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rosesvioletshardy · 5 years ago

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life as we know it - b.h. prologue

okay this is my first ben fic and i’m sorry if it’s not as good as others so yeah

also this is sort of based off of the movie with the same title but it’s a lot different when it comes to some of the chapters.

this is also going to start off in 2016 and i haven’t decided if it’s also going to take place in present time but it’s going to be built up over the years

*note: i am american and i don’t know that much about england or the uk in general so i will try my best and research and make sure things are accurate. i also imagined lennon as hayley williams and christian as robert pattinson

also another note i’m really sorry if it’s terrible i haven’t really written a fanfic in a long time and i’m trying to get back into it rather than just reading it

masterlist

summary: when their two best friends die, it’s up to ben and y/n to take care of their goddaughter and face the challenges that come with it

# of words: 2029

warnings: none really

(not proofread)

February 2016

there were better things y/n could be doing on a saturday night which included watching netflix, drinking wine, and cleaning. this saturday night wasn't going to be that way for her. Now she was getting ready for a date her best friend lennon set her up on. lennon and y/n have been best friends since they can remember and they've had their ups and downs but now since they're adults they deal with it like adults should.

lennon worked as an elementary teacher and her boyfriend christian worked as a lawyer and a successful one too, at least he wasn't one of the stuck up ones and was just one just trying to help people out. when lennon found out y/n had broken up with her boyfriend of 2 years and spent months not going out and trying to find someone new or getting laid, she told christian because she thought christian's best friend ben, would be a great guy for her.

now here she was, in her bedroom of her tiny apartment getting ready for a blind date she wasn't entirely too excited for, but she knew she had to go out someday for the sake of lennon

"when i said that i owe you one, this isn't exactly what i meant you know" y/n said to lennon as she strapped on her heels before picking her phone back up and taking it off speaker

"yes, but when was the last time you went on a date, and i'm talking like a real date and one that didn't involve staying indoors and not getting laid?" lennon told y/n knowing that she was right since the last time she went on a date was the night she found out her ex cheated on her while she waited at a restaurant alone.

it's not like her ex was that bad, it's just he didn't put enough into their relationship in order to make any of them that happy. y/n knew her best friend was right and she didn't want to disappoint her since it was christian's friend lennon was setting her up with. ben wasn't a bad guy from what lennon gathered off of christian and y/n wasn't a bad girl. they both had great paying jobs, they're both good looking and they both love their best friends and their own families.

from what y/n gathered, ben was an actor and was soon to star in more things since leaving EastEnders. she never really watched the show because she didn’t understand the hype about the soap opera even though she had been living in the uk since she was 20. her grandparents on the other hand did enjoy it so she would see it every now and then before she moved out from their house.

"you know i hate it when you're right, right?'' y/n told her as she took another look in the mirror and checking her makeup making sure nothing is messed up too badly

"and also he's 45 minutes late. i thought you said he was punctual." she added as she looked at the clock in her living room

"okay those were christian's words not mine, and don't worry maybe he had something quick to do before coming over?" lennon said hoping that she was right

"Yeah, maybe. I don't know maybe it's just the nerves talking. I mean, I don't really know him as a person but I have seen a few of his stuff so hopefully he's like what people have described him as." y/n said taking one last look in the mirror before hearing her doorbell ring

"okay i think he's here. got to go, and i'll talk you later about how it goes" she said

"tell me everything and don't leave out a single thing. i mean it. love you!" lennon told her

"love you too."

as soon as y/n hung up, she took a deep breath and walked over to her door to see ben

"he's not bad looking in real life" she thought

but the only thing that was throwing her off was for the fact that he was an hour late and wearing jeans and a t-shirt. completely opposite of what she had on, which was a little fancier

"are you y/n? lennon's best friend and the one her and christian set up on a date with me?" ben asked as the two awkwardly stood there

"yeah i am. you must be ben then. it's nice to finally meet you." y/n asked trying hard not to blush

"am i late?" he then asked.

he really needed to ask you that wow

"only by an hour, but who's keeping time, i was just finishing up." she said

"oh okay."

the two stood there for a few more minutes before finally deciding to leave. y/n locked up her apartment before turning back to him and leaving. as the two walked through the complex to the parking lot, y/n decided to spark up a conversation

"so, how long have you known christian?" she curiously asked

"um, we've been friends since we were kids, 10, i think, after we got into a fight over the stupidest thing" ben laugh at the memory

"really? what was it? if you don't mind me asking."

"it was over the last copy of a cd at a record store. they almost ended up kicking us out until the stock guy brought out more copies." ben said smiling before reaching for the gate and opening it for y/n

"i've known lennon since we were 8 and we've been irreplaceable ever since. where's your car?" y/n asked looking around and not seeing one

"right here" ben told her pointing to the motorcycle

"oh" she said with a shock on her face

"here you go." ben said while handing her a helmet into her hands

"c'mon, it doesn't bite." he continued when he saw her still standing there

"i'm just not really dressed for 40 mile an hour-" y/n started as she tried to talk over the engine of the bike in front of her

"what" ben asked then cutting the engine off

"i'm not dressed for 40 mile an hour winds. i'm sorry" she said before continuing

"i don't think i could get my leg up over it in this dress. but my car is right there and it's new and i do love driving it." she finished pointing to the small red car "wow, um. okay." ben said completely shocked at the tiny car hoping it'll be able to fit the two adults

y/n unlocked her car and got right into the driver's seat, whilst ben opened the passengers door and got in, looking around and hoping that no one would see them. as he got in he immediately regretted not taking his car and taking his bike instead and now he was cramped into a tiny car he wasn't even sure was meant for more than one person

"okay. um, where are we going?" ben asked her

"i thought you said you were going to make reservations?" y/n asked as she looked into his green eyes

"oh" ben said as the color drained from face forgetting to do the one thing he said he was going to

"you didn't make them?" she questioned him confused

"i said that?" ben answered her knowing damn well he was supposed to do that

"it's fine. it's fine really. whatever" y/n said sitting there not knowing what to do now

"well we can go somewhere else. you can pick wherever you want." ben asked her thinking that it'll solve everything

"um, we can go to cafe five? my friend from culinary school actually the-" y/n began to talk before she got interrupted from ben's phone ringing

"i'm really sorry"

"no it's okay, go ahead. you can answer it if you-" she said before ben talked again

"no, no, it's fine. i'll let it go to voicemail." ben told her all attention going back to her

"like i was saying. my friend from culinary school is actually the-" y/n tried to say but ben's phone just kept ringing

"you know, just answer it. i can wait" she told him already getting annoyed but not showing it

ben whispers a slight "sorry" and pulled his phone out from his back pocket

"hey. well you know me. i'm always in the middle of something, always busy. 11? yeah, okay. i'll be there. wait actually, let's make it 10:30." ben said whispering the last part thinking that she wouldn't hear him

"okay. seen you later then. bye" ben finished and he hung up and put his phone back into his pocket. he turns to her and begins to talk again

"i'm really sorry about that. it's um, it's a sick friend. sorry." ben told her, completely lying his ass off

"you know, we...we don't have to do this"

"really?" ben questioned as she gave a slight chuckle

"okay." he continued as he started to unbuckle his seat belt and get ready to leave the car

"oh my god. are you serious?" y/n asked not believing what was happening

"let's be honest adults here. you knew the moment you saw me, you didn't like me."

"no, but our mutual friends set this up, so i think that we owe it to them to-" y/n said before ben interrupted her

"to what?" he asked

"spend a few hours faking small talk? look, the best case for us is that we get drunk and possibly hook up." he finished

"what kind of an asshole are you? whenever lennon and christian talked about you, they always made it seem like you were this super nice and sweet guy. but i guess i thought wrong." she said not believing him over what he's doing at the moment

"look it's a saturday night. i just want to have some fun before i end up going back to film something. i can go see my sick friend and you can go do whatever it is you like to do on a saturday night." ben told her hesitating on that last sentence about his "sick" friend

"you can go read a book? you look like you read books" ben continued

y/n looked at him and was shocked, mad that he would say something like that. "maybe all men are pieces of shit" she thought, except for christian because she saw the way he looked and loved lennon like she was the only person in the world

"okay. if you wanted to ensure that this wasn't gonna be a lousy night, here's a tip- don't show up an hour late, and don't take a booty call in front of me." she basically yelled at him

"she's sick" ben argued back

"oh, yes. were you going to heal her with your magic penis?" y/n asked tired of his shit already

"okay. fine. if you want to go out and have some dinner-"

"oh my god, i can't believe what i'm hearing right now. i'm not going to go out with you now! are you crazy?!" she said as she took the key out of the ignition and getting out of her car

"and get out of my car." she finished

"i have no idea what lennon and christian were thinking. i don't know what i was thinking."

"yeah me neither" ben agreed

as y/n was walking back to her apartment, and ben starting up his bike again, she called lennon

"y/n! that was quick, did everything go alright? are you going to get some?" lennon asked praying everything worked out alright

"no. he got a booty call right in front of me and was acting like a dick. the only way you are going to make this up for me is if you promise that i never have to see him again.

"you know that won't be possible. how about i come over to yours and we'll spend it together?"

"fine" she said

for ben on the other hand, he called christian and told him the exact same thing y//n told lennon, but little did they know it was never going to happen.

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visionfox102 · 4 years ago

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Mac Disk Maker

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Since 1998, DiskWarrior has won more awards than any other Mac disk utility. A Macworld Eddy, an Apple Design Award, a PC Mag Editors' Choice Award, a MacUser Magazine Editors' Choice Award and many more from around the world. Check out our Awards and Reviews. Developed just for Mac. Design and print custom CD, DVD or Blu Ray labels and covers with Disketch disc label software. Free to download. Quick to install, easy to use CD label maker software for PC or Mac.

Summary :

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? Do you know how to do this work easily? This MiniTool article will show you specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, which are easy and safe to complete.

Quick Navigation :

As we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is. Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly.

Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between Mac and PC, you need to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Currently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.

But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.

Further Reading

Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.

FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.

However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended.

In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.

exFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT.

Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.

Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac

Paid Third-Party Drivers

Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.

Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative.

Free Third-Party Drivers

FUSE for macOS is a free and open-source NTFS driver that can enable write support. But, this solution is slower relatively. And the automatically mounting NTFS partitions in read-write mode can be a security risk for your Mac computer.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Write Support

The Mac OS has an experimental support for writing to NTFS drives. Usually, it is disabled by default and needs some messing around in the Mac terminal to enable it.

It doesn’t work properly all the time and could lead to potential issues with your NTFS file system. For example, it had corrupted data before. Thus, we don’t suggest using this tool and we believe it is disabled by this reason.

Here, we recommend using the paid third-party tools since they are easy-to-use and can do good work for you.

Then, we will introduce these three options for you in the following content.

The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac

Paragon NTFS for Mac can write, edit, delete, copy, or move files on NTFS volumes from your Mac computer. It offers a 10-day free trial. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.

With it, you don’t have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. More importantly, it can code with the potential corruption. If you purchase a Seagate drive, you can even get a free download of Paragon NTFS for Mac.

All in all, it does its works well and gives you good user’s experience.

The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS

FUSE for macOS is a free solution to access NTFS on Mac. But it is less secure.

If you want to make automatically mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode on Mac, you need to temporarily disable the System Integrity Protection and replace one of Apple’s built-in tools with a binary that is more vulnerable to attack. Thus, your Mac is in danger when using this driver.

However, you can use it to manually mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode if you never mind using the Terminal. This will be safer, but you need to do more work. You can go to google the steps and see how complex they are.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, Seriously

Although we mentioned this method in our article, we still don’t recommend it because it is the least tested. It is just for educational purposes, and it is available on Mac OS 10.12 Sierra. Perhaps, it will be unstable forever.

How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing Data

Another way to access NTFS drive on Mac is to convert the NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT. Then, the drive can be used on both Mac and PC.

There should be some important data on the drive. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard.

How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data Loss

To format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its 'Convert NTFS to FATS32' function. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard

Download this software to your computer. Then, you can open the software and input the license key to the pop-out window to get its Professional Edition.

Step 2: Convert NTFS to FAT32 with This Software

After running the program successfully, we can see its main interface as follows:

Here, please select the NTFS partition of external hard drive and choose 'Convert NTFS to FAT' feature from the left action pane. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make the change executed.

When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.

By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PC

You Can Convert NTFS to exFAT in 3 Steps

However, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.

Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard Drive

You can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. Instead, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to create a copy for your external drive, which is faster.

If there is only one NTFS partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial Copy Partition to get instructions. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.

Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard

The Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.

Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Just open the software to enter its main interface. Then, choose the target partition and click 'Delete Partition' from the left action pane. After that, you should click 'Apply' to keep this change.

Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Here, you need to choose that partition and click on 'Create Partition' from the left action pane.

Thirdly, you will see a pop-out window. Here, you can choose 'exFAT' from the 'File System' setting option. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including 'Partition Label', 'Drive Letter', 'Size And Location'. After that, please click on 'OK'.

Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. Then, please click on 'Apply' to save these changes.

Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PC

Step 3: Transfer Data back to External Drive

If you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive.

How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing Data

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac

Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.

Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PC

Some people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.

Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition.

How to Make an Empty External Drive Compatible with Mac and PC

If there is no file saved on your external hard drive, how to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

It's very easy to share it between Mac and PC and you also need a Windows computer, a Mac machine, and the free partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

There are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7 to FAT32

Since users are unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB in Windows Disk Management, they need to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

Note: when you connect an external hard drive which is formatted with HFS+ with computer, Windows may ask you to format the drive. Please choose Cancel.

Please download and install this program on your Windows computer to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Firstly, open the software to enter its main interface as follows. Here, please select the NTFS partition or HFS+ partition of external hard drive, and click 'Delete Partition' feature from the left action pane. If there are multiple partitions on the external disk, please select the disk and click 'Delete All Partitions' feature instead. After that, an unallocated space will be released.

Secondly, you can create one or more FAT32 partitions in unallocated space. Select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left side.

Then, you should choose 'FAT32' from the 'File System' option in the pop-out window. Meanwhile, you can set properties for this new partition and click 'OK' to go back to the main window of Partition Wizard.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Solution 2: Format External Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10 to exFAT

Firstly, please delete the NTFS or HFS+ partition in either MiniTool Partition Wizard or Windows Disk Management to release unallocated space. Then, you can create an exFAT partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by following steps introduced in the section Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Once a FAT32 or exFAT partition is created on your external hard drive, you can share it on both Mac and Windows PC.

Solution 3: Create One HFS+ Partition for Mac and One NTFS Partition for Windows

Alternatively, you can create 2 partitions on the external hard drive: one is for Mac, and the other is for Windows. As to size for each partition, it depends on your own demands. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows.

Step 1: Create a NTFS Partition and a FAT32 Partition

Please run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, then delete all the original NTFS or HFS+ partition(s), and create a new NTFS partition as well as a FAT32 partition, and the latter will be formatted to HFS+ in Mac machine.

