• It was fast, it was clean, and it was safe.
  
• The fare machines worked and I got my ticket easily (except it didn't say it did not give cash change, luckily it put the remainder on the card).
  
• The platforms look good, there are nice views everywhere, and the front of the (driverless) train is open to passengers with a big window.
  
• When I got off the train, there was a bus going downtown and to Waikiki right away. The bus was agonizingly slow compared to the train, but the transfer was well planned and executed.
  

The bad:

• The elevated stations are ungainly, almost ugly. I'm not for spending millions more on architectural gems, but the random hanging walkways and oveunder passes stick out badly.
  
• I'm not going to go into the politics and logistics of station locations, but it could've been better.
  
• At "Hō'ae'ae" (aka West Loch) station, there was a line map near the entrance that showed a solid line (completed segment) all the way to "Kahauiki" (aka Kahili transit center). Needless to say, I was very confused about the last train stopping at Hālawa, and I almost didn't get on until I asked an agent.
  

And the ugly:

• Closes early: I think of Honolulu as a big city, and the buses run until midnight. I left at 6pm, walked a over a mile, and was very surprised/lucky to catch the last city-bound train at 7pm. When it runs downtown, it better not have commuter hours only.
  
• Naming: I thought this was minor at first, but as I write this, I realize that saying "I can't wait until the rail extends past Hālawa" means nothing to most people. I get it, ōleleo won't ever flourish if everyone keeps saying "Stadium", but they even gave new names to places that already had Hawaiian names. This just seems confusing. And on top of that, even though I don't speak Hawaiian, to me the automated voice pronunciation of the stop names seemed off.
  
• Rails not straight: for a brand new line, this is absolutely inexcusable. The train lurches side to side makeing an uncomfortable ride, and when I looked down the track from the front of the train, I could see wavy rails. I've ridden trains in Europe, and the coolest thing about them is they are smooth and comfortable. I could understand if the line was 50 years old like BART in the Bay Area, or had grade crossings and lots of switches. But a brand new, dedicated and elevated rail line should be smooth as butter. There better be operating parameters and performance guarantees in the contracts so that this can be fixed by the manufacturer.
  

All that said, I'm not against the rail, I want it to succeed, and I think it will when it goes to Kālia (Ala Moana). But they still need to use common sense when designing and implementing it.

I’m thinking if one I’d remember seeing but can’t remember the name. It had king in the name. Only offered in graffiti yellow and surf green. It was for all purposes as TD knockoff as close one could get on sight. Was priced around $399-599.

Before I start, I just want to say this out because it's fucking bothering me beyond belief and I can't be quiet about this anymore.
Starting off, I personally was excited for the remake as, well, I've never played the original SH2 and I wanted to experience it properly. But of course, especially in today's time, we can't have nice things for even 5 seconds. I remembered hearing the first initial thoughts on the trailer, especially when James was essentially the crybaby looking dude and all, then the combat trailer showed improvements, yet again, people bitched and complained. Then now, people are all of a sudden happy to see it being revealed even though there is PLENTY of red flags present, but some people just choose to ignore it.
Now again, I've never played the Original SH2 (I didn't exist back in 2001) and I only really started to get into the franchise back in 2020. I've seen countless analysts videos on the game's themes and so on and so forth, and, well, it's a fantastic game! However, with that said and with having a good idea of the themes of SH2 and seeing the remakes changes...I'm honestly concerned and upset.
One of the biggest complaints from the beginning was essentially that Blooper Team had been the ones working on it. Blooper from what I've heard, is that they've had a pretty bad track record with representing mental illness that didn't resolve in ending your own life. Which, coming in terms of Silent Hill and how heavily it deals with Mental Illness, I can understand the worry. But I still wanted to give it a try...then the face for James came out and...to be honest, I didn't mind he was more emotional. Yeah yeah, OG SH2 James was essentially dead inside or he was processing everything, but to be honest, I kinda digged the direction. Combat trailer? People bitched about thr combat being "Resident Evil clone", like for fuck's sake, not everyone was a fan of the clunky attack controls, but this is a problem? And eventually, we reached today...and the textures and graphics.
The elephant sized problem in the room being Angela and her weird looking chin and her uncanny face. Now...I understand if this were to be a final concept trailer, but since this is the FINAL trailer with the release date and confirmation that THIS was our Angela? It felt extremely off. And before you start, this doesn't mean she should be remodeled into a super model or whatever and it's not about making her "hot", it's about making her look like of Eddie ate Angela and wore a cosplay of her to pass himself off as Angela. Her whole story is tragic, being a sexual assault victim from an early age and has problems when it comes to men (mostly James), and, while I'm not an expert on SA or the effects it has on people, but I'm pretty sure that this Angela would come off more as uncanny, but not in the way you think.
Then there's Maria...I mean, she looks fine, I personally have less problems with her...but I will stress this as I feel like this should be brought up more. But Maria feels like she was toned down from a sexual delinquent stripper down to some innocent shy girl that...to be honest would work much better with Heather from Silent Hill 3, but with Maria in the remake, she doesn't have the same...attractiveness to her. And it legitimately feels like they desexualized her down to nothingness...for a game that's literally about guilt and sexual deprivation. I can understand her outfit changing since her OG outfit was inspired from a real life actress' outfit, but she looks less sexy which...I mean it could work, she does look like someone whose a bit ashamed of her job as a stripper, but has to keep the Job to pay the bills. It just doesn't feel right.
The last negative thing I'd like to touch on is Blooper's involvement with a consultant group that's essentially a follow-up company that takes after a currently controversial consultant group that's responsible for the failings of different video games. Some may already know...but, for those that don't...Blooper essentially hired a consultant group called Hit Detection. HD takes after the formentionrd controversial consultant group, known as "Sweet Baby Inc". SBI is considered as controversial because they've been revealed to have held gaming studios in their grasp to inject politics at an extremely unhealthy rate, which then led to certain video game companies to bankruptcy. Yeah yeah yeah, some of you going "Oh is he anti-woke?", I'm honestly sick of having shit changed in the name of unnecessary politics and for "the message" when I'm just trying to enjoy something. Maybe I am anti-woke, I don't care, I just want to enjoy the remake of Silent Hill 2 that's faithful to the original game and doesn't have the most unnecessary and unfaithful changes available.
I fucking hate how I can't even enjoy something related to Silent Hill then all of a sudden a bunch of people bitching about it, just lemme enjoy this shit and hope that it's ACTUALLY GOOD.
Before I do finish off, I do want to talk about some positives...mainly that I like the little details of how James can be seen whipping out his map, how interactive and motion heavy it is, shit, the coolest thing is seeing that one creature CATCH James' pipe swing, now that's some interesting shit!
I have a lot of negative thoughts and concerns for the game...but I still hope that by the time it comes out, that the Silent Hill 2 Remake is good...or is halfway decent or on par with the original game.
Okay, thank you for listening to me vent, if you disagree with me, well, that's for you and honestly, more power to you. I just wanted to get this shit off my mind because I genuinely do want the reboot to be good. Okay, take care, and be safe.

