#but Kickflip takes it to another level

[tacoma-narrows]

Thinking abt Kickflip and his stupid rainbow hair [affectionate] again. I have a couple ideas I wanna draw with him soon

For the longest time I never understood why people like to do things like bludgeon their OCs with Various Blunt Objects or Throw Rocks at Them. I'd think like "but that's mean, I love my little guys I wanna be nice to them :["

But since I made Kickflip. I get it. I understand now.

[crackedpumpkin]

Hiiii, I'm a friend of Coleseyebrows and she mentioned you so I wanted to check you out! Would it be possible to do a Platonic Cole x reader, like lil baby reader gets adopted off the streets kinda thing (kinda cringe of me ngl)? He's just such a father figure it sounded like a cute idea!

a/n: Hello lovely! I adore this ask of yours, and it's my first ever platonic! reader fluffy oneshot thing so tbh it was a challenge to write it;;; It's been a while since I was a baby, so it was lowkey difficult to remember what it was like as...well, a baby :)

However, I really do hope you enjoy it, and feel free to request more if you'd like in the future!!

|| ꜰᴀᴍɪʟɪᴀʟ ᴛɪᴇꜱ || ᴅᴀᴅ! ᴄᴏʟᴇ ʙʀᴏᴏᴋᴇꜱᴛᴏɴᴇ x ᴀᴅᴏᴘᴛᴇᴅ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ||

“Yeah, but if you do a double kickflip, you’ll get past the level with no worry!” 

Jay frowns, nodding doubtfully as Cole explains the secret to beating the last level of the newly released game they’ve been recently obsessed with. 

“Oh yeah, Kai asked for some noodles from Chen’s,” Cole recalls, turning down the street and walking past an alleyway. He’s about to continue talking about the game, only to pause, a peculiar sound attracting his attention.

He takes a step back, Jay watching in confusion. The earth ninja walks down the alleyway to a barely covered box. Surely he’s just hearing things. There’s no way-

A baby’s gurgle echoes throughout the alleyway, both the ninja freezing at the sound. He and Jay exchange worried glances, reaching down and opening the cardboard box. 

That’s when he first meets you, a newborn baby swaddled in a tattered blanket with warm, e/c eyes staring up into his. His heart instantly melts at the sight, a soft smile spreading across his lips. 

“Cole, we should probably report this to the police,” Jay says, concern laced into his words as he looks around for any sign of the baby’s parents.

“I don’t know, Jay. I mean, a baby? In an alleyway? In a box?” 

“Abandonment 101…” Jay breathes out in disbelief, brows furrowing as he tries to decide what to do next. 

“We can’t exactly just leave them here either,” Cole reasons, picking you up as you giggle happily at his body's warmth to your shivering self. He uses his fingers to tickle your nose, awwing when your small button nose wrinkles into a sneeze.

“Well…There’s always the city’s orphanage….” Jay suggests hesitantly, Cole shrugging in agreement. They make their way there, Cole already doting on you and showering you with tickles and cooing noises that you eagerly respond to.

Jay watches you warily, unsure of how to react when you stare up at him with pure curiosity shining in your eyes. His hesitance disappears, however, as soon as you smile at him, and he lets out a small “aww.”

They soon reached the orphanage but got turned away by the staff there, as all their resources were already used up, and they couldn’t afford to take care of another child. 

“Awww, she’s such a cute baby!” Whispers surround Cole as he walks down the street with you in his arms. His chest is puffed up slightly in pride as you giggle with a small burp, Jay watching with a raised brow.

“You do know we can’t keep her, right?” 

“But the orphanage is full, and Dareth can’t even be trusted to take care of a dog.” Cole points out, rocking you gently. The swaying motion lulls you to sleep, and your eyelids slowly close. He wipes away a tiny sliver of drool that trails down your cheek, chuckling softly.

“But we’re ninjas! We can barely take care of Ninjago, much less a baby!” Jay frets.

“I’m not liking the negativity you’re bringing to this conversation; it’s affecting lil’ Rose here.” Cole huffs, holding you close. 

“Rose?? You can’t name them. It means you’re already attached! We can’t get attached; we’re not old enough to have a baby!” Jay’s hysterical panic draws attention, and the passersby send the ninja odd looks.

Cole shushes him, more worried about waking the baby in his arms. “I’m sure Master Wu can help. He took us in after all.”

“Yeah, when we weren’t babies!”

“It’ll be fine. Besides, I think we’d be great parents.” 

— — — — — — — — 

“Hey, you got my noodles!” Kai jumps off the couch, approaching the two ninjas that flinch. Cole takes a step back. 

“Why’re you two acting so weird?” Kai laughs, reaching out to the swaddle of blankets. However, before he can touch them, Jay swats his hand away with a glare.

“Watch it!” Cole hisses, turning to reveal you sleeping soundly in his arms.

Kai’s jaw drops, eyes filled with astonishment as the smile leaves his lips. 

“That’s not my noodles.”

“Where’s Master Wu?” Cole asks, only for Kai to be interrupted by Nya’s excited gasp. She enters the room with Zane, the both of them walking over.

“Is that a baby??” She squeals quietly, gesturing for Cole to hand you over. He does so reluctantly, eyeing how Nya cradles you in her arms.

“Cole, I thought you went out to buy food, so why have you returned with another lifeform?” Zane asks.

“Long story short, they’ll be staying with us for a while since the orphanage is full,” Jay explains. 

“Is that a baby??”

Kai groans. “Yes, Lloyd, catch up to the conversation already.” 

The green ninja rolls his eyes at Kai’s smirk, walking to where Nya holds you. You’re still asleep, despite all the noise and commotion caused by your presence. He coos, brushing his fingers against your cheek. 

This stirs you, and you wake up to see unfamiliar faces staring down at you. This makes your nose scrunch, and your eyes start to water as fear seizes control. You begin to cry, wailing at the sudden change of surroundings from earlier.

“What do we do??” 

“I read that babies like to be teased, or maybe she’s hungry!” Zane suggests, hands over his ears as he winces.

“Uh, here, baby! Have a potato chip!” Kai grabs an open container of spicy chips, holding one up to you. You accidentally inhale the flavoured dusting, the spice stinging your eyes as you wail louder.

“Babies can’t have that!” Jay smacks the potato chip out of Kai’s hands, the latter glaring at him, offended by the action.

“Cole, hold her!” Nya hands you over to him, and he desperately tries to soothe you by gently rocking you. 

“Shh, you’re safe now, little Rose.” He murmurs, and the familiar scent makes you blink, recognizing him as the one who picked you up. You like his warmth, your cries slowing to a stop as you sniffle with teary eyes.

The ninja all breathe sighs of relief, only to freeze as the door is slammed open by none other than Master Wu.

“What is going on here??”

— — — — — — — — 

“Goodnight, Rose.” Cole watches your eyes close, drifting off to sleep after your tiring day. 

After that day three years ago, Master Wu allowed the ninja to adopt you. It wasn’t official, but he warned his students that caring for a literal child would be their greatest challenge yet.

So far, it was proving true. You start to cry, having woken up from an uncomfortable sensation on your back. Tonight was his turn for night duty with you, the others sleeping soundly in their comfortable beds.

Cole begins to hum absentmindedly, hand gently rocking your crib as your loud cries echo across the Destiny's Bounty. 

It's a while before he realizes your cries have stopped, and he glances down at you. Surprise fills his eyes when he hears your happy coos, relieved you have calmed down.

He looks down at you, smiling softly when he sees your wide, innocent eyes that stare up back at him with intrigue. “Want me to tell you a bedtime story?” 

From the way you tilt your head, it seems that the answer is yes.

“Once upon a time, there lived the First Spinjitsu Master….” He recites the tale Master Wu told them many times, loving how your eyes seem to light up as he speaks. He continues talking, only stopping when he sees your eyelids flutter shut.

“Rest well, Rose.” He whispers, continuing to gently rock the crib.

Sure, it’s hard taking care of a baby. But moments like these? They made it worth it.

— — — — — — — — 

“Not like that, sweetheart. Make sure you hold it upright.” Cole chuckles when you accidentally let go of the wooden ladle, and it bumps against your forehead with a soft bonk. You blink a couple times, eyes wide before they start to fill with tears.

“Uh oh.” Cole senses the incoming tears, picking you up and placing you on the tabletop. He grabs the first aid kit from the side of the fridge, opens it and puts a band-aid over the sore spot. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ll never get hurt as long as I’m around.”

“Thanks, dad,” You say, rubbing the spot where the spoon had landed harshly. 

You manage a grin, lighting up when you see Aunt Nya walking into the kitchen. She notices you immediately, worry filling her face when she sees the first aid kit on the counter. 

“Cole!” She scolds, gently massaging the area around the band-aid. She summons some water, holding a bubble of it on the spot where it instantly provides relief. “Do you feel better, sweetie?” She asks sympathetically, eyeing your adoptive dad with a slight glare.

He huffs, crossing his arms. “We were just baking cake, they asked!” He protests. 

“It’s true, Auntie Nya. I wanted to do it for your birthday this week.” You glance up at her with a slight pout, and she melts at your expression. 

“You didn’t have to do that, sweetie, but I’d love to try your baking!” You brighten up, smiling widely. After getting a glass of milk, she leaves the kitchen, pressing a quick and affectionate kiss against your forehead.

It’s been 10 years since you were adopted by the ninja, all of them becoming family, with Cole as your primary caretaker. The day you addressed him as ‘Papa’ for the first time brought tears to his eyes, and he was teased about it relentlessly for weeks until you called the rest of the ninjas ‘Papa’ as well. 

Everyone was brought close to tears except for Wu. According to Uncle Kai, you had giggled and called him ‘Granpa.’ 

Grandpa Wu accepted the name without further question.

You hop off the counter, giving your dad a hug. His strong arms pull you close, ruffling your hair as you giggle with a wrinkle of your nose, shoving him off you. “Don’t!!” You laugh, “Uncle Zane braided it for me today.”

“What, you don’t like my artistic hairstyles?” He jokes, and you shudder at the memory of him getting your hair tangled into a giant knot that took hours of detangling. He gives you a noogie as you move away, shifting to start washing the dishes.

“I’m glad you’re our kid.” He murmurs, and your eyes curve into crescents as you smile back sweetly.

“And I’m happy you’re my dad.”

[verosvault]

🚨SPOILERS FOR FANTASY HIGH JUNIOR YEAR EPISODE 5!!!🚨

Dimension20 "Fantasy High Junior Year"

Episode 5 "Mall Madness"

Timestamp: 1:57:28

Video Length: 3min. & 53sec.

The Shrimp Jump (pt.1 | ‣pt.2)

Fig jumps with her feet on the seat like it's a skateboard!!! 😂😂🤣🤣💀💀

Murph: "You kickflip the motorcycle." 😂😂🤣🤣

Brennan: "Midair, Kristen Applebees, with a Dexterity we know she does NOT have-!" 😭✋

Fig has two 4th-level spells and she throws two 4th-level Fireballs under her! 😭

Zac: "Gorgug, as he sees this, thinks 'everything's gonna be okay.'" 😭😭😭

I LOVE THAT GORGUG LINE SO MUCH!!! 😭😭😭😭✋✋✋✋

Brennan's reaction! 😂👏

Murph: "I have my hand out on nothing and I think it's Kristen." 💀

Riz: "Kristen, I think this is gonna be a good campaign."

Kristen: "What?!"

Riz: "Shhh-" 😂💀

😂😭

Brennan: "Is the point to land in the tartar sauce or beyond the tartar sauce?"

Emily: "The idea for me is that I light the tartar sauce on fire and land in it."

Lou: "The ramp was done to land in the tartar sauce."

Ally: "We're dipping the shrimp into the tartar sauce." 😂🤣💀

Murph: "It's like doing a dive into the pool." 😂🤣💀

Brennan: "You see- Time stands still! Fireballs are raining from the Hangman as Kristen kickflips it so the Hangman is roaring in midair. Fire roars out of the skull at the top of the Hangman"

Fig: *whispers* "Conor, This one's for you!"

Fabian and Riz looks out and sees that everyone's eyes have become dewy with tears as they look out! 😭✋

Mazey puts her hands on her lips!

Max Durden does that finger snap! 😆😭

Brennan: "All of them begin to almost cry in religious awe as this motorcycle, and it hits tartar, and you just hear a whisper from someone whose face you can't see, because it doesn't matter, because they're just speaking what's on everybody's mind. 'This is gonna be a great year.'"

Fig emerges covered in flaming tartar sauce like Daenerys! 😂😂

Murph's laughter after Emily said that!!! 😂😂🤣🤣✋✋

Brennan: "Mother of Dragons. Mother of Tartar Sauce. You come out as the Mother of Tartar Sauce." 😂😂

There's a hush and then a loud uproaring cheer and clapping!!! 😆😆😆

Ragh tells everyone to get up here and he takes his shirt off! 😂🤣💀✋

Kids start hitting the ramp!

Ragh sails over into another yard! 😭✋

Gorgug: "He's too buttery!" 😂🤣😭✋

Gorgug: "Stop doing the ramp!" 😂

Riz: "You don't have to butter yourself. The ramp itself is buttered!"

Torek is buttering kids left and right! 😭✋

Riz: "Okay, no no no! Un-butter the ramp then! One butter!"

Mazey's fur is soaked in butter!

Mazey at Fabian: "Maximum Legend!"

See you at Basrar's!

See you in the cars!

Zac: "We're gonna need more butter!"

Lou: *sighs* "It's tough to be maximum legend when you just watched a dead zombie god slide out of the Astral Plane." 😭✋

See you in the Tartar!

[limitlesses]

𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐙𝐘-𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐙𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔 𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐓𝐎, 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃. Particles in the moonlight were streaming into their abode, wandering like stars through a rotating night sky, a galaxy overhead and within reach -- but his whole world was right here, atop him, lovingly kissing up his stomach. He hitched a breath, ticklish just past his rib cage, sucked-in breath switching into a airy chuckle, fond. His fingers gently found Suguru's hair again, though just one hand for now ---- his limbs felt like noodles, bliss still resonating in strong thrums that had his muscles going limp.

Any words he could've spoken in response to Suguru's praise were swallowed back down when a swell of emotions came to the forefront, a skip of his heartbeat and a dumb, fluttery happiness -- who knew a few genuine compliments purred from Suguru's slick mouth could make him feel all kinds of giddy. Suguru liked what he saw, no? Satoru felt wholly pleased with himself, knowing that -- he'd never shy away, hide himself, knowing that the other enjoyed admiring his handiwork.

This was for Suguru's eyes only, after all.

He could taste the tang of himself on Suguru's tongue, causing him to shudder into the kiss with a whole new flush of heat rising to his cheeks. Everything Suguru did was fucking hot, could he really be blamed for crushing on the guy basically the instant they first met? Fuck. Just look at him; hair undone, shirtless, muscles lean and toned -- lengthy fingers, a sly tongue... all with the strength that landed Suguru at his side as the strongest. He was obscenely hot. Satoru considered himself a fairly confident person, but Suguru hit him in times like these with a confidence so sexy he felt dizzy, somehow meek in comparison.

The whispered confession, a repeat of their exchange prior, merely made his heart ache with fullness he thought surely couldn't feel any larger, any more perfect ---- with stray tears swept away and their mouths hovering close, Satoru felt like it wasn't just his eyes that were glowing now. Could he become any more radiant? He wasn't sure.

His heart did a little fucking kickflip -- being called beautiful wasn't something unheard of for him, but he always found it creepy or annoying when those words came out of anybody else's mouth, especially people twice his fucking age or something. No shame. But Suguru's delivery was perfect, hit all the right notes and he had him flushing further, half-convinced he'd become coy if Suguru kept going at this rate. As if his ego would ever let that happen, of course, but hey -- Suguru could do the impossible, like have the strongest sorcerer of the modern age squirming underneath him the moment those slender fingers slid back between his thighs.

All Suguru needed to do was imply some semblance of challenge and ah, there he was, the eternally burning flame of Satoru Gojo was ignited to its fullest strength via the mere implication of him not being able to handle something. He let out a breathy laugh, vibrant eyes leveling Suguru with a look that threatened a wilder surge within him to come to the surface. Maybe he'd shove the guy down and ride him ---- have him begging, RCT keeping himself in check so he could go until Suguru blacked out. Or something like that. But Suguru was fucking lucky that was just a brief flash of a daydream, a possibility if the man atop him didn't act -- and luckily he did. Satoru opened his mouth for that unanswered query, knowing Suguru would take his silence as an opening to goad further ----

❝ I can go -- a-all night, trust me. ❞ The night was young and so were they, his body still buzzing with power that brimmed toward overwhelm. That, and a fresh orgasm that had the smallest motions of Suguru's fingers bringing a wriggle of his thighs, another tug at Suguru's hair as fingernails scraped somewhat gently across his scalp. He breathed out shakily, anchoring himself. His eyes fluttered shut, deep breaths easing to adjust. Arousal holding strong thanks to Suguru's minstrations, yet greedily he wanted more --

❝ Feels good, but -- f-fuck, hurry up -- ❞ He squirmed again, this time lifting one leg to curl and hook onto Suguru's hips, pulling him in, pushing them closer. His other hand gripped at Suguru's side, making his spine dip and those hips settle flush.

❝ -- I want you, you ---- I can take it -- you know, ❞ he breathed out, the hand in Suguru's hair nudging the man's head forward and into a bow, his turn to whisper sweetly against the other's ear, hot breath and needy tone unashamed.

❝ You won't hurt me, ❞ He reassured, nudging his hips against Suguru's own, an idle grind and imploring welcome. ❝ -- you won't hurt me. ❞ He whispered again, softer, the words spoken as a hidden way to say you can't, you couldn't, you'd never.

𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒, trembling, caged underneath Suguru’s broader form —-- lost in a haze of pleasure that the other so eagerly provided.  It was a love language of its own, providing Satoru a safe space to let go… a moment of release, forgetting the all too heavy burden of strength, if but only briefly, within the arms of the person he trusted most.  No one but Suguru could touch him here, in this room —- infinity be damned.