Then, select the external hard drive and choose 'Delete All Partitions' to create an unallocated space.

Here, select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left action pane.

Now, please specify partition label (Windows is recommended), partition type (primary or logical), drive letter, file system (NTFS), cluster size, and partition size (you can change the length of the handle to adjust partition size). Then, click 'OK' to continue.

Now, you can see a NTFS partition is created. Please use the same way to create a FAT32 partition labeled with Mac. At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Step 2: Format the FAT32 Partition to HFS+ Partition on Mac

Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility.

Then, select the external hard drive and click 'Partition' tab on the top.

Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Tip: You may receive the prompt 'The volume 'MAC' is not journaled. As a result it can not be resized'. Just ignore the message and click 'OK' button to continue.

After NTFS partition and HFS+ partition are created on your external hard drive, it can be shared between Mac and Windows PC.

Note: You might be unable to share all files saved on external drive since Windows doesn't support HFS+ partition while Mac doesn't support NTFS partition completely.

Bottom Line

Are you planning to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC? If yes, now try one of our methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

Should you have any problem, just feel free to leave us a message in comment part below or send an email to (email protected).

Format Hard Drive for Mac and PC FAQ

How do I make my hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

Disk Maker For Mac

If you want your hard drive to be compatible with both Mac and PC, you should format the hard drive to the file system that is supported by both of these two operating systems. FAT32 and exFAT can meet your requirements.

What is the best hard drive format for Mac and PC?

Although both FAT32 and exFAT are compatible with Mac and PC, exFAT is a much better choice because it has fewer limitations. For example, it has a larger file size and partition size limits.

Mac Install Disk Maker

If you formatted your hard drive to exFAT with Apple's HFS Plus, Windows will not recognize the exFAT drive. You can consider using a third-party partition tool to format your hard drive to exFAT.

Mac Os Boot Disk Maker

Windows can only read a Mac hard drive that is formatted to FAT32 or exFAT using third-party software. If the file system of the Mac hard drive is HFS+ or APFS, the drive will become unreadable in Windows.

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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 5 years ago

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Japan Girl’s Fest 3 - Hakuoki Drama “Screen Door Encounter” Translation

First post of the month, so I’ll start by asking you to please support me if you can either on ko-fi, through paypal or through patreon which gives early access to my stuff and blog translations…. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that i can share...

Also, Happy Canada Day~!

Anyway, when I decided I’d try my hand at translating Hakuoki content, this was one of the very first live dramas that I really wanted to have translated (for the record the 2011 otomate party reimeiroku drama was 2nd tho i only found tl for that recently)... and while I did have translations for the drama itself, I am missing CH TL for some of the introductory dialogue that occurs before it... and the JP>ENG translations (not done by me) that I’ve included on this are from people who don’t really really Japanese (they both weren’t certain), which are for the two sets of words on pink backgrounds (first 2 images attached under the cut). If anyone can translate that text better, please send me a message since i’ll be cutting the intro off what i post to youtube otherwise [will include credit and can provide clean video +srt file if helping].

On top of that, I also didn’t have the drama’s name for the longest time (hence why i referred to this as ‘Unknown Drama’). Thankfully, the TL help I received from my friends was enough for that tho...

The format for this post has been done a bit oddly due to how i had to copy the subtitles for this line by line (it was off a video), and I never bothered to properly put the text into paragraphs and sentences due to how this was done off of community created subtitles (basically viewers contributed to the translation via the text barrage) on bilibi that showed up on the video at odd and not exactly precise timings....

As always, final edits will be done on the video... will have it done for this month.

link of the video i used for CH TL at the very bottom if interested in watching.

Enjoy~ this month is all non-game translations!

Japan Girl’s Fest 3 - Hakuoki Drama “Screen Door Encounter”

Translation by KumoriYami

^???? one of my friends says this should be something like: “The dark battle of the Shinsengumi begins quietly in the shadows of the Shogunate's conflict" while other says “The dark Battle of the Shinsengumi opens quietly in the shadow of the Battle of the shogunate.”

Narrator: [is this a time of] A time of repelling foreigners or the opening of a country?

All kinds of sweeping change occur [during the] country's age of unrest.

Bakumatsu.

In order to look for your father who is a Western doctor,

you've left home to live with the Shinsengumi,

Experience these turbulent times with the members of the Shinsengumi

^ also have no tl for this or what is narrated here, though google mtl says the text’s pronunciation kinda matches the audio here

TL is something among the lines of: “what begins here is the determined story of men thrown around by the voices of deception.” (TLN: I don't really know how to accurately translate 閉ざされた先, but it essentially means a predetermined destination) or “It starts with the story of a man who is at the mercy of a closed-off, untruthful voice.” so I’d guess something is among the lines of “What begins here is the fateful story that begins with being at the mercy of a man with a cold and uncaring voice.” or something or other?

Hakuoki

“Sliding Door (Fusuma) Encounter” [well should be anyway. i don’t have formal CH tl for this tho... also Fusumu can mean room dividers but i don’t think that sounds or looks as good.]

(Kazama enters)

Kazama: My wife, I have kept you waiting!

(crowd screams)

Kazama: My wife, I have kept you waiting!

(crowd screams again)

Kazama You must be filled with a deep sense of loneliness during the time we were separated by the hateful Shogunate's dogs [either that or hateful dogs].

but since I have arrived, you don't need to worry about anything. Just close your eyes, listen to my words and entrust yourself to me. That's it.

Today, you'll become mine.

Kazama: hahahahaha!! The love letter I wrote is truly wonderful. [this laugh count may or may not be accurate lol]

My wife will surely become infatuated with me once she reads it

But I am rarely able to avoid the eyes of the Shogunate's hunting dogs.

I went straight to her room but she's not here right now.

Really, to make her husband wait.

I can't just leave my love letter here then head back.

(footsteps)

ah, footsteps! I've been waiting for you, my wi—

Saito: Yukimura? It's me. Saito.

Kazama: Ugh....

Saito: it looks like you're in your room. I have something to say [tell you], can i come in?

Kazama: Don't come in!

Saito: Uoh? What’s wrong, Yukimura? Did something happen?

your voice sounds so low which is very strange

ah! is it....

Kazama: che! found out already/discovered already—

Saito: Are you sick?

Kazama: Mmhm......

Saito: Mm. that being the case, I will not come in.

Souji: Areh? Hajime-kun? What are you doing here?

Saito: ah, souji.

Souji: Sorry, but can you move aside? I have something to tell that child.

Hey, is that alright? i'm coming in.

Kazama: I said that you can't come in [I didn't say that you could come in]!

Souji: Hey, Hajime-kun, that voice just now came from behind this door.

Saito: Ah, it seems that Yukimura is sick.

Souji: Sick?

Saito: yes. I wasn't allowed in.

She's probably worried about passing it to us.

Souji: Hm...? (begins trying to open the door)

......Wah! It won't open. Is it blocked from the inside?

Saito: Souji, stop it. Don't forcefully enter a girl's room.

If something happens, how will you respond/react/take responsibility?

Souji: What happened [What do you mean]? What do you need to say [What are you trying to say]?

Saito: Ah... That's.... for example, if you went in and she was wiping her body down...

Souji: You're so embarrassed while talking that I'm feeling embarrassed.

Saito: This isn't something that can bee spoken aloud!

souji: Well, if she's not coming out of her room, that's easier for me.

Saito: What's going on [What do you mean by that]?

Souji: Just stay on the other side of the door and listen to what I have to say.

Just now one of the soldiers reported seeing Kazama near headquarters.

Saito: Kazama Chikage? In other words, his goal/target is to obviously...

Souji: That's right. That's why I came over to tell you [her] to stay inside your [her] room and not come outside.

Saito: So it's like that. I understand.

However it's Kazama again.

Souji: Indeed.

He really must be bored to be coming over here so many times.

Kazama:...mrgh....

Saito: The person herself has clearly said several times that she didn't want to go with him.

Kazama: Rgh...

Souji: How about saying "I hate you the most" to Kazama next time?

Kazama: How could that possibly be!

(silence)

Souji: Hey, Hajime-kun, where did that voice/sound come from just now?

Saito: The sound echoed everywhere, so I'm not entirely sure.

It might have come from inside headquarters

Souji: I think it sounded like it came from inside here.

(souji struggles with the door again while Saito tries stopping him and Kazama works to keep the door closed)

Souji: Sure enough, it's not opening.

Saito: What are you doing Souji. Kazama might already be inside headquarters.

We can't delay and must go and increase the watch/strengthen the guard.

Souji: mah, fortunately the First and Third Division are all here today.

They have plenty of combat power.

Saito: Then I’ll go tell the members of Third Division— (VA fumbles)

Saito: Then I'll go and tell the members of the Third Division to be on high alert [reword later. more literally it says raise vigilance].

Souji, what will you be doing?

Souji: I'll stay here.

The other person's target is on the other side of this door, it can't be left unguarded.

Saito: understood.

I'll leave protecting Yukimura to you then.

(Saito exits)

Souji: Well then, Hajime-kun's gone now.

hey, are you listening? I heard you were sick, [so] it's probably because of that.

That time when you and I went out alone together that night.

Kazama: Two people together?

Souji: Do you remember/You remember, right?

Although the wind was cold, the starts were quite beautiful that night.

You hands turned red from the cold, so I held them in mine.

"How is it, is this warm?"

I didn't hold your hand like that since it was cold, [rather] it was because your cheeks became very red.

Really, although I only did that as a prank,

seeing such a cute expression, it makes me wonder what will happen if I get serious

Or is it, that you want me to be serious?

I'm just making fun of you right now. You don't need to answer now.

So next time there's an opportunity, let's go on a walk together with just the two of us at night.

Kazama: You bastard! What did you do to my wife!

Souji: Ah? Sure enough it is Kazama. such a savage voice, [might have] deceived Hajime-kun, but not me

Kazama: Heh. I didn't intend to lie, it was you guys who misunderstood.

(sword gets drawn) Anyway, you bastard, is what you said true?

If even a fraction of what you said happened...!

Saito: Wait Kazama Chikage, stop this at once!

Souji: Hajime-kun? Could it be that you simply pretended to get tricked, and you were in fact already aware of Kazama?

Saito: Hm? hm.....of course!

Souji: Really?

Saito: Mm.....

Souji: Re~(poke)~al~(poke)~ly (poke)?

Saito: To tell you the truth, I bumped into Yukimura herself while looking for the other members. After thinking about which locations were suspicious, I came back here.

Anyway/Putting that aside [?]. Kazama! Prepare yourself!

Kazama: Che, Shut up, I'll cut you down later.

I must first cut down the man who put/laid his hand on my wife!

Saito: Put his hand—? Souji, what did you do to Yukimura?

Souji: Then, let's move to somewhere with more space. I'll cut you down today, it'll give me a peace of mind.

Kazama: You talk big! I'm going to/ I'll kill you first!

Saito: Eh? ah, wait, (they exit) Souji! Kazama!

Saito: I'll have to ask Souji what he did later...

end~

------

video will be done later this month.... tho not sure when since juggling a bit too many srt files right now (you’d know if you saw my patreon’s latest post and extrapolated from that lol).

link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1dx41177dj?from=search&seid=13990360835510964870

also i can’t believe that takeda is actually on one of the hakuoki shinkai drama cds. and on the sakamoto/nakoa one at that.... which makes miki the only shinkai char i know of who doesn’t appear on a drama cd.

oh and for the record, i only have translations for 2 of the 3 Japan girl’s fest hakuoki dramas (this being one of the 2).

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki drama translation #hakuoki live drama #saito hajime #Kazama Chikage #Okita Souji

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after-lauhgter · 4 years ago

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Hey dude, I really like your music taste so do all the music questions that you didn't already answer 🌚

OK DUDE HERE THEY COME (except 1,6 & 14) ... ok lets do number 1 again What's a song you've been listening to a lot lately? as the world caves in by Matt Maltese, if I get high by nothing but thieves, and literally anything off waterparks’ new live album, that thing makes me feel so ALIVE bc like LIVE MUSIC Is there an album you recently discovered and are obsessed with it now? well waterparks live in the uk obviously but if the last 6 months count as recently, then the new abnormal by the strokes. its... absolutely breathtaking. I don't have words. 0 words. except these dudes know what the fuck they’re doing. and then I found the devil and god are raging inside me by brand new and jeeesus. literally Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was my most played song in 2020 AS IT SHOULD BE bc its EVERYTHING this album is THE SHIT. every song is just *chef kiss* like there's limousine (omg limousine) and you won't know and not the sun and AHH listen to these albums omg Put your playlist on shuffle and show the first 10 songs. No cheating. i assume “your playlist” means all my saved songs so Topography by Civilian (pls go listen its SO great) Na Na Na by mcr yees issa classic Du schreibst Geschichte by Madsen omg geeerman just saying by EDEN (pretty pretty pretty) Westerland von den Ärzten another classic letdown by nothing,nowhere. sad but the good kind of sad The Man by the killers making fun of toxic masculinity gives me LIFE Graffiti by CHVRCHES YES and death stranding by CHVRCHES too YES SO GOOD simmer by Hayley Williams, a queen How do you tend to discover new music? If you do at all of course I do enjoy what Spotify suggests, like my weekly mix brought a lot of bops in the past, although sometimes it just sucks lets be real. I also like the artist- or album-radio, when I wanna find something similar to an album but not the album. and another thing I lovvve is when artists I like recommend music, for example, have you seen dallon weekes instagram stories? THE TASTE? bc yes, someone who writes music like that MUST have a superior taste in music and he fucking does.