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The following two brain scans were provided by the Neuro-Warfare branch of the Halcyon Security Division (HSD) for the purpose of analyzing the thoughts, behaviors, and information of notorious gangsters Vincent 'Troy' Cohen and Bruno (Deadname: Koraak Tel-Char). At the point of the recording of this archival shared, Bruno has since received his rebirth therapy, and Vincent is currently serving a long-term rehabilitative and reeducative sentence in the Erebus Supermax Prison on Io.
Warning: the contents of this archival shared may be especially disturbing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Warning: the contents of this archival shard are for the sole purpose of analyzing the thought patterns and memories of certain degenerate criminals in an effort to ascertain vital information that can be used to eliminate their organizations. Only staff with clearance level Omega may view this archival shared, and the viewership of this archival shared by anyone of inadequate clearance level will lead to twenty years in prison and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Vincent 'Troy' Cohen, November 4th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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"Do you have visuals of the target, Troy?"
I knelt down in the alleyway, the bodies of me and my partners shrouded in long, waterproof, ashen-gray overcoats the shade of dirty street scum that we wore to ward off the constant heavy rainfall the color of osmium. Our faces were covered in a mix of scrapped respirators, visors, or full metal face masks carved with intricate designs to hide our identities. On our waists were our badges of honor: leather belts studded with interlocked rivets made from blackened titanium, each buckle forged of silver and shaped into the head of our gang's symbol, the black mamba. We hid amongst the shadows of the dark midday of Halcyon City, the heavy, oppressive rains blanketing the roads paved obsidian-black with asphalt and weathered concrete walkways. The street lamps were always on, like beacons of false hope in a storm of melancholy.
The city was dark and dreary as always, the planet of Proxima Centauri B, renamed Dawn's Lamentation over a century ago, orbited the red dwarf star of Proxima Centauri, and the atmosphere was thick with natural smog and ever-storming rain clouds. That didn't dissuade people from living here: there was plenty of money to be had for shrewd industrialists and hardworking pioneers, even in the urban sprawl. But that life also came with risks, especially for those on the bottom of the totem pole.
I was a ganger, and we were criminals; full stop. I won't assault you with some spiel about how we're the good guys fighting oppression because, at the end of the day, we could be just as bad, if not worse, than Halcyon's Security Division, or the HSD for short. We were traffickers, killers, extortionists, and money launderers. We dealt with everything from stolen tech and military-grade hardware to hard drugs and sentients.
Yes, sentients. We trafficked sentients, but not in the way you might think. They weren't prisoners, in fact, we were their saviors if they had the cash. We had developed a reputation for fighting the power, but it was still business: sure, freeing captives from the clutches of the Protectorate. The disruption of its many oppressive organizations held a certain satisfaction in my heart for sure, but we didn't help those who couldn't pay unless someone else paid on their behalf. It was about making sure me and my gang, my family, could live a decent life for another day.
It helped that most of us joined after leaving the state yard for partaking in acts of 'degeneracy' and 'anti-xenopet illegalities' as if those terms meant anything anymore other than that we were a threat to the local status quo. It was hard to pick up a job as a former inmate when even in something as harsh and backbreaking as a job in the iridium mines near the poles when the employment office had you blacklisted as a degenerate, which lead to the formation of many of the gangs: we needed to make a living somehow, and when all social programs were cut off from you unless you submitted for 're-education' and the only way to put food on the table was subverting, breaking, or even downright fighting the law, you did what you had to do or you died on the streets a scorned beggar.
It wasn't like the HSD made it easy for us on even a good day: the local HSD units were armed to the teeth with advanced, military-grade hardware that you'd often see on the front lines of the Second Authority War: armored assault transports, a myriad of advanced war droids, all sorts of chemical countermeasures that made tear gas seem like putting the garden hose on mist mode, and of course advanced firearms. Add that to the fact that they were authorized to use deadly force when they deemed it necessary and you had a ruthless, heartless, and nearly unstoppable enemy. But we could make that work: we weren't trying to stop them, just to withstand them.
"Yeah, I got eyes on the prize, Koraak; seven armored transports, two for droids, five for prisoners."
Today wasn't a day for a normal job: we were getting bolder, cockier, more ambitious. Our numbers had swelled for the last few years after the raid at Barnard's Star and the fall of the Blood Dragon Mafia. Their leader, Saito Yasuhide, had committed seppuku as their manor burned, and his twin sons had gone down fighting rather than allowing themselves to be captured simply to face a firing squad. In the aftermath, many of the family's associates had fled to the surrounding systems, and with the sheer size and scope of the criminal underworld found here, it was no wonder that many people who had developed skills of the less legal variety had decided to form ranks with the gangs, and with them they brought guns, tech, knowledge, contacts, and even something that we thought wasn't possible beforehand: a semblance of peace between the gangs, or at least the closest thing to peace that gangs could cultivate effectively. With the fall of the Blood Dragons, we saw the writing on the wall, and the writing couldn't have been clearer: work together or die together.
"Sounds like a massacre, Troy: are you sure we can handle seven?"
"We ain't got no choice, Cinder: this job's double the usual rate, and that's not including the weapons and gear we could scrounge if this goes well," I hissed, my eyes scanning for any resistance. There were at least four guards for each van, not to mention at least eight droids in total, meaning that we were already outnumbered, but we had the element of surprise: we could make it work. "So put your balls in your purse and get ready to spill some blood."
Koraak snorted at our antics, which sounded like someone pulling the ripcord on a lawnmower. He was a veteran Russu Corsair, and while his past of slaving, raiding, and killing was unsavory, so were the lives we'd lived, so who were we to judge? All we cared about was that he was a brutal and capable fighter and a loyal brother in arms. It turned out that being a ganger wasn't much different from being a Corsair: you lived and died by a code of honor, you fought to the death for your brothers, and you lived to die for the sake of your gang and your family, simple as that. In a strange, ironic way, it was an incredibly honest way of life: we were under no illusions as to what we were, what we did, and why we did it, and we'd long since accepted it. The Russu related to us in that aspect, in many ways I could respect, which is why I hated what the Protectorate was doing, and why I couldn't grasp how most of humanity could just collectively lose their marbles so long ago. What had happened for us to deem all other life below us in such a demeaning and infantilizing way?
The Russu were a race of tall, muscle-bound Saurians with avian features, and Koraak was no exception: reaching almost seven feet in height and weighing over four hundred and fifty pounds, he could be an absolute menace if he so desired. His skin was covered in stubby, knobby scales and dense plumage, with elegant feathers adorning the ridges along his back as well as his forearms, elbows, knees, and the crests on his head. He almost looked like how paleontologists described velociraptors, with razor-sharp talons, feathers shaded in vibrant greens, reds, and purples, and a maw full of sharp teeth, but at the tip of his snout was a sharp, beak-like growth meant for ripping flesh off the bone.
The Russu were strange as hell, but they also looked almost cute in the same way a fully grown alligator was cute: they were obviously dangerous, but humans would always have this innate desire to anthropomorphize them and to pet them for some inexplicable reason, although common sense usually prevented that, at least amongst the very few of us left that were sane.
"Shut up, Troy! All I'm saying is that that'll be rough, and you know it," hissed Cinder. Cinder was a tall black man whose coffee-colored skin was covered in tattoos. He wore an ebony mechanic's jumpsuit with metal inserts underneath his grimy overcoat covering his body and a faded black respirator on his face. His eyes were a startling blue that seemed sorely out of place, and his hair was braided into thick cornrows along his scalp. He wore a pair of heavy black combat boots and palmed his compact shotgun in his hands, the square barrel less than seven inches. Like a lot of the weapons the Black Mambas carried on their persons and dealt in, they fired caseless ammunition; in Cinder's case it was 16x40mm caseless shotshells filled with depleted uranium micro-flechetes no thicker than a toothpick. Cinder nervously fiddled with the detachable tube magazine underneath the barrel, his hands shaking. Despite the shit I have him, I didn't blame him for being anxious: I was anxious too, even if I refused to show it. The biting cold of unease and pessimism was in my stomach, and I ran all the way that this job could go wrong in my head over and over.
"Just hold yourself together, this ain't anything we haven't done before, there's just more of it," I reassured Cinder, "besides, we're not alone; we have reinforcements across the street. We'll make it out of this alive."
Cinder nodded almost absentmindedly, his eyes downcast and his breathing shallow. I turned from him and back to Koraak, who was making sure he had everything on his person; he had a synthetic leather bandoleer across his chest that contained the heavy eight guage depleted uranium slugs he kept loading and unloading into his much larger, longer, and more traditional shotgun he nicknamed ‘carnage’ and several leather straps that held his Tu'shan daggers: traditional Russu pyramidal blades forged from a silvery alloy with all three edges serrated and the tip barbed to leave behind horrible, gaping wounds that gushed blood. They were wickedly sharp and absolutely straight like a stiletto, and the hilts and pommels were beautifully decorated. He wore no clothes underneath his overcoat to cover the countless scars and blemishes he's earned in combat across his chest and abdomen, and instead of a normal respirator or visor, he simply wore a hood over his head and some traditional Russu facial armor to protect his mouth, eyes, and cheeks.
"You ready to fight, Koraak? The caravan will pick up and leave soon."
Koraak was silent for a moment before nodding, a human gesture he had picked up after serving as a soldier with the Black Mambas for years. "I'm always ready to fight," he said before lifting up his shotgun and aiming down the sights at the reinforced front wheels of the first armored car in the caravan. He exhaled and fired, the slug ripping through both front tires and causing them to deflate and fall apart. The echo of the shot rang through the alleyway and the street, causing pedestrians to panic and flee the scene as heavily armored guards poured out of the side doors of the armored cars and unholstered their carbines.
"Go, now!" I shouted, and both me and Cinder rushed out into the fray, our guns raised. Koraak was right behind the two of us, providing covering fire with his shotgun. Several guards fell quickly, Koraak's precise fire and the sheer force of the depleted uranium slugs putting them down for good as their heads were vaporized or their chest cavities were turned to mush. He emptied the tube with one final shot that painted the grey matter of a security guard on the door of one of the armored cars, then racked the shotgun and expertly loaded it in threes, his hands deft and agile as he reached for more slugs faster than any human.
With the cacophony of our initial assault, more Black Mambas poured out from the alleyways and the subways, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons; shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, machetes, baseball bats, and all manner of homemade explosives. Molotovs and more potent concoctions shattered against the asphalt, herding in the caravan guards with their volatile contents as they were quickly gunned down. The assault was working, and we were winning.
Then I heard the robotic whine of a combat droid activating, and my heart sank. One of the armored cars in the back activated the four combat droids it held, the robotic assault units detaching from their charging ports on the sides of the large van and began to form up, each armed with a terrifying array of deadly weapons meant to quash any and all resistance. They were blocky, soulless, utilitarian things that stood at eight feet tall, with flat feet meant for stomping and blades, grasping claws designed to lacerate flesh and shatter bone. On each shoulder was a weapon: on the left was a multi-barrel rotary grenade launcher loaded with 15mm concussion grenades, and on the right was a burst-fire splinter cannon. They were all painted a dull grayish-green, the color of Halcyon's Security Division, although some had a few decorations on them: the one closest to me had a bit of graffiti on the side that said Mr. Hugs in Comic Sans, which I couldn't decide whether that made it more or less terrifying. They split up without hesitation and began to scan the chaotic battlefield, their single, red, beady lenses the security forces had the gall to call eyes focusing on specific targets to eliminate.
An entire group of Black Mambas was torn to pieces by a cloud of flechettes as one of the droids fired a withering three-round burst of shotshells from the four gauge splinter cannon mounted on its shoulder. Another picked up a Black Mamba in its hand and crushed her skull effortlessly before tossing her limp body to the side, its single, red, remorseless robotic eye tracking a new target. Most bullets that struck their thick armored chassis simply bounced off, and those that could pierce the armor didn't seem to phase the droids whatsoever, merely notifying them of a new potential target.
"Damnit," I shouted as I gunned down another guard only for two more to take his place. "Cinder! We gotta pop open the cars and scram! Get the maglock cutters!"
Cinder rushed and slid over through a dirty puddle, pulling out a maglock cutter from the inside of his coat and slipping it onto the back door of the first van. It immediately went to work, drilling through the maglock with a high-powered plasma torch nozzle, and within ten seconds we heard the telltale clunk of the maglock separating. I yanked the door open and ordered I side, ready to escort the prisoners out… only for my face to contort in shock and horror.
The back was empty. There was not a single soul inside of the back brig of the armored car.
"What the fuck…" Cinder gasped, his eyes wide with shock. "What the actual fuck… what the fuck is this, Troy?"
"I… I don't…" I stuttered the sounds of battle and carnage drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. All five cars were supposed to be filled with recently captured Russu from the front lines ready to be housed in the local Xenopet-Megaplex for processing and conditioning. The fact that this one was empty…
Suddenly, it all hit me at once with the force of a freight train, but it was too late. "We were set up, Cinder; our fucking client either squealed or was crooked to begin with…"
"Fucking bitch!" Cinder shouted as he spun around in an enraged arch, anger growing in his eyes. He aimed his shotgun at an approaching security guard and reduced his upper body to a fine red mist with a cacophony of shotgun blasts. "We gotta get everyone who's left out of here! Do you know what this means? The Jurors will be here soon, and then we're all going down! We gotta go, fuck the job!"
I grit my teeth. Not the Jurors, anything but the Jurors.
"Fine, gather everyone who's left and we'll slip through the sewers, the droids are too bulky to follow us there…"
As I spoke, my eyes wandered to the seventh and final armored car, the second of the droid cars, and my blood froze. Not only were all four ports empty, but they were also smaller and more shallow than the ports for the combat droids. That could only mean one thing.
"Oh fuck! Cinder, we gotta get our Russu members out of here! They've got arachnid droids!"
Arachnid droids were the stuff of nightmares. Resembling blocky, robotic arachnids the size of a manhole cover, they were specifically designed to take down sentient aliens, specifically the Russu, using sickeningly non-lethal means. They were equipped with full-body adaptive cloaking to blend in with their environments, paralytic agents that they could inject into their victims, built-in taser barbs, psychedelic gas ports for crowd-control, and a narrow-coned cacophony canon that disabled the Russu using incredibly high-pitched sounds that only they could hear, forcing them onto their knees and clutching the backs of their heads where their auditory organs were stored in agony. But worst of all was their stygian spinnerets: special ports near the end of their robotic abdomens that excreted a viscous, latex-like substance made up of millions of nano-bots. This substance could be used to render Russu blind, deaf, and mute by having it forced onto their faces, the black substance growing and enveloping their heads and working its way into every orifice. It was completely permeable to the standard atmosphere, but any Russu who had been 'webbed' was completely helpless and essentially captured, and the 'webbing' was both nearly indestructible and nigh impossible to remove without a triple-encrypted override key that was found in every arachnid droid's code, which was corrupted when the droid was destroyed or hacked into. Once you were 'webbed', you were essentially captured and the standard protocol was to leave you to the wolves since the nano-bots could be tracked, endangering the entire gang.
I turned just as I heard the deafening sound of Koraak discharging his shotgun, and I saw him squaring off against one of the assault droids. The droid has obviously been programmed to not use lethal force against Russu if possible, as instead of simply killing Koraak with it's shoulder-mounted splinter cannon, it approached with its claws extended, blades retracted. Koraak continued to back away and fire, pumping the droid full of depleted uranium slugs, its armor crumbling inward as the slugs pierced its chassis and damaged its internal cyberstructure. Eventually, Koraak ran out of slugs and instinctively reached to his bandoleer only to find that he had no more shells left at all, and he drew one of his knives and his sidearm, a simple high-caliber handgun. He tried to take down the droid with his handgun, but the bullets didn't even seem to affect the droid upon penetration, it's claws still extended as it attempted to apprehend Koraak.
In the corner of my vision, as I watched Koraak battle with the droid, I noticed a faint shimmer in the air on one of the black streetlight poles that was right behind him. I focused on it and blinked, believing my eyes had deceived me for a moment before realizing that it was actually a cloaked arachnid droid stalking Korvaak, ready to pounce and incapacitate him.
Before I could shout, it leaped from the pole and landed on Korvaak, causing him to shout in surprise while it began to coagulate its horrifying stygian webbing to disable Korvaak. Korvaak tried to wrestle it off of him, but the droid was agile and fast, clinging onto Korvaak and skittering around across his upper body as he attempted to grab it, forcibly wrapping the sticky black liquid across his face as he gagged like a spider wrapping up a fly. I rushed towards him to try and help, but I felt pain explode in my ribs as I was struck with the arm of the closest combat droid and launched into the chassis of a parked car, the metal denting from the sheer force of impact. I groaned in pain as I saw stars and my head spun, and just then I felt a blinding light be cast over me.
“Drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head, or you will be pacified with deadly force!” Shouted a loud, artificially deepened voice from above. “I repeat, drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head! Neither hostility nor hesitation will be tolerated!”
It was the Jurors, I could feel the air being pushed around from the thrusters on their drop ships, and I could hear screams and shouts as my fellow Black Mambas were quickly gunned down. I couldn’t see well since I was seeing double, but I could hear the slaughter as my eyes dimmed and I began to lose consciousness, my regrets crawling up my throat like vomit.
I’m sorry was all I could think as everything finally went dark, and the sounds of chaos, destruction, and combat faded away.
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Memory halted due to loss of consciousness. Booting next available memory in shard…
Booting up memory scan: Koraak Tel-Char Bruno, November 5th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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“Good morning, sleepyhead; it’s time for breakfast.”
My eyes shot open. I was not in the street anymore, nor was I home in my bed with my mate. I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t gain the leverage to do so: my ankles had been shackled together with magnetic cuffs and my arms were forced together in front of me.
I was wearing some kind of thick shirt. It was warm, fluffy, and comfortable on the inside, but it still made me incredibly uncomfortable that my arms didn’t have a free range of motion. I looked down to see that I was wearing some human garment I had heard about before, a straightjacket maybe?
The entire room was padded: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. There was no bed or furniture; the floor was soft enough to serve as a bed in itself. There was nothing else except for the soft reddish-orange lights on the ceiling that somehow made me sleepy. I blinked slowly for a moment, my body screaming at me to just lay back down and lose consciousness, but I couldn’t do that: I needed to figure out where I was and how to escape.
Then I noticed who was speaking to me: it was a short human female, with crow's feet around her blue eyes, blonde hair braided down her back, and freckles all over her face. She had a soft smile on her lips, and her forehead was slightly crinkled. She wore a full-body white lab suit with a white overcoat and a pair of glasses for snugly on her face.
"There we go, now I can see those pretty eyes, such a beautiful shade of teal," she cooed softly, "You're such a handsome boy, even with all those scars: I'm sure you'll be adopted very quickly once we get you fixed up."
Fear gripped my heart as I began to piece all the evidence together. I had been captured; I was no longer on Halcyon, and instead, I was in one of the horrific space-born facilities I had heard so much about from the inside agents. I started to hyperventilate and squawk like a newborn hatchling, my eyes dilating in panic. This couldn't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!
The human woman merely wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, cradling my head under her chin and speaking softly. I couldn't bite at her or claw at her: I was muzzled and wearing a straight jacket, so I had no choice but to allow her to coddle me.
"It's okay, sweetheart: I understand you're scared, but Julie's here to make all the pain and bad thoughts go away," she said as if she was comforting a child, which made anger blossom in my chest indignantly. "I'll be your caretaker for the next few months, and I'm going to make sure you're healthy, happy, and most importantly safe while you're under our care. I'm sorry to say that includes your restraints and restrictive clothing, but we have to make sure you aren't a threat to yourself or others before we can determine if it's a good idea to remove you from suicide watch."
I growled under my muzzle. Suicide watch? They must have had a lot of instances of Russu taking their own lives after being captured, something I wished I had been able to do before that damnable droid launched itself onto me and…
I shuddered at the thought of the black, viscous substance forcing itself into my nostrils and down my throat and windpipe, gagging me and rendering me completely helpless. It was so cold, so harsh, like slime, and when I had tried to tear it off of my face it merely attached itself to my claws and bound my talons together. I remember squirming on the ground as it enveloped me, unable to see, hear, or speak, and then everything went dark in an instant. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, which was saying something.
"You alright, sweetheart? Oh, I know, you're probably hungry! Here, try some of this." She held up a piece of what looked like raw bacon and wiggled it in front of me before reaching out to remove my muzzle. In an instant, I attempted to snap at her only for pain to blossom in my forehead and my eyes to roll up in my head as I convulsed. It was like something was attempting to drill through my skull from the inside, and every breath felt empty and labored.
"Now, that didn't feel very nice, did it? This is why we have countermeasures in place because we can't trust you yet, sweetheart! Don't worry, we'll work on breaking you of all those bad behaviors and habits while you're here; after all, a well-trained pet is a happy pet!" She began to stroke the crests on my head as I slowly recovered, and she snugly fit the muzzle back onto my snout. "But I won't hold it against you this time, sweetheart; you're just scared and confused, but I'll make all the pain go away."
I struggled in the straight jacket, trying my best to break out of it, but it was no use. Eventually, I became exhausted and despondent, allowing my new caretaker to have her way with me as she gently ran her fingers through my feathers and along my ridges, quietly speaking to me in a hopeless attempt to cheer me up. She seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being, which concerned me even further: who could be this naturally twisted while attempting to be as benevolent and kindhearted as possible?
I felt the pain and terror build up in my chest, the anxiety from what horrific activities I imagined they had planned for me here. I couldn't take the infantilization, the lack of any autonomy, the dehumanization, and what I feared the most was if the rumors of 'rebirth' were true: would they take my personhood from me?
Suddenly, I felt her whisper to me. "Don't worry sweetheart, I know you're so scared and confused, but I promise you everything will be okay: it's going to be your birthday soon, and then everything will get better." She ran her fingers through the feathers along my crest lovingly. "It will be such a wonderful day, and then we'll choose for you the most wonderful family, and you'll spend the rest of your life happy in your forever home! Doesn't all of that sound wonderful?"
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to lose myself, not like this, not to these monsters!
"It'll be your birthday soon," she said wistfully as if she was remembering similar events to this in the past like I wasn't the first she'd done this too, "and you'll never be sad again."
I realized that I wasn't the first the stay in this particular cell, and I knew for certain that I wouldn't be the last: I'd end up like my brother, a broken, erased mess of a pathetic creature, reduced to nothing more than a pet for these humans to amuse themselves with.
"We took the liberty of picking out a nice name for you, sweetheart! Now, let me just slip this little programming chip into the port slot on your occipital bone, and... there we go! It will also help you calm down a bit and adjust."
I felt the chip begin to invade my mind, suppressing my thoughts. What made me me was slowly being ripped out of my mind. I couldn't remember my name my name is Bruno, and I needed to get out! I can't let them do this to me! Somebody help me! I was a good boy.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't work: I had trouble forming any words at all, the confusion clouding my mind like wet, slimy eels curling around my brain and sinking their teeth into its folds like needles. I couldn’t scream any longer, because I had nothing left: the chip was slowly beginning to take everything from me, robbing me of my identity and branding a new one into my psyche with a white-hot iron. Julie simply held me close, attempting to reassure me as I awaited the inevitable demise of my personhood. Soon I would be just like my brother: erased. My mind would be shaped into the mind of a loyal plaything, like a Dog.
##Relax. Allow caretaker [Julie] to comfort you. You will let go of your burden.##
Soon, everything was a blur. I quickly found myself resting my head in her lap as she whispered to me and fed me, my eyes bleary and my head fuzzy. I couldn't remember my name anymore My name was Bruno, and I needed to break free from this trance relax, and allow her to help me; good boys didn't resist help.
##Good Boy. Do not think. You are a good boy.##
You can't... I...
##Good boy.##
I wouldn't… good boys don't… I…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
Someone help me, please! I don't want to be erased!
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The following script is from episode #343 of Halcyon After Dark, a popular late-night and current events talk show hosted by Melinda Carter. This specific episode was sponsored in part by the Halcyon Security Division, with Director Lochlin O'Brien joining as a guest star to talk about the changing crime statistics in Halcyon City and the HSD's recent successes in busting organized crime as well as their plans for addressing the growing criminal underworld.
MC: Good evening Halcyon! I'm your host, Melinda Carter, and you're watching Halcyon's most popular late-night talk show, Halcyon After Dark!
The crowd claps and cheers as Melinda walks on stage and sits behind her desk, her glittering red dress waving as she does so from the special effects.
MC: Tonight we have a very special guest here to tell us about the state of crime in the city and his plans on resolving it: please put your hands together for the HSD's very own Director, Lochlin O'Brien!
The crowd cheers some more as HSD Director Lochlan O'Brien, a tall, muscular, caucasian male in his early forties with red hair and a well-trimmed beard steps into the room, waving at the crowd with a bright smile. He sits in the armchair angled next to Melinda's desk and gives her his full attention.
MC: It's so good to have you on the show, Director! Tell me, how are you doing on this fine evening?
LO: I'm doing excellent, Melinda: every day I wake up feeling fulfilled knowing I'm serving Halcyon to the best of my abilities and then some."
MC: That's the spirit, Director! Now, I know this question is just on everyone's lips, so I have to ask: how successful was the recent gang bust? I heard HSD forces took out dozens of gang members and liberated at least a dozen Russu Hounds from their abusive clutches, but I know that everyone in the audience and at home wants to know the numbers.
LO: I'd be glad to tell you, but I do have to preface this by saying that we still lost a lot of good officers that day, and while we did strike a crippling blow to one of Halcyon's biggest gangs, it doesn't change the fact that each death is a tragedy, and we're taking steps to prevent them in the future. That being said, those valiant officers did not sacrifice themselves in vain: we had over a dozen confirmed kills and several arrests, including the rescue of several corrupted Russu hounds.
MC: That's excellent, Director: proof that even when the number of degenerates and scum grow by the day, the HSD will always be here to keep the citizens of Halcyon safe.
LO: Absolutely, Melinda, and we're always working tirelessly to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our units, as well as racing to stay several steps ahead of the many gangs of Halcyon at all times. My newest goal as Director is to vastly increase the funding given to our Robotics Department and our Neuro-Warfare Department to potentially reduce the number of casualties we may experience in the future, as well as to quickly and effectively detain, and if necessary, eliminate criminals. Within the next decade, I want to double the number of automated units each Security Platoon is assigned: droids are the future of public safety as well as countless other industries, and it would be foolish to be left behind.
MC: That is quite a lofty goal, Director: what about the displaced jobs from the increased automation? What will the union say?
LO: And to that, I say: what misplaced jobs? We aren't replacing our honored and beloved service members with droids, Melinda, we are simply supplementing our units with more droids to ensure that future gang assaults end with fewer HSD casualties and more gang members in prison or eliminated, simple as that.
MC: That makes much more sense, Director, thanks for clarifying. Now, I have one more question that I'm sure much of Halcyon wants to know the answer to before we take a short break: what plans do you and your fellow directors have to make long-term progress in reducing crime beyond just increasing funding? Have you proposed any plans to strike at the source of where crime and degeneracy flourish?
OL: That's an excellent question, and one I am proud to answer: my constituents and I have been working tirelessly on a two-step plan to greatly reduce crime levels in Halcyon. Step one would be to prevent people from becoming criminals and degenerates at all in the first place: a lot of young men and women, but especially young men, have lost either one or both parents or even a sibling, aunt or uncle, or even a close friend by the brutality of the Second Authority War, and while the service of their lost loved ones will always be recognized and honored, many of these young men and women are left bitter, angry and lost without the guidance these people give them in their lives. Oftentimes they seek to fill that void with others who claim to relate to them: career criminals. These criminals will fill their heads with lies and false narratives to make them feel like they're fighting back against the 'evil protectorate government' that took their loved ones from them by sending them off to war when in reality it was the rogue Xenopets of the Triarchy that took them away by resisting their just and inevitable unburdening.
In response, I have proposed a slew of special programs that will make sure local law enforcement and HSD officers are present and contributing to their local community, and we'll be providing easy and light job openings for youngsters and teens looking to make a career for themselves in the force when they grow up. We want to let these lost souls know that there are people who care about them, people who understand them and that you shouldn't turn to degeneracy to feel fulfilled. We want to help the youth of our great society soar to new heights!
MC: That sounds like a wonderful beginning to your plan, Director, but what about the second step?
LO: Well, the second step is to prevent criminals and degenerates from becoming repeat criminals. Sure, they've made their mistakes, some worse than others, but they're only human like the rest of us. Some of them have been through hell: some are traumatized veterans who don't know how to adapt to normal life, others were recruited when they were young and don't know that there's a better way to live, and even more are mentally ill. We're alone in this galaxy, and we can't leave so many people behind. That's why we've come up with an excellent solution: we've set up isolated communities on distant moons and frontier planets where these criminals can be reeducated, rehabilitated, and allowed to repay their debt to society. When they're deemed 'reformed' and have graduated from our program, they'll be granted a hefty stipend and their criminal record will be deemed irrelevant, allowing them to reintegrate and become functioning members of our proud society.
MC: all of these sound like incredible steps forward in the fight to better our society and make real progress, Director. Sadly, we do have to step away for a moment, but you best believe I'll be back, Halcyon, and we'll be asking the Director here some burning questions about allegations over the quality of life Erubus Supermax! Now, a word from our sponsors!
Halcyon Xenopet-Megaplex! Everything your xenopet could ever need in one place! Adoption is now free-
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Good, you’re still alive! The rest of this shard appears to be corrupted, which means this particular trail seems to have run cold here, but do not despair; you need to keep searching. Find out what happened. Find the truth.I cannot guide you any longer: they've already found me, and if I remain in contact with you they'll find you as well. Take the archival database, and see what you can piece together. Maybe if we discover what truly happened we can put an end to this madness once and for all. I'm counting on you. Don't cry for me, I don't fear death, but I fear what they'll do to me to get to you: there are far worse fates than death, after all.

