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wewinbees · 4 years ago

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in regards to all the issues with MCC 14 im gonna bring up how unspeakably scuffed MCC 7 (july) was. focusing on the SBI v DT issues, which to preface both teams were tryharding because they were told it would be the last time they were allowed to team (at least for a little while) and they both wanted to leave with a win.

purple - dream, george, sapnap and sylvie

orange - techno, wilbur, phil and seapeekay

battle box - this started off with horrible lag, to the extent that it was unplayable for some teams, but they didn’t reset it until like round 4 or 5. additionally, they paused it before they decided on a reset, and a tonne of teams started to accidentally team kill with the power-up TNT packages, including wilbur killing CPK and techno going >:/ eventually they reset the whole round to try fix the lag, voiding the points from the first half meaning some players did better than they would have and others did Notably worse, like dream’s team who lost against a lot of teams they’d beat in the first rounds.

side note, but MCC 7 battle box scares the hell out of me just because wilbur blew up 2 of their teammates later on in the new rounds bc of Miscommunication (he asked if it would get them extra points by TNTing them at the end bc he got some when he team-killed in the pause, and techno was talking to himself and said ‘yea’ at the same time about something else), made worse bc it was against purple and dream got the points (although Techno lived and placed the wool so they still won) and then they spent the rest of the rounds arguing, with BOTH OF THEM going D:< and phil had to tell them to shut up. either way, it worked out well for orange, winning 8-1 while purple suffered, only winning to 5-4 largely bc of the reset. either way the girls were fighting and Oh My God it freaks me out lmao

build mart! not exactly a broken bit or a glitch but i feel like it would be POORLY RECEIVED in this current mcyttwt climate. basically orange had always been infamously bad at build mart, coming 8th last tournament, and were strategising on how to win. the night before, wilbur offhandedly mentioned getting every block so they didn’t have to rush back and forth, but this was unrealistic because there were too many blocks. but local tryhard (affectionate) technoblade took this and RUN, watching 6 hours of footage across every MCC vod to make 4 shopping lists, divided into sections for each player to collect, that had the exact number of each block needed to complete any of the 26 possible builds, and they came 1st place as a result. the funniest thing is they would have done even better if the timer wasn’t reduced from 15mins to 12mins, which was probably done bc of their complaining. the really fun part about this is techno went to boast about it to dream at the end, telling him he’d went through all 26 builds, only for dream to interrupt him “there’s 27, actually” BECAUSE HE DID THE SAME THING HAHAH!!! at least something similar, including some strange Java programme? idk but their strategy didn’t work nearly as well, with their team coming in 6th (from 9th last tournament)

the real drama this time though, was audience takeover! this was the first MCC with serious issues around the takeover; before dream joined in MCC6, it was whatever techno chose, and since they both chose battle box for MCC 6 it didn’t make a difference. but this time they divided votes. dream wanted HITW and techno wanted rocket spleef. after a harsh twitter poll, HITW won with 47% to Rocket Spleef’s 43%. now at this point i think the way that voting worked was that there’s 50 NPCs in the dome, each representing 2% of the vote. but because of how many people voted and how close the polls had been, the system glitched and gave techno’s team the win in rocket spleef. THIS WENT DOWN AS POORLY AS YOU COULD IMAGINE WITH THE DREAM TEAM, who had never played rocket spleef before. the admins paused the game and tried to swap it over, but it was not in the code for them to actually be able to swap to a new game, so they had to just play on. as a result, Dream’s team fell by A Lot, and they got pretty mad about the whole situation, especially given the fact that battle box had already been reset at this point, so the fact that they couldn’t reset rocket spleef got them pretty mad, w dream genuinely threatening to log at one point

that’s the last of the Major scuffs, i think there were some minor bugs too, like an arrow pick-up glitching in dodgebolt that meant phil died (which was Unfortunate because they lost 2-3) but in the end of the day guess what!!? it doesn’t actually matter! because it’s a non-profit for-fun MINECRAFT tournament!! any streamer that gets toxic tends to immediately apologise, and the discovery of bugs and exploits helps them get patched to never happen again! the build mart block randomiser gets added, they changed the coding of the audience vote to be shiftable! and ‘let’s just play rocket spleef’ becomes a great reoccurring joke among the MCC community

the noxcrew are amazing game developers, and even the breakers myof games should be treated like fun because in the end of the day It Does Not Really Matter :) i know we’re all chill on tumblr but i just want to reinforce how good MCC is okay and i did it with this big long post about how scuffed it can be, but the important part is how it improves and how we as a community react

#mcc #technoblade #dreamwastaken #tagging them bc they focus heavily in the bugs lmao #mcyt #mcc 7 #me going ‘it’s a summary guys’ and it’s That Long Huh #i like MCC 7 but it’s a hard watch sometimes lmao like i wanna watch greens POV at some point #i do feel like we’re being cool about it but also i have just been writing this instead of looking. Im putting my trust in yall being cool

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let-me-write-shit · 5 years ago

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Somebody To You: 16

Friendly reminder to please Like and/or Reblog. It helps more than you think! :)

Word Count: 4,322

Click Here For Previous Chapter & Other Completed Stories

PLEASE let me know what you think

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

Zoey never considered herself to be a city girl, but the longer she lived here, the more accustomed she became. Of course, there were perks she missed living in the suburbs. Yards, gardening, a better sense of security. She missed those nights where she could sit on her back porch, listen to the crickets chirping, and watch the lightning bugs dance around the lawn. Hearing the trees rustle in the darkness was a calm she could never quite replicate.

But city life was exciting. There was always something to do or something to see. People were on every corner and energies were always high. It was never boring. Downtown LA was bustling with people, especially for a Sunday afternoon. Andy had taken her on a little shopping spree after brunch. He said he wanted to buy a whole new wardrobe to ‘reinvent himself’. She hadn’t planned on buying anything, but he wasn’t having that. They stopped in a bunch of little boutiques, trying on all sorts of dresses, bathing suits, and shoes. There were so many hidden gems in the way of local small businesses in the area. And the store owners were always kind.

“I can’t wait to bring my sister out here one day,” Zoey held up a cute graphic tee, “Katie would love these shops.”

“Do you two talk a lot?” Andy asked.

Zoey re-folded the shirt and placed it back, “I try to, but not nearly enough. I miss her.”

“Didn’t you say you weren’t really close growing up?”

“Yeah. We didn’t start getting close until right before I moved. It made leaving harder. She’s getting ready to start college soon. I think my parents are starting to freak out a bit that she’s moving on campus. Empty nest syndrome.”

“Little bird’s gotta learn to fly,” Andy spoke, earning a nod from Zoey.

The two decided to grab some crepes to go and ate them on a bench, watching strangers pass them by on the street, catching up on all their work stories, and talking about how awkward her date was the other day. Nancy’s friend was nice, alright, but clearly hadn’t been in a relationship before and had no clue how to communicate with women. He had potential if he found someone with patience, but she just wasn’t prepared to baby someone at the moment. She recalled Harry getting a kick out of it when she told him about it, but Zoey just felt bad. She made sure to let him down gently.

Eventually, they got on the topic of Zoey’s birthday coming up in three days. She had already told Andy that she wanted to go to the beach, but he made it a point to remind her that it was a birthday, therefore they needed to celebrate all day. They discussed having dinner at a nice restaurant with all of her friends, bar hopping afterward, and ending the night with a karaoke club. She started to get excited, especially since she just bought the perfect outfit to wear.

“What about Brett? Is he invited, or are he and Rory not speaking?”

“I didn’t tell you?!” Zoey exclaimed, turning towards him and swallowing her mouthful of crepe, “he asked Rory out last night! They’re official.”

“No fucking way!” Andy exclaimed, covering his mouth, “Bitch! Imagine the babies they’d make!”

“Cute little foreign babies!” Zoey cooed, laughing.

“Does Harry know about them yet?”

Zoey pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, “I haven’t told him yet, so probably not.”

Andy went wide-eyed, an interested smirk stretching across his face, “Wonder how he’ll react when he finds out.”

Zoey shrugged her shoulders, looking down at her food. She didn’t know. She was getting these weird mixed signals from Harry. He’s been back in England for a week now and even with the dramatic time difference, they’ve talked more this week than they did when he was on tour. She’d attribute that to him finally having some time off from work, but she knew that he’d been in the studio and had a few meetings, so even that wasn’t necessarily true.

But the increase in communication wasn’t what she was confused about. It’s the conversations themselves. At first, she thought Harry was handling the ‘Rory situation’ pretty well. He had confided in her that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be with her to begin with, which she had suspected. He had told Zoey about how his friends keep making jokes about how they think he likes her. At first, Zoey laughed it off. Her and Harry? That would never happen. She just simply wasn’t his type. And he made that very clear.

But then there would be moments. Subtle. But enough to catch her attention. A tone in his voice, an expression on his face, an extra-long silence where there didn’t need to be. Maybe she was reading into it after what he told her. Maybe she was reading into it because she secretly hoped it was true, which killed her. He was her best friend. She finally met someone whom she could be herself around without feeling uncomfortable. Someone she could confide in about anything and everything, and that meant even more to her now that Jess was gone.

She didn’t want to jeopardize that by saying or acting on some stupid puppy love crush she had on Harry fucking Styles of all people. He doesn’t like her like that. And even if he did, how could they even attempt to make that work? Especially after he and Rory had a thing. What, so now they’re just swapping sexual partners? Even if Zoey was fine with her friend dating and sleeping with a fling of hers, it doesn’t mean that Aurora was. She couldn’t risk ruffling her roommate’s feathers. She didn’t want to lose her friendship or make things awkward at home, either. So, for now, she’d just keep her mouth shut while this little phase passes.

The two finished up eating when Andy checked his phone and suggested they start heading back to her place to get ready for work tonight. “Get ready? We’ve still got three hours before we have to leave!”

“Yes, but you need a shower and I want to show Nancy and Rory these clothes I got!” he shot back.

“Alright, alright! Fine!”

The ride back to the condo was like any other ride between the two friends: filled with painfully tone-deaf singing and dramatic dance. Nothing was out of the ordinary as the two rode the elevator to the twenty-second floor and discussed the predictions for the turnout at the bar tonight. Nothing seemed different as she punched her code into the front door and stepped inside. Except, instead of the typical scene she’d see, she walked in to see Nancy and Rory standing in the middle of the living room with huge smiles on their beautiful faces, surrounded by several large rolling luggage. One of which she noticed was her own.

“What are you doing?” Zoey asked them, turning to see Andy’s eager grin. Her eyes furrowed, confused, “What’s going on?”

“We’re taking you away for your birthday,” Nancy’s smile grew, stepping out from behind the luggage and walking towards her. Aurora followed closely behind.

“What? Where are we going?” Zoey asked, her heartbeat rising.

“That’s a surprise. ” Nancy grinned.

Zoey laughed skeptically, eyebrows raising, “This is a joke, right?” Everyone shook their head no and she asked, “What about work? What about Binx? Where are we going?”

Andy spoke up, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her into a hug, “I had our manager put in vacation time for us for almost a month now. We’ve had this planned for a while now.”

“And don’t worry about Binx. Brett’s going to watch him while we’re gone,” Aurora grinned, “We think we packed everything you’ll need, but if Nancy and I forgot anything, we’ll just get it while we’re there. Now come on! We need to go before we’re late!”

Overwhelmed, Zoey shoved the new clothes she just bought into her suitcase, double-checking her pockets to make sure she had her wallet and ID on her. Quickly, she grabbed a hoodie and they were off, making sure to grab Andy’s suitcase from his car before getting into Rory’s and heading to the airport.

The whole way she was trying to make guesses as to where they were going, but none of them faltered. They had managed to get to the airport, check their luggage, and go through security with her being none the wiser. She wasn’t allowed to look at her ticket. Nancy was always beside her, holding onto Zoey’s documents and explaining to TSA agents and any airport employee they encountered that she was going on a surprise birthday trip, asking them to please not ruin it for her until they got to the gate. Most of them got a kick out of it. Finally, when they reached the gate, there, above the seating area, with Nancy recording her reaction, is where she found out where they were going.

Zoey gasped, her hands shooting up to her mouth and her legs giving out, she crumbled to the ground, tears forming in her eyes, “Rome?!” Her friends stood around her, laughing, smiling, and tearing up at her reaction. “You’re taking me to Rome?!”

Andy put a hand out for her, “You better get your ass up off this dirty-ass floor,” he choked, pulling her to her feet.

“Are you serious?” She repeated, holding onto him for support.

“You said you’ve always wanted to come here,” Aurora reminded her, wrapping her arms around her friend, “You deserve it.”

Nancy came over and they all had a group hug, onlookers staring at them with smiles on their faces when they realized what was going on. “You guys, this is crazy!” Zoey laughed, wiping the tears that ran down her cheeks.

“Well, it’s a long flight. A little over seventeen hours,” Nancy warned her, “and because of the time difference, we technically won’t be arriving until tomorrow night around 5 PM. But we made sure to bring a bunch of snacks and games to play while we’re on board.”

“And bitch, we’re in first class!” Andy squealed, jumping up and down.

Zoey’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping again as she processed everything that was going on. “How the hell did you guys manage all of this? I have a passport? How did you get me a passport? Does Harry know about this? He had something to do with this, didn’t he?”

“We had help to get your passport,” Aurora admitted, “We had to snoop and call your parents to get all of your documents.”

“My parents know I’m going to Italy?!”

“And I’m a little offended you think Harry must have had some involvement in this! What, we couldn’t do this for you on our own?” Nancy feigned disappointment.

“No, I’m sorry, I just-”

“I’m kidding. He totally planned this,” Nancy laughed, “It was his idea to do this. We all just helped make it happen.”

“You guys!” Zoey smiled, pulling them into another long hug before they found a few empty seats in the corner of the seating area before they got ready to board. Zoey took the opportunity to Facetime Harry. It must have been a little before midnight, but she could bet that he’d still answer. And just like she suspected, the screen enlarged just in time to see the dark surrounding of Harry’s room illuminate when he switched on the lamp on his side table.

He rubbed his eyes and squinted. When he saw the expression on Zoey’s face, his mouth stretched in a smile, “Surprised?” he asked.

Zoey shook her head, there was no hiding her grin, “How could you keep this a secret?”

“Because of that look, right there,” Harry pointed at her face, through the screen.

Nancy leaned over Zoey’s shoulder, “I’ll send you her reaction. It was amazing!”

“You’re going to be there, right?” Zoey asked, her eyes hopeful.

Harry nodded, “Yeah, I head out in the morning. It’s a short flight for me. I’ll be there before you land.”

“Okay. I’ll let you get some sleep then. I’ll see you tomorrow!” she grinned.

“Safe travels,” Harry smiled.

Just before he could end the call she managed to say, “Oh, and Harry? Thank you.”

Harry nodded, winking before the call went blank. It was hard for him to sleep after that. He was too excited. She still had no clue what was to come.

Nancy wasn’t kidding. The flight was long. Excruciatingly long. Even in first class, it was hard to get comfortable. Her legs felt like jello and she had no feeling in her butt anymore. Her neck was so stiff that it was hard to move it. She had read an entire novel by the end of the first half of the flight, and she and Andy had gotten bored of playing cards. There was nothing else to do but sleep.

And sleep, she did. Until the discomfort of depressurization in the cabin made her ears painfully pop and woke her from her sleep. She looked out of the window to see a large city in the distance, slowly coming closer and closer. A chime throughout the airplane sounded, waking Andy beside her, and the pilot’s voice had announced their descent into Rome, followed up by a few other languages.

Quickly, Zoey’s exhaustion was replaced with exhilaration, excitedly staring out the window as the plane collided with cement and sped down the runway towards their gate. They couldn’t get off fast enough. She thanked the pilots and the flight attendants on the way out, skipping down the hallways with her friends, grabbing their bags, and heading out to the car rental lot to pick up an SUV for the weekend, which Aurora gladly drove, as she was used to European roads, having traveled to Italy a few times before.

The air in Italy was different. Cleaner. Less pollutant. It had a faint smell of lemon and roasted coffee that felt so dreamy. Rory plugged their destination into the GPS and Zoey pressed her nose against the window, staring out at the scene. The architecture was grand. Old. Historical. Beautiful. Her heart skipped a beat whenever she recognized something from the endless hours of research she had done on the history of Rome. She was simply mesmerized.

