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theseagull16 · 4 years ago

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Warning the following content includes swearing ideas of suicide attempted suicide and depression and anxiety and mental illness detailed graphic descriptions and sexual references and criminal acts which could be upsetting to some viewers viewers discretion advised before reading the rest of this post remember this is all of my own oc is not official and I don't know how to make it if it's even possible anyone knows please comment but for now is this is my personal SCP but other Scps mentioned are real as in official

At present day Dizzy has requested out of the blue for an interview it's noted that is SCP has often refused any interviews that is requested to her and any interviews normally that she participates in are immutable, lies or just plain out ignored. But Dizzy has come to researchers and bargains an interview for the deal of being allowed to visit SCP 1508 in private for an hour at least site director... has agreed to the interview and taking Dizzy bargain so long as she doesn't cause any harm at all, any sign of aggression or sines of excitemen stress to anyone during the interview any signs of escape interview and her deal will be off. Dizzy has to where when juring outside of her containment high Dennsery expense gloves to avoid causing inorganic objects to be affected with poison table and area around Dizzy is not to be approached by interviewer or touched juring interview because that would trigger the response of the poston to exploding and causing the effect to happen. Interview Dizzy being green interviewer is in blue

Begin log

Instant silence

You know we could come closer I won't bite, l said I won't hurt anyone and you're standing in the middle of the room on a chair looking like an idiot might as well come closer to the table.

I would but you're leaning your elbows on the table causing your so-called "poison" to infected it and if I touched any object infected with dos green veins I end up suffering norva and diarrhea for the next good 62 hours

sigh what's the point of having these gloves on when everything is already infected with this stuff, there's on point keeping them on

She throws the gloves into a nearby bin

I don't think you're allowed to do that

Err fuck like who's going to care anyway, not like I'm using them anyway

Still if you don't coporate this interview will be over

then herey up and say some God them questions

Alright why a sudden desire to communicate. Until say yesterday you refuse to take any interviews flipping off, telling to f*** off or any other offensive language to anyone who comes near you with the idea of doing any experiments or interviews. And in unlucky situations sometimes you even vandalised there cars, objects rooms, or just make them sick

(A laugh could be heard in a slight giggle) what can I say they deserved it

To you maybe

They do deserve it Dizzy slams her fists onto the table

Calm remember

Yeah I know stay calm or no interview blah you're probably going to ask me about that later in the questions and to answer your question about why I suddenly have the urge to talk to you bush bags I have my reasons but I don't think that's important the only thing your little Foundation fides important is I share my knowledge I ceep carefully to myself so if you want to know anything just ask you're stupid question you had on your mind since the day you started working and found out about me now then I can get on with my day

So long as it ends with you visiting SCP- 1508.

If you mean by Joe which is his name by the way then yes yes I do

Which moves on to the next question why do you dislike when we call you by your designated numbers instead of your name

AAA Dizzy Flores her head back laughing before continuing in a mocking manner you supposed to be smart but still asked me simple easy questions. What to get my opinion it's kind of obvious I don't like being called that because I'm not your property is the degrading and I have a name so I don't see why not use it. it's supposed to be respectful to use somebody's name and I don't see being called at number is very respectful it's why anything or anyone in here that doesn't have a name I give a name

Is that why you break into other SCP containment rooms.

At first usually I just go into the room for entertainment in the form of a conversation or to hopefully make a new friend like and Joe, know any other SCP but then after I get to know them better and I found out they have no identities and some of them are also as miserable as s***. So I give them a name to have an identity with the name.

why do you have the urge to break into other SCP containment for your own entertainment can't use ask for something to keep you entertained

No it's more than just entertainment is the opportunity to travel, explore, marvel and brighten up the day of different objects and people that can usually only be found in fantasy amazing and every experience is almost always something new you can't put a price on that or replicated is not same and it kind of pisses everyone off, so it's an added bonus for me ahah.

Next question are you aware of your other a anomalous traits other than your main one

Do you mean other than the fact that I didn't take a s*** in literally over 60 years, I haven't cough, sneeze, or felt anything other than normal for decades that I don't even need the shower when just for entertainment and It turned the water green with my poison, and that anything that comes on to me like bacteria that is harmful gust slides off my body and clothing and every part of me, that I can't feel actual fear other than shock seeing it's a negative emotion or the fact that I can't be affected by medication even with a positive effect and life vitals machines don't actually work from me yeah I kinda have notice

What's your opinion on the SCP held here at the site and throughout the foundation hard to pinpoint your exact your opinion on SCP even when observing other SCP is hard to get your exact opinion your reaction are randoms to say the least

Actually that kind of a hard one Doc, my reaction is random because it's really depending on what happens when I go in there I don't really know what to expect I just go with the flow and see what goes on in there really it's kinda going into a room blindfolded almost and as for my opinion for other SCP some of them I actually I'm glad they're stuck in here seeing that they will probably kill the whole god damn universe if they ever got out and others I feel sorry and also disgusted by the foundation for keeping it here it's not their fault and they're not even dangerous they just a little different that's all that star eyed girls she just want to get out but you won't let her shame on you

She which you have named galaxy never put any request for ever mentioned for going outside

That's because he is scared if you would just sedate her like other in here

She wouldn't be scared if people not mentioning names didn't tell exactly what people do in here to SCP when they are to Wiley

yeah put the blame on me why not it's not like he has brains to figure it out by yourself you really underestimated SCP that's another reason I find the foundation disgusting we're not objects or least not all of us

Moving on

Hurry up

Do you anything about the laxatives in the tea of dr ....

Maybe

now let's get to the source of this conversation in the first place, why the sudden urge to visit SCP- 1504 usually if you just want to see him you preferably or duo not encouraged method break into his containment and settings free usually or vice versa why now you deciding to go for more for the less catastrophic method of visiting

Like I said before I have my reasons

Oh really

What are you getting at is this a double course because if it's a double course I will

Don't worry we can't even double cross you know negative effect remember

We did some research on your friend Joe as you call him and surprisingly we discovered that today is his birthday and it so happens since was contained every year on his birthday he seems to be more miserable year after year it's also happened you demanded an interview you might despise us but we are intelligent we kind of put the dots together you might as well admit it

.... Alright fine I admit it I ordered this interview in hoping to get privileges of allowing me to visit him on his birthday he is miserable is sad seeing the only companion you probably have around here for who knows how long I stop counting decades ago just drink and get high on his birthday and not even happy it's a miserable sort of way in a sense of will depression and years getting older nothing to getting better for him even after me even just visiting him in his cell still miserable tied up in there but not even a single birthday cake or compliment from anyone other than me to make him feel better even though I know you don't even notice so I decided to take the long short by getting this party

That quite admirable actually your friend is not getting on well with his birthday so you decided to do something sweet for him, don't think from your records of time we let you two be together you'll probably get a reward like an extra radio but a party station I don't know

Worth a try

And what happens if it fails

I guess you'll be another miserable year then

Never realised that your friends up with SCP 1504 this toxic

Personally I think that comment is bullshit.

What makes you think that don't you notice you encourage each other to drink, smoke, commit crimes, and vandalism even notice once a couple of years back that you and "Joe" somehow managed to make a secret meff lab and using it to experiment with different a SCP for fun in the basement of site 91

Hahaha I'm surprised you idiots didn't notice that earlier we somehow managed to drug up at least 6 SCP before anyone noticed and even then it was by accident when they were clean out the old basement Dizzy throws back in her seat laughing AH AH

You think it's funny to drug up SCP some of them are people you know

Bravo and in only took you experimenting on them and somebody else who having needles jabbed into them who are not scientists to say it

Regardless don't you recognise that what you and 1504 are doing is cruel and reckless

Hypocrite!!

You know what I mean

sure on the surface it sounds ridiculous and somewhat crazy and be honest we kind of are it a way but before you see anything is my explanation when you were immune to heam itself we kind of lose the will to be careful in a way and when no negative effect can be brought on to you you also lose more of that desire to hold back in a sense it doesn't mean that your conscience has been affected it does means you're a terrible person a little bit bad but deep down good people or at least I'm a good person and the people we "druged up" as you called it they were all willing to do it and some of those people even asked for those hi all of the SCPS we did it were objects creatures that were animals in a way and people who asked or couldn't get any worse if we give it to them see the records none of those SCP if you don't believe me none of them were harmed at the a little bit delirious and tired after a while but fine we're not monsters we don't do it to hurt them in the way we do it to make them feel better what do you think people take drugs in the first place to make them forget about the horrible things in life it's not good to them and it temporary but what else can I get around here some of them they even steal it from us check the records again if we didn't do it together we probably would have done it in any other scenario and as for encouraging each other for doing thinks like I said when your immune due to lose any sense of dread do it we drink and smoke but in a way is nothing other than like drinking water or leads to me and as for Joe he gets drunk and high but in the end of the day it doesn't kill him it just get a headache I only do it the keep company if I do stop him you just do it anyway so really I I don't do it nothing bad will happen we are not normal people plush employees in the foundation actually bought some of the meth we made before they were probably discovered

OK how much other scenarios like the time you and Joe still Dr.... car and drove it through a SCP portal to another dimension into a abandoned waste dump full of scrap metal that goes on for miles not only did you also kidnap a mtif soldier and through in the back of your car but you also crashed the place and then crashed the car all the time when you and Joe escaped he loading some rich women and you beated her with cricket bat and then stole her money another terrible time when you were transported to another complete by plane with a couple of other SCP they decided to be better if you travel in an like normal people instead of in an enclosure and you're scps friends including Joe before you even entered the plane you used a plank placed on a rod on the floor to hit Dr clef in the balls

Slight giggles

you turned a man into a crying wimp on the floor clutching his groinedon in the plane when a Stuart found out you were french he greeted you in French you shouted back to him vous pouvez sucer le Dr Clef glorifié boules meurtries enflées Stanley Joe got drunk and you filmed it he passed out and then insulted and walked around the whole plane during the entire flight and when you came down you did the same thing you did to Dr clef only to Dr bright even though he tried to avoid it

Ok as for the car bit I was upset about my miserable life and so was joe slightly drunk and felt like we both needed something to cheer each other we saw the car out and I know Dr.... loves that car sweat to God I think I was him kissed it. I got pissed seeing Dr.... is a go for nothing jerk he puts D class into danger for no reason that's like any other people and just like any other person I would want to punish him I told this to Joe well you know what he had the idea of and there was a testing with SCP-093 dimension portal nearby so you can guess what happens next we hijack the car with some bottles of whiskey from some security officer and a camera, Dr.... was me in the car and I flip him off you should have seen the look on his face it was priceless and so we just drove straight through the portal like nothing and mtif trucks was chasing us it was absolute thrill and never felt so alive. And I didn't give a care of anything. The car was faster than them one of the sodger somehow managed to get up to us much have been in the back we didn't notice he was out match I paralyzed him and then we throw him in the back he was a jerk anyway so I don't care Anyway when the gas run out we watching the sunset tuke pictures of the car each other and us settings to the top of the car drnking whiskey having a blast gust two friends hanging out so we have no blame it was f****** awesome then the mtif scod fade us got the guy out of the truck and tode us back the car getting distorted was a actsdet nothing to do with us when we got back one of the crans for the portal fell

As for the incident in the plane Dr clef had it coming for the looongest time just ask any female SCP or researcher I did them a favour. That'll teach him a lesson to make smart ass remarks not so tough when reality

I'll be lying to say your not a little bit right there

The flight attendant mug and I wasn't it really in a good mood since I hate the foundation ice auto be a good time to that's really good friends was making some interesting memory videos and making them all upset. The woman incident was when me and Joe escape once we needed money and there was no banks nearby but a horrible rich woman don't feel sorry for her, we only steel off people that really deserved it well I do Joe don't I make him do it because I don't want him stealing off innocence the lady was a rich scamp who treated the poor folk like trust and Roberts said she was in the black market and even sleep with one of the old judges to get off from stealing charity money from orphans she deserved what she got, we beat up a little not anything fatal just enough to make her ugly then stole some money we broke into her house and use my powers to give us so blisters on her feet to just to make sure that the hit one kill her. And Joe hit her in the back with a bat

Why do you feel like you can use your powers to punish the ones who avoid the justice system in some ways

I have to power to make people suffer I might as well use it tell me if you had a chance to save someone or just stand whilst they be killed you would obviously choose them it's similar to how when I see somebody doing harm I can't just stand there I have to make them pay for it I believe everyone gets what they deserve eventually even if not in life they will get it in hell but it's too late because they're dead so I make sure they get the punishment before the dead to know what they did was wrong

when ever you brings us this or just someone annoys you and you played a prank on them you never killed them no matter how bad things they did are

because if I killed them I will be as bad as the people I call monsters I might have lost a lot of things but I would never ever in any circumstances lose my homity and dignity by being a hypocrite and committing what I believe is the worst thing a person can do to a person bring death and personally I don't really see this as a punishment when it comes to my own suffering I feed as a way out but obviously I'm immortal so that will never happened

When you first came to this Foundation was very suicidal it seemed to approve over the time I'm are you still suicidal

Sort moment of silence

Not as before to say I'm not completely suicide that would be lying kind of faded almost as the decades went through I see it as a sort of sideeffect being a model eventually your pain blur's into the conscience of your mind and your personality over take it because nobody get the live as long as me and I have pretty of distracted seeing as Foundation always bring something new that helps friends I made since helped but to say I'm cured completely nope some days is worse than others sometimes. but if there was a better option to be free for my depression I will take it of course but I'm glad I'm better than before you wouldn't believe how dark that mindset is

Has therapy helped

Yes definitely but is not just therapy I find everything helps me in some ways when it comes to friends to talk to even strangers people to listen to it that matter to get it off your chest helps a lot.

Speaking of your oh so "lovely" friends let's talk about them apart from Joe you made a couple of them over the years some more favourable than others let's talk about them less start with your closest friend and the reason why this interview is taking place in the first place Joe

Well you already know his life from his file as an SCP there's not really much to say about him apart from the fact what is he really like because unlike the rest of you I actually know for fact what he's saying or doing hints why we're so close friends

and hints why you 2 can get away with things like robbing people only two days ago you somehow managed to borrow 50 quid out of the wallet of Dr....

And we spent it on a magic coffee dispenser to trick somebody into drinking bin water just for fun

Nmmmm

But Joe and I kind of need each other he's the first to person to really understand me a fellow SCP you became my friend somebody who knows what it feels like to be lonely and is suffer for a good majority of time in fact I could say he suffers more than me even.I had are you still have a human connection or more reality until he met me he was suicidal depressed and nobody had any idea of it or even he had a blue tick knowledge you should have seen his face when you first realise he finally found somebody to connect to you and don't leave me feel worse that he couldn't give me a hug you know that's why he's in the streets that could because the amount of fluid is Santa's lack of escape makes a mad the let us be with each other and in close proximity because if he doesn't have a human connection now he goes nuts and once he was so this before escape from the mental pain he grabbed me by the solders and end of catching severe case of schizophrenia but also seeing him like that screaming bagging blood everywhere for the 62 hours is painful to watchbut we help with turning away we keep eachother company we have each other's backs we stop each other from going crazy I can feel my world go up if you don't want them with him because he doesn't care what I am he's not here to study he's really the only person that really gives a damn for me anymore and maybe is just because he's desperate for company but it's genuine at least

What about other people But 1st oof Did you ever fall in love

No, if you'd read my record, you would know that my anomalous ability makes people unable to be sexually interested in me, including able to feel any romantic feelings towards me which really sucks because nobody can ever fall in love with me which really sucks because I didn't have a boyfriend before all of this which really fuckin' sucks

Ok let's go back to some other questions then what are some of the other friends like scp-507

Honestly he's a nice guy but we and close friends sometimes gets nervous to are idea of fun mostly pranking people not into that sort of stuff sometimes me and Joe would sneak into his room he's pretty good at using computers

Explain

don't worry we just asked him let us see some videos that we are banned on watching well Joe's banned from watching is's nothing that bad and it's not like we scanned anything light drinker doe sometimes we will go to the roof to drink and being nice we invited him to come with us if you refused he would wosh out after half a bottle

Is that even allowed

Ah F*** them

What about jonesy the half cat you seem to be close to jonesy cat

I love jonesy his sweet and cute be honest he Sims more Joe friend seeing that I can't pet him but he's not afraid of me I can always play with him I told him tricks too

What tricks

I taught him to attack on command he wrecked Dr.... face it was hilarious. Moment of silence come on it was funny he only had a scratch

Moving on how about something different about Dr bright and agent Rocky Jones.

