#Finally finished the editing for this part of the Seeds storyline-

[justdrawlynn11]

MaSm Seeds Au: A Change of Plans..

Set up: Sun was only distancing himself from Moon(and Foxford, but he’s unimportant) ever since he laid that STUPID egg… Moon had an idea of how to deal with it.

Warning: Mentions of attempted murder

Moon had just the solution to fix this… drink an invisibly potion, sneak into Sun’s room, and CRUSH that dumb egg while Sun’s sleeping… nothing could go wrong..

Sure Sun might be a BIT upset, but everything’s felt weird for a week now and Moon wanted it to stop.

Though Moon and Foxford were planning on staying up throughout the night, they let Sun go home and get a long rest… it would be the perfect time for Moon to do it..

Moon waited until the world could confirm Sun was asleep before entering Sun’s room. [1/3 players are resting]

It was time.

Moon entered the room… it was a little dark but it wouldn’t interfere with Moon’s plan to- …Egg shells… on the edge of the bed.. they looked like they were from that egg that Sun’s been practically hugging since he laid it last week- why were there egg shells there?!…

Moon looked towards Sun, who was resting in a slightly odd position compared to normal… he looked closer and- are those tiny rays over there?!- You could barely see it from where Moon was standing.

Moon quietly moved closer to the head of Sun’s bed… it was a baby…. so small… so helpless… so easy to end. Before he didn’t have to worry about this thing making noise and now it’s making those little newborn baby grunts every time it moves?!?

No worries… Moon can still do what he was planning to do. He grabbed out his sword… no that’s overkill- he grabbed a scrap of blade from one of his broken swords.. that’d do just the trick. He reached for the hatchling, he lightly tapped the thing’s ray when- oh no-nononO it’s crying- Sun’s going to get up now-

Sun woke up, not seeing the invisible Moon in front of him or the potion effects from being tired. He started to gently shush the baby, trying his best to calm them.

The hatchling was upset… maybe they were hungry?… how or what do you even feed a hatchling?! Maybe milk could work but… there’s no way they could drink it straight from a normal glass bottle..

The bottle’s probably BIGGER than the hatchling if Sun was honest here-

Sun: “Shhhh….shhhhh… I know, I know… give me a moment to figure something out for you…” Moon: (Great… there goes THAT plan. I need to figure out ANOTHER time to-) Hatchling: “Whe-Waaaaaa *hic* ahhhhh”

The baby continued to cry, they wrestled in their blanket like they couldn’t get comfortable.

Sun: “Oh no.. oh dear did I wrap you too tight in the blankie for… for your wings? Oh I’m sorry, let’s just fix that and try to fix this feeding problem…” Moon: (It’swhatnow?)

Moon watched as Sun un-swaddled the hatchling… it had wings… why-HOW did it have wings?!? Sun didn’t have any so why did his spawn have them?!

Sun seemed to have noticed something looking at the hatchling. Sun: “Heh… I finally get a peep from your eyes and…. they’re just like his.. of course…” Moon: “…”

Moon: (like… who’s…?)

Moon looked closely as the hatchling’s eyes were barely opened… red and blue.. just like his…

…

…just like his….

Why were they just like his…?

This doesn’t make sense!- WHY does Sun’s baby have HIS eyes and wings?!? What was going on?!? There’s no reason why he should have any relation to-

Last week… last week they had those seed things and Sun’s been weird ever since!- but- HOW- there wasn’t any information on this!…

…

But that means… that thing is his kid too…

…

Why should that matter?! It’s distracting Sun!- it’s going to make his life miserable- it’s… it’s resting calmly in Sun’s arms… Sun looks so full of a love that Moon’s never seen… but…

Sun’s crying…

Sun: “I’m so…so sorry little baby…I-I don’t know what to do!… I don’t want you to get hu-hurt..” Sun started to quietly sob to himself… his baby resting peacefully in his arms…

Was Sun.. scared…?

Even though he wanted to try to help calm Sun down, Moon didn’t want to startle him.. or the baby… so he just sat there…

Getting rid of it right now would only hurt Sun..

Maybe this baby could stay around for a bit longer…

(Note: MaSm Sun and Moon are established to NOT be related)

[wunderlass]

I’m feeling so deflated to be writing this post. S1 had its flaws but those could be placed at the feet of a freshman showrunner who could learn from her mistakes going into S2 and up her game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and S2 was a mess.

S1 had a clear central plotline: the mystery of Rosa’s death, leading to justice in the form of Noah’s death and Rosa’s resurrection. S2’s central plotline was…um. The kidnappings? Leading into the plot to blow up Crashcon? I think? But there was so much other stuff gong on it’s hard to tell.

Carina – if you happen to come stumbling into the tags for reactions – you’ve already acknowledged that you struggle to edit your scripts down for length. And it does show in the finished product. But you also struggle to edit your ideas down to fit into the episode count you have. There were too many extraneous plot threads this season, too many guest characters, and the ideas you had were shoddily and sloppily executed.

There were shining moments scattered here and there and the occasional good episode, but for the most part this season lurched from badly paced episode to badly paced episode. Stuff was crammed into each episode and yet somehow the plot also treaded water until 2x11 when it all kicked off – and this was because so much of what happened in the earlier episodes didn’t feed into the main plot. Even Max’s death, the overarching motivation for many characters at the beginning, was shoved to the side for other ideas.

And the payoffs for each of these storylines was too often underwhelming. Max can’t come back because he’ll be full of dark energy and a destructive force! Resolved in 30 seconds by him blowing up a pile of stuff. Max can’t remember Liz! Fixed in the same episode. That pattern continued with the finale feeling like it was trying to wrap up all these storylines without really having a story of its own. The various cliffhangers from Crashcon were tied up before the title card and then let’s spend the next 40 minutes treading water again.

There were good moments in the finale. Max and Isobel’s discussion, the Maneforrest kiss, Rosa and Helena’s reunion. But as for the rest? Hear me whine:

-          Jesse’s death was anticlimactic. His line about “no more Manes men” makes no sense given as far as he knew Flint (and maybe Clay?) is still alive. His death should have been poetic because one of his son’s killed him but it didn’t hold the weight it should have, possibly because it came so early in the episode.

-          It would have been far better if Jesse had discovered that Harlan killed Tripp and buried him beneath the shed. How awful would it have been for his entire worldview to be shaken by that revelation? How perfect would it have been if he discovered that Tripp loved Nora? If he died after learning all of that, becoming desperate and sloppy in whatever scheme he was trying to pull off (self-immolation via the bomb?), it would have been a fitting ending.

-          So many characters this season were badly served. Alex, Michael, and to a lesser extent Max, had real arcs and progression. Alex especially you can see them setting up his growth for a payoff in the finale. 

-          Kyle was shafted, shoved to the side for the Steph storyline that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, and I suspect we got a lot of that cut away to make room for other stories.

-          Rosa’s story started off strong and then mostly got tied into rehab or helping Isobel. Them having her out and about in public in Roswell is complete nonsense.

-          Max had a line for Isobel about her becoming her “entire self” this season, and that rang false to me. We’ve only seen Isobel develop her powers. Her personality has shifted each episode, fractured and inconsistent, dependant on what the writers needed her to do. She didn’t get much of a storyline of her own – the abortion was redundant, serving as a political soapbox for Carina rather than anything that served the character – and while she’s found out more about her heritage, that’s never been as important as Michael or Max finding out about theirs. She said she wanted to become more like her mother and that never went anywhere.

-          I was so hopeful that Carina had listened and understood the criticisms with Maria’s handling in S1 and worked to improve it. She certainly gave her increased screentime. Except, so much of that screentime was tied into Michael, and latterly Isobel. She lacked interactions with Liz or Rosa. She was in two whole scenes in the finale and after she broke up with Michael, she disappeared from the story, and if that doesn’t say it all…

-          And that break-up was contrived bullshit. I’m not saying this as a shipper. It felt like they’d planned to have them break-up in the finale and wrote it even though the motivations hadn’t been properly established. Seeds were sown but they were communicating well as a couple and resolving their issues as they went along. Suddenly those issues got un-resolved and were enough to break them up.

-          The most galling part is that so much of what follows comes from Tripp’s diary, and Maria is excluded. This is her story too! Louise was her great-grandmother! Rather than sitting around her in the hospital room reading this stuff, they do it in the Crashdown.

-          Which fits the pattern of what’s happened all season. Maria found out she was part alien and it was about her powers, rather than her legacy, rather than what happened to her great-grandparents.

-          And it became clear that it was done so they could do the Nora/Tripp and Malex parallel.

-          Which completely solidifies for me where Carina’s priorities lie. She’s been clear that Malex is her favourite ship on the show and Michael is her favourite character. But this season has shown that she’s incapable of ensuring her favouritism doesn’t screw over other characters.

-          The sad thing is this really does show up in marketing. Carina always pushes and praises Vlamis and barely ever mentions Jeanine on her SM. Media outlets write about Malex as the centre of the show and they aren’t supposed to be. We have a sci-fi show with a Latina leading lady and nobody cares – not the showrunner, not the media (outside of Latinx-centric publications), not the fandom. I’m not Latina and it frustrates me so I can’t imagine how actual Latinx people feel about that.

-          Maria was dragged into a love triangle that Carina never had any intention of doing justice to. Maria and Michael were always only ever meant to be a pit-stop on the way to a big Malex reunion. Sadly it’s clear the same goes for Maneforrest. Why write something if you’re only going to do it half-arsed? And it clearly was. That’s why the Maria and Michael break-up was so perfunctory and illogical.

-          While I’m on the subject of Maria – last season Mimi was clearly deteriorating and didn’t recognise adult Maria anyway. Now that seems to have shifted to Mimi’s mind moving through time. It’s still unclear if this is the alien DNA or what was done to Patricia Deluca in Caulfield. I don’t understand why they introduced both elements – apart from being able to give Maria a line about unethical science which OH BOY what a contrast with Liz.

-          Speaking of Liz.

-          Wow.

-          If the central storyline was the kidnappings and Crashcon shenanigans, she really had no involvement with that all season apart from the very end. All the investigation went to other characters. Her mother was involved, but not Liz.

-          Let me repeat that.

-          Our lead character was not involved the central storyline of the season.

-          Alternatively, if you think Max learning about his history, and all of the reveals about 1948, and Maria’s heritage etc etc were supposed to be the main storyline…

-          Doesn’t matter because Liz wasn’t involved in any of that either!

-          Liz was a subplot in her own show after they brought Max back. Hell, she was a subplot even when she was working on that.

-          The narrative focus really has centred on Michael, Alex, and later Max.

-          I wonder what they have in common with each other.

-          If you don’t believe me, check out the screentime figures for this season. Liz had the fourth largest amount of screentime in the finale, and she’s only had majority screentime in a handful of episodes all season (2x01, 2x07, 2x11).

-          And then realise that the plot kept moving after Liz left Roswell. She’s just not part of it anymore.

-          I watched the finale and kept asking myself where Liz was because she kept disappearing for whole chunks of time.

-          She was in her own subplot about science for the back half of this season, and honestly, I’m going to have to write an entirely separate post about Liz and ethics in science because NOPE.

-          Max was right. Liz deserved to follow her calling but she had options that didn’t involve risking the aliens.

-          As such the Echo break-up was stupid but whatever, based on this season I guess it needed to happen.

-          Did Max even care that Liz left? He loved her for twenty years and then when he had her, it didn’t matter anymore? What the fuck? Are we ever going to get answers as to why he fell so hard and loved her for so long, or is the “Malex is cosmic” story more important?

-          Also the whole thing about the Genericorp lady not being interested in Liz based on meeting her at the Crashdown was stupid. You hire scientists based on the previous work they’ve done and their credentials. Diego’s word should have been enough to convince her, and then maybe an actual proper job interview to make sure she was a good fit. Not “let’s sneak into her secret lab to look at what she’s working on”.

-          When Liz does leave, she only says goodbye to Rosa and Kyle. Arturo is mentioned but not seen. Which means the whole ICE sequence this season, which should have been a solid motivation for Liz to take the Genericorp job on its own, has been resolved without a proper payoff. All that stress – scenes that I know felt genuinely stressful to some viewers because of how close to home it hit – and we don’t even get to see Arturo seeing his “genius daughter” leave with his future secured.

-          It’s plausible that Liz said goodbye to other characters – Maria, Isobel, Michael – off screen BUT SHE’S YOUR LEAD CHARACTER AND HER LEAVING TOWN SHOULD CARRY SOME EMOTIONAL WEIGHT FFS

-          Compare Liz leaving and arriving at the ocean to Buffy Summers leaving Sunnydale in Becoming Part 2. There is no contest.

-          It’s clear to me that the audience Carina writes this show for is herself. And that’s fine. Plenty of writers do that. But that means she’s writing a show for the women in fandom who like epic mlm romances with lots of angst. And the problem with that is that this show has a Latina lead who is not being done justice.

-          This is not me railing against Malex. There is space in the show for both things. This is me expressing my frustration at a showrunner and creative team who are not taking care with all characters equally.

-          Carina uses her platform to throw in politics and use characters as mouthpieces without considering their impact. She thinks she’s educating the straight white people in the audience without thinking about how scenes of ICE intimidation, homophobic violence, and racism will affect the people who are impacted by those things in real life.

-          Am I done with the show? Probably not. I’ve got fics I want to write and while I’m not hubristic enough to think I can write better than a team of professional writers, I’m going to at least try and do some of these neglected elements of the show justice.

-          Hubris. Remember when I thought that was going to be a theme of this season? Apparently not. There was no theme, unless “no editing, we die like men” counts..

[fieryanmitsu]

Cream Pie Antidote | A3! NSFW Week 2020 – Day 3 (Itaru/Izumi) | 18+, NSFW

A late contribution to the A3! NSFW Week! I had the rough draft written out during that week, but work got crazy busy, so I just finished this up now!!

But, anyway, when I originally saw the prompts for Day 3 of the A3! NSFW Week, I laughed really hard because the “fuck or die” trope is so campy and hilarious to me. There’s so many crazy ways it can go and it’s mad entertaining. And the idea for this fic immediately jumped into my brain when I stared at the prompt. LITERALLY NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS, but here you go anyway! For your brain cells’ sake, don’t take this too seriously, haha!

