#(the activity level rises and falls depending on how active the fandom is at the time but YEAH since the fandom is pretty slow right now TH

[mwebber]

heyyy i was wondering if u saw marks story around .. 10 hours ago, before he deleted it. it was this reel https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvLWrV3vOr3/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

and obvs he must’ve seen how stupid it was to post that to his story or something but he still liked the post and idk …

i didn’t because i don’t check instagram lmao but ahh hm. how do i address this in a nuanced way.

for context, the vid is a clip of polish european parliament member dominik tarczyński from 2021 in the middle of a debate on the rule of law conditionality mechanism, which to my understanding (in incredibly dummy terms) was the european commission trying to find a way to penalize increasingly conservative places hungary and poland by taking away budget in the condition that such places violated their articles and whatnot. tarczyński obviously goes on the defensive and says that poland rejects the commission’s “leftist ideals” and to focus instead on sweden and germany who have uhhhh allegedly an increased crime rate because of [checks notes] illegal migrants. you can read the whole thing here.

now, mark agreeing with this isn’t like… surprising? our boy literally simped for jordan peterson at one point. but from having grown up conservative, i can tell you that the line of thinking here probably isn’t “i am islamophobic and racist and think all immigration is bad!” it’s more likely that mark subscribes to the rhetoric that immigration needs to be “selective” so that countries can let in the “right quality” of person. this of course is directly tied to the notion that nonwhite people (plus or minus east asians depending on what benefits white supremacy more) aren’t qualified people (or people at all), not even getting into the question of whether the concept of citizenship should even exist. but deconstructing that idea, especially when it’s something that seems so fundamentally innocent and basic—à la “yeah, you shouldn’t let everyone into a country, there should be some regulation”—requires a level of effort and prompting that i’m not sure mark is equipped to tackle, at least not in the communities he’s in/with the people he publicly surrounds himself by.

i will say that instagram/socmed activity isn’t a complete measure of someone’s political or moral compass. like, the chance that mark watched the reel without any of the context, thought it was poland sticking up for itself, posted to his story, and someone else pointed out that it was a stupid racist nonsensical take so he took it down… is not non-zero. alternatively, he could have googled it and thought hm, maybe i don’t want to put in my two cents on european union politics. who knows! only he does.

but i think that all brings me to my main gripe with fandomization of a real person, and the whole thing where we treat these men like fictional characters. it’s easy to fall into the whole fanon thing and think that mark’s offenses are just, y’know, being a “proud heterosexual” and that his laundry list of crimes ends at a couple of stupid misconstrued tweets. and we can add all the context we like of rising transphobia/the phenomenon of trans people as a scapegoat for the right/etc, but i don’t think anything excuses this man for his ignorance and the very real pain he has brought on the community time and time again.

that said, he’s not evil personified. yes, he double tapped a reel on a polish mep scapegoating immigrants. yes, he said jordan peterson’s bullshit book was good. yes, he made a distasteful jab at trans people. he’s still also just a guy who likes animals. he’s still also the bitchy freak we fell for. he’s still also human with family he clearly adores and a compelling life story.

the bigger question is, where do you, personally, draw the line? when do his wrongdoings exceed your tolerance?

to be frank, i’m not entirely sure why you came to me with this—whether you were looking for validation, or for me to jump on demonizing him, or whatever. i have laid out my personal and everchanging opinion of him in painstaking detail on this account, but they’re my opinions based on what i can stand to tolerate. if you vibe with that, cool! but if this has pushed you over your line, that’s equally valid and okay. i’d support anybody saying they’ve decided to stop being a fan, i get it.

bottom line is this: he’s a real person. he’s not going to be someone you like 100% of the time, because nobody ever is. you need to make your own choices here, and whatever you’re comfy with, that’s your path.

[fuckyeahkagepro]

( TAGS )

[enrychan]

comparison mass effect andromeda / dragon age 2, yeah or nope? i hear that a lot around the fandom

short answer: nope

extremely long answer [lots of MEA negativity and Personal Opinions™ under the cut, you’ve been warned. Please don’t read if you enjoyed the game and/or you are tired of hearing negative things about it, believe me i totally understand the feeling]:

alright i’m not going to act like DA2 wasn’t disappointing because yes, it was. especially after a game like DAO which remains among the best RPGs i’ve ever played. so I would compare MEA to DA2 because they are both disappointments. that said, i still disagree with the part of the fandom that says they are similar because of the “smaller story” and/or “the focus on the characters”. DA2 is a smaller story than DAO, but it’s laser focused on the delivery of that story within a three chapters arc, and through its characters. Exploration is almost non-existent and the fetch quests are few and so unimportant you can skip them without missing anything. The companions are the true narrative and emotional center, and each one of them has a personal mission during each one of the three chapters of the story. Some of them (especially Anders and Fenris) represent a piece of the problems and politics of Thedas and force Hawke to make decisions regarding those problems. Their growth and fate depend almost entirely on their relationship with Hawke and on the choices of the player.

On the other hand, MEA is all over the place. it gives me a number of huge maps filled with nothing but fetch quests that don’t make the narrative proceed in any way and are entirely forgettable. The game also gives me a humongous researching/developing system for weapons and armor with an absolutely ridiculous and confusing as hell UI, which requires three different currencies (milky way tech, kett tech, remnant tech), that you have to collect by scanning things, just to research the projects for said weapons and armor, not to mention the materials to actually build the fucking things - which come in like six or seven different levels, so if you want to update your weapon or armor to the next level you have to gather the materials all over again. That’s insane. At some point I just skipped that mess altogether and went through the rest of the game with my shitty level 2 gear because i was sick and tired of scanning and gathering and researching just to discover lately that i didn’t like how my new weapon worked and i wasted time for nothing. Obviously that meant the combat was much harder for me than it needed to be. There is a more in depth analysis on the researching/developing system in this review, if you’re interested. I’m not going to delve into the ridiculous implications of having to scan the rebels’ tech on Kadara to get milky way tech currency, like on the Nexus they don’t have, I don’t know, archives or books on their own technology?

I’ll also add that while the combat is probably the best part of the game, and it’s much more dynamic than in the trilogy, it’s still much less fun for me because they took away the option to order your companions to use a certain power, preventing me from planning any tactic or combo. this also had the side effect of creating another layer of separation between my Ryder and her companions; like there weren’t enough already, with the mediocre writing and everything else going wrong in this game. Basically I always fought like I was alone and most time i actually was because my two companions were KO and i didn’t care, as they were almost useless to me.