Temporary silence

Are you alright

Yes.

I believe rocky was the first person you ever encountered after your condition so to say happened if I believed correctly you two became close friends over the years even after his hair ternd completely grey you use to joke about that and he'd take time to come to see you and often joke about it until he's unfortunate demise unfortunately turned out to be by Dr bright

Rocky was a good man he was sent to like the other mtif soldier he went to the foundation for the sole reason of wanting to help others and protect others he never shot any human and never ever killed anyone even go against orders to save people including civilians and to avoid death casualties

he still experienced poison first time and leaving the second time he cut off his own hand to avoid getting infected again

Ok f*** off that was by accident and so was the second time you can't go 50 years without hitting an accident even if it's twice the actor of him cutting his arm off surprised me he did it so quickly and so swiftly I still feel sorry for him no matter how many times I see his prosthetic arm and no matter how many times he said to me it was ok I couldn't forgive myself for it but he never blame to me I don't know why but you never blam with me I'm Grace's for that

Unfortunately Dr Jack fight thought it would be a good test subject to a SCP due to the lack of D class and he was close to retirement he killed him with an axe and then experimented on his parts with SCP....

Anger: dat no good whatever he is didn't deserve to kill an innocent man and get away with it no matter how high he's clearance I wanted revenge I wanted to bury rocky picked up what's left of him in the acid bath and bury him of cause acid has no effect on me he's a skeleton but still l made sure he had a proper funeral with me Joe, some classes who are kind of nice and some scientists to also didn't like what bight did and missed rocky but he was the closest thing to a funeral I can get And then plotted my plan it was quite easy wait until it's dark nobody around other than the D classes, SCP and Joe distracted him than the clobbered him over the head well Joe bib then we tied him up to a cargo trolley and use my powers to give him a nail fungus I wanted the real pain to be more brutal than anything I have and then we'll come up he said crossword threaten even gloated and I stuck them over the face for that I told him he was going to suffer he said didn't care he's suffered before but I doubt he'd ever suffer like he did there and you could tell him his face he knew he was f***** when he realised what was coming to him a pit full of angry D classes who all had a bone to pick with him and some SCP who are also hated his guts and so didn't take the D classes we tied him up to the trolley made sure he'd couldn't escape and through him into the pit you should have heard him screaming begging for his released and even asking for help but no he was going to suffer just how rocky did .... 10 times worse the fact that I use my powers against him meaning that he wouldn't die butter suffer for round a good 10 hours it's more worse than poison because it's gets revenger gardens Joe and I just sat there watching with show during beer with him and some cigarettes it was the most relaxing thing I ever did for revents in the morning when everyone came and they put them out he's so scared of me after that's incident and it should be

And what you hate doctor bright so much

He's a prick

Oh really because your friend the plague doctor says otherwise

f*** you the plague doctor is not my friend I met him once when I escaped and he escaped in the same time and I found him by chance I only stayed with him after that to stop him from killing more people I didn't stop him from turning the bodies into what the plague doctor called the pestilence and the curd because they're already dead but he is scared of me he felt poison my poison and he's petrified of me

True when we asked about you in an interview with him he did say he was petrified to you but he also said you hate Dr bright to because you envy him you envy everything about him that he's in a SCP and he has the freedom that you can only wish for freedom to see your family the freedom to feel love freedom to have friends without restrictions to socialise and don't need to worry about making somebody have cancer just by giving them a hug and how he's anomalous ability doesn't seem to affect him that much and you hate when he says he feels upset due to his SCP status saying that because you're the only one who understands to suffering through and SCP you haven't seen your family in their decades you didn't even get to go to your parents funeral when font out you escaped to see the graves of the died of natural causes when MTF squad found are you are weeping at the graves they let you stay there a few minutes and then you went by your own recalled you carried on crying 4 weeks after that and as three siblings you don't even know what they look like no picture of them you have nothing

That plague doctor is wise I will give him that destrudo why am I a nice SCP but I'm stuck in here but all just constrictions that any other SCP has but Dr bright probably the worst person and most dumbest person I ever met is allowed almost get away with everything is not fair and that's for the real reason I hate him he says he understands and is sad because of his predicament of being a immortal he doesn't because I'm immortal to his immortality has no chains attached to it it's it's just sad to say just like that me there's always a catch I could just walk out of here with nobody stopping me but the catch is there's always a catch there's nothing for me out there there's no hatred there's no love there's no nothing what's the point of being a immortal if you can't enjoy it the only thing I bring is sickness and sadness I have to worry about giving people cancer just buy hugging them people are scared of me because of my ability and it should be but I feel miserable Dr bright is able to enjoy his life and he dares feels upset because of his predicament he should be god damn lucky he doesn't need to worry about it I didn't himself I have to worry about not only in myself my mental health but also others are not only hurt

is that why you stay here your numbers ability does prevent us from stopping you leaving

Yes

I see

it's also the reason whenever he says he understands pain the SCP feel the pain that he brings other people I make sure he's truly feels pain and he gets punished for his wrong doing

Now can I have my our with Joe

we'll have to see but that there's a lot of checklist to go through they might be even the couple of days who knows weeks until your permission has been approved

Ash I knew I wouldn't be getting to see Joe today but ok have a backup plan I went to Joe cell and talk to him before I came here if getting is interview fails there's always plan b this is breaks out and we go to the roof to enjoy ourselves and private for an hour

What

Gjvd

Rumbling noises lights Go out

Note lights went out due to SCP 1504 sneaking into the control room and the stopping the lights dizzy then escape through her miss form through the ventilation system and the two met on the roof after SCP 1504 took couple of bottles of beer from dr.... office the two stage on the roof remaining hour on deck chairs that SCP 1504 stole from a supply closetthe towards the sunset together was drinking beers a small recording managed to be caught before cameras went off of the two on the roof

SCP 1504 is blue and dizzy is green

So how was the interview

you no it was emotional but at least I got to see you too old friends

to old friends

the two then sheared and continue watching the sunset

End log

#ocs #scp #dizzy

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yeonchi · 5 years ago

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Thinking about the future of EDGN

I’ve never asked a lot out of my fans over the years, but to some of my close fans (you know who you are), I’d really appreciate some helpful advice because this is an important decision I’m making that will affect both you, the fans, and myself.

To cut a long story short for a tl;dr, I no longer enjoy posting about the voice languages in localised Japanese games because of some recent events and realisations and I want to retire from the English Dubbed Game News page altogether.

It’s been about five years since I started all this with the Koei Warriors Rant Series and since then, everything I’ve done that’s related to English dub has brought me nothing but hate. I know it’s a bit of an exaggeration and some of my close fans may have something to say to the contrary, but I’ve been feeling quite negative lately and because of that, I think it’s a brutally honest summary.

After ending the Dub Logistics series, I thought the one thing I could do to repay my fans for their support over the years was to continue posting on EDGN. Personally, I think I’ve done enough already and also, as I said in a post back in August, I’ve been having doubts about the future of the page and what I want to do with it given my current interests. There are several factors that led to me having these doubts, which I’ll be outlining after the break. (I can’t even put horizontal lines in my posts with the rich text editor now, thanks Tumblr)

1. I was never interested in any game outside of the Koei Warriors series or any game I played in the past (eg. Dissidia Final Fantasy).

This really shouldn’t be a surprise to my fans because in the past, I’ve rarely posted anything outside of the series I was interested in, including the aforementioned series. If I came across something by chance and liked it, then I would do some investigation into it, but these days, the spark just doesn’t want to light up anymore.

I’ve never really taken the chance to buy new games because my family doesn’t believe in buying things that aren’t important and as such, I took that mantra to heart. While I never brought a PS3, I did get a Nintendo Wii, but I traded it in later for a Wii U and not a PS4, which I still regret to this day. I pirated my PSP, DS and PC games (let’s face it, who doesn’t) and played with emulators on my computer. I only got a Steam account to play Team Fortress 2 (laggy though it was on my shitty computer) and I never brought anything from it, which made it difficult for me to add friends on there (not that they really cared in the end).

By extension, this applies to anime as well, which is the reason why I never post anything outside of the same few animes on the Waifu Network or on my Facebook pages. My belief on sexism in anime has also contributed to this disinterest; the only reason why I’m still posting the same few animes is because I’m still somewhat interested in them and I’m grateful for how they inspired some personal projects of mine.

2. Various factors have led me to lose interest in video games, including the Koei Warriors Series.

The reason why I started my dub crusade in the first place was because of Warriors Orochi 3 (Ultimate) and Samurai Warriors 4 not being dubbed. The reason why I decided to jump ship was because of Dynasty Warriors 9 being dubbed, just not with the same cast I had grown to love. I know that there were extenuating circumstances for the latter, but given everything that happened between that time, my hope that the old English voice cast (since Dynasty Warriors 4-6/Warriors Orochi 1-2) would return to voice that game (and other future games) was gone.

In addition to the previous factor, I started to find myself with more commitments than I had in past years, along with some different interests that I picked up along the way. At first, I didn’t feel like playing games because of my commitments, but eventually, it got to the point where I didn’t want to play most video games again because of the disappointment I’ve experienced from Koei Tecmo. Learning about all the things that AAA gaming companies do to reduce expenditure and increase revenue turned me off from video games as well. In my opinion, it wasn’t so much a boycott (per se) than it was a loss of interest.

3. The original group of people who inspired me to start writing these rants are now gone.

I know I’ve had other fans since the start of all this, but the original group had a special place in all this because of it. There were four people in the original group, who I met on Koei’s original Facebook page, and they were as follows:

The first one did comment on my older stuff, but he left quite early, possibly since DW8E’s release. I saw that he deactivated his account some time in 2017.

The second one had a YouTube channel and he was an admin on one of my Facebook pages for some time, but then he left after a period of inactivity without any explanation.

The third one was the more prominent because of his LGBT status and mental health issues. In the middle of 2015, he announced to everyone that he was deactivating his Facebook account because it was a burden on his mental health. He reactivated his account some time later, but he deactivated it again in September 2017 and hasn’t come back since. During that time, I saw a post from him stating that he was going to take a lot of pills and commit suicide. I reported it to Facebook in the hope that it might encourage him to find some help, even though I remember him stating that nothing works for him anymore. When I noticed that he hadn’t come back to Facebook months after he deactivated his account the second time, I assumed the worst.

The fourth one, also known as the family man or “the last one standing”, deactivated his account in June this year. We never really talked much, but as I said in this post, I’m still grateful to him for helping me find the new weapon and Musou information in DW8E when the Koei Wiki didn’t have it yet (because the game was just released at the time).

4. The impact of the feud’s aftermath still haunts me to this day.

When I agreed to end the feud on a mutual understanding a couple of years back, I promised myself that I would quickly move on from the troll behind it and not keep reminding myself of everything that happened. However, I’m a person that’s prone to anxiety when I think of worst-case-scenarios and at times, I found myself thinking about what would have happened had my Facebook account been deleted just because a troll couldn’t take the L when he got owned by someone half his age (compare that to Leafy who made terrible criticisms of people who are older than him, then claimed that he can hide behind the fact that he is younger than them). Him coming back out of nowhere earlier this year didn’t do any favours for anyone either. Regardless of that, I’ve got my bottom ground and I’ll continue to live on it regardless of what anyone else thinks of me.

I’d like to take a moment to digress and talk about cancel culture and political censorship. Because both parties in the feud weren’t exactly that popular (we had our own little fanbases, but that’s it), me and the other party “cancelling” each other (admittedly) didn’t seem to have as much an effect as we had hoped. Other factors that contributed to this could be that cancel culture (an extension to call-out culture) wasn’t that much of a thing two years ago and when the other party tried to cancel me, he made no attempt to spread the word to his fans. It was likely that he was trying to show mercy, but that doesn’t explain why he kept reporting my posts relating to him and current events in Hong Kong, knowing that I would eventually get banned if I didn’t call him out on it. I was as much a victim than I admittedly was an offender of cancel culture.

Following the feud, I’ve become wary of social media censorship because I experienced what it was like for someone to get petty and get people deplatformed by mass reporting them. Other pages like meme pages have suffered the same fate in the past (mostly because people take certain jokes too seriously), but despite my hopes, it didn’t seem like Facebook was going to do anything about the petty mass-reporting of those pages. Recently, however, I’ve been seeing news on tech companies being grilled over the censorship of conservatives and President Trump criticising them for the same thing. I’m not saying that I’m supporting Trump backing the pages that are being censored (conservative, far-right, alt-right, you name it), but I hope that this can hopefully extend to random meme pages being reported for petty reasons.

5. Ever since I decided to stop being toxic, I found myself conflicted when confronted with more toxic comments to the point that I’ve started to become paranoid over negative criticism.

When I decided to change the #NoDubNoBuy page to EDGN, I hoped that the hate towards my page would be reduced somewhat, but I never expected that it would be gone entirely. Since then, three people have made negative comments on the page; one was a girl who saw one of my posts being shared on a private group, misunderstood the (new) purpose of the page and despite her attitude, was still somewhat respectful, one was a Europoor dub hater from Spain (from what I’ve seen and learnt, Europeans tend to be sub fans and/or dub haters because of their English comprehension and ability to read subtitles) and one was an Americuck soyboy dub hater who pointed out about “crybaby fans” (”fans” as in the gatekeeping term “fake fans”, never mind my theory that people, especially men, who call other people, especially other men, “crybabies” are actually spreading toxic masculinity) who liked stuff to be Americanised but didn’t acknowledge the Japanese origins.

I’m gonna go off on a tangent and do a bit of an ad-homimem here (but it’s alright because I’m going to rebut his point next) and point out that I called the Americuck a soyboy because he had quite a long beard, but to be honest, if I called everyone who had beards “soyboys”, that would make people like Count Dankula and Sargon of Akkad “soyboys” as well, so it’d be a pretty slippery slope if I didn’t clarify who I was talking about.

Now, I’m going to move back on another tangent and rebut the soyboy’s point, because I think this is a pretty important point to address. No one is saying outright that they want Japanese games to be Americanised in terms of cultural references (if 4Kids has taught us anything). Saying that Americanisation is responsible for bad dubbing is a bit like blaming video games for causing violence. If someone says that they would like a game to be dubbed into English in localisation, then it is presumed that they want the dialogue to be dubbed in addition to the text being translated (or “dublated”). Any cultural changes made to the game or the dialogue are entirely the responsibility of those who made those changes, like the gaming companies who censor stuff for Western audiences, so if you’re complaining about a Japanese game being too “Americanised”, don’t take it out on dub fans because chances are that they didn’t want the dub to be too “Americanised” either.

Completing the square and going back to the original tangent, I didn’t post any of their comments to the dub hater comments album because I had deleted it after the feud in the hope that I wouldn’t be as toxic as I had been before. You can probably already see how toxic I would probably be if the above responses were posted on the page and directed back at them, which would mean that I’m not upholding myself to the standards I wanted to follow.

6. I’m becoming more and more concerned about current events to worry about things like English dubbing in video games.

If you’re someone who has unironically thought that I was making a big deal over something you thought was minor, then this is going to sound very ironic for you. From all these years of learning and research, I’ve attained an expansive world view and while I have made jokes about current events in the past to lighten the mood or express my anger, deep down I’m actually concerned about these things, particularly in regards to Hong Kong during this politically sensitive time.

For some reason, my desire to make posts has decreased because in addition to the above factors, I’ve been getting more and more worried about current affairs. Granted, the point of things like anime and video games and the Internet is to provide an escape from reality, but in the end, I guess that you have to face it whether you like it or not.

Making the decision to stop posting on EDGN hasn’t been an easy one, but all the factors I described above have gradually made it easier. Like the Undub page did, I had considered changing the focus of my page to merely report on the voice languages of games without saying whether we approve or reject it because it isn’t dubbed in English/Japanese; that is, we report on them with an unbiased viewpoint. Not adding excessively biased pro-dub comments on our posts has made it more neutral, but in the end, it didn’t stop the dub hater cucks. I should point out that one of the reasons why I wanted to change the #NoDubNoBuy page to EDGN was so that we could reduce the amount of hate we were getting.