CREAM PIE ANTIDOTE

PROMPTS: Masturbation / Fuck or die

CHARACTERS: Itaru Chigasaki, Izumi Tachibana

PAIRINGS: Itaru/Izumi

My fanfic masterpost: Here

AO3: Link in my Blog Menu

CONTENT WARNING: Rated 18+ (NSFW, contains smut/explicit sexual descriptions and situations)

“Annnnd, that’s a wrap,” Itaru said to himself as he finally finished editing his next ‘Let’s Play’ video.

Removing his headset, he pushed himself off his chair and stretched his neck, wincing as he heard a crack. He had needed to spend more time than usual editing the video, so he was exhausted. But, being tired was way better than getting his account reported because he didn’t censor things properly. He still couldn’t believe his viewers had somehow voted for him to play a recently released R18 visual novel. He had a suspicion that someone was trolling him, but he couldn’t let his viewers down… so, he had played through the prologue and first chapter of the ‘Cream Pie Antidote: The Cumplete Edition’.

All in all, the storyline was ridiculous (as expected). The story took place in the year 20XX, where Tokyo was suddenly plagued with a deadly virus that had a 69% mortality rate. However, said virus only affected women and the only known antidote was to inject semen into the infected person’s body, because it apparently neutralized the virus. Of course, the protagonist was an ordinary salaryman who was suddenly thrust—pun intended—into the position of having to help several of his infected female acquaintances.

The voice acting was only so-so, and the background music was appropriate, but uninspired. On the other hand, the sound effects and the graphics were top-notch. He had especially enjoyed the CGs of the protagonist’s next-door neighbour. It definitely wasn’t because she had long, straight, brown hair and bright eyes that suspiciously resembled a certain curry-obsessed director.

Stifling a yawn—it was nearly 4:00am—Itaru hauled himself onto his bed. He was glad he had washed up earlier, because he was beat. Even the titillating nature of the game wasn’t enough to keep his exhaustion at bay. Putting his phone and glasses to one side, he plopped himself down onto his pillow and immediately fell fast asleep.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Hnnng…” Itaru groaned, pulling his blanket over his face.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Ugh, who the fuck is that?” he swore to himself as the knocking continued. Everyone should know not to disturb him on a weekend when there was no Spring Troupe practice scheduled.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

With an annoyed sigh, Itaru slid down the ladder of his bed, stumbled over to the door and wrenched it open, ready to give the person on the other side a piece of his mind.

However, as soon as he opened the door, someone slammed right into him.

“I-Itaru—thank goodness!” Izumi gasped as she caught herself on his chest.

“Izumi? What are you—Hey, what’s wrong?! You’re sweating buckets!” he exclaimed as he realized the young woman leaning on him was drenched with sweat, her thin t-shirt clinging to every curve of her chest. Her face was flushed and her eyes looked glossy as well.

“I-I’m sorry, Itaru. I was trying to be careful so that I wouldn’t catch the virus, but… I-I think I must have picked it up somehow,” she said, panting slightly. “I-I could just barely reach your room… Y-You’re the only one who can help me.”

“H-Huh?” Itaru could only stare at Izumi with wide eyes. He was suddenly having déjà vu. This was exactly what the next-door neighbour had said to the protagonist in ‘Cream Pie Antidote’. He must be dreaming.

“Please help me, Itaru. Pl-Please fuck me and fill me with your cum,” Izumi gasped out, her hands grasping his shirt.

Definitely a dream. Or a hallucination. Maybe he should pinch himself. However, just as he made to lift his hand, his eyes met Izumi’s and he found that he couldn’t look away. Her wet lips were parted and trembling, and her eyes were teary and… full of lust. After all, one of the side effects of the virus was that the infected person became incredibly aroused. He was seriously going to need to examine his mental state when he woke up—he couldn’t believe that he was dreaming up something so disgustingly self-indulgent and wish-fulfilling.

But, well… if this is a dream anyway…

“Are you sure you want me to be the one to help you?” he asked, steadying Izumi with his hands.

“Y-Yes. If… If it comes down to this, I…I want it to be you, Itaru” she replied sweetly, wrapping her arms around his waist, her breasts pressing into him.

“Then, I’ll do whatever I can to save you,” he responded, throwing all sense of logic to the wind. May as well go big or go home.

Pulling Izumi further into his room, he slammed the door shut behind her before he reached out a hand to cup her face. Her skin was hot beneath his palm and fingers—she felt so real. Unable to resist any longer, he leaned down and kissed her fervently. She leaned into him and returned his kiss, pushing her tongue into his mouth. With a groan, he stumbled back and managed to catch himself in his computer chair.

“I-I heard that the most effective method is to make sure you both ingest semen and have it inserted into your vagina as well,” Izumi said as she pushed herself off his shoulders.

Before he could even respond, her hands were on the waistband of his sweatpants. With one smooth yank, she pulled off both his pants and his underwear.

“Wh-Whoa!” he yelped, nearly falling off his chair with the movement, grasping the armrests just in time. Then, Izumi’s hand was wrapped around his cock and stroking it up and down. “A-Ahh!”

“Does it feel good?” Izumi asked coyly, peeking up at him through her lashes as she continued to pump his member with long strokes.

“Y-Yeah,” he choked out. This was better than his imagination. He couldn’t help but close his eyes as he relished the feeling of her smooth hands. Then, he groaned as he suddenly felt a warm, wet sensation engulf him. He opened his eyes and glanced down, letting out a sigh of appreciation as he watched the back of Izumi’s head dip up and down below him.

His grip on his chair tightened as he tried to control his breathing, but Izumi was doing something with her tongue and teeth, and it was driving him crazy. Then, her hand started moving in rhythm with her mouth and he could feel his orgasm building.

“I-Izumi—I’m… I’m going to… come…” he gasped out as he bucked his hips into her mouth, desperate to obtain release. And then, it hit him, and he moaned as he felt his seed shoot out of him.

He heard Izumi’s muffled exclamation, but she didn’t let go of his cock until he stopped ejaculating. As his high died down, Izumi moved back and swallowed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Sorry, I don’t think I gave you enough warning,” he muttered, heart still pounding.

“It’s fine—I’m so glad you gave me such a big load. I’m already starting to feel better than earlier,” Izumi responded. Indeed, she appeared to have stopped sweating at least. “But… I still need you to take care of me… down there.”

Itaru’s eyes widened as Izumi suddenly stood up and stripped off her clothes. He couldn’t help but gape when she slowly removed her panties, because, when she did, he could see her juices drip out of her steadily and splatter to the floor.

“The virus won’t be neutralized fully until you fill me up with your cum… And… I-I’m so, so wet, Itaru… Please, won’t you put your big, juicy cock in me?”

His brain vaguely registered how he had laughed at that dialogue line during his playthrough—but, now, he would be lying if he said it wasn’t affecting him. He was a weak man.

“Get on the couch.”

Izumi immediately laid herself onto his couch and spread her legs, continuing to drip her fluids all over the cushion. He tentatively put one hand on her knee and slowly dragged his palm down her thigh, relishing in the feel of her smooth skin. Izumi moaned at the touch and, as he reached the apex of her thighs, he sighed at how absolutely slick she was under his fingers.

“I-Itaru, please!” she begged, panting hard as he pushed a finger into her. It was ridiculous how easy it was to slip inside her—there was absolutely no resistance. After a few pumps, he slid in a second digit and he could feel more fluids gush onto his hand. His cock was twitching—already erect again despite his recent orgasm.

“I-I need more. Please, Itaru—I want your cock to penetrate me.”

Biting back a groan, Itaru extracted his fingers, giving them a quick swipe with his tongue—delicious, of course. Then, he pushed her legs farther apart and lined himself up with her opening.

“All right, I’m going in now,” he announced. Seeing her nod beneath him, he pushed himself in slowly. He moaned as she enveloped him—she was so warm and tight, and how was it even possible for someone to be this wet?

Izumi moaned and he felt himself growing bigger. Her legs wrapped themselves around his waist and she arched her back, trying to push him deeper inside her. A shot of pleasure coursed through him as he sank further in.

After a moment of savouring the feeling of her pussy around him, he slowly began to pump in and out. With each movement, wet sounds lewdly echoed around them, punctuated by Izumi’s short cries every time he pushed into her.

“I-Itaru! M-More! Please, fuck me harder!” Izumi panted between parted lips. Her cheeks were rosy pink and her hair splayed around her in disarray.

Itaru could only nod as he hooked his hands under her knees and pressed her further into his couch, shoving her legs towards her chest so that he could leverage himself over her. He then thrusted into her, trying to reach deeper inside. Her inner walls were squeezing him, and he could feel the pressure building up inside of him again. He’s never felt this good before.

“I-Itaru, I-I’m coming!” Izumi gasped beneath him. And then, a moment later, she screamed and her walls clenched around his dick and he choked back a gasp. The feeling of her squeezing him was too much, and he knew he would come too. Just a few… more… thrusts.

“A-Ahhh!” he half-gasped, half-choked out as an intense orgasm ripped through him. He could feel his cum shoot out of him with his final push. But, even with the large load that he knew had blown out, he could still feel more. With a groan, he slammed himself into her again, shooting out more of his seed inside her. And then again. Finally, he felt that he had completely spent himself and he slowly pulled out.

“Wow, there’s so much cum, it’s leaking out of you,” he remarked as he extricated himself. His white seed was dripping out of her, as if there had been too much to contain inside. It was all over her pussy lips, mixing with her own fluids, and it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. He had never really caught on to the appeal of creampies, but he thinks he might be a changed man after this.

“I-I shouldn’t let it go to waste,” Izumi responded shyly, reaching a hand down between her legs. She scooped up the excess fluids with her fingers and slowly pushed them inside herself. “I-I want… every… last… drop… inside… me…”

Each of her words was punctuated by a shove of her fingers diving deep inside her, her hips thrusting up with each movement. And, just as Itaru could feel his cock growing hard again, his eyes snapped open.

“Holy shit,” he groaned as he came face-to-face with his ceiling.

After taking a very cold shower, Itaru made his way to the kitchen, hoping to find some leftovers from lunch. As he pushed the door open, a sweet and tantalizing smell wafted past him.

“Oh! Itaru, you’re awake!” Izumi exclaimed, turning around at the sound of the door opening. “There’s leftovers in the fridge—I’ll heat it up for you. Or—I know it’s not really a proper lunch, but I just finished baking something if you want to eat that fresh!”

Itaru’s heart pounded a little faster as he took in her appearance. She was slightly flushed—probably from working over the oven—and her hair was tossed up in a disheveled ponytail. An image of her spread out on his couch briefly flashed into his head.

“Oh? What did you bake?” he asked, distracting himself with the coffee-maker.

“Omi taught me the recipe the other day, so I made coconut cream pie!”

Itaru’s hand froze. A moment later, he resumed the motions of measuring out the coffee grinds.

“Heh. Sure, I’ll have some cream pie.”

“… You know what, I changed my mind. I don’t like that smirk on your face. You’re not allowed to have any.”

I apologize—my brain is only filled with garbage, hahahaha! This idea was just so funny to me, I couldn’t help but write it out. Hopefully you all enjoyed this ridiculous little story, because I had way too much fun writing it! 

I do have one more prompt that I want to fill from A3! NSFW Week, so will eventually post that as well!! As usual, feel free to leave a comment and reblogs are alwasy appreciated! Thanks again for reading!

-Anmitsu

[silverinia]

For that fic ask thingy... tell us about Lillies 😊😘

Hahaha, what all 15 questions? Okay, let’s do this 🙅🏻‍♀️

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

It must have been during one of my TGW rewatch sessions that I realized that after ep 1x13 they never mentioned Spellman and Diane being threatened by him again (I guess they were still experimenting with the characters and this storyline only served to show a more vulnerable side of her and to introduce us to her conflict of being pro gun control but still enjoying to carry at the same time). And the idea for the fic just popped into my head and wouldn’t let me go again, so yeah, here we are 😄

The most important thing to me was to do it in a respectful and realistic way, I never wanted to write about the topic of sexual assault for the assault itself, rather wanted to show those characters trying to wrap their lives and their relationship around it and moving on together, if that makes sense. That’s also why the bigger part of the fic takes place after the incident.

2: What scene did you first put down?

Well… I did start with the first chapter and took it from there, I find that this is the easiest way for me to write because I can build up the suspense more easily when I do it like this. The first scene that I pictured in my head before I even began the outline though was their fight in Chapter 11, that was the scene that wouldn’t let me go and eventually made me write it all.

3: What’s your favourite line of narration?

Hmm, I think it’s a tie between “Skin against skin, their embrace was the peak of intimacy in the purest and most innocent way.” in Chapter 38 and “And all those realizations, all those great things about this wonderful man who was standing there, waiting for her, waiting to agree to spend the rest of his life with her and the huge declaration of love he had just wordlessly told her with the way he was looking at her and the fact that she was finally able to hold that gaze, they shot hot tears into her eyes.” from the wedding chapter. That first one really reflected the deep level of trust between them, even though she wasn’t ready to sleep with him again, and I liked the contradiction in the term peak of intimacy. And the latter, I don’t know. It summed up their journey in this story, how he helped her overcome those insecurities, how he gained her trust over the course of this and, tbh, I also just really liked the image of her, walking down the aisle to him…

4: What’s your favourite line of dialogue?

Okay, there are certain parts of dialogue that I liked, but for stand-alone lines it would either be “You’re not a victim, Diane. You are a survivor.” (Chapter 28) or “Diane, you never needed anyone to save you. […] But I’m glad you let me help you save yourself. Because I love you.” (46, proposal chapter) (side note: this line was one I wrote towards on from a very early chapter. I thought about making it the last line for quite a while, thought about putting it in his vows but then settled on this), both said by Kurt because I needed him to believe in her strength at a time in which she couldn’t do that for herself. I like the empowerment of her independence in those lines. They really sum up how I wished to portray a woman who was forced to go through something like this. Like a survivor instead of a victim and as someone who didn’t need a knight in shining armour to save her from the pain. That was really important to me.

5: What part was the hardest to write?

