#I need to do a video at some point showcasing this console

[wirewitchviolet]

Wire Witch Hex - Wearing Many Hats (Font Design)

Lately most of the traffic I'm getting on this blog has been people stumbling onto my multipart series on how a computer works. Glad people are enjoying that as much as they seem to be. My reason for teaching myself all of that (besides just the joy of learning) is I'm very slowly working on designing a new video game console that anyone sufficiently motivated can build for themselves as a neat little DIY project. There are so many moving parts to this project that for now I'm focusing mainly on just the controller and its unique features. To avoid having to make a whole working console, with software, to test it, and make sure I have something to show for all this if the rest doesn't pan out, I'm designing the controller to also be more or less compatible with the NES and SNES (which secretly use the same input standard, just differently shaped plugs at the end of the cord).

This means all I'll need to test and demo my controller is an SNES ROM that knows what to do with my scroll-wheel outputs, a setup where an emulator accurately handles those signals, and later a cart I can slap a couple EEPROMs into and test on real hardware. Oh and I also need to teach myself enough about SNES development to actually create every demo I want to run, do all the art, code it up, and compile it. This is a big job, and I'm not getting paid, so maybe consider throwing me a little money before we dig into this?

Since... really the last time I reported in on this, I've been studying away trying to learn all this, and hey, have a compiled ROM image that'll display a blank screen in any color I want, and a third party program that IN THEORY with a bit of massaging will convert a 256x256 image into an SNES character ROM image. AKA the file with all the graphics. My ultimate goal for this demo cart is to cycle through several very simple games, showcasing how my controller works with each. So I need to cram every image any of these are going to need into my one big image file, which I'm slowly picking away at, but the one thing I knew from the start that I'd definitely need is to throw some text on screen explaining the controls for each demo. And since it's not like there's a built in font in in the system, I had to make my own.

This is not my first font-making rodeo. For this one, my thinking was, I'm going to be in a fixed 16x16 resolution per character (because I forgot the specifics of how the SNES actually tiles graphics), some built in spacing so I can slap them all right up against each other or some border and still be readable, and I wanted a nice little shadow built into every character in case they end up on a low contrast background. Let's zoom in on what I have here so far, in case you don't feel like downloading the file and blowing it up to something more readable.

The first thing I want to note is that after finishing the first 4 rows of characters here, I double checked, and while the SNES CAN break backgrounds into 16x16 tiles, the absolute minimum is 8x8. If I were really trying to be space efficient, I should have designed around that. Several of these characters would easily fit into a 16x8 space, that level of compression would also let me have just the period and comma and be able to build a colon, semicolon, or apostrophe from those, and most importantly, I rendered this with all of the lowercase letters exactly 1 pixel too tall to fit into a 16x8 space and let me double up there. Since I'm rather happy with this font so far and I'd eventually like to make some version of it available for, if nothing else, other people writing software for my eventual console here, I will likely, at some point, make a more space-optimized variation. I'd also like to cover a wider range of characters. At the very least, have some accent marks, wouldn't be too hard to add support for Cyrillic. Pretty sure I can get Japanese and Korean text in keeping with this look. Maybe some other languages. Anyway though, let's talk about what I've got.

My general design rule here was, where possible, make lines 2 pixels thick, and have each white pixel cast a black pixel shadow immediately below, to the right, and the diagonal between them. This gives a pretty convincing relief effect in my opinion, and keeping the shadows this thick keeps a nice firm edge there so it's even generally readable on a pure white background. Within each 16x16 tile, I was extremely strict about keeping a 1 pixel margin clear at the top and bottom of each image, and 2 or 3 on the sides (often 3 on the left, 2 on the right. With capital letters, I went with a generally rigid and blocky style, trying to stretch things to my arbitrary margins. Lowercase letters I restricted to just 8 pixels tall, and those featuring tails are given special permission to drop down an extra pixel, leaving the shadow right on the edge of their true bounding box.

While it wasn't an intentional move at first, several lowercase letters ended up with a decidedly rounded, squashed look, particularly g and q. I found that to be both kind of cute, giving the whole font a real unique character, and eventually started to actively lean into it (which may not be super obvious, I started with W as it's kinda the letter than needs the most breathing room and worked outward from there), and did my best to distort all the rounder shapes and in particular the highly mirrorable b d p q set, as I seem to recall once reading the more you avoid identical shapes with those, the more legible the font becomes for people with dyslexia. Similarly, I made a point of distinguishing the shapes of the Ms and Ws, and added a little whimsy to the numerals. Overall I'm super happy with all the lowercase letters (except for e and s being too thin, but that was an inevitable compromise), and if I ever have the time to kill it's very likely I'll revisit this someday and apply this squishy rounded aesthetic to the capitals too.

Your eyes were probably drawn really quickly to the parentheses here, where for at least the moment I'm breaking my rules about blank space and shifting them inward quite a bit rather than centering them. That's going to look really bad if I use them in a sentence (like this), but the main reason I'm including them right now is so I can list button prompts with both the icons representing what's actually going to be on my controller, and the SNES buttons sharing the same signals. So something like: "GO (A) Jump" and I think the half-spacing and closeness to what they enclose will look pretty nice in this one specific case.

As a final note, the particular hardware I'm working with absolutely supports the ability to mirror any image horizontally or vertically, as well as change the palette. If I truly wanted to cram letters in as efficiently as possible at this font size, I could, for instance, have an 8x8 right-angle segment, build a whole H just from mirroring that, also use it for the legs of the A, P, F, the left side of the D, etc. This however is incompatible with the shadows I'm using for extra readability. And of course for other projects I HAVE made a perfectly legible 8x8 font before.

I'm pointing this out because hey, if you do the math, JUST these characters I've set aside for having arbitrary on-screen text, as is, are consuming 5/16ths of my total graphical memory, and I'm probably never even going to display most of these anywhere. Again, not a huge problem for the simple demo pack I'm making, and that 256x256 drawing space isn't a hard limit. Spending an extra processor cycle to change an index value and access a whole other page of image data is a pretty common practice on the hardware, but especially with older computers and racing to get things ready to draw before a screen refreshes, it's good to at least be mindful of the tradeoffs with that sort of thing.

And again, my sole source of income at the moment is patreon donations, so if you're excited about seeing updates to this weird project of mine or you're learning useful things from any of it, maybe consider throwing me a little support?

[citynewsglobe]

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[jcmarchi]

Stellar Blade Feature – Angel From Heaven

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/stellar-blade-feature-angel-from-heaven/

Stellar Blade Feature – Angel From Heaven

Introduction

Stellar Blade’s development was announced in 2019 by Korean developer Shift Up Second EVE Studio for current-gen consoles, boasting talent from the popular MMO Blade & Soul. It wasn’t until 2021, however, that we got our first proper look at Stellar Blade during a PlayStation showcase, where it was shown with its former title, Project Eve.

For those not paying close attention to Korean video game news, it felt like it came out of nowhere. In the trailer, a beautiful woman is seen fighting a hybrid monster robot. She uses a sword to break off one of the cyborg creature’s arms to use as a weapon before being thrown through a wall, revealing the fight was happening on a space station all along. As she careens through space further and further away from the station, it is revealed that a much larger, much creepier creature with too many eyes has grafted itself onto the facility from the outside. It’s an attention-grabbing first look, and the trailer only gets more interesting from there as the woman (whose name is Eve) is seen pulling off more acrobatic combat moves on an Earth that has experienced some kind of apocalypse.

Considering Eve, her combat style, settings in both space and on a ravaged Earth, and a robot floating behind Eve offering help and advice, many were quick to compare the game to Nier: Automata. Speaking with Stellar Blade’s game director, Hyung-Tae Kim, and its technical director Dong-Gi Lee, through a translator, that is not entirely by accident, even if the final game will likely showcase plenty of differences between the two.

“You’re probably aware of this, but Yoko Taro’s Nier: Automata was the biggest inspiration for Stellar Blade,” Kim says. “That was even the starting point or motivation to make this game, so I’m very grateful for that.” Both Kim and Lee are quick to detail other points of inspiration. The two specifically call out anime and manga like Ghost in the Shell and Battle Angel Alita but add, “While Nier: Automata did give motive to the progression of the story, the combat itself is different. Of course, they share a common factor of being an action game, but we tried to make the combat flashier yet tense.”

A Game With An Ending

A Game With An Ending

After playing Nier: Automata, but before Kim, Lee, and the Shift Up team were diving into the minutiae of making Stellar Blade, development began in 2018 with a much simpler desire: to make a video game with an ending. During that time, development in Korea was focused predominantly on the mobile market, with few focused on console development, which led to some barriers. “It was pretty tough to get all the developers of console games into one team […] mobile games – they have their own, I guess, pros, because you get to enjoy the world that you love whenever you want, it continues on, and it’s maintained constantly, but then there is a market where only that kind of game exists,” Kim says. “That balance needed to be broken.”

Combat For Everyone

Combat For Everyone

Stellar Blade’s combat is flashy in all gameplay footage to date, with Eve pulling off pre-determined moves and throwing the titular Stellar Blade into the air while her long hair twirls around the action, but those impressive animations don’t explain what players are doing moment-to-moment. Eve can learn various combos, but it’s not the kind of action game where you are memorizing a series of useful inputs and trying to execute the right ones at the right moments. Every encounter begins with the decision of going in offensively or defensively. Enemies will not wait for Eve to make a move, and she can defend, parry, or use evasive maneuvers. Countering enemies will put them in a groggy state, which opens the window to use combos or “Beta Skills,” as Kim and Lee refer to them. “There is also what’s called the Balance Gauge, and if you succeed in consecutive parrying, you can deal a huge blow to the enemies,” Kim says. “Other combat options include assassination, ranged attacks, and more, depending on the situation.”

Boss battles carry a similar strategy. Kim refers to them as “the most important content in Stellar Blade” and adds that there will be a level of pattern recognition required to defeat them. Kim says combat is being designed in such a way that it will require proactive effort from the player, but it is not trying to make an overly challenging game like so many that are inspired by From Software titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Difficult modes will exist for players who want them, but so will story modes. “Another mode exists for someone who wants to focus more on the narrative part of the game,” Kim says, “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we got rid of the fun of the battle itself.”

Heaven And (Destroyed) Earth

Heaven And (Destroyed) Earth

In the world of Stellar Blade, Eve is an airborne squad member from space, but she is human. She has a secret that distinguishes her from her coworkers (that Kim and Lee were not ready to share), but otherwise, she is at the same level as the other members of her squad. “Humanity has been defeated by these enemies called Naytibas that appeared out of nowhere one day on Earth, and so humanity, they took this space elevator, and they escaped to an off-world colony,” Kim says. That’s where privileged humans live, but many have continued to survive on Earth and Eve and her peers have come back down to try and take the world back from the Naytibas. Of course, as is often the case in science fiction, not everything is as it seems. Eve is surprised to find humans living on Earth. Everyone had been told there were no survivors.

Many of the humans Eve meets on Earth call her an angel, considering where she came from, and welcome her assistance in the form of sidequests. “You can see it as an angel that descended from outer space with a sword,” Kim says. Defeating the Naytibas is the main mission, but many need help on an immediate and smaller scale. Kim does not intend for these sidequests to break the format. When asked what sidequests from other games have influenced the ones in Stellar Blade, he replied, “Let’s see… The side quests were not influenced by certain games specifically. I should say that they were influenced by all the games that I have played all this time.”

For example, there is one series of consecutive sidequests where Eve is trying to help a broken woman in an old pub in Xion, a location where humans have found refuge after the apocalypse. The woman used to be a singer, but now she is struggling to even stay alive. The missions Eve completes will help her recover mentally and physically, though Kim teases an unexpected ending. “There are some choices that alter the results,” Kim says when asked if the player will be making story decisions in these moments, “But honestly, I wouldn’t say you have much freedom. But there certainly are important decisions to be made.”

[embedded content]

Costumes serve as one of the rewards for completing sidequests but don’t expect wearing different outfits to change Eve’s statistics. The goal is to make sure no singular clothing item is emphasized. They want players to choose the outfits based on personal preference rather than statistical significance. Approximately 30 costumes will be discoverable throughout the course of the game, whether by just stumbling across them, receiving them as rewards, or creating them through found recipes. The team also plans to add more after release.

Kim used the terms “ingredients” and “recipes” when describing creating certain costumes, but Stellar Blade won’t have players crafting new weapons – The Stellar Blade is Eve’s only weapon. It can be improved to swing faster or deliver more critical hits, but they want players to fully focus on the titular sword.

To The Future

To The Future

Every new look at Stellar Blade showcases footage of a game that looks stunning in action. I also appreciate Kim’s candid appreciation for Nier: Automata and its storytelling. It’s rare developers are so straightforward about the games that inspired them, and it is refreshing to hear someone love a game so much that they wanted to make one like it. The feeling of combat remains Stellar Blade’s primary question mark as I, unfortunately, did not get a chance to go hands-on, but I am already invested in finding out Eve’s secret, what the Naytibas are, and what is happening on this version of Earth.

“When the world experiences an apocalypse, people develop these uncanny religious tendencies, and it will be interesting to see the changes in them,” Kim says, wrapping up our discussion. A compelling seed planted for a science fiction narrative.

This article originally appeared in Issue 364 of Game Informer

[44gamez]

5 games to play first on your new Xbox

Glad holidays, or possibly it’s your birthday — otherwise you merely determined to deal with your self to a brand-new Xbox Collection X (or Collection S). Now what? Certain, you may peruse Polygon’s listing of the 22 greatest Xbox video games, or the 25 greatest video games on Xbox Sport Move. However you don’t have time for that! You’re in all probability studying this in your cellphone proper now whereas your new Xbox whirs merrily away putting in all of its fancy-new-console updates. The clock is ticking, and I’ve received you. Right here’s what you must set up first in your new Xbox.

Picture: Improve Expertise Initially launched underneath the title Tetris Impact in 2018 and later up to date into Tetris Impact: Linked in 2020, this beautiful and mind-melting Tetris expertise has much more occurring than simply, nicely, Tetris. (That mentioned, common degular Tetris is likely one of the absolute best video games ever made, interval, so there's that.) Eye-popping visuals and the pulse-pounding music accompaniment could have you feeling like a Tetris super-god, be it in single-player or multiplayer (co-op and aggressive modes can be found, each on-line and domestically, for 2-4 gamers). Excessive-quality headphones are extremely beneficial to totally immerse your self within the vibes.

Picture: Playground Video games/Microsoft Studios through Polygon There’s a motive that racing video games are sometimes held up as showcases of what new consoles can do, and Forza Horizon 5 suits that invoice completely, providing really gorgeous drive-by vistas. Mexico is the setting for this one, which suggests there’s an enormous variety in climes — from seashores to jungles to swamplands — to not point out very realistic-looking climate simulation. You don’t even must be that good of a driver to understand this one.

Picture: Bungie/Microsoft Sport Studios This assortment of Halo video games contains numerous video games, and plenty of of them are previous, so that they aren’t precisely going to indicate off the ability of your brand-new console in the identical manner as Tetris Impact: Linked or Forza Horizon 5. But when that is your first time proudly owning an Xbox console, you’ve merely gotta take a look at one of the influential recreation collection up to now. Should you’re actually undecided the place to start out and also you don’t need to return in time too far, go along with Halo 3 (2007) and see the way it feels.

Picture: Mobius/Annapurna Interactive This recreation doesn’t have any weapons; it’s all about exploration and uncovering the mysteries of an historic civilization. However regardless that it could not require the swift response instances of the earlier video games on this listing, Outer Wilds is perhaps probably the most difficult recreation of the bunch, as a result of it’ll actually put your mind to the check. As you discover every of the planets in a comparatively small however fastidiously crafted photo voltaic system, you’ll must assume laterally and permit your thoughts to be slowly blown as every of the items falls into place. Like I mentioned, it’ll be laborious — however in the long run, you’ll discover it to be one of many best tales you’ve ever skilled.

Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft I might be telling you to put in Murderer’s Creed Origins, which is the most effective Murderer’s Creed recreation, however at this level, I’m gonna cease messing round and begin getting actual. Should you’ve performed the opposite video games on this listing and also you need to know what to put in subsequent in your Xbox, the reply is Xbox Sport Move (and Murderer’s Creed Origins). Or you may save your self some money and get Sport Move first, as a result of Forza Horizon 5 is on there, together with Halo: The Grasp Chief Assortment. Tetris Impact: Linked and Outer Wilds was once on there, too, however they aren’t anymore — nonetheless, that’s proof that just about each wonderful Xbox recreation will get its time within the Sport Move rotation, making the service a really worthy funding. Read the full article

[hex-flareheart]

Hex Reviews The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I really hope that last trailer's back's okay, because it fucking carried this game.

Genre: Open-World Sandbox/Action Adventure Platform: Nintendo Switch Price: $70 for some fucking reason Length: 4-200+ hours Do I recommend it? Yes, but not for $70.

This game had a LOT to live up to. In the pipeline for six years after the last one, and the last one basically hard carried the Switch off its success. You literally could not have asked for a better launch title for a console. Breath of the Wild is one hell of a predecessor to follow up.

Tears of the Kingdom wound up having a bit of a rocky road to release, from an initial teaser in 2019 that in retrospect was all custom footage, another in 2021 that showed actual gameplay footage, but no actual name for the game yet, and then finally an actual trailer declaring the game's name in 2022, and a pushed-back release to 2023. 2023 itself was a bit rough for the game, with an unpopular price tag increase (more on that later) and an underwhelming gameplay showcase, which together did the game little favors, especially since it was just looking like Breath of the Wild with extra stuff taped on top of it. Which, not unreasonable for a direct sequel, but with such a dev time and a price hike... yeah, there's a reason people were making jokes at the game's expense.

But the game would ultimately have a couple more trailers released, with the mid-April trailer being by a country mile the best the game received, and I strongly suspect playing a non-insignificant factor in reviving interest (hence the subtitle above- which, yes, I'm planning on doing that more in the future). And I don't think I have to tell you how it was received on launch; I'm pretty sure the entire Internet knows the answer to that question.

And to Nintendo's credit, having played the game extensively (currently in excess of 70 hours), I very much understand now why it took so long. Adding functionally two entire new layers to the world (1 1/2 if you feel like being petty) takes a lot of time, but the big thing lies in the new systems; adding a building mechanic as freeform as Tears of the Kingdom's into a game is a very involved process, and from my understanding the game was basically feature-complete a full year before release, and they spent that entire time polishing everything. Time that was clearly well-spent, because these systems are astonishingly well-integrated.