What was the original goal of me starting this dub crusade? If you have read my rants in the past, then you will have picked up my hopes that Japanese games would be localised to the West with full Japanese and English dubbing and that if game companies couldn’t achieve that, then they should apologise and explain why. Would I say that I achieved or failed to achieve this goal? Not really, because over the years, I learnt a lot about the video game and voiceover industries and gradually realised that it’s not as straightforward as I had initially hoped. To be honest, it was kind of stupid of me to hope that gaming companies would say anything straightforward about this, but on the other hand, I learnt that gaming companies are like politicians as well; they say the things they want to say and not the things people want to hear.

To my fans, particularly my close fans, feel free to send me your opinions about my decision, however if you’re trying to change my mind, then I’m not sure if it can be changed so easily. If you think that I haven’t lived up to what you expect from me, then I’m sorry, but in the end, I have to think of myself as well.

If I could say one thing to the dub fanbase, I want to ask why no one else has ever tried to do something like EDGN. You have your groups and pages on social media and yet, it had to take two people pissed off with the dubbing direction of gaming companies to do it. Granted, that was how the Undub page started, with the lack of Japanese voices in localised games, and yet they didn’t get as much hate as my page did.

If there is anyone out there who wants to follow in my footsteps and make a page like EDGN, let me be the first to give you my blessing because I’m not going to be like the Undub page when they discovered us and point fingers for copying their posts when in the end, games are the same to everyone. While transparency regarding voice languages has increased over the years, there was never a place where dub fans could know about what games were dubbed in English. You don’t have to be like me and make a series of rants about why some games aren’t dubbed, because I’ve already done it, but instead, I suggest going the unbiased route as I stated earlier. Of course, you don’t have to follow my advice - it’s your page, after all.

My plan is to retire from EDGN at the end of the year. I have 12 more games in the backlog, all with English voices, and I’m hoping to post them all on the page before then. I probably won’t remove myself as an admin (because I think there’ll be some petty, obsessed cuck who’ll dig out my posts and make a rant series on me or something), but I’ll probably have it so that I can forget about the page as time goes on.

With this, my dub crusade has come to an end. Once again, to the fans, I’m sorry and I thank you for your support. As always, it is your choice as to whether you wish to continue following me, whether on Facebook or Tumblr, after my retirement.

#english dub #video games #japanese games #japanese voices

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doctorsorders-deathboy · 6 years ago

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Of All the Nights

lmfao i guess i’m back from the dead bitches. (this wip has existed for so long. i could not tell you why i decided to finally finish it tonight but AAA im so excited to be posting a fic again omg) amusingly, my last fic also involved late night baking. i hope you enjoy!!

Word Count: 1941

Read on ao3

It was 3:07am on the third of January and Nico di Angelo was dressed in nothing but a too-small fuchsia bathrobe, soaking wet, and about ready to commit bloody murder.

It was very possible, he thought, that the bathrobe contributed to his fury.

This was the kind of disaster that he’d recount to Jason later, with countless creative swears thrown in, though as he stood shivering and fuming outside a stranger’s apartment, it occurred to him that this might be one of those stories that would get more laughs from Jason than shared anger. Asshole.

Speaking of assholes, the door finally opened, revealing a very flustered looking blond man around Nico’s age. For a moment, Nico almost backed off on his prepared rant upon seeing how miserable the blond looked, but when another draft of winter air hit Nico’s still dripping legs, his scowl only deepened.

“What the hell were you doing baking at fucking three in the morning?”

The blond blinked once, twice, three times. He opened his mouth, closed it, and Nico was about ready to break his damn nose when he finally said, “Sorry… Do I know you?”

Nico had never had height to his advantage but hell if he didn’t know how to make himself intimidating. The blond shrunk back as Nico reared himself up to hiss, “Luckily, I was able to make it through 21 years of my life without meeting you before you had to go and nearly set the damn building on fire because of your insomniac cooking. Do you have any idea what kind of night you’ve caused for me? Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should save your incompetence for the waking hours when most people will be out at work anyways? Honestly, what kind of bullshit did you pull to make the fucking fire alarms go off? Did you pull this shit on purpose? Is this some kind of a joke to you?”

The man took much too long to answer again and Nico was collecting every bit of self control he had to keep himself from wringing this jackass’s neck when the response finally came. “Why are you wet?”

Nico must have reared up spectacularly that time because the man quickly amended, “I mean―! I’m sorry, that’s not the point here, um…” He peeked out of his apartment and looked around the deserted hallway. “If you want to yell at me, can you do it in here? I don’t want to wake anyone else up.”

“Like hell, you care,” Nico grumbled but willingly stepped into the man’s apartment. In hindsight, this really wasn’t Nico’s wisest move considering this guy was a stranger and Nico was nearly naked, but the blond seemed about as threatening as a frightened mouse. A tall, blue-eyed, frightened mouse who somehow had a tan in the dead of winter.

“Sorry, who are you again?” the blond asked, closing the door behind a fuming Nico.

“Your pissed off neighbor from two floors up,” Nico snapped. Unfortunately, the blond visibly cringed, looking like a kicked puppy, so Nico muttered, “Nico. Di Angelo,” as a reconcilement.

“Will Solace,” the blond introduced himself in return. He held his hand out to shake but quickly drew it back when it was clear that Nico’s arms were not moving from where they were crossed against his chest.

They stood in uncomfortable silence until Nico repeated, “How the hell did you set off the fucking alarm?” in as dangerous a voice as he could manage.

“I, well…”

Nico shot another fierce glare and Will didn’t waste anymore time in getting to the point.

“I was making pizzelles for my sister’s birthday and the iron must’ve broken because it was making a lot of smoke. It set off the fire alarm which went off throughout the whole building and… yeah. It was a mess. I’m really sorry. I feel awful.”

Nico didn’t doubt Will’s sincerity. The poor man was hunched in on himself with bags under his hands and his hands firmly stuck in his pockets. That didn’t make his story any less ridiculous, though.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said without a hint of remorse, “I think I missed something. Why the hell were you baking at three in the fucking morning?”

Will frowned at him. “You curse a lot,” he muttered.

“Why the fuck were you―”

“I was working until 1am!” Will exclaimed, which was the first indignant comment he’d made. “And I have classes at ten in the morning, but I promised to meet my friend for coffee at eight so I figured I’d just power through and bake when I got home but―” His voice broke off.

Nico’s cheeks tinted with embarrassment upon seeing Will’s face crumple a bit. God, please don’t cry. Nico hadn’t ever been very good at comforting crying people.

“Sorry,” Will said, his voice hoarse. “I should probably… I’m just going to clean up and go to bed. No more smoke. I promise.” He attempted a laugh to lighten the mood but it came out strangled and pitiful.

Nico was about ready to leave Will to mope when he spotted a picture hanging on the wall across the room. Will stood in the center, looking much happier than he did standing in front of Nico. The Will in the picture had a smile that made you want to smile back and had each arm thrown around a friend, pulling them close. He looked jubilant; the kind of person who you felt certain you could approach without fear. It was a painful contrast to the melancholy man Nico had met.

It felt very wrong to Nico that someone so happy could look so broken.

“What about your sister’s pizzelles?” Nico asked quietly.

Will shrugged. “I’ll have to buy her something on my way over tomorrow. Hopefully she won’t mind. I just feel bad, I promised I’d bake for her. Those pizzelles are her favorite.”

Nico considered this for a moment before internally rolling his eyes at himself. “Then we’d better make some pizzelles, shouldn’t we?”

~*~

“You still never explained to me why you showed up at my apartment soaked and nearly naked,” Will said conversationally, as he stood washing the dishes while Nico carefully arranged pizzelles in a tin.

Nico cleared his throat. “That’s a conversation starter I haven’t heard before.”

“Seriously,” Will said, grinning. “Were you swimming?”

“Why would I be swimming in the dead of night?”

Will shrugged. “I dunno, that’s why I was asking.”

“I wasn’t swimming.” Nico put the lid on the tin and turned around, pulling his fuchsia bathrobe tighter around himself.

Will turned towards him, too, eyebrows still raised.

Nico exhaled very slowly before admitting, “I was taking a shower.”

Will blinked. “At… three in the morning?” When Nico’s expression darkened, he added quickly, “Not that I’m judging! Obviously. I’ve taken many middle-of-the-night showers. I just… So, are you a med student, too, or what?”

Nico scuffed his shoe across the floor and grumbled, “No.”

“Okay.”

Silence.

“So…”

“I had a dream,” Nico blurted, probably due to a combination of his lack of sleep and the way Will’s eyes had this kind, dreamy quality to them that made you feel like you could tell him anything.

Will’s eyebrows furrowed. “You showered because you had a dream?” His eyebrows shot upward. “Oh.”

“Not like that!” Nico said quickly, heat rushing to his face. “No, oh my god, no, that’s not…” And then he was laughing harder than he had in a long time and Will was laughing with him and he hardly felt embarrassed anymore. “No, it was a nightmare, not…” Nico tried to catch his breath. “Not that.”

Will tsked. “That’s a shame.”

“Yes, very disappointing.”

“So the shower was, what, to calm you down?”

Nico shifted, his mind flashing back to the dark, blurred images of a few hours ago. Bianca’s smile melting off her face, his mother screaming for him, a packed, dark room where people were crying and disappearing one by one, and he was next, he was next―

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Basically.”

When he’d woken up, he’d had to spend what felt like eternity reminding himself how to breathe again. He’d been having more nightmares recently, ones so bad that he almost considered Jason’s advice to start seeing a therapist. I mean, shit, he knew college wasn’t doing much for him in the mental health department but things hadn’t been this bad since he was thirteen.

He tried different things each night to get himself back to sleep―whatever it took. One night he didn’t manage to properly get back to sleep afterwards; he just lay in his bed with the lights on and music playing, counting the beats of his heart as he dozed on and off. That night, after waking up, he couldn’t stand his own skin, couldn’t stand being trapped in his body any longer, couldn’t stand the way he could still feel cold, dead hands from the dream clutching him―

So he’d gotten in the fucking shower and made the water as hot as he could stand and then the goddamn fire alarm went off. Jesus Christ, of all the fucking nights.

“Must have been a pretty bad dream,” Will murmured.

Nico shrugged. “Yeah, I mean… Yeah. I was… Sorry for being so harsh on you earlier. I was still kind of shaken up, I guess. I probably wouldn’t have marched to your apartment for a stupid mistake on a normal night.”

Will grinned. “Probably?”

“Maybe.”

Will laughed. “Oh, here!” He handed a small tin to Nico. “You helped make em, you should get some for yourself.”

Nico opened it to see that it was crammed full of pizzelles. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, of course. I love the bathrobe, by the way―I never said.”

“Oh god.” Nico groaned. “It’s not mine.”

“Your girlfriend’s?”

And then Nico was laughing again. Christ, that was twice in one night. Something must be wrong with him. “Yeah, no. It’s my sister’s.”

“Ah. Well, for the record, my next guess was that it was your boyfriend’s. I don’t mean to assume anything.”

Nico sucked his teeth. “I don’t have one of those, I’m afraid.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes, very disappointing.”

Will smiled softly to himself and Nico noticed that he had a dimple on one side of his face. God. Nico really wished he smiled more.

“Well, thanks so much for the baking help. You really didn’t have to,” Will said as they walked towards the door.

Nico waved him off. “I’m the one who came to your apartment in an angry rage. I needed to make it up to you somehow.”

“Do you frequently get in angry rages?”

“Yes, but mostly just for the aesthetic. Usually I’m too tired to be properly angry.”

Will laughed.

“I’ll return the tin to you, by the way,” Nico added.

“Will you be showing up at my apartment nearly naked again?”

Nico flushed and laughed nervously. “No, I promise I will be fully clothed.”

Will hummed disappointedly. “Well, I suppose I can’t have everything,” he murmured. He smiled then, full and warm, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and yes, Nico definitely wanted to see that smile more. “Goodnight, Nico,” he said cheerfully.

The door shut before Nico could figure out a way to respond. He stood there staring at it for a solid thirty seconds before turning and heading back to his apartment. When he got back, he decided, he’d put the pizzelles in a different container. He wanted to return the tin to Will Solace as soon as he could get away with.

#solangelo #will solace #nico di angelo #fanfiction #fanfic #pjo #hoo #toa #fluff #request #anon #i cant believe im actually posting a fic in 2018 omg

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diaryofasupergroupie · 6 years ago

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Groupie 101 - The Act

Your outfit is perfection and you’re backstage. The hardest part is over, right? Wrong. You may look like a groupie and you may have fought your way backstage or to the party or the studio. But that isn’t the part that will keep you under their arm. There are tons of girls wanting the exact same thing. The thing which separates the ones who stay and live their groupie dreams and the ones who are kicked out by security is how they behave. It can make you and break you.

There are a certain number of places as a groupie you may go or be invited to. I’m going to pick a handful and go over my tips, tricks and god no’s for behaviour, socialising and the like. Before I go any further let me first say I am one person and people vary. I am blunt, sarcastic and very very British. There are some differences from country to country. UK girls have a reputation for being very discreet, private and undemanding. I am no different and will always recommend that as the best way to go. In the states fans could probably name a band’s groupies. Across the pond we make it our job to be a secret – the very best kept secret. My good friend V is a sixties day dream, chilled out and high a good eighty percent of the time. My other friend M is from Texas, loud and one hell of a handful. You should never change your personality because it takes all kinds.

The places you may happen on tend to be gigs and backstage, parties, press, tour, ceremonies, studios and videos. I’ll be going over the first few in this post and addressing the rest in a second one because there’s quite a lot to get through. All equally important and different and needing a slightly different approach and some ground rules which you will be expected to know if you want to become part of the furniture. Often it’s other girls who will enlighten you on the do’s and don’t’s. Remember the boys have been doing this for a long time it’s as simple as nipping to the supermarket for them.

Gigs and Backstage

For girls who are trying to get into the scene this is the very first experience you will likely have. It’s where I started all bright eyed and full of hope. When you walk into a gig you are with sometimes thousands of fans. I am assuming you’re already backstage because read my other posts. Now you’re there you’re excited but ultimately unsure exactly what to do next. The venue can be tricky and each one is different. When you start stick to smaller ones and local venues. The last thing you want is getting lost and then kicked out. Walk backstage like you are supposed to be there. If there is any doubt then security will see it. If you look as though you’ve been there all your life then you up your chances of staying there. People say act confident and no one will question you and it is the biggest truth in the world.

You always want to find the band and depending on the time they will be in different places. A safe bet is to head to where you hear the most noise. There is a misconception about what happens backstage. People are convinced that now it is thoroughly dull. Not every band treat every gig as a party but that is what groupies are for. We make everything a good time. In comparison to the golden days we aren’t throwing things out of windows and the like. But things are not tame in my experience – just watch some tour videos. When you walk in that room with the band you can’t immediately react and by that I mean don’t scream or cry or faint if you can help it. They are going to play for crazed fans you have to be different. You have to be a breath of fresh air. Don’t ask for a hug or a photograph. The only photographs I have are ones others have taken. I’ve found bands appreciate this and like being the ones to initiate photos. If they don’t know you walk to them and smile, remember to still behave like you’re supposed to be there. That is the most important thing. Introduce yourself and tell them you don’t think you have met yet. Start a conversation and when the time is right talk about their music. Don’t over flatter them but musicians love the sound of their own voice. They love music so talk to them about music. They have hundreds of people telling them how handsome they are. You have to see something else, something to do with the music. If you’re there for the right reasons you won’t even have to think of anything.

Use your common sense and judgement. If everyone is chilled out and lounging with a few drinks then fit into the scenario. Take a drink and sit down while adding to their conversation when you have something to add. If you’re in the middle of a party with music blaring, people making out, shots being poured and lines of coke on the table then be ready to party. Above all don’t force something that isn’t there. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to but if they offer you a drink take it – even if you don’t actually drink it. They may make advances towards you, as I said you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. While you’re there you can make friends with other girls. We stick together and they can recommend you to all the right people. Mingle as you would in any social situation with girls and boys but don’t step on any toes! Girls stick together but we are territorial. If you see any girls glaring daggers at you then maybe you should back off. If you see girls with someone don’t wait until they leave and jump in her grave. If you’re unsure then ask one of the girls or one of the boys. They will hopefully give you an honest answer. If you step on any toes then you will give people a bad impression. Some bad words can quite literally ruin you.

