#TIME FOR A SONIC WHAT IF MARATHON TO CELEBRATE

[the-sky-queen]

SEGA SCOURGE IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[inkabelledesigns]

Hey gang, I have something special to share with you.

https://youtube.com/c/AdrenalineDubs

If you know me, you'll know I've been a part of Adrenaline Dubs since the beginning, a Sonic comic dubbing group that mostly focuses on IDW. We do a lot of charity streams to raise money for good causes. It's a very Sonic thing to do, use your powers for good.

Right now, AD is hosting a stream marathon week to promote the Sonic Hacking Contest, an event where fan creators can show off their hacks of Sonic games. It's an annual thing that's existed for almost two decades now, which is amazing. I can't believe I've never heard of it before now! Landy, our voice of Sonic and the primary guy that runs the channel, is playing a bunch of hacks this week to celebrate the amazing work being done in the community.

Additionally, our charitable cause this time is cancer research. Looking at the channel, you may have noticed Rouge is in the thumbnail this time around. Rouge is the primary role I voice at AD, and they have been an important support network while my dad battled cancer. He passed away in May of this year. The group asked if they could use Rouge in the content for this one as an homage, and I'm honored. My dad was one of the few people to know about my voice work and actively support it. He was also a charitable planner and worked with a lot of charities to help them get gifts and funding. I think this would have meant a lot to him, to see us do this. It's been really hard since he died, some days I'm fine and others I'm like a watering can, but I'm trying to do what he asked, live my life and find my happiness. And right now, the way to do that is by lifting my fellow artists up and continuing to create.

I've seen firsthand how a lot of cancer treatment stuff can go, and I've been amazed at how much cancer research has evolved in the eight years he fought the fight. There is so much amazing research being done that can save lives, and funding it is important, especially with a virus still devastating so many hospital systems who need more space and staff. If you have the means, I'd like to encourage you to consider watching and donating to the cause. There's a lot of perks, from certain donation marks going towards art commissions and voice requests, to milestones like showing off previews of future AD content, to just a generally good time celebrating our community. I've got the house to myself and will be joining for as long as I can today, and hopefully throughout the week I can come along for the ride. It feels like the right thing to do.

Here's wishing you all a wonderful week, and I hope you enjoy the Sonic Hacking Contest and AD's coverage of it!

[bnhaclaimedmysoul]

playing video games with s/o

anon requested: Hi I was wondering if you do fluffy head cannons for Izuku, Momo, and Shinso playing video games?

characters: midoriya izuku, yaoyorozu momo, shinsou hitoshi

genre: floof

note: my video playing game urges have recently popped up and i want to buy a switch but it’s super expensive here lmao, i have to pay an extra 75 dollars dkjkjdfhskjdfh.....also if most of it seems related to nintendo wii, that is because it was and is my favorite gaming console. anyways, i hope you enjoy this

Midoriya Izuku

-game nights are just super fun with this baby

-he’s not insanely competitive all the time

-but sometimes your pressure does really get to him

-especially in games like mario kart 

-he’s going to save up all his tactics till the very end 

-is the type to drop a streamline of bananas right as you reach him in the very end of the last lap

-and when he sees the dejected you, he’s gets really sad and will pull you into his lap and hug while apologizing

-and when his controller runs out of batteries, he volunteers to help you in winning your races

-”GO TO THE RIGHT AND USE BOOST YOUR SPEED TO OVER TAKE THAT GUY”

-”so you don’t mind spilling your tactics to me zuku?”

-cue the blush which engulfs his face which is followed by his pure angelic smile 

-”if i do, you’re going to become better and our gaming session are going to be more fun, and i can always develop new ones”

-and when you win your games, he’s the type to pounce onto you in happiness

-victory celebrations are done are just you pinned beneath him as he presses sweet congratulatory kisses all over your face, as you giggle in happiness

Yaoyorozu Momo

-she’s the type to set all snacks and drink in front of the couch

-will constantly remind you to hydrate yourself during marathons

-tactic development/ trial and error type of games are her style

-super mario is right up her alley of expertise

-she’s the type to put her head on your shoulder and take peaks at what stage you’re at at

-and whenever you’re stuck, she’s the type to help you out by giving out tactics

-”when i tell you to press A, press it and you’ll reach the top of the flag”

-and if you end up failing, she’s places a kiss on your cheek, asking you to continue

-the type to get extremely flustered when you ask her to play for you

-but does it anyways, because she wants to do anything and everything to make you happy

-loves playing multiplayer games like table tennis from the mario and sonic summer olympic games (this shit is the best, fite me)

-and when the rally just goes on and on, she looks away for a second too long, to look at your cute scrunched up face

-and while she was busy trying to calm her racing heart down while you were busy celebrating for winning the deuce

Shinsou Hitoshi

-he has two moods: the survival game mood or the sports mood

-there literally is no in between

-he’s the type to sneak up behind you and kill you during a game of fortnite

-and even though you feel incredibly betrayed by your own boyfriend

-anything for that victory royale baby

-will make up for it by devoting all his attention to you and making you feel better by kissing you randomly through the day 

-and by placing mugs of hot chocolate before your gaming sessions

-will even agree to give his cup to you if you want extra

-will ask you to tie his hair up with bobby pins so that his hair doesn’t get in the field of his vision

-takes naps as you brush his hair, because your touch is just so relaxing

-kisses you when you’re done with decorating his hair with cute pins, which he has no clue about

-love it when you just drop by his solo gaming sessions by hugging his back, asking sweetly if you could join him

-throws a controller your way

-silently asking you to get ready for an intense arm workout through a grueling game of lawn tennis in wii sports

-expect him to collapse on the couch after the game

-grabs your arm and hauls you over his chest 

-and as the both of you breathe heavily, he holds you closer and runs his hand through your hair

-suggests lying motionlessly between each kiss pressed to your lips

-and when you agree, he just can’t stop smiling in happiness

[lyrazehedgieboiii]

Photo

Hey Hedgie Squad! First of all, I’d like to say thank you to all of you for liking the things I post! I found that a lot of people liked my last post, and that made me really happy!!!!! Second of all, @bunnylass17 requested for #25, which would be photo. I really hope you like it! You are a huge inspiration to!

   “Hi! What’s your name?” A cobalt hedgehog, with the eyes of emeralds asked.

    “R-,” the pink girl stopped herself. This was someone new, he didn’t know her name...it’s best if he just called her by... “A-Amy. Amy Rose.” That’s much better. She didn’t want to be called by her childhood nickname. She wanted to be called by a much mature name. Her real name.

   “Well, it’s nice to meetcha Amy! Say, do you know why Metal Me captured you? There’s always a reason behind why he does dumb stuff like that.” the child, who looked about 11, said with concern. The young girl fell in love immediately. ‘Amy’, jumped up, and tackled the blue stranger. He started struggling in her grasp, trying to squirm free.

   “Can’t-...BREATHE!” Amy immediately let go, her ‘true love’ panting, as though he had just ran a marathon (which would be easy for him) After a few moments, Amy’s hero had stood back up, regaining his confident posture. “I’m-” His introduction was interrupted by the squeal of the little Rose in front of him.

   “Sonic the Hedgehog! I’ve heard of you! My tarot cards told me that I’d be destined to meet you! So we’ll fall in love, get married, have children, grow old together, and be loved forever! Doesn’t that sound romantic, my hero?” Amy looked to her side and noticed that Sonic had zipped off, thinking that she was another one of his crazed fangirls. But little did he know...

-

“SONIC!” A 15 year old Sonic, whose name was called by his 12 year old friend, Amy Rose, was glomped from behind. He tried pulling her off, but gave up, as she had immense strength. He liked the attention Amy gave him, but her clingy actions, not so much. Amy let go, and he turned around to face her.

 “Uhh...Hey, Ames. Nice to see ya!” Sonic exclaimed, hoping she wouldn’t unexpectedly glomp him again.

  “Is everyone here?” Tails asked. He looked around, checking everyone off in his mind. “Okay then! Get ready!” Tails put the camera on a ten second timer, and hurried to his spot next to Knuckles. Amy clung onto Sonic’s arm, planting a kiss on his cheek as the camera flashed into the team’s eyes. Not only was Team Sonic in the picture, but Team Dark and Team Rose. The Chaotix were there as well. The picture was printed out so everyone got a copy. Amy hung it over her bed.

-

   “So, I heard a specific someone was out on a date.” Sonic scowled at his petite pink friend. His quills had become a slight bit darker during the years, like a royal blue color. He had overheard Rouge talking to Cream about Amy going out with someone. That someone being Shadow. “What were you gonna do with Shadow?” Amy noticed how his voice seemed dark...

No...

He couldn’t be...

Jealous?..

“Sonic...Since when do you care about me going out with other people?” She could’ve sworn she saw red on his cheeks. To be honest, she was blushing the whole time because Sonic was leaning on the wall right next to her.

  “I-I’m your friend, and it’s my job you don’t get heartbroken or hurt by anyone-”

  “Like you used to all these years?!” Amy snapped. Both her and the blue hedgie looked shocked at her sudden and rude outburst. “I don’t like him, he just needed love advice for someone...” Amy turned her head down. Sonic’s glare was piercing through her pink head. Sonic’s finger went down to Amy’s chin, and lifted her face up. She was crying. Amy’s ears were flat against her head, and Sonic felt guilty. “I-I’m sorry, Sonic. I didn’t mean to...” Sonic bent down and brushed her lips against his. Amy’s face and ears went bright red.