Before I really get into singing this game's praises, though, I really need to re-touch on one key point, and the single biggest caveat with this game: No game should cost $70. I hated it when Sony started doing it, I hate it here. To preempt the obvious argument, no. Nintendo does not need that extra $10. With the numbers these games pull they could easily sell it for $10 and still make all of the money. The decision wasn't made because Nintendo needed the extra money to justify continuing to make games, the decision was made because Nintendo's executives and shareholders wanted to pad their already-obscene bottom line. Also their wallets. None of that money is going to the people who actually did the work!

I am very much of the general opinion that pirating Nintendo games is morally okay; this goes for ANY supermassive video game company, but especially Nintendo, given how much of fucks they can be. And that especially goes for Tears of the Kingdom.

That point out of the way: frankly, Tears of the Kingdom makes its predecessor look like a feature-length tech demo, and that is not to disparage Breath of the Wild. That game did what it did well, Tears of the Kingdom does it better, on nearly every level. One of the most unpopular aspects, disposable weapons, becomes almost a plus in this game because of the Fuse system, as it encourages you to fuck around and find out, and boy can you really do both. Ultrahand is Magnesis if you put it on some seriously wacko steroids and handed it gorilla glue and duct tape. Cryonis kinda sucked and is accordingly gone. Stasis was overpowered and has been replaced with Recall, less powerful but with more opportunities for hilarity. Remote bombs were... also, probably a little too powerful, and are also gone, but bomb flowers are back!

Tears of the Kingdom's tone is notably less immediately dire compared to Breath of the Wild, and this is reflected in both gameplay and story. The world is even more alive than before, and it feels less like surviving in the wilderness after an apocalypse and more like exporing the wilderness with a toolbox continuously strapped to you. Accordingly, gameplay is even more prone to slapstick than Breath of the Wild was. That game already had a tendency towards slapstick, but having the ability to build shit and strap all sorts of random things onto your weapons just amplifies it. You can glue a bomb to your sword! Is it a good idea? Probably not! Can you do it? Absofuckinglutely! The shrines are also notably a bit more consistently better, and there's NO APPARATUS SHRINES, THANK FUCKING GOD.

There's also notably more... well, story to the game's story. Again, this isn't to disparage Breath of the Wild, but its story was by nature a bit barebones. Tears of the Kingdom's is a fair bit more fleshed out, though this does come with the caveat of making the timeline significantly more confusing. I'm at this point on the side of "BotW and TotK are their own continuity after SS" simply because it makes things vastly simpler.

To get more into the specifics, though, we'll need to get into spoilers, so you know the drill.

Champion abilities are no longer around, as the spirits of the champions moved on 6 years ago. (In-universe, not just a joke.) In their place are, a), ACTUAL DUNGEONS, FUCK YES, and b) sages, who both provide an ability to be used in-world, as well as providing phantoms of themselves that help you in combat. They're generally less powerful than the champions were, and their abilities can be very awkward to use (as outside of certain situations for 2 out of 5, you have to walk over to their phantom to use the ability), but having up to 5 extra characters helping you in combat is immensely useful, and makes even poor Sidon, whose ability kind of sucks, still actively very helpful.

Regarding the extra layers to the world, there's the sky islands of course, which were very heavily-advertised, but the layer less advertised is the Depths, a massive, very dark underground layer spanning the entirety of Hyrule. From corner-to-corner. It can be a bit annoying to navigate, and does have generally less to do than the surface, but it certainly has its purposes, and has a crucial role in making the dragons a bit more interesting.

There's four now, with the original three from Breath of the Wild still being around, and a fourth that now hangs out high in the sky. Unlike in Breath of the Wild, the dragons are always on the map, following a continuous loop; Farosh loops the southern part of the map, Naydra loops the eastern part of the map, Dinraal loops the northeast, and the mysterious new Light Dragon does a full loop of Hyrule high in the sky. Crucially, a) you can now land on and ride the dragons, with conditions around them corresponding to their respective element, and b) besides the Light Dragon, each of them spends roughly half their route underground, passing through one chasm on the surface, travelling through the Depths, and emerging elsewhere later. You can ride them the entire time, and getting materials is now on a 10-minute cooldown rather than being per-appearance. (I personally feel like this cooldown should be significantly shorter, but I digress.)

As for building and Fuse, there's a ton of options on both fronts, and in exploring the Depths you can unlock Autobuild, which lets you save things you've built and automatically build them on-demand, either from parts-on-hand or using Zonaite ore gathered in the Depths. Fuse, meanwhile, can be used with arrows, shields, and weapons- for arrows, it's just attaching things to the arrowhead, which can do things as simple as adding special properties like elements, to things as wacky as placing floating platforms for you to use. With weapons and shields, though, we need to go a little more in-depth.

You can attach a lot of different materials to both; with shields, they'll mostly just increase defense power and durability a bit, and often add a damage component if you feel like swatting enemies with it. With weapons, you can essentially attach a single material to make a custom weapon; depending on the material, you could end up with a thing impaled on the end, which is kind of comical, or as is the case with some of the horns in particular, replacing large parts of the weapon with the material, resulting in some VERY cool-looking hybrid weapons. The real wacky shit though, that comes with Zonai devices.

Zonai devices are, of course, devices built by the Zonai. Mostly these are meant for use with Ultrahand for building contraptions, but they can also be glued to your shield and sword. (Also arrows, but they're less notable there.) And this is no small part of why I understand why the game took so long, because there's a lot of unique attractions here, particularly with shields. Attaching a device to a weapon will typically cause it to activate briefly when swung, with generally very predictable results, but with shields, they'll behave differently between guarding with the shield and shield surfing. Three good examples of this.

One, the Zonai Cannon. Strap it to your shield and you have, well, a portable cannon. Guard with your shield, blast your enemies. Two, the Zonai Cart; a big flat platform with integrated wheels. Strap it to your shield, and it's now a fucking skateboard when you shield surf with it. No, I'm not joking. It'll even let you grind on rails! And three, the Zonai Rocket. Strap it to your shield and you have two options. Guard, and you'll rocket upward for a couple seconds, giving you a mini-Revali's Gale. Shield surf? You can fucking fly.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg here. You can do some wacky shit with Fuse! Try fusing a bomb to your shield and shield surfing sometime, you'll see what I mean.

All told, this game's combat sandbox is absolutely apeshit on a level Breath of the Wild wishes it could reach. If you've seen clips of this game, you've almost certainly seen some of the hilarity you can get up to with Ultrahand, and I just described what you can expect from Fuse. Combat is even more diverse than ever before- albeit just as likely to kill you repeatedly early on. That never went away! And compared to Breath of the Wild, the rest of Tears of the Kingdom is also just generally more refined than even its already famously-polished predecessor.

I think the price tag's bullshit, but I'm not going to pretend Tears of the Kingdom isn't a really good game.

Hex Rates This: 9/10

[super-famicom-star-inactive]

Friday Special #4

November 20th, 2020

Welcome back to another Friday Special!

For this week, we’ll be looking into a console that many of you have probably never heard of, or thought about.

That’s right, this week is about the Nintendo Famicom, Nintendo’s first major home console!

Okay so for a lot of you, 9 times out of 10 you probably don’t really know what a Famicom is and some of you may have never even seen one.

They’re actually really cool!

So for starters, the original Nintendo Famicom was released in Japan back in 1983 (the same year as the North American Video Game Crash, but that’s for a future episode) and it was Nintendo’s first major step into the international home console market.

But we have to step back in time for a bit first.

When video games started popping up in the early 1970s (with Pong being the first commercially successful arcade game in 1972), Nintendo decided to join in on the craze by releasing their very first “video game” known as the Laser Clay Shooting System in 1973, which was described as a “light gun shooting simulation” much like in the way of a traditional shooting gallery but with electronics. Nintendo would famously insert the game in deserted bowling alleys after the bowling craze had died out some time before. Although the game was commercially successful, the famous 1973 oil crisis (the one where the Arab nations put an embargo on oil would caused prices to skyrocket for countries that helped out Israel during the Yom Kipper War) that same year forced Nintendo to reconsider the design and instead create a smaller, cheaper version of the game, renamed Mini Laser Clay. Arcades across the country took up the game, which helped the company survive for the rest of the decade after it had acquired 5 billion yen in debt from the oil crisis. 

After seeing this success, Nintendo wanted to dive deeper into the growing video game market that was expanding at the time. So later in 1974, they released another hit Wild Gunman, which was a skeet shooter type of game similar to the Mini Laser Clay game. They both were exported to the United States and Europe, where the games went on to become massive successful.

Despite these winnings, they were still struggling behind the likes of Bandai and Tomy in terms of production and soon they would discontinue the light gun products. However, they didn’t give up and not wanting to miss an opportunity, bought the Japanese distribution rights to the Magnavox Odyssey in 1974 and signed a three-year deal with Mitsubishi Electric to create products for the company, which included but limited to the first modern microprocessor for video game programming. As part of this deal, the first of the Color TV Game home consoles were released to great success, which would be Nintendo’s first step in the home console market and Nintendo’s first major home console ever released. Even Shigeru Miyamoto (yes, that Shigeru Miyamoto) was brought on the team in 1977 to help with the planning of the console. 

The late 1970s/ early 1980s was when things really began to kick off. Between the American subsidiary of Nintendo opening up in New York City in 1979 and the release of the ultra-successful Mr. Game and Watch franchise (the first handheld video game system) in 1980 allowed Nintendo to firmly take root in the video game industry and even create a separate division in the company for arcade game development, which resulted in the release of Donkey Kong in 1981 (one of the first video games that allowed the playable character to jump).

This is where the Famicom comes in.

Wanting to try their hand in creating cartridge-based consoles, conceptual plans for the eventual Famicom were made after witnessing the success of Coleco’s Colecovision, which at the time was one of the best selling home consoles on the American video game market. Originally the plan was to include a keyboard and floppy disk drive but then-President Hiroshi Yamauchi rejected the idea (It’s worth noting that the Famicom did eventually get a floppy disk drive peripheral where you could play games on the Famicom Disk System, more on that later). The name “Famicom” actually came from the wife of Famicom designer Masayuki Uemura after the development team proposed the name “GameCom” and his wife suggested “Famicom” by saying "In Japan, 'pasokon' is used to mean a personal computer, but it is neither a home or personal computer. Perhaps we could say it is a family computer."

Testing began in 1982 to test the functionality. For the famous colors of red and white, it was reported that Yamauchi was inspired by the color scheme of the Japanese antenna company DX Antenna. It was originally released on July 15, 1983 and originally sold for ¥14,800 ($54.50 in 1983 US Dollars, $180.25 in 2020 US Dollars) but it was slow to gain sales as a bad chip in the console would cause it to crash. After it was recalled and patched, sales skyrocketed for the console and became the best-selling console in the country by the end of 1984.

Here are some of the first commercials from the time period:

Nintendo originally had plans to team up with Atari for marketing but after the latter company discover Coleco illegally demonstrating Donkey Kong on their Coleco Adam system at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show, the plan fell through after Nintendo delayed their contract for game console marketing as well as Atari CEO Ray Kassar getting fired from the company the following month.

Then the infamous 1983 Video Game Crash happened and that era would shake the video game industry and change it forever. 

Although the incident would be featured in-depth in a future Friday Special, what had happened as was that, put simply, too many low-quality, third party gaming consoles oversaturated the market as various companies had wanted to cash in on the booming video game craze. Many of the consoles that were created were met with mixed to low success. 

As a result, Nintendo held off on releasing the console to the United States for fear of catching the stigma that video games were getting at the time because of the crash. So for the next year or so, Nintendo went into development for creating a different kind of Famicom system for the American market, one that didn’t explicitly play video games, but was going to be marketed as an “Entertainment System” with the cartridges called “Game Paks”. They changed the hardware design so that the “Game Pak” would be inserted in the front instead of the top like one was playing a cassette and it had “zero insertion force” for the cartridge slot. The color scheme was changed to gray with red lettering and the controllers were also removeable, something that wasn’t possible with the Famicom. 

At the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo would unveil the product to the American masses.

That “product” was the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

The NES would not only restore faith in the American video game market but it would also reframe it into the regulated industry it is today. One of the biggest changes from years before was that now there was a bigger push for having the soundboard and graphics to be on par with one another equally instead of one system receiving better treatment over another, which was common practice at the time to weed out competitors. Other changes included changing the cartridge art so that it actually represents the game being presented as a common problem was that the graphics on the cartridge sticker didn’t accurately portray in-game graphics, and also establishing a strict approval system for future games to ensure that no low-quality video games would taint the system and make Nintendo lose credibility, which was where the “Official Nintendo Seal of Approval” comes from. 

The NES originally sold for $180 ($428 in 2020 US Dollars) and it not only revived the American video game industry, it became one of the best-selling consoles that year and eventually of the decade. 

So while the NES was making waves in the United States, the Famicom continued to make sales soar over the next few years in Japan. The first major peripheral for the console came in the form of the Famicom Disk System, released on February 21, 1986.

Remember when Yamauchi said no floppy disks because he was concerned that the extra additions to the Famicom would scare off the non-tech-savvy people? Yeah, this was the Disk System mentioned earlier. It was made to enhance some of the best aspects of the original Famicom system such as sound and graphics, despite the high selling price and lower reliability. The release of the peripheral sparked a new era of gaming with the increasing accessibility of massive, writable storage led to the creation of legendary franchises such as Legend of Zelda and Metroid, both in 1986 respectively.

Although the Famicom Disk System was well received, it would eventually fall into obscurity by the early 1990s due to the rise of cartridge-based games. The last game released for the Disk System was in 1992 called Janken Disk Jō. The peripheral would be taken off the market in 1990 and support was discontinued in 2003.

The other notable peripheral for the console was the Famicom 3D System, released on October 21, 1987. It was a pair of active-shutter glasses that would connect into the third-party port of the Famicom console (the third-party port made an appearance in the last issue, being referenced in the trial against Atari regarding the copyright of Tetris. You can read that article here). It was a commercial failure and quickly shelved, causing the peripheral to never be seen outside of Japan.

All good things must come to an end at some point, where on September 25, 2003, the console was finally discontinued for the Famicom console after almost 20 years of being in the industry. Support was discontinued in 2007 due to increasing difficulty finding parts for console repairs. 

Thoughts from the Head

The Famicom will be celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2023 so that will be quite the celebration. If you’re new here, or don’t know me personally, I actually have an original Famicom in my possession! At this moment I have 12 cartridges total with Tetris being my latest as I just got it today as of this post. Some of the games featured range from classics like the first Super Mario Bros, to the most obscure game called Erika to Satoru no Yume Bōken (Guru Larry did a segment on the game in his Developer Rants: Japan Edition video a while back which is how I heard about the game). 

It’s a wonderful console and a really cool piece of gaming history. Have some photos!

[kj-1130]

Nothing For Me

Part 7

Main Masterlist

Part 6|Part 8

     You and MJ’s relationship continued to grow as time went on. 

     As she started her first year of high school, you worked on yourself, wanting to be good for her.

     Overtime, you learned how to process and deal with things better. You focused on yourself and your developing relationship with MJ and needless to say, things started to look up. 

     The ‘present but not really present father’ thing didn’t affect you as much as it did, but it was still there. It was one of the only things you hadn’t fully processed and to be honest, you didn’t think you ever could. 

     Your father is there, and has been aware of presence for almost a decade. And not once has he given you any type of consolation or love like a father should. You would think after Pepper was getting more involved in his life and forcing him to clean up (most of) his act, he would open his eyes and realize that a whole human being was living with him, waiting for him to realize that they were supposed to be relying on him; not an AI built in the comfort of their room. 

     But nope. Absolutely nothing changed. If anything, things got worse. 

     He was away more often, focusing on the Avengers. Or he was with Pepper, the new love of his life. 

     You tried not to linger on the situation often, knowing it would only lead to pain in your chest. So you just stuffed it in the back of your mind, hoping one day that the pain would just lessen all together. 

     About two months ago, you and MJ had decided to make things official after going on your first date. At first you talked about how fast the two of you were going, but Michelle simply said ‘we’ll be u-haul lesbians then.’ That was the end of the conversation. 

     Currently, you and your girlfriend were facetiming. You would’ve made the trek to her house but she was about to study and you both knew that you’d distract her. Plus the two of you were due for some time away from each other considering the fact that you’re at her place almost everyday. 

     “Okay, so I found this recipe the other day and I’m just now remembering it.”

     MJ looks at you confused, “Okay?” 

     You roll your eyes playfully.

     “I wanted to try it with you. After my ban from your place has been lifted.” 

     “It’s not a ban,” she chuckled.

     “Well, it sure as hell feels like one ba-”     “Mr. Stark has arrived with a guest,” M.I.A cut you off. 

     “Who is this guest?” 

     “Secretary of State, Thaddues Ross,” the AI replied, pulling up pictures of the man. 

     “Hey M, I’m gonna call you back.”

     “Yeah, yeah,” she nods, looking a little concerned. “Take all the time you need. Let me know if everything’s okay.”

     The two of you give your goodbyes and you ask M.I.A to pull up the live footage from the conference room.

     “Perspective. The world owes the Avengers an un-payable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives… but while a great a=many people see you as heroes, there are some who would prefer the word “vigilantes”, is what you first hear when you start watching. 

     Immediately your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

     “And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha asks.

     “How about ‘dangerous’?” he replies. “What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

     The secretary activates a screen behind him which begins to play the previous battles the Avengers and SHIELD have fought in. 

     “New York.” 

     He clicks a button, footage of chitauri, shooting guns, and Hulk smashing plays. 

     “Washington D.C”

     A new video appears, showing the insight helicarriers firing at each other with chaos following. 

     “Sokovia.” 

     The frame changes, showcasing the terrified citizens that were on the flying piece of land. 

     “Lagos.” 

     “That’s enough,” Steve interrupts. 

     Ross nods in response and begins his speech again. 

     “For the past four years, you’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That’s an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.”

     He places a thick document on the table and slides it across to Wanda. As the team slides the book to each other Ross starts talking. 

     “The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries… it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they’ll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.” 

     “The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place,” the Captain begins. “I feel we’ve done that.”

     “Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” There was a momentary pause as the two men’s eyes met. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes… you can bet there’d be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That’s how the world works. Believe me, this is middle ground.”

     At this point, you’re walking out of your room after transfering the feed to your tablet and making your way to the elevator.

     “So, these are contingencies,” Rhodey states. 

     “Three days from now,” Secretary Ross begins. “The UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords. Talk it over.” 

     Natasha speaks up, “And if we don’t come to a decision you don’t like?”

     “Then you retire.” 

     The elevator stops and you look up seeing the Secretary walk in with someone behind him. You give him a subtle disgusted look before turning your attention back to the security footage.