You may be asked to watch the gig. If they ask you never say no because they will take offence to it. You’re not only rejecting the gig, you are rejecting them. Let them take you and usually you’ll be put at side stage. They’ll go preform and you can watch. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself, to run out on stage or ask to sit by the drums. Stage is busy – there are the band, the techs, the crew, managers, photographers. Try your best not to get in the way and if there are other girls do what they do. Enjoy the gig and remember that so many people would kill to be where you are. Afterwards you’ll get your chance to talk to them and they will be elated. Playing on stage releases adrenaline and they will be on a high. This is the time to show them you appreciate them. Sometimes they’ll take you to a club. Be yourself, but be not yourself. Be the version of yourself you’ve always been scared to be.

Parties

As soon as you really make some friends and get into the scene you’ll hopefully get into all the right parties. Or you’ll sneak your way in. Bigger bands have been known to throw after parties and if you’re lucky to live in the big cities like London, LA or New York you’ll make it your mission to go to every one of them. If you’ve been invited then it really isn’t a problem. Depending on where the party is you will go to the house or the club or the hotel and for bigger bands there will be a doorman. Give him your name and then walk in there like you were supposed to be there because you are. Parties are much easier than what I spoke about above. There aren’t any gigs or crew running around. So all you have to do is follow the rules above and socialise. Use it to mingle and make friends. The right conversation with the right person can mean getting AAA. You don’t have to do anything out of this world and don’t be afraid to approach people and introduce yourself. This is what parties are here for. As always only do what you’re comfortable with and never feel pressured.

Now things are slightly different if you have had to sneak in. There are a number of ways to sneak in be they through literally climbing through a window, relying on a friend, tricking someone into vouching for you or blagging your way in – all I’ve gone through in my last post for getting backstage, the same rules apply. You have to walk with even more confidence and even more determination. Find someone important at the party and make them your best friend as it’ll help you stay in the party. But you don’t need to do anything you’re not doing if you’re invited. Be yourself and be charming. The most important thing is to socialise, have a drink and enjoy. If you are standing on your own talking to no one that will draw attention to yourself. If security come blag your way out. You can blag your way in or out of most things. I once got into a party in a hotel suite thrown by one of the most famous and well known singers of the last decade through acting confident and blagging it.

Press

Press is important and one of the biggest things about being in a band. Bad press can send them down like a sinking ship. There are always press issues. It may not be something you come into contact with on the first night but when you spend days, festivals or tour with bands you’ll come into contact with it whether you like it or not. From my experience press often means interviews or photoshoots but I’m going to lump meet and greets with them too. They are all about putting the right image out there. These are important aspects of the job while despite how much you love the band is a job. Press means work. Just because you are blessed to share their job it doesn’t mean you should get involved. While press are there I have found the best thing to do is stand to the side and let them do their thing. The band will thank you and see you value what they have to do. Sometimes the band have good relationships with radio hosts or journalists and you’ll get to meet them. But it isn’t always the norm - if you can network with radio people they know absolutely everyone. While they are doing meet and greets stand to the side and let them meet their fans. This is time for the fans, you can have them all night long if you wish.

In recent years there has been a big trend in ‘rockumentries’. I know two bands who have had the cameras rolling while I’ve been there. This is a different kind of public image and one totally under the bands control. While the cameras are rolling don’t change the way you behave and don’t try to act up for the cameras. Instead relax and do what you would usually do. It’s rare you’ll come across this but if you do – relax!

Part 2 with the rest coming very soon. Any questions will be addressed at the end of part 2 as well. If there is anything you would like further explanation on or added in please message me! - K

#diary of a super groupie #groupie 101 #groupie #groupie guide #modern groupie #rock bands #all access #emo bands #diary #bands #backstage #what happens backstage #parties #gigs #press #band aid #band whores

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tumblunni · 6 years ago

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More daily acconplishment diaryness!

Finished unpacking and sorted my clothes into clean and need of washing. Dug out the old webcams i was too scared to use for years and maybe i will try em once i set up the computer again?

Cleaned all the mold out of the refridgerator even though it was GROSS AND SCARY. Woo!

Also finished about 1/3rd of washing every dish i own, which is good cos they were stacked so high i couldnt even see the sink before! I actually found a bunch of dishes i'd lost while i was cleaning up before i left last month. SO MANY FALLEN SPOONS! But i didnt have time to wash any of them so i'm sure they're glad to finally be disinfected and ready to use again. Some had gone rusty or broken and had to be thrown out tho.

Made a big A3 calendar for the next 3 months so i can try and be more structured in my life. Maybe it will work? I dunno about any sort of weekly schedule yet, gonna wait until i get more clarification on what days classes are available at the library and when i'm gonna be seeing support worker richard again and Mystery New Support Worker Who Is Replacing The Hospital Basically. Like they said i can indeed have the support without the mega supervised shared housing thing, so i'm gonna be meeting a new group of mental health recovery specialist tutors who can visit me at my own home instead of me going to the hospital full time. I'm actually kinda glad of all the horrifying lack of privacy in the hospital in one way, like i've always been terrified to invite people inside my house because of the same reasons. But now in the aftermath of EVEN MORE people up in my personal space and EVEN LESS privacy and AN EVER REVOLVING LINE OF STRANGERS who DO MEDICAL TESTS ON MY PEE, it seems a little less scary to just let the same support worker sit on my sofa every month. Im still flying on the fear of all that stuff and this seems positively pleasant in comparison! And i'm sure that feeling will wear off as i become less jittery again, but by then i'll have had some practise talking to this new support worker on my sofa and hopefully i'll be less scared in general.

Oh! And i did decide one thing about a weekly schedule! I have to go out to town at least once every weekend. Or somewhere else fun on the bus. Now im not scared of regular buses i need to train myself to be less scared of the big long one in this neighbourhood. And getting to go out and experience ACTUAL SHOPS and COOL THINGS has cheered me up so much, i cant lose that just because the bus is longer now! The first planned outing is to go to town either on my birthday or the day after, cos i get my disability benefit on my birthday and i can afford to go do some mildly small fun stuff. Shame i spent all my savings and monthly bonus on preparing for stupid hospital, like man i must have wasted 500 quid on all that? The laptop and the new suitcase and new clothes and stocking up on toiletries and soooo much preparing aaa. I still dont know whether to be mad at myself for "only" lasting three weeks or proud of myself for enduring the worst three weeks ive had since i lived in a homeless shelter. Well i got free food at the hospital so it was better in that sense, but it was somehow even more invasive and nervewracking than the homeless shelter! I'd honestly prefer the days of nothing but bread and butter. And hell we had internet there and i was allowed to bring my tv even tho it was a huuuuuuge crt thing bigger than my entire body. I still have it even tho its outdated and broken cos i simply cannot carry it back down the stairs XD

ANYWAY that has been the random progress of today! Next order of business is that tomorrow i go return all the library books from the other library, and just continue going out for walks more often even if im broke and have nothing much to do. Well at least the library has a gym in pokemon go! Also hopefully the internet repair guy will call back tomorrow. And then on friday is the B day and the having money again, so lol anyone have any suggestions on what i should do to celebrate? I dont even really know what people DO when they go out for walks, aside from.. Walk. Like whats an activity i could even do on my own, aside from cinema? And i dont think theyre still showing the incredibles 2 so there might not be anything else good to see. Sigh! And then all i've got to watch out for is the Integrated Autism Service meeting on october 17th which i know NOTHING about not even where it is or what time. Hopefully i can get more details now im back home and able to meet up with dj richard the funky support worker again. Also on november 5th i have to remember to go get my eye test. I hope maybe i can get a new colour of frames this time! And then i dunno sometime nebulous in between all that i'm gonna get a phone call from the hospital guys again to settle the last of the paperwork and introduce me to the new hospital classes support person worker mystery thingieness. Which is a little anxious, so i kinda hope it happens sooner rather than later so i can continue riding the wave of relief from being home and accomplish loads of scary things before it wears off.

...man that wave is kinda annoying tho cos now i cant sleep! Im so hyped up!!i already did so many accomplishments today and they just make me hyped up to do more!!! THE LONGEST GREATEST TUESDAY OF THE YEAR

#i conpletely forgot what tag i just said i was gonna use for my diary stuff #whups

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danlowe-blog · 7 years ago

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The Future of Game Animation

Recently Ninja Theory Senior Animator Chris Goodall posed a question on Twitter: What do people think the future of game animation is going to be.

This is one of my favorite topics to think about, and so I was eager to share some thoughts.

Short Term: Motion Matching

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GDC 2016 was Motion Matching’s big coming out party. The core ideas had been floating around the world of academic research for years before that, but this was the first time that actual game studios were starting to show this tech in practical scenarios. Two presentations were made: One by Kristjan Zadziuk, about prototypes in development at Ubisoft Toronto, and another by Simon Clavet about his work on For Honor. The buzz at the conference was palpable, and since then, there have been rumors circulating the industry, that a lot of other AAA teams are now starting to build their own Motion Matching technology.

For those who aren’t familiar, Motion Matching is a method of automatically picking which piece of animation should play next on a character, by allowing the system to make its own choices, as opposed to relying on Stateflow logic; which is the current, manually-crafted method, of deciding which animations should play.

The Motion Matching system makes these choices based on high-level goals that you feed into the system. So one of these high-level goals might be “2 seconds from now, I want the character to be in this position, and this facing direction”, which the system gets by predicting the future position of the character based on player inputs. Another common high level goal is, “match the position and velocity of the feet and the hips, as closely as possible to what was already happening in the previous frame”.

The end result is that Motion Matching has the potential to dramatically reduce the amount of work required when creating animation systems. It also tends to produce very high quality results: Since transitions from one move to the next, are taking into account hip and foot position and velocity, you tend to get really smooth blending, which is sometimes not the case with a traditional State Machine approach.

I expect that in the next few years, we’ll start to see Motion Matching used more and more in games. Of course, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing switch from traditional systems; you can embed a Motion Matching system into a traditional State Machine, so for a while, you’ll see a kind of hybrid approach, where some moves will be using Motion Matching (e.g. locomotion), and others might use a more traditional implementation (e.g. scripted events). But I think gradually Motion Matching will replace the majority of moves that we see in games.

The initial response from some animators towards Motion Matching, was concern; that the ease with which you can create systems, might potentially reduce the need for animators. From what I’ve experienced so far, this is absolutely not the case: Motion Matching systems typically still benefit from the usual clipping down of data (or otherwise tagging data), and of course, that data is still better if it is cleaned up animation, rather than raw mocap.

The initial vision for Motion Matching was that you would be able to just throw a bunch of unstructured mocap into a Motion Matching database and the system would do everything for you, but it turns out this kind of approach doesn’t produce good results. Technically it does still work, but the system often makes unwanted choices (e.g. sometimes deciding that rather than playing a run cycle, it’s going to play the last two footsteps of an Idle to Start over and over and considers that a run), and so a lot of teams are finding that curating your animation data can give better results.

So in short, there will still be plenty for animators to do, in a Motion Matching world.

Short Term: Script Based Automation

At GDC 2016, I presented a new animation tool that Zach Hall and I had developed when I was working at Ubisoft Montreal. The tool automatically processed raw motion capture data into shippable quality animation. Before building this tool, we did an analysis of how our mocap animators were working, which showed that an estimated 50-80% of the tasks that they were doing, were things that could be automated. So, we set about automating those things.

In a way, what we did wasn’t particularly revolutionary: Every studio writes scripts to automate repetitive tasks, the only difference in our case was the degree to which were willing to do it. I’d also say that a key point was that we were really looking closely at what the animators were actually doing, whereas sometimes technical animators can think they know the problems animators are facing, but they’re actually building solutions for things that aren’t necessarily the most important things.

I got a very positive response to the GDC talk, though I’m yet to hear of other studios trying a similar approach.

I would hope that in future, more teams start to look seriously at automation and pipeline efficiency, because it really is a huge opportunity. A single technical animator can potentially save the work of many, many animators, if they’re aimed towards the right things. It’s just unfortunate, that it seems like more often than not, people tend to rely on what they’re familiar with, and so a manager might prefer to hire 10 more animators to brute force the work, rather than assign a technical animator to focus purely on improving efficiency.

I’m hopeful though that things will happen in this area.

Short to Mid-Term: Neural Networks - Motion Generation at Runtime

If you haven’t seen Daniel Holden et al’s paper on Phase-Function Neural Networks, drop what you’re doing and watch this now. This is the future of game animation, right here.

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In my view, Neural Networks and Deep Learning are going to change everything (not just about game animation, not just about game development: everything). While we may not see Neural Network based animation systems shipping in games for a while, some developers are already doing experiments using something similar to Daniel’s approach.

Studios will begin to use animation data to train neural networks, and those networks will then be able to generate animation at runtime. Just like Motion Matching the data that it generates is based on high-level goals, so it makes this a natural successor to the some of the work that’s being done with Motion Matching.

There are a number of benefits to Neural Network (NN) based animation systems over a Motion Matching approach…

They’re cheaper memory-wise: You only store the trained network weights, and not actual animation data.

Motion Matching is picking from a pre-existing set of animation data. NNs on the other hand can generate poses that weren’t in the original data, just that makes sense in context with the original data. This allows for far more adaptive characters. So for example, if you want your character to run past a table and pick up an object from that table, the position of the object doesn’t have to perfectly match what was in the training data; there just needs to be enough examples of picking up objects from tables while moving, correlated with appropriate high-level goals, for the system to understand how that type of action works. Then when you’re generating animation at runtime, you can set goals that never existed exactly that way in the training data (like different object positions on the table, different speeds, etc), and it should be able to deal with that.

NNs need to be fed lots of training data, but one approach to creating this data is to do offline procedural adjustments to your mocap (the kind of adjustments that might normally be inappropriate to use at runtime), and then use the result as training data for the NN. This essentially gives you something similar to a runtime version of that offline process. So for example, Adjustment Blending is a method of adjusting animation, that produces high quality results, but is most suitable for offline processing. This is because it relies on knowledge of what the character is going to do in the future. However, you could use Adjustment Blending to create lots of examples of adjusted data, and then use that adjusted data to train the NN. This would essentially give you similar results to Adjustment Blending, but at runtime. Another example of this type of approach is the uneven terrain example used in Daniel’s PFNN paper.

There are some challenges with NNs too, that the industry will need to work through…

NNs are currently slow to train. You can’t see the results of your changes until hours later. This will hopefully get faster as time goes on, but it’s currently an issue.

NNs are even more of a black box than Motion Matching. If the NN does something you don’t want it to do, it can be incredibly difficult to figure out why.

NNs rely on being fed a lot of example data. The more data, and the higher quality the data, the better. With this in mind, it’s likely only going to be appropriate for mocap, at least at first. You’ll also have “style transfer” which will help us to produce more stylized animation, but it’ll be a long time before we’re able to generate high-quality, Pixar style animation because there isn’t enough of that animation in the world, to train the system.

Short to Mid-Term: Animation Capture - Quality and Volume

As mentioned, NNs need to be fed vast amounts of data, and you generally need this data to be consistent and high-quality. Part of the reason that Deep Learning has made such rapid advancements in the last few years, is because of the vast amounts of data available on the Internet.

With this in mind, I see there being huge benefits to focussing on animation capture quality, and methods for capturing large amounts of animation data, very quickly. The amounts of data that we’re talking about here are so large, that it would be too much for an animator to clean up manually, so ideally we’ll need to use the raw data that comes out of the capture system, or treat the data in some sort of automated way.

Improvements in synchronized, body, finger, and facial motion capture will certainly help. Longer term I would expect to see far more full body 4D capture, and a focus on surfaces and muscles rather than bones and traditional skinning methods.

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One area that I expect to get very good in the next few years is the ability for NNs to generate motion data from a single video source, rather than dedicated capture systems. Researcher Michael Black and his team are already working on this kind of thing, and I’m guessing that very soon, the results will start to be as good or better than optical systems.