Amy, being the stubborn hedgie that she was, pressed her lips onto Sonic’s roughly, as if it was the last thing they could ever do. Sonic happily returned the favor. He licked her lips, and she happily allowed entrance. As Sonic put his hands on her waist, the sound of a camera clicking could be heard. Sonic and Amy pulled away, their bodies tingling with excitement.

   “GOT IT!” Tails yelled and his mouth was covered by Rouge and was tackled by Cream into the bush making sure they weren’t seen. Sonic and Amy sweatdropped at the stalkers in the bush.

-

   “Who said that Sonic would propose within five months of dating?” Rouge asked, while all their friends dove into chocolate cake.

   “Me!” Cream and Tails yelled simultaneously. Shadow and Knuckles groaned, taking out fifty mobiums from their wallets. Amy giggled.

   “Couldn’t you have done it a bit later, faker?” Shadow grumbled.

   “But Shadow! I would’ve proposed to Sonic if he’d waited a bit longer.” Amy said, stroking Sonic’s knuckles under the table.

    “Wait, we had a bet for that, too! Who guessed that Amy’d propose first?” Silver asked. Everyone excluding Cream and Tails gave took their money out.

    “This money is to convince Amy to get off of life control!” A drunk Vector cheered.

   “Life control? Oh my Chaos, Amy are you dying?” Sonia, Sonic’s triplet sister asked.

   “I think Vector meant birth control. But how do you know about that?” Amy asked, startled by Vector knowing a private fact.

  “Oh, Sonic said how he’d been dying to have babies with you.” The crocodile hiccuped.

  “Well, that urge can now be fulfilled! Make us nieces and nephews! Make a lot of’em!” Rouge exclaimed, handing a bag with the specific ‘necessities’ of a honeymoon. Amy turned red when she saw what was in the bag. Tomorrow night would sure be fun.

-

“I’M GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU FOR THIS, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!!!” We move on, as we see Amy Rose the Hedgehog screaming into Sonic’s ear while she had contractions, and was struggling to push. 

A child’s crying could be heard. 

Amy looked over to her husband, who had fainted on the ground. He gave a thumbs up and said “Worth it.” Amy was given her child, and decided to go with a name similar to Sonic’s, but the name would depend on what the child looked like. A royal blue hedgehog with streaks of navy blue and indigo softly squeaked and nuzzled into Amy’s chest. 

    “Say cheese.” Amy smiled and looked up to see her friends all standing there, watching the new mother bond with her baby. 

-

   “Hey Ames! Where are you? I just put Blur to bed!~” Sonic said in a sing-song voice.

   “I’m in the attic!” Amy yelled softly, making sure she didn’t wake her little hedgie up. Sonic’s head appeared through the attic door.

  “Whatcha lookin’ at?” He asked, as he laid next to his wife.

   “I’m just looking at memories.” Amy showed him the album. 

There was the photo from when they first met, 

The photo celebrating their one-year anniversary as getting together as a team,

The photo of Sonic and Amy’s first real kiss,

The photo of Amy and Sonic being declared as bride and groom,

And the photo of Sonic and Amy’s first child. 

Sonic knew for certain that there’d be many more photos to come.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

Thanks for reading, I really hope you enjoyed! I tried to make this sound really descriptive, and tried to stay on the right path and not get carried away. If you want more prompts, DM me or ask me for something you want written because I can’t write canon stories if I tried. Again, thank you @bunnylass17 for giving me the prompt, you made me so happy!

[pbram57]

Fashion Note: Spring, Shoes and Running

One thing that I have in common with some of my stylish female friends is celebrating a new upcoming season with a shoe purchase.

Now before someone calls me out for being sexist, or, otherwise incorrect, I should say that most of the men that I know rarely have more than 10 pairs of shoes, including slippers on hand at any one time. While quite a few of the women I know have at least 20 pairs and, one that I once worked with had about 25 pairs at the office alone and reckoned that she had 60 pairs at home. Off, course I also know women that own fewer pairs than I do, 19 pairs of shoes, boots and slippers, at last count.

One man that I know has quite a few pairs of shoes, but they are mostly running shoes, which he collects. He buys, sells and trades with other collectors. Because of this, these shoes are not, or, rarely worn, as that would affect their condition and the value.

For this reason, he is a little different from most of shoe loving women that I know, who are not looking so much to collect shoes, but to own them to accessorize their wardrobes and express their mood and personalities on a given day. ...

Coming back to me and my running shoe of choice for Spring-Summer 2021. Introducing the ASICS Gel DS Trainer 23, pictured below, in Safety Yellow, Mid Grey and White. This light weight shoe is designed to prioritize energy return over dampening, and road feel over cushioning and support. This makes ideal for distances between 10 k to 25 k, for runners with a neutral foot and good biomechanics.

It will be replacing my 2020 Season shoe the Mizumo Wave Sonic. This shoe was an outright old school ultra lightweight marathon shoe. Rated to last 500 km, I ended up running 1100 km in them. By the time I retired them, I had worn a hole through the sole of my right shoe, worn on what is my dominant side. I have been wearing Mizumos for about 15 years, decide to switch ASICS, because they are not readily available in my size, in Canada.

That said, my new ASICS have a sole and thread design that is almost identical to that of my long retired Mizumo Wave Ronin 2. So in a way, I still have a bit of a connection to Mizumo. Yesterday, I began to break them and ran a short 2.6k in them and I liked how they felt. Though, I will wait until I have about 50k on them to come to an opinion of what I think of them.

#Spring #Running #Shoes #RunningShoes #Fitness #Fashion #Lifestyle

[singledarkshade]

What Happened To Amelia Pond

Part Two – Searching Author’s Note: The second chapter for What Happened To Amelia Pond, I am working on another chapter but until then, enjoy.                                 ********************************************* Rory stomped back into the TARDIS, dripping wet and barely holding onto his temper.

“Okay,” the Doctor said following him inside, “That didn’t quite go the way I expected.”

“Really?” Rory snapped, “It didn’t quite go the way you expected?”

The Doctor frowned, “You seem to be a little upset, Rory.”

“I almost drowned,” Rory reminded him sharply, “Twice. In less than an hour.”

“But you didn’t,” the Doctor replied, clapping him on the shoulder, “And we stopped an entire village from being destroyed.”

Rory wiped his face with his hand, which didn’t really help much as rivulets of water continued to fall from his hair, “We’re meant to be looking for Amelia.”

Bouncing up the stairs to the console the Doctor started the TARDIS moving, “And we are, Rory. The TARDIS just got a little side-tracked.”

Jaw set in annoyance Rory followed him upstairs grabbing the rail when the TARDIS started moving.

“You should go and get changed before you catch a cold,” the Doctor said absently as he moved around the console.

Deflating Rory headed to his room knowing he was dripping water behind him, but he’d fix that once he was dry again. He knew it was stupid, but he’d hoped that the Doctor would be able to just take him to Amelia instantly and the big question in his life would be answered.

  The room he had in the TARDIS was amazing. It felt like home which in all honesty surprised him. He glanced at the two pictures he had on the bedside cabinet that he had packed, one of him with Patricia and Josh, the other of Amelia.

Guilt filled him that he’d left Patricia without saying anything, but he didn’t want Josh to spend all his time wondering where his fiancé had disappeared to. He also missed them both and, as well as he got along with the Doctor, the Time Lord wasn’t the same as his two friends.

Taking a shower Rory sighed in relief when he was warm, dry and wearing clean clothes once more. He headed back to the console room finding the Doctor still wandering around the console pushing buttons and pulling levers.

“Feel better?” the Time Lord asked.

Rory nodded, “Yes. Sorry I...”

“Not a problem,” the Doctor cut him off.

“It is,” Rory insisted, “I’m feeling guilty I left Patricia without saying anything.”

The Doctor said nothing simply letting him speak.

“I walked away,” Rory continued, “Because I didn’t want her to leave Josh wondering where she was and when she was going to come home.”

The Doctor looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before holding out his hand, “Give me your phone.”

Confused Rory pulled out his mobile and handed it to the other man, “Why?”

After checking it over, the Doctor picked up the sonic, tapped some controls on it for a moment and aimed the sonic at the phone before passing it back to Rory, “Call her.”

“What?”

“Universal roaming,” he smiled, “You can keep in touch with them.”

Surprised Rory called Patricia, holding it up to his ear to listen stunned when she answered.

“Hi, Patricia,” he said softly.

“Rory?” surprise filled her voice, “Where are you?”

He smiled slightly happy to be talking to her, “I’m in the TARDIS with the Doctor. I wanted to apologise…”

“Wait,” she cut him off, “Your phone works? I thought it was a Time Machine.”

Rory chuckled, “The Doctor fixed it. You can call me if you need to now.”

“That’s good,” she said, “So, how’s your search going?”

“Not great yet,” Rory sighed, “I’m sorry I just left, I just didn’t want Josh to be left to wonder where you were.”

“I know. Just be careful,” Patricia told him, “And call us whenever you need to talk.”