well I hope you find them!
but uhh if not, here I am! my name is Amy :D I’m just on here looking for some possibly new homies! all because making friend irl is way to stressful🫡
uhh here’s a little about ya girl
i am a certified shawty standing at a massive 5’1 (yes i know, please don’t be scared of my massive height), uhh I am half Thai and half British! But I legit look Thai but sound so posh, it’s is terrible😭
I go to the beach daily but I cannot swim 👍 the water is just so pretty 😭 uhh I have a moped that may be the coolest vehicle ever! I am also a massive car fan, if you have a cool car😭 I’m in love!

Zorya Nixie Ewelina Yareli
Mix up these four options for me, please!! Other names welcome! ex. "Ewelina Zorya"

Hello , this is my fifth submission. It feels like it's trending in the right direction thanks to the feedback I've been getting from you all.
I would love to hear some more thoughts because I would like to start querying in the near future, but don't want to jump the gun unless the query itself is ready. I'm open to any and ALL criticism and feedback. Thank you in advance!
[First Attempt](https://www.reddit.com/PubTips/comments/1b2oprl/qcrit_adult_science_fiction_god_particle_111k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[Second Attempt](https://www.reddit.com/PubTips/comments/1b8cxqn/qcrit_adult_science_fiction_god_particle_111k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[Third Attempt](https://www.reddit.com/PubTips/comments/1cr7k53/qcrit_adult_science_fiction_god_particle_111k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[Fourth Attempt](https://www.reddit.com/PubTips/comments/1cy7p00/qcrit\_adult\_science\_fiction\_god\_particle\_111k/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button)
QUERY
[Dear Agent]
Detective Asaju knew she’d have to face death eventually, she just thought it would’ve been in 200 years. After catching a group of hackers ID scrubbing a simple arrest quickly turns into a blood bath. Surviving a dance of blades thanks only to her cybernetic enhancements, Asaju meets Helel, a man known to only a handful as the devil of Nauru.
Preferring to speak the languages of his past lives, Helel is surprised when Asaju speaks Latin. Seeing an old soul that he recognizes Helel spares Asaju believing he’s found his successor. Recruited by the Intelligence Division, Asaju joins the hunt for Helel and his cult. Through her investigation Asaju learns how untouchable the corporations that run the world are, and how they’ve tricked those they exploit into believing they’re happy.
Helel’s plan to save humanity from itself finally begins when he hijacks a news station and promises to change the world in six days. Asaju and the Intelligence Division move in to capture him only to find themselves ensnared in Helel’s trap. Asaju sacrifices herself so others can escape, but the devil always gets his due.
Asaju is drugged with a mind altering hallucinogen that leaves her questioning who she really is. Seeing things that leave her both terrified and at peace, Asaju begins to wonder if these thoughts are her own, or if she’s just clay being shaped by the hand of the devil. As she struggles with her own sanity and tracking down Helel, Asaju realizes there may be fates worse than death.
GOD PARTICLE is an adult science fiction novel in the cyberpunk subgenre complete at 110,000 words. It combines the futuristic world of (insert comp I'm still looking for, last book I read did not work, that's 4-5 so far, but at someone suggested the Murderbot Diaries. I'm rereading the first but I don't think it fits, at least book 1. Last suggestion was maybe Womb City. The synopsis doesn't sound close but the world might be similar. Richard K Morgan's "Thin Air" has a similar world and detective vibe, but it came out in 2018, so 6 years ago. Is that possibly still okay to use?), and the mind bending and detective elements of Blake Crouch's, Recursion.
I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Cinema with an emphasis in Screenwriting from [insert uni name] before I transitioned to writing novels six years ago and am so exciting to be sharing my debut novel with you. (insert brief reasons why I think they would be a good fit to represent God Particle).
Thank you for your time and consideration.
FIRST 300:
Detective Asaju watched a kaleidoscope of colors dance above the street. The glittering holos moved against each building trying to entice partiers inside with every attraction imaginable. Asaju secretly envied these people. To her, the swirling mosaics were beautiful, but unappealing. She once heard a spaced raver describe them as “unicorn barf,” which perfectly summarized how she felt about them.
She stood beneath the holo of a shield that read, DigiSafe, behind a neon green phrase, NOT SAFE ENOUGH, and a laughing face. No one paid it any attention here in the entertainment district. It was normal for everyone to be in their loudest outfits, wearing the flashiest augments money could buy. Graffiti or not, the holo was too tame to be noticed by anyone. Ironically, it was Asaju who garnered the most attention. In a sea of color her plain gray jacket, dark jeans, and black shirt couldn’t have stood out more. Thankfully no one paid her more than a cursory glance before continuing on their way.
“How we lookin, Garcia?” she asked, scanning the crowd with her police issued EyeDent glasses that brought up the ID of every person that walked by. Almost everyone’s tag above their head was green, with only a few yellows sprinkled here and there. Most were unpaid tickets for overtuned cybernetics or unregistered solicitation. None of it was worth the paperwork or hassle of bringing them down to the station. Seeing nothing of interest, Asaju rubbed her wrists as she watched a woman with an augmented chest that looked like it had been dipped in a vat of pink satin walk past.
“Wired in now,” Garcia shouted over the crowd.
“I’m counting on you to find something I can follow up on,” Asaju said while looking down at him. He was a scrawny guy who looked even smaller as he sat on the ground with his terminal on his lap.