The fingers in his hair tightened, almost to the point of pain, but Suguru enjoyed that roughness, that lack of restraint as he brought Satoru over the edge.  Another groan shuddered around Satoru’s cock, still lodged deep within Suguru’s throat —- his eyes rolling back into his skull as he hollowed out his cheeks, sucking mercilessly.  In moments like these, Suguru was happy to be rid of a gag reflex; this particular act of consumption was more than welcome in the curse user’s book. 

Suguru could tell that Satoru was close by the way he convulsed —- those beautiful moans of his shuddering into near-sobs as his hips shuttered, his body arching underneath him.  Suguru’s free hand moved upwards to pin down Satoru’s hips, forcing him to remain where he was as Suguru greedily devoured. His thumb caressed the ridge of his hip bone, comforting strokes back and forth to calm him as he finally brought Satoru to his release.  Suguru was eager to drink him down, swallowing around Satoru’s cock, milking every last drop from him before releasing him with a wet pop.  

❝ Fuck, you’re incredible, ❞  Suguru whispered hoarsely, casting his gaze back up at Satoru before offering up a proud smile. ❝ I could never get tired of seeing you like this… ❞

Suguru crawled his way back up over Satoru’s body, peppering soft, gentle kisses up his stomach and chest before eventually meeting back with his lips. ❝ I love you, ❞ he hummed into Satoru’s waiting mouth, kissing him deeply, before swiping away any tears that had streaked his cheeks.  ❝ —So beautiful, Satoru —-... the way you come for me. ❞

As Satoru worked to regain his composure, Suguru reached over into his bedside drawer, pulling out a small bottle of lube. He coated his fingers in the slick substance, before tossing it near Satoru’s hip. His eyes remained transfixed on Satoru as those fingers then moved further south, his index finger returning to the place it had teased Satoru only moments prior. 

❝ Can you go again? ❞  Suguru asked quietly, though there was a challenge in that question —- a spark in those hazel eyes that dared Satoru to act. His fingertips grazed the other’s entrance, his touch featherlight as it circled, prodding ever so gently before pressing into his heat. Suguru moved slowly, pushing past his knuckle, teasing small movements through the tightness before finally pushing all the way inside.  

❝ —-Saaatoru. ❞  The whisper of his name was pressed against the shell of his ear, Suguru’s voice rough with desire.  He stilled atop the other, if only to allow Satoru a moment to adjust, before proceeding. His fingertip then began to move, seeking out that spot that would send Satoru over the edge. Once he found that tight knot of muscle, he pushed gently into it, massaging it slowly.  ❝ How does this feel? Tell me if it’s too much… ❞

[skatingplanet]

Why Is Skateboarding So Fun?

Introduction:

Skateboarding has been a popular and iconic activity for decades, attracting both seasoned athletes and casual enthusiasts. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a beginner, there's no denying the fun and excitement that skateboarding brings.

But what is it about skateboarding that makes it so enjoyable? In this article, we'll explore the various reasons why skateboarding is such a fun and rewarding activity. From the physical challenges it presents to the sense of community and self-expression it fosters, many factors contribute to the allure of skateboarding.

Whether you're an avid skateboarder or simply curious about the sport, we hope this article will give you a better understanding of why skateboarding is so much fun. So grab your board and let's dive in!

 1. The physical challenges of skateboarding

Skateboarding is a physically demanding activity that requires a high level of balance, coordination, and strength. These physical skills are essential for navigating through various terrain and executing tricks smoothly. In this article, we'll explore how the physical challenges of skateboarding can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Whether you're a beginner learning to ride or an experienced skater looking to perfect your tricks, there's no denying the satisfaction that comes with improving your physical skills. From building balance and coordination to increasing strength and endurance, the physical challenges of skateboarding offer something for everyone.

So grab your board and let's dive in to see why the physical challenges of skateboarding can be so much fun!

Balance:

Balance is an essential aspect of skateboarding, as it allows you to maintain control of your board and stay upright while riding. Without good balance, it's difficult to navigate through different terrain and execute tricks smoothly. Improving your balance can be a challenging but rewarding process, and it's an important aspect of skateboarding that can make the sport more enjoyable.

There are a few ways to improve your balance on a skateboard. One way is to practice riding on one foot, as this helps build balance and control on the board. You can also try riding on different surfaces and terrain, as this will help you develop a sense of balance that can be applied to various situations.

Another way to improve balance is to try different skateboard tricks and moves. Some tricks, such as ollies and kickflips, require a high level of balance and coordination. Practicing these tricks and others can help you improve your balance and control on the board.

In short, balance is a crucial aspect of skateboarding that can be both challenging and rewarding to improve. Whether you're just learning to ride or looking to take your skills to the next level, improving your balance can be a fun and satisfying aspect of skateboarding.

Coordination:

Coordination is another important aspect of skateboarding, as it allows you to smoothly execute tricks and navigate through various terrain. Good coordination is essential for performing tricks such as ollies, kickflips, and grinds, as it allows you to coordinate your body movements and board control. Developing coordination can be a challenging but rewarding process, and it's an important aspect of skateboarding that can make the sport more enjoyable.

There are a few ways to improve your coordination on a skateboard. One way is to practice basic skateboard tricks and moves, such as ollies and kickflips. These tricks require coordination between your body movements and board control, and practicing them can help you develop your coordination skills.

Another way to improve coordination is to ride on different surfaces and terrain. Riding on rough or uneven surfaces can help you develop your coordination and control on the board, as you'll need to adjust your body movements and balance to navigate the terrain.

In short, coordination is a crucial aspect of skateboarding that can be both challenging and rewarding to improve. Whether you're just learning to ride or looking to take your skills to the next level, developing your coordination can be a fun and satisfying aspect of skateboarding.

Strength:

Strength is an important aspect of skateboarding, especially when it comes to performing more advanced tricks. Stronger muscles can help you push your board more easily, as well as execute tricks that require a lot of power and force, such as big flips and grinds. Building strength can be a challenging but rewarding process, and it's an important aspect of skateboarding that can make the sport more enjoyable.

There are a few ways to build strength for skateboarding. One way is to do exercises that target the muscles used in skateboarding, such as leg presses, squats, and lunges. These exercises can help you build the strength and power needed to push your board and perform tricks.

Another way to build strength for skateboarding is to incorporate weight training into your workout routine. Using weights can help you build muscle strength and power, which can be beneficial for skateboarding.

In addition to building strength, it's also important to maintain good overall physical fitness to stay healthy and able to skate at your best. This can include things like stretching, cardio, and core exercises.

In short, strength is an important aspect of skateboarding that can be both challenging and rewarding to build. Whether you're just learning to ride or looking to take your skills to the next level, building strength can be a fun and beneficial aspect of skateboarding.

Mental cognizance and determination :

Mental focus and determination are important aspects of skateboarding, as they help you stay focused and motivated while trying to land a trick or skate a challenging spot. Skateboarding requires not only physical skills but also mental focus and determination to overcome challenges and improve your skills.

One way to develop mental focus and determination is to practice visualization techniques. This involves closing your eyes and visualizing yourself successfully landing a trick or skating a challenging spot. This can help you stay focused and motivated to try the trick or spot in real life.

Another way to develop mental focus and determination is to set goals for yourself and work towards achieving them. This can help you stay motivated and focused as you work to improve your skateboarding skills.

In addition to mental focus and determination, skateboarding also requires patience and persistence. It can take time to learn and master tricks, and it's important to be patient and persistent in your efforts to improve.

In short, mental focus and determination are important aspects of skateboarding that can help you stay motivated and focused as you work to improve your skills. Whether you're just learning to ride or looking to take your skills to the next level, developing mental focus and determination can be a fun and rewarding aspect of skateboarding.

Do you want to learn more? Click here Why is skateboarding so fun? for the complete article.

[codename-adler]

Never gon’ get ma-a-a-rried

First aftg dump of 2021: the ✨ kevaaron wedding ✨

It’s never going to happen.

Oh, I ship them to death. I love them. They love each other. And they very much want to be husband & husband. 

Buuuuuuuuuuut but but but. Hear me out. If they want to get married, they’d have to go through the  ✨proposal ✨ phase. And that is not happening.

Because.

Height difference. 

Kevin’s 6′2-6′3 ass + Aaron’s 5′ flat booty = somebody’s getting unalived.

Outcome #1

Kevin proposes. A year after signing his 1st pro contract, 9 months of pining and 2 years of dating. He’s laid down the bases of his proposal months earlier, with his press attache and Wymack. He’s got a heartfelt letter ready to be posted on every social media he owns. He is in the right place to take the final step towards accepting and loving himself, and Aaron. He got Neil to sneak him one of Andrew’s old rings for measurements. The ring he picked out is beautiful. It’s a simple gold braided band with five microscopic diamonds incrusted into one delicate strand, because #5 Minyard.

So there’s only his question and Aaron’s answer left to be unfolded.

They go to their favorite abandoned skate park near their loft, where Aaron picked up skateboarding again and where he tried to teach Kevin how to do a kick-flip (to this day still, one of Kevin’s greatest failures and one of his absolute best memory). 

And as they walk the grass towards the park, Kevin lets go of Aaron’s hand and gets ready to kneel down. The sudden lack of Kevin at his side makes Aaron turn around and-

Kevin is down on one knee.

Except. He’s- They’re- It’s-

Height difference.

Aaron and Kevin are STILL at eye-level. Yeah, Aaron’s got one or two inches on Kevin this way, but they can look directly in each other’s eyes, which- romantic, innit? 

Nope. Absolutely not. Remember “How NOT to Talk to Short People” ? This is “How NOT to Propose to Short People”. Because they look like this:

In summary: Aaron baseball-hits the ring with his skateboard, Kevin shrieks like Moaning Myrtle, gets no sex for a week and ends up being kidnapped by Aaron to go to the courthouse.

Outcome #2

Aaron proposes. He does not think it through at all. He buys a fucking orange ring pop at the dollar store one night after his hospital shift because he has witnessed sooooo many proposals in his career so far (and he’s only 25) and he is just- so done with not being taken seriously by his coworkers when he says small things like “date night with Kevin fucking Day” or “moving in with Kevin fucking Day” or “getting a dog with Kevin fucking Day” or “getting another dog with Kevin fucking Day”.

// for purely selfish purposes on my part, the 1st is a fucking Pomeranian (female, orange) that Kevin gifts Aaron, somehow, for Christmas (might write on that later...) and he calls her  Madam Patella Tibia Fibula Chicken, Bone-Bone or Chicken for short (Neil, and Neil only, calls her Foxy) + the 2nd dog, Kevin brings it home from an away game in like, Texas or something, and it’s a fucking French bulldog (male, brindle) that he initially names Striker (ugh) but just ends up calling him Mr. Poe?? //

So Aaron’s done. On a free weekend they both have, he goes to *drum rolls* the same abandoned skatepark where he “taught” Kevin how to do a kickflip, etc. They brought Chicken and Poe and a frisbee (either for Poe or *ahem* Kevin himself). Aaron gets Poe to bring back the packaged ring pop in his mouth where he and Kevin stand and-

Aaron gets down on one knee. Both dogs are jumping at Kevin’s legs. And then Aaron realizes at which level his eyes are. Take away one or 2 feet of a 5′0 gremlin standing in front of a fucking Eiffel Tower and you get... Shlong-level:

Aaron throws away the ring pop and leaves without a word while the dogs go wild chasing after the candy. The rest is the same: Aaron ignores Kevin for a week until he gets fed up and drives them to the court house. Kevin still keeps the mangled plastic ring with teeth marks and hangs it on his car mirror.

So I guess they could get married, but they could never have a cute proposal story to share. Never. 

[h-e-l-l-b-r-o-k-e]

Touch [B.H. x you]

Request:

Inspiration: Hands Across The Sea by Modern English

Words: 1828 Warnings: none.

Written Date: 3/16-31/2020 Posted Date: 4/4/2020

[MASTERLIST]

Scratched up skateboard wheels rolling across the pavement fluttered through the three-inch crack of the front door as Billy sat at the kitchen table. He’ll be met with a stern lecture from a mustached lip if a fly managed to wander into the home like a tourist upon their first breath of the A.C. at a hotel lobby, but Billy had much more important business to intend to. Report cards were just around the corner and with his sweet talking skills, Billy’d convinced the math teacher into giving him a passing grade if he turned in 200 solved problems by the end of the week.

He had seven days. Seven whole days to answer some textbook questions that they’ve gone over in class. It should have been easy, except it wasn’t. Billy was failing the class for a reason. Day five only had two hours left of sunshine, yet Billy’s currently stuck on problem forty-six. With each tick of the clock mounted behind him, his frustration grew.

One of his temples rested in the cup of his left palm as he beat the eraser head on the other before tossing the pencil at the book pages. Words were merging into numbers and numbers were blurring into letters.

Fuck it, he thought, I’ll just ask for a tutor. Yet he knew if he kept this mindset he’d fail, receive a smack across the back of his head, and still wouldn’t seek out a tutor.

He could hear the skateboard’s wheels beat relentlessly against the cracked concrete while Max explained the footwork behind the technique to you, who was sitting on the grass with your white cane last he check. Jealousy picked at the nerves in his forehead as frustration clenched his eyebrows together.

His mind began running off of the book pages and onto the blue sports car in his driveway. Would he have enough for the wash and the wax. Would there be enough leftover for a tip? Billy was an asshole to a lot of things, but he knew what it was liked to be stiffed.

Page 267 was beginning to give him more trouble than it was worth, and those pointers the geek with the lisp in his class gave weren’t helping at all. The rim of one of Susan’s good glasses touched the plush of his bottom lip, the cool water streaming down the well of his parched throat―

A gasp bordering along a yelp burst through the door, clawing its way into his ear. He nearly choked on his drink; some loose water dribbled down his chin.

Pushing out of his chair and the table he was leaning on, not caring if the polished hardwood caught a couple scratches, he was out the front door in five seconds.

Under the shade of his palm, which he planted against his eyebrows to fend off the sun’s brightness, he scanned the situation for clues.

His step-sister’s skateboard lied planted on the other side of the street. Upside down. Wheels spinning lazily under the shade.

The little redheaded runt’s wide eyes met his. Laced with alarm. Her bottom lip wobbled in search for words. Her hands held out below her…toward you, who was slowly lifting yourself by the skin of your elbows.

Raw. Blood beginning to clot around the loose gravel that clung to the wounds.

Billy marched through the grass, nearly tripping over your forgotten cane. “Max, what’d you do?!”

Max took a deep breath, crouching down to you. Her small fingers brushed your palm before helping you to your feet. “I’m sorry.”

As soon as you were back on the safety pads of your feet, Max turned to face her fuming step-brother.”I didn’t mean―”

His hand landed on her slender shoulder, shaking her like an earthquake rattles a brick foundation. “No, of course you didn’t mean to, you little twerp.”

A couple specks of spit landed across her freckled cheeks and nose, prompting her to screw up her face in mild disgust. “She wanted―”

“How many times do I have to tell you? You need to be careful with her, she’s―”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here, Billy.” You dusted off the debris from your stinging cuts. “I’m blind, not fragile. How many times do I have to tell you?”

You would have walked off in the direction of his house if only you knew wherever the hell it was. Trying to land that kickflip Max had spent the last half hour explaining to you really messed with your sense of direction, but you weren’t about to tell them that. Your mother didn’t call you a stubborn mule for nothing plus you were getting really sick of Billy thinking you were weak, so you turned around and started stalking off without the aid device your parents payed for.

“Y/n, where are you going?” Billy called after you. “You can’t just leave.”

“Watch me!” You called over your shoulder, continuing your trek into the unknown.

Billy watched you walking down the street, and for once he appreciated living down such a long road miles away from the populated center of town. If it wasn’t one of his neighbors pulling into their cracked driveways after a long 9-to-5 shift or pulling away for a hearty meal at Benny’s Diner, cars rarely ever raced down this street.

Turning to Max, his grip loosened on her shoulder. “Grab your board and get inside.”

Max didn’t argue. Out of the two of them, Max had a more leveled head. She knew she could just check out the damage on your elbows and apologize again once Billy convinced you to come back into their comfy abode. Yanking away from her older step-brother, she ran for her precious skateboard.

“Babe, come on,” Billy tried to reason with you as his long legs neared you. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. You just―”

His warm hand gently latched onto your arm, turning you to face him. “I just what, Billy? You know people here either pity me or they stand feet apart from me like I’m made of glass,”the pressure in the center of your forehead begins to make itself known in the form of a headache, “I just thought things…here…were different.”

“They are, babe.” His chin bounced with quick little nods to reassure you. Sometimes he forgot that you couldn’t see these small actions. “Okay? They are. Max was teaching you one of her stupid tricks, and I just freaked, okay?”

Memories flicker through your mind, sounds and touch alike. When one of the mean girls at school had purposely stuck her foot out in front of you for taking “her man” away, you had bashed your head against a locker and were knocked out cold. You had woken up moments later in Billy’s arms as he carried you to the nurse’s office. You hadn’t bent over and died when the concussion symptoms came at you in full force; you had just taken the standard amount of sick days at home. Not any less and, definitely, not any more.

Other memories came at you, but none were as extreme as the concussion. Yet, with each scrape or nick that life threw at you, Billy reacted like blood was seeping through your clothing at an alarming rate or your lungs were restricting from lack of oxygen. Whatever it was, Billy acted like it was the end of the world for you.

“I didn’t cry when I fell off a tree branch and broke my arm in fourth grade, “ you began the recited verse you’ve told almost every member of your family, “so, I’m not gonna cry because of some stupid scuff marks on my elbows. I’m fine.”

“But, when I was sitting at the kitchen table, loss in thought, I heard it.” His thumbs were stroking the bones of your cheeks. “I heard you fall, Y/n. How was I supposed to know it wasn’t anything worse? When my dad first introduced me to Susan, Max walked around in crutches after a bad skateboard landing snapped her shin bone.”

You sighed, allowing his outlook on the situation widen the scope of your mind. Maybe you were being a little too harsh on him. After all, you couldn’t pour salt to the sizzle off the worry that ate you up inside whenever Billy decided to hang out with one of his pals. It would steal the sleep from you knowing he’d be driving around drunk. Him cradling you to the nurse’s office and you phoning him to make sure he made it to his bedroom safe were two sides of the same coin.