God, so many 😂 The nightmares and their aftermath were very, VERY difficult though. Most of Kurt’s and Will’s dialogue with Diane in the greater part of this were incredibly difficult because I remember just sitting in front of the screen and thinking, What the hell are they supposed to say? I realized how intuitively you fall into the clichées of ‘How are you?’s or ‘If there’s anything I can do…’s and that sucks. Because it’s obvious that they’re not good. And it’s obvious that someone like Diane would never reach out for help if they don’t just give it to her without another word of questioning, as they end up doing. So, yeah. That was hard. But I wanted to do it right, so I guess it was at least worth it 😅 at least I hope so.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

One, that it was my first. I had almost 40 chapters of it written when I began to post it because this was all new territory for me, fanfiction, this particular fandom and their response to new writers, general perception of a difficult topic like rape… And then, of course, my own response to writing about it. I mean, as a writer, you really don’t just need to dive into those characters’ heads but also into your own to put at least a few emotions into it. I didn’t know if this was going to bring me down really bad, if I would cry during the process (fun fact: I did. Three times, I think) and if I could even go through with it and finish it at all. I also went through a lot of major life changes when I started to write this and I think that not only my writing changed a lot over the cause of it, but I as a person did, too. It’s very close to my heart. I associate certain chapters with the states that I was in when I wrote or edited them and that makes it pretty special 💕

7: Where did the title come from?

Okay, I really don’t know how to answer that. I’m really, really bad at coming up with titles. Actually, I think that this didn’t have a real title up until I started posting it because then I had to name it somehow. I’d referenced both the infamous white calla lilies and the smell of gunpowder a lot already at that point and I kinda just thought that they were sweet symbols for the two of them 🤷🏻‍♀️ I played around with several different titles and when this came out of nowhere, it felt right. It made sense because it was like a theme, threading through the story, and it sounded melodic and I honestly was just glad that I didn’t have to name it something too long and too ridiculous, like I did now with most of my other fics 😶

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of this?

Difficult question. I think that (sadly), most women have had to deal with sexual assault at some point in their lives. I saw my friends and family reacting to my stories in similar ways Kurt does in the fic.

On a lighter note, a guy I really loved inspired lots of the happier parts in it. And my best friend, my own, female Will Gardner, she’s in a lot of it, too 💕

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Only in my head. Regarding whether or not I would have Kurt shooting Spellman, if I would kill Spellman off at all, if they should get married in the end, if I would write about Diane handling a rape case when she’s better (found the middle ground on that one in the epilogue, but this could have been an entire storyline) and so on. But the version I uploaded is the only one I wrote, though I did consider writing a sequel for it until I decided that the two of them had suffered enough in this alternate universe, so I created a new one around my idea and Everything’s gonna be alright was born.

10: Why did you choose this paring for this particular story?

Okay, first of all, I’d say that I chose this story for the pairing and not the other way around, and yes, I think there’s a huge difference in that.

I wanted to unravel them. They’re such amazingly complex characters, both incredibly proud and I really wanted to make them vulnerable (as I’m typing this, I’m very aware of that this makes me sound like a freaking psychopath). And the no. 1 thing, apart from politics, that always drove Kurt and Diane to each other was the (sexual) attraction between them. And while it is of course another layer of the depth of their relationship, another level of their bond, I wanted to explore the characters in a state where that bond was no easy way out. Two people that tend to choose physical attraction over having to deal with their emotions, who choose make-up sex over talking through their problems (sans season 3 of TGF because they’re perfect now), I wanted to explore what would happen if they couldn’t do that anymore, put them in a situation in which they had to confront major issues in another, healthier way.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Oh God.

I tried to make it emotionally deep and respectful regarding the heavy topic. I tried not to rob Diane of her independence, rather wanted her to find additional strength in Kurt instead of completely making her depend on him. I wanted her to work this out in realistic timing and I didn’t want to rush their way back to physical intimacy. I wanted him to react to her pain and her ways around it, find his own mechanisms to deal with those and to the pace she set with it in the right way. And I don’t know if I did all that, but I’d like to hope so.

And I really like Chapter 38, because I think it underlined a lot of that.

And I ended up really liking the title of the fic.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

Hah, definitely the first few chapters. I mean, the characterisation was alright I guess, but my writing was just awful. Like, I never love my writing but sometimes it’s exceptionally bad, as it was in those first few chapters. Sometimes I scroll through them and want to rewrite it all, but it’s part of the journey and that’s why I don’t do it.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

I always listen to music when I write and the first thing that comes to mind here is Debussy’s Clair de Lune. And not just Clair de Lune, no, I mean the YouTube extended version that keeps on going for an hour. Over and over again. That’s why I referenced it in the proposal chapter, it really deserved to be mentioned at that point.

I also listened a lot to Lana del Rey and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds during Chapters, I dunno, ten to thirty, I guess, for the angsty mood (honourable mentions: Tomorrow never came, Young and Beautiful, Art Deco and Blue Jeans; Into my Arms, Henry Lee and Where the Wild Roses Grow (ironic, I know)) and the song Firefighter by Cigarettes after Sex.

And for the happier Chapters after that lots of Cigarettes after Sex and Beach House (literally cannot put what their music does to me into words. It’s art, almost magical, really) (honourable mentions: Apocalypse (please do yourselves a favour and listen to this song), Sweet and Sunsetz; Myth, Space Song and On the Sea (over and over again during the epilogue)), Florence and The Machine AND Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Lots of great music.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from this fic?

Huh. Well, it might sound bitchy or self-absorbed, but I mostly just write what I want to write. I want to study characters that I love and I want to write in a way that might hopefully touch people on any level, whether it’s humour or angst, I kinda just like the idea of writing words that make people feel things.

But if anyone’s learned something regarding the subject and their views about it, I’m more than happy and thrilled about that, though I wouldn’t put the praise for that on myself but rather on the ones who learned, you know? ‘Cause it’s one thing to write, it’s another thing to learn from reading. That requires more effort on the readers part IMO. I just can’t say that it was my intention to write something that holds major life lessons or revelations, I really just wanted to write and reach people emotionally by doing that and to maybe give them something they would enjoy by doing something that I enjoy.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

That love doesn’t solve all issues solely by itself and that it’s only enough if every involved party works to let love stay a beautiful thing instead of letting it grow to become something painful.

I learned a lot about sexual assault and how it’s handled in the social system when I did my research.

I already knew that if bad things happen to you, they still don’t need to define you if you don’t let them, but I learned that it’s not a bad thing if they shape you in some ways.

And I learned how much I missed writing until I did it again for this fic. And I learned that, oddly, my writing is able to touch some people. And even though I don’t want other people’s feedback to be my motivation when I write, I learned how wonderful it is to have strangers reaching out to you when they take joy from something you love to do.

—–

This is long, but yeah. Thanks for the questions, honey, this was very nice ❤ I feel all warm inside now, ew, feelings, ugh.

[blinkragen-blog]

Interview with developer of Lobotomy corporation

1.Hello, i'm the Blinkraven, from russian translation team (Tales&Stories Team) , you can call me Blink or Roman. What is your name and what your role one Project moon company?

Hello, I am Kim Ji-hoon, who is the director of ProjectMoon.

2.Can you tell a bit about the company? How did you all gathered and found the company? What is your main goal in foundation Project moon game studio?

At first, I gathered friends from university game production clubs and formed a team. I started with four people, but I felt the shortage of art and programming through the project (LobotomyCorp). So I took part in university events, festivals, and various other places to gather other members. Lobotomy Corporation was finally developed with 10 people.

I always want to make a work with the theme of "human hymn(人間 讚歌)". As the light shines most strongly in the darkness, I think that human beings shine in despair. The goal of the ProjectMoon is to make the content of the subculture series continuously. I want to try various contents such as comics, novels, animations as well as games one day.

3.What inspired you to create Lobotomy corp. ? Did you already have experience in making games on Unity or is it your debut?

Lobotomy Corporation was inspired by SCP Foundation, Cabin in the woods, Warehouse13, and many other institutions that deal with monsters and supernatural tools. Originally, When I saw the works mentioned above, I wanted to play a game of monster management, however, there isn't the game like that so I made it.

There have been many attempts to make games, but Lobotomy Corporation is the first finished game.

4.What do you think is the main key feature of the game? What should the game reveal with it stoyline and gameplay?

I think managing monsters and suppressing them are the most important features of game play. In the story, we paid attention to the wounds that each character had and the process of accepting them.

5.As we know, as basis for the plot of storyline contents were taken many elements of relegions and mythologies and others. Why Kaballah in the first place?

As mentioned earlier, it was clearest to convey the theme of human hymn through Kabbalah. I wanted to show through Kabbalah that a human being follows the path to becoming fully self. Likewise, we wanted to show the limits of seeing the world only through the perspective of Kabbalah.

6.Contrary to the established stereotype that almost all Korean games are focused on the grind component, there is also a thoughtful game world in your game, details of which are revealed when communicating with the sephiras, who are responsible for departaments. The question is: how often did the storyline changes during development? How much cardinally? I still remember those days of  Beta-version, when Angela was an old AI-computer that uses perforated tape.

From the very beginning to the beta version, and until now, the topic of the story has not changed. However, 'Sephira' characters were added in the process of storytelling. When I wanted to communicate the story, I felt the limitations of the dialogue between the player and Angela. So I decided to make many changes in the summer of 2017.

7.Where did the ideas for the abnormalities come from? Did many of them personify human sins, is it really so?

It is hard to say that Abnormalities come from a variety of materials and are specific to one thing. Memes, original sin, urban legend, fairy tales, legends, and social phenomena. However, they have a common interpretation to match the story of the game.

8.The game has a hidden mechanics, forcing the player to "accidentally" re-play the game again and again, to uncover all the story plot twists, to study all the abnormalities. How much in your opinion the game is replayable?

If the players have seen all of the stories and unlocked Abnormalities' information, I think they really enjoyed all the content of the game. And I was intending to make the player try multiple retries in this process. Because the company turned into a mess through the Abnormalities and watching the situation was also intended to be a fun factor, I wanted to make the watching the situation in the retry of the game was also worth.

9.Approximately in July 2017, you decidet to radically change both the UI and gameplay in general. What was the reason for this? What did not suit in so-called [Legacy]-version of the game? Although the storyline also moved from "dead end", sephiras (visually they weve very interesting), the entire visual part of the game changed at all. And then closer to november, you changed again the visual part, making the game to look like as it is now. Was it hard to make that decisions?

The biggest reason for the change was 'it was not fun and it did not fit the intention'. This was a difficult decision for us, but the decision we had to do at the same time. I thought the pre-change game was just mimicking the western art style and indie game style. I thought I have to change the game style to what I can best create and the style that I like, in order to make a game that is sustainable in the future. So I decided to change everything. The process of changing was very painful, but after the change everything became clear how to build and develop the story.

10.Oh, and earlier in [Legacy]-version of the game, for normally walkthrough it was required to monitor a lot of parameters and key features, but during development, some functions were removed, some - simplified. Was this done because of fan complaints, or did you find these systems reduntant and uncomfortable for the game?

The values, genders and final observations of the Abnormality that were in the "legacy version" have been removed. Employee values and gender were changed to construct gameplay more clearly. The final observation of the Abnormality is something that has been removed due to the difficulties of realistic development. It was difficult to develop the final observation while adding various stories and scripts of Sephira through the changes, due to time and financial problems. I am sorry for this part too.

11.As I remember, earlier you had financial problems during game development. How did you manage to raise money for development? Did you have to lose something, or try to economize on something for the sake of further development?

We have not overcome financial problems using special methods. Thanks to the translation teams in Russia, China and Japan, we were able to make more sales in different countries, and as a result, we only got enough money to keep the team for a while. And now, after the development of LobotomyCorproation, only 4 team members are staying and developing. Other team members are seeking another job or going back to school. Although the size and speed of development can be reduced, I think we can keep the team longer.

12.Have you thought at the stage of development - of choosing a platform to make the game cross-platform of just PC-exclusive? For now it's very popular to make games on mobile devices, and your game with small edits of the interface could go well on mobile devices.

I focused on PC from the beginning. And Lobotomy Corporation is not going to switch to other platforms. Because the UX of the game is focused solely on PC, I thought that there would be a lot of changes if we were going to change to another platform. But the following work will consider expanding to other platforms, including PCs.

13.From the point of view of the Korean game developer, is there a great competition among your collegues in the game development industry of indie gaming? How populat are indie-games in Korea, that oriented on single player play?

There are also many indie game developers in Korea. Most of them are mobile-based indie games. So I did not see any other team in terms of competition. Compared to the indie game sector, Korea has a small sector of single-player games.

14.How, from the professional point of view, do you think that the opinion that in Korea games play only in online games is not exaggerated?

Korea is focused on mobile games and online games. But I do not think this is unconditionally bad. Because there are a lot of players in the world such as a person who loves a single game, a person who likes online games, and a person who likes mobile games. So I think it has its own meaning.

15.Has the game paid off since getting into Early access on Steam, and until now? What was your mood when you learned that the game was so popular in the world (well, and in particular in Russia)?

As a creator, there will be no greater joy. It is hard to find the driving force that makes our work world fun in many countries and expects what will happen. I want to create interesting stories and games that only we can show in the future!

Let's talk about future plans:

1.Since the release of version 1.0 (and the came out from Early Access), many players have already been able to find all the storyline endings that are hidden in the game. What do you expect the expected percentages of finding endings to be?

I think 80% of the players who have cleared up to Day50 have seen a hidden ending. If the player went to Day 50, wouldn't they want to fill in 100% of the encyclopedia?

2.In the so-called "true ending" or 100% of the Seed of light, Angela takes the complex under her control and came out from the facility to the surface for herself. Do you already have storyline sheets for the sequel and will somehow "bad" endings influence or somehow be mentioned in the sequel?

Yes. The ending of Lobotomy Corporation has had a big impact on the world, and the results will be shown in the sequel.

3.By your calculations, how much time will it take to develop a sequel, so that at least the first pl15.Has the game paid off since getting into Early access on Steam, and until now? What was your mood when you learned that the game was so popular in the world (well, and in particular in Russia)?

The development period is one year and six months until early release. We plan to spend about six months in the Eary Access period. But it always didn't go as planned. ;) I do not know if we will release the demo version, but I think I could show the gameplay within a year.

4.As for now are popular tactical turn-based games in various variations, whether it will affect the sequel or its gameplay will be like the first part - in real time with an active pause?

I'm not going to make a turn-based game as much as possible. I want to create a game that is played in as real-time as possible.