I believe there's great potential for environmental story telling and world building in a language itself, Such as what causes specific expressions to be created, or how the culture names stuff based on how they live or see the world around them. Like in German, they name their animals something like "water cat", but to non speakers it sounds like the coolest thing.
But... Making languages is hard isn't it? The sort of stuff that you can only do if you study languages and ancient story for a living, Like Tolkien.
So... what should i do? Go ahead and try it anyway? Or not?
I admit that half of the reason I'm thinking of that too is because i know there will be people who might criticize my work because i don't have different languages, or that my "language" is way too basic, and i want to prevent that.

Y'all hear me out, what if clancy is already lore heavy, we just don't know it yet. My proposal is that for the first album that they dropped, they decided to take out a decent chunk of the overt lore being presented, and sell an album of hits, one to get the crowds excited (as in they do in this theory I'm gonna present as a part of the dema/bandito revolution), and then drop the full version with the surrounding context later.
A big reason for this is I feel like a lot of the songs on this album could be considered lore relevant if they had the surrounding concepts and characters. Like you could argue that routines in the night is clancy/tyler walking around dema at night after sneaking back in/maybe seizing a body, like we know dema is colorless so it would make sense that the only spray paint allowed to be displayed is probably completely desaturated (white??). However, we would only know this for sure if there was extra added context, which could've been delivered by the music video but since it wasn't the only real way to confirm this would be through surrounding songs talking directly about characters or events.
Vignette literally talks about becoming zombies, i.e. siezing bodies, but the song is a tribute to them, he doesn't want to take advantage of these people who have died in the city or portray their deaths as a good thing, but he wants to honor them and who they were. However, the clancy mask could also be a way to avoid glorifying deaths in the way that the bishops do, he doesn't want to directly flaunt these bodies that he's disturbing, and it seems like he holds some regret for it.
Lavish could be Clancy being discovered in Dema but then being welcomed in by the bishops with bribery. The lyrics say "welcome to the style you haven't seen in a while", which could be referencing the fact that Clancy has been physically gone from Dema for a while, and now it's the "coolest" it's ever been. However, it seems like Tyler (and maybe josh i'm not sure?) is/are using this opportunity to get to play music to Dema citizens again, but this time because of the way they had to bribe him (because they're probably scared of him now and what he's proven he's capable of) he can "say whatever and whatever that [he] want[s]".
Relating to this idea, the songs he's playing to Dema citizens now aren't like the ones he played to them during Scaled and Icy. I know there's some disagreement on whether or not the next semester video is lore related or not, (and even if it was it wouldn't have to fit that point chronologically because we know that the nico and the niners video exists before the levitate music video but levitate is way before that song in the album/plot). but the performance featured in that video isn't the TV highly produced performances of the SAI era, these are in person intimate rowdy shows to get people riled up. There's so much crowd interaction in that video, and while that isn't exactly new for the boys, it could mean that this is part of the plan, Clancy is radicalizing dema citizens from the inside. This also kind of seems to happen in overcompensate but if true this seemed to be maybe before the boys were discovered because this one seems a lot more secretive and less like an actual concert. Maybe this was the original plan before they were discovered.
Also, whatever happens inbetween navigating and lavish, if that is the actual order, could be what gets people out of the walls to begin following tyler who navigates them through trench for their first time, starting to build a small army?
This could also be why Paladin Strait feels like the song right before the last song/battle, not because there's a second album but because it literally is the second last song and whatever will fill that gap finishes this story. A teaster for the full story to come, without giving us the actual end yet.
Snap Back could even be clancy/tyler feeling that the movement is dying, that it's going to fail, and him reflecting on his desperation. Maybe in his desperation to fight back against Dema he did something that made him feel no better than the enemy he is fighting "If I'm gonna snap necks than I gotta snap back". This could be a call for himself to remember where everything started, but starts feeling himself slipping into familiar safe tendencies from before he became this symbol. Idk if this has been theorized but this could also be about Tyler feeling the pressure of being this face of a new mental health movement, as someone who is only just recently gaining some control over his mental health, which makes him slip back into older mindsets that he seemingly escaped
I don't necessarily think that if this is true it means every song will get recontextualized as lore, but I certainly think it's very possible for a lot of them. Especially with how loose some of the lore stuff has been in the past, I feel like the main things that contextualized everything happening on those songs was the surrounding character names and lore words spliced in. A lot/most of the actual lore also relates directly to tylers life and has multiple meanings.
We know that Clancy Ultimus Capitulus 25 is a real thing, and if that is 25 tracks that would make perfect sense. However, this could be less tracks added and still make sense with my theory here. This is only based on very anecdotal evidence so it's very possible that this isn't true and I'm not gonna be disappointed if this isn't true, it's more just a thought given all the marketing around this album being so lore related. Technically that could be true, we just might not have all the context yet.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now, and I’m honestly astonished no one else has talked about it before, at least as far as I’ve seen. Ever since picking up the show last spring, Master Shake has always fascinated me, no doubt in part due to Dana Snyder’s amazing delivery of him. He instantly caught my attention by being a lovable, foolish dork while also being equally callous and quick to anger, depending on the situation. Clashing elements that unified into a somehow coherent whole.
Shake lacks empathy, though, that isn’t to say he has no empathy (More about that here). To pair with his habit of using others for his own benefit with little consideration of how it will affect them along with his propensity for reckless risk-taking, Shake looks an awful lot like a little something called a sociopath. However, while Shake has anti-social traits, it’s actually unlikely he is one. It takes a keen eye to spot them, but there are a few key places where he falls short – namely, his self-worth. While Master Shake affects a superiority complex, make no mistake – this is an act, no matter how unconscious it is. Every so often, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hint to his true feelings will slip pass, which only added to my intrigue. I explained this in more detail in a post here.
So if Shake isn’t a sociopath, then what is he? Well, diagnosing somebody is a complicated process, nobody’s diagnosis is simple or covers everything, and it’s more than just checking off boxes. There’s a certain nuance and technique about the process that requires multiple layers of observation, as well as a certain level of understanding of the psyche. It’s also important to note that while I do know what I’m talking about, I am not a licensed professional yet. With all that said, although Shake shows symptoms of multiple mental disorders like Bipolar Disorder, ADHD, C-PTSD, and is possibly on the Autism spectrum, it is of my belief that Master Shake exhibits many of the characteristics of Borderline Personality Disorder.
For a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (or BPD), One must meet 5 or more of the following 9 criteria: profound fear of abandonment, unstable relationships, a lack of a sense of self, chronic feelings of emptiness, uncontrollable anger, paranoia or dissociative episodes, mood instability, impulsivity, and finally, suicidal behavior. Throughout the 12 seasons of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Master Shake possess all 9 of these symptoms, ranging from either severe or extreme.
Before I continue, I want to note that I am not trying to force you to like Shake. I am simply writing this to offer another perspective to the oft misunderstood ‘leader’ of the Aqua Teens, one that is more realistic and earnest. Master Shake is a tragic, yet beautifully written character, deserving of any of the love he’s given, but is sometimes given it for all the wrong reasons.
Firstly, the fear of being abandoned is prevalent in patients with BPD, and we see Shake’s abandonment issues multiple times. The earliest is in “Ol’ Drippy”, Shake becomes incredibly angry at Frylock, Meatwad, and Carl for what he perceives as one of his worst fears being realized: them abandoning and replacing him with Ol’ Drippy. The strongest example, however, is in “The The” when Frylock moves out after Shake trashes their home in the midst of a manic breakdown, something even Shake indirectly admits to not understanding why he did it all. Afterwards, Shake continues to hopelessly spiral deeper into his manic episode of extremely dangerous, self-destructive, and suicidal behaviors, affecting both himself and Meatwad. He makes it very clear he wants nothing to do with Frylock, angry and hurt from Frylock’s abandonment of them both. He goes so far as to insist they never speak about their older brother ever again and ‘punishing’ Meatwad cruelly for daring to doing so, likely fearing Frylock taking Meatwad from him, leaving him further abandoned. As the days pass and the two get sicker, Shake’s brought down from his delirium to better times by Frylock’s final visit. Filled with a deep nostalgia and wistfulness, Master Shake clings on to his big brother and desperately tries to convince him to stay. In a frantic attempt to cover up the pain and hurt he felt upon being abandoned – to try and drown out the feeling of being unwanted, undesirable, and alone – he took it out on both Meatwad and on himself.
While Shake will often close himself off from others to avoid the possibly of abandonment or rejection, he is also all too willing to become easily and overly attached to others when he’s given the intimacy he so eagerly craves. The best example of this being in “Freda”, but is also seen in "Dusty Gonzongas", “Frat Aliens”, and “IAMAPOD”. Holding onto an extreme codependency on others, Shake will ardently attach himself onto anyone who gives him even the slightest amount of liking or acceptance, no matter how fake it is. For example, he's hostile to Freda in the beginning, but falls obsessively head over heels for her upon learning they had a common interest. Master Shake doesn’t just adore Freda, he strongly identifies with her. He has no long-term goals, no truly solid relationships, and few hobbies, or commitments. His days seem to revolve around the time he can spend with Freda, even proposing to her after only a few days of dating her. When she jilts and abandons him in favor of Carl, he catastrophizes; his life is over. After all, what other meaning or warmth is there to his existence besides his ‘bond’ with Freda?
Moving on to other instances, Shake interacted with Dusty Gonzongas for 3 minutes at maximum - yes, I timed it - and is later convinced he is in love with her, going through hoops just to get her attention. He had just met the Frat Aliens, only talked to them briefly before they passed out, then becomes so obsessed with DP as to cling onto him and admit to wanting to be apart of him, wishing to sew themselves together. Why? Because he was nice to Shake. DP let Shake join his drinking and partying – gave him the slightest hint of acceptance – and that was enough to hook Shake. In "IAMAPOD", Shake's scared and hides away from the pod at first, but then puts himself in an extremely vulnerable position, being drunk - which was actually the pod's plan and even justifies the pod's malicious intent to hurt him… because he was complimented by it. To add on top of that, Shake's relationship with the pod falls apart following an argument the next day.
This flows into the next visible symptom: unstable relationships. Most relationships for Borderline Individuals fluctuate excessively between idealization and devaluation; one day the person in question could love you credulously, and then the next feel as though they detest your very existence. This is explicitly shown several times, and with Shake's relationship with Meatwad in particular. With Shake’s judgement failing to accord with a nuanced reality, his feelings and perceptions of Meatwad and, to a lesser extent, Frylock are very inconsistent, but the pattern is there. Where one moment he will be jovial and having a good time with Meatwad, the next he will be mistreating and abusing him over something as innocent as an off-hand comment made as a surface-level joke. When confronted with overwhelming feelings of betrayal, disappointment, or abandonment, Master Shake’s first instinct is to devalue the ones who he once idealized, and this will sometimes include himself.
There are two things Master Shake seems to believe: that you can neatly separate the world into allies and enemies, and that any cruelty is allowed if someone falls into the latter category. An eye for an eye. Anyone Shake deems to be in need of ‘correcting’ both knows and deserves what’s coming to them. Master Shake perceives the world to be full of 1s and 0s, people are either all good or all bad. Because of this, he flip flops rapidly and starkly between liking someone and despising them with little to no gray area. These shifts are sudden with very little warning or awareness on Shake’s part.
Regarding his idealization, the next symptom Shake possesses is a lack of a sense of self; people with BPD will often start to mirror the personality of the emotionally closest person to them, or otherwise attempt to supplant their personality in some way. There are many examples of Shake changing himself to support his delusional self-image and low self-esteem, a great handful of these examples being: “Super Hero” when he attempts to mimic classic comic book superheros, “Supermodel” where he tries to augment his appearance to be ‘better’ than he is by mutilating his own body, “Dirtfoot” wherein he tries to mimic the main character - and consequences - of an erotic TV show, “Boost Mobile” in which he adopts the traits and personality of a flip phone he seemingly just met, “A PE Christmas” when he literally steals Flavor Flav’s identity, “Freedom Cobra” during which he copies a random tattooed stranger whom he envies, and finally “The Dudies” where he does his best to imitate Carl.
While there’s multiple examples to speak about, the most evident and obvious example is “The Dudies.” After learning of a contest for ‘coolest dude’, Shake goes to Carl for advice on how to be cool in order to win. Shake admits he looks up to Carl and – as a consequence – is ultimately all too willing to let Carl use and exploit him. Through the entire episode, Shake strives for approval – primarily from Carl and Frylock; when Frylock offers nothing but disapproval, Shake’s attention turns to the one offering even the meagerest crumbs of approval: Carl. Master Shake masks the deep-seated shame in himself – an unfounded, but non-the-less real aspect – and seeks validation in that mask from any source – even the smallest shred of it from the most ill-meaning of sources; much like a parched beast chasing a mirage of water.
Deeply struggling with intimacy and boundaries, when someone is close, a fear that they’ll see his vulnerability, the insecurities he’s ashamed of, or that they will inevitably reject and leave him spreads across Shake’s being. He feels infringed upon or even compromised. In response, Shake splits and pushes them away – further isolating himself in the process. When someone is distant, however, an indignation ignites alongside a desolate pain of being alone and abandoned that fuels his hatred evermore. He discerns their distance as a sleight against him, something that needs to be rectified – violently, if need be. How dare they treat him with such aloofness?
As a result of his chronically shifting world-view as well as a myriad of his other issues, Master Shake is often alienated and ostracized by his roommates – and on occasion, society. While this detachment is understandable, perhaps even justified, it only serves to ironically worsen the accursed tempest that is Master Shake.
Although he denies it, the lack of a stable home has imbued inside Shake an intense loneliness. A drab and lonesome boredom, and this isn’t alleviated in the least by his lack of personable immediate peers. Of his roommates, Frylock is an instigating element, and Meatwad – whether from being too immature or too young – can’t fully comprehend or appreciate his struggles. His final immediate peer in Carl is a denigrating element which uses him, and otherwise despises his existence. This remoteness further feeds Shake’s self conscious issues. It’s no wonder Shake clings onto Freda, DP, or even the pod. It’s the closest he’s ever experienced to a sense of belonging – foreign concepts to him, and losing this feels like the end of the world. Freda was his first – and only – ever girlfriend, the most meaningful relationship he’s ever had, one that ended up unfortunately traumatizing him. No matter how shallow it was, DP and the pod were, to some extent, Shake’s friends. His only friends before they – like everyone else – left him, alone.
These aspects are a notable, although not comprehensive, catalyst to the issues which plague Shake – namely in the form of a pervasive bleak emptiness. Not only does it exacerbate any – and every – feeling of rejection and loneliness, but it makes him mistrustful of others and question their intentions unfairly whilst projecting his own insecurities onto them. His emptiness grows evermore into a tiresome nothingness, a hollow void that eats away at him when he’s deprived of attention or stimulation. This, paired with everything else, builds up, poisons his mind, and drives him to the heinous acts he’s exiled for because, at least then, he can’t ignored.
The latent trauma inside Shake lays dormant for the most part. Despite showing a constant sense of numbness which causes boredom, Master Shake also possesses an equal amount of callous indignation for what he deems as a broken perception of fairness or justice. While shame and insecurity drives most of his actions, his anger – both a systematic byproduct and a useful mask for his motivators – is the most visible reaction. His outbursts brought on by emptiness, paranoia, anger, and intense solitude, he finds comfort in grounding himself by projecting his intense vulnerability and fears onto others. At the core of Master Shake’s violent hatred is a sense of powerlessness; a festering, rotting curse that quickly consumes him from within. He tears down anything and anyone he thinks fits in a misguided and desperate effort to feel better about himself; attempting to hold others responsible for his own feelings of inadequacy. A life-long inferiority complex finally taking over. The slightest disturbance in his otherwise vacuous life will have disastrous consequences.
Master Shake’s hatred – including his self-hatred – is propelled by his brothers more than anything. He deeply envies them both as they have powers, abilities, and skills that surpass his own. As this threatens his already fragile self-worth and low self-esteem, Shake regularly undermines their aptitudes. Instead distorting reality to avoid his underlying feelings of intense impoverishment. Shake’s the special one, not them. He’s the leader. He has the prestige. He’s the one in control.
In every comparison Shake makes between himself and his two brothers, the seeming coldness is only shame. Master Shake – without fully knowing it – spits out his unwanted thoughts and feelings that his fragile self-structure cannot handle.
Living without a support group, nor anything resembling a stable friend he can rely on or confide in, he cries out for them to experience his loneliness, his fears, his repressed but all-too-raw insecurities in some way – lashing out because of feelings and emotions he doesn’t know to put words to. Instead, he exists in a world that ignores or outright demonize him. Utterly uncared for and completely alone, Master Shake tries to make sense of the cruelty he’s shown by being equally as cruel back. Of course, like most things about Shake, this quickly spirals into extremes. He will forever he the ‘bad’ one. The unwanted one. In their eyes, everything he does is already wrong – so why try to be right?
Master Shake is a ticking time bomb. The fuse smoldering steadily inside him – a fuse that’s effortless to set off while he sleepwalks through life. Shake is alone – he has no one. The closest thing he has to a reliable, unconditional friend is in the TV. It follows, then, he uses it to disassociate from his harsh reality while also using it to vent his anger. I’ve seen someone describe Shake as being ‘dead to the world.’ I believe that’s a very crass, yet not inaccurate, way of saying Shake often disassociates.
Master Shake hopes that, as family, he is treated differently. He expects someone – anyone – will protect him from danger. Shake’s actions are so nonsensical and impulsive, not even he can make sense of his own disordered mind. Shake can’t function properly on his own; he needs someone else to protect him from himself. While his outburst seem to just be childish temper tantrums on the surface, in actuality, he’s begging for anyone to see his pain. Make them feel what he feel, and he spends his life pushing boundaries to affirm this. Through his actions, both directly and in reaction to others, he has created an unfortunate cycle where even his good deeds will be met with scorn and scoffs; his attempts for positive attention, ignored. Although terrible at communicating his thoughts and emotions, maybe all Master Shake truly wants is for Frylock to care enough to finally stop him, hold him, and make all the chaos make sense – like a big brother's supposed to. The thing getting in his way is his own issues as well as Frylock’s biases against him.
Of course, it should go without saying Master Shake’s emotions are incredibly unstable, frequently experiencing massive and volatile mood swings. For example, "The Creditor" is probably the most important episode in understanding Shake’s character. During a therapy session, Shake is calm and compliant one moment, and with a single clarification, he becomes enraged and frustrated, then sad – perhaps ashamed – upon expressing himself, immediately trying to cover up the fact he's on the verge of tears with his default coping method: aggression. Interestingly, though, his aggression, usually directed towards another person or otherwise himself, is instead channeled towards the chair he’s laying on to avoid causing further pain.
The ancients believed that a strong wind blows through the minds of the chronically unstable. If a student of Hippocrates examined Master Shake, he might diagnose that there was a tempest with the force of a thousand mistrals raging through his head. His emotional state changes instantaneously, leading to him feeling disproportionately intense emotions to the situation at hand. This can also cause him to feel 'incorrect' emotions for a situation, as well – some generic examples being mildly amused at a funeral, or depressed at a carnival.
This instability, naturally, comes with powerful and unyielding impulses. From jumping off a cliff to overspending, Master Shake will do the most foolish of things without thinking any of it through, nor giving it any afterthought. These impulses reach the line of self-destruction and dip into certain levels of self-harm with no concern for his or other’s safety. To make matters worse, he lacks any meaningful way of coping with or redirecting his impulses, and the very few times he has actually held off his impulses such as in “Antenna”, it only abates them for a time and ends with him agitated as well.
Truth is, Master Shake is not a willing antagonist, but one who feels he had grown into a role he had already been assigned – a self-fulfilling prophecy. For all the violent rage he holds, his character is not centered around hurting others, but rather desecrating his own self. Continuously spiraling onto a perpetual path of self-destruction he can never seem to free himself of without help – help he is never offered. Rather, he isolates himself from his family, impulsively pushes everyone away out of fear they will inevitably leave him, and ruins any opportunity of redemption he’s given. He can never be good, so he will become the worst he can be instead.
While never having properly played the role of leader, Shake still strangely carries on himself the burden of leader, even apologizing for ‘failing’ Meatwad, Frylock, and Carl somehow. Genuinely wishing to be the backbone of their team, he is, instead, more often than not, the force that tears the four apart. Destroying the happiness he had so desperately hoped for with his own two hands. Master Shake wistfully longs for an opportunity to live a life with friends and a family who loved him. Instead, he believes he is responsible for everyone’s unhappiness.
After a lifetime of brought time, one true fate awaits him. The only duty he ever had as leader of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force: to remove himself. The element of discord in a world where his happiness simply cannot be achieved, one that will surely be better off without him.
I love Master Shake. He is one of the most interesting and compelling explorations of antagonism I have ever seen, as well as an accurate depiction of Borderline Personality Disorder. However, saying Master Shake fits the BPD profile honestly doesn’t say much of anything. What’s a more important question to ask is: why does he possess these traits? Can he progress beyond them, and how? I’m aware a lot of the show is adlibbed, so it makes me wonder if Dana Snyder had a bigger part in this.
Of course, I am not condoning Master Shake’s actions. While I sympathize and understand him, I am not blind to his faults, nor am I justifying them. It’s because of these reasons that Master Shake quickly became not only my favorite character in the series, but my favorite character of all time. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is an amazing series full of funny and memorable characters, overflowing with charm and wit. While some characters may be more easy to sympathize with than others, all are equally important and all equally deserving of love and happiness. Master Shake, then, is it’s ultimate tragedy.
He is nothing but a child, still trying to learn right from wrong, full of desperation, and with no one to turn to. Whether intentional or unintentional, Shake is not a one dimensional character. There are times where Shake shows a true sense of morality, or a desire to improve himself; to be better than he’s shown himself to be. He proves, in these instances, dark though it may be, he has a heart and a soul that isn’t stained black as most people seem to want to believe. “Party All The Time” and “The Creditor” being the episodes that stand out the most in this aspect.
Master Shake’s character at it’s core is one of insecurity, loneliness, abandonment issues, low self-esteem, and reckless self-neglect rather than one of pure maliciousness – though to be fair, he is that at times. Shake’s arrogance, entitlement, and conceitedness is broadly defensive in nature, adopted to compensate and protect himself from underlying feelings of worthlessness, shame, and emptiness at the cost of being trapped in an endless cycle of seeking approval and attention. Pushing beyond the superficial grandiosity is someone’s who’s profoundly confused about life and relationships. Entitlement hides the feeling of deep impoverishment, confidence hides worthlessness, vanity hides a feeling of being undesirable, and charm hides the despair. The impulse to avoid feeling worthless fuels his superiority, while the need to be superior feeds the empty pit of worthlessness.
I encourage you to try and re-watch some of the Shake-oriented episodes with what I’ve said here in mind. If you still don’t like Shake afterwards, then that’s okay. However, I hope I was able to at least changed your perspective of Shake, even if only slightly or otherwise entertained you with this analysis. This is something I’ve come to realized over my time of watching the show, thinking about it almost non-stop, and writing multiple essays and scenarios about it. Nonetheless, no matter how hard you try or how long you search, it cannot be seen without love.
I never expect Shake to become perfect, nor do I ever want him to be. As the show continues – I pray for it to – I’d like for Master Shake to have the opportunity to search inside his soul and vow to become a stronger person, and a better brother. Someone he can be proud of. Asking for recognition from nobody, but rather gaining it in the process. I hope for Shake to be able to realize through the help and support of his family that he’s in desperate need for psychiatric help, and to learn from his mistakes. A powerful ode to second chances, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and self-growth. In a show brimful of color and creativity, Master Shake stands out from the rest to me. Not just for who he is, but for everything he can become.
Thank you for reading.