What app do you mostly use to listen to music? Spotify :) Is there an artist that you feel ashamed of listening too? I can't think of anyone so probably not What is your favorite album cover art? omg. I have to go with more than one. so there's where the mind wants to go/where you let it go by I the mighty, one of my favorite albums of all time, and I'm going to say it how it is, I LIKE THE COLORS. the blue-ish imagine with the red omg. look at it pls. Also fandom by waterparks looks SO COOL. again the COLORS and I love the art for Isola by Kent. I recently discovered you wouldn't believe what privilege costs by civilian and I think that cover is pretty cool too. well and then there's petals for armor by Hayley Williams, the cover art is so fucking powerful Jesus I get goosebumps just thinking about it. in case you don't know about it, long story short: there's been a lot of shit going on in Hayleys life in the past. relatable imo. then they made after laughter and its been like u know what fuck it we’ll just laugh and dance through the pain. together. and I LOVED the vibe omg it gave me so much. but for Hayley it kinda postponed REALLY dealing with shit. she came home from touring with AL and she also got divorced during the AL era and everything's shit and out of all that came petals for armor. and in it she reclaims femininity, being alone, being powerful, being a women, everything. and ah yeah we were talking about the cover art, the cover is her, having a line of squares on her face, three of these squares are tattooed on her fingers though bc its where her ex husbands initials used to be that she got covered up. WHAT A MOVE. THE POWER. (if anyone is interested in hearing Hayley talking about/explaining all this, I really recommend watching her interview with zane Lowe. its SO GOOD basically free therapy) How much did your parents influence your music taste? a. lot. my dad listened to a lot of “dad rock” you may call it, I guess a lot of dads listened to stuff similar to this. Deep Purple, the police, simple minds, Green Day, Billy Talent, the scorpions and things like that. what influenced me the most tho was the beatsteaks (german band, very good), die Ärzte (german band, very good) and LAST BUT NOT LEAST the fricking blues brothers. my favorite movie (not the 2000 remake, go watch that in hell where it belongs), a great, charismatic band, unbelievable live performances. very big WOW from me. Do you own any vinyl? don't get me started omg. I DO. I wish I could take a photo but my records are at my parents house so ill just name my favorites. -after laughter and brand new eyes by paramore -violent things by the brobecks and their song boring on 7inch (this is very rare ok) -razzzzmatazzz by idkhow in gold :) -may death never stop you by mcr (my first one, I bought it first and then bought a record player for it, that's how it started lol) -omg the black parade is dead by mcr, this was never available on vinyl until record store day 2019 (?) and I hunted that bitch like idek what it was insane but I found a super cute small record store and the owner didn't have copies of it bc NOBODY DID but he fucking CALLED THE LABEL even though it was way too late and he asked if they'd send him a copy and THEY DID I FUCKING OWE THIS MAN -and omg Isola by Kent (in Swedish tho bc the English version was never pressed on vinyl) this was intense. I searched for like 2 weeks and then, on google results page 8 or something, I found what could've been the only copy on the damn internet and it was very expensive but its MINE NOW -my signed vertigo vinyl by EDEN, its clear and on side D it doesn't have music but a little message engraved it the vinyl IT IS CUTe -Placebos MTV unplugged! I am so I love with this album. SO. in love. and one day, when I was in Berlin to see palaye royale, back when we had concerts, I walked by a random record store and they have like 4 records left bc they were closing or idk and the only one displayed in the window was this one. tell me about FATE Do you own any cds? not many. sometimes when im at the store and I see ones I know or like, I just buy them and put them in me moms car bc I want her to listen to them. or when I find a cd by a smaller artist I enjoy, I buy it just to push the nachfrage. HI i am HERE and I WANT this music Is vinyl really better than listening on a digital device? im not gonna be that middle aged white male audiophile that hates on our generation for using Spotify. bc its great. I think its just different. I mean im sorry I don't carry my record player on the bus with me, pls forgive me for using my phone? having immediate access to most of the music that is out there? wow. what a concept. I love the internet. YES TECHNOLOGY. but. vinyls are... different. I feel likes its a different kind of listening. I feel like youre rly LISTENING. and that way isn't better, or right, and im not saying it works like this for everyone. but when I put a record on, my only activity at that moment is listening to music, I sit down and I listen. to the entire album. so skips and no pauses, bc that's how it works. and I think that sometimes, that can do a lot for you. if you let it. and besides that, physically owning a record makes me happy on a level nothing else really does. fuck I love music so much and when I fall in love with it, I fall hard. and then owning a copy of it, something I can touch, something that is MINE, putting it in my little shelf, looking at it every few days and just being in love? fantastic feeling. What is a genre of music that you tend to go to for comfort? sad shit. I feel like I can get great comfort from the sad shit. or maybe just slow shit. and songs that mean a lot to me and have been around me for some time, they have this other level of comfort. like for Emma, forever ago by bon iver for example. I have a playlist, maybe I'll reblog this again and link it ;) Do you tend to like poppy upbeat songs, or more intricate and interesting songs? both. sometimes I wanna have complicated stuff and analyze the shit out of lyrics and instrumentation, sometimes I just wanna v i b e If you have a favorite band or artist, tell us about how you got into them I liked paramore before but when they posted the video of them performing last hope at reading? it was over. when Hayley sang the bridge it was over. now im a die hard fan and I never looked back Is there a song that came out this year that you like? maybe after reading all this shit you expected a list but somehow I can't. where do u even start. but the answer is definitely yes. THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING I COULD GO ON FOR DAYS

#asks #music #i guess #not me putting I guess after my tags all the time #I like guessing #questioning everything is a lifestyle

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bronzeflower · 5 years ago

Text

Present Mic Merch

Also on ao3

Chapter 1: Five

-----

1: Coffee Mug

Everyone knew that Aizawa had a Present Mic brand coffee mug.

It wasn't all that strange. Most of Class 2-A just assumed that Present Mic himself gave it to Aizawa as a gag gift, but Aizawa chose to use it because it was practical to or because it was the one he kept in the office. There was no reason to keep a coffee cup if you didn't use it.

The strangeness came from when it was dropped and shattered to many pieces on the ground. This in of itself wasn't all that strange, and the shards were soon picked up and thrown away while the leftover coffee was easily wiped up.

What was strange was when Aizawa walked in the next day with a different Present Mic brand coffee cup.

This one was a lot more noticeable. Aizawa's normal mug was white with a simple "Put Your Hands Up!" written on it in black, along with a drawing of a microphone. It was simple, practical, and didn't draw too much attention to itself.

This new mug was bright yellow with a chibi Present Mic on it next to bright and bubbly letters that spelled out "Banana Dreamer."

No one said anything about it. But they noticed. And they also noticed when Aizawa came in two days later with a brand new mug that was identical to his old on.

Nobody said anything. But they talked amongst themselves about it, wondering about it.

Perhaps the mug wasn't a gag gift at all.

2: Sunglasses

Class 2-A was taking a trip to the beach for training. It was supposed to be an event where they practiced using their skills and quirks in difficult terrain, but they also got breaks to just have fun in the sun.

This meant swimsuits and sunglasses and sandcastles and everything else people brought to the beach.

Midoriya was wearing his All Might brand swim trunks and was going over to see if Kouda and Tokoyami wanted any assistance with their sandcastle when he noticed something odd about Aizawa.

Now, Aizawa was basically the same as always, trying to take a nap under an umbrella, even if he was wearing a striped black and gray 1920s swimsuit. But there was something else Aizawa was wearing that caught Midoriya's attention.

Aizawa had Present Mic brand sunglasses. It was one of the subtler designs, but Midoriya was a true hero otaku, and he could recognize them from a mile away.

After Tokoyami confirmed that they would need some seaweed, Midoriya took to the ocean where Uraraka and Todoroki were.

"Guys, Aizawa-sensei is wearing Present Mic sunglasses," Midoriya kept his voice low as he rummaged the sea for broken off bits of seaweed.

"Seriously?" Uraraka gasped in surprise. "I didn't even notice. That's so weird!"

"I know right? It's totally unexpected! I mean, I get the mug and all, but sunglasses?"

"But he did replace the mug," Uraraka pointed out. "It would be hard to believe that Mic-sensei gave the same exact one as a gag gift. What do you think, Todoroki?"

Todoroki thought deeply.

"Maybe...Aizawa-sensei collects Present Mic merchandise."

"Wha? But I can't really imagine it at all," Midoriya said.

The three of them collectively imagined Aizawa having a room filled to the brim with Present Mic merch.

"No way, no way he does that!" Uraraka insisted. "He just seems like too much of a guy whose place is completely empty and devoid of anything except a bed."

Midoriya nodded furiously.

"Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei are good friends though, right?" Todoroki asked. "So Aizawa-sensei might be trying to support Present Mic by purchasing his merchandise."

"That's...actually kind of cute," Uraraka gushed.

"I feel like it's way more possible that that's the case. It's still difficult to think that Aizawa-sensei has a lot of merch, but I suppose it would make sense if the miscellaneous practical items he has are Present Mic brand."

"Do you think he has Present Mic brand pencils?" Todoroki questioned, which made Midoriya and Uraraka burst out laughing before Midoriya suddenly had a very serious face.

"Wait...he might...Present Mic brand pencils look the same as regular pencils except for the label by the No. 2 says Present Mic."

"...Do you think that's why he never lets anyone borrow pencils?"

They laughed at the concept, Midoriya got the seaweed for Kouda and Tokoyami's really awesome sandcastle, and they didn't think more of it.

3: Cats and Clothing

It was always terrible to run into your teacher in the grocery store. Kouda knew this more than most because he didn't particularly care for talking, and it was infinitely more awkward to engage in conversation with a teacher.

It was also terrible when they expected him to actually talk.

So when Kouda saw Aizawa in the grocery store looking at different brands of cat food, he was completely ready to turn the other direction and never come to that store ever again.

Except that Aizawa was looking ever so intensely at the cat food, and Kouda was ever the animal lover, so Kouda nervously tapped Aizawa on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Oh, Kouda," Aizawa greeted. "What do you need?"

"Ah, well," Kouda flustered before signing. 'Are you trying to figure out which cat food to buy?'

Kouda was expecting Aizawa to just kind of stare or inform him that he didn't understand sign language, but to his surprise, Aizawa turned towards him more fully to sign back at Kouda, which also revealed that Aizawa was wearing a "Put Your Hands Up Radio" t-shirt, the one where the words were surrounded by a pair of headphones.

'The brand I usually buy was discontinued,' Aizawa explained. 'And my cats are kind of picky.'

'How many cats do you have?' Kouda asked.

'Three.'

'I'd get one of the higher-end brands like this one,' Kouda stopped signing to point to the brand he often used to feed stray cats he found. 'Mind if I ask what the names of your cats are?'

'Jelly, Sofa, and Present Meow,' Aizawa answered.

'What do they look like,' Kouda said, but internally thought about how he didn't imagine Aizawa picking those kinds of names for his cats. It was just unexpectedly cute.

It was also a little strange that one of them was named after Present Mic, but Kouda wasn't going to point that out.

Aizawa brought out his phone and showed a few photos of the cats to Kouda.

Jelly was a white cat with large black spots who was very fluffy and was apparently very cuddly. Sofa was a light brownish color with a missing ear who was ready to play at all times. And Present Meow was a ginger cat who was missing his tail and was also very loud and whiny when he wasn't getting attention.

'They're very cute. It looks like you take good care of them,' Kouda signed, and Aizawa gave a proud smile.

'Thanks for the help. I'll see you at school.'

With that, Aizawa grabbed the cat food and walked away, which revealed the fact that the jeans he was wearing were also Present Mic brand due to the microphone stitched on the back pocket of the jeans.

Kouda told Tokoyami later, and while Tokoyami was skeptical of the outfit Aizawa was wearing, he understood Kouda wasn't one to lie.

4: Music Album

Jirou was overwhelmed.

Present Mic had recently released a new album, and it seemed that every single Present Mic fan in Japan had come to Beatz and Bopz, the music store Jirou's parents owned and where Jirou worked part-time.

It was probably due to the fact that Beatz and Bopz had received five hundred signed copies of Present Mic's latest album, and that meant they were prime hero memorabilia.

Jirou wouldn't admit it, but she purchased one for herself before she opened the store. Present Mic was her favorite hero. She knew she could have gotten one of the normal ones and then gotten her teacher to sign it, but it was just way too weird to ask.

Jirou expected the onslaught of people who were willing to pay extra for a signed copy. She expected the cosplayers, the rockers, the generally music inclined, and the general hero otakus.

She wasn't even all that surprised when Midoriya showed up, even if she was pretty sure he preferred All Might over Present Mic although she guessed he was a huge fan of all heroes.

What Jirou wasn't expecting was when Aizawa walked in to buy the CD.

Jirou had seen the line out there when she went to open the store. It went past the block. Aizawa absolutely had to have stood in line for several hours to get exclusive rights to one of the five hundred signed copies of the album "Living Louder."

Jirou didn't have time to comment. She was too busy trying to do crowd control, so she rung up Aizawa without complaint, who didn’t buy just one, but two, and he left as soon as he came, seemingly content with not saying anything about the reason he purchased the album, much less two of them.

"Aizawa showed up to Beatz and Bopz to buy the new Present Mic album," Jirou said to the Bakusquad after the fact.

"So?" Bakugou asked in his usual angry tone.

“So,” Jirou countered. “He bought the signed version. Two of them.”

“What!?” Kaminari exclaimed. “He did!? I tried to get one but didn’t get there early enough! He must have been standing out there for hours!”

“Yeah, and why would he buy two?” Kirishima questioned.

“Obviously he got one for someone else!” Ashido theorized. “It’d be weird otherwise, right?”

“Why didn’t he just buy two of the unsigned album and then get it signed by Present Mic?” Bakugou asked. “It’s stupid to pay the extra if you could get it for free.”

“Probably the same reason why I didn’t just ask Present Mic-sensei to sign one. It’s too weird,” Jirou explained. Ashido nodded in agreement.

“It’s weird to ask,” Sero repeated, agreeing.

“It’s only weird if you make it weird, dumbasses!” Bakugou shouted.

Shinsou walked into the room and looked over to the Bakusquad, his gaze fixated on Kaminari, who grinned when he noticed him.

“Hitoshi!” Kaminari hollered, practically yeeting himself off the couch and into Shinsou’s arms. Shinsou, of course, caught him and returned the kiss thrusted upon him by Kaminari.

“Hey,” Shinsou greeted, a little smile on his face.

“Stop being gross!” Bakugou yelled.

“You’re just jealous!” Kaminari teased before turning his attention back to Shinsou. “How’s it going, babe?”

“Well enough,” Shinsou lightly lowered Kaminari back to a standing position. “I got something for you.”

Shinsou’s hand was on the back of his neck, and he had a light flush on his cheeks.

“Oh?”

Shinsou reached into his pocket and pulled out a signed copy of the newest Present Mic album, “Living Louder.”

“Here,” Shinsou was basically looking anywhere but Kaminari. “My Dad’s a pretty big fan of Present Mic, so I asked him to get a second album for you if he managed to get there in time.”

Kaminari delicately took the CD from Shinsou, staring at it in awe.

“Really?” Kaminari glanced up from the CD to look at Shinsou. “You’re really okay with me having this?”

“Yeah, of course,” Shinsou dared to look back at Kaminari, who pretty much immediately pulled Shinsou back into a kiss.

“Get a room!” Bakugou yelled, which the rest of the squad adamantly agreed with for once.

“Y’all are so gross,” Sero commented. Kaminari laughed at that, but he and Shinsou did actually go get a room where they went to go be gross outside of the eyeshot of others.

5: Hero Convention

Uraraka’s birthday was coming up, so Asui was searching for a present for her. It was still a little ways away, but Asui wanted to give her a gift before the winter break since she probably wouldn’t be able to see Uraraka during her actual birthday.

This search for a gift landed her at a hero convention because Asui knew that Thirteen was Uraraka’s favorite hero, but she didn’t necessarily always have the money to get merchandise for them, so Asui figured some kind of Thirteen merchandise would be well received.

Asui was also a practical gift giver, so the Thirteen brand jackets seemed like a perfect choice, especially since Uraraka’s current jacket looked a little worse for wear.

She opted to walk around the convention after finding the gift and getting it wrapped.

While she did, she noticed Aizawa.

