(A/N: I picked number #3 for this. I honestly couldn't think of much, so here this is. Not the best but, oh well.)

Davide froze, checking his pockets. Where was the money? Davide felt a cold chill run up his spine. Frantically checking his pockets again, he smiled and reassured his boss that he had it. This went on for a good minute before Davide's muttering was interrupted by his boss.

"Davide", his boss took pause, "you have the money, yes?" His boss, Franky Giordano, gave him an ice cold stare.

"Yes, sir", Davide manages to spit out. Franky sits up in his chair, his glare intensifying.

"Then where is it?" he asks in a much intimidating manor. "Davide, I do not have time to fool around like this. This money is very important, I trusted you with the job."

"Sir I-"


"Davide, tell me, was it a regretful decision of me to trust you?"

"N-no! Not at all, sir! I got the money! I shoved it in this pocket right here," Davide points at his right jacket pocket, "you have to believe me!" Franky stared at Davide for what seemed like an eternity before he finally spoke up. Davide tugged at his collar and shot shifty glances around the room.

"I believe you." Franky said, his baritone voice filling the room. Davide felt relief rush through his body.

"Thank you s-" Davide stopped abruptly as Franky's voice overpowered his.

"However, it was your job to bring the money here. Not to lose it." Franky opened up a drawer on his desk and pulled out a gun.

"Please sir! Franky, c'mon! I did nothin'! I had the money I swear! You can't shoot me! I can go back and get just as much money from somewhere else. Fran-" Bang. The pleading ended.

A loud thumped followed the gun shot. A candy red liquid soaked the carpet. "Donny." Franky called for his assistant. "Clean up this mess." With just a nod to acknowledge the request, his assistant carried Davide's body away.

Character Analysis: Vriska Serket

 A/N: My character analysis for Vriska Serket, a character from a webcomic called Homestuck. Just to clear some things up here, I had to leave out a few things or else this would basically be a summary. In Homestuck there is an alien race called Trolls. Vriska is one of these trolls. Lusus are the troll equivalent of parents, on they did not birth the trolls. They only take care of them. The Lusus are usually some animal or mythological creature.

Vriska Serket, a young, humanoid, homicidal, alien girl. Vriska Serket is a main protagonist in a webcomic titled Homestuck. Vriska has quite a repelling attitude and is not favored by many of her cohorts. In fact, many claim to hate her. She is a more complex character than many people give her credit for.

Throughout the comic, Vriska is known for murdering and injuring others. Some murders are direct, other not. Vriska is capable of mind controlling others and manipulating them to do her dirty work for her. While it may seem that Vriska enjoys killing others, and this may be true, she does it for a purpose. Unlike her other murderous companions, who kill for selfish reasons or for no reasons at all, Vriska has a very good reason.

Vriska’s caretaker, Spidermom, is a giant spider. This spider feeds off of other trolls, Vriskas species, to survive. This leaves Vriska stuck to kill others and feed them to her Lusus, the name for caretakers in troll society. While she may enjoy killing others, she must do this and keep her Lusus fed or else it may eat her.

Vriska comes off as a cold hearted character, which is half true. She is often not very friendly and helpful to her “friends”. Doing awful things such as manipulating them and tricking them. However, when she comes in to contact with John, a human boy, he helps her realize just what she’s doing and how bad it really is. She begins to regret everything bad she has done and apologizes. Her apology is too late, however, and she is killed to prevent her from doing any more evil things.

Vriska is often confused for a troll who is bored and gets her kicks from killing others. This is not true. She must kill in order to keep her “mother” and herself alive. She regrets doing every in the end too, showing that she is not completely cold-hearted and is capable of forgiveness. If more people looked in to her past and character they would realize these things, and not dub her as true evil.

Sillouette in the Dark

 A/N: Another short story that has been sitting in my files until now. I'm planning on making multiple parts to this, in fact, I'm actually working on part two right now. So that should be out pretty soon. I hope you like it!

CRASH. The loud noise startles you and you quickly raise your head from the pillow. You check the alarm clock next to your bed. Two twelve a.m. What could possibly be making that much noise at such an early hour? You think about getting up to investigate, but you figure it’s probably nothing. Resting your head down and slowly closing your eyes you catch a glimpse of a shadow. A long thin silhouette with flowing hair and a terrifying grin. That was all you could catch of it. Quickly squeezing your eyes shut you reassure yourself it is nothing. You’re tired and imagining things. You try to fall back asleep but the thoughts of the shadow and the noise rush through your mind. You stare at the ceiling for what seems like a lifetime and then look back at your clock. Three o'clock. Surely it’s been longer than that. It couldn’t have been less than a hour. However, your clock is probably right. No use in doubting it. You decide sitting in bed wont help anything. Shoving the covers off of you, you get out of bed. You’re going to find out what that thing was and what caused the noise.

Rubbing your eyes you feel around for your glasses. “Found ‘em,” you mutter to yourself as your hands touch the cold metal of the frames. Now able to see clearly you head over to the light switch. Your hand just about to flip them on with a thought hits you. Maybe it would be best to keep them off, as eerie as it is, you’ll probably have a better chance of seeing…it. Mustering up your courage you wander through your house with hawk eyes, looking for any sudden movement. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You feel like giving up and giving sleep a try again. You make your way up to your bedroom, relieved and a little disappointed. Crawling back into bed you sigh. It was just your imagination. There was nothing supernatural going on. Nothing had fallen to the floor, and nothing caused it. It was all your imagination. Tired, you let out a yawn, hoping to get another two hours of sleep at least. You don’t want to sleep in too late, however. So you set your alarm clock to six in the morning. You think this is decent, giving you the two hours you wanted. Reaching out to set the alarm something stops you. You are staring into deep red eyes.