5.As I know, you monitor the appearance of content on your game on the Internet. Do you know about different memes, video parodies, etc.? What do you think about it?

Yes. We monitor videos, pictures, streaming, etc. uploaded by various fans. We are gaining great strength through the watching of enjoying the gameplay and delicate creation. In addition, problems with bugs and balances are also monitored through monitoring the world community.

6.Well, finally, your opinion about indie-game industry as a whole? What is the future of indie-games in game-development?

I think indie games are something that is unique and interesting. There are so many indie games coming out every day. What I think will become more important in the future is the unique universe of the work itself. Each game, even if it is individually, can survive in a number of indie games if it happens in a gigantic connected world. But most importantly, it has to be an attractive world, and the game must be fun.

[st33d]

Sandman

I’ve tried a lot of sandbox games over the past year. Mostly driven by acquiring a PC and leaving my Mac to its scheduled obsolescence. Playing games on a Mac is like playing Doom on a calculator. You celebrate that it works, it actually works, but it usually fails to be more than a proof of concept. When I switched back to a PC I discovered an entirely new realm of stubborn design. At least it wasn’t getting slower with each update and it deigned to play all manner of toys. Being quite turgid for roleplaying games I set about catching up with every RPG the Mac had denied me and checked out some more for good measure.

A common feature I discovered in many of these games is what I call the Back Breaker. You lift the game up high, then crash it down over your knee, broken. You are now free to explore the game how you choose - all of its secrets are laid bare. A lot of people get very upset at the inclusion of Back Breakers in what they hope will be a game with an ever ascending skill requirement. The notion that the audience is primarily there to explore is an insult - where, they ask, is the game? Personally I like this feature, I like that the end game is to become a god. This is why a lot of you will disagree with my assessments.

Skyrim

The sticking point for many people with this one is the combat. It’s dour grey-brown landscape invites a comparison to Dark Souls (I’ll get to that one in a bit) so people like Matt Lees will remark that Skyrim is an inferior counterpart. If you’re looking for tight combat in Skyrim, then like a 1st edition iPhone 5, you’re holding it wrong.

It insists you take it seriously over an unskippable introduction to the most tired hook that any roleplaying game can throw - the prison break. After shaking your screen as hard as it can with an assault by a dragon you are thrown into a scant and confusing interface in a land of ugly robotic people who are super fussy about what time they’re willing to sell things. On my 1st playthrough it got dark, so dark I couldn’t loot the mages I was killing for their expensive robes. I quit and rerolled a khajiit, purely because the wiki told me they had nightvision. It wasn’t until much later I discovered that there were many means of creating light, some of them causing fantastic AI behaviour (I nicknamed the spell Magelight; aggro-ball). Some short way into the terrible main quest line I thought, “sod this”, and went in search of the mage college to learn how to blow things up like some of the monsters were doing. This haphazard adventure was some of the best gameplay I’d ever encountered. A scared lowly girl-cat, picking her way through a hostile landscape in hope of learning real magic. Typical that when I finally arrived at the college I encountered the first blatant design wall in the shape of an unclimbable pillar that the college sat on. I barely had the mana to cast the spell that would prove me worthy to train there. A few hours later I was the archmage of the college. It would take many more hours before I mastered glitch-riding: taking the cereal box collision space of my horse and rubbing it against the prettiest parts of the scenery until it yielded to let me ride vertical. Out of the many hours of play the only real low point was getting turned into a vampire, I had to look up a wiki on how to cure it and reload many times because the quest to stop vampirism is broken.

There are many Back Breakers in Skyrim - I chose twin dremora lords that I chain-summoned to lock up the AI. But truly it is Skyrim’s pretty mountains and their unresolvable collision meshes that are the best. Only after hours of play does one develop an art for sniffing out details that defy edge-case-programming. Skyrim is a perfect mess. I know why they keep re-releasing it, they got lucky. One need only play the Dragonborn DLC to see Skyrim at its worst. It is a hard game to recommend, for it is not really a game, it is a thing both ugly and beautiful.

% out of 10

The Witcher 3

“Stick with it”, they say. Few games deserve such an epithet as this one. The controls are fiddly. One’s inventory is so dense with options that I didn’t realise that my potions refilled themselves until I’d nearly finished the game. After which my character sported full-body-priapism as I quaffed every decoction available. The turning point from hating this game to loving it was a side quest where a character caught Geralt off guard when being subject to the witcher’s advice - the townsfolk declared him a freak not because he was like Geralt, but because they were intolerant of homosexuals. I then got drawn further into the man’s drama. Every single story this game presents is trying to be Not So Simple. It’s a manifesto that leaks into the game’s bestiary that tells you not only what a monster likes for dinner, but your best tactics for killing it. But then, it’s Not So Simple as killing a monster, there is always another layer to each story.

It took at least three score hours of gameplay before I started skipping some of the many cutscenes. One of them was the infamous sex-on-a-stuffed-unicorn. It was a fault of the main storyline being so lackluster. I never really cared for Ciri, I found her even more fiddly to control than her tutor. But the extra layers that surround it: the Bloody Baron, stupidly shagging Keira Metz, the numerous detective scenes - they all carry this game. It is a shame it takes a few hours for it to reveal itself.

I must commend the map design for being sensible enough to be broken into several parts. You first explore a tutorial village before moving into war torn Velen and its haunting soundtrack. Here you work until you can gain passage to the north, the islands, and your home. Many sandboxes simply give you one map to conquer and contort it to stop you wandering into the final challenge. It’s refreshing to move on to a clean map, full of new challenges and surprises.

I couldn’t be arsed to play Gwent.

Trophy out of Archgriffin

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This game has three stages: Delight, Depression, and Exploration.

Delight

Oh wow, there’s so many things to do. And so many things interact with one another. The sense of discovery comes not only from reaching new locations, but also finding new ways for elements to interact. Of course wood burns. Of course burning creates an updraft. Of course metal conducts electricity. Even after many hours of play there are still new things to find. So strange that the game is as dense as it is... empty.

Depression

Ugh, I don’t have a horse and I’m in yet another blank area. Ugh, I lack just enough stamina to climb this mountain, I’ll have to start all over again. Ugh, I can’t stay in this area because I take damage and the food I eat to stop it only lasts ten minutes. Ugh, I complained about all of this online and everyone keeps saying, “I don’t have a problem, the game works fine for me, Git Gud.” As often as I meet people who have played this game in excess of 100 hours, I also meet people who have played it for less than 10. If you are unlucky, if you don’t make the right connections, if you don’t stumble upon the right thing, this game is truly depressing. Made more so by the amount of people who cannot fathom why anyone would have trouble with the game. And yet there are many that do. It is not really that they need to be better at games, it is merely because they have not found the Back Breakers. Or worse, they do not appreciate them.

Exploration

After needless hours of collecting (grinding) you find yourself in possession of armour. You upgrade the armour again and again and suddenly the cloud of depression is lifted (if it was ever there). You are free to explore any edge of the island, you simply need to wear the right threads. At this stage of the game you have found many secrets but still keep finding more. Korok seeds, the OCD baiting puzzles, become a delight to find. It’s hard to remember the game ever being frustrating, but it remains in the back of my mind. Zelda BotW has a hump, a hump that some people will feel very aggrieved to surmount. Do not be surprised when you hear of someone bouncing off this game - it really is torture for people with precious little play time or patience.

Perhaps I should say something about the shrine dungeons or the 4 beast dungeons. They exist. There, I said it.

96 out of 120

Path of Exile

I tried this many years ago on my Mac using some sort of Windows executable wrapper. It did not work. I tried again when I got my new PC, I was underwhelmed. I tried yet again two weeks ago - holy shit this is the best action RPG I’ve ever played. The fact that it’s also free is sort of a weird blessing. You can only buy cosmetics and extra slots, so it even has a total lack of pay-to-win going for it. At least they get to keep expanding and updating it, which is probably why my recent play through was so smooth.

Diablo 2 is one of my all time favourites. It’s a concise loop of murder, loot, sell. But not without flaws. It has cruft, tedium, and imbalance in spades.

Path of Exile shuffles the formula and bets the whole thing on loot. Skills are loot. Money is loot (you pay with scrolls and item modifying tools, no gold). Equipment is loot. Yet playing it like Diablo is quite a silly thing to do - you get almost nothing from items you try to sell to vendors, so you no longer make trips back and forth with junk items. Leveling up is spent on a massive passive skill tree shared by all the classes, so the game sees no need to forestall leveling because it’s not the gatekeeper of mechanics. The items are. This occurs by way of gems that you socket into items, a bit like Diablo 2 and 3, but instead of boring damage bonuses you get entirely new mechanics. If you play with several characters in the same league they can share these items as well (providing they are strong enough to wield them). A mere ten levels into the game I had a full on rave of undead surrounding my witch character like she was the hottest new DJ at a halloween party.

I refrained from playing on hardcore because the game is online only and my internet sucks, but the game does boast a challenge that is mandatory hardcore. A multi-part dungeon that rewards you with a new section for your skill tree. Complete it without dying and you get to specialise. This is further complicated by deadly treasure rooms you must salvage keys from in order to unlock the many chests at the end. This was quite an exciting challenge with real stakes and real swearing when I let my greed get the better of me.

So what of its flaws? It takes a few goes to shake off the Diablo conditioning, so it’s not until you hit act 2 and try again from scratch that you figure out a strategy for building a character. The passive skill tree has a handy search feature and after I typed “minion” into it I was determined to carve a path through the best parts. If you don’t plan your route, you miss out on your mana rocketing back to full, your health restoring, or in my case: zombie disco. It’s online only and if you insist on playing over the weekend it can be a very choppy experience. The chat is a sewage pipe, a stream of edgelord douchebaggery. Go into the options and turn it off. I’ve yet to meet anyone that wants to form a party and every time I look at it I’m certain I don’t want to. There’s little to say of the story, it’s not bad though. I appreciate that it doesn’t try to get in the way like Diablo 3′s did. Perhaps if they had taken their loot thesis a step further they could have buried it in the game’s items. Then all this hoarding would have expanded into something like an archaeology dig. A missed opportunity.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O out of Shiny Armour

Shadow of Mordor

It’s quite cool and exciting to begin with. We’re in Mordor with lots of grim orcs and cool cutscenes, and... is that a bush? Oh okay, it just popped into existence. Nevermind. Well at least sneaking around is fun... my finger hurts a lot though because they want me to hold down the trigger button for ages. Yeah, ganking orcs is cool, it’s real fun shooting them in the head... oh, I have to do these crappy sword fights where I only press two buttons throughout the whole thing.

This game is like someone who seems fascinating and pretty from afar, but soon as you talk to them at length you begin to realise that they’re quite boring. They just say the same thing over and over. It’s a sausage party that gets slowly more off putting as I play. The developers don’t even seem to know that women exist outside of being trophies or reasons to be angry about stuff. The main draw in this game is apparently the battles with the orc leaders, which I found to be the most boring part of the game. I hated the sword combat and it kept dragging me back to it. After doing every arrow and dagger challenge I could find on the map I left the game and never played it again.

Gollum out of Mordor

Dark Souls

in my game Ending I structured the second level so that the player would step forward and get a slap to the face in the shape of an unfair death. This was my opening salvo, death is your education. So after persisting with Dark Souls I’m somewhat nonplussed. I get it. By repeatedly killing the player they form a mental map of the area. By repeatedly killing the player they encourage experimentation.

Except that this doesn’t always work. There has to be some investment on the behalf of the player or this magic completely fails. If the player feels like they can walk away, they will. And they do. It’s why I believe Dark Souls is such a hit with game reviewers, they are beholden to persist, and in doing so the game makes a believer of them.

I on the other hand couldn’t care less. A tedious march through the same janky fights to get to the same boss I still don’t understand is nothing more than that. I tried a variety of combat techniques, from trying to interrupt attacks, to blocking, to evading, all of it very unsatisfying. What little progress I made illuminated the premise, to internalise the map and hone my skills, but I was not impressed. I enjoyed not one second of it, I only endured. I experimented and I explored, but never was I delighted.

The very worst thing that Dark Souls has given us is complacency towards killing the player. I have heard designers remark that it didn’t matter that the player died in that spot in their game because Dark Souls kills the player all the time. It makes me want to shake them. Dark Souls does not kill you all the time, it kills you for a specific reason. See, I get it, I get Dark Souls, I just don’t enjoy the combat.

Soul out of Estus

Divinity Original Sin 2

I had the worst time with Divinity Original Sin. My two characters insisted on bickering and ruining every conversation - no matter how many times I reloaded a scene they would find a way to trash it. I eventually found myself locked out of every quest in the game and unable to fight my way past monsters higher than my level. I was playing the game to forget about a failed relationship where my ex would find excuses to start arguments. It was about as bad an experience playing a game I could ever hope for.

To say the sequel is an improvement is true. To a point. Somehow I’ve done it again and gotten trapped in an area with no quests to advance and monsters too powerful to fight past. I’ve muddled my way past some really irritating quests with obtuse requirements that I’m told can be solved in many ways. Except that when you fail to chase a particular lead it’s really frustrating to have to try a dozen different tactics to shake out a solution. It feels like I’ve picked up my PC and I’m rattling it over my head until the game agrees to let me move on. People keep telling me I can solve situations in dozens of ways, but all of them seem very specific and very intent on being a dick about it.

The combat is as amazing as it is chaotic. Environmental effects are at the fore, making it feel very D&D-like as you slow people down with oil and then ignite the oil and so on. The story I felt was okay, but the tone is all over the place, making it impossible to give a shit. Some nice touches with elves gaining visions from eating flesh and anyone can choose perks for talking to animals - but I found it more infuriating than cute after searching an entire island to solve a riddle, only to have a rat explain to me that I had to talk to some NPC again in order to shake, shake, shake out the solution. For every ounce of fun I got two ounces of frustration and misery.

1 out of 2

Dungeon World

Out of all the table top roleplaying games I’ve tried, this one was the most robust for casual play. Especially seeing as roleplayers are the most unreliable people on the planet. The resolution system it employs forces a plot twist every time you use it, so it’s impossible to plan anything. It’s not for everyone, you end up with a very gonzo story without the fiddly depth that other roleplaying games manage. On the other hand it’s a dream to be the Games Master and watch a story unfold instead of meticulously planning it and seeing a conclusion land that tears apart your ideas instead of adding to them. I wrote a full guide of how I run this game over here. The campaign is effectively a sandbox, I let people explore and fill in the map as we go - which is why I mention it. I’d like a computer game that approached it this way, not like Dwarf Fortress where a randomly generated overworld is dumped on you. Instead I’d like a piecemeal discovery of the world, one that reacts to the tensions you’ve created. Perhaps I’ll have to do it myself.