                                  *********************************************

  Rory sat on the roof of the house looking up at the stars as he listened to the songs of the villagers celebrating their harvest. In the centre of the circle he could see the little red-haired girl dancing. He turned when the Doctor appeared and took a seat at Rory’s side.

“Are you alright?”

Rory sighed, “I actually thought for a moment we’d found her.”

The Time Lord wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulders, hugging him close, “I know. So did I.”

“We’ve been doing this for six months,” Rory whispered, “I thought we’d find something by now. Even a trace of her but I think….”

“Rory?”

“I think I have to admit she’s gone,” Rory continued sadly, “It’s something I should have accepted a long time ago.”

The Doctor grimaced, “Are you sure about that? You’re ready to go home?”

Rory’s head came up, “I didn’t say that.”

“You still want to travel with me?” the Doctor asked with a grin.

“If you want me to,” Rory replied, giving a slight smile, “I mean it can be mind-numbingly terrifying at times but then I see this,” he motioned to the people in front of him, “And it’s all worth it to know I helped save these people.”

The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder, “Then let’s get out of here.”

With a smile Rory stood and they walked back to the TARDIS together.

  The TARDIS was in flight and the Doctor mused over where to go next. Rory was sleeping but would be awake soon. Now that the young man had decided to travel just to travel, the Doctor had been trying to find fun destinations for him. Their last stop hadn’t turned out to be all that fun but they helped a Starship about to crash get home safely.

He was still trying to find Amelia but not telling Rory that he was. Now he’d decided to stop the search, Rory had been quieter than before. The Doctor understood that Rory was coming to terms with his decision to stop searching for his childhood best friend. Hearing footsteps the Doctor turned and smiled at his companion who was wandering down the stairs pushing his fingers through his hair, “Morning, Rory. How are you feeling?”

“Like I ran a marathon I hadn’t trained for,” Rory replied with a slight smile before asking, “Where are we going?”

The Doctor grinned, “I thought we would go to the Moons of Algoria. It is a fantastic place to go for a party and they celebrate basically everything.”

Rory grinned back and nodded, “Sounds like fun.”

Before the Doctor could start them moving Rory’s phone began to ring.

  Rory gave an apologetic shrug to the Doctor as he pulled out his phone, smiling to see Patricia was calling him.

“Hi,” he answered.

“Rory,” Patricia said softly, “You need to come home.”

Confused Rory put the phone on speaker, “Why?”

There was silence for a moment before she spoke again, “Are you able to see the news for here?”

Looking up at the Time Lord who nodded Rory replied, “Yes. What channel?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Patricia replied softly.

“Rory,” the Doctor called making him turn to the viewscreen.

He stared at the headline on the screen before him, ‘Fourteen-year-old mystery solved, Amelia Pond’s body found.’

“…Leadworth over fourteen years ago,” the newsreader said as the sound came up, “The body of Amelia Pond, who was seven years old when she disappeared, was found today in the garden of a house in Leadworth village as it was being dug up for renovations. Currently the cause of death is unknown. Amelia is survived by her aunt who moved away the year after the disappearance.”

Rory let out a shaky breath, “Patricia, when did this happen?”

“Last week,” she told him, “But it was this morning we found out who…you should come home. They’ve already organised the funeral for next week.”

Staring at the phone Rory tried to speak again, every word getting stuck in his throat.

“We’ll be there, Patricia,” the Doctor said before he hung up. He rested an arm around Rory and moved him to sit, “Rory?”

Rory looked up at his friend sadness filling his voice, “Fifteen years and she was there all along,” tears filled his eyes, “I wanted her to be out here somewhere having adventures. I wanted to find her but not like this.”

The Doctor hugged him tightly, “I know, Rory. I know.”

Rory dropped his head onto his friend’s shoulder, giving in as he was rocked gently by the Time Lord whose own sadness at the news was palpable.

After several minutes Rory pulled back, “We should go.”

The Doctor nodded and silently set the co-ordinates. They landed and Rory numbly followed the Doctor out the TARDIS. Patricia and Josh stood waiting at their door, enfolding him into a hug the moment he was within reach.

                                  *********************************************

  Rory walked slowly through the main street hoping to avoid the journalists who had invaded the village for the funeral. The service had been hell. Amelia’s aunt had clung to his arm throughout the entire thing, which meant he had to be the strong one. Something he didn’t feel.

The Doctor was somewhere, having stood at the back for the funeral but had promised he wouldn’t leave until Rory was ready.

Taking a seat at the duck pond and stared at the water wishing things had been different, that he could have done something different.

“So,” a female voice came from beside him as someone sat at his side, “I picked the wrong time to come visit family.”

Rory turned slightly finding a woman with long black hair, pale skin and hazel eyes sitting at his side. She was beautiful, looked to be close in ages to him and Rory felt he should know her. Then again if she was visiting family, it was more than likely he did. Leadworth was not that big.

“Yes, you did,” he replied softly.

“Did you know her?” she asked, before clarifying, “The girl who died.”

Rory nodded sadly, “She was my best friend.”

She rested her hand on his arm, “I’m sorry. This must be so hard for you.”

“I guess it’s closure,” he whispered, not sure why he was telling her this.

Noise coming towards them made him look up and he grimaced realising the horde of journalists were about to find him. He’d managed to avoid every one of them all day because he did not want to tell his story or be shown as the pathetic childhood friend finally getting closure.

“Hey,” the strange woman took his hand, “Come on, I know somewhere you can hide.”

Not sure why, Rory let her pull him through the village. They ran along the back street towards the B&B near the edge of town, once there she tugged him inside and locked the door.

Rory let out a sigh of relief. He pulled out his phone to let Patricia and Josh know where he was, surprised when it was snatched out of his hand.

“What are you doing?” Rory demanded, trying to grab his phone back.

The woman pouted at him, “I thought we were having a nice conversation. Why do you want to talk to someone else?”

“I just don’t want my friends to worry,” Rory replied aware the door was locked, and he couldn’t see any other way out of the room.

She tilted her head, “I thought I was your best friend, Rory. Why are you trying to leave me?”

“Wh…What are you talking about?” he took a step back, searching for an exit or a way to get to a phone.

Reaching up she pulled the black hair off her head, revealing it was a wig and a mass of red hair fell around her face. She threw the wig to one side and walked towards him. Rory backed away, wincing when he hit the wall. She rested her hands on his chest giving him a smile.

“Surely you recognise me now?” she whispered softly, “I thought you’d recognise me, Rory.”

Rory stared at her confused but as he looked at the pale face, now framed with flame-red hair and the eyes looking into his, the impossible answer hit him.

“Amelia?” he breathed.

A grin covered her face, “I prefer to be called Amy now but…surprise.”

“No,” Rory shook his head, “But the funeral…they found…the funeral…”

Amy smiled at him, “I had to get you back here somehow, Rory.”

He continued to stare at her, jerking his head away when she stroked his cheek.

“I thought you’d be happy to see me,” Amy whispered with a slight pout, “I’m so happy to see you. You grew up cute. I didn’t expect to find you so attractive when they told me our destiny.”

Rory stared at her, “Our what?”

Amy smiled and her lips brushed against his quickly before she stepped away from him and touched her watch.

“We’re going to save the universe,” Amy told him intently, “From the biggest threat it’s ever faced.”

“Which is?”

Anger filled her eyes and steel filled her voice, “The Doctor.”

  Amy frowned, confused that Rory wasn’t as happy to see her as she thought he’d be. It had been a long time since they’d seen one another but he had described himself as her best friend when they talked.

“What do you mean?” he asked softly taking a step forward as Amy moved to sit, “How is the Doctor a threat?”

Before she could speak the door burst open and three soldiers appeared, they grabbed Rory who tried to get away but within seconds he was on his knees, hands cuffed behind his back and a gag in his mouth.

“I thought we agreed you would find him and alert us before you spoke to him,” Madam Kovarian noted with disapproval when she entered the building.

Amy shrugged, “I wanted to talk to him. He’s still my Rory, even if he’s been corrupted by the Doctor.”

Leaning down, Kovarian grabbed Rory’s chin tilting his face so he would look up at her, “Nothing appears special about you but then all we need is for you to do one thing.” She nodded to the soldiers and two of them yanked him to his feet.

Amy could see fear in his eyes and wanted to assure him not to worry. They were doing something good and it was only because the Doctor had influenced him that they needed to take precautions.

“It’s time to return to the ship, Amelia,” Kovarian noted, “Let’s go.”

Amy nodded, retrieving the wig before she followed on. Not too happy at how Rory was being dragged along but he was fighting so much.

“Hey,” a woman called suddenly, “Let him go.”

Amy turned seeing the Doctor with a man and a woman she didn’t recognise. The Doctor pointed his sonic device at Rory and the handcuffs unlocked. The moment he was released Rory slammed his shoulder into one of the guards. Taken by surprise they couldn’t stop him as he ran towards the Doctor.

“Amy,” Kovarian called, “Back to the ship now.”

Rory stalled turning back and reaching out his hand to Amy, “Please,” he whispered, “Come with me.”

“Amy,” Kovarian snapped again.

“Please,” Rory said softly, “Don’t leave again. Stay with me. Amelia…Amy…”

She stared at him, remembering her best friend who would follow her anywhere, looking at the man he had become.

