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axiomsofice · 3 years ago

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Group A:

Owen Power, D, NCAA

This is likely the only pick that we’ll be able to predict with much conviction. It’s a package that is impossible to ignore, a huge frame, good passing skills, and already contributing at a high level. Seeing as the second-to-last defenceman to go 1st (Ekblad, get well) just started to transform into his best self, and with Dahlin posting uneven results early in his journey, there shouldn’t be an expectation for Power to make the jump to Buffalo next season. Especially given he’d be headed back to Michigan, a higher level than junior, this should be an ideal place for him to hone his craft for a year or two before the Sabre slide him into their top 4.

Group B: 2nd to 10th

Some consensus should be coming as we approach the draft, but in general it wouldn’t be surprising for these players to be selected anywhere in this range. Central accounting’s lists were quite surprising and I definitely take their opinions to heart, along with many other opinions as well. I’ve divided them by position.

Defence:

Brandt Clarke, D, Slovakia (via OHL)

Clarke went overseas to find playing time this season, playing pro in Slovakia. He’s got a lot of agility, or shiftiness, with and without the puck. He’s aggressive in pursuing offence with his passing and skating, and has the quality to make plays and even score goals when he jumps up into the play.

Luke Hughes, D, USNDTP

The third instalment of the Hughes Brothers (Quinn and Jack), Luke is bigger than his brothers and amongst the youngest of the draft class. He has all the tools we’ve come to expect from the family interns of puck skills and skating prowess, although time will tell maybe not quite to the level of his brothers, but nonetheless standouts amongst this draft class. Given his age, and playing at a lower level than the rest of these top ranked defenders, the baseline of at least one more year before thinking about jumping to the NHL might be 2 for Hughes. With patience and development, Hughes could prove to have the most upside among blueliners in this class.

Simon Edvinsson, D, SHL

Not quite as tall as Power, but Edvinsson a big person in his own right. He uses this size and his skating to be a really effective defender. His offensive game, especially his passing and decision making, or perhaps better framed as transitions, is still a bit raw. Surviving in the SHL at this age is definitely an accomplishment, and the hope is that next season he can make a bigger difference in that league. It seems all but guaranteed he’ll be able to contribute in the NHL at some point, the question is more about how much.

CENTRE

Matt Beniers, C, NCAA

Beniers is definitely the prospect I’ve seen the most of in the class, and especially early in the season I had almost cone to terms with ranking him number 1. Although it is significant to me that Central Scouting had him as their 6th NA skater. He’ll be described as a 2-way centre, maybe a 2nd line type of centre, and I wonder if it’s mostly due to a perceived lack of upside that others might have jumped past him. Regardless, he’s already succeeding in at Michigan and played a big role on the Gold Medal U20 US team. He supports his teammates all over the ice and is a great passing outlet from breakouts to zone entries. He does have some skill and is probably my favourite to go 2nd overall at this point (June).

Mason McTavish, C, SUI (via OHL)

Another OHL top prospect who had to venture overseas for ice time, McTavish performed really well in a men’s pro league. Perhaps a bit more powerful in skating and style than Beniers, the situation with the OHL, a strong U18 performance, and a high season end Central Scouting Ranking (2nd NA), it’s likely McTavish will be considered a late riser, even though it’s not as if a strong development curve wasn’t expected. Especially as we get closer to the draft we should expects to see his name solidify itself in this 2-10 group, especially given his position.

WINGS

William Eklund, W, SHL

Eklund posted really good results in the SHL this year. He is able to contribute offensively in many ways, and at this point his game seems to be more effective than astounding. Having succeeded at such a high level already it’s hard to imagine he won’t be able to make a difference on an NHL roster in a year or two.

Kent Johnson, W, NCAA

Johnson might be a good foil to Eklund in that his play oozes skill, often able to makes and see plays at an extremely high level. He was able to translate it into both a strong performance at Michigan, and a high spot on Central Scoutings’ List. The fact that they ranked him above Beniers is very interesting to me, and says that scouts think his game will take well as he moves into higher levels. He is very fun to watch and attacks laterally in a way that only the high quality players can.

Dylan Guenther, W, WHL

19/20 was strong for Guenther, and a short and strange season for the WHL was enough for him to grow his reputation. He averaged both a goal and an assist per game in 24 games this season, basically playing as well as he could have. The CHL leagues were probably most affected among top development leagues, so it’s hard to know how much that affected things. That being said, should he return to the WHL it’ll be a tall task to improve his offensive output. Despite playing at a lower level he is very much in the mix with Eklund and Johnson, and it is quite likely there will be nothing close to a consensus on which order these wingers are selected.

Goalie

Jesper Wallstedt, G, SHL

More and more often were seeing really high ranked goaltenders, and as more of them start to pan out, it’s hard to make a case picking against Wallstedt. Posting great numbers in the SHL as a skater is impressive, but in net the accomplishment becomes truly rare among draft eligibles. The position is volatile, and it often takes time to find the metal stability to be an NHL starter. That’s why despite the dominant results in the SHL, it’s probably best to err on the side of patience. That being said, it’s exciting to conceptualize that he might be able to make a difference at the NHL level in 2-3 years vs in his mid to late 20s as is common for netminders.

Group C

This group I would call likely 1st rounders, obviously some of this caliber of player can fall into round 2, even in more normal years. Some might even be able to push over some of the group B prospects ranked ahead.

WINGS

Matthew Coronato, W, USHL

The Chicago Steel have a great program, and seem to have a more consistent line of talent than most of the others in their league, perhaps similar to the London Knights of the OHL. That being said Coronato scored at a ridiculous pace, even compared to his teammates. In part thanks to the Steel this league is being seen as more and more credible when it comes to drafting prospects. It is still not quite as strong of a league as the SHL or NCAA, but it might be the only thing that keeps him from going in the top 10.

Nikita Chibrikov, W, KHL

There is debate about who the best Russian forward prospect is between Chibrikov and Svechkov. In Chibrikov’s favour is the ranking from Central Scouting as well as a really strong U18 performance. It seems every year that the best Russian prospects don’t garner much respect from those who aren’t scouting the region specifically, so it shouldn’t be a surprise for all 3 Russians in this range (Chibrikov, Svechkov, and Chayka) to be selected earlier than one might expect.

Fabian Lysell, W, SHL

He is not quite as good a prospect as Lucas Raymond from the 2020 draft, yet the two are similar in that they are small, offensively capable wingers who didn’t get much ice time in their draft years, and who are much better at pressuring the puck all over the ice than given credit for. It wouldn’t be a surprise for him to fall a bit due to his stature, but Lysell still figures to go I. The first round.

Isak Rosen, W, SHL

Simon Robertsson, W, SHL

Brendan Othmann, W, SUI

Othmann has the size, power, and skating skills that figure to translate well to the pros. He has the shot and puck skills to be dangerous on the rush and gets a lot of chances to do so thanks to his abilities in transition and counter attacks.

CENTRES

Aatu Raty, C, SML

At one point a favourite to be the top ranked prospect in this class, Raty stock has cooled recently thanks to some less than promising results in the Finnish pro league. He’s big and strong enough to be effective along the walls in zone offence, and is able to find open ice in shooting positions. Typically, the Finns employ a utilitarian skillset, disposed to strong 2-way play or substance over style. I believe that this often causes the offensive capability of Finnish prospects to be undersold (thinking of Anton Lundell from the 2020 draft). If supported in the right way Raty could be a steal, especially given the scarcity of strong centres in this class.

Fedor Svechkov, C, KHL

Cole Sillinger, C, WHL

Chaz Lucius, C, USNTDP

DEFENCE

Corson Cuelmans

Carson Lambos

Daniil Chayka

Group D

This group is players I have a first round grade on, but are by no means a lock to be selected afterwards. No doubt that some of this group will be selected from the mid second round and later. At this point there is a greater number of prospects, so I’ll merely name a few that I feel strongly about.

Forwards

Logan Stankoven

Zachary L’Heureux

Chase Stillman

Defence

Scott Morrow

Stanislav Svozil

#nhl #nhl draft

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livesbeneath · 4 years ago

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i'm so sorry for asking so many but .. 1-10 for the ilitw ask meme? i love reading about the mc's relationships with the characters bc it always differs between players :')

it lives in the woods mc ask meme.

pls don’t apologize u made my ENTIRE DAY!!!! i love learning abt people’s mcs too! (putting some of this under a read more bc it’s gonna get long)

what is your mc’s name? gender? orientation? ethnicity? any other tidbits you feel compelled to share?:

my mc’s (full) name is harley maura blanco! she’s a cis female, bi, white, and the only daughter of two super successful entrepreneurs. she has absolutely zero clue what she wants do with her life, and while school doesn’t particularly engage her, she isn’t really a slacker. lives most of her life in her head, more street smart than book smart. collects pins as a hobby!

rank the members of your friend group in order of who your MC was closest with to who they were least close with:

this one is SUPER hard just because she’s pretty close with all of them for different reasons. here’s a subject to change list: dan, noah, ava, lily, lucas, andy, stacy.

thoughts on dan pierce and your mc’s relationship with him:

other than jane, dan was the one that harley was arguably the closest with as a kid. neither had siblings, so they sort of became each other’s brother and sister. after their mishap on halloween of dressing as the same character, they made it a tradition to do so every year. the split from dan was really hard. she never resented him for climbing the social ladder and succeeding in high school, but she also never picked up on him struggling, which is something she kicks herself for endlessly. when she gets that text from him at the start of the book, she’s terrified, but also excited deep down that dan would message her after so long. even if they didn’t speak much until his rescue, they were never on bad terms. she dies mere hours after really reconnecting with him, but feels more relief after she saves him than she does at any point in the story.

thoughts on noah marshall and your ,c’s relationship with him:

noah and harley’s relationship kind of serves as the crux of my ilitw narrative. she had an innocent crush on him as a kid, something he resented due to how jealous he was of her relationship with jane. these feelings come back to bite her in the ass full force after they reconnect at the start of the plot. her and noah have just always been on the same wavelength, part of the same crowd, with the similar morals and ways of thinking; there are plenty of fish in the sea, but she wants the one emotionally unavailable fish. both of them harbor that guilt over not being able to protect jane, and that is what makes harley almost reach out to him a handful of times before the plot actually kicks in. the betrayal stings her harder than anything else, as she really thought they were getting to a place where they understood one another, but she still can’t find it in herself to be 100%b angry with him. she chooses to die in his place because even after everything, she loves him.

thoughts on andy kang and your mc’s relationship with him:

andy is the one that makes harley laugh the most. he brings out her livelier side and reminds her that she does know how to have fun, which is something she kind of forgot was possible after becoming so withdrawn. it can be assured whenever they’re together that harley is 10/10 the one that’s going to egg andy on in his antics. even in the time that the two of them were apart, harley was always silently cheering andy on from the sidelines. the true testament to their friendship comes with how quickly they were able to pick up where they left off as kids after not speaking to each other pretty much at all in the ten years between jane’s death and redfield’s resurgence. there are maybe 20 minutes of awkwardness between them before they go back to cracking jokes and being stupid together, and when andy is kidnapped and hurt, it’s the sight of him being dragged through those doors that superpowers harley into becoming the hero of the night.

thoughts on ava cunningham and your mc’s relationship with her:

as someone who is a bit offbeat, harley appreciates how unapologetically herself ava is. they bond over the fact that they aren’t like the masses and they they, in return, don’t really care what the masses think of them. even though ava is seen as unapproachable to most, harley actually finds her pretty easy to talk to once she gets past the initial fear of starting a conversation with her, and once they’re back on common ground during the plot, that fear vanishes entirely. they have a lot of similar views and share that “brave even in the face of death” mentality, meaning that ava is one of the people harley tends to go to first about most things. through that, they talk a lot on the regular about stuff other than redfield as well. harley is, quite frankly, terrified for ava when redfield gives her powers. she sees ava as one of the group’s MVPs due to her knowledge of the supernatural and her all around badassery, and is sick at the thought of losing her to those very things.

thoughts on lucas thomas and your mc’s relationship with him:

despite their obvious aesthetic differences at first glance, harley and lucas balance each other out perfectly. lucas is, truly, harley’s impulse control, and he helps her think through a lot of her good ideas to make them into rational good ideas. in return, harley knows how to sort through lucas’ problems to make them more manageable and imposes her more easygoing attitude on him when he needs it. harley has never held any grudge against him for becoming popular, as she mostly just saw him as an incredibly hard worker. for the longest time (until finding out about his struggles) she admired his work ethic, and definitely voted for him in every class election and similar situations. harley and lucas probably confide in each other / keep each other in check more than anyone else in the team. lucas was one of the gang members that harley spoke to the most throughout the ten year lapse, each conversation a short, friendly burst as they went opposite directions socially.

thoughts on stacy green and your mc’s relationship with her:

stacy is the member of the gang that, at the START of the story, harley feels she understands the least. the constant association of her with cody, britney, and jocelyn puts a very sour taste in harley’s mouth - even if stacy herself isn’t doing any of the bullying, she doesn’t say anything. their relationship reaches that deep place when stacy vents out to her that she’s being blackmailed by britney, which kicks up harley’s instinct to protect her friends. the two are pretty opposite in most ways, but their differences strengthen their friendship more than anyone else in the group. even when stacy doesn’t think of herself as a good person, harley does, and lifts her up at every opportunity she possibly can because she knows what stacy is capable of. emotionally, they are an outlet for one another about their respective social circles. physically, they are two of the most unassuming yet strongest fighters on the team, and work very well together in a battle setting.

thoughts on lily ortiz and your mc’s relationship with her:

lily is unequivocally, the one member of the original group that harley talked with the most throughout the ten year span between jane’s death and redfield’s awakening. both of them were deemed to be Losers by the popular kids, but both of them were open enough to seek each other out again from time to time, which explains how easy it is for them to talk at the start of the book, even if they didn’t necessarily consider themselves “friends” during that gap. harley is very protective of lily solely because she knows lily is good enough to give second chances to people like britney, but she never babies her, simply giving her advice when she sees fit out of the goodness of her heart. lily is one of the group members that harley actually feels most comforted by when she realizes how thin she’s trying to stretch herself to keep everything intact. all danger aside, harley and lily just genuinely think the other is so cool.

thoughts on connor green and your mc’s relationship with him:

in my narrative, harley and connor’s relationship serves as one of the foils to her relationship with noah. she didn’t pay too much mind to him when they were kids, often just thinking of him as stacy’s sill older brother, but they take an obvious interest in each other all those years later. harley doesn’t quite realize that 1. connor has a crush on her, because no one’s ever had a crush on her before or 2. that what she does could be considered flirtatious, because she’s never flirted with anyone before. any romantic feelings she has are reserved for noah, but she does value connor’s friendship a great amount and thinks he’s extremely cool. they share a lot of similarities, from not really knowing what they want to do with their lives to their generally unbothered dispositions, but what connor really wants is to, as things get more dire, save harley. what he doesn’t realize is that harley is the hero of this story.

#Anonymous #THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN THANK U!!!!#ch: mc (harley blanco)#book: it lives in the woods

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years ago

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Ghost Spider #2 Thoughts

Sigh...more of the same...

This premise gets worse the more you think about it.

I mean let’s talk about the most obvious thing that didn’t occur to me before. So Gwen needs to pick her entry points back and forth from Earth 616 carefully because her powers don’t work immediately after exiting a portal. To this end she chooses a spot she knows will lead to a bill board with poles jutting out she can grab onto before her powers kick in again.

...why not just open a portal on the ground?

Then you have the utter lack of world building.