     As the deathtrap descends, you can feel his eyes lingering on you. 

     “Can I help you?” 

     “You’re a little young to be an intern.” 

     “You’re a little old to be looking at me like that,” you shrug, swiping away from the video on your tablet as you feel him looking over your shoulder. 

     Ross gives an awkward chuckle and furrows his eyebrows. When you reach the bottom floor, he gets ready to step out and places a hand on your shoulder. 

     You look at him like he’s lost his mind. 

     “You seem like a good kid. Be sure to make good choices.” 

     Raising an eyebrow, you refrain from saying what you want to say. You lift your hand and gently take his off of you. 

     “Don’t touch me,” 

     Once he exits, you hear the chatting start back up.

     “Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor,” Rhodes told Sam. “Which is one more than you have. 

     “So let’s say we agree to this thing,” Wilson starts. “How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?”

     “117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, and you’re just like, ‘No that’s cool. We got it.” 

     “I have an equation,” Vision announces as you get back on the elevator. 

     “Oh this will clear it up,” Sam mutters. 

     “In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.“

     “Toaster oven’s got a point there,” you mumble, stepping back on the metal deathtrap. 

     Steve asks,“Are you saying it’s our fault?”

     “I’m saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict… breeds catastrophe. Oversight… oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.” 

     “Boom,” Rhodey says.                             

     You see Tony lying on the couch, quite relaxed, contradicting the tense atmosphere. 

     “Tony,” Nat starts. “You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal.”

     “It’s because he’s already made up his mind,” Steve explained. 

     “Boy, you know me so well,” Stark starts, getting up and rubbing the back of his head. “Actually I’m nursing an electromagnetic headache,” he pauses to grab a mug of coffee. “That’s what’s going on, Cap. It’s just pain. It’s discomfort. Who’s putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?”

     Tony puts his phone in a basket and taps the screen. An image is projected of a smiling young man. 

     “Oh, that’s Charles Spencer, by the way. He’s a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn’t want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn’t go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia.”

     He pauses for a second as the team soaks in the information.

     “He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won’t know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.

     “There’s no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations, if we’re boundary-less, we’re no better than the bad guys.”

     “Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up,” Steve rebuttals.

     “Who said we’re giving up?” 

     “We are if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame.”

     “I’m sorry. Steve,” Rhodey blurted. “That-that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not SHIELD, it’s not HYDRA.”

      “No, but it’s run by people with agendas, and agendas change.”   

      “That’s good,” Tony starts. “That’s why I’m here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing.  

     “Tony, you chose to do that. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.”

     “If we don’t do this now, it’s gonna be done to us later. That’s a fact. That won’t be pretty.”

     Wanda finally speaks up, “You’re saying they’ll come for me.”

     “We would protect you,” Vision promised. 

     “Maybe Tony’s right,” the redhead speaks. “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off--”

     “Aren’t you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?” Sam interrupts. 

     “I’m just… I’m reading the terrain. We have made… some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back. 

     “Focus up,” Tony says. “I’m sorry, did I just mishear or did you agree with me?”

     “Oh, I want to take it back now.”

     “No, no, no. You can’t retract it. Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case-closed--I win.” 

     From what you see, Steve stands to leave abruptly. 

     You then walk out of the elevator, tablet still in hand with the footage up. The captain walks past you just as you turn the corner and spot the team. 

     “Someone’s upset,” you hum. 

     You walk past everyone towards the fridge and grab a water bottle. 

     “Anyway, that was very childish. And kinda stupid.” 

     Inquisitive looks are thrown your way and you hold up the tablet awkwardly as you plop down on a chair. 

     “I was watching you. I kinda do that a lot. It’s not as creepy as it sounds.” 

     You open the bottle and take a sip. 

     “What are you doing down here kid--”

     “Ahhh,” you interrupt. “Don’t call me a kid. I haven’t been a child for years.”

     “Just answer the question,” Tony snaps. 

     “I like to stay informed. No one tells me anything and while you think that these private meetings only affect you, it doesn’t. It affects me too. You may not remember I’m your child but several people do. And that puts me in danger. So yes, I listen to your conversations to make sure it’s nothing I need to worry about.” 

     An awkward silence washes over as you gulp down more water. 

     “Anyway, I was just riding up and down the elevator waiting for you guys to finish. That Ross dude is kinda creepy by the way. But you’re really considering signing that thing?” 

     “Not you too,” your father mutters. 

      You let out a laugh and everyone looks at you strangely. 

      “Is this funny to you?” Rhodey asks. 

      “Yes,” you stop laughing abruptly. “I find it hilarious that this is the same government that was ready to drop a nuke on the city during the Battle of New York not giving a damn about a single civilian that was still in the area. I find it hilarious that this is the same government that lets thousands of children and women of color go missing and not do a thing about it. It’s funny that this is the same government that let HYDRA, Red Room, AIM; all that shit grow right under their nose. It’s funny because this government is the same one that uses taxpayer money for dumb ass projects and unnecessary military funding instead of using it to fund shit that helps the civilians they claim they care so much about. I mean how can you not find this situation amusing?”

     “Look,” Tony attempts. 

     “I’m not finished,” you challenge, looking him dead in the eyes. “This government don’t give a damn about y’all, especially not the three of us,” you say, gesturing to yourself, Sam, and Rhodey. “We’d be booted out of this country before you could even blink if they ever got the chance and you know that.

     “I don’t know why y’all are so adamant on gaining the government’s trust when they don’t give a flying fuck about you or these goddamn civilians. All they care about is power. They don’t care how many civilians come up missing or die in some tragic accident. It doesn’t matter what happens. When they see someone becoming richer or smarter or more powerful than they are, they will do anything to shut that shit down. 

     “I don’t understand how you can’t see that. And maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just me and my experience,” you pause, catching the gaze of every person in the room with hard eyes. You take a deep breath and try to calm down. “Sign it if you want to. Think about how many lives you’ll lose then.”

     You stand from your spot and walk into the open elevator, ready to get to the comfort of your bed. 

-

     It had been two days since the initial meeting and you were currently sitting on Michelle’s bed watching her read. 

     “You’re really pretty,” you muttered out of the blue.

     You saw your girlfriend’s cheeks develop a subtle red tint as she mumbled back a ‘thank you, and continued reading. You groan and gently pull the book out of her hands. 

     “Hey,” she quietly protests. 

     “Please,” you pout, holding your arms out as an invitation.

     MJ fondly rolls her eyes before lowering herself onto you. You hummed contently and squeezed her before planting a kiss on her cheek. 

     She surprised you by turning her head and giving you a lingering kiss. That one kiss soon turned into something more. 

     Michelle gently pushed you onto your back and straddled your hips. Bending down she kissed you once again, her lips gliding with yours. 

     This continued for a few minutes, taking small breaks in between to breathe. You don’t think you could ever get enough of her and hoped that she was feeling similarly.

     You kissed until your jaws hurt. The euphoric feeling still lingered as MJ rested her forehead against yours, trying to catch her breath. 

     “We should do that again sometime,” you mumbled. 

     Your girlfriend nodded in response, giving one more chaste kiss to your lips before dropping to your side. 

     “Tomorrow,” she said after glancing at the clock that read 10:47. 

     “Guess I’m spending the night then.” 

     “I have no problem with that.”

-

     The next day, you were awoken by beeping from your phone. Once you were fully aware of your surroundings you picked up the device and read the notifications that M.I.A sent through. Scanning through them, you sat up with urgency and played the video. 

     “A bomb hidden in a news van ripped through the UN building in Vienna. More than 70 people have been injured. At least 12 are dead, including Wakanda’s King T’Chaka. Officials have released a video of a suspect who they have identified as James Buchanan Bares, the Winter Soldier. The infamous HYDRA agent, linked to numerous acts of terrorism and political assassinations.”

     Carefully removing Michelle’s arm from around your waist, you stand up and move to the corner of the room. You press the contact and hold the phone up to your ear. 

      “Nat what the fuck is going on?”

     You hear the woman sigh on the other side of the phone.     “Look, just… stay wherever you are.”

     “Yeah, okay, whatever. I want answers, Nat.”

     “(Y/n),” she says firmly. “Calm down and go back to whatever you were doing. Right now, this does not concern you and I would like it to stay that way. Do you understand me?”

     There was some silence, before you let out a forced chuckle. 

     “Okay, whatever. Bye.”

     “(Y/n) c’mo--”

     You disconnected the call and gently tossed the phone onto MJ’s desk.     “You sound stressed.” 

     Turning around to face the bed, you see Michelle sat up and leaning against the headboard. You nod slowly and crawl your way up towards her. 

     “I am.”

     You feel her hand take hold of your clenched ones and she rubs them, causing you to relax slightly. 

     “There was a um, bombing at the--the um… signing thing. And no one wants to tell me what’s going on, so,” you end the sentence, shrugging. 

     MJ’s head drops onto your shoulder and you let her cuddle close. 

     “They told me to stay where I was. So hopefully we can get something good out of that.” 

     There was no response and you thought she had fallen back asleep, but you were proven wrong when your girlfriend started getting up. 

     “C’mon,” she instructed, holding her hand out when she saw the look of confusion on your face. 

     Taking her hand, the two of you made your way to the kitchen. 

     She turned around and grabbed your shoulders. 

     “We are going to make some breakfast… or lunch whatever. And then we are going to binge watch until we can binge watch no longer. Alright?”

     You nod your head, chuckling and then got to work. 

-

     It had been days since you last heard from anyone. No updates from Natasha. M.I.A even told you there hasn’t even been a great deal of movement in the compound. Today you decided you would head back. 

     When you arrived it was quiet. As you walked down the halls you heard distant chatter and followed it. 

     Turning the corner, you were surprised at what you saw. 

     “What the hell happened?”

     The two men turned to look your way, but you were given no answers. 

     Tony had bruises on his face and he looked more tense than usual. Rhodey had some sort of tech on his legs. 

     “You fought them. You fought them all, didn’t you?” 

     Both men looked away and avoided your gaze. 

     “You didn’t even listen to what I said. This is what the government does. I tried to tell you, but you didn’t even fucking listen,” you ranted, your voice slightly raising.

     “Us breaking apart wasn’t the government. Most of this is on some guy th--”

     “Well the government allowed it to happen so I’d say it is their fault!” 

     You turned to your father with pleading eyes. 

     “Where are they, Tony?”

     “Kid, they’re criminals now, I don’t--”

     “Stop calling me that! I’m--I’m not some kid. I’m not your kid,” you let out a frustrated breath. “You--you couldn’t talk it out? Like mature adults? You just had to go assert your dominance somewhere--in what? An--an airport? Some vacant lot? You just had to fight. Do you not know how to communicate?” 

     You looked at the two men, shook your head, and brushed past them. 

     Just when things were alright.

-

     “(Y/n)?” 

     “What M.I.A?”

     You were currently laying in your bed trying to control the tears that were begging to fall from your eyes due to the amount of overwhelming shit you had been hit with. You talked with MJ for a little while and while it helped a bit, you honestly were still feeling like… well shit.

     “There’s a package for you.” 

     Furrowing your eyebrows, you head down to where the mail is usually placed, get the package with your name on it, and head back to your room. 

     Grabbing a pair of scissors, you cut the tape and open the box. Inside was a letter and a phone. 

     Hey sweetheart.

     It was Natasha’s handwriting.

     I’m sorry. I really am. We all are. I wish things wouldn’t have ended this way, but they did and we can’t really do anything about it now. 

     I listened to what you said. I listened and I tried my best to understand. I don’t think I ever wanted to sign the accords in the first place. The only reason I did so was so that we could stay together. So that I could stay with you. This team is the only family I’ve had in a long time. The fact that that stack of papers could end that scared me. 

     I just kept trying to convince myself that signing the Accords was the right thing to do; anything to keep this team together. Anything to keep everything from falling apart. 

     But the more I thought about it, I realized. You were right. Everything you said. This government doesn’t care. And if the government doesn’t care like they’re supposed to then we need to. People need the government, but they don’t have it. They do have us though. And they always will. 

     I love you. I didn’t say it enough and I don’t know when or if I’ll ever get to tell you that again. You are so precious to me and I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. If you ever need anything, you can always give me a call. 

     You wiped your eyes and gently picked up the phone. You held it in your hands for a moment before setting it down. You folded the letter back up neatly and placed both items in the top drawer of your nightstand. 

     You laid back down on your bed with less tears on your face. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Permanent Taglist

@stillmanicc​, @annestine​, @ymzki-haruki​

Nothing For Me Taglist

@littlegasps​, @leahnicole1219​, @thebadassass, @legendarymcnuggies, @big-galaxy-chaos​, @believinghurts​, @play-morezeppelin​, @vavilip​, @coollemonsaresour​, @ximaginx​, @xx-narcissa​

Marvel Taglist

@hateinthemorning​, @mylove4life​, @badbitchyonjii, @blueposthings​

[riredrhodyblog]

Free Guy Is Awesome And I Was Thrilled To See Seán In It!!

The following is a spoiler free review which focuses on the inclusion of content creators and why that decision is warranted:

Although no doubt people from all walks of life are going to see Free Guy, three groups of people immediately sprung to my mind:

Those in the Gaming Community

People who are going to mock the Gaming Community, and

Those who are merely happy to be going to theaters again and just want to have a good time

If you’re already in the mocking mindset, there isn’t much anyone can do to change your mind. I myself went with my Brother on Thursday (August 12, 2021) and I already knew going in that I would absolutely love it!

Most people know the premise. Ryan Reynolds is a Non Playable Character named Guy who learns his world is a video game that will soon be shut down.

But here’s the thing that might surprise a lot of people: Free Guy is more than just funny. This film showcases why video games mean so much to people and, in my opinion, needs to be seen by EVERYBODY!!

Halfway through the film, I already decided I’m going to go see Free Guy again on the big screen! That honestly hasn’t happened to me since the 1980s (yes, I am that fucking old)!

This movie is a love letter to the Gaming Community. Therefore it makes all the sense in the world to include content creators like Seán, a notion which might be something that those outside the Community won’t understand.

As someone without a PC or console, however, this is all too relatable.

Seán has been one of my main sources of gaming content since 2017. I’ve laughed with him, cried with him, had the shit scared out of me right along side of him and, most importantly, through his eyes I have gained an even deeper appreciation for just how much effort goes into creating video games.

Seán’s reactions— which were peppered in along with his colleagues— made me tear up due to what he’s been naturally conveying in front of a camera for almost nine years!!

In fact, there was a key plot point that— due to watching Seán’s gameplay and evolving commentary style— I firmly believe he would have figured out if Free City was a real game!

So to the naysayers who are annoyed by the appearances of Jacksepticeye, Pokimaine, DanTDM, Ninja and LazarBeam, just remember that these are the eyes, ears, hearts and souls of a world that some of us are not able to directly visit.

💚🤗🤗💚

[inkabelledesigns]

Vibrance the Hedgehog: Reflecting on a Decade of being a Sonic Fan and an Artist

Today is Sonic’s 30th anniversary, and it has me feeling all kinds of sentimental. So today I want to talk about it. A lot of you probably don’t know I’m a Sonic fan unless you follow me on the voice acting side of things. I’ve been Rouge the Bat in a ton of fan projects for years now, and especially with Adrenaline Dubs, a lot of people recognize my voice from the work I’ve done as her. 

But believe it or not, Sonic is what started me down my path as an artist. I originally started drawing because a friend of mine did cool Sonic fan art back in 2010, and I wanted to be a part of that. My friends were super into the series, and even though most of us drifted away from it, I held on and hopped from group to group for years. Most treated me like garbage, but there were a few diamonds in the rough that I’ve reconnected with over the years. I got hurt badly enough that I stopped drawing Sonic fan art, I just couldn’t look at it without feeling this sickness in my gut. But last night, I got reminded of a video from like seven years ago where it was just a catchy song and a rapid-fire showcase of Sonic fan characters, and I was compelled to go and doodle the one that meant the most to me. I’m not gonna show it here, because it was late and not a great sketch, but I did want to pull up her original artwork.

This is Vibrance, from May of 2014. At one point in my life, she was my whole world. I had a lot of FCs before her, but she was the one that stood out the most. She was the coolest, this audiokinetic teenager who looked up to Sonic and wanted to be a hero like he was (and had a goal of challenging him to a breakdancing battle, that was a thing). This is the only digital version I have, and it’s pulled from my old DA page. I remember being so proud of this picture, my best friend helped me with it during tech class our junior year of high school (we always finished our work early, and the teacher would let us draw when we did). She did the pants wrinkles, but everything else was mine. I loved this drawing so much that when I went to get my senior photos taken, I posed with it. Drawing this stuff was my entire identity back then (and it wasn’t healthy). I wanted people to see me as a skilled artist, I thought that if I could prove myself in my craft, that I’d have the respect I wanted from people, but the groups I was with were mostly filled with these self righteous donkeys that were more interested in making fun of me than helping me improve. 

But that didn’t stop me from improving. Vibe was with me through it all. I transitioned into learning digital art when I reached my last year of high school, mostly because I got my first pen tablet (which I still use to this day). These are some of the pieces I was proud of from 2017. I entered Vibrance into the first annual Pageant Mobius competition, and while I got burnt out and couldn’t keep going, I’m still glad I expanded my horizons and tried new things with these. As I got further into college, got emotionally destroyed in a few relationships, and just had more doubts about my art, I gave up doing Sonic stuff. The last piece I did was this piece of Zonic for my friend Trev, as payment for a favor. That was in 2018, same year I graduated.

I haven’t touched Sonic in a long time, not for art or for pleasure. I joined up with AD mostly because of my friends in the VA scene. If they hadn’t wanted me to stick around, I probably wouldn’t be voice acting for Sonic stuff still. I feel like most people don’t realize I’m an artist these days, given I don’t draw as much, much less post it. They hear my voice, and that’s the thing they want from me. And you know what? Most of the time, I can be okay with that. I get immense joy from voicing characters, be it ones you’re familiar with or personal OCs, hearing people squeal and get excited over having something they love come to life is satisfying. 

That’s the thing I always craved with my art and never got, I wanted to share my excitement, and no one wanted to share it with me. And it wasn’t just visual art, it was my stories too. I was a writer long before I ever drew, like I was still learning cursive when I started making up my own stories. Nobody wanted to hear what I had to share, I was just kind of forgotten. I’m still in some places where I’m left out, no matter how much dedication I show in trying to support others, but I’ve finally found places that do want to listen and interact with what I have, where I’m happy to do the same back. Most of those places are tied to Bendy and nutcracker stuff, and it makes me so gosh darn happy to share those things with people. It’s nice to have a space where I finally feel valued.

