One-sentence reviews of a bunch of crap in my used-up samples bag, because... eh, why not?

S Tier:

Marc-Antoine Barrois Ganymede: A paradigm shift in the atmosphere, with Drops of Jupiter in her hair; full bottle worthy.
MDCI Chypre Palatin: Grand, practically regal balsamic leather with a wildly beating human heart – the Eugene Onegin of the fragrance world.
Robert Piguet L’Insomnuit: Iris, sandalwood, tonka, all smooth as silk; as simultaneously elegant and camp as Morticia Addams herself.

A Tier:

Nicolai Parfumeur Number One Intense: Fracas by way of Chanel by way of Patricia de Nicolai; an aldehylic white floral delight.
Miller Harris Scherzo: Peony, vanilla, and a rather cheeky oud; the coquettish Karen Smith to Delina’s queen bee Regina George.
Xerjoff 40 Knots: Rum and coke on an expensive yacht, overlooking the Aegean.
Prada Infusion d'Iris Cèdre: Elegant, soapy iris with a clean, cedar backbone; white linen appropriate, yet surprisingly durable.
Penhaligon’s Legacy of Petra: Sweet fennel tea and the finest spices along the Silk Road; utterly addictive.
Franck Muller Conquistador: Masculine, even muscular iris and leather with a twist of cinnamon; shades of Dior Homme Intense, minus any makeup bag vibes.
Thameen The Hope: Cool spices paired with powdery immortelle and stately vetiver make for a genuinely unique beauty from Thameen; one imagines a young queen writing quietly yet pointedly in her royal diary.
Perles de Lalique: Powdery rose over an oakmoss base; the best bang-for-your-back chypre on the market.
Marc-Antoine Barrois B683: Airy leather and a melange of spices; oddly reminiscent of an expensive watch, warm leather strap against cool, metallic face.
Marc-Antoine Barrois B683 Extrait: An even airier version of B683; animalic leather replaced by enigmatic suede.
Jeroboam Gozo: Candied, sparkling orange blossom and tuberose, with a smile that could single-handedly win an entire season of Survivor: Love Island.
L'Artisan Parfumeur Nuit de Tubereuse: Fresh, sparkling orange blossom and tuberose; the most naturally beautiful girl at the dinner party.
Maison Crivelli Iris Malikhan: Earthy iris and crackling woods, with a touch of dark chocolate; rugged, yet refined.
Kayali Lovefest Burning Cherry 48: Dark cherries and amber; a most charming and capable seductress.
Parle Moi de Parfum Milky Musk: A top-tier milky sandalwood; Your Skin But Better.
Tauer Sundowner: Dried orange peel, sweet cinnamon, and silky tobacco; nostalgic somehow, evoking the grandfather as a young man, in his vest and cap.

B+ Tier:

Aesop Eidesis: Santal 33 ground into a fine powder, with black pepper.
Maison Violet ABÎME: Santal 33 ground into a fine powder, with chili pepper.
Parfum d'Empire Wazamba: Apple-sweet cypress with a bit of smoke, over a base of creamy sandalwood - like a warm embrace, from one's favourite guncle.
Aesop Hwyl: At a clearing deep in the woods, a wild Hipster appears.
Versace the Dreamer: The essence of River Phoenix bottled as perfume; a lock of golden hair falling into sad eyes; a beat-up leather jacket hanging off a supple frame.
Widian Al Wasl: Complex, mildly fecal apple-oud with dried vanilla pods and sweet amber; the main character energy is undeniable.
BDK Gris Charnel Extrait: Gris Charnel in the evening, by the silk-laid bed, with a feline smile.
La Closerie des Parfums Bois Iris Coriander: Carroty iris and vanilla pods; faintly reminiscent of Diptyque Fleur de Peau, but arguably better.
Zoologist Sacred Scarab: The collab nobody asked for, but that could honestly be much worse; Chanel No. 5 and a (sphinx) cat in heat.
Molinard Habanita: Like somebody's wealthy, mink-coated Russian grandmother took a piss in the antique ashtray stand and we were all high-key here for it.
Nobile 1942 La Danza delle Libellule: Marketed as a candy apple, but to my nose, a decadent orange creamsicle instead, evoking fun and sun.
Widian Liwa: Airy saffron, jammy rose, and handsome woods meld together for the moste potente of love potions.
Tauer Le Maroc pour Elle: Daring, romantic jasmine, infused with all the spices of Morocco.
Molinard Cuir: He’s so tall, and handsome as hell // he’s so bad, but he does it so well.
Atkinson’s Love in Idleness: Fluffy violet-rose; Sleeping Beauty re-powdering her perfect, ski-slope nose.
Ajmal Wisal: Delicate rose petals dipped in Ayran; a strikingly sophisticated cheapie.
Floris Neroli Voyage: A waft of orange blossoms in the bright, salt air; serenely beautiful.
Widian Delma: Reminiscent of a generic, mid-2000’s designer fruity floral, only rendered to perfection.

B-Tier:

Ormonde Jayne Gatsby 22: Osmanthus blossoms drowned in flat champagne; one imagines Jordan Baker after a night on the town.
Beaufort Coeur de Noir: Campfire smoke, sweet barbecue, and whisky neat; hello Daddy.
Zoologist Snowy Owl: Fluffy, green coconut; powdery snow melting into spring flowers.
Bond No. 9 Washington Square: Honeyed rose against a vetiver-amber backdrop; the loudest, most confident man at the party, who never goes home alone.
Pierre Guillaume Intime.Extime: Powdery, luxurious vanilla with a hint of tranquil white tea, like a surprisingly fierce hug from an otherwise stoic mum.
Thameen Amber Room: 40 Knots' more domesticated little sister; a very palatable woody amber-rose.
Nobile 1942 Vespri Esperidati: A sunny day along the Italian riviera; more charismatic, I think, than Acqua di Parma Colonia.
Hermès Paprika Brasil: Cool, green iris with a dash of paprika spice; minimalistic and reserved.
Armani Privé Vert Malachite: The Princess Daisy to Rouge Malachite's Princess Peach; crisp lily of the valley contrasted against intoxicating amber.
ELDO Cologne: Well-constructed bergamot/orange blossom/jasmine – safe blind buy if there ever was one.
Widian London: Stylish raspberry leather-oud; easily superior to Tom Ford Tuscan Leather.
Pharrell Williams Girl: Cool violet powder over an aromatic green heart and clean woods; high-concept niche masquerading as mass-market celebrity designer.
Kayali Invite Only Amber 23: Boozy amber, with (faint) echoes of Angel’s Share.
Thameen Imperial Crown: Refined, peppery leather with a distinct lack of any stank; elegant, yet admittedly devoid of imagination.
Robert Piguet Rose Perfection: Jammy, velvety rose bouquet – an apt-choice for love-bombers.
Piper & Perro Veil: White musk, with a rebellious tattoo ink twist; Not Like the Other Girls indeed.
MDCI Peche Cardinal: Tuberose peach liqueur, but make it top shelf.
Pierre Guillaume Le Musc & Le Peau: Elevated Glossier You with an aldehylic lift.
Indult Manakara: Turkish delight made out of the highest quality rose syrup, plus just a splash of booze.
Chopard Lemon Dulci: Sweet, sunny lemon; smiley face emojis galore.
Kayali Utopia Vanilla Coco 21: Vanilla bean, coconut water, and a hint of sea breeze; not the most original profile, but genuinely well-balanced.
Eau d’Italie Easy to Love: WASP mom puttering about the flowerbeds.
Versace Bright Crystal Absolute: Raindrops on roses and whispers on kittens.
Tiziana Terenzi Mirach: She has over a million followers on her luxury handbag Instagram and her signature colour is rose gold.
Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête: A milk bath, with jasmine petals and coconut shavings.
Liquides Imaginaires Melan-Colia: Really, more like “melon”-cholia, and by melon-cholia, what I really mean is this sort of smells like melon jelly candy.
Liquides Imaginaires Bête Humaine: Bittersweet, borderline medicinal / antiseptic woods.
Chopard Black Incense Malaki: Black leather jacket, reeking of incense smoke and B.O. tang.
Zoologist Macaque: Fruity-floral with a touch of oud; definitely one for the grown-ups.
Beaufort Fathom V: Like inhaling an entire herb garden, but especially mint and thyme and bits of mineralic soil.
L’Artisan Parfumeur Iris de Gris: Despite its name, photorealistic sweet pea.
Kayali Vanilla 28: Really more of a tonka bean, but we’ll let it slide; use for layering.
Mancera Wind Wood: Sharp, clean, green – a little manly for Link, but Zelda (well, Sheik) might just be able to pull him off.

B- Tier:

Memo French Leather: The interior of a mid-ranged leather goods store, with complimentary roses for Mother’s Day.
Rance Eau Sublime: Ostensibly, a green, borderline animalic chypre; somehow less than the sum of its disparate parts.
L’Artisan Parfumeur Cédrat Céruse: Photorealistic fennel salad.
Distillery General White Mandarin: Jo Malone Wood Sage & Sea Salt dupe; very serviceable.
JHAG Moscow Mule: An adequate interpretation.
Maison Crivelli Lys Solaberg: Stale orange tang and sun-dried flowers.
Kayali Musk 12: A slightly sugary white musk; useful for layering.

C Tier:

Memo Ocean Leather: Faint whiffs of leather against a distant seascape; neat concept but poor execution.
Burberry London for Her: Supposedly a rosy musk, but all I get are dried pineapples coated in brown sugar; soft and sweet, either way.
Maison Violet Compliment: Pissy, yet honeyed tuberose; a rare misstep.
JHAG MMMM…: Raspberry candy and whipped cream from a can.
Tauer Cologne du Maghreb: A surprisingly muddled petitgrain fougere, and perhaps my least favourite fragrance from the otherwise mighty House of Tauer.
JHAG Sunny Side Up: She’s got a lovely bunch of coconuts.
Parle Moi de Parfum Chypre Mojo: A waste of dried mango, that only ekes into the B-tier on concept alone.
Parle Moi de Parfum Gardens of India: Pleasant white floral bouquet, over a vaguely woody base.
Kayali Deju Vu White Flower 57: Pleasant white floral bouquet, over a sugary amber base.
Parle Moi de Parfum Tomboy Neroli: Harsh, synthetic neroli.
pH Fragrances Neroli & Bergamot de Denim: Middling citrus-neroli; suitable enough for a t-shirt and jeans.
Nicolai Parfumeur Cap Neroli: Bitter, sun-baked orange blossom and neroli.
Comptoir Sud Pacific Vanille Coco: Vanilla and coconut; nothing less, nothing more.
Welton London Oud Inspiration: Sometimes, things that are expensive… are worse.
Kayali Sweet Diamond Pink Pepper 25: Pink pepper and smoky tonka; just not for me.
La Closerie des Parfums Floral Iris Baie Rose: Pink pepper; that’s it; that’s the review.

D Tier:

Parle Moi de Parfum Haute Provence: Scratchy, synthetic, shampoo-like lavender.
Liquides Imaginaires Desert Suave: Dried spices and dates; oddly nauseating.
Clean Lush Fleur: Apparently so forgettable that I have neither any notes on, nor any memory of, it.
Kayali Eden Juicy Apple 01: Cheap apple shampoo, with its only redeeming feature being that it’s surprisingly layerable.
Rue Broca Pride: Cheap apple shampoo; undeserving of its seriously fishy 4.7+ rating on Fragrantica.
CB I Hate Perfume In the Library: Warm, spoiled milk.

F Tier:

Marc-Antoine Barrois Encelade: Enough vetiver to make a drag queen retch; the only scrubber in the entire 100.

Creating the perfect luxury living room can be a real challenge. There are so many elements to consider, including wallpaper, furniture, accent pieces, and area rugs. If you're not sure where to begin, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Area rug

Having an area rug for luxury living room is a great way to bring warmth and comfort to your home. These rugs come in a variety of colors, textures, and sizes. These rugs can be used as a focal point in a room or as a backdrop for other decor. They can be used in any part of the home, such as the living room, dining room, entryway, and more.
A rug can make a room look smaller or larger. The wrong size rug can shift the proportions of the room and make it look disconnected. A rug should be sized to fit the room.

Mirrors

Adding mirrors to your living room is a great way to give it a stylish and luxurious look. You can hang mirrors over the fireplace, or use them as a display piece. You can also choose a large mirror to balance your room. It's a great way to bring light into a dark room, and will reflect the garden back into the room.
The Shimmer mirror from Patricia Urquiola is a stylish piece that features an iridescent finish. The mirror's polished brass petals are cut to a thin layer and reflect the warm natural light.
The crackle mirror is made from smoked black mirror and gold plated brass. It's a nod to the opulence of gold nuggets.

Sofas

Stylish sofas are essential in luxury living rooms. These pieces of furniture are upholstered with comfortable and easy to clean cushions. They are also available in various sizes. A pair of upholstered footstools is also a great addition to any living room. They are perfect for watching television or for taking a nap.
Aside from the sofa, luxury living rooms also feature coffee tables, accent tables and accent chairs. These pieces are available in different designs. The most popular colour combination is black and white. These colours offer a sleek and elegant look. You can also choose other bright colours for accents. These colours can include red and yellow, which add a pop of colour to the room.

Accent pieces

Creating a fabulous home environment can make you feel more at ease. And the best part is that you won't have to spend much of your hard earned money to get the job done. The right accent pieces and decor will do the trick. The best way to do this is to start with a plan.
A little research will go a long way. It's also a good idea to keep in mind that you'll be living with this home for some time. So if you're looking for the best decor, you'll want to think carefully about what type of furnishings you need to make sure they will blend into your home's esthetic scheme.

Wallpaper

Choosing the right luxury living room wallpaper can make a room look glamorous. You can find a wide range of wallpaper designs that will enhance the overall look of your room. The best thing to do is consult a professional interior designer to help you choose the right wallpaper.
For a contemporary living room, you can choose a wallpaper that evokes the stately style of French castles. This can be done by using a design that contains a lot of motifs such as flowers, plants and butterflies.
You can also choose a design that features a tropical theme. This can be achieved by choosing a wallpaper that includes tropical leaves in different colors. This will create a relaxing corner in your living room.

DO NOT USE Patricia's Petals of Wichita. They claim to be a local florist. They are not.
I sent flowers to a friend in the hospital. The flowers were not delivered.
It is so frustrating that it is near impossible to find an ACTUAL local florist online. All search results will get you a large corporations that claims to be local. Then, they will farm out your order to someone local that you cannot contact.

Greece

​
Poetry
Odysseas Elytis
To Axion Esti—It Is Worthy (1959)
Yiannis Ritsos
Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses (1991)
​
Fiction
Nikos Kazantzakis
Zorba the Greek (1946)
​

United Kingdom

​
Poetry
Dylan Thomas
Collected Poems (1952)
Philip Larkin
Collected Poems (1955-1970)
Stevie Smith
Not Waving but Drowning (1957)
Carol Ann Duffy
Standing Female Nude (1985)
The Other Country (1990)
Mean Time (1993)
The World's Wife (1999)
Ted Hughes
Collected Poems (2003)
​
Nonfiction
Ernst Gombrich
The Story of Art (1950)
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity (1952)
Surprised by Joy (1955)
Elias Canetti
Crowds and Power (Masse und Macht) (1960)
Earwitness (1974)
The Tongue Set Free (Die gerettete Zunge) (1977)
The Torch in My Ear (Die Fackel im Ohr) (1980)
The Play of the Eyes (Das Augenspiel) (1985)
E.P. Thompson
The Making of the English Working Class (1963)
V.S. Naipaul
An Area of Darkness (1965)
India: A Wounded Civilization (1977)
Among the Believers (1981)
India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990)
Beyond Belief (1998)
Anthony Burgess
Shakespeare (1970)
Little Wilson and Big God (1987)
You've Had Your Time (1990)
Alex Comfort
The Joy of Sex (1972)
John Berger
Ways of Seeing (1972)
John Keegan
The Face of Battle (1976)
James Herriot
The Lord God Made Them All (1981)
Doris Lessing
Under My Skin (1994)
Peter Ackroyd
London (2000)
Martin Amis
Experience (2000)
Janet Browne
Charles Darwin, Vol. 2 (2002)
Lorna Sage
Bad Blood (2002)
Simon Winchester
Krakatoa (2003)
Lynne Truss
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (2003)
Rory Stewart
The Places in Between (2004)
Alan Bennett
Untold Stories (2005)
Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion (2006)
Ben MacIntyre
Agent Zigzag (2007)
Patrick French
The World Is What It Is (2008)
Richard Holmes
The Age of Wonder (2008)
Julian Barnes
Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2008)
James Wood
How Fiction Works (2008)
Richard Lloyd Parry
People Who Eat Darkness (2010)
Claire Tomalin
Charles Dickens (2011)
Jung Chang
Empress Dowager Cixi (2013)
Andrea Wulf
The Invention of Nature (2015)
Helen MacDonald
H Is For Hawk (2015)
Vesper Flights (2020)
​
Philosophy
Alasdair Macintyre
After Virtue (1981)
​
Fiction
Mervyn Peake
Titus Groan (1946)
Gormenghast (1950)
Titus Alone (1959)
Malcolm Lowry
Under the Volcano (1947)
Graham Greene
The Heart of the Matter (1948)
The Third Man (1949)
The End of the Affair (1951)
The Quiet American (1955)
Roald Dahl
Someone Like You (1953)
Kiss Kiss (1960)
James and the Giant Peach (1961)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
The BFG (1982)
The Witches (1983)
Matilda (1988)
Esio Trot (1990)
George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays (1950)
Agatha Christie
A Murder is Announced (1950)
Endless Night (1967)
C.S. Lewis
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Magician's Nephew (1955)
The Last Battle (1956)
Till We Have Faces (1956)
Nevil Shute
A Town Like Alice (1950)
Doris Lessing
The Grass is Singing (1950)
Martha Quest (1952)
The Habit of Loving (1957)
The Golden Notebook (1962)
To Room Nineteen (1978)
The Good Terrorist (1985)
The Fifth Child (1988)
John Wyndham
Day of the Triffids (1951)
John Collier
Fancies and Goodnights (1951)
Dylan Thomas
A Child's Christmas in Wales (1952)
Kingsley Amis
Lucky Jim (1953)
Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood's End (1953)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
Alfred Bester
The Demolished Man (1953)
The Stars My Destination (1957)
William Golding
Lord of the Flies (1954)
The Inheritors (1955)
Pincher Martin (1956)
Free Fall (1959)
The Spire (1964)
The Pyramid (1967)
Rites of Passage (1980)
Iris Murdoch
Under the Net (1954)
The Sea, The Sea (1978)
Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
The Two Towers (1954)
The Return of the King (1955)
T.H. White
The Candle in the Wind (1958)
V.S. Naipaul
Miguel Street (1959)
A House for Mr. Biswas (1961)
The Mimic Men (1967)
In a Free State (1971)
A Bend in the River (1979)
The Enigma of Arrival (1987)
A Way in the World (1994)
Lawrence Durrell
Justine (1957)
Balthazar (1958)
Mountolive (1958)
Clea (1960)
Muriel Spark
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange (1962)
The Wanting Seed (1962)
Inside Mr. Enderby (1963)
Earthly Powers (1980)
J.G. Ballard
The Drowned World (1962)
The Crystal World (1966)
Crash (1973)
Concrete Island (1974)
High Rise (1975)
Empire of the Sun (1984)
Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Collected Stories (1992)
V.S. Pritchett
Complete Stories (1990)
John Fowles
The Magus (1966)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969)
John Brunner
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
Frederick Forsyth
The Day of the Jackal (1971)
Richard Adams
Watership Down (1972)
J.G. Farrell
The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)
Anthony Powell
A Question of Upbringing (1951)
A Buyer's Market (1952)
The Acceptance World (1955)
At Lady Molly's (1957)
Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (1960)
The Kindly Ones (1962)
The Valley of Bones (1964)
The Soldier's Art (1966)
The Military Philosophers (1968)
Books Do Furnish a Room (1971)
Temporary Kings (1973)
Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975)
Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)
Angela Carter
The Bloody Chamber (1979)
Wise Children (1991)
Alisdair Gray
Lanark (1981)
Terry Pratchett
The Color of Magic (1983)
Guards! Guards! (1989)
Small Gods (1992)
Night Watch (2002)
Going Postal (2004)
Martin Amis
Money (1984)
London Fields (1989)
Time's Arrow (1991)
The Information (1995)
Julian Barnes
Flaubert's Parrot (1984)
Arthur & George (2005)
The Sense of an Ending (2011)
Jeanette Winterson
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)
Rosamunde Pilcher
The Shell Seekers (1987)
Iain M. Banks
The Player of Games (1988)
Use of Weapons (1990)
Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day (1989)
Never Let Me Go (2005)
A.S. Byatt
Possession (1990)
The Children's Book (2009)
Martina Cole
Dangerous Lady (1992)
The Ladykiller (1993)
The Graft (2004)
The Faithless (2011)
Irvine Welsh
Trainspotting (1993)
Louis De Bernières
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994)
James Kelman
How Late It Was, How Late (1994)
Penelope Fitzgerald
The Blue Flower (1995)
Nick Hornby
High Fidelity (1995)
Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass (1995)
The Subtle Knife (1997)
The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Peter F. Hamilton
The Reality Dysfunction (1996)
Pandora's Star (2004)
Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)
J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)
Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998)
Zadie Smith
White Teeth (2000)
On Beauty (2005)
Swing Time (2016)
Jim Crace
Being Dead (2000)
Alastair Reynolds
Revelation Space (2000)
Ian McEwan
Atonement (2001)
Saturday (2004)
On Chesil Beach (2007)
Neil Gaiman
American Gods (2001)
Richard K. Morgan
Altered Carbon (2002)
Monica Ali
Brick Lane (2003)
William Boyd
Any Human Heart (2003)
Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003)
Jonathan Raban
Waxwings (2003)
Ali Smith
The Whole Story (2003)
The Accidental (2005)
There But For The (2011)
David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Black Swan Green (2006)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
The Bone Clocks (2014)
Susanna Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004)
Alan Hollinghurst
The Line of Beauty (2004)
The Stranger's Child (2011)
Andrea Levy
Small Island (2004)
Kate Atkinson
Case Histories (2004)
Life After Life (2013)
A God In Ruins (2015)
Joe Abercrombie
The Blade Itself (2006)
Before They Are Hanged (2007)
Last Argument of Kings (2008)
Best Served Cold (2009)
The Heroes (2011)
Red Country (2012)
A Little Hatred (2019)
The Trouble With Peace (2020)
The Wisdom of Crowds (2021)
Diane Setterfield
The Thirteenth Tale (2006)
Kate Summerscale
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House (2008)
Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall (2009)
Bring Up the Bodies (2012)
China Miéville
The City and the City (2009)
Mohsin Hamid
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013)
Exit West (2017)
Sarah Waters
The Paying Guests (2014)
Helen Oyeyemi
Boy, Snow, Bird (2014)
Zia Haider Rahman
In Light of What We Know (2014)
Kamila Shamsie
Home Fire (2017)
Maggie O'Farrell
Hamnet (2020)
​
Plays
Elias Canetti
The Comedy of Vanity (Komödie der Eitelkeit) (1950)
Their Days Are Numbered (Die Befristeten) (1956)
Terence Rattigan
The Deep Blue Sea (1952)
John Osborne
Look Back in Anger (1956)
The Entertainer (1957)
Harold Pinter
The Birthday Party (1957)
The Dumb Waiter (1957)
The Caretaker (1959)
The Homecoming (1964)
Betrayal (1978)
John Arden
Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1959)
Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967)
The Real Thing (1982)
Arcadia (1993)
Peter Nichols
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967)
Joe Orton
What the Butler Saw (1969)
Alan Ayckbourn
The Norman Conquests (1973)
Peter Shaffer
Equus (1973)
Amadeus (1979)
Caryl Churchill
Cloud 9 (1979)
Top Girls (1982)
Michael Frayn
Noises Off (1982)
Alan Bennett
The History Boys (2004)
Nick Stafford
War Horse (2007)
Jez Butterworth
Jerusalem (2009)
Lucy Prebble
Enron (2009)
Simon Stephens
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2012)
​