His eyes pleading with her.

Unconsciously Amy’s hand moved towards him. Their fingers touched and Amy gave a cry when she was pulled away by a soldier seeing the Doctor grab a hold of Rory to stop him chasing after her.

As she was dragged away, Amy stayed focussed on his face until the doors of the ship closed blocking him from view.

While Kovarian and the others started for the bridge, Amy slid to sit on the floor. She’d been raised to believe in her destiny, raised to know the Doctor was evil and with Rory she would be the one to stop him.

But now…

Rory wouldn’t help someone bad, he couldn’t.

And as she sat Amy began to wonder if what they were doing was right.

[blueyesandleatherjacket]

Regenerate Nine Month: Puzzled Soulmates

Volume: 1.

Number of parts: 34/?.

Pairings: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler.

Synopsis: "The Doctor was trying to complete that damn puzzle when something else caught his attention..."

A/N: Ninth month of the year means month of the Ninth Doctor and so I've decided to repost all the one-shots I've written about the him, whether they are DW verse or not to celebrate this fantastic Doctor.

“A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really cares.” - Debi Mazar.

PUZZLED SOULMATES:

“Doctor, what is that?” The Doctor didn’t seem to hear Rose’s voice. He was too busy trying to assemble the pieces of that damn 3D puzzle. He had argued with Jackie about it and, as usual, had boasted about his superior intelligence. It had all ended with him saying he would finish it in less than an hour before he took the puzzle to the TARDIS to do it there and not have Jackie Tyler mumbling around him. But he was starting to think that she had been right – though he would never say it out loud – and that this thing was impossible to assemble. The pieces were always coming off whenever he was adding another one and he was getting seriously pissed off. He needed to sort that thing out and shut Jackie up. “Is that screwdriver coming, Rose?” His voice was rather angry. He had asked for it two minutes and thirteen seconds ago and she still hadn’t found it in the bigger on the inside pockets of his leather jacket he had thrown on the rail while working on that puzzle on the console. He wouldn’t let Jackie win and have the last word about something as stupid as a puzzle. If a human kid could do that, a nine hundred years old Time Lord could do it even better. He held out a hand for Rose to give him his sonic screwdriver. He was gonna cheat and make those pieces hold still whether they wanted it or not. But when it didn’t come, he turned around to figure out what was taking so long. He found Rose standing still with a small blue box in her hands and looking completely absorbed in what she was watching. “You never answered my question.” “Neither did you.” The Doctor gave up on the puzzle and walked to his companion. He already knew what she was looking at. A blue thin Gallifreyan steel ring with Gallifreyan symbols on it. He always had that ring on him wherever he was going and whatever face he was wearing. It was just a reminder to him. “It’s a wedding ring. From my planet.” “You were married?” “No.” He could never get married because the Time War happened before the wedding could occur. And anyway, it was an arranged marriage like they always did on Gallifrey. Love wasn’t something that mattered on his planet. Arrangements were better. Everything was planned according to a particular logic. But all of that was gone up in smoke now. If he should be relieved to have escaped that custom, he wasn’t. Time Lords didn’t care about soulmates but they did have one waiting for them somewhere in the universe. And with the planet burning, the Doctor knew he would surely never met his. “That’s weird.” “What?” he asked, looking for his screwdriver. “Those symbols. I’ve always wondered what they meant.” “You’ve seen them before?” He was asking the questions without really expecting an answer but if he had been more attentive, he would have been surprised. “I’ve always wondered what they meant.” She had already seen those symbols before. Before she even met him. But it didn’t strike him right away. “Yeah. They appeared on my shoulder a few years ago. My mother said it was a soulmate mark. But that’s a weird one. I thought someone was mocking me.” “What?” The Doctor stopped what he was doing to look up at Rose. She was stroking the symbols on the ring unaware of what they could mean. But he did know what they meant. And now, he was becoming aware of the whole message the universe had sent him months ago. “This is your language, right? This is Gallifreyan. Just like on the TARDIS screen. But what does that mean?” Her heart was beating faster now. She was starting to think that the Doctor, that extraordinary friend she had, was maybe related to her soulmate. Or could it be…? The Doctor took the ring between his fingers and read the symbols. How stupid had he been! That was so obvious! Under his nose all that time! The symbols on that ring were the symbols of his own soulmate mark. And Rose had the same… That would explain why they were getting on so well with each other, why it had immediately clicked between the two of them, why he had always felt like she was connected to him. “Doctor?” “Arkytior.” “I’m sorry.” “The symbols. It means Arkytior. It’s a name.” “Oh.” “The name of my soulmate.” Rose looked up at him, surprised by his words. So Time Lords did have soulmates too? And why did she have the name of some random person called Arkytior on her shoulder? And why the Doctor had a ring with that name too? The Doctor put the hand in his jacket’s pocket and pulled out another ring. The symbols were different. “There once was that guy on Gallifrey. He was making rings with your soulmate’s name and yours on it. It was like a gift. He could tell the name of everyone’s soulmate if they had one. I was curious, and I got that ring with Arkytior’s name along with mine.” He put the ring down in Rose’s hand. She looked at it closely and recognised the symbols. Those were the exact same symbols as the one on her soulmate mark. It wasn’t saying Arkytior, but Doctor. Or whatever his name was. She felt her face go red as she realised what it meant. He was her soulmate. He always had been. But she wasn’t his. It was heartbreaking for her who had feelings for him. Justified feelings. Tears filled her eyes. “Rose?” “I’m sorry. It’s just… That’s… That’s your name written on my shoulder.” She lightly uncovered her shoulder to show him her mark. He came closer and his hearts seemed to run a marathon in his chest. She was right. The name she had on her shoulder was the same as his ring. It was his name. His real name. He was Rose Tyler’s soulmate. As unbelievable as it was. “Rose,” he murmured with a croaked voice. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, tears still filling her voice. “Arkytior. It means Rose in high Gallifreyan.” Rose felt her heart stop at his words and her brain seemed unable to think about anything but that. Arkytior meant Rose. It meant she was his soulmate, and she was his. His fingers softly stroked her mark, causing her to shiver. She closed her eyes as he traced the symbols on her shoulder. What did it mean for them? Were they gonna ignore it and continue their adventures? Or were they gonna take the next step? The kiss the Doctor left on her mark was the answer to her silent questions. He, who never let anyone know what he was feeling or thinking, was showing her affection. He was willing to take the next step. And she didn’t push him away. That’s why she turned around and pressed her lips on his when she got the opportunity…

Chronicles of a better man © | 2016 - 2018 | Tous droits réservés.

×××

In the next shot:

Lost. That was the best word to sum up all his lives.

×××

Buy me a coffee?

[bluemoondust]

Ah yes, it is the day of jests and the silly behavior.

So in celebration, I will tell some things that happened to me that are equally silly.

A person I knew told me about a time where their teacher emailed them an assignment. They had to click a link and immediately they were Rick Rolled.

My phone's mp3 player app decided to started to play that tomato song™ from a specific anime with the silly country people when I was in class at the quietest it's ever been.

The Saw Franchise movie marathon a friend and I had. That entire thing was hilariously amazing with us just fooling around. I talked about that time briefly here, but it's still fun to talk about.

That one crossover/self insert fic a former friend wrote about me and some other friends when we were really close. It haunts us to this very day /lh. Will say, creepypasta, anime, and drama was involved.

The story of how I made the friends I have to this day. Trust me, it's hilarious how we all met but also endearing (it involves Sonic and ya know fanfics). I still can't believe I was the one who introduced them to anime.

Our friend asking what Boyfriend to Death is and the morbid curiosity growing in her as we spoke— She said at some point in time, "You two have issues XD" Immediately asked "Why?" when I talked about Lawrence and so many jokes were made. My other friend had the absolute audacity to call me a furry for liking Ren 😤 then I uno reversed by telling her she likes Vincent who is, might I remind everyone, a werewolf.

Finding out that a rival of mine (as a joke) was the guy I've been messaging on Kik Messenger (does that app still exist or people still use it?) about FNAF and other stuff and immediately finding out because he said something that made me go, "Wait a minute." He was a very chill dude! Haven't spoken to him in years. Also, there was another time where I was dared to give a hug to someone I don't know. I hugged the same guy because no one knew I knew him, soooo win-win. He immediately turned around and said, "Hey, if you're going to hug me, hug me properly :)" Middle school may have been my years of peak cringe, but I was free and had very pleasant moments.

Just middle school years in general had the silliest moments—

[striped-commander]

Get to know me

Rules: Answer 20 questions then tag 20 (give or take) followers you wanna get to know better!

Stolen from: @nova-au​

Name:  SuperSayinMajinSheBuu/MajinSheBuu/Savannah

Nickname: Majin/Savy/Savs

Height: 4′11

Nationality: American

Favorite Fruit: Most melons. I’m allergic to apples.

Favorite Season: Autumn and Winter

Favorite Smell: The cologne my gf wears and the scent of Lilacs.

Favorite Color(s): Red and Black

Favorite Animal: Birds and Hedgehogs

Tea, Coffee, Hot Cocoa: I drink more coffee than I should, but I adore homemade Lipton sweet tea, and Hot cocoa made with milk and a bit of cinnamon.