So now that I have an outlet that gives me that, I think I’m more content with my drawings. I think I’m happier not worrying about what other people think of my art. Sure, I still worry a little bit, I’ve got a lot of great friends who are so skilled at what they do, I don’t want to look bad next to them, and I’m motivated to keep practicing and trying new things in that way. But at the same time, it ultimately doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, I’m having fun creating, and that’s something I missed a lot.

When I look at Sonic, I’m enveloped by this childish wonder. I’m reminded of my first home console game, Sonic Colors, and how much fun I had with it (you can imagine I’m super excited for the remaster this year, that makes me so happy). I’m reminded of my long car rides trying to beat Sonic Rush Adventure, or sharing the Winter Olympics with my friends and sisters. I laugh at stupid inside jokes with some of my friends, the FCs we made, the roleplays we had. I smile when I remember the hype over Mania, or the joy I had going to see the Sonic movie in the theater with my sister (the last public outing I had before the pandemic hit, and it was magical for every moment). When I look at Sonic, I’m reminded of the fact that I had a lot of fun with him. His series was my favorite, because it made me feel like I could be anything I wanted to be. He was brave, charming, and confident in himself, and he was fast, oh gosh was he fast. I needed to see that as a kid, someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up and do the right thing. Every year on his anniversary, I take a moment to celebrate quietly to myself, usually by popping in an old game and playing a level or two. No clue how I’m gonna celebrate this year, but I know this much: even with all the bad things that happened, nothing can take away how much I love this hedgehog, or how important this franchise was to my journey as a creative, and in becoming a better person. You may not see me share much of that nowadays, but I don’t need to be active in the fandom to be a fan. I’ll still hold Sonic close to my heart, even if no one else ever knows about it. Not gonna lie, I’ve cried a few times in writing this post, but I’m glad I said it. 

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for listening to my artistic ramblings, for supporting me when I have something to share, for being around when I want to geek out. No matter what you come to my page for, I’m glad I have this blog, along with so many lovely people who fill my heart with so much joy. Happy Birthday Sonic, keep on running. 

[warsofasoiaf]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola. 

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that. 

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[seraphanangelica]

Pairing My Friends With BNHA Characters P1:

Zoie, I have just the person for you!

I also do pairings for everyone, not just my friends. Requests are open.

(Credit to Wonderful GIF maker)

Now before you go WHAT?! Lemme explain. (No, it’s not becuase you’re a Hufflepuff either).

⚡️Upon meeting Kaminari, your first impression was one of humor and glee as you watched him casually walk up to your desk and ask, “Hey, you uh... come around here often?”

⚡️To say you were surprised (and you shouldn’t be surprised, you’re cute as hell, own it!) was an understatement. You’ve never had someone come up to you just to flirt like that. It always started with a half-assed conversation.

⚡️You blinked once, and looked up to his never-faltering smile. “I do, five days a week.”

⚡️This went on for a while. Kaminari would come to your desk every day before school started and state the cheesiest pick up line he could come up with, you returning it with a technical comeback, sometimes a flirt or two back.

⚡️Whenever you did flirt back, his confidence shakes a bit, and you never miss the red the tints of his cheeks.

⚡️Eventually, you went from exchanging a few flirts to having full conversations. At first it was things like your mutual agreements. That’s it. Really.

⚡️”Bakugo’s a big softie. I mean, come on, look at the way he looks at Kirishima. It proves my point further.”

⚡️”Get you a significant other that looks at you the way Bakugo looks at Kirishima.” Of course then, you didn’t see the light in his honey eyes every time he looked at you.

⚡️From small agreements to full blown conversations.

⚡️From conversations to you going over to his dorm after school to train and study. That’s what you tell your friends at least.

⚡️When you first stepped into his room, your attention went straight to the video game console that you all too familiar with. You also noticed there were two remotes.

⚡️Yeah, so you guys studied all day. You ditched the books and went straight into the digital world. He challenged you to countless competitions. Who could get the most kills in Fortnite, or who could build the best house in Minecraft. (Being the artist, you definitely won that one)

⚡️You didn’t start dating much longer after that. No one in 1A was surprised.

⚡️As flirtatious as he is, I don’t belive Denki would do much PDA. Maybe some hand holding, an arm around your shoulders.... Hugs are a definite. If you’re lucky you’ll get a small kiss on your cheek.

⚡️You’re his top priority. You need something? You got it. You want something? It’s yours. You’re sick? He’ll take care of you. You’re sad? Cuddles and positive affirmations for HOURS if not the whole day. And you’d do just the same.

⚡️He doesn’t care about what you want to look like or want you want to do with your life. As long as it benefits your happiness, he’s all for it and supports you every step of the way.

⚡️Nicknames! He calls you his Buzzy Beautiful Shunshine Nugget (*ahem*) because you’re energetic around him, you’re beautiful, happy and radiant like the sun, and you like chicken nuggets. You call him Zappy Boi, especially after that one time he was getting out of a balloon pit and went to hug you. All the static made him shock you, producing a low zap noise. It shocked you more than it hurt you, and even though he apologized profusely, you laughed it off and proceeded to call him Zappy Boi.

⚡️When his birthday rolls around, you make him beautiful art piece of the things that remind you most of him and your time together. He LOVES it. The smile never left his face that day, and the painting never left the wall in his room. He calls you the Da Vinci of your time. You disagree (Boi, AGREE), but the compliment stuck with you.

⚡️For your birthday, he takes you to a Con. You guys get your cosplays that took months to make by hand and ROCKED IT. Instagram was filled with your photos with celebrity voice actors and professional cosplayers, but mainly just you two having the time of your lives.

⚡️On normal days Denki would find you in your dorm room watching YouTube and drawing something on your tablet or coming up with a new concept for an OC or cosplay. It’s these days where he’d sit next to you on the bed, head resting on your shoulder as he gives you ideas and many scenarios for you to think out to build a more complex and complete project.

⚡️When it’s days you seek Denki out, you’ll similarly find him in his dorm. It’s the likeness in these days you both cherish. Nothing is too awkward or out of your comfort zone. If it is, you’ll both find some way to make it better. He would be focused on the TV, his hands moving fast against his remote (hush, children), completely dominating the game. Some other days you might catch him recording trends on TikTok. Those days you just sit back and watch the show.

⚡️All in all, the love you hold for each other is unconditional. So much so, that you remained together after graduation and became partners in a joint Hero agency. Of course a couple years later, you made the front page of almost every magazine in Japan, showcasing your wedding.

⚡️Now, hand in hand with your husband, saving the world together, you know, it can’t get any better than this.

[phoenotopia]

2020 May Update

I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during this time of Coronavirus!

We continue towards the finish line, slowly, but surely. Coronavirus did throw a few wrenches in our plans. Our talks with a publisher about a possible sponsored appearance at an upcoming event stalled.

But that was always just a possibility. We have a backup plan. If we didn't win a sponsor, we were just going to pay our own way to a convention. That's what most indies do! Anyway, that's canceled too. It doesn't seem like there'll be any conventions to showcase in the near future...

Nevertheless, we did move forward in other areas. We've got the press materials ready as well as the game's official launch site up. You can view it in its prelaunch state at this link. NOTE, It is in a "prelaunch" state, so some media links are being withheld until reveal time. But there are a bunch of new pictures and artwork you can look at.

You might notice the link reads "phoenotopia.wordpress.com". The plan is to direct "phoenotopia.com" to it in the near future. That means if you wanted to reach this tumblr specifically, you'll have to visit it at its tumblr link, "phoenotopia.tumblr.com" (which, I just noticed doesn't work... huh). Anyway, since this is a dev blog, I'll talk a little bit about the journey of creating the website.

SQUARESPACE vs WIX vs WORDPRESS

I actually tried 3 different services (in the above order), before I settled on wordpress. I did a bunch of researching, and most reviews seemed to point at WIX >= SQUARESPACE >>> WORDPRESS.

I went with Squarespace first, since it was recommended a bunch on some youtube videos I saw (guess marketing works). Even though it didn't win outright in the reviews, my impression of it was "less quantity, but more quality." I tried it and found it serviceable. It was kinda sluggish, with some not so intuitive areas. I had to ask for help a few times for some things that would seem simple ("how do I change the BG and font color and of the music player?", etc).

That was last year, when I *thought* I was near launch and would need a press site soon. One year later (present day), it was time to create a press site again, and since my website with Squarespace expired (I had only signed up for a trial period), it was a good opportunity to try Wix, especially since Pirate had lots of praise for Wix.

My impression of Wix was that it was... too distracting. After I chose a theme, in the editor view I felt bombarded by menus. Everywhere you move the mouse, things kept lighting and popping up. And it was slow. So I guess it was sorta like Squarespace, but maybe even a little worse?

(Easy ways to preview the website from phones and tablets was one of wordpress’s neat features)

What prompted me to try Wordpress was one of their slogans "35% of the web uses WordPress". If it's good enough for 35% of websites, it's good enough for me! I ended up liking it most of all. It's definitely less featured, which suited me, since I'm not trying to create something too fancy either. Unlike the other website builders which emphasize free-form, wordpress was more rigid. I couldn't drag and drop an element just anywhere - I found that comforting in a "I can't screw this up" sorta way. The most important thing was that it was fast. Loading the editor view to Wix took 11 seconds vs 4 seconds with Wordpress. And the speed advantage of wordpress extends across every action. Similarly, when Chrome launched 10+ years ago, it was also less featured vs Firefox, but it became my choice browser. I guess speed is something I value highly.

Anyway, my experience is from a drag/drop perspective with minimal coding. This is also NOT a paid advertisement. However, if wordpress would like to send some money my way, I would not be opposed... (call me!)

Achievements, Bugfixes, and Cleanup

Lots of small tasks and polish was done over the past 2 months. I finally fixed the time tracking bug - important because the Speed Run achievement depended on it. I also finally finished implementing all the technical stuff for the achievements. There was a bug where some enemies would stack up too many light sources, causing them to appear too bright and drain system resources. That's now also fixed. Lots of other small ones that don't bear mentioning.

A neat trivia about the game is that there's a final super hard achievement for those seeking to prove their mastery over the game. The player has to beat the game having never picked up a heart or energy upgrade. When playing under this constraint, some enemies can even kill the player in one hit! In the game's most current iteration, even I failed to achieve it, so I'm definitely going to have to go in and tweak things a little more.

Age Ratings

I went and got the game's age rating. I did a little research on this - it's quite fascinating. ESRB would be the age ratings board for the United States (where I'm based). But if you were in Europe, you'd get a PEGI rating. Then there's ACB for Australia and so forth. So if you wanted to launch a game globally, you'd have to deal with this process over and over, and each country rates things a little differently... that's a lot of work!

Enter IARC (International Age Rating Coalition), which aimed to simplify the process by being the one standard that you apply to, and from which you could then get the equivalent rating for all participating countries. IARC is an entirely automated process - probably necessary due to the boom of digital titles across all platforms, particularly mobile.

IARC is great for me, because they relaxed the standards for getting a rating. From my understanding, the process used to be more difficult. And you'd have to pay ESRB a hefty chunk to get a rating, but with IARC, it's totally free! So long as it's for digital and it's used only on licensed sites and store fronts. If I wanted to launch the game physically, I'd have to deal with ESRB on an individual basis again.

Without further ado, here's Phoenotopia's IARC ratings:

Fascinating... Phoenotopia is rated "Mature" in Australia... but for "Horror". Which seems suspect. The horror elements are rare (remember Dreadlands?). But when I was answering their questionnaire, they provided a video example of what they considered "horror", and it was pretty mild. About as mild as my game, so I checked that box. It is what it is...

We also got a "Teen" rating for ESRB for reasons of Fantasy Violence and "Mild Blood". This one is kinda iffy. In the game, if you hit a giant bug, it spits out a few drops of green blood. Does that really count as blood? Ocarina of time skirted by with an E rating 2 decades ago, and it let a dude spit out green blood. However, since IIARC is an automated process, I didn't see any place to dispute. But also, I wouldn't have disputed it anyway. A "T" rating is cooler than an "E" rating!

I'd like to mention this is not a paid advertisement for IARC. However, if IARC would like to send some money my way, I would not be opposed... (call me!)

Submission

I expect to polish the game for about 2 (maybe 3) more weeks. After which, I'll be submitting the game to the console "authority". From my understanding, I'll then have to wait a month while they "inspect" the title. After which, I'm then cleared to have an official launch date - which I'll probably set to be 1 month after getting approval.

So the plan is to have a very short marketing campaign. The reveal trailer will basically drop 1 month before release. And we're going to sprint to the finish line. Some marketing campaigns are 6 months to a couple years. Ours will be one month... Let's hope it works.

Wrench

That's what the plan looks like right now, but there is a possible upcoming wrench in this whole thing. I recently learned that my version of Unity is too old. Games running on old Unity versions are not automatically accepted - so I'll have to apply for an exemption. If the exemption gets rejected, we can't launch without upgrading, which will require *significant* work...

This came as a surprise to me. When I started dabbling in games development a decade ago, the most common advice I found online was "Make Games, not Game Engines." I interpreted this to mean lock in your technologies. There's always going to be a new and shinier bell or whistle, but if you keep chasing it, you're not going to work on the actual content of the game. That's probably what kept me to releasing the original game on Flash. That was a game I was making as a hobby while working a full-time job. By the time I quit my job to go full-time indie dev, Flash had long been a dead technology. But I remembered "do you want to build game engines or games?" And so I pressed forward.

So that mindset could potentially backfire here. If PC was the lead SKU, we wouldn't have these issues since PC is more relaxed as a platform. Consoles, as I'm now learning, have an ever forward shifting window of technologies. If we get rejected for the exemption, there's a couple ways we can play it. One, we go through the pain of upgrading which will take months... Two, we pivot and make PC the lead SKU again, but have to handle porting that plus its specific features, which will also take months...

So why is updating such a big issue? Unity has changed drastically over the years. When I started, it was a lot less 2D friendly. They didn't have an official 2D tilemap solution, so you had to build your own or buy a 3rd party library from their asset store. I used 2DTK for tilemaps - 2DTK is now entirely deprecated. Similarly, I had to search for and purchase a good asset to display crisp text - since you couldn't even do that in Unity back then (heh). That's the story for a lot of old Unity stuff. Think of it as a first mover's "disadvantage".

Hopefully it won't come to that, since I'm pretty spent as a developer. I've been ready for this to be over, and I know many of you feel the same. Hopefully soon! As usual, I'll update in 2 months at the latest (end of June). An update might come earlier if we have some good news to share sooner. Until then!

Fanart and Cosplay

This first picture comes from roccy_chair and shows Gail basked in light. I like how her pose and equipment together form an "X". That's a neat hidden symmetry. The way she floats also kinda reminds me of Crono's "Shining" spell. Perhaps Gail should have the ability to cast spells? Hmmm...

Cody G returns with a new art depicting the 2 Moonstone enthusiasts. I like Fran's starry-eyed expression here. That's true love on display. I also like how the Moonstones are depicted as flat and coin-shaped. Very unique! Also note Gail makes an appearance in the back :D

Thanks to M1shaaa for this cosplay of Gail! There's a lot to like here! The vibrant pink hair. The costume with 3 stitches across the vest. The pose with slingshot, accurate to Gail's depiction in the box art. Amazingly, this might also be the very *first* cosplay of Gail! Will and Pirate both alerted me about it excitedly since they were pretty stoked. We joked that we crossed the final milestone in terms of fandom.

[saiilorstars]

Falling in Temptation

Ch. 14: While I'm Gone

Previous chapters • Sequel to Stars Dance •  Fairy Tale Memoirs (Companion story)

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: 11th Doctor x Female OC

Chapter summary: The Doctor is slowly losing his mind searching for Avalon and Melody.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel​

Lena held her sister's prized possession close to her chest. Ever since Avalon had been taken, Lena hadn't let that journal out of her sight. Avalon would want it first thing when she got back...because she would come back. It was just a matter of time.

That morning - or whatever time it was inside the TARDIS after waking up - Lena hurried towards the console room just like she had done from day 1 on their search for Avalon and Melody. And just like always, the Doctor was already in the room, working hard and fast to find a new lead on Avalon and Melody.

"Big brother, did you sleep?" Lena found herself wondering when she realized how untidy he looked. She understood that he needed way less sleep than she and the Sapling did, but he still needed some sleep.

"Yes, um, at some point...one night, can't remember! Busy!" the man was making rounds at the console, not particularly interested in conversations. These days he did a lot more talking to himself about possible clues than anything else.

Lena spotted his tweed jacket on the floor, the same spot he'd thrown it last night after getting a new lead. She and the Sapling had to get some sleep and the Doctor promised them that he would follow in a few minutes. He did not. "Big brother, nobody wants to find my sister and Melody as much as I do but you really need to get some sleep if this is going to work."

"I can sleep when I have Ava here and Melody with Amy and Rory," he said, his voice a bit snappish due to his lack of rest. He never snapped at her.

"But you can't find them if you can't think," Lena sighed. "That's why you sent me to sleep. Why don't you follow your own advice and take a few hours? I can keep looking. The Sapling should be up in a few hours too."

"I can't," the Doctor shook his head. "I followed the lead last night - it took me to the Messier 82 galaxy - and it turns out that there was a spotting of a woman with an eyepatch in one of the black markets. I went, but guess what!? It was a fake! It was a costume! What a waste of time! So now I'm back to zero! I cannot sleep!"

Lena looked at the journal in her arms. If Avalon could see him now, she would definitely slap him. She valued health over everything, even when she was the one who needed the help. "Avalon wouldn't want you to be like this. She wants you to rest."

"Lena! Are you going to help or not?" he snapped again.

"Yeah, I guess so," Lena came up to the console with a sigh. "So, where exactly are we?"

"Like I said: back to zero!"

"Okay," Lena nodded, trying to be the one to think rationally since she had all her hours of sleep. "Well, you said that Kovarian probably took Melody back to Earth in the past. But to find her would be dangerous because of Avalon's existence so we need to focus on Avalon first. We find her, she can tell us where Melody is and we can pick the right moment to take her without endangering Avalon's life." That was far easier said than done.

They'd spent weeks searching for Melody on Earth, but the Doctor ultimately called it off because of the danger they were putting on Avalon's life. The fact that she was Melody's daughter meant that they had be very careful choosing at what point to bring Melody back to her parents. Instead, they switched gears and focused on Avalon. The idea was that Avalon would know precisely where Melody was and they could extract the baby before she was raised on Earth. River had told him that in order for Avalon to continue existing, she needed to attend some university in the 51st century. The Doctor could arrange for young Melody to do that, no problem, but then he also started wondering if that was all that Melody needed to keep the timelines going? As he stated a while back, maybe the reason Melody did what she did at college, made the choices that she made, was because of her life on Earth. It was all a huge headache.