“Hello, Aizawa-sensei,” Asui greeted, being close enough to him that seeing and greeting him in public wasn’t all that strange.

“Ah, hello, Asui,” Aizawa responded, looking up from the Present Mic figures he was observing. “What brings you here?”

“Ochaco’s birthday is coming up,” Asui explained. “I’m getting her a Thirteen jacket, Kero.”

Aizawa nodded.

“Practical.”

It was a little difficult to not preen at the praise, or, at the very least, something very close to praise for Aizawa.

“What about you, Sensei?” Asui questioned. “What are you here for?”

“I’m only telling you because I don’t think it’ll undermine my authority too much if I tell you,” Aizawa stated, voice suddenly serious. “And I don’t think anyone will believe you if I do tell you.”

“So what are you here for?” Asui was listening very carefully to the next words Aizawa said, especially as he lowered his voice to a whisper.

“A new Present Mic figurine was released, and I heard that you could get it at this convention,” Aizawa confessed.

“Why do you want it?” Asui asked. Aizawa’s cheeks went a little pink as he answered.

“I’m his number one fan. What else, kid?”

“I won’t tell a soul,” Asui said, and Aizawa gave her one of his terrible and slightly terrifying grins.

“I know you won’t.”

And with that, they went their separate ways, and Asui kept her word.

#erasermic #shinkami #aizawa shouta #kaminari denki #shinsou hitoshi #eraserhead #bnha #my hero academia #asui tsuyu #uraraka ochaco #midoriya izuku #todoroki shouto #kouda kouji #bakusquad #jirou kyouka

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sleeping-platinum · 4 years ago

Text

Thanks for the tag @carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich !!

Rules: Answer the questions and tag anyone else you wish to see participate~ Also tag me ( @vampiretsuki) if you do this because I would love to read your answers~!

1.- Who would you rather take to a night club, Carla or Azusa?

- In all honesty, neither would appeal to me! Characters and the setting. Carla would make me nervous even if we don’t stay long because my anxious mind would constantly mistake him for being angry and a night club?? Too many sounds would send me into a panic attack and I will search for the easiest most available way out possible. For these reasons, I believe Azusa might be the easier choice for my anxiety since I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t confuse his voice for anger. I would still think he’d be upset for some reason; however, a much calmer voice probably wouldn’t spook me as easily.

2.- In a Science test would you copy Yuma’s test or Ayato’s test?

- I would be too nervous to copy, especially from these two, but for this one maybe Yuma? Admittedly, I’m not entirely sure just how smart these two are, but I mean, I failed chemistry in high school because of formulas so there’s that~

3.- Would you rather have Kino and Azusa or Shin and Laito, as your Butlers?

- I think Azusa would be more fit to try and fill the role, but since I have not touched Kino’s route at all yet (I’m so sorry), I would have to go with Shin and Laito. Whether they’ll actually do the job is the real question…

4.- Go on a date with Reiji at a Aquarium or go on a date with Subaru at a Cafe instead?

- I would most definitely choose the Aquarium! Not only have I never been to one, but the fish and sights would definitely help distract me from any nerves I would have! A café isn’t bad either, but there would be little to nothing (unless it’s a dog or cat café then it would be interesting especially with Subaru) to distract me if I get too nervous or anxious. But I’ve always wanted to go to an Aquarium so that one wins!

5.- Would you rather go support/see Kou at one of his Concerts or go support/see Shu at one of his Violin Performances?

- Shu’s Violin Performance! I’ve sort of been to a concert before and the noise and close proximity to others makes me uncomfortable. I think I would feel more peaceful at Shu’s performance than Kou’s.

6.- In a Math Project would you team up with Ruki and Shin or with Reiji and Yuma?

- Regardless of which one I ultimately pick; I would literally be the dead weight of the group and that fact alone is enough to have me avoid this scenario at all costs. I’m not ready to be ridiculed for my lack of knowledge, I’d rather help Carla clean the mansion… I’ll go with Reiji and Yuma. Perhaps the need to complete the project would keep them (or just Reiji) from actively commenting on my mistakes ;;w;;

7.- Who would you put your bets on, Kanato eating the most chocolates or Ayato eating the most Takoyakis?

- Kanato. Chocolate comes in all sorts of sizes, but even with equal consistency, it always seems like he’s constantly eating them anyway.

8.- Sleep in Carla’s room, Subaru’s room or in Shu’s room? (You have the room to yourself, they aren’t there) Would you peek on their stuff?

- Listen okay, this is an odd detail to point out but it’s relevant for this question. I am literally a smaller, simpler version of Shu (minus the libido), my url has “sleeping” for a solid reason and that is because I love to sleep. The only one I’d eliminate from the choices is Subaru, because I’ll question the comfort of the coffin. It look tiny to me~

Immediately, I’ll pick Carla’s. The room doesn’t seem so massive and the bed looks comfortable, a nice quiet place to rest indeed. If the boys would be in the room, it would be Shu since at the very least if I’m kicked out of the bed, I can sleep on the odd-looking couch. As strange as it is, I observe potential spots that look good for a nap (because my anxious mind has to imagine worst case scenarios). I’m not one to look into things when I’m in a new place. If I can have a place to sleep, draw or play a game, I’m fine.

9.- You’re a princess of the Victorian era! Your father has ordered that you have a bodyguard.. who would you choose as your personal bodyguard, Laito or Kou?

- They both look like they lack commitment, so that concerns me. I’ll choose Laito. I think I’m slightly more scared of Kou in all honesty.

10.- Would you prefer to have Kino in his bat form as your pet or Shin in his wolf form as your pet instead?

- Shin. Wolf. Gimme.

11.- Break a fight between Kou and Ayato or between Laito and Kanato?

- Laito and Kanato I guess? Maybe candy will work, cake or something to at least distract Kanato. I’m more likely to run from the fuss and hide in some place quiet though.

12.- Who would you kiss on the cheek, who would you kiss on the forehead and who would you kiss on the eyelids? Options: Ruki, Subaru, Azusa.

- Cheek, Subaru. Forehead, Ruki. Eyelids, Azusa.

13.- Take care of Shu and Reiji in their Chibi form or take care of Subaru and Kino in their Chibi form?

- I Will lose Kino. Shu and Reiji.

14.- Sing/Perform in public Laito’s Q.E.D Song or Reiji’s Mr.ButterflyMask song?

- I had to look these up, I don’t own any of the song CDs~ But oh my goodness, I certainly did not expect that from Reiji! I pick Laito! I like the lyrics from his more (but I’d rather die than sing in public).

15.- Would you rather wear Ruki’s casual outfit or Yuma’s casual outfit?

- Ruki.

16.- Go on a Vacation trip with Shu, Kino and Ayato at a Amusement park or go with Shin, Azusa and Subaru at a Water Amusement Park?

- I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep in the water and drown or possibly get left behind and lost and I have terrible issues with that. But you know what, the combination of Kino and Ayato is enough for me to have an adventure out of the comfort zone, I’d much rather drown than go on any potentially extreme rides. I’ll be in the kiddy pool thank you very much.

17.- Would you rather get lost in a forest with Reiji, Kino and Kou or with Ruki, Carla and Kanato?

- Carla!! And Ruki and Kanato.

18.- Who would you cook breakfast for? Who would you make a scarf for? and Who would you do a drawing for? Options: Kou, Azusa, Shu.

- Cook for Azusa since I feel he’d be less likely to mock me for my lack of cooking skills… Draw something for Kou and Try to knit a scarf for Shu.

19.- Participate in a Circus as Carla’s Knife thrower assistant or go to a Casino with Shin and be offered as a bet/reward by him in the Roulette Wheel game? (So if Shin looses you’ll be taken away by whomever won)

- Welp. See you all in the hospital if I survive, better than being given to a stranger.

20.- Who would you rather catch by accident taking a shower, Yuma or Kanato?

- Yuma. I don’t think he’d scream as loud or at all.

Thanks again for the tag, these are always fun to do! Sorry my answers aren’t all that interesting though! And I don’t think I have any other friends in this fandom?? ;;w;; So I can’t exactly pass this game on...

#Tagged #Diabolik Lovers

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years ago

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898.

5k Survey XXV

1201. Have you ever owned a record? >> Yeah, I own several records. 1202. In some states people want to make it a requirement that creationism (god made the world) be taught alongside evolution in high school sciences classes. What do you think of this? >> I don’t think it should be a requirement. I think the current evolution-based curriculum should be standardised, and teaching about the fact that creationism is a concept is something a teacher can do, if they’re so inclined to present that side of things. Even then, since creationism is not a true theory that has been subjected to the rigors of the scientific method and found viable, it’s technically not on-subject for a science class. So. 1203. Should evolution also be taught in religious establishments like church or temple? >> If the function of a religious establishment is to perpetuate the beliefs of that faith, and evolution doesn’t count as a belief of said faith, then there’s no point? That’s just not what a religious establishment is for. Now, if we’re talking about religious schools, then I guess it’d depend on whether it’s publicly or privately funded. I imagine you can make a publicly-funded religious school use the same curriculum as the public schools, but good luck getting that to fly in a privately-funded institution. In which case, like it or not, they get to teach what they want. 1204. Can a person believe in creationism and in evolution at the same time? >> I don’t know. There are a lot of seemingly-opposite ideas that a person can hold in their minds at the same time without their head exploding, but I’m not too sure truly believing in creationism would also allow one to recognise the validity of evolution. Or vice versa. 1205. You obviously like surveys since you are filling out a 5,000 question one. Do any of the following surveys sound interesting: The Doors/Jim Morrison Survey: They all sound interesting (except the WTC one, like, what...?), I just wouldn’t take all of them. Moving on. The David Bowie Survey: The Beatles Survey: The Rocky Horror Survey: The Labyrinth Survey: The SLC Punk Survey: The birthday survey: So this is love, the survey: The heartache/break up survey: Creationism vs. Evolutionism Survey: Opinion Survey: World Trade Center Survey: Halloween Survey: Survey of Sin: How evil are you? Survey: The Roaring 20’s Survey: Well, once, long ago, I created all those surveys. Now they are floating around in people’s diaries because the diary I had them in (Simply Surveys) was deleted due to disuse. >> Moving on.

1206. Who did you get this survey from? Say one nice thing about the person you got this survey from: >> Another survey-taker is taking it and I’m copying it from her blog. She seems like a friendly person. 1207. Here is a list of priorities… Love/sex Family Close friends School/learning Job/career Being true to yourself/self respect Honesty Aesthetics (beauty in the world) Creativity Patriotism Knowledge Wisdom Leading an exciting life Making a contribution to humanity Being rich Being famous Having power Justice/fairness World peace Accepting and understanding others Finding yourself Spirituality/religion Health Happiness What are your top three priorities from this list? >> Being true to myself, health, wisdom. 1208. Out of that same list what are your BOTTOM 3 priorities? >> Being rich, being famous, having power. 1209. How many hours of TV do you watch in an average day? >> 1 or 2 hours. Exceptions would be days like today, when I binge 6 episodes of a show in a row because they finally added the latest season to Netflix and I was excited off my ass. 1210. Do you want to have a car, a house and 2.5 kids? >> The house would be fine, I suppose, but I don’t care about the other shit. 1211. What song, CD, or band is a ‘guilty pleasure’ for you (meaning you know it sucks but you like it anyway)? >> There’s no such thing for me. I don’t even understand what “you know it sucks but you like it anyway” is supposed to mean. Either I like something or I don’t. 1212. If you were going to vote for a candidate for president and then you found out that the person you were going to vote for is HIV positive would that effect your vote and why? >> No. 1213. Have you ever had an HIV test? >> Yes. 1214. What time do you: Get up in the morning: Any time between 6.30a and 9a. Eat lunch: I don’t have dedicated meal times. Do something active during the day: If I don’t do it in the morning, shortly after waking, it doesn’t get done. Go to bed: Any time between 10p and 12a. 1215. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? >> I’ve ridden on them many times. 1216. When you hear the word ‘biker’ what kind of person do you think of? >> A person in leathers who rides a motorcycle. 1217. Did your parents ever talk to you about sex? >> No. 1218. If your pet dies, you can now have it cloned for $50,000. How do you feel about this? >> This doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Also, where the fuck am I getting 50 grand? 1219. Are you or would you be embarrassed about buying condoms? >> I was never embarrassed about condoms. 1220. Do any of your clocks make an odd noise or play a song when the hour strikes? >> No. 1221. What are the things that make you go 'Hmmmm….’ (remember that song?)? >> I don’t remember that song. 1222. Are you a sinner? >> I imagine I would be if I subscribed to a worldview that included sin. 1223. Are you naughty or nice? >> --- 1224. Is belly-dancing sexy? >> It is. It’s also just pretty, and skillful. 1225. What celebrity would you love to be able to dance with? >> --- 1226. What is your favorite comic book movie? >> I don’t have one. Black Panther and Thor Ragnarok were cool. 1227. What movie would you recommend for couples to watch on Valentine’s day? >> --- 1228. Besides when you were little how many people have seen you completely naked and who? >> Quite a few people have. Not even necessarily in sexual contexts. 1229. Is sex something that should be treated casually? >> If that suits you, then sure. It doesn’t suit me, so I don’t treat it casually. 1230. Have you ever participated in an orgy? If no, would you ever consider it? >> No. I’ve considered it in the past, but I’m just not interested in outworld sex of any kind at this time. 1231. What song is in your head right now? >> The Shameless theme song, because I spent half the day watching that and the song is catchy. 1232. What was the best day of your life like? >> --- 1233. What are you all about? >> --- 1234. You have won a contest where you get all these great prizes but you can only keep one for yourself and must give the others away to friends, family or whoever. Which one do you keep and who do you give the rest to: A $5,000 gift certificate to radio shack: A brand new yellow jeep: An all expense paid vacation for 2 to Italy: Lunch with N'Sync: A lifetime supply of herbal essences shampoo: A $1,000 check: A palm pilot? An autographed picture of Shakira: Breakfast with kid rock: A shirt once worn by Jonathan Davis: One round of mini-golf with Sharon Osbourne: A phone call from Robert Smith: A brand new washer/dryer: Free medical insurance for 1 year: 1235. Who do you think you might have known in a past life? >> --- 1236. Do you take vitamins? >> No. I probably should. 1237. Do you prefer fake or real flowers around the house? >> I don’t care about having flowers around the house at all. 1238. Sometimes roses are pink, yellow, white or red. If you give someone a rose, does its color change the meaning behind it as a gift? >> If you know flower language, yeah. If you don’t, then I guess it’s just about colour preference. 1239. What’s the most deadly thing you can think of? >> Death. 1240. To-MAY-toes or to-MA-toes? >> I say it the former way. 1241. Out of all your friends, family and the people you know who is the most: Intelligent: Happy: Miserable: Easily influenced: Cranky: Bitchy: Evil: Nice: 1242. What’s the best live musical performance you ever saw? >> The only live musical performance I’ve seen is Phantom of the Opera, but I gotta say if that’s the only one I ever get to see, then that’s fine because it was amazing.