Nigeria

​
Poetry
Wole Soyinka
Selected Poems (1989)
​
Nonfiction
Wole Soyinka
The Man Died (1972)
Aké (1981)
​
Fiction
Amos Tutuola
The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1946)
Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart (1958)
The Sacrificial Egg (1959)
Wole Soyinka
The Interpreters (1964)
The Season of Anomy (1973)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
Americanah (2013)
​
Plays
Wole Soyinka
The Lion and the Jewel (1959)
A Dance of the Forests (1960)
The Trials of Brother Jero (1960)
Kongi's Harvest (1967)
Madmen and Specialists (1971)
Death and the King's Horseman (1975)
​

Ireland

​
Poetry
Seamus Heaney
Selected Poems (1990)
Paul Muldoon
Selected Poems (1994)
​
Fiction
Samuel Beckett
Molloy (1951)
Molone Dies (1951)
The Unnameable (1953)
How It Is (1961)
Complete Short Prose (1995)
Seán Ó Faoláin
Collected Stories (1980)
Benedict Kiely
Collected Stories (2001)
John McGahern
Amongst Women (1990)
Roddy Doyle
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993)
William Trevor
A Bit on the Side (2004)
Love and Summer (2009)
Colm Tóibín
The Master (2004)
John Banville
The Sea (2005)
Anne Enright
The Gathering (2007)
Sally Rooney
Normal People (2018)
​
Plays
Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot (1953)
Endgame (1957)
Krapp's Last Tape (1958)
Brian Friel
Dancing at Lughnasa (1990)
Conor McPherson
The Weir (1997)
Martin McDonagh
The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001)
The Pillowman (2003)
​

Argentina

​
Poetry
Jorge Luis Borges
In Praise of Darkness (1974)
​
Nonfiction
Jorge Luis Borges
A Personal Anthology (1961)
Labyrinths (1962)
​
Fiction
Julio Cortázar
Los Premios (The Winners) (1960)
Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963)
Todos los fuegos el fuego (All the Fires the Fire) (1966)
Blow-Up (1968)
Jorge Luis Borges
The Maker (1960)
​
Plays
Julio Cortázar
Los Reyes (The Kings) (1949)
​

USSR

​
Poetry
Boris Pasternak
Selected Poems (1983)
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Selected Poems (2008)
​
Nonfiction
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago (1973)
​
Fiction
Boris Pasternak
Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Mikhail Sholokhov
The Fate of a Man (1957)
Harvest on the Don (1960)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)
Cancer Ward (1967)
The First Circle (1968)
Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky
Roadside Picnic (1971)
​

Germany

​
Poetry
Gottfried Benn
Selected Poems (1956)
Bertolt Brecht
Poems (1956)
​
Nonfiction
Marta Hillers
A Woman in Berlin (1953)
Günter Grass
Peeling the Onion (2006)
​
Fiction
Thomas Mann
Doctor Faustus (1947)
Heinrich Böll
Billiards at Half-Past Nine (1959)
The Clown (1963)
Group Portrait with Lady (1971)
The Safety Net (1979)
Collected Stories (2011)
Günter Grass
The Tin Drum (1959)
Cat and Mouse (1961)
W.G. Sebald
The Rings of Saturn (1995)
Austerlitz (2001)
​
Plays
Bertolt Brecht
Puntila and His Man Matti (1948)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
The Visit (1956)
Peter Weiss
Marat/Sade (1964)
​

Egypt

​
Fiction
Naguib Mahfouz
Midaq Alley (1947)
Palace Walk (1956)
Palace of Desire (1957)
Sugar Street (1957)
Children of the Alley (Children of Gebelawi) (1959)
The Thief and the Dogs (1961)
Miramar (1967)
Respected Sir (1975)
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth (1985)
​

France

​
Poetry
Aimé Césaire
Complete Poetry (2013)
Paul Celan
The Sand from the Urns (1948)
Speechwicket (1959)
The No-One's-Rose (1963)
Threadsuns (1968)
Jean Follain
Transparence of the World (1971)
Yves Bonnefoy
Poems (c. 2014)
​
Nonfiction
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Wisdom of the Sands (1948)
Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex (1949)
Roland Barthes
Mythologies (1957)
François Mauriac
De Gaulle (1964)
Jean-Paul Sartre
The Words (1964)
Marjane Satrapi
Persepolis (2000)
​
Philosophy
Albert Camus
The Rebel (1951)
Frantz Fanon
The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
Michel Foucault
Discipline and Punish (1975)
​
Fiction
Albert Camus
The Plague (1947)
The Fall (1956)
Exile and the Kingdom (1957)
Marguerite Yourcenar
Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)
Julien Gracq
The Opposing Shore (1951)
Françoise Sagan
Bonjour Tristesse (1954)
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Jealousy (1957)
Michel Tournier
The Ogre (1970)
Georges Perec
Life: A User's Manual (1978)
Marguerite Duras
The Lover (1984)
Irène Némirovsky
Suite Française (2004)
​
Plays
Eugène Ionesco
The Bald Soprano (1950)
The Chairs (1952)
Rhinoceros (1959)
Jean Genet
The Balcony (1957)
Yasmina Reza
God of Carnage (2006)
​

The Netherlands

​
Nonfiction
Anne Frank
The Diary of a Young Girl (1947)
​
Fiction
Michel Faber
The Crimson Petal and the White (2002)
The Book of Strange New Things (2014)
​

Italy

​
Poetry
Eugenio Montale
Collected Poems (2012)
​
Nonfiction
Primo Levi
If This Is a Man (1947)
The Periodic Table (1975)
​
Fiction
Italo Calvino
The Baron in the Trees (1957)
Cosmicomics (1965)
Invisible Cities (1972)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979)
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
The Leopard (1958)
Tomaso Landolfi
Gogol's Wife (1963)
Umberto Eco
The Name of the Rose (1980)
Elena Ferrante
My Brilliant Friend (2012)
The Story of a New Name (2012)
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2013)
The Story of the Lost Child (2014)
​
Plays
Dario Fo
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970)
​

Japan

​
Fiction
Yasunari Kawabata
Snow Country (1948)
A Thousand Cranes (1949-1952)
The Sound of the Mountain (1949-1954)
The Master of Go (1951-1954)
The House of the Sleeping Beauties (1961)
The Old Capital (1962)
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (1923-1972)
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
The Makioka Sisters (1948)
The Key (Kagi) (1956)
Diary of a Mad Old Man (Futen Rojin Nikki) (1961-1962)
Yukio Mishima
Patriotism (1960)
Spring Snow (1965-1967)
Runaway Horses (1967-1968)
The Temple of Dawn (1968-1970)
The Decay of the Angel (1970-1971)
Kōbō Abe
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)
Kenzaburō Ōe
A Personal Matter (1964)
Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)
The Elephant Vanishes (1985)
Norwegian Wood (1987)
Dance Dance Dance (1988)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994)
Kafka on the Shore (2002)
1Q84 (2009)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2014)
​

South Africa

​
Poetry
Breyten Breytenbach
In Africa Even the Flies Are Happy (1978)
​
Fiction
Alan Paton
Cry, The Beloved Country (1948)
Nadine Gordimer
The Conservationist (1974)
Burger's Daughter (1979)
July's People (1981)
J.M. Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
The Life and Times of Michael K. (1983)
Foe (1986)
Disgrace (1999)
Elizabeth Costello (2004)
Zoë Wicomb
You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town (1987)
​
Plays
Athol Fugard
Blood Knot (1961)
'Master Harold' ... and the Boys (1982)
​

Poland

​
Poetry
Czesław Miłosz
Collected Poems (1948-1992)
Zbigniew Herbert
Collected Poems (1961-1974)
Wisława Szymborska
Collected Poems (1972-1993)
Anna Swir (Anna Swirszczynska)
Talking to My Body (c. 1984)
Anna Kamienska
Astonishments (2008)
Tadeusz Różewicz
Selected Poems (c. 2014)
​
Nonfiction
Czesław Miłosz
Native Realm (1959)
Visions from San Francisco Bay (1969)
The Land of Ulro (1977)
The Witness of Poetry (1983)
Beginning with My Streets (1992)
Ryszard Kapuściński
The Emperor (1978)
​
Philosophy
Czesław Miłosz
The Captive Mind (1953)
​
Fiction
Czesław Miłosz
Seizure of Power (1953)
The Issa Valley (1955)
Stanislaw Lem
Solaris (1961)
​

Turkey

​
Poetry
Nâzim Hikmet
Selected Poems (1948-1963)
​
Fiction
Orhan Pamuk
My Name Is Red (1998)
Snow (2002)
​

Cuba

​
Fiction
Alejo Carpentier
The Kingdom of this World (1949)
The Lost Steps (1953)
​

Vietnam

​
Poetry
Ho Chi Minh
Prison Poems (c. 1949)
​

Denmark

​
Fiction
Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)
Anecdotes of Destiny (1958)
​

Chile

​
Poetry
Pablo Neruda
Complete Poetry (1923-1974)
Enrique Lihn
Figures of Speech (2016)
​
Fiction
Roberto Bolaño
The Savage Detectives (1998)
2666 (2004)
​

Switzerland

​
Fiction
Max Frisch
I'm Not Stiller (1954)
​

Mexico

​
Poetry
Octavio Paz
Collected Poems (c. 1998)
​
Nonfiction
Octavio Paz
The Labyrinth of Solitude (1963)
​
Fiction
Juan Rulfo
Pedro Páramo (1955)
Carlos Fuentes
The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962)
Cantar de ciegos (1964)
Laura Esquivel
Like Water for Chocolate (1989)
​

Colombia

​
Nonfiction
Gabriel García Marquez
Living to Tell the Tale (2003)
​
Fiction
Gabriel García Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Autumn of the Patriarch (1975)
Collected Stories (1984)
Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004)
​

Brazil

​
Poetry
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Selected Poetry (1987)
João Cabral De Melo Neto
Selected Poetry (1994)
​
Fiction
João Guimarães Rosa
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (1956)
Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist (1988)
​

Australia

​
Nonfiction
Clive James
Cultural Amnesia (2007)
​
Fiction
Patrick White
Voss (1957)
The Cockatoos (1974)
Thomas Keneally
Schindler's Ark (1982)
Peter Carey
Oscar and Lucinda (1988)
True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)
Parrot and Olivier in America (2010)
Bruce Courtenay
The Power of One (1989)
Richard Flanagan
Gould's Book of Fish (2002)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2014)
Markus Zusak
The Book Thief (2005)
​

Peru

​
Fiction
Mario Vargas Llosa
The Cubs (1958)
The Time of the Hero (The City and the Dogs) (1962)
The Green House (1966)
Conversation in the Cathedral (1969)
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977)
The War of the End of the World (1981)
The Feast of the Goat (2001)
The Bad Girl (2007)
​

Czechoslovakia

​
Poetry
Miroslav Holub
Collected Poems (1961-1998)
​
Fiction
Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
​

Canada

​
Poetry
Margaret Atwood
Eating Fire (1998)
Howard Norman & Jacob Nibenegenesabe
The Wishing Bone Cycle (1976)
​
Nonfiction
Leon Edel
Henry James (1953-1972)
Naomi Wolf
The Beauty Myth (1990)
Ian Hacking
The Taming of Chance (1990)
Naomi Klein
No Logo (1999)
The Shock Doctrine (2007)
​
Philosophy
Marshall McLuhan
Understanding Media (1964)
Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore
The Medium is the Message (1967)
​
Fiction
Margaret Atwood
Surfacing (1972)
Dancing Girls (1977)
The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
Wilderness Tips (1991)
The Blind Assassin (2000)
Oryx and Crake (2003)
The Year of the Flood (2009)
Alice Munro
The Beggar Maid (Who Do You Think You Are?) (1978)
The Progress of Love (1986)
Friend of My Youth (1990)
The Love of a Good Woman (1998)
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001)
Runaway (2004)
Too Much Happiness (2006)
Dear Life (2012)
Joy Kogawa
Obasan (1981)
William Gibson
Neuromancer (1984)
Mavis Gallant
Collected Stories (1996)
Douglas Coupland
Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture (1991)
Michael Ondaatje
The English Patient (1992)
Carol Shields
The Stone Diaries (1993)
Unless (2002)
Rohinton Mistry
A Fine Balance (1995)
Steven Erikson
Gardens of the Moon (1999)
Deadhouse Gates (2000)
Memories of Ice (2001)
House of Chains (2002)
Midnight Tides (2004)
The Bonehunters (2006)
Reaper's Gale (2007)
Toll the Hounds (2008)
Dust of Dreams (2009)
The Crippled God (2011)
Yann Martel
Life of Pi (2001)
Emma Donoghue
Room (2010)
Tom Rachman
The Imperfectionists (2010)
Emily St. John Mandel
Station Eleven (2014)
​

China

​
Poetry
Bei Dao
The August Sleepwalker (1988)
​
Nonfiction
Mao Zedong
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (1964)
​
Fiction
Liu Cixin
The Three-Body Problem (2008)
​
Plays
Gao Xingjian
The Other Shore (1990)
​

India

​
Nonfiction
Suketu Mehta
Maximum City (2004)
Vikram Seth
Two Lives (2005)
​
Fiction
Vikram Seth
A Suitable Boy (1993)
Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things (1997)
Kiran Desai
The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
​

Austria

​
Poetry
Ingeborg Bachmann
Collected Poems (2006)
​

St. Lucia

​
Poetry
Derek Walcott
Collected Poetry (2017)
​

Palestine

​
Nonfiction
Edward Said
Orientalism (1978)
​

Pakistan

​
Poetry
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Selected Poems (1984)
​

Zimbabwe

​
Fiction
Tsitsi Dangaremba
Nervous Conditions (1988)
​

Serbia

​
Poetry
Vasko Popa
Complete Poems (2011)
​

Portugal

​
Fiction
José Saramago
Blindness (1995)
​

Israel

​
Poetry
Yehuda Amichai
Complete Poems (2015)
​
Fiction
David Grossman
To the End of the Land (2010)
​

Spain

​
Fiction
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Shadow of the Wind (2001)
​

Senegal

​
Poetry
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Selected Poems (1977)
​

Sweden

​
Poetry
Lars Gustafsson
Selected Poems (2015)
​
Fiction
Stieg Larsson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005)
​

Sierra Leone

​
Nonfiction
Ishmael Beah
Long Way Gone (2007)
​

New Zealand

​
Fiction
Eleanor Catton
The Luminaries (2013)
​

Jamaica

​
Fiction
Marlon James
A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014)
​

Norway

​
Fiction
Karl Ove Knausgård
My Struggle (2014)

​

These are for lore, and are for specific characters in the variant class. Also some aren't real names, just stupid puns

Soldier

Camo Ranger - Wick R Chere
Super Commando - Duke N.M
Arctic Trooper - Jack
Sky Trooper - Dan
General Supremo - Ulysses
Centurion - Augustus the III
Tank Commander - Julian
Park Ranger - Burns
Scuba Soldier - Z. Chick

Scientist -

Chemist - Tim
Marine Biologist - Hillenburg
Physicist - Jules
Archeologist - Jameson
Dr Toxic - Curie
Astronaut - Armstrong
Paleontologist - Grant
Zoologist - DAMOCLES
Computer Scientist - Jesse

Engineer

Welder - Gus
Plumber - Bob
Painter - Bill
Landscaper - Jose
Mechanic - Al
Sanitation Expert - Barth
Electrician - Norville
Roadie Z - Josh
AC Perry - Perry

All-Star

Baseball Star - Jackie
Golf Star - Fred
Goalie Star - Evan
Rugby Star - Kramer
Wrestle Star - Enrique
Hockey Star - Ian
Cricket Star - Derrick
Tennis Star - Sal
Moto-X Star - Jackson

Peashooter

Fire Pea - Hunter
Agent Pea - Bond
Ice Pea - Floe
Law Pea - Eastwood
Toxic Pea - Olly
Commando Pea - Arnold
Plasma Pea - Lefran
Rock Pea - Geo
Electro Pea - Shane

Sunflower

Mystic Flower - Adnifv-jikl
Metal Petal - Mellanie
Power Flower - Vanessa
Sun Pharaoh - Cleo
Fire Flower - Hazel
Alien Flower - LPS
Shadow Flower - Umbra
Vampire Flower - Eva
Stuffy Flower - Patch

Chomper

Hot Rod Chomper - Ford
Count Chompula - Chompula
Toxic Chomper - Jay
Armor Chomper - Kordich
Fire Chomper - Hue
Power Chomper - Micah
Chomp Thing - Chomp Thing
Yeti Chomper - Bjorn
Disco Chomper - Chris

Cactus

Camo Cactus - Patricia
Future Cactus - Sarah
Fire Cactus - Rachel
Bandit Cactus - Terry
Ice Cactus - Claire
Power Cactus - Carrie
Jade Cactus - Qin
Zen Cactus - Helen
Petrified Cactus - Arizona

Super Brainz

Cozmic Brainz - Cosmo
Electro Brainz - Vinny
Toxic Brainz - Hank
Breakfast Brainz - Pan
Party Brainz - Cole

Imp

Lil’ Drake - Arthur
Pylon Imp - Buzz
S.H.R.Imp - Marv
Z7-Imp - Shepherd
Party Imp - Jeremy
Scallywag Imp - Kidd

Captain Deadbeard

Captain Cannon - Cannon
Captain Flameface - Flameface
Captain Sharkbite - Sharkbite
Captain Squawk - Squawk
Captain Partyman - Partyman

Kernel Corn

BBQ Corn - Moe
Mob Cob - Tony
Pops Corn - Sanders
Commando Corn - Rich
Party Corn - Jeff