But one thing for sure, the one thing that River Song herself agreed upon, was that the Doctor needed to find Avalon first. She would never forgive him if he chose to search for Melody over Avalon. That made the Doctor feel a little less guilty about his decision when talking it out with Amy and Rory. He wasn't abandoning the search for Melody just because.

But finding Avalon was no more easy than finding Melody. It was like she had vanished into thin air. It terrified the Doctor wondering what they were doing to Avalon if she wasn't outside somewhere. If she was being kept inside, was she tied up? Was she being tortured? There was another part telling him that perhaps she'd been absorbed into their plans and was being trained like Melody, brainwashed no doubt. Repeated brainwashing could permanently damage the mind. If she was being trained to kill him - him - then she would be getting an extensive course. Everything Melody was meant to learn over the course of her life was being crammed into Avalon for the right day and time.

When his thoughts got too dark, even for him, the Doctor did everything he could to shake them off and focus on just finding her. If he found her, then all that could be avoided. "I don't know, I don't know..." he rubbed his eyes tiredly. He had thought of all the possible places that he knew of but Avalon wasn't there. She was never seen.

"Big brother," Lena gently placed a hand on his arm. The Doctor dropped his hands from his face and glanced at Lena, showcasing the heavy guilt that'd permanently become part of his features. Lena rubbed his arm comfortingly. "Take a moment to breathe. Let's think about this, right? If they separated Avalon and Melody, and Melody's on Earth, then wouldn't that mean Avalon is basically on standby? Where could she stay if she was on standby?"

"Well," the Doctor took in a deep breath and focused on the facts they had about Kovarian's style. "They gave Melody absolute independence on Earth, but they were always watching her. If Avalon is following the same plan, then she has to be living the same thing."

"Right, except they wouldn't give her complete independence because she could run away."

"No, they would have to alter her..." the Doctor was very careful with what he said about what Kovarian might be doing to Avalon. Lena didn't need the images he had in his head. "They would have to change something," he settled for the neutral words instead. Her brain. They would have to change something in there to keep Avalon at bay, because Avalon Reynolds was not a woman you could keep at bay so easily. Her terrible temper made her a force to be reckoned with. That's where the brainwashing came in, he imagined. If they changed Avalon's thoughts, she would function just like they wanted her to.

"So then where they would keep her after that?" asked Lena.

"Don't know," the Doctor's eyes found the controls as a new thought popped into his head. "But I bet that whatever they're using they had to have bought it somewhere."

"We're going to the Black Markets, aren't we?" Lena guessed considering the dark nature of Kovarian.

The Doctor nodded. "To as many as we can."

~ 0 ~

3 Weeks after Demons Run.

The tears wouldn't stop falling from Avalon's eyes. She felt like a child constantly having to rub the tears off her face only for new ones to take their place seconds later.

River Song was her mother, River Song.

It didn't make sense. Yes, she knew she was adopted but never in her life did she consider that River might be the woman who gave her up? All those times that she'd bumped into River and the woman never said anything. She acted as if there was nothing bonding them together, blood. It infuriated Avalon all over again. River just paraded through social events, making sure everybody knew who she was and yet the one person that should've been the first to learn her name was the person River chose to abandon and then ignore.

Avalon's eyes fell to the pictures Kovarian had left her with.

"A gift," the woman had smugly said after returning Avalon to her room. She'd let the pile fall to the floor, sprawling around Avalon.

She had been very thorough proving to Avalon that River was Melody and her mother. She had brought Avalon to a room where they played several videos of River confirming that she was her mother. The best one, according to Kovarian, was the video they'd retrieved from Demons Run. River had explained who she was to everyone after the Silence took Avalon. There was no room for doubt.

Now Avalon was left with a series of pictures of River at her finest moments, all of which were her in a compromising illegal act. It was Kovarian's way of showing Avalon that her mother wasn't someone she should try to protect so much. It was a way for Avalon to hate her and willingly work for the Silence. After all, why would she want to protect her mother when she abandoned her?

Even if Avalon didn't want to give Kovarian the satisfaction of being right, Avalon couldn't help the anger that flourished each time she thought about River.

She abandoned me. She didn't want me..

The woman galavanted throughout the galaxies, doing whatever the hell she wanted, and she never once came to see her. River knew where she lived, where she was, and she never did anything. Avalon could understand that being in prison complicated things but River never seemed to mind the fact she was incarcerated. She was always up and ready for an adventure. So why would River leave her with someone else to raise?

Because she probably cramped River's style.

Avalon knew that she was a nobody. She had lived in boring old Leadworth and the only exciting thing about her was meeting the Doctor. She didn't have a penny to her name and she certainly didn't astounding qualities. River probably thought she was boring. How could she tell the world that she had given birth to a boring daughter?

Fresh tears stung her eyes. Avalon let out a fierce growl. Her hands found the closest picture and tore it into pieces. "How could you!?" her hand then swiped away any picture nearby, wanting nothing to do with them. "I hate you!"

Let River keep doing her own thing! She didn't need her. She'd done just fine without her for 22 years after all. If River didn't want her then Avalon wouldn't want her either.

The only mother she recognized was Emmalina Reynolds. Enmalina had protected her and loved her. She had been there to hug her when she was scared, to kiss her 'owies' when she'd fallen, to read bedtime stories to her each night. Emmalina had given Avalon her first journal to write in because she knew from the start what Avalon wanted to be when she grew up. Emmalina knew that before Avalon knew it. That's what a mother was like. She knew things that her child wouldn't know until much later. Emmalina had been there when River had been god knew where.

Avalon picked up another picture and studied it until she saw the last detail. River was dressed fashionably, almost like the first time Avalon met her back at the Byzantium, and was conversing with some woman. River held a beautiful sapphire blue jewel that no doubt had been priceless. The setting was an elegant party, judging by the decorations. Even the chandelier was big enough to be caught on the picture and it was made of diamonds. It seemed like a party Avalon would've loved to have gone to.

But where was she? At home, in Leadworth, on Earth. She'd been light years away from her mother and River didn't look the least bit upset by the matter.

Avalon's face scrunched as her hands gripped the corners of the picture. She yanked the two sides in the opposite direction and felt a dark satisfaction when she heard the picture tearing. Her gaze fell to the remaining pictures and before she knew it, she'd began to grab each of them and tore them until they were nothing but confetti on the ground.

But once there was nothing left, Avalon still couldn't get rid of the heavy pain in her chest. She wanted to scream and cry. Cry for everything that had gone wrong in her life, from the very moment she was born. Her shoulders slumped. The dark anger subsided for a moment to give way for her hear to break all over again.

Her vision blurred with all the tears in her eyes. My own mother didn't want me, what hope do I have? If her own mother didn't want her, how could she expect for anyone else to want her?

Would the Doctor even come for her? He never liked River to begin with and if he knew that she was River's daughter...would he hate her too? The mere thought terrified Avalon.

~0~

The Sapling was was quietly going through an album in the TARDIS library. Despite his insistence to help find his mother, his father and aunt Lena told him there was nothing for him to do right now. They had to start out by mapping the possible locations Avalon could be. But even when they visited most of those locations, there wasn't a job for him to actually help. Why? Because they hadn't actually found Avalon, nor Melody. They weren't in any of the locations.

It infuriated all three that they were no closer to finding either girl. The Sapling felt a tingling sensation each time he underwent a new episode of fury. He suspected it was his powers trying to manifest again and the only reason he worked hard to keep them within was because he wanted to use them on the woman who took Avalon and Melody.

But for now, the Sapling was resigned to wait. They needed to wait for anything significant to pop up so they could start the search again. It was why he was in the library, passing the time with the only thing he could: by going through his mother's photo albums. She had gone over them extensively because he had asked her to. Now he was going through them again, alone, and really missing his mother.

Lena had appeared at the doorway and yanked the Doctor to her side. "See!?" she was very careful to whisper so that the Sapling wouldn't hear them. "Poor thing's been locked in here for days. I try to get him to come out to eat something but he refuses."

"I don't blame him," the Doctor whispered as he took a peek inside the library. The Sapling was on the couch with the photo album on his lap. He spotted Avalon's journal sitting on the coffee table in front of the Sapling. "You let him have the journal?" he gave a questionable glance at Lena. She hadn't let go of that journal since she stepped into the TARDIS.

Lena's expression was sympathetic. "He misses his Mum." She motioned him to go to the Sapling. "I think you should spend some time with him."

The Doctor would want nothing more than that - well, perhaps spend time with him and Avalon would be better - but his attention had to be on the search. "I left the console to track the black markets selling the specific software Kovarian would need to use on Avalon. I have to be there if anything comes up."

"I can be there," Lena assured him. "If anything does come up, I'll give you a call."

"Lena," the Doctor sighed and shook his head. "I don't...I don't even know what to tell the Sapling. I mean, I told him that I would find his mother and I have yet to follow through. It's been almost a month and I've got nothing."

"He knows that you're searching hard. Right now, I think you just need to be there with him, like a Dad." Lena bumped his side encouragingly. "Just talk."

The Doctor seemed lost for another option. "But you'll be at the console, right?" Lena nodded. "And you'll call if anything comes up?"

"Of course I will," Lena reassured him that she wouldn't leave the console until he got back. With that, the Doctor truly had no choice but go on inside the library.

The Sapling hadn't noticed him initially. He was focused on a picture of Avalon with her brother, Gavin, in a park. They were both attempting to climb a tree but had stopped to pose for the picture.

"Even as a child your mother looks like a troublemaker," the Doctor came around and took a seat next to the Sapling. The Sapling cracked a smile as they both studied the photograph.

A fifteen year old Avalon was smirking at the camera. She might have done something previous to the picture and no one but her would know about it.

The Sapling agreed. "Yeah. Have you found her yet?"

The smile on the Doctor's face was quick to fall. He shook his head in shame. "I haven't yet. But I will."

"I'm scared, Father," the Sapling admitted, not that it was a news for the Doctor. "That woman was a very mean woman who hurt aunt Amy and her baby. What if she's hurting Mother right now?"

The Doctor closed his eyes for a second. He had thought about that so many times, with thorough images, that it left his body shaking each time. Kovarian was not merciful and because she wanted him dead, she would stop at nothing to make sure both Melody and Avalon were thoroughly skilled.

He wondered how many times Avalon had screamed in terror and pain since she'd been taken. How many times had she cried? How much time had it been for her? A week? A month? Years? His hearts ached thinking Avalon had spent years with Kovarian, just like Melody. She was waiting for him to find her and he hadn't been able to track a single clue of where she could be.

"I don't know what they're doing to her right now, but I promise you that we will get her back," the Doctor promised on his lives. The Sapling believed him. He always did.

"Why did they take Mother away, anyways? And baby Melody? They didn't do anything wrong."

Another hard question the Doctor wanted to avoid. "They didn't, of course they didn't," he first agreed. "They...these people that took them, they don't like me very much. They want to hurt me..."

"And they took Mother and Melody because of that?"

The Doctor nodded silently. Even though the Sapling was a child, he could easily read the guilt on the Doctor's face.

"It's not your fault," he said. "Mother would tell you that too."

"Yeah, she would." A brief smile appeared on the Doctor's face as he thought about Avalon's reaction. She would no doubt call him an idiot for believing that but then she would give him one of her warm hugs. He would then indulge himself by believing her for a moment.

"Do you love, Mother?" the Sapling suddenly questioned. Even though it was done in a gentle child's voice, it snapped the Doctor out of his thoughts in a second.

"Wh-what? I don't...what?" the stammering was a natural response given the heavy weight of the question. The Doctor's face went a deep red in the seconds that followed.

The Sapling just smiled. "I just wonder if my parents love each other. Melody's parents love each other."

"Sapling, uh, Amy and Rory have been married a good while now. Your mother and I...it's, uh, very complicated." And that was still an understatement. At times, he wanted Avalon right next to him so he could dote on her and show her anything she wanted; he was at her beck and call. But other times...he wanted to lock her in a room so he would leave her alone at least for five minutes. She would frustrate him to no end and having an argument with her was sure to end with both of them screaming at the top of their lungs. It was a strange feeling - as he hadn't had that type of relationship with anyone else - but he knew that even during those moments he still wanted her. He would still want to kiss her and hold her. He liked her, a lot, that was past news but to say 'love'...maybe not right now. But you are getting there, he made the startling conclusion. He visibly gulped. That was certainly new.

"Maybe...maybe not right now..." he whispered and swallowed down the lump in his throat. He would have to think back on those thoughts another time, preferably when Avalon wasn't in danger.

"For now," the Sapling said matter of factly as he flipped to the next page of the album. "You gave Mother that journal," he nodded to Avalon's journal on the table. "Uncle Rory gave aunt Amy a ring because he loved her. That's what humans do, but you're not very normal."

"Oh, thanks," the Doctor rolled his eyes. That sounded completely like Avalon.

The Sapling smiled widely. "You gave Mother a journal that never runs out of pages. She wants to write - you gave her the ultimate present. If you don't love her yet, you will soon. And I know that Mother will too."

The Doctor inwardly sighed. The last thing he needed was for that to get around. No doubt Kovarian already had an insight to his feelings towards Avalon. It fueled the game even more, putting Avalon right in the middle of it.

~0~

1 Month after Demons Run.

"Why am I here again?" Avalon asked as a female doctor bound her wrists to the metal chair she was forced to sit on. She was back in the room with the screen that originally showed Avalon who her mother was. She didn't want to be there again - actually, she didn't want to be anywhere near Kovarian.

"Because we need to start your conditioning," Kovarian gave the female doctor a nod when Avalon was secured to the chair.

"My what?" Avalon blinked when she saw the female doctor coming back with electric pads in hand. "Why-why are you carrying those? What are you doing?" she frantically asked but the woman started attaching them to her skin without saying a word. Avalon's head craned to see Kovarian watching with satisfaction. "What are you going to do with me!?"

"Same thing we did to Melody. Of course with her, we didn't really use ECT. We just embedded the ideas from the start. I'm making the right adjustments to your conditioning."

"N-n-n-n-no! Get these off me right now!" Avalon resorted to pushing her wrists against the metal cuffs keeping her strapped in.

"Oh don't bother," Kovarian laughed and came up to Avalon. "We know very well about your strength - you get that from your mother - and we have accounted for everything. There is no getting out of this."

Avalon glared, her face scrunching slightly as her anger rose. "What are you going to do?" she flinched when the female doctor attached the last two pads to her temples.

"You seem to cling onto the Doctor more than anyone else, even your grandmother, so we need to change that. Dr. Lefevre here, will conduct the electric shocks at my order and by the time we're done here..." Kovarian came to lean very close to Avalon, allowing her to notice the light freckles on Kovarian's face, "After we're done here, you're going to associate the Doctor with pain."

Gulping came on instinct, but Avalon still endeavored to prove that she wouldn't be an easy victim. "I won't fall for it. I got news for you, lady, my brain's all messed up anyways. And you know what? The Doctor might hate me because of who I am but I won't ever hurt him. I'd rather die first."

Kovarian dramatically groaned as she straightened up and turned away from Avalon. "This idolizing him has got to stop! You don't understand the danger he's putting us in with his existence! But don't worry," she spun around back to Avalon, expressing as if Avalon had done something wrong that she could fix for her. "I see the truth and I'm going to help you see it too. Dr. Lefevre?"

Lefevre nodded again and walked out of the room. Avalon shut her eyes thinking the first wave of electric shocks was about to hit her but instead the screen projector came to life and the room's lights went off.

"Let's start," Kovarian smiled maniacally as she came to stand beside Avalon's chair.

~ 0 ~

1 Month and a week after Demons Run.

"No, more, no more, please," Avalon's voice was too strained to make a proper plead. Her body felt like soup. Yes, that was a feeling she thought wasn't possible until now. She felt like she was floating but couldn't really move her arms nor legs. They were the noodles.

"But this is only 2005 now," Kovarian promised but she had promised that last week when this first started.

"Don't you...get it?" Avalon struggled to breath normally. "If you keep...doing this...I won't m...make it."

"Oh don't worry, that's where your regenerative cycle comes in. If your body truly does expire then you'll just regenerate and we can continue where we left off!"

Avalon felt like she could cry there and then. Regeneration? She didn't even want to think about such a thing. Her body dying? Now that she knew she could, she wondered how the hell the Doctor could do that so easily and not get stuck on the fact he had to die to get a new body.

"I'm going to...die...and...I don't even know how...to survive," Avalon coughed aggressively but Kovarian didn't seem perturbed.

"Lefevre, next!" she gave the order for the screen to switch again.

The next series of pictures shown were the aftermath of a famous battle Avalon once heard of but never had the full details. Along with pictures, Kovarian had also included videos for better representation.

"Cybermen..." Avalon recognized the terrible metal robots marching down a street. "What...what is this?" her eyes widened when the screen switched to show her Daleks flying in the air.

"This is the Battle of Canary Wharf, one of the biggest slaughters of the human race," Kovarian explained, although her tone didn't exactly portray regret. She was angry as hell but it was directed at one man instead of the fact that people died "And who was at the center of it? The Doctor. Have you seen the list of the dead?"

"Have you?" Avalon challenged.

Kovarian knew what she was trying to do and smiled. "My anger is not misplaced. This battle was specifically tailored to the Doctor because it originated from Torchwood. I believe you're familiar with the organization? Queen Victoria was like me. She saw the true danger the Doctor posed for the humans. She created Torchwood as a means to put an end to the man. But in the end, he put an end to it. People died at the hands of the Daleks and Cybermen. His own companion was thrown into a different universe. And that set the course for an even bigger battle that threatened the very existence of the universes."

New tears filled Avalon's eyes as she was forced to see the catastrophic aftermath. Streets were in ruins. Cars had exploded into fire. Several buildings were either half or completely destroyed. But there were so many corpses on the ground. everywhere.

"You didn't know that, did you?" Kovarian watches the tears rolling down Avalon's face. The ginger said nothing, but there was a clear fear etching across her features. "Lefevre!" Kovarian gave a hard yell.

The electric pads sent a riveting shock through Avalon's body. She screamed and wailed for them to stop. Each shock was worse than the last. It was as of everything inside her was on fire and there was no putting it out until Kovarian took pity on her.

When it was over, Avalon's body went limp against her chair. Her eyes wanted to close but she fought to keep them at least half open.

"Pain," Kovarian repeated just as she did each time the shocks were done. "That is what the Doctor is. Pain, destruction, and we have to end him."