You let out a scream. It was the silhouette you had seen earlier, you were sure of it. It was boney and frail. It’s piranha grin gleamed at you. Up close you could see other features of it, including its tongue, long and thin just like the rest of its body. It curled up at the tip and hung out of its mouth. Its eyes wide and circular, flooded with a candy red. Tiny, white, feline like pupils sat in the middle of each eye. The pair of eyes stared back at you. You don't know what to say. You are absolutely speechless. You manage to stutter an incoherent sentence. Not even you know what your were trying to communicate. The figure sat there, the same face. The wide eyes and large grin. Before you could try and say anything else, it opened its mouth. Revealing rows after rows of large, sharp, decaying teeth. “Hello,” it hisses.

Childish Innocence

 A/N: Finally got this on my blog. I kept forgetting to post it on here! This is my theme essay. I wrote it about this wonderful video game called Earthbound and its theme of childhood innocence! I hope you like it. 

 

Many stories, both age-old and modern, show the theme of childhood is innocence. Earthbound is not an exception to this. Earthbound is about an adolescent named Ness. Ness must team up with new found friends to stop Giygas, the "embodiment of evil". Along the way Ness must stop at eight "Your Sanctuary" locations. Throughout the game Ness experiences flashbacks at these locations that are essential to the theme of the game.

These sanctuaries are reached by fighting through a dungeon and defeating the sanctuary guardian. Once Ness and his friends have reached the sanctuary they are healed of any harm these foes may have caused them. Ness will have a flashback of his childhood shortly after. The eight sanctuaries represent the theme of the game. What is essentially happening at these locations is that Ness' childhood is healing and purifying him and his friends. After reaching the final "Your Sanctuary" location, Ness is sent to yet another location in which the theme is very prominent, Magicant. 

 Magicant is a world within Ness' mind. It contains his memories and thoughts. Here Ness will talk to friends from his childhood, his family, even himself but in a much younger form. Ness will talk to his next door neighbor, Porky, here. Porky, throughout the course of Earthbound has turned into the villain, a spoiled child with no mercy. This is not the case in Magicant, though. Here Porky apologizes to Ness, wanting to make amends. He apologizes for all the trouble he has caused Ness in his journey and says he wants to be friends again. This is showing that Ness' mind wants to help Porky. Ness wants Porky to be good again. Porky was a part of Ness' childhood, now altered. Ness wants to fix this broken part of his past. Ness also encounters a younger version of himself here. The younger Ness gives him a baseball hat, a defense item within the game. This item is used to protect against Giygas, "the embodiment of evil" or what he really represents, corruption of childhood.

Shigesato Itoi, the creator of Earthbound, was once at a movie theater. He was still a fairly young boy, around the age of seven. Itoi walked into the wrong theater in search of his mother and saw something that traumatized him. On the screen, there was a lady being raped. This is what Itoi thought, at least. The film he walked in on, "The Military Police Man and the Dismembered Beauty." is an old Japanese mystery film, and does not include and scenes as the one described by Itoi. Itoi’s young mind processed it as such. Still, this changed Itoi completely, and such at a young age. His trauma was the inspiration for the final battle of Earthbound, The battle against Giygas.

The last battle Ness and his friends will fight is against Giygas, or so they’ve been told. Ness and his friends did not know Porky would be alongside Giygas as well. Porky is a child who has lost his innocence and is fighting for evil. He is fighting for his own selfish reasons now. Giygas, representing the corruption in Itoi's childhood is also there to fight. So virtually, this final battle is a battle against the distortion of Ness' childhood. The only way to win this battle is to do something many may consider childish. There is an option available in every battle to pray. It is essentially useless until this fight. Praying is the only way to defeat Giygas. Doing something so many label as childish saves Ness, his friends, and the world they live in. The innocence of childhood saves the world. 

All of these events show just how prominent and important the theme of childhood is to the game of Earthbound. The sanctuaries show how the past can heal. Magicant shows Ness’ yearning for his childhood, and how it helps him. The battle against Giygas and Porky shows just how powerful childish innocence is. The game practically revolves around the theme. Shigesato Itoi truly believed that childhood is innocence, and it definitely shows in the game of Earthbound. 

Are There No Prisons?

"'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.

'Plenty of prisons' said the gentlemen laying his pen down again. 

'And the Union work houses?' demanded Scrooge, 'Are they still in operation?'" 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.

'Are there no prisons?' said the spirit, turning on him for the last time with own words, 'Are there no workhouses?'"

The same words in two different contexts both are showing two very different things. The first context, coming from Scrooge himself in response to a man asking him to provide for the poor, shows how cold Scrooge is before his encounter with the spirit. I believe this line was meant to emphasize just how little of a heart Scrooge had. However, the second time this is spoken serves for the opposite reason.

This time the Ghost of Christmas Present says Scrooge's words, in response to Scrooge asking if the poor had anywhere to go, or if they had anything to eat. Scrooge had just seen a poor family and some poor children. Now Scrooge understands just how bad the living conditions of these people really are. He wants to help the poor. Just like the man back on page nine. The spirit replies with Scrooge's words and leaves. This scene was included to show that Scrooge's visits from the spirits are making Scrooge a better person.