1243. Have you ever had a 'pregnancy scare’? >> Yes. 1244. Kelly Osbourne or Madonna’s version of “Papa Don’t Preach”? >> I’ve only heard Madonna’s. Or, I only remember hearing Madonna’s. Either way. 1245. Can you change a tire? >> Yeah. 1246. Have you ever put your fist through a wall? >> Nearly. 1247. When do you feel the most relaxed and able to be yourself? >> When I’m at home in my room and not having an emotional flashback or overload or whatever. 1248. Do you have a place that is your own where you won’t show anyone else? >> No. Not for a lack of desire, though. I just don’t know any place that I can keep that private. 1249. Are you a part of any teams or clubs? >> No. 1250. Is cheerleading a sport? >> It fits the profile to me.

#surveys #survey #5000 question survey

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vapormaison · 5 years ago

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2019 Best Japanese OST Press/Repress: Elfen Lied by Tiger Lab Records

Like many late millennials with artistic pretensions, I used to have an “Anituber” channel back in the wild west days of youtube. From 2010-2013 — roughly corresponding with my first three years in university — I reviewed DVD releases from ADV, Manga Entertainment, Central Park Media, and Geneon — all the big players in Western anime releases at the time, all dead and gone now with the rise of streaming. Everyone but Funimation — a sad irony and perhaps telling about the nature of the dubbing industry that the studio with a serial rape problem and established casting couch was the only one to survive.

In the interest of maintaining my personal ethics, posterity, and sanity I’ve long since deleted that channel. While there was definitely a “moment” on the platform for a nineteen year-old cokehead film student in front of a MacBook webcam doing his best Slavoj Zizek impression, that moment has long since passed. I’ve long since cooled on “substantive” media critique anyway. The world doesn’t need another Eisenstein-aligned Marxist analysis of Neon Genesis Evangelion — or, a 6-part series on using Lacanian techniques to develop a leftist praxis for Fate/Stay Night. Media exists in the present moment to be a salve for the postmodern hellscape we inhabit together.

As an interesting sidebar, the most popular video on that channel — raking in just north of 10k views over its lifetime from 2011-2015, was a twelve minute video essay on the 1995 anime Elfen Lied, where I asserted that it was the ultimate expression of contemporary Japanese anti-modern rage. While I don’t find myself particularly nostalgic for any of the content on that channel, I’m actually kind of proud of that one in particular.

While most of my analysis was fixated on the visuals, narrative, and recent oeuvre of its mangaka, Lynn Okamoto, and series director, Mamoru Kanbei, I did lay out a framework on why I consider it to be one of the most successful soundtracks ever produced for an anime. I did not heap this praise lightly, as that roughly fifteen year period of 1995-2010 was bookended by the OSTs of Evangelion and K-On! — and certainly proved to be one of the most sonically iconic periods that the medium has ever produced.

it was also one of the first soundtracks that spurred my own history of Japanese OST collection.

And, then, almost a decade later, I found out that Tiger Lab was releasing a vinyl of Elfen Lied.

In spite of this, when I originally the news, I felt a tinge of trepidation. This is not to throw shade at Tiger Lab, however — but at the reputation of previous releases of the Elfen Lied soundtrack in Japan. A quick adventure with google translate across the Japanese net for various Elfen Lied OST roleases — especially on CD — will reveal for you a lot of contempt from Otaku and anime-enthusiast audiophiles for any number of reasons. Most hinge on the quality of the physicals. This is often because Japanese physical media releases of anime soundtracks are often laden with fresh, exceptionally crisp and clean-sounding masters for CDs, and usually exclusive posters and other content geared toward the “collector” nature of many Otaku. This has usually not been the case with Elfen Lied.

A friend of mine in Kanagawa quipped “Sometimes it sounds better on the DVD” in regard to a number of OST releases of soundtracks from anime produced by Studio Arms with CD releases published by VAP. Admittedly, some of it must have been born in resentment, but I’ve always trusted the man’s opinion — as he’s invested a small family fortune into building a shrine of sorts to that studio’s output. He chalks up the poor release quality to the studio’s inability or lack of funds to master the content properly for a CD or HQ digital release, and VAP’s decline in release quality during the early 2000s roughly corresponding to a sale to another Zaibatsu. “Studio Arms made hentai for many years to stay solvent, maybe they could not send a good master to VAP [the publisher]” he told me. While I can’t know if it’s VAP, Arms or another studio handling the CD-master work, a cursory check of their oeuvre seems to confirm confirms that claim of his — but I acknowledge I’m wandering into uncharted waters here.

In spite of all that — I ordered the wax from Tiger Lab and was duly impressed. In lieu of reviewing each track as per my usual review format, in the following section I want to talk about my listening experience from the two formats I own the soundtrack in — the SA/VAP published CD from 2004 and Tiger Lab’s release. Once we finish going into the core differences — and why this vinyl is absolutely worth your purchase over competing physicals — I’ll go into the virtues of the listening experience on the whole.

Part 1: Comparisons of Select Tracks

I suppose the expectation is that I start off by taking about the most iconic recording from the series — the OP, Lilium. In the spirit of defying expectations, I’ll begin with what I consider a better litmus test.

My personal shit-test for a good master and press is how well it can handle a track that is sonically robust and diverse, crossing genre and form — requiring an intensive, sufficiently wide mix and refined master. You don’t get that on every OST album — but Elfen Lied offers one such potential track in particular, and that particular track happens to be my favorite composition on the entire album. Uso Sora, composed by Kayo Konishi and Yukio Kondo is a truly magnificent piece, and it’s used brilliantly in the series — for those familiar, I only need to quote one line: “M-m-mommy…?”.

It begins with lulling piano chords that gradually build in tempo and energy with the addition of percussion, and then it undergoes a full metamorphosis in its last minute or so to become an aggressive, frenetic techno piece with distorted lows and an angry drum kit. Mirroring the evolution of its subject in the show with understated aplomb, and functioning as a robust and enjoyable composition divorced from its source — it really deserve more recognition than it receives, but I do not doubt it will ever step forth from the massive shadow cast from the haunting chorals of Lilium, and the brilliantly directed visual intro that accompanied it.

Needless to say, Tiger Lab more than passed muster here, to the point where I’m almost blown away by just how good it sounds compared to the rest of my Elfen Lied related physicals. I experienced a definite brightness from the vinyl master over my stereo that I don't get from a lot of other Western label releases, like say Milano, which tends to cash in on a Westerner’s preference for warmth. Tiger Lab deserves credit for this approach, because it genuinely feels like a more authentically “Japanese” sound. In my experience, the Western labels that care the most about the dedicated audiophile adhere to this sonic profile, and Tiger Lab deserves all due credit here.

Finally, I might as well include my thoughts on Lilium. In short, it sounds fantastic. The mix here really brings out the most of the chorals, and provides crisp and clean sounds where you want them most. It’s also one of those tracks where you can just feel the dynamic range before you even hear it. I ended up listening to these on my Cambridges, and I’ve got to say that’s there’s something in the way they treat this particular profile of song — strongly vocal dominated, extremely muted piano, and supporting string inhabiting the negative space — absolutely incredibly. It put the KEFs to shame. I’ve always asserted that you’ve got to pair certain songs with certain speaker pairs. I’ve never been a huge devotional music guy, and I’m not entirely sure that the Cambridge or KEFs provide ideal profiles for the track. That said, Lilium sounds great anyway.

But I can envision these on a pair of high end Yamahas, or a pair of vintage Blaupunkt bookshelves sounding as stone-cold killer as Lucy when Kouta’s threatened.

I sent a rip to my friend Hiroshi, the StudioArms Shrine man, who immediately snapped up a copy after listening. I also learned that it was actually the first vinyl purchase he’s ever made after two decades of serious collecting. So perhaps that is a testament in and of itself!

Part 2: Physicality

I rarely devote an entire section to talking about the vinyl/OBI itself, but then again, Tiger Lab has put out a release certainly worthy of this. First off, the cover, which pairs perfectly with the overall aesthetic of both the series and previous soundtrack releases. I can imagine this being a release that has already attracted some attention by Japanese collectors, as the cover seems to tap into a certain sense of continuity that I know are a huge hit with that community. It certainly pairs well with my two releases from VAP, and a laserdisc set that I have. They all opt for that very iconic Klimt Vienna Secession style with appropriate creative flourishes — but I like Tiger Lab’s take on it the most. The side characters populating the back in a choral array reminiscent of the Beethoven Frieze is also a really nice touch for any enthusiast of the fin-de-siècle style.

I picked up the pink vinyl on release, one of the few pink vinyls that I’ve bought that at least feels thematically consistent with the release and not just a default “vaporwave” or “city pop” or “future funk” styling. Diclonii rock the pink hair, after all. That all said, I’m wishing now that I got the “metallic gold” edition, as its another color that feels both apropos and stunningly beautiful. With all that in mind, this is also one of the better waxes that I’ve felt in-hand, and manages to feel robust. I’ve yet to find specific info, but it certainly feels like a 180g.

In conclusion, I’ve got to give immense credit to Tiger Lab for handling this release with a class and vigor that few Japanese publishers have given it. It certainly bodes well for the future of anime releases on vinyl, and makes me eager to fill out an emergent collection.

#ost #elfen lied #bestof2019

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superchartisland · 5 years ago

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Microcosm (Psygnosis/Sony, PC, 1994)

Microcosm is the CD-ROM FMV game in microcosm. That’s partly because it was influential and early. It’s a little unfair on it that we come to it so late, making it look like it’s taking after Rebel Assault and MegaRace when in fact it was before them, but its initial release was on Fujitsu’s FM Towns Marty console, which didn’t make it out of Japan. It took a while longer to get to the PC and back to the UK where it had been developed.

Psygnosis used the possibilities of the CD-ROM to provide music from Rick Wakeman, except that it doesn’t actually play during gameplay. And maybe it was only on the CD32 version and not the DOS one? They also used it to create a lengthy cinematic introduction complete with real actors. Well, real people. The real people that made the game. Damien McFerran’s delightful retrospective of the game in Eurogamer, with interviews from the developers, highlights that one of the characters was played by a future Oscar winner… just not for acting. It shows. MegaRace’s cinematics were camp; Microcosm’s are just crap. Once you get to the game bit of the game, it’s another marginally interactive shooter on rails, without even the style of Rebel Assault. There are branching paths, but when neither branch offers anything interesting that’s not much of a plus.

...

Microcosm is the preservation of popular games history in microcosm. Psygnosis were a long-standing British success story, formed in the mid-’80s and responsible for publishing Lemmings. Microcosm and early success with CD-ROM gaming in Japan was enough to get Psygnosis signed up by Sony to work on games for their PlayStation (on which much more soon). Psygnosis were later absorbed by Sony and then eventually shut down in 2012. Sony carries on putting out new Lemmings games, awful microtransactions and all, but doesn’t have much interest in keeping less lasting successes available.

Microcosm was popular enough to be a best-seller at the time, and was pioneering enough to be reasonably considered as pretty important. Unlike many of the PC games I’m covering from this era, though, it is not possible to buy Microcosm now. There is a Microcosm on Steam, but it’s not this one. I downloaded a copy of it from the Internet Archive instead, and reacquainting myself with DOS commands on an emulator I managed to get through the installation process, do the set up, see the Psygnosis logo and… nothing more. I can’t get past that point or find any clue of how I could fix it. I could buy a second-hand copy of the game on CD, but even if I solved the problem of my laptop not having a CD drive, presumably I would find exactly the same result. Achieving an authentic 1994 PC setup would be a commitment beyond that of equivalent consoles on several levels. My experience of Microcosm is limited to reading about it and watching videos of it, which only cover the start of the game, are frequently of different versions, and in some cases are mediated by someone talking about why it’s one of the worst games ever. Playing it and fully understanding the experience remains out of reach.

…

The intro, and more so the manual, present the world of Microcosm as one of a high tech but harsh life. Hypercapitalism has led to the world being dominated by two megacorporations, competing for the number one spot. “The corporations take what they need from the planet, leaving toxic and barren wastelands behind”. Theirs is described as a “tyrannical rule”, before the manual goes on to say that the imaginatively-named top corporation CyberTech’s “only crime” in the corporate war with #2 corp Axiom was being the top corporation. Which neatly skirts over their contribution to the overall poisonous environment in order to place someone else as the bad guy.

This sets up the plot of the game in which the head of CyberTech has been injected with some nano-attacking-mind-control-thing as part of an Axiom plot to take over. The bits of Microcosm where you get (limited) control take place entirely inside the CEO’s body as your miniaturised agent makes their way through vessels to his brain to prevent this event. Barring a theoretical twist ending which I have no way of seeing, never mind playing, this leaves an interesting picture of Microcosm’s message. In short, in a capitalist hell world, you are asked to take action to defend the biggest corporation from attackers, on the basis that as the established lesser of two evils they are to be supported unquestioningly. Microcosm is gamer politics in microcosm.

[All gifs taken from video by hfric]

Gallup Compact Disc chart, Computer Trade Weekly 30 January 1995 (chart for week to 21 January 1995)

#every number one #fmv #Micrcosm

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dramallamadingdang · 6 years ago

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The post I want to make on the MTS forums but can't...

...because they're touchy about discussing the "p" word. As in "piracy." I understand why they are, but I also think that they're wrong to silence people about "pirating" yet not have a care in the world if people tell others to buy used disks, for reasons that you'll see if you choose to read this thing. But...Their site, their rules and that's cool and all that. I’ve got no problems with that. I just think it’s doing the current (and future) TS2 community a disservice. Hence, this post.

Now that EA has announced that they will no longer give out the TS2 Ultimate Collection, I think it's time to address how to get the game if you don't already have it and want it. Or if you have it but your disks are lost/damaged. Or if you suddenly find yourself with a new machine that doesn't have an optical disk drive and you don't have and/or don't want to buy an external one. Or even if somewhere down the line EA removes the UC from your access, if you have it already and you then can't install it on a new machine. (They'd be entirely within their rights to do that, by the way.) If one is concerned about legality, then one ought to know what actually is legal or not and why and where the shades of gray are, so that you can make informed decisions about what you want to do. So, if you're interested in that, that's what I'm going to talk about in this post.

I'm going to say this up-front, though, as a sort of teaser: Now that EA is no longer giving out the UC like people give out Halloween candy: THERE IS CURRENTLY NO FULLY-LEGAL WAY TO GET OR PLAY THE GAME, if you don't already have it. Yes, the above is true, and behind the cut is why.

Here are my "credentials," if you will: A nice chunk of my income comes from royalties and licensing and stuff. Much such stuff is sold in digital format, music CDs and data CDs of original compositions and stuff like that. I have sued individuals and companies, successfully, who've infringed on my copyrights and/or the licensing agreements that I'm involved in. I'm pretty well-versed in this stuff.