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If this happens, it’ll be an absolute game changer: Teams will be able to source their data from any video footage, so imagine the entire wealth of movies, TV, CCTV footage, people’s home videos, etc. all being sources for mocap data. Moreover, depending on the fidelity of video footage, and the quality of the NN system, you’ll likely be able to derive more than just skeletal data from this footage. You’ll eventually be able to estimate fingers, facial, muscle, subcutaneous layers, skin, etc: All things that are useful, and usable.

Long Term - The Incredible and Scary Future - Semantics

Some NNs are already able to derive semantic information from photos and video footage, and this is where things really start to get crazy. These systems are able to make accurate guesses about who and what are in images, what the relationships are, and so on. These types of systems are continuing to improve at a super-fast rate.

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So say for example, you build an NN that can look at video footage and not only generate the motion of the person in the footage, but also accurately guess whether the person in the footage is male or female, guess how old they are, guess their ethnicity, maybe even guess their personality traits, their level of education, how wealthy they are, what type of job they do, what their political stance is, etc. Imagine that you then associate all that information with the generated motion, and then use that as part of the motion generation training data for the NN that generates animation on-the-fly.

So now you can set character traits as high-level goals for the system. So maybe your game director can simply say: Create me a character that moves like a 50 year old, overweight man, who is shy, and is recovering from an injured ankle: The system sets those parameters as part of it’s goals, and so when it generates the motion it generates with those parameters in mind.

I’ve just been talking about animation so far, but the same advancement is happening in other game development disciplines, and so by this point, there will also be systems to generate faces, bodies, clothing, etc. and so these same parameters can be applied in those systems to generate character meshes that are also context appropriate.

So you’re now able to build any type of character just by asking.

Let’s get more crazy...

What if you derive semantic understanding from scenes and places. For example: What if you use CCTV footage, along with the NN that analyzes people, to get a semantic understanding of city demographics. What type of people travel through what type of areas. What type of people live in what types of appartment buildings. What type of people drive vs use public transport. Which people go to Starbucks vs the artisinal local coffee chain. What type of people give money to the homeless, etc.

Now you feed this information into an NN that generates city neighborhoods, or whole cities, or whole continents full of cities. First, it generates a set of demographics, then it uses the character and animation NNs, to populate each city in appropriate ways.

So maybe now all the game director has to say is “Make me a city like London circa 1975”, and as long as there are enough data sources for what a city like that should be like, the system will generate an appropriate city, with appropriate people, who have appropriate behaviour.

Want to get even crazier...

Maybe at this point the game director who’s asking for all of this, isn’t even a game director anymore; maybe it’s just the player, asking directly for what they want.

“I want to play a game in the style of James Bond, but set it in the 1800s.”

“I want to play a brand new Star Wars story, from the perspective of Chewbacca.”

Eventually, we tie this in to devices that track emotional responses as the player is playing e.g. cameras that look at facial responses, or wearables like smart watches that track heart rate. Maybe you don’t even ask for a subject matter, maybe you say how you want to feel.

“I want to play an experience that makes me feel happy.”

“I want to have an experience that gives me a sense of family and belonging.”

“I want to experience a story that gives me the same sense of childish wonder as when I first read the Harry Potter books.”

Maybe in the next step you don’t even ask the system for anything. Maybe the system scans you as soon as you enter your door, understands what mood you’re in, and generates a complimentary experience.

At this point you start to delve into philosophical questions about what it even is to be human and whether the human experience means anything, if you’re just having your every whim automatically appeased, so maybe I should leave things there.

So yeah, that’s my road-map for the crazy future of game animation and game development as a whole.

Oh also I guess at some point we’ll get good full body IK.

#animation #technical animation #techology #deep learning #game development #machine learning #neural networks #motion capture

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beanplague-moved · 7 years ago

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submitted to my inbox by @plant-princes! here’s a list of yearly writing shit.

1. LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED THIS YEAR

lawnsigns: a collaboration between me and @verystrongarms written for the hetalia big bang in june this year, though the series is still incomplete.

parasitic symbiosis: an incomplete belarus/japan fic written in august this year when i was feeling particularly depressed. i have a lot of ideas for how to continue it but tbh i don’t know if i actually could.

and it’s enough just to make you go crazy: you know the dream daddy craze? this and a short craig drabble were my contribution to it, and there will be others. i know it’s like kinda dead atm but also... it was a fun game and i enjoyed it.

sword-shattering fear filled me overflowing: written near the end of november this year. it’s gonna continue eventually.

some loser who rides the same bus: a gift i wrote for aph rare pair secret santa and the last work of the year. belarus/spain fic.

2. WORK YOU ARE MOST PROUD OF (AND WHY):

tbh, if you’re asking what i’m really proud of this year, it’d have to be all my oc writing! i just had a lot of fun with it and it brought me a lot of joy despite the lack of reception.

so like, either this work detailing the first kisses of my ocs or if you’d prefer one from fandom, lawnsigns, probably.

3. WORK YOU ARE LEAST PROUD OF (AND WHY):

i’m actually pretty proud of parasitic symbiosis, i think it’s got a lot going for it and a lot i could follow up on, but i wrote it at a point where i was so miserable i doubt i’d be able to follow up on it? like it’d be difficult to replicate that level of self-pity lol.

4. A FAVORITE EXCERPT OF YOUR WRITING:

“Florence is emboldened in her dream. She is a breath of life and an expression of happiness. Yellow flowers are tangled within her red hair. Silver is embedded in the grey of her eyes. Leaves grow like hair from her cold skin. Florence is a mistress of the Earth until she is taken back to the water, where she wilts.

This is home, she thinks. This is the womb of the world and the epicenter of her life, but it doesn’t feel like home. It feels like something dreaded. A home that was never.”

from this.

5. SHARE OR DESCRIBE A FAVORITE COMMENT YOU RECEIVED:

aaa ok so my favorite comments this year were literally.... every comment i got i think lmao!!

some highlights were a really nice comment @snark-sniper left on lawnsigns and a really horrible but very funny comment left by a wattpad commenter that referred to me as “author-sama” and apologized for being “moar into yaoi.”

6. A TIME WHEN WRITING WAS REALLY, REALLY HARD:

the entirety of my summer break i was really depressed so writing was :/

7. A SCENE OR CHARACTER YOU WROTE THAT SURPRISED YOU:

i hadn’t written aph spain extensively until recently! and my oc z became surprisingly much more likeable over this year.

8. HOW DID YOU GROW AS A WRITER THIS YEAR:

i think uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i got more confident in my writing i guess?

9. HOW DO YOU HOPE TO GROW NEXT YEAR:

i wanna be able to handle certain concepts better/with more clarity and i hope i can get a handle on some of the more overarching flaws in my writing?

10. WHO WAS YOUR GREATEST POSITIVE INFLUENCE THIS YEAR AS A WRITER (COULD BE ANOTHER WRITER OR BETA OR CHEERLEADER OR MUSE ETC ETC):

oh several people! @verystrongarms remains one of my biggest supporters when it comes to writing stuff and also my friends!!! have been!!!! so supportive!!!

11. ANYTHING FROM YOUR REAL LIFE SHOW UP IN YOUR WRITING THIS YEAR:

i mainly write romance despite not having much of a romantic life but i do have kind of a romantic life now which is iconic.

12. ANY NEW WISDOM YOU CAN SHARE WITH OTHER WRITERS:

just keep writing dude!!!! keep writing whatever it is you’re working on now!! i don’t care if its fuckin................... kyle ron/reader or some weeb shit i just... i’m really passionate abt a period of time of non-critical growth. i went so long w/o thinking abt stuff i wrote and by the time i was ready to be critical about it i already had the foundations of it down? improvement is perpetuated by fucking up over and over again and making the most embarrassing bullshit for the longest time until finally u wake up from that trance and you’re like, “... huh. Bad.” and then you make good stuff.

13. ANY PROJECTS YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO STARTING (OR FINISHING) IN THE NEW YEAR:

hopefully i’ll make meaningful progress with my book thing maybe.

14. TAG FIVE WRITERS/ARTISTS WHOSE ANSWERS YOU’D LIKE TO READ.

fdsalkjfdsl ok so the point is kinda missed bc it’ll be 2018 by the time anyone else gets around to it but:

@snark-sniper, @gayspacejew, and @angelpatton! and anyone else who wants to do the thing! blease!

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ecotone99 · 4 years ago

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[TH][SF] THE FORK (part 2)

[TH][SF] THE FORK [AAA]

“Stop!.. Would you like to come in for a drink?” she spoke into the mic.

“Ok..sure” she replied.

Donna made this decision as she wasn’t pretty sure now whether she had seen the guy’s face in the caller ID or it was her imagination. Either way, some impulse in her made her let the stranger in. Though she was scared, she had to admit the woman looked pretty. In a black jacket and body hugging jeans, she would have been a perfect one -night stand for Donna. A tingle between her legs made her know she could still be the one-night stand.

“ Hi.. I’m Ginny” she said, stepping into the house.

“Hi.. I am sorry for what happened at the bar” Donna said as she sat on the couch.

“It's okay.. We all have our ‘episodes’ “ she said, making quotes in the air with her fingers.

“You could have given it in the morning. Why did you have to walk all the way here in the middle of the night?” Donna asked with cautious empathy.

“I was hoping we could continue our conversation” Ginny replied, sipping the coke Donna had handed her. Though she was still doubtful of the image she had seen, she didn’t want to be alone. She felt the pepper spray in her pockets and after confirming its presence, started talking with Ginny. As time passed she found that Ginny was a nice person. Donna was surprised that Ginny was a dentist while just an hour ago she had pegged Ginny for a stalker. They shared several common interests and even loved death metal, which was a first for Donna. Donna became more and more comfortable in Ginny’s presence and wanted this to last more than a one night stand. They discussed art, music and even made scrambled eggs at four in the morning after which they fell asleep on the couch.

Donna woke up at 7 o clock , freshened herself as she had to get to work within an hour. Ginny was in deep sleep when her phone started ringing. Dona could hear it and she could see it was the same name from last night. She liked Ginny and wanted this confusion to end. With trembling hands she picked the phone up. To her relief it was someone else, someone who looked like Mr.Bloody-neck. She woke Ginny up and handed the phone to her.

“Oh.. I’m so sorry. I must have dozed off” Ginny said, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Donna said..drawing a deep breath added “Can I take you out for a proper dinner tonight?”

Pausing , Ginny replied “Of course.. I would love that”

--x--

[AAB]

The caution alarms in her mind kept on ringing. Though she didn’t want to end up a nervous wreck like Mary, she wanted to save herself from whatever confusion she was stuck in. Pressing the mic button she replied“I am.. umm.. very sick. I don’t want you to get sick from me.I am really sorry”

“Whatever..” the mystery lady muttered and left.

Donna scurried to her balcony to make sure that the woman had left the building. She felt sunlight peep through her eyelids as she woke up on the balcony. She realised that she had dozed off in the balcony as she watched the mystery woman leave. She called in to her office to let them know that she would be late to work. Making herself some breakfast, she sank into the sofa and turned on the TV. She had never been a fan of breakfast shows. Her father used to love them and she wondered whether it triggered her memories of him , thus making her hate it. She switched between channels until she saw a face for the third time within 12 hours. It was Mr.Bloody-neck and she couldn’t notice the cereal dropping out of her open mouth.

“ARTHUR DESMOND, WANTED IN SEVERAL CONTRACT KILLINGS WAS BRUTALLY ATTACKED LAST NIGHT IN AN ALLEYWAY. HIS SISTER GINNY DESMOND WAS NABBED WHEN SHE CAME TO VISIT HIM AT THE HOSPITAL EARLIER TODAY. FAMOUSLY DUBBED THE TERROR TWINS, ARTHUR AND GINNY CARRIED OUT SEVERAL HITS IN THE PAST TEN YEARS….”

But why had they targeted her. What had she done to have a contract put out for her. These questions kept spinning in her mind while the next news bit gave her the much needed clarity.

“MEANWHILE THE DEFENSE MINISTER IS FLOUTING THE MUCH ANTICIPATED ARMS REDUCTION BILL TOMORROW IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS TOMORROW..”

She, Donna King was one of the few persons with access to the Defense Ministry’s office since she was secretary to a senior Defense diplomat. They could have used her access to enter the building and assassinate the Defense minister, which sent a shudder through her. She let the emotions sink in her as she breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What would have happened if I had done things a bit differently’ she wondered.

--x--

[ABB]

The good mood she was in spilled over as she stopped the car for the man, no heeding Ginny’s demands.

“Donna..what if he is some creep? Let us go!” she cried.

“What if I had walked away from your boss like that?” she replied, thus ending the conversation.

“Thank yea.. thank yea much lady” he said as he entered the back seat. Ginny sucked in as much breath as she could as soon as he sat down, hoping she could hold her breath without smelling him. Donna smiled seeing Ginny’s narrow minded actions. He didn’t smell bad, actually he smelt of nothing at all. Even Ginny had a sweaty odour coming out of her but he smelled normal.

“Where do I drop you off?” Donna asked.

“Churchill station's do..hopefully I’d get a place there. Damn coppers shooing me away from everywhere.” he replied gruffly. Donna couldn’t make out how he looked but he seemed like a weak man.

Ginny coughed up until she couldn’t hold her breath any longer.

“Yea okay lady. Need some mint. I got some in my pockets somewhere. Threw the last one to a dog. And you know what… dogs love the mints.” Donna chuckled by his offer to Ginny as she stared at her.

“Peppermints..orange mints..even those fancy mango ones.. Them dogs love them all” he went on. He continued about mints until they reached Churchill station, where he got off. The hospital was visible from Churchill station and Donna parked near the entrance.

“You go on. I will park the car”

“It’s okay. I will come with you”

“I am not going to steal your car don’t worry.Go on” she smiled.

Donna parked the car and entered the hospital. She found Ginny talking to the doctor

“What is it. Is he okay?”

“He is good. Can you grab a cab back home. I guess I am stuck here tonight. His mother is not coming” she said

“I am really sorry,” she added.

“No problem. Take care” Donna said. She noticed a few cops standing in the hospital reception and wondered whether she’d be questioned. She scurried out of the hospital and grabbed a cab back home. Sinking into her sofa, she fell asleep within seconds. She woke up to sunlight peeking through her eyelids.

She called in to her office to let them know that she would be late to work. Making herself some breakfast, she sank into the sofa and turned on the TV. She had never been a fan of breakfast shows. She switched between channels until she saw a face for the third time within 12 hours. It was Mr.Bloody-neck and she couldn’t notice the cereal dropping out of her open mouth.

But why had they targeted her? What had she done to have a contract put out for her. These questions kept spinning in her mind while the next news bit gave her the much needed clarity.

“MEANWHILE THE DEFENSE MINISTER IS FLOUTING THE MUCH ANTICIPATED ARMS REDUCTION BILL TOMORROW IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS TOMORROW..” She, Donna King was one of the few persons with access to the Defense Ministry’s office since she was secretary to a senior Defense diplomat. They could have used her access to enter the building and assassinate the Defense minister, which sent a shudder through her. She let the emotions sink in her as she breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What would have happened if I had done things a bit differently. What if I hadn’t taken the homeless man in the car?’’ she wondered.

--x--

[ABA]

It wasn’t her car and even though she wanted to stop the car, she heeded to Ginny’s request.

“So where do you work?” Donna asked. A very few number of cars were on the road and the eerie calm made her want a conversation. They approached a tunnel in the road.

“ It’s a..err.. A consultancy firm” Ginny replied “And you?”

“I am just a boring secretary,” she said.

“Nothing’s boring”

“My work is”

They echoing revv of the engine in the empty tunnel produced a eerie noise

“I am about to make your work a whole lot interesting” Ginny said as she placed a knife at Donna’s throat.

“What .. no..no”

“Yes… now drive as I instruct you to”

“But why.. Why are you doing this to me”

“You will learn soon enough. Now drive”

They arrived at an abandoned warehouse.

“Now move slowly. If you even try to escape, I have a gun. I will kill you. Now we don’t want that do we” Ginny said. They entered a room which was prepared ready with a chair and rope. They had planned it perfectly.