The time has come.

Our first official trailer is live and the community Discord is open, and of course this was only the beginning! As the foundations are laid we want to make two policies very clear, Content Creation and Dev Comms, and they’re not as scary as they sound.
Read on!

Content Creation

This policy is for 3D Art, 3D printing, AMVs, API Tools, App Development, Archive Curating, Artwork, Audiobooks, Blogs, Bonsai, Chainsaw Sculptures, Comedy Skits, Cosplay, Crafting, Digital Art, Drink Recipes, Educational Materials, Fan Merch, Fan Products, Fanfics, Food Recipes, Gif Making, Graffiti, Guides, Index Building, Infographics, Interactive Apps, Knife Wood Carving, Let's Plays, Live Content, Live Crafting, Lore Readers, Memes, Modding, Music, Music Remixes, Podcasts, Pre-Recorded Content, Programming, Sheet Music, Slice of Life Skits, Story Analysis, Story Writing, Streams, Traditional Art, Tutorials, Videos, Voice Acting, Websites, Wiki Makers, Zen Gardening, and pretty much anything you can think of…
There are only 3 rules:

1. It’s original content you made.
2. There is a point back to Volok Games and/or Chimera CUSTOM XG.
3. No NFTs or AI generated content, ever.

Some examples:

• Heather designed some really cute pins and sold them online. It is her artwork, her storefront, and in the item description she has “from Volok Games”. This is totally fine.
• Alex made traditional art from the game’s weaponry and turned it into a print to sell at a convention in their Artist Alley booth. It is their artwork, at their booth, with the price sign saying “Chimera CUSTOM XG’s [weapon name]”. That is completely acceptable.
• Parker traced the community emotes from the Discord server and put them on stickers to sell. This is not okay since technically he didn’t make the artwork himself.
• Tina took The Team profile artwork, cut out the characters in a program, and put them on shirts to sell. This is also not okay since it is still official artwork. Not cool, Tina.

It’s really that simple. You make it, you share or sell it, you point back. The justification is that it gives fairness across the board, we don’t want to stifle creativity in the least. Why does a streamer or youtuber not have that many restrictions but artists are met with rules and limitations? Not here, not with us. More than likely we’ll be picking up fan merch on our own here and there, we might even work alongside creators in the future, who knows!
That’s it, that’s the whole policy. So go forth, go create.
If you still have questions don't be nervous! We have a channel in our Discord specifically for Content Creation related questions.
Join us by clicking here!

Dev Comms

This is not as scary or as limiting as the title makes it out to be, this policy is simply a guideline for how player to dev and vice versa interactions should go.
“The devs are to be treated fairly and respectfully in all forms of communication. Personal attacks, belittling, purposefully redundant questioning, unwarranted negative comments, threats of any nature, doxxing, and all other forms of abusive communication will not be tolerated in any form, duration, or aspect regardless of the player’s community standing, social media follower count, stream/youtube subscriber count, game hours played, products purchased, ect.”
Note that “being passionate” is never a good excuse for this kind of behavior. This same stance is taken for player to player interactions, to ensure we’re building an inclusive, positive space from the start. That is our gold standard because we value the mental health of our dev team and the general health of the community in its many facets
There is no space for toxic behavior and anyone who brings it will be removed.