It’s fair enough to presume that audiences are familiar with the world building of Earth 616. It’s been around for donkey’s years and it’s the basis for just about every media adaptation of Marvel ever, including the movies. Even if it’s far from a 1:1 similarity it is close enough that even comic book virgins can jump in and not be at too much of a loss. That’s particularly true for a Spidey series where the premise is to be relatively normal, the only fantastical elements demanding world building being the spider powers (which everyone on earth is aware of) and the villains, who often speak for themselves or are famous enough that you can presume knowledge from the audience.

But when it comes to alternate universes like Earth 65, which are specifically alternative to Earth 616, you do need to flesh some things out. And so far beyond Gwen is a super hero and not dead, nor is her Dad and Jameson’s son is an evil gangster not much world building going on.

More problematically is the fact that basic questions are never raised nor answered. Gwen says in Earth 65 she’s going to be late for a class in Earth 616. Is time synchronized though between universes? That’s a pretty basic question when dealing with parallel universes. In the Doctor Who episode ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ that question was answered almost immediately upon entry to the parallel Earth of that story, and the series at that time was trying to be baby’s first science fiction!

It’s not an unreasonable question to ask either given how from Spider-Man’s POV Spider-Verse (where he first met Spider-Gwen) was years ago but the first sentence of the recap page of this series states Gwen got her powers mere months ago.

Playing in the same ballpark as the bad world building is the ignoring of established continuity in regards to the Jackal. Now look, I could buy that Warren has gone so far off the deep end that he considers turning Gwen into a furry like him a good idea.

But...doesn’t Warren effectively consider his clones of Gwen as the real thing? Isn’t that the entire reason he cloned Gwen in the first place, why he set up the original clone of Gwen with a clone of himself to in a weird way live out his fantasy?

So why is he obsessed over this new version of Gwen, a version that for all he knows could just be another clone? In fact if you are Miles Warren wouldn’t that be the first thing you presume? It’s not like she has given any genetic samples he can test to confirm if she is a clone or not.

On the other end of this relationship I just realized how asinine it is that no one recognizes Miles Warren, especially at ESU. Sure once upon a time Warren’s identity was secret. Even after his presumed death in the 1970s Clone Saga his identity was a secret. But that all changed in the 1990s Clone Saga when he was arrested and sent to Ravencroft. At that point his identity became public knowledge. There were like SWAT teams after him for god’s sake! And it’s very difficult to believe that ESU, the place where he worked for years and then randomly disappeared from wouldn’t have heard about one of their staff members being a super villain. Especially a super villain who

a) Became a player in gangland activities

b) Was targeted by the Punisher...three times!

c) MURDERED one of their other staff members!

d) Was majorly complicit in an event that turned everyone in New York into spider monsters!

e) Attempted global genocide!

f) Seemingly died very publically

Those last two by the way? They happened on site of the Daily Bugle newspaper!

This isn’t even addressing how he was last seen Marvel Team Up 2019 where he was again arrested at ESU itself! This issue does nothing to explain how he went from that situation to this. Which I’m actually okay with as that was handled by a different editorial office. If you like that was Ms. Marvel continuity and this is Spider continuity.

Normally I’d let the other continuity errors slide but most of them are stories that are major major appearances by the Jackal and define his relationship with Gwen Stacy in the first place, which is the thing this whole arc is built upon.

But no. He changes his last name, and literally nothing else, and he goes unrecognized. Unrecognized in a school where Peter Parker is a teaching assistant (still don’t know when or where that happened)!!!!!!!!!!!!! How on Earth is he going incognito? Does he just make sure to stay 10 paces behind Peter at all times??????? Hell Curt Connors is working there too and he has to know that, he just saw Connors in Clone Conspiracy! In fact GWEN saw him in Clone Conspiracy, she saw multiple clones of him looking just like he did in issue #1 why was she not reacting to that?

My God it gets dumber the more I think about it because in Clone Conspiracy we last saw Warren blowing himself up and that was 100% confirmed to be the real Warren not another clone so who is this guy? Not to mention that story also depicted Warren wearing a Jackal costume not actually transforming into a human jackal monster.

Now me personally I think nowdays the latter idea should be the norm for the character. It never made sense for a middle aged man to get the better of Spider-Man, but his 90s Joker/Matrix look was just terrible. Having him transform back and forth though is a great compromise. But again how did we get here????????????????

It’s all just so poorly thought through!

Going back to what I said last issue about the lack of information given to new readers, this story goes along with that as far as the Man-Wolf is concerned. His treatment very much plays out as the latest issue in a run which would be fine if this was merely Ghost Spider #51-52 as opposed to ALSO being Ghost Spider #1-2. To treat this character who’s affecting subplots the way he is as though readers should just know who he is doesn’t make sense with a major relaunch. We haven’t even SEEN Man-Wolf in this series but we’ve talked a lot about him.

Remember show don’t tell?????????????

The same applies to the ramifications of his actions. He’s responsible for a bomb. What bomb? He almost killed Harry? Who is Harry? Gwen tells some thugs to leave her friends alone but its not until panels later that we confirm they are Man-wolf’s thugs, played initially as it was that wasn’t clear.

All of this is a non-issue if you read the older run but if you haven’t then it’s confusing and alienating.

And unlike what certain people might say it’s beyond unacceptable to demand that readers do homework to enjoy a comic they already paid for.

Lets change things up and talk about the two positives I have. The art continues to be nice, I especially like Benji’s look because it is very reminiscent of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane! And, as was common back when I was reading Spider-Gwen regularly, George Stacy continues to be the best character in this. The short scene in the kitchen was the best scene of the whole book and was genuinely endearing.

Okay back to the justifiable complaints.

So Gwen comments that she has to be subtle in order to keep her identity on Earth 616...but then towards the end of the book she enters a portal from Earth 65 into Earth 616 unmasked. This is stupid in general but extra stupid considering she knows her powers don’t immediately work upon exiting portals. So even if she wasn’t immediately spotted by someone or a CCTV camera she wouldn’t even have a spider sense to warn her of danger for a few precious seconds! Someone who’s life was upended by her identity being revealed (and was a public enemy before that) would be naturally wary of something like this. This isn’t even accounting for the fact that she knows she DIED in Earth 616 because one lunatic discovered Peter’s identity! Also if she can exits portals on roof tops why does she ever need to risk her neck over at that billboard?

The only other problem I spotted was that the colourist seriously screwed up Peter’s look as he has black hair instead of brown.

Besides all that the inherent problems of the premise from last issue still apply. Peter being a regular character. Gwen endangering her friends on Earth 65. The division between the supporting cast.

Ugh....this is gonna be a slog of a series isn’t it...

#Spider-Man #Spider-Gwen #Ghost Spider #Gwen Stacy #Peter Parker #The Jackal #Jackal #Miles Warren #George Stacy #Captain Stacy #Clone Conspiracy #Curt Connors #Clone Saga #Lizard

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rebelsofshield · 5 years ago

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 11/13-11/27/19

It’s certainly unfair for Lucasfilm to pick my first semester of grad school to start supplying us with more Star Wars content than at any other point in recorded history. Jerk move on their part. Anyways, as a result, here are three (!) weeks worth of Star Wars comics review in which: Marvel’s ongoing ends its seventy five issue run, Doctor Aphra gets her groove back, and Chewbacca knocks some heads. Hopefully I can be quicker about this in the future!

11/13/19

Star Wars #74 written by Greg Pak and art by Phil Noto

In its seventh chapter, “Rebels and Rogues” hurtles towards conclusion. The result may just be the strongest installment of an arc that has been chockfull of great ideas, but often struggled on just how to tell its sometimes overly scattered story. With the different teams now in open communication with one another and each fighting for their lives in desperate situations, writer Greg Pak’s take on the galaxy far, far away has never felt more a live and energetic.

We hop between narratives with surprising ease and elegance and the flow of the story is easy to follow, high energy, and positively fun. Han, Leia, and Dar Champion are flying for their lives in a defenseless ship against an Imperial star destroyer, Luke and Warba are in route to the planet’s rebels but with an Imperial patrol of Stormtroopers riding velociraptors right on their tale, and Threepio and Chewbacca are right in the center of a growing conflict between the rock people of K43 and Darth Vader himself.

Threepio’s arc here still remains the most fascinating stuff in “Rebels and Rogues.” For the first time in a long time, old goldenrod feels like he has an emotional story all his own and it culminates in a moment of self-sacrifice that capitalizes off all the themes of sentience and personhood that this surprisingly delightful subplot has been playing with since day one.

The promised Chewbacca/Darth Vader showdown on the cover doesn’t occur until the comics final pages but it sets up what should be a killer finale. Noto draws a suitably visceral encounter and no other panel in this creative team’s legacy will likely spark as much joy as Chewie spiking a boulder off of the Sith Lord’s ebony helmet.

Score: A-

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: Dark Temple #4 written by Matthew Rosenberg and art by Paolo Villanelli

At the time of this writing, I’ve actually finished playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The first single player Star Wars game in over a decade provides a very fun and rewarding experience that is populated with some truly outstanding characters. The game also shows that its tie-in comic, Dark Temple is surprisingly more consequential than one might have originally thought. Sure, Cere and Eno Cordova were known characters in the game from the start, but Dark Temple sees the two encountering numerous elements from Fallen Order for the first time.

Even outside the comic’s surprising consequence to the game it draws from, Dark Temple continues to be a very entertaining prequel era narrative. Even four issues in, writer Matthew Rosenberg is still providing us with new information and twists that upend our understanding of what exactly is going on. Cere and Cordova may have gotten involved in something bigger than they originally anticipated and there is more on the line than freedom for Fylar. Rosenberg has weaved a complex web and just what exactly lies within the titular temple is just as much a mystery now as when it started.

It also helps that this comic is arguably the best looking Star Wars comic on the stands now. Paolo Villanelli has always excelled at drawing dynamic and well choreographed action sequences and he truly shines here as the violent conflict between Flyar and the DAA corporation explodes into full blown war. Villanelli is great at creating a sense of motion and scale and these moments of larger conflict are filled to the brim with well designed characters and explosive energy. Colorist Arif Prianto makes the comic feel like it comes ablaze too with multicolored embers peppering each panel.

Between the surprisingly complex story and the killer art, Dark Temple has quickly evolved into one of the stronger tie-in comics that Star Wars has released in recent memory and a significant improvement on both creator’s previous works in the franchise. Its final issue may not stick the landing, but this is a comic that is well worth considering picking up.

Score: B+

Star Wars Target Vader #5 written by Robbie Thompson and art by Cris Bolson, Robert Di Salvo, and Marco Failla

So turns out the Hidden Hand isn’t the rebellion? I’m very lost at this point. The mysterious crime organization that has been at the center of Target Vader from its start has always been its biggest head scratcher. A last panel reveal at the end of the comic’s first issue heavily hinted that the Hidden Hand was actually just an organization used by the Alliance to work in the criminal underworld. Over the past few issues, we have been given to doubt this reading, until now, where this theory is thrown out the door. Turns out the Hidden Hand may have older and more mysterious origins, but now we are just as lost as ever.

It speaks to the overall aimlessness of Target Vader. Despite the violent thrills of last issue, this miniseries has still been a mostly confused and overly long affair. Beilert Valance is still a mostly dull protagonist and his quest to neutralize Vader feels even more muddled than ever before. Writer Robbie Thompson does some work to try to remedy this situation by giving us an issue that is split between retelling Valance’s past and maiming by the Imperial military and the present where he is now caught between the grip of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. It creates an interesting scenario for our central anti-hero, but ultimately fails to reveal much enlightening about Valance as a person. We may know why he is a grumpy, angry loaner by this point, but it doesn’t make his relatively one-note behavior any more interesting.

It also doesn’t really help that we have three guest artists on board instead of Stefano Landini. Marco Failla’s pencils may do a good enough job of approximating Landini’s style, but as a whole the result is a bit jarring as the comic never establishes a clear visual consistency. Combined with the fact that we already lost Marc Laming after issue one, this just adds to the weirdly confused reading experience that Target Vader has maintained to this point.

We have seen this comic work. Last issue’s installment was a brutally realized explosion of violent chaos, but we only have one issue now to really bring it all together, and I’m worried that Target Vader may not be up to the task of making this long, strange voyage worth it.

Score: C+

11/20/19

Star Wars #75 written by Greg Pak and art by Phil Noto

All roads lead to K43. In its eighth and final chapter, “Rebels and Rogues” sees all our team members converge on the rocky moon for one climactic stand against Darth Vader and the Empire. In this extra sized finale, Greg Pak and Phil Noto try their best to pull the disparate threads of this arc together while also delivering a satisfying finale. The result proves fun, very strange, and ultimately forgettable. It ends with a summation of this run as a whole: filled with smart art and ideas, but lacking in standout storytelling beats to leave a lasting impression.

Some of the disappointment comes from the fact that much of this issue comes down to our various cast members beating up on Darth Vader. We open with the final blows of Chewbacca and Vader’s brawl which Noto clearly enjoyed bringing to life, but much of the rest of the issue resorts to the extended ensemble blasting away at him in various set pieces. It plays out like a miniature version of 2016’s Vader Down, but lacking in the edge and thrills of that original crossover.

There’s also some strange choices made with the rock people of K43 that don’t entirely gel with what came before. Part of what made these characters so refreshing throughout this story arc has been how Pak used their existence to challenge our characters’ concepts of sentience and to allow C-3PO to bond with another group of non organic life that is similarly overlooked. This fun play continues, but the conflict of it all is handwaved away in a manner that feels unusually flippant. Given the amount of effort put into finding a way around murdering this race, Pak introduces a last minute plot detail that makes it all feel unnecessary and that’s before the giant planet sized stone giant appears.

Yes, this comic gets very weird and it’s certainly fun, but it feels more than a little scattered and chaotic in a comic that already feels all over the place.

With that, we bid goodbye to this short but enjoyable era of Marvel’s Star Wars ongoing. While Empire Ascendant will presumably be the final issue of the main series, with it being rebooted for a new post Empire Strikes Back ongoing headed by Charles Soule and Jesus Saiz sometime in January, there is a sense of finality to this creative team’s last chapter aboard. Pak and Noto prove a fun bunch and had a great sense of playfulness and scope to this ongoing during its final days even if the execution wasn’t always immaculate. I’m glad to hear that Pak will be staying around to write the next volume of Darth Vader. He has some big shoes to fill, but if the heights of this comic are any indication, he is capable of the same spectacle and intrigue as past creators.

Score: B

11/27/19

Star Wars Adventures #28 written by John Barber and Michael Moreci and art by Derek Charm and Tony Fleecs

Chewbacca’s adventures with his porg sidekick, Terbus, are pretty much perfect fodder for an all-ages Star Wars comic. Given how strong Adventures’ visual storytelling has been since day one, having two protagonists who speak through grunts, squawks, and body language is right up this teams’ alley. Yes, it’s cutesy and yes it is a bit simple, but there is undeniable charm in the way Derek Charm draws us through the liberation of Kashyyyk. It may not be as visually inventive as last issue, but the way that Chewbacca hops through the forest and takes on First Order baddies is still illustrated with the same energy and personality.

There is a bit of tonal whiplash here though. While it’s hard not to be won over by Porg salutes and Wookiees knocking heads, there are moments where the enslavement of the Wookiee population is presented as an all too real possibility. The lighter, more playful execution of this issue may do a lot to make this subject matter more palatable for younger readers, but one wonders if this should have been the direction that the story went with at all.