I should probably add that the quest design in MEA is atrocious, the worst of every bioware game i’ve played - and i played most of them. for almost every mission i was required to go to a certain planet, than back to the ship, than back to a planet, then back to the ship… each time going through unskippable cutscenes and loading screens. Luckily for me when i played the game they already patched the galactic map, letting me skip the cutscenes of the voyage between planets, which are very pretty at first but at the fifteenth time they start to really grate on your nerves. And despite the patch, the voyage is still very slow compared to, say, ME3. I cannot even imagine the pain of the day 1 players who were forced to suffer through those unskippable cutscenes hundreds of times. Some missions (the worst ones imo) require you to follow a signal through more than two solar systems, reading a series of five or six “false positives” or whatever, before finally finding the “real one” and conclude the mission; an utter pain in the ass and a complete waste of time. I understand that MEA had huge problems during its development, but this kind of stuff has nothing to do with those problems and everything to do with artificially extending your gaming time with boring activities, just to say that the game is “100 hours long”.

At this point I want to make clear that I would have forgiven everything - the fetch quests, the confusing crafting system, the awful quest design - if Bioware gave me a good protagonist and/or interesting companions. Not even a good story really, I didn’t even care about that, just give me a fully flashed out crew with clear motivations and backgrounds and I’ll be happy. That’s basically the reason why I forgive every shortcoming in DA2 - and there are a loooot of those. But nope, Andromeda fails there too.

With the exception of Jaal and to a lesser extent, Cora, the loyalty missions of the companions are completely disjointed from the main story and universe in which they are set and don’t make us understand more of this new galaxy in any way. This lack of relevance would still be ok if the relationship between the companions and the protagonist and/or the protagonist’s choices actually mattered (like in DA2, where the companions’ loyalty determines who lives and who dies in the end) but unfortunately they don’t, and i mean at all.

Speaking of the protagonist, again the comparison with Hawke doesn’t hold. Hawke could have three very distinct personalities which made them somewhat memorable, for good or bad. Ryder on the other hand has two or more kind of replies that are almost always the same, just with slightly different wording (as this video says: do you know the difference between “now we are building again” and “this is vital to our progress”? - not that i agree with everything said in that review but here i agree completely). Ryder fares even worse if compared to other bioware protagonists like the Warden, who had a wide range of reactions that in some cases could even include outright killing their interlocutor. Combine this with the almost complete lack of choices and/or consequences in MEA and you get the most forgettable and boring protagonist of a bioware game to date; and yeah, I’m including the Inquisitor, because while the choices of dialogue in DAI were similar to those in MEA, at least the facial animations were decent so you could have a connection with your own protagonist on some level.

To be clear, it’s not lost to me what the original intention was with Ryder’s character arc. Ryder is specifically written as inadequate, uncharismatic and sometimes incompetent, because they weren’t the intended heir to the title of Pathfinder. They kinda found themselves thrown into that role and had to adapt. On its own that’s not a bad character arc at all. On the contrary, it could have been even more interesting than Shepard’s, who was a leader even before the first mission in ME1. Unfortunately there is no actual character arc for Ryder, only premises. Ryder never becomes more charismatic or assertive during the story, in fact they make very few choices at all, and even those few have little to no consequences both in the main story and in their relationships with the other characters. Ryder is just kinda there, reacting with various shades of tone to other characters actually making choices. Again compare that to Hawke’s arc, since we are discussing whether or not the two games resemble each other. In DA2 there is a simple premise (Hawke is a poor refugee who runs from the Blight and has to survive in an unforgiving city like Kirkwall) and a very clear payoff (Hawke becomes one of the central political figures in Kirkwall, while ironically still not being able to save their own family and, possibly, friends). With Ryder there is a clear premise but no payoff. At least not on a personal level, which is important in creating a connection with our character. Of course the story goes on anyway, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect my protagonist or change them in any way, so it remains almost irrelevant to me.

Everything said until now would be already experience breaking on its own, but it becomes even more remarkable in Ryder’s specific case, because Ryder comes with an extra passenger, aka SAM - and SAM is a very invasive extra passenger. To the point that most of the time you’re convinced it’s not actually Ryder the one in charge of that brain, or of the Pathfinder team. 99% of the time it’s SAM who solves problems and tells you and the others what to do. Sometimes is becomes frankly annoying. I’m not even talking about the vaults. You have to solve a murder case? SAM doesn’t just gather the evidence, oh no, he also tells you exactly what the evidence means and how it must be interpreted, like Ryder is too stupid to connect the dots. You intervene in a beating or a robbery on Kadara, either to stop it or just to understand what’s going on? SAM tells you not to get involved. And guess what? Ryder does exactly that, instead of, idk, telling SAM to shut the fuck up? SAM also becomes downright unbearable on Voeld and on Elaaden where it keeps telling you that the temperature is rising or falling or that it’s within acceptable range. I don’t know if they finally patched the thing but god was that annoying.

In any case my point is, since it’s actually SAM and not Ryder that does all the work, you have the distinct feeling that you are not actually the protagonist in this story, just a vessel. That could have been a cool premise if, for example, Ryder leaned too much on SAM and then halfway through the story it was taken away or shut down. That could have been a dramatic moment of growth for Ryder, where they were forced to finally rely on their own strenght and actually become the Pathfinder humanity needed. But again: cool premise, no payoff. SAM is taken away only near the end of the story and Ryder almost dies because of that. And even when they can’t access their SAM during the final mission, there is still the SAM inside the other Ryder sibling’s brain to tell them and you what to do. In short, Ryder is almost entirely dependent on SAM throughout the entire story, making them even less memorable as a protagonist, if possible.

Unfortunately, the same could be said of most of the characters that populate Andromeda and particularly the Tempest. Jaal is relevant only because he is an angara, the only new friendly species introduced in MEA (another disappointment), but he is otherwise completely forgettable on his own. It’s repeated over and over again how the angara have an extremely open behaviour towards each other, expressing feelings without many constraints like we do, but the problem is, without good and complex facial/body animations, that kind of behaviour is hard if not impossible to deliver. I think that’s one of the main problems with Jaal’s character. The other main problem is of course the writing, always generic and kind of vague. For example when you ask him about his relationship with the Moshae, he tells you that she “inspires” and he “loves her”, but he doesn’t give you anything that actually communicates that inspiration and that love, even only through the tone of his voice (has anyone given some direction to these voice actors?). It’s only telling without showing. Compare that to Dorian talking about Felix, for example. With just one image (Felix sneaking him treats from the kitchen while he was studying) he gives you an idea of both the person that Felix was and his relationship with him.