Story out of Players

[entergamingxp]

Persona 5 Royal review – both better and worse than the original • Eurogamer.net

It’s a great intro: protagonist Joker darting along the casino roof, quick like a shadow. Making fast work of a handful of enemies while leaving others in the dust, his black coat swishing behind him. The excited voices of his team mates over the intercom as he’s almost reached his goal, but then! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! He’s surrounded!

Persona 5 Royal review

Developer: Atlus/P Studio

Publisher: Atlus/Sega

Platform: Reviewed on PS4

Availability: Out now on PS4

The first sequence of Persona 5 Royal acts as foreshadowing and tutorial all wrapped up in one, showing you everything you will regularly be doing in each dungeon you crawl through – jumping between platforms and squeezing through ducts to find a way forward, hiding away from enemies or ambushing them when they’re not looking. Most importantly, in round-based combat you unleash Persona, manifestations of parts of Joker’s psyche who can use different elemental attacks, healing spells and stat buffs. Persona 5 Royal also adds a grappling hook to your arsenal, which you’ll mostly use to find shortcuts and additional treasure.

Joker and his friends, regular students at Shujin Academy in Tokyo, one day stumble into the Metaverse, a parallel reality that manifests Palaces where people live out their worst desires. There’s also Mementos, a sprawling maze of randomly generated dungeons. The group of high schoolers enter these palaces to steal people’s treasures, causing them to let go of harmful desires and confess their crimes.

Persona 5 Royal brands itself as the definitive version of the game, and introduces an extensive list of improvements – if you’ve played Persona 5 before, you’ll definitely notice how P-Studio worked to fix a few common gripes. New items help in combat, such as talismans that buff several stats at once, more food and drink that replenishes SP and many new accessories, among them rings you can put on your team members so they can use spells they normally don’t have access to.

You can form bonds with two new characters, first-year gymnast Kasumi Yoshizawa and school counsellor Takuto Maruki. Scenes with both are sprinkled in throughout the main story, while an all-new storyline after the main game focuses completely on them. New bonds mean there’s new Persona to catch and new abilities to gain from becoming friends, too.

Speaking of abilities – Persona 5 Royal introduces a really cool new special attack that unlocks as the story progresses. Called Showtime, it’s a powerful attack that unlocks when an enemy is almost finished or you’re really struggling. Two friends in your group will pair off and start a short, eye-popping sequence that briefly takes you elsewhere. They’re really difficult to describe if you haven’t seen them – Haru and Makoto for example start a WWE Smackdown double attack, and Ryuji and Yusuke start a saloon shootout when the enemy rudely interrupts Yusuke feeding Ryuji some ginger-laden donburi. It’ll all make some kind of distant sense when you see it, I promise.

The improvements aren’t all combat-focused, either. Thanks to a wealth of additional options, you’ll find it easier to raise your social stats, and if you time things right it will now only take you a single playthrough to max out every confidant. To justify adding even more content to an already meaty game, the palaces are now shorter, mostly because the layout of each has been streamlined to include fewer rooms, and some puzzles have also been shortened. Notably, you can now collect Will Seeds in each dungeon, manifestations of a palace ruler’s driving feeling. If you collect three seeds and take them to Jose, a small boy who hangs out in Mementos, you gain a powerful, otherwise inaccessible ability.

Gymnast Kasumi appears sporadically throughout the main game, to experience her full story you have to finish that first.

There’s more stuff, but the important question is, does it make Persona 5, an already universally lauded game, any better? Honestly, and I’m making my best Robert DeNiro face while I say this: meh.

When I played the original Persona 5, a handful of things detracted from my overall immense enjoyment – the treatment of some of its characters, the difficulty, which to me felt pretty easy, and the length of the game. It wasn’t just the number of hours, which was colossal, but how long they could feel.

If you’re plugged into the discussion that surrounded Persona 5, you know that certain parts of its plot didn’t land that well: a storyline in which your friend Ann is supposed to pose as a nude model, and a bit where your characters meet a couple of gay men. Atlus West requested the latter be changed, but to me it’s an absolute non-change that while no longer suggesting the abduction of minors, still finds ample opportunity to stereotype gay men. Small mercies, I suppose.

The way Ann is treated is equally off-putting to me, but it’s just part of your standard grab bag of misogyny in Japanese games, so of course that would remain unchanged. Don’t get me wrong, I love Persona 5 a lot, and I recognise that the opportunity for change is limited if you don’t want to downright cut content, but Royal does nothing to fix its larger problem: you get to meet a group of characters that’s perfectly adorable in their own right, but it’s constantly suggested they would be nothing without you.

The Velvet Room now offers battles where you earn battles for particular efficiency.

Persona 5 Royal puts its own characters down – it’s frequently suggested that Ann is a bit of dumb blonde, Yusuke is just weird, Makoto is too uptight, but you’re here to change their lives. P5R adds instances of queer-baiting to the mix, not letting you date your male team members, but putting you in intimate situations with them all the same. Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal take the power fantasy to whole new levels, making sure to call the protagonist, and by extension the player, awe-inspiring, a hero, a leader, whenever the opportunity presents itself. I find the idea of being near-infallible pretty tiring.

This leads me to the combat. I’m confident in telling you to start Royal on Hard if you’ve played Persona 5 before. Royal also comes with two modes that lock you into your chosen difficulty, Safe and Merciless. You now have so many additional abilities and items that I think the standard game is way too easy, and can feel like going through the motions. Boss fights have been retooled with new segments to fit the narrative better, but the balance feels off – overall I enjoyed the fights, but I had trouble with some that had never bothered me before, while others seemed too easy given how far into the game I was.

The last point on my list however, is perhaps one of the most common complaints about Persona 5. I’m pretty happy how on normal difficulty there’s never been a reason to mindlessly grind, even though in essence that’s what Mementos is for. Grinding isn’t what turns Persona 5 Royal into a game of over 100 hours – it’s how characters review and re-review even the most basic information ad nauseum. It’s how you might not want to spend the next four hours driving around in Mementos, but you have to, since it’s a plot requirement. It’s how the game heavily cheats you by suggesting not once, not twice but three times that this is definitely the last battle and the world will be saved any minute now.

The additions here make all of that worse. Absolutely no one I’ve ever talked to said “you know what Persona 5 needs? Another palace. And I also really want to spend more time in Mementos”, yet that’s exactly what you get. To make the plot additions work at all, it needs a massive leap of faith that undermines pretty much everything you’ve done until this point, and it’s so frustrating. After a truly epic finale, another villain simply takes the place of the last. It’s the same principle that often makes movie sequels so grating – the victory you’ve just had was for nothing. For a game that frequently tells you the exact opposite, to stay true to your ideals and keep fighting even when others think it’s pointless, this is especially disheartening.

You use the grappling hook seldomly but to great effect. Wheee!

Without wanting to spoil anything, the new villain does have interesting motives, but they’re the sole upside of a storyline that asks you twice to have the same conversation six times in a row, and that gives you a palace where you fight three new enemies over and over, one of them several consecutive times. The way it is, the new story content feels a bit tacked on, despite giving you the option to keep working on your Social Stats and links – it feels like a DLC. This is an additional month of in-game time, relating to something that’s only alluded to in bits and pieces throughout the main game. It might be fun if you come back to Persona 5 after several months, but put at the end of the main storyline like that, it just makes you wait for it to be over.

If you’ve never played Persona 5, thanks to much of the optimisation this is certainly a safe bet. But Persona 5 Royal doesn’t so much feel like a definitive edition and rather a game made for fans who get excited about collectibles like the Will Seeds or additional Persona, or who are thirsting for new interactions with characters like the twins, who were previously largely neglected. Sadly it doesn’t add enough to justify another playthrough.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/persona-5-royal-review-both-better-and-worse-than-the-original-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=persona-5-royal-review-both-better-and-worse-than-the-original-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[footballvillenation]

Super Bowl LIII Preview: A Historical Look At The Patriots And Rams

It is finally here. Yes, that’s right. After weeks of hard-nosed, high-flying football, the season is now down to two teams competing for the sports’ ultimate prize, the Lombardi Trophy.

The Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots will duke it out in the Super Bowl on February 3rd in Atlanta. Both teams dazzled us this season with some phenomenal offense, albeit some shaky defense at times. This game will see legendary quarterback Tom Brady go up against a younger, less proven QB in Jared Goff. With Brady going for his sixth Super Bowl and Goff his first, this game will be sure to have some interesting storylines.

Before diving into this matchup, let’s take a look at the Super Bowl histories of both franchises and what a Super Bowl could potentially mean for their legacies. After all, the Rams have been a part of the NFL since 1937, while the Patriots were a member of the American Football League in 1960, eventually merging with the NFL in 1970. There is a ton of history to unpack here, so let’s not waste any more time.

Los Angeles Rams

George Rose/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Rams were first introduced to the world in 1936. At the time, the team was based out of Cleveland, but eventually moved to L.A. in 1946.

After years of competing in the NFL, the team finally made its first Super Bowl in 1980. This was the 14th edition of the Super Bowl, and the Rams were facing a tough test in the three-time champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Led by QB Vince Ferragamo, Los Angeles were 10.5 point underdogs.

The Rams actually put up a pretty good fight as they had the lead at halftime and were also up 19-17 after the third quarter. Although it all fell apart in the fourth quarter when Steelers legend Terry Bradshaw mounted a comeback, winning his team the game, 31-19. Bradshaw also won Super Bowl MVP honors for his performance.

Now fast forward 20 years later, and the Los Angeles Rams have moved to St-Louis. The team made it all the way to Super Bowl 34 against the Tennessee Titans, thanks to the play of quarterback Kurt Warner. In that game, the team went up 16-0 on the Titans, but Tennessee wouldn’t quit, eventually tying up the game. With two minutes left, Warner threw a 73-yard touchdown pass and won the team the game, giving them their first and only Super Bowl.

  Just a few years later, the Rams would cross paths with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. We’ll save this one for the next section when we get into the Patriots.

In 2015, the team moved from St-Louis back to Los Angeles and that’s where we are today.

New England Patriots

Patrick Smith/Getty Images

The history of the New England Patriots is a lot richer when it comes to Super Bowl appearances, although they weren’t always winning them like they seemingly do now.

In 1986, the New England Patriots faced one of the best defensive teams of all time, the Mike Ditka led Chicago Bears. The Patriots really had no chance in this game and it showed as they got blown out 46-10. Considering the legacy of that Bears team, the loss isn’t really that much of a blemish on the franchise.

A decade later, the Patriots found themselves back in the Super Bowl in 1997, as they took on legendary quarterback Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. Once again, the Patriots were underdogs and it showed, as they got clobbered 35-21.

  Just five year later, a man named Tom Brady would change the fortunes of the franchise forever. Circling back to the 2002 Super Bowl, the Patriots were playing Kurt Warner and the St-Louis Rams. The Rams were the favorites but Brady and company pulled off a thrilling upset, winning the game off a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri. The final score was 20-17.

Over the next two decades, the Patriots would dominate the league. Brady won two more Super Bowls in 2004 and 2005, and then went on to play in the 2008 and 2011 Super Bowls where they lost both times to the New York Giants.

Brady and the Patriots made it back to the Super Bowl in 2015, where they defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24. After an off year in 2016, the Patriots have now made it to three straight Super Bowls. Of course, they mounted that incredible 28-3 comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in 2017. They also lost 41-33 against the Eagles in the big game last season.

  Overall, the team has been to 10 Super Bowls and have won five. If the Patriots win next Sunday, they will have a winning record in the big game and will tie the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl wins.

Super Bowl LIII

Now getting back to the game at hand, both of these teams were the second seed in their respective conferences. The Patriots finished the year with a record of 11-5, while the Rams were tied with the Saints for the best record in the league, at 13-3.

As mentioned earlier, both of these teams have high-flying offenses, thanks in part to their quarterbacks, as well as their running backs Sony Michel (New England) and Todd Gurley (Los Angeles).

When it comes to specific stats on offense, the Rams had the second best points per game average in the league, scoring around 32.9. They had the second-best yards per game average with 421.1 and had the fifth and third best pass and rushing offenses. They absolutely chewed through teams this year and they were incredibly fun to watch. This was especially true when they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 54-51 earlier in the regular season. All stats courtesy of nfl.com.

Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Brady and company were no slouches themselves. Averaging 27.2 points per match, the Patriots had the fourth best offense in the league and averaged 393.4 yards a game, which had them ranked fifth in that category. Meanwhile, they had the eighth best passing offense and fifth best rushing game. The running back was carried by James White and Sony Michel. Michel has been particularly impressive in the playoffs and had a monster game against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. All stats courtesy of nfl.com.

Moving on to defense now, both teams could stand to improve in certain categories. Starting with the Rams, they gave up 24 points per game, good enough for 20th in the league. Their rushing defense struggled all season, giving up over 120 yards a match, something that Michel and White will be salivating over. The Rams were mid-pack as far as pass defense is concerned, ranking 14th with 236.2 yards allowed per game. One bright spot for the defense though is their pass rush which is led by Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh. All stats courtesy of nfl.com.

With 20.3 points allowed per game, the Patriots ranked seventh in the league. This seems pretty good but considering they gave up 359 yards per game, 246 of those coming from the pass, the Patriots will have to tighten up defensively if they want to suppress Goff who is known to sling the ball around. As far as the rushing defense is concerned, the Patriots were ranked 11th in the league, giving up 112.7 yards per match. All stats courtesy of nfl.com.

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

These teams never played each other in the regular season which makes this matchup so interesting. No one really knows how they’ll stack up against each other, which could lead to a pretty classic Super Bowl. Both teams also played in some very exciting overtime Championship games last Sunday, so we know the game will at least be entertaining.

No matter who wins, this game will certainly be legacy-building for the victor.