They rode for twenty minutes as the sun began to cast a golden glow across the sky, still brightly illuminating the streets below, the streets lined with tall cypress trees and stone walls that separated property lines from large estates to which you could barely see from the road when they finally pulled up to a grand, cast-iron gate. Zoey watched as Rory looked at her phone, punched a code into the call box, and the gate slowly started to open.

As soon as they pulled into the white gravel driveway, they noticed the vineyard that stretched the length of the grounds on either side of the driveway that separated them leading up to a huge water feature that sat in the center of the wraparound drive situated in front of a massive seven thousand square foot elegant Italian villa.

“Holy shit,” they all muttered, clamoring out of the car and gawking up at the building.

“This whole thing is ours for a week?” Andy exclaimed, dumbstruck.

“That’s what Harry said,” Aurora said, opening the trunk door.

One by one they began to pull their luggage out when a whistle caught their attention. They turned to see Harry standing barefoot on the stone landing wearing wool cream-colored pants, a white tank top with an unbuttoned white short sleeve shirt over top, and yellow sunglasses. His arms were outstretched and he smiled, shouting, “Finally! Took you long enough.”

The four of them ran up, dropping their bags to give him a huge hug, shouting out various greetings and shouts of thanks.

He turned to Zoey, grabbing the handle of her suitcase with one hand and wrapping an arm around her shoulder with the other. Her heart fluttered at his touch. He looked and smelled different in Italy. It suited him. Harry’s arm pressed down on the end of his ponytail as he pulled Zoey closer to him and he said aloud, “Now, we are going to make this the best week of your life. But to do that, we have one other surprise for you. So if you’d be so kind as to follow me inside…”

“...What is going on?” Zoey asked, suspiciously following the singer with her friends behind her, Nancy, again, filming her reaction.

Harry grinned as he took her hand, leading her into the home. Everyone took in the scene, gaze scanning the beautiful Tuscan terracotta flooring up the Venetian plastered walls lined with beautiful Italian paintings and artwork and the elegant staircase with wrought iron railing. He noticed she took a deep breath and turned to him.

“Is that food? Are you cooking us dinner?” Zoey asked.

Harry had them stop just before entering what she could see was the kitchen and said, “Well, it’s funny you should mention that. Yes, I’m cooking. But I had a little help. You can come out!” he shouted.

And he watched Zoey’s face change from confusion to absolute shock as she screamed, letting go of his hand and running to her little sister. “Oh my God, Katie!” she screamed, pulling her little sister into a tight embrace, both of them beginning to cry as they looked each other up and down and wiped each other’s tears, muttering incoherent words of sentiment to each other.

Harry knew how much Katie meant to her, but to see it firsthand almost felt like a privilege. And to think, he almost didn’t think to invite her. She only just turned eighteen. It took a lot of convincing for her parents to let her go. He had offered to pay for the entire trip, but her parents didn’t care about that. He had to Facetime and call them several times, promise to keep them updated at every point of the trip, make sure Katie called them every night before bed, send a general itinerary of the week's events, and give emergency numbers to all in attendance, which everyone was glad to give. He picked Katie up from the airport himself, arriving only two hours before the rest of them.

“You knew, too?” Zoey breathed, finally pulling away from her little sister, her words shaking along with her hands as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

Harry felt a lump in his throat begin to rise as soon as he noticed Zoey’s chin quivering from the emotions and Katie nodded, explaining everything that Harry had done.

Zoey shook her head, overwhelmed, and took a deep breath, motioning towards her friends. “Have you met these guys yet, then?” When Katie shook her head again, she introduced the three, “This is Andy. He’s my amazing friend and coworker. And these two are my roommates. Nancy and Rory.”

The three of them pulled the shy Katie away from her older sister, giving her hugs and showering her with compliments while Zoey turned her attention to Harry. He noticed her red, puffy eyes and grinned, pulling her into a tight hug that she could sink into. It’s only been a little over a week, but it could have been longer for all he knew. Facetime was hardly enough.

When Zoey pulled away, she walked back over to her little sister, running a hand through her sister’s long brown hair and smiling. Seeing them side-by-side he could see the similarities in their features if he looked hard enough.

“Alright,” Harry announced, “We have about fifteen minutes until dinner is done, so how about a quick tour of the villa while we wait?” Everyone cheered words of approval, grabbing their bags and following Harry as he walked through the house, “There are seven bedrooms here and a few convertible offices, so everyone gets their own bedroom with more to spare. There are three bedrooms on this floor and four more upstairs. Katie already claimed her bedroom down here. Nice choice, might I add,” he winked at Katie who held onto Zoey’s arm as they peaked into Katie’s room which overlooked the vineyard. “I left the master bedroom upstairs for Zoey since it’s her birthday week. I also picked a room upstairs, so everything else is up for grabs.”

As they roamed throughout the house, everyone began picking rooms. Andy had picked a bedroom adjacent to Katie that had a walkout to the oversized Mediterranean terrace that housed an outdoor seating area with a firepit and a grapevine covered trellis with hanging outdoor chandeliers overtop of a long outdoor dining table, while Aurora and Nancy picked the last two bedrooms upstairs with Harry and Zoey, leaving their bags in their rooms before visiting the two large living rooms, the library, formal dining room, chef’s kitchen, and more. Finally, dinner was ready. Everyone helped take plates, utensils, and glassware out to the table on the back terrace while Harry carefully brought out the large serving plate filled with Chicken Tetrazzini and two bottles of wine tucked in his arms.

They each filled up their plates as Harry passed the wine around. “You’re legal to drink here,” Zoey grinned, filling up her sister’s glass.

“Oooh! You’re going to have so much fun while you’re here!” Andy cooed, smirking at Katie. “Don’t tell your mama on us!”

“Definitely not!” Katie assured her, taking her first sip of wine, and smiling.

Dinner was wonderful, and the view made it even better as the sun began to set. The villa sat up on a hill, overlooking miles and miles of beautiful land with an abundance of pine, fig, cherry, pear, and apple trees. The pool sat yards away with lounge chairs surrounding it. She couldn’t have dreamt up a more beautiful place if she tried.

After dinner, Harry made up a fire in the firepit and everyone sat around with their glass of wine, laughing and enjoying each other's company. One by one they began dropping like flies, heading inside to take a shower or get some rest until there were three left. Harry sat with his back against the view of the yard while Zoey sat opposite him, Katies’ head resting on her lap, sleeping, as her big sister braided and unbraided her hair.

Harry grinned adoringly, “You’re not what I expected.”

Zoey snorted, looking up from her sister, “What does that mean?”

He shifted in his seat, cocking his head to the side, her face illuminating in the reflection of the dancing flames, “Well, you’re a bartender. And for some reason, whenever I think of a bartender, I think of a badass, tattoo-covered, wild child, tough girl. And I don’t mean to stereotype, but you’re nothing like that. I mean, yeah you can handle yourself. But you’ve got no tattoos, you’re so sweet, and you’re almost like the mom of the group, always making sure everyone else is happy first.”

“I think most bartenders are like me, we just have to put on a tough act in front of customers so they take us seriously,” Zoey said before grinning, “And I do have tattoos.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed, “You do? Where?”

She winked, taking a sip of her wine, “Don’t worry about it.”

His mouth dropped, inadvertently scanning her, wondering where her tattoos could be hidden and what on earth they could even be. He hadn’t pegged her for the type to even have a tattoo, let alone in a suggestive spot.

He watched as Zoey raised her wine glass to her lips once more, taking the smallest sip. The way that the light illuminated her features gave her a romantic and sultry glow, hitting the highs of her cheekbone and accentuating the shadows and curves of her collarbone. He decided he’d had enough wine and would end it there for the night.

“We should get to bed before jetlag gets us,” Harry suggested.

Zoey nodded in agreement, lightly shaking her sister awake. Harry put out the fire and reminded Katie to send her parents a quick text as they sent her off to bed and the two began to climb the steps, his arm over her shoulders, turning off lights along the way, passing Nancy and Aurora’s room before reaching Harry’s next. They stopped for a moment as he backed up to his door, slowly dragging his arm off of her shoulders. Apart of him wanted to invite her in. He didn’t want the night to end, he wanted to stay up for a few more hours and talk. He still had so much he wanted to tell her. But the more he looked at her, the more he heard his friends taunting him in the back of his mind. ‘You love her’ ‘You’re blind’ ‘By the end of this trip you’ll realize it.’ They weren’t right. He couldn’t let them be right.

“Night,” he grinned, opening his door.

Zoey’s expression looked uncertain for a moment, hesitating which caused Harry to freeze, almost in a panic, before she blinked and smiled, looking up at him, “Night. See you in the morning.”

He watched as she disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her, achingly wondering what she was thinking about.

Zoey leaned her back against the closed door, closing her eyes tightly and sighing before standing up straight and flipping her suitcase open, pulling out the contents and placing her clothes in the proper drawer or hanging them in the closet before putting her toiletries away in her en suite. Anything to distract herself from the absolute embarrassment she almost just made of herself. How much wine did she drink to think that it might be okay to kiss him?

KEEP READING

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Taglist for Somebody To You:

@thurhomish , @stilljosiegrossie , @odetostep , @apples2019 , @stylesmioamore

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backtobackbakubabe · 5 years ago

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Baby its Cold Outside (PART 7)

Bakugo x Reader

Who let the dogs out!

Words : 2489

PART 1 HERE, PART 2 HERE, PART 3 HERE PART 4 HERE PART 5 HERE , PART 6 HERE PART 7 HERE PART 8 HERE PART 9 HERE PART 10 HERE PART 11 HERE PART 12 HERE PART 13 HERE PART 14 HERE

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You had your headphones in. Listening to a podcast while you did your daily physical therapy. You were almost done. Only a week left and you could technically be cleared for hero work. Key work being technically.

It was something you and Bakugo had been discussing at great length recently. For obvious reasons he would be totally okay if you retired from being a hero, but he knows that he can’t put you in a bubble nor should he keep you from your dream job.

You were proud of him for even considering it an option. He understood what it was like to be a hero, and he understood how hard it would be to quit. He also knew first hand how hard you had worked to get to where you were and it’d be a shame for your career to but cut short.

The thing was.... you weren't sure. You absolutely loved being a hero, but you were sill having a hard time with the psychological repercussions of being shot. No matter how hard you tried you still freaked out over loud noises and you hated going outside alone. You just had this weird irrational fear that they were going to come back and finish the job.

You hadn't voiced these worries to anyone. You were nervous that if you said it out loud they would think you were unstable and then you would be permanently benched. Doomed to desk jobs and paperwork.

You wrapped up your workout and headed back to the apartment. You kept your headphones in while you walked which Katsuki scolded you for constantly. Saying it was dangerous and anyone could sneak up on you. But you couldn't help it. Drowning out all the noises of the city that made you jumpy was imperative to make sure you got home without having an episode.

Usually once you got within a mile or two of home you would just teleport. Ever since you woke up your range had been much larger. You decided that it must be like a muscle. The more you used it the stronger it got. Teleporting all those girls out that night had pushed you into the miles range now. Although you have no idea how you ever managed 15 miles, let alone how you did it on accident.

Today was a nice day though so you decided to just walk.

You were probably a block or two from home when a hand came out of no where and grabbed your shoulder. Panic seized you for a few short moments before your instincts kicked in. You raised your arm and swung out to hit your attacker. But it did no good because they just caught your arm with one hand and ripped your headphone out with the other. “And that is how easy it would be for someone to attack you when you walk around with headphones in.”

You rolled your eyes at the familiar red head as you teleported to the other side of Kirishima. “And that’s how easy it is for me to get away... Did Bakugo ask you to do that?”

He just chuckled, “No he didn't, but he did send me to tell you his phone got destroyed today while he was chasing down an arsonist. He’s going to be late tonight and might possibly pull some extra hours and work a graveyard shift.”

You pouted slightly at the thought of being home alone the rest of the night. “Well I was going to make some dinner, you are more than welcome to join.”

Kirishima narrowed his eyes at you, “Say we can order in and I’m down. No offense but I’ve heard stories about your cooking and I’m not really in the mood for food poisoning.”

You leaned over and started slapping his shoulder repeatedly, “Bakugo is a fucking liar! I am a perfectly good cook! He just never lets me!”

Kirishima started laughing as he acted like he was going to put you in a headlock, “Whatever you say Y/n. Lets just order anyways. It’ll be my trea- AHH!”

Kirishima let go of you in an instant as you looked down to see a small german shepherd that was probably no more than a year old with his teeth sank into Kirishima’s pant leg. “What the hell! Where did he come from?” He shook his leg a few times. Not really bothered by it considering it didn't break through his hard skin. When he finally shook the dog off it immediately backed up until his butt was practically between your legs facing Kirishima almost as if it was daring him to come any closer. “Well would you look at that? I think you have a friend there Y/n.”

You tentatively reached down and scratched the dog on his head. He softened at your touch and his tail started to wag. “He must have thought you were trying to hurt me... He doesn't have a collar.... Maybe I could -”

“Y/n so help me if the next words out of your mouth are take it home.. Bakugo will flip.”

You smirked, “Well thats what he gets for leaving home alone. You know I’d call and ask him, but wouldn't you know it, I don't think his phone is working.”

“Oh boy... you’re lucky he loves you.”

It took no coercion to get the dog to follow you home. In fact all you had to do was say “Come on boy” and he followed you the whole way home like the literal puppy dog he was.

Once you got him inside you made a little makeshift bed for him out of and old blanket of yours. You used a damp towel to get some dirt off of his paws. Katsuki was very compulsive about keeping a clean and organized home. If he came home to muddy paw prints on his hardwood floors it would be game over.

You sat on the floor and the pup ran over and plopped down in your lap. His tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth while his tail was going a mile a minute. “Who’s a good boy? Huh? Is it you? Are you a good boy?”

He flipped over and showed you his belly and gave a soft woof as is to confirm that he was in fact a good boy.

“He already seems to be attached to you.” Kiri had a worried look on his face.

“Well good because I’m already attached to him too. And I’ve already decided I don't care what Suki thinks. We’re keeping him.”

Kirishima just rubbed his neck, “If you say so. I’m going to order us some food. You want me to order him some white rice or something?”

“Oh! Good idea! With chicken too! Make sure you tell them no seasoning though. Completely bland. We don't want him to get an upset tummy. We need to make a good first impression and I don't think pooping on the floor would be the quickest way to Katsuki’s heart.”

“Well if there's anyone who knows the secret access codes to Bakugo’s heart it’d be you. Just do me a favor and don’t get your hopes up too high. I know he loves you and all. But you and I both know he doesn't like surprises, or messes.... or anything that cant take care of itself...”

You snorted, “Well I guess we’ll consider this practice for a baby.”

Kirishima dropped his phone... “Baby? Did you just say Baby? You're not like...” he motioned to his stomach with wide eyes.

“Oh no! Sorry no I didn't mean like right now. But you know eventually I’d like to have kids. This could be good practice for him.”

He looked relieved, “I hate to break it to you I don't think Bakugo has a paternal bone in his body.”

You shrugged, “I didn’t think he had it in him to be a good boyfriend either yet here we are. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He seemed to think that over a bit, “Yeah I guess that’s true. I always knew you two would end up together though. He never shut up about you at UA. He was always, ‘Did you see y/n today at training? She looked so good!’ ‘Hey do you think if I asked y/n to study she would think it’s weird?’ and my personal favorite , ‘If one more fucking extra looks at her ass I swear to god I’m blowing the place up!’”

Your eyes widened, “Okay fist of all that is probably the best Bakugo impression I have ever heard. Spot on my friend. And second of all.... NO FUCKING WAY? Was he really like that? All I remember is him pushing me around and yelling at me in training.”

“Oh he was smitten from day one. He could hide it from everyone but me.”

Your food arrived and you and Kirishima continued to swap stories from UA. You telling him all about the behind the scenes gossip you and Mina would get into about him and he told you about all the times Bakugo almost asked you out but chickened out. It was a good night.

He walked outside with you as you let your new, still nameless puppy go potty. Then he took off to go home. Saying he couldn't wait to tell Mina all the new things he learned about her. You just chuckled and waved goodbye.