Cora is similar to Ryder in the fact that her character has good premises, but no payoff. She has two main character traits: she was trained as an asari commando and has great admiration for them; and she was the second in command under Alec Ryder, so she should have become the Pathfinder, but she didn’t. Aside from the fact that in my opinion she repeats that she was trained as an asari commando a little too many times, like she wanted to be 200% sure we got the message, and that becomes kind of annoying after a while… if we take a look at her character arc we see that there is a great disappointment when she finds out that the asari heroine that she admired the most lied about the death of the asari Pathfinder for her own personal gain. This should have set in motion a series of consequences on her character journey similar to those Liara experienced when she found out that the Protheans weren’t actually the ethereal, moral beings she thought they were, but instead they were conquerors and imposed a totalitarian regime on the galaxy. But while Liara at first gets angry and sad and then she slowly accepts to re-examine her own previous work under a new light, no relevant change can be seen within Cora’s character. More on this comparison can be found in this excellent video. In a similar way, her other main trait (the fact that she was the designated successor to Alec but she didn’t get the Pathfinder title in the end), also doesn’t have any payoff. In fact she is just slightly disappointed/irritated at first but she gets over it very quickly (even if Ryder is clearly not the charismatic figure humanity needs) leaving little to no consequence on her relationship with Ryder. In these conditions, the scenes in which she talks about her hobby ring hollow because I didn’t previously build my relationship with her on anything substantial, so I don’t really care about her plants.

I’d say the only companion who gets a very simple but complete character arc is Peebee, because she starts as kind of an outsider in the group, extremely afraid of commitment (the writers made sure it was super obvious with the “I live in an escape pod” thing), and in the end she learns to relax a little and trust Ryder and the rest of the crew more. Unfortunately I also found her annoying as hell since her first appearance, so that didn’t do a thing for me.

I could go on with the other companions, but this reply would become a bible. I’ll just add that the “good premises - no payoff” thing includes non-companion characters as well, Reyes for example. For the first 40/45 hours I didn’t romance anyone because, well, I found every possible LI either boring, paper thin or annoying af. That’s something I never experienced in any other Bioware game, but hey there’s a first time for everything I guess. Then I went to Kadara, I met Reyes and honestly he was a breath of fresh air. I’m not saying he was particularly deep or complex, but at least he was somewhat charismatic and charming (also, that accent), so I decided to romance him. Unfortunately both his character and his romance get no satisfying closure, as there is literally no change whatsoever, external or internal, if you let him kill Sloane; and you can’t really confront him on the fact that he used you and lied to you, even if you romanced him so it should have been kind of a big deal. bigger deal. whatever.

I’m not preteding that something like this never happened before. Speaking about the Mass Effect trilogy, Jacob is the most infamous example of boring, not entirely flashed out companion. Moving to the most recent Dragon Age, I’d say Blackwall also suffers from something similar, since he has good premises (she is vague and evasive at first because he’s lying about his true identity) but little payoff (even after the big reveal he remains pretty vague and generic about himself and his own story, nor he behaves even slightly different than before), though he’s still more interesting than the majority of the MEA crew. The point is, some shortcomigs are normal and expected and, if counter-balanced with other high points, they can be forgiven. But Andromeda didn’t shine in any way. Outside of combat the gameplay was boring and clunky, basically go from point A to point B, scan stuff, gather stuff, repeat. The sudoku puzzles were boring af and honesly ridiculous. No one ever solved them before you? is everyone in the Heleus cluster a moron?

In fact, the whole foundation of the story is that no one in the Heleus cluster could gain access to the vaults and activate them, despite having known and studied them for centuries. One day a complete stranger from another galaxy comes and solves everything in literally five minutes. And I’m supposed to believe that. I mean my suspension of disbelief can stretch a lot, but this is a little too much for me. Also that makes the angara seem like a bunch of idiots, which is not exactly flattering for the only new friendly species we meet in Andromeda.

The writing in general is poor to say the least. I understand that the writers were included too late into the project due to the huge problems experienced during the earlier stages of development, but some of these mistakes are super basic, like writing from the POV of the omniscient narrator instead of the POV of the characters. So we get dialogues in which the characters know that they are in no real danger even though they have been shot, they are about to get shot, they risk getting spaced, and so on and so forth.

I get that the writers were aiming at something completely different from the grim, fatalistic atmosphere of ME3, but the problem is: if the script doesn’t take itself seriously, why should I take it seriously.I mean I’m all for jokes and lighthearted moments, there were a lot of those in the trilogy and i loved them (most of them), but the entire MEA script doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. The stakes SHOULD be high - the Pathfinders have the responsibility of 100.000 souls on their shoulders - but not for a moment you feel that burden, that responsibility.

Even the real reason of the voyage itself (escaping the Milky Way before the Reapers annihilate every advanced organic society) is kept secret from the player until you gather all the “memory triggers” your father left behind. Until then the whole Initiative - a huge, extremely dangerous and exceedingly expensive project - is presented like a fun stroll through a new galaxy, just because “we are explorers” and we like new beginnings and whatnot. This is another incomprehensible narrative choice that doesn’t make sense, no matter how you look at it. If you played the trilogy, the Reaper threat is certainly no surprise to you so the “plot twist” doesn’t work. If you’re a newcomer to the series you don’t even know what a Reaper is so the “plot twist” still doesn’t work. Not to mention that for some reason Alec Ryder’s “memory triggers” are scattered on planets he never even visited in his life. Instead of placing them somewhere among his things, idk, family pictures, books or music he loved, where it made sense to find them?

And even after you discover everything about the Reapers, and that everyone back in the Milky Way may have been dead for the last 600 years, there is again no consequence in the story or in the dialogues whasoever. Not even Ryder seems to be particularly affected by the terrible news. But we should be happy because we found out that their mom is still alive! Too bad we don’t care about her because we don’t know her. Exactly like in the beginning we didn’t care about Alec’s death because we didn’t know him. Those are extremely basic narrative mistakes. The whole experience is on this same, boring, safe, non-consequential level. Bioware is so much better than that.

