deerstalker

As the spookiest season passes us and Remedy has seen fit to bless (or perhaps curse) the world with the continuation of Alan Wake, it got me thinking about the horror genre in gaming as a whole. At its core, horror attempts to stir up the primal part of our neural networks, the prototypical fight or flight response. It gives us the unsettling, the unnerving, the visceral. It is media that attempts to flood the system with adrenaline and keep all of your senses disoriented, while you are in a constant heightened state that just ends up making you more susceptible to what future horrors are just around the corner. 

But of course, horror is a word that encompasses such a wide range of experiences. Sometimes, it manifests in the slow shattering of the psyche like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Other times, it is hordes of undead and unlife swarming the city and country like with Resident Evil. Conventional slashers as supernatural (or conventional) killers stalk and hunt prey in Dead by Daylight. Perhaps, it is a place itself is full to the brim with malignant energy, a persistent unease in every creaky door and obscuring fog with the Silent Hill franchise.

My favorite brand of horror though operates on a slightly different axis. A fair number of examples listed above are pure malevolence grounded in human morality and further are affixed upon our mere mortality. Death is scary as it is the termination of what we understand of our experience as humans. However, I find myself drawn to the unfathomable, the entities that belie and askew our conventional understanding. The monsters that operate on an entirely different plane of existence on an entirely set of fundamental laws. That original definition of awestruck, that unique combination of reverence muddied with fear and wonder. You know, biblical accurate angel shit. 

When faced with an unfathomable entity, you start by asking the same questions: What is this, what does it want with me and ultimately, how to confront it. That is where the experience shifts. The conventional and familiar means and methods falter. An equally alien response is required to put down the alien.

And while I myself haven’t played the Alan Wake games, I have played and watched Remedy’s Control which perfectly exemplifies this type of horror. The moment you walk into the hyper brutalist building that is the OLDEST HOUSE as Jesse Faden, all conventional understanding becomes useless. This is an area that runs rampant with the amorphous Hiss, as one sentient frequency provides some aid while you work for something that speaks in plurality and presents itself as a gigantic black pyramid. The very idea of resonance entities appropriately runs dissonant to everything we know, and thus it injects a healthy dose of cosmic-horror to the conventional action-adventure game.

And while we’re on the topic of black pyramids, we can take a second to look at a game that has arguably at its best when harnessing horror: Destiny. The franchise introduced the Hive via conventional horror methodology, slashing and chittering noises in the dark, but as the game went on we would also be exposed to the sentient dark matter that is the Nine and then even later the Witness, the arc villain and seeming counterpart to the Traveller. Given that we haven’t truly faced the Witness face to… faces yet, I will take the time to focus on the Nine and the Unknown Space. We first learnt of the Nine through their emissary Xur, a strange tentacle faced entity taking odd coins offering the trash of their benefactors. It would be years before we learned that the Nine came to be a dark mirror of our life, a collective consciousness from planetary cores whose actions caused several catastrophes, both personal and species wide. The closest thing we can call to direct interaction occurs in an arena with bizarre alien geometries and an ever-shifting assortment of shadowy beings. They speak in riddles and constantly force literal and philosophical changes of perspective. Whenever we get to do an activity, it always jumps up to the top because of my awe (original definition) it instills.

The original game that helped me appreciate the unfathomable horror though was Shadow of the Colossus. Each of the 16 Colossi are massive entities, a blend of magiteck: their origins, their purposes unknown, and a singular weakness. There is no narration, there is nothing, but you and your horse approaching this and slaying them as they let out a blood curdling screech upon their death knell. It’s a haunting beauty and horror and truly exemplifies why the unfathomable triggers a parallel set of adrenaline responses. Do such creatures even register what you are? Do they care for your fragility and your foibles? And if you falter, would they even notice?

Which brings us to an interesting inversion of this convention with Undertale. If you’re not familiar with the game by name, I will be spoiling what the main mechanic is and the narrative thread. If you wish to experience this first-hand, you can just skip the next paragraph.