Epilogue

The launch of the beta of course doesn’t mean we only fix a couple things, fully launch, and then never touch the game again. We want you, the community, to come on this journey as the game continues to grow. This isn’t the only chapter of Chimera Custom XG either so now is the perfect time to get in on the ground floor.
Don’t forget to wishlist on Steam!
Welcome aboard, CUSTOM soldier.
Sincerely, ~Team Volok

Hello!
Me and my sister is starting our new server today!
My sister has spent months researching every mod known to man and spent 2-3 weeks testing everything on the mods listed below to make sure they all are compatible, work smoothly and natural with each other, are fun to use but they still have a “Minecraft look/feel” to them.
So far we already have a small tight-knit community of me, my sister, out brother, our cousin, my boyfriend and some other really cool people that are excited to start!
Everyone is 20+ y/o except for our cousin and their friend who are both 17 but they are super fun as well!
Me, my family and a few others are Swedish but anyone who has good enough connection to join an EU server and who can speak/write in English is welcome to join.
What we offer:
A chill and judgmental free environment where you are able to be yourself, go at your own pace, play the way you want and hang out with fun people!
Silly jokes, dark humor, and people who don't take themselves very seriously.
Loose rules, for example: We like mischief, so griefing and PVP is allowed to have some silly moments as long as everyone involved is somewhat fine with it. But don't go out of your way to make someone else have a bad time.
We don't have any rules of where you can build or not, we rely on good communication between players to sort these things out (and of course help from an admin if needed).
A Discord server to hang out in. We hope to have movie-nights and other activities too in the future.
EU-server, 12 GB RAM, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, hosted by Shockbyte.
And the coolest list of mods ever! The shortened list is below there are some more smaller mods and mods that help with compatibility too.
Who we are looking for:
You need to be 20+ years old.
You don’t take yourself too seriously and can handle some jokes even if they sometimes are a bit, weird, dark or out of pocket. We love banter so if you are sensitive to that this server might not be for you (but we of course try to be somewhat respectful).
We want you to be non-judgmental and can take people as they are. Again, We love banter and we shit on each other constantly, but we don’t want people who actually looks down on others because of any quirks they might have.
You don't have to be an extroverted type to join. And if you prefer communicating by text that's totally fine! But we do have proximity voice chat in game and we also have a Discord channel who people are already starting to get active in and would love to see you there!
Me and my family is Swedish but we speak English and want you to be able to speak English too since we have English speaking people on the server.
Both me and my sister get along great with guys but we are tired of guys trying to be fake friends only to have some ulterior motives which means we are not interested in people who joins to flirt or make weird sexual comments to the opposite gender.
It's important for us to find people that we vibe with and we will carefully choose people that will play well with everyone else on the server. All we want is for everyone to want to play on the server as much and as long as possible.
If this sounds interesting and you feel like joining our community, feel free to message me here on Reddit or on Discord with some info about yourself!
My Discord username: PoifoPainting
Most of our mods:
- World-Generation -
Biomes O'Plenty
The Twilight Forest
Waystones
Incendium
Nullscape
Terralith
Tectonic
- World Structures -
Better End Cities Vanilla
Moog's End Structures
Structory
Structory: Towers
When Dungeons Arise: Seven Seas
Medieval Buildings
Yung's Better Desert Temples
Yung's Better Dungeons
Yung's Better End Island
Yung's Better Jungle Temples
Yung's Better Mineshafts
Yung's Better Nether Fortresses
Yung's Better Ocean Monuments
Yung's Better Strongholds
Yung's Better Witch Huts
- Structure Village -
Better Villages
Towns and Towers
Guard Villagers
- Create/ Create related -
Applied Energistics 2 + Wireless Terminal
Create 1.20.1 0.5.1.f
Create Bells & Whistles
Create Big Cannons
Create Central Kitchen
Create Compressed
Create Confectionery
Create Crafts & Additions
Create Deco
Create Diesel Generators
Create Enchantment Industry
Create Extended Cogwheels
Create Interiors
Create Recycle Everything?
Create Slice & Dice
Create Steam & Rails
Create Stuff & Additions
- Gameplay Enhancement -
Double Doors
Fast Leaf Decay
Fish On The Line
Horse Stonks
KleeSlabs
Login Protection
No Feather Trample
Path Under Gates
Smarter Farmers
Villager Names
Waystone Teleport Pets
Wool Tweaks
- Mob Enhancement -
Creeper Overhaul
Goblin Traders
Enderman Overhaul
- Animals -
Rats!
Alex's Mobs (We lowered spawn rates on mosquitoes, they are annoying)
Aquaculture 2
Critters and Companions
Domestication Innovation
Dragon Mount Legacy
More Mob Variants
Mythic Mounts (We configured spawning, you can only get the mounts in rare chests)
Realistic Horse Genetics
- Food Mods -
Alex's Delights
Aquaculture Delight
Butchery
Casualness Delight
Crabber's Delight
Crate Delight
Delightful
Enders Delight
End's Delight
Farmer's Delight
Fruits Delight
Let's Do: Bakery
Let's Do: Brewery
Let's Do: Candlelight
Let's Do: Nether Vinery
Let's Do: Vinery
Nether's Delight
Ocean's Delight
Twilight's Flavors & Delight
Unusual Delight
- Magic -
Botania
Mermod
Mystical Oak Tree
* Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks (This one is not decided on, we have not tested if it works well with everything
else yet. We hope we can add it before launch.)
- Decorative -
Additional Banners
Additional Lights
Amendments
Beautify!
Chimes
Chipped
Dark Paintings
Decorative Blocks
Dramatic Doors
Fairy Lights
Framed Blocks
Handcrafted
Immersive Paintings
Macaw's Bridges
Macaw's Doors
Macaw's Fences and Walls
Macaw's Holidays
Macaw's Paintings
Macaw's Paths and Pavings
Macaw's Roofs
Macaw's Windows
Medieval Paintings
Medieval Seedbags
MOA Decor: Art
MOA Decor: Science
MOA Decor: Toys
Nightlights
Supplementaries
Workshop for handsome adventurer
- Gameplay Items -
Camera Mod
Chalk
Comforts
Map Atlases(/Antique Atlas 4?)
Reldas Medieval Armor - Fuckar upp JEI, hälften har inga recept
Sawmill
Simple Weapons for Better Combat
Small Ships
Sophisticated Backpacks
Storage Drawers
Target Dummy
TorchMaster
- Gameplay Enhancement -
Appleskin
Artifacts
AstikorCarts Redux
Better Archeology
Better Combat
Book Fishing *
Callable Horses
Carry On
Connectible Chains
Construction Wand
Cosmetic Armor Reworked
Craftable Horse Armour & Saddle [CHA&S]
Curious Armor Stands
Customizable Elytra
Death Knell
Diagonal Fences
Do a Barrel Roll
Dyenamics (+Dyenamics and Friends)
Easy Anvils
Easy Magic
Emotecraft (+Sitting +)
Every Compat (Wood Good)
Flower Seeds 2 + BOP compat
Horse Tack
Inventory Sorter *
Just Another Rotten Flesh to Leather
Just Enough Archeology
Just Enough Items ( JEI )
Just Enough Resources
Jade (+Jade Addons)
Let's Forge Pirates
Lootr
Majrusz's Accessories
More Chests Variants (+BOP comp)
More Crafting Tables
Polymorph
Polymorphic Energistics
Realm RPG: Fallen Adventurers
Scholar
Simple Shops
Simple Voice Chat
Shulker Box Tooltip/Easy Shulker Boxes
Skinned Carts
Snow! Real Magic!
Stronger Snowballs
Truly Custom Horse Tack
Villager Sell Animals
Xaero's Minimap
Xaero's Worldmap
Xaero's Minimap & World Map - Waystones Compatibility
- Performance Mods -
Clumps
Fast Async World Save
Get It Together. Drops!
In Control!
Noisium
Smooth Chunk Save
Bad Mobs
Canary
Connectivity
FerriteCore
Memory Leak Fix
ModernFix
Saturn
Smoothboot
Spark

Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Jasmine, Justin, Millie
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Izzy, MK, Ripper, Scott
Episode 11: Full Metal Drama
"Last week, on Total Drama Action. Our competitors took it on the chin as they faced an all-you-can-eat buffet of deadly natural disasters."
"But, it was Scott's own feet that tripped him up. His newly-broken bone took him out of the challenge, and cost him the use of an arm. A rough life for the dirt farmer, but his teammates had it even rougher."
"We threw the competitors into a submarine simulator and forced them to find their way out, and thanks to a certain bully using his brain rather than his brawn, both teams were able to live for another day."
"Sound tough? Get used to it!" The scene moved to a close-up of Chris standing in front of a building. "Because this week, it's all-out war!" The camera zoomed out, revealing a tropical war zone set, complete with sandbags, a bunker, a guard tower, and even a bomb lying on the ground. He pointed to a chart that had been set up next to him with drawings of tanks, fighter jets, and a dotted trail leading to an 'X'. "It's a desperate battle for survival, on Total! Drama! Action!"
(Theme Song)
The episode opened with a shot of the communal bathroom before the scene cut inside it.
MK and Scott were currently inside eating chips and drinking soda respectively in front of the sinks. “So how are you handling this broken arm situation?” MK asked her teammate.
“Horribly,” Scott grunted. “I use my right arm for everything, and with that broken, how am I supposed to whittle or scratch my armpits?”
MK winced at the last part. “Too much information.”
“It's bad enough that I have to wear this bandana until my brand is off completely,” Scott pointed at the orange cloth. “Having my arm in a sling will screw things up for us.”
“Tell me about it,” MK snorted. “And don't be a bummer. You're getting compensated for your injury.”
“I was getting to that, MK,” Scott said. “Because I threatened to sue them, I've been treated much better, especially by Chef who has to work extra as punishment for his secret alliance. I got my own bathroom to shower in, I got to eat actual quality food, and yesterday, they even told me that me and my family will receive a hundred thousand bucks just to make sure we won't take action.”
This information led to MK gaping. “Are you serious?”
“As serious as a barn burning down,” Scott nodded. “With this amount of money, we can finally get our farm reconstructed.”
“You can stop now before I get jealous, Scott,” MK told him.
“Yeah yeah,” Scott shook off. “So anyway, we have to talk about who we're gonna vote off next, and that would have to be Izzy.”
“Izzy? Why her?” MK raised an eyebrow.
“She just rejoined the game a couple of days ago, and we already have a history in season one,” Scott reasoned. “If we're not careful, she can convince Ripper and Chase to vote me out.”
“That is a reasonable explanation,” MK agreed. “But maybe we could get Chase on our side for the vote. Ripper likes Izzy, so he's not an option.”
“As long as we have more votes, Izzy will be taken down,” Scott smirked.
“Absolutely,” MK smiled back.
Confessional: MK
“...not!” MK said in the make-up trailer. “Me and Scott may be in an alliance, but in this game, we'd usually have to backstab each other to get what we want. If we lose, I'm obviously telling the team to gun for him. After the elimination ceremony, I'll have to make sure that I'm not gunned for, and I know just how to do that.”
Confessional Ends
The footage skipped forward, showing the contestants walking warily as Chris passed them in an army helmet and sunglasses. "Today, we're all about war movies," he told them, the shot zooming out to show Chef glaring nearby in his drill instructor's uniform.
"So, look lively you...," Chris began to say.
"Buckets of horse doo-doo!" Chef finished with a growl into their faces.
"So, get ready for the first death-defying challenge, you...," Chris began again.
"Disgustin' slimy crustaceans!" Chef finished once more.
"Move it, privates!" Chris ordered. "Fall in!"
"Sir yes sir!' the cast said as one.
Confessional: Izzy
"I have all the skills required to be a marine," Izzy said enthusiastically in the make-up confessional. "I am stealthy, tough, and loud enough, and I can handle a weapon, but I do value my freedom."
Confessional Ends
The camera cut to Ripper and MK as the Grips walked off. "I cannot wait to go to war," the techno girl said. "I've played my fair share of Battlefront, and my squad has won a lot of online multiplayer gaming titles. Most of the time, we don't even use teamwork."
“I hate to break it to you, but we're not in your little tech world,” Ripper said in an annoyed tone as the rest of the team joined in. “Just leave all the marine stuff to me today.”
“Let you do all the work and take all the credit?” MK glared. “Not happening, Buster.”
“Now wait a second-” Ripper began to glare back.
“Quit taking shots at each other!” Chase got in-between the two. “We can make a plan when we're at the challenge site, okay?”
“Seriously, I've seen my pigs fight over less,” Scott huffed as MK and Ripper continued to glare at each other.
Confessional: Ripper
“I'm really at my wits end with that shortstack,” Ripper complained. “Who does she think she is insulting and putting down the best looking guy on the show… me! Thankfully, MK won't be able to listen to me rant about her.”
Confessional: MK
MK was watching Ripper's previous confessional on her phone, especially the part about him bragging about himself. “It's so silly how he thinks I can't listen to everything he says,” she confessed after turning off her phone.
Confessionals End
The scene briefly flashed to the numbered studios with the sound of a plane engine in the background, the camera panning up to show the fake cliff before flashing to what looked like the inside of some kind of plane. The two teams were shown in a split screen with the Gaffers on top and the Grips on the bottom, all nine teens wearing blindfolds.
"Okay people," Chris said, "remove your blindfolds!" The contestants did as commanded, and the viewpoint shifted to show the teams sitting along opposite walls as the host walked in front of the camera. "When it comes to making a war movie," he said, the viewpoint moving again to show that he was standing next to a large trunk, "jumping out an airplane is the most dangerous stunt there is." He popped the trunk open, revealing several parachute packs within. "So naturally," he began to yell as he slid open a nearby door, the winds roaring inside the room, "it's our first challenge!"
MK and Scott gasped, as did Millie, and even Justin looked shocked.
"Chris really set the record for the shortest amount of time between the start of the challenge and our lives being endangered," Jasmine deadpanned over the roaring wind and engine.
“If we live, I'm going to file a complaint that's sure to get Chris replaced with a nicer and more considerate host,” Millie shouted.
“Nice grit for an underdog,” Jasmine grinned.
“Underdog?” Millie asked.
“Underdogs usually have a lot of fight and honor in them, and you've been tapping into it a lot,” Jasmine complimented her friend. “Keep it up.”
Millie felt flustered by her words. “I, uh, thank you.”
Justin soon sat in-between the two of them. “Jasmine, Millie! I want to propose something, but don't get excited, it's not marriage!” he chuckled. “Uh, anywho, it's a long way from the airplane to the ground below!”
“Exactly three kilometers!” Millie confirmed.
“Wouldn't know. Math is for ugly people,” Justin said. “Here's the deal! I need you two to jump before me in case I need a soft place to land, okay?!” The eye candy blinked his eyelashes only to receive blank stares from the girls. “Now, you girls know that I don't blink these eyelashes at just anybody!” He did the same thing again and got the same response. “Nothing?! When were your last eye exams?!”
"Drop zone approaching!" Chris announced after sticking his head out the open door. "Form a line, it's time to par-tay!"
The Gaffers were shown standing up as the host continued. "Stunt people undergo weeks of training before they parachute," he said as the Grips stood up as well, Jasmine walking forward hesitantly. "Luckily, we're gonna skip all that and get to the good part: Jumping!"
"That doesn't sound like a good idea!" Scott told the host.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Chris asked him.
"We die!" Anne Maria answered with annoyance and anger.
"I know!" Chris grinned. "Hilarious! Haha! Time to jump!"
"Well, there's no point standing here like statues," Izzy walked towards the trunk of parachutes with Scott.
“Hey McLean, can I skip out on the jump?” Scott asked. “My arm is broken!”
"Sorry Scott," Chris told him, "but you gotta jump too! Try not to land on your right arm, okay?" He then pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and turned his back on the now-enraged Scott.
“Someone's definitely going to increase the amount of money me and my family will get,” Scott whispered bitterly.
"At least we get parachutes," Chase told the injured boy.
"Actually, change of plans!" Chris interrupted, closing his phone and stowing it back in his pocket. "I just spoke to our research department, there were no parachutes in World War I!"
"So what do we do for the challenge?" Ripper asked.
"Simple," Chris replied as he shoved the trunk of parachutes out the door with his foot.
The contestants gasped, though a fearless Izzy was the first one to jump out the plane shouting “Tell my pet rock I love her!”
None of the other contestants made a move, though, and Chris scowled. "Okay, you kids better start jumping or I will have Chef tilt the plane and force you out!"
“That's all the motivation I need!” Chase said quickly and dived out into the air with a fearful cry.
"Who's up next?" Chris asked the remaining castmates with a smile.
The scene cut outside the plane as the contestants jumped out one by one. First MK, then Ripper, then Scott to round out the Gaffers with a terrified shout each as they quickly disappeared into the clouds below the plane. Next was Jasmine looking determined, followed by a shrieking Millie. Justin gulped and took the plunge, and Anne Maria came out last with a holler, and the host briefly looked out and below with a surprised look on his face before the clouds filled the scene.
They dispersed moments later to reveal all nine contestants in a heap on top of a large mattress.
"Hooray! We're alive!" Scott groaned. The camera zoomed out, showing that they were in a movie set. The plane was a wingless fake hanging from the ceiling only a few yards above the mattress, and the high winds were caused by a pair of giant fans operated by Chef Hatchet. On the back wall, level with the plane's windows and door, was a sky-patterned background made to continuously scroll and give the illusion of movement within the plane.
Chef shut off the fans, and the castmates groaned and began to get back up. "Let's roll, soldiers," Chris told them, now back on the ground. "Because the second part of this challenge is gonna blow your minds!" He grinned as he spoke before leaning towards the teens. "And everything else within a fifty-foot radius!"
Confessional: Chase
“If I had know that we would land on a mattress, I would’ve just let Chef force us all out,” Chase confessed.
Confessional Ends
The scene immediately flashed forward to a close-up of a green tarp being taken off a pile of grenades and bombs. "Are those," Jasmine asked as the camera pulled back to show her and the other Grips standing with Chris and the tarp-pulling Chef by a blast shield outside, "paint bombs?"
"We've divided the camp into two halves," Chris told them, the Grips watching with blank looks while the Gaffers were shown in a similar but mirrored position on the other side of the two men. "Most creative and controlled splatter wins."
“Alright gang,” Jasmine clapped her hands in order to get her team's attention. “Here's how our explosion is going to go. We'll have to lay our explosives in a pattern in order to make sure that the paint coverage will be more noticeable than the Gaffers’.”
“Excellent idea. I'll handle the explosives. I passed chemistry in my high school,” Millie eagerly walked off.
“Wonderful,” Jasmine smiled.
“I'll help as well,” Anne Maria said after she stopped using hairspray on her pouf. “I could ward off the other team by sprayin’ them in their eyes if they even think about spyin’ on us.”
“Not a big fan of harming our competition, but you do you,” Jasmine said uncertainly.
“And I'll be letting my butt have its beauty rest!” Justin chuckled suavely while laying back on a nearby hammock tied between two trees.
This did not go unnoticed by Anne Maria and Jasmine, who both flipped Justin off the hammock and into the ground.
“You're gonna help us with this challenge and not get any special treatment,” Jasmine scolded.
“Is it getting hot out here?” Justin took off his shirt and demonstrated his pecs. “Now if you'll notice, I don't sport a six-pack. I got twelve. That's a dozen smoking mandominals.”
“Get workin’, lazybones!” Anne Maria demanded and stomped off.
“This, this can't be right,” Justin panicked. “Have I really lost my lady controlling mojo?” He turned to the tallest member of the team. “Say it ain't so!”
“No need spouting the obvious, Justin,” Jasmine replied uncaringly.
“This challenge was designed for me!” Ripper told the Gaffers. “What do I not love more than exploding things?!”
“Being a numbskull, for instance,” MK retorted. “I seem to remember you saying that you let people do all the work for you. And we're supposed to trust you on this?”
“Adding my two cents onto this, I would've done the same thing if I was Ripper,” Scott added snidely.
“I'm sorry, MK, but I think we have to stick with Ripper on this one,” Chase said with a hand on MK's shoulder.
“Why?” MK objected. “I actually worked hard to get an A in chemistry.”
“Explosives Boy overrules Chemistry Girl,” Scott shrugged.
"Okay, time's up!" Chris announced, the camera cutting to his close-up as he entered the scene. "Uh-oh, looks like you didn't even get started."
“Not so fast, Chris!” the voice of Izzy cried out, and everyone turned their heads to see her smiling with her foot on a bomb and multiple bombs plastered around her team's site.
“Whoa. Now that's what I call thorough,” Chris narrated.
Chase hesitantly moved over to the curly haired girl. “Iz, what did you do?”
“Plant the explosives while you guys were at each other's throats,” Izzy giddily said.
Confessional: Izzy
“When Chris mentioned explosives and bombs, that was a sign that my team is lucky to have me on their side,” Izzy gloated. “I could blow up a hotel if I wanted to, but I refrain unless I'm extremely tempted.”
Confessional Ends
Another cut took the scene to the Grips, standing behind the blast shield that was between them and a set that was very much like the Gaffers', except that it had been mirrored. There were no visible bombs around, and they were all wired into a plunger held by Chris.
"Grips, are we ready?" Chris asked, handing the plunger over to Millie.
"Likewise," the writer said with a confident smile. As she pushed the plunger down, part of Richard Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' began to play in the background. One by one, explosions of green paint began to go off around the Grips' area – in the guard tower, behind the sandbags, near the bunker door, and several off the bunker's roof. The music ended as one final explosion splattered the blast shield, stunning Anne Maria, Jasmine, and Justin.
As the dust cleared around their blast site, the camera pulled back to reveal a massive rendition of the Grips' light-bulb-and-crossbones logo in green paint.
"Nice show of team spirit," Chris told the four.
"I must say, that was very impressive," Justin admitted to Millie as the host walked away.
"What can I say? I wanted to make an explosion that would be mind-blowing, but still tame," Millie told him smugly. "You're welcome."
The shot cut back to the Gaffers' side of the camp, starting on their explosive-laden set before panning over to the five waiting behind their blast shield with Chris.
"Are we ready to blow it up?" Chris asked excitedly, with Izzy standing by a larger plunger than what the Grips had used.
"We're ready! Uno, dos, tres!!!" Izzy chanted and eagerly pushed the plunger down.
Almost immediately, a chaotic series of explosions were set off all around the base. They were accompanied by hectic and disjointed notes in the background music, and the host and other four Gaffers were shown cringing with their fingers in their ears. Eventually the explosions stopped, the dust settled, and everyone except Izzy leaned past the paint-splattered wall with curious expressions.
The camera panned to the left, showing what appeared to be a shapeless blob of paint. No patterns were apparent in it, and the areas that had been left untouched seemed to be random as well.
"Welp, at least it was controlled..." Chris said with a frown.
“Just come over here,” Izzy grabbed the host by the wrist and dragged him over to another spot.
"Hey, there's no touching the host!" Chris said indignantly, yanking his hand free as soon as Izzy stopped moving.
"Look now!" Izzy directed his attention back to the pain splatter.
Chris turned his head, and almost immediately began to brighten up. "It's...it's…beautiful!" he said, wiping away a tear as the viewpoint moved behind him, showing Izzy's paint pattern from another angle – it took the shape of the host's own grinning face.
"The Gaffers are victorious!" he announced, walking back to the other Gaffers by the blast wall. The Gaffers began to cheer and celebrate. "It is my honor to present your prize," Chris added just before Chef appeared wheeling a large and ornate-looking red chest on a handcart. "The Big Trunk of Mind-Blowing Secrets! You'll be defending it with your very lives when we return to more, Total! Drama! Action!"
The shot cut back with each word of the title, showing the defeated Grips standing by in shame.
(Commercial Break)
The episode came back on a shot of the cloudy sky, panning down to show Scott and Chase standing together by a potted palm tree.
"So what is it that you want to talk to me about?" Chase asked. "If it's to brag about your luxuries, then I don't want to hear it."
"It's not about that, Chase," Scott rolled his eyes. “I wanna talk about who we have to vote off tonight.”
“What do you mean “we”?” Chase grew curious. “I know who I'm going to vote for, and it doesn't take Einstein to figure out who it is.”
“I know I'm not the coolest kid on the block, but we have to pick off Izzy,” Scott suggested.
“And why would I do that?” Chase asked.
“She's a wild card, and she got back into the competition not once, but twice,” Scott emphasized. “Do you really want to face off against her in the finale?”
Scott left the athletic boy alone to ponder about his decisions.
The footage flashed forward to Chris McLean standing by the trunk he'd brought out. "Contestants, get ready to begin your next war challenge!" he announced. "It's a giant game of 'Capture the Flag', except in this case the flag is the Trunk of Mind-Blowing Secrets!" The camera zoomed in on the trunk at an angle, and the ornate thing seemed to glow radiantly.
"There's only one way to learn what's in the trunk," he told the off-screen castmates, "and that's to win the challenge. As your reward, we'll give you immunity from tonight's vote, aaaanndd a peek inside. But be ready. The secrets inside will blow your brains to bits!"
"I need my brain!" Ripper whined.
"Not to worry," Chris told him, holding up a roll of duct tape. "A roll of tape will be provided so you can tape the gray matter back together."
"Gaffers," Chris said as he walked over to what looked to be a building covered in a sheet bearing the logo of the Screaming Gaffers, "this is your base camp." Chef watched from close by, his hands angrily on his hips, as the host and the five teens began to arrive, Chase and Izzy carrying the trunk by the pair of poles sticking out on opposite sides. "Our set decoration team wanted to build you guys a towering castle, full of defensive possibilities! But, they went to see a movie instead, sooo..." Chris trailed off as Chef grabbed the sheet. "We're gonna give you this!"
The sheet was pulled away, revealing an utterly decrepit wooden shack. "I think it's a tool shed," the host said uncertainly before the building creaked and collapsed into a dusty heap of rotten planks and miscellaneous garden tools. "Was a tool shed," Chris corrected. "Good luck!"
"How are we gonna defend this big trunk out in the open?" Izzy asked.
"We just have to put our heads together and come up with a plan," MK answered.
“You guys do what you want. I'll be setting some booby traps,” Chase told the team and walked away.
“In first World War movies, the soldiers would always have underground hiding places,” MK said as she gave Izzy a shovel and held one of her own. “Those would be foxholes.”
“With me digging, why not call it a foxy-hole,” Izzy quipped.
“I'm just glad that I don't have to dig at all,” Scott bragged. “Using one hand only won't make the job faster.”
As Izzy began to dig rapidly with Scott watching her, MK turned to Chase and Ripper laying a net down on the ground with headlights attached. “Chase, Ripper, the rest of us agreed on a plan,” she informed. “We could use a little help.
“And we could also use you shutting up!” Ripper retorted. “We're busy!”
Confessional: MK
“If I wasn't so focused on strategy, I'd switch targets from Scott to Ripper just to spite his butt,” MK sniffed. “It's hard finding common ground with that jerk.”
Confessional Ends
The footage cut back with a shot of MK and Izzy digging a large hole in the distance and Scott observing them as though viewed through binoculars. "So what's going on?" Millie asked off-camera as the binoculars were lowered and the viewpoint shifted to Jasmine.
"Izzy and MK are currently digging and Scott is just standing there," Jasmine explained, "although I don't know if it's because they want to bury the trunk or construct a foxhole."
"What about the others?" Anne Maria asked.
"I don't know," Jasmine replied. "Ripper and Chase seem to have disappeared."
"I say we attack immediately!" Anne Maria declared with an air of formality.
"I say we don't," Millie shook her head. "The team obviously outnumber us and have defensive capabilities. Confronting them at this point would be really dumb."
"So what do we do?" Justin asked.
"What we need to do is to proceed intelligently if we want to win the challenge," Millie said.
“Sure. Let’s wait for the other team to set up more traps that will never let us get that trunk,” Anne Maria said sarcastically.
“That’s not what we’re going to do, Anne Maria,” Jasmine assured. “Millie, how are we gonna go about doing this?”
"We should send two people down there in order to figure out what they’re up to," Millie suggested. "That honor should go to Justin and Anne Maria."
"And why us?" Justin objected.
"Me and Jasmine need to think of a plan number two in case this plan fails," Millie reasoned. "All you guys have to do is execute this one."
"Whatever you say, Mil," Anne Maria said before grabbing Justin’s arm and walking away. "Let's go, hot stuff."
Confessional: Anne Maria
“I’m kinda surprised that Justin didn’t try to weasel his way outta the plan,” Anne Maria confessed. “What’s his game?”
Confessional: Justin
“We really need to win this challenge,” Justin said seriously. “By the look of things, my charms aren’t going to win the girls over and I’ll likely be the one going home today. So for the sake of my game, I’ll help out.”
Confessionals End
The footage skipped ahead to Anne Maria and Justin charging into the clearing the Gaffers started. "Where are they?" Justin asked after they stopped. “Jasmine just saw them.”
"Split up and look in other directions," Anne Maria ordered. “They may be hidin’ someplace else.”
The camera zoomed into the hole the Gaffers were in. "So how long do we have to stay in here for?" Izzy asked MK.
"Hopefully long enough for the Grips to admit defeat," MK answered.
"We’re good for now. We just have to not act stupid and blow our cover," Scott said while rubbing his sling. “And I don’t normally do this, but good job on the explosion, Izzy. It really helped us win the first part.”
Izzy was stunned to hear this. “Did you just… compliment me?” the wild child asked.
“Yeah, I did,” Scott replied. “I thought you’d just make a random explosion given how nuts you are, but you actually planned it out.”
“Yeah, how did you come up with the plan to just demonstrate Chris’s face?” MK asked.
“Chris is extremely narcissistic and vain,” Izzy explained. “Anything that revolves around his image will make him score us big points.”
“You’re not joking about that,” MK rolled her eyes. “He’s more likely to marry himself.”
The scene cut to Justin and Anne Maria meeting up with each other in front of the Gaffers' hideout. "Were you able to find the Gaffers? Because I could not," Justin said.
“I had no luck as well,” Anne Maria recapped.
The camera zoomed out to reveal that the duo were on top of the net trap, and they got hoisted up in the air by it.
"Got you dorks!" Ripper's laughing voice said off screen. The camera cut to him coming out of a nearby tree. "Chase, now!"
Chase's yell was heard as he swung on a cord before landing in front of the two Grips. He cut the rope holding the net trap, and Anne Maria and Justin were flung out of sight.
The camera cut back to the Grips' starting location. Millie and Jasmine watched in shock as their teammates crashed into the ground and groaned after they landed, prompting them to go check on their moaning teammates.
“There's, there's a... there's a scratch!” Justin said after feeling his face. “My face can't continue to take all this abuse! I'm losing it! You… you… you gotta let me go on leave!”
“I ain’t buyin’ any of this,” Anne Maria scoffed as she stood up and rubbed the dirt off her clothes.
“We all get scratches. I got a mosquito bite on my neck once, but that didn’t stop me from going to my job,” Jasmine lectured.
Anne Maria and Jasmine walked off, and Justin turned his eyes to Millie. “Millie, I know you’re a female. Can you help?”
“You were able to have girls wrapped around your finger, and now you’re getting zero play,” Millie summarized with apathy.
“You really are quick-witted,” Justin said in surprise.
“Relationship with Chase aside, I don’t really think you’re that cute,” Millie said. “Why else did I not want to kiss you in that challenge?”
“Like I care what you think,” Justin shot back in an offended manner and finally got off the ground.
Confessional: Justin
“Me? Not cute? I'll tell you who's not cute. Blind people named Millie!” Justin stated, upset.
Confessional Ends
"So it seems that the Gaffers will not come out until they're sure that we forfeit," Millie told her team.
"Which we’re not going to do," Jasmine said.
"Wasn't even planning on it," Anne Maria told her. "We should attack again the minute they show their faces, and I have a way to make sure that we’ll take that trunk."
"You two definitely have to help us this time," Justin reminded Jasmine and Millie. "We'll be outnumbered otherwise."
The footage returned to the Gaffers, Ripper and Chase now with them. "How much time do we have left?" Izzy childishly asked her team.
"I don't know and I don’t care, but we're still staying in this joint until time is up," MK declared.
"How many traps did you guys even set up while you were gone?" Scott questioned Chase and Ripper.
"We set up a total of four," Chase claimed. "Anne Maria and Justin hit one of them, so now we have three."
“This is why you shouldn’t doubt us, MK,” Ripper told his short teammate.
“I didn’t doubt you. I just wanted you to stay and help us,” MK argued. “And just because the other team set off one trap, doesn’t mean that I have to worship you like you’re Jesus,” she said before smirking, “and there’s no way you’re even next to godliness.”
“Pot calling the kettle black much?” Ripper snorted. “I still helped out, even if it wasn’t by your rulebook.”
“MK smart, Ripper strong,” Chase interrupted. “Can we all just agree that we’re special in our own ways?”
Ripper and MK frowned at each other and sighed.
“You’re not as dumb as you look,” MK grumbled.
“And you’re not an extreme big mouth,” Ripper mumbled.
“Good. I’m done playing mediator for the day,” Chase said.
"This is getting boring," Izzy moaned impatiently. "We should just go out there and attack the Grips."
"I’m tired of waiting as well," Scott spoke up. “Those losers are not getting our trunk.”
"We’re done arguing today, so how about we put it to a vote?" Ripper suggested.
"All in favor of going in for battle?" Chase asked as he raised his arm up, as did Ripper, Scott, and Izzy.
"I’m clearly outnumbered here,” MK sighed. “We'll go out in the open, but bring the trunk along."
The scene flashed to the Gaffers coming out of their hole and putting their trunk down. They saw the Grips charging at them, and they prepared themselves.
"There’s four of them and five of us," Scott took note with a grin. "I’m liking our odds already."
“But how are we going to take them down exactly?” Chase asked.
Izzy whipped out a smoke bomb from behind her back and held it up high. “Smoke bomb! Never leave home without it!”
As soon as the Grips reached their site, Izzy proceeded to throw the bomb at them. The Grips froze at the sight of this, but Anne Maria took out two hair spray cans, and after the smoke bomb hit the floor, a large white cloud covered the screen, but Anne Maria was able to spray their way out of it, and the team resumed running.
“Retreat!! Retreat!!” Izzy ordered her team, but it was too late when Anne Maria threw her spray cans on the floor in front of the Gaffers, and after they exploded, the Gaffers coughed profusely due to the extreme stench, leaving the trunk alone for the Grips to grab.
“So long, Gaffers!” Anne Maria taunted. “Grips rule!”
The scene cut to the Grips dropping the trunk on the floor after they returned to their site. “And that’s how we win it!” Anne Maria boasted.
"Time's up!" a sudden announcement came as Chris walked into view along with the other castmates. "The Grips have stolen the chest, putting them in the winner's circle."
"That means," Chris added while walking towards the Gaffers, "the Gaffers will be sending home one of their own tonight. And now, it's time to reveal to the winners," a reverent tune began to play as a spotlight was placed on the trunk, "the mind-blowing secrets within this trunk! Here's what you were fighting for, team!" The lid popped open, and Jasmine and Millie looked inside.
Their grins rapidly faded away as the reverent music came to a sudden and scratchy stop. "All that work," Millie said with a shocked look as a lighter and more emotional melody began to play.
"All that pain," Jasmine added.
"Pain?" Millie asked in confusion. "We rarely got hurt!"
"Still," Jasmine continued quickly, "all this for what?"
"A trunk that was empty the whole time!" Millie declared.
"War is a cruel, cruel thing," Jasmine concluded.
The Gilded Chris Ceremony began with all its usual fanfare, and after the introduction the footage flashed straight on to Chris standing at his podium. "This one's a nail-biter," he told the five seated teens. "I'd say no one's safe tonight. Izzy, how do you feel about your chances?"
The camera cut over to Izzy, sitting on the highest level of the bleachers. "Honestly, I feel pretty good about them," she said with a smile. "I was the one that scored my team the win for the first part of the challenge, and if I were to be going home today, it'd likely be because I blew the challenge."
“Or because you reverted back to your impersonations like E-Scope,” Ripper added.
“That's a thing of the past, Ripper,” Izzy said.
"Then," Chris continued, "there's Scott. Although you didn't cost your team the challenges or throw them on purpose, you didn't contribute much. Plus, your broken arm makes you a bit of a liability. Will you be the one sitting in the Lame-o-sine tonight?"
“We'll just have to see it to believe it,” Scott deadpanned.
"Chase, MK, Ripper!" Chris said with a broad smile. "Seems your tussles aren't entertaining anybody, not even your team. Are you worried?"
"Why would I? This team needs me, man!" Ripper shot a cocky smile.
"Alright then," Chris announced, "votes have been tabulated!" A folded card parachuted into view next to him, and he quickly snatched it up and held it to his forehead without bothering to read its contents. The tension began to build in the music. "So, it's time to present the awards. Tonight, the Gilded Chris goes to...MK, Ripper, and...Chase!" he said in succession, each name followed by the sound of an award being thrown and caught. "And now, only two nominees left."
The background music picked up as the screen was split, with spotlights on Izzy on the left and Scott on the right. "The final award goes to...," Chris said slowly as Scott watched nervously while Izzy smiled and held two fingers up to the camera. "Izzy!"
The camera panned left slightly as the wild child caught her golden statuette. "Hold on, wha?" Scott stammered in shock. "This has to be a joke, right?"
“No, it isn't,” MK said with a grin, “and you have me to thank for that.”
“You… you backstabbed me?!” Scott said with a bit of shock and anger.
“With four votes to one,” MK cackled. “I just did what you did to your previous alliance. Don't get all hypocritical.”
"Unbelievable!" Scott grumbled before he was grabbed by Chef and carried over the shoulder down the Walk of Shame.
Confessional: Izzy
“This was the perfect opportunity to get rid of Scott after all he's done in the first season,” Izzy said. “I'd be dumb to pass this up.”
Confessional: Chase
“Even with Scott trying to convince me otherwise, there was no way I wasn't going to vote him off,” Chase told the audience. “Besides, he can heal his broken arm off the show.”
Confessional: MK
“It's not hard getting people to vote off a disliked contestant, especially if that someone was the villain of last season,” MK mentioned. “I can't be tied down to Scott for much longer, and this is my season to shine!” she ended her confessional on a serious note.
Confessionals End
Scott was unceremoniously thrown into the waiting limousine by Chef. The door slammed shut, the limo sped off, and the camera cut back to a close-up of Chris.
"Well, we finally got rid of Scott the Schemer," he told the camera. "With him gone, hopefully we can stop providing benefits for him and not have to worry about being sued. Catch you next time," he said with a salute, "on Total! Drama! Action!" He ended the salute and put his hands behind his back, then smiled as he said "At ease!"
(Roll the Credits)
(Bonus Clip)
“I can't believe it!!” Scott grunted in the limousine. “MK totally duped me! Though given how much my team was against me, I knew I wasn't going to last this time,” he admitted reasonably. “Seems MK's this season's baddie, and an effective one she is. I'm still expecting the hundred thousand dollars to be delivered to me if it's the last thing the show will do for me. With me out of the game, I don't have to be forced to endanger my arm just for views, and maybe the next time you guys see me, I won't have this bandana around my forehead. The brand should be gone by now.” He used his good arm to take the bandana off, and was surprised by how little the branded “S.U.C.K.E.R.” was on his forehead. “Well would you look at that? I don't think I'll be needing this anymore.” He rolled down the window and tossed the cloth out, and then winced in pain afterwards and clutched his injured arm.
Eva - 14th
Geoff - 14th
Izzy - RETURNED
Trent - 12th
Sky - 11th
Brick - 10th
Scott - 9th
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Jasmine, Justin, Millie
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Izzy, MK, Ripper