(sorry for the long rant. I had a lot to say)

[leaveharmony]

@yungcrybby-anonymousbosch  Consider me near rambled out :) 1.       How old were you when you first started watching?

I wish I could answer that with 100% accuracy.  I know for certain I was by 1990 (8 years old), but, if my earliest memory is correct and not a falsely-implanted one than it would have been as early as 1986 (4 or so).  Probably I was casually aware of it as a very young child and then slowly got more fanatic about it (this might have coincided with the first real meteoric rise of WWF / more available programming).

2.       What company or companies did you watch?   Early-on it was exclusively WWF, I'd say around 1998 I started occasionally tuning into WCW.

3.       What is your earliest wrestling memory?   I would swear up and and down that I remember Hogan and King Kong Bundy in the blue steel cage at Wrestlemania 2.  I used to watch wrestling with my grandfather (pop pop) at my grandparent's house, I remember they had a textured green carpet at the time and I'd lay on the floor...I swear, that I remember at least some of the extended family going there to watch WM2.  But nobody else can tell me if this actually happened.  If not, then I very clearly remember one of Jake Robert's snakes biting Randy Savage, in the ring (1991?).  I definitely remember the brief time before the Undertaker's first face turn.  And I very vaguely recall everybody being really excited when Hogan bodyslammed Andre the Giant (WM3, 1987). 4.       What attracted you to wrestling?   Mmm...I really don't know.  There's sort of a chicken and the egg aspect to it, I'm not sure I could pin down exactly why I gravitated towards anything as a child, but wrestling is even harder to figure out.  Pop pop used to get quite involved with it and we didn't really have a lot in common, so that might have been part of it.  Conversely, my parents were openly mocking about it, so, it might have also been a touch of my old tendency to be fiercely contrary.  I can def. tell you that the Texas Tornado was one of my favs because of all the fringes on his boots, and I liked the Ultimate Warrior's facepaint and all of Flair's glittery robes, and the like...so bright colours and pageantry might have had something to do with it.  And I was nuts about Miss Elizabeth in all her dated finery lol.  Big-boom 80's/early 90's WWF was certainly geared towards kids and I was right in that target audience.   5.       What is your favorite aspect of wrestling? I've always been attracted to characters more than plots, yunno?  In books or films, or series, if I like enough of the characters I'll stick with it even if the plotting is kinda terrible.  So I think it's just the personalities and people, tbh.  For a very long time I wondered if I'd ever been a -wresting fan- or just an -Undertaker fan-, a question I can now answer with the former, but, it's the wrestlers I'm fondest of that keep me involved, I think. 6.       What do you think the general public gets wrong about wrestling? “They don't really get hurt” would be my number one pet peeve misconception.  My father, for instance, would be one of those guys JR was loudly denouncing during HitC/KotR 1998 who would completely sincerely say “Yeah, but they know how to fall.” after watching a man fall 13ft through a table onto a concrete floor.  Which is why I would never watch it anywhere near him. 7.       Do you have any friends who also watch wrestling? There's you!  :D  I have more now than I used to, I was a solitary practitioner for a long time.  Now I'd say as many as five, anyway...and I've converted my mother lol. 8.       Did you eventually start watching other companies? A very limited bit of WCW (1998-the end of the company)..I would sometimes turn it over during commercial breaks in Raw/Smackdown.  I watched some TNA (whenever they got the deal w/ Spike TV -2006 or so when I couldn't stand looking at Jeff Jarrett anymore). 9.       What has kept you interested wrestling? Every single time I've stopped watching and returned, the return was because of the Undertaker.  He’d be the catalyst to the reaction which would follow... 10.   Are you interested in any other wrestling companies? Gateway-drugged by Shinsuke, I'm currently consuming as much NJPW as is possible by one single mortal human being on a linear timeline. 11.   What, if any, barriers are there to you watching other wrestling companies you’re interested in? Availability, relative ignorance and time constraints, I suppose?  It's sort of...akin to jumping into a longrunning comic series with no sense of the history of the lore.  Can be a little bit overwhelming and I think I'd have to do promotions one at a time.  It was different with NJPW and Shinsuke, because I knew at least one face and name so I had a jumping off point, and then through his matches -with- other people, came to know others as well.  I took notes! 12.   Have you ever been to a live wrestling show? Yep!  I think my first house show was in 1993? in a hockey arena in Sudbury, Ontario.  My second was in 1999 at the Skydome in Toronto.  My third was last summer at Ricoh Colliseum in Toronto, then last November I attended Takeover: Toronto and Survivor Series both at the ACC in Toronto, followed by another house show in March (Ricoh again). 13.   Have you ever been to a local wrestling company’s shows? Oddly no!  There's a promotion that sometimes did shows in my old highschool's gym but I never actually went - probably because I had nobody to go with. 14.   Do you tell others (friends, acquaintances) that you’re a wrestling fan? Why or why not? Historically it would depend on the person - there was a lot of indefensible stuff going on in the Attitude Era and I think it pretty justifiably coloured public perception of wrestling fans, so, sometimes saying it outright was bracing for an argument.  Now I've got zero shame about it - I'm a lifer, I've accepted it. 15.   Aside from wrestling, what other fandoms are you involved in? That kind of depends on your idea of “involved in,” as I tend to stay fairly quiet.  But to limit the answer to things I've actively posted about and discussed on Tumblr (within the past year or so), the brief rundown would be Star Trek (DS9), Fallout 4, the Dragon Age series, and Mass Effect. 16.   Where does wrestling rank among your other fandoms? It's currently sitting at a pretty smug #1 but these things do fluctuate. 17.   What Is your least favorite thing about wrestling? The target audience doesn't do it many favors, if you consider the target audience to have shifted during the attitude era to mean “Entitled straight white men aged 13-35.”  Them being pandered/catered to was responsible for a lot of the things I found off-putting.  To some extent, those things have gone by the wayside in WWE due to public trading/sponsorship (I'm not for a second gonna credit them with ‘shifting attitudes’).  Misogyny, objectification, racism, homophobia, ableism, etc.  In those respects it's at least less cringeworthy than it used to be, but sometimes there's backsliding...I find the jingoism in American-based pro wrestling very irritating, as well. 18.   What is the first imagine or concept that comes to mind when you think about wrestling? It's funny, but no matter how many times they've changed the colours over the years, I still picture the ring with a red top rope, a white middle rope, and a blue bottom rope. 19.   What do you wish wrestling had more of?  In other words, what is lacking from wrestling that you wish were present? Does “Thought put into it” count? lol.  Honestly most of the criticisms I'd level at wrestling would actually be directed at WWE.  One of the reasons I'm enjoying NJPW so much is it just makes so much more logical sense from a booking standpoint and there's so much less fiddling around with awkward scripted ‘sketches’ and forced drama.  WWE books like a bad reality show whose megalomaniac scripters are passed out in a table full of cocaine and money, so trains of thought don't actually reach the station. 20.   Grievances? Anything that bugs you about wrestling or the way it is presented? Commercial breaks on the WWE Network? Teasing that a certain someone was “up next” but only showing a video package?” Hahahahaha is it possible this question was inspired by Recent Disappointments?  XD Again, a lot of this would be directed at WWE.  Commercial breaks during matches, god, I can't even tell you how wrongheaded that is.  It completely takes me out of the story; I remember when it hardly ever happened, and when it did JR would apologize profusely for it, but now you've got a match with 2 or 3 commercial breaks in the middle of it, if it's something I'm only passingly interested in sometimes I've forgotten who's even in the ring by the time we get back to the action.  It's the equivalent of a drama going to commercial while somebody's in the middle of a sentence, and returning after they've finished making their point. And again, with poor damned planning and stubborn refusal to accept criticism or feedback.  Time was, if something went over like a lead balloon, it'd be reworked or tweaked or dropped altogether, but now...if it's something they want to happen badly enough they'll stick with a plan no matter how disastrously stupid or actively harmful to their own interests it is.  I'm thinking specifically of the idiocy that is having a man hold your top title who will /maybe/ show up five more times this entire year, so he can drop it to a man 80% of the audience has absolutely no interest in seeing whatsoever, in a match that will probably be terrible.   Oddly, sometimes we have the same problem in the opposite direction - being dead set on an idea while simultaneously waffling on committing to it; consider the repeated delay of Eva Marie's “debut match” which went on over a month, culminated in her being suspended offscreen, and likely her retirement from active competition.  Also the entire debacle with “Emmalina,” wherein the writers were 100% behind the idea of changing Emma's gimmick apparently without even once consulting Emma about whether she was comfortable with the new direction.  Similiarly the endless -promo videos- for the Shining Stars, and Darren Young's reboots...lengthy wait times followed by lacklustre debuts followed by essentially, no actual plan for any of them.  (and yes, there is an unspoken fear here related to Recent Disappointments, I’m sure it’s shared) 21.   And finally, anything you’d like to add to this questionnaire? *thinks a moment*  Shinsuke is the bees knees.  That's all.   22. How active are you in the online wrestling community? Not at all or do you occasionally visit wrestling forums and message boards? Do you read wrestling newsletters or listen to podcasts?Once upon a time I will admit to being a member of the “Brides of Kane,” and that's all the information you're getting on the subject lol.  I've been delighted to find an active community on tumblr, as it turns out it's more fun to watch / bitch about wresting in company.  I check the news sites daily - this is always true when I'm watching.And I occasionally give Jericho's podcast a listen, or run through some of Xavier's gaming videos.