Now it was time for the tricky part. Every time you would crawl into bed the puppy would hop up as well. He would curl up to your side and it was so cute. But you couldn't push your luck so you would pick him up and put him on his blanket on the floor. Then a few minutes later he was back in the bed.

The cycle continued for a while before you finally just got on the floor and cuddled with him until he fell asleep. Then you gently go up and snuck into bed. Not that it mattered because right as you fell asleep he jumped up and laid down near the end of the bed. Keeping your feet nice and warm. Everything was going alright until around 5 am when your boyfriend finally got home.

“OI! What the fuck is this?”

You bolted upright to see your dog now standing over you protectively, head bowed low as he followed Bakugo’s every movement with his eyes.

“Hey don't yell! He doesn't like it.” You gave the dog an affectionate pat on his head and he seemed to calm down a bit.

“Oh well forgive me if I hurt some random ass dogs feelings. Where the fuck did it come from? Who does it belong too?”

You started to look anywhere but at Katsuki. Mindlessly petting the dog as your nerves settled, “Well Kiri walked me home as I expect you asked him to and we were kinda play fighting and this dog came out of no where and basically attacked Kiri to get him away from me because he thought he was hurting me. But he's actually really sweet and he seems to really like me and -”

“Y/n... what the fuck where you thinking? Do you know how much responsibility a dog is?”

“Well Katsuki I was thinking that now that I’m basically at home alone all day, stressed the fuck out may I add, that it would be nice to have some company. Not only does he like to cuddle but he’s also a perfect guard dog! Wouldn't you feel better on overnight shifts knowing that he’s here to help keep me safe?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, “Y/n....”

“Please Suki... We’ve already bonded. Honestly I think he would really help with my anxiety. I haven't really told you because I didn't want you to worry... but I’ve been a little... uh nervous.. leaving the house. And I feel like It would be easier if I had him with me. Pleaaaaaaaaase”

He sat on the edge of the bed and scratched the dog behind the ear, “Have you named it yet?”

You beamed at him, “No not yet, I wanted your help. I’ll name him Lord Explosion Murder if you want I don't even care I just want to keep him...”

He smirked, “That won't be necucesaay... What about Lucifer? Because I swear this dog is the devil. He tried to corner me in my own apartment when I came home.. You were right about him being a good guard dog.”

“Does this mean we can keep him?!” You practically held your breath while you waited for an answer.

“Uh I guess. But you’re the one that needs to take care of him. I already have to take care of you. I’m at my limit..”

You lunged at him and wrapped your arms around his neck, “Oh my gosh! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I love you so much! You're the best boyfriend ever!”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. So what are going to call him?” Katsuki climbed in bed next to you and pulled you to him. The dog settling in by your feet again.

“Not that Lucifer isn't a great name babe but you know I was kind of thinking about Zuko. He’s our favorite character from Avatar the Last Airbender and he’s a fire bender kind of like you so... I don't know. I guess I just kind of liked it.”

He huffed, “I don't bend fire y/n. My sweat explodes. Hence the name Lord Explosion Murder.... but yeah.. I guess I could get on board with that.”

Later that morning you could hear the door softly close as you assumed Katsuki took Zuko out to go to the bathroom. Already doing exactly what he said he wasn't going to do. When he came back inside you could hear him talking to Zuko as if he were a human.

“Alright so I’m only letting you stay because she likes you. As if she really thought I was going to tell her no. She took three bullets for me and thought I’d tell her she couldn't have a dog... yeah right. I’d give her ten dogs if that’s what she really wanted.”

The sound of him filling up a bowl of water echoed from the kitchen, “But don't get too comfy because you have a job to do. You need to be the man of the house when I’m not around. And don't for a second think you can steal my cuddle time when I get home at night. You have her all damn day. When I get home it’s my turn... You got that?”

There was a faint sound of Zuko panting as if they had gone for a run, “I guess you are kind of cute..”

#bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n #bakugo #bakugo katsuki #katsuki bakugō #bakugo imagine #bhna #bhna bakugou #bhna imagine #bhna x reader #mha #mha bakugou #mha imagines #mha x reader #my hero academia

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kokichi-and-co-imagine-blog · 6 years ago

Note

What if the v3 cast were all swapped bodies? Like in the monopad they all swapped to the left? What hijinks would ensue?

I would put a picture of me being super excited since I wrote something else that wasn’t DRTC, but I can’t bc my computer is being rude. This one is gonna have some fun fun spoilers though! Keep that in mind. ~Mod Kokichi

V3 Body Swap

Kaede - Ryoma

When Kaede realizes that the only way to see everyone is to strain her neck and everything is incredibly short in her room, she knows something is deeply wrong. She realizes that the only person she could possibly be is Ryoma. The entire day, she spends going about as normally a possible. She wants to finish the day at the piano, but her fingers are far too small to play any of her classical pieces.

Angie - Gonta

Angie wakes up, almost practically unaffected! Sure, she bumps into everything possible due to the large size, and sure her vision is completely horrible and she can’t find his glasses most of the time, and sure his hands are too large to do any of her sculptures, and-- okay, she isn’t quite pleased. However, before anyone can chuckle at her horrible handling of his body, she tells them that perhaps Atua planned this from the start so she can use the might of her lovely god to enforce his will. The best part is everyone seems to listen, though she can’t imagine why!

Gonta - Shuichi

Gonta feels a lot lighter. When he looks into a mirror and sees Shuichi’s eyes looking back, he almost didn’t even realize. His eyes widened a few moments later before moving back and freaking out. Even hearing Shuichi’s weak yelling made him even more spooked. He ran out of the rooms, and he tried to see if everyone was congregated, but he had woken up before the morning announcement, leaving him to run around. He makes a mental note to help Shuichi train his body so he doesn’t get fatigued so easily.

Himiko - Angie

Had she not needed to wake up and go meet everyone, she wouldn’t have ever figured it out. However, going to slip on clothing that was bright yellow and a bikini? That caught her attention. Leaving the room, she ran into her body, and started stuttering for some help. The distasteful look on her own face and apology for not being able to complete her duties as a maid made her more frustrated. She does appreciate being left to her own devices from Tenko, though. She spends the rest of the day catnapping and keeping a low profile with the others.

Kiibo - Tenko

While he’s a little discombobulated, waking up to feel actual skin made him wonder if his dreams had come true. It turns out that being a human made him so excited that he forgot to put on regular clothing. He grabbed the clothing, not particularly minding it was Tenko’s. Surely she wouldn’t be too upset with him considering he’s not technically a guy. He goes about his day, eating lots of food as research, along with being amazed that he can do regular things such as go to the bathroom and cry. All in all? The day is good for him, and he never reveals he’s in her body. He even puts up the charade that he’s Himiko in front of other people just to be safe. The moment he figured out which person was Tenko, he tried to avoid them as much as possible.

Kaito - Korekiyo

The biggest problem with being in Korekiyo’s body was that he wasn’t made to be an energetic being. He went through everything in the room just to be nosy. He didn’t want to think about what all the rope was for, and he got rid of some various creepy cult things that he had on display. Everyone wasn’t prepared for Korekiyo to sit down and be happily munching at the table to who he assumed was Maki. He made a mental note to avoid the man as much as humanly possible from that point on.

Kirumi - Himiko

Kirumi wasn’t that upset about the body switch, and simply felt disdain for being put in a less… capable body. Clearly Himiko kept herself clean enough, but her height and energy left something to be desired. Regardless, she went around, trying to help everyone get acquainted with their bodies. Cleaning is a hassle, but she somehow still manages to take everyone’s requests. They don’t call her the Ultimate Maid for nothing.

Kokichi - Miu

Waking up and seeing Miu’s clothes fueled him to go to insane lengths to prank her immediately. He wasted no time at all grabbing things from her room and writing down insane plans for her to find. Looking through them all the ones she’d made herself got him wondering what she would need some of the code for. Sure, he didn’t completely understand, but he could tell this wasn’t for anything raunchy or what other people would ask for. He spent the rest of the day making a fool of Miu and falsely accusing others of the body swap. Just a regular day, really.

Korekiyo - Tsumugi

Korekiyo wasn’t fazed at all, and took the entire day to think about how wonderful situations are like this since they test other peoples’ humanity. Not only that, but finding some notes in her room about a secret door in the girls room made for a most interesting discovery. He wouldn’t say anything about it, but his suspicions about how Tsumugi has been operating rise in his mind. He makes a note to keep an eye on her.

Maki - Kaede

Maki wasn’t prepared for this, and was ruffled up about it. She thanked whatever god there was that Kokichi hadn’t taken over her body, and spent the entire day trying to strangle Miu. Was she actually Kokichi, or was she just particularly annoying today? She wasn’t sure, and she had to refrain from resorting to anything too hasty. She would wait out the rest of the day.

Miu - Kiibo

Finally. Finally, Miu can figure out if robots have dicks. After some searching around in his room, she came out and put her hands on her hips, laughing as loud as she possibly could. The amount of raunchy jokes she threw around (“I may be a robot, but I’m better than any vibrator your virgin ass can get your hands on!”) Everyone is absolutely horrified, and everyone afterwards besides the inventor himself agreed to never speak of it again.

Rantaro - Kaito

Rantaro refuses to show that he’s freaked out when he wakes up and his body feels physically weaker. Some of the coughing fits he has puts him out of commission as he has to lean against a wall. Coughing up blood is never any good, and he looks around for something to help him out. With no medicine, and no one ever seeing him cough that violently, he figured that Kaito has been hiding it so no one thinks he’s weaker. He honors Kaito and still tries checking out everything that was written in his second monopad. He tries the hand scanner, but no luck. He decides then and there that Kaito is someone he can trust at the very least. The rest of the day is watching the shenanigans unfold.

Ryoma - Kirumi

Oh boy, being tall fucks him up hard. Sure, it’s easier to grab things, but he keeps shoulder checking everything, and the dress continued to get caught on everything if he didn’t pay any attention to it. He eventually tried to make use of the situation, trying to help others. However, when he sees how capable her body is, he hesitantly goes to his lab to see if it affects how he plays. Holding the racket in his hands feels foreign, yet good. He spends plenty of his time playing and avoiding socialization. When he leaves his ultimate lab, a small smile stays on his lips. Maybe he should request Kirumi to play against him if he ever comes back to it all.

Shuichi - Maki

Shuichi knows that Maki has been hiding things, so he’s pleased when, out of all the people he could’ve been, he ends up in her body. Opening her closet and seeing a holster that supposedly goes on her leg for a knife freaked him out. He slipped past the crowd of people to check her ultimate lab out. Seeing the arsenal on the walls made him freak out hard, and he grasped the collar of his shirt trying to make it easier to breathe. He timidly checked everything, and cursed the fact that he could see Miu following his tracks throughout the rest of the day. He spends as much time as possible from then on avoiding her.

Tenko - Rantaro

Having to be a male absolutely kills her. She spends the entire day freaking out and being in a constant back and forth from trying to fawn over girls and diss males and freaking out about being a male. She even attempts to break into her room for her own clothing to be more comfortable. Unfortunately, she had no lock picking skills, and whoever was her was diligent enough to lock the door. She continuously blame Kokichi for everything, even though everyone is well aware that Kokichi isn’t even in his own body. However, she takes note of his second monopad, and watched the video. From that point on,Tenko gives death glares to Rantaro as much as possible.

Tsumugi - Kokichi

Honestly? She should’ve been prepared for this. Considering she knew it was coming up for a fun episode of Danganronpa, she hid whatever she could think of that would uncover her big secret and went to bed. Waking up and seeing the mess in a ridiculous mess shocked her, and she cursed her luck for being horrible. She put it on and decided to give her best impression of Kokichi, considering she can wear his clothing in his body without getting cospox. Not to mention going through every little box in his room and his board of people that has notes on them, investigating where she originally couldn’t. Seeing his comment about Shuichi being possibly trustworthy had her wonder if he should become the main focus in the game instead of Kaede.

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arkus0 · 5 years ago

Photo

Okay my thoughts on Generation 8 of Pokemon so far. It’s an okay game in the series. As much as I want to love the first main line game on the Switch set in a Pokemon version of the United Kingdom (where I live) with a lot of references to British culture both old and new, there are too many things holding this game back for me. I’ll try and keep this brief and state what I find are the Good and Bad points for me personally: (MINOR SPOILERS)

PROS:

- Visually enjoyable, despite a few low def textures on some objects, the scenery of the Galar region is lovely and screams Great Britain.

- Music is really nice, whether it’s the gentle backgorund music in the wild area or the chanting of the crowd when in Gym Battles.

- Galar Region Variants are even better than Aloan Variants as they seem to go an extra mile beyond different colour schemes and slight model changes as most of them now have extra or alternative evolutions.

- Despite an initial Knee Jerk reaction to some of the new Pokemon designs (art wise) I have grown to actually like this Generation’s Pokemon concepts (haunted teacups, mixed up fossils, Foxes and Hounds, Forest Witches and imps, etc).

- The Gym Missions before facing the Gym Leader are a fun change to the usual Gym challenges. I personally enjoyed the first one where you have to hear Wooloo, or the third Gym where you have to cath Pokemon while a Partner tries to mess you up.

- The designs of the NPCs and Gym leaders are very nice and I really enjoy seeing them when they show up.

- Pokemon camping is a neat idea and an interesting evolution of previous mini games where you interact with your Pokemon, though I feel it could of had a lot more to it, more mini games besides the cooking curry one.

- Seeing wold Pokemon show up in the world and some even chasing you is a really cool experience and makes trying to catch specific ones easier since you don’t have to rely on the RNG, though that element is still in effect for some.

- The Wild Area is a great concept, a wide open space you can explore while wild Pokemon wander around you. I was expecitng there to be much more than the two big areas but I’m happy with what we got as a first try at the idea.

CONS:

- Game is very easy. Exp Share is a constant throughout the game and cannot be switched off, resulting in your Pokemon quickly out leveling everything else (unless you’re me and juggled your Pokemon with the boxed ones to keep levels down).

- Pacing between Gyms and towns is very short, you’ll go through a simple route maybe enter a tiny (and very linear dungeoun) get to a town and immediately face the Gym. No quests to gain access, no Mt Moons or any sort of maze like dungeouns to get through, making this a short game compared to previous ones.

- The story is a bit shallow despite having some nuggets of a good idea. It barely touches upon the legends of the region just repeating the same thoughts over and over again in certain spots while the main focus is on the Gym Challenge. Then at the end it dumps a whole lot of conflict with very little build up. The post game story is a little better and I feel like they should of swapped them around. I know Pokemon isn’t really very deep but Sun and Moon gave us a compelling story and interesting characters to follow.

- Team Yell are pretty pathetic as the “Villain Team”, but I guess they aren’t really villains anyway, just annoying fans for one of your rivals. The closest thing you get to an organisation of antagonists doesn’t get introduced until the final leg of the main story, coming out of no where.

MIXED:

- Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing are a neat concept, but I feel like it’ll be hard to justify them in future games since the Galar region at least has a background story about the phenomenom. I prefer Mega Evolutions and hope they bring those back.

- While I am a bit sad about the whole “No National Pokedex” thing, it doesn’t bother me as much as others. I’m dissapointed I won’t be able to transfer some of my favourites from Moon, but in the meantime I’m perfectly happy building a team from the newer Pokemon. And who knows what will happen in the future? They may introduce the rest via DLC.

- They got rid of the Online Plaza that was in Sun and Moon, thank goodness, but now use a simpler system that seems like a step back from what the GTS was in X and Y. It’s not terrible but linking up with a friend online is a bit tricky since you both need to arrange a Link code, which can result in accidentally linking up with the wrong person who just happen to use the same code.

- The Pokemon Box system can now be accessed anywhere at anytime letting you swap out your team without needing to go back to a Pokemon Centre. On one hand this is a nice convieniance, but I wonder if it’s too convinient and just another step in making these games more for the casual gamers?

OVERALL: The game itself is fine and is still fun to play, but with the shallow story, poor pacing and very easy difficulty this game has dissapointed a number of long time fans. I still enjoy it enough to keep playing and see what DLC plans Nintendo and Game Freak have in store for us.