Citron

Frozen Citron - Warren
Electro Citron - Tarren
Iron Citron - Cox
Toxic Citron - Melvin
Party Citron - Lyle

Rose

Druid Rose - Dwig
Fire Rose - France
Frost Rose - Olivia
Nec’Rose - Evelyn
Party Rose - Cassy

Mis-Gnome-r Names

Soldier

ZWAT Lackey - Walt

Scientist

Coocoo Culinarian - Ramsey

Engineer

Dionytyr - Dionytyr

All-Star

Uncle Zam Star - Zamzon

Peashooter

Primal Pea - Joel

Sunflower

Toxic Twins - Harkness and Jill

Cactus

Blighty Barrel Cactus - Beaux

Chomper

Pizza Chomper - Andre

Super Brainz

Flamin’ Brainz - Carlos
Frosty Brainz - Isabelle

Imp

Ancient Z-gimptian - Ramses
Ye Olde Yeti Imp - Leif

Captain Deadbeard

Cpt. Smasher’s Quartermaster - Unknown
Captain Space Worthy - Branigan

Kernel Corn

Atomi-Cob - Barley
Sub-Par Maize Mariner - Adrian

Citron

Magma-rin Orange - Heath
Eldritch Abomin-Orange - Garr

Rose

Reincarnation - Caroline
Elect-Rose - Nora

Electric Slide

Beat Dropper - Beatrix
TrailBlazer - Angie
Downhill Jingle Slide - Illy
Downpour Dancer - Piper
Sludge Slide - Hills

80s Action Hero

Rip N’ Ride Road Hog - John
Admiral Atom Bomb - Dion
Slope Runner - Felix
Cretaceous Action Hero - Ugg
Rust Bolt - Brown

Space Cadet

Carapace Cadet - Beats
Spaceus Cadetus - Gluok
Asteroid Miner - Milly
Salty Sea Dweller - Nessie
Infernal Inventor - Sally

Snapdragon

Coldsnap Dragon - Gideon
Ashtronaut - Yuri
Smog - Smog
Hydrongea - Issac
Leafiathan - Michael

Acorn and Oak

Aflame-Corn and Torch Wood - Nemo and Marlin
Tricorn and Gunwale Willow - George and Benedict
Seedvil and The Screaming Holloak - Double H and Bradbury
Acorn of the Skies and Zpreus - Apollo and Zpreus
Holid-Acorn and Driftwood - Phil and Sloan

Night Cap

Gas-Cap - Nixon
Ice Cap - Andromeda
Sap Cap - Drew
Knight Cap - Anita
The Inconceivable Night Cape - Diana

Bombardier

Intoxicating Idiot - Locke
Murky Marauder - Pascal
Molten Muertos - Cruz
DJ Disco Dude - DeeDee
Tesla Terminator - Buck

Gadgeteer

Ash Blaster - Zoe
Gooey Gadget Ghoul - Melissa
Brain Shake Barista - Pearl
Sherlock Bones - Sherlock Bones
Storm Chaser - Veronica

Gargangster

King of the Grill - Walter
Frankantuar’s Frankantumonster - Ivan
Mad Mobster - Giuseppe
Texas Dead - Clint
Blizzard Burr-zerker - Ragnar

Wall Knight

Combust-nut - Rick
CAAA-SHOO! - Larry
Iron Maiden - Reese
Rust Nut - McGillicutty
Chess Nut - Boris

Commander Cabbage

Private Pepper - Percy
Major Melon - Wanda
Dusk Lobber Lieutenant - Dutchess
Sap-Fling Sergeant - Sergio
Colonel Pult - Lee

Starfruit Fighter

Rainbow Star Fruit - Silly Spectrum Stark
Star Frost - Niall
Malevolent Fruit - Heisenberg
Star Power - Mick
Char Fruit - Cory

CHRISTMAS WITH THE REJECTS

A tribute to Pillows’s The Rejects
~
A little fluffy was seated in her room, slowing shifting through the paper landscape of words with her hoof. Her fluff was a bright cyan, and covered most of her body, though her legs had comparatively a little less fluff. Her mane had a stronger shade of blue, matching that of the sea, and her eyes were purple and wide-opened. Her name was Petal, and she was doing the one thing that she enjoyed the most, reading. Besides her was a dark green adult fluffy mare named PJ, who was much older than Petal by many, many months. A very motherly figure, PJ was saddled with the terrible disadvantage of having none of her limbs intact. Although this has hindered much of her mobility, PJ still retained much of her intelligence, another reason why she too enjoyed reading with her adoptive foal. Nestled in a bed not too far from them was a purple mare with a lavender mane. Her name was Pelusa, and as of late she had maintained a bit of distance from the other two, though she would still try her best to help out the disabled PJ.
There was a soft creak as the door of the playroom opened. The light sound marked the arrival of two human legs in brown pants, socks and shoes entering the room.
“Huwwo mummah!” greeted PJ in excitement, upon seeing her owner.
“Good morning PJ!”
Petal, however, was deeply engrossed with her book. But it couldn’t be helped, for Petal was deaf. Understanding this disability, Patricia lightly tapped Petal on her back. The cyan foal quickly turned around. However, and upon seeing her owner, she gave off a huge smile, and stretched out her forelimbs. Since she was still an adolescent, she was not big enough to give her human a proper hug. Patricia carried Petal into her arm, and from there, let Petal hug her face.
Patricia was here for a reason. Usually, she would mime an instruction in a simplified form of sign language. However, the question would be too complex to attempt in the rudimentary sign language that Petal had been learning. So instead, she passed Petal a piece of paper. Scrawled on it was a picture of a woman, carrying two fluffies, and going aboard the bus. The second panel then had the woman and her two fluffies walking about the two, carrying shopping bags. It was a very simple comic, but it gave off the silent question that she wanted to pose to Petal: I am going out to see do some Christmas shopping, do you want to come?
Petal, being accustomed to these comics from her owner, took no more than a minute to understand the message. Turning to her owner, she then quickly nodded, shaking her tail in approval. Pelusa, yawning in her bed, was a little curious as to the occasion.
“Why am mummah goin’ out dis bwite time?”
“Why it’s going to be Christmas, PJ. We’re going for a little shopping.”
PJ’s smile faded a little when she heard one of those words.
“What about you PJ? You want to come?”
PJ shook her head, as she explained, “Fw-fwuffy nu feew wewww, Mummah. Fwuffy wan stay at homesies.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be back soon, okay? Pelusa, please keep an eye on PJ as usual.”
“Otay, mummah.”
As the door closed, PJ felt a little troubled by what she heard. Trying to get her mind off it, she returned to book that she had been reading with Petal earlier. And yet, her mind couldn’t get off that word that was mentioned.
~
Petal’s eyes were wide and bright. She always enjoyed going out with Patricia, and even though she couldn’t hear the sounds of the world, she was deeply engrossed with the glimpses of the world that she could see through the bus window. And even on the bus, there were all kinds of people, fluffies and animals that boarded, whether it was an old man in a suit, a young human boy and his fluffy, or a slightly older human girl and her dog. Petal noticed that the human girl was wearing a red dress, black buttons, with what looked white fluff at the end of the sleeve. Overall, the suit resembled the sort that Sanny Cwaws (or Santa Claus, as the humans call him), would wear. Petal was fascinated by the suit, so fascinated that when both Patricia and Petal got off the bus, Petal wanted to get another look at the girl in the “Sanny Cwaws dwess”.
As befitting the holiday season, the hypermarket was filled with all kinds of Christmas ornaments and items. From baubles to eggnog to tinsel, Christmas items and discounts were all the rage. Even the hugtoys that were on sale had a Christmas flair to it – some hugtoys were based off reindeer, some of Christmas elves, and of course, some based off Sanny Cwaws. Petal was amazed at the different toys and clothes that were being sold. And the one thing that caught her eye was some of the clothes that were on sale. It was a special coat, which could be worn by a foal but was large enough that it could be worn by an adult like a vest. The coat resembled the dress which she saw the human girl wearing. Wagging her tail, she was wondering if she could get a coat like that.
“Why hello there little fluffy! Would you like that suit?” said the shop assistant.
But Petal could only wag her tail, focusing her eyes on the suit in anticipation.
“Hello?” asked the puzzled the shop assistant, trying her best to get Petal’s attention.
Patricia, seeing the confused shop assistant trying to get Petal’s attention, came up and explained to him, “She can’t hear you. My fluffy was born deaf.”
Realizing his unintentional error, the assistant quickly adopted an apologetic tone.
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear.”
“Yeah. She was born without an ear drum or even an ear canal. She basically is unable to develop any hearing whatsoever.”
“That’s terrible to hear!”
“It is a little. But Petal’s a bit of a smart cookie.”
Patricia gets on her knees, and slowly taps on Petal’s back. Pointing at the coat, she then points to Petal, and mimics putting the coat on. Petal, understanding the motion, nods. With her limb, she points to the coat, then to herself, and makes a same mimicking of putting the coat on.
~
Now back at home, Petal liked the suit that Patricia had gotten for her. Since she was now an adolescent foal, Petal fit into the coat rather nicely, with the entire cloth covering her body. The coat also came with a hat, but it looked a little silly. Looking at herself in the mirror, Petal stood on her hind legs and took a few poses, admiring how fancy she looked. And what made her even happier was that Patricia bought a matching hugtoy to go with the coat she wanted!
With her two hands, Patricia posed the question to Petal. Even though it was in a physical language of emotion, and entirely reliant on hand signals, Patricia knew the question that she was miming to Petal.
“Do you like the suit that I got for you?”
Petal was beaming a great smile, as she clapped with her two hooves. She danced about, and then proudly picked up one of the cards that Patricia had placed on the floor earlier. And the one card she picked was the heart symbol. It was a lot of actions, but Patricia could somewhat understand what Petal was trying to say, if she could talk.
“Fwuffy wub mummah pwesent!”
A moment later, Patricia had brought Petal back into the play room where Paloosa and PJ were. Even though PJ knew that Petal couldn’t hear her, she couldn’t help herself.
“Petaw am pwitty! Pwitty, Pwity fwuffy!!”
Paloosa, however, just rolled her eyes. Paloosa had been generally avoiding Petal for a good long while now.
“Oh that reminds me, PJ. Petal saw this cute little hugtoy in the shop, and wanted me to get it for you.”
As Patricia said this, she showed PJ the hugtoy. It was similar to the blue hugtoy, the one that Petal often carried around, but this hugtoy was red, and had a white mane. Due to its similarity to Kris Kringle, Petal was very keen to get it as a gift for her favourite mummah fluffy, PJ.
“It… It am nice.”
However, upon seeing the hugtoy, PJ’s smile started to weaken. Petal could see the tear coming from her eye, and her tail was no longer wagging. For supposed happiness, it was too subdued.
Going up to PJ, she gives the fluffy a hug and licked her tears, trying her best to console her. Acknowledging the hug, PJ softly whispered, “Guud babbeh.”
But it was not enough. Despite Petal’s hug, PJ kept crying. Pelusa, who had been watching the events, walked up in front Petal. Our little cyan foal cowered – the relationship between the two had been strained due to an earlier incident a few months back.
However, and with great restraint, Pelusa merely slammed her hoof down. She then took the offending hugtoy into her mouth, and carried it into her own private bed. Following this, she then went up to the crying PJ, and started to hug her. While doing so, she softly whispered in her ear, “Nu cwy nao, dummeh toy am gone.”
Feeling a little awkward, Patricia carried Petal away. Perhaps tonight, it would be better if Petal slept in a different room.
~
But Petal couldn’t sleep that night. Staying up, in Patricia’s room, she wondered to herself, “Wai Mummah PJ nu wike Kissmas?”
She felt guilty. She felt like as though she tapped into some raw nerve that PJ had. The three fluffies had gone through a lot this year, as they themselves had lost a family member not too long ago. Even though PJ and her had moved on from the death of the young Punkie, Pelusa still couldn’t let go, and became even more resentful of Petal.
Petal was at a loss. She hated to see PJ be upset. And she hated that Pelusa was still ostracizing her. But what could she do? Petal slowly pondered, as the moonlight shone on Patricia’s study table, which had some blank pieces of paper, and a few pencils.
Suddenly, PJ had an idea. Not exactly a new idea. But it felt like a good idea. An idea that might work. She didn’t know how long she had left, but she was going to try her best at it.
~
It was an early Christmas morning, and Patricia was feeling particularly lazy. Even though she slept early last night, for some inexplicable reason, she felt even more lethargic. Checking her watch, she was surprised to find out that it was 10 in the morning. Getting out of the bed, she was about to wake Petal up, when she realized that the cyan foal was not in the pet bed. A tinge of fear widened her eyes and alerted her body, as she panicked. This was not the first time something like this had happened, and she didn’t want to lose yet another one of her precious fluffies.
But thankfully, she was able to see that Petal was on top of the study, fast asleep. Wondering how she got there, Patricia walked towards her study table.
There were two blank pieces of paper, on which she was going to make into cards to send to her relatives. But somehow, Petal was able to use a combination of pens, pencils and markers to draw two different pictures. Simply put, the two pictures were a separate portrait of Pelusa and PJ. But what caught Patricia off-guard was the amount of detail and skill that each drawing had. Despite working with her mouth, despite the limited art materials she was working with, Petal had produced two really impressive art pieces, far outdoing anything she had done before. While they weren’t lifelike, they were a lot better than the typical childlike scribbles she drew every day. Looking at the two images, she wondered what spark of divine ability had come over Petal the previous night.
~ >Deep, dark, dank. PJ hated everything about the cage she was placed in. Forcibly taken away at a young age, her limbs were removed, and she was given special hugs against her will. And all around her, she could hear various human voices repeating that dreaded word.
>“Hurry up, bitches! Its Christmas, and we got a quota to fill!”
>Every day, the humans came, checking up on the mares who were trying to raise the foals that they had birthed. Whether they were bad colours or good, these humans came in, took what they wanted, regardless of how they felt. And because the breeder mares were amputated, there was nothing they could do. It was especially worse for PJ, because her latest foal was so pretty with his nice red coat. The coat reminded her of a story she had heard of, many ages ago. And it was one that the Hasbio employee recognized.
>“Why, this foal looks like Santa Claus.”
>As the takes the foal away, PJ could only wail out loud, as she screams a loud,
“NO!!”
But it was morning. PJ was no longer in that terrible mill, she was now safe, a rescued mare living under the care of the kindly Patricia. But it was Christmas. And PJ hated Christmas.
Just then, Patricia entered the room. Having heard PJ’s sudden cry, she was a little worried.
“PJ, are you okay?”
“PJ am otay,” said PJ, trying to reassure her owner. “Am jus’ PJ hab a bad dweam.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
PJ shook her head, as she asserted, “Nuu.”
“I understand.”
Patricia stroked the mane of poor pillowed fluffy. Seeking to cheer her up, Patricia removed one of the cards that was tucked under her arm.
“Petal did this last night.”
At first. PJ thought it was a photograph, one of those magic pictures that the humans could make. But looking carefully, PJ realized that this was a drawing done with a mixture of pencil, pens and markers. It was better then anything she had drawn before.
“Mummah dwew this?” she asked, most likely having missed Patricia’s earlier statement.
“No, PJ. Petal did. She was thinking of you.”
Her eyes filled with wonder, PJ could only manage a simple word.
“Wu-wu-wubwy.”
Getting up, Patricia showed Pelusa the other portrait that Petal worked on. The purple mare, usually unempathetic, was struck by awe.
“Guud babbeh.”
“She really worked hard, you know. I know you miss Punkie, Pelusa, but Petal still loves you.”
~
It was the later afternoon. Patricia was spending most of the day preparing the dishes for the Christmas dinner. One of the first to turn up was her Aunt Mable.
“Merry Christmas, Pat.”
“Merry Christmas, Auntie Mabel!”
As this was going on, Pillows was on top of PJ. Within a specific area of the living room, a simple race track had been set up, and the duo of Pillows and PJ were riding around on a specialized scooter that PJ was piloting. It was their favourite activity, and today it felt even more fun, as it was Christmas. And on the sofa, Pelusa rested, her eye on the duo. She still had her misgivings about Petal, but she did feel better about her now.

Monarch's loyalty is inspiring. Patricia is so lucky to have someone like that behind her... right behind her...
The rest of the series can be found here
***
“I thought she was going to kill me,” a young woman gasped as she staggered down a corridor supported by Monarch.
“That is because she was,” Monarch smirked. “Had I not gotten involved, they would be mopping you off of the deck.”
“Thank you,” the woman said quietly.
“Whatever,” Monarch shrugged.
“...Why?”
“Because she has gone bugshit crazy this time,” Monarch replied, “and we are short handed enough as it is thanks to Herself’s ‘boyfriend’ and his goddamn nuke for hire.
Monarch grimaced.
“He fucking gutted us… and she let him,” Monarch scowled, “She insisted on handling the Federation side personally… insisted…”
Monarch looked at the communicator she held in her other hand, checking to make sure that “Her Ladyship” was still heading the other way.
“And now look at us,” she continued. “I worked on this plan for years… years!… All of it… all of it… down the fucking drain. Do you have any idea what I had to do to pull all of this off?”
“N-no, Bloodlord,” the young woman stammered, causing Monarch to laugh. People answering rhetorical questions always tickled her for some reason.
It was quite welcome. She desperately needed that.
“How are you holding up?” Monarch asked with surprising gentleness.
“I’m… I’m fine...”
“Bullshit,” Monarch replied as she half drug the woman, barely in her twenties, into a vacant office and gently lowered her into the office chair.
“Looks like your ankle is at least sprained,” Monarch said as she looked at the rapidly swelling joint, “At least you know how to fall properly. It should have been worse.”
She looked to her side and smiled.
“Oh, hello Andrees,” she said in Mandarin to the young looking man cowering under his desk. “How’s the day treating you?”
“I have had better ones,” the man replied. “Bloodlord...”
“Yes?”
“Considering today’s events,” he said thoughtfully, “could we revisit our previous discussion?”
“Absolutely, Andrees,” Monarch smiled. “In fact, a small favor could go a long way towards cementing your position.”
“And what would that be?” he replied raising an eyebrow.
“Could you make your way to the med bay and fetch us a hover-chair?”
“Um...” Andrees said as he slid further back behind his desk.
Monarch laughed again.
“No guts no glory,” she laughed. “Where is the man I once knew?”
“Hiding under his desk,” Andrees replied. “It’s nice down here.”
“Give me your phone,” Monarch said.
She took the phone and tapped it to hers.
“There,” she said, “that is an active map of Herself’s location. As you can see Typhoon Hu is a safe distance away.”
Andrees wiggled out from under his desk and brushed himself off.
“I will return shortly, Bloodlord,” he said calmly.
“I think that title has little relevance now, don’t you?” Monarch replied, “Just use my name when we are in private.”
“Yes, Monarch,” he replied.
“Oh God, that sounds even worse!” Monarch laughed.
She paused for a moment.
“You know what,” she said with a wistful smile…
“In private, call me Sarnai.”
Andrees raised his eyebrow.
“Certainly, Ms. Sarnai,” he replied with a smile and respectful nod.
He looked at the communicator once more before darting out into the hallway.
***
“Was she always like this?” the young woman asked.
“Patricia?” Sarnai asked, “Oh no, young one.”
She looked nowhere for a moment and smiled.
“She was...”
She sighed.
“She was magnificent,” Sarnai said sadly. “She was everything they said she was… and more. She was… Goddamn, child… She was a force of nature, a being of true power and grace, a leader, a warlord, an avenging angel sent from heaven itself.”
Sarnai’s mask slipped a little revealing sadness and regret.
“Back then, I would follow her into the fires of hell and consider it an honor to do so. Fuck, I did follow her into the fires of hell and thanked God himself for the privilege. But...”
She sighed again.
“Things change. They always do.”
“What happened?” the young woman asked.
“To this day I’m not entirely sure,” Sarnai shrugged. “At first, she led us into every battle and laid waste to the foe, sometimes killing more than the rest of us combined. It was almost as if we were there simply to help carry the loot.”
She smiled sadly at the recollection.
“Then, as we expanded,” Sarnai continued, “things started to change. She led us into battle less and less and stared into that goddamned locket more and more. It was if… I don’t know… she lost… something and that glorious fire within her started to gutter out. It was about then that she started becoming less of a warlord and more of a cult leader. She spent more and more of her days preaching to the ever growing crowd and riding around on that stupid horse looking pretty and less time actually planning and leading raids.”
Sarnai scowled.
“That’s what us ‘Bloodlords’ were for. She said that her time was much better spent training the new soldiers. She just hung out in her fancy new martial-arts ‘temple’ and beat the shit out of people calling it ‘training’. For awhile that’s exactly what she did but a little while later she left that to her best students… and the quality of the troops we started getting suffered for it.”
“By the end of the Sol Wars,” Sarnai said, “all she really did was ride around on that stupid fucking horse surrounded by her elite bodyguard, which we really could have used in the field, testing people’s ‘resolve’. By that I mean torturing and killing people who didn’t have a single hope in hell of fighting back in the name of ‘finding the worthy’. She started believing the hype and started viewing herself as this weird anti-messiah.”
Sarnai smiled ruefully.
“We were never ‘good’. I mean, we were fucking raiders in all but name. We all made the resolution to do whatever we had to do in order to survive, no matter what that may be. It was fucked up, sure, but so was everything else. There was a simple honesty in that.”
She sighed.
“Funny thing is when we were just fighting for survival, things were good, she was ‘good’. Only later, when we had the guns, when we had the ships, when we built settlements that could feed an army that things started to rot. We could have just protected our settlements and rode out the whole goddamn thing as heroes but no… The blood drinker needed meat for her table and blood for her sick little tea parties. Those same rituals started attracting the worst of people to join us, people who were all too happy to worship her. For me, it was what it always was, a business, but for far too many others...”
She shrugged.
“What’s done is done, right?”
Sarnai smiled at the young woman as she looked at Sarnai wide eyed.
“Not quite the history lesson you were taught, huh?” Sarnai chuckled. “I didn’t mind, though. For me, it was always a business. First it was the ‘business’ of survival and then it was just… business. For all her batshit pseudo-mysticism Patricia Hu was a motherfucking genius when it came to people. The personality cult she created kept the whole machine running smoothly and she was the perfect figurehead for our little band of monsters. After the wars, her political and business expertise… with a little help from the rest of us… Set us up quite nicely.”
Sarnai smiled ruefully.
“Now, all of that is gone. Everything we built is coming down around us… What is your name anyway?”
“Petal, Blood… I mean Ms. Sarnai.”
“Everything is coming down around us, Petal,” Sarnai said in a matter of fact tone. “The plan that I spent so many years crafting has failed. The conspirators have been compromised. The prime minister wouldn’t have said what she said if they weren’t. We are under constant surveillance thanks to the drones placed to ‘protect’ us and can no longer move what little is left. Perhaps worst of all, Her Ladyship has gone completely mad. I can’t keep that secret for much longer and when the news breaks so does what’s left of our organization. She is our ‘will to fight’ and it is gone. I needn’t tell you what that means.”
She looked at Petal.
“You’re one of Hassan’s aren’t you?”
“He’s my great great grandfather, ma’am.”
“He was a good man,” Sarnai replied. “Because of that, I will give you the same offer a once great woman gave me so very long ago. Come with me. I cannot promise victory or even survival. I can only promise that we have the resolve to survive. If you have the same, you are welcome.”
“Ms. Sarnai?!?”
“Based on intel that I haven’t shared,” Sarnai said in a matter of fact tone, “It’s time to go. It’s past time to go. Patricia Hu and the Red Phoenix organization is done. When we depart, it will likely not escape the prime minister’s notice. You aren’t familiar with the real prime minister but I can assure you that you do not want to be here if that happens.”
Sarnai smiled wickedly.
“You also don’t want to be here once Her Ladyship gets even more bad news. She has another especially nasty surprise on the way that makes Jon’s honey bunny pale in comparison. She is going to freak… So, are you in?”
“But what about the treatments?” Petal asked. “Aren’t you condemning yourself to death if you leave?”
“Got that covered,” Sarnai replied, “You’ve just seen how Herself responds to bad news. Life for the researchers hasn’t been all that great here lately. I only had to offer them a way for them and their families to escape. I’m taking the treatment with me and I will be the one to continue research on the issue, not her. You probably don’t want to be around when she finds that one out either.”
Sarnai chuckled as her butterflies seemed to flutter happily.
“It probably doesn’t matter. From what I understand the damage is in every single cell and quite simply cannot be repaired. All of us who drank from that cup are doomed. That is why it is essential that we bring along people untouched by our foolishness, people like you. I’ve accepted my death but I simply cannot accept the death of the organization that I helped create and for which so many friends of mine have died. Red Phoenix is in flames and from its ashes a new one will rise. You can be a part of that. You can ride free as we once did, as your ancestor once did. It won’t be without risk and I can guarantee nothing other than a good time because it will be. If there is one drop of Hassan’s blood in you it will be.”
Sarnai extended her hand.
“So,” she smiled, “are you in?”
Petal took her hand, nodded, and shook it.
Andrees entered the room pushing a floating chair.
“Perfect timing,” Sarnai said cheerfully. “Andrees, this is Petal. She is working with us, now.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Petal.”