So let's make one thing about this issue clear off the top: You do not these days purchase games or non-game software or movies or music or whatever that comes on a disk or in some digital form like, say, a book you download onto your Kindle. You only purchase a license to use the information on that one, single disk or that you got from that one, single download that you paid for. It's a small but all-important distinction, and it pretty much defines what makes things legal or not when we're talking about getting TS2 now that EA is no longer selling it or giving it away themselves.

Now that EA is out of the picture, at least for now, you have three options for getting the game:

1) Find someone selling disks that you know absolutely for certain have not been used.

Guess what? Still probably not fully-legal. The reason is this: If you're buying from a genuine retailer and not some shady "business" in Taiwan or a guy on eBay or something, EA recalled all new, existing, unopened TS2 discs from all retailers (at least in the US and I believe -- but am not certain -- worldwide) years ago. 2013ish, if memory serves. Those retailers were given full refunds for any unsold discs but were actually not required to physically return those discs. (Because, of course, EA didn't want to pay for return shipping!) They were supposed to destroy the disks, in good faith, in exchange for the refund. Even if they didn't receive a refund, they're still not supposed to be selling disks anymore because they've been recalled. Those disks are not supposed to exist and all end-user (that's you) licenses associated with them are now void. Which means that even if you now manage to find a genuinely unused retail disk, you have no legal license to use the game because EA voided it. They only way it would be legal is if you are buying from an individual (not a retailer of any kind) who bought the game and somehow never installed it...and I'd take such stories with a grain of salt, personally.

Because, remember: You're not buying a game; you're buying a license to use a game, and EA has revoked those licenses on retail disks that were unsold as of 2013ish. Now, is someone going to come pounding on your door to arrest you or to serve you court documents because they’re suing you? Of course not! But bear in mind that if the above applies to you, your game is not fully legal.

2) You can buy used disks from someone. Ebay and Amazon Marketplace and such are teeming with them.

Also not fully legal. Why? Because, as I said, each disk comes with a license to use the game for a single buyer and his/her household. No one else. That's one of the things that the End-User License Agreement says and that you agree to, probably without reading it, when you install the game. So as soon as the original buyer of the disk you subsequently bought installed the game on a machine, that single user license was used up. It cannot be transferred to another person. The disk can be transferred, sure, but not the license to use it, which when it comes to legality is all that matters. So, if you buy used disks, you still do not have a legal license to use the game.

Again, no one's going to come pounding on your door, of course. No one's pounding on the door of second-hand game shops, either, because it's not illegal to sell the used disks at all. But it is legally shade to actually use those disks when you buy them. So, just realize that your game is not fully legal if you bought used any or all of the disks you have. Then move on and don't worry about it...but also don't claim that you have a "legal" game so you're somehow more moral or whatever than people who pirate it. Because that's not true at all. In fact, legally you're in exactly the same boat -- pirate ship or otherwise ;) -- as people who've “pirated” the game. Which leads me to...

3) You can "pirate" the game. Meaning, you can get it via torrenting so that you never have a physical disk and you use a no-CD crack to play the game. Or you can make a copy of your friend's disks. Whatever.

There are multiple legal issues here. I'm not going to discuss why it's illegal to pass around copies of a game. I trust that everyone understands why that's so.

But you might be surprised to learn that it's actually not illegal to download the game illegitimately, for the same reason why buying and selling used disks isn't illegal. But there’s a catch. Again, the issue is that you don't buy a game; you buy a license to use it. So the problem arises, again, from using what you downloaded (or using that copy you made of your buddy's disk), because you don't have a license to do so. Sure, obviously no one would download something that they wouldn't then use, but my point is that if you download the game from a torrent, your legal problem is exactly the same as the legal problem that people who buy used disks have. And at least you, as a "pirater" did not pay someone for your legally-shady copy of the game. No one profited at EA's expense, in other words, whereas someone did exactly that if you bought used disks, especially if the seller didn't originally buy the disks themselves, which is usually the case at second-hand shops.

If you download the game via a torrent (as opposed to making copies of someone's disks), it's illegal not because you downloaded the file but because of the way torrenting works. It works by sharing your incomplete download with other downloaders as you download, as you go along, as well as after you do so, if you continue to "seed" the torrent after your own download is completed. The sharing part is illegal for what I hope are obvious reasons; the downloading part is not. It’s a technicality, sure, but then all of this discussion is.

In the end, the most-illegal thing you can do when it comes to this stuff is not downloading via torrenting but making a copy of your buddy's disks for your own use because in that case you're transgressing twice. And here's why.

There's a thing in copyright law called Fair Use. This covers multiple things, but the relevant bit here is that it allows you to make a backup of digital media that you've legitimately bought for archival purposes. This has always been on the books, as long as there've been digital formats, which goes all the way back to tapes. So if you have, say, a copy of The Lion King on DVD and your three-year-old insists on watching it twice a day if she can and in the process breaks a disk a week, you have a right to make a copy of the original in order to preserve the original. (OK, you're not supposed to make multiple backups, just one, but seriously? The kid breaks them constantly and Disney disks are terribly overpriced. And no, I'm not talking from experience at all. :) ) Anyway, Fair Use = 1 backup of your legitimately-purchased disks.

But then in the 90s the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) came along. (In the US, that is. There's similar bullshit worldwide, though.) Mostly it came about because movie and music distributors (not the musicians, one needs to point out) are absolute control freaks and were really, really pissed that CDs/DVDs are so damn easy to make copies of. The relevant bit of this was that it said, "Nope, no more personal backups for you! At all! And hey! No ripping that CD to put the songs on your phone or MP3 player, either! You gotta buy another copy of the songs from iTunes or whatever it is that we want to make more money from today!" It all comes back to "You don't buy a movie. You buy a license to view the content on that one disk, so if your obsessive three-year-old breaks it you have to buy a new disk every week. Sucks to be you, but it's really awesome for us." (Needless to say, you can guess what I think -- as a musician -- of this bit of corporate greed.)

My ranting aside, the issue now is that it is technically illegal to make copies of disks and stuff that you legitimately own, even for your own use and you never share anything with anyone. Again, no one's going to come knocking on your door, but you should know about this. (Mostly, in the wake of DMCA, court cases have involved small companies that make software that can rip DVDs by decoding/bypassing encryption, not individuals who make or use copies of disks. They know they can’t pursue such individuals in any practical way. Instead, they seek to take away the tools that allow you to do it.) So, that's transgression #1 when it comes to making a copy of your buddy's TS2's disks. The other, of course, is the same as the other points: You don't have a legal license to use that copy of your buddy's disk. So, you're transgressing coming and going, so to speak.

So, what's a TS2 fan to do now? Honestly? All three options are problematic, legally. Unless you can somehow manage to find genuinely never-used disks from an individual (not a retailer), you will not be fully legit. So, if you want to be pure and clean and looking down on all the sinners from your fine high horse, you can't get TS2 now if you find you need it, unless EA decides to distribute it again. But for the rest of us? I'm not going to advocate any particular thing because, as I said, all of the options are shady and more or less equally so and for the same reason across the board. But you have the info now -- if you’ve actually managed to read all this -- and you can make an informed decision for yourself, should you need to acquire the game again. Or for the first time. But for the love of God, please don't go around saying that you're all legit because you bought used disks while that person over there *gasp* got their game on the torrents. Because you're not legit, and you’re not legit for pretty much the same reason as a dirty pirate is.

#sims 2 #this has been your psa for the day #and a rant too #woo!

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wellusetheshadowstoouradvantage · 6 years ago

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Can you just write all the answers?

woof okay sure (im assuming you mean this ask):

✨Music ask game hoes✨

1. Most frequently played song rn

hmm i think neverenders by fiatc, Kiss The Ring and Tomorrow’s Money by mcr, and EVOLVE by Shinedown

2. Favorite 2000s era song

Our Lady of Sorrows or Hang ‘Em High

3. Go-to sad song

World Destroyer (if that counts as sad) and Demolition Lovers

4. Favorite movie soundtrack

doo-doo-doodoo-doo-doo-doodoo-doo-doo-doodoo-doodoodoo!!! (if the link isn’t working, it’s Pirates of the Caribbean)

5. Number one artist/band you wanna see live

Fronk Oreo and the Fresh Vegetables

6. Artist you’d love to sit down and have a conversation with

Jish Dun aka DJ Spookey Jim

7. Give one controversial music-related opinion

i mean idk I’ve only really heard a couple of Metallica songs but they’re kind of boring? The riffs are just too repetitive and it takes too long to get the point, i tried listening to One and i couldn’t even get past the first minute cause the damn song wouldn’t start. I’ll stick to punk stuff, thanks.

8. Do you like having physical copies of music?

like cds and stuff? i would love to, not that i actually do, i might try toconvince my mom to let me get Barriers when it comes out

9. Fave 90s era song

I haven’t listened to much but Basket Case is awesome

10. Go-to happy song

Summertime by MCR!!!! its my favortie Danger Days song, which totally contrasts from my favorites of the other albums but it just so darn beautiful. also while we’re on the subject listen to For The Lost And Brave by Ray Toro please it is so beautiful

11. Most played playlist

I don’t really make playlists because my moods are so weird and i can never pinpoint which songs i will want to listen to. I do have a couple playlists that spell out phrases though, like I Lied, AMBULANCE, Miss Me, Give Em Hell, Kid, Addict of the Gallery, and You are my sunshine. (true story)

12. A song that you have a very specific memory attached to- explain

Friend, Please by TØP, kind of self explanatory

13. Fav 80s era song

does The Tropper (by Iron Maiden) count? its also one of the only songs i know that come from the 80′s so i don’t have much to choose from

14. A song that youd get the lyrics to tattooed on your body

I’ve always wanted “I’ll be your android girl” from F.T.W.W.W just cause its super punk but i’d also get “I am not afraid to keep on living” “Faith is to be awake” “Never let them take the light behind your eyes” “crazy=genius” and “Tatty my king” (100% joking about that last one, dont get any ideas)

15. A good song to blow your car speakers out to

Save Yourself I’ll Hold Them Back or I Am Going To Kil The President of the United Sates of America

16. A song from your childhood

the Agent Emes theme song or every barney song ever

17. Artist with the most angelic voice

Faith Marie or Ray Toro, maybe Aiden Gallagher

18. Fav 70s era song

Anarchy in the UK, i can never get it out of my head

19. A song that reminds you of your best friend

sometimes we all just stand in a cluster and sing I Wanna Be Sedated under our breath

20. Songs you use to fall asleep

.stage 4 fear of trying. by fiatc or Diluted by DeathSpells, depending on my mood

21. Song you wanna get laid to

haha no

22. A song that’s lyrics are engrained in your mind forever

Fat and Alone, your out on your own, king of blubber, sitting on your throne (im pencey prep trash)

23. A song you cannot stand

In My Blood by shawn mendes, or every shwan mendes song ever. its literally just cliche after cliche, god just kill me now

24. Top 3 most listened to music genre

Punk, Alt Pop, Metal, idk genres are over rated i just listen to whatever appeals to my ears at the moment

25. Songs you’d fight to

the entirety of three cheers for sweet revenge, Say Amen, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and The Shining

wow that was fun, thanks for the ask stevie

#the misadventures of steve and jimmy

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analytixstl-blog · 5 years ago

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Computer Tips that Help Small Companies Operate Beneficially

When working effectively, computers enable local business to make big business revenues; however, obtain started off your computer and you're all of a sudden starving. In most circumstances, computers typically break down due to lack of treatment by its owners. Right here are 4 computer system ideas that'll maintain you up and running smoothly.

Suggestion # 1-- Back up your computer system's data no less than as soon as a month.

Too often a small company is returned to infancy due to the fact that it really did not take some time to back up valuable data; info that took hours upon hours to create. Info that's irreplaceable, such as client databases or employment agreement. Bear in mind you'll wish to back up your created information along with check publications such as Quicken and email address books. If your computer has a CD writer, it's easy and quick to back up your data. Simply choose the data as well as folders you intend to back up as well as duplicate them to the writer.

Or if you have an older computer system, duplicate your most important data to a floppy disk. In any case, do not quit there; now take the CD or disk as well as store it in a fire-safe box! To quicken the procedure, organize your documents within folders so you can swiftly grab as well as copy a couple of folders.

Suggestion # 2 - Don't switch off your computer system every evening.

Also often computer individuals transform their computers off every evening. This is unnecessary and also not suggested. A computer system's elements go to their most vulnerable when activated as well as off. When a computer needs to heat up [turn on] or cool [shut off] it goes to this exact moment parts fall short. It's suggested you turn your computer system off one or two times a week or only when needed, such as from a power blackout. Nonetheless, do not do the opposite as well as never transform your computer off, because several anti-virus programs require a computer reboot be performed prior to brand-new infection patches work.\

Idea # 3-- Automate anti-virus software so it updates automatically no much less than as soon as a week.

Depending on your software application, you may require to motivate it to update. Sadly, there are individuals with way too much time on their hands that desire to attack and make your computer system pointless. A computer user is not inevitably secured from infections and also spyware [pop-ups, cookies, and so on.] unless you're utilizing a mix of anti-virus and also anti-spyware software program as well as a firewall software, an item of hardware that protects computer systems from being hacked. You have to have all three items in order to fend off viruses, lurkers as well as assaults. What's even more, a lot of the assaults are extremely peaceful. You don't understand somebody is on your computer. Instead, they covertly keep details, such as child pornography or songs MP3s on your computer, given that it's unlawful, as well as redirect child-porno or MP3 candidates to your computer system instead of their own.

Pointer # 4-- Install a firewall if you keep your computer system continuously on.

Utilizing a broadband or DSL connection significantly boosts your direct exposure to being hacked. It just takes approximately 15 minutes being online prior to a home-based computer system is attacked. The only real way to protect a computer system from a cyberpunk is to install a hardware firewall program. It's a misunderstanding that software-based firewalls eventually protect computer systems. This is simply not real. Computers need to have an equipment firewall program for ultimate security, such as a SonicWall or Netscreen firewall program, a component mounted in between a residence customer's wire or DSL connection and also their computer system.

External Links:-

Analytixstl.com Wordpress Jigsy Getpocket Instapaper

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colesikes1193-blog · 5 years ago

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Converting Midi File To An Mp3?