#pokemon #sword and shield #nintendo #gamefreak #galar region

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deckspair · 5 years ago

Text

May’s Musical Director’s Commentary

Hey guys! I'm May. You might remember me as "the one who did those nifty chatlogs and the roster page" or "the one who did all the music" or "that one mod who never said anything." Los and Mints agreed to let me write up this "director's commentary" on the music I did for DECK. There's no secret lore tidbits in here or anything, but if you liked my music you might find this an interesting glimpse into the process.

A Note On Sampling

Sampling is the practice of using preexisting audio to make new music. When I talk about what I've sampled here, I'm only going to mention particularly interesting cases. Almost all of the music I've done for DECK features audio from Free Wave Samples, so I figure that's not really worth mentioning except here. It's the other stuff that's interesting. EarthBound was an influence on my decision to pull in a bunch of audio from outside sources. I've always admired that game's use of sampling.

The First Chatlog

The chatlogs have consistently been pretty fun to do. I knew from the start that I didn't want to edit this together by hand, so I wrote a Processing sketch to render the video. It's not the most elegant thing in the world, and adding new features is a massive pain, but it's a lot easier than putting these together any other way. All I have to do is swap out the script and background shader and write a new song and I can just let the program churn away rendering a new video. (Of course, fiddling with the shader until it looks presentable takes so long that it kind of eats into the time savings.)

There's not much to say about this one. The typing sounds were graciously provided by Mints. Those with careful ears might notice the instrument playing the chords in other chatlog songs.

The Second Chatlog

One of the only interesting things about this one: the melody is actually a musical cryptogram! What it spells out is an exercise for the reader. ;) The miscellaneous background sounds are all distorted versions of stuff I recorded myself one day when my film teacher let me wander the halls with a microphone. Film school has its perks.

Rio Hachimitsu's BDA

Doing the first body drop music was pretty intimidating. The body discovery music in Danganronpa has a particular instantly recognizable quality to it. If I wanted to go for that style, I'd have to get it down perfectly. (Otherwise I'd come off as a cheap imitation.) So I decided to be original. After school PSAs would be proud.

The melody here is probably pretty familiar to you all by now. Every BDA has used some variation of this melody because I'm a sucker for leitmotif. The melody itself is a slightly modified version of the Dies Irae. (Yes, I know I'm very pretentious, but being pretentious is fun.) This is also the first instance of what I call the "death rattle." I put that strange scraping sound into every BDA and execution for consistency's sake. You can see it as the moment the soul leaves the deceased's body or the moment the onlookers realize somebody's just died... or something. The really fun part is what it is - it's a bell tree! Yknow, those tinkly whimsical things. It's just been reversed and slowed down and drenched in reverb. It's fun how malleable audio is.

Minnie Minami's EXE

This was fun! Despite being a film student for a while, I've never had to write music to sync up with a video before. (I still haven't - I'm pretty sure the video was edited to match up with the music and not vice versa.) The overall tone of this one was pretty obvious. Of course a ringleader's execution would be accompanied by messed up circus music. Anything else just wouldn't be right. There's not really much else to say about it other than that it includes samples from my toy accordion and slide whistle.

Sampled:

An old recording of Auld Lang Syne

Yasu Kozakura's BDA

The body drop's usage of mirrors really hit me in the art gut, so I figured the BDA jingle should have something to do with mirrors. This is why the melody plays forwards and backwards simultaneously, because mirrors. (Some call that kind of thing a "crab canon.")

My incredibly good and quality cat piano is also in here. A stretched out meow recorded from it forms the basis of the background chord.

NANIKO's EXE

For this one, I gave the video editor three different tracks, one for each "segment" of the execution. I did this as a cop-out because I didn't want to have to try to sync my music up with the video - this way, the editor could mash it all together.

The segment with the mirrors was an exercise in what's called "phase music", where two lines drift out of sync with each other, creating different rhythmic textures over the course of the song. (Piano Phase and Clapping Music, both by Steve Reich, are two classic examples of the form.) For some reason, echoey piano lines phasing in and out of sync feel mirror-y to me. They also form a nice musical callback to the BDA.

Sampled:

Me switching frequencies on the radio

Sayuri Nishi's BDA

Shoutout to Free Wave Samples for having a heartbeat sound. I didn't want to try to make that sound myself with drums.

Kosuke Nakamura's EXE

This execution is significant because it's the first non-video one. Execution art wasn't my department, so I'm not going to speak on how that change affected the artists, but I found it liberating to be able to follow the more general emotional arc of the execution rather than being tethered to the pacing of a video.

When I asked Angela for guidance on where to go musically, we came to the conclusion that the proper genre would be "Tom and Jerry noir." That description alone is why I loved doing music for DECK - where else do you get the opportunity to write something with that as guidance? The most natural interpretation in my view was a song that starts out jazzy and segues into slapstick-esque classical to mirror the transition from the safety of noir to being mauled by a giant robot cat.

Also, the Slack notification sound is in there, since Los suggested a social media notification sound in the background somewhere. (Slack's basically social media for tech dorks, right?)

Sampled:

Slack

Tom and Jerry

The Missing BDAs

Unfortunately, I got preoccupied and neglected to do BDA music for the deaths in Chapter 4. Generally, there's not many interesting things to say about stuff that doesn't exist. The plan was to sample Pomp and Circumstance for Law N... but I didn't. Sorry, Froggy. I didn't have any other plans for this one.

Ukiyo-Maemi's EXE

This one relies so much on sampling it almost makes me feel bad. I got so much mileage out of the clanging percussion and the spooky background sounds that it's basically cheating.

Sampled:

My lovely girlfriend 💕

OFF

Akira Akatsuki's BDA

I was in a very percussion-heavy mood when I wrote this. (Can you tell?) Listening to the FLCL soundtrack had me jonesing for some dramatic cymbals.

Sampled:

Earthbound

Genko Junshu's BDA

Junshu's body was found in the Navigation Station. This called to mind sonar beeps and garbled radio messages and such. This is another one that wouldn't be nearly as interesting without the sampling. Hopefully this is transformative enough to not get me labeled a hack.

Sampled:

Earthbound

Law Kiyuu's EXE

This execution actually freaked me the hell out the first time I read it. Freaked me out for like a week - something about the combination of incredible writing and the subject matter. It honestly felt calculated to scare me specifically.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this one. I wanted to write something as unsettling as the execution it was accompanying. The intro is supposed to represent Law thinking he's already dead. Next comes his terror (evoked with the hilariously dissonant Altered scale), and then the final spooky arrhythmic section is supposed to be him being cut apart. (Note that part of the music drifts out of sync with itself to represent Law, uh, going to pieces.) The return of the piano is supposed to evoke the flashback section. That kind of piano sound always sounds spooky and/or sentimental to me.

Not much else to say now that I've dissected (heh) basically all of the decisions I've made for this one. I'm really proud of Law's execution song - it might be my favorite out of all the ones I've done for DECK.

Sampled:

Earthbound

Persona 2: Innocent Sin

The Doug Theme

Death Note

"It's a Long Way to Tipperary"

gamer butt song

Frogbot's EXE

The original plan for this one was start this one off with a hocket-y medley of all the previous body drops and executions. However, it would have been really tedious to export then import all the relevant instruments, so I didn't do that. Instead I remixed the typical BDA theme. It's supposed to convey the shift from FrogBot's reign of despair to the triumph of getting them executed. I realized part of the way through that this segment was far too triumphant given how many people died and the fact that the submarine is about to explode, so then I just ended it by lingering on a diminished chord. I'm not a very subtle person. Frogbot's execution lacks the death rattle 'cause there's no horrifying realization that one of your classmates is dead. (Exercise for the reader: find where I hid the Flintstones theme in this song. Good luck.)

Conclusion

DECK was a lot of fun to work on. I wrote some extremely messy code, made some sick as hell videos, and wrote some pretty baller music. I got to see some wonderful artists do their work, and I got to skim some pretty intense roleplaying. Thank you to everyone who said nice things about my music and to the mods for being really cool dudes. Special thanks to Mints and Los for letting me put this long-winded rant on their blog, and thank you for reading this whole thing.

See you on the flip side, y'all.

#music

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survivorgalaxysedge · 4 years ago

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Episode 5 | Forgive Me Cowtown For I Have Sinned - Ari

ohhhhh i found something JUICY tonight!!! so yesterday the hosts got tired of me constantly asking how many fuel i have and gave me the command to view it, and i knew i was outta points so i was like ok cool we'll check it out tomorrow. TURNS OUT the scorekeeper bot shows you not just your personal points.... but the points of everyone in the game.... and WHOM is number two on that list with 36 entire points? that's right. my best friend keegan. my first thought was wtf ew how did he already recover from my sabotage, i feel zero percent guilty about doing that now! and then my second thought was WAIT...... this is PERFECT. so you can bet i ran right to all three of my allies to be like "hey omg i found something shady :0 didn't keegan say all his fuel got blown up the other day? well i pulled some receipts and it turns out he still has all of it! why would he lie about that??? so sus!" and now i'm laughing because there could not be a more perfect excuse to get him gone!!! i'm not gonna push it any more than that right now - for all i know, we'll prob win the next challenge again - but i've tucked the ammo away in my pocket, planted the ari seed in jonathan and zoe's heads, and i'll let it sit pretty there until i need it. also, i ended up telling ali what i did to keegan simply because he is 100% not going against me and i needed someone to tell me i'm funny, so i also let him know about this plan o mine and that we could use this against sir keegan, which he's so down for. god. i cannot wait to tell mj about all this shit.

Jacob being voted out of NuTrian is the second best thing that could have happened. Preferably Nathan but my OG Andro and Jessie are safe so that’s very good. Now we’ve got a Guess Who challenge which is okay. I don’t care if we get first or second, I just really really don’t want to get last. Let’s keep the good vibes going and be safe for a fifth straight tribal council. Ali told me he scored 11 points, I scored 10. I hope Zoe can whip out her survivor magic with a score of 8 or 9. And then hopefully Jonathan can pull out a good score as well. Nathan and Zach have both scored 12 on this challenge before, so I can only hope they keep up with that and score high again. Gotta make sure those other tribes flop. I’m still incredibly uncertain about how to play this steal a player advantage. It’s possible we ride this 3 tribe split all the way to merge. My guess is merge at 11 or 10. That would be quite a few tribals to go without another swap but it’s certainly possible. Though I could absolutely see a swap now at 12. Two tribes of six, and then merge at 10. A final 3 with 7 jurors perhaps? Either way, I think I’ll hold on to this advantage until it seems likely that I’ll need it. No sense in causing some chaos if it isn’t necessary.

ok so i'm doing well in challenges rn, as best as i can at least, and i feel like that's the only thing keeping me alive bc.... nobody talks to me. i feel like i'm starting every one on one conversation and desperately trying to keep it alive and not be left on read. idk if they're like this with each other or if its just me but !!!!!! it doesnt make me feel good abt potentially losing a challenge. so i will just keep carrying my weight and keeping my cute little head down and pray im just being paranoid<3

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WELL We lost the immunity challenge which is the first loss after four straight immunity wins. That was a nice little break while it lasted. The obvious choice right off the bat is to vote for Ali. Keeps the OG Andro tribe fully intact, and avoids the most possible drama. However, I worry he might have found the Circi idol from his original tribe. Plus whatever advantage he may have gotten from the first challenge of the season. So the alternate thought is to maybe vote for Jonathan or Zoe. I adore Ari would not want to vote them out. It's tempting to throw a vote on one of them in the event of Ali playing an idol, just to keep myself safe. But if Ali doesn't have an idol, that could cause a whole world of issues. On the flip side, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some or any of my tribe mates decided to throw my name under the bus. I haven't been the most social person and while I have definitely pulled my weight in the challenges, I could see them having their own little group that's willing to throw my under the bus and make things as painless as possible for the rest of them, especially considering they've all said they like Ali a lot. Ahhh this is all so much worse considering I have the hidden immunity idol. I don't want to waste it, but I also don't want to pull a Kellee Kim and go home with it in my pocket.

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it's kind of ridiculous how well this is all going???? why havent they voted me out yet i am running this shit -talked to ali, told him he's gonna be fine we just need to get people to vote for keegan -talked to jonathan, convinced him keegan is the most logical vote "because he's shady" and because it also means we can vote ali easily next time (versus going down to andro 4 and having it get much more messy) -jonathan was like "should we tell ali right before the vote?" and i was like i think you should call him and see where his head is at and we can go from there, jonathan said ok good point, if he says he wants to vote keegan and he also tells you that without any prompting from either of us we know he's real about it -yeeted myself into ali's dms the very second jonathan hung up like OK LISTEN HERE IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY WHEN HE CALLS YOU, HE CANT KNOW I TOLD YOU ANY OF THIS -ali called me half an hour later like "omg we had such a good talk i love jonathan now deadass, i told him exactly what you said to say and he's so down" -presumably in the morning jonathan will call me and say "wow had a great talk with ali he seems cool and great and he said he'd vote keegan, what did he tell you?" and i can say "yeah same he mentioned keegan so i think we're good!" and jonathan will feel like we Did This Together and ali will feel like i Did This For Him and everyone will be in love with me -all i have to do tomorrow is make sure zoe is on board & that she doesn't feel pushed, and prob call keegan and make him some vague promises about working together long term, and then cross my fingers that i don't get blindsided during my editorial meeting at 9pm est i am having so much fun

i just keep thinking about how funny it’s gonna be when we get to merge and mj tells me to vote out all these people i’ve been making f2s with and i’ll be like “okay!!!!<3”

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Not to go back to INV this round, but not much has been going on. I've been keeping up socializing but since we're not going to tribal it's been more quiet than it has been last round. I'm really glad we won though bc I feel vulnerable if we go to tribal again. Cindi seems close to Nathan, and Nathan and Jessie seem closer to each other than they will be to me so I'm worried I'd be an easy vote. So I'm really hoping for a swap or merge tonight, or at least a challenge we can excel in. Don't want it to come down to one point again.

^_^ Okay, so no important updates with this tribe! It's freaking QUIET. I haven't talked to Zach or Silver at ALL since being with this tribe. I've talked to Jules a lot and Asya some, though. I'd like to work with the two of them if possible and if we ever go to tribal here, which I don't want to do because uhhh it's worrisome! Anyway, the only actual update I have is that I found the legacy advantage!!! Randomly at like 2AM I found it. I don't remember what I was doing exactly... I think I just went to watch the Circi round 3 tribal and then the Trian round 4 tribal... and then I think I went to watch the Tribe Swap video to see if there was some sort of announcement made regarded the Oxygen Tank amounts because I was confused why that number was changed more than double. I guess I was also thinking that since the hosts didn't make an announcement that the adventure was resetting at the swap then MAYBE there would be a new twist/advantage inserted elsewhere for this next phase of the game? Now, being the crackhead that I am, of course back on original tribes, I SEARCHED everywhere on the blog that I could think of. Extenders URLs, the source code, hidden hyperlinks - everything. Nothing was there. But in this case, my brain said, hmm, let's just scroll down and see if there's anything in the description of the Tribe Swap Youtube video...and... there was!! I didn't really know what it was at first but when I opened it everything CLICKED! Finally the Reem Cameo from launch night serving a bigger purpose made total sense. After seeing this link in the description though and realizing it was calling back to something we were told about night one, I went back and checked to see if this had been hidden all along, and of course it's literally in the description of the Cast Reveal video!!! and every other video after that!!! Keeping in mind that I found this 11 days into the game, I was like, oh there's definitely some nerd that found this instantly on night 1 so I'm probably just gonna get a message saying nothing here or something like that. Obviously that wasn't the case though. I think nobody found this because I lot of people operate via mobile in these, and Youtube descriptions require an addition click to reveal what's there. Alternatively, for desktop users, who the hell is scrolling down for any reason while you're watching videos from your ORG?? It's nothing something anyone does naturally. So that explains that. Anyway, I'm happy I found it even though it has absolutely no use until Day 39. I will say though that having this and knowing that, it has really motivated me to get to the end of this game. Coincidentally, HOURS before I found this, I had a conversation with Jules about how quiet this tribe has been and that I'd like to start working towards bettering our positions moving forward seeing as there are people here with more/stronger connections than either of us. I just love that I found an advantage that motivates me to start playing this game, exactly how I'd voiced to Jules about feeling a desire to start doing SOMETHING. We love a live narrative!!!! Anyway, I'm not gonna tell Jules about the legacy advantage because it's an advantage that incentivizes people to vote out the owner and have it passed on. I trust Jules, we go YEARS back and have to successful runs as allies under our belts, but this is just something I'd like to keep to myself. Earlier today I also decided that I'm probably never gonna tell Ari about it either if our paths ever (hopefully) cross in this game. I wanna surprise my bestie! At any rate, Jules did tell me that Zach and Asya seem like the type of players that only play on tribal days (at least in this case of this game) which is fine, but I've played a few super intense, intimate, and high-stakes ORGs in the past couple of years which has made me prioritize personal relationships with people over barebones game relationships. This makes dealing with people who aren't that interested in getting to know me or revealing themselves to me a SUPER off-putting experience and a drastic change of pace from what I've become accustomed to. But I'm totally capable of adapting to this environment... I just don't necessarily prefer it. I feel like I have room to connect with Asya on a personal level if given the chance. Zach and Silver I don't know. Although, I do think that if we ever lose immunity here I could for sure spit some game to Silver that would make him believe I want to work with him. I already have an idea of how that conversation goes, and the potential negative consequence of it is practically non-existent on this swap tribe, whereas it could have backfired on me if original Trian lost that third challenge. Anyway, I'll get into that whenever we lose or if I get bored and initiate that chat just to feel something lol