20 more serial killers active in the United States. The purpose of these posts is to show that serial killers have been, and still are active in America beyond the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Hope you all find this interesting!
----------------
-Christian Fuhr: Columbus, OH serial killer who was active in late 2001, strangling 3 female sex workers to death. The first victim was 29-year old Kimberly Rogers, who's body was found in a corn field. Later that month, the body of 30-year old Shawna Sowers was found at a construction site not far from the first victim's body was dumped. Several days later, Fuhr strangled 36-year old Lisa Crow and left her body in a dumpster behind a business. Each victim was found with a similar pattern of bruising around their necks.
Christain Fuhr
​
-David Bruce: Another Columbus, OH serial killer who was active in early 2005, killing 3 women. Like the previous killer, he targeted female sex workers. The partially clothed bodies of the first two victims were found in wooded areas along the same stretch of road. Both had been strangled. The final victim was lured into a house that was under construction and stabbed to death.
David Bruce
​
-Daniel Jones: Home-invading serial killer Daniel Jones brutally murdered 4 women in their Kansas City, MO homes from 1998 to 2001. His crimes were gruesome and shocking, though he is very little-known. In 1998, 19-year old Jenai Douglas was stabbed to death in her apartment. In 1999, 21-year old Kaliquah Gilliam was found stabbed to death in her duplex in a similar manner. Later that year, 21-year old Roxanne Colley was murdered in her home. Jones broke a back window to get inside, where he raped and beat Colley before cutting her throat. In 2001, 19-year old Candriea White was found laying in a pool of blood on her kitchen floor. She died of multiple stab wounds and a slashed throat. Jones was linked to the murders via DNA and fingerprints.
Daniel Jones
​
-Clifton Bloomfield: Small time actor and serial killer who was active in Albuquerque, NM from 2005 to 2008, killing 5 people. Bloomfield had minor parts in a few movies, and was an extra in Breaking Bad. He murdered both men and women in their homes, and is fairly infamous in New Mexico, though few have heard of him outside of that state. In 2005, he strangled a man to death in his apartment, claiming he did it because the man had made sexual advances on him. Just two days later, he strangled an elderly woman to death in her bed. After these first two murders, he played a convict in a movie called Felon. In 2007, Bloomfield murdered an elderly couple in their home. The husband had been stomped to death, and the wife died from asphyxiation. His final victim was a man who was found shot to death in his home in 2008. In 2017, Bloomfield started a prison riot that resulted in a guard having his throat slit, though miraculously the guard survived
Clifton Bloomfield
​
-Jorge Torrez: Active from 2005 to 2007, raping and murdering 3 female victims. He is the perpetrator of the horrific slayings of 8-year old Laura Hobbs and 9-year old Krystal Tobias in Zion, IL. Both girls went missing after going for a bike ride on Mothers Day of 2005. Both were found in a wooded area of a park, and had been stabbed numerous times in the face, neck, and abdomen, and their eyeballs had been gouged out. Torres was only 16 years old when he committed the double murder. In 2007, he strangled 20-year old Amanda Snell to death in her barracks at the Henderson Hall USMC installation in Arlington, VA. He also stalked multiple young women in the Arlington, VA area, one of which was abducted, driven to a rural area, gagged with duct tape, raped, and choked, though she survived the attack which led to his arrest. Some sources list him as Jorge-Avila Torrez.
Jorge Torrez
​
-Matthew Macon: Terrorized the city of Lansing, MI from 2004 to 2007, raping and killing 7 women, most of whom died of blunt force trauma to the head. Macon killed women who lived alone by knocking on their doors, and would then force his way inside when they opened the door, though he also attacked and killed sex workers in vacant houses and neighborhood parks. Police suspect that Macon first murdered 45-year old Barbara Tuttle in her home in 2004, but he has never been charged with her murder. The next victim was 60-year old Carolyn Kronenburg, a professor at Lansing Community College, who was found raped, strangled, and beaten to death inside her classroom in 2005. Investigators noted that an "electronic device" had been inserted into her vagina. She was the only victim who wasn't attacked in a residential area. The other 5 victims were all murdered in 2007, the first of which was 76-year old Ruth Hallman, who was fatally bludgeoned with a hammer in her home in July. The next month, the body of 36-year waitress and sex worker old Deborah Cooke was found under a tree in Hunter Park, sexually assaulted and fatally beaten. Just a few days later, 46-year old Debra Renfors was found beaten to death in her home, which happened to be the same house where Barbara Tuttle was murdered in 2004. In late August, he stabbed 64-year old Sandra Eichorn to death in her home. His final victim, sex worker Katherine Delgado-Yates was killed just days later, and was found tortured and beaten to death with a porcelain toilet lid inside a vacant home. Macon was later linked to several rapes that occurred in Lansing dating back to 2004 and prior. Macon is sometimes inaccurately listed as having killed 6 women, rather than 7.
Matthew Macon
​
-Dmitriy Yakovlev: AKA the Dracula Killer. Russian immigrant, identity thief, and serial killer who was active in New York City, NY from 2003 to 2006, murdering 3 people. His wife was an accomplice as well. The first victim was retired NYPD mechanic Michael Klein, who went missing just before Yakevlov and his wife were about to buy property from him, and was never seen again. In 2005, their neighbor, a man named Viktor Alekseyev went missing, and his dismembered remains were later found in garbage bags, dumped in the woods of a New Jersey nature preserve. A creepy "Dracula" halloween mask was found resting on leaves near the garbage bags, and may have been worn by the killer. Dmitry Yakovlev's final victim was Irina Malezhik, who left her apartment after receiving a phone call from Yakovlev, and was never seen again. Yakovlev and his wife were caught buying expensive luxury watches using Malezhik's credit card, and a pair of her underwear was found in the basement of their home.
Dmitry Yakovlev
​
-LaMarques McWilliams: AKA the Acres Homes Killer or the World's Dumbest Serial Killer. Active in and around the Acres Homes neighborhood of Houston, TX from 2006 to 2008, LaMarques McWilliams is believed to be responsible for the murders of 7 female sex workers. He is most well-known for the hilariously stupid way he was caught, though the validity of that story is questionable, and I will elaborate below. Each victim was raped, and then stabbed or strangled to death. Investigators noted that several of the dump sites were near neighborhood churches. The first victim was 50-year old Pamela Goss, who was found fatally stabbed in a brushy area behind Pine Grove Church in March of 2006. The next month, the nude body of 21-year old Jasmine Clark was also found dumped near Pine Grove Church. Her death was initially ruled as an overdose, though McWilliams was later linked to her death. The next victim was 45-year old Vanessa Franklin, who was found beaten and strangled to death near New Mount Calvary Church. In June, the body of 42-year old Patricia Duffy-Garcia was found along a dirt road in a wooded lot near the Church of God. Just two days later, the skeletal remains of 31-year old Lisa Holland were found in a ditch at a construction site. In July, 21-year old Lakita Stubblefield was found stabbed to death in a grassy area behind a restaurant. He didn't kill again until June of 2008, when 29-year old Pourcia Turner was found stabbed to death in a field near Acres Homes. McWilliams was finally caught in 2009, when he bound an 18-year old sex worker and put her in the trunk of his car before driving to an isolated field, where his car became stuck in the mud. What happened next is unclear, as some sources say that he let the girl out and told her to press the gas petal while he pushed the car, and was subsequently left behind when the vehicle became unstuck and she simply drove away. Other sources say he left to go find help, and the would-be victim was able to kick out a back window and run away, calling police, who later found McWilliams still trying to get his car unstuck. His coworkers were shocked by his arrest, saying that he was polite, hard-working, and well-liked, though mentioned that he would sometimes show up to work with unexplained scratches on his face. McWilliams is frequently but inaccurately listed as having killed 6 women, rather than 7.
LaMarques McWilliams
​
-Brian Davis: Houston, TX serial killer who was also active in and around the Acres Homes neighborhood, murdering 3 female sex workers throughout 2007, the one year that LaMarques McWilliams was not active. He is suspected of first killing 26-year old Candice Douglas, who's body was found in June under a bridge, with her shirt on inside-out as if someone had re-dressed her, though her death was initially ruled to be an overdose. However, Brian Davis later confessed to a friend that he murdered her. In August, he abducted 25-year old Kandus Hightower-Sharp and drove her to a rural road and stabbed her, doused her in gas, and set her on fire. Her autopsy revealed that the stabbing was not fatal, and she was still alive when she was set on fire. The next month, 18-year old Willie Jones was last seen getting into a car matching the description of one owned by Davis at the time. Her body was later found on top of a trash pile in Acres Homes. She had been strangled to death. Davis is only convicted of the the Kandus Hightower-Sharp murder, though police believe he is responsible for all 3.
Brian Davis
​
-John Thomson: Active during the summer of 2006, John Thomson murdered 3 people in the western United States. In early July, he encountered 73-year old James Ehrgott at a park in Spokane, WA and kidnapped him, driving him to a rural area in his own car before fatally shooting him and leaving his body under a bridge. Thomson kept Ehrgott's vehicle and credit cards. Later that month, 36-year old Lori Hamm went missing from Longview, WA. Her body was later found in a wooded area, and she had been shot to death. In early August, 55-year old Charles Hedlund picked Thomson up when he saw him walking down the side of a road in rural San Bernadino County, CA. Hedlund's blood-soaked pickup truck was later found abandoned in the Cajon Pass area, and his body was found hidden under branches and brush. He had been stabbed multiple times, his throat was cut, and his tongue was almost completely severed. Thomson is also linked to at least 3 rapes, and has been described as a "sexual psychopath".
John Thomson
​
-Samuel Cooper: Robber and serial killer who shot and killed 5 men in Raleigh, NC from 2006 to 2007. 43-year old shopkeeper Osama Haj-Hussein was found dead in the bathroom of his business following a robbery in May of 2006. The following month, 40-year old cleaning contractor LeRoy Jernigan was fatally shot during a robbery at a restaurant. He didn't kill again until April of 2007, when he broke into the apartment of 34-year old Timothy Barnwell, where he bound the victim while he burglarized the residence. Barnwell tried to escape by jumping off of his balcony, but was shot to death. In October of that same year, police found the body of 50-year old homeless man Ricky High near St. Augustine's College. Cooper says he shot him because the victim was simply "in the wrong place at the wrong time." His final victim was 52-year old grocery store employee Tariq Hussain, who was fatally shot during a robbery.
Samuel Cooper
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-Willie Hodges: Active from 2001 to 2003, Willie Hodges murdered 3 people in 3 different states. In 2001, he murdered 58-year old Patricia Belanger in her Pensacola, FL home. She had been stabbed and beaten to death with a hammer. Later that year, he shot and killed 66-year old Winnie Johnson while burglarizing her home in rural Sumter County, AL. In 2003, he followed 81-year old Laverne Jensen into her apartment in Cincinnati, OH and murdered her. She had been raped, stabbed, and beaten, and bite marks were found on her body.
Willie Hodges
​
-Ronald Dominque: AKA the Bayou Strangler. Prolific serial killer who was active in Louisiana from 1997 to 2006, Ronald Dominique raped and strangled 23 men and teenage boys, making him one of the most prolific serial killers of the 2000s. Dominique claimed his victims in and around New Orleans, and in smaller bayou towns and communities such as Houma and Bayou Blue. Some of his victims were male sex workers who he would bind with ligatures while having sex with them, before strangling them to death. While all of his victims were male, not all were gay, and he lured some of the victims into his vehicle and trailer home by offering them drugs, or telling them that he could take them to a girl he knew who wanted to have sex with them. Once inside, they would be overpowered or knocked unconscious by blows to the head before being raped and strangled. Ronald Dominique dumped his victims in wooded areas, ditches, sugar cane fields, and various bodies of water. Other disposal sites he used included a dumpster, an empty storage unit, and underneath a highway overpass. Dominique enjoyed being involved in community outreach, and volunteered as a bingo announcer at retirement homes. Once arrested, many people who knew him couldn't believe that someone so mild-mannered, meek, and seemingly kind could have killed 23 people.
Ronald Dominique
​
-Ralph Faba: Active in St. Augustine, FL from 1999 to 2000, killing 3 people. In 1999, he strangled his father to death and hung his body from a tree in a wooded area near the family home, and his death was initially ruled a suicide. In early 2000, his 25-year old girlfriend Angela Eakins went missing. Later that same year, Faba abducted and murdered 16-year Angela Durling, and was charged and convicted of her murder a short time later. Faba led authorities to the body of Angela Eakins years later, and her skeletal remains were recovered from a shallow grave in the Ocala National Forest.
Ralph Faba
​
-Terry Blair: AKA the Prospect Avenue Serial Killer. Active in Kansas City, MO from 1982 to 2004, killing at least 9 female sex workers and likely killing a total of 12. Most of his victims were strangled with such force that their necks were broken. In 1982, he murdered his ex-girlfriend when he found out that she had been working as a prostitute. He was imprisoned for that crime until released in 2003. Shortly after that, 47-year old sex worker Sandra Reed was found dead. Blair hasn't been convicted of her murder, though police are confident that he killed her. Then in 2004, additional sex workers began to disappear along the Prospect Avenue corridor. In July, a man spraying weeds found the body of 42-year old Anna Ewing. In early September, police responding to a complaint about a foul odor discovered the bodies of 58-year old Patricia Butler and 38-year old Sheliah McKinzie, left stacked on top of each other in an abandoned garage. The next night, a then unknown man, who later turned out to be Terry Blair, called 911 and directed police to a brushy area behind an abandoned house, where they found the decomposed body of 40-year old Carmen Hunt. The night after that, the killer called again, calling his victims "scum" and leading police to the skeletal remains of 63-year old Claudetta Juniel and the decomposed body of 25-year old Darci Williams. Both were found in wooded areas near abandoned buildings. Blair was arrested a few days later after a victim who survived being strangled by him was able to identify him. Following his arrest, the skeletal remains of 33-year old Nellia Harris were found in an alley off of Prospect Avenue. Police believe Blair killed her months earlier as well, though he wasn't convicted of her murder. Blair recently admitted during an interview with a serial killer podcast that there are 6 murders that he committed but has never been charged with. Counting the Reed and Harris cases, this adds up to 12 murders. This case is featured on an episode of "The First 48".
Terry Blair
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-Geoffrey Griffin: AKA the Roseland Killer. Killed 8 drug-addicted female sex workers in Chicago, IL throughout 2000. The murders occurred in the high-crime neighborhoods of Roseland and Englewood, and all the victims died of either blunt force trauma or strangulation. He would lure his victims into abandoned buildings and overgrown lots to smoke crack with him, and would then then rape and kill them. Griffin attacked three other women who survived, one of whom he tortured by burning her eyes. For reasons that are unclear, the charges related to the murder of his second to last victim were dropped, even though her blood and DNA was found on his jacket. Geoffrey Griffin is sometimes inaccurately listed as having killed 7 victims, rather then 8 because of this.
Geoffrey Griffin
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-Scott Williams: Killed 3 women from 1997 to 2006 in the small town of Monroe, NC. Each victim was abducted, raped, shot in the head, mutilated, and then dumped in the woods. Sharon Pressley went missing in 1997, and her body was found by a man gathering cans in a wooded area along a rural road in Union County, NC. Her body had been sexually mutilated. In 2004, Christina Parker went missing, and her body was found mutilated in a similar manner similar to the first victim. Her body was also dumped in the same area, but the mutilation was even more severe this time. Sharon Stone went missing in 2006, and her body was later found in rural Chesterfield County, SC. She had been savagely mutilated, decapitated, and dismembered. Williams cooked pieces of her flesh, but claims he didn't eat any because he didn't like the way it smelled. Williams was also found guilty of kidnapping and raping two women who survived, one of which he tortured by tying shoe laces around her breasts.
Scott Williams
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-Donald Younge Jr: AKA the East St. Louis Trash Bag Killer. Active in East St. Louis, IL in 2000, where he was suspected of murdering 4 female sex workers, and may have been active in Salt Lake City, UT in 1999, where he is a suspect in another murder. The East St. Louis victims were all found dumped in an overgrown lot within close proximity to one another. Three of the victims were dismembered and left in garbage bags, and the same brand of garbage bags were found in Younge's home. He also is potentially responsible for the murder of 22-year old college student Amy Quinton, who was bound and stabbed in the heart in her Salt Lake City, UT apartment during a home invasion robbery. He also attacked both of her roommates, stabbing one and bludgeoning another across the head, though both survived. The roommates identified Younge as the man who attacked them when shown a picture, and he had raped another female college student in the same area back in 1996. However, male DNA found on the duct tape used to bind Amy Quinton did not match Younge's, and he claims that he had moved to East St. Louis the month prior to her murder, though this has not been verified. The Utah murder charges were eventually dropped, and when a critical witness in the East St. Louis cases was murdered herself, those charges were also dropped. As a result, Donald Younge Jr has never actually been convicted of a murder. It remains unclear if he murdered Amy Quinton or not, though he remains in jail for the 1996 rape.
Donald Younge Jr
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-Vincent Johnson: AKA the Brooklyn Strangler. Homeless crack addict, sadomasochist, and serial killer who was active in New York City, NY from 1999 to 2000, and is responsible for the strangulation deaths of at least 5 female sex workers. The first victim was 26-year old Vivian Carabello, who was found strangled with a piece of cloth inside an elevator room on the roof of an apartment building in August of 1999. The next month, 35-year old Joann Feliciano was found strangled with speaker wires and shoe laces on the roof of another apartment building. One week later, 21-year old Rhonda Tucker was found strangled with the drawstring from her pants inside her apartment. In February of 2000, firefighters responding to a fire in an abandoned utility room under the Williamsburg Bridge found the body of 43-year old Laura Nusser, strangled with an electrical cord. In June of that same year, 49-year old Patricia Sullivan was found strangled with a shoe lace on a mattress in a vacant lot. Johnson was interviewed by detectives after another homeless man told police his suspicions about him. They interviewed him, but he denied killing anyone and refused to give DNA. However, as he left the police station, a detective saw him spit outside, and quickly collected a saliva sample. When tested, the saliva matched the DNA at the murder scenes, and Johnson quickly confessed to killing the women. He blamed the murders on a terrible childhood with his abusive mother. Detectives noted that most of the murders occurred on Thursdays, the one day his mother had off work, and the days he consequently suffered most of the most abuse from her. Police suspect Johnson may have committed a 6th murder, that of 34-year old Katrina Niles, who was found dead in her apartment in October of 1999. While Johnson admitted to the other 5 murders, he has always vehemently denied killing Niles. Unlike the other victims, her throat had been cut in addition to the strangulation, a noticeable difference in MO. This suggests that Johnson may be telling the truth. A couple of internet sources claim he committed two other murders; the strangulation of another sex worker named Elizabeth Tuppeny, and the fatal stabbing of a man named Demetrius Johnson. However, given several inconsistencies, a lack of reliable sources, and no mention of them elsewhere, I question the validity of those claims.
Vincent Johnson
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-Maury Travis: AKA the St. Louis Video Strangler. Active from 2000 to 2002, sexual sadist and prolific serial killer Maury Travis raped, tortured, and murdered at least 12 women in the basement of his home, and claimed responsibility for at least 17 murders, while detectives believe he may be responsible for a total of about 20. He gets his nickname from the fact that he filmed some of the murders using a home video camera. All the victims were either sex workers or drug addicts, and all were strangled and dumped in ditches, overgrown lots, and wooded areas throughout the St. Louis, MO metro area. A few of the bodies were skeletonized, and still have not been identified. Two of the victims included Teresa Wilson, who was found dumped along a set of disused railroad tracks, and Alysia Greenwade, who's body was recovered in Washington Park, a run-down suburb of East St. Louis, IL. A local news reporter published a story about Teresa Wilson's life and murder, and received a bizarre anonymous letter a short time later. It read: "Nice sob story about Teresa Wilson. Write one about Greenwade. Write a good one, and I’ll tell you where many others are. To prove I’m real, here’s directions to number 17. Search in a fifty yard radius from the x, and put the story in the Sunday paper like the last one." A computer generated map from expedia.com was attached to the letter, and showed a section of West Alton, IL with an X marked in a vacant lot. When police went the area where the X was, they found the skeletal remains of a woman. Unfortunately for Travis, police were able to trace the map back to his computer, and he was arrested at his home. When the house was searched, investigators found a home VHS tape labeled "Your Wedding Video." The first part of the video showed a normal wedding, but it abruptly cut to a scene showing a nude woman handcuffed to a support beam in Maury Travis's basement. In the video, the victim is then tortured with a stun gun and eventually strangled to death. Another scene from the tape shows Travis yelling at a victim seated on his couch, berating her for getting into a car with a stranger, and forcing her to perform odd, pointless commands, such as making her dance in his living room while wearing a pair of sunglasses. Maury Travis committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell before the case went to trial.
Maury Travis