However she could, Avalon glared but her mouth was temporarily unavailable. Kovarian knew this. Each time the shocks were over, Avalon would grow weaker against it. She would either die or she would finally start succumbing to effects.

"This is for your own good, for all of us," Kovarian moved around the chair so that she stood in front of Avalon. "I've seen the future and do you know what? I don't think you should even try to defend him. From where I stand, he's already replaced you and your little family." While Avalon couldn't say anything then, she still glared again. "And you've seen it too," Kovarian turned enough to gesture at the screen that was still showing the last pictures of the Canary Wharf battle. "It's a known fact that each time the Doctor faces a big battle, he leaves the companions behind. The one in that battle got lost in another world, and then the next one? Lefevre!"

The screen suddenly switched to a dark-skinned woman wearing a formal UNIT uniform. Avalon squinted her eyes to try and focus on the name tag the woman was wearing.

"Dr. Martha Jones walked the Earth for a year that none of us can remember to fight yet another Time Lord the Doctor was responsible for. The human nearly got killed and guess what happened? The Doctor -" Kovarian's voice took on a hard tone as she looked back at Avalon, "-moved on. And that bit of the woman? Did you know that there was a year completely lost? The Doctor erased a whole year that was full of blood thanks to him and his little Time Lord friend. No one can remember it. Only the Silence could, of course. They're useful like that. Bet the Doctor didn't tell you that, did he?"

Avalon didn't want to look so stunned but...she couldn't help it. What did she mean there was a whole year that none of them can remember? There were no stories about that, not even of Martha Jones fighting in it. The Doctor didn't say a word about it.

"And then the 27 planets that were stolen?" Kovarian yelled for Lefevre to switch pictures. "Oh, there were so many deaths that night. I believe this is where the Doctor moved on from yet another companion after sincerely - how do you humans say it? - screwing her over. Wiped her memories, the whole thing!" she made a quick gesture to the sides of her head.

Avalon's eyes narrowed the moment she thought about Donna Noble. She deeply regretted throwing that in the Doctor's face. That had to be one of the most terrible things he was forced to do. "Accident..." she managed to say. In talking, she got the taste of metal...making her realize there was a bit of blood in her mouth.

Kovarian mocked her with a laugh. "Oh, of course. And do you even know why it was possible for the worlds to be moved? Because that little companion from 2005 was able to cross worlds. The Doctor created a companion so dangerous that she literally broke the walls of the universe. If that doesn't prove how dangerous he is, I don't know what will!"

"N-not his...fault!" Avalon spat and felt bits of blood oozing from the corner of her mouth. It wasn't the Doctor's fault the choices his companions took.

"But it is," Kovarian turned right around to face Avalon. "The next one after that is you and your family. But guess what?" her face morphed into a mocking pout. "It won't last long either. Because I know for a fact that eventually the Doctor will move on from the Ponds. All of you." She made it pretty clear that really did mean everyone which, against her best efforts not to believe it, did sprinkle a bit of fear in Avalon.

Would the Doctor really move on from her too?

You did hurt him, she reminded herself. He has every right to drop you off too.

"And the next companion after you all is the one," Kovarian made sure to express her true hatred for whatever poor soul came next in line. "She's the one that brings the Doctor to the place where he will descend destruction on us."

"Then...kill...her," Avalon found herself saying. She didn't know who was meant to come into the TARDIS in the future but she didn't want the Doctor anywhere near a place that was meant to be a battle zone.

Kovarian feigned a sigh. "But she's a tricky one. I don't know the mechanics. Plus, if I kill her off then somebody else will inevitably bring the Doctor to that place. No, I have to go directly to the source, to the origin. Here. The Doctor has to die here, in this point of time."

Avalon swallowed hard when she got memories of Lake Silencio. But then she realized something...she couldn't remember everything. She started blinking fast the more she thought in vain. "I-I can't...I can't remember...Lake Silencio...what's-what's going on?"

There was a satisfied smirk playing on Kovarian's face. "Oh, the ECT is finally kicking in. The more we do this, the more fragile your brain becomes and once it's fragile enough we can start."

~ 0 ~

2 Months after Demon's Run

"STOP! JUST STOP!" Avalon screamed and wailed, her eyes screwing shut yet snapping open each second like a pattern. Her body twisted and writhed each time she felt a burning prick. "Please...just stop!" Her sobs echoed throughout the crystal clean room but none of the people inside would listen to her.

Two people held her body down, pinning her arms and legs against the metal table. When her skin made contact with the cool metal, she hissed. Her body was so susceptible to radical temperatures right now thanks to the series of tests Kovarian was running on her.

First, it'd been the insomnia test. They deprived Avalon of sleep for God knows what reason, but she was so tired. She'd always had trouble going to sleep but right now she would kill for an hour where she could just doze off. And once they figured out that Avalon could stay a minimum of four days awake, they moved onto to an expanded form of the test. Kovarian wouldn't settle for the simple 'let's see how long you can stay up', no. She would purposely change the temperature, leave Avalon in the dark and if Avalon dared to fall asleep, Kovarian would shock her. It was a piercing electricity that Avalon swore would make her body explode if the tests kept going.

And then they moved onto the injuries. How much could Avalon's body take?

They first started with simple cuts that Avalon would hiss and yell at them to stop. But things escalated. Cuts turned into full-fledged gashes where Avalon would physically want to pass out from how much blood she was losing. She swore that in one of those, somebody had actually touched her bones and organs.

Then Kovarian wanted to see what temperatures Avalon could withstand.

A blazing hot room was Avalon's home for a week. She had never craved water so much in her life. She did pass out a few times but then came the freezing cold. No matter how much she begged for them to stop or to at least give her a blanket, she was left in the ice cold room for another week. There were only intervals with regular temperature just so that she wouldn't die.

And now here she was for the latest test. Something about regeneration. The gashes would return and now they expected for her to heal herself but she didn't know how! How could she access energy that she didn't even know she carried!? And when she proved useless, Kovarian ordered for her people to carve into Avalon's body to examine that energy. One way or another, they would have that energy.

So there was Avalon, desperately crying for somebody to help her. Her right arm felt like it would fall off if she felt another burning cut. She turned her head to the left and blinked fast to get her sight cleared up. A woman was looking down at her behind a pair of glasses.

"Please...just stop...just...for a moment..." Avalon's voice was hoarse from all the screaming and the prior exams. "I...beg you..."

The woman paid her no attention. She just held Avalon's arm tightly and watched the exam continue.

Avalon honestly wished she was dead at this point. Nothing could be worse than what she was living. If she was lucky, they wouldn't find what they were looking for and they would just kill her.

~ 0 ~

2 Months after Demons Run

"Uh, no Dad, we...haven't found her yet," Lena wanted to speak as quietly as possible while talking to her father but it was impossible when she was forced to stay in the console with the Doctor's so very good hearing. She wanted to leave each time her father called to know their status on the search, but the Doctor wouldn't have it. He had made a promise to find Avalon and Melody and he wasn't living up to it.

It was like he was punishing himself by forcing himself to hear the disappointment in Lena's voice when she told her father that nothing changed. They were still completely lost.

With a sigh, Lena ended the call with her father. She didn't have to explain to the Doctor what it was about. "He just says he believes in you."

The Doctor let out a noise indicating his lack of faith in himself. He kept himself at the console, his fingers tiredly working through the controls.

"He knows you'll find her, though. He has no doubt about it," Lena kept insisting. "He says-" but she was interrupted by an alarm from the console. She was quick to react with wide eyes. "Is that-"

"-a clue!" the Doctor lunged for the side of the console that was giving off the alarm. He found new energy that sped him up through the process of discovering what the alarm was for.

"Well, what is it!?" Lena anxiously waited for him to say something.

"Don't know, it's...um, somebody's calling me from a Black Market in..." the Doctor leaned closer to the monitor, "It's a Black Market in the Black Eye Galaxy."

"The what now?" Lena blinked, but the Doctor didn't pay attention to her confusion. All he knew was that there was finally a possible clue of where Avalon was.

"Baby sister, you're gonna want to hang onto something! SAPLING!" his voice roared through the room. They had a new place to get to quick!

~ 0 ~

3 Months After Demon's Run

Three shots fired consecutively, each hitting of their intended targets.

Avalon swallowed roughly when she lowered her weapon and saw she'd gotten three more straight in a row. She blinked several times as she found she was unable to remember when she was ordered to fire. Her eyes swept over the room as if this were the first time she saw it.

It was huge and barely furnished. The only light coming through was from three small windows above. Avalon realized the room was underground, like a basement. Across of her were three dummies with bullets embedded mostly in the chest. She looked down at herself and could not for the life of her remember how she got into an oversized white blouse and skinny white pants. Even her hair was forced back into a messy low bun. Many of her curls - which were untamed and frizzy from lack of attention - were hanging around her face like curtains.

"How does this keep happening?" she whispered to herself, but she was never alone.

"Again," the Silence with her commanded.

Avalon swallowed hard and turned her head to the right where the ugly lone Silence stood. Her hand shakily moved up to her dry hair. "B-but I-I r-remember you. I can't rememb-b-ber a lot but I k-keep remembering you. How are you doing that?"

The Silence left a moment of silence pass by, as if it were actually constructing an explanation to Avalon's questions. Finally, it cocked its head to the side and answered, "Shoot again."

"No!" Avalon took aim on the Silence again, albeit her shaky arms didn't exactly cause fear. Half the time she didn't know if what she was seeing was a hallucination from everything she'd gone through, or if things really were as bad as they were.

"Oh put the weapon down, child," Kovarian ordered as she appeared in the room. "You do this every time." She was not phased when Avalon turned the gun on her. "As you do that."

"I don't understand, I-I remember things but it's in pieces," Avalon's hand curled tightly around the gun. "My b-bbrain...it hurts..." she brought her free hand to her massive curls and pulled on them in frustration. "Everything's all jumbled up..." her voice cracked in the end, confirming she was truly all over the place. She was losing control over her own thoughts. Her body would jerk suddenly, very often, thanks to the electric shocks. Her skin was dry, making it so easy to get cuts and bruises. And it showed.

Kovarian was proud of her newest experiment. It was working marvelously. It was easier to push Avalon and to control her. Now she wanted to give Avalon the ultimate test, the test that would prove if they'd successfully conditioned her.

"We're going out on a little trip," she announced, not that Avalon seemed to be paying attention. The woman had retreated a few steps and was mumbling words to herself, a nursery rhyme. "Yoo hoo! Anybody home?" Kovarian laughed at her own joke. "Bring her along," she ordered the Silence and turned to leave.

~0~

Avalon wouldn't recognize where they brought her, nor would she know how to get out. The entire place was covered in taverns. It seemed like was night underneath. Everybody looked suspicious, but everyone seemed to fear them - not her but the woman with her - and didn't want anything to do with them.

"You walk far too slow," Kovarian remarked as she studied every movement of Avalon's. Her walking would definitely have to improve. It looked like Avalon was dragging her feet. "And you're not examining your parameters. An enemy can easily take you down right now."

"T-tired..." Avalon said, too weary to say much more. "Why...am I-I here?"

"Because I want you to walk to the end of this line and back," Kovarian responded and a few seconds later came to a stop.

"What?" Avalon thought her hearing might be going too.

"Walk till the end of this aisle and back," Kovarian repeated. "Simple task."

"But why-" Avalon was cut off midsentence when Kovarian pulled out a gun on her.

"I don't explain my orders, child. I give the command and you follow them," she said with a dark tone that had started to seed fear in Avalon. She'd already gotten a taste of it with the ECT.

Avalon closed her eyes. She didn't want to remember that horrible week. She could still feel the electric shocks making her body tremble, and usually her body would shake and jerk. She just wanted it all to stop.

"Go! Before I shoot you and we both find out how strong your regenerative cycle is." Kovarian motioned with her gun for Avalon to start talking.

Avalon lowered her head and turned in the direction she'd been pointed to. In another moment, she would have probably been ecstatic to visit a real life Black Market. This is the place where all of the fun toys were at. But right now, anyone there could easily kill her with a lift of a finger. She couldn't fight anymore, she couldn't snap anymore, she couldn't think properly. She was just so tired, so incredibly tired, both physically and mentally. It was honestly sad how easily she broke. All those times where she thought she was strong was just a lie. She was weak.

Her feet started taking small steps forwards. At the very least if she walked away she would get a few minutes away from Kovarian and the Silence. That sounded nice.

But you'll have to go back, she reminded herself. It returned the fear in seconds.

She would have to go back, back to the torture, back to the nonstop 'training'. She didn't know how much more she could take, honestly. If she didn't die from exhaustion, she might just go crazy from all the memory blocks. If she was being honest, she didn't even remember what she did yesterday. For all she knew, she might have seen the Doctor yesterday.

Her feet came to an automatic stop. Would she forget something like that? Her hand found the Doctor's watch on her wrist, the very same watch she'd won in a bet a year ago. The Doctor swore she had cheated but he still gave up his favorite watch. She knew that if he wanted to, he would've just taken it back or never really had given it up in the first place, but he never did. He allowed her to keep it.

Now maybe you can give it back, came a pondering thought. Her eyes widened for a second as a genuine idea came to mind. It was probably the only coherent thought she'd had in a while. She looked over her shoulder and could barely see Kovarian which meant that Kovarian could barely see her.

Do it, the voice told her.

Avalon found the farthest stall in the aisle and dashed for it. It was an odd run, really, as it seemed like a combination of a hobble and a sprint. Her feet were a bit funny lately, but if she did things right she might finally get some rest (and the good kind not the dead type).

"What do you want?" barked the man in charge of the stall. He seemed human enough until Avalon realized he was a slimy green with spikes sticking up from his head. That probably made for some interesting business.

"I-I-I have..." Avalon involuntarily lost her voice for a second. All her words were trying to come out at the same time.

"I don't understand! Are you going to buy something!?" the man snapped.

Avalon quickly nodded her head. "Y-you're about to have the business deal of your life. You know the Doctor?" It was a stupid question given the man's reputation.

The man sneered. "That idiot who takes it upon himself to say what's right or wrong?"

"That's the one! Y-y-you want to owe him a favor?"

The man, despite his obvious dislike for the Doctor, arched a slightly thicker green eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you g-g-give him th-this..." Avalon couldn't seem to get the watch off her as fast as possible, "You'll b-be doing him a huge f-favor and you'll h-have one of the most powerful p-people owing you one."

The man scrutinized the watch in her hand with obvious distrust. "Over a simple watch? You trying to have me?"

"I-I swear I'm n-not. This is h-his watch and I'm s-s-someone he's looking for. A-Avalon Reynolds. Tell him that n-name and y-you'll see how fast he comes." She was truly counting on it. At least one more time.

"And if not?"

"Then you just got yourself a nice watch you can probably tweak to hide something you don't want others to see." Avalon tried her best not to seen as nervous as she truly was. This could work only if the man followed through and if Kovarian didn't catch her.

"What did you say your name was?" the man was eyeing her appearance, as if committing her to memory.

She looked like an outright mess. Her clothes were disheveled. Her skin was poorly kept and the chapped cracks were beginning to show. She had a few bruises along her arms, decorating the healing stitches that looked pretty fresh. Every so often she would shake, just like her shaky voice and stuttering words. Her eyes had bangs under them, ugly purple bags. Her hair was in a low pony tail, but most of her curls were popping out in various directions. And the constant stammering was plain annoying.

"U-um, Avalon..." Avalon brought a hand up to scratch her cheek. She seemed like she would close her eyes to think about something, but once again her body jerked and she dropped her arms to her side.

"Wait a second," the man suddenly blinked as if he'd just realized something. "The Doctor was said to be collecting debts for a battle. He took several of my customers away. You're with the Silence, aren't you? The Kovarian chapter? I heard all about that. They took that baby. Pretty stupid if you asked me, picking a fight with him. But hey..." the man seemed to be making the connections based on Avalon's teary face. "Oh, you couldn't be...?"

Avalon's eyes filled with tears in that one second. "P-please," she resorted to begging. "D-Don't tell anyone a-a-anything. Just...just get the Doctor. If I g-get out, he'll owe y-you s-s-something."

"Really?" the man raised an eyebrow as he watched Avalon hold the watch. Her hand was trembling to the point of nearly dropping the watch. He was no idiot. She was scared out of her mind and with good reason. He had heard all about the stupid woman who decided to kidnap one of the Doctor's companions, along with their child, and now he had the glorious opportunity to force the Doctor's hand?

That was simply too good of a deal to pass up.

He snatched the watch off Avalon's hand, noticing the woman flinch in the process, and bared his yellow pointy teeth at her. "You got a deal."

Avalon was in disbelief that it actually worked. "R-really?"

"Oh yeah, I can't wait to see the Doctor's face when I force his hand," he eyed the watch now in his possession with newfound fondness. He knew the power he held.

Avalon swallowed hard. How mad would the Doctor be once he learned that she basically let someone borrow him? Hopefully he'd still help her in the end. "C-c-can I...leave a-a m-messsage?" she made a gesture as if she was writing something in the air.

"Oh alright," the man rolled his eyes and retrieved a scrap of paper and pen. However she could, she scribbled a quick message - though from where the man stood, it didn't seem like a message. It was more chicken scratch than anything. She could barely hold the pen as it was.

"Could you...b-break...break..." Avalon tapped the glass of the watch. Her strength wasn't for that anymore. The man once again rolled his eyes and shattered the glass of the clock. Avalon quickly took the watch into her hands and pushed in the crumpled paper inside. "Th-there..."

The man snatched the watch before she could say goodbye to it. It was the last piece of the Doctor she had, so she really hoped giving it away would be worth it. Otherwise, she'd just be completely alone now.

"Now scram!" the man roared and laughed when Avalon turned to run away. She truly was a scared little thing.

When Avalon made it back to Kovarian, she was exhausted. It was a struggle to catch her breath, as if she'd ran a whole marathon.

But Kovarian just smiled upon her work. From her perspective, Avalon had passed the test. She'd given Avalon the opportunity to run away, but she didn't. She came right back just like she was ordered to.

The conditioning was well on its way.

~0~

The TARDIS landed right where the signal had come through, not a minute too late. She was just as motivated to find Avalon and Melody as everyone else. After all, the two women were a part of her too.

"You're sure we're not late or anything?" Lena questioned while the Doctor did a quick surveillance on the monitor of the Black Market they were in.

"Of course. The TARDIS knows the danger Ava and Melody are in. She wants them back as much as we do, don't you old girl?" the TARDIS gave an affirmative hum. The Doctor continued to work until a new thought crossed his mind. "You know, I guess I now understand why you always liked Avalon so much."