Average Hours of Sleep: Sleep? What’s that? (0-4 due to nightmares most nights, but when I do manage to get decent sleep, I get a full 8)

Dogs or Cats: BIRDS!

Dream Trip: Uh... I have small dreams... Most of them involve going to States that are around mine, or to places like Ceder Point, since I’ve never been before. I think I’d like to visit Japan and Canada one day.

When my blog was created: UHHHHHHHHH... I may or may not remember this one... I made it a while ago... Maybe sometime last year or the year before, but it only recently became super active.

# of Followers: 13

Random Fact: Hedgehogs are immune to most poisons (set aside poisonous insects). They have a tendancy to eat things like chemicals, cigarettes, and other dangerous toxic things, then coat their spines in it. It’s not known whether they do this to remove pests from their quills, mask their scent, or to coat their spines in poison to deter predators. My personal guess is all three. 

Hedgehog saliva is also sticky.

You’re welcome.

Favorite Food: In terms of fast food, I like Subway. In terms of home-cooked meals, I like sloppy joes, and spaghetti. Chili dogs are also a fave.

Favorite TV show: I really like Sonic Underground (I’mnotobsessedshutup) and I watch anime sometimes. I grew up on Pokemon, and I’m currently marathoning Supernatural with my girl. I like House too.

Overall though, I don’t really watch TV. I really tend to stick to YouTube. In which case, I love Game Grumps, Markiplier, and Jacksepticeye.

Favorite Movie: That’s a tough one... I don’t really watch movies either... I think the movie I’ve watched most on repeat would be Sonic The Hedgehog OVA and I’ve watched Pokemon 2000 almost as much.

Favorite Vine: Anything by Tomas Sanders.

Sexuality: Pansexual

Gender: ALL! (Pangender)

Favorite Book Series: The IDW Sonic Comics are the only thing I’ve been really reading lately.

Favorite Video Game(s): Anything Sonic tops my list, obviously! But I really love Shadow The Hedgehog, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Generations to be more specific.

Favorite Subject: I used to be in college before mine got shut down. So I’ll go with my favorite from High School. I really loved World Mythology, Creative Writing and English.

Favorite Fandom(s): Sonic is the only fandom I obsessively subscribe to.

Favorite Superhero: Sonic? Does he count? He has super speed and he’s the Hero of Mobius. If not, well... Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Thor and Loki are awesome.

Guys or Girls: Well, I’m Pan... So, girls, guys, nonbinary, trans... I mean, my lovely gf is Ace. If you have a good personality, I’m game. (Tho I’m taken so...)

Celebrity crush: I love Tom Hiddleston, Ryan Reynolds, and a few others.

Last time I cried: Two days ago most of my day was crying :/

Hair Color: Red (Like a red-copper color. I don’t dye it)

Eye Color: A dark grey-blue, almost black, though the blue shows well in certain lighting.

What Should I Be Doing: Eating and drawing tbh.

Tagging 20 people: Do this if you want I guess? 

[atopfourthwall]

State of the Wall: 12-2-17

New State of the Wall post! Lotsa stuff happening, so click under the cut to see what's happening!

Schedule of Upcoming Episodes 12/4 – Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Dark Holiday Special 12/11 – Sensation Comics #14: The Story of Fir Balsam 12/18 – Steam Wars Christmas Special 12/25 – Christmas with the Superheroes #2 1/1 – My Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W 1/8 – PATREON: Legion of Superheroes: The Great Darkness Saga 1/15 – Patreon Viewers’ Choice (NFL SuperPro #2, Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos #3, or James Bond, Jr. #1) 1/22 – PATREON: JLA/Avengers 1/29 – PATREON: Homestuck, Act 2

As always, the schedule is subject to change for any number of reasons, I’m pretty locked down with these choices… aside from MAYBE my Top 15 Favorite Episodes. I keep waffling on it, but for now it’s what we’re going with.

The Road to 500… and the 10th Anniversary 2018 will mark the 10th Anniversary of Atop the Fourth Wall! Needless to say, it’s going to be a big year for the show. If everything goes according to plan, there will be two storylines within it – the Contest of Champions arc that began in October as well as a shorter 10th Anniversary storyline whose name I shall reveal once we get to it, likely ending October 29th (if not the 22nd to coincide with the 10th Anniversary episode).

To celebrate this momentous time, every review that is not a Patreon-sponsored episode will be a follow-up to something from the past ten years! This would include sequel episodes to previous material, like another issue of something covered previously, a thematic follow-up like, say, from the same creators as a popular episode or could be thought of as following the same ideas as that episode. However, thankfully some of the Patreon-sponsored episodes themselves will be follow-ups, as indicated by the January 29th episode being the second act of Homestuck (which should hopefully make the many Homestuck fans asking for me to cover the next act happy).

Along those same lines, we’ll be doing the second Patreon Viewers’ Choice episode! The official announcement for the poll on that one will likely come at the end of the Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W, but I’m letting you see the choices now to start thinking about it. The choice will be between three goofy tie-in comics I’ve covered previously – another issue of NFL SuperPro, another issue of Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos, or going all the way back to James Bond, Jr.’s first issue. I did return to James Bond, Jr. for a live show that hasn’t been put up yet, but we haven’t seen it on the show proper since the end of 2009. A comment on that issue is the source of the infamous “You’ll never be as popular as the BeeGees!” comment that is now immortalized on the back of the second DVD.

But of course there’s even another big even happening in 2018 as part of the 10th Anniversary – we’re going to hit the 500th episode! I definitely want to do some special stuff this year for the 500th, most especially being another livestream like we had for the 300th. It’ll take some time to plan, but here’s a list of ideas I have currently for it: -More testimonials, trivia, and anecdotes like in the 300th -Showing some otherwise-DVD exclusive content from all my DVDs, including the Movie -Showing the previous “100th episodes” – Sonic Live #1, Spider-Man: One More day, Holy Terror, and Marvel Super Special #7: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band -A live showing of the conclusion to Pokémon Omicron, where we’ll take on the Elite 4 -Various Longbox of the Damned episodes -Special guests -Live-riffing some shorts

These are all just ideas for the time being, so if you have any of your own, feel free to let me know! We’ve got 5-6 months until the 500th and I’d love to know what people think!

Platform Change 4: The Revengeance of the Whils VidMe has announced that they are shutting down their services as of December 15th. As such, there are going to be some changes in how things are handled around here. This is the FOURTH time that a platform has failed and I have had enough. We hadn’t even really finished replacing the vidme embeds on the LAST embed player change, so screw it: we’re going all in on youtube. There might be an option for Vimeo down the road, but for now, here’s in the broad sense what’s going to happen: -All Atop the Fourth Wall videos, from here on, will be thumbnail images of the title card that you click through to go straight to youtube. -All Longbox of the Damned embeds will be made into youtube embeds. Next year’s Longbox videos are currently up in the air, but hey – we’ve got ten months to figure that out and maybe have a tried and tested system in place. For now, it makes more sense to make them youtube embeds because of people’s nature in marathon-viewing videos and Longbox videos are short enough as-is. -New videos like vlogs, side content, and Let’s Plays will follow the title card thumbnail process being used for Atop the Fourth Wall. Old videos are up in the air, but they will likely be embedded videos just to make life easier on us as we once again replace everything. -History of Power Rangers… well, that’s a bit of a beast all on its own. Refer to the History of Power Rangers section below for more details.

As always, I ask for patience during yet another period of transition. Plenty of videos will be unavailable during this time (including crossovers in particular), but we’ll try our damndest to get things back to working order as soon as possible.

History of Power Rangers I’m happy to report that FINALLY, all of History of Power Rangers is back up after so many months of being down due to ContentID striking many of them from VidMe. Minor edits have been made due to the lengths of certain clips used…

…And you can only enjoy them for another 13 days because VidMe is shutting down. Or rather you can DOWNLOAD them for another 13 days using a third-party downloader.

Simply put: I’ve had it. These videos were made for a different time, when Blip was the main video host and longer usage of video clips wasn’t an issue. The platforms have dwindled and it’s down to youtube and I’ve already tried to upload these videos to youtube once before and it didn’t end well. The audio quality of these videos isn’t that great compared to my current standards and many of them utilized low-quality pirated versions of episodes recorded off of TV. I own all of Power Rangers on DVD now and new Power Rangers content that I put out has to come from legitimate sources like DVDs anyway. I simply cannot make these older versions work anymore. Don’t bother trying to suggest another video host like Vimeo or DailyMotion. Aside from both having their own ContentID systems, I am tired of trying to accommodate an inferior product.

Work will begin anew on the revised History of Power Rangers videos. While I had wanted to work on them in order, it took forever just to get the SLIGHTLY-edited versions back on VidMe due to my busy schedule. As such, I’m going to release them on youtube out of order, starting with Overdrive through RPM (Samurai, Megaforce, and Dino Charge already exist on youtube) because of their already-decent audio quality. If you want the old versions (and sadly that will now include the SLIGHTLY-edited versions that I have put up more recently), feel free to download them however way you can, because I am no longer going to try to support it. Let it not be said that I didn’t TRY to keep them up after so many years of fighting with various platforms over them.

I had planned to announce that it was likely the In Space History of Power Rangers would be delayed as it is simply due to the busy schedules of others needed to work on the “Under Pressure” section, but, well, here we are. Hopefully we can see HOPR restored to something better than it was once the dust completely settles.