I'm not sure how I came up with the idea of survivors in a fighting game but I did one day and couldn't stop thinking about it. And then someone made a post on what type of fighter various IDV characters would be in a fighting game so I decided to post this.
So I know people like Naib, Martha, William and Ganji, and maybe Jose and like, Norton?? would make sense, but literally everyone else wouldn't, so I ended up coming up with the idea that each survivor changes into one of their non-crossover A or S tiers and uses an attack based off of either just something they have on their person for that skin or something they have in the showroom animation for an attack. Some also have things that reference hunters, or attack with one of their accessories. Also because Lucky Guy only has 1 non-crossover A tier and no S tiers he uses some B tiers instead.
I didn't include hunters because some would be weird, like Yidhra (would you play as her, her followers, or both?) and Galatea (who's in a wheelchair). I also imagined the game would be a 2D fighter but for the most part everyone could still work in 3D.
Also everyone except Naib has an attack where they just hit with their item or use it in some way for a basic attack because I thought it'd be funny for Helena to hit people with her cane or Aesop with his makeup kit.
Finally some characters also have ways to dodge/block an attack
If we're talking about why IDV's a fighting game suddenly, uuuuuuh... Mr. Manor Owner got bored and wanted a change in genre? And got rid of the hunters or something. Also the survivors sort of adopt the persona of whatever skin they change into. So Vile Blossom Margaretha is kind of unstable (from her Abyss corruption), Sleepy Mr. Bunny William and Eversleeping Girl Helena are always tired, Golden Ratio Edgar seems more apathetic etc. Also all the bird skins (Monstrous Bird Emma, Eagle's Dance Naib, Black Swan Martha, Night Owl Eli and Sinful Phoenix Aesop) plus Holy Angel Emily and Icarus Kurt can fly, and all of the COAIV skins (Reflective Mirror Fiona, Highway Cavalier Norton, Repairman Murro, Pumping Tires Mike and Fueling Agent Demi) can summon their vehicles.
There could be some cliché plot about how everyone but whoever the protagonist is (Lucky?) became stuck in one of their skin's personas and you have to beat them up to save them or something.
Emily
-stabs with her syringe
-Firefly: sings into a microphone and attacks with magic music notes projectiles
-Blossom of Rebirth: summons wings of fire around her, then unfurls them to attack
-Duskfall: attacks with a picture frame
-Rhythm of the Rain: stabs with her umbrella
-Pirate Doctor: stabs the voodoo doll on her back with her shell syringe to damage opponent wherever they are (has long startup)
-Holy Angel: floats into the air and flaps her wings to attack
Freddy
-slashes with his map (somehow)
-Mr. Bunny: somersaults into the air then slams down with a drop kick
-Lancelot: opens his holy grail map thing and attacks with a flash of light
-Navigator: slashes with the anchor at his waist
-Fast as the Wind (his saxophone accessory): plays it to shoot out magic music notes projectiles
Kreacher
-strikes with his flashlight
-stuns with the flashlight's beam of light
-Lion Dance: throws exploding fireworks
-Deputy: strikes with his cane
-Pirate Spotter: strikes with the comically large spyglass from his showroom animation (in-game it's not comically large :(( )
-"Scarecrow": swings flaming torch
Emma
-manifests her shield to block an attack
-strikes with her toolbox
-Ghost Girl: levitates and flings her birdcage forward
-Monstrous Bird: attacks with ghost birds
-Lady Truth: swings her briefcase by its shoulder strap
-Pirate Shipwright: kicks a treasure chest out of the ground at her opponent
-throws one of Leo's Emma Dolls
Servais
-blocks an attack by creating a Decoy
-strikes with his wand
-Treasure Hunter: flings his wand away and has it spin in the air before it returns to him
-Optical Mirror: projects a hologram of himself from his monocle and has it attack
-White Beard: attacks by emitting a flash of light around himself
-Merlin: swings his wand and makes magic blue lights fly around him
-"Masked Gentleman": attacks with Jack's fog blades
Kurt
-avoids an attack by shrinking
-smacks with his book
-Alice: throws cards
-Icarus: spins to attacks with the wings on his back
-Treasure Digger: stabs with a knife
-Inventor: shoots out sparks from the thing on his back
-uses his Phase Shifter accessory to attack
Naib
-uses his Gurkha Blade accessory to attack
-Cheshire Cat: slashes with his claws
-Clarity: attacks with a blue orb of magic
-Eagle's Dance: flies forward with both hands as fists in front of him Superman-style
-Mr. Inference: shoots a pistol
-Steam Teen: shoves off of his opponent (like he would a wall in-game)
-Man in Red: sends out a burst of white butterflies
Martha
-shoots her flare gun
-strikes with her flare gun
-Dance in the Snow: slashes with hand fans while spinning
-Black Swan: swings handgun before shooting it
-Nostalgia: attacks with a red orb of magic
-Upright Judgement: floats into the air and sends out burst of magic around her
-Pirate Gunner: swings the bundle of rope at her waist
-"Susanna": summons a glass display case around her as she poses, then spreads her arms to shatter the case and send shards of glass flying around her
Fiona
-levitates and flings the Holy Key forward
-Guide: summons a vine and swings it like a whip
-Morgan the Fairy: summons a black hole to pull in and damage opponent
-"Pilgrim" summons a watery mirage of Halberd of Silence Grace who flies by in the air
-Reflective Mirror: summons her motorcycle and charges forward on it
-Carmen: spins while kicking with ice skate blades
Tracy
-has her doll punch
-Candy Girl: throws candy
-Cunning Smile Disease: laughs while leaning back and discharging electricity from her helmet
-Everlasting Flowers: makes a giant mushroom appear in front of her
-Little Red Riding Hood & Quiver: shoots a bow and arrow
-Puppeteer: spins an umbrella in her hand then throws it
-Re-Swim: swims upwards into the air while spinning
William
-throws rugby ball
-Locomotive: charges forward
-Bull Power + Muleta: charges forward (smaller hitbox but goes further than Locomotive's charge)
-"Black Nose": uses Bane's hook to attack
-Lazy Mr. Bunny: raises his pillow above his head, falls asleep, then falls forward, using the momentum of slamming it downwards to deal damage
-Hermes' Shoes: somersaults into a drop kick
Helena
-strikes with her cane
-Golden Cake: spins while swinging her cane
-Eversleeping Girl: falls asleep and falls forward, using her momentum to thrust her cane forward and deal damage
-Mongol: raises her scepter up and attacks with a beam of light
-Soundwave: strikes the ground and makes a shockwave with her cane
Vera
-deals damage by spraying Euphoria
-Sands of Time: dodges an attack by going back in time/using Recall
-Tonight of Never: makes a clone with perfume and dances with it to attacks
-Madame Coral: slumps slightly while standing up, as her ghost appears in front of her and attacks
-Crimson Bride: spins and summons flower petals around her
-Fatal Affection: blow kisses a heart
-The Red Shoes: spins and kicks with heels
Kevin
-lassos opponent and slams them into the ground in front of him
-King's Tailor: whips horizontally with his tape measure
-Misfit: whips vertically with his whip sword
-Whiplash: whips in a vertical circle around him in the air with his whip sword
-Whiplash + Bladeless Hilt: stabs with his Bladeless Hilt accessory
-Candleman: summons bodiless hands to grab at opponent
Margaretha
-uses her fast music box and hits opponent with it
-Animal Tamer: summons a rope from above and attacks with a kick while swinging on it
-Kroto: spins while swinging her handbag
-Valkyrie: leaps straight up into the air then slams down
-Sanskrit: dances while a giant lotus flower blooms around her
-Vile Blossom: strikes with Netherwalker Joker's cane
-The Moonblessed: shoots Violetta's webs
Eli
-uses Brooke to block an attack
-sends Brooke to attack
-Night Owl: shoots out feathers from his cloak
-Unyielding Devotion: Brooke spreads her wings to attack with a flash of light
-Final Honor: strikes with the dagger at his waist
-Recluse: burns opponent with a lit cigarette
-Surveyor: shoots a laser from his mask (he doesn't actually do this unfortunately, I just thought it'd be cool)
Aesop
-strikes with his makeup kit
-Exorcist: summons his coffin around himself, the coffin tips over (which is the attack), then he kicks the lid off and backflips out of it
-Exorcist and Holy Sword: stabs forward with the Holy Sword accessory
-Sinful Phoenix: transforms into a phoenix, flies up a short height then spreads wings to send out a blast of magic around him
-Hamlet: slashes with a sword in a vertical upwards arc
-Trickster: throws his briefcase in the air in front of him as it bursts open making papers fly out
Norton
-repels one of his magnets away
-Soul Catcher: attacks with souls (but they're just like generic purple floating orbs)
-Highway Cavalier: attacks with the Rocinante's exhaust pipe
-Mr. Mole: slashes with his claws
-Ronald of Ness: throws a golden rose
-Sparrow: flicks a giant gold coin at opponent
Patricia
-uses her weak stun
-"Fate": magically flings her skull forward
-Maroon Crystal: summons and sends a bunch of rubies flying forward
-Reservist: floats in the air as multiple skulls fly around her in a horizontal circle
-"Guide": attacks with a flash of green light from her skull
-Horror Tooth: gathers red energy on her hands, then strikes with them (as if she had claws, not really a slap or punch)
Murro
-has his boar charge
-Jester: has his boar bite as he strikes with his clown head stick thing
-Great Hero: charges while riding his boar
-Repairman: throws a wrench
-Snowfear: strikes with his branch
Mike
-throws a bomb beneath him
-Mr. Swifts: juggles his juggling balls above him
-ACE: strikes with a smash with a tennis racket
-Cocoa Bean: throws a bottle of spices
-Pumping Tires: charges forward while balancing on a tire
Jose
-hypnotizes opponent with Poseidon Watch then punches with his prosthetic arm
-Captain Hook: attacks with blasts of water
-Captain Hook: slashes with his sword
-Basil: strikes with a ladle
-Basil: stabs with White Truffle Ann's cutlery fusion weapon thing
-Departure Date: drunkenly swings the mask at his waist
-opens his Wish Bottle accessory and makes flower petals and water burst out
Demi
-strikes with her mixing barrel
-chugs a bottle of Dovlin, then swings the bottle down
-True Proof: strikes with a golden wine glass
-Black Rose: throws a wine bottle
-Fueling Agent: strikes with the gasoline nozzle and hose around her neck
-Soprano: swings a burning candle
Victor
-has Wick charge
-The Embrace: throws flaming envelopes
-"Specter": strikes with Moonlight Gentleman Joseph's cane
-Keyboard: plays his accordion and sends out Antonio's Demon Notes
-"The Prince": spasms as his chest sparks and his mechanical heart flies out
Andrew
-strikes with his shovel
-Desolate Sand: shoots his gun
-Epitaph: jumps up and throws his epitaph onto the ground in front of him
-Conductor: points his shovel and summons a blizzard in front of him
-Cheese: digs into the ground, then burst out to strike with his giant spoon
Luca
-throws a Circuit Control past opponent, holds up another, then makes a connection between the two to stun opponent
-uses his strong stun
-The Viper: summons Serpent Yidhra's hands through a leaf-shaped portal to claw at opponent
-The Viper: throws the relic/Circuit Control to the ground at his feet and makes a green explosion
-Electrolysis: electrically charges his hands and punches
-Electrolysis: electrically charges a beaker, and throws it before it explodes
Melly
-strikes with her bug net
-sends her swarm of bees to attack
-Sophia: summons a large magic snowflake
-Sophia: floats into the air as her net spins around her
-The Wicked Witch: casts a dark orb of magic
-The Wicked Witch: summons her swarm of insects to fly around her
Edgar
-distracts opponent with painting then strikes them with the canvas
-Golden Ratio: paints large gold colored golden ratio pattern in the air
-Narcissus: summons canvas, traps opponent inside, then slams the canvas onto the ground, knocking opponent out of it
-Narcissus: puts on Crescent Knight Antonio's mask and summons his bow to attack with
-Runaway: stabs with the dagger on his person
-Runaway: shoots out a flash of light from his canvas
Ganji
-strikes with his cricket bat
-hits cricket ball
-Lava Cake: first uses Rampage, then does an exaggerated overhead strike with his giant cookie thing/cricket bat
-Seditious Bindings: throws spike ball
-Seditious Bindings: summons Parasitic Shroud Hastur's tentacles to attack
Anne
-throws one of her toy containers
-launches herself with her catapult then slams down with a stomp
-(this one is mostly an original thing) she summons marionette strings attached to her arms and a giant marionette control bar above her, swings her arms down, and makes the marionette bar slam down to the ground in front of her
-Shining Feather: spins into the air with her glider out to strike with the glider's wings
-Shining Feather: pulls out Immortal Guard Leo's sword from the chest on her back and slams downwards with two hands
Ada
-blows her whistle, making damaging soundwaves in front of her
-uses Sprint, but slaps her opponent in the face when she makes it to them
-Feathered Cloak: sends out gusts of wind
-Feathered Cloak: throws a fireball
-Feathered Cloak: strikes with her chain collawhistle
Emil
-shoots his grappling hook forward
-uses Sprint, but punches his opponent in the face when he makes it to them
-jumps forward (like his double-jump in-game), and if he makes contact with his opponent, kicks off of them
-The Fugitive: slashes with a sword
-The Fugitive: shoots out burned feathers from his cape around him
Lucky Guy
-strikes with the crowbar from duos
-holds out his Lucky Package which explodes into various items
-Foreign Athenian: swings Apollo Joseph's sword
-The Final: throws Checkmate Galatea's knife
-Shipwreck (scrapped COA I B-tier skin): swings Golden Sea Monster Leo's sickle
-Maid Outfit: dashes and trips forward before sliding on his stomach a short distance
-Clover Charm: throws Clover Charm