“Sit down and tie your legs”

“I don’t have any money but I have some jewelry at home…”

“Shut the fuck up and tie your legs to the chair”

Donna’s hands trembled but she said as instructed.

“Please don’t kill me..please”

“Since I like you, I am going to let you have a smooth ride” she said, bringing what seemed to be a cutter with her.

“But when I am done with you, you wish I had killed you first” she said grinning.

Donna didn’t feel it at first, her thumb being cut off. Blood poured out through the gaps in the bone and flesh. That was when the pain hit her. Her lungs were out of air when she had ended screaming.

“Why..why are you doing this to me”

“Nothing personal..just business” she said “Especially what’s coming next”

“What..what ..what are you going to do”

Donna noticed her filling a syringe between flashes of her pain.

“This is because I like you” she said, injecting the syringe on her cheeks.

The numbness grew on her face, till she wasn’t able to talk. She blinked with great difficulty as she wanted to see what they had planned for her. Ginny put on gloves and an apron, with an air of a surgeon prepping for surgery.

“Let me tell you a story,” she said, walking towards Donna.

“Once upon a time there was a dog in the jungle. It was a close friend of the Lion’s”

She gently opened Donna’s eyelids.

“Now the foxes wanted to kill the Lion and take the jungle for themselves. So they hatched a plan”

She placed a small lever-like surgical tool in the valley between Donna’s eye and nose .Donna wanted to scream but her face wouldn’t move.

“So they killed the dog. Put on its skin.” Donna never felt it but she knew the lever was now deep in her skull. Gently nudging it, Ginny wiped off the blood coming from Donna’s eye sockets.

“They wore the dog’s skin,went to the Lion without raising suspicion and killed it” Now Donna understood what was happening and noticed her right eye being gouged out through her left eye. Carefully placing it in a plastic pouch, Ginny ended her story.

“I am sorry. This is the best I could do to help you. You will die soon. But painlessly. Thanks for saving my boss. I was back up in case he failed nabbing you. He was mugged unfortunately. Thanks to you he is alive”

She, Donna King was one of the few persons with access to the Defense Ministry’s office since she was secretary to a senior Defense diplomat. The Defense minister was flouting an Arms reduction bill in the House of Commons on Friday. They could use her access to enter the building and assassinate the Defense minister, and they needed her thumb and eyeball to bypass the security systems in the building.

With one empty eye socket, Donna muttered a small prayer as she slowly died in the chair. ‘What if I had done things a bit differently?’ was her last thought.

--x--

[BAA]

GIving it a second of thought , she decided that she didn’t want to be alone anymore.

“I will come with you,” she said.

The house was a villa actually, she noticed as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The garden was not tended to ,the walls were covered with mold and she wondered whether the owner cared for the house at all. Jimmy knocked on the door when a woman opened it. Surprisingly, she turned and walked away before Donna could see her face. As soon as she stepped in the house, she felt something prick her neck. Next thing she knew, she was

tied to a chair in a well lit hospital room. Ginny and Jimmy were staring at her.

“You know Jimmy,when we made you join Granger’s Inn three months back, I never knew you would come useful. I honestly thought it was a waste.”

“Thanks for the honesty. I will leave now, my job is done” he said as he left the room in a hurry. There was a sense of urgency in his tone like he wanted to leave the room fast.

“Please don’t kill me..please”

“Since I like you, I am going to let you live” she said, bringing what seemed to be a cutter with her.

“But when I am done with you, you wish I had killed you” she said grinning.

“Why..why are you doing this to me”

“Nothing personal..just business” she said “Especially what’s coming next”

“What..what ..what are you going to do”

Donna noticed her filling a syringe between flashes of her pain. Suddenly she threw the syringe away.

“I don’t like you to give you the benefit of living through this. After all you left him to die” she said.

“Who.. the homeless guy?”

“Yeah ..my boss”

Ginny put on gloves and an apron, with an air of a surgeon prepping for surgery.

“Let me tell you a story,” she said, walking towards Donna.

“Once upon a time there was a dog in the jungle. It was a close friend of the Lion’s”

She gently opened Donna’s eyelids.

“Now the foxes wanted to kill the Lion and take the jungle for themselves. So they hatched a plan”

She placed a small lever-like surgical tool in the valley between Donna’s eye and nose .Donna screamed and cried but in vain.

“So they killed the dog. Put on its skin.”

Donna felt it and she knew the lever was now deep in her skull. Gently nudging it, Ginny wiped off the blood coming from Donna’s eye sockets.

“They wore the dog’s skin,went to the Lion without raising suspicion and killed it”

Now Donna understood what was happening and noticed her right eye being gouged out through her left eye. Carefully placing it in a plastic pouch, Ginny ended her story. Donna’s voice had dried up and she was weeping blood from her empty eye socket.

“I am not sorry. You will die soon, painfully. You could have saved my boss. I was back up in case he failed nabbing you. He was mugged unfortunately. Thanks to you he is dead now”

With one empty eye socket, Donna muttered a small prayer as she slowly died in the chair. ‘What if I had done things a bit differently?’ was her last thought.

--x--

[BAB]

She wasn’t in a mood to trust anyone and so she decided to stay in the car.

“I will wait here,” she said.

She stared at the emptiness of the street and thought of the man in the truck from earlier. ‘What is happening with me’ she thought, rubbing her temple. Suddenly she felt her neck being choked from someone in the seat behind her. His hands were rough, nails were long, stale and he reeked of wet mud.

“Leave me..leave meeee” she screamed.

“Why did you leave me to die?” he asked while his nails dug through her nape. His other hand tore off her top as she continued to scream.His nails left line along her breasts as she yelped in horror.

“You could have saved me” his gruff voice echoed in the car.

SInking his nails in her chest, he broke her ribs and opened her chest. She looked down to see her heart beating, pumping blood faster than ever.

“Please don't,” Donna pleaded.

“Too late” he said, jabbing his nails through her heart. She woke up to Jimmy sprinkling water over her face.

“Ms.King..Ms.King are you okay”

She rubbed her chest and found her clothes were okay.

“Ms.King.. I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone like this”

“It’s okay ..just get me home” she said.

Though she had assumed she had the guts to carry the abandoning on her conscience, she couldn’t. From then on, Donna King suffered from constant nightmares, eventually quit her job and was admitted to a mental asylum.‘What if I had done things a bit differently?’ was her last thought before descending into perennial insanity.

--x--

[BBB]

She double checked whether the knots she’d tied on Ginny were tight enough to hold her. Ginny was still naked but Donna didn’t care much for decency since she was still the prey there. She put up a chair by the door and waited for someone to come for her. Once they came, she decided to call the police so that they could nab the whole team.

At precisely five minutes to four, she heard a knock on the door. Immediately she called the police whom she had explained the happenings of the night and informed earlier of her plan.

“Let them come for me. I will inform you then so that you can nab all of them” she’d said. The officer was more than pleased with her plan, though a bit reluctant to leave her in there alone with Ginny. He offered to send someone to stay there with her.

“Anything out of the ordinary will raise suspicion. I am fine in here” she’d said.

They had stationed units around her house waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

She put her ears to the door and soon heard commotion on the corridor as the cops rounded up the team.

“It’s okay ma’am.You can come out now” said an officer.

“And you are?”

“Officer Andrew , we spoke on the phone”

Regaining her confidence, she opened the door. She was congratulated by several police officers. She noticed two thugs being cuffed by the police and wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t been alert.She was dropped off home by the police and she fell asleep as soon as she sank into the couch.

She was more than eager to turn on the TV and find out whether she had made the news. The news said -

“ARTHUR DESMOND, WANTED IN SEVERAL CONTRACT KILLINGS WAS BRUTALLY ATTACKED LAST NIGHT IN AN ALLEYWAY. HIS ACCOMPLICES GINNY MAPLES, STUART BALIN, MICHAEL MOORE WERE NABBED LATER IN THE MORNING THANKS TO THE COURAGEOUS ACTIONS OF Ms.DONNA KING, SECRETARY TO A SENIOR DIPLOMAT IN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT. INITIAL INVESTIGATIONS SUGGEST THEY HAD PLANNED TO ABDUCT Ms.KING TO GAIN ACCESS INTO THE DEFENSE MINISTRY OFFICE ,PROBABLY TO ASSASSINATE THE MINISTER BEFORE HE FLOUTS THE ARMS REDUCTION BILL COMING FRIDAY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS….”

She felt that someone big, someone powerful must have hired these people to assassinate the minister and now they are still on the loose. She felt a pang of fear but she was sure they wouldn’t come after her since she was famous now. Heaving a huge sigh of relief ‘What would have happened if I had done things a bit differently. ’’ she wondered.

[BBA]

She double checked the knots and continued questioning Ginny.She felt that someone big, someone powerful must have hired these people to assassinate the minister and they would escape if she handed these contract killers to the cops. She knew she would have to look back every night while walking unless the mastermind behind this was nabbed.

“Who hired you guys?”

“I don’t know!!.. Even I haven’t met the guys who are coming to get you”“Do you have a gun?”

“No”

“If you lie to me” Donna said, making a slit on Ginny’s cheeks with the letter opener.

“Whyy… what are you some kind of freak?” she screamed

The fear of being hunted gave the necessary rage to Donna,bringing out the dark side which landed her in Juvie jail 15 years ago.

“Where is your gun?” she said, placing the blade on her neck.

“In ...In the draw by the TV”

Donna secured the gun. It was a Glock, just like the one her cellmate from Juvie had. She had used a gun earlier and knew her way with one. Checking, she noticed it was fully loaded.

“Once they arrive,ask them to come in. If you add anything more, I will shoot your brains off”

Had it been Donna from two hours earlier, Ginny wouldn’t have believed her but now she was fully aware of Donna’s capabilities. At precisely four o clock, there was a knock at the door. As instructed Ginny said “Come in, she is ready” calmly. As soon as two men entered the room, they noticed Ginny tied to the bed but before they could react, Donna shot the short one in the head and the tall one in both knees from behind the door. From her movie experience, she assumed the tall guy would be in charge. GInny didn’t mutter a word even though her face was streaked with grey matter and blood. The tall guy sunk to the floor , whimpering like a wounded animal.

“Who hired you?” Donna asked, closing the door. She knew the police were on their way already as the walls were thin in the apartment. Some early riser would definitely have heard the gunshots. She could do as much torture as she wanted since the police would have laws which would prevent them from breaking these guys.

“Fuck you” he spat, writhing in pain.

Gathering courage, she shot him in his shoulder.

“Tell me!!”

“Okay..okay.. It was William Spader”

William Spader was an arms dealer who was critical of the government’s decision to reduce the budget for weaponry in the army, and now since they planned to reduce guns throughout the country, he must have decided to do away with the Minister. The police arrived within a few minutes and had a lot of questions for Donna. After twelve hours of thorough grilling, they let her go thanking her for averting a major assassination. She was a national hero and there were talks on TV that she might be knighted by the queen. Heaving a huge sigh of relief ‘What would have happened if I had done things a bit differently. ’’ she wondered.

--x--

submitted by /u/BagOfBonezzzzzz [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/3mtJNCw

#Blogger #Story

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entergamingxp · 4 years ago

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Cake Bash Interview — Laura Hutton on Indie Gaming in 2020 and Cake Philosophy

June 11, 2020 2:20 PM EST

Laura Hutton sits down with DualShockers to discuss Cake Bash, developing indie games in an age of uncertainty, and what constitutes a ‘cake.’

In 2020, there’s a lot on the mind of the average gamer — through a global health crisis and mass civic unrest, many games and high-level publishers are delaying their games to both respect the moment, account for changes in the work environment, and realize all possible press potential. In a way, it’s almost the perfect time for fledgling studio High Tea Frog’s first game, Cake Bash, to release.

Sitting down with DualShockers, Artist and Director Laura Hutton talked a bit about the indie minigame collection ahead of the demo’s launch next week as part of the Steam Summer Game Festival. Perhaps even more importantly, Hutton discusses a bit about Cake Bash‘s subject matter and what should be considered a “cake.”

youtube

Lou Contaldi: Watching some of the gameplay, you really get a Mario Party mini-game vibe–what have been some of the biggest mini-game inspirations in creating Cake Bash?

Laura Hutton: We wanted to capture a bit of the magic of the 90’s classics, which I still play with my family after 20 years! We watched a lot of videos from Mario Party and Pokemon Stadium for inspiration, and I think what makes them so memorable is their characters and scenarios. One of my favourites is “Burgerini” from Rayman Raving Rabbids – doesn’t matter if you lose because it’s such a good laugh – it’s a masterclass for what makes a great party game.

Each of our minigames has its own unique design, and we’ve kept focus on the baking theme for all of them. It’s quality over quantity for us and a lot of minigames we prototyped didn’t make it – I’d much rather have fewer great games than loads of games that are rushed! I’d say that Nintendo games have been our biggest inspiration.

LC: What game is the dev team currently playing that isn’t Cake Bash?

LH: Quite the list! Final Fantasy XIV, Satisfactory, Yakuza 0, Astral Chain, Stardew Valley, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, to name a few. We don’t really have a favourite genre, and try to play as many as we can. I think it’s important to try as many new games as possible, but FFXIV is our most played right now – it’s good team-building to work together to defeat primals. Before that it was Monster Hunter World, I’m a charge blade fan, Clement chose the hammer, and Tommy went for the hunting horn – of course he’d go for the bagpipes, being Scottish.

“It’s quality over quantity for us and a lot of minigames we prototyped didn’t make it – I’d much rather have fewer great games than loads of games that are rushed!”

LC: High Tea Frog is new as a developer, but the three-person team underneath draws from a wealth of projects that most “core” gamers would recognize — Viva Pinata, The Division, Far Cry among a few. Has any of the work or experience in these past projects influenced the work on Cake Bash, either mechanically or in balance? If so, how?

LH: I think our experience influenced the way we work behind the scenes more than the content of the game itself, but working with realism on The Division definitely gave me the confidence to attempt a more challenging art direction for Cake Bash even though I’m the only artist! I went for a ‘drawn-to-life’ look, which needed the characters and environments to be as realistic as possible.

Being part of a bigger team before meant that we could adapt a lot of the processes which worked into indie life. We wanted to keep the good parts of the AAA development pipeline, and we’ve recreated our favourite tools and scripts which made our lives easier. Our past experience also means that we know how hard it is to make games, so we’re not knocked off track with unexpected curveballs.

LC: Moving on from Ubisoft, what has been the biggest surprise or hurdle in creating your own project from start to finish? What advice would you offer other soon-to-be indie developers?

LH: It’s a lot more pressure to have so much input in the game – when things go wrong there’s nobody but you to take responsibility! One of the biggest difficulties was at the start – we were bootstrapping (living off our own savings accounts) and struggling to find a publisher.

For the first six months of independence we were making a single-player game, but after it didn’t get any interest we went back to the drawing board and started from scratch. Three prototypes later we started working on Cake Bash while also doing contract work on the side to pay the bills. For contracts, AAA games in your portfolio go a long way. It was hard work but ultimately a good decision for us to start again, and we have a publisher now which means we can focus more on development.

LC: Cake Bash is a remarkably wholesome game — very much like an Overcooked — being released in a year with a ton of turmoil. Has this been a motivator in creating and sharing your game or a personal roadblock to overcome in the tumultuous indie gaming market?

LH: Thank you! Adapting to working from home has been a challenge, I’m often distracted by tea and snacks so my productivity has taken a hit, but it’s also difficult not to get demotivated by the bad news. Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough, in the current climate, by ‘just making games’, but I’m trying to remember how much comfort I found in gaming when times were difficult, and hoping that I can bring a little bit of happiness to others. When we launch I’m sure players will be looking for a bit of light-hearted fun, and hopefully we can deliver!

We’re still actually on target for our original launch date, even after everything that’s happened, and I’m really proud of that. We’ve worked hard to get this finished and can’t wait for people to start playing soon.

“Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough, in the current climate, by ‘just making games’, but I’m trying to remember how much comfort I found in gaming when times were difficult, and hoping that I can bring a little bit of happiness to others.”

LC: Based on promotions, it looks like the definition of “cake” is fairly loose in terms of playable pastries. We have doughnuts, muffins, and eclairs on the list. How did you curate the pastry list in the game? What ended up on the ‘baking’ room floor?

