Iantown

[iantown]

goblin slayer

I read this a while ago, and apparently it got an anime. I’m not a big fan of this manga - I think goblin slayer would have been perfect one shot material instead.

Here’s my reasoning:

Goblin Slayer is a dead end character. There’s no mystery to him. The most interesting thing about him is his tactics, something which has fallen to the wayside after putting Gate at the bottom of the ocean (which is pretty sick).

Therein lies the problem. His tricks are the fun part. What do you do when you run out of tricks? I dunno if the anime’s gotten this far but the manga has given us the answer: it has transformed into a basic fantasy troupe with Goblin Slayer as the eccentric core of the group. Too bad he’s basically a one-dimensional half-catatonic psychopath that probably doesn’t bathe so he can infiltrate goblin dens better, so this doesn’t make any sense. On top of that, it’s really weird that socially goblins are this low level threat for scrubs when they’re actually on the verge of destroying cities. I stopped shortly after that, so admittedly my review is hardly complete.

1. There’s no mystery about what he wants to do, all the time

2. We know his tactics and there haven’t been any that have topped Gate, which was early on

3. We know his backstory/motivation, which is very simple. It won’t be healed by slaying goblins, but that’s the title of the manga so we’re a little trapped here

4. Characters are gravitating towards him for thin reasons

These are all signs of a manga that’s gone on too long.

Anyway, I recommend reading until the fun stops for you and dropping.

[iantown]

strongest man kurosawa

Very good. Nobuyuki Fukumoto demonstrates the depth of his empathy for the wildest characters with the deepest flaws, taking them to their extremes.

Kurosawa is a pathetic man in the eyes of society, and he’s wanted nothing more than to be liked. 45 years of failure at that hang heavy on his neck, and at the twilight of his life, when he thinks he can’t take it anymore, he finds himself unable to give up and surprises himself (and everyone else) with his will to survive. His aggressors escalate, and his tactics along with it. Emphasis on tactics - there’s no magic bullet or powerup arc for Kurosawa; a lifetime of construction work gives him hardiness, and a lack of options gives him the wild ideas that help him survive.

Story: 8/10. The beginning is practically misery porn. I almost had to drop it. I’m pretty bad at dealing with someone so pathetic being the main character - he’s a selfish dirtbag but he just doesn’t understand why. The first two volumes really set up his mindset and his approach. Once those are out of the way, though, things ramp up fast and the conflict is clear in each arc, and you’re just waiting to see what crazy shit Kurosawa comes up with only to be struck with the realization that it’s actually a surprisingly good idea. The story successfully made me take a character I hated and made me invested in his arc, as bittersweet as it was.

Art: 6/10. Fukumoto’s art is distinct and honestly not really suited to a manga where people fight. The art serves its purpose - faces are unique enough to be identifiable and the emotions are clear as day. I can’t even really fault the poses for being stiff, since most of these people aren’t good fighters in the first place. Anyway, the art isn’t the point, it’s just a delivery system. It’s competent at that and turns your attention to the other aspects of the storytelling instead.

Characters: 9/10. Fukumoto’s strength has always been his characterization. Kurosawa’s opening chapters had me question my own position in the world, and I had to take a moment to keep my impostor syndrome in check. The opening volumes are so painfully captivating that I got sucked in. No one’s as developed as Kurosawa is, but at the same time, there’s not a single named 1 dimensional character. Even better, they all serve to back up or contrast Kurosawa’s mentality. Does that make Kurosawa a fucked up Mary Sue? I don’t think so - even if everything is centered around him, it’s because his antics are so wild that it’s impossible to not notice him, even if the goal is to avoid him.

Overall: 8/10. I had the ending spoiled for me a long time ago and everybody talked it up, so I was braced for something that was very grand and would make me cry. It didn’t, but it rang a clear, uncomfortable note that made me feel for this miserable human being. The expectation soured the experience, unfortunately. That’s just my experience, though! Kurosawa’s story is worth the read, just for the crazy tactics alone. No matter how outnumbered or scared out of his wits he is, Kurosawa never gives up completely. It’s a story about a man with only one good trait. The story and characterization in particular made this another established Fukumoto work (one that’s done and everything!) that I’ve enjoyed.