“I’m surprised Susan still lets her ride around on that thing.” His fingers carded through your hair. “I was just scared the same thing might of happened to you, or worse.”

“I understand, Billy.” You spoke so softly, Billy wasn’t entirely sure if it was just one of your breaths. A shuddering gasp forced its way out of your throat as you fought off the burning sensation of tears from the corner of your eyes. “I just get so frustrated sometimes.”

Your face met the soft cotton of his shirt as he brought you into the protection of his arms. “I know, baby,” He kissed the crown of your head. “I’m sorry I overreact sometimes.”

You sniffled a couple times before pulling away from him, “It’s okay.”

His lips brushed against the center of your forehead first then dipped his head to land another on your plump lips, but your fingers caught him. “You still have to apologize to Max first before you can kiss me.”

He took a deep breath. “Deal.”

Your fingers fumbled for his before before successfully latching on. You sighed as your palms melded together like ironworks as Billy led the way to his house.

As you both grew closer a loose thought struck you. “Wait. Don’t you still have homework to do?”

A/N: I hope I did alright in characterizing a blind reader.

[aion-rsa]

The Best Games of 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Despite how almost every other aspect of the year went, 2020 was a landmark year for video games. Not only did it see the release of highly-anticipated titles like The Last of Us Part II, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima, and Cyberpunk 2077, but 2020 also marked the beginning of a new generation of console and PC gaming with the release of the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and new GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. We even got a new Half-Life game this year!

What would’ve made the gaming year ever better? Big-name video game companies could have done more to eliminate development crunch and be more transparent about their business practices with customers and the press. And we definitely could have all been nicer to each other.

But video games also helped keep us connected when we couldn’t see our friends and loved ones in person. They helped us travel to new and interesting places when we couldn’t leave our homes. Most importantly, all 20 games on our best-of-the-year list made us feel excited about this medium at a time when it was so difficult to enjoy anything else.

To that affect, Den of Geek is celebrating 20 video games our contributors and critics, as well as our community of readers, voted as the very best of 2020.

20. Star Wars: Squadrons

For the last decade or so, most Star Wars games have focused on the power fantasy of being a lightsaber-swinging, Force-wielding Jedi. That’s all well and good, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that some of the most beloved Star Wars games of all time were actually space shooters like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Rogue Squadron. In many ways, Star Wars: Squadrons is a throwback to those games, both in terms of gameplay and design. Controls are a pitch perfect mix of arcade simplicity and strategy, requiring quick thinking about whether to focus your ship’s power on attacking or defending.

Squadrons is also much more tightly focused than other recent games from large publishers, with a breezy yet enjoyable single-player campaign, and a multiplayer mode that, while light on modes, eschews the more annoying modern conventions of the online PvP like invasive microtransactions. But Squadrons is not stuck in its old school ways.

If you have the hardware for it on PC or PS4, you can jump into the cockpit of any of the playable ships for one one of the most immersive VR modes around. Similar to how The Mandalorian has rejuvenated the live-action side of the Star Wars media empire, Squadrons is a perfect mix of all of the best things we’ve always loved about Star Wars video games, and everything we want them to be going forward.  – CF

19. Journey to the Savage Planet

Science fiction writers have long held on to this idea that, if and when humankind eventually colonizes the universe, it will do so as some sort of united, utopian entity, like Starfleet. But that future seems less and less likely every day. If and when humanity spreads across the stars, it will likely be messy, absurd, and profit-motivated. Journey to the Savage Planet wallows in that type of future. As an unnamed human (or dog, if you choose), you’re dropped onto the planet AR-Y26 by Kindred, the fourth biggest intergalactic exploration company with the simple goal of collecting as many resources as possible and leaving.

The Metroidvania gameplay loop of crafting equipment to access new areas is compelling, a rarity for 3D games in the genre. And it offers plenty of surprises too. You’ll start off with the typical blaster and scanner before eventually unlocking a grappling hook that lets you swing around levels like Spider-Man. But it’s style that ultimately lifts Journey to the Savage Planet above so many other games released in 2020. For one thing, the world and the fauna you’ll encounter are incredibly unique, and well, alien. And the regular live-action updates from Kindred beamed directly to your ship are among some of the funniest and most bizarre cinematics out this year in any game, providing plenty of motivation to see this journey through to its end. – CF

18. Half-Life: Alyx

As VR gaming continues to evolve, it’s becoming clear that the technology is more than just one truly great game away from widespread adoption. If that were all it took, then Half-Life: Alyx would have put a VR set under a lot of Christmas trees. 

It’s truly wild to think that we got a new Half-Life game this year and that it sometimes feels like the game’s release was barely a blip on the cultural radar. While its somewhat muted debut can be attributed to its VR exclusivity (and the fact it launched at the onset of a global health crisis), Half-Life: Alyx surpassed all possible hype by offering a truly incredibly narrative-driven adventure bolstered by some of the cleverest uses of VR technology that we’ve ever seen.

Half-Life: Alyx isn’t the first great VR game, but Valve’s glorious return to form does shows how VR can advance fundamental elements of gameplay and storytelling rather than just show familiar games from a new perspective. – MB

17. Carrion

The indie game space is where you typically see the most experimentation, and this year proved no different when the gruesome and morbid Carrion released back in July. Highly inspired by the likes of John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, and other cult classic horror films known for their excellent use of practical SFX, this platformer cleverly flips the script, putting you in the role of the monster to dispatch helpless scientists in the claustrophobic depths of an underground lab as an ever-growing amorphous blob creature. What follows is a brief but effective 2D platformer that is fast paced and delectably gory.

The controls could have made controlling the creature a real pain, but Phobia Game Studio recognized that the key here was letting you move swiftly through the levels. As such, gliding through vents to take down scientists from above or underneath quickly becomes second nature. Encounters still pose a good degree of challenge, however, thanks to the heavily armed soldiers that show up later in the game, but this never stops Carrion from fulfilling every horror aficionado’s devilish fantasy of being the bloodthirsty monster. – AP

16. Kentucky Route Zero

Calling Kentucky Route Zero an homage to classic point-and-click adventure games is technically correct, but it doesn’t come close to doing the experience justice. Kentucky Route Zero is more like a poem or fable in video game form. It’s a feeling, a distillation of what it’s like to come of age in the Great Recession and its fallout over the last decade. Kentucky Route Zero is an epithet for rural America told through a fever dream, an examination of a version of rural Appalachia where talking skeletons and robotic musicians live alongside gas station attendants and truck drivers.

Nothing about Kentucky Route Zero fits the typical confines of what we expect from a video game, and that includes its release. Developed by a team of only three, the first episode of the five-episode experience was released in 2013, but the final product was only realized in early 2020. That lengthy development cycle meant that the game’s scope and story could grow to only better encapsulate this moment in time, and the final product stands out as one of best games of the year. To say more is to spoil its excellent story. – CF

15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

Though it’s been a hot minute since skateboarding games dominated the console space, Vicarious Visions’ excellent remake collection of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles was a reminder of how the entire series captured a whole generation of players in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Whether it’s grinding down rails, performing kickflips, or landing the gravity-defying 1080 on a vert ramp, everything in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 feels and looks exactly as you remember it but touched up with modern flare. That’s the mark of any great remake, and why this game in particular was the best example of the practice this year.

Classic skating locations like Warehouse, School and Downtown have all been faithfully remade from the ground up for a 21st century audience, effortlessly delivering the same thrills and balanced challenge as they did before. The fact that select mechanical features like reverts, which wouldn’t arrive until later entries, have been retroactively added is also a nice touch, instantly making Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 the definitive way to experience these skateboarding classics. – AP

14. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The fact that Ori and the Will of the Wisps managed to usurp the critically acclaimed 2015 original in most design aspects speaks to just how well Moon Studios has mastered the art of the Metroidvania. Whisking players off on another tight 10-hour journey set within a mystical forest full of secrets to discover, this 2D adventure gives off a fantastical vibe in a way few others do. It’s an expert blend between smart combat mechanics, highly polished platforming, and emotional storytelling. That it runs at a silky 60 fps both on Nintendo Switch and Xbox is the cherry on top.

The major improvements Will of the Wisps makes over Blind Forest relate to saving and combat. Whereas previously it was the responsibility of players to lay down specific checkpoints, progress is now more in line with other 2D platformers and less punishing. Combat, meanwhile, has been completely revamped with the inclusion of special charms and upgradeable skills, most of which result in more flexible enemy encounters. These tweaks are implemented without ever compromising on Ori’s core hook of magical exploration and challenging platforming, instantly making it one of the best Metroidvanias out there. – AP

13. Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone was a natural and perhaps even necessary evolution for the long-running shooter franchise, carving out a space for it in the ever-crowding battle royale genre. While it’s largely derivative of battle royale titles that came before, the staggering 150-player count, always excellent CoD controls, top-notch presentation, and flexible cash system have made it eminently popular and fun for casual players and series vets alike. The CoD fan base feels vibrant again after years of stagnation in the shadow of breakout titles like PUBG and Fortnite, and that’s without going into how Warzone has revitalized the franchise’s presence in the streaming space.

One of the best facets of the game’s design is that the large player count all but ensures that, even if a player is new to the genre or series, the chances of them being the absolute worst player in the field is very low. Better still, the “Gulag” respawn mechanic opens up the possibility for ultimate revenge should you earn your way back into the match, which is a nice way to up engagement for those who suffer disappointing deaths.

The game doesn’t feel quite as dynamic or high-stakes as some of its competitors on the market, but it’s definitely one of the easiest to pick up and play. It’s no wonder Warzone has expanded CoD’s already enormous audience over the course of 2020. – BB

12. Astro’s Playroom

With launch lineups mostly filled with graphically enhanced releases of last-gen games, the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been more than a little underwhelming. The one bright spot is Astro’s Playroom, a little first-party Sony game that received virtually no pre-release hype and comes pre-installed on every PS5.

While at first glance a typical 3D platformer, Astro’s Playroom soon reveals itself to be a fantastic showcase of what’s possible with the new DualSense controller. In one level, you’re feeling the resistance from the controller’s adaptive triggers as you spring jump through obstacles dressed as a frog. In another, you’re expertly moving the controller back and forth to climb walls in a robotic monkey suit. Even just standing in the rain causes the controller to pulse ever so slightly with each drop. And all of this takes place across worlds celebrating the entire history of PlayStation, where you collect classic consoles and accessories, culminating in an unexpected boss battle throwback to an original PSX tech demo.

Astro’s Playroom may be short, but it’s an oh so sweet and exciting taste of what’s possible with the power of next-gen consoles. – CF

11. Doom Eternal

It would have been easy for Doom Eternal to be more of the same. After all, 2016’s Doom became the surprising gold-standard for single-player FPS games by virtue of its clever writing and gameplay that blended the best of classic and modern design concepts. Yet, Doom Eternal proved to be something much more than “the same but bigger.”

With its arena-like levels and resource management mechanics, Doom Eternal sometimes feels like a puzzle game set in the Doom universe. While the transition to this new style can be jarring, you soon find that Doom Eternal is speaking the same language in a different dialect. The brutal brilliance of a classic Doom game remains but it’s presented in the form of a kind of FPS dance that puts you in a state of pure zen once you figure out how to make that perfect run through a room full of demonic baddies. 

Four years after Doom showed this old franchise could pull off new tricks, Doom Eternal proves that this series is at the forefront of FPS innovation once more. – MB

10. Demon’s Souls

Although initially released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Demon’s Souls would help define the next generation of gaming by establishing the Soulslike genre, which has influenced everything from recent Star Wars games to The Legend of Zelda. The “problem” is that the legacy of Demon’s Souls has been sort of eclipsed by the accomplishments of its successors.

That’s the beauty of the remake for the PS5. Aided by the power of the console’s next-gen hardware, developer Bluepoint Games pays homage to one of the most historically significant games of the last 15 years while wisely updating it in ways that show that the foundation of FromSoftware’s breakthrough hit remains arguably the best entry in a genre that isn’t exactly lacking in modern classics. 

In a year where finding a next-gen console proved to be more difficult than any Soulslike game, Demon’s Souls remains the best reason to battle the bots at online stores in the hopes of joining gaming’s next generation as soon as possible. – MB

9. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

There were multiple times this year where couped-up players relied heavily on “bean” games to help maintain a human connection. Before Among Us dominated the Twitch streams, it was Mediatonic’s intentionally clumsy and hilarious Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout that had us competitively raging with our friends. It did so by merging the wildly popular battle royale genre with the inflatable-fueled antics of early ’90s game shows, where dodging swinging hammers and battling giant fruit against 59 others became the norm for a few weeks – all in the pursuit of winning a highly coveted crown.

Needless to say, making Fall Guys free to PS Plus subscribers for a month turned out to be a genius marketing move, urging everyone to hop into the game’s inventive gamut of levels and make a fool of themselves. Much of what sets it apart from other battle royale attempts is its low-skill barrier to entry, and thanks to frequent seasonal updates, new unlockable outfits and fresh mini-games always being added, bumbling to the top of the pack as a colorful bean remains consistent fun. – AP

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Animal Crossing: New Horizons should be included in history books about the Covid-19 pandemic. Releasing just as lockdowns were being instituted across the globe, New Horizons provided the escapism we so desperately needed while quarantining, attracting not just the usual Nintendo fanbase, but even those who had never played games in the past but were now looking for something to occupy their time at home. Whether we played it with friends or alone, New Horizons provided the routine and distraction that so many of us needed in a world suddenly thrown into chaos.

Of course, it helped that New Horizons is the best Animal Crossing game to date, with tons of new ways to customize your island (and yourself). And as Covid-19 restrictions have stretched much longer than many of us anticipated, New Horizons has kept pace, with Nintendo releasing a steady stream of new fish to catch, fruits to harvest, and events to participate in throughout the year. It may not be the game that everyone wanted, but New Horizons is the game that 2020 needed. – CF

7. Cyberpunk 2077

When Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy is written, there’s no doubt that the opening chapter is going to focus on the bugs, technical shortcomings, and empty promises that have turned what looked to be one of 2020’s guaranteed hits into one of modern gaming’s most debated debuts. 

Yet, the reason that this game’s initial issues will likely not ultimately define it is that Cyberpunk 2077 reveals itself to be a special experience whenever you’re able to play it without crashes or bugs ruining your experience. From its stunning side quests that revive one of The Witcher 3’s best elements to its shockingly human narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 regularly showcases the undeniable talent of the individuals who battled internal and external factors to deliver their vision. 

Cyberpunk 2077’s technical problems wouldn’t hurt as much as they do if there wasn’t a truly great game at the heart of them that people are begging to be able to play as intended. – MB

6. Final Fantasy VII Remake

The pressure was on for Square Enix from the moment it announced Final Fantasy VII Remake back in 2015. For those who obsessed over the original back in 1997, the prospect of a remake was the stuff dreams were made of, and this year we finally got to relive Cloud, Aerith, Barret, and Tifa’s grand adventure (the first act of it, at least) with fully updated, well, everything. Astonishingly, the remake actually lived up to expectations and delivered not just a faithful update to the original game but a modern RPG that stands as one of its generation’s best regardless of nostalgia.

The key to Square Enix’s success was its approach, which aimed not to duplicate the experience of the original game, but to capture the essence and spirit of it while using modern game design to deliver the story in a way that doesn’t feel retro or rehashed at all. The game looks dazzling by 2020 standards (Midgar never looked better) but doesn’t compromise the integrity of the original designs, and the real-time combat—arguably the biggest departure from the original—is a blast to play.

Time will tell how exactly Square Enix will follow through with the rest of the remake as we enter a new console generation, but in the meantime, they studio has left us with a terrific reimagining of the most celebrated title in the studio’s expansive oeuvre. – BB

5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Ubisoft deserves credit for keeping a franchise like Assassin’s Creed, which is 13 years old at this point, thriving in an industry that is flooded with more open world games now than it ever has been. The series is always competitive in the genre, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla proves why: it’s as refined as any of its predecessors and delivers a balanced experience with a rich world to explore, tons of strange stories to uncover, and a mash-up milieu that combines the eerie atmosphere of 5th-century England with the otherworldly spectacle of Norse mythology.

No open world game is perfect, and Valhalla certainly has a handful of shortcomings. But it’s a bloody good time to play, and there’s so much to do that there’s no question that you get your money’s worth. Eivor’s quest for glory and domination is also arguably the most cinematic story in the entire AC catalog, with some truly breathtaking cutscenes that rival those found in more linear games that can’t sniff Valhalla’s scope. Some of the more otherworldly moments in the back half of the game are pure, unadulterated, nonsensical fun, and overall, this is one of the best entries in the series. – BB

4. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Insomniac is one of those studios that you can always rely on to deliver fun, polished games that shine in every category, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales only adds to the team’s sterling reputation. Building on the already brilliant formula the studio created with the original Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles’s story is one of loss, friendship, identity, and the strength of the Black and Hispanic communities of Harlem.

The side-quel is also one of the best launch titles arguably ever. While it is a cross-gen game, the PS5 version is currently the best showcase of what next-gen gaming is capable of from a visual and performance standpoint. You won’t find a better-looking New York City in any other video game, period, and Insomniac’s outstanding animation work looks insanely good when bolstered by the PS5’s considerable horsepower. Miles plays differently than Peter Parker did in the original game as well, with his Venom Powers giving enemy encounters a new feel and rhythm.

Insomniac outdid itself with an excellent follow-up that would’ve been a forgettable DLC expansion in the hands of a less ambitious studio. But Miles Morales is one of the best modern-day superhero characters ever created, and it’s only right that he get a game that lives up to his greatness. – BB

3. Hades

The popularity of roguelikes has been calmly bubbling up for years now, yet only in 2020 did it truly become mainstream thanks to an ideal balance between gameplay and story as demonstrated by Hades. Players who previously took umbrage with the genre’s nature to wipe out all progress at each run’s end suddenly had a reason to jump back in, now inspired by Zagreus’ various tries to escape hell and overthrow his eponymous father. This alone sees Hades tower over most of its peers in terms of balance, further backed up by rewarding gameplay and a gorgeous comic book art style that makes the well-worn mythological Greek milieu feel fresh.