No tribal ever again until merge or swap please. Jessie would be the one I'd want out and I assume Jay would as well but she has Nathan's shard so, like, he'd lose that and then I lose my hope of getting both their shards and misplaying my first idol because I'm not good at survivor

Yayyyy we won immunity. Idk what much else to say except that I got 40 fuel tanks

today i am mad and sad. lost the challenge, was my fault bc purple not pink. no i will not elaborate. now ari jonathan and i have decided to save ali and vote out keegan. i hope it goes well. i am filled with anxiety. i don’t even want keegan to go, we just have to make the decision based on the fact that we don’t want to be seen as a tight alliance going into merge, and keegan can make it look like there was a crack therefore not making us look strong. but he is just sacrificial unfortunately. but we’ll see how it goes. i’m still anxious

Wow we won what a concept See what happens when we don’t throw comps ? Anyways yeah that’s it I guess lol

Honestly I I'm done with these hoes I'm ready to vote off Keegan

This is definitely a very stressful and emotional tribal. I hate that we’re voting for Ali because he is a genuinely fantastic person and under different circumstances I think we could have worked really well together in this game. But when there’s a 4-1 tribe swap and the four of us have absolutely no beef with each other, there’s not a whole lot that can be done. None of my other 3 OG Andro players come across as big move players either. So unless I’m being straight up lied to and am about to get completely blindsided, it’s looking like a unanimous Ali boot. Which is incredibly sad. I really wanted us to win out until merge so we wouldn’t have to vote him out. But such is the game. Keegan signing off (hopefully not for the last time)

#toinfinityandsurvive

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fromtheground39-blog · 5 years ago

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The All-ROG Gaming PC!

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Recently we checked out the three cheapest 144 Hertz gaming monitors that we could get on amazon.com and we were pretty impressed well mostly, except for one common problem that they all had they're all running out by modern standards, lower 1920 by 1080 resolution. So today we've got something new for you guys. We'Ve actually never covered a product from AOC before, but this the CQ 27 G 127 stood out to us for a number of reasons, one its 144 Hertz, which means theoretically, it should be great for gaming too. It'S running at 2560 by 1440 resolution 3. It'S got a V a rather than a TN panel and four it comes in at just 280 US dollars. We couldn't find anything else that has this feature set at this price point. So we've got high expectations and hopefully they don't disappoint us instantly, see your current and past network activity detect malware and block badly behaving apps on your PC or Android device with glassware use, offer code Lynas to get 25 % off glass wire at the link routerhosting in The video description, [ Music ] - I'm actually pretty excited about this, because we've had a ton of requests to cover AOC in the past, but the main reason that we haven't done it is that ever since the CRT days, their presence in North America has been fairly Limited so I've been aware that they're kind of a big deal over in Europe - and I believe Asia, but over here they've, had basically very little availability and certainly no marketing. So I don't really know what to expect, because even from other media outlets, I haven't like read a ton of reviews of their products or anything like that. First, impressions of the stand are pretty good. It'S got a nice metal base under fairly tastefully if a touch gamer II top to list assembly is always a nice touch. Honestly, I got ta, say initial impressions, pretty positive, so far height adjustable stand. I mean to be clear. This is not like a 140 dollar gaming monitor or anything like the ones we looked at last time, but considering how much higher their costs would be to get this better panel technology, it's a larger display. Ah, I am I'm pretty pleased so far with the overall fit and finish now. I can't say that this is a perfect job that they've done of the the plastic housing here. You can actually see some of the tape that they've used. To probably put the see this unit in the back here that houses, the power supply and the scaler you know, and all that stuff you can see some of the tape that used to it like tape it on, but in terms of the like. The overall feel of it it doesn't feel cheap, it doesn't feel crappy and we've got a reasonably fun, exceptional i/o. So there's no built-in USB hub, but you've got dual HDMI ports, DisplayPort a headphone, jack and power supply built into the monitor, rather than as an external brick, which some people care about. It'S not a huge deal for me, but it is considered a a better feature. All right, the two lessness continues here and we're just gonna peel. This off bezels are looking pretty slim actually, and this is nice, not just power, cable included, but also DisplayPort and HDMI. So in terms of adjustability, we've got your tilt. We'Ve got your swivel no pivot, but we do have height adjust. I still remember when that used to be like site a super premium feature. Now, it's only really cheap stuff that it's not included on. It'S really. Nice makes a big difference immediately. The deep blacks on this monitor are quite noticeable compared to if we were looking at like an entry-level, IPS or especially a TN like, as this wallpaper fades off towards the edges. It'S it's quite dark, not bad. At all. All right, 144 Hertz fuckin showed up just fine there, yes, and because this is a variable refresh rate monitor. That means that, even if it is not certified g-sync compatible, we can enable G sync, and it is in fact enabled right now. So without further ado, I don't fire up. Some games now feels like a good time to have a look at the on-screen menu. Everything here is reasonably intuitive. Personally, I prefer just an instant switch rather than animation. I can see how they might do that right frame. What even am I looking at here? Can you see anything? Let'S see? Oh, what the crap? Oh, what it just brightens the top corner of the screen. So it's like a faded out washed out section in the top-left corner, so there you can change the brightness contrast. You can move the position of it around. Actually you can put it wherever you want guys. Let me know in the comments. What is this feature for? I would love to know. I thought that was interesting. Game mode is off by default. Oh that's! The FPS mode! That looks terrible, okay hold on a second, let's get, let's get our settings adjusted here I have to say I have just never understood these weird color profiles that they create for particular genres of games. The correct color profile is the accurate color profile, because that's the way that the developer intended it quite frankly at least they've got customizable ones. So you can have gamer one gamer, two gamer three, and then you can just things that might actually be meaningful, like whether you want the low blue light mode on. So you have like nighttime gaming mode, whether you want the built in frame counter on. That'S pretty nice to have so their gamer display modes are not necessarily useless. Just the canned ones are stupid. Okay, overdrive can be adjusted to weak, medium or strong. Medium is usually the best bet there, but we'll play around with that. A little bit and low input lag we will leave on. I will say that there's no discernable increase in input lag compared to what I'd expect from a 144. It'S gaming monitor, so that's nice to see really responsive. I touch on the smeary side, so these are not the fastest pixels that I've ever seen by a long shot. If you pick up a like a decent TN gaming monitor - or you know, even one of those really high-end IPS - is that LG released recently you're gonna see better readability of things like text as you're as you're. Moving around like this, you see that everything's got kind of a trail behind it, but for a VA panel. I would consider this perfectly reasonable and acceptable. Now. One thing that's hard for me to tell right now, because I'm playing kind of a dark and gloomy game is whether this gets any brighter. So what I'd like to do is get rid of doom, let's switch to something like csgo and see. If my impressions here are correct, cuz, it seems like our maximum brightness, I mean even just opening up something. Like you know, our own website here by the way tech tip song is awesome forum. You guys should go check it out. This is supposed to be pretty much white white and it's kind of a gray and not like we're at a very, very low brightness. Even actually, the brightness is cranked 100 % already actually before we do that. I wanted to play around with the overdrive settings. A little bit off is clearly terrible, like you guys, I'm sure you can see these comet trails behind icons, as I'm dragging this around on the desktop here, but as usual, strong also yields a really kind of over sharpened, visual artifact e-type look and our best bet Does once again appear to be medium overdrive in fairness. White to dark is a very challenging scenario, so let's actually get that game fired up now. So this is a little bit more fair, and it's not great and coming out here into the the daytime. Arabic, freaking Sun here I've been informed from off camera. This is a 215 it peak brightness display and I believe it because, while the blacks are deep - and that was impressive - it's a lot less impressive to have deep blacks. When your monitor is just dark. I mean maybe this would be the monitor for you if you're trying to game at night and be stealthy and while you're at it, you could grab a hoodie like the one, I'm wearing it's the LTTE, stealth hoodie LTT surakameth. Now, to give credit to the strength of this monitor, the 1440p resolution does look a lot clearer than what we were dealing with with those 1080p monitors, but something that you guys have got to consider is that there is more to perceived sharpness of an image than Just the number of pixels and contrast is actually a big part of what makes an image look, clear and sharp and crisp so yeah. The lines are fine, but the image doesn't look great, so it just feels like the monitors a little self-defeating, because it's key feature is that it manages 144 Hertz and higher resolution, but it gives up so much contrast that you a lot of the perceived image, quality And that's not a problem just for like scenic games, it's it's a problem in general like it's noticeably bland. This is a bland looking game in the first place, but it's really bland. Like. Can you tell on camera how bland this is new it nope hold on? I think what we need to do is grab another monitor and swap it out for you guys so David hold, as still as you can, or even put the camera on sticks, but the camera on sticks. Now this monitor costs about twice as much, and actually you might have noticed that, especially in terms of brightness, it looks pretty similar except funny story. This is actually the monitor that we use for b-roll shots, so it has its brightness turned down to 20 out of a hundred in order to make it appear not too bright for certain shots that we do so putting it up at something more reasonable, like around 80 Wow - that is a really really different experience back to our AOC. The difference is very clear and I'm just gonna double-check. Yes, we are at a hundred percent brightness. On this thing, that's a little unfortunate. This looks a little bit more palatable official site right. I think that's why all the gamer modes have this game. Color option turned up because it might hurt the accuracy of your color, but it'll certainly make your games as long as you don't go too far like their fps and their RTS modes. It'Ll certainly make your game look a little bit more vibrant. You can see I've overdone it a little bit here. So I'd probably say that if it's purely for gaming use, knowing that you're giving up some of the color accuracy that you might have gotten in the native profile, going to a game color of somewhere in the 11 to 13 range, improves the playability a lot like It makes it not look like I'm looking at a super cheap. You know washed out, monitor and what's interesting, you saw how that flashbang wasn't even bright. What'S interesting is part of the reason, for that is that the way that humans perceive brightness is affected by the saturation of the color, so looking at a more saturated color makes you think that your looking at something brighter, even though the panel itself is not particularly Bright and if we were to alt-tab out of the game, you can see things like my icons look way overdone here. So this is a monitor that you're definitely giving something up at the price point. But if you're willing to fidget around with your on screen menu, which to their credit, is quite usable, actually has workarounds that work if you're willing to go around them so bringing our 8020 7qd back up on the table. This is a clearly better display. It looks great not only in games when you adjust this dial or on the desktop if you adjust it the other way, but in both all the time, thanks to its 10 bit IPS panel and it's much higher brightness. But if you think find here about it as paying yourself, two hundred and fifty dollars to adjust a knob every once in a while, I still think there's a very compelling value argument to be made for a OCS display here. Even if it does give up some of the creature comforts that you might get with a higher-end panel, so guys, let us know, does this look like a great option or do you want us to explore some of the other 1440p 144 Hertz monitors on the market? They are a bit more expensive, but there's options from vo-tech Roxul dell has one that's fair, bit more expensive and make sure you're subscribed. So you don't miss it. If you do leave a comment about that, do you need to create a beautiful website without the hassle we'll check out Squarespace their all-in-one platform makes it easy to get up and running quickly, and there are word winning templates can be used as a starting point for A wide variety of projects, if you're having trouble Squarespace, they offer webinars a full series of help guides and you can even contact their customer support via live chat and email 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you already have a third-party domain, you don't have to give it up. Just transfer it over to Squarespace and every Squarespace site includes ecommerce features. So you can easily sell merch or services online and manage your inventory and orders so go to Squarespace, comm /l tt. To get 10 % off your first purchase we're gonna have that linked below. So thanks for watching guys - and we will see you in our next budget - monitor video - which I guess we're kind of coming now - hey budget OLED. But you know that we've done all the we'll find something

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cryamore · 8 years ago

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AND DEVELOPMENT UPDATE ROUNDUP

We’ve gotten a number of questions from our Discord members in the past month and it’s time to share them with everyone along with our answers.

See what a handful of our backers have been asking Rob, Aivi, surasshu, and me after the jump.

Kishou asks the following questions:

Can you change Esmy's appearance? Like, with armor sprites?

Sadly, given how Cryamore’s sprites are designed, it’s too taxing to make armor sprites for Esmy as we’d have to make armor sprites for a lot of unique animations, idle, running, hit, ground cast, mid cast, high cast, Vanish animations, Boulder Dash animations, etc. and then multiply that with 3 or 5 directions each.

The most we can offer for visual customization are palette swaps.

Featured above are palettes for default, Braxton, Bliss, “Dewritos”, and Black & Blue

I just want to see Esmy in something revealing like a swimsuit

Rob can probably arrange that in another artwork. I could sprite Esmy in a swimsuit but I don’t think we have any scenarios written down that feature her in one.

Of course, we could always write one in...

I'm not sure if this is asked before but is there a love interest in mind for Esmy?

Esmy’s too focused on her work and studying cryamore to notice anyone that may have feelings for her.

Right?

There's no "right" or "wrong" way to clear the game right? Like, surely some spells solve puzzles but there will be proficiency in not just weapon choices but spells in fighting too?

We’ve done our best to make sure your offensive/defensive ability and weapon loadouts will always be viable so whether you like playing ranged weapons with hard hitting close combat abilities, using mobility enhancing abilities with melee weapons or whatever playstyle tickles your fancy, we’ve spent a lot of time ensuring we got everything balanced and fun enough so there won’t be an absolute god tier and worst tier loadout.

Phosphatide asks:

About story flow: with games now searching for the perfect balance between "linear progression" and "open world freedom" to avoid blatant in-game walls preventing the possibility of sequence-breaking exploration or aimless wandering with no sense of urgency... what was your goal for Cryamore?

Alan: Honestly, I personally wanted full-on freedom to go explore some of the hardest areas of the game and risk the chance of getting wrecked, but we had to corrall things a bit to ensure you stay within the story bounds. Rob being the lead on this has final say on direction.

Rob: I wanted to instill a sense of survival in the game and make sure that the abilities are a big focal point for both puzzles and combat so we were able to block off certain areas of the world the way Metroidvanias would; give you a hint at what might be ahead, but you're blocked by something that needs a new ability

Alan: There's still freedom to be had but you can only go so far before you either hit a roadblock which needs an ability or sometimes story progression (you need clearance to explore south of the island)

So yeah, the goal was to give some freedom but not too much and I'm hoping we managed to achieve it with the world design I've done and with enough usage of the puzzle solving abilities we've made.

Tomar asks:

Curiosity here. Do you guys do art asset sharing through your VC system, or do you use something simpler like dropbox/google drive?

We’ve mostly used Dropbox all throughout to share asset files.

Above are the four folders we have set for Cryamore. Backgrounds has Rob and me contributing to it, Illustrations has Rob, me, and JC and Juby’s contributions, Inspiration Music has Aivi and surasshu’s work (a lot of unheard of to the public music WIP files) and Sprite-Animations has my work.

Once something like music, animation or an environment asset is set, Rob or I transfer it to Unity, apply any settings necessary (import and display settings for 2DToolkit, audio settings for Master Audio, etc.) and then upload it to the SVN so the file and all its settings will exist for anyone on the team with a Unity key and access to the Cryamore SVN.