Another part of the etymology series!
In this part, we look at the characters introduced in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. This game has a whole lot of characters whose names are basically just random English words, so from the point of view of etymology, it's not horribly interesting. Originally this was going to be the last post in the series but I wanted to end on a high note, so I moved TGAA last (which I'm a lot more proud of). Even then, I do still like this part as well. It's just the weakest one, I think.
Includes SPOILERS for characters' aliases!
​
PROFESSOR HERSHEL LAYTON: Hershel comes from hirsh which is Yiddish for deer. It may have been inspired by the German last name Herschel which also means deer. There are multiple English towns named Layton which comes from Old English and means town with a leek garden.
​
LUKE TRITON: Luke means from Lucania, which is a historical region in southern Italy (for some more details look at Luke Atmey's entry in part 3). In Greek mythology, Triton was the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and a nereid Amphitrite. He is often depicted as a mermaid. The name Triton derives from the Ancient Greek word treîs, meaning three, in reference to the trident Triton was believed to have carried. Triton is also the name of the largest of Neptune's moons.
​
ESPELLA CANTABELLA: Espella's name is probably derived from Estella which itself derives from Latin stella, star, combined with the word spell. Cantabella is a combination of Italian canta, meaning sings, and bella, meaning beautiful.
​
ARTHUR CANTABELLA: Arthur probably comes from Celtic elements artos, bear, and viros, man, or rigos, king. Arthur is most notably a figure from the Arthurian legend where it is the name of a Briton king who resists the invasion of the Saxons. He may or may not have been based on a real person. For the etymology of Cantabella see Espella Cantabella.
​
ZACHARIAS BARNHAM: Zacharias means Yahweh remembers. Barnham is probably a combination of barn, which connotes someone who lives near a barn and derives from Old English bere, barley, and ærn, dwelling, and ham, which means home or settlement.
​
EVE BELDUKE/DARKLAW: Eve comes from Hebrew chawah, meaning to breathe, or chayah, to live. Belduke could be a combination of bell and duke. Duke is derived from the Latin verb ducere, meaning to lead. Darklaw is most likely a combination of dark and law, though it might also be meant to look like the word claw.
​
NEWTON BELDUKE: Newton comes from an English place name meaning new town. For the etymology of Belduke see Eve Belduke.
​
CARMINE ACCIDENTI: Carmine derives from Carmel which is a reference to Virgin Mary, "Our Lady of Carmel" (which is a mountain mentioned in the Old Testament). Karmel is Hebrew for garden. Carmine is also influenced by the Latin word carmen, song. Accidente means an accident in Italian (and Spanish). Accidenti can be used in Italian as an expletive, similarly to Wow! or Damn!.
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BARTON: Barton comes from a place name in Old English meaning barley town.
​
CHELMEY: I couldn't quite figure out an etymology for Chelmey. The closest I can come up with is a river in Essex called Chelmer. Apparently, the river is named after a Saxon landholder Cēolmǣr. I couldn't figure out what that name means though.
​
SHADES: Shades refers to sunglasses. It derives from Middle English schade, shade or shadow.
​
OLIVIA ALDENTE: Olivia is derived from either Oliva, which refers to the olive tree, or Oliver, which means either elf warrior or ancestor's descendant. Aldente is derived from Italian al dente which means to the tooth. It basically describes the fact that pasta that is cooked al dente is supposed to be firm to the bite.
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FLYNCH: Flynch could be an alternate spelling of flinch which is a reflexive jerking away. It derives from Middle French flenchir, to bend. Flynch might also be affected by Flynn which derives from Irish flann meaning red.
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JOHNNY SMILES: Johnny is of course a diminutive of John which means Yahweh is gracious. Smiles was originally a nickname for a person known for their smile or happy personality.
​
ALLAN: Allan is an old name so its exact meaning is uncertain. It is said to mean either little rock or handsome.
​
BARDLY: Bard is a professional poet or singer whose job in the days of old was to compose and perform songs about heroic figures and in honor of brave men. Bardly isn't a real name but interestingly there was an Illyrian king named Bardylis whose name was said to mean white star.
​
BEZELLA: The closest I could find for etymology for Bezella is the name of an alleged Lithuanian goddess of the evening, Bezlea. Another kind of similar one is Besel which ultimately comes from Hebrew and means daughter of Yahweh.
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CECIL: Cecil is derived from Latin caecus, blind, or from Latin sextus, meaning sixth.
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CINDERELLIA: Cinderella comes from French Cendrillon which means little ashes. The -ia-ending could be derived from a number of names.
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DEWEY: Dewey derives from David. David comes from Hebrew dod, which means either uncle or beloved.
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PATTY ECLAIRE: Patty is originally a derivative of Martha though it is commonly used as a diminutive of Patricia these days. Martha comes from Aramaic marta' which means lady or mistress, from mar, master. Eclaire is an alternate of éclair which is the name of a French pastry. The name of the pastry translates to flash of lightning because it is eaten so quickly (in a flash).
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LETTIE MAILER: Lettie comes from Latin laetitia which means joy or happiness. Mailer apparently derives from French and means an enameler.
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MARY: Mary means love or beloved or bitter or rebellious or drop of the sea.
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MUFFET: Muffet is an alternate of Moffatt which refers to a person from Moffat (there are a lot of places called this). Miss Muffet is a character in an English nursery rhyme.
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RIDELLE MYSTERE: Ridelle doesn't seem to be a real name. It might derive elements from Swedish ryd, woodland clearing, and Germanic rīd, ride. Of course, riddle means a verbal puzzle, mystery, or other problem of an intellectual nature. Mystere is Middle French for mystery.
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NOZEY: Nozey is an alternative to nosy which means prying, inquisitive or curious in other’s affairs (tending to snoop or meddle). It can also refer to someone with a large or elongated nose.
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PETAL: Petal refers to a part of a flower. The word derives from the Greek petalon, leaf.
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PETTER: Petter is an alternate to Peter which comes from Latin petros, stone.
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PRICE: Price comes from a Welsh last name ap Rhys, son of Rhys. Rhys means enthusiasm in Welsh.
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SNOWY: Snowy means covered with snow, resembling snow, or when snow is falling. Snow comes from an Indo-European root word.
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TUGGIT: Tuggit probably refers to tugging which means to pull or drag with great effort.
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KIRA: Kira has a few possible origins. It could be derived from the Persian name Kūrush, which means far-sighted or young. It can also come from Greek kyrios, meaning lord. Another possible origin is Irish ciar, meaning black.
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MUGGS: Muggs could be derived from mug which is an old term for someone who is easily fooled or gullible. Mug can also refer to someone's face. As a verb to mug means to assault someone in order to rob them.
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ROBBS: Robbs is a real surname that means son of Robert. Robert is a Germanic name with the meaning bright fame.
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EMEER PUNCHENBAUG: Emeer could be derived from Emmerich which comes from Germanic element ric (ruler) and ermen (whole) or amal (work) or heim (home). It could also be an alternative to Emir which derives from Arabic amir, prince or commander. Punchen could be from Middle English punchen, to punch or to punish. Baug could be a reference to Old Norse baugr, meaning the bow of a ship. Baug might also come from Old Norse baggi, meaning bag. Punching bag can be used to refer to a person serving as an object of abuse.
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WORDSMITH: Wordsmith generally means someone who uses words skillfully. It is made up of the words word and smith. Both words originate from Proto-Indo-European. Smith means a craftsperson who works metal into desired forms using a hammer and other tools (and by extension a general craftsman).
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BIRDLY: Birdly means of, pertaining to, or characteristic of birds.
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CONSTANTINE: Constantine comes from Latin constans meaning constant or steadfast.
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CRACKER: A cracker is a dry, thin, crispy baked bread. It has some other meanings as well but because of the association with parrots, this is probably the intended one.
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CUTTER: An occupational nickname for someone who worked as a cutter (of f.ex. clothing).
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JEAN GREYERL: Jean is a variant of Jane which is derived from John which means Yahweh is gracious. Grey is the British English spelling of the color gray. Obviously, Jean's surname is a reference to Earl Grey tea which is a tea blend that is flavored with bergamot oil (bergamot is a type of citrus tree). It is named after Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, and British Prime Minister in the 1830s. According to the story Grey received the flavored tea as a gift after ending the monopoly held by the East India Company on trade between China and Britain.
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HOOT: Hoot is a Dutch last name which either means someone who lived in the woods, hout, or someone who made hats, from the German hoth. It can also be used as a nickname for someone whose name is Hubert which means bright heart.
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OLD ROOTIE: Rootie might come from Root which has multiple origins. It can come from Middle English rote, glad, or rote, a medieval string instrument, or from Dutch root, someone who lived near a retting place. A retting place is where flax is soaked in tubs of water until the stems rot to release the linen fibers. Rootie could also possibly be an alternate to Ruthie which comes from Hebrew re'ut, friend.
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PRIMSTONE: Primstone is a combination of prim and brimstone. Brimstone is an older English term for sulfur (it literally means burn-stone). Prim is of French origin meaning delicate or excellent, ultimately from Latin primus, first.
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MARGARET: Margaret derives from Greek margaritas meaning pearl (for further details see Maggey Byrde's entry in part two).
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COOPER: Cooper is a surname meaning barrel maker from Middle English couper.
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KNIGHTLE: Knightle could be an alternate to Knightley which means knight's meadow.
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ROUGE: Rouge means red in French. It usually refers to red or pink makeup that is used to add color to the cheeks.
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BOISTRUM: Boistrum is probably a reference to boisterous which comes from Anglo-Norman bustous, rough, and possibly from Old French boitous, noisy. It means someone who is full of energy, exuberant and noisy, and someone who is characterized by violence and agitation. Trum is also Old English for strong and steadfast.
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DZIBILCHALTUNCHUNCHUCMIL: Dzibilchaltunchunchucmil is named after two Mayan archeological sites, Dzibilchaltun and Chunchumil. I couldn't find out what the etymology of Dzibilchaltun is but Chunchumil is named after the water source at the center of the site. The name of the water well translates to basically the well at the base of the Chukum tree. Both of the sites are located in the Mexican state of Yucatán. Chunchumil is located in the west of the state and Dzibilchaltun in the north, near the state capital, Mérida.
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BALMUNG: Balmung means son of the cave. (For further details see Balmung's entry in the Great Ace Attorney section in part ten).
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FOXY: Foxy has multiple meanings but the most common ones are cunning and sly or an attractive woman. It can also be used to refer to someone with reddish-brown hair or otherwise fox-like features.
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LOTTALANCE: Lottalance might be a combination of the names Lotta, which means man or army, and Lance, which means land.
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LYEWOOD: Lyewood could be a combination of the name Lynwood and the word lye. Lynwood means linden tree forest in Old English. Lye is an alkaline liquid made by leaching wood ashes. Originally the word lye designated a bath or a hot spring in Germanic languages.
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SERVIUS: Servius is a Roman given name that derives from Latin servo meaning to preserve.
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SHAKEY: Shakey is an alternate spelling of shaky. Shaky usually refers to someone who shakes a lot or someone who is anxious or nervous.
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TREDDON: Treddon doesn't seem to have a real-life equivalent. Middle English tredd means footprints.
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Thanks for reading!
Links to other parts:
Part 1 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Part 2 - Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Part 3 - Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations
Part 4 - Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Part 5 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Part 6 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice
Part 7 - Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Part 8 - Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor's Path
Part 10 - The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

I’m sure we all have one so why not put them together for us all to enjoy. Mine would go something like this, (just with better dialogue):
The ending is as it was except with one final closing credits scene which says:
‘Patrick Fairbanks has not been charged with any further involvement with regards to any previous OCG activity or past activity with Tommy Hunter.’
Fairbanks is shown sat on the same bench in the same courtyard where Steve spoke to him a few months ago. He’s in the shade of a tree and flowers grow in the planter behind.
The words fade from the screen as a man sits down on the bench next to Fairbanks.
Fairbanks: [afraid] Who....who is it?
Osborne: Don’t fucking piss yourself Paddy. It’s me.
Fairbanks [dropping the act]: What are you doing here?
Osborne: Don’t worry, our remaining assets let me in through the side gate. Nobody will know.
Fairbanks [visibly relaxing]: Still a risk...Nice work with Buckells though. Sounds like he’s taking the blame for everything, even the stuff he didn’t know he was doing.
Osborne: Well we trained him long enough. You still don’t think he’ll talk?
Fairbanks: Not if he’s as smart as he wants AC-12 to think he is. Besides he knows the consequences. Lee Banks and Jimmy Lakewell made that clear enough.
Fairbanks[looking annoyed]: Speaking of AC-12....How did Hastings manage to get away without prosecution? I I thought the plan was to get him in here so I could deal with him personally...
Osborne: He fell on his sword like the honourable fool that he is. Andrea and Sindwahni managed to convince the CPS to go easy on him.
Fairbanks [scowls at Wise’s name]: Why do you still keep her around?
Osborne: Its useful to have a straight bat in the cupboard from time to time. Detracts attention. If you had one maybe you wouldn’t have ended up here..
[Fairbanks’ annoyance deepens but he says nothing]
Osborne: Anyway, don’t worry about AC-12, that’s all been dealt with now. Ted will soon be gone and I sent Patricia to look after his team.
Fairbanks[scoffs]: That should keep them busy.
Osborne: Patricia too.
Fairbanks: Good. Then we can start focusing on getting me out of here?
Osborne: That’s already in hand. With the performances you’ve been giving we’ll have you under house arrest on ‘compassionate grounds’ within the next few weeks
Fairbanks: House arrest?!
Osborne: Somewhere nice of course....
Fairbanks: I hear there’s a Villa going spare down in Spain.
Fairbanks and Osborne share a look and laugh to one another.
The music begins to swell and the camera slowly zooms in, floating through the middle of the the two men as it does.
It passes the tree behind them and moves toward the myriad of differently coloured flowers in the planter. Continuing its path, it picks out a particularly rigid flower that sits on the front edge of the flowerbed and zooms in further on it.
It’s stem is taut and wiry and it’s petals are just a little too bright when compared to its neighbours. As the camera continues to move in, we see that the black mass at its centre also looks wrong. It’s hard and fuzzy, almost like...well, like a microphone.
The camera suddenly pulls back out, past Osborne and Fairbanks, their laughter echoing louder and louder as the Line of Duty end credits music continues to rise. The camera keeps moving out and we can now see the prison complex in its entirety. It keeps going until the whole city is splayed out before us. The camera pans to the left, moving away from the prison and then begins to slowly zoom back in, centring in on a block of flats in the middle of a housing estate.
We enter through the open window of a mid-level flat, slowly moving forward through the perfectly tidy living room, past an immaculate kitchen and into a small but pleasant bedroom. The camera spins left and focus on the slid-open door of a built-in wardrobe
Sat inside, hunched over a computer, her face illuminated by the bright glow of the screen sits DC Chloe Bishop.
She has one headphone pressed to her ear and as she listens to the sound of two old men’s laughter a wide smile slowly beginning to widen across her face.
She picks up a battered old burner phone, dials a number on the keypad, seemingly from memory, and then raises it to her other ear. The music cuts and and there is an audible click. Turning slightly, Chloe speaks into the receiver
“Ma’am, you were right. I’ve got something”
Cut to credits and bang on that usual amazing amped up end credits music.
Feel free to add your own!

I'm a young adult living in the US, and I can say that we, as Americans, don't read a lot of books outside of the States. I mean, no doubt, this differs from person-to-person, but definitely, if you ask the average American to list five books that they've read that aren't published outside of the States, he or she wouldn't be able to. The history of me reading books outside America stems from the fact that I currently am writing a story where the plot takes place in a different country.
So, here's a list of non-American books I've read lately: Petals of Blood by Ngūgī wa Thiong'o, Potiki by Patricia Grace, A Land Without Jasmine by Wajdi al-Ahdal, Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You In All The Confusion by Johan Harstad, and The Old Man and His Sons by Heðin Brú.
Does anyone have any books they've read and that they'd recommend to me to broaden my intercultural knowledge?