With all of this in mind, who do you have winning the Super Bowl?

via Darrell Streeter https://footballvillenation.com/super-bowl-liii-preview-a-historical-look-at-the-patriots-and-rams/

[placetobenation]

As many of you are aware, WWE Network is pretty packed with all sorts of content. And as you may also know, we here at Place to Be Nation love long term, in depth projects. So, as part of this initiative, members of the PTBN Staff are choosing programs at random and after watching each program, they will share their thoughts, notes and recommendations with our readers. So, settle in and enjoy this epic ride through wrestling history!

Smackdown! October 31st 2002

Run Time: 83 Minutes

Why Jacob Why???: Since this edition be running right around Halloween, I thought I’d pick one of the more Halloween-centric WWF/E shows. Plus, it’s an excuse to watch the Smackdown Six.

Best Segment

OhhhhhhhhYEEEEAAAAH!

Aaron George: Matt Hardy enters the Halloween party with a boom box blasting his theme song. Sure he could have entered without it, but what kind of Mattitude would that project? Before long he’s declaring Moolah and Mae Young to be “Version BC” and quickly notes that their Mattitude has all dried up. We would have been treated to sheer perfection if only he had blasted that sweet boom box on his exit.

Brian Bayless: While seeing John Cena dressed as Vanilla Ice and rapping was great and ended up elevating his career, I though the brawl between Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle backstage at the party was the best of the night. It had everything from comedy (We saw Brother Love revealed behind the Scream mask & costume, the same costume Angle was using to avoid Benoit earlier in the show) and a wild brawl that saw Benoit break a bottle over Angle’s head just before getting put through a table with an Angle Slam. And poor Shannon Moore got tossed across the room by Angle.

Jacob Williams: It feels like cheating to pick the entire Halloween party. At the same time, it’s hard to narrow it down because a lot it was very fluid. If I had to pick one bit, it would be Tajiri’s romantic encounter with Mae and Moolah. His facials were classic.

Calum McDougall: “OOHHH YEAAAH!!” – there was only one winner in this one for me and it was Matt Hardy at the Halloween Party. From him coming in with his own music playing on a boom box to calling Mae and Moolah “Version B.C.” and everything in between, it was brilliant stuff.

Dave Hall: Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit brawl at the Halloween Party. The seeds of this segment lay in the earlier segment where Benoit was looking for Kurt, who was hiding under the Scream outfit. Following Angle’s match with Eddie, Kurt comes back to the party looking for Benoit. Kurt’s approach to the “Scream Character” believing it to be Benoit was a good call back to the earlier segment, and I loved seeing the cameo by Brother Love. The brawl between the two men following this was awesome, using the tables, wall and other party elements.

Best Match

Uhhhh stay out of Riverdale!

Aaron George: It’s the brown water match and it’s not even close. Sure every other match on the card was technically better, but Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson gave us a “stiff” (as per Tazzzzzzzzz) match that will always be etched into the annals of time as simply the best to take place in a pool of liquid shit. They can tell us it’s chocolate, but honestly what kind of chocolate has that consistency? It’s liquid human shit which is clearly their metaphor for the poopstorm that is coming in the form of this feud. Was the ref rolling around silly? Sure. Were Torrie’s chops DIRECTLY to Dawn’s breasts the best since Flair/Steamboat in 89? Absolutely. The best part was after the loss Dawn gave Torrie a look that clearly said, “Yeah? Well I’m going to fuck your dad.” A threat I have often used but have very rarely carried out.  I can only imagine Vince McMahon Sr. looking down from Heaven, beaming with pride as his son carried on the family business. ******

Brian Bayless: Edge vs. Chris Benoit was an excellent TV match. The work was crisp and the finish made sense as it continued the friction between Angle and Benoit, who were the Smackdown Tag Team Champions.

Jacob Williams: On a show with some quality wrestling, the opener between Benoit and Edge felt like the most complete match. I love that they could come out and just have a great, straight-up match to start the show.

Calum McDougall: As good as Edge vs Benoit and Angle vs Eddie were, my favorite match was actually Brock Lesnar vs. Rey Mysterio. This match had three distinct parts to it – the early section with Rey out maneuvering the big man, followed by the middle part where Brock throws Rey around like a rag-doll and finally the end where Big Show comes out and manhandles both of them, looking like a complete beast in the process. Great stuff for the short time it was on, and call me crazy, but I wouldn’t mind seeing another Brock-Rey match in 2018.

Dave Hall: Kurt Angle vs Eddie Guerrero. On a show with so many options for the title of Match of the Night, Kurt and Eddie absolutely stole the show. Kurt was a wrestling machine, and looked amazing in the ring, while Eddie was crisp and quick. The two men countered each other finishers, and put on a clinic. The match built really well to some great action in the last few minutes, and a decent ending for a TV match. Benoit’s interference was appropriate to the storyline, and I loved how he took out Eddie and Chavo as well, demonstrating he was not working with them.

Most Cringeworthy Moment

Trojan Vince! Don’t let it in the city!

Aaron George: I’m not going to say that Stephanie McMahon isn’t an attractive woman, but on a show with the aforementioned Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie, does EVERY person who comes into Steph’s radius have to fawn on her as though she were Helen of fucking Troy. Are those the tits that launched a thousand ships?

Brian Bayless: Eric Bischoff making out with Stephanie McMahon after he was in her office wearing a Vince McMahon mask was something I never need to see again in my life. It was creepy in the worst way possible.

Jacob Williams: Sorry Michael Cole, but awkwardly perving out during the women’s pool-of-chocolate-sauce match can’t compete with Bischoff forcing himself on a woman 20 years his junior in a weird incest roleplay.

Calum McDougall: The piped-in cheers every time Stephanie McMahon was on the screen. Now I know that all of the cheers on SmackDown at this time were piped in, but there was no reason for Stephanie’s to be top-tier babyface loud other than pure ego. Only Brock and maybe Edge got louder “cheers”. I don’t know whether them going to these lengths to show Stephanie as being popular is cringy or outright infuriating, but it certainly rubbed me the wrong way.

Dave Hall: Dawn Marie vs. Torrie Wilson.This segment showed us just how far women’s wrestling has come in 16 years. This match was horrible to watch, with the two women degrading themselves in little clothing and in a pool of chocolate milk. I hated every moment of this match, including the customary referee gets rolled over spot. I am so glad the women’s evolution means we don’t have to see this crap any more.

Funniest Line/Moment

Hashtag Tajiritoo

Aaron George: I’m still laughing at the image of Al Wilson dressed up like a greaser. Still.

Brian Bayless: Tajiri’s facial expressions while Mae Young forced him to be her boyfriend. He is one of the more underrated comedic performers in wrestling.

Jacob Williams: Again, I can’t say enough about Tajiri’s face after the Mae Young smooch. I love Tajiri.

Calum McDougall: “He’s saying Do La Ray, you know what that means Cole? It means “I’m beating up Kurt”” – Tazz doing his best to boost the sales of his Spanish to Red Hook dictionary.

Dave Hall: With so much good “in-ring” action, there were not a lot of amazingly funny lines. However during the Eddie vs Angle match, Tazz made the comment “I like Guerrero… I like Kurt… I like everyone on the Smackdown roster except you Michael Cole”. Also John Cena’s “Vanilla Ice Costume” was a great reminder of how he broke out in the WWE. But when he told Stephanie that Vince was looking for her, and she called him out, and he then did the “damn, I look stupid moment”, I laughed out loud. Was a great reminder that John Cena has more in his character than the hustle/loyalty/respect stuff we have seen since about 2005/06, he can do good comedy and was willing to poke fun at himself.

Highlights

Remember when we weren’t insufferable pricks??

Aaron George: The entire concept of doing a Halloween show was a TON of fun, and made the show instantly memorable. They should do more theme shows today. I know that they are actively going for homogenous, but a curve ball like this would be more than welcome. The costumes were almost universally silly. Faarooq playing Charles Wright was bang on, and while you’d think that Chuck Palumbo dressed as a Native American would go down as 2018’s most offensive, you’d be horrible mistaken as the honor easily went to the fan dressed as the Rock in full blackface. Almost all the matches were top-tier television matches. “YEAH MY DURANGO, NUMBER 95,” is possibly the most Rob Zombie lyric ever. There is something beautiful about Chris Benoit simply avoiding Edge’s top rope dropkick rather than finding a way to kick him six times on the way down. Benoit also sells a turnbuckle drop in what can only be described as “like when you’re about to uppercut Von Kaiser in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.” Teenage Brock Lesnar is always a blast to have around. Kurt Angle staring angrily into the audience as they chant “You Suck” is waaaay better that the smiling Kurt we get today. He STILL doesn’t get why they are booing him. He also has the best near falls in the business. I could also watch Brock throw Rey Mysterio around all day. Even then he was one of the better sellers in the business. Speaking of best in the business: Tajiri’s kicks. Oh and the Brother Love reveal was great.

Brian Bayless: The party segments backstage were amusing enough and some of the costumes were funny (Chuck Palumbo as a Native American and Disco Tajiri) while some were just lame (Phantom of the Opera Billy Kidman). And while not as good as Edge vs. Benoit, Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero was a solid match ending with Benoit whacking Angle with the belt setting up Eddie to hit a frog splash for the win. Matt Hardy with his Version 1.0 character was amusing and I liked his entrance into the party. The Pudding match between Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie was surprisingly intense and I can only imagine how hard Vince was laughing backstage after Torrie tossed ring announcer Tony Chimel into the pudding. And of course, Al Wilson dressed as a greaser was a sight to behold.

Jacob Williams: The Halloween stuff was a fun throwback to mid-80s TNT campiness that gave everyone a chance to show their personalities. I love any situation that shows that the wrestlers all hang out backstage and are basically coworkers. Smackdown had a nice roster who were either fun characters, amazing wrestlers, or a combination of both. Tazz and Cole are a fun commentary team that really fit the show.

Calum McDougall: The way the Big Show was presented was really good. It’s hard to imagine in 2018 that there was a time where people actually believed that Brock Lesnar couldn’t beat the Big Show. At least I believed that anyway… Tazz trying to call the Torrie/Dawn “match” as an actual athletic contest was excellent stuff. I watched this show on the Friday before WWE Evolution, and this really does show how far women’s wrestling has come in the last 16 years.

Dave Hall: Pretty well the entire show was a highlight. The in-ring product was amazing, and as much as I wanted to hate Chris Benoit, I loved his match with Edge and his brawl with Angle. Matt Hardy Version 1 was great, and a good reminder that Hardy always the better “character” to his brother Jeff. Brock Lesnar was awesome in the ring, although I felt he sold a little too much at the end of his match with Rey. Big Show was booked as the monster heel he excelled at. This show was a reminder of how good all these guys were in 2002, and also how much WWE missed the mark with so many of them over the years.

Lowlights

Aaron George: Big Show wrestling in his street clothes is awful. Is that business casual for him? He just looks like a god damn slob.  His line delivery is worse. Is he bored? Stoned? Or did he simply study at the Stephanie McMahon “Petulant Child” school of acting? Seriously go back and watch how she says REY MYSTERIO in the opening segment when she gives him a match with Brock. Who on Earth talks that way? What on Earth was the point of the Bischoff/Stephanie kiss of weirdness? I know that she’s a sex symbol for the ages, but poor Eric simply doesn’t know what to do with himself after kissing the slutty witch of the east. Fuck Big Show for clearly ruining what could have been an awesome dream match.  While I’m at it like me correct something I said earlier: there is no way Vince Sr. is in Heaven. Especially when you have a best friend named “Toots.”

Brian Bayless: One of the main goals was to build up Big Show as Brock Lesnar’s title opponent for Survivor Series and man did he fail tonight. His street clothes looked was terrible, his conditioning worse (he was gassed after beating Rikishi in a match that lasted under three minutes long), and the cut a terribly long promo that no one seemed to care about. Stephanie McMahon’s segments were all awkward tonight too.

Jacob Williams: The feud between Lesnar and Big Show was lackluster. Show looked so bloated and out of place in his biker dad jeans against a young stud like Brock. Show gasping through his promo and Brock’s stilted delivery of an S-Bomb in his response didn’t help matters. The women having to wrestle in a kiddy pool filled with Ovaltine was not a high point either.

Calum McDougall: The Big Show promo was unnecessarily long, he made the point, then made it another 2 or 3 times before Brock finally appeared. Also, Eddie Guerrero’s very noticeable bacne is a sad lowlight in retrospect.

Dave Hall: The only real lowlights for me were the segments involving Stephanie. The first segment seemed just an excuse to show off Stephanie’s breasts, while the kissing segment with Eric Bischoff, while humorous, was not necessary. With the amazing in-ring action, it made Stephanie’s part in the show seem really self-indulgent.

Wild Card BABY!!!

Wrestling!

I Can’t Believe This Got Over: It’s not rap. It’s bad slam poetry. It became worse slam poetry. – AG

Al Wilson Tidbit #1: Paul Heyman created the Al Wilson storyline and according to Torrie Wilson, Heyman gave her the option to use an actor in the role or her actual father and Torrie went with her dad because she rarely saw him and thought it would be fun as he used to act when he was younger. – BB

The Award for Most Misplaced Optimism: “Exciting times ahead in WWE after the signing of Scott Steiner.” I don’t think this one needs much explanation, let’s just let it sink in. – CM

Best Babyface in Peril: Person in the bear costume. – JW

Number of Sexual Assaults: 3! Mae Young accosts Tajiri. Eric Bischoff forces himself on Stephanie. (who is into it???) The letch in the Kane mask filming Dawn Marie. Someone should show Randy Savage footage of this guy to clearly demonstrate lust in the eyes. There is no way his hard on didn’t pierce someone’s back in front of him.