Developer Supergiant Games proved its penchant for creating flexible mechanical loops in prior titles, and in many ways, Hades feels like a culmination of all those ideas distilled in one neat package. It’s a great example of semi-randomized systems layering perfectly on top of other systems, until players eventually find themselves completing runs using distinct weapons, upgrading persistent abilities and slowly discovering which of the god’s many boons gel best with one another. Hades is always a hellishly good time. – AP

2. Ghost of Tsushima

The concept of honor has never been explored in a game as lyrically and philosophically as it is in Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch’s story-driven samurai epic. Jin Sakai’s grand adventure is both brutal and beautiful, stretching across the grasslands and snowy peaks of the titular island, as he pushes the oppressive Mongol army out of his homeland, all the while wrestling internally with the kind of man, warrior, and leader he ultimately wants to be.

This game is outstanding on so many fronts that it’s difficult to list them all here. Visually, it looks so stunning that anyone who walks past your TV as you play is all but guaranteed to stop and stare for a while. The combat is fast and challenging, the stealth mechanic is on-point, the score is sweeping and sentimental, the character models are incredibly realistic, the online multiplayer mode “Legends” is actually a blast to play…and the list goes on. This poetic, pitch-perfect modern masterpiece is emblematic of the soulful, cinematic storytelling PlayStation Studios is known for, and it’s a wonderful way to send the PS4 off into the sunset. – BB

1. The Last of Us Part II (Also Reader’s Choice)

You can’t even say the name of our 2020 game of the year without sparking numerous debates that often make it nearly impossible to have a productive conversation about the game itself. That makes it that much more tempting to somehow find a kind of middle-ground that will “justify” the game’s lofty position to everyone regardless of where they stand. 

The thing about The Last of Us Part 2,though, is that its divisiveness is very much part of the experience. Naughty Dog’s follow-up to arguably its greatest game is a bold attempt to live up to the franchise’s legacy by furthering what came before while trying to find its own way. Much like Ellie herself, The Last of Us Part 2 doesn’t always make the right decisions. Yet, at a time when bigger budgets are seen as an excuse to play it safe, The Last of Us Part 2 impresses through its willingness to present a big, bold, and personal adventure that is often anything but what was expected. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Anyone can generate a little controversy by saying something stupid, offensive, or hurtful. The beauty of The Last of Us Part 2’s controversy is that it stems from a heartfelt attempt to advance the conversation through indie-like passion and big budget production. – MB

The post The Best Games of 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2KKY9QG

[yeet-me-dad-dy]

Save Yourself

Characters: Connor x Reader (DBH)

Summary: You and Connor are investigating reports of a hostile android in an unfinished high rise.

Warnings: I don’t want to spoil anything. It’s a painful one.

Words: 2,245

Inspiration taken from the chorus of this song.

The beam from Connor’s flashlight swept side to side as he surveyed the long, dark hallway he was crouched in. Sheets of plastic hung from the ceiling, fluttering in a light breeze that whispered through the unfinished high rise, obscuring bare offices and construction equipment. You were ducked behind a large wooden crate to his right, gun raised, head low. Your bulletproof vest clung tightly to your torso, and he took a moment to adjust his own - you had insisted he wear one.

In the wee hours of the morning, before the sun had yet graced the world with its presence, Connor had received a call about a hostile android. He hated to wake you so early, but Hank was passed out drunk and you were the only other person he knew he could count on, despite not wanting to risk putting you in danger. You’d answered your phone, voice heavy with sleep, but agreed to meet him regardless. You’d spotted the hostile android upon your arrival at the high rise and didn’t hesitate to chase after it when it ran into the unfinished office building, Connor hot on your heels.

And now here he was, crouched behind a large toolbox with the love of his life across the hall wearing a determined expression. The android had run up the maintenance stairs, making its way higher into the building. Connor was able to keep it in sight until it burst through the stairwell door onto this floor, weaving in and out of plastic sheeting, dodging around equipment. The moment Connor realized that he’d lost sight of the android, he pulled you down behind the box into cover and moved across the hall to find cover of his own. You might be wearing a vest, but he still didn’t want you to get shot, and reports said that this android had a gun.

He put a finger to his lips. He could hear the crinkling of the plastic sheeting blowing in the breeze, the chirping of a bird that had found its way in, a car alarm in the street far below, and the sound of your heart beating quickly as adrenaline flowed through you.

He readied his gun and nodded to you. You returned the gesture as he peeked past the toolbox. Finding the hallway clear, he rose and stepped away from his hiding spot, keeping an eye on you as you did the same, staying close behind him. He took a step forward, his flashlight casting eerie shadows.

“We should split up,” you suggested, your voice a whisper.

Connor was quick to shake his head. “No. We stay together.”

Carefully, he pulled back a plastic sheet and stepped into the room it was blocking off, quickly scanning for signs of the android’s presence.

“Connor, I can take care of myself. We’ll make better progress if we split up,” you insisted.

“Not a chance,” was his reply. He didn’t need to look back to know that your jaw had clenched. If you were anything, it was stubborn.

He paused, pulling you down behind a pillar. You huddled next to him, your face a mere inch from his.

“(Y/N), please just listen to me this one time,” he said. “Stay close to me. This is a very dangerous situation with a high probability that one of us could get hurt.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt. Please, just stay close.”

You took in a deep breath, brows furrowed, before you finally nodded. “Okay,” you agreed. “Okay, I’ve got your back.”

He smiled and leaned forward to give you a kiss, not wanting to miss any opportunity to show his love for you, even if this wasn’t an ‘appropriate’ situation. It was quick and you looked disappointed when he pulled away.

“Let’s go,” he said, rising to his feet. “And stay behind me.”

“Got it,” you replied.

He was very aware of your presence behind him as he moved carefully throughout the building. You were absolutely the last person he wanted to call to help him with a hostile android, but he had no choice. He’d tried to rouse Hank from his drunken slumber, but the Lieutenant was out cold. He’d also called some of the other detectives, but they’d all told him to piss off. You were his last option.

He stopped abruptly and you nearly collided with his back. Instead of getting mad like his partner would have, however, you leaned around him to offer an inquisitive tilt of the head. He motioned to the plastic sheet before him. The beam from his flashlight revealed the silhouette of a large spool of cable behind the sheet. It was large enough for someone to duck behind. You took a step back and to the side, your gun ready and aimed at the silhouette. Connor took a step forward and grasped the sheet.

A force hit him, knocking him to the ground and sending his gun and flashlight skittering away. He could see feet rush past his face and the sheet fluttering wildly after being disturbed. The sound of your gun firing rang in his ears. One shot. Two. Three.

Connor found his feet quickly and wasted no time in chasing the android. He kept it in his sight as he vaulted over desks, dodged around pillars, and pushed through plastic sheets. It darted to the right and ran full speed for the stairwell, ramming into the door and making its way up. Connor chanced a glance back to see you following behind, keeping up with your love quite easily.

The android didn’t slow, rising higher and higher. Up and up and up into the high rise, past the point of partially-finished rooms. It exited the stairwell and the first thing Connor noticed was the wind. There were no walls up here, just open space, scaffolding, and the first rays of the sun as it began to make its way over the horizon. The android turned, pointing its gun at Connor, but you were quicker. A bullet left the chamber of your pistol with a crack and the projectile found the android’s right shoulder. It cried out as its arm was jerked around, its gun falling to the ground. You shot again, but the android ducked, darting away once more.

Connor was confused for only a moment. You were the only one still wielding a gun and you stood between the android and the stairs - he thought it would be trapped. He realized his miscalculation, however, as the android began to climb the scaffolding.

You aimed your gun again, but Connor put a hand in front of you. “Don’t shoot! If it’s destroyed, we won’t learn anything!” he commanded, then ran after the android. You were once again on his heels. “Stay down here!” he commanded as he began to climb. Either you didn’t hear him over the wind whipping around you, or you were ignoring him. He put his money on the latter.

He climbed quickly; hand, foot, hand, foot. He looked down to make sure you were making it up okay and smiled when he saw the determined smirk on your face. You loved a good chase, danger be damned.

The android pulled itself up onto a beam and began running along its length. What its objective was, Connor had no clue, but he followed regardless. Perhaps it was going to throw itself off of the building. It’s stress levels were very high, he wouldn’t be surprised if it self destructed. He followed along the narrow beam, finding his balance in a fraction of a second. The RK800 model was fast and athletic, specifically built for this kind of thing. Connor had no problem catching up to the android.

He grabbed it by the hood of its jacket just as it reached another vertical piece of scaffolding, pulling it back against him and wrapping his arms around its torso. It struggled against him, smashing its head into Connor’s nose. He could feel the thirium leaking from his nostrils, but held firm. The android brought its feet up, resting them against the scaffolding before it, and with a kick, it pushed itself and Connor over.

Connor landed hard on his back and the android did a backward somersault to roll away from him. It was difficult with how narrow the beam was, but Connor managed to do a kickflip, going from lying flat on his back to standing in the blink of an eye. He whirled around to face the android.

You were on the beam behind it, so far away. He watched you take a tentative step forward. You had great balance, but he wished you’d just go back down to safety. The android flew forward, grabbing him by his bulletproof vest. Connor struggled to get it off, to pry its fingers away. It released his vest and grabbed his arm with one hand, the other curled into a fist and found his ribs.

“Connor!” he heard you cry.

He doubled over, clutching at his ribs. Without thinking, he spun around and swung his foot, sweeping one of the android’s feet out from under it. The android teetered on the edge of the beam, only one foot still making contact. It lost its balance. Grasping for something to hold onto, its hand found Connor’s sleeve.

And it fell.

Its fingers slipped from Connor, but not before it pulled him forward.

“Connor!” he heard again. Your voice, but this time it sounded distant, muffled.

It didn’t register immediately what was happening, but after a moment, Connor realized that he was horizontal in the air, the toe of his foot the only part of him still making contact with the beam.

He watched as the android fell below him, its arms outstretched toward him, eyes pleading and afraid. And then Connor’s foot was no longer on the beam.

He was in the air.

Connor was jerked back to reality as he felt a firm pressure around his right wrist and he swung forward, stopping in the air after his momentum finally slowed. He looked up to see you dangling from the beam, one hand around his wrist, the other clutching desperately to the metal above you.

“(Y/N).” He said your name - registered the fear in your eyes.

He instinctively wrapped his fingers around your own wrist.

“Hold on!” you yelled over the wind. “I’ve got you!”

A statistic popped up just at the edge of his vision, as it always did when you were in danger. It was your chance of survival - a simple percentage. Right now, that percentage was sickeningly low.

17%

He could see your fingers slipping on the smooth metal and the percentage dropped.

10%

His gaze lowered to look out over the Detroit skyline as he ran scenarios in his head, trying to find one that ensured your survival. He looked back up to you, scanning the scene and the surroundings. You were holding onto him as tightly as you could, but he was slipping. You were slipping.

7%

There was nothing but cold metal for you to hold onto. You could pull yourself up, Connor knew… but you couldn’t pull both of you up.

“(Y/N)!” he called again, this time loud enough for you to hear. He knew what had to happen, as much as he didn’t want it to.

You looked down at him, eyes wide, terrified.

“(Y/N). I love you,” he stated and watched as tears began to well up, threatening to spill over.

“Don’t you dare,” you hissed, a tear escaping to run down your cheek. “Don’t you fucking dare, Connor. Do you hear me?” you yelled over the howling wind.

He shook his head. “You can’t pull us both up!” he shouted.

4%

You were crying openly now, your fingers white as they clutched desperately to the beam, the fingernails on your other hand digging into his wrist.

“(Y/N),” he said again as you shook your head wildly. “You have to let me go.” A sob escaped your lips. He could feel you shaking. “You have to save yourself.”

Connor didn’t want to die, but if falling meant that you got to live, it was something that he was willing to do.

He released his grip on your arm only to feel yours tighten - one last hopeless attempt to hold on to him.

“Connor, please!” you begged. “Please, don’t leave me!”

His wrist slowly began to slip from your hand.

“Please!” you screamed.

“I love you,” he said as his eyes bored into yours, trying to convey all of the love he had ever felt for you. His wrist slipped out of your hand.

“No!” your voice pierced through the wind, all of your grief and rage drowning out its howling.

The sun rose fully in that moment and illuminated you from behind. Its rays shone through the holes in the scaffolding and cast you in an ethereal glow. You looked so stunning, he thought, like an angel. The sky behind you was a brilliant gradient of pink and orange - a breathtaking backdrop. Your eyes shone as they stared down at him, full of fear and grief. Your arm was outstretched, grasping for him.

80%

You could pull yourself up now, and that was all that mattered to him. You could save yourself. You could live.

Connor closed his eyes…

And fell.

[punknerdmusings]

Control is All, pt. 1

So uh... I saw a post chronicling a conversation between @ask-the-egos and @fairykats, and @turquoisemagpie‘s drawing... and then another one down the thread as well.

So this came about. It’s a fic where Dark had Bing’s personality, and Bing has Dark’s. In addition, Google has Wilford’s and Wilford has Google’s.

I have too many headcanons for this goddamn thing.

anyways @sunstar121 here it is

Next Last Masterpost

Dark giggled as he landed a kickflip, in the hall of course. Bing groaned, the monochrome ego did this every goddamn day, it seemed like. And it was extremely annoying to Bing.

Not to mention, dangerous. He had been knocked over too many times by Dark barreling down the hallway, uncaring for who might be walking. Bing rubbed his neck with a muttered curse, stretching it and quietly groaning as he heard a snap, the feeling in the right half of his body going away. At least it wasn’t the motor function wire again, he could at least live like this for a day or two.

Of course, Dark might not, seeing as the other ego had stopped next to Wilford and was showing the other man his newest trinkets. Bing internally groaned, not looking forward to going by the only ego whose entire attitude was the complete opposite of what it should be. And as he got closer, Wilford’s disinterest was clear, the mustasched ego even saying “Please shut up. Your stupidity is making my brain hurt.”

This time, his breaking point was when Dark took out that infernal fidget spinner with those annoying light-up colors. Bing growled and strode over, knocking out of the demon’s hands.

“S-Stop playing with th-that stupid t-toy or I’ll en-nd you-u-u.” Despite the glitching, Bing’s voice had a hard edge to it, and Dark flinched away.

“Yes, Bing…”

The android nodded and turned away, a clear dismissal sign. The demon turned tail and hurried off, shivering as his red and blue aura around him shrank in fear. And as he went off, leaving the Iplier area for the Septic, Bing sighed and flicked his security feed away. He walked off towards the clinic, humming a tune to himself, to check up on Host and Dr. Iplier, Wilford sighing in relief and trailing after Bing to wait for a chance to speak.

“Doctor. Host. How are you two today?” Bing’s voice, while angry and glitchy when reprimanding Dark, was smooth, warm, and welcoming with these two egos. However, he could pick up on Host’s too-quick swallow and slight tremble before the blind man answers, the barest hint of fear in his voice.

“The Host would like to inform Bing that the Host is well, and he appreciates you asking. Dr. Iplier is also well, and was just about to help the Host with changing his bandages.”

Bing nodded. “Good, good.” He made no move to leave, instead just turning to Wilford. It was clear Host was uncomfortable with this, and Bing had to fight back a grin. He kept the two in his sights as Dr. Iplier slowly started to unwrap Host’s eyes, trying to block as much of Host as possible from Bing. His efforts were futile, as Bing was in a perfect position to have a full view of his handiwork. The mangled eye sockets, still weeping blood due to nanobots Bing had inserted into Host’s bloodstream that kept the wounds gaping open. Nanobots that could and would increase the blood flow to dangerous amounts if Host tried to leave or defy him. And it had the added benefit of keeping Dr. Iplier under control as well, as the dear doctor cared far too much about his precious Host.

Bing nodded after Wilford was done relaying information, dismissing him. Of course, he hadn’t paid attention to a single word, and the egos knew that unless he spoke after they were done talking, whatever they had been saying was instead recorded to watch back later. It was a feature BIng both loved and hated about himself, it certainly made things more convient, but it also reminded him of just how robotic he was. He loathed it, all he wanted was to be human again…

He shook his head before walking out of the clinic, starting to watch back the newest Wilford clip. It was mostly business things, but one thing caught his attention.

One of Wilford’s main jobs was to keep Bing notified about Dark, on everything from Dark’s happiness levels to his aura to what Dark was planning on doing that day. And apparently, Dark’s aura had been getting stronger over the past few days. Bing flicked through some security footage from Dark’s room, and sure enough, the red and blue that surrounded Dark was getting wider every day. There was going to be a break here soon. Judging by the growth and past breaks… It was going to happen tonight.

Bing swore as he ran through the hallways, his gait off because of the numbness in his right leg. How could have let Dark get too happy? Dammit, dammit, dammit, he needed to subdue this and fast.

Dark’s breaks were harmless in and of themselves. They indicated he was extremely happy, and while sometimes there would be some property damage, it wouldn’t be severe. No, the real danger of breaks came with how hard it became to control Dark. The man would be too happy to be brought down easily, and if nothing major happened to lower his mood, Dark could get dangerous ideas in his head. Bing, as much as he despised the other ego, needed Dark for the very last stages of his plan.

Dark was the only one who could put Bing back in a human body, put him in Mark’s body. And Bing could not afford to lose him.

Bing skidded into his control room, his eyes searching the display. Dark was outside with Chase, in the garden. Bing breathed a sigh of relief, Dark was still in range. Bing pulled up the security feed, Dark and Chase were close but not touching, walking along one of the many garden paths. Good. Bing pressed a button and instantly, Dark dropped to his knees, and although the camera carried no sound, Bing could tell Dark was screaming, his hands clutched around his head. Chase was instantly trying to help the other ego, but as Bing turned up the dial, Dark curled in on himself, sobbing. Chase then scooped Dark up and Bing started to slowly ease off, typing something to ensure Dark would be kept incapacitated for the next few hours, if not a day or two. Bing nodded, leaving the room and dimming the lights, knowing that Dark wouldn’t be having a break any time soon.