[serenagaywaterford]

Now back to the show, I am very much in agreement with you on Nick. He’s boring af, writers haven’t done him any favors, and Max so far has unable to rise above the material. He’s an important character, but I don’t care too much. Since I am predicting Fred’s death, I am thinking maybe Nick is spared? Killing off two big characters? Oh, the horror!!

As far as Serena kicking it, I think it’s unlikely, but if she gets a glorious death that she deserves, maybe fighting on the side of the good, I am okay with it. I kinda don’t want her fully redeemed. Conflicted bad guys are always far more interesting in my mind. Plus, I am a big Yvonne fan, so for selfish reasons, I’d like to see her expand her horizons and move on to other great projects. I don’t want the show to drag on, 5 seasons is enough for me. Anything longer, quality may suffer.

-----

Thank god. I mean, the amount of blind Nick/Max worship on this site is just exhausting af. And for some reason they all get posted in the tags/searches consistently and I am forced to see them on my dash EVERY FUCKING DAY (even when I’ve blacklisted the tags!!) but other blogs (like mine, for example lol) can only get like 1 of 10 posts to show up in the main THT tags. Anyway, that’s a personal tumblr gripe tbh.

I really wonder how much of my displeasure and boredom about Nick is because Max is subpar. There’s a certain level basically every other actor in this show is on, and then there’s him... way down below and it’s painfully obvious how out of his depth he is alongside them. I think, if it wasn’t for the talent of the main actors he works opposite (Elisabeth, Yvonne, and Joseph), it would be even more obvious. Also, I do not get the attractiveness thing. He’s not at all appealing to me personally and I can’t find him hot no matter how hard I squint. (Fuck, I think fucking Isaac was better looking! And we all know my terrible opinion about Fred, heh. There is an attractive man!) But then, how much of my inability to view him as hot is due to the fact his personality/character does fuck all for me? 

Actor opinions aside, I understand the purpose of Nick. I truly do and I accept it. I can’t denigrate the role he plays in helping tell June’s story. But I still struggle to care anymore (I skip basically ALL Ni*k/June scenes tbh. YAWN.). I certainly got the point of him in S1. He was very important for multiple reasons. But I find him to be a character who seems to get away with being a shitheel and fans just drool no matter what. And god forbid anybody criticise him for anything he has ever done! They have a woobie excuse for every single thing and nothing is ever his fault and he’s “just following orders so he doesn’t die too”. (OH YEAH. Cos that isn’t a historically problematic defense at all...)