[iantown]

Panelling II

[iantown]

doukyuusei

WHAT A FUCKING TEASE THAT ENDING WAS

ALSO IT’S PERFECT

MY HEART

AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I’m meltinggggg

hoo boY HOOOooo boy

I actually hadn’t read any BL before so that was a new experience for me and wow... my chest feels so tingly...

art: 8/10. Simple and effective. Very stylistic and loose. Sharp but soft, refined but fluffy. Nice mix. Would have loved to see more of the hatching - it gave a lot of fantastic texture and depth to the clean, confident but playful linework. Sometimes things looked a bit fast and loose for me but it didn’t distract me beyond a brief thought.

story: 8/10. Short and sweet. Some things were lost on me, potentially due to the scanlation, and other things I wouldn’t get at all like the poem stuff or the song stuff. It would have elevated the experience for me if I was singing the song for myself as I read along. There was a good mix of content about their relationship, and I was sucked right in. If I had to point out a legitimate weakness, I’d say it’s the middle part - a couple of the vignettes there were a bit tepid. Maybe they were done that way to give a more everyday life feel... You can’t have everything cranked up to 11 all the time.

Harasen was a little... well, I’m imparting my cultural values here but a couple of his lines seemed borderline creepy, regardless of sexual preference or gender.

That last chapter was fuckin great, and I practically shouted when I realized there wasn’t any more. The manga already prepared you to imagine certain scenes yourself, and it used that same vehicle - the reader’s propensity for filling in the blanks, to deliver an ending that’s easy to fill in yourself, that makes you warm and fuzzy inside for thinking about it yourself. Very clever! I liked that part the best.

8/10, would recommend. I guess there’s a movie too, but I’ve never been very patient. Maybe I’ll watch it someday.

[iantown]

Dungeon Meshi minipost

I just realized that Laios and Kabru are written with the same thread of creepy obsession, but with one important twist: Laios thinks monsters are fascinating, and Kabru thinks humans are fascinating. That's the core aspect of these characters, and they've grown up and built their lives and identities around it.

As a result, Laios is a bit socially stunted and can't contain his excitement around people, and Kabru is excellent at manipulating people and knows to keep his excitement about people to his inner circle because spending so much time around all sorts of them will teach you that.

Thinking about it even more, their faces have some visual parallels (perpendiculars?) as well. Kabru is brown with sharp eyes and Laios is pale with dopey eyes. They're both the leaders of their respective parties, who will to great lengths to follow them in most cases.

Figuring out things like that feels like I've reverse engineered a character to some extent and that's apparently exciting enough for me to make a post here about it. I wonder how early on a character like Kabru was written. I think it'd be more impressive if Kabru was written in later, after the comic had started. A character that weaves his way into society and tugs at its fibres to his own ends in clever ways can't be easy to write, nor give proper motivations for.

[iantown]

Panelling

Panelling is one of the reasons I like comics so much. As I get more invested in various things, I find that there's always some niche content that plays with the format that I tend to drift towards or like more.

In the case of comics, it's panelling. As I started to draw, I realized that I think in sequences more than others. It's hard for me to imagine a singular slice in time. When a comic provides a snapshot of a moment that unfolds rapidly with lots of moving parts, I love it. Sometimes I'll go back over the comic that I typically read at a chapter a minute, and really digest what I'm seeing. I'll pore over every action line, and the flow of each panel into the next, and really admire the craft of a page.

This is a more modern example of this that stuck out to me, that was so clear and precise in its defining motion that I found it instantly in my ever-growing collection of compositional inspiration. The foreshortening here is fantastic. There's no doubt that the hand is reaching out to the viewer. The deeper sensation you get is that there's storytelling elements within the hand itself. This villain has captured a little girl with amazing powers, and used her for particularly brutal experiments. The dark pit of his hand - I really can't describe it any other way - is reaching out like a horrifying maw threatening to swallow her whole. 

Here's how I see this image. Despite the amazing foreshortening, this isn't the intended direction. I would say this panelling plays with the format, but the extent to which the page is dominated by the hand and the strength of that panel's overarching power actually interrupts the flow. The real flow should started at 4, gone through to 10, and then wrapped up in reverse order of 3, 2, 1. So the desired order would look like this:

A nice spiral made particularly ugly by my mouse. There's a lot of strength to this sort of composition, but the dominating power of the final element broke this up for me. If the top right had the most power and flowed into a slightly subdued, perhaps more directly-at-the-camera thrusting hand, I would have understood this complicated flow more immediately and not been confused by the frantic beats of the dramatic page. But then again, you'd have a very different picture at that point.

Last thing I'll say about that page: I've never seen a wide spread in its native print format I really liked. Information is always lost when the pictures sink towards the black hole of the spine, and if you're reading a bound book, there's no way to avoid it short of cutting those pages out. Now, if there was something that played with the format and had people sucked into the center like the natural flaw of printing to the margins of a book, I'd probably fall in love instantly.