Let’s Play Pokémon Omicron As stated in the last State of the Wall, the Pokémon Omicron streams are on hiatus due to finally reaching the Elite 4. Due to the various things I’ve had do to these last few months (not the least of which being concluding a storyline, Longbox, AND getting married) I’ve had little to no time to work on Omicron videos. As I’ve said before, I’d like to do a major stream for the Elite 4. If you look above, I’ve suggested fighting the Elite 4 as part of the 500th AT4W Episode Celebration Live Show and would like to hear some feedback on that.

Storyline Compilations In case you haven’t been following the youtube channel (which you probably should be at this point given what’s going on with VidMe – link HERE), the Game Show Reviewer (who does a lot of the special effects for the show) has put together compilation videos of the AT4W storyline! They feature JUST the storyline segments and occasionally a clip or two from a review for context (or because he felt a joke was funny enough to include). At this time, everything through the “His Blue Soul” arc has been released. The other compilation videos are done and uploaded, but I’m currently waiting for some ContentID claims on the Royalty-Free music to pass before I release the rest. Otherwise, you can enjoy the compilations currently available thanks to this hand-dandy playlist.

DVDs and T-Shirts Sale In honor of the holiday season, IT’S SALE TIME! All INDIVIDUAL volumes of Atop the Fourth Wall DVDs have been reduced to ten dollars (until December 26th), including the most recent – Volume 3: Character Reboot. In addition, Shark Robot is still running their Black Friday sale through December 6th – just use the promo code “BLACKFRIDAY17” on the two Atop the Fourth Wall t-shirts – “I am a Man” and “Because Poor Literacy is KEWL!” You can find those shirts HERE!

I’m working on getting some other sales ready for both the Screenwave store and the T-shirts, so feel free to keep checking back here for any updates on additional sales!

Event Comics Month II The first Event Comics Month was such a big success we’re doing it again next year! As before, it’s a vote by patrons at any level picking two DC and two Marvel event comics! You can check it out HERE, become a Patron, and make your vote known about what you’d like to see reviewed next year!

Patreon As a reminder, the Patreon-sponsored review tier for Patreon is still closed for the moment, with details you can read HERE. While I still don’t have a date yet as to when I plan to reopen them, I’ve been taking your feedback about it into consideration. A common train of thought is that any non-comic review should at least be in some way linked to comics, be it about superheroes or, at the very least, linked to something I actually regularly do/am in some way interested in (for instance, the occasional sentai reviews are fine given History of Power Rangers, or video games could be Star Trek or Pokémon or the like). I don’t think that’s too unfair a compromise given what people are thinking, but I wouldn’t mind getting more feedback about it during this time, so feel free to make your feelings about it known if you haven’t already!

That’s all I’ve got for now! Feel free to let me know your thoughts/concerns/questions for everything going on!

[biscuitreviews]

Biscuit’s Top Games of 2017 and Personal Game of the Year

2017 was a great year for gaming. Although the end of 2017 has a few people dubbing this “The year of the loot box” with games such as EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II, Destiny II, and Call of Duty WWII, just to name a few, I don’t think we can encompass a whole year of amazing games, from a few outliers.

Unfortunately, for a lot of the great games that came out this year, I wasn’t able to play a lot of them because I didn’t own a PS4 or a Switch. I just recently acquired a PS4 and will be playing catch up on many of these great titles. So the games listed below are the ones that I personally played this year that I really enjoyed.

Mass Effect Andromeda

This will probably be odd to see this game on someone’s “best of” list when this title is going to be on a lot of “disappointed” or “worst of” lists. Personally, I enjoyed Andromeda. I will admit that on release there were some weird animations and the writing was a bit weak in some areas. However, even some of the greatest games with great stories, have some places where the writing in their story was a bit weak. Uncharted 4’s Nathan Drake’s brother that he just never talked about ever is a perfect example of this. Great game with an equally good story, just the sudden appearance of a brother felt shoehorned in and forced despite Sam actually being a good character in his own right.

Nonetheless, Mass Effect Andromeda’s environments were beautifully crafted and the combat was extremely fun. Being able to switch to a different class on the fly to have the necessary skills to fight different enemies adds another element of control during combat. I really enjoyed myself with this game and it’s disappointing that the majority was hung up on the first few hours of the game, rather than playing through the entire game to see it’s shining moments.

Doki Doki Literature Club

Although this psychological horror disguised as a cute visual novel takes a bit to get into, once it reveals it’s true self, the ride doesn’t stop. Without spoiling much, this game slowly and I mean SLOWLY pulls back the curtain to how truly messed up this game can be. The game’s twist is something that truly impacted me and it’s something I applaud this game in accomplishing. If you haven’t played this game yet, go in blind, don’t look anything up, it will make the scares and the twists, that much more impactful.

Fire Emblem Heroes

I had two mobile phone games that I played a lot of this year and Fire Emblem Heroes was one of them. Yes this is a more watered down version of Fire Emblem, but despite that, it’s still a really fun game and will require strategic thinking, especially if you try the higher difficulties. This game eat up quite a bit of my time in the February and March period. It’s also one of the few mobile games out there that gives you plenty of opportunities and chances to build your team and gain new units without succumbing to microtransactions and it was something that I really liked with this game.

Magikarp Jump

The second mobile game that came out this year that I played quite a bit. This in my opinion was the definition of a great mobile game. It’s a game you can play for a few minutes while waiting in line because of how easily you can start and stop a play session. The ability to play the game offline was also an awesome feature and once again you can go through this game without purchasing any microtransactions.

Cuphead

Although I never finished this game, the 1930s cartoon aesthetic of the game was truly unique for a video game. I also loved how the story was built with couch co-op in mind. Yes you can play this game solo, but it is clear that the ideal way to play this game is co-op with a friend. I also really liked the easiness of how co-op was handled. You can be playing a game and have a friend join you while your playing in the overworld and they can exit out just as easily. The difficulty of this game was also one of the key on the major points with this game and it’s no joke. Many gamers have compared the difficulty of the game to Dark Souls. Now, personally, I have never played Dark Souls so I can’t really say for sure because I never played Dark Souls. Something I hope to remedy in the future.

Horizon Zero Dawn

I’m actually currently playing this game and I have to say I am loving it so far. I definitely see why gamers and critics alike just can’t stop talking about this game. It features a strong female protagonist, it’s a sci-fi setting, it’s open-world, and you get to fight robot dinosaurs. On paper that sounds like a fantastic idea for a game and it really is. I will be doing a review of this game once I complete it. It may take me a bit because I bought the Complete edition which included all of the DLC for the game.

Sonic Mania

In celebration of Sonic’s 25th anniversary, Sega decided to release not just one but two Sonic games. This is a game that is a love letter to Sonic’s past and is appropriately priced. This is a must have for fans of the Blue Blur, especially for those that grew up playing Sonic during his golden days.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild

This is a game that really allows you to explore and experiment with its world and mechanics. To this day, many players are still finding neat things that you can do to where people are still saying “You can do that?” I can’t help but wonder what other mechanics and secrets are still to be uncovered. My favorite moment, although simple, is still something that I will always remember.

When I started the game I was wandering around the Great Plateau. I saw a small group of bokoblins at the bottom of a hill. I was at the top of the hill and next to me was a boulder. I pushed the boulder and it rolled down the hill crushing two of the three bokoblins. Simple, but something I’ll always remember.

Biscuit’s Game of the Year: Persona 5

This is my personal game of the year. This game not only made advancements into the turn-based RPG formula, but everything blended so well together. The menus, the interface, injecting personality into a silent protagonist, it’s a fantastic game. Completing the main story took me 101 hours and that was just going through the main story and doing some side quests and missions.

It also gives more of an emphasis on choice, not in a narrative perspective, but in a gameplay perspective. It’s something I think many people often forget when it comes to choices in gaming. It doesn’t just have to be only narrative choices to shape the story, it can be choices in gameplay to make things easier or harder during the journey. Do you increase your social stats to be able to increase your Confidant rank? Do you work a part-time job to have money for items and weapons? Do you hang out with a Confidant to increase their relationship to gain advantages in combat? All of that will shape how your gameplay experience will go and what advantages you’ll have throughout the game.

This is easily my favorite game of the year and is a definite must play. Even if you’ve never played any other Persona title, this is the game to play as it’s friendly to new players in the series.

I actually started playing Persona 3 right when Persona 5 came out and worked my to it. Also as some of you might know, my first review on this blog was Persona 3 and I marathoned the modern Persona games back to back to back.

[sweetlaive3]

I agree. Idc what anyone says I always look forward to this marathon every Christmas even though I've already seen it more times than I can count.

I'll primarily associate it with the winter of 2004. We were celebrating Christmas at my grandparents. They lived in a 2 story house where my gparents lived on the 2nd floor and my aunt in the 1st. I recall lying on their bed watching this movie late into the night before getting called downstairs to open presents. Some notable things I got were one of those Ms Pac-Man plug and plays as well as the Wind Waker. And you can bet I played those all day, Christmas proper. Funny thing is, I originally wanted Sonic Mega Collection but once I actually started playing, I didn't regret it.