Al Wilson Tidbit #2: According to Dawn Marie, the toughest thing for her to do was kiss Al Wilson. However, Vince McMahon loved watching them kiss and even said he wanted to see “tongue.” – BB

Memories Are Forever: Looking at Brock and Kurt in amazing ring shape, and much smaller than recent years, Matt Hardy’s early character development, John Cena’s freestyle rapping and Edge using more counter wrestling really brought back some amazing memories of what these guys could do at the time. Watching this show made me think of the little things that seem to be missing today. – DH

Best Tidbit: According to Wade Keller of “Pro Wrestling Torch,” Brock Lesnar was originally going to defend the title against Hulk Hogan at Survivor Series 2002 but Hogan backed out, reportedly due to refusing to put Lesnar over. After contemplating between Chris Benoit and Big Show as replacements, Vince McMahon ultimately decided to go with Show despite Heyman pushing for a Benoit/Lesnar program. – BB

Best at Fooling Security Staff: The master of disguise Eric Bischoff strikes again. Twice now in 2002 Easy E has managed to get past SmackDown security just by wearing a mask. Extra points awarded for a good Vince impression, but points deducted for this not being as good as Billy and Chuck’s wedding. – CM

Al Wilson Tidbit #3: Dawn Marie also said that the Al Wilson angle was supposed to go on even longer with lawyers and Torrie’s brother added to the storyline but that all got nixed. – BB

Least Likely to Still be Full Time in 2018: Out of everyone on this show, who would have thought that it would be Rey Mysterio, the man of 619 knee operations, who would be the only one still wrestling full-time for WWE in 2018? – CM

I Really Tried…: I found it so hard watching Chris Benoit on this show. I really wanted to just overlook and hate him, but his match against Edge was amazing, and his brawl with Kurt was also great. As much as I wanted to, I just could not hate Benoit in this show, and I find myself really conflicted because of this. – DH

Final Thoughts

Come on! We needed one shot of this smoke show.

Aaron George: This was a fun, easy watch littered with great television matches and memorable moments. It’s easy to think of Smackdown as the “B” show, but it was clearly running on all cylinders here. Now someone please give me 75 minutes of Brock Lesnar manhandling Rey Mysterio! RATING: 7/10

Brian Bayless: The Halloween party theme worked really well and usually the WWE Holiday themed shows tend to be weak. It is also memorable for the creation of Cena’s rap character. We had a really good match and an intense brawl between Angle and Benoit. The Big Show segments were terrible but overall a fun show that breezed along. RATING: 7/10

Jacob Williams: This was a finely constructed piece of wrestling television. The Halloween stuff was enough to give the show a unique feel without smothering it. Just about everyone on the show looked to be pretty over and had something at least semi-meaningful to do. Plus, there were good matches to round everything out. Aside from the questionable Big Show spot, Smackdown looked to be in a pretty great groove at this point, so this show was a breezy watch. RATING: 7/10

Calum McDougall: It’s easy to see why SmackDown in ’02 was highly thought of at the time and is fondly remembered to this day, this stuff holds up so well. I had a smile on my face from start to finish, as this took me right back to when I would watch this on a Saturday morning. It was a fantastic trip down memory lane. It would be difficult to put on a bad show with this roster, and the quality of matches that they can and did put on was outrageous. I loved this, excellent stuff.  RATING: 9/10

Dave Hall: This episode of Smackdown was awesome. 4 great matches, some good brawling out of the ring, John Cena giving us some freestyle and some good booking made this card one I would watch again. The only thing stopping it from being a 10 out of 10 was the Dawn Marie vs Torrie Wilson fiasco, and Stephanie’s self-indulgence. I may just need to watch some more Smackdown from this era… RATING: 9/10

And we are out! Where will the Network Adventure travel to? Which Coliseum will be conquered next? Which of these assholes will quit the project in an indignant rage??? Find out in TWO WEEKS!

[365footballorg-blog]

What's at stake: Decision Day presented by AT&T edition

USA Today Images

October 22, 201812:04PM EDT

Thanks to an exhilarating four-hour window in which 11 MLS games came and went, we consumed soccer at breakneck speeds on Sunday. It was fantastic and fun and nervy and pure. The best part? It serves as an appetizer to prepare us for Decision Day presented by AT&T this Sunday as 11 matches kick off simultaneously at 4:30 pm ET.

There are storylines aplenty to keep track of, so, here are some of the biggest to get you ready for Sunday:

Supporters’ Shield hangs in the balance

The New York Red Bulls refuse to fade away, forcing Atlanta United to earn the Shield with a historically successful season.

Both the Red Bulls and Atlanta broke the league’s single-season win record (21) in the post-shootout era on Sunday and the Red Bulls trail Atlanta by just one point for the Shield. ATL UTD have already tied Toronto FC’s record for most points in a season (69), set last year, while New York is more than likely to join them this weekend against Orlando City SC at home. Atlanta, meanwhile, head to BMO Field to face already-eliminated Toronto, who have the opportunity to stand and guard their record or watch Atlanta celebrate the Shield on their field. That’s a fantastically underrated narrative heading into Decision Day.

Regardless of what happens Sunday, it’s remarkably unfortunate for New York and Atlanta that the 2018 versions of each are coexisting. Any other year, each side would far and away be the best regular season team in the league, challenging for all-time immortality like TFC did last year while earning victory laps before the playoffs start. Now? One of these incredibly deserving sides will not win the Supporters’ Shield. And, as we all know, MLS Cup is far from guaranteed for either.

“I came, I won, I went”

“Another mission completed.” — @Ibra_official #MINvLA pic.twitter.com/UKpaALtNjc

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 21, 2018

That’s how Zlatan Ibrahimovic dropped the mic at TCF Bank Stadium after the LA Galaxy beat Minnesota United 3-1.

The win, combined with Real Salt Lake’s 3-0 loss to the Portland Timbers, puts the Galaxy just one point below the playoff line. Now that RSL have played all 34 of their games, being the lone side to sit out Decision Day (thanks to #math), LA just need to beat the Houston Dynamo at home to make the Audi 2018 MLS Cup Playoffs: if LA draw, they’ll be out due to RSL holding the tiebreaker of having more wins. Win and they’re in — it’s more than they could have possibly asked for just a few weeks ago.

Race for the No. 6 seed Part 2

The Western Conference isn’t the only side of the standings that has its final playoff place up for grabs.

Even after D.C. United booked their plans to play soccer after Decision Day, the Montreal Impact are alive because they can still catch Columbus Crew SC, who have fallen from comfortably in fourth place to in danger of missing the playoffs altogether. Two points ahead of Montreal, a Decision Day win would clinch the playoffs. Anything less? They’ll need help, because Montreal owns the tiebreaker.

The Crew host Minnesota while the Impact travel to New England. It’s still all to play for on Sunday for 6th place in the East.

First vs. Second in the West

For Sporting Kansas City to finish atop the Western Conference, the schedule worked out that they would control their own destiny in the final two weeks of the season. Of course, those two weeks couldn’t be much harder.

On Sunday, they traveled to Toyota Stadium to face FC Dallas, who entered the day ahead of SKC, and played fantastic in a 3-0 win. From there, they head to the Banc of California Stadium to face LAFC, where the winner will grab the first seed in the West. With SKC two points ahead of LAFC, they’ll keep first place with a draw. 

Meanwhile, Dallas head to Colorado to face the Rapids. They still are heavily in contention for a first-round bye, as a win would have them skip the Knockout Round regardless of what happens in LA. 

#WondoWatch?

In his last home game of the season, Chris Wondolowski needed one goal against the Rapids to tie Landon Donovan’s all-time MLS scoring record of 145. But it just wasn’t meant to be, meaning #WondoWatch continues to Decision Day and likely 2019.

Wondolowski has his final attempt of the season to tie, then possibly break, Donovan’s mark. There are seldom more difficult settings, though, as the Quakes travel to Seattle to line up against the league’s second-stingiest defense.

The Winning 11 Pick ‘Em’

Who ya got on Decision Day? Pick which teams will win on MLS Decision Day 2018 presented by AT&T (Oct. 28) for a chance to win a trip to the MLS Cup 2018. It’s FREE and easy. Make your picks now!

hr.top-border-fade {background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) linear-gradient(to right, #ffffff 0%, #dfdfdf 50%, #ffffff 100%) repeat scroll 0 0;margin:20px 0 0 0;clear:both;border:0;height:1px;color:#dfdfdf;} .merch-block { background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) radial-gradient(50% 30px at 50% 100% , #ebebeb 0%, #fff 110%) repeat scroll 0 0; /* border-top:1px solid #ebebeb; */ padding:15px 15px 22px 15px; } .item, .copy {display:inline-block;vertical-align:middle;} .item {line-height:0;} .item img {line-height:0;} .copy p {margin:0;} .copy p.merch-block-text {font-size:1.0em;line-height:1.40em;} .copy p.merch-block-title {font-size:1.4em;margin-bottom:3px;font-family:’din_regular’,’Helvetica Neue’, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;;} @media screen and (max-width: 730px) { .item {margin:0 15px;line-height:0;} .item img {width:100%;height:auto;} .copy {margin:20px 0 0 0;} .wide {display:none;} } @media screen and (min-width: 731px) and (max-width: 1120px) { .item {margin-right:20px;line-height:0;} .item img {width:120px;height:auto;} .copy {width:70%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 1121px) { .item {margin-right:20px;line-height:0;} .item img {width:165px;height:auto;} .copy {width:70%;} .copy p.merch-block-title {font-size:1.3em;} }

<!–

Stay connected: Get access to breaking news, videos, and analysis from North America’s best soccer reporters via “This Week in MLS” newsletter or using our FREE mobile app.

–>

Stay connected: The all-new, completely redesigned, FREE official MLS app is your best mobile source for scores, news, analysis and highlights. Download:  App Store  |  Google Play

#block-block-188 {padding:0;} #stay-connected {border-top:1px solid #ebebeb;margin:20px 0;} #stay-connected p {margin:0;color:#4d4d4d;line-height:1.5em;} @media screen and (max-width: 730px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:100%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 731px) and (max-width: 1120px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:100%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 1121px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:708px;} }

MLSsoccer.com News

What's at stake: Decision Day presented by AT&T edition was originally published on 365 Football

[daleisgreat]

Lockdown 2007

Welcome to the third installment of my march through all of TNA/GFW/Impact Wrestling’s Lockdown PPVs that ran from 2005-2016. As I like to start these off, let’s see how Impact has evolved over the previous year. Going into April 2007, they now have WWE Hall of Famer and current RAW GM, Kurt Angle on its roster. Vince Russo is back on the TNA booking team for the first of many Lockdowns to come. We were in the midst of the ‘PCS’ Paparazzi Championship Series where Kevin Nash took several X-Division guys and put them through early-NXT-type challenges and made buddies with them all in the end in a fun set of sketches to look back on and see how they helped add some depth to previously vanilla X-Division stars. Some major teams have now split up with Team Canada and America’s Most Wanted no longer together. This is the final Lockdown during the ‘one-hour adrenaline rush’ era of Impact, as Spike made the show a two hour program in the proceeding fall. With that added hour they immediately debuted its ‘Knockouts’ division, and the seeds for that are seen here with more women on the roster compared to a year prior, and 2007 seeing the first women’s match in Lockdown history. This is one of the first TNA/Impact PPV’s to leave the Impact Zone in Orlando, and started a new trend for the promotion where they would try and have at least a few of their ‘marquee’ PPVs in bigger markets. This change in venue is immediately noticeable as Lockdown 2007 emanates from a much bigger venue in St. Louis, Missouri. The Impact Zone is a nice studio setting for the weekly TV show that TNA has made tremendous strides in making it look bigger than it actually is, but them bringing their PPVs to a legit arena gives them a more big time feel.

The pre-show match is included in the extras and features Vodoo Kin Mafia (AKA James Gang, AKA New Age Outlaws) taking on Christy Hemme’s mysterious team called Serontonin. I completely forgot about Serontonin until now, and looking back at them they remind me an awful lot of Sanity in NXT. Hemme’s first foray into managing did not go well as Serontonin were not long for the company, and Hemme would find a modicum of success managing the Rock ‘n Rave Infection, who I kid you not came down to the ring jamming out on Guitar Hero guitars! Voodoo Kin Mafia was Russo’s 4th-wall breaking makeover of the James Gang, whose only purpose seemed to intentionally point out the absurd booking of DX concurrently taking place in WWE. The match was a forgettable quick little bout on the preshow with Kip pinning Havik with The One and Only. Other extras on the DVD are a photo gallery that I took pics with my phone of for the blog here, thus the lack of quality (sorry….kind of) and a nice 12-minute montage of footage of TNA stars signing autographs at its Fan Fest the day before. I loved the longtime TNA PPV voiceover guy, Barry Scott! His voice brings an intangible grandeur to every event he introduces and he does it once again here promising this Lockdown will bring blood and terror! There was no blood in the 5-Man Xscape match opener for the X-Division title. Like past years, eliminations happen by pins and submissions until it is down to the last two where escape from cage determines the winner. This year’s contestants were Sonjay Dutt, Alex Shelley, Shark Boy, ‘Black Machismo’ Jay Lethal and defending champ, Chris Sabin. Kevin Nash and the PCS was responsible for Jay Lethal doing a Macho Man impression he kept up for a few years in TNA because it was damn good Macho Man impression and was responsible for the only good Ric Flair moment in his TNA run. The X-Division delivered in this match with a ton of killer spots that all connected. Shelley and Sabin teamed up for a hearty part of the match and gelled well together and I could see this match being the catalyst for them starting to team up shortly after this PPV and form the Motor City Machine Guns. Eventually it came down to Lethal and Sabin, and Sabin successfully defended the belt after Lethal got his foot stuck in the cage in a heck of an opener.

Former Team Canada members collide next when Robert Roode took on Petey Williams. This had the storyline of Williams trying to help out another former Team Canada member, Eric Young, who was tricked into signing paperwork to become Robert Roode’s property. Young tries to help Petey out, but it backfires and Roode lands the Payoff/Perfect Plex for the win. The first women’s Lockdown bout transpired next with Gail Kim taking on Jacquelyn/Miss Jackie Moore. Jackie is teaming with James Storm and both have an awesome theme that has not crossed my mind in awhile and was a hoot to relive. The two stepped up and had a killer match that started off with an outside brawl before slugging it out in the six sides of steel. Kim got the pin after a splash from the top of the cage. Good ‘ol Mr. Bob Backlund had a fun cup of coffee in TNA at this time. He would usually be seen in the background coming out of commercial behind the announcers doing the Harvard Step Test all show long for no apparent rhyme or reason. TNA! TNA! This regrettably stopped when he became involved in Senshi and Austin Starr’s feud and was the guest referee. In case you forgot, Austin Starr was TNA’s reimagining of Austin Aries as a modern day Jesse Ventura. Senshi got a sneaky roll-up win after he took advantage of Starr arguing with Backlund.