I was looking through some old files on my computer, and found this story I wrote for a small writing tournament on Wattpad. Through real-life issues, I was forced to drop out after the first round (which this story won, yay), but I figured that this story is better to be shared, instead of collecting electronic dust on a USB drive.
I could feel the bitter chill of winter shredding through the heavy layers of my fur coat, soaking my skin with frigid sleet and snow. I clutched onto the small pouch at my side with a pale hand, freeing a sigh of relief as the dark leather was bone dry, despite the oncoming storm. Bone oils and melted fats were wonderful at repelling the elements, up to a certain point that this coat had surpassed roughly an hour and a half earlier. I let out a shivering breath and had to hold back the urge of whispering a tiny, tiny incantation to break the chill. I couldn't risk wasting energy, resources, or the chance I might be discovered by the coachman sitting just a few feet away.
"H-how much longer until arrival?"
Even from my position behind him in the carriage, I could see him tilt his head forward and squint, shielding his eyes from the ice flying through the air. He looked for a moment, glanced at a tower of ice that probably used to be a trail sign, and gave a quick nod.
"That's Brailmore Thicket, so we aren't far, Madame. If the sky wasn't so angry, we would be able to see the towers of Halden from here. I can almost taste the feast upon my lips as it waits for the coronation of young Brennan-"
"Please, just focus on keeping your horse on the right path. The last thing we need is to end up across the Hynlenan Border and pillaged by bandits in this cursed weather."
I pulled the remainder of the waterlogged hood around my auburn hair, desperate for any sense of warmth in the slowly-building ice storm. Meanwhile, my fingers delicately manipulated the small items inside of the pouch, idly counting and categorizing to make sure everything was accounted for without ever opening it. Through the leather and pile of coins laying on top to act as a diversion, I could feel a smooth opal, barely larger than my thumbnail, and a long shard of iron from a broken hammer resting against each other. Last but not least, my ring finger gently caressed the side of the pouch, feeling the almost non-existent weight of a Darsnip petal that was just beginning to rot.
Perfect.
As the coachman predicted, the singular horse pulling our two-person carriage was soon guided to a stop outside of the large oak doors framed with a pair of armoured guards. A third, slightly shorter figure was standing behind them underneath an alcove to stay dry while clutching at a large scroll. They quickly glanced up with a mouse-like grimace, carefully eyeing me up and down.
"Name and family, Madame?"
"Atalia, from the Resteif bloodline."
"Step out of the carriage and over here please. You, young man, the stables are just down this path, and there is free lodging for coachmen during the coronation."
"Yes, sir."
I did as the man asked and carefully climbed from the elevated platform, slipping slightly from the thin sheen of ice slicked across the wood. One of the guards stepped forward and began patting down my clothing, obviously feeling for concealed weapons. Of course, there were none.
"Open the pouch, Madame."
Again, I followed his instructions as I undid the small loop attaching the leather satchel to my waist, showing the small bundle of coins to the men. As I rifled through the pile to show that it was the only thing in the pouch, I delicately guided the three additional items to remain underneath their metallic cover, and away from the sharp gaze of the guards.
"It is bitterly cold at this time. Shall I enter and join the festivities, mayhaps?"
The man nodded and rapped a small wooden mallet on the oak doors before the opened enough for me to step through. The two guards that handled the doors from the inside quickly ushered me onto the marble tiles before once again shutting out the elements. Another figure, much younger than the one holding the scroll outside, stepped forward with a sheepish look. If I had to take a gander, this was probably her fourteenth or fifteenth winter as she held her gaze to the polished tiles.
"May I take your coat, Madame?"
I smiled and removed the mostly-soaked article of clothing while also palming a pair of coins in my off hand. As I handed over the waterlogged furs, I slyly pressed the coins into the young girl's hand, to which she gasped. I silently hushed her and watched her turn towards the closets with a beautiful smile sliding it's way across her cheeks. Those two gold probably rivaled four months of servant's pay, further emphasizing the lack of fairness from royalty, especially the Haldens. Those who are wealthy only seek more wealth, even if it means stepping on the toes of those scrounging for scraps.
Keeping my false smile, I stepped down the tiled foyer towards the large ballroom flanked by another pair of steel-clad guards. I briefly adjusted the deep neck of my dress, making sure that a sizable amount of skin from my bosom was revealed to the light, and forfeited a wink to the gentlemen guarding the entrance.
I repeated the plan in my head once more as I stepped into the noisy room stocked full with laughter and jovial music. Huge ornate chandeliers draped from the ceiling like ripples of a glass ocean, adorning the dim room lit by candles along the walls. The scent of a dozen different perfumes attacked my nostrils and I reeled slightly as I scanned over the crowds. There were several dozens of faces weaving through dances, each from the different townships and nearby kingdoms to celebrate the eldest son taking the throne. Then, my eyes fell across the second step of my plan.
The second of the now-passed king's sons gingerly waltzed through the crowds, stealing smiles, laughs, and even the occasional dance with several of the stunningly gorgeous women, whether or not they were accompanied with a man. I knew Alister to be of twenty-two years, being three younger than the eldest, but a staggering nine above his youngest brother. I quickly discerned a pattern to his movements and stepped into the crowds with the dark blue dress flowing around my ankles. With the people as cover, I slyly dipped a hand into the small pouch now tucked under the folds of my dress and fingered through the coins until I felt the delicate petal graze my skin. Although the music from the string quartet in the corner was relatively soft, the various conversations happening provided ample diversion from my subtle whispering.
"Formutha balecine al'ardas rotanus."
The petal held between my thumb and forefinger burned away underneath my touch, the ashes working their way into the leather of the pouch. It was a simple incantation, but by the same definition, it was a weaker one. Still, it seemed that my minor charm had worked as Alister turned his gaze to my direction with a sly grin. He stole a few more quick dances and shook a few hands, but slowly began moving through the crowd towards me. Meanwhile, I turned my back and pretended to examine the architecture, soon feeling a pair of fingers tap my shoulder. Not giving me a chance to turn around, Alister stepped from my side to stand in front of me, extending a hand out in a very formal offering.
"Care to dance, lady...?"
"Atalia, and I would be mad to refuse a dance from a Halden."
I graciously slipped my hand into his before tracing my fingers up his arm and laying both my palms on either of his shoulders. His hands found the sides of my torso and felt along the smooth silk of my dress before stopping at my waist. His perfect brown hair was combed to the side, but I locked my green eyes with his sparkling blue and gave a wide smile.
"Doesn't the second son of the Halden royal family have other women to court and other hands to shake?"
"Compared to one with beauty like yours, I think I could spare a bit of time, Miss Atalia."
"I never realized you were one for such flattery."
"My father taught me a lot of things, but speaking false truths was not one of them."
"You're a real charmer, but I'm nothing more than a girl from the kingdom."
Alister's grin widened as he brought our embrace a half-step closer.
"Well, considering my family rules said kingdom, I say that you have the potential to be a lot more than a 'simple girl'."
I raised an eyebrow in a cocky grin.
"In what sense would that be, Your Highness?"
Even with the knowledge of Prince Alister's very exuberant personality, along with my simple charming incantation, I was still surprised when he closed the small gap between us and laid his lips upon mine. He had lived for twenty-two years and had probably bed four times as many women, but I hadn't expected this part of the plan to go so easily. I gently locked my hands around the back of his neck and tilted my head upwards to return the kiss with equal passion. For several moments we gently swayed to the music with our mouths pressed together before he gingerly broke off and whispered into my ear.
"There's something special about you, but I think I need to spend a little more time with you to figure out what."
"Are you trying to seduce me? I must say, you are getting dangerously close to succeeding,"
"What would you do if I was?"
I caressed my lips against the side of his cheek, some of the red coloration of my makeup being left behind on his slightly tanned skin.
"I think that's for the Prince to decide."
He pulled away slightly, his smile slightly tilted like the beginnings of a drunkard's ballad.
"How would you like to be my personal 'guest' during the feast? Each of the children get to choose one individual to sit at the main table with them, and they are able to personally meet each member of the family. Such has been custom with every Halden coronation since the birth of the family."
I gave a dazzling smile fit with pearly whites, causing his skin to shiver underneath my touch.
"I would be more than honored, Your Highness. Now if you'll excuse me, I do believe that you have more hands to shake and women to flatter, correct?"
He gave a weak smile, telling me that I had his will bent into whatever shape I desired.
"None as gorgeous as you, my lady."
I returned the witless grin with a sultry wink as I turned to walk off into the crowd, holding a single deep brown hair as a stolen prize. Step one, get into the castle. Step two, seduce Alister, knowing that he would be the easiest to court. Step three, secure a seat at the head table, with the rest of the family. Step four?
Prepare for the toast.
My feet seemed silent amidst the soft music as I danced and wove my way through the various guests. Eventually, I stopped aside one of the armoured brutes standing at the western exit.
"Excuse me, do you mayhaps know of where I could wash up before the feast?"
"Down the hall, take your second left, fourth door on the right."
I gave another wink and gently dragged my hand across his shoulder as I walked past into the aforementioned hallway. Before he left my sight, I could almost see the hint of a blush between the slits of his polished helm. Gods above, men were so, so easy to manipulate. Regardless, I followed the directions, keeping a careful lookout until I knew that I was alone. I turned down a slightly dimmer hallway, the candles having burned low until shadows danced across the walls like a living mural. Reaching into the pouch once more I pinched the opal between my forefinger and thumb before gingerly procuring it into the fading light.
"Gorthadun malfezi algoratish toraduni."
As the last syllables whispered past my lips, I pressed down hard on the opal, now having lost all structural integrity. The fragile gem shattered into a faint dust held in my palm, glittering slightly in the candlelight before soaked into the meat of my tongue.
As I gingerly licked my palm to ingest the powder, the surprisingly bitter taste made my face scrunch together, trying to hold back coughing it up. I gave a pained swallow and pressed to where my throat meets my breast.
"Halduine."
The powder sticking to the inside of my esophagus suddenly flared with a burning pain as I gritted my teeth to hold back a whimper. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I glanced through the pain down at my arms. This needed to work.
Slowly, the air and light around my skin seemed to morph and shift ever-so slightly, wrapping my arms with a refracting coat. I watched as my form seemed to disappear, the light bending itself to shield me from view. Unfortunately, my dress stayed visible, but I had planned for this.
In a matter of moments, the dress was neatly folded with the pouch locked in it's folds, hidden away behind one of the dozens of tapestries adorning the stone walls. My bare yet unseen form quickly darted down the hall towards the kitchens, and I wasn't surprised at the sight of two more armed guards standing at the entrance. Obviously to keep the guests out, such to prevent unhealthy things from finding their way into the food or drink like hairs, illnesses...
Poisons...
I silently walked up to the oaken door, stepping between the two men. Because they were almost standing in front of the door, the gap I had to work with was barely enough to squeeze through, but it was just enough for me to get close enough. Slowly extending an arm, I held a silent breath as I rapped a single knuckle on the door and stepped back.
Both guards jumped slightly, and one of them gently pushed the door open to answer whatever chef had knocked on the inside. Using the brief half-second opening, I slipped through the gap, however my thigh grazed the edge of the other guard's metallic armour. When he didn't react, I made a silent vow of thanks to the padded gambison that was probably underneath the plates. Hell, I could probably punch his chest and he would be none the wiser.
Unfortunately, the kitchen staff weren't heavily armoured, meaning a touch with any of them could mean detection.
Through the overpowering scent of fresh breads, sauces, roasted meats, and steamed vegetables, I had to fight the urge of scarfing down the foods being set on the plates. I had a job to do, and I needed to do it fast. Ducking and weaving under arms, in between chefs, past woodfires, and even sliding between one servant's legs, I eventually found my way across the kitchen to the massive barrels of wine. Swiftly and silently curling around to the back, I climbed up the side to reach the spigot pointing the the hardwood ceilings. Thank the gods for rich people having their wine barrels sanded smooth, or else I would have gotten half a dozen splinters in my palms and knees. With a quiet 'pop' that was drowned by the bustle of the kitchen staff, the spout slowly opened, just enough to see a lake of dark wine inside. My fingers curled around my ear, collecting the single strand of Alister's hair that I tucked for safekeeping, and let it drop inside of the dark barrel.
"Torinthalae vuentalon cormascus albadhir."
As the bloodline of the Halden family disintegrated into the liquid, I silently replaced the tap and climbed back into the small alcove beside the barrels. I could feel the cloaking spell's duration waning, giving me another two minutes at most to return to my clothes. The idea of suddenly appearing in the kitchens bare as the day I was born was humorous, but would alas ruin the purpose of the night. So, I began to move. The two guards at the entrance I used would probably be very confused about someone knocking at the door twice, so the best course of keeping suspicion to a minimum would be to follow the servants currently bringing the food to the dining hall.
Normally, I would have enjoyed being so close to the delectable feast, but I was running out of time. Once again weaving through bodies, I approached the entrance to the dining area as both the servants and guests were entering. I half-sprinted across the cold tile floor, allowing myself to shove aside a few guests as I passed through the crowd. Luckily they were so close together that they just looked to each other with nasty glares, assuming the other had the audacity to push them.
The halls were practically empty as the crowd funneled towards the feast, allowing me easy access to my clothing, garments, and money pouch holding the shard of rusted metal. As the last few strands of my hair began to give a faint auburn glow in the candlelight, I was tying up the back laces to my dress and returning to join in with the crowd. Seamlessly slipping into the bustle as people were seated, I jumped slightly as a hand laid onto my shoulder from behind.
"Come, Lady Atalia, I have been searching for you!"
I plastered a sultry smile across my face as I turned to face Alister once more, graciously taking his hand as he led me to the head table.
"Sorry, I was washing up before the feast. I presume you did as well, with all of the people you greeted?"
"Of course, my Lady. Now come, our seats are right over here."
We passed by dozens of other folks, with several of the women giving me less-than-tasteful leers as they obviously wished they were courted by Prince Alister instead of I. A handful of servants gingerly pushed our seats in as the two of us took our places at the head table, and I could see other men sitting beside each of the four sisters at the other end. Large platters of the same steaming meats and vegetables I had seen previously were laid out in front of us, in addition to the beautiful chalices being filled with the fragrant wine stained a brilliant dark purple.
Time for step five.
Brennan, the eldest son soon to be appointed king stood up from his chair with the gilded goblet in one hand as his other rung a spoon against the metal, silencing the crowd.
"Lords, ladies, brothers, sisters, and all other esteemed guests, I personally must thank each and every one of you for joining in on tonight's festivities. Although the passing of my father through his slumber still troubles me, I do understand that eventually this day would come. I also understand that eventually my own end will come and the burden will be shouldered to Alister, or even my own son, should I have one. As of right now, I propose that we raise our goblets in unison to honor the man who's shoes could never be filled."
With a silent nod, dozens of filled chalices and goblets were held up into the air, as well as my own next to Alister's.
"For the brave, the bold, and the caring, King Halden."
"To King Halden!"
The crowd all replied in unison as everyone lowered their drinks to their lips and took a large sip. As the refreshing wine touched my lips, I leaned forward slightly to look down the large table and confirmed that every single one of the royal family had drunk from their goblets.
With the final chant of the crowd, everyone set down their drinks and proceeded to enjoy the feast, as well as I. Growing up the way I had obviously provided few chances for such a meal, so to say I enjoyed it was a vast understatement. Alister noticed my enthusiastic feasting and let out another drunken smile.
"Hungry?"
"I had to step out of breakfast to get to the stables in time. If I wanted to hire a coachman, I had to do it early."
He gave a small chuckle as he sipped at his wine.
"If that is the case, then by all means, please continue."
I returned the smile and continued scarfing down the various meats and vegetables adorning my plate, soon polishing off the pewter metal with a piece of bread to soak up the remaining juices. I looked up to notice many of the other guests were beginning to finish their meals, in addition to Brennan now standing up and clinging his spoon against his empty goblet.
"I presume everyone enjoyed their meal? We had the finest chefs in the kingdom-"
"Actually, mine seemed to be a little burnt."
I cut off Brennan as I stood up myself, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Alister began gently pulling at my arm to sit me down but I stayed exactly where I was. King Brennan looked at me quizzically and raised his goblet.
"Well that simply will not do. Servants, get this fine lady a perfectly roasted slice of beef."
"Ah, well I'm afraid that would also be a bit burnt. You see, your whole family loves burning things, and I don't see why your servants wouldn't as well."
Brennan lowered his goblet to the table and gave an awkward smile.
"I beg your pardon? None of our family are chefs, so I don't understand how you would come to that conclusion."
"Oh I never said anything about burning food, I was more referring to, you know, people."
Brennan blinked a few times and opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he could utter a word.
"It would be over a decade ago at this point, but I do understand that the entirety of your family participated and helped to fund a certain hunt within the city, Correct? I believe the person in specific would be Patricia Valdonyr who was burned alive for being a witch."
"My Lady, I'm sure you understand that witches cannot be trusted. Their dark magics are nothing but dangerous to themselves and everywhere they live. They need to be eradicated."
"Even if the witches don't do anything bad? Even if that witch in question is the reason why the Haldens are a royal family?"
The guards began to move forward slightly at this point, but I continued talking.
"Just over half a century ago, a man discovered Patricia's connection to magic and asked for help. He asked for unbelievable wealth and power on the promise that she wouldn't be harmed, and thus she delivered. She turned dirt and stones into silver and gold, while also making it so that people listened to every word he had to say. That man then built a castle with his wealth, and started the Halden name, but they don't tell you about that part."
Brennan looked uneasy, and the entirety of the room began to scoot their chairs away from me.
"That man then became drunken by his own wealth, and thought that Patricia would give that power to another, so he had her burned at the stake. What many don't know is that fair Patricia had a daughter named Teryn. I am still sorry to say that fair Atalia Restief is still probably asleep in the family cellar."
The guards began sprinting towards me, grabbing my arms and forcing them into manacles as the entire room stared me down in horror. However, the best part was that a few eyes were looking at the royal family with slight hints of mistrust, after learning the truths of their wealth. I began almost shouting over the guards as they began pinning me to the floor, but I put up no fight.
"The Halden family say that witches aren't to be trusted, but the opposite speaks truth. My mother gave you everything you had, so a single life in trade just couldn't cut it. I hope you enjoyed the wine. Formuthalice."
The moment that final word passed my lips, I could see the entire family seize up in their seats, shivering slightly. A rush of satisfaction flowed through my veins as nobody else in the hall seemed to be affected. With Alister's hair having been the root of the poisonous incantation, only those sharing the same blood as Alister would deem it fatal. Several seconds passed of the royal family sitting in invisible pain before their eyes rolled upwards to reveal the whites, and thin lines of crimson began to streak from their noses. Several of the guards holding me immediately rushed over, giving me a brief chance to reach over to the pouch on my hip through the chaos. I could feel the shard of iron underneath all of the coins, and I took a deep breath before pressing my thumb onto the metal. Pain shot through my entire arm as half an inch of iron tore through the skin of my thumb, but I focused on remembering the words I needed to say.
"Gormutha albitrionis!"
After the brief instant of feeling like I was folded in half and kicked in the stomach by a stallion, I opened my eyes and struggled to become accustomed to the darkness of the abandoned house. Everything was exactly where I left it three days prior. The small pile of spell components still sat on the table, and a weathered bedroll laid flat near a fireplace, already prepared with kindling and tinder. I could hear the splattering of sleet and hail against the roof as frost clung to my breath. Once again, I was completely nude, coughing while the bitterly cold air pierced my lungs with it's unforgiving blades. The blood dripping from my right hand was already beginning to freeze as I fumbled over towards the prepared fireplace and it's adjoining tinderbox. It only took two strikes from the flint to start a few small embers, quickly spreading the flame as a smile crept across my lips.

Hi! I'd like recommendations (interpretatiorons open) for books with the most exquisite prose, the most impressionable sentence structure and (optionally) a captivating beginning line! It can be any genre.
Edit: A MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone that took the time to provide their picks for the recommendation! I will get to listing all the books here as soon as I find the time. Please keep 'em coming!
Edit(2):Here are (hopefully) all the books recommended so far:
Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time
Robert Lewis Stevenson's works
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita; Pale Fire; Speak Memory; Ada or Ardor.
Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Cormac McCarthy - The Road; Red Meridian; All the Pretty Horses
Flannery O'Connor's works, Annie Proulx - That Old Ace in a Hole
John Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat; Cannery Row; East of Eden; The Grapes of Wrath; Travels with Charlie in Search of America
Pat Conroy - The Prince of Tides Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Bruce Chatwin - Utz T. C. Boyle - The Human Fly and Other Stories
John Krakauer - Into The Wild (non fiction)
Charles Bukowski - Ham On Rye
Jonathan Evison - Lawn Boy
Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby
Arthur C. Clarke - Songs of a Distant Earth
Ray Bradbury - From The Dust Returned; October Country; Something Wicked this way Comes; The Martian Chronicles; Fahrenheit 451
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous; Night Sky with Exit Wounds (poetry)
Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse; The Waves
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
William Faulkner - As I lay Dying; Absalom, Absalom!; The Sound and the Fury
Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca
John Cheever's works
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
Jeanette Winterson - The Passion; Lighthousekeeping.
Madeline Miller - Song of Achilles; Circe.
Annie Dillard - Holy the Firm, Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek.
Herman Hesse - Siddhartha
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Anthony Doerr - All the Light We Cannot See
Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
Rene Denfield - The Enchanted
Ian McEwan - Atonement
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
Francis Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby; This Side of Paradise; Tender is the Night; The Beautiful and the Damned
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina;
Peter Beagle - The Last Unicorn
Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities; If On a Winter's Night A Traveler
Haruki Murakami - Norwegian wood; Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle; 1Q84
Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow; The Rules of Civility
Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things
Isabel Allende - Eva Luna
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea; For Whom the Bell Tolls; Farewell to Arms
Margaret Atwood - Surfacing; The Blind Assassin; The Handmaid's Tale.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind
Andre Aciman - Call Me By Your Name
Franz Kafka - The Trial; Metamorphosis
Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus; The Starless Sea
Neil Gaiman - The Ocean At the End of the Lane
Mervyn Peake - The Gormenghast series; Titus Groan
Mark Helprin - A Winter's Tale; Soldier of the Great War
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest; The Broom of the System; The Pale King
Laura Esquivel - Like Water for Chocolate
Herman Melville - Moby-Dick
Yukio Mishima's works
Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone
Anthony Marra - A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Goethe - Faust (depends on translation)
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Norman Spinrad - The Void Captain's Tale
Cordwainer Smith's Short stories
James Tiptree jr's stories
Helen Oyeyemi - What is not yours is not yours Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner; A Thousand Splendid Suns; And The Mountains Echoed
Amal El MohtaMax Gladstone - This is How You Lose the Time War
Guy Gabriel Kay - Tigana; The Lions of Al-Rassahn; Under Heaven
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness; Nostromo
James Joyce - Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses
Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
E.E. Cummings - The Enormous Room
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind
Toni Morrison - Sula; Beloved; The Bluest Eye; Song of Solomon
Thomas Wolfe - You Can't Go Home Again
Rudyard Kipling - Tha Phantom Rickshaw and other stories
Raven Sloan - The Crossroads: Behold the Pale Horse
Joan Didion - Play it as it Lays
Laini Taylor - Strange the Dreamer
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Louis de Bernieres - Corelli's Mandolin
Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
Alan Moore - Jerusalem
Camille de Toledo - Coming of Age at the End of History
Denis Johnson - Jesus' Son; Train Dreams; Tree of Smoke
Elena Ferrante - Neopolitan series
Willa Cather - My Antonia
Rainer Maria Rilke - The Notebooks of Maltes Laurides Brigge
Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha
J. D. Salinger - Nine Stories
Emily Ruskovich - Idaho
Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose
Katherine Dunn - Geek Love
Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot
John Crowley - Little, Big; Engine Summer
Marilynne Robinson - Housekeeping
Roger Zelazny - This Immortal
Flann O'Brien - At Swim Two Birds
Samuel Delany - Jewels of Aptor; Dahlgren
Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun
Guy Newell Boothby - Doctor Nicola series
Vita Sackville-West - All Passion Spent
Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch
John Williams - Stoner
John Banville - The Sea; Eclipse; The Book of Evidence; The Untouchable
Ursula K. LeGuin - The Dispossessed; A Wizard of Earthsea; The Tombs of Atuan; The Left Hand of Darkness
Thomas Ligotti's works
Deborah Levy - Swimming Home
James Lasdun - 7 Lies; Fall Guy
Stefan Zweig - Beware Pity; The Post Office Girl
Christopher Isherwood - A Single Man
L. P. Heartley - The Go-between
D. H. Lawrence - Tickets Please
J. L. Carr - A Month in the Country
Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven
Markus Zusak - The Book Thief; Bridge of Clay
Patrick Chamoiseau - Slave Old Man
Carsten Jensen - We, The Drowned
Karen Blixen - Out of Africa
Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
John Fowles - The Magus
Don Delillo - Underworld; White Noise
Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale
Muriel Barbery - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Michael Ondaatje - In the Skin of a Lion; The English Patient
Marguerite Duras - The Lover
Jandy Nelso - The Sky Is Everywhere
Lawrence Durrell - Alexandria Quartet
Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary; Sentimental Education; Salammbo
Clarice Lispector - Agua Viva
Alasdair Grey - 1982, Janine
Oscar Wilde - Salome; A House of Pomegranates; A happy Prince and other tales; The Picture of Dorian Gray
John Milton - Paradise Lost
L. M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables
Patricia McKillip - The Forgotten Beasts of Eld; The Book of Atrix Wolfe; Song for the Basilisk
Machado de Assis - Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas
John Gardner - Grendel
Jens Peter Jacobsen - Niels Lyhne
Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men
Anne Rice - Interview With a Vampire
Charles Frazier - Could Mountain; Thirteen Moons
Umberto Eco - The Island of The Day Before
Wayetu Moore - She would Be King
Frank Herbert - Dune
Hanya Yanagihara - a Little Life
James Salter - A Sport and A Pastime
Paul Harding - Tinkers
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet
W. E. B. Dubois - The Quest of the Silver Fleece
Thomas Hardy - Far from the Madding Crowd
Kai Ashante Wilson - A Taste of Honey
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses
Karen Russell - Vampires in the Lemon Grove
Patricia Anthony - Flanders
Cathleen Schine - The Love Letter
John Green - The Fault in Our Stars; Looking for Alaska
Jesmyn Ward - Sing, Unburied, Sing.
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables
Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Thomas H. Cook - The Chattam School Affair
Jacqueline Carey - The Kushiel saga
Magda Szabo - The Door
Anthony Burgess - Earthly Powers; A Dead Man in Deptford; Confessions; A Clockwork Orange
Andrea Wulf - The Invention of Nature
Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
James Baldwin - Another Country
Nelson Algren - A Walk on the Wild Side
J. G. Ballard - Crash
Fredrik Backman - Beartown
Ngugi wa Thiong'o - In the House of the Interpreter
Victor Lavelle - the Changeling
Fatima Memissi - Dreams of Trespass
Viet Thanh Nguyen - The Sympathizer
Raymond Carver - What we talk about when we talk about Love
Sheldon Vanauken - A Severe Mercy
William Finnegan - Barbarian Days
Neal Stephenson - the Baroque Cycle
Kevin J. Anderson - Clockwork Angels
Zadie Smith - White Teeth
Michael Faber - The Crimson Petal And The White
Carmen Machado - In The Dream House
Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
Francesca Lia Block - The Weetzie Bat
Marissa Meyer - The Lunar Chronicles
Colum McCann - Let The Great World Spin
Tommy Orange - There There
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Cheri
G. K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy; The Everlasting Man
Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
Richard Powers - The Overstory
Hilary Mantel - The Wolf Hall Trilogy
Gariele D'Annunzio - The Pleasure
Sebastian Faulks' works
Louis Aragon - Aurelien
Frances Burnett - The Secret Garden
W. Somerset Maugham - The Razor's Edge; Of Human Bondage
E. M. Forster - Howard's End
Mario Vargas Liosa - Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter
Saki's works (Hector Hugh Munroe)
O'Henry's works
Anton Chekhov's works
Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos
T. E. Lawrence - The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Marlon James - Black Leopard Red Wolf
Angelo Carter - The Bloody Chamber
Thomas Pynchon - Mason & Dixon
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Jorge Louis Borges - Collections; Fictions
Charlton Daines - Jack Dawkins
Elizabeth Smart - By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and I Wept
Jonathan Safran-Foer - Everything is Illuminated
Jeffrey Overstreet - Auralia's Colors
Norman Mailer - Of A Fire on The Moon
Uzodinna Iweala - Speak no Evil
Alessandro Baricco - Ocean Sea
Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram
Maggie Stiefvater - The Raven Boys series; All the Crooked Saints
Leslye Walton - The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Ellen Hopkins' works
Maaza Mengiste - The Shadow King
Sarah Perry - The Essex Serpent
Neal Shusterman - Scythe
Mark Lawrence - Red Sister
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations With God
Niall Williams - This is Happiness
Pheww, I think that's all of them.