I'll always remember that Christmas as the best one I've ever had for 2 reasons. Because it was my first year of high school and because it was the last year I had that childish sense of wonder and was truly happy.

It’s just this for 24 hours every Christmas for and the vibe fails to ever get old.

[theteenagetrickster]

Mjeema Pickett, Spotify's Head of R&B and Soul, at Work - Rolling Stone

This is the third installment of Rolling Stone’s series At Work, in which we explore the fast-changing music business from the perspective of a different industry leader each week. Read the first here and the second here.

Of Spotify’s thousands of employees, there are few more sought-after by the music industry than Mjeema Pickett, the music-streaming service’s global programming head for R&B and soul music. Pickett — who spent more than a decade in radio and video programming before hopping over to Spotify in 2015 as part of the company’s push for more expert curation — oversees flagship playlists like “The Newness” and “Are & Be,” the latter of which has 5 million followers and is widely known as a career-launcher for young artists. From her desk in Spotify’s Los Angeles office, Pickett is a one-person gatekeeper between record labels and music audiences, tasked with deciding what’s hot in R&B and soul, what’s not, and what should be.

What’s the first thing you do every day? I get the day started with prayer — and coffee. A lot of times I will have meetings as soon as I wake up, since I’m on West Coast time. On my commute into the office, I’m usually listening to one of my personal Spotify playlists, which always put me in a good mood.

Once I’m in the office, I’ll get another cup of coffee — then I’ll check our playlist submission tool, where the artist-submitted songs for the week come in. I listen to music there but also will take a look at the playlists from the previous week and see how those songs are performing. I spent several hours each day updating playlists. Sometimes I leave the office for a studio session to hear music before it’s released, which helps me wrap my head around what an artist’s vision for their album is like. And then a lot of the day is also deciding if a new song fits into one of my playlists or not.

How do you decide? You’re in charge of R&B and soul for Spotify, but musical genres are less clearly defined than ever before. Sonically. I listen for what the sound is. Also, even though a lot of the lines are blurred, a lot of it is also audience-based — so if we can determine what audience the artist wants to target and what their vision is, that can determine where the song goes. Who do they want to hear it? And is that the best audience for it? At the end of the day, even though we have partnerships with artists, we want to serve the audience and make sure Spotify users get the experience they want.

Each playlist of mine also has its own theme and its own hypothesis. For example, “The Newness” is where new releases go. “Soul Coffee” is for Sunday morning and you’re getting up and going about your day, cleaning up around the house. There’s one for more mellow songs. There’s one for moodier ones. “Are & Be” is the global R&B flagship playlist, so the bigger hits and the ones that get the most reaction will go there.

Do you work closely with the heads of the other playlists at Spotify? We’re all on the same global team, so we share music, share ideas. And we also work on campaigns together, like the one we just did for Black History Month, to figure out how what kinds of playlists will work for those programs.

So is there ever a case where one song can be added to two or three different genre playlists? That can happen, yes. If it’s a great song. If we find a song that fits so many different pockets. It actually happens a lot! Since we can see all the analytics, if a song is performing great on one playlist, it could be part of the development process to put it in a bigger playlist with more listeners and grow the audience.

How much of a song do you listen to before you can form an opinion on it? I listen all the way through, because I know that’s what an artist would want. I know they are sensitive about their art and I want to respect that.

I’m sure artists are vying for your attention all the time. Artists will go to all lengths. My DMs look like a war zone. But I can’t respond; I have to just encourage them all to go through the submission tool, because that evens the playing field. Mondays are craziest because we’re coming off the weekend with all the new data in.

Do you work on projects outside of playlists? I do. Last summer, we had a big jam session in New Orleans during the Essence Festival to celebrate Spotify’s “Are & Be” playlist reaching 5 million followers. It was a pretty dope event. Raphael Saadiq, PJ Morton, Wale, Mario and a bunch of other artists performed. It was an effort between our editorial, music marketing, artist and label relations, and talent relations teams. It was one of the things that was like, “This is why we do it.” Love and music.

“My side hustle in college was making slow-jam tapes for my homeboys going on dates. It’s always been my passion to curate for moments.”

In a previous interview, you mentioned that you grew up listening to music from traditional formats like radio and television. Did you ever think you’d end up at something like Spotify? Never. When I was growing up, this did not exist. But music was my first love and I was basically growing up already making playlists as a hobby. My side hustle in college was making slow-jam tapes for my homeboys going on dates. It’s always been my passion to curate for moments, so I love working with playlists. Radio is curation — but each playlist has its own hypothesis or theme. And there is more opportunity to put stuff out there because you don’t have time limits, and we have more room to play with a song.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten in your career? To learn as much as I could, to ask questions, and to follow the doors that are opened. You have to work at it, and you have to know it’s going to be a marathon. There have been times I’ve been discouraged, but I knew deep down that this is what I was born to do and that I’d just have to keep pushing through it. I would give everyone this advice. I don’t want to pay attention to outside forces; I just want to keep moving forward.

What do you do to unwind after work? Do you have a particular routine? Sometimes, actually, unwinding is just me riding home in silence. The silence helps me just come down from everything — all the information from the day.

This content was originally published here.

[jakejamesjournalism]

chance the rappers debut ‘album’ The Big Day isn’t really one at all

6/27

From 10 Day to Acid Rap to Coloring Book, hip hops most prolific mixtape run since 05-07 Lil Wayne came to an end this week.  Chance released his debut album appropriately titled The Big Day, a 77 minute freewheeling concept album about marriage and the joy that comes along with it.  The lighthearted  odyssey of an album is like most Christian weddings, a festive celebration in the presence of God.

Chancellor Bennett is now a married man.  When we first met him he was a troubled youth suspended from school and airing out his dirty laundry. 10 Day (literally recorded in during the length of the suspension) showed a boy oozing talent everywhere with an untamed ear for melody.  That keen ear for melody expanded his sonic palette on his breakout mixtape, 2013’s Acid Rap.  Chance became every college students favorite rapper.  A psychedelic rap mixtape, Acid Rap tells the story of a black boy in America and his relationship with the world, music, substance abuse, women, himself… The honesty and relationship my generation has with this mixtape has it constantly ranked as the best Chance the Rapper project by his ardent fan base.  Acid Rap is indeed a generational mixtape that will always run deep in the young hearts of those who loved it on first listen and used its emotional weight to help them through the angsty high school years the album was tailor made for.  The sheer raw talent that takes over the sound of the mix acts as its biggest strength, offering gut-wrenching pieces of vulnerable songwriting most “rappers” cannot achieve.  Harnessing this sound into one complete singular vision was something I could get behind.  I thought the young boy from Chicago’s best days were ahead of him.

On 2016’s Coloring Book, Chance the rapper sounds like a man.  We grew up with Chancellor, and even though it’s not my favorite, the nostalgia of Acid Rap will always bring back memories of simpler times when life was all about getting by in class and talking to the pretty girls at parties. It’s a beautiful nostalgia, and there isn’t an artist on the planet that does nostalgia better than Chance.  But Coloring Book was a triumphant transition into the inevitability of adulthood. More inspiring than its predecessor, the gospel fusion comes off as something even an agnostic can get lifted to.  Similar to ‘Acid Rap’, ‘Coloring Book’ is a concise and cohesive 57 minutes of music. The so-called mixtape went onto become the first streaming only project to debut on the Billboard 200.  More impressively, it became the first self-released hip-hop mixtape to win a Grammy.  Chance can call them mixtapes all he wants, but his natural gift for capturing his entire sonic expression so completely in his individual projects shows how meticulous of a curator he really is. 

This type of knack doesn’t come by often which is why the excitement for his first album was something I couldn’t contain.  His diligence displayed in his mixtapes had me expecting a lot from his first self-proclaimed album.  Rumors were spurred about him working on a joint album with Kanye titled ‘Good Ass Job’ somewhere in the middle of the records recording process and a single  titled Groceries were the only previews we got. One of the many perks of not having a label, leaks are far easier to prevent.  Kanye may have been invited to his actual wedding, but he doesn’t get the invite to this party. 

What would have to be referred to as wedding rap, The Big Day uses it’s extraordinary 77-minute run time to share the elation he and his wife experienced on their wedding day with everyone.  With God.  Several unexpected guests stop by to celebrate including a totally game Nick Minaj and the perfect amount of Gucci Mane over a great beat by Timbaland.  Shawn Mendes gets invited to party on the bounce cut ‘Ballin Flossin.’ Although the 22 tracks don’t feel as indulgent as they do convivial, the runtime does work against the album formula he so wholeheartedly nailed on his mixtapes.  It’s ironic that his first album is more carefree in its structure than its mixtape predecessors.

Chance offers a little bit of everything on an album that features him simultaneously at his best and most disposable.  The first 2 tracks, both featuring surprising guest vocals, Ben Gibbard being by far the most surprising, are incredible.  The first song doubled down on the Coloring Book opener by doing something even more grandiose.  It doesn’t feel forced at all, and neither does its transition into obvious highlight ‘Do You Remember’.  The Ben Gibbard assisted track nails the Chance brand nostalgia as well as ever. “Do you remember how when you were younger the summers that lasted forever? Hold That Feeling Forever” sings the Death Cab front man.  Chance throws it back to real time youth with lines like “trust in my dogs like Balto” and “My daughter on the swing like the 2017 Cubs/ My daughter mother double-ringed up.”  It’s a beautiful hip-hop indie collaboration that for once doesn’t feel the least bit insincere.