Lena smiled when the TARDIS seemed to hum another 'yes'.

"You know she chose Avalon straightaway?" the Doctor glanced at Lena, feigning a pout. "First night your sister stepped in, the TARDIS was willing to let Ava take her for a ride." Lena laughed when the TARDIS hummed what could only be an 'of course'.

"Are we there now!?" the Sapling came running down the stairs. "Is Mother here!?"

"Ah, not yet sure," the Doctor said once he got back to work. For the most part, the market just seemed to be like any other market.

"So, what was the signal you got?" Lena inched closer to his side to catch whatever was on the monitor.

"Somebody's trying to send a message," the Doctor mumbled as he worked to decipher that precise message. "Psychic connection, you see. Trying to send it through the TARDIS. Ah! Here we are!"

The screen turned black for a moment. Particles were arranging to form letters.

'Avalon Reynolds. Watch.'

That certainly got the trio silent.

"Who sent that, big brother?" Lena found her voice a few minutes later.

"I-I don't know exactly," the Doctor dove to the keyboard to figure that out. His fingers wouldn't work fast enough for him. "S-somebody wanted to get my attention though because they sent it directly to me."

"Then we should go!" the Sapling darted for the doors when the Doctor ordered him to stop. "But why?"

"Because that is a Black Market and you are a child. I don't know who sent that message but they wanted me here," the Doctor strode towards the doors, making sure to usher the Sapling in the opposite direction. "Lena, survey the entire Market for any trace of Avalon."

"On it," Lena nodded. "But what are you gonna do? What if it's a trap?"

"Then at least you and the Sapling will be here to call for back up. River Song's on the dialing list!"

"I'm sure she is," Lena chuckled as she took position by the console.

The Doctor turned for the doors and straightened his jacket. "Let's do this." He pushed the doors open and walked out.

He started down the long aisle of stalls, making sure to scour each stall for any red hair or eye patch. If Avalon was here, he was not leaving without her. And if this was a trick, then pity the fool who was behind it. He was in no mood for jokes and the entire galaxies knew it.

Eventually, he found an icky, slimy green man giving him a funny eye. The Doctor first made sure that the green man was actually looking at him before walking over to his stall. "You wouldn't happen to know if anyone around sent a psychic message to say, oh, a blue box?"

The green man made no attempt to hide his glee. "That'd be me. Doctor, I presume?" the Doctor gave a brief nod, now eyeing the man up and down. "Your different than the appearance description I had of you. Course that was years ago."

"You sent the message?"

"Why yes I did." The man suddenly raised the Doctor's old watch in the air and had a good laugh pulling it away after the Doctor lunged for it. "So it's true then. It is yours and you are very determined to get it back."

The Doctor glowered at the man who's chest practically rumbled with laughter. "You have 10 seconds to tell me where you got that from."

"Oh no, no," the man waved a finger, showing off a bright yellow nail that matched the yellow shade of his teeth. "This is valuable. And don't deny it because I know it."

"Where'd you get it from?" the Doctor's tone was dangerously low.

The man smirked proudly. "Some girl gave it to me. Promised me it was valuable and what do you know? She's right."

"What. Girl?"

"Oh, you want to know what she looked like?" the man lowered the watch for a moment as he pretended to think about it, or as if he had to remember. "Well, to be honest with yah, she wasn't looking all that good. Skin looked ready to crack. She's human, ain't she? That's how humans get when they're, uh, what do you call it? Dehydrated? Or no, wait, dry? I don't remember-"

The Doctor lost it and yanked the man over the counter by his slimy green collars. "You have exactly 0.5 seconds to tell me where the hell you got the watch from."

"Or what? I know your stories, you don't do weapons," the man grinned far too confident.

"Let me put it to you straight: the girl I'm looking for is somebody I will do anything for. I'll throw you into a blackhole right now if you don't start telling me the story. And if you think you just got me to deal with? You got another thing coming. You know River Song?"

The man snorted with heavy distaste. "Blasted woman destroyed my stock in the Celeste Black Market."

"The girl is her daughter. You really want to have me and her on your bad list?" the Doctor wasn't comfortable using that truth for his gain but River told him use anything as his disposal to find Avalon. He would apologize for that later. It'd gotten him some information beforehand so it was definitely useful.

"You're kidding," the man laughed. "That girl is her daughter? Well, I guess that's probably where she got her bargaining her skills from. Sneaky little thing."

The Doctor unceremoniously shook the man. "You get River Song as a treat for being extra disgusting. She takes care of your Black Market stocks and I-" he pulled the man slightly closer to his face, "-will take care of you, personally." There was a sweet, dark smile spreading across his face that promised true horrors.

The man had the good sense to gulp. "F-fine! The girl said her name was Avalon Reynolds. Said if I gave you the watch you would owe me a favor. Some friend you got there, bargaining you off for her own personal gain."

The Doctor let the man go without warning - ignoring the slump noise when the man fell over the counter - and took his watch. He inspected it for any other clue Avalon might have left behind for him. He didn't have to look much since the very first thing he saw was the missing glass. There was a small paper crumpled inside.

"Left that for yah," the man muttered once he'd gotten himself off the counter. "She could barely write, though. Kept shaking and one of her fingers had cuts on them."

The Doctor tried not to picture that image. How scared must she be? I need to be faster. He unfolded the paper and quickly read the few lines Avalon had written.

Brainwashing me. I don't know how long I can keep my sanity, literally.

They keep moving me. It's always in dark places.

Melody's on Earth somewhere. They took her away from me 3 months ago.

I'm sorry.

Three months ago. The Doctor found it incredibly hard to stay on his feet right then. It'd been 3 months for Avalon. Three months that she'd spent with Kovarian under God knew what tortures. His hand gripped the watch tightly between his fingers.

"This is all she left behind?" he scrutinized the man for any clue that he might be holding back.

"Yeah. She didn't look like she could say much more; looked very sick. But you owe me, Doctor. That was the deal the girl promised me. I gave you what she wanted."

"Yeah, except you didn't hold her here," the Doctor stuffed the watch and the paper in his jacket's inside pocket. "Then I would've owed you something."

The man was outraged he'd been lied to. "You can't do that! If you don't uphold the end of the bargain I'll-"

"No, you really won't," the Doctor pulled out his sonic and aimed it at the shelves holding jars of glowing liquids. When the sonic was activated, each of the jars exploded like dominoes. The man screamed at the sight of his ruined products but the Doctor didn't flinch with either noise. He only watched as each jar shattered and splattered the stall. "Use this a message to everyone else: if they see Kovarian, the Silence, or Avalon Reynolds, they better call me or I'll come for them and destroy everything that's precious to them. That's a Time Lord's promise." He took off and allowed himself to relish in the man's suffering just for a bit. Or maybe for a long moment. Because if word got out that he would make anyone suffer should they not follow his instructions, he could get Avalon back quicker. And besides, anyone who hurt Avalon deserved to be terrified and to suffer in pain.

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GetResponse Complete Review

In this top to bottom Getresponse audit, I investigate a notable email showcasing arrangement and drill down into its upsides and downsides. Is it ideal for your business? You’re probably here to know:

What is Getresponse?

Does it have all the attributes for email marketing?

What’s the pricing like?

Comparison with other email marketing solutions, like Aweber and Mailchimp?

Can I run a webinar using Getresponse?

What’s the new ‘Conversion Funnel’ attribute like?

Is Getresponse user friendly?

Can I use Getresponse for my business?

In this review I’m going to address all these questions, and give you a summary of the key pros and cons of Getresponse. By the end, you’ll have a much clearer idea of whether this product is right for you — and what the best alternatives are. Let’s dive right in…

What is Getresponse?

Getresponse is an email marketing tool that permits you to:

•             create a mailing rundown and catch information onto it

•             send messages to the supporters on your mailing list

•             automate your messages to supporters by means of utilization of 'autoresponders'

•             view and investigate insights identified with your email crusades – open rate, navigate, advances and so on

Lately notwithstanding, Getresponse has moved its accentuation significantly: the item currently points be a greater amount of an 'across the board' web based business and advertising arrangement as opposed to simply an email promoting device.

As needs be, notwithstanding email promoting, Getresponse currently likewise gives web based business highlights, online class facilitating, presentation pages and robotized deals pipes.

Getresponse has as of late presented new highlights, including transformation pipes and online course facilitating, which plan to make it a greater amount of an 'across the board' promoting stage.

Getresponse has been doing business since 1998 and, as per the organization, more than 350,000 people and organizations currently utilize the stage for their email crusades.

While this userbase isn't similarly large as those for some other email promoting apparatuses (quite Mailchimp), it is adequately enormous to give certainty that the organization is grounded and isn't probably going to vanish any time soon.

Getresponse pricing

There are four Getresponse plans:

•             Basic — start at $15 every month to send a limitless number of messages to up to 1,000 supporters

•             Plus — start at $49 every month for up to 1,000 endorsers

•             Professional — start at $99 every month for up to 1,000 supporters

•             Max — debatable.

Getresponse estimating (2021)

As to the "Maximum" plan, definite valuing relies upon prerequisites and rundown size — in case you're keen on this arrangement, you'll need to contact Getresponse to plan a demo, examine your requirements and arrange estimating.

Huge limits are accessible on the off chance that you pay forthright for 12 or two years of administration (18% and 30% individually).

Notwithstanding the paid plans, a 30-day free preliminary is likewise accessible, which you can get to through this connection. Key differences between plans

All the Getresponse plans cover the email showcasing fundamentals you may expect — center highlights include:

the capacity to import,     

develop and have an endorser list

a determination of topics     

to use for your e-pamphlets

autoresponder usefulness

responsive email plans

split testing

landing pages

in-profundity announcing

RSS/blog to-email usefulness

comprehensive division choices

social sharing devices

There are various contrasts between the 'Fundamental', 'In addition to' and 'Proficient' plans, however for me the key ones are beneath:

Automation Builder — apparently Getresponse's champion element, the mechanization developer (which permits you to construct complex autoresponder groupings dependent on client conduct) is accessible on the 'In addition to' plan or higher (you can make 5 computerizations on the in addition to design; or a limitless number on different plans).

Conversion funnels — you gain admittance to more computerized deals pipes as you go up the valuing stepping stool.

Webinars — this usefulness isn't accessible at all on the 'Essential' plan and the quantity of online course participants is covered for the 'In addition to', 'Expert' and 'Venture' plans at 100, 300 and 500 separately.

Team the executives — you can just have one client account on the 'Fundamental' plan; by contrast you get 3 on 'In addition to', 5 on 'Expert' and 10 on 'Big business.

E-business — the neglected request recuperation highlight is just accessible on the 'In addition to' plan or higher.

I'll examine every one of these highlights in more profundity as I progress through the audit.

How does Getresponse pricing compare to that of its competitors?

Insofar as you are glad to utilize one of the section level 'Essential' designs, the compensation per-month Getresponse plans are overall less expensive than those given by numerous individuals of its key rivals, especially in the event that you have a sensibly enormous number of email addresses on your information base.

At the section level data set finish of things, Getresponse's estimating is genuinely serious — you can have an information base containing up to 1,000 email addresses for $15 per month with Getresponse, contrasted with $29 every month on Aweber and Campaign Monitor. The estimating for Mailchimp's extensively tantamount 'Standard' plan is $14.99 every month.

As you go up the estimating stepping stool, Getresponse remains seriously valued.

In the event that you have a contact list containing somewhere in the range of 9,000 and 10,000 records, facilitating it on the 'Essential' Getresponse plan costs $65 every month.

This works out:

•  $4 every month less expensive than Aweber

•  $24 every month less expensive than Campaign Monitor

•  $34 every month less expensive than Mailchimp (Standard Plan)

Some different things to know about on the contender valuing front:

Some contending suppliers — remarkably Mailchimp and Aweber — offer free records for clients with few records (yet these don't offer the full scope of highlights that you get on a paid arrangement).

Some arrangements (Mailchimp again being a perfect representation) charge you to have both bought in and withdrawn contacts, which can turn into a huge concealed expense. Getresponse just charges you for your dynamic supporters.

If you are set up to pay forthright for 1 or 2 years, you can benefit of generous limits with Getresponse that different contenders don't yet give.

So most importantly Getresponse piles up well against rivals in the estimating office

Key Getresponse features

By correlation with other email marketing tools, Getresponse accompanies a curiously enormous list of capabilities — even on its entrance level arrangement.

In addition to the fact that Getresponse provides all the key stuff you'd anticipate from an email advertising stage — list facilitating, layouts, autoresponders, investigation, etc, however as referenced over, it's as of late been growing its list of capabilities to where has transformed into an across the board promoting and internet business arrangement.

The inquiry is whether this makes the item a handyman and expert of none.

How about we drill down into its critical highlights to discover.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are e-pamphlets that are shipped off your endorsers at time periods picking.

For instance, you can set them up so that

 immediately after someone joins to your mailing list, they get an invite message from your business

a week later they could get a rebate offer for a portion of your items or administrations

three weeks after the fact they could get a consolation to follow you via web-based media. Etc.

An autoresponder cycle made with Getresponse Getresponse's autoresponder usefulness is a key selling point — the item gives the absolute most thorough autoresponder usefulness accessible. You can send either time sensitive or activity based messages; time sensitive choices incorporate cycles, for example, the model above, and activity based messages can be set off by client activities or data, for instance:

opens              

clicks              

subscriptions to specific records             

changes in contact inclinations           

completed exchanges/objectives              

birthdays              

changes in client information Showcasing computerization instruments Notwithstanding essential the 'dribble' style autoresponders referenced above, Getresponse gives a more complex alternative to sequencing messages naturally. 

This is called 'Promoting Automation,' and is accessible on 'In addition to' plans or higher. This component permits you to make computerization work processes utilizing a simplified manufacturer — you fundamentally set up an 'mechanization flowchart' that educates Getresponse what to do if a client opens a specific offer, taps on a specific connection and so on.

Getresponse's promoting mechanization apparatus — you can utilize an intuitive developer to construct very refined client ventures.

The usefulness on proposal here goes a long ways past what's customarily been accessible from autoresponders, and permits you to make a client venture that can be tweaked as far as possible.

For a speedy visual outline of how this functions, I'd propose investigating Getresponse's video walkthrough of its advertising computerization highlights, beneath.

Getresponse email templates

There are 220 Getresponse template formats accessible — not exactly some contending email showcasing arrangements (strikingly Aweber, which offers around 700) — yet they are differed in nature and the plans are extremely contemporary (and tweakable).

The email formats are assembled into a couple of classes focussed around center objectives (advancing, teaching, selling and so forth)

The nature of the relative multitude of layouts is high and I'd have no doubts about utilizing them for my email crusades.

There is one thing I'd prefer to see presented be that as it may: the capacity to set 'worldwide' styles for headings and text. As things stand, the layout manager doesn't allow you to characterize heading and passage styles that you can re-use all through a message — this implies additionally designing of text as you create messages, which is somewhat of an agony.

Illustration of a Getresponse format

On the in addition to side, the Getresponse email maker permits you to utilize web textual styles. A truly wide choice of Google Fonts can be utilized in your e-bulletins — more than any contending apparatus that I've tried to date. This wide selection of web fonts is great.

A truly wide scope of web textual styles is accessible in Getresponse's new email maker.

At last, the Getresponse formats are altogether responsive, which means they change themselves naturally to suit the gadget that an e-pamphlet is being seen on — portable, tablet, PC and so forth

A review work is accessible to perceive how your pamphlet will show up on each.

Investigation

Getresponse offers a decent scope of investigation and announcing alternatives. You get all the essentials obviously — open rate, navigate, withdraw rates, etc — yet notwithstanding that, there are some clever announcing highlights that merit a specific notice, in particular:

 'one-click division': the choice to distinguish individuals who didn't draw in with an e-bulletin you sent and put them in a section of endorsers which you would then be able to email again with an alternate variant of the e-pamphlet

 'metrics over the long run': you can discover precisely when the majority of your supporters make a move on your messages, and time your future mailouts dependent on this data

'email ROI': by adding some following code to your post-deals page on your site, you can discover how viably (or not!) your email crusades are driving deals, and work out your degree of profitability in email showcasing.

per-client data — you can tap on one of your endorsers and see where they joined from, where they're found and which messages they've opened previously.

e-pamphlet execution correlation — you can look at the exhibition of two e-bulletins one next to the other actually without any problem.

Mailchimp and Aweber offer some comparable detailing usefulness — especially around deals following — yet Getresponse's announcing apparatus is certainly one of most completely included out there.

Getresponse's investigation area.

Split testing

Split testing includes sending variations of your e-pamphlets to a portion of the individuals on your supporter list, observing the exhibition of each, and sending the 'best' form to the rest of your rundown.

Customarily, Getresponse's usefulness around there has been far superior to that given by a few contenders, since it permits you to separate test to five distinct messages against one another (utilizing subject header, from field, content and send time as factors). Its key rivals commonly let you work with 2 or 3 variations.

Lamentably, this split testing highlight has presently been diminished in usefulness on the new Getresponse formats — you can in any case test up to 5 variations of your messages against one another, however just utilizing distinctive subject headers.

I've found out if the present circumstance is probably going to change and it appears to be that a choice on this will be founded on whether enough clients demand the re-presentation of this element.

Greeting page maker

Internet promoting efforts that utilize greeting pages will for the most part create undeniably more leads if, as opposed to just guiding individuals to a data pressed site, they direct clients toward appealing 'crush pages' containing clear data and a perfect, all around planned information catch structure.

Getresponse offers something helpful in such manner that a large number of its rivals don't: a presentation page maker (and one that is versatile cordial as well).

Not exclusively would it be able to be utilized to construct press pages, however you can test the change pace of these pages against one another progressively, and reveal the best performing one. This can have a hugely beneficial outcome on the quantity of leads you catch and improve the compass of your email crusade.

Comparative items frequently expect you to utilize an outsider greeting page making instrument like Unbounce or Instapage to accomplish such a usefulness, so the consideration of the presentation page include is a truly valuable — and cost-saving — piece of usefulness to have in your email promoting tool compartment.

Getresponse's Landing Page Creator

Vitally, Getresponse's arrival usefulness is accessible on all plans. Given that driving presentation page devices Unbounce and Instapage cost at least $80 and $199 every month individually, there are significant reserve funds to be made here. 

The points of arrival you make can be snared to a wide scope of investigation instruments and treats, for example, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Kissmetrics and your Facebook pixel. 

Also, there's 180 presentation page formats to look over — likewise with Getresponse's email layouts, these are extremely expert and contemporary in appearance (especially the more as of late presented ones).

There are a few issues with the point of arrival maker anyway that should be hailed up.