Michael Moreci’s droid adventure is more tonally cohesive and certainly also a fun time, but it lacks the standout visuals and heart of the Chewbacca section. Last issue succeeded by pairing the under appreciated droids with another outcast that also was invisible to the First Order, but the events here are less concerned with character and theme and more so with the fun action of their plan. All the same, it’s still a decent read and sure to delight younger readers.

Score: B

Star Wars Doctor Aphra #39 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Caspar Wijngaard

With just one issue left before the end of their tenure, Simon Spurrier and Caspar Wijngaard are pulling out all the stops for the end of Doctor Aphra. After the misstep that was “Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon,” it has been nice to see Spurrier get back in the swing of things with “A Rogue’s End” as each issue improves upon the last. Wijngaard and colorist Lee Loughridge feel more in sync here than ever before and Spurrier twists the knife as Aphra digs herself further and further into a disaster of her own making.

While she was first introduced in Kieron Gillen’s run on the title, Magna Tolvan and her relationship with Aphra have been staples of Spurrier’s run since he first stepped into the title. Here as we hurtle towards the big finish, it seems only fitting that the tortured and complex romance between these two very different souls take center stage. “A Rogue’s End” isn’t afraid to really dig into what it is about these two broken and confused women that drives their attraction to one another and just how deadly and ill advised their love, if it can be called that, is. It’s antagonistic, violent, but ultimately brimming with the sort of affection and tension that makes a good Star Wars romance sing. There is one image in particular here that is beautifully realized by Wijngaard and Loughridge and may rival the two’s first kiss for the iconography of this pairing.

It’s not all two woman coming to terms with one another under extreme circumstances, Aphra is still full speed ahead on her own mission survival. We hurtle towards a series of decisions at the issue’s end that may just cross the line into Aphra’s biggest moral slippage to date. Spurrier seems poised to deliver final judgement on what kind of person our dear rogue archaeologist may be, but knowing her and this series, the final thematic resting point is anyone’s guess. It’s a good thing that Spurrier makes the whole thing so damn fun to read and Wijngaard creates such beautiful imagery.

Score: A-

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hazyheel · 5 years ago

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AEW Fyter Fest 2019 Review

So, we start out with the pre-show, and the first match was a triple threat tag: Best Friends vs. SCU vs. Private Party. The story early on in this match was that Best Friends and SCU were totally bullying the much smaller Private Party, although they certainly impressed. They had a lot of really good high flying offense, inculding an awesome shooting star press from Marc Quen that was unfortunately broken up. There was a really cool moment in the middle of the match where everyone in the ring was just nailing each other with huge moves, such as cutters and huge tornado DDT’s. There was also a really great near fall, where after Quen flipped out of a top rope German, and then ran up to the top rope for a hurricarana into a cutter on Franky Kazarian, but Scorpio Sky broke it up. It was not long after that when the Best Friends were able to hit strong zero for the win here.

After the match, The Dark Order came on the tron and called out the best friends. They said that they would utterly destroy them, and that they were only the first. They said they would dissect them slowly. The lights went out, and the Dark order’s minions surrounded Trent and Chuck Taylor, but they ended up just disappering.

Grade: B. Not the smoothest match in the world, but still pretty good. Private Party really shined here, and they definitely got themselves over. They were the least known tag team in this match, and they certainly impressed. However, Best friends were definitely the best pick to win this match. They are one of the most over teams on the indies, and it makes sense to continue their feud with the dark order. Good stuff, and I look forward to seeing more of private party in the future.

Then we had Leva Bates vs. Allie, with Peter Avalon at ringside. Coming to the ring, Avalon actually tried to win Bates’ heart, and when she rejected him once again, so the destroyed the tent on the stage and decapitated one of the mannequins. Bates then cut a promo about the importance of reading, while the crowd chanted “We can’t read.” Allie then came out and got a good reaction. The match was fine, not really any huge spots. There was one point where Avalon tried to interfere by tripping Allie, so the Librarians are definitely heels. In the finish, Avalon tried to give Bates a book to hit Allie with, but Allie gave Bates a superkick for the win.

Grade: C. Not the greatest match in the world. I am not a big fan of Allie, I certainly haven’t seen a great match of hers. Leva Bates seems pretty good, but I can tell that the librarian gimmick will get old quick if I have to deal with it on a weekly basis. I hope I get to see more of Bates with a different opponent, because she looks promising.

Then we had Jebailey vs. Michael Nakazawa. Nakazawa cut a little heel promo before the match, where he tricked Jebailey into revealing which leg was injured last year. He attacked the and they started the match. Nakazawa quickly got baby oil involved, making everyone slip all over the ring. Jebailey beat down Nakazawa with a fight stick, which was funny, and he also tried to drown Nakazawa in a kiddie pool. They battled by the pool for a while, with Nakazawa nailing Jebailey with a inflatable flamingo, before being powerslamed into the pool, prompting a holy shit chant. Back in the ring, Nakazawa beat Jebailing with a gamecube remote, before choking him and spearing him off the apron through a table. Jebailey was able to powerslam Nakazawa onto some lego things, but when he got back up, Nakazawa tried to shove his thong in Jebailey’s mouth and ended up hitting the ref. Jebailey then wrapped him in a cradle, but the ref was down. Nakazawa then reversed it with the thong in Jebailey’s face.

Grade: D+. I don’t think anyone thought this would be good. But honestly? If you stop watching this as a wrestling fan and just remember that Jebailey just wanted to be a wrestler on the one night he could, then it’s at least kinda fun. He did well for a total amateur. Plus, the crowd was encouraging him a lot, and he took some stiff shots from a kendo stick.

Opening the show was CIMA vs. Christopher Daniels. They put on a pretty good contest early on, just trading power moves back and forth. Daniels wokred over Cima’s back throughout the match, which interfered with Cima’s flying offense. There was one really good move where Cima hurt his back when he hit a razors edge, and Daniels durilled him with a blue thunder bomb. A great near fall came when Daniels hit Angels’ wings, but Cima kicked out. There was a rather cringy moment during the match when JR referred to Cima as an “Oriental” wrestler. God, that is just awful. Anyway, Cima got the win with a meteora.

Grade: B. Pretty good match. There was an odd pacing here where Cima was moving quite a bit faster than Daniels, which gave things a weird feel. But Cima was really good here, both in selling his back and hitting some hard hitting offense. This match definitely hyped me up for Cima vs. Kenny Omega, so this was certainly a success.

Then we had a three way with the women, pitting Yuka Sakazaki against Nyla Rose and Riho. The match started when Nyla Rose Irish whipped Riho after a handshake. So, the Joshi teamed up on the much larger and more powerful Rose, creating a sort of unofficial handicap match. Rose was more than happy to fight in that sort of match, locking both in a Boston crab at the same time. Sakazaki nearly botched a dive to the outside, but very carefully climbed the ropes instead, which was actually super cute for her character. Rose gave Riho an awesome guilltine splash, but she didn’t even go for a pin. Riho then tried to splash Rose, but was caught. Sakazaki then did the same, but was also caught in an awesome show of strength. The two Joshi then tried to pin Rose together, but there was a kickout. Rose then absolutely destroyed Sakazaki with a powerbomb, but when she went to hit a finish on Riho, Riho got a great rollup for a shocking win.

After the match, Rose tried to attack Riho, but Sakazaki came to her aid and they fought off Rose. However, Riho pushed Sakazaki away when she tried to help. Sakazaki was really really sad about that too.

Grade; B+. This was a really good match. Rose looked like a monster of a heel, and the Joshi sold like goddamned crazy for her. She will be huge in this division, she seems awesome. The Joshi were awesome as well. This was a really big win for Riho, so she will probably be pretty big player in this division, but I’m really hoping for Sakazaki. That girl is wonderful. I’m sure that the AEW women’s division will be absolutely great.

Then we had the fatal 4-way, Adam Page vs. MJF vs. Jimmy Havoc vs. Jungle Boy. MJF tried to cut a promo before the match and absolutely wrecked the very nerdy crowd by saying that their mom swallows. He called everyone geeks, fat, disgusting, virgins, and losers. Oh my god he is good on the mic. The match was showing everyone’s character and styles. MJF was constantly trying to steal a pin, Jungle Boy flew around, Havoc would just randomly run in and hit something crazy, and Page was constantly the babyface standing tall. At one point, Jungle Boy went for a reverse cannonball splash on the outside, but his boot clipped the turnbuckle so he botched it a bit, but it still looked great. Whenever MJF could attack Page, he would attack the knee. At one point, MJF went for a sharpshooter, but Page reversed it into a sharpshooter of his own for a short submission sequence. Havoc took out Jungle Boy with a death valley driver out of the ring and onto his friend Luchasaurus. After Havoc hit MJF with a double stomp off the top, MJF ducked a buckshot lariat so it hit Havoc. MJF then fled the ring as Page hit Havoc with deadeye for the win.

Grade: B+. Another good match. The action was very fast, we had the winner that we definitely needed, and we saw a lot from Havoc and Jungle Boy. They will be big in this brand, so I’m happy that we saw them get some offense. Page did not pin MJF, so I bet that they will do the singles match at fight for the fallen. Good stuff wrestling here.

Then we had Cody vs. Darby Allin. Allin came into this match wth a crazy amount of energy and excitement, playing an underdog but a dangerous one. He was grabbing rollups whenever he could, really fishing for a win here. Allin took a dangerous bump early on where he was thrown into the turnbuckles and he slipped through the middle ropes and out of the ring. Allin worked over Cody’s hand, which was injured pretty recently. Allin was also flying all over the ring, and hitting Cody with everything he had. Cody was simply using his strength advantage to take down Allin at every turn. At one point, Cody hit a reverse superplex as the crowd showered them in AEW chants. Another crazy spot saw Allin go for a coffin drop on the apron, but Cody rolled in the ring, so Allin just crashed onto the apron. Cody then knocked Allin into his own body bag, and gave him a disaster kick while he was in it, but only a near fall. As the time limit ticked down, Cody started to lay into Allin with his weight belt, but Allin wouldn’t stay down. Allin was able to hit an over the top stunner, but Cody quickly recovered and hit a cross roads, but only made the pin as the time limit sank down, and we ended in a draw.

After the match, the crowd chanted for overtime, and it looked like they were going to get it, but Shawn Spears showed up and nailed Cody in the head with a nasty chair shot. Spears looked like he was going to hit Brandi too, but the ref got in the way and stopped him. Spears walked away as MJF ran into the ring, ready to kick ass. Cody walked away with Brandi helping him. Cody looked pretty legitimately loopy.

Grade; B-. The match was alright, tough to follow up that awesome match at Double or Nothing from Cody, but this was still pretty good. Allin looked really good here, playing a scrappy underdog that did everything he could. He pulled out some nasty and dumb stunts, which what he is known for. He certainly impressed me. I thought the finish was a bit contrived, with Cody having plenty of time between hitting cross roads and making the pin. I thought the post match attack was scary, that was a rough chair shot that really belongs in the 90′s, was unnecessary, but I would love to see that feud. Probably going to secure another match at All Out. But as for this match, we are open for a rematch, and they brought Darby Allin to a whole new audience.

Into a 6-man tag. Lucha Bros and Laredo Kid vs. The Elite. The Bucks entered as Ken and Ryu, while Kenny Omega came in as Akuma. As a video game nerd, I was happy. Laredo Kid and Nick Jackson squared off, trading some high flying offense, but quickly all members of the teams entered the ring. The Luchadores quickly got the advantage with a triple suicide dive. They then gave Matt a double superkick into a reverse rana which looked badass. Another point saw Matt giving all of the luchadores northern lights suplexes, drawing loads of cheers from the crowd. Matt hit an awesome combination of a destroyer into a spear. Kenny then gave each of the luchadores a dragon suplex. The Luchadores took back control, when Fenix dove over the post, and Kid hit a Lardeo splash, but Omega kicked out just as Pentagon ran in to give Matt a destroyer. At another point, the luchadores all charged at the elite, so they haduokkened them away. Matt wanted to give Pentagon a swan diving Meltzer driver, but nick mistepped when going over the top rope. He still climbed the ropes, and Fenix intercepted him for a spanish fly to the outside. Back in the ring, Omega gave Kid a v trigger, liger driver 98, and the one winged angel for the win.

Grade: A-. Of course this match was great. They got 6 of the best talents in AEW, and put them in one ring together, and they killed it. There were a couple rough spots, but nothing that would derail the awesome match. They flew all over the place and hit so many awesome spots. And this one wasn’t a finisher fest like the big tag match at Double or Nothing. They just hit some awesome moves and put on a great show. This easily could’ve been the main event of the night, although I think it was a good choice for the semi main.

And in the unsanctioned main event, we had Joey Janela vs. Jon Moxley. No disqualifications, anything could happen. They brawled at ringside, with Janela starting off the hardcore spots by hitting Moxley with a prosthetic leg that was passed through the crowd. The two then pummeled each other with a chair wrapped in barbed wire, before both faling through a table off the apron after a Russian Leg sweep. Moxley then threw Janela back in the ring for a spear through a table in the corner. Moxley kept it up with a board with barbed wire on it, but Janela ended up putting him through it with a death valley driver. They kept up the crazy spots as Janela hit on elbow drop off a ladder in the ring, through Moxley on the outside with some tables. Moxley got revenge though, giving Janela a death valley bomb out of the ring and through a barbed wire board on the outside. Moxley then introduced thumb tacks, before taking off Janela’s shoes and slaming him on the thumbtacks. Janela begged for more by flipping off Moxley, so he grabbed more of them and gave him the death rider onto the tacks for the win.

After the match, Kenny Omega ran in to give Moxley a v Trigger, piledriver and a double foot stomp onto Moxley. He beat Moxley with a mic stand from the band that didn’t show up. He then threw Moxley into the drum set, beat him with the sticks, and smacked him in the back with a guitar before walking away. Some refs were escorting him to the back, and Moxley pushed them away in frustration, but Kenny came back out to beat him with a trash can and giving him a death rider onto the garbage can.

Grade: B+. Not the best death match I have ever seen, but it was still really good. I was just interesting to see Moxley in this kind of postiion. I know he missed these types of matches, and it was awesome to see him back in his element. Those thumbtack bumps were actually sick, and I cringed hard at both those and the barbed wire. Definitely the right person won, and I really liked the attack afterwards. Their feud is just going to build more and more until All Out, and it should be a great match.

Overall Grade: B

Pros: Triple threat tag; Cima vs. Daniels; women’s triple threat; four way; 6-man tag; unsanctioned

Cons: Bates vs. Allie; (not putting Jebailey on here, because while it was not a good wrestling match, I certainly didn’t think it was a con)

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reliableremodeling · 6 years ago

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Of 2013 but fell short last year but unfortunately scouting

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bigbrotherorre · 6 years ago

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episode one: “TODAY WE LEARNED UNLESS BRYCE FEELS LIKE THE PRETTIEST GIRL AT THE DANCE EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, YOU'RE NOT DOING ENOUGH” - AUTUMN hoh: BRYCE evicted: ROXY - 13 to 3

Okay WOOOO. So hey, I'm here doing a DR pre-season, because? I am cracked, a mess and SOOO EXCITED. Also, I looked up fun words, to find something to use as my confessional codeword, and "brouhaha" means "a noisy and overexcited reaction or response to something" WHICH IS SO APPROPRIATE. So woo, enjoy the brouhaha that is my excitement for this season. I just wanna say a couple of things: 1) Nicholas and Julia posting those clock gifs is gonna make my head fall off, thats so scary. If it means past season twists like someone said in the VL, I'm NERVY. RoseGold POVs are my biggest fear, and I know there was a season where prejury was all about them so YIKES. Calling it now, I'm gonna get sent home by a rosegold PoV. 2) Emily and Lukas was such an iconic F2, no matter whomst the F2 is in Orre, we will never match them 3) I wanna make some pre-season picks of who I expect to see cast, that way if they win, I can take total credit. I'm feeling like Raffy, Sammy and Aren might be in the cast, based on literally nothing khajsdfla. Raffy as a player terrifies me (I was also the person who brought him into this community so whew), but he gets CRACKED so whew! Aren is a scorpio so we stan. ANYWHO. I'm so excited for this season, its gonna be a HOOOOOT.