When I was eight I must have watched the Wrestlemania VII blindfold match on Colisseum Videotape between Rick Martel and Jake Roberts countless times. 8-year-old Dale absolutely ate it up! That is how you do a blindfold match! How you do not do a blindfold match is how TNA executed it here between former America’s Most Wanted teammates Chris Harris and James Storm. The ref loosely tied the masks on both men, and both masks repeatedly fell off several times throughout. ‘Someone Stop This’ was an audible chant throughout the bout. It mercifully concluded when Storm cheated and peaked from under the mask to see Harris’s position and superkicked him for the pin. I made it clear on this blog before my love for WWE’s OMG video series, and when WWE ultimately buys out TNA/Impact and gets their video library, this blindfold match is easily a top tier contender for TNA’s OMG/Worst of moments. It is worth noting Harris and Storm would rebound from this in a match of the year contender a few months later at Sacrifice 2007. The next match saw Christopher Daniels taking on Jerry Lynn. Daniels is trying some new gimmickry with his persona at this time by having spooky face paint around one of his eyes…..I do not believe this lasted long and I eagerly anticipate filling you all full of delicious, spicy, great tasting curry soon when Daniels debuts Curry Man in a year or two! The match was nothing too special, and eventually had a couple nice spots in the final moments before Daniels won with his Last Rites finisher. LAX and a wheelchaired-bounded Konnan cut a promo on Team 3D next. Konnan is essentially retired at this point as a lifetime of leg injuries caught up with him and he is now only managing LAX.

Compared to the previous two Lockdowns, it is a achievement and a half that the 2007 edition did not see bloodshed until the eight match on the card when Team 3D faced LAX in a electrified cage match. You read that right, whenever wrestlers would touch the cage, they would get shocked, complete with zany PA sound effects and flashing arena lights and gratuitous overselling from D-Von who got Border Tossed by Hernandez into the cage and bled buckets all over the mat. The crowd did not respond well to this gimmicked warfare and appropriately chanted ‘bullshit’ and ‘fire Russo’ in response. Poor Hernandez got around the electricity by climbing up the cage with special leather gloves and boots he conjured from out of nowhere, but his attempt at putting Team 3D away with a splash through a table backfired when D-Von rolled out of the way, and then Homicide stumbling into the 3D move spelled victory for Team 3D in another match worthy of making the elusive ‘Top 50 OMG TNA Moments’ list. Throughout this PPV between matches there were regular backstage updates from the members on both sides of the Lethal Lockdown main event. It was the usual bru-ha-ha of whether certain team members could be trusted. Jeff Jarrett was making his TNA return after a several month sabbatical and joined up on Kurt Angle’s side of heroes consisting of Rhino, Samoa Joe and Sting and they all were unsure of Jarrett’s loyalty. Christian Cage was on top of his game at this point in his TNA run as NWA World Champ and leader of his faction with Tomko and AJ Styles who was now rocking a full-out southern hick character. Joining them in Lethal Lockdown were Abyss, and TNA newcomer, ‘Big Poppa Pump’ Scott Steiner. If you though Steiner was unpredictable on the mic before, then checkout this montage past the 14 minute mark to see his best TNA lines where Scott truly was unfiltered.

I always liked the Lethal Lockdown matches, which had nearly the exact same rules as War Games, except the roof lowered after the 10th and final competitor entered and they left a gap at the top encouraging wrestlers to crawl on top of the roof which was filled with weapons. It kind of got congested with just one ring when more stars entered the fray, but eventually almost all made it to the outside once Rhino speared Tomko out of the cage in an impressive moment. Seeing Scotty Steiner bust out a Frankensteiner for the first time in ages also had me popping big. There was the requisite Pyramid Suplex spot towards the end of the match, and the most eye-opening spot featured Angle punching AJ off the top of the cage onto a bunch of awaiting wrestlers to catch him. Rhino is the second and surprisingly last combatant to bleed for the night, which is shockingly low compared to past years. The ending saw Jarrett truly being a good guy and helping out his team when he ka-bonged Abyss with a guitar filled with, what else, but tacks so Sting could get the pin. Minus a couple lulls in the middle where it seemed the guys were killing time waiting for the next person to come out, this was a crazy, yet fun match complete with the good kind of overbooking nonsense that I can sink my teeth into. Ambitious stunts, tack-filled weapon spots, and a good dose of creativity made this a great closer to the show. As stated in previous entries, the one hour Impact era of TNA is probably my favorite period in the promotion’s history because they managed to make use of a huge roster in an hour. Even when Vince Russo returned and started up his notorious booking decisions again, it was still a fun show to watch and TNA had to keep the show moving so no segment overstayed its welcome. There is some cringe-worthy booking from Russo in the forms of Storm/Harris and 3D/LAX matches that should be skipped over by all means. However, Lockdown 2007 still captures that great feeling of this era of TNA I dug at the time with several great feuds and matches that stepped up and delivered. Definitely go out of your way to check out the Xscape, Miss Jackie/Gail Kim and Lethal Lockdown matches that made this show. It will be interesting to see where TNA is at in 2008’s Lockdown with Russo fully invested into the booking and a Knockouts Division in place. Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Sting: Into the Light Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

[buddyrabrahams]

5 biggest surprises of the NBA playoffs

The NBA playoffs always provide great games, unexpected storylines, and colorful characters, both new and old. This year’s edition is no exception.

Sure, the stars have taken over games, big teams have cruised, and the competition has been intense, but some others have confounded expectations and had unlikely role players step up to deliver teams huge victories.

Here is a look at five things that have happened this playoff season that have come as a bit of a surprise.

1) Joe Johnson is carrying the Jazz

The Utah Jazz boast two legitimate stars in Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert, so if you were told that the team was up 3-2 series with the Los Angeles Clippers, you’d probably figure they were big factors in the wins. But Gobert was injured at the very start of Utah’s Game 1 win, and Hayward sat out most of Game 4 with food poisoning. It left a void for a new hero to step in.

That hero was Joe Johnson. The wily veteran averaged just 9.2 points per game during the regular season, but with his team’s stars dropping like flies, Iso Joe stepped up big time.

Johnson hit the buzzer-beating game winner in Game 1 at Staples Center to steal a road game for the Jazz, but his best was yet to come in Game 4. The 35-year-old delivered 28 points on 12-of-17 shooting, including a fourth quarter stretch in which he scored 11 straight Utah points, as the Jazz pulled off a 105-98 victory to even the series at two. As if that weren’t enough, he scored 14 in a huge Game 5 win, including a shot late that ruined Clippers owner Steve Ballmer’s night (video here).

Nothing the Clippers have done to Johnson has really worked so far. He beats his man, and if he’s doubled, he finds the open shooter to make L.A. pay. The Jazz are leading a series in which Gobert hasn’t contributed and Hayward missed one of the team’s wins, and they can thank Johnson for that.

2) Nene has discovered the Fountain of Youth

Speaking of wily veterans, 34-year-old Nene Hilario looked to be entering the twilight of his career before the season started. The Houston Rockets brought him in as a backup and mentor to young center Clint Capela, but his days as a starter were numbered, and he must have figured he was going to be taking on these sorts of bit-part roles as long as teams would have him.

Fast forward to April and Nene is a huge reason the Rockets closed out the Oklahoma City Thunder in five.

Nene erupted for 28 points in Game 4 on 12-of-12 shooting, and added ten rebounds for good measure. He looked like a perfect inside complement to James Harden as Houston’s MVP candidate scuffled and struggled with his shot. It was Nene, not Harden, who essentially carried Houston over the line to get them their 3-1 series lead. He followed that up with 14 points and 7 rebounds in a series-clinching Game 5.

Not bad from a rare inside presence on a team that relies largely on tossing up three-pointers.

3) Boston struggling with 8th-seeded Bulls

It’s hard to be a dark horse when you finish as the top seed in your conference, but that’s exactly what the Boston Celtics entered the playoffs as. Most observers still favored the second-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers despite their late-season swoon, with Boston still being viewed as the trendy upset pick. As such, the Celtics entered their first-round series against the Chicago Bulls with something to prove.

To say they stumbled out of the gate would be an understatement. Yes, there were significant circumstances outside of their control that undoubtedly had an impact, but the Celtics lost the first two games after being bludgeoned on the boards by a superior rebounding team. That has been Boston’s major Achilles’ heel, and it manifested itself quickly in this series.

The Celtics rebounded to win two games in Chicago to tie the series and reclaim home court advantage. A bigger team, though, can exploit a major weakness of theirs, and it has definitely given people reason to pump the brakes on Boston. Their early struggles are definitely a bit of a surprise.

4) Cleveland may have been underrated

In contrast to the potentially overrated Celtics, the favored Cavaliers may not have been favored enough. Cleveland entered the postseason having gone 8-14 in the team’s final 22 games, and further eyebrows were raised when the Indiana Pacers took them down to the final possession in Game 1.

What some people forgot, though, was that LeBron James lives for this. He posted a double-double in three games and a triple-double in the fourth as the Cavaliers swept. The series was punctuated by Cleveland’s James-led comeback from 25 points down at halftime of Game 3, a contest in which James put up 41 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists. In a game in which Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were ineffective, James grabbed the contest by the neck and took it over. Yes, they were facing an inferior team that at times looked and seemed dysfunctional, but nobody who watched the Cavs play down the stretch could have felt super comfortable predicting a comprehensive sweep.

5) Who knew David Fizdale had that rant in him?

If you were told prior to the playoffs that an NBA head coach was going to launch into a meme-worthy criticism of NBA officiating, who would you have guessed to be the responsible party? Gregg Popovich comes to mind. Steve Kerr has a reputation for being fairly quotable. Doc Rivers would make sense. But not David Fizdale.

The first-year coach of the Memphis Grizzlies doesn’t have a reputation as one of the NBA’s more ill-tempered head coaches. He comes across as fairly genial and mild-mannered to the casual observer, though he is known for being a fairly honest communicator. That honesty came to the forefront after Memphis’s Game 2 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, a game in which the Spurs shot twice as many free throws as the Grizzlies despite a similar amount of paint shots.

Fizdale’s rant quickly went viral, and with good reason. Sure, there’s the risk that this could follow him around — do you remember Jim Mora for anything other than the “playoffs?!” quote? — but it’s just a fantastic set of quotes from what would have been considered an unlikely source. Take that for data, indeed.

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2oLxELi

[lunar-solarsystem]

FLOR MENTION :DDD

(MOON GET AWA-)

also delicious script :]

MaSm Seeds Au: A Change of Plans..

Set up: Sun was only distancing himself from Moon(and Foxford, but he’s unimportant) ever since he laid that STUPID egg… Moon had an idea of how to deal with it.

Warning: Mentions of attempted murder

Moon had just the solution to fix this… drink an invisibly potion, sneak into Sun’s room, and CRUSH that dumb egg while Sun’s sleeping… nothing could go wrong..

Sure Sun might be a BIT upset, but everything’s felt weird for a week now and Moon wanted it to stop.

Though Moon and Foxford were planning on staying up throughout the night, they let Sun go home and get a long rest… it would be the perfect time for Moon to do it..

Moon waited until the world could confirm Sun was asleep before entering Sun’s room. [1/3 players are resting]

It was time.

Moon entered the room… it was a little dark but it wouldn’t interfere with Moon’s plan to- …Egg shells… on the edge of the bed.. they looked like they were from that egg that Sun’s been practically hugging since he laid it last week- why were there egg shells there?!…

Moon looked towards Sun, who was resting in a slightly odd position compared to normal… he looked closer and- are those tiny rays over there?!- You could barely see it from where Moon was standing.

Moon quietly moved closer to the head of Sun’s bed… it was a baby…. so small… so helpless… so easy to end. Before he didn’t have to worry about this thing making noise and now it’s making those little newborn baby grunts every time it moves?!?

No worries… Moon can still do what he was planning to do. He grabbed out his sword… no that’s overkill- he grabbed a scrap of blade from one of his broken swords.. that’d do just the trick. He reached for the hatchling, he lightly tapped the thing’s ray when- oh no-nononO it’s crying- Sun’s going to get up now-

Sun woke up, not seeing the invisible Moon in front of him or the potion effects from being tired. He started to gently shush the baby, trying his best to calm them.

The hatchling was upset… maybe they were hungry?… how or what do you even feed a hatchling?! Maybe milk could work but… there’s no way they could drink it straight from a normal glass bottle..

The bottle’s probably BIGGER than the hatchling if Sun was honest here-

Sun: “Shhhh….shhhhh… I know, I know… give me a moment to figure something out for you…” Moon: (Great… there goes THAT plan. I need to figure out ANOTHER time to-) Hatchling: “Whe-Waaaaaa *hic* ahhhhh”

The baby continued to cry, they wrestled in their blanket like they couldn’t get comfortable.

Sun: “Oh no.. oh dear did I wrap you too tight in the blankie for… for your wings? Oh I’m sorry, let’s just fix that and try to fix this feeding problem…” Moon: (It’swhatnow?)

Moon watched as Sun un-swaddled the hatchling… it had wings… why-HOW did it have wings?!? Sun didn’t have any so why did his spawn have them?!

Sun seemed to have noticed something looking at the hatchling. Sun: “Heh… I finally get a peep from your eyes and…. they’re just like his.. of course…” Moon: “…”

Moon: (like… who’s…?)

Moon looked closely as the hatchling’s eyes were barely opened… red and blue.. just like his…

…

…just like his….

Why were they just like his…?

This doesn’t make sense!- WHY does Sun’s baby have HIS eyes and wings?!? What was going on?!? There’s no reason why he should have any relation to-

Last week… last week they had those seed things and Sun’s been weird ever since!- but- HOW- there wasn’t any information on this!…

…

But that means… that thing is his kid too…

…

Why should that matter?! It’s distracting Sun!- it’s going to make his life miserable- it’s… it’s resting calmly in Sun’s arms… Sun looks so full of a love that Moon’s never seen… but…

Sun’s crying…

Sun: “I’m so…so sorry little baby…I-I don’t know what to do!… I don’t want you to get hu-hurt..” Sun started to quietly sob to himself… his baby resting peacefully in his arms…

Was Sun.. scared…?

Even though he wanted to try to help calm Sun down, Moon didn’t want to startle him.. or the baby… so he just sat there…

Getting rid of it right now would only hurt Sun..

Maybe this baby could stay around for a bit longer…

(Note: MaSm Sun and Moon are established to NOT be related)