The time required to entry and start the Wav, Mp3 and Mid information of the participant could depend on the number of recordsdata present within the current itemizing, and likewise on the settings of the PLAYER AUTO LOAD operate. Sequencing software provides an a variety of benefits to a composer or arranger. It permits recorded MIDI to be manipulated using standard pc enhancing features corresponding to reduce, copy and paste and drag and drop Keyboard shortcuts can be used to streamline workflow, and editing capabilities are sometimes selectable through MIDI instructions. The sequencer permits each channel to be set to play a special sound, and provides a graphical overview of the association. Quite a lot of editing instruments are made accessible, together with a notation show that can be utilized to create printed parts for musicians. Instruments equivalent to looping , quantization , randomization, and transposition simplify the arranging course of. As iOS will not be so versatile like Android, we have now limited opportunities. However nonetheless, we bought a better app to do that conversion. Pathetically, it is paid ($14.ninety nine). Audio effects, volume adjusting, customizable audio settings, replication of listing construction, add converted music to a playlist in iTunes are cool features in this app. If you want to play with it in Pro Instruments, it is higher to convert towav oraiff thanmp3. Listed here are a few examples of music routinely transcribed with AnthemScore. The accuracy will depend on the complexity of the music and the devices used. You possibly can usually anticipate the best results from piano pieces. MIDI file converters may additionally assist to switch formats for an already current file. These converters have in the meantime develop into fairly uncommon and are a makeshift only: an SMF1 with all unique information can never be restored from a file as soon as saved as SMF0, since some info is completely dropped for the latter. Step four:В As quickly because the Bear File Converter completes the conversion, Www.magicaudiotools.com download a converted MIDI file to your PC. Select output folder for MP3 information or check the "Save MP3 recordsdata to the identical folder" possibility. Direct MIDI to MP3 Converter also allows customers to convert from MIDI to WAVE format, which is good for music collections on an audio CD or portable media system. Allows MIDI, MID, RMI and Karaoke recordsdata as enter. Songs of Praise A big collection of authentic Christian reward songs with music scores, mp3 and midi recordsdata online. A file with theMID orMIDI file extension (pronounced as "mid-ee") is a Musical Instrument Digital Interface file. Simply create scores from transcribed notes. AudioScore will mechanically detect all instrumentation and create a rating with staves labeled for every half. Play back word selections in high-high quality audio. Save scores as PDFs for easy printing. And work with Sibelius 8.

Even in case you bought your hands on the master record with all tracks separate it could be onerous to transform it to midi, as soon as it is combined collectively - overlook it. solely way to convert midi to other format is to go to wav by playing the midi and midi to mp3 converter linux recording a brand new wav with a wav editor. 2. Navigate to and click on the "Browse" button, then select the mp3 file you'd wish to convert > Click Subsequent. The appliance will try to acknowledge the MIDI sequence in the mp3.I have been utilizing file compression and music archiving software program since the standard music fireplace sale that came along with file-sharing websites like Napster within the mid-'90s. That phenomenon taught me an necessary lesson concerning the value of excessive-quality music playback versus having sufficient music on a device to last through retirement. I found myself shopping for CDs regardless that I had the same album in a compressed digital format as a result of I knew the CD would sound higher. The know-how advancements in audio converter software now afford us the power to extract excessive-quality audio from CDs or streaming providers, and duplicate these recordsdata and convert them to lossy formats, like MP3, to make the recordsdata smaller and playable on cell gadgets.Please, email to sup.amvidia@ about any issues or feature requests. We always glad to enhance our functions for you. For those who like MIDI to MP3 converter, a review on the App Store can be very appreciated. Within the popup window that can open, browse the enter file (the midi file that you really want convert to mp3) and the output file (title and vacation spot folder).Right here is the complete information to know learn how to convert MP3 to MIDI with the assistance of Audacity. Also, keep in mind that you may must obtain a lame_enc.dll file. The Energy MIDI to MP3 CD is the ideal all-in-one instrument to transform batches of MIDI recordsdata to WAV, MP3 and burn to Audio CD. Stellar is likely one of the most value-efficient conversion packages we tested. It has a straightforward-to-use interface and batch converts and exports in a lot of the widespread codecs, like MP3, WAV, ACC and FLAC.There are two forms of MIDI controllers: efficiency controllers that generate notes and are used to carry out music, 74 and controllers that won't send notes, however transmit other types of actual-time events. Many gadgets are some combination of the 2 varieties. ConverterLite can be used for converting MP3 to Midi. It is easy to transform files and can be used for batch convert MP3 to Midi. Many advanced encoding options too.

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ciathyzareposts · 6 years ago

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Return to Zork

Where should we mark the beginning of the full-motion-video era, that most extended of blind alleys in the history of the American games industry? The day in the spring of 1990 that Ken Williams, founder and president of Sierra On-Line, wrote his latest editorial for his company’s seasonal newsletter might be as good a point as any. In his editorial, Williams coined the term “talkies” in reference to an upcoming generation of games which would have “real character voices and no text.” The term was, of course, a callback to the Hollywood of circa 1930, when sound began to come to the heretofore silent medium of film. Computer games, Williams said, stood on the verge of a leap that would be every bit as transformative, in terms not only of creativity but of profitability: “How big would the film industry be today if not for this step?”

According to Williams, the voice-acted, CD-based version of Sierra’s King’s Quest V was to become the games industry’s The Jazz Singer. But voice acting wasn’t the only form of acting which the games of the next few years had in store. A second transformative leap, comparable to that made by Hollywood when film went from black and white to color, was also waiting in the wings to burst onto the stage just a little bit later than the first talkies. Soon, game players would be able to watch real, human actors right there on their monitor screens.

As regular readers of this site probably know already, the games industry’s Hollywood obsession goes back a long way. In 1982, Sierra was already advertising their text adventure Time Zone with what looked like a classic “coming attractions” poster; in 1986, Cinemaware was founded with the explicit goal of making “interactive movies.” Still, the conventional wisdom inside the industry by the early 1990s had shifted subtly away from such earlier attempts to make games that merely played like movies. The idea was now that the two forms of media would truly become one — that games and movies would literally merge. “Sierra is part of the entertainment industry — not the computer industry,” wrote Williams in his editorial. “I always think of books, records, films, and then interactive films.” These categories defined a continuum of increasingly “hot,” increasingly immersive forms of media. The last listed there, the most immersive medium of all, was now on the cusp of realization. How many people would choose to watch a non-interactive film when they had the opportunity to steer the course of the plot for themselves? Probably about as many as still preferred books to movies.

Not all that long after Williams’s editorial, the era of the full-motion-video game began in earnest. The first really prominent exemplar of the species was ICOM Simulations’s Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series in 1992, which sent you wandering around Victorian London collecting clues to a mystery from the video snippets that played every time you visited a relevant location. The first volume of this series alone would eventually sell 1 million copies as an early CD-ROM showcase title. The following year brought Return to Zork, The 7th Guest, and Myst as three of the five biggest games of the year; all three of these used full-motion video to a greater or lesser extent. (Myst used it considerably less than the other two, and, perhaps not coincidentally, is the member of the trio that holds up by far the best today.) With success stories like those to look to, the floodgates truly opened in 1994. Suddenly every game-development project — by no means only adventure games — was looking for ways to shoehorn live actors into the proceedings.

But only a few of the full-motion-video games that followed would post anything like the numbers of the aforementioned four games. That hard fact, combined with a technological counter-revolution in the form of 3D graphics, would finally force a reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of trying to build a satisfying interactive experience by mixing and matching snippets of nonmalleable video. By 1997, the full-motion-video era was all but over. Today, few things date a game more instantly to a certain window of time than grainy video of terrible actors flickering over a background of computer-generated graphics. What on earth were people thinking?

Most full-motion-video games are indeed dire, but they’re going to be with us for quite some time to come as we continue to work our way through this history. I wish I could say that Activision’s Return to Zork, my real topic for today, was one of the exceptions to the rule of direness. Sadly, though, it isn’t.

In fact, let me be clear right now: Return to Zork is a terrible adventure game. Under no circumstances should you play it, unless to satisfy historical curiosity or as a source of ironic amusement in the grand tradition of Ed Wood. And even in these special cases, you should take care to play it with a walkthrough in hand. To do anything else is sheer masochism; you’re almost guaranteed to lock yourself out of victory within the first ten minutes, and almost guaranteed not to realize it until many hours later. There’s really no point in mincing words here: Return to Zork is one of the absolute worst adventure-game designs I’ve ever seen — and, believe me, I’ve seen quite a few bad ones.

Its one saving grace, however, is that it’s terrible in a somewhat different way from the majority of terrible full-motion-video adventure games. Most of them are utterly bereft of ideas beyond the questionable one at their core: that of somehow making a game out of static video snippets. You can almost see the wheels turning desperately in the designers’ heads as they’re suddenly confronted with the realization that, in addition to playing videos, they have to give the player something to actually do. Beyond Zork, on the other hand, is chock full of ideas for improving upon the standard graphic-adventure interface in ways that, on the surface at any rate, allow more rather than less flexibility and interactivity. Likewise, even the trendy use of full-motion video, which dates it so indelibly to the mid-1990s, is much more calculated than the norm among its contemporaries.

Unfortunately, all of its ideas are undone by a complete disinterest in the fundamentals of game design on the part of the novelty-seeking technologists who created it. And so here we are, stuck with a terrible game in spite of it all. If I can’t quite call Return to Zork a noble failure — as we’ll see, one of its creators’ stated reasons for making it so callously unfair is anything but noble — I can at least convince myself to call it an interesting one.

When Activision decided to make their follow-up to the quickie cash-in Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 a more earnest, better funded stab at a sequel to a beloved Infocom game, it seemed logical to find themselves a real Infocom Implementor to design the thing. They thus asked Steve Meretzky, whom they had just worked with on Leather Goddesses 2, if he’d like to design a new Zork game for them as well. But Meretzky hadn’t overly enjoyed trying to corral Activision’s opinionated in-house developers from a continent away last time around; this time, he turned them down flat.

Meretzky’s rejection left Activision without a lot of options to choose from when it came to former Imps. A number of them had left the games industry upon Infocom’s shuttering three years before, while, of those that remained, Marc Blank, Mike Berlyn, Brian Moriarty, and Bob Bates were all employed by one of Activison’s direct competitors. Activision therefore turned to Doug Barnett, a freelance artist and designer who at been active in the industry for the better part of a decade; his most high-profile design gig to date had been Cinemaware’s Lords of the Rising Sun. But he had never designed a traditional puzzle-oriented adventure game, as one can perhaps see all too well in the game that would result from his partnership with Activision. He also didn’t seem to have a great deal of natural affinity for Zork. In the lengthy set of notes and correspondence relating to the game’s development which has been put online by The Zork Library, a constant early theme on Activision’s part is the design’s lack of “Zorkiness.” “As it stands, the design constitutes more of a separate and unrelated story, rather than a sequel to the Zork series,” they wrote at one point. “It was noted that ‘Zork’ is the name of a vast ancient underground empire, yet Return to Zork takes place in a mostly above-ground environment.”

In fairness to Barnett, Zork had always been more of a state of mind than a coherent place. With the notable exception of Steve Meretzky, everyone at Infocom had been wary of overthinking a milieu that had originally been plucked out of the air more or less at random. In comparison to other shared worlds — even other early computer-game worlds, such as the Britannia of Richard Garriott’s Ultima series — there was surprisingly little there there when it came Zork: no well-established geography, no well-established history which everybody knew — and, most significantly of all, no really iconic characters which simply had to be included. At bottom, Zork boiled down to little more than a modest grab bag of tropes which lived largely in the eye of the beholder: the white house with a mailbox, grues, Flood Control Dam #3, Dimwit Flathead, the Great Underground Empire itself. And even most of these had their origin stories in the practical needs of an adventure game rather than any higher world-building purpose. (The Great Underground Empire, for example, was first conceived as an abandoned place not for any literary effect but because living characters are hard to implement in an adventure game, while the detritus they leave behind is relatively easy.)

That said, there was a distinct tone to Zork, which was easier to spot than it was to describe or to capture. Barnett’s design missed this tone, even as it began with the gleefully anachronistic, seemingly thoroughly Zorkian premise of casting the player as a sweepstakes winner on an all-expenses-paid trip to the idyllic Valley of the Sparrows, only to discover it has turned into the Valley of the Vultures under the influence of some pernicious, magical evil. Barnett and Activision would continue to labor mightily to make Return to Zork feel like Zork, but would never quite get there.

By the summer of 1992, Barnett’s design document had already gone through several revisions without entirely meeting Activision’s expectations. At this point, they hired one Eddie Dornbrower to take personal charge of the project in the role of producer. Like Barnett, Dornbrower had been working in the industry for quite some time, but had never worked on an adventure game; he was best known for World Series Major League Baseball on the old Intellivision console and Earl Weaver Baseball on computers. Dornbrower gave the events of Return to Zork an explicit place in Zorkian history — some 700 years after Infocom’s Beyond Zork — and moved a big chunk of the game underground to remedy one of his boss’ most oft-repeated objections to the existing design.

More ominously, he also made a comprehensive effort to complicate Barnett’s puzzles, based on feedback from players and reviewers of Leather Goddesses 2, who were decidedly unimpressed with that game’s simple-almost-to-the-point-of-nonexistence puzzles. The result would be the mother of all over-corrections — a topic we’ll return to later.

Unlike Leather Goddess 2, whose multimedia ambitions had led it to fill a well-nigh absurd 17 floppy disks, Return to Zork had been planned almost from its inception as a product for CD-ROM, a technology which, after years of false promises and setbacks, finally seemed to be moving toward a critical mass of consumer uptake. In 1992, full-motion video, CD-ROM, and multimedia computing in general were all but inseparable concepts in the industry’s collective mind. Activision thus became one of the first studios hire a director and actors and rent time on a sound stage; the business of making computer games had now come to involve making movies as well. They even hired a professional Hollywood screenwriter to punch up the dialog and make it more “cinematic.”

In general, though, while the computer-games industry was eager to pursue a merger with Hollywood, the latter was proving far more skeptical. There was still little money in computer games by comparison with movies, and there was very little prestige — rather the opposite, most would say — in “starring” in a game. The actors which games could manage to attract were therefore B-listers at best. Return to Zork actually collected a more accomplished — or at least more high-profile — cast than most. Among them were Ernie Lively, a veteran supporting player best known to a generation of ten-year-old boys as Cooter, the mechanic from The Dukes of Hazzard; his daughter Robyn Lively, fresh off a six-episode stint as a minor character on David Lynch’s prestigious critic’s darling Twin Peaks; Jason Hervey, who was still playing older brother Wayne on the long-running coming-of-age sitcom The Wonder Years; and Sam Jones, whose big shot at leading-man status had come and gone when he starred in the dreadful Flash Gordon film of 1980.

If the end result would prove less than Oscar-worthy, it’s for the most part not cringe-worthy either. After all, the cast did consist entirely of acting professionals, which is more than one can say for many productions of this ilk — and certainly more than one can say for the truly dreadful voice acting in Leather Goddess of Phobos 2, Activision’s previous attempt at a multimedia adventure game. While they were hampered by the sheer unfamiliarity of talking directly “to” the invisible player of the game — as Ernie Lively put it, “there’s no one to act off of” — they did a decent job with the slight material they had to work with.

The fact that they were talking to the player rather than acting out scenes with one another actually speaks to a degree of judiciousness in the use of full-motion video on Activision’s part. Rather than attempting to make an interactive movie in the most literal sense — by having a bunch of actors, one of them representing the protagonist, act out each of the player’s choices — Activision went for a more thoughtful mixed-media approach that could, theoretically anyway, eliminate most of the weaknesses of the typical full-motion-video adventure game. For the most part, only conversations involved the use of full-motion video; everything else was rendered by Activision’s pixel artists and 3D modelers in conventional computer graphics. The protagonist wasn’t shown at all: at a time when the third-person view that was the all but universal norm in adventure games, Activision opted for a first-person view.