Wooh so ready for the season to start!!!

Hola, did you miss me? This is going to be me reflecting back on my Johto experience and trying to point out the mistakes I made, and how this game will be different. (this is before cast reveal) The first mistake I did in Johto was go against the premade. I was wary of Connor and Ari, and I thought painting the target on the returnee wouldnt only be easy but would be successful. And then I found out that I couldn't, and then Connor made friends with everybody on my team and fucked me over in the long run. The second mistake I did in Johto was being messy. A prime example was making pseudo "alliance" chats in order to sway the vote for people to keep me. This proved to be unsuccessful. I also had a mental breakdown like every night, so that just buried me more. The third mistake I did in Johto was throw the veto the week I was nominated. I felt like I couldve won it but I decided to study for my test. I didnt compete in the pov that i shouldve won. SO now its time to do what I need to do for my redemption is quite simple. The last 3 ORGs ive played for BB i have made 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. And I learned quite a lot To negate my first mistake I'm not going to publicly target anbody. I will join the mob mentality to ensure my safety in early weeks. To negate my second mistake I am going to keep all my alliances as 1on1s. No alliances bigger than 3 people, and make sure to keep whatever information I have to myself. I will not snake out any information. To negate my third mistake is to try in all competitions. I will not throw anything I will not submit for anything unless I really cant. If I give it my all and still leave I can't beat myself up that bad. I'm nervous, but I'm ready. These freaks aren't gonna know what hit them.

Okay one hour to premiere! The fact that I've made two DRs pre-season? thats wild. I am gonna give a go at predicting the cast, based on... borderline nothing, beyond paranoia: Veronica Constance Raffy Autumn Olivia Eddie Elmo Hals Sammy Aren Those are guesses I'm confident in, so I'm gonna stick to that! Lets see if I get anyone right ajlkdsfas

Okay this isn't as bad as i thought except i'm a hot ass mess and messaged a picture into the house chat and i'm about to DIE

wut in the FUCK is happening who the hell are these people theyre mental all of them. nice to see sammy and ali though i fucking love them but i am terrified of playing with ali i literally said to my host chat 3 hrs before the game started "please say its all newbies so im not playing with zeezo" AND SHES HERE WTF

omg this FREAKING CAST IS WILD and i'm not gonna lie i'm a little worried that i might fight over half of them before the second week is finished...

not gonna lie seeing ashvika and roxy made me wanna kill myself but also i'm totally dying at the sight of ZEEZO AND BRYCE <3 also THIS COMP FREAKING SUCKS i need to find a group of friends asap so i don't flop. i'm gonna try to bring together bryce, zeezo, sammy, kat, and maybe ricky.... either gonna be lit or bite me in the ass

Hi!!! Y'all casted way too many people but it's ok cause I really like everyone so far whew. Also I really will do my intro video I swear... first thing tomorrow lmao

THIS SHIT IS OVERWHELMING AF! SOOOO MANY FREAKIN PPL IM TALKIN TOO! I LIKE MOST OF THEM but som im like k. then like the call i do not want to join bc shit they cracked af! hopefully its not my undoing but i feel like my social is pretty strong atm. #BBgameEVER

i'm just happy that ashvika is willing to put our unnecessarily tragic rivalry behind us and play this game right this time around. hopefully we'll be able to keep up the "we hate each other" look in the house chat and such so we can actually WORK TOGETHER this time. obvi i love her, and i just want the backstabbing madness to stop. hopefully she really has put out past behind her bc i'm ready to move on. like we're both pretty, we need to stick together. also shook that i talked to blake the longest today in pms???? like???? okay??? bryce and i look like we're in this for the long haul, hopefully we aren't first and second boot!! bc i have a weird feeling imma be pre-jury for some reason dsgdf

Night 1 Thots: Short term goal? to be as pathetic as possible. Probaly shouldn't have told alivia so soon that I was johnchen from bbtc world as after watching her intro vid. the could come back to bite me. Ryan seems like someone who I can ride on his coat tails for a while to get my foot in this game. So short term I need to be as pathetic as possible and hope this julia/bryce/sammy thing from house of shade starts to erupt.

me at alivia

Really regretting making my code word tractor.. Not a fan. But um me and alivia talked for like 4 hours and we're both legends. We have a cute google sheet bet ur all jealous. Her and ashvika are gonna pretend that they hate each other but they dont actually!! How fun. Hope i dont slip and blow their covers JKDFHKSJD. Everyone seems to know everyone which is scary. When i first saw Jela and Julia were cast I was scared that theyd target me b/c we had a rough introduction, but honestly theyre legends. Idk why i told jela i was missing a left toe.. but i did and now idk what to do about that whole thing. Maybe ill say i got drunk and dont remember saying that but it isnt true.. IDK WHAT TO DO. But um yaa happy to see zeezo here too but scared ppl will think we're a duo but honestly I dont think ppl will. Um I should do a cast first impression thing wooh! Ricky: Played my first tumblr game with him but dont really know him. Seemed nice but not much there Randy: seems like a legend. Poc king. Um talked to him and he wanted to know more about me but wouldnt talk about himself so!! Idk hope we talk more seems fun. Julia: Um called me out. Called me fat. Fun tho!! Seems untrustworthy but no bad blood. Roxy: Talked a bit, um shes fun?? Dont think she likes me Ashvika: how can one girl be so pretty??? Shes smart too. Like i want to hate how perfect she is. The type of girl to throw my game away for tho so I need to make sure I dont!! Alivia: how can one girl be so pretty??? Shes smart too. Like i want to hate how perfect she is. The type of girl to throw my game away for tho so I need to make sure I dont!! Honestly want to go to the end with her tho so I just am gonna have to make sure I outplay her so we can be f2. Bryce: ugly cast pic. Is he even a poc??? Zeezo: THE LOML I LOVE HER SO MUCH. we both seem to be working together so im happy. Hope to work with her and have her carry me in comps. She will beat lachies record. #menareover Kat: wish she was jade ;(. JK!! Love her so much already. She is so nice and fun and like just seems like a great person. Honestly shes gonna mist me too. Jose: Epicmafia king. We never work together and always betray each other so... first chance for everything??? He seems fun tho love him hope he slays (less than me tho) Sammy: I literally love him hes so nice but i never pm him so thats awk KDSJFHDKSj hope that this game changes that!! Lynn: Legend. Loves hufflepuff, hates middle school. Like I think we click but i know her and blake are like super close so idk if shed ever be closer with me but i hope so b/c shes just like.. amazing!! Saxon: Talks a lot. About himself. Maybe itll change when i talk to him more. Likes super hero movies so wooh i guess. Jela: Thought she hated me but maybe now she doesnt. Shes really funny actually so hopefully we can be allies. Blake: know that hes super smart and good at the game but like he got rekt by queen tara so maybe ill do that to him. We talked but it was bland but guess ill push through it Dennis: So his name is annoying to spell so had to change that quick. Kind of hate him??? But hes fun!!! Didnt know carly rae jepsen made music still so like the stan in me wanted to hang up the call on him. BUT then he msged me asking for carly songs to listen to so like.. love him now. Cant believe he knew all the social game hed need with me was just pretending to like my queen Autumn: We talked about her past games and it was basically me fangirlling about her ENDING eddie LOL. think we can work together because we both like intersectional feminism John: Tried talking to him but didnt go anywhere. But im gonna make it work!! Ive decided we'll be close so wooh Olivia: took 2 hours to respond to me. like musicals tho. kept ignoring me tho. Alivia outsold. Ali: PURE KING. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. NO ONE IS BETTER. I COULD NEVER TURN AGAINST HIM. SO IM GONNA NEED OTHERS TO DO IT FOR ME. Love his dog even tho i misgendered her but it wont happen again. Think we'll be close. reptiles stick together!!

WHEWIE. Okay I tried filming a video confessional, but my thoughts are such a mess, so I've decided writing it out will be considerably more coherent. YIKES SO. This season is already so wild, like this cast.... is gonna be a lot. I already can tell this season is going to have lots of fights and I don't know... how ready I am for that eeeek. But otherwise, my illiteracy means I don't understand the lottery twist so I love that. The returnee twist is fun though, like I feel like at the start of games, I go into panic mode, so having returnees I can go to about that, might make them feel like I'm an easy number and that they want to work with me? The people I knew before this season (like I'd actually spoken to): Bryce, Julia, Ashvika, Autumn & Olivia (I loosely knew Ricky, Blake & Sammy too) Within the game itself, the people I've had the best conversations with are Jose, Kat, Olivia, Ashvika & John. Olivia is like one of my favourite people in the community, and also a super good player so I'd love to work with her. I also think the fact that we are friends is something nobody in the cast should know (I think) so thats fun. Jose was such a big threat/player last season, and the vibe I get from him this time is he wants to tone that down? I'm not good at working with super cracked people, so him being slightly in the middle between UTR and cracked, will make him a super good person to work with I think. He is also the only person I've like...talked game with, even though its super limited, just that I wanna work with him. I'm a weirdo and watched all the Alola cast assessment stuff, and it sounds like Kat was playing really well, but got stuck in a funky position and couldn't recover, so I think she is gonna be a major threat this time and I'd love to work with her too woooo. Ashvika is a queen. Just plain and simple. She is so wholesome and nice, and already seems loosely on the same page as me, so thats iconic. John scares me ajkhsdfaslf. i think he is a total newbie, and I also think he is gonna get super cracked, and thats.... scary asdkjflas Dennis I just started talking to properly, he is in my timezone-ish, so that will be good for my sleeping pattern if he ever wins HoH or anything, but I worry he may struggle to make connections, so I'm not sure how much he can help me as an ally? The others I'm gonna try and do more rapid fire, since this confessional is already massive hjkasdflsaf: Alivia: Really really nice! We haven't spoken all that much, but she seems super friendly and she was really loyal in Unova, which makes me feel good about maybe working with her? Also Ali in the name? we love legends Ricky: Ricky is.... an interesting one ljaksdfla. He is a fun personality to have around, so I hope he sticks around. I'm not sure how invested he will be in any of these games, but I hope he gives it a good go woo Randy: Randy is gonna be such a threat already I can tell sahkjfdla Also he lowkey scares me, because whenever I would start pm'ing people on call yesterday, he would run to my pms asking why I wasnt pm'ing him which freaked me out sjkadflas. He seems fun though, and Dom stans him so we stan Julia (The Witch): An icon. A legend. An inspiration. Also terrifying skjahdfla. She mentioned all stars on call yesterday and my heart stopped, because I hated how I was in that game and dont want it talked about. I think she is gonna fight people and I don't especially want to get on her bad side! Roxy: Havent spoken to her much, it might be tricky talking to her, since we are both in weird timezones, we will see Bryce: A SWEETHEART. I love Bryce soo much. We worked together in a mini once, and it was super fun, so I'd love to work with him more. Zeezo: She seems super nice! I don't really know her, beyond that she is POVzo and probably a comp threat, but I think she will be fun. I know her and Bryce are friends so we will see where that goes jahdfka Sammy: Super nice! I loosely know him, but he seems like he will be good fun. I havent spoken to him much, so I hope he is gonna be active rip Lynn: I know of her from Moheli, and I know her and Blake were ride or dies which I am wary off.... Otherwise, she has been super quiet and I could see her.... potentially going early rip a queen Saxon: FUDGE. I havent spoken to him at all which is scary, since I feel like he probably already knows a lot of this cast, so if he wins RIP me I guess. Otherwise, he seems like a fun personality so wooo Jelaminah: Ummm. She is wild. Like really wild. I think I stan her, but I also am like.... concious that she is a lot, and its sometimes too much for me. I'm a bit annoyed by her tbh, but its just because she was like laughing at people's sexualities, as if she didnt believe them, and thats super ugly, but I couldn't exactly say anything to her. I think she is gonna be a super dominant personality, but whew we will see. Blake: I know he was a big player in Moheli, but I think he also rubbed people the wrong way.... We will see how he does, he seems iconic Autumn: A QUEEN. She is the most inactive so far which is worrying. I don't want her to go early. I could really see her going up this week, but maybe us two havent talked much, since she is just comfortable in our relationship? AND WHEW. Thats everything, if anyone read this, I love you for that. Otherwise, wooo I'm super nervous, I love my DR guests Owen and Emily and eek. We will see!

ahhh okay so, I’m super excited about meeting new people....BUT...this cast is so huge and I’m so nervous. I like everyone for the most part and I’ve been trying to like talk to some people I’ve played with in the past to maybe smoothe over some bad relationships? The only person I’m still like nervous about is Julia because she kills the straight men and she hates Gemini’s. AND WHAT AM I? A STRAIGHT MALE GEMINI. I don’t think she’s very good at comps tho and I know she would go for Bryce before me. Anyway I seriously love Kat because she is so genuine and I just want to work with her. Also I want to work with alivia, roxy, zeezo, Olivia, randy, Jela, ricky, and autumn! There’s a few others as well but I’ll prob do like a video DR and talk about how I feel about everyone...who knows.

Jose is officially my showmance and we stan asjdkfaslf. He is so nice and my favourite new person I've met in the cast anyway, and he won lots of comps last season so I'm ready for him to drag me to the end dlakjfasfa.

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bryce better not fucking put me up or i'm gonna SHOOT

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wow so happy bryce is HoH!!!! perfect week one :$

I am actually really happy that bryce won this HOH bc that means my ass hole is safe! PRaise BE. MY showmance that was made by ALIVIA has saved my ass and partly to me sorta already knowing him through tara! BITHCH TARA LOLOVE UR ASSSS. ANd shoot idk what these gays are lookin at but ppl be sayin they think im cute. maybe its like when i look at a potato or like a waffle fry?? who knows ahaha but like some of these boys be good lookin like damn. hit me and my crocs up boys ;P

I am not a bottom. ya dumb bitch

Bryce is nomming me for not playing in the hoh. Gurl gurl im not a newb who would buy up that excuse

Just say we arent alligned and im good with the other players and id belive you why would i buy that you, a player whose played a few games by now, would nom someone for abstainimg

Okay SO. I filmed a video confessional earlier, but its already super out of date so its time for an update! I have spoken to lots of people that I hadn't talked to since premiere night which is good, Alivia & Kat are so nice! Jose is, as always a king, and I think (other than Olivia) he is my closest ally rn, so woo we stan. Otherwise, I spoke to Bryce, and it seems like (praise be), I'm not getting nominated, WOO! He says he is nominating Roxy/Autumn, with Julia getting the future shock thingie. Like I told him, the future shock is kind of like a curse and we know Julia loves a good curse, so its a good matchup aljdfkas. Otherwise, these nominations make sense. I LOVE Autumn, but she has been the quietest person in the cast, so I assume she is gonna go first rip. Roxy I have spoken to a fair bit, but I know she is in a funky timezone, which probably throws off her ability to be active. Bryce seemed like he was being pretty open with me, so I hope I'm not the backup plan if somebody comes off. I feel like my social game is pretty strong so I wouldnt have thought people in the house would push for me as a renom and eI'd be suprised if I get nominated! Last but not least, the unfortunate thing is how MENINIST these nominations are akjsdfla, we are really putting the orre in discriminatorrey.