That said, double wides have their place and they can be absolutely jaw-droppingly haunting, powerful and shocking. That's reserved for another discussion though so I'll just add this picture that gives me goosebumps every time I reread Akira.

Now that I've introduced a couple of bold compositions and briefly touched on panelling, it's time to get to the meat of the essay. Really I'm just gushing over here and feeling surges of emotion as I get to rave about some of my favorite shit in the universe. 

This page is a master class. Of all the things I could post up on my walls, I'd get this in the largest format I could without losing quality and give it the most subdued but expensive frame I could convince myself to buy. Words aren't necessary to describe the tension and emotions of these characters. Vegeta is pressuring Goku so hard that not only is he slightly higher up compared to Goku, his panel is also taller, giving the impression that his power is higher. Goku's more tense, hiding pose is contained within not only a smaller frame, but behind him is a cliff - he's literally stuck between Vegeta and a wall. There's no escape for Goku, and this brief, terse moment is the last few calm breaths he'll get before he's in a world of pain.

The lower 3 panels continue to contribute to already a complicated, immediately visually appreciable, and time-tested format - rooting for the underdog. The wide shot of the canyon between them gives us a breath of air and a sense of purity to the engagement that's about to happen. They're alone. There's no backup. There won't be any interference. This sets the stage for a fight that goes beyond saving the world, and what inevitably contributes to Goku being at terrible dad. He loves to fight, and this is the fight of his life (to date). The bottom two panels put both characters at striking odds with each other, and indicates a shift in tone. Vegeta's expression changes in a shot with the camera above him, making him smaller. Goku's is one looking up, giving the appearance of enlargement. The panels are also equal - suddenly, Vegeta isn't as sure about this fight as he was in panel one. He's about to have a fucking real ass fight on his hands. This kind of shit is what makes me shocked that manga is so cheap. We get so many pieces of art that work together to create something more powerful than any of them could hope to achieve individually. 

The space between the panels also contributes to the power of this page - I'd bet money that this page is on the right, and I'll tell you why. It's important to have a good deal of space around the page because of possible printing errors and the spine of the book. Things would get sucked in and details lost if the margins weren't large enough. Toriyama uses his experience with this to his advantage. Not only is Goku with his back to the wall, the entire reality behind him is vanishing into the spine of the book. Not only can't he flee, but if he does, he's as good as dead.

The flow of this page is impeccable. It's readable from a thumbnail, and intense in its clarity. I'm a little more particular about the angle of the bubbles I've drawn over this page for a very important reason, and I'll explain as I go over each part of the page. Going by the natural flow of top to bottom, right to left, Vegeta's hair is the first thing that greets you on the page, and it naturally leads into Vegeta himself. His position is such that the line of action within him is biased to the left, which is, conveniently enough, his grunt. This grunt seems minor but is actually key in leading the reader into the next panel from the top, over Goku's. This serves to emphasize the confidence in Vegeta and his actual position over Goku.

Goku's pose is right biased and bends to the right, which serves to ease the flow of the reader through his hair, down to his leg where we get the tap of his foot, fighting for even the most minor position. Both characters move their legs, but Vegeta's is more subtle. Both Vegeta and the reader see Goku's movement, but Vegeta moving his back leg is something you'd have to break flow to see - I think this is 100% intentional and serves to show that Vegeta's skill is higher. Not only is his power greater, but his ability to distract his opponent even in subtle ways to get a better position has contributed to a long career of successful engagements (until now). 

The bottom 3 panels are also easy reads. From Goku's foot, we drop into Vegeta posing on his cliff, before following the wind to the right and down to Goku. The SFX contribute to the standoff - the only other sound is silence. By the time we arrive at the right of the page, we drop into vegeta's panel. It's angled from top left to bottom right, and the contour of his shoulder is almost an extension of the cliff Goku's standing on. No deeper meaning there - that's just an example of fantastic readability. Vegeta's arm leads us into Goku's hand, at which point we roll over his face and complete the scene. 

There are two dominant angles here, and they're both used alongside the lighting to emphasize the fighting spirit of both combatants. In both the top pair and bottom pair of panels, both Goku and Vegeta are tilted towards each other - they're literally opposing angles. The lighting of the two fighters also contributes to the sense of opposition, which is most clearly shown in the faces of each fighter.  In the top view, Vegeta gets more light, and Goku's face gets a sliver. In the bottom, both get roughly equal amounts, both facing each other - lighting from opposite angles. I probably couldn't beat this horse deader than it already is. 