Chase cradled Dark, who was far lighter than he looked. The gray ego was clinging to Chase, tears streaking down his face, his red and blue novelty glasses askew. Behind them, Dark’s eyes were tightly shut, trying to block out the massive pain in his head as Chase took him to the Septic area of Ego Inc, to Chase’s room. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights, instead laying Dark down on the bed. He laid next to his boyfriend, running a hand through Dark’s hair. Gently, he took off Dark’s glasses, setting them on the bedside table. Schneep, who had seen the two come in, entered to room with a cold washcloth, some pain pills, and a glass of water. Chase took them and started to coax Dark to sit up and take them, and after a while, Dark did, before Chase gently helped him lay back down and draped the washcloth over Dark’s forehead and eyebrows. Chase himself then laid back down, rubbing Dark’s back as his boyfriend wrapped his fingers into his shirt. Soon, Dark was asleep, and Chase carefully and gently got up, sighing as he left Dark to sleep off the pain.

[longaccessories]

Skatebird ps4

If nothing else, tiny birds are cute as heck. I’d love to see a wider variety of bird sizes, but I understand why they’re not available. Shop GameStop, the worlds largest retail gaming and trade-in destination for Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo games, systems, consoles & accessories. After it is clean, use the scrub brush to scrub off any dirt or dried residue. From feather patterns to tiny hats to jaunty scarves, you’ve got a ton of options. Swish the skateboard around in the soapy water to clean it. On the other hand, you start out with an aggressive amount of bird customization available. I loved every song I heard, the first dozen times I heard them. It turns out the song list is pretty short at the start. The soundtracks should be your number one priority. Skate For Your SoundtrackĪnother perk to these wide open stages is the ability to patiently explore every part of a level, finding things like soundtrack expansions and new outfit pieces. Description Grind on bendy straws, kickflip over staplers, and carve killer lines through cardboard and sticky tape parks, in SKATEBIRD You're a lonely lil' bird, and your Big Friend has hung up. However, with that being said, if the developers get another innings, I would play a SkateBIRD 2 without a moment's hesitation, and I would fully expect that the developers would deliver having had this experience. For now, I have to assume that very small birds are just bad at steering with their feet and wings. SkateBIRD is a brilliant idea and it takes a big, heaving swing at it. It’s possible that no one else will have this problem with SkateBIRD. Again, I’m fully prepared to chalk some of this up to my habitual ineptitude. A shocking amount of my time was spent zipping off of ledges after botching a hairpin turn. SkateBIRD PlayStation 4 Home News Board Product Deals Amazon Find this product on Amazon Description Grind on bendy straws, kickflip over staplers, and carve killer lines through cardboard and. When combined, all these tiny problems make certain mistakes feel quite costly. Skatebird is a cute and original arcade skating game supported by great music, but the skating itself is crude by modern standards, the objectives are generally uninspired, and the camera is a. Plus, the crash animation feels just a little too long. Your turn radius is crazy wide, which means narrow passages are a nightmare to navigate. You build up speed gradually, through quick dips onto half-pipes and ramps. Steering is somehow both the simplest and the most frustrating part of the overall mechanics.

[mysteriescomeinthrees]

EPISODE 3: We’re in the Upside-Down but I’m happy to be Here - Jinx

ok soooo I did not stick to my own plan but it's fine we're gonna be ok Ep 3: I Will Not Beg You to Play Well https://voca.ro/198BUGITWV41

I will die for jinx and jones

I was gonna record another video, but I currently look like a greasy sewer rat and Jarod has been asking me to make a confessional, so I decided to just write out my thoughts.  I think Jarod wants me to dive more into my thoughts regarding pirate’s counsel, so I will start with that.   From my experience, first boots are almost always the easy vote. It’s hard to really build enough trust with people to truly convince them to keep the more unknown person over a person they have SOME level of trust with. When it came to my crew, I was the obvious first vote out. This became especially abundantly clear when I heard that Roxy had already announced to the blue crew that I was fucked.  I already had the idol so I knew I had a safety net in place, but who wants to use their idol on the first vote??? I immediately tried bonding with people - especially those that I had some level of connection to. My first person I tried to connect with was Autumn.  We had a mutual with Jinx, so I thought we could potentially connect and work together. I know that everyone is connected to Jinx though, so I wasn’t sure how strong that mutual was.  We had a call, which I thought went really well. We bonded over law, and she seemed keen on working together. Besides Autumn, I didn’t feel like I was successfully making connections. I felt like I needed to make a change and that’s when I decided chaos is a ladder. I took a new approach from trying to have light hearted good conversations, to messaging everyone more aggressively about why Roxy said I was fucked. This is when I really started to bond with Cindi.  She didn’t know Roxy has said that, and felt a bit excluded from her trio and the crew I think. We really bonded and she shared that she had an extra vote and an idol, and I shared I had an idol. When I realized that the others were not going to be willing to flip, I realized I would need to use the idol, and I needed to figure out the best person to cut moving forward and how to do damage control for post tribal. I was worried about all the AllStar players, so knew that Caeb would be safe and I would take out one of them. I still hoped I could work with autumn in the future, and obviously loved Cindi, so I knew it was between Eve or Andrew. After learning about connections, I felt that Eve was the most connected, from Allstars and playing with Caeb, so I felt if they left, I would have the best chance of integrating myself. I also spoke the least with Eve, so it was a win win for me. Cindi also agreed, which was really important to me.  Andrew was feeding Cindi info and could prove an asset.  I did feel it was really important that everyone knew Eve was my target.  I made sure to campaign all day so people felt I was nervous and wouldn’t have an advantage, so the plan would work.  I also wanted people to not feel too betrayed after tribal, since they all knew I was pushing Eve. The next thing we needed to decide was whether or not Cindi voted with me or not. I didn’t care, since I was playing the idol. In the end, Cindi opted to vote against me to try to keep the relationship with Andrew. I think they still think im on an island by myself, when Cindi and I are extremely tight now. Moving forward, I honestly don’t know if I’ve gained much more social capital on my crew. I think im ~okay~ with everyone, but I think im still at the bottom. But, I have an extra vote that Cindi gave me, so I have some level of security going forward. I really hope our two trios work together going forward. Luckily I’m good at challenges.  We have won the past two challenges so have some level of safety.  My goal for the rest of the game is for my trio and Cindi’s trio to make merge, and then we can really do some damage.  I know Kai and Bohdi also have bonded well.  Hopefully we just keep winning and I get a good swap scenario. I’m guessing we swap to two tribes at 14.  I still feel like an underdog, but with a certain level of tenacity, anything is possible.

My tribe is going to its first tribal and I am terrified. I have no clue what to expect or how this will go. I trust in jinx and henry that the vote is on Pippa, its sad but I need to stay. My two trio members are not going to perish in vain so I will slay anyone who stands in my way. 

Thankfully we're safe but you still gotta worry about your trio members ur never free from the anxiety

Hello, this is a mandatory confessional. Im currently getting my tarot for the game being read by Jinx and whew its a lot for me right now. Im really intruiged by all this and i feel like its so deep and impactful but right now im feeling a tad overwhelmed. Right now all signs are pointing to me to me breaking the chains of my past and make top 9, but also maybe get out immidiatly at 9. According to the cards the biggest obstacle in my path to success is me and im gonna really take that to heart this game

Sappho going to council… DISGUSTING!! Basically I’m the vote but Andrew got a power to let me leave council and be safe ❤️ So I shall be using that !! Jinx and I had a good talk and I’m hoping we are okay bc I genuinely wanna work with them. BUTTT jinx is a legend I am constantly weary of. So I shall see y’all in round 4 but will I survive past that?? I smell a swap 

It was pretty gutting seeing Kai able to go to the bay instead of Jordan, who actually campaigned to keep her. Hell, I thought I also had a decent relationship with her after encouraging her to attempt the puzzle. Hopefully Kai actually found a disadvantage like he said, but there’s no way to tell because it “won’t be revealed until its applicable.” Never in my LIFE have I seen a disadvantage worded like that. Something to keep an eye on. Coulee was unfortunately voted out by our team last round and I think it was a squandered opportunity to take out a power player. With one of the most egregious mistakes I have ever seen in an ORG, Coulee being voted out makes sense in terms of keeping the team strong. I really think there’s other reasons though. Bodhi and Mo shutting down the chance to take out someone as skilled at the game as Kai is a little concerning. I have to assume that Mo and Bodhi are at least closer to Kai than they are to Jordan and I. Bodhi specifically I’m skeptical of after they told me there were no other names tossed around…when Jordan definitely had a convo with him about voting Kai. I really trusted Bodhi before this but now I have to be cautious around them to. Also, I had a short conversation with Mo about potentially switching the vote up. I didn’t outright say it, just hinted at it by saying “maybe we should stick to how el farto voted.” I was hoping that reminding them that Caeleb has technically already voted against 101 would get them to consider switching their vote but they didn’t bite. Maybe I should have done more here, but I would be risking myself becoming the next target on this team. I’m thrilled we won the letter number challenge because things aren’t looking good for me on my team. Joyita going to council would have meant Jordan or I probably going home. Unfortunately though, we found out pippa is getting votes which isn’t much better! We do have our safety without power advantage, so Pippa isn’t actually going home, but we did have to figure out who we’re telling. Jordan was nice enough to tip me off about her getting votes after I asked, so I decided to tell him about Pippa’s power. I think him telling Jinx this information would allow them to stay in control of the vote and further solidifies our two trios working together. Though in the moment on call with Jordan, I’m not sure I was delivering it with the most conviction. I’ve never been in a situation quite like this before and I think he noticed I was wavering about telling him or not. Is he gonna put it together that I found this item under his nose and didn’t tell him, or is he even going to care. IDK!! My wheels were turning and though I was a little clumsy with my words, I told him about the advantage so he could tip off Jinx. I followed it up with reassuring him that it was in our best interests for our two teams to work together and that he was my number one. I’m definitely going to have to do some damage control because he’s going to realize I held back information from him, but I think I was still able to get across that keeping him and his trio safe are my top priority. Can’t wait to see how that goes :’)

Also this game makes me tire. Or maybe I need to eat more vegetables. Who knows.

kickflipped

IVE BEEN UNPACKING ALL DAY AHHHHH

I’ve been looking for my cat so I can’t like do a conf love you hosts 

So me jinx and Jabari are going strong! Just talked to jinx today I feel so tight with her we’re like inseparable. I’m sitting between three trios: Kai Sarah me Bodhi Cindi me Jinx Jabari me All of whom I don’t want to betray sooo it’s gonna be tough. I’ll probably end up being loyal to Kai and Sarah, as both the other duos want to work with my trio. So yeah! We originally wanted Roxy out for this tribal and she had told me she was coming after Sarah and Bodhi to my face and I was like 😳 girl you know I’m working with them at least lie. But uhm it’s become abundantly clear that Pippa is not pulling her weight in challenges so that was the move. However right before tribal we caught wind of Pippa advantage where she could leave tribal and be safe, but lose her vote. We decide to pivot the vote to Jones: and she goes home. However jinx told Roxy to vote for me 🙄 whatever. Uhm I’m not mad but it’s still like something to think about. But yeah! So Jones goes home, and I move on to the next cycle :>

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1128476152

[entergamingxp]

Skater XL Interview — Easy Day Studios on Bringing Skateboarding Culture to Gaming

July 14, 2020 2:30 PM EST

Easy Day Studios co-founder Dain Hedgpeth and director of marketing Jeff Goforth discuss Skater XL’s unique gameplay and properly repping skateboarding.

Throughout my years with DualShockers, my “E3 dream” was for a formal announcement for Skate 4. Now that EA actually made that announcement, I’m not as enthused as I thought I would be. “Why is that,” you ask? Well, there are a whole lot of skateboarding games launching in the near future. From Crea-ture Studios’ Session to Vicarious Visions’ Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, there are so many different variations of the beloved yet niche genre. Heck, there is even one where you can skate as a bird.

However, the game that will usher in this new wave of skateboarding games is by the California-based developer, Easy Day Studios. Skater XL is the first mainstream skateboarding video game to hit the big console platforms since Skate 3 launched over 10 years ago. Evoking a similar style to Skate, it will certainly fill that gap that has been present in the market for a whole decade.

“This is our interpretation of the skating game people really wanted the whole time. This is where things were moving to.”

I was able to chat with Easy Day Studios co-founder and director Dain Hedgpeth and director of marketing Jeff Goforth about what makes Skater XL stand out amongst the plethora of recently announced skateboarding games. We also discussed how it improves on what EA started with Skate and how Easy Day Studios is bringing skateboarding culture and community to its upcoming game.

As I mentioned, there is somewhat of a resurgence of the skateboarding video game genre. It’s as if everyone grew tired of waiting for a new Skate game and decided to make it themselves. There is clearly an audience for a simulation-esque skateboarding game, and Skater XL will attempt to appease everyone who has been hungry for this type of game for years. I asked Dain about this resurgence of the skateboarding game and his feelings on ushering it in with Skater XL:

“It’s pretty surreal as fans of the genre to have been able to work in the space. Jeff  [Goforth] is coming from 20 years in the actual skateboarding industry. Myself and some of the other guys on the team have worked on action sports games and are just off the back of a mobile skateboarding game for iOS and Android that launched in 2014. So yeah, it’s been interesting, the things that all had to happen for this to all fall into place at the time that it did. And, you know, we were looking at this gap in the market a few years back when we were sort of putting the pieces together that became Skater XL.

Everyone is familiar with the meme of, “we want Skate 4, etcetera, etcetera.” There has just been this clamoring and this passionate group. You know, I think everyone is aware that maybe as a niche, it’s big, but not as big as some of the team sport games that EA Sports works on or some of the first person shooters. It just sort of fits in this interesting middle point. So yeah, it has been pretty amazing for us just to kind of come in and start to fill this gap.

From early on, we were very [decided on] bringing something new to the genre. Tony Hawk had come in with a certain approach; EA Skate had come in and moved things forward. We felt there was another big step that this genre could take and we were very well positioned to have a go at it. This is our interpretation of the skating game people really wanted the whole time. This is where things were moving to.”

Collectively, I’ve spent about 27 hours playing the early access versions of Skater XL and Session; the majority of my time has been within the past month or so, as I just built a PC. That number has been steadily climbing as we approach Skater XL‘s full release later this month. Each is great in their own right. However, something I noticed about Easy Day Studios’ trick system versus Crea-ture Studios’ Session is how trick inputs function. Although there are several variations that each of these titles makes to deviate from the beloved Skate series, Session‘s trick animations function similarly to EA’s animations. Essentially, you can change flip speeds and make slight variations to each trick, but it is pretty easy to get the flip you want consistently. Skater XL takes a very different approach that may look similar if you’re watching a video, but works rather differently than its competition.

Skater XL actually uses a mostly physics-based system for trick inputs. There is some motion capture used to properly animate your skater, but all of your trick inputs are essentially being interpreted in real-time, and then executed on-screen using an amalgamation of animation and physics-based trick system. I was very intrigued by this trick system, as it produced some of the coolest looking flip tricks I have seen in a game. It really feels like you are expressing yourself with a skateboard. When asked whether this system was difficult to work with and implement, this is what Dain had to say:

“It was, but it’s interesting because there’s certain things that become much easier when you’re working with a natural and organic system, and there are certain things that are much more complicated because you’re not working with a real world interaction. You don’t have the same level of articulation through two joysticks and four axes of control. It’s not the same as having balance and all these different things you have control over in the real world.

[Creating the trick system] was the better part of the first year of development. We locked down the core team and really just drew a line in the sand and said, “we’re not moving forward until we are happy that we have something that we can build a game around.” The core mechanics, like the controls and the gameplay, was the only focus for some time until we had something that was like 80 percent of the way. It still needed some extra things added, it still needed some polish, but once we could feel it, we were like, “yes.”

I think we boiled it down to the right principles in the way it is designed. It feels right. It feels like skateboarding. You have control. You really feel a personal sense of reward when you do things because you are not only learning a skill, but every moment of the trick [including its] style [and] the way it came out. Like in real skateboarding, each time you do a kickflip, it looks and feels different.

The animation system, as well, was quite tricky because everything is kind of upside down. You’re not having the game read input, decide to do a kickflip, and then start a sequence of events that equals a kickflip. There is not even a line of code in the game that says “kickflip.” We basically have movement of the board, the player controls that movement, that movement happens to create a kickflip, then the game is actually watching the board [and] the user’s intent and in the moment, interpreting that in real time and trying to figure out what the animation should be doing.

We do have mo-cap. We have all these hundreds of different fragments of cut up mo-cap that is being augmented and it blends and fades in the right way. So, we have a system in there that is kind of novel in itself that is trying to listen to the board and see what the board is doing. Like, ‘Oh, this looks like a kickflip, let’s make the character express [themself] and flick their foot in the right way,’ and all that kind of stuff. So, that was a whole bundle of challenges in itself.”

“I think we boiled it down to the right principles in the way it is designed. It feels right. it feels like skateboarding.”

Skater XL‘s unique trick system, inspired environments, and general gameplay loop is the reason to play this game. Like real skateboarding, your “progress” is determined by your coolest line or your gnarliest trick. However, this isn’t real, even if it is as close to the real thing as a video game can get. Just about every game has a progression system, and Easy Day Studios has implemented one into Skater XL, albeit not in the traditional sense.

When asked if there would be challenges or a progression system in Skater XL, Dain brought up how most players, including myself, played Skate. While there were challenges and a story mode, the fun in Skate was engaging in its gameplay, finding spots, and testing your skills by filming an awesome line or trick. Specifically, Dain mentions that rather than using challenges to “supplement” or “replace” the gameplay loop, it will “enhance” it, with the intent to help players learn new skills and thoroughly use each environment to its maximum potential:

“Yes, we do have a challenge system in there. At launch, we have several hundreds of different challenges throughout the different levels. The objective of having challenges in there was really to help people see all the different things within the levels; you know, the different lines you can do in them. It’s really kind of giving people a helping hand; giving them some challenges, something to feel like they are progressing. [It’s] something that will push their skills in different directions and help them understand the different ways you can use the controls, but also help unlock the environment a little bit, as well.”