To start with, the interface isn't especially natural — truth be told, it's quite awkward.

Second, you'll generally have to make separate renditions of your greeting pages for work area and versatile.

Somely, this is something worth being thankful for, as it allows you to shroud pieces of your greeting page that you don't need portable clients to see. Be that as it may, doing so includes a fairly fiddly measure.

Lastly, in spite of the fact that you can utilize examination treats on your Getresponse greeting page, for instance through the Facebook pixel, it's difficult to do as such in a GDPR-agreeable way.

To meet the EU's GDPR necessities on treats (and some US information insurance laws), you need to give clients an unmistakable component to select in or out of treat use. Getresponse doesn't allow you to do this — the best you'll get is the choice to advise clients that treats are being run on a greeting page.

So generally, numerous Getresponse clients (particularly EU ones) will wind up violating the law on the off chance that they add their Facebook pixel to a Getresponse greeting page. This is a long way from ideal and it's a circumstance that Getresponse should address direly.

So the presentation page is a possibly extraordinary component — however it is let down a piece by the interface and especially by the absence of an appropriate treat assent flag.

Online classes

Getresponse as of late acquainted the capacity with have online classes on the stage.

Given that online classes are by and large utilized as a lead-age strategy — or in reality an income producing highlight — having your email data set and your online class apparatus under a similar rooftop is engaging.

The valuing is additionally exceptionally serious too by correlation with set up online course arrangements. For instance, one of the main online course facilitating administrations, Gotowebinar, charges $59 every month to have online classes with up to 100 members. You can really do likewise — and significantly more — with Getresponse for $49 every month.

Concerning participant restricts, the Getresponse 'In addition to' plan permits you to have an online course with up to 100 members; the 'Proficient' plan's cap is 300; and the 'Undertaking' plan's cap is 500.

You can likewise purchase online classes usefulness as an extra for the 'Fundamental' plan: $40 every month gets you a 100 participants limit, $99 every month gets you a 500 participants limit.

Or maybe dubiously, nonetheless, Getresponse say that on the off chance that you live in the North Americas, these additional items 'may not' be accessible (so in case you're a 'Essential' plan client in North America, you may have to update your record to benefit of this usefulness).

Truth be told, in light of the fact that I've discovered a few parts of the Getresponse interface somewhat inconvenient before (particularly points of arrival), I wasn't expecting that much from the online classes highlight.

However, I was wonderfully astonished: both the online courses interface and usefulness are truly magnificent — and up there with any committed stage I've utilized in the past for online gatherings or online classes.

The Getresponse online classes interface

A couple of Getresponse online class highlights worth hailing up as being especially helpful are:

the certainty that your participants don't have to introduce any product to go to the online classes

one-click record of your online courses

screensharing usefulness

video sharing usefulness (YouTube)

the alternative to transfer Powerpoint introductions to Getresponse for use during an online course

free online capacity for playback records.

On the disadvantage,

you can just run paid online classes (i.e., where watchers need to pay for access) on the 'Proficient' plan or higher.

the 500 participant limit is the outright max — you can't pay for an extra to build this breaking point.

the document stockpiling limits for your recorded online classes aren't massively liberal — you get 3 hours stockpiling on the 'In addition to' plan, 6 on 'Expert' and 10 on the 'Endeavor' plan. Just like the case with the participant cap, it appears to be like its absolutely impossible to expand this cutoff.

Notwithstanding these cutoff points, online course usefulness is a helpful element to have in your email advertising munititions stockpile and its incorporation as a component ostensibly gives Getresponse an exceptionally huge edge over its key rivals.

The way that your email list is completely coordinated with your online class broadcasting instrument is a genuine in addition to point, and the nature of this component is exceptionally high.

Transformation channels

Another new component as of late presented by Getresponse is 'change pipes' — and this addresses a significant takeoff for the item.

This is on the grounds that — to some extent — it diverts Getresponse from being an email showcasing stage into something that you can use to maintain a whole internet business.

Behind this component is that you can do the accompanying things while never leaving the Getresponse climate:

•             Create an item list

•             Create and run Facebook advertisement crusades

•             Create points of arrival

•             Add supporters of an autoresponder cycle

•             Bring clients to deals pages

•             Take installment for items

•             Send deserted truck messages if vital

At the end of the day — and as the component name proposes — Getresponse expects to give you a simple way to make deals channels without the requirement for any other applications whatsoever being vital. A wide scope of formats is given to help you this.

You can get to this element on all plans — however you should take note of that the rendition accessible on the 'Fundamental' plan just permits you to make one channel, and doesn't allow you to utilize the unwanted truck recuperation include (which consequently messages individuals who added a thing to their truck just to not finish their buy).

On the off chance that you like you can include outsider stages with this component — Shopify, Bigcommerce and Etsy would all be able to be incorporated.

As things stand, this element is presumably most appropriate towards 'solopreneurs' or private ventures who need an across the board alternative for making all the resources they require to make a business pipe, straight up to changing over endorsers into clients.

Traders with enormous item indexes and broad web based business necessities will in any case presumably be in an ideal situation utilizing a committed online business stage like Bigcommerce or Shopify for the genuine

Selling part of the blend, be that as it may.

Applications and reconciliations

On the off chance that you need to coordinate Getresponse with another stage or device, there are around 150 combinations to assist you with doing.

You can go through these to snare Getresponse to famous web based business arrangements and substance the executives frameworks, including Shopify and WordPress, just as some CRM frameworks, similar to Capsule and Highrise.

There are many valuable Google combinations as well — which permit you to import a Gmail contact list; add Google Analytics labels to an email mission; and connection your greeting pages to Google Ads such that causes you better measure the adequacy of your PPC crusades.

A considerable amount of these combinations are 'official' Getresponse mixes which work out of the container — however you should take note of that many include utilizing an outsider device like Zapier for the association. (This can bring extra expenses.)

 The alternate way you can coordinate Getresponse with another framework — expecting you have the advancement abilities — is by utilizing its API (Application Programming Interface). This allows you to send and get information to and from Getresponse in the manner suits your application.

Information the executives and deliverability

Pick in cycles

There are two techniques you can utilize to add endorsers of a mailing list — you can utilize a 'solitary select in' or a 'twofold pick in' measure.

In the event that you use utilize a solitary select in cycle, the individual joining is added to your mailing list the second they hit the submit button on your sign up structure.

With a twofold select in interaction, the individual joining to your rundown is sent an email containing an affirmation interface that he/she should click prior to being bought in.

The fundamental advantage of a solitary select in interaction is that it makes it truly simple for clients to buy in to your mailing show; it likewise for the most part builds change rate and accordingly the quantity of endorsers on your rundown.

A twofold pick in cycle is better for checking that the individuals buying in to your rundown are utilizing genuine email delivers and prompts cleaner information and more exact details (since open rates and so forth are determined dependent on elite containing just genuine email addresses). Anyway it can likewise decrease the quantity of leads you catch — and the adequacy of your email crusade.

Presently, the uplifting news here is that Getresponse permits you to utilize either pick in methodology — this isn't the situation with all contending items. So an approval for Getresponse for being adaptable on this.

What's the best worth Getresponse plan?

Of the plans being talked about, the 'In addition to' plan most likely addresses the 'sweet spot' in the setup. This is on the grounds that it opens the heft of Getresponse's list of capabilities while remaining seriously estimated. Two key highlights remembered for this arrangement, robotization building and online courses, make the update from 'Fundamental' especially advantageous. (Note anyway that you can possibly charge for online classes in case you're on a 'Expert' plan.)

You can peruse more about the 'In addition to' plan here.

Information catch and structures

There are two different ways to utilize frames in Getresponse — you can either add a HTML structure that you style yourself, or you can plan your structure in Getresponse (picking from a nice scope of layouts and tweaking them to coordinate your site plan).

In the event that you go for the last course, you can add the structure to your site utilizing a bit of Javascript code to show your structure; this structure can be introduced in a scope of various configurations (for instance inline, spring up or slide-up).

You can utilize both the HTML structures and the javascript ones to catch information into standard Getresponse fields, or, in the event that you like, populate custom fields.

These javascript structures are very acceptable. You can make both work area and versatile renditions, and you can utilize a sensible scope of web text styles while styling them. You can likewise empower a spambot-impeding CAPTCHA include, which helps forestalls counterfeit information exchanges.

Getresponse structures

Altogether nonetheless, no controls are offered by Getresponse to turn spring up structures on or off on specific gadgets or individual pages of your site. Given Google's way to deal with pop-ups on cell phones (where destinations can endure a shot in indexed lists on the off chance that they show 'meddling interstitials' on cell phones), this is somewhat of a worry.

A workaround is to interface Getresponse to a development hacking apparatus — there are many accessible (Sumo or Privvy being notable models). Doing this permits you to switch pop-ups off for portable clients, just as style frames broadly and control which pages they show up on. Be that as it may, this isn't ideal, as it includes an extra expense.

Obviously, in case you're coordinating Getresponse with a CMS and utilizing a structures bundle, you may not locate this an issue — WordPress clients could, for instance, associate an apparatus like Gravity Forms (which gives you a ton of authority over structure appearance) to Getresponse by means of its API.

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Information division choices.

Something I like most about Getresponse is the manner in which you can send messages to numerous portions of endorsers on the double (or in fact bar different sections). This isn't the situation with a portion of Getresponse's key rivals, including Mailchimp and Aweber.

For instance, say you have a supporter list in Getresponse that you've split into four fragments:

– Segment A

– Segment B

– Segment C

– Segment D

With Getresponse, it's truly simple to message portion A, B and C at the same time (you simply tick three significant checkboxes). You could likewise message section B and C and avoid portion D.

Not exclusively would you be able to message/avoid different fragments immediately, you can likewise do likewise with singular records — for instance, on the off chance that you had three separate mailing records on Getresponse, you could mail people across each of them three.

Such an adaptability marks Getresponse out from its rivals and allows you truly to tailor your email crusade crowd as far as possible — of the comparable items I've audited to date, just Campaign Monitor offers a comparable degree of adaptability (and one which comes at a lot greater cost).

This adaptability is conceivably probably the greatest contention for utilizing Getresponse over key contender Mailchimp, which doesn't open progressed division highlights except if you are on the gigantically costly 'Mailchimp Premium' plan.

Getresponse deliverability

The email deliverability rate — the level of e-pamphlets sent that effectively arrive at your supporters' inboxes — is clearly something essential to see while picking an email showcasing apparatus.

Not all email promoting suppliers are that straightforward about their deliverability rates; yet Getresponse appears to be sensibly open about this, with this to say about it on their site:

We are much of the time got some information about the nature of our deliverability rate. Since deliverability relies upon numerous components, including the substance of your messages, the deliverability rate could fluctuate for each mailing. For every one of our clients by and large, be that as it may, we are glad to say our general deliverability rate right now remains at 99%.

Clearly you must take the organization's assertion for this, yet accepting that it's actual, it's a decent deliverability rate and motivates certainty that by far most of messages you send in a Getresponse email mission will arrive at their expected beneficiaries.

Moreover, Getresponse really gives you the deliverability pace of each message on your email examination — this is something I haven't experienced on contending items' measurements. An approval for this.

At last, Custom DKIM — a confirmation procedure intended to improve security for the senders and recipients of email — is likewise accessible on all Getresponse plans. This can additionally improve deliverability.

GDPR

In the light of the new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules, email showcasing got somewhat more confounded, in light of the fact that there are stricter guidelines about what establishes agree to get e-pamphlets (and necessities about how that assent is logged).

Getresponse is to be praised for giving clients clear data about what their GDPR obligations are, alongside unique GDPR fields that make it simpler to log assent and conform to the guidelines.

In any case, a zone where Getresponse could improve on the GDPR front includes logins. Dissimilar to match Mailchimp, the login interaction doesn't include two-factor validation, where a client is conceded admittance exclusively after effectively introducing at least two snippets of data — i.e., a secret word and a code sent through SMS.

Given that data security is a basic piece of GDPR, it is worthy to see this helpfulness introduced at the soonest opportunity.

Moreover, as analyzed over, the introduction page incorporate isn't GDPR steady if you plan on using a Facebook pixel identified with it.

So in light of everything, while you can get data with Getresponse in a GDPR steady way, there's a hint of freedom to improve.

Comfort/interface

By and large, Getresponse is truly immediate to use. Its interface was redesigned lately, and it's by and by, when in doubt, a tidied up and natural endeavor.

It's decidedly basic enough to do all the fundamentals in Getresponse: import contacts, make an email campaign, set up autoresponders and check estimations. In particular, and as referred to above, area the board is eminent.

Also, concerning Getresponse's further evolved features, like its displaying robotization devices, the assumption to ingest data isn't unnecessarily steep.

Nevertheless, Getresponse's construction originator and purpose of appearance creator instruments could benefit by fairly an upgrade — as opposed to most features of the thing, they haven't been improved much as a segment of the interface fix up. They could be all the more simple to utilize.

To the extent how the Getresponse interface heaps confronting those of its adversaries, I would fight that Campaign Monitor is a touch all the more straightforward, and that the Mailchimp interface incorporates a cleaner plan. Aweber's interface probably comes closest with respect to look and feel.

By and large, Getresponse's crucial accommodation besieging incorporated its email administrator: it was difficult and carriage.

Regardless, the new type of the email creator has improved things widely — it has a cleaner, more instinctual natural interface; it doesn't crash; and it isn't hard to use. It's most probable not actually as incredible as those offered by some fighting applications, anyway it's totally commendable.

Getresponse's email maker

Customer uphold

Up until as of late Getresponse client service was among the most exhaustive accessible for email advertising apparatuses: the organization offered telephone uphold close by live talk uphold, email uphold and different online instructional exercises/assets.

Unfortunately, the telephone uphold has now been ended (except if you're on the endeavor level "Max" plan). Rather you'll need to utilize live visit (all day, every day) or email uphold.

To be reasonable, most comparable e-advertising stage suppliers possibly offer these two channels — on the off chance that telephone uphold is a major issue for you, at that point you should think about Aweber, which actually gives it (you can peruse our Aweber audit here).

Also, the email uphold given by Getresponse is accessible in 8 dialects, which is estimable. And these are: English, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese.

How great is the Getresponse free preliminary?

In the same way as other contending email advertising items, you can give Getresponse a shot free of charge prior to getting it.

The free preliminary is completely practical and keeps going 30 days, and permits you to utilize a rundown of up to 1,000 endorsers.

You can pursue the free preliminary here.

Getresponse survey end

In general, Getresponse addresses one of the more financially savvy approaches to have and speak with an email information base. It's evaluated seriously in its commercial center, and is additionally one of the additional intriguing results of its sort, in that it gives email promoting, robotization, points of arrival, internet business, deals pipes and online classes across the board place.

It's difficult to think about any contending email showcasing arrangement that offers this 'inside and out' recommendation, and its free preliminary length of 30 days is liberal as well.

I've been especially dazzled by Getresponse online course usefulness — it's element stuffed, and incredibly great incentive for what it is.

A few enhancements to Getresponse do should be made notwithstanding.

Likely the main thing Getresponse need to take a gander at is presenting a GDPR agreeable treat assent instrument for the presentation pages (and the greeting pages interface could do with a redesign as well — it very well may be significantly more easy to use).

I'd prefer to see more controls offered with regards to information catch structures presented — you ought to have the alternative to turn them on or off on versatile.

Lastly, encouraging two-factor verification during login ought to be a need for the organization.

I'll summarize this Getresponse survey with a summary of the key upsides and downsides of utilizing the item.

Advantages and disadvantages of Getresponse

Aces of utilizing Getresponse

It's lovely easy to understand.

So long as you are glad to utilize a 'Fundamental' plan, Getresponse is less expensive than a considerable lot of its key rivals (in specific cases, altogether so) while offering similarly so much, if not greater usefulness as them.

The limits you get while paying forthright for a couple of long periods of administration are very liberal — you'll be unable to discover comparable limits from key contenders.

You get truly progressed highlights with regards to showcasing mechanization.

Its adaptable way to deal with information division makes list the executives truly clear — it eclipses many contending items on this front.

Getresponse's online class usefulness is extraordinary, and a veritable USP — I haven't run over this usefulness on comparative items.

Its 'Transformation Funnel' highlight is possibly valuable for private ventures who need to deal with all parts of their web-based media advertisements, deals pipes and web based business movement under one rooftop.

Its revealing highlights are extensive.

Getresponse is straightforward about deliverability rates, distributing figures on its site and giving deliverability insights to the e-pamphlets you send.

All Getresponse plans accompany a valuable (assuming fiddly) presentation page maker that encourages A/B testing — something that might actually save you a great deal of cash.

Custom DKIM is given on all plans.

Support is given in a wide assortment of dialects.

It coordinates pleasantly with Google Analytics and different measurements instruments.

With the exemption of satisfactory treat assent highlights on its presentation pages, it's very acceptable at meeting GDPR prerequisites.

You can evaluate all the Getresponse includes free for 30 days without the need to enter Visa subtleties.

GETRESPONSE FREE TRIAL

Cons of utilizing Getresponse

The intuitive interfaces for making presentation pages and structures are a piece fiddly and need improvement.

Although you can utilize the Facebook pixel with Getresponse's point of arrival highlight, you can't do as such in a GDPR consistent way.

Improvements could be made to how information catch structures work, so clients have the choice to turn them on or off on cell phones.

There's no 2-factor verification at login.

There's a hard constraint of 500 online course participants.

No telephone uphold is given (except if you're not kidding "Max" plan).

Quite a great deal of the mixes for Getresponse include an outsider matching up device like Zapier.

GETRESPONSE FREE TRIAL

Getresponse choices

Notable Getresponse choices incorporate Aweber, Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor.

Aweber is likely the most fundamental instrument of the three referenced above, however it is a strong and dependable contribution. Its vital favorable position over Getresponse is that it accompanies telephone backing, and now gives a free arrangement (which you can use to have a limit of 500 contacts).

Except for online courses, Mailchimp offers an extensively comparative list of capabilities to Getresponse — the primary preferred position it offers over Getresponse is that it will in general incorporate all the more effectively with different administrations, and its e-bulletin layouts (as of now) carry on in a way that is better than Getresponse ones in the Gmail versatile application. Be that as it may, it is costly, and Mailchimp charges you for each contact on your rundown — even the withdrew ones. Look at our Getresponse versus Mailchimp post for a full comparsion of the two apparatuses.

Mission Monitor is another costly choice, however it accompanies some beautiful layouts and a super easy to use interface. Look at our Campaign Monitor survey for additional subtleties.

At long last, in case you're keen on an instrument that coordinates CRM usefulness with email showcasing, Hubspot merits a look.