Panelling is great! It's so fantastic I wrote a fuckin essay on the fly just now and my hands are sore so I'm going to take a break. There was another page of Dragonball I was going to discuss but maybe that can be in a part 2 if people want it.

[iantown]

Tokyo Ghoul: dropped

The only thing it had going for it was the mask designs. I felt a lot of the potential nuances of living in plain sight was lost. Also, the plot was pretty unbalanced. It really focused on one thing at a time, to the point of ignoring other established plotlines until the first thing was resolved. I guess a single mindedness isn't bad, but don't expect me to care much when you bring back some sympathetic character in a really transparent and obvious way. Characters are pretty flat. MC is the only one that's got any real dimensionality, but even he suffers from being dragged around by the jerky motions of Plot. MC is supposedly in between worlds, but that really only had weight in one scene that had a character that's seemingly been dropped (in fact, the entire police hunting ghouls aspect seems to have just vanished). It was also the only scene I was really invested in. He's essentially traversing ghoul society 99.9999% of the time and he's only interesting to other ghouls because of his half human, half ghoul state. Then they talk about whatever freely. I can turn my brain off to a lot of this stuff, but the final nail in the coffin was a kind of poorly written fight that had boring choreography and stock shounen panels up to and including: powerup scene and zwee fighting. At the end it's implied that the villain didn't even die so everything was pointless except to reunite a 2 bit character you were meant to dislike with his inexplicable humie gf. Because of the ghoul having a gf, the only thing that separates MC from anyone else is he wants to unite the two worlds. Which again, is a point that has been dropped for too long for my tastes. I realize that there's an entire series for the ghoul investigators or whatever they're called, and there's a trans character that caused a lot of controversy when the character outright said they were cis, seemingly in response to the community iirc. I couldn't stomach the series long enough to get to that point. I'd make a joke about me being a ghoul eating human food and restraining the urge to spit it out, but not even that fits. It's gruel but empty calories.

[iantown]

Liar Game: 2/10

Unbelievable that I finished this 200 chapter mess. Many problems. Repetitive arc structure, arcs dragged on for too long, cardboard characters, and an ending so fucking quick and bad I actually laughed. I only hung on for so long because the mc, who starts off honest to a fault, gets smarter and starts to trick people, while maintaining that no one needs to trick anybody to win. This was interesting. I though there would be a consequence for such things, but the final arc reverted her back to her initial state: honest to a fault and completely irrelevant while the Big Boys play. She doesn't even get a chance to outsmart her supposed rival (?). The two emergent players are genius characters who only are geniuses because the plot inexplicably works out in their favor. Asspullmania. Fucking magician ribbons out the ass for days. The art is death notey at best, and awkward most of the time. Shock, smirks and anger are the only 3 expressions. The characters don’t fit in the scenery they’re put up against, and the perspective usually doesn’t make sense. The shocked expressions add emphasis by extending the jaw of the character like it’s a 3 floor elevator. Feels very unnatural. The art also fails because it spends so much time being a game manga that most illustrations are just explaining the contrived moves everyone is making in silly games - I mean this in the sense that every game is two or three things put together in dumb ways. Like bidding on poker hands. Or voting and musical chairs and bribery. Any panels featuring characters are them oddly placed in perspectives that don't make sense, them sweating, freaking out or hiding their face. Finally, the ending is the evil org saying, “uhhh we forgot to add an end state to our stupid ugly looking game so we give up and everyone’s collective billions in debt is nullified. Also I’m just some director re-enacting an old book. Let's put this shit on YouTube.” So he puts it on YouTube. Then it gets taken down. The good guy genius says, “the darkness if the elite runs deeper than we ever thought possible” LIAR GAME: END. I was so shocked by how fast this was I thought I missed something and checked to make sure it actually ended there. It was clear the ending was rushed, but it's also clear the writer didn't have an ending in mind. The payoff was poor, the final arc was silly and reductive, and the final twist was limp. I was mad enough to type this all on a touchscreen keyboard. Don't ever read this.