Back in April, Easy Day Studios announced four pros would be playable in Skater XL: Brandon Westgate, Tiago Lemos, Evan Smith, and Tom Asta. Each of them is outfitted with the deck and attire they would use in real life. A month later, it was revealed several name brands, like Emerica and Element, would also be featured in the game.

Now, I used to skate and was really engulfed in that culture…over 10 years ago. So, while I’ve seen names like Brandon Westgate and Tom Asta, I have kind of stepped away from skateboarding, and am pretty unfamiliar with that world as I’ve been absent from it for years. Because of that, I wanted to know why these four skaters in particular were added into the game. This is what Jeff had to say:

“[They were chosen] partially based on my past relationships and working with brands. I had connected with these guys, or several of them, over the years and just maintained friendship [with them]. So, it came kind of naturally. Like, cool; we want to get not only icons from this generation–which really, these guys are those pros that have really cemented themselves for this generation of skateboarding–but also guys that we meld with and were really on board with the idea and wanted to be involved.

Yeah, we really just wanted some unique styles. We got Evan [Smith], who is kind of more ���out there.” He’s got the long hair and kind of the psychedelic vibe. Then you got someone like Brandon Westgate who is just one of the most powerful, all-around street skaters there is today. Then Tiago [Lemos] is like the next huge legend globally. We really just wanted to pick a diverse group of people that brought different elements of skating, but also guys that really fit with the game.”

From Jeff’s response, it really seems as if these four, and I’m sure many others, really represent skating culture today. These are some of the best in the world, and people look up to them as influences, kind of in the same way as skaters like Don Nguyen, Mike V., Jamie Thomas, Christian Hosoi, and Shogo Kubo inspired my style of skating. I know a few of those names are a bit before my time, but guys like Hosoi and Kubo had such an awesome style that I wish I could emulate.

But skating culture is more than just adding in a few pros from the scene. I asked in what way is Skater XL representing that culture. Part of Jeff’s answer does entail the brands that Easy Day Studios has managed to include in the game. After all, part of expressing yourself may be in the way you dress, or the way you outfit your board. Jeff also mentions how it’s also the gameplay and the California-based spots they’ve created (or recreated) in the game:

“The whole game is sort of based around the California skating lifestyle. It’s a little more laid back, but you got those iconic spots and it’s really authentic to skateboarding. You know, myself, Dain [Hedgpeth], and Jon [West, co-founder and lead developer of Easy Day Studios] — who are three of the core members — are lifelong skaters. Everyone else on the team has a really strong connection to skateboarding. So, just all those details [both in the environment and in its gameplay] might get missed from somebody that’s not a skater. A huge focus was to make sure that we do right by skateboarding and represent it in the correct way.”

A huge part of skateboarding, whether it is digitally in a game or in real life, is filming some trick or line that is rad and sharing it with the world. Now more than ever, it is easy to just capture a moment and post it. Posting video is almost immediate unless you want to make it look all nice and fancy. Heck, I’ve been capturing a ton of content on Skater XL with its replay feature and posting it on my Twitter. It is incredibly fun and simple to use and looks pretty natural. As it is pretty integral to the experience, I asked about Easy Day Studios’ approach with the replay editor, and if it were somewhat of a priority for the developer to really get that facet right. Here is what Dain had to say:

“It’s a big thing that we wanted to give some attention to. For 1.0, there is a bit of a refresh on the replay editor, the UI, and the guides that are in there. But moving forward, I think we can have a process of making replays that helps people make the best replays possible, particularly with people who haven’t done it before. There is a bit of a learning curve there.

But also, you’ve made a replay; the cool thing to do with it is to actually show other people. You know, share that moment and get some kudos. Those kind of things differ per platform as well; the ability to hook into social platforms, the ability to capture video easily, save it then share it. So, there are a few things to work out there, but it’s definitely a big part for anyone that goes beyond enjoying the gameplay.

As you get deep into [Skater XL], it is certainly one of the things that becomes very rewarding. We are definitely looking to improve that and definitely looking for more integration and easier sharing in the future. We’ll see what’s possible on each platform.”

For anyone to even want to share footage, you need a community to watch. Unsurprisingly, Skater XL has a community that is not only eager for the launch but have also taken matters into their own hands and started creating their own levels and mods. However, I didn’t realize how dedicated this community was, which Dain enlightened me on:

“So, what we were seeing in the PC [version] is this incredible explosion of community activity of modding. It’s really interesting to see that in the ten years since Skate 3 has come out, how much social platforms and the nature of what a game is has evolved. [There is] such a broader spectrum of what gaming can mean these days.

I think that is part of what was in the front of our minds when we started the project. [We asked ourselves about] Skater XL, “what does a modern skating game look like?” This isn’t 2010 where you can put things on a disc and that’s it. There is a lot more connectivity. You have all these social platforms you can leverage; people are on Discord, people are on Twitch; [for] skating, in particular, Instagram is quite with big clip sharing; and YouTube, of course. Being receptive to that out of the gate was something we were hoping to do.

I think we weren’t expecting it to be quite as active as it was. We were really hoping [for it]. This is skateboarding, there is a creative side to it. There is this existing community that is still playing Skate 3. And a large part of what is fun about skateboarding is the social side of it, the culture, the content, and the artistic expression of it with video parts, and all the different facets of it; the music, the clothing, everything.

So, it has been interesting seeing Skater XL become a digital version of both the activity of skateboarding and the cultural things around it.”

Dain continued explaining some examples of just how dedicated the Skater XL community is. He talked about this bi-monthly magazine that is 200 pages long, including features on community members and ads for products by fake skate brands you can download via mod support. There are even skate teams. It’s a community filled with people who skate or have skated (I’m the latter) and want to just create cool content using a trick system that feels like skateboarding.

“It seems Easy Day Studios is doing its best to represent that wild world the best it can with Skater XL.”

This led to a conversation about the recently announced community-made levels Easy Day Studios is launching alongside the 1.0 release of Skater XL. Grant Park, Streets, and Hüdland are all levels created by the game’s modding community and will be completely free for the PC and console versions. It is pretty rare to see developers showcase their community in this way, and it’s encouraging to see Easy Day Studios featuring these levels as if they were their own.

Modding and downloading mods, especially in the way the Skater XL community seems to be going about it, is typically only available for the PC version, and that seems to be the case with Easy Day Studios’ upcoming release. However, as Dain explained, it seems the developer is looking into ways they can potentially bring user-generated content to console platforms:

“One of the most popular things with mods was the environments. People are making their own skateparks or a really famous skate spot and putting that out to the community. They are also collaborating with each other with building these spots. One guy might be really great at 3D modeling, [while] another is great at texturing and lighting. Then you’ve got guys who are good at filming and skating and they do promos and get it out to the community. You have all this kind of community activity around the creative process.

I know there are a lot of barriers, a lot of things to figure out with the console manufacturers, and for good reason. It’s not as easy to launch just any old content onto these more locked down platforms. They have strict quality control and there’s guides around ratings and language and all those sort of things. But I think things are changing as well. And gaming is changing. There are more avenues games can take to start to bridge that gap [between PC and console] and start to bring community content and [user-generated content] into console games.

So yeah, it’s something we’re looking at doing. We might bring in more maps. We are thinking about every different way you can think of to bridge the gap between the console audience and the community at large.”

After talking with Dain and Josh, it’s clear that Easy Day Studios knows skateboarding and really understand its culture and community. What I always found awesome about skateboarding and the people who partake in what some would consider “delinquent behavior” is that there really are no norms. The only barrier you face when jumping on a board is yourself. You’re constantly fighting your limitations, taking everything you’ve learned either by yourself or someone else and applying it in a way that is uniquely you. It’s really just about being yourself and expressing your creativity with a skateboard. It seems Easy Day Studios is doing its best to represent that wild world the best it can with Skater XL.

Skater XL is currently available in Early Access and will officially launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on July 28, 2020.

July 14, 2020 2:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/skater-xl-interview-easy-day-studios-on-bringing-skateboarding-culture-to-gaming/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=skater-xl-interview-easy-day-studios-on-bringing-skateboarding-culture-to-gaming

[waftr]

Are you bored at home or work and looking for some good time to spare on a game in your PC, but you don't want to download the game or register to Signup or Install Flash player to play the game? Here I'm listing the best Browser-based HTML5 games that can be played on any browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or anything) for free.

Why Browser Games?

You don't have to put any extra effort before starting a game

No Download needed to play the game

Just your web browser like Chrome or Firefox is enough to play the game

No Sign-ups or Flash plugin needed for most of the games

Some of these Browser games support multiplayer too.

Just a good internet connection and normal PC configuration are enough to play the browser games.

Note: Reason why we are not listing flash games are, 1. It takes you extra effort to install the plugin 2. End of last year Google also announced they are going to stop Flash support.

Also, I consider our user's time, so I'm listing the games which need no Signup to play the game. I tried more than 100 games for the past 1 week and listing you the best 20 you might like. Most of these games are HTML5 and PC supported. You have to use the Mobile Apps for some of the games to work on mobile. If you are looking for something else, you can check my post on 25 Website To Download Games for free, 53 best offline games for Android and iOS or Top VR Games.

Best Browser Games with No Signup and No Flash

I'm listing both Single player and Multiplayer games. You can pick the single player games from the list below if you want to play alone, or you can choose multiplayer games to play with your friends or challenge the computer bot.

S.no Game # Players 1 Archive.org Single 2 Dark Room Single 3 Akinator Single 4 Flappy Bird Single 5 Google Easter Egg Games Single 6 BoredBoredBored Single 7 Canvas Rider Single 8 Quick Draw Single 9 Dino Single 10 flowfreegame.com Single 11 Chain Reaction Single 12 Angry birds Single 13 Front Invaders Single 14 JSLander Single 15 Street Skater Single 16 Feudal war Age of empire Style game Multiplayer 17 WikiGame Multiplayer 18 War Brokers Multiplayer 19 Blobby Volley 2 Multiplayer 20 Online Chess Multiplayer

Top Single Player Browser Games

This game list contains only single player games. scroll down to see the multiplayer Browser games list.

1. Old MS-DOS games

Play Aladdin

Do you remember the good old Prince of Persia, Pac-Man, Aladdin games in your old PC? Yes, you can play them now in your browser without any extra effort.

Archive.org is a website that has a collection of more than 6000 old MS-DOS games like Batman, Ferrari, and many more games. With the filter option on the website, you can choose the type of game, year of the game, and pick and play directly from your browser in seconds.

Checkout Archive.org

2. A Dark Room (A Firelit Room)

Before describing the game, check the screen below this is how the game will be.

Yes, just the texts on a white screen. When the game begins, you'll be inside a freeing room and you have to throw some sticks into the Fire burner to keep the room warm, then you'll be going out of your room to gather some wood, followed by setting traps and creating a village this game will be very interesting. This game only works on your PC, You have to download Android and iOS apps on your mobile to play the game and they are not free. Still, if you want to play this game on your mobile for free, there's a trick. Just choose the Desktop view in your mobile browser to play the game.

Play - A Dark Room

3. Akinator

This is the good old game to kill the time, you have to think a person and start answering the series of questions, Akinator will understand and magically finds the person you think of. You can also play this game in your Mobile browser.

You can also play Akinator in your iOS and Android Mobile Apps.

Play Akinator

4. Flappy Bird

Do you remember the Flappy bird game that got removed from the Google Play store long back? That is now in your browser, this game is both Mobile and PC supported. Hit enter button on PC and just tap on your mobile.

Play Flappy Bird

This is the best time killer game, and still very hard to pass the single digit score. This company Elizium also developed a game called DHTML Lemmings, where you'll see a group of lemmings coming from a hole, your goal is to use the functions given at the bottom to make them do some set of operation to escape into another hole to pass the round.

Play Lemmings

5. Google Easter Egg Games

Yes, You can play games inside your Google search using any browser. Google Easter eggs and Google doodle are totally cool ways to play games on Google. You have to type in some keywords in the Google search bar to get the game option.

You'll find games like Snake, Solitaire, Pac-Man, Minesweeper, Tic Tac Toe and Many more. You can play this game in both PC and Mobile browser.

Google Easter Eggs

6. 3Bored

This is another simple UI browser game with NO Flash, This game BoredBoredBored is suitable for everyone. You are a tiny square space ship, your mission is to escape from the Tanks and Fighter jets without getting hit by any bullet and crashing them.

Controls are very simple, You have to use your arrow keys to fly the ship, hold on the Space bar to boost (red bar at the top) when you get some boost to go down to the ground, and hit the tank or fighter jet to kill them. I tried this game for some 3 times and got the below results.

You can't play this game in your mobile browser.

3Bored

7. Canvas Rider

This is one interesting browser game you can play. Canvas rider is a bike ride game on a canvas, there are more than 1000s of tracks you can choose from and play on. very simple UI and easy controls to play the game.

Canvas rider is now taken over by Freeriederhd. You can't play this game in mobile browser, you can try Mobile apps from the website instead.

Play Canvas Rider

8. Quick, Draw!

Google developed an A.I. to understand your drawings, You can teach the A.I. by drawing the object it suggests you. The game starts by asking you to draw 6 objects in 20 seconds each, by the time the A.I will let you know what it finds.

I draw 6 objects and I passed by drawing 4 out of 6 objects correct. You can see the result below.

Play - Quick, Draw!

9. The T-Rex Game (Online)

Yes, the same Dino game you play in your browser when you don't have a internet connection, there are ways to play the game online.

For people who don't know about this game, You are the T-Rex and you will be running long you have to jump and hop on the trees running after some time you'll see flying Dinosaurs. Run for a long time to get scores.

Play Dino Game Online

10. Flow Free Colors

Flow free is a color dot connector game, you just have to touch and connect the right dots. rules are simple, you have to connect all the dots with lesser moves and fill the board. You cannot cross over the lines.

This is one interesting Browser game to play when you are bored, You have many different levels to play and different board sizes to keep you engaged and test your skill. This game also supports mobile browsers, there are app versions too.

Play Flow Free Colors

11. Chain Reaction - Advanced

As the name says you have to create a chain reaction to cause an explosion and clear the game, this game is total add free and supports in your mobile browser too. This game has more than 1Million fans.

Play Chain Reaction

12. Angry Birds

Who could forget this game? But there are no official angry bird game you can play in your browser, this No Flash version of Angry is in HTML5 and this is from Plonga.

Play Angry Birds

You know the rules of this game, pull the bird and hit the pig. The UI of this game is not so great, if you are okay with using Flash, you can try the Crazygame version of Angry Birds. But Angrybird is always best on mobile.

13. Front Invader

Are you a web developer? this game is for you. Front Invaders is the galaxy shooter game for developers, where your space ship is replaced with an HTML5 logo and all the aliens are Internet explorer logo. How cool is that?

You just have to shoot them all to get the score. This game doesn't support mobile browser version.

Play Front Invaders

14. JS Lander

This is another interesting space game, you will be flying a lander and your goal is to safely land the planner on the planet surface. you can use the Thrusters to move the lander up, down, left and right.

You have to slow down at the end and smoothly place the lander to get the score, else, you are going to crash a 100 bazillion dollar lander.

Play JSLander

15. Street Skater

Street Skater is a 2D Arcade skating game, with little controls you have to reach the destination by doing Ollie, Kickflip, and Manual. You have to collect the coins to score.

Space bar and Shift key are the two control options, you can also use the touch option. You just skate till the end or die bursting.

Play Street Skater

Bonus. Smarty Bubbles

Here is the Bonus HTML5 browser game for you, this is a bubble shooter game, you will be having color balls in cannon, you have to shoot and match the colors to burst them. You have to prevent the balls from coming down.

Get more score, challenge your friends. This game also works on your mobile phone.

Play Smarty Bubbles

Top Multiplayer Browser Games

Below are the top 5 Multiplayer Browser games, you can play with your friend or an AI using your PC or Mobile browser.

16. Feudal Wars

Do you remember the old Age of Empires game? Yes, you can play that now on a PC browser along with your friends for free. This is really a very good medieval military strategy game inside a browser. Starting from a single player against the computer to 4 players can play this game.

You can play Public game to find people online and play or choose private to play with your friends or computer. You don't have food and Wood here, only resource here is Gold. You have to set up mines to generate Gold and using that you can build house, baracks, Archery, Stable, Towers and more. Also you can create soldiers using the gold you have.

After when you have good army to fight, select them all and send to your enemy land to start a war and capture the land to win the game.

Play Feudal Wars

17. Wiki Game

This is one of the best game you can play with your friend in any browser, The website will show you start and ending words. You have to start with the word in the Wikipedia page using the links inside the page you have to quickly reach the final word.

This website will show you current round words to everyone, you'll get 120 sec to finish the round and you'll find the winner on the right side. You can sign-up for free to save your wins.

Play Wiki Game

18. War Brokers

You want to play PUBG or Fortnite on PC for free and without downloading the game? War Brokers is for you. just go the website and start the game.

You can choose between Battle Royale and Classic version of the game. Invite your friends or go solo in, pick up guns, grenades, vests and more and kill all other players and survive till the end to win this game. You need no account or download anything to play this game.

Play War Brokers

19. Blobby Volley 2

Blobby Volley 2 is a multiplayer Volley Ball game you can play with your friends in a single browser. You can also play with the CPU.

Play Blobby Volley

20. Online Chess (LiChess)

LiChess is an Online game which needs no signup and no downloads needed, you can quickly start the game in any browser with your friend or A.I. This Chess game U.I. is really great for a browser game. This website also teaches you how to play Chess and has a community for players.

You can Signup to save the score for future reference. You can also see the championship matches going on and You can pick the players waiting online for opponents to play a real good Chess game.

Play LiChess

What is the Best Browser Game?

I've listed the top 20 games here, these games need no sign-up, No flash player, or download the game to play. Most of the games here are HTML5 games. Try playing the game and It's up to you to pick the best among these. Also, please let me know the best game you come across in the comment section below.

These websites give you free games and show ads to generate revenue, so don't get annoyed with the ads, be patient for a second when you get unwanted ads, and then start playing the game.

The post Best 20 Browser Games [No Flash & No Signup] appeared first on Waftr.com.