Stream Notes for Dead by Daylight Developer Stream #113
Link to Stream on Twitch [43min]
Things that are in-quotes are taken directly from the stream.
If there are any formatting issues, please let me know.
If you haven't followed the Hallowed Blight 2-D cinematics, you can watch the series of videos here.
​

On the Show Today

Mark Desmarais - Game Designer
Patricia - Community Manager
Philippe Ivanovic - Artistic Director
Mathieu Cote - Game Director
​

Stream Summary

• Announcements
  • TwitchCon
  • Artwork, Costume, and Pumpkin Contest
  • Misc. Hallowed Blight News
    • 2-D Cinematics
    • Regarding Readjustments
    • Farming
    • Lore Explanation
    • Vial Issues
  • Bloodrush Event - Nov 5th–12th
• Hallowed Blight Panel (w/Phil)
• Around the Web

​

TwitchCon

Mathieu - "We threw together the first, official Dead By Daylight party. The highlight of the trip: in California, they have scooters you can get on the street. [There was] a great idea of getting us to go on a ride. You can see a lot of pleasant people who are now bound forever in this group known as...I'm not sure of the name yet. We will likely do more parties like this."
​

Artwork, Costume, and Pumpkin Carving Contest(s)

Patricia - "We did a contest for the costume, pumpkin carving, and artwork for Halloween. It ends tomorrow; probably around 7pm EDT. We will announce the winners Friday, November 9th."
Mathieu - "It's the same we do with all the other contests of the sort: there'll be voting, and then we're announce the winners, and then there'll be much rejoice. We're not gonna show anything today... There's still a little bit of time, so do your worst."
Mark - No, do your best. Please."
​

Misc. Hallowed Blight News

Mark - "Tomorrow is the the last day, so if you have any vials you want to fill...now's the time. Get on it!"
Mathieu - "Whenever we do one of those events, it's really fun, but it's difficult to actually have a game of Dead By Daylight (sometimes). People tend to play differently: they either want to cooperate or farm together, which is fine..."
Mark - "Events are special occasions, and we like that people treat them as though they're special. It's a opportunity to break out of your mold, do something you wouldn't usually do, maybe play the game a little differently. It's not something we think should always be part of the game..."
Mathieu - "It's refreshing to have that for a set amount of time, but also, we're getting better at finding alternate objectives that don't prevent people from playing the game. We did some events in the past where things got a little out of hand. Right now, at the very worst, you're gonna try to farm and then you're gonna get put on a hook. There's a little clash of expectations. We are learning from this."
Mark - "We made some progress in some directions and we're gonna make more progress with the next one."
Mathieu - "Overall, I think we can say that the event was a huge success. We broke some of our records of how many people are playing at the same time..."
Mark - "I have some numbers about how many people played the event: we had 1½ million people participating in the event so far. Of the vials that were filled, we're at over 15 million, and there's still a day left."
Mathieu - "Most popular outfit?"
Mark - "Easily The Wraith. After that, we get the Claudette, Dwight, and The Huntress."
Mathieu - "We keep making outfits, and we don't know which ones are gonna be completely overwhelmingly popular. There's no way we could have guessed... It's important to note: your vials will still be in your inventory for 2 weeks. You'll get a countdown in the interface...
Patricia - "Hover [over] the currency, and you'll see the timer."
Mathieu - "If you're still unsure about what outfit to get, you still have about 2 weeks to spend them."
​
2-D Cinematics
Mathieu - "First time we put in 2-D Cinematics... It was a new way to tell the story. We got a lot of questions about the lore and the characters in there and what was happening. And we answered none of them... There was a question amongst us, going, 'Is this the right medium to tell the story in the game.' They're really cool, they're faster to make, tell more of the story, and I think we'll do more."

Are the cinematics hiding a new Survivor or Killer?

Mark - "..."
​
Regarding Readjustments
---Raising the cap---
Mathieu - "The very first thing we did was just before we launched the event: we talked together and argued and realized that giving away just one outfit was not generous enough. We raised the cap to 60 from 30 so you could get two full outfits. We have to be aware of how generous we are; the Summer Barbecue event, we only gave out two pieces, but some will argue that we gave out 100% of the pieces that were made."
Mark - "These outfits, we thought, should just live in the shop because they're so good, so nice."

Will we be able to see the cinematic after the event is over?

Mark - "Not in the game client. If you want to see them, you'll have to find them somewhere else."
Patricia - "Or we could put them on our YouTube channel." [Not up yet...]
Mathieu - "That's cool. Let's do that."
​
---Merging the vials--
Mathieu - "That was mostly because the queue times for Killers became unbearable. Already, we are well-aware that the wait times in lobbies are too long. We're looking towards making this better."
Mark - "It was an issue we took very seriously. Since we've made that change, they've gotten better..."
Mathieu - "It went from absolutely horrible, to pretty bad. Throughout this, we learned a lot. 1) We're getting a little better at listening to you and readjusting our stuff. 2) People really like secondary objectives; it made you think 'is it time to work on the gens, or concentrate on the flowers...' "
Mark - "There's a lot of risk involved. It sometimes made things more challenging, but that also makes it more exciting when you realize, 'This is a risk I wanna take, or this isn't a risk I wanna take right now.' That choice is new to Dead By Daylight."
Mathieu - "It used to be a simple case of, 'How bold are you, and how eager to survive are you?' Now we added, 'How greedy are you?' Dead By Daylight has always lived on the real emotions. It's real human responses, and that's what makes it fun."
​
Farming
Mathieu - "The people that started working together...[some] literally going, 'Let me farm that flower and then you can put me on your hook; I won't wiggle.' Because there's no way to communicate during the game, you have to take it on faith that the guy that's teabagging at the flower is telling me that if I let him do this he will let me get him to the hook, but there's no way to know. Many Killers will just whack you on the head."
Mark - " 'Once I've got my progress, I don't think I'm held to this deal.' There is no contract."
Mathieu - "It's created a lot of strong emotions. With people, 'No, no, no, you should respect the farming; we only have two weeks to get our outfits; please,' and it's a valid plea. Sure; you're still playing a game. We don't wanna give more opportunity for salt. The event always makes it harder to have a 'vanilla' game of Dead By Daylight."
Mark - "We're not doing an alternate game mode here, we're not doing a second button [for] 'Normal Mode' or 'Halloween Mode'."
Mathieu - "Trying these gameplay mechanics is also a way for us to check if these are super fun, and if they are, why not introduce them later, maybe, permanently, or have them as an alternate mode. It's something that we've always kept to the side since the beginning because creating an alternate mode would essentially split the community of players. We don't wanna do that; we want to have enough players that games happen regularly."
Mark - "As we do these mechanics, 'you keep the parts that work, you cut the parts that don't.' "
​
Lore Explanation
Mathieu - "I went to get a lot of information, and it got shot down... The only info I have is to tell people that 'that mysterious character in the cinematics is a mysterious character.' So we're not gonna give you his name, or her name, now."
​
Vial Issues
Patricia - "Some people had issues with their vials. I put a thread in the News section so you can go there and follow the steps and redirect you on the support ticket. After the event ends, the team will process all those case-by-case, and you'll have a response."
Mathieu - "What happens with the old petal offerings?
Mark - "They stay in your inventory and they are disabled."
Mathieu - "That's not very exciting... Will they be useful again at some point?"
Mark - "No answer on it at this time. 'Maybe' is a good word for it."
​

Bloodrush Event - Nov 5th–12th

"You guys will be able to do an event called Bloodrush. You'll get 1.5 times the Bloodpoints. It's from November 5th - 12th. Why 1.5 [instead of double]? 'Cause the event is a full week instead of a weekend."
Mathieu - "A lot of people are actually saying, 'Cheap jerks,' now..."
Mark - "You can get some sleep this time. :) "
​
*Brief intermission*
​

Hallowed Blight Panel (w/Phil) [11min]

[Photos for reference]
Phil - "The first idea [we had] was, 'Let's do some Dracula and Frankenstein and other classical characters,' but we decided it would be more fun and original to have our own take on Halloween. We started sketching stuff—The Trapper. The idea was..."
Mathieu - "The souped-up version of The Killers."
​
---The Trapper---
Phil - "So he's like maxed out and everything, and then we came up with the orange liquid—the juice. You see we were working on the socket, how they would put it in and how it would work."
Mathieu - "Do they all have a paper note attached to them with a number?"
Phil - "Yeah... It's part of the mystery."
Phil - "So then we started attacking the weapon. The same idea was brought up with the vial/capsule. The idea was the capsule was broken, so it's going through and changing the weapon."
​
---The Wraith---
Phil - "We wanted to do something extreme, like having holes in his torso or head. We went with the torso, and thought it would be nice to bring back the spine that he has on his weapon."
Mathieu - 'He looks like he's empty. It's a good look for him; an empty shell of a man."
Phil - "Then we pushed the idea of the roots, trees growing up like crazy. We see the original weapon with the same idea of the vial/capsule is broke down and the liquid going through the spine."
​
---The Doctor---
Phil - "We went all over. He's in need of...a doctor. We wanted his face to be deformed; thought it was pretty creepy."
Mathieu - "It feels like The Doctor is very inspiring to play with. Every time we do something new with The Doctor, it can go in weird directions."
Phil - "He's pretty open to experiment. He called me."
Phil - "You see on the ankle the prisoner, kind of... he put it on himself...for science. You see the weapon showing the vial/capsule inside. Every time he's hitting, it's releasing some juice."
​
---The Huntress---
Phil - "This one was a bit harder. We wanted to spruce it up, but the idea was a lab rabbit—the experiment that went wrong. The fur is growing bigger, the nails of the toes are growing crazy, the mask [has] some muscle and flesh and teeth coming out."

Can we get some art of these outfits?

Mathieu - "We are thinking of creating a new version of the artbook. Maybe for the anniversary next year, but we'll see. It's a lot of work."

Why is there no Nurse outfit?

Mathieu - "There's no outfits for some characters."
Phil - "Some were a little harder to convey the idea of a juice-up version. We wanted the full impact."

Will these skins be available to buy on all platforms?

Mathieu - "They are currently on all platforms."
​
---The Hillbilly---
Phil - "He already has this brother, so we pushed the brother out so he has a couple brothers. Even on his back. He has a second leg coming out... He's the malformed one, so we wanted to push the idea, and having his thorax open."
​

Around the Web

Caution: Some content shown in this section may not be suitable for all viewers. Discretion is advised.
[Twitch [2min] imgur]
​

End of Stream

Spring Event is LIVE (as of 03/28/18) for some users. Please remember that the updates always, always, ALWAYS roll out on a staggered schedule. There is no rhyme or reason to who gets the update first. There is no way to get the update faster. Screaming on here will not help. Everyone should have the update within a week or so.
Note that this is a return to the old event format (cue cheering)! However, SOTM and SOL do not affect event candies. Event currency DID carry over from the past event - if yours is gone you need to contact the devs on Facebook to report it.
 
A few general event tips:

• Yes, your candy will carry over from one event to the next. Once you have bought as many of the event fish as you want, keep grinding and hoarding candy, it will transform into whatever the next event currency is. (Probably.)
  
• No, we do not know when the event will end and we will not know until the devs announce it. Expect the event to last about 4-6 weeks, ending mid-May. THE EVENT WILL END ON 04/30/18
  
• Don't forget to refer to sirtaptap's Guide for a general overview of the events and how they work. - Note that SOTM still is not working for event currency but if you don't want to watch ads, his is the best method for manually farming.
  
• If you want to watch a bunch of ads, you can set your device clock ahead manually to infinitely reset your Event ad cooldown. Here is a link explaining the exploit for Android and iOS.
  
• u/ashybb put together a resource on Auto-Clickers in this thread here for those of us without the wrist strength to tap for a million years.
  
• With the newest update (1.6.3) you get a 1000 Sakura reward for completing the 5000 tap daily mission. To claim your Sakura, click the Trophy menu from the main screen. There will be a red exclamation mark over the Trophy when your reward is ready.
  

 
Check out pics of the new dye, theme, and fish here, here, and here, and the new picnic fish here
 
Items:
Currency: Sakura (Cherry Blossoms)
Costume: Sakura Tree, cost: 1000 Sakura
Dye: Sakura Sake, cost: 500 Sakura
Theme: Dance of Sakura, cost: 500 Sakura
IAP: Panda Diver Pack, cost: $9.99

• Doubles Sakura drops (for this event only)
  
• Decreases normal fish cost by 30% (permanently but this effect will only be visible for 1-2 fish due to the way fish costs scale)
  

 
2018 Event Fish:
B.L. Tomato Clownfish

• cost: 200 Sakura

Honeybee Goby

• cost: 200 Sakura

Butterflying Fish - Hidden

• Watch 15 Event Ads (the ones for Sakura blossoms)
  
• You can manually set your clock ahead 15 minutes at a time to get this one faster. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do this for Android and iOS
  
• cost: 400 Sakura
  

Picnic Dumbo Octopus

• Obtain 5 BLT Clownfish
  
• cost: 400 Sakura
  

Petal Crinoid

• Obtain 10 of the new event fish
  
• cost: 600 Sakura
  

Flower Crown Jellyfish - Hidden

• Collect Sakura 200 times from Petal Crinoid
  
• Best method will be to store everything but your Crinoids and only collect Sakura from them until you unlock this
  
• cost: 600 Sakura
  

Blanket Octopus

• Obtain 20 of the new event fish
  
• cost: 800 Sakura
  

Newborn Chick - Hidden

• Take pictures of the 5 hidden eggs
  
• cost: 1200 Sakura
  
• There are 5 nests of eggs located around the Coralite after you purchase and equip the dye (think the tombstones from Halloween 2017). An album of what the nests look like and their locations is located here
  

1. Inside the hole in the corailte;
   
2. Behind the ship (Remains of the Nautilus);
   
3. Among the rocks visible just off the prow of the ship (Remains of the Nautilus);
   
4. Tucked between the coralite and the right pagoda (visible from above);
   
5. Just to the left of the left pagoda
   

Picnic Sea Turtle

• Obtain 3 Picnic Dumbo Ocotopi
  
• cost: 1200 Sakura
  

Sakura Wobbegong - Hidden

• Equip the Sakura Tree Costume and share 3 photos of the Newborn Chick
  
• cost: 1500 Sakura
  

Picnic dolphin

• Obtain 3 Picnic Sea Turtles
  
• cost: 1500 Sakura
  

White Butterfly Ray - Hidden

• Decorate with the Dance of Sakura Theme and create a Sakura Wobbegong (text says Sakura Whale but that's literally impossible)
  
• cost: 2000 Sakura
  

Sakura Sun Fish

• Obtain 40 new event fish
  
• cost: 2000 Sakura
  

Picnic Dugong - Hidden

• Collect 100 Sakura from Picnic Dolphin
  
• Best method will be to store everything but your Dolphins and only collect Sakura from them until you unlock this. You can use Expand mode to follow them around the screen to collect.
  
• cost: 2500 Sakura
  

Sakura Beaked Whale

• Obtain 3 Sakura Sun Fish
  
• cost: 4000 Sakura
  

Sakura Whale

• Obtain all the new event fish (not including the IAP, but buying the IAP will let you unlock this without getting one of the fish)
  
• cost: 8000 Sakura
  

 
2017 Event Fish:
These all seem to have the same unlock conditions and cost as last year's event. Unfortunately for those of you who didn't get the theme and dye last year, you have to buy the $0.99 package for the theme and dye if you want to unlock all the fish. The Bunny Sea Slug unlocks by watching 10 Sakura ads.
I'm just gonna paste a link to u/sirtaptap's 2017 event guide here, rather than duplicate work: Guide
 
All Fish Cost Table

Fish	Number	Cost
Costume	1	1000
Theme	1	500
Dye	1	500
BLT Clownfish	5	1000
Honeybee Goby	20	4000
Butterflying Fish	1	400
Picnic Dumbo	3	1200
Petal Crinoid	1	600
Flower Crown Jellyfish	1	600
Blanket Octopus	1	800
Newborn Chick	1	1200
Picnic Turtle	3	3600
Sakura Wobbegong	1	1500
Picnic Dolphin	1	1500
White Butterfly Ray	1	2000
Sakura Sun Fish	3	6000
Picnic Dugong	1	2500
Sakura Beaked Whale	1	4000
Sakura Whale	1	10000
Total	Total	42,900

You can get as many as you want of the BLT Clownfish and Honeybee Goby as long as you get a total of 25 and you have at least 5 Clownfish.
The cost of everything from the 2017 event is 41200 Sakura plus the $0.99 IAP. If you didn't play last year and need to complete both events, you're looking at a grand total of 84,100 Sakura.
This is on the cheaper end of events for just the 2018 fish; however, with SOTM nuked it still ends up being one of the most difficult events ever, as we'll see below.
 
Event Cost versus Previous Events
A couple notes before I jump into the math on this one:

• Previously, the skill cap for SOTM was 11 (i.e. 15 candies per tap). Even SOTM level 1 gave 5 candies/tap. This was raised to 21 (25 candies/tap) in May 2017.
  
• Prior the Valentine's 2018 event, ad recharges were every 30 minutes and only gave 50 candies which made it pretty much impossible to complete events on ad watches alone.
  
• You can only get 20 Event Currency bubbles per minute maximum. I have assumed that a person is using the ideal method for events and not missing any currency bubbles.
  
• For the sake of simplicity, I have not factored in Spirit of Life, which would also double your candies prior to Valentine's 2018.
  
• I haven’t included the time/candies to get previous years’ event fish because it varies event to event and is too complicated (since some also required pearls, fusion materials, additional waiting, etc.)
  

Event	Cost	SOTM Lv. 1	SOTM Max	With IAP+Max	Ads Only
Halloween ‘16	18,900	3780 taps/189 m (3 h 9 m)	1260 taps/63 min (1 h 3 m)	630 taps/31 min	378 ads/189 hours (7.875 d)
Christmas ‘16	68,500	13700 taps/685 m (11 h 25 m)	4567 taps/228 min (3 h 48 m)	2283 taps/1 h 54 m	1370 ads/685 hours (28.542 d)
Valentines ‘17	37,300	7460 taps/373 m (6 h 13 m)	2487 taps/124 min (2 h 4 m)	1243 taps/1 h 2 m	746 ads/373 hours (15.542 days)
Spring ‘17	44,700	8940 taps/447 m (7 h 27 m)	2980 taps/149 min (2 h 29 m)	1490 taps/1 h 15 m	894 ads/447 hours (18.265 days)
Anniversary ‘17	270,000	54,000 taps/2700 m (45 h 0 m)	10,800 taps/540 m (9 h 0 m)	5400 taps/270 m (4 h 30 m)	5400 ads/2700 hours (112.5 days)
Fall ‘17	64,200	12,840 taps/642 m (10 h 42 m)	2568 taps/128 m (2 h 8 m)	1284 taps/64 m (1 h 4 m)	1284 ads/642 hours (26.75 days)
Halloween ‘17	84,200	16,840 taps/842 m (14 h 2 m)	3368 taps/168 m (2 h 48 m)	1684 taps/84 m (1 h 24 m)	1684 ads/842 hours (35.083 days)
Christmas ‘17	99,900	19,980 taps/999 m (16 h 39 m)	3996 taps/200 m (3 h 20 m)	1998 taps/100 m (1 h 40 m)	1998 ads/999 h (41.625 days)
Valentines ‘18	50,000 (est)	50,000 taps/2500 m (41 h 40 m)	50,000 taps/2500 m (41 h 40 m)	0 taps/0 m	500 ads/125 h (5.208 days)
Spring '18	42,900	42,900 taps/2145 m (35 h 45 m)	42,900 taps/2145 m (35 h 45 m)	21,450 taps/1073 m (17 h 53 m)	429 ads/107.5 h (4.469 days)

So, this is event is still about as difficult as the Valentine's event, meaning that the only normal event that was more difficult was the Anniversary 2017 event with SOTM Level 1.
 
Other New Stuff and Bugs:

• Valentine's Reef can now be stored from Expand, under the Sandcastle icon.
  
• The new event fish and last year's event fish are split out across two tabs now. Pink clownfish tab for new fish, orange clownfish tab for old fish.
  
• Garden Whale 2017 may not unlock until you create one of the 2018 fish, even if you have everything unlocked.
  
• They patched the bug that let you get the Wahoo by taking a pic of the Bonito. Now you just have to wait for the Wahoo too.
  
• Expand menu and photo mode can get "locked in" and might not let you move around - just close Camera mode or tab out of Expand and it should reset itself.
  

 
Thanks to u/crustybustacean93, u/btbtiu13041, u/kaylaserket, Akash Bhardwaj on Discord, Maru-EU on Discord, and Patricia Maturet Ripa on Facebook for early event info!