At least we admit Serena is a horrible person lol and don’t justify or write-off every single thing she does. Cos, well, Nick has freewill too and he makes many, many terrible choices for YEARS and is completely complicit in Gilead as well, but hey, he’s so hot therefore who cares as long as we get to see him with his shirt off. Him and June are so in loveeee uwu!!!!! UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

But again, that’s a fandom issue of mine, not even a character/show issue. I just feel on the show he’s sort of... past his prime in terms of usefulness. Like, sure, he’s gonna help June escape (AGAIN) and that’s all well and good but like... been there, done that. Even this concept that he’s important because he represents the “brightness and hope” in an otherwise bleak show because ~tru wuv~ just falls flat for me. I think there are plenty of opportunities for longterm slices of hope --- like, I dunno, #resistance, Mayday, the women breaking out of their bondage and getting revenge... like, the entire point of the show, lol. I want women’s happiness without the need for men to be involved in it as a necessity; I don’t want “Men are the reason for women’s true happiness” as a takeaway from THT. As an aside, sure. But not THE focus. Not to mention it leads to “dick is imperative for women to be truly happy” and I just don’t even wanna go there with how problematic that becomes when taken as a generality.

So, yeah. Nick. He’s fine. He’s not a morally good character. He’s grey. Just like almost everyone else in the main cast. But he lacks the complexity of actually morally obtuse characters. While Fred may be becoming more and more cartoonish and 1-dimensional, he still has more complexity than Nick. And, really, the more they flesh out the female characters--even the “evil” ones--the flatter and flatter both Nick and Fred look, especially in comparison.

Maybe this is intentional by the show? It is, after all, a show about women and living as a female in an ultra-male-dominated fascist society, not an in-depth character study of terrible men and their awful ideas/choices.

I am definitely thinking Nick is spared. Probably until the end of the series, tbh. He’s just too much of a fan favourite. Sigh. And this isn’t GoT when you can kill anybody no matter how popular lol. If any male in Gilead survives, it’ll be him. We know that after the Waterford’s house burns down, everybody is fine. (Rita, Nick, Serena, and Fred.) Whether Fred does ANYTHING to Nick afterwards is debatable cos they need him around to be all uwu with June, who clearly comes back into the Waterford’s circle somehow. I would wager not, even though that is absolutely ridic. The amount of plot armour Nick has is atrocious at this point. He actively insubordinate--leaning on downright criminal (in Gileadean terms), sinful, etc etc and Fred just goes, “Oopsie daisy! Oh well!” And it doesn’t even make sense. June, I get. He’s obsessed and possessive. Nick though? Fred really must be the dumbest fucking guy, unless he thinks Nick is an Eye and will squeal on all his (and Serena’s) terrible shit. I dunno. It’s so vague and blah. [And the fact he wouldn’t try to seriously/secretly disappear the dude who’s shtupping the Handmaid he wants so bad is lazy, inconsistent writing.]

(Question: Is Nick actually an Eye? Is that confirmed? From what I recall, he sort of implies he is but we never see him doing ANYTHING Eye-like, and Eyes have a shit tonne of power, do they not? He doesn’t seem to have any pull whatsoever with anybody. We see him working for Pryce, sorta. But again, that doesn’t scream “EYE!” to me. But that could just be because he’s such a weakling. And really other than his hints, the only other suggestion is Emily claiming there’s an Eye in the house--which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.)

If Serena dies, it’d better be on the side of the good--or after she’s done good. I think it’s pretty impossible for her to fully atone or be redeemed, but hey redemption isn’t a line you cross, it’s a journey you take! I also think it’s 99.9999% certain she will not get a happy ending for the character. All that said, I doubt they’ll kill her off in S3 too. (Although it really does depend about her baby and her contract lol. Sometimes actors take time off to be there with their babies/toddlers. But also some don’t and considering her career is finally taking off, I feel it’d just be bad business to take a break.) I mean, I don’t want her to remain a bad guy, tbh. I’d rather her move from conflicted bad guy who does some good things here and there, to conflicted sorta-good guy who does some bad things here and there. 

I think Serena’s the type of character that would be impossible to fully redeem. She’ll always be selfish, she’ll always be looking out for herself, she’ll always have some skewed, icky views on things, she’ll always have a lack of foresight, she’ll always need to be pushed to do difficult but good things (lazy? cowardly? I dunno), she’ll probably always waver when really pressured. She’ll probably always make some choices that are not good, or at least not nice. And things that makes us go “FUCK!” I’m just really tired of the flip-flopping and inconsistency of S2. (2x10... ahem.) Going back and forth on things is fine, but going up a cliff slowly, and slipping sometimes, but still incrementally moving forward---and then just jumping off the side of the damn cliff for no reason is just bad writing, imo. (And then somehow expecting the viewers to... just, accept that she’s back halfway up the hill where she was before she jumped in like a week... ugh). Just no more of that, please.

I’m with you on the 5 seasons max. I feel like 4 is possibly even pushing it. I guess my opinion may change (or not) depending on how well S3 is done.

[worldupdatereviews2017-blog]

The closing guide to a few wild days of Philly sports activities

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The closing guide to a few wild days of Philly sports activities

And this week in Philadelphia is a sports fan’s dream, with the conflux of the 2017 NFL Draft, the Penn Relays, and Phillies and Soul games.

To experience – and celebrate – the exceptional the Philly sports activities scene has to offer in a quick quantity of time, right here is an itinerary sure to challenge even the most ardent fan.

Begin the day on Race Street, the website online of one of Philadelphia’s first sports competitions: Where metropolis founder William Penn reportedly raced his horses down the road.

From there, head over to Huge Avenue, the path for u. S .’s biggest 10-mile road race, and then south to Federal Street. There, you may locate one of the metropolis’s newest murals, “76ers: Past the Court,” by artist Ernel Martinez. It functions some of the group’s finest players, which include Allen Iverson, Julius Erving, and Charles Barkley.

Philly sports Memorabilia at Its fine The city of Philadelphia is a terrific location to be a sports fan for the reason that place has diverse sports activities teams to cheer for. To assist fanatics in rooting for his or her teams, the metropolis has various sports activities stores that offer diverse Philly sports memorabilia for fans to get their arms on. This will help them show their pleasure for the groups they help and help them boom their collection’s cost by way of tenfold.

The sports Cave is a neighborhood sporting items shop In Philadelphia which shares up in various sports activities associated gadgets from the numerous sports teams in us. In case you are a devoted fan of a team or simply someone who desires to accumulate sports activities memorabilia, taking a examine what the Cave offers will provide you with the excellent possibility to show which you are supporting one group and the danger to add something new to your collection with the intention to simply make it particular.

A ramification of items To be had

While you are deliberating sports memorabilia, you are probably thinking about the wearing system and some t-shirts. In reality, sporting memorabilia is a sizeable class and the complete list may want to consist of the standard fan item like posters and t-shirts to rare collectibles like playing cards, pins, and statues. Luckily, the sports activities Cave has numerous of these gadgets To be had and you’ll absolutely be bringing something out from the store While you input it.