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First DR of the game. I'm not going to do first impressions because I'm not that dry. The game started when I was put in this bitch, so I'm here to go at full force. I'm going to play a strong balance of a great 1 on 1 social game while still being a great personality people love. As of right now I'm being constantly dragged and roasted, and I wouldn't want it any other way. (But this is before HOH so the claws are bound to come over) So my game has been very social as of right now. Before HoH I focused on making genuine connections. I'm good with all the returnees at this point. None of them have beef with me, and I made it clear that I want to work with all of them (while this is farther from the truth). I'm just being diplomatic because there's some tension between the returnees that will have to be released soon. With the returnees I connected automatically with Zeezo. Me and her didnt even small talk its was just game talk from moment one. Thats a great relationship to have, and I'm definitely maintaining it. Jose and Alivia have been talking to me more. Jose has been more open with working with me than Alivia so : \\. All the returnees from Kanto-Sinnoh are here because theyre entertaining, the bitches from Unova-Alola would be casted for redemption but don't meet the criteria. I made an alliance with Jelaminah and Ricky. This is mostly because I need to be on Jelaminah's good side because I know the bitch knows how to play. So i would rather be scheming with her than against her. Ricky is just a number. On housecalls I saw that Jela was talking to Julia a lot. So I started talking to Julia a lot more. I surprisingly trust her a lot more than I thought I would. So me and her aren't beefing, but her and Bryce are. HOS20 affects this game because Julia and Saxon are aligned in this game and they're against Bryce and Sammy as of right now. I know Julia can drop a vendetta, but Saxon is just horrible about it. And I hate Saxon so much. He just gives me second hand embarassment and i dont know why. Like I'm so happy I've trained myself to hold my tongue because the shit he wears on housecalls actually make me laugh. He posted a picture of him shirtless and it was literally looking at rotten spam meat. Its not cute, and he is just so prude in pms because he obviously doesnt want to talk to me. I can make a separate DR about Saxon because he brings out all the hate and all the angst I had when I was in Johto. But going back to the topic Julia fought Sammy and Bryce ig and Saxon thinks Julia is right because he's a kissass and is a savvy feminist. I love Julia so her having beef isnt good. I talked to her and she said she didnt have good relations with Olivia, Bryce, Sammy, and Autumn. And i was shocked that this game is so against her, but this is great information because its something I can utilize. But those are her problems, and they dont affect me. If she wants to play with me she's gonna have to fix amends or take them out 1 by 1First DR of the game. I'm not going to do first impressions because I'm not that dry. The game started when I was put in this bitch, so I'm here to go at full force. I'm going to play a strong balance of a great 1 on 1 social game while still being a great personality people love. As of right now I'm being constantly dragged and roasted, and I wouldn't want it any other way. (But this is before HOH so the claws are bound to come over) So my game has been very social as of right now. Before HoH I focused on making genuine connections. I'm good with all the returnees at this point. None of them have beef with me, and I made it clear that I want to work with all of them (while this is farther from the truth). I'm just being diplomatic because there's some tension between the returnees that will have to be released soon. With the returnees I connected automatically with Zeezo. Me and her didnt even small talk its was just game talk from moment one. Thats a great relationship to have, and I'm definitely maintaining it. Jose and Alivia have been talking to me more. Jose has been more open with working with me than Alivia so : \\. All the returnees from Kanto-Sinnoh are here because theyre entertaining, the bitches from Unova-Alola would be casted for redemption but don't meet the criteria. I made an alliance with Jelaminah and Ricky. This is mostly because I need to be on Jelaminah's good side because I know the bitch knows how to play. So i would rather be scheming with her than against her. Ricky is just a number. On housecalls I saw that Jela was talking to Julia a lot. So I started talking to Julia a lot more. I surprisingly trust her a lot more than I thought I would. So me and her aren't beefing, but her and Bryce are. HOS20 affects this game because Julia and Saxon are aligned in this game and they're against Bryce and Sammy as of right now. I know Julia can drop a vendetta, but Saxon is just horrible about it. And I hate Saxon so much. He just gives me second hand embarassment and i dont know why. Like I'm so happy I've trained myself to hold my tongue because the shit he wears on housecalls actually make me laugh. He posted a picture of him shirtless and it was literally like looking at rotten spam meat. Its not cute, and he is just so prude in pms because he obviously doesnt want to talk to me. I can make a separate DR about Saxon because he brings out all the hate and all the angst I had when I was in Johto. But going back to the topic Julia fought Sammy and Bryce ig and Saxon thinks Julia is right because he's a kissass and is a savvy feminist. I love Julia so her having beef isnt good. I talked to her and she said she didnt have good relations with Olivia, Bryce, Sammy, and Autumn. And i was shocked that this game is so against her, but this is great information because its something I can utilize. But those are her problems, and they dont affect me. If she wants to play with me she's gonna have to fix amends or take them out 1 by 1. Until then I'm going to spend my time with investments that are bound to pay off. Which are with the newbies. I've been spending a lot of time on Blake because Blake lives 20 minutes away from me. I'm trying to hold this down as secret as possible. He likes me, and I want to work with him so I'm just going to continue our friendship and ensure that we're a duo. He doesn't talk a lot in the housechat which is concerning to me, but he does hold very strong one on one relations with most of the house. Lynn is also a south carolina native, and she is just so infectious. She is very intimidated by the large cast meaning that she hasnt bonded that well with a lot of people. So i put two and two together and made a South Carolina alliance. I know Blake is genuine about it. But the main purpose of this alliance is to keep Lynn under my sphere of influence. I can't have no newbies on my side. No ma'am Another newbie who stands out for me is John. John is just really active, and such a social threat. Meaning that his word has saying. So far my relationship with him has been "hey let literally help you with anything and expect nothing in return". With him im trying to show myself as a puppet, or somebody who is very very useful with him. And I actually showed that this week when Bryce won HOH. Won't lie I didnt want but also wanted HOH at the same time. When Bryce won it I was very wary of what was going to happen. Then John comes up to me saying that Bryce is thinking of nominating him. And since I had a decent bond with Bryce I know that I had to save John. So when Bryce talked to me he was dead set as Roxy as the initial nom and target, and Julia for safety this week. Then he mentioned that he was on the fence because he didnt know if he wanted Autumn or John nominated. So I told him the truth that it would be silly to nominate somebody as active as John. And so John wasn't nominated. I stuck my neck out for John and was one of the reasons he isn't nominated this week. And these game things build genuine trust since I'm not just talking to talk. I'm walking to walk and this game isn't ready for Randyy.

Hello ladies and gentlemen you're looking at the first nominee of the season waysup

Imma get to the bottom of this so ain't even worried. I just feel bad y'all didn't even get one happy confessional from me. We just jumped straight into poppin off. That's ok though! Nice for what am i rite

Bryce is full of shit and I'm embarrassed for him. Like who makes an enemy out of me on Day fucking 3? Really my guy? That's the first thing you thought of when you had 19 people to pick from? Apparently I'm getting nominated because the other 18 people in the cast talked to Bryce yesterday and I didn't. Not only do I not buy that, but we just not gonna acknowledge the fact that I talked to him on 2 of the 3 days the game has been going on so far? K cool. Today we learned unless Bryce feels like the prettiest girl at the dance every minute of every day, you're not doing enough Also can we talk about how the "I'm so happy to play with you I always root for you" energy that Bryce was selling to me on day one didn't even last a round? Hiigghkey I feel like the people who know me in the cast are secretly happy cause they know I'm petty enough to take Bryce out and I'll have no problem taking the fall for it. Ali, Ashvika, Sammy, Julia, Olivia- they know I don't play that shit. Can you imagine being first HOH, using it on me, and then thinking I'm not mad at you because I "understand" that nominating me was "the easiest thing to do"?

SHIT YOUR BOI JUST DID THAT TONIGHT! IF U KNOW YOU KNOW. 😜😂

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CLICK HERE TO SEE ALI’S VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

woo I'm on call with Autumn, Sammy, Jela & Dennis. THEY ARE SO FUN. I am back on the Jela stan train, she is actually super nice! I think I want Autumn to stay this week (and I think she could too)! Roxy is super sweet, but Autumn is a queen and the queen stays queen! Oh, I'm not using the veto too, its way too early to make a move and I don't know who would go up instead. I'm still SHRIEKING that I won that veto somehow kjlasdfa

CLICK HERE TO SEE RANDY’S VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

[5/9/18, 2:45:32 PM] Blake Sanders: do you want money?? [5/9/18, 2:45:41 PM] Blake Sanders: BC THE MONEY WANTS YOU! [5/9/18, 2:45:43 PM] alivia: do you wanna be rich??? [5/9/18, 2:45:53 PM] Blake Sanders: ^^^^^^ RICH [5/9/18, 2:45:58 PM] Blake Sanders: not just driving nice car rich [5/9/18, 2:46:07 PM] Blake Sanders: I mean using cheeta fur as toilet paper rich! [5/9/18, 2:46:15 PM] alivia: 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 [5/9/18, 2:48:20 PM] alivia: YOUVE BEEN HAND SELECTED [5/9/18, 2:48:31 PM] alivia: BECAUSE WE THINK YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES [5/9/18, 3:07:19 PM] rixxy 🦄: Hi I just got off work [5/9/18, 3:07:23 PM] rixxy 🦄: what the FUCK is this? [5/9/18, 3:07:33 PM] alivia: DO YOU WANT MONEY??? [5/9/18, 3:07:52 PM] rixxy 🦄: i'm scared but absolutely [5/9/18, 3:07:58 PM] Blake Sanders: FUCK YA! [5/9/18, 3:07:58 PM] alivia: WE WANT YOUR HELP SCAMMING THIS HOUSE! [5/9/18, 3:08:09 PM] alivia: it’s good to be a little scared [5/9/18, 3:08:12 PM] rixxy 🦄: I definitely don't like where this is going. [5/9/18, 3:08:12 PM] Blake Sanders: MONEY WERE GOIN TO RULE THIS AND MAKE MONEY [5/9/18, 3:08:26 PM] Blake Sanders: BUT U WILL RIXXY [5/9/18, 3:08:31 PM] rixxy 🦄: god [5/9/18, 3:08:34 PM] Blake Sanders: <3 [5/9/18, 3:09:00 PM] lynnt: yes [5/9/18, 3:09:53 PM] alivia: you’re gonna be rich so you gotta live rich [5/9/18, 3:11:57 PM] Blake Sanders: There’s like a joining fee [5/9/18, 3:12:01 PM] alivia: yep [5/9/18, 3:12:09 PM] alivia: like scientology [5/9/18, 3:12:21 PM] alivia: but like this is real [5/9/18, 3:12:56 PM] rixxy 🦄: i'm not paying for this [5/9/18, 3:13:01 PM] rixxy 🦄: is this like a legit game thing? [5/9/18, 3:13:03 PM] rixxy 🦄: bc [5/9/18, 3:13:07 PM] lynnt: then imma opt out b/c this rich bitch is cheap and that’s why i’m rich [5/9/18, 3:13:55 PM] Blake Sanders: I mean we legit love u guys [5/9/18, 3:14:07 PM] rixxy 🦄: is this an alliance [5/9/18, 3:14:12 PM] rixxy 🦄: bc i'm uncomfortable and confused [5/9/18, 3:14:35 PM] alivia: woah woah woah [5/9/18, 3:14:41 PM] alivia: everyone calm down [5/9/18, 3:15:09 PM] alivia: don’t worry about the money. you can pay the joining fee AFTER we’re rich [5/9/18, 3:15:15 PM] alivia: don’t worry [5/9/18, 3:15:16 PM] rixxy 🦄: like i'm actually having an anxiety attack can you RATMEME.PNG literally..... WHAT???? blake and i were talking and started joking about being scammers bc sdfkal and then i was like "we should start a scammer alliance" and that's how it all started. we thought it would be SO funny if we just added them to a chat and started trolling them about scamming houseguests out of their money dljgdkfjg and i thought MAYBE lynn and ricky would be confused at first but ricky literally lost his mind like ooops my bad WE THOUGHT WE WERE FUNNY BUT I GAS NOT. [5/9/18, 3:16:08 PM] alivia: it’s a joke but kind of an alliance [5/9/18, 3:16:21 PM] alivia: but mostly a joke [5/9/18, 3:16:44 PM] rixxy 🦄: i literally thought i got dragged into some kind of game twist and i wouldn't play my own game god [5/9/18, 3:17:08 PM] alivia: omg WHAT [5/9/18, 3:17:19 PM] alivia: LITERALLY THE BIGGEST JOKE NOT SERIOUS [5/9/18, 3:17:25 PM] alivia: IMSORFY [5/9/18, 3:17:28 PM] rixxy 🦄: like i thought it was some saboteur/team america bullshit [5/9/18, 3:17:35 PM] alivia: omg noooo [5/9/18, 3:17:42 PM] rixxy 🦄: all i want to do is play the game and i literally thought that was snatched from me [5/9/18, 3:17:50 PM] alivia: HOW??? [5/9/18, 3:18:17 PM] rixxy 🦄: idk i thought y'all were a twist sdksksksksks sdfjsdl wow fuck me i gas??? my social game is really off to a great start!!! gotta get ricky outta here asap now

Right now i am on CAll with SAMMY SAM bc im bad at talking to multiple people at a time! SOOOOOO SAMMY is like wanting to be ym ally but like do i trust his ass??