[iantown]

DUNGEON MESHI IS SO GOOD

art:great characters:cool designs:excellent foods:delicious looking even in b/w story:split between food chapters and politics but progresses meaningfully I'd say the story is the weak link but even that one is pretty damn solid. There's political intrigue that's building but it's not a burden. It's valuable and the stuff you think about between chapter releases. Problem is, the dungeoneering and creative food ideas are so compelling you almost want to skip past the other stuff to get to the food again. If I had to critique one thing I'd say the secondary party has mysterious motivations that come out very slowly and it's a little frustrating to not see them, but get to know everything else the character (Kabru) is saying and thinking in the moment. It's written in such a way to hide all of the other stuff. Makes sense, but the readers are used to knowing motivations for the main party. The contrast between them makes the secondary party hard to want to root for or get along with. Even the tertiary party (sounds like a lot but it's well handled) is well designed, sympathetic and multidimensional in comparison. Their connection to the main party is established and clear. The secondary party is composed of a bunch of greedy strangers with a conniving, maybe slightly underhanded boss that's being turned into a plot mover because of his ability to recognize politics at play. Useful, but I hope he becomes more intruiging soon. It's a shame to have a clever, selfish character's most interesting feature be his ability to make things better for others. I don't want to end on a critical note so I'll just say it again: the art is fantastic. Varied, soft, capable of handling all sorts of moods from dire action to delicious food to silly and cute. Extremely clean and very competent. Ryouko Kui is doing an amazing job.

[iantown]

Strange Journey Redux: 7/10

Spoilers ahead.

The game is good, but has definite flaws. I’ll list out my pros and cons, then explain them afterwards. I’ve only done the Neutral+ ending just now, and I plan to play the other ones when I feel like picking the game up again.

Pros: SubApp limit removed. Womb of Grief is a good dungeon with great music. Good bosses with crazy designs. Monokuma Zeus. I didn’t have to grind to beat the game.

Cons: Final dungeon - it was ugly, had forgettable music and a gimmick that was done once already in the Womb of Grief. Alex. Demonee-Ho’s questline is way too useful to be ignored, but there’s no way of knowing this short of doing them.

SubApp developments are major quality of life improvements. Aside from the fact that you don’t have to mix and match anymore, there are also new ones that make the game real nice. Gibo Eyes doesn’t exist anymore - you just get it and can view weaknesses (once discovered) at any time.

I haven’t seen anyone complain about the SubApp change either - I figure this would be the exact thing that would be ripe for calling it casualized (a phrase I think carries little weight). What matters is the gameplay experience, and going into the menu to manage apps keeps me from dungeon crawling and demon interactions. I will say that I’d be OK with subapps being limited if menu access was fast, but there’s a bit of a delay even accessing your quick-menu. Snappy menus are something I really like, and having to wait a second or two for a menu to pop up bugs me.

The Womb of Grief is primarily good due to the soundtrack, but is overall solid. Both the level and new boss music get me pumped. The dungeon’s design itself integrates into the base game nicely by weaving difficulty levels between a Sector (base game) and a Sphere (womb). I decided to play this way for the most part until I got to Zeus (his fight aura really fucked me), but the design of the dungeon let me just come back to it later and kick Zeus’ ass once I was done with Grus, and continue through the next sphere as if I was back on track. Legitimately good content.

Also, all of the Redux bosses had a mechanic I didn’t see in the base game. They each had their own version of control over the fight that worked in different ways. Anahita’s was basic - she’s weak to fire, but when her aura is up, fire attacks couldn’t be used. The others were more involved and I appreciated them! They meant you needed to think through the fight, but could manage it if you adapted fast.

I actually did end up grinding to beat the game, but it wasn’t out of necessity. Tthat was more because I wanted my Alice, Trumpeter and Fenrir to be supercharged (took me about 500k macca. juicy). Turns out that didn’t matter too much because of the 2nd phase of Shekinah (rip Demeter), but I got to set up my demons exactly how I wanted them. Powerful but mortal. Anyway, you shouldn’t have to. The final boss will probably be a long fight due to the two different shuffle-puzzles you get to deal with.

--------------------------

Alright, now for cons.

The final dungeon- Epicurean Ascent or whatever it was called - is real boring. It recycles the Womb Sphere 5 gimmick of +1 teleportations, except with faces on walls instead of graves with childlike-flowers (? I thought this was strange). The demons there were rather annoying for me. A lot of them were Dark, so I couldn’t con them into my party which was a bummer. By the time you’re at that dungeon, you’re likely at the point where you can’t fuse many new things without knowing exactly what’s available, so there’s not much fun in demon management. You kill or run. That removed a lot of the fun for SMT for me - looking forward to new demons. Perhaps that’s what it’s like at the endgame of other SMTs, but that’s a total bummer.