LH: Hah, yes. We were considering adding a stack of pancakes at one point too, so the definition is definitely a loose one. We wouldn’t include cookies or else we’d have to call it “Biscuit Bash.”

LC: Existential Question: Is “ice cream cake” considered “cake” or “ice cream?” Follow up: is a muffin just an unfrosted cupcake?

LH: That is a difficult question. If it has layers of sponge, I’d say it’s a cake.

We have muffins and cupcakes in Cake Bash, and I did have a bit of a crisis there – are they the same character? Is this a Zelda / Sheik situation? But then I remembered why I chose them – all the cakes have a unique silhouette, even for their skins, and the cupcake always has a pointy bit at the top but the muffin is round. Muffins puff up more at the top and overflow at the edges of the casing, and they have eyelashes but the cupcakes don’t. They’re definitely different.

“We have muffins and cupcakes in Cake Bash, and I did have a bit of a crisis there – are they the same character? Is this a Zelda / Sheik situation?”

LC: “Fork Knife: Gateau Royale” is one of the better word plays in indie gaming. Will there be more dad puns or wordplay through the game?

LH: Oh wow, what a compliment! There are as many puns as I could squeeze in without annoying everyone. A good test for a successful pun was if our programmer, Clement, understood the joke even though English isn’t his first language. I also had the strict rule of only one pun per screen, otherwise it would have been a punderful overload. I also like subtle ones most like ‘prove yourself’, because they’re easier to sneak in… We used to have ‘Thyme’ for the end match countdown but it was too savoury.

LC: The Campfire minigame has just been revealed, where did the inspiration come from and what was it like to design?

LH: Campfire is my favourite minigame! I can’t wait for people to play it in the Steam Summer Festival. We wanted to design something a bit more relaxed and this one was really fun to make. I looked at a whole bunch of references of different states of cooked marshmallows and worked out the best way to make them look realistic!

We also spent ages balancing the scoring, to make it fair yet challenging – we made sure that you can get really good at this minigame with practice. You can even get a perfect score of 100 in the ‘high heat’ of the fire if you’re a total pro!

It seems like forever ago but our first prototype of this game was rubbish – we nearly scrapped it! You roasted popcorn for some reason, and the player had no control over the heat level so it was a boring waiting game. Just goes to show how important iteration is, and I’m glad we kept trying with this one.

Cake Bash launches on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One later this year; if you are looking to dive into some of the dessert action, you can try out the game beginning June 16, 2020 on Steam.

June 11, 2020 2:20 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/cake-bash-interview-laura-hutton-on-indie-gaming-in-2020-and-cake-philosophy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cake-bash-interview-laura-hutton-on-indie-gaming-in-2020-and-cake-philosophy

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sassyhottubstrawberry-blog · 6 years ago

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We live in Santa Clara California; My wife is pregnant with our first child. I am a self employed contractor and she lost her job couple of month ego as a result we lost our health insurance. I am paying $600.00 a month for COBRA and it does not cover all the medical expenses. Any body knows reasonable health insurance that covers maternity expenses.

Concerned about insurance rates for 2011 Mustang - 305 HP V6?

I really want this car for my next car but I'm concerned about insurance rates. Will it be considered a sports car even though it has the same engine as family car types like the Fusion? I'm over 25 (will be 26 in December) and I've not had any accidents just a couple of speeding tickets - one when I was 19 and one when I was 23. I'm buying later in the fall as a graduation present to myself since I'm finishing my master's degree and I'm still driving my 02 Sunfire from high school.

I want to change car insurer?

i am currently with admiral insured on a 1.9 dci renault megane. i am a 19 year old male with 1 years no claims bonus, i have been looking at getting a new car which is a suzki sj 1.3 1988. The problem i have is that i have paid around 1500 upfront for a year of insurance, but now i hav efound a new car i have also found that rac insurance is cheaper, if i cancel my insurance with admiral now will i get the 1500 back, well taking into account i have used a month insurance so that 1500 will go down a bit, im just checking to see if i can do this to stop my self from losing 1500 thanks""

What is a coinsurance rate ?

What does it mean if the coinsurance rate is 0 % ? Does it mean all my medical service are 100% covered ? If it's 30% - does it mean I have to pay 30% ? What are the advantages of having different coinsurance rates ? If they cover one area such as hospital services - do they skimp out on other areas such as prescription ?

DMV proof of insurance?

ok so im 16 and i live in california the dmv wants proof of insurance for my drivers test, my dad added me to his policy but the insurance card says his name on it but im included in his policy so can i just show them the card with his name on it?""

What to do when switching car insurance?

I am planning on switching car insurance providers b/c: 1.) My car got stolen 01/25/2013 and I only had liability coverage (car was a 1996 Nissan Maxima) 2.) I was hit in October 2012 and it was not my fault and received settlement money b/c my car was deemed a total loss 3.) With that money I put a down payment on a used car this past weekend b/c now I truly had no car 4.) I now need full coverage to my current policy and replace the old car with the newer one but the 6-month premium is too high. While shopping around for car insurance, I found an auto quote that was A LOT more affordable than if I were to stick with my current insurance. With that being said, I had a lot of questions. I got into a car accident in May 2012 and it was my fault. No one was hurt and no air bags deployed. My insurance paid the damages. Now, if I cancel my policy with them, does that mean that I have to pay the insurance company back the money for the damages they covered to the other car? My other question is how much information do I disclose when applying for a new auto policy? I have of course included the at-fault accident in May and I also included the accident that was not my fault. Before these 2 accidents, I had one just one that was in a parking lot. The other driver and I were deemed both at fault, 50/50. Damage to his car was around $700. That was 3 years ago. The insurance company I was looking into said online to include accidents that were at least 51% your fault and accidents that weren't your fault too. Do I include this accident too even tho it was 50/50? My last question is about speeding and points. I my first speeding ticket in June 2012. I got a reduced fine and went to traffic school so it wouldn't show up and get a point. Once again, while looking at auto quotes, they asked if I had a moving violation which includes speeding. Because I went to traffic school and everything, do I tell them about that too? Despite the bad luck I've had this past year with my driving record, I only have one point. The 50/50 accident will be off because it's the 3rd year. I live in CA and got this info from the DMV website: The length of time depends on the severity of the offense. Most points (illegal turn, not making a complete stop, driving over the speed limit, etc.) and/or accidents will stay on your driver record for 36 months (3 years). I've included the link: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/teenweb/more_btn6/points/points.htm Any advice and suggestions is greatly appreciated! Thanks!""

Can I drive my parents car without Insurance?

So I live in MA and I was wondering if I will get into trouble if I drive my parents car (which is insured under my dads name) when I am home for the Thanksgiving break (my name is not on my dad's insurance). Will having a written consent from my dad permitting me to drive the car help?

Best insurance companies for 18 year old passed my tes?

ok ive pased my test a month on friday and i gettin a car this week and i need some insurance on the car obviiously lol, well basically whats the cheapest car insurance all you 18 year old have and who is it with, please :)""

Is my pregnancy covered under my mother's insurance?

I just got married this past year and just found out that I am pregnant. My husband and I are freaking out because I am still under my mother's insurance. I am only 24 and supposed to be covered until I am 26. I am also a student. So question is: Is my pregnancy covered under my mother's insurance? If I am covered then for how long? till the baby gets here? Is the baby covered? If I am not covered then how can I get covered?

How will Hillary Clinton give heatlh insurance to homeless people?

My other question is how will she provide health insurance to families that can't afford the most affordable plans?

Suggestions for car insurance?

I have preferred insurance and have been paying by the year for over 5 years with this company, with no claims in over 10 years. They have raised the entire states rates, and I'm not staying with them. Any suggestions? Any reviews on that little green lizard insurance company?""

How much will car insurance cost for me?

i am 17 years old and i have my g2. i live in oshawa ontario canada. i will be a secondary driver on my dads car, which is a 1999 yukon gmc. i have also taken driving school. and im a girl. any clue how much insurance will cost me per month?""

""Would insurance be cheaper for a '04 nissan sentra, '08 toyota prius, or '08 honda fit?""

I am making payments on my '04 nissan sentra and i'm running the numbers to see how much more or less it would cost if i owned a new prius or fit. so far for expenses i'm just figuring in payments and gas and that my nissan will need about $1,000 of work in the next 3 years""

What is a good place to get insurance for my Dell laptop?

I am studying abroad for 5 weeks and would like an affordable insurance plan for my laptop.

How can i get my insurance company (Infinity) fix my car ?

Hey i just got into a car crash last month and i've been calling my insurance company to come fix the car.. but all they'v been doin is taking pictures and asking questions about how i crashed.. and its been a month already and they haven't done nothing all they say is that they'r gona let me know whats gona happen later on, thats it... Any ideas ?""

Cheapest auto insurance for a teen?

im 18, got a used car, and now need insurance to drive it. my family has AAA auto and if im added to that ill be paying 2k a year. i also work at target and might get a discount on metlife or travelers but i cant get quotes online and also think it wount beat the adding on plan. is there any good autoinsurance or should i just be added on parents?""

Can i get car insurance at age 18 with a permit in NY?

Hey,i have looked around but i seem to have found mixed answers,so i posted my own question to get a straight foward answer.....Will i be able to get Car Insurance with a permit? I am 18yrs old and live in NY state. Thanks""

""In Maryland, is insurance required to drive a car?""

I'm going to be living on my own soon and there's no possible way I can afford it on my own. By the way, does anyone know how much it costs to be insured as an 18 year old on your own policy? What about for a motorcycle?""

How long will it take for your auto insurance cost to go down?

Cheapest car insurance for 1.4L Polo - 17 years old.?

i have a 2001 Volkswagen Polo 1.4 Automatic i cant get any automatic small engine cars, the smallest is 1.4L, theres the 1.0L auto Vauxhall Corsa - but i don't want that, everyone has it. What company does the cheapest insurance? Quinn Direct have gone bust. UK""

""California insurance agent icensing question: there are four categories: Life, Fire & Casuality, ....?""

Personal Lines, and Bail. What does a Personal Lines Broker-Agent do/sell? I think the Life agent can sell health insurance and life? Fire sounds like fire insurance (duh) but that Personal Lines throws me. Any help?""

How much on average does it cost to have a 16 year old A student on my insurance?

I Need Car Insurance Help?

I am about to buy a new car and will be 17 maybe 18 when i get it. Its a 350Z so it has to be 6 cylinder which means its a sports car. How much will it raise my insurance.

Do I need Mexican Car Insurance?

I'm driving from Toronto to Monterrey via Columbia Bridge. I was wondering do I need Mexican car insurance, since I've seen a lot of sites adveritising it I'm curious. And is my Canadian drivers license valid in Mexico?""

Auto insurance.?

somebody hit and run me in the parking lot and dint leave any note or anything and there is no camera. the right fender has a big dent and the door wont open,if i report this to my insurance will i get an increase on montly payment? even tho its not my fault. My car is brand new got it 3 months ago and ha a full collision coverage insurance.""

When is car insurance invalid?

Is car insurance invalid if a car is neither taxed nor Sorned? I forgot to tax my car - is my insurance invalid until I renew it?

""If I had a company, and I had to pay for car insurance out of the capital...?""

Would the car insurance be counted as an 'expense', 'liability', or an 'overhead'? Also, if possible, could you provide an explanation as to what each term means exactly? Many thanks! :-)""

Cheapest car insurance?

new drivers

What is the estimated insurance for this car?

2-Door Coupe 1989 BMW 6 Series Coupe 2D 635CS, costing $6,000 new 16 yr. old driver.15-20000 in coverage.""

I need health insurance I'm self-employed?

I want to get Health Insurance but I'm not sure where to start. I havnt been to a doctor in a few years. I'm 39 and in good health. Will they require a physical from a doctor?

""If you move to a higher-cost car insurance state, when does the increase take effect?""

If I move to a new state that has higher car theft and higher minimums, which I imagine would definitely increase my premium, would I have to pay as soon as I told the company of the address change? Or, would the increase only be seen on my next bill (a few months later)? This is for moving from Arizona to Washington, if it matters. Thanks!""

High Risk Auto Insurance - Where can I find the lowest quote online?

Is there any online auto insurance website that specializes in getting the lowest rates on car insurance for high risk drivers? If so can anyone guide me to one? thanks

Is $$ 785.00 a year to much for Full-Coverage car Insurance ?

It's A.A.A. Insurance. My Honda car is 10 years old. With just 84,500 miles on it. --------------------------- (Such Low Milage cause I only drive 450 miles to 500 miles per month.)""

How much is insurance for a 16 year old boy driving a volkswagen jetta/golf?

I am going to go with my father to get a car next week because I got my license today. I will be using the sign then drive event for the car. About how much will insurance cost for a NEW car and would it be cheaper using a older car? I earn about 500$ in every other week for work, would that be enough you think? Thanks for the help!""

Does anyone know of any kind of affordable health insurance?

My husband works independantly and needs health insurance in the Atlanta area.

Change car insurance name and registration?

My car is registered under someone elses but I've been m aking the car payments since the beginning... I just got car insurance myself with no help from her(my friend) but the policy is in her name but I'm down as a driver... Is there anyway that I can be the policy holder eventhough its not in my name.. also I plan on moving but taking the car I still have quite a few more payments but I dont want to leave with the car not registered to me is the anyway I can get the car in my name and still pay it off

What are the best private health insurance plans in Ca. & Florida?....And which state is more affordable?

Health Insurance question?

So I just turned 18 and I will no longer be covered through Amerigroup so was looking at some Health insurances to buy. I know the deductible is the amount you need to pay out of pocket before the insurance will start paying, but how will the insurance know when you have payed the deductible?""

How does car insurance work with multiple drivers and one car?

My family has one car and the only one who currently drives it/has auto insurance is my dad. If my sister and I are to get our drivers licenses (and would only ever drive this one car, too) how does insurance work? Do me and my sister both have to pay insurance on that same car too? Thanks!""

California to Canada Car Insurance?

Hi, my friend just asked me how to get car insurance in Canada when he used to live in California and he has a California license and had California insurance. He asked me about a Driver Abstract, which I have no idea what that is. He really needs help, but he is not available at the moment for me to ask him for more details. Please tell me the details of how to obtain car insurance in Canada when he used to have California insurance & has a California license/ID. Thank you!!""

Insurance agents - Life insurance commissions?

Hello everybody, I am hoping to find life insurance agents working with different companies. my question is what is the commission I can accept to receive from different publicly traded companies what offere not only auto, home and others but also life and disability?? I am currently working with Mutual Company and I am a captive agent and only receive 35-55% commission on any life insurance produce i sell and it seems like it was important for me before to work for a mutual company and never was conserned about low commission, but I am also getting invoved with Auto and home insurances and i am hearing that these public companies offer higher commission and let me tell you now days I want to get higher commission becuase the industry has slowed down for me and I am interested to make the most out of what I do right now... any information about commissions with different companies would be appreciated.... I am open to any advise, suggestion, information, and comments.... thank you all""

Why AMERICA gifts so much money to the INSURANCES COMPANIES?

And people that want to do everything right let GOVERMENT policies mess up them business with charges that are not affordable? It is frustrating!

Give me your opinion on which if you think my car is total loss or the insurance will fix it?

here are the pictures http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/VICTICO2/?action=view&current=2011-01-14_16-18-41_525.jpg http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/VICTICO2/?action=view&current=2011-01-14_16-18-41_525.jpg#!oZZ2QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs221.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fdd30%2FVICTICO2%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3D2011-01-14_16-18-13_791.jpg

Auto insurance listed driver question?

My question is as follows: What is the difference between me allowing someone to drive my car and me having someone listed as a second driver on my insurance policy when it comes to an accident. What are the differnces in the two situations at the time of an accident claim being filed? I know if the person I let drive my car had no fault in the accident, my rate wouldn't go up if I settle with my own insurance company. But if its the person who is driving my car's fault, are my insurance premiums affected? If yes, then what is the difference in not having the person listed at all and still making a claim through my own insurance. I ask because I am thinking of putting my girlfriend who drivers my car sometimes listed as a driver on the policy. Would this protect me or my premiums in anyway in case of an accident compared to not having her listed at all?""