Do you use freecamp for like kanban/task management stuff?

When we had more people in our team, we used OpenOffice and then switched to Freedcamp to keep track of tasks and bugs. Now that it’s just Rob and me, and Aivi and surasshu on sound and music, we mostly just keep a personal to-do list.

Xaelon asks:

I have no idea if this is possible with how the game is built, but something you could add to promote replay after the base game is completed would be a "randomizer mode" that shuffles various things into different places.

We could probably apply that to enemy spawns and some cryam deposits but the environment layouts though aren't as flexible sadly as we don’t use tilesets and the collision bounds of the environments aren’t generated by object due to a lot of irregular organic shapes.

We definitely have considered implementing a NG+ option though, maybe with levels and certain abilities intact on the next play but with more mobs and other difficulty boosts.

shadowreaper5 asks:

Do skills with timers (like the buff to breathe underwater) have a visual representation of the time left?

To a certain extent, yes. Esmy’s going to have a breath meter over her head while underwater without the Oxy Barrier ability.

We initially wanted to just have a blue fill over Esmy’s status portrait (which changes to her holding her breath) while underwater but so it’s easier to keep track of, she’ll have a meter above her head when she isn’t using Oxy Barrier underwater.

While we do have spells with durations, some of them won’t have a meter and rely on visual cues: a timed magma mine will blink when it's about to explode, time paradox clones should blink when they're about to fade, and shadow cloak should fade back to full visibility upon ending. As it is though, we will mention the duration of spells in their info box at the menu.

Tarquinn2049 asks:

Ok. This question is a bit on the other end amd might make me sound like a jerk due to timing. But does it support 4k? And if so is it by pixel doubling? I can totally play it at 1080p if hardware scaling will ultimately look better.

Our native resolution is 720p which we’ll be upscaling to 1080p. We won’t be able to provide 4K support as working primarily in 2D where our target resolution is 720p would require us to rework the assets in a larger size so as not to lose crispness of lines and pixels on a larger resolution.

Rob: The game looks freaking good on a 50-70 inch, though haha! I for one can't wait to playtest a lot on console (devkit).

DEVELOPMENT UPDATES

Unity editor-wise, Rob has been working on optimizing the code further. The sorting order of the game was archaic and clunky, so Rob decided to squish it down to a simpler and more effective form that relies on Sorting Order that Unity didn’t have early on during our development. We instead relied on Z index which required a lot of fiddling around with when setting objects up.

youtube

You can see in that test room video that the “Order in Layer” is changing value. Back then it would be the Z in the Position attributes and we’d have to manually set the value beforehand to make sure things appeared behind or in front of objects right.

youtube

Rob also implemented full analog movement instead of just the D-pad, this allows for more control, though it’ll need a bit of tweaking as it currently looks like Esmy’s skating along the ground like she’s about to break it down and provide everyone with boosted shields.

There’s been polish going on in multiple fronts on the graphical end as animations and environment assets get fixed.

Above is the fist weapons, we initially were going to go with brass knuckles but decided that it wouldn’t be that noticeable on the sprite unless we made it large but I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t miss the weapons so I designed these gauntlets that shows a bit of the transition from steamtech to cryamtech and also offers a more interesting silhouette while also making a bit more sense as a viable weapon against dangerous monsters.

The fists primary function work as a mashable combo. One press of the attack button does a jab, two presses in quick succession performs a jab and punch, three does a jab, punch, uppercut combo. It’s quick but it doesn’t have that much range or width in its melee attack range.

The second function is the parry which allows you to negate any damage if timed right. Rob’s in charge of securing the timing for all these as he’s the one in Unity and more well-versed with the parrying system this was inspired from (Street Fighter 3) so I trust he’ll make sure it’s balanced. We wanted to make the fists fun to use but even better if you master it and hopefully it’ll show.

The crossbow also underwent an animation rework during its polish phase. The old animation was too focused on being realistic that it didn’t look interesting (i.e. it looked too slow) and the crossbow already has it tough in being interesting when up against the pistols. So far everyone feels it looks much snappier now while still keeping to the timing of the old animation.

What differentiates the crossbow from the pistol is that Esmy can hold her shot and slowly strafe while doing so, only firing when you let go of the attack button. The crossbow also has different types of bolt quivers that you can equip. Currently we’re playing around with piercing properties and stagger/slowing/knockback properties.

We’re also looking into displaying the ammo/bolt count below Esmy everytime she fires so the player can easily keep track of their shots (we’ve been running on infinite ammo all this time just to get a feel of the weapon first before applying a limit).

The rapier’s animations will still need the pixel pass but its roughs are ready.

You’ll notice two phases in the rapier animation. The basic thrust and the secondary backdash. These are the primary and secondary functions of the weapon. One allows you to dash forward with a piercing strike and another for quick evasion, making the rapier a weapon all about mobility (which could be handy for speedrunning too).

The Ghilcrest buildings are undergoing their design polish as well. You’ve all seen the Cryatisium and Esmy’s Home and now the Inventorium and the Cafe are joining them in polished goodness.

The overworld environments have also been undergoing its rework. More unique object assets have been made and its design is now following the Overworld map that I completed.

Worry not about the above image. Though we do have Brax (and some other characters) following you at some points in the game, it’s not a dangerous escort mission where you’ll have to struggle to keep your companion alive, the Berribuns were added on the map just for this screenshot (they ignore Brax and only go for Esmy).

I’ve tried to incorporate hints of the past steamtech throughout areas of Noka Island that the settlers covered, some machines like the one on the screenshot above were retrofitted to use cryam instead of steam (I did receive comments on how the smoke blobs look more like rocks so I’ll probably change it to wispy smoke).

The HUD has also undergone a visual polish to make it look more bronze plated to go with the early post steampunk-ish feel.

I’ll be continuously working on more animations and environment asset polish all throughout while Rob cleans up code, works on other background assets or lays said assets out in the Unity editor.

ART SPOTLIGHT

Every now and then, Rob (and sometimes I) take a breather and make some art (which will all eventually end up in the artbook) so here’s some of the choice pieces as of late.

Rob made something that could be wallpaper material once he cleans it up in a higher res, it’s an array of Bliss in a custom outfit.

Another wallpaper-ish piece from Rob with Deseret, Bliss, and Sorbet looking all tough and showing what I’ll just assume to be Ghilcrest gang signs... despite it being a small community.

Here's a more realistic pin-up style Bliss that Rob also made.

Rob also pays tribute to Atlus’ Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series by rendering Esmy in Shigenori Soejima’s style.

I did the same and tried making a Shigenori Soejima tribute using his soft paint style commonly present in Stella Deus and some Persona art. I chose to represent Team Bliss.

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

We’ve also got a few new submissions of fanart from the community that we’re proud to share with everyone. We’re grateful to have all your support and enjoy seeing everyone’s renditions of the Cryamore cast.

@Cliffist pays tribute to the fab queen, Bliss because clearly, she’s supposed to be the star.

@boss_ruru also decides to rep Team Bliss with this lovely piece of Ms. Barson in one of her many alternate outfits.

But it’s not all Bliss as MellowMarz aka @HeartlessHat provides a pistol toting pixel-art Esmy.

I’ll be working on the pixel art and animation featurette next. I had to hold it off since I needed to prep this first.

It should give an idea of what the update will cover.

I hope you enjoyed this update and all the news! Thanks for taking time to read through these.

- CM Alan

P.S. I also managed to secure one of the previous builds we made and will be preparing a guide to go with it for the backers on Discord.

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meggannn · 8 years ago

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andromeda review

I finished the game Monday night so I’ve had a few days to think over my feelings. No major plot spoilers in this post but putting behind a cut anyway.

I want to rip the bandaid off, so I’ll get the bad news out of the way first.

THE BAD

It’s clear what influence Frostbite -- and by extension EA -- has had on Andromeda, and it’s not always good. It’s a big world, which was kind of what they signed on for by setting the stage in a new galaxy: if it wasn’t big, people would complain we never got to “really see” Andromeda. So they made it big and pushed the exploration thing. It’s not as big as Inquisition, thank god, with not nearly so many pointless fetch quests, but there are still enough sidequests to deter the average player and don’t really move the plot further. I’m actually the kind of dedicated idiot who actually doesn’t mind collecting pointless shit across seventeen maps if it actually gives me more information about the lore or characters, but when it just comes with XP and a check mark, it irritates the living heck out of me. Andromeda has a fair amount of both types.

In the long run, this is a very minor complaint, more about what Bioware doesn’t put in the game than what they do, but I was let down in the lack of… creativity? In the new Andromeda species. After finishing the game however, for plot reasons, I can see why there are several reasons why they would keep the bipedal humanoid alien design, but it’s still a little disappointing. Lore-wise, I think traveling to a new galaxy would be the perfect stage to design more mind-bending aliens like the Leviathans or rachni (the Reapers controlled the direction organic life evolved in the Milky Way, but not Andromeda, right?). Aliens with different types of societies! Aliens that are bigger or smaller in scale than us! Aliens that have different ideas of the word ‘intelligence��! And we got only two sentient species, one of which actually has some form of settled home in Andromeda, the other of which we try to slaughter when we’re within fifty meters of each other.

For people who have played the original trilogy, it becomes kind of obvious they’re retreading familiar ground, and sometimes it gets predictable. Not just with their themes -- which I expect -- but their plot twists. I’ll avoid spoiling too much. There are also moments it feels as though they’re trying to ‘top’ the trauma Shepard went through in the original series by putting Ryder through worse, so much so that when Ryder’s in serious danger it feels a bit like they’re crying wolf. They somehow managed to do this without making Ryder feel like ‘the new Shepard’ -- which is a good thing -- but still, it’s a bit odd and disconnecting. It’s like you can see the talks at the tables when the creative director said “and then we’ll do THIS” and nobody considered if it was, um, logical.

With the writing, there was occasionally a lot of -- for lack of a better phrase -- telling and not showing, or in some other cases, stretching the limits of lore believability just to create conflict for the player to fight. I tend to hate when people use “show don’t tell” as a criticism because I think they’re usually overlooking something, but this is a common theme with BW games and in Andromeda it happens pretty consistently. We are constantly told that the angara are always “free” with their feelings and rarely if ever hide their emotions from the world, yet aside from Jaal’s consistent emotional vulnerability (who I thought was great btw), angara mostly tend to speak and talk and walk exactly like us. Having a conversation with an angaran NPC felt exactly like an asari or human NPC, except, you know, in how they looked.

((MILD PLOT SPOILERS: If you’ve reached Aya you’re probably fine to read)) I’m obviously relieved Bioware didn’t go in the colonization direction -- something I didn’t want to have to worry about the first place -- but instead there’s an undeniable white savior (or “human savior”) theme instead. (It became especially prominent later in the game.) This is difficult to document exactly because it’s not as explicit as other classic examples -- in MEA, Jaal has a large presence and is actively involved in protecting and saving his people; the Initiative/Ryder has to work their ass off to prove their intentions are peaceful and even then the angara are portrayed to rightfully still be skeptical -- but at the end of the day, the angara are a POC coded culture and ~only a stranger can save them~. The angara have also become Mass Effect’s elven equivalent from Dragon Age, in terms of how much and how often the story throws them into the mud. At least unlike the elves, they don’t argue that it’s the angara’s fault, but after a while it feels like slow and cruel torture of a native species that’s already been through hell.

The Chosen One narrative is how Bioware operates, I get it. But I’m getting tired of people treating the Pathfinder/Inquisitor like a hero-in-the-making before they have the chance to prove they’re even a person. (Sorry to keep bringing DA2 up, but this is why I liked Hawke so much -- you worked to Championship from the ground up, and everyone knew it.) What is so freaking special about the symbol of Pathfinders that makes everyone flock to you when you first step onto the Nexus? Did the Initiative really pin all their hopes on scouting landscapes and settling colonies in hostile or extreme environments on the shoulders of four people?

The disappointing LGBT romances are already well-documented, but I have to give a particular call-out to how they handled the only mlm’s storyline, because it was terrible. (It’s honestly astounding how it passed the desks of multiple people and nobody thought to say hey, maybe this is offensive?)

After watching Jaal’s romance… I’m still not convinced aliens should ever be straight in any circumstance, but I don’t think just a patch would solve this one -- I think Jaal’s romance employs a lot of you’re-the-girl-of-my-dreams tropes that were meant to specifically appeal to women, so swapping Sara for Scott in this case might feel lazy or contrived. Liam’s romance, though -- which I LOVED and I highly recommend people watch if they have a few minutes on Youtube -- is completely free of any sort of gender stereotypical tropes and would work just as well with any Ryder.

Okay now onto the good stuff, which was fortunately most of it.

THE GOOD

Despite all of the above, I really, genuinely, enjoyed this game and think both old and new Mass Effect players would enjoy it. There are some growing pains -- Ryder asks a few dumb questions for exposition that most ME fans know by heart and other times an NPC comments on this or that lore reference that new people wouldn’t understand in the slightest, but it doesn’t ruin the experience. I finished at around 75 hours and 97% completion with most of the remaining activities the ‘no lore included’ fetch quests I was complaining about earlier. And despite my whining about the sidequests, I actually did genuinely like them, for the most part. They gave me more information about each of the worlds and how people live there, often because the same people would give me multiple quests, or reference each other, so the locations felt like real places that people lived in.

The companions and their relationships -- including romances -- are really good. Like, not to call it leagues better than Inquisition, because Inquisition had great companions, but unlike the Inquisitor I actually felt like Ryder had a place on the ship. I knew what their job was, sure, but I also know who they were when they interacted with people, even allowing for the freedom of player choice. The Initiative isn’t military, and neither is your ship, though plenty of the squad have professional firearms and crisis training, which is a great shift from Shepard and the Normandy -- it comes with more casual banter, but it also has its downsides, because there will be fights on your ship between people, because many of them are not professionals, just highly skilled expertises, and they aren’t used to working with others. It sucks because you have to mediate the arguments, but it’s also realistic.

The animation is fine, and yeah the CC sucks and I wish it were better, but it’s hardly the end of the world. Mass Effect always did better with aliens than it did with humans, so it’s hardly a surprise, and personally I think if people are going to throw a fit over their PC not having the right kind of eyebrows or a glitch where a character holds a gun backwards that happens once in a 70+ hour game, and that ruins the entire experience for them… they might want to pick another hobby.

I’ve seen people complaining that the writing is shit, and it’s true that occasionally I’ll hear a cheesy line and think a fifteen year old could’ve done better, but the largest majority of the time, I wonder what those complaints were smoking. The writing is great. I feel like these are all real people -- and I especially feel Ryder is a real person, a real sister/brother, a real twenty-something thrown into a million problems they’re unequipped to handle.

I was surprised to actually be… impressed by the way they handle angaran relations. The white savior thing is still true and will always be true, but I appreciate that Ryder has to work their ass off to prove they’re trustworthy, and even then, the angara that still openly distrust aliens aren’t wrong for it, and Ryder has to respect that or risk their respect. They’re wary, and they have every right to be, and the story doesn’t punish them for it. (Even the Roekaar are slightly sympathetic in a way, because a majority of them are fighting because they’re scared.)

Open world games are usually something I dread, but I didn’t mind the open landscapes for the most part, because the Mako -- I mean Nomad -- gets you around pretty fast, you’ve got banter to listen to in the meantime, and the upgrades really helped whenever the terrain became challenging. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s really too much, but for the most part, I honestly didn’t mind, and I was surprised I didn’t.

The journal prioritization system reminds me of DA2 in a good way; compared to previous ME games, and even Inquisition, MEA makes it a lot easier to tell which quests are worth doing/plot relevant, and which would just amount to my dicking around in the wilderness for XP or loot.

The combat is excellent -- not to rag on the original series’ system because there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it, but I can definitely see major improvements in creativity and flexibility. It’s fluid, much more mobile, and the jumpjets let you get so much more creative. Letting people mix and match powers is a little far-fetched, but you can handwave a lot of with SAM’s profile implant, so I don’t really mind. The only irritating thing is that you’re limited to three powers at once, but since you have about a million powers available to you in the first place and can equip four favorite profiles at once, it seems a fair trade. (I’ve found a way around this anyway -- instead of bringing up the HUD and going to favorites, if you pause the game in the middle of combat, you can fool around with your skills AND change profiles and resume combat with no cooldown.)