CLICK HERE TO SEE JOSE’S VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

okayyyyy so this is definitely something different like bb is hard tbh. there's too many people to talk to and i just really don't care about continuing to keep up a convo with some of them but you have to or bye bye. i have definitely not been as social as most and that is def scary but the people that i have talked to and made connections are super nice. so that's why i was so glad when the people that won HOH and POV are people i talked to. uuhHHuh i have no fucking clue who i want to evict tonight so that's fun! ya know autumn is super nice and chill but she did go dark for a while and roxy is super fun and i still haven't heard ANY singing and i want to and she is campaigning really hard so she really wants to stay BUT since she's campaigning so hard to stay and kinda saying anything to EVERYONE who knows what she'll do to stay in the game later on. idk is it too early to be thinking about later in the game?? idkkk thanks for coming to my rambling ted talk. find out next time on if i've decided.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DENNIS’ VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

OK SOOOO the eviction is coming up tonight and its either going to be Autumn or Roxy! NOw autumn is a super sweet queen but i feel like she will kill me if need be! but i still lvoe her! now roxy she is fighting for her life like she is making me promises i think she will not be able to keep. bc ive heard form other hosue guests she is making the same promises to them. NOW i love talkin to her about food and cooking but i feel awful that im most likely going to evict her! but o well it has to be done im glad its not me

i feel like i should give like a summary of like where i am with everyone and how i feel about them all before the first eviction! ALI: Well i first knew him because he reached out to me about a game he is gonna host. He like doesn't talk to me much which makes me nervous... I like him a lot but looks like we are just acquaintances atm. ALIVIA: OK I FREAKIN LOVE HER! SHE IS HILARIOUS! WE STARTED A ALLIANCE CHAT CALLED SCAMMERS R' US AND RICKY LEGIT FREAKED THE FUCK OUT AND WE WERE ALL LIKE WTF JUST HAPPENED HE IS INSANE! i hope i get to work with her a lot during this game and talk about ice cream! But i do see her stabbing me in the back later on so ill prob strike first. LOVE YA ASHVIKA: now this girl is a goddess she is beauty and she is grace! we talk like avg and stuff we have small chats nothing about gamewise. I see her as not being a threat as in targeting people or winning HOH i see her as a social threat. I think she will go far but not win she will def be jury. I think she is amazing tho and shes a model soo like i want to be her. AUTUMN: Now Autumn is a delight to be around so sweet and seems so pure but she will kill me i just know it. She's the beautiful flower in the garden that turns into a man eating plant <3 she is temptation and i may fall for it BLAKE: ive been told i was a certified good boy BRYCE: Now i knew him b4 this game bc of my friend TARA LOVE YOU BITCH <3 ! i think he will keep me around but idk if our bond is tight enough. i dont think he will choose to evict me yet. but other thsn that i want to work on having a closer bond with him for sure! DENNIS: I like dennis he just iidk theres not alot to say? me adn him talk about video games and stuff but whenever i talk to him i like forget like why im talkin to him lol! but he is super chill! JELAMINAH: THIS WOMAN <3 IS AMAZINGLY FUNNYY! SHE IS ONE PERSONALITY I WANT TO GET ON MY SIDE~! she is hilarious amd an amazing person i want to work with her sooo bad! i talk to her in oms sometimes but she is more of a on call person i believe or she just doesn't wanna talk to me ahah . O AND JELA I TAKE BACK TO WHO I THINK THE CUTEST BOY HERE IS ! JOHN : I love john! me and him talk trash about random things and it is hilarious! i hope he feels as close to me as i am to him! i feel like we can work together in the long run. JOSE: Ive only talked to Jose just a little bit so im worried if he ever wins HOH bc i may be nominated! so i better get my ass into high gear and talk to him more. other than that i remebr him as the guy who someone hit his fence with a car. JULIA: NOW i have heard things about this girl! like that she is ana amzing player and i better watch out for her! IM SO SORRY JULIA BUT U R ON MY HITLIST! AND SADLY U NEVER U LEFT ME ON READ IN MY PMS RUDE~! KAT:I WAS SO WORRIED ABOUT KAT BUT WE JUST STARTED TALKING TODAY AND WE HELPED names each others plants! she is a precious person and i love her! she is so funny! i want to work with her for this game! LYNN: YALL THIS IS MY BITCH ! I LOVE YOU LYNN WE PLAYED IN MOHELI TOGETHER AND AFTER THAT IT WAS HISTORY WE BECAME BEST FRIENDS VISITING EACH OTHER AND STUFF! SHE ONLY LIED 2 HOURS FROM ME WHEN I WENT TO SCHOOL I SAW HER ALL THE TIME! I AM MOST DEF WORKING WITH HER! SHE IS MY BESTFRIEND! <3 LOVE U OLIVIA: OK WELL IDK MUCH bout her. ummmm i talked to her a little im ttrying to become her ally but its not really workign she wont talk to meee!! RANDY: omg i have not heard good things about him.... i shouldve been told these things sooner omg! i feel like he hates me he might! we live in the same city and live like 15 mins away! omg rip rip rip . he goes to my old highdchool! thats crazy af! im working wiht him rn but i i think im going to nom him in the middle of the game or try to get him out around then. sorry randy! also hes been giving me the cold shoulder and not talkin to me which is rude. adnwe r in an alliance chat bro. come on really... RICKY: TBh u annoy me. everything i like u say its dumb or u don't like it. i say goodmorning/afternoon to u adn u say its morning its not even close to afternoon whatre u doing. AND IM LIKE WTF HAV U NEVER HEARD OF TIMEZONES! LIKE HELLLLLO! damn just we are not compatible people and well if i ever win HOH ill prob nom him. ROXY: DAMN BITCH I CAUGHT U IN A LIE AND U DONT KNOW ABOUT IT! THIS IS THE REAOSN IM VOTIN TO EVICT U IM SORRY OMG IM GOIN TO MISS TALKIN TO U ABOUT FOOD! ur sooo sweet omg and u hav a lovely voice! SAMMY: I have been told not to trust him bc he is a snake. But shit he is one of my closest allies now! like we talked for hours on call and watched survivor it was such a cute little date! GOD i hope he doesnt betray me ill cry so much! i mean he might but like i dont wanna back stab him.... yet <3 SAXON: who r u?? talked like never. ur probably nice?? ZEEZO: Girl u be freakin lynn out with eveyrhting u saying to and about her! soo idk like aht to do wiht u ahahah prob get u nominated?? SORRY IM A LOSER AND DIDNT MAKE A VID I LOOK LIKE A THUMB ATM <3

what bitch Randy, 3:05 PM hola 3:05 PM you never sent me a pm Randy, 3:05 PM ur coll bc you aint never talk about interesting shit 3:05 PM uh huh Randy, 3:05 PM tf am i supposed to reply to "yea" 3:06 PM sorry I'm not your source of entertainment you twink I was busy with my life Randy, 3:06 PM wow this is something we can TALK ABOUT Randy, 3:06 PM what did you do I kinda snapped sorry Randy

Are u gonnaget ur tattoo coloured? :0 or will it be lines? Rn im hungry waiting for ma burger heh 9:21 PM It’s just lines henny 👑, 9:23 PM Sweet! What inspires the one u chose? 👑, 6:35 AM Hey saxon! I wanted to wait to speak to you in person but im tired and sorta not feeling well so i cant stay up. I wouls love it id you vote me to stay!! I really enjoy this game and im a p loyal ally! Im active and have jackbox too xd. Ill try be up at least 2 hours bfr eviction if you wanna chat about the vote! 👑, 3:03 PM Morning 3:03 PM Hiya 👑, 3:03 PM Hows it going? 3:04 PM fine busy 👑, 3:04 PM Ripp with what m? 3:05 PM a 5 page paper 👑, 3:06 PM Ew Wtf 3:06 PM ye 👑, 3:06 PM Just quit school. Death sound sbetter than that Hshsbs 3:10 PM i omg 👑, 3:11 PM Lmfao Man now my eviction worries seem meaningless 3:14 PM Why is that? 👑, 3:15 PM :o cause your 5 page thing is gross :o have you started on it or still got a ways to go? 3:20 PM I still got a ways to go 👑, 3:20 PM yikes 👑, 3:20 PM how are you feeling about this week? like hame wise Roxy I think you're a lovely person but holy fuck can you just please shut up sometimes when you know someone is busy

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALI’S VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

CLICK HERE TO SEE PT 1 OF BRYCE’S VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

CLICK HERE TO SEE PT 2 OF BRYCE’S VIDEO DIARY ROOM!

I'd say it was an effective campaign xoxo Summer Shrek

CAST ASSESSMENT

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE WEEK 1 CAST ASSESSMENT!

#episode #bborre

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ahwhite2208-blog · 6 years ago

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A Thousand Days In Hell

Non-league football is a peculiar entity. For half of the teams in the National League, and certainly the rest in the steps below, it is a wonderful opportunity to do the unthinkable and gain entry to the world of full time football, a dream that so many children have and yet so few manage to live. The players are part time brickies, postmen, regional bank clerks – you know, the type of clubs and players that the BBC cameras fawn over in the FA Cup first round. In principle, it’s great. If I was a Gateshead or a Solihull fan, I might even enjoy it. But when a club the size of Tranmere Rovers fell out of the Football League trapdoor, the typical non-league experience is turned on its head.

The day before I moved to university, I stood on the terraces at Southport and watched us go 2-0 down within 20 minutes. It still hadn’t registered to me that this was actually happening, a feeling of bemusement that I’m sure most of us shared. It was meant to be a whistlestop tour of shit grounds and shit teams that we’d only ever seen in pre-season friendlies. As it turned out, we were destined to spend 1,115 days with this feeling. Denial, sadness, anger, guilt and frustration all came and went, depending on the level of opposition and how quickly we managed to concede. A wounded animal, confused and in pain, Tranmere Rovers as a collective entity was in unfamiliar surroundings. What were we meant to do? It felt like a fever dream. The hideous turquoise tracksuits, the god awful Vanarama branding, even the footballs themselves looked tacky and amateurish. Granted, we hadn’t exactly covered ourselves in glory for about fifteen years but what did we do to deserve this? Most of the players, on our side and theirs, looked like they had won a competition to play at being a footballer for the day. It was a continuation of the previous season’s atrocities, but at a level of football that was truly embarrassing to watch. We didn’t even make the playoffs in that first year, thanks to a team from Essex with about three pound fifty to their name and two P.E teachers in charge. Two ends of the spectrum and all that.

If I’m being honest, I remember next to nothing about the 16 months that Gary Brabin was in charge. I barely went to the games after September, I didn’t know who half of our players were, and I stopped caring. When you spend your 18thbirthday watching Boreham Wood beat you 2-0, something inside of you just dies. I didn’t even bother going to Wrexham. I binned off browsing the Cowsheds – probably a wise decision for anyone wanting to keep their sanity – so FlashScore and the occasional Twitter update was about as much as I could be arsed. I was used to my Kopite and Bluenose mates taking the piss out of us, but I draw the line at Sebastian from Surrey braying in the Mission smoking area about how he could never watch non-league football because his daddy gets executive seats at Chelsea. To be honest, I kept a good crowd at uni. Most of my teammates supported Championship teams like Ipswich or Preston, but even their sympathetic nods and “you’re too big to be down there, remember when you were playing us in League One?” became depressing.

On my occasional visits home in second year, things seemed to be picking up pace. The glamping tent was established (two Gamma Rays and a Sheppy’s please Mark) and we had an alright team. Nors and Harris were becoming cult heroes, we signed Steeeeve and looked like we could actually win the league. Still had to put up with the refereeing, the 12 North Ferriby fans and the voice in the back of your head that says you’re going to be here forever, but at least things were looking up. Remember though, this is Tranmere, and the good was inevitably followed by the bad. Lincoln away was possibly the worst place I’ve ever been for several reasons, the main one being that it looks like post-apocalypse Brexit Britain and the locals are the strangest mutants you can imagine. Whoever’s van I keyed: you deserved it for a) beating us, b) living in Lincoln and c) having a copy of the S*n on your dashboard. Imagine giving somewhere as desolate as Lincoln city status. Anyway, they had the last laugh because they won the league by four points and we got beat at Wembley by a team whose owner wanted to spend millions of actual Great British Pounds on a football ground made out of matchsticks.

Having a life outside of Tranmere proved to be surprisingly easy when we were dwelling in the depths of non-league. I still spent my Saturdays on the couch with an illegal stream of Phil Thompson’s nose and no money in my Betfair account, but it was a somewhat refreshing change to not be planning your life around Rotherham away on a Tuesday night. There wasn’t a chance that I was spending my free government money going to Dover or Torquay when I could spend it on weed and takeaways instead. The few aways that I did manage (hello, 20 minute train journeys to Guiseley and Halifax) were just soul crushing. The council pitch that Guiseley play on had a building site behind it, and absolutely zero incline on the terrace, which is a problem for a short arse like me. I went three times in three years and managed to see a grand total of about 40 minutes. Still worth it for the time I got sick of a 15 year old singing ‘sign on’ and told him in no uncertain terms that Sutcliffe killed his nan. There’s a couple of layers in that one.

As usual, the footballing gods conspired against us last year and we managed to get ¾ of our midfield injured before the play off final. I think we were one injury away from having a centre midfield partnership of Purple Aki and Pete Price, although on reflection the lizard would have had a better game than Lois Maynard. If he was under 6 foot, he’d still be knocking about playing for Manchester Met or wherever we signed him from, the absolute fucking fraud. I’m sure Aki would have put the fear of God into Forest Green as well. Imagine marking him from a corner, he’d have a field day squeezing muscles. In all honesty, we deserved another year in hell for that performance. I’d like to make an official apology for getting escorted off the premises for what can only be described as monumentally dickish behaviour after a long day in the sun.

Now that we’ve won there, I can finally say that Wembley is a corporate shithole without it sounding like sour grapes. Mr. Palios, tear down that arch! Christ alive, what an awful place it is to watch football. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s only ever 20% full for the National League, everything about it just drains you as a fan. It’s more like an airport hangar than an actual ground. I hear Tottenham are putting shops in their new gaff, something the Jaguars owner will almost definitely copy when he buys the place. I’m not a fan of London in general, but Wembley just takes the piss. If I can make it through the next 60 odd years of my life without ever going back, I’ll be happy.

The fact that I’ve got this far in without mentioning the referees is testament to how long the list of complaints about the National League is. Incompetent would be putting it kindly, because every single one of these clowns got their qualifications from the back of a Cornflakes packet. I’m well into my conspiracy theories, and the one about BT and Vanarama deliberately keeping us down in order to boost viewing figures sounds plausible enough, but that would require several doses of the dark arts that these morons don’t have the brain capacity for. It’s a hard job to referee a football match, made even harder if you have absolutely no common sense. The timewasting in that league is enough to test the patience of a saint. All the VAR nonsense at the World Cup is proof that the governing institutions have gone mental. You’d never finish a game in the National League if the refs had VAR. The first half against Ebbsfleet would still be going on. I could list hundreds of terrible decisions both for and against us and it still wouldn’t scratch the surface, but Ritchie Sutton getting sent off at Welling, Scott Davies being assaulted into the net at Barrow and Chester getting a penalty that was about three yards outside the box all stick out.

The last thing I fancy a rant about is the almost comedic lack of professionalism surrounding the entire setup. They absolutely ham it up to the BT cameras like the entire world has woken up at 12.30 to watch Woking v Eastleigh on a Saturday morning. Literally every tweet the official account has ever posted makes me cringe, the pundits are so painfully beige that they make Steve Claridge and his receding hairline look like Little Richard in comparison and Boreham Wood somehow managed to get away with charging to watch their highlights. The fucking cheek of it! It was a stress relief to unfollow them all, clicking each button and feeling part of my soul flowing back into me. At one point, we had no idea whether we were playing on Saturday or not, because the FA Trophy replay took priority over the league. Usually this is all sorted out as soon as possible, but because the NL fixtures are done by some fella writing them down in his ma’s kitchen, they’d got confused. They eventually told us on Friday afternoon that yes, your league game is on. I despair. Even the whole Solihull floodlights debacle got sorted quicker. Juventus’ match-fixing scandal had nothing on that, by the way. The 200 odd people who watched that replay were witness to us throwing that game. I don’t think I saw anyone in a white shirt break out of a jog, and I was all for it. I got to spend a lovely weekend in Solihull (not a patch on Birkenhead) and watch a game of football played in front of a crowd smaller than the Beechwood-Upton derby, with a fraction of the intensity. The perfect non-league experience.

I’ll finish this off by saying thank you to Mark and Nicola Palios, to everyone at the Trust and the TROSC, the Wirral Radio team, and every single season ticket holder. Without you, the club wouldn’t have climbed out of the pit. In fact, I think we’d have developed Stockholm Syndrome within the next few seasons and become like our Welsh friends. The turnaround and revitalisation of the entire structure of this football club gives us hope for the future. Not just blind hope, but optimism as well. When we were losing to Altrincham, I didn’t think that the suites would be pulling in money, or we’d have an academy setup in China. When Welling were putting us to the sword, I didn’t think we’d ever see a club that the fans are so fiercely proud of again. Thank you for not losing interest when I did. That day at Wembley has already been written about. Let us not emerge from non-league abyss blinking at the sunlight, desperate for comfort. Let us instead kick the door of League Two down, wielding dual scythes and behead Stevenage like an invading Dothraki horde.

Figuratively, obviously.