Undertale presents a fascinating situation where during a No Mercy run, the player themselves becomes the unfathomable, unknowable horror to the denizens. A seemingly small child that is constantly racking up LOVE (level of violence) and EXP (Execution Points) that in the darkest of all endings has the player slaughter every single NPC to extinction that fundamentally alters the world and the game state. By choosing this route, you seemingly transcend any semblance of humanity and instead become a singular force of nature intent on destroying everything, which is a terrifying prospect both in- and out of game.

These are not the only games that leverage such horrors. Modern games such as Death Stranding and even older ones like Mother 3 have, at various times, used near primordial entities in odd dimensions to represent beings that we can barely comprehend or confront, which just adds to the experience. The innate desire to understand becomes the biggest inhibitor in reacting, and it’s a type of horror I always love to see.

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The post The Unfathomable Horror of the Unknowable appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

Freshly out of a multi-year conservatorship, suffering in silence, American pop sensation, Britney Spears has taken her voice back and is ready to spill the tea on all things Britney. Shortly after her younger sister, Jamie-Lynn Spears, released her book Things I Should Have Said, Spears is flipping the script by sharing her own story. From Spears’s childhood to her career as a singer and her innermost never-before-told secrets, The Woman in Me details major stepping stones from all aspects of the pop singer’s life. If you haven’t picked up a copy of her newest memoir, get ready for bombshell revelations, jaw-dropping confessions, and an inside look at who the pop star really is.

Who is Britney Spears?

Finally, the entertainment world gets an opportunity to hear Spears’s true story from the singer herself. For years, tabloids, paparazzi, and a controlling conservatorship have painted Spears as being manic and dependent on others. No more tabloids are narrating her story this time because this memoir gives Spears a voice to reveal her side of her highly publicized life, and ultimately reveal her truth. The Woman in Me gives a raw account of the pop star’s life from her childhood to the present day. Like many tell-alls, Spears begins her narrative by describing her childhood and family dynamics. Spears does an excellent job of painting her life as being perfectly imperfect. She recalls being raised by an alcoholic father but not becoming a product of her environment. We can describe Spears as a survivor. She was not influenced by her father’s negativity by adopting his qualities as a child. Instead, Spears took ownership of her life. From the Mickey Mouse Club to Star Search, Spears established a thriving career at a young age. She regularly auditioned for parts to put her name on the map. Ultimately, her burgeoning career allowed her to escape the demons of her past. 

Bombshell Revelations 

Being an international pop sensation, for most of her life Spears has become an easy target for tabloids. Many aspects of the singer’s life have been fictionalized to create gossip and establish attention-grabbing headlines. From how she lost her innocence, to her troubled relationship with her family, there has continuously been a false narrative created by the media that allowed Spears to put on a facade. Through her memoir, Spears finally sets the record straight. She shows the world her vulnerability as she recounts her experience terminating a pregnancy with an A-list celebrity. Unlike other tell-alls, Spears doesn’t shy away from the truth. Spears publicly names people throughout her book instead of referring to her friends, acquaintances, and those she encounters using pseudonyms. A tactic like this shows that the singer is relentless in the pursuit of having her story told. She is fearless. Spears’s memoir becomes highly personal by revealing the names of those who have wronged her and those who have been influential in her life. Detailing moments of truth such as revealing names allows the pop icon to capture the rawness of her story.