It felt like ME1 in all of the best ways. Like I mentioned above, it’s true they’re sort of treading familiar ground in their themes and plot twists, but there were certain parts of the final mission in particular were most definitely purposeful references to/love letters to the original trilogy. It makes it feel like the start of a new journey; I told a friend when I finished that I felt exactly like I had when I finished ME1 for the first time, excited and scared and pumped to start playing sequel.

My overall experience was a great one; I’m planning on starting my second playthrough as soon as I can, probably tomorrow. It was familiar to old fans who loved ME1 for its newness and strangeness, it’s friendly to new players, and I think it’ll be remembered strongly in the future if it is the beginning of a new series like I expect it to be. (LBR, if it isn’t “part one” of a new story...... it makes no sense. It’s practically screaming for more.)

#andromeda spoilers #mea #mass effect andromeda #megan plays me

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imagine-loki · 8 years ago

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When All Is Said And Done

TITLE: When All Is Said And Done CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: One Shot AUTHOR: land-of-dragons-and-frogs ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Image Loki going out of his way to piss you off. He loves to see you angry, but one day you have enough….

RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS: Mentions of depression (including very minor implications of self-harm) and medication. This was supposed to be fluffy and then it wasn’t rip me.

If anyone chooses to make a sequel-y thing to this then you’ve got my permission right here!

The first time it happens, you assume that it’s just Loki being Loki. It had been a simple prank, swapping the actual coffee with decaf that day. You, being tired and upset, had given Loki a glare that could kill when you swapped the decaf for actual coffee (which you had felt incredibly guilty for when you got home–it was just a harmless joke, and you’d still made the proper coffee in the end). You’d assumed you were just collateral damage, and that it had been intended for Steve or Tony.

You couldn’t have been more wrong.

Things had accelerated in the year and a half you’d known the Asgardian. Not only had he increased the amount of things he did to piss you off (only supplying decaf coffee, hiding your things, turning your computer on and off randomly), he also increased the severity of what he’d do to you. Recently, he’d started unplugging your electronics and shattering light bulbs at seemingly random intervals as you walked under them.

Each prank led to an increase in the bubbling anger you had towards the man, yet each one also forced you to internalise those emotions and only release them in small taps of glares or agitated comments that caused your mental health to tank. You doubted Loki could see through the emotional mask you wore, though; you’d worn it for years like a pro. Besides, he seemed like the kind of person who would stop if he knew what it did to you.

But today…

Today, you were numb.

There was seemingly nothing he could do to you that he hadn’t already done to you. You’d forgotten your medication and were already in a downwards spiral, and as such were in a state of numbness. Your arms and legs were sore, for reasons you wouldn’t explain to anyone. Thank God Tony didn’t require a strict dress code, otherwise, you’d be more than a little bit screwed. What can you say; suits and other fancy clothes were uncomfortable.

You rolled into Stark Tower at around 10 am, in a comfortable hoodie and sweatpants that you wouldn’t mind getting dirty in a lab experiment. Bruce and Tony met you in the elevator; Tony noticed what was wrong with you immediately, as you knew he would.

“Wheatley, would you like to take the day off today?” His voice was quiet, gentle. You shook your head, smile falling slightly; this was the first time this had happened since Loki’s arrival, and you wouldn’t miss the chance to be deadpan and not give a solid fuck about the other man’s actions.

“No, sir. But thank you for the offer.” He nods, smiling softly at you.

“Remember that if you need to take a minute or two for yourself, you’ve got rooms here where you can take a breather.” You nod, letting out a soft sigh.

“Of course I will. Hopefully, I won’t have to use it” Tony frowns; before he can speak, the elevator doors open and Loki steps in.

“Hello, Bruce. Tony. Wheatley.” You absently note that Loki does not say your name with even a hint of malice, as he does Bruce and Tony. This was a normal occurrence, especially before…

Fuck.

You weren’t mentally prepared for any shit he was about to pull, yet at the same time, you couldn’t find the heart to care.

You all nod in response to Loki’s greeting, Tony tensing up and taking a slight step closer to you. You knew that the two men had spoken to the trickster god about his pranking before, but it had never worked. They’d likely be keeping a closer eye on him today.

The elevator ride continues in silence. You shut your eyes, visualising where everyone is. Loki is a few paces in front of you, Tony on your left and Banner a foot or so farther from you and Tony.

You open your eyes and cannot see a thing.

… Your immediate thought is that you’ve died, and relief washes over you. Your mental illness can’t bother you if you’re dead, it can go suck it–

You can still hear the elevator.

God damn it.

You’ve reached the tipping point.

Absently, you reach a hand out and place it on Tony’s shoulder.

“I might have to take you up on that offer after all” You hear a distinct Tony sigh; you can even imagine his face of pure god fucking damn it before he speaks.

“You sure, kiddo?”

“Yeah. Shenanigans and all that jazz.” You regain your vision after that, blinking a few times to clear the brightness of the light from your eyes; Tony has a look of concern rather than “god fucking damn it” on his face, and Loki…

Loki looks befuddled, as well as rather annoyed.

Sucks to suck, fucker.

Absently, you note that the button for the floor you have rooms on had already been pressed. You’re uncertain about if it was Tony, Banner, or Loki that had done it.

It was probably Tony if you had to guess.

The doors opened again, revealing the lab you had come to love in your three years of working at Stark Tower. Tony and Bruce headed off, leaving you with Loki as the doors slid shut and headed up towards your floor.

Your world becomes inky black the moment the doors open for your floor, voices of malice whispering in your ears.

You walked off the elevator and towards your room, the layout memorised in your head.

Don’t show the outside world how you are truly feeling.

The light bulb shattering over your head as your vision is slingshot back to you is the pushing point.

You stand stock still, broken glass cascaded at your feet as electricity crackled over your head. Instinctively, you know exactly where Loki is; a few yards behind you, whereas a clone is several feet in front of you looking smug.

You drop your mask, turning to look towards the Prince of Mischief. You know exactly how you look–dead, emotionless, statue-esque–before your rage bubbles to the surface.

Every prank, harmless or not, rises to the surface. Every instance of maliciousness that was only directed towards your person skyrocketed to the forefront of your mind, eyes turning cold as ice.

“You need to stop this game you’re playing. Someone’s gonna end up dead, and it won’t be pretty.” Through some freak force of nature, your voice retains an emotionless and dead element while also voicing pure anger. You see Loki’s eyes widen in surprise.

You speak the truth.

You turn on your heel and walk towards your room on the floor, walking straight through his now weakened illusion and around a corner.

Apparently, Loki isn’t as smart as he seems to be; he’d teleported himself in front of your door.

“Explain.” You’d think the concern was legitimate, except you know that it isn’t. Trickster Gods are notoriously good at lying, especially to themselves.

“Fuck off, Loki.” You reach for the doorknob; he puts himself in the way of your hand.

“I am a god.” He sounds annoyed. Used to getting his way with anyone that wasn’t royalty, perhaps.

“What’s a god to a non-believer?” You push him aside, his shock at the comment making him easy to move. You open the door, sliding inside and slamming it shut before Loki can get a word in edgewise.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!?” He calls through the door, knocking loudly on it; You steal the comforter and pillows from the bed and set up a blanket nest inside the mostly unused closet.

“Wheatley, please…” His tone gives you pause; it no longer has that false element to it. He’s very likely legitimately concerned about you now.

God.

Fucking.

Damnit.

“Go away.” Your voice once again lacks any emotion. You’re just… Done.

You quickly finish setting up your comfort place, your little nest, and hide in it. You shut the sliding door behind you, and not a moment too soon.

You hear footsteps in your room a few seconds after you’ finished setting everything up; you cuddle a pillow, far too emotionally drained to care about the fact that it’s Loki in your Stark Tower home.

It takes him a minute of searching the rest of the small apartment-style rooms to find you in the closet, wrapped in the blanket and curled around a pillow.

You do not look at him.

You do not acknowledge his existence.

“Wheatley… Come on, talk to me.” You hear the desperation in his voice.

To be petty or not be petty, that is the question.

Being petty seems pretty fitting right about now.

After a minute or two of silence and you not moving, he takes the hint.

“I… I’m sorry.” You raise an eyebrow; out of the corner of your eye, you notice that Loki tunes into that minor movement of your face. He knows you’re listening.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been doing this to you. I just…” He sighed softly. Prince of Mischief and Lies couldn’t find the words he wanted to use, more news at 11.

“I like seeing you mad. It’s… more emotion than anyone else bothers to show towards me, except Thor.” Internally, you sigh–a reason for a person’s actions is never an excuse to get out of apologising was what you’d been taught, and you’d yet to see that logic fail you.

“I didn’t realise it was hurting you. I… never intended to cause you harm.” You internally call bullshit; you’ gotten cuts on your head from shattered light bulbs before and he hadn’t even batted an eye.

“I’m sorry. Even though it probably doesn’t seem like it, I’m… I’m so, so sorry.” You turn your head to look at him properly. His head is bowed, hair hanging over his face. He’s kneeling next to you, hands held limply in his lap; instinctively, you know he isn’t lying.

“Why should I forgive you?” You aren’t sure why you ask the question, but now that it’s asked it hangs in the air. Loki opens his mouth to speak, then closes it; he doesn’t have an answer for you.

“You’ve made me hate coming to my job. You pull this shit every damn day, to the point where it’s become a detriment to my mental health and my work ethics. Honestly, by this point, I’m just waiting for Tony to fire me because I can’t focus on my work because of the shit you do. So tell me: why should I forgive you?” You lock eyes with him; you don’t have the energy to be angry right then. You have just enough energy to demand an answer with a single look.

“… Because… Because I…” He fell silent as if trying to word what he wanted to say.

“I bet you’re going to confess that you like me or something.” The words spill out, a slightly sarcastic undertone to them. It’s not true, of course. He’d been treating you like utter shit for a year and a half, so–

“Well, I guess even the God of Mischief is powerless against your power, love.”

…

No.

No, he’s lying.

He has to be.

You look into his eyes, dread seeping into your bones. You can’t find the lie in his eyes.

You don’t have the energy to handle this.

“Is this how you court people you like on Asgard? Or is all this bullshit just you being an idiot and refusing to acknowledge your feelings for others?”

“… Second one.” You can feel the regret in his voice in the very fibre of your being.

God, you need some alcohol to properly handle this right now.

“… Okay.” You hold up your finger, pausing Loki’s noise of surprise. “I understand why you’ve been treating me the way you’ve been treating me. However, this doesn’t excuse them. As of right now, you are not forgiven. You’re going to have to put forth some effort and look deep inside yourself to really figure out if even befriending me is something you’re willing to do.” He nods, a spark of… something in his eyes. Hope, probably.

You’d probably regret the decision you’ made later, after downing some of Tony’s alcohol and passing out in the Tower that night. Right now, though…

Right now, for the first time in a long time, you were comfortable in Loki’s presence.

#loki #submission #Submitted one shot #God of Mischief #land-of-dragons-and-frogs #when all is said and done #pissed off #angry #shocked #rant #teleporting #magic #explain #confession #Depression

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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DGB Grab Bag: Recalling a Preseason Line Brawl and Nonsense Face-Off Penalties

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Wes McCauley. The only referee on the planet who should ever be allowed near a microphone was at it again. I'd get in there if I were you, Nate.

The second star: Patrick Eaves. D'aawwww.

The first star: The Golden Knights Twitter… again. Good lord, rest of the NHL, how many times are we going to do this?

Guys, come on. This is like when Troy Crowder showed up in 1990 and started speedbagging everyone. Sure, you can understand catching the first few opponents off guard, but by now the scouting report is out. These folks are not playing. Stay down, NHL teams.

(Side note: Can we start wagering now on which thin-skinned owner will be the first to complain to the league about his team getting roasted on Twitter by the Knights? This feels like a Eugene Melnyk thing, but I'm open to other suggestions.)

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The NHL is using the preseason to crack down on two types of fouls: face-off violations and slashing. That's resulted in a ton of penalties being called, disrupting any sort of flow to the games and confusing fans and players alike. The outrage: Knock it off, NHL—we didn't wait all summer for hockey to come back just so we could watch you call a bunch of nitpicky penalties all night. Is it justified: For the face-off violations, sure. Those have been annoying, and seem like a weird thing for the league to be focusing on. NHL fans love to complain—some of us have entire podcasts for it—but I've never heard any paying customer argue that face-offs were a problem. I wrote a little bit about the face-off crackdown earlier this week, and my basic message was that we shouldn't panic yet because it will probably be short-lived. But if we get to November and we still have linesmen calling three or four of these things a game, we'll have a problem.

So yeah, the face-off thing is dicey. The slashing, though? Not remotely. It's about time the league took a stand on this one.

Two guys cheating on a face-off might turn the draw into a scrum, but it doesn't really hurt anyone. Cracking a guy across the hands with your stick? Yeah, that can do some damage. And there's no reason for it. Reaching out and slashing someone who beat you for position isn't a legitimate defensive tactic, no matter what guys like Jon Cooper say. There's no skill involved. And there's no entertainment value, either. At least a big open ice hit is fun to watch. Seeing a star player get hacked because he had the nerve to actually possess the puck doesn't help anyone.

Well, except for guys who are slow and out of position. Those are the guys who are apparently suffering here. OK…good. Let's phase those guys out. If they can't play defense without using their stick as a weapon, my guess is not too many of us will miss them. Let's swap in a few guys who can keep up with the play and aren't always a stick's length behind the better players.

For years, the NHL has been a league where simply having the puck on your stick meant you had to accept a few hacks across the wrist. It was the price of admission for actually trying to create some offense. It's been that way for so long that it's going to take some adjusting for players to stop reflexively swinging at anyone who skates by.

Will that be annoying for the first few weeks or months or however long it takes the players to figure this out? Definitely. Will penalty boxes occasionally look like this? Maybe. But it's a price worth paying to get this garbage out of the game, and to have it happen before Connor McDavid or Patrik Laine or whoever else gets their wrist broken. Complain all you want about the face-offs if the league actually sticks with it, but the slashing crackdown is long overdue.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Last week was the 30th anniversary of what many consider the greatest hockey game ever played: Team Canada vs. the Soviets in the deciding game of the 1987 Canada Cup, one that ended with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux teaming up on their famous winner. The game was an incredible back-and-forth contest featuring an almost unimaginable amount of talent. I mean, just look at the starting lineups.

That's three Hockey Hall of Famers for the Soviets, plus two more guys who each had a strong cases of his own. And Canada has four guys who made it in on the first ballot, including two of the ten players in history who were such slam dunks that the customary waiting period was waived for them.

And then there's this week's obscure player: Doug Crossman.

Crossman was a sixth-round pick by the Hawks in the legendary double cohort draft of 1979. Weirdly, he went within five picks of not one but two other Obscure Player alumni, Bill McCreary and Rick Knickle. He'd make his NHL debut the following season, and spent three seasons in Chicago before being traded to the Flyers for legendary tough guy Behn Wilson. He spent five more years in Philadelphia before being traded to L.A. in 1988, which would signal the start of a five-year stretch in which he was traded six times for everyone from Ray Ferraro to Basil McRae. He was also claimed on waivers once, and ended up closing out his career in 1994 having played for eight teams, only two of which kept him for more than 100 games.

Crossman was a decent defenseman who could play in both ends. He never topped 60 points, but he was a +20 or better for three straight years in the mid 80s, and early in his career was a bit of an ironman. He was never an All-Star nor did he receive so much as a single Norris vote, but he was pretty good.

So… how did he wind up lining up next to the Canadian dream team in 1987?

The easiest answer is that he was a Flyer at the time, and his coach was Mike Keenan, who also happened to be running Team Canada. He'd been solid in Philadelphia and was coming off a big playoff year, and Keenan trusted him, so he made the team. Hey, it wouldn't be Team Canada without a weird pick or two. Besides, it's not like Canada was all that deep on defense that year. While they had future Hall of Famers Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, and Larry Murphy, they also had to lean on guys like James Patrick, Craig Hartsburg, and Normand Rochefort.

All of those guys had to play a role for Canada to win, but only Crossman got to hear his name announced as a starter in one of the most star-studded games ever played.