Photographs are the most common objects at the Cave and they are very sellable on account that they capture a group’s excellent moments and their most memorable performances. You could discover lots of sports activities images on the city for a totally low rate, however, the ones located in the cave have something else that brings it exquisite cost. The images on the Cave are hand signed via the athlete on the image. The picture also comes with a body for display functions and a certificate of authenticity.

Aside from snapshots, there also are a plethora of other gadgets offered on the Cave. In addition, they come autographed via well-known games and they come in specific bureaucracy depending on the sport. Life-sized Soccer Helmets, as an instance, are a have-to-have for any Soccer simply as autographed baseballs are catered to baseball enthusiasts. Jerseys are the maximum commonplace Philly sports activities memorabilia here and they’re additionally signed with the aid of well-known games and encased in a frame for display purposes handiest. different gadgets include autographed boxing gloves, basketballs, and commemorative tickets.

A Moment with the lovers

lots of sports activities fan need to rise up near and personal with their idols, and they’d without a doubt not miss any opportunity of such. Fortunately, the sports Cave has the method to organize and pull off a signing occasion wherein they invite local athletes and those from other cities into their premises in an effort to have a day with the folks who adore them. This occasion gives fanatics the possibility to give whatever memorabilia they should be signed with the aid of the athlete. The signature alone means that the athlete has touched the object and could boom it’s well worth by several times.

If you are a devoted sports activities fan, it’s far endorsed that you take a look at what the sports activities Cave has to offer. This is because the store has a variety of items To be had and is considered one of the better shops in the town. With the Philly sports activities memorabilia at the sports activities Cave, your popularity as a fan will be known and your friend could be admiring the gathering of sports activities gadgets which you have.

Philly.Com, a leading online source for complete information on the side of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily information, capabilities a regional business listing together with records approximately Philly sports Memorabilia [http://local.Philly.Com/philadelphia-eagles-sports-merchandise-and-memorabilia]. The centralized enterprise directory on Philly.Com spotlights establishments in each industry from restaurants to medical staffing services. Featured groups are displayed; full-page listing listings for each business enterprise consist of creatively written enterprise descriptions, customized movies, business internet-site links, hours of operation, contact records, and extra. Additional virtual marketing services, provided through Philly.Com, consist of internet site design and social media assistance for commercial enterprise proprietors.

Philadelphia Phillies – Having a bet Favorite Will Cross Bust In 2011

As Primary League Baseball’s spring training camps open for business in mid-February, 2011, the very best closing-final results expectancies, from the media to Las Vegas and the offshore books, to baseball fandom just about anywhere are for the Philadelphia Phillies to regain the world championship pinnacle they attained in 2008. After all of the Phillies received the offseason Cliff Lee Unfastened Enterprise Sweepstakes and figure to have the deepest exceptional starting rotation within the Countrywide League and probably all of the baseballs, in a horse race with the Boston Purple Sox for baseball’s usual difference in that regard. But, there exists a compelling case in opposition to the Phillies even reaching this season’s championship exhibit round, and allow’s check it…

it’s miles axiomatic that the extra questions surrounding a crew going into a season, the extra dubious that crew’s tremendous seasonal final results and the Phillies have a large number of capacity undermining solutions to those questions. allow’s Start with the biggest certainly one of all, which mockingly has to do with the supervisor, not the relative fitness and overall performance level this year of any precise everyday participant or pitcher.

It a nutshell, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel is the worst manager in MLB right now and has been one of the worst managers in MLB records at some stage in his tenure in Philadelphia, dating to 2005. How can that be, you ask, for the reason that Manuel guided the Phillies to World Collection victory as recently as 3 years ago? Well, allow’s take a look at the particularly suspicious instances surrounding the 2008 International Collection in shape-up and outcome between the Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays. simply prior to that Series, it becomes Well-publicized that Las Vegas and the Nevada sports activities books had a huge stake in a Phillies winning Global Collection outcome. It turned into finding out that “lots of paper” that means pre-season and early season destiny book bets at 40-1 odds at the Tampa Bay Rays to win it all, have been available, at potential Essential financial legal responsibility, if now not devastation, to the Nevada Gaming industry.

What accompanied become one of the maximum one-sided “Fall Traditional” umpiring debacles ever witnessed, on a par with the Nicely-documented 1919 “Black Sox Scandal,” which immediately brought about 8 players being banished from baseball for Life; on a par with the university basketball factor-shaving scandals of 1951 and 1961; on a par with NBA officials sanctioned for point-shaving duplicity in latest years. And on a par with the exceptionally suspect one-sided officiating inside the Pittsburgh-Seattle Exquisite Bowl of 2006, which evoked a storm of protest which descended upon Countrywide Football League headquarters, for numerous days thereafter. Insider fixes are the sports equivalent of Wall Street insider buying and selling scandals, and maximum conspiracies alongside those lines come to light, given time and the first-hand testimony which ultimately surfaces.

You may take the location that no such proof or testimony has surfaced implicating baseball’s umpiring within the 2008 World Collection. But how to provide an explanation for sincerely each near name in that Series going Philadelphia’s manner? And do not forget, Las Vegas gets what it wishes in Washington, D.C. Legislative circles, most currently, the Bush Management prescription in opposition to American residents making online, offshore sports e-book waters, which, no longer coincidentally, serves to funnel yearly literally millions of more bucks in gaming revenue the manner of Las Vegas and the Nevada sports activities Books. Nevada was given its way with Washington on that one, and a strong case can be made that Nevada, as well as the Philadelphia Phillies and their number one beneficiary, supervisor Charlie Manuel, also “won” the final results of the 2008 Global Collection. At the least, that result stays tainted and suspect.

[symbianosgames]

We know you're busy making games. That's why from here on out, Gamasutra will be bringing you a regular look at what passionate game fans are talking about right now, tapping the zeitgeist to look at what makes these heroic new fan favorites tick. Sometimes cultural buzz isn't just about retail units, formal market research and sales figures. This time, we take a look at the complex appeal of Atlus' rich, explosive JRPG Persona 4: Golden.