Free Britney

After being in a decade-long conservatorship, Spears is finally free. For years, Spears has lived under the control of her family. Her family and superiors directed every major aspect of her life. What she sang, what she wore, and the gigs she accepted were all decisions made for her rather than by her. Her memoir details a pivotal moment in her life known as “the “free Britney” movement; a movement Spears recalls first hearing about during rehab. During this movement, fans expressed concern over how the pop star was being managed by her family and team. This is a very vulnerable time in Spear’s life because she explains going through the heartache of losing everything close to her including her kids. Although she grew up in the public eye, the media prevented Spears from having a voice. Spears’s whole life has been under a microscope that allowed the tabloids to take control. Throughout her life, the media has had an obsession with her sexuality. In her book, Spears explains how she was falsely painted as being innocent and pure while also being labeled as promiscuous after her split from Timberlake. Without being overtly sexual she continued to be objectified. Without the “free Britney” movement, the star may have never found her voice. 

The Woman She Is 

To all the Britney Spears fans who want answers to questions like what happened during the infamous 2007 head-shaving incident, her relationship with Justin Timberlake, and the media’s alleged mistreatment of the star, then this book is for you. Spears does an excellent job removing her facade in The Woman I Am. For once, the world gets to see who Britney is, rather than who we think she is. Through her memoir, readers get to learn about Spears’s life from her perspective rather than the media’s. Readers learn how she responded to highly publicized incidences in her life. This memoir serves as a revelation. It not only tells the story of the woman Spears is but the woman she has now become. Since leaving her conservatorship, Spears has become vocal regarding who the real enemies and allies are in her life. For years, the public perceived Spears’s family as doing what was best for her through a conservatorship. What makes this memoir work is Spears’s ability to detail almost every aspect of her life that contributed to who she is. Spears is an excellent storyteller. She lets readers know exactly how she feels during each major moment of her life. She rejects the false image the media created for her by telling the world who she is.  

The Woman in Me is now available where major books are sold.

In this week’s episode of the Black Girl Nerds podcast, we welcome TV host, weather man and executive producer Al Roker.

Al Roker is a journalist, television personality, and author. He is the current weather anchor on NBC’s Today and occasionally co-hosts 3rd Hour Today. His latest project is the film Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land. The documentary explores the complex history of the American Black farmer. As an underrepresented topic that continues to impact Black farmers today, it’s important to showcase the legacy of Black farming in America and the devastating impact of heirs’ property on Black land ownership. It also addresses how landowners are reclaiming their agricultural rights and their paths to generational wealth with the support of other landowners and organizations.

Host: Jamie
Music by: Sammus
Edited by: Jamie Broadnax

Baltimore-bred artist Alvin Pettit won a competition to have his version of a Harriet Tubman statue placed on the northeast apron outside Philadelphia’s City Hall. 

The statue is expected to be finished by 2025, city officials said, according to CBS News. The art project has a budget of $500,000 coming from Philadelphia’s operating budget. The money will cover payment for Pettit, site work and modeling, engineering and materials, and fabrication costs. 

The open call for the contest, announced in August 2022, brought in nearly 3,000 total submissions and came about after a controversy, according to another report by CBS News. 

Black artists and activists protested when the city initially contacted a white sculptor to build the statue without a competition. The white artist, Wesley Wofford, had previously displayed a traveling sculpture of Tubman at Philadelphia’s City Hall in 2017. Textile artist Dee Jones said in a 2022 community meeting that it was “hurtful” that the city had not given other artists the opportunity to have their work considered for the public art project, CBS News reported. 

Wofford dropped out of the running, and Pettit’s nearly 14-foot bronze statue, titled A Higher Power: The Call of a Freedom Fighter, won over four other semifinalists. A small model of the statue appeared at a news conference on Oct. 30, showing Tubman with a rifle on her back, a Confederate flag under her feet, and her hands in prayer, CBS News reported.

Pettit said about the work, “She [Tubman] is shown in majestic prayer. Perhaps she is calling upon her faith or contemplating a battle.” The artist, now based in Jersey City, New Jersey, continued: “This woman was a soldier, a scout, a Union spy, a military strategist, and a war hero. Therefore, I captured a moment in time that shows her as a conqueror.”

Pettit won the competition based on decisions by city officials and Philadelphia’s African American Statue Advisory Committee, which includes some of Tubman’s family members.