The rest of the marathon often features a few highlights and more than a few let downs.  Most of which are linked directly to the performance of its curator.  It features music all over the spectrum, by far his most diverse release thus far. Maybe there’s a disconnect here because it’s the first Chance project that hasn’t mirrored the events of my personal journey at the time.  I myself have not experienced the joy of walking down the aisle marrying the women you love in the presence of your daughter.  With Acid Rap we were both learning the ways of the world, experimenting with different perspectives. Coloring Book was when we didn’t do the “same drugs” and comfortably moved into the role of adulthood with our hearts on our sleeve.  Chance is celebrating his Big Day while I am single spending time in New York City still working on that adulthood thing.  The debut album here feels less like an album than anything he’s done before.  It sounds like a good mixtape from an up and coming talent trying to find a singular sound to hone in on.  Chance has already accomplished this, which makes the albums lack of cohesion problematic.  He found that vision in his mixtapes which come off as great albums.  Regardless of the duplicity, it’s all good.  The album exudes bliss at the seams.  When you piece together the message of The Big Day, through all it’s flaws it’s tough to be a cynic (even if you are currently at this very moment trolling him for loving his Wife so much.)

All Day Long

Do You Remember

Zanies and Fools

Big Fish

[grandemasterpyrokitsune]

Happy 10th!

The time has finally come to talk about why PaF is so important. Really, anyone could do this anytime, but this date alone has a significance to it. To any of my followers who don’t know(and will sit through this brick wall of text to find out), today is the 10th anniversary of the sneak peek premiere of Phineas and Ferb; technically, February 2008 is when it officially premiered around the world, but I’m sure that everyone else in the fandom is eager to kick off the celebration today. I’m sure this will turn out to be a multi paged thesis, so I’ll try to split this up into parts.

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

PART 1: Best Day Ever

Anyway, ten years ago today marks the 10th anniversary of Phineas and Ferb. This show is considered an old soul of sorts, enjoying a long lifespan of 8 years, tons of merchandising and entertainment opportunities, the admiration and respect of many celebrities, and a very long summer. As formulaic as it appears, this show has more history to it than it appears to have.

PART 2:Busted

(This part details history of Disney’s TV animation ventures and basically life before PaF. Feel free to skip if you’re clued in to its history.)

The 2000s were considered a lousy time for TV animation . While many say it's the "worst" decade for it(whether worldwide or just in North America), I'd call it a transitional period. The 90s was an exciting a refreshing time for TV animation where the stories were driven by the creators, not toy designers. I would generally consider it more of the same from the Golden Age of Animation but more modern. The 2000s had newer technologies to work with and perfect while the ‘90s mainly just worked w/ cel animation and did it so well. Flash and CG were in their infancy, so I assume the software got a bit more attention than the stories. Primarily, companies were just looking to work with more cost effective options to make their shows with. It was a rough period,but far from the worst. Anyway, this kind of TV animation is still a relatively new type of animation. Disney were the first ones to spearhead this movement and they made three or four blocks of new cartoon for different generations of kids. 

The first block(formally known as Disney Afternoon)was ushered in with three pilots; Fluppy Dogs, Wuzzles and Ducktales. While the former two merely tested the waters and the latter was the only one successful, all three were made with stellar animation and complex storytelling for what everyone knew as entertainment for kids. After the success of Ducktales, Disney was brimming with pride and made seven years worth of cartoons for this block. Even if some cartoons didn't strike people the right way, they were still wildly memorable. While their D.C. original programming generally doesn't get more than short compilation discs, the DA 'toons get full series releases digitally and through DVD. This prompted to launch One Saturday Morning on ABC. 

With the acquisition of Nicktoon Doug, Disney paired it up with Recess and Pepper Ann, chasing after the success they had a few years before. The aforementioned series were the highest rated on the block while other series are more obscure and buried by Disney. They are acknowledged as good but were overshadowed by 24/7 network like Nick and Cartoon Network bringing a lot more cartoons to a lot more times of the day. 

Disney started to notice how much of an animated surplus they had and that they air their cartoons for weeks on end. Thus, Toon Disney was founded,which became a more visible hub for the cartoon blocks of the 90s and all other ages of Disney. At one point,they started airing Sonic the Hedgehog and making their own co-productions under their most popular TV cartoon brand, Jetix. As extensive as these programs got, they were being seen by fewer and fewer people. 

To overlap slightly with the end of OSM, Disney started making more cartoons for the Channel’s demographic. Shows like Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch, and American Dragon:Jake Long began airing and netting extraordinary ratings. In fact, Disney Channel was probably most successful in the early 2000s. It found its new groove if you will with its signature style of tween/teen sitcom and animated series. The former seem to have more clout on the network after the premiere of Lizzie McGuire,solidifying the formula. Similar to OSM, many cartoons were more or less not acknowledged the way they were 10 years before. Since sitcoms dominated because they were faster and cheaper to make, it seemed that the outcome was better. Over the course of the period (c. 2002-2008) they released the smallest selection of DC cartoons ever while the sitcoms got more and more press. It’s unclear what Disney was going to do next, but soon summer of 2007 came along...

PART 3: Gotta Make Summer Last

Disney Channel aired the premiere of High School Musical 2 and decided to air the first episode of PaF afterwards. As a result HSM 2 netted 17.6 million views and PaF 10.8 million views. We could easily deduce that eager HSM fans made up the clout of viewers, but that’s not to say the show couldn’t prove interesting to viewers anyway. In fact, Disney delayed its original 2007 release in the US to release it in February in multiple countries. Places such as Latin America, Brazil, Japan, France and Portugal got to experience the show right along with us. International promotion was rolled out which only netted PaF even more press. It became one of Japan’s most popular Western cartoons, it got wild promotion in Latin America and most of Europe(all around) made excellent dubs and gave it the lion’s share of time slots. This was a pretty good outcome all things considered.

Thus the cycle began. First came DVDs and games, then came interviews and guest spots, than movies, Disney park attractions, live events and then omnipresence.... scratch that last one, but you get the idea. The TV Movie itself was more or less the peak of the show. It remains the 10th most watched DCOM premiere of all time and the show remains one of the longest running animated series of the main Disney networks(DC, XD, and Junior). I think the last time Disney mass merchandised a TV cartoon this much was Lilo and Stitch(last one not already a franchise was Doug or Recess). The show is even part of the Marvel and Star Wars universes(non canonically of course)Even then, Disney elevated the show to new heights. It had everything Disney wanted; likeable protagonists, innocent motifs, enough songs to last for days, episodic adventures, and tons of mass marketing appeal. This simple show connected people across the world(if the Tumblr/DA fandoms for PaF were any indicator)through its mult-faceted music and rudimentary themes. While this show raised the bar, it also left the bar to be raised another notch by...

PART 4: Meet the Man of Mystery

In 2012, Gravity Falls premiered as a sneak peek behind DCOM Let it Shine. While not an instant ratings hit, it quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed Disney TV cartoons of all time. The spotlight quickly began to fade on the smartest stepbrothers around as new episodes were coming infrequently. While the numbers were still big enough to make Teen Titans Go mutter in awed jealousy, it still was becoming less of a force on the main network. However on Disney XD, it was still Adored by the Network. I remember how I felt watching day long marathons several times a month, sometimes without reason. Despite its mass appeal, Phineas and Ferb could be classified easily as a boy targeted program due to the protagonists and the subject matter. Until XD found its groove, they would continue to spam PaF for what felt like eons. To this day, they still occasionally air it in primetime slots.

The way I wrote this last part may sound cynical,jaded, and/or pessimistic. However, it’s written that way to emphasize another point. After the success of this series, Disney went from relying on a few filler shows to releasing a new show basically every year and truly giving them all the promotion they could. While not all series got the treatment we all wanted them to have, a lot more of them have come and gone to try to re-innovate and reinvigorate the brand. Phineas and Ferb (more or less) singlehandedly convinced Disney TV to put more stock in their animation division. Don’t know how many Fallers know this but Disney actually asked Alex Hirsch to make his pilot for them after seeing his work. They were actively seeking out new talent and new stories. Honestly, while Kick Buttowski and Pickle and Peanut got a lot of flac in the day, they were(to an extent) a sign that the House of mouse was trying to experiment and make something they liked to see. The latter especially seemed like a personal pet project of XD’s off sense of humor. 

I’m sure the networks would have reinvented their cartoons eventually, but PAF brought it out in the best way.  In a way the boys were kind of dc celebrities in their heyday. When you can summon a bunch of popular characters from the live action sitcoms to dance for possibly hours for a two minute music video in the name of a teal platypus made out of digital ink and pixels, that’s pretty special indeed.

CONCLUSION

Phineas and Ferb is my favorite animated series,explaining why I can info dump mostly from memory as I have in this post. While many have told me that it’s nothing special, to me it stands out as the brightest diamond in the rough and a shining testament to the duality of animation in general. Ten years from now, I hope that I can write better when I must wax sentimentality about my favorite cartoon show. Thanks to the cast, crew, creators, and fans for making summer last. See you at the 20th!