Japanese role-playing games used to be console-sellers, but things have been quite different this generation. The titanic sun of Japan's software industry dominance has slowly set, and long-standing Eastern franchises have struggled to maintain their luster.

Among those with the hardest fall from grace has been the Final Fantasy franchise, with an incredibly mixed reception for FFXIII and a disaster for FFXIV, and with its decline has come the perception that there's hardly any market for JRPGs anymore, not outside a specific niche.

Atlus has been catering to niches for years, with its Western arm and its partners bravely bringing installments of the Shin Megami Tensei series, from which the Persona games spawn, to our shores. The company's taken bets on relatively-hardcore titles like Tactics Ogre or the Growlanser series, games that enjoy small but passionate audiences.

But the Persona games have exponentially gained buzz with each installment. It was 2007's Persona 3 that first broke through in a big way, combining modern jazz and hip hop soundtracks with sleek, stylized animation -- and the attention-grabbing imagery of young students summoning demons by holding guns to their heads. There was something about that game's subtly-dark storyline, which followed teenagers searching for their inner selves as they investigate supernatural phenomena, that grabbed people.

2008's Persona 4 was an incredibly lush and sharp iteration on some of the formulas Persona 3 had laid out, giving the player richer characters and a more well-realized world, ironing out some of the weaknesses in the battle system, and offering more, in general, to do.

It follows the story of a boy who moves to the country town of Inaba in the midst of fog-shrouded murder mysteries -- and ends up joining friends to chase down psychic traumas in a nightmarish technicolor TV world.

The current hardware climate has allowed Atlus to be quite iterative with both games, much to fans' delight. Persona 3 got an add-on disc called FES in the year following its release, and the PSP edition, Persona 3 Portable was broadly enhanced, adding in the mechanical improvements made to its systems in P4 -- and giving the player the option to play as a girl, completely shifting the lens of the game's key social interactions and romances.

Now, Persona 4 Golden is a similarly enhanced and expanded remake of Persona 4 that is poised to become one of the most popular titles on Sony's PSVita -- maybe even a system seller. If it does well, it'll resemble the old days when Sony relied on big, hundred-hour JRPGs to help move its hardware. So why this game, why now? What's all the buzz about?

It's a fresh approach to story. Back in the day, you'd see Western games shoot for "gritty realism," while JRPGs were teased for having too many winged androgynes and absurd sparkling god-monsters. This game has its share of that, to be sure -- but the imagery is strongly grounded in the game's ideas about human psyche. P4 contrasts the player's surreal objectives with the mundane and vivid normalcy of a real world.

The typical JRPG work of powering through dungeons and defeating bosses is set alongside a daily time and life management sim. Choices and tasks undertaken in the real world -- spending time with friends, allocating attention to school activities, clubs and studies -- determine your player's character progression and strength level in the dungeons. Somehow the grind of battle feels more meaningful when it's anchored to something relatable, like the quiet repetition of country life or bonding with school pals.

Alongside the rise of the Western RPG has come an increased focus on the tropes of high fantasy and science fiction, accompanied by dense lore and complex arrays of discoverable quests and equipment. P4 is highly linear, favoring a strong narrative, but offers players a number of statistical choices. This lets the players focus on elements they can directly control, while being free to let the story unfold.

One popular complaint about P4, both in Golden and in the original, is that the game takes a good two hours before it opens up fully to the players. It's a very slow burn of an exposition, spending time introducing the town of Inaba, life at home with host relatives, and the protagonist's school friends before allowing the player to take meaningful control. Lots of P4 fans actually like this, though, enjoying a game that focuses on emotional foundation.

Characters are part of gameplay. P3 and P4 alike both rely on the idea that the protagonist can create strange, monstrous alternate selves called Personas that can be summoned into battle. The strength of Personas depends on the relationships the player forges and cultivates with the other characters within the game. Spending time with characters within the game's world and pursuing their individual story arcs increases the amount of power Personas can receive.

Social interaction as directly impactful to strength is a mechanic that appeals to a lot of players, especially as they seem to get attached to the surprisingly complex characters as the story unfolds. For example, the player can help his drama club captain decide whether she wants to see her father before he dies, or his basketball teammate deal with the pressures of being from a rich family. Much to fans' delight, the player can choose to engender romances with some of the female characters in the game.

That this is actually a core part of the gameplay seems to be a major pillar of the game's appeal -- most successful roleplaying games include depth when it comes to options on friendships and romances.

It's more than a port. Remakes and updates of varying degrees of quality are everywhere these days. But Persona 4 Golden represents such a meaningful iteration on the beloved original game that it's worth a purchase not just for new players, but for those who already have the PS2 version and some means of playing it. The massive JRPG has had a few years to marinate in fans' minds, and fresh off the well-received PSP iteration for Persona 3, there are enough new features to make it seem like the right time to revisit.

The game adds two new social arcs, makes some subtle but meaningful changes to the pacing, and polishes the battle system even further, removing a few frustrating random elements in favor of more engaging options. It also provides more detailed feedback on some of the progressions and a few alternate avenues to fulfill daily goals, eliminating some of the system's opacity and giving players a greater sense of choice and control at each junction. It also adds a few more story events, providing new content to familiar players.

It has meaningful multiplayer. One of the most significant tweaks that P4 Golden includes is some cleverly-integrated multiplayer. With its use of message-leaving and the ability to summon another player when needed, Dark Souls and its predecessor charmed audiences by proving that multiplayer could mean more than competitive or co-operative arena spaces, and P4 Golden also takes this cue.

When given a block of time, connected players can touch the Vita's screen to get a population sampling about what others decided to do during the same period. Since success in the game revolves so much around planning for major upcoming events, the ability to do a sort of audience poll when confronted with many options is engaging.

Players can leave distress messages in the dungeons as well, giving powerful players the option to come to the aid of those in desperate straits. The massive and detail-heavy nature of JRPGs rewards those who use real-world social behavior to help solve problems, and sharing suggestions with other fans is simple but powerful.

Its localization is brilliant. The writing and dialogue in Persona 4 is an understated art, managing to delicately balance the Japanese cultural influences that attract a lot of JRPG fans with dialogue and text that feel modern and accessible.

P4 Golden's additions even include a couple references to subtle in-jokes within the fandom, showing that Atlus USA has a close acquaintance with its community and knows how to interpret language for it. In an era where much bigger Japanese companies have foundered as they try to pitch for Western appeal, that's no small feat.