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olgajann · 7 years ago

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2019 NFL Draft: 50 Players You Should Know

NEPD Staff Contributor: Jeff Fidler

The 2018 draft is over & I'm in full 2019-mode right about now. I made a list of 50 players that I've been watching over the past year or two. Some just recently. This isn't a top 50 list, I don't have them ranked in order of where I think they are, in terms of “who's the best”. The season will will play itself out soon enough & that will make things a lot clearer. This is just to get familiar w/ who's, who. Get some nuggets of info & stay updated as to who might be on the Patriots radar next year.

1) Zach Allen DE/BC – Allen, a local product from CT, is a big, thick defensive end that lined up at multiple techniques for B.C. last year. He's a legit 6'5/280 w/ long arms & at times really knows how to use them. He'll stab/punch, bull rush & spin off opponents en route to attacking the QB. At times does a good job of keeping his outside shoulder clean in the pas & run game to make plays. Doesn't get fooled by rpo's, runs etc. Doesn't panic & has a readiness about him playing ball carriers behind the line. Allen is the type of player that fits what we like from a size, length standpoint & his overall game seems to fit as well.

2) Nathan Stanley QB/Iowa – I'm have a feeling Stanley's name will mentioned more & more as we get closer to the college football season starting. Stanley has very good mechanics, he looks like a classic pocket passer. His arm is also legit. Not a Russell or Allen cannon but he has strength to hit 60 yards easy & at times has shown sweet deep placement & accuracy. He's taken snaps & made plays from under center, on the run & in S/G. Looks very comfortable on the move & in play action. At times Stanley goes through his reads but you want to see more of that & an overall better pocket awareness this fall. There's a lot to get excited about over this player. 6'5/215 first year starter w/ a 26/6 TD-INT ratio.

Here he is here w/ NFL player Sam Hubbard wrapped around his legs. Stays calm, goes through reads & delivers a dart.

Impressive play by @HawkeyeFootball quarterback Nathan Stanley keeping his eyes downfield without panic and firing his back hip through. pic.twitter.com/cuPMZCfIm8

- Quarterback World (@WorldOfTheQB) November 6, 2017

Nathan Stanley of @HawkeyeFootball is going to be a QB to watch…. Big, fluid, can spin it. pic.twitter.com/ixB7C2p4ti

- Quarterback World (@WorldOfTheQB) October 30, 2017

3) Devin White LB/LSU – White is a throwback linebacker that has sideline to sideline speed. 6'1/240 but moves like he's 10lbs lighter. Looks like a bullet when blitzing up through the A/B gaps. Can drop back & clog up the swallow zone w/ his big body. White hits everything w/ bad intentions. The former standout running back is a force in the middle & someone teams will covet come draft time as he's a beast athletically as well.

4) Devin Bush LB/Michigan – While White is a throwback type, Bush is a chess piece made & molded to be moved around. Different players but both versatile players. Bush is a + chase/pursuit player in the backfield & does a good job navigating through the muck to find his target. He'll also sniff out screens & passing plays developing in the flat. Bush lit up the stat sheet last year as a young player (90 TKL, 10 TFL, 5.5 SKS, 1 INT) & has to do it again but he already looks like a future pro.

5) Christian Wilkins DL/Clemson – Wilkins surprised some by coming back this year, 2019 is absolutely loaded along the defensive line. That said Wilkins is a versatile big boy who plays inside/outside & moves like someone who weighs 30 lbs lighter. Wilkins is very agile & nimble for a 310+ guy. Able to get skinny to flash through gaps or muscle through defenders. Wilkins has strong hands & shows + instincts on the field. He can play in a 34/43 & looks built for a multiple team up front.

6) Dexter Lawrence DT/Clemson – Going right back to Clemson & looking at another standout interior defender. Lawrence is a freaky mini-mountain in the middle that is going to be a nightmare for G's & C's for years to come. Some have Wilkins & Lawrence as a lottery picks, which they very well could be. I just think their value is in the mid 1st & on. And with the depth of the class anything is possible. Lawrence moves like a 300lb pounder & is scheme proof. He's plug & play day1.

Dexter Lawrence. pic.twitter.com/V4mJVIXqrg

- Seldom Used Reserve (@seldomusedrsrv) April 26, 2018

7) Daniel Jones QB/Duke – The North Carolina native is a team captain & former 2016 team MVP. Prototype size, tough player that has experience running rpo. Jones has great mechanics from his base to his upper half. Everything always looks the same. His set-up, everything starts with his foot-firing feet that are always moving & putting him in the best spot possible. Good arm that can adjust heat on throws, has enough zip on his passes but could get stronger. At times his head moved just like a clock. I definitely want to see more of that, hopefully leading to a more consistent showing, he's been up & down for stretches so far in his career. Still there are plenty of tools to work with & his overall game has improved each year from a leadership aspect.

8) Julian Love CB/Notre Dame – Love is a thickly built corner who looks like dependable open field tackler & someone who competes for everything. He displayed + route recognition in several games, on several plays I watched. He also looks comfortable in press, zone & off man & also played CB/S in high school.

9) Taylor Rapp – Rapp is an instinctual Safety with very good short area quickness & doesn't shy away from coming out in run support to make a play. Very efficient in doing so as well. He's very smooth, seemingly always round the ball or where the action is. Right now he reminds me a little bit of Harrison Smith from the Vikings.

10) Easton Stick – Stick took over for Wentz & lead the Bison to a title last year. Stick has been up & down & streaky at times but shows + accuracy & placement at times. He also can push the ball down the field like Wentz at times as well. Again its about consistency w/ Stick. At times he's very much in command of his offense though. Looks the part there.

11) Greg Little OT/Ole Miss –Depending on the year he has Little could be the 1st OT tackle in a strong class. He has very good lateral movement & has the toughness & nasty you want protecting your QB. Little has the size, athleticism & skill to be a long time successful NFL player.

12) Nate Herbig G/Stanford – At 6'4+/340 Herbig is a throwback guard that mauls people down & ruins their day when asked to pull across the line. At times reminds you of Will Hernandez who was a top 40 pick this year.

13) Tyrone Wheatley Jr TE/Michigan – Wheatley jr's father Tyrone Sr played several years in the NFL & the bloodlines have evindently been passed on. Wheatley is a versatile TE that plays inline & is a smooth moving big target across the middle or down the seem. Wheatley Jr shows the ability to stalk block & will straight out muscle some opponents.

14) Chauncey Gardner Johnson S/Florida – Gardner-Johnson is a former CB & plays the ball like one. He has very good speed & has natural ball skills. Knows what to do when he gets his paws on the ball. Gardner-Johnson will also deliver big, legal hits if the opportunity presents itself. Florida has been pumping the DB's out

15) Lukas Denis S/Boston College – The local product might be somewhat of unknown right now on the national scene but Denis has top 20 pick written all over him. He just has natural instincts in terms of reading the QB's eyes & comes up big when he's near the ball. If you're trying Denis 20+ yards downfield you better have some arm talent & more importantly “eye” talent. You're doomed if you stare down a wr. A QB must be able to hold defenders w/ their eyes. Denis also moves like a CB down near the goal line in close quarters. Very calm, heady player that will be playing on Sundays very soon.

youtube

16) Ahmmon Richards WR/Miami – Richards is a good route runner w/ + quicks to work inside on slants & has shown the ability to track the ball along the sidelines as you can see below. Richards isn't the biggest wr but doesn't lack toughness for someone that's less than 195lbs.

AHMMON. RICHARDS.

IS.

EXPLOSIVE.

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mcmgblogs-blog · 7 years ago

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Delphine Itambi; The Frank Rajah Arase Of Cameroon Movie Industry

Dear CB readers, today, we bring to your reading pleasure: a unique personality with a deep mind, an outstanding movie director, producer and screen-player who dares to think out of the box, a loving, supportive and charismatic damsel. Whose favorite colour is red and currently single! Hiya, readers, I caught up with the beautiful and multi talented "Itambi Delphine" on Whatsapp and had an in depth interview with her. Get yourself a combo of pop corn and some juice while she thrills and educates you with her: experiences, adventures and motivation as a film maker. :-) Itambi Delphine is a Cameroonian writer, movie director and producer hailing from the Northwest Region of the country precisely from Bereje Oshie. I started film production in 2008 and have been active in the industry for 10 years and still counting.

Delphine Itambi (Writer/Producer/Director) :-P :-) You already know I'm an Oshie girl(lol :lol: ), I am from a lovely and supportive family of six, the filth child and the last girl. OMG!For scripts, Oh! Where do I start? I have written quite a lot of brain storming scripts, both personal and for other stakeholders. I have written over 35 scripts for home based clients as well as international. Off-course not! Here You are! The Tongue(2005) A Woman’s World(2008) My Addiction(2009) House of Triplets(2010) A Toast To Love(Student Film New York Film Academy in 2011) I’M Missing You(Music Video, film student project NYFA in 2011) Aleah(student Film NYFA 2011) Coffee For The Dead(2013) Viri(Co-writer 2013) Shola and The Visitors(2014) Two Hours To Freedom(2014) The Triple S(2014) The Invisible Bars(2014) I-Bemsi(2014 Son Of Abenego(2015 Konte(2016) Ward Zee(2016) The 19th Diary(2016) I’m Not Lucky(The Film 2017) Lucy(Ongoing project) Well, basically, my fee changes with time as I improve on my skills! Like in 2016, my fee was somewhere around $800 for home based filmmakers and $1000 for those based in the diaspora(for featured films) and for short films, I charged $400 and $500 respectively. 2017 came with lots of improvement and development and so did my fees as a script writer:lol: :lol:. 2017 was quite tricky as I didn't set up a fee because I was quite busy with personal projects especially "Wardzee" which really took my time and concentration. I think I wrote just one script for a client in 2017. This is 2018, I think if I'm to write a script for a home based client, it will be costing them a $1000 and for short films, it will be at-least $500. Those are my fees and I wouldn't go below that! If I ever have to go below that, it will be for specific reasons, like the project I'm working on right now, it's actually more like a pro bono project —it has to do with orphans —I see it as my chance to give back to the society and most especially because of the connection, I decided to dedicate and put my weight on the project. Generally speaking, it all depends on the approach, cos sometimes, you get to charge a client and they're like, wow! $1000 to write a script? Lots of them become sarcastic like a skillful writer doesn't have the right to charge that much for a screenplay, c'mon! 500,000frs is nothing when it comes to a screenplay and because of great consideration of our striving industry, I set the fees at such levels. I will like to reiterate about the approach as I can even write for free! I have already set a standard for myself and it doesn't really matter if a client gets to pay me $2000, I will never go down on my standards because of money, if the story-line is wack or weak —I wouldn't go for it irrespective of the amount involve —unless the client is willing to permit me work the story up to my standards. :-D Funding(Ward Zee is actually my first real project with outstanding executive producers, the rest were self funded with help from family and well wishers) Shooting Locations(People have become very skeptical of their homes being used these days and they get to tax us very high. Irrespective of the contracts you have with them, most people wouldn't let you finish with the shootings, so there's that challenge of continuity) Technicality( As concern the technical aspect of film making, we do not have many people behind the camera. You know we come from a country where everybody wants to be a star, everyone wants to be the face in front of the Camera, so barely few people actually get the required training to fill the technical voids in the industry. "Ward Zee" per se is taking so much time to be released for consumption because the one editor I know to be professional enough, actually has a lot of work on his desk. Many people would be wondering why Ward Zee isn't out yet—the technical void in the industry explains it all—a project which is suppose to take less than 2 months to round up with the post production, will actually take more than 6 months.

Achille Brice (Post Production) 4. Marketing(This is actually the most challenging aspect of film making in Cameroon! This particular challenge is self explanatory: Few cinemas with no beneficial set ups for film makers, limited festivals, fewer contracts with television networks and sheer lack of nation wide distribution connections. Oh! LoL( :lol: )! Well, a blogger has the right to give their attention to wherever they think it's more profitable—that's actually if they are going for the money—yes, if the music industry is booming more at the moment, bloggers are naturally supposed to be attracted to it and blog/promote the music stars. I really do not have a problem with that, but it becomes dire issue when they choose to get on the movie lane just to talk about the negative sides of it. If they choose to blog more about music, they should be consistent and not to switch sectors just to make a blog post about the ills of the movie industry. There was a time I felt like, "You can't be promoting one sector of the entertainment industry and neglecting the other", but then I realised, If I must put my stuff out there, I will have to hire the services of someone professional to do it for me! "Ward Zee has a marketing strategy put in place and we are going to be taking one step to the next, we have plan A,B,C and D, whichever fails us, we move to the next without much ado! Lol :lol: Sometimes, a perfect plan nothwithstanding, the reality comes with a variation, so in order not to be much disappointed, we have set up the: high, medium and lows. I have settled for the low, so no matter the outcome, I don't get too disappointed :lol: Well, Ward Zee, the trailer is going to be out very soon—we have an electronic press kit put together—interviews of the team and actors, it's going to be a 15 minutes video to be run on televisions nationwide to get people to anticipate the movie even more. For premiers, If I get sponsors, I'll ensure to do top class premiers in strategic cities in the country, but if I'm unable to procure sponsors—I think I will just settle for one premier for the movie. I am looking forward to making releases to simple cinemas like the W2 cinema where you can have people who couldn't make it to the premiers, go to watch the movie at more affordable prices, but that is going to come like quite some months after the premier has been done. We also have to do festival tours for Ward Zee and we are looking forward to other things, I definitely want a top notch cinema release lol :lol:! Who wouldn't want a cinema release? If I can't get a cinema release, I will just settle for the other options and move forward. Internationally, we will be sending Ward Zee to televisions that I think people will be able to watch from there and we are also planning for international premiers. Two days before the release and premier of the movie, we are going to do a press conference, :lol: I really do love press conferences..will get bloggers and television networks to do the press release and conferences Sure! here you are:

SYNOPSIS

A young woman fights for her life and that of her missing son when she wakes up from the strangest of places without a baby she supposedly conceived two days ago in Ward Zee of a given hospital. Every trace of her ever being pregnant or having put to birth are nonexistent. Her husband and maid have disappeared into thin air and everyone she comes across who seem to believe her seemingly delusional story is a target. "Page" and her team of a: curious Neighbor, police officer, an ex-lover and a come-back sister are bent on puzzling out the mystery behind the disappearance of the baby. But how so, when not even she,(the mother) can REMEMBER. Is this a wild ghost chase with a woman who may possibly HV buried her own son, or is someone bent on making her FORGET?

CAST

Hahahah! I see! Let me say this, First, I don't get carried away by all these social media brouhaha and as a producer, I look pass things like that and I expect same from professional actresses. When I started writing my script, I had informed Adambi who happened to be the first cast of the movie, that she will have to travel to Cameroon to play her role in the movie. When I was done writing the script and was doing the final casting for the movie, I picked Vicky Fokala for a particular character(Mrs Ashu) and not for a minute did I border myself to think these two do not have a cordial relationship, I was just so concerned about them giving my script the life it deserves. After we were done with the casting, one of them called(Name withheld) and was like, Oh! This person will also be acting? You know we have issues, and I said, " Oh! You have superficial Facebook issues and I think this is the right platform for y'all to sort yourself out and move on. Also Read: Meet Adambi Mbango: Love, sex, Scandals and the Movies No one actually talked to them, they just put behind their differences and worked together like the professionals that they are—they were actually one of the best friends on set. I was so happy when I walk into the make up room, I think Vicky Fokala was doing her make up thing and Ada was there too, and to my greatest dismay, they pulled up a conversation like they never had an issue. There's a behind scene interview of Vicky in which she explains it better! I've had Elegant sisters for like 10 years now and I just wanted to create something I'm more connected too! My Dad happens to be my greatest mentor and to me, the name Itambi represents everything I am—Itambi is my family name and to honour and appreciate my family for all they've done for me, I had to name my studio "Itambi Studios" and this is more like a family business. Wouldn't say for certain, but we are doing all we can to make it happen sooner than later. In the coming days, the trailer of the movie will available Tricky Question, lol :oops: Maybe or maybe not, the truth is, Nigerians go for their films first and you really need to have some strong connection. I think it's not always about the quality of the movies because sometimes when you watch some of the movies on Iroko TV and you immediately rate movies done in Cameroon higher. It's rarely the case, as a movie producer, I do not concern myself with that as I think such platforms should be concerned about the arts and not the language or where it's coming from. I wish more people could go for training so as to fill the voids in kamer cinematography. People must not necessarily go to school, they can learn from YouTube and do research online. There's a great difference between shooting wedding videos and music videos, but in Kamer, everyone with a Camera thinks they can shoot a movie. The future of the industry is bright, but in order to make that happen sooner than later, more and more people need to go for appropriate training.