[margetfan]

True skate apk

True Skate APK

When a developer like True Axis, creators of the iOS classic Jet Car Stunts ($1.99), proclaims a new venture, you are taking be aware. That’s why whilst the studio introduced again in February that they had been working on a skateboarding simulation called True Skate, it shot proper up into our most-anticipated games listing. Well, it did in mine, anyway. I’ve been skateboarding for the majority of my existence, and have sincerely been anticipating a killer skating app to return to iOS.

 True Skate: Features And Gameplay:

Well, it’s finally come, as True Skate ($1.99) is exactly the type of skateboarding recreation that I’ve usually wanted. Rather than being heavily assignment- or tale-based just like the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater collection or EA’s Skate collection, True Skate is more of a sandbox toy that lets you shred round a well-designed skatepark doing anything you sense like. There’s a short list of missions to complete, and there’s lots of ability to flesh out the whole enjoy in addition, however on release True Skate is absolutely an excellent physics-based skateboarding simulator that’s most effective real limit is your imagination.

 True Skate APK Feature:

Unlike other skating games, True Skate doesn’t have you playing as someone skating across the open global, as an alternative you manipulate the skateboard itself and your hands act because the skater. Inevitably it'll draw comparisons to Touchgrind ($4.99), as that’s truly the only similar title on iOS that’s ever made any form of splash, however it’s important to be aware that the 2 games are pretty exclusive from every different.

What It About True Skate?

Touchgrind had a strictly pinnacle-down view that made it very hard to look what you were doing or in which you were going. As such, you were normally caught with attempting various flatground flip tricks or the occasional attempt at a grind or slide in case you have been fortunate sufficient to line up with the item correctly with out knowing exactly wherein it became. Touchgrind become neat to make certain, however quite constrained, and it did not give me the sensation of truly skating round a real open skatepark.

 True Skate Mod APK:

In True Skate the view is pulled returned to essentially a 3rd-individual at the back of-the-board camera attitude, and it adjustments the whole thing. Now you could see in which you need to move and what gadgets you need to hit up, and whilst you land some thing you may just keep directly to the next issue and string collectively a pleasant line of tricks. It feels like the whole park is at your fingertips and it’s absolutely up to you on the way you choose to address the terrain. It’s a completely liberating feeling, gambling True Skate.

 Control-wise, True Skate works very much like Touchgrind, the use of various swipes and flicks to carry out tricks along with your board, and the entirety is primarily based on how the physics of real skateboarding works. Tap down on the tail to pop the board up after which quick level it off to carry out a nice ollie, and like actual skating each other trick branches out from there. Ollie and flick the aspect of your board to kickflip, or scoop down on the tail in sort of a “U" formed swipe to do a varial.

True Skate Review:

Likewise grinds and slides are without a doubt a count number of ollieing and positioning your board over the item properly and pushing down in the correct spot on the board. For instance, ollie at a mild perspective over a rail and push down on the the front of the board to fasten right into a crooked grind, or ollie at ninety ranges over a ledge and push down at the tail to carry out a tailslide

 It may be problematic, and could take a few practice before matters begin to click on, but eventually they do and also you’ll be amazed with how many one of a kind hints are possible by way of combining the diverse flips and grinds in the sport. True Skate does a better task than every other iOS sport that I’ve played at making you accept as true with you’re without a doubt manipulating a bit virtual object with the contact display.

True Skate For PC:

And that is definitely where True Skate shines. It gives the sort of freedom to do regardless of the heck you want simply through providing you with the center tools you need and letting you unfastened inside its sandbox international. There’s some thing nearly dangerously compelling about this for me, and I find that I can’t assist however play True Skate on every occasion I actually have a unfastened second. The physics engine and controls are strong sufficient that even a skateboarding neophyte will be busting out cool tricks without difficulty once they grasp the mechanics.

Steps To Installed True Skate:

Where I think True Skate will clearly hit home, although, is with people like me who're genuinely into skating. There’s nothing greater pleasant than questioning “I need to kickflip over that pyramid and land in a bottom tailslide down the rail", and then truely doing it. Oh it might take you dozens of attempts, but I guarantee you it’s viable and while you in the end pull it off it’ll be difficult now not to let loose a yelp of victory. It’s moments like this which are a pure rush, and True Skate is filled with limitless amounts of them for the ones dedicated to actually explore what’s feasible.

   I may want to pass on and on approximately how a good deal I’m taking part in True Skate, however the fact is that it falls greater in the “toy" class than the “sport" one, and that won't be sufficient for some gamers. There is a handful of missions to complete, but they by and large feel like tutorials because they stroll you through various matters that help you get in music with the gameplay. A a great deal more strong challenge system might be welcome for those that like their video games to have precise goals to finish, and it feels like that’s something so one can finally be increased upon in the destiny.

True Skate App Download:

Another big characteristic I experience is missing is some kind of replay feature. It’s an notable feeling to tug off some cool trick, and it’s the form of component you’d need so that it will shop and relive or show off in your friends. There’s already a slick rewind characteristic built in so in case you mess something up you may simply go into reverse and retry, however there’s presently no manner to rewind and re-watch some thing you simply did. The capability to add these replays to YouTube could additionally be fine, to make sharing your moments even less difficult.

 True Skate App For Android:

Also, there’s simply the one skatepark surroundings in True Skate. It’s a incredible park, with a extremely good flow and mix of different obstacles to hit, however it’s bound to get type of stale skating within the same region all of the time. I’d additionally like a few form of board customization, as you’re currently restricted to simply the familiar True Skate board. More forums with extraordinary attributes and an upgrade system could certainly kill  birds with one stone, providing a manner to praise task final touch with XP that then goes toward upgrading your collection of forums. Just a idea, but that is going to show simply how plenty capability the solid base of True Skate has, and it certain sounds like True Axis is on board with lots of ideas in their own if the game is famous sufficient to warrant common updates.

In the stop, True Skate‘s list of returned-of-the-field features leaves plenty to be desired. You get one park, one skateboard, and a handful of various dreams to finish, which absolutely received’t take very long in any respect and in the main serve to get you acclimated with gambling the sport. But that’s the factor: after you are acclimated, the game immediately opens up with close to-infinite opportunities, and that’s what I’ve enjoyed most.

True Skate Android for Ios

Some gamers aren’t inquisitive about sandbox-fashion reports, and you would possibly want to hold off and spot how True Skate evolves over the years. But even though that’s the case, for a couple of dollars that is one of the maximum particular games inside the App Store, and a actual showpiece of what a touchscreen tool is capable of. That alone is possibly really worth the small fee of admission for most.

 True Skate is truely some thing unique. It feels just like the form of recreation that our touchscreen devices were made for, and appears appropriate to boot. If you’re into skateboarding already I’ll simply tell you flat out: purchase this sport, you will fall in love. If you’re no longer closely into skating then possibilities are you’ll like True Skate loads too, as long as the shortage of established dreams isn’t a deal-breaker for you. For me, it’s the sheer act of playing that continues me coming lower back, and gamers in our forums have been loving it as nicely. I don't have any doubt that True Skate already bests all other skating video games on iOS, and has the potential to grow nicely beyond its stellar foundation.

[luxuryvehicle]

LV #1: Nile Gibbs

Jon Colyer: Alright Nile, basic info. Let’s hear your full name, your date of birth and your hometown, where you hail from.

Nile Gibbs: My full name is Nile Duncan Gibbs. I was born in Seattle, Washington, but I grew up on Bainbridge Island, which is just across the water from Seattle. I’m 24 years old.

JC: Bainbridge Island, where is that?

NG: It’s like a ferry ride away from Seattle, 25 or 30 minutes. Just a small, small island, where you kind of know everyone. That’s where I grew up skating though, we would just take big weekend trips over to Seattle to skate the streets or the local indoor park, Innerspace.

JC: When do you first remember coming across skateboarding?

NG: Damn. I want to say I was like 11 years old. Even before I had moved over to Bainbridge… Actually, I was probably like seven or something, and we had gotten X-Games boards as a Christmas present or something, my brother and I. My mom was going to take us to the old Seaskate, the second one that was built. We get there and we were just so fearful that we ended up just skating across the street in these little tennis courts. I don’t even think we got on our boards; we were just in awe of older kids and adults skateboarding at the actual skatepark. It wasn’t until years later that I had a neighbor who I thought was cool or edgy or whatever, he like smoked cigs and could fuckin’ ollie and do tricks that I didn’t even know the names of. I was like “Damn, this could be cool to try this.” For my birthday when I turned 12 I asked for a fuckin’ Element Bamagram skateboard, I printed it out off the Internet and sent it to my grandma to ask her for it. On my birthday I ended up getting a hand-me-down board from my cousin Bergen, but I was so stoked.

JC: Who did you start skating with, who were the first people you met that skated?

NG: I had a few friends in middle school that skated, one of them, we had happened to be in the same class in elementary school, we became friends. He already could skateboard, knew how to skateboard, and he would give me all his old shoes and shit.

JC: Who was this?

NG: This was Manny (Dancel). He always had old Adio’s and shit. I had an idea of what skate shoes were, like Adio’s and the I-Path’s with the strap. He gave me those and I was like “Damn, Air Force I-Paths!”

JC: (Laughs)

NG: So it was just like, me, him and my older brother Jordan skated too. I think we picked it up around the same time; he got a board a little later. Along with his older friends that skated, we became a crew.

JC: So Manny skated before you?

NG: Yeah.

JC: But Jordan skated after you?

NG: Yeah, yeah. Manny could already ollie and shit. I remember him showing me how to jump down stairs. I would just roll off stairs, but he could actually ollie.

JC: So growing up in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains a lot, what would you do to cope with that?

NG: Fuck, it was crazy, we definitely took advantage of every dry day. And when it wasn’t dry we had this undercover area that we would go to. Fuckin’ seven days a week it seemed like, every day in the winter after school.

JC: That was the LGI?

NG: Yeah, at my high school (Editor’s Note: Bainbridge Island High School). After awhile people kind of knew us, like teachers and whoever on the school staff. We were already the rebellious kids throughout our school careers, so they knew we’d be skating after class. And we also had like an old gas station we could go to that we knew closed at 4:00 or 5:00 pm, we would wait for them to close. It was called Hockett and Olson.

JC: A gas station that closed at 5:00 pm?

NG: Yeah, and an auto body shop. It was literally as big as this room, the overhead area. But we could skate stationary flatground and the little curbs there. It was across the street from the apartments I lived in.

JC: So with you guys at the LGI seven days a week sometimes, did the teachers and the custodians and the security guards just sort of know who you were?

NG: Yeah them and typical small town folks, you know? The police? They knew us, all 10 of them or however many there were. There were times when we would get our boards taken and we wouldn’t really know how to get them back, we thought once they took them that was the end of it. It got to a point where we would just run away any time we saw a police officer.

JC: Of course.

NG: The town was so little that they would just meet us at the next spot or even get there before us. It would be a gamble whether they’d take our boards or just give us a slap on the wrist.

JC: How many people live on Bainbridge Island?

NG: I think the population is like 26,000 or something.

JC: Do you think that small town environment had an affect on the way that you skateboard now?

NG: It got me accustomed to being able to wake up early, say its dry in the morning but not at night. I’m a planner, it’s been awhile since I’ve planned anything, but when I’m skating all the time I have things planned out. Since I was 16 too, I’ve always been trying to hold a job, so I’ve also learned to skate around work.

JC: Outside of your friends, do you remember the stuff in magazines and videos back then that had an influence on you?

NG: Yeah, along with getting my first skateboard, the first two mags I ever got, I stole from the Safeway nearby where I lived. One was a Thrasher, it had Jamie Thomas on the cover barefoot, grinding a rail. (Editor’s Note: December 2006)

JC: Yup, King of the Road.

NG: Yup. And then the other one was… Skateboarder or something? Another mag that’s not in business anymore. But yeah, I stole that and it was just on from there. I thought Zero was the sickest. Jamie Thomas being The Chief and all. Even though none of that really influenced how I skated, I just thought those were like, the top-notch dudes. Same thing with Tony Hawk, I thought he was super sick, but I never really wished to skate any sort of ramp.

JC: Do you remember the first skate video you saw?

NG: My first video was a local Manik video, it was Splash or something. My friend Manny had the tape and he brought it over to watch. He had older brothers who skated and I think they were trying to show us what was out there, spot-wise. It was probably the year it came out or the year after. That video influenced me for sure. A few months later Josh Anderson, who was a local pro for Manik, ended up being the first pro skater I ever met, and he has a part in that video.

JC: When do you first remember filming tricks? Who was the first person that filmed you?

NG: Out there gettin’ it? Shit, since I was a fetus, nahm sayin’? I been making it happen!

JC: (Laughs)

NG: Nah fuck, its probably still on YouTube. It was an old Bainbridge High School edit, some dude named Kyle, who was originally from California, was filming us with like a tiny mini-DV camera as we skated this little drop. It was maybe two feet high, but we would do every trick off of it, meaning like pop shove, kickflip, heelflip. I want to say that I varial flipped it, and that trick made the cut for the video. Then I definitely would try to go skate with him and try to jump off stuff.

JC: At what point did James Lorimer enter the picture?

NG: Oh yeah, Janky (laughs). Probably like a year or two after I started skating I started seeing this kid who was just insanely good, and could skate both switch and regular. He was really good at both and I just thought that was insane. He would film videos himself and had videos he made on YouTube, so I would low key always watch those. I figured out he lived in the area, and his name was James.

JC: And he had just moved there?

NG: Yeah he had also come from California, San Diego. He was the new Cali kid coming into our scene. He knew how to skate flatground really well and that was such a big influence on me. Also filming, just going out trying to explore and film tricks. It was so crazy to think that I could hang out with dudes who were like, four or five years older than me. Especially back then, when I was like twelve, these dudes were almost adults to me, but that didn’t really matter because we were all just skating.

JC: Yeah?

NG: Yeah. But when I met James we pumped out like four or five video parts nahm sayin?

JC: (Laughs) Just to keep the timeline straight, what year was this?

NG: 2006 or something? I was 12 when he moved there, he was probably 15. Then after that I got to a point when I was about 16 or 17 when, I wasn’t like over skateboarding, but I was meeting new people and having other friends who definitely did not skateboard at all, so I kind of started doing other stuff. I have an addictive personality or whatever they call it, where you do one thing and get super into it. For me, that thing became basketball for like a year. I literally didn’t pick up my skateboard for one year.

JC: I definitely remember that year.

NG: Yeah, because I would see you guys! I would see you and James just fuckin’ skating the LGI or whatever, and try to duck.

JC: We asked you “When are you going to skate again?”

NG: James was probably a little more mean about it, he wanted to beat the shit out of me.

JC: Yeah, and at one point we asked you that and you just laughed and said “Never,” then you walked away.

NG: (Laughs) It helped too, because it disciplined me. Nothing is really handed to you, and nobody has to give you any chances either. So it’s like, just go out and get it yourself. Playing basketball on a high school level too, I got conditioned. I came back and I could ollie higher, jump over way more shit.

JC: Sick. I remember James calling me when you came back to skateboarding, he said you beat him at SKATE just trading off with just his board or something. Still doing nollie flips and tre flips and shit.

NG: Yeah! Something like that.

JC: Going backwards a little, were you already filming with Ben Ericson when you stepped away?

NG: Not really. But actually, when I was like, 14 or 15 or whatever, James met this guy that had nice camera gear and shit. He kept saying he was legit, really good at filming, just seemed cool too. He was like an older dude, a little older than us. I met him and then we didn’t really film until like exactly a year later. I met him in the summer when I was probably 14, then we didn’t film anything until the next summer. It’s funny that it took a whole year for us to actually go skate, because we essentially lived only two towns apart, and the scene wasn’t huge.

JC: You were probably the only person in that area at the time that was really trying to skate, and Ben was definitely the only person who was serious about shooting skating.

NG: Definitely, but people are busy. I didn’t have a car, so either Ben would drive out to pick me up, or James and I might spend two hours driving to a spot to meet him, before that maybe just take the bus. In that time, whether or not we got anything didn’t even really matter, it was more that we were just out there skateboarding. We had a goal, but nobody was enforcing any sort of deadline.

JC: So when did you become fully re-immersed in skateboarding after stepping away?

NG: Probably days after my last high school basketball game, so I was 18. I went to 35th North and bought a brand new complete board. The same dudes were working there that were there when I left skating. I love that place.

JC: And you were back in the streets?

NG: Yeah! Just picked right back up. I started filming with Ben right off the bat and was trying to get back to where I was before I quit.

JC: You filmed that little “Welcome Back” part with James too at that time?

NG: Yeah, we filmed that part, which was basically just me sort of getting everything back. Then when that was done I just sort of picked up where I left off with Ben, nobody even really knowing that I had quit. We had probably a good couple minutes of footage that I hadn’t even seen at the time. That stuff never saw the light of day, which I’m totally fine with. But I’m sure it shows the stages of me growing up too, at like 15 or 16.

JC: Now those clips are like eight or nine years old!

NG: Exactly, and the video took about seven years to come out anyway. You can see the progress, sometimes I have short hair, sometimes I have an afro, then a flat top. Skinny pants to slightly baggier pants…

JC: Purple Axions?

NG: Yeah! (Laughs) So many levels.

JC: But like you said before, with Ben, it’s always more about the ritual of going skating and hanging out with your friends and exploring than it is about stacking clips at every session. I’m not surprised a video like that takes seven years to come out, but look at the finished product. Amazing.

NG: For sure.

JC: When did you move to Seattle from Bainbridge?

NG: It was kind of a weird time for me, because I was living with my brother and trying to finish high school. During my last summer before senior year I wanted to move out, because my brother was out of school already and it was getting too hectic at the place he lived. I decided to move out with a friend of mine, who then ended up having to go to jail over some stuff. He had a warrant that caught up to him and had to do jail time to straighten it out. It happened to be around the same time we had found a place, only the first or second month that we moved in. When he left I wasn’t really capable of paying enough money to hang on to the place alone, with no knowledge of when he might be out. On top of that, I had to start basketball with the new school year. So I broke the lease and ended up moving into my grandparent’s house in Seward Park, Seattle when I was 17, turning 18.