Alex is a thin excuse for a character that has an uninteresting character arc. You don’t get any hints as to her purpose until maybe about Womb 4, which is more than halfway through the game. She’s just attempting to kill you until then. Even when she does get a 2nd dimension, it’s impersonal, short and Ultimately she fulfills her purpose - she represents the future, and the MC needs something to remind him of why he fights as he becomes immortal (in Neutral+ anyway). I do think the game does need her, but I really wish she was fleshed out a lot more. There was certainly the time to do so.

Worth playing if you like tough dungeons, party customization, and being the JRPG version of Doomguy, who shares his demon-slaying throne with the SJ MC. I’m glad finally released from this game so I can play SMT3.

[iantown]

combat engineering in fortnite

There's a new mode called 50v50. It's goofy and normally ends up with huge random buildings everywhere, so I found a way to turn it on its head a bit.

All I do is build and heal, and when I build, I build a lot. At first it was just to have a gigantic imposing ceiling. It was entertaining enough on its own for a couple matches, until I noticed what the other players were doing.

People were joining me up there and building shit by themselves. Better yet, the enemy team would find ways to get up to my platform and start building on top of it. I had created new viable land for fighting.

Before I go further, here are some mechanics that are at play and important to understanding how this works. A structure must be tied to the ground. A stairway to heaven is foolish because some dick (usually on your team) will shoot the first platform down, thereby chain-destroying all the others. When you fall, you're incapacitated and probably dead soon. Having an impeccable base is absolutely vital.

So what I started to do was build things for my team. I'd get the bare minimum of resources going, and built a huge connecting point between two hills that nullified the valley. Once I had a strong base that was eye catching for my team, I kept building up until I had the highground.

Another aside: highground is necessary. The chances of you getting headshots goes way up when you are above them. What's more, you see everything they're doing if you built right. In fortnite you make your own sniper nests and doing it fast is important.

Once I had built up to a sufficiently high point, I made a floor. A large one, and one that was 6-8 panels deep. It's easy to kill one panel, but that many is a huge tax on your ammo and no one on the enemy team is at all eager to do that. Everyone's starved enough as is trying to get to the fight fast. What this ended up with was a gigantic cliff that I made in order to get my entire team highground advantage.

The structure was easy to maintain, too. People are already seeing this huge structure that's going to wipe half their ammo, but they realize that my team is getting highground. If we all fall, that's a ton of kills. This train of thought always happens, and I'm always ready for it. I just went back and reinforced any panels that were dying. It was easy, and discouraged them immediately.

Planning how to get your team onto the platform is a very strategic decision. The fight's location is random so the terrain is always different, and how my team gets there is like watching ants find food. Because of how the map is structured, I can usually plan 3 waves of people that will get to the fight. Sometimes the waves come in from different angles, and I have to plan for building two bases to get them all up. I have to rush to get materials, and rush to build before too many of them run to their deaths. If I can find a choke that a bunch of them would die in, I build something convenient for them to get up, and they get on top because everyone knows highground is victory.

The beauty of this strategy is this idea is simple enough for people to instantly understand and contribute to. People build up with me after I get a good start. They build structures on top of my shit. Some of them try to kill it, but it's easy to repair stuff that they destroy. Everyone instantly knows that the structure is important and that someone on the team is making an impact.

There are people that paraglide to kill me specifically. I'm easy to spot: the guy standing in the middle of this huge ramp replacing parts. Fortunately it's easy to protect myself. They're usually on a suicide mission, and I can stall by building walls and running to my team. The building and the gunshots is an easy sense-indicator to people that something's wrong and will at least look if they're not actively sniping the enemy. They devour the enemy by collapsing on them. Then I take the dead people's materials and use it to replace the hole in the floor my team just shot.

Special modes in fortnite don't last very long. I hear it's a week, but might not even be that. If this mode were to stick around, I think there would be more crossover between the sides that split the map in half, in an attempt to search and destroy the engineers. Or people will start carrying C4, meaning huge structures get punished more easily, but require the risk of reaching key points of the structure. My hypothesis is that afterwards, there would be lots of smaller structures that were still wide enough to support 5-10 people but a lot shallower. If there were communication, people would also pool launch pads for the engineers to enable easy movement between spaces. Those developemnts won't come if 50v50 is only a week long, though.

Not everything succeeds, and sometimes my new skyfloor does go down. A lot of people die and I get to laugh saying I had big game impact. Still, it's made this dumb mode where everyone fights for themselves into something else: a social experiment where I get to see how many mute psychopaths can follow me into a win. I'm your combat engineer.