The debate over whether an adventure-game protagonist ought to be a blank state which the player can fill with her own personality or an established character which the player merely guides and empathizes with was a longstanding one even at the time when Return to Zork was being made. Certainly Infocom had held rousing internal debates on the subject, and had experimented fairly extensively with pre-established protagonists in some of their games. (These experiments sometimes led to rousing external debates among their fans, most notably in the case of the extensively characterized and tragically flawed protagonist of Infidel, who meets a nasty if richly deserved end no matter what the player does.) The Zork series, however, stemmed from an earlier, simpler time in adventure games than the rest of the Infocom catalog, and the “nameless, faceless adventurer,” functioning as a stand-in for the player herself, had always been its star. Thus Activision’s decision not to show the player’s character in Return to Zork, or indeed to characterize her in any way whatsoever, is a considered one, in keeping with everything that came before.

In fact, the protagonist of Return to Zork never actually says anything. To get around the need, Activision came up with a unique attitude-based conversation engine. As you “talk” to other characters, you choose from three stances — threatening, interested, or bored — and listen only to your interlocutors’ reactions. Not only does your own dialog go unvoiced, but you don’t even see the exact words you use; the game instead lets you imagine your own words. Specific questions you might wish to ask are cleverly turned into concrete physical interactions, something games do much better than abstract conversations. As you explore, you have a camera with which to take pictures of points of interest. During conversations, you can show the entries from your photo album to your interlocutor, perhaps prompting a reaction. You can do the same with objects in your inventory, locations on the auto-map you always carry with you, or even the tape recordings you automatically make of each interaction with each character.

So, whatever else you can say about it, Return to Zork is hardly bereft of ideas. William Volk, the technical leader of the project, was well up on the latest research into interface design being conducted inside universities like MIT and at companies like Apple. Many such studies had concluded that, in place of static onscreen menus and buttons, the interface should ideally pop into existence just where and when the user needed it. The result of such thinking in Return to Zork is a screen with no static interface at all; it instead pops up when you click on an object with which you can interact. Since it doesn’t need the onscreen menu of “verbs” typical of contemporaneous Sierra and LucasArts adventure games, Return to Zork can give over the entirety of the screen to its graphical portrayal of the world.

In addition to being a method of recapturing screen real estate, the interface was conceived as a way to recapture some of the sense of boundless freedom which is such a characteristic of parser-driven text adventures — a sense which can all too easily become lost amidst the more constrained interfaces of their graphical equivalent. William Volk liked to call Return to Zork‘s interface a “reverse parser”: clicking on a “noun” in the environment or in your inventory yields a pop-up menu of “verbs” that pertain to it. Taking an object in your “hand” and clicking it on another one yields still more options, the equivalent of commands to a parser involving indirect as well as direct objects. In the first screen of the game, for example, clicking the knife on a vulture gives options to “show knife to vulture,” “throw knife at vulture,” “stab vulture with knife,” or “hit vulture with knife.” There are limits to the sense of possibility: every action had to be anticipated and hand-coded by the development team, and most of them are the wrong approach to whatever you’re trying to accomplish. In fact, in the case of the example just mentioned as well as many others, most of the available options will get you killed; Return to Zork loves instant deaths even more than the average Sierra game. And there are many cases of that well-known adventure-game syndrome where a perfectly reasonable solution to a problem isn’t implemented, forcing you to devise some absurdly convoluted solution that is implemented in its stead. Still, in a world where adventure games were getting steadily less rather than more ambitious in their scope of interactive possibility — to a large extent due to the limitations of full-motion video — Return to Zork was a welcome departure from the norm, a graphic adventure that at least tried to recapture the sense of open-ended possibility of an Infocom game.

Indeed, there are enough good ideas in Return to Zork that one really, really wishes they all could have been tied to a better game. But sadly, I have to stop praising Return to Zork now and start condemning it.

The most obvious if perhaps most forgivable of its sins is that, as already noted, it never really manages to feel like Zork — not, at least, like the classic Zork of the original trilogy. (Steve Meretzky’s Zork Zero, Infocom’s final release to bear the name, actually does share some of the slapstick qualities of Return to Zork, but likewise rather misses the feel of the original.) The most effective homage comes at the very beginning, when the iconic opening text of Zork I appears onscreen and morphs into the new game’s splashy opening credits. It’s hard to imagine a better depiction circa 1993 of where computer gaming had been and where it was going — which was, of course, exactly the effect the designers intended.

https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rtz1.mp4

Once the game proper gets under way, however, modernity begins to feel much less friendly to the Zorkian aesthetic of old. Most of Zork‘s limited selection of physical icons do show up here, from grues to Flood Control Dam #3, but none of it feels all that convincingly Zork-like. The dam is a particular disappointment; what was described in terms perfect for inspiring awed flights of the imagination in Zork I looks dull and underwhelming when portrayed in the cruder medium of graphics. Meanwhile the jokey, sitcom-style dialog that confronts you at every turn feels even less like the original trilogy’s slyer, subtler humor.

This isn’t to say that Return to Zork‘s humor doesn’t connect on occasion. It’s just… different from that of Dave Lebling and Marc Blank. By far the most memorable character, whose catchphrase has lived on to this day as a minor Internet meme, is the drunken miller named Boos Miller. (Again, subtlety isn’t this game’s trademark.) He plies you endlessly with whiskey, whilst repeating, “Want some rye? Course you do!” over and over and over in his cornpone accent. It’s completely stupid — but, I must admit, it’s also pretty darn funny; Boos Miller is the one thing everyone who ever played the play still seems to remember about Return to Zork. But, funny though he is, he would be unimaginable in any previous Zork.

https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rtz3.mp4

Of course, a lack of sufficient Zorkiness need not have been the kiss of death for Return to Zork as an adventure game in the abstract. What really does it in is its thoroughly unfair puzzle design. This game plays like the fever dream of a person who hates and fears adventure games. It’s hard to know where to even start (or end) with this cornucopia of bad puzzles, but I’ll describe a few of them, ranked roughly in order of their objectionability.

The Questionable: At one point, you find yourself needing to milk a cow, but she won’t let you do so with cold hands. Do you need to do something sensible, like, say, find some gloves or wrap your hands in a blanket? Of course not! The solution is to light some of the hay that’s scattered all over the wooden barn on fire and warm your hands that way. For some reason, the whole place doesn’t go up in smoke. This solution is made still more difficult to discover by the way that the game usually kills you every time you look at it wrong. Why on earth would it not kill you for a monumentally stupid act like this one? To further complicate matters, for reasons that are obscure at best you can only light the hay on fire if you first pick it up and then drop it again. Thus even many players who are consciously attempting the correct solution will still get stuck here.

The Absurd: At another point, you find a bra. You have to throw it into an incinerator in order to get a wire out of it whose existence you were never aware of in the first place. How does the game expect you to guess that you should take such an action? Apparently some tenuous linkage with the 1960s tradition of bra burning and, as a justification after the fact, the verb “to hot-wire.” Needless to say, throwing anything else into the incinerator just destroys the object and, more likely than not, locks you out of victory.

The Incomprehensible: There’s a water wheel out back of Boos’s house with a chock holding it still. If you’ve taken the chock and thus the wheel is spinning, and you’ve solved another puzzle that involves drinking Boos under the table (see the video above), a trapdoor is revealed in the floor. But if the chock is in place, the trapdoor can’t be seen. Why? I have absolutely no idea.

The Brutal: In a way, everything you really need to know about Return to Zork can be summed up by its most infamous single puzzle. On the very first screen of the game, there’s a “bonding plant” growing. If you simply pull up the plant and take it with you, everything seems fine — until you get to the very end of the game many hours later. Here, you finally find a use for the plant you’ve been carting around all this time. Fair enough. But unfortunately, you need a living version of it. It turns out you were supposed to have used a knife to dig up the plant rather than pulling or cutting it. (The question of how it should survive even this treatment, considering you don’t plant it again in a pot or anything — much less how you can dig anything up with a knife — goes unanswered.) Guess what? You now get to play through the whole game again from the beginning.

All of the puzzles just described, and the many equally bad ones, are made still more complicated by the game’s general determination to be a right bastard to you every chance it gets. If, as Robb Sherwin once put it, the original Zork games hate their players, this game has found some existential realm beyond mere hatred. It will let you try to do many things to solve each puzzle, but, of those actions that don’t outright kill you, a fair percentage lock you out of victory in one way or another. Sometimes, as in the case of its most infamous puzzle, it lets you think you’ve solved them, only to pull the rug out from under you much later.

So, you’re perpetually on edge as you tiptoe through this minefield of instant deaths and unwinnable states; you’ll have a form of adventure-game post-traumatic-stress syndrome by the time you’re done, even if you’re largely playing from a walkthrough. The instant deaths are annoying, but nowhere near as bad as the unwinnable states; the problem there is that you never know whether you’ve already locked yourself out of victory, never know whether you can’t solve the puzzle in front of you because of something you did or didn’t do a long time ago.

It all combines to make Return to Zork one of the worst adventure games I’ve ever played. We’ve sunk to Time Zone levels of awful with this one. No human not willing to mount a methodical months-long assault on this game, trying every possibility everywhere, could possibly solve it unaided. Even the groundbreaking interface is made boring and annoying by the need to show everything to everyone and try every conversation stance on everyone, always with the lingering fear that the wrong stance could spoil your game. Adventure games are built on trust between player and designer, but you can’t trust Return to Zork any farther than you can throw it. Amidst all the hand-wringing at Activision over whether Return to Zork was or was not sufficiently Zorky, they forgot the most important single piece of the Infocom legacy: their thoroughgoing commitment to design, and the fundamental respect that commitment demonstrated to the players who spent their hard-earned money on Infocom games. “Looking back at the classics might be a good idea for today’s game designers,” wrote Computer Gaming World‘s Scorpia at the conclusion of her mixed review of Return to Zork. “Good puzzle construction, logical development, and creative inspiration are in rich supply on those dusty disks.” None of these, alas, is in correspondingly good supply in Return to Zork.

The next logical question, then, is just how Return to Zork‘s puzzles wound up being so awful. After all, this game wasn’t the quickie cash grab that Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 had been. The development team put serious thought and effort into the interface, and there were clearly a lot of people involved with this game who cared about it a great deal — among them Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick, who was willing to invest almost $1 million to bring the whole project to fruition at a time when cash was desperately short and his creditors had him on a short leash indeed.

The answer to our question apparently comes down to the poor reception of Leather Goddesses 2, which had stung Activision badly. In an interview given shortly before Return to Zork‘s release, Eddie Dornbrower said that, “based on feedback that the puzzles in Leather Goddesses of Phobos [2] were too simple,” the development team had “made the puzzles increasingly difficult just by reworking what Doug had already laid out for us.” That sounds innocent enough on the face of it. But, speaking to me recently, William Volk delivered a considerably darker variation on the same theme. “People hated Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 — panned it,” he told me. “So, we decided to wreak revenge on the entire industry by making Return to Zork completely unfair. Everyone bitches about that title. There’s 4000 videos devoted to Return to Zork on YouTube, most of which are complaining because the title is so blatantly unfair. But, there you go. Something to pin my hat on. I made the most unfair game in history.”

For all that I appreciate Volk sharing his memories with me, I must confess that my initial reaction to this boast was shock, soon to be followed by genuine anger at the lack of empathy it demonstrates. Return to Zork didn’t “wreak revenge” on its industry, which really couldn’t have cared less. It rather wreaked “revenge,” if that’s the appropriate word, on the ordinary gamers who bought it in good faith at a substantial price, most of whom had neither bought nor commented on Leather Goddesses 2. I sincerely hope that Volk’s justification is merely a case of hyperbole after the fact. If not… well, I really don’t know what else to say about such juvenile pettiness, so symptomatic of the entitled tunnel vision of so many who are fortunate enough to work in technology, other than that it managed to leave me disliking Return to Zork even more. Some games are made out of an openhearted desire to bring people enjoyment. Others, like this one, are not.

I’d like to be able to say that Activision got their comeuppance for making Return to Zork such a bad game, demonstrating such contempt for their paying customers, and so soiling the storied Infocom name in the process. But exactly the opposite is the case. Released in late 1993, Return to Zork became one of the breakthrough titles that finally made the CD-ROM revolution a reality, whilst also carrying Activision a few more steps back from the abyss into which they’d been staring for the last few years. It reportedly sold 1 million copies in its first year — albeit the majority of them as a bundled title, included with CD-ROM drives and multimedia upgrade kits, rather than as a boxed standalone product. “Zork on a brick would sell 100,000 copies,” crowed Bobby Kotick in the aftermath.

Perhaps. But more likely not. Even within the established journals of computer gaming, whose readership probably didn’t constitute the majority of Return to Zork‘s purchasers, reviews of the game were driven more by enthusiasm for its graphics and sound, which really were impressive in their day, than by Zork nostalgia. Discussed in the euphoria following its release as the beginning of a full-blown Infocom revival, Return to Zork would instead go down in history as a vaguely embarrassing anticlimax to the real Infocom story. A sequel to Planetfall, planned as the next stage in the revival, would linger in Development Hell for years and ultimately never get finished. By the end of the 1990s, Zork as well would be a dead property in commercial terms.

Rather than having all that much to do with its Infocom heritage, Return to Zork‘s enormous commercial success came down to its catching the technological zeitgeist at just the right instant, joining Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, The 7th Guest, and Myst as the perfect flashy showpieces for CD-ROM. Its success conveyed all the wrong messages to game publishers like Activision: that multimedia glitz was everything, and that design really didn’t matter at all.

If it stings a bit that this of all games, arguably the worst one ever to bear the Infocom logo, should have sold better than any of the rest of them, we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that Quality does have a way of winning out in the end. Today, Return to Zork is a musty relic of its time, remembered if at all only for that “want some rye?” guy. The classic Infocom text adventures, on the other hand, remain just that — widely recognized as timeless classics, their clean text-only presentations ironically much less dated than all of Return to Zork‘s oh-so-1993 multimedia flash. Justice does have a way of being served in the long run.

(Sources: the book Return to Zork Adventurer’s Guide by Steve Schwartz; Computer Gaming World of February 1993, July 1993, November 1993, and January 1994; Questbusters of December 1993; Sierra News Magazine of Spring 1990; Electronic Games of January 1994; New Media of June 24 1994. Online sources include The Zork Library‘s archive of Return to Zork design documents and correspondence, Retro Games Master‘s interview with Doug Barnett, and Matt Barton’s interview with William Volk. Some of this article is drawn from the full Get Lamp interview archives which Jason Scott so kindly shared with me. Finally, my huge thanks to William Volk for sharing his memories and impressions with me in a personal interview.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/return-to-zork/

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