JC: But you were still going to Bainbridge High School at that point? Were you commuting to school?

NG: Yeah, so I commuted the whole year my senior year on the ferries. It wasn’t really bad at all. Essentially it’s a half-hour ferry ride and then about a 20 minute walk to school from there. It’s mellow.

JC: Was the school hooking you up with an Orca card or what?

NG: My grandma got me one, they might’ve been paying her back for it but I’m really not sure.

JC: You already mentioned this, but how did your initial connection with 35th North take place?

NG: When I was still really young, 15 or 16, I went in there for the first time. Before that, we had a skateshop very close to the ferry terminal in Seattle, Snowboard Connection. They eventually moved locations, making it inconvenient for me to shop there. Around the same time James and my other friends started telling me that 35th was the place to go in Seattle for boards, but it was further up from the ferry terminal on Capitol Hill. Anyway, the first time I went I was amazed by how sick it was. The owner, Tony, was there and really dope. Somehow he already knew that I was coming over from Bainbridge and taking the ferry, so he gave me a discount on the very first board I bought there.

JC: Did he know who you were?

NG: I guess so? From like Ben and James having YouTube videos or something. I think James and Manny were already going to 35th for boards so they probably mentioned me. I was 15, so that was right before the first time I did All-City. I’m sure Ben had said something as well, or showed him my footage to get me in the contest. Tony hooked me up with a deal though, not like I was sponsored or anything at the time, and he was just extremely friendly. I guess it was a blessing that Snowboard Connection moved (Laughs).

JC: What was the first time you did All-City Showdown? You did it quite a few times, what was your overall impression of the contest?

NG: I didn’t even really think of it as a contest at first. I was 16 the first time I did it, and it was on my birthday (September 2nd).

JC: That was probably the first time I had heard your name. Around that year of All-City was also the time I started commuting to 35th for boards from Poulsbo. Tony asked me about you the first time I came in the shop. I remember seeing your team’s footage on the All-City DVD and wondering how the hell I hadn’t met any of you guys yet. Not to mention I was blown away by Ben’s filming. He probably had some of the best looking clips in the whole contest, but he was just some dude from the boonies. When you think back on all your video projects while living in Seattle, which ones stand out?

NG: Back then I wasn’t even filming with a goal in mind. Like I said before, I wasn’t trying to get myself out there really. My thought process was more like “I want to go film, these dudes are cool, I’m into skating with these guys, I’m into these filmers, they’re just dope people, so I’m going to just film with them.” I just didn’t want to half-ass things really, have like a couple clips here and there. More like, why don’t I try to get as much footage as possible with like, these four or five dudes. You got 24 hours in a day, you have so much time to do anything you need to do. Go to work, try to get a clip before work or after work.

JC: Before the filmer goes to work? (Laughs)

NG: Exactly, and I didn’t have like a girlfriend or anything back then. The first real video “part” I had drop though was that sponsor me tape thing or “Homies” as James titled it. I really legitimately thought that that was what people did, they just upload their footage to YouTube and send their own footage to companies, like a mixtape. So that was kind of what I did, and then to make it a part we just added some fuckin’ music to it and called it a day.

JC: It’s good!

NG: Yeah, but a few months after that was when I took a break and wasn’t skating, so that’s pretty funny. I remember this though, on January 1, 2012 I wrote something on Facebook saying like “This year I’m going to skate more.” Like some New Year’s resolution bullshit, and then that was the year that I ended up not skating at all (laughs). It was New Year’s so I think I had been drinking the night before and just woke up and thought, “I’m going to do something better with myself.”

JC: Amazing.

NG: The video part that really stands out though as the first big one I had was The Outer Limits part, for sure. That was the first premiere I was really a part of, other than those All-City Showdown premieres. The dude who made that, Ben Ericson, is my favorite filmer in the Northwest. Just his vision and his talent are amazing.

JC: Absolutely.

NG: After that, it was on. Like, “I’m just going to skate.” At that time too I wasn’t really on social media that much. I didn’t pay attention, so I didn’t see as much of what was going on in the skate scene, or realize that what I was doing was excessive.

JC: What do you mean?

NG: Like filming too much, dumping too much content on the Internet or Instagram without a purpose. It wasn’t like a company or anyone was asking me to do that. So I kind of changed my vision or my train of thought after that.

JC: We were filming a lot together during that point. We did Luxury Vehicle around the same time as Outer Limits, and then we immediately did that night part for Amigos Skateboards.

NG: That was sick though! Like a month later we had the premiere for Luxury Vehicle and I had a full part in that. Those dudes, too, like Dane (Barker), Ian (Wishart) and Michael (Bala), were more of the dudes who I was actually skating with every day at that point. Whereas with Outer Limits we had all already started to drift apart. That’s why Ben started to get serious I think, in his head he was like “Were not skating as much as we all were before, such-and-such isn’t even skating at all.”

JC: I do remember the point when you told me you felt that you needed to move on from that project, it had been X number of years and none of the footage had come out.

NG: That’s why Luxury Vehicle was important too. I took filming for that part very seriously, because we had a set deadline and we knew when it was coming out. I watched you book the premiere and shit and just knew it was coming. That was a fun time, another reason to bring the whole skate community together to watch a video.

JC: There are a lot of good memories in there.

NG: Yup. Then we moved in together in December of that year and just said “It’s the winter, it gets dark early, why don’t we try to make something all at night?”

JC: That came out in March or April of 2016, right as daylight savings time was ending and the days were getting longer.

NG: Yeah, just cranked it out in like four months. That was really my first time interacting much with security guards too, being able to try to just sneak a clip in here or there before you get a full boot.

JC: Then we moved right into Aggressors with kind of a new group of friends that were around, you were riding for Amigos for most of that?

NG: Yeah, I was out there repping the local brand. Amigos was so sick.

JC: I remember getting out of town a lot more around then too.

NG: We started taking lots of trips around the Northwest. Portland, Bellingham, Tacoma, just hungry to explore, see what else we could do besides skate the same downtown spots over and over.

JC: Then at what point did you start thinking of moving to California? And why San Francisco as opposed to Los Angeles or someplace else?

NG: Well we had to leave our living situation; we only signed a nine-month lease. I wasn’t getting burnt out on skating in Seattle, but maybe just burnt out with skating only in Seattle, if that makes sense. I always envisioned like, maybe moving to California for a while just to see what it had to offer. There was always something in the back of my mind like “Maybe you could do something more with skating down there.” But really, it was just to try out living a different life from where I was born and raised. I was still really young and didn’t really have any responsibilities besides just taking care of myself, so why not go? I didn’t ever really think of moving to San Francisco until I met Tony (Vitello) over at Thrasher. Tony at Thrasher and Tony (Croghan) at 35th North are good friends. Croghan knew I wanted to move to California and just sort of brought it forward to Tony Vitello, who said like “Yeah he could move to San Francisco and stay at such-and-such.”

JC: So that was enough for you to bolt?

NG: Yeah that was enough, and I had never been to San Francisco before that. I didn’t know anything about it, besides it being the mecca of street skateboarding, and I really didn’t even know what that meant. But then I stepped into Double Rock and saw Chico Brenes and Myles Silvas. It seemed so surreal.

JC: Was it always in the initial plan to stay?

NG: Well with him allowing me to stay at Double Rock I figured “Oh I’ll just stay down here for a couple months and then once the weather gets better in Seattle in, say May or April, I’ll move back.” I figured I’d pat myself on the back and go back to Seattle. I didn’t even necessarily think I’d be working down here or anything. I had saved up some money to couch surf, even though I really didn’t have any friends down here at all. Tony and my other friend Tet, those were the only dudes I even knew. One thing led to another and I’m still here. It’s been two years, a little over.

JC: How did you end up working for High Speed?

NG: When he told me I could stay at Double Rock, I actually had no idea that it was right across the street from the headquarters. I got there was just like “1303 Underwood Ave, that’s Thrasher right there!” It was kind of a struggle right when I first got down here because we (Editor’s Note: Nile and Ian Wishart) lived in a skatepark. There was no motivation to find a job because literally we would walk out of our room and just be in the skatepark. Then it turned into like “I’m gonna go skate with such-and-such instead of trying to go get a nine-to-five job over at the café.” But that could only last for so long, you know? All my money was going to shit, I had maybe a month left of savings and I decided to get a job at Whole Foods, and then I ended up finding a really shitty place with you…

JC: Yup.

NG: Then we got a slightly less shitty spot out in Glen Park. We let that run for a little bit and while that was all going on I was staying in touch with Tony (Vitello) on a friendly basis, hanging out or skating. Eventually he was like “Hey, I have some stuff you could do here and work part-time.” As soon as he said that I was down, I would rather do this than almost anything else I can think of. At first it was just little stuff like cleaning out a room or organizing books here and there, mags, shipping stuff out from the warehouse, whatever there was that would allow myself to stay longer within the mag, I wanted to do whatever I could do to help. Tony got the idea to start a skate store, a Thrasher store, and wanting me to be a part of it. At that point I knew I was definitely going to stay in San Francisco, if not for skateboarding just to be a part of that.

JC: You were basically their first staff member for 66 6th.

NG: Yeah. I don’t know, but I was for sure one of the first dudes Tony spoke to about potentially working there. I was just in awe, I was like “Holy shit, this could be something really sick.”

JC: How did you get involved with GX?

NG: I knew that Ryan (Garshell) lived out here and filmed all those videos and shit. I was always super into his work as well, I admired his filming and how he goes about putting out a lot of footage of really good dudes that skate in San Francisco. Like the second day of me going out skateboarding in the city I met Ryan and Al Davis and Brian De La. They were all hanging out with my friend Tet, who showed me around the city at first. The city is so small you just see a lot of dudes around. Ryan was working on a video, and the first time I got a clip with him he asked me if I wanted to put it towards that. From there we just started filming more stuff. At first he was like “I’m putting out a video at the end of the year,” which was four months away. Four months led to another year of filming.

JC: You guys went all over the place filming for Roll Up.

NG: Yeah we fuckin’… we went on an East Coast trip where we went to Philly and we went to New York. I had already been to New York City but I had never been to Philadelphia at all. It was super sick, I didn’t really get much there but there was fuckin’ 15 of us, it was so insane. Whether it was everyone trying to skate the same spot at once or just trying to get everyone out of the house and ready. A lot of the homies were definitely trying to go out and party and enjoy themselves. I don’t blame ‘em. We were out here across the country, gotta make the most of it.

JC: You had some clips in the video and people responded really well to them. People were singling you out on the SLAP forum as having some of their favorite clips in the video.

NG: I got a handful of clips nahm sayin? (Laughs) I didn’t imagine he would even use as much as he did just because he’s critical, which is good. Quality over quantity, there’s no reason to have an 80-minute video when it could be 40 minutes and speak to people just as well.

JC: One thing I remember from that premiere is that the whole video is super damaging. It’s just one insane clip after another. You stand there for 40 minutes but you’re just being pummeled by raw footage of insane hill bombs the entire time. It’s the exact opposite of watched “BLESSED” or something.

NG: Someone said they counted, and there are 45 hill bombs in the video. That made me wonder how many clips total made the cut. Like if it’s 100 clips total or something then the video is half hill bombs. But that’s fuckin’ SF.

JC: Who’s your favorite roller to watch?

NG: Probably Matt Finley, that dude is super fun to watch. He has a good bag of flatground tricks. He wasn’t able to get out filming a bunch while I was around because he’s been injured a lot, so it was definitely magical every time I got to watch him skate. Jesse (Vieira) was definitely fuckin’ insane. Especially because he’s not only a risk taker, but also talented enough to really fuckin’ do all those crazy things. Imagine how much footage he must have had the will never see the light of day. That dude can skate whatever the hell you want him to skate or whatever the hell he wants to skate.

JC: Like Geoff Rowley.

NG: Yeah, Jesse was a beautiful sight to behold in the streets. As a person as well, beautiful.

JC: What’s up with the movie you’re in? How did you become a stunt double?

NG: Yeah lemme plug. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, out June 14, go see that shit! Nah, that was insane. Fuckin… just over skating at my local park, SoMa. It was one of those days that I wasn’t really expecting to skate at all, I think I had work in the afternoon. I was supposed to meet up with whoever and they bailed, so I ended up at the park for like 20, 30 minutes. There was no one there of course, it was pretty early in the day. This guy was there, on his phone talking about who-knows-what forever and just looking at me and everyone else at the park, just eyeing everyone. I was like “Who the fuck is this guy?” Eventually he like yells at me and tells me to come to the gate. I said what’s up and he was like “Yo were filming for this movie, you really fit the description of the main character who skateboards.” I had a flat top at the time and he asked me “Is there any way you could pat down your hair? Because the character doesn’t have much hair.” I told him that I could figure it out and I took his crumpled up business card. They needed me in just a couple weeks, the shoot was happening immediately. At the end of the conversation he was like “Oh by the way, we’ll pay you.”

JC: I would hope so.

NG: And then to persuade me he started listing off other skaters and actors in the movie: Daewon Song, Andy Roy, Danny Glover, Mike Epps. Soon after that I went over to his office and he told me the same thing again “You might have to cut your hair, let me see what your hair looks like patted down.” I told him I really wasn’t interested in cutting it unless they were going to pay me a decent amount of money. We came to an agreement on that, his initial offer was more than I thought he would be willing to pay. I ended up cutting my hair into a little-ass nappy ‘fro.

JC: Wow.

NG: Then when it came to start shooting, the script for what we would be doing wasn’t really all the way developed. It was all written, but it was extremely flexible. The other stunt double was a little bit older and wasn’t willing to do quite as much with skating, he wasn’t out there trying to bomb these sketchy-ass hills so they also had me doing some of his work. I was totally fine with that, but then it turned into like me being at work and them calling me like “Hey can you meet up within the next half hour? So-and-so isn’t able to perform this stunt and the last day to shoot this is today. We’ll pay you for a full days work!”

JC: Was it fun? Do you see a future in that for yourself?

NG: Honestly, it was so fun. Something I never thought I’d be able to do or experience. If there’s more work where that came from, sign me up. I’m down! I might have to go skate the park more often.

JC: Maybe you should just hang out at SoMa everyday.

NG: Psych!

JC: What are your favorite things in the current state of skateboarding?

NG: Fuck dude, all those dudes from Europe, Atlantic Drift! It’s been awhile since they put anything out. That’s probably for the best, I’m sure they’re working on the next one. Nah but they put out some really good edits in the last couple years. The Isle video Vase is also one of my favorite videos of all time. I also love seeing new Ishod (Wair) footage. And he always pumps out clips on Instagram or whatever, even if its skatepark footage, I always love to see what he’s doing.

JC: What’s wack then? What stuff do you NOT like?

NG: Instagram is definitely the worst BEST thing there is. It’s like, you could use it in a good way, but in most cases it just oversaturates everything. It’s so easy and so convenient that it just makes everything so bland and excessive. It’s hard to keep your relevancy up or even stay up with consumption, let alone avoid all the bad shit that’s out there. Instagram is just the forefront of it all, you have all these fools trying to trend set and being super blatant about shit. Skatepark clips too, you have so many of them now and they’re so extreme. For me it’s like SoMa park footage, every time I see that on my feed I just scroll right past. You can only watch it so many times.

JC: We spoke on this subject a couple years ago, just on how approaches to social media use change over time. I used to think that posting a lot on Instagram, especially when I was trying to make my full-length videos, was a really good way to market myself, and my product. I think we can agree now that by posting less you’re actually making people care more. Unintentionally, by avoiding Instagram, you’re creating a bigger demand for your footage.

NG: It’s good to be mysterious. You definitely don’t have to put your personal life on the Internet. But if some lonely-ass kid in a small town with nobody to skate with or talk to about skating wants to use Instagram as a way to connect with skateboarding, I’d say that beats just being lonely and depressed. For the most part though, I just see people on there trying to glamourize their lives.

JC: Well said.

NG: I remember when you started deleting it off your phone to take breaks. I was wondering “Why would you even need to do that?” But now a couple years later I realize that you can start to depend on it as some source of pleasure.

JC: To wrap this up, who are your top five Seattle skaters?

NG: I mean, Cory Kennedy. He’s up there, he’s a hall of famer. I’d say Jordan Sanchez as well, I grew up admiring him, seeing him skate in Adidas and shit from the start of it all.

JC: The Campus Vulc?

NG: That shit just looked so sick. In terms of Seattle skate figures I always enjoyed dudes like Marshall (Reid) who seemed like they were in control of it all. He owned Manik and it seemed like the whole Manik vision came from him. I admire that. There’s also some kid I just heard about who’s on the come up right now. I think his last name is Gass?

JC: Never heard of him. (Laughs)

NG: He can skate, he’s kinda cool.

JC: One more.

NG: Brandon Taylor, he was super sick.

JC: How about Bay Area skaters?

NG: Chico is sick, 44 years young and still ripping. Al Davis if he’d stop getting hurt and skate more. Those dudes are older too, and with age comes responsibility. Also Drake Johnson, Jesse Vieira again, Matt Finley again, Simon Jensen too, he’s finally getting some shine.

JC: Last question: What’s going on with your knee?

NG: It’s fucked man. I partially tore my meniscus but I think there’s something else going on with it as well. After this third month of not skating it’s feeling pretty strong, but I’m getting a second opinion on it soon by another doctor who will hopefully tell me when I should be able to skate again. Right now they’re telling me it will be healed in another month.

JC: I’ve never known you to be a guy who takes much time off when you’re injured either. Usually you just push it the second you start feeling better.

NG: Ah, you know what? That reminds me, add Sean Greene to the list of my favorite Bay Area skaters. (Laughs) That dude is a fucking powerhouse. Fastest dude, best flatground, he’s not young either. 30 years old now, maybe 31. That whole GX crew is probably a lot older than people realize, San Francisco is a hard city to make it in if you’re not somewhat of a mature adult who can handle yourself. It’s an older city, for sure.

JC: Anything else?

NG: Well right now I’m fuckin’ unable to skate, so I’ve been looking forward to doing other things aside from skating. I think it’s so boring to be described as only a skateboarder, there’s more shit to do.