Be It Resolved

There's a new trend going around the league. Various teams are holding open tryouts to fill the role of emergency backup goalies. Fans can show up, strut their stuff, and earn the job of backup to the backup.

The concept is getting rave reviews, and seems destined to spread across the league fairly quickly. It seems like the perfect way to give fans a shot at actually appearing in an NHL game. Who wouldn't get behind that? The whole idea is, as one observer put it, "freaking awesome."

Like hell it is. Faithful readers, this cannot stand.

Look, I love me a good EBUG, just like any fan should. The emergency backup goalie is one of those fun hockey oddities, one with a long and proud history. Sure, they never actually play (almost), but it's the mere possibility that makes it work. May the hockey gods bless the valiant emergency backup.

But the key word here is emergency. It's the chaos of an unexpected injury followed by a mad scramble to find someone, anyone, who knows how to hold a goalie stick that makes it fun. The guys who win these tryouts are going to be available at every game. Even worse, they're going to be good. Not NHL good, sure, but good enough not to embarrass themselves. Where's the fun in that?

I want to see some terrified dude hyperventilating into a paper bag on the bench. I want ushers and parking-lot attendants and web producers. I want to see the owner's deadbeat nephew shoved out there against his will. I want to see more scenes like Roberto Luongo stealing an ambulance to make a dramatic return from the hospital, Stone Cold Steve Austin-style, so that the goalie coach doesn't have to go in:

If this tryout thing catches on, we lose all that. Every rink will just have some former junior star in the press box, munching popcorn and waiting to see if he's needed. So be it resolved that we need to nip this in the bud. The noble EBUG has suddenly become an endangered species, and we need to save him—even if he never gets the chance to save anything for us.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

A cynic might suggest that the entire preseason schedule is just a massive cash grab, in which teams force fans to buy tickets to watch has-beens, never-will-bes, and PTOs signed specifically to circumvent the veteran roster rules, all playing in games in which nothing ever happens. Well, that's not completely accurate. I mean, almost all of it is. But while it's true that nothing important ever happens in the preseason, that doesn't mean nothing interesting ever happens. One example—OK, the only example—came exactly four years ago today.

So it's September 22, 2013, and the Sabres are visiting the Maple Leafs in preseason action. The score is…well, honestly it doesn't matter. But things are about to get goofy, so let's settle in and enjoy the dumbest line brawl in recent NHL history.

We open with play-by-play legend Joe Bowen informing us that Buffalo's John Scott is unhappy about something. If you're looking for backstory, here's what happened just before our clip begins. Long story short, the Sabres thought their guy had been victimized in a mismatch. Scott's their enforcer, so it's his job to exact some payback.

Unfortunately, he's lined up next to Phil Kessel, and The Code clearly states that he's not allowed to pummel a squishy-soft skill player. But Scott can do the next best thing, which is try to make Kessel poop his pants on live television.

Scott politely gives Kessel a heads-up on what's about to happen, at which point Kessel whips around like he just got a whiff of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. I always thought Scott got a bit of a raw deal on all of this. You hear about how he "jumped" Kessel, but he never really did. Let's be honest, if Scott wanted to hurt Kessel, he absolutely could have. Instead, he basically gives him the "cat batting around a wounded mouse" treatment.

Kessel, of course, doesn't know this, so he immediately tries to break Scott's ankle with a golf swing slash. That's totally fine, by the way, as it's clearly self-defense. Then, after the cavalry arrives and Scott is fighting off two guys, Kessel circles back and hacks him again. That's, um, also self-defense? I would be a bad hockey lawyer.

None of the other Leafs player on the ice are fighters, so they basically gang-tackle Scott—who, it should be pointed out, is listed at 6'8" and 270 pounds. They do a pretty good job, too. Almost too good. Like, it seems like they may have an extra guy. Ah well, I'm sure that won't turn out to be important.

Meanwhile, Kessel pairs off with Brian Flynn for what will be only his second career NHL fight. And he…well, he kind of destroys him. Seriously. It's not quite Clark vs. Brooke, but by the end of it Flynn is leaking blood all over the ice. It will not shock you to learn that this remains Flynn's one and only NHL fight to this day. When Phil Kessel is splitting your face open like it's a jelly-filled donut, there's a good chance you're not very good at this.

Bowen does a reasonably good job on the call, although he's had better.

We get the now standard overhead view of the action, which reveals that all six Leafs seem to be handling business just fine. Wait a second, six? That seems high. Let's see if we can figure this out, now that all the fights are over and there's clearly nothing else that's going to happen.

Uh, did anyone notice anything odd in the lower right corner just there?

Huh, I could have sworn that looked like Leafs goalie Jonathan Bernier heading out of his net for some strange reason. Ah well, I'm sure it's nothing. Maybe he's going to get a drink of water or something.

No, he's apparently going to fight Ryan Miller, who speaks for all of us when he reacts by doing this:

As per Canadian law, Bowen immediately references the Felix Potvin vs. Ron Hextall superfight, which we broke down here. That one was the greatest goalie fight of all time. But this one isn't too bad once Miller finally decides to try. It's so entertaining that the other players forget that it's not 1986 and you're not allowed to crowd around to watch a fight.

As that scrap ends, we see Kessel go over and get one more jab on Scott, who's tangled up with David Clarkson. Wait, was Clarkson on the ice when all this started? He and Kessel play the same position, so it wouldn't make sense unless… oh. Oh no.

"All five players…all six players on the ice, including the goaltenders…" Keep counting, Joe.

After several replays, it's only in the final seconds of our clip that Bowen and friends put two and two together. Or more specifically, they put six and one together, and realize that Clarkson jumped on the ice during the brawl, even though the situation was already under control and he really had nothing to do once he arrived. That means that a player the Leafs have just paid a fortune to get has earned himself an automatic ten-game suspension before his first season even starts. Or, as Toronto fans now know it, "the high point of the David Clarkson era."

The epilogue here is that Kessel was suspended for three games, Clarkson never recovered, and Leaf fans loved Bernier right up until he started doing stuff like this. And to this day, Brian Flynn is afraid to go near a hot-dog cart.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

DGB Grab Bag: Recalling a Preseason Line Brawl and Nonsense Face-Off Penalties published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years ago

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DGB Grab Bag: Recalling a Preseason Line Brawl and Nonsense Face-Off Penalties

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Wes McCauley. The only referee on the planet who should ever be allowed near a microphone was at it again. I’d get in there if I were you, Nate.

The second star: Patrick Eaves. D’aawwww.

The first star: The Golden Knights Twitter… again. Good lord, rest of the NHL, how many times are we going to do this?

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The NHL is using the preseason to crack down on two types of fouls: face-off violations and slashing. That’s resulted in a ton of penalties being called, disrupting any sort of flow to the games and confusing fans and players alike.

The outrage: Knock it off, NHL—we didn’t wait all summer for hockey to come back just so we could watch you call a bunch of nitpicky penalties all night.

Is it justified: For the face-off violations, sure. Those have been annoying, and seem like a weird thing for the league to be focusing on. NHL fans love to complain—some of us have entire podcasts for it—but I’ve never heard any paying customer argue that face-offs were a problem. I wrote a little bit about the face-off crackdown earlier this week, and my basic message was that we shouldn’t panic yet because it will probably be short-lived. But if we get to November and we still have linesmen calling three or four of these things a game, we’ll have a problem.

So yeah, the face-off thing is dicey. The slashing, though? Not remotely. It’s about time the league took a stand on this one.

Two guys cheating on a face-off might turn the draw into a scrum, but it doesn’t really hurt anyone. Cracking a guy across the hands with your stick? Yeah, that can do some damage. And there’s no reason for it. Reaching out and slashing someone who beat you for position isn’t a legitimate defensive tactic, no matter what guys like Jon Cooper say. There’s no skill involved. And there’s no entertainment value, either. At least a big open ice hit is fun to watch. Seeing a star player get hacked because he had the nerve to actually possess the puck doesn’t help anyone.

Well, except for guys who are slow and out of position. Those are the guys who are apparently suffering here. OK…good. Let’s phase those guys out. If they can’t play defense without using their stick as a weapon, my guess is not too many of us will miss them. Let’s swap in a few guys who can keep up with the play and aren’t always a stick’s length behind the better players.

For years, the NHL has been a league where simply having the puck on your stick meant you had to accept a few hacks across the wrist. It was the price of admission for actually trying to create some offense. It’s been that way for so long that it’s going to take some adjusting for players to stop reflexively swinging at anyone who skates by.

Will that be annoying for the first few weeks or months or however long it takes the players to figure this out? Definitely. Will penalty boxes occasionally look like this? Maybe. But it’s a price worth paying to get this garbage out of the game, and to have it happen before Connor McDavid or Patrik Laine or whoever else gets their wrist broken. Complain all you want about the face-offs if the league actually sticks with it, but the slashing crackdown is long overdue.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

That’s three Hockey Hall of Famers for the Soviets, plus two more guys who each had a strong cases of his own. And Canada has four guys who made it in on the first ballot, including two of the ten players in history who were such slam dunks that the customary waiting period was waived for them.

And then there’s this week’s obscure player: Doug Crossman.

Crossman was a sixth-round pick by the Hawks in the legendary double cohort draft of 1979. Weirdly, he went within five picks of not one but two other Obscure Player alumni, Bill McCreary and Rick Knickle. He’d make his NHL debut the following season, and spent three seasons in Chicago before being traded to the Flyers for legendary tough guy Behn Wilson. He spent five more years in Philadelphia before being traded to L.A. in 1988, which would signal the start of a five-year stretch in which he was traded six times for everyone from Ray Ferraro to Basil McRae. He was also claimed on waivers once, and ended up closing out his career in 1994 having played for eight teams, only two of which kept him for more than 100 games.

So… how did he wind up lining up next to the Canadian dream team in 1987?

The easiest answer is that he was a Flyer at the time, and his coach was Mike Keenan, who also happened to be running Team Canada. He’d been solid in Philadelphia and was coming off a big playoff year, and Keenan trusted him, so he made the team. Hey, it wouldn’t be Team Canada without a weird pick or two. Besides, it’s not like Canada was all that deep on defense that year. While they had future Hall of Famers Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, and Larry Murphy, they also had to lean on guys like James Patrick, Craig Hartsburg, and Normand Rochefort.

All of those guys had to play a role for Canada to win, but only Crossman got to hear his name announced as a starter in one of the most star-studded games ever played.

Be It Resolved

There’s a new trend going around the league. Various teams are holding open tryouts to fill the role of emergency backup goalies. Fans can show up, strut their stuff, and earn the job of backup to the backup.

The concept is getting rave reviews, and seems destined to spread across the league fairly quickly. It seems like the perfect way to give fans a shot at actually appearing in an NHL game. Who wouldn’t get behind that? The whole idea is, as one observer put it, “freaking awesome.”

Like hell it is. Faithful readers, this cannot stand.

Look, I love me a good EBUG, just like any fan should. The emergency backup goalie is one of those fun hockey oddities, one with a long and proud history. Sure, they never actually play (almost), but it’s the mere possibility that makes it work. May the hockey gods bless the valiant emergency backup.

But the key word here is emergency. It’s the chaos of an unexpected injury followed by a mad scramble to find someone, anyone, who knows how to hold a goalie stick that makes it fun. The guys who win these tryouts are going to be available at every game. Even worse, they’re going to be good. Not NHL good, sure, but good enough not to embarrass themselves. Where’s the fun in that?

I want to see some terrified dude hyperventilating into a paper bag on the bench. I want ushers and parking-lot attendants and web producers. I want to see the owner’s deadbeat nephew shoved out there against his will. I want to see more scenes like Roberto Luongo stealing an ambulance to make a dramatic return from the hospital, Stone Cold Steve Austin-style, so that the goalie coach doesn’t have to go in:

If this tryout thing catches on, we lose all that. Every rink will just have some former junior star in the press box, munching popcorn and waiting to see if he’s needed. So be it resolved that we need to nip this in the bud. The noble EBUG has suddenly become an endangered species, and we need to save him—even if he never gets the chance to save anything for us.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

A cynic might suggest that the entire preseason schedule is just a massive cash grab, in which teams force fans to buy tickets to watch has-beens, never-will-bes, and PTOs signed specifically to circumvent the veteran roster rules, all playing in games in which nothing ever happens. Well, that’s not completely accurate. I mean, almost all of it is. But while it’s true that nothing important ever happens in the preseason, that doesn’t mean nothing interesting ever happens. One example—OK, the only example—came exactly four years ago today.

So it’s September 22, 2013, and the Sabres are visiting the Maple Leafs in preseason action. The score is…well, honestly it doesn’t matter. But things are about to get goofy, so let’s settle in and enjoy the dumbest line brawl in recent NHL history.

We open with play-by-play legend Joe Bowen informing us that Buffalo’s John Scott is unhappy about something. If you’re looking for backstory, here’s what happened just before our clip begins. Long story short, the Sabres thought their guy had been victimized in a mismatch. Scott’s their enforcer, so it’s his job to exact some payback.

Unfortunately, he’s lined up next to Phil Kessel, and The Code clearly states that he’s not allowed to pummel a squishy-soft skill player. But Scott can do the next best thing, which is try to make Kessel poop his pants on live television.

Scott politely gives Kessel a heads-up on what’s about to happen, at which point Kessel whips around like he just got a whiff of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. I always thought Scott got a bit of a raw deal on all of this. You hear about how he “jumped” Kessel, but he never really did. Let’s be honest, if Scott wanted to hurt Kessel, he absolutely could have. Instead, he basically gives him the “cat batting around a wounded mouse” treatment.

Kessel, of course, doesn’t know this, so he immediately tries to break Scott’s ankle with a golf swing slash. That’s totally fine, by the way, as it’s clearly self-defense. Then, after the cavalry arrives and Scott is fighting off two guys, Kessel circles back and hacks him again. That’s, um, also self-defense? I would be a bad hockey lawyer.

None of the other Leafs player on the ice are fighters, so they basically gang-tackle Scott—who, it should be pointed out, is listed at 6’8″ and 270 pounds. They do a pretty good job, too. Almost too good. Like, it seems like they may have an extra guy. Ah well, I’m sure that won’t turn out to be important.

Meanwhile, Kessel pairs off with Brian Flynn for what will be only his second career NHL fight. And he…well, he kind of destroys him. Seriously. It’s not quite Clark vs. Brooke, but by the end of it Flynn is leaking blood all over the ice. It will not shock you to learn that this remains Flynn’s one and only NHL fight to this day. When Phil Kessel is splitting your face open like it’s a jelly-filled donut, there’s a good chance you’re not very good at this.

Bowen does a reasonably good job on the call, although he’s had better.

We get the now standard overhead view of the action, which reveals that all six Leafs seem to be handling business just fine. Wait a second, six? That seems high. Let’s see if we can figure this out, now that all the fights are over and there’s clearly nothing else that’s going to happen.

Uh, did anyone notice anything odd in the lower right corner just there?

Huh, I could have sworn that looked like Leafs goalie Jonathan Bernier heading out of his net for some strange reason. Ah well, I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he’s going to get a drink of water or something.

No, he’s apparently going to fight Ryan Miller, who speaks for all of us when he reacts by doing this:

As per Canadian law, Bowen immediately references the Felix Potvin vs. Ron Hextall superfight, which we broke down here. That one was the greatest goalie fight of all time. But this one isn’t too bad once Miller finally decides to try. It’s so entertaining that the other players forget that it’s not 1986 and you’re not allowed to crowd around to watch a fight.

As that scrap ends, we see Kessel go over and get one more jab on Scott, who’s tangled up with David Clarkson. Wait, was Clarkson on the ice when all this started? He and Kessel play the same position, so it wouldn’t make sense unless… oh. Oh no.

“All five players…all six players on the ice, including the goaltenders…” Keep counting, Joe.

After several replays, it’s only in the final seconds of our clip that Bowen and friends put two and two together. Or more specifically, they put six and one together, and realize that Clarkson jumped on the ice during the brawl, even though the situation was already under control and he really had nothing to do once he arrived. That means that a player the Leafs have just paid a fortune to get has earned himself an automatic ten-game suspension before his first season even starts. Or, as Toronto fans now know it, “the high point of the David Clarkson era.”

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

DGB Grab Bag: Recalling a Preseason Line Brawl and Nonsense Face-Off Penalties syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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