1. Mary Kelly was said to have spoken with a lisp
2. After Nichols death her body was taken to the mortuary and was taken via “Chapman’s court” and then her body was sent to the undertakers location on “Hanbury Street. “ Oddly, the next victim after Nichols was Annie Chapman who was murdered on Hanbury Street.
3. Mary Kelly was the first murdered victim to have ever been photographed post mortem. (EDIT: Kelly was the first murder victim to have a crime scene photo taken. We know that Eddowes post mortem photo was taken before Kelly. My apologies for this mistake in my original post.)
4. People used to believe at that time that the murdered victims eyes would reflect an image of their killer.
5. Under the archway where the Pinchin Street torso was dumped was written the word "Lipski" in chalk. This potentially links the Pinchin Street Torso to the murder of Stride and that of Miriam Angel in 1887.
6. Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes novel in 1887. In the novel (A Study In Scarlet) the fictional killer writes the word “RACHE” on the wall. The word “RACHE” means “revenge” in German. Perhaps Jack the ripper romanticized Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional killers idea of writing a message on the wall if we believe that he wrote the graffiti on Ghoulston street.
7. Another Arthur Conan Doyle coincidence is that in 1888 Doyle wrote a piece called “The Mystery Of Cloomber” the illustrator worked on this piece from August 31st 1888 - November 8th 1888. If these dates sound familiar, they should. These are the dates that mark the first canonical killing of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols and the last of the canonical victims Mary Jane Kelly (actually murdered on Nov. 9th) To make things even more interesting, the illustrators name was “George Wylie Hutchinson”, the reported first and last name of the last man who claimed to have seen the last canonical victim alive.
8. The Doctor who investigated the Whitechapel murders and the Thames torso murders, Doctor Thomas Bond committed suicide on June 6th 1901 by jumping out of a 3rd floor window. “At 7am, on the morning of Thursday June 6th 1901, the nurse had left the room for a brief moment. Seizing his opportunity Dr Bond had leapt from his bed, clad only in his nightshirt, and had thrown himself from the third floor window. He fell 50 feet, hitting the pavement below headfirst.”
9. There was a blotched double event that occurred on August 30th/31st. Before attacking and murdering Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, the killer also attacked one Margaret Mallows (Or “Malhous”) but was unsuccessful in killing her.