CONCLUSION

You're Welcome! The pleasure is all mine! Read the full article

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rayhan96-blog · 8 years ago

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Project Evaluation

So here I will give an overview of how the game went so far, and my overall opinion. In particular, the game itself, and later on, the team I worked with.

Game

So the game had many ups and downs, we started off very slow, and many of our original concepts were not quite up to shape. The prototyping phase really helped us out, it took us 3 attempts to find the appropriate game for our setting (you could see in the previous posts, prototype C was a nice improvement over the rest).

Our main progress point was during the middle of the semester, it was then that we put a ton of effort in the game (from around week 6 - 9). We didn’t do much else other than focus on the game at the time, so we really did good then.

At the end of the semester we laid off a little, so that’s when the game slowly fell back a bit.

Team

Programmers

Our team had good communication, but all of my programmers had doors in their ears, so as to say that they’d choose when they’d want to hear from you and follow your instructions. This is not to say that they ignored throughout the semester, this is not true, quite the contrarily in fact, but they were never readily available.

The amount of reliability in a teammate really matters, and this is a scale made up of programming experience, friendship, collaboration and more. However, more importantly, it’s the ability to turn up on time, and always being there when called upon, and this is where both my teammates fell short.

This aside, their contribution has been of great use towards the game, and I reiterate that the game wouldn’t have been the same without them. Dan did his contributions, and so did James, and were both deserving creators of this game.

Roles

James, the lead programmer, did good for adding game mechanics and UI, though admittedly takes precedence the fastest route over quality (as seen with his rain mechanic). His contribution to programming was more so than his audio, which he unfortunately did not put much effort in, at least no more than a first year student could’ve done using free sounds (no intention for being harsh, could’ve used a little more effort, but again I understand the module was not audio based).

Dan was a great leader but often laid back and lacked the voice due to his lack of experience, though he did surprise us during the presentation phase of our game. His contributions to the game itself was low, having created just the mechanic for dragon shooting and a few UI/main menu, but again offered what he could in his skillset. He tested the game thoroughly and was a nice guy to talk to in free hours, so a good leader overall.

As a designer, I took note of ideas and noted it down from many different sources. I tried to do more than expected for the role, and debateably did more programming than the lead programmer. I coordinated art, and would get a hold of other people just to gather ideas for our game. Throughout the development process I would work my way towards a more innovative game each week, and whenever my teammate backed out, I was left to pick everything back up.

Artists

For our artists we slowly noticed a slight variation in skill, some are amazing at 3D modelling and some are not. This explains some of the outliers in our game (hint hint flameball). We also had to sacrifice a lot on programmers just to get the art up to speed, so for example me and James was sidetracked to working on the clouds and fog from ground up just to have another game level, something we really didn’t want to worry about as programmers (though the experience gain from it is nice).

Our artists were willing to do most of our tasks, and were certainly more reliable than my programmers, in that they created all of the art assets that I requested. However, I slowly noticed their lack of will power to learn, particularly on the rigging, animation, and particle effect side of things. They are good at what they do, but that’s the limit, they refuse to learn in order to help you finish an integral part of the game. This is very different from my programmers, who went from hell and back in learning new code and game engine theories for the purpose of the game.

Overall

Anyways I hope this doesn’t come across as too harsh, I love my programmers and artists, but they both have their flaws that really start to show in 12 weeks. If I am to evaluate myself, I’d say that I am very reliable, and adaptable to change, and did all I could in order to make this game succeed. In a way I acted like a secondary manager to all, as I had access to artists and programmers. I’m sure everyone would agree, I do my best to support my team regardless of difficulties.

In the end I was quite happy with the game. There are a couple of things that I wish we’d done, and a couple that I was proud of. All in all I’m sure we all learnt a lesson, from how optimisation plays a key role, to how important game design can be. Our game was heavily affected by these two main factors. So below are the key bullet points for this evaluation:

What went well

Art style

Role of cloud section well implemented

Programmer related art i.e. cloud, fog

Implementation of feedback from different testers

Procedural generation - randomised, efficient pooling

Fun gameplay with difficulty ramps, incentive for player to carry on via achievements and leaderboard

Use of discord and Facebook for communication

Trello on both sides

SourceTree for version control

What didn’t go well

A little more game mechanics couldn’t hurt

Purpose of ground area a little blurry

Too many ideas taken out, having the ground as a lootable area and cloud as survival could’ve been great for game mechanic, and incentive for players to store items before survival begins

Difficulty a little too linear and generic

Instructions for players in-game could’ve been a great opportunity for new players, and help them understand what was going on

Wish we had a more professional software for conversations other than discord and particularly facebook (artists’ fault)

These are some of the main few criticisms in my opinion. I would say a big and critical one is the implementation of game mechanics and content. One of our greatest pitfalls is that we focused on the art way too much, and this unfortunately led to less mechanics, and more art.

When a game starts looking more like a movie you definitely notice something wrong, games are meant to be fun first, beautiful second, and this is where we overshot the most. Through having learnt that, “in the future we will have a deeper focus on game design, mechanics, and content, and have art as a close second at most”.

That said, we will certainly carry on with the game and its’ optimisations for hopeful release on mobile and greenlight on Steam. Below will be a current build for you to try, and disclaimer:

Final Week 12 Game build: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlHqenFxGZxTgRogpTwmzVqAG-pQ

Any concept art I use in this blog are not my own and so belong to our respected artists at: https://trello.com/b/GTWtcNkW/aeonfold

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thebakedbeans · 8 years ago

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Mass Effect Narrative Review

And here’s the second narrative review I promised. This time I’m going to talk about Mass Effect, the trilogy not Andromeda. I also realize that these are more of rambling thoughts than reviews. So eventually I’ll need to call them something different.

I’d like to not talk about the ending though. There’s tons of articles and videos out there already talking about it and anything I have to say wouldn’t be anything new. Instead I’d like to talk about some stuff the trilogy did right. Let’s just jump right in and start with the first aspect that comes to mind: Shepherd’s party.

You get a lot of different party members in a lot of different games. But Mass Effect is one of the first games where the members really mattered to me. They all come with really well defined personalities as opposed to the standard tropes of what makes up a party (except for Kaiden, that dude is cookie cutter boring). Granted there are SOME tropes but I think the game for the most part does a good job of fleshing out organic characters with actual personalities as opposed to the routine values and responses you could expect.

One way it does this is by allowing you to talk to them as people with different attitudes and beliefs. They have different aspects to them that make them seem more human. For example, Ashley seems like the typical soldier. Comes from a long line of them, values family and unity. But then as the games progress you get to see that she believes in a higher power, support humanity’s self reliance, and that the army discriminates against her family b/c her grandfather was the first general to surrender to alien forces; so she works twice as hard as anyone else to improve. Those last two traits might be connected as she wants humanity to be only beholden to itself as her ancestor’s experience with aliens has been a negative one. Now I’m not saying these are well defined traits, but they’re enough to make her seem like an actual person. Someone with memories, thoughts, feelings. She seems like more than just the typical trope of a tough as nails soldier who follows orders and had a gruff exterior. Ashley might have those traits, but they’re not all that she is. That’s what makes personifies her and fleshes her out.

I’ll cite another example, Mordin Solus. At a quick glance, he seems like the typical run of the mill smart talking scientist. The type of person that then they speak, everyone else gets lost and asks them to repeat what they said. But after talking to Mordin and learning about him Shepherd learns more. Mordin is a great singer, and the type of guy to focus on the ends more than the means; but is also a deeply regretful man. Mordin has taken some real fucked up things in his past. Though he understands his actions were necessary, however still mourns the fact that it happened at all. Eventually he starts a clinic to heal the plagued, but still retains his do what is necessary outlook; dude kills some local gang members and leaves their bodies outside his clinic as a message. Shepard can even ask him about killing to which Mordin will reply something along the lines of healing people and killing people can both be helpful. It all fleshes out his character and changes him from the “scientist” into just another member of the crew with their own unique disposition.

The reason I bring all this up is because losing these companions is one hell of a blow to both the player and Shepherd. When I mention mechanics supporting narrative this is what I mean.

In the 3rd game, Mordin is going to die. It is preventable, but for the most players Mordin dies. Depending on what you said to him earlier, he might even sing a song that he sang for Shepherd in the previous game. That shit destroyed me. But it’s great to know that the pain that was felt by me as a player was echoed by Shepherd the character. After the mission people will all give their condolences and Shepherd will respond accordingly, but it was a poignant moment where I felt like I was fully synced up to what Shepherd was saying and feeling...utter devastation at the lost of my friend.

It happens again with Thane. The ill, dying assassin Shepard meets in the 2nd game. I helped that man reconnect with his son. Then in the third game that same son is with his father in the hospital donating blood so that his father can live. Seeing him there makes Thane feel all the more real as there were actual consequences and outcomes that occur from previous actions. Many games have characters go through arcs, but even if they learn in that arc they don’t really grow after it’s over. Thane does, he becomes loyal to Shepard. Which I choose to understand as him fighting that much harder and with more unity than otherwise because of the respect that Shepard earned from him.

And of course come the 3rd game Thane died on me. In this game his illness has progressed to the point where he needs to be hospitalized. But his last act is a heroic one, and I’d still like to think it was out of loyalty to Shepard (assuming you earned it in the previous game). As he lays on his deathbed his son reads a prayer. Thane was always a religious man so it befits him. Turns out though that the prayer was not intended for Thane, but for Shepard. There’s a line in the prayer that reads “and he/she will be a companion to you as he/she was to me”; and I remember putting Thane is my party all those times, levelling him up, using his skills. He was a companion to me indeed. That was the first time a game made me tear up. I was going to miss my companion. To me it was more than losing just a video game character, it was losing a friend.

You might think that I’m reading too much into the game or giving it too much weight. But I think Mass Effect gave the characters enough personality and vibrance to make their loss have actual meaning behind it. Other mediums do this all the time, and I see no reason why games would be any different. The narrative of the game has just as much an effect on me as any other story. The exception is that I am way more involved in Mass Effect’s story than many others as I have direct involvement in the lives of the characters. So to lose one, means I took an action that led to their death; in a way you could say that I played a large role in all my companion’s deaths. That weight is great though, like a compelling tragedy, the emotional pain makes the narrative that much sweeter.

Now I’d really like to emphasize how much effort Bioware put into the characters in Shepard’s crew. For almost every single person, I can answer the question “What do they do when they’re not on the job?”. Because for a lot of other character for a lot of other games that question remains unanswered. I literally have no idea what Fawkes from Fallout 3 does when he’s not following me. However I do know that James Vega works out and cooks food when he’s not on mission. Tali helps the helps run the ship’s systems on the Engineering deck. Samara does her weird biotic meditation. The fact that I can answer this question means there’s enough internal logic behind the people to make their actions and by extension themselves seem real. Their world does not revolve around Shepard’s, just like how my friends and family’s lives don’t revolve around me. Therefore I would treat them like I would treat any other person. And the more I treat them like real people the better my interactions with them become, then I’ll actually end up liking most companions; Shepard’s team feels like a real team to me because I know these people so well and what they can/can’t do.

The second point I wanted to bring up was the continuous narrative between games. Yes, there’s a lot of gripe about how the endings didn’t take into consideration your past actions. But there is still a fair amount of content that depends on previous events. Even if it equates to a mere war score number, playing the first game all over again really does make me ponder some more choices.

For an example, at the end of the first game Shepard has to make a major decision regarding the fate of the Citadel Council. Whether to spend resources to save them and the ship they’re on, or save those resources and let them die. If you haven’t played the sequels then the choice seems pretty black and white. You pick the option that agrees with your paragon/renegade status. But I went back and played all 3 games again. This time thinking “if I were Shepard, what would be the best decision?”. The answer I arrived at is that the best decision is the one that helps to stop the reaper invasion. So even if I’m paragon, maybe it’s better to let the council die so that the resources that would’ve been used to save them can be used to stop the actual reaper invasion once it happens. Turns out that that’s true in the third game if you played as I did, and I was able to use those resources in the final battle instead of wasting them in the first game.

That’s a real consequence for your action. Some may say that a war score number is a shallow way of conveying that action; but remember way back when I said that I enjoy games where the gameplay mechanics support the narrative? Well now it’s time to discuss that in more detail.

Overall I don’t think war score is a bad mechanic. In the end everything Shepard does is to stop the Reapers. A war score number is a metric to see what his past actions have done towards this goal. A short term and impulsive Shepard will have a very low war score as they should, and a Shepard that has thought through each choice will have a higher score. It ties a tangible mechanic to the narrative path that the player chose. So all the narrative that follows is because of the mechanics that created that outcome; and those mechanics themselves were created because of the previous narrative events that happened before. It’s like a cycle that runs on the player’s choices.

Not the most elegant method for sure, but it does the trick. The gameplay ends up reflecting what the player is doing. Which is really a huge part in what I look for in a strong narrative. Games like Fallout 3 or Fable don’t really change the way they play based off the narrative. In those games some people might like you and others won’t due to your morality. There’s never a point where the player doesn’t get to experience a huge chunk of content or entire groups of significant people might not be there because of what the player did (yes you can argue Metaton won’t be there if you blow it up, but there’s about 2 significant characters in the whole town and one of them still survives). Few games can match that level of narrative exclusivity.

It also makes each player’s experience unique. One player’s army may not be the exact same as another player’s. Sure there might be some strong similarities, but depending on previous actions there can be huge differences too. Saving Wrex means that the Krogan won’t be complete assholes, and killing him/letting him die means that the galaxy is real hesitant and untrusting of the Krogan. That’s a massive dichotomy that rests on a scene that spans less than 5 minutes. Again, serving as a reminder that what you do in each game affects the others down the road. It’s the whole butterfly flapping its wings type of thing. The galaxy’s attitude towards the Krogan depends on that one part in the first game, so fucking that part up can ruin the Krogan as a whole.

This type of storytelling lends a sort of permanence to the overall narrative and game feel. Mass Effect does have an edge though in that it was created with multiple games in mind so it can stretch the end results over a longer period; But I think the result is still strong, even with the ending controversy. The realness of the characters couples with the responsibility behind each move you take means that the trilogy really does have mechanical support for the story and emotional weight rivaling any other story from games, movies, books, etc. Hell I’d go so far as to say it’s pioneering better stories for games. Think about how many games now have decisions carry over from previous titles. Not saying Mass Effect was the first to do this, but it certainly is one of the most famous; and if we have more games that can do this or similar stuff, then I think we’re going in a great direction.

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