Do you need a drivers license to get a car and get put on insurance of parents?

anyway i want to get a car im 21 and no license i want a new vehicle and my parents are bitchin about i need one to get a new car that the dealers wont let me and i also want to be put on my parents insurance so whats going to happen is this bad!?/

Do i need insurance to title car?

do i need insurance in order to title the car to my name so i can sell it?

""Young married couple, low cost health insurance with Rx?""

I'm going to get married soon (not RLY soon but i have to start thinking about some things in advance) and I have to get health insurance. I'm really confused by it but I've been doing some reading about it and some figures about the kind of finances we are going to have and all I really know at this point is that we can't afford more than 200 dollars per month and that has to include prescriptions and everything. My soon to be husband is really healthy, only real issue is near-sightedness. I'm a little more sickly, I have asthma and allergies and the same eye problems. I keep them all pretty much under control but I need my meds. What plan would be best for us so that we can keep costs low and still get me my Rx?""

How much on average does it cost to have a 16 year old A student on my insurance?

Motorcycle insurance prices in uk at 17-19?

Hello, I really want to get a motorcycle at the age of between 17 to 20 (preferably 17-18) but I was wondering how much it would cost for the insurance of a brand new Yamaha r125 and a Kawasaki Ninja 300 at each age between 17 to 20, thanks guys and it would clear some thoughts on how much it would be, what age seems good. I really want to get a bike before uni.""

""If a deer hits me, how fast can insurance get me a rental car?""

I have a 97 Ram 4x4, full coverage at geico (I'm on my parents insurance), $500 deductible. How fast can insurance get me a rental if one hits me, will it raise my rates, (I work 3-11:30 PM, and travel mainly back roads since there aren't many other ways to get home if it helps). I've been driving for 6 months.""

How much is the average Business Owner's Policy?

I am specifically interested in what the BOP costs would be for a bar in Georgia.

Applying for medical insurance for my son..?

I'm on the COMPASS website and it asks if I have medical insurance through my job and if my child can get it also. If I'm trying to get CHIP for my son as it'll be cheaper then through my work. Should I just not say if I have insurance or should I continue and put yes my child can get insurance through my job?

How much would insurance cost on a 1996 wrx?

im buying a 1996 wrx as a first car ( red P's), it cost $16,000. how much would the insurance be?""

Has anyone had to reimburse your employer for health insurance?

my job comes with insurance i recently had to have surgery and was off work for a few weeks and now i have to repay them because i am not there to work and they want me to pay them back . i went with out pay as well is this normal??

When can I drop full coverage insurance?

I have a 2010 nissan versa I have full coverage I wanted to know how long until i can drop the full coverage and will my insurance rate be lower?

Difference between term life insurance and permanent policies?

My insurance company is offering a term conversion credit if I switch to permanent insurance. What's in it for them, and what is permanent insurance? Whole life? Any benefits for me to change?""

How much would Liability cost on my car?

Im 16 and i just got my license. Me and my dad are gonna go look at a car tomorrow. its a 1999 mitsubishi eclipse GS with 130,000 miles. take in to consideration all of the basic things of a teenager nothing special just an average kid how much would liability in wisconsin cost? all my friends say they pay around 65 a month but than i went to some insurance website and it said some crazy thing like 850 a month... how much for an average 16 year old kid am i gonna pay monthly for liability?""

Should 17 year old pay their insurance?

What age should they start? And is 300 horsepower on a car fast? How much would a car that fast cost? Too fast for a 17 year old?

Tips for cheaper insurance?

I'm 18 year old male so obviously my insurance is a bomb. I passed my test last February 2nd. I have been insured for a 1.0 litre corsa which was around 2,500 a year which is ridiculous, my mate has been driving for about 2 year and his insurance is under 500? I was on my mams insurance with her no claims and all that stuff, keep it in the garage at night, do 6000 mile aYear etc.. I don't really fancy having a tracker, could someone tell me some cars that are cheap on insurance and some good cheap insurance sites? Thanks""

What are some good health insurance plans?

We're trying to find one with low Coinsurance, I can't afford to pay 50% on a surgery -_- Anything good and affordable you guys recommend for families?""

How much on average does insurance cost for a small business in UK?

How much is the license reinstated fee for suspension from no car insurance?

Cheapest insurance for young driver (UK)?

Whats the cheapest companys for somone who has just passed? one of my mates say co-ops deal for young drivers, another one of my mates says a guy at college says you can get insured with the farmers union even if your not a farmer and get it cheap, is this true? also, any other companies?""

What are good insurance companies for young drivers?

I've used comparison sites and the cheapest quote was 850, Aviva was 690 are there any other good companies that offer cheap insurance to young drivers? I do not want one of those box things. I'm 20, held my licence for 20months and have 1y no claims.""

How would you haggle the best car insurance in this situation?

cheapest quote on comparison website:Admiral quotes, 919 apr 8.9% access of 750 Key Info: Car Vw Polo 1.4 1yrs no claims i do not want to pay no more than 500 accesss what I would like to know is the difference ways in how you would approach this matter, how would you haggle the insurance company to go cheaper and to how much would you be targeting from the price stated above.""

What is a good and cheap insurance company for young drivers ?

How much more would insurance cost if I bought a used 2005 VW beetle with a convertible top versus a hardtop?

Thanks!

Life Insurance - Can I insure my mom?

I am 34 years old. My mom is in her late 60's and in good health. Can I get a life insurance policy on her and collect on it when she passes? I can't imagine this being so - how could insurance companies stay in business if it were this easy? The monthly rates that I'm seeing seem to good to be true - I'd be stupid to not do it. I'm thinking I must be missing something. Is life insurance only for accidental death? Thank you.

Would applying for car insuance quotes give a bad record?

I'm searching for car insurance but I am not sure if applying for a quote online will give me a bad record. Like applying for a credit card does you know.

What is the average time taken by an Insurance company to pay out on a car claim.?

I suppose it would depend on the nature of the damage to ones car and also who was at fault. However in my case, my car caught fire from what I believe may have been an electrical fault. It is now a total write off. I realise the insurance company has to carry out it's investigations but how long should this take and how soon would one expect to receive an offer. I made a claim 6 weeks ago and am still being fobbed off with the explanation that the investigations are on-going.""

Insurance and Licence Plate?

So my mum brought me a licence plate for my car last year, and the latest I can put it on my car is the 17th July. If I pass my test this week and set my insurance up for it to start 2 weeks later it will cost me a lot less. Can I set my insurance up with the licence plate I have now, send the form off for my new licence plate, and then ring my insurance company up later and tell them that I've changed my licence plate? If they charge for this has anyone got any idea of how much? I know its slightly complicated, so if anyone doesn't understand just ask.""

Cheapest car insurance? UK? For young drivers.?

What company or what car is the cheapest to insure? We are looking at buying a car, but since my hubby is only 20 the insurance is through the roof. (Can't seem to find a quote less that 2000) Any one got any ideas?""

I have no insurance how much does it cost to fix a broken windshield (the back windshield).?

How much on average does it cost to have a 16 year old A student on my insurance?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/car-insurance-2004-mustang-rosie-hisle"

0 notes

sentrava · 7 years ago

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In 2017: Highlights from the Year

At the end of every calendar year, I think the following 12 months can’t get any better, and yet they always manage to exceed expectations. Well, except for 2016; that will forever be the year that nearly did me in.

Still, 2017 started off with very little on the calendar by way of work and wound up being our most fulfilling and lucrative year ever. For 2018, we already have a solid dozen projects booked, so I can’t wait to see what this year holds!

Work

This was the first full year that SVV and I worked together full time. To clarify, he always served as my manager of sorts—well, at least from the time I started monetizing this blog about three years after its 2007 inception—but he also always had a “day job.” I was getting to the point where I was making enough between magazine writing, content projects, photography and blogging that I could pay someone a healthy salary, so it just made sense that someone was him. We also had a paid intern this summer (who we would love to bring back next!) and a VA. This year, we’re toying with the idea of bringing in more part-time subcontractors on to fill some holes.

It’s worked out better than we could ever imagine, too; having extra help has allowed me to expand my roster of anchor clients—we also have a micro-agency specializing in consulting, strategy, copywriting and other such tasks for the corporate world—and also really upped my blog partnerships.

Speaking of which, we had SO many fun content collaborations last year and I’m truly thankful to get to work with every single one of them. Among them: Google Fiber; Visit Franklin; Tru by Hilton; Oklahoma City; St. George, Utah; American Refractive Surgery Council (for LASIK); Fairmont Hotels; Visit Florida; Zappos; Mars Petcare; Grand Ole Opry; Wrangler; Blount Partnership; Savannah; Twin Creeks, Tennessee; New Orleans. I started a monthly highlights series this past year to share more about my work and track both hits and misses.

On the editorial side, I’m starting to scale back on my magazine writing for myriad reasons (mostly time and a decline in rates), but still managed to write for National Geographic, PEOPLE, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Marriott Traveler, AAA Living and AFAR.

Travel

I estimated that I spent more than 200 nights in hotel rooms, friends’ houses and Airbnbs this year. Dang, that’s a lot! In 2018, I really hope to spend more time in the home we’ve worked so hard to rehab.

The year started off in Washington state with our beloved NVR Guys, then quickly followed with a trip to Grenada, an island nation I absolutely fell in love with and one that you should consider putting on your radar right away.

Next, in February, it was off to Florida for my birthday at Universal Orlando Resort.

It would actually be my first of two Florida jaunts in less than a month, as I headed back in early March when my BFF Lemon and I road-tripped from Georgia to South Carolina for a wedding, then down to Jacksonville, where I got to see my girls Angie and Jade (and team up with Visit Florida on a content project!).

April saw us taking visitors around Middle Tennessee before hopping a plane to Boston for a Fairmont project, then taking the train to NYC. We also drove back to Charleston to attend the wedding of my college suitemate, as well as up to Myrtle Beach for her bachelorette weekend.

From there, we headed to Savannah, where we kicked off the month of May with a content project. That month, I also went to Utah to play in Zion National Park, then back to Orlando for the opening of Volcano Bay.

June had me sticking close(r) to home: First, to the Smokies for work, then to Knoxville for a wedding, then back to Middle Tennessee for CMT Awards and Bonnaroo. Then, I went to Knoxville again (this time for work), followed by a yoga retreat at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch.

In July, I was mostly homebound. SVV went to visit his family in California for 10 days, while I tended to the pup (and my cousin’s kids). We did bop on down to the Florida Keys for five days mid-month, but then came home in time to throw my blog an epic 10-year-old birthday party.

August was jam-packed, beginning with five days in New Orleans, then I flew to meet SVV in NYC for a wedding, then we were home for a few days before heading out to Oklahoma City for the first time. One of the biggest surprises of the year was just how much we became obsessed with OKC; it’s such a dynamic, friendly and fun place to explore!

In September, we went to Sweden—one of only two international trips we took this year—and it made me fall in love with Scandinavia all over again. When we got back to Tennessee, it was festival season in Nashville: Music City Food & Wine and then Pilgrimage the following weekend.

October took us all over the state of Tennessee—literally, we hit every major city (Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Clarksville) and several small guys in between—for our big whiskey trail project and also to Georgia (for a Hilton campaign), where we got to see Team Mayhem and Team Vagabond3.

We thought our final work trip would fall in November so headed to South Walton on an actual vacation for four nights en route to Orlando for my final project with Universal for its holiday experience. On the way back, we decided to swing through Crystal River for the night BECAUSE MANATEES. I will definitely be going back to the Florida Springs in the future, as that was just too cool.

I thought that was it for 2017, but then! Travel Mindset called and wanted to send us to another awesome Fairmont Hotel for a project at the beginning of December, this time for a Christmas campaign with their D.C. property, to which I said: count us in!

The year ended with our annual Colorado jaunt, this time a week in Breckenridge courtesy of my mom. What a way to close out a fulfilling year!

Health

I started off the year by running like mad—and completed the harrowing Jack Daniel’s Oak Barrel Half Marathon in April—and then just … stopped. Or rather, my travels picked up and I had no time to train. That’s going to change this year (as soon as it’s not 8 degrees here in Tennessee!) as I’m slated to run the Fargo half-marathon in May with Lemon.

Around the time my travels became crazy, my trainer had knee surgery and then came down with pneumonia so she was out of commission for quite a few months. This means, my weight-lifting this past year really went downhill; I’m hoping to change that starting now and get back on a weekly routine with her. Being a former college athlete, I don’t really need someone to train me, but I have no gym buddies where I live, and having an accountability partner is so clutch (plus, I just really enjoy hanging out with her, too!).

SVV got his own paddleboard (copycat!), so we were able to SUP together many of the warmer weekends we were home in summer and fall. Ella, in particular, was thrilled with this arrangement!

One thing that didn’t suffer, though, was my AcroYoga classes, which I take one day a week, then jam with friends on another. Acro is truly my fitness love—so fun! such a good team-building activity—and a damn good core workout at that.

Family

Dad is doing much better, 23 months post-stroke. Speech is still hard, but we’re seeing him get more and more words back as the months progress. He also finished his first book since the stroke (a John Lescroart novel) while on our trip. He’ll never fully recover to the point he was pre-stroke as the clot was too big by the time they got into his brain to operate, but he’ll have a comfortable (and hopefully, happy!) life.

Of course, the BIG news for the year was that my sister is pregnant! Charlotte Rose Clarey is joining our nutty clan sometime in March, and I couldn’t be more stoked to have another niece—and one just down the road at that (my two other darling nieces live some 2,500 miles away in California).

Friends

2017 was a year for friend hangs, and I love that so many projects took me to see so many of my besties! Lemon and I got to see each other a handful of times—in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, South Carolina again, Tennessee and NYC—and Jade and I almost managed to get back on our every-other-month visitation schedule.

I saw the Mayhems several times, in both Georgia and in Tennessee. And I stayed with Angie Away at her new house in JAX; Angie, Alex and I took a trip to New Orleans together; and Alex also spent nearly two weeks in Tennessee with me for Bonnaroo, during which her lovely mother and her fiancé also joined us. It was a packed house, as another three friends from Tennessee stayed with us, in addition to an extra canine body. The best way to spend Bonnaroo, in my mind!

Of course, there’s my Nashville squad, too, and I squeeze in as many happy hours and dinners with them when I’m home and their schedules allow. I also run a media networking group that just hit four years, so I know that at least once a month I’ll get face time with that crew.

House

We continue to plug along at our house (mostly SVV), but to be honest, we’ve had so many other projects that have taken precedence, including a house he’s fixing up for my parents that’s in bad shape and the new commercial property we just bought in our backyard. So many house projects, so little time!

This past year, we did manage to finish our master bathroom (which the TODAY Show then featured!), stock up on some awesome MCM furniture, finish our fence all the way around (the only missing part is the electronic gate), build a kick-ass garden (again, all SVV) and add a few new pieces to the inside (like a custom-built island and table).

Biggest Wins

This post on why you can’t pick my brain went viral.

My guide to Savannah was my best-performing travel post of the year.

I still can’t believe I’ve been blogging for 10.5 years; I shared some lessons on this crazy journey.

I finally put together the Nashville murals post I’d been working on for years, which prompted this Google Fiber partnership.

I teamed up with Kristin Sweeting to plan a Portugal retreat for creatives next summer (there’s still time to book!).

I started a SEP at the tail-end of 2016 and have contributed to it three times thus far (as a freelancer, no one’s got my back when it comes to retirement!).

Biggest Headaches

The never-ending fight with Expedia that resulted in my family losing $10,000.

SVV bonking his noggin and having to get stitches while in Charleston.

A major destination’s PR firm stole dozens of my images, played dumb when we called them out on it, and while we are still contemplating a small-claims suit our court system makes it fairly easy for a shady company to rip off freelancers like us.

2017 by the Numbers

Blog posts written: 102

Countries visited: 3

States visited: 12

Flights taken: 33

Trips to Florida: 6

Weddings attended: 5

Books read: 14 (pathetic! I blame the news and social media)

What were your major highlights of the past 12 months? And what would you love to see more of from C&C in the coming year?

For past year-end reviews, see my recaps here: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.

In 2017: Highlights from the Year published first on http://ift.tt/2gOZF1v

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